Category: Wyatt’s Words

Brat summer, or the last gasp of the millennial gay, did untold cultural damage.

this man was in a presidential cabinet

All for an album of middling beats and one bop (Apple), filtered through a sieve from underground culture, SOPHIE, Kim Petras B-sides, and whatever else the trannies have been putting out the past 8 or so years.

rip queen

Of course it’s fitting that instead of true gender benders (Bowie, Grace Jones, Pete Burns) we have a poor imitation: a young(ish) British woman taking music for the GWORLS and making it safe for Brenda in HR to listen to in her Toyota RAV4 on her way to Planet Fitness.

“i like the ellipticals!”

By the same token, there were a wave of Christians in the 80s who renounced their gayness at about the same time churches took a more activist cultural view (the progenitors of those current-day pro-life losers who told you not to vote for Trump a couple months ago and are now cheering that he freed real pro-life activists in jail).

This, admittedly, is pretty hardcore.

Renouncing dick for life for God (you rarely hear about lesbians doing this, mainly a male masochistic impulse, more on that later) takes a lot of courage, especially in a culture that looks down upon Christians and incorrectly assumes they’re backwards hicks (as Prager said, you’ll find more wisdom in an AA meeting than you will in the average university classroom).

and we know miss thing with the crossed legs is ready to spill some tea

But applying the same principles of AA to sexuality is as harmful as it is misguided.

Pursuing a romantic relationship with the same sex is not the same as poisoning your liver in a quest to achieve Nirvana. Making anything god above God isn’t good for you, and some people are more naturally and biologically inclined to seek alcoholism, but the true AA burnouts know that their pursuit of alcohol causes the most damage outside themselves to those in their life.

There is nothing damaging to the people in your life about being in a relationship with someone of the same gender.

i’m with the dad, cut that hair and take out the earring

Some people may claim to be damaged, but as long as everyone is respectful (as parents or loved ones would be if you dated someone horrible, like a Democrat) that has no measurable impact on others lives unless they too make it about themselves.

On the other hand, alcoholism harms yourself and everyone else around you, making it an anti-social behavior.

honey, remember last night when you fell asleep on the couch again after two martinis and I had to clean up your piss…

The hardcore ex-gay movement of men then seeking full sexual relationships with women has mostly fallen out of fashion. Some will claim that’s due to legislation (enough kids having a 13th reason will do that I suppose) but most ex-gay leaders being flamboyant gays in the first place realizing that their pursuit of women is no longer interesting gave up on that quest and went back to gay.

me after you all spent a summer going crazy for that terrible album

Much as the hardcore underground electronica of Lulo warehouse parties was filtered down into “songs that play on KEarth 101 while your grandma is in the car” the ex-gay movement has been filtered down into a weak-tea, smiley face version: “I have same-sex attraction but I choose not to act on it”.

This defines homosexuality as the act, not the identity, a clever rejection of the 1000-year Pride Month mentality that plagues the culture making every waking minute an affirmation of being gay.

ffs leave the kids at home you boring white people trying to be interesting

The key is that being gay is no more interesting than being left-handed, but both sides want you to believe it’s all that matters, so Brenda in HR can slap on her fisting flag pin and feel like she’s doing something and busybody evangelists can feel like they saved someone from a 3-verse condemnation in between trips to Costco and gossiping endlessly about others in the congregation.

A newer book called “A Change of Affection” by Becket Cook is the vanguard of this, receiving a dust jacket recognition by one of the Baldwins (not that one, nor that other one).

how this email found me

Part/mostly recollective memoir, part Q&A, the book describes the author’s journey through the seedy, glamorous underworld of LA into being saved as a “man with same sex attraction who doesn’t act on it”.

(MWSSAWDAOI – we gotta workshop that acronym folks)

The problem is the description of LA is less Babylon and more boring. If you love reading about someone dropping more names than a Met Gala guest list, this book is for you.

He’s dined with Rachel Zoe (and ran away from the table because he had gay feelings).

He’s done set design in Paris, New York, and other world capitals. He didn’t sleep with any celebrities, but rest assured he probably would’ve included that.

“i sucked off Brad Pitt front to back!”

The true undercurrent is the description of his past relationships, and boy are there many.

There’s a photographer, a rockstar, a guy from college, this man got AROUND.

Nothing seedy though, don’t get excited, it doesn’t seem like Studio 54 style free for alls were on his menu.

wonder what happened to this young studio 54 waiter

In describing these relationships the author talks about a cycle – infatuation phase, getting into a routine, and then a year where eventually the relationship slowly declines then ends. No infidelity, no fireworks, no wanting to become a throuple – just attachment then breakup.

The author then claims he’s saved after meeting a handsome pastor in a Silver Lake coffee shop (surprisingly horny description of a pastor, but you do you). He attends Reality LA church where he has a realization – the true relationship he needs to have is with Jesus Christ.

Despite being a lifetime Christian I’m not a master of church doctrine, but you’re not supposed to take “Jesus is my boyfriend” literally.

no matter how many playlists he makes you!

At the very least it’s misplaced feelings, at the worst it’s lustful and idolatrous (which is why churches over the years have always been careful about women replacing their natural desire for male love with Christ outside of vows of chastity).

Of course Jesus is a great boyfriend – always there, never lets you down, can talk to him at any time, and he can have the six pack you’ve always wanted a partner to have.

chat is this real

He’s also an extension of God, a force that isn’t equal to you by Design. You were created as were other humans to pair bond, to love each other, to forgive each other, to match your faults with someone else’s and stand back to back against the world and all the difficulties therein.

This misplacement of affection could be dismissed as narcissism. “Jesus is MY boyfriend, and he could be YOURS if you weren’t such a PLEBE”.

But it replaces sexuality with something far more insidious – a validation of avoidant attachment behavior.

Men who aren’t comfortable as men decide to become women. Men who aren’t comfortable as gay men decide to become SSA.

The conversion movement and the trans movement are the same – ignoring biological reality in favor of wishes.

Both are categories of men who, through autogynephilia, sublimate their sexual desires outside of a relationship with one other person as a way to avoid getting close to someone else.

They want their cake, and they’ll eat it too.

“jeff bezos has gone too far!”

In “becoming a woman” or “becoming not gay”, there’s a self-castration that happens to avoid the painful part of relationships – a partner not meeting your expectations, imperfection, changes in life goals, all things that lead followers to Christ and acceptance of our flaws as humans, not down a flume ride of cutting off our God-given masculinity in an attempt to assert control.

Avoidant attachments follow the pattern of this man – who deserves empathy not scorn. They idealize someone, there’s a honeymoon phase, the other person hits a level of intimacy where the avoidant becomes scared, the avoidant withdraws, the relationship suffers, and then ends.

Every one of this man’s dozen relationships followed the same cycle, and instead of trying to understand why a child of 8 from a wealthy family with a strict but absent father and a doting but narcissistic mother would react that way in getting close to another person he’s one-shotted by the idea that he’s a broken person because of who he loves, not who he is in love.

There’s an uncomfortable moment where the author claims being molested could have affected his sexuality, but claims he had gay feelings both before and after. The author does not acknowledge (and proudly claims he stormed out of therapy) that maybe that would affect how to express his sexuality in an intimate setting as it would if he was straight or a woman or anyone else.

Similarly, autogynephiles have tragic moments in their backstory when an adult took advantage, and their choice of gender is a reflection of protection that it won’t happen again.

A young person who comes out as trans seems like a case for therapy, faith, introspection, and help instead of irreparable harm to the family and also themselves usually in irreversible surgery before they’re even old enough to pursue romantic relationships.

The evangelism of the trans movement is head and shoulders above the evangelical movement in public force but both are full of broken people seeking validity. “I’m not as damaged as you think!” they cry, and all feel like they’ve found a secret third way of placing themselves in the world around them.

Well meaning parents on both sides panic when a child tells them they’re of the other gender or a child tells them that they’re gay because they know that in our dominant culture until 20 minutes ago those choices brought extraordinary risks of disease, addiction, prostitution, and ultimately ending one’s life just as it had begun.

Any parent wants to protect their child, and the pendulum has swung from stamping out any dissent to radical affirmation.

pride goeth…

Both options are equally harmful, but we don’t have a culture of grownups able to see that anymore. Baby boomers in their selfishness still think you’re letting your freak flag fly at Woodstock. Gen-X were the rebels of the rebels, and the more tattoos and piercings the better because we’re not like The Man either! (which is why there will likely never be a Gen X President).

our future king

Millennials and zoomers are left feeling the crushing weight of two generations of narcissists who never faced a challenge outside of themselves – a great World War, rationing, or any external struggle nor a culture that wasn’t in full embrace of them in a futile quest to be “cool”.

The damage is palpable as millennials have the potential to, despite derision from older folks, be responsible.

“We just want a house!”

“We just want a job!”

“We just want the freedoms you got!”

Zoomers are cooked by the small and big screens around them and the few survivors of 24/7 blue light exposure find themselves in a trooned-out wasteland where romantic advances are rape and rape is okay if it’s committed by a marginalized community.

All in all there are no adults in the room anymore.

It’s no wonder people of all ages are stuck in a search for meaning and endless experimentation.

“Maybe if I try not acting on being gay anymore, I’ll be happy”

“Maybe if I try lobbing my tits off, I’ll feel loved”

“Maybe if I try Cava, I’ll finally quit Chipotle”

Churches and therapy culture feed off this, and instead of approaching the broken with compassionate guidance in a quest to heal the person, they face people with affirmations that they’re wonderful and everyone else is wrong. Pick your belief and a way you want to see yourself, and there’s a dealer who can give you that high, at least for a little while.

I wondered why this book had such an emotional register with me – because 10 years ago, I felt similarly lost. Why would I make a choice against my faith? Why would I be gay and disappoint my parents? Why couldn’t I just be the perfect child I always was and wanted to be?

I spiraled.

I drank.

I alienated people around me – especially guys I felt close to (actually texting one I’m not gay anymore and that what we had didn’t mean anything, haven’t spoken with him since).

I tried dating girls – and luckily they were cool with it. Ultimately I realized there was no way I could make them happy because I could never be fully present in those relationships, and just being there to paper over each other’s damage in a desire to not feel alone only goes so far

Eventually, I had to get out of my own head. My narcissistic fixation of how I was seen by others was not the way to become a man. I broke down. I got into relationships. I learned how to love while on the job of being with someone else.

There is nothing more vulnerable than being with another person.

and just look at the neck pain

It exposes all your flaws and insecurities. Everything you’ve thought about yourself, everything you think others think about you – they’re all on the table. You can be hurt, you can be rejected, you can feel like you’re banging around a washing machine spin cycle like a cat.

You also feel closer to the divine.

You learn how to put someone’s needs above your own.

How to forgive.

Service. A sense of duty.

A desire to be and do better, not because it’s what you want, but because it’s what others deserve.

For the truly courageous, a relationship can be the best thing to happen to you.

And God hates a coward.

LA gets a bum rap as the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, where vodka sodas run as freely as celebrities with their antics.

get in girls, we’re making the most iconic photo since the zapruder film

If you watch the movie “Babylon” (which I encourage everyone to, twice, three times, most slept upon movie of the past decade) you’ll see such reverie in graphic detail. Luxurious parties, endless champagne, men and women in partial states of undress cavorting.

the abbey a few years back before they started spiking women’s drinks

But meanwhile, across town (as they say on that show about New York written by gay men for straight women), the largest Christian revival in American history was underway at Angelus Temple, founded by Aimee Semple MacPherson.

gay icon

You probably have little to no idea who that is, but there would be no tent revival, Billy Graham, modern evangelical church, or Bette Davis rightfully trash-talking Faye Dunaway instead of Joan Crawford without Aimee Semple MacPherson.

She would be dismissed as an actress (albeit good one), put into that same silo as the whores of Babylon across town, but her movement fed the city during the Depression, kept spirits up when bank accounts were empty, and resanctified LA as the most Christian city in the country (as my dear friend of Filthy Armenian Adventures calls it).

The tension between sin and salvation cuts through the landscape deeper than any San Andreas faultline.

There’s sin in LA, but it’s also a place of redemption (and not just of careers).

does that sound like something you might be interested in?

LA never was Sodom, nor Gomorrah, cities of writhing beasts. Vegas is more your speed if you’re of that belief, where the only redemption is in leaving.

No other city in the country provides salvation in the way that LA does. You don’t go to Detroit to get your reputation back, and if you disappear in Chicago you were probably the victim of a drive-by. Miami is great if you’re a Latin powerbroker on the run, and Austin’s your town if you really want to live in LA but Portland’s too cold.

portland when it’s 65

But only in LA can you come from nowhere and have the chance to be someone, whether you’re the actors living it up in a rented mansion or the influencers living it up in a rented mansion or the preachers living it up in a rented mansion.

two weeks here and i love erewhon sOoOoOo much lol

The ability to start anew is rooted in Biblical teaching, the life of Jesus, the offer of redemption.

And LA is all about redemption.

Those who came to LA for redemption have now seen their lives burn.

How many in the fires came to LA for their second start?

How many are old – after all, the Palisades and Altadena are neighborhoods full of retirees – and will find it difficult to start over at 70 or 80?

I remember living in Brentwood (evacuated) and going to a yoga class at Yogaworks in the Palisades. It’s likely rubble now along with most of that gorgeous neighborhood.

picture-perfect

The seniors there were active – so active in fact that they bent themselves into all kinds of positions I couldn’t even do then, in my 20s. They laughed at my wall-sits, and then offered to set me up with their granddaughters.

joke’s on you, geezers – i’m even less flexible in my 30s!

The coffee shops, the Bay Theatre and the downtown that Rick Caruso heroically built before running for mayor (and unfortunately losing) are all likely damaged or gone.

imagine if all of LA looked like this

Among them are the memories of a shy, closeted kid in his 20s who proudly walked through those streets in his 30s with his then-boyfriend, Tesla parked in the charger downstairs, having tacos and ice cream and soaking in all the happy families playing in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the country.

who wouldn’t want to be holding hands through here and eating ice cream?

I wonder how many of those families lost their homes.

–

The story of Lot, after apparently the citizens of Sodom found the visiting angels “too sExY”, is usually remembered through the eyes of Lot’s wife.

so, is that eye lazy or are you happy to see me

A cautionary tale, she looks back upon the ruins of Sodom despite being told not to (the Bible is replete with stories of women not listening, which should be the real lesson in all these instances).

Scholars argue that it wasn’t just the disobedience, but the longing with which she looked back at their former home that condemned her to be entombed in a pillar of salt.

and it wasn’t even himalayan, cheap bitch

Can you turn around for people you love or mourn the lives you used to have?

Can I look back and worry about friends and loved ones and wish I could bring them with me?

Can I mourn those special days I spent in the Palisades with the man I was with, without thinking of his unfaithfulness?

Maybe that’s what Lot’s wife did to ban her to the crystals – it was simply her lack of faith.

—

I had the privilege of spending time on that “American Riviera” (not Montecito as some fake princesses claim) quite a bit the past couple of years, touring the Getty Villa (still there, god love em), meeting friends at Rosenthal Wines (destroyed by fire despite being across the street from the ocean(!)), touring some of the most jaw-dropping open houses in the country (status unclear).

paradise lost

I toured over 300 open houses in a matter of months. What started as a project became an obsession, all for content in finally realizing my dream of having a home-based content channel (still in progress).

Deeper than that was a more vulnerable dream – envisioning the home I want to live in with the man that I love.

His taste in homes was impeccable, and his contractor background made him knowledgable of all my blind spots. We’d spend hours touring homes, envisioning ourselves in them, how crazy would that be!

His shyness would creep in at a certain point.

His shyness was his cutest quality.

He’d say he could never afford these homes.

I told him anything’s possible.

view of the hills, view of the beach, room for rover, the edge of malibu

_

One place he said he could see living was Malibu.

Far enough from town, but close enough if you need to be there.

How hard would I have to work to be able to afford a place in a place like that?

Could this be the life I dreamed of?

My redemption of 17 hard-spent years in Los Angeles?

What brought me to LA was the vision of that life. I was going to go to Pepperdine, I got a half-scholarship, I’d live by the beach like Zoey 101 and have awesome friends and do awesome things and we’d all just soak up each other’s awesomeness.

back before we knew the full story about jamie lynn #freebritney

And yet – I chose UCLA.

Plans change.

The mandatory Pepperdine Bible class never sat well with me (not because of the faith, but because you’re graded on it).

I’m glad I went to UCLA. I made incredible friends, had once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

But plans change.

Maybe on an alternate timeline Pepperdine Wyatt is happier.

Or straight.

Or miserable.

Who knows.

I can’t spend life living in that paradigm.

I couldn’t imagine a month later my life would go up in flames and 3 months later the houses would too.

Scripts are edited.

Stories are rewritten.

Plans change.

—

Houses are buildings, homes have memories.

Around Thanksgiving of 2023 I visited my childhood home. It had been a couple years since I’d been back, and to my chagrin, all the trees and landscaping were gone. Cut down. Like a pack of locusts ate them up and spat them out.

The house that felt like a home growing up now looked plastic, artificial, like a model glued to a piece of foam board, the California missions we built out of foam and stucco with my mom yelling at 9PM wondering why I didn’t tell her a week ago it was due the next day, not a magical place of meandering arches, imposing columns, and whimsical landscaping.

that young lady definitely got yelled at the night before

I spent 17 years there, but that house didn’t feel like a home anymore.

—

My man and I had a cute little bungalow in Studio City against the Hills. My biggest LA dream was living in the Hills, and I finally had the opportunity to.

It was expensive, sure, but we could have guests, and there was room for the dog, and it was gated.

It was everything I wanted in a home.

I tried desperately to make it one.

The man I loved left it twice. Once in 2023, out of fear and anger after an argument.

Then again over a year later, because he wanted our relationship to end, to seek religious fulfillment instead of a life with me.

After all that, what was I going to do, stay there?

I understand the temptation of Lot’s wife to look back, but what could she possibly long for?

—

The Armenian people (of which I am part) are used to fleeing at a moment’s notice. Our homeland has been ravaged by various empires and tribes.

Ancestral cities, with crumbling Armenian churches from two millennia back are under different flags. Human history is about the movement of people, and ours is no exception.

Wherever we go – France, Russia, Boston, Michigan, Fresno, Los Angeles – we build. New churches, new homes, new communities. It’s in our nature to grab what’s important at the end of a bayonet and hit the road when we have to.

We don’t look back, either.

As William Saroyan said:

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered.

Go ahead, destroy this race.  Let us say that it is again 1915.  There is war in the world.  Destroy Armenia.  See if you can do it.  Send them from their homes into the desert.  Let them have neither bread nor water.  Burn their houses and their churches.  See if they will not live again.  See if they will not laugh again.  See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue.  Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it.  See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.

This past week I drove from Los Angeles (Armenian population: like a quarter million) to Idaho (Armenian population: 928 (now 929)). A few nights ago, I met with a dear high school friend from Armenian Club and her husband, and together we celebrated January 6th (Armenian Christmas, not the other thing, though hilarious) and for that moment despite everything – our trials and heartbreaks – we laughed.

Why did a small, still voice tell me as I was sitting in my house in LA, alone and heartbroken, to leave and not look back?

Why did I come up to Idaho?

To live again.

_

Saroyan was a drunk and a fool, a foul-smelling writer who my great-grandfather thought too disheveled to marry my great aunt 80-odd years ago. A “bum” my great grandfather called him.

He later took a liking to Saroyan, however, and included a story about working with him in one of his later books, Chance Meetings.

My great-grandfather even made the New York Times long after he passed.

He was one hell of a wrestler, a trait he passed down to much of my family who used it on each other as much as they did in award-winning matches.

And while picking the vines (a pastime activity, as System of a Down would say), the grizzled wrestler and impressionable writer talked shop.

Great-grandfather Nazaret knew every move, but the toughest ones were when your opponent gave you no opportunity to escape.

SAROYAN: How did it happen that you were able to disappear in that manner? What was it that permitted that impossible disappearance?”

“Well,” Nazaret said, “I finally decided that it was Christianity. Jesus did it. Our blessed babe worked another miracle. It is not for nothing that we are the first nation in the world to accept Jesus. It was Christianity that did it.”

“Yes, sir,” I used to say, “but your opponents, they also were Christians, every one of them.” The wrestler would look up and consider what I had said, and then he would say, “What you say is true, but we are Armenian Christians, and that gives us just the edge we need. An Irish Christian, a Greek Christian, a Polish Christian–Jesus will help them, but only after he has helped an Armenian Christian.”

I’m a Christian by birth, by blood, but I was never baptized. I don’t know why my parents never did, they said it was just one of those things that got away from them.

my future

Through different phases in my life I became stridently religious, mostly out of wanting to know what it was, fear of death, the typical stuff 8 year olds go through.

A-B-C-D-E-ATH

When I knew I was *different*, that Leviticus and Romans and the other fun verses could apply to me (more likely the Ancient Jews who reallllly needed to procreate for survival) I put faith first and shoved down those feelings.

But innate aspects of nature have a way of popping back up, and drunkenly coming out on facebook while stumbling down Sunset Boulevard opened up more doors than I thought it would.

“hey guys i like girls and guys now”

everyone: WE KNOW

I thought my life was over.

But LA provided me with a fresh start.

I found love, lost it, and found it again.

Just like in the movies.

well i didn’t say which type of movie

—

LA is the land of constant renewal, and with renewal comes a burning of the old.

The Old Hollywood stars of Babylon moved on. Once the talkies hit, they knew their time was up.

Aimee Semple chased a man she loved to the coast, allegedly faking a kidnapping. She came back to the church, but it wasn’t the same.

Their works lived past them, preserved in celluloid and in the generations who carry them in their hearts.

LA, the Christian town, revived a Christian nation desperate for guidance after people lost everything in the Depression.

The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those Hollywood pioneers regale those in the present day with stories of heroism and vice, virtue and the messy business of Hollywood.

The Armenians tell the stories of their history, leaving a continual indelible mark on culture each generation.

But you must move forward.

When you move forward, you leave a story in your wake instead of a pillar of salt.

If I told you there’s a drink that makes your anxiety go away would you take it?

Just one glass, once a day, and BOOM.

The thoughts that rack your brain, keep you up at night, distract you from work, pull you out of conversations, make you bite your nails and hunch and be irritable all day just disappear.

Of course you’d drink it. Who wants to spend life anxious?

Smart people would pause and ask, “wait, what are the side effects?”

“Ah!” I would say, “the anxiety doesn’t ACTUALLY go away. It’s numb for a little while, and then it comes back even stronger.”

I wish someone told me this 15 years ago when I first started drinking.

Sounds like a raw deal now. Who’d take that drink?

My dumb ass. For 15 years I bought into the idea that if I drank, my anxiety would go away. 

Drinking only made my anxiety worse, and my friends, partner, and loved ones saw it.

Until 8 weeks ago, I thought drinking was something I could manage. I’d taper off, stick to one or two, and be fine.

As I was soberly describing this to a very stern-faced friend last night, he corrected me: 

“One drink to you is like ten drinks. Two is like fifteen. I would watch you change.”

If you want an honest opinion of yourself, ask your friends of ten years what they really think about you.

–

On my worst nights, I’d use a few drinks to hash out those anxieties, insecurities, frustrations, and other irritants that bang around my head like a pinball machine. 

And then a few more for good measure.

I’d turn at a certain point. Very close friends would see me lash out. The closer you were to me, the worse I’d be.

I wanted you to see the pain. I wouldn’t cut myself, or take a handful of pills, but I’d drink in front of you to communicate my hurt, daring you to stop me.

Eight weeks ago, I took it too far:  

15 Years Later

The person most hurt by my drunken behavior was the person closest to me: the man whom I love.

He experienced me at my worst: ragefully flailing at him in the back of an Uber, sobbing in the middle of the street, spitting out horrible words at him, vomiting past traumas and built-up irritations onto him.

No anxiety I’ve ever experienced is worse than the pain I was causing my partner.

Drinking finally showed me, nakedly, what it was. It was the amplifier, the anxiety megaphone. Fifteen years of drinking snuck up and overtook me, like a tourist in a seaside photo with a tsunami barreling down.

Everyone around me was already drowning.

_

But you say, where’s the fun part?

Drinking is supposed to be fun. It looks fun! Why can’t you just have F-U-N?

Of course drinking was fun. If it wasn’t fun, you wouldn’t do it. The trips, the clubs, the wine tastings. The goofy memories, the purloined glassware, the experiences that felt like bonding. But the returns were diminishing. Soon it would only be fun after the first, and then it became self-medication. There wasn’t any fun left. There’s wasn’t any real bonding. There was daily stress, leftover trauma, and then coping until it was time to drink again. Living five o’clock to five o’clock isn’t living, it isn’t even survival. 

–

Eight weeks ago I dumped out all the alcohol in the house and in my friend’s house I had the key to (for good measure, don’t worry, it was a couple shitty opened bottles of Captain Morgan I reimbursed for). 

It was dramatic, and necessary. I knew if it was around me, and I was going through hurt, alcohol would be tempting, the salve to heal the wound.

The thought of drinking repelled me. I couldn’t finish it. It burned as it went down.

–

As a family we rarely talked about feelings, we just expressed them. But after a few drinks everyone became softer, we laughed, had more kindness and empathy for each other. The pains of the past seemed to melt away. My dad would be happy with his few glasses of wine. My mom and I enjoyed our scotch nights, especially after my dad passed. When your most vulnerable moments with your parents are when you drink, you think that’s the only way you can be vulnerable with anyone.

That wasn’t always our experience. As a kid, I knew alcohol made my parents angry at each other. The resentments that build over a lifetime would come forth, unleashing hurt that would be patched up by the next day. As a very young child I saw this and told myself I wouldn’t drink. Sure there’d be the sip or two of wine, but I never felt anything, I just thought it was any other beverage with a funny taste. Until the end of the first year of college, I happily did that. But I felt alone. My friends drank, and I didn’t. “How bad could it be?” I thought, throwing back six shots of vodka in a Pom Wonderful coffee container and running outside in my underwear during a Finals Week tradition. I felt free. And after that, every time I drank enough, I would just run (clothed of course). I kept running. I’d disappear. I’d run from everything, from my problems, from my hurt, from dealing with parents who loved me but had a hard time showing it, from growing up too quickly, from having to be perfect, from loneliness.

The night I came out I was walking down Sunset Blvd out of the Comedy Store and I drunkenly typed a Facebook status to everyone saying I was bi. It was a complete mess and so was I. Anesthetizing myself was the only way I could get through admitting something everyone knew but still didn’t feel right.

After the loss of both of my parents, drinking became a way to communicate with the dead. I would drink and it would be okay to miss them. I would drink and feel closer to them. Later, I would drink and sense I’d be with them again soon.

If I kept drinking I would have been. 

–

Alcohol is still a coping mechanism, and if I can cope without it, what do I need it for? I’ve received enormous support from (most) of my friends (the ones who are still holding out I probably drank the most with, and they’re probably feeling left out). I’ve lost 40 pounds in 8 weeks. My skin’s back to normal. I don’t wake up with headaches, or backaches, or a lingering cough. I can hike up the hill with Rover without stopping. I wake up with sunrise and don’t miss turning up anymore. Therapy and prayer are the battle grounds where I hash out my traumas. 

It feels best to show up for the people I love in my life. It’s like I’m meeting many of them for the first time, or at least the person who was underneath all the masks I put up.

All of life’s pains and joys, sufferings and elations, the things that make me human, all that I can build, the ways I can be of service, all of it is raw and real and I get to live it every day in this beautiful present.

Every morning I go for a hike in the Hollywood Hills.

I know that sounds glamorous, and sure I see my share of celebrities (including a hastily powerwalking Lisa Rinna) but it’s actually mostly sweaty.

I started hiking in late 2020 during the p________

I’m sorry, I can’t say that word anymore. I keep hearing people say, in real life conversation, “during the pandemic” and I just can’t take anything they say seriously after that statement. It’s so trite and obnoxious, because it’s usually bookended by some good thing that happened while people were locked inside their homes. 

think of all those sourdough starters that are molding in people’s cabinets after they gave up trying to bake

I started hiking because I could finally go back to Starbucks and get an iced coffee as the Lord intended, and I liked the idea of getting a little walk in.

One day, probably in October 2020, I found a trail that went up the canyon behind Ventura Blvd in Studio City and followed it. As I went up a narrow path, catching altitude, I saw a fox that was speeding up the hill. I followed the fox as far as I could go, and when the fox disappeared, I kept going up the trail.

And what a sight it was! Full, panoramic views of the San Fernando Valley and Mulholland Drive, the city sunken below. 

I took a picture at the top of the hill before the twisted descent, and was surprised the hike dumped me out right on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Looping back through the neighborhood, I got to my car, exhilarated, and a new habit was born.

Most days since then where I’ve been in town I’ve done this hike. I’ve used it as an opportunity to spend time with friends and loved ones, take phone calls, clear my head for the day ahead, and eventually bring my dog along with me.

It’s the single best habit I have in my life, and it’s one I want to continue for the rest of it.

The Honest Co (Jessica Alba’s Billion-with-a-B baby care line) worked because they chose one adjective to describe a real problem – do you know what chemicals are in your baby’s products? It hit the cultural zeitgeist right at the time when people started to pay attention to BPA in baby bottles and right on the downswing of the Organic movement of the mid-00s. I hate to say it, but the Ethical/Vegan movement as a culturally relevant movement is over, and adjectives describing either of those sound too preachy or clinical to a potential shopper. Many products are vegan now. Candles, soaps, handbags, cars(!) – you name it, it’s almost *expected* to have a vegan option (like a wedding with more than 10 guests).

I’ve been a startup consultant for over ten years, so when people present ideas to me, I do some market research and then get back to them like the above.

One idea that a dear friend brought to my attention over a year ago was a vegan product line for both your skin and your home. Clearly, it covers a lot of ground.

While I’m not personally vegan, I understand why some are, and in front of me was paperwork with formulations and ways to build a whole new company from the ground up.

I was excited at the prospect but it got lost in the shuffle with me. Life, moves, distractions, and so on. 

They’d asked for help and, not knowing how to help, I just kind of sat on my hands. 

By mid-September they shared some of their progress with me. They smelled great, and had good marketing, and just needed development space. I was still skeptical of how I could help, but it seemed like the idea was going in the right direction.

Here we are in October, and the team is in my air-conditioned garage 3 days a week, measuring essential oils, working on formulations with a chemist I found, and divvying up some delicious samples to try.

I learned to not be afraid to try even if you don’t know everything. I started from the position of “hell, what do I know about skincare other than I use it?” Then I realized it’s actually a hell of a lot. 

I guess it’s a residual overachiever effect – if I can’t be perfect at it, why try?

For things I don’t know, I ask. For things I have hunches on, I suggest. Areas where I can help, I do.

And I’m proud to work with a team who is motivated, curious, and energetic.

We’re hoping to have a sampler pack of four items ready: a morning serum, evening serum, countertop cleaner, and room spray available for sale before the holidays.

I learned that it’s okay to not know everything, and at least give things a shot. Surround yourself with people who are doing things, and slowly you’ll do things too.

It’s the honest company you keep.

For the past 15 years I have been a drinker, and it has cost me most of the relationships in my life. The people around me have been scared both of me and for me. When I drink, I often lose control, and no matter how many times I’ve tried to moderate, when I’m in, I’m in.

I realize that if I keep drinking for the next 15 years, I won’t live another 15 years. Like my father before me, and my grandfather before him, I will have a heart attack in my 40s, and likely will not survive it due to the organ damage caused by years and years of additional drinking.

I’ve had many realizations in my life, but this one came to me clear as a bell. I have to stop, and I have to stop now.

Drinking has cost me, in total, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve been arrested and gone to jail, been hospitalized, wrecked multiple nice vehicles, gotten into physical fights, and said horrible words that I can’t take back to the people that I love.

In the 12 Steps program, you must, Step 5, admit the exact nature of your wrongs to God, yourself, and to another human being after a searching and fearless moral inventory (Step 4).

I’m ready to make amends.

One day at a time.

—Wyatt Torosian, September 26, 2023

last day of drinking: Saturday, September 23, 2023

For the past 15 years I have been a drinker, and it has cost me most of the relationships in my life. The people around me have been scared both of me and for me. When I drink, I often lose control, and no matter how many times I’ve tried to moderate, when I’m in, I’m in.

I realize that if I keep drinking for the next 15 years, I won’t live another 15 years. Like my father before me, and my grandfather before him, I will have a heart attack in my 40s, and likely will not survive it due to the organ damage caused by years and years of additional drinking.

I’ve had many realizations in my life, but this one came to me clear as a bell. I have to stop, and I have to stop now.

Drinking has cost me, in total, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve been arrested and gone to jail, been hospitalized, wrecked multiple nice vehicles, gotten into physical fights, and said horrible words that I can’t take back to the people that I love.

In the 12 Steps program, you must, Step 5, admit the exact nature of your wrongs to God, yourself, and to another human being after a searching and fearless moral inventory (Step 4).

I’m ready to make amends.

One day at a time.

—Wyatt Torosian, September 26, 2023

last day of drinking: Saturday, September 23, 2023

Damian was one of a kind.

People say that about people they know, but he truly was an original, probably bordering on odd.

I don’t know any man in his 30s who drinks sherry like an elderly British woman while petting his cat.

Bond villaindom aside, Damian had an endless capacity for information.

There is no other person I’ve ever met who could rattle off Congressional district representatives by district number, or whip out an obscure world’s capital.

He became a walking Wikipedia – for God’s sake, he wrote and edited a staggering portion of it.

It’s no wonder he barely slept.  I’ve never known a person who didn’t have a discernible sleeping schedule.  I stayed up late chatting with him on my family computer – and before I woke up he’d have one or two messages or funny jokes sent to me.

We spoke every single day for over 15 years.

Actually, we had one disagreement, and didn’t speak for a few days, then we both forgot what it was about and moved it along.

The conversation was endless, and goddammit it was funny.

Damian’s joke-telling abilities were only rivaled by his laugh.  He was unrelentingly goofy, in the best possible way.

In remembering Damian, people have said he was nice, which I consider derogatory.

He was not nice.  He was a huge bitch that knew when it was appropriate to be polite.

And he could even be mean.  He hated people who had contempt for God’s most important creation: life.

Yes, he was pro-life, but you wouldn’t catch him outside the abortion clinic yelling at women – he was crucially pro-woman and pro-mother.  He had a fantastic mother, who he loved dearly, and who set an incredible example.

It was with women in some of the most vulnerable situations in life when he exemplified true loving kindness.  He understood them, he protected their dignity.

He was truly joyful in seeing his father’s church grow, accepting new arrivals into the converted, people from all walks of life and all countries.

When he brought out the traditional values of the converts, he expressed absolute glee, a show we both hated.

What we loved was Golden Girls, and what we loved the most was a parody called Golden Shower Girls.  It’s the most offensive thing ever created – warping the Golden Girls narrative of four single women in Miami to four tranny prostitutes in Miami, doing drugs, robbing men, and sleeping with Burt Reynolds.

It was an absolute treat to watch this live, with him in my living room, terrifying those in attendance.

But that’s what we did best – we scared the shit out of people in the best possible way – from the beginning of the blogging era with him at Conservathink to me at Bulletproof Diction, to shamelessly boosting Sarah Palin’s VP candidacy, to staying up late and watching Red Eye on Fox News, all the way through the Trump era to the overthrow of Roe.  

Damian was more involved than people three times his age.  Living in New York, he shamelessly met everyone he could, and approached recruiting people of all background into the conservative cause with unrelenting fervor. 

Yet with all that, I don’t think it was politics that interested him – it was people.

He had a yearning to connect with people on any level possible.  He gave people his time freely and without question, just to talk.  No one ever left a conversation with Damian feeling worse – maybe just a little exhausted because two hours had passed.

At times, he drove me crazy, which is rich for someone who never had a driver’s license.

When he was here – and after I clowned him for a good couple of hours about being unable to legally operate a vehicle in his 30s – we talked about what was next.

He wanted to travel more, to spend more time in the UK.  He considered moving to Houston because he loved the food and weather.

He wanted to record a podcast with us.

I was always pushing him to do more.  He should’ve had his own show, his blog should’ve been updated daily and subscriber-based.  He should’ve been a personality – he had more than most of them combined.

But that wasn’t him.  He was stubborn and worked on his own terms.  No job could contain someone who ate facts for breakfast.

Damian left me with many friends I met as a result of him.  No one like him, of course, but wonderful souls who have come together to remember him and continue his legacy through becoming better and closer friends.

Over the course of the past few days, I’ve spun through the Kubler-Ross scale in reverse.  

I accepted the loss, I’m going to live in denial that he’s gone.

The conversation was never supposed to end, and I don’t want it to.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but I have a…how shall we say this…Starbucks addiction.

Every day, at around the same time, I go to my local Starbucks and I purchase a Venti or Trenta iced black coffee, unsweetened, light ice.

The unsweetened is so they don’t put that ungodly, sickly syrup in the drink that ruins it.

The light ice is so they don’t cheat me on the amount of actual coffee that goes into my cup (Alfred Coffee has caught onto this and charges $0.50 more for light ice, so they’re dead to me).

The black coffee is because I enjoy the taste of stale liquid cigarettes.

And Starbucks is because it used to be my daily workspace but is close to a very pleasant neighborhood hike I take every morning.

Now that I’ve justified my existence, I’m going to head-off/anticipate some questions here:

Q:  Why don’t you just make iced coffee / cold brew / liquid meth at home?

A:  Like farting in an empty Target aisle: I have before and I will again.  I like the ritual of getting my morning coffee.

Q:  Aren’t you worried about all those plastic cups?!

A:  No.  I burn them afterwards so they don’t get end up in the Pacific Garbage Patch (one of the worse 90s one hit wonder bands)

Q:  Why don’t you just get the Starbucks Iced Coffee at the grocery store?

A:  It’s not the same.  Plus the baristas will probably think I’m dead.

The last answer is important – over the past decade or so, I’ve built up a rapport with the local baristas who see me LITERALLY every day.  I give them a heads up if I’m going out of town because I forgot to mention to them when I spent a week in New York last year and I’m they were just about ready to call in a wellness check.

It’s nice to have strong neighborhood bonds with people who you don’t share a wall with.

I lucked out that my local Starbucks also happens to be close to a studio, so there’s a wide variety of celebrities and notables who come through every morning like me – beleaguered, bleary-eyed, avoiding the paparazzi.

The most recent visitor was Jeff Probst – the Survivor Guy.  

I’ve seen him around a few times, and he’s apparently quite nice.

And I’m sure he’s pelted by thousands of people who ask him to vote them off the island.

He chilled in the corner in a “notice me but don’t notice me” kind of way.  It’s a common vibe and probably unavoidable if you’ve been on America’s TV screens since before they were flat.

Meanwhile, I was loudly bantering with my merry band of baristas, and Jeff looked at me like he’d wandered onto an island where I hosted Survivor and he was the busboy on The Island’s craft services table after filming.

In that brief, shining moment, I felt what it was to be an A-lister, at a Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard *tom petty voice*

And then the next morning I came in, a violent homeless dude was throwing trash cans, the following day I spilled my reservoir of iced coffee while trying to get a straw, and I was freefallin to the realization I’m just any old average Joe.