I'm Voting for Barack McCain

Election Day is some time soon, in the near future, a day that can't arrive soon enough, a dawn that will hit me on the head like a frying pan. Get here for crying out loud already. I am so sick of election coverage, but at the same time I can't do anything to vomit it out of my system. It just stays in my stomach, churning and burning, causing alternate bouts of anger, nausea and bloating. After nearly two years, I can honestly say I don't know much about Barack Obama other than he was born in Hawaii, was raised a Muslim in Indonesia, dropped out of Harvard to join Al Qaeda in Botswana, has three boys, one of whom has Down Syndrome. Let's see... what else do I know? Oh yes, he's black but was married to a white woman who perished in Hurricane Katrina. He is going to raise everyone's taxes by at least 150% and is planning on building a new Presidential retreat in North Korea because the real estate prices there are so cheap. I will not be voting on Election Day anyway because New York's electoral votes automatically go to the Democratic candidate by law.

I really think they should have had a show like Project President, modeled on Project Runway where each week the candidates would have competed in a challenge and we could have seen who they really were. This week's challenge: kill as many people in Pakistan without using a nuclear weapon. Next week? Redecorate the White House with a budget of $100. The final challenge? Fix the economic shit we're in.... NOW!!! The debates told me absolutely nothing about Obama and McCain other than the fact that neither of them could debate effectively.

I am so ready to quit being an American. Let's hope 2009 gives me new hope to be proud of this country again.

I DON'T HAVE HIV!!!!! I WAS JUST FAKING IT AS A JOKE!!!

Yeah, I don't have HIV. I was just trying to see if people out there would be sympathetic to me if I said that I did. And it turned out that people were not sympathetic at all. The majority of them turned out to be 100% certified assholes who could give classes in how to become producers of the ugliest shit you have ever seen. What a hilarious experiment this has been!!!! LOL.... For the past five years I have been lying to everyone in the whole world, bringing scorn and shame on myself (especially at the pharmacy last week when they couldn't locate my meds and the girl at the front counter basically SHOUTED out to the store, "Why can't I find this man's HIV meds?" and everyone including the pharmacists was giving me the nastiest looks.) But now I think it's time that I ended this charade because five years of taking medicines that I really don't need in the name of a social experiment was probably a bit excessive. I can now go back to having unsafe sex because HIV is shit that happens to other people, not me!!!! LOL!!! Hey world!!! I WAS JUST KIDDING!!! I DON'T REALLY HAVE HIV! I CAN'T WAIT TO PUBLISH THE RESULTS OF THIS EXPERIMENT ON GAY WEBSITES EVERYWHERE! Boy, people were so naive and gullible. Everyone just believed me when I said I was HIV+!!! LOL!! It will be such a relief to join the world of HIV- people again. I hope the entire HIV- world will thank me for having conducted such a worthwhile experiment--proving that HIV- people are pretty much ignorant, uncaring, evil, vile individuals who all deserve to be shot in the groin, or at least be radio talk show hosts in Minneapolis. (And YES!!!, that is ME in the picture! I am Langdon Perry and I have HIV!!! PSYC!!!)

What Am I Angry At?

When gay people in NYC post an ad on craigslist or chat on gay.com and say they are "just looking for friends" that is the biggest lie in the world. I should know because I tell this lie all the time. What gay people really mean by "just looking for friends" is "I am looking to start out as friends with someone who I think could potentially be a long-term relationship guy." That is the truth. Let's face it, if we were just "looking for friends" that person could be ugly, or fat, or ultra-conservative, or someone who does not speak English that well, or smelly, or hairy or a drug addict. "Looking for friends" means you'd better be attractive, have a good job, be well-educated, have sparkling conversation. The list goes on and on.

I recently met two HIV- guys who said they wanted to be "friends". But looking at the way they dressed up for our first dates, it was obvious that no one wanted to be "just friends". I'm sorry, but no one gets that dressed up for just their "friends". And then of course, I mentioned that I was HIV+ and I never got a phone call from either again. I don't know whether to continue accepting this rejection and being disappointed or going on a rampage of revenge, infecting every HIV- guy out there that I can. I've blogged before about how this virus inside me makes me feel like the Incredible Hulk--it turns me into a different person when I get angry. Very angry. And both of these guys made me feel just that.

Of course, I would never intentionally infect anyone. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were other HIV+ guys out there that would. Anger can unleash itself very unexpectedly sometimes. So, to the HIV- community out there, if you're going to reject us, at least have the courtesy to tell us explicitly instead of not taking our calls and deleting our e-mails. And be caring in your rejection. Say that HIV is something that you cannot come to terms with because it scares the hell out of you. (It's not that scary anymore after living with it for five years.) The point is: keep the communication flowing. It's when people stop talking that fear and ignorance have room to grow, and before you know it, they are larger than life itself. I won't deny that I get angry at myself for having gotten infected in the first place. But I only get this way when provoked.

Last Time Phil Lifted His Leg Up Like That Was When...

The world is in a financial meltdown, but you'd never have known it from the way these two kids were playing golf this afternoon. I've always loved my baby Anthony, but today he made me love Phil who has always seemed lifeless to me. I think the problem with Phil is that he has made too much money to enjoy golf as a game anymore. But today he high-fived like there was no tomorrow. Fortunate for us golf fans, there is a tomorrow.

Hang In There, Friend

An e-mail buddy of mine wrote me today and told me that he was HIV+. It was very unexpected and completely deflating. I wrote him back and told him that as time goes on, you don't fixate on the virus all the time. There are days when you just forget about it. But these are lessons that you learn on your own, and in your own time. Looking back on my most recent entries, I realized that I have not been writing much about HIV. I think it gets too exhausting to rehash the topic over and over. You force yourself to forget even though you know the virus will always remind you of its presence: because of the virus I always have to be home by midnight to take my meds; I don't allow myself to get close to anyone in a romantic way because I always end up being rejected; I think about death a lot more than I used to.

I am working on a third screenplay these days. It is a sad story about a father who kills his son. Who feels he has no choice to kill his son. Who has been dreaming of killing his son for the past fifteen years. I can't wait for days of happiness to return.

Obama Is Not Getting It

Well, maybe he is, but isn't letting on. The inconvenient truth here is that the American people do not pick their presidents based on the issues. They pick their leaders based on appearance and personality. Sound like a high school class president election? Perhaps. But that would be looking at things in too "negative" a light. My take on this is that Americans are by and large a very trusting people. The Japanese-American political economist Francis Fukuyama touched on this in his book called Trust in 1995. We elect our leaders and trust them to do the right thing. And why do you trust anyone to begin with? Because you connect with them on a certain, intrinsic level. No one has the time to make two lists of the myriad of issues that plague this country and then compare them side by side on an Excel spreadsheet. We trust that Obama will do the right thing. We trust that McCain will do what's best for the country. And yet, politicians know that they have to pay lip service to the issues because what they are really doing is revealing the politician's deeper instincts and values. I haven't heard much from Obama on the issues these days, and that's where he's going wrong.

Palin may not have experience, but lots of people are trusting that she will not do anything inherently wrong. And Obama's campaign knows this. The government is run by tons of leaders and advisors who will make sure that Palin will not do anything too seriously wrong once she is elected. Her role is to get McCain in the White House, and she is doing that job just perfectly at the moment.

She's no Ferraro

Wow. If McCain goes with Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, he may have played a wild, trump card that no one could have seen coming. At 44, she's earned a well-deserved reputation as a maverick, she's younger than Obama, she's actually governed something and she's going to attract all those women voters who wanted it to be Hilary. Hell, she's going to attract a lot of men who wanted it to be Hilary. Let's be honest, she is very easy on the eyes. Obama's pick of a Washington insider like Biden was two sides of the same coin--inspired and uninspired. But above all, it freed McCain's hand to go with a running mate who did not need to deliver a huge bunch of electoral votes in the election. Delaware gets 3, as does Alaska. This allows the election to focus on personalities and issues. Now, how hard does Biden the Attack Dog go after Palin without appearing misogynistic? One false move here could send all the Hilary mice scurrying over to McCain and four more years of McSame. What an election this has been.