Devon Hunter

“From ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”

We all have our demons. I am definitely not an exception. I still have a particular monster under my bed. (I would say I have a skeleton in my closet, but the door is wide open, and nearly all those have come clattering out onto the floor.) But to stretch this extended metaphor to its breaking point, I will say that I am still haunted.

I have been eating irregularly again.

I thought I’d completely contended with the anorexic tendencies, but they are back. And it helps to talk about it, to examine it, and to get it out of my head. It’s like clearing the cobwebs out of a spooky house. I am eating as I type this, in a bid to reverse the habit that has been coalescing since Sean Cody published my legal name. Over the last several weeks I found myself falling into a familiar thought process: “Oh, it’s too much trouble to eat. I’ll just put it off. What I’m doing at this moment is far more important (plus I’ll look better, too).” That last part is what betrays the underlying problem. The rest of that notion is fairly typical to American workers… but the last part… I have to break this cycle NOW. I have accidentally initiated a process of feast and famine, and it’s wrecking my mood and wellness.

Looking at what might have triggered this, I have to say it’s pretty obvious: My stress levels went up dramatically just before my birthday, and have never really diminished completely. At the exact same time that everything was happening with the gay porn blogosphere in June and July 2010, both Gramma and Dad went into the hospital on my birthday. Dad has recovered, but Gramma has not, and it’s wearing Mom out (who is getting almost no help from her brothers, which is pissing me off more and more). While I was trying to take a break and retreat from everything for a couple weeks, I ended up having to contend with various types of emotional traumas simultaneously, and my response was to stop eating properly (to say nothing of my drinking water and sleeping enough). All of it together has thrown me into a bit of a tailspin, and my sense of happiness and optimism have definitely taken a hard knock. In addition to these factors, the trolls guarding the G4P bridges on the intrawebzes got in some painful licks: It was extremely jarring to have so much homophobia lumped on me by my own people. I admit it: That hurt.

It’s an odd addiction, attention. When I was getting far too much of it, I just wanted it to go away; however, there’s some kind of reality-show-need to maintain it (despite the fact that I didn’t want it in the first place). I feel a little bit like a used car: I’ve been afraid of becoming an obsolete model after having been driven hard by too many reckless drivers. It isn’t that I care specifically about becoming a porn star, but I have been fretting over preventing the prediction of my detractors: I have been trying to stave off their desire for me to fail in my video endeavors. But it isn’t for these anonymous “people” to define my happiness or my success – I have given them a power that isn’t theirs.

And so, as you can see, doing porn is also contributing to this eating situation: I am constantly worrying that I look ridiculous next to my scene partners, that I look utterly disgusting next to their beauty. (But my agent told me that nearly everyone in porn suffers these same insecurities.) Part of the problem in maintaining a strenuous diet is trying to stay in tip top shape constantly, so that I can be ready at a moment’s notice if I get a call for a scene. I haven’t allowed myself enough down time to rest and enjoy food. It’s irritating, because they call when I’ve been enjoying desserts too much for two weeks, but when I am a good boy I don’t hear from them. I had a carb meltdown yesterday and ate half a box of Golden Grahams. Sigh. Watch them call me in three days once the puffiness sets in around my bellybutton…

It was my goal to do 10 scenes. I have already done 11 (nine of them this year, AFTER the bullshit with Sean Cody… so MNAH!), and I feel the need to dig my heels in and remind myself that I am an escort who has done some porn. I’m not a porn model who sometimes escorts. I did what I set out to do. There are now examples of me in a variety of scenarios. Worrying about whether or not I will get more scenes has become too much of a priority. I can check off the porn item on my Adult Entertainment To Do list.

I am going to put the focus back where it belongs: On being happy. And I was happy when I wasn’t worrying about proving something to a bunch of assholes I’ll never meet (thank the Goddess for small miracles). If I continue to do video work, great. And if not, okay. I will accept reasonable video offers for scenes that don’t diminish me as a person or cloud the clarity of my brand, so long as the dates don’t conflict with my travel plans; I will continue spending time with the people who enjoy my company; and I am going to calm this porn noise by reconnecting to a spiritual practice that I have recently neglected.

Besides, I have other concerns: A Greek Orthodox Monk is on his way over to my apartment to talk to me about the plot for a musical he wants to write. And he’s using my poetry to do it. I think that is far more interesting than whether or not I’m given the nod of approval from a group of rampant consumers who are impossible to please.

Speaking of rampant consumers: I’m hungry. I’m going to go eat some more. I’m making a conscious effort to exorcise this demon.

I absolutely LOVE Chicago! What a wonderful city – no wonder I have consistently heard such nice comments about it. The streets are clean, there is no litter to speak of, the lake is beautiful, the food is good, the shopping is excellent, the people are friendly, and I just went into the most tasteful art gallery I have ever seen. The artists there are just spectacular. If you get a chance, you really must visit Atlas Galleries at 535 N Michigan Avenue. (Click images to enlarge them.)

I was walking back from breakfast, and saw a gallery window above me on a bridge. Out of curiosity I went upstairs and landed smack dab in the middle of Magnificent Mile (and it is aptly named!). The sculptures and canvases on display were fantastic; however, between two columns my retinas were seared by the most intensely monocrhomatic red painting I’d ever seen. I was instantly enthralled and felt compelled to get a closer look.

The canvas was overwhelming in person. I started crying. I know: That’s gay… but I’m an artist, and I get very emotional when I am in the presence of brilliance. The paint had been applied very thickly in lush layers of comingling reds, crimsons, and burgundies, accented with razor thin lemony yellow crests on the frozen waves of sanguine oils. It looked to be slathered on like icing on a cake. And this is what is even more impressive: It was a still life. “Just” some flowers. How many fucking times can someone do flowers??? But this artist managed to breathe life and movement into her flowers – I looked around and she had done LOTS of landscapes and flowers, and ALL of them looked to be moving, breathing, and glowing in the light of whatever seasonal sun was captured.

JalinePol W creates masterworks. The textures and colors are vibrant, and it’s impressive that she can create so much depth with such gross swipes of a trowel… But this is where it gets even better: She has perfected a technique of blending colors on her knife so that they bleed into each other without completely mixing. This creates a gradient effect that lets one color exhale into the next. I can only guess that she uses different thicknesses of paints to allow some colors to rest on top of others in order to create the various transparent dissolves that make her flowers look (despite the heavy coats of thick paint) to seem light, airy, and translucent.

She is a genius! I would cover the walls of my home in her work. You really MUST find her pieces. They are mesmerizing in the way they convey tranquility and desparate “aliveness” at the same moment. You could bite into her succulent canvases, and they would erupt or spurt with creative juices. Just marvelous. Stunning. My iPhone cannot possibly do them justice.