I’ll be at Antelope Valley Pride on June 19.  Come by, say hi.

2010 A.V. PRIDE Details:

Date: June 19, 2010

Time: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Location: Poncitlan Square, 38315 9th Street East Palmdale , CA 93550

http://www.avglbtcenter.com/av_pride_2010

Like that’s anything new.

January 17, join James at Kink On Tap the smart sexuality netcast for the kinkily inclined.

Tired of the pulp eroticization of sexuality? Annoyed by the self-aggrandizement of sex bloggers? Want a more thoughtful, heartier, smarter approach to sexuality, society, culture, feminism, and queer activism? These are the droids you’re looking for.  Kink On Tap is more than just a netcast about sexuality; it’s also a community of people for whom intelligent conversations about sexuality and how sexuality relates to other aspects of their lives is a motivating force for Doing Good.

The show will air live on Sunday, January 17, 2010, 8pm Eastern-5pm Central http://live.kinkontap.com/ you can log in, listen and chat in real time during the show.

I know I haven’t been a particularly good boi this year, but I haven’t been a complete asshole either.  So, on the theory that only those who ask get, I have a small Christmas list.

I was wondering if you could cram a couple of more hours into the day.  Between the Evil-Day-Job, the Spawn, eating, sleeping, Dommeing…I really need a few more hours to fit writing in.  Yeah, I’d be trimmer if I cut out the eating part, but then I’d pass out while roaring down the 101, flip the bike and it just wouldn’t be pretty. 

Do you think the elves could develop plot bunny birth control?  I’d like to finish one project before a dozen ideas for other’s are born.  It’s not so much that I mind the overabundance of story lines, it’s just that they tend to mature and hop off somewhere else to find their destiny as card-sharks or pole-dancers before I can catch them. 

Intravenous Caffeine.  You of all people have to understand the glory of the concept. If you can’t add any time to the day at least I could be hyper and amped at later, or earlier, hours.   

Maybe you could manage for all the ultra conservatives to wake up on Christmas morning with the sudden realization that if they put all the energy they use fighting against things like Marriage For All, Inclusive Hate Crime Bills, repeal of exclusion of GLBT in the military and expansive Reproductive Health and Sex Education, into say solving world hunger….shit, can you imagine what they could accomplish?   That’s probably pushing it huh?

Alright, well, then maybe Santa, you might manage to get a few people to just make another person’s day a little brighter with a smile, or by opening a door, or just telling the poor wage-slave behind the Micky-Ds counter, “thanks.”  If we could start there, I’d be happy.

That’s about it.  Don’t bust the elves too hard and maybe get the reindeer a new whip, ‘cause we all know they like that crack across their rumps.  Take care,

Love

James

Hunting a notorious hit man, FBI Agent Chase Nozick and LAPD Det. Enrique Rios Ocha delve into the inner worlds of Santeria, Voodoo and Palo Mayumbe. A missing informant, her murdered brother and a ghost from Chase’s past send them on a hunt through mystics and psychic surgeons to find their witness before it’s too late. Can he rely on leads from a child possessed by Orishas? Do cards hold stronger clues than blood? Chase must conquer his own personal demons to bring the killer of his partner to justice and find the strength to take a chance on Enrique.

********************************

Chapter One

Desert heat sucked the sweat from Special Agent Chase Nozick’s pores. “Give it up, Garcia!” he yelled. Somehow, he’d managed to shrug into the soft body armor as he slid out the car. Sweat pooled under the vest, plastering his suit jacket, dress shirt and tie to his skin. Damn, it was hot. Chase snorted as he leaned over the hood of his Bureau-issued car. The last thing he really needed to care about was how hot it was.

He aimed his 9mm at the driver’s side window of a pinned Escalade and yelled again, “I mean now!”

Chase never felt calmer. The situation flew by in sharp focus. He smelled oil burning off his Buick’s engine. The pop and hiss of the SUV’s radiator puking over the trunk of the Buick stung his ears. In his peripheral vision, Chase watched Jason crab-walk around the back of the SUV. Sand shifted under the feet of Chase’s partner, Jason Olhms, each grating grain distinguishable from another. Overlaid across it was Garcia’s cursing as he fought with his seatbelt. The impact from Chase’s car must have jammed it when he reversed the Buick directly into Garcia’s fleeing vehicle. One of Garcia’s ever-present goons lay slumped against the dash, his mirrored sunglasses hanging off his face at a bizarre angle. The spider web fracture on the windshield and open doll eyes told Chase the guy wasn’t going anywhere in the near future. (continue reading…)

 Los Dias de Los Muertos:  Los Angelitos, Los Muertos, Los Santos.  The days of the dead run from the switching of the day from October 31—Halloween—to November 1 – All Saints Day through Midnight November 2.

Don’t fear dying, fear not having lived. ~anon 

Today, Nov.1, is All Saints, known in Mexico as La Dia de los Angelitos, the angels. It is the day to honor the dead children.  The dead come home to be feasted by their families, graves are cleaned, painted and dressed with marigolds, and the lives of those before us are remembered.

It is far from a mournful tradition.  Families picnic in the grave yards to be near those they love.  Skulls and skeletons are not gruesome objects of fear but reverent icons to remind us that this is just one world and another awaits.

The path back to the living world must not be made slippery by tears. ~anon

Originally the festival was Aztec in origin, took a month and was held in August.  That month and the celebrations were in honor of Mictecacihuatl – she who died at birth, the Lady of the Dead.  When the Spaniards came, the Catholic Church moved the celebrations to All Saints Day under their “if you can’t squash it, subvert it policy.”  They sanitized out the goddess and put in all their saints. 

Guess what, she’s back.  In the great Mexican tradition of the Cult of the Virgin Mary and the technique of subversion learned so well there is a new Lady of Death.  La Santisima Muerte: the Most Holy Lady of Death, incarnation of the Virgin Mary and heir to the throne of Mictecacihuatl. The worship of her has spread across the urban areas of Mexico and into the US to be assimilated by other Latin American communities as well.  She is considered the patron folk-saint of drug dealers, prostitutes and cops.

And she, La Huesuda (the Lady of Bones), and Los Dias De Los Muertos figure prominently in my recent release Personal Demons. 

Here’s an excerpt from Personal Demons:

Without much warning, Chase came face-to-face with the scene. Rodrigo, Chase recognized his mug from the pictures, lay on his stomach, head turned to the side, and one arm flopped across his back. The other flung out to the side and rested across the ring of marigold blossoms that circled his body. Flies crawled across glassy eyes, and crosses in white and red painted Renaldo’s face and down his arms. Each line ended in a dot, an arrow or a fork.

Well-rehearsed, the LAPD team of specialists did their dance around the body. At the periphery, a coroner’s crew waited with their bright blue body bag to take custody of the corpse.

A woman, her hair pulled tight back and wearing a better suit than her male counterparts, caught sight of them. In fact, she and Chase were the only two wearing actual suits, everyone else barely qualified as business casual. She said something to a trio of techs before picking her way toward Chase and Enrique. After introducing herself as Detective Wyatt, exchanging the brief necessities of rank and protocol, she filled them in. “We figure he was shot first over there,” Wyatt waved one manicured hand back the way Chase’d come. “About fifteen feet and crawled back this way. They shot him twice more as he crawled. The last bullet, the one to his head, likely killed him where he ended up.”

“Why do you figure a they?” Enrique spoke the question Chase’d been thinking.

Wyatt glared, like she thought Enrique yanked her instead of just asking the first obvious question. Her response was clipped with the efficiency of a woman used to being treated as slightly inferior to the men she outranked. “Rodrigo’s a big guy, a bad ass, ballsy guy. One man wouldn’t have been enough to intimidate him into coming down here. Drag him down, neither.”

This time Chase, keeping his tone as neutral as possible, asked the question. “What if he walked down on his own?” Or they had enough guys to make it impossible to fight.

“Hard to see someone who doesn’t want to be down here,” Enrique folded his arms over his chest, “being dragged down here.”

“Think he was meeting someone?” Chase asked the question of both detectives.

“I’d bet on that…” Wyatt’s mouth went tight. “Not a hundred percent thing, but damn good odds.”

Enrique paced a few steps, looking at the body from various angles. “I think someone he trusted lured him down, maybe.” Looking to Wyatt, his tone said he was asking her opinion, not overriding her. Careful not to disturb the ring of flowers, he squatted near Fuertes. “Or maybe someone he didn’t trust, but that he had to meet even if he didn’t want to.” Enrique turned his attention back to the corpse.

“So, Ochoa,” Wyatt studied Enrique as he studied Fuertes. The cool, calculated once up and once down echoed a woman used to sizing up co-workers as potential opponents. “What’s with the flowers? And the X’s all over him? You know about this shit right?”

“Some of it. The marigolds are a Mexican thing. Americans leave roses on graves, Mexicans leave marigolds. Why they’re with Fuertes, I don’t know.” Enrique’s gaze flicked up. “Those,” he traced the air indicating one of the marks on the dead man’s skin, “are the symbols of Eshu.”

Without thinking, Chase responded with a, “Bless you.”

That rated Chase a glare from Enrique and a snort from Wyatt. “I didn’t sneeze.” Enrique coughed. “Eshu, also Exu, Echu or a bunch of other variants, is a deity in a lot of Afro-Caribbean religions.”

“Eshu?”

“Eshu is the devil…sort of.” Standing, Enrique crossed his arms over his chest and thought for a moment. Slowly, like he felt a little embarrassed at knowing what he knew. “Okay, the quick and dirty version. Religions of the Caribbean come from slave religions that got all mixed up with Catholicism. The master said pray to his god, and he was likely Spanish or Portuguese. So, his god had saints who all meant something and you prayed to them. It wasn’t so hard to say this saint of water is this god of water, at least if you didn’t want to get beaten for praying to your old traditional gods. Stick their statues in with your symbols and everyone thinks it’s cute that the dumb slaves like the statues.”

“And Eshu is the devil?” Wyatt didn’t sound like she was buying.

Without seeming to take offense, Enrique shrugged. “Eshu is like Lucifer because he’s always in conflict with Ologun the creator. But in many Caribbean religions Eshu is also the only one who speaks directly to Ologun. If you want something done, you ask Eshu…” he smirked. “Just be careful of what he asks for in return.”

You can buy it here!

It’s the trick or treat season so for October’s In The Flesh at Hustler Hollywood we’re giving you some scary tales and some gothic stories to get you in the mood for all those parties where you can wear the stuff you’d like to wear every day because to quote Ministry – Everyday Is Halloween (which I’m sure I’ll be playing as I spin some mood-setting music while you munch on some tasty sweet samples from the Hustler cafe) – oh and just in case you really need a sexy little outfit or toy Hustler Hollywood has the goods.

As does In The Flesh – we have Eden Bradley reading from The Seeking Kiss, James Buchanan reading from Personal Demons and Stan Kent reading from the Shoe Leather series which features Halloween as a key night in the saga along with shoes of all kinds.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 8pm I’m IN THE FLESH in the City of the Angels…and what better place to be in the month of dark tricks and treats!

Come stop by for some Steamy, Creepy reading in honor of Halloween.  Anyone who knows me, know this is my favorite time of year. And, because it’s MC Stan Kent’s Birthday week there will be Hustler giveaway bags for the people wearing the coolest fuck-me shoes. I’ll have Halloween Treat Bags for the first 20 people that show.  Plus, I may drag along a naughty Birthday Cake for the Birthday Boy!  There’s nosh, there’s music and there’s smut…what could be better?

In The Flesh: L.A. is a monthly reading series held the second Wednesday of every month at Hustler Hollywood.   Hustler Hollywood is located at 8920 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069.  Tel: (310) 860 9009. Free underground parking on-site!

Agent Nick O’Malley and Det. Brandon Carr are back. Nick heads to Riverside, California, center of the Inland Empire and Brandon’s home turf. But every minute Nick’s in Riverside threatens to out Brandon. When events embroil Nick in one of Brandon’s investigations — gang hits, prostitution, illegal gambling and human trafficking – can they survive both?

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Prologue

Dark and broiling, a typical August smothered Riverside, California. David Huynh stood outside the Bang! PC Café, smoking a cigarette. At sixteen, he was too young to have bought them legally. At sixteen, he was too young to be in the café past the ten p.m. city curfew. Neither of those things bothered David much.

All he cared about was the lack of available computers. David wanted to be online, playing soldier and killing other kids playing terrorists. Interactive play was so much better than going against a machine. Usually, he was in place and surfing the net before the major crowd showed up. Tonight he’d worked late at his uncle’s convenience store and it set him behind. He pulled another drag. Sooner or later someone would run out of money and then David could take his spot.

A high-buffed Nissan pulled into the lot. Metallic gold paint along the hood melded into candy orange by the time it reached the aftermarket spoiler. Every window was tinted well past legal limits. A dragon crawled across the top of the windshield, almost undulating in time to low-level base that throbbed from God knew how many speakers. As the car screeched to a standstill, engraved chrome and 24-carat gold rims spun like whirligigs, and multicolored lights chased themselves across the hood. Hydraulics hissed as the Nissan’s body juddered downwards. (continue reading…)