F*ck Bubble

This episode, I'll be reading two short chapters, La Condition Masculine and 2 Wicky, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend, Missy, in San Francisco, California.


Chapter Ten, La Condition Masculine,  is about my getting to know Gunner after our meeting on Grindr in Utah. We spend hours over the phone talking about our lives and our respective pasts; Gunner about his life as a closeted family man and how meeting Mack changed everything, including his turbulent coming out to his wife and kids. I find myself drawn to Gunner: his mind, his laughter, his brawn. Still, I pick-up on subtle homophobia, what seems like a defense mechanism, a way to simplify/brush aside certain complex human emotions and realities. When Gunner invites me on a thousand mile road trip, what is to be the beginning of his new life in the Pacific Northwest, I say yes. 


Chapter Eleven, 2 Wicky, veers back to Mack, who continues to insist he is okay with my getting to know (and traveling with) Gunner. But just before my planned road trip, Mack begins to insert himself into my still nascent friendship with Gunner, putting me on edge about going. This meddling comes in the form of a barrage of negative comments, X-rated photos of Mack sent to me, and his insisting that we once again talk about and dissect the San Remo.  A comment made by Gunner makes me question what I'm doing even more – but, for reasons having nothing to do with Gunner or Mack, I decide to go on the trip anyway.


I met Missy in NYC back in the early aughts. She's a Native New Yorker who once had a shoe line sold from Barney's to Colette. She moved to SF in 2016, just before everything went down with Mack. A confidant, a truth teller,  a partner-in-crime, she was privy to it all. Aside from the reading/discussion, we talk about the clubs of our youths in NYC (Limelight, the N.A.S.A. parties etc). We also talk about her parents finding one another on the journey from Korea to the U.S. by way of Argentina in the sixties.


When I think of Missy I think of her mother's beautiful voice, of subterranean dance floors at 3 am, of afternoon therapy sessions in a California tidefall. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 

This episode, I'll be reading the ninth chapter, Linen, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend and former neighbor, Dayna, in Pasadena, California.


Linen is about the past and the future merging beneath a bold Western sky. My having met Gunner on Grindr in the wilds of Utah, Mack doesn't skip a beat, making his presence known. But my thoughts are elsewhere: I can't help but to look back to my high school years out west, to a fellow student with whom I was so in love. 


I met Dayna, an outspoken native Angeleno who grew up during the sixties and seventies,  in 2016 when we became neighbors in Pasadena. By then she had already been sober for decades. 


In addition to the reading, I ruminate on Taylor Swift's beach house as being a metaphor for modern American life (and myth) both past and present, and Dayna shares the story of her own recent voyage into the deep and blurry past. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 

Part II of my conversation with my friend, Andres, in Edinburgh, Scotland, starts off with the reading of Chapter 8, Mesa, from my non-fiction manuscript, Fuck Bubble.


By 2016, Mack and I were both living in California: he in SF; me in LA. For a while things seemed to be going well but by the end of the year Mack once again began to prioritize his sex life over his friendships, often exhibiting passive aggressive behavior that confidants of mine saw more clearly than I could. Meanwhile, Mack was trying to end a physical relationship with a married business man whom he had encouraged to come out to his wife and family. Then, everything changed between Mack and me after a harrowing day in the desert of Utah with my mom and brother, and a singular message sent to me on Grindr.  

In addition to discussing the reading, Andres and I talk about his baptism by fire coming out in Amsterdam and his homophobic stepmother, straight out of a Brazilian soap opera. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode comes in two parts, both with my friend, Andres, in Edinburgh, Scotland.


In this first half of our conversation, Andres, who grew up between Spain and Brazil, and I talk about our meeting in Sydney, Australia, where we had both gone to live for awhile in 2001/2002. Still in our twenties, we met at a gay bar on Oxford Street and have since been all over the world together on many wild, sometimes life-threatening adventures ... from the Atacama Desert in Chile to Sardinia, Italy. 


Our discussion leads up to Part II of the episode and the reading of Chapter 8, Mesa: when my relationship with Mack takes an unexpected turn after a stormy, harrowing day in the Utah desert. Part II will be out soon. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the seventh chapter, Tamalpais High, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend Eric in Los Feliz, California.


Tamalpais High is all about my relationship with the people and landscape of California: past, present and future. Having moved back to LA in 2016, I was regularly seeing Mack, who seemed to be thriving in SF. It was during a week-long stay with him that July though when I sensed the old Mack was still very much present, and that he had in fact entered into a potentially dangerous new phase centered around his insatiable appetite for men. During a beloved coastal hike, Mack brought up the San Remo, five years in the past. There were prescient rumblings about a guy named Gunner whom Mack had met online, a guy he wanted me to meet.  


In addition to discussing the reading, Eric, who I met when we were both in our early twenties, talk about our being young, free and out in nineties SF. We reminisce about its legendary nightlife (Universe, Baby Judy's, Liquid etc), and about the (potential) end of history. We also discuss the legend and enduring myth of Emma. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the sixth chapter, To the West Coast, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend Ham & Eggs who was here with me on the Connecticut shoreline. 


To the West Coast documents a period of time, roughly 2011 to 2015, when I saw little if any of Mack and would only occasionally interact with him over the phone. Slowly though we began building up what felt like, perhaps for the first time, a legitimate friendship. Mack had moved to San Francisco and seemed like a healthy new version of himself. I moved my mom and mentally ill brother out of increasingly dystopian Florida with me to LA. The San Remo incident behind us, Mack was proving again to be a steady and supportive friend during a heady but creatively productive time in my life. 


In addition to the reading, Ham & Egg, who I met dance-floor tangential when I was twenty-one at Avalon nightclub in Boston, discuss writing poorly reviewed gay porn, Airbnb near-death experiences and disgruntled Brooklyn flatmates. A super-relaxed conversation on what was a bitter cold New England day.


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the fifth chapter, Shark, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend Marc in St. Francisville, Louisiana.


Shark details a time in my life when everything fell apart: my parents were in a car accident, my estranged brother re-entered my life after a fifteen year absence and our father died. Meanwhile, Mack was going through his own set of traumas halfway around the world. We were there for each in ways unmatched since we'd first met in 1999. That deep sense of camaraderie and support came to a sudden halt though one sultry August night in 2011 in a flat at the storied San Remo on Central Park West in NYC. 


In addition to discussing the reading, Marc and I talk about poppers, decorating Fifth Avenue townhouses and tornado preparedness, or lack thereof. 


You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings. 


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the fourth chapter, Golden Path, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friends Paulina and Mr. M. in Manhattan.

Golden Path is about romantic reckonings; about freeing oneself from obsession and finding one’s footing. It was about a time (the late-aughts) when I had to reconsider, with the help of Nature and kismet forces, my relationships with both Mack and Evan in order to move on. 

Paulina is one of the few friends of mine who actually ever met Mack. She talks about her impressions of him as we reminisce about the adventures we’ve had together out in the world. Mr. M. offers insight regarding the perils of artists dating artists. 

You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings.


If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299. 


Thanks very much. And thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the third chapter, Eye in the Sky, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend Marianna in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I met Marianna in 2015 at a gathering in Sagaponack, NY. 

Eye In the Sky is about that moment in time (the mid-aughts) when technology was changing the way New Yorkers saw one another, the way they dated and the way they hooked-up. As Mack entered into an existential crisis connected to his life in the city, I began seeing an artist from the East End of Long Island named Evan, the first guy I ever met online. As things grew more serious with Evan, Mack took note and for the first time seemed to want more from me than I had to offer. 


In addition to the reading and discussion, Marianna and I talk about 90s nightlife, especially in Miami where she grew up and would sneak out of her parents' home to go clubbing. We also talk about the state of music today and how dating has changed so drastically and often ridiculously since the advent of the iPhone and apps. 

You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings.

If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299.

Thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.

This episode, I'll be reading the second chapter, Sick Times, from my non-fiction manuscript, F*ck Bubble, to my friend Zech in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I met Zech back in 2016 while visiting a close family friend's lake cottage in Upstate, New York. 

Sick Times is about Mack coming back into my life in 2004, nearly five years after our last terse communication. It was when I began to put Mack on a pedestal while also engaging with him on my own terms, seeing him as both role model, confidant and artistic equal. 

In addition to the reading and discussion, Zech and I talk about his getting fired for being gay, about coming out in the era of apps, and how power dynamics play out in certain gay male relationships. 

You can find out more about F*ck Bubble and my other creative projects on my website,  http://brianpearson.net/writings.

If you'd like to support the podcast and the writing, please check out my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=80977299.

Thanks for listening to F*ck Bubble.