20 Friday Mar 2020
Tags
art, author, books, boston terrier, Cricket the French Bulldog, dogs, entertainment, french bulldog, gay, gay writers, health, humor, LGBT, Life, lifestyle, memoir, News, relationships, Squeak the Boston Terrier, writer
Feeling sad, lonely, bored, horny? Social distancing got you feeling down? For the funny, the drama, the hot sex scenes, and a glimpse into my altruistic charitable work with old white men throughout the USA, go buy my book on Amazon asap!
18 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Movies, My Heart, the Flaming Homosexual
Tags
art, author, books, cinema, dogs, gay, LGBT, memoir, movies, music, relationships, reviews, theater, writer
1990: Pretty Woman I always dreamed of Richard Gere, (or some other generic salt-and-pepper daddy), to sweep me off my feet and carry me away.
1991: My Own Private Idaho
1992: Fried Green Tomatoes
1993: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
1994: Fresh Superbly well-written and acted, a chess prodigy making real-life moves to save his and his sister’s lives
1995: Pulp Fiction
1996: Fargo
1997: The Ice Storm “The Ice Storm is about two dysfunctional New Canaan, Connecticut, upper-class families who are trying to deal with tumultuous social changes of the early 1970’s, and their escapism through alcohol, adultery, and sexual experimentation.” *starring one of my earliest, longest lasting crushes: Henry Czerny
1998: As Good as it Gets
1999: Shakespeare in Love
1996: Basquiat My most honorable mention and my favorite modern artist, with David Bowie as Andy Warhol
Other favorites: The Object of My Affection, The Joy Luck Club, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Grace of My Heart, (I was in love with Bruce Davison, right along with Illeana Douglas), Corrina, Corrina, White Men Can’t Jump, Crooklyn, Sabrina, Reality Bites, Poetic Justice, Muriel’s Wedding
09 Sunday Dec 2018
Tags
2018, art, autobiography, best gay blog, dance, dance music, DJ, drake, gay, gay author, gay blog, hip hop, LGBT, Life, lifestyle, memoir, movies, music, queer, rap, the gay road less traveled
For me, music in 2018 was about two things…
1. Collaborations : Elton John & Young Thug, A$AP Rocky & Moby, Nicki Minaj & Takashi 6ix9ine, Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper, Drake & EVERYBODY
2. That hook, yo: “Brand new whip got no keys
Tailor my clothes, no starch please
Soon as I nut, you can gon’ leave
Got M’s in the bank, like “Yes, indeed”
“Pussy got that wet, wet, got that drip, drip
Got that Super Soaker, hit that, she a Fefe
Her name Keke, she eat my dick like it’s free, free
I don’t even know like “Why I did that?”
“I still see your shadows in my room
Can’t take back the love that I gave you
It’s to the point where I love and I hate you
And I cannot change you so I must replace you”
2. YES INDEED – DRAKE feat LIL BABY Drake is Drake on this track, a solid spit, but Lil Baby stole the show. His hook and delivery are so on point/different/lyrical, a Star is Born!
3. FREEBIRD II – PARQUET COURTS From hip-hop to what I will describe as classic 70’s Southern Rock in 2018, think Creedence Clearwater Revival or the Doobie Brothers
4. BOO’D UP – ELLA MAI The anthem for sisters everywhere this year, Ella singing excitedly about her significant other who she is head over heels in love with, that bitch #lonely #allmenaredogs
5. LUCID DREAMS – JUICE WRLD Lucid Dreams didn’t initially impress me, instead, it grew on me over time, a slow burn, turned out to be a uniquely different quality song.
6. AFRICA – WEEZER Everything old is new again…wish I was. Toto’s version is one of my favorite all-time songs, a fond memory from childhood, and while Weezer’s cover isn’t the original, it’s still good #1982
7. MY QUEEN IS HARRIET TUBMAN – SONS OF KEMET Takes me back to the beloved Big Easy, shades of Kermit Ruffins or “Skokiaan” by Louis Armstrong.
8. MAKE ME FEEL -JANELLE MONAE A tribute to Prince, and it has that cool vibe, very Erotic City-ish
9. CHUN-LI -NICKI MINAJ Although she hasn’t gone down without a fight, Nicki’s reign as the Queen of Hip-Hop is over. Chun-Li is catchy, crisp, and lyrical, a solid goodbye track for the end of an era.
10. SHALLOW – LADY GAGA & BRADLEY COOPER “I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in
I’ll never meet the ground
Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us
We’re far from the shallow now”
11. POWERGLIDE – RAE SRUMMOND Super catchy follow-up to Black Beatles, on my 2017 Favorites list
12. BAD AT LOVE – HALSEY “Got a boy back home in Michigan
And it tastes like Jack when I’m kissing him
So I told him that I never really liked his friends
Now he’s gone and he’s calling me a bitch again
There’s a guy that lives in a garden state
And he told me that we make it ’til we graduate
So I told him the music would be worth the wait
But he wants me in the kitchen with a dinner plate”
13. MO BAMBA – SHECK WES Shout out to Mo Bamba in Orlando, yo!
14. HIGH – YOUNG THUG feat ELTON JOHN When I think hip-hop, I think Elton John, ya heard?
15, 1950 – KING PRINCESS She sounds a lot like Lorde, and she’s a lesbian, which is cool #gaypride
16. MINE – BAZZI A cute/catchy little song by a tween heart-throb, if that’s your type…not mine #daddyissues
17. A$AP FOREVER – A$AP ROCKY feat Moby “Porcelain” is one of my all-time favorite songs, and I love how it’s sampled here, but truthfully, this song is good but would have been fire if A$AP’s verses were better
18. ANNA WINTOUR – AZEALIA BANKS 212 was such a delightfully fun dance track, and while I think Ms, Banks uses the same beat for Anna Wintour, not quite as magical, but still pretty good…with her crazy-ass, everybody hates you Azealia!
19. FLEA MARKET – TIERRA WHACK With Nicki Minaj on the way out, Cardi B overplayed and under-talented, and Remy Ma seemingly without quality tracks (she is a true rapper/can spit fire), maybe the super-talented Tierra Whack can seize the crown?
20. WOMP WOMP – VALEE feat JEREMIH “Womp, womp, she give me what I wanna
Ball so hard, need a warm up, I bagged her at the Walmart (yeah)
Big timer, stunna, I’m out here on the come up
I beat the pussy, drummer, I roll up, no more drama (yeah)”
21. MIKA DORA – AMEN DUNES Introducing Amen Dunes, a talented singer comparable to John Mayer (but not a douchebag like John)
22. SICKO MODE – TRAVIS SCOTT feat DRAKE “Had me out like a light”
23. NON-STOP -DRAKE
My favorite Dance tracks of 2018
PICK-UP – DJ KOZE feat GLADYS KNIGHT
HAPPIER – MARSHMELLO feat BASTILLE
IS IT COLD IN THE WATER? – SOPHIE
07 Wednesday Mar 2018
Tags
author, books, boston, ebook, fort lauderdale, gay, gay author, LGBT, memoir, Miami, queer, south beach, the gay road less traveled, writer
From my memoir “The Gay Road Less Traveled” Please go buy a copy on Amazon!
“I texted him to tell him I didn’t really eat dog food, but that’s a crazy sentence to send to somebody. The worst part is that he was popular and had lots of friends in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, now they all think I eat dog food.”
01 Thursday Feb 2018
Tags
book, books, boston terrier, ebook, french bulldog, gay, gay author, gay writer, humor, john jernigan, kindle, LGBT, memoir, new orleans, queer, relationships, the gay road less traveled
an excerpt from my memoir “The Gay Road Less Traveled”
New Orleans 1997
Dear Diary, we lost Princess Diana this year. At Halloween, lots of the drag queens in New Orleans honored her by dressing up as the beloved princess, that’s what I initially thought, but as I looked closer at their outfits, all of them had blood and tire tracks on their dresses, and one queen had a steering wheel around her neck!
29 Tuesday Nov 2016
05 Wednesday Oct 2016
Tags
author, book reviews, books, child abuse, fiction, gay, LGBT, literature, memoir, mental health, reading, writer
“We  wanted more.  We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped are spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats, we wanted rock.  We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six matching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.
We wanted more flash, more blood, more warmth.
Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept for two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all might wake her, those crystal, still mornings, when we wanted to protect her,  this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker,  always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid it self down in crisp strips on our carpet,  those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when  our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment –  we wanted less : less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this.”
26 Friday Aug 2016
Tags
author, book reviews, books, dance, dance music, DJ, gay, house music, memoir, music, musician, New York, writer
I read Porcelain in one 4-hour bathtub inhalation yesterday, and mostly loved it. Moby’sstruggles to find work as a DJ and  his references to those first classic house tracks that I remember from my late teens pretty much smothered his petty irritants (his veganism, alcoholism and Christianity). Any DJ or dance music fan will love most of this memoir.
“Frankie Knuckles had invented house music, lived on the Lower East Side, and was deified. Junior Vasquez owned the floor at Sound Factory, where he played 12-hour sets and was a revered legend living in Chelsea. Danny Tenaglia was in the house music pantheon: he too played long remarkable sets and lived downtown. Larry Levan was a dance music god and he had just started a residency at Choice in the East Village. David Morales was seen as the biggest of the New York house music DJs: he owned the floor at Red Zone, and in an unconventional move, he lived in Midtown. Tony Humphries existed in a strange mythical realm of his own. His sets were long and legendary, his remixes were flawless, he lived in the unknown recesses of Newark, New Jersey.and was in residence at Zanzibar,”
21 Saturday Dec 2013
Tags
Amazon, art, artists, Augusten Burroughs, author, Basquiat, book reviews, books, dating, David Sedaris, gay, john jernigan, LGBTQ, love, Mateo L'artiste, memoir, modern art, relationships, sex
Illustrations from my soon-to-be-published book, The Gay Road Less Traveled, which will be available on Amazon. The artist is both a friend and one of the most talented individuals in the world, Mateo L’artiste.
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under My Heart, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
15 Friday Nov 2013
Tags
@squeakjernigan, art, book reviews, books, culture, David Sedaris, funny, gay, humor, Ira Glass, john jernigan, kindle, LGBT, literature, memoir, NPR, point of view, queer, relationships, Tampa Bay
David Sedaris is my favorite, my love, the biggest influence on me as an aspiring writer, plus he’s cute and smart and nerdy. Mrs. John Jernigan-Sedaris
quotes from my future ex-husband’s book:
“Hugh consoled me, saying, “Don’t let it get to you. There are plenty of things you’re good at.”
When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he’ll need some time to think.
“The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate. The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the teachers latest question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting “Excuse me, What is an Easter?”
it would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” She said. ” I have no idea what you people are talking about.”
The teacher called upon the rest of us to explain.
The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and… oh shit.” She faltered and her fellow country man came to her aid.
“He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two… morsels of… lumber.”
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
“He weared of himself the long hair and after he die. the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”
“He Nice the Jesus.”
“He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”
“Potential boyfriends could not smoke Merit cigarettes, own or wear a pair of cowboy boots, or eat anything labeled either lite or heart smart. Speech was important, and disqualifying phrases included “I can’t find my nipple ring” and “This one here was my first tattoo.” All street names had to be said in full, meaning no “Fifty-ninth and Lex,” and definitely no “Mad Ave.” They couldn’t drink more than I did, couldn’t write poetry in notebooks and read it out loud to an audience of strangers, and couldn’t use the words flick, freebie, cyberspace, progressive, or zeitgeist. . . . Age, race, weight were unimportant. In terms of mutual interests, I figured we could spend the rest of our lives discussing how much we hated the aforementioned characteristics.”
“In New York I’d go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I’ve upped it to six or seven, mainly because I’m too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par with reading a book or devoting time to serious thought. It’s not that the movies have gotten any more strenuous, it’s just that a lot of people are as lazy as I am, and together we’ve agreed to lower the bar.”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
03 Sunday Nov 2013
Tags
@squeakjernigan, alcoholism, Augusten Burroughs, book reviews, books, culture, David Sedaris, french bulldog, gay, john jernigan, LGBTQ, memoir, Running with Scissors
Dry is the story of Augusten’s battle with alcoholism. Having battled my own demons (and continuing to battle), this memoir really resonated with me. Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris are my two biggest writing influences, gay men who see life in a different and funny and sometimes cynical way. I chose my baby Cricket because Augusten had French bulldogs. I love your work, Augusten Burroughs!
“I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.”
“I think part of the reason I’m attracted to Foster is because he’s such a mess. I mean, the people I have loved in my life have never been easy to love. I’m not used to normal. I’m used to disaster. I don’t know, as messed up as he is, he’s also sort of exciting, sort of a challenge. I’m accustomed to working for love.”
“What I really want is to sit next to someone on an L.L. bean blanket on the beach in the fall and drink coffee from the same mug. I don’t want some rusty ’73 Ford Pinto with a factory-defective gas tank that causes it to explode when its rear-ended in the parking lot of the supermarket. So why do I keep looking for Pintos?”
“Sober. So that’s what I’m here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven’t felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plants are wilted, weary from being so green. It’s no longer really summer but the air is still too warm and heavy to be fall. It’s the season between the seasons. It’s the feeling of something dying.”
“You’re at the crack addict’s apartment? Having a little sandwich?” he says. From the tone of his voice, you’d think I just told him I was hanging out at a playground wearing a NAMBLA t-shirt.”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
26 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in Books Check 'Em Out
Tags
book reviews, books, culture, David Sedaris, gay, Ira Glass, john jernigan, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, LGBT, memoir, NPR, point of view, relationships, sex, This American Life
I aspire to be David Sedaris when I grow up, he is my would-be mentor(and boyfriend) and hang-out buddy. His self-deprecating humor and nerdy geekness are irresistibly attractive 🙂
“From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler’s experiences.”
“As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts. By this I meant that I would stop living in a fantasy world; that, while standing in line for a hamburger or my shot at the ATM, I would not daydream about befriending a gorilla or inventing a pill that would make hair waterproof. In this regard, too, my diaries have proven me wrong. All I do is think up impossible situations: here I am milking a panda, then performing surgery, then clearing the state of Arizona with a tidal wave.”
12 Tuesday Feb 2013
Tags
authors, autobiography, book reviews, books, gay, Gypsy Boy, john jernigan, LGBT, memoir, Mikey Walsh, Roma, Romany, travellers
“The gypsy race is an old-fashioned and, sadly, a very bitter one. They live, breathe, sleep, grieve, love and care for only their own people. They don’t like or trust the ways of others and don’t have contact or friendships with other races, afraid that one day they will be forced to turn their backs on their once proud way of life and become like any other.”
Warren Rochelle review:
Gypsies were a stereotype: hoop ear rings, olive skin, colorful clothes, bandannas, and tambourines and they sang a song about the Gypsies being wild and free every time any outsider showed up.
So much for the mythology of popular culture and stereotypes. Mikey Walsh was born into a Romany Gypsy family in England and grew up in an insular, closeted world that had little connection to the greater non-Gypsy or Gorgia community. Rather the caravan was Mikey’s world–and this world, as he tells it in this frank and sometimes shocking memoir, has a “vibrant and loyal culture,” and yet it is a culture that hides abuse, taught him how to commit fraud, and it is a culture that apparently has no place at all for a gay boy.
Mikey Walsh obviously survived and escaped and today has a partner to whom he is married. His uncle, who sexually abused him for years as a child, was finally caught. Mikey’s father bullied his family for years–which only ended when a younger brother finally stood up to the man. Mikey had been his father’s punching bag. Mikey learned how to read, got the education he missed growing up and he is now bearing witness, even though as he says, “You can take the boy away from the Gypsies, but you can’t take the Gypsy out of the boy.”
Posted by johnjernigan | Filed under Books Check 'Em Out
