Dopp Juice Archive

Walking down to the beach last night after dinner, I noticed there was a young athletic-looking guy lying on his back on a platform, shirtless and in basketball shorts, staring at the sky.  It looked like a nice place to rest and look up. I walked past him.

Before I got to the water, I heard a loud yell.  Like an “AAH!”  Then a pause.  Then another one.  Then I realized it was coming from him.  No one else was close enough to notice it or respond.

For a minute, I rolled my eyes and shot an accusatory glance at the ocean. That’s nice, but I have to work tonight. Get someone else, okay?

Two more yells.

Okay, fine.

I walked up to him.  “Hey! Are you okay?”

He shook his head like he was trying to talk, and nothing came out.  I saw that he was shivering, and took a few steps closer.

“Hey.  Do you need me to call an ambulance?

He found my face and said, “No. No. No. Please.”

“Okay. No problem. What do you need?  Are you cold?  Do you need a blanket?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.  Did you take drugs?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of drugs?  Did you take LSD?”

“No.”

My brain ran out of other drug ideas.  “What did you take?”

No response.  I looked at his scattered stuff.  There was a backpack, a textbook, a book called Kama Sutra for Gay Men, a towel, and a jacket wrapped around his leg.  He couldn’t move.  I climbed onto the platform and wrapped the towel across his chest.  I pulled the jacket off his leg, lifted him up by the shoulders, and placed it underneath his back.

I ended up spending four hours with him.  The first two were just sitting there, in the cold, trying to get him to talk.  He passed out a few times and I shook him back awake.  His name was Joey. He was 31.  His parents were in Arizona.  He hadn’t seen them in a long time and they didn’t accept him. He was gay.  He was a massage therapist.  He wanted to join the military.  He loved to cook.  He was addicted to meth, and was in a harm reduction program. He was homeless.  He wouldn’t say whether this was a suicide attempt or not. Read the rest of this entry »

Sooo….. this week, we accidentally launched a startup.

We were quietly going about our business, scheming and building and testing our hearts out, keeping things nicely under wraps… when all of a sudden we ended up on Valleywag. And then CNet News. Um, hai.

So… you want to know what we’re building. That’s a great question. Here’s a hint: it’s a lot less scary and outlandish than the press is making it out to be.  But hey — why take the fun out of things?  Go ahead and keep pretending that we’re out to ruin lives. We think it’s funny.

Oh, and by “we,” I mean there are four of us.

We’ll let you in on the action soon.  Until then, we recommend using your twitter, tumblr, and flickr vision.

Happy boffing!

I heard a rumor that September starts tomorrow.  I’m certain this rumor is false and I fully intend to hunt down and interrogate whatever mischeivous internet prankster is trying to end summer early on us, so don’t worry.  But before I go do that, I just wanted to jot down a quick bulleted list of neat stuff that happened this summer which I would have blogged about if I hadn’t been so busy… you know… doing life.

• I managed the redesign of BlogHer.com (via Cerado and with the help of BlogHer’s awesome staff).  Here’s the before and after.
• I was quoted in the New York Times in an article about blogging.
• I launched QueerOpenMic.com (and I LOVE my new gig there as co-host).
• I secretly started working on an incredibly interesting new startup that I’m not going to tell you about for awhile.
• I joined the BlogHer Reach Out Tour, which will host conferences in six east coast cities in October, and I’ll be facilitating their Geek Lab.
• Genderfork (my androgyny photo blog project) received an excellent review in Coilhouse yesterday.
• I went to Burning Man.
• I’m going to be performing (a hillarious story that I’m not going to share on the Internet) in the Sept 13 show of Working for the Weakened. You should come!

And you already know about my grandmother.  So I guess I had a pretty full summer.  And yeah.  Okay.  I think maybe it’s alright for it to end now.

Hello, Autumn.  Missed you.