Local: Some of Them Stay: Interview with Miami Writer Jeremy Glazer

Oops! That aint Miami!

It was a breezy afternoon this past week when I sat down for coffee on Brickell with local writer Jeremy Glazer. Rush hour was upon us and suited executives were buzzing by on the sidewalk. But I was in no hurry; my eyes were rapt on Glazer, whose stories, recently published at WLRN's Under the Sun, prompted me to secure an interview. I just knew I had to meet the man who could write so beautifully about Miami experiences.

Glazer is one of those rare Miami natives who contradict every negative stereotype about Miami. He’s handsome, charming, intelligent, cares for the community and his heart seems to be in a really good place.

Born and raised here, Glazer set off for college in Massachusetts where he studied anthropology, lived for a spell in Guatemala and pursued grad school in Philadelphia where he earned his teaching certification. Had it not been for an unfortunate situation, this prodigal son may have never returned to the magic city. Sadly, Glazer’s father fell ill, forcing him to settle here.

Once back in Miami, Glazer worked as an English teacher in several high schools, including a rough one in Liberty City, but also elite schools in upper-crusty sections of Miami-Dade. He became involved in teaching as a result of his work in community development for Coconut Grove. Social service guided him into the role of a teacher. “I think education is so vital for our society,” he said. “The classroom is an important place to be. I fell in love with it. It’s as close as I’ve ever come to a calling. I’m my best self in the classroom. It's a real contrast to who I usually am.”

But the rigors of teaching also took their toll. “It’s a thankless profession,” he explained. “Teachers were not respected and I wore myself out. I admire anyone who can stay in the classroom.”

And Glazer wasn’t too happy with forced curriculum either. “There was too much test prep. It was all about FCAT.”

So Glazer’s career segued into local politics, where he’s been working as a legislative analyst for commissioner Katy Sorenson. After elections this month, Glazer will follow Sorenson to the University of Miami, where the Institute for Excellence in Public Service will help educate elected officials about the local community.

Well into the hour of our interview, I was eager, of course, to get the dirt on Glazer’s short stories about dating.

Mismatch.com, a tale of online dating gone bad, is based on a true story. Bad, really bad -- as in getting his crotch grabbed at a Design District club by a woman he had only known for a few hours. The experience was a killjoy and spoiled online dating for him. “I only go for online dating about one month a year,” he joked. “It’s like childbirth. You easily forget how painful it is until it happens again.”

And as he’s already tried online dating in 2010, his quota has run out this year, leaving this bachelor to brave the thorny terrain of singledom in Miami without relying on a service.

Glazer has been doing the single thing for a few years now. In another life, he enjoyed a long-term relationship with a woman he met in the northeast. When I teased him about not finding love in Miami, he laughed: “Yes, I had to import that one from New York.”

Another short story, They Always Leave, is fictional but strikes a raw nerve for its realism. In a nutshell: the main character meets an interesting woman on a bus; has a four-month relationship with her; and it ends as she dashes off to to Chicago. There wasn’t enough in Miami to hold her interest here, not even the main character’s heart. The breakup happens on a bus in South Beach:

My boss wants me in Chicago. They’re scaling down in Miami. It’s just not ripe yet. And to be honest, I jumped at the chance. . . . I need to be back in a city with a real Chinatown. A city where the major cultural event of the season is not a dog Halloween parade.

On the subject of fiction versus non-fiction, Glazer noted: “emotional truth is more powerful than fact.” And it’s true – whether or not any of this actually happened to Glazer is irrelevant. I think it’s safe to say that the story resonates on an emotional level with anyone, male or female, who has dated in Miami.

Dating is challenging in any city, but Miami is particularly hard. “There are a lot of different Miamis in Miami,” Glazer observed. “It’s hard to find fellow residents. Gathering places tend to be clubs instead of open, public spaces. But what if that’s not your thing? There’s no Central Park or subway, where you are bound to see hundreds of people each day. Miami is not a participatory city in that sense. It separates people.”

No better proof of this was the condo canyon of Brickell where we were sitting – all buildings with interior lives and no pedestrian friendly plaza in sight.

Drawing from his background, Glazer looks at dating from an anthropological perspective. The process can be educational. “Dating is a window into cities,” he said. “It’s interesting to see how people feel and react.”

His favorite Miami-Dade city is Miami Beach, where he’s been living since 2002. “South Beach feels like a real city,” he explained. “All these different neighborhoods are crunched together. There’s the old Miami there, the tourists, and being able to go to the ocean in the evening helps me wash the day off after work.”

Although Glazer hasn’t had that much luck with love in recent years, he certainly has had a love affair with words. Writing wasn’t always in Glazer’s career, though he did start out young. “When I was a little kid, I liked to write anything creative,” he recalled. “My mom taught me how to type because I had terrible handwriting. My first typed story was about baseball because I was really into that at the time.”

As a teen, Glazer attended Coral Gables High School. Amy Scott, a teacher and mentor, inspired him to write. Though his career path would initially focus on teaching and public service, that inspiration evolved into the writer he is today. Glazer has written a novel called Catching Holden, which follows the lives of a high school student and teacher over a period of a week as each tries to figure out who they are while reading J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye. Currently, Glazer has an agent and is looking for a publisher.

“It’s a split narrative,” he explained. “I told myself I would write every day, and this is what came out of it. When writing is going well, it’s magic. Those are the best moments.”

Let’s hope Glazer has more of those moments. Miami deserves a great, fresh voice to document the contradictions of a city that confounds and fascinates people from all over the world. As he puts it in the short story Home: “A Fellini film of a city.”

Here's Glazer reading Mismatch.com at Lip Service at Books and Books:



Note: Coincidentally, Glazer and I went to the same high school, knew the same English teachers and several people in common, but being a few years older than he, I never crossed paths with him, until now. Oh and Amy Scott was one of my best friends and colleagues in graduate school. Neither Glazer nor I were aware of this when I contacted him. Such a small world Miami is ... really.

Stop Calling Me a Freakin' Blogger

Do you remember my post about being an underpaid blogger, I Don't Give Blowjobs for Free? I'm sure you do, because that post seemed to touch a raw nerve and many of you left comments. Well, it's time to examine the issue once again.

In recent weeks, a certain major big-ass media corporation has been pitching local enthusiasts from a particular field for a "freelance editor" position in a new lifestyle section of its major big-ass media website. I won't mention the name, but suffice it to say that another local blogger, some award-winning dude who likes to take lots of photos, used to work for the same company. Emphasis on used to.

A friend of mine referred to me the position, for which I am grateful. The position seemed ideal regarding the topic I would cover, as I already have my feet quite soaked in the community as well as many connections with businesses and PR firms in that industry. A five-year track record of successful "blogging" for many outlets was a major plus.

The job would've also given me the opportunity to be an editor to other contributors and in short, be in charge of an entire section with a potential readership of hundreds of thousands, if not more. Attending and reporting at events, as well as taking pictures and video, would be required. In order to do the job right, factoring in drive time, I was looking at a minimum of 20 - 30 hours of work per week.

While this would have been a time suck on Sex and the Beach and my other freelance commitments, it sounded like a great opportunity to further my presence as a well-established online Miami "expert," something I've been cultivating for donkey's ages over at fabulous Miami Beach 411. And everybody knows I'm always out and about eating my way through the magic city anyway; if I were any more active, I'd be as awesome as Soul of Miami!

But here's the deal. What a fucking sham. The pay was so piss poor, it was downright insulting, not to mention laughable. And that's when I heard the words "it's really a blogger position," which made me cringe. Ugh.

I thought about it over the weekend and then decided to walk away from the application process, which required that I prove I could put together a blog ... imagine that!

I politely told big-ass major media corporation that I was better off putting great content on my own blog rather than giving it away for peanuts to a big-ass major media corporation. In other words, you can shove that job that comes down to less than a penny a word and less than a burger flipper at McDonald's by the hour. Oh and I forgot to mention: no benefits and no compensation for time off.

So, in short, they really wanted their cake and to eat it too. They wanted the experience, social media influence and depth of professional contacts of a 43 year-old professional writer, but only while paying measly college intern compensation, on which no adult could survive. Worse than that, at 20 posts were week, the position would become a freakin' boiler room word factory, leaving no energy and creative space for all the other writing projects I'd have to take on in order to make ends meet.

Listen, I don't give a shit about the economy or the recession. Big-ass major corporations, I'm not buying it that that's the reason you're willing to treat me like an indentured servant, because I do know that YOU are selling advertising in the millions and that my little handiwork in the feudal garden is going to rake in some big bucks for your deep overlord pocket.

"Bloggers" today are better off doing a side job and putting great content on their own sites until they can muster some quality advertising or some financially beneficial partnership. Again, why give blow jobs for free?

Seriously, people. On my press trip this weekend, a well-meaning but ignorant PR person actually had the nerve to ask me "so, your blog must have some credibility, then?" after I told him that "I wasn't a blogger, but a writer who happens to use the blog platform."

After this, I've decided I'm no longer a blogger, because if I say that, people think I am some floozy piece of shit whose writing experience of over 20 years isn't worth decent compensation. And this isn't just about me; it's about all the OTHER writers out there who could've been sucked into the "glamour" of working for a major media brand.

It's no coincidence that this big-ass major media corporation uses a peacock for its brand. Confucius say: "Walk under bird and bird will poop on you."

From now on it's this: "Hello, nice to meet you. I'm a writer who uses the blog platform, and you?" I know that sounds long-winded, but you bloggers out there, those of you in the same position as I, serious writers who just happen to use this means of broadcasting your words online, we need to educate people on the differences between a fluffy blog about furry kittens and an electronic publication produced by a professional writer.

Go out and educate! And don't whore yourself out, unless Richard Branson is hiring you!

I Don't Give Blow Jobs For Free

Young Girl Writing at Her Desk by Henriette Browne

Yesterday, I spoke to undergrad students at a local college. A wonderfully talented new friend of mine, who works full time in PR and teaches on the side, asked me to stop by her class so students could test pitches on me. I very much enjoyed their fresh enthusiasm -- questions from young adults waiting for careers to bloom. I also loved telling them how I got to this point in my career by way of this blog. But in some ways, I felt like a newbie myself, as I never in a million years dreamed that I would be professing anything again on the subject of writing and communications since I left academia years ago.

Last night's experience has inspired me to sit down and pour my heart out about something that has been bugging me for a long time. It is this: I would like every writer, every communicator who is worth their weight in gold, to boycott their jobs and stop wordsmithing for a day. I am not talking about those writers with full-time paychecks. No. You know who you are. The other writers, the mistresses of the midnight oil. The little girl sitting at the desk looking over her shoulder at an uncaged bird. What would the world be like if sluts like us who are paid to write stopped writing? What does silence sound like?

You see, I am extremely frustrated by the fact that I, as well as many writers like myself, are expected to pen beautiful, well-researched and compelling prose for less than a hooker makes giving blow jobs on Biscayne Boulevard. The gift of gab, the knack of storytelling, the rhetorical turn needed to make people get off their asses and do things -- all this is in fact a talent and a practice, people -- it's a craft that should be upheld and dignified by all.

Has the age of blogging made it harder for experienced storytellers to make a living? Ironically, I think it has. I think that any asshole who can put a noun together with a verb fancies him or herself a Hemingway without any of the brain bleeding it takes for years to write great stuff without even thinking twice about it. Great writing is second nature. Great writing is a flash in the synapse before you even put your grubby fingers on the keyboard. Great writing is something that you breathe, sleep and eat. Great writing is a story you want to tell all the time, because you are the soul making that story come alive. Twenty four seven, three sixty five. You are a writer through and through.

Blogging does not make you a good writer; writing does. I have said this a million times and I will never tire of saying it until my last breath: a blog is simply an empty vessel for content and if you don't put in the time to perfect that craft, you aint a writer.

I have recently resigned from a column that I was writing for a major local newspaper -- not because I hated my beat or had a bad working relationship with my editors -- but because I could simply not justify the amount of time and work involved in producing great content for the meager financial compensation. For months, the newspaper company got great content for next to nothing. Yeah, I know, I accepted it. And yeah the economy is what is, bla bla bla ... but at the end of the day, I have to eat, people. I also have to fall asleep with a little dignity, too.

And it does break my heart, because I really love the publication and respect the people I worked with, but seriously, these days, devoted wordsmiths are probably better off monetizing their own blogs or finding other ways of making a living than depending on the byline of a newspaper.

So what if newspapers are dying? Shit still needs to written, right? Who the fuck is writing it, then? Just because writing is online doesn't make it any less valuable of a commodity!

And I am also sick and tired of nickel-and-dime negotiations with potential writing clients. Go write that fucking copy yourself. I'd rather flip burgers and I'll make more. And you, those other writers who are whoring themselves out for nothing, you make the rest of us look bad because you are giving that blow job practically for free when you know it's worth more than your pimp's fake Rolex.

I'm not sure what the answer is, folks. But I do know this -- it's a good thing I'm no longer a writing instructor -- you know, the teacher who actually teaches students who want to make a living at writing. I'd tell students to go enroll in law school, get an MBA or if they have vaginas, go the way of the MRS degree and push out a couple of puppies if that's what makes your life meaningful. For me, it has been writing and save for my beloved and the family and friends in my life, it's all I got.

And for those would be die-hard students, the ones following in the cavalry, well, welcome to our hell.

From Here to There & Back Again

¡Hola! Everybody...
I see y360! has finally died. It died a slow, painful death. Some things need to fall by the wayside... I see some eulogies being passed around, so why not?

* * *

-=[ How I got Here from There ]=-

I have been writing for the 'net since waaaay before blogging was ever invented. Most of my earlier writing came in the form of “interactions” on newsgroups (if you have to ask... ). Actually, I’ve been on the ‘net since the early 90s when I used mostly to connect with social scientists, psychologists, and researchers.

Man! How I marveled at how some were able to cite studies and pull up stats defending one particular policy or theory over another! How I wanted so badly to become as conversant and at ease with method and analysis as these people.

Writing on the ‘net made me a lot smarter, quicker, and also a lot more confrontational than I am in real life. But man was it fun. LOL!

After several legendary flame wars involving everything from relational psychoanalysis, economics, and cultural studies to whether the Yankees were better than the Orioles, I decided to stop writing. School was almost over, my life had changed, and it was time for this flame warrior to hang up the old gloves. What shocked me was that the day after I announced my “retirement” I received literally 100s of emails from people telling me I was like their morning cup of coffee and that my writing would be missed. I was quite honestly flabbergasted.

Over the years, I have met, through my writing, people from all over the world. A journalist from Australia came to visit NYC twice, for example. An actress from Cuba stayed at my place when I was married. A dancer from the Netherlands, people from all over the US. I met a salsa fanatic from Germany (“Der Salsaholic”), and my friend met and married a woman from Spain. I met a Marxist professor from India teaching at Michigan and a photographer who eventually wrote a book on salsa. I met musicians, many of whom were my personal heroes, and artists of all kinds.

I was also threatened and stalked by Cuban-American reactionaries, and Christian fundamentalists, as well as white supremacists, and black separatists. LOL

Suffice it to say that my earlier ‘net interactions were quite rewarding. But I realized I had to stop writing for the ‘net and fighting all those wars. Ask anyone who knew me at the time and they will tell you I was formidable -- people didn’t really want to fuck with me too much. LOL!

I stopped, though, and I’m glad I did. Then one day many years later, I posted an article on death on, of all places, a singles site. Again, I was shocked at the number of personal messages I recieved. I may not be a good writer, but damn, sometimes I can reach a heart.

So I began writing again. All this was before blogging and as my interest in matters sexual developed, the more I wrote about it. I kept getting thrown off sites because my subject matter was controversial: sex and religion. By then I think I attracted a small group of fundies who seemed to want to shut me down. Eventually, I started my own website and for a while I had a pretty good following -- over 150 registered users, but then the guy who was doing the tech part was trying to make money off my popularity, so I shut it down. anyway, a friend told me about this site where I could blog -- actually do what I had been doing for while, but on a platform made for the kind of writing I was doing. He sent me a link to y360, and the rest, as they say, was history. I quickly had a following. Some people have been reading me for years and, as I said, sometimes -- sometimes -- I can touch a heart, or make someone think or get pissed off. LOL!

I was kicked off y360 about 6-8 times. I forget the number of times. Now, mind you: I never hassled women, nor did I stalk anyone, for that matter. My content was, however, controversial and I love to say shit like “fuck” and “goddamn” and shit like that. But mostly, I noticed that I would get deleted if I posted too much on sex and the religious persecution and repression of sex.

I met quite a few people on 360. I think 360 was OK... it wasn’t all that. You know how it is: someone dies and all of sudden, the muthafucka was a saint, right? Shit, people will probably say nice things about me when I die, which proves that it doesn’t mean squat. I met some wonderful people, yes. But gawd! I met some seriously deranged muthafuckas! LOL

Anyway, long before I was kicked off y360, I had created an account here and on Blogger before it was co-opted by Google. I just never really put the effort into nurturing these sites. With 360 being treated like an unwanted stepchild and its users acting like gluttons for punishment, I decided not to return after the last boot and stayed here. Someone suggested I turn my attention to my blogger site (thanks Rip!), and since then, I’ve given some half-hearted attempts at driving traffic there. I think eventually I’ll stay at blogger (or start my own site). Well, that’s how I got here.

Good riddance to the rabble on 360 and I hope those good souls I met there stay connected with me somehow.

Love,

Eddie

My Left Nut

¡Hola! Everybody... True story: I had to travel downtown late in the afternoon yesterday, taking me by City Hall. And lo and behold, there were the Tea-baggin’ Cons! All 500 (mostly white men) of them! LOL

I got this look on my face and my friend, noting what she knows as my mischievous side, begged me not to misbehave, but I had to! So, I yelled out, “Long live socialism!” and Man! I thought they would eat me alive! Several people were screaming at me, when I made the observation that many of them rode in on socialized highways to protest taxes in a park paid for by taxes. That went over really well... “Commie!” Yelled an adorable little blonde-haired girl. LOL! I felt bad for her because you can’t be a socialist and a communist at the same time -- it’s ideologically impossible. But before I could teach her the difference, the cops asked me to keep it moving.

I’ve been protesting and practicing civil disobedience since before many of you were born, and people? This was one paltry protest. I mean, c’mon, Obama attracted more people at one rally last year than this campaign did nationally.

What I saw was yet more anger from a section of the population that has allowed itself to believe that the “other” is to blame for its misfortunes. Look over there! Terrists! No, over there! Messakins! Under the rug! socialists... pirates behind the curtains... The enemy, my friends, is Ignorance and a media machine controlled by a handful of conglomerates that happily manipulates that ignorance to the point where you to go out and protest for the interests of the very people who have co-opted your government. Finally, the current Texas governor just lent enormous support to my assertion that no one from Texas should be allowed to run for national office.

* * *

Everybody's fave homie, Jesus, getting ready to teabag a muthafucka

-=[ Tea Bags, My Left Nut & Why I Blog ]=-

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

-- Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American woman suffragette Speech, Jan 1896

I am an incorrigible flirt. I will and do flirt with anyone: young and old, gay or straight – shit, if animals could understand, I would flirt with them too. For the most part, my flirtatious behavior is a thinly disguised form of self-deprecating humor. It’s an “inside” joke and you’re in on it. Just because I flirt in the manner I do doesn’t make me a “playa.”

I am intensely serious and passionate person and I take my work very seriously. During my workday, I’m serious, dedicated, on task. In my social life, I reserve the right to be the crazy muthafucka I choose to be and those that are uncomfortable with that persona can choose not to associate with me! For whatever reason, I seem to attract people (many unstable, LOL) and I genuinely love people. I love em all. I especially love the “unforgiven”: the socially unacceptable, the outsiders, the broken, the nymphos, psychos, the sad, and cheerful -- all of the ones that don’t somehow fit into preordained molds. I truly love people, which is a lot rarer than you think, folks. I am uncomfortable among those too concerned with keeping/ upholding social conventions. The very ones that claim sanity are usually the ones that are the true playas.

I blog mostly for myself.

I might be reading a book, studying an issue, or reflecting on life and I take notes. Most of what I write here is gleaned from those notes as well as (obviously) my life experiences. Sometimes it’s academic and boring; sometimes it’s erotic and fascinating. Shit, I would dare say that sometimes I could be downright inspirational and insightful. LOL! I don’t blog in order to garner page hits, nor do I compose my blog so that someone could read it in a certain amount of time. Fuck that! Stretch your fuckin’ brain, or move on!

I would blog even if no one read me because it’s part of my process, not yours. I write partly because I enjoy taking complex subjects and distilling them in terms that are more easily understandable because that helps further my understanding. What you see here is someone who dares to be transparent. When I open my heart, you can look and see me for who I am as no one else can. It is a torn and scarred heart, but no less beautiful because of it. Some people won’t see this part and choose to linger instead on my inability to suffer fools easily or my hostility towards those who would defend of deny injustice. And that’s OK because it’s part of who I am also. Just don’t come here trying to analyze my shit. Shit, I would bet my left (lower hanging) nut, that the vast majority of those who attempt to analyze others, need to turn that gaze inward.

I will meet you exactly where you’re at and you can walk with me as far as you care. There is no artifice here, this is who I am, not because I want to be popular, but because I strive to be as honest as I can be on a daily basis. Sometimes I pretty much successful and other days I fail miserably. But life isn’t a race to be won, it’s a journey.

Bottom line is that I am a genuinely happy person at a point in my life where it all seems to have come together. What I bring to the table is an invincible joy and a living example that life doesn’t suck -- life is fuckin’ good, even if at this moment you’re an ingrate who can’t appreciate that fact. Come in and enjoy or not, that is obviously your choice. Just don’t get it twisted.

Love,

Eddie

Another Quickie--Another Contest

Class: all you're gonna get from me these days are quickies because I'm working on many other projects. I hope you like quickies as much as I do.

So here's the quickie of the day:

A brand new contest from Copyblogger! You only have until 5:00 PM CST this Friday, May 23, 2008 to enter it. Of course, your blondalicious teacher is going to as she loves to win things.

You don't know this, but I entered a writing contest last year, and even though I didn't win anything but being published, it was fun, fast, and really cool to WIN! Yay for me!

This contest involves Twitter, and here's the link to enter.

Be sure to let me know if you win because I love to be proud of my naughty students. You might even receive a cyber spanking from me if you win. Won't that be a great perk?

Another Quickie--Another Contest

Class: all you're gonna get from me these days are quickies because I'm working on many other projects. I hope you like quickies as much as I do.

So here's the quickie of the day:

A brand new contest from Copyblogger! You only have until 5:00 PM CST this Friday, May 23, 2008 to enter it. Of course, your blondalicious teacher is going to as she loves to win things.

You don't know this, but I entered a writing contest last year, and even though I didn't win anything but being published, it was fun, fast, and really cool to WIN! Yay for me!

This contest involves Twitter, and here's the link to enter.

Be sure to let me know if you win because I love to be proud of my naughty students. You might even receive a cyber spanking from me if you win. Won't that be a great perk?

Sex and Relationships Revisited

In case you missed my first sex and relationships column in Citylink Magazine last year, I've retyped the printed column below (Citylink doesn't archive its stories online).

Writing under Manola Blablablanik as nom de plume, my stint at Citylink was brief; after only three columns, the publisher reorganized editorial made a dumb-ass decision and the topic of sex fell by the wayside. My editor assured me that I was no less adored -- the decision to toss off the topic of sex had nothing to do with me. You'd think a street-smart local rag that focuses on entertainment and makes revenue from escort ads would want black, white and sex all over! But no ... chalk it up to one of life's great mysteries.

I'm very grateful for the experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed, even though it was challenging to adapt Manola's voice to print. She had to be true to herself while addressing a different audience. This was no ordinary navel-gazing column a la Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City; I had to play journalist -- interviewing, reporting, fact-checking and so on. I also had the pleasure of working with Dan Sweeney, a funny, no-nonsense editor. Being a columnist changed the way I blog and will undoubtedly influence the course of Sex and the Beach in the future. Happily, what dizzying and amazing turns my writing career has taken!

In any case, I've been a bit burnt-out lately. I sent Manola Blablablanik, Dr. Annie Steelclit and Professor Chancleta to an undisclosed luxury health spa in Arizona a couple of weeks ago. I suspect they'll return refreshed and ready for much unabashed mischief in no time. Expect to see more street-smart reporting here in the not so distant future . . .

So in the meantime, enjoy a reprise!


Going at it like the animals
by Manola Blablablanik

A trip to Miami MetroZoo can be a learning experience – and maybe even a turn on.

It’s a cornball scene: The music rises. Man grabs woman and plants a smoldering wet one on her lips. She hesitates, but barely. Apparently furious, she steps back and slaps him. “You’re an animal,” she cries. Another crescendo and boom! The two start humping like monkeys.

For Ron Magill, that scene wouldn’t be just cornball, but the age-old replay of the birds and the bees, or more accurately, the orangutans and the chimpanzees. As a matter of fact, if apes could talk, they’d probably tell us that human sex is a real snoozer. Magill is here to speak for them. “Animals don’t have preconceived notions about sex,” he says. “If it feels right, they do it. They’re pure teachers about sex.”

As goodwill ambassador and communications director for Miami Metrozoo, Magill knows the ins and outs of sexual behavior in animals. He’s a wildlife expert with years of field research under his belt as well as a master at communicating scientific facts to regular folks like you and me. His annual Valentine’s Day Sex and the Animals show, now 18 years running, is part educational talk and part slide-show presentation with a heavy dose of slapstick. “Sex is one of the most beautiful gifts given to human beings, but you have to be responsible about it,” he explains. “Animals have much to teach us about sex.”

Magill says that, back in the day, public lectures at the zoo were a bit humdrum. Sex and the Animals aimed to educate audiences in an entertaining way while fulfilling the zoo’s need for community outreach. “I really wanted to call this Sex and the Animals,” he admits, “even though the zoo needed to maintain a wholesome family image.” He got his way.

We jaded adults think of the zoo as a place to let kids run around for a day, and while we may keep the porn channel blocked at home, we can’t always shield junior’s eyes. At the zoo, everyone’s a voyeur. “Sex takes place spontaneously and unpredictably,” Magill says. “Let’s say one day spot a crowd in front of the zebras. You know people are watching. They feel safe watching animals have sex without being stereotyped.”

After attending Sex and the Animals, I’m game for some beast porn, which will definitely spell return visits to the zoo for me. The seduction was easy: It started with a little wine, a little cheese and a show during which I laughed my ass off. The show starred Magill’s addictive enthusiasm, a bevy of naughty photographs and some larger-than-life props.

I really got in touch with the animal kingdom after the unforgettable experience of stroking a walrus penis bone, which was passed around the audience. The object gives whole new meaning to the word boner and could very well be the inspiration behind many sex toys. Approximately the size of a baseball bat, the walrus penis bone is sleek, sporting a slightly rotund tip.

Why the bone? Sex organs are designed to work quickly and efficiently. “It’s not absolutely clear why, but in some species, the male needs to be immediately ready when the female displays,” Magill explains. “In nature, penis and vagina shapes fit like pieces of a puzzle.” In other words, if you’re an enormous walrus who has to penetrate your zaftig mate, boy, does that bone give you an advantage.

Magill isn’t shy about demonstrating the wonders of animal sexuality himself. He doesn’t just describe tortoise sex; he air-humps an imaginary partner in order to explain the exquisite timing of orgasms. The male tortoise is quite a screamer, and Magill’s imitation would put a histrionic porn star to shame.

Some animals are into the titillation of porn, proving that even cute, furry mammals sometimes need a little help from their friends. In one breeding program, captive male pandas that were standoffish got their freak on after watching other pandas get down on a TV monitor. But most animals are naturally horny and don’t need technology for stimulation. “Sometimes, it’s all about quantity vs. quality,” Magill says. A male rhino will engage in intercourse for an entire hour ejaculating every two to five minutes. On the other hand, the Shaws jird, a type of rodent, will breed every 15 seconds for an hour, earning the record for frequency of sex. Don’t feed the animals Viagra, please. Do give them a tube of K-Y.

All this sex talk got me thinking about the many times I’ve referred to South Beach as a zoo. Now that I’ve received an education, every time I see a woman wearing a microminiskirt, I’ll be thinking about a chimpanzee in estrus, displaying her lovely, swollen come-hither vulva. Lesbians kissing on Lincoln Road? No problem. Female pygmy chimpanzees rub uglies when they say hello, just for pleasure. Some bimbo on the arm of a rich geezer? Well, now, that’s predictable. Those same lady chimps are also gold diggers; they’ll screw dominant males to climb the social ladder or to receive gifts like fruit.

The highlight of the show confirmed something I already knew. Even though men may appear to be the aggressors in hot pursuit of nooky, women rule the roost when it comes to sex. A married man, Magill wasn’t just speaking from his knowledge of scientific data: “Absolutely – 99 percent of the time in all invertebrates, it’s the female that ultimately dictates if, when and how many times.”

The orangutans do have something to teach us. The image of one hunky, hairy ape performing oral sex on his female partner before intercourse will forever remain etched in my mind. That’s not just sex, that’s superior service.

Originally published in print for Citylink Magazine, March 7, 2007

tags: sex animals, citylink, sex relationships, columnist