How To Be A Gay Porn Star

Some of you have problably seen ads for Mike Donner's book on how to become a porn star. It's a fun book to read. He included a few quotes from me and told a couple of stories about me to illustrate his advice.

One of the stories is about me playing Hamlet in a dream sequence that Dino Phillips, who played my English prof, had about me. It was the first time I ever read Shakespeare and it was fun to do. Besides, it's considered one of my hottest sex scenes ever. You have to admit, that's funny shit.

The movie is called A Lesson Learned and you can see it by going to the ROD BARRY THEATER link on the upper right hand corner of the blog-page.

Hope in the Winter

There's a pretty diverse mix of people here -- from the city and from the country, and from other states. It's kind of like being back in the military, like being in bootcamp where you have people from all walks of life. Some people have been homeless, others have been very successful, but just couldn't hang on to sobriety. Some people have been back here seven or eight times. It makes you wonder what their motivation is -- if they ever really plan on quitting drinking, if they just wanted a break, or they're here because the courts made them come here, or if they're hiding from someone. like their drug dealer or whatever. Sometimes it's hard to read people. sometimes people talk a big game. I'm very good at reading people's bullshit. And I can call out people, but that doesn't do anything to help my recovery.

The cold weather here is a bit hard to deal with -- especially considering that I left southern California to come here. My body is just not climatized. When I complain about the cold, they say, "Oh you're from upstate New York, you should be able to deal with it." I tell them: "I've been living in southern California for more than 13 years. I'm not really climatized." The get a chuckle out of that. The weather's been crazy. It is was 41 degrees last week, then yesterday it snowed again.

I've been having some issues with the mediucal staff. I still don't think my medication is right -- I've had a lot of trouble sleeping and I've expressed my discontent to the staff , but to no avail. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to sleep.

On the other hand, I am in great shape now. I came in here at 155 lbs, but I'm up to 178 now. That is really great. My family tells me that when I was home over the holidays that I looked terrible. I'm glad they are being honest with me. I knew I looked terrible. I didn't want to go see anybody because I knew I looked so bad. But that's over now. I don't want to look in the rear view anymore. The only thing in the past that I look at now are the problems I created for myself, which I'm in the process of fixing.I've been working on my discharge plans from day one -- the counselors here suggest you pick at least 4 plans, some of them involve more treatment, some involve going to school. I'm really interested in something in the medical field -- perhaps in the veterans program. The have a great program here for finding the right spot for you. so I'm optimistic about it all. I have a lot of hope. Some days are good, some days are bad, but I can only take it one day at a time.

Thanks for hanging in there guys.

Adios & love,

Rod

P.S. And don't forget to visit the Rod Barry Theater -- where you check out some of my movies and we can jerk-off together.

My Days and Nights

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to blog lately, but I've working to set up my program here. I know that alcoholics and drug addicts like me tend to make excuses, I don't mean to make an excuse, but just to apologize about not blogging. This has been a big step for me.

I arrived up here from Brooklyn at the end of January. This is small town USA, in the mountains of northwestern New York. There's not much to do in town here, but I'm not here on vacation. I'm here to get well, to learn about myself, and to stay sober. Right now, this is the place for me. Someplace not close to a metropolitan area, not being to say "Fuck, this shit," and hop in a cab and go have a drink. Granted that there are 3 bars right outside the campus. That's a test for anybody trying to recover from alcoholism and addiction.

They give you a lot of freedom here. It is what you make of it. You can just sit here and not do anything for your recovery or you can take advantage of every class and opportunity -- like going to the gym three days a week. I'm keeping myself busy. Taking classes that are helping me put myself on the right track -- on the twelve steps and spirituality. I've also signed up for classes on stress-mananagement, anger management, budgeting and other things that will help me along the way.

There's also bingo and ping pong and pool tournements. I participate in all of these things. They even have a variety show competition coming up. I haven't decided if I'm going to participate in that yet. We'll see. You never know, I do like getting on stage.

I've been going to meetings every night since I got here. I'm trying to do 90 meetings in 90 days -- some are NA, some are AA. I've mixed it up by going to meetings in town, where's there's people with more experience and taking time to learn from them, to experience their strength and hope. I also go to meetings here on campus as well. But I make sure to go to one every single day -- it's usually a good way to end my day.

My friends and family have been supportive, including you folks. I appreciate the e-mails and mail that I've received and apologize that I haven't been return your e-mails. But I have been able to access my e-mail recently, so please write to me at rod@rodbarryworld.com or if you'd rather at Brooklyn/Malone Media, 332 Bleecker Street, #K27, New York, NY 10014.

Talk to you soon.

Love ya, Rod

Landing at the North Pole

I want to start out by once again thanking everyone for their kind letters and e-mails. You guys don't know how much it means to me. That comes from from the bottom of my heart.

I arrived at the new hospital -- buried in three feet of snow -- for my six month program last Thursday. I left the hospital in New York that day at 5:30 in the morning. I didn't want to spend another night in that shithole.

Although I started my sobriety there, that doesn't mean that there weren't any obstacles. We were not allowed to leave the ward except to get x-rays, MRIs, and to go the ER. It was not necessarily bad except that there was no air circulation in the ward. Several vets got blody noses and the heat was often over 100 degrees. The food service.... well, I won't even go there. They were short staffed and we ran many of our own meetings and groups. The blind leading the blind! Right? Were weren't allowed to have have water in our rooms. Why? Who knows!! There were many other problems

There was also a bunch of in-fighting. For example, two guys, who were heroin addicts, argued about who was better. One guy thought he was better because he snorted and didn't shoot up! Are you kidding me, Batman? No explanation! There were many other problems. I wondered if Page Six would be interested in the problems the vets had there.

As many times as I thought about quitting, I walked out of there sober. For that, I am grateful ... and healthier for it -- 26 days sober. And I've put on 15 pounds of muscle.

So last Thursday I went back to Brooklyn to get the rest of my things and have real breakfast. After I packed up and headed to the Port authority terminal for 6 hour trek to my new home for 6 months or more.

I arrived here that evening at around 8:20 and checked into the hospital for the night -- it was pretty relaxing actually, with food and TV. What more could I ask for? They make everyone stay in the hospital for the night. They do this because some vets show up drunk. Smart, right? The next morning they picked me up to take me over to the domicilary -- which is very nice in a country way. I forgot to mention that there are 3 bars right outside the campus -- one being the titty bar. Convenient, eh!

I checked in my room and ate. I just kind of chilled out for the rest of the day. Checked with the nurse. I ended up playing spades until 1 AM. Tired I was not. Weekends are very quiet here. No classes, jusdt AA and NA meetings. I went to both.

Depression continues to be an issue for me. I'm very lonely here and the medication has not done the trick. The gym is open today, so maybe that will help me out. I keep thinking about how far I've made it. Thankful for everyone's support, but I still feel alone. I will just have to cool it and do a plus and minus list.

I will sign out of this blog on a bright note. I am writing this with a hard-on. My sleep medication is Travidon which gives you an erection. Strange, right? It seems like its inviting me to plasy before I go to bed.

That's it for now. Love to everyone from the snowbank.

Rod.