DJ Stormer and JguyUSguy
DJ Stormer was a Kiwi about 15 years older than me, cool, single and already DJing big Osaka club events. He also kept a fantastic black-and-white photoblog, making him precisely the kind of sophisticated gay internet person I wanted to know. I visited him in Osaka, danced through TraffiK while he played the first 3 hours and felt I had entered a world much more exciting and freer than the one I inhabited in MountainMouth. Dance through Stormer’s TraffiK →
Osaka also meant USguy and Jguy, the American and Japanese couple behind JguyUSguy, a hookup and dating site from the prehistoric age before apps. Joa used it often, usually to get into trouble. USguy had, as I put it, “caringly brought me to 2 (err now ex-) boyfriends”; Takashi was probably one. Meet my gay funky Uncle and accidental matchmaker → USguy cooked Diane and me astonishing food, took us to Physique in Osaka and tried to set me up with a weirdo we later spent 50 minutes escaping in a sex shop. Escape the Physique weirdo → At the KISSJAPAN launch, Stormer supplied the music. Join the launch party → I called Stormer and USguy my “webdads” and “cyber-gay-mafia-boss buddies”. See the webdads → Years later, Stormer became a dear friend in Tokyo.