This is the 14th in the 50-book Fire Island Series I’m providing some preview to. It’s part of a number of exercises I’ve tried to use Generative AI - LLM based tools - to now only write entire novels, but to write a series of interrelated novels on a theme. I’ve embarked on 50 years of gay history, from 1976 to 2025, with anecdotes (in the video) local and major political events affecting the characters in the story who meet every year at the beach for a few weeks. The text, illustrations, anecdotes, narration are all AI generated, the music is from Porn films of the period.
The images accompanying this novel are targeted to JMW Turner - recluse, eccentric, magical colorist, superb execution, and purely Victorian men. As my characters reach their 40 in the narrative, his work is a nice compliment, with men thicker around the middle, and easily introduces men of different ancestral types without having to struggle - European art is often so segmented in body types, skin colors and facial features that it’s often hard to even see a Black or Asian perfect except as odd stereotypes. I don’t think there’s any issue here.
What did stand out to me was that the men tended to wear what looked like diapers at the beach. Men of the period really didn’t go into the water except totally nude - and even after men bathing nude was banned in 1860, I don’t think it was much paid attention to for some time. From this I suspect we will rarely see English painters ever have men and women together at the beach until the 20th century.
As others have mentioned on the unrealistic ‘comic book’ style male bodies throughout, it’s not the directive to the AI Image generator which commands the bodies, it’s the choice of what I call the ‘target’ artist which completely dominates the image style. Even if I said muscular and bulging, there are simply so few examples of tagged muscular men, well, today’s muscular from this period, I think except for harsh manipulation of the style models it would be hard to evoke them. These are not young tender men, but resolutely 30-ish and 40-ish men on the way to paunch, but still handsome and sexy.
While Moran and Turner are not dissimilar in their origin and image structure, there’s one thing distinct between the two - Turner scenes for the same context are much simpler. American scenes by Moran depict men which are bunker and more well-fed looking than the English version.
As I edited the final image set, one thing which annoyed me, and I gave up on, was the eternal sort of twilight. Turner images all have a beautiful golden sheen, but every damn one of them. There never seems really to be a night, even though the directives often stipulate specific night settings. Lighting angles are confused at sunset. Image generation AI’s are fairly good at matching lighting sources, highlights and shadows, but for some reason in all of these, while su may be setting on the left, there will apparent lighting sources on the right. I decided not to edit these out, and not to begin enforcing darkness with chiaroscuro controls. Party scenes, crowd scenes, scenes in bars were all well done but Turner’s men (and Moran’s men) men do not know how to get down.
The left is what call a sort of ballet dance stile, interlocked arms in a circle at the beach in praise to terpschicore, the center is the cotillion dance model, “just throw your hands in the air, and wave ‘em like you just don’t care” and the contrasting Moran outdoor tea-dance model, some floating disco balls, beefy men and booze. Even though the artist target is 100 years old or more, the look is quintessentially american. The generated images for men dancing together (generally the AI likes to insert random women if men ever dance) are among the more amusing image problems we run across. You’ll also notice the distinct yellow cast again on the left for Turner, vs the somewhat warmer palette of Moran, same period English:Left American:Right.
As I focus on the generated text, I do have to comment a bit, since the character Chuck lost his partner James in early 1989. My 1989 was an awful year. I was back from a year-long around-the-world adventure in 1987/1988, living in Kota Kinabalu in Borneo on a fellowship to explore the jungle photographically. When I arrived home with my husband at the time, but over the half-year following my return, I had to face facts, and our relationship collapsed; I found living with him untenable. Being ever mathematically optimizing, I took an apartment in Beverly Hills, the logical center of gravity among our mutual friends of 9 years, and then the hardest part of HIV hit me.
I wanted to go to the movies one night. I worked too much, didn’t own a TV, and was caught up on reading. Bear with me. There was a sort of ‘sneak preview’ of Total Recall, which combined a few of my favorite things, Bodybuilders in movies, Philip K. Dick, Story-in-story-in-story, and I thought who I might want to go with, and then it sort of hit me. Nobody popped in my head. I had a Filofax (Moleskin of their day) address book, and just started going through it A-Z, and got more and more depressed. I was as always fucking with lots of guys, and my documentation was purely little-black-book style NCBS bear code “b+ f+ crazy”, or “e+ k-”, commentary - I’ve been using internet for a very long time. Before cellphones and integrated address books, and telephones which signaled who was calling, you had to answer a call, and figure out whom you were speaking to manually.
That’s when I realized that everyone I knew sexually, and long enough to know them without decoding them, knowing what they liked and didn’t like, knowing who would ooh and ahh over Arnold and who would respond to rude jokes about the “acting”… everyone was dead from HIV. Talk about a punch in the stomach. I sat inert for a while, then called nice Lawyer guy who had decided I would be the one to introduce him to the “Leather Scene” in LA (got that one wrong) and asked him out. We saw the movie, went to his place and had adequate sex, and I took the following day off to think. I decided I had to get out of LA. I called some friends in Paris, and within a few weeks sold all my elaborately purchased furniture after the split-up, gave another buddy my car (It was a hideous electric-blue Camaro with tuck-and-roll zebra stripe upholstery. Pure pimp fabulousness I bought impulsively after returning from Borneo.), and gave a third buddy a very expensive set of high-end Japanese clothing. I called my clients and terminated my consulting work. I called the Lawyer and fixed him up with an obscenely hung, and profoundly simple trick who was looking for a daddy, and 1 January 1990 got in an airplane with one suitcase and flew to Paris. A bad year.
Back to the quick intro.
So, for the text generating targeting Hunter S. Thompson, this is a quite fun exercise. He’s about as heterosexual as you can get in writing (IMHO), sort of originating the MAXX style of male balderdash, but always fun. In this book, the crew want to support ACT-UP in solidarity with Chuck since he has lost his husband the past year to HIV. The AI decided that Anthony Fauci would make an appearance on the island this summer and to add to the stew, Chuck has decided he’s going to bed Fauci. What could go wrong? Let’s check in:
“How's everyone holding up?” Chuck asked, trying to sound carefree.
His voice, rough and charming with a New York drawl, slashed through the mad hysteria of conversations like a rusty blade. The ROOM THROBBED with chaotic energy, individuals buzzing like a hive of RABID BEES.
“Not bad, considering,” Jamal muttered, his voice carrying a hint of suspicion. They shared a sly look, loaded with unspoken secrets about the ACT-UP cause and the damned stakes they've got in it, like wolves circling a crooked politician.
“We gotta make this summer count,” Chuck continued, his voice growing more impassioned. He wasn’t just referring to the activism, man, but the whole goddamn adventure that was about to spin us into the chaotic maelstrom of America’s underbelly, fueled by whatever gin fumes and narcotic dreams we could cling to.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, or Tony as the group called him informally, emerged as a beacon of hope. At 5 feet 8 inches, with a lean build, short greying hair, and an aura of intelligence that radiated as he walked, Tony was both a celebrated figure and an unexpected source of sexual competition. His firm and neat ass, coupled with a largely average-sized but elegant cock, made him a central figure in Chuck and Jamal's escalating, flirtatious rivalry.
“Hey Tony, think you could spare a minute for a couple of devoted fans?” Jamal hollered, his voice slicing through the madness like a rusty hacksaw blade, igniting a chaotic cackle among the rabble.
“Make that TWO DEVOTED FANS,” Chuck hollered, elbows flailing in a cartoonish bid for the spotlight.
Dr. Fauci chuckled, shaking his head. “You boys are too much! But sure, I’ve got time for some banter. What’s on your minds?”
As Chuck attempted to direct the conversation towards the importance of the Act-UP cause, his speech was interrupted by various mishaps—a seagull making a rather unsavory deposit on his freshly ironed shirt, and Jamal tripping over an unfortunately placed beach towel. Chuck wiped the bird crap off his shirt, muttering curses that'd make a sailor blush. At the same time, Jamal was flailing around like a drunken marionette, mumbling something in his thick New York accent, “Ayy, watch where ya put things, man!” The scene was chaotic, like something out of a fever dream, but amidst the madness, Chuck roared, “ACT-UP IS NOT JUST A MOVEMENT; IT'S A DAMN NECESSITY!” And there it hung, like an unbalanced sword of Damocles, waiting to drop.
“Oh heavens, it's gonna be one of those summers,” Chuck groaned, wiping at the mess with a bemused grin, like some deranged war correspondent in a battlefield of melted ice cream and shattered dreams, his eyes reflecting the madness of a thousand sun-drenched escapades.
I’m ok with that, it’s very Hunter S. Thompson, from the bird crap to the overwrought chaotic cackles. Where the scene descends into erotic fervor it becomes even purer, in a way, Hunter.
“I'm working on some visual installations tonight,” Aziz said, lightly tapping against the tech gear he set up, “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.”
“Oh, we ALWAYS do with you!” Chuck barked, his head jerking like a man on a bad trip.
As night fell, the light show immediately added a steamy turn. Finn's mushroom-induced psychedelic vision projected risqué images, amplifying reality into a series of graphic scenes, brighter and more surreal with every passing second. Chuck, standing awkwardly under the phantasmagoric display, began his well-intended, impassioned speech. As the pulsating images of exaggerated male anatomy swirled behind him, he stumbled through his words, the audience mainly fixated on the hallucinatory spectacle. His voice cracked, a rich baritone drowned out by the surrounding chaos, though the distinct scent of musk and sweat hung heavy in the air, intoxicating all present.
The light show rose to a fever pitch. Finn’s shroom-inspired creativity splashed muscular men in positions of exquisite contortion across the backdrop, their hairy chests and taut, glistening abs magnified to surreal levels of detail. With each stumble in his speech, Chuck’s clumsiness became part of the humor threading through the crowd—it was hard not to notice his body, built strong and defined, his broad shoulders finished with a thick mat of manly fur. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, reflecting the wild kaleidoscopic light that danced about the room. His scent intensified—earthy, raw, lush with testosterone—mingling with the spectacle.
The night unraveled into layers of sensory overload as images gyrated, blending seamlessly with reality. Chuck's speech turned into pure chaos when the light show shifted gears, cascading images of oversized cocks and balls painted in lurid hues, each vein and drop of cum magnified. The phallic enormities on display mirrored the real deal; massive, uncut schlongs complete with the bulbous, glistening heads. It was a visual orgy, the audience slipping further into the rhapsody of sense and psychedelia. The musky aroma of pure, unadulterated maleness intensified, soaking into their very beings.
Fun, and phrases - ‘lush with testosterone’, ‘head jerking like a man on a bad trip’, ‘uncut schlongs’, do make it feel gonzo-ish.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Enjoy.
14) Summer Fluff: Hunter Thompson/JMW Turner