Very Very Good Porn
Evaristo Nicholls
I also have a place in the city, on the Upper West Side. But out here, I usually get up around 6am and go in the pool. I don't like the sun and have always been careful to protect myself from it. "You probably do Botox and all of that," people say to me, and I say, "No, I've just stayed away from the sun since I was 25 and I've never touched drugs or drunk alcohol in my life." So that's the only reason I probably look as good as I do.
Michael: It's very beach, very summer, lots of floor-to-ceiling glass, very spacious. I have a very beautiful garden of plants and herbs. I like to look outside and see all green. I think the house is about 50 years old. It was in good condition when I bought it but I put in even more glass panels. It's in the middle of the Pines, but closer to the bay than the ocean.
Michael: Then I usually work in my garden, then I work out around one p.m. I have a trainer from Serbia whom I trained with in Puerto Vallarta and I do a virtual workout with him every day. He's the best trainer I've ever had, very tough, and he's here to train you, not shrink your head. I do weights. I even built a gym in my Fire Island house with all the professional machines. I work out for one hour six days a week, every session with my trainer.
Michael: No. I hate background music in general. All my boyfriends have complained about that, but thankfully my current boyfriend also doesn't like background music. I always choose restaurants with no background music. There are less and less of those. They're trying to make you not relax so they can boom-boom-boom turn over the tables.
Michael: Yes, but the Lucas Entertainment site brings in the most money. There are still people who pay for porn, probably because they want to support the company. And the quality is better and it's easier to find. And I also pay a company that fights piracy, which we're trying to make more difficult.
Michael: I work until about 5pm. I'm trying to work less than I used to, because all my life I worked, worked, worked without set hours because I was my own boss. So I try to finish by five and then spend time with friends here on Fire Island. I started coming here in 1997 when I arrived in American, and then when I was with a certain boyfriend from 2000 to 2015, we had a beautiful house on the bay. But please don't name him. I never any longer post pictures of me with my partners. I stopped doing that a long time ago. I believe your private life should not be exposed.
Michael: Support your partner in all his beginnings and don't stop him from doing something he likes. Telling your partner what to do is a big mistake, even if you disagree. Also, I do not raise my voice to him. I haven't raised my voice to anyone in fact for many years. Also, in a relationship, honesty is important. As soon as you start lying, the relationship is basically over. In general, it's much easier to live your life without lying. I have a very good memory, so I very often catch people in a lie. Maybe because my mother made me memorize whole poems growing up.
Michael: I hate talking about cooking. It's boring. Let's say that I can cook but I don't like it. I can cook easy stuff like chicken, steaks, soups. Of course I know how. It's way too expensive to eat out a lot in New York City or Fire Island. In Mexico, I rarely cook because the restaurants are cheap. But I can pretty much make anything if I follow the recipe. I also have a Thermomix machine, which is a very expensive robot that cooks for me. In the city, I use it every other day.
Michael: I've tasted alcohol but never been drunk. I grew up in Russia where I saw that drinking a lot does to people, and I was always afraid of that. Second, I wanted to be in control. It's also vanity, wanting to look good, and I would see what drugs would do to people's looks.
It\u2019s midsummer, Caftan readers! I hope yours is going well. As I write this, I am recuperating from sunstroke from a day trip to Rockaway Beach on Friday, one of the hottest days of the year. And I am also shamelessly flacking my new novel, Speech Team, which came out from Viking on July 25.
It\u2019s the tale of four nerdy/queer friends from high school in 1980s Massachusetts who (awkwardly) reunite 25 years later to track down and confront the (now retired) teacher/speech-team coach who at once mentored them and said awful things to them. Would you please consider buying it? (Because if this one bombs, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll get a second chance from the publishing world.) And if you read and like it, would you be so kind as to tell people about it via social media or good old-fashioned word of mouth, and/or write a few kind words about it on Goodreads? Thank you!
(That\u2019s right, he\u2019s another Caftan interviewee who\u2019s a bit younger than the norm.) I\u2019ll be honest: I wanted to interview Michael because, of the roughly two dozen interviews I\u2019ve done since I started The Caftan Chronicles in August 2021, last summer\u2019s interview with \u201890s-\u201900s porn legend Tom Chase has gotten ten times the reads of literally every single other interview I\u2019ve done. I took that to mean that there\u2019s an interest out there in hearing about porn lives and, hey, I love porn, so why not?
Michael was a very low-key and affable interview. I wondered if things would get out of control should the conversation turn political, because Michael is rather notoriously outspoken about politics, especially regarding Islam and Israel\u2026
\u2026and he and I do not share the same views on many thing. I feared the interview might go off the rails, but that really didn\u2019t happen. Also, I didn\u2019t want the entire interview to be about Israel and Palestine because, though I oppose Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, I don\u2019t exactly know every current detail about it, which\u2014let\u2019s be honest\u2014puts one at a disadvantage when debating someone who has an obsessive knowledge of the situation.
And anyway, I wanted to talk to Michael primarily about his relationship to his porn career and also his own inner journey, which is really what I\u2019m trying to get to with every Caftan interview. I suppose some folks out there might ask, \u201CHow could you even give someone like Michael Lucas a platform?\u201D, but I never made some promise that I was going to interview only people who share my politics. Also, Michael has a take on America that I\u2019ve heard from many other immigrant friends, which is that it\u2019s a land of remarkable freedom and open-mindedness compared to many other places. I think that\u2019s valuable for those of us who\u2019ve only ever known life in the U.S. to keep in mind. Why? Because so many things are just plain wrong about this country, perhaps now more than ever, that it\u2019s important to get a perspective check\u2014if only not to completely lose one\u2019s mind living here.
Michael: Yes, in the Pines. I bought it last June and renovated it over the winter, making it a four-season house and adding bedrooms so now I have five\u2014three I rent out, one I keep for friends, and one for me.
I also have a place in the city, on the Upper West Side. But out here, I usually get up around 6am and go in the pool. I don't like the sun and have always been careful to protect myself from it. \\\"You probably do Botox and all of that,\\\" people say to me, and I say, \\\"No, I've just stayed away from the sun since I was 25 and I've never touched drugs or drunk alcohol in my life.\\\" So that's the only reason I probably look as good as I do.
Michael: I wake up around 6am and read the news\u2014The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which are very opposite to each other, which I like. I have a very good coffee machine that grinds the beans, so sometimes I'll make a cappuccino instead of regular coffee, but always with real milk\u2014I'm not a person who would have soy or almond milk. I also have a house in Puerto Vallarta\u2026
\u2026so I bring coffee beans from there. That house, which is called Casa Lucas, was in very bad condition. I renovated it for more than a year and then built a penthouse on top where I live, and I rent the six apartments below. For many years now, I've been much more interested in hospitality than porn.
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