All The News That's Fit To Prince

“It’s 1999 all over again!”

Bradford was gleeful when I discovered him holding court in the 2-4-1 room downstairs at The Park with Matty and Andrew. There were other men there at the table and standing around: unassuming gay white men in unassuming gay white v-neck t-shirts. It is all furniture to me now: hot, handsome, muscled furniture. Bradford in his signature tight red was a Fabulis splash of color in more ways than one. The room was hot, stifling. No air but for half price drinks, gay men will put up with almost anything, even each other.

There was a cute young thing standing near us, alone and lonely, in a button down shirt tucked into belted shorts. I know this is what people are wearing these days but to me he looks like the nerds that got teased in the 80s. Bradford is younger than I am so when he parties like it is 1999, he actually means 1999, not 1984, like me. But with the clothes as they are nowadays, it is easy for someone like me to get confused.

Really everyone was out tonight. It was ridiculous. I had a hand in it myself, texting Matt Kugelman beforehand. Original Jonathan skated into town and has been climbing the walls waiting for us to go out on the town together. Even David Young is visiting from Miami, so it seemed perfectly reasonable for us all to get together at the big gay get together down in Chelsea. I even asked Jim in San Francisco to join us as well. Why not? It has been forever since I went out in the city and I needed to make sure that my blog was as star-studded as possible. The crowd did not disappoint, but my phone did.

For some reason, my iPhone battery was suddenly and spontaneously dead. I don’t know how that happened. I feel like I barely used it all day. And I certainly didn’t run any apps. But after Kugie went to the bathroom and we moved upstairs, I went to text him and noticed I was without my lifeline to the outside world. Suddenly it really was 1999 and I was partying in the land before cell phones. In the moment, I was gripped with panic. Even running into delightful Jeremy Blacklow made it all the more essential that I track him down. I needed to find the Kuge!

I left Jeremy with Jonathan, David and Jim and burrowed off into the center of the upstairs patio. Impossible. The crowd was as thick as their heads were dense. Ran into a listener, Matt in Arizona, who I instantly didn’t remember. “I told you I was coming to town. We’ve been emailing for weeks.” I tried to remember him but all I could think of was losing Kugie in the crowd and not finding him again, like that other time. I wasn’t getting anywhere fast.

Finally at the other side of the outside patio, I ran into Bradford again with his red shirt. He was like a beaming lighthouse in a bag of rocks. Bradford was delightful, riffing on the good old, bad old days back when meth was crystal and it hadn’t killed everyone yet. I turned to leave and ran smack into Navy Joe on a date with a guy named Eric who was overly anxious about the appearance of his uninteresting, exceedingly ordinary white dress shirt. When he wasn’t obsessively fussing with it, he was trying to slobber on Joe’s neck or perhaps re-enact a favorite scene from the Twilight series.

As I often do, I molested Joe shamelessly, right in front of Eric, practically rubbing the knit off his fancy sweater to the point of unraveling. This wasn’t the first time I had behaved like this, though at least tonight I had the decency not to ask his date to take our picture for me. In the meantime, Joe insisted that his absent friend, who has adamantly demanded that I not mention him in my blog, does not, as I firmly suspect, hate me. I know they have known each other a long time, and this handsome devil tends to display all the warm facial personality of latter day Marlene Dietrich, but I know what I know in my heart.

In the midst of manhandling Joe, there through the glass that separates the upstairs bar from the upstairs patio outside, I saw Matt. He was inside, near the poorly organized dance floor. I started shouting and waving, like a character in a horror movie moments before someone gets stabbed. He didn’t see me, so I grabbed Joe’s hand and for mercy's sake, dragged him away from his terrible date and off through the bar. I was moments away from snagging Matt when Conor popped up from the couch like Freddie Kruger. I half screamed as I kept running.

Conor was there with Andrew, who I suspected had blocked me on Facebook but it turned out that he had just deleted his profile altogether and it wasn’t personal. I liked my story better. I suppose I should be happy there were so many people that I knew at the bar. It felt as it often does like a high school reunion, but from a school you didn’t hate attending and with people you are actually happy to see again (for the most part). Speaking of the 80s, Jim told me he doesn't like my hair now because it looks hopelessly mired in that decade. But Joe told me he likes it longer, and since I do too, I rubbed on him some more while his date was in the bathroom.

Conor came over across the couch to hug me and suddenly the cute young thing from earlier, the lonely one in the button-down tucked into his belted shorts, dropped a glass that shattered at my feet. It was drunk and trying to dirty dance with another cute young thing near me. “Is this how people greet you now?” Conor asked, a familiar mischievous grin on his face. Pretty much, yes. Especially after they read the terrible things I write about them. But Conor loves it all, no matter how my slings and arrows suffer.

I was delighted to see that Daniel (whom I do not know and have never met) was there again as well, although the crowd was so crowded I didn't get a chance to analyze that tight body of his again. He is the new Charlie. He is as handsome as ever, but as curious as I am about him, I am certain that if I had the chance to talk to him, I wouldn’t say anything useful. I fear it will turn out just like it did with my friend Paul and the hot guy he trailed for years and nicknamed "can of frosting." Years later, when we finally talked to him and told him the story which flattered him, the spell of his beauty was shattered and all interest in him dissipated into the cool night air. The gays are a heartless lot, it's true.

It appears that like Charlie, I will blog about Daniel and study him from afar for a good long time before I bother meeting him. It's fine. I am in no hurry. After all, we are all still partying like it's 1999 even if it is 2010. So whether you’ve been doing it since 1984 (or 1999 itself) doesn’t matter. It is, after all, still a party.