Tonight, I saw a baby in a stroller being pushed out of a restaurant by Santa Claus, but I didn’t have time to stop. Manhattan is a busy place and if you stopped for every crazy thing you saw, you’d never get anywhere. The other day, I was rushing to the train and I passed a homeless man noisily humping the pole of some scaffolding while shouting aggressively at his reflection in the building. I suppose I could have stopped to find out what that was all about but, like Santa and his baby stroller, it is almost better when you don’t get the whole story.
It is Friday and (as usual) the show was a freight train barreling out of control. We had so many calls in the first hour, our producer Amber didn’t even want to answer the phone anymore. Whenever the lights on the phone would flash, she recoiled in horror. It was pretty much like that all night. ADD Jeff was there and the first thing he did when he walked in was whip out a bottle of Stoli Vanilla. I was already worried about all the visitors we would have dropping by and when I saw Jeff plunk the bottle down on the counter, I knew it would be trouble.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
One Missed Fall
The easiest way to get me to write about you is to say something interesting, or do something memorable. Or you could be like Matty and just flat out demand it. “I want to be prominent. In bold.” This is a welcome change from some people at Industry tonight who apparently didn’t like that I wrote about them in the past. And who knows what all the new men I met tonight will feel about it. I guess if it is really important, they will tell me. But tonight, Matty wanted to tell me what he thought about what I wrote about myself.
“I read every page,” he declared adamantly of my latest narcissistic page turner When Nightlife Falls. “It was edited! Your life was missing from it. It wasn’t in there.” This was a bit of a surprise, especially given the conversation I had with ADD Jeff earlier as we left the show. He just finished the book too. “I really feel like I know you now as a person, not just as someone on the radio,” he told me. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between.
“I read every page,” he declared adamantly of my latest narcissistic page turner When Nightlife Falls. “It was edited! Your life was missing from it. It wasn’t in there.” This was a bit of a surprise, especially given the conversation I had with ADD Jeff earlier as we left the show. He just finished the book too. “I really feel like I know you now as a person, not just as someone on the radio,” he told me. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Cross Gown Rivals
Madonna has a new Kraft single out. To say that it is terrible would be purely out of spite. After all, American Life is truly terrible and to be fair, Madonna has been slowly clawing her way back up to musical relevance steadily ever since that creative low point. Her latest is not bad, it just isn’t age appropriate. It sounds like Avril Lavigne covering Debbie Gibson covering The Shirelles. And Madonna still rhymes like a second grader, which aside from close-up shots of her hands, is the worst thing about her.
She is also on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, another relic of another century. I saw a shot of her standing behind another woman with her arm poised around the lady’s neck. First thought: she is a vampire who will suck the essence out of you! Remember when she kissed Britney Spears and then Britney’s career collapsed and they finally reluctantly replaced Brit with a Japanese sex robot? Maybe almost none of that actually happened but sometimes, in that drowsy part of waking where dreams still seem so real around you, it feels true.
She is also on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, another relic of another century. I saw a shot of her standing behind another woman with her arm poised around the lady’s neck. First thought: she is a vampire who will suck the essence out of you! Remember when she kissed Britney Spears and then Britney’s career collapsed and they finally reluctantly replaced Brit with a Japanese sex robot? Maybe almost none of that actually happened but sometimes, in that drowsy part of waking where dreams still seem so real around you, it feels true.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Candy Everybody Flaunts
Fittingly enough, It’s A Small World began as a ride at the New York World’s Fair. Because when you are in New York, you notice how truly small the world is. In a small town, the world feels small, because you can reach out your arms and turn in a slow circle and touch it all. But it looks like there is more world out there, beyond the moon, behind the rain. But when you finally get to the big city and do a slow turn, you realize it isn’t as big as it once seemed.
“Was this really worth getting off at 9:40pm?” Ryan White asked, half-joking, his sly smile betraying the half-serious side of the question. He didn’t mean my hanging out with him. That is always worth escaping the studio a few minutes early for. We have only known each other a few weeks since our first fateful meeting in the back of a taxi, but Ryan is a delightful fast friend. He is good company and he knows it.
Tonight we met out at Therapy, which I used to love but the bloom is off the rose since the place became infested with lackluster stage shows on that tiny elevation in front of the fireplace on the second floor. What had once been a charming getaway to meet friends after work or contract mono from a stranger over communal nachos, has lately become that casual meeting with friends spontaneously interrupted by someone loud and wholly unwelcome collapsing on your table.
I thought at first that we had escaped unscathed. Ryan and I spent our first half hour or so engaged in polite conversation, our ears unmolested by shrieking comedians or bad amateur singing contests. But then while I was at the bar picking up a fresh vodka soda for Ryan, I realized suddenly that I was not on line at Zabar’s and the tiny woman in the bad wig waiting for her mocktail was, in fact, the night’s entertainment.
We had already been talking about the psychological power of drag and the grip over which it holds the gay community. And then this woman appeared, dressed literally in drag, to host a stripper contest. Well, at least I think that is what it was supposed to be. It started with her singing a couple of songs very badly and then encouraging some audience members to also get up and sing badly. This I thought (beyond the obvious) was a bad idea. Are you trying to get strippers or singers? Or singers who strip? People are drunk, lady. If you aren’t clear in your instructions, you are in for a very messy ride.
The area near the fireplace started to take on the kind of frenzied chaos less reminiscent of Broadway's Miss Saigon than Saigon's actual fall. This woman "performer" stripped layers off and warbled and berated the audience for understandably ignoring her. Honey, if you are on stage, and you aren’t more compelling than whatever pops up on someone’s cell phone during your show, that’s on you.
Right on cue, Jeffrey strolled in with his handsome friend Christopher. Christopher, it turns out, works across the street from me and his cousin I think works with Julie James in my office. How small world is that? Pretty damned small. I am pretty sure we have met before but I can't for the life of me remember where or when. Doesn't matter. We've met now.
Jeffrey asked me if I had any Twizzlers on me, recalling fondly our first meeting downtown where I did have candy in my pocket and I was happy to see him. Of course, since Halloween, I have Twizzlers all over my house and office like a hoarder, and could have kicked myself for not having them with me at Therapy (but I don’t have that kind of flexibility). In my own defense, I didn’t know he was coming.
As the karaoke go-go strip show rapidly cascaded downhill nearby, I spotted my Ukrainian pal Vitaliy, on a NYC layover between Utah and London, in the audience. He is all muscle-packed like Jeffrey but shorter. And I noticed he liked hovering near the equally ripped wait staff, including the shot boy who was either wearing a horrible duck-tailed wig or hasn’t been out of a cowboy hat since Brokeback Mountain. I guess since Vitaliy is visiting from out of town, it isn’t a problem for him to (as Ryan so vividly put it tonight) shit where he eats. I entreated Vitaliy to jump on the stage, remove his shirt and win the $100 prize but he giggled shyly and backed away. I don’t understand working out like crazy and then not dropping your clothes at a moment’s notice. It’s like getting a face lift and then always wearing a veil. If you want to wander aimlessly through life in a bulky sweater, just go ahead and get fat like everyone else. You can start by eating a pack of Twizzlers. They're 240 carb-loading calories in the blink of an eye.
In the future, I will always walk around with a pack of Twizzlers in my pocket. I do owe Jeffrey some after all and it is well known that I don’t care what people think of me. Obviously no one on the stage cared what anyone thought of them either, especially the loud screeching host lady with the terrible Rona Barrett wig. Maybe if she had Twizzlers in her pocket, the audience would have cared what she had to say. Besides, as accessories go, Twizzlers, like strippers and drag queens, are candy everybody wants, just not always at the same time.
“Was this really worth getting off at 9:40pm?” Ryan White asked, half-joking, his sly smile betraying the half-serious side of the question. He didn’t mean my hanging out with him. That is always worth escaping the studio a few minutes early for. We have only known each other a few weeks since our first fateful meeting in the back of a taxi, but Ryan is a delightful fast friend. He is good company and he knows it.
Tonight we met out at Therapy, which I used to love but the bloom is off the rose since the place became infested with lackluster stage shows on that tiny elevation in front of the fireplace on the second floor. What had once been a charming getaway to meet friends after work or contract mono from a stranger over communal nachos, has lately become that casual meeting with friends spontaneously interrupted by someone loud and wholly unwelcome collapsing on your table.
I thought at first that we had escaped unscathed. Ryan and I spent our first half hour or so engaged in polite conversation, our ears unmolested by shrieking comedians or bad amateur singing contests. But then while I was at the bar picking up a fresh vodka soda for Ryan, I realized suddenly that I was not on line at Zabar’s and the tiny woman in the bad wig waiting for her mocktail was, in fact, the night’s entertainment.
We had already been talking about the psychological power of drag and the grip over which it holds the gay community. And then this woman appeared, dressed literally in drag, to host a stripper contest. Well, at least I think that is what it was supposed to be. It started with her singing a couple of songs very badly and then encouraging some audience members to also get up and sing badly. This I thought (beyond the obvious) was a bad idea. Are you trying to get strippers or singers? Or singers who strip? People are drunk, lady. If you aren’t clear in your instructions, you are in for a very messy ride.
The area near the fireplace started to take on the kind of frenzied chaos less reminiscent of Broadway's Miss Saigon than Saigon's actual fall. This woman "performer" stripped layers off and warbled and berated the audience for understandably ignoring her. Honey, if you are on stage, and you aren’t more compelling than whatever pops up on someone’s cell phone during your show, that’s on you.
Right on cue, Jeffrey strolled in with his handsome friend Christopher. Christopher, it turns out, works across the street from me and his cousin I think works with Julie James in my office. How small world is that? Pretty damned small. I am pretty sure we have met before but I can't for the life of me remember where or when. Doesn't matter. We've met now.
Jeffrey asked me if I had any Twizzlers on me, recalling fondly our first meeting downtown where I did have candy in my pocket and I was happy to see him. Of course, since Halloween, I have Twizzlers all over my house and office like a hoarder, and could have kicked myself for not having them with me at Therapy (but I don’t have that kind of flexibility). In my own defense, I didn’t know he was coming.
As the karaoke go-go strip show rapidly cascaded downhill nearby, I spotted my Ukrainian pal Vitaliy, on a NYC layover between Utah and London, in the audience. He is all muscle-packed like Jeffrey but shorter. And I noticed he liked hovering near the equally ripped wait staff, including the shot boy who was either wearing a horrible duck-tailed wig or hasn’t been out of a cowboy hat since Brokeback Mountain. I guess since Vitaliy is visiting from out of town, it isn’t a problem for him to (as Ryan so vividly put it tonight) shit where he eats. I entreated Vitaliy to jump on the stage, remove his shirt and win the $100 prize but he giggled shyly and backed away. I don’t understand working out like crazy and then not dropping your clothes at a moment’s notice. It’s like getting a face lift and then always wearing a veil. If you want to wander aimlessly through life in a bulky sweater, just go ahead and get fat like everyone else. You can start by eating a pack of Twizzlers. They're 240 carb-loading calories in the blink of an eye.
In the future, I will always walk around with a pack of Twizzlers in my pocket. I do owe Jeffrey some after all and it is well known that I don’t care what people think of me. Obviously no one on the stage cared what anyone thought of them either, especially the loud screeching host lady with the terrible Rona Barrett wig. Maybe if she had Twizzlers in her pocket, the audience would have cared what she had to say. Besides, as accessories go, Twizzlers, like strippers and drag queens, are candy everybody wants, just not always at the same time.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Seems Like Gold Times
“Are those Twizzlers in your pocket?” Jeff R. had known me
for two seconds and already he knew everything anyone ever needs to know about me.
Yes, it is true. I did have a pack of Twizzlers in my back pocket. But I also had them for a very good reason. After I stepped out of the subway on Canal Street, I searched around desperately for one of the tiny grocery stores (known as bodegas) that are everywhere in New York City, except where and when you really need one. I had just finished doing the show for the night and my breath was terrible. Truly terrible. I am going to LA in two weeks and am desperate to lose thirty pounds of fat and gain twenty pounds of muscle without doing anything more serious than have my usual large salad at lunch knocked down to a small. So I can’t blame my healthy eating. But it was the end of a long day and I was dying for a breath mint and I couldn’t find a store for love or money.
But then again, I couldn’t find The Canal Room either. How times have changed since I first moved to Manhattan in 2001 and famously declared that I wouldn’t go South of Houston unless I was fucking a celebrity. Is Canal South of Houston? Does anyone really know after you leave the safe confines of 14th Street, where (by the way) there is a bodega overflowing with breath mints every ten feet. So when I finally found a store around the corner from The Canal Room, I grabbed a small pack of “reward” Twizzlers for later along with the Breathsavers I hoped beyond hope would save my breath. As I paid, I rationalized that if I had Twizzlers in my pocket, I wouldn’t be tempted at 1am to eat a 20 piece at McDonald’s on my way to the train, knowing full well as I pocketed the change that I, being me, would of course, eat both. And have a Dr. Pepper too. But, you know, just a small.
I am certain that Jeff does not have these kinds of problems. He is young and handsome and blond and his body is ridiculous. We met outside of the Canal Room where he was accompanying my new friend Ryan White, and all of us were waiting to get into Gumbo Pop, yet another of Ben Harvey’s wildly successful nights about town. Also waiting with us was Jeff Eason, the NEXT Magazine photographer who shot the cover of my new book, and who I just saw a few nights ago at the Blendr launch party which I enjoyed but didn’t write about.
It turns out that both Ryan W. and Jeff R. are recent émigrés to Manhattan, although they knew each other before. They had been friends in San Francisco before Ryan went to China and now both of them are living in New York and happily reacquainted. Jeff looked really familiar but it is impossible for me to know him. Perhaps he is one of the handsome men that Facebook is forever telling me that I may already know because we have twenty-three hot men in common. Ryan and Jeff are just back from Provincetown, where they spent a very pleasant Labor Day weekend. There they met Ryan M. and Dwayne and even though it took us a minute and Ryan had shaved his head, we realized that we already knew each other.
“I was in my underwear in your studio!”
“I think I follow you on Twitter now!”
Conversations in the gay community are a lot of things, but subtle is simply not one of them. But let this be a lesson for small town gays frustrated by their small town gay lives. You would think that moving to the biggest city in the world would allow you to lose yourself in a new group of people, but you are wrong. I met Ryan W. in a taxi after Reichen’s fragrance launch party. Ryan W. brought Jeff R. to Gumbo Pop tonight. Jeff R. met Dwayne and Ryan M. in Provincetown. See, you can’t even leave town to meet new people. The gay community is like Al Pacino’s line in the Godfather 3, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
It is not surprising that I ran into Ronnie Kroell at Gumbo Pop either. Ronnie was in the latest Eating Out movie with Chris Salvatore who was performing at Gumbo Pop and was on our show promoting his music last year and who was on Ben Harvey’s podcast a few weeks ago and Ben, well, you know the rest. It is like an endless gay loop. You run as fast as you can but you just end up back in the same place you were before. But when everyone is as handsome as all of these men, what difference does it make if you can’t leave?
“Do you know David? From the Real World.” Ronnie asked me, pointing into the murky darkness of gay men by the bar. I had no idea who he was pointing to and frankly my first thought (with good reason!!!) was, “Is that the guy who was our waiter at ELMO three years ago who was so bitter?” But I think that guy was on the Road Rules Challenge or that dating show where the guys wait on a bus to have their best pick up line shot down at the curb. Whatever was happening in my head didn’t matter because not knowing that guy from the Real World just reminded me so palpably how, like a slingshot, I am being hurtled further and faster from the Clearasil generation with every passing moment, like a rocket that once struggled to leave Earth’s atmosphere and now oh so casually drifts away from the solar system, never to be seen again.
As if to prove the point, early onset deafness caused me to mishear his name as David when in fact it was Davis from the Real World. Actually, yes I do remember hearing about Davis, before, but by then the damage was done. I had already introduced Davis to Ryan W. as David (“That happens all the time,” Ronnie tried to assure me) and my profuse apologies in the moment didn’t seem to help matters. But later after I danced with his tiny and exuberant female friend from Staten Island, we discussed the finer points of what makes a star and Davis seemed to warm up to me. And I am glad. Because unlike that waiter at ELMO he once stayed with, Davis offered to get me a drink when mine was empty and in all manner was a very nice person.
But I couldn’t have another drink. I had to leave. As it was, Ryan W. and Jeff R. had already taken off for Rockit (taking I assume Ryan M. and Dwayne along for the ride). Ryan W. asked me if I wanted to go with them, but my feelings about Rockit are already well known. As I said my good-byes, I ran into Dan and Henry, which surprised me. I thought they were in Connecticut now! I was glad I did, not just because I really like seeing them, but when Dan congratulated me on my new book, I got to tell him the happy news that they are both in it. “Your New Year’s Eve party is the final chapter!” I told Dan and he couldn’t have been more pleased.
It is good for some stories to have happy endings. For all of my feelings of joyous isolation in the wilds of Westchester, it turns out that I do know quite a few people. In fact, just tonight, I ran into enough hot guys to fill a sixteen month calendar without repeats. That is a good strategic place to be in, especially in the gay community. And as I waited for the train, fretting that I didn’t have enough time to get something to eat at McDonald’s, I remembered that pack of Twizzlers in my back pocket and once again, all was right with the world.
Yes, it is true. I did have a pack of Twizzlers in my back pocket. But I also had them for a very good reason. After I stepped out of the subway on Canal Street, I searched around desperately for one of the tiny grocery stores (known as bodegas) that are everywhere in New York City, except where and when you really need one. I had just finished doing the show for the night and my breath was terrible. Truly terrible. I am going to LA in two weeks and am desperate to lose thirty pounds of fat and gain twenty pounds of muscle without doing anything more serious than have my usual large salad at lunch knocked down to a small. So I can’t blame my healthy eating. But it was the end of a long day and I was dying for a breath mint and I couldn’t find a store for love or money.
But then again, I couldn’t find The Canal Room either. How times have changed since I first moved to Manhattan in 2001 and famously declared that I wouldn’t go South of Houston unless I was fucking a celebrity. Is Canal South of Houston? Does anyone really know after you leave the safe confines of 14th Street, where (by the way) there is a bodega overflowing with breath mints every ten feet. So when I finally found a store around the corner from The Canal Room, I grabbed a small pack of “reward” Twizzlers for later along with the Breathsavers I hoped beyond hope would save my breath. As I paid, I rationalized that if I had Twizzlers in my pocket, I wouldn’t be tempted at 1am to eat a 20 piece at McDonald’s on my way to the train, knowing full well as I pocketed the change that I, being me, would of course, eat both. And have a Dr. Pepper too. But, you know, just a small.
I am certain that Jeff does not have these kinds of problems. He is young and handsome and blond and his body is ridiculous. We met outside of the Canal Room where he was accompanying my new friend Ryan White, and all of us were waiting to get into Gumbo Pop, yet another of Ben Harvey’s wildly successful nights about town. Also waiting with us was Jeff Eason, the NEXT Magazine photographer who shot the cover of my new book, and who I just saw a few nights ago at the Blendr launch party which I enjoyed but didn’t write about.
It turns out that both Ryan W. and Jeff R. are recent émigrés to Manhattan, although they knew each other before. They had been friends in San Francisco before Ryan went to China and now both of them are living in New York and happily reacquainted. Jeff looked really familiar but it is impossible for me to know him. Perhaps he is one of the handsome men that Facebook is forever telling me that I may already know because we have twenty-three hot men in common. Ryan and Jeff are just back from Provincetown, where they spent a very pleasant Labor Day weekend. There they met Ryan M. and Dwayne and even though it took us a minute and Ryan had shaved his head, we realized that we already knew each other.
“I was in my underwear in your studio!”
“I think I follow you on Twitter now!”
Conversations in the gay community are a lot of things, but subtle is simply not one of them. But let this be a lesson for small town gays frustrated by their small town gay lives. You would think that moving to the biggest city in the world would allow you to lose yourself in a new group of people, but you are wrong. I met Ryan W. in a taxi after Reichen’s fragrance launch party. Ryan W. brought Jeff R. to Gumbo Pop tonight. Jeff R. met Dwayne and Ryan M. in Provincetown. See, you can’t even leave town to meet new people. The gay community is like Al Pacino’s line in the Godfather 3, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
It is not surprising that I ran into Ronnie Kroell at Gumbo Pop either. Ronnie was in the latest Eating Out movie with Chris Salvatore who was performing at Gumbo Pop and was on our show promoting his music last year and who was on Ben Harvey’s podcast a few weeks ago and Ben, well, you know the rest. It is like an endless gay loop. You run as fast as you can but you just end up back in the same place you were before. But when everyone is as handsome as all of these men, what difference does it make if you can’t leave?
“Do you know David? From the Real World.” Ronnie asked me, pointing into the murky darkness of gay men by the bar. I had no idea who he was pointing to and frankly my first thought (with good reason!!!) was, “Is that the guy who was our waiter at ELMO three years ago who was so bitter?” But I think that guy was on the Road Rules Challenge or that dating show where the guys wait on a bus to have their best pick up line shot down at the curb. Whatever was happening in my head didn’t matter because not knowing that guy from the Real World just reminded me so palpably how, like a slingshot, I am being hurtled further and faster from the Clearasil generation with every passing moment, like a rocket that once struggled to leave Earth’s atmosphere and now oh so casually drifts away from the solar system, never to be seen again.
As if to prove the point, early onset deafness caused me to mishear his name as David when in fact it was Davis from the Real World. Actually, yes I do remember hearing about Davis, before, but by then the damage was done. I had already introduced Davis to Ryan W. as David (“That happens all the time,” Ronnie tried to assure me) and my profuse apologies in the moment didn’t seem to help matters. But later after I danced with his tiny and exuberant female friend from Staten Island, we discussed the finer points of what makes a star and Davis seemed to warm up to me. And I am glad. Because unlike that waiter at ELMO he once stayed with, Davis offered to get me a drink when mine was empty and in all manner was a very nice person.
But I couldn’t have another drink. I had to leave. As it was, Ryan W. and Jeff R. had already taken off for Rockit (taking I assume Ryan M. and Dwayne along for the ride). Ryan W. asked me if I wanted to go with them, but my feelings about Rockit are already well known. As I said my good-byes, I ran into Dan and Henry, which surprised me. I thought they were in Connecticut now! I was glad I did, not just because I really like seeing them, but when Dan congratulated me on my new book, I got to tell him the happy news that they are both in it. “Your New Year’s Eve party is the final chapter!” I told Dan and he couldn’t have been more pleased.
It is good for some stories to have happy endings. For all of my feelings of joyous isolation in the wilds of Westchester, it turns out that I do know quite a few people. In fact, just tonight, I ran into enough hot guys to fill a sixteen month calendar without repeats. That is a good strategic place to be in, especially in the gay community. And as I waited for the train, fretting that I didn’t have enough time to get something to eat at McDonald’s, I remembered that pack of Twizzlers in my back pocket and once again, all was right with the world.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ground Zero: The Story From New York
Mike
was on his way into work from Brooklyn on the train when they spotted the twin
towers on fire as the train crossed the bridge. Matty had just finished voting
in the primaries in Chelsea when he looked up and saw the first plane crash
into the North Tower. Moments later, he witnessed the second plane crash into
the South Tower. And I was in a bath with Johnathan. We were splashing around
and I heard/felt the percussion sound of the first plane hitting. I accused him
of farting in the bath and we had a good laugh, blissfully unaware of the
events unfolding around us.
September 17, 2001 - Usually this time of the week I try to be as glib and as brittle as possible in the writing of my column. The only thing brittle right now are my nerves as I sit in my office in midtown Manhattan. The last couple of days have shaken us to the core, so in lieu of my usual rantings on casual sex and dating mishaps, I am writing about my home, Manhattan, and what is happening here this week.
Monday, September 10. A typical day here in the city. I just flew into La Guardia from Chicago after a weekend on my farm. It is Fashion Week here in the city and the designer runways are all set up in big white tents in Bryant Park, a block from my office. The traffic in cars and on foot is so intense in midtown that I get out of the cab three blocks from my office and walk the rest of the way into work.
I had a date that night with this guy I have been seeing named Johnathan. I wanted a really gay evening, so we went down to Chelsea for dinner at the Viceroy. We had a couple of drinks there and at a local bar. I couldn't believe how packed the bar was for after midnight on a Monday night, but that is typical of New York. We went back to Johnathan's place and fell asleep.
Tuesday, September 11. Johnathan woke me up after 8 a.m. and we hopped into the shower together. He works down in lower Manhattan and has to be at work by nine. I kept him late in the shower, and at one point we heard a low rumble, but thought nothing of it. Traffic in the street maybe. We said goodbye just after nine outside his building and he walked over to take the train downtown. I headed over to the west side to get to my apartment.
When I reached 34th Street and 11th Avenue, near the Javits Convention Center, I saw a bunch of people looking up, and a local TV crew van. I thought there was a fire in one of the warehouses down the street. As I came past the FedEx building there, I looked up and saw the North Tower of the World Trade Center with a few floors on fire near the top. From my angle, we could only see the North Tower, as the South Tower was completely obscured behind it. Knowing how my mom worries about me, I immediately called her on my cell phone and woke her up. “I don't want you to worry. I am fine. But there is a small fire in the World Trade Center, so it might be on the news.” I overheard someone say something about two planes crashing, but it seemed inconceivable. No planes fly around that area.
Of course, when I got home, I turned on the news and the first thing I saw was the replay of the plane smashing into the South Tower. I couldn't believe it. I raced to the observation deck of my building, which had a clear view of the towers. I joined a few dozen other tenants watching the towers burn, and then, to our utter horror, collapse live before our eyes.
In a sense, it was easier to watch it all on TV. I am used to seeing images of buildings exploding and planes crashing on TV, in movies and news programs. But to see it happen in front of you is almost unbearably unreal. The people on the deck were devastated. Our building has the same security company as the towers. The staff was shattered. From my apartment, I watched a line seven blocks long of people waiting for the New Jersey ferry and the Circle Line tour boats to take them off the island. The police barricaded the street below and used it as a staging area for police and other emergency vehicles.
That night I went down with Johnathan to the barricades at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. The city was eerie and quiet, the streets largely deserted. Johnathan told me about getting to work and seeing the buildings on fire and watching dozens of people jumping from the windows. "What they showed on TV -- it was more." His building is the white and gray horizontally striped building right behind Building 7, which collapsed later that day. He was still shaken up by the horror of the scene.
Wednesday, September 12. I came to work for a little while, but the city remained largely deserted. It was hard to tear myself away from the news coverage. Almost everything in midtown was still closed, and my building required two forms of ID to enter. As I walked home, there was a police car parked next to the station near my house. The windows on the car were blown out and there was a six-inch layer of soot and debris in the back window and seat. Later that evening, the wind shifted to the north and the smoke that had been trailing over Brooklyn wafted all the way up to midtown. It was an awful smell that filled my apartment.
Having lived in Los Angeles, I was used to earthquakes that disrupted and shook the entire city, so this event has some familiarity to it. It was also in the back of my mind before I moved here that if there ever were to be more terrorist activity in America, it would probably be here in Manhattan. So I was more or less reconciled to the event and was reasonably calm. Then Johnathan called and told me there was a bomb scare at the Empire State Building and Penn Station, just a few blocks from my apartment. Suddenly my calm collapsed and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness and panic.
Thursday, September 13. Midtown is more or less back to normal. Businesses are open and the roads and streets are more crowded today. More scares at La Guardia, and in a building here in Times Square, sent panicked people fleeing into the streets again, and in a general sense, we all wonder when life might return to some feeling of normalcy again. When will we feel safe? How long will it take for us not to feel a jolt of panic at the sound of an emergency vehicle racing down the street? How much time will need to pass before we all stop looking down the avenues as we cross the street for buildings that are no longer there?
Excerpted from my book Colonnade: A Life In Columns, about my experiences living in NYC in 2001 and 2002, available in paperback, Kindle, Nook and the iBookstore.
September 17, 2001 - Usually this time of the week I try to be as glib and as brittle as possible in the writing of my column. The only thing brittle right now are my nerves as I sit in my office in midtown Manhattan. The last couple of days have shaken us to the core, so in lieu of my usual rantings on casual sex and dating mishaps, I am writing about my home, Manhattan, and what is happening here this week.
Monday, September 10. A typical day here in the city. I just flew into La Guardia from Chicago after a weekend on my farm. It is Fashion Week here in the city and the designer runways are all set up in big white tents in Bryant Park, a block from my office. The traffic in cars and on foot is so intense in midtown that I get out of the cab three blocks from my office and walk the rest of the way into work.
I had a date that night with this guy I have been seeing named Johnathan. I wanted a really gay evening, so we went down to Chelsea for dinner at the Viceroy. We had a couple of drinks there and at a local bar. I couldn't believe how packed the bar was for after midnight on a Monday night, but that is typical of New York. We went back to Johnathan's place and fell asleep.
Tuesday, September 11. Johnathan woke me up after 8 a.m. and we hopped into the shower together. He works down in lower Manhattan and has to be at work by nine. I kept him late in the shower, and at one point we heard a low rumble, but thought nothing of it. Traffic in the street maybe. We said goodbye just after nine outside his building and he walked over to take the train downtown. I headed over to the west side to get to my apartment.
When I reached 34th Street and 11th Avenue, near the Javits Convention Center, I saw a bunch of people looking up, and a local TV crew van. I thought there was a fire in one of the warehouses down the street. As I came past the FedEx building there, I looked up and saw the North Tower of the World Trade Center with a few floors on fire near the top. From my angle, we could only see the North Tower, as the South Tower was completely obscured behind it. Knowing how my mom worries about me, I immediately called her on my cell phone and woke her up. “I don't want you to worry. I am fine. But there is a small fire in the World Trade Center, so it might be on the news.” I overheard someone say something about two planes crashing, but it seemed inconceivable. No planes fly around that area.
Of course, when I got home, I turned on the news and the first thing I saw was the replay of the plane smashing into the South Tower. I couldn't believe it. I raced to the observation deck of my building, which had a clear view of the towers. I joined a few dozen other tenants watching the towers burn, and then, to our utter horror, collapse live before our eyes.
In a sense, it was easier to watch it all on TV. I am used to seeing images of buildings exploding and planes crashing on TV, in movies and news programs. But to see it happen in front of you is almost unbearably unreal. The people on the deck were devastated. Our building has the same security company as the towers. The staff was shattered. From my apartment, I watched a line seven blocks long of people waiting for the New Jersey ferry and the Circle Line tour boats to take them off the island. The police barricaded the street below and used it as a staging area for police and other emergency vehicles.
That night I went down with Johnathan to the barricades at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. The city was eerie and quiet, the streets largely deserted. Johnathan told me about getting to work and seeing the buildings on fire and watching dozens of people jumping from the windows. "What they showed on TV -- it was more." His building is the white and gray horizontally striped building right behind Building 7, which collapsed later that day. He was still shaken up by the horror of the scene.
Wednesday, September 12. I came to work for a little while, but the city remained largely deserted. It was hard to tear myself away from the news coverage. Almost everything in midtown was still closed, and my building required two forms of ID to enter. As I walked home, there was a police car parked next to the station near my house. The windows on the car were blown out and there was a six-inch layer of soot and debris in the back window and seat. Later that evening, the wind shifted to the north and the smoke that had been trailing over Brooklyn wafted all the way up to midtown. It was an awful smell that filled my apartment.
Having lived in Los Angeles, I was used to earthquakes that disrupted and shook the entire city, so this event has some familiarity to it. It was also in the back of my mind before I moved here that if there ever were to be more terrorist activity in America, it would probably be here in Manhattan. So I was more or less reconciled to the event and was reasonably calm. Then Johnathan called and told me there was a bomb scare at the Empire State Building and Penn Station, just a few blocks from my apartment. Suddenly my calm collapsed and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness and panic.
Thursday, September 13. Midtown is more or less back to normal. Businesses are open and the roads and streets are more crowded today. More scares at La Guardia, and in a building here in Times Square, sent panicked people fleeing into the streets again, and in a general sense, we all wonder when life might return to some feeling of normalcy again. When will we feel safe? How long will it take for us not to feel a jolt of panic at the sound of an emergency vehicle racing down the street? How much time will need to pass before we all stop looking down the avenues as we cross the street for buildings that are no longer there?
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Persistence
Usually my drunk train home is boisterous and noisy. As I write about my evening, it is with my head down, desperately trying to block out the heterosexual melee going on around me. The same cannot be said for the NYC subway at night. After midnight, the subway takes on a quiet, filthy reverence. Little eye contact is made, conversations are non-existent. And waiting for the train is even less eventful. The platforms are empty, preventing the usual entertainment watching people can bring. There is no phone service, nor Internet connection. It is just you alone with your thoughts for as long as it takes for the next train to finally arrive.
There is such a late night scene in an early chapter of my new book, When Nightlife Falls. It is me, alone on the platform waiting for the 2 Train home to Harlem, getting emotional after a night of drinking out at Vlada with Ben Harvey. That night on my iPod the song of choice was the k.d. lang cover of the theme from Valley of the Dolls. Tonight, years later in the future, as I waited for the 2 Train to take me up to Times Square, I flipped through my iPhone for Amy Winehouse’s Tears Dry On Their Own. She is gone now, as is Nick Ashford who co-wrote the song, as is my iPod and even the reason I am emotional all over again. But tonight it is just nostalgia, for a time and a place that maybe was never really there.
I guess it is a function of being young that you see time as a linear function. This happened and then that happened and then this happened. It is lazy writing, like the story plotting (plodding?) on The A List or any of those other excruciating reality shows that take place excrementally. As you get older, time starts to crisscross a bit. People you knew leave and then come back. But it is beyond that grid now and I see for the first time so clearly why the clock is melting in Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Time is like cutting a cake, if you slice it but never remove the pieces. At first the cuts are smooth, but the more you cut, the messier it gets and as you cut and cut and cut again, eventually the integrity of the cake itself is gone and the whole thing falls away into a sloppy unrecognizable mess. And as you peer down into the pile of frosting and layers, you alone can still see the cake as it used to be, staring back at you. The original promise is gone, but the taste lingers.
Ben Harvey was hosting Gekko, his usual last Wednesday of the month party down at Gild Hall. It is hard to believe that Ben and I met more than four years ago. It doesn’t seem possible. But as we talked about the good times and caught up on current events, it reminded me of the conversations I was always desperate to have with him back in 2007. Our friendship that started with our mutual careers in radio and our shared love of Rosie on The View came flooding back to me anew as we talked about our shows and the eminent return to TV of Rosie this fall. Everything old was shiny and new again.
Writing my latest book brought back all those early memories of Ben, and all the other things of that time, both good and bad but mostly bad. New York City is a hard place to be if you don’t want to remember the past. It changes constantly but the persistence of your memory is hard to shake. I suppose it is like a living embodiment of what Alzheimer’s must feel like. You walk down the street and you swear there used to be a Circuit City right there or was it an Office Max, a Fotomat, Gimbel’s or Woolworth. The new buildings around you melt away before your very eyes and you can see, right in front of you, what used to be there, almost as if it never left. But it did.
This time of year the city is awash in newness. Recent college graduates have all started their new jobs in the city, like Tommy who stumbled over to talk to us tonight. Or new students at Columbia or NYU are getting settled and starting classes, like my new friend Ryan, the object of Tommy’s brazen drunken move in our direction. So I embrace the new and enjoy it, even as the past draws in and out all around us like labored breathing or waves on a shore.
“Have you been to Provincetown?” Ryan asks me, looking for tips before he heads there himself this weekend. Yes, I was there, almost exactly ten years ago. It is all in my first book. Hooking up with the guy from Naked Boys Singing, the terrifying flight on Cape Air, how tiny the Statue of Liberty looked when we flew back into Newark Airport. I can’t escape it as keywords randomly access those parts of my memory.
Tommy amused me very much tonight because he was the perfect stranger to write about. This should have been all about him. He was not tall, maybe 5’9”. His hair was short and he was decidedly unshaven, which is the fashion for 22 year olds like him. He was in jeans and a white polo shirt. This was old school preppy but with a few hints of Brooklyn hipster about it. Just the barest minimum his new corporate career in midtown allows. He lives around the corner from the bar, something he repeated so often, it couldn’t have been anything but an open invitation to drop by.
He expressed a lot of concerns about his new career and fitting in there. Both Ryan and I tried to explain to him that all he needed to do was act confident and pretend like he knew what he was doing. That’s 90% of success in business anyway. Few people are Warren Buffett or Jack Welch, men who see the forest of the trees. The rest are all just good at repeating what they heard once or have a casual grace about them when ordering drinks that cleverly masks everything else. It seemed that most of his insecurity grew out of the large shadow cast by his older brother, who also lives nearby. “He’s prettier than me,” Tommy told us, puffing up his shoulders as if to indicate that he believes the only thing that really matters in the looks department is big arms, which, if you are gay, is truth.
But the most important thing about Tommy, aside from the fact that he was the second person of the evening with a Y at the end of their name, was that he was so very drunk. It was clear he hadn’t been in Manhattan long because he was the kind of drunk that happens here when you are young and haven’t yet learned that only you can prevent forest fires. When bars stay open until 4am on a school night and you don’t ever need to think about driving home, the only thing stopping your liver from dropping out of your body from sheer exhaustion is your own ability to say no. I wager it takes at least six months for the average person in New York to discover when to say when, but the younger you are, the longer that lesson will take to learn. Tommy has not yet learned that lesson.
As the DJ played pre-Glittered Mariah Carey, we all got funky on the dance floor remembering a simpler time before terrorism and the Kardashians changed America. Tommy kept circling back around trying to get Ryan to go home with him, but no reasonable person would have gone back there with someone so blind drunk. I suppose if he was still able to work his phone when he got up to that no doubt tiny apartment that made his arms looks bigger, he probably ordered someone off Grindr, delivered in thirty minutes or less. Manhattan is nothing if not convenient.
I can’t drink like Tommy anymore, and it isn’t just because I have lived here longer and I know better. Walking up the stairs from the subway onto 41st Street at Seventh Avenue, I could feel the two drinks I had and the lateness of the hour in the heaviness of my legs. But then suddenly, there I was staring up at my first office building in the city: 1440 Broadway. The street has changed so much since 2001, the smell of pot and WiFi is everywhere in the new walking promenade outside the building. I guess we have all changed a lot since then.
But I am done thinking about the past, now that I have emerged from the ethereal stench of the subway. The future is ahead of me. And there is no point in waxing nostalgic about meeting Dan by the lions in front of the New York Public Library or any of the other millions of memories that melt and rise around me as I trot past block after block.
The ghosts are everywhere but if all you do is look at them you won’t see the real living people around you. Ben Harvey isn’t a fading memory of a drunken night long past, he is a current event, a drunken night happening right now. And Ryan is a fun new friend, who braved the advice of a stranger and headed downtown for his own fresh adventure. That’s New York for you: the past and the present, side by side, melting together as one. There is something interesting waiting around every corner, even if you don’t always remember what used to be there.
There is such a late night scene in an early chapter of my new book, When Nightlife Falls. It is me, alone on the platform waiting for the 2 Train home to Harlem, getting emotional after a night of drinking out at Vlada with Ben Harvey. That night on my iPod the song of choice was the k.d. lang cover of the theme from Valley of the Dolls. Tonight, years later in the future, as I waited for the 2 Train to take me up to Times Square, I flipped through my iPhone for Amy Winehouse’s Tears Dry On Their Own. She is gone now, as is Nick Ashford who co-wrote the song, as is my iPod and even the reason I am emotional all over again. But tonight it is just nostalgia, for a time and a place that maybe was never really there.
I guess it is a function of being young that you see time as a linear function. This happened and then that happened and then this happened. It is lazy writing, like the story plotting (plodding?) on The A List or any of those other excruciating reality shows that take place excrementally. As you get older, time starts to crisscross a bit. People you knew leave and then come back. But it is beyond that grid now and I see for the first time so clearly why the clock is melting in Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Time is like cutting a cake, if you slice it but never remove the pieces. At first the cuts are smooth, but the more you cut, the messier it gets and as you cut and cut and cut again, eventually the integrity of the cake itself is gone and the whole thing falls away into a sloppy unrecognizable mess. And as you peer down into the pile of frosting and layers, you alone can still see the cake as it used to be, staring back at you. The original promise is gone, but the taste lingers.
Ben Harvey was hosting Gekko, his usual last Wednesday of the month party down at Gild Hall. It is hard to believe that Ben and I met more than four years ago. It doesn’t seem possible. But as we talked about the good times and caught up on current events, it reminded me of the conversations I was always desperate to have with him back in 2007. Our friendship that started with our mutual careers in radio and our shared love of Rosie on The View came flooding back to me anew as we talked about our shows and the eminent return to TV of Rosie this fall. Everything old was shiny and new again.
Writing my latest book brought back all those early memories of Ben, and all the other things of that time, both good and bad but mostly bad. New York City is a hard place to be if you don’t want to remember the past. It changes constantly but the persistence of your memory is hard to shake. I suppose it is like a living embodiment of what Alzheimer’s must feel like. You walk down the street and you swear there used to be a Circuit City right there or was it an Office Max, a Fotomat, Gimbel’s or Woolworth. The new buildings around you melt away before your very eyes and you can see, right in front of you, what used to be there, almost as if it never left. But it did.
This time of year the city is awash in newness. Recent college graduates have all started their new jobs in the city, like Tommy who stumbled over to talk to us tonight. Or new students at Columbia or NYU are getting settled and starting classes, like my new friend Ryan, the object of Tommy’s brazen drunken move in our direction. So I embrace the new and enjoy it, even as the past draws in and out all around us like labored breathing or waves on a shore.
“Have you been to Provincetown?” Ryan asks me, looking for tips before he heads there himself this weekend. Yes, I was there, almost exactly ten years ago. It is all in my first book. Hooking up with the guy from Naked Boys Singing, the terrifying flight on Cape Air, how tiny the Statue of Liberty looked when we flew back into Newark Airport. I can’t escape it as keywords randomly access those parts of my memory.
Tommy amused me very much tonight because he was the perfect stranger to write about. This should have been all about him. He was not tall, maybe 5’9”. His hair was short and he was decidedly unshaven, which is the fashion for 22 year olds like him. He was in jeans and a white polo shirt. This was old school preppy but with a few hints of Brooklyn hipster about it. Just the barest minimum his new corporate career in midtown allows. He lives around the corner from the bar, something he repeated so often, it couldn’t have been anything but an open invitation to drop by.
He expressed a lot of concerns about his new career and fitting in there. Both Ryan and I tried to explain to him that all he needed to do was act confident and pretend like he knew what he was doing. That’s 90% of success in business anyway. Few people are Warren Buffett or Jack Welch, men who see the forest of the trees. The rest are all just good at repeating what they heard once or have a casual grace about them when ordering drinks that cleverly masks everything else. It seemed that most of his insecurity grew out of the large shadow cast by his older brother, who also lives nearby. “He’s prettier than me,” Tommy told us, puffing up his shoulders as if to indicate that he believes the only thing that really matters in the looks department is big arms, which, if you are gay, is truth.
But the most important thing about Tommy, aside from the fact that he was the second person of the evening with a Y at the end of their name, was that he was so very drunk. It was clear he hadn’t been in Manhattan long because he was the kind of drunk that happens here when you are young and haven’t yet learned that only you can prevent forest fires. When bars stay open until 4am on a school night and you don’t ever need to think about driving home, the only thing stopping your liver from dropping out of your body from sheer exhaustion is your own ability to say no. I wager it takes at least six months for the average person in New York to discover when to say when, but the younger you are, the longer that lesson will take to learn. Tommy has not yet learned that lesson.
As the DJ played pre-Glittered Mariah Carey, we all got funky on the dance floor remembering a simpler time before terrorism and the Kardashians changed America. Tommy kept circling back around trying to get Ryan to go home with him, but no reasonable person would have gone back there with someone so blind drunk. I suppose if he was still able to work his phone when he got up to that no doubt tiny apartment that made his arms looks bigger, he probably ordered someone off Grindr, delivered in thirty minutes or less. Manhattan is nothing if not convenient.
I can’t drink like Tommy anymore, and it isn’t just because I have lived here longer and I know better. Walking up the stairs from the subway onto 41st Street at Seventh Avenue, I could feel the two drinks I had and the lateness of the hour in the heaviness of my legs. But then suddenly, there I was staring up at my first office building in the city: 1440 Broadway. The street has changed so much since 2001, the smell of pot and WiFi is everywhere in the new walking promenade outside the building. I guess we have all changed a lot since then.
But I am done thinking about the past, now that I have emerged from the ethereal stench of the subway. The future is ahead of me. And there is no point in waxing nostalgic about meeting Dan by the lions in front of the New York Public Library or any of the other millions of memories that melt and rise around me as I trot past block after block.
The ghosts are everywhere but if all you do is look at them you won’t see the real living people around you. Ben Harvey isn’t a fading memory of a drunken night long past, he is a current event, a drunken night happening right now. And Ryan is a fun new friend, who braved the advice of a stranger and headed downtown for his own fresh adventure. That’s New York for you: the past and the present, side by side, melting together as one. There is something interesting waiting around every corner, even if you don’t always remember what used to be there.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Plus None
Here is a really good party tip from someone who doesn’t go to a lot of parties: If you are invited to an event and you only know the host, make sure you bring a plus one with you. It doesn’t matter how many times I get invited to a party where I only know one person, I always fail to bring someone with me. I suppose it is because I don’t have a reliable standby plus one. This is where having a straight female friend comes in handy. In fact this seems to be the primary motivation for most of these symbiotic relationships. Mental note: make new friend, attend party together.
Last week, I got a text message from Reichen inviting me to the bar Industry for the launch of his new fragrance. It is also called Reichen, so for the purposes of clarity from now on, I will just refer to it as the fragrance. That way, when I tell you some Reichen got sprayed in my eye, you won’t think the evening took a decidedly sexual turn between us. But more on the spritzing later.
My new life strategy is to say yes to everything. I will in fact now attend the opening of an envelope, both literally and figuratively. Just ask! As I have plunged headlong into midlife, I have discovered the reason you don’t see forty-something gay men anywhere: It just becomes easier to stay home. You reach a point in life where you have everything, and have been everywhere. There is nothing waiting for you out at Industry that isn’t either already at hand, or can’t be managed with your own hand. But my career dictates a certain level of sociability. I am not so famous that I can afford to hide at home and wait for the residual checks to roll in. In fact, I am not so famous anything. I need to work, not just at an office, but also a room, a bar, or launch party for a fragrance.
As I point out in my fantastic new book, When NightlifeFalls (available now on Amazon, for Kindle, and the Nook), I have known Reichen for some time, although not extremely well. He is the quintessence of a celebrifriend. That is a celebrity who I am on friendly terms with but with whom my only contact is in full view of the public. Truth be told, Chris Rice is my favorite celebrifriend because it feels all literary and classy and he is such a good sport about the whole thing. But Reichen is guaranteed to get attention, anywhere, anytime, and tonight was no exception.
I like Reichen. He is pretty, ridiculously so. And most people stop there. But the more time I spend with him, the more I see only his character. He is honestly and genuinely earnest. If I were pressed and told to describe him in one word, earnest is the word I would choose. Unfortunately, earnest is the gay community’s least popular descriptor, right behind sweet or blousy. Being earnest gets you into trouble, especially in the big city, because it can so easily read as disingenuous or condescending. I am not at all earnest. I’m blunt and crass. That, for better or worse, is never taken the wrong way. I am like a hostage taker and Reichen is like the negotiator they send in to defuse the tension.
Reichen had the launch party tonight at Industry, one of the newer hot spots in midtown (and about which my feelings are already well established). The party was scheduled to end at ten, which is also when my show ends. So I told him I would be there after the show and he gave me a private password so I would be able to get a gift bag at the event. Since I hate meeting new people, scoring a gift bag became suddenly a primary motivator for attending, mostly out of curiosity as to what might be in it. As I walked out of the studio tonight after the show, I ran into Ben and Dave, making notes ahead of the recording of their latest podcast. I told them where I was headed and joked that since I would be the fattest person at the party, I was going as both me and my own plus one.
Arriving at Industry, I opened the outer door and was immediately greeted by a giant poster informing me that entering was my consent to be filmed. I hoped that by coming late, I could avoid the filming of The A List and as it turned out, while I was waiting to talk to Reichen, some very nice production people shoved me out of the way to cart out the equipment. I’ve never been so happy to be pushed aside in a bar in my life! I don’t know how Reichen puts up with that reality TV nonsense, but then again, people wonder how I talk for four hours every night. I guess it is something you just get used to doing after a while.
Reichen seemed genuinely surprised and happy to see me, but then suddenly blurted out: “You missed the gift bags! I’m sorry. I really wanted you to have one.” Oh well, I thought to myself, it is just a gift bag. But then, noticing an unattended gift bag on a stool, he said, “I wonder who left this here. Doesn’t matter. It’s yours now!” Reichen stole a gift bag for me at his own party! I felt like a star and a criminal at the same time. That’s a good feeling, in case you were wondering. Intoxicating.
“We’re leaving,” Reichen told me, “Come with us to Le Bain!” Uh. I really had only planned to drop in fast as the white hot party burned down to an ember, so I could quickly nab a gift bag, say hi to Reichen, gather enough intel for a blog entry and still make it to the 11pm train. But I say yes to everything now, so I said yes to Reichen and his after-party adventure! And then just as suddenly I was filled with dread. Tom and Lorenzo had warned us all about the overly dramatic after parties on The A List. Was I leaving the bar just to end up as an extra in some high anxiety wine throwing melee with that horrible hairdresser, the tanorexic bitch with my name and the fat model I’d still fuck even though he got TV fat?
Before I could gather my thoughts, Reichen was introducing me to his friend Zach. “I don’t shake hands!” Zach yelled, simultaneously pushing my outstretched hand away and pouring half his cocktail down my arm, “I like to hug! I love Derek!” I would like to say this was the last time he got alcohol on me, but that instead of love, turned out to be the running theme of the evening with him.
We all went outside to hail cabs to get downtown to Le Bain, which it turned out is a bar at The Standard. I had never been there before, and I worried about getting past a velvet rope in shorts. I figured I should try to get into a cab with Zach since he was also in shorts and was the only other person I knew, but he and three skinny girls in shiny dresses climbed into a cab behind Reichen’s cab. So, being unusually bold, I waved a heretofore unknown fun black girl and a strapping gay lad into a third cab headed downtown. No doorman in NYC could resist me if I am part of this threesome! I sat in the hump between Farrin, a recruiter visiting from Dallas and Ryan, who said he was an NYU grad student recently relocated from Beijing. They were both a total blast and my favorite part of the evening.
“How did you get a gift bag?” Ryan asked me in the cab ride to The Standard. “There were only like seven of them or something.” Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t see anyone else with a gift bag. Zach didn’t have one. None of the girls in sparkly dresses. Not even Ryan and fabulous Farrin. “Reichen gave it to me.” I offered up but even as I said it, I wondered how I ended up with it too. When pressed about how I knew Reichen, I told them about my radio show. “Oh, like Ben and Dave.” Ryan offered, then suddenly something clicked. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you on their show a couple of weeks ago? I thought I recognized your voice.” True story, I was recognized from someone else’s show in the back of a cab. Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.
Our cab was the first to arrive at The Standard. The three of us waited briefly downstairs to get our ID checked and our hands stamped before we jumped into a packed elevator to the top. The bar itself was not very crowded at all and the view south to ground zero was lovely. Ryan suggested we all go upstairs and that was the revelation. Le Bain is an outdoor rooftop bar and it was spectacular. The night air was crisp and breezy. There was a hint of fall about it but it felt refreshing instead of chilly. Ryan was cold but Reichen agreed with me later that the night air was perfect. It turned out that this was his favorite place in the city and spending only a few minutes up there it was clear why.
Le Bain wasn’t very busy when we arrived but the crowd began to thicken fast. It was a funny crowd too. There were mostly young guys there, mid twenties. There were some older guys in bow ties and button down shirts tucked into shorts. That is trying too hard even when a twenty-something urban hipster does it. A blond guy across the crowd in a tight red t-shirt caught my eye. I smiled at him and he winked back. That was nice. But the best was that none of the other A Listers were there and no one was filming anything. So in all, I had a really good time. In fact, I was surprised. Plus none and non-plussed, you might say.
As the evening started to wind down, I went to say good night to Reichen. Zach was there with a tester bottle of the fragrance. Zach was even drunker at this point, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he sprayed me with cologne and then two seconds later forgot that he already had and sprayed me again. At one point, he sprayed it directly into my eyes. “It’s all organic!” Reichen assured me as I struggled to see. The cologne has a nice clean scent to it but I barked at Zach to stop spraying me. “If I get any more cologne on me, they won’t let me on the train!”
He looked at me funny. “What train is that?” Obviously I couldn’t mean the NYC subway, where if you aren’t shitting into your own hand you get a good conduct medal from the city. When I told him, I lived in Westchester, he dismissed me. “Oh, you have no power.” And there it was, I thought, the cruelty of not being a Manhattanite anymore. You live in the suburbs and you are worthless. I asked him what he meant, ready to get into a terrible name droppy fight about how close I live to Martha Stewart and own instead of rent but then in his drunken haze he suddenly made it clear he thought we were all still without electricity since the hurricane last weekend.
I guess that is the lesson of the night, and a fitting lesson when dealing with Reichen. People so quickly assume he is one thing when he is something completely different. I thought I would end up in a horrible reality show but instead I landed in a calm oasis high above the city in the welcoming night air. I thought the rooftop bar at The Standard would be a drag but it was friendly and nice. I met new people and they turned out to be a lot of fun. And even though I was awash in cologne, the conductors still let me on the train back home. Gift bag and all.
Last week, I got a text message from Reichen inviting me to the bar Industry for the launch of his new fragrance. It is also called Reichen, so for the purposes of clarity from now on, I will just refer to it as the fragrance. That way, when I tell you some Reichen got sprayed in my eye, you won’t think the evening took a decidedly sexual turn between us. But more on the spritzing later.
My new life strategy is to say yes to everything. I will in fact now attend the opening of an envelope, both literally and figuratively. Just ask! As I have plunged headlong into midlife, I have discovered the reason you don’t see forty-something gay men anywhere: It just becomes easier to stay home. You reach a point in life where you have everything, and have been everywhere. There is nothing waiting for you out at Industry that isn’t either already at hand, or can’t be managed with your own hand. But my career dictates a certain level of sociability. I am not so famous that I can afford to hide at home and wait for the residual checks to roll in. In fact, I am not so famous anything. I need to work, not just at an office, but also a room, a bar, or launch party for a fragrance.
As I point out in my fantastic new book, When NightlifeFalls (available now on Amazon, for Kindle, and the Nook), I have known Reichen for some time, although not extremely well. He is the quintessence of a celebrifriend. That is a celebrity who I am on friendly terms with but with whom my only contact is in full view of the public. Truth be told, Chris Rice is my favorite celebrifriend because it feels all literary and classy and he is such a good sport about the whole thing. But Reichen is guaranteed to get attention, anywhere, anytime, and tonight was no exception.
I like Reichen. He is pretty, ridiculously so. And most people stop there. But the more time I spend with him, the more I see only his character. He is honestly and genuinely earnest. If I were pressed and told to describe him in one word, earnest is the word I would choose. Unfortunately, earnest is the gay community’s least popular descriptor, right behind sweet or blousy. Being earnest gets you into trouble, especially in the big city, because it can so easily read as disingenuous or condescending. I am not at all earnest. I’m blunt and crass. That, for better or worse, is never taken the wrong way. I am like a hostage taker and Reichen is like the negotiator they send in to defuse the tension.
Reichen had the launch party tonight at Industry, one of the newer hot spots in midtown (and about which my feelings are already well established). The party was scheduled to end at ten, which is also when my show ends. So I told him I would be there after the show and he gave me a private password so I would be able to get a gift bag at the event. Since I hate meeting new people, scoring a gift bag became suddenly a primary motivator for attending, mostly out of curiosity as to what might be in it. As I walked out of the studio tonight after the show, I ran into Ben and Dave, making notes ahead of the recording of their latest podcast. I told them where I was headed and joked that since I would be the fattest person at the party, I was going as both me and my own plus one.
Arriving at Industry, I opened the outer door and was immediately greeted by a giant poster informing me that entering was my consent to be filmed. I hoped that by coming late, I could avoid the filming of The A List and as it turned out, while I was waiting to talk to Reichen, some very nice production people shoved me out of the way to cart out the equipment. I’ve never been so happy to be pushed aside in a bar in my life! I don’t know how Reichen puts up with that reality TV nonsense, but then again, people wonder how I talk for four hours every night. I guess it is something you just get used to doing after a while.
Reichen seemed genuinely surprised and happy to see me, but then suddenly blurted out: “You missed the gift bags! I’m sorry. I really wanted you to have one.” Oh well, I thought to myself, it is just a gift bag. But then, noticing an unattended gift bag on a stool, he said, “I wonder who left this here. Doesn’t matter. It’s yours now!” Reichen stole a gift bag for me at his own party! I felt like a star and a criminal at the same time. That’s a good feeling, in case you were wondering. Intoxicating.
“We’re leaving,” Reichen told me, “Come with us to Le Bain!” Uh. I really had only planned to drop in fast as the white hot party burned down to an ember, so I could quickly nab a gift bag, say hi to Reichen, gather enough intel for a blog entry and still make it to the 11pm train. But I say yes to everything now, so I said yes to Reichen and his after-party adventure! And then just as suddenly I was filled with dread. Tom and Lorenzo had warned us all about the overly dramatic after parties on The A List. Was I leaving the bar just to end up as an extra in some high anxiety wine throwing melee with that horrible hairdresser, the tanorexic bitch with my name and the fat model I’d still fuck even though he got TV fat?
Before I could gather my thoughts, Reichen was introducing me to his friend Zach. “I don’t shake hands!” Zach yelled, simultaneously pushing my outstretched hand away and pouring half his cocktail down my arm, “I like to hug! I love Derek!” I would like to say this was the last time he got alcohol on me, but that instead of love, turned out to be the running theme of the evening with him.
We all went outside to hail cabs to get downtown to Le Bain, which it turned out is a bar at The Standard. I had never been there before, and I worried about getting past a velvet rope in shorts. I figured I should try to get into a cab with Zach since he was also in shorts and was the only other person I knew, but he and three skinny girls in shiny dresses climbed into a cab behind Reichen’s cab. So, being unusually bold, I waved a heretofore unknown fun black girl and a strapping gay lad into a third cab headed downtown. No doorman in NYC could resist me if I am part of this threesome! I sat in the hump between Farrin, a recruiter visiting from Dallas and Ryan, who said he was an NYU grad student recently relocated from Beijing. They were both a total blast and my favorite part of the evening.
“How did you get a gift bag?” Ryan asked me in the cab ride to The Standard. “There were only like seven of them or something.” Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t see anyone else with a gift bag. Zach didn’t have one. None of the girls in sparkly dresses. Not even Ryan and fabulous Farrin. “Reichen gave it to me.” I offered up but even as I said it, I wondered how I ended up with it too. When pressed about how I knew Reichen, I told them about my radio show. “Oh, like Ben and Dave.” Ryan offered, then suddenly something clicked. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you on their show a couple of weeks ago? I thought I recognized your voice.” True story, I was recognized from someone else’s show in the back of a cab. Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.
Our cab was the first to arrive at The Standard. The three of us waited briefly downstairs to get our ID checked and our hands stamped before we jumped into a packed elevator to the top. The bar itself was not very crowded at all and the view south to ground zero was lovely. Ryan suggested we all go upstairs and that was the revelation. Le Bain is an outdoor rooftop bar and it was spectacular. The night air was crisp and breezy. There was a hint of fall about it but it felt refreshing instead of chilly. Ryan was cold but Reichen agreed with me later that the night air was perfect. It turned out that this was his favorite place in the city and spending only a few minutes up there it was clear why.
Le Bain wasn’t very busy when we arrived but the crowd began to thicken fast. It was a funny crowd too. There were mostly young guys there, mid twenties. There were some older guys in bow ties and button down shirts tucked into shorts. That is trying too hard even when a twenty-something urban hipster does it. A blond guy across the crowd in a tight red t-shirt caught my eye. I smiled at him and he winked back. That was nice. But the best was that none of the other A Listers were there and no one was filming anything. So in all, I had a really good time. In fact, I was surprised. Plus none and non-plussed, you might say.
As the evening started to wind down, I went to say good night to Reichen. Zach was there with a tester bottle of the fragrance. Zach was even drunker at this point, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he sprayed me with cologne and then two seconds later forgot that he already had and sprayed me again. At one point, he sprayed it directly into my eyes. “It’s all organic!” Reichen assured me as I struggled to see. The cologne has a nice clean scent to it but I barked at Zach to stop spraying me. “If I get any more cologne on me, they won’t let me on the train!”
He looked at me funny. “What train is that?” Obviously I couldn’t mean the NYC subway, where if you aren’t shitting into your own hand you get a good conduct medal from the city. When I told him, I lived in Westchester, he dismissed me. “Oh, you have no power.” And there it was, I thought, the cruelty of not being a Manhattanite anymore. You live in the suburbs and you are worthless. I asked him what he meant, ready to get into a terrible name droppy fight about how close I live to Martha Stewart and own instead of rent but then in his drunken haze he suddenly made it clear he thought we were all still without electricity since the hurricane last weekend.
I guess that is the lesson of the night, and a fitting lesson when dealing with Reichen. People so quickly assume he is one thing when he is something completely different. I thought I would end up in a horrible reality show but instead I landed in a calm oasis high above the city in the welcoming night air. I thought the rooftop bar at The Standard would be a drag but it was friendly and nice. I met new people and they turned out to be a lot of fun. And even though I was awash in cologne, the conductors still let me on the train back home. Gift bag and all.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Irene Done
Nothing like a hurricane bearing down on you to really convince you to get your affairs in order.
It is Thursday night in Manhattan but it is like any other run of the mill Thursday. You would never know that churning hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean, Irene approaches. New York is a busy place and everything happens in time here, even destructive forces of nature like hurricanes or tourists. Irene won’t arrive until Sunday, a veritable lifetime when counted in New York minutes, so there is still plenty of time to have a cocktail down at a small local bar, which is what I did.
Earlier, I joined the busy online world buzzing like hornets about the weather. Since I live in the suburbs, my concerns are for my roof or that great old tree in my backyard that has lately turned leaning toward my patio into an art form. But for the city dwellers, where this kind of weather event is beyond their control, thoughts turn elsewhere. In this case, the impending interruption of life out on NYC’s decadent gay oasis of choice: Fire Island.
Personally, I have no love for the place. I had lunch there once in 2001 with my old boss and stayed overnight a few years later with Cyd and Dan. My boyfriend of the time Sean and I shared a sandy twin bed and I found the other housemates (one in particular) insufferably fussy. Cyd and Dan are lovely, laid back people but they had ended up in a share with someone so tense that dinner felt as if it was made of a ticking time bomb with only 15 seconds left on the clock. Throw in my dislike of sun, sand and the ocean and you have the makings of the most unpleasant 24 hour period this side of Jack Bauer. I have not been back since.
If it wasn’t guaranteed to confirm for certain religious zealots that God hates fags, I would wish Irene wipe the place off the map. It could use, as I posted on Adam Sank’s Facebook wall earlier, a good hosing off like a “50 MPH enema.” I was less kind on Zachary Barnett’s wall where I followed a string of stringy gays wondering if they should stay or go under his status update heading “Fire Island: Forced Evacuation.” Sounded like a good porn title to me, but a lousy way to spend a weekend vacation out of town. “How dedicated are these homos,” I posted aloud to those very same homos, “to the prospect of getting laid that they would want to ride out a hurricane in one of those claptrap 1970s asbestos palaces that linger outside the meat rack filled with ghosts of popper bottles past like a rash that won’t go away?”
Further evidence of why I have no friends.
But as I took stock in my life tonight in a tiny piano bar on the Upper East Side, collecting friends was as far away from me as that dreaded hurricane. There was only one friend that mattered in that moment: Barton Brooks. Barton is perfect. He is the Ken doll of compassion and charity. He is the person you pretend to be at your high school reunion. He is wonderful.
We met at Brandy’s, a saloon with a solid wood bar and a central piano. Like all places in New York, it is old with a quirky plumbing issue and at least one patron who seems to have lost touch with modern life just about the time The Jeffersons went off the air. This is what is known as character, and Manhattan is busting with it. It oozes, like a sore that never heals.
Like me, Barton is also in a place of evaluating his life but it isn’t related to the weather. Whatever gets you to that point, so long as you arrive at your destination I suppose. As Madonna (and no one ever before her or since) said, “an unexamined life is not worth living.” So here we are: two people examining our lives. We did it over chocolate cake shots and a slice around the corner at Two Boots and as best we could while an opera singer screamed a show tune into a microphone like he was trying to fill Carnegie Hall (and I don’t mean with people, either). I don’t know that we accomplished anything but we had a good time anyway.
Soon enough it was time for me to leave, and not by ferry to Fire Island or even the Hamptons Jitney bus parked so forlorn around the corner from the bar. As I waited in Grand Central Station for my train to open up, I gazed around at the expanse of marble. Was it for the last time? The new Apple Store is under construction on the far mezzanine. I hope it doesn’t destroy the character of the great hall, but knowing Apple it will be cool and amazing and the worst thing about it will be the constant lines to get in, like the hottest nightclub in town, where people consume overpriced accessories and cruise processors instead of people. I wonder if Steve Jobs will ever see it. I hope so.
I hope the hurricane ends up a dud. I hope the worst thing that happens is how bored I am in my house without electricity and all the wonders that the mother’s milk of power provides. I hope Grand Central is spared so future generations can search the ceiling, past the stray Mylar balloons, for their astrological signs. And Apple can sell whatever crazy new thing they shit out after everyone realizes the iPad is just an iPhone you can’t make calls on, like the regular iPhone you can’t make calls on, only twice as big and more expensive.
Spare our city, Irene, in all its terrible glory. Spare it all. But if Fire Island joins Atlantis, so be it.
It is Thursday night in Manhattan but it is like any other run of the mill Thursday. You would never know that churning hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean, Irene approaches. New York is a busy place and everything happens in time here, even destructive forces of nature like hurricanes or tourists. Irene won’t arrive until Sunday, a veritable lifetime when counted in New York minutes, so there is still plenty of time to have a cocktail down at a small local bar, which is what I did.
Earlier, I joined the busy online world buzzing like hornets about the weather. Since I live in the suburbs, my concerns are for my roof or that great old tree in my backyard that has lately turned leaning toward my patio into an art form. But for the city dwellers, where this kind of weather event is beyond their control, thoughts turn elsewhere. In this case, the impending interruption of life out on NYC’s decadent gay oasis of choice: Fire Island.
Personally, I have no love for the place. I had lunch there once in 2001 with my old boss and stayed overnight a few years later with Cyd and Dan. My boyfriend of the time Sean and I shared a sandy twin bed and I found the other housemates (one in particular) insufferably fussy. Cyd and Dan are lovely, laid back people but they had ended up in a share with someone so tense that dinner felt as if it was made of a ticking time bomb with only 15 seconds left on the clock. Throw in my dislike of sun, sand and the ocean and you have the makings of the most unpleasant 24 hour period this side of Jack Bauer. I have not been back since.
If it wasn’t guaranteed to confirm for certain religious zealots that God hates fags, I would wish Irene wipe the place off the map. It could use, as I posted on Adam Sank’s Facebook wall earlier, a good hosing off like a “50 MPH enema.” I was less kind on Zachary Barnett’s wall where I followed a string of stringy gays wondering if they should stay or go under his status update heading “Fire Island: Forced Evacuation.” Sounded like a good porn title to me, but a lousy way to spend a weekend vacation out of town. “How dedicated are these homos,” I posted aloud to those very same homos, “to the prospect of getting laid that they would want to ride out a hurricane in one of those claptrap 1970s asbestos palaces that linger outside the meat rack filled with ghosts of popper bottles past like a rash that won’t go away?”
Further evidence of why I have no friends.
But as I took stock in my life tonight in a tiny piano bar on the Upper East Side, collecting friends was as far away from me as that dreaded hurricane. There was only one friend that mattered in that moment: Barton Brooks. Barton is perfect. He is the Ken doll of compassion and charity. He is the person you pretend to be at your high school reunion. He is wonderful.
We met at Brandy’s, a saloon with a solid wood bar and a central piano. Like all places in New York, it is old with a quirky plumbing issue and at least one patron who seems to have lost touch with modern life just about the time The Jeffersons went off the air. This is what is known as character, and Manhattan is busting with it. It oozes, like a sore that never heals.
Like me, Barton is also in a place of evaluating his life but it isn’t related to the weather. Whatever gets you to that point, so long as you arrive at your destination I suppose. As Madonna (and no one ever before her or since) said, “an unexamined life is not worth living.” So here we are: two people examining our lives. We did it over chocolate cake shots and a slice around the corner at Two Boots and as best we could while an opera singer screamed a show tune into a microphone like he was trying to fill Carnegie Hall (and I don’t mean with people, either). I don’t know that we accomplished anything but we had a good time anyway.
Soon enough it was time for me to leave, and not by ferry to Fire Island or even the Hamptons Jitney bus parked so forlorn around the corner from the bar. As I waited in Grand Central Station for my train to open up, I gazed around at the expanse of marble. Was it for the last time? The new Apple Store is under construction on the far mezzanine. I hope it doesn’t destroy the character of the great hall, but knowing Apple it will be cool and amazing and the worst thing about it will be the constant lines to get in, like the hottest nightclub in town, where people consume overpriced accessories and cruise processors instead of people. I wonder if Steve Jobs will ever see it. I hope so.
I hope the hurricane ends up a dud. I hope the worst thing that happens is how bored I am in my house without electricity and all the wonders that the mother’s milk of power provides. I hope Grand Central is spared so future generations can search the ceiling, past the stray Mylar balloons, for their astrological signs. And Apple can sell whatever crazy new thing they shit out after everyone realizes the iPad is just an iPhone you can’t make calls on, like the regular iPhone you can’t make calls on, only twice as big and more expensive.
Spare our city, Irene, in all its terrible glory. Spare it all. But if Fire Island joins Atlantis, so be it.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Unsupported Assertions
The Empire State Building took my breath away tonight. I was walking up Sixth Avenue, between 27th and 28th, on the West side of the street, and I looked up and there it was. At that angle, it was muscular, unyielding, and intimidating. And in our world of disposable diapers and casual encounters, that presence is as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac. As I have been many times before, and not even for the first time tonight, I was left in awe by the wonders of New York.
Some people may think of living in New York as some kind of abusive relationship that is constantly excused away. Every insufferable subway platform (searing heat in summer, glacial tundra in winter), every 1am garbage truck seemingly backing repeatedly over a dumpster under your window, every muttering maniac in a dirty coat, every Wall Street douche screaming into his earpiece, they are all just another doorknob walked into, another encounter he is really sorry about and promises will never happen again. But New York is more complex than that.
To me, to love New York is to know true unconditional love. In fact, I think if you can’t love New York, you can never fully love another person, or even yourself. It is a million flaws, writ large. It is bold, italics, and underline. All caps and all encompassing. It is everything, all at once, all in one place, open all night. The dirt, the temperature, the claustrophobic closets sold as apartments, the speed, the noise. It is an assault on every sense and through multiple dimensions. It seeps into your bones and invades your dreams. Its density is so great that it creates its own gravity. How can you not love something so powerful? So majestic? A rollercoaster forever shy of cresting that first great peak.
And then, one night, you go over that peak.
“Be nice,” Chip had quietly entreated, “but tell the truth.”
New York is about truth. It is truth. Because there isn’t the space or time for lies. And this is the truth of what happened tonight at Matt and Roy’s birthday party.
After the show, I wandered down to a bar called Black Door on 26th street. Don’t worry. I had never heard of it either. It is very nice and way in the back, the birthday party was whirling at full tilt as I arrived. The first person I saw and knew was Chip. He was standing near the door, surveying the fun.
Roy, who is often known as the notorious and outrageous Bianca del Rio, was out of drag but still in fine spirits. He and Matt had found matching tuxedos with blue ruffled front shirts in Chicago and they made quite the duo in them tonight. Roy kept up Bianca’s horrifying banter out of drag, so naturally I was forced to say something. “You know, when Bianca says shocking things, it is appalling and fun, but out of drag, you just sound like a racist.” Roy had to admit that you can get away with a lot when you’re a man in a dress.
On Monday night at Bianca’s show, Matt had arranged for a little person in drag to pop out of a present and molest her. Not to be outdone, Roy secretly arranged for a little surprise of his own. “You know the naked cowgirl, right?” He asked me. We had her on the show, so I nodded enthusiastically. “I have arranged for her to come and give Kugie a lap dance! But it is a secret so don’t say anything!” Why I, the person least likely to keep any secret, am the first to be confided in is a mystery I will never solve.
As it turns out, it wasn’t the official Naked Cowgirl, who had visited our studio, but instead the other Naked Cowgirl, Sandy Kane. Sandy was a bit older, in a blue wig and came ready to party. After she spent about ten minutes getting situated and removing her shorts, the music kicked in and she started lip syncing (quite badly I might add) to some kind of parody song about flatulence. No better or worse than Lady Bunny, but at least the Bunster (usually) knows her own lyrics. Then the bra came off and there she was, with just some star pasties over her breasts. The songs and the shaking continued, soon with a candy cane striped dildo of no significant length or girth tossed into the mix. At the end of the third song, I wondered aloud to Patrick, the cute guy next to me, how quickly it would turn from mildly amusing to sad. And then the impossible happened.
As the fourth and final song kicked up, the pasties disappeared and out came a box of safety matches. And then before all of our eyes (and camera phones), she took two matches and stuck them into the holes in each of her nipples. The matches jutting out of her pendulous breasts, she then struck a third match, lit the two sticking out of her nipples and told Matt to blow them out. Happy. Birthday.
Well, that is New York for you. It is towering achievements of concrete and steel. It is baby boomers with flaming nipples. It is everything, all at once, all in one place, open all night. And I love it. Unconditionally.
Some people may think of living in New York as some kind of abusive relationship that is constantly excused away. Every insufferable subway platform (searing heat in summer, glacial tundra in winter), every 1am garbage truck seemingly backing repeatedly over a dumpster under your window, every muttering maniac in a dirty coat, every Wall Street douche screaming into his earpiece, they are all just another doorknob walked into, another encounter he is really sorry about and promises will never happen again. But New York is more complex than that.
To me, to love New York is to know true unconditional love. In fact, I think if you can’t love New York, you can never fully love another person, or even yourself. It is a million flaws, writ large. It is bold, italics, and underline. All caps and all encompassing. It is everything, all at once, all in one place, open all night. The dirt, the temperature, the claustrophobic closets sold as apartments, the speed, the noise. It is an assault on every sense and through multiple dimensions. It seeps into your bones and invades your dreams. Its density is so great that it creates its own gravity. How can you not love something so powerful? So majestic? A rollercoaster forever shy of cresting that first great peak.
And then, one night, you go over that peak.
“Be nice,” Chip had quietly entreated, “but tell the truth.”
New York is about truth. It is truth. Because there isn’t the space or time for lies. And this is the truth of what happened tonight at Matt and Roy’s birthday party.
After the show, I wandered down to a bar called Black Door on 26th street. Don’t worry. I had never heard of it either. It is very nice and way in the back, the birthday party was whirling at full tilt as I arrived. The first person I saw and knew was Chip. He was standing near the door, surveying the fun.
Roy, who is often known as the notorious and outrageous Bianca del Rio, was out of drag but still in fine spirits. He and Matt had found matching tuxedos with blue ruffled front shirts in Chicago and they made quite the duo in them tonight. Roy kept up Bianca’s horrifying banter out of drag, so naturally I was forced to say something. “You know, when Bianca says shocking things, it is appalling and fun, but out of drag, you just sound like a racist.” Roy had to admit that you can get away with a lot when you’re a man in a dress.
On Monday night at Bianca’s show, Matt had arranged for a little person in drag to pop out of a present and molest her. Not to be outdone, Roy secretly arranged for a little surprise of his own. “You know the naked cowgirl, right?” He asked me. We had her on the show, so I nodded enthusiastically. “I have arranged for her to come and give Kugie a lap dance! But it is a secret so don’t say anything!” Why I, the person least likely to keep any secret, am the first to be confided in is a mystery I will never solve.
As it turns out, it wasn’t the official Naked Cowgirl, who had visited our studio, but instead the other Naked Cowgirl, Sandy Kane. Sandy was a bit older, in a blue wig and came ready to party. After she spent about ten minutes getting situated and removing her shorts, the music kicked in and she started lip syncing (quite badly I might add) to some kind of parody song about flatulence. No better or worse than Lady Bunny, but at least the Bunster (usually) knows her own lyrics. Then the bra came off and there she was, with just some star pasties over her breasts. The songs and the shaking continued, soon with a candy cane striped dildo of no significant length or girth tossed into the mix. At the end of the third song, I wondered aloud to Patrick, the cute guy next to me, how quickly it would turn from mildly amusing to sad. And then the impossible happened.
As the fourth and final song kicked up, the pasties disappeared and out came a box of safety matches. And then before all of our eyes (and camera phones), she took two matches and stuck them into the holes in each of her nipples. The matches jutting out of her pendulous breasts, she then struck a third match, lit the two sticking out of her nipples and told Matt to blow them out. Happy. Birthday.
Well, that is New York for you. It is towering achievements of concrete and steel. It is baby boomers with flaming nipples. It is everything, all at once, all in one place, open all night. And I love it. Unconditionally.
Monday, June 27, 2011
People. People Who Know People.
I climbed the stairs. Those dusty old stairs in the back of the theatre. The ones that take you up to the dressing rooms. And I looked up and there he was. I waved and he peered around the corner just like in a movie, a surprised grin on his face. And in that moment, I forgot everything I was going to say.
It seems that I have done that a lot lately. It has been months since I have written. Well, I should say it has been months since I have written anything new. I have been writing, a new book that will be out soon if I ever declare it finished. So it isn’t like nothing has been happening, or truly that I have forgotten to write about it, but my mind has been somewhere else. And when I saw Luke MacFarlane, all golden there in the back of the Golden Theatre, my mind was somewhere else again.
He is so handsome. So handsome! It makes me uncomfortable. So naturally, I do that thing I do when I am overwhelmed by any man: I insulted him.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked brightly through his billion dollar smile.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to see you!” I declared, I suppose in an attempt to assure him that I am not stalking him, but instead I just sounded like an asshole.
Who says that? He just got off stage from appearing on Broadway in The Normal Heart. The performances were amazing. The show is powerful and challenging and upsetting and incredible. And this is the best I can do? I still had tears in my eyes and I couldn’t muster one scrap of anything nice to say? But in my defense, he is that handsome.
I had been meaning to see The Normal Heart for a while. It is a limited engagement with great reviews. It takes a pry bar and a stick of dynamite to get me out to anything in Manhattan. And you can just forget an outer borough. My heart is still filled with every intention to see the Alexander Hamilton exhibit at the Natural History Museum, whose billowing banners I passed on countless cab rides before it finally closed (out of sheer exhaustion!) in 2004. If Mike hadn’t encouraged me to go to The Gates in Central Park, Christo’s miles of fabric might still be on my to-do list.
So when John Benjamin Hickey came by the studio last week to do our show, and confessed his fandom for us, I felt incredible pangs of guilt. Luke MacFarlane had already been on our shows weeks ago. Not only had I not seen The Normal Heart then, I had never even seen him on Brothers & Sisters. In fact, I had never seen him in anything except photos on the internet. Meanwhile, he had been listening to our show for God only knows how long. I felt selfish, hogging attention without properly reciprocating. At least with John Benjamin Hickey, I had watched every episode of It’s All Relative. But I still had not seen The Normal Heart.
“I’m going this Wednesday!” I blurted out spontaneously to John as he was leaving the interview. He was so excited.
“Great! Come backstage after, will you?” Okay!
But then I went to buy tickets online and there is no Wednesday matinee of The Normal Heart. Since I work every night, Wednesday matinees are best for me. I can see things on the weekend if I am not traveling, but usually my weekends are spent happily buried on Saturdays in the Real Estate then the Automobile sections of The Times (don’t ask) and then Sundays in the Business section (makes even less sense). I like a hot cup of coffee and some lox and I’m in heaven. It takes extreme measures to wrest me from my quiet weekends in the suburbs living out my Douglas Sirk fantasies and this was such a circumstance.
Since I was going to the Pier Dance after seeing a Broadway show, I thought about bringing two outfits: one more dignified for the theatre and the other considerably less dignified for the Pier Dance. But in the end, I decided on short khaki shorts and a short-sleeve button-down blue and white seersucker shirt. So there I was, unsuitable to any occasion, like always.
Going backstage, I had planned to take the liberty of inviting John and Luke out to Kevin and Christopher’s island for July 4th. Those boys are Broadway folk and I am sure they wouldn’t mind. Besides, John was Christopher’s TV husband on It’s All Relative so it is practically all in the family already. And the 4th is a Monday so I am sure they will all be off work, include Christopher who just stepped back into Chicago as Billy Flynn. But then I saw Luke and insulted him and forgot everything I was going to say and after some nice small talk about Romaine, he grabbed his bike and fled while I made my way up a second flight of stairs to John’s dressing room, wondering what the hell was wrong with me that even though I talk for a living, I can’t talk to people like a human person!
Things went better with John who was very excited to see me. We had a nice long chat and he assured me that if he had been in a regular show that was off after the Sunday matinee, he totally would have given me a ride back to Westchester! That’s pretty amazing right? The nicest guy! I wonder if Luke had a motorcycle if he would let me ride on the back behind him. I am going to assume after how I was that such an adventure might not be in the cards.
Somewhere between talking about John’s partner writing for Modern Family and me awkwardly forcing the wonderful Ellen Barkin to shake my hand, I forgot to invite John out to the island too. At least I gave him my card so if he emails me, I will bring it up. And as I walked down the alley toward the street, instead of thinking about Anne Baxter waiting there in All About Eve, I hoped Luke would still be out front signing autographs next to his bicycle so I could apologize and hand him the other business card I had in my wallet. But as the sunlight hit my eyes, I looked around and he was long gone.
When I appeared outside, the crowd was momentarily excited but then seeing that it wasn’t a cast member, the deflation was palpable. “I’m not anyone!” I wanted to yell out in confirmation but it seemed like overkill. I’m just people. People who know people.
It seems that I have done that a lot lately. It has been months since I have written. Well, I should say it has been months since I have written anything new. I have been writing, a new book that will be out soon if I ever declare it finished. So it isn’t like nothing has been happening, or truly that I have forgotten to write about it, but my mind has been somewhere else. And when I saw Luke MacFarlane, all golden there in the back of the Golden Theatre, my mind was somewhere else again.
He is so handsome. So handsome! It makes me uncomfortable. So naturally, I do that thing I do when I am overwhelmed by any man: I insulted him.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked brightly through his billion dollar smile.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to see you!” I declared, I suppose in an attempt to assure him that I am not stalking him, but instead I just sounded like an asshole.
Who says that? He just got off stage from appearing on Broadway in The Normal Heart. The performances were amazing. The show is powerful and challenging and upsetting and incredible. And this is the best I can do? I still had tears in my eyes and I couldn’t muster one scrap of anything nice to say? But in my defense, he is that handsome.
I had been meaning to see The Normal Heart for a while. It is a limited engagement with great reviews. It takes a pry bar and a stick of dynamite to get me out to anything in Manhattan. And you can just forget an outer borough. My heart is still filled with every intention to see the Alexander Hamilton exhibit at the Natural History Museum, whose billowing banners I passed on countless cab rides before it finally closed (out of sheer exhaustion!) in 2004. If Mike hadn’t encouraged me to go to The Gates in Central Park, Christo’s miles of fabric might still be on my to-do list.
So when John Benjamin Hickey came by the studio last week to do our show, and confessed his fandom for us, I felt incredible pangs of guilt. Luke MacFarlane had already been on our shows weeks ago. Not only had I not seen The Normal Heart then, I had never even seen him on Brothers & Sisters. In fact, I had never seen him in anything except photos on the internet. Meanwhile, he had been listening to our show for God only knows how long. I felt selfish, hogging attention without properly reciprocating. At least with John Benjamin Hickey, I had watched every episode of It’s All Relative. But I still had not seen The Normal Heart.
“I’m going this Wednesday!” I blurted out spontaneously to John as he was leaving the interview. He was so excited.
“Great! Come backstage after, will you?” Okay!
But then I went to buy tickets online and there is no Wednesday matinee of The Normal Heart. Since I work every night, Wednesday matinees are best for me. I can see things on the weekend if I am not traveling, but usually my weekends are spent happily buried on Saturdays in the Real Estate then the Automobile sections of The Times (don’t ask) and then Sundays in the Business section (makes even less sense). I like a hot cup of coffee and some lox and I’m in heaven. It takes extreme measures to wrest me from my quiet weekends in the suburbs living out my Douglas Sirk fantasies and this was such a circumstance.
Since I was going to the Pier Dance after seeing a Broadway show, I thought about bringing two outfits: one more dignified for the theatre and the other considerably less dignified for the Pier Dance. But in the end, I decided on short khaki shorts and a short-sleeve button-down blue and white seersucker shirt. So there I was, unsuitable to any occasion, like always.
Going backstage, I had planned to take the liberty of inviting John and Luke out to Kevin and Christopher’s island for July 4th. Those boys are Broadway folk and I am sure they wouldn’t mind. Besides, John was Christopher’s TV husband on It’s All Relative so it is practically all in the family already. And the 4th is a Monday so I am sure they will all be off work, include Christopher who just stepped back into Chicago as Billy Flynn. But then I saw Luke and insulted him and forgot everything I was going to say and after some nice small talk about Romaine, he grabbed his bike and fled while I made my way up a second flight of stairs to John’s dressing room, wondering what the hell was wrong with me that even though I talk for a living, I can’t talk to people like a human person!
Things went better with John who was very excited to see me. We had a nice long chat and he assured me that if he had been in a regular show that was off after the Sunday matinee, he totally would have given me a ride back to Westchester! That’s pretty amazing right? The nicest guy! I wonder if Luke had a motorcycle if he would let me ride on the back behind him. I am going to assume after how I was that such an adventure might not be in the cards.
Somewhere between talking about John’s partner writing for Modern Family and me awkwardly forcing the wonderful Ellen Barkin to shake my hand, I forgot to invite John out to the island too. At least I gave him my card so if he emails me, I will bring it up. And as I walked down the alley toward the street, instead of thinking about Anne Baxter waiting there in All About Eve, I hoped Luke would still be out front signing autographs next to his bicycle so I could apologize and hand him the other business card I had in my wallet. But as the sunlight hit my eyes, I looked around and he was long gone.
When I appeared outside, the crowd was momentarily excited but then seeing that it wasn’t a cast member, the deflation was palpable. “I’m not anyone!” I wanted to yell out in confirmation but it seemed like overkill. I’m just people. People who know people.
Friday, April 1, 2011
There's No Fool Like An April Fool
Sometimes it is hard to tell the exact moment that things have stopped going your way. I think it is because it doesn’t happen all at once. Problems drip slowly out of a faucet of misery, though initially it is nothing you can’t handle. For the bold or naïve, it is easy to go about your routine until you turn around and realize that all hope is lost, as is any chance of getting back to it. I should have seen the signs earlier, but when it is April Fool’s Day, it is easy to become distracted.
It all started this morning at work. I am in Los Angeles doing the show for the week and this morning, I was hosting Frank DeCaro’s show instead of my own since Frank and his co-host Doria were doing my show with Romaine in Palm Springs for Dinah Shore weekend. The first hour was beset by technical problems that threw my guest host Dennis Hensley temporarily off his game, but they were all resolved pretty quickly so I thought nothing of it. By the end of the show, Dennis and I were pleased with the result.
It all started this morning at work. I am in Los Angeles doing the show for the week and this morning, I was hosting Frank DeCaro’s show instead of my own since Frank and his co-host Doria were doing my show with Romaine in Palm Springs for Dinah Shore weekend. The first hour was beset by technical problems that threw my guest host Dennis Hensley temporarily off his game, but they were all resolved pretty quickly so I thought nothing of it. By the end of the show, Dennis and I were pleased with the result.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The Light Of Darkness
It has happened of late that I have fallen into the acquaintance of Ben Roussel. I have also been reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain, so if my syntax shifts wildly in tone for no reason you’ll know why. Ben added me on Facebook some time ago and even though I didn’t know him personally, I did add him to my modest friend archive. It was during a period when, for instance, if the editor of a national gay magazine who I heretofore had never met added me, I would accept their friendship. I believed that by doing so I wasn’t just being dumped into some vast repository of their own ego but instead was building the kind of good will that would lead to articles about me that would further my career. None such articles materialized and it has happened of late that I have started to delete all of those people. But not Ben Roussel.
Some months ago when I escaped the glass terrarium I work in and headed to one of Fab.com’s happy hour parties, I was finally introduced to him in person. Naturally, in my warm and welcoming way, I cornered him on the stool where he had been shackled to pass out raffle tickets and demanded to know why he had the audacity to add me, the quintessence of the perfect stranger, on Facebook. Ben told me that he liked my writing and I seemed like the kind of person he would want to know. Never let it be said that I can’t be flattered instantly out of my most deeply held core beliefs no matter how weak the tea is that’s being served.
Some months ago when I escaped the glass terrarium I work in and headed to one of Fab.com’s happy hour parties, I was finally introduced to him in person. Naturally, in my warm and welcoming way, I cornered him on the stool where he had been shackled to pass out raffle tickets and demanded to know why he had the audacity to add me, the quintessence of the perfect stranger, on Facebook. Ben told me that he liked my writing and I seemed like the kind of person he would want to know. Never let it be said that I can’t be flattered instantly out of my most deeply held core beliefs no matter how weak the tea is that’s being served.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Industrious Fellows
My beat, if I have one, is not what is new and cool. There was a time in my life when being at the place everyone else was at was of utmost import. Since moving to New York ten years ago, I have enduring the sameness of Bowery Bar, the overpriced drinks at Duvet and the allure of the John Blair Gold Card. As much as I may loudly proclaim my status as an outsider, I have spent more than my fair share of time on the inside.
Winter is a difficult time in New York City. Before the year ends, the city swells with unbearable tourists, clogging every artery like unwelcome cholesterol, the heart of the city seizing under the stress. January brings in the inevitable trade-off of fewer people but more snow and bitter cold. If you polled eight million New Yorkers, they would overwhelmingly champion the latter. These twin anxieties lead to a kind of hibernation. As uninhabitable as most NYC dwellings are, they become more palatable as the pendulum swings in their favor during the darker months of the year.
Winter is a difficult time in New York City. Before the year ends, the city swells with unbearable tourists, clogging every artery like unwelcome cholesterol, the heart of the city seizing under the stress. January brings in the inevitable trade-off of fewer people but more snow and bitter cold. If you polled eight million New Yorkers, they would overwhelmingly champion the latter. These twin anxieties lead to a kind of hibernation. As uninhabitable as most NYC dwellings are, they become more palatable as the pendulum swings in their favor during the darker months of the year.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Dystopia
“This is not utopia!” I thought to myself, but it was. While standing shivering past midnight outside Utopia on 52nd street waiting for people to meet me, it couldn’t have been more of a misnomer. But this is how my life is. I can sit in a room for four hours with thousands of people across North America hanging on my every terrible joke, and then just a few hours later, I am in the well of obscurity on a midtown cross street, dirty snow swirled under my shoes like creamed brown sugar on its way to the Tollhouse.
Cavin Knight, a tight hunky newcomer to the porn world, was on the show tonight. A long time listener now in town filming a scene with Tristan Jaxx for Michael Lucas, he really wanted to drop by. All the insanely hot photos of him on the web made me want to have him on the show too, in particular on my lap. And while he is very hot, I have lately (today) become somewhat obsessed with his screen partner in Fit For Service (one Paul Wagner) who for some reason has long escaped my casual gaze but suddenly has all of my attention. I am certain there is nothing more flattering in this world than to be a porn star, finally meet a radio show host you have followed for five years and then be peppered by questions about someone else. At least, I hope so.
Cavin Knight, a tight hunky newcomer to the porn world, was on the show tonight. A long time listener now in town filming a scene with Tristan Jaxx for Michael Lucas, he really wanted to drop by. All the insanely hot photos of him on the web made me want to have him on the show too, in particular on my lap. And while he is very hot, I have lately (today) become somewhat obsessed with his screen partner in Fit For Service (one Paul Wagner) who for some reason has long escaped my casual gaze but suddenly has all of my attention. I am certain there is nothing more flattering in this world than to be a porn star, finally meet a radio show host you have followed for five years and then be peppered by questions about someone else. At least, I hope so.
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