The City By The Gay

Just for the record, when I first moved to New York City, I was hired at a company that worked on the redevelopment strategy turning The Nashville Network into Spike TV. And in between, it was our beautiful missing link The National Network (aka The New TNN). And there, I toiled away writing hilarious puns about Pamela Anderson on Baywatch (“Double Vision”) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Set Your Phasers On Fun”) that populated the website. So I would like to take credit for the current passion for puns in everything from The Daily Show to Morning Joe, even though a pun is truly the lowest form of comedy. So don’t think for a minute that my pun headlines are a riff on current popular culture. I am just reusing bits I did eleven years ago. And they were no fresher then than they are now, my friend.

On the subject of the good old days, my ex-boyfriend Curtis is in town. Years and years and years ago, I spied him across Revolver and bravely gave him my number as he was leaving and then he didn’t call. For three years. But eventually he was moving a desk and found my number which had fallen behind it and finally picked up the phone. As it happens, the number I gave him was for my friend Paul's apartment where I had been staying temporarily at that time and purely by happenstance was back there, sitting waiting for Paul to get out of the shower, the night Curtis deigned to call me back and I happened to answer the phone. Please note: if I am close friends with someone, I will wash their dishes if bored, answer their phone when they are in the shower, or sort through their mail even if they are standing right there, so if you value your privacy or personal space, it is probably not a good idea to be my close friend.

I have always trusted fate in my life, and that bit with Curtis ended up worked out well for a few months until misery with his life and job in Hollywood prompted him to take a job in Toledo, Ohio producing the local news. At the time, I was furious. Imagine having someone leave you right before Valentine’s Day and it isn’t even for a top 50 market! That’s how I thought in those days, although I suspect I would have the same reaction now. We were somewhat casually dating at the time, shy of six months as I recall, and never broke up for acrimony so we have remained on friendly terms over the years.

Now Curtis lives and works happily in San Francisco (hence the headline pun) and I even had a wonderful brunch with him and Bobby Intern I five years ago and wrote about it in my book, When Nightlife Falls, although on that particular late morning, nightlife did not in fact fall. But it has been four years since he was in the city and I was anxious to catch up. So anxious in fact that I ran out of the studio at ten pm and headed down to XL to meet him in the front bar.

2008: Curtis experiences life on my commuter train

Hanging out at XL on a Wednesday night presented an immediate problem for me when Matt Kugelman, drunk and friendly, galloped over to say hello after spotting me on his way to the bathroom. I have a running gag where I leave just before Bianca del Rio takes the stage for her show but in this case, I was actually in the bar while Bianca’s show was going on. But I wanted to catch up with Curtis and I can not watch Bianca anytime!

As it turns out, our quiet chat time together was short-lived as the show ended in the back of the bar and the music suddenly kicked up six thousand decibels and Curtis and I could no longer hear each other. Before Curtis had a chance to complain, the music was turned down a bit and we stuck around for another drink to enjoy Matt’s company and meet his friends Marc, in a tank top, and Jasper, the doctor holding a motorcycle helmet. Oh yes and Vitaliy was there too, in town again from Utah. Vitaliy is from Ukraine and I made sure not to say The Ukraine because apparently that is like saying The Facebook or not knowing how to use a comma in a sentence.

Curtis had a long day ahead of him so he bowed out and I tried to leave as well but Matt said that was “an asshole thing to do” so I bowed to pressure and stuck around. And I am glad I did because drunk Jasper pulled Logan Slaughter’s wig off and Logan offered to punch him in return. “Not in the face,” Matt joked. But then Logan actually punched him in the stomach and Jasper reeled back, sloshing the drink in my hand, which I was not amused by.

Perhaps because of all that excitement, Logan did not remember meeting me the last time I saw him at XL, which is too bad because he supplied one of my favorite punch lines of all time. XL has a rotating promo screen showing upcoming shows and one of the drag queens promoted there was apparently no longer working at XL after only one performance. “Oh no!” I declared, “What did she do?”

“Her shoooooowwww,” was Logan’s pitch perfect immediate response.

I guess I shouldn’t feel so bad that Logan didn’t remember me because it wasn't actually Logan Slaughter, it was Epiphany. What can I say: all drag queens look alike to me. But I did wonder at the time why Logan was taller than I remembered. Also, Marc insisted that we had met eleven times before and I didn’t remember him either. In my defense to him, I declared myself a horrible person. And in this regard I truly am. I am sorry. I am a self centered asshole who only thinks about himself and I write about people and then promptly forget them.

But then I felt redeemed after Bianca said nice things about me and my work on the air. As a former producer himself, Curtis had earlier had no sympathy for me and my whiny host problems. But Bianca, no stranger to the sweaty desperation of filling time and working a crowd heaped praise on me on-air and how I kept things moving. And used the word "generous" to describe working with me, which is probably the first time ever in the history of ever that someone has said that about me. But truth be told, when you are a lazy person like I am, you are happy to cede as much of your four hour show as someone is willing to take.

No matter what your job is, whether it is hosting a radio show, or dressing up as a lady, or writing terrible puns about jiggly breasts and laser weapons, it is still work. Yes, it may not be digging a ditch or working in a coal mine or toiling outside a top fifty market but it is still work. And you don’t love it every day. Earlier Curtis had asked Jasper what he didn’t like about NYC and I said, “Even people who love it here can give you a list of things they hate.” But when you do something you love and live somewhere you love, it makes it all worth it.