Getting a bunch of gays together in one place is no easy task. The expression “herding kittens” comes to mind. As our major LGBT lobbying organizations long ago learned, our community is no monolith and it is never more evident than on a Friday night when competing personalities have different ideas of what makes a fun night out on the town.
Michael Bond is visiting this weekend from Boston. He started assaulting my Facebook Wall more than a week ago with demands for an audience and the opportunity to play a little “Gay Chicken.” Bond is adorable, as everyone knows, so a quick Friday night make out session never seems like a bad idea. Unfortunately, Bond has a terrible habit of coming to town, getting blind drunk and then becoming very difficult to pin down (in both location and at the shoulders up against a wall). I knew that if I wanted to win at Gay Chicken, it was going to take a little extra effort on my part.
Several weeks ago, Matty and I were at a party (you remember, the one with the awful furniture and good art) and while we were in the ad hoc coat check area in the hall outside a cute gay approached us and invited Matty (and by default, me) to his birthday party on the 13th. So I knew there was a party somewhere, but that was all I knew. Earlier this week when I grilled Matty about it, he remembered the encounter but not whose party it was. Then Thursday night, out at Matty’s Park party, Joe let me know that it was Micah, who I was so hostile to some weeks ago at The Ritz. Fortunately, on our second encounter, he was too drunk at both to connect the dots. This small mercy is what keeps me afloat in Manhattan gay social circles.
As my show wound down on Friday night, Roommate texted me and let me know he was hanging out around the corner at Barrage, our original Manhattan staple when I lived on 42nd Street back at the beginning of my NYC adventures at the start of the century. I tried to convince him to go down to Chelsea, or worse, south of Houston for Micah’s party, but he was adamant. After going to bed at 5:30am the night before and working all day, he was only in the mood for a quick beer and then an express train to slumberland. I headed down to Barrage to try to convince him in person, while texting with Bond to see where he was. Bond planned to join Michael Warner’s bar crawl and in the interim was pre-cocktailing at a friend’s apartment in the heart of Chelsea.
To no one’s surprise, Roommate finished his Blue Moon and headed for the 11:10pm train. I hopped on the E Train, bound for Chelsea, while Matty texted me from Micah’s party way downtown wondering where I was and when we were coming. Still hopeful that I could pull Bond out of the pending bar crawl, I joined him at his friend’s tastefully standard Chelsea apartment for a surprisingly delicious vodka cranberry. There was some smooching, some hand-holding, and at one point, he even licked my face. “Should I have one more? I don’t want to get too drunk.” He asked as I wiped the saliva off my face. I told him to have two. He was already over the line, what difference did it make if he had two or two hundred?
More gays arrived at the apartment and all of them looked like they were churned out of the Play-Doh Chelsea Boy Maker by Hasbro! All trim plaid shirts, smooth haircuts and zero body fat. Apparently we each took a jump on the super accurate scale in the bathroom, though I was the only one there with the shock of recognition on his face when he came out moments later. After a group photo destined for Facebook glory, we all decamped around the corner to Ate Ave (which I think used to be Food Bar). Michael Warner was climbing into a modified luxury SUV, on his way to Splash, which as usual, only sounded appealing to Bond and the other gays visiting from Boston. Inside, I ran into HX photog Jeff Eason, Ben Andrews in full porn star mode (razored haircut and no Clark Kent glasses), and Amanda Lepore, more and more a Japanese robot fuck doll every day.
While still debating a trip much further downtown than I ever like going, I got a single word text from Matty: Maritime. Glory be! A bar around the corner. I tried once again to convince Bond to join me and Matty at Maritime but now his drunken heart was set on Splash. We made our way through the chaotic mess at Ate Ave and made our sloppy good byes outside. Moments later, I was in the familiar throes of Maritime with Matty, Joe and our returning champion Andrew. I discovered that part of the secret to Andrew’s insanely narrow physique was his recent adventures in marathons and, slightly more to my liking, half marathons. “What are you running to or from?” I queried to Joe’s delight and no answer from Andrew. He was in a contemplative mood, but as it turns out, not very self-reflective.
My time at Maritime was terribly short. Too short. But I did have to commend myself on a job well done. It isn’t easy seeing three different people in four different locations in only three hours. And even though it was a week of pure junk food (chicken fingers at Moonstruck, the most amazing onion rings at NY Burger Co., Valentine’s Day cupcakes, a package of Twizzlers, Michael Bond), I rewarded myself at Grand Central with a hot dog smothered in sauerkraut and mustard. And on my walk to the train, I hung my own “Mission Accomplished” banner over my head. True, I wasn’t able to bring everyone together, but I did get a little piece of each of them, and that made my evening complete.
Showing posts with label Amanda Lepore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amanda Lepore. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
New Now Next!
Ah limbo! Yes, the Catholic Church abolished it years ago but that doesn’t mean it no longer exists in the world of celebrity. If anything, it is thriving there. Tonight we did a live broadcast from backstage at the New Now Next awards, which will air on LOGO on June 7th. It was a perfect limbo opportunity for us, not really press per se nor celebrity, we got to exist in the nether regions of the media room shuttled off in a dark corner of the MTV studios. We weren’t the only ones in limbo. As I pointed out with my previous GLAAD adventure, there are tiers of celebrity, and once again, we were on the bottom rung.
This is not uncommon for us and it is a fair trade off for the life we get to lead. On the one hand, we are reasonably well known in the rest of America (I was just named Grand Marshall of Indy Pride 2008!), but in New York City, we aren’t even a blip. The upside of this is that we can walk the streets of Manhattan unmolested by fans. The downside of course is that all of the glamorous trappings that would normally come with celebrity (namely invites to fun parties filled with free liquor and other celebrities) constantly elude us. However, in this case, we were able to be reasonably unknown and hang out with celebrities and drink free booze.
The awards themselves I will leave largely shrouded in mystery, lest I give away any winners accidentally. Suffice it to say, it was eerily reminiscent of past MTV events, such as the MTV Movie Awards, which should add a level of familiarity and comfort to viewers even if many of the presenters and winners are as yet unknown to them. This I think is the idea though. It is called New Now Next, with the emphasis on introducing new talent as opposed to rehashing past stars and straight allies, a cornerstone of the high end GLAAD awards for years. I applaud the effort even as I worry the outcome.
Many of my favorite people were there, including the lovely Andy Towle, whose blog I am hopelessly devoted to. We even got him to spend a few minutes on our show, which is a little bit like get later years Howard Hughes to trim his fingernails. Jack Mackenroth was there, along with Kevin Christiana and Christian Siriano from Project Runway. Jack is a ray of bitchy sunshine and pound for muscular pound the best cocktail chatter partner money can buy. I only wish any sliver of our conversation could be repeated in print, but rest assured if Disney’s Lady and the Tramp ever comes to Broadway we could play the Siamese cats, only drunk and real cunty.
Things really moved into high gear once we hit the after party. This is where the other bank of celebrities existed, the bank we would have been with if we hadn’t been live on the radio. LOGO invited two sets of guests: those who would be on the TV show and do that press line and those who would watch from the after party room and do a different press line. Here we found lovely friends like Josh Zuckerman and Keo Nozari, patiently waiting out the evening for everyone else to join them. They spent three hours with the who’s that of New York gay society swilling cocktails and eating pigs in a blanket and mini grilled cheese sandwiches (the hot Hollywood hors d‘oeuvre du jour ten years ago). Later after the on-air celebrities appeared, sushi was thrown into the mix to remind everyone that better people had arrived. There were even two sets of gift bags. Segregation may have been outlawed in the public sphere fifty years ago but it is beloved in entertainment circles.
As the other stars drifted upstairs I finally got some alone time with the fabulous God-des and She, who looked great and were sad that they missed my cinco de mayo party. Michael Carbonaro was there, auditioning for a comic relief role on Mad Men while Peter Stickles stood by, serene and beautiful. His skin was so perfect I wanted to scrape off a sample and send it to a lab to be cloned and then grafted onto my own face. Caroline Rhea who earlier had done the show, still couldn’t get over how much I looked like her gay high school boyfriend. She kept touching me wistfully and then running away.
I thought that would be the weirdest part of the evening until Junior Vasquez’s mega Madonna mix sent a set of avant-garde performers into a frenzy of spontaneous nudity on the stage. At this point, I was standing with Jensen Atwood, who did the show while I was out in Los Angeles two years ago when our mutual friend Ben Patrick Johnson was co-hosting with me. “This is too arty for me.” I said, conscious of my eyes rolling back in my head. “I guess it’s what the kids like.” In my mind, I was already at coat check picking up my bag and backpack.
Security seemed to have the same idea as they sauntered up onto the stage to encourage them to put their clothes back on. But by then it was one a.m., the lights were coming up anyway and the bar was closed. The minute the clothes had come off, the party was definitely over. This may have been LOGO’s hot new edgy award show, a big gay coming out party filled with the gritty vim and verve of downtown Manhattan (aka Amanda Lepore’s fully functioning vagina), but the powers that be didn’t want us to forget for a moment that mama MTV is actively chaperoning this gay adolescent who still has a little more growing up to do.
This is not uncommon for us and it is a fair trade off for the life we get to lead. On the one hand, we are reasonably well known in the rest of America (I was just named Grand Marshall of Indy Pride 2008!), but in New York City, we aren’t even a blip. The upside of this is that we can walk the streets of Manhattan unmolested by fans. The downside of course is that all of the glamorous trappings that would normally come with celebrity (namely invites to fun parties filled with free liquor and other celebrities) constantly elude us. However, in this case, we were able to be reasonably unknown and hang out with celebrities and drink free booze.
The awards themselves I will leave largely shrouded in mystery, lest I give away any winners accidentally. Suffice it to say, it was eerily reminiscent of past MTV events, such as the MTV Movie Awards, which should add a level of familiarity and comfort to viewers even if many of the presenters and winners are as yet unknown to them. This I think is the idea though. It is called New Now Next, with the emphasis on introducing new talent as opposed to rehashing past stars and straight allies, a cornerstone of the high end GLAAD awards for years. I applaud the effort even as I worry the outcome.
Many of my favorite people were there, including the lovely Andy Towle, whose blog I am hopelessly devoted to. We even got him to spend a few minutes on our show, which is a little bit like get later years Howard Hughes to trim his fingernails. Jack Mackenroth was there, along with Kevin Christiana and Christian Siriano from Project Runway. Jack is a ray of bitchy sunshine and pound for muscular pound the best cocktail chatter partner money can buy. I only wish any sliver of our conversation could be repeated in print, but rest assured if Disney’s Lady and the Tramp ever comes to Broadway we could play the Siamese cats, only drunk and real cunty.
Things really moved into high gear once we hit the after party. This is where the other bank of celebrities existed, the bank we would have been with if we hadn’t been live on the radio. LOGO invited two sets of guests: those who would be on the TV show and do that press line and those who would watch from the after party room and do a different press line. Here we found lovely friends like Josh Zuckerman and Keo Nozari, patiently waiting out the evening for everyone else to join them. They spent three hours with the who’s that of New York gay society swilling cocktails and eating pigs in a blanket and mini grilled cheese sandwiches (the hot Hollywood hors d‘oeuvre du jour ten years ago). Later after the on-air celebrities appeared, sushi was thrown into the mix to remind everyone that better people had arrived. There were even two sets of gift bags. Segregation may have been outlawed in the public sphere fifty years ago but it is beloved in entertainment circles.
As the other stars drifted upstairs I finally got some alone time with the fabulous God-des and She, who looked great and were sad that they missed my cinco de mayo party. Michael Carbonaro was there, auditioning for a comic relief role on Mad Men while Peter Stickles stood by, serene and beautiful. His skin was so perfect I wanted to scrape off a sample and send it to a lab to be cloned and then grafted onto my own face. Caroline Rhea who earlier had done the show, still couldn’t get over how much I looked like her gay high school boyfriend. She kept touching me wistfully and then running away.
I thought that would be the weirdest part of the evening until Junior Vasquez’s mega Madonna mix sent a set of avant-garde performers into a frenzy of spontaneous nudity on the stage. At this point, I was standing with Jensen Atwood, who did the show while I was out in Los Angeles two years ago when our mutual friend Ben Patrick Johnson was co-hosting with me. “This is too arty for me.” I said, conscious of my eyes rolling back in my head. “I guess it’s what the kids like.” In my mind, I was already at coat check picking up my bag and backpack.
Security seemed to have the same idea as they sauntered up onto the stage to encourage them to put their clothes back on. But by then it was one a.m., the lights were coming up anyway and the bar was closed. The minute the clothes had come off, the party was definitely over. This may have been LOGO’s hot new edgy award show, a big gay coming out party filled with the gritty vim and verve of downtown Manhattan (aka Amanda Lepore’s fully functioning vagina), but the powers that be didn’t want us to forget for a moment that mama MTV is actively chaperoning this gay adolescent who still has a little more growing up to do.
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