Mistaken Identities

Halloween night in NYC is just terrific. I don't know why I never noticed before. I suppose it is because I have pretty much skipped active participation in the downtown scene since I moved here from Los Angeles. Halloween in West Hollywood used to be fun, but then it became overwhelmed by people in plain clothes gawking and no one dressed up so much anymore. I blame my dear friend (and long-standing addiction) television for turning us into a nation of lookers instead of doers.

I was most looking forward to Halloween night at my house in the suburbs. We took the night off from the show and finally I had a house in a neighborhood where I could decorate the yard and pass out candy to little kids in cute costumes. I sat there in my cowboy outfit for three hours waiting for a little more than a dozen kids to show up. I had been concerned I wouldn't have enough candy but after I waited an hour for the next batch of kids to come, I instituted a mandatory "take as much as you want" policy lest I get stuck eating my weight in Reese's peanut butter cups and fun size Kit Kat bars. As it was, I powered through at least ten pieces while waiting for the doorbell to ring.

At 8pm I said so long to suburbia and packed up my cowboy hat and duster and headed down to New York City. The train was filled with locals in costume and when it pulled into Grand Central Station suddenly it was like I had arrived at the party. Maybe it was because it was so unseasonably warm or because the holiday landed on a Friday or because the economy is so bad that everyone was desperate for something to take their minds off the misery, but it felt like the entire city had gone all out for the occasion.

I joined Matty and his adorable boyfriend Hanno at Joe's apartment, where the ex-Navy man managed to outfit the cute couple as well as himself and straight girl counterpart Erica in his leftover gear. Matty in a trim khaki suit, Hanno in fatigues, Joe in crisp dress blues and Erica in his dress shirt belted with black leggings. I told her she looked like a stripper. "I look like Pamela Anderson when she married Tommy Lee," she replied. I assured her that that was what I meant.

We cooled our heels at Joe's for a while, consuming champagne, and waiting for others to show up so we could move on to Josh and Chris' party a few blocks away. Finally two girls showed up dressed as an Olsen twin and Amy Winehouse and we ran off into the night. As we sojourned from Chelsea to the West Village, the streets were clogged with revelers, all dressed up with somewhere to go. The Maritime hotel overflowed with Asian flappers and the sidewalks were jammed with all manner of pop culture touchstone.

Outside of the party we ran into playwright Robert Harling who was just leaving, as well as a cute guy dressed as a riff on the woman who claimed someone carved a B in her face, although he had an MJ on his face which had to be laboriously explained to everyone who wasn't dyslexic. This is the trouble with a clever costume. Half the time no one knows what it is, and the other half think it is something else entirely. At Best Week Ever today, Michelle Collins showed up with a crazy wig dressed as Peg Bundy but was instantly mistaken for The Real Housewives Of Atlanta. It's an even bigger problem working in a pop culture crucible because your references have to be so of the moment they are practically predictions of the future.

Inside, it was a very typical gay party. There were four extremely hot shirtless guys in tight football pants dry humping each other, sloppy drunken dancing in the living room to Britney's "Womanizer" and the kitchen was so densely packed it's a wonder the more waifish guests weren't spontaneously expelled from the room like champagne corks every few minutes due to the mounting pressures. Josh and Chris were terrific and welcoming hosts though I spent most of the evening with Joe's girls, not knowing anyone else and being self conscious about what my cowboy hat had done to my hair.

I had really wanted to go to Ronnie's Halloween benefit or even the party that Brian Babst ran off to figuring that me in a cowboy costume might finally be the nudge he needs to make out with me in public. But by the time we got settled it was already too late for me to make it to a third location before the drunk train home. So I settled in to a steady diet of candy corn and cupcakes while trying to avoid all human contact. I danced a little. We escaped briefly upstairs to Mike's apartment (which we called the VIP room). And even capped off the evening on the rooftop deck. The night was cool and still fifty feet above the West Village and if a very drunk and tall Marilyn hadn't stumbled out to smoke, you might almost forget it was Halloween.

I left Matty and Hanno at the party and walked Joe back to his place. Joe's girls had long since departed for a straight bar because quite frankly they hadn't all dressed so slutty and frozen their asses off all night just to go home alone. Joe was so drunk he barely made it down the stairs to the street, let alone the ten blocks back to his place. Earlier at his apartment he had reminded me that we met some weeks ago at Eric's party but in typical fashion I had forgotten. My mind was on other things and another person that night. I tried to look at him there on the street, passing Ugly Betties and a Sarah Palin eating a hot dog, to see if I could conjure a hint of recognition.

As I passed a long sea of sexy kittens and naughty nurses, I thought about how difficult it would be to get my swollen feet out of my boots later after walking all the way back to Grand Central. They may have been made for walking but probably not for a mile or two over concrete. True, my very authentic cowboy drag (happily bought in Dallas, sadly made in China) did get a few catcalls from women and a nice "you look so Brokeback, I love it" from Matty, but it was hardly my only costume of the night. I have been in the same masquerade for months now, putting a happy mask over the man with the broken heart. And as fun as this holiday is, it just isn't the same alone.

I'll Take Manhattan

I never look at the weather before I leave the house. It’s a terrible habit I picked up while living in Los Angeles. In LA, the weather just never changes. Today’s weather report in Hell: 72 degrees and sunny, just like every other day. Sure, there are a couple of rainy days in January. But just looking out the window you can tell what the weather will be like for at least the next 48 hours. Besides, everyone drives. So even if it does rain, everyone has an umbrella (along with a sweatshirt and rollerblades) in the trunk just for emergencies. In fact, the flat line weather is such a cliché in Southern California that Steve Martin made it a significant plot point in L.A. Story. It is for this reason that I was caught unawares by the rain in Manhattan tonight on my way home.

Earlier in the day, when I was frantically tearing the house apart looking for my iPod so I could rip Britney’s terrific new CD into it, I noticed my umbrella sitting on the sideboard in my dining room. It came into focus as if a piece of crucial evidence in a Hitchcock movie: a folded newspaper on a motel room nightstand, the flicker of a lighter in a pair of eyeglasses, and now my umbrella lying dormant under a window, a cloudy sky foreshadowing in the background. But I ignored the umbrella to pursue my missing MP3 player. It turns out the iPod was in my backpack all along, right where my umbrella had been until I tossed it out after wearily carrying it around for two unpredictably dry months.

Today I wore my favorite grey wool coat that I picked up last fall at the Barney’s Warehouse Sale. It is a short, fitted jacket that makes me feel like one of the Von Trapp boys in The Sound of Music, my tribute to Gwen Stefani and her “Wind It Up” video. Unfortunately only an old sheep dog smells worse wet than a wool coat. So I ran as quickly as I could through the rain, Britney’s ridiculously hot “Toy Soldier” song urging me along, as I wove a delicate race between umbrella-carrying tourists and the dangerously slippery metal grates strewn about the sidewalks like land mines waiting to fell the unsuspecting with their cruel slickness. Diagram that sentence, bitch!

Britney and Los Angeles were both on my mind as I ran from Rockefeller Center to Grand Central Station. Earlier in the day, Michelle Collins emailed me to let me know that she had quoted me on her Best Week Ever blog. Yesterday on the show, she was raving about Britney’s new album, although with the caveat that it was processed to the point that on some of the songs she sounds like Gwen Stefani. After hearing “Toy Soldier,” I said that it was as “processed as a Kraft single.” Michelle couldn’t believe that I made it up in the moment and expounded on the theory (even further in her blog entry about it), perfecting it for the audience. Her rabid enthusiasm drew me to the Virgin Megastore after the show last night to experience Britney’s collective Blackout for myself. And Michelle is right. It is good. Arguably, the best Britney album ever, especially given how utterly shitty most of her work is.

I will be in Britney’s adopted town of Los Angeles this weekend. I read on PerezHilton.com that she has a new Mercedes SUV, which is good to know. If I see one coming, I will pull over immediately, like when an ambulance is going by. I am in town for my high school reunion. It’s been just over twenty years since I walked out of that school for the last time. It is strange for me to be going back this week since it is also the twentieth anniversary of my lost virginity. What does one give as a gift for that anniversary? A shop-worn, empty box?

All I really care about is looking better than everyone else who comes to the reunion, which is the only reason to go. I remember Cindy Crawford bringing her House of Style crew to her ten year high school reunion and thinking that there is no finer revenge, or better use of a television crew. No doubt her former classmates ran around telling everyone what good friends they had been with the supermodel, only to have those lies ripped to shreds right there on TV for everyone to see. Cindy confronted all of the popular girls who had been so mean to her, and cornered the boys who had refused to ask her out. And she killed them with kindness, a brand of torture porn the makers of the Saw movies could only aspire to. People were more relaxed at the Nuremburg trials. Cindy is my hero.

I don’t have a camera crew to follow me around, nor do I have a TV show. It is unlikely that anyone in my suburban LA high school would be impressed with my lowly satellite radio career. It’s not like I am in the movies or something, as most of them doubtlessly are, even if it is below the line. Then again, I still look pretty good for my age, mostly the product of vanity, no kids, and lots of product. I have a cute suit to wear and I am approximately the same weight I was in high school. Unfortunately, there isn’t anyone from my school that I care to torment. I wouldn’t mind seeing the guy I lost my virginity to. And our pompous class president. Neither of them came to the ten year reunion. Oh well. At least I will get a meal out of it, and a long weekend in Los Angeles. I hope it doesn’t rain though. I already packed nothing but shorts and t-shirts, and true to form, I didn’t bother to check the weather.