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.

Miracle On 52nd Street

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Stuck In Park

Thursday night at The Park has been a thing for a while now. Last year, Matty was promoting a night there. This year, it has been Josh Woods’ turn. Certainly over the last few months, the Fox party has been the most consistent night out for me. So I suppose it was no surprise that on my first Thursday out in a while, The Park was on the agenda, even if we only planned to stay for a short bit. Erik didn’t mind going again, but the drinks are kind of pricey ($13 for a tiny glass of ice with a heavy pour of vodka on top). So we made a plan to stop by for the first hour when the drinks are two for one and then head on up to Hell’s Kitchen.

ADD Jeff sent me a text message during the show to see if I was going out tonight. As fate would have it, I was. So when the show ended, he was waiting downstairs on the plaza outside our building with his muscled pal Eddie. Eddie is the kind of walking slab of beef that should either be hanging in a meat locker or punching the beef in one. Together we hopped on the subway and headed down to The Park to begin our evening.

Play Ball

I get so torn about my life in moments like this. On the one hand, I relish my anonymity and all the trappings of "real life." At the same time, I have frequent urges to be in the center of the action. These are the two pulls in my life, tearing me constantly in opposite directions at the same time. Earlier today I was enjoying my Sunday political shows (who knew McLaughlin was such a raving FDR devotee!) and then winterizing my house. It's a quiet existence where I am more concerned with what to watch on TV than who is watching me. But then later, I headed down to the city for dinner with Ben Harvey and a debaucherous turn at the Hustlaball.

It was a gorgeous fall day. Crisp, as we like to say. And the leaves were just starting to turn and drop, even as the sun shown warmly through the thinning branches. On days like this, I love the long walks the city affords and made the trek from Grand Central to Union Square on foot. Ben was waiting for me in the bar of Republic looking as handsome as ever. Has it really been so many months since I saw him last?

Republic is one of my favorite places in the city. It is communist dining at its finest: inexpensive, fast, spare and they serve thai ice tea and green tea ice cream, two of my greatest rare pleasures in life. It was all new to Ben so he stuck with the reliable pad thai while I indulged in spicy duck noodle broth. We gossiped about work, caught up on love (or lack thereof), shared chicken skewers. Aside from my total domination of the conversation, it was a perfect evening.

I regret to say that, in my usual fashion, I turned to Ben as we got our ice cream and said, "And now in our last five minutes, tell me all about you." Believe me when I say this was not the worst of my conversational crimes. I managed to weave a depressing zinger about our depressed economy as the punchline to nearly every sentence no matter the subject matter. Through it all, Ben was a terrific sport about the whole thing.

From there, I jetted down to the Hustlaball. Last year, I attended under the guise of being Chi Chi LaRue's assistant. This year, I was (thanks to Howard at FabScout) a bona fide invited guest. In many ways, I loved being mistaken for Chi Chi's minion. No one wanted anything from me save access to the terminally accessible and personable star herself. This year, still no one wanted anything from me, though ever the publicist, Howard made sure everyone knew who the hell I was. Though, the one person who had heard of OutQ mistook my show for another, accusing me of an appalling bit about selling a used condom full of cum at 9:30am! "That's our morning show," I assured him, finally with a sense of relief at not having to defend the lurid content of my own show for a change.

Barrett Long was there, looking dapper as we sat together in the VIP lounge. He was anxious to rehash our good times last year when his then roommate Rod Barry picked a drunken fight on the patio. Suddenly, sensing the moment, he stood up and started to unzip his pants. "I've seen it!" I said, but he was persistent. "Yes but you haven't sucked on it." I dodged the inevitable hand on the back of the head and stood up, firm in my conviction to not experience his mammoth eleven inch cock first hand. "I still have my tonsils, Barrett, and this is not how I want them taken out."

Ben Andrews was there early on doing his Clark Kent shtick, but I spent most of the evening with Jackson Wild and Ryan Raz. The two of them were still rattled from some unpleasantness the night before at Octoberfist, another adjunct Hustlaball event. Jackson was drinking up a storm, even charming me into a lemon drop shot I didn't want to do, while Ryan stuck dutifully to water knowing he had a scene to do in the morning with the aforementioned Barrett Long. I didn't envy his future soreness one bit, especially after Barrett told me that once it was in he wanted Ryan to spin on it.

Jackson was excited about the eminent arrival of his boyfriend Jim. After the show on Friday prepping for my last blog entry, I did some recon on the boys and read all about Jim on Jackson's MySpace page. Jackson's love for the hunky stranger seemed worthy to me and the two of us got along great. Good thing since we spent the better part of the evening together while the boys were working the red carpet and dancing on stage. In the interim, I coaxed Jim to take his shirt off and the two of us turned the VIP lounge into our own private dance party.

Events like the Hustlaball are dicey propositions, especially in the VIP room where the crowd is made up of porn stars and the men who love them. Many of the stars are reluctant participants and the admirers are too busy staring to have much fun. That leaves it up to in-betweeners like us to actually bring the party. As an invited guest, I did my best to shore up the proceedings, short of sucking Barrett Long. After all, when all is said and done, I am still just a civilian here, having fun but always with an eye on the door that leads out to the real world where I truly belong.

Layer Cake

Some places have so many memories in them; it practically chokes you to be near them. Manhattan is getting like this for me. I’ve been in the city for seven and a half years now and the island is awash in memories and flashes from the past. Tonight I headed downtown after the show to Comix to see Michelle Collins on her birthday, and the journey ended up being more like a trip back through time.

I first met Michelle after she blew the doors off PS122, a performance space downtown where Michelle did stand up in something called the WYSIWYG Talent Show, where bloggers get up and read from their blogs. I ended up doing the Talent Show twice myself, once doing a set of truly libelous celebrity stories in front of three people that killed and then later true tales of extreme drunkenness which ended up as the “live” season finale of my video podcast “The So Real Life” as well as the unofficial end of the WYSIWYG Talent Show. But Michelle endures, adding hilarity to our radio show, trips to the Olive Garden and most recently July 4th on Kevin and Christopher’s island.

I love Michelle so it was a given that I would abandon my usual early train home for a not-so quiet drink with her in Chelsea. I took the subway down and now that I live upstate and no longer take the subway, the experience was a revelation for me. I had forgotten the evil efficiency of the subway platform to retain all the cold of winter and all the heat of summer. The train deposited me on 13th Street at 7th Avenue and I walked across 13th toward the comedy club. Along the way I passed the Gay Center, where I ran into Cory out front when I was there to cheer Chip Arndt on when the AIDS Ride returned last fall. Cory, so full of Iowa goodness, who unwittingly helped me through my darkest hour two summers ago with a simple greeting at Therapy. Then it was on past the triangle shaped park that Dan and I walked around endlessly one sunny afternoon while very politely breaking up during the Pride Garden Party, June 2001.

Happily, I had never been to Comix so the ghosts of hot gay men past could not follow me in. True, Hell’s heavy gate was just around the corner, but not close enough to get me this time. Michelle looked beautiful, made up for the stage and wound up like a top. A whirling dervish, she spun fluidly from social friends to college friends to work friends, stopping only long enough to get a genuinely tasty margarita at the bar. As one of her friends pointed out, “The best five dollar drink in town.” I hate margaritas generally but on this one I am forced to agree.

While Michelle bounced back and forth, introducing me with unrealistically lavish praise, from friend “Red Eye” to comic “hilarious” to spouse “MoveOn.org,” my eye kept wandering over to the devastated pile of cake sitting in the middle of the center table. It looked like one of those houses that recently floated down the Mississippi out of Iowa and got stuck up against a metal train bridge. Every time Michelle left me alone for a split second, my fingers dove into the cake for another tiny wedge. “That was my last piece” I kept telling myself while simultaneously reaching in for just one more. I think I might be an addict. But the cake was very good. As usual, the frosting was just too sweet and much for me, but the cake was the real deal.

I couldn’t stay long. I wanted to take the midnight train home and I knew there would be a pile of other memories waiting for me along the way. The pizza place on 14th street where I tried to get a slice for Chi Chi La Rue and failed. Up near Times Square, my old Starbucks near my office at 1440 Broadway, where Tim and I finally made our peace, such as it is. The Mr. Softee truck by Bryant Park where I had to stop for a cone, like I always do. And finally the steps of the New York Public Library, where Dan and I first met, that warm spring day. I was just new to New York and in those glorious months before 9/11 the city was filled with all of the promise of a Sex And The City episode. And there under the watchful eye of the Chrysler Building, leaned up against the stone lion, my first Manhattan crush.

My cone finished, and my journey nearly ended, I wandered into Grand Central Station, as I have a 1000 times before. I used to walk through Grand Central on my way to work, thrilling to the sounds of that woman with the haunting voice who used to sing “Summertime” echoing through the hall. I still get a chill thinking about it. But there is also sadness for me there too. I can’t go down the West corridor without thinking of the horrible dark night Jonathan broke his cell phone. So many memories, rushing around me there, like the magical moment of dancing in The Fisher King.

And then the train home. I wish it was an escape, a way to wash clean those old memories in the calm waters of the Hudson River and start anew in the morning. But the memories, while triggered by places, don’t reside there. Good and bad, you can’t escape them, because they live inside you. And every day in the city is filled with the promise of new memories just waiting to be made. The memories layer, like Michelle’s collapsing birthday cake, mushing into each other, flavors you like on top of ones you don’t. Together a complete taste and experience, and sometimes, just a little too much.

The GayVN Awards

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Double Talk

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My Life On The F List

I am not really that famous. True, I host a radio show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio but so do about 700 other people. It is hard to feel special in that kind of environment. There is Howard Stern, and then there is everyone else, and then there is me. Romaine and I have been hosting this show since April 2003, almost five years now. It has been a lot of fun for us, and I hope the listeners too. There have been some high moments for me (dancing with Charo, meeting Olivia Newton-John, being called a “faggot” by my beloved Meredith Vieira) and some low moments (interviewing Amy Sedaris was worse than a root canal). But overall, I think it is a body of work that I can look back on with a certain amount of pride in accomplishment. After all, it is the second longest running talk show at SIRIUS (Mike is the longest) and it can’t be that bad if we are still around.

This doesn’t mean we haven’t received our fair share of criticism over the years. The former head of programming at SIRIUS famously predicted early on that our show would be the first one on the OutQ Channel to wash out (we didn’t). In the outside world, Datalounge.com in particular has been filled with some genuine and for us even hilarious vitriol. I particularly enjoyed the gay face vs. carb face debate about me some years ago, and who among us can forget when they said of Romaine pictured in the Long Beach Pride Parade, “I didn’t know whales rode in convertibles.” More recently they have taken aim at my gay voice and my obnoxious laugh, two points that while I would probably not start a datalounge thread about, I am generally in agreement on (and if you want to know what I am packing datalounge.com, drop me an email). But the hatred really kicked up a notch when we announced this week that we would be co-hosting the GayVN Awards this year.

From the beginning of our show, we have had porn stars on with us. Our closest and longest running porn friendship has been with John Rutherford of Colt Studio, dating back to the summer of 2003. John’s boyfriend Tom is a long time SIRIUS subscriber and he encouraged John to take a listen and then to have Colt stars on our show. Colt even did an early ad buy on our show for Buckleroos, and the on-air interview about the film spurred listener phone calls that encouraged John to make Big Rig under his Buckshot Productions line. John even offered us both cameo roles in the film, of which mine, the lascivious motel manager who tries most unsuccessfully to bed Colby Taylor, earned me a GayVN nomination last year. I lost in a tie to industry favorites Paul Barresi and Savanna Samson.

This was not our first brush with the GayVNs though. We did a broadcast of the 2005 GayVNs on our show when it was hosted by Chi Chi La Rue. From that original recording, we captured Chi Chi’s desperate attempts to keep the drunken show moving with a wide variety of line readings on the word “alright!” which now populate our canned phrases database on the show. Since then, Chi Chi has also become a SIRIUS subscriber and frequent listener of the show (and as you have seen from my previous blog entries something of a delightful travel companion for me).

After several years as host, Chi Chi would appear to be done with the duties for the time being and offered to help the GayVN folks find another host. The bar was set insanely high last year with comedian Kathy Griffin, so almost anyone after that was bound to feel like a letdown. And that was the moment Romaine opened her big mouth. John Rutherford was a guest on the show and we got to talking about this year’s show and talk turned to the search for a host. Ever the egomaniac, Romaine naturally suggested us, which sparked John to call Chi Chi who called the GayVN folks. The next day I got a call from Chi Chi asking us if we would like to do it in the company of another host, ideally one in a dress. In a way, Romaine and I are perfect non-political hosts for the show, I thought. We are supportive of the industry but unlike other better known names inside the industry (Jason Sechrest, Tim and Roma, etc) we have no built in associations and allegiances. Even Michael Lucas likes us! Plus we have the added advantage of a national radio show to help promote the awards on. I knew we would be a disappointment after the Griffin, and as I could tell from my GayVN appearance last year, porn stars are not early adopters of satellite radio, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how rapidly we would be sent down the river.

During the show tonight, I got an IM from Jason Sechrest, who we have had a long and very mildly complicated relationship with. I first met him in 2003 in Chicago (which he won’t remember) when he and Chi Chi (who also wouldn’t remember it) were hanging out in a VIP room at some nightclub. I tried to introduce myself to him and to Chi Chi, but I never got past Jason. Our show was completely unknown and SIRIUS had fewer than 200,000 subscribers at the time, and his icy reception reflected our very low status on the media totem pole. Since then, as our subscriber base and profile have risen, so has Jason’s warmth toward us. It is a version of celebrity geometry I became quite familiar with when I lived in Hollywood and I don’t take it personally. Most recently, Jason facilitated booking Ben Andrews and Jonathan Vargas on the show, both of which were great additions to the show and I am much appreciative of him in his efforts.

His IM tonight during the show was one of quick apology. He wanted to assure me, as he already had posted online, that his video blog about us as the new hosts of the GayVNs was all in good fun. We don’t have sound in the studio so I had to wait until after the show to give it a good viewing. Romaine and I sat upstairs and watched it and frankly, he didn’t say anything I wouldn’t have said about it myself. He held his hands out over and over weighing the two shows. On the one hand Kathy Griffin. On the other, Derek and Romaine. No comparison! Even with the addition of Lady Bunny, the unconfirmed additional host (who I adore), still no comparison. Kathy Griffin is a gay icon (despite her recent awkward run-ins with the community)! Jason’s video blog was all in good fun and we got that (as he knew we would), but it was the posting on TheSword.com that he knew was going to piss us off.

Written anonymously, and clearly by someone who (like Jason) had never heard our show. They had done nothing but read our show one sheet and my latest blog entry and pronounced sentence on us. Romaine was a “steroidal puffin” and I am “Reichen-fawning”, and both of us are interchangeable houseplants. Wow. Bold choice calling a woman who had a baby six months ago fat in an anonymous web posting. But what they said about Matthew Shepard was really below grade. I know you are upset about not getting to host the porn awards (that must be the end of the world), but is it necessary to discount the work someone did on a global scale to combat homophobia? You know, to make the streets safe for a low life piece of shit like you. Oh and she had a fucking baby! What have you done with your life? Frosted your tips? Finally fit into a size 32 pair of jeans? Got out of bed this morning? Sorry she has been too busy to have an eating disorder or a meth habit, she is raising a baby and hosting a national radio show. And by the way, I know Romaine can be a pain in the ass, loud-mouthed bitch sometimes, but she came out as a lesbian at 13. In Wyoming. Still the only openly gay person in her high school's history. Then she got to endure the death of her brother, her father and her friend all within a matter of a couple of years. But you didn't get to host The Pornies, so I guess it's all even now.

Our little radio show is not for everyone. Hell, most days, I don’t think it’s even all that worth listening to. But we have been doing it for five years. And even if I don’t always think its great, do you know who did? Time Magazine. They said our show was “suggestive of radio’s party days, before big radio ate the AM/FM dial… and sucked the fun right out of the control booth.” Oh and the Washington Post. They said our show was “frisky, freewheeling… a distinctly different brand of radio.” The New York Times even called me “handsome” and my ego has been dining on that for five years now. What have they said about you? And what will we say about you when we get on stage at the GayVN Awards? I guess you will just have to come by on February 16th and find out. If you dare show your face. Tickets are still available!

The Life Of Riley

I have a lot of empathy for my friend Chi Chi La Rue. Last year, I was in New Orleans for Southern Decadence and I went up to the VIP room and Chi Chi was there. That year, I was hanging out with Roman Heart, who spent most of the weekend gingerly stepping over glasses and spilled drinks in between half-hearted dance moves on top of the downstairs bar at the Bourbon Pub. When I ran into Chi Chi, she was screaming for her cardboard box. Suddenly, there it was. A non-descript cardboard box labeled “For Chi Chi Only! Touch It And Die!” This was the box of giveaway porn and I recognized it immediately. When Romaine and I travel for the show, we also have “the box” and while it is sometimes filled with porn, it is more likely to be stuffed with t-shirts or mardi gras beads. It was in that moment at the Bourbon Pub that I realized how similar my life on the road was to Chi Chi’s and how grateful I was that I didn’t have to do it in a dress, wig and heels.

Chi Chi has a powerful personal effect on people. I have wondered for quite some time now just what it is about Chi Chi that creates the opportunity for them to do things they would never otherwise do. I think it is her utter exuberance about everything. She is just so enthusiastic, and when someone is cheering you on so vigorously, it is hard to say no. I suppose it is a combination of this aspect of her personality and my empathy for her that turns me into her personal assistant whenever I see her lately. And it’s not Chi Chi demanding that I wait on her hand and foot. But there is just something about her that makes me happy to get her a fresh cocktail or carry her suitcase full of CDs around. I did it a bit in Minneapolis during pride and was back at it again tonight.

Chi Chi is in town this weekend to DJ at the HustlaBall. Now I had never been before, but it is exactly what it sounds like. It is a big party/event featuring dozens of porn stars and escorts mingling and having fun with three packed floors of potential customers. The HustlaBall staff just assumed I was Chi Chi’s assistant, which was fine with me. This weekend when I go to Dallas, I won’t be able to walk down the street without being recognized. It’s nice to spend an evening being not just an ordinary person, but even better, an unimportant one. I only wish it hadn’t been such a struggle to get a free drink, but I guess that is the trade off.

The only people at the event tonight who knew I even had a real job were prior guests on the show. It felt like everyone was there tonight. Barrett Long, who was also in New Orleans last weekend was there with new roommate Jason Crew, whom I first met on the set of Big Rig two years ago. That’s a lot of trouble for one household. The third musketeer was the ever delicious Rod Barry. He was upset about something and after some shots started getting belligerent. We danced a bit until his playful punching got too painful and I pawned him off on Barrett Long, who seemed to have more experience with unhappy Rod. Michael Lucas was there and apparently was one of the performers on stage (I heard he planned to pee on someone so I skipped the show). I kept running into him all night and he kept looking at me expectantly but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was that he wanted me to say. Chi Chi was effusive in her praise of Michael on stage. Yes, she was almost too nice, like Robert Blake gushing about his great wife at the restaurant moments before she got shot. “Did you hear how nice I was to Michael tonight? Tell everyone how nice I was.” Duly noted, Chi Chi.

Lucas exclusive Ben Andrews was there in his eyeglasses and hoodie with no shirt underneath. I think Ben has a Superman/Clark Kent thing about his glasses, like somehow no one will realize he is porn star Ben Andrews if he doesn’t take them off. Colton Ford was also there, preparing to sing later at the event. I spent a few minutes talking to Colton, and Ben, and it was nice to have a private conversation with them for a change since nearly everything else we have ever said to each other has been broadcast live on the radio. RuPaul was Chi Chi’s other guest for the evening (aside from me), but he didn’t stay long. He just dropped by to say hi to Chi Chi and then headed home. It was too bad because Ru was one of the few people there that I wish I had gotten more time with.

A huge number of those porn star/escort types at the HustlaBall were brought in by Howard from FabScout. I met Howard two years ago the first time we did Fort Lauderdale Pride and I kind of really like him. Porn agents generally have a bad reputation. Well, why be so narrow? Agents generally have a bad reputation. Porn performers are consistently and depressingly messed up and flaky. Tonight in the DJ booth Chi Chi and I waxed poetic about the former Gus Mattox and how nice it is to see a hot man who also is reliable, smart and fun. “If only all porn stars could be forty-five…” I thought out loud. Unfortunately most of them are 22, or younger, and don’t know what they want to do with their lives yet and don’t know what it means yet to have a job. So, I don’t envy Howard’s job (or Chi Chi’s for that matter), although he does have lots of cute guys to look at so it could be worse.

One of Howard’s boys was a porn star named Riley Burke. Riley is a delectable blond with a thick of chest hair and a willing personality. If given half the chance, I would desert us on an uninhabited island and fuck his brains out forever. Unfortunately, my three and a half year old niece has a better grasp of her own emotional state than he does, and tonight was especially messy. He spent most of the time hanging out with adorable Seth, the “hung Czech” personal assistant, future lawyer, certified massage therapist. Seth has a flawless body, which was on full display during his 20 minute nude massage in the VIP lounge, and he was totally sweet and fun. Not to mention that years of yoga have paid off to the point where he can put both of his legs behind his own head. However try as we might, there just wasn't any real sexual chemistry between us. Riley on the other hand, had my attention at all times. One minute sweetly standing with me at the bar telling me his hopes and dreams, the next getting his ass eaten out by a stranger. The munching must have been fantastic because as soon as the guy was done, Riley was unzipping the stranger’s pants, barely getting “where do you live” out of his mouth before the stranger’s cock went in it. What a lesbian.

Riley’s self-esteem was falling faster than prices at Wal-Mart. This made me want to rescue him but fortunately I am old enough now to know what a complete waste of time that is. Riley kept asking Chi Chi, who had directed him in one of his most recently movies, how he looked. It didn’t matter how many times Chi Chi said he looked great, he asked again and then caught another disapproving glimpse of himself in the mirror. When I tried to say good bye later, he smiled wanly and brushed me away. Seconds later he burst into tears, surrounded by the comforting arms of two muscle bound escorts. I guess the evening was just too much for him and he snapped. Riley had said earlier in the evening that he thought Howard was too hard on him, but now I am thinking maybe Howard wasn’t tough enough with him. He is a beautiful guy but if he can’t pull himself together he won’t last six more months in this industry and he’ll be dead before thirty.

We left the HustlaBall and headed into a cab. Chi Chi and I were both hungry for a classic slice of NYC pizza. In the cab ride back to her swank hotel none of the pizza places were open, so I volunteered to run to the corner and pick up a slice for her while she got out of those painful heels. Sixteen blocks later and nothing, including the all night pizza joint with the “Open 24 Hours” sign, was open. Ugh. Doesn't anyone in Chelsea eat greasy food in the middle of the night anymore? Then it started to drizzle. That was the end of that. I love Chi Chi but it’s not like she promised me a kidney. I performed above and beyond the call of duty. It was fun, but now it was 2:15 in the morning on a school night! Time to wrap things up. I picked up a couple of sandwiches and a bag of chips and returned finally to Chi Chi’s room, where I think she had given up all hope of ever seeing me again. “Postcards From The Edge” was playing on her TV and we bonded a bit more over our shared love of the movie. “I love ‘these are the options? Lana, Joan and you?’” Chi Chi declared, quoting her favorite line.

In the car on the way home, I thought about my favorite line from the movie. “Never let ‘em see ya ache. That’s what Mr. Mayer always used to say. Or was it ‘ass?’ ‘Never let ‘em see your ass.’” Tonight I saw Riley’s ache and his ass, and I think I speak for everyone when I say, I’d rather see his ass.

To Live And Dine In LA

I almost died yesterday in New Orleans.

I used to take my anti-aging vitamins two at a time until my Grandmother snapped, “Oh for crying out loud, open your throat and swallow them all at once.” So for the last year and a half, not wanting to seem like a pussy in front of her, that is how I have done it. A fistful of pills thrown down my throat, which had been a fine system until yesterday when life once again imitated the art of 30 Rock and the vitamins got lodged in my throat. Moments later, I was coughing and puking in the sink until three of them came back up. That was enough clearing for me to swallow some large swigs of water to get the rest of them down. But standing there alone in my underwear in the hotel room, my face red and puffy from the hacking, just served to remind me of the running theme of the weekend: we are just too old for this.

Nevermind that it was anti-aging vitamins I was choking on, the whole weekend was an endurance test for the liver, kidneys, stomach and feet. Each day began at the crack of one, with a sumptuous lunch that left us incapacitated and in need of a nap. We’d regroup at 8pm for another massive meal and then head to the Bourbon Pub for a night of intense intoxication. For three days, I battled nausea from overeating, overdrinking, and rapid changes in temperature moving from air conditioned interiors to searing humid exteriors. The combination of humid heat and a basket of fried pickles I refused to abandon even when beyond stuffed nearly caused my gastric demise on a street corner on Sunday afternoon.


Out at the bars, everyone was too old for their outfit, me included. I understand the gay desire to never get any older, but I just don’t know if an ANF muscle tee, cargo shorts and a sideways baseball cap are appropriate on a charter member of the AARP. To paraphrase Helen Gurley Brown, “I will wear shorts until I die”, but that doesn’t mean it will be pretty. I suppose the most important thing is that everyone was having fun, and when you are on the shady side of fifty, really how many more days of fun are left?

I spent a lot of time this weekend in the VIP room at the Bourbon Pub, thanks in large part to my friendship with Chi Chi La Rue. Listeners of my radio show and my disgruntled roommate may think I am famous, but I am largely unknown even in the gay community. It is a situation I continue to relish even as it keeps me standing in lines and denied access to free cocktails. My anonymity is worth the trade off. Although to be fair to the Bourbon, Jonathan knows me but his staff doesn't. And instead of making one of those dreadful "don't you know who I am" scenes, I just opted to ride in on the La Rue train.

Friday night Chi Chi La Rue was holding court on the third floor at the Bourbon Pub with Lady Bunny, who had just finished her set. Chi Chi had been DJing all afternoon long and was clearly ready for a drink or five by the time I arrived upstairs. Lady Bunny was in her own movie, primarily Valley of the Dolls although she did slip in and out of Bette Davis when the occasion called for it. Chi Chi’s hot phrase of the evening was “I’d love to do it, but I can’t brisket.” My love of a good pun knows no bounds and the next day at the Old Chartres House, I just had to order the BBQ brisket po-boy sandwich in honor of it.

As the night wore on, Bunny’s wig got progressively scarier and scarier. The combination of the late night and the humidity took its toll on that wiry heap of plastic yarn that looked like the Lady had scalped a Barbie beauty head circa 1972. “Tell everything! Include diagrams!” Chi Chi urged in between briskets, but I can’t really draw. Chi Chi demanded that Lady Bunny show me her brown stained pantyhose, which she insisted was from Bunny shitting herself. Bunny claimed it was a gumbo mishap but two hours later she was still in those same messy hose. The only thing dirtier than Bunny’s legs was the carpet. I dubbed it the night of 1000 spilled drinks, although I only managed to spill one of them.

At one point, some cutie boys insisted that their friend come up and audition for Chi Chi. This happens quite regularly since I witnessed it myself in Minneapolis with a dirty boy dancing on a box while Chi Chi was spinning, the more Chi Chi looked past him, the harder he started grinding. Back at the Bourbon, Chi Chi told a great story while we were waiting about two men getting it on right next to her on a pool table while she was trying to just sit and enjoy her cocktail. And the more she ignored them, the more aggressive they got, to the point where they were fully engaged with their legs thrown across Chi Chi’s lap. The hunk finally arrived upstairs and he was a handsome thirty-something with a tight body. Chi Chi asked to see his cock. “But I’m not hard,” he whined.

“I didn’t ask for a story. I asked to see your cock.”

He whipped it out and even soft, it was quite big and thick. Chi Chi clutched me like a new car winner on The Price Is Right. “Oh my God! Did you see that? It’s huge!” It sort of surprised me that Chi Chi, after all these years in porn, could still get excited about seeing a new cock. I guess that is a lesson for us all when we are feeling old. A weekend in New Orleans may play out like a heartburn commercial when you are thirty-something (or older), but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to enjoy it anyway.