Last night I was riding in the car with a slutty lesbian with a southern accent and I called her the "Paula Deen of pussy!" Everyone in the car laughed and in that moment I thought, "Oh I can't wait to post that in my blog." When I woke up this morning, it was still on my mind and when I started to post about last night I realized that the whole encounter was part of a dream I had, Romaine was not suddenly a blond from Alabama and it in fact never happened. I think it says less about how I amuse myself even when sleeping than it does about the sudden pressure I feel to write a good blog entry.
My last posting involved a very long night hanging out with Matt Kelleher. My retelling of Friday's events passed through his social network faster than Syphilis and by early Saturday night on our way to dinner for round two, the pressure was on! Matt is someone who has always been in my life in waves. When I lived in LA and he as always was in NY, we would see each other once or twice a year for intense weekends of type A gay behavior on such a grand scale that a routine schedule of that level of activity would cause the heart of an American Gladiator to explode. Perhaps it is for the best that we always have months in between to recover.
This weekend has been typical for us. We are like two planets in the same solar system with erratic orbits who have near fatal encounters every few cycles. Eventually we will either slam directly into each other and go supernova or our orbits will just naturally send us spinning further and further apart. This weekend, the planets aligned in their own way and we had two very intense days together. And then we won't see each other again for months, as Matt's orbit takes him very close to Uranus, and mine takes me back to the outer reaches beyond the gay galaxy (aka Westchester County).
After Friday night, I only had four hours of sleep and I was hurting by the time I got home at 1pm. It took all the strength and brainpower I had to pull together my blog posting, shower and change and get back to the city for dinner. I had noticed earlier this week that Chip Arndt and Matt Kelleher were carrying on a private discussion of their dinner plans Wall-to-Wall on Facebook (tacky, but in this case, helpful) and I endeavored to shoehorn my way into their social calendar. I never see either of them, so the ability to see both of them at the same time relieves a lot of my guilt about being a good friend. This set our weekend in motion and Ben Harvey's party ended up being the appetizer for a very long 36 hour meal.
Originally, Chip had wanted to go to a restaurant called "Employee's Only" which being me, I had never heard of. But since Chip really wanted Andy Towle, the Nora Ephron of gay society*, to come, it really needed to be a place very close to his apartment. (*Far Too Obscure Reference Alert: In a press junket interview for the film "You've Got Mail," Tom Hanks revealed that increasingly Nora likes to stay very close to home, down to filming scenes for their latest work together inside her own apartment building. He joked that her next film would be set entirely inside her apartment so she could just direct it from her bedroom.) Matt always the arbiter of where the gay sheep are headed insisted ELMO was the practical solution. Quickly the guest list snowballed and Chip made a reservation for twenty, which I feared (especially after his open invitation on my radio show on Friday) would be insufficient.
I met Matt at his apartment where Gary, who had not intended to crash there, was in need of a fresh shirt. "He's about your size. Bring him something cute!" Matt insisted, forgetting of course that I am the least fashionable person he knows and asking me to bring something cute from my closet is like asking a lesbian to tip better than 15%. It could happen, but not without a lot of anxiety and effort. Gary is blond and fair so I brought him a brown retro vintage Buffalo humor printed ringer t-shirt (origin unknown) and I wore a green Otter Fashion shirt from their collection that they thoughtfully sent me, knowing either one would work for him. The brown shirt was a little big on him, so we switched and he filled out the Otter top perfectly. And, in my personal fashion-blind opinion, the hue of the olive green really worked for him.
Dan also met us at Matt's place since he lives close by, a gay football widow free for dinner while Cyd had a game to play, and Matt's friend Brian and his statistically-handsome date Dallas met us around the corner for the short walk to ELMO. I met Brian forever ago at (I think) SHAG, Matt's favorite hangout and have always found him very sexy, but never more so then when he gushed about what a great writer I am. He has the eyes of a winning poker player and a smile that says "I'm going to eat you." an expression which is open to wild interpretation, although I mean it in the sense that he will in fact devour you if you aren't careful. On our walk to ELMO, we swapped our favorite 30 Rock lines (he is obsessed) and he expressed an interest in the wider use of the words "chortle" and "guffaw" and I promised to work them into the blog.
At ELMO, Chip and Rob were there, as were my friend Kevin, the sexy homo from Chicago and the original Jonathan with his friend Mike. We congregated in the bar for a few minutes as the ultra fit and flitty staff put the finishing touches on our two tables. We moved en masse to the back of the restaurant and then were forced to chose which tables to sit at. I immediately took the middle seat in the smaller table for eight. At San Simeon, Hearst had one of the longest tables I have ever seen, set inside a chapel he had imported stone by stone to make a dining hall. In Citizen Kane, Kane and his wife always sat at long ends where they couldn't hear each other but in reality, Hearst and Davies sat in the dead center facing each other with house guests emanating out from them newest to oldest. Once you got to the end of the table as Louise Brooks reported, the implication was that it was time to pack up and go home. In dining out in big settings, egomaniacs like me always want the center most seat so the conversation radiates out from you as if you are hosting the dinner party.
In the end it didn't matter much where anyone was sitting because it was a non-stop game of musical chairs (set once again to Britney's album playing in its entirety in the background -- did Gary tip someone twenty bucks?). At one point, Mike and Dallas were sitting next to each other and their arguing got so passionate I thought they were going use my bleu cheese dressing as lube and start fucking right on the table. Jason Bellini came in without Will Wikle, who was at home nursing a sore throat (insert your own cocksucking joke here). And Andy Towle finally arrived with his hot boyfriend. Andy's arms were massive and the talk of two tables. Plus, they allowed me to sandbag him with Bette Midler's famous hello to Bruce Springsteen at We Are The World: "You look fabulous! What happened?" which she followed up with "I remember when his arms were as skimpy as his chord changes." All the seat hopping was a little much for our appropriately hot waiter whom I dubbed "Supergirl" because of his famous S logo belt buckle. He dealt with our physical instability by just calling everyone "tranny," "fierce" and "hot mess" every fifteen seconds until I was almost sorry Project Runway and SNL existed.
From there, we of course had to go to a club. Matt offered up his tried and true SHAG but no one was having it. Finally we settled quite reluctantly on SPLASH because it was close by and we knew we could, with a little wrangling, all get in free. I was relieved because the DJ Tracy Young had been on the show on Friday and I told her I would stop by (which is usually a lie). At the door, the doorman our group knew (Derek) wasn't there yet and there was much strum und drang (and minimal guffaw and chortle) about getting ten of us in for free. Dallas was put in charge of this effort as we all bantered on the curb. The whole thing chaffed like a dry rubber leading me to grouse "We have two TV personalities and a radio person who just interviewed their DJ yesterday to promote the night and everyone is hot. What more do they want?"
I think John Blair is a lovely person but the state of NY nightlife is in such disrepair that SPLASH is one of the only options in town if you are in the mood for an old fashioned Saturday night muscle fest set to a bone-rattling beat. Yes, going there is like going back in time to the early 90s and they might as well require high-waisted acid-wash jeans at the door, but what else are we supposed to do? Andy's new arms are nice but they aren't the only game in town. Eventually Derek arrived and we were all ushered into the fixer-upper sanctum. I chatted with Tracy, who gave me some drink tickets which when he saw them caused Matty to do his trademarked clap excitedly and guffaw thing. His friends should know he didn't laugh like that until he started hanging out with my incendiary laugh, and for this reason, I apologize.
At one point, the dancers climbed on top of the bar over us and we all did our level best to ignore their gaze, lest they try to shove their giant crotches in our faces in the hopes of getting spare change. All of them had completely outsized packed-to-the-brim thongs which because of my height kept ending up in my hair (is it possible to get MRSA in a hair follicle? I hope not). It also caused me to suggest they were "holding Nana's purse for her" but it was either too loud or too late for the joke. When the bowl of fresh fruit appeared on the bar, I knew it was time to disembark from the Love Boat and started quickly looking for the exit and bottle of hand sanitizer.
I made my good byes and dashed out into the still of the night. My stomach was still aching from the night before and the beats and cheek implants made me dizzy. It was a sweet weekend with Matt but the shirtless John Blair muscle crowd had a nostalgic feel to it, like watching RENT on Broadway. Even though it is still the current production, the whole thing felt like a creaky revival. At one point for old time sake, Matt stuck his tongue in my mouth like we were back in Terminal Six at LAX in 1997 or back at SPLASH in that same year when I got really drunk and shoved my hands down his shorts, but the whole experience just ended up reminding me that we are too old for this kind of thing and so was everyone else there.
Showing posts with label Chip Arndt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chip Arndt. Show all posts
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
In Need Of Therapy
It was the end of a long week. It seems silly to complain about this amazing job of mine. Tonight we asked people to call in and tell us about disgusting things they saw at work, and for a solid hour we just sat there while strangers grossed us out. I couldn't believe sitting in our beautiful glass cage that we get paid to do a that as a job. But as entertaining as it was, it is still a job at the end of the day. And at the end of the week, we are just as tired and ready to pack it in as the next person.
Chip Arndt was on the show tonight. He is just as strapping and tall and wonderful as ever. I just love his chiseled marble Connecticut Yankee persona mixed with Yale rugby team exuberance. He came to talk about the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They are doing a benefit tomorrow at Therapy which Romaine and I are attending, and on his way out he suggested I join him and his friends at Therapy tonight for a drink after the show. I skipped going to Pop Rocks last night with Jonathan because I was really sick to my stomach and not in the mood to be the oldest person in a bar, which I certainly would have been there. But I was feeling much improved tonight and even though it's going to be a rock party weekend of seemingly non-stop activities, I figured "why not kick it off a night early?"
I sent text messages to a slew of people. Roommate. Jonathan. The original Jonathan (why must all the gays have the same three names?). Hottie Zach. Cyd and Dan. And of course the ever elusive Ben Harvey, who went to visit his family in December and never seemed to come back. Come back to the five and dime, Ben Harvey, Ben Harvey! Last minute bar appeals are always hit and miss and last night proved to be no exception. Mike was stuck at work, Jonathan at a comedy show. Cyd and Dan who had been out, packed it in early. Missed communications led to missing Ben Harvey yet again. But the original Jonathan and hottie Zach both agreed to meet me out at Therapy with Chip and his friends. Unfortunately, moments after they both confirmed, Chip claimed old age and an early morning and skipped Therapy himself, thus ending the only reason I was going in the first place.
As it turns out, it was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with the original Jonathan. He moved to New York City two and a half years ago from Atlanta and I have only seen him sporadically since. My work schedule and hermit-like behavior coupled with his dating life have conspired to keep us apart. But after missing my housewarming BBQ and Thanksgiving, his holiday card was nothing less than a demand for an audience.
Likewise, Zach moved to the city this fall and while we have hung out a couple of times since then, it hasn't moved into what I would call a regular rhythm. The holidays really toss everyone into the air like ingredients in a Cobb Salad. People start out so orderly and geometrically aligned, but the one-two wintertime punch of Christmas and New Years leaves them swirled around and obscured by heavy dressing.
Despite both of them insisting that the gym is a distant memory, they both looked incredible as always. We chatted about work, and life and love. While I was in the bathroom, talk turned briefly to the world of professional ice skating, reminding me once again that I was in a gay bar after all. I had forgotten that the original Jonathan was an ice skater so now I know our next adventure will have to be a lunchtime skate in the new rink at Bryant Park on my new skates! We drank. We laughed. We cruised. It was a perfectly acceptable evening.
To kick off the night, I had a vodka with grapefruit juice. Earlier on the show during our gross out segment, a former bus cleaner told a story of finding a hooker stabbed to death in a tiny dirty bathroom on a Greyhound bus, just like the opening crawl of an episode of Law & Order. Reflecting back on the grisly scene on my way to the bar reminded me of my former favorite drink the greyhound and I endeavored to order one as soon as I arrived. But I only had one since after boarding the drunk train at 1:00am, I still needed to drive the rest of the way home.
However, being more sober at gay bars has caused me to be more keenly aware of the mating rituals of gay men. New Yorkers get a bum rap for not being friendly, which when you compare the chattiness to other gay bars in other parts of the country is reasonably true. However, once you start talking to a New Yorker, you will find that in general, they are very engaging and fun people. But breaking through that initial barrier is not easy at all. In NYC, I have started to notice that gay men do a lot of what I call proximity introduction. They want to talk to someone, but they don't want to make the first move, so they choose a position of close proximity, preferably in the eye line of the target and wait.
Sometimes, the guys just stand nearby very casual but expectantly, like they are waiting for an imaginary bus to arrive. Other times, they get very close in and wordlessly involve themselves in whatever is going on in the group near them. They smile at the jokes, nod their heads vigorously in agreement, and of course, make desperately welcoming eye contact. One guy last night during my breakdown of the differences between an Obama and a Hillary presidency, seemed as anxious to jump into the conversation as Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group. He would have been more effective if like the table of guys we sat next to two years ago at Therapy, he had suggested some kind of impromptu contest to see who was the best kisser, leading to a memorable roundelay of mono and other fond memories.
Coincidentally or not, we did manage to position ourselves quite near to someone that Jonathan knew, who as it turns out was with someone from the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They were both hot, hunky guys, the one from Florida wearing an unseasonable tank top with a word search puzzle on it. I have to say that is one of the best shirts I have ever seen for simultaneously attracting as well as evaluating the intelligence of other men. Maybe I should start wearing Jeopardy answers or the New York Times crossword on my person and see what happens.
Then Mike sent me a text message to join him on the 1:00am train and I wrapped up our short but enjoyable evening. Jonathan ran off to get a slice of pizza he will no doubt regret in the morning. Zach who lives closer to Grand Central than to Therapy decided to walk and talk with me. As we went along however, the military man in him began to worry about me missing my train. Nothing makes you feel better about yourself at one in the morning than trying to keep up with a 29 year old Air Force academy graduate in perfect shape while you are lugging another decade and a full backpack.
As we neared the station, the burden inside the backpack gave away before I did and one of the straps on my beloved, tired old PlanetOut backpack snapped. Instantly, it was the end of an era for me. I made my train with plenty of time to spare while Zach stood by sweating it out in his clingy wool sweater. But maybe the bag was a good warning for me. Running with a younger crowd has a lot of perks, but the risks of breaking are so high, it may not be worth it in the end.
Chip Arndt was on the show tonight. He is just as strapping and tall and wonderful as ever. I just love his chiseled marble Connecticut Yankee persona mixed with Yale rugby team exuberance. He came to talk about the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They are doing a benefit tomorrow at Therapy which Romaine and I are attending, and on his way out he suggested I join him and his friends at Therapy tonight for a drink after the show. I skipped going to Pop Rocks last night with Jonathan because I was really sick to my stomach and not in the mood to be the oldest person in a bar, which I certainly would have been there. But I was feeling much improved tonight and even though it's going to be a rock party weekend of seemingly non-stop activities, I figured "why not kick it off a night early?"
I sent text messages to a slew of people. Roommate. Jonathan. The original Jonathan (why must all the gays have the same three names?). Hottie Zach. Cyd and Dan. And of course the ever elusive Ben Harvey, who went to visit his family in December and never seemed to come back. Come back to the five and dime, Ben Harvey, Ben Harvey! Last minute bar appeals are always hit and miss and last night proved to be no exception. Mike was stuck at work, Jonathan at a comedy show. Cyd and Dan who had been out, packed it in early. Missed communications led to missing Ben Harvey yet again. But the original Jonathan and hottie Zach both agreed to meet me out at Therapy with Chip and his friends. Unfortunately, moments after they both confirmed, Chip claimed old age and an early morning and skipped Therapy himself, thus ending the only reason I was going in the first place.
As it turns out, it was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with the original Jonathan. He moved to New York City two and a half years ago from Atlanta and I have only seen him sporadically since. My work schedule and hermit-like behavior coupled with his dating life have conspired to keep us apart. But after missing my housewarming BBQ and Thanksgiving, his holiday card was nothing less than a demand for an audience.
Likewise, Zach moved to the city this fall and while we have hung out a couple of times since then, it hasn't moved into what I would call a regular rhythm. The holidays really toss everyone into the air like ingredients in a Cobb Salad. People start out so orderly and geometrically aligned, but the one-two wintertime punch of Christmas and New Years leaves them swirled around and obscured by heavy dressing.
Despite both of them insisting that the gym is a distant memory, they both looked incredible as always. We chatted about work, and life and love. While I was in the bathroom, talk turned briefly to the world of professional ice skating, reminding me once again that I was in a gay bar after all. I had forgotten that the original Jonathan was an ice skater so now I know our next adventure will have to be a lunchtime skate in the new rink at Bryant Park on my new skates! We drank. We laughed. We cruised. It was a perfectly acceptable evening.
To kick off the night, I had a vodka with grapefruit juice. Earlier on the show during our gross out segment, a former bus cleaner told a story of finding a hooker stabbed to death in a tiny dirty bathroom on a Greyhound bus, just like the opening crawl of an episode of Law & Order. Reflecting back on the grisly scene on my way to the bar reminded me of my former favorite drink the greyhound and I endeavored to order one as soon as I arrived. But I only had one since after boarding the drunk train at 1:00am, I still needed to drive the rest of the way home.
However, being more sober at gay bars has caused me to be more keenly aware of the mating rituals of gay men. New Yorkers get a bum rap for not being friendly, which when you compare the chattiness to other gay bars in other parts of the country is reasonably true. However, once you start talking to a New Yorker, you will find that in general, they are very engaging and fun people. But breaking through that initial barrier is not easy at all. In NYC, I have started to notice that gay men do a lot of what I call proximity introduction. They want to talk to someone, but they don't want to make the first move, so they choose a position of close proximity, preferably in the eye line of the target and wait.
Sometimes, the guys just stand nearby very casual but expectantly, like they are waiting for an imaginary bus to arrive. Other times, they get very close in and wordlessly involve themselves in whatever is going on in the group near them. They smile at the jokes, nod their heads vigorously in agreement, and of course, make desperately welcoming eye contact. One guy last night during my breakdown of the differences between an Obama and a Hillary presidency, seemed as anxious to jump into the conversation as Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group. He would have been more effective if like the table of guys we sat next to two years ago at Therapy, he had suggested some kind of impromptu contest to see who was the best kisser, leading to a memorable roundelay of mono and other fond memories.
Coincidentally or not, we did manage to position ourselves quite near to someone that Jonathan knew, who as it turns out was with someone from the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They were both hot, hunky guys, the one from Florida wearing an unseasonable tank top with a word search puzzle on it. I have to say that is one of the best shirts I have ever seen for simultaneously attracting as well as evaluating the intelligence of other men. Maybe I should start wearing Jeopardy answers or the New York Times crossword on my person and see what happens.
Then Mike sent me a text message to join him on the 1:00am train and I wrapped up our short but enjoyable evening. Jonathan ran off to get a slice of pizza he will no doubt regret in the morning. Zach who lives closer to Grand Central than to Therapy decided to walk and talk with me. As we went along however, the military man in him began to worry about me missing my train. Nothing makes you feel better about yourself at one in the morning than trying to keep up with a 29 year old Air Force academy graduate in perfect shape while you are lugging another decade and a full backpack.
As we neared the station, the burden inside the backpack gave away before I did and one of the straps on my beloved, tired old PlanetOut backpack snapped. Instantly, it was the end of an era for me. I made my train with plenty of time to spare while Zach stood by sweating it out in his clingy wool sweater. But maybe the bag was a good warning for me. Running with a younger crowd has a lot of perks, but the risks of breaking are so high, it may not be worth it in the end.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
24 Hour Party People
I love to throw parties. I really do.
I have two speeds: utter solitude and massive party. There is no in-between for me. Those are the only two modes I am comfortable in. Fortunately, this weekend, it was all party, all the time.
On Saturday, I threw a much delayed housewarming party. Well, Romaine has been in her house since December 2006 without a party but to be fair, she did have a baby in the interim. Even still, I moved in the weekend before Memorial Day so waiting so long to have a party is somewhat bad form.
The house I bought is a lovely classic 1950s Cape Cod on a quiet suburban street in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. It has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a full walk-out basement, covering approximately 3300 square feet. It's a lot of room for two homos to ramble around in and most of the time, I am alone here. Roommate and I are on different floors in the house, which makes it seem more than ever like I live alone. We occasionally run into each other by the refrigerator, where four lanes of traffic painfully converge into one lane. That narrow strip of misery is just the tip of the poorly planned kitchen, but otherwise the house is, for me, a dream. True it is drenched in heterosexual trappings of the most feminine and tacky kind, which it will take years to excise from the premises, but it is still a quiet wooden suburban oasis to love.
I had an insanely good turnout for the party on Saturday, much better than I would have expected given how far away the house is from all known civilization. But I suspect people wanted to get a good look, cross it off their list, and probably never return. Frank DeCaro accused me of discouraging him from coming and he was very annoyed to discover what a glaring omission he was. Honestly, I didn't think they would all come! And Frank was missed. But he also missed every other party I have thrown for the last four years, so when he didn't make an appearance on Saturday, I was neither surprised nor annoyed.
Romaine came with mother, baby and girlfriend Iris in tow. Iris spent the entire party with the baby strapped to her chest in a baby carrier, rocking back and forth to a classic American Bandstand episode no one else could hear. Cyd and Dan were there in matching grey hoodies, which prompted me to ask them how long into their relationship they starting wearing matching clothes, and explaining to Romaine's mother that the only real reason to be gay is the ability to double your wardrobe instantly.
Fredrick Ford and my old friend Tony were the first to arrive, ironic since they are the newest and oldest friends I have in the city. Tony and I worked together at AOL back in 1947 when it was still called International Business Machines and Fredrick and I met mere weeks ago when he did my radio show for the first time. They were so early that they got to join me on an adventure getting a full propane tank. Who knew that Home Depot sold the tanks empty? No wonder I couldn't get the BBQ to light the first time out.
DJ Ben Harvey was there with Conor of course, along with their cute friend and their other cute friends. Their quartet of cuteness was short-lived and Roommate's now-defunct Friday night geek squad was collectively sad to see them go. They did thoughtfully bring a set of casual matching coffee mugs and a 2008 Chippendale's calendar. I will get some use out of the mugs and Romaine will enjoy the calendar since she has worn out the 2007 calendar we got from model Charles Dera the last time he was on the show. Unfortunately, I didn't get to catch up with Ben Harvey as I would have liked. Nor was I able to get a second to show him my double-sided Ciccone (Six Degrees of Separation From Madonna, as it were), the only thing that could even remotely be considered ART in my house.
As usual, people got stinking drunk. Someone (me), passing through the kitchen, blurted out the recipe for a Sex On The Beach and a few gallons of liquor later, the drunkest part of the party (the last to leave well past the scheduled end time) decided to decamp to Manhattan for more mayhem. The party started promptly at 2pm with the arrival of Fredrick and Tony on the two o'clock train and officially ended at a little after nine when the last drunk piled out the door and headed for the bright lights, big city.
Roommate was exhausted by two weeks of non-stop painting, wallpaper stripping and cleaning before the party even began, so by 9pm he was all sharp elbows and clearing throats despite a drunk gay's inability to sense of subtle hint when they are slammed in the face with it. Finally by 9:30pm, the house was clean again and we were ready to head for the cool expanse of the basement to cocoon in front of the new fall shows on my wide screen TV. And then the doorbell rang.
Misreading the 2:00pm to 8:00pm party time as an 8:00pm start time, burgeoning hip hop duo Goddes and She appeared fashionably late at 9:30pm. Not wanting to throw them out after they drove an hour to be there, I got all Pamela Harriman on their ass, cranked up the BBQ and served up more food and polite company for another two hours. It wasn't until Midnight that we finally collapsed in front of the TV for some much deserved mindless entertainment.
Sunday I journeyed into the city to welcome Chip Arndt back from his latest AIDS Ride. A minimum of fanfare and I was the only one there to welcome him back. I ran into Cory walking by, he and his friend drawn in by curiosity like moths at night to the gay dance music blasting out of the Center. I can't believe it's already been more than a year since we last saw each other just out and about, when he ran over to me plastered out of my mind at Therapy and reminded me that we had met just a few weeks earlier at Another Gay Movie. I honestly hadn't remembered meeting him at the movie, I was so self-involved and also distracted by Michael Lucas, who had encircled me in his cone of gossip on our way out onto the street. Cory with his Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard and straight eyebrows on granite overhang shrouding his soulful eyes. Happy birthday. It will probably be another year before I see him again.
Chip's friend Greg was also there, having joined Chip on the ride. Greg, comfortably slim in his tight bike shorts and matching shirt was full of platitudes about my piercing blue eyes, it was the kind of embarrassment I never tire of. Chip and I had a long thoughtful conversation about life and death and in the car ride home I thought how my weekend would have been complete if I had had the same amount of time to just sit with Ben Harvey too. Unfortunately, there is a finite amount of time in a day and in one's lifetime. I always seem to be short of time these days. The never ending story of my laziness versus my grand schemes for life continues. Hopefully, I will finish turning my house gay and have that long talk with Ben Harvey that I have been meaning to have. And maybe I will even see Cory before his next birthday rolls around. Or maybe I will just lay around the house thinking how nice throwing another party would be, but still revelling in the joy of just being alone.
I have two speeds: utter solitude and massive party. There is no in-between for me. Those are the only two modes I am comfortable in. Fortunately, this weekend, it was all party, all the time.
On Saturday, I threw a much delayed housewarming party. Well, Romaine has been in her house since December 2006 without a party but to be fair, she did have a baby in the interim. Even still, I moved in the weekend before Memorial Day so waiting so long to have a party is somewhat bad form.
The house I bought is a lovely classic 1950s Cape Cod on a quiet suburban street in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A. It has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a full walk-out basement, covering approximately 3300 square feet. It's a lot of room for two homos to ramble around in and most of the time, I am alone here. Roommate and I are on different floors in the house, which makes it seem more than ever like I live alone. We occasionally run into each other by the refrigerator, where four lanes of traffic painfully converge into one lane. That narrow strip of misery is just the tip of the poorly planned kitchen, but otherwise the house is, for me, a dream. True it is drenched in heterosexual trappings of the most feminine and tacky kind, which it will take years to excise from the premises, but it is still a quiet wooden suburban oasis to love.
I had an insanely good turnout for the party on Saturday, much better than I would have expected given how far away the house is from all known civilization. But I suspect people wanted to get a good look, cross it off their list, and probably never return. Frank DeCaro accused me of discouraging him from coming and he was very annoyed to discover what a glaring omission he was. Honestly, I didn't think they would all come! And Frank was missed. But he also missed every other party I have thrown for the last four years, so when he didn't make an appearance on Saturday, I was neither surprised nor annoyed.
Romaine came with mother, baby and girlfriend Iris in tow. Iris spent the entire party with the baby strapped to her chest in a baby carrier, rocking back and forth to a classic American Bandstand episode no one else could hear. Cyd and Dan were there in matching grey hoodies, which prompted me to ask them how long into their relationship they starting wearing matching clothes, and explaining to Romaine's mother that the only real reason to be gay is the ability to double your wardrobe instantly.
Fredrick Ford and my old friend Tony were the first to arrive, ironic since they are the newest and oldest friends I have in the city. Tony and I worked together at AOL back in 1947 when it was still called International Business Machines and Fredrick and I met mere weeks ago when he did my radio show for the first time. They were so early that they got to join me on an adventure getting a full propane tank. Who knew that Home Depot sold the tanks empty? No wonder I couldn't get the BBQ to light the first time out.
DJ Ben Harvey was there with Conor of course, along with their cute friend and their other cute friends. Their quartet of cuteness was short-lived and Roommate's now-defunct Friday night geek squad was collectively sad to see them go. They did thoughtfully bring a set of casual matching coffee mugs and a 2008 Chippendale's calendar. I will get some use out of the mugs and Romaine will enjoy the calendar since she has worn out the 2007 calendar we got from model Charles Dera the last time he was on the show. Unfortunately, I didn't get to catch up with Ben Harvey as I would have liked. Nor was I able to get a second to show him my double-sided Ciccone (Six Degrees of Separation From Madonna, as it were), the only thing that could even remotely be considered ART in my house.
As usual, people got stinking drunk. Someone (me), passing through the kitchen, blurted out the recipe for a Sex On The Beach and a few gallons of liquor later, the drunkest part of the party (the last to leave well past the scheduled end time) decided to decamp to Manhattan for more mayhem. The party started promptly at 2pm with the arrival of Fredrick and Tony on the two o'clock train and officially ended at a little after nine when the last drunk piled out the door and headed for the bright lights, big city.
Roommate was exhausted by two weeks of non-stop painting, wallpaper stripping and cleaning before the party even began, so by 9pm he was all sharp elbows and clearing throats despite a drunk gay's inability to sense of subtle hint when they are slammed in the face with it. Finally by 9:30pm, the house was clean again and we were ready to head for the cool expanse of the basement to cocoon in front of the new fall shows on my wide screen TV. And then the doorbell rang.
Misreading the 2:00pm to 8:00pm party time as an 8:00pm start time, burgeoning hip hop duo Goddes and She appeared fashionably late at 9:30pm. Not wanting to throw them out after they drove an hour to be there, I got all Pamela Harriman on their ass, cranked up the BBQ and served up more food and polite company for another two hours. It wasn't until Midnight that we finally collapsed in front of the TV for some much deserved mindless entertainment.
Sunday I journeyed into the city to welcome Chip Arndt back from his latest AIDS Ride. A minimum of fanfare and I was the only one there to welcome him back. I ran into Cory walking by, he and his friend drawn in by curiosity like moths at night to the gay dance music blasting out of the Center. I can't believe it's already been more than a year since we last saw each other just out and about, when he ran over to me plastered out of my mind at Therapy and reminded me that we had met just a few weeks earlier at Another Gay Movie. I honestly hadn't remembered meeting him at the movie, I was so self-involved and also distracted by Michael Lucas, who had encircled me in his cone of gossip on our way out onto the street. Cory with his Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard and straight eyebrows on granite overhang shrouding his soulful eyes. Happy birthday. It will probably be another year before I see him again.
Chip's friend Greg was also there, having joined Chip on the ride. Greg, comfortably slim in his tight bike shorts and matching shirt was full of platitudes about my piercing blue eyes, it was the kind of embarrassment I never tire of. Chip and I had a long thoughtful conversation about life and death and in the car ride home I thought how my weekend would have been complete if I had had the same amount of time to just sit with Ben Harvey too. Unfortunately, there is a finite amount of time in a day and in one's lifetime. I always seem to be short of time these days. The never ending story of my laziness versus my grand schemes for life continues. Hopefully, I will finish turning my house gay and have that long talk with Ben Harvey that I have been meaning to have. And maybe I will even see Cory before his next birthday rolls around. Or maybe I will just lay around the house thinking how nice throwing another party would be, but still revelling in the joy of just being alone.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
It feels like all I ever do is go to Bowery Bar and then write about it in my blog. Ugh! I don't even like that bar and yet it feels like I am there all the time!
I’ll admit it. I don’t have much of a social life. My days generally consist of:
- me sleeping until almost noon
- eating a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats while watching The View
- wandering through my new house annoyed by the disrepair but too lazy to address it
- Fucking around on Towleroad.com, Yahoo News and MySpace
- Realizing how late I am from sitting on the internet
- Hopping in the shower
- Driving to the train
- showing up minutes before my show
- Doing four hours of radio which leaves me with no interest in humanity
- Dashing out of the studio to catch the first train home
- Heating up something to eat while watching Robot Chicken
- Fucking around on the internet until I realize it’s 4am and then going to bed
- Lather, rinse, repeat
This has left me with all sorts of problems. I have a house that needs some TLC. I have no desire to go anywhere or do anything. I have a radio show and a video podcast begging for content (not to mention a blog), and no compelling interest in existing outside of a four square foot area radiating out from my own bed. If I could get away with a bed pan that I emptied out my bedroom window and using a mini-fridge as a nightstand, my dream life would be complete. As a kid I couldn’t understand why people like Howard Hughes ended their lives in a single room, but now I wonder at what age I could get away with it without it being totally creepy and crazy. Is forty too young?
One of our few ridiculously hot listeners was in town this week with his boyfriend so I agreed to give them a studio tour and a drink out on the town. He is fresh out of the Air Force and I like to do what I can to support the troops. It’s my own version of the gay USO. So I took Zach to Bowery Bar since he is relocating to New York City. He needs to know where to find and converse with the other ridiculously hot people in the city once he gets here, and that location on Tuesday nights is still, eternally Bowery Bar. It was also a good excuse to finally see DJ Ben Harvey who has been something of a hermit while packing and unpacking from his move to DUMBO (not the Disney movie, although that would be kind of cool). The stars continued to align with roommate working late and Chip Arndt being in town for the AIDS Ride (please donate money to support Chip. He is a good guy and he is trying to raise a lot of money). I even sent a text message to D-A-N who happened also to be going to Bowery Bar tonight (although I suspect he is always out on Tuesday night and it is not casual coincidence that keeps us running into each other).
Zach only stayed for one drink, but it was long enough for him to swap military tales with roommate. He had a very early flight and a hot boyfriend waiting for him at the Hilton, so he was excused. Ben Harvey was as adorable as ever, and we almost got three sentences spoken between us before the usual suspects began parading through the door like it was a red carpet premiere. First, Peter Stickles, late of HereTV’s The Lair showed up, this time minus his good friend Michael Carbonaro. Apparently Michael couldn’t pull his enthusiasm for going out tonight from a hat, so he opted to stay home. Since he is 15 years younger than I am (at least), that wasn’t excuse enough for me. Then D-A-N arrived in a red muscle tee and playfully tussled hair. His pupils were like two giant black holes from which no light or tall, strapping lad could escape. Draw your own conclusions. I last saw him downing an orange juice like his throat was on fire and talking with Lance, the formerly straight waiter who abandoned his pussy hound ways to chase men. His resume seemed to intrigue D-A-N when I told him, so when I saw them exchanging numbers on my way out for the evening, I wasn’t surprised. Oh and Lance Bass was there and I meant to talk to him because we got offered an interview with him at 11am and I like Lance and NSync and all, but there is no reason for me to reorder my world (i.e. sleeping until noon, Mini-Wheats, etc) just to talk to him on the radio. I was about to go over but they were leaving and I just thought, “Eh. The publicists will work this out, or they won’t.”
I was wearing my shiny PlanetOut backpack from 1998 because it is easy for others to find me that way and I am trying to bolster their miserable stock price by reminding the who’s gay of Bowery Bar that they still exist. This caused me to be spotted by a PlanetOut executive who wondered where I got it then realized that he knew me from FantasyMan Island, my long defunct column. While talking to him, Chip Arndt bounded up to me like a hungry lion with his friend Greg. Greg is everything gay men and straight women aspire to be: tall, thin, and put together just right. He is the gay guy straight girls are always trying to set up with any gay stranger they meet at a party because they can’t fuck him themselves. Chip is sexy and wonderful and I wish he was running for something so I could vote for him. I admire him because when he and Reichen broke up, he let Reichen keep all the fame they accumulated in their relationship. Chip kept his dignity and I suppose a set of dishes, possibly some stemware.
Speaking of dishes and stemware, Wade Williams wandered in and I didn’t even know he was in town. I razzed him about not calling me and insisted that we were now even from when I came to LA and didn’t call him, but he insisted it wasn’t the same thing. Whatever. I feel even. Conor was also there, complaining about an upset stomach, which caused Ben Harvey to also feel unsettled. I think the two of them make each other queasy. That was the last exchange I had with either one of them. Ben slipped away into the crowd, as did Conor at some point. Finally, I realized that it was late and I had to catch the train home. So I bundled up roommate, kissed Peter good bye at the door and sailed away in a cab.
Usually I like to have some kind of 360 degree connection to round out the story but I don’t have a lesson tonight. That would make this blog posting about life out at ye old gay bar outside my normal cookie cutter structure. Maybe the lesson is that I am in a rut. It’s not a bad rut. In fact, I like it very much. I’ll have plenty of time to catch up with Ben Harvey at my housewarming party on Saturday and I’ll see more of Chip on Sunday when he returns home from the AIDS Ride. However, it did feel like a wasted night at Bowery Bar, even down to this blog in search of an ending. I saw most of the same faces. Had the same drink I always have. Hated the same pretentious gays I have always hated. And then came home to eat something fried and watch some TV. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I may not be living in one room yet, but in my head I am getting pretty close. And honestly, I don’t mind.
I’ll admit it. I don’t have much of a social life. My days generally consist of:
- me sleeping until almost noon
- eating a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats while watching The View
- wandering through my new house annoyed by the disrepair but too lazy to address it
- Fucking around on Towleroad.com, Yahoo News and MySpace
- Realizing how late I am from sitting on the internet
- Hopping in the shower
- Driving to the train
- showing up minutes before my show
- Doing four hours of radio which leaves me with no interest in humanity
- Dashing out of the studio to catch the first train home
- Heating up something to eat while watching Robot Chicken
- Fucking around on the internet until I realize it’s 4am and then going to bed
- Lather, rinse, repeat
This has left me with all sorts of problems. I have a house that needs some TLC. I have no desire to go anywhere or do anything. I have a radio show and a video podcast begging for content (not to mention a blog), and no compelling interest in existing outside of a four square foot area radiating out from my own bed. If I could get away with a bed pan that I emptied out my bedroom window and using a mini-fridge as a nightstand, my dream life would be complete. As a kid I couldn’t understand why people like Howard Hughes ended their lives in a single room, but now I wonder at what age I could get away with it without it being totally creepy and crazy. Is forty too young?
One of our few ridiculously hot listeners was in town this week with his boyfriend so I agreed to give them a studio tour and a drink out on the town. He is fresh out of the Air Force and I like to do what I can to support the troops. It’s my own version of the gay USO. So I took Zach to Bowery Bar since he is relocating to New York City. He needs to know where to find and converse with the other ridiculously hot people in the city once he gets here, and that location on Tuesday nights is still, eternally Bowery Bar. It was also a good excuse to finally see DJ Ben Harvey who has been something of a hermit while packing and unpacking from his move to DUMBO (not the Disney movie, although that would be kind of cool). The stars continued to align with roommate working late and Chip Arndt being in town for the AIDS Ride (please donate money to support Chip. He is a good guy and he is trying to raise a lot of money). I even sent a text message to D-A-N who happened also to be going to Bowery Bar tonight (although I suspect he is always out on Tuesday night and it is not casual coincidence that keeps us running into each other).
Zach only stayed for one drink, but it was long enough for him to swap military tales with roommate. He had a very early flight and a hot boyfriend waiting for him at the Hilton, so he was excused. Ben Harvey was as adorable as ever, and we almost got three sentences spoken between us before the usual suspects began parading through the door like it was a red carpet premiere. First, Peter Stickles, late of HereTV’s The Lair showed up, this time minus his good friend Michael Carbonaro. Apparently Michael couldn’t pull his enthusiasm for going out tonight from a hat, so he opted to stay home. Since he is 15 years younger than I am (at least), that wasn’t excuse enough for me. Then D-A-N arrived in a red muscle tee and playfully tussled hair. His pupils were like two giant black holes from which no light or tall, strapping lad could escape. Draw your own conclusions. I last saw him downing an orange juice like his throat was on fire and talking with Lance, the formerly straight waiter who abandoned his pussy hound ways to chase men. His resume seemed to intrigue D-A-N when I told him, so when I saw them exchanging numbers on my way out for the evening, I wasn’t surprised. Oh and Lance Bass was there and I meant to talk to him because we got offered an interview with him at 11am and I like Lance and NSync and all, but there is no reason for me to reorder my world (i.e. sleeping until noon, Mini-Wheats, etc) just to talk to him on the radio. I was about to go over but they were leaving and I just thought, “Eh. The publicists will work this out, or they won’t.”
I was wearing my shiny PlanetOut backpack from 1998 because it is easy for others to find me that way and I am trying to bolster their miserable stock price by reminding the who’s gay of Bowery Bar that they still exist. This caused me to be spotted by a PlanetOut executive who wondered where I got it then realized that he knew me from FantasyMan Island, my long defunct column. While talking to him, Chip Arndt bounded up to me like a hungry lion with his friend Greg. Greg is everything gay men and straight women aspire to be: tall, thin, and put together just right. He is the gay guy straight girls are always trying to set up with any gay stranger they meet at a party because they can’t fuck him themselves. Chip is sexy and wonderful and I wish he was running for something so I could vote for him. I admire him because when he and Reichen broke up, he let Reichen keep all the fame they accumulated in their relationship. Chip kept his dignity and I suppose a set of dishes, possibly some stemware.
Speaking of dishes and stemware, Wade Williams wandered in and I didn’t even know he was in town. I razzed him about not calling me and insisted that we were now even from when I came to LA and didn’t call him, but he insisted it wasn’t the same thing. Whatever. I feel even. Conor was also there, complaining about an upset stomach, which caused Ben Harvey to also feel unsettled. I think the two of them make each other queasy. That was the last exchange I had with either one of them. Ben slipped away into the crowd, as did Conor at some point. Finally, I realized that it was late and I had to catch the train home. So I bundled up roommate, kissed Peter good bye at the door and sailed away in a cab.
Usually I like to have some kind of 360 degree connection to round out the story but I don’t have a lesson tonight. That would make this blog posting about life out at ye old gay bar outside my normal cookie cutter structure. Maybe the lesson is that I am in a rut. It’s not a bad rut. In fact, I like it very much. I’ll have plenty of time to catch up with Ben Harvey at my housewarming party on Saturday and I’ll see more of Chip on Sunday when he returns home from the AIDS Ride. However, it did feel like a wasted night at Bowery Bar, even down to this blog in search of an ending. I saw most of the same faces. Had the same drink I always have. Hated the same pretentious gays I have always hated. And then came home to eat something fried and watch some TV. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I may not be living in one room yet, but in my head I am getting pretty close. And honestly, I don’t mind.
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