GUMBO Lone

I love Ben Harvey. I am just going to say it. He is so attractive and blond and trim and talented. Basically, he is everything I am not and wish I could be. What isn’t there to love about him? And lately, he has been throwing his hat into the club promotion ring. I recall my own disastrous foray into that business back in the fall of 2001, mostly because I wrote about it in my new book. (“Hey. Manhattan just suffered through the worst domestic attack ever a few days ago. How about launching a new club night across the street from the longest-running, most successful night in gay social history?!”). So I wanted to be supportive of his no-doubt more successful effort. Unfortunately, I was out of town for the first two, so I swore a blood oath I would be at the next one. And I was.

GUMBO is the name and it is a cute squish-up of Gay and DUMBO, an area of Brooklyn unknown to me because I think going South of fourteenth street in Manhattan is equivalent to swimming the English Channel. So an outerborough is completely out of the question. After all, I am the man who declared when he first moved to Manhattan that he would never take the subway and would only travel below Houston if he was fucking a celebrity. But it was for Ben Harvey! So I willingly and happily went.

Before I arrived in DUMBO, I had steeled myself for the kind of gritty urban streetscapes one might expect on a repeat viewing of “Escape From New York.” I was in for a shock. DUMBO isn’t just gentrified, whatever that means beyond “we priced anyone darker than a paper bag out of this real estate market.” It looks like they added a New York land to EPCOT. I was more concerned about getting mugged when I visited the New York backlot at FOX studios in the 90s because it was dirtier and scarier at midday than DUMBO at night. Filled with cozy upscale markets, quaint shops and downright precious cobblestones, I finally understood the outrage New Yorkers felt when Disney moved into Times Square and scrubbed away the porn and hookers.

The party was held in the Galapagos Art Space and it was very ultramodern: multimedia on the wall, quiet conversation nooks floating on water, Christian. Attending GUMBO, I had three goals: attend GUMBO to make good on my promise to Ben, regift a book about lifeguards to Matty Kelleher and also give Matty a copy of my book in which he is featured prominently. The first was easy, but the second two depended on finding Matt and then capturing his attention long enough to make the exchange. This is no easy task.

Along the way, I gave a warm hug of congratulations to Ben. I cornered Dave Rubin in a sexually aggressive way, like a cougar from Cougartown, blocking his escape from inside a floating banquette. It was either go through me or swim for it. I tried to talk to some new people, but they were all so young and mildly scruffy with their clingy cardigans and skinny pants over their skinny legs. This is the year of trying new things for me, but I think Brooklyn was enough new for one day. I don’t want to go overboard.

Finally, I found Matty and as I expected he would, he clapped his hands in delight, jumped up and down, and made a grabby fingers motion toward me to pull us together in a fun embrace. I had been warning him for weeks that the book was coming out and he was extremely excited to finally get his hands on it. Although when I gave him the second book, a regift from my friend Jennifer, I think there were some lifeguards in there he wanted to get his hands on too.



After talking to everyone twice, I started to head for the coat check. I had always planned on a quick visit, and knowing the planes, trains and automobiles it would take to get me home, Ben understood. As I grabbed my stuff, Chris and Cub were headed out in the same moment. Chris reiterated that they want to visit my house soon and Cub told a story about his coat that he bought as it was going out of style, watched it come back in style and was now still wearing it even though it was out of style again because he loved it. And that is why they are my new favorite couple of 2009. I thought they might be on the subway with me back to Manhattan but they suddenly splurged on a cab and I watched them pile into the car and pull away into the night. It all looked like a scene from a movie, the set was arranged and lit just right, with Manhattan shimmering in the background like a pearl.

By the time I reached the subway entrance, the gay din of the party had stopped ringing in my ears and the pristine cutesiness of DUMBO faded away to a more authentic, silent seediness under the bridge to Manhattan. I feel more at home in the grimy part of New York. Maybe it is because it is how I remember the city from my visits filled with wonder as a kid. Of course, now I live a world apart, far outside the city in my Douglas Sirk dreamscape, the cares and concerns of Manhattan now merely a set of small print columns in the copy of the New York Times I read on weekend mornings out on the patio. DUMBO too was like a fantasy bubble, like the one Glinda touched down in OZ in, and as pretty as it was, I think I like my fantasy life better.

Life With(Out) Matty

Before the evening began, it had all the hallmarks of a night of a thousand gay stars. Every once in a while, the planets line up and all sorts of people who are difficult to wrangle suddenly start to coalesce. Even my roommate Mike, who hates going out in general, but even more hates going out to the kinds of places I end up in, agreed to go. And so it went, and within hours, a magical night took form. Tonight was the night and its ground zero looked like the cabanas at The Maritime.

I went to the cabanas last Friday with Matty and Hanno for Zoe's birthday party and expected the same crowd of narrow ties and wide smiles we experienced last time. But more importantly, I expected Matty and Hanno. After all, we had talked about it the night before at Rob and Erik's pretty boy bacchanal, and they had even dutifully RSVP'd on Facebook to Will Wikle's birthday invite. But as I left the show, I noticed they had changed their Facebook status to include a reference to the movie Doubt. Okay, I thought, so after a few hours of the luminous Meryl chewing scenery, they will make their grand entrance up the stairs.

After the show, I walked out with Romaine, passed The Amazing Race's Nick Spangler leaving The Fantasticks, and then headed on the 1 train down to Chelsea. Roommate was still at his office birthday party so I had some time to kill and joined Cyd and Dan for one of their last remaining nights at their tasteful sublet before they make the big move to Los Angeles later this month. They were cocktailing with a couple, both named Matt, which made it so much easier to remember both of their names, even after the white cranberry juice and vodka cocktail that Cyd made for me. Despite not having a solid penny to my name, I impressed them with my theoretical investment strategies. Must have been the alcohol. For all I really know about making money, I might as well have declared at the end that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Mike arrived at the cabanas so I gave Cyd and Dan a long quick hug good bye and headed a few blocks down to the Maritime. By now it was almost 11:30 and I expected a line. However, there was no one waiting outside and the coat check was a sea of empty hangers. This was a bad sign. Upstairs the party was small but the music was loud. I found Mike quickly, wearing a cute zip neck pullover and a tie. He looked like all the other cute, preppy gays at the party! I felt so alone in my v-neck Otter Fashion shirt, though I have created an empowering take on my outsider fashion lately where I imagine myself a misunderstood trendsetter who is just too far ahead on the curve for people to even see around it yet.

Suddenly, it seemed like I was surrounded by everyone I knew exclusively through Matty. First, it was Brian Babst who demanded my cell phone number. "I wanted to text you the other day," he started, but I finished his sentence for him with "but you realized you didn't have my number." He plugged every detail of my personal life into his Blackberry, even scheduling a time slot later this week to send me his fabulous new holiday card, which I have to say was a very sweet touch. I was flattered.

Then I ran into Young Bradford (and later Ben appeared to complete the Benford set), who was rocking lederhosen. I thought it was an homage to Hanno, but he yelled "Swiss Miss" over the music and after some coordinated Alpine dance moves, we left it at that. Moments later, an outrageously tall and old drag queen wandered into us, her ill-fitting wig a sneeze away from resting inside her champagne flute. "Elaine Stritch in drag!" I declared but Bradford shook his head. "No. No. That's definitely Melanie Griffith." As she neared even nearer, I said, "Hello Melanie" and she went off on me in a drunken rage, alternately sloshing her drink and tugging on her errant wig. "Have some of my roofie" she smiled as she poured some of her drink into my cocktail before trotting away, one broken heel in front of the other.

Ben Harvey was there, fresh from his trip to London, along with his kissing cousin Christian and Christian's main squeeze Jimmie. Dave Rubin was with them, his square-jawed sexiness firmly in place. I coaxed Mike against his will into being social and hanging out with them and it all went swimmingly. I was still expecting Matty, but when he finally texted me back, it was to say that he and the Austrian were cuddling back at his place. So, to show him what he was missing, I decided to run around the cabanas and take pictures with all the people there that he knew. After all, why should Michael Musto, as always lurking in the shadows of joy, have all the fun?

I dashed around the increasingly packed bar and implored strangers to snap my photo. There was Ryan Newman, so much more fun without his boyfriend. In my attempt to get a photo with birthday boy Will Wikle, I ran smack into that hot slice of man Matt Kugelman. There is something wrong with him because he gets better looking every time I see him. It's a problem. Will was busy twirling up a storm to Get Me Bodied followed IMMEDIATELY by Single Ladies, so I gave his sweaty hunched back a hug as he down pointed his way across the dance floor. As much fun as imagining him in a black leotard is, I can't miss my train and had to make a run for it. Though I did take a second at the top of the stairs to lead the just arrived hot gay comic Shawn Hollenbach in the general direction of Dave Rubin. Always happy to help a boy scout across the street!

It will be sad to think of Manhattan without Cyd and Dan in it, even though I can add them to the growing list of people I don't have time to see on my annual short weekends in Los Angeles. And I have seen so much of Matty this year, more than I have seen him in all the years I have lived here, that I suppose having a single night off won't kill me. True, not having the friends you love around you is hard sometimes. But as the windows steamed up inside the cabanas and the $12 cocktails flowed, the party continues anyway, and we can all still have a good time.

(2nd to the) Last Night On Earth

These posts are often about going out. I suppose I could write about other things, but I am lazy. Since I don’t leave the house very often, it is the perfect compromise. I don’t have to write much, since I don’t go out much. I went out on the town on Friday night and Saturday night, and it was ill-advised since I had a million things to do before I embarked on the R Family Cruise up the coast of New England to Canada on Sunday morning. But Ronnie was in town, and I promised to hang out with him, so duty to friendship won out over bland puttering around the old Cape Cod.

As it turns out, Ronnie was working on a movie and couldn’t get out early enough on Friday night to do the show or hang out with us. I had promised some time before to hang out with Ryan and Ben Harvey on Friday when Ryan was in town, and promptly forgot until Ben Harvey and I were talking about our Friday night plans. So I trekked down after the show to Chelsea to meet Ben Harvey and his cousin Christian at the bar “G.” In the mid-90s as a NYC tourist, I was mad about “G” and its bold oval bar shape and hunky fun patrons. Now, I regard the nearly round walkway as a misery akin to attending the Tailhook Convention in a mini-skirt. But “G” after waning in the early years of the Bush Presidency is, like the Democratic Party in general, making something of a comeback, though I am similarly ambivalent that neither has changed much in the intervening years to deserve it.

I arrived first, my humongous Amazing Race style backpack making me as unwelcome in the slim environs as an elephant in a narrow corridor. But the best thing about being in your 30s is you don’t care who you piss off as long as you get where you are going. So even though two short muscle boys thought they would get my deference as they tried to pass in bar, I instead effortlessly swiveled around and slammed by backpack into their faces as I walked by. That made me feel good for the remaining two minutes until Ben Harvey arrived with Christian and Christian’s new friend, Aaron, a closeted construction worker from upstate.

We decamped almost immediately from “G” to try to find Ryan at ELMO where he had been having dinner with another radio professional. Once at ELMO, however, he had already moved on to someone’s apartment for a party or something, I stopped listening when we arrived at the second location and found our quarry missing. This is very bad form. Trying to connect clusters of gays already in motion is my least favorite activity in the world, especially in bar settings, because no one has any sense of time passing when they are in a club and after two drinks, any gay can be convinced to go anywhere with anyone. Jeffrey Dahmer made a career of that.

In searching for Ryan at ELMO, we wandered into the downstairs bar, which some years ago had been the site of Perez Hilton’s birthday party. On Friday, it was a shocking display of heterosexuality. This is always annoying. I like straight people as much as the next, but straight people who cluster in otherwise gay areas to party are nothing but trouble. The freedom and sassiness that gays display liberates them to dangerous levels and gets transferred into otherwise inappropriate straight behavior and the next thing you know someone is getting stabbed. Sweet, young closeted Aaron didn’t believe me that it was a straight party.
“Maybe there are just a lot of girls.” He suggested.

I assured him it was a straight party because there were only men dancing with women, and no men dancing with other men. Going around to Ben Harvey and Christian, they in quick succession agreed it was straight because the men all had tucked in, button down shirts and by the way, did you see those shoes? The lack of fashion sense was not enough to convince Aaron, who retorted, “Derek is badly dressed and he is obviously not straight.” But a lack of fashion is my thing. It is what separates me from the rest of the maddening crowd. Though at this point, Aaron was the only maddening one.

I liked him a lot and Christian assured me he had an amazing body underneath his ill-fitting shirt, but his youth and inexperience at all things gay was apparent. For instance, he insisted that being out at work wasn’t important and he never planned to be openly gay in the workplace. True he works in construction, so that does make things dicey, but the idea that he works in a sexuality-free environment is to take for granted the background noise of girlfriends and wives that is miraculously excluded from any notion of sexual behavior. I am certain that in a few years he will feel differently.

Just then, Dave Rubin came sweeping in and happily changed the dynamic entirely. With Ben Harvey still texting Ryan trying to find a meet spot, my eye was on the clock and the door. After another round of drinks, everyone bolted for the Chelsea Hotel. I made my good-byes on the corner. Even though I was assured Ryan would be at the Chelsea (at least eventually), my role in L’Aventura had come to an end. With any luck, I could get home early enough to get a good night’s sleep, get some packing done for my trip and still have time to work on the house. Life after all is a balancing act. One of these days, Ryan will see that maintaining that balance means learning to end something when the time is right and move on to the next thing. And perhaps Aaron will learn that there is a time and a place for everything, and sometimes the more you hold back, the less you have.

Transitions

New York City is in a constant state of flux. O Henry once aptly predicted that “It will be a great place if they ever finish it.” Living here, it is the kind of thing you get used to. Buildings get torn down. People move away. Even the seasons, when they end, do so with such a brutal finality it borders on intolerable cruelty. The most frequent NYC transition involves a change of address. Even though it seems like a lease (like any bad relationship) will never end, eventually it does and people move up, on, down, or out. Ben Harvey decided to use his last weekend in his old Chelsea apartment to celebrate the end of an era for himself and, since it was Dave Rubin’s birthday yesterday, the end of a year for Dave as well.

Ben’s apartment was a cozy L-shaped studio in a modern building with modern furnishings. It is the kind of apartment tower that has flourished in the city over the past decade like dandelions, at once adorable and annoyingly ubiquitous. Since he is moments from moving out, the place is pretty cleaned out, save for a few leftover pieces of furniture and (thanks largely to the guests) a refrigerator chock full of liquor. It felt like the endless parade of hot twenty-somethings all arrived carrying a bottle of vodka with them. Maybe they do that so that their bicep is flexed and huge as they walk through the door, or maybe they are just being thoughtful guests. Worried about neither the size of my upper arms or being nice, I came empty-handed.

Some of the usual suspects were there (like Jonathan and Ben’s rascally cousin Christian), but mostly it was filled with people I don’t know. This is my least favorite kind of party since I hate meeting new people. However, one of the first people I met was the delightful Anne (aka Lesbi-Anne), a stand-up comedian with surprisingly nice taste in clothes for a comic and/or lesbian. Ben’s friend Zach, anxious for a blog mention apparently, was also there, and much calmer than my first encounter with him at Ben’s new apartment three months ago. Unfortunately, he was so calm, nothing much happened between us and I have nothing really to say about him other than he was there and he was tall.

My friend Clay joined the party too. He came in town for pride weekend and was instantly dejected by the fashion at the party. The locals were all dressed in various shades of blue, Manhattan’s summer version of basic black. Upbeat and chipper in a bright green shirt, Clay stuck out in a good way in a sea of drab. “What is wrong with everyone? It’s Spring!” he declared, less than a week into Summer. But point taken. New York gays love a man in uniform, even if the uniform is expensive denim jeans and a blue, grey or black t-shirt.

Bucking the drab shirt trend was new arrival Steven, in town from Kansas City, where everything’s up to date. Steven was visiting his friend Marty and joined in the fun in Ben’s apartment, in a clingy white t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Fortunately gay men don’t like to use their imaginations, so he was a big hit. For me, the big excitement was finally meeting the notorious Shawn Hollenbach. I have never met him in person, but his photo has haunted me from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and beyond. We probably have the most friends in common of two people who had, before tonight, never met. It this regard, the party felt like mission accomplished.

The party moved from inside Ben’s apartment to the roof deck and back, as guests refilled their glasses and then returned to the breathtaking view and perfectly cool summer night. The south view off the roof was really something to see, and there is just something great about the canyons of high rises in Manhattan. They are majestic from every angle, though nothing beats the view from on high. Eventually, building security (as Ben had predicted they would) kicked everyone out of the roof deck and the drunks poured back into the apartment like wet cement, chunky slow and in fear of drying out too quickly. A bunch of us settled onto the couch for a series of photos I am certain to never see again, outside of a tagging frenzy on Facebook. This is fine since I generally hate all photos of myself, so I am happy to see the vast majority of them vanish into thin air.

As always happens, the drunk train was calling so I had to dash while everything was still in full swing. Clay offered for me to stay with him at the W since they upgraded him to a massive suite. “Who needs three walk in closets in a hotel room?” he asked from inside an apartment roughly the size of three walk in closets. Maybe tomorrow night, Clay. Christian, who wasn’t wearing any underwear (no surprise) and kept showing off his tramp stamp tattoo, which looked something like a folded out Rubik’s cube if you made one with origami, also offered me to stay with him. “You don’t mind cats do you?” That wasn’t the pussy I had in mind, so I figured I best stick with the train.

On the walk to Grand Central, I spied another New York landmark. It is almost impossible not to see at least one of them and I purposefully walked up Fifth Avenue just to catch a glimpse. And suddenly there it was, the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York City: the Empire State Building. The lights were off because it was after midnight, with just a UFO-like ring of lights around the top of the tower, but even in the dark, it is as beautiful as ever. The city around it can change all that it wants, but that building always stays the same. Elegant and cool, it is living proof in the heart of Manhattan that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Matt and Ben

This blog is primarily dedicated to my adventures out on the town, which might lead some people to believe I am a raging alcoholic. Everyone that is except my grandmother who insists that I don't drink enough. While it is true that many of my nights out happen in dank bars, over the last couple of years I have severely cut back on my drinking. Yes, I still go out, but instead of eight to ten drinks, I am down to one or two. More recently, I went a solid six weeks or so without a single cocktail. That ended last night when I didn't so much fall off the wagon as throw myself onto the Oregon Trail and allow an entire wagon train to roll over me.

Much of this new found sobriety has been necessitated by my move to the suburbs. Invariably I need to drive home at the end of the evening, leaving me at a serious drunken disadvantage to other New Yorkers. More of it has to do with getting older. To paraphrase Catherine Deneuve, at a certain point you have to choose between saving face and saving your ass. To continue drinking heavily means choosing your ass over your face and that is something I have just never been willing to do. Mornings are unpretty enough with your face memorizing every pillow crease from the night before without the telling boozy puffiness lending it a helping hand.

But last night was Ben Harvey's party celebrating his much-heralded TV show debut on HERE TV. I absolutely had to go to support him. And since it has been a while since I had a few cocktails and I knew I didn't need to drive home later, it was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a rare liquor-fueled night on the town. When I arrived, Ben offered to make me a cocktail and while waiting I threw myself on the mercy of his tastefully modern sofa with Cyd and Dan, sitting close together like a comedy team. It was nice spending time with them since I don't ever get enough time to see them. Dan listens to the show on his commute home quite regularly so he usually knows what is going on in my life, but the one-sidedness of it leaves me a little wanting.

Matt Kelleher finally arrived a few minutes later with his adorable blond charge. Gary is a Notre Dame (Matt's alma mater) senior in town looking for jobs and fun before his May graduation. If Roommate had been at the party he would have known immediately that Gary was just my type: tall, blond, sweet with a naturally perfect body and just a hint of chest hair. Matt was busy instructing him in the ways of New York and helping to prepare him for life in the outside world, by way of parties filled with gorgeous gay men and enough liquor to explode ten livers.

Ben arrived in our circle with drinks for the two of them and I held out my hand expectantly. At first Ben was confused but then he realized that he completely forgot to bring me my drink. "What were you waiting for?" he cried. "That was half an hour ago!" It was the very same conversation I had with Jonathan two days earlier. I suppose I am a fool for expecting people to keep their word even in intensely trivial matters, but if seven years in New York City has taught me anything, it is that reliability is essential to keep life running smoothly (as everyone who stands on subway platforms knows all too well). Or maybe I am just spoiled by the military-instilled precision of my parents, later reinforced by the even greater efficiency of Roommate.

Ben finally made good on his promise but unfortunately, my body had completely forgotten what alcohol was and two drinks later, I was flying like Sally Field in a perfectly symmetrical habit. Chris Van Cleef was there and my last blog entry was the talk of the party and the halls of HERE TV. One of his friends even quoted it in his Facebook Wall, citing my blog as "honest and trustworthy." I felt so famous! But Chris was tickled by the blog entry and insisted that he was stone sober when I saw him, which means I guess we can chalk up his willing sexual personality to nothing more complex than a willing sexual personality.

The party was fun, but Matty had another party to go to and I had one eye on the clock for the drunk trains home and the other eye on his blond companion. On our way out, outside the bathroom Sara of the Josh and Sara podcast made the feisty demand "You better not put me in your blog!" which naturally guaranteed she would make it in. (As a side note while I am on the subject of the bathroom, I fell madly in love with the art over Ben's toilet which as I dimly recall was a series of faux mid-century comic panels that started with one of the characters saying in effect: It rains here two out of three days, and during the rainy season, it snows like a bitch! That caused me to laugh so hard, I actually doubled over. So yes I was quite drunk at that point.) Ben's cousin Christian arrived late, almost simultaneously with us leaving so I barely got to say hi. And the presence of Dave Rubin's boyfriend made dry humping his leg even more embarrassing and inappropriate, though I did it anyway.

Matt, Gary and I decamped from Ben's fabulous party to another fabulous party, back in Union Square at David Coleman's place. I tried to tell a very drunk Gary about the remarkable view of Grand Central Station and why the Chrysler Building is my favorite in all of New York but he was instantly obsessed with playing Britney Spears on David's iPod-driven music system. He even went so far as to replace the iPod with his own iPhone and proceeded to turn himself into impromptu DJ. Moments later, egged on by Ryan Newman, he engaged in and narrowly lost a dance off. I felt like I was in a scene out of a gay rip-off of She's All That.

Conor was there, his collie eyes obscured by eyeglasses, reminding me once again of my preference for Clark Kent over Superman. Ben was there too, making a rare public appearance without Bradford. I also ran into Barton who was sexy and lovely as always, and who sat by with a bland expression while I dirty danced with Gary to Radar. In my state, I tried to convince him (unsuccessfully) that I am not the kind of person who does this sort of thing, but he just looked back with an expression lacking both moral judgment and belief. Moments later, the party broke up with most of us headed over to the Chelsea Hotel. And then things got interesting.

It was a night of firsts for me, though none I would recommend. The first first came on the dance floor in the basement bar of the Chelsea when Gary took his shirt off and then insisted I take mine off. I have never been shirtless in a gay club in my life and the only other time I was shirtless in a gay social setting was August of 2001 and we all remember how that ended! Later another clubgoer tapped my bare shoulder and sniffed, "Have you noticed you are the only two people in here with your shirts off? This isn't that kind of place you know." In that moment, I just hoped that he thought we were both too young to know better as opposed to one of us being too young and the other one being definitely old enough to know better. My shirtlessness also got an askance glance from Barton on his way out, again with his trademarked judgment-free judgment which to me is as unrealistic and suspicious as sugar-free, fat-free Cool Whip.

Gary ran into Matt's friend Ian, whom he had met when he met Matt down in South Florida last week. Ian and other friends at the Chelsea who were not at the party pulled the three of us out of the Chelsea and off to another house party. Ian's driver Joe pulled his Bentley up to the curb, graciously took my tacky backpack and ten dollar coat from the Barney's Warehouse Sale and laid them in the trunk with the kind of care usually reserved for fragile antique crystal. I squeezed myself into the backseat with Ian, Gary and to my right, Itay Hod from LOGO News who is just as sexy in person if not more so, while Matt rode in the front seat. Joe drove us to the elegant apartment of Tim who thoughtfully hosted a passel of gay men well into the wee hours of the morning.

Tim worked overtime as a host, entreating smokers not to toss their butts over the side of his balcony onto the neighboring balcony below, filling drinks and otherwise making sure everyone had a good time. Gary settled in on the floor next to the music system, and once again, replaced Tim's music with his own iPhone and set about on another three hour musical journey dedicated almost entirely to the Britney canon with a reverential devotion usually reserved for patron saints and Madonna. By this time, I was just too drunk to keep up the pace and switched to water to keep me from shriveling up like a prune before morning. Gary once again took his shirt off and convinced me to do the same, which lead to first number two: being photographed in public with my shirt off. I had always said I would never, NEVER do that, and yet, here I was, shirtless and grinning like an idiot for the camera.

An hour later, I experienced my third and final first. Gary and I were canoodling on a lovely leather armchair and suddenly, drunk and shirtless in a strange apartment, dawn nearly breaking through the window like a runaway freight train, I felt lost. But how could I be so terribly unhappy? Here I was, in the arms of an adorable guy at a fun party and yet not having J.G. in my life made me feel as lost as a rudderless ship at sea. If I still had his number in my phone, I would have sent him an ill-advised "I am lost without you in my life" text message at six a.m. I was coloring outside the lines and it just wasn't for me. And yet being so fiercely self-reliant as I am, needing someone like this has never been me either. There I was, left between the devil and the deep blue sea, not knowing where to go next or what to do. But true to form for me in moments like this, I mustered my strength and emanated fun without actually having fun until the feeling passed.

A while later, Matt was ready to go and we all put on our shoes and coats and headed out into the soft, lush opening notes of dawn, quickly hailing a cab and heading to Matt's apartment. I thought about just going directly to Grand Central to head home, but realized that a couple of hours sleep would probably be better than just heading home cold. "We'll sleep until ten and then all go to brunch!" Matt offered brightly, still in full cruise director mode, and then seconds later he was fast asleep. I woke up at 11:30am and Gary and Matt were still dead to the world. I put a mirror under each of their noses to make sure they were alive, patted Parker pug on the head and stumbled out the door. It was a great night, to be sure, and probably one of the last all-nighters I will ever have. Hanging out with Matt is always a reliable treat, and there is so much comfort and trust in spending time with someone you have known for more than a decade. In the end, it turns out there are some things, I know I can rely on: old friends, pillow face and always myself.

Friday Night Owls

Even though I went out last night and proclaimed myself too old for this shit, I turned around and went out again tonight. I had originally planned to go out on Saturday night, but with piles of snow planned and no other reason to go into the city, I decided to just do two nights in a row and take the rest of the weekend off. SIRIUS has been working on installing a home studio for me and I had hoped it would be up and running today so I could just do the show from home. Unfortunately, it still isn’t working. So since I was going to be in the city for work anyway, it wasn’t that much trouble to splash some cold water on my face, run a comb through my eyebrows and head down to Chelsea for a cocktail or two.

Ben Harvey, absent of late from my life and as an active participant in my blog was my primary motivation for hitting the town. He had sublet his apartment but since it was unoccupied this weekend, he decided to crash there and make a weekend of it. Since it was his plan, I let him be the ringleader and choose our first bar of the evening: the ever stalwart Barracuda. Nestled in the shaved armpit of Chelsea, Barracuda was the bar I spent the quiet evening on 9/10/01 in, canoodling on the couch with that year’s Jonathan before the morning came and changed everything. I really like Barracuda when it doesn’t smell like raw sewage or becomes so crowded you can’t breathe.

As usual, I arrived late. Jim from SF, visiting his friend Derek for the weekend, was already impatiently there after a ghetto meal around the corner at the Dallas BBQ. The original Jonathan was also there with his friend Chris, who was visiting from Atlanta. I don’t know why people choose this time of year to come to New York. It is the worst time to be here. Perhaps their friends invite them to dissuade them from ever living here. Ben Harvey finally arrived with his “cousin” Christian in tow. Christian probably was at Barracuda the last time I was there with Ben Harvey (although he must have been the additional person I failed to mention). Christian is tall and cute but I didn’t really have much interaction with him last time because there was just too much stuff going on. Ben Harvey was busy playing host to a veritable sea of homos and I was just trying to remember as many names as possible to blog later.

What I need with Ben Harvey is an intimate dinner for two so we can just sit and talk. We invariably end up on these group dates where we have to steal away to a corner just to have a private moment. Plus we are both half deaf from working in radio so meeting in noisy gay bars is like bats meeting in sunlight. Romaine and I are going to do his show with Dave Rubin at HERE TV next Tuesday and he has promised lunch afterward. I just hope there is a way we can both ditch our spouses and have each other all to ourselves.

Also making a cameo at Barracuda tonight was Daniel from last night at Pop Rocks. He arrived rocking three headbands at once (blue, silver and teal) and a classic Jennifer Beals shoulder shrugging sweatshirt. His outfit said “Let’s Get Physical” in a very 1982 kind of way, which remembering 1982 as vividly as I do is always welcome. He read my blog posting from last night and was surprised to see the link to his Facebook profile (it’s just something I do in my blog. Only in New York, kids. Only in New York). But really he took me to task over calling his friend’s shoes “chunky clogs.” Apparently they were really cool (I honestly don’t remember a single detail about them, including what he told me about them tonight), and he insisted when he got back from the bathroom he was going to read me to filth about them. I never saw him again. For someone as painfully unfashionable as I am, it was probably for the best that I didn’t hear a dissertation on the shoes. He might as well try to explain the insignificance of quantum mechanics to me using a flashlight and a toy car. But I try to be as honest as possible in my blog so I apologize for missing so crucial a detail.

One by one, the gays started to peel away from the evening. I thought I would be the runaway, forced to leave at the height of fun to grab the drunk train home. But it was Jonathan, with his early a.m. gymnastics meet who was the first to call it quits. He did a single lutz, knocking a beer out of some homos hand and then headed for the door. Barracuda was somewhat lifeless, so Christian wanted to move on to another bar. On our way out, we said adieu to Jim who had a reasonably early flight home the next afternoon. That left just the three of us left, which is the ideal gay male bar group. Two people might imply couple on the hunt for a three way. Four looks like two couples wrapping up dinner with a post meal cocktail. Five or more is unwieldy. And we all know that one is the loneliest number in any gay setting. But three is the magic number so off we three went to Gym.

I have written extensively about Gym the sports bar. Normally it is the kind of place where men drink white wine in a glass but the wet weather gave the place a muskier smell than usual. “It really does smell like a gym in here!” Christian exclaimed with the enthusiasm of Kim Cattrall in Porky’s (although my enthusiasm was always saved for co-star Boyd Gaines). I thought I might need to put a sweat sock in his mouth later, but apparently nursing on an Amstel Light was enough for him. The crowd at Gym was lackluster and soon the high def footage of girl’s gymnastics on the flat screens was luring our eyes away from the men. It was time to move on to the next bar.

We wandered out into the elements again and around the corner to G, the site just two shorts weeks ago where I was most gratefully carded at the door. The bar was packed and finally it seemed that we had found where all the men were tonight. We weren’t the only ones who thought the same thing, casually bumping into easily a half dozen other veterans of Barracuda and Gym that night. I only had time for one quick drink and a really scandalous punch line from Christian that made me want to hump his bones in the bus station before it was time to make the mad dash to Grand Central Station for the last train of the night. Sadly my last ten minutes in the bar were spent cornered in the most boring conversation of the week with a guy who mistook me for someone who gave a shit about anything, while Christian and Ben bantered out of reach of my flailing arms. Finally I announced as loudly and rudely as I am certain anyone ever has that I had to leave RIGHT NOW. I made a feeble gesture of pulling out my phone to check the time but it was clear to all that what I was really saying was “get the fuck away from me you boring homo.” I don’t know why people don’t like me.

Christian, no stranger to the drunk train into Westchester County, was a disbeliever and assured me that I would be back in the bar in fifteen minutes and sharing the couch with him later in Ben’s apartment. As tantalizing as seeing Ben’s apartment and Christian on the couch are, I knew I would make it to the train with time to spare. I am an old hand at this now, as Regis told Laura Linney on the Oscar red carpet this year seconds before I thought she was going to beat the living shit out of him. True to form, I am only on time to things that will leave without me (movies, trains, airplanes, etc.) and landed in my seat on the drunk train between horny straight guys and skanky straight girls with plenty of time to rub it in Christian’s face in a thoughtful text message to Ben Harvey to wrap up the night.

And now I sit on the drunk train, as usual, lap top on lap, blogging about my evening, searching for a thread of a theme to wrap things up with. I do so love a neat ending. But really all I can think is what a fun time I had tonight and in the words of the immortal bard: When will we three meet again?