(This is an unfinished blog entry. Explanation at the end. But, as fate would have it, I was about to write about my adventures tonight inside an existing document I write in on my laptop before I post it all online and I didn't think I had put it up. Turns out that I hadn't. And it seemed too good to me to just throw away, even if it is half-thought, unedited, and incomplete. See what you think.)
Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:31am
Sure, I had heard of gay billionaires before. After all, I used to live in Los Angeles. There were always stories of someone or other throwing an amazing party with hot guys twirling around a swimming pool in the highest altitudes of the “swish alps,” the gentle mountain range that separates West Hollywood from the dreaded Valley. I was even invited to one such party in the late 1990s and sure enough boys in tiny bathing suits danced around a kidney pool, swilling cocktails and enjoying the largesse of an unseen benefactor. I am pretty sure a certain MTV personality dragged a friend of mine into the bathroom with him, did an enormous amount of coke next to the sink and then whisked him off to a wild night out in Hollywood which ended with them getting thrown out of the after-hours party at the Coconut Teaser on Sunset for sneaking in a beer. I thought I had left such shenanigans behind on the left coast. But then I was invited to a party in the sky in the apartment of a gay billionaire in Manhattan and my life was changed forever.
At the risk of lobbing another cannon shot into the battle of class warfare in America, I will just say this: rich people live better than you. Much, much better. Years ago in the Egyptian Theatre at the OutFest premiere of “Get Bruce” the terrific documentary on Bruce Vilanch, a much vaunted and moneyed Hollywood figure with an equal love of hot young men and plastic surgery occupied the row right behind me. He had not one but two insanely beautiful men with him, flanking him on either side, one of them infused with such fragile, farm-fresh dewiness that I wanted to slip him a bus ticket back to Kansas before it was all too late and the L.A. machine consumed him. Maybe I was fueled by jealousy or the inherent wastefulness of having two whores when clearly one would have been more then sufficient.
But as reclusive billionaire John Hurt assured us in “Contact,” why have one when you can have two at twice the price? I suppose at a certain point, “money is no object” isn’t just a casual expression it represents an actual mental omission. Price tags and receipts fall into a gentle grey area of the wealthy brain inaccessible at all times, rendering them a financial amensiac with no interest in remembering what reality is for other people. And thus the billionaire journeys through life unfettered by what things cost, buying jets in every color they come in. Laughing annoyingly, as Louise Brooks once wrote of her own mother, like one with a happily corrected blind spot.
This is conjecture on my part. I don’t know what kind of lives billionaires really have. After all, I live like a squatter in an abandoned downtown warehouse. If it wasn’t for my roommate Mike’s constant stares of blank disapproval, I would devolve into full-tilt Grey Gardens in a matter of hours. From the outside looking in (like Stella Dallas longing for a life filled with problems never to be had) there seem to be two kinds of billionaires. I suppose if you are someone like, say, Oprah, who grew up desperately poor with an outhouse and earned your billions the hard way, you know where every penny is at all times. But if you invest Daddy’s money and it hits like the lottery, you may not have the same sense about dollars and cents that someone else might have.
The billionaire apartment I went to seemed to fall more in the category of the latter. Famous works of art abounded askew from a thousand drunken love taps from the partygoers, a tiny Cartier clock sat helpless and unprotected in a shelf in the guest bathroom. The library was filled with boxes of the same book, no doubt a favorite, soon-to-be thoughtful gift to everyone from the doorman to a liked, though not well-liked uncle. The paroramic views from every window, including the bathroom, seemed merely to be a natural extension of the already lavish embarassment of riches strewn careful amount the penthouse.
It was pride weekend. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Naturally, I was at the IMAX Theater near Lincoln Center watching the Transformers sequel with my friend Clayton. I knew that my other friend Clay was in town for the weekend, in from Texas, and Jeff and Bond had driven down from Boston. That’s the nice thing about pride weekend. Everyone is there. The only real question is where to go to party. Plenty of people have parties but you want to go to THE party. I only know a handful of important and/or connected people so for me, this time of year is a delicate dance.
Clay told me that he had been invited to a party on the East side, in the Bloomberg building. The sexy party promoter Michael Warner had invited him and he offered that Clayton and I could join him on the list. Once I heard that Warner was working that party, I knew that Jeff and Bond would be there too. And I suspected some of the rest of my usual NYC people would be there too, like Matty Kelleher.
(This is the end of the unfinished entry, and there it stayed forgotten for nearly six months, although I explained why it was unfinished in an entry titled "The End" back in August, which includes more details about the party for the deeply curious.)
Showing posts with label Clayton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clayton. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Twice Told Tales
Last night was my second sojourn to Matty’s sensational new party night Thursday at The Park. It also happened to be Roommate’s birthday and after I surprised him earlier at his office with an Oreo cake and presents, I was the surprised one when I spotted him waiting downstairs at The Park. Despite it being his birthday, he had had to work late so he figured he might as well have some fun. We were soon joined by John, whom ADD Jeff had convinced to come out as well. Earlier John and I had been talking about how Facebook had so deftly revealed the myriad friends of friends we had in common, who in turn did not know each other. Well, it was a night of connected connections when Ron showed up a few minutes later. I met Ron last summer on the R Family cruise up to Canada and he came in from Long Island for a planned meet up with his friend Jeff, who it turned out, was friends with and had invited my neighbor Clayton. Soon ADD Jeff appeared to bring us all upstairs and the party really began.
Much of the usual insanely beautiful crew was there. Chris (no slouch himself mind you) was mingling with his breathtakingly hot new boyfriend. Charlie, dark rimmed glasses denoting a more serious tone, passed through briefly before making an early night of it. Joe was revelling in not being the drunkest person at the party, which was already in full raucous and debaucherous swing. Brian was anxious to be home watching Liz Lemon display her trademark angst on the Valentine’s Day episode of 30 Rock and was showing a heretofore unknown soft, gooey interior over his LA-based low carb love muffin. And Matty was encouraging all of us to help make Andrew, the newest addition to the collective, feel welcome. Andrew, tall and trim in the way people used to be before McDonald’s became the shop around the corner and WalMart ate` the world, very politely and quietly got hammered. I found Andrew’s youthful calm endearing and his slight frame said he isn’t quite done growing yet. Maybe the alcohol will help speed things along.
Soon Clayton arrived, followed by Ron’s friend Jeff, and our group was complete. The DJ continued to do that thing I first encountered at the Maritime, where they only play 30 seconds of every hit you have ever heard. “In my day, we had eight minute dance mixes and we liked it!” I heard myself saying, the words echoing in a cavernous Tunnel long since razed into memory. Matty was a little perturbed. “I asked the DJ to play some Cher and Deborah Cox and it’s been more than an hour now. I don’t think he is going to play it!” We feared he might not play it because he didn’t have it, but Matty dismissed that old-fashioned argument in a hand wave through the murky party cloud, exposing our technowonder present. “He can download anything he wants in a second. He just doesn’t want to!” At one point, Ron thought he spotted an Ecstasy tablet on the floor. A guy nearby picked it up and inspected it. “It’s a Centrum” he responded blandly. Later as Ron recounted the story, Roommate panicked for a moment. “I hope it wasn’t a Centrum Silver.” We change with the times, but sometimes the times change with us.
That was never more evident than when I spied my former neighbor Nick Scotti sitting in a quiet nook with his pals. Years ago living on a quaint three block stretch of West Hollywood West called Dorrington Avenue, I had Jenny McCarthy, Oscar winner Linda Hunt, my pal Jeanetta Arnette from Head Of The Class, and hunky Nick Scotti as neighbors. Nick used to walk his dog without a shirt right in front of my house prompting my friend Eric to insist that I call him the moment it happened because he could “be there from anywhere in LA in under five minutes.” I reminded Nick of our old street and his face brightened with recognition. “Wow. Dorrington. I haven’t thought of that in forever.” Nick has since settled back home in NYC, and while over the years we have all travelled more than the 3000 miles from West Hollywood to Chelsea, I am sure no one around him will mind when dog walking weather returns in the next few weeks.
The party was great fun and finally wound down around 2am. Our group decamped around the corner to the Moonstruck diner. Like any good diner should be, the menu was overwhelmingly massive and when people are drunk or have been awake for almost 24 hours, it is tough to get them to make a clearheaded choice. But isn’t that most of the fun of a pre-dawn raid of the local owl wagon? Years ago, Mike and I had another late night awkward meal at that very same table with Patches and his ex-boyfriend Chris. This time was personally less tense, although a few drinks in ADD Jeff produced some graphic bon mots about cum swallowing while the waiter was standing there that made me seriously rethink my rice pudding order (and dramatically increased the tip we ended up leaving that poor man). But that is what happens when you get a disparate group together. Parties big and small are about pulling together the right elements and letting things take their wild and unpredictable course. It amazes me that someone like Matty who is so naturally a gifted party organizer would wait so long to start club promoting. But like a stack of golden pancakes or a platter of fried mozzarella sticks at 3am on a windy winter night, it was worth the wait.
Much of the usual insanely beautiful crew was there. Chris (no slouch himself mind you) was mingling with his breathtakingly hot new boyfriend. Charlie, dark rimmed glasses denoting a more serious tone, passed through briefly before making an early night of it. Joe was revelling in not being the drunkest person at the party, which was already in full raucous and debaucherous swing. Brian was anxious to be home watching Liz Lemon display her trademark angst on the Valentine’s Day episode of 30 Rock and was showing a heretofore unknown soft, gooey interior over his LA-based low carb love muffin. And Matty was encouraging all of us to help make Andrew, the newest addition to the collective, feel welcome. Andrew, tall and trim in the way people used to be before McDonald’s became the shop around the corner and WalMart ate` the world, very politely and quietly got hammered. I found Andrew’s youthful calm endearing and his slight frame said he isn’t quite done growing yet. Maybe the alcohol will help speed things along.
Soon Clayton arrived, followed by Ron’s friend Jeff, and our group was complete. The DJ continued to do that thing I first encountered at the Maritime, where they only play 30 seconds of every hit you have ever heard. “In my day, we had eight minute dance mixes and we liked it!” I heard myself saying, the words echoing in a cavernous Tunnel long since razed into memory. Matty was a little perturbed. “I asked the DJ to play some Cher and Deborah Cox and it’s been more than an hour now. I don’t think he is going to play it!” We feared he might not play it because he didn’t have it, but Matty dismissed that old-fashioned argument in a hand wave through the murky party cloud, exposing our technowonder present. “He can download anything he wants in a second. He just doesn’t want to!” At one point, Ron thought he spotted an Ecstasy tablet on the floor. A guy nearby picked it up and inspected it. “It’s a Centrum” he responded blandly. Later as Ron recounted the story, Roommate panicked for a moment. “I hope it wasn’t a Centrum Silver.” We change with the times, but sometimes the times change with us.
That was never more evident than when I spied my former neighbor Nick Scotti sitting in a quiet nook with his pals. Years ago living on a quaint three block stretch of West Hollywood West called Dorrington Avenue, I had Jenny McCarthy, Oscar winner Linda Hunt, my pal Jeanetta Arnette from Head Of The Class, and hunky Nick Scotti as neighbors. Nick used to walk his dog without a shirt right in front of my house prompting my friend Eric to insist that I call him the moment it happened because he could “be there from anywhere in LA in under five minutes.” I reminded Nick of our old street and his face brightened with recognition. “Wow. Dorrington. I haven’t thought of that in forever.” Nick has since settled back home in NYC, and while over the years we have all travelled more than the 3000 miles from West Hollywood to Chelsea, I am sure no one around him will mind when dog walking weather returns in the next few weeks.
The party was great fun and finally wound down around 2am. Our group decamped around the corner to the Moonstruck diner. Like any good diner should be, the menu was overwhelmingly massive and when people are drunk or have been awake for almost 24 hours, it is tough to get them to make a clearheaded choice. But isn’t that most of the fun of a pre-dawn raid of the local owl wagon? Years ago, Mike and I had another late night awkward meal at that very same table with Patches and his ex-boyfriend Chris. This time was personally less tense, although a few drinks in ADD Jeff produced some graphic bon mots about cum swallowing while the waiter was standing there that made me seriously rethink my rice pudding order (and dramatically increased the tip we ended up leaving that poor man). But that is what happens when you get a disparate group together. Parties big and small are about pulling together the right elements and letting things take their wild and unpredictable course. It amazes me that someone like Matty who is so naturally a gifted party organizer would wait so long to start club promoting. But like a stack of golden pancakes or a platter of fried mozzarella sticks at 3am on a windy winter night, it was worth the wait.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Park And Fly
On any given Thursday, there are few places in the world more exciting than New York City. I woke up this morning expecting that the most exciting thing to happen all day would be attending Matty’s inaugural party as club promoter: Sexy Back Thursdays at The Park. But then Sam jumped up from her desk next to me yelling “A plane just crashed outside our office!” and the day briefly took an entirely different turn.
A US Airways flight glided down in the Hudson river a few blocks from my office and quite literally outside the window of my old River Place apartment off the West Side Highway. All of the passengers and crew lived which allowed everyone to start with the gallows humor immediately without fear of much reproach. My favorite comeback being: “If we stop flying, the geese have won.” As it was, the landing and rescue were so quick and uneventful I have to assume that some of the NYC-based passengers merely stepped off the rescue boat, hailed a cab outside the Circle Line Tour and headed back to their respective apartments. After all, they didn’t have much time to change out of their wet shoes and head downtown to Matty’s fabulous new party, and New Yorkers are, if nothing else, a resilient bunch.
I do love The Park. It reminds me of my childhood fantasy of opening a kitschy indoor restaurant designed to look outdoors. I would call it Picnic and everyone would eat fried chicken and hot dogs at wooden picnic tables with red checkerboard tablecloths under a bright kleig light sun. The Park, with its indoor/outdoor motif and heavy doses of camp (what’s with all those Hitchcockian stuffed birds around the back bar mirror?), serves up heaping helpings of broken Asian doll along with expensive cocktails and high-end entrees. It is the restaurant of my childhood dreams if I had grown up in the West Village instead of Utah.
Suffice it to say, Matty’s party was a huge success. And why not? All the usual suspects were there. Gray in black. Mike without Ryan. Charlie in a v-neck sweater. JD and Clayton canoodling while Terry looked on at his handiwork approvingly. Even Brian Babst appeared at the front bar, already armed with lines from tonight’s 30 Rock. He insisted he wasn’t staying long but more than an hour later, I found him upstairs in the Penthouse crush looking determined. Meanwhile, Matty swirled around us all, a social Sonja Henie, skating effortlessly through the scene, smiling for the camera. Chris and Josh were skating too, though their routine was off and I think the judges noticed.
And in the center of it all: me. Poorly dressed as usual, long underwear hidden under my free American Idol shirt, surrounded by Gossip Gays in tiny preppy suits and nerd glasses. They made me want to shove them down the concrete stairs, turning the base of the steps into just a pile of mangled cashmere sweaters and shattered spines. I was inappropriate as usual, pushing my way through the crowd with zero regard for anyone’s safety, including my own. Even creating a short cut by walking across a pair of couches until I nearly stepped on a handsome stranger and his fag hag. “That’s not good for the furniture” I said to him as I climbed back down. He smiled back in a way that said he was charmed now, but sober and in daylight, he would not be so thrilled with me. Story of my life.
Maybe it was the cold but Los Angeles was a hot topic of conversation at Matty’s soiree. Brian deadpanned a story to me about gays in LA stocking up on tonic water like the end times are coming because “it doesn’t have any calories.” JD lamented the shallowness of the LA boys and worried aloud that “the plastics” had followed him to The Park. He seemed amused when I told him that my attitude problem practically got me run out of West Hollywood on a rail. The locals insisted that perhaps I would fit in better in New York, though when I arrived in Manhattan, all anyone ever asked for the first two years was if I was from LA. Perhaps I belong somewhere in between.
Later at the coat check as I bundled up inside my ski parka (an angry lesbian fashion shot fired across a sea of fitted wool coats) a different handsome man came down the stairs and smiled at me. “You look warm,” he cooed, but my only thought was making my train. I muttered “I certainly hope so!” as I pushed past him. After all, why look so out of place if I can’t at least prevent frostbite on my way home. And all apologizes to him and Kathleen Turner but body heat is not how I plan to ride out the winter.
Oh what a night, as the songwriter wrote. The coldest night of the year, of many years even. A plane crash down the street. Only in New York, kids. Only in New York. But as I said before, we New Yorkers are a resilient bunch. I probably didn’t do much to bring sexy back to Thursdays, The Park or the parka for that matter, but at least I was there. And, more importantly, despite my continued surly attitude, I did have a good time.
A US Airways flight glided down in the Hudson river a few blocks from my office and quite literally outside the window of my old River Place apartment off the West Side Highway. All of the passengers and crew lived which allowed everyone to start with the gallows humor immediately without fear of much reproach. My favorite comeback being: “If we stop flying, the geese have won.” As it was, the landing and rescue were so quick and uneventful I have to assume that some of the NYC-based passengers merely stepped off the rescue boat, hailed a cab outside the Circle Line Tour and headed back to their respective apartments. After all, they didn’t have much time to change out of their wet shoes and head downtown to Matty’s fabulous new party, and New Yorkers are, if nothing else, a resilient bunch.
I do love The Park. It reminds me of my childhood fantasy of opening a kitschy indoor restaurant designed to look outdoors. I would call it Picnic and everyone would eat fried chicken and hot dogs at wooden picnic tables with red checkerboard tablecloths under a bright kleig light sun. The Park, with its indoor/outdoor motif and heavy doses of camp (what’s with all those Hitchcockian stuffed birds around the back bar mirror?), serves up heaping helpings of broken Asian doll along with expensive cocktails and high-end entrees. It is the restaurant of my childhood dreams if I had grown up in the West Village instead of Utah.
Suffice it to say, Matty’s party was a huge success. And why not? All the usual suspects were there. Gray in black. Mike without Ryan. Charlie in a v-neck sweater. JD and Clayton canoodling while Terry looked on at his handiwork approvingly. Even Brian Babst appeared at the front bar, already armed with lines from tonight’s 30 Rock. He insisted he wasn’t staying long but more than an hour later, I found him upstairs in the Penthouse crush looking determined. Meanwhile, Matty swirled around us all, a social Sonja Henie, skating effortlessly through the scene, smiling for the camera. Chris and Josh were skating too, though their routine was off and I think the judges noticed.
And in the center of it all: me. Poorly dressed as usual, long underwear hidden under my free American Idol shirt, surrounded by Gossip Gays in tiny preppy suits and nerd glasses. They made me want to shove them down the concrete stairs, turning the base of the steps into just a pile of mangled cashmere sweaters and shattered spines. I was inappropriate as usual, pushing my way through the crowd with zero regard for anyone’s safety, including my own. Even creating a short cut by walking across a pair of couches until I nearly stepped on a handsome stranger and his fag hag. “That’s not good for the furniture” I said to him as I climbed back down. He smiled back in a way that said he was charmed now, but sober and in daylight, he would not be so thrilled with me. Story of my life.
Maybe it was the cold but Los Angeles was a hot topic of conversation at Matty’s soiree. Brian deadpanned a story to me about gays in LA stocking up on tonic water like the end times are coming because “it doesn’t have any calories.” JD lamented the shallowness of the LA boys and worried aloud that “the plastics” had followed him to The Park. He seemed amused when I told him that my attitude problem practically got me run out of West Hollywood on a rail. The locals insisted that perhaps I would fit in better in New York, though when I arrived in Manhattan, all anyone ever asked for the first two years was if I was from LA. Perhaps I belong somewhere in between.
Later at the coat check as I bundled up inside my ski parka (an angry lesbian fashion shot fired across a sea of fitted wool coats) a different handsome man came down the stairs and smiled at me. “You look warm,” he cooed, but my only thought was making my train. I muttered “I certainly hope so!” as I pushed past him. After all, why look so out of place if I can’t at least prevent frostbite on my way home. And all apologizes to him and Kathleen Turner but body heat is not how I plan to ride out the winter.
Oh what a night, as the songwriter wrote. The coldest night of the year, of many years even. A plane crash down the street. Only in New York, kids. Only in New York. But as I said before, we New Yorkers are a resilient bunch. I probably didn’t do much to bring sexy back to Thursdays, The Park or the parka for that matter, but at least I was there. And, more importantly, despite my continued surly attitude, I did have a good time.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wring Out The Old
I have known Terry Goldman for a long time, more than a decade but not quite a decade and a half. I was the first person he ever met online (though certainly not the last) and to show you how long ago it was, online then was a BBS in Los Angeles. And if you don’t know what a BBS is, you are probably too young to read this. Terry is a wonderful friend that I have hung out with in sunshine and now snow, in the desert and on the high seas. It’s been a grand adventure that continued on Saturday night in Chelsea.
Back in December after a long dry spell of not seeing each other, we went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still in IMAX and promised to become regular movie buddies in 2009. Last weekend, we had a gorgeous fatty meal at Outback followed by a bucket of popcorn at Gran Torino. Clearly, feeling on a roll, he suggested dinner, a movie and subsequent boozing this weekend. “We can see Bride Wars or The Unborn,” he suggested. Ugh. Is it January already?! Mercifully, we were spared a two hour sentence in wintry cinematic prison and opted instead for a huge dinner at ELMO, a popular eatery in the heart of gay Manhattan.
With house guests Ryan James and Andy in tow, along with Roommate, I was suddenly four in his ever growing dinner group, which eventually swelled to ten with even my neighbor Clayton thrown in to the mix. For some inexplicable reason, Terry invited only men who had the first letter J in their name: Jacob, Joe, Jeremy and JD. I kid you not that Jimmy and Jonathan were also invited at one point but for one reason or another were not there. For someone like me with so much trouble remembering names, this is mental suicide.
Jacob, Clayton and Terry were there waiting when I arrived, snuggled up close to the flirty DJ, and sandwiched between the plate glass front window and erstwhile party girl Zoe Murphy, her main gay, and what I suspect was her own mother, cooling their heels at the bar. I hadn’t seen Clayton since before the holidays so we had a lot of catching up to do. In short order, Joe arrived, followed by roommates Jeremy and JD. As I often do in these situations, when Terry told me that one of the people coming was on the Bravo series WorkOut, I for some reason thought it was Joe and assiduously avoided him, opting instead to sit next to JD, who it turns out was the reality show participant in question. The best laid plans of Mice and me.
It turned out that even our waiter was also a reality TV veteran, with three different shows to his credit. I am starting to think that reality shows are the new herpes. “Be careful going home with him. I hear he’s got a case of the MTV!!!” Waiter was very nice with a taut frame and the kind of ass you look forward to seeing in your face while he is waiting on the table next to you. But his TV exposure had apparently caused an outbreak that even infected his own apartment. When Terry asked him if he knew Davis from The Real World Denver, he became lovingly agitated. “He’s staying with me! He came for a couple of days and it’s weeks later and he is still there. I love him, but he has to go sometime!”
Despite having a reservation and waiting almost a full hour for our table, ELMO ended up splitting us up and putting us at two separate tables right next to each other. Clayton, Roommate, Andy and Ryan James squeezed into the booth across from us and I joined Terry and the J men at the table for six. Dinner went very smoothly but I started to sweat bullets when the check came. Looking around the table, I feared one of those situations where the check passes around and comes back seventy dollars short and everyone starts getting indignant about how they didn’t want to pay for an appetizer they only got one bite of while ignoring the three cocktails they consumed. We ended up only three dollars short and not wanting a fuss, I quietly threw in an extra five, grabbed my coat and started heading for the door.
Since Andy is underage, he and Ryan James went to the only 18 and over club in Manhattan, while the rest of us braved the cold two block journey to Barracuda for even more cocktails. As soon as we walked in, Terry informed me that Charlie was there, which was something of a relief. After a long meal of chit chat, it was nice to have someone else in the mix to talk to. Clayton and JD got cozy and Charlie became fascinated by Mike. “I love your roommate!” he gushed, ever the optimist, though he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Meanwhile, Terry and I bounced around from person to person trying to keep all of the plates spinning properly, occasionally meeting up in the middle to strategize and relive the good old days.
At one point, while standing at the bar waiting to order more drinks, Mike and I gazed over at the hot bartender in the muscle shirt I have lusted after quietly since moving to NYC eight years ago. It made me a little sad. He is getting older. That means I am getting older too. You always notice your own age in other people before you see it in yourself, no matter how intense your daily wrinkle checks in the mirror may be. And it is always sadder. But as Terry and I stood in the noisy throng, discussing our friends and laughing at nothing, no time at all had passed for me. We were kids again, having fun at The Abbey, back when they still served just coffee and stale pie. I guess that is what keeps old friends together. No matter how old you are, they never get old for you.
Back in December after a long dry spell of not seeing each other, we went to see The Day The Earth Stood Still in IMAX and promised to become regular movie buddies in 2009. Last weekend, we had a gorgeous fatty meal at Outback followed by a bucket of popcorn at Gran Torino. Clearly, feeling on a roll, he suggested dinner, a movie and subsequent boozing this weekend. “We can see Bride Wars or The Unborn,” he suggested. Ugh. Is it January already?! Mercifully, we were spared a two hour sentence in wintry cinematic prison and opted instead for a huge dinner at ELMO, a popular eatery in the heart of gay Manhattan.
With house guests Ryan James and Andy in tow, along with Roommate, I was suddenly four in his ever growing dinner group, which eventually swelled to ten with even my neighbor Clayton thrown in to the mix. For some inexplicable reason, Terry invited only men who had the first letter J in their name: Jacob, Joe, Jeremy and JD. I kid you not that Jimmy and Jonathan were also invited at one point but for one reason or another were not there. For someone like me with so much trouble remembering names, this is mental suicide.
Jacob, Clayton and Terry were there waiting when I arrived, snuggled up close to the flirty DJ, and sandwiched between the plate glass front window and erstwhile party girl Zoe Murphy, her main gay, and what I suspect was her own mother, cooling their heels at the bar. I hadn’t seen Clayton since before the holidays so we had a lot of catching up to do. In short order, Joe arrived, followed by roommates Jeremy and JD. As I often do in these situations, when Terry told me that one of the people coming was on the Bravo series WorkOut, I for some reason thought it was Joe and assiduously avoided him, opting instead to sit next to JD, who it turns out was the reality show participant in question. The best laid plans of Mice and me.
It turned out that even our waiter was also a reality TV veteran, with three different shows to his credit. I am starting to think that reality shows are the new herpes. “Be careful going home with him. I hear he’s got a case of the MTV!!!” Waiter was very nice with a taut frame and the kind of ass you look forward to seeing in your face while he is waiting on the table next to you. But his TV exposure had apparently caused an outbreak that even infected his own apartment. When Terry asked him if he knew Davis from The Real World Denver, he became lovingly agitated. “He’s staying with me! He came for a couple of days and it’s weeks later and he is still there. I love him, but he has to go sometime!”
Despite having a reservation and waiting almost a full hour for our table, ELMO ended up splitting us up and putting us at two separate tables right next to each other. Clayton, Roommate, Andy and Ryan James squeezed into the booth across from us and I joined Terry and the J men at the table for six. Dinner went very smoothly but I started to sweat bullets when the check came. Looking around the table, I feared one of those situations where the check passes around and comes back seventy dollars short and everyone starts getting indignant about how they didn’t want to pay for an appetizer they only got one bite of while ignoring the three cocktails they consumed. We ended up only three dollars short and not wanting a fuss, I quietly threw in an extra five, grabbed my coat and started heading for the door.
Since Andy is underage, he and Ryan James went to the only 18 and over club in Manhattan, while the rest of us braved the cold two block journey to Barracuda for even more cocktails. As soon as we walked in, Terry informed me that Charlie was there, which was something of a relief. After a long meal of chit chat, it was nice to have someone else in the mix to talk to. Clayton and JD got cozy and Charlie became fascinated by Mike. “I love your roommate!” he gushed, ever the optimist, though he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. Meanwhile, Terry and I bounced around from person to person trying to keep all of the plates spinning properly, occasionally meeting up in the middle to strategize and relive the good old days.
At one point, while standing at the bar waiting to order more drinks, Mike and I gazed over at the hot bartender in the muscle shirt I have lusted after quietly since moving to NYC eight years ago. It made me a little sad. He is getting older. That means I am getting older too. You always notice your own age in other people before you see it in yourself, no matter how intense your daily wrinkle checks in the mirror may be. And it is always sadder. But as Terry and I stood in the noisy throng, discussing our friends and laughing at nothing, no time at all had passed for me. We were kids again, having fun at The Abbey, back when they still served just coffee and stale pie. I guess that is what keeps old friends together. No matter how old you are, they never get old for you.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Conor Role
Though merely a bright Cheshire cat smile of a crescent, the moon was huge tonight, looming over me as I drove up the big hill to my house. It was Cosmo's moon from Moonstruck and suddenly I was reminded that love doesn't make things perfect. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. I have been trying not to think about love much these days (largely to no avail), but it was contaminating everything tonight at Manhattan's yearly high school gay mono makeout party known locally as Revel.
Revel is an annual charity event to raise money to help gay youth, which is attended by all the hottest and sexiest twenty and thirty-somethings in town. It is all a very worthy cause and a noble idea, just covered in two scoops of vanilla ice cream, a gooey layer of chocolate fudge, a sprinkling of crushed walnuts and topped with whipped cream. Though it is one sundae of a party for which the cherry is a distant memory for those in attendance.
This is one of the few gay musts that I do, and a rare chance for me to hobnob with the homos that I otherwise shun (before they have the chance to shun me, natch). Aside from dropping by Bowery Bar's notorious outdoor patio on the first warm Spring Tuesday of the year and the last balmy Autumn one before winter's chill forces everyone who is anyone to landlock above 14th street until the thaw, Revel is about it when it comes to gay caucus meetings where my vote is annually cast.
I had wanted Hottie Zach and Ronnie to attend, to aid in their quest to get connected in the gay social scene for which Revel is practically a wall socket, but they weren't there tonight. My neighbor Clayton did join me, however, and it was nice to have someone to pal around with. I had fully expected to see Matty, but I suppose I can deduce from his Facebook Mobile uploads that he was watching Survivor tonight with Charlie and couldn't make it. It is likely for the best since my favorite of his exes was there: Conor McGill
Much has been written in my blog about Conor already and you can expect plenty more where that came from. He looked adorable in a tiny bowtie with skulls and crossbones on it (solidarity for Somali pirates?). Conor assured me that it took him hours to get the tie right, after learning to do it on YouTube, and I think it was time well spent. I love Conor and I know between Ben Harvey and Matty, I am woefully in the minority on this one. But once again, I was charmed by his puppy dog eyes, magnetic silver sneakers and a drink in each hand. What can I say? I know what I like and I know everything will stay perfect between us as long as I only see him every few months and things never go further than a polite kiss on the cheek.
Conor was there with his friend Michael, a securities lawyer who didn't like that I wasn't saying much nor that I only work about four hours every day since he works almost twenty. "Just think of it this way," I told him, in a classic flirtation on my part that shows why no one ever wants to date me, "anytime you aren't working, I am!" In between kissing other guys, he drunkenly cajoled me into asking him out on a date. He must be a very good lawyer since it was all over before I even knew what was happening, and he billed me for the whole hour even though it only took about five minutes.
Bobby was there with some co-workers and his insanely hot friend Chris from San Francisco. Chris' adorable argyle print shirt was so tight on his taut frame it looked like it had been ironed onto his perfect torso by angels. Chris was drunk and grabby, which is always hot, but then he was drunk and grabby with everyone (including separately Clayton), which makes it less personally satisfying. But he is insanely hot, so naturally I am willing to let untold amounts of untoward behavior slide.
Ryan Newman was there with his friend Mike, whom I have met a dozen times and am always greeted by with the same granite expression of persistent annoyance. Ryan looked cute with his new short hair cut, according to him a much needed return to form. I think he looks good either way, but he didn't stay long enough to talk about more than his hair. Ryan and Mike were encircled by a cadre of all the people I saw at that Halloween party and election night and countless other times, but who all stare right through me uncomfortably as if I am a peasant child begging with Chiclets in hand in the midst of their otherwise fabulous Mexican vacation.
It was all for the best. At a certain point, the Madonna mashups and the makeouts and the mos were starting to get to me. There is only so much "A" gay someone from the suburbs can take before dinner moves up into their esophagus. When the others headed to the official after party at Mr. Black's or each other's apartments for awkward groping and dark fumblings, Clayton and I grabbed our coats and headed out into the night, on our way back to the middle of obscurity.
The forecast is for snow tomorrow. I really hope it doesn't. But as I looked down at the temperature reading in the car on my way home, it said 26 degrees. Smells like snow. I looked back up at the moon and saw the old Cheshire cat smiling back down at me. Beaming really. Winter is here, he smiled. And you can get as big as you want by telling people "eat me" but you are still in Wonderland no matter how much you try to leave it.
Revel is an annual charity event to raise money to help gay youth, which is attended by all the hottest and sexiest twenty and thirty-somethings in town. It is all a very worthy cause and a noble idea, just covered in two scoops of vanilla ice cream, a gooey layer of chocolate fudge, a sprinkling of crushed walnuts and topped with whipped cream. Though it is one sundae of a party for which the cherry is a distant memory for those in attendance.
This is one of the few gay musts that I do, and a rare chance for me to hobnob with the homos that I otherwise shun (before they have the chance to shun me, natch). Aside from dropping by Bowery Bar's notorious outdoor patio on the first warm Spring Tuesday of the year and the last balmy Autumn one before winter's chill forces everyone who is anyone to landlock above 14th street until the thaw, Revel is about it when it comes to gay caucus meetings where my vote is annually cast.
I had wanted Hottie Zach and Ronnie to attend, to aid in their quest to get connected in the gay social scene for which Revel is practically a wall socket, but they weren't there tonight. My neighbor Clayton did join me, however, and it was nice to have someone to pal around with. I had fully expected to see Matty, but I suppose I can deduce from his Facebook Mobile uploads that he was watching Survivor tonight with Charlie and couldn't make it. It is likely for the best since my favorite of his exes was there: Conor McGill
Much has been written in my blog about Conor already and you can expect plenty more where that came from. He looked adorable in a tiny bowtie with skulls and crossbones on it (solidarity for Somali pirates?). Conor assured me that it took him hours to get the tie right, after learning to do it on YouTube, and I think it was time well spent. I love Conor and I know between Ben Harvey and Matty, I am woefully in the minority on this one. But once again, I was charmed by his puppy dog eyes, magnetic silver sneakers and a drink in each hand. What can I say? I know what I like and I know everything will stay perfect between us as long as I only see him every few months and things never go further than a polite kiss on the cheek.
Conor was there with his friend Michael, a securities lawyer who didn't like that I wasn't saying much nor that I only work about four hours every day since he works almost twenty. "Just think of it this way," I told him, in a classic flirtation on my part that shows why no one ever wants to date me, "anytime you aren't working, I am!" In between kissing other guys, he drunkenly cajoled me into asking him out on a date. He must be a very good lawyer since it was all over before I even knew what was happening, and he billed me for the whole hour even though it only took about five minutes.
Bobby was there with some co-workers and his insanely hot friend Chris from San Francisco. Chris' adorable argyle print shirt was so tight on his taut frame it looked like it had been ironed onto his perfect torso by angels. Chris was drunk and grabby, which is always hot, but then he was drunk and grabby with everyone (including separately Clayton), which makes it less personally satisfying. But he is insanely hot, so naturally I am willing to let untold amounts of untoward behavior slide.
Ryan Newman was there with his friend Mike, whom I have met a dozen times and am always greeted by with the same granite expression of persistent annoyance. Ryan looked cute with his new short hair cut, according to him a much needed return to form. I think he looks good either way, but he didn't stay long enough to talk about more than his hair. Ryan and Mike were encircled by a cadre of all the people I saw at that Halloween party and election night and countless other times, but who all stare right through me uncomfortably as if I am a peasant child begging with Chiclets in hand in the midst of their otherwise fabulous Mexican vacation.
It was all for the best. At a certain point, the Madonna mashups and the makeouts and the mos were starting to get to me. There is only so much "A" gay someone from the suburbs can take before dinner moves up into their esophagus. When the others headed to the official after party at Mr. Black's or each other's apartments for awkward groping and dark fumblings, Clayton and I grabbed our coats and headed out into the night, on our way back to the middle of obscurity.
The forecast is for snow tomorrow. I really hope it doesn't. But as I looked down at the temperature reading in the car on my way home, it said 26 degrees. Smells like snow. I looked back up at the moon and saw the old Cheshire cat smiling back down at me. Beaming really. Winter is here, he smiled. And you can get as big as you want by telling people "eat me" but you are still in Wonderland no matter how much you try to leave it.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
XES Farce
Conventional wisdom says that when you are having a hard time getting over someone, you should have sex with lots of hot people. It doesn't really work, but hot sex with hot people is always preferable to being depressed at home. Or so it would seem. It was not my intention to try out this theory last night, but when you wander down to Chelsea for drinks with the boys, these sorts of things are bound to happen.
It all started innocently enough with Judge David Young, who was in town to tape episodes of his hit daytime show, asking to hang out a bit this weekend. We both wanted to see The Women, despite our misgivings about updating a classic (and why Diane English instead of say Nancy Meyers or Nora Ephron or even Elaine May). So I plotted an early show followed by dinner and then some drinks and invited my neighbor Clayton to join us.
We went to Kips Bay to see the film, which is J's old theatre before he moved to Brooklyn last month. He is right that it, among most Manhattan movie theatres, has a minimum of loud teen rowdiness and cell phone interruptions. Bargain basement expectations helped the medicine go down and we all ended up liking The Women overall (as I explained to David's husband Scott over the phone afterward, if you forget that it is a remake and don't spend the whole movie longing for Paulette Goddard to beat the stuffing out of Rosiland Russell in Reno, you will like it much better).
From there we decamped to the Dallas BBQ in Chelsea which was a new place for me (I am still trying to do new things), though I don't know how I feel about a restaurant that has a bouncer. This might explain why when I texted Matt Kelleher to tell him we were there for dinner he responded "God why?" The food was delicious and cheap, which are my two favorite things in a food item, but the atmosphere, especially in the basement party room where we were seated, had the feeling of a stripped down Chuck E. Cheese where the cardboard pizza and skeeball had been replaced with messy ribs and outlandish day-glo frozen cocktails.
After dinner, Clayton ran off to his previously set date to see a band perform and David and I wandered over to Barracuda. At ten p.m. it looked like a pre-Palin McCain rally, though I assured David that in an hour, it would be too crowded to move or breathe. Aside from a guy in a muscle tee basically masturbating at the urinal next to me, the most exciting thing to happen there was running once again into adorable Matt, from Tuesday's ill-fated adventure out at Bowery Bar. He was there with his co-worker Chip and the four of us had a great time, with me embarrassing myself once again with my completely inappropriate jokes comparing Caylee Anthony to a tire iron (I will spare you the sordid punchline).
David left around Midnight and then the rest of us parted ways soon afterward when Barracuda suddenly became unbearably hot. I think the air conditioning must have broken but that is always the way with that bar. In the summer, the a/c breaks or in the winter, the heat goes off, or a sewer pipe bursts and the whole thing smells like shit. Personally I think the owners like to close early so on nights when they think they have made enough money, they just wreak havoc on the environment and wait for the animals to migrate elsewhere.
To make a long blog posting short, I met up with Clayton at XES where he had landed after the band cancelled their show and while there met a hot but very drunk guy named Steven and his even more intoxicated roommate Brad, with whom Clayton had shared some previous dates. Even though he couldn't remember my name all four times I told him, Steven insisted that I go home with him. All the warning signs told me to leave with Clayton and return to the suburbs but a desire to assuage the overwhelming sadness I have with not being with J encouraged me into a harrowing cab ride out to the wilds of Brooklyn.
That Steven was cute with a hot body and lived in J's new neighborhood seemed like just the kind of revenge fuck that drunken four a.m. bragging phone calls are made for. But crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, Steven tossed the half full glass of vodka which he snuck out of the bar out the open window just barely missing my face and for a moment I seriously considered leaping out after it. Their cute apartment was in a terrifying neighborhood and I began plotting my escape, mapping in my head the fastest route on foot to the L train even before my shoes hit the pavement outside the apartment building.
Their mutual friend Davis came along, to sleep on the couch for some reason. Brad stripped down to his underwear and drunk dialed Clayton to come over and have sex with him. It didn't work much to my chagrin since I hoped it would make my eminent escape easier. Moments later, we all went to our separate sleeping arrangements and Steven started in on me in earnest. Steven likes it rough so in order to get me to force myself on him, he got quite violent with me. The story he told back at the bar about showing up at work once with a black eye suddenly became very clear, like my brain flooding with harsh fluorescent lighting. Finally I just decided that despite my intense irritation at that point as long as he had an orgasm he could fall asleep and I could get out of there. It took fucking forever, probably an hour, which was easily 58 minutes after I stopped trying to have an orgasm myself.
A little after six, with dawn creeping through the window and Brad snoring away throughout the apartment, I gathered my clothes and made my escape. While waiting on the hellish humid stinking L train platform I had a lot of time to think about everything. I miss J every single day, and it is like trying to catch your breath at high altitudes. It is exhausting and I just long for the ease of life before I climbed that mountain. But I just can't penetrate that wall of his that surrounds him, make him understand that my love for him is real and intense and permanent. In my mind's eye, his blue eyes starring back at me are as black as a moonless night, my journey into them perilous and fruitless . In both versions of The Women, Mary Haines stands her ground for L'Amore, L'Amore, but celluloid lives can't convey how lonely that stand truly is. And in my heart I know it will never work for me. There is no happy ending in my grudge match between the irresistible force and the immovable object. There is nothing in those robust eyes of his for me and there probably never will be.
It all started innocently enough with Judge David Young, who was in town to tape episodes of his hit daytime show, asking to hang out a bit this weekend. We both wanted to see The Women, despite our misgivings about updating a classic (and why Diane English instead of say Nancy Meyers or Nora Ephron or even Elaine May). So I plotted an early show followed by dinner and then some drinks and invited my neighbor Clayton to join us.
We went to Kips Bay to see the film, which is J's old theatre before he moved to Brooklyn last month. He is right that it, among most Manhattan movie theatres, has a minimum of loud teen rowdiness and cell phone interruptions. Bargain basement expectations helped the medicine go down and we all ended up liking The Women overall (as I explained to David's husband Scott over the phone afterward, if you forget that it is a remake and don't spend the whole movie longing for Paulette Goddard to beat the stuffing out of Rosiland Russell in Reno, you will like it much better).
From there we decamped to the Dallas BBQ in Chelsea which was a new place for me (I am still trying to do new things), though I don't know how I feel about a restaurant that has a bouncer. This might explain why when I texted Matt Kelleher to tell him we were there for dinner he responded "God why?" The food was delicious and cheap, which are my two favorite things in a food item, but the atmosphere, especially in the basement party room where we were seated, had the feeling of a stripped down Chuck E. Cheese where the cardboard pizza and skeeball had been replaced with messy ribs and outlandish day-glo frozen cocktails.
After dinner, Clayton ran off to his previously set date to see a band perform and David and I wandered over to Barracuda. At ten p.m. it looked like a pre-Palin McCain rally, though I assured David that in an hour, it would be too crowded to move or breathe. Aside from a guy in a muscle tee basically masturbating at the urinal next to me, the most exciting thing to happen there was running once again into adorable Matt, from Tuesday's ill-fated adventure out at Bowery Bar. He was there with his co-worker Chip and the four of us had a great time, with me embarrassing myself once again with my completely inappropriate jokes comparing Caylee Anthony to a tire iron (I will spare you the sordid punchline).
David left around Midnight and then the rest of us parted ways soon afterward when Barracuda suddenly became unbearably hot. I think the air conditioning must have broken but that is always the way with that bar. In the summer, the a/c breaks or in the winter, the heat goes off, or a sewer pipe bursts and the whole thing smells like shit. Personally I think the owners like to close early so on nights when they think they have made enough money, they just wreak havoc on the environment and wait for the animals to migrate elsewhere.
To make a long blog posting short, I met up with Clayton at XES where he had landed after the band cancelled their show and while there met a hot but very drunk guy named Steven and his even more intoxicated roommate Brad, with whom Clayton had shared some previous dates. Even though he couldn't remember my name all four times I told him, Steven insisted that I go home with him. All the warning signs told me to leave with Clayton and return to the suburbs but a desire to assuage the overwhelming sadness I have with not being with J encouraged me into a harrowing cab ride out to the wilds of Brooklyn.
That Steven was cute with a hot body and lived in J's new neighborhood seemed like just the kind of revenge fuck that drunken four a.m. bragging phone calls are made for. But crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, Steven tossed the half full glass of vodka which he snuck out of the bar out the open window just barely missing my face and for a moment I seriously considered leaping out after it. Their cute apartment was in a terrifying neighborhood and I began plotting my escape, mapping in my head the fastest route on foot to the L train even before my shoes hit the pavement outside the apartment building.
Their mutual friend Davis came along, to sleep on the couch for some reason. Brad stripped down to his underwear and drunk dialed Clayton to come over and have sex with him. It didn't work much to my chagrin since I hoped it would make my eminent escape easier. Moments later, we all went to our separate sleeping arrangements and Steven started in on me in earnest. Steven likes it rough so in order to get me to force myself on him, he got quite violent with me. The story he told back at the bar about showing up at work once with a black eye suddenly became very clear, like my brain flooding with harsh fluorescent lighting. Finally I just decided that despite my intense irritation at that point as long as he had an orgasm he could fall asleep and I could get out of there. It took fucking forever, probably an hour, which was easily 58 minutes after I stopped trying to have an orgasm myself.
A little after six, with dawn creeping through the window and Brad snoring away throughout the apartment, I gathered my clothes and made my escape. While waiting on the hellish humid stinking L train platform I had a lot of time to think about everything. I miss J every single day, and it is like trying to catch your breath at high altitudes. It is exhausting and I just long for the ease of life before I climbed that mountain. But I just can't penetrate that wall of his that surrounds him, make him understand that my love for him is real and intense and permanent. In my mind's eye, his blue eyes starring back at me are as black as a moonless night, my journey into them perilous and fruitless . In both versions of The Women, Mary Haines stands her ground for L'Amore, L'Amore, but celluloid lives can't convey how lonely that stand truly is. And in my heart I know it will never work for me. There is no happy ending in my grudge match between the irresistible force and the immovable object. There is nothing in those robust eyes of his for me and there probably never will be.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Live Blogging Hurricane Gustav
For years, I have been trying to convince my friends in gay media to join my call for all gay people to go to New Orleans and support the local economy. Gays do one thing well: travel and spend lots of money. It's just what a down on its heels tourist destination needs. And each year over Labor Day weekend, there is Southern Decadence (sort of gay Mardi Gras), which was blamed by certain bloated TV preachers for Hurricane Katrina. Never mind that very un-gay friendly Mississippi got much worse out of that storm. So each year since then I have traveled down to New Orleans for Southern Decadence to show my support and this year has been no different.
Wednesday, August 27th
8:40pm Tropical storm Gustav begins to appear to be strengthening and heading for New Orleans. Expected landfall: Labor Day. Mike and I decide to see how things are shaping up before deciding to cancel our trip.
Thursday, August 28th
9:10pm Gustav looks headed for hurricane status. I dine with Cyd and Dan and Mike at Rocking Horse in Chelsea. Mike is still firm on going to New Orleans. I decide to see if they announce an evacuation on Friday morning.
Friday, August 29th
8:31am Travel companion Clayton backs out of the trip, even though Jet Blue steadfastly refuses to refund or change the ticket without a fee.
10:00am Clay Lee decides he isn't flying in from Texas after all. "If I come, we will be evacuated. If I stay home, the weather will be great and nothing will happen."
10:45am Mike and I decide to make a go of it (along with the other Mike who is meeting us at the airport) and continue packing for our 2:50pm flight. I go online to the airport's official website to see if there is any info. It's url flymsy.com (flimsy?) doesn't instill much confidence.
2:45pm "This is the Captain speaking. Welcome to flight 119 to New Orleans. The weather is beautiful there now. I can't say it will stay that way. Why are all of you going to New Orleans today? Shouldn't you be headed the other way?"
5:30pm Deplaning, I notice that the guy in my row is wearing a Red Cross name badge. The guy in the row in front of me is wearing a Weather Channel baseball cap and carrying a television camera. As I watch the Red Cross organizers meet in a huddle outside our gate upon landing, I start thinking this might be a short trip.
7:05pm I arrive at the Decadent Ducks cocktail party, for which I have been made a guest of honor. I forget that I am still wearing the red v-neck shirt that says "OTTER" on it as I wander into a room filled with hundreds of bears. I am a big hit for all the wrong reasons.
9:18pm Mike and Mike and I wrap up dinner at the my favorite New Orleans restaurant, The Gumbo Shop. I tell the waitress that we come back each year to support New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She hugs us. We leave her a big tip.
11:37pm The Bourbon Pub is so packed you would hardly know there was a hurricane coming. The rest of the French Quarter is even quieter than usual, but the gay part is in full swing. David my favorite bartender watches as a dozen or so listener ask him where I am and then come up to take pictures with me. "I guess a few people know you are here" he smiles as he gives us a mind eraser to share. I am coy. "One or two."
Saturday, August 30th
3:23am A long day of flying and drinking has caught up with me. I want to go to bed and I am worried about a possible early morning evacuation. Listeners Josh and Nick assure me at the Bourbon Pub that no mandatory evacuation will happen.
4:30am I arrive at my hotel to find notices posted everywhere and under my door announcing a voluntary evacuation starting at 8am, and directing people to buses at the Sheraton to get to the airport. I call Jet Blue to change my canceled flight. I am rebooked for the 5:45pm flight on Sunday, meaning I could spend as much as 36 hours at the airport before leaving. I set my alarm for 9:30am and try to get some sleep.
9:27am Banging at my door by a hotel employee. She demands I leave the hotel by 10am. I argue with her and slam the door. I hate being woken up in the morning but especially moments before my alarm is set to go off.
9:56am A phone call from Dave, the hotel manager at the Hilton Garden Inn. I tell him my flight has been changed to Sunday evening. There is no mandatory evacuation yet. I can stay until there is one. Fine. He gives me his cell phone so I can reach him if I need anything. I go back to sleep. I have a nightmare about a large drag queen maid trying to get into my room to clean up.
1:00pm Automated phone call from Jet Blue. My flight on Sunday has also been canceled. I am connected immediately to an agent who books me on the just created red eye flight out that night at 11:50pm. Mike and Mike are on that flight too. We plan to head off to the Praline Connection for lunch and fried pickles.
2:32pm Praline Connection is closed so we go to Port Of Call for a sensational cheeseburger and a baked potato drenched in the works. Thought about going to the Chartres House but they were boarding up the windows with the patrons still inside. Scary!
3:45pm Walk down Bourbon Street. The Quarter is largely quiet and boarded up. The gay area is still in full swing. Gays are pouring into the streets with to-go cups in hand. My old friend Allen is working the bar at Bourbon. I say good bye and head for the hotel to pack up, watch some TV and get on the shuttle bus to the airport.
4:48pm Ray Nagin urges the tourists to get out of town now while they still can. I try to call down to the desk at my hotel but there is no answer. I go down in person and there is one guy there hanging out watching the hurricane coverage on the news. It is Dave the hotel manager. "You must be in 1621." I am the last hotel guest, though four journalists are staying in the hotel through the storm. He and one other woman are the only staff left. "We can open the bar for you if you want one last drink before you go" he offers. I check out of the hotel and head for the city shuttles from the Sheraton.
5:23pm Mike and Mike are already waiting at the Sheraton. The city shuttle buses spontaneously stopped running an hour earlier much to the anguish of the few tourists left and trying to leave. Mike secures a taxi to take us to the airport. Traffic being a concern we leave 3 hours for the trip since it was reportedly taking that long in the morning. Cab driver knows all sorts of short cuts. There are lots of hot National Guardsmen lingering next to Humvees along the way. We get there in 35 minutes.
7:07pm Sitting on the floor in the middle of the terminal, eating my supplies of beef jerky and nutter butters that I secured at the corner market before I left in case the airport didn't have anything open. Everyone in the city is in surprisingly good spirits given that a potential Category 5 hurricane is headed straight for them. I had a fun adventure though I am sad the weekend is ending early. Should be home at the crack of dawn to start another adventure, preferably aside Clayton's pool.
Wednesday, August 27th
8:40pm Tropical storm Gustav begins to appear to be strengthening and heading for New Orleans. Expected landfall: Labor Day. Mike and I decide to see how things are shaping up before deciding to cancel our trip.
Thursday, August 28th
9:10pm Gustav looks headed for hurricane status. I dine with Cyd and Dan and Mike at Rocking Horse in Chelsea. Mike is still firm on going to New Orleans. I decide to see if they announce an evacuation on Friday morning.
Friday, August 29th
8:31am Travel companion Clayton backs out of the trip, even though Jet Blue steadfastly refuses to refund or change the ticket without a fee.
10:00am Clay Lee decides he isn't flying in from Texas after all. "If I come, we will be evacuated. If I stay home, the weather will be great and nothing will happen."
10:45am Mike and I decide to make a go of it (along with the other Mike who is meeting us at the airport) and continue packing for our 2:50pm flight. I go online to the airport's official website to see if there is any info. It's url flymsy.com (flimsy?) doesn't instill much confidence.
2:45pm "This is the Captain speaking. Welcome to flight 119 to New Orleans. The weather is beautiful there now. I can't say it will stay that way. Why are all of you going to New Orleans today? Shouldn't you be headed the other way?"
5:30pm Deplaning, I notice that the guy in my row is wearing a Red Cross name badge. The guy in the row in front of me is wearing a Weather Channel baseball cap and carrying a television camera. As I watch the Red Cross organizers meet in a huddle outside our gate upon landing, I start thinking this might be a short trip.
7:05pm I arrive at the Decadent Ducks cocktail party, for which I have been made a guest of honor. I forget that I am still wearing the red v-neck shirt that says "OTTER" on it as I wander into a room filled with hundreds of bears. I am a big hit for all the wrong reasons.
9:18pm Mike and Mike and I wrap up dinner at the my favorite New Orleans restaurant, The Gumbo Shop. I tell the waitress that we come back each year to support New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. She hugs us. We leave her a big tip.
11:37pm The Bourbon Pub is so packed you would hardly know there was a hurricane coming. The rest of the French Quarter is even quieter than usual, but the gay part is in full swing. David my favorite bartender watches as a dozen or so listener ask him where I am and then come up to take pictures with me. "I guess a few people know you are here" he smiles as he gives us a mind eraser to share. I am coy. "One or two."
Saturday, August 30th
3:23am A long day of flying and drinking has caught up with me. I want to go to bed and I am worried about a possible early morning evacuation. Listeners Josh and Nick assure me at the Bourbon Pub that no mandatory evacuation will happen.
4:30am I arrive at my hotel to find notices posted everywhere and under my door announcing a voluntary evacuation starting at 8am, and directing people to buses at the Sheraton to get to the airport. I call Jet Blue to change my canceled flight. I am rebooked for the 5:45pm flight on Sunday, meaning I could spend as much as 36 hours at the airport before leaving. I set my alarm for 9:30am and try to get some sleep.
9:27am Banging at my door by a hotel employee. She demands I leave the hotel by 10am. I argue with her and slam the door. I hate being woken up in the morning but especially moments before my alarm is set to go off.
9:56am A phone call from Dave, the hotel manager at the Hilton Garden Inn. I tell him my flight has been changed to Sunday evening. There is no mandatory evacuation yet. I can stay until there is one. Fine. He gives me his cell phone so I can reach him if I need anything. I go back to sleep. I have a nightmare about a large drag queen maid trying to get into my room to clean up.
1:00pm Automated phone call from Jet Blue. My flight on Sunday has also been canceled. I am connected immediately to an agent who books me on the just created red eye flight out that night at 11:50pm. Mike and Mike are on that flight too. We plan to head off to the Praline Connection for lunch and fried pickles.
2:32pm Praline Connection is closed so we go to Port Of Call for a sensational cheeseburger and a baked potato drenched in the works. Thought about going to the Chartres House but they were boarding up the windows with the patrons still inside. Scary!
3:45pm Walk down Bourbon Street. The Quarter is largely quiet and boarded up. The gay area is still in full swing. Gays are pouring into the streets with to-go cups in hand. My old friend Allen is working the bar at Bourbon. I say good bye and head for the hotel to pack up, watch some TV and get on the shuttle bus to the airport.
4:48pm Ray Nagin urges the tourists to get out of town now while they still can. I try to call down to the desk at my hotel but there is no answer. I go down in person and there is one guy there hanging out watching the hurricane coverage on the news. It is Dave the hotel manager. "You must be in 1621." I am the last hotel guest, though four journalists are staying in the hotel through the storm. He and one other woman are the only staff left. "We can open the bar for you if you want one last drink before you go" he offers. I check out of the hotel and head for the city shuttles from the Sheraton.
5:23pm Mike and Mike are already waiting at the Sheraton. The city shuttle buses spontaneously stopped running an hour earlier much to the anguish of the few tourists left and trying to leave. Mike secures a taxi to take us to the airport. Traffic being a concern we leave 3 hours for the trip since it was reportedly taking that long in the morning. Cab driver knows all sorts of short cuts. There are lots of hot National Guardsmen lingering next to Humvees along the way. We get there in 35 minutes.
7:07pm Sitting on the floor in the middle of the terminal, eating my supplies of beef jerky and nutter butters that I secured at the corner market before I left in case the airport didn't have anything open. Everyone in the city is in surprisingly good spirits given that a potential Category 5 hurricane is headed straight for them. I had a fun adventure though I am sad the weekend is ending early. Should be home at the crack of dawn to start another adventure, preferably aside Clayton's pool.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Uncle Tom's Cabin
What a lazy weekend. Hottie Zach invited himself up on Saturday to help around the house. His last visit had him helping Roommate and I install some light fixtures and we did have a lot of fun. I initially envisioned a painting party for the upstairs hall if I could get the wallpaper off in time and put on a coat of primer before Friday. Since none of that happened, I just decided that we should have a big country breakfast and then go swimming in Clayton’s pool instead. As it turned out, a much better plan.
Zach arrived with his dog Diva, who really lives up to her name. Mike had to share the backseat with her on the ride over to Clayton’s and she was not amused about having someone else in her space. Mike, who loves dogs, was delighted to have a canine companion to pal around with, albeit a reluctant one. At Clayton’s Diva, whose love of insects and mice is legendary, made haste into the foliage, while the four humans relaxed around the pool with mojitos made with mint fresh from Clayton’s garden.
On our last swimming adventure the previous weekend, Clayton and I spent much of our time critiquing our diving postures. We were both much improved the second time around thanks to that previous day of practice, but neither of us could hold a candle to Zach who admitted after he surged gracefully across the pool that he had been on the swim team (of course). Mike chose to relax in the sun and consume a few beers instead of joining the rest of us on the diving board. After tiring of chasing bees, Diva also got into the act, leaping into the pool ostensibly to rescue me and then later Zach, from some unknown watery fate. We capped the day with a sumptuous meal at Chili’s and then, a bit sun-kissed and exhausted, we all headed home to make an early night of it.
The next day, after a leisurely breakfast out on the sunny porch of coffee and the last of the cinnamon buns that I had made fresh the day before, Mike and I decamped to the Catskills for Tom Judson’s little summer party. Tom lives even further from the madding crowd than I do, as evidenced by the hour and a half long drive to his little cabin in the woods. A few years ago, Tom made a name for himself as a porn performer (that name was Gus Mattox), though lately he has distinguished himself as something of a celebrated house flipper thanks to his ACME Housing Company.
Tom is a dream man. He is so handsome and intelligent, plays the piano beautifully and can turn a one room cabin into something truly stunning. And I am not just waxing poetic merely because he said I looked “incredible” and “so trim” when we arrived after the long drive. Tom’s cabin has expanded greatly from its humble beginnings and has even made room for the grand piano he picked up The Plaza Hotel auction a while back. It can be lovely when all of our treasured memories are shamelessly sold off if one or two of them can fall into the hands of our friends.
Tom’s party was made up mostly of the local friends he has gathered over the last eight years, a motley crew of artist types and relaxed gays, all suitable characters for the multi-level deck that ribbons the house evoking instant off-Broadway memories of Fifth of July and its ilk. When I accused him of such obvious stagecraft in his architecture, he just smiled that million dollar smile that toured in 42nd Street and got him plenty of tail in Big Rig (among others) and left it at that.
The party was not without its small excitements. Misty rain dampened the edges but could not extinguish the torches that ringed the house nor the fun inside. Tom wandered out onto the porch in one of those grand entrances and lamented that while the entire pitcher of bloody mary mix had been consumed no one had touched the vodka bottle sitting right next to it. Party guest Scott who had consumed four of those delicious yet quietly non-alcoholic cocktails and then switched responsibly to beer in time for his drive home was suitably mortified to discover his own sobriety. Later Scott found me lounging in the “Pavilion” a freestanding lavish sunroom that has become Tom’s signature design move chatting with other party guests. I had one leg carelessly draped over the arm of the chair and the other resting comfortably on the matching ottoman and he said I resembled a 1930s movie star. Well, I only emulate the best, and when I am around Tom he really brings out the Hepburn in people.
The end of a perfect weekend is never fun. It is hard to say good bye to good friends when they return to the city with loving dog in tow, or when you have to depart from a quiet sliver of paradise in a lush wood. But I suppose all good things must come to an end. A former boss at SIRIUS once told me after I lamented a particularly crappy show that if you never have the lows, how do you really know how high the highs are? I suppose the same is true of weekends. If we didn’t have the dull work patch in between, how would we know the weekends we had were so great. Though I suspect this would have been an amazing time, even if it had lasted forever. Clayton and Zach and I are already plotting a pool and slumber party to cap the end of summer, so you never know. Maybe this time we can defy the odds and make the moment last forever.
Zach arrived with his dog Diva, who really lives up to her name. Mike had to share the backseat with her on the ride over to Clayton’s and she was not amused about having someone else in her space. Mike, who loves dogs, was delighted to have a canine companion to pal around with, albeit a reluctant one. At Clayton’s Diva, whose love of insects and mice is legendary, made haste into the foliage, while the four humans relaxed around the pool with mojitos made with mint fresh from Clayton’s garden.
On our last swimming adventure the previous weekend, Clayton and I spent much of our time critiquing our diving postures. We were both much improved the second time around thanks to that previous day of practice, but neither of us could hold a candle to Zach who admitted after he surged gracefully across the pool that he had been on the swim team (of course). Mike chose to relax in the sun and consume a few beers instead of joining the rest of us on the diving board. After tiring of chasing bees, Diva also got into the act, leaping into the pool ostensibly to rescue me and then later Zach, from some unknown watery fate. We capped the day with a sumptuous meal at Chili’s and then, a bit sun-kissed and exhausted, we all headed home to make an early night of it.
The next day, after a leisurely breakfast out on the sunny porch of coffee and the last of the cinnamon buns that I had made fresh the day before, Mike and I decamped to the Catskills for Tom Judson’s little summer party. Tom lives even further from the madding crowd than I do, as evidenced by the hour and a half long drive to his little cabin in the woods. A few years ago, Tom made a name for himself as a porn performer (that name was Gus Mattox), though lately he has distinguished himself as something of a celebrated house flipper thanks to his ACME Housing Company.
Tom is a dream man. He is so handsome and intelligent, plays the piano beautifully and can turn a one room cabin into something truly stunning. And I am not just waxing poetic merely because he said I looked “incredible” and “so trim” when we arrived after the long drive. Tom’s cabin has expanded greatly from its humble beginnings and has even made room for the grand piano he picked up The Plaza Hotel auction a while back. It can be lovely when all of our treasured memories are shamelessly sold off if one or two of them can fall into the hands of our friends.
Tom’s party was made up mostly of the local friends he has gathered over the last eight years, a motley crew of artist types and relaxed gays, all suitable characters for the multi-level deck that ribbons the house evoking instant off-Broadway memories of Fifth of July and its ilk. When I accused him of such obvious stagecraft in his architecture, he just smiled that million dollar smile that toured in 42nd Street and got him plenty of tail in Big Rig (among others) and left it at that.
The party was not without its small excitements. Misty rain dampened the edges but could not extinguish the torches that ringed the house nor the fun inside. Tom wandered out onto the porch in one of those grand entrances and lamented that while the entire pitcher of bloody mary mix had been consumed no one had touched the vodka bottle sitting right next to it. Party guest Scott who had consumed four of those delicious yet quietly non-alcoholic cocktails and then switched responsibly to beer in time for his drive home was suitably mortified to discover his own sobriety. Later Scott found me lounging in the “Pavilion” a freestanding lavish sunroom that has become Tom’s signature design move chatting with other party guests. I had one leg carelessly draped over the arm of the chair and the other resting comfortably on the matching ottoman and he said I resembled a 1930s movie star. Well, I only emulate the best, and when I am around Tom he really brings out the Hepburn in people.
The end of a perfect weekend is never fun. It is hard to say good bye to good friends when they return to the city with loving dog in tow, or when you have to depart from a quiet sliver of paradise in a lush wood. But I suppose all good things must come to an end. A former boss at SIRIUS once told me after I lamented a particularly crappy show that if you never have the lows, how do you really know how high the highs are? I suppose the same is true of weekends. If we didn’t have the dull work patch in between, how would we know the weekends we had were so great. Though I suspect this would have been an amazing time, even if it had lasted forever. Clayton and Zach and I are already plotting a pool and slumber party to cap the end of summer, so you never know. Maybe this time we can defy the odds and make the moment last forever.
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