Grant Central

I don't have a lot of friends. Some of that is by choice (I hate people). Some of it is by geography (I live in the suburbs). But most of it is purely my personality (I am unpleasant to people I hate, which is everyone). I am just a hard person to be friends with. I don’t like to leave the house. I don’t like going new places or meeting new people. When they were filming You've Got Mail, one of the scenes took place in an apartment in director Nora Ephron's building prompting Tom Hanks to quip that she would film a whole movie inside her own apartment if she could. I always liked that Nora Ephron.

So it was a conflict diamond of a moment when I saw on Facebook that my LA pal Grant Landry was in New York City. Facebook is the ruiner of worlds. People think Facebook friendship is the same as actual friendship (They couldn't be less alike). But more to the point, it is no longer possible to slip in and out of a city unnoticed. It is the digital equivalent of Meryl Streep caught hailing a cab in Heartburn.

Not a great movie but this is my favorite hilarious bit.

There's No Fool Like An April Fool

Sometimes it is hard to tell the exact moment that things have stopped going your way. I think it is because it doesn’t happen all at once. Problems drip slowly out of a faucet of misery, though initially it is nothing you can’t handle. For the bold or naïve, it is easy to go about your routine until you turn around and realize that all hope is lost, as is any chance of getting back to it. I should have seen the signs earlier, but when it is April Fool’s Day, it is easy to become distracted.

It all started this morning at work. I am in Los Angeles doing the show for the week and this morning, I was hosting Frank DeCaro’s show instead of my own since Frank and his co-host Doria were doing my show with Romaine in Palm Springs for Dinah Shore weekend. The first hour was beset by technical problems that threw my guest host Dennis Hensley temporarily off his game, but they were all resolved pretty quickly so I thought nothing of it. By the end of the show, Dennis and I were pleased with the result.

Pyramid Scheme

They say that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas but I am pretty sure that was a notion invented by straight guys for whom nothing ever happens but they want it to see like it does. That way, you can brag without substantiating your claims in any real way. Gays do not have this problem. Shit goes down for them all the time. Also they are notorious gossips and braggarts. So no, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay there, it goes global. Case in point: my weekend at The Luxor.

I got invited out for the weekend by the Luxor Las Vegas as part of a deal with the radio show. Who wants to say no to a free weekend out of town? Not a cheap ass like me. Plus, I have connections in Vegas. And even though I can do nothing for them in return, they are still happy to help me out. Suddenly, thanks to my friend Ryan, I was busy every night I was there. And I made the most of it.

Roommate came with me and my friend David flew in from Los Angeles to hang out with us too. Of all the people I knew in my fifteen year prison sentence in that exotic hell hole, David is the one I have remained the most in contact with. He does prefer long distance situations, so in a way, my moving out of town was the perfect excuse for us to hang out more. And when we hang out, we drink. A lot.

Friday night, we went to see Wolverine, which was a terrible movie, only made better by the fact that we had consumed a delicious tapas meal just before. After the movie, Roommate was dead beat tired from all the travelling and drinking that had already taken place. So he sacked out early while David and I headed down to Piranha to hang out with Ryan and the host there: Hot Chocolate. Piranha was like a dream come true. When I arrived, everyone made a giant fuss over me. I felt like a celebrity, ushered past the velvet rope in a blurry haze and then escorted up to a private room overlooking the dance floor with my friend Roman Heart twirling on a box below.

The VIP room was isolating from the rest of the bar which was a little frustrating but the party really came to us. Reichen came by, beyond blind drunk, mumbled something sweet and wandered off with a muttered but later unfulfilled promise to return. The drinks kept coming though as did two dancers from Zumanity who then enacted part of their act for us. Then Brent Everett came in and we all took pictures with him in various stages of undress. He didn’t know who any of us were but he went along for the ride. He’s a good sport. Then suddenly it was past four am (seven am my time) and really way past time to go home!



Saturday morning I had some work obligations, including some morning activities. Running on a lack of sleep and not able to nap, I made effect use of the jacuzzi tub in my suite at The Luxor to compensate. It worked pretty well and by Saturday night I was really for more marathon adventures. Our first stop was the Chippendales show. My friend Michael is the publicist and has had several of the dancers up to the show in the past. They ushered us in, plied us with drinks and we had an incredible time. It was really a ton of fun. A quick trip through IN N Out and it was off to a late show of Zumanity. Back to back shows was draining but we still had enough energy to pull another four am non-stop party at Krave afterward.

Krave had some kind of contest going with Janice Dickinson and designer Andrew Christian. There was a nominal emcee but I don’t think Janice thought she was sufficiently loud and proceeded to take over hosting duties from a chair on the side of the stage. The main attraction was really just hot guys parading around in Andrew’s underwear and after that was done, the twirlers returned to twirling on the dance floor, the music cranked up, and Janice returned to the relative safety and security of her VIP banquette packed, PACKED with gays. My friend Ryan asked me if I wanted to meet Janice. She had been a guest on our show once(over the phone) and I ran into her in 2005 at the White Party in Miami, but I knew she wouldn’t recognize me.

Ryan made the introductions and Janice pulled me down into the banquette into a seat right next to her deep inside the horseshoe. She told me I looked familiar and I mentioned the White Party. “How fucked up was I?” I tried to demur, but she pressed. “It was early,” I offered though that answer didn’t seem to please her. She was excited to do my radio show to promote her upcoming appearance on “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” and help her raise money to fight AIDS. “It’s for the gays. I only do gay charities.” I let that pass. Then she told me about her recent experience hosting the notorious gay porn awards, the GayVNs in San Francisco. I told her that I had hosted it the year before. “Oh, then you know. I don’t know what it was like for you but it was eye opening for me.” Her face turned serious in the moment. “You know, I’m a soccer mom.”

What does one do when the world’s first supermodel describes herself as a soccer mom? Not to diminish the many soccer games that I have no doubt that she attended for her son and daughter, but soccer mom is not the first moniker I would have used to describe someone who vivacious and dynamic. But I guess we all see ourselves in our own way. Suddenly, she leaped up. “I love this song. I want to dance.” She jumped out of the banquette and started to dance with some gays near by. This was my exit. It was never going to get better and this was the perfect moment to slip away unnoticed. I made my polite good byes to her gays and headed out.

“Soccer mom, huh?” I thought to myself as I headed out into the predawn strip. “Maybe some things are better left in Las Vegas.”

Seeing Is Belying

Whenever I head out to the West Coast there are always too many people for me to see. I used to live there for 15 years and over time, I have accumulated a massive number of friends and family. Now gone almost a decade, the friends and family have only grown, making short visits back even more taxing. I want to see everyone and it is just physically impossible.

Some years ago, I sent an email to all of my friends with carved out time slots and asked them to pick a time that worked for them. This annoyed them to all end. I was just trying to be efficient but it struck them all as typical self-centered Derek behavior. The blow back was so intense that I hardly bother telling anyone I am coming to town anymore. If it is someone I really want to see, I make a big effort to make a connection happen. If not, and they run into me accidentally on a sidewalk in West Hollywood, oh well.

Aside from my family, there were only two old friends I really, really wanted to see. Ben Patrick, who I don't think I have seen in person since we were at the Gay Games together in Chicago in 2006 and David, who I have been trying to convince for months to get out of his townhouse and move to New York City. On the newer friend front, I did want to see Jason, as well as Jeremy and Ross. Jeremy and Ross both planned to be guests on the radio show when we did our live remote from the House of Blues during Gay Days, but work interfered and we pushed it off to Sunday.

As it happens, Jason and Jeremy ended up being sluggish homebodies and suddenly lacked the power to leave their couches and one assumes open bottles of wine. Ben Patrick was sick and wanted to meet up on Monday when he was feeling better but I was already back in New York by then. But Ross agreed to join me out for an early drink, so even though my batting average was terrible, I did make at least a couple of hits.

I dropped my tiny backpack off at David's picture-perfect townhouse. He marvelled at my ability to travel light and immediately suggested we backpack across Europe together. Maybe after my new hip. We walked down the hill to Eleven which used to be a Bell Telephone switching station and is now the kind of fancy gay bar with bottle service, velvet banquettes and the shelf life of fresh milk. It seemed to be packed entirely with men entering a fictional big arm contest, all of them knew David, whose own arms were definitely in contention.

Ross joined us midway through our first drink and I have to tell you: that boy is famous! He couldn't move through that bar without someone saying what a fan they were. Such an opportunity for him to be a whore and sleep his way through the steroidal mountains of the west side, but instead he was just polite and smiley and quickly moved on.

I noticed adult star Blake Riley dancing on one of the bars. As he scanned the bar with a come hither look designed to elicit tips, his demeanor changed suddenly to shy embarrassment when he realized he was coming on to me. I ran over and gave him a quick hug and carried on the kind of conversation one has when one runs into a friend who is dressed only in dollar stuffed briefs. Just like the stripper stereotype, he is working his way through school and I have to say I was genuinely impressed with his planned post-porn career path.

Even though later I saw Jerell from this current season of Project Runway quite literally twirling through Here Bar, the highlight sighting of the night was when I spotted Thomas Roberts across the bar at Eleven. I have had a major crush on him since his earliest days on CNN. I love his shy snaggletooth smile and gently hunky way. Now off TV, I was dying to have him back on the radio show, if not my lap, so I ran over to give him my card. He was quite drunk, celebrating his birthday, but he politely remembered our interview almost three years ago. He even held my hand while talking, which was the kind of personal touch that sent me over the edge, even as he used his other hand to point out his insanely hot boyfriend across the way in between tequila shots.

Later Ross headed back home and David and I went to dinner at my old haunt Tango Grill. The owner Gene was there and hardly recognized me with my short shorn hair and one assumes the intervening years. Darin and my old LA roommate Eric surprised us at dinner and then coaxed us to drive up the hill to their fabulous new penthouse high above Fountain. David and I zipped up in my rented convertible to check it out. The view was spectacular and the apartment massive, but it seemed as though they were living with an entire cast of reality show characters, as if the original Real World LA camera crew left in 1992 and the participants just stayed behind waiting to grow into the VH-1 generation. They both seemed really happy there and I hate to begrudge their decision, but it was a Penthouse of Horrors for me. The last place I want to be as I am dragged screaming into the ever-widening abyss of middle age is in a rented apartment with five roommates. That is the stuff of recent college grads and gold digging hussies in classic Hollywood gems like How To Marry A Millionaire.

All too soon, I was headed off to the airport in the pre-dawn hours to fly back to New York. I would love to convince David to abandon his rut and move to the glamour and excitement of Manhattan, but with winter around the corner and the economy in free fall, now hardly seems the time for a bold gesture. I know my suburban life works for me, but maybe it isn't right for him. Seeing Darin and Eric's place, I know they have moved in other directions. I suppose there is no right way to do anything. All you can do is your best. And choosing where to live and being able to see the people you want to see is always more about timing and luck than it is about desire. Maybe someday I will live in perpetual summer again, if the timing is right, but for now, it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.