Misbegotten

I met Steven Clark last summer at Ben Harvey's farewell to Manhattan party. Ben was giving up his beautiful apartment for new frontiers in the outer boroughs. Things were tense with Jonathan. And it was my first pride where I wasn’t working outside the city in half a decade. What should have been a time for celebration just felt difficult and strained, as if we had all arrived at the building just at the moment of sheer exhaustion. But I put on my happy face and scaled the heights to his party. While there, standing among the stand up comedians, I met Steven, visiting from Kansas. He recognized my voice instantly as the braying nightmare from inside his rental cars on a million and one business trips around the country. Always one to be flattered by an attractive fan, we became fast friends.

Flash forward and Steven is in town this weekend with his two girlfriends, a last hurrah in the big apple before they all go back to their tamely lurid hot tub fueled drunken shenanigans back home among the cows and corn. The ladies seemed intent on fulfilling a Sex And The City-laced fantasy, replete with stilettos and exhaustively flawless blond hair. We met up, along with ADD Jeff at ELMO, as reliable a gay eatery as there is in Chelsea. The ladies were tickled to note that ELMO had been the site of several scenes in the current edition of the Real World, despite Chelsea’s nodding acquaintance with real world Brooklyn. That one of the waiters at the restaurant was also an MTV reality veteran surprised no one.

Originally, I had hoped that Mikey and his boyfriend Mark would join us during Mikey’s birthday weekend trip to the city. But they took a wrong turn near the city and somehow ended up in Connecticut and our dinner reservation made a quick cut from eight to six. Damian was also supposed to be there, a long promised reunion since I last ran into him at DC Pride two years ago, but he was beset by a sudden friend emergency and that dropped us from six to five. So instead of the long banquet table they arranged for us in the center of the place, I insisted they move us to a quieter and smaller round table near the front to better suit our incredible shrinking dinner party.

Dinner was wonderful and we all made great conversation. I tried to be as witty as possible, to give the ladies the full SATC experience. Also, I had to assume Steven had filled their heads beforehand with glowing reviews of my spontaneous hilarity so I was certain that I had big shoes to fill (my own) no matter how fictitious they may be. I did get off one good line when we were discussing how much younger guys like dating older guys and how unflattering their innocent expressions like “grey hair is sexy” and "I love wrinkles!" are. “Do you know doesn’t like dating older guys?” I asked, “Older guys!” As annoying as the pups are, they can help you forget yourself for a while, which is a nice middle-aged game to play in preparation for full onset dementia later in life. After all, practice forgetting everything you know about yourself is perfect.
I had told John that we would be there and since ELMO is a frequent haunt of his frequent Friday friends, he said he might swing by the table and say hi if we were still there. I had completely forgotten our previous exchange earlier in the day until he was standing over the table with that adorable grin of his and a twinkle in his eye. One of the ladies looked up from her bottle of white wine and declared his striking resemblance to Colin Farrell. This was apparently a problem as he was, as it turns out, just too good looking to actually look at and she preferred he take his intense attractiveness elsewhere. As it was, he didn’t stay long. I am fairly certain that my ravenous encounter with a banana split at the end of the meal hastened his departure. And why not.

After ELMO, we dashed across the street to Duane Reade so one of the ladies could get a gel sole insert for her stilettos since her feet were killing her. I tried to explain that only women in movies and TV shows actually wear those shoes in Manhattan because, between the subway grates and the cobblestones, those shoes are, at minimum, a broken leg waiting to happen. (Note: Certain horse-faced actresses should take heed that prize thoroughbreds with broken legs are often shot and they should watch their steps!)

Then it was on to Barracuda to wrap up our evening. While lingering in the back area two guys tried to use the wing maneuver of talking to the hags to get to the fags. Steven and Jeff and I saw it coming a mile away but I think the ladies were just happy to have someone other than us pay attention to them, compliment their hair and try to motorboat their breasts. As much as I wanted to see how far things got, it was time for us all to go. The ladies had done their gay duty and Steven needed to lead them downtown to some straight parties and hopefully the waiting hungry penises of heterosexual men. And me, I went on to Grand Central Station and its underground passages draped with endless promotional posters for the musical sensation Wicked. “Now Leaving OZ” the green banner above my head waved as I headed for the train. It’s a long way from Kansas to the Emerald City, and back again after the stilettos have clicked their last, I thought. Even though I too make my temporary way in and out of the city, I am glad I get to stay among the magic for a while longer than most.

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.

(2nd to the) Last Night On Earth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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