Release Me

"How are you going to blog this one?"

I don't have a good answer. Peter Stickles is standing next to me, looking up blankly at the stage. I am transfixed by a bedazzled dragon on his neck. I should have taken a picture of that instead of the bowls of dime store candy on the table next to me. It is ten minutes before Madonna's new album Hard Candy is due to be released and Peter is waiting next to me in the basement of the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. His neck is the most interesting thing I have seen in the last two hours.

Originally, Jonathan had wanted me to join him at the midnight release so that we could pick up the new album and he could try to win tickets to see her free concert at Roseland on Wednesday night. But then he had to go out of town at the last minute and asked me to still go so I could pick him up a poster or something other cool giveaway stuff. So after the show tonight, I bundled myself off to Virgin and waiting for the excitement to happen. The excitement that never came.

When I arrived just after ten, drag queen and part time Tyra Banks enthusiast Shequida was presiding over the "talent" show that was supposed to constitute entry to win tickets. Everyone had 30 seconds to wow the panel of judges, none of whom I recognized immediately. The talent most often displayed was a gushing insistence of urgent homosexuality followed by the certainty of impending doom if somehow begging alone wasn't enough to get into the show. Ten minutes of this and I was certain that my idea of stringing together 30 seconds worth of Madonna lyrics from two dozen hits into a plea for tickets would have been a guaranteed winner.

I tried to take video and pictures of the event with my phone and send them immediately to Jonathan in Florida but my phone was not cooperating. So I went back to my office and picked up my camera and backpack and headed in for round two. Immediately upon arriving, I ran into DJ Corey Craig, one of the judges. I asked him how it was going and he just rolled his eyes in disgust. Apparently the talent had not improved during my thirty minute break. I stationed myself behind him at the judging table where I snapped some quick photos of him texting his friends, the other judges looking at anything but the contestants, and the sad bowls of candy.

Moments later, I noticed Peter standing nearby. He looked as cute as always. His skin is like that was a baby. I know he is older than sixteen but he doesn't look it. Tonight was Michael Carbonaro's birthday and I asked why Peter wasn't there helping celebrate. "I slipped out for this." His expression remained blank but I couldn't imagine he wasn't regretting the decision.

Shequida called the finalists to the stage. Only four minutes left to save us from this world of misery. It is hot and I want to go home. There is nothing here to get for Jonathan. What a waste of two hours of my life. The tickets are given out. One of the guys seems to have won solely on his looks. Good for him. The appointed hour arrives and everyone rushes upstairs to line up for CDs. I head for the door.

Well, I figure as I head outside into the cool night air, I will email Jonathan the photos and video so he will know that he didn't miss anything. I had considered standing in line to get a CD but the line was insanely long and after yesterday's fourteen hour flight home, all I want to do is go home and go to bed. I can get the CD tomorrow when it won't be an hour long wait in line. I feel bad that I am leaving empty-handed but at least I know for certain that Jonathan didn't miss anything by not being there. My text messages to him all evening have made the point clear, but the photographic evidence will seal the deal later, CSI style.

On the train home, I upload the photos and video and start my blog. Peter was right. What could I possibly say that would be interesting? Then I get a simple and final text from Jonathan "ps Peter got me a poster." Suddenly I am incensed! Where? WHERE???? There were no posters. There was NOTHING. My mind scans through mental images of the crowd at Virgin, coming up empty again and again. They must have been selling them with the CDs at the end of the endless line I refused to stand in. So now it's the worst possible outcome for the evening. Not only did I waste two hours of my life, but I didn't even get the one thing I was sent there to get. And someone else did. Now I am a douche. I could have had the same outcome just going home on time. I guess it is true that no good deed goes unpunished.

But at least now, Peter, I have something to blog about.

Inside Outsider

As I mentioned in my last post, I am having a lot of trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy these days. It isn't so much that I don't know the difference between the two. It is just that lately the lines between the two have gotten increasingly blurry, the colors melting into one another, with the lines that had been around them obscured. (See also: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). This weekend in South Florida took an already troubling situation and threw it right down the rabbit hole, and me along with it.

Friday officially kicked off my season of pride events. Each year, I spend my sunny weekends on the road, emceeing pride events, to help promote my radio show. Since these trips tend to include all of my least favorite activities (leaving the house, dealing with airport security, meeting strangers, public speaking, etc.) it is honestly hard for me to have a genuinely good time. As it is true in life in general, happiness is not a sustained state of being, it is merely flashing moments, highlighting the otherwise dull and painful patches. So I can't say I didn't have any fun, the strobe flickered many times, but in the end, I am glad to be back home. At least in my house, I can manage the dull patches a little more effectively.

The organizers of Pride South Florida (in particular Mike Cruz) are lovely people, who fly me down, put me up at a nice place, and send cars to cart me around. It is one of the few events we do each year where I feel like a genuine celebrity. Most of the time, it is me and Romaine piling into a rental car and navigating our way to whatever cheap dump I booked us into, with a stop at the Waffle House along the way. This year, Mike sent a stand-up limo van for me, that was bigger inside than my own bedroom, and nicer too. The limo took me to my hotel for the weekend, a gay resort called The Grand. And Grand it was.

I am not much for B&Bs because I like my anonymity. Give me a big impersonal chain hotel with at least 300 rooms and I am all set. I don't even like maid service if I am staying for only one or two days. I can use a towel twice and I don't need my bed made every day. It feels like such a waste. A gay guesthouse is a decent middle point. I can still have a little anonymity (no surprise wake-up visits by the owner with a cup of coffee in hand) while also not feeling like I am sleeping in a lifeless mattress ad. The Grand lived up to its name and I did enjoy my quiet room way in the back.

Of course, my room was just past the "nature walk" (aka late night cruising zone) and the clothing optional jacuzzi. Each time I walked past the hot tub area, day and night, I was cat called and wolf whistled, which I guess is flattering, but on Friday night, rushing through with a warm plate of Greek food on my way in to watch the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, I was in no mood for it. Even though I left the "Do Not Disturb" sign on my room all day Saturday, the sneaky maid managed to come in and organize everything anyway, including hiding my iPod in a decorative candy dish which while pretty when I found it, did cause my heart to panic for a moment when I thought it might have been stolen.

The pride event itself was quiet on Saturday. A decent but not spectacular turnout, with a shy spot of rain in the early afternoon which made the heat moist and the ground too wet to sit on, though otherwise did nothing to dampen the event. I left early to attend the GLAAD Awards, which happened to be going on at the Hard Rock the same evening. Earlier last month when Neil Guiliano, the President of GLAAD was on the radio show, I mentioned that I was going to be down there at the same time, and to my surprise a few days later, I got an email from a GLAAD staffer saying that Neil requested that I be his guest at the South Florida event.

In my nascent celebrity, this is something of a big deal. It was an opportunity to attend an A-gay event, walk the red carpet to get my picture taken and hang out in the VIP area with the other celebrities, board members and big donors. I felt like Cinderella but in a grey Barneys suit that I picked up for a song last year at the Warehouse Sale. So off I went to the red carpet and for a moment, it was magical. The photographers all wanted my photo and I posed and posed and posed in my marked down suit with the four year old tie, nine year old shoes, borrowed socks, and a dress shirt from the early 90s that if I took off my jacket gave me the distinct air of a gay pirate. All of the film crews, save the folks from Bravo, were Spanish speaking and had zero interest in me. I got asked one question by Bravo, which I answered very badly, and was sent on my merry way. Flickering moments of happiness, long stretches of sad reality.

Once inside the door, I realized that I was there completely alone. My original invite had mentioned a personal talent escort which I assumed would be with me all night so I would at least have a GLAAD volunteer to talk to all night. But at the event I discovered that there were two kinds of celebrities: white folder and black folder. I had a white folder which meant, I was on my own, while the black folder celebrities who were winning or presenting, had a cute young person dressed all in black with a headset who waited on them hand and food. I turned slowly around in a circle not knowing what to do next and then mercifully ran into my best frenemy Dan Renzi. He saved my life.

Dan and I have a long, complicated, non-sexual history which mercifully he remembers little of. However, over the last year or so we have been reasonably chummy and in 2007 he even appeared, quite deliciously, in my video podcast The So Real Life. I couldn't ask for a better person to shove me over a pile of garbage than Dan. It was kismet, as was our meeting at the GLAAD Awards. We palled around, we made jokes, we compared white folders, and when we left the VIP reception to go down for the dinner, even though we were at separate tables, we sat in chairs next to each other so we could dish all night long.

Unfortunately, the only dish I was able to do was the one my food was on because instead of being placed at some out of the way non-table like I thought, I was at THE table. I was seated between Neil Guiliano and his hilarious brother John. Apparently it was a very personal invitation to the awards I had accepted. Also at the table, the night's big honoree Wilson Cruz and his parents, and Denise Williams, the mother of Simmie Williams, a young gay man murdered in Florida earlier this year. Oh yes and me! What the hell was I doing there? I started sweating I was so nervous but knew I couldn't take off my jacket for fear of a parrot settling on my shoulder.

Being South Florida, the show and presenters were very Latin focused and much of the proceedings were in Spanish. I missed a lot flipping through my phrasebook but the gay storyline clips from the telenovelas were the highlight of the evening for me until I saw 500 gay men sing along to Deborah Cox's sensational closing performance. In moments like that I thought, "I wish Jonathan was here. He would love this." but thoughts like that only served to pull me out of the moment and remind me how alone I tend to feel in a room filled with hundreds of people. But then the alternate reality I was living in would lure me back with another amazing flash. For instance, the big drama of the evening happened at our table, when Wilson Cruz (allergic to shellfish) bit into the chicken only to discover it was stuffed with shrimp. He was fine but I leaned into John and cracked, "Maybe next time your brother should consider not poisoning the guest of honor right before he goes on stage."

The whole thing was so surreal to me. On the one hand, I was treated like a celebrity, but inside I just felt like me, in an ugly shirt and painful shoes. It felt so fraudulent. Wilson is from TV and then there he was sitting at the table with me. On my way into dinner I ran into my friend Brandon's ex-boyfriend Cliff who I know from Arizona and who was recently embroiled in a gay public scandal of sorts, adding another dimension to the otherworldliness of it all. It all happened so fast, I never really had a moment to take it all in. Back at the dinner, I looked up and there was Neil, who just moments earlier had been making small talk with me at the table, now up on stage, projected onto the big screen TVs all over the auditorium, talking about Denise, who was sitting next to me, while photographers and cameramen rushed around me to capture the moment. As we stood for Denise's ovation, I instinctively felt the cameras at my back and leaded over ever so slightly to my left so they could get a better shot of her. I was participant and observer, and neither of them felt real to me.

After the awards Matt from Fab Scout picked me up and took me out of the surreal frying pan and into the fire: Boardwalk. The notorious South Florida stripper bar has turned into ground zero for me when I am in town, thanks to my friendship with Howard of Fab Scout, and it is where I spent Friday night as well. Howard wasn't there, but Jason Crew from Big Rig and Barrett Long were there, along with two new porn pups, annoyingly in love with each other and themselves, and Cort Donovan who charmed me in a way porn stars aren't normally charming to me. Jason remembered me from Big Rig and other run-ins and I reminded Barrett of our last meeting, at the HustlaBall in New York were I pawned Rod Barry off on him after Rod got too violently drunk for me to handle. Our Friday night adventure had ended with Jason telling me that I was "so squeezable" and then drunkenly asking me on the ride home if he and Barrett could gang bang me later in their hotel room. As tempting as 24 inches of cock may be for some people, I politely passed, ran past the nude men in the jacuzzi with their siren song and locked myself alone in my room.

Back at Boardwalk on Saturday making a second run at it and this time in a suit, I stood out like a sore, but wealthy thumb. The solicitous strippers were even more solicitous than usual. While waiting for the porn boys to do their show, so I could poke gentle fun at them later, into the bar walked the most perfect physical manifestation of my "type" that I have ever seen. As if things couldn't get any worse/better. He was blond, with Cory's hunk o' granite forehead, a cute button nose and bee stung Angelina Jolie lips that he kept in a pugnacious snarl at all times. If he had been four inches taller (say 6'2"), I would have kidnapped him and kept him in a dungeon somewhere. His name is "Brock" (may not actually be his real name) and he is apparently a "notorious bottom" and an escort. I was also told he was a complete mess, and when I met him, he was already if not blind drunk, then at least visually impaired intoxicated. He admired my light wool suit, then leaned in to make out with me, and when I tried to have small talk with him, asked me, "Are you going to take me home now?" Ugh! I am only human here.

His friend, who earlier had been nice to me, and bragged about his long friendship with Barrett Long, suddenly grabbed Brock and pulled him close. I heard him hiss in Brock's ear, "You aren't leaving this bar. He only wants to take advantage of you!" I was so offended. I didn't even have a car to take him home in, even if I really really really wanted to. And while I did want to take advantage of him, I certainly didn't mean it in a bad way! People can be so judgmental. He is an escort after all. So I am a bad person for wanting a free throw? I thought I was a celebrity. Didn't my VIP tickets include an open bar, a gift bag and a blow job? I guess he wasn't what GLAAD meant when they mentioned a talent escort for the evening.

Me in a suit, making out with a hot stranger. It just isn't me. Walking red carpets and mingling with people I heretofore have only known in the abstract. Just plain strange. I was still completely beside myself on Sunday when a pair of Broadway actors who listen to the show and happened to be in South Florida at the same time, dropped by pride to meet me. I was still queasy and tired from the night before, and my emcee gig had definitely taken a desperate shticky turn for the worst as they arrived. I couldn't have been at a lower ebb for what I had been looking forward to as the highlight of my weekend.

Kevin plays Scrabulous with me endlessly on Facebook and emails with me regularly, but we had never met before, so our encounter had the happy, excited feel of meeting a junior high school pen pal. But that comparison may be apt only because my tongue was nuclear green from the lollipop I consumed earlier to mask the Munchos aftertaste in my mouth. His boyfriend Chris I knew a little more about because I had read about him and saw him on TV a few times, but virtually all of my interaction up to this point had been with Kevin who I knew less about but somehow knew better, so meeting Chris was weirder for me.

This is difficult to explain in words. I meet people all the time from TV shows or movies or what have you because of my job, but rarely do I meet someone from that world who also listens to the show. Usually, we interview someone who doesn't know anything about us, but we know all about them, in much the same way that listeners meet us at events and know all about our lives but we don't know anything about theirs. So here we were two people who knew each other's resumes basically, and a little more perhaps, but meeting for the first time. It was like a real life version of the old Spy Magazine section Logrolling In Our Time. It was all too much for me.

I know you. You know me. We don't know each other. Maybe it was the heat and humidity after a long cold winter. Maybe it was the 48 surreal hours that had gone before. Real names hidden under porn names. White folder celebrity versus black folder celebrity. Untoward sexual advances from hot strangers. By the time Kevin and Chris arrived, I was mentally throwing in the towel. All I wanted to do was flee to the airport. Being in a strange city, meeting new people, I felt like an astronaut in space who becomes untethered from the ship, and then ever so slowly but quite desperately floats away.

I wanted my boring life back. I just wanted the security that comes with sleeping in my own bed in my house built to withstand a nuclear war with the furniture too heavy to move. When I landed at La Guardia and walked into the parking structure, I was never so happy to see my little beat up old red convertible. And parked right next to it, another little red convertible with a tiny SIRIUS antenna stuck on the trunk, just like mine. It made me happy in that instant because for the first time in three days, I felt like I belonged. Not as someone who talks on the radio, but as just another person in this city that listens. And then I drove home and climbed into bed. And for perhaps a little longer than usual, I was happy.

Matt and Ben

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posh Slice

I hadn’t seen Steven DeLuca since my birthday party back in November. He is one of my oldest friends here in the city and as always our encounters are infrequent. I love Steven. He is one of my favorite people. He invited me recently to the opening of a new play that he and his boyfriend are producing and I reacted in horror. “Why would you invite me? Do you want it to close?” Suddenly, Steven was reminded that I am, in fact, the famous Kiss of Death for all live theatrical productions.

When he was a theater manager and he grew tired of the show that was running, he could send me an email assuring me that there would be two tickets on the aisle for me and sure enough within hours of my attendance, the show would close. He played the card one too many times and even the theater closed. I even invested in an off-Broadway show. It was great. It had a terrific theatre in a great location. The New York Times gave it an unqualified rave. I lost every penny I put into it. Steven met me out tonight at Posh alone. He had invited his boyfriend Carl, who decided to stay in. But Carl did have a message for me. “Don’t come to our show.”

I had planned for us to spend a quiet evening together, catching up just the two of us. But before we could get deeply into the weeds of our daily lives, I got a text message from the original Jonathan. He was, naturally, in the neighborhood and anxious to get together. I blew him off this weekend, preferring to stay cloistered in my Desperate Housewives practical, and had promised him that I would go out with him this week. I just didn’t plan on it being tonight.

Jonathan was there at Posh with his friend Mark, who didn’t stay long. Mark was dressed in a crisp white button down shirt that said he cared about how he looked. He was all wrong for me. Anyway, he is just out of a long term relationship so I don’t think he was looking for anything longer than an episode of Criminal Minds but just about as sordid. He left quickly to walk his dog which is sweet in a way, but it just reminded me that having a dog in Manhattan is cruel for the dog and frankly having a baby at home is less of a chore.

Jonathan was a bundle of enthusiasm, although not about his recent appearance in my blog. “You said I am a whore.” I am certain I didn’t use that term. Then he insisted I implied it by saying that he was out at the bar looking for sex. Except that he was out at the bar looking to get laid and that was simple reporting. Whore is judgment, and I am not one to judge like that. Anyone who knows me knows that if I think you are a whore, I will just say it to your face. So I guess Jonathan now joins the long list of people who for one reason (giving “massages” under another name) or another (in the closet) have reacted badly to their portrayal in my blog. Tough.

The three of us quickly grew weary of the Posh life. There was a somewhat large black man, twirling around like a drag queen though the empress had no clothes. He tried to entreat me to dance with him at the urging of his friend who was giving me the eye from across the bar. But I insisted to him that I have a wooden leg and was afraid it would fall off. He didn’t take Heather Mills for an answer easily and before he came back around on another ecstasy-fueled pass, we closed out our check and headed for Vlada.

Earlier on my way into Posh, I had run into Josh Rosenzweig on the corner. When I told him I was going in to meet a friend, he told me to drag my friend over to Vlada instead. They had had a screening thing earlier he proffered evasively, and then everyone had decamped to my favorite vodka bar. Later at Posh, I suggested the party at Vlada to Steven and Jonathan, but both of them already knew about it, having been invited much earlier than I had. So much for being a HERE subscriber and a national radio show host! I hadn’t been back to Vlada since that last disastrous night with roommate, the other Jonathan, Ben Harvey, Dave Rubin, and the ever notorious Clay Lee, which was just too fucked up and personal a night for me to blog about the next day. But here I was back again, and so was Ben Harvey and Dave Rubin, who didn’t even tell me they were going to be there. I gave Ben Harvey a steaming heap of shit about emailing with me all day and not even mentioning it. I was joking and he knew I was joking, but still he had a bemused look of panic on his face. It might have been the free alcohol.

Chris van Cleef was there too, as cute as always, and hammered. Like take me home and violate me hammered. Fortunately he was on his way out to eat which was a good thing because he was a jagger shot away from an anonymous gang bang in the bathroom. One of the downsides of working in a gay office, like I do, and the HERE folks, you get to know so much more about your co-workers than would ever be legally permissible in a straight environment. And at a certain point, you just kind of get used to behavior that otherwise would raise eyebrows.

I couldn’t stay long at Vlada. I had a train to catch, as always. And not drinking the signature infused vodka, there is no charm to that place. Besides, my primary reason for going out (catching up with Steven) was lost in the shuffle. I left him at the base of the staircase with Josh and JC, whom he has known even longer than he has known me. Even original Jonathan knew JC from an ill-fated date that started at the gym and then never went anywhere. So I am sure the four of them had plenty to talk about.

But on my way out, I made a pair of promises. And if there is one thing I like to think I am, it is someone who keeps promises. I am not perfect mostly because I am self-centered and have a terrible memory, but I really do try to keep my promises. First, I promised to call Steven and hang out with him again within the next two weeks. That will be easy. Then, in saying good bye to a very drunk and clingy Ben Harvey, I promised not to say anything really bad about him in my blog, of which he is the most frequently mentioned player. But then he reversed his position. He wanted me to say things about him because he wanted to be the “bad boy” of my blog. So be it. Who am I to stand in the way of a dream?

The In N Out Urge

I have spent more time in downtown Manhattan in the past few months than I have in all seven years I have lived in New York City. Part of this is Jonathan, who lives deep in the thick of the trademarked real New York experience I never had. I had wanted to live in Manhattan for my whole life. My mother’s tales of living there as a child and later visiting her grandfather and Aunt Caroline, turned it into a magical storied place of excitement and wonder. Living here has not disappointed. It really is more like the movie Enchanted than you could possibly imagine. However, I always knew it was expensive and endeavored to not make the leap until I was able to live in grand style. Fatefully at the end of the last century, my wish was granted and I packed up my hopes and dreams and moved alone into a gorgeous apartment building on 42nd Street and the West Side Highway.

My palace in the sky was a brand new two bedroom corner apartment on the 26th floor with beautiful views of New Jersey across the Hudson River. In the evenings, the cruise ships that docked just North of me would sail past my window, flashbulbs ablaze on the deck as hundreds of passengers took my picture simultaneously. I would throw myself on the mercy of the divan in my living room as Ella Fitzgerald sang “Manhattan” and wondered how little me ended up in such a delicious tub of butter. The fourteen months I lived there were, without a doubt, the nearest thing to heaven. Of course it was very lonely in heaven, thousands of miles from my family and friends, with no boyfriend to share it all with. But it was hard to ask for the moon when I had the stars.

When I first got to the city, I was averse to taking the subway. I would walk or take cabs everywhere. This limited my movements to primarily just the center of Manhattan. I joked that I never went South of Houston unless I was fucking a celebrity, and I have yet to fuck a celebrity. But lately, I have been veering closer and closer to star sex land, and I have even grown to love the subway. It is desperately efficient, and not just because the smelly underground platforms have the uncanny ability to retain both all the heat in the summer and all the cold of the winter. A subway ride is an extension of the general magic of the city. The wonder you experience at turning a corner and accidentally encountering a street festival is extended to a subway car when you unexpectedly ride for eighty blocks with a mariachi band. Tonight on my subway ride downtown there was a man playing the saxophone, first on the platform and then later actually in my subway car. He was doing a rendition of My Favorite Things which I am certain he thought was the Birth of Cool when in fact it was the Cesarean of Suck. It is magic here, just not always top quality magic.

I was heading downtown tonight to join Josh in his final fling in the city before he heads to West Hollywood. He showed me, quite casually mind you, his new apartment using Google Earth on his iPhone, his arms flexing in his tight t-shirt as he worked the numbers. Something tells me he is going to fit right in there in my old stomping grounds. When I arrived at Urge, drag queen Gusty Winds was perched, legs akimbo, on a stool on stage preparing the first round of drag queen bingo. I have been trying not to drink of late and from her first riff on the joys of Oprah’s Big Give, I knew this night would be the ultimate test. Josh was joined by his friend Dann, and two straight girls, but I don’t remember their names and no one is reading my blog to see links to the Connexion pages of women. No offense. Barton joined us midway through the first round, although I could tell by the look on his face that he could have lived his whole life without being there.

The first game required players to get “two lines.” I muttered to Dann that I was wish I had done two lines before I got there. Dann guffawed loudly, and never hearing such a thing before while performing, Gusty Winds seized on his laughter like she was having an aneurysm. “Someone is laughing,” she half-asked, which frankly is not a flattering reaction to give when you are performing on stage. Dann and Barton much enjoyed my antics from our banquette, while Josh and his female friends earnestly played the first round of bingo. The girl closest to me won and handed the card to Josh, who collected the $30 prize. This money went directly to the charitable fund that supplies drinks to needy alcoholic New Yorkers, primarily those in and around a small banquette inside the bar Urge.

In the second round, you needed to get a plus sign. I was half paying attention, mostly tossing bon mots at Barton, and reacting with both real and mock horror that in all his 36 years, he had never seen the lesbian episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy’s friend falls in love with Rose. It was especially painful because he didn’t know who Danny Thomas was and I tried to use Blanche’s reaction to the news that Jean was a lesbian to remind him of who he was. Since he runs a non-profit, the pop culture touchstone that wedged his memory free was St. Jude’s Hospital. I wish I had been paying closer attention to the game and hadn’t tried to find the bathroom during the calling of numbers because I ended up one number away from a win without knowing if the last number I needed had already been called. As it turns out, Barton won that round, splitting it with another guy, and leaving the $12.50 in winnings back in the needy drunks fund at the center of the table.

His insistence that he is a “good guy” was tested moments later when he won the third round all by himself, and somewhat reluctantly, dropped the $65 into the center of the table. It was only fair since Josh was the one buying everyone their bingo cards all night. But still, I felt his pain at parting with all that delicious money. After all $65 can actually get you pretty far in this town, though primarily from Manhattan to JFK Airport. Maybe even Newark if the traffic is light.

I guess the lesson here is that life in the big city is fueled by money. The more money you have, the better your life can be. You can have apartments too big for one person to live in, and cars that take you anywhere you want to go. But in the end, it doesn't matter where you live or how big your apartment is, what matters most in Manhattan are the little moments. It's a song on a lazy afternoon, the laughter of friends, sunset along the river. Yes, the $65 could have been very helpful in hailing a cab out of Urge and off to an apartment for him and the train home for me, but then we would have missed that delightful walk up Second Avenue on a quiet cool evening in New York City.

Pop (Sort Of) Rocks

Pop Rocks is a Thursday night party in the city. I started going years ago when it first began and the likes of Britney and Justin were the hottest music on the charts. The disposable pop crap was always the best part of the club. The crowd was always very young and I never liked feeling like the oldest person there. But I stopped going because they never had any paper towels in the bathroom. I am not a classy person but while I am not too old to dance to a hot mix of Britney Spears singing "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know", I am too old to dry my hands on toilet paper. The last appearance I made at Pop Rocks was with the Barbera Twins in 2004 when they were in town to do our radio show and promote their calendar. Where are they now?

Flash forward to last Friday and my friend Josh was throwing a going away party for himself. Since winning Mr. Gay USA by default, he is moving to Los Angeles to take a new job. I guess he figured life in NYC had taken him as far as he was going to go. As I mentioned in the past, Josh and I met in 2001 when I briefly tried my hand as a party promoter when I tried to launch a club night two weeks after 9/11. It was a huge mistake but meeting Josh wasn't. At his going away party, I met Mark, a cute massage therapist who also works the door at Pop Rocks. Since I am on this kick to try new things and meet new people, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and drag Hottie Zach and my roommate Mike down to Pop Rocks for another attempt at fun.

As it turns out, last night was a Dolly Parton listening party for her new album "Backwoods Barbie." We had tickets to see her at Radio City Music Hall next week but her boobs threw her back out and now it has been rescheduled for May. In the meantime, I have heard nothing but good things about her album so I thought it was a fair bit of kismet that this was the fated night to make a triumphant return to Pop Rocks. I also tried to invite Ben Harvey at the last minute but he was out with sexy Dave Rubin who "frowned when he heard Pop Rocks." Not even Dolly could woo him to join us, and as Romaine and I have learned, when you do a show with someone you turn quickly into an old married couple and it is virtually impossible to split up once you have travelled down the road so far together.

Zach got there first and still being new to the city, he was wary of being alone in the club. I arrived and immediately ran into Mark outside at the door. But it was freezing outside and while on the train down to Union Square, Zach had sent a panicked "I'm scared" message so I knew I needed to hurry inside. Once there, we enjoyed a couple of $1 drinks in the crowded melee as well as some fun pop tunes. I heard some vague strains of something that sounded like Dolly while in line for coat check, but aside from a mix of "9 to 5" an hour later, that was as far as the listening party went. Mike joined a little while later and he and Zach got nice and drunk while I stayed sober to drive Mike home later.

The good news of the night was that I was far from the oldest person there. A few guys looked like they had escaped from a nursing home, so that was comforting. Plus, the bathroom had hand dryers so I didn't need to use toilet paper to dry my hands this time. Then again, the hand dryer was about as powerful as waving your hands in the air like you just don't care, but it was better than it used to be. I also had some time to chat with Mark downstairs under a heat lamp while he alternated eating a sandwich and passing out flyers for 1984.

By 12:30, Zach was ready to go home, and that left Mike and I with plenty of time to make the 1:00am train and get home in time to watch the new episode of Lost (which was surprisingly good, by the way). Unfortunately both of my organized military guys had lost their coat check tickets in their drunkenness, leaving them forced to plead their cases to the super bitchy coat check girl who didn't know the meaning of the word helpful, let alone how to mime it. In the past, Zach has had a tough relationship with coat check people and last night was no exception. Mike was the voice of reason but unfortunately, coat check lady was so slow we ended up missing our window to take the 1:00am train.

While they were fighting with the coat check bitch, I spotted once again a woman who looked like she had escaped, quite unglamorously, from a Soviet work camp. She had toilet paper trailing out from under one of her chunky clogs so I pointed it out to her. Instead of discreetly removing it, she lifted her foot and loudly proclaimed it to her other female friend and her adorable blond fag. The homo who had eyed me earlier in the evening, used this as an opening to start a conversation. He complimented me for rescuing a stranger from embarrassment as he ran his hand along my plaid shirt. He asked me where I was tonight and when I said I was at work he asked, "At an Abercrombie photo shoot?" I smiled politely and said no as I put my coat on. Then he said, "Where are you going? An Abercrombie photo shoot?" This is what is known as a textbook case of blind drunk, with the emphasis on the blind. But I gave him my card anyway and made out with him a bit. It was a terrible line and even though I am as old as Mount Washington, I am only human. There are a lot of sides to this square.

On our way out, I said good bye to Mark at the door and then Mike and I parted company with Zach. Since we had some time to kill, I entreated Mike to come to Taco Bell with me. Mike has sworn off fast food all year and being the horrible influence that I am, I got him off the wagon. Once there, I discovered something new on the menu (though still containing all nine of the usual ingredients). They now have something called a "Fiesta Platter" which is just the perfect thing for me to bring to the Long Kiss Good Night featuring Hillary and Barack at Jonathan's on Tuesday night. The platter with the Grilled Stuft Burrito was almost too much food for one person but I still ate the whole thing while sitting in our usual late night spot at Grand Central Station. I had a good time at Pop Rocks, but the innocent days of Britney and Justin are long behind us all. I may not be collecting social security with Danny Glover and flattering attention from blond strangers is always appealing, but I do think I am getting too old for this shit.

Gym Time

You know how I hate trying anything new. However, in an effort to keep myself from falling into three of my most beloved ruts, over and over and over again, I was convinced tonight to abandoned my well-worn path.

I saw a bit of Hottie Zach on Saturday at the Gay American Heroes benefit at Therapy, though most of my time was dedicated to Jonathan in the first of four increasingly adventurous adventures. I had told Zach at Therapy they we would undoubtedly end up at a bar later and he should try to meet up with us. Unfortunately for him, he got stuck fixing a shelf for his roommate and Jonathan and I stayed too long at his friend Danny's birthday party (aka adventure #4), so Zach had to be postponed to another night.

He suggested we go to Gym, a sports bar in Chelsea most notable for its high number of patrons who enjoy white wine by the glass while assiduously ignoring whatever ESPN show is playing on the many flat panel TVs. Gym is most notable to me as the place in town with some of the cheapest drinks around, which always has a place in my miserly alcoholic heart. Even though I had promised Zach some time alone, I got a last minute plea from my ex-boyfriend Curtis, who was spontaneously in town to join him out as well. Figuring the more the merrier, I invited Mike to come along too.

As I walked into the bar, the first person I spotted was not Zach, but Greg, the very straight Associate Producer of my radio show, whose own birthday party had been adventure #3 on Saturday (which culminated with Jonathan and I being thrown unceremoniously out of a notorious smoldering dump known as One Little West Twelfth). Apparently after the show, Greg, his girlfriend Dawn and their main gay Dominick were in the mood for a cheap drink. Two out of the three wanted to go to a gay bar, and one out of the three wanted to watch the game, so modern math being what it is, they ended up on bar stools at Gym.

Lately I have become obsessed with putting photos of myself on Facebook. There are only two reasons for me to go on there constantly: play Scrabulous (a dying art form) and tag/caption photos. Dawn put up a slew of photos from Greg's birthday party and I wasn't in any of them. So in an attempt to right that wrong, I asked the coat check guy to retrieve my camera from inside my already checked coat so I could make a nuisance of myself with my flash. I got some photos with Greg and company, both taken by a reasonably attractive gay guy who seemed intent on cutting everyone who wasn't me out of the group shot, reducing Dawn to a very evocative pair of bangs in the second photo. But he didn't even try to hit on me. I was no sooner done looking over the digital shots that he was out the door like a shot himself. No matter.

Hottie Zach and his sensational roommate Laurel (aka The Freak Magnet, more on that later) joined us, as did Mike and Curtis in quick succession. The gang in place, we set about doing what we do best: drinking! But first, some back story:

Curtis and I dated back in 1998-1999 when he was a fresh college grad who I had bravely bought a drink for and given my number to at Revolver. We had good times, including attending Kathy Griffin's 1998 Christmas Party (where I first absorbed the desire to make cupcakes) and harassing Carol Liefer at A' votre Sante where when she dismissed my tired line "I'm a big fan" I impressed her by repeating word for word her routine about sex with an opthomalogist. By the time I got to the punch line, "How do you like it better? Like this? Or like this?" she was beaming like a kid on Christmas morning.

Curtis lives in San Francisco now, and has made his way up through the ranks of television with impressive efficiency. I was devastated when, after only a few short months of dating, he informed me the week before Valentine's Day that he had taken a job as a News Producer in Toledo, Ohio and he was moving THAT WEEKEND. Leaving me for a job was one thing, but Toledo wasn't even a Top 50 market! I was offended. But Toledo lead to Houston which lead to San Francisco where less than a decade later, he is at the top of his game. For him, a vast improvement over his grubby apartment, cheap McDonald's hamburgers, and occasional sex with me. So much longer later, all is forgiven. He made the right choice.

While Curtis and I exchanged battle scars and quips covering the past year since we last drunkenly encountered each other at the sleazy GayVN after-party in San Francisco, Mike and Zach talked shop about military matters. All the while, several different men at the bar kept trying to nose into the conversations, mostly by practically sexually harassing Laurel. It wasn't until later that I remembered they were just trying to get to Hottie Zach through his female friend. Normally a solid move, but in this case, it just caused Laurel to instantly label them freaks, a moniker from which no sexiness can escape.

Zach and Laurel had to work in the morning, so we tried to make a reasonably early night of it. Greg and company had long since departed and the bar had thinned out like an Obama victory party in New Hampshire. It was time to go. Mike and Curtis and I left the bar, hailed a cab and headed for Grand Central Station. Once there we grabbed some food from a street vendor. Some weeks back, I had enjoyed a $4 lamb gyro there, so Mike and I decided to try to recapture the magic (it didn't) while Curtis who hadn't eaten all day, wolfed down two hot dogs.

I dashed down to the bathroom before we left and I saw someone on the floor inside one of the stalls. At first, I thought they had dropped something or that they were sick, but then I realized, no, it was just some guy getting fucked in the ass at one am in a stall at Grand Central Station. What a way to inaugurate the new East side bathrooms! I told Curtis the story on the train which lead him to tell more than one hair-raising tale of sexual adventure. I think he might have been a little disappointed by my inability to match him, story for story. What can I say? I lead an unadventurous life where I naively assume people only use bathrooms for releasing waste material, think a meal from a street vendor can be magical, and find the ruts in life a comforting sign that you are headed in the right direction.

In Need Of Therapy

It was the end of a long week. It seems silly to complain about this amazing job of mine. Tonight we asked people to call in and tell us about disgusting things they saw at work, and for a solid hour we just sat there while strangers grossed us out. I couldn't believe sitting in our beautiful glass cage that we get paid to do a that as a job. But as entertaining as it was, it is still a job at the end of the day. And at the end of the week, we are just as tired and ready to pack it in as the next person.

Chip Arndt was on the show tonight. He is just as strapping and tall and wonderful as ever. I just love his chiseled marble Connecticut Yankee persona mixed with Yale rugby team exuberance. He came to talk about the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They are doing a benefit tomorrow at Therapy which Romaine and I are attending, and on his way out he suggested I join him and his friends at Therapy tonight for a drink after the show. I skipped going to Pop Rocks last night with Jonathan because I was really sick to my stomach and not in the mood to be the oldest person in a bar, which I certainly would have been there. But I was feeling much improved tonight and even though it's going to be a rock party weekend of seemingly non-stop activities, I figured "why not kick it off a night early?"

I sent text messages to a slew of people. Roommate. Jonathan. The original Jonathan (why must all the gays have the same three names?). Hottie Zach. Cyd and Dan. And of course the ever elusive Ben Harvey, who went to visit his family in December and never seemed to come back. Come back to the five and dime, Ben Harvey, Ben Harvey! Last minute bar appeals are always hit and miss and last night proved to be no exception. Mike was stuck at work, Jonathan at a comedy show. Cyd and Dan who had been out, packed it in early. Missed communications led to missing Ben Harvey yet again. But the original Jonathan and hottie Zach both agreed to meet me out at Therapy with Chip and his friends. Unfortunately, moments after they both confirmed, Chip claimed old age and an early morning and skipped Therapy himself, thus ending the only reason I was going in the first place.

As it turns out, it was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with the original Jonathan. He moved to New York City two and a half years ago from Atlanta and I have only seen him sporadically since. My work schedule and hermit-like behavior coupled with his dating life have conspired to keep us apart. But after missing my housewarming BBQ and Thanksgiving, his holiday card was nothing less than a demand for an audience.

Likewise, Zach moved to the city this fall and while we have hung out a couple of times since then, it hasn't moved into what I would call a regular rhythm. The holidays really toss everyone into the air like ingredients in a Cobb Salad. People start out so orderly and geometrically aligned, but the one-two wintertime punch of Christmas and New Years leaves them swirled around and obscured by heavy dressing.

Despite both of them insisting that the gym is a distant memory, they both looked incredible as always. We chatted about work, and life and love. While I was in the bathroom, talk turned briefly to the world of professional ice skating, reminding me once again that I was in a gay bar after all. I had forgotten that the original Jonathan was an ice skater so now I know our next adventure will have to be a lunchtime skate in the new rink at Bryant Park on my new skates! We drank. We laughed. We cruised. It was a perfectly acceptable evening.

To kick off the night, I had a vodka with grapefruit juice. Earlier on the show during our gross out segment, a former bus cleaner told a story of finding a hooker stabbed to death in a tiny dirty bathroom on a Greyhound bus, just like the opening crawl of an episode of Law & Order. Reflecting back on the grisly scene on my way to the bar reminded me of my former favorite drink the greyhound and I endeavored to order one as soon as I arrived. But I only had one since after boarding the drunk train at 1:00am, I still needed to drive the rest of the way home.

However, being more sober at gay bars has caused me to be more keenly aware of the mating rituals of gay men. New Yorkers get a bum rap for not being friendly, which when you compare the chattiness to other gay bars in other parts of the country is reasonably true. However, once you start talking to a New Yorker, you will find that in general, they are very engaging and fun people. But breaking through that initial barrier is not easy at all. In NYC, I have started to notice that gay men do a lot of what I call proximity introduction. They want to talk to someone, but they don't want to make the first move, so they choose a position of close proximity, preferably in the eye line of the target and wait.

Sometimes, the guys just stand nearby very casual but expectantly, like they are waiting for an imaginary bus to arrive. Other times, they get very close in and wordlessly involve themselves in whatever is going on in the group near them. They smile at the jokes, nod their heads vigorously in agreement, and of course, make desperately welcoming eye contact. One guy last night during my breakdown of the differences between an Obama and a Hillary presidency, seemed as anxious to jump into the conversation as Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin Group. He would have been more effective if like the table of guys we sat next to two years ago at Therapy, he had suggested some kind of impromptu contest to see who was the best kisser, leading to a memorable roundelay of mono and other fond memories.

Coincidentally or not, we did manage to position ourselves quite near to someone that Jonathan knew, who as it turns out was with someone from the Gay American Heroes Foundation. They were both hot, hunky guys, the one from Florida wearing an unseasonable tank top with a word search puzzle on it. I have to say that is one of the best shirts I have ever seen for simultaneously attracting as well as evaluating the intelligence of other men. Maybe I should start wearing Jeopardy answers or the New York Times crossword on my person and see what happens.

Then Mike sent me a text message to join him on the 1:00am train and I wrapped up our short but enjoyable evening. Jonathan ran off to get a slice of pizza he will no doubt regret in the morning. Zach who lives closer to Grand Central than to Therapy decided to walk and talk with me. As we went along however, the military man in him began to worry about me missing my train. Nothing makes you feel better about yourself at one in the morning than trying to keep up with a 29 year old Air Force academy graduate in perfect shape while you are lugging another decade and a full backpack.

As we neared the station, the burden inside the backpack gave away before I did and one of the straps on my beloved, tired old PlanetOut backpack snapped. Instantly, it was the end of an era for me. I made my train with plenty of time to spare while Zach stood by sweating it out in his clingy wool sweater. But maybe the bag was a good warning for me. Running with a younger crowd has a lot of perks, but the risks of breaking are so high, it may not be worth it in the end.

Phoenix Rising

It is so hard for me sometimes to know what to write here. I try to at least mention my adventures out on the town. Being something of a hermit, going to a bar is as close to an event as my life has these days. Well, yesterday a deer wandered right up to the bay window in the front of the house and was giving a disapproving glance at my Christmas tree when I spotted her from the kitchen. I really felt for a moment like I was in a Douglas Sirk movie, and not just because light was coming in from every direction at once. But when I went to get my camera, Mike scared the poor animal away. This is what passes for excitement and high drama at my house, so you will understand why a trip to a grungy watering hole is what I choose to write about in my semi-annual blog.

I wonder if grungy is really the right word for the Phoenix, an alt-boy neighborhood bar in the East Village. Seedy doesn't seem appropriate because I never worry about losing my wallet. And it isn't disgusting like The Cock, which in its past location had a bathroom so filthy I preferred instead to urinate outside against a wrought iron fence. That dump really knew how to put the anus in tetanus. Now that the Cock is by some necessity in the Hole (that, as they say, fits), I haven't been there since it moved. I'll just wait for the Health Inspector's final report and a booster shot.

The director Richard Brooks told a great story about making "The Blackboard Jungle" at MGM and how he wanted it to be "gritty" so, for instance, he had them make the walls near the light switches dirty, like in a real life high school. But every night, the old craftsmen of MGM would dutifully paint everything back to a pristine white because that was the MGM way. Most Manhattan gay bars are sophisticated and pristine, like an old MGM movie as are the fussy young queens who go to them. But the Phoenix is gritty, yes that's the word I want, but in just the same manufactured way the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland is dangerous. There is graffiti on the bathroom walls, but it's all very clever and occasionally political or deeply thought. There is a gruff bear of a man in the basement, but he is polite and runs the coat check. So the gay boys can have their sense of life in an old fashioned road house, but still order a fancy mixed drink without getting punched in the face.

The Christmas holiday is right around the corner and that means everyone is escaping the island of Manhattan like it's Paris 1940 and the Nazis are about to march in. And in much the same way, the gays like to have one last drink before they fly off to fly over places where mind-numbing conversations will take place in living rooms crowded with knick knacks and oppressive memories, and the last gay person they will see for a week will be a weary flight attendant more interested in his own frosted tips than your safety in the air.

Mike had just said good bye to his mother, who visited us for a week instead of the other way around, and was certainly in the mood for a night of East Village boys, his favorite kind. I invited him along even though I had really invited myself along. Terry and Jonathan had hatched a plan to hang out there together, but since they hatched the plan on my own Facebook Wall, I felt no compunction about inviting myself and a few friends along as well. As it turns out, that was the right move, as a little rain earlier had caused Cinderella to meet her midnight a little earlier than planned and Terry bailed on the whole thing. That would have left Jonathan alone to hunt his neighborhood haunt, and we can't let that happen, can we? Not right before Christmas!

I invited Zach to come along who insisted he would stay away from the gin and tonic this time around. He brought along his very newly single friend Jon, who looked very familiar to us all, but mostly looked like Zach in five years. The conversation spun easily between the five of us into a roundelay, layering over and over again in its series of recurring themes (the pending election, gay life, 30 Rock, Britney, Manhattan), while past acquaintances of Jonathan's made blatant overtures for rematches that he oh so coyly moved to the txt realm or rebuffed entirely. Meanwhile, Mike was struck by Zach's powerful and rigid stoicism, more than a match for his own blank visage. Jon was bored, and I passed the time waiting to see who I would run into at the bar.

I don't know many people in New York City, and I infrequently go to the Phoenix. But it never fails that someone I know is in that bar! This time around it was Michael, Melissa's contortionist of a roommate, who had shaved his head and packed on easily thirty pounds of muscle. If I were living back in Los Angeles, I would assume that he got a part in a movie and had altered himself for a character role, but in New York, even though he might well be an actor preparing for his Broadway debut, it seemed more likely that he just was tired of the old Michael and decided to make a drastic change. Having worn the same hair style for twenty years now, it is a notion I don't easily understand.

In the end, it turns out that everything else with me was still exactly the same. Outside the coat check, a drunken Jonathan confronted me about my electric blue polo shirt. "I know why you wear blue all the time," he smiled as though revealing a surprising secret. But it was no secret to either of the blue-eyed people in the conversation, whose own vanity led them to the matching color. We got into a competition about the blueness of each other's eyes and I insisted on one-upping him by telling him that my eyes change color with the color around them. Then with great effect, I zipped up my pale grey jacket and Jonathan watched my blue eyes turn pale grey. "I hate you," he said as he turned on his heel and stumbled up the stairs.

It is true that I am often an enormously unlikeable person. I don't know why anyone listens to our radio show. I tell Romaine all the time that we are two of the most unlikeable people ever and then we just laugh about how silly it all is. Maybe people like us together because we are both so horrible that we deserve each other. Out in the real world, my terrible personality keeps my number of close friends conveniently small and my desire to leave the house even smaller. But as long as I have a blog to write and a radio show to do, I will continue to burn my way through modern gay life, rise from the ashes once more, and do it all again the next week.

After all, it is Winter, and we have to keep warm somehow.