(This is an unfinished blog entry. Explanation at the end. But, as fate would have it, I was about to write about my adventures tonight inside an existing document I write in on my laptop before I post it all online and I didn't think I had put it up. Turns out that I hadn't. And it seemed too good to me to just throw away, even if it is half-thought, unedited, and incomplete. See what you think.)
Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:31am
Sure, I had heard of gay billionaires before. After all, I used to live in Los Angeles. There were always stories of someone or other throwing an amazing party with hot guys twirling around a swimming pool in the highest altitudes of the “swish alps,” the gentle mountain range that separates West Hollywood from the dreaded Valley. I was even invited to one such party in the late 1990s and sure enough boys in tiny bathing suits danced around a kidney pool, swilling cocktails and enjoying the largesse of an unseen benefactor. I am pretty sure a certain MTV personality dragged a friend of mine into the bathroom with him, did an enormous amount of coke next to the sink and then whisked him off to a wild night out in Hollywood which ended with them getting thrown out of the after-hours party at the Coconut Teaser on Sunset for sneaking in a beer. I thought I had left such shenanigans behind on the left coast. But then I was invited to a party in the sky in the apartment of a gay billionaire in Manhattan and my life was changed forever.
At the risk of lobbing another cannon shot into the battle of class warfare in America, I will just say this: rich people live better than you. Much, much better. Years ago in the Egyptian Theatre at the OutFest premiere of “Get Bruce” the terrific documentary on Bruce Vilanch, a much vaunted and moneyed Hollywood figure with an equal love of hot young men and plastic surgery occupied the row right behind me. He had not one but two insanely beautiful men with him, flanking him on either side, one of them infused with such fragile, farm-fresh dewiness that I wanted to slip him a bus ticket back to Kansas before it was all too late and the L.A. machine consumed him. Maybe I was fueled by jealousy or the inherent wastefulness of having two whores when clearly one would have been more then sufficient.
But as reclusive billionaire John Hurt assured us in “Contact,” why have one when you can have two at twice the price? I suppose at a certain point, “money is no object” isn’t just a casual expression it represents an actual mental omission. Price tags and receipts fall into a gentle grey area of the wealthy brain inaccessible at all times, rendering them a financial amensiac with no interest in remembering what reality is for other people. And thus the billionaire journeys through life unfettered by what things cost, buying jets in every color they come in. Laughing annoyingly, as Louise Brooks once wrote of her own mother, like one with a happily corrected blind spot.
This is conjecture on my part. I don’t know what kind of lives billionaires really have. After all, I live like a squatter in an abandoned downtown warehouse. If it wasn’t for my roommate Mike’s constant stares of blank disapproval, I would devolve into full-tilt Grey Gardens in a matter of hours. From the outside looking in (like Stella Dallas longing for a life filled with problems never to be had) there seem to be two kinds of billionaires. I suppose if you are someone like, say, Oprah, who grew up desperately poor with an outhouse and earned your billions the hard way, you know where every penny is at all times. But if you invest Daddy’s money and it hits like the lottery, you may not have the same sense about dollars and cents that someone else might have.
The billionaire apartment I went to seemed to fall more in the category of the latter. Famous works of art abounded askew from a thousand drunken love taps from the partygoers, a tiny Cartier clock sat helpless and unprotected in a shelf in the guest bathroom. The library was filled with boxes of the same book, no doubt a favorite, soon-to-be thoughtful gift to everyone from the doorman to a liked, though not well-liked uncle. The paroramic views from every window, including the bathroom, seemed merely to be a natural extension of the already lavish embarassment of riches strewn careful amount the penthouse.
It was pride weekend. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Naturally, I was at the IMAX Theater near Lincoln Center watching the Transformers sequel with my friend Clayton. I knew that my other friend Clay was in town for the weekend, in from Texas, and Jeff and Bond had driven down from Boston. That’s the nice thing about pride weekend. Everyone is there. The only real question is where to go to party. Plenty of people have parties but you want to go to THE party. I only know a handful of important and/or connected people so for me, this time of year is a delicate dance.
Clay told me that he had been invited to a party on the East side, in the Bloomberg building. The sexy party promoter Michael Warner had invited him and he offered that Clayton and I could join him on the list. Once I heard that Warner was working that party, I knew that Jeff and Bond would be there too. And I suspected some of the rest of my usual NYC people would be there too, like Matty Kelleher.
(This is the end of the unfinished entry, and there it stayed forgotten for nearly six months, although I explained why it was unfinished in an entry titled "The End" back in August, which includes more details about the party for the deeply curious.)
Showing posts with label Michael Bond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Bond. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Maritime Of My Life
Getting a bunch of gays together in one place is no easy task. The expression “herding kittens” comes to mind. As our major LGBT lobbying organizations long ago learned, our community is no monolith and it is never more evident than on a Friday night when competing personalities have different ideas of what makes a fun night out on the town.
Michael Bond is visiting this weekend from Boston. He started assaulting my Facebook Wall more than a week ago with demands for an audience and the opportunity to play a little “Gay Chicken.” Bond is adorable, as everyone knows, so a quick Friday night make out session never seems like a bad idea. Unfortunately, Bond has a terrible habit of coming to town, getting blind drunk and then becoming very difficult to pin down (in both location and at the shoulders up against a wall). I knew that if I wanted to win at Gay Chicken, it was going to take a little extra effort on my part.
Several weeks ago, Matty and I were at a party (you remember, the one with the awful furniture and good art) and while we were in the ad hoc coat check area in the hall outside a cute gay approached us and invited Matty (and by default, me) to his birthday party on the 13th. So I knew there was a party somewhere, but that was all I knew. Earlier this week when I grilled Matty about it, he remembered the encounter but not whose party it was. Then Thursday night, out at Matty’s Park party, Joe let me know that it was Micah, who I was so hostile to some weeks ago at The Ritz. Fortunately, on our second encounter, he was too drunk at both to connect the dots. This small mercy is what keeps me afloat in Manhattan gay social circles.
As my show wound down on Friday night, Roommate texted me and let me know he was hanging out around the corner at Barrage, our original Manhattan staple when I lived on 42nd Street back at the beginning of my NYC adventures at the start of the century. I tried to convince him to go down to Chelsea, or worse, south of Houston for Micah’s party, but he was adamant. After going to bed at 5:30am the night before and working all day, he was only in the mood for a quick beer and then an express train to slumberland. I headed down to Barrage to try to convince him in person, while texting with Bond to see where he was. Bond planned to join Michael Warner’s bar crawl and in the interim was pre-cocktailing at a friend’s apartment in the heart of Chelsea.
To no one’s surprise, Roommate finished his Blue Moon and headed for the 11:10pm train. I hopped on the E Train, bound for Chelsea, while Matty texted me from Micah’s party way downtown wondering where I was and when we were coming. Still hopeful that I could pull Bond out of the pending bar crawl, I joined him at his friend’s tastefully standard Chelsea apartment for a surprisingly delicious vodka cranberry. There was some smooching, some hand-holding, and at one point, he even licked my face. “Should I have one more? I don’t want to get too drunk.” He asked as I wiped the saliva off my face. I told him to have two. He was already over the line, what difference did it make if he had two or two hundred?
More gays arrived at the apartment and all of them looked like they were churned out of the Play-Doh Chelsea Boy Maker by Hasbro! All trim plaid shirts, smooth haircuts and zero body fat. Apparently we each took a jump on the super accurate scale in the bathroom, though I was the only one there with the shock of recognition on his face when he came out moments later. After a group photo destined for Facebook glory, we all decamped around the corner to Ate Ave (which I think used to be Food Bar). Michael Warner was climbing into a modified luxury SUV, on his way to Splash, which as usual, only sounded appealing to Bond and the other gays visiting from Boston. Inside, I ran into HX photog Jeff Eason, Ben Andrews in full porn star mode (razored haircut and no Clark Kent glasses), and Amanda Lepore, more and more a Japanese robot fuck doll every day.
While still debating a trip much further downtown than I ever like going, I got a single word text from Matty: Maritime. Glory be! A bar around the corner. I tried once again to convince Bond to join me and Matty at Maritime but now his drunken heart was set on Splash. We made our way through the chaotic mess at Ate Ave and made our sloppy good byes outside. Moments later, I was in the familiar throes of Maritime with Matty, Joe and our returning champion Andrew. I discovered that part of the secret to Andrew’s insanely narrow physique was his recent adventures in marathons and, slightly more to my liking, half marathons. “What are you running to or from?” I queried to Joe’s delight and no answer from Andrew. He was in a contemplative mood, but as it turns out, not very self-reflective.
My time at Maritime was terribly short. Too short. But I did have to commend myself on a job well done. It isn’t easy seeing three different people in four different locations in only three hours. And even though it was a week of pure junk food (chicken fingers at Moonstruck, the most amazing onion rings at NY Burger Co., Valentine’s Day cupcakes, a package of Twizzlers, Michael Bond), I rewarded myself at Grand Central with a hot dog smothered in sauerkraut and mustard. And on my walk to the train, I hung my own “Mission Accomplished” banner over my head. True, I wasn’t able to bring everyone together, but I did get a little piece of each of them, and that made my evening complete.
Michael Bond is visiting this weekend from Boston. He started assaulting my Facebook Wall more than a week ago with demands for an audience and the opportunity to play a little “Gay Chicken.” Bond is adorable, as everyone knows, so a quick Friday night make out session never seems like a bad idea. Unfortunately, Bond has a terrible habit of coming to town, getting blind drunk and then becoming very difficult to pin down (in both location and at the shoulders up against a wall). I knew that if I wanted to win at Gay Chicken, it was going to take a little extra effort on my part.
Several weeks ago, Matty and I were at a party (you remember, the one with the awful furniture and good art) and while we were in the ad hoc coat check area in the hall outside a cute gay approached us and invited Matty (and by default, me) to his birthday party on the 13th. So I knew there was a party somewhere, but that was all I knew. Earlier this week when I grilled Matty about it, he remembered the encounter but not whose party it was. Then Thursday night, out at Matty’s Park party, Joe let me know that it was Micah, who I was so hostile to some weeks ago at The Ritz. Fortunately, on our second encounter, he was too drunk at both to connect the dots. This small mercy is what keeps me afloat in Manhattan gay social circles.
As my show wound down on Friday night, Roommate texted me and let me know he was hanging out around the corner at Barrage, our original Manhattan staple when I lived on 42nd Street back at the beginning of my NYC adventures at the start of the century. I tried to convince him to go down to Chelsea, or worse, south of Houston for Micah’s party, but he was adamant. After going to bed at 5:30am the night before and working all day, he was only in the mood for a quick beer and then an express train to slumberland. I headed down to Barrage to try to convince him in person, while texting with Bond to see where he was. Bond planned to join Michael Warner’s bar crawl and in the interim was pre-cocktailing at a friend’s apartment in the heart of Chelsea.
To no one’s surprise, Roommate finished his Blue Moon and headed for the 11:10pm train. I hopped on the E Train, bound for Chelsea, while Matty texted me from Micah’s party way downtown wondering where I was and when we were coming. Still hopeful that I could pull Bond out of the pending bar crawl, I joined him at his friend’s tastefully standard Chelsea apartment for a surprisingly delicious vodka cranberry. There was some smooching, some hand-holding, and at one point, he even licked my face. “Should I have one more? I don’t want to get too drunk.” He asked as I wiped the saliva off my face. I told him to have two. He was already over the line, what difference did it make if he had two or two hundred?
More gays arrived at the apartment and all of them looked like they were churned out of the Play-Doh Chelsea Boy Maker by Hasbro! All trim plaid shirts, smooth haircuts and zero body fat. Apparently we each took a jump on the super accurate scale in the bathroom, though I was the only one there with the shock of recognition on his face when he came out moments later. After a group photo destined for Facebook glory, we all decamped around the corner to Ate Ave (which I think used to be Food Bar). Michael Warner was climbing into a modified luxury SUV, on his way to Splash, which as usual, only sounded appealing to Bond and the other gays visiting from Boston. Inside, I ran into HX photog Jeff Eason, Ben Andrews in full porn star mode (razored haircut and no Clark Kent glasses), and Amanda Lepore, more and more a Japanese robot fuck doll every day.
While still debating a trip much further downtown than I ever like going, I got a single word text from Matty: Maritime. Glory be! A bar around the corner. I tried once again to convince Bond to join me and Matty at Maritime but now his drunken heart was set on Splash. We made our way through the chaotic mess at Ate Ave and made our sloppy good byes outside. Moments later, I was in the familiar throes of Maritime with Matty, Joe and our returning champion Andrew. I discovered that part of the secret to Andrew’s insanely narrow physique was his recent adventures in marathons and, slightly more to my liking, half marathons. “What are you running to or from?” I queried to Joe’s delight and no answer from Andrew. He was in a contemplative mood, but as it turns out, not very self-reflective.
My time at Maritime was terribly short. Too short. But I did have to commend myself on a job well done. It isn’t easy seeing three different people in four different locations in only three hours. And even though it was a week of pure junk food (chicken fingers at Moonstruck, the most amazing onion rings at NY Burger Co., Valentine’s Day cupcakes, a package of Twizzlers, Michael Bond), I rewarded myself at Grand Central with a hot dog smothered in sauerkraut and mustard. And on my walk to the train, I hung my own “Mission Accomplished” banner over my head. True, I wasn’t able to bring everyone together, but I did get a little piece of each of them, and that made my evening complete.
Friday, October 10, 2008
My Vynl Offer
I am so tired of having the same conversation over and over with my friends. Tonight after the show, I soldiered down to local eatery Vynl to swill a few cocktails with Hottie Zach and flirt pointlessly with sexy bartender Aaron. It had all the makings of a perfect evening, combining three of my favorite activities. But as it always does lately, talked turned to the infamous J.
Zach is not just cream cheese pretty on the outside, his soft gooey center is equally hot and delicious. I would just have much preferred discussing his impending trip to Morocco (a long held fantasy of mine) or the carelessly hunky demeanor of Aaron (a decidedly briefer though no less intense fantasy) than the dead ended runaway mine car ride that was my association with J. But like all of my well-meaning NY friends, he is anxious for me to move, not just on, but up. It is a desire I do not share.
Perhaps I am just totally and completely out of my mind. This is a distinct possibility. But after twenty years of dating, and meeting quite literally tens of thousands of gay men on numerous continents, finally last November, I found someone that I felt such an intense connection with that I was willing to cast aside all preconceived notions, emotional insecurities and boundaries. For almost a year, I have unpeeled like an onion, growing more nakedly raw and smaller by the day, until now there is nothing left but the involuntary tears such a task is bound to draw. And to what end? The umpteenth conversation about how important it is to move on?
I am not a very good driver, dresser or investor, but my instincts about people are uncanny. And in my life, I have done very well letting the natural flow of things guide me to my next destination. With only minor hiccups here and there, I have alighted from an obscure trailer in rural Virginia to a national radio show in New York City with as thin a resume as Sarah Palin and a mere fraction of her ambition. Never have I been so wrong about a person as I have been with J. Never. And in my heart, I still refuse to believe I was wrong. And yet there is no denying the sorry state of affairs now.
Flirting with Aaron felt good. I can see now why people with no self esteem sleep around a lot, and always desperate to bed the hottest person they can. I have never been that guy and I haven't turned into him now. True I was always quite anxious in my twenties to have a boyfriend and live the settled down dream but more recently I realized what a hollow ambition that was. Then I met J and the echo flushed out, and I filled instead with the rush of promise. It feels like love, truly for the first time, but maybe it's just a midlife crisis. I never really felt a powerful love before but then again I've never had a midlife crisis before either. Maybe I just don't know the difference.
As I walked up the hill tonight to my house, the sky was a sea of stars. It was so magnificent and each time when I look up past my roof and the trees to the twinkling night, I am filled with awe that I own a small piece of this magic. I scanned the sky anxious to find my Friendly Star, but such things don't exist. I see the magic all around me but I feel now like a fool. Someone who believed in the reality of a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sea, only to have the harsh fluorescents of life clicked on suddenly revealing the sad flimsy truth. What is there to move on and up to, now that I have seen the magician's secrets revealed? What does it matter now that the lights are all on and everyone has gone home?
This weekend Jeff and Bond are coming up from Boston. More harmless flirting. And Sunday, Howard is taking me and his cadre of hot porn boys to the Hustlaball. Certainly one of them will be sexually satisfying, though more likely I will flirt around a while like I did with Aaron tonight and then lose interest in the pointlessness of it all. It is all so empty, like the vast hunger you feel hours after you finish a huge meal. So much greater and more painful a hunger than if you had never gorged at all.
Zach is not just cream cheese pretty on the outside, his soft gooey center is equally hot and delicious. I would just have much preferred discussing his impending trip to Morocco (a long held fantasy of mine) or the carelessly hunky demeanor of Aaron (a decidedly briefer though no less intense fantasy) than the dead ended runaway mine car ride that was my association with J. But like all of my well-meaning NY friends, he is anxious for me to move, not just on, but up. It is a desire I do not share.
Perhaps I am just totally and completely out of my mind. This is a distinct possibility. But after twenty years of dating, and meeting quite literally tens of thousands of gay men on numerous continents, finally last November, I found someone that I felt such an intense connection with that I was willing to cast aside all preconceived notions, emotional insecurities and boundaries. For almost a year, I have unpeeled like an onion, growing more nakedly raw and smaller by the day, until now there is nothing left but the involuntary tears such a task is bound to draw. And to what end? The umpteenth conversation about how important it is to move on?
I am not a very good driver, dresser or investor, but my instincts about people are uncanny. And in my life, I have done very well letting the natural flow of things guide me to my next destination. With only minor hiccups here and there, I have alighted from an obscure trailer in rural Virginia to a national radio show in New York City with as thin a resume as Sarah Palin and a mere fraction of her ambition. Never have I been so wrong about a person as I have been with J. Never. And in my heart, I still refuse to believe I was wrong. And yet there is no denying the sorry state of affairs now.
Flirting with Aaron felt good. I can see now why people with no self esteem sleep around a lot, and always desperate to bed the hottest person they can. I have never been that guy and I haven't turned into him now. True I was always quite anxious in my twenties to have a boyfriend and live the settled down dream but more recently I realized what a hollow ambition that was. Then I met J and the echo flushed out, and I filled instead with the rush of promise. It feels like love, truly for the first time, but maybe it's just a midlife crisis. I never really felt a powerful love before but then again I've never had a midlife crisis before either. Maybe I just don't know the difference.
As I walked up the hill tonight to my house, the sky was a sea of stars. It was so magnificent and each time when I look up past my roof and the trees to the twinkling night, I am filled with awe that I own a small piece of this magic. I scanned the sky anxious to find my Friendly Star, but such things don't exist. I see the magic all around me but I feel now like a fool. Someone who believed in the reality of a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sea, only to have the harsh fluorescents of life clicked on suddenly revealing the sad flimsy truth. What is there to move on and up to, now that I have seen the magician's secrets revealed? What does it matter now that the lights are all on and everyone has gone home?
This weekend Jeff and Bond are coming up from Boston. More harmless flirting. And Sunday, Howard is taking me and his cadre of hot porn boys to the Hustlaball. Certainly one of them will be sexually satisfying, though more likely I will flirt around a while like I did with Aaron tonight and then lose interest in the pointlessness of it all. It is all so empty, like the vast hunger you feel hours after you finish a huge meal. So much greater and more painful a hunger than if you had never gorged at all.
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