On The Eve Of The Eve

Manhattan is a magical place. There is a reason they made a movie called “Miracle on 34^th Street” and, despite the miracle mile moniker, didn’t set it on Wilshire in Los Angeles. LA is where you go to wish for a miracle and Manhattan is where you go to actually experience them. Where LA’s streets are littered with parking fines and moving violations, I found actual cash, $120, on the sidewalk in New York. After several days in glamorous broken down Hollywood, I was ready for the full treatment in Manhattan and the little island delivered.

In honor of robust sales of my new book, I decided to splurge on a new espresso machine for the house. But now having fancy coffee, we needed something to serve it in. The night before Halloween, I was coming into town anyway for Henry and Dan’s party and to have dinner with Matt Kugelman. So I got there a little early and raced to the Crate and Barrel on 60^th. But no! It closed at 8pm, not 9pm like I thought. The security guard assured me that the location on 14^th street was still open, but I told him I had dinner plans and couldn’t possibly make it down there in time and I did come all the way from Westchester.

“Just this once.” He said as he let me, even though the store had closed moments earlier. A Manhattan miracle! $80 and five minutes later, I raced out of there with espresso cups and latte mugs galore, my joy in the city instantly reconfirmed. After dropping my packages in my car at the garage, I wandered down to meet Matt for a little Mexican food. We had a wonderful dinner and I tried to get him to come to the party but he had other people he needed to meet at Rockit at eleven. So since it was only ten, we split the baby and I joined him for a drink at Barrage to keep him company until his thing at 11pm. We parted and I hopped onto the subway uptown.

Henry and Dan threw an amazing New Year’s Eve party two years ago and I was anxious to attend another of their parties. At the time they had been living in an incredible building with views of the Hudson River but the invite for their Halloween Housewarming alerted me to the Central Park West location of their new digs.

I got off the subway and walked two blocks looking for the address. Along the way, I passed a castle with a large courtyard out front overlooking Central Park. “That can’t be it,” I thought to myself as I kept walking. “They can’t possibly live in a castle.” But of course they do. And the second floor ballroom in the turret? Not a day room for all the residents but instead, their elegantly appointed living room.

The party was insane. Filled with room after incredible room of hot hunks in hot costumes. The 1920s styling was intact throughout and the apartment wove its away around the entire floor of the building. I ran into Chris and Cub there, who like me, were not wearing costumes and I have never been so relieved to see two people in my life. In the elevator, I had ridden up with two guys who took one look at me and asked, “This is a costume party right?”

“Costumes were optional,” I told them, “Don’t worry. I didn’t dress up either."

They gave me a funny look. “I’m Rocky Balboa,” one of them said while the other donned sunglasses and assured me he was Donnie Brasco. Well, I wasn’t looking to make any new friends in the elevator anyway.

Also at the party, I ran into Ryan, who looked ready to be defiled in an ancient way in his toga while his friend Mike ran around dressed as a tight end, no doubt looking for someone to throw long and go deep with. Henry and Dan were busy hosting and having a fun time, although Henry kept herding people out of crowded nooks into less crowded ones after some real firemen showed up to inspect the size and density of the party crowd. “Into the library!” he called to me as Cub and I tried to leave the kitchen and return to Chris in the living room. I felt like a game piece on a Clue board.

The apartment made me feel bad about myself but in a laughable, nonsense way. My friends live in a castle! That’s ridiculous. No one lives in a castle. LA makes you feel like a failure all the time because nothing there is every good enough, young enough, shiny enough or new enough. But NYC is an impossible place filled with impossible things. On the news they said that the mayor was the richest man in New York City and I just thought, “How can that be? How can anyone be the richest anything here?” It’s all too much. The heights are so high in Manhattan that they are literally impossible to scale so no one has to feel bad that they didn’t make it. So while you can live in a castle, no one expects you to. Here in New York, you are a hero just for finding a decent one bedroom apartment for under $1500 a month. And there are small miracles inside latte mugs.

Life With(Out) Matty

Before the evening began, it had all the hallmarks of a night of a thousand gay stars. Every once in a while, the planets line up and all sorts of people who are difficult to wrangle suddenly start to coalesce. Even my roommate Mike, who hates going out in general, but even more hates going out to the kinds of places I end up in, agreed to go. And so it went, and within hours, a magical night took form. Tonight was the night and its ground zero looked like the cabanas at The Maritime.

I went to the cabanas last Friday with Matty and Hanno for Zoe's birthday party and expected the same crowd of narrow ties and wide smiles we experienced last time. But more importantly, I expected Matty and Hanno. After all, we had talked about it the night before at Rob and Erik's pretty boy bacchanal, and they had even dutifully RSVP'd on Facebook to Will Wikle's birthday invite. But as I left the show, I noticed they had changed their Facebook status to include a reference to the movie Doubt. Okay, I thought, so after a few hours of the luminous Meryl chewing scenery, they will make their grand entrance up the stairs.

After the show, I walked out with Romaine, passed The Amazing Race's Nick Spangler leaving The Fantasticks, and then headed on the 1 train down to Chelsea. Roommate was still at his office birthday party so I had some time to kill and joined Cyd and Dan for one of their last remaining nights at their tasteful sublet before they make the big move to Los Angeles later this month. They were cocktailing with a couple, both named Matt, which made it so much easier to remember both of their names, even after the white cranberry juice and vodka cocktail that Cyd made for me. Despite not having a solid penny to my name, I impressed them with my theoretical investment strategies. Must have been the alcohol. For all I really know about making money, I might as well have declared at the end that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Mike arrived at the cabanas so I gave Cyd and Dan a long quick hug good bye and headed a few blocks down to the Maritime. By now it was almost 11:30 and I expected a line. However, there was no one waiting outside and the coat check was a sea of empty hangers. This was a bad sign. Upstairs the party was small but the music was loud. I found Mike quickly, wearing a cute zip neck pullover and a tie. He looked like all the other cute, preppy gays at the party! I felt so alone in my v-neck Otter Fashion shirt, though I have created an empowering take on my outsider fashion lately where I imagine myself a misunderstood trendsetter who is just too far ahead on the curve for people to even see around it yet.

Suddenly, it seemed like I was surrounded by everyone I knew exclusively through Matty. First, it was Brian Babst who demanded my cell phone number. "I wanted to text you the other day," he started, but I finished his sentence for him with "but you realized you didn't have my number." He plugged every detail of my personal life into his Blackberry, even scheduling a time slot later this week to send me his fabulous new holiday card, which I have to say was a very sweet touch. I was flattered.

Then I ran into Young Bradford (and later Ben appeared to complete the Benford set), who was rocking lederhosen. I thought it was an homage to Hanno, but he yelled "Swiss Miss" over the music and after some coordinated Alpine dance moves, we left it at that. Moments later, an outrageously tall and old drag queen wandered into us, her ill-fitting wig a sneeze away from resting inside her champagne flute. "Elaine Stritch in drag!" I declared but Bradford shook his head. "No. No. That's definitely Melanie Griffith." As she neared even nearer, I said, "Hello Melanie" and she went off on me in a drunken rage, alternately sloshing her drink and tugging on her errant wig. "Have some of my roofie" she smiled as she poured some of her drink into my cocktail before trotting away, one broken heel in front of the other.

Ben Harvey was there, fresh from his trip to London, along with his kissing cousin Christian and Christian's main squeeze Jimmie. Dave Rubin was with them, his square-jawed sexiness firmly in place. I coaxed Mike against his will into being social and hanging out with them and it all went swimmingly. I was still expecting Matty, but when he finally texted me back, it was to say that he and the Austrian were cuddling back at his place. So, to show him what he was missing, I decided to run around the cabanas and take pictures with all the people there that he knew. After all, why should Michael Musto, as always lurking in the shadows of joy, have all the fun?

I dashed around the increasingly packed bar and implored strangers to snap my photo. There was Ryan Newman, so much more fun without his boyfriend. In my attempt to get a photo with birthday boy Will Wikle, I ran smack into that hot slice of man Matt Kugelman. There is something wrong with him because he gets better looking every time I see him. It's a problem. Will was busy twirling up a storm to Get Me Bodied followed IMMEDIATELY by Single Ladies, so I gave his sweaty hunched back a hug as he down pointed his way across the dance floor. As much fun as imagining him in a black leotard is, I can't miss my train and had to make a run for it. Though I did take a second at the top of the stairs to lead the just arrived hot gay comic Shawn Hollenbach in the general direction of Dave Rubin. Always happy to help a boy scout across the street!

It will be sad to think of Manhattan without Cyd and Dan in it, even though I can add them to the growing list of people I don't have time to see on my annual short weekends in Los Angeles. And I have seen so much of Matty this year, more than I have seen him in all the years I have lived here, that I suppose having a single night off won't kill me. True, not having the friends you love around you is hard sometimes. But as the windows steamed up inside the cabanas and the $12 cocktails flowed, the party continues anyway, and we can all still have a good time.

The Conor Role

Though merely a bright Cheshire cat smile of a crescent, the moon was huge tonight, looming over me as I drove up the big hill to my house. It was Cosmo's moon from Moonstruck and suddenly I was reminded that love doesn't make things perfect. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. I have been trying not to think about love much these days (largely to no avail), but it was contaminating everything tonight at Manhattan's yearly high school gay mono makeout party known locally as Revel.

Revel is an annual charity event to raise money to help gay youth, which is attended by all the hottest and sexiest twenty and thirty-somethings in town. It is all a very worthy cause and a noble idea, just covered in two scoops of vanilla ice cream, a gooey layer of chocolate fudge, a sprinkling of crushed walnuts and topped with whipped cream. Though it is one sundae of a party for which the cherry is a distant memory for those in attendance.

This is one of the few gay musts that I do, and a rare chance for me to hobnob with the homos that I otherwise shun (before they have the chance to shun me, natch). Aside from dropping by Bowery Bar's notorious outdoor patio on the first warm Spring Tuesday of the year and the last balmy Autumn one before winter's chill forces everyone who is anyone to landlock above 14th street until the thaw, Revel is about it when it comes to gay caucus meetings where my vote is annually cast.

I had wanted Hottie Zach and Ronnie to attend, to aid in their quest to get connected in the gay social scene for which Revel is practically a wall socket, but they weren't there tonight. My neighbor Clayton did join me, however, and it was nice to have someone to pal around with. I had fully expected to see Matty, but I suppose I can deduce from his Facebook Mobile uploads that he was watching Survivor tonight with Charlie and couldn't make it. It is likely for the best since my favorite of his exes was there: Conor McGill

Much has been written in my blog about Conor already and you can expect plenty more where that came from. He looked adorable in a tiny bowtie with skulls and crossbones on it (solidarity for Somali pirates?). Conor assured me that it took him hours to get the tie right, after learning to do it on YouTube, and I think it was time well spent. I love Conor and I know between Ben Harvey and Matty, I am woefully in the minority on this one. But once again, I was charmed by his puppy dog eyes, magnetic silver sneakers and a drink in each hand. What can I say? I know what I like and I know everything will stay perfect between us as long as I only see him every few months and things never go further than a polite kiss on the cheek.

Conor was there with his friend Michael, a securities lawyer who didn't like that I wasn't saying much nor that I only work about four hours every day since he works almost twenty. "Just think of it this way," I told him, in a classic flirtation on my part that shows why no one ever wants to date me, "anytime you aren't working, I am!" In between kissing other guys, he drunkenly cajoled me into asking him out on a date. He must be a very good lawyer since it was all over before I even knew what was happening, and he billed me for the whole hour even though it only took about five minutes.

Bobby was there with some co-workers and his insanely hot friend Chris from San Francisco. Chris' adorable argyle print shirt was so tight on his taut frame it looked like it had been ironed onto his perfect torso by angels. Chris was drunk and grabby, which is always hot, but then he was drunk and grabby with everyone (including separately Clayton), which makes it less personally satisfying. But he is insanely hot, so naturally I am willing to let untold amounts of untoward behavior slide.

Ryan Newman was there with his friend Mike, whom I have met a dozen times and am always greeted by with the same granite expression of persistent annoyance. Ryan looked cute with his new short hair cut, according to him a much needed return to form. I think he looks good either way, but he didn't stay long enough to talk about more than his hair. Ryan and Mike were encircled by a cadre of all the people I saw at that Halloween party and election night and countless other times, but who all stare right through me uncomfortably as if I am a peasant child begging with Chiclets in hand in the midst of their otherwise fabulous Mexican vacation.

It was all for the best. At a certain point, the Madonna mashups and the makeouts and the mos were starting to get to me. There is only so much "A" gay someone from the suburbs can take before dinner moves up into their esophagus. When the others headed to the official after party at Mr. Black's or each other's apartments for awkward groping and dark fumblings, Clayton and I grabbed our coats and headed out into the night, on our way back to the middle of obscurity.

The forecast is for snow tomorrow. I really hope it doesn't. But as I looked down at the temperature reading in the car on my way home, it said 26 degrees. Smells like snow. I looked back up at the moon and saw the old Cheshire cat smiling back down at me. Beaming really. Winter is here, he smiled. And you can get as big as you want by telling people "eat me" but you are still in Wonderland no matter how much you try to leave it.

Unwanted Attention

"This would be a great place for a party." I said in the Rouge Room in the basement of Paris Commune, a chic eatery in lower Manhattan. It would have been a bold suggestion if we weren't already there attending someone else's party. A self-centered asshole like me takes the unspoken "for me" at the end of every statement like that as a given but to casual listeners like Ben Harvey and Navy Man Joe it just came off as a little daft. Sadly, when it comes to words, I work in a volume business and that means the finer points get lost in the rush, which is something of a problem.

Things started out well enough at Rocking Horse, a cozy restaurant in Chelsea where Matty and I finally were able to corner Ronnie and plot his future. I am, by nature, a meddlesome and nosy person, which drives Roommate to distraction as I dissect the personal lives of our neighbors while driving down the street with comments like "I wish Jennifer would sell that house of hers" and "I love her yard. She can't possibly hold down a job and spend so much time landscaping." Matty, as I have often posted, is the most connected person I know. Working in tandem we are like Wonder Twins, swooping down into the lives of the unsuspecting and molding their future like so much modeling clay. In Ronnie, we see a modern day Galatea, already armed with ambition, just waiting to be thrust in the right direction.

Ronnie swilled coffee like an overnight truck driver, worn out from his long and productive weekend in DC with the NGLCC, joining us for dinner direct from the airport, overnight bag in hand. Matty's handsome boyfriend Hanno and Ben Harvey rounded out our fivesome and we had a great time over margaritas and barely recognizable "Mexican" food. "What did you order?" asked Matty, gazing down at what appeared to be a very unappetizing pile of diarrhea in front of me. It was what turned out to be a very delicious hunk of pork on a bed of mashed plantains, but I must confess it did look suspiciously like something a plumber would pull out of a clogged drain.

After dinner, Ronnie raced home to his bed for what I assume was 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and Matty piped us down to the West Village for the birthday party of a friend whose name I instantly forgot. The friend was very sweet and fun, and all of his gay friends were pretty and diverse, like the Justice Department forcing A&F to acquire the United Colors of Benetton. Since they hadn't finished eating at the long Captain's table in the basement wine bar, we settled into polite conversation at a quiet table in the corner, and not so long after was joined by Joe, last seen stumbling home from Halloween.

In a self-referential move that would make Charlie Kaufman proud, talk quickly turned to this blog and the damage it has wrought since I started it almost two years ago. "Every time you write in your blog, someone gets hurt!" Matty chided me, not amused that his name and "ass eating" ended up in the same sentence last time, even though Bradford's blog is the first Google search result that comes up when you type them in together (should any weirdo ever want to make such a search). Joe was perfectly happy with his entry and his friends, upon discovering it, expressed their joy at sudden blog infamy, but Matty is right. My blog, despite my intentions to only portray things the way I see them and paint myself in a worse light than anyone else, often backfires. I have inadvertently outed people that I assumed were out and no doubt have made untold enemies along the way. I wouldn't have written about election night at all except that Hanno mentioned that night that his friends back in Osterreich liked the first entry he was in. Apparently, it is true that no good deed goes unpunished, or in this case, misinterpreted.

After a round of intense picture taking, Matty and Hanno headed home, and Ben and I left as well with every intention (emphasis added) to head straight home ourselves. We left Joe behind with a full glass of wine, and half-empty birthday party as well as charge over Matty's forgotten umbrella. Walking up eighth avenue, Ben suddenly got a text from Martin, whom he had forgotten he told to join us at Paris Commune. Martin said he was on his way there and in a moment of guilty panic we both decided not to snub Martin and meet him for a quick single drink at Barracuda. Immediately we thought we should invite Joe since we so hastily retreated from the last party but neither of us had his number. A modern gay Kobayashi Maru if ever there was one.

Barracuda smelled like the quite literal bowels of Hell but it was packed to the rafters anyway. Adorable Ryan Newman was there, showing off his sensational new short haircut. I wanted to go catch up with him, but while waiting for Martin to arrive, Ben mistakenly made casual eye contact with a deranged stranger in a houndstooth jacket. For the rest of my time there, we actively pivoted away from him only to have him counter our every move. Check. Check. Check. Then after Martin joined us and headed up to the bar to get a drink, it was Checkmate when he cornered Martin who was waiting helplessly for his cocktail. That was the end of the line for me. I had only stayed long enough to protect Ben from the clutches of this dubious letch, having failed at that, the drunk train awaited.

There is so much left unsaid out of an evening on the town. I leave many of the best scraps on the floor and sweep them out of my memory because I like my friends and I don't want to engender even more resentment. I am already someone that can be difficult to like and as Curtis once observed, "Sometimes when Derek is talking, it seems like he has no idea who he is talking to." In the case of this blog, the only person I am really talking to is myself. True, other people are able to listen, and I try to be mindful of that. But life is what it is. Sometimes it isn't pretty. And when you only have a few paragraphs to work with, you can see clearly that the Reader's Digest version of my life strips a lot of cartilage off the bone. And that can lead to some very painful moments as we move through everyday life.