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.
Showing posts with label Shawn Hollenback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shawn Hollenback. Show all posts
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Transitions
New York City is in a constant state of flux. O Henry once aptly predicted that “It will be a great place if they ever finish it.” Living here, it is the kind of thing you get used to. Buildings get torn down. People move away. Even the seasons, when they end, do so with such a brutal finality it borders on intolerable cruelty. The most frequent NYC transition involves a change of address. Even though it seems like a lease (like any bad relationship) will never end, eventually it does and people move up, on, down, or out. Ben Harvey decided to use his last weekend in his old Chelsea apartment to celebrate the end of an era for himself and, since it was Dave Rubin’s birthday yesterday, the end of a year for Dave as well.
Ben’s apartment was a cozy L-shaped studio in a modern building with modern furnishings. It is the kind of apartment tower that has flourished in the city over the past decade like dandelions, at once adorable and annoyingly ubiquitous. Since he is moments from moving out, the place is pretty cleaned out, save for a few leftover pieces of furniture and (thanks largely to the guests) a refrigerator chock full of liquor. It felt like the endless parade of hot twenty-somethings all arrived carrying a bottle of vodka with them. Maybe they do that so that their bicep is flexed and huge as they walk through the door, or maybe they are just being thoughtful guests. Worried about neither the size of my upper arms or being nice, I came empty-handed.
Some of the usual suspects were there (like Jonathan and Ben’s rascally cousin Christian), but mostly it was filled with people I don’t know. This is my least favorite kind of party since I hate meeting new people. However, one of the first people I met was the delightful Anne (aka Lesbi-Anne), a stand-up comedian with surprisingly nice taste in clothes for a comic and/or lesbian. Ben’s friend Zach, anxious for a blog mention apparently, was also there, and much calmer than my first encounter with him at Ben’s new apartment three months ago. Unfortunately, he was so calm, nothing much happened between us and I have nothing really to say about him other than he was there and he was tall.
My friend Clay joined the party too. He came in town for pride weekend and was instantly dejected by the fashion at the party. The locals were all dressed in various shades of blue, Manhattan’s summer version of basic black. Upbeat and chipper in a bright green shirt, Clay stuck out in a good way in a sea of drab. “What is wrong with everyone? It’s Spring!” he declared, less than a week into Summer. But point taken. New York gays love a man in uniform, even if the uniform is expensive denim jeans and a blue, grey or black t-shirt.
Bucking the drab shirt trend was new arrival Steven, in town from Kansas City, where everything’s up to date. Steven was visiting his friend Marty and joined in the fun in Ben’s apartment, in a clingy white t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Fortunately gay men don’t like to use their imaginations, so he was a big hit. For me, the big excitement was finally meeting the notorious Shawn Hollenbach. I have never met him in person, but his photo has haunted me from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and beyond. We probably have the most friends in common of two people who had, before tonight, never met. It this regard, the party felt like mission accomplished.
The party moved from inside Ben’s apartment to the roof deck and back, as guests refilled their glasses and then returned to the breathtaking view and perfectly cool summer night. The south view off the roof was really something to see, and there is just something great about the canyons of high rises in Manhattan. They are majestic from every angle, though nothing beats the view from on high. Eventually, building security (as Ben had predicted they would) kicked everyone out of the roof deck and the drunks poured back into the apartment like wet cement, chunky slow and in fear of drying out too quickly. A bunch of us settled onto the couch for a series of photos I am certain to never see again, outside of a tagging frenzy on Facebook. This is fine since I generally hate all photos of myself, so I am happy to see the vast majority of them vanish into thin air.
As always happens, the drunk train was calling so I had to dash while everything was still in full swing. Clay offered for me to stay with him at the W since they upgraded him to a massive suite. “Who needs three walk in closets in a hotel room?” he asked from inside an apartment roughly the size of three walk in closets. Maybe tomorrow night, Clay. Christian, who wasn’t wearing any underwear (no surprise) and kept showing off his tramp stamp tattoo, which looked something like a folded out Rubik’s cube if you made one with origami, also offered me to stay with him. “You don’t mind cats do you?” That wasn’t the pussy I had in mind, so I figured I best stick with the train.
On the walk to Grand Central, I spied another New York landmark. It is almost impossible not to see at least one of them and I purposefully walked up Fifth Avenue just to catch a glimpse. And suddenly there it was, the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York City: the Empire State Building. The lights were off because it was after midnight, with just a UFO-like ring of lights around the top of the tower, but even in the dark, it is as beautiful as ever. The city around it can change all that it wants, but that building always stays the same. Elegant and cool, it is living proof in the heart of Manhattan that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Ben’s apartment was a cozy L-shaped studio in a modern building with modern furnishings. It is the kind of apartment tower that has flourished in the city over the past decade like dandelions, at once adorable and annoyingly ubiquitous. Since he is moments from moving out, the place is pretty cleaned out, save for a few leftover pieces of furniture and (thanks largely to the guests) a refrigerator chock full of liquor. It felt like the endless parade of hot twenty-somethings all arrived carrying a bottle of vodka with them. Maybe they do that so that their bicep is flexed and huge as they walk through the door, or maybe they are just being thoughtful guests. Worried about neither the size of my upper arms or being nice, I came empty-handed.
Some of the usual suspects were there (like Jonathan and Ben’s rascally cousin Christian), but mostly it was filled with people I don’t know. This is my least favorite kind of party since I hate meeting new people. However, one of the first people I met was the delightful Anne (aka Lesbi-Anne), a stand-up comedian with surprisingly nice taste in clothes for a comic and/or lesbian. Ben’s friend Zach, anxious for a blog mention apparently, was also there, and much calmer than my first encounter with him at Ben’s new apartment three months ago. Unfortunately, he was so calm, nothing much happened between us and I have nothing really to say about him other than he was there and he was tall.
My friend Clay joined the party too. He came in town for pride weekend and was instantly dejected by the fashion at the party. The locals were all dressed in various shades of blue, Manhattan’s summer version of basic black. Upbeat and chipper in a bright green shirt, Clay stuck out in a good way in a sea of drab. “What is wrong with everyone? It’s Spring!” he declared, less than a week into Summer. But point taken. New York gays love a man in uniform, even if the uniform is expensive denim jeans and a blue, grey or black t-shirt.
Bucking the drab shirt trend was new arrival Steven, in town from Kansas City, where everything’s up to date. Steven was visiting his friend Marty and joined in the fun in Ben’s apartment, in a clingy white t-shirt that left little to the imagination. Fortunately gay men don’t like to use their imaginations, so he was a big hit. For me, the big excitement was finally meeting the notorious Shawn Hollenbach. I have never met him in person, but his photo has haunted me from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and beyond. We probably have the most friends in common of two people who had, before tonight, never met. It this regard, the party felt like mission accomplished.
The party moved from inside Ben’s apartment to the roof deck and back, as guests refilled their glasses and then returned to the breathtaking view and perfectly cool summer night. The south view off the roof was really something to see, and there is just something great about the canyons of high rises in Manhattan. They are majestic from every angle, though nothing beats the view from on high. Eventually, building security (as Ben had predicted they would) kicked everyone out of the roof deck and the drunks poured back into the apartment like wet cement, chunky slow and in fear of drying out too quickly. A bunch of us settled onto the couch for a series of photos I am certain to never see again, outside of a tagging frenzy on Facebook. This is fine since I generally hate all photos of myself, so I am happy to see the vast majority of them vanish into thin air.
As always happens, the drunk train was calling so I had to dash while everything was still in full swing. Clay offered for me to stay with him at the W since they upgraded him to a massive suite. “Who needs three walk in closets in a hotel room?” he asked from inside an apartment roughly the size of three walk in closets. Maybe tomorrow night, Clay. Christian, who wasn’t wearing any underwear (no surprise) and kept showing off his tramp stamp tattoo, which looked something like a folded out Rubik’s cube if you made one with origami, also offered me to stay with him. “You don’t mind cats do you?” That wasn’t the pussy I had in mind, so I figured I best stick with the train.
On the walk to Grand Central, I spied another New York landmark. It is almost impossible not to see at least one of them and I purposefully walked up Fifth Avenue just to catch a glimpse. And suddenly there it was, the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York City: the Empire State Building. The lights were off because it was after midnight, with just a UFO-like ring of lights around the top of the tower, but even in the dark, it is as beautiful as ever. The city around it can change all that it wants, but that building always stays the same. Elegant and cool, it is living proof in the heart of Manhattan that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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