Misbegotten

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.