The Americanization of Richard

By this point, The Park is like an old friend. I haven’t seen it in a while, but coming back was like I never left. It was the place, downstairs by the fire, that Romaine and I first met a decade ago and talked for hours, assured by the end that we could do a radio show together. Years later, near the front bar, I had spotted Erik Rhodes, sheepish after he had been discovered, no doubt feeling guilty after blowing off the show. The subterranean coat check is where I first spotted Daniel, the hot Brit who would make frequent appearances in my writing but to whom I have still never spoken. And upstairs months later, it was Conor McGill who finally helped solve the mystery of his identity, throwing everyone else under the old age bus for not knowing it themselves.

This afternoon it was a different Brit who was the subject of conversation and center of attention. Fresh meat has a tendency to do that, especially when the beef is firm and tender and the winter nights long and lonely. Parked at The Park, sealing in my own juices under the intense heat lamp that Brian Babst called home, I quietly roasted in a wool sweater cleverly disguising long underwear below. Not that anyone there would ever know the difference. I take winter very seriously, but not much else.

In this particular moment, Brian was elsewhere and I was explaining to his friend Omar Torres about my blog and how I write about my nights out on the town and the not-so-ordinary people I meet there. "My fifteen seconds of fame!" he declared excitedly, and that is how long it will be because the subject of tonight's essay is not Omar, or Brian, or any of the other ghosts of bars past. It is Richard, newly delivered to New York City from London.

Omar and Brian enjoy their fifteen seconds of fame while it lasts.

"What a terrible idea!" I told Richard when I heard of his recent arrival. He smiled a winsome grin. "No one has said that to me yet." I didn't mean the city. I meant the weather. January is the worst month in New York, if you don’t count August and about six or seven others. "I wanted to move here now," he explained, "So I had time to get settled and by the time summer rolls around, I’ll be ready." He is a smart cookie, that Richard. Also he has big arms and a good job, so I predict smooth sailing, even now that he is firmly planted on dry land.

Without prompting or request, I gave Richard some of my most valuable advice for living in the city. It started with a story from when I first arrived in 2001. Also known as the year he turned twelve. Oh? Did I not mention that he was born in the 80s? "In November 1989. Slipped in under the wire!" Being exactly twenty years older than he was, I felt it was my obligation, in a strictly paternal way, to tell him everything I knew about the city.

I told about losing my good leather coat on the divine Robbie Hammond's bed at a fabulous party he threw. My coat was exchanged for an inferior leather coat someone else had brought and given how ill-fitting the leftover one was, I don't think it was an honest mistake. I frantically tore Robbie’s bedroom apart for a coat I knew in my heart was gone, a coat that wasn't even mine in the first place, and haven't been invited back since. My bad manners aside, Brian confirmed my advice to always have a couple of cute but cheap coats you won’t mind losing along the way.

"Don't lose your accent" was another sage piece of advice I gave him. "You'll see all sorts of people on TV who came here decades ago and they never lose that accent. It is the secret to their success. And Americans worship class. We think anyone with a British accent is classy. Don’t lose it." Richard insisted he had no plans to lose it but is worried about it slipping on its own as fags became cigarettes and queues turned into lines. "My grandmother doesn't want me to sound like an American." Unfortunately, as I learned from my incomprehensible Scottish friend Jim Hepburn whose mother chided him for talking like an American newscaster, back home they only hear what is gone and we only hear whatever is left.

I have a lot of nerve giving advice. This is the first gay social event I have been to in the city in months. No wonder I persist with perfection as Roy Cohn's definition of a homosexual from Angels In America: Someone who knows no one and who no one knows. I was a host for the event today but my name was misspelled, where you could find it. Ben Roussel, in a crazy fabulous fur hat, his shirt tight like Saran Wrap, fruitlessly toured the bar, never able to accurately determine which VIP table was mine. This culminated in an awkward encounter at table seven where I insisted Brian and Richard could get a drink only to be rebuffed by some queens who had no business being there either.

Aside from the event organizer (the ever handsome and tall Zachary Barnett) and the assorted characters I have mentioned (as well as Ben Dixon and another Ben that I do not know but have seen so many times, I almost feel like we were roommates once), the only other person I knew at the event was someone I met once several years ago at Brian Gianelli's going away party.

"That's Ryan Hahn," I said, gesturing in his direction. "I only met him once but we are friends on Facebook." Knowing my reluctance to digitally befriend anyone, this is me really saying something. But Brian was not impressed. "Are you pointing? In a bar?" His line delivery would have made the Dowager Countess proud as he slipped away from me, drenched in shame. As I told Richard when we met, I am a social dead end. He is wise to stick with Brian Babst who today proved once again to be someone who knows everyone and who everyone knows and who knows not to point at people in public. 

Some man tries to welcome Richard while Ben, never my roommate, looks on warily.

I hope Richard enjoys being in America and more importantly, being in New York. Today Ryan reminded me of the advice I gave to him the first time I met him. "Live in LA in your 20's when you are young and cute and can live well on not much money, but move to New York in your 30's where you can be interesting and afford to live there like a human being." But Richard is starting with New York and I suspect will skip LA altogether, his IKEA shopping spree aside. His quick success will enable him to be young and cute and interesting and afford to live here like a human being all at the same time. 

And that, my friends, is a design for living worth following. 

Holidays and Nights

“Will you have enough to write about tonight?” Matty asked as we positioned ourselves dangerously close to a table filled with cookies. We were both back in Chris Stadler’s cozy elegant apartment in the West Village and it felt good to be back. It is the holiday season in New York and even though the tourists are everywhere, like cockroaches with strollers, it is a wonderful time of year. In fact, it is truly the best time of year to be in Manhattan.

Yes, that first flush of spring is amazing, after a long dark winter, when the tulips and daffodils spread along the avenues like a beautiful infection. Easter this year was as pristine and delightful as any classic MGM musical. And when the air turns crisp in the fall and you finally get to unearth your favorite sweaters and watch the pumpkins sprout along 34th street, there is a certain palpable excitement. But the gaudy fabulous storefronts of Fifth Avenue and the oversized Christmas decorations on Sixth Avenue and the rush of merry holiday parties can’t be beat. We know we are all in for a hell of a winter but at least we are all in it together. That togetherness in the face of near constant adversity is the beating heart of New York life. Plus there is always plenty of vodka to keep us warm.

It is Shay’s birthday so throwing a combination holiday party is in order every year. I went to the party with Matty and Andrew, and brought Pittsburgh Chris along since he is still in town. We started with a pre-cocktail in their apartment, under the blazing lights of their newly erected Christmas tree while, for our collective amusement, Matty opened my book to a random page and read aloud the opening paragraphs of the chapter about his own dog’s first birthday party. During the story, Parker stood by expectantly with a plush toy shaped like a carrot in her mouth.

The whole scene in Matty’s apartment was like an ad for a high end retailer, and the catalog fantasy life continued minutes later as we burst into Chris’ apartment, where we were greeted immediately by his cheerful boyfriend Brent, dressed sharply with a holiday bowtie. He and Chris had coordinating looks, similar but different, like the paintings of sailboats that adorn the front hall. Chris’ hunk of a roommate (and former upstairs neighbor) Mike was packed tightly in a dress shirt and tie, although his tie clip spent the entire evening trying to escape his ensemble, clinging to every sweater it was pressed against in the increasingly crowded apartment.

Chris, Brent and Mike took turns in the kitchen working as bartenders to keep a sense of order, which is very important in a party like this. Most of the food was positioned not far from the alcohol in the kitchen. And combined with using the bed in the bedroom behind the kitchen as the final resting place of the mounting stack of coats created a chaotic traffic jam of laughter, spilled drinks and thwarted ambitions for those who wished to pass. While in the thick of this mess one drunk was a second away from accusing me of trying to put something in his drink, when I was merely trying to right the damned thing before it filled my entire shoe with gin.

I expected to see Gray, who is in town, although he ended up not making it to the party. That worked out well for me because I wouldn’t have been able to write about him anyway. Also there was Erik, who was unhappy with what I wrote last time I saw him, even though, like Gray, he wasn't upset about what I said about him, he was upset about the rest of the content of the entry. Oh well. Par for the course I guess. Matty observed that my blog does have the habit of upsetting people, but I have no qualms about that because what I write is true and I don’t try to portray myself as a nice person along the way because I’m not.

While Gray and Erik have not been happy with being written about, I have no way of knowing how Daniel feels about it. Like Charlie before him, Daniel has been the source of long distance observation for some time now, always in the confines of The Park on Thursday nights. But then suddenly there he was in Chris’ apartment, looking as handsome as ever. We were in close quarters a few times, but never actually spoke. Maybe he didn’t know it was me. I hope so. The party was so much fun, the last thing I wanted was to be confronted by a stranger, even if it was totally justified.

It was an evening filled with pleasant surprises. Hermit Matt, a radio show caller from Arizona who earlier this year I encouraged to take a job in NYC and then snubbed horribly in person at Therapy bar a few short days later, made his appearance on the scene with his hot roommate Trey. I did my best to be my most charming and gregarious self to make up for actually being the real me last time. Aside from Pittsburgh Chris, he wasn’t the only listener at the party. It turned out that a cute blond named Kevin, in the city from New Jersey with another gay named Nathan, recognized me from the sound of my voice. That is a problem. I need to work on a new in-person voice to keep my relative anonymity intact.

After dismembering a gingerbread man with my savage teeth like a character in a Saw movie, I looked up and saw a familiar face making his way into the kitchen. There was Conor blowing kisses to me across a crowded room, his regulation black NY coat still on over his fashionable shawl collar sweater. And standing behind him was his pal Andrew, who is my favorite inconsequential flirt. In a town full of men I flirt with without intent, he is the best at it.

I hated to say good bye mere moments after saying hello, especially with Andrew so handsy, but we had already been at the party for three hours, even if it had blinked by in a flurry of baked brie and Christmas sweaters. I pushed my way through the crowd to the bedroom and joined some others in the vain attempt at finding our coats in the melee on the bed. It all looked like a bin at the Barney’s Warehouse Sale, with a dozen hands circled around clawing and tossing for just the right thing. For an instant, I worried that my beloved grey wool coat had been purloined, as happened to me at Robbie’s party eight years ago. But suddenly, as I voiced my concerns out loud to the disbelieving crowd, I fished it forth from the debris and triumphantly raised it over my head to thunderous cheers.

By now, Conor had made his escape to the living room. As I hugged him good bye, he pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Tell me everything that is happening with you in thirty seconds.” I caught him up on all the sudden fame in my life: my walk-on role on Days of our Lives, being in the OUT 100 this year. And then I started to tell him a story about a mutual acquaintance. He stopped me short. “I hate [him]!” he declared emphatically. While I don’t share the strength of his disapproval, I too disapprove just the same. One not nice person to another, [he] is just no good.

As I journeyed out of the apartment with Matty and Andrew, we passed Chris and Mike separately on the stairs. Mike was now without his tie. “Did you take off your tie or did the tie clip finally succeed in attaching itself to someone’s sweater on its own?” I asked as he walked by. “Finally!” he called out cryptically and then was gone. Down on the street we ran into Grant and a female friend who was smoking and didn’t seem to mind at all the brisk night air. It turns out that Grant will also be in Utah in the post Christmas frame, along with Matty and Andrew and me. I couldn’t have been happier. December 27th, we hit the slopes in Park City and it will be grand! As much as I love New York, it is ultimately won or lost on the strength of the friendships you make there. And if you can take them with you, out on the town or even all the way to the Rockies, all the better.