The good guys won! Finally, a happy example of how sometimes, if you wish hard enough, great things can happen. We started off with martinis and mozzerella sticks at Faces & Names in midtown. Once Ohio was declared for Obama, the bar went nuts. We took a walk over to Election Plaza at 30 Rock. It looked pretty boring. Everyone just stood around. We thought perhaps it was just a bunch of visiting foreigners feigning interest, so we marched over to Times Square. It was crowded and the energy had flatlined. Obama hadn’t been announced as the official victor yet and I wanted something crazy to happen.
We went back to my friend’s hotel room to watch the results come in. When we entered the lobby, the news was announced that Obama had won. Instantly, the lobby of the hotel was flooded with happy black people. They all had matching Obama stickers and were coming from the bar where they were hosting a private event. It was amazing to be one of seven white, gay boys in a sea of blackness. The security guard was high-fiving everyone in sight. My group of homos promptly went upstairs and continued the celebratory drinkfest…. until we heard about Prop 8 passing in California. You can’t win them all!
I love that America can elect a black President, but still won’t let gays get married. I’m gonna consider this a win for the night because otherwise I will go insane. Time to let politics rest for a little while…
My gang and I went to my friend Jonathan’s roof party in Williamsburg for Halloween. I dressed up as a sexy pirate. Jeff was a sexy baseball player. Craig was a sex pig. He walked into the party wearing an overcoat and, like a flash of gay lightning, stripped down to his costume. He proceeded to run around the party full of mostly strangers and, in a creepy character voice, declared “I’m a sex pig! I’m a sex pig!” He snortled and snarled and dry humped the sofa. It was straight out of a David Lynch movie.
The Straights were in a little party funk. They were dressed up as people who hate Halloween. I enjoyed talking with Sophia about ‘The Hills’ and ‘Laguna Beach’. After five minutes of discussing the pros and cons of all of Lauren Conrad’s past boyfriends, Jon had a realization – “You mean, The Hills and Laguna Beach are two different shows?!?!?!” His straight, confused face was priceless.
The rest of the evening was full of too many Sarah Palins and “butt pirate” jokes. I talked to a coked up Frida Kahlo who wanted me to take a million pictures of her on my camera. Or rather, Frida talked to me. A lot. Mostly about puppets. Jonathan, who had dressed as a priest, made a videotaped confessional in a closet. Everyone took turns throughout the night confessing their sins, fears, and scandalous escapades. For NYC, this was a pretty terrific Halloween – even if it meant being followed around by a sex pig.
It was just under a year ago that I went to my friend’s farm in The Poconos for the first time. This trip, there was a huge cornfield on his property. We arrived after dark and, after much prodding by the others, I ran into the cornfield with everyone. It was completely dark and creepy. The moonlight poked through the clouds. I had been thrust into a real life horror movie. Giant stalks of corn whipped wetness at my face. I looked down at the ground to what I thought were animal bones. It was just a rotten ear of corn that had fallen to the ground. When I looked up, everyone had ran in different directions. I was alone. I could hear distant giggles surrounding me. Fucking assholes. I kept yelling “YOU’RE NOT SCARING ME! I KNOW WHERE YOU GUYS ARE” over and over. But it didn’t work. Someone ended up scaring me. Twice.
The next night, after a long day of thrifting, we set up a make shift tent of sorts in the garage. The walls of the giant tent were made of purple and gold sheer fabric that was found in a box marked “FABRIC”. We made a vegetarian pasta with a white sauce and also a meat past with red sauce. Garlic bread and lots of wine helped fill out the meal. We all dressed up in our fancy clothes we had bought while thrifting. Wigs, boas, and polyester suits from the 80’s were all present and accounted for. After we said grace (“GRACE!”), we noticed an old man at the door, peering through the window. The rainbow colored curtain had been left open, so he was able to see right into the garage, but not through the purple and gold wall of fabric. The old man fumbled with the doorknob and walked right in. Our hostess, Chris (who wore a large and lovely argyle scarf that flowed to the ground), greeted him at the entrance.
CHRIS: Can I help you?
OLD MAN: Oh! Hello! I thought there was a poker game going on in here!
CHRIS: Um. No… We’re just having dinner.
OLD MAN: I had my eye on the scrap metal in your front yard for the last couple weeks.
CHRIS: Ok…
OLD MAN: Just wondering if you had anything planned with it.
CHRIS: Um. Yes. Someone is coming to pick it up.
The Old Man finally realized that he had just wandered into a strangers house. “Oh, ok, well thank you. Have a good night”, he said and dashed out the door. We all waited an appropriate amount of time for him to be out of ear shot before we burst into hysterical laughter. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT GUY THINKING? That’s how people get murdered! He’s lucky he stumbled on a group of artistic fruitloops playing house instead of a maniac’s lair of torture and death.
CHRIS: Do you think he saw us all dressed up around the table?
ERIC: (In character) There’sss no way he sssaw through all the sssheer.
I took so many pictures last weekend. I found out a bout a new color feature on my camera and it totally took some bomb ass pics. I will post them in a future entry because I do not have time at the moment. Needless to say, I’m becoming more and more interested in my photography hobby.
We made it! After 5 years of job hunting, apartment searching, eating Starbucks muffins for dinner, sex, booze, boys, fights, fears, tears, and smiles, we topped it off with a delightful Anniversary Party. Yay us!
Approximately 55 guests showed up at Kabin Bar in the east village after the HUMONGOUS rain storm that kept people away for the first hour of the party. Our unofficial ‘theme’ of the evening was Invite Everyone We Ever Met In NYC. Thankfully, the spacious back room was perfectly decorated, lit, and temperature controlled. It was a combination log cabin motiff and Victorian sitting room, and our interesting mix of friends helped color up the place as well. Seeing everyone mingle together in the bomb-ass room was so much fun.
In preparation for the party, I sent out evites, emails, Myface and Spacebook event notices. I also arranged to have the room reserved and carefully and tediously put together a mix for my ipod. When I spoke with the owner about reserving the room, the only point of contention was if we needed a DJ for the evening. I told him that our ipod would suffice and that we would just need a cocktail server for all the booze we would be drinking. He said, “Well, you can make requests to the DJ if you wanted, they work for you.” Sounds nice, but again, I tried to get out of having to deal with DJ Stranger by telling him the theme of the party and how we wanted to have music that represented the three of us who were celebrating that night. He countered with, “Well a good DJ will make sure you enjoy the music, but that the music doesn’t overpower the evening.”
I gave up. He said we could have an ipod from 8pm – 11pm. Then, the DJ would arrive. I guessed that it was his nephew or something.
The music mix I created was perfectly sublime. It amplified the evening as the crowd got bigger. By the time 11pm rolled around, everyone was feeling pretty groovy. Our amazing cocktail server, Morgan, pointed out the DJ to me from across the room. I said, “Oh, is that him?” Morgan laughed and said, “It’s a her.” I never have trusted girls that look like boys and I never will.
I introduced myself to the DJ, who’s name was Biet (Beeyut), and who I thought was French, but according to her myspace profile she is from “New York City, Alabama”. I asked, “So what sort of tunes do you spin?” She looked me square in the eye and said, “I know what’s going on here.” I took that to mean she saw the giant amount of gayness going on throughout the room and she would pick her tunes accordingly. I told her I trusted her and she proceeded to play two songs that I had already played earlier in the evening (Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ and Sam Sparro’s ‘21st Century Life’).
I thought that may be a good sign, even though it was repetitive, it was the right style. Well, we soon found out that was a trick to get us to be on her side. She proceeded to play some gansta rap. 50 Cent has no place at our party. One guest went up to her and asked to play something “more gay”. Her answer? A 12 minute long Justice song. If you wanna play something that sounds like Daft Punk, just play Daft Punk! I don’t wanna hear some clunky bullshit parading around as gay dance music. She had turned our party into a meth den with hard, pounding beats which were totally void of any melody. I could appreciate what she was trying to do, but it just wasn’t jiving with this crowd. So many people asked me, “What happened to your ipod?”
I had had enough of this girl. If it was a cute boy mayyybe I would have let him try for another 45 minutes. Time to fire her. In the nicest way possible. I asked Morgan how I could go about putting my ipod back on. She said, “Just give it to me. She gets paid whether she spins or not. I’ll take care of it. I hate her anyway.” Sweet! Five minutes later, Morgan had our party back on track with Princess Superstar blasting from the speakers. I was about to feel bad when I saw Biet packing up her gear, biet then someone told me that the last song she played was her own original song. Lame. You’re a loser. I’m a winner.
Speaking of winners, we let two random people into the private party. They were brother and sister, so they said. I am not sure. He was very upbeat and friendly and brown, she was whiny and needy and white. When she wasn’t busy guzzling chardonnay, she kept demanding that I play Britney Spears. I told her that I had just won back the night from the DJ and I have a playlist already in motion. No girl tells me what to play at our party that I’m letting you attend.
She stomped her feet and acted like a two year old. I’m not kidding. Any chance of playing Britney Spears vanished because I refuse to reward that behavior. I laughed and tried to walk away, biet her brother was nice and bought the three anniversary boys drinks, so I wasn’t openly rude. Somehow, I let her get my phone number and she ended up calling me at 3:52am, 4:04am, 4:12am, and 4:15am. Who knows why. I pretended I was asleep. Maybe she thought she was calling Britney Spears. She was that crazy.
The room closed at 2am. We caused some drunken debauchery in the streets for a little while. Someone made us pose with our ‘Happy Anniversary’ sign, the only decoration at the party. It was pretty fun until Jeff and Eric turned into zombies and tried to eat me.
See? Jeff and Eric became motherfucking zombies! I love those zombies!
The entire evening was a goddamn delight! Thanks friends! Thanks Morgan! Thanks brown guy and your “sister”? Thanks to everyone biet Biet! Here’s to another 5 years! Only this time, I want a nice apartment, a nice boy, and a nice role in a movie or something!
Eric and I braved the home furnishing jungle and went to the new Ikea Brooklyn this week. Even though I refuse to buy anything that you would have to sit on, lay on, or sleep in at Ikea, I still really, really love going there and buying shit. I got tealights, a new pasta strainer thingy, and an amazing green lamp. One thing I was able to resist buying is that stupid, tiny wooden man that they have strategically placed EVERYWHERE in that effing store. They are horrible. I can’t even look at them. I hate them.
I hate them so much that I took several pictures of them.
Aren’t they totally annoying? I wish they were voodoo dolls. At least then, they would serve a purpose. Imagine how thrilled I was when I saw a huge bin of these little men – discarded in a heap.
Then, we went to have lunch at the fabulous Ikea Restaurant. They have great meatballs and Loganberry punch! They had hot dogs too, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat one. I could barely look at them because they seemed to be related to the tiny, wooden man syndrome that was going on in the store.
During the whole trip, I kept trying to decide whether or not it was healthy to pretend that we lived inside each and every display room. One day, I will have such a huge house that I can walk into an Ikea and point at a room and say, “One of everything!”
Eric kept inviting people over to the house(s). So many people wanting to look at my room(s)!! I tried to politely tell everyone to leave, but they said some bullshit about Ikea being for everyone and they had every right to blah blah blah STOP SITTING ON MY SOFA BED!!!
One thing I wanted most of all, was a malaria bed. But that would go against my rule of not buying anything that is supposed to be comfortable from Ikea.
Frosty had to leave my apartment because there simply wasn’t any room. It was hard for both of us. Especially since I kept Santa, who is a lot smaller than Frosty. Of course, this fed right into Frosty’s weight issues. It was hard to explain to him that it wasn’t about that at all, even though his size did contribute to my decision to escort him out of my building.
Thankfully, Eric was there to help us both through this emotional ordeal. Frosty and I just couldn’t look at each other. We had such a happy time together. He lit up my hallway at the trash-heap apartment in Bed-Stuy. Zalman never fixed the hallway lights, but Frosty was there whenever we needed him. One time, after a crazy mojito party in our backyard, Frosty slipped into my bed. We kissed and fooled around a little, but nothing more. We stopped because we didn’t want anything to get in the way of our friendship. Frosty used to volunteer at the Baptist Church on DeKalb for the Women’s Society Luncheon. He would bring home leftovers on Sunday nights and we would drink cheap Chardonnay and watch reality TV.
Perhaps some worthy child will come along and give Frosty a new home. It’s July though, so who knows what could happen between now and this holiday season? Thumpetty thump thump….
(Eric, Jeff, and Jeffrey are at ACME restaurant, a New Orleans-style corporate food chain. They are three Hurricane’s deep. Another friend, Robert, slowly drinks a whiskey on the rocks.)
ERIC: You know how sometimes people are in your life a lot, then the next thing you know, you never talk to them again?
JEFFREY: Like those bitches from California?
JEFF: I hate those bitches.
ERIC: Do you think we will ever be like that? Do you think there will ever be a time in our lives when we’re like, “I used to be friends with those guys.”
JEFF: Nope.
JEFFREY: Yeah, it would have already happened by now. We’re stuck with each other. Wanna play 1-2-3?
I enjoyed the most civilized game of Celebrity last night.
Brian and I hosted a Memorial Day BBQ. A grill magically appeared in our yard a few months ago, so we thought we should put it to use. It would be the first and last time to BBQ in Bed-Stuy, you know, since we’re being forced to move by June 30th and all. In an alternate universe, there are many backyard parties that we are hosting, a bountiful supply of tiki torches, perhaps a garden, but it is not to be for us in this matrix. You know what was at our party though? A puppy!!!
Everyone freaked out about the adorable, two-month old cocker spaniel. Everyone except the three straight dudes. Eric brought up what could be a good possible reason as to why – the puppy represents a baby. Seeing their girlfriends flip out over a baby dog, taps into a straight guys deepest fear – commitment, and nothing says commitment like a brand new baby. I guess gay guys don’t like commitment either, but the closet thing to a physical representation of a baby, in gay terms, would be brand, new Ikea furniture – and I hate Ikea furniture.
The straights left before it was time to play everyone’s favourite parlour game, Celebrity. There is always a spoken tension when talking about this game. Some people try to play by the wrong rules, some stop at nothing to win, others accuse people of cheating even when they are not really cheating. This causes valid concern for anyone about to embark on a Celebrity journey in our circle of friends, especially since that unfortunate night when one well-intentioned fag pulled a football player from the bowl and couldn’t get anyone to guess it. He had a complete breakdown, one team started calling the other ‘Dicktown’, friendships were broken, lives were lost…
Well, it seems that last night, 8 homos were perfectly capable of having a nice game of Celebrity. It helped that Brian was on my team because I am such an awesome player. He knew he would win and wouldn’t have to resort to trying to make us play by some made up rules. Our neighbor played with us too. In the middle of the game, he told us that he recognized our BBQ. It used to be his. He left it on the roof of our building and it fell to the ground during one particularly bad windstorm. Our new BBQ had literally fallen from the sky.
On the last round, Eric had to get his team to guess ‘Edith Piaf’. Eric doing a silent impression of Edith looks like this -
One of my bestest, greatest friend’s birthday party was last night. He’s not 30 yet, but he will be soon enough. I like to remind him of that every chance I get. It makes me feel young. We went to Acme Oyster House for a little slice of New Orleans. They had $4.00 Hurricanes!!! Well, actually, they ended up being $8.00 Hurricane’s because we were led astray by their advertising, but we were drunk by the time we realized that, so it didn’t really matter. I will let the evening speak for itself through photography…
There really isn’t a story to tell. It was a fun night out with The Gays. However, we did come up with a new game. It’s called “1-2-3″. It’s a photo game. Two people look down, and after the photographer counts 1-2-3, you look up. The idea is each person must make a crazy face. The first face that pops into your mind! The way you win, is if your faces end up matching! The photos are so much funnier when you accidentally make the same face together! We did this for about 45 minutes…
Tonight, 4 of the 5 fags that went to New Orleans this past Thanksgiving relived our drunken tomfoolery at Acme Oyster House in the West Village. We called Jeff to say hello, so it was almost a reunion. Somehow, pictures were allowed to be taken and this happened -
I also just downloaded Jesse McCartney’s new single, “Leavin’”, but I choose to blame the Hurricane’s from Acme for that one…. even though it’s totally gonna be my Summer 2008 Anthem.
“This is gonna be my year!”
- Jeffrey Marx, January 1st, 2007
So, um, last year was basically stupid. I moved three times – from the West Village, to Harlem, to Brooklyn – acquiring a new ex-roommate enemy, I started talking to an old friend again only to realize that I still “liked him liked him” so now we aren’t talking again, my improv team got disbanded at UCB, I ended up hating the show I wrote, the few guys I did date were either emotionally unavailable or wore towels as skirts to bars, my awesome gay therapist broke up with me, and I only lost 29 pounds on my 50 pound challenge.
So, today, I say that 2008 is REALLY going to be my year! It’s time to start using The Secret, goddamnit! I am just going to start acting like I already have everything I want! Then, The Secret will align with the universe and give it to me anyway! Like magic! I can’t wait! (I wonder if The Secret still works if I am, like, 20% sarcastic about it) Here is a list of things I want (lies) that I will be putting into the universe. You may be confused when I say, “I am late for an appointment with my commercial agent because my BMW had to be dropped off at the mechanics” because I don’t have a commercial agent, BMW, or a mechanic. But, using The Secret, those lies (things I want) will come true if I just believe! Better yet, instead of a list of things I want, I will give you a list of things you might hear me say this year that are, upon first glance, untrue. However, I am just practicing the theories of The Secret.
1.) “My hot boyfriend’s dick is so huge, I can barely take it! Sometimes we just like to cuddle and that is enough for us!”
2.) “The reading for my new play went extremely well. I am so glad that Paul Rudd was available at the last minute.”
3.) “As a gay guy, selling my one man show was no problem. HBO and Showtime are having a bidding war over me right now!”
4.) “There’s a new found respect for reality TV these days. Thank goodness I got that job as an executive producer for reality TV.”
5.) “I can’t decide if I want the polo shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch or the V-neck t-shirt from American Apparel, maybe I should buy both since I need a whole new wardrobe to go with my new body!”
6.) “Dry tuna and pita is extremely satisfying for lunch!”
7.) “That model for 2(x)ist underwear is undressing me with his eyes!”
8.) “Jake Gyllenhaal just came out of the closet!”
Anyway, no official resolutions this year. Just the promise to myself to be a better person, make better choices, and to stop downloading music I hear on ‘The Hills’.
After my trip to California, it took 4 days of gluttonous tomfoolery to re-connect with myself. Dates, sex, parties, The Straights, and naked hipsters all helped me re-adjust. Here are the best pictures from New Year’s Eve.
OK, so maybe those aren’t the “best” pictures from New Year’s Eve, but they are the only ones that I can publicly share on the interweb. Happy 2000 Great!
By the time I woke up the day after Christmas, I had decided that the next time I go to California will be because I have to go for some entertainment industry type of something or other. Lying coiled up in the pink blankets in The Princess Room, I realized that I only had about 26 hours left on the sun soaked West Coast, and that I wished I had a fast forward button on my life. Instead, I woke up, ate a tasty breakfast, packed my things, and headed out the door to see ‘Juno’ with my dad. It has become our tradition to see a movie every time I visit. It’s great to have a new tradition with pops, but I loathe that the tradition is sitting in a dark room, watching actors do the talking instead of ourselves.
I had planned on going to lunch with him, but we ran out of time since he was dealing with an ebay issue all morning. Looking for an opportune time to speak to him about my daddy issues proved difficult since there is never an opportune time. He puts on a good show with each visit these days. I wish I could base my opinion of him solely off of his behavior when I see him once or twice a year. He’s a blast when I am not thinking about…the past? Did I really just write that fucking sentence? Hop on Pop.
Anyway, while I was able to pull Sheree aside at one point early into my trip, before everything got too Jerry Springer, and apologize for punishing her ever since she was over-the-top rude to me on a certain occasion, I was unable to have a similar conversation toward amends with daddy dearest. I guess apologizing comes easier than forgiving.
After the sincerely enjoyable movie, we went to my great friend, Keith’s, fancy bistro. For the past several years, I have hosted a holiday party called Spectacular Spectacular. It has been a huge, fun get-together for my friends and even some of my family. This year, I didn’t really do the PR or the organization for it and no one really inquired. A good handful of my camp friends had dinner and after most of them left, Keith and I had some drinks. Daddy Dearest said goodbye with a hug and said, “Email me sometime, even if it’s to say bark at the moon and die.” The last time I did that, we didn’t speak for a year and a half. What’s the point? If he isn’t willing to talk and I am not willing to forget, then that’s a cat’s game – no one wins. My mommy drove me, Keith and my other besty, Eric, to our other friend’s house. 30 years old and my mommy is driving me to a party.
…. 30 years old and my mommy is driving me to a party to play Flip Cup. Living 3,000 miles away from people who used to be your closest friends really is sad. I miss them on a daily basis, but when I go “home”, it seems that everyone has moved in different directions, people who used to be friends with each other are now enemies, and my tummy starts hurting. I dressed up as Santa again for a grand entrance. Danielle said, “I love when you come home, you bring such a great energy to the house!” In my mind, I wanna pick up right where we all left off, but sadly, that is not reality. I feel disconnected and I can see the same disconnection in the eyes of others. I am sure we all have deep love for each other and our past friendships, but not even a marathon game of Flip Cup, or a rented Santa costume, can patch up the distance I feel growing in my friends. Not even just with me, with each other. They are all great people, I wish everything was perfect. I wish I had a time machine. I wish for three more wishes.
I was only able to hang out for a couple hours before I had to have my mommy pick me up so I could get enough rest to get up and pack in the morning. Before I left, I was able to re-connect with a friend who hadn’t been returning phone calls to me. We’re both insane, so I knew it would end up working out without much discussion. Justin made me a mix CD, Mark hugged me, I grabbed Coco’s boobs, Keith touched me in a naughty place, Danielle made me a fancy drink, and Amanda and I laughed at each other – a few moments of “how it used to be”.
The next morning consisted of a rushed shower, a rushed packing job, and a rush to the airport. I had overslept. My mom always cries when we pull up to the “This zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only” area. This time was particularly tear drenched, because I had made it pretty clear I didn’t plan on returning to California for some time. This time, I think she understood why.
The flights back to NYC weren’t as awful as the trip out. An hour and a half delay in Cincinnati gave me some time to reflect. No matter how much I want everything to be perfect and harmonious, like my mom’s dream of a Norman Rockwell Christmas, it’s just not going to be perfect. The perfect part has to come from the inner acceptance that everything isn’t perfect, that I should expect the imperfections… and laugh at them, to ride through the turbulence, and then life would be closer to perfect. Perfect. I just said “perfect”, like, 100 times. Whatever. I don’t care. I’m not perfect. Neither is my dad, or my crazy grandmother, or my friends who hate each other now.
Perfection is overrated. Imperfection is more interesting.
We all had separate flights going other places except for me and Jeff. We checked out of the hotel with the sassy black lady who had been ever present all weekend. She was adorable. I went across the street to the deli to grab some bottled water. Inside, I was accosted by a frightening, Cajun homeless man. He spoke to me in harsh, garbled, nearly unrecognizable English.
MAN: Can you give me some money? ME: I don’t have any money. MAN: How are you going to buy all that crap? He points to the single bottle of water in my hand. ME: That’s all I have. Sorry. MAN: Well give me a job then! ME: I can’t. I’m from out of town. MAN: Oh shit. ME: Sorry. Have a good day though. MAN: Give me some money. Come on, just do it. ME: I don’t have it. No matter how many times you ask me. MAN: Oh is that how it is then?
The man stumbles into the street. I realize he is barefoot.
MAN: Someone just tried to kill me! He tried to shake me down! Help! Police!
With that, I was off, back home to New York City. The past few days have been inexplicably perfect. Not a care, not a worry. Good times with great friends. No bullshit. All groovy awesomeness. I have recharged my batteries, taken a deep breath. I should go on vacations more often. Here are some more fun pictures…
That’s me making a sad face because I want to be there still. Maybe this will have to be a new Thanksgiving tradition. I’m sure there is still more to see in New Orleans – the aquarium, plantations, Philip’s cock. Bye New Orleans! Thank you!
My goal today was to purchase some New Orleans art. It was our last full day in town and I also had realized that I had yet to get a famous Hurricane. I still had not found live Zydeco either, which was rather disappointing. Also, as much fun as the gay clubs were, we hadn’t seen anything too outrageous. This was all about to change.
First stop – we all went shopping in the plentiful art galleries, bookstores, antique shops and souvenir shops. I had accidentally eaten a chocolate chip cookie, more beignets, and we found a groovy street musician. He looked like Jesus with a Dulcimer. After zoning out on his quirky songs, I got sucked into The Neverending Christmas Store. I am not sure how long I spent in the store, called Santa’s Quarters, but I know I was in there long enough that Jeff called me to find out where I was…. I had to be rescued. You can see why…
Next up, a different cemetery – one that was open. The sign out front said “Enter at your own risk. The city of New Orleans and the Parish of St. Louis is not to be held responsible for your safety and security while on these grounds.” I wasn’t so much afraid of the immediate presence of spirits that I felt, but the homeless junkies that probably used the cemetery for a nice, secluded area to shoot up. The four of us banded together and took a creepy stroll. Here are some of the better shots from the St. Louis Cemetery…
Wow. After all that creepiness, we needed a good stiff drink. Where better to get one than at The Corner Pocket, one of the few gay bars we had yet to visit. I opted for a Captain Morgan and coke, my usual this trip. The place was super empty, granted it was a Monday at noon, but the bars never close in New Orleans, so I thought there would be someone. The kind bartender dryly asked us the standard questions – Where are you from? How long are you in town? A weird couple came in and ordered shots. The younger one looked like a druggie pirate and the older one looked like he was recently featured on ‘To Catch A Predator’. The couple, the bartender and us all got audibly excited when ‘Cops’ came on the TV and it was revealed that the episode was entitled ‘Bad Girls’. We were instantly bonded. I noticed a giant, black cat that seemed to live in the bar. I asked the bartender what was the cat’s name… “Oh, him? He ain’t got no name. He came to us as a Katrina survivor. No one ever has named him.” The scary pirate guy said, ‘Oh, he gotsa name, he jus’ ain’t tellin’ no one what it is..’ Adorable, for a gay pirate.
We broke for lunch at Coop’s Place. I had eaten there earlier in the weekend and had some amazing Sausage & Rabbit Jambalaya and homemade cole slaw. Coop’s is definitely a local bar with a modest sized seating area. Cajun gypsies make the food in the backyard next to the restrooms. I went to use the restroom and saw them all sitting on the ground and drinking from flasks. I’m down to party, thats cool. Jeff and I had mojitos and waited for the food to come. In the meantime, we made friends with the regulars. Seriously, that was the biggest regular we’ve ever seen in our gay lives. We didn’t have any problem with scarfing down the grub though, so fucking good. We just pretended not to think about where it was being made.
More goddamn beignets.
Time for a ghost tour! With Mideon Von Thorne! He was very knowledgeable and nice, just not exactly Captain Ted level. I love Captain Ted. I love that the ghost tour incorporated a bar break at the halfway point of the tour. I love it even more that it was at that fucking Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop that the manager had almost kicked us out. Hilarious! We had vowed to never go back there, each time we walked by it cursing it’s name, and now, here we were again. I didn’t order anything though, we were drinking red wine out of a plastic water bottle which I kept in my pocket – which is totally legal there by the way. As long as you are carrying your booze in a plastic container, you can take it anywhere! During the last leg of the ghost tour, we saw Philip the Psychic. He was wearing his instantly recognizable black feather coat. He just stared at us. Creepy/Awesome!
Once the tour was finished, we headed down Bourbon Street for one last hurrah. We came upon a fancy jazz place that sat us in the front row. It was here that I finally got my Hurricane. OH MY GOD, WHY HAD I NOT BEEN DRINKING THESE THE WHOLE TIME???? What an idiot I am! We watched a pretty decent jazz band and left when they went on break. Almost immediately, we found my live Zydeco at the Cajun Cabin. The band, Mitchell Cormier and The Can’t Hardly Playboys, were fucking brilliant. We ordered fried alligator, fried crawfish, more Hurricanes, and a trio of sausages – alligator, andouille, and crawfish. Jeff even got pulled up on stage!
I got to play the washboard too. We ate up good and had a blast. The waitress made me order a drink called Swamp Water, made with Everclear. Everclear is like 100 percent alcohol. It was tasty! She also suggested that we go to The Corner Pocket. Funny, we had already been there, but she told us that there were live dancers every night. We took our Hurricanes and Swamp Waters in plastic to go cups and headed to the Corner Pocket again…
Armed with one dollar bills and a smashing sense of humor, I entered The Corner Pocket. There were 8 dancers and 8 customers. Joshua, the cutest of them all, came up and danced in my face. I tucked a couple dollars in his very fashionable underwear and waited for him to do a little dance or something. He said, “You can stand to have a little more audience participation”. I told him that “I am used to being stabbed in the face if you touch the dancers”. He asked where we were from and we told him New York. He laughed, dropped his act and said, “Now what the hell are you boys doing down here? We all try to move there, and you come down here?” After chatting with the blonde and blue eyed, Joshua, he took our monies and rubbed all up on us. He was very good at his job. Smelled like Boy Heaven and lingered close enough to you that you could feel his hard-on. Classy fun!
More of the dancers came over throughout the night. One guy’s signature move involved wrapping his legs around your head and quickly thrusting his giant balls (shielded by his Calvin Klein’s of course) in your face – like a rabid washing machine rinse cycle. It was not sexy, it was funny. They were all cute, but not as much as the adorable Joshua. He was definitely the Queen Bee of this gay harem. We got a taste of all the dancers except for one. He was wearing red briefs, smoking a cigarette, listening to his ring tone on his cell phone over and over. He didn’t even look in our direction once. I think Joshua had marked his territory. Joshua got the cute boys from New York and Red Briefs was regulated to the old, obese black guy in the corner. I really wanted to know what the drama was between Joshua and the red briefs guy. The tension was visible, but they were more than professional to each other. I’m glad Joshua won us, he was hot. A few more Hurricanes and alot less dollars later, we decided to meander back out into the streets where I met my new friends and their hats…
We walked around and looked for ghosts, vampires, and more beignets. We were gonna head back to The Leaky Cauldron from the night before, but were so drunk and tired we decided to cut ourselves off. We chatted in the streets a little more, and headed back to the hotel. Nighty-night!
The sky opened up. The clouds crashed. Thunder, lightning, thunder, lightning… Our nap last night turned into going to bed. We made an attempt to go out, but it was raining so hard. We did not eat oysters on the half shell. We did not try to find Philip. We did not seek out a jazz club. What did we do? We downloaded zydeco music in our hotel room and bought some black cherry rum and cherry coke. We tried to get ourselves revved up to go out, but Jeff fell asleep on the couch and Jeff went back to his hotel room to go to bed. Jeff was still sick from the night before and went to bed while Jeff and I half-heartedly looked at boys in the NOLA area on manhunt.com. We were all asleep by midnight! Old! Losers!
It was still raining crawfish and oysters this morning, but we felt great. Jeff and I had a perfect crab omlette in a restaurant that was right out of New Orleans Square Disneyland (or New Orleans Square right out of this place, rather). Jeff had opted to stay in the Quarter and catch a play about slavery and racism presented by a community theatre (brilliant) but the rest of us went to the Garden District via the St. Charles Trolley. There were amazing houses lining the street. I took a picture of what I believed to be the Belfort Mansion from my favorite season of The Real World. I got the address from several confirmed sources. We were on the way to a cemetery, so I thought I would come back and get a picture with the mansion.
Unfortunately, the cemetery was closed. So what are four faggots supposed to do in an isolated area of New Orleans in the pouring rain? A photo shoot naturally. Headshots to be specific. The cemetery was enclosed by a great wall of old brick, making a perfect gothic background for our pictures. Here are my favorites from the shoot…
After we were done fagging out in the presence of ghosts, we made our way to Magazine Street. A neverending collection of thrift stores, vintage clothing, and retro furniture. We all spent our fair share of money to help support the local businesses. It was a win/win situation. I got to spend money guilt free on handbags and scarves while I helped New Orleans re-build. I fell in love with a painting and got into a fight with a stupid girl at Starbucks who messed up my drink and tried to give me attitude. I actually had the nerve to say, “I used to work for Starbucks for six years, I know the chemistry behind making this drink.” Ugh, what an asshole.
We went to find a bar that was recommended to us for “The Best Po’ Boy’s on Earth”. The po’ boy was great, but I couldn’t help but think I might get beat up in this joint. I couldn’t tell if we were caged animals that the locals kept looking at or if it was us, roaming free in a foreign zoo, hoping no one would pounce on us while we enjoyed our tasty sandwiches. We didn’t hang out for long. The rain still hadn’t let up, but we marched on towards the Real World mansion to get my picture.
The address I had did not match the address to the mansion I had taken a picture of earlier. The address was nowhere to be found!!!! I looked up and down the block, getting drenched. Finally, I had to give up. I have come to the conclusion that either the mansion has been torn down and made into a new branch of Chase Bank or MTV never even filmed the show there. It was all a hoax. So, what do we do next?
This fat bitch was such a cunt. Now, I love drag queens, but this was one busted pig. She lathered so much attention on the “pretty” boys in the ‘crowd’ (seriously, 25 people at most, five of them was a family from North Carolina). She made herself look pathetic. Now, I understand that I am not ‘hot’ or worthy of being asked to be in a shirtless contest, but I expect that when you come over to my group of friends and start talking about how you used to live in New York (lies) and joking around with them (bad puns) that when I try to talk to you, you should NOT ignore me. Dirty Whore! Her name was Blanche Debris (trash!) and her stupid bifocals (old man) under her terrible sunglasses (bad taste) was a look that was too much to take. What an old, chubby cunt-rag. Fuck you.
We all left in the middle of the game because we wanted to go watch ‘The Amazing Race’ back at the hotel room. Blanche asked me where we were all going and to please stay so my friends could be in the contest… I lied and said we were gonna get something to eat and that we would be back in time for the contest. Suck it.
After our reality TV fix, we went to dinner at Acme Oyster House. Captain Ted had recommended it and we we not disappointed. So great! Charbroiled oysters, raw oysters, fried crawfish, rum, and what I thought was seafood gumbo. I was corrected and told that it was actually crawfish and corn bisque….
After many more rum drinks, we looked through some of the photos from earlier. I was amazed that I found I had captured the likeness of a spirit! I photographed a ghost in the wall at the cemetery! Here is the picture, see if you can find the face of a bearded man in the wall!!!
I was so flipped out that I flipped out!
Jeff had to fly back to Florida the next morning, so we decided to hunt down some live music. First, we stopped for beignets at Cafe Du Monde. What scrumptious, little, delightful, pieces of fried dough! Topped with powdered sugar! Wow! But, live music called our name, so I didn’t get all gluttonous and order more beignets. We stumbled into a few different places that were all great, but our favorite place was a nameless bar that simply had this chalkboard sign sitting out front.
For the Harry Potteraphobic, ‘muggles’ are non-magic folk. So this sign was telling us that only witches, warlocks and magic faeries were allowed inside. OMG. The bartender was this sort of Scooby Doo-esque bluesy rastafarian, a large group of dirty, alternative kids were all making out and laughing, a burly gay couple shot pool, a yuppy looking straight couple drank red wine, and a girl in a red skirt danced by herself. The jukebox ran out and I got to select the soundtrack for the bar. Such a great place. It was the real Leaky Cauldron.
We were spent at that point and trudged back to the hotel. We all had to say our goodbyes to Jeff and he waved farewell as we stumbled down the street.
