Sex Pigs & Pirates

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.

Funny Farm

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.

5 Years in NYC Anniversary Party!!

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!

Ikea My Heart

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.

We’re Stuck With Each Other

(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?

ERIC: Yes!

JEFF: Totes!

ROBERT: That game causes me great anxiety.

Celebrity

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 -

Oysters!

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.

Stop laughing at me.

Trials & Tribulations… and Mojitos

YOU: What happened in court today?
ME: Nothing.

At 3am this morning, I had a surprise visitor stumble upon me in Bed-Stuy. My great friend, Colleen, was visiting from Connecticut to see a boy about “closure”, but she got drunk and her evening led her to spending the night on my sawdust covered futon. Brian bought us egg sandwiches and we left for court. Colleen wanted to go along “for the experience”. I made her take a picture of Brian and I on the steps of the courthouse. I love Colleen.

I was thrilled to find out that our judge was a middle-aged Chinese woman who spoke with a zen-like tone and wore a tank top. She was totally going to be on our side. I just knew it. Then, we met our d-bag landlord’s d-bag lawyer, Something Shapiro. He tried to make us to commit to payments and we told he that we weren’t going to be making payments at all. Something Shapiro had no idea about the conditions of the apartment or that the city was already involved and had sent Indians to fix our floor. Something Shapiro rolled his eyes and mumbled something about how he hated our d-bag landlord, who not only didn’t show up, but wouldn’t answer his cell phone when his lawyer tried calling him. Hilarious.

Something Shapiro told the judge that we weren’t willing to settle and she set a trial date for May 20th. She told us to that we “might want to seek the advice of an attorney”. I think she has to tell that to everyone. She didn’t even want to see my giant book of evidence that I had put together. She didn’t know that we were actually ready for trial at that moment if we needed to be. She didn’t know that I am perfectly capable of representing myself in this matter. See you next month!

Colleen was disappointed that she didn’t get to see me in action at court, so she hopped on a train back to Connecticut. After a hardcore, three hour nap, I woke up to Brian making plans for a mojito party. I was gonna go see I’m From Barcelona with The Traveler, but then we realized that the concert was in Hoboken. Mojitos won out and he came over, along with The Straights, The Other Straights, Jeanne & Adam, and Raffy & Vladimir. Brian had to leave for an audition at UCB and left his mojito party just as it was getting good. We were playing a game we invented called Shoeball in my freshly tiled room. The Indians had put the finishing touches on it just 30 minutes before everyone showed up for mojitos. Instead of setting my room back up, we turned it into a shoeball court.

The Traveler tripped me (on accident…. I think) and I busted my knee cap. Since I was still in court mode, I took some photographic evidence of the injury he gave me. We decided that since he has met some of my friends now, he doesn’t need to have a secret blog name. The Traveler is hereby given a real name – Paul. He’s the blonde in the gray shirt who looks like he likes to trip people a lot for no reason. Jerk.

Raffy & Vladimir were the last guests standing by the time Brian got back from his late-night audition. We were quite the wasted fags. I loved the Impromptu Mojito Party! It was exactly what what was needed to shake off the court crap and reset my emotional rollercoaster for next month. Luckily, I have three big auditions this week, a cute boy, Madonna’s new CD that drops this Tuesday, and an upcoming wedding with rednecks to keep my mind off my stupid apartment. Also, I make slideshows….

Dancing Bears

When I first moved to NYC, I was out until 6am every other night. Now, I’ve settled into a groove of writing at home and catching up on my DVR. Sometimes, I can’t tell my Saturday nights from my Monday nights. Actually, I can. Mondays I do laundry.

This past Saturday, I went to Blowoff, which can only be described as a gay-bear-rave. The music was fucking brilliant. I haven’t heard great music like that in NYC in awhile. I had never heard of DJs Rich Morel and Bob Mould, but I have a feeling they will be appearing on my iPod soon. The venue was pretty packed with wall to wall sweaty, beefy, hairy dudes. I wanted to drop some X and make out with a stranger while simultaneously wanting to go home and go to bed. A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon.

My new friends, Raffy and Vladimir, invited me. They are SoCal transplants and New York’s newest and most adorable gay couple. A friend of theirs told me I had too many clothes on and I replied with something witty as to shield myself from having my shirt ripped off of me. I’m pretty sure I came off bitchy rather than cute and hilarious. Yay me.

I promise to be better prepared next time an event like this comes to town. The place was full of hot bears and cubs. These weren’t you typical “let’s go camping and drink a 12 pack of Bud Light and go to sleep at 9pm” type of guys, this was a different breed of Party Bear. A breed I could breed with.

The Hipster War of 2008

I thought it was gonna be a harmless birthday party. This year, I loosely enforced a ‘hipster’ theme. Every party needs a theme! How else do you know what sort of evite to pick out? We ate at Sea in Brooklyn and drank pomegranate mojitos. We split into teams and did a scavenger hunt involving places located off the L train. Everything was going perfectly, until we arrived at The Alligator Lounge on Metropolitan Avenue. Cheap drinks. Free pizza. A bartender named True. (User note, you can click on the pics to make them bigger!)

Arrangements were made a week in advance to have the back room reserved for my party. I expected between 40-50 people, but in actuality only 30 showed up (that’s not counting the 5 people who showed up but never said goodbye when they left, poor form!) It would have been OK if we weren’t competing with hipsters for seating. Instead, we thought we would have a dance party right smack in the middle of their gloomy flannel. The friendly staff had also told me that I could take over the music in the back room if I supplied an ipod. Yes, I do want to provide the soundtrack to my birthday. Thank you, True.

The hipster climate in the back room was very segregated. In “The Good Corner” all the seats were taken by what appeared to be a very comfortable group of stoners who had stacks of free pizza in the middle of the table. I guessed they were there every Saturday night. In “The Dark Corner” was a smaller group of well dressed hipsters who told me, “as long as you don’t play any Dave Matthews or John Mayer, we’re gonna get along just fine.” In “The Red Light Corner” was a group of lame girls who looked like they got to drive their father’s BMW’s into Brooklyn from Long Island – “Just don’t go into the city, ladies!” Other random hipsters filled up the room while guzzling Pabst Blue Ribbon. There was a bit of a line waiting to play Mrs. Pac-Man and Big Buck Hunter. This was gonna be a hard crowd to win over, especially since someone had put 5 dollars worth of Jeff Buckley on the jukebox.

True, the hipster bartender, graciously helped me start up my ipod. My first song was “Semi Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind. Wow. The mixed reaction was deafening – equal parts excited squeals and a few people actually yelling ‘Boo!’ By the time the first chorus of ‘do-do-do-do’ came around, I had won over half the room. Some of the lame girls were singing along, a few dudes at the video games were bouncing their heads. However, all was not well with the stoners in the corner. They were pissed we turned off their set of songs that people use to kill yourself in a bathtub. How can you be mad at “Semi Charmed Life”? EVERYONE liked that song when it came out! The room made it through the next few songs without incident – “Forever Your Girl” by Paula Abdul, “Lovefool” by The Cardigans, and “Groove is in the Heart” by Dee-Lite all blended into the crowd, but when Madonna sang “Where’s the Party”, it was just too much for certain hipsters to handle.

One of the drunk stoners threw free pizza at Jon. Immediately following the hit on Jon, another round of free pizza bullets hit Oscar. Cody saw everything and instantly flipped into rage, making accusations and trying to verbally assault the hipsters. Out of nowhere, a giant black man came over and ejected the drunk assholes who were throwing free pizza. Then, the remaining stoners tried to start more shit with our good time crew! Another bouncer came over to squash it and the rest of the stoners went back to their corner. A hipster uprising! That was scary AND funny! If only Madonna knew how much pain and suffering she caused these hipsters with her bubble-gum party hit from the 80’s. I am sure she meant for the song to bring people together, but here, in a back room at a hipster bar in 2008, it was only tearing people apart.

The rest of the night continued with half the crowd freaking out (in a positive way) over every song that came on while the other half whispered messages of hate towards me and my posse. They hated on Justin Timberlake. They hated on Kylie Minogue. The even had the audacity to hate on the brand new Janet Jackson! True and his batender gang bought me three drinks throughout the night. I guess they felt bad that the stoners threw free pizza at my friends. Those were the most violent stoners I have ever met! I love that they hated the music so much that they started a free pizza food fight, but they didn’t hate the music enough to leave and let us have the good seats! I think they particularly loved it when Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories sang “Stay (I Miss You)”. They didn’t know whether to sing along or take me hostage. Even the well dressed hipsters tried to scold my music selections and asked me ‘how long does your birthday last for?’ I assured them that there will be no Dave Matthews or John Mayer and that it’s my birthday and they have to be nice to me. Hipsters are hilarious.

The lame girls who danced to every song wished me a happy birthday and thanked me for my wonderful playlist. A few hipster dudes asked me to make a play list for them so that hot chicks will come over and dance at their house. When I went to gather my belongings to leave, I did a fade out on my playlist. There was a spattering of unenthusiastic applause, mixed with just a few disappointed groans. Now I know how to start a Hipster War if ever we needed one. Just make a playlist and force a bar full of hipsters to listen to it. Armies will form. Battle lines will be crossed. You will decide whether you hate my music or love it and the war will begin. Luckily there will be enough free pizza to ration to the troops so the hipster war would never be without food. Ooh. That gives me an idea. No food? Next year’s theme will be African Safari! I can register my party guests to adopt a starving child! And I can still play Madonna for the soundtrack!

30 to 31: Chromeo

Getting drunk on a Monday is lame. I am officially old now.

Last night I had a full evening of plans. Usually Monday nights are my laundry-stay-at-home night, but I packed in two Friday nights into one, little Monday. I met up with a dude I’ve been hanging out with right after work. I don’t have a clever nickname for this guy because I think I actually might like-like this one. Hmm. Maybe I’ll call him Like-Like. So I met up with Like-Like at Forbidden Planet, a giant comic book store. Like-Like loves “graphic novels” and it was actually very fun walking through this explosion of superheroes, animation, and action figures. I bought a tiny little Winnie the Pooh who was dressed up inside a glue bottle. I really wanted to buy some weird Japanese shit, but it was too expensive.

We slowly fell in like-like with each other over some chimichangas. Conversation whizzed by and as soon as we finished 4 or 5 margaritas (I honestly can’t remember) I had to go to meet up with The Straights because we were going to see Chromeo in concert. The studly latino waiter brought our check and some free dessert shots of something he called “La Cucaracha”. Like-Like and I sort of stumbled/glided into the street where he went in for an after dinner kiss. Adorable.

I was in a pretty dope mood when I met up with The Straights. “Another round on me!” Perhaps I yelled it a little too faggy in the nearly empty bar because I caught a few sideways glances. Whatever. Two hot (almost) lesbians were making out in the corner, then started working on what appeared to be homework on their laptops. OK, fine, do your homework in a bar.

A few more rounds into our Chromeo pre-game, Sophia asked about the tickets. Jon immediately deflated. He had left them at work. We thought he was joking at first, but it turned out he was not. Instead, we played Scatergories and Connect 4. Thank god that bar had board games otherwise the night would have been ruined. We laughed and drank and made fun of the stupid bartender. When we were getting ready to walk out, the lesbians came up to us and wanted to play Connect 4. Sure, why not. It’s only 11:00pm on a fucking Monday! So another round of booze, of course. A fresh Captain and Coke appeared in front of me like magic. We all got to chatting and I find out the lesbians are from The OC! Crazy! They grew up in Huntington Beach! Weird! They went to my high school! SHUT THE DOOR! GET OUT OF TOWN!

The Straights and I got a falafel. Jon said one of the lesbians looked like Paris Hilton. Sophia disagreed and threw my baklava in the garbage. I don’t know why she did it. I didn’t think the lesbian looked like Paris Hilton, but I was laughing and we were hammered so that made me guilty. I dug my baklava out of the garbage and ate it anyway.

Wow. I can’t believe I am gonna be 31.

The Poconos

This past weekend I returned to the farm in The Poconos. Country life is nice and relaxing, but I couldn’t imagine living there full time. It’s like you go into a vortex of time and space – lunchtime feels like dinnertime and the moon comes out at noon. If I was a lazy, unmotivated, country teen, I would be very bored in the middle of Hicktown. I can very easily see how someone would develop some sort of drug or alcohol problem because what else is there to do? Watch popcorn pop….

Luckily we didn’t have to become country meth heads all weekend. There was plenty to do besides watching popcorn pop. Sophia hosted a murder mystery game, we put together puzzles, read books, dressed up in costumes, played in the snow, took editorial photo series, had a scavenger hunt, went thrift store shopping, grocery shopping, cooked giant meals, made arts and crafts, played with dolls, listened to every song in my iTunes, and told stories. No need to create a meth lab with this creative group of geniuses!

Below you will find a series of photos along with favorite quotes throughout the weekend. I can’t explain everything for you, just take in all the randomness and enjoy!

We went grocery shopping in a small town store. It was eerily silent and my booming voice could be heard everywhere. I didn’t mean to cause such a scene, but it’s not every day that these hicks see a group of hip, young, New Yorkers in their sleepy little grocery store. Maybe the constant video taping I was doing was a little much. The store had homemade pierogis, which was a total bonus. The cashier looked like she was 9 years old and everywhere whispered to each other as I walked past them. It wasn’t like I was screaming and yelling and dressed in drag. Now, THAT would be exciting! Maybe not as exciting as getting punched in the mouth during the scavenger hunt that I made…

The only television we watched was some big deal football game. The Straights tried to trick me into liking football. Sophia kept telling me how hot the dudes are in the uniforms. I don’t have to sit through an entire game for that! I can look at pictures on the internet, and if I am looking at pictures on the internet, it’s going to be of Brent Corrigan, not some football player in a lame uniform. The end of the game almost tricked me into being excited. There was a tie and a flip of the coin and alot of yelling from freezing fans in the stadium. Jon tried to explain what was happening in the game, but no matter how much it looked exciting, I still didn’t care. Boooring. I was more excited to go out in the snowy field where a creepy truck was marooned in a patch of overgrown weeds and trees. The gays went out for a stroll in the 18 degree weather and we did a photo shoot.

I made breakfast every morning for everyone because I am awesome and also because I was hungry and love breakfast and no one else was making it. Jon fried up the homemade pierogis for lunch. It was fascinating. One of the high points of the weekend came when The Straights, The Other Straights and “Mary” finished the wizard puzzle. I wasn’t emotionally invested into the puzzle like they were, but I was very happy for them when I heard them congratulatory scream from the next room. Whether I was laughing at Sophia in a shitty wig and giggling at the refridgerator or pretending I was a bartender in the basement bar, every minute of time was well spent and well relaxed. Thank you, Martin Luther King Jr. for the three day weekend!

Here are my two favorite pictures from this weekend… one is a candid shot of The Straights that I captured. Jon told me I was “a regular Annie Leibovitz.” The other is of me and my roommate, Brian.

Oh yeah. All weekend I kept taking pictures of myself. Everyone laughed at me like I was an idiot. Well, tell me if this last slideshow is the work of an idiot…

Yes.

2000 Great!

“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!

Last Day in Cali

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.

I’m fucking happy to be back home in New York.

White Trash X-mas Party

Brian and I started decorating this past Wednesday. Somehow it took us right up until 7:00pm (the time the party was to start) this Saturday to be completely ready for our First Annual White Trash X-mas Party! My new painting arrived from New Orleans just in time to be hung in our living room! Here is a photo tour of what our apartment looked like beforehand…

There was also a Jewish room and I hung a framed picture of Jake Gyllenhaal in a Santa hat in the bathroom. For snacks, Brian baked himself into a frenzy and made a bunch of cookies. I made cheese and Ritz crackers, a twinkie tower, and a seven layer dip of which I could only think of six layers worth of stuff to put on it. The twinkie tower was a hit – stacks of red and yellow twinkies garnished with spicy pork rinds. A real X-mas treat!

The party got off to a very slow start. Only one person was there on time and she planned on leaving early! Was this a cruel joke? Was no one coming? We thought the G train may have eaten some of our guests! About 9:30pm, people started coming all at once. The Straights got held up at a Cookie Party hosted by single, fat Christian girls with bad attitudes. Sounds like my party was a definite upgrade. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” played on the radio and all was in full swing.

Once everyone had time to mingle and down some cocktails, we did a White Elephant gift exchange. You know, the thing where you get to steal other people’s gifts and everyone sits in a circle? Anyway, the shittiest gift that was brought this year was sheet music from ‘Gypsy’. It was a last minute entry for someone who forgot to bring a gift. Now, I am all for last minute entries – I helped a friend out by wrapping some used CD’s (good ones too!), but sheet music wrapped in newspaper is a new low. However, it does not top the one year in college that someone wrapped an empty Taco Bell soda cup for a gift and when it was selected, you could see the melted ice cubes dripping through the green and red paper. The guy who brought that was permanently banned from my circle of friends.

I stole a pretty dope figurine from the Paris Hotel in Vegas, but Brian stole it from me in an attempt to get me to form an alliance with him to steal the spice rack that he wanted. I almost did it because the dude who brought the sheet music had the spice rack, but in a surprising, last minute turn of events, I stole my own gift (a Jay Strongwater heart pin) from the lovely Jeanne. Now what? Well, Jeanne then stole the spice rack from the sheet music guy leaving him the only choice but to unwrap a new gift. He got a figurine of a girl caroling in the snow, her mouth looked like she was ready to give a blowjob. It was all very confusing and slightly hostile, which seems to be the way games go down in this household, but I somehow ended up with my Paris figurine again and Brian and Jeanne had each other’s gifts they wanted, so they just switched. It was a Christmas miracle! The only miracle that wasn’t so delightful, was the people who got shafted with the sheet music. The Straights thought it might be a nice piece of art, a painting, a water color, perhaps a paint by number….nope.

After a downward spiral of booze, pills, and sugar cookies, everyone was having a good time, or at least was tricked into thinking they were having a good time. The guy who brought the sheet music left his caroling blowjob figurine behind. Maybe accidentally, but The Straights think it was left out of a guilty conscience. The Straights happily took the caroler and tried to roll a cigarette with the sheet music.

My vote for favorite party guest was a Japanese girl, whose name was Miko, I think. She was visiting from Japan. She did not know much English and came to the party stoned. I am still not clear how she got to the party or who she was there with. I leave you with some of my favorite shots from the evening. Enjoy!

Merry Effing X-mas!