Friday, January 26, 2001

Here is what happens in the morning at my house

At around 6:30 a.m., the digital timekeeping device at my bedside signals me by beeping that it is time to begin the day, rousing me from unconsciousness while giving me the opportunity to quiet it and slumber for an additional nine minutes. At the same time, an immensely powerful computer sitting a few feet away on my desk starts itself automatically and joins itself to a massive worldwide network of similar machines. Thus connected, it gathers messages from distant correspondents which have been transmitted to me throughout the night and then assembles an "electronic newspaper" for my review, paying particular attention to those topics in which I have, in the past, demonstrated an interest or fascination.

An hour before, a smaller computer on the second floor of my house has communicated with the furnace in the basement, instructing it to raise the ambient temperature of my home by approximately 10 degrees in preparation for my wakefulness. In the kitchen on the first floor, a still smaller computer begins -- with one half hour remaining before I awake -- to direct the activities which will brew my morning coffee. Nearby, an even smaller electronic device, switches off the incandescent lamps which have, throughout the night, illuminated the front and back porches.

Three flights upstairs, it is now 6:45 a.m. and the massive 32" video screen in my bedroom automatically comes to life, instructed by the digital video recorder to which it is attached to show me the morning weather and traffic forecast and, in the event I am still too bleary-eyed to make sense of this information, provides me with the means to rewind and review the information at my leisure. Likewise, throughout the night, this electronic servant, apprised of my tastes and preferences, has sought out and preserved entertainment and information programming I will perhaps enjoy viewing at another time.

I stumble down the stairs to retrieve a cup of the aforementioned coffee before ascending again to review the messages gathered earlier by my desktop computer and to read the custom newspaper assembled for me. This completed, I press the tiny button on a nearby "cradle" and, moments later, remove and consult a translucent blue device which contains a complete list of my friends and business associates along with their contact information and a complete schedule of my appointments and obligations for the coming four years. I briefly scan the latter list to determine I am to meet a friend for breakfast and, following a workday during which I must return two telephone calls and attend three meetings, meet a second friend to exercise at a gymnasium.

The computer on my desk, using the voice of a character in one of my favorite entertainment television programs, informs me that it is now 7:45 a.m. and time for me to descend the stairs and begin my preparations to face the day scrubbed, tubbed and suitably dressed.

I live in the fucking future, man! And I am not alone.

Friday, January 19, 2001

Fantasy Dinner Party

Friends of Dorothy Edition

• Dorothy Dandridge: Quintessential Carmen Jones


• Dorothy Parker: Algonquin Roundtable wit


• Dorothy L. Sayers: Wimsey-cal British detective novelist


• Dorothy Fields: Broadway lyricist


• Dorothy Zbornak: substitute teacher, Golden Girl


• Dorothy Gale: Kansas farm girl, cultural icon


• Dorothy Lamour: movie queen


• Dorothy Allison: fantastic dyke novelist


• Dorothy Lee: 1930s comedienne

Tuesday, January 16, 2001

In which I’m gonna make it after all…

So I'm sitting at the bar of a trendy Central West End restaurant, one of the few times in recent memory that I've actually gone to happy hour. No particular reason for being here. I just felt like having a beer after work, and the last few times I've done the cocktail thing somewhere such as The Loading Zone or The Complex, I've ended up staying well into the night, dancing with strange software salesmen from out of town, and generally regretting the whole enterprise the following morning. Tonight, I just want a beer. Maybe a bit of light supper, and then home.

One of the waiters approaches the service area to my right, signals the bartender and says, "I need two more bloody Mary's for the two bitter Mary's at table four."

I casually turn to look over my left shoulder. Naturally, it's two guys I know, and I agree with the waiter's assessment one hundred percent. I give a jaunty wave to Jeff and The Giant Queen and drain the last of my longneck, moving to join them. "Make it three," I say to the waiter. "This Rhoda is going to join the Marys."

Friday, January 12, 2001

It’s a fact

Falling in love with someone and then having them fall out of love with you is like having a trusted handyman live in your house, perhaps someone you come to think of as a son or a member of the family, and then waking one morning to find your valuables gone. However, when someone steals your heart, it's much more traumatic than someone stealing your jewelry, and it's much more difficult to report on insurance claim forms.

Thursday, January 11, 2001

I do like latte, though

Almost as soon as we're in the door, he asks me if I want a cappucino. I decline, and ask for a beer instead. I don't really like cappucino. I've never quite understood why people willingly make it and drink it at home. To me, cappucino is a chi-chi thing you order in trendy coffee bars to impress the trick whose name you have already planned to forget within 24 hours. Cappucino is, in short, something to be tolerated, a bitter speed-bump on the road to getting his number.

Of course, I have a cappucino machine at home. Everyone needs a few attractive countertop accessories to impress the trick you might want to remember for more than a day. Need I add that I've never used mine to actually make a cup of cappucino?

Monday, January 08, 2001

Before…and after

It's not too often that you can pinpoint the date that divides your life into "before" and "after." That is to say, you can rarely point to one moment after which you can definitively say your life will never be the same. Better, maybe, or perhaps worse, but fundamentally different certainly.

In an odd confluence of fate or just coincidence, I was reading over some old journals and datebooks tonight. I just ran across them while clearing out desk drawers looking for something else entirely. For me, "after" began on January 8, 1996, five years ago tonight. The first year and half of "after" really sucked. Reading the words I committed to paper half a decade ago made me realize how deeply I was hurting then, how much of a horse's ass I was to a lot of people who loved me at the time, how much I lost and sacrificed.

Reading the language I used to describe my pain, my longing, my dreams (and nightmares) and desires at the time made me realize how much stronger I've become for having lived through the initial maelstrom of "after". I've set those pages aside to read again, more often perhaps than once every five years, to remind myself that "before" was good but, all in all, "after" is ultimately much, much better.

Friday, January 05, 2001

I wonder

It seems as though most of the men I meet these days are in recovery for one reason or another: alcohol, drugs, gambling. I'm now familiar with more 12-step programs than operas, and that's unusual for a gay man, I think. For some reason, I never get to date the sexual compulsives.

Either that, or first dates with me are some sort of wonder cure.

Wednesday, December 20, 2000

The name game

A few years ago, I was standing on the perimeter of the dance floor at Magnolia's chatting with Jeff and Eric as we cruised the disco crowd. The boys spotted a duo across the room and zeroed in on the new meat with laser-like precision.

"Hey," said Jeff, "check out Red-Cap Boy over there."

"Yeah," said Eric, "looks like he and Bubble Buns are an item."

"I can't believe you two," I said. "Every weekend we come here and you always point out some stranger you think is interesting but rather than go over and actually talk to them, you keep your distance and make up nicknames for them. Hell, Eric, you called Jeff 'Peroxide Tragedy' for almost a year before you were introduced at Nathan's birthday party."

Jeff turned to Eric, piqued. "Peroxide Tragedy?"

"That was during the unfortunate phase when you thought you looked like Bryan Adams," Eric said.

"Those guys look like they're new in town," I said. "No one else is talking to them. I'm going to go over there and show them some hospitality." Neither of them heard me, however, Jeff now strenuously insisting that his "tasteful highlights" hardly constituted a tragedy. Although I considered my point well made, I sincerely doubted either of them could appreciate it.

I wandered through the gyrating crowd on the dance floor to where the newcomers were perched along a rail near the window and stuck out my hand. "Hi," I said, "I'm Brad. You guys looked like you might want some help getting the lay of the land." (I winced at my unintended and potentially misunderstood pun.)

"I'm Jay," said Red-Cap Boy, "and this is my buddy Michael." He gestured toward Bubble Buns with his beer bottle. "Seems like it's a little hard to get to know folks here."

"It can be," I said, grinning and signalling for another round of drinks. "But now you know me."

"We saw you earlier," Michael said, nodding toward where I'd been standing with Eric and Jeff. "We thought about coming over to talk, but it looked like you were pretty involved with Gym Tits and Blondie."

Monday, December 18, 2000

Upon a winter’s night

There are several inches of snow on the ground and it's sleeting now. There's a wind chill of 51 degrees below zero, and the TV weathercasters are calling the temperatures "life threatening". In short, it's not a fit night out for man nor beast. Naturally, The Complex is packed.

So packed, in fact, that there's a line at the door when I arrive. I am wearing long underwear, a pair of cords, a shirt, two sweaters and a down-lined coat, gloves and knit cap. While I await my turn to pay the cover and ascend the stairs to the dance bar, I am joined in line by a guy I vaguely recognize from the gym, clad only in an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt and jeans. He is followed by a zaftig drag queen in a sequined gown, fur stole, four pairs of control-top pantyhose and what appears to be an inch thick layer of foundation make-up. Of our trio, I'd wager she's the best insulated.

Once I'm inside, it becomes clear I missed the announcement on the Emergency Broadcast System ordering every gay man in the city to congregate here, presumably to huddle together on the dance floor for warmth. Cher and Madonna throb from the overhead speakers, doing their bit to encourage aerobic movement to stimulate blood circulation.

All of these people are obviously insane.

I, on the other hand, am here for one reason only: it's The Giant Queen's birthday. Not the official celebration, to be sure, but a local low-culture soiree for the homosexual hoi polloi. The big shindig will take place at sea, on a Caribbean cruise he's planned for the early spring, attended by what we have affectionately dubbed the Billionaire Boys in the Band Club. Not having the necessary scratch for that little party, most of our brood has gathered tonight -- the elements be damned! -- to toast GQ's encroaching middle age.

It's just past 11 o'clock on a Saturday night in the City by the Bog. Around 3 a.m., I will stumble out into the parking lot, freezing again, exhausted from dancing, a bit tipsy, and slightly nauseous from the swirling miasma of cigarette smoke, CK1 and Aveda hair products that lingered over the dance floor. The city is bathed in white...pristine, shiny, new, pure. Everything that we -- The Actor, Craig, Jeff, The Twins, Matt, Marc, Mark, Derek, The Giant Queen and I -- are not.

The Giant Queen clasps his beefy forearm around my neck. "Look at us. I never thought I'd be this young," he says, "when I got to be this old." He has a twinkle in his eye that says he knows he can count on me -- the one who presumably knows where all the strip bars, sex clubs and after-hours parties can be found -- to suggest something appropriately decadent to kick off his 51st year.

Which is why, at 3:30 a.m., we could be spotted at Denny's devouring ice cream sundaes with chocolate and butterscotch sauces, two booths over from a zaftig drag queen and an A&F gym bunny. And the snow continues to fall...

Friday, December 15, 2000

In which I am not a wrap star…

After spending three hours tonight wrapping holiday gifts, I've thrown up my hands in defeat and resolved to go out tomorrow and buy a dozen or so brightly decorated gift bags and a ton of tissue paper. I love giving gifts. I detest wrapping them.

Actually, I'm just not very good at wrapping them, despite years of practice. Sometimes I go to a department store or upscale boutique and just stand by the counter watching the gift wrapping clerk work her (because it's usually a her) magic. Perfect seams, evenly cut paper, invisible tape, handmade bows. I stand there in rapt (wrapped?) amazement, trying desperately to remember every detail and technique so I can duplicate it when I return home.

Two hours later, I'm covered in multi-colored ribbon, paper and tape, looking for all the world like Charlie Brown hanging upside down from the kite-eating tree. The package, meanwhile, looks as though it has been wrapped by a hyena having some sort of protracted seizure.

In this, I am unique among my gay male friends, all of whom seem effortlessly to combine the wrapping elements to create a package you could enter as a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. Last week, I was over at my friend Martin's house while he was preparing parcels to send to relatives in Wyoming. "Here," he said, handing me a small box of Godiva chocolates. "You do this one while I wrap the Waterford pitcher." After fifteen minutes, I had managed to apply paper to the candy, although neither of the ends lined up properly and the bow was hanging by a small corner of its adhesive. I looked at Martin's package, paper smartly creased around the edges, golden ribbon neatly running along the sides of the oblong box, topped with a bow that he tied himself in the shape of a swan. A friggin' swan! He's doing ribbon origami and somehow, I've gotten Scotch tape in my hair.

"Perhaps," said Martin, "you had better go and make us a couple of drinks. I'll finish up here." I gratefully retreated to the bar, mixing two very strong Bloody Marys. They were, I decided as I added a stalk of celery to each glass, the perfect holiday gift: red and green, warming, cheery...and having absolutely no need to be wrapped.

Thursday, December 14, 2000

Hair-brained affair

The latest Goatee Experiment is over. Despite an unprecedented duration of one month, three days, pretty much everyone involved agrees that the most recent effort, like all those before it, was an unmitigated failure. I should add it to the list of Ill-Considered Facial Hair: beard, mustache, sideburns...please welcome goatee. Thank you all for coming. The world thanks you even more for going.

Friday, December 01, 2000

Do what you can

Today is World AIDS Day. Around the globe, communities of faith, family, affinity and circumstance are coming together to remember, enlighten and educate themselves about HIV and AIDS.

AIDS is not over. The poor do not have dependable access to information about protecting themselves from infection, nor are they able to receive the latest, life-sustaining therapies. The young believe that they are invincible, stronger than the virus, immune. The rich and powerful believe their money and position will protect them.

Eleven days ago, one of the smartest and wealthiest men I know told me over dinner that he had tested positive for HIV. I sometimes wonder if there is any hope for us, as a race, when even the good and supposedly strong stay silent and ignorant of the world around them. It makes me sad sometimes. It makes me angry too. It makes me want to work for change.

I do what I can. Please: do what you can.

Monday, November 27, 2000

No “Sir”

For just a few days around each of my recent birthdays, I'm just a bit touchy about the aging process. I'm not ordinarily at all hung up on my age, nor do I think myself particularly old or even mature. However, I still get itchy around birthdays. It is in this spirit, therefore, that I make the following request of all waiters, shop clerks, doormen, taxi drivers, interns, bartenders and other fetching young men whose path I may cross in the two weeks or so to come:

"I know you are simply attempting to do your job and conduct yourself professionally and with due deference to our respective status as customer and servant. But...please do not call me "Sir" unless and until we are engaged in an act of sexual congress and I have specifically asked you to do so. Thank you."

Wednesday, November 22, 2000

Pass it down

My mother used to watch me as a child tearing around the house, chasing the cat or playing Cowboys 'n' Indians, darting in and out of furniture and china cabinets at breakneck speed. "That boy," she would say, "is an accident going somewhere to happen."

Which, today, is what I often say about my penis.

Monday, November 20, 2000

It’s a fact

If you want to guarantee that it will rain, wash your car and park it outside. If you want to guarantee that you will unexpectedly "get lucky" on Saturday night, have asparagus with dinner. You men know what I'm talking about.

Friday, November 17, 2000

Signs Your Romantic Brunch Date (And, By Inference, Your Relationship) Is Not Going Well

• He brings a newspaper to read.


• It's USA Today.


• It still takes him two hours to read it, not including the Money section, which he puts aside.


• He fails to notice when you gently kiss his neck while the waitress isn't looking.


• He also fails to notice when you use your English muffins as Mickey Mouse ears, singing, "M-I-C...See you in Hell, you disinterested bitch."


• He remains oblivious when you leave, taking his car keys but leaving the unpaid check.

Thursday, November 16, 2000

Cinematic

I often think that the best way to live one's life is to think cinematically, to picture oneself as the lead player in a movie and to strive to make every moment worthy of inclusion in the compelling pre-release trailer.

Today, for example, was rather boring until I decided to spend my lunch hour battling an intergalactic fighting force, bent on enslaving the human population of Earth, by sneaking aboard their mothership and activating the self-destruct device.

Wednesday, November 15, 2000

In which my body conspires against me…

I am fairly certain that my brain is attempting to convince my body it has superpowers it does not actually possess.

This morning, I rolled out of bed and groggily tried to walk right through my closed bedroom door, apparently believing that I could pass unhindered through solid objects. Late for work and nursing a bruised noggin, I attempted to make a 20 minute journey in approximately five minutes, subsequently disabused of the notion I was faster than a speeding bullet by the long arm (and prolific ticket pad) of the law. Upon arriving at my office, still a bit woozy and having not yet had my first dose of sweet, sweet caffeine, I prepared to sit at my desk and missed the chair by a good two feet, thus proving that the law of gravity does, in fact, apply to me.

I'm pretty sure this is a calculated campaign of revenge on the part of my brain to retaliate for that time a few years ago when it was duped by my heart into believing I could make Jason love me simply because I wanted it so badly.

Friday, November 10, 2000

Moms say the darnedest things

I suffer from this weird form of celebrity dyslexia. I mean, I can never remember which one is Dylan McDermott and which is Dermot Mulroney. Lately, I've become confused during discussions of Lucy Liu and Lisa Ling. I actually have to stop and think when the subject turns to assassins and remember whether James Earl Jones or James Earl Ray is the bad guy.

I think perhaps it's genetic. I recall watching a variety show on television with my mother a few years ago when a middling ventriloquist act was featured. Mom turned to me and said, "Well, that was okay, but they're no Waylon Jennings and Madam."

Tuesday, November 07, 2000

Priorities

Although I have already made plans to spend Thanksgiving weekend and, coincidentally, my birthday, quietly at home with my mother, The Twins and The Actor are conspiring to drag me along with them to the White Party. I have explained to them that, although the prospect of celebrating my 11,277th day on earth surrounded by thousands of tanned and taut party boys fighting fatigue and 'roid rage is somewhat appealing, mom and I already have reservations for holiday dinner and shows in Branson and, if time permits, a healthy dose of outlet mall shopping.

"Ah," says Twin A. "So you're willing to forego the White Party for a White Sale?"

I suppose I am. Whether that's a sign of encroaching maturity or stupidity, I have no idea.

Wednesday, October 11, 2000

Creative Ways to Meet New People

Because I have so many friends and acquaintances, I am often asked by wallflowers and other gregariousness-challenged folks how I go about meeting people and forming relationships. In the hurly-burly of this modern world, many of the structures we have for so long relied upon to bring us together seem, in fact, to keep us apart. Therefore, I am pleased to present this occasional series of pointers for those wishing to expand their circle of friends.

Creative Ways to Meet New People:
FIRST IN A SERIES

At the video rental shop or bookstore, there are often racks set aside from the primary display space featuring "Staff Selections". Here you will find a handful of new products or classic favorites, each attended by an index card listing the name of the employee who recommended the work and, perhaps, a sentence or two in their own words exalting its merits. For a sure conversation starter, select one or two of these items consistent with your own tastes and note the names of the employee(s) who made the selection. Then casually browse the store, matching your potential new friends name with the nametags of the staff. When you find a match and, if said employee appears to be someone with whom you'd like to strike up a friendship or other interaction, you should have an immediate opening chat gambit based upon your common interest in a particular book or video.

Nota bene, if you intend to employ this method as a means of meeting potential romantic partners: In my experience, the cute, jock-and-frat-type clerks in the video store are almost without exception the ones who have selected slasher films dripped with gore or action films of dubious merit which may or may not contain Pamela Anderson. The boys who have chosen tasteful Merchant Ivory costume dramas or outre independent films and seem, by their handwritten endorsements on the shelf, to be intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive young men are in fact 42-year-old Keith Richards clones.

Monday, October 09, 2000

Nature vs. nurture

Although my father was a Boy Scout leader, I elected to participate in 4-H instead. Although I was in many ways attracted to scouting as a pursuit -- by what I would later come to recognize as a mild uniform fetish -- more of my friends participated in the local 4-H Club that had just formed and its rituals did not include a goofy salute.

For the unenlightened, 4-H is a community service organization, nationwide but the ranks are swollen by country kids prone to livestock breeding and personal enrichment. Rather than work toward merit badges, 4-Hers complete projects and activities which, in my area at least, reach their climax at the county and state fairs.

During my eight year involvement in 4-H, beginning when I was 7 years old, my major projects included woodworking, electrical engineering, and food and nutrition. My best showing at a county fair was a third place ribbon for my handmade toolbox, a second place ribbon for the safety lamp I built and wired, and three blue ribbons: one each for my strawberry preserves, chocolate chip cookies and my creative table-setting arrangement with associated floral design.

Would anyone still care to debate nature vs. nurture?

Wednesday, October 04, 2000

Roger that

Every once in a great while, the fates conspire to bring the disparate lines of your life into confluence and freak you the hell out.

Today, for example. I'm walking down the D concourse at the airport, having just said goodbye to a man with whom I would like very much to have sex.

As I pass a bar packed with baseball fans reveling in the Cardinals' victory, I am called to and waved over by the last man with whom I had sex. He invites me to join him for a drink and, to take a seat with him, I must ask the man at the adjoining table to move his valise so I can reach the chair.

When that man turns around to oblige, we stare at each other with that "you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter no-you-got-your-peanut-butter-on-my-chocolate" look for a long, long moment.

And that's how I ran into Roger--the very first man with whom I had sex--for the first time in 15 years. The last time we were together, I had a 26 inch waist and still believed in a time called forever. I'll get a chance to see him again in two weeks: dinner, conversation and an awkward opportunity to be 16 years old again.

Monday, October 02, 2000

Night life, in summary

The scene: A nightclub so crowded it had become less a bar and more an exercise in the law of displacement.

Me: A little buzzed, a little down, a little high, a little horny, a little low on the personal esteem meter.

Him: Blue tank top, bulgy in all the right places, Strawberry blond, azure eyes, body by Fisher, brains by Mattel, also appeared to have experienced more ecstacy in one night than Hugh Hefner had in a lifetime.

The pitch: Not particularly graceful, containing more euphemism than probably wise, alluding to my prodigious sexual prowess and the availability of a variety of depressants at my home.

The payoff: Gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle sodomy event and sleeping until 2 p.m. curled around a 26-year-old Backstreet Boy-alike.

If there is such a thing as karma, I am so coming back as a cricket in the next lifetime.

Monday, September 18, 2000

A night out with Clingy

It was an inevitability that, having been goaded by The Twins into purchasing a shiny, stretchy, clingy shirt, I would eventually have to actually wear the garment. Its debut on the St. Louis club scene was not a particularly auspicious one.

After fretting before the mirror for at least twice the time it ordinarily takes me to prepare for a night on the town (read: ten minutes), I met up with the boys at The Complex for an evening of light beer and heavy dancing. Upon seeing my ensemble, Twin B breathlessly exclaimed those three little words: "You look fat."

"Thank you," I said. "I see you've finally settled on a pattern for your male-pattern baldness."

"Actually," Twin A interjected quickly, "I think it looks pretty good on you. Just hold your breath."

"I am holding my breath," I said. "In fact, I have not exhaled since 1991. I am a miracle of alternative respiration."

I should explain. I am not a big man, and I am not fat by any stretch of the imagination. However, more than a decade of sedentary living and a diet of beer and fried foods has not left me with the much sought-after "six-pack" abs. As beverage analogies go, my belly is more of a two-liter non-returnable.

The Twins chose to see my paunch as a challenge. "Breathe in and hold it," Twin B advised, "and throw your pelvis forward a little bit. Emphasize the package."

Twin A chimed in. "Keep your arms close to your body. Weight on your left foot, right foot slightly forward."

"I came here to cruise," I said, "not to do Pilates!" My protests, however, fell on deaf ears and Ecstacy-addled minds. The Density Duo spent another 10 minutes bending my limbs and posing me by the bar rail. When finally they were satisfied with my stance, they bounded off for the patio, leaving me to hold the pose for all of another 15 seconds, collapsing at last with the celerity of warm Jell-O.

I finished my beer, tipped the bartender a fin and slipped out the door before the boys returned, content to spend the rest of the evening watching Ab-Slider infomercials and munching Fiddle Faddle, the shiny, stretchy, clingy shirt neatly stored in wadded ball at my bedside, my dignity more or less intact and my resolve to redouble my gym ministrations renewed.