I am that weird age where I am too old to be following random 19-year-olds on Twitter but young enough to snag myself a sugar daddy. Both are dangerous.
I went to LUSH twice in a row last week! LUSH is still my favorite gay bar and while I’m very happy to be in Loring Park, I miss being within walking distance of it. Chuck and Joey were both attending, and I felt bad that I didn’t get there until 12:30. I have a chronic inability to arrive at a social gathering before midnight. It doesn’t matter what time I start to get ready. I have to shave, and take an hour-long shower, and put my make-up on, then remove my make-up because it doesn’t look right, then re-apply, then change my outfit three times. I think I have Gay OCD.
Joey moved in with muscle gays in the suburbs, and I have not met them yet but one of them I often see at the clubs and the other one I Facebook-creeped out of boredom. I told Joey that if I am just randomly in his suburb (that I don’t think I’ve ever been to in my life, truthfully), I just might need to borrow something like vodka or a cup of sugar or an orgasm. I went to the bathroom and stood at the mirror next to someone who had to be a model, and then Star Quarterback came out of the stall with four other dudes, and he was wearing a zip-up sweater and looked dreamy. My life is a joke.
At the end of the night, Chuck and I stood by the fire and somehow we ended up in conversation with a boy who used to work coat check at The Saloon. You know I’m not one to be overdramatic or use exaggerated statements, so you’ll have to trust me when I opine that he was THE CUTEST BOY EVER. He was from South Dakota and that meant that he didn’t know that he was beautiful. We talked about the weather, which means I must have wowed him.
“I heard you met a boy last night,” Liam texted me the next morning.
“Not like that,” I said. “We only talked about the weather.”
“I know his last name,” Liam said. Then I Facebook-creeped and found out he has a boyfriend. Cue the music they play when people lose on The Price is Right.
The next night, we were at LUSH again for Lavender magazine’s monthly event. I wanted to introduce myself to Jacob Frey, an activist whom I met last November on a bus stop the same night I first met Devin and Liam (and did my first ‘real’ stand-up gig!), but he was texting ,and I probably would have proposed to him despite the fact that he’s already married, and to a lady. I was two people away from Gay Oprah but wasn’t inclined to introduce myself. Besides, what would I say? “OMG, you totally liked my comment last month! I feel so validated now!” That is totally what I would say, by the way.
Many of my friends and acquaintances were there, including a man I will call Roger. Roger is the definition of boisterous -- on my birthday he yelled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOTHEFUCKER!!!” just as my mother walked in, and then proceeded to bus our tables despite the fact that he didn’t work at the bar -- and is never boring. Once he got black out drunk and dry-humped me on the dance floor, but he doesn’t remember that, and we have agreed to move past it. He does very well financially but I like to pretend I don’t know that.
I ordered a salad, Liam graciously gave me one his quesadillas, and I dropped Devin and his boyfriend off to their date at Hell’s Kitchen before deciding I was off to The Saloon. I was off work for three days in a row and I was going to exercise, and clean, and do stand-up comedy! Instead I just went clubbing. A lot.
Thursday was eventful because Peter was at The Saloon! We discussed fashion because at this point I was still delusional and thought I was going to get promoted at work. Speaking of fashion, I decided to over-dress and rocked my Marc Jacobs shirt and Vince cords. To my chagrin, The Saloon didn’t have coat check, so I kept having to stash my coat in the corner! Still, it was wonderful to catch up with Peter and meet his friends, who all seemed very excited about life the way intelligent 19-year-olds are. Unfortunately, they all left at 12:15 (they had class in the morning, an unfortunate side effect of partying with college freshmen). I drunkenly agreed to buy a Lady Gaga ticket, so if I come into money before spring, Stub Hub will be calling my name.
However, then I was all alone! There is a boy I see often who is friends with Davis, and he often introduces me to the cool gays as “Davis’s friend”. I bought him a shot, and then went to the video bar, where I was approached by a very kind and very heavy 47-year-old. He was honest and respectful the way he hit on me, but I don’t put out for anybody. I mean, literally, it’s boarded up and tumbleweeds back there. But as he sat there talking about his new job, and as I eye-fucked Star Quarterback who was sitting across from me, I felt waves of uncertainty. Okay, obviously I didn’t want this guy (as sweet as the attention was), but what did I want? This was exacerbated by my recent followings on Twitter of ridiculously masculine and attractive Los Angeles gays, and I imagined that if I ever moved to West Hollywood, I would only have lower self-esteem and more feelings of inadequacy. Who did I want in Minneapolis? Was I closer than I thought to being the man at the gay bar who sits next to the lonely (but relatively attractive) boy and tells him, straight up, “Hi, I’m 47 and I want to have sex with you?” Why was I so afraid to talk to the boys I thought were cute? Was I already too old, or too convinced that they were out of my league? What did I even want with them anyway? I’m not asexual, dammit, I’m just broken.
“JAKEY!!!!” someone yelled, and it was Roger and his friend Troy. Troy is effortlessly cute and twinky. It allowed me to escape the conversation, and the three of us vamoosed to Danny’s bar and had shots. Then, it was time to DANCE. Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” always comes on when I am dancing on my own. I ran into a girl from high school that my brother still has an insane crush on (she’s friends with one of the attractive A-lister gays. Of course). Troy kept lifting his shirt up and I admonished him for being hot. At 2:10 I was dancing on the whorebox and was a bit weary of a chubby girl dancing with an open beer bottle, and just seconds after I noticed her, she bumps into me and beer spills all over my Marc Jacobs and Vince.
I may have had a few drinks that night, plus enough allergy medication to kill a horse. So while I wish I could say I reacted with dignity, instead I may have torn off my shirt, yelled “THAT FAT C***!” (I can’t even print it here, in my own blog. I just can’t. I never use that word), and covered myself up with my jacket. It was later revealed that she was shoved by the same asshole that slapped Liam at LUSH last summer. She apologized for spilling. I apologized for screaming and stripping, as it was all karma from the time I spilled vodka cranberry all over that nice young man at NYC Splash. Her adorable 18-year-old friends thanked me for being nice, and I loved life again. Roger and Troy drove me home, and I pretended I was wealthy enough to afford dry cleaning.
Friday night I returned to comedy after my month long hiatus! I did a three and a half minute set at The Comedy Corner Underground, a place I highly recommend for both audience members and comedians. I really need new jokes. I feel so bad for these open mike comedians who have heard the Operation Get That Shit tight routine. A journalism student talked to me at the bar, and I was quiet and modest when he said he wanted to do a “feature” about me. Other comedians congratulated me about the ACME win, and I said “Thank you” and nothing else. I try so hard to appear to be modest and humble, and I think that as an ironic and unfortunate result of that, I just come across as an asshole. Mike Brody said I always look cold, and I got a wonderful pep talk from Matt Burmeister after I shared that after I won the ACME contest I got depressed and didn’t want to do anything anymore. “You’ve just got to be a man about it,” he said, and if we would have had beers to clink together, we would have.
On Saturday, I decided I would go to the 19 Bar at 1 A.M., because you can go there in your lazy outfit and not have to put your make-up on. I spoke to a neighbor friend of mine, but then left without saying good-bye because I am polite that way. I was online and saw that Kevin was online, too, and I haven’t talked to him since August (he doesn’t use social media very often), and it was so seventh grade, because I wanted to message him, but I didn’t, so first I updated my status, then I changed my profile picture, and then I realized that the neighbor had called me twice and I missed it, and it turned out that he had my wallet! OH NO! But then when I texted him to see if he was awake, he wasn’t writing me back! I had to work in the morning! Then I wrote to Kevin just because I was stressed out. He wrote back and I promise I didn’t squeal.
I went to the neighbor’s apartment, we listened to Jack Benny CD’s, and he graciously made me two cocktails. He gave me a Vicodin, but I decided to put it in my coat pocket and save it for when I needed it. He walked me home and I would have invited him in because I still had to put the sheets on the bed and I’m terrible at doing that, but I felt that would have been an invitation implying other things, so I entered my apartment alone, and exhaustedly crashed on a naked bed.
I really wasn’t going to go out on Sunday night. I was broke! I spent too much money at the bars! I had bills to pay! But work was so stressful that after an hour, it was inevitable (the computers were running slow, and apparently Columbus Day weekend is the new Black Friday). I still haven’t worked out despite my plans of having a sexy Halloween costume, but I did decide that I would Nair before I went out. I thought I was going to be early for once, but I had to watch The Amazing Race (I’m in love with the Southern Chippendales dancer, because I am deep like that). Also, Nair took forever because I am a hairy monster, and I burned myself so bad that I took the Vicodin to make the pain go away. Piano Man was texting me to hurry up, and I got there at 12:30. I went to my favorite bartender, downed my first 2-for-1’s, and did my mingling. Liam, Troy and Roger had their own corner of the world. “Heartbreaker” by Mariah Carey came on and I didn’t even request it! Nobody else knew the Jay-Z rap. Roger’s eyes were vacant, so I know he won’t remember that he said he wanted to be my boyfriend and wanted to take me to dinner. I felt as confused as I was on Thursday, so I ordered another drink and decided I could tell Piano Man all about it. Piano Man writes to me on Facebook when he’s been drinking, so I decided I would just do the real-time version of such a thing. My friend from Thursday introduced me as Davis’s friend again, and I asked him to introduce me as a comedian instead, which is sooo dumb, because I honestly think that being friends with Davis is greater currency at The Saloon than winning ACME’S Funniest Person in the Twin Cities contest. But I digress!
I told Liam he could sleep over, and as we were leaving, Piano Man texted me and said I should come cuddle. I asked for and received his address. I’m always wired when I leave The Saloon anyway, so I felt this would be perfect! The cab could drop Liam off at my apartment, and then take me to Piano Man. I don’t know what I was expecting, It would be coy and immature to pretend we were going to watch movies and play Uno, but I also knew that I was still myself and therefore wouldn’t put out. I was dropped off at an intersection that one doesn’t necessarily want to be at when it’s 3 A.M. on a Sunday night, and rang Piano Man’s buzzer.
He didn’t answer.
An exhausted-looking man asked to use my phone. “I’ll give you my wallet if I can use it, seriously,” he said. I let him make a call and told him what intersection he was at. He gave me back my phone. I buzzed Piano Man again. Nothing. I texted him. I called him. Oh, God. I was going to get jumped out here, and it would be a message from God to make sure to always be thinking with the proper organ. After ten minutes, Piano Man answered and said he would be right down. When he arrived, he seemed genuinely surprised to see me.
“Hey,” he smiled. “I’ll drive you home. Let’s go.”Whatttt????????? I mean, okay, that's cool ......
It was like I was walk-of-shamed without doing any of the shame stuff. Why did I come here? Was he kidding when he invited me over? Why didn’t I know better? This is someone who is very good-looking and successful and only flirts with me when he is intoxicated. Did I really think something was going to happen? Too shell-shocked to say anything, I got out of the car at the next intersection. On the way home, my phone rang! It was going to be Piano Man apologizing for everything! No, it was the lady that the guy who borrowed my phone had called. I told her the intersection that he was at, but that was also 20 minutes ago. Two young hipsters in my nearby building invited me to come smoke on their stoop with them. I don’t smoke, but I told them my plight and fake drama, and they were kind and emphatic.
Now wired from all the DRAMA and CONFUSION and FEELINGS, I drunk-Facebooked cryptic things and then went on Twitter. I wrote before about how I was following these gorgeous Los Angeles gays, right? Well, I also have this penchant for following Minnesota bro-skis.
It was all an accident. See, I went to high school with a kid named Dustin Olson. Last summer, a girl who I went to high school (but is much, much younger than me) retweeted something that Dustin had written. Fun! So I followed him, and also realized that this girl in question was really fun and we became BFF in Twitter-land. I hadn’t really talked to Dustin since high school, but apparently he had moved to Duluth and was randomly friends with all of these hot, muscled, douchey-fratty bro-ski types, which, as you know, are my favorite. So I started following them every time they were mentioned or re-tweeted. I never wrote to them, mind you, as that would just be creepy, but it was a fun glimpse into a world that I would never be part of -- in high school, college, and even now in gay high school I have always been on the periphery, as the jokester, observer, the awkward little dude who talks funny -- and there was nothing wrong with a little eye candy on your Twitter feed.
It wasn’t until the fall when I realized that the Dustin Olson I was following was 19 and therefore not the Dustin Olson I went to high school with. Therefore, I was not even tangentially connected to these hot northern Minnesota bro-skis. I was officially just a random creeper. But I still enjoyed reading about their parties and workouts. It was like I was watching the Jersey Shore of the Minneapolis suburbs.
A week ago Dustin wrote #VoteYes (in reference to the antigay amendment on the Minnesota ballot this year), so I hit the ‘Unfollow’ button. No harm, no foul.
Last night, at 5:30 A.M., *after* I had mixed alcohol with a painkiller and allergy medication, and *after* I had at least one 5-hour energy shot, and *after* I was livid and confused about Piano Man, one of the Hot Muscle Dudes re-tweeted something that said “faggot” in it, and I did not want to read that word in this current state of mind. “Please don’t say faggot,” I wrote to two muscle bro-skis.
There is a time and place for activism. I understand this now. I am friends on Facebook with gay men of an older generation. Literally very five minutes they will post a liberal meme or a story in the media about gay rights. I do not want to be that. It is important to be engaged and connected, yes, but when I grow up I do not want to be the Angry Hyperpolitical Older Gay. I want to teach by example.
You do not teach by example when you write to 19-year-old broskis on Twitter, whom you have never met, whom you will never meet, and whom you only follow because you think they are sex on a stick, that they should not use homophobic slurs. It will not end well. Instead, they will write this back to you:
“#VoteYes? Against gay marriage in mn that is since I don’t know you and you probably aren’t from here #fag”
It was deleted right away, either by him or by Twitter. His name is Nolan Frink if he ever Googles himself. I feel really bad for the other guy in the conversation, who didn’t ask for such a thing, and I unfollowed him, and I felt really bad for the high school girl, because I *barely* know her but I think she’s the bees knees, and she didn’t deserve my drunken 5:30 A.M. tweets, either. Then I shouted out all of the random broskis that I followed through Not Dustin Olson and through the girl from high school, who never blocked me or called me a fag. I have decided they are fine, upstanding gentlemen.
Perhaps I needed to be mad about that so I wouldn’t realize how mad I was about Piano Man, or at myself for being so shallow, and all of the other things that led to my downward spiral in September. I decided to be angry that, in 30 days or so, I could be living in a state that deems me a second-class citizen, that it is 2012 and people still throw around the word “Fag” like a common noun, and that I had grown up to be the Angry Creepy Old Gay Man that I always told myself I never would be.
No comments:
Post a Comment