November 20, 2004

[The "I've Never Been There" Tour] ^{4:28 PM}

After a particularly hellish week, and before a hellish work-weekend to ensue, I went out with Chris, John and Jamie last night.

Our plan called for us to stop by Guerilla Queer Bar (where, thanks to email, the homogays gather en masse and take over straight bars) at Local 16. Since it was a pretty night out, Local 16 was packed, so we made out way over to Stetsons, a very peculiar country western pool-hall that was filled with Log Cabin type-folks and trust fund babies. After a drink there we decided to mozy (like cowboys!) somewhere else, and that's when it began. That's when I started saying things like, "I've never been there."

At first I was taken to Windows, which is down on 17th. En route, Windows was described to me as "where gay men go before they meet God," and it wasn't far off. The hangout for the over 50 crowd. We were the youngest by far—which of course means I was the equivilent of a toddler. As we left, the entire bar wished us a good night. It was nice ... and odd ... and ... yeah.

Next stop on the "I've Never Been There" Tour was Zeigfeld's, DC's premiere drag show and bar, home to Miss Ella Fitzgerald and Her Ladies of Illusion. I like drag queens. I like the songs they sing and the clothes they wear and just the fun camp value of it all, so I was having a good time. Then I was taken to the back room. A.ka. Secrets.

Secrets is now "my first strip club," and home to many personal revelations.

A. I giggle when I see porn on TV's inadverantly synced up to the beat of the song playing.
B. How you let old men touch you there for $2 is beyond me.
C. Art school has ruined strippers/go-go boys for me.

So there's 8 "dancers" gyrating on various boxes, all in good-to-excellent physical shape and I'm just standing there going "so?"

Apparently numerous life drawing classes has zapped the fun.

Flashback to 2001: Adrian was our most frequent nude model in Life Drawing. He was in good shape, would provide us with interesting poses that he could hold for long periods of time, bring in props to switch things up, but he also talked to us. Talking nude models = odd. I remember vividly one day having to draw his penis as he was talking about his favorite coffeeshop off Westheimer. Guess what I think of everytime I drive by it now?

For our semester of Life Drawing Aimee sat next to me. I really like Aimee, she was 27, going back to school, and we shared a common bond of "why is he talking to us?" It had a habit of permeating almost all of our discussions, espeically lunch, which we always grabbed after class at this fun burger/chinese food joint down the street.

(other quick nude model anecdotes: They got paid $300 an hour. All of them had a habit of sweating profusly under the lights. Adrian was young, and we had him often, followed by the older Bob and Martha. There was younger girl who posed for us once, and we were all horrified to see that she was wearing a tampon and still chose to pose).

It's hard to tune out a nude model who's talking to you, seeing as how you have to focus on them the entire time. Over the course of numerous sessions we all became aware that Adrian was in a band, and that from time to time they performed around town. He also had a thing for Robin Hood, which would later reveal itself as more of an obsession when he brought in carved wooden bow and a quiver of arrows.

On St. Patrick's Day weekend there was a large street fair downtown. Wanting to have fun, Megan and I dragged our endlessly fun parents along (hooray for Dads! Designated drivers!) to get hammered, see some live music and some even livlier drunk people. So I'm getting pretty obliterated when the band stops playing and voice comes of the loud-speaker...

Thankfully, Aimee's on speed dial and I ring her, screaming that Naked Adrian's band is playing at the street fair. Turns out Aimee knows, because Aimee happens to be four feet behind me and 2 drinks ahead of me. After we relate to everyone else why we're flipping out (everyone and their mother had heard from us about Naked Adrian) we rushed the stage chanting "We've seen you naked! We've seen your cock!"

We spent the rest of the night fallowing around a ripped boy in a kilt who'd fallen in the mud.

Flashforward to Now: Having grown bored with the strippers in Secrets, I made my way back over to Ziegfeld's, where the drag had stopped and the dancefloor was now open to the patrons. I didn't have any intentions on dancing, but then a remix of Gwen's "What You Waiting For?" came on and I found myself next to a man in leather daisy duke's and an adorable corporate lawyer who was rocking the oxford shirt/sweater/black rimmed glasses look.

None of us were well-rested. It had been a long week, and as I thought it was nearing time to go I was informed that we weren't leaving until I'd placed some money somewhere on a Go-Go boy. It's not that I'm terribly shy, I'm not, and it's not like $3 is a lot of money, but I wanted it to go to the right person and my decision making process was taking a while.

I wound up settling for a boy named Dan, who was the smallest (frame wise) of the bunch. He was essentially a Robin dancing between Superman and Batman, and I felt kinda bad for him. I tried to just put the money in his sock, but wound up involved in a very odd conversation with a naked boy crouched over me asking me about my life.

As I made my exit (thanks to a pushy older gentleman) I found my Big Brothers proudly smiling. It was both endearing and immensly stupid, but that's why I love them. We said our goodbyes just before last call and stumbled home, where for the first time in about 9 days I got a great night's sleep.

Boulevard Of Broken Songs • (Green Day vs. Oasis vs. Travis)

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