This Was the Species that Was

I've been fairly scarce on LJ since my first full day at Carnivale in Nwalins. There are many reasons and no reason for this. This is meant to be a very generic catch-up post.

First, Carnivale was mostly great. I drank a hundred cocktails and sucked a hundred cocks. Well, ok, not that many cocks. Probably not that many cocktails, either, but close. After spending way too much money in the first two days at Corner Pocket—a surfeit of wallet-surfing hustler boys, several of whom Maestro and got to be fairly friendly with; four dancers from Taboo in Montréal, for example, one of whom French braided my hair on Friday night; we bought drinks and, thus, their continued attentions—we mostly stuck to the quartet of bars around Bourbon and Ste. Anne: Lafitte's, Oz, The Pub, and Good Friends. I got my suck on pretty nicely on Sunday but felt I could be doing it better: so Sunday night I swallowed half a tab of Viagra, put on my orange jock, and headed out. Had a spectacular time in the upstairs backroom at Lafittes: had my dick out and hard, but it was just bait to lure along other dicks that I could play with. Fellated a small batch of guys, the last of which was rrrrruff! hot and perfectly content to hang out tumescent in my mouth for a good long time. I have no notion it was he who stole my wallet, but I suppose it might have been.

Called the police from the room; waited for a callback. Called my credit card company and reported a stolen card. Luckily I had very little money in my wallet, but of course it meant I had no way to get to what money, real or plastic, I had left for the vacation. Also no clue how to get on the return flight without ID, so Maestro called Fabian and asked him to stop by my place, pick up my passport, and FedEx it for priority delivery Tuesday.

Of course, Tuesday was Mardi Gras, and that really does count as a holiday in NOLA. We learnt this by calling FedEx national to track the package: no delivery from the NOLA FedEx distribution center. Maestro sprang for a cab ride, 9 miles and $35 each way, and we picked up my passport. We had an early night out and an extremely early flight Wednesday morning.

So Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and while I have absolutely no inclination to rethink my lack of religious belief, it began, in the weeks leading up to Carnivale, to strike me that I might could use a break from the consumption of alcohol. So I'm dry for Lent. It's a silly excuse, I know, but still a good idea. Today was the sixth day and I'm doing ok. I'm finding myself declining or even canceling a bunch of invitations and engagements, including several IMs from my friend Tritelli last Thursday exhorting, wheedling, cajoling, beseeching me to accompany him to Secrets. Worse, I think I cannot attend the NYC gathering of old PennBO balalaika types the weekend after next, because I can't see myself partying with these folks without partying. Sigh.

The Wire Season 3 is magnificent on second viewing. The end of the Avon Barksdale/Stringer Bell tale is positively Shakespearean in scope and depth. Wow. And, goddammit, I love Bunny Colvin. I'm pausing before a second run through Season 4.

So the first night was faboo: after napping at the hotel, Maestro and I went out and foraged, stopping by Kelley's Deli for po-boys before heading to the Queer Sixteenth of the French Quarter. This bartender, who looks precisely the same as when I shot that picture in 2002—and looks like he could be Lord Gig's kid brother—greeted us at Oz along with five or so hot dancers. We had a couple beers and headed to Good Friends, where, upstairs at the Queen's Head Pub (yes. rly.) just a few patrons and staff were hanging, along with a formidably built, tanned, 40ish naked guy, who immediately came over to us and put our hands on his butt. His name was Tony, he said, and somebody had stolen his shorts, and just how was he going to get from here to Lafitte's where, an hour hence, he was scheduled to start dancing? It was schtick, of course, and he extorted a couple sawbucks off me to give Maestro and me a private dance that entailed taking my dick out and making it dance, and ended, if not with us coming on his chest, in any case with him asking for such with a practiced earnestness that got my taint at least thinking about it. ( Ooops. Sorry I forgot to do this; I was on my way to breakfast and in a hurry. NSFW. )

Montréal has a large and thriving gay scene, evidenced most vividly on rue Ste. Cathérine Est. I've visited Montréal several times, the first in the company of mostly straight men whom I had accompanied to Lake Placid, New York, to do winter sport-y things like luging. It was in preparation for this border-crossing side-trip that my excellent good friend Snoop Matty Matt and I stopped by a 7-Eleven to purchase a Montréal map and, at the behest of Matt's bisexual friend Chicken Jim, a bottle of hair mousse. At the counter of the Sev, Matt or I asked the clerk what he know of Montréal nightlife. Unbeknownst to us, the clerk was "family" and—presumably thanks to the mousse—assumed we were too. He directed us to Ste. Catherine Street East, on which boulevard Matty and friends got their first (and perhaps last) taste of gay strip clubs.

Quebec and Ontario and perhaps all of Canada permits nude dancing. Several of my favorite strip bars lie along rue Ste. Cathérine Est: There's Campus, the first one I ever visited, which has a good variety of dancers and at which, last year, there was a talented body painted who created the Spiderman you see in my icon—who, BTW, is fully nude; Adonis (no website, alas), whose dancers tend to be younger and twinkier than average; and the amazingly successful Stock Bar, whose live strip shows are simulcast on their website (with archived material for when they're not live).

All these bars, unlike their comatose D.C. counterparts, have dancers appear on stage one at a time, and each dancer does two dances: one to a fast dance track, where he teases and removes some clothes but keeps at least underwear on; and a second, slower song where he either gets or starts out completely naked and spends 3.5 minutes loving himself. Stock Bar has by far the most beautiful men—they seriously hire only extremely hot, built guys—and the most streamlined routine, whereby a constant stream of dancers are announced in French and English in thuslike order: Dancer B fast, Dancer A slow, Dancer C fast, Dancer B slow, Dancer D fast, Dancer C slow, etc. This goes on from early evening (mid-afternoon on weekends) through the wee small hours of the morning. Stock Bar also has the distinction of launching some current porn stars, including Colt man Dave Angelo.

All these bars also have private booths, where you can pay an average of $10 Can. "per song" to have your favorite dancer give you a lap dance. The dancers' versions of lap dancing, touching rules, and what constitutes "a song" all vary crazily. Some dancers will double the rate and allow you to touch (with hands, or sometimes lips or tongue—on anything but genitalia and anus); others are absolutely stentorian about the forbiddence of hand-touching, even relatively neutral areas like arms, shoulders, etc. At no point has one of these dancers ever put his dick in my mouth during a private dance, but I have to assume some of them sometimes do this kind of thing. It certainly goes on in American strip clubs, so why not in Canada where laws and attitudes re prostitution tend to be less restrictive/disparaging?

Compared with most U.S. cities, Montréal holds their pride celebration, Divers/Cité, late: August 1 through 5 this year. I am considering going, but with so much else going on in July and August (gourmet camping, Falcon Ridge Folk Fest, Philly Folk Fest, the Cheese Lords recording an album, and Southern Decadence, I'm not sure I can afford the time or the money... Well, there's always Stock Bar's website...