Slept late this morning, till just about noon, and woke up feeling good. Just enough time to shower &c. and head out to the North End bar for the Grabbys Recovery Brunch. (Recovery in the sense of hair of the dog rather than 12-stepping.) Particularly bad case of sunny-day-into-dark-bar walking in, so much that I nearly walk into someone. But in a moment I see that Jim McGhee is already here, as is cohost Matt Cole. Tret sidles up and says in my ear, "I saw you taking photos of that auto-fellatio guy last night at Circuit." Oh yes. Tret is here with Scott and they are both loading up plates of brunch: bagels & cream cheese & smoked salmon (definitely not any kind of lox that I've experienced, this is like fresh salmon, smoked briefly, cut in strips and curled up) & onions & tomatoes; shrimp cocktail; fresh fruit... If anything like last year they brought in pizza later, but once I hit my side of the bar, next to the stage, I didn't really wander far. I let a TPAN guy sell me raffle tickets, which this time around are $20 for "your inseam to the floor"; when he finally picks a stopping point at which to rip the tickets he has me at about 9 1/2 feet tall. Then he walks away without taking the $20, but I hustle behind him and pay up. Charity, after all; it'd be like stealing from an orphanage.
Will takes the stage shortly after 1 and announces that the show will start soon, so Jim and Tret and Scott and I head over and plant ourselves. Alan Gentry has his vidcam set up, so I put myself on a barstool where I will be sure to bump his tripod frequently all afternoon. (Ok, actually, I realized this with alarm, but really tried not to get in his way, and when, after the show, I apologized for bumping and such, he was nonchalant: "That's what editing is for.")
Gotta say Matt Cole is cute and Brady-esque with his new, longer hair. Not looking so much like a cookie-cutter marine-haircut gay guy. And at some point I told him so; he was appreciative and requested that I join his Yahoo! group, where an ongoing fan battle rages over whether the hair is an improvement.
My favorite bartender from last year is here again, wearing way too much clothing. He's an adorable bearcub kinda guy who takes me seriously when I order my bloody Marys
extra spicy. Somehow I neglect to get a photo of him, alas, so I can't show you; but "cute and makes a mean drink" goes a long way toward gourd's heart :)
Those that have seen the photos of last year's post-Grabby brunch knew that it was especially Grabby. As I mentioned the other day, Will Clark took the year off last year and was relaxing in NYC, while Michael Brandon took over the show and turned it into a three-ring cirque des salés;. (God, I love me when I pun in French.) So my concern was we'd be back to the "oooh, you can't do that on stage" mentality that Will seemed to embrace... but it turns out, happily, that I was completely wrong: Will didn't embrace that at all: he mistakenly believed it to be foisted upon him for legal reasons. Well, it most certainly was legal reasons—public sex acts do break open the morality laws—but the North End bar, last year AND this, bet on the odds that no hostile law enforcement agents would enter the bar disguised as hungover gay porn fans, see some penes traipsing about on stage, and call for backup to shut the bar down and fine them out of existence.
SO! The following went on:
Matt Cole and Will Clark begin hosting duties |
Ty Hudson shows up and immediately starts trouble |
Scott Spears, typically attired |
Will takes bids to get Brian Hansen's shirt off |
Brian is only one shirt to the wind at this point. That will change. |
Scott feeling suddenly peckish |
Will exercises "host's liberty" |
Michael Knight and Seth from Solarblu try to make a new porn star |
Scott shows off |
Will explains what he likes about Ty Hudson... |
... in some detail |
Ty |
... up close and personal |
Still more Ty |
Trying to get Matt Cole in trouble with his boyfriend |
The winner of the "undress Ty" auction |
Undressing Ty |
... |
... |
And the payoff, for which I'm on the wrong side |
Ok, just one more |
Will welcomes Luke Garrett and Gage Weston |
...and auctions off their undressing each other |
I dunno about you, but DAMN |
Luke and Gage |
... |
... |
... |
Michael Brandon joins the party |
Ty's at it again, with Scott, at the bar |
... |
... |
Scott Spears and Ty Hudson; Seth Blu snaps |
Ty eats Scott's ass |
Barrett Long and his bizarre stretchy genitalia |
Ty and Derrick Hanson make great friends this weekend |
Jake Deckard shows up |
... and adds his own unique talents to the proceedings |
... |
The thoroughly luscious Steve Cruz |
Steve Cruz flexes |
... and teases ... |
This IS why I do what I do. |
I intend to propose marriage to Steve Cruz's butt |
More Steve |
... |
Will thanks Steve personally ... |
... and professionally. |
The lucky winner of this auction |
is an editor with Gay Chicago |
... |
Derrick Hanson takes the other end for a change |
... Will Clark's to be precise |
...and then for good measure, Jay Black's |
Jay Black in da house |
Jay's own auction winner... |
...gets his own taste |
And then, the lovely Jeremy Hall |
...permits his fan ... |
...to do this. Sigh. |
next is actually me taking Brian's clothes off |
...but I don't have pics of this yet. |
Tony Serrano... |
...brings a couple friends with him |
Yes, Barrett Long can lick his dick |
...because it's made of real elastic |
Seth Blu entertaining admirers |
He came here to flaunt ass and chew gum |
So, really, what is there left to say? The bloody Marys were really yummy. I sat in my barstool and chatted with Jim McGhee and twisted and smoked Drums and tried not to bump into Alan's vidcam tripod and flirted with a few customers and put my hands on Scott Spears's ass as frequently as possible. I never tire of this. Where else can you hear someone on a stage say, "What were you going to do again? Oh, that's right, you were gonna eat my ass."
Oh, yeah: Jim's money kept flowing this afternoon: if memory serves, he got high bid on three separate "take their clothes off" auctions (including the one, for Brian Hanson's pants, whose honors he bestowed on me), to the summative tune of $1,300, bringing his charitable donations to TPAN to a weekend total of $2,800. He shrugged it off as tax deductible. At the same time, I noticed, he tipped the bartender $.50 per $3.50 drink, whereas I always tip at least $1 and, with this my favorite bartender, $1.50 per drink. Ah well, people are funny.
And this: by the time I got to taking his pants off, Colt Man Brian Hanson was, by all accounts, ripped. On stage with Will, they somehow got into this catfight in which Will said he had been doing porn since blah blah wet behind the blah blah kneepants blah, and Brian, who had won a couple Grabbys the night before, says, "Well, I
think I've won more awards than you." The audience lets out a collective vocalization that's part "haha" and part "uh oh"; Will says, "Oh no he
didn't." Not satisfied with this dissing, Mr. Ego pushes on: "I don't remember any of your movies because they were
so! long! ago!" rolling his eyes the while. I had spoken with Will following his Friday night cocktails show at Hydrate about why he remained fully clothed the entire time, so I knew he was already feeling kind of unattractive. ("I don't want people to remember a fat Will Clark" is what he said, which pfft. My point was that people love him for who he is and what he does at this point, which is no longer about making porn.) I checked with his friend Alan Gentry later as to how upset Will really was by these remarks, and Alan confirmed my suspicion of "fairly"—even though the self-obsessed offender had been pounding down the cocktails all afternoon.
Alan Gentry also gets off the best line of the afternoon... Will noted that somebody, some reporter, stated that he was "...like Bob Barker with tit clamps," and wondered aloud what Bob Barker would have to say about that.
"Bob wants his tit clamps back," Alan hollers.
By the end of the brunch show I had used up all but 7 available photos on two gig-sized compact flash cards and nearly all of the juice of two batteries... so it was back to the B&B for recharging and download... and a brief nap, and some take-out Thai food. (Wonderful potstickers and panang tofu, but I was under the distinct impression that spring rolls were fried unless otherwise noted and that
summer rolls are the raw ones. In any case the raw rolls I received were not what I wanted, but they weren't bad for all that. And the Thai place was like 6 doors down from the B&B.) I debated whether to take a bus or cab up to the north branch of Boystown to the post-IML-contest party with the Colt boys, Gage and Luke, but it was already after 11 when I set out, so I just headed back to the Shoe, where Randy, at the back bar, had
Die, Mommie, Die on the TV, and we had a blast watching that silly, campy pastiche of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Douglas Sirk flicks... Later he put on
Mommy Dearest, which, really, I couldn't care less... but it turns out Randy's a monstrous huge fan of La Crawford.
Benny is dancing and, having acquired a leather-smelling spray somewhere, is trying it out on all the IML weekend customers. Some big, beautiful 30-ish man named Richard is drunk to the point of defying gravity and, though cut off, keeps wandering around like Karloff in Frankenstein, pestering the occasional guest, looking alternately like he wants to fight and like he wants to cry. A random patron next to me at the bar mentions his bit-part work on both
My Brest Friend's Wedding and some Sandra Bullock movie I didn't catch... I am happy that he confirms to all within earshot that Julia Roberts is a miserable, mean-spirited, and self-absorbed human being, whereas Sandra is a delightful person who talked chummily to everybody on the set.
Once again it occurs to me that I should have opted for the Colt party up at Touché, but it's too late to do anything about it now... it's last call, and I'm headin' for my beddin'...
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