Down by the Riverside

                Perfection for me is riding down the Riverside park cyclist path alllllllll the way down from my house on 156th st. “Way way upstate” as my friend calls it with a thick Valley girl accent. That’s what she calls my lovely neighborHood, emphasizing a hard H in hood. Being the borough snob that she is, Harlem is just one blurry bubble of ghetto. We’ve migrated uptown for the square footage honestly. The mirage of what should be a Starbucks sign is really a Twin Doughnut.  I’m an uptown boy. I’ve made the transition to fried chicken joints, T mobile kiosks, and Bail Bonds Lawyers. This pretty much wraps up why my peeps are so anti Hamilton Heights. Almost all of my city friends need five days notice for a dinner party. My girlfriend who is spoiled to death by living 200 blocks South of me usually shows up with mace, a hiker’s backpack with an easily accessible water straw, and camping gear, as she dares to risk going north of 59th street.  You would think she was climbing Everest!  “Call me when you get IN town!” she says jokingly as she leaves, as though I’m living in fucking Westchester!

         Riding down to the gay Chelsea Piers dog park on 23rd street feels a lot like slowly walking down the center line of the German Autobahn blindfolded with bikers, swooping and zooming past like lightning bolts in skin tight aerodynamic spandex. These assholes couldn’t be bothered to say "On your left!" or "Right Side!" No, these hard core speed Nazis carelessly command the shared city asphalt that my tax dollars also pay for. “I have a kid here!” I scream…referring to my little dog Harley in a wire basket mounted to my front handle bars. I mean do these people ever achieve their addiction and craving for adrenaline and speed? I mean how fast is fast enough? Do these guys ever get there? Or is it just about the journey? In New York I’d say 99% of all the people living here would say fuck the journey, we want to see some results! These speed demons are like ballerinas, stomachs full of cotton balls, never thinking they’re thin enough or whose leg is just not quite high enough. Or perhaps a model that is probably hungry as Hell, sewing her mouth shut because it’s down to her on one other model for the new Vera Wang spread in Vogue Magazine.

         BAM! A fast flash of brilliant color rushes past my left side like a rainbow school of fish. It’s as if I was competing in some high profile Tour de France getting my ass kicked! If you’ve ever seen the trippy cartoon The Triplets of Belleville you’ll get the desperation I sense in these guys and know what I’m talking about. How can these people bully their way around my meditation highway? Sure I have my pedal to the metal moments of sunlight inspired adrenaline when it comes to an exceptionally nice day. I get excited too and it makes me want to push it and kill it as hard and as fast as I can. But for me the light at the end of the south bound tunnel is all the salt n’ pepper daddies with Puggles and Yorkipoos! 23rd st. on the west side highway is the Bermuda Triangle of homosexual dog lovin'. The cement dog park itself looks like a Matthew Barney exhibit at the Guggenheim during his wax phase. Cruising to cruise boys, I keep it to a medium to safe speed with the safety of my basket-child in mind of course. My first priority is to fasten Harls safely into the basket and perfectly situate little Cleopatra for the ride. Then I go straight to ITunes and choose one of three albums: Lady Antebellum, the soundtrack to Shine the movie, or Quiet Letters-by an artist called Bliss that I discovered in the first Sex and the City movie. Riding a bike is free and it keeps me from doing what comes naturally which is going to brunch and then running into H&M and buying the same shirt over and over again but in a different color.

             I swear the aggression I release from biking and rollerblading by the Hudson keeps me out of the Hudson! After a good workout I’m too tired to hate. The misplaced urban energy is exploding all around us with loud, invasive, gunfire-like fire crackers igniting the hot summer nights... probably set by some very bored inner city kid growing up quite literally on the street. You would think this weekend mosey would be a pleasant experience for everyone, but alas, these damned sneak attacks come from behind and rob me of any comfort-zone I might get into. These peace-killers; these holier than thou ballsy rocket cycling psychos! I swear I’d lay down a Benjamin Franklin for a little warning bell from behind.

         The beautifully maintained parks are a saving grace to everyone that lives here if they know it or not. If Donald Trump bought Central Park and threw up some private gated-off community of luxury condos and high rises inaccessible to the public, the very soul of New York would implode and collapse in on itself. Millions of people would loose their own personal Eden. The Yin to the Yang of Manhattan life is being able to leave it, miss it for a few days, and then come back refreshed. That’s the trick. But if you’re like me you never have the money to travel when you have the time. And you never have the time to travel when you have the money. People are escaping in droves on the first Jitney out of here to the Hamptons.  I myself am usually trying to avoid stepping on Heroine needles at Coney Island!  Harley could realistically come proudly running up to me holding a human femur bone she'd found.......washed ashore from some Russian mob hit!  Ahhhh....nature!  I’m not one of those gay guys with a disposable gay income (DGI). Central Park is the poor man’s escape from the loud taxi cabs, the meetings, or to kill a couple of hours before a dance class or audition. Every day people make a mad dash for the park on their lunch break looking for that one seat on a park bench under a tree. Aloneish is the goal. I’m personally in natural withdrawal myself when it comes to all things green.

            My only sibling is probably dangling from his chalky fingertips from some terrifying cliff’s edge in the grandest of canyons where he works year round as a tour guide. I always wondered if we were truly related.  If I think I’m active, then this boy puts my little city adventures to Shizzame. Emails from my brother Jason sound like episodes of Lost! I’ll get a casual email saying “Living in Costa Rica now, couldn’t go to work today because there was a huge python wrapped around the ladder leading up to my self constructed tree cabana."  Or, "We are in Nicaragua killing ten days because of crazy visa problems.  No worries, but we found some trouble in town and ended up running from a gang of angry, desperate bandits throwing bricks and glass. Don’t tell mom but I'm all f*d up because ran into a barbed wire fence!”    WHAT?!?
My beautiful bro is a banshee of the wildest nature.  He's the best brother a gay guy could dream of having growing up, especially in the deep dark South. He was the popular straight star athlete standing up for me even though I was the older one. Jason’s greatest role was bridging the gap between me and my parent’s religious differences, thus explaining his emotional maturity far out reaching my own. My mother thinks Al Gore invented global warming for political purposes! When things like this come up and get confrontational I tend to clam up and shut down making it impossible to have an effective healthy debate. I get pissed, impatient, and flustered with anger that’s useless to any of my causes. In the city my nickname has always been Tank. But my brother was the original Tank and so I'm referred to as T2 (or tdos). We are very close because it's just me, him, and our parents. Tank was the one building our forts and Indian tepees and I was going in after him and doing an interior design fort makeover at ten years old. “Dream catchers and feathers are so last year” I say gayer than a fucking rainbow. We are close but wildly different. Being a licensed tour guide with EMT safety training, my straight younger brother is like the hippy Brawny man with long blond dreadlocks and crystal sea blue eyes. He is gentle, open minded, wildly spontaneous, and seemingly stress free. He will pack three or four weeks of food, water, and canned goods and bury it in a remote hole deep in the canyon. A week later he’ll disappear over the rim like a possessed Avatar on a meditation mission and live inside the canyon for weeks and weeks without once coming up for air! My idea of camping is sleeping at the Sheraton by the airport or on a friend’s couch. I hate to confess that I never even slept outside till I was thirty years old, how embarrassing. It was so fitting that I should pop my camping cherry deep inside the Grand Canyon at Phantom Ranch, the only establishment in the entire national park that functions as a working lodge. It was built in 1922 for hunters and other hard working folk that found themselves at the mercy of the desert. It’s about a fourteen month wait to get a beautifully kept private cabin if you know someone! But if you’re a friend of my brothers the dusty red carpet is rolled out with all the employee perks. The huge twisssssst here is that this hugely famous ranch is run by a bunch of gay guys! Every Fourth of July they hold a huge drag queen parade all throughout the ranch.  Burly dudes from all over hike in for hours to get to the bottom of the canyon where they pull out wigs and dresses from their North Face bags. Shoes and accessories are planned out with as much detail as rationing food and water for the ass kicking walk to the bottom. In the spirit of the event my brother hiked to the bottom in a mini red sundress!  It is an honor to know this boy. These are my people! After one fiercely humbling hike to the bottom I'm delighted to wash my hands and face with my favorite........classic Method hand soap! There’s no deli in these here parts.

             Now keep in mind that most of the people that visit the Grand Canyon believe the Earth was made in about six days. Jason drives these country bumpkins around in a white National Geographic van all day long spouting approved, legitimately solid scientific evidence. He puts evolution, and the obvious proof of it, in the faces of people like the woman that asked me if I “believed in the Lord?” “I believe in a lot of things” I said sarcastically, getting lost in her puzzled searching look. Long tours like this one with ol’Martha really make my brother want to break free and move to the Southern most tip of South America with nothing more than he can pack on his motorcycle. By the way that’s his latest email. Capuella reigns for this skinny hand-standing Buddha boy.

         On our trip in it took us about three hours to make it all  the way down to the bottoms. And within fifteen minutes of putting my exhausted,  calloused feet up in that gay lodge, I was eating Mongolian duck Pad Thai leftovers from that evenings four star menu, listening to Lady Gaga sing Paparazzi, while getting a foot rub from one of the boys! Why did I ever wait to embrace my natural side? My bro. jumped from crunchy munchy colleague to platinum VIP member by pulling the gay brother card. After all these years it finally paid off for him!

           All the time I find myself sitting at Riverside Park staring at the shimmering Hudson and all the boatloads of people coming and going in and out of the New York City based cruise ship ports...off to Bermuda or anywhere not here. Every day I pull a fucking Harlem chicken bone out of Harley’s greedy little mouth, moments away from getting stuck in her throat. The park makes me momentarily forget about the four am fiestas happening on the front stoop of my surrounding buildings and the hot Harlem nights with infants bouncing up and down on Spanish knees till the sun comes up. These kids obviously have no bed time. This is the uptown shit I’m trying to escape. What was once my parents’ huge three acre Tennessee back yard, is now a small cement courtyard at the entrance of my building. I think about all the times I bitched and bitched about sitting on my dad’s deluxe lawn mower for a couple of hours every weekend and how ironically now my favorite smell in the entire world is freshly cut grass. It's a scent that I can only find now in overpriced soy candles from Urban Cottage. Every single blade of grass counts here in New York just like finding a moment to be alone. What is magical about the city is that you can meet all kinds of crazy people from all over and have delicious, out of the ordinary conversations. But sometimes the best sound is no sound at all.

Unchained mElody

        

         My brother John's fiance' Elody gave me a critical piece of advise the other day that I've been challenged to take to heart and chew on. She said,"Be very very carefull about the internal dialogue you have with yourself about your life and career because what you think about daily will manifest....be it good Or bad!".  My continued worries and fretting (about things totally out of my control: like my auditions and the limited state of affairs in the American musical theatre) leaves me nervous and anxious.  It's no way to live wondering about all the close calls and what ifs.   Believing a kind, empowering word can be like climbing Everest and its so hard to do.  Why can't we step out of ourselves and see what the world sees?  We are always the last to understand our own beauty. I guess that that's the journey everyone is on....to find a stillness and peace within our insane circumstance. This is a lesson Ive learned from my little brother Tank.  His future is brighter than his past and he knows it. I spend so much time reflecting on the past and being worried about the future that I miss the perfection of the present moment.  "What a waste", he would say, "of our life-time!"  Happiness is a full time hobby and requires diligent focus and attention otherwise you end up seeing the world through my eyes.  And that's a world blurred behind an unnecessary scrim.  This must be the final chapter of that person........that guy.  The End.  It's like faking a smile.  Eventually you end up smiling right?!

212

        My "back yard" is really a front entrance cement courtyard three fourths of the way closed in.  Getting a dog and having no other immediate place to throw a ball has forced me to get to know all the neighbors that I've been purposely ignoring for years.  We sneak in like spies quickly fumbling with the keys to our huge glass front door. I try desperately not to get pulled into the annual awkward Christmas party that happens right within view of our lobby. I always pretend to not see the sincerely nice folks trying to get my attention by frantically waving us inside.  "No Fucking Way!" my best friend Johnny will say to me. "Go go go go go....damn it...hurry up.....faster!" The front door jams and the key (as usual) feels foreign to the forty year old rusted lock.  My shaky hand betrays me under pressure and the idea of drinking mulled cider with people that have moved my wet clothes out of the dryer before they were done makes me feel jaded. 
       The reason we can all live here for so many years and not meet any of our neighbors is because our entrance is set apart and private from all the other tenants.  We inhabit a corner part of the first and second floors...a wing if you will?  I've never even taken the elevator before because roof access isn't allowed anyway.  Mail and laundry are the only reason I ever enter the freaky 70's John Water's lobby at all.  We've been the mystery men living in the five bedroom-three bath apartment of dreams with a constant stream of people constantly peeking in our down stars window to get a glimpse of the five singl(ish) ghosts that live here.  When the leaves fall off the trees just outside our front window you can see the sparkling water of the Hudson and the huge ships passing. This is my rented castle and I love it here.  It's all about locatione' locatione'.  What business do I have paying high New York rents in my unemployed state you may ask?  I can't answer that.  I hate that  I'm one rent check away from total poverty and disaster but there's no place like home I suppose.
         I compare my New York existence to a Salmon frantically swimming upstream pushing against the natural flow of absolutely everything.  It is as exhausting as it is exhilarating and I wonder how many years I have left in this tough city or where my motivation will come from to boost me forward.  Will I be here till I'm forty doing the same shit?!  Oh god the idea of still auditioning at that age for mediocre bit parts in regional productions makes me want to run for the country hills or the Hudson!  There is no way I can deal with this kind of rejection and instability at that age (or this age for that matter)!  I think I've had my fill of disappointment for a lifetime already by 31.  I already feel too old for shows like West Side and Hairspray and to young for Jerry Mitchel's latest thing.  Am I supposed to just add testosterone and water and poof I'm a leading man!?  I confess that I'm freaked because how does a 31 year old guy maintain momentum when the young kiddies are filling out of the musical theatre academies in enthusiastic droves and bus loads?  And it seems that all the good shows are going out non-equity anyway.  I don't want to throw in the towel before I've achieved my original goal...to do a Broadway show for more than six weeks and go home every night and sleep in my own bed!
           Right now I am blessed to have just finished a sweet little two month gig that helped fill up the gas tank a bit.  I can't believe that I can celebrate an opportunity to dance my ass off for four hundred dollars a week and have that be enough.  It was great to be working when I know how many of my friends were struggling to stay afloat during the hot city summer.  Even the regional gigs feel like a lottery these days.  There are so many gorgeous guys and so few jobs.  Every day on stage is the Tonys for David Tankersley!  Because I've been an off stage swing for three years it was so unbelievably special for me to have been first cast again (finally) and have someone else writing down my blocking for a change.  I'd almost forgotten the excitement that comes from a half hour call.....instead of tracking down the equity cot first thing for a sensible nap during the show.
        Speaking of equity cots makes me think of one of my major tours that was a nightmare for a couple of reasons. The stage manager was a cunty gay man straight out of the exorcist!  He was a passive aggressive bastard from hell that held an undefined grudge against me.  Let's just say that he wrote up the entire company because there was a traffic accident on the freeway!  The first act alone was an hour and a half...three hours in total and I wasn't allowed to leave the theatre even after the numbers I covered were finished.  Weirdness trickles down from the top.  If your Company manager is cool then your tour will be smooth and hopefully drama free. But then there's those jaded queens that slip through into positions of power and write up 35 people just because.  Doom and Gloom!  I'm not one to use his blog to smear a reputation but.......should his name come up on a list of production staff in a show I was cast in I would seriously consider not taking it even in my desperate state.  I wish I could choose the high road but I guess it's too late now.  I believe in karma and I'm sure this entry is setting me back a few lifetimes but nonetheless my fingers continue to type and have taken on a bitter life of their own.  In my next regretful incarnation I'll probably end up being his son!
          New York City can feel like a turtle neck that's three sizes too small when you're enduring long stretches of unemployment.  I end up being a total insomniac because the idea of waking up, improvising, and filling yet another long day makes me not want to shut my eyes in the first place.  I've got to rethink my approach because I'm nursing a cancerous depression.  I can't tell you how frequently the sun rises on my denial of the coming day.  This perspective is eating away my courage.  I seem to be on vampire time and my DVR list is my Antichrist!  No Law and Order has gone unwatched....no case gone uncracked.  Night after night my counterproductivity thickens and calcifies until I'm rendered useless the next day.  It's a domino effect of disastrous proportions....snap out of it Tank!!!
       My other brother John Sexton wrote a fantastic line in one of his songs that says "Dreams are easy to make....it's time to follow through!"  Interior design.....massage therapy......?   So what's the back up plan?  Perhaps I should become a high end escort or "happiness consultant"?  Nothing sounds more like a slippery slope to disaster I'm thinking.  Nor am I rocking some kind of sweet trust fund like a couple of my friends.
       I never wanted this blog to become some poor me masturbatory sob story of a boy unsalvagably interrupted.  That was never my intention at all but I wont deny that treading water is my full time hobby here in the 212.  Survival is a success.  I'm still here damn it!  But it's time for this "journey" to arrive at a mother fucking destination already!!  I think all cliches expire when you turn thirty don't you?  I don't want to be like the 50 year old guy I saw at the Mama Mia dancer call wearing a peachy-flesh colored unitard and black character shoes and long black socks!  This was disastrous denial and I was embarrassed for him a little bit......if not totally.  I wanted to ask him if he was ok.  Will I recognize my swan song when it's time to hang up the dance belt?  Did I miss it while I had my earphones in or was playing Wurrdle on my IPhone?  There are some dudes that need a reality check and I'm at the front of that line.
       The business of show is infamously inconsistent and unloyal unless you're in Wicked.  I'd never leave that show if I booked it.......possibly ever!  They'd have to call security to escort me out of the building at gun point before I'd let them pry my white knuckles and teeth from Elphaba's broom.  Wild horses couldn't drag me away from a juicy pink contract if they tried!  I would rock that green reality till my crows feet turned to stone and my muffin tops hit the floor.  I would have to be wheeled out of the Gershwin theatre on a stretcher where I would be immediately rushed to an old folks home and put on a regiment of pure oxygen, intravenous fluids, prune juice, and memories.  Some people need to bounce from show to show like a ping pong ball but not me.  Give me a gig that lasts longer than two months and I'd be living the f*n dream!
        An equity card seems to be a hindrance these days because everything good seems to be going out non-eq.....wah wah wah (insert descending tones here).  Que the violins and tissues.  Sometimes my Broadway dream feels like a fading cell phone that's got one tiny bar of service with no outlet or charger in sight....beeping dangerously low on power.  Run thin?  Yes.  Regretful?  No.  There is definitely nothing to regret for me because I've always followed my heart all these years and I'm proud of what I have accomplished in regards to the great American musical.  I've threaded over 12 years of sweet shows together like a candy necklace and I take tiny little bites to remember.  My shows are just geographically challenged that's all.  Off off off off off off off off Broadway if you will?  Just being surrounded by such outrageous talent in glamorous downtown Little Rock elevated my soul and reminded me that it's worth it.  It's a risk I'm still willing to take.  I'll look back in a few months when I'm nine hundred and remember the extreme glamour of gigs like West Side story in Milan, Japan and Beirut.  Security guards and traveling massage therapists......rock star moments frozen in my mind. But the awkward grey areas of unemployment must also be honored.  And I have found undeniable artistic fulfillment from doing great work no matter what the zip code!
       I'm not a cubicle kinda guy and I know my choice to quit competitive figure skating was a big one but I've accepted that path.  I just think that money buys happiness contrary to the popular belief and chorus work leaves me financially dazed.  But I'd rather be a chorus boy with no lines in a Broadway show or the thirteenth dead body from the left on Cold Case than ice skating every day at 5:20AM with no life, no friends, no vices, and puking into trash cans overwhelmed with competition nerves! I literally gag when I think about those freezing early morning freestyle sessions and endless four minute programs that began hours before dawn.  Pair skating for the boys meant cutting the fingers off your gloves if you were allowed to wear them at all!  Oh my god to describe that endless cold is impossible. It hurt your eyeballs.  I wanted to be a performer eight times a week instead of having three major skating competitions a year.  You can't enjoy that.  Each performance felt like I was at gun point with absolutely everything to loose.  There is no relaxing into that life my friends. In fact, it was an absence of life.  When those skaters fall on TV my heart breaks because I know the devastation is irreparable emotionally.  Either you are in Stars on Ice making ten grand a night or you are doomed to becoming a pair skating jelly fish on the Finding Nemo traveling ice show for two hundred dollars a week (in Europe)!  Or you become some washed up skating coach teaching kids in Central Park that couldn't care less about doing a double toe loop or a sensible camel, much less going to nationals.  No thank you!  Anyway there will always be some Russian diva sending money back to his home land that can do quads for tuppins! 
        Evita in Arkansas rocked and the daily rehearsal fed my hunger for excellent choreography and flawlessly calm direction.  I never wanted the show to open because the process was so truly sweet that I wanted it to last forever.  It also gave me the high that comes from putting something on it's feet and being part of a group that talented.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to feel fierce for a few weeks and give that ghost town a Tony worthy performance every time.  Despite the tumble weed blowing through that no horse town I had more fun there than I'd ever expected to.  But it's because of the work itself and my show wife Ann Stonehengeningaengine of course!  She alone made life worth living!  I truly loved this stage left ASM and this Webber show more and more every day.  It was meant to be and it makes me realize that I'm on the right track despite the abhorrent inconsistency of the biz.  This is where I belong......smack dab in the center of the stage on zero.

    

Too Loose Too Tall

         To dance.  When it's your life and career it's a swirling vortex of mixed emotions, rejection, and continuously brewing fall back plans.  I run around New York City like a headless chicken spinning in circles of unemployment wondering what's to come of this performer's incarnation this time around.  I'm sure of only one thing....how absolutely unsure I am.  Private agent calls are starting to look no different form those huge open calls I try so desperately to avoid!  Swarms of homos lay around stretching and bragging about their last gig and how much money they made.  Everybody seems to know each other in a sickening kind of way.  I'm home now after a soul feast that consisted of a seven week regional production of Evita.  It was awesome!  After almost two months of deafening quiet in the ghost town that was Little Rock Arkansas bring on the noise I say.  Car alarms, cabbie honking, people screaming at each other, loud screechy subway conductors, turnstiles clicking and snapping in circles, subway cars blasting down the train tracks at what feels like a hundred miles an hour.  I've missed New York.  Light flashes blind me as I speed down the dark tunnels underneath the sweaty city.  It's gross.  Bring on the fucked up energy of a city that, for the most part, never sleeps.  I've been back for less that 48 hours and I've already been cut from two auditions!  If there was ever a time for an exclamation point!!  Rejection is a thing I do.  How can I take two flights to an audition, two cabs,  get all the way there and reach into my folder and realize I have no resume?!  Exclamation point!  Only me.

         I'm meeting a really good girlfriend of mine for drinks tonight that I did cabaret with %*@# years ago in Germany.  Reunions make you think about how much you may or may not have changed since you last saw that particular VIP.  In some ways I'm miles.....no.....years apart from the mess I was in my tumultuous twenties.  And in some ways I'm exactly the same confused, hesitant, doubtful gay disaster-boy I was when I came here when I was 19.  I'm still at the same dance calls with a lot of the same guys.  I still hope for a lot of the same things.  I don't necessarily need to be deeply artistically fulfilled at this point in my life and career....daddy just needs money!  My dog is dreamy but an expensive little thing.  I now have two little doe eyes watching me and waiting for me to tell her we're going to Broadway!  "You got cut?" she seems to say with her guilty huge brown eyes and cocked head....."but.....but....I need a knee surgery and a lifetime supply of Pill Pockets!" $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

           Drinks turned into desert at cafe Lalo on the upper west side.  It was a perfectly cool night.  Nichole and I sat under the sprinkled yellow lights that were draped and wrapped around every single tree.  We talked and talked and were enjoying all the remembering.  She is a fantastic dancer/singer/ actress living the same dream/nightmare I am but over in Germany.  She lives in Hamburg presently and our lives are surprisingly similar to what they were all those years ago when we were bus and trucking it around Duetschland.  Of course the details are different now.  For instance she is engaged to a guy I not only have never heard her mention before but it's very possible that I could potentially never meet him!  That's how friendships abroad seem to unfold.  She's done tons of shows since I last said goodbye to her in Hamburg on closing night of Cabaret all those years ago.  I found myself looking into the eyes of an old friend and seeing myself in a way.  Sometimes I forget that I myself am aging and only realize it when I see a celebrity on television like Madonna.  I've watched this woman grow old in the spotlight all the while doing the same!  "God she looks old and crazy!"  I say laughing and judging her unfairly as my own crow's feet harden around the corners of my eyes.  She's at least got boat loads of cash to disappear and hide away when her shit falls!  

              Nichole inspires me to travel the globe with the same fire I had ten years ago.  This girl is a German rock star in the musical theatre department.  She's known to me as "Loose and Tall" because of a humbling and humiliating audition story she told me.  Why do some directors and choreographers think it's ok to break people down in a creative environment?  She's a hard worker that I want to emulate as she redefines discipline.  Situations like this make me realize that I'm on the right track for me.....for now.... even though it feels like something inside me derailed somewhere along the way during my fucked up and blurry twenties.  Her future is as exciting as her past and I love that approach.  I want to reclaim that momentum and drive for my city.  The New York seven (12) year itch feels a lot like poison ivy mixed with mosquito bites covering my entire body!  No expensive lotion or doctor can cure this wild breakout of possible regret and undetermined doubt and the idea that the grass is greener somewhere.....anywhere else!  It's a dancer's life..........cut!

Airport Fly

         Where your mind floats when you’re stuck in an airport is a wonder; the flight attendants' matching red bows; the little round asian lady running madly to get to gate G4 only to miss her flight anyway; the gay man staring at me; the straight man staring at me. What a disastrous explosive mine field lays just beneath the surface of every potentially stranded traveler. There are so many possibilities for delays and missed connections, lost luggage, and screaming, out of control kids! Anything could go wrong at any moment.There’s a father desperately trying to make alternate plans for his two kids and needy wife after their flight was canceled to Vegas. That’s a lot of pressure for a man to improvise an escape on the spot in what seems an impossible situation. I admire his patience. I would’ve already lost it.......or my kid. I almost get run down by one of those caravans of old people wheeling around in those special beeping carts and coughing up death to a tune of “Yesterday.” Such a disturbing train of old makes me nervous and happy to be young enough to walk to my gate easliy with two strong legs. I think there should be children-only flights that families with kids under a certain age should be required to take. My dog has never ever been as much of a nuisance as any of the four screaming fucking babies on my 14 hr. flight from Tokyo to New York! I'm terrified to fly.   And you know it’s bad when you want your plane to crash as soon as possible! I hate kids and I hated being one. I would be mortified to raise a child. I don’t know how people put aside their own needs for the better part of twenty years. I just don’t get it.
       There’s a California blond bombshell tanned to a dangerous crisp, living the braless dream, and feeling the need to be free from such modern constraints. Even grosser are the three business men that are staring directly at her ass like it’s a rare piece of filet mignon. These guys are salivating like perverted refugees licking their chops at a buffet of boobs. Yuck! I can see all this chaos and commotion from my little spot on the floor.  The constant shuffle of bodies and nervousness makes me have a mild anxiety attack. No one wants to be here anymore than I do. No one has arrived yet. When people are in transition they are unsettled and crazy. I feel invisible and wonder if these folks see me either? These fluorescent lights are unforgiving and I need to bust out my brunch glasses to increase the denial of me getting on a plane without a Xanax! I don’t care for these metal sky-busses that pierce the clouds with all our lives in the hands of some electric switch board that could just stop working at any moment. God save us all if we encounter a flock of geese!!!  There will be no water "landing" for this fainty queen!  "Excuse me, could I get thirty bloody marys in 26B please?"  I've always wondered why our one carry-on wasn't a parachute?  Wouldn't that be a most sensible thing to consider?  I love the convenience but hate the reality of a flight. What good are floating seat cushions when you slam into a snow-capped mountain?!  Where would I be without Tylenol PM I say?! I hate more than anything that on the way to either New York airport you're forced to pass a huge billboard of that fucking American Airlines plane that "landed" in the Hudson! I'm so happy that all those people survived but it's nothing more than reverse psychology spun into some kind of comforting success story by a team of asshole publicity people!  I'm not fooled. It's a greusome shot of a crowd of people standing in black silouettes on the wings of a sinking metal airplane.  That image is enough for me to have an anxiety attack of the most epic proportion and completely loose my lunch!
        Ear plugs are blissful when you’re sitting next to a talkative teenager that’s never been to New York before.  These are classic little suburban girls that can't wait to get something stuck in their braces at TGIFridays in Times Square and then go see Mary Poppins. This crew has nothing original planned for their big weekend other than buying an extra large M and M sweatshirt, hitting the All American Girl store, a quick stop at Applebees, and to walk as slowly as possible through midtown acting as a Chinese divider to wherever I'm rushing to get to.  I swear if that fat guy is sitting next to me I'll just die.  There is no excuse for being so huge that you can't even get the arm rest down!  We've all been there.  These folks should be sitting here with a two ticket minimum requirement.  But don't mind me.  I’m just a fucked up airport fly with a terrible headache and a handfull of Excedrine. Allllllll aboard freaks. (insert carnaval musice here)

Romancing a Garbage Can

       Watching Harley try and catch a tiny tennis ball with her paws would be like me trying to catch one with my elbows.   She's like an overly excited miniature Kristin Wiig in a Saturday Night Live skit clapping little retarded hands together all by herself.  It's a circus of hilarious attempts at dominating a squeaky Kong toy world cup style.  We tossed it around and got rowdy in the rain today.  She may or may not be covered with the black drippy rain water that gets stuck and stagnant in little pools in our front courtyard.  But ill be damned if she isn't smiling from ear to sloppy-soaked ear.  She looks slightly "touched" and a little cross eyed on this particular afternoon.  When Harls is wet she looks like a drowned rat that just crawled out of a garbage disposal.  She could easily be mistaken for a cast member in Les Miserable' dying in the dirty streets of Paris singing "On My Bone."  She may look like a homeless piece of garbage but boy she couldn't be happier than a pig in shit or me on Broadway!  If I'm going to be busy that day I try and shake things up for her for about 15 or 20 minutes before I head out to conquer New York.  This dreamy little bitch is a juicy reminder of how simple things are supposed to be.  Every day is fresh with the possibility of something new and exciting happening.  Dogs are never jaded companions unless they are really old, abused, or neglected. But then 
again.....aren't we all?  

          It's so strange how loud the silence can be when my dog is away.  Not that she ever makes any noise or barks, but the stillness is epic and leaves me one of those people that misses the warmth that a sweet pooch brings.  She's like a little hot water bottle ever 
present as she presses into my side on the couch or while I'm sleeping. She burrows her way forcefully under my comforter like a little groundhog where she'll stay for the rest of the night.  She never wakes me to go out and, in fact, sleeps longer than I do.  How did I get so lucky?
        

         When Harley is on a lesbian play date with her friend Mable for the day I'm reminded how unknowingly empty my life was before I stumbled into that cunty Pocket Puppy store in Chicago where our love affair first began.  It's so second nature for me to have her under 
foot that I forget that she's always right there....accessible and instant love.  But when she's not I miss the sound of little Peggy Sawyer's nails on the hard wood floor, not even letting me leave the room to walk to the bathroom or go downstairs for a minute unescorted.  Her absence, upon 
returning from her yellow stained cone-sniffing play date, makes me notice for the first time that I'm never alone.  When you have a faithful companion tag along side you everywhere you go (every day) it becomes the norm to not even realize how much you need that furry 
friendship.  It reminds me of what life was like before cell phones or the world wide web!  I don't know how I ever got along without Google search engines or spell check.  In the late nineties I was breaking dollars bills in the corner bodega to use dirty homeless pay phones in new York and unsuccessfully flipping through  outdated encyclopedias to get answers. I see why folks immediately replace an animal when they pass on bc the silence is deafening and in your face and leaves a gaping hole in the grey areas of your day. Now, having had one, I know that I'll probably always have a dog in my life.  My heart is too full to ever go back to quiet.

I Do?

            It’s a rare thing for me to to be so excited for a party. This particular event is the dream wedding of one of my besties! Normally you are friends with just one of the bridal parties. You always fall into one of two categories...his or hers. But in this case I am also good friends with the handsome groom. When people commit to each other for a lifetime it still isn’t that much time when you think about it. A long human life is really short in the grand scheme of things. With the exception of childhood sweethearts and red necks, people seem to find their life partner after the dust starts to settle from their chaotic twenties. At least that’s what I’m telling myself!

          I had to slip out for a few minutes from the raging reception. The music blares out and over the garden wall into the hot summer night. The huge white Japanese tent pierces the black sky in the middle of a gorgeous state park in Virginia. My face hurts from smiling all day. Weddings are the grandest gesture of legal love in our society and are a lot for a single gay guy to take in. I feel stuck in limbo sometimes with the whole concept of marriage. I’ve been to my share of weddings but there’s something really special about this one.  It's more than these two just merging their worlds on paper. It is officially a very happy day indeed.
             As I stand on the outside of Christina and Jason’s life together and look in I notice how nothing has really changed in their behavior towards one another after the I do’s were said. Their individuality hasn’t changed either. This governmental stamp has only cleaned up some of their paperwork. Their commitment was solid from the day they met in Japan. It was on. He had her at "Hajimemashite!"  "I had a feeling.....that tonight’s gonna be a good good night" in the words of the Black Eyed Peas blaring.  The music is blasting over the wall of the nature preserve and people are throwing back almond champeign like the world is ending tomorrow.....when in fact.....it's just beginning!  

           I don’t want to focus on all the things lacking in my life and what I don’t have (like a man or Broadway) because that’s exactly what I’ll continue to manifest. Every year around May 18th my little brother calls me and reminds me how precious life is and how every year is a gift from the universe. It’s hard to really believe that sometimes. You really start to realize that if you’ve ever out lived a close friend that’s around your age. When my friend died unexpectedly at twenty eight years old I began to see how lucky I was to be alive at all.

         I think a good grasp of mortality is just what the doctor ordered when it comes to surviving the thirty year quarterly year hump. Once I leapt that nauseating hurdle thirty-one was no big deal. I sailed through my last birthday free and clear of the usual panic attacks that come in seasonal waves of professional regret. I totally flipped out in Tokyo on my thirtieth birthday while I was on tour with Xanadu. I wasn’t prepared at all to step one foot into my blurry adult future holding onto nothing more than a dance belt and some debt. New York hasn’t turned out to be what I had imagined when I moved here at nineteen. Did I really think I was going to be starring in Rent a few days after I landed at La Guardia for the first time?  But I’ve proudly threaded together twelve years of shows that make up one D-list career.

         I’m out side taking a moment to hide from the pressure of joining a fifty person conga line that was winding around the patio when I left.  Also I have a fear of getting pushed into one of those horrific public dance circles that you can only escape by doing some awkward nightmarish hip-hop solo, coffee grinder, or the worm!  My face still hurts. I love love and I don’t want to miss my prince charming because I’m looking in the mirror. Did "the one" walk right by me while I was dabbing cover-up on a tiny scar that only I can see?  Cultivating personal happiness isn’t easy and is a full time job. You have to work on it like you would a good tan. Is he out there? Am I ready if he is?
         Also, I don’t want to be anybody’s first anything...first kiss...first love...first time! I feel like you have to make some mistakes to know how to avoid some of the pot holes in the road. First relationships rarely work out. But I also don’t want to find myself as rebound road-kill either for some dude who is looking for me to perfectly match his puzzle piece. I want a guy to be self-completed already. I don't need another project and I certainly don't want to be one! Venus rules everything around me and I hope that one day she’ll lead me straight into the arms of some salt n’ pepper daddy that is in his forties and in no way involved in show business. I can’t date a twink wearing angel wings and glitter that uses phrases like “I’m feeling totes grumps today!”
        I’m just trying to become the man I’d eventually like to meet one day. Give me a guy that isn’t scared of the fine print that comes in a contract with me. I come with all kinds of special clauses and endless loop holes with extra footnotes explaining my unusual take on what a relationship is going to be like with me. When the door to the bird cage is left open then I don't want to break free.  Sometimes I get stuck obsessing over what’s just on the other side of the fence. An internal alarm goes off inside me if something is about to sour or go stale.  I’ve never been faced with jealousy because I’ve never been in an open relationship before. I know that they are out there and that they exist.  But finding that perfect balance of trust and experimentation might be a life long casting search for me for a show that never opens. Who knows, I might hate it once I tried it! How can you share your boyfriend if you hate sharing tapas at a restaurant? The inner fat girl in me hates the idea of sharing food! Where Oh where is my exclusivity gene? Straight couples very rarely have open sexual arrangements like that of their gay counterparts. I find love in freedom but that puts me in a risky, lonely category. I mean didn’t everyone’s mother teach them to share anyway? If monogamy feels forced then something’s wrong. If you look into the eyes of your man and know....then you know! Christina knows and isn’t plagued by the what ifs in the world like I am. I want to know too. Not that marriage is even legal here in progressive ol' New York City, but I truly love the idea of it. Maybe one day that will be in the cards for me? There’s a line from one of my favorite country songs that says “I’m scared of love but scared of life alone.”

Held at Cunt Point

          There are some friends that we can’t hang onto forever. And there are times in a relationship when no matter how far you go back, you may or may not realize that you’ve totally out grown one another and that’s ok. Just because you’ve known each other for 17 years doesn’t necessarily mean that you should know each other for the next 17! Sometimes it devolves slowly one degree at a time. You can find yourselves heading in completely different directions without even realizing it.  One day you turn to your childhood buddy and you don’t even recognize her anymore and more so yourself! It’s a gradual, undetected change that slips under the radar and comes as a shock to the emotional system after years of blindly not paying attention and seeing the signs. Sometimes that slow divide of change unknowingly creeps along so steadily until one day......Oops.....your Pangaea no longer exists! There can also come a time when you may stop growing as friends and that’s a slippery slope to an eminent breakup. You can never stop trying to impress your lovers and friends just because you’re so comfortable with them that you have fallen into some kind of stale routine. The shelf life of any relationship is only as good as the effort you both put into it. There’s no falling asleep at the wheel people...no healthy cruse control. Things may seem normal, but what do you have really if you only play it safe, never muddying-up the waters occasionally for the betterment of both parties?

         I’m not married, nor could I be legally in the state of New York, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best to apply this concept to my future boyfriend, man friend, or gusband (gay-husband). You don’t want the connection to harden and become an after thought after you’ve made an investment even beyond a couple of weeks....much less years! I feel like I’ve “arrived” with a guy once we can ride in a car for hours and hours and find a comfortable silence. Not talking is so sexy when you find that juicy balance of quiet and conversation. It just flows if it’s right. Filling an uncomfortable silence is exhausting for two people on a nine hour car ride (or 45 minutes for that matter). Time has been known to stand still on extremely awkward dates. I’m afraid to look across the dinner table at my man years down the road and not know what to say to him. Spontaneity is vital to a couple trying to remain good friends. Every now and than you have to shake things up and try your best to keep things fresh and unexpected. I truly believe that even though I’m the only common denominator in all my failed relationships!

          We all know at least one couple that not only doesn’t compliment each other, but it seems as though they don’t even like each other anymore. There is no animosity but my parents seem to fall into the category of folks existing day in and day out under the same roof running parallel train tracks to one another, yet leading completely separate lives......apart. When I found out that my mom and dad no longer sleep in the same bed or room my heart sank in my chest in horrifying disappointment. And snoring wasn’t the issue to be clear.  I don’t want the intimacy and romance to sour with time like it seems to do. I want it to be the reverse! I’m not looking for someone to necessarily complete me. I just want to move forward with a guy without becoming stagnant and too comfortably numb. 

          I’m in a situation now where I’m forced to outgrow and let go of a toxic friendship with a girl that’s lasted literally more than half of my life. It wasn’t always bad of course, but the looming potential oil spill was there. It quietly hid beneath the surface of the sincerely scary party invites at gun point (with no option to say no), and the brittle facade of what was once one of my closest, best friendships. It saddens me to no end that our butterfly died before breaking free of its adolescent high school cocoon.  We had such potential and were quite the gay duo too. We were going to be two fabulous, late twenty-somethings marching hesitantly into our thirties and growing old together while embracing our adult city selves here in New York.  But all that’s changed with age. Instead of there being more understanding, it seems her fuse has actually grown shorter with time. There used to be some leniency for a cancellation or possible late arrival. Could a single train delay capsize what we’ve built for 17 years.....really? The answer to this trick question is unfortunately yes! Now an “I’m running late!” text reaps a hateful, venomous, attack of the highest, most bipolar order. Her response negates any effort I might make to care. Everything with this girl is taken personally. If anything spoils her concrete plans she flips out and unleashes a hidden demon that is nothing short of Sigourney Weaver in the Ghost Busters movie! I can’t be bothered by a full on flip out from a thirty year old woman, not in twenty-ten. Jesus Christ! I mean who’s got the time....Seriously? “Sorry I’m late” I text with fearful shaking thumbs.  I press the Send button with all the seriousness and anxiety of a president pushing the infamous nuclear bomb red button. The wrath of this dyke’s inner and outer serial killer takes my breath away at times. She will turn on you with the blink of an eye.  If I go missing or turn up dead in Riverside Park my closest friends, when questioned, could lead the cops directly to the primary suspect. “I would check the Cubbyhole in the West village officer...or maybe Crazy Nannies!”

(Look closely my friends at the "flower")

         I always thought knowing someone half of your life counted for something, like the occasional get out of jail free card once and a while. But it seems our dynamic is quite different. I can’t take one step further in this friendship when this interrupted bitch is still mad at me for taking a sip of her Snapple three years ago! Am I the only one who knows people that keep a score card of checks and balances within the friendship? I think you can really love someone while not even liking them at all. If one of your VIPs completely stops bringing anything positive to the table and is nothing but a drama queen, filled to the brim with cunty guilt trips and below the belt insults, it’s time to face the music and try to desperately gnaw yourself free from that sinking, damaged ship before she pulls you down with her.  And she Will! I mean when do you stop the madness and start protecting yourself? When do you slam down the judges gavel finalizing that there will be no more abuse? I’ve never really understood the battered wife syndrome myself but I’m definitely guilty of hanging on waaaaaaay too long to boyfriends and friend-friends with the hope of fixing the problem and saving it. Going back again and again makes it my fault at some point doesn't it?  There is no mystery as to what's hiding behind door number three.  How long should you wait before you abort mission? There’s no realistic future together when you’re having constant petty fights and name calling. These are the gals that bring up all the things said in strictest confidence and use them against you the second it suits them.  And by the time it bites you in the ass it’s way too late. You’re already vulnerable and wide open to the deepest of inside personal attacks. It’s hard to run from someone that you’ve know for the better part of your life, someone who knows your inner secrets and weaknesses, using them against you when the time is right. I need to start nurturing positive relationships with people that will eventually give something back other than a bipolar attitude.

          Living uptown I see exactly how much or how little effort people are willing to put into hanging out. Being the guy living in scary Harlem I’m always the one who spends the better part of an hour sitting on the 1 train traveling “down state” to have some semblance of a social life. God knows it won’t come to me! If I want to see my friends, ninety-nine percent of the time I'm the only one doing all the commuting. Not only are most of my peeps borough snobs, but wild horses couldn’t get these guys above 116th street if their lives depended on it! It doesn’t matter that my particular neighborhood is beautiful and quiet and right on the Hudson River. Nope, nothing could convince the jury to head north for the unbeatable views and square footage that isn’t exactly cheap. You’re telling me that my 3,500 sq. ft.; five bedroom; three bath with a pool room, and two huge floors of blissful space isn’t enough to convince you that my house is better for a party than any dorm room sized studio on 15th and Broadway? People would honestly rather squeeze into a glorified closet on Mercer street before they would sit on a train for twenty minutes up to my Hamilton Heights mansion for a dinner party. I mean doesn’t that sound nice...a river side view, space to bring a dog (or ten) with room to freely move around and socialize not wondering if there’s going to be enough seating or air conditioning? Why are people such uptown snobs I wonder? Don’t they know why I decided to move up here in the first place? It’s obviously worth it. Trust me, if I could have what I have downtown that would be truly ideal. I’d love to walk out my front door and be in the middle of it all. I’d kill for a Duane Read or CVS instead of relying exclusively on the Spanish Pharmacia. It’s a give and take. No one can have all the space they really need without sacrificing location unless you’re loaded and money isn’t a deterrent. I don’t actually know anyone whose rent isn’t their number one New York overhead.

(Elizabeth Stanley as Kira/VIP!)

       There seems to be a disconnect in my social life having been out on tour for a year roller skating in the brilliantly deep musical Xanadu! I love the city because I get to leave it now and then. That’s my only sanity, that and my dog Harley. It’s funny to me how New York not only doesn’t throw a parade for you upon arriving at La Guardia after an extended leave, but it didn’t even seem to notice that you left in the first place! Sure you can step out for a huge breath of fresh, uncomplicated, country air but you still return to all the same city bullshit no different from the day you left it.

         My add on Craig’s list would read “Will travel for worthy friendships!” It’s definitely time to reboot my emotional computer and air out the bitchy cobwebs of certain drama filled, clingy women and needy gay boys. Thirty was a time of deep reflection (and extreme panic) as I capped off my twenties. And now thirty one must be a time of action. It’s a sexy hot summer and I’m opening the window and beating out the emotional rug that’s been walked all over. I guess straight guys have to put up with menstruating female neediness all the time in the name of sex and getting laid.......but not this faggot! I’m done with this demanding fag hag (emphasis on the Hag), and ball breaking-lipstick- L Word-watching lesbian that takes and takes, never giving back anything other than angry, unmedicated gay grief. Maybe you should actually consider taking a few of the pills in the doctor-prescribed bottle of Ativan instead of flushing them down the toilet along with our friendship? Don’t sweat me bitches because I just don’t care anymore. All the energy I’ve been putting into fruitless old- horse friendships is now being refocused on trying to get to know people that have something other than bullshit to bring to the table. It takes a lot of effort for me to step out of my comfort zone even knowing it’s for the best. I know it’s going to be worth it in the long run. Stepping into uncertainty is always scary but an ongoing investment in something that is toxic and bad for you (even though it may be familiar) is a huge waste of life-time. It’s time to close the chapter on aggressively passive girls and rollerblade off into the hazy polluted sunset with one bitch that is always super low maintenance........my truest female soul mate of all...........my dog!

Hit or Miss

           Today I’m browsing through H and M on a singular mission. I have exactly one afternoon to find something to wear for my girlfriend’s country/Japanese themed garden wedding in Virginia. I would’ve named this honey comb of a store Homos and Metrosexuals myself. Guys were tearing clothes off the racks like frenzied girls clawing each other’s eyes out over a Balenciaga scarf at a juicy insider sample sale! It wasn’t pretty. In fact it was borderline Animal Planet. It was truly an urban free for all, the stuff reality shows are made of in fact. You would’ve thought these dudes were poor third world refugees fighting for food and provisions dropped from one of those rescue planes into the heart of a hungry village.


           I’m minding my own business in the suit department when this woman urgently says to me “You can’t buy That!” just as I was trying on a beautiful overpriced navy blazer. Her statement was desperate and had the intensity of what I imagine a tsunami warning to sound like from someone fleeing the beach. She startled me a little. “Sorry?” I say. “That doesn’t fit you at all...it's way too short...put it back.....NOW!” It took me what felt like a hundred years to even decide on a color scheme. And Poof, just like that, within one breath she had flooded me with instant doubt. I sadly took the coat off and hung it back in its place, resigned to starting over from scratch. Actually, I didn’t recall asking her opinion on the matter either. She proceeded to follow me around the men’s section like a puppy in the kitchen, seemingly underfoot at all times, but not approving of anything. She talked me out of almost everything I touched. “Too short...wrong color....those blacks don’t match!” Every edit got me one step closer to a looming panic attack. She was like my own little mousey personal shopping terrorist! She chased me around the isles saying “Daaaavid...where aaaaarre you?” Now imagine one of the busiest stores in New York, a true 5th Avenue nightmare, with theme- park lines leading to a single fitting room. There were piles and piles of picked through clothes casually discarded. It was torture. At first she was like the mosquito you can’t quite successfully swat but after a few minutes I realized how sweet this little lady actually was. She explained to me that her husband’s name was also David and that he had been a high end British custom suit tailor his entire life. She certainly talked the talk that’s for sure and after hearing her professional opinion I chose to open myself up to her valuable input...not like I had a choice! But as much as I appreciated her helping me in my time of need, I eventually grew tired of putting away all the clothes she was pulling off the hangers and throwing at me. A few times I even ducked under a rack of pants pretending to drop something, hoping she wouldn’t see me and eventually give up this unwanted hijacked makeover. Then she’d come flying around the corner with fifty more things for me to put back. I had just been secretly wishing I had one of my girls or gay boys with me in times of crippling indecision like this. Careful what you wish for because the universe gave me a fucked up version of that. Instead of sending one of my sassy fashion savvy buddies, it sent me some homeschool, marm-like creature obsessed with keeping me from blowing 129 bucks on the wrong blazer!

          After fifteen minutes of assisted shopping my eyes were open to how other people see me and how my first choices desperately needed a second opinion. Every look I put together ended up being some kind of poor man’s jitney, nautical, Ralf Lauren situation. “Is this wedding on a boat?"  "No maam."  "I didn’t think so” she said. This awkward intervention actually ended up guiding me to a better, cheaper, and more polished looking suit than I would’ve picked out for myself without her help. This four foot hilariously helpful woman was a gift from above on a mission to save me from my arm full of Hamptons bound ship wreck attire. She was a life preserver of common sense confidently rejecting my every instinct. Lord knows I need to pull in the reins of my fashion focus. My style is really an absence of style. A tank top and straight-boy cargo shorts generally complete my homeless gay Chelsea look....carelessly crunchy noncouture! I needed to open myself up to the unsolicited fashion advice from a stranger. She was nothing but sincere and all her help came from the goodness of her terribly sweet heart. In New York if someone speaks to me I instantly assume they want something from me and it’s usually money. My second thought is that they are possibly insane or fresh out of Bellevue. And if the desperate voice is neither of those things, it’s probably some bright eyed Big Apple tourist asking how they can get to Radio City. I’m never really approached by people that don’t want something. It caught me off guard.

            I’m reminded of those ear piercing, chipper, high-voiced volunteers standing outside Penn station raising money and awareness for any number of causes. They block your path and insist on making you stop and talk and guilt you into donating money and giving them your email address at emotional gun point! These college(ish) kids thrive on making you late for the 16 bars of shame you’re about to experience at the Ripley Grier audition studios. You can’t really be late for an appointment that generally lasts less than one minute! “Sorry, I don’t have the time today!” If you don’t make eye contact and keep on walking past them then you obviously don’t want to save the starving children and openly don’t care about the Cathy Lee Gifford-like sweat shops around the world, or fresh drinking water for the poor. And everybody on 34th st. knows it! These clip board holding, visor wearing, good deed doing Samaritans give us all a bad name in the human contribution department. God I wish I cared.

            Back to the frenzied game of human Tetris that is Hit or Miss (or H&M). It’s a bustling store of nightmarish crowds packed to the brim with sassy sardine spenders. I didn’t want to close myself off to a valuable set of eyes willing to take a moment and help me look my best for my “strife’s” wedding. Strife is a term me and my engaged girlfriend came up with years ago when we were dance partners in a regional production of Beauty and the Beast. You may have heard of my Tony worthy performance as the gold painted knife? No? I was featured as a dancing, singing piece of cutlery in Beverly Massachusetts....really big stuff. And Christina was a beautiful blond, all American Radio City Rockette dressed as a pink and gold napkin doing a can can atop a huge revolving punch bowl! She was a homo’s dream. The term “fag hag” doesn’t apply to girls like Christina. It was love at first cooter slam! She’s my straight wife, my strife, and I’m her gay husband or Gusband....Gus for short. This is my girl and this is her big day. It’s mandatory to go to the few weddings within your inner circle that matter this much. Even in this day and age with all the options a couple has to break free of a legally binding commitment like marriage I know this will be her only one. I just feel it and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Wild horses couldn’t stop me from going to this picturesque Vogue wedding except my inability to commit to a single outfit. With a VIP of this level the pressure is on to look as cute as possible while operating on a serious unemployed budget.

        “Go with something purple....I loooove purple!” This little female Tim Gun tailed me closely, chasing me around the maze of racks, throwing billowing linen pirate shirts that look like blouses with draw strings and pin striped suits into my arms. Her personal taste reminded me of an International Male magazine full of everything in the world I’d never ever pick out for myself. The only reason I know the truth about this particular magazine is because I used to flip through the underwear section every week as a horny, young, closeted teenager!

         A beautiful young Spanish girl who was working there was watching us while she folded over priced cashmere cardigans into neat little piles. She was obviously enjoying the colorful game of musical blazers I was playing with this stranger. She asked if she was my mom and remarked how cute it was that we were shopping together as mother and son! Her jaw dropped in disbelief when I told her we had just met right then and there, picking up right where we never began.

         Human kindness is a mirage in this urban desert. You never seem to arrive. It’s hard to make out normalcy in a city that feels like a shaken up snow globe. I’m surprised every time I interact with somebody who has truly good motives and the best of intentions. I’ve become numb to kind acts in the city I’m sad to say. I yelled at an old lady today because she was screaming some toothless babble at me while I was trying to eat my lunch.  I couldn’t decipher her loud, unintelligible, gummy words despite my best effort. It would’ve taken this woman five months to chew through a soft pretzel. After about a minute of her pestering me forcefully about who knows what, I screamed “What do you WANT!?” I mean who yells at an old woman? My fuse is alarmingly short these days. Between my room mate Danny getting horribly and tragically hate crimed in some gang initiation attack right outside our front door and the 77 year old woman that was robbed, raped, and badly beaten in her elevator in the building across the street from us, I’m left disenchanted by this New York hate story.

         Every day vulnerable New Yorkers dangle from overused elevator bands high above Manhattan’s floor, yoyos of hope and shady trust. Will anything snap....them? The elevator? Kind minds melt at a glacial pace as this city becomes an illusion to me. A chorus boy’s crows' feet are completely revealed under the shaking subway bright fluorescents.  And my youth seems to rumble out of sight down the dirty, dark tunnels underneath New York City. My last decade or so here has felt like a skip stop during track construction. There never seemed to be a good time to accidentally fall into a Broadway contract is all I'm saying. This city is the Bermuda triangle of me first. I still, after 12 years, rarely meet people that want to help out of genuine goodness. They always want something. Blatant desperation catches me off guard every time.

(a gentleman taking a dump in my train station/please note the news paper)

       I appreciate kind women like this when I think about the infamous laundry wench that lives in my depths of my building uptown. I caught this bitch moving my wet clothes out of the dryer before they were even done! “You’re taaam s'up alls amm sayin'” she rudely hissed. My time is up when my clothes are dry Woman! Cunts like this make me want to pack my bags and make a quick French retreat to the suburbs. Alpha-urban personalities make me crazy in confrontational situations like this. The claustrophobia has set in officially. I think it may be time to check out of more than just this retail store. But where would I go? New York traps you. The longer you live here the harder it is to leave.

Unemplrrrrrrrrrment

          Where would we be without words? And where would I be without this beautiful lake before me? Access to a kayak is a religious thing indeed. The Boh-remuses have been very good to me in the lake house department. I love New York when I can leave it now and then. I’m not exactly one of those jet-setting homos with no financial limits. Maybe a little stint out at Fire Island in a cute swimsuit and a couple of days at my buddy’s cabin will get me through this hot, unemployed summer? When your hobby is going to brunch professionally it’s a dangerous thing to be in Manhattan twiddling one’s thumbs….every moment risking another potential dollar spent.


          I need a break. I think we all do. And by break, I mean a break from all the breaks! When I’m in between shows it can feel as though time is standing still and I’m moving through quick sand. I must have seen all twenty seasons of Law and Order at this point. It’s a very slippery slope from a casual cruise through the DVR list to having a nurse stop by to flip you over so that you don't get reality TV bed sores! Saturday feels like Tuesday and Friday night is just as boring as anybody’s Monday. Not spending money is an art form I'm struggling to learn....like cooking at home.  I cringe.  I prayed for a hobby this summer, something that would not just be another dance class or voice lesson. I was looking for something totally on the other side of the brain (something that would captivate the other 22 ½ hours in the day). Through my questioning and meditation on the subject I started to write, not on my computer or my sweet smelling leather journal (which I never seem to have any comment), but my IPhone. Every word you read on this blog was originally typed with shaky thumbs as I rumbled down the subway tracks, brainstorming and soaking up the images of the city and trying my best to find the words to truly capture such a rich environment of colorful urban inspiration. I’ve spent countless subway rides buried in this Notebook application puking up anything that comes bubbling up and shooting out my fingertips. Thank god for T9 English!!!!

         I make a valiant effort to not judge myself too severely but I don’t always achieve that goal. When you write something down, spell check it, hope that all the comas are in the right place (which mine never are) and post it for the entire world to read it can be a very scary thing! One click of the mouse leaves the field wide open for people’s opinions both good and bad. It’s an epic waste of time to get stuck in the fear that comes with putting your words out on the world wide computerized web. I don’t exactly have a career to ruin so I figured it was obvious that I should proceed onward with my ramblings. Sometimes I have no comment. And others, I spend trying to actually have a life rather than observing it under a microscope to the point that I’m not even living it. Blogging is great and it gives me the space I need to run verbally wild like a chicken that’s just lost its head. But it’s ironic isn’t it if you’re trapped at your desk inside your apartment trying to write about experiences that you’re missing right then and there? They, in fact, might inspire the blinking cursor that is starring you down wild-west style (insert whistling sound and tumble weed here.) The blank screen before you is only a useful tool if you’ve got something already lived to write about.

         So what is the point of an empty journal entry I want to know? I don’t want to read some stranger’s melancholy blog entry about how their day was at work or how difficult it was at the gym that particular day and how sore their calf muscles are.   Who fucking cares?! Most existing blogs could put you to sleep in a matter of minutes.  They can be verbal Ambien.  So, why would anyone care to scroll through my pot induced posts? I can’t answer that, nor will I now take the opportunity to sell myself to you. I’m sure, at times, I’m not totally PC but nonetheless it is still my unique perspective as a boy in a Manhattan bubble. I figured the world should know what I’m laughing about under my breath deep in the guts of the train tunnels. My life feels like an Albee “wangled teb.” There’s a piece of mind that comes with making a committed mistake. At least you know that you really went for it!  It’s like an ice skater that hesitates for a split second just before a jump goes horribly, horribly wrong. Any doubt, whatsoever, can sabotage a moment. Decisions require an attack of sorts. I know the truth about second guessing myself and it's not a pretty picture my friends.  For me second thoughts resulted in a break in three places!