Do You Believe In Fagic?

After my break-up with The Dean, I started seeing this LSU theatre major named Michael. I met Michael on the dance floor of Splash, the Mecca of gay bars to 19-year-old me. Although I frequently popped in on the staple gay bars of Downtown New Orleans, Splash in 2007 was different. It played better music and always had a better quality of patron. Nola's Oz had the volume, but Splash definitely had Louisiana gay bars corned when it came to packing the house with cute, ignorant, eager college guys. Geaux Tigers, I guess. But the best part about Splash was its fagic (fag magic). To this day, after several dozen visits, I've never had an uneventful night in the puddle. Either something horrifyingly traumatizing happens (walking in on your ex getting pressed up against a bathroom stall) or fantastic (hooking up in the same bathroom stall with a fully mohawked American Idol reject) happens to me every time I make the trip. Lose yourself in the occasional foam or shake your ass to Ida Corr on top of a block with seven strangers, none of whom are confined to ironic torso fabric. It's pure fagic.

But the most tangible fagic of Splash was its power to bring people together. I'm well aware of the nature of the teenage homo. He's not wasting a trip to an out-of-town gay bar without hooking up with something. And since Splash distracted you with sporadic blasts from ice-cold, overhead CO2 jets and alternating Britney/Madonna remixes, you had to scramble at the eleventh hour for available dong. But learning to embrace the distractions and trust in the fagic will likely result in dong finding you before the house lights ignite, which is how I met Michael.

It's a quarter 'til last call and I'm knocking on blackout's door. In my state, I'm allowing this guy wearing a pink flannel-pattern shirt and an Acutane-level pizza face to grind on me. After a few minutes of me doing my best Lil Mama impression ("Lipgloss" was the national anthem at the time), I decide to turn around and face him for a few circular hip thrusts. Choosing ignorance, I never look him directly in the face. Instead, I distract myself with lights and the guy dancing behind Medium Pepperoni (which is what I'm now calling the boy whose crotch is banging against mine). The guy behind MP catches me staring, saunters over, and begins dancing on MP from the back. Now I'm face-to-face-to-face with MP and this guy, who is a remarkable dead ringer for a live-action Jimmy Neutron. His "fuck me" eyes and smile are only amplified by his shimmying and tongue wagging when he dances. I'm a sucker for a guy who's willing to put himself out there, especially if he's not doing it right.

With MP between us, J.Neutron and I continue to graze one anothers' forearms and exchange expressions that say, "I'm the weird kind of horny right now. The kind that isn't concerned with how I'm getting home later."

The music tumbles to a dull pulse and the crowd is herded outside to the widely-known and never revered Meat Market. The Market is Splash's sprawling parking lot, and it serves as the last resort destination for hasty tricking. Guys mill around and make their final selections, then slink away to their respective Civics. Here, by the grace of Gaga, MP has augmented his focus to my best friend and choice wingman, Trey, and seems to be enjoying the returned interest. Meanwhile, J.Neutron is alternating glances between my crotch and the gravel. "I'm Ryan!" I yelp with a stiff, sideways hand extended. "Michael," he says, brandishing a goofy, confident smile and sqeezing his fingers around mine. I remind myself a week after we've been hanging out that this was the exact moment that I knew it was a sure thing.

The relationship never went anywhere that either of us would consider cumbersome, and seemed over before it started. But my takeaway was the simple affirmation that sometimes people can literally walk up to you and become instantly memorable. I didn't seek Michael out or work hard to get his attention. He just danced his way over and made a lasting impression. And that was proof enough for me that serendipity is half of what brings people together. The rest has something to do with motive, interest, and maybe a little fagic.

My Single Is Dropping

Like most people, I have a list of things I want to do before I die. But for me, these things are mostly dudes. It's my fuck-it list. Stand-outs from the list include:

• From New Zealand
• Has a massive back tattoo 
• Has an Irish accent
• Has kids
• Works in an art museum
• Invented Facebook
• Zac Efron
• Dances ballet for a fancy company
• New York Times best-selling author
• Named Jessie (or Jesse)
• Jesse McCartney
• Blind
  
• Bullfighter

And although most of my prospects are cruel and/or unusual, at no point have I ever expressed having any ambition to screw a rapper. But I did. And I'm not thrilled about it. And if you think the fact that he's white, nineteen, and has freckles helps how accomplished I don't feel about it, then you're on glue.

The short story: He added me on Facebook after seeing my "OH MY GOD I'M GINGER" cover and sending me a message saying that I seemed funny. Ok, Freckles, I'll bite. So turns out he's in a fraternity at a mostly black half-university. And he makes beats and raps under a pseudonym. Which intrigued and bewildered me.

After chatting me up for a few hours, he'd made a strong enough impression to get my number. And then for the next five days, he sent me voice memos of beats and verses that he was working on. So I decided that he was enough of a novelty to join the ranks of my fuck-it list. And soon after, I put a check mark next to the words, "white rapper."

For me to say that my only motive was sex would be a lie. He was a nice guy with many redeeming qualities — the greatest of which was his talent. He was pretty stellar at what he did. And frankly, after the way I avoided letting him down, he probably deserves to hold me down and shit on me and five things that I care about. But until then, I'm going to pretend like he didn't say that his hero is Drake and instead do what Juvenile would do. And if you don't know what Juvenile would do, then you need to go to back to school.

Which reminds me, I need to add college professor to the list. Lord knows I need the credits.

When A Man And A Woman Love One Another Very Much

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Amendment #1

In the interest of practicality, I've decided to only sleep with people more attractive than myself.

Americano

I once dated a guy who had an intense passion for Europeanism. My guess is that since he was born in a small town in Southwest Louisiana and raised on a farm in Wyoming, he’d seen parallel levels of American hell and dreamed of something more.

So he pranced around Lafayette wearing man capris and pronouncing fleur-de-lis with a strong “s” sound at the end. In fact, any word that appeared to have a French origin was delivered with the diction and inflexions of a Parisian waiter (which isn’t unusual for the area, but jarring when it comes out of a nineteen-year-old queen behind authentic D&G shades).

I admired how he could be moved and marveled by a culture whose refinement didn’t closely resemble his own — with all of its monster truck rallies and black rodeos — but his whole shtick made me want to grab him by the collar and tell him that if America is good enough for Sofia Vergara, then it’s good enough for him.

The whole thing got weirder when he started wearing neon-colored jockstraps from the very European and very homosexual Topman.com — claiming that he needed them because they “helped him avoid panty lines.” In my confusion and frustration, I would counter with statements like, “Your entire ass is now fully exposed to you jeans. I hope you wiped yourself, you whore” or “Panty lines? You’re nearly 200 pounds and carrying a dick between your legs. Stop giving me the willies, Tranny Oakley.”

We broke up shortly before he boarded a plane for his summer abroad, and soon after, I began dating someone else. When word got back to the states that he’d become the American slampiece for half of Barcelona’s gay scene, I didn’t even flinch. Prospects of expatriatism could give him a raging hard-on, so I could imagine how some muscle top named Salvatore could reduce him to leg-humping.

In the mean time, I was sleeping with a hick from West Texas who couldn’t identify Heidi Klum in a crowd of black men, let alone describe wine pairings or the difference between Louis Vuitton and Louboutin.

Instead of forcing me to miss sophisticated companionship, my new boyfriend only helped me to become more disillusioned. I went from being with someone who never fully embraced his nationalism to someone who would take a bullet for (and a dick from) Trace Adkins.

After him, I dated one guy after another until I was faced with something that I would consider a departure.

In Chuck Palaniuk’s Invisible Monsters, the narrators commands us to “find what [we’re] afraid of most and go live there.” So I did. I met a British guy named Sam. And after deciding that my exboyfriend’s affection for his type was something that I abhorred, I asked him if he wanted to date me exclusively.

Three months of concentrated fieldwork and this is what I learned about having a European boyfriend: he will refuse to surrender his man purse in public (even if you beg), the rumors about his irregular bathing are not only true, but horrifying, and most importantly — he can’t drink the things that you can. So challenge him. And beat him. And rub it in his face.

Because European guys are overrated. And American gays who are obsessed with them are in for a rude awakening when they find themselves tied to a sex swing on the 4th floor of some Italian bathhouse while twelve Silvio Berlusconi lookalikes wait their turn.

Consider this my love letter to America. La dolce vita.

vom.com

I’m hungover and I have no idea where I am. Shocker.

My head hurts worse than my bladder, but I desperately need to take care of the latter first. The cave I’ve made under the comforter is warm, but the ceiling fan looks like it’s about to come loose and fly away, and judging my sore throat, it’s been on full-speed all night. I consider crawling over the snoring shirtless guy next to me, but I’m afraid he’ll wake up and talk to me.

There's no way that I could open the can of lukewarm High Life on the nightstand right now, let alone be nice or refer to him by his name — which is probably Colby or Jacob or something. I peel the covers off of me and obnoxiously pile them onto homeboy before making my way through the pitch-black Latvian winter. 

I find the bathroom door and clumsily grope the wall for the light switch. I cower and wince at the light even though I knew it was coming and catch myself in the mirror. I’m not wearing anything but the look of disorientation. My disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes help me to resemble something out of Lord of the Rings.

I decide that Mordor Afterparty Chic isn’t a good look for me and I turn towards the toilet. And that’s when I see it. And as God as my witness, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Vomit. Everywhere. It's on the walls and the floor, stretching from the base of the tub to the sink, and covering every surface except the interior of the toilet bowl.

I am either:

A. Still sleeping. 

B. About to throw up, myself.
C. In a Lars von Trier movie.
D. About to stumble towards the vommity mess where I will piss before addressing this situation.

Answer: D for dumbass.

With everything slowly dissolving into focus, I feel the panic mounting inside of me. And although I’m almost positive that I would’ve remembered, I am faced with the big scary question: Did I do this? 

"Fuck that," I tell myself. We are not entertaining the possibility of this. So I jump to default and blame him. I wake him up and tell him that he puked everywhere and that it’s “really gross and scary.” He rolls over and the color drains out of my face. It’s the guy I’ve been dating for three weeks and his name isn't Colby. He pushes past me and into the bathroom where he closes the door behind him. He returns after what feels like ten minutes and flops back onto the bed without saying a word. And I spend the rest of the night dreaming about murder scenes.

I forgot to mention that this guy was a serious diabetic who required a MediPort in his stomach to deliver insulin. He tells me in the morning that the vomit was his reaction to the abnormal amount of Andygator coupled with the lack of medication in his system. I tell him not to sweat it and I go back to texting the real Colby. Because Colby is adult enough to manage his alcohol intake and Colby looks better in my gym shorts. 

And when Brittany Murphy and I go on our next date, I continuously point at his insulin port and ask him to pay attention to his beeper. Because I don’t want him to projectile vomit all me and my Mediterranean Hummus.

And because I’m an assbag.

A Background In Public Streaking

In addition to film production and journalism, I've also enjoyed an extraordinary career in stripping.

To be fair, my career was segmented into four isolated incidents that I've chosen to lump together into what I'm remembering as a full vocation. I don't care if that counts, but it's my life and I'll edit memories together if I feel like it.

1. San Antonio, TX, 2008- My exboyfriend and I are in town for a wedding. We go to the local gay bar on our first night and his friends enter me in the Shake Your Ass Contest. I come in third place, and then I'm immediately stripped of my title and kicked out when the emcee notices my underage hand markings. I decide that since I've shown Texas my shirtless torso and have been rewarded with a forceful escort out of Bonham Exchange, that I'll never live in that fucked-up Hicktown called Texas. And my position still stands. 

2. Baton Rouge, LA, 2007- I ditch the other Student Government deligates at dinner and head for George's Place. A group a girls from my favorite sorority are in town and need help navigating the Santa Gayby Christmas Party. Thirty minutes later, I'm up on the bar competing with a 50-something bear in a leather harness and Santa Claus hat for dollar bills. I'm so drunk that I have three girls help me down and usher me into the bathroom. I fish somewhere between 30 and 90 dollars out of my underwear and walk back to my haram. I feel a hand grab my collar and pull me through the crowd. It's my SGA President and he's pissed. He tells me on the ride home that my SGA polo was lost in the crowd and that he's not ordering me another. I feel bad so I make him pull into Jack In The Box where I buy everyone tacos and bacon cheeseburgers with my underwear money.

3. New Orleans, LA, 2010- I drunkenly compete with my boyfriend, Wit's End, and three other guys in a strip-off at Oz. Our relationship is awesomely fucked-up and I want to teach him a lesson about who wears the whorepants. I win the contest by a landslide for the sheer fact that I'm the only one wearing briefs and a backwards hat. As I exit the stage, I see my exboyfriend's best friend in the audience. I feel like I'm going to throw up. He's going to tell McBougie and then McBougie will have the post-break-up upper hand. I give the guy my first prize of some random ethnic porn DVD (because he's into that) and we bail. As predicted, McBougie calls five minutes later and says that I'm trashy. I tell him that he doesn't have parents so his point is invalid. He hangs up and I drive Wit's End home in stoney silence because I've forever ruined his ego. I smile at him and reach for his hand because I think that he's the cutest guy in the world. Even if a bar full of old queens thinks I'm cuter. Which they do. Because I won.

4. Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, 2009- It's our second night in Mexico and I've been drunk since breakfast. The five of us walk into the local gay bar and I head for the alcohol. I ask the bartender in Spanish if there will be any strippers this evening. He tells me that there's an Amy Winehouse-themed drag show, but no dancers, señor. I volunteer my services and tell him that I'll split my earnings with him. He agrees and pulls me onto the bar. I go to work for nearly three songs before I realize that everyone's staring, but no one is tipping. My friend, Jacque, flamboyantly slides pesos into my shorts, but the Wild Bunch isn't following suit. So, in a moment of Corona-soaked desperation, I decide to channel my inner Winehouse. I'm not going to go into detail, but I will say that I had a gorgeous purple bruise on my forehead the next morning from attempting something ballsy on the drag queen's swing. After my scream draws significant attention to our group, Joey and the other three forcibly remove me from the bar top while I shout for the bartender to save my underwear and serve me one more shot of tequila.