My first drink of alcohol was on my 21st birthday. A group of friends had taken me out to West Hollywood for my legal birthday dinner and drinks. We went to a restaurant called "The Cobalt Cantina" that was very shii shii and froo froo. My first drink was a Midori Sour.
As we ate our dinner and made our fun, I noticed a face a couple of tables over. I have always been a huge film fanatic, and as evidence of that, none of you will recognize the name of the person sitting at that table. Her name is Joanna Gleason and you would recognize her from Mr Hollands Opus, Sex and the City, Hannah and her Sisters, Boogie Nights, The Women and countless TV guest spots. Well as she got up to leave she had to walk right behind my chair to get to the front door, so as she got within a foot of my chair, I turned to her and said "Oh Ms. Gleason, I'm such a fan of yours. I first saw you in "Into the Woods" and have been a fan ever since".
Noticing the birthday cake on the table she asked if it was my birthday, to which I replied "yes mam, I am 21 today." She stepped back with a look of shock on her face. Almost in an unbelieving tone she asked "Oh My, that show was so many years ago, how did you ever see it?" To which I replied "thank god for PBS, and quality programming!" At that she threw back her head and laughed.
That is how on my 21st birthday I got a star of stage and screen to sing me happy birthday.
After that I drank seldomly on occasion. Somehow I always got put into the designated driver role. This was after the Tijuana Escapades of my youth, during which I also never drank, but that is another story. I joined the Navy when I was 22 and always thought I cant get drunk because someone will find out I'm gay, or I wont be able to control myself from hitting on some straight homophobe, or a million other scenarios.
So for the most part I abstained. There are people that I have known for years that have never seen me drunk. And if they did, they didn't know it. Well, this is about my most outrageous night of drinking, so I guess I should get to the point, shouldn't I.
It was Pink Saturday of 2001's Pride Weekend. My best friend AJ and I had planned a weekend of debaucheries and fittingly stocked the bar with several bottles of liquor and beer. We had been out clubbing the night before and at our traditional brunch at Orphan Andy's AJ decided that he absolutely needed a new outfit to wear out on the town that night and that was what we were going to do after Brunch.
Now, I hate clothes shopping. First off nothing ever fits me. It's like the fashion industry thinks that anyone that is my height is super skinny and anyone with my waist size is 5'9". So I never have any luck. Oh, I find things I like, but never in my size. So when we descended on Union Square for his shopping junket I tagged along mostly out of a lack of something better to do.
Seven hours later...
No, I mean he shopped for an outfit for seven hours. I'm not kidding. And only at the high end ritzy retailers. If I never set foot in Kenneth Cole again I will be just fine with that. So, after seven hours of doing the thing I hate most, I was not in what you would call a good mood. Quite the opposite in fact. By the time I got home my jaw hurt from all the clenching and the biting of my tongue that I had been doing. I was pissy and bitter and angry.
Seeing this, AJ went to his room with his boys in tow and changed into his special new outfit, which looked just like all the other outfits in his closet. When he came out he announced that they were going to go eat some food before they closed the streets off for the Pink Party. I said FINE! AJ looked back at me as they were descending the stairs and said "Meet me in front of the glass coffin at 9:00pm. And you better be in a better mood dammit."
After he had gone I was still stewing in my juices a bit. I thought about the night ahead and how much it would suck if I was pissed all night. So I decided to have a drink to take the edge off my mood. We had bought a 24 oz. bottle of a wretched drink called Goldschlager (so named because of the 24karat gold flakes floating in cinnamon flavored liquor). I grabbed a shot glass and poured a stiff one for myself. I didn't realize it would be like drinking cinnamon candy, and as soon as I realized it I cracked open a beer to chase the taste right out of my mouth.
I'm not exactly sure how, but within twenty minutes or so, both the beer bottle and the Goldschlager bottle were completely empty. I was now ready to be entertained on the street.
I got dressed in my Ghetto-Fabulous matching shiny blue denim suit and blue plaid shirt and made my way out the door. I didn't feel horribly drunk yet, and I still have memories of everything that happened that night, but between my front door and the prearranged meeting place four blocks away, the liquor kicked in.
AJ and his friends were already waiting for me when I galloped up to them. I had some sort of stupid look on my face or something because the first words out of AJ's mouth were "Oh god, what did you do?" With a drunken lisp I replied "I drank the whole bottle!!"
"What!!?!?!" said AJ with a combination of horror and glee playing on his face.
"I was thirsty, Don't judge me!!!" Was all I could think to reply with. And then "we may need more Goldschlager..."
I lasted a solid two hours wandering around the crowded throngs that night. The first thing AJ did was force feed me pizza... God, no wonder I hate that places pizza... memories... By 11:30 pm they were all ready to head to Club Universe, just one problem stood in the way... a seriously drunk giant.
As they were walking out of the Pink Party and past our street my friend Carl, who had been with us for most of the day, asked AJ if they were taking me home before going to the club. I was walking and talking, but don't ask what I was saying because I'm pretty sure it wasn't an actual language. But I was smiling, so nobody minded much.
AJ, looked at Carl, then at me, then back to Carl, and with just the slightest bit of anger and disgust said "He knows where he lives. He can find his own way home, shit... I'm goin dancing!" I know, such a bitch!!! Well somehow Carl managed to talk him into, at the very least, escorting me to the front door. I got inside and told them to have fun for me, and then turned and crawled up the stairs to my room.
I laid down on my bed and turned the TV on to distract my senses. But before I could even take off my ghetto-fabulousness I felt the rising. I stood up, sat back down, stood up again, grabbed the wall, opened the bedroom door and felt the wall all the way down the hall to the bathroom. I then proceeded to sit down indian style in front of the toilet. Here is a sick trick, sit that way in front of a toilet, get your head in close, and I promise you, even if your not drunk you will feel like you want to throw up.
Well, that's what I did, and that's exactly what happened. Gross golden pizza filled yarking. Like I was throwing up someones bad attempt at making high fashion jewelery out of pizza toppings. Not pretty. I ended up sitting like that, occasionally dry heaving gold flakes, until at least 3:00am. I know that's roughly what time it was because AJ and Carl and Amanda (AJ's Lesbian sister) got back from the club.
The rest of that night gets a little fuzzy. Mostly because I went to sleep right there curled around the base of the toilet. I remember Amanda bringing me some water, a blanket and a pillow. I remember Carl rubbing my back for a while. I remember AJ pissing over my head trying not to miss the bowl and hit me.
I woke with the sun that pride Sunday and stumble-crawled to my bed. Around 11:00 that morning AJ was up and getting ready to head down to the festival. I remember waking up and thinking "shouldn't my head be hurting?" That was the only real thing I learned during this incident; I don't get hangovers. Good to know.
The rest of Pride was all the gay fun you can imagine, I spent the rest of that Pride day turning a bright lobster red and enjoying the millions of good looking men. Below are the only two pictures from that night. In the first one you can see the look on my face just after I told AJ that I was thirsty... and the second picture is his response to that statement... Oh and just to embarrass the hell out of AJ, the "very special" outfit that he had been shopping for for seven hours... The orange-red shirt he is wearing... he got it at Old Navy!!! So much for him being all shii shii and froo froo!!! Hahahaha...
So for the most part I abstained. There are people that I have known for years that have never seen me drunk. And if they did, they didn't know it. Well, this is about my most outrageous night of drinking, so I guess I should get to the point, shouldn't I.
It was Pink Saturday of 2001's Pride Weekend. My best friend AJ and I had planned a weekend of debaucheries and fittingly stocked the bar with several bottles of liquor and beer. We had been out clubbing the night before and at our traditional brunch at Orphan Andy's AJ decided that he absolutely needed a new outfit to wear out on the town that night and that was what we were going to do after Brunch.
Now, I hate clothes shopping. First off nothing ever fits me. It's like the fashion industry thinks that anyone that is my height is super skinny and anyone with my waist size is 5'9". So I never have any luck. Oh, I find things I like, but never in my size. So when we descended on Union Square for his shopping junket I tagged along mostly out of a lack of something better to do.
Seven hours later...
No, I mean he shopped for an outfit for seven hours. I'm not kidding. And only at the high end ritzy retailers. If I never set foot in Kenneth Cole again I will be just fine with that. So, after seven hours of doing the thing I hate most, I was not in what you would call a good mood. Quite the opposite in fact. By the time I got home my jaw hurt from all the clenching and the biting of my tongue that I had been doing. I was pissy and bitter and angry.
Seeing this, AJ went to his room with his boys in tow and changed into his special new outfit, which looked just like all the other outfits in his closet. When he came out he announced that they were going to go eat some food before they closed the streets off for the Pink Party. I said FINE! AJ looked back at me as they were descending the stairs and said "Meet me in front of the glass coffin at 9:00pm. And you better be in a better mood dammit."
After he had gone I was still stewing in my juices a bit. I thought about the night ahead and how much it would suck if I was pissed all night. So I decided to have a drink to take the edge off my mood. We had bought a 24 oz. bottle of a wretched drink called Goldschlager (so named because of the 24karat gold flakes floating in cinnamon flavored liquor). I grabbed a shot glass and poured a stiff one for myself. I didn't realize it would be like drinking cinnamon candy, and as soon as I realized it I cracked open a beer to chase the taste right out of my mouth.
I'm not exactly sure how, but within twenty minutes or so, both the beer bottle and the Goldschlager bottle were completely empty. I was now ready to be entertained on the street.
I got dressed in my Ghetto-Fabulous matching shiny blue denim suit and blue plaid shirt and made my way out the door. I didn't feel horribly drunk yet, and I still have memories of everything that happened that night, but between my front door and the prearranged meeting place four blocks away, the liquor kicked in.
AJ and his friends were already waiting for me when I galloped up to them. I had some sort of stupid look on my face or something because the first words out of AJ's mouth were "Oh god, what did you do?" With a drunken lisp I replied "I drank the whole bottle!!"
"What!!?!?!" said AJ with a combination of horror and glee playing on his face.
"I was thirsty, Don't judge me!!!" Was all I could think to reply with. And then "we may need more Goldschlager..."
I lasted a solid two hours wandering around the crowded throngs that night. The first thing AJ did was force feed me pizza... God, no wonder I hate that places pizza... memories... By 11:30 pm they were all ready to head to Club Universe, just one problem stood in the way... a seriously drunk giant.
As they were walking out of the Pink Party and past our street my friend Carl, who had been with us for most of the day, asked AJ if they were taking me home before going to the club. I was walking and talking, but don't ask what I was saying because I'm pretty sure it wasn't an actual language. But I was smiling, so nobody minded much.
AJ, looked at Carl, then at me, then back to Carl, and with just the slightest bit of anger and disgust said "He knows where he lives. He can find his own way home, shit... I'm goin dancing!" I know, such a bitch!!! Well somehow Carl managed to talk him into, at the very least, escorting me to the front door. I got inside and told them to have fun for me, and then turned and crawled up the stairs to my room.
I laid down on my bed and turned the TV on to distract my senses. But before I could even take off my ghetto-fabulousness I felt the rising. I stood up, sat back down, stood up again, grabbed the wall, opened the bedroom door and felt the wall all the way down the hall to the bathroom. I then proceeded to sit down indian style in front of the toilet. Here is a sick trick, sit that way in front of a toilet, get your head in close, and I promise you, even if your not drunk you will feel like you want to throw up.
Well, that's what I did, and that's exactly what happened. Gross golden pizza filled yarking. Like I was throwing up someones bad attempt at making high fashion jewelery out of pizza toppings. Not pretty. I ended up sitting like that, occasionally dry heaving gold flakes, until at least 3:00am. I know that's roughly what time it was because AJ and Carl and Amanda (AJ's Lesbian sister) got back from the club.
The rest of that night gets a little fuzzy. Mostly because I went to sleep right there curled around the base of the toilet. I remember Amanda bringing me some water, a blanket and a pillow. I remember Carl rubbing my back for a while. I remember AJ pissing over my head trying not to miss the bowl and hit me.
I woke with the sun that pride Sunday and stumble-crawled to my bed. Around 11:00 that morning AJ was up and getting ready to head down to the festival. I remember waking up and thinking "shouldn't my head be hurting?" That was the only real thing I learned during this incident; I don't get hangovers. Good to know.
The rest of Pride was all the gay fun you can imagine, I spent the rest of that Pride day turning a bright lobster red and enjoying the millions of good looking men. Below are the only two pictures from that night. In the first one you can see the look on my face just after I told AJ that I was thirsty... and the second picture is his response to that statement... Oh and just to embarrass the hell out of AJ, the "very special" outfit that he had been shopping for for seven hours... The orange-red shirt he is wearing... he got it at Old Navy!!! So much for him being all shii shii and froo froo!!! Hahahaha...
