G. Day

Mission 1. Hook up with someone as old as my mom (54)and as young as my sister (20) in a month.
Mission 2. Live a completely gay lifestyle (without the gay sex) for a month.

Saturday 9:30 a.m., Daniel’s place, West Hollywood.

My flame burned hard and long last night. I felt like I was back in college, living in Roman excess with my testosterone-fueled and habitually imbibed fraternity brothers. But in this updated (and much more fabulous adaptation), almost everyone in the room seemed as if they were pulled from the pages of the International Male Catalog. And, as memory serves, I never did lemon body shots with the guys at school.

I love mornings, even hungover ones. That’s the great thing about Daniel’s friends; they are just as fun and chatty in the morning as they are in the evening. I slept on this giant futon like thing last night, kind of like the ones at Skybar. It was comfortable, chic, modern (and probably expensive). Thank God I didn’t pee on it.

I was awakened by a true ally of my mornings, Van Morrison. I’ve crawled out of bed many days inspired by his soulful musings. Once again, he beckoned my forward movement. I walked out to the breakfast bar, slowly. The way you do when the events of last night’s drunken rampage have become a blur.

“Hey you, look it’s the living dead everyone, HE’S ALIVE,” Daniel screamed, very animatedly.

He was wearing a pink and white kimono-type robe with matching silk boxer briefs that exposed half his cheeks. Hand embroidered on the front was the tactful scripting, “happy cunt.” It was wrong, even by Daniel's standards.

“I knew Van would wake you up, it’s Astral weeks,” he said, now singing in the spatula, “Ohhh, ohh sweet thing.” It wasn’t even the right song, but I appreciated the sentiment.

“I’m serving up morning love,” he said pointing to the stove. It was quite a spread with fresh fruit, eggs, toast and, seemingly in my honor, bacon.

“Oh Rob, I made some bacon for you, just the way you like it,” he said smiling.

This is why I don’t let friends read my blog. It is sometimes used against me. I grabbed an apple in retaliation.

I sat down next to Arkansas. He was wearing a boar or something from his home state on his shirt and bad 80’s jam shorts. There was no irony to this man. He was the most flat-faced and un-fab of the bunch. He was also the most interesting, in a less-than-extravagant sort of way. I like the underdog, so I saddled up.

Arkansas is what I have affectionately termed as “Bugle Boy Gay.” He has horrible fashion and doesn’t care much about gay culture of any sort. What connects him? He simply likes to put it in other guys. He just goes through the motions to get there. Cool by me. It was readily apparant his participation in this weekend’s events seemed tertiary. I’m sure he’d much rather be hanging out in Kohl’s than here. Then again, it's much easier to score some oral at pride than it is in the men's sportswear department.

Arkansas kindly helped me recollect the events of last night. I made a mental note: If I plan on writing about my adventures, I better fucking remember them. Anyway, as he recalled, we got drunk at the house until about 1:00, went to some club that Arkansas did not know the name of, walked Santa Monica Blvd. and went to another more mellow bar. Then went to a party and "Tim the Spinner" fell in the hot tub, cut his arm and hooked up with the party host. The rest of us came home, partied until about 4 and passed out.

“Then we Sharpied your ass,” Arkansas said.

“What?”

“Check your ass, we Sharpied it.”

I pulled them down, but couldn’t see anything.

“Go to the mirror.”

I walked over, dropped trou and saw the names of 6 or 7 of my “weekend housemates” on my ass. It was my 21st birthday all over again. The room erupted with frenzied laughter.

I ate breakfast, assembled my thoughts and took a shower. The names would not loofah off. Daniel had kindly arranged my outfit on the bed. I was given a pair of Jean shorts that were cut so high the white pockets shown through, a cowboy hat (model’s own) and sandals (model’s own). Judging by the cut, I imagined this look was best completed without underwear. I obliged.

“Oh, you found your outfit, perfect,” Daniel said, "Oh, and you're freeballing. I didn't even have to tell you. See, you're learning."

He walked over to me with something in his hand.

“Here is the piece de resistance,” he said as he flashed a rainbow temporary tattoo. I was instructed to put it above my left nipple. I obliged again. Daniel was wearing a white bra with an embroidered shirt (unbuttoned) over it. He fucking owned that look. It was effortless. Arkansas changed into a t-shirt with “Sideout” printed on the front. His look was effortless as well.

We walked over by West Hollywood Park, where the performances took place. Debbie Harry was playing sometime at night, but there were other acts all day. I grabbed a beer and sat down. Everyone else split off. Arkansas took a seat.

“I wish I had a buck for every swan dress I’ve seen today. Gay’s love the Bjork, huh?” I joked.

“Uh, uh huh,” he said, completely oblivious. I realized I couldn’t make fashion jokes with Arkansas, because as gays go, he was the biggest fashion joke of them all. But I loved him nonetheless. You don’t do body shots with people you dislike. At least, I don't.

It was obvious that Arkansas was more comfortable hiding in the straight world than being out in the gay one. Maybe that's why he gravitated toward me, because I represented that world to some extent. I felt a bit of sympathy towards his plight. He was extradited by the mainstream culture for his love of man ass, but he didn’t quite fit in to the gay world either. Or at least the gay world that places like West Hollywood have come to represent. I think everyone else in the house was oblivious to this fact. To them he was "mellow." To me, he was the misunderstood college roommate on his annual journey to the gay holy land.

“Want to walk around?” he asked.

“Sure.”

We made our way through the crowd.

“Sex Tape, you like country music?” he asked, offhandedly.

“Not particularly, why?”

“Yea, no one really does out here. I just thought with the cowboy hat and you being from a small town, you might, but that’s cool.”

“Do you want to talk about country music or something?” I asked.

“Oh, no no. They just have a country music pavilion here, and I was going to head over there. I usually go by myself, but just figured-"

“Fuck, they have country music here?” I thought, “At a gay pride festival? This I gotta see."

“I’m there,” I said excitedly.

Arkansas smiled.

“Let me grab a schedule and we can go,” he said, “Sometimes they have 2 step lessons.”

So I was off on another spiritual fork. Another journey inside a journey. Because, on this fine day, I was doing more than just two-stepping with Arkansas. I was making a lifelong friend as well.