Things That Matter

I know I’m about 100 years late to the game but I’m getting all caught up in this Podcast shit. One of my favorite podcasts at the moment is A Gay In the Life, voiced by a happy Houston highschooler named Eddie Perez (who also blogs). He approaches his Podcast in a radio-like format with special appearances by his “handsomely hung boyfriend” Brandon, updates every day, and even has a listener phone line, which just cracks me up. Another one I just can’t get enough of is Zophras, hosted by an adorable gay teenager in Ireland.  It’s a shy, more softspoken podcast but he shares a lot in his entries, and he totally turned me on to Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp Minor”. The weird part about this that I pretty much NEVER follow the wannabe-fabulous/poorly written blogs of opressed teen gays stuck in socially desolate lands (that’s what, practically every other LiveJournal?), but there’s something fascinating about listening to the actual voice of total stranger; the akward changes in their speech rhythm, the patterns they breath and build in as they talk and intone about nothing in particular. Now, I’ve done

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on this site before but podcasting is different; its lucid, untried, and freshly straightforward in a way that am not able to be. Kinda makes me want to hear more of what they have to say. Both of the boys shouted me out on their podcasts the other day, and with my track record of putting up random bloggers, I’m sure they’ll be crashing on my futon soon enough.

Meanwhile, I’m obsessed with this new show Starved. I love that someone has developed an entire series about people with eating disorders — and made it funny. And disturbing. It’s also funny and disturbing how Kathy Griffin’s reality show The D List is basically The Comeback with less of a budget and on a sub-par network. The irony ain’t so subtle, man. Irony fucking walked into my room and slapped me across the face.

Did anyone see Battle of the Network Reality Stars on Bravo the other day? I tuned in to watch my dawg Melissa in more reality action but ended up totally transfixed by Coral’s gigantic boobs. Sweet Lord no wonder she’s so fucking tough, she’s had to defy gravity all her life with those things! Thank God she and Melissa are in the lineup cuz despite the deliciously fucked up cast they jumbled together, this show looks damn boring. I’m really just tuning in to catch Ryan Starr have a breakdown and scream, “This is like American Idol all over again!”. A few questions though — does Omarosa’s hair move? Does her face move? And is Nikki McKibbin drunk already? She always looks like she just had a beer. Both Melissa and Will (and the unnaturally beautiful TJ, who we all drooled over last month, and who I also couldn’t stop touching) came to a BBQ party I threw recently and dished out some serious backyard shit about the show — she’s recapping on her blog, go catch up!

Oh, I found Jared Leto. Turns out he was up on the roof the whole time. And apparently he’s packing plenty of heat. Um yeah, the roof is on fire and I’m totally fine with that. Jared, you’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you. Now take off your pants.

I’m fully aware that this blog sucks lately, by the way. My posts bounce between weak and unrelevant to boring and way too serious, I guess I’m just not really in the groove. Maybe that’s why I’m fascinated by everyone else out there these days. Seasonal changes, maybe. I’m looking forward to the fall. Changes. Strong gusts of wind. Thick layers. I’m getting ready.

Despite the luckluster wash on this blog, some crazy bitch out there has been ripping my entries and reposting them as her own. I noticed I was getting linked to from some random site (which is normal) so I went to check it out, expecting to find another “I found this cute wesbite today by Chris in New york City…” kind of entry. Instead I type in her url and on her front page was a picture of my G’ma — from that entry, followed by a literal cut-n-paste of the post I did about her funeral… except she said it was her grandma. What the FUCK?! I began combing through her archives — didn’t have go look too far — and found that this girl actually constructed her entire Blogspot journal with stolen content and images from me, Melissa, and Kyle. The three of us each have a very distinct tone in our writing and I recognized the entries right away. And she took things that couldn’t possibly have been about her life anyway; Kyle’s original artwork, Melissa’s Real World entries, and even my Bio and cancer stories. The really scary part was that even tho she’d blatantly bootlegged us (it wasn’t like she credited us), she still went into each story and changed details like names and locations and replaced them with different cities and people. Why would you DO something like that? What would be the point? I was furious about the entry she took about my G’ma and I thought about blowing the whistle on her to all of the fan-type folk who read and like my site, who could go jam her comments with so many mean messages that we’d either shut down her server, or she’d remove the entries out of shame. But I’d prefer her blog to remain the way it is: UNREAD. I took the high road (shot a monster email to Google about it — subject title: THEFT OF COPYRIGHT-PROTECTED CONTENT AND IMAGES), Kyle took the low road (sent his army of flying monkeys), and we got to Scotland before her: within an hour, her blog was shut down. It’s the little victories, right?

Work has been going really great. I’m suprised at the power they give me to make things happen at the hotel! It’s fun! I love what I do, it’s such a fun jo and I’d love to talk a LOT more about it and tell you all about the INSANE celebrity encounters that go down every damn day, but Starwood is a huge company and really I don’t want to end up like that girl who’s blogging got her fired. So all I’ll say is that I fucking love my job, I leave at the end of every day with a feeling of accomplishment and pride; feels really good to have something productive to focus my time and energy on. All of my friends lately are working towards something, and me? I’m not sure yet. It’s weird being in this city, 26yrs old, and unsure of what I’m gonna do next. I’m looking for things that matter to me. It’s an exciting and frustrating time. Till then I’m just busying myself with little projects around my apartment. Every day I come home and work on something, clean out a closet or a cabinet, reorganize a section, upgrade something, scrub something out. I upgraded to that Triple Play cable package and I just love it. I’m @ the gym more, too. Accomplishing what, I’m not sure but I’m just trying to make a habit of going. The theme up in here is to work on the things around me and by doing so, do some work on myself. Never a bad thing. I was browsing through my old archives the other day and found this excerpt from an entry last November:

I’m thankful that no matter how offmark I get, I always find a way back to who I am. The versions of me change, and sometimes I momentarily self-downgrade, but I never stay lost for too long.

Hmm. You know how sometimes you turn around and are happy to see where you’re at, how you’re coming along — and other ppl are able to see it too? That’s where I wanna go next. And this is like, the in-between place. Or something.

UPDATE: the new kid playing my role in Altar Boyz looks like he could be my twin. No, he seriously does. And he’s from Houston. God hates me.

Crawl

August 16th, 2005 / 3 comments »

The bug man comes to my place every 3 months or so, when the realities of a NYC apartment get to be a little too real and gritty for me to deal with. In the winter we New Yorkers battle mice and in the summertime we deal with bugs. It’s gross but it’s humid out and it’s sticky and that’s just the way things work here, plus I have serious hardwood floors so this can be a big problem. (That’s a link to old pictures, by the way. Now try to imagine havoc wreaked by a hyperactive puppy). My building should take care of exterminating but they never do and I just don’t have the energy to hunt the super down every day, so I just call Carlos @ License-to-Kill and he comes to kill the bugs. He usually kills my vibe too.

Carlos is mean to me, y’all. He can’t just show up and spray the place, he’s got to verbalize his actual disgust with the bugs and his disdain for my allowing them to exist within my walls. Like I just allow them, like it’s a nonstop party with me and the bugs till he gets there to break it all up. I’ll be in the other room, at the computer, and I’ll hear “OH MY GOD! Chris, come here! Come in here and look at this. This is disgusting.” Begrudgingly I’ll go back into the kitchen and he’ll be pointing at a nook or cranny, all exasperated,”Look! Look at how many hide there! Look at that! Look! It’s disgusting, huh?”
“Yeah, thanks. Can you spray now?”
“You have to throw out your garbage and don’t leave dirty dishes.”
“Uh-huh. Just let me know when you’re done.”
“You can’t live with infestation like this,” he’ll say, shaking his head. “For real, it’s not good. See how bad it is? See?”
“I know, that’s why I called you.”
“These bugs don’t come b/c of the heat, they come b/c you let them.”
“Right.”
“This is worse than I ever saw. I think maybe I should come back in 2 weeks.”
“Fine, Carlos.”
“It’s really gross with all these bugs, man.”

I pay this man to berate me. What the hell? At the end of Carlos’ visits, my apartment is covered in potent a poison that leaves swarms of feisty roaches dwindling, crawling and fighting to stay alive. My self-esteem struggles to survive with them. Ashes ashes we all fall down. It’s kind of tragic.

But my apartment is really clean afterwards.

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This Boogie Is For Real

August 6th, 2005 / No comments

No, I haven’t spent the past week locked up in my room sobbing along to the chorus of “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain on loop (although it’s tempting: “… and IIIIIII’ll be better when I’m older, I’ll be the greatest fan of your liiiiiiiiiiiife.” and if you don’t cry when you hear it, you have no soul). I won’t front — it’s tempting to just let myself be sucked into the whole breakup vortex, but Jamiroquai told me there’s nothing left for me to do but dance off these bad times I’m going through. Canned heat in my heels and whatnot. This boogie is for real. You guys know the drill. Napoleon Dynamite forever. Life presses on… just a little less shiny lately. But I’m ok. Having absolutely no regrets helps a lot. Thanks for the emails and the sweet messages. I’m always amazed by how many people follow the things I share and sometimes take the time to shout me out with some kind words of encouragement. Shit, even the hate mail is well-written.

I went to a bullshit reality TV party yesterday. Remember that blogger I introduced ya’ll to way back when? Apparently his blog caught on pretty damn well cuz a Bravo producer found it, loved him, and cast him (with the apartment and clean roomates in tow) as the focus of the next Queer Eye for the Gay Guy. Yes, this is the world I live in — folks tell me they love my website, I enourage them to create one of their own, and then they became famous while I heat up microwave tacquitos that I bought from Target for $4. See now it sounds like I’m a hater, lemme start this over.

So, my friend was filming all week with the Fab Five, getting setup on dates (which he doesn’t actually need help getting) and getting free clothes and electronics and cameratime (which I actually wouldn’t mind getting). He called me from his newly beautified apartment after it was all done to give me the scoop on what secretly happened (i.e. how useless Jai Rodriguez really is) and of course I ate it all up. It’s so cool that it’s happened but also kind of a joke b/c it’s all set on the premise that he’s a boring homo in need of assistance on how to be well rounded. Anyway, they threw him this big party @ 60 Thompson and I went afterwork. It was the weirdest thing and I’m hesitant to even call it an experience b/c it’s actually not mine to have, I was just observing as an outsider. I had to sign waivers to get in and some guy with a clipboard kept herding everyone up and reshuffling us throughout the room so it would look bigger than it was, I was asked not to stand against the bar b/c it was dark paneled and so were my clothes and they wanted me against something light. I talked to this guy named Adriel, who was sent there by the producers. to be an extra. at the party… for somebody he hadn’t even met before. This kid went through FIVE audition/callbacks with different Queer Eye producers and was told he’d definately be on the show and meet the fab five and give relationship advice and that network just loved him — he like, got up excited that morning and probably called his mom and got a haircut and a tan, thinking he was gonna be famous. Instead he was sitting there talking to my jaded ass, and although I felt kinda bad for him? all I kept thinking was This is why I’m not an actor anymore.

When my friend showed up, the crew swarmed around him while he made this speech that was cute but didn’t really sound like him cuz obviously he was miked and nervous and looking at a room full of unnaturally good-looking people. I was proud of him for just going with it the way he had been all week, enjoying it and trying to be as normal as possible. My ass would have been trying to make everything funny and sensational, but he and his cameras worked the room like a pro, which I’m sure Jai will try to take credit for when they’re all rewatching the footage from the Queer Loft, then he came over to my and my bad hair day and we had a totally weird conversation that wasn’t real at all and I’m sure won’t air. I briefly considered shoving him against the wall and making out, playing it up like I was an exboyfriend who was nervous about seeing him but totally wanted to get back together; yeah I perused the drama but decided against it. This was his day and I was bystander. I noticed everyone stood around looking for the cameras a lot, smiling and doing their best to look engaged in mid-conversations… these were the people looking as bored as I was before the star boy arrived. Reality TV isn’t really as cool as it seems when you’re watching it happen live; amazing what background music, editing, and a rough storyline will do. It’ll be fun to see his story when it airs.

Of course you are all encouraged to disregard my snide commentary and full-on watch my reality show when it blasts onto the scene. What is a blog anyway but a cyber extension of reality TV? We write, you read, and everybody stays tuned. But no, I’m talking about the one they’re shopping around the industry about NYC concierges and other adventurers in the service industry. Yes, it’s actually being discussed, yes they’re talking to my hotel, the Hudson kids too, and YES my name is out there (did you really think I’d let the opportunity slip by?!) so consider yourselves warned. This young sprite may just make that inevitable screen-to-screen jump from your computer to your TV right before your eyes. Don’t stop watching me, winners. For the love of Adriel, you couldn’t if you even tried.

OK, fine. Reality: I’ve been listening to that damn anthem on loop, cuz it’s catchy and sincere and I’m overidentifying. But only for now. Only for now.

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