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It's hard to believe, but after nearly three years on this board,
Robert and I know so few of our fellow CPIers. Maybe it's because
we're too private or maybe we're just too addled at some of the p
rties. And yet, in spite of knowing only a few of you from direct
introduction, so many of the people on this board are a part of our
private language, the shorthand dialect that a couple develops over
time.
Reading this board daily, we know so many of you from what you
write. We know your opinions, of course, and your preferences, and
most often of all, we feel as if we know your sense of humors, and
we co-opt certain phrases -- beyond the obvious such as "gurk" --and
make them a part of our shared language. We've never met Drew, but
there are at least two things we say which originated with him, and
we don't know ScottVanTuesday, but we're still laughing from a
posting he made a month or so ago, and we always listen for Alan's
history lessons and we love hearing what Josh and Doug consider
worthy of mention about Montreal and South Beach. And Nurse, we
vicariously live her odysseys, and so many other people who have
developed distinct personalities in our minds, in our life, as a
consequence of what they write here.
And because so many of you are so real for us, even though we don't
know you, not well enough to pick you out of a crowd, we almost
always feel as if a bunch of you are with us when we party. We don't
know who legupnow is, but we know an awful lot about him, and
therefore, we sometimes try to figure out which one he is in the
crowds around us. And last night, at Alegria, I was almost sure I'd
figured it out, given legupnow's description of what he'd be wearing
to the party, and in the men's room, I grabbed this guy and said,
"Are you lepupnow?" and this guy looks down at me as if I'm speaking
Polish and he says, "What?" "Never mind," I said quickly, and raced
after Robert.
And I was so sure those were brown rhinestones on his cowboy hat...
All of this is to say that last night at Alegria, more than maybe
other Alegrias, it felt as if we were in the middle of a great CPI
circuit family -- even if we didn't know who anyone was. Maybe this
was because we brought with us two friends, Tim and John, who've
just moved to New York after three years spent living in South
Beach, and they're young, not even twenty-five, and this was their
first ever Alegria, and they've only been living in New York for six
weeks, and this was their first ever New York club party experience
-- and so why not the best, that's how we figured it, and so maybe
we were seeing some of last night's Alegria through their wide eyes.
Usually, I focus so much on the music, and especially when Abel's at
the helm, and I get lost in his world and that's probably another
reason we know hardly anyone from CPI because we're mostly dancing
and not really jabbering -- not that there's anything wrong with
jabbering, mind you.
Last night, though, I don't know, but my focus splintered into about
a dozen shards and I was wonderfully overwhelmed by the production
elements -- a two-horse covered wagon stagecoach with rider
suspended over the floor, and a field of cactus, and a main street
consisting of HOTEL, SALOON, and JAIL -- the three archetypal
settings for all gay male sex -- and equally overwhelmed by all the
boys whom I don't seem ever to see at our gym or along Eighth Avenue
or at Barney's Warehouse Sale. Where are they all piped in from? And
at one point, John yells into my ear, "God, I wasn't expecting this
crowd to be so way more beautiful than South Beach." Well, I smiled
and was happy to hear it -- though I didn't remind him that there is
a huge difference in size in the populations of New York and South
Beach.
Furthermore, it was particularly validating for us to hear John
exclaim as such, because earlier, he and Tim had been told by their
new realtor, a New Yorker, that "Alegria parties are sometimes hit
or miss."
What? Hit or miss? Alegria? Ha. Hardly. Clearly this fool realtor is
a straight man, that's all we can imagine. And our boys Tim and John
were clearly having the time of their lives.
And there was so much energy, so much good energy, and the sense of
a burden having been lifted now that the Republicans were out of
town and Hurricane Frances was winding down and Abel was on a tear
and we didn't see but one fall-out and even that wasn't total
because Robert kept slapping the fool's ass and making him snap to
it rather than collapse in a heap.
And for some reason, I couldn't stop smiling. Well, there might be a
couple reasons, but it was one of those nights when I was so happy
to be a part of this crowd, surrounded by so many people who feel
like friends even if I don't really know them to speak to them and
even if I only know them from this board or what I imagine them to
be like and I was thinking again, anew, about how the circuit can be
so enabling, such a positive force in our lives, for what is there
not to love about dancing to music with people you love?
And okay, so maybe there was a kind of retrospective quality to some
of Abel's song selections, and yet, even those songs which you start
out thinking, Oh, God, no, not this one, not again -- somehow, it
either worked and made us move -- or else we sneaked off to the Prop
Room for Eddie Elias.
And that's another thing, there was so much going on, no matter
where you went. It was a veritable Western carnival. From the Reed
Room, where people were spinning and flagging, and on to the Prop
Room where there were cowgirls in triplicate, and so many cowboy
hats -- and I had one too, which my father gave to me last week when
we went to visit him in North Carolina, and I told him we needed
hats for a party in New York, and he produced a perfect Marlboro
hat, which suited me just fine. Except first it tried to get away
from me when the wind picked it up and sent it sailing beneath the
cab, but fortunately, Robert rescued it, and then later, up in VIP,
my cowboy hat sailed along the plexiglass railing as if it were
about to topple into the crowd, but Marion rescued it this time and
kept the hat as a reward, which was right because it looked better
on her than on me, and last we saw of that hat, it was bobbing
through the crowd.
There was also the show. The Alegria theme song, and by then, we'd
lost Tim and John, and we were so hoping that they were somewhere
able to catch this number, the boys so brilliantly adept at
performing their stylized cowboy moves, while Inda Matrix worked
over the crowd and the crowd gave it back to her. I love it when the
crowd gets all worked up like that. The collective response, all of
us cheering and screaming -- and getting another energy boost to
keep us buoyant through the morning.
Everywhere we danced, people were so friendly. People were so
polite. New York doing nice. Friendly and flirty and frisky. I love
how the circuit does affection. Such open displays.
And one of our all-time favorite couples was there, two men who are
so sweet and beautiful and it was a joy to see them again, to tell
them how happy they make us, and because they're together still, and
the one now without dreadlocks, making him even more sexy, as if
that were humanly possible.
Near the end of our night, say around eight a.m., Robert and I were
standing at the back bar, getting a last long look at the entire
realm that is Alegria and we were silent for a while, absorbing it,
and then Robert said to me, "Can you imagine being known the world
over for producing the world's best parties? Is that a rush or
what?" And I nodded and thought, Hell, yeah, there are worse ways to
spend one's life.
But what I also thought was how great it is that we, all of us who
attend these parties, these amazing events, are able to witness it
firsthand, up close and personal -- the joy that is Alegria.
Thanks to all on this board who fill our life with so much laughter,
beauty and color. We are very grateful.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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