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South Beach is our mistress, and as with all those who ply their
trade – hustlers, hos, and gigolos – she can be mercurial and
vexing: but not this week. Let’s start with the weather. Given that
Mother Nature sent Wilma to South Beach in October, it was kind of
Her to insure that all week long the sky was cornflower blue with
the ocean as smooth as glass. With temperatures near eighty, not a
raindrop fell and hardly a cloud obscured the sun’s glow – and every
hour brought another jetload of circuit boyz to the Beach. The beach
was packed – and we’d been expecting everyone to have left for Los
Angeles, and especially given that the past two money-grubbing New
Year’s Eves in Miami seem to have irritated everyone. Then again,
maybe the South Americans hadn’t heard, and also the Germans, and
the Italians, because they were out in force. Boyz, boyz and more
boyz and even Matt Kalkhoff would have succumbed, again, to the
siren call of that mistress he once loved so much.
Because the whole week was kind of Fire Island Redux, and especially
at the New Year’s Eve party thrown by Ernie Sauer. Ever since Ernie
left Gotham for South Beach, he’s thrown a New Year’s Eve party at
his penthouse in the sky. The kind of condo which can’t help but
inspire real estate envy: a floor-through apartment on South Beach’s
Gold Coast with full-length balconies at either end, one facing the
Miami skyline and the other facing the ocean. If this is the kind of
apartment that soft porn can buy, then thank heavens for Puritanical
repression. The elevators, two of them, open directly into the
apartment’s vestibule – and immediately there’s enough eye candy to
gorge yourself for the next year. Happy New Year indeed. Patrick
Forrett is the night’s deejay, keeping well over two hundred boyz
happy and gay with his energetic mixing of the year’s best tunes,
and the Italian and Venezuelan boyz come and go, wandering the
condo’s labyrinthine halls, from balcony to balcony, and we’re
against the railing, all that boy flesh pressing against us and
suddenly we get a panic attack – for just how much boymeat can these
balconies really hold before they go crashing into the ocean so far
down below? Ack, we’re outta here, and back onto the dance floor.
Another cocktail, please.
And now it’s 2006 and we walk home to our little pad – which after
Ernie’s place looks like a dune shack – but no matter, we’re happy
and healthy, and we’ve got another party up ahead: Genesis III, the
all-New-Year’s-day affair at Crobar with Tracy Young at the helm.
It’s another gorgeous day in paradise when we get our wake-up call
from Doug and Josh who are heading out the door at ten a.m. and we
tell them we’ll meet them inside, because maybe we’re thinking it
won’t be all that hard to find them given that New Year’s is LA’s
circuit holiday, so how many of us are left here on the Beach?
Right? Wrong. We’re out in front of Crobar on Washington and the sun
is so bright and we slip into the lobby and then, BAM, we’re
blinded. It’s pitch black inside, darker than Black Party, and we’re
stumbling into stool and boyz as our eyes try to make the
adjustment. Help, I’ve fallen into k-hole and I can’t get up. And
right away, we bang into Josh and Doug, clinging together against
the tide. It’s way crowded. It’s eleven a.m. on New Year’s Day and
Crobar is so packed, it’s a swim through a strong current to get
upstairs where we finally can see all there is to see. The floor is
wall-to-wall and there’s Tracy, ciggy in hand, spinning platters
which make the boyz move. We lean over the railing and watch and
marvel. To think this is going on in Los Angeles, and also in New
York at Crobar, where Victor’s at the helm, and also in Montreal,
and D.C. and San Francisco. So many boyz all around the continent
working it out on the floor, and we toast to all the ones we love in
our favorite cities. Happy New Year, boyz – and there’s Hilton and
Mel up in VIP and what a happy new year it is for that man, and
bless his heart and soul, and there’s our sweet boy Roberto, whom
we’ve watched since we first hit the beach six years ago, and now
he’s almost a man, such a sweet Puerto Rican boy, we do love him so,
and tell him so, and all around us are these boyz we know but not
really, kinda know from seeing them all year, in so many different
towns, during so many nights, and we wish them all well, and hit the
floor.
Tracy does it right. She gives us “How Does It Feel” and “Easy Ride”
and she reaches into her Junior vault and gives us Santana and Robby
Rivera’s “Dirty Dancing,” but it’s new and darker and deeper and
better and perfect for now, and later it’s “You Used to Love Me” and
also Offer Nissim’s mixes of Maya, and oh, yeah, we like it. We like
it. We love it. There’s also a little bit of “Don’t Cha,” way in the
background, just enough to remind you of that song which ran through
the memory all year, and “Home,” which makes us think of Joe Caro
and all the music he’s given us, and we toast to him, and Nurse, too
– and to all our circuit family, we toast to them all wherever they
are.
And then the boyz are swept from the stage and we wait, and wait,
and wait some more, and Tracy gets funny and plays “Hung Up” again:
“I’m tired of waiting on you.....” And finally Maya makes her way to
the stage and, damnitall, but she ain’t got any more stage presence
than she exhibited this past June at Pride at Peter Rauhofer’s Gods
party at Spirit. It’s like she ain’t never busted a move since
birth. What’s up with that? Grrrl, this is a dance club and we’re
dancing and maybe you should think about moving more than your two
fingers. She’s got a voice, a voice like a nightingale, high and
clear, but excuse me, a smile wouldn’t hurt. And behind her, Tracy’s
got her arms up in the air, prompting all of us to applaud, as if
Maya’s a scared little bird ready to fly away.
A lesser party, this performer could’ve killed, but ain’t no way the
boyz at Crobar are leaving any time soon. It’s like all that sun
from the days before have energized our souls and we all know the
sun is still shining outside, and will be tomorrow, and the day
after that, and so right now, there’s no better place to be than
here on this packed floor with Tracy throwing down music which is
hitting our body and soul. It’s that kind of music which someone
critiqued as a harder-edged Tracy, and yeah, maybe that’s right, but
it’s just what we need and want, right now, after the year this
planet has had, and we are definitely taking our problems to the
floor and working them out so they ain’t gonna be haunting us
forever more. Werk it out, boyz, and there’s one on the box in front
of us who is driving us to distraction, he’s pumping so hard, and
touching himself, grabbing and plumping. A South American boy with a
face like a dark angel and a body that knows pleasure 24/7. Egads,
he’s trouble and we’re totally connected. We love trouble like that.
He’s a motivating force, two hits and a bump all wrapped up in one
package and we can’t stop smiling, grinning ear to ear, because
Tracy’s in the booth and the boyz are all around us, and we’re so
happy, so happy on the circuit, so happy to be here.
And the hours come and go and no one seems to be leaving, the
balconies are packed and the corridors as well, and up in VIP,
there’s a whole other party going on, and in the bathroom, the boys
are playing, and also in the stairwells and cubbyholes. What an
irrepressible bunch we are: centaurs and satyrs, demi-gods and angel
boyz. What a life, what a ride – happy new year all around.
It’s nearly five when we leave. Five in the afternoon on New Year’s
Day, and finally, we find Josh and Doug wrapped in each other’s
arms. They’re staying, but we head outside – into the blinding sun.
Eeks and ack, I can’t see. I’m blind. But somehow we find our way to
the beach, to the ocean – and would you believe, the beach is packed
with boyz. You would have thought we were all at Crobar, but no,
there’s a whole bunch more of us on the beach, in the water,
sunbaking on the sand. My God, but we’re reproducing faster than we
thought. Parthenogenesis, clearly.
And sitting there in the sand, letting it all wash over us, the
simple joys of South Beach, the sun, the sand, and the pretty boyz,
we know, we absolutely know, it’s gonna be a very good year indeed.
Here’s to happiness for all of us, all over the world and all year
long.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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