Kicked off NYC Pride the old-fashioned way last night -- in person. Damian, our friend Greg and I had a nice time at Queerty’s Pride 50 party at the Edison Ballroom, where famed "SNL" writer Paula Pell and drag legend Charles Busch were given top honors among the 50 movers and shakers of 2024. Pride has taken on a more significant meaning in these hateful times, so it was nice to share an upbeat moment with likeminded peers. In solidarity. xo
Damian and a tall drink of "Hadestown" water
The newlyweds
Stage left
Peppermint chatty
Professional-looking photos by Matthew Rettenmund, who has a full report HERE.
More embarrassment from our "woke" brothers and sisters. Yeah, because you're not really Christian if you don't keep your Christmas tree up year-round. Is this stupidity ever going to end?
You're looking at a disturbing microcosm of what is currently wrong with the left -- our inability to take yes for an answer. If anyone has any pull with this group, I beg you to make them stop this ill-conceived "competing" Pride march, happening on the same day that the world marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots -- an event that has led to our having a serious LGBTQ presidential candidate. (Did you EVER think that would happen in your lifetime?)
I totally agree with the organizers that the police and corporations are deeply flawed. But what we've fought for these past 50 years is to have the police not storm our bars and arrest and beat us -- and to have corporations acknowledge us and our families as equal beings. By all means push both to do better -- corporations are greedier than ever and police brutality shows no sign of abating. But what is the value in protesting men and women in uniform as they PROTECT our parade -- and by its own admission, protect the Queer Liberation March -- and corporate floats who are at least trying to do the right thing?
Instead, how about a Queer Liberation March to mark the 50th anniversary of the Christopher Street Liberation Day march -- in 2020?
If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: This is how Trump gets re-elected. Stunts like this do nothing but divide liberals, turn off allies and, more disturbingly, alienate potential allies.
Whether Heritage of Pride (the organizers of the main parade) gave its blessing or not -- and really, how could it not? -- I wish the organizers would please reconsider. For anyone but a Bernie Bro, the optics are horrible.
If you had told me nearly three decades ago when I was briefly living in Orange County, Calif. -- still longing for the bright lights of New York City, or at least L.A. -- that I would be wishing I could spend this Pride weekend in suburbia instead of Manhattan I'd have laughed at you. But that's just how I'm feeling right now after finding out the famed Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach, where I spent many fun and drunken nights in my early 20s, is reopening for a one-night-only party this weekend!
As I just mentioned yesterday, I landed in Huntington Beach when I left Phoenix after graduating from Arizona State in 1989. I first crashed in the Windjammer apartments on Warner -- we called the complex the butt-jammer -- and then in a condo in the Sea Spray development on Brookhurst and Adams with Paul and Ken. My goal was to live in L.A., but after getting a job at The Orange County Register, I decided it made sense to live closer to work and "commute" to my play. But with that predictably unpredictable L.A. traffic, West Hollywood was an hour-plus drive from our apartment. So my roommates and I had our "local" bars in the OC that included Newport Station (Thursdays were the best!), the Lion's Den (where the hilarious Polyesters performed; Stan also worked at The Register), the Frat House (if you didn't mind watching people chain smoke near the "sandwich area") and, of course, the Boom Boom Room, a breezy dive tucked away in the bottom floor of the Coast Inn on Pacific Coast Highway. (The Little Shrimp was right nearby.)
While the city's wealth has completely changed it in the past 20 years, Laguna Beach was a quaint, artsy Speedo-clad boys town of sorts when I lived there, that had a gay friendly reputation dating back to 1930s when Los Angeles crowds headed south to escape the raids on gay and lesbian bars in Los Angeles. (Laguna Beach magazine called it "a prime gay playground.")
In the early 1980s, Laguna even elected Robert Gentry, the first openly gay mayor in the U.S., and the Boom Boom Room doubled as a community center for Orange County's LGBT community. Of course, it was still in Republican Land, so it didn't come as much of a surprise to my roommate Paul and me when a car full of frat boys drove past us one night on the street and screamed "Turd burglars!" as we walked to the bar. (We gave them an A+ for originality!) But like the rest of Orange County, the area seemed to get less queer over time, with the Boom Boom Room shutting its doors in 2007. (My friend in Anaheim says the Frat House is pretty much the only bar left in the entire area.)
The Blair Bitch Project
Shortly after my 1990 debut, my 23rd birthday rolled around and my friends and I wound up at the Boom Boom Room. And in what must have been a gift from God after spending my adolescence in the back of the closet longing for the hot boys at Dobson High, I felt like the belle of the ball that night as two very cute guys spent the evening vying for my affections -- each promising to make my birthday "unforgettable" if I went home with him. I was such a tease -- I was going through a bit of a Blair Warner phase, complete with blond highlights -- flitting from one side of the bar to other to flirt with each of them (and their friends!) in between music breaks on the small dance floor. At one point I slipped down to the beach to make out with one of my suitors, then sluttily ended up leaving with the other guy, who it turned out was crashing at a friend's mansion in Newport Harbor. (Despite his promises, the sex turned out to be most forgettable .., but that house!)
Halloween 1990 with my OC roommates Ken McDonald and Paul Samson. Ken, who dated a 20-years-his-senior aerobics instructor named Kip, has gone MIA. (Email me if you know where he is!) Paul, meanwhile, unwittingly discovered his boyfriend was porn star Brett Winters.
Kenneth in the (714): With my college friend John in Laguna Beach, circa 1990
A few years ago I started getting emails from a reader who very coyly tried to jog my memory about an "encounter" we'd had back in Laguna Beach. At first I thought he might be my birthday trick, but he kept writing and writing and nothing he said rang a bell. He eventually sent a photo, but that still didn't do anything. He finally got so frustrated he just wrote: "We fucked on the beach." Well, I'm a lot of things. But above all I'm a prude with an elephantlike memory, so I was 100 percent confident this was not the case. (Can you imagine? You think getting sand out of your shoes is hard!)
My "twin" back in the day
To this day I'm still not sure what his emails were all about. (You might be surprised by how many odd messages I get.) But it later crossed my mind that he may have been mistaking me for my Orange County doppelgänger that people were constantly telling me I looked just like, a guy named Christian Ornelas, whom I eventually ended up meeting one night at Studio One and was so stunned by the resemblance I had to lean against the wall to compose myself. Sadly, I later learned he had passed away about four years ago or else I might be able to solve this sex-on-a-beach caper once and for all.
I rarely had a camera back in those days. But luckily Alan Light was leading a more glamorous version of my life at the exact same time, so all of his pictures make nice stand-ins! More Laguna Beach 1990 photos HERE.
A mid-aughts effort to save the Boom Boom Room was unsuccessful, but I'm hearing it could reopen if this one-night-only party goes well!
Fred Karger, who spearheaded Save the Boom, just sent me this photo of the Boom Boom Room tonight, all decked out for OC Pride.
He also tells me the space has been rented out for various parties over the years since it closed, and he sent me a trove of photos that you can view HERE.
Q Salt Lake: Damn These Heels Film Festival to run in Salt Lake July 14–16
Metro Weekly (D.C.): Thanks to the Equality March, record numbers of LGBTQ people celebrated Capital Pride, which encountered a few bumps in its parade road
Edge Media: Trump Administration Has Yet to Discuss Abuse Against Gay Men in Chechnya with Russian Officials
Attitude (U.K.): Watch Nyle DiMarco jump on a trampoline in his underwear
My blog is featured in Susan Olsen's tell-all about the ill-fated "Brady Bunch Variety Hour"!
Little Kenny
Growing up in Madison Heights, Mich.
Back to the Old House
The Web leads to an unexpected return to a house I grew up in.
Oceans 11
Carlsbad, Calif. (2008)
1983
Go Behind the Music of my high-school band, A La Plage
A Death in the Family
Little Larry left us too soon.
Once I Had a Love
With Debbie Harry
'Jungle' Fever
With Robert Buckley
Roger & Me
With Roger Federer
Step Brother McMullen
With Ed Burns
Headline News
With Thomas Roberts
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