You're Not One of Those Name Dropping Fags...

... (Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer!) but you find yourself unable to keep hush-hush about the fact that your Internet Crush (Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer!) who just happens to be the star and co-writer of the fabulous new movie, A Four Letter Word, has sent you his photo (Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer!) to be included in your Blah-Blah-Blog's slide show! And as if that wasn't enough to get your panties in a twist, your handsome, movie-star Internet Crush also invited you and your BFF to come to the New York Opening of his new film at the World Famous Chelsea Clearview Theater. Anonymously, of course.

Meanwhile, all of this brouhaha has put you in way too good a mood to go to Connecticut for a funeral, but, unfortunately, the father of one of The Bolters has recently passed away and you and your High School friend, Bunny, have decided to schlep out to Greenwich to, shall we say, represent. Although you thought you were closeted back in High School somehow you still managed to be the only Boy Bolter in an exclusive group of Burgeoning Teenage Fag Hags. And somehow, all these years later, even though everything is different, nothing has really changed (besides the fact that when you were in High School George Michael was straight and Madonna was gay). At the funeral you pick right up with your old friends as if no time, nor fathers, have passed. However you do have the eerie realization that 2/3 of your friends' fathers have now kicked the bucket. In fact, you and Bunny are the only two Bolters whose fathers haven't, for lack of a better word, Bolted.

The Eulogy is kind of sad, but not in the typical "Oh I didn't realize this man was so wonderful" kind of way. In this particular instance you are kind of shocked at how un-wonderful this man is being portrayed. Although you were very good friends with his daughter, you never really knew much about the man lying in the casket, mostly because he was a very successful businessman who was always working. Somehow it seems appropriate that one of his New York Telephone colleagues is giving the eulogy. Even though you remember their sapppy old commercials bringing tears to your eyes, The Colleague is actaully making you wince as he informs the grieving Orphans (and the rest of the not so crowded church) about what a great job the dead man did thirty years ago on some Merrill Lynch Project. He drones on and on about how he was in charge of installing twenty-thousand phone lines when Merrill Lynch moved their corporate office downtown. Snore. During the Eulogy, The Colleague uses words like "stoic," "hard-headed" and "staunch," and he barely recognizes the five recently orphaned children in the front row. He definitely never refers to them by name.

After the funeral ends, you and Bunny hug the Orphaned Bolter who breaks down in your arms as she says, "My two best friends from High School!" And you instantly know that schlepping out to Greenwich for the "stoic" funeral was the right thing to do. You are here to support your old friend in her time of need. And you get to meet her super cute baby who is nothing but happiness and smiles (luckily the stoic gene must've skipped another generation).

You race back to the train station because, after all, you can only take so much of the suburbs before you start to break out in Heterosexual Hives, and on your way back to the city you start thinking about what your BFF would say about you if he were giving your eulogy. He certainly wouldn't be talking about the Merrill Lynch Deal that you slaved over, but what would he say? Half of the funny things he could say would probably be way too inappropriate for Straight Company. You'd definitely have to have a Boys Only Service where he could reminisce about the time you entered, and lost, that damn Ass Circus Strip Contest! Or perhaps he would mention that time when you both were so broke that you decided to brown bag it between Gay Bars and got caught by an undercover cop while walking around with a Forty Ouncer? (Come to think of it you probably should have been arrested just for purchasing that damn Breeder-esque Budweiser.) Or maybe he'd mention the time last summer when you two schlepped out to Fire Island on the last ferry of the night with no place to sleep in order to play a round of P.H.A.G. F.A.G. (Please Help A Gay Find A Guy). Needless to say you woke up the next morning, miserably hungover, still single and extremely sandy.

You breathe a sigh of relief when MetroNorth returns your gay ass back to Grand Central without getting Gay Bashed by Suburban Republican Thugs, and you race home to change from your Functional Funereal Frock into something much more Gay-Appropriate so you will sparkle and hopefully catch the piercing blue eyes of your Internet Crush (Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer!) So you put on your G-Star V-Neck to compliment your True Religions and make your way over to the Chelsea Clearview to catch the New York Premiere of A Four Letter Word.

You actually get to the theater *gasp* early, and, since all the rest of the Chelsea Queens are still on Gay Standard Time, you and your BFF get excellent seats. You wind up sitting directly across the aisle from the middle row which is roped off for all those Filmmakers and Grips and Fluffers that were necessary to make your Internet Crush look adorable on the Silver Screen. And since you're on the aisle, you get an excellent view as all the Boys and their Fag Hags start filling up the Roped Off Seats. Only you start to get concerned as the row fills up with nary a sign of your Internet Crush. Will he pull a Madonna and just sneak into the packed theater after the lights go down? Or is he going to pull a Britney and just skip his own Premiere because in reality he's just a Hot Tranny Mess? Regardless, you don't have time to dwell on this situation because you're way too irritated from standing up and sitting back down again (over and over) because the Irritating Boys next to you keep racing to the bathroom to pee, or to get refills of Diet Coke, or probably, more likely, keep racing to the bathroom for to refill their dieting nostrils with Coke. After the fourth time of this up-and-down nonsense, you decide to give the Irritating Boys your Evil Stank Eye, only when you look up at the cuter of the two, you almost faint as his Off-White Linen Blazer brushes your cheek while he says, "Excuse me," because, you realize, that the Cute Irritating Boy who has been sitting next to you this whole time is, indeed, your Internet Crush! (Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer, Jesse Archer!)

Apparently a better seat opened up and your Internet Crush and his Posse of One decided to move over with the Cast & Crew. Unfortunately this all happens in the brief seconds before the lights go down, so you don't even get to stare at him shamelessly while batting your eyes and stuttering something inappropriate like, "Would you autograph the crotch of my True Religions?" But luckily the movie starts so you don't spend too much time beating yourself up over your Missed Star-Fucker Opportunity. Meanwhile, you quickly become engaged with the film (which is almost as cute as your Internet Crush) and you love-love-love seeing all your local watering holes featured prominently in the film (Vlada, XES, HK Lounge). You also love that you are completely surprised and extremely impressed that such a cute, well-written, well-intentioned, un-preachy, completely hysterical movie could be made on such a shoe-string budget! And we're not talking about Prada shoe laces, boys. We're talking about a Last Markdown at D.S.W. after their Christmas Blowout Sale kind of budget. But the thing that really knocks your socks off (besides the fact that you get to see your Internet Crush naked...) is that although this Indie Film is about as gay as gay can get, it somehow remains chock-full of heart (not to mention cock-full of Full Frontal Male Nudity.) You definitely attribute this feat to your Internet Crush who helped give three-dimensions to a seemingly two-dimensional character, not only through his acting, but also from his writing (your über-talented Internet Crush also co-wrote the film).

When the movie finishes, the Cast and Crew get up to answer questions from the Audience and you are much too afraid to ask anything, although you love hearing your Internet Crush cross all kinds of inappropriate P.R. Lines as he mentions a Fluffing Story that took place Off-Camera during the Drag Queen scene. This is when you realize that your Internet Crush is definitely going to have one damn interesting Eulogy himself; probably complete with Full Frontal Male Nudity. And you begin to wonder if this might be another one of those Gay/Straight differences that makes you pleased as punch to be a Card Carrying Homosexual. While those poor Straight Men are out brokering Phone Deals for Merrill Lynch to support their children, you Gay Boys only have to support your own bar tabs (and honey, your tab is just like feeding a fat family of six. And we're talking Straight Fat).

Afterwards your Internet Crush invites you (and the rest of the damn theater) to an After-Party at H.K. Lounge where you can get a free drink with your ticket stub. But, unfortunately, since you got in for free, you have no ticket stub. But you also feel a bit humbled by both the funeral as well as the boundless talent of your Internet Crush, so you decide to let him sparkle amongst all his adoring fans tonight. But this probably has more to do with the stalker in you knowing that on some other random non-movie premiere evening you won't have to share him with anybody else. Anyway...

You're not the type of fag who hearts a Drag Queen...

...but you are gay, after all, so avoiding them ends up being extremely difficult. As far as you're concerned, lipsynching, in and of itself, is not a talent. Nor is lipsticking. But Miss Richfield 1981 is not your typical, tired old run-of-the-mill D.Q. Oh no, no, no. Miss Richfield 1981 is a Drag Goddess. And you are her groupie. So you and your friends go to see her Christmas Show and, as usual, she has you in tears from start to finish. And we're talking the good kind of tears, not the "I'd-rather-be-slitting-my-wrist" kind of tears that a typical performance by Shequida can induce.

Anyway. A good time is had by all and afterwards everybody is hungry so you end up going to get a bite at HK since it's around the corner from the Zipper Theater. Your poor ass orders a $9.95 hamburger and an $8 glass of swill (of course it's a gay burger sans bun, and you substitute salad for the pommes-frites, bien sur.) However, when the bill is split, somehow you're expected to cough up $45, obviously to subsidize someone's three course meal which included the $25 fish special along with appetizers, desserts F.T.T. (For The Table) and a steady stream of elaborate cocktails that you couldn't even pronounce. But you digress.

After the sticker-shock from the meal wears off, you get a text from your B.F.F. who's out having gay cocktails at The Ritz. And, more importantly, he tells you, "You should come. It's cute." You inform your friends about the cuteness factor and you all decide to grab a drink. In fact, you're almost there when your B.F.F. sends another text that says, "The Writer is here..." and your heart instantly drops. Or perhaps that was your hamburger? Whatever it is, you know it ain't good because what it means is that you're obviously still hung up over The Writer.

You met him on Connexion in September and had a week-long whirlwind romance that actually had you telling your friends idiotic things like, "I think I'm falling in love," and "I think this is the one." Your friends, of course, just rolled their eyes as if you were the little boy who cried wolf. Anyway. After one blissful week, The Writer went on a business trip, and you went away on a two-week vacation to South America before he got back. So instead of whoring around in Rio de Janiero and Buenos Aires, you pined away for The Writer and couldn't wait to get back. The whole thing, of course, imploded before you even got over your jet-lag, and it actually left you quite heart-broken. And now, two months later, you're about to run into him.

You freak out and think about bailing, but then you ask yourself, "What would Miss Richfield 1981 do?" You realize that she would face her demons and belittle them cleverly along the way so you decide to go through with it. After all, you know that you're gonna run into The Writer at some point, and at least this way you can be mentally prepared so you won't break into tears and run out of the bar with mascara dripping down your flushed cheeks.

You see The Writer as soon as you walk in the bar. And he's with someone. Of course. Your friend orders drinks and then everybody wants to do a Fruit Loop so you follow them toward the back. It's packed and The Writer is leaning against the wall and, of course, traffic stops as soon as you are standing in smack in front of him. You want to let him get a whiff of what he's missing out on, but now you feel like a fool, so you turn toward him, nonchalantly of course, and when you catch eyes you say, "Hey." Just like that. Emotionless. No smile, no dimples, no nothing. Even though you're dying inside your face exposes only indifference. The Writer says, "Hello," and then asks if you are going home which you deem to be a ridiculous question. "No," you tell him as you raise your brand new cocktail, "I just got here." Your subtext reeks of "Duh," as the crowd begins to push you toward the back. Someone else starts chatting with you even though you don't hear a word he says because you are too busy wondering how, after all these years, you could have fallen in love with the wrong person. And then you sip your gay cocktail as you wonder how many more years will have to pass before you can fall in love with the right person while you scout the crowded bar for someone way cuter than The Writer who you can have a locationship with tonight. Anyway.