I was half awake—and still half drunk from the night before—when the Cesar Chavez High School Players took to the stage with their rendition of West Side Story.
It was during this performance I witnessed the single greatest moment in the history of theatre. Forget anything Patti LuPone has done in the past three decades. Forget seeing a flash of Harry Potter’s penis in Equus. Forget the first time you saw a chandelier crash to the ground.
The actress playing Maria stood wielding the gun on her fellow cast members. A judge sat next to me, manically staring at a stopwatch, counting down the seconds before the show would go over and thus, disqualify the school. “Maria” (a natural blond covered in dark pancake make-up. She looked like Beyonce as a burn victim) asked, “Are there enough bullets in here for you,
She cocked her head to one side, pulled the trigger and shot him! Blood sprayed from his chest. The entire audience screamed and jumped six feet above their chairs.
She turned the gun on a tiny little guy. “Are there enough bullets in here for you, Pepe?” Bam! She shot him! “Pepe” hurled backwards a good ten feet before landing on the ground. Blood poured out of his stomach. “What about you, Anita?” Maria clipped the entire surviving cast before shoving the gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger.
The lights went down as the audience and my fellow judges sat there in stunned silence. Silence that seemed to last an eternity. I burst out laughing and crying at the same time. My voice echoed through the theater, “Oh my God! They killed Maria!” And somewhere deep in the dark, a Latino teenager screamed out “Bastardos!”
The bloody cast stood up and took their bows. I cheered, leaping to my feet. Yes, it was completely ridiculous that they killed the entire cast of one of my most beloved musicals, but they took a risk. Sadly, the shooting spree did put them over, disqualifying them. They lost to Sweet Charity.
I opted to fly back that evening rather than explore my gay options in Mayberry. While I do have a pretty mouth, I don’t like banjo music or imitating pig noises.
I missed the Outfest screening of Another Gay Movie 2 and unlike the cast from
My dear friend Ryanne (pronounced Ry-Anne) picked me up at the airport and my penance was attending the after-party for the film. She spent the day shopping and primping and getting her hair did at a salon in
She pulled up in her convertible. Top down. Scarf and sunglasses. And most importantly, a tumbler with a martini for me.
After arriving at Here Lounge, I realized that it had less to do with the party and more to do with Ryanne stalking her sworn enemy, Lisa Chang.
Lisa Chang is a fabulous Asian chick who knows every D-list homosexual in
Ryanne hates her. “She has the same damned glazed over expression in every single photo!” Ryanne also hates Project Runway winner Christian Soriano because she thinks he looks like a “cracked out little bird” in all of his photos. Ryanne believes the world would be a better place if more people would watch The Tyra Banks Show and learn to smile with their eyes.
While I’ve never met Lisa Chang, Facebook informs me that we have fifty mutual friends. There is also a group called “I Love Lisa Chang.” I’m sure she’s a perfectly lovely woman. Personally, I think Ryanne just wants everything to go back to the days when she was the most important fag hag in
Ryanne locked eyes with her and the temperature of the room dropped. She said something about “ripping out Miss Saigon’s weave” and something about giving her a new expression. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. The bar was packed and, let’s face it; when fag hags start throwing elbows, faces could be broken and lives destroyed. Cedars Sinai wouldn’t be able to handle the carnage.
I pulled her through the crowd and that’s when I saw “him.” It was like a sea of sweaty, drunk twinks parted.
“Who is that?” I asked to no one in particular. A friend of mine told me he’s new to town. He’s an actor (and while I said I wouldn’t date any more actors in Los Angeles, I might as well have said I’m not going to date men), And he’s roommates with a friend of mine. And he’s single.
And I did something I don’t normally do: I went up and talked to him.
That’s right! I didn’t play passive aggressive. I didn’t use the “don’t we know each other line.” (Which I stopped using because I got, “we slept together last month,” while in line at Trader Joe’s.)
I didn’t bump into him, pretending to have not seen him. I didn’t send in a scout to size up the situation before I approached from the side.
He was on his way out and heading to a new bar called Felix with his roommate and my friend. I grabbed Ryanne, informing her of our change in plans.
I had a great time. He was funny. He was smart. He was engaging. I wanted to get to know him better. I walked him home and I said I would e-mail him.
That night! That night! It all began that night! I saw him and the world went away. I felt pretty. Oh, so pretty. I felt pretty, witty and even more gay than usual.
Ryanne asked what he had been on and when I told her he was an actor with a show on one of the gay networks, she slammed on her brakes coming to a complete stop on
I e-mailed him through his Facebook page. “I would love to get to know you! Would you be interested in dinner or a movie or trapeze?”
And did I hear from him?
What do you think?
I called Ryanne. “Should I call him or e-mail him again or—“ She cut me off, screaming, “Boy! Boy! Crazy boy! Play it cool, boy. Real cool.” (Which did nothing more than confuse me more. Was she saying not to e-mail him?)
And the thing about the instant messenger on Facebook, you can see when they are on line! It’s like that scene in Something to Talk About when Julia Roberts stands outside the restaurant slamming her fists against the window screaming, “I can see you!” So I know that he read my message.
I even called a co-star of his who is a mutual friend of mine. “You two would be perfect together because you are both strangely intense. I’ll set this up.”
While having coffee with Ryanne, I informed her of my new angle I was working. She chastised me, “a boy like that cannot love. A boy like that has no heart. And he’s the boy who gets your heart? Forget that boy and find another. One of your own kind. Stick to your own kind.”
I couldn’t understand why Ryanne was so angry and so judgmental. I reminded her that when love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong. Your love is your life!
And she slapped me. Hard. “Wake up! You’re not Maria! You’re not even Tony! You’re Riff! You’re the jerk that went to a knife fight with nothing more than an open heart and a dream! And what happened to you? You got stabbed! Cut down in your prime by one of Lisa Chang’s goons!”
Maybe Ryanne was right. Maybe Lisa Chang is running the gay mafia. Maybe she saw us talking out of the corner of her eye and she released one of her flying monkeys to inform him I wasn’t cool enough.
For whatever it’s worth, there’s a place for us. A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we’re… oh screw it. I put it out there. Clearly he’s not interested.
And that made me a little sad. Because what’s going to happen when I see him again? I mean, I put myself out there and he didn’t even say, “yeah, not interested” or even lie to me.
But something’s coming. Don’t know when, but it’s soon. Something great is coming.
Maybe I need to send Lisa Chang a friend request.
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