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September 07, 2005
The Place To Be Seen
LA was a lot of fun, although it felt a bit like we were dragged from one misadventure to the next at times. For a while I seriously thought that we weren't going to make it back to Seattle in one piece, and now that we're back, I'm already meticulously planning my next impulsive vacation, which will be my two-plus-year stint in New York.
Hmmm... where to begin...
Spent a day exploring the Getty, which is pretty much a graphic designer's dream come true. The architecture of the entire complex is laid out according to a strict grid system, and everything - from the placement of the trees on the hills to the sizes of the travertine squares - is fastidiously laid out. The architectural space was so much more interesting than the pieces of art that it housed that we ended up wandering around the outside complex for much of the day.
Latin Pride took place in LA this weekend, and I of course just HAD to go witness the entire affair. We only stayed for an hour though; Latin Pride in LA kinda reminded me of Sunday nights at Neighbors when they host Spanish karaoke: very much lost in cultural translation. Latino guys are so cute; they haven't (yet) succumbed to the homonormative conventions of beauty, so you have all these couples in oversized t-shirts walking around holding hands. So gangsta, so cute.
I also saw a man with the largest breasts I've ever seen in my life there.
Spotted the cutest guy in Little Tokyo while eating lunch at Curry House... Brian and I were having very in-depth discussions about race relations in the land of racial hierarchy that is America, and I couldn't help but stare at this beautiful specimen obviously trying to pretend like he wasn't listening to our conversation. I caught him several times looking like he wanted to put his two cents in, and my inner stalker told me to take a snapshot of him.
Bryan's car broke down when we were at Griffith Park this one time, and we spent the rest of the afternoon huddled in the shade of the hill, conspicuously avoiding the many guys that were in the area cruising. It was so nasty: this one guy, seeing us in our dire state, parked the car some twenty feet away, and I, thinking that he might be some concerned citizen, forced Brian out of the car to ask the guy for help. Brian came back and reported to me that the guy was in very short-shorts, and was stroking the visible outline of his cock while Brian was soliciting him for help. We got him to drive over, short-shorts and all, and try to start the battery with jumper cables. When that didn't work he left us, drove some twenty feet away, parked, and stayed there for the next thirty minutes while Brian and I started praying for our lives. I don't even want to think what he was doing during that time.
Hmmm... what else did we do... there was the day trip to the beach, which I cut short because I had to get back to the house to spew the contents of the previous night's debaucherious outing; having very politically incorrect conversations with white huskies while feeling very much like the objectified Asian bride; realizing that I was checking out the guys on 18+ night... two nights in a row; eating and drinking and eating and drinking.
I left LA with a different impression than the previous ones that I've had in the past. I feel... I don't know... a little more enlightened in the ways of relationships/friendships between gay men, at least in the LA area. I don't know, maybe it was the crowd that I was hanging out with, but words like 'cocaine,' 'crystal meth,' and 'bathhouse' were commonly sprinkled in the conversations that I experienced. I find it a little sad and cliche knowing that some stereotypes of gay drug addicts are still fresh and true... In a city that elevates sex and beauty, it is not uncommon if you're friends with a porn star, and chances are good you guys have fucked in the past. This culture of being friends/periodical fuck buddies/borderline tweakers is still a little foreign to me, but I know it isn't unique to LA, although a lot of these things came up while I was there.
I guess just being in that hyper-realized environment saturated with gay men and no one else but gay men made me a little bit more desensitized and less romantic about achieving a successful relationship. Some couples I met were clearly in love with each other, but they pretty much had separate sex lives. It's a compromise that is ideal to some, but not all, and definitely not to me.
Anyway.
LA was definitely a lot of fun. I'm still worn out.
Posted by Charlie at September 7, 2005 10:17 PM