Posts Tagged ‘Boystown
A Tale of Two Christmas Parties — One Conservative, One Leftist — and Just Guess Which Won Welcomed A Gay Guy Where
"No conservatives at my Christmas party, evvvvvvvvvvvverrrrrr!"
Five years ago ,VJ Otho was on top of his game, one of the sharpest, most sought-after, and reliably cool VJs in Boystown.
His real name is Corey, or Corky, or Leonard. Susan? I can’t remember.
That’s because from the instant I first met him I called him “Otho” in my head, long before someone straightened out his actual name for me. Which I instantly forgot. People are usually “nice lady with weird glasses”, “guy who talks too much”, “friend of David’s I don’t like”, or “cute guy in motorcross jacket” before they become “Kat”, “Vincent”, “Minnetta”, or “Justin”, with their names permanently fixed to their faces.
Because this particular Boystown VJ is the spitting image of Glenn Shadix, by way of Beetlejuice, and the sort of in-your-face, over-the-top, ridiculously bitter and conniving gay man found mostly in cartoonish fiction, his real name never overcame the “Otho” that he forever will be to me.
Otho was one of the very first people I ever met in Boystown, because he lorded over one of the clubs I liked from a VJ booth on the second floor, watching the crowd below like Laurence Olivier chewing the scenery in Clash of the Egos. Rotund, and sweating even through the dead of February, he’d play some long, drawn-out vaudevillian showtune whenever he’d want to scurry down from his perch, like a spider, to talk to some guy who caught his eye…waiting for just the right moment for him to be alone and thus vulnerable, with his friends getting more drinks, off to the bathroom, or otherwise engaged in a corner (this being one of the most popular bars in Boystown, I’ll just leave it up to your imagination what those guys were doing with other nice looking young guys).
Otho, the spider queen, for some reason took a liking to me years ago, back when I was still with my ex Harvey, and he took delight in one day scurrying down from on high, when Harvey was in the bathroom, to tell me that Harvey had been cheating on me.
Conspiratorially drawing in close, Otho whispered in my ear something about Harvey being in the bar a few nights before, with some other guy, having a good time, then leaving with him at 1:36am. Otho was well-rehearsed to the point of knowing the exact time Harvey left, though he wouldn’t say with whom, because “that would be trouble-making, and I’m not here to make trouble, only to let you know what I saw. I’m like the news this way. Just call me Katie Couric!”
It’s a shame the role of Ursula the Sea Witch was already cast, because Otho could have played that part well, too. As for the Katie Couric comparison, well, Otho’s spot-on with that, I must admit…though I don’t think Couric reports the news as much as she tries to make it, which brings her closer to Otho’s level than Otho’s attempt to raise himself up to hers.
VJ Otho has an excuse for everything he does, including remembering the exact minute Harvey left the bar (“because I always play the “Last Call for Alcohol” song at 1:37 and I saw him leave, hand-in-hand, with that guy one minute before. This is when you were in New York visiting your friend, which I know because Perry told me, and Brenden told him. But, I’m not saying Harvey did anything, only that it totally looked like he was going to do something with that guy, because I bet they went back to your apartment and did it in your own bed. Isn’t that terrible what he did to you?”), because, well, that’s just Otho.
I accept him as part of the gay community the way I accept Miss Pattie the rainbow-haired punk rock lesbian who sits at the corner of Roscoe and Halsted and sells gum and Tic Tacs to raise money for Vital Bridges…or “Looks Like Cher”, our neighborhood Cher impersonator, who tells the best stories…or all the many, many, more every day, Brendens — those flighty, fad-obsessed boys always looking for the new “it” craze and jockeying to be the next Mean Girls leader once whatever guy in charge of the clique now gains too much weight or loses too much hair to be Queen of the Night anymore.
Boystown wouldn’t be the same without the lying, conniving, always-trying-to-break-people-up, obsessive spider that is VJ Otho (though I freely admit it might be better, and would love to see the day when we could all determine that once and for all).
Christmas, also, would not be the same without VJ Otho’s Holiday Jingle Balls Ball, which he hosts annually in his admittedly fabulous top floor apartment. It’s an industry-heavy event and Otho calls in many of the favors he accumulates all year to get tons of the best booze, all the cutest boys, Broadway-quality themed decorations throughout, and even waiters dolled up like elves, reindeer, you name it…with Otho making a grand entrance down his massive spiral staircase, dressed up in an elaborate Christmas costume just like Elton John used to do at his birthdays every year back when anyone still cared about him, too.
Otho may not be the big VJ in town anymore, and his parties might not be QUITE as packed and “must-attend” as they once were, but he sure as heck knows how to throw a festively fabulous fete, with nonstop alliteration and libation till dawn. The ghosts of Oscar Wilde and Quentin Crisp hang heavy in the air, encouraging the spiking of the eggnog, while mistletoe disappears from the door frames and fantastically resprouts itself on the front waistband of the go-go-boys green and red jocks.
I’ve been invited to the party every year, and though Otho the spider queen does give me the creeps, I’ve always gone and had an interesting and enjoyable time, marveling at just how much gay could be crammed into one apartment without Liza Minnelli actually being there, in person. Though “In spirit”, for her, was a given.
Not this year, though!
I think this is so hilarious, it’s actually BETTER than going to the party.
My boyfriend Justin is another guy that Otho’s followed from his perch in the VJ booth, so he’s been a guest for Christmas for the whole time he’s lived in Chicago, too. I actually met Justin in a bar where Otho was VJ-ing, and Otho tried his level best to keep the two of us from talking. He told Justin that I’m crazy and evil, and that I’m working for Sarah Palin to infiltrate the gay community as some sort of plot. Then, when Otho saw I was alone one night, with Justin nowhere in sight, he scurried down to tell me all sorts of lies about Justin being promiscuous and being a naked waiter for parties old guys throw. Otho’s a master of the specifically ridiculous, where the lies he tells are detailed enough for them to seem plausible, because who would go to the trouble of making something so specific up, well ahead of time, so he could sound so sure of what he was saying when he made it seem he just accidentally bumped into you on the way to get himself a fresh CC and diet for the video booth.
I told Otho I didn’t care what Justin did, and if he wanted to waiter naked for old people, more power to him as I bet that’s a lucrative market in Chicago, considering how many old queens there are in Rogers Park, especially. Justin, on his own, before we started dating, told Otho he didn’t think I was crazy or evil, but hoped I really was secretly working for Governor Palin because he thought that was cool and intriguing. At that, Otho gasped, took a long swig of his drink through his tiny little straw, threw the end of his scarf back over his shoulder and huffed his way back up to the VJ booth before Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me” finished on the big screen.
So, Otho’s figured out Justin and I are together, and he doesn’t much like that, but he’s still fine with Justin…and still invited him to his Christmas party…but told Justin, specifically, that I can’t come.
“Why not?”, Justin asked, and Otho told him it’s because he saw me on TV telling people to vote for Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars and that I “ruined the show by getting the Tea Party people to kick off Brandy instead of Bristol”.
So, Otho’s mad at me for urging people to vote for Bristol and keep her on the show…and also because by doing this Otho found his way to HillBuzz.org and doesn’t much like that I’m encouraging people to stand up to the Left every day and work hard to take Obama down for 2012.
“He can’t come because he’s a Republican, and I don’t want a Republican in my house,” Otho told Justin, not realizing that Justin is a Republican too, though totally under the radar and still in the closet about it. No one suspects Justin, which is hilarious, because he’s actually to the right of me, and I’m to the right of probably 80% of people who call themselves “conservative”.
Justin and I have only been dating for about a month, so he still doesn’t know what things I’ll find funny or soul-killing. ”I know you think your hatemail is funny, but since these are people who actually know you, I don’t know if I should tell you what Otho said or not,” Justin started, with me interrupting him to note how little I cared whatever new lie Otho had spun that night up on his web while sadly proving how long ago his VJ heyday was.
I think it’s funny Otho doesn’t want me at his Christmas party because he saw me on TV talking about a silly dancing show, and that’s how he figured out I’m a gay conservative. It’s just so typical of “the tolerant Left” to be so childish and mean-spirited, even at Christmas.
MEANWHILE, at about the same time Otho was telling Justin I couldn’t come to his Christmas party, a conservative family I know invited me…and Justin…to their Christmas get-together this coming weekend. This is a family straight out of a family values recruitment calendar, where every month the mom, dad, 2.5 kids, and golden retriever would wear matching outfits and do something wholesome and outdoorsy to show how much they loved each other and how well they represented conservatism.
And they are the nicest people to me. I know them from the 2008 campaign, and the mom and dad read HB every day, occasionally giving me insight into what the Cocktail Party is up to here in Chicago because these people want a real conservative to win the nomination in 2012, and that woman will be from Alaska, you betcha.
They, clearly, know I’m gay…because they told me, specifically, how much they want to meet Justin…and they clearly and warmly refer to him as my boyfriend whenever talking about him. It is exactly the same way they would treat Justin if I was straight and it was a Justine we were talking about instead. Since they live way out in Hoffman Estates and they weren’t sure if Justin drives, they also told me if we took the train out that we could just sleep over Friday night in a guest room after the party and leave after breakfast for a train back to the city in the morning.
This “Tale of Two Christmas Parties” is anecdotal, of course, and it’s just two events that happened at relatively the same time, coincidentally, in my life here in Boystown…but I can’t help put draw your attention to a few simple facts I see repeatedly again and again in not just Boystown, but nationally.
‘The tolerant Left” is an oxymoron.
Leftists are the most intolerant people I have ever encountered. They hate anyone who sets a foot outside the gay reservation the Democrat Party placed gays on, as part of the identity-bloc coalition Democrats depend on to maintain power. The prime directive of the unthinking Left is to shun, stone, polarize, and pulverize any gay who dares think for himself and buck the party line. Should a gay man vote Republican, he’s turned into a pariah if the community finds out. Worse, should that guy openly come out as a conservative, and work in the community as a conservative activist, gays like Otho feel it’s their duty to make his life as much as a Hell as possible…starting with uninviting him from parties, ostracizing him, and making him as much of an outcast as possible.
That’s how Democrats roll…that’s “the tolerant Left” in action.
MEANWHILE, conservatives, the people Democrats and the media (redundancy alert!) claim are so evil, so hateful towards gays, so simple-minded and terrible, have never been unkind to me.
I remind you what I’ve said many times on this site: since becoming actively involved in politics and spending every day in the thick of all this, the “worst” a vocal conservative has ever said to me was that he was praying for me to not be gay anymore…and when I thought about his heart, and where he was coming from, even that was not said from a place of malice — instead, it was his way of saying, in an admittedly awkward and strange way to me, that he wished I didn’t have to go through all the social and cultural grief for liking guys because this man thought my life would be easier if I was straight. AND, if I was straight he imagined I could have a wife and kids like he did, which he thinks is the ideal for anyone, so he sees that I don’t have that and was wishing that happiness for me.
I remind all of you, also, that Fred Phelps is a Democrat and that the Westboro Baptist Church is a Democrat organization (and giant supporters of Al Gore), despite the fact Democrats and the media (redundant redundancy alert!) want you to believe otherwise. The only people shouting that they hope gays die from AIDS are Democrats…just as the only people on tape lobbing real, actual anti-gay pejoratives here in Illinois are Democrats like Palatine Committeewoman Sue Walton (who shouted that garbage at Andrew Breitbart, who isn’t even gay, a few months ago).
What the media WANTS you to believe about conservatives isn’t true…and is in fact a projection of what the LEFT really thinks of gays, and how even the Leftist gay community treats a gay conservative.
I got uninvited from a Leftist Christmas party because I am an out and proud (and vocal) conservative and my boyfriend was told he could not come to the party, either, if he brought me.
MEANWHILE, my boyfriend and I were invited, as a gay couple, to a conservative family’s Christmas party with said family so eager and anxious to meet Justin that they’ve gone out of their way to make sure there was no practical way for us to turn down the extremely kind and generous invite.
It’s a tale of two Christmas parties here in Chicago…where conservatives are accepting and loving towards me as a gay man, while the Left is bitter and hateful towards me for being a gay conservative.
You won’t ever hear stories like this reported in the lamestream media because it directly challenges the “Democrats are good and Republicans are evil” narrative those JournoList clowns are so desperate to sell, but I think it’s important I share anecdotes like this to you from Boystown so that you see how hypocritical both the gay community and the Left itself are just about every day of the week.
But most glaringly so at Christmas.
TSA and Democrats in real trouble: being ridiculed in Boystown
Threadless.com is a fun tee shirt shop here in Boystown with designs submitted by artists around the world.
Every week, they have 10 or so new designs…and most of them have a decidedly Lefty bent, mocking religion and conservatism on occasion…because that’s what people raised Democrat think is funny.
I have never seen anything at Threadless mock Democrats until now.
This shirt depicts the Statue of Liberty being subjected to a nude TSA scan…where you can see graphic anatomy under her toga.
It’s been a big seller in the store, as people increasingly become angered over the Obama administration’s encroachments on our personal liberties.
Democrats and the Left (redundancy alert!) are in real trouble if they lose the Threadless market of witty, clever, young hipsters.
One by one, finding the hidden Conservatives in Boystown
Democrats and the Left do not have the hold on gays they think they do…and every day it seems I discover another Conservative who is afraid to speak out openly and reveal him or herself, for fear of bullying from the Left.
Since I came out as a conservative writer and activist, I have been bullied aggressively by various gay websites (mainly based in New York) and by self-appointed “gay leaders” here in Boystown…people who have charged themselves with keeping gays on the Democrat reservation.
Anyone who stands up as a conservative and speaks out against the Left must be destroyed, lest others dare to follow suit, and all Hell breaks loose for the Left when gays stop blind voting Democrat…just because they are told to, or bullied into it.
Last week, when I did a lot of TV, print, and radio interviews about the voter fraud Democrats repeatedly engage in every election — using ACORN, the unions, Organizing for America, and the George Soros-funded Secretaries of State project to register cartoon characters to vote, vote for dead people, and intimidate people to vote Democrat or otherwise prevent them from voting Republican — a surprising number of people saw my spots here in Boystown.
Last night, a waitress in a diner I like called me over to her station when I was leaving.
“Were you on TV last week?,” she asked me, taking her glasses off and drawing me in close so she could whisper.
“Yes,” I told her. “What show did you see?”.
“I don’t know, some local news thing. You were talking about voter fraud and had a blue shirt on and I told my partner that you were a customer and she didn’t believe me. I told her I knew you and that you lived in the neighborhood and we couldn’t believe you were calling Democrats out for all the bad things they do. I started waving at the TV I got so excited, because I couldn’t believe you were doing that. My partner made fun of me because I know you couldn’t see me, but I was so excited I just kept waving because I know you. Those bastards need to stop rigging elections”.
Shirley is a lesbian in her 50s, with sassy red hair and more than a passing resemblance to Debbie Novotny from Queer as Folk. She’s brash, loud, and opinionated…the kind of waitress you will tell you to “eat all your damn vegetables or no dessert” and who gives you a big hug if she hasn’t seen you in a while. She tells little twinks when they look ridiculous trying to rock the latest bizarre fad and will randomly seat a guy at your table if you are having dinner alone and she thinks you two might hit it off.
I never in my life would have guessed she was a Republican.
But, she and her partner are.
She and her circle of friends are.
Because Democrats have never done a damn thing that benefits their lives, and they know this. High taxes do nothing to help lesbians. Big government and oppressive legislation does nothing to benefit the businesses lesbians run…as many are entrepreneurs and small business owners. Democrats, and the Obamaconomy, sure have not helped Shirley’s tips at the diner.
But, Shirley keeps quiet because she doesn’t want to be made a pariah in Boystown for being Republican…not when she’s already treated like the odd woman out for being an older lesbian Auntie in a whirl of gay guys largely fixated on themselves.
In addition to Shirley, in the past week I’ve had everyone from bartenders to go-go boys to random patrons in the bars on Halsted come up to me and tell me that they feel the exact same way about the Democrat party and the fraud it commits.
All of them say the same thing: they are afraid, as gay men and women, to speak out about any of this because they do not want the Left to hammer down on them for being conservative.
“The Tolerant Left” does not allow gays to leave the reservation.
It’s high time conservative gays…and Conservatives at large who are our straight allies…start hitting back hard whenever Democrats and the Left (redundancy alert!) bully and berate gay people for voicing conservative opinions and calling Democrats out for their hypocrisy and identity-bloc politics.
Just because you are a guy who dates guys doesn’t mean you need to do whatever the Left tells you to.
Just because you are a lesbian it doesn’t mean you have to shut up and fall in line.
It’s sad people, especially those who work in the nightlife and service industry here in Boystown, literally fear for their jobs because they are conservative. Since they work in gay establishments, they are scared the “tolerant” owners of these businesses (many of whom are the self-appointed “gay leaders” of the community) will fire them if they are not slaves to Leftism and unthinking little followers of whatever Democrat bullies dictate.
I honestly never knew there were this many underground conservatives in Boystown, of all places, right here in Chicago.
If there are this many here, then the Left is in real trouble, especially if something as simple as me going on TV and talking about voter fraud can draw this many of them out.
Just imagine what a sustained push against the bullying of the Left — by all gay conservatives — would do.
If we can show the Shirleys of Boystown that it’s safe to stand up and speak out, that the Left’s bullies can’t really hurt them in the end, and that the “gay leaders” of Boystown really can’t in the end fire them for having conservative perspectives…then we can really deal the Left one serious blow.
Thoughts on how to make this happen?
13 Million Hits Milestone
Early this morning, HillBuzz crossed the 13 million hits milestone.
That’s 13 million hits since we debuted on WordPress in August of 2008.
Thanks to everyone who helped,make this happen…and for making HB the 11,000th most popular site in the US.
67,000th most popular site in any language in the entire world.
Not too bad for a bunch of gay Hillary Dems in Boystown turned conservative activists and Palin Republicans.
Left losing control of gays: stupidity and hypocrisy openly questioned in Boystown
Nightspots is a weekly free publication in Boystown mostly known for its photos of who was where, and when, at all the local bars.
But, in edition to that, Nightspots runs little political catoons that have been turning more and more conservative.
They’ve hit the Left for being pro-Ground Zero Victory Mosque and they’ve lampooned gays for blindly voting Democrat again and again when Democrats really just use us as a gAyTM and then break all their myriad promises to the community.
Nightspots has now made fun of the Left’s bizarre outrage over Bristol Palin making it to a dancing show’s finale.
Every day, Democrats seem to lose a few more gays who dare to wander off the reservation, never to return.
Elitists of the Left article on American Thinker
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/elitists_of_the_left_still_arr.html
I laughed when I read this because I used to do special projects at Northwestern and my ex Jacobi went there for dance, so I know it well…and actually really like the school and the people there.
Yes…they are Obama zombies mainly, but they are Midwestern nice, and when I freelanced for them they were one of the few educational entities that paid their invoices on time.
BUT there is this thing they do, to this day, that they think is funny but I see as obnoxious.
At football games, whenever their feathers are ruffled, they stand up and hold out their right arms, then shake their hands like they are jingling keys.
As if the opposing big ten school – all state colleges – is comprised of future valets who will be parking their cars.
Everyone at Northwestern does this…including the high up VPs, Development Directors, etc. They think it is hilarious and it is as much a part of school tradition as wearing purple every Friday.
What’s really funny is that Jacobi is a bartender in Boystown and has no plan for doing anything else in life. He went to Cincinnati Day School, then Northwestern for dance, did a brief stint as a burlesque dancer, and then landed the gig behind a bar.
So, a Northwestern grad I know – who I am sure dangled imaginary keys at his “inferiors” – spends every night lugging bottles, taking out garbage, and cleaning up after drunks…many of whom he might have mocked while at Northwestern.
I am sure he still thinks he is better than people who went to state schools…and when we were together he took shots at Governor Palin for not going to an expensive private school.
That elitism was drilled into him, along with his Leftism.
It will always be there…and the article above tells me Jacobi is not the only Northwestern grad, or Leftist, like this.
No matter how much anonymous puke he slopped up in the bathroom tonight.
Hilarious: you can't win whether you use a notepad or your phone in Boystown
I think this is fascinating, because never in a million years would I ever go up to a stranger and ask him what he was doing.
I have told you before that if I am out in Boystown and get an idea for a column, I whip out my little Bruce Chatwin moleskin and a pen and sketch the basics out before I forget it.
Within moments of doing this, without fail, some drunk I don’t know will always ask me “Why are you writing?”.
Not WHAT, but WHY…as in, they can’t remember the last time they saw someone doing that.
I like telling these noseyparkers that “I am thinking up baby names because my wife is pregnant again. Man, I can’t believe it. This is our fifth. Here, let me tell you the intimate details of each of those messy, messy births. Vagina!”.
That, or if it is Saturday night, I like saying I am writing prayers to say in church tomorrow or listing my favorite religious songs so I can request them at mass in the morning.
Either of these results in the shape of a nosey gay man being left in the wall, Tex Avery style, as he flees the bar to get away from me.
Well, a few weeks ago, I figured out how to write HB posts from my phone, like I am doing right now.
So, I can skip the notebook and just write HB while on the go. I have even created a little Marauders’ Map of Boystown identifying all of the electrical sockets I can use in each bar, restaurant, cupcakery, coffee shop, store, and theater in a five mile radius.
If I am recharging, like I am now, staring out the bay window of Roscoe’s near the pool table, someone – without fail – will come up to me after five minutes and say “You text a lot”.
Not a question…just this inaccurate comment.
I very rarely text and only really use the phone for HB. I only talk on it when I call into radio shows.
I think it’s fascinating that writing with pen and paper instantly freaks guys in Boystown out…and makes them to demand to know WHY I am writing…and spending more than five minutes thumb typing on this little T-Mobile Vibrant makes them comment on how much I am typing.
I honestly would never keep track of how long someone I didn’t know was on the phone, and I sure wouldn’t ask him why he was using a pen and paper.
But, I also would never ask anyone what nationality he is but we all know how often that Nationality Expert garbage happens here.
Only in Chicago!
