Palm Springs

[+ Chris Eisenhower]

Back home and sitting on the couch reading posts and thinking about PS.

 

The strange thing is that I have in my head right now that I'm going to finish reading emails, brush my teeth and then head out with ___ or ___ from Helios. But of course all of you are back in your respective places and I'm here in DC. If someone wants to know what PS was like... that's it in a nutshell. Everyone clicked. And we all clicked really, really well.

 

The city was gorgeous and the weather could not have been better. I am so glad (and I will probably follow this plan from now on), that I went a day early before any festivities started to get a feel for the city and to settle in. My hotel had vintage-style bikes available for guests, so I checked one out and headed up the street in the direction Gay-land, on the concierge's advice. Even though the streets are flat there, it's hot and tough going since the city blocks aren't what you find in DC (they are much, much bigger). At the first main street corner I sat waiting for the light to change and I heard: "hey! HEY!" and turned around to see some cute older guy in a silver BMW staring at me and giving me the thumbs up. Well thank you, sir. I have arrived.

 

The gay scene in PS is very open and celebratory and very much like New Orleans... only it's California (Nate, Jawja and I made fun of this later, wondering if "gravy" was going to have avocado and mango chutney in it). The first night I sat alone in Bongo Johnny's having a burger and struck up a conversation with a table of bear guys staying at a clothing optional resort (one of many), about a mile down the street. We all met up later at their hot tub after they snuck me in and sat for two hours talking about Portland (they knew who Tyger was), Chicago, and various careers, the weather, ups and downs in life and so on.

 

Got into Helios on Day Two, and everything just continued to get more and more fun. I really liked the way that people arrived at staggered times because it lent a feeling of antici... pation to the whole time. "Steven Draker is coming." "Tyger will arrive soon." "Oh, here's a text from LBT... they just landed and are on their way." "Where is Tristan? Where is Joey? Are they coming? Are they coming?" "Who is that? Is that Rusty? But he's just a CHILD!" Because I had met a number of people from DC, it was great to already have a camaraderie myself with most of the people who were attending.

 

Helios was awesome. It's a beautiful little place, and no... it's not a four-star hotel. It doesn't need to be. The grounds and pool were quite nice and the staff was incredibly friendly and into us. Totally worth the stay. The 2-3 überhot leather daddies staying there who weren't part of our group provided some nice eye-candy as well.

 

Funny moment of the first night...

Me (loudly, to someone in our group who had briefly talked to one of the leather guys): "Who are these people? What are they doing here? Are they part of our group? Why didn't you get their name? Don't you know how to ask questions? I want details. Details!"

 

(I walk less than 10 feet to the VERY NEXT TABLE, and surprise! There's one of the leather daddies, who can obviously here everything I've just said)

 

Me: "Ah... umm... uh... Hi. I'm Chris. And you are...?"

 

Everyone finally arrived, and it's true that Tyger is not a morning person. But once he's up and awake he is hysterical. And if you want to get fitted for a leather harness (or two), you might as well bring along a Tyger if you have one in your pocket. At one point it sort of overwhelmed me how strange it was to be around him (and Steven Kessler as well), when you read about someone and hear about them and then they are actually... there. It's similar to the first time I visited DC or NYC and saw the buildings and places and had the reaction of: "oh, these places are REAL. I've seen them now." Next time I'll hopefully get to see more of Mr. Draker, who I visited with for literally 30 seconds before he was off and running.

 

Sleep deprivation has finally caught up with me (I got maybe 4 hours per night), so bear with me if I get things out of order. The first dinner was at Trio, and the food was excellent. We were divided up into three tables and one of the highlights of that evening was (and I felt this myself later) was the emotional welcome by Oliver. The other was finally (!) seeing Mr. Joey Bryant saunter in, with a body to kill for. Speaking of, DavidSF's gym is great, and thanks for letting us use it!

 

Pool party on Sunday. The food was AMAZING, and beautiful and thank you to everyone who had a hand in that. Dinner Two was at Tropicale, and was also excellent. Birthday gays galore (besides us). Just be sure to bring a pen and a flashlight if you have a large group.

 

Many thanks on both dinners for the generosity and the company and the conversation, particularly to SFWest on Sunday.

 

Again, the weather held out on Monday just long enough for me to get to the airport and then the first clouds started coming in.

 

So... I'm sitting back in DC and it's cold (but sunny). The travel bug has just kicked into high gear and on the plane last night I started planning my travel itinerary for the year, thinking I want to do a trip a month. I want to see the world and go places and meet people. I know some of you guys are hesitant to reveal things about yourselves and to keep personal lives personal and separate. I do understand that. One of the highlights of my weekend was to introduce someone from the Forum who traveled to PS specifically this weekend to see me, to another Forum member. Even if they never see or speak to each other again, they have experienced each other face-to-face and shared some time. I think that's important, and what I personally want to take and remember from this experience.

 

Oh, and again... thanks for the jock. You know who you are.

 

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/8588/imageuslf.jpg

[+ Robster]

It was so nice to meet you this past weekend, Chris. And Wayne and I have decided that next year, we want to get there on Thursday too, so we can be all settled in when people start to arrive. And that way, we can hit the street fair, which I love.

 

It's weird to think that we won't see any of you again until next year at this time, but I'm sure it'll be here before we know it. At least, I hope so!

 

Rob

[Rusty Blue]

Thrilled that I got to meet you.

Hot jock! You looked amazing in and out of all the things you had on this weekend. Just phenomenal really.

And true, those leather daddies were an eye candy overload. Enough to make me trip all over my words

Excited to hear about your travel plans.

[+ Chris Eisenhower]

It was so nice to meet you this past weekend, Chris. And Wayne and I have decided that next year, we want to get there on Thursday too, so we can be all settled in when people start to arrive. And that way, we can hit the street fair, which I love.

 

It's weird to think that we won't see any of you again until next year at this time, but I'm sure it'll be here before we know it. At least, I hope so!

 

Rob

 

You as well. And "escort summer camp" is a pretty apropos way for describing it. Oh, and BTW I called our mutual friend to whom I sent the pic of me and you and told him about the weekend. He was tickled.

[JoeyBryant]

Loved your summary of events. Being that I wasn't staying at Helios with the 'group', I didn't have an idea specifically of what time everyone was gathering and heading to each of the events. It looked so easy to just knock on someone's door and be like, "we're leaving, hurry up!" So I was on the other end of things whereas rather than anticipating someone's arrival, it was more like bumping into someone and putting 2 and 2 together and saying, "OOOH it's YOU!"

 

The gay scene in PS is very open and celebratory and very much like New Orleans... only it's California. last night I started planning my travel itinerary for the year, thinking I want to do a trip a month. I want to see the world and go places and meet people.

 

It's funny because having been to Wilton Manors and South Beach I would 'almost' consider them to be similiar, but Palm Springs is unlike any other men destination I've been. Maybe too the fact that it's not a 'city' and it's not 'the gay area of town' makes it uncomparable. As in, it didn't feel like if you walked too far past a certain block you had to stop holding hands. No. Not in Palm Springs. I seen gay people EVERYWHERE. 2 women together, 2 men together, each one with kids. It was almost like gay Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

 

Similiar to South Florida though, I imagine it's a transient community where many people visit or live temporarily. I can't compare it to any city in the South however as I didn't notice as much diversity there, and it's certainly much cleaner than Nawlins and Ft. Bottomdale. But it's more reminiscent of the 'mature age' Ft Lauderdale crowd than the all night party scene South Beach crowd.