The Best Gay Party (According to Frontiers)

Brutus

Dallas Aunt was in town this past week to visit her ailing mother, which meant I got a few sweet days off from Grandmother Duty. In other words, I had the option of going out barhopping into all hours of the night.

Of course years of near isolation combined with getting older has cut down on my pool of people I can go out with. Casual acquaintances from years ago have dropped off. Now as my friends and I are deep in our 30s and older, coupling and children have come into play. What happened to my carefree 20s?

Thankfully Daniel (Yobo) was willing to go out with me to a scuzzy gay bar. After deliberation we decided to go to Faultline for their monthly party Brutus hosted by the amazingly still alive Mario Diaz. Earlier this year Frontiers LA named Brutus as the best gay party in LA.

I’ve been to some great parties in my life. There was Cherry in the late 90s and early 00s which was completely glam until 9/11 killed it. There was Bricktops, a 20s Weimar Republic themed night hosted by Vaginal Creme Davis. There was Makeup, another shot of glam and decadence hosted by Alexis Arquette.

Brutus didn’t come close to any of those parties. DJ Mark spun what amounted to Nu-disco, house with a huge disco sentiment that was quite annoying since it didn’t know whether it wanted to be disco or house. I guess since it was the Faultline I expected a little more rock schlock, but maybe since I’ve been away the clientele had changed.

I looked around and the crowd reminded me a lot of the old Akbar/MJs crowd of the mid 00s — the not-quite-so-polished WeHo rejects but nothing near what could be considered menacing as I remembered Faultline being. There was a guy who looked like an old-timey French strongman complete with a handlebar mustache — looking at the veins of his biceps he clearly had physical gifts, but when he danced it was clear that physical aptitude didn’t translate to finding a beat. There was a guy who wore a midriff cutoff shirt and short-shorts who I thought was hot in a trashy let’s piss on each other and lick each other’s pits — it was unfortunate he probably wouldn’t be allowed to ride on Viper at Magic Mountain. There was a guy who had really tall anime-type hair.

But it was amazing how in a room of guys there was a lot of nondescript. “See anything you like,” Yobo asked me at one point. I told him about how unfortunate Little Person wasn’t taller, but that was it.

Last call was signaled, and we high-tailed it out of there en route to Astros. As we headed out, it didn’t matter that there was no nookie-nookie, that my ass was unmolested, that the toons were meh, that I reeked of cigarettes, that there wasn’t a whole lot of eye candy, that I was hoarse from having to yell over the top of the music. I realized that I was over the fucking moon that I was out hanging with one of my favoritest people in this pitiful world. I gpt the sniff of freedom for one night! I got back home at 3:30 am with no hint of remorse or guilt.

Saturday night, I was an actual human being!

Now back to what my life has become. (Mental note: buy rope for the noose.)