Oh, What A Night…

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Last night may have been the gayest in our New York history. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but things were pretty lavender from the get-go.

First, we found ourselves sort of crashing Stonewall Foundation cocktail party at board member Barry Salzman’s Chelsea apartment. Lavish doesn’t even begin to describe this place. We’re talking duplex with marble floors, an enormous roof deck and running water. The works!

The crowd was mostly rich men we didn’t know, so that left no choice but to engage strangers. Aren’t there rules against that? Anyway, we ended up on the roof with a Barry Diller lookalike named Ward Auerbach, whose ass everyone was kissing. He’s apparently given quite a donation to the Foundation. So, what does this man named Ward do? Good question, and one that we asked soon into our small talk. “I print the labels and inserts for pharmaceutical companies,” he replied. That’s one of those jobs you never really imagine, so obviously we were intrigued and asked if we had ever taken any of the drugs his company labeled, to which he responded, “We don’t print Viagra, Cialis or Levitra.” We were a little perplexed as to why he would say that, but just smiled politely. He went on to goad us, “I’m fairly certain you’ve taken one of the drugs we work with.” We refused to guess anymore, so he just offered one, “Advil.” Yes, we’ve taken that.

The clock was ticking by this point and we had to cut the Salzman affair short to head on up to 42nd street, where the gay fashion set had gathered for Fashion Cares. Those of you who have been paying attention know that the event, sponsored by Gucci, Jeffrey Kalinsky, Y3 and the such, benefits GMHC, Lambda Legal and the Hetrick-Martin Institute. Doors opened at 7:30 and we rolled in around 8:40, so it was quite a cluster fuck by this point. Again, very fancy schmancy and a bit off-putting, but we jumped in feet first. Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far and had to stand in horror as a foreign reporter chatted up Carson Kressley. We distracted ourselves by staring at Jack Mackenroth and Nigel Barker, who were standing around in the distance. We may have also seen Marc Jacobs bobbing among the crowd, but some of these queens look so much alike.

With Kressley’s interview done, we made our way to say hello to Project Runway‘s Christian Siriano. Actually, we kind of accosted him, because we didn’t really recognize anyone else at this point. Our mutual friend – Siriano’s boyfriend, Brad Walsh – was the crux of the conversation. Walsh, unfortunately, couldn’t make it, which left us standing sort of awkwardly until a star struck homo consumed Siriano. We made a graceful escape.

At this point, the event’s auction was meant to start and the crowd of 800 was miraculously shushed. Jeffrey Kalinsky and his ilk made some congratulatory speeches and everyone clapped before a short auction and a rushed fashion show. We didn’t catch much of it, because we were all the way in the back and, also, had much more interest in gossiping with Justin Ocean, editor at Out Traveler. And, no, he didn’t share any insider information about the recent Regent Entertainment acquisition. Either he didn’t know or he’s a great liar. Regardless, we left empty handed. Well, we did get a gift bag, which was clearly suited for our media credentials: shampoo, a gym membership and something called “Trim Water,” which we were too scared to even carry.

We were going to head downtown when, on the sidewalk!, we ran into Thom Browne. Obviously we’re in love with him and had to say hello, hoping he’d remember when we interviewed him at the Out 100. He pretended to, but totally didn’t and humored us for half a block before swaying, “Well, time to grab a cab.” Likely story…

Now that we had been ritzy with the fashion and do-gooder crowds, we directed ourselves toward divey bar, Eastern Bloc, where our plebeian peers Jimmy Im and Josh Sparber were spinning some tunes. There’s no way we can recall what they played, because we were too captivated by our girl friend twirling on the stripper pole. She kept lifting her skirt up, but it was alright – she was wearing a leotard. We’re not sure why, but we’re glad she did.

Some other stuff happened, but we can’t tell you that. You can, however, check out some publicist supplied pictures from the Fashion Cares event down below. Sparber put up some on his blog, too. None of us, thank Jesus!

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