Jerry Timms

I’m back from a Labor Day weekend trip to New York and thought I’d share some pictures and stories. Initially I wasn’t going to go since I have a cruise coming up very soon in October, but I’m glad I did because I had a really good time. This was my second time ever to New York, and this trip was a lot more fun than the last visit!

I took the red eye flight with Philip from L.A. on Thursday night, getting into town Friday morning at around 6:30am. Rich and Justin flew direct from Phoenix and met us there. Our hotel room in Chelsea wasn’t ready for check in yet, so we had some breakfast and walked around the city a bit. I almost sort of felt hung over from the previous night of very little sleep on the plane…I maybe got about an hour. And drinking several cups of coffee didn’t really help as much as I thought it would! So once we were able to check in most of us decided to take a nap for a few hours.

Friday night we had a nice dinner at Elmo’s, and just as we were finishing up a drag queen astrologer came to our table and offered to read our palms. Still a little weak from no rest, and conjuring up our best adventurous spirit, we all agreed and held our palms out one by one. But after everyone got their brief consultation by our palm reader, who we would later fondly refer to as Miss Cleo, you could tell by our stunned silence that she was startingly accurate…at one point even arguing with Philip because he refused to admit to her that he was seeing someone. When she read mine I thought she might have been channeling my friend Jerry when she said that I am too picky about potential dates, need to break out of my comfort zone - and in true Jerry fashion, dared me to flirt with at least 2 guys over the course of the weekend. I slipped her a generous tip and we went on our way to finish up the night at Splash Bar.

Saturday we decided to do some walking around the city and check out the Staten Island Ferry. I brought my camera and took some pictures.

New York has some of the most awe inspiring views from street level.

I enjoyed admiring all of the architectural details. This is something you just don’t see very much of in Phoenix!

Philip and his snacks!

Justin and Rich (Yeah, I think they planned their coordinating shirts).

Entrance to Staten Island Ferry.

Rich, Philip and Justin on the deck of the ferry.

I have never been to New York before 9/11, but thought for a moment about what this would have looked like with the WTC.

The Statue of Liberty. It looks really small in person! The weather was gorgeous with hundreds of perfect little fluffy clouds.

Me on the deck of the ferry. It was kind of hectic on the deck with everyone frantically taking hundreds of pictures!

In the evening we met Philip’s friend Darlene at a great Tapas restaurant called The Stanton Social, where we all tried about a dozen different dishes.

Saturday evening we went to see Peter Rauhofer spin and Maya perform at an all-weekend event called “Work” at Stereo Nightclub. It was an interesting medium-sized industrial-themed club, and had a decent sized crowd. I met some really nice guys from Toronto (I took Miss Cleo’s challenge head on!) and enjoyed the dancing and music. Philip and I left at about 6am, letting Rich and Justin close out the night. Luckily Philip and I are usually on the same page when it comes to leaving, as I just don’t enjoy staying all the way until the very end when a club or event closes.

Sunday we all slept in until about noon, when we got up and started what consistently became a 3 hour process for us all to get ready. But it wasn’t really a big deal, because none of us were in a hurry to do anything. So once everyone was ready to go, we headed out for lunch and some shopping.

Sunday afternoon we walked around the Village where sights like this were pretty common. Actually I was pretty surprised to see gay people everywhere we went in NYC, as I didn’t remember it being like this when I was last here.

Sunday night, we were back at Stereo to see Offer Nissim and Suzanne Palmer. This night the club was completely packed. The energy was good, although I noticed that the crowd didn’t seem as friendly as at some of the circuit events I’ve been to. Nevertheless, I still met some nice people and enjoyed the night dancing and socializing with friends.

A view from the second floor balcony at the event on Sunday night.

Oh, and I’m totally going to have to visit Toronto soon!

There’s really no other way to put this: I’m ready for a party! More specifically, I’m thinking about San Diego Pride coming up next weekend, and the closing party with Rosabel. They did the closing party at the White Party in Palm Springs, and it was just absolutely amazing. I could swear that crack was coming out of those speakers.

This weekend, however, my parents are coming to town for a weekend visit and trip to the Grand Canyon. I’m really looking forward to it because I haven’t been able to spend very much time with them lately. Even during the holidays it seemed that everything was really focused around my sister and new nephew - which is expected and justified, it just feels like it’s been a really long time since any member of my family has really asked me how I’m doing or what I’ve been up to. So maybe this weekend I’ll get a chance to share some of that with them.

Actually very few people ever ask me those type of questions, and I guess that’s the whole reason for me starting this blog. If nobody is going to ask, then I will tell them - and the rest of the world, too! It’s quite satisfying, actually - for someone who has a lot to say to have this type of forum for saying it.

Which brings me to a discussion I had with Rich and Justin tonight about the unchartered social waters of blog association and disclosure. Rich has decided to include a little more description in his blog about his personal life, and not everyone is as comfortable with those details as he is - or being associated so closely with stories that they would not choose to be a part of. In the end he will decide what to do about this, and I will be interested to see how the whole thing plays out. Unchartered waters…I mean how many people used to publish their diaries and distribute the copies to thousands of people every week? This is all new.

Friday night Jerry and I finally got Vicky to come out with us. We walked to the Arizona Center where we had dinner and wine at Uno, and then continued walking to Amsterdam afterwards for drinks. It was interesting to walk around downtown again and see the progress on the light rail. It seems like it’s almost done, but I guess there are still power lines lines to build and street and traffic direction infrastructure.

Walking on the light rail tracks down Central Avenue

When we got to Amsterdam, it was a light crowd, and Vicky even asked if it was closed down right before we went in. We found a larger crowd on the patio, and took some seats on the balcony. Jerry got awkwardly hit on by a lesbian. The vibe of Amsterdam has definitely changed since the opening of Burn, and I think it’s also being affected by the restrictive construction all around the building.

Aw, I missed Vicky!

Saturday night was Mark’s birthday dinner at Fate, where everyone had a delicious dinner but consistently disappointing martinis. One tasted like a margharita pizza (with tomato juice and basil) and one tasted like lemon pledge (with fresh ginger juice). The coconut curry is still my favorite dinner there, even if it does look a little like pea soup sometimes. After Fate we went back to Mark and Andrea’s place for a bit before heading back out to Burn, where we all had jello shots and vodka drinks. Rich and Justin stalked some of the waiters and Mark got appropriately birthday-drunk. Afterwards we hung out some more at Mark and Andrea’s before calling it a late night.

Andrea, Mark, Rich and Justin at Burn

Earlier in the week, Daren and I went to Seamus McCaffrey’s for some drinks and discussed the recent developments in our dating lives. Daren is back with Phaedra, but I’m pretty much out of luck with the original Mr. X’s. As I mentioned before…one is moving away and one really doesn’t seem to be interested at all, so that’s that. There are some possibilities out there still, and I probably won’t really go into them until I see where they’re going.

Diet and working out are still going well. I really like the supplements I’m taking - all from German American Technologies, which seems to be a pretty quality brand. Me and a lot of my other friends are taking the XC4 creatine, and I’ve also been taking the Stenandiol 3.0 system. Oh, and EAS 100% whey protein shakes. Overall I think they’ve helped me put on a little more muscle, and I’m happy to report that I don’t look totally hideous in a tank top anymore.

It’s hard to take pictures of yourself!

Well I haven’t done one of those “here’s what I did last weekend” posts in awhile, so that’s where I’ll start tonight.

This last weekend was one of the first full weekends in awhile where I’ve been in town (and not preparing for some imminent trip). So friday was nice and low-key hanging out at the Governor’s Mansion with Jerry, watching some episodes of heroes and drinking beer and eating pizza.

But the highlight was certainly the discussion, catching each other up on our recent activities…my vacation to Florida and his recent courtship and dating. Jerry’s been working so much that he rarely dates, so it was interesting to hear about this girl that it seems he really likes.

Saturday I did a bunch of yardwork, cleaned the pool (found a dead pigeon in the skimmer and put myself through a little bird flu scare), and then headed to Arizona Mills for some shopping. After buying some swimsuits and eating lunch, I headed north to Scottsdale Fashion Square for some more shopping and better people watching. Seriously, it was pretty hideous at the Mills…but oddly, not much better at Fashion Square. After a call from Rich, I decided to meet him, Justin, Mark and Andrea at George & Dragon for a late dinner, beers and conversation.

Later that evening we all decided to go to Burn for more drinks and dancing. We all had a good time, and from what I remember the music was good even though we couldn’t tell who the dj was that night (not Jeremy). After closing we ended up back at Mark and Andrea’s new fabulous place in Willo, where we talked some more and I bonded with their dogs.

Sunday I hung out at the pool for awhile before going with Daren to see Jerry at work. Jerry’s restaurant is having some sort of contest to see which location can sell the most wine, so we got a bottle of wine and some burgers. Well, all that talk about wine made the three of us decide to go back to Jerry’s place to drink a couple more bottles of it and watch a movie and some TV.

We saw Little Miss Sunshine. Although I was prepared to hate it (OK, Andrea!) I found it really interesting. Everyone in this family battles with some sort of failure, and if you get caught up in that then it would probably be a pretty depressing movie. But the most interesting character is actually this old yellow VW Bus. To get it going past second gear they all have to get outside of it and push really fast, and when it gets to third gear (I think? the explanation was a bit convoluted) then they all have to run alongside the thing and jump in. Sometimes pulled in.

They do this alot, because they take the Bus to California so this little girl can realize her dream of being in a beauty pageant. Everyone confronts their failures and insecurities along the way, blah blah. Family always pulls together, blah.

But I started thinking about that Bus, and thought it was actually a really beautiful metaphor for all of us and how sometimes in life we just find ourselves going nowhere and need the help of our friends and family to push us forward, and then get back on for the ride. Ugh, cheesy I know.

Well, this week I’m planning on getting a lot of work done. I’m also organizing the house…today was vitamin day. I’m a total supplement whore, and decide to clean out all the crap that I don’t even use. Tomorrow evening I’m cleaning out the pantry and then going out to dinner with Mr. X. You see how I just slipped that in there?

I just found out that Justin has a blog. Actually, he’s been blogging since May which is really creepy because it’s like he’s been undercover this whole time. Rich decided he’s gonna start writing a little more detail of his personal life and it’s pretty interesting. Both of their links are over there —->

I met with CPA today, and taxes for last year weren’t nearly as bad as I thought they’d be. In fact, I saved a little too much reserve to pay them. So, maybe I’ll buy a TV.

I’m back in Phoenix and happy to report that I just had probably the best weekend ever…in Orlando for One Mighty Weekend and Disney Gay Days.

To be really honest, last weekend was a bit of a test. I was considering retiring from the party scene for awhile. Why? Well that was my apprehension about not having goals and whatnot. I felt a little wary about continuing along this path if it was just going to continue to be more of the same. I figured that I have learned some things and improved myself at past events, and if I continued going to parties it would just be for purely hedonistic reasons.

Well that wasn’t the case, and this past weekend really showed me that there’s no limit to how much you can learn about yourself and others when you’re in this type of environment. Plus I’m really grateful for being able to spend some more bonding time with newer friends like Philip, Bernard, Kendall, Tony and Dallas Justin.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a fair bit of hedonism as well. Several of the 9 parties last weekend were just absolutely insane, and I never knew it was possible to have that much fun!

The desire to spend time with ‘people who are like you’ is strong and necessary for every gay man and woman. And after you jump into that sea of acceptance, joy and love…you come out of it, at the same time, both less and more of the person you once were.

Coming back home from a circuit party is a harsh transition from a created Utopia to the real world, where this acceptance and love can be hard to find. We have very real enemies here…and most of you who read this allow it to continue. Luckily, we come back stronger every time with less fear and more confidence in the people that we are and can be. And even if we get only a glimpse of the glory that’s possible in life, it’s a glimpse nonetheless, and that’s something.

Well even though I’m sure you’re all anxious to see some pictures from my travels, I actually didn’t take that many. I think I must have burned myself out on taking pictures for awhile! But I did take a few here and there, so here are the best ones in no particular order…

Me on the red carpet at a Project A.L.S fundraiser event at Paramount

Shamelessly stalking celebrities at said fundraiser - or are they stalking me?

At this point I may as well just move into Mickey’s

Philip and Rich at The Abbey

Beautiful day in Santa Monica

The rolling party that took us to Medieval Times with Philip’s ad agency group

Philip and Justin inside said party

I have virtually no memory of this

I remember shouting ‘black & white’ and that’s about it - oh and lots of chicken

But it looks like we had cute hats!

With Rich, Gracie and Justin at LB Pride

Alas, I have no pictures of Tribe. Hopefully my previous dramatic prose gives you some idea how the weekend was spent. Pictures at parties hardly turn out acceptable anyway, and I’ve come to realize that the experience can’t really be appropriately captured in an image. I had a great time, and will be looking forward to the next events on my calendar…the Core on Saturday, and leaving for Orlando (One Mighty Weekend - Disney Gay Days) on Wednesday.

It was about midnight, and we were lined up outside the Queen Mary. It was cold outside at the harbor, but we were still warm from the previous event that night which abruptly ended after noise complaints from the hotel guests. The music was fantastic in the Britannia room, where blue lighting swirled and dancers in giant neon monster masks shot confetti at us from space guns. A room full of shirtless boys danced and pulsated in the spectacle that was one of the Tribe parties this weekend.

Rich, rather appropriately, remarked that straight people just don’t ever have this much fun. And if they could see what we were doing all night, they would think we were absolutely crazy. And then we heard “The party’s been moved downstairs.” So we walked down some stairs and outside the ship (figuring out along the way from some glass encased exhibits and strained intoxicated math that this ship was 73 years old) and waited for the next event.

The line outside the ship eventually started moving, and we were finally ushered rather somberly into the ship again. But this time we were directed down a few flights of stairs, along a long black hallway, and down even some more flights of stairs. Surely we were at least 50 feet under the water line at this point, and it was dead quiet and felt a bit suffocating. It smelled like old metal, damp wood and hydraulic fluid.

Then I heard the thump and knew we were getting close. Down another hallway and around a corner, and then we saw the glow of what must be our final destination. Suddenly in a lobby area glowing red from some discreet light source, we knew we had arrived. I walked through a doorway and saw the dance floor.

All I thought was wow, this really was the boiler room. 50 foot steel walls framed a very large space adorned with mangled pipes and cut steel beams. A riveted steel ceiling hung tenuously above us with various pipes and tubes that had surely served some very important purpose when this ship was in working order. Ominous red lights swooped around the room illuminating every detail for only seconds at a time, and it felt more as though we were in some natural underground cavern rather than a man made cruise ship. The “afterhours” music was thumping, and we inserted ourselves into the dance floor and started moving.

Afterhours is my favorite time to dance. The music is dark, the dance floor is dark, and everything feels very serious and sensual. This is my time for meditation and prayer. I think about everyone I’m with, who I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going. My body moves effortlessly to the rhythm of the music, and I let it take me where it takes me. All the while delighting in being reconnected once again with the energy of my tribe.

Mr. X was here tonight, looking and feeling better than ever. Looking around us, so many others were smiling and introducing themselves that we really felt at home here and had a great time dancing together and talking to everyone around us…old friends and new. The experience really is at times beyond words.

One guy in particular was dancing near us, and had the greatest smile and a wise, piercing gaze. After remarking to myself how happy and content he seemed, I noticed a Kanji tattoo on his back. After meeting him later and realizing that he was here from San Diego with our new circuit friend Grace, I patted his back and asked him what his tattoo meant.

His response? Soul revival.

Ok, well it’s getting to be that time of night where I just feel like spilling a lot of random things.

I’ve seen Mr. X twice since Saturday when we met at Burn. We’re going to lunch tomorrow. He’s totally hot, and really intelligent. So far I’ve only blogged about 2 Mr. X’s, and this is the second one. I really need to come up with a better anonymous naming system soon! I’m not really sure why things haven’t gone anywhere with the first Mr. X. Things were good, and then he was kind of evasive about going out again - I took that as a sign he wasn’t really interested. Hey, it happens!

It’s about midnight and I just wrapped up a meeting at my house with Rich and Mark. We reviewed the software functionality that’s been developed for our client over the past year, and discussed some plans for moving forward with new features. It’s fun to be able to work with friends, and I’m glad Mark is on board now as a part time consultant.

Last night I went to Seamus McCaffrey’s with Jerry and Daren. We walked from Jerry’s place, and I couldn’t help but to look up at the various highrise condo buildings under construction and wish I lived closer to downtown. The skyline is really changing down there lately with all the building projects. I’m not far where I’m at now, but I’m not close enough to walk to anything significant. It would be about a 5 minute drive to the downtown bars from my house - which isn’t that bad obviously - but I do like the walking from Jerry’s place. It would theoretically be possible to walk from my house, except that a bad neighborhood, a freeway, and about a 30 minute walk separate me from lower downtown. The 44 Monroe building is towering over Seamus McCaffrey’s and I almost wish I was able to sell my house right now to buy into that building while units are still left…not for the proximity to Seamus, but for the building’s amenities and proximity to bars and clubs I actually like.

Jerry and Daren at Seamus McCaffrey’s

I think I finally have settled on a car that I want…but it’s not quite available yet. It’s the BMW 328i hardtop convertible. I’m actually getting kind of anxious for a new car all of a sudden because the AC is out on my car, and I really don’t want to pour a bunch of money into fixing it. And it’s getting hot outside, fast! Well, I may actually need to fix it if this new car isn’t even at the dealer yet.

Sexy!

I’m not usualy one to get excited about cars, but this one may be the perfect fit for me. I’ve had my present car for almost 8 years, so I’m ready for a new one by now!

So I’ve talked about new dates, new house, new coworkers, new car…I guess that’s the theme for now. New.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the Phoenix pride festival with Mark and Andrea, Rich, Justin, Philip and Rob. What started out as a fun afternoon unfortunately turned fairly miserable for me because I had an awful athsma and allergy attack from the dust. Mental note to get on the daily allergy meds now that it’s summer.

Andrea and Rich

Mark and Philip

Justin and Rob

After the festival, I took a quick nap at home and then headed to the Icehouse to meet everyone for the Adonis Party…

…where I was greeted by this fantastic laser show. DJ Tony Moran was spinning, although there were very few people here at the time - probably about 10pm. So I wandered around for a bit, being reminded of last year, and soon ran into Mike, Nate and Brian.

We grabbed some drinks while waiting for the rest of the gang to get there, and when they did we eventually ended up on the dance floor to enjoy the music.

Brian and Rob

At midnight we were treated to a performance by the original Village People, which was actually better than I thought it would be. Although it was odd because I couldn’t help thinking I was looking at more of an historical artifact than entertainment. But they did teach us how to properly do the YMCA dance…and I found that I have been actually doing the “M” wrong, who knew?

The Village People

Me and Mike

We continued dancing until 4am, and everyone seemed to have a really good time. I was fairly deep in thought for most of the night since Pride often makes me think a little more critically about my life, my friends and relationships. The enemy of Pride is self-doubt, and so Pride becomes about so much more than just living proudly as a gay man. There are an assortment of things that can cause self-doubt, and many of us never properly confront those things to conquer them. And so this weekend is just one of many in what is shaping up to be a year of great positive change for me, and I’m truly proud of what I’ve accomplished and will continue to accomplish with the support of everyone.

Thursday I intended to get back to my workout program with Daren and Jerry, after taking a few days off after White Party to make sure my body properly recovers from the excitement of the weekend. But I decided at the last minute to take an extra day off, and instead headed out with Jerry and Daren for some drinks and adventure.

Jerry and Daren wanted to go to “The Armadillo” but I protested on account of a) that it’s a restaurant, and b) the last time I dove by the place they were advertising their “World Famous Fried Pickles.” Ha, I’m sure they’ll leave comments trying to convince me that it’s not a restaurant…but it is. The last few times they tried taking me to restaurant dive bars I have been less than pleased (yes I’m a little picky and stuck in my ways when it comes to night time drink venues), so I tried to spice things up by offering a night at Burn for the new Club Mistress event. After hearing the words “lesbian S&M” Jerry quickly agreed and we were on our way.

Upon passing Burn, we noted that there wasn’t much of a crowd yet, so we decided to go to “The Irish Bar” for a couple beers first.

Daren at Seamus McCaffrey’s pretending the stains in the ceiling aren’t there

After a couple beers and Jerry and Daren’s game of video bowling, we walked down to Burn. Burn was moderately attended for a Thursday, and after sharing some weekend stories with Angela some of the entertainment began.

See Daren, you shouldn’t have left early!

—

On Friday night, Philip and Rob got in town for pride weekend. Rob is the super nice guy that I met last weekend at the White Party, known to the rest of the gang since their trip to Montreal last year, who lives in London right now. So I went out with Rob, Philip, Rich and Justin to Burn again for drinks. We met up with Bruce and Tracy, and Mike and Nate for some casual talk, dancing and drinks.

Rob and Tracy

Mike and Nate

Rich

Justin, Travis and Philip

For the After-Burn, we went to Charlie’s for some dancing and pigging out on super nachos grande delux and carne asada burritos from the taco cart. As is typical with Charlie’s, the evening was a little awkward between confrontations with drunk queens and when I was slammed in the eye by the hat bill of a drunk mess plowing into the bathroom. Odd energy lives at Charlie’s, and I have no idea why I keep going back. Eh, live and learn.

So now it’s offiicially Pride weekend in Phoenix, and we’ll be headed out to the Adonis Party tonight at the Icehouse venue in downtown Phoenix. Interesting to note that my attendance at this party last year immediately precluded a breakup with my last boyfriend. I actually went last year by myself. So I’m glad that this year things are under different curcumstances, and I know I’ll have a good time with friends.