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Party
Black Party :: All That and More
Roseland, New York City
by Mark Thompson & Robert Doyle
March 19, 2005
 
www.saintatlarge.com Bookmark and Share

Saturation overload. It's all true, everything they said. It's all that and more. Sui generis, indeed, thank you Ambassador Alan. The moment we step inside Roseland-- No, even before. One of those New York nights when the winter fox is ready to bite off the spring chicken's head. And there's a line down 52nd Street, and cabs pulling up every second, more leather disembarking -- and then we're in, and it's evocative of the way it used to be at the Saint, how you had to wind your way through four different pitstops, except this night, because it's just before two a.m. security is waving everyone by, and down into coatcheck, and we're on the stairwell, and there it is, already hitting us in the face -- saturation overload. New York sexual energy with its thick musky odor. It's already happening. It's peaking right now. It's the most intense thing -- walking into an orgasm waiting to explode.

Coat check, as they say, is the appetizer course. The shedding of layers, the fetishes revealed. Skin and more skin. The buzz in the line -- because upstairs, Chus & Ceballos (which I just learned how to pronounce, thank you, Jeff) are sending out waves of Iberian energy. That eerie Spanish guitar, reverberating across the ocean, from Spain to New York. It's hard not to move when everyone's moving around you and you haven't even checked your coat.

And then upstairs, at last -- and we're on the outskirts of Mexico City, a warehouse by way of Amores Perros, populated by characters from Almodovar's films. Hay bales slashed open and strings upon strings of Mexican lights in red, green, and yellow, and wrestling pens, and a LUCHA LIBRE banner in red and white.

And the dome. There's the dome. And the lights in blue and green and mauve and lots of white flashing bright. We're up to the mezzanine, searching for the backbar -- and oh, my -- what have we here? Numerous East Village hotties and Harlem hotties, a whole line of them, a row of them, each on their own little stage, and every one of them at attention. Sporting a stiffie, a chubbie, and begging to be acknowledged. "Hello. How do you do? Nice to see you. And you, too."

Now this is a party. Let's get right down to biz. This energy, it's like traveling through galaxies, this is how it's going to sound when we're all released back into a molecular state -- that whoosh of noise, and so fast that your face is warped into a smile. I can't wipe it off my face.

That music-- It's got the eerieness of Europe, with Europe's long history, and the bounce of the New Spain, and a beat for New York. There's so many people pouring onto the floor. It's so wonderfully crowded. Everyone coming to the party. Such a cross-cultural crowd, so many ages and colors -- and so very sexual.

Sui generis, oh yeah. We're dancing on the mezzanine, in awe of the crowd below us. Where else, this crowd? There's a stage to our right with six or so creatures in black rubber and red rubber, getting inflated with air to the point that they're on the verge of explosion -- and then unable to move, without assistance. Fascinating.

And from the crowd below, and the rubber monsters beyond, and right behind us, two hotties hook up with a third who's all about the pants, at least until he sheds them, the three of them together, and where else but at Black Party are you holding eye contact with a hottie getting pounded from the rear, and so close as to hear the groan when the pounder hits home? Oh, yeah, that's erotic. No doubt about it.

A whole lotta sex going on, a smorgasbord of sex, you can take what you want, feel what you want... Sex right there beside you and the crowd pulsing to the Iberian twosome below you and all around you and -- OMG, that's Kat. Right? It's Kat, right? I think it's Kat. I'm so saturated overloaded with pheromone explosions and serotonin release, I yell out to Kat, "Joe Caro! You're back from Fireball."

We do see Joe Cher Expensive Caro in his lucha libre wrestling shorts. And finally, at long last, we find Ambassador Alan and his coterie of courtiers. Relief. Thank God, I was beginning to think we were never-- He tells us we missed the chickens. There were chickens on the stairwell. Caged live chickens -- but they were rented by the hour and had to leave early to go back to the henhouse upstate.

Did I get that right? I'm not certain I did. Because there's so much going on and there's Brian and Patrick, and Shaunism, and Mark and Joey and Adam-- Ambassador Alan really is the Lois Weinberg of the circuit. Without him, we're clueless.

The changeover takes place at four-thirty. Chus & Ceballos giving it over to Victor. The three of them hug. And when the crowd takes notice that the change has happened, there's a huge roar of applause and cheers and the Iberian twosome raise their arms -- and there's such joy in their smiles. They have the most sincere smiles, receiving the crowd's adulation. They're so happy they've been appreciated. Those smiles, so real -- so heartfelt. Welcome to Black Party, guys -- hope to see you again.

And Victor picks up, right where they left off. He kicks it up a notch, takes us to the next place. It's too long since we've heard him. Too wonderful to fall under his spell again. How he weaves that aural landscape, and how wonderful is it to let your body move to the music. God, but it's so empowering when the music just really works you-- To let your body move, it's such a joy.

Sex and dance, music and boyz, hotties in leather and papi chulos and once in a while I get a glimpse of the help, the boys hired to pick up our refuse, our bottles and cans, and I see them pause in their jobs, and stare down into that crowd of wild abandon -- and they're mesmerized. And why not, and how could they not be?

The party seems the perfect marriage of tradition and new blood. You look at Jonny McGovern's boys whooping it up in their wrestling singlets -- and you have to marvel at Bruce Mailman's vision of the future -- which is here now. And Jay's there, of course. One of Jonny's posse, New York's premier gogo boy, he of the hefty member -- he stimulates with every breath.

And Victor's playing something about being safe in my house. We're all safe in this place and it feels right being there. It's the kind of crowd where everyone seems relaxed because everything you could possibly want is available. It's pleasure overload. And then my dock-it chain snares someone's flag as we're passing through the crowd, and suddenly this flagger and I are joined at the hip and we can't get loose, and he looks a bit peeved and finally rips his flag away from my chain and I'm thinking, Fuck, I ruined his flag -- but he grabs me and kisses me. Not a problem, it's all good. No grudges, no attitude. It's Black Party, sui generis.

To dance and play, to celebrate life -- sex and music and dance. It makes you feel so good. Your whole being radiates peace. This is the optimum state -- and so we force ourselves to make one more trek around the floor, quadrant by quadrant, to dance among the many, the so many types, the breadth of life -- and then out into the rain.

A gentle rain falling as we walk uptown and through the Park and then blueberry pancakes, heavy with real maple syrup and lots ofbutter and why not, because it's Black Party weekend in New York -- and there's more to come.

Celebrate good sex and make sex good.
 

 
 
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