Chicago Post-Mortem: Did You Know That I Hate Showtune Nights?

(This could possibly be a two-part post-mortem as I'm returning to Chicago next week after staying in Milwaukee for awhile.)

With all due respect to San Francisco, I would hazard to say that Chicago now holds the title of Gayest City in the US--at least for 2006.

Not but two weeks after the Gay Games completed, Chicago's Boystown held Market Days which seemed to me as being a rather spread out version of the Street Fair that takes over the West Village during Pride.

Combined with Lollapalooza being in town, no wonder it was impossible to find a hotel room.

Travelogue over, let's get to the sordid stuff.

The night after Market Days, I found myself in a bar socialising with two men: one originally from La Crosse and the other a married (to a woman) man from Toronto. Since I'm on vacation, I figured this would be my one chance to put my beliefs to work and slowly chip away at his have-his-cake and eat-it-too attitude*, since this wasn't a case of having a relaxed straight man visiting the gay bars with his friend--in fact, he had only met Mr. Ex-LaX earlier that evening.

* Since you catch more flies with honey, the plan was to get him to breakdown by the end of the night. I know, I'm evil.

Let me say this, it is hard to employ militant gay strategy when you have been drinking since 3 PM.

Ex-LaX, Cake-Eater, and I eventually got into a cab to head up to Sidetracks, which apparently (according to Ex-LaX) was the pretty people's bar. I would call it a S & M bar, as in "stand and model." Unfortunately, it was showtune night. I hate showtune nights. I hate them with a passion. Yet, I was focused on my strategy, albeit rather slowly.

Ex-LaX took off, leaving Cake-Eater & I to our own devices. (FYI: I wasn't even remotely thinking of going there for personal reasons.) Cake-Eater was like a kid in a candy store. This boggled my mind: This man lives in Toronto and is amazed by a gay bar in Chicago? I mean, Queer as Folk was filmed in Toronto, it can't be that radically different, and Toronto isn't a small town where everybody knows you.

From this point onwards, it was a carousel of threesomes. First, we got latched on by a very drunk French Canadian who made sure that everybody within earshot knew that his rear end was well-used. After he departed, then another drunk guy--this time from Miami--joined in. He mostly was babbling, but the majority of his observations seemed to revolve around hotness, dick size, and my ethnicity.

Oh yes, ethnic fetisation is the perfect way to get someone to sleep with you.

Apparently Cake-Eater was of the similar mindset as the drunk Miamian, since he sunk his teeth and tongue into a 21 year old Latin guy who launched into a tourist board spiel for Chicago.

And then Madonna's "Don't cry for me, Argentina" came on and the 21 year old flew into a frenzy and dragged us into another area of the bar. Here, our threesome became a foursome as a man from Gary, Indiana latched onto me and started talking rapidfire about all sorts of things ranging from an apparent tradition of throwing napkins in the air during the climax of "Don't cry for me, Argentina" to his mother informing the family of their father's death on Christmas with a straight face,' and did you know that "[he] was a lover, not a fighter, like all Aquarians." (Not this Aquarian.)

By this point, my heart was running a mile a minute and I was feeling nauseous, so I decided that health had to come before agitprop theatrics. The 21 year old was busy trying to get into Cake-Eater's pants by a series of pouts and slight whining.

It was time to make my move.

I had it all planned out: I was going to lean in, brush Cake-Eater's stomach, say "your wife hired me," and leave then and there.

That was the plan.

In reality, what happened is that I burped and said "ugh, I got to go."

At least, my heart was in the right place.

Welcome to the Midwest.