FRIDAY @ THE GAY BAR
When we first arrived in Columbus, we wanted to get food and it was really late. We drove to the main part of High Street in Columbus and we couldn't find a fucking valet for about 20 minutes. Once we did find a spot with valet people that were actually paying attention, we had a choice between a mexican food place on the left and regular bar food on the right. The valets forced our hand and I voted for Union Bar since I had been set on a burger (as usual) all night. The hostess said that she could seat us on the less crowded side of the bar which had more seating and seemed like a better place to eat. The patio and main bar were absolutely PACKED. It wasn't long before we realized that we were in a popular gay bar.
I picked up that our waiter was gay pretty early on. It was hilarious for me when our videographer Johnny started chatting him up because he didn't realize that he was gay. Jess went to the bathroom and two girls started talking to her about Estelle while waiting for the stall. They ended up knocking on the stall and two guys inside started making (fake) sex noises then giggled and came out. I guess the women's room doesn't typically get much use.
Johnny came back from the bathroom, after almost running into a mirror, and then turned around to see two mohawked men waving at him. They didn't see his near collision, but apparently they liked his look. The worst part about our crew is that Johnny and I are both at opposite ends of the spectrum style/look-wise... so between the two of us, we were getting a lot of attention.
At this point, I took the can of dip out of my back pocket and I guess my mini notepad came out. Right on cue, a trio of dudes came by and the guy with a faux hawk and frosted tips picked up my notepad. I found myself pretty much speechless and just tried to roll with it. He told Jess (who works in PR for Playboy) not to read my diary and then gave it to her. After we finished our round of post-dinner Blue Moons, we decided to bolt. It was an honest mistake. Upon returning to the hotel, I googled "Union Bar Columbus" and the first result was from gaycities.com. Burn. I mean, it wasn't called The Penis Depot or anything like that. My burger was excellent.
SATURDAY - GAMEDAY
We were exhausted the next day but lunch revived us somewhat. We had a jackass waiter who looked like the crazy guy ("I thought we were watching cartoons") from Tommy Boy. I was again reminded of the gay population in Columbus when a 6 foot cross-dresser walked out of a place called The Cookware Sorcerer. Awesome. Luckily, Terrelle Pryor helped Ohio State beat shitty Troy -- so we wouldn't have a hostile crowd at our event.
We got a late start setting up at McFadden's and it made me cranky. There was a family eating in the back corner where we were going to set up shop, so we waited for them to finish before littering the tables with nudie magazines. We had two of the three Ohio State girls from the Girls of the Big 10 pictorial. They were arguably the hottest girls in the feature: Marie Morgan and Jamie Graham. The Ohio State Playboy rep, Ari, was a pimp and happened to know both of them.
I had also booked Special Edition model Lyndsy Wolff to work at the event. She showed up along with the other models right on time at 9PM. We had everything set up and ready to go at about 10PM and people started cycling through to get signed magazines and shirts. After a while, I noticed that one guy who had arrived right-on-time was still hanging out. He wasn't really causing any trouble, so we didn't make him leave. I'm guessing he was just really drunk because he sat there all night. Lisa posed for a fake picture at about 2AM so I could snap a shot of our relaxed friend.
Our VP told me that Mike Commodore might want to stop by. He showed up with a buddy after we had been working the event for an hour or so. Unfortunately, his fro and lumberjack beard were both gone. I got a good picture of him with the girls. There was another minor celebrity in the building for our party. Isaac from Real World Sydney was friends with Ari and stuck around for the concert.
We had to bring in a stage for The White Tie Affair and they ended the tour with another great performance. The girls danced on the stage and Lyndsy even attempted to play the drums for a while. That was both awesome and hilarious. It was a little concerning when drunk civilians took the stage towards the end of the night, but no dancing college students were injured. Columbus was probably the best event. McFadden's was packed and the people were super drunk because of the early football game. I'm sure some people got black out drunk twice in one day. That's skill.
