Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Monday, May 05, 2008
It Only Took A Second
Last evening Justin and I went with our friends Todd & Cody to a Tea Dance at Forbidden in tribute to the late Gary Weiner who passed away last December. It wasn't an extremely large crowd but nearly everyone there was a former friend or acquaintance of Gary.
After saying hello to several people and grabbing a few drinks, Justin and I headed out to the dance floor with our friends. It only took a second for me to look over and see Justin smiling at me from a few feet away to cause me to be filled with a wave of emotion and realize how lucky I am to have him in my life. I looked at him and his big smile and realized how incredible it is to feel so loved and be able to share my life with someone like Justin, who is not only my partner but my best friend and shares so many common interests with me. I danced over over to him, put my arms around him, gave him a kiss and began to dance with him and thought about how much I was still in love with Justin and how I couldn't imagine living my life without him.
Justin and I danced closely together for a little while just talking to each other, laughing and having a good time before I looked around and realized that several people around the room were watching us. I immediately wanted to yell out "that's right bitches, he's mine!" but I just smiled and we continued to dance. It was a good night indeed.
The one thing I always said I loved about living in Phoenix was that generally when the weather climbs all the hot boys start taking their clothes off. This weekend was no exception to that rule. Justin, I and a few of our friends spent Saturday evening at an after-hours party and then headed back to our house to turn on the music and lay out by the pool for the afternoon.
It was a beautiful 90 degrees outside and a perfect Arizona day for listening to some music, and hanging out with friends next to the pool.
Justin in the kitchen flashing us his never fading smile
Vince, Cody, & Todd sitting on the edge of our pool
Justin and Josh debating on getting in the pool
Cody & Todd aka "Gansta Barbie" caught having a "chat"
Caleb and Brian trying to stay closer to the shade
Justin, Ed, Toby, Bernard, Jason, Jerry, Miguel & Rich
Friday night was the first White Party Palm Springs Underwear Party and was sponsored by AussieBum, which just happens to be one of Justin & my favorite underwear companies.
Justin and I got ready in our best AussieBum apparel and along with our friends headed down to the party.
I didn't take too many photos at the underwear party because frankly it just seemed sort of weird to be snapping photos of people in their underwear. The party started around 9 PM and went until around 4 AM and it was AWESOME! Everyone actually got into the theme and either left their clothes in their rooms or checked them in upon entering the party. It was a nearly full ballroom for a Friday night party, which was a nice change. Joe King from Seattle spun, and he did a fantastic job. The place was still nearly packed when they turned the lights on at 4 AM and told everyone to get the hell out. People poured out of the ballroom into the hotel lobby for a very interesting sidewalk sale of hot guys in their undies. Cheers!
Well this was it the big weekend. Justin and I just got back in this evening and we're both dead tired. It's amazing we can function with only a few hours of sleep and marathon dancing throughout the weekend. Accompanied by our friends Bernard, Jerry, Miguel & Jason, Justin and I had a blast. We ran into many familiar faces and met so many new people. Once again it was an amazing weekend of time with friends, fun, dancing, hot guys & frivolity.
I'm getting ready to go to bed and get some rest, so I'll post some photos soon and tell you all about the scandalous underwear party on Friday night. Imagine a hotel ballroom filled with hot gay men in only their underwear. Yummy! Alright more to come soon. Cheers!
I don't know what it is about this year but I'm really less then enthusiastic for Phoenix Pride which is going on this weekend. I'm honestly not even sure if Justin and I are going to attend. Unlike other years, Justin has to work tomorrow, and frankly neither one of us is in the mood for either the festival or the Adonis Party.
Philip, Justin, Rich & Rob @ 2007 Phoenix Pride
I've been much more excited about the event in previous years, but I just can't say I am this year. Maybe it's because we've typically had friends in town for the past few years and we've enjoyed going with our friends to hang out, have some drinks and watch all the ridiculous people or maybe it's because we've finally reached that point of being true Circuit snobs.
In all honesty, the Circuit snob remark is probably closer to the truth then anything because without a big name DJ this year, the thought of having to suffer through yet another Kristine W. performance just doesn't really do it for me.
While we might make it too the party on Saturday night, I think we're actually going to forego attendance at the festival and save our energy for our big White Party weekend in Palm Springs next weekend. Anyway, Happy Phoenix Pride & Cheers!
I was working on Friday afternoon when I received a message from Philip ... "Jamie and I are going down to San Diego, you guys should come out." That was pretty much what started it. The next message was from Jerry. "Hey I'm going to drive out to San Diego with Miguel, you guys should come along." So Justin and I decided to throw our plans for a relaxing weekend at home out the window for a road trip to San Diego. So on Saturday afternoon, Justin, Miguel and I packed into Jerry's Beamer and headed out to San Deigo.
We arrived at Tony's around 7 PM, grabbed a quick cocktail at Tony's and headed over to Baha Betty's for a quick bite to eat. As it would turn out, some other acquantinces of ours, Fabian & Ryan live in San Diego as well & Fabian was throwing Ryan a birthday party so we headed over with Tony & gang to say hello and wish Ryan a Happy Birthday.
Fabian & Ryan, aren't they cute!
Following Ryan's birthday party, everyone headed over to Rich's for the rest of the evening.
It was a really short trip. We went out Saturday and headed back to Phoenix on Sunday night, but it was nice to get away and hang out with friends. Cheers!
Wow I can hardly believe it's only 2 weeks to the party. This party has become some sort of a staple for Justin and I because we live so close, it's a pretty quick drive out from Phoenix. My friends are less enthused but I'm looking forward to having Bernard & Jerry joining Justin and I along with some new friends such as Jason & Miguel. Philip and Jamie aren't going this year, and Tony & Justin haven't decided if they're going for just the day or not. It will be a little strange without some of my close friends there, but I'm sure it will be fun none the less. Honestly, Justin and I seem to have fun together with friends no matter what we do or where we go, so that's never really been an issue.
I guess since I only have 2 weeks left I really should start getting back to the gym, I've let myself go a little over the holidays. Here's a recent photo of me, I'm not sure if I'm still going to fit into my bathing suit from last year.
Ok yeah, just kidding. That's not me, but I'm sure that guy is really happy because he's able to eat ice cream whenever he wants and not have to work out unlike us vain bitches. Justin and I have actually been hitting the gym which seems to be a never ending process. I guess that's the price we pay for attempting to be Circuit Boys.
I'm not where I exactly want to be right now, but that's mostly a personal thing, and I think it's really just a yearly cycle. It was hard over the holidays to keep away from all the scrumptious sweets, and since the beginning of the year I've found one excuse or another to keep me from going to the gym the full 5 days a week like we were doing before the Atlantis Cruise in October. I found a few photos I took just before the Atlantis Cruise last year.
Thinking about the parties, the hot guys, & looking at these photos have pretty much given me back my motivation. I'm actually going to be doing an hour of cardio daily at the gym around lunch time and then heading back to the gym in the evenings with Justin for weight training. I guess in some small way going to the parties really tends to keep us motivated to work out and look good, so that's a good thing. Hopefully I'll be EXACTLY where I want to be before our trips to Chicago/Orlando & Toronto in June. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Anyway, I'm once again looking forward to the White Party Palm Springs and once again spending time with my friends and meeting new people. Cheers!
I'm posting late tonight because I had to stay up and babysit some work processes and I thought I would get a quick post in before I headed off here to bed.
So this is pretty much my random thought of the day. Does Organization = Wasted time? For one reason or another I've been forced down a path where I've reviewed some things I've done in the past, and I've found myself reanalyzing my obsessive organizational skills. Thats right, I'll be the first to admit I'm a closet organizer. I have this compulsive need to group, classify, categorize, regroup, sort, order, recategorize and so on. Everything. Seriously I do, it's a bad habit I know. My organizational skills have always been something of pride for me, but I'm starting to think it's actually a curse in disguise. I find myself wasting more time trying to get and stay organized then I think I would if I would just minimize my need for organization to a lower degree. The biggest area where this is apparent to me is actually in my computer files. I'm so organized that I can hardly find certain things when I search for them because I organized things so well I simply can't remember where (under which folder/sub-folder/sub-sub-folder) I actually put the item in which I'm searching.
Perhaps a more generalized and minimized approach to organization is in order for my future, only time will tell. (File this post under BLOG > 2008 > APRIL > 03 > RANDOM THOUGHTS) Cheers!
Ok I just couldn't resist one more post about Bal en Blanc. I was looking for some music from Cesar Romero today and I came across this video him spinning at Bal en Blanc.
Cesar Romero was spinning in the House room when we walked into the party and this video was taken from someone on the DJ stage just shortly after we entered the room. You can get a good feeling from the video the style of music and the energy of the crowd in the room.
I really hate not having my own photos and videos from an event like this. I think somehow in the full body security pat-down they would have noticed my camera, oh well, maybe I'll figure out a way before next year. Cheers!
Well we’re back from our first trip to Montreal’s Bal en Blanc or White Party and I only have 1 word to describe it … Amazing! The people of Montreal sure know how to throw one hell of a party. Except for the weather (20 degree daytime highs / 9 degree nighttime lows with snow & ice still on the ground) I would honestly have to say that I actually enjoyed Bal en Blanc much better then Black & Blue in 2006. Justin and I joined Philip, Jamie and Jamie’s friend Mike for the event. I don't have any photos of the actual Bal en Blanc event because unfortunatly flash cameras are not permitted into the event.
We arrived in Montreal on Saturday morning, checked into our hotel and then headed out to Rue Sainte-Catherine to do some shopping and have a few drinks along the way. On Saturday night we headed over to Unity to do some dancing from 10 PM - 2 AM and then ended up at Stereo around 2 AM to open it up for after hours. Justin and I stayed at Stereo and danced our asses off until around 7 Am before heading back to the hotel.
After catching a few hours of sleep we got ready and headed over to the Montreal Convention Center (Le Palais des congrès de Montréal) for the main event of the weekend, Bal en Blanc. I knew going into this there was going to be 2 separate rooms, the house room and the trance room, and in my mind I envisioned a pretty big room, about the size of the Palm Springs Convention Center, with a smaller room off to the side. My vision couldn't’t have been more off.
After the long line and total of 1.5 hour wait to get through the line, coat check and finally security we were standing in the center of what almost appeared to be a huge warehouse room at about Midnight. It was almost like a fair because this center room contained several vendor booths, information, a large massage area, and bars. I looked to the right and a few hundred feet from where I was standing I saw the lights coming from the entrance to trance room which spanned the entire right side of the room. I was a little overwhelmed because the size of that room appeared to be much larger then what I expected. Then someone said … “That’s the Trance room, let’s check out the house room first” I then turned my head to the left and another few hundred feet to the left were more lights and music. The house room in itself was probably a little larger than the Palm Springs Convention Center and this was the smaller of the two rooms. Honestly I was completely blown away at the size of this event and the number of people. I was told the event typically draws a crowd of 15-20k people.
The event itself was a mixed event with maybe 15-20% gay, but the best part of Montreal is that the people don’t really seem to care if your gay, straight or anything else. We spent most of the night in the house room dancing, kissing & hugging alongside of straight couples, lesbians and other gay men. Everyone in that place was f’d up on something and there are certainly some beautiful people in Montreal.
The lineup for us in the house room was first Caesar Romero, Cedric Gervais, David Guetta, Offer Nissim and ending with Victor Calderone. Justin and managed to hop over to the main room a few times to check out Ferry Colrsten and Armin Van Bururen. I have to say overall the music was amazing except for David Guetta and Offer Nissim. David Guetta started out alright, but by the end of his 3.5 hour set I think we were all ready for Offer to come on because David was just mixing too many different things together with electronic sounds and it was giving all of us a headache. Offer came on and we were expecting to see yet another Offer Nissim greatest hits concert, which would have been fine for our moods at the time, but that was not what he played. Frankly I don’t know what the hell it was that he played but it was terrible. The music was all over the place with weird dropouts, clips of song pieces in what seemed to be inappropriate places. Honestly Offer was a complete trainwreck. While I really love Offer Nissim's music, this is the 3rd time I've heard him spin live and I think we all agree that he just needs to stop with the live performances and stick to his own remixes. We were glad to have Victor Calderone come on to finish up the party. Victor never seems to disappoint, his music was typical Victor and he was really working to crowd to get everyone motivated again.
Around 11AM we were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep before our 3 PM checkout and flights back home. It was a great weekend, and if you get the chance I would highly recommend checking out the Bal en Blanc sometime, it’s defiantly worth the trip to Montreal and the price of admission to the party. Cheers!
