I'm a terrible gay

While Plus One Mark was relaxing out on Fire Island, taking in the Tonys (which is being touted as arguably one of the best in years), I was hosting my Dirty Pop party down at Stonewall. I can't tell you how sad I was about this.

I was able to catch five seconds of the grandiose opener before flying out my door to the subway. I was then lucky enough to grab the tail-end of Next to Normal's performance when I ducked into Pieces for a quick madras (and a weird stare-down from some buggy-eyed bald guy in a suit).

It was there that I realized that the Tonys really are the gay superbowl. When the girl from West Side Story (my gay card has been sent to the shredder) won, the gays around the bar erupted in cheers that scared me, and almost grabbed the attention of the creepy buggy eyed guy who would NOT STOP STARING AT ME. No, seriously. He was fully spun on his stool and STARING at me. I felt like I was in the beginning of a new David Lynch movie (the red lights dangling everywhere certainly helped the scene.)

And then, as I ran around the space chatting and dispensing of drink tickets, I was able to grab a passing glance of the awards on MUTE - which the owners were generous enough to keep on for me and the few theater queers who weren't singing along with the Chris Sieber number from Shrek at giant apartment parties.

Oh, and I had my friend Joe sending me text updates in digest form. I have to commend him, he did a fabulous job. I'm pretty sure that there are services that do the same thing he did for profit. Thank God I got to him before he got wind of his marketable talent.

So I will be watching the Tonys in an interesting way. Performances first, when I go to Musical Mondays tonight and the VJ puts all the new songs into the video rotation. Then any meaningful speeches via YouTube. And then I may have a bunch of go-go boys and promoters over to watch the Tonys on DVR. Sure we know the winners already, but we might as well get a shot at seeing the show, right?

And now all that remains to be seen is HOW WELL DID THE TONYS DO LAST NIGHT IN THE RATINGS? To be honest, this is the most nerve-wracking part for me. Sure I wanted Next to Normal (dammit!) to win best musical. But what I really want is deliverance (ah hay-eee-yay-ee-yay... sorry Alanis moment). What I really want is for the Tonys to have nabbed a few more viewers this year.

Let's see how that plays out.

OH and a few weeks ago, I penned an article for my theater column on Homo-Neurotic where I mentioned things the Tonys must do to get an audience. The big one? More musical performances! And guess what? There's a poll on the Tonys site, asking people what they liked most about the show. And the answer? THE ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES!

Just kidding. Toldja so.