Jimmy and the Giant Gay Party

Jimmy and the Giant Gay Party

Once upon a time there was a gay boy named Jeffrey. He wanted all his friends to get together for a party where they could drink, do drugs and casually have sex with each other without fear of reproach. So Jeffrey rented a few rooms at a small clothing optional hotel in Palm Springs for a weekend over Easter, and thus was born the White Party. White Party is the largest orgy/drug fest in the land. It began back in 1989. 15 years later, it has become a destination weekend for all the gays with hot bodies and expendable income. Palm Springs is still its home, only now, Jeffrey rents out entire resort hotels for up to 15,000 guests. The Palm Springs convention center becomes the centerpiece party, and sex and drugs are still to be had without fear of reproach, only now the competition is much stiffer.

This year, I attended White Party for the first time, and though I didn’t get laid, I did meet lots of potentials. My dance card is filling up as they say. I arrived Friday in Palm Springs and checked into my hotel room with grand schemes in my head and trashy underwear in my suitcase. As it turns out, I never wore any of the underwear I brought and the schemes I had cooked up weren’t nearly as dirty as they could have been. It turns out that gays only love three things: sex, drugs and dancing. White Party brings these three loves under one roof, making dance floors into orgies, hotel rooms into crack dens, Gay boys into men. Beginning at 9PM on Friday, there was a dance party to go to every hour of the day until Monday at noon. Some of it was fabulous, some of it was ghetto fabulous, and some of it was just ghetto. There were themed pool parties, themed after-hours parties that began at 3 in the morning and themed outfits worn by many guests. Obviously there wasn’t much eating. When you are on your second 8 ball of coke and your 5th Ecstasy pill, the mere mention of food is nauseating. I had my ‘last supper’ at 6pm on Friday, took a disco nap for 45 minutes, spent two hours getting ready for the opening party, did a few lines of blow, filled my bumper with the rest of my nose candy and went off to get off.

I underestimated how much sex you can have in 72 hours. When the most clothing anyone is wearing is a Speedo and a cockring, it is hard not to accidentally get laid, even while you are waiting in line for say, a bottle of water. I was felt up, groped, fondled, violated and generally used at least 14,000 times, but all in a good way.

The first night of dancing: boys all hopped up. Beds all messed up. Hair all done up. Eyes all fucked up. As dance parties go, fairly tame. My friend Adam met a fireman who was 6’3” and 200 pounds of pure muscle. They went off for a quick romp and were back in just under 90 minutes. Apparently they weren’t the only ones getting busy that night because the next day, Saturday, the hotel confiscated every single blanket and bedspread in the entire hotel. All the beds were left with plain white sheets. I guess it’s easier to get shit stains and cum out of something you can bleach. Adam thought housekeeping just wasn’t finished with their job. But it turns out they were anticipating him getting an entirely other kind of job that night. It was a preemptive strike:

“Hello, housekeeping.”

‘Yes, excuse me, I’m in room 1309 and I think housekeeping didn’t finish our room. We’re missing our bedspreads and blankets.”

“Oh, yes sir, they did finish. We were told we had to remove all the bedspreads. From all the rooms.”

“What? So no one has a blanket or bedspread? In the entire hotel?”

“No sir.”

(Pause)

“Well, why not?”

“I think you know why sir. (Pause) Is there anything else?”

“Well, what do we do if we get cold?”

“I don’t know sir….I guess you could try huddling close together. That’s what got you in this position if the first place.”

I didn’t sleep at all Saturday night. I was dancing until 9AM and then I HAD to go straight to the pool to lay out, watch the boys in bikinis and get a beer. It was mayhem people. Sunday was spent lounging by the pool trying to get my eyelids to touch for a moment. I had stopped blinking altogether by about noon and soon gave up trying. I had a bottle of Visine in one of those beer hats with the tubes running down the sides, but instead of going into my mouth, they splashed gently into my eyeballs. It was very Clockwork Orange.

The last event I went to was the Tea Dance, an outdoor dance party beginning just before sundown and running into the early evening. It was in a large field just a block from the hotel. The party planners had erected an enormous dance floor and installed a giant Ferris wheel. If you have never ridden a Ferris wheel while high on Ecstasy, you oughta give it a go. The only thing about this party that rubbed me the wrong way was the field itself. It was made largely of dirt and hay, wood chips and condom wrappers. I was confused as to why all these fabulous queens felt it was okay to run around at a Renaissance Fair, but apparently they were all too cracked out to notice.

On the drive home I thought to myself, ‘gays are pretty cool. Sure they get Syphilis a lot, and make a lot of grandiose hand gestures and do a lot of illegal drugs and wear inappropriate bathing suits, but damnit if they don’t know how to have a good time!’

Jimmy