I got my new computer yesterday! I’m so psyched, even though we’ll all be dead by next week.

I wish someone had told me how odd this site looks on a 1024 x 768 monitor using Internet Explorer 6.

I forgot to write about my gay gallery tour last Saturday afternoon. A friend of mine had read about a tour of Chelsea art galleries for gay men. You pay 15 bucks for a whirlwind tour of 10 galleries in two hours.

It turned out that the tour was organized by the Date Bait Guy. If you live in New York and you’ve gone to Date Bait, you know who I mean. The guy who runs Date Bait, who’s probably a nice man and who probably doesn’t deserve to be made fun of by me without his knowledge but of whom I will now make fun anyway, has thinning gray hair and a paunch and is kind of greasy-looking. At Date Bait, he charges you $15 to stand up and humiliate yourself and get maybe two or three matches for dates, whom you will see maybe twice at most and then never speak to again. If 60 people show up for Date Bait, the guy makes 900 bucks, with little overhead cost. And he does this twice a month. It’s ingenious, really.

My friend knew that Date Bait Guy was also Gay Gallery Tour Guy, and I think he told me this, but I must have suppressed it.

We met at the appointed gallery at the appointed time. Gay Art Gallery/Date Bait Guy was there, of course, and he energetically asked us to sign the sign-in sheet and pay 15 bucks, just as energetically as he’d asked me on three prior occasions to sign the Date Bait sheet and pay 15 bucks. He was wearing this little holster on his belt that held what looked like a hot pink phallic aluminum flashlight. I wasn’t sure why. It was sunny out.

I surveyed the crowd. It wasn’t just gay men — there were some straight couples, too. I grimaced, because this would mess with my cruising karma.

Once everyone was signed in and ready, Gay Art Gallery/Date Bait Guy began his spiel. He said that he visits 100 galleries a month and selects what he thinks are the ten most worthwhile exhibitions. One hundred galleries a month? I guess when you’re a Date Bait/Gay Art Gallery Entrepreneur, you don’t need a day job.

He said that he’d advertised his tour not just in gay publications, but also in some straight ones. Well, that explained the straight people. He then said that the tour was designed primarily for gay men. “I’m gay,” he said. Like that wasn’t totally obvious. “Not all of the artists whose work we’ll be seeing are gay, but some of them are, and I’ll point them out as we go along.” Well, that was a huge relief, because of course I judge each and every human being on his or her sexual orientation, and on nothing but his or her sexual orientation, including visual artists.

He handed out copies of the itinerary, in case anyone got lost.

He then whipped out the hot pink phallus, as well as a little baton with a ball on the end. These were apparently his signalling system. “One bell means I’m about to discuss the artwork.” Bing, he demonstrated, and it rang out clear as an elevator bell. Fourth floor. Ladies’ lingerie. “Two bells means we’re getting ready to leave.” Bing, bing. And then the tour began.

I recognized one of the attendees. He had scraggly brown hair and a brown mustache and Coke bottle glasses, and he walked very fast and had to be the first person into every gallery. He was creepy. It took me a while to place him, and then I realized I’d seen him at Date Bait before. At the Date Bait for 20/30somethings. He was about 45.

My friend and I abandoned the tour after the third gallery and went ahead on our own, printed itinerary in hand. It was kind of embarrassing to be part of the huge tour group, especially when I saw random hot guys who clearly weren’t part of the tour group, and also, the group moved too slowly.

We saw some pretty great art work, to Date Bait/Gay Art Gallery Guy’s credit. That alone was worth the 15 bucks. We saw geometric tiled paintings with guts exploding. We saw mobiles by Alexander Calder, and, while intently watching them, got intently watched by an unreasonably suspicious security guard, which was disconcerting, since we were the only two visitors in the whole gallery. (We wondered how he’d handle the 34-person tour group just minutes behind us.) We saw some wonderful photographs by Nan Goldin of couples, gay and straight, making love. We saw some fucked-up cartoon art. We saw a rug made entirely of Band-Aids. It was fun and worthwhile.

Now, not all of my blog entries are gay, but some of them are, and I’ll point them out as we go along.

Just follow the hot pink phallus…