Just ask Paris Hilton, who, with nasty old Carmen Electra in tow, just accepted doe-eyed-sex-princess kudos for "best celebrity DJ" at South Beach's seminal (and semen-filled) annual Dancestar awards ceremony. Everybody has a little DJ in them, apparently. We keep it close in the cupboard with the BJ, the PB&J and the OJ, so long as we've got a little vodka to keep said citrus in its rightful, balance-challenging place. Which is exactly where I find myself on this particular Friday night, OJ'd into partial abandon, with no thoughts of Nicole Brown Simpson to trouble me into a glove, a knife, or even an SUV.
Nope, it's just downtown Orlando for this unwilling gadabout practicing a little spinning of his own (of the head variety), and the promise of a Playboy DJ soiree at the big Beacham hole, which is now taboo enough to be called Tabu for reasons only Mark Nejame and Backstreet Howie can justify. And can they? Really?
In order to prepare myself for the glory that will be the replacement of turntable styluses with the extra-hard nipples of silicone support, a gaggle of gays and myself decide to pop our heads into the bizarro world of the Independent Bar, where we've been invited to celebrate the 600th birthday of the forever fabulous Laraine Gardner, the owner's wife since the Thompson Twins weren't really twins but were really cool. Y'know, when they called it Barbarella's, and everybody snickered and sniffled at the ultracool Duran Duran reference. Orlando is very easily entertained. Or, wait. Is it just me?
"What's that screaming? You know, a good many serious situations begin with screaming," I Jane Fonda while nobody cares. I just want razor-toothed dolls to come and devour my fishnets, really. Because I always do.
No fishnets or dolls in sight, though, unless you count perennial drag persona Tweeka, whose crooning of "That's Life" carries enough irony to make cereal seem like a dietary staple, even at this hour. By Sinatra's end, Tweeka is thrusting what appears to be Frosted Flakes on the audience of secondhand socialites, and I'm thinking I should have eaten something before plopping my Barbarella ass into another downtown decline.
Superfriend Julian Baine catches my concern and slaps me back to life with a humbling reminder that I'm on assignment and not simply placed in this particular region of hell to fall apart (again). Before I can slur the word "Bazooka," I've somehow acquired a paddle-ball mechanism -- you know, the kind intended to keep the latchkey kids aware of their futility in the '70s -- and am trying to rekindle whatever that skill was of making the paddle actually hit the ball and the rubber band all seem worthwhile. Like sands through the hourglass, though, these are the ends of the Days of Our Lives. The paddle never reaches the ball. (Later I'll find a package of jacks -- with their own ball -- in my pocket and wonder whether futility is so bad after all.)
On to the main event, then, two stumbles and a spit over to Tabu, where I am to await Playboy magazine's 50th anniversary Playmate, Colleen Shannon, Miss January 2004. (And I thought I was Miss January 2004 when I put staples through my midsection and squeezed my nipples for dramatic effect). Shannon, however, is -- by some measure unimportant to me -- "the sexiest DJ in the world." (Paris Hilton, apparently, is just the one who has the most sex.) Anyway, Shannon is sidesaddled by Roxanne Siordia -- likewise of Playboy note for winning the 50th anniversary cover-model search and something called the "hometown hottie" hookup with the always enjoyable Maxim Magazine folk. Siordia boasts such mantel-warming trophies as "Miss World Superbike 2004" and is to star in upcoming Oscar contender "Car Wash."
Joining our cast of busty blusters are the Umbrella Girls Models (which, I guess means that they cover everything), and my favorite-named dynamic duo, the Ikki Twins -- named because their names are Rikki and Vikki, and sadly, darling, not Nikki. (Thinking about the whole thing makes me feel, well, icky.)
Fortunately, Orlando's own Parker Posey -- Amy Stanton of the Tabu persuasion and an umbrella all unto herself -- is wandering in the distance, awaiting my arrival. One of my gaggle-fags decided to sport a Navarro-esque do-rag and is being hassled at the door. With the level of alcohol flipping my own psychological breathalyzer, I'm running around splashing credentials to make sure he can keep it on despite Tabu's upscale dress-coding. Credentials be damned, he can't. But to make up for it, Stanton drops a heavy load of magic drink tickets -- far stronger than my credentials -- to soothe the burn. It's like Willie Wonka, only without that constipating chocolate, that annoying Veruca bloat, or Gene Wilder's hair.
We're all happy, except that we're placed in endless wait mode. Turns out the ladies of the night have been held up by the chaps and slaps of Bike Week 45 minutes to our east. And, well, reportedly the Ikki twins like to primp a lot. (Icky.)
So, I'm forced to drink. And drink. And, you guessed it, drink some more. By the time we're plopped into some ornate, velveteen king and queen thrones in the lobby, the whole lot of my posse is looking like a spinning, smeared painting.
When the girls finally arrive at 1:30 (or 15:75, as it appears on my spinning cell phone), I'm in no condition to court them. Which is fine, because I'm a credential-carrying faggot who thinks breasts are something to get in the way of my keyboard and ruin my career as a faggot.
Virtually unapproachable, mostly because my legs are virtual packets of McDonald's ketchup, I am able to catch glimpses of black leather pants -- both Colleen and Roxanne sporting olde English-style lettering of "Playboy" across their asses. Colleen, trendily enough, cocked (heh) a pink trucker hat to the side, hoping perhaps for a layover at a truck stop. Turns out Roxanne was all business and no girlie glee, but Colleen was, as Stanton would later describer her, "bubbly," talking about important issues such as DJs in Miami (Paris?) and LA who provided her with the mixes that would make her boobs bounce throughout her set. Oh yeah, and the crowd, too. "She even carried her own record box," said Stanton, without a touch of irony.
Wow, DJ'ing is hard. But not nearly as hard as writing about it.