Friday, June 1st 2007
Feeling A Little Grabby
Last weekend I participated in an event in Chicago known as IML, International Mr. Leather, a pageant of sorts for the leather community. It also happens to be the weekend that the Grabbys are held, an awards show for the gay adult film industry hosted by Gay Chicago Magazine.
For the first time I was honored to be one of the co-hosts this year along with Chi Chi LaRue, Honey West, Matthew Rush and the charming Kent North. Public speaking is not something that I do very often so I was very nervous for weeks right up until my first walk out on stage. I was lucky enough to have two very seasoned pros along side me guiding the stream of conversation at all times except for the two times that I was left to fend for myself with either Kent or Matt.
Upon arrival I found out that I was up for two and a half awards, Best Supporting Actor for Delinquents, Best Duo with Benjamin Bradley for our scene in Delinquents and Best Cock. I did not win any awards, but Doug Jeffries, the director of Delinquents walked away with three!
All things considered, I think I did pretty well as a host. As soon as we were introduced and brought out to the crowd we were left on stage for a bit to mingle together in front of the audience. There were three of us and only two microphones – both of which were been given to Matt and Kent by Honey and Chi Chi. I naturally assumed that because there were only two mikes that perhaps I had read something wrong and was not supposed to be up there, so I left. I began to walk off and I heard Matt say to Kent “Why did he leave?” so I returned to the front of the stage knowing that there had been some sort of error and pretended to speak into an imaginary microphone. The audience got the joke and I was relieved, but still without a microphone. This made the dialog between us somewhat difficult, luckily that was the only time that the three of us were on stage sharing the microphone.
As you may have guessed, I decided to make a shirt specifically for the event. Due to time restraints and plain old procrastination I had to put the finishing touches on the shirt at the hotel. Tyler Riggz called from upstairs when I was in the middle of studding my shirt with my Bedazzler. He asked me what I was doing and when he found out I had my Bedazzler he about creamed his pants. He makes jokes constantly about my tye-dyed wardrobe and things I make with my Bedazzler so to actually see the infamous machine was a treat. He asked me if there were more rhinestones and when I told him that there were 500, he was at my door dressed in a smile from ear to ear. This is what porn stars really do during their off time at gigs.