July 29th, 2011 - A Unexpected Good Time

You ever have one of those days where it turns out completely different than what you expected? Well, that was me yesterday and though I expected to have a good time, what I didn’t expect was the type of good time that I had.

A Barbecue in Brentwood

When I went to Circus the other night, my newest buddy Ozzie/Ruby invited me to his house for a barbecue on Friday. In the past I probably wouldn’t even have thought about it (I can be way shy when it comes to being in the company of people I don’t know), but I was actually looking forward to it. I asked my pal Laura Kim to go with me, but she cancelled on me in the morning and so I went by myself not knowing what to expect…well, judging from the popularity of Ms. Diamond, I did expect to meet a lot of new people.

Surprise, Surprise

As is my way, I got to Ozzie’s at 2:30, so as not to be the first one there, and I was surprised to see no cars in front of the house. I double checked the address he gave me and knew I was in the right place so I went on to the front door from where I could hear dance music blasting.

“Hey, come on in!” Ozzie seemed a little disappointed and maybe a little disheveled from cleaning. He had been cleaning and wasn’t totally ready for his company, none of whom had shown up yet.

I went inside and we shot the breeze as Ozzie cleaned the bathroom, defrosted the ground beef, fixed the burgers and whatnot. He’s a very easy person to talk to and before you knew it it was like 5 p.m. Still, no one had shown up.

“It’s all my fault,” Ozzie was like, “whatever!” He had originally scheduled his ‘cue’ for Thursday, and invited a lot of people, but when he changed it he hadn’t told everybody, so… Anyway, at least we knew his friend Jeremy was on his way from Brooklyn, so there would be at least three of us.

A Life

Without divulging too much information out of respect to Mr. Ozzie’s privacy, I will say he’s had quite the life to this point. He shared a lot of his story…spirituality and confusion….marriage……more confusion...long term relationship with a guy afterwards, and so on. During our conversation he mentioned a night at Circus that had been very special to him. It was on a night called “Spirit Day,” and it was all about bullying, especially LGBT bullying. Anyway, he let me watch it as he went to get Jeremy from the train station.
The video moved me. Ozzie began as Ruby, and as he told his own poignant personal story of growing up different, he transformed himself back to Ozzie, and it was truly touching. I’m posting it here for you to see.



I like Ozzie’s way of looking at things…I haven’t known too many drag queens too well, one or two maybe, and so I can’t imagine how much more they have to deal with than the ordinary gay person. From the way he puts it, drag queens even get it from those in the gay community (tsk tsk!). But, to him, Ruby’s just a character, like in a movie or a play, and deep inside he’s simply Ozzie. Now ain’t that the truth Ruth!

And then there were three...

Finally Ozzie showed up with his friend Jeremy, who I met at Cherry Grove last Saturday. Jeremy’s cool, too, and it ended up just being the three of us for the rest of the night. That was okay, though. Jeremy is really into dance music, like me, and I got to listen to lots of good stuff (for which I will now be broke after my next trip to iTunes, thank you very much Mr. J!), and Ozzie, well, I told him and it’s true that he’s the kind of person I feel like I’ve known a very long time even though I’ve known him barely a month. It was a great time with two great guys!

After what I thought would be a couple of hours spent at Ozzie’s barbecue, I ended up leaving around 11:30. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess. Now I’ve got two new friends to add to my circle, and I look forward to getting to know them better and sharing some more good times together. Thanks Ozzie!

Okay, he might kill me for this, but here's a Cam Wow pic I took of Ozzie last night, hehe:


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