jpinsd | TBRU wrap up in bite-sized morsels (Reply)

In the interest of not clogging up everybody's Friend's page, i've put each day behind a cut. Make sure to check out the full picture set on FLickr, too!

Thursday

Arrived a little early in Dallas, and Twittered I had landed.

About 5 minutes later, I get a txt from Mikey, and then a call from Matt, saying that Phil and Jay had just landed, and maybe we could share a cab ride to the hotel (just another example of how much the Yada's rock my world)

Met up with Jay and Phil, rode to the host hotel, told the cabbie I was in the Marriott that was supposed to be really close by... He drove me to the Marriott suites, about 2 ½ miles away. I had to take a cab BACK to the Marriott Residence Inn. The money I saved by sharing the cab with Jay and Phil was spent on the second cab taking me to the right hotel.

Did a quick change, met up with a buncha 619's, and headed to the Eagle. It's about 9:30 PM Dallas time, and all i've had to eat that day was a PB&J, and a breakfast bar. I'm HUNGRY! We arrive at the Eagle, and Dan and I head off looking for some food - any food.

Found a cool little Pizza place called "Pizza Patrón", and ordered a half pizza; yes, they actually have a half pizza on the menu! Munched that outside while talking to Dan about some cool places to visit in Mexico.

Get in to the Eagle about 10:15 or so. About 10:30-ish, I'm approached by a guy telling me I should sign up for the out-of-town portion of the bear contest later that night. At first I thought "no freakin' me. me? nah!"... then I thought "what the hell. Why not?". So i entered!

.. and then I ordered a ton of beer, and a couple shots of tequila (Patrón silver. Kind of a theme happening, dontcha think?) to have the nerve to actually get up on that stage.

The contest eventually starts, and the drag queen emcee. comes out on stage, and lip sinks some song (no idea what, couldn't hear her anyway), and yes, her tits were candles, and yes, they were on fire.

She starts calling up the contestants. The first guy is this ultra-hot daddy from New Orleans. I'm next, then a bunch of other people. The hot New Orleans guy (Matt) and I are chatting and making comments about the MC, and the other folks. Somewhere along the way, he says to me "ok, on the count of three, we turn around and moon the bar".

... which is exactly what we did :-)

Matt ended up tying for first place with some cute cubbie from somewhere - i wasn't paying attention.

A few more drinks, then back to the hotel for 5 hours sleep before our Museum trips.

Before falling asleep, I thought "It's my first night here, and already I'm totally wasted, entered a bear contest, and dropped my shorts and mooned an entire crowded bar of bears. Not too bad for my first bear run ever!"

Friday

Drove to downtown Dallas, and wandered around some of the museums in Dallas.

Brian, Paul, Carlos, and I decided to take the DART over to lunch. All 4 ticket vending machines at the stop we were at were broken. All four! We decided to live on the edge, and hop on the trolly anyway. We were only going 2 stops, anyway. If a ticket taker came along, Paul was going to fake some kind of medical emergency, and I was going to do the EMT thing and try to help him, then we get off at the next stop. Fortunately, we didn't have to do that. hehe.

We gathered at a Chipotle's for lunch, and saw some Hare Krishna's chanting and marching and passing out flyers for their temple and vegetarian restaurant. If you've never been to a Krishna restaurant, I highly recommend it, even if you're not a vegetarian. It's totally yummy.

We headed over to "The Grassy Knoll", and the sixth floor museum. The line to get in was freaking long, and there were signs everywhere saying "no smoking, no firearms, and no photography". Matt and I decided that we did NOT want to check our cameras at the line, so we were just gonna wander around outside, and try to get some pictures and stuff there.

Had a great time talking to Matt about photography, and learned some very cool things. We wandered all over, and got some shots of nouns (people, places, and things).

Went back to the hotel, and I took a little disco nap for about an hour or so. Met up with Tim and Matt (thefreek) and Dan, and headed out to get dinner, then back to the hotel and over to a "private" house party; only about 300 people were there, so it wasn't that private. hehe. The only requirement was to bring a 6 pack of non-domestic bear.

After the house party, we headed over to The Roundup for dancing. The Roundup is such an interesting place! All kinds of people: bears, twinks, lesbians; people dressed for clubbing, and people dressed for clogging. Heh, ok, maybe not clogging, but there was a lot of cowboy hats and boots and attire there.

They played some typical night-club dance tunes, and then switched over to country/western stuff. and switched off every 5 songs or so. It was wild seeing people country dancing, line dancing, doing the two-step, twirling around the dance floor, and all those other dance-styles that I just don't see here in San Diego at any of the clubs I go to.

I was really impressed with the huge gamut of people, styles, and interests there.

Saturday

Slept in a little, then headed to a pizza lunch with Mikey, Matt, and Chuck. As we're finishing lunch, Matt is talking about picking up guys, and how's it been going for me. I finally have to admit to it; i have no 'game'. The three of them spend the rest of lunch giving me all kinds of tips on how to get somebody's attention, and how to tell if somebody is interested in me. I'm actually touched. I mean.. I'm 41 years old, and I still don't know this stuff. They just took me under their wings, and showed me some things to try. I love those guys :-)

We head back to the hotel, and Chuck and i wander off to do some shopping. I check in on Mikey to see what he's up to; he's making jello and pudding shooters for the party that afternoon in their room. The party was good, lots of Jello and pudding shooters (which I didn't try. pudding shooters just seems like asking for a puke-fest, to me).

We went to The Black Eyed Pea for dinner, where they had chicken fried everything. Not kidding, folks, they even had chicken fried corn on the cob. It was... interesting. The fried pickles were delish, of course. I ended up just having a baked potato with "cheese sauce" (actually cheddar cheese soup) and broccoli, and a salad. Since Black Eyed Peas is pretty much a meat and fried food paradise, there really wasn't much for me to eat there. Didn't matter, tho. I still had a great time chatting with some new buds.

After dinner, I headed back to the hotel with Ron for a quick "potty break", before hitting the clubs again.

We met up outside the hotel, and got on the shuttle to come back. The shuttle stopped at one of the overflow hotels and picked up some more people. One guy that got on board was.. well... how do I describe this... hmmm....

Every gay man has an inner black girl. This guy had an inner black diva, and she was totally busting out! His voice was naturally high anyway, and he had that southern' drawl, and he sounded like some take-no-shit black chick with attitude and everything. His voice alone was making Ron and I just giggle uncontrollably. I will say this: he was very funny anyway, but that voice just pushed us over the edge. It was all we could do not to just bust up laughing at him.

The shuttle, on the other hand, drove all over the state of Texas to get us to the crossroads. Holy chrizzist! I had to twitter about it.

We finally get to The Roundup. I get my nerve up, and do a few laps around the place, trying to practice all the tips and advice the boys gave me earlier that day.

Waddaya know, I actually got a couple positive reactions. And more important, I now know what it means when others do the same towards me. hehe.

There was a lot of beer, and a lot of kissing, and a whole lot of talking people. The place was even more crowded. There were so many times I could not even move. I kind of hit a saturation point about 11:00, but did my best to ignore it, and hang out anyway. I ended up leaving the bar some time after 1:00 am, and went back to the hotel.

Sunday

Starting to feel the effects of all this partying. Slept in past 10 AM, but met up with a bunch of bearzez and headed over to Zini's for a pizza / pasta lunch on Easter Sunday. Of course, I wore Dave's excellent bunny shirt. After lunch, we stopped in at Skivvie's, where I got my new hat and pimpin' sunglasses.

We stopped in a coffee shop for some caffeine goodness. The woman behind the counter loved my bunny shirt, and asked if she could take a picture of it. I said " sure!", and all three of the people there just rushed over, whipped out their phones, and snapped pictures of my shirt. I ended up talking to one of the women about her website, t-shirts, design and stuff.

We decided to head over to "The Open Sore"... er... i mean "The Hidden Door" a little early for the beer bust.

As a former smoker, I really am happy to live in California where there is no smoking inside anymore. The Hidden Door was SO nasty-smoky inside at 2:30 pm. ugh. Fortunately, we were headed out to the back patio.

This had to have been the craziest beer bust i've ever been to in my life (not that I've been to that many, mind you. But still...). So many people, so many Jell-O shooters, so much man flesh.

So much fun. I had a great time that afternoon, and an even greater evening. ;-)

We ended the evening going out to dinner at Café Brazil again. While there, we were sitting next to this really loud twink from Tragicstan; he must have been tweaking, or on something. He was talking trash to somebody on the phone, and very very loud, paying no attention to all the nasty stares everybody was sending his way. He was just talking, and shoving food in his face. At one point I look over, and he's STILL on the phone while packing his dinner into a carry-out box. A few moments later, the waitress came over, and asked if he was still around. When we said it looked like he had left, she said something like "dammit. that's the third guy to skip out on me today". Then she saw he had left his phone behind.

Tweaking twink boy was all clever enough to get a carryout box and pack up his food and leave while nobody was watching, but then fucked up by leaving an expensive phone behind. Classic!

We then headed back to the hotel. About 10:45 I felt like I needed to get just a little more TBRU fun in; maybe just an hour or so with some of my 619 peeps. I headed back out to Buddies II, where I thought everybody else was. Just before the shuttle arrives, I get a twitter saying that everybody is back at the hotel, and chillin' out. Oh well, I stay on the shuttle, and head back to Cedar Springs again. I get there, and just walk up and down the road, checking out all the clubs and stores on the street, stopped back in the coffee shop and got a water and a chocolate cookie, then headed back to the hotel.

Monday

Woke up, checked out of the hotel, and hung around with Mikey, Matt, Tim, the other Matt, and Chuck. Headed off to a Waffle House for lunch before getting on our flight home.

Observations about the trip

By Sunday morning, just about everybody was talking with a bit of a drawl. Lots and Lots of Ya'll's being tossed about.
I met so many fun and interesting people; more than I can possibly remember. Please don't feel insulted if I've forgotten your name, LJ-, and/or Flickr handle.
All of the locals I met and talked with were SO friendly! Granted, they were mostly all in the gay-friendly sections of town, but many weren't. Yay, Dallas!
Sometimes, you just need to say "Fuck it! Why the hell not?". You might just wind up on a stage with a bunch of other hot, shirtless guys, and having an awesome time! So what if you don't win? It's the journey that matters. And oh, what a journey it was :-)

I want to thank all the people I met, hung out with, and had fun with. Ya'll are such a great bunch of people!

Most of all, I want to send a great big huge Thank You and publicly acknowledge the awesomeness of Mike Yada / sluggobear. Starting a couple months ago, he's been planning things, providing information and help for people to get to TBRU, and things to do while we're there. Once in Dallas, he continued to be the 619 hub; texting us and keeping us in touch with what was happening, driving people to parties, and keeping us all moving on schedule. And he did it all with a smile on his face, and great humor.

Mike, you totally rock my world. This weekend would not have been a fraction as fun if it hadn't been for your hard work. Thank you so much.