it’s all relative.

being straight.
drinking absinthe.
going out.
coming home early.
spending money.
dark rooms.
being naughty.

it’s all relative. i’m a good boy, ask anyone.

the past two summers i had triumphantly made my way to ibiza. the sun, the breeze, the music and the vibe. a yearly tradition-addiction that i felt i couldn´t prevent from reoccuring. till this year.

this year i had grand plans to rent an apartment on the island for a few months. sorta work, sorta play, and have all of my worldly and fabulous friends come and visit. but, it all went a bit pear shaped when i became pseudounemployed and was too lazy to make it happen.

just a week ago my superduperpartyfriend tye got a last minute hookup to visit the island, all expenses paid. all i´d have to do was get myself down there. so i did. so i am.

last night was by far the most spectabulous nights i´ve had at a club. even better than last year when i partied with roger sanchez during his 8-hour set at el divino. better than new years at heaven, even better than raves in the states.

around 1130pm, tye and i finished our coctails at cargo, one of the numerous gay bars along calle d. la virgens. hopped on the boat back to our apartment, and met up with scott, the lovely boy from nashville who was flown out from the states to open for paul oakenfold at superclub pacha. we get there just as the club opens, and chat with a very tanned chris lowe from the pet shop boys, and his very cute, very young friend. i show tye around and scott starts his set. after a few minutes, i realize that although scott has never been outside the usa before, he´s doing a near-perfect job of getting the main room of pacha bumping. atta boy.

cocktails in spain are lovely. take a vodka orange or vodka coke or vodka tonic, for example. tall glass, four large ice cubes, and a 4 or 5 second count of vodka goes in. i´d reckon maybe a triple, sometimes a quadruple shot. then, the bottle of your mixer is served next to you, and inevitably won´t fit into your glass.

we had three cocktails before getting to the club. bought a red bull & vodka upon entering. got comped a second rb&v. then got 8 drink tickets to help quench our thirst… ibiza is an expensive place (50euro club admission, 10 or 15euros per cocktail), so we were loving life at this point. needless to say, we were hating life today after consuming 20 gallons of pure grain alcohol. okay, so i exaggerate a bit.

paul oakenfold takes the decks, and the beautiful, sexy crowd is heaving. we´re loving life, giving him mad props and the respect that he deserves. most would call him the world´s best deejay… guess that´s a matter of opinion, but he is popular. the main event.

he takes a break a few hours into his set, buys us some more drinks, and gives us a handful of drink tickets. i joke, “has anyone ever told you that you´re a good deejay?” and he smiles. he´s nice, humble, funny and pleasant to his fans who are begging for autographs and photos. in the deejay booth, he resumes his set, chats with scott a bit and we leave him to it.

we were the first in the club, and the last to leave. we stumble back to our apartment across the street and let the red bull wear off. scott´s beaming, and eric´s content. that´s a proper night out in ibiza.

bank holiday was well spent in manchester with the boys. the thing with manchester is that it´s cheaper than london, friendlier than london, more modern than london and quite english (unlike international london).

our trip started out on a humorous start with mark re-learning how to drive a manual transmission on the hilly streets of north london. by the time we met up with mike and greg, it was a bit later than we had expected–we took a sneaky detour through birmingham and enjoyed britain´s lack of an open container law.

upon checking in on friday, we polished off some champers at the hotel and then hit the town. canal street was bumping, with all of the wonderfully spacious bars and lovely lads. much moreso than my last trip, i definitely was in a queer as folk mindset. while normally i consider myself a vince, and would like to be a nathan… that first night i was definitely a stuart. lovely.

saturday i woke up god knows where but managed to find my way home in the rain. got back to the hotel, and the boys and i polished off a few bloody marys at a restaurant just before the parade. mark spent the day with friends, so he missed out on the parade. the parade was alright as far as pride parades go, and the crowds were surprisingly diverse–lots of little old biddies and families to watch the fairly perverted spectacle of a parade.

i think our favorite bars were via fossa and spirit, and we frequented those daily and nightly. schlepped it off to some wonderfully awful school disco at poptastic, where the boys and i danced to the wee wee hours, finding yet another stoop to call our own.

sunday we had a delightful lunch with mark´s mum, which helps to explain where he gets his sensibility and good looks. elegant, classy and not intimidated by her son´s strange international friends.

attended the closing party for the paradise factory, and then scooted over to cruz 101 for some truly naughty dancing with the two lesbians that we had met our first night in town. around 4am we migrated to sub 101 and then called it a night around 6 or 7am.

at 9am we were all up and ready for our drive back to london. first, i had to be dropped off for my trip to stanstead…

last night, i met up with mark for our usual unusual weekly sporadic dinner. the plan was to meet up around leicester square around 6:30ish. i got there around 6:45, and mark mentioned that his cousin julie and boyfriend would be a bit late. the last time i had seen julie was the night that mark and i split up. doh!

we had a few drinks at ku bar, which is always a hoot. i discovered that several of their promotional posters on the wall, as well as the cocktails menu all feature far-too-familiar imagery stolen from the pages of xy magazine. i could probably blag some free drinks. or not.

as mark and i weave our way towards covent garden, we learn that julie and boyfriend will be delayed even further, as there is some barefoot person wandering up and down the tracks of the line they’re on. we go ahead and start dinner with out them at rizzi in covent garden. i remind mark of what a pleasure it is to dine with him, and we giggle about the fun we’ll have this weekend in madchester. julie and boyfriend show up just as we finish our meal at 10:00pm, just over 3 hours late.

we all proceed to friendly society, which is becoming a bit of a wednesday evening tradition. there, i meet up with xavior and we all crowd into the padded den of sin. we drink, we talk, and then go our separate ways. xavior have a date with nag nag nag, which is billed as a wednesday night electropunkpop gig at the ghetto.

i had high hopes, and quickly after blagging our way in ["oh, we were on the guestlist last  week"], i’m immediately overjoyed. oh, sheer delight! the crowd is beautiful, the attire is devine, and the music is spot on. during our first few minutes, they get through the stereotypical electro hits [fischerspooner, peaches] and just as they segway into “new life” by depeche mode, a huge smile creeps across my face. boys are wearing eyeliner, suspenders, and funny hats. girls are wearing blue eyeshadow, prom dresses and hoop earrings.

i swear on my autographed depeche mode record collection, the crowd was the best crowd i’d experienced in a long long time. sexy, chatty, fun, just perfecto. even boy george seemed relaxed and into it as he chilled by himself with a bottle of champagne, leaning against the red-and-silver-spraypainted bar of the ghettofabulous club. he had a bit of leigh bowery facepaint going on, but it suited him reasonably well.

my only regret was that i showed up looking like a wannabe american frat boy–jeans and a tshirt, with a particularly boring haircut. i was the square in the club last night, but that’s alright. there’s always next week.