The Listener's Choice Awards

On Saturday night, Mikey and I attended The Listener's Choice Awards where I was nominated for my weekly live web show, The Young & the Curious. Despite the chaos and disorder of the event, Mikey and I had an absolute blast! I can't explain why, but when he is with me, I can be in the middle of the most miserable experience and somehow we're able to see the bigger picture and laugh at the entire thing in the moment instead of waiting to laugh looking back later. He used to accompany me to shit like this all the fucking time and I hope he starts to come more because it was an awesome reminder of how much fun we actually have in the middle of these situations.

Though the show was not to begin until 8:00 pm, I arrived at 5:00 pm for my scheduled sound check with Wankus. I was to perform "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as a tribute to KSEXradio founder Mike Rick and his family before they presented The Mike Rick Award. Wankus told me he was going to be there from noon on, but according to my fellow KSEX employees, he had not yet arrived and had been unreachable. Great. Fantastic. I couldn't rehearse either because he had my music.

Who was rehearsing though was the band Slapback and Lay-Z Bone (formerly of Bone Thugs 'n Harmony) -- and let me just say, Slapback is fucking off the hook. They made a new gay fan. Not only is their music hot as fuck, but so is their drummer and that singer with the cane. Fuckin' yummy! You should all check them out.

However, that said, their music is um... different than the "taste of cabaret" I was slated to perform. Here they were performing loud, rockin' music that would get the party started and the crowd hopping... only to have me follow them to sing a Christmas carol to a dead man with a midi file tinkling in the background. Oh, hell no! I was starting to panic. Where is Wankus? Where is my music? Where is my rehearsal? Why isn't the drummer naked?

While waiting for Godot to arrive, I met this hot girl named Katurah who was following Sunny Lane around for a special Primetime Live was doing on the porn industry. Apparently, whoever she'd been covering thus far was dullsville because I had her in stitches and she said, "I so wish I would have met you three weeks ago. I would've followed you around too." Just my luck, she was going back home to New York the next day. Oh well. I told her I'm coming to New York in a couple of weeks to host The Gay Erotic Expo and we might hang while I'm there.

Wankus showed up about 45 minutes before the show was supposed to start -- without my music. He looked stressed, anxious, unnerved and he wasn't blinking a whole lot either! He had a lot on his plate to deal with, I know, and he said he was sorry he'd missed the sound check and forgotten the music but that he could have someone bring it from his house. I told him I'd rather skip it because we hadn't had a chance to rehearse it, figure out the staging, timing, and so far every time someone got on those microphones there had been tons of feedback. So, I said let's just forget about it.

...Until I saw that it had been printed in the program! Jason Sechrest to perform. Fuck! Now people were going to be expecting it!

When I approached Wankus about it right before the show, he said it was too late to have someone bring it from his house now but that he could find someone to play it on the keyboard "or something." What?!? In what key? What arrangement? Without rehearsal? Look, I don't mean to be a diva but this a tribute to a dead man we all love and adore! We don't want to fuck it off or have it come off half-assed even. No. Forget it. I just accepted it's not going to work and moved on with my evening.

Outside, I noticed fellow KSEXradio host Batman was working the red carpet, doing on-camera interviews and I have to say he was doing a fucking great job too! He is really good at what he does and I was impressed. He was carrying all of the interviews himself practically. Total snooze fest. So I jumped up there and acted like I was on crack and started making up stories about how my boyfriend and I haven't slept in six days, saying this was the biggest night of the year, waving as though there was a huge audience and pretending to spot Sharon Stone.

The funniest part though was when I started screaming for Stormy Daniels to come join me, getting what small crowd there was to applaud until she would and screaming, "STORMY DANIELS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"

She finally came up and said, "Um... I'm not Stormy. I'm Monica Mayhem."

Oh. And yet, I won the award for Best Insight into the Adult Biz later that evening. Yes, because I'm so informed!

"Well, you're both English!" I shouted.

"No, she's not English. And I'm actually Australian."

"Oh. Well you both speak English!"

At this point, I had her start reciting lines from A Cry in the Dark, saying, "A dingo stole my baby! A dingo stole my baby!"

On my way in, Billy Glide's manager stops me and is angry at me for not pulling Billy up on camera with me. "You want me to pull Billy up on camera with me, hire me as his publicist!" I shot back. Reporters started scribbling, which I found just hilarious. I never get more attention than I do at straight porn functions for some reason. "Look, this is a straight porn show, no one wanted to see me up there, much less me and Billy Glide!"

Inside, Monica Mayhem and I met up and had a good laugh over what had happened outside and shared a bit of gossip. Jack Lawrence sat down to eat with us. A beautiful woman who works in the photo department for AVN came up to tell me how she's a huge fan of mind and served as my bodyguard for the rest of the night, telling people, "He's too important to talk to you." Jason Sinclair and I got reacquainted as he told me he's over dating and has been with "two crazy porn bitches" so far. It was good to see fellow longtime KSEX hosts Lorraniac and Cuz Fucker too as we sat back and watched poor Wankus running around getting the mikes set up, getting the awards in place, getting the stage set, getting the hosts prepped and looking desperately for tiles to scrub with a toothbrush.

I also ran into Julia Ann, more commonly referred to on this site and on my program as "crazy Julia Ann." She was with her new man, an older gentleman, very conservative looking and dressed like he was going to a governor's ball compared to the rest of us. Though she was sweet and said it was nice to see me, she was also pretty blatant in confronting me about the things my guests have said about her on my show in the past. "You led them on," she snapped. And she's right. I did. I'd heard too many stories from too many people and they were all just too fucking funny not to tell them, Julia. Everything from you storming into Digital Playground and burning the footage of your first interracial to trying to burn Tera Patrick's hotel room down with a curling iron. I mean, come on. These are gems too precious to waste. I told her I was sorry, but of course not sorry enough to make another joke about her on he mike after I won my award! Thank God she's big enough to take it all in stride and not like... I don't know, try to poison my dog or something!

Anyway, the show was hosted by Sunset Thomas and Kent Wallace with Wankus's voice booming from the sound booth, sounding like an auctioneer. The sound system was for shit and a lot of us couldn't hear or understand what was going on most of the time. It was starting to resemble the FOXE Awards far more than LCA's in years past. The good thing though is that the show went so fast! Namely because most of the porn stars who won were not there to accept their award and make speeches.

When I won my award, I came up to the podium and noticed Sunset was wearing a blue dress heavy on the sequins, so of course the first thing out of my mouth was, "Wow! I was actually going to wear that same dress tonight, Sunset." At which point, she leans into the microphone and says, "IIIIIIIIIIII was hoping to... SUCK IT!"

... Mmmmmmm kay. Ladies and gentlemen, Anna Nicole Smith! ...Right?

"Thank you so much," I said from the podium. "And thanks to everyone who actually showed up! There's so many great porn stars out tonight. Tyler Faith is here. Monica Mayhem. Julia Ann is here with her husband, the Senator. ... I can't tell you how much this means to me because it's the Listener's Choice Award. And that means that you listened. And you choose. And now you have awarded. Me. With your choice. From when you listened. And because you choose, I have an award. Thank you for listening. And for choosing. Enjoy your evening."

On the way out, I was stopped by a couple listeners of my show who purchased tickets for the awards and said they came all the way from Wisconsin. "Seeing your jokes on the red carpet and seeing you win was worth it alone," one of them said.

Wow, you straight folk sure know how to make a gay guy feel special! ;-)

Some of the photos below are courtesy LukeIsBack.com and CelebrityViews.com. Thanks so much for capturing the moment to perfection, guys!