As Mammy Told Scarlett...

Mammy knows best.

"You just get in trouble in Atlanta."

A good new friend of mine is taking his first trip to Atlanta and asked for advice. Apparently, he thinks I have stories to tell or wisdom to share.

For those of you who don't know. Atlanta might as well be the San Francisco of the South, for all the queers the city attracts. It was like Mecca the first time I visited. Gay bars for days. Rainbow stickers on cars. Men. HOT men.

The first time I had the chance to visit Atlanta was with HotAss for New Year's Eve. It was only our second excursion as friends. Our first had been to Southern Decadence. We were meeting his god-gay-parents there and they promised to show us a good time. I suspect I had a better time than he did. At the time, I had a major crush on HotAss's god-gay-father, and was hoping that he would leave his partner of 11 years for me. Ummm, not happening. Although, as luck would have it, they liked threesomes.

New Year's Eve came and we were oh-so-festive. We had intentions of hitting every bar in town but we started at Blake's, and after making friends with an elderly Danish woman in a pleated tennis skirt, we stuck around...for MANY gin and tonics. As the evening progressed, I couldn't remember how to sit on my barstool. HotAss needed to shake his groove thing at some point after midnight (go figure...that's why I call him HOTASS). I could barely find my groove thing.

HotAss went off to Backstreet. I went off with the gay-god-parents, hoping for a night of some crazy-freaky-circus sex.

Lesson #1: Never get up from a hot threesome to puke your guts out. It ruins the mood.

Lesson #2: Come up with a damn good excuse for why you're sleeping naked on your best friend's pillow.

Lesson #3: Shower before the four-hour trip home.

Lesson #4: No matter how great you think the music is, 10 years later, it's retarded. (See La Bouche's "Be My Lover" as an example.)