On Atlantic City, Deliverance Daddy and Making Our Mark on One Trashy Town

“This place is usually dead. Then you guys showed up.”

Those words were uttered at Westside, Atlantic City’s only gay bar. They were uttered by some man we came to know only as a Deliverance Daddy. They were uttered some time after we polished off a bottle of vodka and some point before I broke a bartender’s heart. They are words that speak volumes about the weekend that ushered in the third decade of my life.

It began with a delayed flight and a greyhound bus. It ended with us jumping and screaming at the Madonna concert, a mere 30 feet from the Queen of Pop herself. What fell in between was a string of mishaps and mayhem, situations that should have dampened our spirits. But our spirits were not to be dampened. Instead of frustration and anger, we met each twist and turn of the weekend with laughter.

When my glasses were the victim of a dance floor collision and no one in the state of New Jersey knew where we could get them fixed, we marveled at fact that the nearest LensCrafters was 30 minutes outside of Atlantic City. When the only affordable dinner option we could find on a Friday night was Hooters, we giggled over the poorly written menu as the men around us ogled the poorly covered rear ends of the wait staff. When we walked the deserted boardwalk only to find that Atlantic City’s hottest nightclub was not open on Fridays, we simply took a cab to the one and only gay bar the city had to offer.

And that’s where the magic kicked into high gear. That is where we heard the words that came to define our weekend in Atlantic City.

“This place is usually dead. Then you guys showed up.”

We showed up and we brought the party with us. Two witty gay men from Chicago took over Atlantic City and gave the people something to talk about. The dance floor at Westiside has surely never seen the likes of us. The LensCrafters in Hamilton Mall will certainly never forget dealing with us. Even the event staff at Boardwalk Hall got a taste of us that will remain with them for a while.

My time in Atlantic City was everything I needed it to be. It was magnificently trashy. It was full of absurd situations. It was populated with the kind of people I could never make up. It was the kind of weekend that was made for me.

It was peppered liberally with bad luck and bad fashion. It was bursting at the seams with laughter. It was occasionally too drunk to stand upright. It offered up love, sex and showers with strangers. And it was capped with a concert experience like no other.

I’d say it was the most genius way for me to ring it what is sure to be the best part of my life to date.