Premiere

Okay, first of all, no more Queer as Folk screening parties for me. I forget how extremely embarrassed I get watching, uh, "sexually-oriented" material with large groups of people, and spent half the ep hiding in the kitchen, and the other half braced to go flee to the kitchen. Thank God for VCRs. And the only reason I'm telling you is because RedDev said that if I didn't, she would. Stop laughing, RD. Knock it off, I have to do the recap.

So, Showtime opens with this, like,thousand-word disclaimer which basically translated to: "ATTENTION EVERYONE ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET EVERYWHERE: In no way, shape or manner are all the Naked Gay Men meant to offend you!" For half a minute there, I thought I was going to have to sign a waiver. And yes, in my world, "Naked Gay Men" is capitalized. Get used to it.

The opening credits are an onslaught of pastel neon colors, against which muscle-bound men wearing various types of not much and the occasional cowboy hat -- they show up a lot in QaF so we'll just call them the Hot Dancing Gay Boys -- writhe frenetically to a pumping techno beat.

And now we're in Babylon, a gay club in Pittsburgh. And what did I tell you, it's Hot Gay Dancing Boy Central! Sweaty, gorgeous, half-naked men as far as the camera can pan. Man, I gotta tell you -- I love my life. Over a disco mix of "Can you Feel It?" originally by the Jackson Five, Hal Sparks voice-overs, "It's all about sex...they say that men think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. Of course with gay men, it's every nine...and that's why we're here at one in the morning, instead of home in bed."

Cut to a blank-looking demi-god standing at the bar. "That's me," Michael says, "...I wish." The camera jets down the bar to Hal Sparks. "This is me. Michael Novotny, the cute boy--door type. Twenty-nine, 5'10", 140, 9 and a half, cut -- all right, so I exaggerate." The sly eyebrow-raise at the end gets a chuckle. I'm not made of stone, here. If you amuse me, I laugh.

Michael's standing between two other men -- one tall, dressed in a tight orange midriff-revealing shirt and what looks like magenta leather pants -- Emmett -- and the other a nebbish-looking guy in a polo and jeans. That would be Ted. As the music switches to a club mix of "Let's Hear it for the Boy," Emmett asks the others, "Since when did '70s night become '80s night?" Personally, I'm bracing myself for "'90s night," at which point I will officially declare myself dead. Emmett's musing leads to group nostalgia about disco music, which leads to an off-key but spirited group rendition of "I Love the Night Life," which is interrupted when yet another gorgeous and mostly naked man walks past. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" Emmett sighs. "Venice. At Sunset," Ted replies, not meaning it. And wrong, too. "Well," Emmett snaps, "you go down the Grand Canal. I'll go down on him." I like Emmett. "Emmett's campy, but you have to admire him," Michael voice-overs. "These days, it's not easy being a Queen among commoners." Tell me about it. The tiara cleaning fees alone...As they are passed by still another off-duty Hot Dancing Gay Boy, Ted, sounding remarkably like a fifteen-year-old boy complaining about the cheerleader who snubbed him, gripes about "perfection's inability to recognize anything but itself." Emmett calls it -- Ted hit on that particular HDGB, and got shot down. Snicker. Michael voice-overs, "Ted...has a really big heart. But nobody here is interested in that organ." Well, what organ are they -- oh. Never mind. Sorry, I usually think of that as an appendage. ["Oh. Not the brain, then." -- Wing Chun]

Michael continues talking about how it's all about the sex, until you have sex, and then you worry about the sex you're having. Unless you're Brian Kinney, Michael says. Cut to a young man, cruelly beautiful in a tight blue t-shirt and jeans, dancing with a mesmerized HDGB, "Then it's, 'Who gives a fuck? You're lucky to have me.'" Brian grabs the HDGB by the front of his pants and drags him to a back area separated from the dance floor by thick chain-link curtains. Michael, inexplicably, decides this is the best time to tell Brian that they need to go home.

Michael pushes past the silver-spangle-speedoed masses -- like I could make that up -- into a red-lit room in which a lot of men are having all kinds of sex. GAY sex. So, just in case you were wondering when it was going to get "shocking," wake up. We're here.

Michael, after casually greeting another, uh, occupied friend of his, finds Brian and growls, "It's late. Let's go!" The HDGB already has Brian's zipper down, so I'm thinking that's not going to happen. Brian says, "I'm just going to give him my number." "What did you do, write it on your dick?" Michael snaps back. I lose my train of thought wondering if he was able to include the area code. And, wait, if he gives him his work phone, then there's probably an extension number, too! Huh? Oh, right. Recap.

Outside Babylon, Emmett and Ted wait for Michael and Brian to emerge. Emmett's rating and greeting all the drag queens: "Not everybody can wear tangerine," he tells Ted, as Michael comes out. Of the club. GOD. Michael tells the others that Brian will be done in a minute, Ted does much bitching about having to go to work in the morning. Since it turns out that Ted has his own car, he could leave anytime, but whatever. Emmett notices that there's a man on the corner staring at Michael. Michael confirms that he's been "cruising me all night!" He says this like it's a bad thing. Annoying, even. Emmett says, "Check out that bubble butt. And that basket? There's enough there for the Big, Bad Wolf." I do so like Emmett. Why be boring, you know? Michael says there's more to a man than penis size or a nice butt. True, but usually not at one in the morning. That late, you're pretty much down to the basics. Or so I've heard. [Cough] Anyway, Ted says that if that's true, then why is Michael obsessed with those over-muscled guys in comic books? Awkward exposition. My favorite. Michael insists he's not interested in the Cruiser. Ted says this is his chance to prove to Brian that he's not the only one that can get laid.

Meanwhile, out on Liberty Avenue, a blond teenage boy, looking like the youngest person in the history of the world, gapes open-mouthed (let's leave that one alone, shall we?) at his surroundings. He walks up to a guy dressed all in black, who's leaning against a lamppost, and asks him where's a good place to go. The guy counts down all the clubs and their different types of gay clientele, including an intriguing reference to "the twinkies at Boytoy."

I'm a straight girl, so I call my GayRef (conveniently on speed-dial) and ask, "What's a twinkie?" "Young, cute, boy," he tells me. "I thought those were 'chickens,'" I reply. "Well, anyone young is a chicken. Twinkies actually work at the 'cute' thing," GR says. You stop growing once you stop learning, I always say.

Anyway, the older guy tells the kid to forget about it and just come home with him. The kid blows him off. Uh, I mean, he turns him down. DAMMIT! The kid says no. That's it. That's what happens, all right? Geez, and just think -- only twenty-one more episodes to go. The guy scoffs at him to go home to his Mommy. The kid backs away slowly, but not from whence he came.

Outside Babylon, Brian shows up at last. As they pile into Brian's Jeep, Ted and Emmett riff off him about the HDGB, whom Brian says wasn't that great: "I got bored." Ted and Emmett are like, oh yeah, we know how that is. Michael adds, "He looked hot to me." Brian replies, "Anyone would look hot to you." But he says it in a nasty way, making me think that maybe I'm not supposed to like him.