After my morning shower, I got dressed, putting on the t-shirt I had the House of Blues Hotel laundry wash for me and noticing that they had starched it so that it felt like I was wearing a burlap sack, I watched the news then hesitantly called up DREW WARNER, who I figured had gone out partying the night before, and wondering what kind of shape he would be in for our lunch date. The phone rang twice, then I heard a cilck and a muffled "Hehlmmphomph?"

"Drew," I said, "It's Jett. Are we still on for lunch?"

"What time is it?" he asked, sounding like he had half of his pillow in his mouth.

I glanced at the clock. "12:15."

"Can we do lunch at one?"

"Well," I said, "I have that Grabbys Recovery Brunch at two, so with the cab ride, we'd be really rushed." I felt sorry for the poor guy, guessing that he'd probably come in around dawn or later. "Do you want to just cancel? We can meet up back in L.A."

"How about 12:45?" he asked, still sounding half-asleep.

"That's fine with me," I said, "but are you sure you don't want to go back to sleep? We can lunch another time."

"No, I want to have lunch with you," he said, sounding more coherent with every sentence. "I'll see you in the lobby of the Palmer House at 12:45."

I'd never been to the Palmer House before, but it is one of those grand hotels with a large entranceway and a fabulous lobby. I arrived just in time to see Drew smiling as he walked through the lobby towards me. We hugged and went back downstairs to a little corner bakery called...er...The Corner Bakery, and got some sandwiches. As we waited in line, STEVEN SCARBOROUGH and his boyfriend BRENT came up from downstairs and waved to us as they left.

We sat at a small table on the side of the dining room and ate our sandwiches as Drew told me about his new business that he had set up with BLUE BLAKE as his partner. It seemed fascinating (and confidential for now), but something Red Devil could make use of in the future. I wish him well.

After lunch, I still had some time, so Drew invited me into the Leather Mart section of IML, clipping a guest pass on my shirt. We entered the area and the first thing that hit me was the smell of leather. (Duh.) I was not raised on a farm, but I had several uncles and aunts who had them, so I was a frequent visitor, and from my past experiences, let me assure you I have the background to back this up: the Leather Mart smelled distinctly like a cattle barn.

Drew led me from booth to booth. BRUNO RICELLI was manning his Oh Man! booth, decked out in black jeans, black tank and a leather cap. I said hello to the boys at the Rascal booth, shaking hands with JOHNNY HAZZARD, who looked like he wished he were anywhere else, then on to the HotHouse booth, where I met FRANCESCO DE MACHIO (I've got to learn if I'm spelling that correctly), who with his fellow HH men seemed to be enjoying themselves. I finally met ANDREW CHRISTIAN face-to-face, a handsome man with an exciting new line of clothing and underwear. I presented him with a copy of HOW TO SEDUCE A STRAIGHT MAN which had a commercial for his clothing line on it. We walked by a table of specialty leather gear, including some things that I had no idea what they were. Drew had to explain. (A leather drool cup mask?)

My time was up, so I had to hug Drew and run, promising to contact him back in L.A. I grabbed a cab and was off to the North End for the Grabbys Recovery Brunch. Showing my ID at the door (not the lube), I went inside and found the joint already pretty packed. WILL CLARK was on me quicker than Mitt Romney on expanded torture legislation and I turned the box of dvds I was carrying over to him. More raffles.

TY HUDSON was already there, walking around in light yellow silk pajamas and work boots. I saw SAN DIEGO TOM with some friends and stopped to say hello. The brunch spread seemed a lot better than it was two years ago, including a big bowl full of chilled shrimp, my weakness in two ways. I love chilled shrimp and can eat as many as a sperm whale, but I also have a revolving door allergy to them, meaning...sometimes I react, sometimes I don't, and my allergy medication was back at my hotel. As I stood there talking to Tom, I kept glancing back to the bowl of crustaceans with a heartfelt longing, but I knew it would be better to deny myself this pleasure rather than risk a reaction that could leave me looking like a blotchy lump of Silly Putty. Then next year, I'd hear "You can't be Jett Blakk...you have facial features!"

As I walked around the bar, giving it the once-over, I ran into MATT WOODS, reviewer at Gay Chicago Magazine, BRIAN HANSEN, SCOTT SPEARS, ROSS CANNON, TREVOR KNIGHT (who owes me one), MICHAEL BRANDON, DERRICK HANSON, BOB EAST, MARK NAGEL, WARREN from Maleflixxx and a couple of Colt guys who were so musuclar and hard that I'm sure if you put firewood between their buttcheeks they could grind it to sawdust.

Brian Hanson was on stage, chatting in his delicious Austrailian accent, and then they decided to auction the right to take his shirt off, which ended up going for $400. Brian seemed somewhat embarassed that it had gone for so much, which was cute. Next, Scott Spears went up and auctioned off his leather vest, which he said was an actual costume piece from the new CHI CHI LARUE film LINK: EVOLUTION. Ty went up. He had been signing autographs for the crowd already, and was a hit with the audience. They auctioned off his orange underwear and the right to remove them, and he worked up a hard-on for the crowd to "sweeten" the deal. A lucky fellow nabbed them at $250, and when he came onstage to take them off, Ty grabbed him and started making out with him. The winner's hands kept pulling the orange undies down, and as Ty's ass was exposed, Will said, "Keep your back to the audience, we can't show dick." Then he looked off into the crowd at someone and asked, "Can we? Can we? We CAN?!" With that, Ty turned toward the audience and freed his straining hardon from his briefs. The crowd screamed in delight at the sight of his hard dick. It takes so little to please a bunch of gay men. lol. Will kept talking, trying to entertain the crowd that was already being entertained as Ty encouraged the auction winner to take his erection into his mouth. By this time, Will could have lit his hair on fire and I don't think anyone would have noticed. Finally, the winner stepped down with his prize (and Ty's phone number, I'm sure) and Will called me up.

Now, all this time, DIRTY LITTLE SINS had been playing on the monitors in the bar, so the first thing Will asked me was why I made that movie. I talked a bit about how the religious right was trying to equate gay with godless, and how I wanted to show that you could be gay and still have faith. Will mentioned a bit about being raised Catholic, but I could tell the crowd was more interested in who the next porn model was and what body part he was going to expose, so we went quickly to the DANTE trailer, which we announced was having its world premiere right there. I told the DJ to crank the sound up, and the trailer started: one minute of fast-paced, dramatic hardcore and visual clips. Afterward, the crowd applauded thunderously, which was the perfect way to end my segment.

By that time, I was hot and sweaty, due in part to the fact that the bar had become even more crowded; almost shoulder-to-shoulder. I stepped outside into the cool air for a breather and saw MIKE STABILE from NakedSword standing shyly next to a parked car, his hands in his pockets. "Hey, Mike, what's up? Why aren't you inside?"

Mike smiled shyly and said he had left his ID back at the hotel, and they wouldn't let him in without it. I told him that yes, ever since several years ago, when a bunch of marines had wandered into a North Carolina gay bar by mistake (Micky Rat's, I think) and caused a ruckus to the point where they ran out of the bar and held the doors clothes so the patrons inside couldn't get out and attack them (one guy DID get out and the marines beat him up, launching a lawsuit against them for which the judge sided with the marines), Chicago, as well as a LOT of gay bars across the country, started aggressively checking everyone's ID. Mike said he had a friend who was trying to find Will Clark so he could get him inside. Ty came out, and we chatted a bit. SCOTT BOARDMAN from Cybersocket Magazine arrived and said hi. I ducked inside for one more quick drink, then exited and decided that was enough for me. I needed ice cream and badly, so I found a Coldstone's and got a cake batter ice cream milkshake with strawberries. It was good, but about 2/3rds of the way through, it started to taste like I really WAS drinking a cup of cake batter, and it was so overwhelming that I had to toss the remainder.

Back at the hotel, I decided to spend my last night treating myself to an evening of quiet pampering, so I ordered room service for dinner, watched a little TV, then dumped the entire guest bottle of bath gel into the deep soaking tub and turned the water on full blast. When I had a mountain of suds, I slid into the hot water and soaked while my portable dvd player sat on the edge of the tub playing the INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES episode of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. For any voyeuristic pervs who were in the hotel across from mine, I left the curtains wide open and the red heat lamp on.

I text-messaged CVK that I would see him tomorrow before I went to bed, and I drifted off to sleep n the uber-soft mattress (which HAD been made up , finally) to the sound of the air moving through the elevator shafts.

The flight home the next morning was uneventful, although when I checked in at self-service, it offered me a 1st class upgrade for $100. I declined it, but CVK told me later "Whenever you get offered 1st Class upgrades...take them! I'll remember that.

JBK