How I accidentally spent my Easter weekend at the lesbian White Party

There are some stories that you don't realize are a little far out until you tell other people. Some stories seem pretty odd, but turn out later to be rather normal. But some stories are so bizarre that as you're living them, you know that you yourself will not even be able to believe they happened.

This is one of those stories.

First things first. I currently work for a newsmagazine show that is quite similar to HBO's "Real Sex." It's kind of like Primetime or 20/20, except that we cover...well...topics of a sexual nature. It's interesting to learn about real swinger clubs right around the corner and to see just exactly what kinds of fetishes the world is into (the answer being absolutely every kind you can imagine). After a while you start to wonder if these people enjoy having sex for a living, but hey, to each his/her/hisher/its own.

For quite some time we had been working on a story about this group of lesbians who drive around in a bus and film each other in flagrante delicto. I haven't watched the DVD they gave me yet, but it's supposed to be under the context of a bunch of groupies "admiring" their favorite rock idol - Sappho style.

At the end of February we followed the girls to Long Beach to watch them go at it on a sailboat in the marina, then chased them to Palm Springs in a convertible so we could shoot them driving down the freeway. Not a lot of people get to do that. But we would have to return a month later when they actually WENT to Palm Springs (we turned around and came home before) for some weekend party that I had never heard of. Didn't sound too bad. Just didn't want to have to chase a bus full of lesbians all the way back again. But I had no clue.

The Friday before we headed out, I was driving home and listening to the radio. It was the usual air-filling banter until they got a caller on the phone and he mentioned something I had not realized and changed everything. That weekend, Easter weekend, was the White Party in Palm Springs.

Quick side note - the White Party is an annual all-out gay mecca pool party held in Palm Springs. It's the kind of thing they make episodes of Queer as Folk about. It's a giant conglomeration of plastic gay people who do nothing but dance, have sex, work on their abs, then snort coke off them. And we already know the magic that happens when you put a few gay people together in West Hollywood...this is a million times the drama and the wackiness. Needless to say, I had never been and had no intentions of going.

But lo and behold, I was going.

It turns out the lesbian pornographers were headed to the Dinah Shore Weekend which is the White Party for lesbians held at the other end of town. If you think getting a bunch of gay men together is a questionable feat, try getting a bunch of LESBIANS together. Whereas a group of gay men isn't necessarily the testosterone overload you would think it is (except for the sex part), the lesbian group is every bit the estrogen extreme. The pool party was filled with thousands of women of all ages and types but none of them was ever alone. I tried to walk across the pool deck to get drinks for the crew, and any solitary women would quickly form into a large, impassable glob. Everywhere it was about communing and being together and seeing how many boobs you could shove in someone's face at once. After identifying me as one of the only three men within a three mile radius, a nice lady at the bar leaned over to me and said, "Lesbians certainly come in all shapes and sizes don't they." Yes. Yes they do.

Trying to shoot the interview in the hotel room became difficult because the pool party ended and everybody headed back to their rooms to recoup for that evening's festivities. The hallways of the hotel were suddenly filled with loud screams and more boobs everywhere. The parking lot became a pile of cars and an endless stream of honking. It was insanity. We all holed up in the room for fear of our lives should we wander into the stampede outside.

Once it was all over, an eerie silence surrounded the complex. The women were asleep. Or at least involved in more private activities. We said goodbye to our colleagues for the day and got the hell out of there as fast as we could.

And this wasn't even the REAL White Party on the other end of town.

The next day, of course, was Easter.

So this is how I spent the holiest of holy weekends. Where some sit in pious reflection of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I found myself ensconced in what may have been the strangest little party I have ever, and I mean EVER, been to. So remember children, next time you complain about having to sit through church for that hour on a warm spring afternoon, keep in mind that no one will grab your ass and empty large green drinks all over you in the pews.