Overheard at Club Arena: "I know I'm fucking hot. If this room were a pie graph..."--Mr. Fucking Hot forms a circle with the fingers of both of his hot fucking hands--"THIS many people would be wanting me right now." Exactly.

Zero.

There's no shortage of ego at Arena, even if the location itself seems to be saddled with some ancient Duwamish hex--after all, nothing seems to last long in the space at Pine and 10th. Moe's/ARO.space/Arena/Paradise Garage/Arena/whatever--the place gets passed around like mono. I hear that the longtime managerial fixture of Arena's gayer-than-thou arch foe Neighbours, Steve Tracey (yes, yes, the dude with the HAIR), is braving the bad juju and accepting the cursed keys. "How can I make it better, Adrian?" asked the courageous soul when he caught up with me while window-shopping.

Uh... torch the place and salt the earth?

I encouraged him to install what all of Seattle's boy-centric queer bars scream for yet universally lack: a genuine, honest-to-Amsterdam backroom.

"Do you understand how much TROUBLE I could get in for that?" Do you understand how much trouble half the local newscasters could get in for that?

While we're on the subject (sort of) of newscasters: Is everyone familiar with Northwest Week's smart, staid, and bookishly adorable host, C. R. Douglas? Quite certain of that? Well then it must have been C. R.'s evil twin at poser bar Manray, saucing it up like Robert Downey Jr. on New Year's. When pressed for comment, the devilish Mr. Douglas confided, "Debauchery... I haven't had a night like that in years!" Indeed. Imagine how much more trouble he could have gotten into if Manray had a backroom.

I'm just saying!

Burgeoning novelist Chris Rice visited Bailey/Coy Books last week, reading from his promising second work, The Snow Garden. By all accounts, the adorable little gothling (the progeny of vampy Anne Rice, dontcha know) is no longer the gangly adolescent I once poked fun at, and has sprouted like a gay gothic beanpole. I confused the days of the reading and accidentally missed it (okay, Golden Girls was on), thus foiling my own plan to be calling Anne Rice "Mom" by the end of the year. But I caught Chris via phone afterward, reminded him of our first meeting, chatted about his recent move from New Orleans to California, and asked if he agrees that the Queen of the Damned movie is the worst thing that has ever happened. Ever. No comment. (But he really didn't have to, did he?)

celebisawu@thestranger.com