Let’s start with a truth: my real name is not Justin Luke. Well, not entirely. My legal name is actually Justin Ross Luke Zirilli-Buchbinder-Mares. Maybe you, too, can understand why I shortened it. This marks my sixth year playing in the Monster Playground that is gay New York City nightlife. And what a journey it’s been. 2015 is also my tenth year living in Manhattan.
A decade ago I moved into a small studio on the Upper East Side from my original hometown of Bellmore in Long Island. I was sixty pounds heavier than I am now. I was an anti-social introvert with no friends. I worked a day job as a cubicle monkey and then would come home to write novels that no one wanted to publish. After a rough breakup in 2009, I found myself in the scary world of being single and gay in New York City. And boy, did I live it. I went out every night. I slept three or four hours daily. I drank a lot. I went absolutely wild.
As I made my travels through the East Village, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, I met a man named Alan Picus. He hired me to shoot videos for his parties, and then to run social media for his legendary company, BoiParty. Over time he would teach me the ways of the Jedi – how to host an event, how to dress a venue, how to art direct a flyer and tons of other tricks of the trade. Three years later, two years ago, he gave me half of BoiParty.
And here I am. Some days I look back and have a hard time believing any of what happened myself. I wrote and published six books … what? I launched a signature fragrance with my name on it. Really? Together with Alan, I have thrown events in every neighborhood in the city and in states up and down the eastern seaboard and across the country. Dance parties. Underwear parties. Drag competitions. Cabarets. Destination events. Teaming up with nightlife legends and power players all along the way. Crazy.
Every night I gaze in the mirror and cannot believe the pink bespectacled 33-year-old who’s looking back at me. How did a guy who knew nobody and never went out turn into the guy who knows so many people and hardly ever stays in?
If I go even further back into my life, it’s still harder to believe the me I am now. I grew up as an overweight guy who was endlessly bullied for his body size because, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, no one was “fat.” Except me. I was the fat kid. And then, when I lost my weight for the first time, I figured out I was gay, and was then bullied for that. I went to college, overweight (again) and gay, and found that the community I had longed to discover and be a part of had no interest in knowing me.
Sometimes people ask me what I think was the magic potion that got me to where I am. My answer? No damn idea. A few strokes of luck, a hunger to try anything once and then maybe even try it again. A lot of great people took a chance on me. People like John Blair and his husband Beto Sutter. Drag queens like Showbiz Spitfire Paige Turner. And, luckily for me, a very supportive and loving family that is friends with me on Facebook and doesn’t mind all of the photos of nearly naked guys. I may not know what got me here, but at least I do know what I’m doing here. When it occurred to me that I was becoming someone people knew, I came to a crossroads. I could step behind a red velvet rope, develop a raging ego and exact revenge on the community that shunned me in my teens and twenties: Aha! You didn’t want me, and now I hold the keys to your favorite parties! REVENGE AT LAST!
Or I could do something different.
So, what am I doing? I’m working every day to make sure that no one who comes to a BoiParty event ever feels left out, shunned or unwanted. I have made it my life mission to see to it that everyone feels welcomed, cherished, appreciated and like they belong. It’s not that no one is a VIP; it’s that everyone is a VIP. I never want anyone to ever feel like I did when I first discovered nightlife at the age of 18. I get on my soap box and try to encourage today’s twenty-somethings to take care of themselves and each other. To spread love and support one another. To live by example and help people in any way I can.
