How to deal with the aftermath of the Grabbys without "going off" on my own tangent as I could easily do. LOL For those of you who don't know, Saturday May 24th Gay Chicago threw it's 12th Grabbys awards and it was a terrific three hour event complete with hooker drag queens opening up the show and lots of good honors being given away to a variety of companies. Unfortunately the evening was also marked with a bit of drama that was quelled quickly at the show but has lingered on and on and on.

I suppose I'm perpetuating it myself by writing about it in this column but well, there you go. Sorry about that. This first part is going to be a recount of what happened with a liberal use of my opinion priviso that I have tried not to shirk away from. Basically Michael Lucas got up on stage to present an award with Matt Sizemore and Chris Green.

Lucas tells it this way: (Go to cockring.org and the letter from him is on the upper left as well as David Forest's reply.)�

The boos that Lucas refers to were just a couple but clearly the room was irritated by him kidnapping the evening so that he could put forth his own agenda. Some feel that Michael left the stage because of the booing, I frankly think that it was his intention from the get go to make his statement and then turn and leave whether it was accepted or not.

Behind him both Chris and Matt had a sort of "what the fuck" look on their face and well, who knows what was going on in his head but Matt decided to take this opportunity to inform the room that he had just made a unsafe sex porn? I had known about this a few days before but chose to wait til after the award show to write about it but there it was - laying like an ostrich egg plopped down in the middle of the stage.

Sadly, a couple of people cheered but frankly most of the room looked stupified, I'm sure not knowing who to react to first.

An industry insider leaned over to me and said ""I guess if you can't win awards at least you can make a scene".

It's irritating to me that because two stars just had to get stuff off their chest while they were just PRESENTERS at the Grabbys, the audience temporarily forgot what award was even being presented and worse, who won.

Yes, I'll defend anyone's right to stand up for something.. God knows it happens so infrequently in the gay community and even less in the gay porn business and when it happens in mainstream entertainment, actors are chastised for it (Dixie Chicks anyone?)� which only creates a downward spiral of people afraid of expressing their freedom of speech.. BUT to take away from others' enjoyment of the night (be it an award show or at a pool party for example) is kind of inappropriate� - it doesn't matter what the cause. The timing of when it's OK and when it's not is sort of like porn.. you can't define it but you know it when you see it and we saw it.

And that doesn't mean I'm in favor of Michael Lucas calling agent David Forest a litany of names but while we live in America, the right to talk openly is still one of our basic freedoms. But it begs that age old question - just because you can speak freely at these kinds of shows, must you? There are internet forums and websites for this kind of thing, aren't there? (Of course Forest can sue him for a variety of things too? that's the consequence sometimes for speaking so openly.)

I mean, geez, if every presenter that had something to say actually spent the time to do it, cripes, we'd still be there four or five days later. Even when you win an award, who the fuck wants to hear about anything other than "thank you for this award"? As it was the show was three hours long. Ack!�

Sizemore added that we should all just try to get along and cut out the divisiveness?. Which is hardly the thing to say when you've just dropped that big fat ostrich egg of a problem on the stage for the audience to digest.