Fall 1986: The Porn Star Outwits a Celebrity

My friend Alan, who dragged me to Japan, came to Los Angeles to become an actor in 1974, and ended up working in the gay porn industry.  He knew everybody, and anyone he didn't know, I met through other friends (Michael J. Fox), or through my job at Muscle and Fitness (Lou Ferrigno), or at the gym ( Jimmy Walker), or on the streets of West Hollywood (my celebrity boyfriend).  And at Mugi.


It was a bar on Hollywood Boulevard, east of Western, in Thai Town (now it's a Thai restaurant).  Simple decor, some dancers and flowers.  Thai popular music (except for "One Night in Bangkok").  No dancing.  About half the clientele was Asian, mostly immigrants and tourists from East Asia.

Alan liked it because he was, for some reason, intensely attractive to most Asian men.  He claimed that he could get any Asian guy (not Asian-Americans) just by walking up and smiling.

The other half of the clientele was white, mostly men in the entertainment industry, mostly not well known, but on various nights I saw Jim J. Bullock, Lance Loud, Tom Hulce, and Tom Villard

Why did so many gay white actors, directors, producers, and crew members patronize a tiny Asian bar?  Maybe because it was a a five minute drive from Paramount Studios, and very close to about a dozen other studios, yet out of the way, not like one of the glitzy West Hollywood bars where you would be spotted.

In the fall of 1986, shortly after we returned from Japan, I liked a very muscular Chinese-Vietnamese guy named Tranh, a student at UCLA.  I cruised him at the gym almost every day, and when I saw him at Mugi, I spent an hour flirting with him, using every trick I knew.   He had just agreed to have dinner with me, when a famous actor came in with some friends.  Older guy, still closeted, so I'll call him Richard.  Tranh's mouth dropped; he said "Excuse me," and made a bee-line for Richard's table. It took only a moment for them to start kissing.

It wasn't fair -- I cruised Tranh at the gym for weeks, and I didn't get a kiss!

I pieced my way through the crowd to where Alan was holding court.

"What's the problem?" he asked.  "You look like you lost your best friend."

"Maybe I did. I finally managed to get a date with Tranh, when idiot Richard comes in, and he scurried after him like a squirrel after a nut.  Just because he's been in some movies!"

Alan smiled.  "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." He disentangled himself from his boyfriend du jour and made his way to Richard's table.  I could see him, Richard, and Tranh talking.  After about three minutes, he returned, hand in hand with a grinning Tranh.

"...and Jeff will be there, too.  Is that ok?"

He "got" Tranh for me by offering himself as part of the deal!

Still, I had to admire the ease with which he bested the celebrity.