My plug here for "Me, You and Everybody We Know". It's a wonderfully quirky movie with some possibly uncomfortable scenes involving young people exploring sex. It's written and stars performance artist Miranda July and contains some very memorable visuals. It has really stuck with me.
The title of this post is a film reference that is quite priceless.
what up, homies?
well, Ming Tsai is doing up a pork tenderloin in soy marinade, and I thought I'd blog a bit. oh, no! the little crawl thingie just said "fennel compliments most pork dishes"!! oh, no! they just did it again! (they shoulda said "complements," for those of you who are English-challenged, Boyer). Who is writing/editing this? Obiviously, no one is editing it.
Hey, last week I was cataloging wine at work, and what do you think we had? Why, it was a Monterey gewurztraminer from Boyer Winery! No, really.
Today was fucking hot in Chicago. But let's not talk about the weather or our wilting flowers. No. What I did today was just hang out, try to stay outta the heat. But Chris, who hates the heat, decided to go out front, dig up part of the lawn extension (that strip of land between the sidewalk and the street) and install a nice red brick circle around one of the trees and one of the parking meters, then put in mulch (for the tree) and red gravel (the meter). Looks really good, but today? Jeez.
Anywho, like the good boyfriend that I claim to be, I took him a tall ice water, complete with little umbrella, of course. And, I helped just a wee bit. Of course, I didn't go out right when he started the project. No, I waited a bit. Most of the heavy lifting was already done. But it wasn't my fucking idea!
so, last weekend I was pretty wrapped up reading HPaTHBP (that's "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," for those none Harry fans). It was great! Won't tell no secrets or hints or anything; Chris is about right in the middle of it, ya see. Can't wait for Book 7, now; but, actually, will have to since it will take J.K. Rowling about 2 years to write it.
Now, reading "The History of Salt," and that's pretty great too. Probably not getting much reaction out of anyone else out there. I'm thinking maybe that Gregorio is a fan, no? And I know that Justin Bog isn't much interested since he's waiting until all 7 books are published before he reads 'em all. Heya, Justin! Happy 40th!
Justin Bog is 40 now, y'all realize, dontcha?
and, yes, I would still love a chocolate martini.
What the fuck?
So, Paulie came to stay a short while. He was on his way and back from a sad event, a funeral for Pamela's father, so it was a haven we were glad to offer on either end of his trip.
On his way back from St. Louis, Paul stopped with us. We threw together a simple summery dinner on the deck and heard about his travels in Mid-America, a long unseen twin and odd relatives. We watched a black column of smoke rise to the south from what turned out to be a burning grocery. After, Paul and I went on a walk through the 'hood (Chris went to bed; it was 10 o'clock, ya know), since it was a great night out, except for the acrid smoke that left a haze over a huge swath of Lakeview.
So Paulie and I are walking up Halsted. I'm pointing out new shops & restaurants. Paul is grooving on the design. Lots of other people are out. On the way to the bars, whatever. All of a sudden, Paul barks something out. Staccato. Short phrase, repeated. Urgent. He steps aside, off the sidewalk.
Now, ol' Joseph has a little secret. The hearing is going. Yes, sweeties, at 43! Sometimes, Joseph just pretends he heard you, nods his head, whatever. But then he has to ask when he can't figure it out from context.
Turns out, a boy, 20ish, cute enough, not a freak, is walking toward us down Halsted, 10:30 on a Sunday night, carrying in his arms his pet skunk. And a lovely specimen it is, with lush fur, looking perky and happy to be on a walk.
So: That explains why Paulie was freakin. In about any scenario that one might imagine, it was pretty OK to freak upon seeing said skunk. We both stepped aside. Boy and skunk passed by. We continued on our walk.
Paul loved the design of the new Alice Gardens flower shop; we made a pit stop home then out again for an ice cream at the locally gay-owned Windy City Sweets wear the staff is all skinny little things.
But ya gotta wonder if the skunk & boy went to Sidetracks or the Roscoe's.
A skunk, but not THE skunk.
the heat in the mission can be quite surprising when the cool air abounds everywhere else in the ciudad. my first visit to the van ness gas and car wash was like hanging at a tijuana truck stop with birds and freaks on bikes circling
and hollering. after filling up then negotiating verbally "the works" car wash option, i drive around the station, to begin the procedure.
you want coco? pina colada? yasmine? raspBerry? frescia? oceana? she says, ring curls and a clipboard.
these were the pleasant scents offered in abundance and the only thing noted for the 23.99 the works.
for the 25 minutos of down time i pass through a beverage station which reveals a secret oasis of awning-covered drivers sitting in scratched corona beach chairs. dykes on cell phones, moms with kids on yoyos, chairs aligned like church pews watching the cars final hand rub down. shiny happy people on pause.
The parade for us was almost "The Parade We Missed" when brunch ran long.
Parade monitors closed Halsted early, so Chris got shut out of the garage when returning from a luxe car test drive in BFE (butt-fuck egyptian suburbs) that morning.
Everyone else at the modest, but prideful, brunch here (Chip, Jacob, Missy), continued with the mimosas until he arrived (after an hour or so of circling ever farther away to find parking). But really, 3 bottles is not that much for 5 people, no? With everyone well-lubed and hungry, how could the food be anything but a smashing success? Chip made fantastical French-like scrambled eggs. There were thin thin pancakes as only Bisquick can make them. Plus lots and lots of organic fresh fruit in an insalata di macedonia. After, we lingered over the remaining bubbles, then decided we may as well jump out the garage door and check out what was left of the parade. Living at Ground Zero has advantages.
A few sparkling wine minis (the latest rage, according to Trib) were discovered in the back of the fridge and go-cups were produced. Out the door we went to the street, where the crowd was 4 and 5 people deep.
The highlight was Crobar's volcano float pulsing music and erupting in a million pieces of confetti that rained on dykes and boys and hotties and everyone just as the music crescendoed. Everywhere it went, caught on the wind. A week later, we're still finding it on the deck, in the flowers ... no tickertape parade in NY was ever as gay.
The parade, then, was almost an afterthought. We repaired to the deck to chat and rehydrate. The pride was just being out and being gay and hanging with friends.
But for the most fab pride pictures and party report, who can top (ha!) Chris and his description of Gay Pride: House of MORE! Style?
Last night I went to dinner at Medjool, the Pan-middle eastern tapas restaurant where Moneka revealed Golda's man-grab. Dinner was with a group of guys that I was mostly unfamiliar with (acquaintances of Dean). We were shuffled up to the rooftop where we discovered a fabulous city view and a large group of twenty-somethings cooling their heels over small plates and drinks in some sort of dot-com flashback. After some adjustments of heat lamps and table space, we were seated and I discovered that the guy sitting next to me, Ronnie Giannelli, was from Taylor. He was fascinated that there would be other Taylor refugees living in San Francisco so I immediately offered a Taylortucky symposium in the near future.
We finished the evening with a rather bizarre series of sci-fi film shorts for the GLBT film festival. It was the usual mixed fare.
Note to those making the recommended trip to Medjool: the rooftop is cash only, so fill those Prada bi-folds before taking the elevator up.
Happy Pride All!
... from our Simone LaCharles watcher:
No one has heard from Simone in over 10 days.
Liza fears abduction by extraterrestrials.
Please keep Simone in your prayers.
The hetero-normative ownership paradigm is a tyrant belief system that deserves to be undermined on every front, from political protest to petty thievery.
from Lockpick Pornography, an online novella, by Joey Comeau
Joseph and Chris - you MUST join us - Joseph see if you can use the Tribune's AirStream Jetty Jet for the week-end?
See the little movie link below!!
FINAL%20KABOOM%20TIMELINE_v2.mov
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Oh, my kingdom for a camera.
I know the West Coast boys are probably sooo tired of reading of trannier-than-thou postings from mere Chicagoans, but this was really a great one.
Walking home from the L, along Belmont and all the vintage/shoe/takeout places there, I spied in one of the too-many shoe shops a man, a big man. He was tall, about 6-foot-something, and 270 pounds or so. He had a huge belly, large and rounded, like he was 18 months pregnant ... with triplets. Over this proud, upstanding belly was stretched, nearly to the point of splitting, a white undershirt. His face was plump and rotund. He was the type of guy you'd expect to see drunk, starting fights at a dive bar way out in the sticks, except for the very very short flouncy tight white skirt printed with huge, bright red flowers and the perfect white/blond wig that curled at a-just-under-his-chin length.
I wish I remembered the shoes.
I wonder, what was he doing there ...
@ 20 Alex not only got the ettention of the media- he got the attention of the 872 fridge! . . . . . .hmmm 20+49(ers) = ?
so, like, tonight after work there was a tasting, the Wine Spectator Grand Tour, about 210 wines. There was the 1996 Dom. There was Taittinger. There were several Bordeaux chateaus, lots of barolo, etc. So, midway through, the other two guys I went to the event with tracked me down and said I had to try this wine. So, we went back to that table. It was Gunderloch, a German maker; it was their dessert riesling, a riesling trockenbeerenauslese. One of the guys I was with is a sommelier with an amazing palate. He was wetting his pants, the wine was so good. So, we tried it. But first, I needed a rinse. I had been drinking several reds, so my glass was pretty coated. So, what you do is ask for a rinse, which is just a little pour of the next wine you're going to taste. You swirl it around in your glass to clean out the previous wine(s) and you dump it. So, the nice, tall, lean, attractive, blond Germanic woman poured us each a rinse saying: "Fritz would kill me if he knew I was doing this." That will become clear in a second, but as soon as she said that, I was worried. But, onward. She poured us our tasting, and we tried it. It was fantastic. Easily one of the best wines there, if not the best. If you are a person who thinks he doesn't like dessert wines nor rieslings and definitely not dessert rieslings, you'd still have to try this wine first. It was fantastic. Now, the wine retails for $375 a bottle. That's a 375 ml bottle (or a half bottle). Only 400 bottles of this 2002 were made (it is a wine that is not made every year; only made when the conditions are right). 24 of them were given by the vintner to the Grand Tour (which is a 3-city tour, none San Fran; sorry). Sam's Wines, the largest wine shop in the nation and a Chicago institution, maybe has 2 or 3 bottles, according to our pourer. So, here's the point: Basically, I swirled and then dumped a $10 rinse.
That is not right.
Cheers, sweeties.
A quick recommendation for Jorge Drexler's new cd, Eco. He is the boy who did the theme from Motorcycle Diaries. It's beautiful. Pass the sangria.
