Vanity Fair

Great idea Joe!

1. One thing on your nightstand: A copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. One of those books I gave up on but feel entirely too guilty to file because people I respect love it so much.

2. One thing on a wall in your living room: Iron Chinese symbols for “strength” and “dream”.

3. One thing you have in your house from your childhood: Black and white photo of all my brothers holding christmas stockings in front of the fireplace.

4. Three condiments we would find in your refrigerator: dijon, black olive tapenade, black bean dip (do those qualify?)


5. Three things we would find in your medicine cabinet: Sample size shampoos that work better for the gym, six month supply of contact lenses, unopened toothbrushes for (un)expected sleepover guests.

6. Do your dirty dishes go in the sink or dish-washer? In the sink. I’ve developed a somewhat alarming habit of leaving them there too.

7. Color of your living room sofa? Electric blue. It’s a color I spotted on a Japanese design website for my Lignet Roset Togo and immediately had to have. My ex-boyfriend, John nicknamed the sofa “Big Blue”.

8. Maker of your everyday dinnerware? Crate and Barrel circa 1998 or so.

9. Maker of your fine china? Like Joe said.

10. What is the biggest collection in your house? A box of Legion of Super Heroes comic books that I have not been able to part with.

11. What reading material would we find in your bathroom? The latest issue of Cargo magazine. Love the gear, the clothes and the tips. Don’t own any of it, but it sure is fun to look at. Dwell. Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

Interview of Joe (by Joe)

So, ya know that Q&A in the back of Vanity Fair in which they ask some celebrity of the moment a bunch of questions? It's called something like the "Proustian Questionnaire." Rather too grand, really, but ya can't help reading it. Well, a certain Midwestern newspaper's H&G section does something similiar. Since I've always wanted to be a celebrity but never will, I'd rather just answer the questions myself. Then, I thought, what if we all do? It could be fun! Questions taken from said paper; I think VF's are better. Maybe those later, but for now, here is me:

1. One thing on your nightstand: A faux stone grotesquerie given to me by my hubbie to ward off creatures of the night. And also a glowing, bean-shaped, color-changing light that needs recharged.

2. One thing on a wall in your living room: Vintage poster of buxom Italian lass in an olive orchard, pouring fresh olive oil from a glass ewer into a huge bowl of fresh tomato salad. We call her Marcella. She is the patron saint of the kitchen (most y'all know this).

3. One thing you have in your house from your childhood: A black and white photo of my siblings and me sitting on a bench at the Rome zoo. We're all wide-eyed. I'm holding a lion cub.

4. Three condiments we would find in your refrigerator: Mostardo with pears, vincotto (in both fig and orange flavors) and hot pepper jelly with lime and cilantro.

5. Three things we would find in your medicine cabinet: No dolls, unfortunately. Just things like Emergency Eye Repair Lotion and a caffeine-spiked facial cream.

6. Do your dirty dishes go in the sink or dish-washer? Both. Then the Mister restacks the dish-washer coz I don't do it right.

7. Color of your living room sofa? Canvas-ish, except for the many coffee, wine and chocolate stains; some of them caused by Bumbles, others by me.

8. Maker of your everyday dinnerware? Almost Round, which is even less round now, after a few years of chips and dings.

9. Maker of your fine china? Get real. This is a custom of the very rich and is sadly aped by the middle class with pretensions.

10. What is the biggest collection in your home? Pottery, early 20th century.

11. What reading material would we find in your bathroom? None, really, unless you count the three classic Calvin & Hobbes strips mounted at eye-level for those who pee standing up.

Anyone else? Gregorio?

just stop

David, I did no such thing. You just stop.



also, too, in addition: I think that blogger went blogout and ate Greg's post.

Greg, can you repost?

(artwork from outerborrows.com)

Greg?

Where did your post go? I sewar you had one on there aboutthe art opening we went ot.. now it is gone! vanished! is joseph doing his witchy editing thing?

thursday - art opening for a handsome mexican boy's work

friday - the mudge boy - a sundance 2004 winner running on showtime - a must see for all gay boys - a sweet and homoerotic (hot!) "coming of age and being odd" story


saturday- Michele Borgs birthday party - who knew a fellow Taylor girl could put together such a " L Word" event! pretty girls, pretty boys and then there was me!

sunday - fresh! the dance party of the month - who knew you could have sooo much fun and see so much skin on a sunday at 6:00 PM - kinda like going to church for me! justin wore leather pants- even commuted on Bart in leather, we all danced to steve miller - " Come on and Dance", we did.

dance.wav

mix in some painting - living area - chocolate brown cleaning, editing, estimate writing and bits of Ab Fab’s "Pop Specs" episode and you have got yourself a action packed week-end.

Rice admits sleeping with Bush

Donnie Darko and a Little Dark Reading

Ok, so I was a bit unsure on my post about the film Donnie Darko just after I had watched it. A few days later and I was completely haunted and have been for weeks. The director's cut is available on DVD. Also check out Gary Jules remake of Tears for Fears "Mad World" which plays beautifully over the credits. It is available on Itunes. I am an Itunes whore.

I bought an Ipod for my train rides to Oakland that, in fact, have become a source of pleasure in my days.

250 pages into Tom Perrota's "Little Children" and loving it. He wrote "Election" which was later turned into a wickedly good film with Reese Witherspoon.

By the way Joe I love "Fourbucks".

Alan & Justin

so this is it, as Alan says, the end of an era. For us, you two will be just as far away, but it will be harder to see everyone in one visit. The trip over the bridge is a bit shorter than SF to LA.

But the margaritas sound great.

David, can you take Al by the hand to show him how to post photos of the places in Laguna?

The true story?

Rumors are that Daddy was out snowmobiling—and generally butching it up—and saw this bear.

While some nasty wags questioned the story (is that a real bear? is it a stuffed prop? is that the same "bear" that Boyer saw 20 years ago on Monaghan's island?), more generous souls wanted to believe the butchness of Daddy. Afterall, he is, well, Daddy.

Simone could not be reached for comment.

philosophy

Love the tag line, David. Can I steal it?

Did you think it up yourself? (Really, I have no idea how to ask that without sounding bitchy.)

stirring the pot

boyer boy bloggs again . . (is steve jobs going to read this?)

Well well I must admit i have been absent as of recent from these
wonderfully crafted bloggs. One blog reads just as cleaver and well
written as the one prior and the next. Greg has a way with saying
and visualizing so much with so few words. Joseph - well he reads like
he has consumed a few glasses of red for lunch - but still good storytelling
and somewhat amusing! And the others – just as clever and fun as Greg.

No my absences it is NOT because blogs tend to not contain pictures!
My reason is that i am fearful that Joseph will again ridicule me for miss-sphelt
words and language usage of improper types. (see ain't eye funny).

so if i get a promise (and $,1000) from my fellow bloggers - specifically
Ms. Chicago Tribune herself - to not impede my creative flow
of consciousness and weird thoughts with their critical reviews of my
spellings and verbiage use maybe i will return.

I threaten you that!!


(why the hell don't they build in a check spelling gizmo to this thang anyway?)

glamour is a choice.
drama is necessary.

uh

nothin much to say, but don't mean I can't blog. Ain't that the definition of blogging?

Here in Chicago, we've lately had temperatures 20 degrees below seasonal norms. Only mention that coz it makes you California types feel good about your decision to move out there; makes you feel good about yourselves, self-satisfied. Whatever the hell happened to global warming?

I would describe to you the zeigest of our times, here in the ol' gay hood, but I have no fuckin idea. Maybe that's good. I walk past the local chain coffeeshop (Caribou, not Fourbucks; they also call it Gayibou, Cariboi, etc) on my way home from the bus stop (fermata del' autobus), and I see through the window so many boys with laptops. Checking on their adverts, I would guess. Personals sent out darkly into the night. Whatever happened to going to the bars, drinking too many beers and hoping to meet someone, anyone? These kids today! Just can't understand 'em.

Happy to be married up, let me tell ya.

Which reminds me of Greg's shoutout. Hey, happy anniversary, y'all! Big kisses to Alan & Justin and to David & Paul.

Anyone talking about the Tranie Shack show?

Happy Anniversary!

Happy anniversary to Dave and Paul and Alan and Justin!!!

You made it through a whole year! No Britney Spears faux weddings for these boys.

Train in Vain

Good on you for the fab 'do Joe. Blogging is all about good hair!!

This is my first week of commuting via Muni/BART to Oakland. I so looked forward to my romanticized version of taking the train to work replete with caddish Jude Law look-alikes sneeking glances at me over the top of his Wall Street Journal. Alas, reality has been more like "Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" than "Lady on A Train". It's cattle call, freaks and more freaks, dirty people, pushing, shoving and Asian women coughing within spitting distance. Where's the glamor??????

good news

today, I'm having a good hair day. Spiky, but artfully so, showing to best advantage my new 40-buck+tip doo.

how is everyone else?

What I did instead of watching the Stupid Bowl

(inspired by Greg's post)

The Mister and I watched half of the very dark "The Magdelene Sisters" while making homemade pasta. He made the dough, then we both cut and shaped it using my new hand-carved, imported wood corzetti stamps that I've been looking to buy for a year. You just can't get them in this country; I guess the little old men carving them in Liguria are spending too much time drinking grappa (as Boyer says, "grandpa's socks"). One uses the stamps to cut about 1 1/2-inch discs from thin sheets of fresh pasta, then one presses the discs between the two halves of the stamps, leaving behind decorative impressions (this set is carved with the retailer's logo, so not that cool; still looking for more traditional ones with cool design) top and bottom that help sauce adhere. Can it get any gayer?

Yes, it can: Sauced them with a shrimp/broth (homemade, of course)/pancetta (imported, of course)/arugula(organic, natch) combination from my favorite local Italian chef's new The Spiaggia Cookbook. Then we watched "Carnivale"--very gay, with its freaks and psychics who don't fit in the world, not to mention its many homo-erotic scenes, such as the lead character, cute Ben, being tied down in a dark shed ... -- during dinner, saving the other half of the Irish movie for another night (Netflix is so gay). Oh, opened a pinot grigio (from Velio, a good producer at great price; no Santa Margherita crap for our house), for its acidity to contrast the rich shrimp.

Gay gay gay.

anybody else?

Really Whitey Tighties and Scary Bunnies

Guess I should have been giving updates on the job thing. I spent the last 2 months consulting at a sound editing equipment company called Digidesign in Daly City as Interim Controller. They offered me the job full time but in the meantime, I continued to interview for full time gigs and tomorrow I start a new job at Clorox Corporation in Oakland. I am excited about this especially becoming a regular BART commuter. I've always had that overly romanticized vision of taking the train to work and now it will be reality. The acquisition of Gillette by Procter and Gamble has a lot of people speculating that other consumer goods companies (like Clorox) could be acquisition targets. That has me leery because my last two jobs ended when the companies were acquired. The modern workplace - zero job security.

I skipped the Super Bowl and rented Donnie Darko instead. This tale of time travel and a scary bunny consistently appears on favorite lists on all the social networking websites like Friendster. It's still sinking in, but so far I just don't get the passion people have for the film. I find Jake Gyllenhall only marginally dreamy.

Sundance Film Festival Report

Ok, so I only attended one film but that's probably more than Paris Hilton.

Park City is your typical "California-ized" mountain town with new construction "chalet look" condos rising everywhere and art galleries selling overpriced Southwest inspired art. The L-Lay and NYC attitude made the people watching a little less than perfect. That was somewhat salvaged by the stunningly handsome bloke from West L Lay who chatted us up in the movie line and by the Courtney Love look alike who seated herself next to me in a coffeehouse babbling nonsense into her cell.

We saw the winner of Best International Drama, "The Hero" from Angola. It was a great film. The director provided commentary through an agent before the film and simply provided the fact that there are 10 land mines in Angola for every one citizen.

The ski resorts were nice though the snow conditions a bit rough. My host, Bob, ran into a tree on his skis on Sunday and shattered his kneecap. I have to admit I had fun in the infirmary joking with the staff, looking at the different patient X-rays and overall just making a nuisance of myself. When it comes to ski injuries, it's always better to be in the Rupert Everett, helpful best friend role instead of splayed out on the table.

New Look

Love the new color scheme for BGN! It's very Wallpaper without being an IKEA knockoff of it.