Surf and Turf

We’re off to the lovely California coast to eat shrimp at Tony’s, a restaurant that defines the word “joint” built on a pier over Tomales Bay. Because this is Northern California, though, the joint has an extensive and thoughtful wine list. The highway there is popular with middle aged guys on motorcycles with their bitches, they like to stop in and discuss the oakiness of the chardonnay. It’s just down the coast from where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. In honor of that, I’m including a picture of the studly Rod Taylor, complete with his big pole.

I Told You He Wasn't Polish

Stick it in your mouth, honey. Just the tip.

Eurovision Poland 2007

Why are Vin Diesel and Twiggy representing Poland at the Eurovision contest? Vin Diesel is Polish?

I am so confused.

Not that Kind of Trick

R Man and I were lunching at Chow, our favorite dining establishment here in cowtown, when I noticed two guys at the table next to us playing gin. It’s that kind of place. Or rather, one guy was playing, the other, whose I hand I could see, seem to be picking up and discarding cards randomly. A deuce here, a jack there, lah la lah la lah. By the third hand, I think R Man was concerned that he was going to have to restrain me from going over and playing his damn hand for him.

I come from serious game people. My sainted mother, god rest her, belonged to two weekly bridge clubs, a really fierce player. And by that, I do not mean the drag queen “fierce” as in “wildly stylish” but rather “fierce” as in “bloodthirsty”, as in “you lose one more trick and I’m going in the kitchen, find me a knife and cut you like bologna.” That kind of fierce. The rest of the bridge club gals were just the same, I suppose the lighter weight players dropped off or were simply kicked out of the way. Metaphorically, of course. At the same time, all of them were the epitome of southern lady suburban housewifey, making small talk about jello molds, while trying to figure out where the fuck the king of clubs had gotten to. Fierce, I tell you.

So the guy at Chow? He’s lucky I didn’t brain him with my lasagna, which would have been a shame, cause I love Chow’s lasagna. Try it the next time you’re there.

I gotta go

Evelyne is No Divine

Yeah, buddy, goute a son tour le bonheur regrette

Apparently, lipsynching to a language you don't understand is tougher than it would seem. Fortunately, humpy naked young men can make anything appealing

Divine - A Star Who Lived Up to Her Name

Mister, you just made a big mistake.

Ty Hardin: "Your wiglet makes my nipples stiff."

Miss Joan Crawford: "I don't care, I'm still not going to let you wear it."

Hollywood, Babble On

The lady is Glynis Johns.

The legs are Ty Hardin.

The pose is timeless.

yoohoo

Whenever I'm bored I post pictures of cute guys in their underwear with exaggerated bulges. You know why? Because I like them.

http://www.allamericanguys.com/

Klaus Nomi - Total Eclipse (live)

told ya. I especially like the two creatures in leotards towards the end who apprently drop in on their way to the Solid Gold Dancers tryouts.

Klaus Nomi Says "It's a Total Eclipse"

I had to have a procedure yesterday at the foot doctor. No details - it was unpleasant and I know no one wants to hear about my Adventures in Podiatry. Instead, our story today focuses instead on that time last night when I woke up with my foot hurting and couldn’t go back to sleep so I decided to get up, cause what else are you going to do at 2:00 AM with an achy foot? Also, as I was lying there, I remembered there was a total lunar eclipse visible here last night so I went out to the patio to watch. Very cool. We live in a canyon right in the middle of San Francisco, but a fluke of neighborhood planning has put a patch of unbroken green around us, so it was very quiet and perfect for watching the earth’s shadow swallow the moon. The moon turned a murky yellow and I was one with the cosmic ticking of time and then I got bored and went back to bed. Thank god for vicodan and valium.

http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/

Elvis Presley's Banana Pudding

So I googled Elvis's banana pudding and the recipe that came up was different than this one. The bastards! I don't whose is actually the one Elvis sucked down, but this is the one I like:

CRUST

1 1/2 cups vanilla wafers (about 30 wafers) crushed (food processor is good for this.)

1/4 cup butter, melted

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine crumbs and butter (if you used a food processor, just combine them in there, otherwise use a bowl. Duh.)

Spray an ovenproof deep dish with Pam, press the crumb mixture down firmly in the bottom. Bake for 9 minutes.

PUDDING
2 1/2 cups half and half

1/4 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 or 3 ripe bananas (as many as you want, actually)

Make a smooth paste with 1/2 cup of the milk and all the flour; set aside. Whisk together sugar, egg yolks, and remaining milk in large-ish pan, add milk/flour mixture. Cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thick and smooth, 7 - 8 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Layer half the banana slices on the crust, pour in about half the pudding, layer in rest of bananas, pour in all remaining pudding. Unless you get loaded like I did and put all the bananas in first and then pour all the pudding in, which turned out fine.

Music, I Crave Music

I can't find anything on iTunes I want to listen to.

Please, don't reduce me to "Edith and Her Accordian Magic"

Recomendations will be gratefully received and followed.

Oh, All right, Muscle Pussy Already

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Portrait of the Author as a Young Drag Queen

Wit dat ratty wig.

It's Not Too Late, but It Will Be

In general, I no longer talk to people here about the current state of New Orleans. It makes me too sad, too bitter when people don’t understand how bad it is and how precious what we’re so casually throwing away was.

When R Man and I left New Orleans almost twenty years ago, it wasn’t because we wanted to. We both loved the city and life we had there, even if we were penniless with no future other than being an elderly, broken down desk clerk (me) and a scrambling shyster getting drunk drivers out of jail (R Man). The only way we could see to avoid that was to get the hell out of town, so we did, but with real regret.

So now when I hear about the fluky neighborhoods outside of tourist land rotting away, I choke. I’m not just angry, I’m baffled. How can we allow this to happen? I know plenty of interests there are happy to focus on hurrying along the evolution of the French Quarter into some Disney-like Vieux Carre ride, but even though I lived in the French Quarter, I knew that it was not what made New Orleans worth treasuring. You need more than some background for your Kodak moments to deliver the complex experience that was NOLA, and that’s what came from neighborhoods like Broadmoor and Irish Channel and the 60s fantasia of the Lakefront. Fake jazz funerals and Pat O’Brien Hurricanes are not enough, you have to make sure enough of the city and the city’s economy survives that some authenticity survives.

I make no pretense that I actually know how to help New Orleans. I have a friend with cancer and I don’t know how to save him either. I just know how important it is that someone who does know get the fuck in there and do it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070826/ap_on_re_us/after_katrina_my_hometown_1

O, Those Dirty French Boys

Thanks, and more than thanks, to thombeau of Fabulon (http://thombeau.blogspot.com/) for sending me the link for Un Chant d’Amour. I’d heard about this move for years, but never seen it. Jean Genet made it in 1950, it’s only 25 minutes long and it’s silent (You can watch it at work!) Calling it homoerotic is like calling Gilligan’s Island goofy; neither exist on any other level, but so what? It’s beautiful and fascinating and the best 25 minutes you’re going to have for a while.

http://www.ubu.com/film/genet.html

Flowers in My Hair

I’m so proud of my garden because when we moved in ten years ago, the backyard was a disaster, a literally impenetrable mess of invasive brush called Scotch Broom, like a hedge 20 feet by 30 feet. I pulled those sons of bitches out for weeks and then, once I had destroyed my back, started over with steep patch of bare dirt. The fact that anything made it is much more a testament to San Francisco’s benign gardening ecosystem than my skill. Most of my results came strictly through going to Floocraft’s fabulous half-priced clearance section, hauling the poor, bedraggled specimens home and hoping they didn’t die.

A word about Floorcraft: they’re the greatest nursery here: low key, friendly staff, great stuff and they shove everything that doesn’t sell out into the back where it’s marked down 50 per cent. It’s a like a thrift store for flowers. The fact that they’ve recently changed their name to the more sensible Flowercraft is not something I hold against them, I understand the need to market yourself. I just always thought the non sequitur nature of calling a nursery Floorcraft was appealing in a wacky sort of way.

http://www.flowercraftgc.com/

I gotta go

I Gotcher Wood Right Here, Baby

R Man and I, being the hearty pioneer types we are, had our firewood delivered to prepare for the coming harsh chills of San Francisco. Actually, in SF, a cozy fire feels pretty damn good just about anytime. In fact we were griping in July about having run out of combustibles and were beginning to consider chopping up the little black game table cause, you know, we don’t really use it that much.

So Mr. Cutt (which has to be the greatest name for a firewood purveyor ever, sort of like the nom de smut good pornstars come up with) rolled in with our cord and we stacked and stacked. I want it understood, I am a lady, and avoiding manual labor is a guiding principle in my life, but I turned to like a good sport and now we’re ready for the fog and gales of January. Or August, for that matter.

Here’s the proof:

before

after

Company B - Fasicnated

What's better? The wigs or the choreography? You be the judge. I think Bea Arthur is in this one, too. It's a theme

Thanks to Superagentfred

My Secret Shame

OK, all right, I admit it - I actually kind of like Beyonce Knowles. It could be worse. You know the video for “Irreplaceable” where she lowers her chin and rolls eyes at the camera in exasperation about her lunky boyfriend she is busy kicking out the house? You know that look? It’s the exact same look I give R Man when I see how he’s “loaded” the dishwasher. Amazing! It’s like we’re psychically bonded, Beyonce and me. And then, well, actually there’s nothing else, that’s the only reason. But still. I mean, I’ve sexed it up with guys for less reason.

Shut up.

I gotta go.




www.11alive.com/assetpool/images

Aye Candy

William Levy Gutierrez - he's dreamy.

http://www.mostbeautifulman.com/

The One, the Only

I realized I did not give the glory of Miss Chris Owens the focus it deserved in my post below Daze Gone By, so I'm featuring her here in single majesty. Ms Owens is still a fixture of Bourbon Street, 40 years after this ad came out and she is NOT A STRIPPER. She will make you sorry if you say she is.

You need to click on this to really appreciate it. Trust me. Maraca Girls! See and Do the Twist! Queen of the Cha Cha!

God love ya, Chris, I salute you from afar.

Free to Good Home

Sweet little black lacquer-esque Magnavox console stereo in always tasteful Chinese Moderne. It looked fabulous in Perry Mason’s pad, it’ll look great in yours. Turntable doesn’t work, but the radio delivers that lovely muffled tone unique to mid-century console stereophonic equipment. Unusual petite dimensions (36 x 18 x 30 inches) make it perfect for the hipster environment tight on space, but looking for that note of Madame Nhu sophistication.

I listed this on Cragislist for free, but could n't get the picture to upload, so here it is.

Sean Connery. Zardoz. Eeks.

All actors reach a nadir at some point.

Now that You're Gone, La La Lah Lah

It’s August in San Francisco which means it’s time to gloat. I know the rest of you poor schlubs (and I say that lovingly) are lying limply over your air conditioner with your underwear glued to your buttcrack by the sweat, but here the sun is warm, the air is cool and the sky a blue so clear it looks polished. Sorry.

So I was noodling along the sidewalk in a weather-induced bliss and realized I was humming “Band o’ Gold”, an oddly up-tempo little number about wedding night impotence. Sing it with me now:

Now that you're gone

All that's left is a band of gold

All that's left of the dream I hold

Is a band of gold

And the memories of what love could be

If you were still here with me

I wound up standing in line at Pete’s and suddenly knew that this is, obviously, the new theme song for Viagra. Or Cialis, whatever. I’m a marketing genius. If this takes off, I want a cut of the royalties. I’m serious, don’t mess with me.

I gotta go

Daze Gone By

Art from my swampy youth in New Orleans (Chris Owens and her Cha Cha girls are courtesy of our dear sister, Cow Queen.)

Phthalate Free: The Love that Dare Speak Its Own Name

I’m shopping for sex toys at Good Vibrations’ website even though the store is only like ten minutes from my tastefully appointed home, and next door to my favorite thrift store, to boot. http://www.goodvibes.com/index.aspx It’s not that I’m embarrassed, or too much of a lady, I’m simply too lazy, so it’s up on the web we go.

Naturally, they’re out of stock of everything I consider. All I want is an artificial butthole, which they more euphemistically call a “sleeve,” but the only thing close in stock is a fake vagina. Can I hear all the gay men reading this join me in squealing EEEEWWWWW. I don’t want to see the real thing, why would I buy one in silicone?

Speaking of which, the main thing I adore about Good Vibes is their earnest and sane attitude, which is reflected in their clearly worded descriptions of the material the goods are made from. You want a comparison of silicon versus elastomer? Step right up. Looking for a discussion on the need for Phthalate Free dildos? This is the place. Part of these little chats is their very firm insistence to keep your toys clean. No wiping them off with the cleaner side of your cum rags, here, no way. One of the selling points of the really expensive sleeves is that you can boil them. Dr. Kildare, quick, sterilize this before you put it in there.

Other things I like about them:
>Margaret Cho is a board member. Who doesn’t love M. Cho, Butterfly? Well, you don’t count.
>They have product reviews that veer between dead serious and hilarious.
>Their cleanliness and attitude are diametrically opposed to the dirty bookstores on Folsom Street. Not that I don’t love them, too, but it’s nice to have a choice.
>Like I said, it’s next door to Community Thrift on Valencia, so you can pick up some nice tit clamps and then go look for one of them deviled egg plates.

And, no, I am NOT interested in a dildo, thank you very much. I happen to not enjoy being penetrated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all that internalized homophobia stuff already, and I’m not buying it. I am plenty glad the rest of you find it so appealing, plenty glad, and I’m happy to help on the other end, so to speak, but I don’t like it, so get off my back. Literally. Just go fuck yourself.

Oh right, that brings us back to dildos.

I gotta go

Wednesday Coming to Work Haiku

Montgomery Street Station

Subway riders wait
Still, the car is no closer
We stare down the tracks

Gnarls Barkley Crazy Theremin Jam

Some things defy logic.

See, It's Not Just Boy Booty Here

Brumansia datura, Angel's Trumpet, from my garden. Beautiful, heavenly scent, deadly poison. Just like this redhead I used to....Damn, am I back to Boy Booty already?

Mt. Muscle Pussy

I'm only putting these in because jason asked me to. What a perv.

Yes, It's Mis Phoebe (or Fee Bee, I Don't Know)

Toni Basil and kilts and some of the most lame-ass 80’s choreography ever recorded. How fabulous is that? Of course, she’s a rappin' vampire. The horror on her audience’s faces seem so well-deserved, so authentic. Maybe it’s acting. Could be.

I'm Sure It's All Perfectly Innocent

Sure.

I was walking to lunch trying to admire the flawless San Francisco afternoon, but mostly thinking about my back hurting, when suddenly this sidewalk chicklet popped up in front of me handing out free Advil. It was St. Fabiloa intervening, obviously. I took them with thanks both to the chicklet and Fabiola and crossed the street only to be confronted by some wildman in the middle of a fantabulous drum solo. His kit was made out of old plastic buckets and beat up old pots and pans, but he was rocking. Free Drugs! Free Beats! I looked around for the Free Lap Dancers, but no luck.

I came back and found jason’s demand for muscle pussy (below) and knew that’s where the Free Sex part must be waiting. To that end (so to speak) let me present a shot of my favorite local massage artiste:

I gotta go

Pretty Puss

Classic Muscle Pussy

Tinseltown tart Guy Madison, ready for business.

They Might be Giants

My heroes had the heart to live their lives out on a limb /
And all I remember is thinking, I wanna be like them

"crazy" by gnarls barkley

The Sordid Side of Sordidness

These are the Carlson twins (the naked ones. I don’t know who the gropey girls are.) They seem so determined to assure every one of God’s creatures that they are not queer, nosiree, that they get on my nerves even as I admire their flawless buttocks.

If Fabulon is the fabulous planet, then these boys are from some bizarro opposite planet of homophobes making a buck off of peddling their joint pussies to the gays they’re so rigorous about denying. It is the planet Fabuless.

Adventures in Entrepreneurship

Revillos

With thanks to superagentfred, the boy genius.

Where Am I?

We had a lovely trip to Los Angeles, thank you for asking. R Man, god love him, drove all the way, he says he likes to drive and I like to sit staring out the window. It’s a match made in heaven. We always take I-5, a highway as straight and boring as a paper cut. The high point is lunch at Harris Ranch, a cholesterol factory exactly halfway. It’s usually dependable for eye candy of the straight boy type. Which reminds me, why do you so often see ravishing straight boys paired with fat doughy wiveys? Is there some appeal to Roseanne Barr that my gay gene disguises from me?

We also got to see some disturbingly strange urinals.

I love Los Angeles. I enjoy driving around seeing the palm trees and I snagged a fabulous Brazilian body builder at the tubs (Hi, Mauricio!) and we had wonderful Mexican food at El Cholo. If you look up reviews of El Cholo online you’ll find the widest range of opinions one restaurant has ever generated. It sounds like the writers aren’t even talking about the same place. Do I care? No I do not care. I ate until my stomach hurt. Green corn tamales, love ’em.

I love Los Angeles.

I gotta go

Goldfrapp - Strict Machine

Because it's frappalicious

Turning Japanese

The band Alphaville had a great song called Big in Japan with the line “Things are easy when you’re big in Japan” but of course I heard it as “Things are easy when you’re big in your pants.”

I gotta go

Dee Vee

Diana Vreeland, a goddess who moved among mere mortals, wrote a column called "Why Don't You..." for Harper's Bazaar that was a source for insane ideas, because, apparently, some people can’t come up with their own. Among them:

“Why don’t you tie big tulle bows on your wrists instead of bracelets?”
“Why don’t you have your guests autograph a mirror-covered table with a diamond tipped pin?”
and my fave
· “Why don’t you wash your blond children’s hair in dead champagne as they do in France?”

which I always accidentally invert to the much creepier “…wash your dead children’s hair….”

Vreeland fascinates and inspires me the way professional football playing thugs apparently inspire straight boys. She ordered Billy Baldwin to decorate her home all in red, like “a garden in hell”; she created the Met’s Costume Institute; she painted her ears with rouge (is that true? I’ve always heard it, but don’t know and don’t really want to know differently. I retract the question.)

I once had a dream, a nightmare, really, wherein someone corrected me by saying “O honey. It’s not Diana Vreeland it’s Donna Vreeland” and I was overcome with mortification. I have never before or since been embarrassed in a dream, not even the walking-around-Kmart-in-my-underwear ones, but I was there. Thank god it was just a dream. I don’t think I would want to live in a world where such a vivid icon was named Donna.

I gotta go

The Aptly Named Jewel's

In the Tripping the Light Fantabulous post, jason said...
Jewel's? I'd love to hear more....sounds very (new) romantic.

Well I'd love to spill it. Here goes:

I’m not sure either New or Romantic would have described Jewel’s. It had been a hangout for drunken frat boys at some distant past and then morphed into a sinkhole of drunken bikers in the 70’s who then handed the floor over to drunken queers in the 80’s. The main draws were the cheap beers, the loud music, and the blow jobs in the backroom around the pool table. There was often a struggle between the poofs who wanted to play pool and those of us looking for l’amour.

I’m also not sure if every surface in the place was actually painted black or if the patina of filth had turned it that way, but the décor combined with the dim lights meant being able to see who you were sexing was not easy. Of course, that was part, a big part, of the charm.

I was standing in the back during one beer bust, minding my own beeswax when this guy with a big hairy chest came up to me and suggested we should go over to his house. So I pulled up my pants and we did. When we got out onto Decatur Street and I was able to get a good look at him, I was astonished how handsome he was. And he still is.

And that, little chickens, is the story of how Uncle Mrpeenee met R Man.

I gotta go

I Gotta Go

R Man and I are off to Los Angeles on Thursday for a little road trip. As Dame Shirley Bassey would say, “Wheeee!” I love visiting the southland and don’t understand the snotty attitude here in the Bay Area against it. “It’s so sterile” they squeal, denizens of the deep East Bay who are able to revel in the rich urbane tapestry of Hayward. How can any place that’s produced Colt Studios and Sunset Boulevard (the film and the street) be sterile? Insane, maybe, but not sterile.

Los Angeles has always seemed to me be a conglomeration of idiosyncratic villages. I’m wild for the shabby charm of Echo Park and Silver Lake and the neighborhoods that kind of straggle in between them. And who could say no to the pissy, buffed charm of West Hollywood? It’s like a zip code composed of expensive rentboys.

Mostly, the trip is an excuse for a long drive. For those of you not familiar with the magic that is Interstate 5 from here to there, let me tell you the image of a lush California with surfers frolicking on Annette Funicello-esque beaches is no where in evidence. I’ve driven the long dull stretches of west Texas and this is plenty the same, just with the addition of dusty mountains out past the cantaloupe fields.

Exactly half-way is Harris Ranch, a hotel with a behemoth restaurant that’s probably not bigger than several combined bowling alleys, it just seems that way as you’re trekking off to your table. It’s a working ranch and supplies beef to plenty of the food industry in California so the menu is very meat-centric. Just being in the vicinity compels you to stab things and grunt. Mmmm. I’ll try to take some pictures of my slab o’cow.

I gotta go.

Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love

With Someone Who Knocked You Down on the Dance Floor

Tripping the Light Fantabulous

Maybe it was the poll on Fabulon’s blog asking who was the most fabulous, Pet Shop Boys or Erasure that set me off brooding about music from my misspent youth. So now I’ve been haunting YouTube’s videos of bands that have gone the way of all vinyl twenty and thirty years ago. Punk and electronica and New Wave and New Romantics and New This and New That and New Knickers and all of it so very important to someone I can hardly remember being, except for the music.

I was a big Flock of Seagulls fan, yes, it’s true, I have no shame. Ramones, Pete Shelley (I have three versions of “Ever Fallen in Love” currently on my iTunes,) the Go-Gos, Roxy Music, Soft Cell, B 52s - as long as it was loud, I’d embrace it.

And dancing, or rather, the wild flailing I claimed was my dancing. Interpretive movement for the absolutely graceless, didn’t bother me. You know the incredibly annoying queen thrashing in the corner of the bar with his head down and eyes closed, colliding into anyone unlucky enough to fall into his orbit? That was me and I guess I should apologize now, years later about knocking the beer out of your hand, but I can’t because I still don’t care. I said then if no one is bleeding, you haven’t really been dancing and I stick with that.

I suppose it would have been bad enough had I been some Kylie Minogue sized threat, but I’m 6’2” and my arms are more than a yard long. When I would launch into my dervish routine, I would take up considerable real estate.

My main patch was a dingy, tiny bar in New Orleans called Jewel’s. Do you remember the glory that was Jewel’s? No dance floor, not that that slowed me down and staffed with a fabulous DJ, the late, totally great Doug Bryson. Doug would crank up the bass so far, song lyrics were completely obscured. Imagine my surprise to find out all these years later that Joy Divison had words to their music.

My dear friend, the divine DianefromTexas would simply dive for the sidelines when she saw me winding up for some of my terpsichorean madness, it’s one of the reasons I adore her so. Magda, another long suffering accomplice from those vanished days, would just get behind me and enjoy the open space I would clear.

When Tim, the urban street pirate artiste (http://www.superagentfred.com/ ), recently told us about a mutual friend, Jen, who defended her personal space in a bar from some Dancing Queen by giving her a good stiff bif, it was like a bad flashback. Jen’s on the wee side and so cute, but she’s tough. I applauded her, but secretly shuddered, knowing that it could have been me. Of course, I haven’t cut loose in years, but it could happen. Just don’t start up any Buzzcocks.

I gotta go

I'm not Mad at You, I'm Mad at the Dirt. Wait, Maybe I am Mad at You

It is, as so many things are, all my mommy’s fault. When I was just a wee little duckling, she had me store my toys in separate boxes, one for my cars, one blocks, one for Legos, you get the picture. So now when I say I cleaned up my garage I don’t mean I sort swept the bigger pieces of dirt into the corners and called it a day. O baby, no. I hauled every single item out, tried to talk myself into throwing it away (up to and including our car) and if I absolutely couldn’t, I shoved it, neatly, under the stairs where I can’t see it.

I understand my goal of having an empty garage is a futile one. The purpose, after all, is storage, and yet the thrill of big open spaces is so powerful. I don’t want a garage, I want the steppes of Russia.

The best part was that R Man and I were able to work together on a project without me turning into Baby Jane. I do not play well with others. On jobs around the house, I tend towards snarky bitchiness and my sweet, sweet boyfriend has borne the brunt of this way too many times. So to be able to successfully hang up a ladder (hoo hoo) without swerving towards Divorce Court is more of an accomplishment than it might sound.

Boyfriend was so relieved to come out of it with his skin in one piece, he even allowed me to dump the ratty little dresser he’s had for decades. He found it on the street in the French Quarter and dragged it home (just like me!) and has kept it ever since (just like me!) It served us long and well, but time to go is time to go and thanks to craigslist, it’s gone. So farewell, loyal bureau, godspeed, and may the underwear of others repose in your semi-sturdy embrace for years to come.

On a separate note, go immediately to Fabulon and watch the Official Fabulon Video http://thombeau.blogspot.com/2007/07/official-video-of-fabulon.html . The thrill of a glammed-out Dame Shirley Bassey covering one of the great anthems of our time is not to be missed.

Details, details, details

First, I want it clearly understood having Detail magazine in my house is Not My Fault. It’s one of these subscriptions thingies where you join one thing and suddenly your home is the target of a barrage of odd magazines, like Details and Golfing Today and Forward Thinking Feminists and Knit Now. Anyway, having Detail thrust on me did force me to see the horrifying cover of Clive Owen this month. Is there a more gorgeous man than Clive, anywhere? Oh, you know there isn’t. Could you tell it from this cover? Nope. But then, it’s, you know, Details.

I Gotcher Box Right Here, Baby

I want to go see “Stardust”, don’t you? Everyone who agrees with me that the prospect of seeing Robert De Niro in cancan drag is too fabulous to pass up should plan on getting in line behind me. And it has Rupert Everett (who was probably trying on the cancan underwear every time De Niro took it off) just in case there isn’t sufficient poofiness.

I cleaned out the garage last night in a burst of suburban housefrau madness which I am so regretting now as I sit here achy and tired and even crabbier than usual. The garage does look pretty tidy, I must say. It’s very gratifying. Plus, along with a bunch of stuff destined for the Goodwill limbo, I found a big stack of moving boxes, so I offered them on Craigslist for free and suddenly my email is full of new friends, lusting after my boxes. That’s very gratifying, too.

I gotta go.

We Got the Beat

We just had a drum brigade go down the street outside our office. Of course. Middle of the afternoon, San Francisco financial district, drums. Silly me, I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it. They were very good, too. Three bass drums, a couple of snares, some tom-toms, hit the cadence, baby. I think I’ll go down to the sidewalk in case strippers show up. You never know.

Plus I can't log on to the wonderful blog Fabulon (http://www.thombeau.blogspot.com/) so I need strippers.

I gotta go.

The Wonderful World of Stuff for Sale

When my colleague Kathleen asked me to come with her to buy a microwave for our office, I jumped at the chance since a) I’m always up for an excuse to flee my cube and b) we were going to be shopping in a restaurant supply house. I adore these kind of oversized, odd stores filled with weird merchandise that has no relation to your life but which seem to imply they could solve all your problems if only you could figure out how to utilize a commercial grade margarita blender.

Much along those lines is the bizarre store in Chinatown on Stockton near Green Street. I don’t know what its name is, or even if it has a name; we call it the World O’ Crap Emporium. Long rows crammed to the ceiling with teetering piles of both flotsam and jetsam. Chinese comic books and plastic washtubs in very unnatural colors and sandals that would probably self-destruct the first time you hit the street in them and those very cool red and gold spirit houses you see in cheap Thai restaurants and car repair tools that, possibly, did not come straight from some fence and god knows what all. That’s the beauty of it, you cannot possibly take it all in, let alone see it all. Plus you just know if there’s an earthquake while you’re in there, you will die in a rain of knock-off ginzu knives and be buried under a heap of silky Quiana ladyboy underpants, three for a dollar.

I’m also a big fan of thrift stores, but who isn’t? Well, R Man, for one. He refuses to enter one without sulking and considering how mediocre the ones here in San Francisco are, it’s hard to blame him. Our dear friend DianeinTexas tries not to make me feel bad about how much better the pickings in Austin are, but even Thrift Town on Mission St. and Community Thrift on Valencia (which are the best we have) are but pallid shadows of the ones she has at her fingertips. Not that I’m bitter. Sort of.

I gotta go.

Psychic Boyfriends Network

R Man and I have the luxury of having separate rooms to dress in each morning, which is great, but today it lead to my coming out and discovering that we were both wearing pink, oxford cloth, button down shirts and medium brown khaki pants. I informed him we could not go out of the house looking like we belonged to an odd religious cult that had elevated the Land’s End catalogue to an icon, but he refused to see the logic of my point. He’s like that sometimes. Most times, in fact. I had to go change my shirt.

Things like this just happen a lot when you’ve been together as long as we have. We met 26 years ago in the back room of a really sleazy, but beloved bar in New Orleans and now we finish each other’s sentences. It happens. I adore him, he’s my best friend, but I still think he should change his shirt when I tell him to.

I gotta go

In the training center, no one can hear you scream

OK, I’m back from the stupid, stupid training and O sweet jeezuz, was that bad.

Not only were the classes irrelevant, poorly presented, boring, and designed to draw out the surly personality I thought I had left behind in high school, but the facility itself turned out to be the real problem. Built somewhere in an odd 70’s period when right angles in architecture were considered passé, the whole damn place was some stupid 45 degree angle with no straight lines and the doors cleverly concealed in the most inconspicuous places. If you ever managed to break out to go from one building to another, you couldn’t then figure how to get back in. Conversations among my fellow students centered on how lost we constantly were. The building reminded me very much of some bad sci-fi movie with Adrienne Barbeau running around looking all busty and stuff.

I gotta go.