Sunday Plans

A dear friend is going through a rough time, another and I haven't connected in far too long, and Super Agent Fred is always up for a good time, so the obvious answer is Sunday Brunch and then possibly shopping at Gump's.  Gay?  Why do you ask?

We're headed off for a swank little boite in an odd part of downtown.  Since making the reservation on Tuesday, they have called me twice and sent me two emails less about confirming our party and more like badgering me.   I suspect that were we to not turn up they would track us down with bloodhounds.  Still, it sounds like a sweet  place and one of the drinks they feature on their brunch menu is the Mary Pickford: white rum, pineapple gum, lime, grenadine and maraska.  I have no idea what maraska might be and I'm fervently hoping "pineapple gum" is a typo, but I'm planning on swilling it down and will report later, if the vicodin holds out.  I figure it it's good enough for America's Sweetheart to knock back, how bad can it be?

Also, speaking of The Gay Life, here:

A Day of Beauty

What a lovely, San Francisco kind of day. It rained all night, but today is crisp and fresh washed, the perfect day for an elderly poof, such as I, to go down to the Castro to get my hair did and a mani-pedi. Loved it.

Castro Street was at its most charming.

Some guy was sprawled on the side walk so I asked "Are you all right?" He replied indiginanatly "Of course I am." Of course he was, and all was right with the world.

Is there anything better than gossip to go with your hair-do? My beautician, Jeff, was in rare form because a big muscley thing was in one of the chairs on the other side of the very small shop and Jeff had to practically whisper the dirt to me, which just improved it, n'est-ce pas? Seems Miss Muscle Thang has recently divorced his wife the better to pursue his sideline of snagging rich old men. He looked sort of like this, but more or less in clothes.

On behalf of old men everywhere, I say if you look like a gold digger, if you gots the gold digging equipment, go dig the mother fucking gold and make some old man happy. Plus, for some reason, Jeff does a better job cutting my hair when he's distracted with gossip, so yay.

Then, on to Hand Job for my nails. Although I never specify who I want, I almost always wind up with Malwani. I have the impression she is not the most popular girl there, possibly because she is one of the homeliest trannies I've ever seen. But really, I'm not there for a date, so what do I care?

She does have spectacular nails, which is encouraging.

There used to be a kind of nice looking guy here who has vanished and my dragdar tells me he may have grown his hair out, rooted through his mawmaw's jewelery box and emerged as Malwani. There are some Ladies who go through the change and give it their all, attempting to be the most feminine creature possible. Others make no effort to hide their more masculine voice and profile, who decide that they are all the girl they need to be and they are the ones I applaud and that seems to be Our Girl Malwani.

Also, Malawani understand my cuticles.

At the other end of the Hand Job spectrum, their receptionist/esthetician is this terribly cute boy named Frank.

I think a little eye candy improves any beauty regimen, don't you? One of the services Hand Job offers is a Boyzilian Wax, the very idea of which makes my nuts retract into my body cavity and which I think Frank may be modeling here:

He's also a model, you can see his site at Nakkid youth

I have no idea if his facials include a happy ending; I'm simply happy to live in San Francisco, where the guy booking your pedicure is possibly an up-and-coming porn star, or should be anyway.

Blahblahblog

the mrpeenee Anger Management Squad on Alert Level High

so the almost charming MJ and Thombeau shamed me into digging into Bloggers innards in order to get back to the old blogger interface, the absence of which I so shrilly have been decrying here.

After successfully following MJ's patient directions (couched specifically for me in very small words,) I was greeted with this message from Blogger:

The old Blogger interface will be removed in the coming month.

So brace yourselves, Karen Black is at the controls.

Blogger Buggers

Also, let me repeat, I HATE BLOGGER'S NEW CHANGES TO POSTING.  HATE, HATE, HATE.  FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU.

Trying to place photos in a post is hemroidly painful.

Great, now mummy has to go take her pills.  And wipe the foam off the monitor.

Fucking Blogger.

Austin, When it Sizzles

I've been meaning to wrap up my vacation reporting by telling all about our trip to Austin, but I've been distracted by choking to death on Saki's cat hair enveloping the house in a giant cloud.  How such a small cat can generate so much excess hair without going completely bald is beyond me.  Possibly it is proof of a fourth dimension.

So anyway, Austin.  Dian von Austinburg and I went to to the You of Tee there more than thirty years ago and worked on the student newspaper together.  Hilarious times.  She was a mere child, I was a doper.  Austin then was a redoubt of hippies and the burgeoning punk rockers.  I worked at a motel where the Ramones stayed and they complained to me the laundry service they had sent their dirty clothes to (who knew the Ramones even bothered?) sent back their tee shirts with starch in them.

Austin now seems much more tidy, a very, very attractive clean little American city.  They do flog the live music scene there (which was an important component of the slacker life style when I was resident) as a big time industry.  There were two live bands playing in two different bars in the airport the day we left.  Ask yourself if that might be the life you would have dreamed of.

One thing unchanged is the delicious Mexican food, in which we indulged at least once a day every day.  I went to sleep in an enchilada induced food coma more more than once.

And now, the slide show!

We considered "provisions for men" but decided we had enough.  Provisions, not men.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center was gorgeous with Indian paintbrushes at their peak and bluebonnets just waning.  But christ almighty, was it hot.  I know real Texans would pooh pooh the temperatures while we were there, but my time in California has wimped me out.

The center had recreated in its courtyard a famous Texas spring called The Blue Hole.  I can't tell you how tempting it was to "accidentally" fall into it despite the signs firmly prohibiting just that.  But I grew up with the kind of middle aged Texas Ladies patrolling nearby as docents and I knew better than to mess with those bitches.

Instead, we repaired afterwards to a small neighborhood drug store called Nau's (my grandmother's family is related to the Nau's.   I bring that up relentlessly whenever I pass the store, it was my one claim to fame.)  The geek guy making milkshakes paid the kind of dedication and time to them that one would expect of research into cold fusion.

I thought about calling for help.

Diane was, as usual, the consummate great host, putting up with my crochets and eccentric driving.  Yay for her bad self.

She even took us to an obscure art piece, the Graffiti Museum, which turned out to be my favorite part of the trip.  Some condo developer went bust and left behind the foundations of his project.  The current owners have donated, temporarily, the site to a local art nonprofit which, in turn, administers it and allows graffitos to go wild, within some proscribed terms. Even if, like me, you're ambivalent about graffiti being art, I think you'd be charmed by this.  It was so elaborate and some of the pieces so beautiful.  Some of it was just stupid tagging, but plenty was striking.



And then we got on the plane to come home and fell into the trip from hell.  But let us never speak of that again.

Fierceness

I am, apparently, the only gay man in the universe who despises the television so-called show Glee.   Hate. It.  I would prefer having Chlorox injected in my brain and the two times I have suffered my way though an entire episode, I have considered doing just that in order to erase the horror.

And yet, because I am of the internet world, I cannot escape it.  How humiliating that I have no idea who the Prime Minister of Japan is, but I know the weasely little white gay boy is boyfriends with the one in the bow tie.  A bow tie?

Through those same inescapable channels, word has reached me of a fabulous cover of Boogie Shoes on a recent episode by a tranny, who may or may not be a new character.  I couldn't figure out from the bits I read if he's a guest star or what and didn't have the stomach to do any real research.  Let's just leave it at a new-ish guy who likes to dress like a Lady.

And can sing!  Girl!  I think I may love him.  In fact, if they would line up all the other characters (except Jane Lynch) and shoot them so the show would consist of the new tranny guy and her, I would watch it.  I would also watch the show where they shot all the ones I don't like, but then, I'm just petty like that.

And as the dear Princess commented on Infomaniac, I also HATE HATE HATE fucking Blogger's new fucking lay out when I'm just trying to post my drivel.  Hate.

This Just In: Not Much

So, let me get this straight: the entire Secret Service in Colombia "scandal" is that several men paid several women to get their rocks off, their ashes hauled, their bones picked, in short, to have sex, for money. That's it?

Prostitution is not called the oldest business just to be cute. Hookers have been with us always, men stationed in strange territories have always made use of their services and nothing in the coverage I have read has pointed towards anything disgusting or even particularly racy. Then again, the stories have universally seemed to be rather purse lipped about the details and about why this rises to the level of scandal. How is a blowjob in a hotel room a security risk to a President who wasn't even in town yet?

Are we Americans really so naive that the simple act of hooking up with a whore is a disgrace? Really? That's all it takes? The utterly corrupt and charming Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards told a reporters once "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." What happened to that level of understanding what's truly scandalous? No wonder the media is so dull. I'm going back to amateur porn.

The mrpeenee That Care Forgot

Vacation slide shows. Who doesn't love them? I'm going to split this last little trip into the New Orleans and Austin segments to better drag it out. Whee! Let's go!

We had a lovely time in New Orleans. Secret Agent Fred had never been and was most impressed with all the the charm, the architecture, the food, the cute boys, and mostly the law that allows you to take your cocktail with you out of the bar in a plastic Go Cup. There were many Go Cups involved.

Also involved was the ongoing misapprehension by about everyone we came in contact with (including the hotel desk clerk, who I'm pretty sure was an old trick of mine) that Fred was my spouse and that I was an abuser. Spousal Abuse! How hilarious. Fred had gotten in a brawl in a bar here the night before we left (oh, those Irish hooligans) that resulted in a broken jaw, a black eye, and various scrapes and bruises.

I thought about getting a tee shirt that said "Not My Fault" but I never got around to it.

It also resulted in us using a candy wrapper as an eye patch and a 40 of piss water beer as an accessory one late night in a patio at our hotel. It was a very late night.

The same night, same patio, I was a middle aged mutant ninja. I supposed it was result of all those people thinking I had popped Fred in the eye in some misguided homage to Rick James.

Speaking of happy times, we celebrated my birthday at one of my favorite joints, Liuzza's, where we were joined by a gang of best old friends

Let's just call them "The Girls."

as well as Diane von Austinburg and blogger extraordinaire Jason from Night is Half Gone

who very, VERY sweetly brought my favorite birthday cake in the world, a New Orleans specialty called a Doberge. Rich and totally delicious.

We also got to hang out with Jason and his drastically good looking boyfriend at an odd bar outside the French Quarter. The joint had this bullet proof door you had to be buzzed in through, I suppose with the idea it would keep out the low lifes, but there were plenty more riff raff inside than out, so maybe that plan wasn't working so well. Also, I have no pictures from that part of the evening because by then I was so loaded I apparently mistook my car keys for some kind of super spy camera and tried taking pictures with them. Again, another plan that so very didn't work. Still Jason and his boyfriend John were funny and charming, just like his blog so it was fun.

Most of our time was just spent wandering around the French Quarter and the neighborhood next door, the Faubourg Marigny. During the prehistoric time I lived there, The Quarter was the gay neighborhood and Marigny a quiet little backwater, but time marches on and now The French Quarter is much too expensive real estate for impoverished poofters (like I was) and now all my friends have fled to the Faubourg, a charming area full of pretty houses that have benefitted from this migration.

My friend Cow Queen says the places that used to be cheap apartments in the Quarter are now vacation homes for out of towners. Certainly that would explain the odd, almost deserted quality its streets have at night now, so different from the crazy buzzing energy of my youth there.

It was sad and sort of poignant to walk them after midnight, as we did so often, and see so few people around. It reminds me how wildly lucky I was to be there when I was.

What else, let's see....

At some point on every trip I make to the Old Country someone snaps a "I Walked with a Zombie" shot of me.

Our hotel, the Provincial, located directly across from where R Man and I used to live, had an unexpectedly charming bar in it. If you're in town I recommend it.

You get home from a trip, look through your photos and wonder "Why did I take four pictures of a dumpster?" Then you remember you liked the color of the shutters and were, perhaps, a tiny bit loaded.

Our friend Rich has the most charming patio. Full of bananas and elephant ears and ginger, it's like the definitive New Orleans setting.

So, yeah, a fabulous trip and a sweet reminder of how I love the old place.

Do-It-Yourself Smut

Before we get to details about the lovely trips to New Orleans and Austin, about which I'm sure you're all waiting breathlessly, mrpeenee has reports of technology triumphs. Specifically, the schmancy new printer I bought and installed this afternoon.

Close readers of this blog will know I like porn. Yes, it's true, muscley mens sporting their bits are one of my all-time faves. Since I am also a dinosaur, rather than computer images, I prefer hard copy at hand (you get it? "Hard copy" "At hand?" Oh, never mind.)

Now that the internet is pretty much the only source for filthy pictures, and what a boon it is, I needed a printer to transfer them to paper. My stupid little HP Ink Splatterer was not cutting the mustard so Secret Agent Fred and I whirled off to one of the big box stores that everyone rails against so shrilly and scored a sweet little Epsom bad boy.

And speaking of big box stores, is there some quaint little mom-and-pop tech provider I could have gone to instead? Don't think so and I live a fairly big town. Anyway.

Then, installation, which I actually like. Meticulously unwrapping the components appeals to my most OCD mental defects and being able to follow directions written for the mentally challenged whose first language is not English and who, in fact, may not even have a first language makes me feel a small step below Stephen Hawking.

And then, et voila, our first effort rolled out effortlessly and perfectly, crisp with brilliant colors. It was a shot shared by Fred we like to call "Daddy Panties."

So now I got to go, cause I have a backlog to mow through, for research archival purposes only, I assure you.

Friendly Skies

Darlings, I'm back. Fabulous, fabulous details abut my fabulous fabulous trip to follow, but for right now, let me cut to the bad news: traveling in other locales is great; traveling to them sucks. Especially on United. Should you have a choice between them and walking barefoot to your destination, let me weigh in strongly for the latter.

Our trip home was supposed to take about five hours yesterday. I got home this evening, 28 hours after I left our dear Diane von Austinburg's embrace. We managed to get all the way to just above San Francisco Bay about the same time as a huge storm. The airport closed all but one runway which meant we circled around the Bay Area and other, less charming counties for two hours before we finally got our chance to take a crack at landing. That's when our plane WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

I didn't know that even happened except in disaster movies. Abort landing! Divert to Sacramento! Strand mrpeenee there so he has to spend the night in a very odd hotel and then take the train, a subway, and a bus to get home the next day!

I entertained myself at odd moments throughout the day battling with the evil United Airlines about the possibility of being reunited with my baggage, which apparently was meandering about Northern California in a carefree sort of way I can only envy. I finally wound up driving out to the airport here to retrieve it.

No wonder people turn into shut-ins. Right now it seems like a very attractive proposition. But I'm back and there have been times over the last day and a half when that seemed pretty unlikely so, you know, yay and all that.