Friday, August 31, 2012

Autumn-ish Song


Hurricanes wandering around, Labor Day Sales at various stores I wouldn't go to if they paid me, and this very autumnal looking picture of the dining room at Chez Peenee all to brace us for that summer-is-past frame of mind and get down to the business of fall.  Stephen over at Post Apocalyptic Bohemian put up a bunch of pictures of his chars so I thought I would, too.  Truth be told, the next couple of months in Northern California are when we get our warmest weather, so what I'm really bracing for is walking around barefoot.  Finally.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Blood Wrap


 So perhaps you're wondering what happened on the last episode of True Blood for this year?



Alcide Herveaux is still God's gift to, oh, I don't know, everybody.

Better. Than. Porn.


Bill Compton went from being a prissy noble pussy to being dead.  Tragically he didn't stay that way.



Jason Stackhouse is a dick, but one I would eat on a cracker.



Also,  Alcide Heveaux.  Damn.


The End.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Stormy Weather

While other people's childhood reminiscences might include building tree houses and tea parties with their genuine Chatty Cathy Doll, mine center more often on hurricanes.  The charming, leafy subdivision I grew up in was a peninsula that stuck out into Galveston Bay and which was smacked by tropical storms pretty regularly.  Every autumn, inevitably, I would be roused in the early morning by my mother who would announce that we had to put all our earthly possessions up as high as possible cause some stupid hurricane was heading our way and flooding was imminent.  Great.

And then, having stuffed our clothes and groceries in the attic and propped the couch up on cinder blocks, would we flee to higher ground?  Oh my, no.  We would sit and wait, "see how things go" and only leave once the bay waters actually invaded the house, which they did six or seven times (I have lost count over the years) before the city finally condemned the charming, leafy subdivision and forced my parents to move to a more sensible location, a move they should have made decades before.  Some of these floods were six and seven feet deep.

When I was six, the eye of Hurricane Carla, an enormous Category 5 storm, passed directly over the little town I grew up in.  The National Guard came to our door and ordered my father to get us out; we drove through water that came half way up the car doors.  And where did we go? Five minutes "inland" to my granny's house, a house you could walk to the beach from.  Cause that was safe.

And that's the point, the world I grew up in was astonishingly casual about hurricanes, storms that killed people every fucking year somewhere on the Gulf Coast.  Of course, meteorological predictions were much more primitive and tropical storms rarely travel in a straight path, so hearing one was "coming our way" was a prediction regarded with jaundiced eye.   My granny could do better watching  which way the birds flew.  The grocery store printed hurricane tracking charts on their paper bags.  During Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, the weatherman would interrupt with the latest coordinates and you could mark them on the map to see which way the fucking thing was lurching.  It was like a not very amusing game.  I remember the truism that it's supposed to be worse to be on the west side of the hurricane, but now I can't remember why.  Maybe it was unlucky.

But then came Hurricane Andrew and all his little brothers ripping up Florida; and Alicia, which finally forced my family from their home; and, of course, Katrina so now the storms get much more the respect they were due.

And now here comes little Isaac, still only a tropical storm and only predicted to hit land as a Category Two, but coming in with spectacular timing, interrupting the RNC convention (sort of yay) and eyeing the anniversary of Katrina (so very much not yay.)

That's why as I sit here, halfway across the continent, remembering the weird green color the sky would turn right before a really big storm settled in; the nasty stench of the muck that the storm surge would flood our house with; my mother wading through the den to reposition her favorite recliner, I'll be honest.  I am so grateful to be out.

Anyway, what this really started out as was a hearty wish of good luck and no hurricanes going out to our dear Jason in New Orleans and Mean Dirty Pirate in whatever truckstop he's in outside Gulfport.  Keep your tits dry honey.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Stay in Vegas



My favorite quote about Prince Harry flashing his bits in Las Vegas?  From Huffington Post comments on the story:

"Celebrity got drunk and stupid in vegas? Say it ain't so?

I live in vegas and the AVERAGE PERSON gets drunk and stupid here."

I'm just glad it wasn't William; let's face it, poor thing's really gone to seed fast and do we want to see that naked?  Plus I sort of love Harry cause when it comes to being a Royal, he really gets it.  Much like his late Great aunt Margaret.

While we're discussing naked men in Sin City, let us consider Rico Elbaz, an entertainer there whose tag line is "The Magic Behind the Zipper."  Do you think they hung out together?

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Lily Time

I mentioned in my gibbering about going up to our friend Mark's goat ranch in the wine country that he had gifted me with some of the mosquito fish from his pond (which is the size of small lake, or maybe a big golf course water hazard) for my new lily "pond" (which is the size of a generous bathtub.)

I bought a stock tank online with the idea that I would use it for a free-standing planter, but once I wrestled it up the back stairs into the patio with the help of my dear friend Magda,  the appeal of using it for water lilies seized me.  Magda encouraged me in this and let me just say one of the absolute best things about him is his enthusiastic embrace of my most crack brained concepts.

The only thing holding me back was my uneasiness about creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes.  Consider it a holdover from my Gulf Coast youth.  Enter Mark's mosquito eating fishies, and yay for them.  Still, my skeeter based unease was increased when the cutie pie owner of one of my favorite nurseries here, which used to specialize in water gardens, told me all the nurseries in town had stopped carrying water plants because of the West Nile virus.
Mosquito fish in their new home, pre-plants.  Now, weeks later they're still industriously at it with no food from me, so either they're eating the mosquito larvae, like they're supposed to, or they're eating each other.  Cannibal fish!  Eeks!

I was bummed, not only because my dreams were as ashes, but also because I had already filled up the tank (you have to let the water stand for a while to get rid of the chlorine before you put the fish and the plants in) and now had to empty it of 167 gallons of very heavy water.  By hand.

Imagine how thrilled I was, then, when another nursery (my favorite, actually, and fuck that first guy, even if he is pretty cute.) sent me their regular email blast announcing a sale on water lilies.  I was there that afternoon and snagged two.  The tags explaining what colors their flowers are were missing, so I have no idea what's coming, but they're lilies.  How bad can it be?

Monday, August 13, 2012

Bitch Stole My Look



Checklist for a video that is guaranteed to be a super duper smash hit:

  • Break into Tina Turner's trailer, boost her wig, shoulder pads, heels and even her good brooch.
  • Lure a Sade wannabe out of turning tricks for the evening.
  • Snag the choreographer from some Michael Jackson video that never made it to MTV before he sobers up.
  • Convince the cinematographer from the last Flash Dance sequel that "What the hell" is a good enough reason to shoot your video.
  • "Borrow" the karoke machine from the 80's Jammin' Night at the airport bar.
  • Convince the guy who has the aeorbic studio next to the Yogurt Hut to let you use it as a set.
  • See if the pleather jackets are still on sale at the mall
  • Get a fan.

I actually remember people trying to dance like this, but then, I am terribly old.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Tick Tock Trick

So tonight we move on from "previous friends" to "previous tricks."  Or "men with whom I previously had some brief and probably furtive sexual liaison."   Maybe I'll just stick with "trick."

Lured into the Castro by this afternoon's lovely, lovely weather (warm in the sun, cool in the shade, 60's-ish, lalalalala) I ran across not one, but two guys who used to be on my intime list back in the day and, honey, they was looking ROUGH.  I might refer to them as the Walking Wounded, but the first was only sort of shambling along and the second was just slumped on the sidewalk.  He might have been talking on his Blue Tooth, but since he wasn't wearing one, it seems more likely he was just having a quiet chat with his demons.

I don't think either recognized me; the first since he was distracted by dealing with the open door at Walgreens and the second because he was distracted by being crazy.   Besides, there are lots of men in this fine, fine country of ours who would only recognize me from the top of my thighs to the bottom of my hips.

And before any of you let loose with some supposed humor about what this says about my taste in mens, let me emphasize these connections were light years ago, when these poor guys were both more functional and solidly cuter.  But then again, so was I.




Let me, then, salute all the cute guys who are out there right now.  Here's to ya baby.  And even though I have retired from the lists, I encourage the rest of you to celebrate their beauty by squeezing on it as often and as much as you can.  Because tempus fugit, baby.  Tempus fucking fugit.


Friday, August 10, 2012

Madame Ex, Line Two

As a bitter old queen of a certain age, I have racked up a number of "former friends."  Chums about whom I now say "Oh, yeah, we used to be friends" or, more tellingly, "Yes, I knew him/her" with a cogent lack of enthusiasm.  A prime example of this turned up recently.  Let us call her Madam X, or perhaps better, Mme. Ex, just so no one will think I am referring to Lana Turner, whom I believe is, technically, dead.

So Mme. Ex and I go back to my misguided college days, back to the same time when I met the charming Diane von Austinburg; please note I am still tight with Diane.  Mme. Ex, however, sends me squealing in the opposite direction.  And believe me, I'm not the only one.  Diane and all our other friends of those heady days gone by unanimously avoid her and for the same reason.  The bitch cannot talk about anything but herself.  Never.  Not a word passes her lips that is not directly acquainted with her ego.

I understand the irony, the hypocrisy of someone who writes a first-person blog that might as well be called "My Fabulous, Fabulous Life" complaining about someone else's self-centeredness, but when not here in mrpeenee.com, I am perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation that at least implies I am interested in the other person, even if I am mentally composing grocery lists as they speak.

Not so with Mme. Ex.  If at any point in the chat, she actually stops speaking, it is not to listen to what you say; it is simply waiting for her turn to start again.  Thus, when she called to announce she had blown back into town, I settled in for a few hands of solitaire and to play my part as Designated Listener while she noodled on about life in the Southland.

A few times, since I was losing and sort of bored, I would thrust myself into her flow to announce what was going on on my side of the phone.  I told her I had retired, and then a couple of sentences later she asked if I was still working downtown.  I braced myself to tell her about R Man dying, R Man, someone she had known almost as long as me and with whom she had spent substantial time. She pulled out all the stops and allowed she was sorry, with the same sincerity she would have met an announcement on my part of a bad manicure.  And then, of course, changed the subject.

After that, it was pretty much wrapping the whole sorry thing up with several totally insincere "We'll have to get together while you're here." and a stern mental reminder to myself to stop answering the goddam phone.

Thank you Jeebus for voicemail.

How come guys like this don't call me up and ask to hang out?  Huh?

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Town and Country

Secret Agent Fred and I just got back from a short trip to our friends Mark and Gaye up in Napa.  Napa was a sleepy farming burg which transformed, much like Aspen and the Hamptons, into a place where really rich people can go and complain to each other.  Nevertheless, it's a lovely place and Mark and Gaye have a nice plain house there with a lavish vegetable garden.

The Wine Country.  This is certainly not Mark and Gaye's  place.  It's a snotty champagne winery that was rude to Fred so we left.

We hung out with chickens

And goats.

We ate such fabulous food, tomatoes and corn and basil and tarragon and lots and lots of squash all rushed from the garden to the kitchen where I was slinging serious hash.

As usual in the country, we found many dead things, like this ferret.  Fred's the one on the left.

We picked tons of blackberries, just like when I was a sullen little white trash child in the wilds of Texas.

The garden was not just massively productive, but really pretty as well.  Because Mark likes to build things, every meal included a discussion about where to eat it, on the screened porch, on the patio, on the pergola, on the floating deck, on the terrace, yaddahyaddahyaddah.  This is one of the arbors.  The man needs to calm down.

But he very sweetly caught a bunch of little mosquito fish form their pond for the lily pond I'm  building.  He was srt of impressed until I admitted the "pond" is pretty much an oversized garbage can I bought and am filling up with water and lilies.  And mosquito fish, imported from Napa.
Normally I'm tepid about going to people's "country place."  I feel like if you're sucker enough to get on the hook for a second house, I don't know why I should be commandeered to come amuse you, but everyone I know who has one is always agitating for visitors to come justify the joint.  Still, I'm glad we went since it was a good time and Mark and Gaye are charming and we scored enough produce from their gardens to keep a small religious cult going for a couple of weeks.  What, exactly, Saki and I are supposed to do with it all is beyond me.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Call Me, Keeks. We'll Talk

My memories of my hair and fashion choices, circa 1974, make me remember myself as a frumpy dork.



I see now that I was simply prepared to step into the Kiki Dee Band, should the need arise.

"Feel funky, feel good, gonna tell ya I'm in the neighborhood."  Bitches.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

This Just In

Yes, I am a cranky old man

And I am not paying $350 for a goddam pair of jeans.

On the other hand, isn't this guy adorable?


Secret Agent Fred and I went out for drinks tonight and I had a "Gaupo" which turns out to be basically a margarita made with grapefruit juice.  Tasty.  I might be a tiny bit loaded.

In Which We Recoup

  But I don't want to be the bigger person.  I don't want to be the adult in the room. I don't want to go high when they have go...