Choo choo

Somehow, I don't imagine this is our conductor.

Secret Agent Fred and I are spending Christmas day taking the train down the coast to Los Angeles.  It's supposed to be a really spectacular trip and I like riding on trains,

but right now, four hours before we're supposed to leave, Fred and I are both sort of loaded (in Fred's case, you can delete the "sort of" part.  Plowed would be a better description.)  Still, how hard can it be to get on a train?

Hmmm.

We'll be back soonish, I'll tell you all about it.

Houseless

Oops, I forgot to mention after all the drama about trying to buy that house in New Orleans that it didn't work out.  Oops.  The rapacious sellers simply wanted too much money for a house equipped with an antique electrical system and plumbing that was essentially a bog.

I looked it up just now and it's back on the market with an increased price tag.  Wow,  just wow.  When I was considering it, the price they were asking was a chunk over comparable places in the neighborhood, so how they're justifying this is beyond me.  They do mention in the description it has "updated" plumbing, which I assume means they've patched up the sewer.

I'm still looking for a place there, but there's nothing on the market and probably won't be until after New Year's.

Maybe I'll just invest in muscular Australian youths.

More Thanks. Lotsa Thanks.

Oh, hay.  Do I still have a blog?  Waddya know?

Do you remember Thanksgiving?  A couple of weeks ago?  Some friends and I went down to Big Sur to spend the Feast of Fat in this place that was astonishingly sumptuous.

This is the view from the backyard.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to Northern California's excessive prettiness."  Sometimes it's sort of oppressive, much like what I assume dating this guy might be like.

I made turkey and cornbread dressing and gravy, all of which was totally delicious, if I say so myself, and our friend J made pulled pork for sammiches, which was even more tasty and the place even had a dance floor where mrpeenee demonstrated the moves that made him the terror of bars throughout the 80s

and there was a giant soaking jacuzzi tub for after dancing.  All fabulous.  And that's when the cocaine came out.

Oh my little schnitzels, I haven't done any coke since Ronald Reagan was president, but it turns out I can still snorfle it up like a Dyson.  My co-miscreants, all of whom are considerably younger than me and were not around for the Liza Minnelli years were most impressed.  Apparently they had fallen for my respectable facade all these years.

Equally impressive to them was at the very end, when there was only smallish pile left and someone (NOT ME) spilled water on it.  I had only the briefest pause before I announced "I'm licking that up."  Who wants to waste cocaine?  It was one of those decisions you make that even as you're processing it, you think "Probably not the best idea," but that doesn't stop you.  And besides the feeling returned to my tongue by the next morning.  Pretty much.

A lovely Thanksgiving.

Everything counts in large amounts.

Bless Us. Now.

Negotiations on the purchase of the house I want in New Orleans continue, with the sellers unimpressed with my big words or the fact the house is sitting on a potential cholera pit.  I wanted them to come down $35,000 on the price, they came back with an offer of $8,000.  That is not, as the real estate industry would have it, "a lot of movement."

And I am concerned my realtor may not be the pit bull negotiator one would hope for.  I know this is shallow, but the last time I saw him, he was wearing coral colored jeans and loafers with no socks.  As Super Agent Fred pointed out, he was a short step from wearing a sweater jauntily knotted about his shoulders.  So being fierce at the bargaining table, maybe, probably not.

Just in case, I have decided to create a virtual shrine to various saints and other voodoo whatnots that might be of help.

First up, we have Saint Roch, since the house is on the street named in his honor.  He's specially invoked against the plague, which is appropriate since I have AIDS and because of the raw sewage hanging around under the house.  He is also sometimes one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.  I'm charmed by the fact that this is just a part-time gig for him.

He also would appear to be a medieval can-can dancer.  Get it on, girl.

We're also including an old favorite, Our Lady of Prompt Succor.  This is a title of the Virgin Mary and she is the patroness of New Orleans and Louisiana.  She's who you turn to when things go bad and you need help in a hurry, and god knows, that happens plenty in New Orleans.  Just as a side note, I'll admit that I've also occasionally been referred to as  Our Lady of Prompt Succor, usually at some bathhouse or the other, but that's neither here nor there.

Plus she's a snappy dresser.

St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes is on the list, as he on plenty of others, just in case.

Besides he's kind of humpy.

Lastly, Saint Justin of DeRoy cause look how clear his skin is.  Right?

Schmatta. Goddam It, Schmatta.

I sort of love that they refer to these scraps of schmatta as "swimwear" when, obviously, they are go-go boy lingerie.

“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.” ― Dorothy Parker.

"Musclepussy is the raison of go-go boys." - mrpeenee.

And how do you turn off this fucking auto-correct, which has been fighting me over "schmatta" like it's a matter of honor.

It's a Perfectly Good Word.

In an email to my finance guy and my realtor, I referred to the condition of the little love nest n New Orleans I'm trying to buy as "squalorous" and the fucking autocorrect function refused to recognize the word and kept trying to change it to "squalors" and is that even a word?  Are there multiples of squalor?  Is squalor ever used as a verb?  No, I think not.  And what kind of editing software has never heard of the word "squalorous" but is okay with "fucking?"  It's a pretty cool word, even if the chances of it coming up in Boggle are tiny.

I realize I have not been including any images of attractive, scantily clad young men, so here.

Inspect This

So it all looked so innocent, just a shabby little house needing a little mrpeenee love and decorating to turn it into a swell New Orleans pied a terre.  And then came the inspection from hell.

In my post about buying the house, I mentioned I was going back for the inspection and that "unless it turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set."  How was I to know that would wind up being pretty much the whole truth?

My realtor, my friend Stephen, who's going to be in charge of the reno, and I met up at place with the guys who would handle the inspection, a jocular gang and who rapidly confirmed all the worst fears a prospective home owner could have.

To wit:

The electrical system consists of the knob and tube wiring from when the house was built in the early 1900s.  When I enthused over all the original fixtures being preserved in the house, I meant the pocket doors, the charming transoms, the mantles and such, but certainly not the antique wiring.  Everyone meticulously avoided the term "firetrap" but it hung unspoken in the air.   So the entire electric system needs to be replaced.

The plumbing includes a gigantic crack in the downspout from the bathrooms so that sewage flushed from them simply gushes out onto the ground under the house.  Maybe that's what's kept the whole place from burning down in a tragic electrical fire.  Who knows?  I do know the plumbing has to be replaced.

The sellers had proudly advertised the roof as new, which is true.  Unfortunately, it was installed without the proper plywood decking under the shingles and tarpaper so it turns out to be more decorative than functional.  Roof, has to be replaced, got it.

By the time the inspector even mentioned the sill, which is the beam the house rests on above the foundation piers, I assumed it would have to go.  Sure enough, but just the back one, and about a third of one of the side ones.  All right!  Only thirty per cent of the foundation!   Score!

Oddly, I'm still interested in the house.  The realtor is supposed to meet with the sellers on Monday to hash out a deal where they come down enough on the price to cover the extensive repairs.  If they do, then at least I'll know all the systems in the place are new and as good as I want them to be.  If they don't, I'll walk away from the deal and call the health department on their sorry asses.  We'll see.

At least there wasn't any nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms.

Again, Yo.

Oh darlings, I'm so very sorry to have sort of drifted off like that.  Oops.  First there was my whirlwind tour of the south, then my computer died and then inertia won out once again.  But trust me, my thoughts were never far from you.  Except when I was thinking about snacks.

Austin was terribly amusing since I got to hang out with Diane von Austinburg and eat excellent Mexican food and I found a cock ring in a thrift store.

I visited with my white trash crazy family in Houston all of whom are still white trash, crazy and very amusing.  The less said, the better.

The night I got to New Orleans there was a parade.  Not for me, specifically, but for Halloween, but close enough.  It was the Krewe of Boo.  Is that adorable or what?

I had a lovely hotel.

And I got to visit with Jason from Night is Half Gone who took me out for the biggest banana split I have ever seen, cause the pound and a half of shrimp I had eaten for dinner shortly beforehand was apparently not enough.  He was charming as always.

Oh, and I bought a house.

My plan is to live there during the fall and winter and then flee back here to San Francisco to avoid the miserable heat, cause I have done my time with that bullshit.  It's a block over from my best friend in a terribly cool neighborhood, has a huge yard and seems structurally sound, but shabby, just the thing an elderly poof needs as a hobby.

It's been a rental for the last thirty or forty years, I'm sure we've all seen the equivalent dingy white paint and cheap bathrooms.

I intend to drag its sorry ass into the land of fagulous beauty.  My friend Stephen, who has lots of experience with renovations, is in charge of the remodeling and I've anointed myself as Queen Decorator.  Lots of turquoise.

I'm going back on Saturday for the inspection on Tuesday and unless that turns up a nest of alien invaders in one of the back rooms, I'm set.

News from Austin.

I'm hiding out at Diane VonAustinberg's for a few days as part of my 2013 World Peace and Enchilada Tour, which will also include a flying visit to my family in Houston and a longer one to New Orleans as a reward for putting up with the flying monkeys that comprise my beloved relatives.

Diane is,of course, the consumate hostess, aside from trying to kill me on her treadmill by luring me up on it backwards, like some crazed OK Go video.*  We had delicious Mexican food tonight and look forward to tearing it up in various thrift shops tomorrow.  The thrill of other people's discarded crap!

*DVonA says:  I did nothing to lure Mr. P onto the treadmill ("I'm really getting quite good at this" he says, just before slipping off the end. "Except now I'm sort of dizzy.").  I have done nothing but give him excellent directions to my house, which he ignored and which resulted in him taking an hour-long tour of the Texas hill country. Now, back to Mr. P.

Lies, all lies.  Although I am sort of dizzy.  Maybe I should go lay down.  Also, when I demanded candy to assist in the creative process, Diane denied having any and offered dried apples instead.  How am I supposed to sling wit and wisdom with dried up apples?

Possibly more travel bulletins as they occur.

Wakie, Wakie.

About 3:00 AM the other night, I was drifting in that very pleasant twilight that combining a clean conscience with vicodin leads to and was heading towards snoozumsland when a dark figure appeared in my bedroom door and announced "PSST. Psst. Psst. Psssssst."

After I had finished screaming like a small, scared girl gifted with oversized lungs, I realized it was a drunken Secret Agent Fred.  Fred and our friend Stuart had last been seen hours earlier at some grimy Castro area bar and I had thought he was going to go back to his own house since a) that's where he and Stuart were staying and b) that's what he had said they were going to do.

Back in my boudoir, we traded bon mots consisting of tipsy giggles on Fred's part and threats of immediate, painful mayhem on mine.  I sent him off to his bedroom and lay seething in bed wondering how my cat Saki can leave everyone who comes to Thanksgiving dinner bleeding but can't guard me from one drunk poofter.

Fred was apologetic, sort of, the next day, although he did lean still towards the giggly, and asked why he had woken me.  I reminded him that after I had explained I was going to find a baseball bat and cave his skull in, the conversation had just petered out, so now we'll never know.  Pity really.  I mean, when the cops arrest me for manslaughter, isn't that going to be one of the first question they ask, too?

Fred wound up sleeping for 36 hours during which Stuart, who is visiting from Baltimore, moved out of Fred's place and into a schmancy hotel here because he had no idea what had happened to Fred and had started entertaining visions of visits to the morgue, poor thing.  Also, Fred lost his phone, AGAIN, during his drunken spree which almost makes up for scaring me, but I still plan on dropping Saki on his head the next time I find him unconscious.  Sleep with one eye open, bitch.

Why can't something like this appear late at night in my bedroom?  With a can of cashews?

Hoofing It Down to the Land of Dreamy Dreams

Secret Agent Fred and I have decided to invade New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 2014.  I know the last time I went there for Carnival, I swore I wouldn't go again because visiting the madness is so much less fun than actually living there for it, but I've reached an age when repeating my mistakes is a charming quirk, so here we go.

First step: make hotel reservations, which is not easy during the highest of high seasons.  Second step: wonder if simply buying a house there wouldn't be cheaper, considering what hotel rooms run during Mardi Gras.  Third step:  start sopping for shoes for my costume.

Footwear has always been problematic for me and my costumes.  I get all the other pieces together and suddenly my Converse tennis shoes are just not cutting it.  Even if I don't do drag, I might still want to wear high heels, cause they're so gay.   Still, you'd be surprised how puny is the selection of ladies size 15 pumps.

And how ugly they are.

I'm thinking about boots and am willing to consider input from you guys.

The fucsia, third from Right, are particularly fetching

Brooding about my feet just reminds me of a long ago Southern Decadence when I was back there for a visit and had to rustle up something in a hurry.

My friend Rich let me borrow his red wig (I know not everyone can pull off that Titianesque shade, I'm just lucky that I can really rock it)

and that tired old Merry Widow bustier has long been my go-to for a quick get up, but even with fishnets, the whole thing sort of skids to a sorry halt with those white mules, which Rich described as "Nancy Nurse on vacation."  Bitch.

That same giddy afternoon included a tragedy when another friend, Cow Queen, accidentally knocked off my wig (at least, he claims it was an accident) outside some not-very-nice bar on Rampart Street.  I certainly was not going to take that and so, CATFIGHT, which thrilled onlookers no end.

Later he tried to suck up, but between a wig on the sidewalk and those shoes, I was just mortified.

That's why I'm leaning towards boots, boots with which I can kick the shit out of somebody.

What do you think?

Out of the Darkness

So I meant to post on Wednesday, Sept. 25 that it was the fifth anniversary of my wedding to R Man, but before I could get around to it, the power went out, so instead Secret Agent Fred and I wandered around the house, lighting candles and tripping on things.

I was going to whine about living without R Man, but you know what?  I don't want to.  I'm doing better now than when he died then and I expect to continue that way.  Instead of writing some droopy, sad little post about missing R Man, I went to bed early.

Then this afternoon, I took Saki down to get his claws clipped on Castro while I went across the street to get my own nails done at Handjob.  I don't know why he pretends manicures are so traumatic, I like them.

I have no idea what's going on in the photo above.  I just find it amusing.

A Quiet Evening

Secret Agent Fred appeared and we went out for drinks and vicodin at the Glass Coffin, drinks served by Fred's friend, the luscious Speros.

Tragically, this does not begin to show the beauty of Speros.  If you add the circumference of his biceps, they would probably exceed his tiny little waist.  Bitch.

I had just picked up the Vikeys so they were fresh, the weather was warm and cute boys were swarming all over the Castro.  A good time was had by all.

We wandered home and sat down for a game I like to call "What Does the Internet Have to Say?"  Each of us takes turns showing the other what fresh hell the web has proffered us lately.  Fred had me watch several videos by a hip hop duo from South Africa called Die Antwoord who rap in some gibberish mix of English and Afrikaans and, for all I know, Morse code.  It is not entertainment geared towards those of us amused by Noel Coward.  Nevertheless, I still thought it was pretty funny, mostly because of these incredibly white South African kids flashing gang signs and attitude and fashion that would have been perfectly at home in Compton, circa 1990.

Fred taking a short, unauthorized nap on the floor of the mrpeeneee International Command Centre and Communications Department. 

For my part, I introduced Fred to the genius of Slow Ass Jolene, the Dolly Parton classic slowed down considerably, which comes out sounding astonishingly like ballad singin' dude, perfectly in pitch, even the harmonies.  It is amazing.  Even if, or especially if, you don't like Dolly, you should listen to it.

Also, I can't remember where this came to my attention.  If one of you guys posted it first, I want to say thanks and apologize for not sharing credit.

After that, naturally, the evening devolved into a porn fest.  Fred shared A Bearded Boy , some slightly deranged gay lad who is nasty and cheerful as all hell about it.

Spooge happens.

Subsequent unguided and possibly unhinged wanderings from one site to another turned up what we both voted as the winner of the evening:

I have no information about him, I can only imagine this shot shows him locking the door against the clamoring throngs outside.  Who can blame them?

Caperless

I like heist movies, like The Thomas Crowne Affair, or The Italian Job, or Rififi, or Inception, any complicated caper that involves split second timing and completely unbelievable coincidences and high speed car chases through a mid-town Manhattan with amazingly light traffic.  Or a naked Jason Statham.  Especially a naked Jason Statham.

So I settled in to watch Now You See Me happily enough and after it was over thought "What the fuck was that?  Can I have my ninety minutes back, please?"  Turns out, no.

I understand all of this genre requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief (again, Manhattan car chases with no traffic.  Yep.  Okay.) but Now You See Me takes this to another plane, sort of a willing assumption of simple mindedness.  The obligatory car chase turns out to have absolutely no purpose in the movie.  There is no reason the crooks indulge in it, it does nothing for the plot (or "plot") and the reveal of how the crooks structured it is just ludicrous.  It involves Woody Harrelson driving a city bus full of commuters who apparently don't notice there is a car attached to the bus.  With a convenient dead guy in it.

It's all very slick and the cast is nice looking

Dave Franco, James Franco's little brother, who simply disappears for a big chunk of the movie.  Maybe he found something better to do.

Mark Ruffalo, who was cute, in a fresh-out-of-rehab sort of way.

but let me emphasize the main adjective here is "ludicrous."

One of minor points I found the most irritating turns on the cops being able to find a hotel room in New Orleans at Mardi Gras because they have an Interpol chick who speaks French and, naturlement, being able to do so is a big plus in the Big Easy.  I lived there a long time and ran into plenty of natives who apparently could not speak English, but not because they were Francophones.  I know it was a French colonial town, but so were St. Louis and Detroit and nobody expects them to roll out fluency in French.

And no naked Jason Statham.  I mean, really, what's the point?

Ironic Hair

Polk Street is an odd San Francisco thoroughfare.  It runs through several very schmancy neighborhoods and yet it manages to be shabby.  Castro is the more well known gay center, but Polk was the original gay ghetto.  We lived near it and I got to know it well enough to realize every block had a liquor store, a dry cleaner, a cheap diner and a gay bar.  Every block.  A very short hop down from the center of what was the rentboy stroll is the front door of City Hall.  It's San Francisco, there's not a lot of room to spread out.

But the last decade of skyrocketing rents has routed pretty much every bohemian or louche or plain old funky neighborhood and Polk Street is no exception.  Almost all the old gay hustler bars have given way to guys with oversized glasses and teeny tiny hats drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

It's Hipsterland: expensive, ironic and grimy.

Pretty much I don't care, they got to go someplace, I suppose, but this week my barber called to say his back had given out and I needed my hair cut and somehow I wound up at the People's Barbershop on Polk at Bush Street.

A temple to hipster's fetish of guy-ism with a hearty dash of steampunk thrown in for decor, if it was any more hip, I would have been issued a monocle and a wool vest.  Who am I kidding, if it was any more hip, I would have been barred at the door.

So now I have a $60 haircut I don't like.  The sides are fine, but the top has sort of a poufy roll which, considering how little hair I have to work with, is pretty amazing.  I look sort of like Julie Harris in Member of the Wedding, but not as attractive.  Or butch.

In Which mrpeenee is Repeatedly Disappointed

Secret Agent Fred and I went out to lunch with the Fashion Sensation this afternoon.  I was  confused (which is no rare thing in the peenee Universe) because a couple of weeks ago, the Sensation had told me she was going to a silent mediation retreat somewhere up in Lesbian Land and then when she rescheduled lunch to today, she said it was because she had injured herself water skiing.

The idea of a combo meditation retreat/water sports event seemed unlikely, but vastly appealing, certainly more than just standing around being told to zip it, which is how I envision a silent mediation spree.  Turns out the two things were separate.  How cruelly disappointing.

Physically inept as I am, water skiing is the one sport I'm actually ok at, or at least I used to be.  When I was 11 years old and first learning how, I was so skinny, I could have probably been pulled up by a rowboat.  Fashion Sensation's injury just makes me think I should just let my past glories lie.

The Sensation wandered off somewhere or the other after lunch and Fred and I retired to the tastefully charming bar at the Fairmont Hotel.  We had only sat down when Fred was summoned away by a series of increasingly frantic calls from his old neighbors in Baltimore about some guys who claimed they were trying to change the lock there.  At 7:00 at night.  On a Sunday.  The calls escalated to a chat with the cops who showed up and who were sceptical about these guys' story, which I think showed real perception.

While Fred was outside dealing with all his Maryland based drama, the waiter obviously decided I had been stood up by my date.  He was a very cute waiter, as so often happens here, but before I could figure out how to finagle his sympathy into possible pity sex, Fred returned and we settled into simple drinking.

This is not Cookie schvitzing in Baltimore.  I'm pretty sure.

Speaking of Baltimore, Ask the Cool Cookie sent me a self portrait he had snapped while packing up Fred's house earlier this weekend and then asked that I not post it here.  I'm not going to (even though it had a certain naive charm) and I want full credit for my restraint.

Get out the way.

And speaking of bloggers who should be restrained, MJ, from Infomaniac, sent me a perfectly lovely card for my blog anniversary.   Saki has claimed it for his own and now sits on it blocking the view of all the good porn.  Life is so hard some times.