circleinasquare

Testing

2010-07-28T19:55:00.001-04:00

I think I should start writing things here again, instead of in sketch books and bar napkins.

Hillside

2009-08-09T13:29:00.005-04:00

Why hello!

Haven't seen you here in awhile. I haven't been around, either.
Though I would surely prefer camping, I am instead

dry walling the bathroom.
I'll keep you updated if anything interesting happens,

though what that could possibly be,

I can't imagine.

What Remains

2009-02-23T19:38:00.005-05:00

J

How many friend's partners/spouses had you buried by the time you were 40? This is my first.

Her Irish sisters had composed a vignette of her on the hospital bed in the living room, where she died in Marks arms before sunrise. The one who let me in scurried back to the clutch of the others in the kitchen, where they huddled like birds in a stiff and bitter wind. Tiny photos and prayer books were placed in an arc above Patty's face, around which they'd closely laid some of the loose handwoven shawls and throws she favored, masking it off as though for spray painting. It could use the painting too, I guess; all waxy translucent and taught. A mask not like Patty at all. I touched it. It was cool and not at all resilient, all the color faded away. In only a few hours! I wanted to press my thumbs into the cheeks to see if it would leave a mark, but I knew better. Her father sat in the chair where he'd sat since dawn; perpendicular to the mattress, head down over fingers knotted into a beseeching fist, just as still, and just as silent as his daughter. He didn't look up.

The Yankee Protestant dead are covered immediately, and vanish into the backs of black Cadillac or Lincoln hearses as soon as stunned/exhausted/relieved spouses or children can marshal shaking fingers into pressing the right sequence of digits into the phone. Three or four days later facsimiles of the departed appear - after spray painting - in mahogany or bronze shadow boxes lined in pale ruched silk, determined by propriety, taste and budget.

I worried myself up the stairs, running through all the platitudes and cliches recalled from all the funerals I've attended. Are they as hollow to hear as they are to say? I went with saying nothing, just holding him and stroking his head while we cried. Later, from halfway down the stairs, the scene below hadn't changed; the green and gold shawls and sad grey man in a red leather chair; a guttered out candle visage. Cold.

Nope. What remains is not Patty at all - so the half open, dull eyes weren't creepy,
just curious.

E
.

Seventy Eight

2008-12-02T19:19:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday Mom!

It's Halloween!

2008-10-31T16:05:00.002-04:00

After WW II, as the vacancy left by white flight started to fill with migrating blacks in much of greater Philadelphia, my Fairmount neighborhood began contracting. The working class Polish and Ukrainian residents retreated behind bulwarks of the walled campuses of an orphans' school and a nursing home to the north, and at the broad demarcation line of Corinthian Avenue to the east . That avenue ends at the colossal white marble columns of the school's main building, standing sentry over the wide no mans land street dividing the neighborhoods, like the Brandenburg gate thousands of miles away between the then new East and West Berlins. Fairmount kids were herded off to one of two Catholic schools to the south, while the black kids outside the fiercely defended perimeter continued to attend the public schools. The system remains today. Over the years the locals worked tirelessly to keep the sometimes real and sometimes imagined dark skinned hoards off the local streets, meeting any sort of encroachment with hostile stares, threats - and sometimes worse. That's all diminished somewhat in the ten years I've lived there, with the influx of the monied and educated, but some of the bunker mentality remains. One of its manifestations is Halloween - we have two in the neighborhood - sort of a trick or treat apartheid.

Each October, the parents of the Catholic school students determine a date shortly before the holiday, and spread this information among themselves; it is not posted on fliers or websites. The date is disseminated to the new professional residents via market, coffee shop, and dry cleaners. At 6pm on the selected day the costumed children of Fairmount canvas the local streets in the gaze of their stoop sitting elders, and the warm orange glow of pervasive plastic pumpkins mounted over the porch and front door lights of homes in the network. It's all over before eight.

On October 31st, the neighborhood is mostly quiet, the residents shut behind tightly closed doors and drawn blinds, the plastic jack o' lanterns dark and the stoop and porch lights out. At dusk, along frontier streets like the one where my current home is located, bands from the north will approach the beacon lights of the few obviously occupied houses. Those residents are either not in on it or oppose the "local" trick or treating date on principle.

This year things may be a little different. World Series Madness has gripped the city. Right now the streets are jammed with a red shirted hoard a million strong surging around the stadium on Broad Street. After dusk they will return to the cars they jammed into my neighborhood (and others) this morning, zombified by plastic pints of Bud Lite, Yuengling Lager and twenty six years of pent up euphoria, and we will hide from a different invasion, our pumpkins already safely stowed away for next year.

Half Life

2008-08-18T18:30:00.004-04:00

During my recent extensive and ongoing cleaning marathon, I discovered a copy of the last genealogical update compiled on my Old Yankee Family by my gay uncle. He, only only a dozen years older than I, has shouldered the moth eaten mantle typically born in clans such as ours by one of the Maiden Aunts or Eccentric Bachelor Uncles. There's always at least one. This is fortunate, as I am far too lazy for the task myself and my cousin R. is far too involved with her 4x4 and softball league to have the necessary time. I suspect no Keeper of the Name will be found in my generation, and curatorship of the boxes of photos, letters, documents and disks of files will pass to my brother Henry's third boy: kittenish, doe eyed, "creative", and who at age seven - upon glimpsing the disco ball which dangles from the rear view mirror of my car - immediately pronounced it to be "fabulous".

Anyway, the factoid relevant to this post ( rather than say a much juicier one; like that a horrific house fire which consumed all members of one branch of the family [save my future great great grandfather who was away] has recently been determined to be the murder-by-arson conclusion of an Appalachian blood feud rather than the accident he always claimed it to be) is that over the last one hundred and fifty years or so, death greets male members of my family in the eighty sixth year of their age. On average. Many in fact lived well into their 90s, but a few less sturdy and resilient succumbed earlier, bringing down everybody's numbers.

Forty three more years to go!

I Love Bratwurst

2008-08-06T21:24:00.003-04:00

I really do.
.

Paper

2008-08-01T23:12:00.007-04:00

"You should do something with your drawings", he said.

His eyes scaled the piles of loose and overlapping multi layered sketches - on shopping bags and bar napkins and take out menus and sales receipts; and the heavily worked thick lined diagrams on coarse brown paper scoured with feverish intent - some so emphatically rendered they could be "read" through their backs with the finger tips: legible, though incoherent Braille. His eyes scuttled across where they had settled into the lees of messy tabletops and eddies of cluttered corners like fall leaves swept by a down pour. The disorder made him stiffen. Before though, from the far side of the room, I had seen him tentatively extract a few and examine the marks that covered them.

"Do what?"
I smiled and winced, lifted my pencil and slid a dog eared magazine over the one in front of me, eyes lowered and hand cupped to conceal the shiny graphite burnishing my right fingers and palm.
"They're done. No one will ever see them - even you only look at it all as a landscape. Just wrinkled papers everywhere."

He frowned.
"No. You should put them all together. Together. Make a book out of them or bind them or something."

I thought about it. One, under my coffee cup, was scribbled with several song titles to down load, a cell phone number and e-mail address, and colored pencil describing changes to a store front I regularly pass: cobalt glazed brick newly scraped mostly free of soot and black paint and now paired with the orange brown of rusting steel and some dull aluminum.
"Maybe."

Considering the paper further (remember: call P.!), I saw that the aluminum would have to be changed to stainless steel - unpolished, yes, but still with more reflectivity. It would sparkle in the raking light of late afternoon just before the street lights came on.

"Yes." I removed the coffee cup. "Maybe I should gather them up."

I found a white pencil and added highlights to the edges of imaginary openings cut through imaginary steel.
"That sure would make it a lot easier to throw them all away."

I smiled again, and dug through the desktop sediments for the pink eraser - though it's harder on the surface than the white, it doesn't smear as much - and set upon the paper to correct it.

Fire Fire

2008-07-09T12:31:00.007-04:00

Fire Juggling, Amber Street, Kensington, Philadelphia, 7/04/08

Fire Works, 915 rooftop, North Chinatown, Philadelphia, 7/05/08

Shave and a Haircut

2008-07-04T00:40:00.002-04:00

Would you hire this man?
.

Smoke

2008-05-08T22:21:00.007-04:00

"I love it when you visit your parents. You come back smelling like country people; damp wool and wood smoke." Natasha said this without looking up from the table at which we worked.

I did. Returning from the amber warmth of their modest house, heated by cast iron stoves at either end, I carried an olfactory infusion of the house I grew up in. My parents sat in twinned chairs. Dad's was a stiff upright Windsor rocker thinly padded with a circle of braided rag, Mom's a long coveted and finally acquired Lay Z Boy, fat with poly dacron, indestructibly sheathed in brown Herculon, and softened with home made embroidered cushions and slip covered squabs. They gloried in the close heat of the stoves, reluctantly migratingfrom the one in the kitchen only when the one at the other end of the house had been stoked into radiant life. The heat rose through a grill in the floor by my bed under low eaves above the parlor where they withdrew in the evenings. As a boy, I'd watched them through the grate. My father would rise, lay his folded paper on the empty sofa and kneel to tend the fire. When he opened the door a wisp of white smoke and ripples of invisible heat would escape and rise toward the grate, and sometimes sparks too, but they would fizzle like tiny spent fireworks short of me. Shivering, out from under quilts and comforters, lying on the wide wavy pine boards, my chin on folded hands I peered intently from above. His face would flush and flash in the red glow of the embers hidden in the firebox, with the licking flames reflected on his horn rimmed lenses, and then return to its furrowed brow pallor when he shut the thick beveled cast iron hatch.

Natasha was English (in spite of her name). She'd been spawned in Devon and matured in Manchester nightclubs listening to Factory Records tracks- in former factories - 'til the sun rose over the low haze of coal fires. In the interim she was incubated on the bucolic campus of a British Public School where her speech, her precise BBC diction and lyrical cadence was formed and refined. That voice was a stark contrast to her appearance: thrift store frocks worn over ratty jeans and thick soled boots, printed polyester blouses and acid colored cropped v-neck sweaters, accessorized with an ever present yellow and orange messenger bag. It held her chipped and abraded SLR camera, spare plastic barrettes, zippo lighter, perhaps a Japanese thermal canister of brown rice and pea pods, and fresh panties, all tossed together in a vagabond's salad. She'd used the bag previously for other gear and supplies - shovel, axe, canteen - issued to her as a California fire fighter for beating back the burning brush on the hills above the HOLLYWOOD sign. With the camera she took pictures of the burned kerosene and oil exhaust trails left behind jet airplanes and the peeling paint of abandoned factories; their iron furnaces long ago banked and cold. Sometimes, on warm soggy days her bag still smelled of conflagration.

She pronounced the words "whoo-ool" and "whoo-d" drawn out, like a languorous Lady Marjorie from "Upstairs Downstairs". Her words gave my chunky sweaters and reefer coat that much more loft and absorbency with which to capture the heavy aroma of salty humidity (blown in from the nearby Sound, sometimes with stray seagulls ) and combusted with winter felled oak limbs and no longer productive apple boughs. Three hundred miles away at the table where we worked I pressed a knitted wrist and muffler fringe to my face and inhaled the scent of home.

Falling in Love Again

2008-04-13T21:26:00.001-04:00

Live! Circleinasquare muses on the persistence of romantic love in an intimate performance captured at the fashionable Wood Shop Lounge high atop 915 Spring Garden Street.

Drinking may have been involved.

Four Things

2008-04-06T19:34:00.010-04:00

Tank sent me an email the other day. He's one of my favorite interweb personalities, as he exists for me only on the computer screen. He has been met in the flesh by persons whose general veracity is known to me, so in this case anyway, I can be sure that he actually exists. I'm not imagining it. This time. He's tagged me. It's not the first time. Unfortunately, for that round I proved unable to rise to the task. I was in a very, very cranky mood at the time.

So, here's to second chances:

Four Jobs I have had in my life:

Paper boy
Fry cook at KFC (three excruciating days, though I did save the name tag)
Interior Designer
Wood worker

Four Movies I could watch over and over:

Godzilla, King of the Monsters
Casablanca
Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill
Blade Runner

Four Places I have lived:

Westerly, Rhode Island
Boston, Massachusetts
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
Bawlmer, Merlin

Four People who email me regularly:

Blog Daddy
Jillequa'
Salvatore
Big Rick

Four TV Shows that I watch:

Nova
Paid commercial programming on channel 7
(California Beauty Slim-n-Lift Ultra Body Shaper!)
South Korean World News, In Korean;
they always have fist fights in Parliament!
Whatever reruns are on between 11PM and midnight
as I get ready for bed.

Four Places I would like to be right now:

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, 1933
CBGB OMFUG, East Village NYC, Spring, 1977
The Sands Hotel, Las Vegas Nevada, 1959
Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, 2008

Four Favorite Foods:

All of the vegetables children hate
(broccoli, lima beans, okra, spinach etc.).
Grilled lamb chops; they come with little handles!
Peanut butter cookies. Well, actually any cookies.
All of the cookies.
Anything you cook for me while I watch.
I'll wash the dishes.

Four Places I have visited:

London
Paris
New York
San Francisco

Four Events I am looking forward to this year:

ICFF
GBNYC5
Fourth of July weekend
The Rapture (fingers crossed!)

Four People who should post four things:

You
You
You
And you over there with the glasses.

Noooooo!!!

2008-03-30T19:51:00.009-04:00

Shattered!

In happier times; author and beloved cup,
oblivious to fate's cruel advance.

Dammit.

Happy Birthday, Easter Bunny!

2008-03-24T01:09:00.010-04:00

My acolyte displays the sacrament.

The ritual is performed.

"Ipse enim verus est Lepus qui abstulit peccata mundi."

Amen. Alleluia.
.

Plastic Hats and Green Beer

2008-03-16T22:53:00.002-04:00

I hate St. Patrick's Day.

Dilated!

2008-03-10T00:10:00.007-04:00

No glaucoma, and "Transitions" lenses ordered
for my clear plastic Moscot horn rims.

Fancy.
.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

2008-02-19T00:21:00.002-05:00

Circleinasquare sings!

Just me, the microphone and YOU, gentle reader...

The Fourteenth of February

2008-02-14T10:34:00.004-05:00

I love you.

I love you all.
.

Things Have Been a Little Tight, Lately

2008-01-25T11:39:00.000-05:00

It's a good thing too, else I would have had to buy this:

And this:

And this:

And a pair of these:

Dodged that bullet.

Whew.

Victory!

2008-01-19T17:09:00.000-05:00

Ha! It worked!
The editing I did didn't take, but here it is anyway. I'll be playing with this further.

Doldrums

2008-01-14T13:27:00.001-05:00

I feel like I need some sort of pick-me-up.
Maybe I should get this:

It's reversible.

Do Not Park Anywhere Near 12th and Dickenson

2008-01-02T14:04:00.000-05:00

In heading out for our New Year's Eve festivities, we'd forgotten the party's exact address, but resolved to drive the known vicinity 'till we discovered a row house overflowing with drunken homosexuals - which would be our intended event or another party essentially the same and probably just as good. And there they were, on the steps and visible through the tall arched bay windows.

The host had cautioned not to park in certain places. We did not, and it proved a good thing.

The self starters of South Philly begin the new year with their own displays of pyrotechnics, and pyromania! The scene was captured by our host Roland.

Ho Ho Ho

2007-12-29T00:40:00.000-05:00

The author discovers Santa's other hand to be surprisingly cold;
SPIT at Uncle Ming's, Lower East Side, Manhattan.

.

Oh! Is This Your Snow Bank?

2007-12-19T19:57:00.001-05:00

What's the matter with Misfits?

...l'had'lik neir shel Chanukah.

2007-12-12T17:19:00.000-05:00

Amein
.

Snow Day

2007-12-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

I'm totally captivated by Shadow World .

David Kessler has been engaged in a year long video documentary of life in the shadows beneath SEPTA's Frankford Line elevated train tracks. Sometimes hypnotic, often compelling, the work will be presented as a video installation at Bambi in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia.

The opening is tonight.
.

Cold Outside

2007-12-04T18:07:00.000-05:00

Finally.

The leaves are only just now turning, having clung to the slumped and exhausted trees - for months it seemed - dull yellow and wilted green with brittle brown edges, like broccoli left too long in the refrigerator drawer.

Fashion's palette too has finally rolled into warm reds and golden ochre tones to foil the clear blue brightness of near winter skies, as evinced by Rick's new hat (shown). Firm felted (Caucasian?) wool, a toque, touk, or turban, shaped to cap a Las Vegas minaret, Eastern Orthodox ice cream stand, or Teletubby chilled by the brisk winds of late Autumn.

Nightlife

2007-11-22T13:29:00.001-05:00

I really need to get out more.

The author enjoys the company of friends at The Bike Stop in Philadelphia.

I think I'll go to Santa Saturday this weekend. How bad could it be?

On Second Thought

2007-11-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

I drive a large white convertible, which I love-love-love, and plan to be burried in; or cremated with on a pyre, like a Viking lord and his long boat; or at very least parked way out back with a tarp over us, where we would slowly rust and decompose, ultimately returning to the earth as I hear is the practice with some Hindoo Motoring sects. The far more practical Father Tony is getting one of these. His final arangement dictates for himself and the car are unknown to me.

Regardless, I want one of 'em too. A white one. No, a red one.
Whatever.

But that doesn't mean I could live for very long without one of these, too:

I think I need to develop additional income sources.

Productivity

2007-11-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

12:26 PM, Monday.

I have not done any work at all - save make a pot of coffee.
Which isn't actually working though, is it?

It's Time for Scares it's Time for Squeems

2007-10-31T14:12:00.000-04:00

The soundtrack for this odd little bit of Americana is a recording by Frank Zappa's and my favorite band.

"The Shaggs love you, and love to perform for you. You may
love their music or you may not, but whatever you feel,
at last you know you can listen to artists who are real."

Happy Halloween.

Speaking of Philadelphia

2007-10-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

It's true that I have nothing to write about these days. But that doesn't keep me from writing!

F'rinstance, someone I've never actually met wrote recently. He and his partner, now in full maturity, were considering a relocation from the NYC metro area to Philadelphia. Though I whine and cry about this city (particularly about my lack of success in meeting people here; I've made more friends in NYC and DC in the past three years than I've made in Philadelphia in the last twelve) I'm a big Philly booster. I was feeling expansive at the time, and will of course sieze on all opportunities to invole myself in anything other than the work for which I am paid - so off I went.

Here's an excerpt:

Philadelphia has all the amenities of a major city; culturally, medically, intellectually. Thriving ethnic communities and a large international population (at all economic levels) bring real variety and underscore the long standing and distinctly Philadelphia feeling of being a confederacy of neighborhoods/city states with local cultures and retail districts. Produce and farmers markets are long established, easily accessible and integrated into neighborhoods; it's a cooks dream. Restaurants
are better and cheaper than NYC from the mid range to very high end, with local chef owned BYOBs in every neighborhood, and every kind of ethnic cuisine. The community of working artists and musicians from numerous highly ranked schools has not yet been priced out. You can buy a three bedroom house in a "good" neighborhood for $350- 450K, and a decent place - smaller or a little further out - for $150- 250K. At the same time It has all the wildly expensive glass condo towers and
cheesy faux colonial towne houses, brand conscious boutiques, chain businesses, and the controlled/manufactured experiences demanded by the upper middle class and relocating suburban folks.

NYC is 1 3/4 hour away and WDC 2 1/2. Both are easily AMTRAK and ($20 round trip) Chinese Bus accessible.

Philadelphia is not a gay party town - and it's no wonder, considering how tedious and unimaginative the gay establishments here really are. It seems to be a combination of little effort comming just shy of meeting low expectations. All the fun bars with good music are straight bars (generally the cool bars are very gay friendly), and are off in the neighborhoods. The Gay bars restaurants and businesses are clustered in Washington Square West. Many gays are leaving that now high rent Homo 'Hood for the South Broad St/ Dickenson vicinity. In Center City overall and most neighborhoods where middle class people would consider living, queers mill about unmolested, and even in marginal poor neighborhoods like Graduate Hospital, Kensington and Fish Town (where the art people are trailblazing) and Italian South Philly, you'd more likely find difficulty by having dark skin than being gay. Teh Gay have a clear voice/representation in city politics, with the ear of city council and Governor Rendell himself. Employment non discrimination is in effect within city limits. Overall, I think Philly is a great place for a 40 something couple, gay or straight.

Con:
Public transportation (outside of center city and the east/west corridor to University City) SUCKS; it generally stops around midnight, and runs infrequently except at rush hours.
Keep your car.

Taxes and public utility costs are near national highs/ services are uneven at best. City government departments and regulatory agencies are nightmarish chaotic labyrinths staffed by unhelpful, indifferent (and unfireable) employees who do not hesitate go on break in the middle of "helping" you.

City planning and growth is totally dictated by trade unions and developers; the wrong decision is usually made. City council is run by the patronage machine system, overtly influenced by political contributors. Pay to play is the standard practice and, incredibly, is NOT illegal.

Native Philadelphians are highly suspicious of non Philadelphians. Rather than the NYC directness and bombast you may be used to, they may appear furtive and passive agressive to outsiders - especially in the neighborhoods. Natives have an underdog mentality, and revel in the city's second tier status, which can be irritating to those who see how wonderful it actually is.

Neighborhoods are clearly racially segregated. Black/white tension can be high, especially against the recent waves of gentrification and Asian/Hispanic immigration.

So there you have it, etcetera etcetera.

If at some point I can hop off my lugubrious looping trajectory of dolours and ennui for fifteen minutes, I'll expand on some of the above. Maybe.

Fairmount Water Works

2007-10-22T18:15:00.001-04:00

The author enjoys a Yards Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale on the portico of the keeper's cottage overlooking the Schuylkill River, Frederic Graff's 1819 Water Works, Philadelphia, 10/21/07

I Am Everywhere

2007-10-14T15:39:00.000-04:00

Fear me.

Update: Explaination? See comments.

Did He Beachoo Girl?

2007-10-07T22:21:00.000-04:00

I've viewed this clip from Whatever Happened to Susan Jane ? about thirty times today. Bryce was writing about this film months ago, but this is the first clip I've seen.

I. Must. Have. It.

!

The Right Thing

2007-10-05T12:47:00.000-04:00

I see governmental legislation as a process of intrigues and liaisons by individuals having very little short term interest in "justice". The most skilled operators within the convoluted system can strategize to move the state and it's citizens toward ultimate long term goals. It's a nuanced tactical game built on compromise. The right has been very skilled in this, moving the nation away from it's founding principle of fairness and it's trajectory of inclusion. I wish the left (what I guess used to be the center) could be just as savvy.

I worked with a person for about a decade. In that time, J went from an established married man in a long time career to a single woman in college relearning life as well. J sacrificed everything, family, community, career and all savings and financial security in order to release and realize V, who had been in there all along. V didn't have any easier a time of it. As a trans woman she still struggles: one state couldn't reconcile her new gender identity so she moved to one which could; a second career proved hostile to her appearance so she entered school again for schooling in a third. She finished high in her class and received good internship evaluations, but cannot land a position- in a field short of qualified candidates - here in this city . She's now heading to Massachusetts to try her luck there. V is probably the bravest, strongest person I will ever know.

I posted much of what's below as a comment on Aaron's blog. Like many reasonable and articulate folks he's concerned with the ENDA meltdown.

I don't spend ALL day reading blogs, so maybe I've missed this, but what tactical benefit exists for trans people in creating a bill which can not pass? I'm not trying to be provocative in this obviously pro-inclusion forum. It's a totally serious question.

I think the history of civil rights has been characterized by a few landmark watersheds, but mostly gradual and incremental change through refining previous legislation - and importantly, changes in public mores spurred by the examples of legislation.

Of course including trans folk in legal protection is the right thing to do. But it was just as clearly "the right thing" to include gay people in the civil rights legislation of the 50's and 60's. To do so then would have stalled the inclusion movement for everyone - and we, the whole alphabet of queer acronyms wouldn't be as far along as a community NOW if that position had been asserted THEN. None of us. [The Constitution would have fizzled over slavery, the Bill of Rights aborted over women's suffrage.]

Demanding that legislators (who are largely uninterested in the struggles of queer peoples) rile their general constituencies (who are largely uninterested in the struggles of queer peoples) by voting for a bill with no popular support doesn't seem like a practical way of moving inclusion forward for anyone.

Long an iconoclast swimming my issues and positions up stream against unsympathetic masses, my Dad frequently reminded that I ask myself what was more important: to BE right, or make the right thing HAPPEN. If the right thing is civil rights for trans people, I haven't been shown how sinking ENDA is the way to make it happen.

Just about everyone I know is university educated and lives in a large coastal city where their left of center positions (which I share) are embraced by a majority. Like me, they work in fields where their sexual orientation is small liability (and in my case is something of an asset- the art/design world is like the Gay National Guard). As a group our identities seem to hinge on our principled positions - which we reinforced and congratulate ourselves on at our all white/all middle class gatherings over engaging yet nuanced glasses of Shiraz or ironic cans of Bud and Pabst Blue Ribbon - and on our condescension toward those who don't loudly tout them. I wonder if we should consider more what effect our positions have on folks outside of our privleged realm or the trajectory of our own lives. I wonder if we shouldn't consider more the wisdom of my cranky Yankee codger dad who understands that battles must be lost to win wars, and that we must make sacrifices ourselves to enable greater victories down the line.

Yup

2007-09-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

Still nothing.

Damnit.

I Travel

2007-08-13T21:21:00.000-04:00

Was in DC for Blowoff this past weekend. Some sort of bear jamboree overlapped it. I did manage to enjoy myself.

Diapers

2007-08-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

In the mid 1960s nearly all American families used cloth diapers. The thick, softly napped cotton squares were intended to be folded over in the centers to form rectangles, placed between an infant's legs, wrapped up in front and back and pinned together on either side with large safety pins clasped at their opening ends with plastic bunnies and ducks - pink for girls, blue for boys, and yellow for shower gifts and other pre birth purchases made in an age when the baby's gender was revealed only by the doctor's announcement at the time of delivery. This barrier was further leveed with elastic legged rubber panties made out of translucent material akin to shower curtain vinyl, and often screen printed with additional bunnies and/or ducks. Disposable diapers were an expensive luxury for working class families. Even the middle classes and more well to do used cloth diapers, saving the newfangled disposable for special occasions like travel; packing the bulky ill fitting contraptions, the surgical tape and scissors (in lieu of safety pins) necessary for installation, as well as the still mandatory additional shields of snap on rubber pants.

In my hometown, the mothers in the stately Georgian center halls, prosperous columned Greek Revivals and striving mansarded Victorians spaced in a proper receiving line along the broad, shady, granite curbed width of Elm Street; and the mothers in the low sprawling ranch houses lounging on sweeping green lawns set far back from the sinuous lanes and cul de sacs of Sherwood Hills - all used diaper services. Uniformed diaper service drivers in fleets of glossy white panel vans - emblazoned with images of bundle bearing storks and crisply hand lettered with company names like "Dandy Didee Delivery", "Stork Service", or "Bundles of Joy" - delivered fresh paper wrapped string tied bales of bleached white fluffy squares once or twice a week. More importantly, the men removed the company's own logo stamped pails hazardous waste containers filled with the returns, now heavy and wet with the digestive efforts of the town's future generation of merchants, bankers and managers.

At the top of the hill (where in the two previous centuries the fine Elm Street home's granite foundations, steps and gate piers had been quarried and cut) mothers in plain and sturdy clapboard cottages (built essentially the same for a century and a half) and set in close queues with the narrow gable ends facing the oiled gravel roads - washed their own diapers. They emptied them into toilets, then plopped them into their own diaper pails, becoming skilled in removing and replacing the tight fitting lids in the shortest possible time. Transfers between pail and washer were swift and precise. Braided cotton lines pinned with long flapping strings of diapers stretched behind the houses like ships' riggings at Fleet Week, a semaphore of white cotton squares signaling that a baby (or two) was on board.

When my parent's third son and last child was born, the second was just ten months old. With the new baby came the need to purchase additional diapers and the increased volume was deemed enough to justify the purchase of a new modern washer (and unmatched dryer) to handle the multiple daily loads. They selected a Maytag, wisely. As advertised, it provided decades of repair free service, well worth the premium paid then. The diapers too were an exceptional value. Bought for the third son they continued into the early 70's and the first grandchild. The new and improved disposables had by then become ubiquitous, but due to their extreme popularity often in short supply. The cloth squares worked in a pinch, and expanded their duties as shoulder covers for burpings, pads for changings, and general soft plentiful absorbency as necessary. After the babies they served around the house for arts and crafts cleanup, to dampen the resonator of Dad's banjo, to prevent punch bowl scratches on the dining table they'd just polished, and to clean and wax Mom's station wagons and later the boy's first cars on the long blacktop drive laid along side where the clothes lines were once strung.

In his e-mail today, written in a house without clothes lines hundreds of miles from the Maytag's final resting place, my Father mentioned that today, Mom threw away the last tattered diaper, frayed and much reduced in size. He thought it worth noting, as Yankees do, that they'd gotten their moneys worth out of them. They'd lasted almost exactly 42 years since he bought them at Vars Bros. on High Street, in the weeks following my birth, on August 7th, 1965.

If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Now

2007-08-05T21:52:00.000-04:00

My parents have elected to end their years in a subdivision in the New Jersey Pine Lands. I drove over to visit.

Mom prepares dinner.

Dad considers driving up north for his 50th high school reunion.

Beer Nostalgia

2007-07-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

One afternoon a dozen years ago, the year I moved to Philadelphia, I wandered with a friend though the narrow steep streets of the Manayunk section of the city, past close stone and stucco workers' houses hunkered between later, grander 19th century red brick blocks and high windowed tradesmens' workshops. An ungated vaulted passage to a rear stable yard beckoned. Once beyond it the wafting aroma of hops drew us further in to the open door of a three car garage sized cinderblock shed. I'd been a beer snob for about six years by then, so I recognised the brewers tanks immediately; someone was making beer. The first to appear was Jon, thin and cane like as a hops bine itself; and the second Tom, a broad and solid red headed barrel of a man, proportioned like the silver kegs around the perimiter of the concrete floored room. This was their new company - just the two of them and a part timer who came in to clean - up and running for just a year. Tom searched for clean glasses and Jon drew from the test tap of a just completed tank. Cool, not cold, full bodied deep amber with a caramel colored head was this their sole progeniture: ESA, Extra Special Ale. Boy was it ever. It was unquestionably the best English style ale I'd ever tasted. They called their company "Yards". The four of us drank and shot the shit, my friend and I leaving long afterwards tipsy and flushed with the excitement of a new found love.

The company grew and expanded into taverns across the city, coinciding with my own incursions. They relocated, added a bottling line, and Jon left for other pursuits. Bill and Nancy Barton came on board bringing needed funds and business know how, resulting in a final relocation into a Barvarian castle like brewery complex which had been mothballed since prohibition. At every step we were there - the beer carnivals and happy hours, and at the and community fundraisers and scruffier art exhibitions where they provided the kegs - pint glasses in hand and smiles on our faces.

As people grow, sometimes they grow apart. It was aparent that that was happening within the company as Tom and the Bartons developed different visions for it's future. Still, the recent news of a split came as a shock. I'm optimistic that I'll be able to continue my relationship with my beer as Tom continues to produce it, and also look forward to enjoying the beery developments of Bill and Nancy's new brewing venture. It's all overlaid with a certain melancholy though, as yet another key pleasure of "My Philadelphia" is changed by the forces of money and expansion altering everything around us. *Sigh*

Not Dead

2007-07-23T21:48:00.000-04:00

Rather, distracted.

The author and Jerry, hurtling towards Williamsburg, deep below the East River.

Testing

2007-07-23T21:47:00.001-04:00

Is this thing on?

Tagged!

2007-06-24T18:08:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged.

I've always wanted to be tagged. I've wanted tagging in the same way that I've always wanted a nick name - because it would make me feel that I was special, uniquely distinct and particularly worthy to some individual and/or group.

Now, after three years of blogging, I've been tagged. I have bobbed up to the surface in the pool of those who would be tagged, and plucked, glistening and radiant, from the stewing masses of the less taggable. Now I am among the tagged...

and I can't think of a single thing to put down.

Really.

I've already told you everything even slightly interesting that I can Recall. Though the keys all remain in the same place between efforts, my "typing" has never reached a point of proficiency where it can be anything but a tedious chore. So I'm not re-typing any of it - and I'm too lazy and easily confused to cut and paste.

So I recommend visiting the other tagged blogs, which are all some combination of thoughtful, interesting, well written and entertaining. Go here and click on the links at the end of the post.

Sweet Dreams

2007-06-14T17:18:00.000-04:00

My thoughts today wander back to childhood, and my two older, larger brothers who'd periodically put me in compromising, threatening or embarrassing positions. When they'd again start chasing me through the house, pinning me in suffocating headlocks, or threatening to rat me out to Ma and Pa for some misdemeanor, I'd offer them this simple reminder:

"I'll remember this, I'm very, very patient, and you will have to sleep sometime."

Soundly, I'd hope.

;-)

Beh

2007-06-10T22:40:00.000-04:00

Beh. *

* Update:

JUST TO CLARIFY

beh = disgust combined with intense dislike
feh = disgust combined with contempt
meh = indifference with a shade of contempt

Thanks to my Jillequa for this clarification.

Family History

2007-06-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

India and Tom

Among the pleasures and terrors of coming from a family which has lived in one place for a very long time, is "trackdownability". If someone starts sniffing around my home town inquiring about any one of us, living, dead or far far removed, it won't be long before contact is made with that particular branch of the family. The above photograph was addressed to a woman deceased for a decade, on a street since renamed, in a town of thirty thousand people. It had been sent to Rhode Island by an amateur genealogist from California, who was a distant relation of Tom and India's mother. Through the small town network of everyone knowing everybody, the photo and accompanying information made their way to my uncle in Massachusetts, who is also interested in genealogy. The sender had never met, corresponded, or spoken with the intended recipient, my paternal grandmother, but had found her name and partial address in her father's forty year old obituary. Grandma was described as the last living member of that particular clan.

My grandmother told me that her father Tom, pictured above with his sister as children around 1905, had lead an interesting colorful life; a traveler, a naturalist, a high school principle, and a successful furrier who tanned raw hides at his Maryland Eastern Shore workshop with the skills learned hunting during his youth in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. My Dad keeps his own bills in the roll top desk where Tom managed his accounts with the 5th Avenue retailers who sold his coats and jackets, and I have the tiny brass telescope in a black morocco leather fitted case he carried to Peru for studies in botany. While there he was among the first white men to visit Matchu Pitchu.

There are only a handful of photos extant of Tom's large family or his life before leaving for college around 1915. I have two of them, both mounted on bordered cabinet cards. Grandma said Tom treasured the photos, her shaky late in life handwriting inscribes the backs but doesn't name the subjects who she so strongly resembles. Taken in front of the house where Tom and his extended family lived, two proud men with shotguns stand on either side of a black bear skin lashed to a split rail frame. Walker Coon Hounds leashed with looped rope are poised at their feet, and one stands on hind legs, paws against his master's rough canvas coat. The man and his companion ignore the dog, peering solemnly toward the camera from beneath deep hat brim shadows. The lens has caught one man's free hand in especially crisp, clear focus. Large and articulate it hangs at his side, ready, but forever frozen and unmoving. Behind them is the well kept Greek Revival clapboard house where Tom was raised. He, the eldest, left it for college - the first in his family to attend. Perhaps the pictures were sent to him so far away to share the spoils of the hunting season he was missing, to retain connection to his life in the woods. Shortly after the photos were sent, before Christmas in 1916, Tom received news of a horrible accident; the house had burned to the ground. His entire family, including India, had perished-burned alive. Tom never returned to live in the mountains.

After Grandma's death, my Uncle in Boston furthered his genealogical research into Tom's family. He subsequently found that their deaths were almost certainly not accidental; newspapers and police records indicate that the fire was a deliberate arson. The distant California relation corroborates this, adding that he has discovered evidence that the fire was the result of a Hatfields vs. McCoys type blood feud, and that he's determined the likely culprits. They're all long dead of course, and I assume that however interested in genealogy their descendants may be, they probably won't be all that interested in finding more about that particular family history.

Ed's Mom is...

2007-05-29T13:38:00.000-04:00

My mother is now out of the hospital.
She had been there for almost eight weeks.

The short version is that my seventy six year old mother, in general ill health, with her litany of pre exising conditions, required surgery. She experienced complications, infections, pneumonia, and was left unable to eat or breath on her own. The tubes and wires wrapping and piercing her shriveled body looked like strangling vines. A do not resucitate order was posted, and my father told to decide when to remove life support. Dad, as hard and stoic as the farmer in Grant Wood's "American Gothic" (whom he resembles) had a complete melt down, and my brothers, both senior managers in their respective fields, bobbed about uselessly in bewilderment and denial; leaving me to manage and organize the last hours of my mother's life. I gathered siblings and grand children and spouses, soothed, coaxed and cajoled the necessary conversations and actions from them, ordered and orchestrated, and made sure my father was fed.

Then she didn't die. It seemed perverse to not feel relieved, surrounded as I was by the wonderment and elation of my immediate family. I hesitated in telling my friends; I told my family nothing. Unlike the family I'd marshaled and directed, I hadn't been yanked back from paralyzing fear, delivered from my abject sorrow and self pity. I hadn't had the time. I'd been on the road back and forth between Dad and Hospital and on the phone with nurses and doctors, family, and the customer service specialists at US Airways. I only felt enervated and exhausted and dulled by anxiety over the ramifications of her severely degraded condition. I was glad she wasn't dead, but couldn't muster much more than that.

Mom has been placed in a care facility minutes from my father's house, where she will remain until therapy helps her regain enough strength and mobility to allow him to care for her at home. In spite of her remarkable progress, the woman I sat with in her kitchen has not really returned, yet, and only presents herself in momentary flashes - instants of clarity like sudden sharp clear frames emerging from the scratchy hazy flickers of disintegrating 8mm family movies. I hold a cautious optimism, recognizing that there is little to do now but wait and see.

So for the past two months I've left a bunch of things sparsely tended; friendships, correspondence, and this circleinasquare. I've been steadily writing the whole time: to communicate with my extended family of friends, to gather information and try to make sense of the confusing and conflicting reports extracted from often unwilling, unhelpful heath care providers, and to keep my head from exploding. I didn't post any of it here, and probably won't any time soon. The Email threads were generally titled "Ed's Mom is" followed by a brief synopsis of her current situation, and furthered with a rambling stream of consciousness recording observations and whatever it was I was feeling at the time.

I'm not sure how I feel now. Not at all.

Spring Fling

2007-05-23T16:51:00.002-04:00

Didja look at Johnny and Jefito's
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Squeeze?
It reminded me of how much I loved Squeeze, and also that I am very, very old.

Twenty five(!) years ago, in April of 1982, Richid and I went to see Squeeze and the creatively coiffed A Flock of Seagulls at a "Spring Fling" concert presented by a university's student union. The bill also included Clarence Clemens(of Bruce Springsteen's band), NRBQ, and (I think) Asleep at The Wheel, which illustrates the pop schism dividing Late Boomers from the vanguard of Gen-X. At that time Richid and I had generally moved beyond our earlier sport of sneaking backstage at shows, since Richid had became sophisticated in acquiring free tickets and backstage stickies from AOR guys(working the radio station where he interned), and even scoring press/photo passes. We had no contacts at this university, so it was back to stealth this time.

Anyway, lookit the Guide, and I'll tell you the rest later...

Two

2007-05-18T16:32:00.000-04:00

If you cross your middle and index fingers
and touch them both to the tip of your tongue,
it feels like you have TWO tongues.

Try it.
.

Update: Perhaps you all are simply more evolved than primative circleinasquare. For me, the effect is amplified by slowly running the tip of my tongue over the crossed fingertips, and DON'T look at your fingers or reflection.

I can't stop.

Nutter Wins!

2007-05-16T11:12:00.000-04:00

Michael Nutter won the Democratic mayoral primary yesterday.

This all but insures that he will become the next Mayor of Philadelphia. Philadelphians have struggled under seven years of old fashioned patronage politician Mayor John Street. No bid contracts, nepotism, high salaried no-show positions for political insiders, pay-to-play access to decision making(which apparently is NOT illegal in Philadelphia!) and an anti-urban redevelopment philosophy, have characterized his two term administration. The Feds are currently investigating. All of the Democratic candidates promoted themselves as reformers, Nutter is the only one who's made a career of pushing reforms past an openly hostile political machine.

Fingers crossed.

El Diablo

2007-05-13T02:55:00.000-04:00

This one planted the question.
Apparently, I am the Devil.
Who knew?
It's interesting that, at The Queer Bar this evening, it was said and seconded that my whiskers - more than a goatee but less than a full beard - made me look like a satyr; that with horns and a pan flute, I'd be the very image. I imagined also those furry pants satyrs always have - and shinny hooves.
I rather liked it.

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Telegenic

2007-05-10T21:04:00.000-04:00

I've been shuffling though my photographs...

This pic was taken about four years ago, in the olden times before I had a cellphone, a computer or a beard. It was presented to the producers of a show on cable's HGTV, along with some full length shots, and a dossier containing height, age + weight. This was all to determine if I would be a suitable "guest expert" featured in the video taping of an "art framing/preservation" episode of something called "Smart Style". At no point were issues of expertise discussed.

I gather it was determined that I was neither fat, old, nor ugly, as a date was set for the taping of what would be my second appearance on cable television. Presumably, I would discuss something about the conservation of photography and works on paper, or picture framing history, period styles, or methods and techniques. Or something.

It's amazing how long it takes to video tape "or something".

The venture was fraught with difficulties, not limited to my pants slipping down the whole time, my inability to see without the eye glasses removed for their vexing reflectivity, or the calamity of the carefully constructed backdrop detaching itself from the wall and crashing to the floor. They "shot around it". From start to finish, the whole thing took seven hours - tacked onto the end of a full work day. It yielded nine minutes of air time.

Or so I'm told.

I didn't have cable then as now, so missed the airing. The promised video tape never materialized. One day a woman stopped me on the street: "Hey! I saw you on HGTV!" she gushed. She answered my queries: I did not look like an idiot, or psychotic. Or fat.

I hope she was telling the truth.

The Questionable Hairstyle Decisions of Youth

2007-05-04T10:40:00.000-04:00

The Author as a young man(left) and Tony Banks(right), 1983.

More about this later.

Save Chocolate! Do It Now!

2007-04-25T20:05:00.000-04:00

The other day, I sent out my first ever mass email, reprinted here:

The U.S. Chocolate Industry, through its Chocolate Manufacturers of America (CMA), and in collaboration with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, have petitioned the Food and Drug Association (FDA) to change the current requirements for chocolate.

The changes will negatively affect the physical and nutritional qualities of chocolate.

The plan is to change the basic formula of chocolate in order to use vegetable fat substitutes in place of cocoa butter, and to use milk substitutes in the place of nutritionally superior milk.

None of what is being proposed benefits the consumer in any way, nor was any consumer research submitted to support such changes.

As a chocolate snob/addict I'm really disturbed by this, but am even more troubled by manufacturing special interests being allowed to redefine a food solely to benefit their own profit margins.

Even if you don't like chocolate, it's dangerous to allow such a precedent.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a chocolate standard of identity requiring manufacturers to use approved ingredients in making chocolate, and it protects the consumer from any substitution of inferior ingredients. As a result, the Chocolate Industry must obtain approval from the Food and Drug Administration to make any changes.

You can help prevent these anti-consumer changes by going to this site:

http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/

and filling out four lines on a a short Docket Management Comment Form.
They take you step by step.
It's easy.

Thanks for considering this thing

xoxo

E

One Car Two Car

2007-04-23T20:05:00.000-04:00

Red Car

Blue Car

Penis Power

2007-04-19T14:42:00.000-04:00

"He won't buy you shrimp from Long John Silver,
but he will give you a mouthfull of sperm."

Other blogs are much more interesting than mine.

Feh

2007-04-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

Feh.

Flora in Florida

2007-04-12T18:58:00.000-04:00

Highways, Strip Malls, and Palm Trees

2007-04-04T12:46:00.000-04:00

The Author,
driving in Fort Lauderdale.

The Alcazar

2007-03-31T23:01:00.000-04:00

We're staying in the North Wing.

The small pool.

L' Autobus Chinois est Mon Tapis Magique

2007-03-28T16:57:00.000-04:00

The Author, pictured enroute.

Tomorrow, however, I'll fly a silver bird to Florida (FLL) where I'll trade the heavy habiliments and grey garb of chilly spring for the airy apparel and vivid vestments of a jump started summer.
I will wear the same hat, though.

Spring!

2007-03-20T23:08:00.000-04:00

Winter snuck up from behind
and smacked us on the back of the head Friday.
It had melted away by today,
and didn't seem to bother these tiny blossoms
at all.

Priorities

2007-03-20T12:49:00.000-04:00

My buddy Sal started his new job today.
It's a much anticipated change into very new surroundings.
I've been looking forward to hearing all about it.
He just sent me the following text message:

03/28/07
11:46AM
day 1 at Walker:
DHL guy is a hot
bear, I.S. Guy is
an adorable cub.
I think i'm gonna
like it here:-x
***End***

All The Alt Boys Have Whiskers, Now.

2007-03-12T23:35:00.000-04:00

The following was first posted in November of '05. I really liked it at the time, and also another sort of companion piece written at the same bar stool. Recent evenings out have reminded me that it's more true now than ever. Also, since there were only a hand full of you reading this way back then, I thought I'd get a little more mileage out of it.

The bartender set the glasses down, a pint of Yards ESA, and a pint of club soda with three lime wedges straddling the rim. An aging hipster like me needs the water to dilute and soften my drinking now, permitting the drive home. The limes clean the thickness of hops from the tongue, between pints, and also help prevent scurvey. I survey the room while my food is prepared on the other side of the back bar. It's full as usual on a Monday. At the far end of the bar two DJ boys spin vinyl pressed decades before their births; garage-y Nuggets type obscura, Brian Eno and Can. Like many in the room, they are wearing plaid flanel and work boots.

Twelve months ago, they all were mopey and moppy, sloughing through last winter and spring clean shaven in striped polos, baggy corduroy, low slung Sevens or Diesel Jeans and lost, slightly wounded expressions. Their perpetually tousled hair was artfully sculpted into shaggy slept in rats nests buttressed by skilled application of costly pommades, purchased in enameled tins from salons with names like "Liquid" or "Entropy". Now they stand around me transformed, illuminated in the neon and thick cigarette haze which typifies Philadelphia dive bars (both the actual and those merely styled as such). The parkas, "Members Only" jackets, and skinny 80's leathers of last winter have been supplanted by pile lined wide lapeled corduroy and real or simulated shearling, cut as worn by The Marlboro Man, or Dennis Weaver as Mc Cloud on "The NBC Mystery Movie" circa 1975. Well represented in the ruby glow are blanket lined Carhart chore coats and quilted Dickies gas station attendants zip fronts. Their locks are less studied disarrays now, too. The hair is worn close cropped, not buzzed in military fashion, but a consistent #3 or #4 setting. Or alternately, grown long to chin or shoulders, Like Charles Manson or the bloated, shaggy, soon to O.D. Jim Morrison. All versions are met at the temples with beards. Those who missed the shift anxiously cultivate stubble in pursuit of the cognoscenti. The early adopters more ambitious efforts, most reaching a half or three quarter inch length are often sparse at the cheeks, like young Hassidim. The proud fortunates sport thick dense pile, fueled by a surfeit of testosterone which may ultimately accelerate balding six or eight years from now.

The hipsterss look for all the world like The Future Bears of America, part of an aestetically pleasing (to me) but also
confounding trend; the latest example of straight culture co-opting homo style. I have a hard enough time telling the gay from not the gay. Its a moot point here, I come for the beer and the music. But it is fun to while the time speculating on how these boys will fill out and ripen in a few years. The bartender set my platter down before me, and the guy on the next stool observed "Wow, that looks tasty!" Looking past him at the young men posed around the pool table, pint glasses in hand, I heartily agreed.

Be My Baby

2007-03-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

Be my little baby. Be my little dah - har - lin.
Be my baby now-ow-ow.

Whoa ho ho ho oh...

The Ronettes will be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on Monday, March 12th, 2007. Ronnie Spector has been in my hall of fame since I first slipped my father's dusty 45 from it's paper sleeve and fit it onto the spindle of the turntable, and the needle connected with the grooves.

Breakfast

2007-03-05T01:12:00.001-05:00

My Mother pilots her walker slowly along the vinyl tiles, sliding the rubber tipped feet inches ahead, pausing, and then shuffling to catch up to with them; slide step, slide step, in the long journey from the table to the refrigerator.  It takes minutes to cross the room. But this is her domain and she is resolute, even as she winces.  Her kitchen is the axis of her world.  The table came with marriage to my Father and stood in the center of her kitchen in the house where I was raised, her first house.  The refrigerator is a new one and this a new kitchen, decades and hundreds of miles removed from that kitchen and that house and that garden and the flowers and butterflies that enveloped it all. From the doors she extracts small plastic Zip Lock bags, which she arranges in the basket of her walker.  Then she continues the long trek to her station at the counter, six feet away.  She methodically assembles her breakfast ingredients: Quaker Rolled Oats, wheat germ, flax seed meal, raisins, and the half apple remaining from the previous day.  She spoons her ingredients into an ironstone bowl glazed the same mottled color as the oatmeal, carefully eyeing the precise amounts.  This is how she prepares food, intuitively.  With lined and creased but fine and still nimble hands, she deftly cores (but does not peel) the apple, and dices it.  In one sweeping motion, like scooping a hand full of jacks from the pavement, she sweeps the red and gold confetti of tiny cubes from the white cutting board and casts them over the dry ingredients in the bowl.

Decades ago these hands had held my much smaller ones, assisting and steadying them in loading ingredients into sparkling stainless steel measuring cups (the engraved lines and numbers ignored) from a prized nesting set. Those hands had hovered suspended, ready to snatch tiny fingers from whirring beaters or catch cups slipped from clumsy hands as I added the contents gradually into the spinning bowl of a white and black enameled mixer. They lightly touched my wrist when the correct measure had been achieved.

"Ees good."

My mother cannot lift the half gallon carton of non fat milk. I pour it for her into one of the same old measuring cups, now lined and scratched and dull with many many meals of use - the lines and numbers still ignored. As directed, I add the liquid as she folds in the other ingredients. I meet her eyes ( small and dark brown like the Nestle's Toll House Morsels which she'd helped me pour into past cookie batters as they'd monitored intently- a tight budget splurge then, so much tastier than the cheap store brand).  She looks down at the bowl and nods her instruction.  I slowly pour more milk.  She gauges the level's rise and the mixture's blend, watching for the proper color and consistency to develop. Satisfied, she touches the back of my hand with her pink fingers, small  and delicate against it like a tiny wrinkled child's.

"Ees good."

I place the bowl onto the microwave carousel and she shuffles back to the table while I wait for the cycle to end. End. I notice that the seat she takes had been my spot - where I sat at her left elbow, for nineteen years worth of meals and birthday cakes and chocolate chip cookies. When the bell rings, I'll carry her breakfast across this kitchen and place the porridge before her.  I'll sit at her right elbow, in what had been her spot twenty years before, and she will eat  and I will drink coffee and we will talk about the old house and the old garden, and the flowers and butterflies.

Apple Dumpling

2007-02-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

The big hairy guy with the carpet like beard took me to Sayville's Diner, in the distant farm lands of Boyertown PA.

For desert, I had an apple dumpling, with vanilla sauce (on the side).

Careful it's hot!

Yum!

*

Happy New Year!

2007-02-18T18:22:00.000-05:00

According to my Chinese Horoscope, I am a Wood Snake. I am also a Leo. It really annoys me when a superstitious construct nails me perfectly, but I seem to be a stereotypical example of both these things.

S-s-s-sharkfin s-s-s-soup is s-s-s-salutary?
S-s-s-so they s-s-s-say.

Lovefool

2007-02-14T00:21:00.000-05:00

"Are we in love?"

There was a break in the music and in that moment, out of the blue he asked: "Are we in love."

We spent every day together, wandering the shabby fringes of the city in search of under appreciated treasures. We drove through the warm humid nights with the top down, listening to mixed tapes and the wind as it rushed to dry our damp faces. We worked on projects for hours, ending somehow always exhausted, and stuck together by a slurry of drywall dust, sweat and expended passion.

The ice sharply tinkled in its glass in the loud and sudden silence. I looked down at the bobbing limes, and up at him holding an identical drink, my drink, which he'd adopted that summer. He'd become almost a mirror, trying on my words and phrases, my tastes, as though lost in a game of dress up. He looked at me now with the same broad face, slightly cocked head and wide set soft brown eyes, the face which sought my constant approval. Sometimes I felt those eyes would draw out and deplete me, and I'd be left expended, empty of my essence like the extra limes he dropped into our glasses of gin, squeezed by him of every drop of juice. Just the way I liked it.

The hooky intro of Lovefool broke the silence, a song that had been everywhere that summer, over the airwaves, on my tapes, and running through my head when I watched him sleep, breathing deeply and slowly, on his side like a puppy.

I'd always wanted to be in love.

****

The Cardigans - Lovefool (Mercury Records 1998)

Stream.

Download.

YouTube.

Separated at Birth

2007-02-11T20:34:00.000-05:00

1975 AMC Pacer

1997* Chariot

*The Jupiter 2 was launched on October 16, 1997, presumably with a brand new Chariot loaded onto the well appointed craft.

Gremlin

2007-02-04T18:03:00.000-05:00

I am one of those guys who, if presented with millions in lottery winnings or an untraceable no limit American Express Card, could immediately go out and buy about thirty five cars. One would surely be a mid 70's AMC Gremlin(this one wanders around the Upper East Side, NYC). I know exactly the options I want, including the V-8 and accordion fabric sun roof, except that I can't decide between the scotch plaid upholstery and the stitched and riveted Levis denim interiors. I should probably get two.

Glass

2007-01-29T19:09:00.000-05:00

Patrons and gawkers tread the glass stairs wrapping the cylindrical glass elevator in the glass cube entry pavilion of the. Apple Store,Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C

Balmoral Oxfords of White Sueded Calf

2007-01-24T23:11:00.000-05:00

Circa 1989: calf lined; white enameled brass grommets;
red hard rubber soles. Laces replaced.

The First Picture

2007-01-10T12:03:00.000-05:00

...taken with the built in camera of my new MacBookPro.

While my sole co-worker was away, the big-hairy-guy-with-the-carpet-like-beard (right in photo) came over to help me load software etc. Somehow, alone together in the studio, we kept getting, uh, distracted. My co-worker is back from vacation now, so big-hairy-guy-with-the-carpet-like-beard and I will have to shift operations over to his apartment. I don't suspect we'll get a whole lot accomplished there, either.

My New(old)Chair!

2007-01-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

Eero Saarinen for Knoll, 1957:
original upholstery; rare bentwood legs; original finish.

*snort*

"and have you been a Good Little Boy?

2006-12-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

"I'm not little! I'm short.

Good Housekeeping

2006-12-13T02:44:00.000-05:00

D: "So did you recognize my friends' new condo building from the pictures I sent you?"

C: "Yeah, from the outside. It's an impressive modern building: A.I.A. award; beautiful bronze mural in the lobby. Nicely detailed. I just can't believe what they've done to it! Cabbage roses and cornices, and grandma's furniture. They obviously spent money, but - I thought gay men were supposed to have taste. Ick."

D: "Well, when you're a millionaire, you can show them what good furniture is."

C: "My entire monthly salary is half their monthly building fee, and my furniture is WAY better already."

D: "If you could see* any of it."

C: "Touche"

* Note: My place looks like the aftermath of an explosion that took out a dry cleaners, along with an adjacent boot shop, news stand and prop warehouse - with nineteen empty Poland Spring water bottles sprinkled on top.

"I pay you for what?"

2006-12-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

It's two thirty in the afternoon now, and so far I have done absolutely no business related work. None. I have far, far too much pending to be frittering away salaried hours with mindless time wasting pursuits. However, I am completely unsupervised and have elected today to set myself on a path of discovery and enlightenment. I have learned the following:

Your Seduction Style: Au Natural

You rank up there with your seduction skills, though you might not know it.
That's because you're a natural at seduction. You don't realize your power!
The root of your natural seduction power: your innocence and optimism.

You're the type of person who happily plays around and creates a unique little world.
Little do you know that your personal paradise is so appealing that it sucks people in.
You find joy in everything - so is it any surprise that people find joy in you?

You bring back the inner child in everyone you meet with your sincere and spontaneous ways.
Your childlike (but not childish) behavior also inspires others to care for you.
As a result, those who you befriend and date tend to be incredibly loyal to you.

What Kind of Seducer Are You?

Who knew? I really didn't expect to register on that one at all.

Additional tests have revealed that my evil quotient is a paltry 48% (a real disappointment as I'd long ago committed my life to the dark forces) and that my "inner funky haircolor" is white (which is the only artificial hair color I have ever attempted, though it didn't work. All they could manage was a cheerful sunny golden blond, which I'm sure some how effected my evilness rating) I'm now going to delve into how shy I am, and which Japanese subculture would suit me best, perhaps Harajuku Girl. After the results are tallied, I'll order lunch. They don't seem to offer a test for it, but I remain proud and secure in the knowledge that in terms of being paid to waste time, I am surely in the highest percentile.

The Window, Part I

2006-12-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

In art school in the late 80's I had two primary hangout buddies; transplanted Southern Belles named Tim and Kirk, but generally referred to as Connie and Trish. They dressed like the evil Omega frat boys in National Lampoon's Animal House, but carried within them an innate University-of-Virginia-circa-1965-Tri-Delt kind of fabulousness. I, in my small town Yankee stoicism, black jeans, black boots and black fireman's coat, did not manifest fabulousness of any kind. Behind my back they called me barbarian. Still, they seemed to enjoy my company - and the convenience of my car - so I accompanied the two quite a bit. One of the many, many parties they brought me to was held before Christmas in one of the wide brick town house on Pine Street. Pine Street had once been haute bourgeois (and is now again home to the oppressor class) but at that time the houses were mostly broken up into shabby apartments filled with students, shop clerks, and homosexuals. We entered the second floor front room (historically the main entertaining room in Fine Philadelphia Homes, and again so on that night) lit by candles everywhere and the flickering embers in the fireplace on the short end furthest from the door. There stood a tall man in ravaged khakis cinched with an embroidered belt, a pressed pink button down shirt and a broad sweep of golden hair. The man was in the midst of an animated conversation, half arguing, with the fox fur wrapped around his shoulders, his hand inside it's mouth like a puppet's. Both were speaking in French. When they laughed, the fox's paws flailed wildly. Connie and Trish squealed in recognition; they'd hoped he'd be there! They set upon the man and introduced themselves, and after awhile introduced me, too. I would later be informed the man was something of a celebrity in the Philadelphia homo demimonde (years later, when he reflected on meeting us all, the man confided that he first thought that I was their bodyguard). The preppy Oscar Wilde turned out to be named Mark Squire, who resided someplace called Lemon Hall.

A short time later, I found myself regularly driving Connie and Trish out to Lemon Hall in my ancient Buick- windows rolled down so as not to asphyxiate us all with the leaky exhaust - to spend afternoons with Squire at the grand and disintegrating house overlooking the Art Museum and Center City beyond: Lemon Hall. We'd call first of course. Squire would answer the phone trilling "L-lllemon in a soft breathy voice some times, or brusquely stating "lemon hole" other times if the cranky dilapidated house was giving him trouble. At that time the house was filled with an eclectic and undisciplined collage of objects collected by a young man with a great eye but often limited funds: plaster nymphs bearing sprays of light bulb blossoms; original advertising artwork from between the wars; paisley and nail head upholstered tables; A dozen various sized punch bowls all mysteriously glazed with "Tom and Jerry" in gilt script; plaster sconces; stream lined art deco and Japanese looking aesthetic movement chairs, gramophone cylinders; a large autographed photo of Gilded Age opera diva Louisa Tetrazzini, after whom the turkey casserole is named. There was a 17th century Italian gilded leather enclosed sedan chair in the garage under the western porch. Squire knew everything about all of it. We'd read architecture, history and design books from the massive library which was stacked up the treads and almost completely covered the sweeping curve of the disused main staircase; discovering cut paper quilt pattern shapes, tiny tracing paper sketches of costumes and furniture and window treatments, leaves, and translucent flowers pressed in the pages. The three of us clustered around him in the red room as he sat on the velvet Hepplewhite sofa, plucking Benson and Hedges cigarettes from a sterling urn on the pie crust edge Chinese Chippendale table and smoking them from an ivory holder, like F.D.R. We listened breathlessly as he related his adventures in the dining rooms, drawing rooms and back rooms of New York, Palm Beach, Vail and Paris; the tales swirling around his head in the wreath of cigarette smoke. Connie and Trish came and went, but I began to spend more and more time there. I started to think of Squire's as my home in Philadelphia, at a time when the relationship with my parents back at the home I'd left behind was becoming increasingly strained. Over four years I spent many days and evenings there, often sleeping on one of a pair of tufted red leather chesterfield sofas in the center of the ground floor oval room, which had been the formal dining room almost two centuries before but went through numerous other incarnations during Squire's tenure.

Squire and his brother Marvin (he looked like a Ralph Lauren model and actually did play polo in college, but was as pinched and prissy as Squire was expansive and gregarious. His beauty was all surface), ran a draping business from that twenty by thirty foot elliptical room where I sometimes slept, the workspace separated into the two hemispheres on either side of the sofas. Squire made curtains and bed coverings for high end decorators in the area, Marvin did the books and helped with installations. In addition to their trade and of much more interest to me, Squire produced elaborate creations using the businesses' space and equipment. Marvin didn't like that much. I watched Squire and worked along side him on his, and later my own, projects. He quickly saw capability in my own hands and eye, which made me feel very proud. Often he'd caution me, "Make sure Martian doesn't see that. " and I'd squirrel away a length of horsehair or satin or fringe where sour puss wouldn't find it. Squire recreated textile treatments for museum and historic house room settings. He made spot on copies of movie costumes for himself and others: Tippi Hedron's grey suit from "The Birds" with gilded cage and killer fowl attatched; Holly Hunter's Brown silk gown from "The Piano", along with a tiny scale model spinet that the wearer strapped to his ankle before diving into the pool during the Halloween costume competition at a party in East Hampton (he won), and a series of Scarlet O'Harra numbers tailored for a wealthy building materials heir to wear at elaborate balls held in his Civil War era Delancy Place mansion. He made corsets from any and all periods, molding the wearer's shape into the flattened cones of the 17th century or the voluptuous curves of the belle epoch as required. He stitched together reproduction band boxes and wrapped them with fragments of 18th century wallpaper. He threw pottery on the wheel which he decorated in imitation of two hundred year old Bucks County originals, but featuring portraits of his dogs: Peabody (who was usually called peanut); Vassar (who was usually called Cow Head or The Monkey); and Olympia (who was addressed as such, but invariably referred to as Mrs. Blowlou).

There were parties for hundreds on the sloping crab grass infested south lawn; sit down dinners and cocktails for as many inside. We sat in folding chairs on the narrow balcony which wrapped the curved exterior wall of the second floor drawing room, watching fireworks over the art museum filling every visible bit of sky - bursting so close to us that it felt like they were exploding inside my heart. A parade of people from all over the world came through the house (through his guests my six degrees of separation was knocked down to two or three away from Princess Margaret, Katherine Hepburn, and the King of Thailand). It was like visiting Auntie Mame.

It was astonishing to me how much was accomplished in that house, what with all the activity, especially with Squires own rigorous schedule of amorous persuits. I asked him once how he did it. He considered for a moment, then said, "Well, I chose someone I like, engage him in conversation, buy him a drink, and then go home with him! It's simple. When you finally get around to deciding who it is you wan't to sleep with, it will work for you, too." He'd done this several night a week since about 1980, he said, and offered that he'd likely "...seen the inside of every bachelor's apartment within walking distance of Woody's. Every one."

I dropped out of school, and worked briefly for a year for an insane Jewish decorator out on the Main Line. I then left Philadelphia and wandered through Boston, Baltimore and The Outer Banks of North Carolina. After six years of that, I decided to finish school, and so returned to Philadelphia to Lemon Hall and to Squire.

Thanksgiving Dinner, 2006:

2006-11-25T02:31:00.000-05:00

A Pint of Keller's Ale; a Makers Mark Manhattan; Iced relish tray; Oysters Rockefeller; a Side Car(!); Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Haricot Verts, Glazed Carrots, and Mashed Potatoes aside Saddle of Lamb(rare); Pumpkin Pie; Coffee; Port.

Beddie-bye.

The Future

2006-11-21T20:40:00.000-05:00

My sixty five year old father has bought himself a computer, purchased online services from the phone company, and started computer classes at the local community college. The computer is set on a simulated oak particle board computer table, which has been placed next to an actual oak roll top desk - the desk where my Great Grandfather Taylor sat to manage his fur trade in black bound ledgers of closely lined pale green paper. My father sits at his new desk vexed by the manuals he doesn't understand - written in "computerese" he says, rather than Standard English. He is becoming increasingly alarmed by what he discovers on the internet.

On a recent visit, we sat in the flickering light of the tiny tube T.V. in my parents' kitchen.

"I don't know which it will be," he stated flatly, "marketing or the internet. But one of them will bring an end to civilization."

"You sound pretty sure about that." I smiled.

"Oh yes. Absolutely. Of course, the worst thing about it all is that I won't be around to say I told you so."

I noted that my desperate need to be right about everything might be at least partly genetic.

We watched the news turn into commercials: "erectile dysfuction" and "acid reflux disease" pills; an American Made car which paradoxically promises to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil by burning ethanol blended fuel derived from heavily oil reliant/consuming argribusiness corn; and a fast food chain pushing a "Fourth Meal - between dinner and breakfast!", to Americans who one must suppose are not nearly fat enough.

His eyes followed the quick cuts and undulating graphics washing over the screen. Barely audibly he concluded:

"Then again, maybe I will."

Pink Martini

2006-11-13T20:33:00.000-05:00

The author enjoys pre - WOOF! drinks with George, Tom, and Jeff - who also clicked the shutter - making me Pretty in Pink.

Ouch!

2006-11-12T05:17:00.000-05:00

Went to the Veterans' Day BLOWOFF Saturday night. PACKED. Lots of military guys. They travel in pairs, it seems. A drunken woman, sitting on the vanity in the mens room, smoking, slurringly told me, "Those are perky titties you have there." Others must have thought so as well; 'cause, boy, are my nipples gonna be sore tomorrow. Oh wait, It is tomorrow.

Ow.

Straight Ticket

2006-11-08T16:19:00.000-05:00

I am a registered Republican. Now, before you get all excited and bent out of shape about this, let me explain. I almost never actually vote for a Republican in the general election. In Pennsylvania generally and Philadelphia specifically, elections are largely decided by the two opposing political machines. Democrats control Philadelphia County, Republicans pretty much the rest of the state. In Philadelphia, Democratic primaries are foregone conclusions, the victor decided by trade union representatives and the various ward bosses before the ballots are printed. It's all for show. The Republicans are a more contentious lot. Their primaries have actual influence in selecting the candidate who will oppose the pre-ordained Democrat. In the GOP run off, I have a voice.

I rarely use it. Here in the city, the machine picked Democrat will win most of the time. But if the heir apparent is a total jackass, a pay-to-play patronage bonehead (this happens fairly frequently) and the GOP has a competent moderate in their primary (this happens all too rarely), I'll vote for him. If he makes it, I'll cross my fingers in November. Likewise in Republican dominated state races, if the Democrats have a candidate with a real shot, and the republicans have a stable of fascist hopefuls hoping for their party's nod, I'll vote for the worst of the lot, hope he gets the nomination, and pray that suburban swing voters will go for the moderate Democrat rather than the right winger. It's worked before. I vote issues and record, but won't hesitate to pick the lesser of two evils with an eye on the larger power dynamic. I did not vote for Nader.

For the first time since I began voting two decades ago, I voted the straight Democratic ticket. Tuesday morning in front of the New Caledonia Baptist Church, my polling station for the past six years, my neighbor James D., who lives two houses down the block, jammed the flyer laying out the Democratic Party pics into my hands. He has done this each voting day for the last six years. He is our local Gladys Kravitz and all round nosy busybody. He is also the local Democratic ward leader, and so knows the party affiliations of all our neighbors. He pursed his thin lips and announced that it was surely a waste of both effort and paper, and then tossed his head and laughed at his "joke". He has said this each voting day for the past six years. I'm of course never give him the satisfaction of knowing, but I think James would have been very pleased with the content of my ballot.

Ah memories. Yes...

2006-11-05T23:25:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of me back stage at Live Aid in July 1985(through the largesse of my child molester, who worked in broadcasting at the time). I think I have all of seven hairs on my nuts - but check out that Amish beard! I met and gleaned autographs from Mick Jaeger, Tina Turner and Hall and Oates (eww!) among others... More interesting to me though was The Smiths at the storied Tower Theater a month earlier, on their "Meat is Murder" tour. I was the only asymmetrically coifed youth clever enough to get an autograph out of the wan recluse Morrisy as he was rushed to the safety of his motor coach. I'll prolly get around to writing about both experiences at some point, but If you see me out before then, buy me a beer and I'll tell you all about it...

Objectification 37 / Personality 4

2006-10-30T22:46:00.000-05:00

When I first discovered Manhunt, it seemed like a great idea: you leaf through the pages; find something that looks appealing; and place your order. Simple as Amazon.com. In the actual world, I've been surprised by the real heat generated by men I'd never pick out of a catalog. A sort of opposite corollary developed after a few transactions in the virtual venue - I discovered that even if what arrives is the exact size, shape, and color desired, matching in every way the description and depictions, that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be satisfied with what shows up on the door step. Buyers remorse. It took a number of tries before I realized it, but the M.H. is just not my thing. But I'm still on it all the time. The site still seems to be in it's ascendancy - its always packed with guys online - and has become sort of an electronic gay home room in addition to the premiere hook up site. I use it now primarily for voyeuristic thrills and to spy on the efforts of my buddies. We write snarky comments back and forth regarding especially cringeworthy profiles and our own relative slattern-ness. It's fun. Unfortunately, all the other guys I've "met" on the site are still floating around in the Manhunt ether as well. They wanna chat - usually with salatious intentions - but honestly, at this post coital juncture in our relationships, I have nothing left to say to most of these guys.

My solution to too much visibility was to establish a stealth profile. My original M.H. profile is very Ed-like. The text conveys my personality, sense of humor, interests and outlook. It is replete with clear and current face and full length pictures of me smiling and happily engaged in wholesome, fully clothed pursuits. The stealth profile takes a different tack. There is no personality presented, no details other than height, weight, and age, no face picture and no text save for the instruction that applicants unlock all of their images before bothering me. The whole substance of the post is five photographs. Yes. Like many men having a digital camera, ample free time and a borderline-obsessive degree of narcissism, I've taken a lot of pictures of...uh...one particular aspect of male anatomy which is never far from the thoughts and concerns of gay men. Quite a number of pictures, and really good ones, it seems. I'm not sure if it's the camera angles, lighting, or my compositional skills as an artist/designer, but the response has been remarkable.

This doesn't make me happy at all. A number of men to whom I'm completely invisible in the streets and bars of Philadelphia and New York have noticed this other on line self. Some have been introduced to me a number of times, though retain no memory of this. Others assiduously avoid any and all eye contact with me when we cross paths in the establishments where we and our common acquaintances congregate. A few have not responded to (occasionally having deleted unread) the friendly and upbeat messages I've sent to them from my real profile. However, they find the stealth profile strangely compelling, expressing their delight in the images and expounding at length in all manner of graphic detail exactly how, where, and to what duration and degree they would like the pictured appendage applied. I don't of course reply to these men.

I was in San Francisco recently, and decided to perform an experiment. Both of my profiles were unknown there. I changed the address of each to The City by the Bay, and logged them on simultaneously during the heavily trafficked after work period, dutifully refreshing each regularly to keep both profiles right at the beginning of the list of candidates. I ran the test for an hour. The results: stealth profile received thirty seven contacts, while real profile garnered a paltry four - and one of those was from a previous Philadelphia contact who'd wondered if I'd moved to California. Ah, the commodities game! It's that old truism from advertising: don't reveal details that might give prospective buyers any reasons to say no.

Pizza

2006-10-26T20:54:00.000-04:00

Rustica makes the best pizza I've ever had. I've had quite a lot of it.

First course: roasted brussels sprouts and carmelized onions.

Second course: shredded chicken and salsa verde with cilantro.

Yum!

"I see it all around me, but it stops at my skin."

2006-10-22T19:42:00.000-04:00

I went to see "Shortbus". It screened at the nice theater, the one with the concession in the lobby that sells lattes and biscotti and imported chocolates along side the popcorn and Rasinettes. The auditorium was nearly filled with homosexuals and hipsters, which is generally the case at this cinema but was most especially so this time. I found myself silently crying (though Yankees like me are loathe to do such things in public) once or twice - unseen, unheard. I'll see it again to try to figure out why. You should probably go see it yourself.

Shiny

2006-10-18T00:43:00.000-04:00

When old silver is allowed to become this tarnished, you need to pull out the big guns.

Simichrome was invented by the Nazis to keep the brightwork on the Peoples' Car sparkling. Wear gloves - it's caustic.

But see? Shiny!

Drive

2006-10-16T16:35:00.000-04:00

My buddy Sal is a car guy. He owns a gigantic 1958 Edsel Citation four door hardtop, a top of the line example of Ford Motor Company's ill fated marque from the 1958-60 model years. He's wanted one since puberty; he's had this one for less than a year. The car's colossal marketing failure is still taught in business programs throughout the western world, as an example of what not to do. It's an ungainly tank like hulk of a thing, and like most cars of its era nearly impossible to drive by modern standards, even with it's push-button-automatic-power-everything. To my designer's eye, the machine is not the most felicitous styling exercise from the once great but currently foundering automotive titan. Still, there's really nothing else like mid-century over powered Detroit rolling stock. Sal picked me up at the gallery and we tooled along the river drives and then finally across the Ben Franklin Bridge to the storage facility where his baby sleeps. Before he slipped her into its solo berth (the walls are padded to prevent door chips) his eyes caressed the glossy curves and glintingly reflected the sparklingly perfect chrome. For car a guy like Sal, there is nothing lovelier.

Happy?

2006-10-13T14:22:00.000-04:00

I guess one of the things I'm most happy about, is that
all these mean ass bitches are my "friends", so I dont have to worry about a blogger-gang beat down, unlike these poor "guys".

Continuing Education

2006-10-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

Late last night when I should have been sleeping, I instead watched one of the Psychology 101 courses the local P.B.S. affiliate broadcasts for a community college. The subject was personality disorders. I learned that there were a total of eight distinct personality disorders, of which my four favorites were covered: obsessive/compulsive; narcissistic; borderline; and anti-social. It was riveting. I find any video image irresistibly compelling, but am particularly captivated by pedantic talking heads with goggle size early nineties eyeglasses and giant sentry like shoulder pads hunched up assertively, like malevolent, wayward mastectomy prosthesis. My guide and teacher's droning discourse was broken up by interviews with sufferers of the various conditions. Mesmerizing. Gradually, I realized two things: one, that I manifest key indicators of the first three featured disorders; and two, during the interview segments, that I thought the guys with anti-social personality disorder were, well, kinda hot. None of this can be good. I really need to turn in earlier.

Exchange

2006-10-08T02:45:00.000-04:00

I'd trade sex for love in a heart beat. I'm not sure I'd trade chocolate for either.

Hipster Sighting

2006-10-05T12:32:00.000-04:00

Check List

1.) "Ironic" thrift store t-shirt (actual)

2.) 1980's short fitted jacket

3.) Straight leg, snug dark jeans (high waists here, but worn low)

4.) Gola and Addidas sneakers (Pumas are so 2004)

5.) kitschy vintage bag (simulated)

6.) Beard (just on boys)

7.) Vintage scooter

I own/wear/ride almost all of these items (none of my kitschy vintage is simulated)

Oh dear.

Drive my Car

2006-10-02T23:04:00.000-04:00

Because I don't want to run into the other cars, I feel compelled to watch the road when driving my own convertible around Philadelphia. It was great fun to be chauffeured by Blogdaddy, top down, around the City by the Bay. Plunging along the bayside roads of the Marin Headlands, I felt like I would topple over the windshield and drop right into the bay. It was actually thrilling. I'd show you the pics, but iPhoto is having seizures right now.

Sneakers

2006-10-02T00:53:00.000-04:00

I have new sneakers. Like most things I wear which are not from thrift stores, I got them from a sale rack. Manufacturers have an inflated sense of the worth of their productions, egged on by consumers conditioned to pay too much for too little. Not me. I don't really need anything, so can bide my time stalking an item in wait for inevitable markdowns. The latest thing, the most modish and heavily marketed, sells out. Things of lasting value tend to linger on fashion's shelf. Which is great for me - It's like Priceline; they meet my bid or I just don't bother. I'm still particular though. This pair is extremely comfortable, as anything I wear must be - I won't suffer for style, ever. They are meticulously crafted; supple vamps tongues and counters fully lined with soft calf skin, then stitched to leather mid soles with hard rubber out soles stitched to that - no vinyl, no fabric, no plastic - like good dress shoes used to be cobbled before everything was moulded in vaccuum presses in Mexico and China. Whatever style they do have is minimal; they look just like any other old fashioned pair; like a cartoon drawing of 70's sneakers. In that they are like all of my favorite things; not seemingly worth a second glance - but if and when you do look further, a precision of craft and richness of materials presents itself. Each time I fish them out of the pile on the floor by the bed I can't help but admire them, marveling at the complexity and precision of the make and the resulting simplicity of the final effort. Practical, enduring and understated - pretty on the inside for no one else but me. I like 'em.

Pocket Litter

2006-09-28T11:41:00.000-04:00

Contents of my various pockets upon unpacking.

A Brief Circuit Party Advisory.

2006-09-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back.

Essentially, I spent the last five days and roughly a thousand dollars to experience seventeen hours in steaming hot discos with thousands of shirtless drug addled gay men, plus a jam and jelly show street fair augmented with porn stars and attendees in assless chaps. It was both interesting and enjoyable, though as is typical for me, neverwhen or why it was all supposed to be. I'm much too exhausted to write any sort of coherent debriefing for you. However, here's an essay on the subject, written to me a couple of years ago by my traveling companion back when I was contemplating attending a similar near-by event. Different year, different city, different party, but excepting those particulars, overall the advisory strongly applies.

"I no longer enjoy the music at circuit parties. The music took a strong turn, sometime around 2000, from beautiful, melodic, uplifting trance...to dark, hard, drum tracks.
This is, of course, due to the prevalence of crystal meth.

All club music, particularly gay club music, has been largely informed by the dominant drug-of-choice of its day.

Disco could have never happened without cocaine, for example. disco SOUNDS like cocaine...frothy, giddy, gleeful.

House music and its sexual edge, would have been left in the music dustbins if not for the hug-drug, ecstasy.

Trance music was fueled in many ways by the dis associative drugs Special K and GHB...hence the name.

And about 3-4 years ago, crystal meth exploded out of the sex parties and chat rooms of California into the consciousness (and nostrils) of circuit boys (and DJs).

Crystal creates a relentless, unebbing pounding sense of 'the hunt'. tribal music (and its most popular purveyor, Alegria resident DJ Abel) mines that same urgency.

I
Tribal music is overwhelmingly drum-led. often several hours at today's circuit party will go by without a single musical phrase completed. what few vocals appear, are usually exhortive shouts. 'Do it.' (repeat 1000 times). 'Work it'(repeat 1000 times).
The combination of the relentless drum tracks, with a crowd that is feeling a paradoxical mix of desire and apathy, tends to create an environment so devoid of actual joy, it can appear like the crowd is dancing because someone is MAKING THEM, at gunpoint.

A friend recently described the last Alegria as 'an icy catwalk of steroid queens giving face'. I'd have to concur.
however, be advised that MANY MANY more friends utterly LIVE for Alegria. They describe it as 'charging their soul'. keep in mind my age, and my sullen attitude when considering my review of Alegria.

Alegria occurs 5-6 times a year. Holiday weekends (Memorial Day, Labor Day), Gay Pride weekend, Black Party weekend, and their annual anniversary party. since Alegria began, I've been to perhaps 4 of the parties.

Previously Alegria was held at the insanely annoying Sound Factory, with its 4 small levels, oppressive heat, and torturous staircases.

Alegria is now held at Crobar, an infinitely better venue. much larger, easier to navigate, multiple rooms, and a balcony to watch from above.

I pointed Crobar out to you when we walked past. It's right down from the Eagle, after you pass Scores, the titty bar.

You should know that Alegria posts its start time as 11pm, but no one really gets there until 4am. The holiday weekend events, like the upcoming one, famously don't peak until nearly noon on Monday. by that point virtually 100% of crowd will be clenching their jaws, in a crystal-fueled bug-eyed state.

The Muscle Nazi quotient of the Alegria crowd is quite high. 100% of the room will have its shirt off, often before admittance.

and if i were you, I WOULD GO.

In light of what I've said above, that may suprise you. but there is a distinct feeling out there (from the various chat boards that i monitor, and from friends who work in the circuit world) that the scene is fading, and suprisingly quickly at that.

Major circuit events in 2003 saw a decline in attendance of 15-20%, following a couple of bad years which resulted from the post 9-11 travel decline.

Huge uber-events appear to have seen their day. The trend talked about now, is smaller, more intimate, perhaps by-invitation events....like the old Phoenix Rising parties.

Alegria, as an event, as current representation of circuit like, as a snapshot of pop culture, is at the top of its game.
It's notable and notorious. it's a spectacle and a specimen.

You should go.

Advice:
1- Trim your wallet to ID and ATM.

2- Take 2-3 times as much cash as you think you'll need

3- The drug pat down historically has been been perfunctory.
however, be prepared to be THOROUGHLY searched, up to and
including your butt crack and nut sack. I am NOT kidding.
they will inspect your cell phone to ensure that you haven't
replaced its battery with drugs, btw.

4- No ins-and-out allowed. the party lasts up to 18 hours.
plan accordingly.

5- Although drug use can be quite open and obvious, there are
always undercover cops at these events. Act accordingly.

6- BRING EARPLUGS. I cannot stress this enough. the damage
caused by hours of percussive music, at the volume DJ Abel
plays can be painful at best, permanent at worst. You can
get a dozen foam earplugs at Rite Aid for a few bucks.
You can make friends, if you have extra btw.

7- Hydrate. Hydrate. Hydrate.

8- The value of the disco nap CANNOT be overestimated.

Most of the Eagle crowd will be in Chicago, attending IML.
I'm not sure what I'm planning for Sunday night. YOU should be
napping during the beer bust period of the day, probably.

Joe

P.S. Alegria is the Portuguese word for 'joy'. the emphasis, as in many Portuguese words, is on the last syllable.

It's pronounced 'al-eh-GRIA';

You may know the musical notation 'allegra', which means to 'play joyously'.

Here are some fun ways you will hear 'Alegria' mispronounced:

'AH-leg-ra' like the allergy medicine

'ah-LEG-ria' wrong syllable emphasized

'all-ah-gria' as in, 'we all agree-ah'

You can always spot the Alegria virgins that way.

Hope this all helps!"

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