blow, Gabriel, blow

I only had one chance left to see the acclaimed revival of Anything Goes! And I love Cole Porter and bog traditional song and dance musicals. And the raves for Rachel York have been endless. So many friends have gone gaga over her performance, I had to go before the show left.


The only price point I could justify was via Goldstar, but they did not have a lot of reasonably options left. Even with Goldstar pricing, at $40 I had the second row from the back in the top balcony. Under the noisy air return. But still, Rachel York!


BLAST!!!

Regardless, she had pipes and could hoof and it was a de-lovely show!

I don't think I want to be next to godliness

Thank you for offering from your purse, Coworker, but this is not a "wet nap."

zero niner

On the whole Chris Culliver anti-gay remark thing: Yes, it did bash gay athletes, but it was also a HUGE fuck you to SF. He may be a 49er, but he's not a San Franciscan.

And his apology is flimsier that wet toilet paper.

Oh look, it gets worse.

But this is well said:

Bernal muggers caught!

I've been following the news of the rash of super scary and sometimes violent street muggings in the historically super quiet and peaceful neighborhood of Bernal Heights. It got really bad and basically one set of muggers have been terrorizing one neighborhood of average people known for being kind and reserved. The community rallied together, along with local goverment and the SFPD.

News from last night: The muggers attacked another couple, pistol whipped one of them, and among other things they got away with an iPhone. The battered couple were assisted shortly by a Bayview patrol car that was in the area, and one of the officers inside had an iPad. As is increasingly the case, the officers were able to use the Find My iPhone app to track the assholes, which led to a high speed chase down the highway. The robbers had sideswiped several cars so theirs was a bit noticeable by the damage. The thieves ultimately crashed their own car and were apprehended. Everyone got their stuff back (another one blog notes the odd outlying unrecovered item of a learn-to-speak Italian book) and the dudes are going down.

Let's hope this ends the reign of terror and no copycats move in. I also hope the neighborhood gets its share of justice and that no deals are struck, and that the community gets to watch the proceedings.

Let's be careful out there. And another thanks to Apple, Inc. Who ever thought it would be an apple that takes a bite out of crime?

baby, I got you pegged

Seen on Muni, tucked into the lower bag of a baby stroller, a "Beginner's Strap-On for Him."

I love this town.

And that I have friends whose first reaction upon seeing this is to upload a photo of it.

blow me

I keep a hair dryer hanging by the sink not for irony's sake, but to defog the mirror each morning, often to dry my bits, and also for the occasional craft project.

At the NYD party, someone knocked a red candle over more than once and the hair dryer filled with wax.  After I repainted the bathroom, I needed to replace the hair dryer.  I do not have remotely professional hair-drying needs.  Clearly.  So I have been looking for the least expensive yet sturdy hair dryer I can find.  While getting new accessories for the freshly renewed bathroom at Bed Bath & Beyond, I shopped hair dryers.  There's She Blows Batman those things are expensive.  The cheapest of the cheap was near $30, and most of them ran from $50 to over $100.  Yeah, neither my junk nor my mirror need that.

Off to Amazon!

At the lowest end of the price scale were several models which looked like what I needed.  Decent wattage, simple design, two settings, and a cold button.  All I wanted.  Oh but which one of these two to choose?  The Vidal Sassoon model was $17 and could be shipped right away (two-days free with Amazon Prime).  The Revlon model was a mere $12, but would ship in two to three weeks.  Was it worth $5 more to have it right away?  Oh the dilemma!  Which model was better?  How could I compare their features?  Which brand should I trust more?  Revlon or Vidal?  I'm sure these companies take great care in which product will bear their name.

Or not.

Hmmm.... the Vidal Sassoon image has a photoshopped shadow, so it must be superior.

I went with the now.  During checkout the price dropped from $17.99 to $10.51.  Still free shipping via Prime.  Done.  Looking back today, the Revlon-branded dryer is now available via Prime, and now lists for $7.77 (Vidal has dropped to $12.99).  Who knew the cheap hair dryer market was so volatile?

weather or not

As they say in Nashville: If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute and it'll change.

Particularly this time of year, this is why if I call home more than once on the same day, I'll ask, "So how's the weather now?"

The Last Son of Alderaan

Fun Guy Allan enjoyed a belated birthday bar crawl this Saturday.  And being Allan (you may recall this),


it had a Star Wars t-shirt theme.

Happy birthday Allan!

--What does it mean when one wears pink balloons on the left arm?

--Gorilla in the mist....of pink balloons.

I do not have any Star Wars t-shirts, so I did what I do, and sported the Rebel Alliance symbol.


And there was much fun.








Not only did Allan have the Star Wars hoodie, but I loved the new shirt he ordered just for the occasion.

little gray men, little blue box

Mulder and Scully would be crazy companions.

tasty, tasty murder

I think we may need to start having campy viewing parties for Murder, She Wrote.  These sixteen reasons to do so are pretty convincing.

However, not as convincing as the Murder, She Wrote drinking game.

sounds like a euphemism

Seriously.

My friend is washing her chickens.

This cracks me up too much. I am really curious about the drying process. I am imagining a hair dryer and a frizzy chicken. And now I'm wondering if that's where the recipe for Chicken Fricassee comes from.

Frizzy Chicken: also the name of a band or a 1950s dance craze.

S&M: seafood & meats?

the joys of autocorrect among a group of leather guys.

time to get your shots

It's a veritable petri dish out there.  Best be prepared.

searching for the one

If you don't get it: she and he.

I've got a gal from Kalamazoo.

I noted earlier that one of the iconic San Francisco twins died recently. Today is their birthday, and marked the first birthday in 86 years that Marian would not share it with her sister Vivian. So awesome that San Francisco is, Harry Denton hosted a birthday party for her at the Sir Francis Drake, and to make sure she would not be alone but surrounded by those who love her—he invited the City to come too.






What an amazing lady! Donna Sachet emceed the event, and Lady Brown was bright, cheerful, and enthusiastic in her love of San Francisco and her appreciation for those who came out to wish her well. She reminded me so much of Honey (my grandmother) and I wish she had lived longer into her 80s as well.

As great as the crowd was, I was a little miffed that more San Franciscans did not come out to show their appreciation and affection, and I agree with Brock that the elected officials should have all been there. I did have some friendly faces though, and was lucky to hang out with Donna Sachet and her friends Richard and Jeff.


And I was exceedingly honored to be her escort from the event!

Misti Layne took this photo which someone found and noted to me on Facebook:

I had gone home for a wardrobe change into a black tie with top coat and top hat in honor of the twins redoubtable fashion, but it was ridiculously hot tonight and I had to dress down a bit. But I did think that a black hat was a must for the Ladies Brown, as always chapeaued they were together. Others were similarly incliuned, but it was like a kiln in there and we were all sweating through our January attire regardless of sartorial splendor.


Another guest and photographer was kind enough to take this pic with my camera as we were leaving:


When she took my arm it felt as I escorted my grandmother and so many elegant southern ladies before. It was an intense feeling of familiar and familial affection.

I love San Francisco, and San Francisco loves its own.

Update: The photo of me and The Lady Brown is featured on the SFist. Cool!

Return to Drag Trivia

We have been feel and little empty and in need of competitive answering since Pollo stopped hosting Brain Farts Trivia at the Lookout.  But this week we finally returned to the Fun Times and joined forced with our Brain Farts nemeses Mark and Ruben to form a Super Team for Miss Kitty's Smarty Pants trivia night at the Stray Bar in Bernal Heights.

This week's theme was Hawaii, of which we know nothing.  But  had set out leis to bring for festive.  After a slightly creepy 24 ride over there, I realized I left them at home.  But the early shirt bartender was much with the cool, and when she overheard my lament she pulled out leis from a previous bar event, and fixed our drinks with cocktail umbrellas.

When the time came to craft our team name, we pulled it out with Mai Tai Me Up, Mai Tai Me Down.


We were doing pretty well until the final round, which was all Hawaii all the time. I had checked in on Four Square and my friend Aaron who lives down the block saw the check in and joined us. Good thing as Aaron used to live in Hawaii, and was a total ringer for our ultimately winning team.


As is usual with good company and trivial matters, much fun.

And as I told my friend Gary who commented on this photo...


...the umbrella means it's healthy.

I hope this becomes a thing

Speaking of football...

Heh.

kinda funny

We went to see The Hot Temp in his stand up act at the Comet Club tonight, and he was by far the best comic in the line up. The venture into the Marina did make us both feel like Jane Goodall. We sought out the best tacos at Nick's outpost in the Marina "Tacko" and endured some pretty over the top Marina Girls and Bros. It was a little painful. And only in the Marina would the Mexican taco place have one wall devoted entirely to prints of Nantucket, and the other devoted to framed copies of Yachting magazine.


WTF?

As with most free comic or open mic nights, it has again inspired me to come up with five minutes of my own. I think I have ample material, and our heckling was often better than their jokes. The final girl was kinda funny though.

One comic tried to do a riff on girls asking him to dance to determine if he would be any good in bed but it fell very flat.

This would have been my joke on the same setup:

"Here's the problem with girls using a guy's dancing ability to gauge if he's going to be any good at having sex: No guy has spent every day since he hit puberty watching videos of other people dancing while hiding in the bathroom practicing by himself."

not okay

Just hanging out tonight with quality time on MLK Day, then we got a text. Prashant, wonderful friend, super guy, and ridiculously fit, died suddenly today while on a softball league trip to Las Vegas.

Too many thoughts, none of them good.

I expect the happy memories will come later. Not it is all sudden incomprehension. And the logistics of a friend die while traveling with you...I can;t stop thinking of me as caretaker in their place and the added onus of management to visceral grief.

Prashant Hangal. Great guy. Young and happy and healthy. And now gone. Incomprehensible.

Not okay.

football fever

I love when the City gets galvanized around our sports teams. The Giant's winning streaks and World Series Win was electric across the City. And the 49ers win and Superbowl setup has been awesome too.

And I love that Sports Illustrated had a shout out this week to HiTops, the new bar in the Castro, and billed as San Francisco's first ever gay sports bar. Right the fuck on. And the best part about Sports Illustrated's inclusion and excitement over the SF gay sports bar? It ran this photo.

God I love San Francisco.

Also in the football spirit, the Lookout has added some football-themed aiming toys to the men's urinals.


Go team!

Hey, Lady. You, Lady, cursing at your life...

You need to get your shit together.

I dont think that means what you think it means

I don;t know if Brother Mac came up with it or not, but somewhere along the line, maybe it was even in college, we started referring to particularly difficult bowel movements, ones you really have to work on, as "growlers."

Uuuunh. Ennnnph.

Flush.

Dude, that was s total growler.

On the other hand, "Growlr" is the name of a new social networking (i.e. hookup) app for bears (big/hairy gay guys). I just joined Growlr recently on the advice of a friend and have been felling very popular.

Until I got this message, from someone I don't know located over 4,500 miles away:


Yeah, I don't think that what they meant when they named the app Growlr.

sterling bath

There was some sort of leak within the bathroom of my apartment, so the landlady wanted to tear out my shower and reinstall new tile. Which would have been fine as it was only patchwork repaired with mismatched tile for more almost two decades. However, this also meant that I had to take everything out of the bathroom, that tile grout and crap would get everywhere, and that I would not be able to wash or use the potty for over a week. That's not okay. Going down the street whenever I needed to go was not a reasonable accommodation. This was in the summer of 2011 and I was visiting Dad more frequently and for longer periods of time, so I asked if they might make the repairs while I was away for the week. I returned after midnight from a long day of travel to grout dust and dirt all over the apartment, red plastic gunk cast off in various parts of the bathroom, a hell of a cleaning job, and unsanded spackle in a halo around the new tile. The new tile did look good—a nice, clean, black and white where a hodgepodge of 60s green had been. However, the green bathroom now had broad swaths of white rough fill-in.


The bathroom was hardly returned to its previous condition. The owner's daughter (the in-house handy person) and the building manager came to inspect it and agreed it was a mess, and could not identify the red splotches of plastic I was scraping from the walls, floor, ceiling, sink, tub etc. They finally asked me if I would like to have it repainted. Considering the nature of other repairs over the years (torn and stained carpet in the common areas, a decade of water spraying from my radiator, leaky faucets, repeated lack of steam heat or hot water over the years), I offered to just clean it and paint it again myself—certain I would have a better result in color and quality. They were fine with that. As far as they were concerned, the matter was done.

Unfortunately, this also meant I would have to take the time and expense to get it done myself. Easy to procrastinate. I did go so far as to settle on a color sample from Cole Hardware which has been taped to the wall ever since.

That was in June of 2011. I finally took this weekend off to get it done and repainted a very light gray "Sterling Silver" and replaced all the hardware with new chrome models of what was there before. It was a difficult job without a ladder, and painting white gloss over white primer made it difficult to see spots I missed, and the gray paint was so close to white when wet as to have the same issue. It dried really quickly and now it looks soooooo much nicer. And bight and clean. Sigh. Now it has inspired me to repaint the kitchen, which I really do not want to do and will likely procrastinate another year or so. But it's been 15 years and it needs it.

Bryan gave me some lovely things just after the holidays— a designer meditation candle and some designer gray-and-white patterned altar/candle/meditation mats, which look great in here now.


If you feel like taking a weekend to drink beer, eat pizza, and paint the kitchen the same sterling, lemme know.

full upright positions

Niel was kind enough to get me away from painting the bathroom and invited me to be his guest at Pam Ann at the Castro Theater tonight.  Great show.  It was about 45 minutes too long, but she has a great character and I am impressed that she can fill entire shows with just airline humor.

She came to the Castro in 2009, and has slimmed down completely since.  Looking good Pam!

And of course, the company was first class.

Comcast is the best reason for gun control

I've wasted four of the past 20 hours on Comcast. One of my issues was ultimately resolved, and I did get a discount, but only after escalating twice and more than an hour on the phone. Tech support wasn't. However the reception/technical issues remain. They asked me to take a half day off work to wait for a technician, but I thought it would be much quicker just to switch out the box at a store location. I did not factor in the painfully long wait at the only remaining Comcast office in the entire City, which is of course on the far, far side of town, and stood with hordes of other disgruntled customers all of whom smelled like chain smokers. I finally have my new equipment, which requires me to activate it online. They have my account, they have the serial number of my box, but I have to activate it myself from home? Why can't it just be "active" or activated at the store.

Fine. Whatever. I'll get out the laptop and log in order to simply be able turn on the TV later. But first I have to find old bills to find account number, which is required for activation. I shred those. Must research elsewhere. Fine. Hassle. Done.

Of course.

So now I've dealt with the voice-recognition phone menus, which couldn't recognize my voice. And I speak like the MoviePhone guy. Then transferred to a hold queue, listening to bad "music" and endless ads.

I'm still on hold.

Twenty minutes later.

So I am ranting on the blog.

I am cranky and need a nap before the birthday party tonight.

I am still better off than Jenny, who was just screwed by a bait-and-switch, or the guy behind me in line, who was disconnected on the phone twice he got so frustrated that he started yelling—and he came in to shout in person to get his account resolved. And better than brother Mac, who spent a year just trying to get a Comcast TV signal to work before telling them to fuck off and they switched to Hulu. Or the other brother that had to give up their home phone number and only use mobiles because they tried switching to Comcast Voice (Triple Play!), and spent two months with no home phone service because they kept screwing it up.

So it could be worse. I just wanted to watch Rachel Maddow while I fixed dinner. Everyone else I've talked to about Comcast today has turned the conversation to gun control.