hey big brother, from baby beloved

Happy belated birthday to brother Mac.

Tee hee.

dying over here

I am getting better. I felt like I was dying there for a day or two. But when I go, I want to go out without pain and with some style.

wine and lament

I felt the need to send this to my mom. No further comment.

getting all dolled up for my birthday

Ugh. I'm down and out with something nasty. Hating it. Throat swollen shut, and blinding pain. I was able to see (another) doctor yesterday who has taken care of me and I feel I've turning around.

This is my birthday cake.



Happy birthday to me. I should have put a candle in it.

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, and I promise to be supper happy fun birthday boy upon recovery.

almost famous Amos

What a delight to welcome Nashville friend and his new BF to SF. The City is a ghost town with Burning Man and Labor Day and bridge closure pending, but we enjoyed a very Castro brunch followed by a Castro tour and crawl, a very brief tour of the last of the Indie Marts, and raucous fun in the Mission meeting up with the Shane from both our pasts, just to close out thee evening at Hi Tops, which sadly has become an island of West Hollywood right here in the Castro. Or that's perhaps that's a good thing. I love that the Café, like Fisherman's Wharf, exists if just to attract that clientele away from where I hang out.

Bright day all around with definitely good people.












Shake it, baby.

theater, drama

The James and Special K and I made a mutual birthday celebration last night with Sean Owen's Breeches of Etiquette, all new shorts and all riotously funny. And some of his most queer work to date. And by Jove "The Interview" and "the Candidate" (a re-envisioning of the witches of MacBeth) were sidesplitting fun of the upmost cleverness.


Hugs to longtime favorite Kathryn Wood, and standing ovations to the delightful and talented Mikka Bonel, whose comic timing makes Swiss watches seem grossly inaccurate.

And as for the interrupted ride home, who knew that—like a long-playing record—the 33 is just my speed?

mightier

Truly awesome people use paper.



P.S. I am also an awesome person.

Love from LittleBigChris

beer and spirituals

We had an amazing dinner and some absolutely superb beers at The Abbot’s Cellar last night. I had never heard of it before, and it is a new venture from the people behind The Monk’s Kettle, a bar up the way also in the Mission.

So, the Monk’s Kettle pub expanded to include the beer-bar restaurant The Abbot’s Cellar.

I imagine soon they will be opening a vegetarian, meat-free restaurant called The Nunnery. The adjacent wine bar will be called The Bad Habit.

Their new gay bar will, of course, be called The Rectory.

fraternally

Bringing our 40s back to the 80s with a little Thursday dancing at The Cat Club!








(PeeDee is not flipping a bird. That's the hand of the woman behind him.)

Deus Duet

My two favorite people in the world, together.

Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog playing Dueling Banjos.

Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog in "Dueling Banjos" from Steve Martin

pooped out

You have got to be shitting me.

the two-faced coin and the wishing well

I'm finding it annoying that [what I think I really want] and [what scares the living shit out of me] are often the same thing.

wild kingdom

Living near Haight/Ashbury, "lying in wait in the high grass" takes on an entirely different connotation.

love's labor, lost.

While my experience with love and relationships is meager at best, I do think it is better to have loved and lost than to have simply lost.

One of these days maybe I'll have a romantic relationship that lasts longer than milk.

a brief history of Army Street

Or "Why is Cesar Chavez Street so fucked up?"

Awesome Todd Lappin did the homework and lays it out for us.

That'll do, Duck. That'll do.

It's no Captiva, but it'll do.


I do enjoy having a Mucky Duck in the neighborhood, if not just to make me close my eyes and try to feel the warm Captiva wind and the sound of the surf from my childhood years spending spring break on Sanibel Island.


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selected readings

So, it looks like James is turning 40 and having a baby who speaks German.

food fight!

Or rather, "fest!"

Rizzolo and I took the 33 around noon down to the Mission to enjoy the six blocks sampling of the best food SF has to offer.


I'm glad we got there early as the crowd quickly thickened. But it was never, astoundingly, unmanageable.

We were both happy to take a moment and appreciate the crowd: diverse and behaved. All ages, all ethnicities, most economic groups, and no one behaving badly. It was about the food and enjoying the neighborhood of SF in the sunshine. Pride, Pink Saturday, Insert-Street-Name Fair—all seem to attract " an element" that ultimately causes trouble, be it violence or crime. This was a really nice crowd. Food-focus may do that to a people.

The crowd seemed to peak around 4:00.


The longest lines were ridiculously long. As in, you are a ridiculous person to wait in in such a line for what-may-be-gourmet-but-is-still-street food. And the lines were in direct proportion to the hype. I think most of the masses were queueing for the cachet and not the gourmet. Trendy instead of tasty. Case in point: the ramen burger. Oh for fuck's sake. We found some amazing eats and never waited more than five people deep. With the exception of Jarred, which suspended their service for 5-10 minutes while they addressed a backlog of orders. Which was a good idea and we happily made a lap and came back. Jarred sells on shelves and it seems caters, but does not have a restaurant, which is a pity as their fried pickled green beans are amazeballs, and their fried chicken (sandwich) nearly moved this southern boy to tears.




Also of note: cricket tostadas. I haven't eaten a bug since a dare at day camp. At least not on purpose.


We had a fun time with these people cheering their friend on to try it. "Crunchy" was the verdict. No one else was willing to follow suit.


Although if I weren't saving room for other specialities, it is something I would be willing to try.

All in all, an exhausting day with some amazing samples, and I'll be reviewing my notes and making reservations.

Because, yeah, that's what I need: more food coming in and more money going out.

But little tastes of happy!

I heart SF!

SF gleefully takes down its douchebag SF hater

I'll admit to the glee I've felt in the takedown of tech douchebag Peter Shih.

For reference, here are The SFist's summaries of the local maelstrom:
Startup Bro Not Completely Stoked On S.F.'s Startup Bro Scene
Startup Bro Backlash Leaps Off The Internet, Into Real Life
Startup Bro Apologizes For San Francisco Rant

And the less restrained (and therefore more amusing) Uptown Almanac's coverage:
Tech Founder Complains About the Shithole City He's Forced to Make His Millions In
Outraged Masses Synergize with Telephone Poles to Shame Peter Shih

But the Twitter tag #PeterShihFacts is just hilarious.

And holy fog bank, if freaking Muni is making fun of you, you have hit an all time low.

And amid the comments freely flowing on the interwebs, someone posted that Shih's claim of "satire" was a desperate defense, and that if one wants to satirize a hatred of San Francsico this is how it's done.

OMFG, LOL.

I Hate California: San Francisco - watch more funny videos

"Shave your armpits."

sultry Jolene

Someone, presumably YouTube user "goodlittlebuddy," ran an MP3 of Dolly Parton's Jolene through Audacity and slowed it down 17%. Holy Backwoods Barbie this sounds like an entirely new song, and it is mesmerizingly good.




Update: And there are those who think that Bruce Springsteen sped up sounds like Dolly Parton. What do you think?

the vodka is louder

So true.

Unfortunately, the vodka is louder, and is a terrible, terrible Cyrano.

hard to shop for

My brother's birthday is this weekend and he is so hard to shop for.

Oh Internet, can you help me?

Why yes, I have some suggestions...

Liquid Lapdance: "Special pants that make lap dances feel better."

Shittens, the Mittens That Protect Hands From Poop  ("Because poop is gross.")

the Doctor of Oz

SHN theater is promoting the new touring production of the Wizard of OZ by posting this pic on Facebook and other social media platforms and asking people to "caption this."

From this point of view, to me it looks like Dorothy and her friends have just met the first Doctor as he steps out from the TARDIS.

My caption: "Look Toto! It's bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor as the Wizard does make a certain amount of sense. And the idea of Dorothy as a companion is an interesting one at that. That Kansas farm girl would grow up right quick.

eat me.

This weekend: The San Francisco Street Food Festival.

Yum.

oh... yeah.

It wasn't until the monthly staff meeting today that I remembered that my birthday is coming up.


It's never too early for cake!

The bear and the three Goldilocks

Instead of one girl and three bears in the cabin in the woods, it was three women and a sleuth of bears in the cabin that is the music room of the Hotel Utah for the Tom Goss show last night featuring Jeb Havens (see also) and The Plastic Arts. Coco and I were joined by the GlasgowDuo Alison and Susan for some good times (I still can't believe they walked to the Utah from Dolores Park. Their explanation: "We're European. We walk places.")


Despite being awake for something like 40 hours, Tom was a bundle of adorable energy and put on a great show.




While Til the End still moves me, it was when I him first play Make Believe years ago at the old Kimo's on Polk Street that I fell for his music. I was hoping that would be his encore last night. As it was, he rocked out his new single Bears, and built an amazing series of loops and back tracks on the fly for his ridiculously talented cover of Makelemore's Can't Hold Us.

Celarly, Tom loves bears!


And we love him!


I had forgotten how tiny action-packed Tom is. Notice where the top of my head is in the first photo, and where it is in the second. That's a serious crouch. Such talent packed into such a photogenic package. I just wish his husbear Mike could have joined too. He's a good one.

The bears were remarkably quiet and I believe that was the most respectful and attentive crowd I have ever been a part of at the Utah. Music soothes the savage, i.e. furry, breast.