February 28, 2005
Son of Found Porn
Apparently, the Jets are comin' out on top tonight. Just not all of them.
Posted by kyle at 1:02 PM | Comments (3)
February 17, 2005
Gap Check
Living as we do in San Francisco, home of Gap, Inc., we youngish urban types end up wearing lots of clothing from what we often refer to as the Holy Trinity. Recovering Catholics, cross yourselves while you say this:
"Banana Republic..." (In the Name of the Father...)
"...The Gap..." (...and of the Son...)
"...and Old Navy." (...and of the Holy Spirit.)
"Amen." (Amen.)
Sure we'd all love to be fashion forward and buy unique clothing from local designers, but let's face it, people: $70 is too much for a t-shirt. $7 is more my speed. It's all about bang for your buck. Thrift stores are great, but even they are expensive.
So we shop at the sale racks at the Holy Trinity. Because of this, we started the "Gap Check" tradition. Every day, someone will call "Gap Check!" and we all have to itemize what clothing, if any, we are wearing from Gap, Old Navy, or Banana.
Today's Gap Check:
Rebecca - Old Navy socks and undershirt
Kyle - Gap belt
Emily - Gap T-shirt, undies and cardigan
Pretty sad. Often times one of us is clad head-to-toe in winners. There are no winners here today, though. None at all.
Posted by kyle at 3:22 PM
Bad Comics: They're not just for birdcage liner anymore
For about a year now, I've been writing comics reviews for a feature on the Prism Comics website called Queer Eye on Comics. Prism is an organization I became involved in a few years ago when I helped to produce a couple of the issues of their guide to queer folks working in comics. Sorry if you don't like the word 'queer,' but I'm simply not typing GLBTQQ. Damn. I just did.
The goal of the feature is, of course, to be funny in the way that only sophisticated, acerbically witty, self-absorbed gay men and women can be, and to turn those attentions toward the comic books we love and loathe. To make it easy on myself, I decided mainly to write about really bad comics. It's hard to poke fun at Watchmen, but any work of Rob Liefeld's practically screams, "Hey, look! I'm so sucky, I'm like a black hole of suckiness! I suck all the quality from all the comics you store near me! Leave me unattended, and your Berlin TPB will be transformed into the complete run of New Guardians."
Here is my problem, though. Since we bought the condo, I really haven't been reading comics much at all, and when I do, they are Lyle's that I have borrowed, or else a set of a very select few that I buy... and we're talking select. The days of me blowing $20 on dross like Identity Crisis are over. "Aaaah! That pain in my head! Jean Loring, get the f**k out of there! Seriously!"*
So now, having sold or given away bunches of comics I didn't like, I'm now left with only the good stuff, and how can you poke fun at the good stuff? I have an article due next week, and the closest I can get is something on Dork, Evan Dorkin's series. How can you be funny about something that's already freakin' hilarious?
::sigh:: If only I hadn't ripped that issue of Transmetropolitan to shreds....
Here are links to some of the "Queer Eye" articles I have written:
The Dark Knight Strikes Again... and misses the proverbial broad side of the barn.
"The Secret Lives of Superman" did not apparently include his one-time only back-waxing in Kandor.
"The Secret Lives of Superman," Part Deux.
Rob Leifeld's Avengers #1 is easily my finest work, and maybe his, too.
Crimson Plague, or "When Good Artists Believe Their Own Hype"
The Power Company, or "Despite His Best Intentions"
---
* That Jean Loring joke is a shout-out to my homeslice, Stephen B., aka "Andrea Brown." Look out for Jean, Stephen... I know you used to date that professor from Ivytown.
Posted by kyle at 2:40 PM | Comments (3)
February 14, 2005
Found Porn
From my hands-down, headphones-on, pants-off favorite blog comes this sneak peek at boys in their underwear. There goes the neighborhood.
PS: Search for "Sunny Days and Pissed Off Realtors."
Posted by kyle at 3:40 PM
A February to Remember
As you may have realized, February is a very significant month for me and C'pher. Our first date was in February; February 12th, 2004, was the day Mayor Gavin Newsom started letting same-gender couples get legally married; and two weeks into it, we had our chance to say "I do" on February 27th. Oh, and Valentine's Day, natch.
While we waited on line in our tuxes last year to be married, we attracted the attention of Chronicle photographer Mike Kepka, who kept in touch with us at different points during the year and snapped bunches of photos of us on important and not-so-important days. He even came along with us to Shanghai 1930 a couple weeks ago to snap photos and toast our 10 year anniversary.
This past Saturday was one year from the day that the gay weddings began in City Hall, and there was an article in the Chronicle about the past year. Several of Mike's photos of us got used with this article, though it was not about us, and the reporter only used one innocuous quote from C'pher, and got our reasons for celebrating this year a little mixed up (we celebrated 10 years together, not one year since our SF marriage). What was cool was that the photos were there.
The Mayor had a reception/press conference/love fest on Saturday to mark the day, and everyone who got married was invited. The Rotunda was packed; even the three levels of galleries above the main floor. We ended up in a fantastic spot; right at the top of the grand staircase. We had to look at the back of Gavin, but that's not exactly the worst seat in the house, if you catch my meaning.
It was a very exciting morning. The spirit in the room was very high and spontaneous applause and shouts of "Happy Anniversary" were going on before the speechifying even started. They showed us clips from an upcoming documentary about the weddings being done by the Mayor's brother-in-law. One scene where two deaf women said their vows to one another in ASL broght me to tears quicker than Rebecca looking at a picture of a Black Lab puppy.
When Gavin finally spoke, he really ramped it up. I think he's been taking speaking lessons from Rev. Cecil Williams, because he really had the whole Baptist preacher thing down. He gave a nice verbal spanking (again) to NYC Mayor Bloomberg and really let George W. Bush and his compassionate conservatives have it.
He went on at length about how the best weapon in the "defense of marriage" crowd's arsenal is that restricting marriage to one man and one woman is "traditional." He correctly pointed out that up until very recently, it was "traditional" not to allow people from other races marry, and that it was "traditional" to deny women the right to vote. "Just because something is a tradition," he said, "doesn't make it right." And the crowd went wild. Several times, actually.
He also shrugged off comments of people who say he's damaging his own career in politics by championing this cause. "I don't care about what happens to me," he exhorted. "I care about what happens to you, I care about what happens to your spouse, to your families, to your children, to your parents, to your optometrist...." OK, I made up the optometrist part.
All in all, it was a fantastic experience. Afterward, C'pher and I had lunch in the beautiful spring sunshine outside the Asian Art Museum before I went to my afternoon at work. We pinched ourselves for the ba-zillionth time and realized all over again how lucky we are to live in San Francisco.
Posted by kyle at 1:28 PM
February 11, 2005
WTF is Cake Club?
I have long been interested in cooking in general... especially baking sweets like cookies. My favorite annual ritual is making Christmas cut-out cookies, especially since I've found the best recipe ever for them. What can I say? Some of us homos get the flower-arranging thing, some get the Liza thing, and some get the Circuit Party and over-developed chest thing. I got cookies.
I was visiting our pal Nank once, and she had a copy of The Cake Mix Doctor. It was full of recipes for taking plain old cakes and mixing in extra ingredients and making them less mix-like. It was also full of all sorts of great tidbits about baking, the history of cake mixes, stuff about what kinds of pans are best and why only people who wish to slowly poison their friends should ever use canned frosting.
This book was like an epiphany: I found myself compelled to bake! At the same time, my most excellent pal Jenny was determined to try a cake recipe she found. It was for something called Black Cake, and it was a laborious, months-long process involving chopping endless fruits and letting them steep in strong alcohol. Jenny invited me to participate in this grand experiement, and Cake Club was born!
In the end, the Black Cake was a horrifying, disaterous, inedible mess (Burnt Sugar Essence? I mean, we should have seen it coming). It was essentially a fruit cake, which everyone knows is the second-best thing to poison your friends with next to canned frosting.
As for Jenny and myself, I can only claim that we were blinded by art! The description of this cake in the book she had made it sound like biblical Manna that had been steeped in a vanilla bean burre blanc sauce, wrapped in a lucious flaky crust, baked at 325ยบ for an hour, and served with sweetened creme fraiche. Frankly, though, it tasted like crap.
But we remained undaunted! We went on to meet and bake many subsequent cakes, some of which were also failures. However, the successful ones were so great that we keep plugging on, waistlines be damned.
Jenny has several posts about Cake Club on her blog, which she's been doing for a lot longer than I have. At some point, I will have to share a look at my custom-made Cake Club Neighborhoodie. It is my favorite article of clothing, and don't I feel so very "Mission" when I wear it.
Finally, we realize there are lots of other Cake Clubs, like this one, this one, and even this one. I doubt any of these clubs would have us, as our cakes are generally pretty ugly. Besides, we talk about Buffy, and something tells me those other CC folks wouldn't know Dawn from Dawn.
Posted by kyle at 4:36 PM | Comments (2)
February 8, 2005
A Demitasse of Cream of Celery soup, a Plate of Ahi, and Thou
Last Friday, C'pher and I celebrated our 10th anniversary by meeting friends for drinks at Shanghai 1930 (thanks to Jenny for the photo from her newest new camera), and thence to dinner at an Undisclosed Location. And no, Dick Cheney wasn't there.
C and I went on our first date on February 4, 1995. How we came to date is a tale for another time, but I'll say here we went to an early music concert that he had tickets to. I don't remember a dinner spot before or after, though I do remember not getting any "dessert" that night, if you know what I mean.
Since I was the only employed one when our first anniversary rolled around in 1996 (and I had a $75 gift certificate to a fancy restaurant), I took us out for dinner. Before dinner, C insisted he and I have a drink at a favorite neighborhood gay piano bar.
In the middle of our doe-eyed hand-holding new love glow, he excused himself to use the little grad student's room. A few minutes later, I hear the place's juke box volume go down, and the piano start up. Turning, I see him fronting a group of friends I sang in a small ensemble with. They serenaded me with "My Romance," a song we had been working on in a larger choir we all belonged to.
Naturally, I was floating. A hundred-pound lead weight would have been floating. Suddenly, my idea for a fancy French dinner out was seeming less romantic. Luckily, I was wrong.
We went to dinner at a place called Hyeholde, on the outskirts of town near the old airport. I had done a big big project at work, and museum's director gave me and the gal I worked with gift certificates to thank us.
The place turned out to be something out of a dream: it was a 1930s re-creation of a French country manor with a menu that I couldn't really appreciate fully at the time. We dined in absolute romance and luxury, and C'pher was as happy as I had ever seen him. "Buy me a shirt," he said, "and I'll wear it. Buy me a book and I'll read it. But buy me a fantastic meal, and I'll remember for the rest of my life." Score.
That started our tradition of going out on the first Saturday of Feburary for the best, most stylish and romantic dinner we could manage. We trade off years: since I planned our first anniversary, I have the odd years (3rd, 5th, etc.) and he has the evens. While we took in the mind-boggling surroundings, delicious food and excellent service at Farallon last week, we finally made a list of the places we've been. For your edification, here they are:
'96 1st Hyeholde, outside Pittsburgh, PA (K)
'97 2nd A gay-owned Italian place on Polk that's closed now, SF (C)
'98 3rd Chez Panisse*, Berkeley (K)
'99 4th Hawthorne Lane, SF (C)
'00 5th Boulevard*, SF (K)
'01 6th JohnFrank**, SF (C)
'02 7th Hyde Street Bistro***, SF (K)
'03 8th Evvia^, Palo Alto (C)
'04 9th Chez Spencer^^, SF (K)
'05 10th Farallon, SF (C)
Not a bad track record, wouldn't you say? I highly reccommend this practice. My waistline doesn't.
===
N O T E S
* Both reservations courtesy my connections at work! Thanks!
** Preceded by drinks with friends at The Orbit Room.
*** I chose this place for cheapness; turned out to be a gem.
^ After dinner, we saw the St. Olaf Choir at Stanford
^^ We didn't actually eat here; C'pher got sick, so we stayed home.
Posted by kyle at 1:08 PM
February 4, 2005
C + Me = 10
Today is the 10th Anniversary of my first date with Christopher. I love him more than anything in the whole wide wide world!
If you're lucky like me, you've either already got somone just like this, or you'll someday find there is a person that you'd happily give up everything familiar in your life for just for the chance to shave the back of his neck every couple weeks.
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert (1593-1633), "Love"
Posted by kyle at 7:54 AM | Comments (2)
February 3, 2005
Pushups
OK... so about the pushups. Rebecca works with Emily and me, and she is a black belt. That's right! Despite being all-girl all the time and also despite her propensity to cry when presented with pictures of doggies or pictures of babies or pictures of crumpled up tissues, she could still kick your ass in a seriously lethal way. Just kidding SFPD! She would never kill anyone much.
We hear all the time about Rebecca's adventures at her dojo, and how they do just freaking billions of pushups -- on their knuckles, people.
So Rebecca decided that she, Emily and I should start doing pushups when it was slow and we were tempted to pass out from pure afternoon-itis. Just whenever Rebecca decided we needed it.
I'm not sure exactly how, but a new institution arose: hourly sets. Naturally, there are rules that govern this practice, as Rebecca and Emily are big on rules. First, we all have to be in the office together. B) We have a 20 minute window to accomplish this; ten minutes before and after the hour. If it's too soon before or after -- forget it, though make-up pushups have been instituted on occasion.
We started out doing 10 each time, but now Rebecca and I are both up to 15, and are closing in on 20. Emily got sick last week and still participated, though she hadn't truly recovered. It was more of a "push-down," but she still retains the Eye of the Tiger, if you know what I mean.
There is one more rule: after finishing the set, wash your hands. The floor here is disgustipating. Bleh.
Posted by kyle at 11:11 AM | Comments (1)
February 2, 2005
Armsocks
And no, you can't borrow my armsocks. When I get some, that is. These are Emily's.
Posted by kyle at 3:50 PM | Comments (2)
Blogging
Blogging is for cool people like Harold, Jenny, Nicole, Pete, Sarah, Lyle and even Emily. Sucky people like me clearly deserve no bandwidth.
Nevertheless, here I am. ::Insert killer guitar lick here:: Let's rock, people.
Posted by kyle at 2:34 PM | Comments (2)