So as many of you guessed about Tuesday’s photos, last weekend I traveled down to Baltimore for a weekend with mudcub. It started out rocky for me with a bad case of food poisoning (although I didn’t know it at the time), thankfully that passed by Saturday morning. We stayed at Wilson House, an incredibly gay gay gay bed and breakfast, a beautifully restored 40-room mansion built 120 years ago. Bedrooms and sitting rooms and parlor after parlor filled with period furniture and beautiful things from around the world. Although the proprietor and affable host was a handsomely bearded married Navy captain, he’s probably metrosexual zero. There was a little problem with good water pressure and the size of the tub in our third floor bathroom, but otherwise I would highly recommend the place to anyone staying in Baltimore.
Gay desserts at a gay café in the gay neighborhood
I had only been to Baltimore once before, for a backyard crab boil (immortalized in Saveur magazine), and a couple drive-throughs on my way to/from D.C., to sample a couple of their other regional specialties, she-crab soup, and Berger cookies. On those visits I only saw the modest and older downtown neighborhoods as seen in John Waters’ movies; on this visit in addition to the neighborhood we were staying in with its historic mansions, we saw their gay neighborhood, their arts center, and the harbor areas, all of which I was impressed by.
Fiercely gay
Saturday we attended “The 12 Days of Christmas,” a Baltimore leather community holiday tradition, an annual benefit put on by “Hooker’s Boys” and area leather clubs. It was a big old drag show with drag queen after drag queen (and most of them big girls) with names like Summer Clearenz and Ada Bouffé coming on for their number/s, covering everyone from Dolly to Cher to... wait for it... Minnie Pearl, collecting tips for charity. Minnie Pearl was impersonated by a black drag queen at that, but the cognitive dissonance award would have to be won by a group of belly dancers (some of them men in drag) dancing to The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar.” I’ve never been to a classic drag show like this before, and as much as I enjoyed it, I can now cross that off my bucket list to do again.
Tragically gay, but with accessories to die for
Sunday we slept in late so we passed on the National Aquarium because it closed early and had an admission of $30, and for that kind of money we could have enjoyed eating a couple of fishes, not just looking at them. Next time. I did have crabcakes and crab soup, but have been indulging/resisting so many holiday sweets at work that I could actually forego picking up a box of their Berger cookies to bring back to the office.
Yup, still gay
Instead, we explored the funky and twee shops of Hampden, where we had a light brunch at Café Hon, and visited Atomic Books. I’ve been to a lot of subculture bookstores, but none beats Atomic for their comprehensive selection of books, magazines, zines, toys, designer figures, art, and DVDs, everything from adult manga and anime to Cthulhu shrines. We'll be back just for that shop, too.
We made the tourist area gayer
We walked through the cold and nearly deserted tourist area of the harbor, familiar Christmas tunes playing to empty sidewalks, as twilight fell and the lights of the harbor came up.
04:01 am - Vintage Record Player This is one of 3 Silvertone record players we have, and the only one that sorta works. All of them have an electrical short in the system, and this one was a bitch to not get shocked while getting the record on the spindle. However the turntable was spinning up to speed when we filmed this. We had been playing a few stacks of 45's previously, and just after taking this vid, the turntable decided to "retire" for the evening. My favorite Christmas album from the 1960's, Stereo Wonderland Of Christmas, by Andre Kostelanetz. You can download the entire album here. http://falalalala.com/?p=88
12:12 pm - Momo = Nino, more or less An open letter to the women of Japan Dear women of Japan, walking around the streets of your delightful capital, Tokyo, and catching your eye on trains, on escalators, on the street and in stores, I can't help noticing your perplexed reactions to me, Momo. "What the fuck is that?" you seem to be saying to yourselves. "Is it a clown? Will it produce some balls and start juggling? Or is it just an old, ugly, ridiculously-dressed gaijin who thinks he'll score points with us by trying to look 'interesting' in a totally weird way?"
I, Momo, have seen these thoughts passing all-too-obviously through your head, and been slightly saddened, I must confess. Yes, I'm old, and foreign, and a bit eccentric. Sure, I could pass for Momo the Clown, or some kind of walking black flower. But there's something you should know. I am, more or less, Nino.
Nino. Ninomiya from boy band Arashi. He's your favourite current man, isn't he? He's everywhere, with his child-monkey charm and delicate, intelligent, feminine features. Look, there, in the Wii SuperMario Brothers poster! And here in the au by KDDI commercial!
What a fun boyfriend Nino would be! What good children he'd make, and how well he'd help you raise them! You dream of Arashi, you keep them under your pillow and take them out at night, and when anyone asks your favourite you say "Nino!" If you saw him on the street you'd scream. But if you saw Momo on the street... well, you'd scream!
And that's what I'm writing to tell you today. There's actually a lot less difference than you think between Momo and Nino! We both make you scream, that's a start! But it goes so much deeper than that! Let me prove to you that Momo equals Nino, more or less!
Up to 60% of the human body is water, which means that me and Nino are already 60% the same thing. Water! It's not like Nino's water is sexy and Momo's is weird. No, that 60% majority component of Nino and Momo is identical. Water!
It doesn't stop there, either. Nino and Momo both have two eyes, a nose, a mouth on the front of our heads. Okay, Momo has one eye that's shriveled like a grape, so let's give him 75% eyes compared with Nino's 100% eyes, but, you know, 75% ain't bad, girls! Momo has less hair than Nino, but, you know, it's hair!
And look at their jobs! Momo and Nino are both singers! Okay, Arashi might perform at the Yokohama Arena while Momo just sings karaoke over an iPod at a Tokyo art gallery, but what's an audience gap of tens of thousands when the profession is the same?
There are some other striking similarities. Momo's middle name is John, and Nino is managed by Johnny's Entertainment. Nino is hot, Momo is not, but there's only one letter difference between those words, which makes them 66% the same. Nino's sperm is young and healthy, whereas Momo produces slightly damaged old man sperm, but even old man sperm can make a perfectly good baby, if you don't mind the fact that it wouldn't be racially 100% pure (it would, though, be racially 50% pure, which is good enough for anyone except sticklers).
I want to conclude this open letter to you, dear Women of Japan, by saying, in your delightful language, yoroshiku; be nice to me. Next time you see me on the street, say to yourself "There -- but for a few insignificant details and my own blind Darwinian prejudices -- walks Nino from Arashi!" And allow yourself a small scream. A nice, excited scream, not the terrified one you normally do.
02:49 pm - The first cards have arrived for my Mom... And if you missed my entry the other day about the cards in question, I am doing the same thing I did last year, getting LJ people to mail her Christmas cards at her nursing home. If you want to do it then email me at
DLelandWhite at aol dot com
and I will email you back with instructions and where to send. They go through me first, so it's a process and involves two envelopes on your part. Anyway, that's that. She loves this. Lets the other old people know she's the most popular person in the place.
At approximately 0950 CST, Southwest Airlines extended the dates available for booking in their reservations system to included travel dates for the International Association of Gay Square Dance Clubs 27th annual convention in Chicago, "Chi-Town Shakedown 2010".
Right now, for the dates of travel I prefer a ticket on Southwest non-stop would be over $500, but I have a reward ticket, so I've booked that. There is very low availability for the date around the July 4th weekend. I was not able to travel on the dates so I'm probably going to have to find an odd day of accommodations here and there. Perhaps some nice Chicagoan will offer me his bed. ;)
At this point, both American and United (who have extensive non-stop service into ORD which is their hub) are charging about $400 from San Francisco, all-in. But, your potential saving may be eaten in baggage charges.
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