The following is a problem usually encountered in families where parents are having a difficult time adjusting to the 10-year old news of their child’s homosexuality: (Oh who are we kidding. It’s 31-year old news for them) Parents avoid inviting child home for fear that his big gay lover will show up and try to sodomize all of their church friends and/or gun club buddies.
It’s starting to make me feel like an asshole because I don’t visit any of them but I’m sure you can see how it might be a drag. I think my mom actually closes up all of her windows. So I’ve decided to start playing them off one another. I’m going to convince my baptized in the Holy Spirit mom that my Nam-vet NRA-member dad is driving around with a PFLAG bumper sticker and vis-a-versa.
Why the fuck hasn’t anyone made a movie about this yet?
One of the things that I deal with at work is historic preservation. Occasionally, the City will identify neighborhoods where there is a significant concentration of historic buildings (usually houses) and create restrictions and guidelines as to how the structures can be adapted and maintained over time. At its best, this practice preserves important parts of our built environment and tells a much better story of what Los Angeles is. On a more surfacy level, this practice just prevents really tasteless people from fucking up really cool houses with cheap remodels or McMansion additions.
In addition to getting communities behind stuff like this, I also write guidelines that deal with design and restoration, and I end up working with individual property owners on their projects (a process I call baby-sitting door knobs every now and then).
Recently I came across this house in Lincoln Heights. Someone bought it and wanted to re-stucco it. Now normally, if someone asks to stucco over a late-19th century Folk Victorian he gets a really smarmy lecture from me about how absurd and horrible that is (using phrases like “an historic”). But when the damage was done years before anyone really cared about this sort of thing (in this case 1979) I usually just hit the “okay fine” button. This has more to do with officially differing standards for houses that have been bastardized vs. those that remain intact.
However, several days later I got a call from a building inspector asking if I was aware that the owner had removed the original Tums-orange stucco and that the original clapboard siding was still in-tact. On a sunny Friday morning, this kind of phone call is equivalent to a city planner bat-signal. I grabbed a co-worker who speaks Spanish, jumped in the white hybrid and headed north.
Through some creative negotiation, most of which took place in Spanish my friend was able to persuade the new owner to at least restore the porch decoration and some of the clapboard. Given the circumstances, not a bad deal–the house is so far gone that it would take an economic miracle to restore it (the interior is gutted, the fenestration is all hacked up, etc.), but at least now it tells a better story to the neighborhood about what Lincoln Heights looked like 100 years ago (when this farm house was probably the only house on the block). There is a real insistence among recent Latin American immigrants that wood siding looks old and having a house with wood means you are poor. The tragic reality for these homes and neighborhoods though, is that the opposite tends to be true. These homes were constructed with a level of craftsmanship that no amount of stucco or aluminum could replicate or replace.
The following are taken, in alphabetical order, from the YouTube search menu’s most popular searches They are obviuosly things that we all need to know how to do:
How to…
apply eyeliner, be emo, curl hair, do, get a six pack in three minutes, heelflip, impossible , jerk, kiss, lose a guy in 10 days, make a smoke bomb, nollie, ollie, play guitar, quit smoking, roll a joint the real way, save a life, tie a tie, use a tampon, varial kickflip, windmill, xt-002, yodel, zippo tricks.
The internet is one big sexually crazed and confused teenager with some sick skating moves and not a lot of time for a proper abdominal workout.
I swear to God I’m going to post some stuff on our New York trip any day now and blow you all away with my observations about buildings and places and people that have been talked about to death for the last 200 years. But the photos are all so huge because of Kenny’s schmancy camera, and I don’t have the time to deal with them because I’m a really busy person who spends his time doing very important things.
In the mean time, I am on Twitter. If you’re not on there, you should be. It’s a fun easy way to be able to say hello to your friends and complain to them about the lunch you are eating. Think of it as Facebook, but without all the ego projection and pictures of you backpacking or whatever. My Twitter name is qcondition. Come find me.
Everyone knows that the Internet serves three basic purposes: porn, stalking, and on line banking. Twitter, the super-minimal chatty-networky device that newscasters and Senators can’t shut up about doesn’t really fit into any of these categories, and I have been struggling to understand its utility. Until recently. Twitter is for stalking.
While at JFK (oh yeah, we went to New York for a couple of weeks, more on that later, it was RADICAL) I read a “tweet” from one of my favorite bloggers, The Sneeze. The tweet read something to the effect of “At JFK near that one restaurant, where that one thing happened,” (paraphrased, I can only waste so much time at work) and was accompanied by a photo of said restaurant.
“Holy shit,” I said to myself, “we’re sitting by the same restaurant!” And so I began my quest to ferret the man who introduced me to Cuitlaccoche. “Well I know he has kids,” and “he has to be a 30-something nerdy white guy.” I did laps around the terminal, looking for a dude with an iPhone surrounded by mad-capped hilarity. Finally I checked Twitter again. It read: “Hey 2 guys sitting at gate 19 discussing the sneeze. I’m sitting right behind you.” I think maybe I screamed.
Finally I can shut up about the LA Marathon; it was over a week ago and I finished it! My time was 4:33 which I would call a B in beginner marathon running (the average time is 5:30). I had hoped to come in closer to 4:15, but my legs started to cramp up around mile 23, and so I needed to slow down for 23 and 24 so as not to experience the cramp phenomena where everything locks up at the same time and you can’t move and you scream a lot. I did sprint in the last mile and it felt great. Actually, the whole race went by so much quicker than I expected and I’m pretty sure that I’ll do it again sometime if they can invent a way to make the training less annoying. Here is a picture of me at mile 21 in Hancock Park where Kenny, Joe, Chris, Erick, C.C., Cheryl, Clair, Victor and Juline were waiting with signs food and some love. If you have never had people, strangers or not, cheer for you while doing something you really must. If it takes 26 miles, so be it.
Tomorrow morning is the LA Marathon. I’m pretty excited. I think that I’m supposed to go drink a gallon of water and try to wrap my hamstrings around my head or something, so I’m going to keep this short. Here are some things that I am thinking about:
1. I hope I don’t have to poo during the race.
2. If I do have to poo I hope I can find a clean place to do it.
3. I hope that I find Kenny at the right places to get my goo and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some love.
4. I hope that I finish with a smile on my face.
5. I hope that I have no immobilizing pain.
6. I hope that I can walk normal the day after.
7. I hope that when middle aged women pass me that I don’t notice.
Wish me luck!
Wish me luck
I’ve noticed that people in my age and socioeconomic group have a difficult time liking things whole-heartedly. We use irony and cynicism as a shield to protect us from fun and sincerity, because those later two things are, evidently, horrifying.
This Saturday, Kenny and I went to pick up our first Abundant Harvest farm co-op box. Every Saturday the delivery truck comes to Lincoln Heights and drops of a bunch of boxes for everyone in the area who has signed up, and our friends Suzie and Sean hang out and hand out the boxes. The produce is organic and fresh, local and amazing. It is really cool to get to see friends, and the communal aspect of just getting the food reminds me a little of communion at All Saints. And, because the box is a ticking time-bomb of freshness, it has helped Kenny and I think ahead about what to cook and how to get the most out of the produce instead of just trotting down to TJ’s to get another plastic box of whatever. Basically, the co-op is amazing.
So I wonder why I found myself wanting to tell the story of the farm co-op from a cynical standpoint (I’m sure some of you reading this would mearly applaud the fact that I didn’t and maybe send my therapist a box of chocolates). Does the internet need another self-hating hipster/yuppie attempting to make everything in life contrived and ironic? I mean yes, we are a gay couple and yes, we did pick up the produce in a Volvo, and I think there may have been at least one retro t-shirt involved… but seriously, it’s an inexpensive box of sustainable and healthy produce supplied by friends. Anyone compelled to put a negative spin on a box with cherries in it needs a kick in the jimmy-ha-ha.
Oh, the box also came with a bundle of chamomile. It’s pretty, but we’re not sure what to do with it. If you, or someone you know is an expert on making hallucinogen… er, tea with fresh chamomile leave me a comment with some instructions.
Lastly, we’re hoping to start an Eagle Rock or Highland Park delivery site, but need more local interest. C’mon, you know you want to…
Every now and then I find subtle reminders that I am, without a doubt, a grown up. Sometimes it’s really obvious stuff, like when I had a new ID card made at work and my photo revealed that I no longer have a receding hairline, rather I am bald. I am bald like Uncle Bob. Also, it turns out that I am bright yellow, but I think that might be a printer issue.
It’s not always the deterioration of my body that reminds me that I am careening full-speed toward high-waisted pants (forgive me if I’m starting to sound like Dave Barry). Sometimes it’s little things, like corncob holders. I own several of them. The other night we sat down to a meal which consisted of a barbecued slab of meat, a salad and corn on the cob with little holders. I am my parents. I felt compelled during the meal to go grab a plastic cup or rip a paper towel in half to use as a napkin just to have some evidence at the table that plucky youngsters were eating here, but to no avail. Kenny, the corncob holders and I ate dinner and then scurried off to the family room to watch 60 Minutes.
On a happier note, I was excited to notice that Kenny and I both eat corn in the proper “typewriter” fashion. I attempted to eat the second piece in the ill-mannered “around the world” style but it made the corn taste like goat blood. Ding.
I just passed, this morning, what may well be the first case of Swine Flu in Los Angeles. Either that, or this person has been diagnosed with “Easily Influenced by Endless Media Hype Disorder.” Either way, it’s very serious. Stay away, cooties.
Does anyone remember that game Pig Mania? If you have one, ebay is calling.
