In Which We Clear out Dead Wood

In 1988 when R man and I landed here in San Francisco, the city had just finished spiffing up Market Street, the main downtown street that runs from the bay all the way up here to the Castro. Fancy new sidewalks, new signage, and new trees, sycamores.

Street trees do not have an easy life, pollution, sidewalks blocking the rain, and cars occasionally blamming into them, but sycamores, also known as plane trees, are very popular street trees because they can handle all that. They line boulevards in Paris and London and Rome as well as my granny’s front yard. That was the first place I ever smelled one, a lovely, very distinctive scent.

So I’m okay with sycamores.

Imagine my disappointment then, when I moved into this building and realized the trees in front of it were all dead. Dead, dead, dead, nothing more than big sticks. Worse than the aesthetics, dead trees blow over in storms and can seriously injure people, people like me. I wrote to the city to complain and apparently other people did too because they scheduled a number of meetings about removing them and then, 3 years ago, scheduled the actual axe work.

Ah but then, 2020 happened. Perhaps you remember 2020? The year that seemed like a decade and in which nothing happened? So cutting the trees down were one of those things that didn’t happen. Recently new signs popped up saying the period for commenting about the trees was reopened, which seemed to imply removing my little grove of zombie wood was less likely than ever. I became resigned to living with landscaping that looks like it was designed by the Wicked Witch of the West.

But then on Tuesday I was awakened by a hell of a racket. When I stumbled downstairs to see what was going on, a hard-hatted gang was busy ripping those bitches out. In less than 2 hours they had removed all of them, except for the two up at the corner. I have no idea why they stopped short there, the survivors are just as dead as the ones that got the ax. I’m just glad they cut what they did.

Hard wood:

Doesn’t the head of his dick look like somebody took a bite out of it? Ouch.

Does his mother know he borrowed her razor?

Peek a boo, I see you.

Why so glum, chum?

In Which We Are a Little Lightheaded

I’ve lived in San Francisco for 33 years now, half my life. And still, occasionally I am struck by the beauty of the light here. It’s crystal clear and bright and weightless, if weight makes any sense when you’re talking about light. The shadows it casts are so crisp they look like they’ve been painted. Some days the sky is so unlimitedly blue, it’s like a peak at infinity.

There’s plenty of theories about why the light is like that, most of them crackpot. One of them involves ice crystals way up in the air refracting the light. That seems almost poetic, but aren’t there ice crystals way up in the air everywhere? Others revolve around geography, the fact that we’re perched on the edge of the Pacific somehow means the sunlight is, I don’t know, washed? Like I said, crackpot.

The last couple of weeks have been gray and rainy and cold, classic winter weather. I’m not complaining, I like the change and it’s nice sometimes to have temperatures that make sweaters so appealing. Plus we’ve been living in a drought for years and every rainstorm is something to be relished. But yesterday was a break in that weather pattern and that’s something to be relished too.

I just found out my beloved Peet’s Cafe, to which I retire every day for lattes and avoiding eye contact, is going to close 3 hours early tomorrow because they don’t have enough staff to stay open. I’ve been hearing about this kind of labor shortage and I was sympathetic with the workers until it actually affected me directly, of course. Fucking slackers, get back to work. This is my definition of an crisis. They shrugged off my suggestion that they contact the National Guard. I’m not surprised; plenty of my best suggestions go wasted just because of a lack of vision.

I have to go set up my bunker.

Guys with whom I wouldn’t mind hunkering down.

I remember that dresser form 1994, the dick is unfamiliar, however.

Sometimes, shaving or waxing or whatever the hell is going on here, is so unfortunate.

Black bedrooms are always a good idea, I don’t care if you’re a vampire or not.

The wrought iron pattern on the balcony rail is called a “guilloche.” The more you know.

Give him the ol’ one two.

In Which We Consider What mrpeenee Thinks About

Can you take me to Galveston?

Wandering around the enormous wasteland that is the internet, I often come across ephemera that seems to fit into some nook in my warped little consciousness, not all of which include naked young men. Here’s some of my recent favorites.

Road Warriors, mulitiple

But House on Pooh Corner should have resulted in immediate crucifixion.

“Nice ass”

I have to explain this ALL THE TIME.

“…so then I said to her, I said, look….”

And now, a two-parter very dear to my slightly dyslexic heart

And also, of course, naked guys:

In Which We Gain One More Goddam New Year

mrpeenee’s chums, Hot Foot, Drum Stick, and Secret Agent Fred (often collectively known as The Children) have apparently caught on to mrpeenee’s less than charming habit of agreeing to social obligations and then ducking out 20 minutes before them with a pathetic text along the lines of “sorry, can’t make it. The bed won again.” Many years ago I sent Diane von Austinburg a haiku I had written that went like this:

It’s a cold hard world

but my bed is soft and warm

You call that a choice?

Diane replied that all my haikus somehow involve my bed.

Anyway, now that the children are on to me and know that I can’t be trusted, they’ve changed tactics and simply announce they’re coming over and we’re going to hang out on the roof deck. I suppose I could just not answer the door; the guys would probably be stymied with that, but I have no doubt Hot Foot, as indomitable as a force of nature, would simply kick in the door and drag me out of my bed and force me to have a good time.

And so that’s how I wound up spending New Year’s Day on my roof deck reveling in the lovely San Francisco afternoon, grazing on snacks, and not drinking champagne because I can’t drink alcohol anymore, thank you fucking restless leg syndrome. We hung out for 3 hours, yakking. It was the only sunny day we’ve had in a couple of weeks and it was absolutely toasty. So thank you to my friends for dragging me kicking and screaming into an amusing introduction to 2022.

I know most people have been talking shit about 2021, but really, compared to 2020, it was pretty much a peach of a year. It was the year I found out I’m okay with lockdown, as long as they let me go to Peet’s Cafe every day (which I suppose is really just lockdown lite) because avoiding the riff and the raff of the general populace is fine with me. If I have to be an old man haunted by restless leg syndrome and disappearing eyebrows, at least I can happily be a curmudgeon.

New Year nudes:

At least I don’t wind up on the floor during the party anymore.

The Uncarorled Christmas

Every year about this time, mrpeenee takes to the blog waves to complain about Christmas music. Not really complaining so much as loudly whining. “The enforced, albeit fake, good cheer…”, “The ludicrous prostitution of otherwise admirable musicians like Ella Fitzgerald and David Bowie…”, “GET OUT OF MY EARS…” Blah blah blah, you’ve heard it all before, it’s pretty much the sole content of mrpeenee’s Greatest Hits. That and my insistence that pornstars used to be much better looking.

Anyway, this year you’ll be spared my grouching because, for some unknown reason, this year I have been spared Christmas carols. That’s right, not a single drummer boy has crossed my path so far. It’s possible it’s because I have edited down my excursions to nothing more than my daily outing to Peet’s, my cafe of choice. In years past even that wasn’t safe since Peet’s would attempt to cover all bases by playing odd versions of Christmas music: Jazz and multi-ethnic and novelty choons. I have to assume that just annoys everyone equally, maybe that was their goal. But who actually would be longing for a Jamaican cover of “I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In?”

Anyway, all I have to do is make it to a week from Saturday (this must be the time for my annual admission that, because of some odd holiday dyslexia thing, I can never remember the date of Christmas. Every year I have to look it up, often repeatedly. I have it nailed down to something like December 24, 25, or 26, but that’s as close as I can come. I just looked it up AGAIN and, spoiler alert, it’s December 25.) So, a week from Saturday. No matter how much jingle bells they manage to stuff in by then, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to tough it out.

Wise men with whom I wish I was in the stable.

Shapely.

It’s all about the dimples

And now, for our salute to photoshopping:

In Which We Decode

Grandpa still got it goin on.

Is there anything more ephemeral than advertising? You know what they say, mass mind control today, gone tomorrow. And yet some ads live on, almost always because some homo gay has either a) fetishized it like the Brawny papertowel guy or b) decided there is gay relevance in there hidden by code.

Code was the way queers were able to find each other and to express themselves during the years of repression we had to tolerate. Making eye contact with some stranger and then following him into a toilet is all well and good for sex, but for communicating in various media, we needed a way to hide in plain view. And thus, code.

The most perfect example of this, I think, are these weird ads from Schlitz beer from the 1950s. They all appeared as three illustrated panels followed by the internal monologue of one of the heroes.

I love how this one evolves from a three way to a more simple queer-with-daddy-issues thingie.

They all start off with the same pronouncement: “I was curious.” Of course, “curious” nowadays is understood to mean “looking for hot dick, but I want to maintain plausible deniability.” In the Eisenhower America these ads appeared in, the word would not have had those lurid overtones, but the illustrations make it clear that what he’s actually curious about is what’s in the other guy’s pants.

The rest of the text is bland advertising naff, but that’s where the artwork takes over and really spins these beauties into the love that dares not speak its name, but really likes to hint around about it.

“Eyes up here, buddy.”

Every one of the ads has the second panel with the ladies dropping out to leave the boys alone and with one of them (usually the more experienced one, ready to lead the other down the primrose path of butt sex) sporting a knowing look on his face. A look that says “I’ve got the cure for that itchy prostate.”

There is a lot of intergenerational shenanigans going on in these. The wise, old shaman introducing the naive younger one to the insights of same sex bonding. Also, anal.

The final panel is my favorite, with our two lads now closing in for the clinch and both of them bright eyed, leering at each other and probably popping a stiffy. If there had been a fourth panel, can there be any doubt sodomy would have been involved?

I’m also very impressed with this one’s daring butt shot opener and then the romantic closer with Eugene and Dave admitting they each find the other dreamy.

Guys who would have blown those old poofs out of the water.

I just love a mostly hard dick just flopping around.

I bet that guy in the beach-y ad knows his way around some lingerie.

Books and cute guys. What could be better?

This guy is a redhead named Charles Pacquette. He’s my new favorite.

I have always had a weakness for big, dumb lunks. I’ve admitted it before, I am not ashamed.

In Which we give thanks that that’s all over

So maybe dinner parties are crippling. Is that a surprise?

So we survived Thanksgiving and, in fact, we were totally triumphant. Pretty much. Diane von Austinburg and I spent Wednesday prepping and cooking the stuff ahead of time that could just be warmed up and that was very amusing; we had a very amusing time. Turns out this kitchen is easy to cooperate in.

I decided to make just a turkey breast and a couple of legs since that’s all we wanted. Was I concerned about never having made drumsticks? Certainly not. Should I have been? Mmmmmmaybe.

I looked up several recipes just to get an idea about timing and one of them was from a cooking writer I like a lot, Mark Bittman, from the New York Times. Even though I know he’s reliable and talented, I didn’t follow his advice of cooking them at a fairly high temperature and came to regret it.

The stupid, fucking drumsticks took forever to get done, more than an hour after everything else was ready. I always work really hard at getting everything to land on the table at the same time, so I was pissed. Also when they finally did get done they were just tough as old boots.

But does anyone really care about the turkey? Let’s all just admit the sides are the real stars of this particular show. And our side dishes last night were flawless, if I say so myself.

We all agreed that there is no such thing as a bad potato dish, but the one I make, potatoes Dauphinoise, is my favorite. Thinly sliced potatoes (Diane called them “whisper thin,” which just shows how thoroughly we absorbed the extravagantly baroque advertising prose of our youth) are simmered in milk and then baked. It comes out creamy and rich and oh, so delicious. The milk will inevitably boil over onto the stove and make a sticky mess; resign yourself to it. It’s worth it.

Also, a cranberry chutney with dried apricots and fresh ginger. It’s the perfect counterpoint to the rich blandness of all the rest of the food. As a vegetarian, Diane provided tasty green beans with shallots and some perfectly delicate asparagus with lemon. Delicious.

My friend Drumstick (no relation to the fucking turkey legs) brought over the definitive apple pie. Oh my goodness. Even better, he left us a big chunk of it. I am a generous and giving person, but there is no way I would have left any of it behind. You would have had to fight me for it and it would have been ugly.

Leftovers et moi.

So tonight Diane and I have a substantial supply of leftovers to tide us through the evening. Tragically, we snarffled down every single slice of potato, but there’s still pretty good cornbread dressing and about a gallon of gravy. I’m sure I won’t starve.

Toothsome males:

Fresh ham. And big, too.

Don’t drip on the floor! Bad boy, bad.

The always charming Pavel Novotny

In Which We Have Company

Our dear, dear Diane von Austinburg is in the house. We are delighted and amused, which just proves even misanthropes can enjoy company if only it’s charming enough.

Diane hadn’t been here 20 minutes before we ran down to Peet’s for lattes and an orgy of list making. A substantial bit of her charm is our shared quirks, including a passion for lists. And Thanksgiving is really a holiday that requires substantial organization. Grocery lists, to-do lists, crossed off items and checked marks, I delight in the sense of progress as we mow our way down through these.

When I lived up in the canyon and had a great big dining room with a big table and a big kitchen, big thanksgivings were easy. Easy enough, anyway, as I turned into a flailing, evil tempered kitchen nazi. As I’ve mentioned before, Diane is the only one with whom I can share cooking duties. This is the first time I’ve tried anything like a dinner party since I moved into this apartment, but there’s only four of us for dinner so it should be okay. We’ll see, watch for news bulletins.

On the menu for Thursday is a recreation of my grandmothers’ and mother’s Thanksgivings. Turkey of course, but just a boneless breast and some drumsticks, a very traditional cornbread dressing (I think every region has its own version based on some variation in the starch. Of course, any effort that is not cornbread is simply wrong,) and cranberry sauce. I make mine with dried apricots and ginger, which is verging on Martha Stewart-ish but man, is it tasty.

I’m also making my absolute favorite side dish, potatoes Dauphinoise. It sounds very grand, but it’s actually just thinly sliced potatoes simmered in milk and then baked. Food of the gods. baby, fruit of the gods.

As a vegetarian, Diane is very much in charge of the rest of the sides and she always brings her A game. She’s an excellent cook, so I know I can depend on her for something delicious. This year it’s acorn squash roasted with pears. Mmmmm.

And so it is time once again for our Festival of Carbohydrates. I’m sure I’ll be in some kind of food coma Thursday night, but you know what, it’ll be worth it. Bring it on, bitches.

Holiday meat:

Diane requested a hairy daddy. Glad to oblige.

No matter how sexy you are, you still have to check the background.

Haven’t we already discussed how summer is over? Le sigh.

Sorry, did we interrupt your list making?

“Another dick….” says Diane.

In Which We Think About This and That

You know when you’re at work and you have to poop and it turns out to be so massive you’re afraid you may have damaged the pipes and the management will send a firmly worded email to your boss and when you finally escape, your butthole feels like a ripe mango that’s been turned inside out and you have to go sit in a meeting and be all professional, but still spend most of the time thinking about the word “prolapse?”

I wouldn’t know because that’s never happened to me, but it does sound very unfortunate.

I’ve really been impressed with the television adaptation of my favorite graphic novel ever, Y: the Last Man. I could explain why I like it so much or what I feel like are the improvements they made over the book, but what the fuck, it’s canceled. The producers are making some noises about maybe some other platform will revive it; great, string my poor battered heart along even further. But even if they find a new home and then tackle another season, I’m sure I will have forgotten what I liked about it when it eventually airs. “Is that the one about zombies in outer space?” I will ask myself. Hint: it is not about zombies in outer space. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it also leads me to find something else to watch. Maybe something with zombies in outer space.

In the last post, I pointed out November 9 was our good friend Mikey’s birthday, but I failed to mention it was also the 40th anniversary of the evening I met my beloved husband, R Man. I tend to ignore anniversaries of all sort; I can remember the past just fine, thanks, and dwelling on them can make even someone as cheery natured as me all sad and boohoo-ey. I do not enjoy being boohoo-ey. But a 40 year one is worth a shout, especially one of an event so vital to the happy life I was able to lead. So here’s a toast to the time R Man suggested I pull up my pants and come home with him and without even realizing it, I started my life.

The always charming smut icon, Al Parker

Yeah, summer is over, get used to it.

The first time I ever came to San Francisco, in 1980, I went to these very baths. I thought they were called the Turk Street Baths, but that just goes to show that memory is an unreliable narrator. They actually had that truck in the middle of the joint so you could indulge in some trucker based fetish, should you care to. The seat was sticky.

Somebody has been a bad boy.

Ass candy at the nursery.

Outside daddy.

He Looks Like a Monkey, and Smells Like One Too

Our dear little friend Mikey, from that nexus of naughtiness, Chaturbate, has a birthday coming up next week. I tried warning him against these since eventually they just pile up and suddenly you’re an old man fantasizing about throwing rocks at little kids. But he didn’t listen to me, nobody does, and now he has a birthday on the horizon so happy burfday and all that.

His mother summoned him back home to give him his present. Home is a small village in Transylvania which was, no doubt, terrorized by Dracula back in the good old days. I am not making this up. He texted me afterwards, giddy with glee about his birthday present, A LITTLE KITTY. I know the connection between Vlad the Impaler and oozy iddle kittens is a little murky, but isn’t that just the way in these wacky mixed up days? All little kitties are, of course, adorable, it’s genetic, but this one seems especially so.

Photographic proof:

Isn’t he adorable? The cat, too.

Oh, so cute.

Just to crank up the adorbs level, Mikey has named him Saki, after a certain much loved and much missed little terror. That was very thoughtful of Mikey. It’s really remarkable that a guy as humpy as Mikey is also so sweet natured. Amazing really.

As for the new Saki, he seems to be cut from the same implacable cloth as the first one. When I was texting with Mikey, Saki had been there less than 2 days and already was firmly in control, ruling Mikey with an iron paw. In the middle of a national lockdown, Mikey had already run out to get some extra toy mice. I understand completely.

Pussy boys:

I always forget to include a link to Mikey’s Chaturbate page, not only because I’m forgetful, but because WordPress has changed how you can link out on these blogs and it forces you to display the entire HTML as the link. Dicks. Anyway, here’s mikey: https://chaturbate.com/playwithme55/

Even though he is not bald, Diego Barros always poses the same way, in a baseball cap jammed down low and with his chin jutted up to see out from under the brim. I forgive him.

Does this guy have a cat? He should have a cat.

An extra special birthday daddy for Mikey.

And an extra special birthday daddy for me, cause I deserve one too, dammit.

For that matter, an extra special birthday daddy for everybody, cause I am just that generous. You’re welcome.

Red.

The Beatles had a song called Birthday on their White Album and it used to be the default song for b’day parties, but you don’t seem to hear it that much anymore. “They say it’s your birthday/We’re gonna have a good time.” Yeah, rock on Mikey.

And in conclusion, birthday buttchops.