Cause If They Don’t Dance, Then They’re No Friend of Mine

Turns out I vacation so I can take naps in beds other than my own.  Secret Agent Fred and I took the train down to Los Angeles and I spent almost the entire 11 hour trip asleep.  Nothing is as lulling as the rolling rhythm of a train and there’s really nothing else to do, anyway.

The L.A. tain station is gorgeous

We stayed in the Biltmore downtown,  where the lobby and other public spaces were also pretty spectacular, with all the original, elaborate details intact,

but our shabby rooms upstairs were like being confined in an old folks home designed by somebody who had seen The Shining once too often, complete with fluorescent lights and dingy yellowing paint.  We fled to a tonier hotel I like in West Hollywood, so I could sleep in a nice place and so we could be closer to the gogo boys of Santa Monica Boulevard.

The car rental place stuck us with a white Chevy Impala, the Car of Shame.  The poor clerk handling the exchange was trying to be pleasant, he was pretty cute, and acknowledged this was not exactly the Batmobile, but I was overcome by some kind of gay Tourette Syndrome where I couldn’t help blurting out bitchy snark.   I am ashamed, but it’s true, we did look like we could be busting hookers in Hollywood.  Did I just imagine the valet parkers sniggering as we pulled up?  Maybe, but this was L.A. after all, where you are what you roll.

Speaking of muscular semi-naked guys dancing to Madonna, we had a lovely evening out at some bar that I swear is a time warp to 1990.

The strippers were terribly cute and Fred has a way with them, they’re drawn to him like he’s a puppy with a fistful of singles.

Tragically, I now find out we missed the 2013 GoGo Boy Appreciation Day Festival and Competition by a few weeks.  Count me in for next year’s.  I’ll see you there.

Choo choo

Somehow, I don’t imagine this is our conductor.

Secret Agent Fred and I are spending Christmas day taking the train down the coast to Los Angeles.  It’s supposed to be a really spectacular trip and I like riding on trains,

but right now, four hours before we’re supposed to leave, Fred and I are both sort of loaded (in Fred’s case, you can delete the “sort of” part.  Plowed would be a better description.)  Still, how hard can it be to get on a train?

Hmmm.

We’ll be back soonish, I’ll tell you all about it.

To Live and Die and Have a Birthday In LA

I know some people, when celebrating their birthday with a trip, will go for a vigorous hike in the Cascades, or trek to Bhuthan to meditate with the monks.   Last week for my birthday (and sincere thanks to everybody who wished me a happy one, and all the rest of you miscreants also,) I went down to Los Angeles for a manicure.

It was well and truly the greatest manicure I’ve ever had.  The salon Secret Agent Fred and I went to had the severe white hush of a chic research lab and we each had a room all to ourselves so the technician could truly concentrate on our cuticles.

Also, tiny little fur brushes to whisk away the detritus from the emory board.  Dazzling.

Also quite charming was the always beautiful LA weather and lots of cute guys.

We were staying in a small hotel I quite like and which pretends to have a bar.  You sit down at a table, a server appears eventually, takes your order and then disappears.   One supposes they’re mixing drinks back in the laundry room.  I ordered a Lemon Drop because I am a Lady, I do Lady Things and it was served as a martini glass filled with Citron vodka.  That was it, no mixer, nothing, just liquor.  Turned out to go with my vicodin perfectly well.

And really great Mexican food, my favorite cuisine.  Why San Francisco is so lacking in it is a constant source of pain to me.

My favorite coffee place in the universe is a small San Francisco chain called Peet’s.  I was so glad to find one near our hotel and even more delighted to see they have valet parking.  It’s L.A. baby.

Thanks again to everyone for your birthday wishes, all of which came true.  It was a plenty Happy one.

How mrpeenee Spent My Summer Vacation

Usually I don’t put up new posts because I am a lazy slug, but since returning from Los Angeles, I’ve felt that I couldn’t move on until I actually post something about the trip. Plus, I am a lazy slug. Herewith, mrpeenee’s LA confidential. Progress on my slug-like state seems unlikely.

Our flight attendant was totally booty-licious.

I kept referring to him as our “stewardess” which I know is technically incorrect, but Miss Lady Girlfriend was nellier than even I, so it seems OK. His name was Marche (or possibly Marshay) which led to my repeated incantations of “Marche, Marche, Marche.” Our attendant coming back lip synched the safety instruction tape. People applauded.

The weather was mild, we went swimming at night (which I love,) the bougainvillea was spectacular.

We hit the boy bars in West Hollywood, where we were staying, and I drank cocktails. The bartender at Mickey’s was making up fake drinks to set out on the bar (who knows why? It’s that kind of place.) He seemed embarrassed that I wanted to take his picture, but he has nipples like gumdrops, so what does he expect?

Frank Gehry designed a building that features a four story pair of binoculars by Claes Oldenberg in either Santa Monica or Venice. I can’t tell them apart, says the Northern California snob, and I’m too lazy to look it up. I wanted to show Secret Agent Fred, but I had left the address in the hotel, so I asked Fred to text our friend John to ask him to Google it. John texted back “Tell the heiress to go buy a goddam smartphone.” Bitch. I managed to find it anyway, because I am triumph incarnate. The building is going to be the new L.A. headquarters for Google. Isn’t that brilliant? I hope they can afford a new paint job for the binoculars.

I took more pictures of the way too cool restaurant at LAX than I did of anything else the whole trip. I thought it was still closed, but it turns out it’s been re-opened, so we blew in for drinks.

The place is, obviously, Judy Jetson cool, but the renovation it suffered somewhere down the line is tragic. As 80’s as a Cyndi Lauper tribute band with these ridiculously inappropriate diner style tables and chairs. Somewhere there is a designer who should be dragged out and shot for this.

Dreams of a Dreamy Dream

In our “Hell in a Handbag” post below, corespondent Debs commented “medicine for bone cancer also gives one very vivid, livid dreams….” Amazing, since the one side effect of my AIDS medicine I didn’t mention is the onset of immensely amusing dreams, totally different from my previous unconscious, very realistic with internally consistent plots and effects. Plus I can direct them at will during the dream itself. If I don’t like the way things are turning out, I’m aware of it and can re-channel the action into more pleasurable directions. I’m wild for them.

Saturday night I had one where I was a house guest at Martha Stewart’s place, along with our dear, dear chum Glenn Close. Of course, since it was Martha, the house was a beautiful series of Paladian pavilions, pretentious bitch. I couldn’t really pay the proper attention to Martha or her goddam dogs since I was terribly busy as a high fashion model in the middle of a photo shoot. I had to calm the overwrought Italian photographer by telling him “Shut up, I know what I’m doing” in flawless Italian (“Stai zitto, io so quello che sto facendo,” in case you were wondering, and thank you Google’s translation thingy.) It’s possible he was so nervous because I was wearing a gold suit with a gold tie set with gemstone. And I don’t mean it was gold colored, I mean it was gold metal, but I was able to pull it off with my best vogueing. I know what I’m doing.

Real Italian models. Not mrpeenee. I know what I’m doing.

And then last night, probably overly influenced by my own blog, I dreamed I was sexing it up with the Night is Half Gone Aries guy. We were in a beautiful room paved in sea glass tiles and I was driving him wild by sucking, gently, on his horns. The ones on his head, silly. There was a little red knob on the end of each one, like a Jujube. I was so sorry to wake up.

In other mrpeenee news, Super Agent Fred and I are winging it off to Los Angeles tomorrow for a few days in order for me to escape from the kitchen renovation. I figure if I can’t have a kitchen, I might as well do so in a nice hotel. Felix in Hollywood encourages us to come out on one of his fabulous sounding tours, overriding my puking whine about the heat. I know it’s California and whinging about the heat here is nothing to endear us to readers suffering along where the temps are serious, but I’m delicate darling. Delicate.

We certainly hope this is included on dear Felix’s tour. We would hate to ask for our money back.

Home again, home again

Well, that was terribly amusing.  Down to LA and back in three days time, thanks in large part to mreenee’s driving.  Usually R Man is reluctant to allow me to take the wheel because of my well established opinion that anyone in the left hand lane doing less than 90 is a traffic hazard, an opinion I’m happy to share with them, in sign language, as I shove my way past.  This time, though, he was distracted worrying about the trial he was going down there for so he handed over the driver’s seat and, hoo hoo, we were off.

This is what it looked like as we wheeled out of the Bay Area.  The rainy season here can be so pretty. 

This is what it looked like in the pass just outside of Los Angeles, in a treacherous, mountain area called the Grapevine.  Welcome to sunny Southern California, indeed.  I’ve mentioned how suspicious I am of snow, raised as I was on the Gulf Coast, so my theory was to just ignore it and drive really fast to get out of it more quickly.  Worked great.

We had lunch at Clifton’s cafeteria, a relic of the Great Depression.  Not this one, silly, the last one.  They have fabulous terrazzo murals outside, but I was in too much of hurry to get to the steam tables to get any good shots. Sorry.

Naturlement, the interior is decorated to look like a redwood grove.  That’s appropriate since many of the regulars look like they came straight from sleeping under a log.  Did I mention there’s an animated raccoon that pops up out of a carved rock?  Oh yeah.

Jellos of many lands.

The Specialitie d’Maison, tapioca.

The Urban Street Pirate and I made a trip out to the Saint Vincent de Paul’s Thrift Store in Lincoln Heights, mostly because the reviews of it were so scathing.  All of them accurate, too. Fortunately we are both capable of being amused by how bad a junk store can be.   This one just happened to be the biggest, nastiest, scruffiest one I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty.  The level of quality was universally dreadful; everything there looked like it had been thrown away at least once.  This was the only time my insatiable love of crap has actually been thwarted.

There was a crowd of people waiting at the front door when we arrived, shortly afterward someone rolled a gate open and they surged forward into a fenced off area, literally running to get to bins of unsorted clothing.  My favorite part was when someone screamed “OW.”  You don’t get to experience moments like that at Nieman’s.

Their finer dishware selection.  Melamine and plastic, and some of it was clean.

Fashions pour madame.

Really cool bits and scraps of leftover art deco architecture remain in downtown.

As does art.

The view from our room was sweet. Oh, and R Man, as predicted, knocked his trial opponent’s dick in the dirt.  Yeah Man.

Miss Janey protests that we didn’t get together.  Next time, sweetie, I swear.  We can meet for tea at Clifton’s Cafeteria.  By the raccoon.

To Live and Die….

Me and Urban Street Pirate in LA Xmas ’08, freezing.

We’re hot-footing it back down to Los Angeles tomorrow for a very quick trip (back on Wednesday.) R Man has a trial there and has to go be all Perry Mason and stuff. Urban Street Pirate and I are going along for moral support and to hang out together while R Man knocks his opponents’ dicks in the dirt. I have the one day we’re going to be there all planned out as a whirl of thrift stores. R Man tragically has never gotten the thrill of prowling through other people’s crap, it’s the only area we disagree on. So in all these trips to the Southland, I consistently point out the many fabulous looking junk stores and he speeds up.

This then is my perfect chance. With him distracted, the Pirate and I will sweep through castoff heaven. Here’s part of the Yelp review of St. Vincent de Paul’s there, described as the biggest thrift store in captivity:
Waste transfer station or thrift store? You decide! You’ll find here splintered and damaged particle board furniture, rows of used mattresses, broken and irregular chairs, all sorts of soiled and damaged sundry bric-a-brac that look like they were Goodwill discards. I recommend donning a Tyvek body suit to avoid picking up any bed-bugs on your clothes. Be sure to check out the awesome collection of post apocalyptic Katrina Cars and derelict boats in the back parking lot!

It sounds too fabulous for words. And Bed Bugs? What kind of pussy wrote this? I’ve been in second hand stores where you needed to be concerned about picking up scurvy and typhus; a few measly vermin aren’t about to scare me off. And it’s not all about scoring a find. One of my favorite things about junking is to diss the store, in fact, I have used the phrase “Goodwuil discards” myself. Gleefully.

Plus, excellent sounding Mexican food downtown for dinner Tuesday after a hard day shaking the racks of thrift stores throughout the metro area. I can’t wait.

Watch for reports of developments as they occur.

Lost Angeles

The brilliant Muscato points us to a collection of photos from the L.A. Times Herald that the Los Angeles Public Library has posted on their website at http://www.lapl.org/virgal/

My fave? Not the photo, but rather the caption (or “cutline” as they say) below.

Almost “life-sized shoes” of police officer John M. Yates, who kicked Herald-Express photographer Eddie Phillips in the groin after Phillips took photograph of camera shy officer. A witness stated that the shoes “were the largest thing [I] ever saw that didn’t have a liver in it.”

Oh yeah.

Where Am I?

We had a lovely trip to Los Angeles, thank you for asking. R Man, god love him, drove all the way, he says he likes to drive and I like to sit staring out the window. It’s a match made in heaven. We always take I-5, a highway as straight and boring as a paper cut. The high point is lunch at Harris Ranch, a cholesterol factory exactly halfway. It’s usually dependable for eye candy of the straight boy type. Which reminds me, why do you so often see ravishing straight boys paired with fat doughy wiveys? Is there some appeal to Roseanne Barr that my gay gene disguises from me?

We also got to see some disturbingly strange urinals.

I love Los Angeles. I enjoy driving around seeing the palm trees and I snagged a fabulous Brazilian body builder at the tubs (Hi, Mauricio!) and we had wonderful Mexican food at El Cholo. If you look up reviews of El Cholo online you’ll find the widest range of opinions one restaurant has ever generated. It sounds like the writers aren’t even talking about the same place. Do I care? No I do not care. I ate until my stomach hurt. Green corn tamales, love ’em.

I love Los Angeles.

I gotta go

I Gotta Go

R Man and I are off to Los Angeles on Thursday for a little road trip. As Dame Shirley Bassey would say, “Wheeee!” I love visiting the southland and don’t understand the snotty attitude here in the Bay Area against it. “It’s so sterile” they squeal, denizens of the deep East Bay who are able to revel in the rich urbane tapestry of Hayward. How can any place that’s produced Colt Studios and Sunset Boulevard (the film and the street) be sterile? Insane, maybe, but not sterile.

Los Angeles has always seemed to me be a conglomeration of idiosyncratic villages. I’m wild for the shabby charm of Echo Park and Silver Lake and the neighborhoods that kind of straggle in between them. And who could say no to the pissy, buffed charm of West Hollywood? It’s like a zip code composed of expensive rentboys.

Mostly, the trip is an excuse for a long drive. For those of you not familiar with the magic that is Interstate 5 from here to there, let me tell you the image of a lush California with surfers frolicking on Annette Funicello-esque beaches is no where in evidence. I’ve driven the long dull stretches of west Texas and this is plenty the same, just with the addition of dusty mountains out past the cantaloupe fields.

Exactly half-way is Harris Ranch, a hotel with a behemoth restaurant that’s probably not bigger than several combined bowling alleys, it just seems that way as you’re trekking off to your table. It’s a working ranch and supplies beef to plenty of the food industry in California so the menu is very meat-centric. Just being in the vicinity compels you to stab things and grunt. Mmmm. I’ll try to take some pictures of my slab o’cow.

I gotta go.