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1998

$3.50 a Pack, My Ass…

$3.50 a pack, my ass…Since giving up smoking was not an option this weekend, seems the next best choice was a road trip to stock up on cheap Camels. It was a good excuse for an extra unplanned road trip anyway. And now I’m set through Christmas and my annual visit to Mom and Dad in North Carolina.

 

OK…almost anything is a good excuse for a road trip in my view. Cigarettes suddenly escalating in price from about $2.75 a pack to about $3.50 a pack in California (over the course of one weekend) is an incredible excuse. Throw in one roomie with a 4-wheel drive vehicle and all the ingredients are there. So this weekend, we braved snow-covered mountain roads, sleazy overpriced motels, and frightening Reno queer bars all (OK…mostly…) for cheap cigarettes.

We headed out about 1:30 on Friday afternoon. Traffic was a little heavy all the way to Sacramento, and we skipped the traditional Chick-Fil-A stop in Farifield. Malls, after all, are pretty damned unpleasant on the day after Thanksgiving. We opted for the Wienerschitzel located a few blocks from the State Capitol.

Things got intersting as we got closer to the Sierra Nevada. Three lanes of traffic were funnelled into one at Applegate for no apparent reason other than to make trucks stop and install chains. Seems a sign might have been just as effective since the trucks had to leave the road anyhow. Mysteries of the California Highway Patrol…

Actually, the drive wasn’t bad. We hit maybe five miles of light wet snow near Donner Summit and manged to pretty much avoid most of the cannibalism jokes. By Reno, things were pretty dry.

  

A nice room at an ungodly price right on the strip featured cable TV and a pretty spiffy pink and black bathroom. There was also a walk-in closet which Dan kept coming out of (and scurrying back into).

My apologies. Dan does not scurry.

Dinner at a dirt cheap casino prime rib kind of place. Then queer bars. I do not understand queerdom in Reno. There always seem to be lots of bars. There never seem to be any people in them. Friday night on a holiday weekend, thousands of people in town, packed casinos, yet there were no more than 10-15 people in any of the four bars we hit. Am I missing something?

Names of the bars (just in case): Quest, 1099, Bad Dolly’s, Five Star. And let me tell you there’s a lot of real estate invoved if you cover that circuit on foot. In the cold. And the rain.

 

Got to bed way too late. Got up not long after. I was prepared to be cranky all day, but the shower was too good. Much better than the wimpy trickle at home. There was hope. We went to Virginia City via some chain restaurant with a very bored waitress.

Virginia City is cute in that western antique and miner-kitsch sort of way. Dan looked at cute boys in Wranglers with big belt buckles. I looked in vain for boys who fit my definition of cute. Then I looked for falling snow. I got a little of that at least. I figured we’d see more on the way home, sinve the tops of the mountains were covered with clouds.

 

And the snow started around Truckee. I like Truckee. It’s much nicer than Needles, its southern “gateway to California” counterpart…probably has something to do with Needles being in the middle of the Mojave Desert…

 

After Truckee, we flew through most of the route to Sacramento, except when we sat in all that traffic which wasn’t moving through Donner Pass (again, for no apparent reason). Deciding to skip the I-80 nightmare from Sacramento to SF, we took the back road, through the Delta. Crawdad sandwiches at Ernie’s in Isleton. Mmmm…

Home. Bed.

Oh yeah…the cigarettes… I didn’t buy any in Nevada. I bought five cartons in Sacramento. Apparently, some uninformed merchant hadn’t gotten the word about the statewide markup. $15.99 a carton. Eighty miles from home…

Thanksgiving feasting at my traditional gathering of expatriate North Carolinians was a blast. There are no pictures, but I believe I have some leftovers from last year.

I Hate This Week

I hate this week.

I think I started a message to a friend with those words earlier tonight as a slightly lame excuse for my glacial email response time of late. I guess I could use it as an excuse for the slow pace of my site updates too, particularly with respect to Road Trip 98.

I’ll spare you all the details, lest this become one of those increasingly ubiquitous “why I’m not updating” or “why my life sucks” rants. Suffice to say that my life doesn’t suck, that I’m not updating because I’m really busy right now, and that it will all get better in a few days. I may even get around to answering some mail. Then it will be time to go home for Christmas and it’ll all start over again.

Site-related

Gosh darn. That link from the Advocate I mentioned a few days ago went away pretty damned fast. Why am neither particularly surprised nor particularly upset? Now visitors to their page of links can find reassuringly happy and safe sites which don’t say anything bad or question those “happy upscale gay” aesthetics and demographics.

A little more of Road Trip 98 is here for your perusal, including Minneapolis Finale and Minneapolis to Kansas City. More later tonight or tomorrow.

Alas, most of the email I hadn’t answered yesterday still hasn’t been answered today…

The Great Blackout of ’98

So I should’ve just stayed in bed.

I woke up about 8:45 and noticed the power was out. Dutifully, I got up, took a shower, dressed, and trudged off toward my part-time job, thinking this was just another neighborhood outage. Figuring that grabbing a bus on Folsom would really suck since all the traffic signals were out, I walked upto Mission. I was a little freaked out to notice the lights were still out and that none of the electric buses were running. I kept walking. I was starting to guess this might be a little more than a local occurence. Little did I know that power was out all over the city.

Jeez…what a mess. A million people without power. Minimal transit, no stoplights, nothing. By Fourth and Market, I decided to go back home and just read my book. And I never got my Sausage McMuffin. At least, though, the blackout gave me time to finish the Road Trip 98 saga (once the lights came back on).

Things I Love This Week

Home today, sitting in one of those thousands of San Francisco apartments with no heat or insulation to speak of. But it never gets cold in SF, you say. Perhaps not, by most standards, but it sure FEELS cold when it gets into the 40’s at night and you’re sitting in a drafty Victorian huddled over a wimpy space heater.

For a change of pace, here are some things I’m loving this week:

  • Reruns of “The Critic” on Comedy Central
  • Minute Maid Lemonade on sale at Safeway
  • Kelley’s Coffee Shop in Oakland (review coming soon)
  • The creepy new decor at My Place on Folsom Street (or is it just out of date Halloween decorations?)
  • My blanket

The Spirit

Only nine shopping days ’til Christmas. I’m not trying to be blatantly commercial or anything, but this seems like a good time to re-visit David Sedaris’ The Santaland Diaries. If I were less pure of spirit, I’d mention that you can buy the book from which these excerpts were taken right here on the site. But mentioning that would be wrong somehow.

Last note for the day: if you do nothing else today, visit this website. Just do it. Trust me.

Ummm, a War

So it would seem we’re at war. And I didn’t hear a damned thing about it until hours after the fact.

Used to be this type of thing would result in an immediate (if brief) interruption of all programming on all commercial TV stations. I was home all day. The TV was on. I didn’t see a bulletin or hear a single word until I watched the 7:00 news.

Ironically, one of the top stories was about the “apathy” many Americans were showing toward the whole thing. Given a reliance on TV news, it’s a fucking miracle most of us even KNEW about it.

I’m sure the “big three” affiliates probably had plenty of live coverage, but who the hell watches ABC, CBS, or NBC anymore? You’d think the beginning of a war might have at least merited a MENTION on the other stations too.

On a related note, check out this bitchin’ TV site. While you’re at it, check out yesterday’s link du jour again too.

No Sex, One Poll

The roomie left for New Orleans this morning. Of course, since I could now have a week of really noisy sex without bothering him, there are two factors working against me. The first is that I have this lingering nasty chest cold, which makes me sound like I’m dying (I’m not…)

The second, of course, is that I won’t be able to get anyone interested. Seems lately that I can only find willing partners when I’m not at all in the mood. Or else they’re two or three time zones away. Doesn’t really matter, I guess, as I have an awful lot of work to finish up this weekend in preparation for my annual holiday trek to North Carolina.

So far the most conclusive results of the survey are that you want more of me and more nastiness and negativity along the lines of The Idiot Factor. No promises on the former, but you’re assured of the latter…

Faux Butch

When I splintered those closet doors at the tender age of 17, people often said to me “I never would have guessed you were gay” (a pretty back-handed compliment if ever there was one). Nowadays, I’m more likely to be told that I’m “masculine”. Hmmm…

I never really thought of myself as “masculine”. It’s certainly nothing I’ve ever aspired to. To be honest, “masculinity” is not something I really give a shit about, whether it’s my own or that of a friend or sex partner. I just don’t really care that much one way or the other.

Granted, it’s annoying to be in a bar full of affected idiots snapping their fingers and squealing “Oh Mary” this and “Miss Thing” that. But that’s not really about “masculinity” or “effeminacy”. It’s all about stupid learned behaviors. It’s no less annoying to be in a bar full of faux butch poseurs. Again, it’s got nothing to do with their “masculinity”, but with their inability to act like anything but cliches.

I’m not really talking about leatherfags here, although I do find the leather scene more comical than erotic most of the time. Leatherfags at least ADMIT that it’s all about costumes and fetishism. Once outside the drag, leatherfags usally have some balance.

No, I’m talking about the poor souls who go through life (both in and out of the bedroom) absolutely obsessed with being “masculine”.

Picture the wannabe frat boy who’s always off to the racquetball court in his monster truck, as if driving a Geo Metro might make his hair turn lavender. Off he flies in search of the latest “outdoorsy” drag from Abercrombie & Fitch, and then off to the gym to work on those grotesque pecs and lats and abs, all the time dreaming of a similarly “masculine” boyfriend. No fats. No fems…

He’s fiercely proud of being gay, and he’s perpetually annoyed by all the drag queens and anyone else who doesn’t meet his standard of “masculinity”. He thinks “fringe groups” present the “wrong image”, although he fancies himself politically progressive. He regularly reminds his straight friends that being gay does not mean being “effeminate”. No fats. No fems…

In bed, he may play “bottom” on occasion, but only with someone even more “masculine” than he is. No fats. No fems…

Think about it for a minute. Is he any less affected than the Southern belle in the pegleg jeans and the Chanel T-shirt? Is he any less contrived than the fey antique shop owner who refers to everyone — male and female — as”she”?

I don’t understand this whole faux butch dynamic. I don’t understand viewing life in terms of “masculine” or “feminine” any more than I understand anyone who describes himself as a “top” or a “bottom”. Maybe I’m missing something.

I’ll take a cute sissy with a personality over a tight-assed drag king with a macho complex any day of the week. As a friend or as a boyfriend…

Apathy and Other Stuff

The country is going to hell. Wait. Scratch that. It’s the government that’s going to hell. The country is just suffering from the utter ridiculousness of it all.

And vast numbers of Americans just don’t care anymore. If ever there was a textbook example of why voters, particularly younger voters, are apathetic and cynical about the political process, the Republican party provided it today. The Republicans can’t be bothered with actually running the country, not when there are Democrats to be trashed.

Not to suggest that those very same Democrats wouldn’t have done the very same thing had the situation been reversed. Therein lies the problem: a complete moral bankruptcy in both ruling parties. There are no more statesmen. There are merely paid corporate mouthpieces. There is no more concern for issues. There is simply loyalty to the party and complete devotion to re-election.

And there’s not a damned bit of difference between the average Democrat and the average Republican — excpet maybe a slightly different list of corporate sponsors.

Only moderately related: has anyone other than I noticed that, in addition to being the nickname of a Nazi general, “Desert Fox” was also the name of a really bad military-themed gay porn video of the late 80’s? Coincidence?