Happy Thanksgiving!
xoxo
Alastair and Blake
Bon Voyage!
Denver's Very Lovely Airport by Night
Les boys de DaOiD are heading out of town for the weekend to give thanks and eat lots of stuffing! Well, one of us (not me) has already flown the coop and the other (moi) commences his journey this very morning. By 5:30 p.m. MST I shall have reached my destination.
Along the way these are some of the things we will be very thankful not to see in our travels:
1. Couples in matching workout gear. Ground rules: in order to wear a “workout” outfit, one must have worked out in it at least the one time.
2. People who dress more casually for travel than they do to lounge around their homes watching TV. We get it, you want to be comfortable but come on, dress up a little for air travel! Let’s bring some elegance back to the skies. My own mother has never worn jeans on a plane and while that might be a little extreme, let’s at least banish all sweatpants, shorts, and workout clothing (see #1, above) for anyone over the age of 16. Southwest may have people lining up like cattle, but that doesn’t mean we have to dress poorly, too!
3. People eating pizza and other hot food in their seats on the plane. Clearly this is a consequence of the lack of meals being included but there’s something disconcerting about someone tucking into a big melty meal when that someone is located mere inches away from oneself.
4. And speaking of: people (read: straight men) who insist on taking up more than their allotted seat space by using both armrests; attempting to raise the armrests altogether; or moving their legs and knees into their neighbors’ space.
5. People who try to board the plane ahead of their seating area or seat number.
6. People who bring on too much carry-on luggage, thus monopolizing the overhead bins to the detriment of the rest of us who follow the rules.
7. Couples who insist that, simply because they are coupled, they are entitled to sit together, even when some of us will have to switch seats to accommodate their “needs.” All of this, in their minds, is perfectly reasonable because some of us are traveling by ourselves and thus don’t have real rights to the seats that we preselected months ago when we booked our flights.
What will you be thankful not to see during your holiday travels? Leave a comment if you are so inclined and I’ll approve them all as soon as I arrive at my destination.
And Happy Thanksgiving!
Downtown. Denver?
Click on the lovely Petula Clark and then read on. No, scratch that: click and watch the lovely Petula, and then read. The video is too priceless to miss.
First of all, I love this song. I love Clark’s version – the original, obviously – but I pretty much like any version. (The song was written by British songwriter Tony Hatch in 1964.) The always brilliant Dolly Parton covered it; Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) gives it a decent turn; and the Canadian Holly Cole Trio does a pared-down rendition that is pretty great, too. It’s catchy and the music is great; I love the backup singers and the horns. And then just look at Petula; look how happy she is, how joyful.
Second, is this song not secretly – or perhaps not so secretly? – a song for the gays? Downtowns have historically been places where people of a homosexualist inclination could find one another for companionship and cocktails and yes, of course, for sex. Urban spaces, historians have shown, have often been the first for the development of gay subcultures. But more than that, read the lyrics from one of the final verses:
And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along.
How gay is that? Who more than a confused gay needs someone kind to “help and understand you,” someone conveniently “just like you,” who could be “guide[d] … along”? Indeed. Further, the song is just so profoundly hopeful (“you’re going to be all right now”), the kind of song that a young gay could take much comfort in. I’m doing so right now.
Third, the song captures much of what I love about urban spaces. Real urban spaces. While it perhaps exaggerates things a wee bit – not everything is great downtown – it also captures the spirit of a big, loud, noisy place – “the music of the traffic in the city” – and how joyful that can be to those who love them as I do. The first verse begins like this:
When you’re alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you’ve got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, downtown
When I lived in the big city from whence I moved I would sometimes just take long, aimless walks around town, up and down avenues, through parks, across bridges and back again. All the noise and the crowdedness and the complete anonymity made such a difference. For a while my own little problems just didn’t matter compared to all of those millions of people and their equally complicated lives.
This is part of what I feel is missing in Denver. There is no downtown like Petula Clark sings about, nowhere that is loud and crowded and busy, nowhere I can walk and lose myself (in part because no one actually walks anywhere in Denver anyway). There is no real downtown, where “everything’s waiting for you.”
White Fence Farm! (Part Two)
Loyal readers of DaOiD will recall that this weekend my gentleman friend (GF) from out of town and I ventured out to the White Fence Farm (WFF) in Lakewood so that we might relive some of GF’s childhood memories. And eat fried chicken, ‘cause we are two homos who don’t shun the fatty foods. (See Part One of this scintillating two-part epic for the back story.)
Darlene's "Welcome Card"
Aside from the fact that the chicken was delicious – and comes with all-you-can-eat corn fritters sprinkled with sugar (very tasty), choice of potato, and a variety of side salads – the highlight of the entire trip has to have been our waitress, Darlene. Soon after being seated, Darlene approached our table, introduced herself, and then put a card on our table, explaining, “I’ll just leave you with my welcome card.” And indeed Darlene’s card (see above) gave us her name and told us that she would be looking forward to serving us. I don’t want to dwell too much on this, but we were a little confused by the welcome card. I have never, ever seen such a thing, and I’ve been dining out for some time. The handwritten note clearly added to the homey atmosphere but the card itself seemed a little redundant; Darlene had, after all, just told us much of what was written on the card. Was it perhaps for the hearing impaired? Does every waitress at WFF have these cards or did Darlene have them made up special just for her tables?
Darlene proved to be very chatty throughout our time there so GF took it upon himself to find out a little bit about the history of WFF in Lakewood. He explained that he was from Chicago and asked Darlene which WFF came first: Chicago or Lakewood? This may have been our first error, though it was an innocent mistake. While the answer itself was perfectly innocuous (Chicago), it clearly alerted Darlene to the fact that she had a Chicago native on her hands. And so the next time she came ‘round to check on us, she launched: “Now I don’t know about which political party this would be” – and yes, it began that confusingly – “but have you ever been to the South Side of Chicago?” she asked GF. “Because I have a good girlfriend in Chicago” – incidentally, why do straight women, and Darlene was unquestionably a heterosexualist, insist on calling their female friends girlfriends? – “and she told me that even though that’s where Obama said he was a community organizer, it’s still just really awful, just a slum.” “Slum” was sort of whispered. In essence what she seemed to be implying was that in talking about his experience as a community organizer she believed Obama was also claiming that he had “fixed” the problem of poverty on Chicago’s South Side. And yet he hadn’t. Ergo, he was a liar.
We were a bit slow on the uptake, so didn’t react quite as forcefully in the president’s defense as we could have, but we mostly said that we didn’t think any one person could “fix” an entire neighborhood’s poverty and that we didn’t think that’s what he’d claimed, regardless. And then she started talking about Sarah Palin and how people shouldn’t really criticize her and how she should have attacked Obama more for his character, which, she seemed to be implying, was clearly flawed, as he had misrepresented his experience in Chicago. She was nothing but friendly the entire time and never in the least aggressive, just chatty.
Several things were a wee bit stunning about this to my gentleman friend and me. In no particular order, they are:
1. Q: What waitress in her right mind talks politics with her customers? She is, after all, dependent on tips.
A: The waitress who assumes that all people whom she serves will agree with her politically. Apparently there is indeed a big difference between Lakewood – or at least the patrons of the “family-oriented” WFF – and my little cocoon of Denver.
2. Maybe Denver isn’t nearly so bad as I had been thinking it was! I have a good liberal Democrat as my representative in Congress. I live surrounded by gays and at least a (small) handful of people of color. I had always realized that living in my former urban home and working in the field that I do allowed me to surround myself almost exclusively with people with whom I agree politically. (While I recognize that this makes me insulated and sheltered, I don’t mind, because Republicans make me angry.) I guess most of Denver allows for this as well and it took a trip to Lakewood to remind me of this. Go Denver!
3. It also reminded me of Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent review of Cass Sunstein’s new book on rumors in The New Yorker and her discussion of the ways that surrounding yourself with people who agree with you – especially on the internets – allows you to keep on believing falsehoods. Like this one.
4. Of course this cuts both ways. Leftists can surround themselves with their own ilk, thus reinforcing the beliefs they have already, too. And apparently that’s what I’ve done in Denver. But, as Kolbert points out in her review, the right wing has developed a fringe that just makes shit up, like the entire idiotic Obama birther movement. And then people talk amongst themselves – and only amongst themselves – and the ideas gain traction.
We began, dear readers, eating fried chicken and we ended talking politics. Maybe you will be reluctant to return to DaOiD because of this. And maybe I should be reluctant to return to White Fence Farm.
Except that the chicken sure was good, even if it is planted with an American flag, almost like the moon. And there was a nice selection of knick knacks in the Americana Barn (Christmas is approaching). And I had a great time petting Tic (or maybe it was Tac). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a trip to Lakewood is actually a good reminder that I don’t have it so bad in Denver after all. Besides, if the GF returns to these parts I have a distinct feeling that I shan’t have much of a choice in the matter; he loves him some corn fritters.
White Fence Farm! (Part One)
An American Flag Tops the Chicken at WFF
This past weekend I entertained a gentleman caller who was born and raised in Chicago. As a child he and his family visited a restaurant there called White Fence Farm, about which he has very fond memories. It just so happens that there is also a White Fence Farm not too far from Denver. So last night, dear readers, we ventured to the suburb of Lakewood to experience the magic of fried chicken and corn fritters at WFF.
I was apprehensive, I will not deny it. First of all, suburbs. Second, a fried chicken restaurant that was clearly geared toward families. In many ways, however, I was ill-prepared for what was to come, and not all in a bad way. To call White Fence Farm a restaurant is something of an understatement. It is located on what used to be an actual farm and is more of a village than simply a restaurant. The words “complex” and “campus” come to mind when describing the WFF empire.
Upon arriving one can pick up a brochure titled “Ideas and Information to Make Your Visit More Enjoyable.” It is one of the few times I can think of where receiving instructions about how to dine at a restaurant actually came in handy. The parking lot – which has a separate section for RVs and buses – is enormous. While waiting for our table (our table number was broadcast on a campuswide PA system and displayed on closed-circuit TV) we spent some time in the Americana Barn (aka the gift shop) before we headed out back to see the petting zoo, complete with two goats (Tic and Tac), two sheep (Holly and Ivy), a pig, and a steer. There is also a small pond and stream, an aviary, a gazebo, and something called a pig chute that seems to be open for 15 minutes at the top of every hour.
Grammar is not the focus at the Petting Zoo
Aside from the three other gays we saw in Granny’s Fudge shop (in the Americana Barn) I am convinced we were the only table made up of people not related by blood or marriage. And this place seats 600 in seven different dining rooms. There is a whole room, the Fireside Lounge, reserved for adults only. That sounds dirtier than it actually is; it only exists because the entire place is so overrun with children. We were not actually in the Fireside Lounge, but since we arrived on the late side for WFF (7:15), our section was practically a private dining room by 7:45. Suburban diners eat early.
The rooms themselves are all decked out for the Christmas season; pictures on the walls had been wrapped in paper. That rule about waiting till after Thanksgiving to put up holiday decorations?
Our Little Christmas Corner
Not at WFF. From the decorations to the outfits worn by servers (ruffly apron-like dresses on the women, in various pastel shades and floral prints) the entire place is aggressively “homey.” WFF emphasizes its family roots and family management and indeed we were surrounded by families at every turn
The WFF odyssey continues tomorrow with a discussion of the food, the service, and the craziness that befalls two liberal homos who dine in the suburbs…
Hipsters galore. In Denver!
The models and band for Pioneer
The DaOiD boys and their friends ventured out last night to the FM Magazine party in the Sugar Cube Building in LoDo. And much to their surprise they were surrounded by hipsters. Hundreds and hundreds of hipsters. Skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors and mullets and tattoos and fringed purses and Vans and plaid shirts and unkempt hair and unwashed bodies. It was enough to make you feel like you were in Williamsburg or Silver Lake or the Mission. In other words, it was fantastic! While we cannot make any claims to hipsterdom ourselves (we are, rather, two tasteful and reasonably au courant gay boys who tend toward muted tones in their wardrobes), it is so reassuring to see that some people in Denver can. Multiple times throughout the night we turned to each other to ask: “Where did they all come from? Were they bused in especially for this event?” There were even some gay hipsters! (Including the salesman in the men’s jeans department at Nordstrom.)
Scot Lefavor's paint-by-numbers mural (detail)
the candle runway
The main events of the night were a paint-by-numbers mural designed by artist Scot Lefavor and a fashion show called “Pioneer,” which was art-directed by Olivia Plyler and styled by Liz Eckland. The runway itself was simply an aisle of lit votive candles that had been placed down the middle of the massive warehouse space at least an hour before the show actually began. What this meant was that the candles were repeatedly kicked over by clumsy party attendees while a harried coordinator raced back and forth righting them. Finally the show began. The clothing, all for women, was vaguely Western in theme and the models – including one pregnant woman and another who had a baby in a sling on her side – had clearly been taking some lessons from Tyra. Their facial expressions were all nonexistent. It was as if the organizers had given them one keyword: VACANT. ”There should be nothing there at all as you glide back and forth down the runway/candle aisle.”
Much fun was had as hipsters (and interlopers like us) drank discounted beer from the Great Divide Brewery and vodka cocktails courtesy of 42 Below (though they had run out of ice later in the evening, which made for some lukewarm drinks – icky). If nothing else – and while we recognize that hipster couture is itself something of a uniform – it was just reassuring to see so many people looking so different. There were no baggy jeans here, no Abercrombie and Fitch, no North Face, no fleece of any variety! It was enough to make one feel that one wasn’t in Denver at all. And that’s perhaps why we liked it so much.
45 Minutes. 3 Homosexuals. And no idea.
That’s how we were, dear readers, at 8:45 Mountain Standard Time last night. The DaOiD boys, like many homosexualists throughout the land, were watching the season finale of Project Runway and this time they had a guest from out of town to join in the festivities.
But having watched the first 45 minutes, which included the runway show, we had NO IDEA who might be selected as the winner. It must be said at the outset that not one of the three finalists measured up to winners (or finalists) in seasons past – even Petals Marshall, who I quite liked but others have maligned. And certainly not the fierce tranny mess that was Christian Siriano. Each of these three finalists had had serious fashion missteps in the episodes leading up to last night. And yet we were pleasantly surprised by their final collections. Not bad, we said to ourselves. A lot of black from Meana Irina, to be sure. Many dresses from the southern belle. And some strangeness from Althea. But all three were perfectly adequate and even had some really nice pieces. Which left us in a state of confusion about what the judges would do.
Before we get to that sad business, let’s recap some favorite moments. In roughly chronological order, they are:
· Althea flirting with the hairdresser from Garnier Nutrisse. We’re not sure how things are in Dayton, Althea honey, but in New York that’s just going nowhere fast.
· Irina declaring that she was “kind of really sorry for” Carol Hannah because of her illness. Kind of really.
· Tim at his gayest backstage, in an absolute panic: “This is crazy!”
· Suzy Menkes’s hair. Did she leave the giant hot roller in?
· Nina declaring that what she liked about Althea’s clothing was that she was just so plugged into “the street.” Which street? In Dayton?
· Heidi’s look of utter confusion as she was conversing with Suzy Menkes: “Why am I having a conversation with an ugly person? How did this happen?”
So, the final decision: One of us (me) really wanted Carol Hannah to win if only because I liked her, so there was a general feeling of displeasure that she was out first. We all expected Irina (probably deservedly) to win but that at least CHW would be second. Alas, no. Perhaps the greatest travesty is that childlike Kalyn won the models’ competition. Tanisha of the smoky eyes or Lisa of the half-brain would have been far preferable.
Some final thoughts:
When Carol Hannah – who, recall, experienced sickness each morning – said that she couldn’t believe she was “showing at fashion week,” what kind of showing was she speaking of?
Did Nina Garcia actually shed a tear? Does Nina Garcia have emotions?
If the Sherri show (advertised during this and every broadcast of PR) can have a two-hour special, why can’t Lifetime devote a solid two hours to the PR finale? Especially now that they’ve given The Golden Girls to the Hallmark Channel, are they really so filled up with other programming? Wethinks not.
And finally, we’re so excited for January 14th and the Premiere of Season Seven!
Come on, gays. You can do better!
We get it, fellow fags. You were never picked for the flag football team or maybe you were selected last for dodge ball in grade school gym class. You didn’t play rugby or basketball or baseball. Maybe you secretly lusted after the boys in high school who did, convincing yourself that you really just wanted to be like them instead of just wanting them. Or perhaps you carried on a clandestine affair with a high school jock who used you in the locker room, where no one could see, but then he shunned you in public. The bottom line: you didn’t play sports and the popular boys did. This, however, is not the answer:
It has come to our attention that we need to remind our fellow homosexuals that there doesn’t actually exist any Abercrombie and Fitch football team or, in fact, a team of any sort sponsored by this venerable clothing company. There are no Hollister Surf Champs. American Eagle doesn’t have any New York district league (AE wouldn’t allow me to export their shirt). And while most of these shirts display sports-related themes, suffice it to say that there is no Free Drink Night at the A&F College Tavern because both the Tavern and the College are fictional. Ditto for the barrel race. Never happened.
Now the DaOiD boys have, in their day, been known to wear clothing that sports a brand name, and some of those logos are displayed more ostentatiously than others. I admit it: it would be difficult to pry my G-Star jacket off me in this cold and I rock the Lacoste polo shirt far too often in the summer. But those are just brand names; no more, no less. In and of themselves they admit to being conspicuous advertisements for their makers. We also recognize that many people like to wear t-shirts and sweatshirts and shorts from colleges and universities, some of which they probably didn’t attend(!). But the fact remains that someone did attend them, because those colleges and universities are real places. Even those sporty types who like to show their collegiate or hometown pride in a Michigan Big House football t-shirt or a Hawkeyes cap, probably did not actually play for those teams themselves. We know this. The fact remains that someone did – still does – because those teams actually exist.
We get it, gays. High school is over (and thank god for that!). You go to the gym regularly now and you want to show off that chest and those arms. But we guarantee that A&F and AE and HCO sell lots of other shirts in your size. Promise.
Tabatha!
The Signature Tabatha Pose
It pains us somewhat to admit to this, but the DaOiD boys are just about to sit down to a bottle of Malbec and an episode of Tabatha’s Salon Takeover on Bravo. And it’s not the wine on a weeknight about which we’re embarrassed – it never is. When we first saw the ads for this show, we could not have been more skeptical. It looked like the worst sort of reality TV drivel. And make no mistake, it is, but it also features Tabatha, who is, in a word, divine. And highly watchable. And swears like a sailor. And makes us laugh. And has even come close to shedding a tear or two when she’s not being a colossal bitch. OK, that’s more than just the one word but you get the idea. It may be a guilty pleasure but a pleasure it certainly is!
The premise, for those who have not yet experienced the spectacle that is TST: Tabatha Coffey, an ornery bottle blonde hairstylist from Down Under, who dresses exclusively in black, arrives at a down-on-its-luck salon, summoned there by its owner, who has lost control of his/her staff and is usually deep in debt (having spent far too much money on product s/he can’t unload). Tabatha has secretly (we’re skeptical about this part) filmed the salon for a day and reviews the footage with the owner, pointing out all the errors and egregious behavior of the staff. The point of this is to make a fool of the owner and get her/him to admit (even more than calling Tabatha in the first place has already done), that s/he has fully lost control. Tabatha then demands the keys and marches off to the salon to bawl out the staff, the owner trailing sheepishly and shamefacedly behind.
This is where the fun begins. Tabatha announces: “I’m Tabatha and I’m taking over.” And indeed she does. Because this is the second season, the employees generally know who she is (the “secret” cameras might have given them some warning as well) and are very excited for her arrival. They shouldn’t be. Because at least half of them will be crying before the episode is over. Tabatha reviews their hairdressing skills, has them clean up the salon, redecorates it from top to bottom, and sometimes makes the staff do some (highly uncomfortable for the viewer) guerilla marketing on the sidewalk or boardwalk or beach to get new clients. Along the way – and this is easily the most fun part – she has some choice interactions with the most intransigent and resistant staff. In Season One she called one manager an “arrogant, insecure, egotistical, moronic, asinine fuckhead.” To his face. We believe that she must have had “ability to curse on camera” explicitly written into her contract. And we’re pleased that she did.
At the end of the episode when most of the employees are contrite and reborn, she gives final recommendations to the owner. This often involves at least one firing or the putting of an employee on probation. She returns about six weeks later, and what we particularly like is that sometimes the salon has fully returned to its bad old ways, leaving behind all of Tabatha’s pearls of wisdom. In other words, there might actually be the tiniest bit of reality in this dose of reality TV. Were it not for the fact that we don’t run a salon and that, as the immaculate homosexuals that we are, it would be pristine anyway, Tabatha would be welcome at Salon DaOiD any day!
Undine Spragg, I love you!
It’s cold and snowy here in Denver so I spent most of yesterday rereading one of my all-time favorite novels, The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton. Wharton is a genius, so far as I’m concerned, brilliant at documenting New York society at the turn of the century. Though she’s best known for Ethan Frome (a non-New York novel), The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country is probably my favorite, if only because it’s just so nasty and funny.
It is the story of Undine Spragg, which must be one of the most hideous names in all of literature. Her parents named her for a hair-waver her father manufactured that came out the week she was born. As her mother, Leota B. Spragg, explains, “‘It’s from undoolay, you know, the French for crimping.” Undine and her nouveau riche parents move from Midwestern Apex City (yes, really) to the Big Apple in order to give her the chance of making it in society. Undine is, at least, beautiful, but she’s often seriously dumb and remarkably vain, which make the novel all the more fun. Early on in the novel she goes to a museum to “look at the pictures” because she had discovered at a dinner party the night before that this was something that fashionable people did. Wharton writes:
Presently her attention was drawn to a lady in black who was examining the pictures through a tortoise-shell eye-glass adorned with diamonds and hanging from a long pearl chain. Undine was instantly struck by the opportunities which this toy presented for graceful wrist movements and supercilious turns of the head. It seemed suddenly plebeian and promiscuous to look at the world with a naked eye and all her floating desires were merged in the wish for a jeweled eye-glass and chain. So violent was this wish that, drawn on in the wake of the owner of the eye-glass, she found herself inadvertently bumping against a stout tight-coated young man whose impact knocked her catalogue from her hand.
Undine is the social climber par excellence, giving Thackeray’s Becky Sharp a run for her money. And Wharton is fantastic at describing the ways that Undine learns the ways of New York society, makes mistakes and then learns from them, ditching friends (and husbands) along the way when they are no longer useful to her. By the end of the novel she has married four times, is a very wealthy woman, and yet always what she wants is just slightly beyond her grasp. She has designs on an ambassadorship for her fourth husband (also her first), Elmer Moffatt, but he informs her that it won’t be possible because ambassadors cannot be married to divorcées (which she is), and thus he will never be made an ambassador. As Wharton explains in the final paragraph of the novel, “She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence nor millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador’s wife; and as she advanced to welcome her first guests she said to herself that it was the one part that she was really made for.”
Denver may have been cold and snowy but as long as I’ve got Undine to keep me company, you won’t hear me complain!
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