Gay (Pride) by the Bay
This weekend was a wild one for the DOD boys, both of us in San Francisco to see friends and my Gentleman Friend, and to celebrate the wonders of Gay Pride. Alastair did more of the latter; I go more for “Gay Acceptance” than “Pride.” It’s not like I had anything to do with it, after all. As my brother is fond of saying, nature or nurture, it’s on my parents either way. So, on to the weekend…
We started off with a Thursday night trip with gal pals of Alastair’s to Tubesteak Connection (vile name, huh?), the weekly party at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in the Tenderloin. The space is tiny and crowded with hipsters. The drinks are strong and the disco tunes kept coming. Aunt Charlie also forbids the use of cell phones (even for texting!); Blake approves. Your DOD boys danced the night away and then headed somewhere-or-other (memory gets fuzzy at this point) for an after-party. Way to start the weekend off with a bang!
Chow on Church below Market
The next day started with a little recovery. Alastair and I brunched at Chow, just below the corner of Church and Market. We began with a couple salads; Alastair had his perennial Chow favorite, the Shrimp Louie, and I went for the iceberg wedge. Mine wasn’t so great. They throw in just about everything imaginable: carrots, cucumbers, radishes, olives, even a beet! (Alastair’s was served with the same accompaniments, though he didn’t seem to mind as much). We finished things off with a smaller portion of the fusilli with sausage and mushrooms (me) and a cheese pizza with arugula (Alastair). Deelish! But even more tasty from Alastair’s point of view was that we were served by DJ Jason Kendig. Cause that’s the way things are in San Francisco: your afternoon waiter will be spinning at that night’s club. The afternoon was a lazy preparation for a friend’s party that night: running in Golden Gate Park (lovely for a jog if it’s not too windy) and a little happy hour cocktailing at DOD favorite Blackbird.
The rest of the weekend was a blur of cocktails and recovery (I was heavier on the latter than the former). Alastair, of course, attended the Goldfrapp concert in Oakland on Saturday night as well as Juanita Moore’s Pride Party on Sunday afternoon and evening. I admit it: I skipped the Pink Party on Saturday night, where a good chunk of Market and Castro is closed off for pedestrians (probably for the best as I also avoided the tragic shooting death), and I skipped the parade on Sunday. Bad gay! I did, however, dine with my Gentleman Friend at Memphis Minnie’s, a barbecue joint on Haight Street (their phone number is 415.864.PORK; they’re serious about their meat). We split the Minnie’s Taster: any three meats and two sides for $17.95. Combine that with an order of their very tasty BBQ-dusted shoestring fries and I was totally stuffed.
On Monday we regrouped, stopped at Bean There at Steiner and Waller for a coffee, and headed downtown for a little shopping. I picked up a discounted blazer at H&M that will be perfect for a summer wedding I’ll be attending in August. Alas, and despite all the sales, Alastair’s shopping ambitions were somehow stymied and he returned to Denver empty-handed. We then had a gossipy lunch with some of Alastair’s gal pals at Stacks in Hayes Valley. Their slogan is “Comfortable Food.” Really. It’s basically a diner with enormous (and very dusty) fake flower arrangements in gigantic urns, but in a very nice location right at the corner of Hayes and Octavia.
All in all, a very fun weekend was had by both of your DOD boys!
Wednesday Links
- Looks like Beauty Bar has finally opened. The chain has franchises all over the country, from New York to San Francisco. Denver’s Beauty Bar, located in the old Snake Pit space, is owned by three locals, but no doubt has all the same bells, whistles, and kitschy ’50s salon décor of its sisters.
- Grow up Cristiano Ronaldo.
- I’ve been thinking about celebrating an upcoming milestone birthday somewhere unique and outside of the norm… with a few good gal pals, of course. One of the places on the top of my list is Marfa, Texas, best known as the home of The Chinati Foundation and the filming location for the movie Giant, starring James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Taylor. I’ve been dying to see Prada Marfa for years and you’ll most likely find me staying here.
- MCA Denver’s newest exhibition, Energy Effects: Art and Artifacts From the Landscape of Glorious Excess, opens today with an all day celebration featuring artists talks, cocktails, and general mayhem. Energy Effects is presented in partnership with the 2010 Biennial of the Americas.
- 87% of women want you to want them… and so do Betty, Mama, and Pepper over at The Denver Omelette.
- The 20th annual Cherry Creek Arts Festival opens Saturday and will run from July 3-5 in Cherry Creek North.
Goldfrapp by the Bay
Things got retrofuturistic when Goldfrapp performed at 9:30 club on Monday. (All photos by Kyle Gustafson/FTWP)
I’m about to depart for the City by the Bay to catch one of only a few performances by Alison Goldfrapp happening this month in the US. Seriously, I may just die at the end of the show based on reviews (and photos) I’ve seen thus far… so this may be the last you hear from me. I die. Do you die?
In any case, Blake and I will have plenty to share regarding our Bay Area excursion when we return. Until then… stay down and stay out.
Things got retrofuturistic when Goldfrapp performed at 9:30 club on Monday. (All photos by Kyle Gustafson/FTWP)
Law and Order, 1990-2010
Forgive my silence, dear readers, for I am in mourning. I have been unable to touch finger to keyboard until now to describe the sadness I feel at the passing of Law and Order. Yes, it’s gotten worse over the years. Yes, things weren’t the same after Lennie left. I also recognize that viewership has dropped precipitously over the past few years and that the original has been eclipsed in ratings by its spinoffs (particularly the ever popular SVU, with its gore and prurience).
Original Cast (sans DA and Lieutenant)
But the original is still the original and I’ve probably seen almost all of its episodes at least once, if not three or four times. I remember the first time I truly became addicted. It was the summer of 2001, so already 11 years into its run (just think of how many reruns there were to watch: a cornucopia of death and legal wrangling to be discovered!). I was subletting with people I didn’t know all that well and they had cable (I didn’t even have a TV myself). One of them was also an L&O addict. And soon I joined her.
I came to realize that while many things in life might bring me more joy and happiness, few things were as reliably satisfying as an episode of Law and Order. One hour and things were wrapped up neatly. The prosecution didn’t always win, of course (which leant it some small semblance of verité), but the murder was usually solved even if not adequately punished. Police for half an hour; DAs for another half an hour. Predictable and satisfying. I came to know the ins and outs, which leads were red herrings, when the supposed murderer really was innocent. It often had to do with timing. I knew the rhythms of an episode so well that I knew when it was too soon to have found the perp or to have wrapped up the case: a twist was coming!
All of this predictability might make it sound like L&O was boring, but on the contrary, it was like it had become a reliable old friend. I knew the sounds (bum bum!) and the characters. I savored every little detail revealed about their personal lives (and these were famously few and far between). I came to have my favorites. I think my Dream Team would have to be:
One Configuration of My Favorite Lineup
S. Epatha Merkerson as the tough-as-nails Lt. Anita Van Buren
Jerry Orbach as the salty, wise-cracking, club soda swilling Lennie Briscoe
Tie: Benjamin Bratt and Jesse L. Martin as Rey Curtis and Ed Green, respectively, the hot junior cops and Lennie sidekicks (both of whom, in different ways, have troubles off the job: Rey’s wife, Deborah, has MS, and Ed battles a gambling problem)
Steven Hill as the crotchety and taciturn DA Adam Schiff
Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy, Executive ADA (who else could it be?)
3 way tie: Jill Hennessy, Carey Lowell, and Angie Harmon as Claire Kincaid, Jamie Ross, and Abby Carmichael, respectively. These three ADAs could not be more different from one another, and that was all for the good. All three were feminists, though Ross and Carmichael would never have slept with the boss as Kincaid did. All three were whip smart. Carmichael’s politics were generally not my own but there was a certain thrill by proxy when Abby advocated some horribly draconian punishment.
The 2009-2010 Cast
So who is your dream lineup? Or what L&O memories would you like to share as we tune in this week for the series finale (sob) of twenty years of the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders?
Sharon Stone
Ms. Stone has officially risen to the top of the heap amongst searched terms that end up with a click on Down and Out in Denver. Giving her a run for her money are Sarah Richardson, host of the HGTV show “Sarah’s House,” and Sandra Rinomato of HGTV’s “Property Virgins” (Rinomato is often combined with the words “hate,” “teeth,” or “breasts”); Alastair and I posted on Richardson and Rinomato, respectively. While we here at DOD think we’re writing a little blog about all things gay and Denver, people arrive here for all sorts of other reasons. (I was right, by the way: the possibility of Emilio Sosa’s gayness has resulted in a number of hits every day since I posted on his PR win.)
Stone and SVU co-star Mariska Hargitay on set
Those who have blogs of their own will not find this at all surprising as they probably check what WordPress calls a “Dashboard” to see how many hits they have, whether others have linked to them, which links those visitors themselves have clicked, and so forth. Alastair and I do all those things as well. But what has surprised me in the last month is just how little I said about Sharon Stone (I mentioned that she was set to become a guest star on “Law and Order: SVU”) and how that has generated more traffic than just about anything else over that month. And not just in English. Other alphabets have started to grace the DOD Dashboard: شارون استون and Шэрон Стоун. Apparently Czechs and Russians are using DOD to learn more about Ms. Stone. Even just typing in “Stone” gets you to DOD.
My biggest question is this: is there really no better place to find out more on the wonders of la Stone? I googled Sharon Stone (no quotation marks) and made it through the first ten pages without coming upon lil’ ol’ DOD. Who has the time to keep going, I ask you. And why?
A Night on the Town
Trying to come up with a title for this post — just one word or location — was impossible. Your DOD boys were all over the place this weekend. We began Friday night at a lovely catered graduation party in the Highlands, where we chatted with friends and congratulated the graduate (an advanced degree; we’re too old to be socializing with undergrads!). Then we headed out to meet some of our gal pals for a few drinks on the town. I had planned on turning in relatively early; I had to be up the next morning. It was not to be.
We had a cocktail at Sputnik first but we weren’t really feeling it. So we headed on over to a new DOD favorite, Sketch Wine Bar, at Broadway and 1st Avenue. We split a bottle of Prosecco and then each had a glass of wine. There were 8 of us by this point, but J.D., the friendly barkeep, knew all our names by about halfway through our stay. Now that’s the kind of service we can get excited about! Add to that the great selection of wines by the bottle and glass, and we were happy campers.
But even that was not enough for one of our gal pals, whom I shall call Whitney (you’ll see why in a minute). Whitney was hell bent on singing karaoke and she swears by Armida’s (on Lincoln between 8th and 9th). She twisted our arms and so we pried ourselves away from our lovely window nook at Sketch and piled into cabs bound for Armida’s. (Our surly driver told us we should have walked but he dropped us off nevertheless.)
The Karaoke Viewer at Armida's
Turns out that by the time we arrived, Whitney (who got there first) had already signed up both the DOD boys. We had earlier made the mistake of telling her what we would sing if we had been so inclined. The key word there is “if.” I do not sing. I had a karaoke stint in high school when, apparently, I had fewer inhibitions, but I haven’t done it in years. I have a horrible voice and I wasn’t keen to subject anyone else to my out-of-key keening. But Whitney was having none of it.
This is the thing: she can sing. And she’s fearless (the cocktails didn’t hurt). After a rousing rendition of “Your Love” by Outfield (which we have on video, but which WordPress would charge me too much to upload), it came my turn. I was dreading it, so I brought Whitney up on stage with me and we recaptured some of my high school glory with Bananarama’s version of the classic “Venus” (It didn’t hurt that my mic was set to backup and Whitney’s was the lead). Alastair rounded out the evening with “Midnight Cowboy.”
A great time was had by all. A few suggestions for our fellow singers: No ballads unless you can actually sing. And even then, think twice; they’re just not as much fun for the audience. If you’re a white boy, avoid songs where you’ll be required to to say n***er. Really. And no matter who you are, sing with enthusiasm. A little dancing never hurt anyone either. If Blake can do it, pretty much anyone can!
Fancy Tiger
About two months ago, Alastair and some of our gal pals and I hit the town. Among our stops was Fancy Tiger, which was having one of its monthly trunk shows: DJs, beer, and various wares on sale. I told myself that I would return to shop when I wasn’t heading out on the town and I’ve finally done so.
Fancy Tiger is located at 14 South Broadway, between Archer and Ellsworth, right near some other DOD faves: Sputnik and Beatrice and Woodsley. They feature handmade jewelry, bags, and lots of men’s and women’s clothes for the arty and hipster crowd. It was the clothing that brought me back. I picked up a cute striped V-neck T-shirt (perfect for the coming summer) and a necktie. The tie — my first skinny tie! — has diagonal stripes in two shades of blue, allowing me to combine a trendy look with my Brooks Brothers roots. I’m easing my way into hipster formalwear.
This Friday Fancy Tiger once again hosts “Denver Made,” featuring DJs and great shopping from 7 to 10 pm. The event is sponsored by Great Divide Brewery, so you know what that means. Stop on by!
Denver Made at Fancy Tiger
Egomilio Sosa
Emilio Sosa
Growing up, and for many years thereafter, I have been told that people who exhibited arrogance were clearly just trying to compensate for a feeling of inferiority or for a lack of self-esteem. In the case of Emilio Sosa, I’m not so sure. I finally was able to watch the season finale of Project Runway, as well as the reunion show that took over the Models of the Runway slot. And of the whole hour and half I was most struck by Emilio’s incredible ego and by his incredulity at his loss to Seth Aaron. He just didn’t seem to get that someone was judged to be better than he.
It was these two shows that convinced me — as if I hadn’t already realized this — that I care just as much about the personality of the designers as I do about the clothes. In this respect, Emilio and Mila were always low on my list to support. All in all, I may have liked Emilio’s clothing the best. Seth Aaron’s still looked overworked, if perfectly fitted. I actually found Mila’s collection much more appealing than was the sum total of what she had produced on the season thus far. But all in all, not as impressive as Emilio or Seth Aaron.
But what most impressed me about the whole fiasco was Emilio’s arrogance. And this after a season of cockiness: refusing to listen to Tim’s advice; constantly boasting that he was the one to beat; crowing when he won consecutive challenges. He seemed shocked that Seth Aaron had won. Not disappointed, as would be warranted, but stunned. He then committed his greatest error. He said, “In the words of our wisest competitor this season, Anthony Williams, you don’t have to win the crown to be the king.” Loyal watchers will know that this was decidedly not what Anthony said. Because Anthony is a camp goddess he was not only trying to make light of his elimination but also to poke fun at his own flamboyance and the fact that he would, like a good queen, carry on no matter what. Emilio, in exchanging queen for king, was not only erasing half of Anthony’s meaning, but also trading in the sentiment to say that he not only would be, but also already was the best, no matter what the judges said. First of all, this is remarkably cocky (and he continued by talking about the “worldwide” esosa brand he was going to be establishing). Second, the degaying of the remark is a little offensive. Is Emilio Sosa gay? I have no idea. (I do know that asking that question is going to result in ten hits per day. Update: He’s gay. Check out the comments below.) Is he an unmarried male fashion designer? Indeed he is. So either he’s gay and a little self-loathing and hung up on his masculinity, or he’s a mildly homophobic straight guy. In either case he paid homage to Anthony and then stripped him of his gayness, which is pretty difficult to do with Anthony.
His behavior on the reunion show only confirmed his arrogance. While he was willing to “accept” Nina’s explanation for Seth Aaron’s victory (that Emilio had created a line and not a collection), that he had to question her in the first place just demonstrated how much he didn’t get it: no matter how much they liked you, Emilio, they liked Seth Aaron better. Simple as that.
Parallel 17
Where is my post evaluating the season finale of Project Runway, you might be asking yourself. Where indeed? I had to attend an odious work function on Thursday night and so missed what I had thought was only going to be a reunion show. I was wrong. It was the finale. And it’s still not on the Lifetime website. Of course I know who the winner is and I’ve watched the brief clips of the collections, but I have yet to see the actual episode or the reunion episode that apparently aired in the MotR slot. Dear reader, I am without a DVR. So I await Lifetime’s decision to include the finale on mylifetime.com.
In the meantime, I can share with you the dinner that Alastair and I had last night. We ventured out in the wind and the rain to one of our longtime faves, Parallel 17, the Vietnamese restaurant named for the line of latitude that once separated North from South Vietnam and presumably for the fact that it’s on 17th Avenue (at Franklin). We haven’t been to P17 in a while and the menu has changed somewhat; it seems like there are more appetizers but perhaps fewer entrées. That said, there seemed to be a number of specials we overheard servers telling their tables about; we were not informed of these ourselves (!). No great loss, as our meal was very tasty! We began with the calamari, which P17 serves with deep-fried slices of jalapeños, oranges, and other citrus fruits as well as a salad of watercress and a tangy dressing. Delicious. We followed that up with an order of the steamed pork buns, themselves served with a spicy cilantro and cabbage slaw. These appetizers, it must be said, are not small.
Braised Short Ribs with Chinese Broccoli, Potatoes, and Onion Rings
We would have been fine splitting just one entrée but of course we had already ordered two. And they, too, were generous. This was the rare moment where your DOD boys were unable to clean their plates (or, in my case, cutting board). Alastair ordered the coffee-braised short ribs, which he’d had before. They come with a potato purée, onion rings, and Chinese broccoli that looked very green and very tasty.
Duck Four Wraps
I ordered the “Duck Four Wraps”: duck prepared four ways (rillette, mousse pâté, pan seared, and confit) and about a million other things (pickled onions, radishes, garlic; scallions, jicama, basil, and on and on). All of this one wraps up in four pancakes. So. Much. Food. All of it very good indeed, particularly the confit (skin so crispy!) and the pâté, which was so rich I couldn’t finish it. Alastair and I paired our meals with two different glasses of dry Italian white chosen from P17′s good selection of wines by the glass.
P17 was awarded Westword’s Best Nouvelle Vietnamese in 2008; I wonder of course whether or not Denver actually provides much competition in this category. Regardless, the food is delicious, the service is friendly (even if only certain diners get told about the specials), and the ambiance — save the TV featuring the basketball game (why do ALL Denver restaurants have TVs for showing sports? The subject for another post) — is warm and pleasant. Especially on an evening of gusting winds and occasional rain.
Spring Snow Day
When I speak to friends outside of Colorado (some of whom might be reading this post right now; this lesson in Colorado’s climate is for you!) they tend to assume that we here in the Mile High City are blanketed by snow from October to April and that temperatures are always icy. We Denverites know that this is far from the truth. I think Colorado’s reputation for winter sports leads people to believe that all of Colorado is at the same altitude as Aspen or Vail. Not so, of course. And while D-Town is a mile above sea level, significant chunks of Colorado look a lot like Kansas and Nebraska in terms of landscape and climate (this is not necessarily a good thing as anyone who has landed at DIA can verify).
The View From Blake's Window
Rather, what marks Denver’s weather as unique is its utter variability, the completely erratic relationship we have with Mother Nature. Case in point: the past 24 hours. On Monday it got up to 70. It was balmy and lovely and one felt that spring had truly arrived. Yesterday morning it was cloudy and in the 40s. By the late afternoon it was raining. And by 9:00 we were in the midst of a severe weather warning, thick wet snow falling at a steady clip (and I was on I-25; silly, foolish Blake). Today we are blanketed by snow, roads are clogged, a number of school districts are entirely shut down, and no doubt many appointments are being canceled. The Colorado State Legislature and Denver’s office of the Government Accountability Office: closed. Xcel reports that 7,500 customers are without power this morning as the heavy snow snapped tree branches, causing outages in power lines.
Last night they were predicting around a foot of total accumulation and it looks like that may have happened; some areas of Boulder and Jefferson counties saw about 20 inches of total snowfall. It’s cloudy where I live downtown but there’s nothing actually coming down anymore. The good news is that it’s supposed to be 49 and sunny tomorrow. And snowing again by Saturday, alas…
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