I moved! Actually, just changed my profile name to "mediamutt", so you might want to change your LiveJournal friend settings and your bookmarks to http://mediamutt.livejournal.com.

It's Labor Day, which means summer's over (sigh) and time to get "back to business".

Just an advance warning. My iMac power isn't working so well (it only turns on when I unplug all the peripherals) so looks like I'll have to bring it in for service (alas). I'll try to get it fixed ASAP, but since tomorrow is Labor Day, I'm SOOL until next weekend.

Don't get too rowdy while I'm gone :-)

Went today to a friend of Michael's birthday party down in the Castro, where we all gathered at the Castro theatre for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, one of my favorite films, and now one of Michael's too. Funny, campy, fast-paced, brilliantly filmed, colorful, all the trademarks of an Almovodar film. Afterwards we went to Askew Grill for an early dinner. Met some nice people, had good ribs and conversation. Michael and I then split off, took a lovely drive through San Francisco with the top down, and are now firmly ensconced at home for the evening.

I think tomorrow Michael's going to go to meditation while I wait for the Community Thrift to pick up my old dining room set for donation. Then we'll be nearly complete with the apartment set-up/remodel and for Mom and Dad's visit in 2 weeks.

My dearest friend John and his partner Raul are thinking of starting SDMoQuA - The San Diego Museum of Questionable Art. Here's one of the proposed entrants: "Corn and Kafka".




It took a while to figure out which side was up. It's sub-titled "acrylic on canvas". More like "FD&C Yellow #4 on crap". This is going to be a museum with low overhead. And hey, it only cost, $4.00.

Can someone PLEASE tell me what the artist was possibly thinking?

- The crypto-fascism and futility of farming?
- The tension inherent in a starchy vegetable?
- The tyranny of a constipation so bad even corn can't fix it?
- Barbed wire as a condiment?

Thoughts welcome....

Date:	2006-08-31 07:37
Subject:	a little more pasta?
Security:	Public
Mood:	bouncy

Michael and I had our first dinner party last night. As usual, we forgot to take photos (yes, I know, mondragon, you want to see more of our pretty faces). But Michael's meatballs were as usual fabulous. He tried a new recipe he saw on the Tony Danza show (go ahead, giggle). He prefers his original recipe but I was fine with either.

We had 5 of Michael's friends over to break in the new dining room set from Hiiko, this awesome furniture store in San Rafael that specializes in mid-century Scandinavian furniture, and modern updates to them. It's like walking onto the set of Down With Love. Here's the dining room set we bought: table with expansion leaf (seats 8 comfortably when out), maple chairs with black leather (I originally ordered the cream leather, but I liked the accidentally delivered black better when it arrived so I kept them), and the nice console behind it. The apartment FINALLY is looking decent.

Date:	2006-08-30 14:26
Subject:	The Angel Voices of Men
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

So last night I went to the Golden Gate Men's Chorus concert. They have a very polished sound, and sing the kind of meatier music I missed when I sang with the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. They sang a wide range of classical, from Josquin des Pres to Grieg to Copland, to a very odd modern piece called "Litany to Thunder" by Ain Kaalep and Veljo Tormis. It was all under the VERY loose binding of "Liberty for All!". Of course there was the requisite GALA Chorus "we will persevere" song, but thankfully it was in the minority. I think I'll audition for them...sounds like just the thing I need to get me out of the house.

It really reminded me of when Chamber Choir was at its best under Dean X Johnson, and most recently under Casey Hayes.

So the concert therefore was oddly bittersweet. It reminded me of how much I miss singing, of the kind of music I like to sing, what I gained from those 14 years with the NYCGMC and what I've lost. I miss Dean X. and his breathtakingly dry humor (and the requisite twirling of his handlebar mustache when he was about to launch a particularly bon mot). I miss Mark, whom I sang with as well as shared a life with. I miss all those lovely men who passed before their time. I'de probably get all squish-squish (darling) at this point, but rather than turn into Mark Twain, who described growing old as having the pleasure of watching each and every person you love die, I'de prefer to remember a line from that terrifically dreadful Charlene song "I've Never Been To Me", which snaps me back into the humour of it all.

"...I'de be bitter from the sweet..."

GGGAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. I'm having the dry heaves already. And laughing all the way to the terlet.

Date:	2006-08-29 22:46
Subject:	Now I'm doomed
Security:	Public
Mood:	hungry

Nestle will now market Coffee Crisps in the United States. And no thanks to bjarvis for bringing this to our collective attention.

It seems the installer forgot to tell the back office to udpate their computers that I have a new type of box, which led to the network not knowing how to talk to my box, hence the bad cable.

A network that can't automatically detect what kind of box is connected to it and update itself accordingly is a pretty lame network...

Date:	2006-08-27 21:45
Subject:	cable out again???
Security:	Public
Mood:	irritated

We just got a new cable box yesterday, and today I get home from a shopping spree at Safeway only to find the signal is working but there's no programs coming through. Hmm...back to 800-COMCAST, where a friendly offshored tech service geek with marginal english skills will tell me to "did you try turning off the power?"

Well, new cable box installed, but now it's downloading it's software (must be awful fat software if it takes an hour to download over a cable line...).

So I think I'll have a snowball fight while I'm waiting.

Ah, yes, once again Comcastic has gone kaputz on me. They're coming to replace my now-defunct cable box with a new model. We're despondent over the loss of 3 episodes of Young and the Restless as well as Project Runway. Whatever will we do?

Why, go out and buy shoes, of course!

The Subway Meme: which subways have YOU ridden on?


















Got at b3co.com!
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Rice-a-roni is NOT a "San Francisco" treat.

I never heard of "Montreal Steak Spices" until I left Montreal.

Why is it "Canadian Bacon" in the US, but "back bacon" in Canada?

French fries are American.

Creme Anglaise isn't english.

If it's NY Strip, why isn't it 49 stories high? It should also shout "Fuck You!" and be really tough when you slice into it.

Other geographically incorrect food examples are welcome.

The difference between an Oakland Raiders game at the Oakland Coliseum and an SF Giants game at AT&T Park is night and day. The Oakland Coliseum is a concrete monstrosity from the 70s, cold, massive, chaotic flows and unfriendly positioning and marketing of concessions. Every time we moved through the stadium, I felt like we were cows being led to the slaughter. And the fans were trashy. The view from the visiting team side bleachers is lovely, but that's really all there was positive to say about it.

AT&T Park, on the other hand, is designed to bring you closer to the baseball players on the field, the risers are slung low, the design warm and inviting, the concessions more like a busy village square. And the fans were lively but not insane.

And the game was fun! The Giants beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0, with a homerun from Barry Bonds and hits from other players (2 of which were due to errors from the Diamondbacks, but hey, I don't care if it's a sloppy win, it's still a win!). Michael and I and the girls had a great time, and we're definitely going to try to see another game.

Here's some pics from the event, taken by my trusty Palm Treo 650 camera phone. They ain't professional, but they'll do.


1) A view of the park from our 3rd base line seats



2) Me and the better half (he bought me a windbreaker, and we needed it!)



3) Michael's sister Stephanie on the left, her other half Rayna on the right.



4) Take me out to the ballgame...

We actually went to an Oakland Raiders / SF 49ers game today, at Oakland Coliseum. The Oakland fans were, uhm, CRAZY! Boisterous, loud, trashy, fanatics to a T. An interesting reminder of a massive cross-section of America that I simply do not interact with AT ALL on ANY LEVEL with any regularity. But the stadium, while one of those ugly 60s concrete monstrosities, has a beautiful view of the bay and the city from the top bleachers. And we got to see the fog rolling over the hills on the other side of the bay. Very cool.

Earlier in the day we were at this secluded beach just south of Devil's Slide. You park up the hill, walk down the hill to the gorgeous beach. The weather was cool (the water was freezing), and the views just stunning stunning stunning. We're very happy we live in San Francisco :-)

So, we took Michael's sister and her girlfriend yesterday to Napa. Of course it took us forever to get on the road, after a particularly strenous workout for me I met them in the Castro and had lunch at Zapata, that fast-food (but good) burrito place on 18th and Collingwood. By 2 we were on our way, but then stopped at Hiiko, a fabulous furniture store in San Rafael that specialized is mid-century originals and modern updates. Got a new dining room set (and the credit card officially cried 'Uncle!') and then back on the road.

We walked around Napa, looking at shops (most were closed by the time we got there) and restaurants. We settled on Celadon, a fantastic bistro in the historic downtown. After dinner we strolled back to the car. The girls wanted to stop into Mervyn's for some sale items. I wasn't in there 2 minutes, when the heavy meal we just had, combined with the fluorescent lights and cheap merchandize were making me nauseaous. I had to step outside.

The combination of $14.99 sneakers displayed in their boxes, next to polyester lingerie, all so thoroughly over-lit by flickering fluorescent light bulbs, must offend me on some molecular level.

Date:	2006-08-18 23:08
Subject:	when we were YOUR age...
Security:	Public
Mood:	energetic

I was waiting with Michael's sister and her girlfriend for the bus on a chilly, windswept corner of San Francisco when we got on the topic of Michael and Stephanie's parents being "of a different generation". Meaning, they were very sweet, but just don't "get" technology. Kind of like Lestat when he couldn't take the noise in modern New Orleans so he buried himself for 80 years.

But I digrees. What was funny was thinking about how we're going to be the EXACT same way when we're 75:

"When we were YOUR age, we had to WAIT 15 minutes for bus! None of this instant teletransportation nonsense!"

"We didn't have chip implants for communications: we had to use cell phones! And recharge them every 5 days!"

"Hell, some of us didn't even have e-MAIL!!!"

Give me Scopitones or give me death!

The camp value of Scopitones is beyond compare. Enjoy!

Date:	2006-08-15 21:19
Subject:	The reminders of things past
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

It's so very easy to get caught up in the irritation and impatience of the everyday. You're on meetings on the phone, and you just want the meeting to be over rather than just paying attention. You're sitting in a conference session and nod off rather than fight the heat and boring self-congratulatory blather to seek out the one important nugget that will make it worthwhile. You look at the sea of unread e-mails in your work inbox and stare blankly wondering how you're ever going to make it through when you know damn well that all it takes is taking care of one e-mail, then another, then another...and the, surprisingly, they're under control again.

And then you hear your boyfriend come home after a day trip with his sister and her girlfriend, and suddenly you're out of your head and back in the real world, where real people live. Not irritants on the other side of the phone, that you try to not sound irritated to. But people who hug you and talk about silly things and getting carsick and looking at seals 5 feet away and ordering burritos from the taqueria down the street.

And then later in the evening, as they're re-watching Alias on DVD, you decide to go online and catch up, and read another story of the lost and suddenly remember your own awful clarity when Mark (or enter your lover's/friend's/partner's/dearly-departed's name here) left his body behind and for the first and not last time remembered that every moment is so wonderfully/horribly precious, every person worthy of more than irritation on the other side of the phone.

The droning, self-congratulatory conferencees and the teleconferences that go on too long are no match for memory. And just as importantly, your own unconsciousness towards those very same people is also no match. Too bad it has to come at such a price. Too bad it's so easy to forget under the drudgery of 80% of your average day.

It's a beautiful day. Instead of snapping at your co-workers, try a little tenderness. Now if only I could take my own advice.

Well, it's not like you can look at the California coast line and just say: "that's nice". IT'S GORGEOUS!!! Michael and I took his sister Stephanie and her partner Rayna down to Carmel for the day. Northern California really is a stunning landscape of rounded mountains of gold and brown and earth-tone green and grey fog and bright sun and blue skies and green ocean.

I'm not religious but I am spiritual: I believe there is something greater than the Universe's sum of measurable parts. Call it God, call it superstrings, call it whatever. When I see nature like this it humbles me and reminds me that I'm small, but in a good way, connected to this vastness. It's easy to forget that when you're screaming at your laptop because it now takes 11 minutes to boot and load the 4 programs you need for everyday work.