Love, Nerd Style

I adore the television show Fringe. It's smart, funny, and oh-so-well written. I mean, the writers actually remember what happened previously and then build on it. Unheard of, right? Too many times I encounter shows where the writers seem to have creative amnesia. Characters switch personalities from one episode to the next, and plot threads are dropped, never to be picked up again. (I'm lookin' at you, Glee.)

The Fringe writers remember everything. That little something that happened way back in the third episode that you didn't think had any importance? They'll go back and transform it into a major plot point. And unlike shows that dangle a carrot in front of you only to rip it out of your reach over and over and over again (Now I'm lookin' at you, X Files!), Fringe presents its viewers with both mysteries and answers on a regular basis, always chugging forward toward bigger and better stuff.

The show does a great job of giving you characters you care about as well as intriguing puzzles for you to try and solve--food for the heart and the head.

!!!SLIGHTLY SPOILERY STUFF AHEAD!!!

Being the dork that I am, I love a good opening titles sequence, and Fringe's intro is terrific. It's dark and mysterious, and it reads like a quick cram session for the viewer. Words like "astral projection" and "parallel universes" float across the screen as if to say, "This is the kind of weird stuff we'll be spending our time on, so buckle up."



In the second season, after spending a lot of time referencing a particular character's work in the 80's, an episode ended up being set entirely in 1985. To the delight of the fans, the opening titles followed suit with 80's-style graphics and such unheard of terms as "personal computing" and "cloning" floating across the screen. Fun, right?



Even further into the second season, the show's protagonists traveled to a parallel universe, and the show's intro changed yet again. From that point on, viewers would have a quick way of being able to tell in which universe an episode was set.



Finally, a word to the wise: Don't ever try to eat anything while you're watching Fringe. Just trust me on this one.

Untimely Travel Tales - Seattle Edition, Pt. 4

At looooooong last I present to you...

DAY FOUR
If Days One through Three were the beginning of a love affair with Seattle, Day Four was the consummation, because that was the day I was introduced to ... Fremont.

Also known as the Center of the Known Universe, Fremont is a unique Seattle neighborhood that revels in its peculiarity. (The unofficial motto is "De Libertas Quirkas" - or "Freedom to be Peculiar" for the non-Latin speakers.) Public art is absolutely everywhere, and you can spend a very satisfying afternoon rubbernecking your way through the streets. In fact, that's exactly what my handsome host Blake and I did.

Here's a partial list of the neat things we encountered:

• A multitasking signpost pointing visitors toward such random locations as the North Pole, Machu Picchu, Solaris, and Xanadu.
• A huge statue of Lenin salvaged from Slovakia after the fall of Communism.
• The Fremont Troll - a huge concrete beast hiding under the Aurora Bridge with a captured Volkswagen under its huge hand.
• Two large topiary brontosauruses purchased from a children's museum.
• A huge cold war-era rocket attached the corner of a building.

We wandered through a handful of fantastic vintage stores (including the Fremont Vintage Mall - where I bought tiki-style salt and pepper shakers - and Deluxe Junk - with what I later discovered was a Dutch french fry mascot standing outside) and hit Roxy's Deli for some french fries (What can I say? I'm highly suggestible.) and an Irish coffee. Oh, and a hot as hell waiter whom I surreptitiously videotaped so that I'd have a visual reminder of him. Please don't judge me.

We left the Fremonsters behind, and traveled to Gas Works Park. While we were there we saw two bums and a gaggle of nerds beating one another with foam swords. I loved seeing the remnants of the gas light plant, but we had to leave pretty quickly as we were rapidly losing daylight.

As we headed to Kerry Park and its beautiful view of the city, Blake told me about a recent controversy regarding underwater billboards. I was immediately intrigued. Late that August, signs for Ivar's - a local seafood chain - had been found anchored to the bottom of Puget Sound. Supposedly, restaurateur and renowned self-promoter Ivar Haglund had believed submarine travel through the Sound to be inevitable and wanted to get a jump on the competition, submerging the signs back in 1955. A mere week before I arrived on the scene, the folks at Ivar's admitted that the whole thing was a hoax. I don't care. Still neat.

We returned to Blake's apartment where he cooked us dinner, which we unfortunately had to wolf down in order to get to a screening of "An Education" on time. After the movie, we visited a - ahem - lovely little gay bar called The Cuff. The place had fake "stone" wallpaper stapled to the walls, so you can take it from there. After some exhausting rounds of drinking and judging, we left, stopping by Dick's for some late night eats, and no, the irony isn't lost on me.

It was a relatively sedate end to a fantastic trip. Big love to Blake, Charlie, Dean and Brett for introducing me to such an amazing town. I will be back.




Didn't read the other installments? Click here!

At Your Discretion

I enjoy reading the personal ads on Craigslist.

You learn a lot about your fellow human beings that way.

For instance, I've discovered that a great many local gentlemen place a great deal of importance on being discrete, which strikes me as rather odd.

Are they concerned that a brief but ecstatic encounter threatens their individuality? That bumping uglies with a stranger will cause an unprecedented merging of selves?

After all, "discrete" means "separate" or "distinct". Trust me. I looked it up and everything.

What causes these fellows to irrationally believe that dissociation - whether temporary or permanent - is the inevitable by-product of illicit male-male fornication?

I think it may be all the poppers.

Untimely Travel Tales - Seattle Edition, Pt. 3

It's been a long time between drinks, so without further ado I give you...

DAY THREE
On Saturday morning, Blake and I met some of his friends at Coastal Kitchen for brunch. They had enjoyed a raucous evening on a party bus, so they related their scandalous escapades as they ate, much to my simultaneous delight and chagrin. Charlie and Brett (see "Day One") joined us, but sadly they had to sit at the other end of the table, well outside of comfortable chatting distance. We contented ourselves with knowing glances and sarcastic eye-rolls for the duration of the meal.

Afterward the four of us walked to Volunteer Park, climbed the steps of the water tower, and enjoyed the 360 degree view. The change in elevation came along with a considerable drop in temperature, so we didn't stay for very long.

Brett left us to go to work (I honestly forget the reason, but it was something like that), and Blake, Charlie and I caught a bus to Pioneer Square. We purchased tickets to Underground Seattle, but since we had to wait about a half-hour until the next tour, we walked over to the Seattle Public Library. If you want to know why, just do a quick internet search for pictures of it. The design of the building is absolutely phenomenal. Truly something to behold.

We returned to Underground Seattle for our tour. In Seattle's early days, they had lots of problems with mudslides, tides, sewage - you name it. Eventually, the city filled in the downtown streets and essentially buried the first floors of many of the buildings effectively making them basements. (It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea.) Our guide took us through several dark and dripping corridors, cracking jokes as we went. I found the whole thing intriguing, and the other guys were glad they had a visitor in town so that they had an excuse to go on the tour. :D

We walked from Pioneer Square toward Pike Place Market, passing the Lusty Lady on the way. The Lusty Lady was a peep show operating right across the street from the Seattle Art Museum. It shut its doors back in April, another victim of the poor economy. Still, folks in Seattle will always remember the funny phrases on the marquee. When I was there, it read "We Give Raises" on one side with "Look to the Thighs" on the other. Love it.

After a quick Starbucks stop-off across from the market, we hopped a bus for Seattle Center. Once we were there, we walked underneath a huge art installation titled "Olympic Iliad" on our way to the Space Needle. (I typically don't do a lot of touristy stuff, but there are always exceptions, y'know?) After we got Blake's friend's pass confiscated by trying to use it fraudulently (can't blame us for tryin'!), we zoomed upward to the Observation Deck. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The wind whipped past as we peered out over the city. I'm sure it's nice during the day, but the view at night was fantastic.

We were all a bit worn out at this point, so we returned to our respective homesteads for a disco nap and costume change. Once we met up again, we drove to some part of town (I can't remember which) and had dinner at a nice Latin-themed restaurant (I don't remember the name) before heading back to Pike Place for a show at Can Can.

While I can probably describe Can Can itself with relative ease, the shows you can see there defy explanation. The venue itself made me think of a pocket-sized Moulin Rouge. Located underneath the market, the walls are covered with dark red fabric and the air is filled with energetic, accordion-heavy, French music. The atmosphere is cozy, electric and Bohemian. As for the show? Hmm. Let's say it's equal parts dance, circus, performance art and burlesque. For instance, a sexy dance routine would be followed by someone twirling from a rope. A hot piece of ass named Faggedy Randy performed a lap dance dressed as a unicorn followed up by the whole cast dancing in unison to MGMT's "Kids" in plushie costumes. I absolutely loved it. It served as a fabulous way to end the evening.




TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 4!

... And They're Super-hungry, Dude.

My brother Brent just got home with food for our dinner and - more importantly - a first-hand account of the most coolest thing ever:

Right now two hitch-hikers are standing at the top of the on-ramp near our house.

They’re both holding cardboard signs.

The first sign says: “I-40 West”

The second one says: “Zombies are chasing us”

Untimely Travel Tales - Seattle Edition, Pt. 2

Since I'm absolutely livid that I just spent a motherfuckinggoddamnshitballs hour dutifully typing a halfway entertaining description of my second day in Seattle that the internet swiftly swallowed whole, this replacement version is going to be very, very brief. In fact, I will be using bullet points, so here goes:

Day Two
- Relaxed on the couch for a bit and soaked up as much info from local travel tomes as possible so that I wouldn't get lost while exploring on my own.
- Wandered around Capitol Hill and the University District, eventually finding myself in a secondhand bookshop called Twice Sold Tales. Unfortunately, there were cats roaming all over the place, so I quickly purchased a well-worn copy of Agatha Christie's The Big Four for $1 and left.
- Met up with my friend Dean who took me to Pike Place Market, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
- Ate fish and chips at Lowell's and caught up with Dean as we looked out over Puget Sound.
- Traveled underneath the market to Post Alley and the infamous Gum Wall, which is exactly what it sounds like. Chewed a couple pieces of gum and contributed to the wall. As luck would have it, "Brian" and "I 'heart' Dean" were already on the wall right next to each other, so I added a dot to the "i" in my name while Dean added an "o" to the end of his.
- Explored Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, ogling oddities, coin-operated contraptions and all sorts of touristy trinkets.
- Purchased a mocha from a cute, nerdy guy at the original Starbucks.
- Visited a magic shop that was far more interesting from the outside than on the inside.
- Bought a silly wind-up toy for my brother from a shop called - appropriately enough - The Wind Up.
- Saw a sign that read: "The Miniature Car Dealer Been Relocate It To Suite 525 Next To Sound View Cafe, Please Visit Us There. Thank You."
- Took us way out of our way to visit a tiki bar called Hula Hula and enjoyed some tiki-themed libations
- Begrudingly dropped Dean off with his boyfriened
- Went to dinner with Blake at a neat gastropub called Smith where I had a shepherd's pie the size of my head.
- Waddled over to Oddfellows Cafe and Pub for more drinks. Fun atmosphere and very cool waitress.
- Got sweaty on the dancefloor at R Place.
- Shuffled home past the ravenous hoardes outside Dick's.
- Purchased a couple more sodas from the Spooky Coke Machine.
- Went to bed.





CONTINUED IN PART 3!

The Dangers of a Hyperactive Imagination

I have passed a man standing alone on the side of the road on several occasions as I make my way to work. I realize a man standing alone on the side of the road isn't all that unusual, but hear me out.

He is always standing in the same place. I see him just as I turn to get on the interstate, leaning slightly against the guardrail at the beginning of the on-ramp. The location would suggest that he might be thumbing for a ride, but he never seems to acknowledge the cars passing by.

I go to work very early in the morning. Typically, I like to get to work around ten minutes to six, which means I pass this man at roughly 5:40 a.m. At this time of year, it's still dark outside that early, so if he's just hanging out looking at the cars, wouldn't they be easier to see a few hours later in the daylight?

Speaking of this time of year, who in the hell hangs out next to an on-ramp when it's so freaking cold outside? The guy has got to be freezing!

There are a few businesses nearby, so you might think that perhaps he's just passing the time on a smoke break. There's a motel and a Waffle House within walking distance. If he's the night auditor at the motel, he's completely deserting his post. That leaves Waffle House, but he doesn't wear the WaHo uniform.

So, yeah, I'm stumped. And not a little bit creeped out. Damn that Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air. Back in the early 1940's they performed a radio play by Lucille Fletcher (who also wrote the chilling "Sorry, Wrong Number") that featured a phantom hitchhiker haunting Orson Welles' character as he drove alone cross-country. The man appears on the side of the road over and over and over again, and Welles is eventually driven from mild anxiety to the brink of madness. (Pun intended.)

I wish I'd never listened to that damned episode of Suspense, because now I get genuinely freaked out when I turn onto the on-ramp and my headlights pass over this lonely soul standing stoically in the cold darkness of the pre-dawn hours. This, my friends, is what sucks about having an active imagination.

"Find me on F***book"

Twice in three days I've received spam from some porn site, and both times I've just had to laugh and shake my head. The subject line of both messages serves as the title of this post: "Find me on Fuckbook"

I don't know what is funnier: that someone actually bought that domain name thinking they could cash in somehow on the popularity of Facebook or that, once again, I'm getting messages from imaginary women trying to get in this gay man's pants.

Philly-ing Fine

At the beginning of October, I flew to Philadelphia to visit Mike, one of my besties, and to explore the city for the first time.

The flight from Nashville to Philly was pretty uneventful, although I had my first "funny" experience with Southwest: one of the attendants sang little songs to begin and end the flight. The second one was to the tune of Heartbreak Hotel, if memory serves. The guy who sat a seat away from me was incredibly nervous about flying. He fidgeted and shuffled his feet throughout the entire flight. Sometimes this behavior makes me nervous too, but thankfully I stayed cool as a cucumber. I just looked out the window placidly at the passing landscape.

Mike picked me up from the airport and showed me around a little on the way back to the apartment he shares with his boyfriend Charley. And WOW it's a nice apartment. Of course, I might just be saying that because I got to have my own room. :D But as I was saying, Mike drove me around the neighborhoods of Manayunk and Roxborough, and we had a late, greasy-spoon lunch at the Manayunk Diner. Dinner was decidedly more "gourmet", as Mike made one of his famous chicken pot pies from scratch. De-licious ... and possibly the main reason I made the trip in the first place.

I must digress for a moment and admit that I did something on this trip that I typically don't do when I'm on vacation - watch a bunch of T.V. I was hypnotized by Mike and Char's DVR. I watched anything and everything, from Glee to Whatever Martha! to Drop Dead Diva to Jeffery & Cole Casserole. Basically, I binge-viewed, and I'm embarrassed about it.

The next day, after crawling out of bed and making love to the coffee-maker, Mike and I headed out to explore. At my request, we visited the bizarre and fascinating Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The Mutter features a large collection of medical ephemera, including the world's largest colon, the skeleton of a giant, and a tumor removed from the jaw of Grover Cleveland. Grotesque? Yes. Absolutely enthralling? Also yes. Afterward, we walked a few streets over to visit Fat Jack's Comicrypt (a really neat comic book store where we were party to an earnest (read "very loud") discussion amidst the staff regarding the merits of Supernatural's first season), Circa Antiques (a junk store absolutely jam-packed with stuff), and Sophisticated Seconds (a run-of-the-mill secondhand store with a highfalutin name). Of course, being us, we had to stop by Starbucks before heading home.

That night we had dinner at Cooper's in Manayunk. It was a nice place (that reminded me of Bosco's here in Nashville) with a very cute waitstaff, but it was exceptionally loud and although we didn't receive part of our order, we still got charged for it. We went back to the apartment for a quick drink, and then Mike and I headed out to take a taste of the Philly nightlife. We hit a bit of a snag, however, as two of the bars we were interested in visiting had recently changed names, making them difficult to locate. "Pure" had become "Voyeur" and "Bump" had become "q". The former was cavernous, stylistically designed ... and empty. The latter was colorful, loud and very, very full. Woody's, sitting basically right between the other two, was much more my speed - casual and fun without getting pretentious.

I'll post more about the trip later. This particular post has been sitting in draft form forever, so I figured I'd go ahead and publish. Check back in for the rest!

Interesting way to meet people, I guess

I just found the following ad on Craigslist under Missed Connections:

I let Fluffy out this morning to go tinkle. Little did I know, the hot neighbor kid must have left my gate open when he came to play on my swing set, because Fluff ran right out of the yard! I can tell you're a real determined, goal-oriented guy, because when you hit my dog you didn't even tap the breaks! I know we didn't get a proper introduction, but I'd like to take you out for dinner. You're a blond, middle-aged guy who drives a big truck with a pair of those rubber nuts hanging off the back. Respond and tell me what kind of dog I had so I know it's you. PS: Fluffy died on contact, but I'm not mad at you. He was already blind in one eye and walked with a limp, so maybe it's best that this happened when it did.

I'm ... I'm speechless.

Alright already!

Do you ever get the feeling the universe is trying to tell you something? I do, and this week it's practically screaming at me.

Four of my friends (Andrea, Adam, Jason & Luke) and I are heading down to the Big Easy later this week to join countless other revelers for Southern Decadence, a big ol' gay shindig held over Labor Day weekend. We really don't know what to expect other than a crazy-ass time.

If I had any worries about the weekend, the universe has been working overtime to allay them. First, as I was driving into work yesterday, NPR was doing a story about the continued economic recovery of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Later, the cooking segment on our midday talk show featured crawfish etouffee, a New Orleans staple. I texted Adam about these two events, and he told me the same kind of thing was happening to him! A show he was watching on HGTV Sunday night featured condo-shopping in NOLA, and on Monday night he saw someone wearing a shirt that said "New Orleans" on it.

As if all of this wasn't enough, I just saw that an animated version of The Wizard of Oz is airing on our third channel here at the T.V. station. Why is that significant? The five of us are dressing up as Oz-related characters for the Southern Decadence parade!

We get it, Universe! You approve! Now knock it off, because you're starting to weird me out.

(UPDATE! I picked up my friend Wesley from the airport this afternoon and took him to his friend's apartment where he'll be staying while he's in town. Guess where she's from? You guessed it! Her apartment has no less than four NOLA-related posters on the walls. I'm not even kidding.)

Redefining "vague"

I just saw the following ad on Craigslist in the "Missed Connections" section:

--------------------------------------------------
This past Saturday Night - m4m - 32 (Nashville)
Date: 2009-07-29, 7:00AM CDT

We met Saturday night and I didn't get to say goodbye. I had a good time. Lets hang out again. What's your name? What's mine? What did we do?
--------------------------------------------------

Wow. Could you vague that up a bit more for me? Met where? At what point in the evening? What were you wearing? What was discussed?

How the hell is anyone supposed to reply to this ad? There are no specifics to latch onto whatsoever. This kind of thing drives me crazy, and sooooo many posters make the same mistake.

What really cracks me up about this ad is the fact that you can imagine the last few sentences in a desperate sort of way. "Heavens to Betsy, I can't remember your name. I can't seem to recall yo--Wait. My God, I can't remember mine either! Whatever has happened? Whatever have I done?!"

Amnesia will wreck a fledgling relationship every time.

Oh, 69!

I hit up MadDonna's in East Nashville for Drag Queen Bingo with the bestie last night. Adam said it started at 8ish, so we planned to get there at 7:30 so that I could grab some dinner beforehand. I ended up running behind, so we didn't get there until about 10 to 8, making me nervous that I wouldn't have time to eat before the festivities began. Such an assumption was terribly silly of me, of course, since as we all know, "drag time" is not real time. I don't think things actually got rolling until 9:15 or so.

It was a damn good thing, too, because the task of ordering food proved be a true test of patience, since the poor bartender had to take care of every single person in the upstairs area. She was serving around 35+ people, and she wasn't writing anything down! This led directly to her not putting in my new friend Monique's full order; the poor dear had to make due with hummus until her entree arrived.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the inimitable Bianca Page arrived wearing a white, green, and black catsuit that would make Pollock puke. She lip-synced to a country version of "Irreplaceable", and then proceeded to make enough blue references and off-color comments to peel the paint of any church within twenty miles. There were a couple of teenagers in the audience, but Bianca didn't tone down her shtick one bit. I'm kind of glad she didn't, since those kids shouldn't have been there anyway.

Finally, the bingo-ing began. Bianca called out letter/number combos, and different parts of the room reacted according to their good or bad fortune. I didn't have much luck; whenever I got within one square of winning, someone invariably hit the one they needed first. Ironically, "B5" came up several times ... and not once did it help me. Poor Adam had one round where he was one away in three different directions, and he still got beat out. That's just fine by us, though. We didn't want any stinkin' prizes anyway.

I hope that guy who won the penis-shaped lollipop chokes on it.

BEDA, Day 9 (But written on the 10th)

Damn, drat, curses and various other exclamations that signify frustration on behalf of the speaker! I missed another day of the B(log) E(very) D(ay in) A(pril) blogathon. Blast! To make up for it, I'll blog about some stuff that happened yesterday that I planned on blogging about last night. That's almost as good, right? ... No? ... Well, it will just have to do, by gum.

Work was pretty normal. The usual "put Tab A into Slot B" stuff. When I got off at 2 o'clock, I randomly decided to take the long way home, since it was sunny and nice. Along the way, I decided to stop by a shop that I noticed the day before. Actually, I saw a Blues Brother out on the sidewalk the previous day, which takes a little explaining.

There are quite a few thrift and secondhand shops on my side of town, and there used to be a particularly neat one called Crystal Dragon. The wall outstide boasted "Cool Stuff / Weird Things", and that was the truth. You could find all sorts of weird, kitschy stuff in there, which means it was right down my alley. On the sidewalk in front of the store, there would usually be two or three especially odd bits of statuary to lure folks in.

A couple of years ago, the owners decided to pull up stakes and make a new home at the Bellevue Center Mall. If you live in Nashville and have any knowledge of that particular shopping mecca-cum-ghost town, you understand why my reaction to the move was "What the hell are they thinking?" Predictably, abdicating their well-known digs and setting up shop on a sinking ship proved to be a horrible decision, and the store soon closed its doors.

So I passed the Blues Brother "dancing" on the sidewalk and resolved to go inside, thinking that, yay, the old shop has returned! Boy, was I wrong. There was junk strewn about and in no particular order. Only about .05% of the items had price tags on them, and the rest ... well, you wouldn't want 'em anyway, so what would be the point? I was very disappointed. To add insult to injury, I was the only patron in the "store", which meant I had the focused attention of the man running the shop. Sitting in low-profile lawn chair behind a glass display case, he could see me before I could see him, so when he spoke, he startled me. We exchanged a few pleasantries as I walked around thinking, "Great. Now I have to slowly make for the exit without being too obvious about what I'm doing." He asked, "What part of town you from, pardner?" Yes, he actually said "pardner" with a hard "d" sound, no lie. I checked his feet for cowboy boots (ding!) and, in the most vague possible fashion, I told him I lived in the area. Some more forced conversation followed as I got closer and closer to the door. As I finally got to the point where I felt I could get out cleanly, I looked over my shoulder and said, "Thanks." (As in "Thanks for not guilting me into buying these used baby bottles.") From behind me I heard him call, "Tell your friends!"

... so I am.