Call My Mom!

It's my Mother's Birthday and to celebrate the entire family put their lives at risk and jumped in a big tube of aluminum to come visit Chicago.

Yesterday was the first full day of enjoying the city and we walked quite a few miles, but TODAY is my Mother's Birthday.

If you're around a phone today and want to give her a shout out or a text out call me on my cell phone at:

773 206 6021

The battery is all charged up and waiting. Hurry the phone number will only be posted for a short time!

While I'm playing Cruise Director Julie McCoy today, what are you doing?

Synphoria

How do you explain Synphoria?

Let's start at the beginning.

Last month I went to the Full Moon Jam which is held every month (that it's nice outside) to celebrate the Full Moon. Groups of people get together with their drums and their Poi and beat out a rhytmic dance while boys and girls twirl fire.

You can see pictures of the Full Moon Jam HERE

Then a friend of a friend said "Hey there's Synphoria going on, do you guys want to go?" Synphoria?!? WTF is Synphoria.

This is a quote from the invite:

In honor of the 40th Anniversary of THE SUMMER
F LOVE, Synphoria will be taking a (head)trip to
"Ravinia" to sit on the grass a watch a short set
by the master Indian sitarist RAVI SHANKAR!!

Then as I found out more about it, and it made even less sense to me. We had to wait two long weeks while the tension of what Synphoria actually was built in our imaginations.

Finally the night arrived and we soon arrived at the appointed address, which incidentally was only a few doors down from my prior address, we entered Onderland.

Synphoria is art on steroids, it was everything I couldn't even begin to imagine. Black lights & Curator Gloves. Surprises around every corner. Grass in the living room....not grass that you smoke, grass that you walk on.

The only way that I can really explain Synphoria is by showing you.



You can also view Photos HERE

The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming

Oh wait, that's not right it should be "The Family is Coming! The Family is Coming!"

That's right The Family is coming for a visit. I've lived in Chicago for going on 7 years and this is the first time that they've visited. Now before you say anything bad, there is a reason.

When I used to live in Atlanta my parents would stop and visit at least twice a year - once on their way to Florida and then on the way home. But since I moved to the Midwest it's a lot more difficult to swing by and say "Hi" especially in the winter! I've been home plenty of times to see The Family but this is the first time they've been to my new digs.

The Roommate and I are very excited (he had the opportunity to meet my family a few years ago when we went home to PA to make a movie) about seeing The Family - including my sister! If you knew my Sister the way I knew my Sister you'd understand that.

I've got all sorts of things planned for their visit:
- A Tour of Downtown that will include the Sears Tower' Sky-Deck and a Double Decker Tour of the City
- A trip to Ravinia on Saturday night for an outdoor concert
- A trip "up north" to Tempel Farms to see the Lipizzans
- A trip to the shores of Lake Michigan to view the Full Moon Jam on Sunday night (check out the link for photos from when I went last, my Mom well get off on that)
- A huge Italian dinner cooked by the Roommate.


I'm sure we'll also do a lot of shopping, eating, drinking and playing games (I'm sure we'll play LCR and my parents will win big time).


They're flying in Thursday afternoon and I've already arranged a car to bring us back into the city. Since this is their first trip to Chicago I didn't want the first impression to be marred by my driving and screaming and yelling!


So what are you doing this weekend?

Thriller

Have you seen this yet?

You have to see this!

Check out this cool new dating site. I'm on it gettin some booty! lol

We're going down!

Down I tell ya!

Prez Bushy is having something stuck up his butt this Saturday and he's temporarily handing power over to The Veep.

I tell ya, something's gonna go down, I just know it!

So Bushy is getting a colonoscopy tomorrow I bet the whole reason he's against this whole Gay Marriage thing is because he probably enjoys it.

The funniest line in the whole article is:

He last underwent colorectal cancer surveillance on June 29, 2002.

Surveillance? I thought they called those procuedures 'a screening'

Oh wait....it's surveillance because they're looking for his head that he's had stuck up his ass for the last 6 years, now I get it.

Life is a Cabaret

One of the great things about living in the city is being able to enjoy all of the culture that surrounds us.

No, I'm not talking about the crazy people standing on the street corners yelling at you or the graffiti that litters the alleyways. I'm talking about the "real" cultural things in the city, like the Harold Washington Library

Where I got my first library card as an adult....hmmm...I guess having and using a Library Card are different aren't they?

But there are also a lot of other things in the city like The Taste of Chicago which is the countries Largest Food Event - you never know what you're going to get there, you could be like more than 500 people this year that were lucky enough to catch salmonella poisoning from a stand, but then again do you really catch salmonella like you do a baseball?

Or you have exciting events like Out At The Ball Game - which is basically Gay Day at Wrigley Field. Well almost Gay Day because we only have one small section of the park, but still it's Gay Day! I organized a big group of guys (36 of us) to go to the Game this year and we had a blast. Apparently we got our mugs in one of the local gay rags - I can only hope it was when we were sober. Please don't ask me anything about the game, all I know is that the Cubs were playing someone from out of town - that is my extent of Baseball Knowledge.

Although there are a few other things that I recently found out while I was at the park. There were three different types of hotdogs that they sold in the stands. $3.00 Standard Hotdogs, $3.50 Jumbo Hotdogs and $3.75 Kosher Hotdogs. But answer me this....why are the Kosher Hotdogs more, is it because they're Jewish?

One other disappointing thing I found out is that you almost always run out of Cheez before you run out of Nachos, why? I think there should be a guy walking around selling extra cheese, god knows I would have paid a buck for it!

One of the other great things about living in the City is "Movies in the Park" Chicago has a "big" Outdoor Film Festival that just started this last Tuesday with Young Frankenstein, but I'm not talking about that one....the one I'm talking about is the one where they come to the local parks and set up a big inflatable screen with speakers and let everyone sit on the grass and watch a movie.

Last night we had the pleasure of watching Cabaret while we sat on the grass (remind me next time I should take the Aerobed) wrapped in our blankets with the lake at our backs, the city skyline in front of us and the stars above us. In celebration of the indeterminable Liza Minelli I made sure that I had a nice strong cocktail with me and a few pills at my side just in case they were needed.

There was a small group of us that went over and enjoyed watching the movie and shouting out lines where we thought they would be most inappropriate. The best part was at the very end of the movie someone had a laser pointer and since the movie was shown with closed captioning it turned into a big Sing Along.

Life is a Cabaret old friend!

Enjoy it while you can, because you never know when it will be over.

Visionbuzz.com

Visionbuzz.com is a blog hijacker

I apologize for the drama I caused over the past week, I was just trying something new out and it went horribly horribly wrong!

Somehow I found this traffic builder site called Visionbuzz, it looked inocuous enough (don't they all), just add a widget and you'll get traffic.

Oh yeah, I got all sorts of traffic, but then I got all sorts of other problems as well like pages not loading, taking you to other pages while in the middle of reading my fabulous wonderful posts and all sorts of little nasties.

So I apologize if you had difficulty reading me as of late, I guess that'll teach me won't it?

What has the Fashion world become?

I was one of those gays that was born without the Fashion Gene. You know the one that lets me walk into my gorgeous 10 foot x 12 foot closet, snap my fingers and have a fabulous outfit just waiting for me.

No, I didn't get that gene....I got the Garanimals Fashion Gene that I will blame on growing up in the country and not knowing any better. But really, I'm terrible at putting things together, I think brown on tan looks good and I've been told many times that pleated pants are out, but I just don't get it - Yes I know pleated pants are out but they're pants...and they fit. You may recall a tale of my Gray Pants so as you can see I care very little about "fashion."

The other day we were at Sears and I saw a great pair of shorts....yes, I said Sears. Did you know that Sears now carries the Structure line....yeah the line that used to have it's own stores in the mall but went bankrupt and Sears bought them and now you can buy a cashmere sweater right next to your Tuffskins and Carhart - WOOF!

So, as I was saying, we were at Sears and I found this great pair of Madras Shorts, they looked plaid to me. They were my size, I thought they were cute and best of all they were on Sale.

Fast Forward to today - I'm going out to dinner....ah, it'll be a perfect time to wear my new shorts, they're hip and they're almost still in style so I'll sorta blend in.

I put the shorts on, button them up and go to put my money clip in my pocket.....and there's no pocket. Oh maybe it's swen up, you know like they do on a sports jacket, I mean after all this is Structure, it's a good line. I went to the bathroom to grab my pair of surgical scissors and looked....and there were no pockets at all.

Shorts.....with no front pockets?!? What the hell? Are all Madras shorts like that, or just the cheap ass ones that Sears is selling at a markup and then giving a discount on because they're Structure.

I can't believe that the next time I buy a pair of shorts I have to make sure it has front pockets.

WHAT HAS THE FASHION WORLD BECOME?

I think we can blame this on BRAVO and Tyra Banks

Friday's are the best

Because when I wake up in the morning I get to turn the alarm clock OFF instead of just reseting it for another early morning wakeup.

So do you have big plans for the weekend? It's supposed to rain tomorrow - which I hope is a big fat lie!

Sunday afternoon there's a group of us going to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs beat the pants off of the Houston Astros - oh how we're hoping they do literally beat the pants off of them, how hot would that be?

I'm sure that you're worried for me, especially since on the latest episode of The Loopy Fruit Audio Network we were out at the Softball fields cheering on The Roommate and his team and now I'm going to another sporting event on my own volition, but don't worry, I'm not turning Straight...and I'm not turning into one of those gay boys that likes sports. Sometimes schedules just work out that way is all I can say.

For the last several years one of the local gay rags - The Chicago Free Press - has been sponsoring "Out At The Ballgame" which is basically "Gay Day at Wrigley Field" They buy a whole section of tickets and work with the organizers at Wrigley Field to bring in top shelf liquor drinks and hot hunky hot dog salesmen that may accidentally slip you their weiner instead of a weiner.

I love going to Wrigley Field, even though I have no idea what is going on during the game but it's a blast to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the ground, drink beer and see how many hot dogs you can eat in a 3-hour period. Of course drinking all that beer does force one to use the facilities and I can't do that at Wrigley becuase they don't have urinals.....they have the dreaded "Man Trough" Some boys enjoy that, but I'm incredibly pee shy and don't even suggest the stalls because men are GNASTY! The stalls are disgustingly dirty and gross and you end up having to flush with your foot, which is totally gross. But hey there's at least a lot of cute boys at Wrigley to watch.

A group of us went two years ago and unfortunately we missed it last year, but This Year - we're back with a vengence!

I started early this year organizing a group of girls to go and boy was I overwhelmed, there's a whopping 36 of us going! We have 4 rows in the stadium all to ourselves (well we might have to share some of those seats) it's gonna be a rauckus group of boys that's for sure.

Amber is going to be performing the National Anthem and during the Seventh Inning Stretch they always wake the crowd up with a rousing performance of "Take me out to the ballgame" The last time I was at a Cubs game Vince Vaughn sang it, I wonder who it will be this year.

So look forward to lots of pictures of drunk straight boys and some drunk gay boys!

What are you doing this weekend?

I always giggle....

I always giggle....
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

When I get a solicitation like this in the mail.

I'm apparently straight in someones database, I bet it was that Harley Davidson credit card I have that gave me away.

Softballs & Microphones

Guess what I did over the weekend?

Yes, I got drunk. No, I made it home ok. I don't remember doing that, but if you say so.

No, I met up with those fabulous Loopy Fruit boys David & Raul of The Loopy Fruit Audio Network.

The Roommate was playing a few games of softball and since he was on the show a few weeks ago the boys promised to come out and support him at a game. Just my luck it was the week they asked me to do another guest appearance on their show.

We met up at the local softball fields and set up a table and umbrella threw our microphones on and recorded a little episode.

We talk about everything from Softball to sports in general to movies to Disneyworld. I think I even gave a secret away - but you'll have to listen to learn.

So check out Episode #36 - Tales from the Ball Park

If you're so intrigued you can check out my first appearance on Episode #25 - The Grocery Cast

Why can't I read this?

Why can't I read this?
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

Apparently English is a second language here in The U. S. of A.

We went to Wendy's today for lunch and this was what greeted us as the tray liner. I had to look at it for a few seconds and then I said to myself "Why can't I read this?"

It's nice to know what Wendy's is all about isn't it?

Fast Typers

When I type I pay more attention to the screen than I do my hands, do you?


When I was a Senior in High School, shh that was 20 years ago, I didn't want to take Advanced Biology. Basically because I knew that two of the projects were disceting a frog and collecting bugs, uhm, no thanks. So instead of Advanced Biology I took Office Practice.


I loved Office Practice - little did I know how handy it would come into use in my future. Office Practice was just what it said it was "Office Practice" It was sort of like playing school when you weren't in school.


We did all of the officey things, like filing. We carried around a little file box that had like 100 letters in it and every week we had to re-file the letters, alphaettically, by date, by senders name, by addressee, etc. Hell I'm GREAT at filing now! Although now that I think about it, carrying a little file box around for 2 months was a lot dorkier than carrying around bugs mounted on a piece of styrofoam.


We also learned Key-Punch - I'm sad to say that I have never had to use this skill. But 10-Key I use all the time. I can add up a row of numbers faster than it takes a stripper to get out of her thong.


And of course we also learned how to type. I remember my mother telling me tales of when she was in High School and had to type on a manual machine and she typed 45 wpm, I was amazed. She also told me stories of how they would ride around on the typewriter cart and one time they actually went through a partition into another classroom. Now that's fun...you can't do that with a PDA can you?


I'm a great typer, it's ok, I can admit it. I can type about 50 wpm and it always seems to amaze people.....I mean it's typing....when you do something every day you sorta get better at it.


I don't think that I've looked at my hands when I type for years because I know where all of the keys are whenever I need them.


I can even type numbers but a lot of time I may have to glance to confirm, but that's what the backspace key is for right? I know exactly where that one is. The one set of keys that I do need to cheat with are the shift keys on the numbers...I just don't remember where they all are.


For example, I remember that the dollar sign $ is on SFT+4, and the Hash sign # is at SFT+3, the @ sign is easy, especially with email nowadays. I also know where the ( and the ) but the ^ I can never remember because how often do you use that? As well as the % sign and the !!!! although I do use that one all the time. And what about the ~ all the way over there where you never reach. It's just far enough that you forget about it, plus who really uses the ~ when it isn't over a letter?!? Oh yeah, I know where the ? is, because I ask too many questions.


Do you know where all of your keys are?

A Dream Destroyed - Part V

A Dream Destroyed - Part V
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

A short while later I was sitting in front of the computer after having swallowed a few xanax chased down with a Bacardi and Coke, or a Cuba Libre since everything is "Cuba this" and "Cuba that" now.

I grabbed my mouse and clicked on Internet Explorer, my hands shaking a little bit from the excitement. I could barely keep my fingers on the keys - oh did you know if you mis-spell eBay you get a porn site? Yeah it's pretty hot, I signed up for it.

But soon I was back on track and looking at eBay.

As I quickly as I was able to pull up eBay and typed in "beanie babies" my dreams were shattered. As the page started to fill in I saw miserably low numbers.

Damn you 10MPBS High Speed Broadband Connection.....faster damn it, FASTER! I felt like Elizabeth Taylor standing in front of the Microwave yelling at her popcorn to "Pop faster damn it, pop faster!"

The numbers were not good. I had been hoping to see prices like $19.99 or $15.99....but instead I saw scary numbers like $0.99 and $0.01. Were my eyes deceiving me once again today?

As quickly as I had built up my dreams they vanished like a puff of smoke. My yacht vanished - POOF. My dreams of afternoons being served champagne as we cruised Lake Michigan were thrown overboard before my very eyes - POOF

I was quickly put back on earth as the phone rang and brought me back to my senses. As I reached for the phone a tear fell from my eye and landed on the back of my hand it was all so sad and real.

Damn you to hell Beanie Babies, Damn you to hell!

The Week from Hell

Having a Federal Holiday in the middle of the week sucks!!!

Yeah that's right, I said a paid holiday sucks.

I mean in the grand scheme of it all, it wasn't that bad but think about it.

You work on Monday and then Tuesday is just like a Friday.

But then on Tuesday night you go downtown and take a cruise out on the lake with your friends to watch the fireworks from the water and don't get home until 1:00 am.

So still, not too bad, because you don't have to wake up early the next morning but it is a Holiday anyways so you want to have friends over for a cookout.

That cookout involves all sorts of Forced Housecleaning and Forced Food Preparation, that you really couldn't prep for because you had to work two days before the party.

So then you have the cookout and you kick your friends out early because after all it is a "School Night" and you have to get up early and go back to work.

Thursday seems like a Monday but at least you know that tomorrow REALLY is Friday but mentally you're still half asleep because you just crammed a whole weekend into a period of about 24 hours.

Friday comes and because you weren't clever enough to schedule your vacation correctly you're stuck sitting at your desk doing nothing because all of the people that you work with were smarter than you and decided to take vacation.

But at least it's Friday and I was able to turn off my alarm clock this morning....two days of sleeping late, that can't be a bad thing.

I mean geez, if Prez Bush can Pardon (and you know he will) his old buddy Scooter (btw, what kind of adult goes by the name Scooter?) couldn't he make the Holiday fall on a Monday or a Friday.

So now there's only one more Holiday and then Summer is officially over.

I met another Blogger

Well actually I met a Couple o'Bloggers. Drew and Felicity of My Life As A Clown.

As the title of their blog says - they're a couple of clowns - no not like me, they're actually professional clowns - how cool is that.

I was walking down by the lake last night when I saw this couple and said "Wow, they look really familiar?" and then all of a sudden they did some acrobatic thing and I was like "I know exactly who they are!"

So I accosted them in the middle of their practice and introduced myself. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes and then I let them get back to their practice.

It's always so weird to meet a blogger in the wild because you know so much about them....but you feel dirty about it for some reason or other?

A Dream Destroyed - Part IV

A Dream Destroyed - Part IV
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

After I had a cocktail to calm my nerves, I knew it was time to get down to business. How many Beanie Babies are we talking? We need to do a thorough sorting and matching.

So I start laying them out in a single layer on the table and cover almost the entire table with still more Beanie Babies in the pile to sort. I pushed them all closer together and continued to count.

Fifty, Seventy-Five, One Hundred, oh my god! One Hundred! One hundred and ten, One hundred and twenty-five, were there really that many in there?

Beanies we displayed as far as the eye could see.

I couldn't believe it, there were One Hundred and Twenty Five UNIQUE Beanie Babies, all with their tags on and all in perfect condition since they've been living in our garage in this big plastic treasure chest.

My dreams were about to be fulfilled. But I have to do some homework first! Let's check out eBay before I go any further in this endeavor.

But I need to wait, becuase today of all days, when I went to pick up my bottle of Xanax - it was empty. Damn you insomnia! Now I've got to put in a rush order at the Pharmacy.

Knocked Up

During an outing at a local watering hole this weekend a guy told me that they had just seen that new movie Knocked Up and he really enjoyed it.

He then continued to say that "Yeah when I first saw you I thought 'Wow, he looks a lot like that hot guy from the movie.'"

Of course I was flattered and didn't bother to ask WHICH actor he thought I looked like, it could have been because there's like three actors that I could think of immediately (even though I hadn't seen the movie), could it be:

Paul Rudd - I was hoping it was him he was referring to.

Jason Segel - hmmm...I don't think so.....

But I think he meant, Seth Rogen

I kinda sorta see it, but my hair is NO WHERE as big as his.

When I was in High School, I thought I bore a very strong resemblance to Albert of Little House in the Praire fame, especially when he was in that movie Deadly Friend, when I saw that movie I could have sworn that was me on that screen with the big hair.

All I can say is "Thank God I don't have Big Hair anymore!"

Since we were on a "What Star do you look like" kick, I told this guy that he looked exactly like the guy that Charlotte was dating on Sex in the City in Season 6.

because I thought he (both the guy I was talking with and the actor) was cute and it would be flattering. The guy looked at me and said "Do you mean Harry? That bald Jewish guy? He's fucking ugly."

I never was any good at that game!

What famous person do you look like?

A Dream Destroyed - Part III

A Dream Destroyed - Part III
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

I couldn't wait to finish cleaning the garage, because I knew a much bigger task was ahead of me. Beanie Babies are huge...I mean aren't Beanie Babies the "IT" item that made eBay what it is today?

There's a fortune here. I'll sell these on eBay and make a killing. I can retire if I do this right. I can tell the man where to go, what train to take out of town, what bus route doesn't stop at the office, I can quit my job!

As I threw the Beanie Babies out of the treasure chest and onto the table a golden pyramid grew before my eyes. A pyramid of Beanie Babies. The dollar signs started twirling around in my eyes, just like Scrooge McDucks did in the comic books..

"It's too good to be true," I kept telling myself in a half-hearted attempt to reassure myself. There must be thousands of Beanie Babies here, or at least a few hundred.

What's that? Are those Beanie Babies in their original unopened cardboard containers? I think it is!

Oh my, I've got to sit down and catch my breath.

A Dream Destroyed - Part II

A Dream Destroyed - Part II
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

It's was an orgy of beanie babies. Red ones, yellow ones, purple ones and green ones.

They're all thrown together, Cats were with Dogs as well as Bulls cuddled up next to Chickens - who knew?

I couldn't believe my eyes, in fact I had to take of my glasses and make sure the lenses hadn't popped out with all of the strenous work that we had just completed.

No my eyes were not deceiving me, they were genuine Beanie Babies - millions of them.

I quickly pulled it to the side and said "Uhm, that's going in the house, ok?"