Tuesday, June 19, 2007

I saw Washington Shakespeare Company's Macbeth last night. It was interesting, to say the least. Their concept was to do the entire show in the nude. All nude, the entire time. I have to say. . .the guy playing MacBeth. . .good looking man with a very nice penis, however, whenever he spoke, his right testicle would rise up, and when he stopped talking, it would drop. . making his whole package giggle. It was SO distracting. I couldn't pay attention to anything else!

Also, as you can imagine in a space with little to no A/C, by the start of Act 2, a general locker room odor was permiating throughout, granted I was in the second row. . .

One of the men, REALLY needs to trim as it appeared he did not have a penis at all. I really felt bad for him. And finally, one of the young skinny boys went half mast during one of the scenes, making it all worth it.

Acting-wise, I thought it was ok. . its hard to differentiate when they are playing different characters when they are naked. They didn't do a very good job of physically changing their stances or posturing when transitioning from character to character. And, the vocal noises they would make when off stage was pretty distracting to me.

Monday, June 18, 2007

All I can say is WOW! It was a perfect late afternoon for a concert. A little hot, but all and all a great day. I was starting to feel the effects of no sleep as we arrived at Merriweather. Some friends of my friend had gotten there early and was holding a spot for us on the lawn, so we leisurely made our way through the crowds, and food stations and found our spot. Excellent spot, dead center, in front of the stage (well as close as you can get, while on the lawn). I met our fellow concert goers, and headed down to grab a drink. It was amusing to me that, Merriweather, an out door venue, had a "strict no smoking" policy. Oh rubbish! We walked around and found a secluded spot to suck down a cigarette and headed back to the blanket. As we walked through, I couldn't help but notice people sitting around smoking on the lawn, oh ok, I thought, guess we can just smoke anywhere then. So, we hung out and got to know our new friends for a while, and out comes Margaret Cho. . .hooray!! She was a great MC, did a bit of comedy as the first band set up. The band was The Gossip, and I must say I had never heard of them before. They were a bit angry, but still enjoyable. They did about 4 songs, and then exited. More Margaret Cho, hooray!! The next band that played was Dresden Dolls. Now, I had heard of them, but could not think of what song I knew. Whatever song it was, they didn't play it. The drummer was pretty hot, he started out the set wearing a long white night gown, and mime like makeup. By the end of the first song, off came the night gown, and he was left wearing boxer briefs and Renaissance style tights. HOT! They also did a 4 song set, and then we got to watch a little Movie, well, they showed a movie, we went off to smoke and grab another beer. After the short movie, my boy Rufus Wainwright took the stage. He performed with a full orchestra, well. . fullish, about 8 people. His songs were really good, though I was not very familiar with his newer stuff. As he announced his last song, we were treated to a surprise appearance by Cindi! The music started on Gay Messiah, and he started the vocals. At the first chorus, Cindi piped up and the two of them continued the song. It sounded incredible! After his set, we got a few more minutes of Margaret Cho, and then it was Deborah Harry's turn to rock the stage. I wish she had rocked the stage. After the first half of her first song, we decided it was time to grab some food. So, we headed over to the picnic area, ate some crappy food, and had some beer and a smoke. I was disappointed that Deborah Harry was kinda lame. I only recognized one song that she did, what the name of that song is, I couldn't tell ya.

Once she finished, Cindi came back out to introduce a video about the Matthew Shepard fund, in support of a Hate Crime bill that includes gays, lesbians and transgendered people. I am SO not political, but I promised my self to learn more about this bill . . if you want to learn about it, or show your support go here http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/matthew_shepard_act_dfa
After the video, Rosie O'Donnell took the stage. She was pretty funny, but a good majority of her act was devoted to Donald Trump. I guess it was funny to hear her side, and how it affected her family and stuff, but come on. . .that is SO yesterday! But, I give her props, she was funny. Ok. . . at long last, Erasure took the stage next. They were AWESOME!! Andy Bell came onstage in a jacket with Deborah Harry's pic on the back. It was a great tribute to her. They started the set with a couple of songs from their new CD, Light at the End of the World, good stuff, will have to download it. Then, the crowd freaked out when they went into Ship of Fools from The Innocents. Sounded amazing! I must say that they really worked the crowd. The rest of their set was all older songs (Chains of Love, Blue Savannah, Drama, Love to Hate You) and then, they played it. . the song that we all craved, A Little Respect. The crowd went CRAZY! They ended their set with Oh L'amour. I was kind of disappointed that that was their last song, but still they kicked ass!!!!!

After they cleared, they showed a Margaret Cho short, and she did a little skit. We decided to grab one last drink and smoke before Cindi. Cindi strolled onto stage wearing a Rainbow colored hat, and a fabulous Bustier and funky black dress with flowers on it. She started her set with Good Enough (from the Goonies) and the crowd ate it up. From there, she grabbed a guitar and rocked out on some of her newer stuff. I can't remember which song it was, but after 3 songs, she said she had a surprise for us, and called Rosie out on stage. Rosie took a space behind a drum set and went to town! She was pretty good! So, Cindi continued, with Rosie on the drums. I honestly can't think of any of the songs she did after that point, they all rocked and we danced to all of them, but I can't recall them right now. . . .so, she finished up her set, and then she called everyone back onstage. Everyone came out, except Rufus and Deborah. . I guess they had to leave, or just didn't feel like it. . .but, they ended the concert singing, yup you guessed it, True Colors. Even Margaret Cho got to sing, and she sounded great! Cindi played the Sitar, and Rosie gave a light beat in the back ground, but that was the only instruments used. It was BEAUTIFUL!

I drove us back to Crystal City, and we decided to stop in to Freddies, how on earth I was still standing is beyond me. . .remember, no sleep? So, I hung as long as I could at Freddies, drinking coke so didn't fall asleep on the drive home, then headed back to my place. . .ahhhhhhh sleep.

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As is expected, another exciting update on my summer off from doing shows. Had quite the weekend, and thought I would share some of the highlights here. It started out pretty mellow, left work on Friday to meet up with the real estate agent for another round of condo shopping. I am not sure why, but it seems that all of the places that I have been looking at don't seem to take into account the need for a sofa in the living room. It kind of amazes me. Sure, I could fit a sofa into most of them, but that would be about it, no tables, not shelves, not alot of decorating potentials. Sure, I am resigned to the fact that I will be downsizing, that in my price range, there are not going to be any places that would be comparable to the apartments I have had, but still. . .if nothing else. . .I need 1) to have room for a sofa and some sort of dining room arrangement 2) a normal person tub, not these ridiculous apartment size semi-tubs. That being said, I saw a couple of places I could make work, but nothing that screamed. . this is mine!! From there I met a friend for dinner at Tabaq Bistro on U Street. Good food, and company. From there, I dashed home to change and await my ride to the Guerilla Queer Bar being held at Tony and Joe's in Georgetown. Now, I had heard a little about this event, but had never attended. The basic premise, gather as many gay folks as you can, and descend upon a straight bar. From this understanding, I thought of it as a competition. Let's see if we can gather more gays at a straight bar than straight people. Yeah, silly, I know. I was standing there in the middle of silicon and metrosexual central thinking, where is the score board? Are the gays winning? We hung out there for a while, then decided we had had enough, and made our way back to the Dupont area. On our way, we received a call from a friend of my friend who invited us to go and hang out at his place. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps it was the lack of details on why we were going to this person's house, but the mere mention of hot tub sent a message to my brain saying. .hooray! Its a sex party! Alas, no. . .it was not. It was just a mellow hanging out and relaxing kind of situation. Oh well. So, we hung out at this GORGEOUS 3-level row home in the U St area, with a 2 tiered roof top deck, one of the tiers housing the hot tub. Did we ever get in the hot tub, alas, no. It just sat there, teasing me the entire time. From there, we headed home. Ahhhhh, sleep.

Saturday was a packed day for me, as I had carefully scheduled out many activities to accomplish in not alot of time. 1) Pick up rental car 2) head to Baltimore to take Dad out for Father's Day 3) be back in DC in time to meet friends for dinner and Show in Old Town. Seems simple enough, right? Well, I went to print off my confirmation for my rental car, when I discovered that i had selected 1:30, instead of 11:30. So, I call the rental car place and ask if I could pick up the car earlier, no dice. Damn you Hotwire!! So, that shortened my time with Dad, immensely. So, I head to the airport to get the car, and arrive at the counter to find a ridiculously long line. I hop in and stand there and wait, and wait, and wait. I then decide to get my paperwork ready, and am horrified to realize that after trying to re-arrange my reservation, I had neglected to print off my reservation, and did not have my confirmation number. So, I frantically text my friends to see if they were home, and could access my email for me to get the confirmation number. Found someone, phew. . .got that, so I relax abit and wait, and wait, and wait. I arrive at the counter at 3:30, I had since called my dad to reschedule, as there was no way I could get up there, do something with him and get back in time for dinner. . .so, that part was out. I finally got the car, and headed home to shower and change for the evening. I head to dinner with my BF(M)F's at Bilbo Baggins. Had a lovely onion soup and a chicken dish with a chicken breast stuffed with feta cheese and dill, served on egg noodles with a garlic oil. Quite good. From there it was off to see Philadelphia Story at LTA. I have to say that my friend Sam kicked ass on stage. He was so charming, relaxed and natural on that stage, it brought a smile to my face every time he appeared. The show is good, the performances are a bit uneven, but all and all an enjoyable evening.

After the show we descended upon Shirlington for some post show drinks. I am not sure how we end up at Capital City Brewery so often. Its an ok place, but I have never been there where there hasn't been so sort of tension or frustration and this night was no different. We started out having to deal with the bitchiest hostess I have ever encountered. But, once seated we were able to enjoy the remainder of our evening. From there, I dropped some friends off at the metro and headed to Freddies for last call. I met up with my buddies, and upon the closing of the bar was invited back for an after hours party. So, of course I had to go! We went back and drank some more, chatted and just hung out for the remainder of the early mornings. At around 6 am, I took a few people back to their cars at Freddies, and headed back to my place to watch a movie with a couple of my friends. We popped in Hedwig, but decided it was a little slow, so we played some board games instead. Pretty fun, we lost one at around 7:00 am, and then we headed back to my friends place to drop off his keys and hang a bit longer. We sat around and chatted and just hung out for a while, then at 1:30 pm, we headed into Crystal City for coffee at Caribou Coffee (no, I did not leave out when I slept, I didn't sleep. . .at all!!). After coffee, I headed home for a shower and to change, then my friend came over and we headed out to. . . . . . the TRUE COLORS concert!

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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Saturday, the big Day at Magic Kingdom! Hooray!

We started out Saturday getting picked up at the Resort, and heading to breakfast. After breakfast we went to the Magic Kingdom. We started out watching the show at Cinderella's Castle. . .and we were told that there is a drinking game that goes along with the song they sing. Any time you hear the word "Dream" you had a drink. As I listened I was honestly sickened at the number of times "Dream" was used, and told him that I don't think I would make it through a single verse, never mind the entire song!! After the show, we made our way towards Space Mountain, our friend asked if I could see what the wait time was for the ride, as I squinted and stared at the sign, I neglected to notice the family of ducks that was crossing in front of me, nor the little girl that was cooing over the baby ducks, just as I was about to cross their path, JR grabs my shoulder and says "Duck", naturally I think something is flying out me, so I flinch and kicked out with my right foot, catching one of the baby ducks with my foot and sending it bouncing away. Fear not, the duckling merely bounced a couple of feet and ran off to join its family. The little girl however was HORRIFIED that I had kicked the duck, and began to cry. Nice, way to scar the little girl at Disney. So, away from Space Mountain we went. We stopped and got a fast pass for the Buzz Lightyear ride, and headed to Frontier land.

We walked around Frontier land, and I had my eyes peeled to try to get some pictures of the Gay Bears with the Country Bears, but alas I was not so lucky to lay my eyes upon that site. . woulda been a fun picture though :-) In Frontier land we met up with another Disney cast member, and rode the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride and the jungle cruise, which was pretty funny! The tour guide was very punny. . . she made me laugh. After the Jungle cruise, we made our way back to Future land, where we went on the Buzzlightyear ride, then onto Space Mountain! Hooray! At long last I finally got ride!! After a quick lunch in Futureland, we headed to Main Street for the parade. We met up with more Disney Cast Members, and hopped a squat near the end of the parade route. It was so much fun to be able to enjoy the parade with cast members who knew people in the parade, and have lots of characters come right up to us. Hooray!! After the parade, we walked over to Disney's Contemporary Resort and had some drinks, then it was back to the Resort for some downtime.

After relaxing for a bit, we headed over to TGI Fridays to meet up with a couple of our Disney friends, had a couple of drinks then off to MGM for the big festivities, the One Mighty Weekend party. We arrived, and headed straight over to the stadium where they old the Lights, Motors Action show. We settled into the seats and prepared outselves for the hilarious Kathy Griffin. She started out really funny, and as the show progressed, the speakers suddenly went out, and we could no longer hear what she was saying. So we started chanting louder, louder, louder. . .until they were able to fix the audio problems. From that point on, it seemed to have thrown her and she seemed to lose track of what she had been talking about. We hung out in the stadium until they had cleared the rest of the park of familes, then we were let loose onto MGM Studios! First stop, the Tower of Terror. Now, being that my Disney friend worked in the park, we were able to skip over all the lines, and enter from the back. Woohoo! I was SO happy to have made these friends, not only were they awesome to hang out with, but these kind of perks definately helped make it a fantastic experience! So, through the back door and onto the ride. What a fun ride! Hooray! So, we meet back up with JR, and we get some drinks and hang out for a bit. .then off to Rock n' Roller Coaster! We convinced JR to ride with us, and he did. . and he was fine! So, after that we walked around and headed to the Star Wars Ultimate Thrill Ride, which was meh. . just ok. Oh, yeah, did I mention on top of Gay Days weekend, it was also the start of Weekends? So, we had the Gays and the Stars Wars freaks coexisting in the same park. . but I digress. After the Star Wars ride, we headed back to Tower of Terror for another ride, this time with JR. "Not Bad", he says after we forced him into going on it.

After that, we decided to ride the Rock n' Roller Coaster shirtless! Not quite sure why we thought that would be fun, but meh. . it was fun! I even bought the picture! When we emerged, Donna Summer was on, so we headed back down to catch her show. She's still quite good! Then the fireworks display. I almost creamed myself when I hear, coming out of the Speakers. . .XANADU! Hooray!!! Excellent fireworks display!! After that, the show was pretty much done, so we decided to head out. I said my good byes to my awesome new friends at Disney and headed back to the Resort. I left the next morning.

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Friday morning, I caught a quick nap, and then off to Epcot again for our passes. Friday the gays were descending upon MGM Studios park, so we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom to hit some of the rides we wanted to ride before the gays took over that park on Saturday. I decided we should ride the Monorail over to Magic Kingdom, so we hopped on at Epcot and had a nice leisurely ride. We got to the stop, and I, not realizing there is only one stop, we didnt' get off, and ended up looping back around to Epcot. Weeeeee! When we stopped at Epcot, the door to our car didn't open, odd, so we just sat there and watched all these people pile into the other car. So, there JR and I were, sitting there all comfy, and about 15 people were all crammed into the other side, LOL! Poor people. Anyway, we got to the Magic Kingdom and decided to have lunch. After lunch, we headed on over to the Haunted Mansion. Its a cute ride, the cast was pretty creepy, so that helped with the experience. From there, it was off to Pirates of the Carribean! Hooray! Its a darn cool ride, although I must say that with the addition of Jack Sparrow, the other pirates look kind of dated, still cool. . don't get me wrong, but the Jack Sparrow character was SO life like! After that we decided to save the rest of the rides for Saturday, and we headed on over to MGM. MGM is a cool park, not a heck of alot of rides, but lots of sites to see!! We went on the Great Movie Ride, which was fun, up until the point where the battery in the car we were riding in went dead. We thought she was kidding, because there were portions of the ride were we got "stuck" in different film sets, but of course we got stuck in the room with Fantasia, and it was only about a 10 second clip, so we sat there for a good 5-10 minutes watching the same clip over and over again. So, we saw some cast members come out from behind the curtains to try to fix the car, and then they went back to behind the curtain, which was pretty funny considering the next room was the Wizard of Oz. . heehee. So, after that we walked on over to the Journey Into Narnia: Creating The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe attraction. After that, and we decided to bag the park, since it was starting to drizzle pretty steadily, damn you Tropical Storm Barry!!!! So, back to the resort we went. After a short, much needed nap, we grabbed some dinner and headed on over to the Beach Ball at Typhoon Lagoon. By this time, it was steadily raining and the temperature was beginning to drop, but we didn't care. So, we got in, grabbed some drinks and walked around. Lots of speedos let me tell you. And, for a change, it was people I actually WANTED to see in speedos, for the most part. Lots of pretty boys running around and frolicking in the rain. We ended up at one of the bars by the tidal pool, and met some guys who were just chilling out. They invited us to hang out under their umbrella, so we joined them. Pretty cool guys, one was paramedic at Disney, and the other two were visiting. At one point they all decided to go into the tidal pool, to warm up (since the water was much warmer than the rain). I, in my board shorts, and JR in his cute little bathing suit, waded out, until I realized that I was holding both of our cell phones, so I came out and sat back down under the umbrella. While they frollicked, I just kind of hung out. I walked over to the bar and was chatting up this cute boy, who invited me on a walk. So, we walked out into the woods, and he proceeded to start making out with me, up against a tree. . .all very romantic, in the rain and all, then he asks me if I have any tina. . ok, ugh. . . so, I pushed him off, and headed back to the umbrella. JR came back out, and we walked around for a bit, but the weather was becoming more and more nasty, so we decided to head out. We walked up to the line to get a taxi and started chatting with some Australian guys. They invited us back to their hotel, the Host Hotel, and we accepted. So, we head up to their place, have a few drinks, and this gorgeous Brazillian boy comes to the door asking for a towel. So, of course, we went out into the hall to talk to him. Suddenly, the door opens, and these two gorgeous and naked, brazillian boys come running out into the hall, tickling each other. They chased each other around for a few minutes than ran back into the room. What fun!! At this point, they decided to get ready for the after party, so JR and i went back to the Resort, and I decided to call it a night.

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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

We started out our day at Epcot (I made the mistake of walking around all day calling it Epcot Center, which our Disney friends found quite amusing). JR's Disney friend arranged us to meet up with a friend of his to get free tickets to the park, he was really cute and from Italy. . anyway. . I liked Epcot, not a heck of alot to do, but it was fun walking through the countries and we went on Honey I Shrunk the Audience and the Nemo Ride. Mostly we walked around, and drank. After lunch, we left and went to Animal Kingdom, which I found kinda boring. The only ride we went on was Dinosaur, which was interesting, but kinda slow. After that, we met up with JR's Disney friend at TGI Fridays, and met some more Disney cast members. So, we hung out with them, and then we all headed over to Pleasure Island for the big Gay party. They had the party set at Mannequins, and the line was ridiculously long. So, we went to 8Trak first, which is a 70's disco. Had a lot of fun there, and a friend and I started to well, get friendly. From there, we went to Motion, which was hosting a "Red Party" We walk in, and there is this attractive woman on stage standing in a Plastic Bubble. I kid you not! She was wearing a bikini and heels and was just walking back and forth across the stage in her bubble. I really wanted her to run, because it just look so much like a gerbil ball. So we are standing there talking, my friend and I, and all of a sudden they started dropping red pom-pom balls from the ceiling! It was hilarious!! I was like, what the!? So, we decided to exit, and headed over to Mannequins. my friend knew the door man, so we got to go around the back and get let in without waiting in line, hooray! So, we get inside, and Mannequins has this rotating dance floor, but it was SO crowded that there was no room to dance, so it was like a big gay lazy susan, with all these shirtless men just going round and round I was like, I will take one of him, and one of him and one of him. . .lol! So, after some men gazing, my friend and I headed over to his place. We had some fun, and he drove me back to the Resort at around 5:30 in the morning. . .

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I arrived in at the Disney All Star Sports Resort at about 10:30 Wednesday night, and headed straight to the hotel. Upon arrival, JR was at the little bar talking to a group of people. So, I walked over with all my luggage, and he bought me a drink, and we began to chat with these random strangers. A straight couple from New York, and a cute navy boy from Norfolk, VA. We chatted, and chatted and finally I was like, dude I have been travelling all day, I would really like to change my clothes and get rid of my luggage, so we decided to head to the room. We drop off my luggage, I change, and we head back down to the bar where we decide to drag the group off to Pleasure Island. So, we jump on a bus and head to Raglan Roadâ„¢ Irish Pub and Restaurant. And they were calling Last Call, so I had a beer and a shot and we walked over to a cigar bar. We had a couple more drinks and then headed back to the Resort and to bed.

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