Here is the ever-brilliant Lady GaGa speaking at the national march for GLBT rights on Washington. Only in the QSCC can you go from watching Toy Story 2 to Lady GaGa’s speech to hockey highlights.
Also, I have a new obsession, Shingai Shoniwa of the noisettes. Gimme a British diva any day of the week and you know I will squeal with delight. Her hair is absolute perfection.
My favorite is when her hair is crazy and structured and so are her outfits (like in the above picture). I need V to do a shoot of her in only Jil Sander. I smell style icon. I have their new CD “Wild Young Hearts,” but I just can’t get past the title track. It’s been on repeat on my iTunes for a couple of weeks now.
Also, Kara and I went as zombie Chuck and Blair for the Zombie Pub Crawl. Pictures to come.
Tyler Busey put me up to blogging again. I won’t waste time with explanations; here are some things:
These are from Shop Garbage Dress, and I fricken love them. They need to get on my shoulders right now.
I also finally bought this Surface to Air three-finger ring that I have been wanting forever. It was my birthday present to myself. Oh thank God.
Also, I finally got AnOther today at the bookstore and they did this incredible spread with pop culture icons and beautiful designs from the last decade. Here are the highlights:
Kate in Galliano
Santigold in Vivienne
MK&A in Calvin Klein. These kill me.
Miley’s new video. I still hate her, but I’m a fan of her legs and this song. I feel like enjoying crappy pop music with lyrics like “I’m nodding my head like yeah. I’m moving my hips like yeah,” keeps me down to earth.
I torrented “My Beautiful Laundrette” today, a film by director Stephen Frears. It was charming, but the writing of the main character is nearly unbearable. I don’t think anyone could be so naive. It’s basically about this James Franco-lookalike Indian boy whose family had moved to England before he was born. He is employed with his uncle and gets mixed up in some bad stuff, including a romance with a Vanilla Ice-type, street-running character.
I think what I liked most about it was that the gayness was normalized (even if the romance involved a gang leader…).It was just a thing that happened, less than constant moral, internal warfare taking place. I like movies like that.
“In this damn country, which we hate and love, you can get anything you want. It’s all spread out for you.”
Also, everyone knows I’m obsessed with this movie. Michael enlightened me to this video while we were in Milan. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, please. It’s a redub of a Cribs-type show from the eighties starring Brenda Dickson, who used to play Jill on the best show ever, All My Children. Enjoy:
“Remember, when you eat, you’re just a vaccuum with nipples.”
Anyway, its the Fourth of July (if you forgot, which I’m sure you didn’t because everyone’s facebook status is something about lighting off fireworks or driving to Wisconsin to buy cheap vodka). Gahd Blesh Ahmerika.
New ring and tank from Len Druskin. The ring didn’t have a real tag, so I’ve no idea what brand it is. The tank is B. Son, which might be my new favorite RTW brand, because everything is so damn soft. I got a cardigan from Len Druskin outlet that is absolutely beyond.
I also finally got ahold of these Matthew Williamson for H&M studded pants yesterday.
Here’s another picture I nabbed from Nitrolicious:
Here is a continuation of my lust after semi-minimalist/semi-homeless chic Croatia designer Damir Doma. DD’s spring/summer 2010 proves again that men’s fashion doesn’t die when the weather rises above 65 (yes, that’s summer for us Minnesotans). Everything about this line is fantastic and gorgeous. I nabbed some of my favorite looks from WWD.
LUSTING after the sandals… and pretty much everything else.
So, Pride. Most of the usual things you would imagine. I didn’t have a camera, so here are a few photos of my outfits from pride (taken by Sarah Donovan and Becky Lang), both of which had a DIY element (though cutting off jeans a little too short isn’t exactly revolutionary).
This sums up Saturday: tabling/passing out condoms for the QSCC and having people yell things like “Did you sell your soul for those legs?” and “Damn, gUrl” at me.
This is the shredded tee/gold lamé that got me quite a few looks. I shredded the tee myself and most of the time I couldn’t tell if the looks I was getting were good or bad, but I had quite a few people come to ask me where I got it. Becky decided it was inspired by that “dress” Ariel makes out of the ship sail when she gets legs. Also, note the Coke Zero, which was being given away for free at the parade. I never turn down free caffeine/meth.
Though some crazies were out (myself included), I tried not to judge very much. After all, Pride festivals are about acceptance (though, I will not lie, speaking of Judge: seeing a certain ex from not-so-far away and realizing that it wasn’t just the camera adding ten pounds is quite satisfying). Oh, and PS: we got to meet Mpls Mayor RT Rybak and you didn’t.
Whoa, I still hate Cobra Starship so much. Sometimes I feel like Leighton Meester is what Hilary Duff should have grown into, had she not completed the math equation Atkins+Veneers=Horse. LM looks good, but the singing is just thoroughly unimpressive. I just really want her to sound like a weird crossover between Mandy Moore, VV (The Kills) and Karen O. Unfortuneately, it’s just Lindsay Lohan – firecrotch.
Read THIS Times article on straight-guy/gay-guy relationships. (Please note that the following picture of Paul Rudd is solely for enjoyment and pertains in almost no way to the presented story):
“Mr. Estrin said he found it easy to socialize with heterosexuals. ‘I find straight men so uncomplicated,’ he said. ‘They’re just easier.’”
Okay, so I’m home from Europe and such. I’m tired of talking about it so we can move right on to my current happenings.
I lifted the following video from Jahna Peloquin’s blog (“la petit connaisseur de la mode“), it’s a video of mpls models Coco & Breezy shooting for their new line of sunglasses “Gemela Amor.” If you listen, you can hear the best song ever (“Gold Watch,” Lupe Fiasco) playing in the background.
I haven’t seen the pictoral results of the shoot, but here is a pic of the glasses from their blog. I think this is a little intense for my taste, but I like where they’re going with it.
So, I haven’t written here for a stitch. Life’s been crazy. I will give some word-based updates later. For now, I have some photos I stole from JC (who I’m staying with in Berlin). Enjoy the mess that is my life. Let me first say this, it’s 8:00 am in Berlin and I will steal some words from Karen: “Oh, grow up, honey. I haven’t even been to bed yet.”
indie kids
this picture sums up the evening
Yes, I actually wore this out. I got called a slut in German.
Kirk.
I always really like shoe pictures.
These girls were called “Aussie Hicks.” Quite good.
Since I stepped foot off of the airplane into the airport outside of Prague, I have been singing this song, replacing “love” with “Prague.” Try it, you’ll like it:
I have lots to report on today. We flew into Prague today and, because everything here is so nice and cheap, we took a taxi to the city center, which ended up costing about $12. After checking into our super chic, extreme-pink hostel (Crib 15, video below), we ended up walking around for almost 6 hours, mostly uphill. I have to say that his is actually the most beautiful city that I’ve ever seen. I also think that (because so many of the tourists here make no effort to speak any Czech) that everyone really appreciates the fact that I looked up hello (dobrý den), thank you (děkuji) and darling (miláčku). We loved it so much we decided to stay another night before we leave for Berlin. Just too much to see in this city for a day and a half!
We walked around I had grilled rabbit with rosemary (sorry, vegetarians and rabbit lovers) for only like 8 USD. We just took a bunch of pictures and headed back here to rest up a bit. Tomorrow, we’ll be hitting up a few major flea markets/bizarres, touring a couple of museums.
Since we got back to the Hostel (it was raining so we called it a night around 1030), we’ve been watching this fabulous channel we get on our Satellite TV called “World Fashion.” It basically features recorded productions of fashion shows from the past year; we’ve watched Bottega Veneta and Varun Bahl, a fierce Indian designer who mixed shimmery gold fabric with cropped white coats and flowy cream dresses. Yum. They also have showed footage from the Ferragamo and L’Uomo launch parties/anniversary celebrations. Here’s a pick from Derecuny’s spring/summer RTW show. I’ve never really heard of her line, but I loved the collection. Last thing: I’ve had this song for a while, but flipping through the 700-something channels on this dumb thing (four are in English, I found out the hard way) I saw Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream” video. I need that band jacket:
Anyway, loveya, seeya later, babies. Expect pictures when Michael uploads them to his computer, haha!
So, we have been in Milan for almost 24 hours, and I have to say I remember exactly why Italy was my favorite country last time I was here. The per capita hotness is like 50 times the US and pretty much every building has some sort of beautiful cast iron terrace or multitudes of hand-carved marble statues of one saint/pagan god or another.
Also, since Michael is sleeping, I am stealing a few of his older photos put stick with my blog. Don’t tell! Above is the oldest shopping district in Milan (and at the time, the architecture was about 10 years ahead of anything else built in this style). Leave retail to direct us to the futuro. I guess the Prada store here has been its flagship store since conception (Michael tells me).
This is the Duomo, the central cathedral in Milan, we toured it this morning and hung out on the terrace on its roof. This photo is right from where we ate dinner last night, we both got flatbread sandwiches with tomato and mozzarella. Very delicious.
Otherwise, we went to bed early in our 70s, tasseled hotel room. I mean, it’s ridiculous: coral fabric walls, tiny circular tassels on the curtains and bright gold duvets embroidered in Christmas colors. To fabulous to not show you.
On Mondays, I guess all the museums in Milan are closed, so we won’t be touring any because we leave tomorrow for Prague. Ah well… It’s a little sad that we won’t be seeing The Last Supper, but this trip has been pretty Catholic thus far anyway.
I’m horrible with Italian. It’s far too much like Spanish (though, I love how sing-songy it is). I end up accidentally saying ‘Gracias’ instead of ‘Grazie.’ Until next time, ciao amicos!
What more is there to say about Spain you ask? Well, I’ll ramble. Yesterday, we took a 45 minute train to Toledo, which is where Sarah Leonard studied for the semester before moving down here. Toledo is so much more like what I had expected Spain to be. It is all beautiful cobblestone streets, and part of the city is still walled inside the original fortress. It goes without saying that this place is gorgeous.
We spent like an hour in its cathedral, examining all of the separate tombs for cardinals and saints; we also got to tour the Sacristy, which is alway loads of Catholic divertido! Then, we rode a tourbus called the Zocotren around Toledo and saw the whole countryside.
Also, in Spain it seems like everyone and their semi-skeezy punk brother-in-law has a medium sized dog. What’s cool is that they are all crazy well-behaved; none of them are on leashes, but it never seems to be a problem, and for all of the crazy, blind one-way traffic here, I haven’t seen anything stray get hit by a car, so that’s nice.
Today, after waking up at ~1:30 pm and getting coffee, we are going to see the Palacio and Catedral of Madrid. Then, we are off to see Sara Baras, the most famous Flamenco dancer in Spain, perform “Carmen.” I think Baras is like 45 and just the most foxy Spaniard on two legs. Finally, Bram (Richelle’s friend from Belgium) is making us dinner this evening, which will be nice to not pay 10 dollars for food. Its all terribly European.
Anyway, here is a really brief run-down of our itinerary for the remainder of the trip: Madrid, Milan, Prague, Berlin, Milan, Florence, Tuscany, Rome, Eindoven, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, Minneapolis, Rochester…
I would just like to say that when I took high school spanish and Sr. Clapp said that Spanish people go out at 2 am, he was not joking. We left our place at 11 and met Sarah in Chueca, the spr-fab neighborhood of Madrid, if you are understanding what I’m hinting. Crazy. We drank Sangria on a park bench and met Nina, a model from Slovenia (and one of her many, many boytoys, David) to hit “Bar&co,” a jazz dance club. I missed how it was a jazz club though… all they played was old Prince and Madonna. We walked like two miles home around 6:00am, while I recited all of the Serbo-Croatian I could remember to Nina. Please. Thank you. What? Pink turtle. Nisam ja (it wasn’t me), etc.
I think jet lag finally caught up with me. I slept from 6:30 am to 4:00 pm, only interrupted once to change rooms. I think it was mostly Michael packing and moving while I whined.
Today, we walked around Retiro, a park that used to be the King’s inner-city hunting grounds. It was beautiful and looked a lot like the queen’s rose garden in the animated version of Alice in Wonderland… though significantly less shroomed-out. Remember, Michael’s blog is Silly.Little.Satires and he is taking care of the photo and video blogging, and all of the photos he has taken so far are absolutely gorgeous.
Reasons I love Spain:
Everyone loves potato chips
People mistake me for a local
No city street is ever empty, even side streets at 6 am
Dance clubs only really play American music that we’ve all forgotten about, and everyone dances
Sangria is only 1.50 a liter
So, as you can imagine, life is tough here in Spain. When we woke up at 10 (which actually was hard, because that means it was 3 am), we headed over to meet Sarah Leonard and Carla and crew at “Peter Pan” bakery (it’s funny because pan means bread in Spanish, remember?) I got some delicious quiche that literally translated to a “basket of broccoli,” and indeed it was.
Shortly after, Michael and our new friend Hannah and I went to Museo Raina Sofia, which is the primero modern at gallery here in Madrid. It houses crazy Picasso (including Guernica, which was unfortunately not on display today… upsetting) as well as swirling Joan Miró, who I am now obsessed with. I have decided this painting needs to live in my house someday, no matter what it takes. It’s called “Caracol, mujer, flor, estrella.” (Snail, woman, flower, star). Hmmm… other things that were cool: Renau, Mother With Dead Child (III) by Picasso, Michael choosing which Gonzalez escultura (sculpture), the girls talking about weed. Oh, and also, a Barnett Newman was in Raina Sofia, which is supercool because BN is one of my top ten heros. (He crazy-shook up the art world with his nontraditional work). They had “Profile of Light” at the museum (Here’s a shot). And I know everyone is thinking “Oh, those three strips of color are not art; I could do that!” However, remember that back in the day, the thought that anyone would even try to showcase this as art was unfathomable. Its like how now everything Emily Dickinson has written is cliche, but the she was the woman who sort of began the expression of emotion in poetry in that way.
Anyway, enough ranting. Post-museo, we went to Plaza del Sol (which, totally sounds like something I would make up if I wasn’t actually in Spain, but I promise it’s real). We shopped around, I got pineapple ice cream. After Michael went home for a nap, the girls and I drank Cava (sparkling white wine) in front of the Madrid’s palace, gorgeous. Now, at the whim of Sarah and Carla, we are headed over to meet in front of some McDonalds by a train station I have never heard of. Better bust out the metro map!
PS: I was depressed to find that the H&M here didn’t have anything by Matthew Williamson (I had sorta been hoping I could nab it in Europe for a bit cheaper, but the stuff here is the same price, but clearly in Euros and not USD). I just really want this jacket (take note, Gee, for an early birthday present)!! Instead, I bought some gold chains that I’ve been wanting for a while for 8 euro. I was depressed I didn’t find anything at Zara. Hopefully, we cross a Zara clearance store somewhere over here. Most of their clothes just made me look like I was trying to channel John the Baptist (in a good way?). Peace and love.
Rather than provide a platform for political debate or a forum for coming out, I started this blog to actually detail my to-do list which seems to be getting gayer by the second.
What can you expect to find here? Well, absolutely anything I please. Perhaps I will post a few of my favorite recipes or tear Lady Gaga's newest tranny-mess outfit to shreds. Whatever it is, expect riveting journalism and colorful language.
After checking into our super chic, extreme-pink hostel (Crib 15, video below), we ended up walking around for almost 6 hours, mostly uphill. I have to say that his is actually the most beautiful city that I’ve ever seen. I also think that (because so many of the tourists here make no effort to speak any Czech) that everyone really appreciates the fact that I looked up hello (dobrý den), thank you (děkuji) and darling (miláčku). We loved it so much we decided to stay another night before we leave for Berlin. Just too much to see in this city for a day and a half!
watching this fabulous channel we get on our Satellite TV called “World Fashion.” It basically features recorded productions of fashion shows from the past year; we’ve watched Bottega Veneta and Varun Bahl, a fierce Indian designer who mixed shimmery gold fabric with cropped white coats and flowy cream dresses. Yum. They also have showed footage from the Ferragamo and L’Uomo launch parties/anniversary celebrations. Here’s a pick from Derecuny’s spring/summer RTW show. I’ve never really heard of her line, but I loved the collection. Last thing: I’ve had this song for a while, but flipping through the 700-something channels on this dumb thing (four are in English, I found out the hard way) I saw Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream” video. I need that band jacket:
Otherwise, we went to bed early in our 70s, tasseled hotel room. I mean, it’s ridiculous: coral fabric walls, tiny circular tassels on the curtains and bright gold duvets embroidered in Christmas colors. To fabulous to not show you.
What more is there to say about Spain you ask? Well, I’ll ramble. Yesterday, we took a 45 minute train to Toledo, which is where Sarah Leonard studied for the semester before moving down here. Toledo is so much more like what I had expected Spain to be. It is all beautiful cobblestone streets, and part of the city is still walled inside the original fortress. It goes without saying that this place is gorgeous.
Today, after waking up at ~1:30 pm and getting coffee, we are going to see the Palacio and Catedral of Madrid. Then, we are off to see Sara Baras, the most famous Flamenco dancer in Spain, perform “Carmen.” I think Baras is like 45 and just the most foxy Spaniard on two legs. Finally, Bram (Richelle’s friend from Belgium) is making us dinner this evening, which will be nice to not pay 10 dollars for food. Its all terribly European.
I would just like to say that when I took high school spanish and Sr. Clapp said that Spanish people go out at 2 am, he was not joking. We left our place at 11 and met Sarah in Chueca, the spr-fab neighborhood of Madrid, if you are understanding what I’m hinting. Crazy. We drank Sangria on a park bench and met Nina, a model from Slovenia (and one of her many, many boytoys, David) to hit “Bar&co,” a jazz dance club. I missed how it was a jazz club though… all they played was old Prince and Madonna. We walked like two miles home around 6:00am, while I recited all of the Serbo-Croatian I could remember to Nina. Please. Thank you. What? Pink turtle. Nisam ja (it wasn’t me), etc.
Today, we walked around Retiro, a park that used to be the King’s inner-city hunting grounds. It was beautiful and looked a lot like the queen’s rose garden in the animated version of Alice in Wonderland… though significantly less shroomed-out. Remember, Michael’s blog is 
(He crazy-shook up the art world with his nontraditional work). They had “Profile of Light” at the museum (Here’s a shot). And I know everyone is thinking “Oh, those three strips of color are not art; I could do that!” However, remember that back in the day, the thought that anyone would even try to showcase this as art was unfathomable. Its like how now everything Emily Dickinson has written is cliche, but the she was the woman who sort of began the expression of emotion in poetry in that way.
PS: I was depressed to find that the H&M here didn’t have anything by Matthew Williamson (I had sorta been hoping I could nab it in Europe for a bit cheaper, but the stuff here is the same price, but clearly in Euros and not USD). I just really want this jacket (take note, Gee, for an early birthday present)!! Instead, I bought some gold chains that I’ve been wanting for a while for 8 euro. I was depressed I didn’t find anything at Zara. Hopefully, we cross a Zara clearance store somewhere over here. Most of their clothes just made me look like I was trying to channel John the Baptist (in a good way?). Peace and love.