Narcolepsy is, like, evil

Damn this stupid jetlag.

It's screwed with me all week. I've fallen (further) behind in my studies.

Tonight, I even managed to randomly fall asleep on Wilma's couch (not an unusual occurrence if I've had a few). Still wearing my shoes and glasses.

My head hurts.

LA was a Riot

I've had heaps of fun, staying at a friend's place in WeHo. Some thoughts about my mini-break:

1) Wear flip-flops/thongs to the airport.
No one likes those smelly-sock-feet when you're going through the domestic security screen.

2) Check for all your stuff before you leave
Know how you forget something when you go on holiday?
This time it was my debit card. Except I realised that it was stolen and someone withdrew the balance of the account last week. Bugger. Oh well, something to talk to the police about tomorrow. And then the bank.

3) Keep your laptop separate from the rest of your hand luggage for the security screen at the airport.

I'm a lucky boy. Security forced me to sit while they lifted and separated my luggage. Then they ran the piles of stuff through the scanners. Twice.

4) Be gracious in accepting your hosts' hospitality.

Especially if they're both hot. Offer gifts - like mornings full of groups sex. Especially when they're both into it.

5) An Australian accent does all sorts of things to gay Americans.

Especially hot latino men who will drop to their knees and offer a good blowjob at an after-hours blowout.

6) Go to after-hours blowouts...

7) No matter where you go, Cher is still a diva

As is Madonna, Babs, Better and all the others. And the Americans now know who Kylie is - especially the dancing queens.

8) References to Prisoner: Cell Block H will get you anywhere with 30+ yo hot gay men.

This is just randomly added for QP's amusement.

9) I love LA, but I couldn't live there.

That said, I'll happily visit WeHo at the drop of a hat.

Oh, there's a really cool hat store there called Goorin Brothers - very nice.

10) Most important - check out the bartenders at every venue, and make sure to talk to them.

They'll sometimes give your drink for free if they think you're hot - cf. item #5 above.

11) Uncle Charlie is not a nice copassenger, no matter how short the flight.

aka. White lines - don't do it.

kisses, B

The First Rule of Berkeley Book Readings is Don't Talk about the Line

I've been getting some strange comments from the guys at work. They're all having trouble understanding my 'accent' - apparently, the 'toilet paper English' Australians speak is hard for Americans to comprehend.

Anyway, moving Backwards...

Last night - After my first gym session since arriving: obligatory Tales of the City checkoff moment (a drink at The Stud II), followed by dinner and drinks with a pastry chef cum architect in the Castro. Fabulous new recipes for salads and desserts, and getting taught 8-ball and 9-ball at the pool table at Moby Dick's.

Wednesday morning - Franciscan monk spotted on the corner of Church & 14th. As is typical, wearing red laptop satchel and wearing a NY Yankees baseball cap. Franciscans in San Francisco - who would've thought?

Sunday afternoon - the boys from the office hired a car and took me around town. Saw the most amazing view from Twin Peaks of the city (it was a fogless day, and I typically forgot my camera), and had hamburgers from this fantastic hole in the wall in Sausalito after sleazing over hot men on the beach in Marin County. This was then followed by a couple of drinks at The Mix. The weirdest thing? Toss up - meeting a meek drag queen or a man who begged I sleep with his ex so that he could get some sex...

Saturday - After crawling out of bed at 3pm, went for late brunch at the Grove on Fillmore
(Pacific Heights) - really nice! Then stumbled through Chinatown and upper downtown til I eventually found Union Square. Met the Support Diva, and she took me with her to a book reading by Chuck Palahniuk at UC Berkeley. (photos on the Flickr account)

The sight of all those aspiring writers did something to us. The Diva and I came up with a great introductory speech ("You really think you can make it as a writer? Well, you can't!! It's too hard a life - just ask this schmuck..."). Then I managed to fall asleep during one of the readings. Thank God I don't snore. Oh, and he threw out fake dismembered limbs and plastic hamburgers at the end of the event. I have a hamburger - got it signed, but only after a TWO HOUR wait in the line. Diva and I were so insane by the end (and they didn't even have the decency to offer drinks while we waited), that she asked him if there might be some mistake, but does he realise the second rule of Fight Club is the same as the first?

One last thing - you could take photos with the author, but only if one of you held a veil and a bouquet. The Diva went through that once, thank you very much, so it was my turn apparently. Worst part of the evening, tho? Getting back to SF at 1am, having missed all the Cinco de Mayo celebrations across the city...Eh, at least I have a signed hamburger.

Friday - a rather inebriating dinner at a coworker's house (including my white shirt being bled on by his pet chihuahua), followed by dancing at the Endup. Met the hottest straight Irishman on earth, then his best friend (I think Busty would well like him, too). Then the hot boy set me up with a spunky primary elementary school teacher. Didn't realise the teacher was 46yo until 3pm the next day - he seriously looked like he was in his early thirties. Oops!

here i thought brothers and sisters was getting too much SD-6 action

WARNING: Spoilers ahead (this is for Lady M)

OK, so four days into SF and i've barely had a chance to experience this city. That said, I've caught up with a lot of TV watching, meaning I've gotten very confused with the shows that run however many weeks ahead here. For example:

• Eva Longoria is engaged to the watersports senator from Sex and the City
• Evil Francie from Alias is Madison from Grey's Anatomy's best friend
• The bastard daughter in Brothers & Sisters is committing adultery with one of her half-brothers-in-law
• OH, and I just watched Tyra Banks freak out at the sight of furry animals on her chat show - to the point where she knocked over half her set.

I forgot how weird this country is. Oh, and the one night I did go out:

• I got serenaded by a wannabe opera singer. Cute, but not as cute as
• The filmmaker I met in the smoking room of the bar
• or the Dutch travellers and their pseudo-boyfriends at Badlands

More later...

Good Morning SF

So I'm heading in to SF.

I'll be there until May 18th. Any suggestions what to do while I'm there (*apart from the scenery*)?

B

they smoke differently done down there, don't they?

I did my half-yearly visit to melburnia this weekend. Some random thoughts:

Melbourne Taxi Drivers are rude

..and not in the good way. I had one driver pull up in front of me after i hailed him, and then proceed to tell me he was on another job. One night I walked for twenty minutes and was POINTEDLY ignored by at least ten drivers before one deigned to stop for me. there was the one on the drive home late saturday night who insisted on telling me i needed to be religious, then the one who pretended i didn't exist the whole way to the airport and farted and gossiped in egyptian on his mobile the whole way there. (honestly - at least use a handsfree kit!)

Ukrainians are generally still conservative

It was a very Ukrainian Melbourne trip for me. Hilariously, this meant I got to see the best and worst of Ukrainian-Australian culture at play. It included the usual gossip circling around the usual group of suspects (anyone who didn't fit in - which basically means everyone else but those at the table), and the daft avoidance of anything vaguely interesting. Then there were the cool moments - having cocktails at 4am in the morning while talking about shit, swapping ipods with H to discuss our fave music of the mo. then there was the strange tale of R. (i'll get to that one in a minute).

i may be a klutz, but i'm stylish in the way i do it.

so, the reason i went down south was for my friends L and D's engagement party on saturday night. I got there, wearing a very stylish, albeit tweedy, outfit. My fave sandy/camel leather pointy Milus (still don't know what that style is called), some thick grey pants (it is melbourne, people - even on a 'warm' night in spring you need 'em), gorgeous white marcs shirt and warm cream ben sherman jumper. so what do i drink? that's right, children: red wine.

so what's the thing i do at midnight that would befit such behaviour? yes, i slipped. on the stairs to be precise. ten seconds after i realised carrying a glass of red whilst holding my heavy black jacket in the other hand may not be the right idea. anyways, long story: wine goes all over the cream newly-carpeted staircase below me and not a drop of red on my clothing. now, that's talent.

The strange tale of R

i actually arrived on the friday night. got picked up by one of my fabulous hosts (hi D!) and we headed back to his place, the one he shares with his equally fabulous other half. We spent the first hour and a half gossiping before the constant text messages and phone calls got in the way. so i headed out and caught up with my cousins before meeting up with my dear dear friend E at Bar Open.

E was there with her cousin to watch N's band. N is someone I grew up with, but never really got to know. I always thought she was a stuck up bitch - turns out I may have been projecting. Just a little bit.

Anyway, she has a fabulous set of lungs and the set (what one song i heard of it) is really cool. go on - check out their website.

So N and I have this 10 minute catch up, gossiping about crap and then she turns to me and asks if i know R. Sure, I say, he's my second cousin, haven't seen him in years. Well, he's one of my best friends, she says. What's he up to, i ask. Runs his own restaurant. Mental note to self: ask mum and grandma about him when we ladies who lunch the next day.

Ladies who luncheon turns into a ukrainian feast the next day: overboiled vegetable, overoiled salads and soggy cabbage rolls. I eat as much as my stomach can take, but the two breakfasts I just had are fighting me. Anyway, I ask about R - ma tells me he has a cafe-restaurant in Ascot Vale, supposed to be nice, she hasn't been there but my bro and sis have. Grandma pipes up - she's been there (R's her great-nephew, grandson of her older bro). She went there with her sister - the boy done recognised her and everything. Walked up to them as they were walking past and told them they looked familiar - how does he know them? They had coffee there, he's a nice boy but pity about his parents etc etc. Typical ukrainian grandmother gossip.

---

A moment's pause here. When I walk in to lunch, grandma tells me off for being so wasted away. I point out I've put on five kilos since she last saw me. When grandma describes R, she describes him as nice and thin - he used to be chubby. Apparently, he's thinner than me, but I'm the wan one. Bless ukrainian grandmothers.

---

Bro and sis walk in. Say they met him, too. He walked up to sis and asked her how she knew him. Takes a few minutes to establish the connection - only when he mentions his sister that she clicks (the two sisters used to hang out all the time). It's at this point I realise I need to visit the cafe.

Half an hour later, I'm catching up with H. We decide to check out the boy - she's been there, reckons she's met one of the owners. Quite young, sweet; he's even visited her bank once or twice back in the day when she was rocking the teller desk.

We walk in and he walks up to both of us. I recognise him immediately - that photographic memory comes in handy - and he's cuter than I remember. He asks us how he knows us both. (I wonder if you can pick up his schtick). H explains how they met.

'And you? How do I know you?'

'I'm your cousin.'

Works a treat. 'Oh, Bads33d! I thought you lived in Sydney.'

Anyway, long story short: after about half an hour of H and I catching up (as we do), he sits down with us and gossips. My first impression - friend of d'orothea - only solidifies as the convo continues. At some point, I stop the flow of conversation: cigarette time.

I've already established he's a fan of architecture during the conversation. This is the third restaurant he's set up, etc etc. Over a couple of cigarettes, we gossip. He's perennially single, been doing the same thing for years and bored with it, wants to do something creative and expressive. Sound familiar? Wait, it gets funnier - he goes after the same types of boys as me and wants to move to Spain in the future.

Meanwhile, poor H is on the phone with two of my cousins. 'Oh cool, another spunky gay ukrainian. Wonder if he's my cousin, too?' (Thank fuck she loves her birthday present, honestly).

So after all this time, I found my gay twin. And he's related to me. And, of course, the coffee was well free. This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Squee.