Adrift in Grits & Memories
I had brunch and mimosas this afternoon at The Columns with two dear friends from my San Francisco days, Jillian and Ed. And I got to meet Ed's charming boyfriend, Hal. Jillian was my roommate until Juannie moved out there and Ed was our regular partner in crime.
Some things we reminisced about today after the cut...
We interrupt these memories for a Special Public Service Announcement: Drugs are bad.
-Jillian and Ed got all dressed up to attend the 1991 SF Symphony Black and White Ball. (I always thought it was kind of steeped in Logan's Run creepiness that only people under 30 were able to attend this event.) They went out and partied it up while I hung out with our other buddy, Bob, and spent the night at his apartment. Jillian and Ed stayed out all night and called Bob and me at 8AM Saturday morning asking us to meet them for breakfast. When we found them, they were still in their black and white finery but weren't looking too fine by this point. We smoked some pot and then proceeded to carouse through the whole day with them all the while in the fancy duds. It was quite amusing to see the reaction of the propietors of the convenience store at Hayes and Broderick when they slunk in at 3:30PM looking quite seedy sporting last night's tux and slinky evening gown.
-Jillian and I did a whole bag of mushrooms following an Academy Awards party (Whoopi Goldberg won hers that year) even though it was a school night. We got home from the party around 1AM and were drunk on lots of champagne. We were not content to end the evening so we decided to eat the 'shrooms Jillian was saving in the freezer for a special occasion. (We were still not able, even 15+ years later, to determine what type of event might have merited special occasion mushroom status.) Needless to say, we were unable to go to work the next day. In fact, we slept until 10AM and had to call in sick well after we were due at work. We were lucky that neither of us got fired. Ed admitted to being quite jealous that we didn't call him up for this late night adventure. He was at mad that he was at work while we lazed around. We were so hungry and hungover that we opened up a window at one point and begged strangers walking by on the sidewalk to go to the nearby Falafel Burger King and buy us some lunch. No one took us up on our request.
-Jillian, Ed, Bob and I went to the very pathetic San Francisco Zoo one Sunday. The only fond memory we have is of the Big Cat house. We got to see lions and tigers up close and feel the vibrations through our bodies as they all began roaring at feeding time. We were so completely depressed by the rest of the experience that we went to a Mexican restaurant in the Castro and got drunk on many pitchers of margaritas.
-The fun Halloween when we were all hanging out in The Castro. with a guy dressed up to the nines as the pope traveling the streets with a harem of authentically clad nuns. This was right after Sinead O'Connor ripped up the pope's picture on Saturday Night Live. At any given moment, the pope guy would whip a color copy of Sinead's picture out of his giant ornate pope hat with a flourish. Then with elaborate formality proceed to rip up her picture to wild cheering from the nuns and erupting pandemonium from the rest of the crowd. Utterly hilarious! Then we danced like fools all night at The End Up.
-That brought us to the memory of Bob and I meeting Jill and Ed at The End Up with my two straight brothers and two of their straight friends on a Sunday afternoon while they were visiting me from New Orleans. It's kind of hard to forget the image of a gay man in only Greco-Roman wrestling tights pole dancing with a tree on the deck and the reactions of my brothers and their friends. My brothers still tell the story of that day to friends and family. And we all laugh like fiends at the thought of it. I have a picture of that "wrestling" guy somewhere. I will definitely post it when I find it.
Those were giddy times.
We did do other things besides party. We all had jobs and went to work regularly. We all did volunteer work. We did have fun, though!
As the champagne flowed this afternoon, Hal had a miscalculation with a large forkful of grits and wound up as we later declared him adrift in grits. Ed decided that this was the best description of any trip to New Orleans, "Adrift in grits."
They went to the French Quarter for Southern Decadence and I came home to take a nap.
Some things we reminisced about today after the cut...
We interrupt these memories for a Special Public Service Announcement: Drugs are bad.
-Jillian and Ed got all dressed up to attend the 1991 SF Symphony Black and White Ball. (I always thought it was kind of steeped in Logan's Run creepiness that only people under 30 were able to attend this event.) They went out and partied it up while I hung out with our other buddy, Bob, and spent the night at his apartment. Jillian and Ed stayed out all night and called Bob and me at 8AM Saturday morning asking us to meet them for breakfast. When we found them, they were still in their black and white finery but weren't looking too fine by this point. We smoked some pot and then proceeded to carouse through the whole day with them all the while in the fancy duds. It was quite amusing to see the reaction of the propietors of the convenience store at Hayes and Broderick when they slunk in at 3:30PM looking quite seedy sporting last night's tux and slinky evening gown.
-Jillian and I did a whole bag of mushrooms following an Academy Awards party (Whoopi Goldberg won hers that year) even though it was a school night. We got home from the party around 1AM and were drunk on lots of champagne. We were not content to end the evening so we decided to eat the 'shrooms Jillian was saving in the freezer for a special occasion. (We were still not able, even 15+ years later, to determine what type of event might have merited special occasion mushroom status.) Needless to say, we were unable to go to work the next day. In fact, we slept until 10AM and had to call in sick well after we were due at work. We were lucky that neither of us got fired. Ed admitted to being quite jealous that we didn't call him up for this late night adventure. He was at mad that he was at work while we lazed around. We were so hungry and hungover that we opened up a window at one point and begged strangers walking by on the sidewalk to go to the nearby Falafel Burger King and buy us some lunch. No one took us up on our request.
-Jillian, Ed, Bob and I went to the very pathetic San Francisco Zoo one Sunday. The only fond memory we have is of the Big Cat house. We got to see lions and tigers up close and feel the vibrations through our bodies as they all began roaring at feeding time. We were so completely depressed by the rest of the experience that we went to a Mexican restaurant in the Castro and got drunk on many pitchers of margaritas.
-The fun Halloween when we were all hanging out in The Castro. with a guy dressed up to the nines as the pope traveling the streets with a harem of authentically clad nuns. This was right after Sinead O'Connor ripped up the pope's picture on Saturday Night Live. At any given moment, the pope guy would whip a color copy of Sinead's picture out of his giant ornate pope hat with a flourish. Then with elaborate formality proceed to rip up her picture to wild cheering from the nuns and erupting pandemonium from the rest of the crowd. Utterly hilarious! Then we danced like fools all night at The End Up.
-That brought us to the memory of Bob and I meeting Jill and Ed at The End Up with my two straight brothers and two of their straight friends on a Sunday afternoon while they were visiting me from New Orleans. It's kind of hard to forget the image of a gay man in only Greco-Roman wrestling tights pole dancing with a tree on the deck and the reactions of my brothers and their friends. My brothers still tell the story of that day to friends and family. And we all laugh like fiends at the thought of it. I have a picture of that "wrestling" guy somewhere. I will definitely post it when I find it.
Those were giddy times.
We did do other things besides party. We all had jobs and went to work regularly. We all did volunteer work. We did have fun, though!
As the champagne flowed this afternoon, Hal had a miscalculation with a large forkful of grits and wound up as we later declared him adrift in grits. Ed decided that this was the best description of any trip to New Orleans, "Adrift in grits."
They went to the French Quarter for Southern Decadence and I came home to take a nap.