Teamteacher’s Weblog

I realize this blog overdoses on hyperbole, but this is seriously the funniest thing I’ve seen in a really long time. A former Bret Michaels’ groupie rather halfheartedly describes a sexual encounter with the frontman for poison. My favorite line was, “I wasn’t sure if he was going to stick it in my ass because I’d heard rock stars like to do that.” You won’t be disappointed.

Though my affinity for Park Slope has not waned, wanderlust got the better of me last night as Josh and I ambled north into Fort Greene, the neighborhood once home to Richard Wright and Walt Whitman. Though similar to the Slope in its brownstones, patio dining, and children running through a park with messy ice cream faces, Fort Greene has a calmer, younger crowd, with men more likely to be carrying a tote bag than a baby in a papoose.

Always on the lookout for a restaurant that keeps prices low and food quality high, we settled on The General Greene, a relatively new spot on DeKalb Ave. Like so many others, The General Greene specializes in local, organic food, though this wasn’t obnoxiously displayed or shoved down your throat, that is, until you ate the food. There were no, “We’re Greene!” signs or “Keeping it Greene” plaques. It was nice to know we were eating locally and organically without it feeling like we were at a coop.

The restaurant was packed with Fort Greeners and Greene impostors alike, and when we finally squeezed into a packed bar we decided to settle on an appetizer of heirloom tomato salad, prepared with olive oil, fresh red onion, and mint. It was refreshing and cool and had an almost French feel to it. Jonesing for something a little more American, Josh and I both got the burger, a solid choice for a red-blooded man. It had aged cheddar and a mix of lamb and beef. Masculinity affirmed, we walked down the block to Fort Greene’s greatest attraction, the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

If cheaper rents, better subway lines, and fewer yuppies aren’t incentive enough to move to Fort Greene, its proximity to BAM just might seal the deal. A veritable treasure trove of offbeat entertainment, BAM is always showing something worth attending, and that night we chose to see “Man on Wire,” the story of French wire-walker Phillipe and his quest to cross the World Trade Center towers on a wire.

Phillipe and his crew started small, by scaling smaller buildings like the towers of Notre Dame in Paris and the Sydney, Australia Harbor Bridge. In the early seventies, just as the twin towers were rising, Phillipe made the impossible happen when he and his partners launched wires from across the twin towers and rigged them so that he could dance his way across. If you have vertigo issues, I would not recommend this film. If you can get your hands on some dramamine, however, it is worth seeing just for the purely stunt elements. The movie goes beyond simply recounting the dramatic episodes that lead up to Phillipe’s climb to the top of the world, as it chronicles the eventual disintegration of his team that got him there. Not surprisingly, Phillipe is a bit of an egomaniac and megalomaniac, which can at times distance him from other people.

What was most fascinating about all his travails was just how positively he was received by authorities. People in the 1970’s seemed to have a sense of humor about all this. In the wake of anti-terrorism efforts across the globe, not only could this kind of stunt never be pulled again, but I doubt the city would issue lifetime security passes to the building, as it did for Phillipe when he came off the wire at the WTC. The towers’ eventual collapse made his efforts even more ethereal.

The film, which is part bank robbery flick, part documentary, and part arthouse cinema, never loses its cool, much like its protagonist. Pushing the theme that no one has to have a reason to make something beautiful, “Man on Wire” challenges American rationale while showcasing a daring clown traipsing a quarter of a mile in the sky. How French.

Having recently been issued a New York state license, confirming my permanent residence in the greatest city in the world, I packed a little NYC hubris along with my cell phone charger on my way to Los Angeles. I would tell friends that I was heading out to the city of angels, and almost in concert they’d say, “Oh, the traffic is just terrible. You have to drive everywhere!“. My expectations were low, and getting off the plane I imagined I’d walk into a field of liposuction ridden former model/actresses all vying for coveted spots on the LA freeway system. While it is true that the fastest way to get around LA isn’t exactly carbon neutral, the city so much surprised me with its gorgeous architecture and stunning geography that I quickly forgot about the traffic. And when you’re stuck in traffic on a cloudless day with a breeze coming off the Pacific, where else would you want to be anyway? Most surprising, however, was how much of the city could be accessed by my own two feet. I put my legs to work to find out just how far I could get fueled only by two bowls of Cheerios. It was certainly cheaper than a tank of gas.

My gracious host Rachel swept me up from LAX late Thursday night, after a mere 4 hours on the tarmac plus 5.5 hours in the air. I could have been having brunch in Bangkok by the time we arrived, but inclement weather plus the tortuous, Beckett-inspired runway waits at JFK delayed my arrival significantly. After waking up in my eastern time zone frame of mind, I decided to make of day of it, thereby maximizing my exposure to sun, palm trees, and celebrities. I would have no trouble finding all three.

Rachel lives on the glitzy line between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, a delightful intersection of palatial houses, nightclubs, and rainbow flags. Armed with fresh socks and comfortable sneakers, I strolled down her street until I reached the epic Santa Monica Blvd, an east-west thoroughfare that cuts through the entire city. Traveling east on Santa Monica, I explored West Hollywood, a neighborhood so gay that even the cop cars have rainbow flags on them. Passing underwear boutiques, coffee bars, and pet stores, I ambled slowly popping into bookstores and thrift stores along the way. Most excitingly, I picked up a book called Queer 13, a collection of stories from outstanding authors about their experiences in 7th grade. I think it will make up for the undeniably heteronormative collection currently in place.

Thirsty from schlepping around LA’s gayborhood, I ventured into a juice bar. Electronica music blasted from the ceiling speakers as beefy tanned men ordered smoothies infused with protein powders and steroids.  I placed my order with a gentleman wearing bright blue contact lenses and spiked blond-tipped hair.  My carrot ginger juice burned a little going down, but I did my best to fit in among the California crowd.  Coming from New York, where service with a smile is just about as rare as an empty subway seat, I was almost thrown off guard by the “How are you doing today?” comments from the staff.  Full from the juice and the chit-chat about Michael Phelps, I soldiered on into the wilds of Beverly Hills.

As thousands of cars whizzed by me on Santa Monica Blvd, I was the only person walking on the broad Beverly Hills sidewalks.  That is, besides the bevy of crazies spewing incomprehensible epithets on park benches.  The mix of wealth and poverty was as shocking as the fact that no one else was walking along the same street as me on gorgeous Friday afternoon.  I imagined Broadway empty at lunchtime and thought it only possible in some sort of Vanilla Sky-esque science fiction scene.

I walked through the fancy streets of Beverly Hills, taking in the tourists and the astronomical prices of Rodeo Drive.  Not quite having the necessary $3000 for a new sweater, I continued my trek west toward the ocean.  A half a mile outside of Beverly Hills and kind of manifest destiny settled over me, and I decided that my journey would not be complete until I saw the bright blue Pacific from the shores of Santa Monica.  I’d already made an ambitious walk of it, striding through WeHo and Beverly Hills, but the need to “go west” was too strong to keep my lanky frame from stopping.  I thought that Santa Monica Blvd would take me to Santa Monica, and it did.  The only small catch was that it took 9.4 miles to get me there.  Here is a map of where I walked.

For any New Yorker reading, I walked the equivalent of going from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan to the Cloisters on 205th street near the Bronx. The walk wasn’t as interesting as it would have been in New York, but it wasn’t too dangerous (only 1 man tried to follow me) and I got to see the Pacific Ocean at the end of it, something the Cloisters just can’t offer.  I wouldn’t exactly call LA pedestrian friendly, but I honestly think that has more to do with the fact that no one wants to walk, not that walking isn’t an option.

My next move is to start a tourist business/weight loss program that makes people hike dozens of miles through Hollywood, simultaneously star-searching while burning calories.  That has to fly in LA.

Despite recent victories for equality in California, Out Magazine writer Michael Joseph Gross claims gay  activism is still coming up short, perhaps due to the explosion of internet hook-up sites like the infamous manhunt.net.  Its web prominence, he writes, with member numbers gay organizations like the Human Rights Campaign or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force can only dream about, signals the priority in the gay community is sex, not rights.  His piece, Has Manhunt Destroyed Gay Culture takes a crack at what’s become the single largest online gay community in the world, with almost 1 million members globally.

Gross posits that a “post-gay” community has emerged in the last 15 years, one that has become less concerned with politics and more concerned with getting off.  Sites like Manhunt feed this trend, as the site’s very slogan, “Get on, get off” certainly promotes using the internet for quick sexual gratification.  Aside from this, the site treats sex like going shopping, as men search for what they want by scrolling through x-rated descriptions of potential flings.  He’s not preachy, noting that he’s even a subscriber, but he does manage to question the immense growth of this site as warning sign for gays that our mousepads might not be clicking in the right direction.  He writes, “We still don’t know how to have enduring relationships. We still don’t have examples. We still don’t have mentors. We still don’t have courtship rituals. We are still getting HIV.” Gross generalizes, to be sure, but the reality of gay culture moving away from a political group to a predominantly social one is worth at least recognizing before logging on and getting off online.

Check out more on the owners of Manhunt, two former real estate businessmen who tackled the online hookup scene together:

While Project Runway superstar Stella B. Zotis straddles the line between annoying and adorable, her competitor Suede, crosses this line farther than Stella can throw a steel hammer.  Suede, who speaks of himself only in third person, like some kind of hackney amateur wrestler, wins the title of most aggravating project runway cast member.  Owning such an epithet amid a sea of queens, wannabes, and sewing semi-psychotics is truly an honor.  Not only is he unpleasant to watch, but his clothes air on the side of 1980’s tacky, and not in an ironic American Apparel way.  Listen to Suede’s “artist” statement below:

I have a new crush.  Her name is Stella.

Of her work she says, “I want to get myself out of the underground and into the overground.”  Brilliant.

Since starting Project Runway, Stella has made 4 consecutive outfits out of black leather, including, but not limited to, a US Olympic Team uniform.  I’m having a hard time imagining petite female gymnasts loving a black leather leotard, but in the grand tradition of Project Runway, Stella “made it work.”

As my time in the wonders of northern Ohio wanes, I wanted to make sure to highlight some exceptional local establishments in the Cleveland+ region, as the tourist bureau so deems. Though the “+” may symbolize Cleveland adding itself to other neighbor cities like Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, I like to think of it as the “+” next to a well-deserved “A,” at least for effort, at the following places.

I’ve already expressed my love for Cleveland’s trendy Tremont district, the one that houses Lolita, a restaurant whose staff now knows me, much to my embarrassment. Perhaps I’ve eaten their sumptuous burger one too many times. In effort to escape my comfort zone of comfort food, on a recent visit into the city that never sleeps until after the Browns game, we landed in Ohio City, yet another west-side neighborhood with restaurants to rival my Nabokovian standby. We chose Momocho, a hip Mexican joint with dangerously delicious margaritas and handmade guacamole.

I’m pretty sure Momocho means “Capable of eating 2 entire bags of chips and three bowls of guac” in Spanish, or at least that was my excuse for doing so. Exceptional flavors, like cucumber margaritas and goat cheese guac, not to mention fried grasshoppers, make it easy to forget that Lake Erie is in your backyard. Though I still think Lolita’s entrees outmatch those at Momocho, I’ve been craving their crazy combinations ever since I returned.

Simply driving in and back from Ohio City reveals the full flavor of Cleveland as well. Though the street where Momocho rests is busy with diners and other rather bourgeois restaurants, blocks away sit abandoned houses, grocery stores locked up like Fort Knox, and rather unsavory signs for “Peep Shows.” Riding these streets is a bit like going back about 3 decades, since none of the buildings have changed and the characters that walk past look like the stepped out of Times Square in 1973. I swear saw a child prostitute a la Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver” wearing white bellbottoms and smoking a cigarette. The ride is more bizarre than alarming, as old fashioned saloons and barbershops whiz by, a living metaphor for the city’s struggle to develop since its decline in the 1970’s and ’80s. Yet, with an impeccable pineapple margarita and some blue cheese guacamole resting in my stomach, I recognized that parts of the town had revived enough to support importing grasshoppers. Perhaps these are locally raised, free range grasshoppers, however; I had forgotten to ask.

Feeling a bit like a glutton for gentrification, we strolled further into Cleveland for a stop at another emerging neighborhood: Detroit Shoreway. I say it’s “emerging” because I spotted a rainbow flag, a public theater, and an independent coffee shop. Bringing my disposable income, I saddled up to this aforementioned coffee joint, the Gypsy Bean.

The Gypsy Bean is part coffee bar, part bakery, part United Nations, as its internationally themed drinks and decor provide an opportunity to taste a geography bee’s worth of worldly treats. This particular coffee shop bakery, so often simply a microwave or toaster at other establishments, is a true bakery easily spied behind the menus. Giant peanut butter cookies, oozing chunks of Jiffy, sat next to baklava and puffy muffins with almond toppings. I went for a “Skinny Londoner,” a foamy latte with butter toffee syrup and rum. At $3.50, I could have even been paying in pounds and it wouldn’t have been expensive. It certainly didn’t taste skinny, though that could have been the cookie I wolfed down with my British treat.

Here, the signs of sprucing up abound, as a new movie theater will open soon across the street and one of Cleveland’s best new restaurants, Luxe, is just down the block. Coming from Oberlin, we still pass abandoned factories one after the other, so it’s clear that one new java joint slinging mochas can’t make up for the post-industrial decline of an entire economy. It has managed to revive a city block, though I don’t think demand will grow great enough for it to take over the nearby factory. For now, I’ll just enjoy my cup in its shadows.

It wasn’t so long ago when America’s favorite fresh-faced songbird declared that when she “did it again,” she wasn’t talking about sex.  Britney Spears, now renowned for her fertility and promiscuity, was once the teen darling who declared she’d save it for marriage.  We all know that pretty much went out the window and the closest Brit ever came to virginity was her performance of “Like a Virgin” with Christina Aguilera and Madonna:

Though not the first starlet to be questioned about her bedroom behavior, Britney set a precedent for the young Disney kids coming up through the ranks.  Those that have followed have sported promise rings and chastity belts on the red carpet, making a story out of simply not getting it on.  Us Weekly even went so far as to create a slideshow of star virgins.  Ok, so maybe the slideshow is simply two Disney Stars and the Jonas Brothers, but finding a handful of chaste members of young Hollywood appears to be story enough when the likes of Lindsay Lohan, et. al are not only breaking their hymens but showing them to the rest of the world in the backseats of limousines.  Let US Weekly show you which stars are pure, and which are purely faking it.

Obviously, I’m not in favor of advancing teenage sexual activity, but why should young celebrities have to choose between living like Lohan or living like Marie Osmond?  Though come to think of it, even she probably isn’t a virgin anymore.  So what are you waiting for Jonas Brothers?

(Courtesy of About.com)

I have been swimming since I was about 4, yet the “swimmer’s build” has always escaped me. Perhaps it was my reluctance to do crunches or my cravings for Cinnabun as an adolescent, but my abdominals have always had more of a pneumatic shape than I would have liked. Summer is a perennial reminder of my condition, yet every four years an even more extreme display of six-packs forces me to shirk from the shirtless shores: The Olympics.

Donning little more than a lycra handkerchief, the stars of the various Olympic swim teams flamboyantly display muscles that appear strong enough to grate cheese. To rub salt in my wounds, NBC has put together a playful round of “Guess The Abs,” wherein eager fans on the web have the opportunity to divine which set of steely muscles belongs to which Olympic hunk. Guess for yourself here!

I have to admit, I failed most of the rounds and left the game a little guilty, as if I’d just indulged in some kind of soft-core Olympic pornography. I’m waiting for the Greco-Roman wrestling or archery edition, though I’m afraid those will lack the needed sex appeal to get them onto NBC’s site. This latest Playgirl inspired thread certainly doens’t suggest NBC will be covering any intriguing Olympic human interest stories while there are abs to shoot. I guess the network doesn’t care whether you tune in to check out Michael Phelps’ famous technique, or famous muscular endowments:

For those of you interested in following Phelps go for 7 gold medals, tune into NBC this Saturday at 3:30. Those interested in simply seeing him shirtless, get there 5 minutes earlier.

In Toronto, it takes a village, albeit a gay village, to bring folks together.  On the eastern side of town, just steps from the University of Toronto and the bustling streetcars of downtown, lies Church and Wellesley, the neighborhood more commonly referred to as “the gay village.”  In America, we tend to dub these enclaves, “the gay ghetto” or the “gayborhood,” but the Canadians, as they’re want to do, have shown a softer side.  The gay village of Toronto is certainly not a ghetto, and it’s more than just a mere ‘hood.  While it’s neither quaint nor conservative, it remains a village because everyone feels at home here.

Despite living in New York, I’m frequently disappointed at what our gayborhoods have to offer.  Chelsea is full of men with no necks, no hair, and no personality.  Greenwich Village is expensive and tame, though the vestiges of sex shops next to the Gourmet Garage recall brighter days.  I’ll admit a preference for the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen, but these are hardly gay villages, simply boozy neighborhoods with bars and well-groomed gentlemen.  Perhaps it’s simply because virtually every neighborhood in New York has gay nightlife, that we’ve forgotten about how charming a concept the village can be.

My fellow villager and I traveled from our nearby bed and breakfast, despite the cliche, and ventured up Church Street, the main drag of this queer neck of the woods.  And drag it was.  People watching is probably the only reason anyone even comes back to Church and Wellesley because god knows, it was not the food.  I’m just as fed up with the now empty terms “diverse” and “multicultural,” but had I been sitting in the United Nations I don’t believe I would have used these signifiers so liberally.  Not to be hyperbolic, but never in my life had I seen a gay neighborhood attract diversity beyond what kind of leather chaps one wore.  In Toronto, the village people come in as many uniforms as the band itself, from lezzies on a ladies night out to a pair of older Indian fellows taking it all in with their cigarettes in hand.

American gay neighborhoods, and more broadly gay culture, are known for exclusivity.  When one imagines a gayborhood, rarely do images of Afro-Canadian lesbians and Middle Eastern middle-agers enter the fray.  In Toronto, the spectrum was truly as colorful as the rainbow itself.  Perusing Church Street, we witnessed trannies work it with all the fiercness Christian Siriano could hope for, straight and gay couples double-dating, vibrating walls from a Caribbean gay bar, and bears noshing on Canadian hot dogs.  Myriad questions flooded my brain, but I had to stop for hot dog to recharge first.

New York is outdone, yet again, by the genius of the Toronto hot dog cart.  While I soaked in the array of ethnicities and orientations on Church Street, I waited for a freshly grilled all-beef dog.  This was no 7-11 overdone, steam-heated wiener.  The attendant took good care to char the outside and leave it plump in the middle, much to my satisfaction.  I was overwhelmed upon paying at the bevy of condiment options including requisites like relish, ketchup and mustard, but extending to sweet peppers, cabbage, mayo, and corn.  I may have overindulged on the spices, but the hot dog hit the spot nonetheless, providing the necessary protein for a night out in the village.

Further inspection of the scene revealed greater layers of the crowds’ diversity and the most popular club on the strip, a lesbian bar.  Now I had seen it all, as people from every direction pushed for entrance into Slack’s, a beacon of a bar I’d never seen replicated in all my years of gayborhood travel.  This hood had every letter of GLBT smashed up together like the spices on my sausage.

I’ll spare you the deluge of rhetorical questions that were spinning around in my head, but I still have not been able to conceive as to why this paradigm for a village is so lost on America.  New York is equally (dare I say it….) diverse, yet certainly not as well integrated as Toronto.  It could be simply that I’m not going to the right places, but one of the reasons I dislike so many of the gay enclaves in America is because one kind of uniform white, male, gay culture prevails.  This is not to say that Toronto is not influenced highly by these forces, but the congregation in Toronto’s village certainly made for a more interesting evening than another prance up 8th avenue in NYC.

Beyond the easy speculations such as Canada’s marriage equality and history of embracing multiculturalism, I’m still quite perplexed as to why my trip to this bastion of a hood made for such a neighborly night out.  Despite her loss, Hillary had it right when she spoke on the value of the village.  Maybe that’s why she always had an in with my people.