Los Angeles on Foot: Oxymoronic?

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.

 

Profiles in Aggravation: Suede

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:

 

Adventures in Cleveland: Neighborhood Exploration

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.

 

My Gaydar Points North

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.

 

Pittsburgh Day Two: Biting Through Steel

After a night spent sleeping in the luxury of a downtown Marriot, I awoke hungry and in search of my weekly Sunday addiction: brunch. Perhaps the only person in the twenty-two floor Marriot complex not on a business trip or entertaining small children, I decided to try to find my kind of people among the self-tanning, bleach blond western Pennsylvanian wives and their leather loafer wearing, golf club toting husbands beyond the confines of the hotel.

Leaving the continental breakfast behind, my first stop had to be for brunch. I chose Zenith, a vegetarian cafe and antique shop, all in one: http://www.zenithpgh.com/. The line for food can be quite long, so it was useful to have random bric-a-brac to mull over while waiting. Determined to eat somewhere hip, I carefully scouted out the address, used the GPS system, and made my way to 86 South 26th Street. Upon arrival, I saw a plate glass window with a mannequin’s head an an old sign telling me to vote for some stranger for city council. It did not look like brunch was available. I circled the block and tried again, believing that perhaps in a matter of minutes the door would be open and smells of lentil salad and vegan cookies would be wafting to my nose. I had no such luck, and in a tragically unhip gesture, I phoned the restaurant to find the entrance. It turns out, the door is simply around the corner, right by the gigantic sign that says, “Zenith” in robust purple letters. Had I been a New Yorker in the late 1970’s, I could only imagine myself parading down West 54th street asking passersby if they knew of this place called Studio 54. Perhaps I would have been more at home among the bleach and loafer crowd, after all.

My delay had only further churned my stomach, and I waited patiently among the folks who strolled in with me. These were locals, and I don’t believe they had any such problem snooping out the entrance. After a few turns milling about old chairs, porcelain dolls, and ancient American flags, a gentle maitre d’ led me to my seat.

Seated among plants, natural light, and patrons dining solely on vegetarian fare, it was easy to gather that Zenith is an eco-friendly place. You might expect then, an almost stereotypically “green” crowd of energy-efficient light bulb toting, grassroots organizing, circle drumming types, but the crowd was surprisingly diverse. There were certainly enough Obama stickers in the neighborhood to beckon a Democratic crowd, but a smattering of ethnicities and occupations convened on the smorgasbord at hand. I had always assumed that Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly the place where an all-vegetarian brunch would have patrons lining up around the block, but Zenith certainly put my own stereotypes in check.

The check itself was perhaps the most shocking part of my journey to this South Side destination. For $10, I had an unlimited buffet of a variety of salads and side dishes including a black bean salad, pasta salads, cold peanut noodles, broccoli salad (though not the kind my mom makes), bread and hummus, among others. For those Oberlin readers, it was like the most outlandish and extravagant coop spread you could ever imagine. Also included in the price is your choice of entree. I was almost too full on my starters to nosh on my Jakarta wrap, a seasoned tofu spinach wrap with tangy sesame dressing and yellow rice. At the end of all this, dessert awaited me, and I chose from a plethora of pies, cakes, and other yummy baked goods. Let me reiterate one more time: $10. If you have not already bought a plane ticket and map quested this destination, do so now. Regardless of where you live, you will probably save money going to Pittsburgh for the weekend than staying at home. Another benefit to traveling to Zenith was its prominent location in Pittsburgh South Side, a neighborhood worth visiting even if you don’t have time for brunch.

Frequently the South Side brings comparisons to New York’s East Village, the neighborhood against which all others are judged. While I recognize that both offer eclectic dining, coffeehouses, bars, galleries, and performance spaces, the South Side has something the East Vilage does not: community. New York’s East Village is amok with twenty somethings like me, drinking and carousing until early in the morning, spending our disposable income that should be in savings, driving up rents, and barfing on the sidewalk on our way home. Touring the South Side in the middle of the afternoon, I saw all the things I love about the East Village as well as a broader spectrum of ages and occupations of those who inhabit the area. It appeared to be a much more livable neighborhood, one where you don’t pay a thousand dollars for a shoebox that has bedbugs.

After leaving my vegan brethren on the South Side, I traveled North to the neighborhood of Oakland, home to the University of Pittsburgh. Though only a couple of miles away, Oakland is a vastly different scene than the South Side. Here there are sprawling quads, Gothic cathedrals, and the tallest academic building in the Western Hemisphere: The Cathedral of Learning

Part Midtown skyscraper, part church, this spiraling structure certainly stirred my academic spirit. Built in the middle of the Great Depression, the Cathedral of Learning houses a majority of the humanities and politics classes. It stood in stark contrast to my own collegiate cathedral, King Hall at Oberlin:

What King lacks in architectural grandeur, it makes up for in gender neutral bathrooms, something Pittsburgh building just can’t offer. Inside the cathedral, I felt like I had just teleported to Oxford.

It didn’t exactly come off as a cozy corner nook in a comfortable library where one might want to settle in with the collected poetry of Wallace Stevens, though perhaps the austere surrounding stimulate academic enrichment more than lattes. I investigated their famous department of Rhetoric and Composition, leaving a note for the head of the department to call me at his convenience. He must be on summer vacation because I haven’t heard back yet. I’m hoping I can just get in without taking those pesky GREs.

While I imagined myself knee-deep in books in the middle of the place of worship/place of learning, I realized that my time in Pittsburgh was waning and there were still more neighborhoods calling my name. Though inappropriately sounding, especially for a Sunday, the Strip District was my next stop. Named for its narrow geographical position close to downtown rather than adult entertainment options, I ventured forth from Oakland to get the skinny on the Strip. What I found confirmed a hunch I’d had from the start of my journey: Pittsburgh residents like to eat.

Lining the streets of this area along the waterfront are open air markets, Italian bakeries, butchers, and specialty shops that sell gourmet popcorn, fudge, and chocolates. The Strip District is Pittsburgh’s version of Little Italy, without the vapid touristy flair of many major cities. These Italian shops don’t play “That’s Amore” while you peruse an overpriced wine list. They simply churn out authentic, delicious cheeses, pastas, and meats, kitsch on the side. If you do go to Pittsburgh, head to the Strip District on a Saturday morning, when the majority of vendors are open and the streets are teeming with locals preparing for dinner parties that evening. Murals provide further eye candy along the way.

Aside from glee, the only feeling I carried with me on the way out of Pittsburgh was a touch of nausea, after all the food I’d managed to pack in during my two day stay. Though Pittsburgh offers cuisine from every possible background, the Midwestern spirit for excessive consumption, whether its Afghan or Ethiopian, abounds here. Pittsburgh’s messy mix of ancient factories and new urbanism, its die-hard Steelers fans and equally die-hard art critics make this reemerging industrial giant hard to define. Like an excellent vegetarian salad, its texture is complex and its flavors somewhat contradictory. That’s something I can definitely sink my teeth into.

 

Pittsburgh Day One: What a Feeling!

Following a recent trip to Pittsburgh, I am ready to leap higher than Jennifer Beals in a sweat-stained unitard to express my newfound love for the steel city. Flashdance, filmed in the early 1980’s, portrayed a rough and tumble town where a girl could dance at night only if she knew how to weld during the day. The rules have sinced changed, however, since yours truly can’t weld to save his life and spent the day gallery hopping and dining on Thai food rather than melting bronze pipes in a factory. My hands are almost too nimble for chopsticks, so I can’t imagine how they might handle a blowtorch.

To say that I am breaking the story on Pittsburgh renaissance might obfuscate the recently published piece in the NY Times highlighting the resurgence of Pittsburgh as a bright spot on the confluence of three rivers: http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/travel/06hours.html?incamp=article_popular_5. This fluvial fun fact as my only background on Pittsburgh prior to embarking on the trip, I shoved off with the Times article in tow set on investigating their finds and doing some trailblazing of my own.

The most striking part about arriving in Pittsburgh is adjusting to the barrage of geographical features that emerge as you drive west into the city. In the sprawling Cleveland environs, any slight increase in elevation gets labeled a “mount,” and dense, lush forests have long been bulldozed over by suburban wasteland. At the foot of the Allegheny mountains, Pittsburgh meshes urban and rural and industrial and pastoral all at once. Staring across the city skyline, lofty skyscrapers mesh with forests and factories, and the pesky red stain of the Heinz corporation marks prominent streets, buildings, and ballparks in every conceivable direction.

The only name proliferating more than Heinz in this riverside town is that of Andy Warhol, Pittsburgh’s most fashionable native son, second perhaps only next to Orrin Hatch, that is. Despite drug abuse, sodomy, and even his spiteful claim, “I am from nowhere,” no other city has best memorialized the 20th century’s most commercially successful artist. Warhol’s name not only lines the doors to a 7 story museum dedicated to his collection, but also to the bridge that gets you there. Having to pay one dollar for every minute of fame Warhol conjectured I’d have in the future just to enter this establishment initially made me frown like a technicolor Mao, but the price of admission mattered little once I made my way through the opening exhibit of the museum. Inspired by Warhol’s affinity for the industrial, the exhibits themselves are housed primarily in concrete loft spaces, which lends to the approachability of the subject matter. A stuffy Louvre it is not. Here children play with the interactive installation art and elephant wallpaper, while adults gawk jealously at the dated celebrity photographs of Jodie Foster, Jerry Hall, and an infant Mel Gibson.

More than simply showcasing Warhol’s celebrity, the museum celebrates the artist and the principles by which he lived through its loud, bizarre, and playful exhibits. Most noble, perhaps, is the simple fact that there is a gigantic structure financed by the Carnegie Institute to honor a drug using eccentric gay man steps from the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium. It is, in fact, the largest museum in the world dedicated to one person. Though Andy moved on from Pittsburgh and found a home in New York, his work undoubtedly emerged from a Pittsburgh past where he witnessed mass production and the kind of commercial America he invoked in so much of his pop art.

A city that has long celebrated production in every arena, Pittsburgh’s art scene shows no signs of cutbacks anytime soon. The Warhol Museum, while formidable, is not the only place to see experimental pieces, as nearby the Mattress Factory houses a variety of extraordinary installation pieces. The museum is dedicated to installation art and allows artists to build site specific works. All of this lends to an air of something often missing from museums: fun. The installations at the Mattress Factory were inventive, interactive, and frequently terrifying. Though certainly more cerebral than a theme park, the Mattress Factory spiked more adrenaline than I had anticipated.

Our tour began in the basement of the museum, where Yumi Kori’s piece, “kamata,” started our journey on a bit of a terrifying note. Kamata, which means, “in the distance,” in Japanese, is a pitch black room with a bright, rectangular light at one end, beckoning viewers. Perhaps it was just my guilty conscience, but I felt like I was walking into hell. White noise clouds your thinking and the dizzying darkness increases your paranoia. Luckily, hidden handrails guide the journey.

Elsewhere in the museum, other exhibits play with darkness and the reactions of visitors to this darkness. In the permanent collection a series of installations by James Turell confront viewers with two visions: what they see and what they think they see. Traveling in the darkest room in which I have ever been, I open and close my eyes several times to see if I can tell the difference between the two. Open, shadowy figures dance, floating in space. Closed, my dizziness stops, but the shadows remain, forcing me to wonder what I imagine and what is out there. Adding to my puzzlement are the other visitors, none of whom I see but only hear, smell, and feel, as my size 14 shoes crunch on those beneath me.

Light shines elsewhere in the museum, most brilliantly perhaps in Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Dots Mirrored Room” pictured below.

Part Studio 54, part McDonald’s PlayPlace, this exhibit invites viewers to dance, pose, and groom themselves among the bevy of mirrors that cover the space. Again, visual wizardy makes the room appear much larger than it is, though the laughter and frivolity of the space is no trick.

After climbing through installations, some of which cut through the floorboards and jutted out the windows, I explored the neighborhood that houses such funky displays. Understandably, this north side spot is artsy and chock full of homosexuals. I’m not sure what it is about old Victorian homes and middle aged gay men, but for this neighborhood, dubbed the Mexican War Streets district, it was like moths to a flame. Everywhere I turned there was a gorgeous home mid-refurbishment, much like the gorgeous Inn on Mexican War Streets, shown below:

In a nearby coffee shop, I asked how much rent was around the neighborhood. The chatty barista mentioned casually that she and her roommate pay a total of $700 a month for a 2.5 bedroom home on two floors. Were I not enjoying so much a vacation from work, I might have quit my job and moved at that very moment. Though extraordinarily comfortable among the Victorians, the gays, and the cheap rents, I was determined to see the real steel city and use my streetwise sensibilities to get to know the gritty underbelly of this industrial giant.

I began this quest at an upscale Asian-fusion restaurant called Soba, in the trendy district of Shadyside. What the area lacked in grit it made up for in boutique cupcake shops and patio dining. The restaurant was on the elegant side, with a never-ending waterfall and inventive cocktails, like my martini with shaved almonds, coconut milk, gold sake, and amaretto. Over the course of the rather luxurious meal, I devoured savory rare grilled Ahi tuna, peach-infused pork fried rice, calamari with lime and chile, and a dessert of fresh peaches, almond ice cream, and vanilla chantilly: a typical steelworker’s dinner, no doubt!

Though my ability to sleuth out the city of 1980’s films may have faltered, my sense of direction had great assistance from a new addition to the car: a GPS system.

Sleek, silver, and eerily prophetic, the GPS system knows exactly where you are and exactly where you want to go. All you need to do is type in your destination address, and it navigates you there, even accounting for detours and traffic. When you’ve made a mistake, it gentle proclaims, “recalculating,” and sets you on a new course. Letting this Jesus take the wheel, I arrived at Brillobox, a bar and concert venue named, of course, for Warhol’s ever-proliferating pieces.

The bar is meticulously designed with bright, red vinyl benches, a glowing jukebox, and kitschy flair adorning the bottles of liquor and tables. Second only to the advantage of sipping on inexpensive beer is the freedom to smoke inside. Though I don’t smoke, I revel in the bar smoke, this perhaps getting me as close to the Pittsburgh of old as I’ve been all day. Brillobox, however, is a bar distinctly of the present. Its young clientele, wearing everything from biker shorts to the latest in American Apparel t-shirt dresses, suggest anything but an archaic city. I wonder constantly what makes Pittsburgh outshine Cleveland, making my city by the lake look more like the dark installations I’d seen earlier that day and Pittsburgh the mirrored room with sexy young people and bright lights.

Sipping on my bottled Framboise, the lights of Brillobox start to blur and I realize that it’s been a day good old Andy might have enjoyed himself. Too tired to dance like a maniac, I return to my hotel to rest up for tomorrow and clean the non-existent grit from underneath my fingernails.

 

Dutch’s Duplex

Prominently displayed in downtown Sterling, Illinois, sits a mural depicting the eight American presidents who have at one time or another, visited that fair city on the Rock River. The list is impressive and includes some of our most revered leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. All the way on the left stands someone strikingly different, a man whose Hollywood good looks and debonair coif make him look almost like a movie star. This man is none other than the star of the epic film about the misadventures of a zany chimpanzee and his hapless owner, “Bedtime for Bonzo.”

And yes, he was also the President of the United States. This movie star turned neo-con shares something special with the people of Sterling, Illinois, beyond being immortalized on a mural in the town. He was born not too far away, in a small town called Dixon, Illinois, the “Petunia Capital of the World.” In fact, the doctor that delivered Ronald Reagan also delivered my grandfather. I guess that means that I’ve touched the hand of the man who was grabbed by a man who touched Ronald Reagan’s mother’s vagina. If that doesn’t make me an honorary member of the GOP, I don’t know what will.

Reagan’s home in the fair town of Dixon, Illinois is not just an anecdote; it is an entire industry. “Ronald Reagan’s Boyhood Home,” as it is billed, draws tourists from around the country to explore the grounds that once sheltered this chimpanzee wrangler turned President. The website, www.ronaldreaganhome.com, implores visitors to, “If only for a moment, transport yourself back in time and walk in the footsteps of the greatest American President of the 20th Century … Ronald Wilson Reagan.”

I did precisely that when I had the opportunity to visit this sacred ground on my recent visit to the Land of Lincoln, though in Dixon, it is distinctly the Land of Reagan.

Rather ordinary to the untrained eye, the Ronald Reagan home is a treasure trove of Republican booty. Reagan spent only three years here, from 1920-1923, when he lived here with his mother, father, and older brother. The tour takes only about 20 minutes, and our tour guide Janet opened her presentation by mentioning rather righteously that the entire museum is funded “only by private donation, so no government money was used in the process of restoring his home.” She went on to note that, “Given Reagan’s political inclinations, we find using only private donations appropriate.” I wondered why we don’t just operate our school systems and highways based on private donations as well, given the success of the Reagan compound.

Disappointingly, the Reagan house is entirely a replica of what it might have looked like, rather than an authentic version of itself. It is outfitted with all the trappings of an early 20th century home, like limited electric appliances, giant marble bathtubs, horse hair couches, zinc topped sinks, and a magnificent cupboard complete with flour sifter in the kitchen. Since little is left from Reagan’s stay, it was all redone based on his memory. I may not know much about Republicans, but I do know that Reagan’s memory is about as reliable as Bush’s foreign policy.

Janet recounted the pennies little Ronald hid underneath the tiles and the lives he saved as a lifeguard on a the Rock River. I searched for the very bootstraps by which he pulled himself out of working class poverty, but they were not on display. I was lucky enough to spend some time in the Ronald Reagan gift shop, where I took a photo with the Gipper himself. He’s even more handsome in person than in his films.

Outside the museum is Ronald Reagan Memorial Park, complete with requisite bronze statue. I for one felt better knowing that the metal had come from tycoons melting their coins rather than from public funds. From the park, you can see the small town of Dixon below, a town who certainly benefits more from this museum than any of Reagan’s economic policies. With only 12% of the population holding a bachelor’s degree and the major industry being construction and manufacturing, the reduction of government intervention plans and acceleration of global free market economies has left Dixon drowning swiftly in the Rock. My great aunt Margaret, who grew up with Reagan, always told me he never was a very good lifeguard.

 

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

My recent lapse in posting can be most directly attributed to an overdose of farm food and subsequent sugar comas brought on by a visit to see my family in Sterling, Illinois, a town pictured below:

Though it may look desolate, I can assure you that what this town lacks in economy and entertainment it makes up for in starch and carbohydrate consumption.  My primary purpose in traveling hundreds of miles to reach the heartland was not to simply ingest an array of casseroles but to introduce my boyfriend to my extended family, which was all converging on Sterling from as far away as Houston and Philadelphia and as near as down the block.

My mother and father recently migrated to Sterling from our home in Ohio to spend time with my grandparents on both sides, who have been living in Sterling for decades, as have many of my other relatives.  All told, Josh managed to meet my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and even my great aunt and her octogenarian love interest, Vern.

In many ways, I had a lot in common with my great aunt Margaret, who dared to bring a lover out of wedlock to a family gathering.  It was really only my same-sex interest, political affiliation, and about 70 years of life that separated us.  Vern has become a staple at recent functions, and his benign presence at birthday parties and graduations gave me hope that a Vern of my own might also be welcome.

Not to degrade Vern, but Josh left a decidedly better impression on my family, despite his latent homosexuality.  In fact, I was almost hoping for a little more drama than our journey brought.  It is hardly worth driving 500 miles for polite conversation and cheesy potatoes.  At times, I longed for the old days of torrential sobbing and empty suicide threats.  Our visit was much more home movie than Lifetime movie, a far cry from the battleground of a coming out scene 5 years ago.

More broadly, the relative non-event of a gay son bringing home his boyfriend to a heavily Catholic rural farming town in Western Illinois speaks to both the ability of a family to adapt to diversity in its own ranks and the credit that is due to such Americans who are so often unfairly branded as intolerant and uneducated.  More than anything my trip gave me the first hand experience of witnessing the racehorse speed at which American values are changing.  Though somewhat tangential, I can’t help but consider how it these same people who will hopefully be electing our first African-American president in a few short months.

It was my 64 year old aunt, in fact, who brought up Senator Obama, and her hopes for his candidacy.  My grandmother, who has only a high school education, similarly piped in on how much she enjoyed the Keith Olbermann Show and his “spicy” commentary.  Though my family has always leaned Democratic, I’d always considered them populists, particularly concerning their conservative Catholic values.  Perhaps it was simply Josh’s clever musings on professional baseball or his adorable poodle mix, Oliver, but even my grizzled grandfather Jack seemed warmed over by the new addition to the family.  Even though the furniture was dated, this family was not stuck in the past, but rather living very much in the present.  One element of the  family that has never changed is our commitment to three solid meals a day, a tradition my grandfather holds particularly dear. 

“Are you a bacon eater?” my grandfather barked at Josh one morning at breakfast.  “Pass that sausage around one more time, will ya, Josh?” he called out to him, as Josh’s plate quickly doubled in pork product.  He sweetly called Josh my “buddy,” and they easily conversed about the Chicago Cubs’ pitcher and my grandfather’s past as a farmer.  The barrier was not difference, but rather my grandpa’s hearing, which has been troubling him for years.

My grandparents were not the only ones who went out of their way to make us feel right at home.  Every single person, whether it was my podiatrist Uncle Lynn giving Josh free orthotics or my adorable little cousin Jacob inviting Josh to play Power Rangers with him. 

Though Independence Day had past, my return to Sterling really strengthened my belief in American democracy, despite the attempts of the current administration to do their best to make me feel quite the opposite.  Here I watched four generations of an Midwestern American agrarian family embrace pluralism for the sake of getting along and moving forward.  So clearly this pluralism has made us much stronger, as my experience makes me more committed to improving our family, rather than breaking away from it.  In our own microcosm, I found faith in the kind of American future I want to see.  I also found a yellow cake with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries in the shape of an American flag, which was equally delicious.