Colors of Barcelona #6

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

C gets a salad delivered to our table on the roof of the Hotel Axel. It is delivered by one of the interchangeably gorgeous staff. I think the surest way to have a breakdown would be to try to manage this staff. The waiters squabble with the bartenders (who have to consult a booklet in order to make a Manhattan, which in this case included a glaced cherry, hence the albeit delicious scum on the surface). Whenever the managing queens are out of sight, the staff produce cell phones and duck into utility rooms. But we are definitely not complaining about this place and will stay here again when we return. It will be interesting to see whether or not the chip in the rim of the glass in the photo is indicative of a lack of attention to detail while the owner opens up a chain of Axels starting with the next one in Buenos Aires later this year, or if it is just incidental. Truth to tell, this is the second chipped glass I was served. All the same, what you want from a gay luxe hotel is exactly what they deliver: a happy international group of gay travelers who meet and socialize at the Hotel spa and make plans for dinner and bar later in the evening. This was great fun, with a room/bathroom/balcony that were delightful.

Colors of Barcelona #5

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

Just when you think there could not be another one of these in the city, you turn a corner and find one even more fabulous than the rest. To have the eye constantly filled with this sort of exuberantly elegant lineage, alters the mind in a good way. There is no inclination to litter or to deface. No need to campaign against those sorts of antisocial behavior which seem to be disarmed by the simple assertion of the fantastic in public view.

Colors of Barcelona #4

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

we spent a good amount of time speculating about how they got these fantastic finishes on the buildings of Barcelona. We decide that over the painted rough concrete base, one sets in place a thick (half inch?) stencil which is in-filled with a layer of plaster. This layer is painted (in this case, blue) before the stencil is removed.

Colors of Barcelona #3

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

The de rigeur shot of candy heaps at the local mercado/food bazaar. I could have done the fish, or the skinned rabbits...
Getting food in Barcelona, as in Madrid, has been an adventure, and not always successful. There are a zillion storefronted cafes and restaurants and bakeries. Their metal curtains are raised or lowered at various hours of the day so that whenever we left the hotel, it was as if the selection had been shuffled. ("They're heading down D'Aribou. Quick! Shut down the pastry shops and open the ham/cheese sandwich places.") We were almost never able to get back to the same place twice. The one exception was a wonderful little restaurant run by a charmer named Alex who made a superb fried camembert entree, and perfect gnocchi Putanesca. The name of the place is Sazzerac. It is in the heart of the Gayxample ( on Carre Conseil de Cent). The music was also great there. Vintage disco, George Benson, and the wallpaper was flocked with gold glitter ovals.

Barcelona, from the rooftop spa of the Hotel Axel

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

more colors of Barcelona

parc guell, barcelona, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

The Colors of Barcelona

naranja, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

The Neighbors (view from our apartmento in Madrid)

The Neighbors (view from our apartmento in Madrid), originally uploaded by farmboyz.

Madrid, despite being conjoined by common currency to the rest of Europe, retains its passport in the arresting detention of the faces of its men to whom we have happily surrendered our credentials.

We are walking in the deep shadows that drape the swerving angustine streets of the gay Chueca neighborhood, where sunlight sifts down through the filigreed wrought iron balconies and the brilliant red geraniums of the top floors of the old apartamentos.

Local men fill our eyes with their fallenangel-beards held in fastitious check by third-day clipping. They toss us only the mildest brand of urban defense with their onyx koala-eyes while stepping across our path at a stone curb, or darting in and out of shops, always pausing long enough to inventory our appearance.

These men are narrow and lithe, with little butts, seemingly the product of selective breeding geared to allow for their stuffing into snug and hipless jeans. Pampered little butts that seem to converse in whispers among themselves or with the precious little dogs always at heel just below them, while their owners make equally subdued but forward-facing bavard through frequent cigarettes and stops to inspect the myriad racks of flash gear spilling out of shop windows.

Mostly, they inspect us, the Americans, the ones whose style they are maniacally working to copy. In fact, we have never been in the midst of a gay tribe so overwhelmingly curious about a particular culture, and so rabidly (and so needlessly) seeking self-Chelseafication. I want a soap box at the corner of Hortaleza and Perez Galdos from which I might exhort them to rest, to let their hair grow and to trust the deep saturations of lime, ochre, and bleu–de-travail slashed with blinding white that are the colors of their natural inclination. There would I also cheer their fondness for metalized leather footwear and their wearing of boldly striped euro-team sport shirts.

I am granted some exemption from their relentless study because they assume I am Spanish and are genuinely surprised when I speak in transaction with them like a returned Sabrina. C, on the other hand, is turning heads in this town, as the only natural blonde in attendance. What months mark the influx of Germans or Dutch? Obviously not Mayo.

We set aside sleep deprivation acquired during the Air Iberia flight during which, despite the fact that the seats fully reclined and even had a delightful massaging feature as one of the option buttons, we were kept awake by the crew’s constant offering of aperitifs, wine, lobster ravioli, endless rolls with seasoned olive oil for the drizzling, mango chutney on mixed greens and artisanal cheeses with guava jam and delirious desserts followed by more tonged hot towels for draping over one’s face to hide the shame of having eaten well beyond desire.

We unpack our carry-ons and decide to head out into the city where we fall into a lasting appreciation for the its public spaces. Our initial meandering lasts longer than we had planned, using the sun as an indicator of need for return to the apartment, shower and night owling. That sun was still up at 9PM, and was rather still in evidence at 10PM. Can’t figure this out. Not like we’re on the equator or one of the poles.

We had read that dinner often occurs here at midnight, and that attendance at bars can be earlier or later with no need to follow a rigorous herd-driven horario. (Recall the emptiness of the Lure at 11:45 followed by its being mobbed at 12:01 followed by its sudden desertion at 1:59 when the influx and exflux repeated itself at The Spike.) We look directly across the street from the entrance to our building and see a grey sign for something called “Cruising”. Two heavy metal doors appear to be locked but give way to a couple of happily disheveled young men making wobbly egress. We cross the street and push open one of the heavy old doors. We are briefly inspected by the proprietor and motioned inside. So begins Night Numero Uno.

Sketching Madrid (at the Plaza de Chueca)

plaza de chueca sketch, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

C wants to move to Madrid. It's wonderful for many reasons:

a) Despite traffic in streets not designed for it, there is very little horn honking. The Smart Cars are so smart.
b)Fewer Maclarens on the sidewalks assaulting your ankles. Kids walk, run and kick balls through the pedestrians with skill.
c)The back rooms (no need for Visharas and Unicorns and Bijous)and discretionary door policies, especially the one(s) at the Eagle (long story which I might be able to assemble on the train to Barcelona tomorrow). Madrid sex is fun and easy.
d) the public spaces, cafes and parks everywhere. No need for artifically designed "playscapes" for kids. They seem to be actually using their imaginations.
e) This is a city in transition that has begun to discover itself in recent years. Construction everywhere. High energy.
f) cell phones? Not here. People on the streets are actually talking to adjacent humans.
g) Affordability.
h) Perfect weather.
i) Good coffee, bad food. Hence everyone skinny.
i) The men. Beautiful and friendly. Long long stories.Train. Tomorrow.

The foolish virgins

Iberia Lounge bar, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

You will recall the gospel story Jesus told about the foolish vrigins and the wise ones? The wise ones kept their "wicks trimmed" so that when the Master arrived, even if in the middle of the night, they'd be ready, and would be brought by him into the wedding feast. The foolish ones became lazy and leisurely, shopping on 72nd street to get just the right sketch book, packing slowly while trying on various T shirts, and finally trusting the word of a taxi driver who said he could get us to JFK in an hour. Two hours later, eventhough we have arrived an hour before departure time, Delta is telling us that they have closed the flight. We have managed to get on an Iberia flight, but at extremely great cost. I cannot even say the number. In fact, I may never again be able to speak that number. The only seats available were business class. And so we are in the Iberia lounge waiting for the flight, and still, we are on stand-by. This is a picture of their open bar which, MarkofKane, did not contain bitters or cherries so I altered our Manhattans by adding Southern Comfort. (Roughing it). I'm pleased to see the number of wine glasses provided, because we may have to down several hundred drinks to recoup the outrageous price of the tickets. Nearby, is a nifty pyramid of perfect apples, each one individually wrapped in cellophane, and the whole Aztectural display spotlit from an amorphous "frozen paper" halogen pendant. We may have to chomp down several thousand of these to recoup the ticket price. Since there are only a hundred or so apples on display, I've set my sights instead on a rather fine Sol Lewitt print outside the mens' room which I'm guessing might fetch on EBAY a bit more than the price of our tickets...maybe.

News. C has just returned from the counter where he was told that the flight has been delayed an hour and a half. He's off to get a massage which is one of the standard LOUNGE amenities. That may give me enough time to cruise the Iberia Lounge Men's Room. Given my hourly rate, in order to recoup the ticket price, I'd have to do...

Busy

new Mac operating system being installed, new browser, and above all else, prep for Spain. Departure Friday. Two weeks of laziness in Barcelona and Madrid! Schlepping laptop. Will post from the Hotel Axel.

Keeping Their Secrets

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

Yesterday at the gym,I bumped into a friend who has booked his time in Fire Island. One of four bedrooms in a house of strangers.

His announcement made me look at this painting when I got home, remembering our garden in Provincetown and one week in which our three house guests went their separate ways, brightly chatting each other up at moments of intersection, keeping mindful of shared bathrooms, conspiratorially winking while quietly passing in and out of their bedrooms at odd hours, relentlessly pursueing distinctly private agendae.

I'd gather them together for the grilling of dinner in the garden after which each would spin away into a night visible perhaps to the neighbor's cat, but not to us.

During the day, they'd spend some time with me in that garden, speculating about whomever was absent at the moment, and receiving tending among the old roses that flowered that week. Tool in hand, I would indicate a set of trussed canes heavy with bloom, and I would announce the name of each one as if it were my rather brilliant child just returned from a Swiss boarding school. Dorothy Perkins, Fantin-LaTour and the Alchemist.

Stepping into the center of the patio, I would look up into the full sun and then back at my friends, now seeing only the golden outline of their flashing coronae as they announced their plans for the day before heading off to beach, book or bar. In the silence of their departure, I would again fill my eyes with sunlight, and looking back at the roses, I would find them drained of color and rocking thoughtlessly in the breeze.

The Expeditrix

In New York City, there is a layer of resident that facilitates the lives of those too busy to actually live their own lives. This layer is larger and its owners more successful than one might suppose.

Rarely, for instance, do we enter or exit our building without finding an interchangeably short young Mexican with a bag of warm edible studying the intercom for a name that matches what is scrawled on his delivery receipt. The dispatchers who prepare those receipts have worse handwriting than doctors, a fact that furthers my belief that the delivery business is lucrative. The Mexican boys never wear glasses. The buttoned roster of the intercom is two feet above their heads. The listing of its seventy-five names is as random as the sequenced selection made by C’s ipod. (“Did you hear that? The ipod felt that Good Morning Baltimore should follow Ella’s Love For Sale which followed Ramblin Man. I so get it.”)

I flinch at the sight of delivered food. Even the prospect of sitting in a restaurant makes me itchy with guilt. The only reason I can countenance going to Jiffy-Lube for an oil change is the watching of the outrageously attractive crew of young black mechanics through the glass of the waiting room. Someday, I’ll be last in line at 5PM, and they’ll yank down the overhead doors and walking toward me as they unzip their greasy jump suits, they will say “We got your car covered, but you look like you might need some work”.

I am just the kind of guy who doesn’t like to spend money on services that I can perform myself. When my grandparents would describe the extreme tactics needed on 164th Street to scrape by during the Depression, I, a pre-schooler, made rapturous mental notes.

This has led me into some disasters, and maybe into some savings, and constitutes an energy that C, who mostly accepts the premise of the service sector, finds curious.

I once decided, after receiving a quote for sanding and urethaning five rooms of old oak floors, that I could save thousands by renting the sander and doing the job myself. We lived for years with the resultant bucolic hills and valleys of that floor, and I accepted, as the price of thrift, a two-month back injury and two lungs aspirated with dust from Depression era varnish.

There was the time I rented a roto-tiller with tines powerful enough to loosen the clay in front of our 1925 row house, allowing us to improve the soil and plant a perennial parterre. The neighbors were amused. More months of back pain. Nothing grew.

In that same house, rather than spend six hundred dollars for a skylight, I hacked a hole in the ceiling with a borrowed Sawz-All right up through the roof tar, and hammered together a plywood box topped with two layers of Plexiglas and silicon caulk. This cost one hundred and forty dollars. It may have leaked a bit, but only during rain.

Before installing that skylight, I thought it might be a good idea to insulate the ceiling while the gash was open. We discovered that the flat roof was composed of the original oak stretchers and a second set that ran a foot and a half above them. I learned that some dollars might be saved by blowing loose insulation into that space rather than rolling out the usual pink fiberglass batting. I rented the blower and got dozens of bags of the loose fluff. Oddly, the hose supplied with the blower might have been long enough to reach the roof of a hamster cage but it demanded the hauling of the goatish machine up onto the stepladder beneath our newly carved opening. C was assigned the task of squeezing between the rafters tangled in the hose while I steadied the ladder, and tore open bags of the sneezable grey shredding, feeding it into the howling machine while grumbling irritably and shouting things like “Be sure you reach all the way into the corners” and, “Are you finding any antique jewelry up there?” or, “Hurry it up. We are about to lose sunlight and we don’t have any more extension cords for the work lamp.”

In that same house, I scored, steamed and removed old wallpaper. Most of it. Some of it. The remains gave the dining room a postmodern palimpsest that no guest at our table was clever enough to praise. As Scripture says, a decorator is never appreciated in his own house.

In that same house, I tried to replace an old toilet.

When we sold the place, I triumphantly explained to C the concept of sweat equity and why this buy/fix/sell pattern might have to be repeated many times over the next several decades. We developed a script: I would propose a strenuous money-saving activity and rent the appropriate contraption. I would turn it on and within a few minutes injure my back. C would finish the job. Sometimes I would injure my back just getting the thing into my car. C got wise.

By the time we had acquired a top floor condo in Montreal with exclusive rights to the roof, C raised a brow without looking up from his Gazette and coffee when I announced that I could see no reason why we couldn’t build our own roof deck.

Two months later, with sketches in hand, at a lumber yard on the far side of Rosemont, I surrendered to the possibility that building anything in a foreign country, other than a reputation, might not be easy. Is that board ten feet or ten kilometers? C was visibly relieved when I asked one of those scruffy types who are always carrying things about such places with cigarettes clamped in their lip corners threatening sawdust if he could recommend someone who might want to build our rooftop deck. That is how we acquired the phone number of, and soon made the acquaintance of Monsieur Adelard Deslauriers, a stocky man in his late 50s (early 60s?) whose thick calloused hands had built lots of stuff and were now working a pencil stub as we stood in front of our building. This seemed to have been his first visit to this part of the city since it had become the Gay Village. He spoke no English and held his opinion of us in check, but the estimate he wrote on a scrap of paper and now handed to me made it clear that he saw accessible gold in the pockets of these two Americans.

He did not know with whom he was dealing, but one wordless and withering glance from me after I had seen his estimate made him snatch back the paper and express surprise over the extra zero he had mistakenly affixed to the number. We swiftly came to terms, and during the first week of July, Adelard and his crew of gorgeous Frenchmen fashioned hoists out of thick long rope and drew lumber up onto the roof for the construction of a fabulous deck while we slept from sun-up to noon just below the sound of their boots on the roof. Getting out of bed, and stumbling naked into the kitchen for coffee, made our sordid bourgeois lives transparent, as the toolbelted men peeked inside while passing by the sliders that led from kitchen to terrace to the stairs they had built to the deck. I heard one of them mumble “Ah, la vie en rose”, as we left the building dressed just like them but ready to promenade Ste Catherine Street, in search of more sociable “viande rose” indeed.

Those years (C laughs when I call them the hungry ones) are over, and as we begin a total renovation of our New York City pied-a-terre, I am watching with horror as money gushes out of my pockets, like blood from the wounds of a suspended savior or berserk water besting a southern levee.

Because we are there only on weekends, the project demands management that does not come cheaply, but really, given my convictions, I would protest forking over even a nickel for this Doing-by-Others. Here, I have no choice, and I have particular guilt over the fact of having to pay somebody for the demolition part of the project. Is there anything easier than the tearing down of stuff? Shame on me.

I protested the latest demand for cash, which came in the form of an email from a lady referred to us by our architect. Her name, which sounds like a rodeo cheer or like the sound kids make when their parents announce a trip to Orlando, is composed of two parts with no clues as to which one, if any, is the familiar half. She will expedite the approval of our application to the city building department. Apparently, without her service, an application might languish for months. What she does, in a nutshell, is walk the package through some offices, collecting the required rubber stamps. For this, she proposes the payment of exactly $1,000.

I am outraged, but feel impotently distanced from those offices during their weekday hours of operation. I jump on the net in search of others who provide this service, convinced that her price is inflated. I find them listed under either admissible spelling of “Expeditor” and “Expediter”, one fellow using both versions in his ad. I contact a few of them, but none of them return my call. These guys must be very busy, have ample work, be careless entrepreneurs, or, only take clients through architects’ referrals.

I call our architect to complain. He offers a justification.

“She’s really very good. She’s the only one I’ve used for years. You may find somebody a couple hundred dollars cheaper, but a lot of them just drop off the package and make excuses for the delays. She actually gets your approval in two days.”

His words make me feel confident about her delivery but inflame my resentment about paying a huge sum of money for a brief and mindless task. I calculate her potential annual income, figuring in the cost of kick back to architect and lunch for the rubber stamp guys, and I resolve that within a year, once we are full time in New York, I will become the fastest, most sought after Expediteur in the city.

So I knuckle under, but am buoyed when C comes home and tells me that he had spoken with her and that she had no problem knocking a hundred dollars off her price. I recalculate her annual income and it is still fantastic. Even better when you realize that she can carry more than one package at the same time. I'll start out as her apprentice.

Once this final approval is granted, the work will begin. The project management company we have selected is fine-tuning its proposal after a series of meetings at our place in which the project components are outlined.

“Please take out that section about painting the walls. If there’s one thing I know I can manage, it’s paint. And the metal clad doors? I’m going to want all their layers of paint removed, but it’s really something I can do myself with a can of Zip-Strip and some steel wool, so could you delete that as well, please? Same with the radiator covers. Why sell us new ones when I can take down the old ones to what is probably the original chrome finish.”

C gave me a look he has perfected over the years. I got up, opened a drawer and tossed him the checkbook, as I walked out of the apartment.

“I can’t watch this. I’ll be at Starbucks. Meet me there when you’re done spending Ourbucks.”

chumatz?

chumatz?, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

I am familiar with the Jewish prohibition of work during certain hours, but what is chumatz? I'll look forward to googling it when I get to the office where I maintain my own perpetual prohibition of work.

What I look at when I blog

What I look at when I blog, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

Cheap, Easy and no Flashlights

Boston, March, 2006, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

From the left, you have C, me (I didn't get the "light-blue jeans memo"), Dieter and Rog, our Boston friends who brought us out to a notorious and well established bar near the Fens, assuming that we wouldn't be happy with our weekend unless provided with local dick. (Actually, we were in Boston to see the "David Hockney Portraits" show at the MFA and to visit D & R who have settled into their mighty spectacular new condo.)
The bar is really a complex of many bars on two floors., all of it quite crowded. Some of the rooms are not leather-oriented, and feature dancing, with the attendees wearing colorful rugby shirts and white cross-trainers.
The leather/levi rooms were loaded with talent. I get us drinks. Two vanilla vodkas with diet coke (yeech) for D & R, and two Blue Moons for C and me. The bar tender explains that it would be to our financial advantage to buy a pitcher of Blue Moon if we intend to drink more of it, and that he would hold it at the bar for our refills. This we do, and the whole charge came to $14! Now I know we are not in NYC.
We enter the large backroom which is about fifteen minutes away from peak time, and is filling up rapidly. The furniture motif is "black painted oil drum", stacked and arranged to create piggy areas with limited access. Walking to the rear of one of these cul-de-blacks, I am pursued by three men brandishing poppers and dicks. The usual piles-up evolve and multiply, and much beer is lost or tumbled. I reconnoiter with C and we make the identical observation about Boston guys. They get busy, but not in a playful way. They are the same guilt-ridden men we remember doing at The Safari Club (sadly closed down a few years back). However, the place gets gridlocked with a couple hundred moderately attractive men who are not shy, and there is no flashlight wielding monitor to slap their hands.
That was Friday. On Saturday, we went to Club Cafe. Extremely crowded. Younger. Hot. Friendly. Not sleazy. Well lit. No visible dick. We bump into a guy we had met at Alibi in Fort Lauderdale. He is freshly without his partner who had been developing a secret Manhunt life. (Manhunt lives are OK, but don't keep them a secret from your partner.) The guy yanks up his tee shirt,inviting me to stroke his chest which is dense with soft fur. We discuss his stalker, a mutual acquaintance from Ptown. We make plans for the Black party weekend. Dieter hands me one of the vanilla vodka diet coke drinks they like and I make the mistake of actually drinking it. Things grow fuzzy. There was mouth on mouth contact while D & G speak into my ear their plans to walk home and to watch Crash on DVD. They give us keys.

Oh right. the Hockney show. You didn't really think I'd be talking about that, did you?

Pausing, may I say that

I always appreciate the email I receive about matters Pergemodoular, but yesterday I opened three delectables in a row, all worthy of a word of thanks.

The first, discovered on my site meter, which overnight seemed to have become that house invaded by Gremlins, was from ErosBlog regarding my help for the writer who wanted to become a shooter rather than a dribbler.

The second, a comment from a Californian Gordon, deposited on "A True Vocation" (which I posted last December) was refreshingly mitigated at its onset:

gordon baldwin said...

What a briliantlly organized dialogue (!) even if the underlying placement/disposition (placement in its French sense) of the characters is perhaps a little too good to be true. The writing, the plot is so seductive and so lethal as the reader, in this case me, is torqued into a vortex.
This and the four earlier months of your blog, that I've read this early evening in California, have given me great pleasure, much laughter, some envy, and deep respect, that you're managing to get it all into words and available to the collective consciousness, shoulod there be one. Bravissimo!

And finally, one of my favorite bloggers (and someone I've probably never met), after a few insomniac hours spent rummaging through my archives, sent me a photograph of his statuesque dick as a "token of thanks". Token, indeed. It is the sort of thing that would make a trawler full of Japanese tuna fishermen drop their nets and run for their Nikons. I've never posted a dick shot herein, but if I were looking for a first, this'd be it. Maybe I'll ask his permission to post it in sections. Y'all could collect him over the span of a week and then reassemble the parts, making the veins meet and the neatly partitioned halves of the underside of the glans match up. A sort of Cracker Jack/Ovaltine approach to dick.

Anyway, thanks, Bacchus, Gordon and XXXXXXXXX.

I see the Priest coming.

, originally uploaded by farmboyz.

Right, be polite, but don't leave his room without a C-Note and a good DNA sample.

Mr. Parker

Al Parker (from BJ's collection), originally uploaded by farmboyz.

A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, I'm in a booth at the second floor Sri Lankan speakeasy on 80th, with this black muscle number who pauses and says "You know who you look like? I just figured it out. You look just like Al Parker. You ever see him?" Now I've seen plenty of Al Parker, and the compliment startles me, so later in the week, I email The Expert who sends me this pic and says that maybe the eyes are what moved him to make the comparison. Anyway, the guy gets back into gear, and he can't seem to go fast enough, so I say "Whoa! Hold the Acela, fella. What's your hurry." He checks his watch and says "Gotta get home in time for Desperate Houswives".

The Wraft of God?

The Wraft of God?, originally uploaded by farmboyz.