Richard Slimmons

Sally asked me if I wanted to take Richard Simmon's workout class.  I didn't even know he was still active!  Apparently he teaches two classes a week in his studio in Beverly Hills and though he is much older than when he made exercise VHSes, he was flamboyant as ever!

He is so vulgar!  "Get on your knees bitches!  I know some of you are already used to that!"

"Come on you sluts!"  I guess he kept it PG for his videos, but there was nothing to censor him in the studio.  It was amazing and I did break a sweat!

He asked these two guys if they slept with each other.  Awkward!   And after Charles confirmed that he was Korean, Simmons told him to lay off the dumplings.

We lucked out since that weekend was not too crowded.  And for $12, it's worth the experience.  We kept moving to dance and country songs mimicking his simple movements.  At one point, he had the class create a circle.  He pulled random individuals into the center and had them trot around to the beat of the song.

He pulled Jimmy, Charles and Me into the center and instructed us to take off our shirts.  We politely declined and he responded, "TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING SHIRTS!"  So we obeyed while laughing awkwardly dancing in the middle in all of our glory.  It was exhilarating.

I'm sad that Sally moved to the mid west.  She always invites us to these awesomely random things.

Check out the class!
http://www.richardsimmons.com/j15/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43&Itemid=34

October Birthdays - Wine, Chicken and First Birthday

Jimmy's birthdays have always been outdoorsy.  Soon after the celebration, a handful of artsy facebook photo albums pop up since folks take the opportunity to use their SLRs and fancy cameras.  Last year was a picnic at the Getty.  This year was celebrated at Malibu Wines for wine tasting.

Dapper attire involves many many bow ties.  Bien thought of this awesome compilation.

Alysia - the woman in my life

No outside alcohol allowed, so we brought soju infused watermelon and vodka infused gummy bears. Slimy.

Some strangers said we were the best dressed group there!  Dress to impress.

More AMAZING pictures here and here.

For Jlo's birthday we had a huge potluck that involved chicken from around the world.

Honey Kettle Chicken
KFC
Zankou Chicken
Home made chicken adobo
Chicken Katsu
Gluton Free chicken

SO MUCH FUCKING CHICKEN.

Boyfrens

I also had a chance to make it to my cousin's daughter's first birthday!  I got her a toy cell phone, I thought it was funny but of course, she already had one.  So many presents!

Pink Elephant in the Room

"You shouldn't use the word 'friend' so lightly."

After getting over how attractive the actors are in this clip, this short for the 2012 10th Annual Taiwan LGBT Pride really resonated with me.  Though I'm more out to my family than Jimmy, I feel very much like Andy from this short.

A response to this video read, "I wish it was that easy."   No matter how accepting your family is there's still a coming out that you need to do to yourself.  At times I still feel ashamed.  Regardless of having many gay friends, doing gay things and basically spewing rainbows from all pores of my body - I don't feel, or will ever feel "normal" per se.

I'm feeling it now with really straight coworkers who talk about ex girlfriends.  They politely avoid asking me because I haven't made it clear that I was comfortable talking about my personal life.  In fact, it was so obvious when a coworker went around the table asking everyone who they were dating at a lunch.  When they finally got to me, they asked, "Are you still in Echo Park?"  Anyone who was paying attention would have noticed.  Polite/Considerate is the only description I can give to what happened.

The issue is - I do not want to impose/share my "unique" lifestyle on to them.  Much like being a pro-choice liberal lost in the deep south or conservative Republican in the Castro - you are silenced because you know that your beliefs, values cannot be shared by the majority that surrounds you.  It's like when you step out of your circle of like-minded individuals, you have a hard time connecting, relating... talking in general and you find it difficult/rude to insert yourself when you don't fit in.  So I'm silent.

Silent to my straight coworkers, silent to my family and the picture of me and Jimmy that sits so obviously on the homepage of my phone is just an image of me and my "friend" standing very close to me.  We can talk about something else that everyone can understand like food.

...and because of that, I feel like coming completely out to my family would not do any good.  Because the issues, feelings and events in my life will never be understood and I'm only asked for a brief moment out of courtesy.  They will never understand... would identifying the big pink elephant in the room improve the quality of my life?

And that's my problem...  it's a lack of pride in my gay beliefs, my gay values, my gay identity.  Walking shirtless at pride means nothing if I'm still telling my parents that I'm going "out" instead of going to a gay event...

...but at the same time I can't expect that all of a sudden I can share everything that I'm thinking feeling doing to every last detail 100% after coming out. Rather, when the giant pink elephant in the room (which at this point is taking up all the available space that no one can see anything else) deflates, I will no longer have to lie or be ashamed.

Fuck.  I can only imagine the amount of tears I would be in talking to my dad who comments all over my uncensored facebook.  At that point I would have finally come to terms with wanting to tell my dad how I love... knowing that he would hug me and tell me that he loves me because he had many years to prepare himself as the elephant kept growing ever since he found gay porn on my computer when I was 12.

I've procrastinated so long and just want my dad to come to me; like in the video.  But... it really isn't that easy is it?  Taiwan, you paint such a pretty picture, taking a different angle to coming out that puts me on edge.

San Diego Trip

Erik started off the Libra birthday blitz by celebrating in San Diego on September 29th.  Click here for Erik's bday details.  While being close to the border I learned a handful of things.

1. I should stop shopping at H&M.  Found a couple of other gaysians with this shirt.  About to burn it.

2.  I'm not that bad at the grill.  I BBQ'd an amazing stack of ribs.  After the meat is cooked, glaze the top in bbq sauce and flip the rack of ribs for 5 minutes to let the sugar caramelize. 1000 man points!

3.  This is just a pretty picture

4. My knees have not completely become useless

5.  I LOVE THESE photo face things!  Well, I already knew that.

6. Dora

7. Tacos in Mexico are almost as good as Tacos in Los Angeles... and the same price... when you don't speak Spanish

8.  The original Taco Bell.... looks like this.  I think.

September Recap

The picture reminds me of what I love about my LA life.  This is the parking lot of my local grocery store.  It's probably 2AM after clubbing and we were hungry.  Taco Zone has been our savior for the best  drunken quesadilla and the hipsters in line seem to agree.  They have lined up while we wait for our order to come out.  This is where we meet interesting people approaching them with easy since we had a handful of drinks and really didn't care at that point.

This is where Charles touched a black girls hair and I reprimanded him, "You do NOT touch a black girls hair!"  The girls were amused.  This is where I was way too friendly with a Vietnamese guy asking him about his trip to the motherland.  This is where I wanted to yell, "the red handkerchief in your back pocket means you're into fisting you stupid hipster."  This is where we end our nights if we can't make it to the 626 for turnip cake.

This is my mom and dad visiting me.  I promised to take them to amazing BBQ and thought Road to Seoul was perfect... only it took an hour and we were starving.  Though to my relief they said it was worth it.  I tease my parents for loving suburb life where chain restaurants rule the roads- "what's for dinner? Outback?"  I wanted to make sure they enjoyed K-town.  Here they are dancing to a hip hop song blasting on the speakers.  I realized that I was old when my brother did the dougie flawlessly and I could barely catch a beat.  When they come back, I'm taking them to Thai-town where the atmosphere is less chaotic.

Sam planned a gallery visit... an Adventure Time gallery visit at Nucleus.  The artwork got me into the show.  After 10 episodes, the oddity that made the show addicting became normal and I became bored and moved on.  But the art and color of the show are really eye catching.  The fan art is amazing.

We went to Huntington Beach to visit our friend Sam.  I really like this photo - it's candid.  And my legs are placed at just the right spot.  If only there was a way to remove that distracting woman in the background.  The photo would be perfect.

There, much better, don't you think?  Sometimes I think I'm too skillful for my own good.

Found myself at GameBoiSF - and I'm never returning.  But I had fun that night with my new shirt.  Do you guys see anything unusual about it??   No?

Well, I flipped my collar inward to make a new gay appropriate v-neck from a polo.  No one called me out.  What did I say about SKILLZ !?!  I'm a chameleon BITCH!

Ended up at 6 Flags Magic Mountain for their gay day with two other couples and a 7th wheel.  Warm night, short lines, drag performance... my kind of Friday.  Looks like Erik doesn't like being rear ended.

God, we really like sit.  We look like cats sharing a litter box.

Charles: Happy Birthday!
Host: Actually ... It's a moving out party

Second hand embarrassment strikes again for Charles...

Charles takes my camera and takes about 10 pictures of himself doing duckface.  Well charles, I'm making a collage and putting this on facebook.

Unsure what I'm looking at here.

I took a amateur "tour of SF" where the guide literally showed us the mansion where she grew up in Pacific Heights.  She pointed out her private school which is terribly difficult to get into and of course asked us if we needed to use the restroom at the Yacht club which she was a part of.   I think at one point she stopped talking and let the diamond on her hand speak while she rested.

Watched Sean do his thing at Tuesday Night Cafe.  He was a natural MC.  A lot of talent and community.  If you're looking to be empowered, check this shiz out.

Gonna save my San Diego adventure of another entry where I had tacos from Tijuana which were almost as good as the tacos in Echo Park.

Spooky October

Walking Dead Hunting the Terrified

Halloween is inconsistent.  Sometimes there's a party, sometimes there's a great costume, but most of the time it's stressing last minute for a clever costume and wearing last year's outfit to go to a crappy event.

It feels forced.  Like oh - we're supposed to go out because it's Halloween.  I blame the endless October birthdays that prevent me from thinking this one through, but I'd say this year was good.

Thanks to Amazon Local I discovered Haunted Hollywood Sports.  The first time this year, they took a giant paintball field and transformed it into 4 terrifying themed mazes and 3 "kill houses" where you can actually shoot at the monsters.  They incorporated the paintball course and added flare and blood.  This is the first time I've ever gone to a haunted house and it was amazing.

I could feel my heart beat quickly as I was preparing myself for things to jump out at me through the fog.  Though what made it fun was going with Charles who was kept screaming... because of that he was a target.  The minute we walked into our first maze it was pitch black and Charles turns around declaring, "okay I cant do this."  But we proceeded after pushing him in front.  We went early October so there was no crowd like at Knott's Scary Farm or Queen Mary... so it was extra intimate and extra scary... we felt like we were there by ourselves.

City of Angels - a maze themed like apocalyptic los angeles (though it just looked like east side)
The Abduction - alien themed
Cannibal Caverns - farm house of terror
The other maze was closed due to mud.

This place was so elaborate.  The decorations were perfect.  They made us walk though a broken down bus while things jumped out at us.  We witnessed alien pods and operation tables.  It was straight out of a movie.

At one point the redneck cannibals were scream, "WRONG WAYYY" they said this 10 times before one of them broke character, "seriously guys, you're going the wrong way."  Because of rain, I slipped on the mud and Charles ran into a guard wire and broke it because he thought he was being chased.  I couldn't stop laughing.

The actors were committed.  One threw up in front of me.

 We didn't take pictures inside the mazes because we didn't want to ruin the experience, but we were able to grab a photo with this demon in between mazes.

The Friday before Halloween I reached out to everyone for something interesting to do.  I found The Forge through a coworker/Sriracha Bottle.  The Forge is a creative work space North of Downtown.  For $13 we got an open bar and a good night with artists and creatives.

There was a live band and ballet performance.  There was a nice dance floor with random indie and electro rock.

...AND A BOUNCY HOUSE!  Which we had control of for a couple of minutes before this guy came in and fell against the wall almost knocking the house over.  That was our cue to get out.

Jessica Parker and a Mermaid pinata made an appearance.   The boys claimed that it was probably one of the best Halloween parties they've gone to.  Surprise, there's a whole world outside of WeHo... please help me look.

Saturday Night we celebrated Steve's 90's Rave themed birthday/Halloween party.  I stuck with the original theme with my hair split in the center like Nick Carter or Roger from Sister Sister.  Jimmy was an Urban Mickey Mouse and Sean and Charles are hipster Peter Pan and pirate.  Amazing what you can do with things found around the house.

Halloween night was spent at Ern's watching a scary movie.  Sadly they didn't have Drag Me to Hell on netflix.  That's my favorite!!  And no pumpkin carving this year.  Bitches always leave their pumpkins to rot at my house.  pSHAw.

Ai Se Eu Te Pego!

September 8th I celebrated Brazilian day in Los Angeles with Jimmy.

Jimmy emphasized how much he loves the energy and sense of celebration in Brazil.  Now I can see why.  I honestly know nothing about South America and I have been missing out!!

Enjoyed yummy Brazilian food and soda!  Pastel and Guaraná Antarctica.  Nom nom.

I was so mesmerized by the Brazilian merchandise.  So much green and yellow!

These carnival dancers are gorgeous.

And children rolling in balls like hamsters.


When this song came on everyone went crazy.  And I discovered how catchy it was.  But the best part is that it comes with a dance.... a dance that will be performed at my wedding including the cupid shuffle. Ai Se Eu Te PEGOOOOOO!





Maybe we'll perform it shirtless.



What else comes from Brazil? A lot.