Desert Loving English

In Lawrence of Arabia, Prince Feisal (as played by the ever-commanding Alec Guinness) assesses T.E. Lawrence (as played by the ever-homoerotic Peter O’Toole) as, “…one of those desert loving English.”   Sir Guinness says this with a particularly feline like gesture; he raises his right hand to the height of his waist and lets the hand drift from side to side – almost like he’s polishing the head of an enormous, brass penis…let’s say Allah’s penis?  Given context and all…

Somehow the gesture, the phrase, and the subject:  Mr. Peter O’Toole as the absolutely bizarre Lawrence (to be read:  LOW-RONNZ!), seem to imply much more than just some white dude who loves the desert.  It seems to imply an entire lifestyle.  And, indeed, looking at the bottle blond, heavily highlighted (with the help of Ben Nye cosmetics, duh), extraordinary creature that was Peter O’Toole, Desert Loving English takes on a whole new meaning.

The Desert Loving English, as it has evolved as a term in my own home, has now become synonymous with a certain type of gay man:  The Old Guard Gay, if you will.  The Cole Porters of the world, the Peter O’Tooles, the Carey Grants…these men who were so clearly gay but also so clearly gorgeous and living at a time when declaring one’s sexuality seemed almost gauche (not to mention dangerous as hell).  Why choose one team when you can play both?  And why settle for being an uncharismatic brute (or even a charismatic one, see Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando) when you could be a decent hetero lay when push came to shove AND dashing AND a witty drinking buddy?  

Tom Ford might single handedly create a renaissance in the Desert Loving English category.  He is gorgeous, masculine, feminine, and sharp as a tack.  As could, somewhat surprisingly, Richard Branson, the lunatic behind the Virgin brand.  While he is a far cry from Old Guard Gay (he’s a bit more Gary Cooper in Fountainhead, let’s be honest), he seems to understand the grace and ease that the Desert Loving English bring to international travel.  Case in point:  Virgin Australia.

This Christmas I flew Virgin Australia (guess where we went?!) and I was presented with a crew full of Desert Loving English.  Gorgeous, flirty men who seem amenable to either gender just as long as you have a sense of humor and a taste for Bombay Sapphire.  And the women too, while not Desert Loving English (the term doesn’t really cross over since, who are we kidding, old guard lesbos – e.g. Virgina Woolf and Alice B. Toklas – were not exactly the life of the party), were lovely, vibrant, and helpful to boot.  The crew of Richard Branson’s ship with wings made my Christmas voyage a sheer delight.  And, while the food was fine, I had picked up my favorite travel treat in the airport so really all I needed was water and alcohol.  Before any flight, I make a point of securing a large bottle of water, a valium and…Cadbury Fruit and Nut. 

As another kind of Dessert Loving English, I hail from a long line of Cadbury freaks (my gran used to stash Cadbury Flakes in her baking tins and my mom rarely leaves a grocery store without her very own bar of Fruit and Nut).  I am distressed by the recent sale of Cadbury to Kraft, to say the least.  I fear my lifelong, international treat will soon taste like a Hershey’s bar (akin to a chalkboard eraser, no?).  So I’m beginning my collection now.  This weekend I can be found creating my own travel stash of pre-Kraft Cadbury that will ensure my next flight on V. Australia is as good as my last. 

Long live the Dessert Loving English!  AND the Desert Loving English!

Eyes Wide Shut

Recently I found myself, not unlike some Pixar lemming, flying off a cliff and meeting a fate I never imagined for myself (if it's Pixar it makes it slightly less harrowing than if it were say...Japanimation?).

I had Korean BBQ.

It reminded me of attending sporting events in high school.  Not because of all the carnage spread out before me - sports weren't really that intense in Butterfly Town USA (i.e. Pacific Grove, California) - but because, truth be told, I was really just there for the company.

In high school I'd find myself bundled up and shivering in the bleachers while gossiping with my pals about how much I wanted to bang so-and-so's brains out (meanwhile I hadn't even kissed another human being...All Talk, Chapter 1 of my autobiography).  I'd happily wander to and from the snack shack with different friends while touchdowns were scored, ties broken, and overtime entered.  I was oblivious.  I was there to stalk crushes, drink hot chocolate, and snicker at filthy jokes.  The fact that I always left with zero sensation in my hands and feet - one notch away from Voyage of the Mimi style hypothermia - was a small price to pay for a night out with the gang.

I awoke the other morning, after visiting Chosun Galbee in Koreatown, with a mild case of fetus face and a descending colon like a snare drum.  As I headed into my day, after gulping down copious amounts of water and flax oil (obviously), I found myself full of the joys of living.  While the food from the night before had imposed a lock down on my digestive track (and still left me wondering what the hell people are going on about re: Korean BBQ), the company had delivered a shot of joy right to the vein.  Sitting and blithering on about the good, the bad, and the ugly in our lives, made the fishy soy bean curd and the gristly meat fade into the background.  I was happy to plough through my bowl of brown rice and sip my Sapporo while keeping this company.

While I have zero intention of returning to Chosun Galbee, if my posse wants to meet next week at Buca di Beppo?  I'll still go.  Sometimes, surprisingly, it's not about the food.

Though, let's be honest, next time?  I'll pick the damn restaurant...believe it!

final word:  Skip Chosun Galbee.  Unless, of course, some of your favorite people in the world want to go with you.  In that case, order a side of brown rice and a large Sapporo and focus on the friendship.  Cheers!

Cubed

I have two current obsessions.  One is embarrassing and one is completely legitimate.

Let’s get the awkward one out of the way:  I am really into a car. 

And if that’s not bad enough:  I’m really into a Nissan. 

And to make matters even more humiliating it’s some sort of “cute”, “modern”, “sleek” car that serves as Nissan’s answer to Toyota’s Scion.  It’s name?   The Cube.

AH!

Just writing its name takes me back to that fateful day when Enterprise Rent-a-car handed me the keys.  I scoffed at them.  I made sad, obvious jokes about how “funky” it was and who in their right mind would buy such a piece, and this is almost as bad as the PT Cruisers Avis hocks off on us at LAX, etc.  (I know, sometimes after my morning coffee I am that guy…I never said anything about not being an asshole). 

Let me tell you something:  I drove that bitch up the 101 and when I got to San Louis Obispo I was enjoying myself so much I took Highway 1...all the way to Monterey Bay!

This Box of Love, not to be confused with the one God gave me, makes the whole world appear more beautiful.  The seats are oddly upright so you feel closer to a pilot than a driver and the windshield is so vast you have absolutely nothing hindering your view of the world.  The whole thing is so panoramic it makes you wonder whether you’re driving a Nissan Cube or at the Arclight Cinemas watching a cinematic epic called YOUR LIFE.

As you might imagine, since my tryst with the Cube I’ve been bemoaning my old Volvo (Volvo Station Wagon 240 DL, 1989 – burgundy).  The poor Volv.  She seems creakier than ever; her seats sink with each passing day, her paint thins, and her stops and starts increase (along with my blood pressure).  I step on the gas and twenty minutes later I’m going the speed limit.  I’m the safest driver on the road because, unlike everyone else, I’m driving an actual ship.  Instead of the wildly efficient Cube, I am turning the Mayflower onto La Brea every morning and cursing like a pilgrim pre-Plymouth.

But, not unlike the Mayflower, the Volv gets the job done – and better yet?  It’s free! Also, she just turned 20 so I can’t very well leave her now.  I figure I’ll see her to the bar and then maybe leave her at the ripe age of veinte y uno (21, in case you didn’t take Spanish with Bob Anderson in high school).  In the meantime, I can be found nursing my humbling, automobile obsession with an honest and shared passion:  Cube Restaurant and Marketplace.

I finally went there last weekend after all of my clients told me to get involved with it.  Well, here I am, running after the pack with abandon.  I had the most delicious meal which included three different types of wine, two different types of pasta, octopus, seasonal side dishes that made me moan with delight, and a staff that made me believe they actually like their jobs.  They’d be insane not to…

Run don’t walk!  Get CUBED!

Cube Cafe, Cheese Bar, and Marketplace
615 N. La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, California  90036
p:  323.939.1148
http://www.cubemarketplace.com
Monday - Saturday 11AM - 10:30PM

final word:  They do lunch AND dinner so - if you want to just dip your toe in the water - try lunch and then head back for dinner with someone you adore.  I also feel the need to mention that I still haven't even approached the "secondi" portion of the menu.  All of the small plates and pastas were so fantastic I didn't have room for the crispy black cod or veal saltimbocca I was eyeing.  Ah, well, all the more reason to return - DO IT!

New Attitude

It's official:  Autumn has arrived.
I know, I'm a little slow on the uptake here.  Some poor asshole has known it's fall for at least two months.  I, on the other hand, just got the memo AND the new scarf to match.
This is my favorite time of year in Los Angeles - hands down.  Autumn is beautiful all over the place - I'm awares - but in Los Angeles?  I'd like to argue that there's another layer of magica come November.  It's not just the angle of the light, the sudden drop in temperature post-sunset, or the absence (finally!) of visible tan lines - it's something less tangible and slightly less obvious.  There is a distinct Autumnal Attitude that makes Los Angeles the best, crazy village to inhabit come November.  And what drives this attitude?  The same giant ball of fire that inspires life all over this planet:  the sun.

I know, who cares?  So it's sunny all the time - big fuckin' deal.... Yes.  It is a big fucking deal.  It's a big fucking briliant deal.  It's a big deal when you moved here from some groovy city that insisted on pissing rain and shitting ice all over your life come ye olde Autumnal Equinox.  It is a big deal to wake up prepared to listen to Morrissey for the next five months only to realize you CAN'T because it's 75 degrees outside and beautiful all over.  It is a big deal to be questioning every inch of your life only to look out your window at pure splendor which, at the very least, affirms your decision to haul your ass 3000 miles west and stop performing in shows too absurd to share with your friends (never mind it's the first time you've been able to see those glorious San Gabriel mountains...yes, they were there all summer long they were just hiding behind a large cloud of...smoke?).

The Autumnal Attitude, I believe, stems from a deep seeded sensation that you made the right call.  Not only did you make the right call but you escaped something.  You got out alive.  You got out intact and so did that guy, and that girl!  And that awesome tranny!  And that lady at the dry cleaners!  And even that douche that always waits for you to pull out of your parking space so he can grab it before anyone else - we all did it!  And now, suspicions of being special and clever affirmed, we are here sharing in the light!  The healing, autumnal, Hockney-documented, light!  God is good!  And so are you!

This attitude seems to extend deep into the gyms and studios of Los Angeles.  Everywhere I teach old faces are reappearing prepared to shake it, new people are showing up thrilled to have found a gym that welcomes people with necks (picture it, please) and in general the population seems to have rediscovered the mind/body connection (I know, a disgusting phrase but one that applies here).  It's a wonderful site for a fitness lady.  I can't help but think it has a lot to do with this glorious time of year.  I know Ella Fitzgerald sings beautifully about Autumn in New York, but I think at this stage in my life I'd prefer to stay put, turn up Joni Mitchell's California, and bask in the healing light of this surprisingly sunny state of mind.  And if you're not feeling it - come to class!  I'll make sure you see la luz.

final word:  run don't walk!  come and visit me in class or visit a friend in Los Angeles - now is the time. I can be found at Equinox in Century City or Swerve Studio on Third Street making people sweat it out.

Polarized

In 1999, fresh out of college, I landed a job in the development department at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Company.  I worked in the heart of the dance community with Baryshnikov, one of my childhood crushes/heroes, stopping by the studios regularly and Judith Jameson reigning supreme as Artistic Director at Ailey.  The company that brought the world Revelations - one of the best known and most powerful dance pieces of the 20th century - would now be my home 45 hours a week.  This sounds cool - in theory.  In practice, this looked like me sitting under fluorescent lights, folding thank you letters to generous (or semi-generous, let's be honest) donors, while some of the most beautiful dancers in the world rehearsed overhead.  I'm not exaggerating for the sake of story telling (or blithering, to continue on the honesty tip), the dance studios were directly overhead.  As I sat atrophying in my adjustable desk chair, I would hear the sounds of hard working feet making contact with the floor as muscles contracted, pores sweat, and someone's body got even more beautiful.  My tits, meanwhile, were drifting towards my naval.

During this stage in my life I began taking my pulse at regular intervals, playing with my ears as some regressive act of comfort, and asking my long-suffering co-worker, Joanne Ruggeri, if I looked pale or if my ears were getting bigger from all the tugging.  I was, in no uncertain terms, a hypochondriac.  To throw another log on my neurotic bonfire, when I got off work I would see double.  My eyes had grown so accustomed to the monitor being 18 inches from my face that anything outside of that radius was a challenge - proof, as you might imagine, of the enormous tumor that was paying rent behind my cerebellum (or so I believed, in my bored and obsessive brain).
In short:  I was a wreck.

Lately, I've been taking my heart rate regularly and am reminded of that miserable time.  Although now I use this insanely fancy wrist watch/heart rate monitor/calorie counter/mini-wrist computer/might save my life if I program it successfully/contraption made by Polar.  I got it at an employee sale at Equinox.  I wear it while I workout and also while I teach.  I'm working ye olde target heart rate as much as possible.

Today, during a cardio sculpt class I was instructing, I looked down at my wrist and flashed back to that cubicle on West 61st Street; I remember how I would gingerly place two fingers on my pulse and feel it racing as the best asses in the world grand jete'ed above and beyond the fluorescent lights.  My resting heart rate those days was about twenty beats a minute faster than the one I clocked today.  A nerdy fact, for sure, but one that brought me such relief today.  Polar didn't just dictate a number this morning, it reminded me that I'm no longer decaying at a desk, that I don't have to see double at the end of my workday,  and I can kid myself that - if I work hard enough - I might have half as good a gluteus maximus as one of those Gods that once danced over my head.

Oh, go on...a girl can dream, can't she?

final word:  If you want a heart rate monitor Polar will not let you down.  To learn more about why on earth a person would track her heart rate, what sort of monitor might rock your world, and/or where to find one near you, go to http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/.  Track it!

Confessional

I have been remiss.  I intended to write throughout my summer, weekly if possible, but something happened that made it hard to share.  Something so shocking, so horrifying, so embarrassingly lame I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it.  Even attempting to type it now makes me wince and look away from my computer screen, close my eyes and hope that somehow history will rewrite itself, maybe the story of my life will change despite the facts, I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize it was all just a bad dream… 

I purchased The Hip Chick’s Guide to Macrobiotics. 

There.  I said it.  I feel so God damned naked.

And what’s worse?  I read it and I liked it.  I’ve even recommended it to friends and clients.  It’s so lame.  It’s so stereotypical.  I immediately want to defend myself and write about evenings of wine and meat that will make your head spin, the importance of coffee karma, and breakfast pizzas that are clear proof that there is a God who is a firm believer in the consumption of white flour…I’ve wanted to share it all but I just had to get this off my chest.  I liked that fucking book.  It’s full of good information.  The recipes are only so-so but all that other stuff about balance and putting meals together…it’s really good. 

There’s still another detail I have to share.

I bought it at M Café.  Yeah, that place on Melrose and LaBrea where six Priuses and one diesel BMW vie for 4 parking spaces; where skinny girls and dirty boys eat their daily meal (in between smoke breaks, let’s be honest).  That place.

It’s good.  The dinner bento is a veritable feast for under $20 and the chocolate cupcake has a Hostess like quality that is truly the best margarine has to offer *. I find the food deeply comforting.  Plus it’s open until 10pm which – in this gerbear (as in geriatric bear, duh) town is as good as a 24 hour diner.  Lately, on Tuesday nights after working 12 hours, I pull the Volvo up next to the Prius pile and bask in the healing light of brown rice and perfectly prepared salmon (wild caught, of course) with a miso glaze.  It is so comforting and so healing.  And, let’s be honest, I mean with all that meat and working out?  I was getting pretty fucking yang.

M Café
7119 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90046
P: 323.525.0588
F: 323.525.0310
www.mcafedechaya.com
Monday - Saturday 9am - 10pm, Sunday 9am - 9pm

final word:  The dinner bento is delicious but everything in the deli case is fresh and tasty, the soups are solid, the salads are giant and more original than some of the other stuff around town. They have a lot of faux meat options but I recommend going with the macrobiotic specials: vegetables, grains, and fish. They stick that landing every time.

* On the cupcake front, I have to take a moment and recommend the lemon cupcakes at Café Flore in Silver Lake.  It's a vegan joint that has nice fair but KILLER baked goods.  If you find yourself on West Sunset hit Intelligentsia for coffee and then pair that hot magica with a sweet treat from Flore - there will be no regrets!

Pie in the Sky

I used to have a face that could only be described in two words: Moon Pie.

Now, before you start thinking I'm being hard on myself, it couldn't have been that bad, didn't we all have moon pie, etc...I would just like to make it clear: The edge of my face used to form a full - 360 degrees strong - circle. In case you missed the full moon this week, my face was similar throughout bits of college and even (gulp) shortly after graduation; round, pale, and shining into the night sky - this was my face (to be read: fah-chay).

I look at pictures of myself at the time and cringe. How did I ever get laid? Should we give a grant to those men? Were they secretly paid by a non-profit organization to buy me a few drinks and show me a good time? A group funded by individuals like myself today? Women who look back on their young adulthood and remember what those few moments of feeling heterosexual and alive did to get us through the sad years? I can only assume it was a privately funded or even government funded (it was the Clinton era) operation. In hindsight, I'm not sure I would've humped me - but a small stipend? Could have pushed my poor ass right over the edge.

Ah, well, either way a few good men were living in New York City in the mid-nineties. They're probably all homosexuals now but, God love them, for awhile they were brave citizens of a Moon Pie loving society.

Tonight I was reminded of how that Moon Pie came to be. At about 9:45pm I was on the verge of collapse. I was driving home after a yoga class (half of which I spent hunched in child's pose because my muscles decided to go on strike), stopped to pick up a medicinal bottle of red at Almor (my favorite wine store in the hood), and then came home to a bit of left over salad and the best meal in the world: egg on toast.

Let's be clear about something: Moon Pie did not form due to a routine egg on toast. Moon Pie was born out of a hearty routine of drinking and late night eating. I used to drink myself into the kind of stupor only a 21 year old considers socially acceptable and then charge into diners at 4:15am to order, "Two eggs over easy with a side of fries and white toast - yeah, and go ahead and butter the toast for me. Thanks." Sometimes I'd have it with a beer (if I was close to home), a Coke (to get me in the cab if I was drifting in Brooklyn/Queens), or water (if I was with a friend who actually needed me to listen and form sentences). And then I'd wake up at noon and have it all over again with coffee and (if I was lucky) a friend.

Tonight I had my egg over medium. I cooked it in olive oil with some red pepper flakes and threw it on a piece of Ezekiel bread (you know, the creepy, hippie bread with quotations from the Bible on it?) and a dusting of cayenne pepper. Oh, and yes, a glass of 2007 Borsao (some sort of cheap, Spanish magica). Not exactly Moon Pie's order but, then again, Moon Pie left town about 9 years ago and hasn't been heard from since. Meanwhile, the egg on toast?

Still going strong.

Final word: get your eggs and toast at home, in a diner, or at a fancy restaurant. Just notice the inevitable bliss that follows. As for wine, please visit my pals at -

Almor Wine and Spirits

7855 Sunset Blvd

Hollywood, CA 90046

323.874.0410

www.almorwines.com

I picked up a 2007 Borsao for about eight dollars that is full of cherry and spice but very light on the tongue (sick! I did just write that...). Best part of Almor? The staff. Go in with a budget and a flavor and they'll point you in the right direction. Do it!