Monday, February 28, 2005
Post Oscars
This weekend was a kids weekend. My two grade school kids spent the weekend with us. So did E’s high school kid for part of it. We all watched the recent Harry Potter movie in DVD Friday night after Shabbat dinner. On Saturday my kids had a play date and we had dinner with a gay couple that has joint custody of similar age kids. We all had a great time and a wonderful meal. Sunday after my kids went back to their mother, E and I went to an Oscar fundraising party for the local gay pride weekend. It was fun to dress up in our tuxes, go out and watch the show. To bad the Oscar show sucked. There were hardly any tributes or film montages and no big production numbers.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Thursday evening
After work I took the train up to San Francisco. E met me at the station. He had a client that day near the city. Dinner and a show were on the schedule for the evening. We didn’t have reservations anywhere but it was still early and we had plenty of time to eat before the theatre. A lot of fun new restaurants have opened in the theatre district. For years there were very few options. The big trend now is “small plate” or tapas style restaurants. The trend crosses many different cuisines. There are Mediterranean, Mexican, seafood, pan-Asian, Californian, Indian, Caribbean and vegetarian small plate restaurants. There are probably a half dozen small plate restaurants in the area now. We chose Cortez on Geary Street. It was a fabulous meal.
The play was “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. This was the first time to see a show at this theatre. It was a good family comedy/drama by Lynn Nottage. Ms Nottage is being produced a lot in the Bay Area. San Jose Repertory Theatre premiered “Las Meninas” several years ago. TheatreWorks will be producing “Intimate Apparel” next season. The actress playing the lead daughter was terrific. We have seen her in several things recently (“Our Town” and workshops at TheatreWorks). The rest of the cast was very good too except the actor playing the father. I think he was miscast in the role.
The play was “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. This was the first time to see a show at this theatre. It was a good family comedy/drama by Lynn Nottage. Ms Nottage is being produced a lot in the Bay Area. San Jose Repertory Theatre premiered “Las Meninas” several years ago. TheatreWorks will be producing “Intimate Apparel” next season. The actress playing the lead daughter was terrific. We have seen her in several things recently (“Our Town” and workshops at TheatreWorks). The rest of the cast was very good too except the actor playing the father. I think he was miscast in the role.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
February weekend getaway
Two or three times a year, E and I spend a weekend in San Francisco. This last President’s Day weekend was incredible despite the wet weather. Late Friday afternoon we check into Parker Guest House, our favorite bed and breakfast in SF. While having a couple glasses of wine at the B&B social hour, we meet and talked to several other guests. We learned that there was an International Bear Rendezvous convention happening this weekend. We saw big guys everywhere all weekend.
We had dinner that night at Paul K restaurant. This is one of our favorite restaurants in SF. It is on Gough Street, a couple blocks off Market St. After dinner we walked over to New Conservatory Theatre Center to see our first of four plays for the weekend. Tonight was “Mambo Italiano”. It was a well done coming out story...full of love, guilt and family. The play was made into a fun movie several years ago. After the play we drove back to Parker House and walked through the Castro and down Market St. to Martuni’s for a couple of drinks in the back room around the piano bar. Guys were taking turns singing show tunes and standards with the piano player
Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we walked over to Geary Street. We stopped at Lori’s Diner on Mason and had an excellent salmon burger for lunch. At 2pm we saw “Well” at ACT. The play was written and stars Lisa Kron. Both E and I agreed that it was one of the best shows we have ever seen. Afterwards, we walked around the art galleries on Geary and Sutter Streets. My favorite art pieces were Albrecht Durer’s print called “The Bath House” at Pasquale Iannetti Gallery, Randy Cooper’s shadow sculptures and Homero Aguilar’s large paintings of walls and mirrors at Louis Aronow Gallery. Dinner was at a new restaurant we had not been to before. It is a little hard to find on Taylor Street but Anju is worth seeking out. They call themselves a seafood tapas bar with a twist. We had the paella for two, several tapas plates for starters and a wine soaked pear for dessert. Excellent meal. Our evening show was Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge” at Actors Theatre of San Francisco. It was a small 49 seat theatre on Sutter Street. It was a good thing we got there early because they overbooked the performance. I suspect a lot of people were interested in seeing the play because of Arthur Miller’s death the previous week. It was a good performance by a non-Equity cast. The story was interesting and neither one of us had seen a production of it before. We took a cab back to the Parker House afterwards because it was raining so hard. We decided not to go out to a dance called “Sweat”. The weather was just too nasty and we were tired.
Sunday started with a late breakfast and newspaper reading. We skipped lunch and went to the 2pm show at New Conservatory Theatre Center and saw “Rescue and Recovery”. It was an interesting play about a man, his ex-wife and his new gay relationships. From there we walked downtown to the Union Square area. While walking hand-in-hand down the busy Market Street sidewalk, we received the screamed epithet “faggot” from a passing car of kids. You would think this would not be an issue in SF. We met a friend at the Italian restaurant Puccini & Pinetti on Ellis for a drink and then had dinner there. We have eaten there several times before. It serves basic inexpensive Italian meals. It was not the best cuisine choice to precede five hours of dancing. Nevertheless, after dinner we went to the T-dance “Fresh @ Ruby Skye”. We danced until it closed at midnight. Then we walked back to the B&B.
Monday we were slow to get up for breakfast. The weather turned warm and sunny. We checked out of Parker House and walked and shopped in the Castro. E bought several obscure musicals on CD. We checked out Cliff’s Variety store on Castro and bought some silk flowers in the annex. We bought some cards and rainbow glasses at Under One Roof. This is one of our favorite stores in the Castro. All the merchandise is donated and it raises funds for local AIDS service organizations. Lunch was chicken burritos. Just as the weather started to turn cold and rainy, we drove over to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition before it closed the next day. It was a fascinating retrospective of his career until his recent death. On the same floor was retrospective exhibition of Robert Bechtle. He painted photorealist style pictures of cars, street-scapes and family scenes. We decided to buy a family membership to the museum as we were leaving. I’m hoping the next time we visit we can buy one of the mobiles we saw in the gift shop. Members get 10% off! We finished the weekend with a nice meal at Zao Noodle Bar in Palo Alto.
We had dinner that night at Paul K restaurant. This is one of our favorite restaurants in SF. It is on Gough Street, a couple blocks off Market St. After dinner we walked over to New Conservatory Theatre Center to see our first of four plays for the weekend. Tonight was “Mambo Italiano”. It was a well done coming out story...full of love, guilt and family. The play was made into a fun movie several years ago. After the play we drove back to Parker House and walked through the Castro and down Market St. to Martuni’s for a couple of drinks in the back room around the piano bar. Guys were taking turns singing show tunes and standards with the piano player
Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we walked over to Geary Street. We stopped at Lori’s Diner on Mason and had an excellent salmon burger for lunch. At 2pm we saw “Well” at ACT. The play was written and stars Lisa Kron. Both E and I agreed that it was one of the best shows we have ever seen. Afterwards, we walked around the art galleries on Geary and Sutter Streets. My favorite art pieces were Albrecht Durer’s print called “The Bath House” at Pasquale Iannetti Gallery, Randy Cooper’s shadow sculptures and Homero Aguilar’s large paintings of walls and mirrors at Louis Aronow Gallery. Dinner was at a new restaurant we had not been to before. It is a little hard to find on Taylor Street but Anju is worth seeking out. They call themselves a seafood tapas bar with a twist. We had the paella for two, several tapas plates for starters and a wine soaked pear for dessert. Excellent meal. Our evening show was Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge” at Actors Theatre of San Francisco. It was a small 49 seat theatre on Sutter Street. It was a good thing we got there early because they overbooked the performance. I suspect a lot of people were interested in seeing the play because of Arthur Miller’s death the previous week. It was a good performance by a non-Equity cast. The story was interesting and neither one of us had seen a production of it before. We took a cab back to the Parker House afterwards because it was raining so hard. We decided not to go out to a dance called “Sweat”. The weather was just too nasty and we were tired.
Sunday started with a late breakfast and newspaper reading. We skipped lunch and went to the 2pm show at New Conservatory Theatre Center and saw “Rescue and Recovery”. It was an interesting play about a man, his ex-wife and his new gay relationships. From there we walked downtown to the Union Square area. While walking hand-in-hand down the busy Market Street sidewalk, we received the screamed epithet “faggot” from a passing car of kids. You would think this would not be an issue in SF. We met a friend at the Italian restaurant Puccini & Pinetti on Ellis for a drink and then had dinner there. We have eaten there several times before. It serves basic inexpensive Italian meals. It was not the best cuisine choice to precede five hours of dancing. Nevertheless, after dinner we went to the T-dance “Fresh @ Ruby Skye”. We danced until it closed at midnight. Then we walked back to the B&B.
Monday we were slow to get up for breakfast. The weather turned warm and sunny. We checked out of Parker House and walked and shopped in the Castro. E bought several obscure musicals on CD. We checked out Cliff’s Variety store on Castro and bought some silk flowers in the annex. We bought some cards and rainbow glasses at Under One Roof. This is one of our favorite stores in the Castro. All the merchandise is donated and it raises funds for local AIDS service organizations. Lunch was chicken burritos. Just as the weather started to turn cold and rainy, we drove over to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to see the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition before it closed the next day. It was a fascinating retrospective of his career until his recent death. On the same floor was retrospective exhibition of Robert Bechtle. He painted photorealist style pictures of cars, street-scapes and family scenes. We decided to buy a family membership to the museum as we were leaving. I’m hoping the next time we visit we can buy one of the mobiles we saw in the gift shop. Members get 10% off! We finished the weekend with a nice meal at Zao Noodle Bar in Palo Alto.
Friday, February 18, 2005
About
Eddie and Ed are two gay men who have been together since 2002. We were both married to women for twenty some years when we met and fell in love. We divorced our wives and moved in together. We each have three kids for a total of six that we share custody and support. All the kids (ages five to twenty-one at the time of the divorce) seem to enjoy spending time with their two dads. Fortunately, we have not had any major problems or issues with the kids about the separation, divorce or coming out.
We both love to attend theatre. Eddie has been a theatre board member and past board chair for an Equity theatre company and Ed worked as a theatre arts administrator for several south bay theatre companies over a 20 year period. We see more than 80 plays, musicals and operas a year. And we subscribe to at least a half-dozen theatres. We also try to see all the major nominated Academy Award movies each year. In addition, we are season ticket holders to the SF Giants. We do not have a television hookup (no antenna, cable or satellite dish). This gives us a lot of additional, flexible time. On those rare times when we are home, we do watch an occasional video from Netflix. We are usually busy with either kids or events most nights and weekends. We also do a lot of traveling. There is rarely a dull moment around our house.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
A gay Valentine's Day poem
My sweet, handsome man wrote a poem for me yesterday. Swoon!!
Once, you shot Cupid's shaft
Into My so-long-hidden chamber.
Deep into heart's walls
Your arrow pierced
Until my Being
Burst
Into a Kaleidoscope
Of Discovery & Delight.
Now, my Life beats in Rhythm
So red with Passion
For a Man and Mate
Who starred in years of secret dreams,
Who turned Fantasy into Everyday.
© E.R.
Once, you shot Cupid's shaft
Into My so-long-hidden chamber.
Deep into heart's walls
Your arrow pierced
Until my Being
Burst
Into a Kaleidoscope
Of Discovery & Delight.
Now, my Life beats in Rhythm
So red with Passion
For a Man and Mate
Who starred in years of secret dreams,
Who turned Fantasy into Everyday.
© E.R.
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