June 26, 2005
I forgot that today was the day, 
but thankfully it still turned out well. Tickets for September’s White Stripes concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion went on sale today at 10. Despite completely forgetting about it until six hours later, I was still able to get an awesome seat and now I can’t wait. I didn’t get on the floor like I’d wanted, but just the fact that I’m getting to see these guys live in person is so cool I don’t even care.
I’ve been a Stripes fan since Elephant, and shortly after falling in love with that album, I discovered White Blood Cells and De Stijl, and the seduction was complete. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found about them earlier. The newest album Get Behind Me Satan is phenomenal and now my fanboy status is cemented.
September 25th can’t come soon enough.
June 19, 2005
Thirty years ago, twenty people gathered around the most phallic symbol in Baltimore, the Washington monument, for merry-making and, well, I don’t know. There’s not much written about the first Baltimore Pride. I’m sure it involved assless chaps. This year they’ve graduated to a 30,000-people-strong block party with Ru Paul as the headliner. They’ve moved up the street a few blocks from Baltimore’s biggest phallus, but I think it’s a pretty good trade-off. So to all the godless homosexuals in Baltimore: happy Pride!
June 16, 2005
I suppose the puddle in the parking garage should have done it, or perhaps the signs posted liberally around my building, but I didn’t realize until after I got home today and flushed the toilet after taking a pee that my apartment’s water had been shut off.
It wasn’t the unfortunate side-effect of my financial delinquency, either. When heading back downstairs to ask the apartment manager what was up, I found one of the signs proclaiming “DUE TO WATER MAIN BREAK, WATER HAS BEEN SHUT OFF UNTIL THIS EVNING” (sic). No sweat, I thought. I poured some orange juice and pulled out the leftover pizza and had myself some dinner.
Funny thing about dinner, though, is that it tends to cause certain biological functions to occur. It makes you need to shit. And oh, did it come on quickly. But I couldn’t take a shit. There was no water in the toilet, as I’d used my one safety-flush on urine. So I decided just to lay down, watch some TV, and try not to think about it.
That worked for about 15 minutes. As my stomach began to cramp and my lower G.I. began to alert me, “hey, seriously, let’s do this thing,” I begged off. “Just a few more minutes, guys. They’ll have the water back on in no time so don’t worry about it.”
But it didn’t come back on in a few minutes. It didn’t come back on in a few hours. By 10:00, I had needed to take a shit for four hours and the water was still not back on in my apartment. Then I had an idea.
I’d brewed myself a half-gallon of sweet tea last night. And it was delicious, one of the best batches I’ve made since moving to Baltimore. However, time was of the essence, and the complete list of fluids in my apartment was orange juice, sweet tea, and expired milk. It seemed like a waste to use the juice, and the expired milk…well…I won’t even entertain the idea.
So I poured myself a small glass of the tea for old time’s sake, and then dumped the rest in the toilet. I figured a little less than a half-gallon would be enough to get enough of the job done to buy me a few more hours. I did the deed, I flushed the toilet, and to my amazement, I heard the pipes groan as my toilet refilled with fresh clean water. Stunned, I reached over and opened the faucet in the sink, and water came sputtering, then flowing, then gushing out as though it had known my plight and was rushing to my aid, just seconds too slow.
I love my new life.
June 11, 2005
“Now, if you could please remove your pants and hop up on the rusty truck.”
My friend Kway, on his approach to working with models. Check out his (in-progress) photography portfolio.
June 11, 2005
An ice cream truck, music blaring, at a quarter past ten on a Friday night.
No one who has any business buying anything from an ice cream truck has any business being out after 10 pm.
June 8, 2005
I have reached a major milestone in my relocation to Baltimore: I made my first good pitcher of sweet tea today.
For those not from the south, making sweet tea isn’t like tossing together a pot of coffee. The right mix of tea, sugar, water, temperature and time is absolutely essential. Too little sugar and it’s bitter. Too much, and you can’t taste the tea. Too much tea, and it’s just overpowering. Leave it steeping for too long, and it just tastes burnt. That last sin is what makes all sweet tea brewed at fast food and chain restaurants taste like crap.
Getting your sweet tea just right is a mark of accomplishment in the south. Everyone does it a little differently, but everyone has a way they’ve always done it. When I moved up to Baltimore, I switched from using a coffee pot to an iced tea maker. I had some real trouble getting it right at first, but I’d been living with my parents for several months, and they used one, so I knew that it could be done. I just had to get my mix right.
I got it tonight. It’s still not quite there—I let the water get too tepid before stirring in the sugar—but it’s miles beyond the crap I was making when I first got up here. Making a good pitcher of sweet tea is a big step in a southerner’s attempt to make a nest far away from home, and today I’m happy to be just that much closer to being there.
June 6, 2005
Just a reminder—the powers that be are saying that Blogtimore, Hon is launching in just over twenty minutes from now, at 6pm. Assuming they get everything online in time, check it out, and if you’re a Baltimore blogger that hasn’t signed up yet, be sure to do that.
June 6, 2005
Wow, it’s official. Despite literally years of mindless speculation about Apple making the jump to Intel-made processors, it’s finally happened. And Apple already has a version of Tiger running on Intel, so the old “yellow-box” project was kept up-to-date all along.
Not much to say now, other than wow. Steve Jobs is pretty shrewd, and I don’t think he would have done it if it weren’t in the best interests of the platform. So rather than freaking out, which is certainly my first impression, I’ll sit back and see what this news has to offer for the Mac faithful.
June 5, 2005
I went to Pickles last night—God, I hate saying the name of that place—and Mick was gone but there was another ‘tender in that I hadn’t met before. Everyone at that place is ridiculously friendly. So I keep going, despite the name.
More freelance projects taking up my weekend. It could be worse.
June 2, 2005
I went to see Making Porn, starring actual real-life porn star Matthew Rush, at the Baltimore Theatre Project last night. Yes, I’ll admit, I bought the ticket because of the promise of “NUDITY AND STRONG LANGUAGE,” as the ads suggested.
But it wound up actually being really funny. After the side-splitting first act, I was a little disappointed in the whoa-where-did-that-come-from seriousness of the second act. Nonetheless, between the hilarious performances (particularly from Preston Lee Britton as Arthur and Kristen Shea as Linda, but even ol’ Matthew Rush himself), the great space of the Theatre Project, and, yes, the nudity, the show was really good.
It’s only playing through Sunday, so check it out.
