Gunny's Blog

The Road Not Taken

2010-02-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost

This has always been one of my favorite poems and even recall quoting this poem in my high school yearbook. The question "What if" is always compelling and an interesting theme for me.

What if my father hadn't died? I may have been more successful professionally sooner under his tutelage, but I can also imagine being less able to have come into my own as a person. What if my Master hadn't died? How would life have turned out with him, his husband and me as their pup? Would I ever have become an alpha and have rudder as my pup?

Another pup, Anvil, and I were chatting the other day and this whole "what if" came about. When I met first Anvil, he wasn't a pup, he was a top on Bear 411. He and I chatted a bit, and he was always pleasant. As I remember, I was collared at the time by one the Masters in my earlier life, and although not as happy as I am with rudder or Master Burley, I considered myself owned and "off the market". ChiBearWilly, as I knew him then was a really nice top, but there he was, geographically undesirable in Chicago. So while we talked occasionally, I never took the opportunity to be his pup.

Some years back, I was at IML and was trying to make the best of it even though my Master Burley couldn't make it there. Out of the blue, there was Anvil in the hands of Master Oliver as a bearboy. He recognized me and that was our first meeting. We have been fast friends since then.

What if I had ended up as his pup? Would he have married Oliver? Would I have been the family pup? Would he have ever become a bottom to begin with?

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A music video for this post:

Five for Fighting, 100 years

It's Alive!

2010-02-03T10:00:00.002-05:00

(This post was meant to be posted a long time ago -- July 21st, 2008!! -- but somehow never got posted, so I am putting it up now. Since this post, I have replaced the rear tire, and finally got the carburetor working properly. It took pretty much till mid-summer of last year to get all of that done! Now, all I need to do is ride it more...)

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I am a happy puppy. Why? This photo explains it:

We are the Champions, by Queen

My four year long odyssey to reclaim a bike from its sad state as a giant dust catcher finally came to an end yesterday. I rode the bike for the first time, and it feels so good, and feels like such an accomplishment.

The bike was a friend's that he had stored in my cousin's garage and basement for years. He only put 5,000 miles on it. and then it sat there for about a decade, unused. One day my cousin and his friends decided to start it to see if it would work. Over cranking the starting motor on a bike that had been sitting so long resulted in the starting motor's gears to break off inside the engine. So the bike went back into storage for a few more years, until I decided to take it on as a project.

I started the project as a way to get my paws dirty. I have always enjoyed working with stuff like this but never had the real opportunity to do so. So with the help of my other cousin, I took the bike completely apart, opened up the engine, replaced the parts, cleaned the bike up, got the frame powder coated, and fixed the carburetor (which took a surprisingly long time).

So I finally got to take ride on my bike, and in someways I think it will be a lot sweeter than buying it "off the rack" as it were. If nothing else, I learned a heckuva lot. The bike still has a lot of problems that need resolution (the rear tire needs to be replaced and the carburetor needs a lot more tuning), and I am sure that will still take more time.

Nonetheless, this is still quite a milestone with which I am very pleased.

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A music video for this post:

Queen, We Are The Champions

Paw Shoes from Bob Basset

2009-06-07T14:27:00.000-04:00

Smorgas Chef and Mandance

2008-04-19T23:59:00.007-04:00

Spent a wonderful day with my mom today just browsing through Manhattan. We went to The Container Store, West Elm, some antique stores in the Manhattan Antique market building, and some thrift stores (Angel and Housing Works).

After that we had dinner outside at Smorgas Chef, which consisted of

Swedish Meatballs with lingonberries over some potatoes
Fresh herring grilled with a lemony vinaigrette and some salad
A main course lamb over some potatoes with cheese
A main course Grouper with Risotto with Fava beams and shrimp

We were quite pleased with the food, and it was nice to dine outside, even if it was a touch chill. We don't often eat outside so it was refreshing change of scenery. We skipped desert in favor of going to Pinkberry, and I was disappointed to find that they no longer do fresh fruit over shaved shaved ice, so I had Green tea frozen yogurt with with mochi, strawberries, bananas, and kiwi fruit. The real reason I go is for the mochi.

As an extra treat we stopped by Lilac Chocolates and picked up some Almond Bark and dark breakup before we headed a few blocks up to the Joyce Theater to see Mandance.

Mandance was spectacular. Their Backchat piece involved a plywood wall covered with rubber tire tred and some metal sculpture. 3 male dancers in bicycle pants did the rest and the movement was engaging to watch.

A promotional piece for Mandance featuring part of the Isis in Transit set which was the picture that made me buy tickets.

The featured piece, Isis in Transit, was technically amazing and had an interesting set with with the dancer interacted. The last piece that they did was called Odette and we both enjoyed that too. There were some amazing contortions, and the control that the dancers have over every part of their body is simply astounding: their toes were as prehensile as fingers it seemed.

Morimoto

2008-04-06T09:20:00.004-04:00

I was going through some of the stuff on my Palm Pilot, and discovered the notes that I took when I ate at Morimoto (the Iron Chef's Manhattan outpost). It had been a long photo safari day -- I had started at the NY Botanical Garden taking photos of their Kiku exhibit, driving down to the Upper West Side's Riverside Park I eventually wandered all the way down to Chelsea, taking photos all along the way, and before I knew it, it got late and my tummy started growling for food.

I decided to drop by Morimoto, as under dressed as I was (an M1 Army jacket, my favorite worn in USMC Matterhorn standard issue boots, etc. -- you get the idea!) and see if they would take in a poor starving puppy. For a place that is extremely chic, they get extra credit for not batting an eyelash and seating me at the sushi bar. Too tired and hungry to try and make choices, I selected the Omakase, which is the Japanese restaurant version of the tasting menu – the menu merely says Omakase and the chef presents you with a number of dishes, each a surprise.

I was seated at the far end of this bar.

My meal started with an Amuse Bouche that was a deep fried ball of sushi rice. This was followed by an O-Toro tartar with Osetra caviar and a dashi soy dipping sauce. This was presented in a bamboo flat with the chopped tuna and a little section of squares of Wasabi, sour cream, nori seaweed paste, chives, avocado and rice crackers. The presentation and the taste was quite good.

A fruit was presented to cleans the palate, and then Spanish Mackerel with shaved ginger shiitake mushrooms cherry tomatoes, followed by seared Hamachi with puréed mushrooms and watercress salad tossed in an orange vinaigrette and then with a Pacific Oyster with foie gras and uni in a teruyaki reduction to wrap up the appetizer portion of the meal.

Sushi was then served consisting of red snapper, medium fatty tuna, shad, orange clam and japanese mushroom otaki roll, all of which was followed by an intermezzo of Matcha green tea with a sesame macaroon.

The main courses consisted of roasted Maine lobster with taramasala and lemon creme fraîche, and Kobe Beef with Sweet Potato. Dessert was a red bean cake with apricot sorbet, apricot, lavender and buckwheat honey tuille and a red bean and green tea sauce.

All in all a wonderful end to a long day. Extra points to Morimoto for not being snooty about serving a gourmand in kinkster's clothing.

Chestnut / Café Steinhof

2008-03-26T23:27:00.002-04:00

This is where I would love to share a wonderful story about dining at one of the Brooklyn dining hot spots, Chestnut. Unfortunately, I have to say that my experience with the restaurant is so poor that even before I dine there, it is likely that I would never go there.

I noticed an advertisement for Brooklyn Restaurant Week, and called ahead with plenty of lead time knowing that restaurants get filled quickly. No one at the restaurant picked up the phone, so I left a message as per their instructions which specified leaving detailed instructions and that they would call to confirm. Over the course of the next weeks, I called again to confirm and left another message. I e-mailed them. Finally, I got an answer from them today, the very day my reservation was supposed to be on, that they were not able to accommodate a party of our size and beyond that they were full anyway. If the lackadaisical approach to service is the first impression that the customer get at this restaurant, then I can hardly imagine the service at the restaurant itself. It seems that it will be a long shot for me to ever try the restaurant.

Not one to give up a dinner opportunity though, I ended up going with some of my original party to a bustling place in Park Slope called Café Steinhof. A small, cheery and well lit pub-like restaurant, I was pleased to find this little delicious venue on the suggestion of my cousin's girlfriend, Jullie. The restaurant serves Austrian comfort food, and does it very successfully. Amongst our party we had wiener schnitzel, beef goulash, some weisswurst (very tender with a wonderfully snappy casing), a bit of kielbasa, some potato roesti, and a delicious slice of sour cherry linzertorte. The restaurant was an excellent last minute substitute for Chestnut, not to mention undoubtedly more economical, and the service was quite good.

IML Woof Camp

2008-03-26T12:12:00.010-04:00

If you have been reading my posts then, one could easily think that all I have done lately is eat and travel. Well, those ARE some of my favorite things. But I happen to enjoy doing creative things too. Here is an example: I was asked to put together a poster for the IML Pup party, which this year is being called Woof Camp.

You can find out more info at WoofCamp.com.

Despite all the travel lately, IML is not one of the events I will be going to this year. My pup and I decided to take a year off, save some money ($300 plus a night for hotel adds up quickly!) and spend some quality time between ourselves.

Being involved with setting up this event, I can say that everyone there should end up having a great time!

Dinner at Social House, Las Vegas

2008-02-23T12:10:00.002-05:00

While visiting Las Vegas with my pup, I had the good fortune of eating at Social House, where Joe Elevado, a friend of mine, is the executive chef. The vast restaurant is located in the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, that has been rebranded as The TI, a move that speaks to the younger generation and at the same time sounds so bad. Despite the size of the restaurant, it is st up in such a way as to be rather intimate, and certainly the service never lets on that you are in a restaurant with several hundred other diners. Just as impressive is that the food was consistently well plated, delicious and served without the dinner feeling that it had come off an assembly line, often a downfall of many larger restaurants.

Knowing the chef, we put our culinary experience in his hands, and had him prepare a tasting menu for each of us. We were most certainly not disappointed!

Our menu consisted of many items, among which were:

Yellowtail in soy with tempuraed jalapeno and micro cilantro
Whitefish and octopus with soy sauce, micro cilantro, cilantro oil and chili oil
Mini squid three ways: With miso and yellow mustard, With shiso, With ponzu
Tuna tataki with microgreens, ginger, crunchy shallots and Yamo gobo
Kobe beef tataki seared with chili and soy and diakon
Kobe beef with sundried tomato, garlic oil, soy and calamansi
Hokkaido scallop over miso eggplant with curry foam and micro cilantro
Rock shrimp tempura with sweet sesame sauce and microgreens
Tamarind braised boneless short rib with wild mushroom ragout and phyllo chips
Ebi, toro, and hamachi
Apple bread with walnuts, apple spaghetti yogurt sorbet and raspberry
Banana confetti (Sliced bananas with a frozen banana confetti and cinammon oil

Needless to say we left feeling ver well satiated and had a wonderfule time.

Best Laid Plans

2008-02-22T12:15:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, things are beyond your control.

When I was in Las Vegas in the late 90s, I invested some of my table winnings into a sunset horseback ride out in Red Rock Canyon. As luck would have it, that trip consisted of just myself, and one other experienced rider and our guide. The weather was beautiful, the sun bathing the canyon and highlighting the rock's flaming colors. The feeling of being on horseback, being out in nature, is really incomparable -- one of my favorite things in life. As the sun set, the spectacular vision of the canyon was replaced by the serene visions of a universe of stars, and Las Vegas, a sparkling crystal city of light in the distance. The whole affair ended with us around a large campfire with a steak sizzling on the grill, embers floating into the night sky joining the stars, and the scent and crackling sounds of cooking meat and burning wood filling the night. That night was wonderful, but for the fact that I had to cut it short to return to the city for a show I had planned, and the fact I had no one to share it with. I vowed that I would return and wouldn't make those mistakes again.

Well, more than a decade and several visits to Las Vegas later, I was back. I managed to locate the same ranch (Cowboy Trail Rides), and planned it as a surprise for my pup, rudder. It was an experience that was too wonderful not to share with him, and I made sure we had no plans afterwards so that we could sit in the warmth of the fire, and watch the stars, and if we were lucky, steal a cuddle together.

As it turns out, the day started out with decent weather, but the closer we got to the ranch the more rain we got. Rain. In the desert. Who knew? The rain subsided as we started our ride, but that was not to last. It started raining again, then turning into freezing rain, then hail, then a torrential downpour to finish it up, soaking us through and through. The weather made the horses skittish, and the guides took us home early, getting us back fore darkness fell. The weather became quite cold, and by the time we were back in the ranch, I could almost not get off the horse for the fact that my left knee was screaming bloody murder. It felt like someone had taken a bat to it.

Needless to say there wasn't much of a sunset, stars were out and Vegas was nowhere to be seen. There was no firepit, and we all huddled into an open sided shack for shelter as we ate our steaks. Strangely, the heaters were placed at ceiling level, so trying to warm ourselves was all but impossible. They offered us hot chocolate, and I finally gave in despite my concerns about sugar, and even that did little to warm me up.

My pup insists he had a good time, and I know he tells me the truth without fail. However, I have problems mentally accepting that a punishing ride out in the elements could be fun. I can see it as an accomplishment but not really one would have chosen to do. Beyond that though is the idea that something I had hoped would be romantic, and a fulfillment of something I had thought about for so long, could end up so FUBAR. I guess it doesn't help that this trip was somewhat marred by financial tightening, something Las Vegas abhors, and that our money could really have been much better spent elsewhere.

But such is Life. Sometimes things are beyond your control. Life's broncin buck will toss you clear out of the rodeo sometimes. You have to dust yourself off, get back on the horse, and ride hard to find the sunset that eluded you today.

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A music video for this post:

Chumbawumba, Tubthumping.

Puccini

2008-02-06T19:06:00.003-05:00

Puccini is a small neighborhood restaurant on Ninth Avenue just north of 54th street in New York City that serves Italian food. I had come across a review of the restaurant recently, and decided that it was the perfect choice for dinner before an evening show at The Roundabout Theater's Studio 54 location.

The restaurant is is rather small, about the width of a townhouse, with space for about twenty patrons only. However, the restaurant has done a decent job of creating a welcoming atmosphere that is not too claustrophobic. One wall is painted a warm yellow and the other is bare brick; both are decorated with wrought iron tea light candle holders and wrought iron brackets that have tea light lanterns hanging over the tables unobtrusively.

We arrived just before seven to a half-filled restaurant which quickly filled almost to capacity within minutes. Unremarkable bread was served (consisting of sliced baguettes and Italian bread with sesame on the crust) with olive oil and butter on request.

The menu is just two pages, with the main entrées on the back, and a selection of pasta and appetizers on the front. The pasta is arranged so that you can choose your pasta (capellini, penne, black linguini) and the sauce that you would like to go with it.

My guest and I each ordered an entrée, skipping the appetizers, as we wanted to be sure we got to the show on time. We had the capellini carbonara and the veal parmigiana. My guest originally wanted the black linguini, but the restaurant said that it was not available, which is unfortunate as I overheard several other tables that wanted the dish during our meal and were likewise disappointed.

The staff is a bit harried, and the waitress we had was a bit flighty, but all in all the experience was decent and offered a nice, inexpensive place to dine.

Adour

2008-02-03T22:15:00.003-05:00

As I write this, car horns are blaring outside celebrating the Giants Superbowl upset of the Patriot's bid for a perfect year right where it really counted. While the Giants were working their magic, I was experiencing magic of the culinary kind, dining at Alain Ducasse's new restaurant, Adour.

Adour finally returns life to the sad emptiness left by the closing of one my all time favorite restaurants, Lespinasse, in April of 2003. One can hardly believe that it has been almost four years since the landmarked space inside the opulent St. Regis hotel was vacated, and one of the most venerable old guard French restaurants in New York disappeared forever.

Ducasse's new restaurant is the third outing for the famous chef in New York City, having first created Alain Ducasse at the Essex house, which was crucified by the critcs at the time, and then created the short lived Mix in the space next to the Paris cinema near Bergdorf's. The Essex house restaurant was criticized deeply, but many critically acclaimed restaurants sprung up in New York in its wake quietly adopting many of the standards that the Essex House established, from the obsessive service, to what was at the time called an astronomic pricing structure. Although I enjoyed several meals at Ducasse's Essex House outpost (and even paid for at least one), I can say that the experience at Adour outshines the others.

Perhaps the greatest issue with the Essex House incarnation of Ducasse's restaurant that its detractors had, was that it brought a bit of France to America, largely without interpretation. Having traveled to France and enjoyed many meals in various haute cuisine restaurants, Essex House was just as good in both service and food. However, it seems that all of the refinements enjoyed (and expected) by Europeans at fine dining establishments felt stuffy and unnatural for Americans who were confused by the plethora of cutlery, and felt the excellent service to be overbearing and stuffy.

This time around, Alain Ducasse has a very different tact, and it is noticeable even before you get to the restaurant. Open less than a week, the highly anticipated restaurant was, not surprisingly, "fully booked" when we asked earlier today as we passed by the restaurant. I called again later in the afternoon, and also not surprisingly, they had an opening at 5.30 (as most restaurants in New York do, despite being "fully booked"). Inquiring about whether a jacket and tie was required, I was informed "elegant casual" was all that was required, which would have been shocking at Essex House. I went to the restaurant dressed in Earnest Sewn baby corduroy jeans and a casual shirt, and no one even blinked. Admittedly, as more people came, it was apparent that we were the most casual couple dining there, the rest undoubtedly assuming the dress code was still formal given that this was an Alain Ducasse adventure.

As I mentioned, the space that Adour occupies is an interior landmark. Rather than take the approach that Adam Tihany took with Le Cirque 2000 at the Palace Hotel, where very modern pieces added to the space, David Rockwell's approach to the landmark is to install dark woood that is spaced away from the walls, and then have glass panels that reach up above for the top quarter of the room. The panels have texture to them and are printed with a floral pattern. Behind the glass, the beautiful space that was Lespinasse can be clearly seen. The effect is that of a clean and modern space that ties in the past without disrespecting it or clashing with it. It is at once elegant, and modern while reinterpreting the space and adding to it. The open central dining space encourages a relaxed feeling that is inline with the elegant casual stance that the restaurant takes.

The menu itself is also more casual. The tasting menu is a reasonable $110, and in speaking with our server, they expect patrons to be spending about $150 per person at the restaurant. Since my mother did not want to have a full tasting menu, which is available only to the whole table, we ordered a la carte. With a glass of wine shared between us, each having an appetizer, a main course, sharing a cheese plate, and having a single dessert, we spent about $145 per person including tea, coffee and tip. All in all, reasonable for this kind of restaurant.

The appetizers ranged from $17 to $29, with most in the above $20 range. This does not, of course account for such things as a $22 black truffle supplement for one appetizer, or the market priced of caviar. Main courses ranged from $32 to $49, with a slight majority of dishes below the $40 mark. The cheese plate was $22 and desserts were $16 each.

Our meal started with a bottle of San Pellegrino, and an amuse bouche from the chef that was a small puff pastry filled with Bechamel and comte cheese that was delightful. A server came by and offered us a selection of breads: a small baguette, an olive bread, and a whole wheat sourdough. This was served with an olive butter, and was changed to a regular butter after the first course.

The restaurant is very focused on wine: The menu starts with a declaration that its food to be enjoyed with wine, and many of the bottles are on display in integrated wine cabinets that are part of the main decor of the restaurant. We later learned from the sommelier that there are over 600 wines offered. I told the sommelier that I would like a glass of wine, whereupon he began to describe the wine program at Adour in a speech that took a few good minutes, and was a little over much for my tastes. His quick speech pattern, combined with a heavy French also did not help my ability to concentrate on what he was saying. I really just wanted to get my hands on the wine list and explore on my own but that was not to be.

Among the things that the sommelier said that I did catch was that there was a decanter program at Adour, which they wanted people to try. The rationale was that half bottles do not age as well as wine in full bottles, and imperials. So, the restaurant decants quality wines from imperials and full bottles and offers patrons the chance to taste wines that would otherwise be too much for them to finish, or simply too expensive at full bottle size. During our meal, one of the other tables in the restaurant inquired what was an imperial, and a diminutive waitress brought over a bottle that was about three quarters as tall as she was, almost struggling with both her hands on the bottom of the bottle.

When I did get was also a rather generous by the glass selection that was organized by variety (sparkling, red, white, sweet and dessert) and then into sections labeled Explore, American, Classic, and Treat The Explore section consisted of wines from regions that are lesser known in America, such as Spain and South America. The Classic section, consisted mostly of French wines, and the Treat section offered one or two exceptional wines. I ordered a glass of white wine from the Treat section (the 2006 Lys de Volan from Condrieu), despite a main course of venison, knowing that I would be sharing with my mother, and that the majority of our meal would go well with it.

My mother had the Foie Gras and Tapioca Ravioli in a sunchoke broth, bypassing the $22 black truffle supplement. The dish came in a deep bowl, with plump ravioli whose skin was thin enough to hint at the contents inside. There was an foamy emulsion on half the plate, and it was completed with a pour of the sunchoke broth. The taste and texture of the ravioli was good, but there did not seem to be that much gained from the addition of the tapioca. In fact, I was surprised that the taste of the dish was somewhat on the bland side.

That was definitely not the case with my appetizer, the sweetbreads. The sliced sweetbreads lay on a plate along with vegetables cut into perfect triangles, black trumpet mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms and a purse-like poached egg in the center. The dish was completed with the pour of a mouth watering, glossy sauce. The egg was perfectly poached, I dare say one of the most perfectly poached eggs that I have ever experienced. The consistency of the yolk was beyond compare -- creamy, yet neither liquid or even close to solid it was an exemplar of the kitchen's skill. Perhaps the best description is that it had the consistency of a Cadbury Cream Egg's consistency, and the beautiful golden flavor of yolk that paired so well with the rest of the dish. The sweetbreads were cooked to perfection, their gently crisp exteriors giving way to a flavorful interior whose texture and taste were only heightened by the sauce. Each mouthful was a joy of taste, and texture.

Having a lighter appetite, my mother opted for the diver scallops with salsify as a main course, which came with pressed tomatoes. The dish was rich in flavor and not at all heavy with large scallops that tasted wonderfully fresh. For myself, I had the venison loin. In a witty twist, on of the medallions was made to look like a chop with a perfectly cleaned, almost bleached bone sticking out of it. The dish was accompanied with some rutabaga, radish and turnips, each obsessively crafted to be a small universe of flavor.

At $22, the cheese plate was expensive, but it was also quite generous. Adour opts for simplicity here in that they have done away with the cheese cart, and provides the patron with a plate of four cheeses. I assume that this choice was made because American diners find choosing which cheese to have to be daunting, and the large selection of cheese at Essex House was probably overwhelming. The cheese plate, served with a half of a fig that has been marinated in wine, some microgreens, and some wonderfully crispy toasted country bread, consisted of a creamy goats milk from Piedmont called Brunet, a English clothbound style cheddar cheese from Vermont called Cabot Cheddar, a from Provence and a Piedmontese blue cheese called Blue del Moncesio. I found all of them to be excellent.

The Brunet was a wonderful start -- creamy and mild. The award winning Cabot Cheddar, of which, the diner is carefully educated, only three wheels are made every 12 months, was complex and nutty and really changed my view of cheddar. The Tomme de Berger was creamy, strong tasting and bold with a rind that was wonderfully sandy textured. The finish was the Blue del Moncesio which was a milder blue than I expected and was also excellent. I found out that the cheeses are all supplied by Murray's Cheese shop in the village, a fine purveyor that is on my regular resource list.

The dessert, an interesting interpretation of a vacherin, was a tropical fruit flavored delight. The bowl was layered with a lime gelatin on the bottom, then a layer of mango marmalade, a scoop of passion fruit ice cream, a scoop of coconut ice cream, all topped with a passion fruit emulsion and three crispy coconut meringues.

The very generous petit fours consisted of 10 macaroons (strawberry and chocolate), and three chocolate confections each: a passion fruit center with a white, dark and milk chocolate shell, a triangle with a hazelnut filling, and a dark chocolate.

We were offered tea, or coffee in French press. I opted for a plain cappuccino. There was a good selection of tea, from which my mother had the Gyokuro Asahi Green tea. There was also Jasmine Pearl from China and Osmanthus Oolong from Taiwan. My mother's tea was incredibly fragrant, finishing off a spectacular meal with a relaxing scent. I will assuredly be back to this wonderful experience!

Baltimore and MAL

2008-01-26T00:12:00.002-05:00

I went to visit my late Sir's hubby, Mike, this past weekend. He had just had some surgery for prostate cancer a few days ago and had recovered enough to be mobile and I wanted to visit him for a bit, in no small part because it was also his birthday on Monday. The weekend started out nicely with me arriving on Friday and having dinner with Mike before heading off to curl up in Steve's place (thank's Steve!). Mike looked well, and was certainly very glad that the last of his surgery and medical issues were probably behind him.

I had a late breakfast with him and Steve, and was thinking I would like to get a picture of the three of us together as I had not done so in a very long time. I had been under some pressure to go to Mid-Atlantic Leather from friends, and given the late start I had to the day, I left in a bit of a hurry for an unannounced visit just to show face and then head back to Baltimore. I ended up being there in the late afternoon, just in time to catch the puppy mosh, before heading off to have some kibble with my friend Saxon (a friendly Rottweiler on the outside but a bit of a Poodle / Jack Russel mix on the inside... if he reads this I am going to need to disappear for a bit, LOL). The day was a bit hectic, but we had a good deal of fun.

Unfortunately, later in the night I got a call from Steven telling me that Mike had been readmitted into the hospital for some serious bleeding. Poking and prodding hadn't turned up much, and when I went to visit him the next day he really did not look good at all. Mike's friend Mark was there already when Steven and I arrived, and we visited for a while. Mike was not in good shape physically, looking very pale and thin, and his spirits were really low. I did my best to help console him, but I was really worried that I was going to lose him. I have to admit that I was rather scared, and though I was trying to be encouraging, I know that more than a few tears escaped while I was with him. Of course, among the things that one thinks about is things like, Why didn't I take that extra few seconds to take a photo the other day?

Thankfully, Mike is recovering. But life does have an uneasy way of reminding us that we should act on things that come to mind, and that there is no time like the present, for we can plan all we want but nature manufactures its own course and plots our destinies.

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A music video for this post:

Eddie Vedder and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Long Road (from Dead Man Walking)

Food / Bouley

2008-01-01T21:55:00.003-05:00

Those who know me, know that I love food and that I love to cook. A lot of my friends often think that I only like haute cuisine, likely because I talk about it a lot, but the truth is that I love food of all sorts from the humble street crepes of Paris and the dirty water dogs of New York City to the culinary fireworks of restaurants like Alinea and Louis XV.

Since I decided to use this blog to share a more personal side of me, I thought that this would also be a great place to share my experiences at various restaurants and various meals of interest. I am not aiming to review restaurants per se, but letting this be a place to share something that really gives me great joy.

And since I am starting this out on the New Year, I guess that it is fair to start with a restaurant that is a perennial favorite, and that I have just come back from for my New Year's Eve celebration: Bouley in the TriBeCa neighborhood of New York City.

David Bouley's restaurant has always been a consistent crowd pleaser. I have had many good memories there and have celebrated the significant milestones there. So with my mother visiting, and no particular plans for New Year's Eve, we decided to book a table for two.

One of the many benefits of coming to TriBeCa on New Year's Eve is that you avoid the crush of traffic around Time Square, and you can make a quick exit through the various tunnels and bridges downtown afterwards. Another benefit is that parking is readily available. We had a late reservation so that we would be able to have a leisurely dinner that would end past midnight and the countdown, and still found a free parking spot directly across from the restaurant.

The single story restaurant, located on the corner of West Broadway and Duane street, is a fairly nondescript white building with arched windows, and a big wooden door that would be at home in the country. You walk in, and one of the first pleasures that the restaurant offers you is a small vestibule that has racks of apples by the door. The heat of the lights warms the apples and provides a wonderful apple scent that is at once warm, appetizing and homey.

There are two rooms in the restaurant and when I made my reservations, I asked for us to be seated in the red room because it is the color of good fortune and happiness for the Chinese, something appropriate for the new year. The room has some triangular lights that are recessed into the wall, backed with gold leaf and trimmed in wood. I also happen to think the red room is just prettier than the other room, which is white and smaller.

As for the meal itself, there were two dishes per course of the meal since my mother and I decided to get different things from the tasting menu and share. Each full course was paired with a wine selection which we also shared. The meal began with a Chef’s canapé of baby beet gelée with beets, horseradish foam and roasted pumpkin seed.

For the First Course, my mother had Phyllo Crusted Florida Shrimp with Baby Squid, Cape Cod Sea Scallop and Maine Jonah Crab Meat in an Ocean Herbal Broth. The crusted shrimp reminded me of the texture of the ever popular coconut shrimp, but lighter and better at allowing the flavor of the shrimp to speak. The entire dish tasted sweet and of the sea. For myself, the first course was a Sashimi quality Tuna with Elderflower Apple Vinegar Gelée, Fresh Gingko nuts and a toasted Sesame-Sansho Pepper dressing. While the dish itself was tastey, I seemed to have managed to devour it entirely before looking for the fresh ginko nuts! We shared a glass of Pinot Gris, Domaine Barnes Buecher, Silicis, Alsace, 2004.

For our second course, I was presented with Maine Day Boat Lobster with Fresh Porcini Mushrooms, Black Trumpet mushrooms, Jumbo Asparagus, Parsley Root Purée and Burgundy wine sauce while my mother had the wild, line caught Wellfleet Codfish with fresh Half Moon Bay artichokes, Baby bok choy, Salsify and Black Truffle Broth. All of that was paired with a glass of Viré-Clessé, Domaine de Bongran, Jean Thevenet, Burgundy, 2002. The lobster was delicious, rich but not overbearing, with each flavor still speaking clearly. The codfish was a much lighter item, and yet the flavors were still intense and engaging -- to me, that is a sign of true artistry in the kitchen, to make intensity with strong flavors is far less challenging than coaxing out subtle flavors.

For our main courses we had Roasted Organic Baby Pig lacquered with kumquat and homemade lavender salt, Spice of the Sultan, a chutney of baby carrot, mangoes, and sweet onions, cous cous of cauliflower and currants. When I saw this on the menu, my mouth watered and I knew that this was what I wanted. Unfortunately, this was my least favorite item on the menu as I found it a little fatty and not quite as crisp skinned as I would have liked, although the flavors were still outstanding. My mother had the organic Colorado Rack of lamb with homemade sheep’s milk ricotta gnocchi, Rocket salad, with a fresh sage and zucchini-mint purée. The Nuits Saint Georges, Les Grandes Vignes, Daniel Rion, Burgundy, 2001 that we had to accompany it all was wonderful.

The palate cleanser was an interesting fresh Hawaiian pineapple carpaccio that was served with a with pomegranate coulis, Key Lime sorbet and some candied violets. It was different from the typical cup of sorbet, and was far more pleasing to the eye. this came accompanied with an effervescent glass of Moscato d’Asti, Moncalvina, Coppo, Piedmont, Italy, 2006 which was dryer than I expected.

At the end of the meal, my mother had the snowball of frozen mint meringue with Banana Coffee Toffee, Ten Flavor Exotic Fruit sorbet, and coconut ice cream while I had chosen the Hot Valhrona Chocolate Soufflé, which came with some Vermont Maple Ice Cream, Gingerbread Ice Cream and Chocolate Sorbet. While the soufflé was good, it was the ice creams that were outstanding. The small scoops definitely made you smack your lips and want to lick the plate clean. A sweet glass of Alois Kracher, Beernauslese, (Chardonnay & Welschrieling), Austria, 2006 accompanied the dessert.

After the meal, we settled down to wait for the New Year's to arrive so that we could bring it in with a toast of champagne. The chef had other ideas though, as he had prepared a second dessert as a surprise for the diners, a glass layered with vanilla flan, spiced pineapple, passion fruit granité, and some curry sorbet. This was delicious despite the unexpected contrasts in flavors and, in fact, was almost more delectable than the desserts that we had ordered. The repetition of the pineapple in the meal did make my mother and I think that perhaps there was a fire sale somewhere on them but that was easily forgiven for the fact that we could have devoured many more of these.

The meal ended with a plate of Petit Fours and by the time we were finished, we were quite full! We had some coffee and waited a little while for midnight to come around. As my mother and I settled into casual conversation, the time flew and next thing we knew the ball fell in Times Square and the chefs came out banging on their pots with wooden spoons to celebrate.

We went home with a nice loaf of brioche as a parting gift, and quickly zipped through the Holland Tunnel ahead of the onslaught of traffic. All in all, a wonderful night!

The Optomist's Skull

2007-12-24T03:06:00.000-05:00

A lot of people ask why, as a typically conservative guy, I tend to like things with skulls on them… belts, cuff links, etc. Why choose something so scary or morbid they often ask. So I thought I would delve a little into that, and share what the symbolism means for me. There are a plethora of interpretations on the meaning of the skull; it is after all is one of the oldest symbols civilization has, but I am going to just share the ones that work for me.

To me, the skull’s most important meaning, and something that is a current that has always run through my life, is as a reminder of the fleeting nature of life. The skull is a universal representation of death, a clear reminder of our mortality and that our time on earth is limited. For example the skull was used by Freemasons to symbolize the hierarchic structure and the transience of the material world.

Another good way of expressing it comes from the inscription found in the ossuaries of the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome. Built in the Baroque style with skulls and bones, including a skull and bone chandelier, the inscription reads: “Noi eravamo quello che voi siete, e quello che noi siamo voi sarete.” (We were what you are; and what we are, you will be”).

Many read that and think that the transience of human existence is dark and saddening. To me it is merely a part of life, and the skull a momento mori, a reminder that everyone dies so one must make the most out of every day because you don’t know how many you might have in store.

As a symbol of transience, it has also become a symbol of transcendence. In its representation of the essential finiteness of human existence and the limitation of human knowledge, the skull also represents the higher wisdom that is infinite enough to see the end of Man. of idea is sometimes further represented by a skull that has a serpent winding through it. The serpent, which symbolizes immortality because of its ability to shed its skin and start a new life, is also the chthonic god of knowledge and of immortality. In Greek myth, the serpent guards the Tree in the Greek Garden of the Hesperides which is later appropriated by Christianity as the serpent in the Tree in the Garden of Eden. The serpent in the skull is a symbol of knowledge surviving death.

There are other layers of meaning that the skull has that resonates with me. Perhaps the group of meanings that resonates most is that of power and defiance. Where the skull symbolizes fear for many, the symbol then became co-opted for others to mean that the person brave enough to tempt the fates by wearing the symbol have no fear of death, and that they defy the cold bony touch of that Horseman. Bikers and members of the military use skull imagery in this way, as a symbol of defying death and of machismo. Defying death or at mastering one’s fear of death and of things out of our control, it allows these Men to work through disasters, to accept what fate may have in store and to be steeled in their resolve and bravery. This has also makes the skull a talisman of luck, or a symbol of luck in adversity.

All of this, the symbolism of death, the power of the symbol as a symbol defying death and the mastery of fear, has made the skull a symbol of power. Pirates and the SS chose this symbol as a warning of their power, and their fearlessness. The skull’s other meanings combine to make it an object of power.

There are other meanings too that have sway with me. The skull is also a symbol of resurrection, of passing through death to something more. While I am not convinced of resurrection in the religious sense, the idea that wisdom and spiritual growth is gained through the constant death of old ideas and the rebirth of new ones from those ashes and bones certainly resonates me. The skull is also a symbol of freedom. If death is the ultimate liberation, the freeing of the essential energy of a person into the universe, then the skull is the symbol of being free from the bindings of the flesh. The skull is thus a talisman of hope, a symbol that there is more to be had beyond whatever kinds of death you may find.

As a side note, the skull features largely even in Christianity, where Jesus Christ is said to have been crucified at Golgotha, which translated is known as the Place of the Skull. In the Christian tradition, when Jesus was crucified, his blood washes away Original Sin as it fell onto Adam’s skull that was buried below him. Golgotha is commonly thought to be located under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest place in the Christian world.

A different history

2007-12-24T03:05:00.000-05:00

As an interesting little tidbit of family history, I was in the car with my mother the other day while she was visiting, and we had an interesting conversation that gave me a little more insight into my family's history. My mother has told me in the past and repeated it during this conversation that at some point during their engagement, my grandmother realized that she and my grandfather were not really right for each other and said that they should not get married, but my grandfather, crying, pleaded with her and they ended up as a couple. Time would show that my grandmother was probably right, particularly given the animosity and separation between them at the end of their lives.

In any case, the conversation my mother and I had revolved around my grandmother and grandfather. I had known that my grandfather's family had been a part of the vast number of scholars at the imperial court, but I did not know some of my grandfather's more immediate history. Apparently, he was a child of a wealthy merchant. His mother, being unhappy with his father's prolonged absences on business, defied convention and went home to her own family, leaving my grandfather in the care of his father's family. My great grandmother's family was in itself wealthy enough to shield her from the shame and social ostracization that normally came with leaving her husband and returning to her maiden family.

Well, that did not change the fact that his father was often away on business, and it seems that he was passed around among family members to be raised up. My great-grandfather apparently thought that being rich and giving my grandfather plenty of money made up for good parenting, which explains why my grandfather always carried a playboy's air around with him.

As for my grandmother, apparently she was a middle child of a family that had at seven daughters and a number of sons. Her family was also quite well to do. My grandfather, being the rich romantic swept my grandmother off her feet with his romantic chivalry. At a time when air travel was still in its infancy, my grandfather had the luxury of taking my grandmother down to Hong Kong from mainland China for a weekend getaway photo safari. Aside from the air travel, the fact that they were going for pleasure and that they were going to take photos, another bourgeoisie pastime in those days, is a good indication of how well of they were.

It amazes me that they lost all of that. When my mother was born they fled the Japanese invasion, and one would have thought that the experience would have taught them to plan better. Nonetheless, when the communists swept across the nation, my grandfather decided that it was a good time to take a vacation in Hong Kong, as a last hurrah as it were. What stuns me is that knowing that the communists were coming, and being an educated man who was on the side of the Kuomintang, one would have figured that he would have the presence of mind to move his money somewhere safe, and that instead of a vacation, he would be moving his family altogether. I guess hindsight is 20/20 but the truth is that my grandfather was never very good at planning either.

Well, they made it to Hong Kong, with a retinue of servants, and the Communists took over their property in China, and they lost most of their assets and money, and they were trapped in Hong Kong. Amazingly, my grandparents somehow thought that the tide would reverse shortly, and moved the family into a hotel where ended up living there for many years before finally deciding that they should move to an actual apartment. Apparently, that is how my mother's family ended up in Hong Kong!

Another break

2007-12-24T02:27:00.002-05:00

Well, it has been another few months since my last post. Tempus fugit!

In the time since I last posted, my immigration attorney managed to mess up rather severely and put the kaibosh on my once in a lifetime trip to Italy (they threw a freakin' parade for our group, had movie stars there, and the trip was covered by the New York Times!). I barely got everything settled with that in time to go on my trip to the Caribbean with rudder, and here I am now back from our wonderful trip.

My dog and I had a glorious time aboard the Royal Caribbean vessel Freedom of the Seas. I have to admit that I am not really a huge fan of the Caribbean -- I don't like basking in the sun endlessly, I don't like the beach much, the islands are not loci of culture nor do they really have histories that are all that interesting and in fact are often fairly much the same. Yet, this trip was fantastic, mostly because of rudder. To see him discovering things for the first time, to see him smile and really enjoy everything is amazing. To have him meet my family, and for us to really spend time together for a week as just vanilla lovers (even if only when we were out of the sight of my relatives) was rewarding on its own. The trip was definitely one where the journey was far more interesting than the destinations.

And now its Christmas time here, and I can say that I am more than a little sad. This has been a tough Christmas season. Business has been horrible, thanks to the giant downswing in home sales, and there is a great deal of uncertainty n the future. Rudder is not here of course, and that makes it worse, even though we talk more than a few times a day. With the tight time schedules, Christmas becomes more and more of a chore and less and less rewarding. Certainly the fact that I spend plenty of time obsessing over what to get people, or making something for people that I think that they will enjoy, and then receiving a thoughtless gift, or a trinket in exchange does not add to the "joy" of the season (there is a certain deflation that occurs when you give someone a gift in advance that shows thought, and a certain amount of expense, and they return the favor with something that is a tenth of the value and shows minimal thought).

On top of that, there is this anxiety that comes with not being ready for Christmas as well. None of the cards I would normally send have gone out yet. I am anxious to get the ones I love something that they will truly like, and yet torn by the fact that the upcoming year will be really tough financially just because business is so bad.

I am still very much hoping to find the golden lining in this year's Christmas, but the hours tick by and it seems less and less likely. At least, I still have my pup!

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A music video for this post:

Queen, David Bowie, Under Pressure

First Anniversary

2007-10-07T00:13:00.001-04:00

Today, it has been one year since I first met my partner, rudder, in person. He came down for the Columbus Day weekend, which in Canada is Thanksgiving. As I write this, he is with his parents in Canada undoubtedly preparing for the big day on Monday and thinking of the tasty treats they will have.

A year can be short when you are in love, and it can be an eternity when love is lost. The last year has been both for me. I met rudder within weeks of my SIR’s death. The past year, has been very much about learning to cope with my MASTER’s death, and at the same time growing the love between my dog and myself.

My MASTER’s name was Craig, and as I mentioned in the previous post, He was the man who I eventually left Jeff for. In June of 2005, I sent him a short note because I thought he was cute, and I didn’t really expect much from it, because I thought he was probably out of my league from his rather woofy picture online. When he wrote back, I was pretty excited, but we only had a short time to talk because I was about to go to the United Kingdom with Jeff, and I figured that after being away for a week or so that contact would probably have fizzled.

I went off to the UK with Jeff. Our base of operations was in London but we toured around a bit as well. I enjoyed the trip, and gained a new appreciation for London, which has never been one of my favorite cities in the world. The trip was fairly focused on things Shakespearean and Marlowian as those were Jeff’s fields of study, so it did afford a new perspective since we did many things that probably would have been rather low on my list. We managed to see Salisbury, Stratford, and Stonehenge (even getting to walk among the stones) during the trip. We also saw numerous shows, since Jeff has a great love of theater and it relates to his profession in arts education. Among the shows we managed to see were Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun, Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Royal Opera, and a classical staging of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra at The Globe Theater. We did a lot, saw a lot, and enjoyed a lot but traveling with him also hammered home many of the issues that had been stewing all this time. The trip really highlighted our differences, underlined the differences in style that we had in doing things, and the trip felt like a big debt to Jeff.

When I came back, I saw Craig online, and we continued to pursue our chats online. More and more I enjoyed his company, even though I was quite wary of the fact that he was already partnered. My past experience with married men had not been a good one. After law school, I had returned home to live with my mother and had met a man named Ken online. We had gotten to know each other well, and he had offered me to come visit him out in Oregon to go hunting chukar, camping and some play while we were out there. He was a bear who had a wife, and two kids, who assured me that he could pull this off, and I was naïve enough at the time to believe him. Less than a day after I bought the airline tickets, his wife found out, and we had to abort. I never did meet Ken in person, and naturally left him alone after that. To this day, I wonder how he is and how his family has gotten along.

With Craig, though, He assured me that things were o.k. He kept his partner, Mike in the loop, and indeed it seemed to work out rather well. Mike was always a concern for me, as I wanted to be sure that I was not tearing a family apart; The past experience had been plenty enough drama. In truth I do not know what Craig told Mike, but I do know that I was made comfortable enough to feel like I was not going to be the cause of a breakup. Eventually, on Labor Day weekend, I met Craig. I had been on a trip to Washington, DC, and He was returning from a weekend of play at the Delta event. We met at the Maryland House rest stop, I couldn’t keep my paws off of him, and from there on it was really pretty clear he and I really connected and had something worthwhile.

Our relationship lasted a year before He died, but it was a truly wonderful year. There were plenty of troubles to be sure. Craig and Mike were far from rich, and they both had some health issues that would flare up as well. So there were quite a few incidents involving health crises, financial crises, and employment crises, but somehow those all seemed like obstacles that we could overcome together. The more I got to know them, the more it seemed like I had finally found a family to belong to. Mike and Craig, partners, and I as their pup and the third member of their family, along with a shih-tzu named Jazz, a pit bull boxer mix named Molly, a cat named kitty and another cat named Punkin. I know that by the time Craig died, he very much thought of me as his partners as well and an integral part of the family. When SIR died, I was visiting the family regularly, making the three hour trip as often as I could to be with them. The weekends never seemed long enough, and we were looking at how we could be together in the future under one roof as a true family.

Looking back, when I talked to rudder the first time around January of 2006, I had only known Craig about a half of a year. By that time though, I had spent my first Christmas with Mike and Craig, and certainly felt incredibly accepted by both of them. I would easily have felt like many years had already been under our belts. So when rudder and I started talking Craig and I were already rather comfortable with each other and secure in our roles for the most part.

Rudder at the time was in a relationship with another top named Frank. It was his first relationship, but he wasn’t happy in it. His experience was parallel to mine with Jeff in many ways, and the more we talked the more we connected. Eventually, I introduced him to my SIR. I asked Craig if I could have my own pup. He agreed that we could try it out, and with His blessing, I took on an “advisory” role to rudder.

By the time that we met that first time, we had spent a very long time talking to each other, almost daily. That first meeting was wonderful experience for the both of us. Rudder was rather concerned that it was too soon for me to meet him, so short after the death of my MASTER. I am sure that others wondered about my absence from His funeral, and how I may have seemed to treat his death lightly. Nothing can be further from the truth, but I knew from previous experiences with loved ones passing away, I coped best by moving forward. If that meant sticking to my plans to visit a college friend in Texas, and if that meant keeping my plans to meet my pup, that was fine. I needed the distraction to be able to cope with the incredible hurt that SIR’s passing left in my heart.

So, while rudder was hesitant about intruding on my mourning, I am thankful that rudder came. While that first trip was as much about seeing me and soothing his parent’s concerns about traveling with a stranger on our upcoming trip to France, for me, it was also an affirmation that love and life lives on through death.

For all that he is, my dog, my lover, my partner, for all that he does for me, and for all that he puts up with, I can’t say how lucky I am to have a partner like rudder, and how lucky I have had him as a part of my life this past year. With him, the dreams of having a family didn’t die with Craig, and rather than living in the past and with a hole in my heart he has given me a sense of hope for what can be in our future together. For all of that and more, particularly on this anniversary, I have to say thanks to my wonderful pup for being a constant and loyal companion in my life. Rudder, I love ya *ear scritches*.

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Music video for this post:

Michael Ball, Love Changes Everything

Is this love?

2007-10-06T00:05:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons that I moved to New York City was to enjoy the endless calendar of things to do here from opera, to concerts, to theater, to gardens, to shopping. It is a rare week when I have not gone into the City at least once or twice. To take full advantage of all that the City has to offer, I plan out days far in advance and because of that also am not one for surprises. Normally, I lead a very structured and planned life, and I tend to get annoyed when my schedule is interrupted or my planning is poorly done.

On top of that, I tend to be a touch obsessive compulsive, so I like certain things done a certain way, and certain things in certain places. When you have lived alone for years, as I have, this is compounded by routine, and habit. While I have guests often in my house, typically my gay friends from around the Northeast, and while I enjoy their company, the introverted side of me really doesn’t enjoy having people in my personal space messing up the way things are run in my house and how things are located and placed. That feeling is something I ignore for the most part in order to satisfy my need to have friends – a way to make it easy to have friends around who are geographically diverse. The feeling is there, but I just bite my tongue and tell myself to relax and enjoy the company.

Yet with rudder, I never feel that way. Life improves when he is around. When rudder asked me whether he could make a surprise visit over the Labor Day weekend, my reaction was not of annoyance that my plans would be derailed or frustration at having to try to squeeze him into my calendar, but rather of excitement that I would have another chance to share life with this special man that has agreed to be my partner. And strangely, with rudder, my OCD doesn’t flare up. He can clean, and move things around, and yet, I still manage to find things, and for some reason I am never annoyed.

I have lived alone for years and though he has only stayed with me briefly for a few weeks at a time, rudder’s absence in our house has a depressing effect, something that Craig often experienced when I would leave Baltimore after a great weekend together, and it is something that I am wary of. My self-imposed exile from the wonders of New York City this past week or so to save money for my trips, has certainly heightened the realization of how much I miss my pup, and how much he means to me. Rudder cannot yet be here with me full time for many sensible, practical and logical reasons but it sure doesn’t make the emptiness of the house any easier to bear. Perhaps I am naïve, but I can’t help but think that for all these reasons and more, he is the perfect man for me, that this is true love.

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Music video for this post:

Andrew Lloyd-Weber, I Believe My Heart, performed by Duncan James and Keedie

Community

2007-10-05T00:00:00.001-04:00

Whether it is just my perception of Mr. Grauer’s life or reality, his photos and the community of bears that are his friends reminds me that I often find myself alone, in need of contact, and am in a constant search for acceptance and belonging. The stay at home policy has put into perspective the lack of community in New York and particular here on ultra-conservative Staten Island; I can’t think of anyone I could walk around the corner to just hang out with.

Given the conservative nature of the borough I call home, not many people know my sexual preference, and I do not have an overwhelming desire to burst out shouting my sexual preference. However, more and more I do less and less to proactively hide it. My family has met rudder as a friend, and I don’t try to hide my gay friends from my family, though I do ask my friends not make my family uncomfortable. Those people that know I am gay are all themselves gay, though this expanding group is geographically widespread and mostly linked by the internet chatting. Most people I know probably would not consider me “out” nor do I consider myself such, however, many of my gay friends are often surprised that I am not given how relaxed I am about it.

Finding someone I could feel comfortable with here in the borough is somewhat unlikely. Partly it is fear of congregating with other gay men in a conservative borough and my own need for the feeling of safety, and partly it is the difficulty of finding people who are both like-minded, similarly life-situated, trustworthy and gay. That seems to point toward looking outside my borough, but the truth is that the pup community is still very much a burgeoning community, and unlike the bear community there is no critical mass of supportive and like minded people. Geographically, the closest pup I know is nipper in Oceanside.

So what is the solution? Perhaps to become more involved with the bear community? Perhaps to fear less, and get to know other gay men here and risk my sexual preference be more easily discoverable? Certainly, there is no easy answer to this, but I think I do need to make more friends locally. In the meantime, rudder continues to do his best to calm me and remind me I am very much needed and loved.

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A music video for this post:

The Beatles, Come Together

A bit more history

2007-10-04T00:06:00.001-04:00

When I moved to New York City a whole new world opened up to me. My first tentative step into this world was Halloween on the first year I moved to New York. I didn’t know anyone, and I went to The Lure in the Meatpacking district. Although I now know that even then it was nothing like what it was in its heyday, it was an experience that really opened my eyes. Not only was it that leathermen were all around but to physically experience and see a world that existed previously in magazines and stories was stunning and life changing.

During this period, I cautiously sought out experiences with the types of men I was most drawn to: older leathermen, military men, and bears. There have been a few that have remained in my memory. One was the Marine in the Bronx that took me a good two hours to reach by public transportation that I met online, and started me down the road to realizing that most Marines are better in literature and fantasy than in reality. Then there was the leather top in Wayne, NJ whose house I must have circled a dozen times before getting enough gumption to go ring the doorbell. That experience showed me that things can happen too fast and understanding limits, and trusting a partner are all critical. While I now know that what I experienced was in retrospect light and hot, I was not at all prepared and I was freaked out for weeks afterwards.

Then there was Roger in Staten Island, a leather top that is a wonderful person. He and I had a brief relationship, but I was not ready yet to be in one. The idea was frightening, and particularly with some one so close to home. I introduced him to pup play, and we explored the scene and learned a lot together (among which most dog food is not really THAT good, and that milk bones are intensely dry).

Through these experiences, I began to establish what I liked and what I was looking for, almost always in a submissive role or as a bear cub, and I began to look more specifically for a daddy-type bear or leather top on the limited number of sites that existed at the time on the internet. I met my first steady top, Jeff, on Bear411. Jeff is an older man, with a beard, a solid beer gut, and is fairly solidly built. On his profile at the time he had a hat on to hide his balding hair and his glasses off though he almost always wore them. He was close to where I was and yet just far enough away for my comfort.

My first visit with him started with him taking control right from the outset. It was clear that I was the submissive and the pup and by the time I had left, I had been tasked to watch an instructional video on massage techniques and to report back to him within the next few days. He has a demeanor and voice that has a way of making you do what he wants, and despite being somewhat shocked at his appearance, and also having a first experience that was different than what I expected, I came back.

That is how my relationship with Jeff grew. I came to know him quite well, and would end up seeing him several times a week. I tried to be the best submissive pup for him that I could. I would do as asked, including chores around the house, and of course sexual service. I also took my punishment when it was meted out, though I often felt it was unjustified. In many ways, he was a good Master, and would often taking me to shows, and expanding my education in the arts and opera and in many areas of gay life that I did not know about.

Yet there were problems with this relationship. Not having been in any kind of lasting relationship, and certainly not having been in a top / submissive relationship, I did not know what was wrong or see any signs of danger. As a submissive, I spent a long time learning what I didn’t enjoy about our relationship, what was not right for me, and that a lot of it was not because of me but rather from a disconnect in what Jeff wanted and what I was really looking for. I spent a longer time anxiously working up a voice to talk to him about things.

At first I thought that it was because he treated me as a slave rather than as a pup. Leading a full workday in a job that does sap my energy, I just could not do the chores he required of me. In the end, I realized that it was not something that I enjoyed and that I had become his slave more than his dog. So I sat with him and talked to him about this, and he agreed that I should not be his slave but rather just his dog. After this I thought things would be alright, but I did not realize that the underlying issues had not gone away, just the chores.

The mechanics of love and affection can be rife with complications and it took another year or more before I realized Jeff was not the man I wanted or needed in my life and even then a long time after that to be able to break up with him. By the end, I was so unhappy that it seemed like a chore to go see him, and that the events and entertainments we went to increasingly seemed like bribes and carrots to keep me on the hook. During these years, I excused much of his behavior because he was the Master and that what I had was the natural lot of the submissive. He seemed self-centered, distant and unemotional, and manipulative things that I came to think of as what a submissive should expect from a Master. Worse yet, I came to realize that Jeff and I never made love. It was not a matter of physical compatibility, despite physical limitations he had that I almost always overcame, but rather that it was a matter of us not really love so much as marathon sessions of me bringing him climax, after which I was left to get off however I could without his involvement. All of these factors continued to grow and accumulate and eventually I became very much weighed down with them. When it eventually got to be too much to bear alone, those I shared my troubles labeled the relationship as abusive. I am still not convinced that this was the case... but I will never know for sure.

During this period of growing dissatisfaction, a period of my life that would end with enough anxiety to impact my performance at work, I tried to find satisfaction where none existed in my relationship, by looking for it outside our relationship. Despite my collar, and a good deal of guilt for doing it, as our relationship decayed I played around, and hoped to trade up when I finally found the right top. And even with this, despite my increasingly bold statements that signaled I had played or had stepped out of line given that I was collared, he seemed oblivious to it, as if all that mattered was that he got serviced.

So I continued to play, finding physical satisfaction at bear parties, and trying out the leather bars, a venue that proved to be low action for a shy sideliner who didn’t drink and who was poor in social situations. Then I met Rod on Bear411, and I thought I had finally found true love. Rod was the one, and he would be the one who would save me from the mess I had made for myself. Although, I don’t think I ever had a chance to tell him, Rod was my first love. He was the first man who made me daydream and who made me feel all stirred up inside. I would feel irrationally exuberant at irrational moments from the most tenuous thoughts that would somehow lead my mind back to him leaving me goofy grinned for no reason other than to have thought of him. It was wonderful. Here as a man my age that a great top into leather and pup play, that quite hot and interested in me and invested real time into developing our relationship. We would talk on the phone daily, and communicate via webcam almost as often. Rd became my virtual Master. Unlike Jeff who never even bothered to name me, Rod gave me my first pup name, bacchus, and gave me my first set of tags for my collar.

But this was not to last. After a few glorious months of knowing Rod, he disappeared just before Christmas, Rod disappeared. Suddenly I got no calls, no IMs and no other forms of communication to let me know what was going on – I didn’t know if he was dead or alive at all. Eventually, from my persistent calling, he picked up the phone once, but didn’t talk. I could tell he was there, and somehow I knew it was him and that he was alive and ok. We did not talk again and eventually I knew he didn’t want me anymore but I did not know why. All I could do was I leave him an e-mail saying I didn't know what I had done wrong, or if there was something wrong in his life that he could share that perhaps we could figure out together that he should call. I told him that I would always be there for him, but he never came back to me. It was more than a year or so till I saw him online again, and even then he could not share what had happened. Though he and are still friends, and I have stuck by my commitment and have been there for him when he has needed it, I doubt I will ever know what really happened.

So after a brief glimmer of hope I was back to where I was before, with Jeff. I recovered from Rod’s abandonment, licking my wounds and went back to being unhappy with Jeff, and playing around even managing to land my first (and only) titleholder playdate – Mr. Metrobear. Then one day in June, I happened on a nice pic of a guy on Bear411 or recon or PupZone. Originally, I wasn’t going to ping him at all. His pic seemed too handsome, out of my league and he was geographically undesirable being too many hours away to make a real relationship work. But for whatever reason, I did send him a note, and that is how I met Craig.

Craig would eventually be the man I would start a new life with, the man that would be my Master, my SIR – the man for whom I gladly let loose my inner dogslave, and in return loved me truly as well. One day, in February, after a weekend visit to my SIR, I went and saw Jeff, we played as usual, and as he went to get something in the other room, I realized I could no longer deny my feelings and thought of my SIR and found the courage and strength to remove my collar. When Jeff returned into the room, I told him we had to talk, and let him know we could no longer continue as Master and dog, but rather only as friends.

I am glad to say that Jeff and I are still friends, and I do believe that he never intended to hurt me, or make me feel the way I did. I believe that it was his conception of what a Master / slave or Master / pup relationship was that was very wrong. When I finally got the wherewithal to leave him was the only time I got the clear impression that he needed me at all, and then it was too late. That he loved me in his own way probably only was clear to me at that moment. Yet even now when we speak I still feel the pull of his personality, that feeling of obligation, or manipulated to agree, when he asks me for a favor, no matter how innocuous. At the end of the day, all I can say for sure is that I was much happier person after our relationship ended and I moved on to be Craig’s dogslave.

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A music video for this post:

Madonna, The Power of Goodbye

Rudder

2007-10-03T00:48:00.003-04:00

My last post related how posting in my own voice would require a new approach, one which accepts my sexual preference and the duality of my lifestyle. With that foundation in place, I come to the most important aspect of my life I haven’t yet mentioned: my partner, rudder. Rudder is my pup, and I am his Alpha. We met online just less than two years ago through a mutual friend who thought we should know each other simply because we are both Canadian.

I developed our relationship slowly since we met online, so that we could both sure of what we were getting into, and that it was not just lust mistaken for love. Despite the distance our mutual love only grew deeper with each passing day. Rudder and I met in person in October 2006 and over the course of the last eleven months or so, we have come to enjoy each other’s company immensely. When I finally presented the opportunity, the pup accepted my collar, a symbol in our tribe that carries the equivalence of a wedding band.

We see each other whenever we can, which is difficult since my pup lives a plane ride away. The last visit rudder managed was a week long surprise visit that started Labor Day weekend. We won’t get to see each other in person again until mid-November when he will be joining me and my family on a Royal Caribbean cruise. I miss him terribly even though we talk several times daily, by IM and phone. I miss his presence and yearn for his touch, something that may sound strange for a top to say, yet it is undeniably true.

Though I am always aware of rudder’s absence, it is something that I deal with. I am practical person, and there is no sensible alternative so I don’t think on it too much. I have always been a survivor and make the best of what I can for me and my pack – that is why I am the alpha. I know logically that the love of my life cannot be here with me as yet – there are family relationships that need to be worked and also practical considerations that need to be properly resolved before he moves. So, in the past few weeks, while it would have been great to have rudder home with me, I accept the practical the reality and have just dealt with my boredom.

However, surfing through Flickr’s bear groups and through Mike Grauer’s photos to counter that boredom, also showed me a lifestyle that was real and that existed – photos which evidenced great community of bears and lucky men who, like Mr. Grauer, live with their partners just as straight couples do – outside of the shadow of social chastisement. Thinking about what the pictures meant to me and how they compared to the life I am living, culminated in a few distilled observations of my own life.

One observation was that there are communities out there that I am a part of but there are none that I feel that I truly belong and am accepted in, as Mr. Grauer is. I want to belong to a welcoming community of like minded people, and be accepted within that community. A second observation was that Mr. Grauer’s community affords a range of reliable friends within a close geography. A third observation despite hardships through his life and day to day existence, Mr. Grauer’s narrative and photos imply a happy existence that is shared with a loving partner – something that is also missing from my life. I want to be among those men who happily partnered and together.

These desires remain unfulfilled in my life. I am a member of the pup community, but I do not feel belonging or acceptance in as palpable a form as I see from the world which Mr. Grauer inhabits. Perhaps this is because the pup community is still small and geographically diverse, and does not yet have the strength and support found in the bear community. This is also why I believe it is hard for me to have reliable friends in a close geography. And lastly, rudder cannot yet be here with me full time for many sensible, practical and logical reasons.

However, it is here where the photos made their greatest impact on me. Despite my practical side understanding rudder’s absence, and my logical side coping with it, the photos highlighted my desire to have my pup with me during these past days. My ennui stems from the absence of my life mate, and my feelings are in the realm of emotion and outside of logic or practicality. The time passed since Sunday has helped organize and crystallize my thoughts; what I originally thought was ennui or an expression of boredom and listlessness is really a bout of mild depression. My logical practical side keeps a stiff upper lip and provides the fiction that I am dealing with his absence, but my emotional needs remains overwhelmingly strong in his absence. My stay at home during these past weeks, a necessary evil to save money for my trips, has amplified it.

Looking at the photos also helped me pin down why being at home without rudder was depressing, and I believe that it comes down to how our home changes when he is here. Right now, as I type this post I am alone in the house that I have decorated and lived in alone for many years. The place truly that reflects my personality and interests, and yet it is still a machine for living – a place to organize my private life, a room to sleep in, and a desk to do some personal work at my computer. With rudder here, it becomes a home, a place where memories are made, love and experiences shared and life actually happens.

Without rudder, my home returns to what I have always wanted my house to be in the past which goes back to the descriptions of me from my last post. My introverted nature and my dual lifestyle have conditioned me to treat my home as a sanctum, like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Although I frequently have guests, there is a strong part of me that really doesn’t want guests in my home. I have guests mostly because it is a way to accommodate my geographically diverse friends who would otherwise find it hard to visit. My home is my private space where I can have time alone to for me to gather my thoughts, and also because I always fear that I will have left something about that is irrefutable evidence of my sexual preference. Yet when rudder is here, it seems so natural for him to be here sharing my life that I never think of him as a guest or intrusion into my home. Indeed, the opposite is true – not only is he not an intrusion, but more and more a he is a necessity. As my partner, he knows better than anyone of my preferences and proclivities. He calms me and helps restores my mental balance, whether it is from a gentle hug, a soft caress or even simply having his head in my lap and somehow my private restorative space is at once not invaded and yet improved by his presence. He has become the reason that my apartment is no longer a sterile environment where I sleep and work at my computer, a reason to come home.

This post begins to explore some of the themes in the previous posts and introduces some others: belonging and community, emotionally and geographically closer friends, and perhaps most importantly the desire to have my partner be an even greater part of my life, the impact he has already had, and my hopes for our life together.

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A music video for this post:

Pat Benetar, We Belong

Who am I?

2007-10-02T00:49:00.001-04:00

My last post gave you an idea of why I (re)started this blog, and where I am headed. Today, I wanted to start sharing some of myself in earnest. I’m a gay man, living in New York City. This isn’t something my coworkers or family know, and it is certainly not something that I do much to publicize. Amazingly, no one has ever come straight up to me and asked. I do not know what my reaction would be, but I hope to be able to deliver the truth when it does happen.

I don’t believe that sexual preference defines who we are or limits our capacity to love others, family, friends or otherwise. Nor is it the most important thing about me. Yet I chose to lead off with this disclosure because over the last weekend, my ruminations yielded a discovery – that the fear of creating any tangible evidence which may be used to “out” me has sabotaged every attempt I have made in the past to post with a sincere voice, one that is truly my own. Although that fear remains, being gay is an integral part of my person, and by revealing it at the outset, I hope to become unfettered to speak my mind with the same personal and genuine kind of voice that powered Mike Grauer’s photostream which caught my admiration in the first place.

If being gay fosters a fear of social ostracization, then the group that I most define with, the puppy play subculture, only magnifies it. Members of the pup play subculture, a tribe of the BDSM / Leather community, have canine souls that its members embrace wholeheartedly, and not merely as role play. The scene does not involve any interaction with four legged canines, but regardless remains further out on the fringe of social acceptance than members of the “vanilla” BDSM / Leather communities. For this reason, many members of the pup play tribe, like myself, carefully compartmentalize their lives into a facet that is presented to the world at large and one that is revealed only when like minded people are around. In that latter milieu, I am an energetic and playful pup who has taken his bumps through life, but remains on the whole a tail-wagging optimist.

The aspect of my life that belongs to the world at large has been formed growing up in a fairly privileged home in Canada with loving parents who traveled widely with me in tow. My life has steered clear of most of the stereotypical gay dramas – no running away, no abusive parents or such. The closest thing I can point to is when my father passed away when I was already 23 and already in law school. While that marked a turning point for me in that I felt a bit freer to explore my own personality, all the while my mother and I have been and remain very close.

From an early age I was rather introverted not particularly gregarious, As I grew up through high school I became dissatisfied with the person I was, strove towards an evolving mental ideal every time I had an opportunity to start fresh: from High School to College, then the move from College to Law School, and again when I moved to New York City. I have learned that you can acquire the traits you desire, but the ones that you are running from never really disappear. For me, there is still an introverted guy inside that sometimes just wants peace and quiet and a good deal of space to think and digest the world around him.

While I enjoy my work immensely, though times have been tough this past year, my career is not what I thought it would be. My family’s business was in the import and export of ladies fashions from the Far East. I always believed I would end up as a businessman in the family business with my father and mother. If I had followed my heart, I would have been an architect, or fashion designer. However, my parents who wanted the best for me and whose logic I both understood and agreed with, wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer as a point of departure. I could be whatever I wanted after I had gained a degree that would afford a safety net should other pursuits not pan out. When my father died, the dream of working together with him and my mother in the family business died along with it. I spent some gruesome months giving the family business a soft landing, before folding the business – no bank could support a business run by a college grad half out of law school particularly where the talents of the deceased founder were its biggest asset. Those months were a life lesson on what friends are, whom to trust and how business works. After, I finished my law degree and through odd alignments in my resume, I ended up as an attorney in the real estate field with a concurrent role as a land developer.

So this post is a touchstone that lays out who I am to the world, who I am in private and, to some degree, what my personality is. As we wander further, these two compartments of my life will invariably color my commentary on my feelings, ideas and thoughts and will be inexorably linked to these points of reference.

A new beginning

2007-10-01T00:00:00.001-04:00

A long time has passed since I started this blog, and, a long time has passed since I did that first entry. Indeed, a lot has happened in my life since that first post, and in some ways an entire lifetime has passed. So why return here now? Well, the reason is this picture that I saw very early Sunday morning:

As I have grown up, I have come to accept that not all things are logical or easily explainable. There are times I will see things that have a great deal of impact on me, and I won’t be able to really pin it down. That picture, two charming and cute bears at play with a sparkle in their eyes and a palpable connection between them really caught my eye, and I followed the links to more of their pictures. The sum total effect was one of those logic defying results – a group of pictures of people I didn’t know ended up sparking a good deal self-contemplation that bore some fruit.

Rewind to this past week. As the week wore on, a strong sense of ennui began to take hold of me, probably late Thursday night. By Friday morning, as I went to work, I was really not motivated to do very much. Friday was molasses spilling out of a jar onto a counter top – slow, messy, and frustrating. I left a bit early, hoping that a early jump into the weekend would help, but there was not much I could think of to do, no movie to see, no activity that sprang to mind, so I ended up at home with more time to pass and a critical mass of boredom pooling inevitably like dust bunnies under my bed.

The boredom and lack of things to do is in part because I am saving hard for a couple of trips (Tuscany and the Caribbean) that are coming up in November, which I am very excited about. However, being a very active puppy, and I get bored out of my skull when I am at home without much to do. My partner doesn’t live with me, and the house is rather lonely place to be. It being a mess does not help, but I couldn’t even seem to get motivated to do even tackle that. Instead, I slept early on Friday, and slept till past 13:00 on Saturday. I didn’t go out at all, even though it was clearly a gorgeous day out. Even working on my pictures, one of my main hobbies and one that is a good standby for when I am bored, seemed a futile.

For the few hours that I was up on Saturday, I did my default activity, surfing the Internet hoping to be entertained. I went through Digg, Woot, CNN, NYTimes, Cynical-C, Kircher Society, Pruned, YouTube and a number of other good standbys that I check in often. None seemed to do very much for me this weekend. I browsed my Flickr site repeatedly as if some magical flood of comments would appear to validate my work. Of course, none was there, and I ended up just exploring Flickr, and after a good deal of browsing came across the picture above and from there hoped into the pictures of Mike Grauer, one of the bears in the picture.

His pictures are of his home, himself, and his flowers. Many of them are good, but it really wasn’t the quality of the photos that really struck me, but rather his commentary and subject. Flickr opened up a voyeuristic window on Mr. Grauer’s life for me, and Mr. Grauer very openly supplied the details in his comments – for example, the myriad pictures of flowers shared his love of gardening. Two photosets in particular, one called 30 Secrets and the other called 365, were very personal in nature and Mr. Grauer really offers himself to the world in an unvarnished “This is who I am” way that I would find very difficult to do. I very much admired this approach. The comments to these photos and the links to other bear community photos made me think of belonging and community, both things that I desire in my life. Also while some of the pictures and narrative was sad, overall, I very much got a positive feeling from his pictures – that although he had gone through hardships and shared them, he survived and overall seemed to be living a happy and satisfied life pursuing things he enjoyed.

So the picture, photostream and ennui combined into a good deal of self-contemplation. At the end, I realized I wanted to share more of myself, and to it do as Mr. Grauer did – unapologetically and unvarnished. I think this blog, is a good place to start. I am not sure I am ready to share it too openly with the world just yet, but it will be here and hopefully grow even as I grow more comfortable being who I am, and hopefully find belonging and a community that I can really feel as my own.

I am not planning this blog to be the open heart diary type of blog. Perhaps, as I grow into this and grow more comfortable about talking about myself, the posts may become more “revealing” of my inner self, but to me I’d just like to start sharing thoughts and some history in a safe place where I can be me.

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A music video to go with this post...

Madonna, Hey You

Welcome to Gunny's Blog

2006-04-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

This blog was started as a repository for all the things that interest me as a pup that do not have a place in the deblogatory.