So, we left off on the K Concourse in O’Hell, where Flavor Flav had just called me baby. Shortly after that, I realized that K Concourse is essentially a dead end and Mr. Flav was sitting in front of my gate. Which meant that in all likelihood, I would be sharing a first class cabin with a D Lister. Or an A List Reality Star. I don’t know how the lists work, though. Maybe the A Listers are Tim Gunn and Kelly Clarkson?
I didn’t plan on talking to him, because I’m cool like that, but just in case I ended up sitting next to him and chatting, I had this vision of him checking my iPod to see if I really had any of his music, so I did a quick nervous scroll before boarding and found that I do indeed have “Fight The Power”. Thank you, Do The Right Thing Soundtrack.
I was in seat 6C. Flavor Flav was 6A. Throughout the entire flight, I kept having flashbacks to the season of The Surreal Life and could hear in my head his little victory cry of “Flavor Flav!” and my favorite, his sad little defeated “Flavor Flav” when something didn’t go his way. I hope he didn’t think I was laughing at his little crown, because really, it was all the mental sound bytes. And also the fact that the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly mentioned his new CD and gave it an F. Flavor Flav!
Do I have a picture of him? Yes. It’s on my cell phone and I have no idea how to get it off because my phone is from England and won’t talk to the network here blahety blah blah technical stuff. But he made me wait until he put his little crown back on and could pose with his giant clock. And then he called me “baby” again.
I had made plans with Anne to visit the Igigi store and play dress up with their formal gowns and possibly have an impromptu walkoff. I’m working on a review of the store for Product Anarchy, so details of that will be forthcoming, but suffice to say, it was a really lovely afternoon and I got to meet Ozlem and Yuliya, the woman behind the Igigi designs and they are completely awesome and also adorable and Yuliya didn’t even blink when I shimmied my pants off while wearing an evening gown, right in the middle of the store. We Americans are classy, non?
Of course, the reason we were there was Halloween, which meant costumes, which meant an entirely new level of freaking out for the packing angst, because now? This time it wasn’t just four days of clothes and shoes. This time it was four days of clothes and shoes PLUS two complete costumes that require special clothes and shoes and in some cases feathers and props and entire heads of hair. My god, how do the drag queens do it? Not with a 50 lb bag limit, I tell you that much. Each of my bags was stuffed to an inch of its life, and even the tiny one weighed a scant over 48 pounds. On the way home, due to some unexpected shopping, the bags ended up being 47 and 58 pounds, respectively, and that’s despite leaving my trick or treat basket full of candy in the apartment kitchen. Luckily, I smiled at the First Class agent and she smiled back and said “Well, make sure to be under 50 pounds next time, ok?” and slapped a Heavy sticker on the bag. I should have been outraged, but meh, I really didn’t feel like stuffing my toiletries bag into my carryon to make the luggage restriction. This is how the revolution ends. Right there.
The first costume night was an easy one for me and a more involved one for Jake. I just had to give myself big hair and wear a lot of black, after all. He, on the other hand, had a complicated routine involving lots of shaving and fake hair and learning to walk without killing himself. It’s a shame that we wasted our fantastic concept costume on a very light night of karaoke at The Mint and the patrons of The Sausage Factory. For the record, the ingestion of a quart of vodka prevents my ability to sing on key. Which makes my agreeing to sing the Christine part of “Phantom of the Opera” with Mopie really a bad idea. Oh well! I’m a musician! I was merely living up to the role. If there had been a hooker around, we would have tried to snort something off her ass, I’m certain.
And it’s also a shame that we all got so blitzed that I don’t really remember most of it, other than being confused when one Ben Stiller look-alike was hitting on me (I thought he was talking about Mopie until he clarified) and also the strange atmosphere that must exist only on the sidewalk outside the Mint because almost every time I am there, some strange kissing situations happen right before my eyes.
Oh, what were our costumes? Here you go. Sadly, we never took a full length shot, so you miss out on the red four inch heels and the feather trim and eight million hours worth of sequins on the bottom of the coat, but use your imagination.
On actual Halloween, we went out to the Castro, along with apparently everyone else in California as well as 500 police officers in full on riot gear. It was a little creepy, especially when it took us almost an hour to walk the two blocks from dinner to Shannonk’s house. We met up with the entire gang, including Fu’s friend Rod, whom I’ve heard lots about but hadn’t yet met, and several of Shannon’s friends, John and Jonathon and I think maybe another Jon? I got confused. It was the eyelashes, which weighed approximately as much as a toddler. Regardless, they were all delightful and I enjoyed them all to bits. And wished once again that we could just remove everything between the Mississippi and Modesto, or maybe invent long distance teleportation so that I could hang out with those fun kids more often.
We did venture down into the crowd and it was, in a word, scary. Esteban’s friend Joel was working in the Valley but drove into the city to hang out with us. However, since there were so many people in such a small area, and so many of them jamming the cell towers taking pictures of their friends with the giant Ferrer Rocher candy that he never did find us. I think the closest he got was a block away when he decided to duck into a sushi restaurant for some dinner. We waited with no word for another forty five minutes, getting jostled and prodded and my ass grabbed on more than one occasion (although Ian did gallantly become a human ass shield after one such aggressive incident) that I decided that I had had enough of crowds and was starting to feel a little panicky. Plus, it wasn’t a good scene, to use a California-ism. Everything was very tense and pushy and weird. I managed to get a line out and left a voicemail on Joel’s phone to say that we were going to the End Up and then were off. Mo and Ian were following us out, but it took so long to walk another block that they needed to catch a train before they shut down, so they decided not to. Around the time that we were walking to the train station, 9 people were shot about a half block from where we had been standing in front of the DJ stage. I didn’t find this out until Joel called after we had gotten back to the apartment, very upset because he had seen it happen and was getting herded down to the area in front of the Mint, where I’m sure that he did not get to make out with anyone, sadly enough. By that time, we decided that we were sick of crowds and Halloween and while we did look fabulous, we’d just pack it in and sit around the apartment in our pajamas and listen to the helicopters trying to control the crowd four blocks away.
Luckily, no one was critically injured by what turned out to be an East Bay rival gang situation. Despite the evening ending on a down note, we already have costume ideas for next year. I think Jake is looking for payback for the shaving, since this one involves me losing my eyebrows. Or something. Ah well, I have an entire year to figure that out.
Last time we were both in San Francisco, we went to Bouchon with Foo and Jake made a stop in the bakery to offhandedly pick up some things to munch on. Those things were quickly forgotten until the next morning, when he and I ate them and then pretty much lost our minds at how incredible they were. The Thomas Keller Nutter Butters were delicious but oh, man, when we tried the Thomas Keller Oreos? God himself split open the heavens and said “Hey, are you going to finish that?”
We couldn’t imagine how these broken and sort of soggy cookies could be ten times better than a standard fresh Oreo, but we didn’t care, because they were perfection and we vowed to go back and taste them as they were intended: freshly crisp with the vanilla butter cream still firm and fluffy. Of course, like all things that get stamped with the name “Bouchon”, a single Thomas Keller Oreo (TKO, appropriately enough) costs as much as an entire package of regular Oreos, but after you try one’ it seems like an insignificant amount for such joy in your mouth.
So, this meant that we had to rent a car in order to get up there, too, which meant that the cost per cookie was skyrocketing. Clearly we needed to buy enough to make it worth our while. Clearly, we would also buy a sample of anything else the man’s pastry brushed had touched.
By the time we hit Napa, we were still pretty full from our double breakfast, so we walked into the Bouchon bakery, only to notice that they didn’t have any TKO’s out. I might have whimpered a little. I might have also scanned the departing patrons to see if anyone had taken the last TKO, so that I could formulate a plan to shiv them in the parking lot. But luckily we asked and found out that they had more cookies cooling and they’d be ready for frosting in half an hour. Would we be willing to come back? Sure. And we’ll take $30 worth of snacks while we wait.
What a racket, that Thomas Keller has going there in Yountville. Clearly there’s meth in the cookies.
We sat in the garden and nibbled from the assortment. My favorite was the apricot fruit pastiches, while I think Jake liked some kind of chocolate thing. Until he tried the cheese Danish. I don’t like Danishes, but we had ordered two of everything and I was willing to trust Bouchon. Therein lies the road to madness, because the damned cheese Danish was like nothing I’ve ever had in my life. The cream cheese was more of a custard, scented with orange and vanilla bean specks, while the pastry was light and flaky and oh so perfect. God only was interested in our stale TKOs because he’s tired of the cheese danishes that Jesus has been bringing him for the last two centuries. Damn, Thomas Keller! Damn.
We wandered around some touristy Napa shops and then went back for our cookies. Jake wisely determined that we should probably eat something that wasn’t sugar, especially in light of my recent realization that too many carbs makes me cranky and tired. I didn’t want to eat anything at all after the mountain of cheese Danish, but agreed to split one of the Bouchon bakery’s ham and cheese baguettes.
We hit the road and tried the sandwich. OH MY HELL. Why do I doubt that anything from Keller will be magnificent? Because I’m not a fan of ham, unless it is the punchline to a joke. And I don’t like mustard. Additionally, I’m suspicious of baguettes in general, as the crust to bread ratio tends to be unsatisfactory. But this sandwich? It was the perfect balance of spicy and salty and aged cheesy goodness. That’s the thing about Keller. He seems to understand that you can make really simple food extraordinary if you put enough thought into it.
In case you doubt how damn good this sandwich was, I offer the following footage:
Even now, I would like to make sweet sweaty love to that sandwich.
Dear Sandwich, call me? Ok? Collect, if you need to. I’m here for you. Sincerely, Weetabix.
As with all best friend vacations, it ended all too soon, but probably for the best, as I needed a nap on the third day and would probably be in a coma after a week of such revelry. I’m proud that we did take care to do our three basic elements of life that we normally miss: food, water and sleep, elements completely missing on our Vegas extravaganza last year. We’re learning, apparently.
Or maybe we’re growing up?
Nah.
