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discombloggulated

from the silicon alley reporter:

EBay and its ilk have practically spawned a journalistic subgenre of stories about scary auctions, from the notorious kidney sale to the death row inmate's auction of his execution tickets. Now comes a site filled with the strangest flotsam and jetsam of the auction mania: DisturbingAuctions.com, dedicated to "truly tacky stuff that people really, honestly, believed that someone would (and in some cases did) buy." Choice knickknacks currently featured on the site include a coin purse made from a dead frog (sold for $5.50), a lizard-festooned coconut lamp (sold for $10.50), and a velvet painting of Jesus blessing an 18-wheeler (no bids).

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in honolulu, hawaii for a two-week vacation. took nephews and nieces to see pokemon 2000, which consisted of two hours of pretty animation, about two dozen spoken English words, and an impenetrable plotline. followed that with the x-men movie, which was aws aws awesome. am i the only gay guy who had crushes on all the comic book characters he used to collect and read?

why do i find the webmd commercial (the one with the robotic voice that says "we do." and shows the scrolling chat room dialogue) so beautiful and compelling?

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when i was sixteen, i saw the international gay guide spartacus for the first time in a waldenbooks in san jose, california. today, eight years later, i bought it for the first time in the piazza del duomo, milano, italia. listening to barry white, "i only want to be with you." whatta late bloomer i am. i just checked out my referrer logs and saw that someone found my site with the search string http://www.mamma.com/Mamma? timeout=4&lang=1&affiliate_id=6194&query= Love+is+me+me+is+love+woo+is+you+you — this is a new favorite for me. my goddamn (but highly affordable) hosting service keeps crashing, so mi dispiace if you can't reach your favorite periodically.

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went to see lou reed (rock star) at idroscalo (manmade beach and park on the outskirts of milan) last night with some of the guys at work. where the hell are the gay people in milan? the ticket costs the equivalent of ten u.s. bucks – one of milan's many perks, in addition to the superb coffee, food, clothes, and men. it's a tiny bit lonely, though, not knowing people here and having a weak command of the language. hard to explain that to friends back in new york, who can't understand why i'm not ecstatic to be here – i am, it's amazing, but also weird. still figuring out how to become part of the city's life more.

i sure feel like an american, much more than i do at home; watching cnn (in inglese), reading nytimes.com, and listening to d'angelo mp3s can be super comforting after a long day trying to make out, decipher, and deliver rapid-fire italiano.

i have currency from three different nations in my wallet right now. wondering how i'm gonna handle all this culture shock until october, er, ottobre.

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"The color of his pallor, however, was a curiously basic white—unmixed, that is, with the greens and yellows of guilt or abject contrition. It was very like the standard bloodlessness in the face of a small boy who loves animals to distraction, all animals, and who has just seen his favorite, bunny-loving sister's expression as she opened the box containing his birthday present to her—a freshly caught young cobra, with a red ribbon tied in an awkward bow around its neck."
-J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

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everyone in italy has a distinct mobile phone ring that was at first annoying, but now is more of a curiosity than anything else. i was sitting on the steps of la piazza del duomo as they rang all around me. the duomo is a huge, lovely cathedral in the center of milan that is sort of the hub of urban life; pigeons are everywhere, but nobody seems to mind them, and some are in fact trying to stand still so that the birds land and perch on them. for a transplanted new yorker, where pigeons equal flying rats, this is grossness.

milan is much prettier than people said when i told them i was going; the standard comments of it's industrial, it's fashionista central, it's ugly, it's cold, etc., are only partially true. the streets are narrow and the cars are smaller. some important differences between men here and in nyc are noted below:

• polo shirt collars are turned up, which i snickered at initially, but not find kind of hot
• pants are worn at the waist, not hips, so that you can't tell if he's just hung like a horse or suffering from penis cleavage
• everyone is wearing lacoste shirts (or is it izod? with the alligator)
• guys are way way cute

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