On Pride

Traditional Start of SF Pride: Dykes on Bikes

 

[written on Pride Sunday 2023]

On this pride day I realize that the modern gay rights movement in the US has happened pretty much within my lifetime. Unlike the popular mythology, modern gay rights didn't start at Stonewall as there was a lot of gay life in NYC, Chicago, SF, LA and other places throughout the 60's. it was often quietly tolerated so long as we kept our mouths shut. But politics was happening before Stonewall and for NYC the Mattachine's Sip-In lawsuit overturned the anti-gay laws about gay people at bars in like the mid 60's. One of the great ironies of Stonewall is that it was illegal and mob owned and the cops were on the take and would raid it if they didn't get their bribes. There was no reason for Stonewall to have existed at all in 1969. But before Stonewall the politics were definitely much more low-key.

 

The current gay parades were a repurposing of the Mattachine's Annual Reminder and decidedly not button down as before. But clearly there was something in the water as it simultaneously erupted in NYC, Chicago, LA and SF followed by many other cities in the years following. It also shows there was networking going on at a national level well before Stonewall. The Mattachine and Daughters of Bilitis are the most well known, but there was undoubtedly many more. 

 

There is a mythology that Pride was about a lot of Proud Queer Warriors in solidarity. In NYC the parade may have started out that way with the handful of people who started marching from the West Village, but it quickly turned into a party atmosphere as people joined in along the way on the march to Central Park -- many probably having no clue what it was about other than a lot of gay people together and not in a dark bar. You can bet that that party atmosphere in Central Park led to lots of fun later that night with new, uh, friends they met.

 

Pride in my opinion is about a very simple thing: visibility. It's much harder to hate something that has a name, a face or especially a relation. Coming out has been the #1 political tool, and Pride says I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it. I've always thought that one of the key innovations of the gay rights movement was the Pride parades. They are an annual reminder that we exist and that we aren't going away. It coupled with coming out has proven to be very powerful.

 

On the other side, Pride is about seeing that we're not alone for us. How many kids from hateful rural places that fled to big cities to be gay and then come to their first Pride parade with eyes the size of saucers seeing every imaginable kind of gay person all just having fun for our one day a year. Even in the age of gay marriage, it's still necessary and a reminder that there are a lot of gay people who don't have the freedom that cities afford to this day. 

 

A lot of us are over Pride because to be honest if you've seen one Pride parade, you've seen them all. The festivals can still be fun especially if you like the acts they bring in, and of course the people watching and cruising. For me, the funnest part was always at the bars after as everybody is in a festive and frisky mood -- it was one of those few days a year that people really let down their inhibitions. It's a view of what it would be like if being gay was the norm instead of straight.

 

Given the current spasms of homophobia and transphobia lately, Pride seems especially relevant again. We can't allow Nazi scum like the Proud Boys dictate what we can and can't do. As far as I can tell, they for the most part didn't show up or incite violence -- typical for chicken shit bitches, they know they'd get their asses kicked. But it's also good for smaller cities and even rural areas because you get to know your gay neighbors which can be pretty hard especially with the advent of apps. Having lived in San Francisco, the size of the crowd is overwhelming -- like one million overwhelming -- but having been to smaller Prides like Long Beach and San Jose they feel more intimate. And of course the Prides in rural areas like where we live now are very intimate -- ours was a potluck in a park. 

Now to all of the belly achers of "CORPRO HAS DEBASED OUR PURE PRIDE!!!" -- get the fuck over yourselves. Pride was never any one thing and adding corpro isn't hurting anybody. This year in particular it has shown that it's not just an empty political gesture. While there has been some craven back peddling, the vast majority have not. Also: a lot of who marches at Pride for corpro are their employees so fuck off if you don't think they should march if they think their company is gay friendly. Silicon Valley led the way in many respects for companies having pro-gay HR policies and if they want to march I say they deserve it. HR by it's nature is very conservative and extremely cover your ass, so it's no small thing for them to be on board. Besides I loved the cute little rainbow Androids Google was handing out one year around when it first came out. 

And the worst of all are the horrified Puritans who clutch their pearls at people dressing like you'd see at any beach. They can fuck right off too. Little kids don't know what Furries are about (heck, neither do I). All they know is that they are colorful animated animals. Which they are, and kids love them. And heaven help us if the pups trot down the parade route on all fours. Kids don't know what it's about (again, neither do I). Reading sex acts into that sort of thing is ridiculous. Parents can make their own decisions about what they want their kids to be exposed to, not some hysterical Puritans wanting veto power.

 

So Happy Pride from this jaded old troll. Do political things! Do naughty things! Have a ball!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Out by not Coming Out

Me being butch helping to build Keith's house

 

When I turned 18 I immediately rushed up to Hollywood to a club a guy had told me about when I was 16 and began my gay career. I went up there often and would often spend the night with the guys I was hooking up with, including a guy that I was sort of seeing (in reality, I was more like his pet boy). I eventually dropped out of school for about a year to be gay. In that time I had quite a few adventures including going up to Vancouver and coming back with a souvenir key frob which said on one side "Cruising the Straits" and on the other "BC Ferries". I of course thought this was scandalously hilarious. 

 

So here I was not in school, gone all of the time from home and doing who knows what from my parents' standpoint. I really didn't make excuses, because I just didn't bring it up at all. They didn't ask, I didn't tell. Honestly, they were probably happy to have fewer people around to get some peace and quiet. In that time I did do the traditional coming out scene with my father who lived up in LA. It was the typical hand wringing "I have something to tell you" kind of coming out. My father was actually relieved and said "thank god, I thought you got a girl pregnant". 

In the summer of 1979 I met this super hot blond guy at some club in Orange County. I was smitten. We had ridiculously good sexual energy and we got along really well. This was weird because I was still 18 and he was an agriculture teacher down in Northern San Diego County. And 28. When we met he was up for the summer staying at some guy's place in Laguna Beach and I'd be over there all of the time. So we ended up becoming an item after a while. I now had a boyfriend.

This is usually where the problems of being closeted show up big time. But while I wasn't exactly out of the closet, I wasn't exactly in the closet either. I just sort of did my own thing and didn't care what other people thought. When Keith my boyfriend started coming around it had to be odd that 28 year old teacher was hanging around an 18 year old wild boy. My relatives liked him though and I did have some cover in that I'd go down to visit him and hang out with him on the school's farm. I really enjoyed that and when he decided to build his own house, I loved helping him build it. 

So I had some plausible deniability at least from the outside. I didn't view it that way though as I was just doing my own thing and they could think whatever they wanted. This went on for several years with me going down there, and him coming up. He even went with me to thanksgiving at my grandparents house. My grandmother being a grandmother would always ask about any girlfriends but that thanksgiving when she asked, I sort of pointed my elbow at Keith. She immediately went about her business and everything was good. So I sort of came out in the more traditional use of the phrase.

After about 2 some years, I decided to break up with him. In the end it really was for the best, but my reasons were really cringe worthy and I'm still embarrassed by them. The net effect though is that I stopped going down there, and he stopped being part of my life at home. Nobody asked. But it had to be obvious that he was my boyfriend all along and that we had broken up.

When I finally turned 21, my stepdad and I got into a big fight for something I don't remember what, but the net effect was that I moved out down to Dana Point. I had a job at a startup in Irvine writing low level code for various pieces of hardware they were making. So I had a real job. I also had a new boyfriend who I had moved out with. I don't recall much interaction between him and my family, but that was mainly a function of me living quite a ways away and my being busy. At work I was always a pretty serious kind of guy and wasn't much for the normal office banter. Maybe that was a function of being a little closety, but I think that most of it is that I found all of that small talk rather boring. 

Michael and I broke up about a year after I had moved out and I ended up living at my manager's house with one other coworker. The coworker unknown to me at the time turned out to be gay and also unbeknownst to me had a crush on me. This was extremely awkward as I wasn't into him and didn't like the drama it was causing, so I ended up moving out and down to Mission Viejo. After Michael I dated here and there but nothing serious for about 4 years. I was busy with work, and came and went with who I was seeing when I felt like it both at my manager's house and then the new one. So not much to force the issue and since I just went about my business, and it didn't matter to me.

Around 1985 things were about to radically change for me. Two things happened almost simultaneously. My manager and I along with two others decided to create an engineering company. We had a contract in hand to develop a laser printer controller so we were set for at least a year to bootstrap ourselves. I also met my next boyfriend, Todd. He moved in with me down in Mission Viejo and then eventually to our condo when I bought it on the lake there. So I was incredibly busy at the time working on the printer and basically being a one-man software development department as well as spinning up the necessary infrastructure to support me, future employees, and all of the developers for the company who had contracted us. 

Despite all of this, Todd and I managed to get away some weekends with my folks going up to the eastern side of the Sierra to camp and fish. We also skied when we could and sailed quite a bit in races around LA harbor and Catalina and the rest. It was really obvious that Todd and I were an item both with our sailing buddies and at work. We'd have parties for our employees at our house so it was just sort of an open secret that nobody seemed to give a shit about any more than I really cared about their straight love lives. It just was. 

I finally came out to my mother officially when we were both pretty drunk while we were camping one night. I just casually asked her what she thought about having a gay son. She then proceeded to drop a bomb on me that her brother, my uncle Ramon, had come out in some fashion in the 1940's to my grandparents which caused unsurprisingly a huge scandal. Apparently my grandmother (the other one) had always blamed herself for his being gay. But just like with my other relatives I never hid my boyfriends and it had to be obvious that I too was gay. So I never knew what she made of that. Like Ramon, the family was happy to not talk about that. 

Ramon painted a lot of South West scenes

 

The biggest part of the bombshell about Ramon was that he had died a few years earlier. I would have given anything to have had an adult relationship with him had I known because he was brilliant and an extremely talented artist. He painted in Hollywood, Laguna Beach which were obviously pretty gay for the time, but ended up in Santa Fe where he painted with a lot of Native American and Mexican themes. What was it like being gay in the 1940's? Did he have boyfriends? I know that he had a sham marriage, but nothing beyond that. What would he have thought about me basically being out in that I didn't hide anything? Did he have a similar attitude? I will never know. But chalk this one up to where not formally coming out backfired badly.

So this may come off as being sort of self-serving and a justification for not formally coming out to people. It's a fair point, and I acknowledge that. But it worked for me, and I think that I did my part with Harvey Milk's famous speech on the importance of coming out. I rationalize this at some level in that the way I behaved is the way it should actually be. That is, that being gay is just normal and doesn't require any special theatrics. It also has another characteristic in that it basically dares people to be openly homophobic. Formally coming out is an invitation for them to react badly because you are basically asking them to accept you for who you are. Just living your life puts the onus on them to be dick heads. Obviously I had a lot of things in my favor in that I was living in Southern California which even though I was behind the Orange Curtain (Orange County) was still a lot more tolerant in general than some buckle of the bible belt in the South. In Orange County at the time, the religious kooks were just starting to become radicalized. In the South, they never stopped. So I had that.

These days would I recommend people do what I did? It depends. For a lot of America, coming out is not a big deal. Yes, tears will be shed, yes there will be lots of hand wringing, yes there will be lots of education needed. And of course you won't get blindsided by a family secret until after it's too late. On the other hand just Being makes its own statement too: I'm not going to beg for your acceptance and fuck you if you don't approve. So I don't really know. Either way you can live your life in the way you see fit and not cower in the closet. Both serve the same political goal too of people knowing gay people and the positive feedback loop that creates. As I said, it's a little self-serving so you get to decide.

40 years ago, soc.motss was newgroup'd

 

From the 1997 Motss Con at Ti Couz

What is soc.motss you ask? Soc means "social" and motss means "members of the same sex" (ie, gay). Clear as mud? Back in 1983 the Internet was young. As in *very* young like a few years old and the great TCP/IP flag day happening that year. It grew out of a US defense department agency called ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) which built the world's first interconnected network called ARPANET. There were just a handful of locations at first but it grew and by the early 80's was worldwide. So... connectivity.

Email at the time was *the* killer app and its uses expanded to create mailing lists and other uses so that users could exchange ideas, trade gossip, and have discussions. Usenet was more or less built out of email to create discussion forums, mostly technical but with some social groups. Usenet which though not bound directly to the internet, was heavily intertwined with its rise. In 1983, Steve Dyer then of BBN (who created the ARPANET IMPS which we'd call routers today) decided that it would be great to have a GLBT group called soc.motss so that gay people could meet and discuss issues of the day both grand and mundane. The soc.motss name was purposely sort of opaque so as to not raise homophobic admins' eyebrows.

Soc.motss was still sort of an oddity as the number of people using the internet in the 80's was still tiny and mostly used by academics and researchers. But it grew and became the first gay online community. It was also very unusual in that later there were lots of BBS's but they were usually geared toward dialing for dick. Motss was different. It ran the gamut on every subject imaginable from gay culture, the trails and travails of being gay, and of course in those terrible years the scourge of AIDS. For people who had access it was a window into a world of people, cultures and lives across the world we could have never hoped to experience in real life. Given the limited set of people who had access to the internet, it wasn't as you'd imagine the most diverse set of people, but it did have a fair number of lesbian regulars which was nice. And bisexuals. More on them later.

While hooking up wasn't the purpose of motss, it's not to say that it didn't happen. Ok, it happened a lot. In 1988, they decided to have a first meet up in San Francisco -- the motss.con (convention). I have no first hand knowledge of the frivolity, but i imagine it was in the air. But people used their real names back then and their location so it became the norm that when somebody was visiting another city that people would meet up. This eventually led to the infamous fuck chart of which my other half was a nexus. Motss led to quite a few couples getting together too. For me, I had more than a few people completely change their mind about me when we met. I really don't see me and my style as much different online vs. in real life, but it's really hard to read tone on the net so when I'm just chuckling and being somewhat silly, others read it as fire breathing. In one memorable meeting, Steven Levine and I met at a gay bar called the Paradise in Cambridge Ma and he was sort of bemused that he was chatting with me and actually having a good time. I just bat my eyes and smile.

I came around in 1991 having been working on internet connected things as the internet was just opening up to the wider public. At that time, soc.motss was a fully formed community with norms, well known personalities, inside-jokes, age old flame wars, and various factions including what is now known as the bear community. And to balance the bears, were their mortal enemies: twinks. Twinks of course didn't have any clue they were enemies and just looked pretty wondering what all of the bellowing was about. It also, I'd say, had a hand in expanding gay rights in tech. Since there was so much crossover between gay tech folks and their lobbying at work with groups like NOGLSTP finding many of its members who posted to soc.motss. It was all really quite magical and fascinating and unlike anything i had experienced. It was impossible to explain to anybody as they'd look at you as if you had grown a propeller on your head.

Some of the flame wars were downright hilarious in their sound and fury. One particular flame war was about the appropriateness of cruising guys at the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Another was a very strange flame war called Anal Carrot to the Eyeball in which a drag queen apparently shot a carrot out of her bussy and hit somebody in the audience. Another was about the perennial debate about circumcision which was crowned by Steven Levine's covenant with his old testament god. Another involved me where somebody who was tetched had announced loudly to the group that I wasn't gay. The hilarious part about this is that I was down in LA visiting my friends Ken, Arne and Howard and staying in Howard's room with the world's worst hangover. Howard was infusing himself and howling with laughter at the post declaring that we were going to have to inform my boyfriend Aric, while I could barely open my eyes in agony. 

Oh and bisexuals. There were bisexuals and flame wars a plenty. A recurring one was whether "monosexual" was a legitimate way to group gay and straight people (spit). Another was what the big deal about gay marriage was where one of the bisexuals called Muffy said it wasn't a big deal since we could get married in San Francisco (we couldn't). We started calling her Muffy Antoinette as in "let them eat wedding cake". It turns out that she married to get somebody a green card, making it all the more hypocritical. But nothing beats the bisexual indignity of one of their loin fruit being suckled on my bed. 

Soc.motss even lead to somebody getting outed. I was using the gnus news reader (which was written for the Emacs text editor) at the time and was going through its documentation and it was making clear references to soc.motss with allusions to various flame wars and the general style of how proper flaming was to be done. I hunted down the author who had a .sig (ie a tagline at the end of your message) which had "instant slut, just add milk". Caught red handed, I outed him to the group and Larsi became part of the lore. I believe he even attended a motss con the next year or so.

One recurring theme is that as more universities gave access to students there would be a deluge of new posters, both gay and homophobes. For some reason Penn State was the locus of a lot of ire for the yearly ritual and sort of a running joke. But motss attracted lots of students, often closeted or semi-closeted, who often wrote privately to the regulars forming what was called the soft underbelly of soc.motss. Since students are perennially starving, we afforded quite a few of them over the years "scholarships" to be able to attend motss cons. The younguns also provided some new blood to the group which would otherwise have become ossified and sclerotic. But there were undoubtedly a huge number of people who just lurked enjoying the fun at what was essentially an electronic cocktail party. Hopefully we made an impression that being gay could be positive and fun and interesting even in the face of their terrible local and home situations.

Soc.motss had its serious side too. Howard who was sick and fighting what would be his last battle wrote a deeply moving post about his condition on the occasion of Greg Louganis announcing that he had contracted HIV. We did make that trip, but Howard was too sick to come with us. Howard's death was very traumatic for soc.motss as he was a well known regular and everybody loved him. It led to me of all people delivering his eulogy at Forest Lawn (update, it was actually Mount Sinai Memorial Park  which was next door) which I still don't know how I managed to pull off. A year later I wrote a post about a custom that we had taken up since he died by starting a meal with friends with a "To Howard" toast. Soc.motss lost other people to AIDS of course but it was like being in the suburbs in that we probably didn't know all of the ones we lost because they would just stop participating.

But the Internet and Usenet grew and grew and Grew and GREW. Incursions by homophobes were common and had its set of well known freaks spouting the same homophobic bullshit that is still being recycled to this day. But there were plenty of flame wars to be had with the regular participants as well. Gays and religiosity was a lightning rod. Likewise hiding drag queens and leather men at gay pride parades, and if only we showed the good gays(tm) we'd get our rights faster (hint: no). And of course the time honored "I am unlike the other gurls" whine which is a staple of every Reddit (basically Usenet 2.0) gay-related sub to this day.

I had the pleasure of hosting the 10th annual motss.con in 1997 at my house in the Castro in San Francisco. It was fabulous with people from around the world packing my place and the Dixieland Dykes playing in my cul-de-sac overlooking the city much to the amusement of our neighbors who also feasted on the fete in our garage. There were probably 200 people there that year and really marked the zenith as the net took off in zillions of other directions with loads of new people coming online. This made a relatively tight knit set of people who knew each other into a wild west, overwhelmed and especially subject to spammers. Usenet faded away eventually and was replaced by other social media, Reddit being closest to being the same format.

This was written up about 10 years ago about soc.motss. I know almost everybody in the article over the years. it's something that probably can't ever be recreated, and certainly not with Reddit given its anonymous format. But suffice it to say that it was as life changing for gay people then as it even is today for gay people isolated in small and homophobic places today. It was a window into a much larger world where being gay can be normal and special and fun.

The core of soc.motss is now a Facebook group and is getting... old. Steve Dyer died in 2010, and many regulars have passed away in the mean time. The group is rarely contentious anymore because everybody knows everybody's hobby horses and it's easier to ignore them than relitigate fights from 30 years ago. Thankfully it's old age and the ravages of time that are picking us off rather than the horror of AIDS. But what a time and what a great bit of gay history that almost nobody knows about. There is an archive of soc.motss, but it is very incomplete and it's a miracle that it exists at all since it definitely wasn't Gene Spafford's day job.

Oh, and it's sOsh motss, not sock motss. Anybody who says otherwise is a moron¹.

1: Moron was in-group kind of language and was used liberally on soc.motss. It was also handy when somebody felt overly attacked by morons as in "who gave me the moron magnet?"

Howard's death at one year

 

Subject: To Howard
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Organization: Cabal Noir: Universal Headquarters

  It's been a year ago today that Howard left us,
a year that has been painful for all of us who
knew and loved him. It really seems hard to
imagine as I still vividly see his enthusiasm at
some of the most mundane or peculiar things that
had, for some reason or another, piqued his
endless curiosity. I still hear his voice
answering the phone "Michael!" I especially
remember his passion for things that he enjoyed;
even when you knew that he was being a bit tetched,
it was still fun to watch him enthuse.
  Howard leaves a legacy with many people, but I
think for Arne and me one of the most important
parts of that legacy is our love of food and wine
and the importance of the social ritual with good
food and good friends. There is something magical
with the product of the day's labor being so
appreciated by your friends, yet totally
non-sentimental as it is consumed, like friendship, 
on a day to day basis.
  I guess this was poetic in some ways, because
for Howard there was only the current moment. Even
when he was pain, he tried to make the most of
what he had. He always approached life with a
gusto and verve that was truly inspirational. I
didn't know Howard before he became sick, so I
don't know if he was always like this (I suspect
so), but his passion for life was contagious. 
  In real life, Howard had a wonderful, passionate
presence that is really hard to explain. Ken made
a video of Howard -- various clips of trips they
had taken -- that absolutely catches his very
essence. At Howard's memorial, Ken played this 
for us and I don't think there was anybody who
could speak for 20 minutes afterward as it was 
so *him*. So, so Howard. I especially remember
the scene of Howard gobbling down some greasy
burger in Seattle. And now he's gone.  
  Richard Johnson started a custom amongst some of
the people who knew and loved Howard to always
start the evening's meal with an obligatory toast
which is a simple, yet powerful way to pay homage to
this important fixture in our lives. I miss Howard
immensely, and can barely contain my tears, but on
this year's anniversary of his death, I can think
of nothing more fitting today than this simple
toast:

  "To Howard"
-- 
Michael Thomas	(mike@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
  Pass the bottle and damn the expense
  I've heard it said by a man of sense
  That the labouring classes could scarce live a day
  If people like us didn't eat, drink and pay
    -- A. H. Clough

Zuni Cafe Tuscan Chicken Fixed

 

At the bar. Ask for their fab Bloody

 

Anybody who has been to Zuni Cafe in San Francisco knows that their Tuscan Chicken for two is the bomb. It seems that Judy Rodgers transcribed her recipe and the Intertoobs have faithfully posted it as is. The problem is that her recipe is confusing as hell and the steps are not in the best order and there are missing ones on top of that. When I cook I always figure out what can be done as far ahead as possible without hurting the quality. Restaurants, of course, do the same thing so I'm sure this translation is probably close to how they do it too. I think her recipe was more of a stream of consciousness than "here's how we get it out of the kitchen".

I've added some notes in the ingredients and steps along the way. One thing I've noticed is that the dressing for the bread salad is extremely spare given the quantities. I usually double it and then you can judge for yourself how much is appropriate. If there's any left, you can always put it on the table.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• One small chicken, 2-¾ to 3-½-pounds [ed: the smaller the better, don't get a giant roaster, and splurge on a really good quality one. also: for 4, use two chickens if possible but that may be too much; the object here is to figure out the quantities of what you can get and remember it for the next time to scale it]
  
• 4 tender sprigs fresh thyme, marjoram, rosemary, or sage, about ½ inch long
• Salt [ed: kosher is good to draw out moisture]
  
• About ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper [ed: more to taste for chicken]
  
• A little water
• Generous 8 ounces slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough) [ed: we often use Acme Sour Levain, but a nice Ciabatta works really well too]
  
• 6 to 8 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil
  
• 1½ tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
• Freshly cracked black pepper for vinaigrette
  
• 1 tablespoon dried currants
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar, or as needed [ed: taste for tanginess and remember that bread soaks up a lot of flavor]
  
• 1 tablespoon warm water
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered
• ¼ cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part
• 2 tablespoons lightly salted Chicken Stock or lightly salted water
• A few handfuls of arugula, frisee, or red mustard greens, carefully washed and dried

 

Do Ahead at Least One Day, Preferably More

1. Seasoning the chicken (1 to 3 days before serving; for 3-¼- to 3-½-pound chickens, at least 2 days): Remove and discard the lump of fat inside the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat very dry inside and out. Be thorough- a wet chicken will spend too much time steaming before it begins to turn golden brown.

2. Approaching from the edge of the cavity, slide a finger under the skin of each of the breasts, making 2 little pockets. Now use the tip of your finger to gently loosen a pocket of skin on the outside of the thickest section of each thigh. Using your finger, shove an herb sprig into each of the 4 pockets.

3. Season the chicken liberally all over with salt and the pepper (we use ¾ teaspoon sea salt per pound of chicken). Season the thick sections a little more heavily than the skinny ankles and wings. Sprinkle a little of the salt just inside the cavity, on the backbone, but don’t otherwise worry about seasoning the inside. Twist and tuck the wing tips behind the shoulders. Cover loosely and refrigerate [ed: I usually put this in the meat drawer uncovered to pull out more water. less water means crispier skin].

 

Do Ahead on the Day

These really don't need to be any particular order. These can all be done well in advance which I always recommend.

• Cut the bread into a couple of large chunks. Carve off all of the bottom crust and most of the top and side crust (reserve the top and side crusts to use as croûtons in salads or soups). Brush the bread allover with olive oil. Broil very briefly, to crisp and lightly color the surface. Turn the bread chunks over and crisp the other side. Trim off any badly charred tips, then tear the chunks into a combination of irregular 2- to 3-inch wads, bite-sized bits, and fat crumbs. You should get about 4 cups. [ed: the idea here is to lightly toast the bread, not make croutons. also: it's just as easy to use the drizzle the olive oil on the bread and then toss it to distribute the oil]
•  Combine about ¼ cup of the olive oil with the Champagne or white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste.
  
• Place the currants in a small bowl and moisten with the red wine vinegar and warm water. Set aside.
• Slice up the garlic and scallions and saute them in the olive oil until softened not browned
  
• Rinse and dry the greens

Crunch Time

1. Remove the chicken from the fridge an hour or two ahead of time
2. Choose a shallow flameproof roasting pan or dish barely larger than the chicken, or use a 10-inch skillet with an all-metal handle. Preheat the pan over medium heat. Wipe the chicken dry and set it breast side up in the pan. It should sizzle.
   

3. Roast the chicken: Preheat the oven to 475°. (Depending on the size, efficiency, and accuracy of your oven, and the size of your bird, you may need to adjust the heat to as high as 500° or as low as 450° during the course of roasting the chicken to get it to brown properly. If that proves to be the case, begin at that temperature the next time you roast a chicken. If you have a convection function on your oven, use it for the first 30 minutes; it will enhance browning, and may reduce overall cooking time by 5 to 10 minutes.)

4. Place in the center of the oven and listen and watch for it to start sizzling and browning within 20 minutes. If it doesn’t, raise the temperature progressively until it does. The skin should blister, but if the chicken begins to char, or the fat is smoking, reduce the temperature by 25 degrees. After about 30 minutes, turn the bird over (drying the bird and preheating the pan should keep the skin from sticking). Roast for another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size, then flip back over to recrisp the breast skin, another 5 to 10 minutes. Total oven time will be 45 minutes to an hour. [ed: the smart thing to do is write this down for the next time]
   

5. While the chicken is roasting, toss about ¼ cup [ed: or more. this is very spartan] of the tart vinaigrette with the torn bread in a wide salad bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.
6. Toss in the currents and garlic/scallions and pine nuts into the bowl
   
7. Place in a oven proof dish and lightly tent with foil. Into the oven right as you take the chicken out and while it's resting. Bake for about 10 minutes or so.
8. Remove the chicken from the baking dish and remove the excess oil and deglaze with about 1 Tbs of water or stock. This shouldn't take very long... just long enough to loosen the bits from the pan
   
9. Slash the stretched skin between the thighs and breasts of the chicken, then tilt the bird and plate over the roasting pan to drain the juice into the drippings. Set the chicken in a warm spot (which may be your stove top), and leave to rest while you finish the bread salad. The meat will become more tender and uniformly succulent as it cools. [ed: 9 & 10 are done simultaneously]
   
10. Set a serving platter in the oven to warm for a minute or two.
11. Add the greens to the bread salad and toss
    
12. Put the bread salad back into the serving bowl and drizzle with the pan juices
13. Carve the chicken and place on the bread salad
    

The finished product in all its glory

Original Instructions

Here for the record is the original instructions from Judy Rodgers:

1. Seasoning the chicken (1 to 3 days before serving; for 3-¼- to 3-½-pound chickens, at least 2 days): Remove and discard the lump of fat inside the chicken. Rinse the chicken and pat very dry inside and out. Be thorough- a wet chicken will spend too much time steaming before it begins to turn golden brown.

2. Approaching from the edge of the cavity, slide a finger under the skin of each of the breasts, making 2 little pockets. Now use the tip of your finger to gently loosen a pocket of skin on the outside of the thickest section of each thigh. Using your finger, shove an herb sprig into each of the 4 pockets.

3. Season the chicken liberally all over with salt and the pepper (we use ¾ teaspoon sea salt per pound of chicken). Season the thick sections a little more heavily than the skinny ankles and wings. Sprinkle a little of the salt just inside the cavity, on the backbone, but don’t otherwise worry about seasoning the inside. Twist and tuck the wing tips behind the shoulders. Cover loosely and refrigerate.

4. Starting the bread salad (up to several hours in advance): Preheat the broiler.

5. Cut the bread into a couple of large chunks. Carve off all of the bottom crust and most of the top and side crust (reserve the top and side crusts to use as croûtons in salads or soups). Brush the bread allover with olive oil. Broil very briefly, to crisp and lightly color the surface. Turn the bread chunks over and crisp the other side. Trim off any badly charred tips, then tear the chunks into a combination of irregular 2- to 3-inch wads, bite-sized bits, and fat crumbs. You should get about 4 cups.

6. Combine about ¼ cup of the olive oil with the Champagne or white wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss about ¼ cup of this tart vinaigrette with the tom bread in a wide salad bowl; the bread will be unevenly dressed. Taste one of the more saturated pieces. If it is bland, add a little salt and pepper and toss again.

7. Place the currants in a small bowl and moisten with the red wine vinegar and warm water. Set aside.

8. Roasting the chicken and assembling the salad: Preheat the oven to 475°. (Depending on the size, efficiency, and accuracy of your oven, and the size of your bird, you may need to adjust the heat to as high as 500° or as low as 450° during the course of roasting the chicken to get it to brown properly. If that proves to be the case, begin at that temperature the next time you roast a chicken. If you have a convection function on your oven, use it for the first 30 minutes; it will enhance browning, and may reduce overall cooking time by 5 to 10 minutes.)

9. Choose a shallow flameproof roasting pan or dish barely larger than the chicken, or use a 10-inch skillet with an all-metal handle. Preheat the pan over medium heat. Wipe the chicken dry and set it breast side up in the pan. It should sizzle.

10. Place in the center of the oven and listen and watch for it to start sizzling and browning within 20 minutes. If it doesn’t, raise the temperature progressively until it does. The skin should blister, but if the chicken begins to char, or the fat is smoking, reduce the temperature by 25 degrees. After about 30 minutes, turn the bird over (drying the bird and preheating the pan should keep the skin from sticking). Roast for another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size, then flip back over to recrisp the breast skin, another 5 to 10 minutes. Total oven time will be 45 minutes to an hour.

11. While the chicken is roasting, place the pine nuts in a small baking dish and set in the hot oven for a minute or two, just to warm through. Add them to the bowl of bread.

12. Place a spoonful of the olive oil in a small skillet, add the garlic and scallions, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until softened. Don’t let them color. Scrape into the bread and fold to combine. Drain the plumped currants and fold in. Dribble the chicken stock or lightly salted water over the salad and fold again. Taste a few pieces of bread-a fairly saturated one and a dryish one. If it is bland, add salt, pepper, and/or a few drops of vinegar, then toss well. Since the basic character of bread salad depends on the bread you use, these adjustments can be essential.

13. Pile the bread salad in a 1-quart baking dish and tent with foil; set the salad bowl aside. Place the salad in the oven after you flip the chicken the final time.

14. Finishing and serving the chicken and bread salad: Remove the chicken from the oven and turn off the heat. Leave the bread salad to continue warming for another 5 minutes or so.

15. Lift the chicken from the roasting pan and set on a plate. Carefully pour the clear fat from the roasting pan, leaving the lean drippings behind. Add about a tablespoon of water to the hot pan and swirl it.

16. Slash the stretched skin between the thighs and breasts of the chicken, then tilt the bird and plate over the roasting pan to drain the juice into the drippings. Set the chicken in a warm spot {which may be your stovetop}, and leave to rest while you finish the bread salad. The meat will become more tender and uniformly succulent as it cools.

17. Set a platter in the oven to warm for a minute or two.

18. Tilt the roasting pan and skim the last of the fat. Place over medium-low heat, add any juice that has collected under the chicken, and bring to a simmer. Stir and scrape to soften any hard golden drippings. Taste-the juices will be extremely flavorful.

19. Tip the bread salad into the salad bowl. (It will be steamy-hot, a mixture of soft, moist wads, crispy-on-the-outside-but-moist-in-the-middle wads, and a few downright crispy ones.) Drizzle and toss with a spoonful of the pan juices. Add the greens, a drizzle of vinaigrette, and fold well. Taste again.

20. Cut the chicken into pieces, spread the bread salad on the warm platter, and nestle the chicken in the salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bobby Pyron Was a Friend of Mine

Bobby aka Lee Ryder

 30 years ago on July 11th 1991, my friend Bobby Pyron passed away. We were not great friends with an enduring relationship or anything like that, but we were always very friendly toward each other and had a good deal affection for each other. Bobby picked me up at a gay chicken club in Hollywood called the Odyssey. We left the club and drove all the way down to his place in Laguna Beach where I ended up spending a couple of days with him. Bobby was about a year older than me and I was 18 at the time. His worldliness was about 1000x mine though and he was completely at ease being gay. I always looked at him as something of a mentor. He took me around Laguna and completely scandalized me by wearing jeans with cuffs in them. I thought that was the gayest thing on the entire planet and how could he possibly be flaunting himself like that? Nobody gave a shit. Bobby was conventionally very good looking, sort of on the rugged side. While he was obviously gay the minute he opened his mouth -- he didn't even have the gay voice -- it was obvious that his rugged good looks are what sold him. That and That Thing.

Bobby apparently lived in Huntington Beach for awhile which explains how he ended up knowing some of my high school classmates. He introduced me to Kenny Thornton who I had seen at school and was just utterly in lust with. He was a blond gymnast, lithe and strong. Kenny and I boinked a number of times but our paths were very obviously going in different directions as he was into the Hollywood entertainment scene of which I had no interest in. He also introduced me to Greg Martin who became a running buddy of mine, usually sniffing around for coke and getting in trouble in Hollywood. We even somehow wormed our way into Alan Carr's place in Malibu. Greg was really good looking too, but I always got the impression that he was sort of a gay-for-pay type. We fooled around a few times, but not much. Bobby later told me -- probably in 1990 -- that Kenny had died of AIDS. Greg and I drifted apart and I never knew what happened to him. Did he die of AIDS too? Did he get a wife and have kids? Maybe both? Who knows.

Bobby knew all about the goings on in Laguna. He was rather dismissive of the A-Gays there calling them "tacky queens". The fledgling gay porn industry made possible by the invention of VCR's was centered there with Catalina Video. He told me that quite a few of my classmates rotated in that universe but was really protective of me not to get caught up in it. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Huntington Beach would be fertile ground for gay boys going at it on film because there were lots of us and there were some ridiculously good looking surfer boys. Bobby and I drifted apart as he moved around quite a bit, but we'd bump into each other from time to time and were always friendly to each other if not affectionate in brotherly kind of way. 

I had started my career when I was about 21 and was super busy, especially 1985 onward. Unbeknownst to me Bobby had become Lee Ryder in 1984, joining the industry he made sure I kept away from. Apparently he was very well known and it's hardly a surprise because That Thing was huge. I never knew if he was a total top because it's a lot easier to catch HIV as a bottom, but I'm sure that's the only thing he did in porn. His stuff is still out there with the magic of the internet and I'm not going to lie that he was good at what he did, just pummeling bottom boys. It's really weird seeing it though. I'm not certain I knew he was doing porn while he was alive -- most likely  -- and I am positive I never saw any of it while he was alive. I didn't care of course, because to me he was just Bobby.

I saw him every once in a while in Laguna. I knew he ran a flower stand, but I never visited it. When I saw Bobby the last time around 1990 I knew that he had it. It was probably the time he told me that Kenny had died. He had The Look which you can't hide. He was probably the first person that I knew firsthand who had AIDS which is pretty amazing but that was how the suburbs were: unlike the city where you went to their funerals, in the burbs people just disappeared never to be seen again. I don't remember how I found out how he died. I think he died up in LA so I would have no connection.

It's funny how people who you interact with only a little can have an oversized influence on your life. Bobby was like that for me. He set me on a course of getting over my internalized homophobia which was severely at odds with the guys I had the hots for which was pretty much the gayer the better. Most people will only know Bobby for being Lee Ryder but I knew him for being out, proud, sarcastic and sassy, and being an altogether nice guy. Love ya, hon.

Howard

Howard, in the middle with Kevin to the right and Ken on the left

I've written about Howard Arthur Faye on many occasions and how he intersected my life at a critical juncture, but I want to put it into a single piece for the AIDS Memorial on Instagram/Facebook. Howard was one of the most brilliant people I've ever met and I have met many, many brilliant people over the years. He was about a year older than me being born in 1959. We met online on the gay Usenet newsgroup soc.motss (motss == Member of the Same Sex) which was the first gay newsgroup on the fledgling internet created in 1983. I started posting to it in 1991 way before anybody knew about the internet and Howard was there. We met in person in LA probably the next year or maybe a bit later and became friends. I had never met anybody even remotely like him. Howard always handled me with kid gloves which was funny because I was hardly a shrinking violet. 

Howard was mercurial and lived in the moment because that was all he had. He had a depth of knowledge of food and wine that was ridiculously deep. A group of us started calling ourselves the Cabal Noir with Howard as the unofficial head. Howard raved about a Chateauneuf du Pape wine, Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe, so that became our official wine. Howard could get very animated and was convinced taking away his foie gras and veal would spark revolution. He ate lustily and greedily but for all of this he wasn't a food snob. He was just as happy having a greasy burger in San Leandro as he was eating quail stuffed with foie gras in a huckleberry reduction. 

Howard lived in Hollywood and was the first person that I had really interacted with who was obviously sick. I had some interactions with Bobby Pyron (written about many times on the AIDS Memorial page, aka Lee Ryder) but those were mostly in passing. In Howard I saw upfront how devastating living with HIV was. I had moved in 1994 to San Francisco and Howard had always loved his North Beach boys so he came to visit when he could. I remember helping him infuse himself with his stent which made it all very real for me. But he was always very upbeat and enthusiastic about the next project or find.

One time he came up and I decided to throw a big party for him -- the HAF Bash -- with about 30 or 40 people for dinner with all kinds of fabulousness. I had just met a really cute guy, Aric my now husband, who I was majorly in lust with who I invited. Aric had told me that he was poz which was a little weird for me but in reality I had probably had sex with dozens of poz people over the years and just didn't know it. Aric was completely convinced that I would dump him because he was poz because that is what happened to poz people and that he'd be alone when he died. On my back patio, Aric poured his heart out to Howard. Howard responded by saying that I was not like that. I responded by not being like that.

I was a big Burgundophile at that time and pretty much a snob about it. Howard and I would go wine shopping together all of the time when he was up. Howard decided that I needed to appreciate Bordeaux more so we arranged a trip up to Rutherford Hill in Napa for a fabulous Lite Lunch (tm) at Auberge du Soleil. After, as we were driving to Gueneville to shoot some pool at a gay bar, Howard asked how I had liked Napa's best. This started a huge row but not between me and Howard, instead between Howard and his lover Ken. I'm not quite certain how that came to be but it was hilarious to me because of how much deference he gave me that he gave absolutely nobody else.

Howard wanted to go to Barcelona one last time because that is where he made love to the love of his life, Kevin, who had recently passed. He was convinced that he was skinny enough to throw himself out of the spires of the Sagrada Familia to die in a suitably dramatic fashion. He wrote about his aspirations in a post on soc.motss soon after Greg Louganis disclosed he was positive. We took the trip in March of 1995 but Howard was not among us because he was too sick to make the trip. When we went to the Sagrada Familia, Aric stood in for Howard to squeeze out of the spire windows with Ken holding his legs so he didn't go overboard. I was in abject horror.

We called Howard from the Barri Gotic telling him about all of our adventures including going to a restaurant he was raving about in Perpignon called Le Chapon Fin and stopping by the Dali Museum in Figueres. Aric and I on our way back to Paris stopped at Vieux Telegraphe in Chateaunef du Pape to the mild astonishment of the proprietor with our Vieux Telegraphe t-shirts on. "OH Kermit Lynch!" referring to the negociant in Berkeley where Howard had discovered it.

Howard's Memorial in Paso Robles

Howard died in June of 1995. He had figuratively passed the torch to Aric who survived but wouldn't become undetectable until 2003 due to resistance. Who knows whether protease inhibitors would have helped Howard. I had the honor of writing and delivering his eulogy at Forest Lawn. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. For somebody I only knew a relatively short amount of time he had a huge impact on my -- and hundreds of others' -- lives.

In closing, at gatherings after he passed we would always open our dinners with a simple salute: "To Howard".

Epilogue

In retrospect it's pretty clear to me that I was falling in love with Howard. When I met him he was essentially asexual so it never occurred to me to think of him that way. And of course he was sick and I was very new to knowing somebody who was dying of AIDS. But thinking back, he was just my type: a wee cute bottom boy with a reported big 'ol flopper who I would have cuddled and loved and furiously made love to. It would have been wonderful and amazing and everything good. And terrible. There is no possible way it could have worked. We were way too bullheaded: A-personalities and both of us with huge tempers. He could have only have treated me with kid gloves for so long before that veneer wore off. Which would have been fine since who doesn't like a good donnybrook? We would have probably tried and failed miserably and had huge belly laughs after the fact -- yes, of course we would have continued to be friends. Gay guys have a huge capacity to be like "what *were* we thinking?!". Well, it's thinking with our dicks which is great while it lasts. And then funny in retrospect. Would that I had that chance.

The Fight As It Were

 

[this is a post that Howard wrote on soc.motss shorty before he died. it touched us all really hard. he didn't make it to Barcelona unfortunately] 

Howard looking over the Grenache at Joseph Phelps

From: foucault@netcom.com (Howard Arthur Faye)
Subject: The Fight, As It Were
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 02:22:26 GMT
Sender: foucault@netcom16.netcom.com

The recent, angry response I made in the ongoing discussion of
Greg Louganis' revelation of his medical situation provides me
with an opportunity to reflect on my own situation, which I have
been convinced by my caretakers to regard as "wondrous". I
think they are fooled by a few good test results and the fortune
I have had in retaining my mental acuity despite the place on the
timelime of disease progression I find myself (somewhere between
"late stage" and "end stage").

I am profoundly unhappy that Greg Louganis or anyone else would
discover they are infected or that they are under the clinical
spectre of AIDS. At the same time, I am not so sure the quality
of life as an infected person cannot be kept quite high for quite
a long period of time. I have been symptomatic for more than five
years. When I began to feel ill, I was en route to Agrigento in
Sicily and I visited a Carmelite convent overlooking the sea. On
the bus I was sweating profusely and sliding against the bus window
lubricated by my sweat, trying to avoid being sick on my fellow
passengers by counting olive trees and anticipating the reemergence
of the sea after crossing the island stopping only long enough for
orange juice in Enna.

I told my companion, who was as impractical and romantic as I am,
that it would be perfect to die on a cot resting on those terrazzo
floors before a giant arched window facing the sea. At almost every
interval where I was feeling poorly and I found myself in a place
I liked, I had the same sense of impending demise. Attended by
WhoresWithHeartsOfGold/Nuns/Goatherds/RetainersOfBaronessRothschild,
I faded away swathed in a white sheet, mumbling nonsense verse.
[I recently amended by fantasy death throes after seeing _Queen Margot_
where Charles IX --Jean Hugues Anglade-- is borne on a silken litter,
sweating blood as death nears.]

Such opportunities have come and gone a dozen times in the last five years
ruined by the equal and opposite experience of visiting the Clinic, mostly--
nah, completely-- devoid of healthy fantasy. That such places are perfumed
by antiseptic cleaners and are inhabited by people obsessed with insurance
forms and patient identification cards doesn't help.

I almost feel guilty that I'm still here.

But even as I prepare to march through favorite cities in foreign places
again (a trip planned both as a gift to my Ken who has never satisfied
his passion for Joaquin Sorolla [!] and Arne, who needs to be in a place
more suited to his schedule *and* as a potential suicide location-- I
am just thin enough to squeeze through the open windows at the top of
Sagrada Familia's steeples), I spent the afternoon with a home care
nurse and a social worker making preliminary preparations for being
attended at home, powers of attorney/No Code/DNR, morphine drips, and
even more interesting spiritual questions that inevitably arise
around death.

How can this be? I still have cases of good claret to drink! Is this
kinetic energy, like a cartoon character that runs off a cliff but begins
to descend only after realizing the ground is no longer there? Zilch CD4's,
anemia, horrible edema in the ankles and feet. Shouldn't I retreat to
my goose down comforter and urinal?

I would love to have a witty phrase to delimit life from its terminal
phase but I don't. No one-- from all of the doctors, clergy, psychiatrists
and reasonably intelligent lay people-- has been of any help.

I had a momentary pang of practicality and considered not
going. But of course I am. It doesn't matter where I expire and I have been
hungry for oily squid and prawns in garlic and Asturian cider. The best time
of my life was making love with Kevin in the Hostal Palermo just off the
Ramblas in Barcelona. That won't happen again but now I can concentrate
on the food and drink.

I sincerely hope that Greg Louganis has the will and passion for life
to sustain him and keep him healthy for a long, long time. I attribute
my own longevity to such a passion, a regular ration of red wine and
using the minimum number of medications possible. Oh, and closeness
to my family. And maybe baseball (this year might kill me!). Maybe
Monteverdi too. Oh yeah-- foie gras plays a role, I'm sure.

--
               Howard Arthur Faye * Los Angeles, CA

'Wine is the professor of taste, the liberator of the spirit, and
        the light of intelligence' -- Paul Claudel

Howard's Eulogy

 [Howard Arthur Faye's eulogy I gave at Forest Lawn in LA]

   Every once in a while, a person will come into your
life and succeed in changing your entire outlook, or
cause you to rediscover passions long buried. That was
the effect that Howard had on me. Howard was a mercurial
spirit who never ceased to amaze me with the depth and
breadth of his knowledge. His passion for life was
remarkable, especially when you consider the pain that
he was constantly experiencing.

 Howard was one of the first people to make contact
with me on soc.motss. He was, I assumed, one of those
nameless people who "send me all kinds of supporting
email" that you always hear about. Of course, this was
completely wrong, as Howard was a regular poster for
quite some time. He shunned controversy, and this was
his ostensible reason for not posting (much) to
soc.motss. Really, I think, his mind was elsewhere:
his love of food and wine were the preeminent concern
in his life. Soc.motss was mearly a fertile recruiting
ground for similarly minded food queens.

 Arne and I came along within a month or so of each
other about 4 years ago. Howard remained a rather
enigmatic person to both of us. Arne told me that Howard
made and broke several dinner engagements before finally
making it to one. I didn't know this at the time, but
when Howard finally arranged a dinner at a Japanese
restaurant in Hollywood, it became clear why he phased
in and out of net life. (this was also to be Arne's
debut singing Ethel Merman at a Karaoke bar, which
mercifully was monopolized by a wedding reception).
I met Howard's Kevin, who I thought was very charming.

 Things remained somewhat distant for quite some time.
This was mostly of my doing, as I was in the midst of
a major change of life, and getting up to LA was not
generally high on my list. We did manage to get to know
each other better in those years, and had dinner on
a number of occasions. I was always impressed by the
depth of his knowledge -- I had never met such a walking
encyclopedia complete with lusty sound effects!

 Howard loved San Francisco, having lived here quite
a while. Mostly he loved North Beach, having met Kevin
at Rossi's Market, and having many good memories
associated with it (not to mention strapping Italian
boys, which he loved so much). After I moved, Howard
came to house sit for friend. Howard, well, Hurricane
Howard, was there for nearly a month.  We ate and ate
and ate and ATE. La Folie was probably the most
memorable; Roland Passot's magic is just too fabulous
for words, and Howard couldn't get enough of his
marvelous foie gras in a huckleberry reduction. Or was
it the squab stuffed with quail that he liked so much?

 I still remember Howard coming over to my house for
the first time. Howard had bought a Muni FastPass and
was determined to milk every penny out the thing. I
explained to him that my house is on the side of a cliff,
and told him the least exhaustive way to get here. When
Howard arrived, he was practically a ghost. "Did you
go the way I told you, Howard?", I asked. "No! That
was two blocks out of the way!", Howard replied in his
normal stubborn demeanor. Typical Howard.

 I threw a party in Howard's honor, which was the first
of many parties that my poor recycling bin has witnessed
in the last year. Howard and I shopped all over the
place, and we put on a feast worthy of Luisa Tetrazzini,
whose great nephew I had met in New York earlier that
year. We shopped for wine all over the bay area, and
I still remember him transfixed by the selection of
old Sauternes at the Wine House here in the city. Howard,
in his humility relegated himself to my unassuming sous
chef (yeah, right) as he watched the horror and indignity
of Ireland beating Italy in World Cup Soccer. My long
lost love of food and wine was coming back to me in
full force, and having Howard around was high octane
fuel for that smoldering fire.

 Howard and I spent hours on the net and on the phone
talking about everything, but mostly about this dish,
or that wine, all the while giving me an education on
various wines. At the Las Vegas motss.con, there was
the perfect moment when Howard and I traipsed over to
the Mirage to take a look at the white tigers. While
looking on with the million and seven other tourists,
we simultaneously wondered aloud what wine one would
serve with tiger.

 I enjoyed Howard's unsnobbish and eclectic love of
wine. I think some of Howard's best moments were his
delight in finding some bargain basement wine at Trader
Joe's that he could drink with impunity. His own
mortality was always there in front of him ("this wine
will outlast me!"), but he still couldn't resist buying
for the future. This was, to me, the essence of Howard's
tenacity in life. Enjoy the present, that's all we're
guaranteed with; don't give up the future, since we
may yet live to reap its benefits.

 I had always wanted to make a trip to Europe. Since
I was officially bumming around, I figured that this
was the proper time to do it. I had never really been
all that excited about Paris, but Howard raved about
Paris, and Richard Johnson (practically an ex-patriot)
was going to be there at the same time. I was amazed
at the beauty of Paris, and even more amazed at food
and wine culture.  I kept thinking how much Howard would
have loved to be back in Paris for Richard and my dozen
or so Lite Lunchs (tm).

 Quite accidentally, I arrived from the Metro at St.
Sulpice and found an ACT-UP demonstration marching from
Montparnasse to Odeon as part of the World AIDS
Conference. I decided to join the procession, but unlike
most of the rancor around me, I could barely even speak,
let alone take part in the chants, hoots and jeers.
I just knew that my trip there was likely to be Howard's
last connection with the city that he loved so much.
It was all I could do to contain my grief and start
bawling in the street. At one of the clubs were bulletin
board-like sheets of paper where people wrote what they
liked, usually about loved ones departed. Practically
shaking, and about ready to burst into tears again,
I wrote an inscription to Howard vowing to be his eyes
and pallet. The Eiffel Tower that week, in the City
of Light, had a red ribbon done in lights. Paris grieved
with me.

 Upon my return, Howard enthusiastically decided that
we must go to Barcelona. It was his favorite city in
all of Europe, and besides he thought that he could
just fit through the openings in La Sacreda Familia
to have a romantic end. I had a lot of foreboding about
this trip, but Howard was very upbeat. I finally
relented, in part because I was intent on taking my
Aric to Europe too. Howard became seriously ill in
January, which was to be his final battle. We hoped
against all odds that Howard would be able to make it,
but the reality of the situation finally became evident
weeks before the trip. Howard insisted that Ken and
Arne make the trip, even though we were extremely worried
about him.

 We tasted the oily squid that Howard pined so much
for again. Arne and I timidly viewed out the portals
of La Sacreda Familia where Howard imagined his end.
We had one of the most fantastic dining experiences in
Perpignon, at a restaurant that Howard insisted we try.
Aric and I even managed to visit one of Howard's favorite
wineries in the Rhone: Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe.

 The missing element was, of course, Howard. I could
easily visualize him eating in his signature way:
messily, lustily and greedily. Such was Howard's spirit.
His love of life, and the good things to be experienced,
was tremendous. It was truly an inspiration, and a note
to everybody that life is too short to put off happiness.

 Howard's spirit, I know, will live on through the
people that he touched, and hopefully in the people
that we touch in return. I miss him already, and the
loss is tremendous, but I think his memory should be
toward the celebration of life. Howard's spirit will
live on through the never ending cycle of vine to grape
to bottle, and the toasts to our friends and our love
of life. This, I am sure, is how Howard would want it.