Get Your Tush into the Ikea Style Lab

You know that Josh and I love Ikea. We spent several hours there this week, with my little sister in tow, ogling all the goodies that Ikea Land has to offer. (We figured out an entirely new set-up scheme for our Manhattan bedrooms, which we are very excited about.)

On the Ikea web site we discovered a fun little tool called the Ikea Style Lab. In it you can design a room that you like, picking beds, wardrobes, curtains, rugs, paintings, and colors go into the room. It's kind of fun. [Click here to try it.]

Here's a room that Josh H. created using the Ikea Style Lab:


Josh K.'s room:

Britney Spears is a Goddamn Virus

And, this just in! Britney Spears is a virus! And she's not just a virus infecting the ol' music industry or supermarket tabloids. No! CNN reports that Britney is the most often used celebrity name on computer viruses. So if the bitch doesn't get you on the radio or in Star, she's shoo nuff gonna git your computer. Fuck, huh? [Read the article.]

Eat that Pop Star and Wear that Tiara, Biotch.

Jam Packed Sunday

Josh and I started our Sunday with a lunch on the patio at Noodles & Co. in Uptown near Lake Calhoun. After we chowed down (and ogled the seriously cute Siberian husky puppy nearby) we hit Whole Foods next door in search of fresh fruit to take to the lakes with us. In the mean time, we found the latest homo hangout at Jamba Juice in Whole Foods where a dozen moes were gathered, waiting for fresh smoothies and showing off their triceps.


Josh and I sat on the shores of Lake of the Isles, the swank lakeside community in Minneapolis, and looked out at the gorgeous lake, talked shit about people we knew, and read our fave books, Three Junes and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.


Josh and I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith downtown and really, really enjoyed it. It’s a perfect summer blockbuster confection, filled with hot stars, snappy one-liners, action, and intrigue. Is it going to win any Oscars? Not a chance. Will it make you laugh out loud and will you enjoy the cheeky cleverness? If you have a pulse, absolutely. Brad and Angelina have never looked this hot.


Josh and I met up with our friend David, in town for the week from New York, who will be our roommate when we move to NYC in August. The big news is that we got an apartment! We saw pictures of our fantastic Manhattan abode, located between Madison and Second Avenue in the East 80s, while we sipped drinks at Dunn Bros. downtown. We also talked hot sex, which was scandalously good fun.


Our next stop on the Jam Packed Sunday Tour was at Jitters, a fun little bar just north of downtown, where our friend Dan’s gay softball league threw a big fundraiser. We met some of Dan’s friends and palled around before heading to Boom, a popular, more upscale gay bar.


At Boom!, just a couple blocks north of Jitters, Josh and I sipped drinks and sang along to showtunes from Wicked and Avenue Q on Boom’s showtune sing-along night and met (and maybe flirted a little) with a ton of new people. (There are many more pictures available at mighty.typepad.com.)


We left one party to attend another with our friend Michael. When we arrived at his place he said, “Guys, I’m having some hair problems. Can you help me?”

Josh and I looked at each other. I grabbed Michael and a pair of scissors and we had ourselves a good ol’ time. The three of us talked and laughed while I snipped away and Michael compared it to being at Trudy’s Hair Salon in Steel Magnolia’s. I have sort of an accidental ability to cut hair and, actually, it turned out pretty well.


Voilà! Michael’s finished hairdo, product and all. Then the three of us hustled out to a car and sped downtown.


At the Gay 90s we met up with David and a bunch of other friends and watched the La Femme drag show (the bitches worked their bidness hardcore) and we shook our buns on each of the three dance floors at the 90s. In the picture above I was getting wild on the raised platform on the main floor and Joshie K. snapped a picture.

We left the 90s at 2 a.m. and brought Michael home, chatting in the lobby of his place, before parting for the evening. Josh and I went back to his fab apartment just south of downtown, threw open the windows, dimmed the lights, and talked forever on his couch.

I crawled into bed as the first rays of sun crept into my room through the slats in the blinds, dawning on a whole new week and endless possibilities.

A Sister in Need

Please help free Katie from Tom's steady, firm grip and buy a t-shirt. From the looks of it, she needs all the help she can get.

Josh K. Took a Purtee Picture of Josh H.

Friday Treatz, Vol. 4

What? What’s that you say? Hayden Christiansen is straight? Oh come on, don’t tell me you believe that rumor.

It’s pictures like the ones above that prove Hayden is queer as a three-dollar bill. Gotta love the Carrie Bradshaw flower.

Still want more proof that Hayden is one fruity mofo? Check out this picture and video of Hayden kissing Ewan McGregor at the airport [via Socialite’s Life].


In this month’s W magazine there is a huge spread of exclusive pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in dozens of different settings, positions, and outfits. In this picture Brad and Angelina are playing mommy and daddy to two little boys in a 1960s suburban chic setting. Way to keep the rumor mill at bay, right guys?

Their movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, opens nationwide today. (Josh and I will see it on Sunday. We know it’s going to be trashy and quite possibly bad, but that doesn’t mean it might not also be a bit of fun.) [Picture via Oh là là Paris]

Giving Up (Or: I Could Not Care Less)

Remember those times in your college career when nothing (and I mean nothing) could get you to write that boring essay or lengthy paper? I do.

Moving On After John

I met him while I was giving a condom demonstration during a brief safer sex lesson for a group of college students. (I was a professional sex educator for several years, but that’s another story for another time.)

John stood out right away. I liked the way he smiled at me, I liked the way he smelled, I liked that we had so much in common before we even met. On that first night we met we talked until late into the night, sitting on the floor in the near dark, flirting and bantering as hours swept by.

I was nineteen then. We did the same routine for the next three years, moving closer to each other and then further away again, pushing and testing limits and boundaries. There were outstanding complications that kept us from taking anything to the next level—we had boyfriends at different times and our jobs complicated things—but we kept up our usual repartee for all those years.

I think I fell for him. I may even have fallen in love with him, but it’s hard to tell now what exactly those feelings added up to.

Fast-forward to this summer. All of our complications are gone. We’re free to be who we want to be and do what we want to do.

A couple weeks ago we were at a club downtown, having drinks and dancing the night away, and we got on the dance floor together. Our bodies collided, his hands ran over my body, and I closed my eyes.

He leaned in and said, “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” I asked.

And then he kissed me, softly. Then again, more insistent, more urgent. Then again. And again.

I kissed back.

I spent the night at his apartment, wrapped up in blankets and his arms (though things stayed innocent).

Then a few days later I got a short, curt e-mail from him. “Uh, I’m going to be really busy this summer,” he said. “I have all these friends who want to see me and work is really crazy and everything so, uhm, I hope you understand and everything.”

I stared at the computer screen. I read the e-mail again. Then I threw my head back and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Oh my God, I thought, after all this time? What a cold way to say it, what a cowardly way to do it. I laughed some more. Then I snapped my laptop shut and walked away.

So now I’m moving on from John. It feels good to let go of something that preoccupied my mind and my time for so long. It feels like a breath of freedom, like the promise of something new is just beyond the bend.

Is This Movie Going to Suck?

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the musical Rent. Well, I loved it at least the first few times it came through town. I bought the Rent soundtrack the day it came out when I was in junior high and faithfully memorized every word with my best friend at the time, Brent. (How gay is that, right?)

Anyway, now ten years later Sony has made Rent into a movie. The trailer for the movie has been floating around the web and I’ve watched it a couple times. Each time I scrutinize the words, the images, the actors, and the music, and damn it if I can’t quite tell if the movie is going to suck or not.

What do you think?

Watch the trailer here and then give me your verdict.

For more on the movie, visit Sony.com/rent.

A Mighty Good Night

Josh H. (left) and Josh K. (right) at The Restaurant

Josh and I hit the town tonight and went out to dinner with our friend Dan at The Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. We gorged ourselves on the gourmet food (I double gorged) and talked and laughed over drinks.

Dan, besides being tall, charming, and sweet, is also the mastermind behind the blog Mighty. Check it out.

And, if any of you want to come and play, we’ll all be at Jitters this Sunday between 6 and 9 p.m. for an off the hook benefit for the Minneapolis gay softball league, which just happens to be the third largest gay softball league in the country (with more than 500 players).

It was a mighty good night with finger-lickin’ good food. You can hardly go wrong with that.

Hot Reads for a Cool Summer

Smart Book: Three Junes by Julia Glass
Never mind the fact that this is Julia Glass’s debut novel and yet it managed to win the National Book Award and become a worldwide bestseller that earned critical acclaim across the board and has accolades written by Michael Cunningham and Richard Russo on the back cover. Screw the hype. Let's talk about the book.

Three Junes bursts at the seam with life. Glass’s writing is crisp, clean, precise, and ultimately very telling. With very few words she says more than many authors do in entire novels. The economy of her writing is astonishing and beautiful. It's like a breath of fresh air.

This is not a snooty, highbrow read that takes a hundred pages to “get into.” This one will have you enthralled in the first dozen pages.

Following the McLeod family from Scotland to Greece to Greenwich Village, Glass brings you in like the closest of friends and shares with you her characters, their people, their homes, their lives. I found myself opening up the book sometimes just so I could go back and spend more time with her characters. There are moments so beautiful and perfect in Three Junes that I actually had to put the book down and stop for a while just to think about what I just read.

To bottom line it: This book is "the shit" and you must read it. If you don’t like it, you should stop reading altogether, because you’re never going to find anything you will like. End of story.

Fun Book: The Trouble Boy by Tom Dolby
On the flip side, Tom Dolby’s Trouble Boy won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, but it’s a fantastic piece of afternoon entertainment. Take this fucker with you on the subway, at the beach, in the car, and to the café for a light, fun, juicy read. (Also, look at the author photo to drool over the considerably doable Tom Dolby. Really.)

Dolby’s novel follows Toby Griffin, a twenty-something writer, as he moves to Manhattan to hopefully land a screenplay deal and a boyfriend in the Big Apple.

Before you start thinking that this is the same old tired trash, let me assure you that it’s a full cut above the rest of the material in its category. The writing isn’t always perfect, but it certainly has bright moments and it’s obviously been edited, unlike some gay books on the market.

For a while the book seemed to be hitting every tired cliché on the block, but Dolby smacked down my expectations when he turned much of it on its head during the course of his fast-paced novel.

To bottom line it: If you’re looking for a good, fun, gay summer read, this is it. Stick it in your messenger bag next to your lip balm and have yourself a gay old time.

What Josh K. Will Be Reading This Summer

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by British author Susanna Clarke, is, if nothing else, a lesson in tactful old English syntax and manners (Clarke writes in the style so well that, only 20 pages in, I caught myself casually saying things like "I daresay" or "rather odd").

But the book is so much more than a fun foray into a mid-19th century grammar school. It is, at its core, a Harry Potter for adults that follows the incredible journey of two quirky men who try to bring magic back to England and save the motherland from a nasty war. It's amazingly smart, funny, and touching without resorting to the smarmy, saccharine narrative plots that J.K. Rowling writes for Potter.

Bottom line: If you like Harry Potter but want something a little smarter, you'll love Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which, incidentally, just came out in paperback (so you have no excuse not to buy it).

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Puncuation, written by British grammar guru Lynne Truss, is an instant classic and my new favorite. Josh H. thinks I'm crazy for calling this a good beach read, but I'm sticking to my guns when I say that a) nothing excites me more than a perfectly placed semi-colon, b) nothing angers me more than a misplaced apostrophe, and c) by god, I'd kill to be tanning on the beach while learning punctuation skillZ.

The good thing is that the book is laugh-out-loud hilarious and, between the jokes and anecdotes, Truss still finds the time to teach the reader a painless lesson or two. Read it and you will soon be looking in the newspaper for mistakes Truss (and you, hopefully) would never make. Notice I said newspaper and not Josh & Josh Are Rich and Famous.

Post-LSAT Therapy

My favorite girl, Miss Vanja (pronounced VAHN-yuh), took the LSAT exam today and we decided to go out for dinner and drinks tonight to celebrate her fabulous achievement. Once upon a time I, too, was planning to go to law school and took the Princeton Review LSAT prep course and all of that (scary as hell) stuff, so she knew I'd understand what a big deal it really was to survive the LSAT and come out alive on the other side.

We hit Uptown with the plan of going to Figlio's, but when we got to Uptown we discovered that the power was out for several blocks and that many of the local businesses had closed early for the night. Thus we got in my car, called The Restaurant, and landed a table at the packed establishment. (Yes, packed even on a Monday at 10 p.m.) We immediately ordered drinks and a bevy of food and laughed the night away.

And, yes, we're wearing the same outfit in male/female versions. That happens to us a lot and it is never, ever planned. It's safe to say that Vanja is the woman that I would be had I been born with a rack (she's got a great one) and the other assorted matching private parts.

Surviving the Suburbs: BackHOE!

On Sunday afternoon, while Josh H. was at his parents' Sprawling Surburban Estate reading a lofty book in the grass, I was at my dad's Sprawling Suburban Estate practicing my backhoeing skills.

Now, I don't usually like to operate heavy machinery (ahem!) because I'm so accident-prone, but my dad was so proud of his new toy that it would have hurt his feelings if I passed at the opportunity. So I obliged his request that I dig him a hole while he snapped a few photos of me.

Later, I sat in awe as my dad showed me another new toy of his: a spinning brush attachment to his Bobcat that he used to rid the driveway of a pile of mud. Mind you, I was awed not by the capabilites of the Bobcat's new attachment but, instead, because I am now 100% positive that my mom had an affair with the mailman.

Surviving the Suburbs: How to Spend a Sunday Afternoon

This afternoon I grabbed a novel and a pair of flip-flops and padded out to the backyard. I sprawled out on the plush carpeting of grass on our gently sloping hill and opened my book. A light breath of a breeze rattled the leaves of the nearby oak trees and the sound of a lawn mower buzzed in the distance.

My toes absentmindedly toyed with blades of grass as I read. The sounds of splashing and high-pitched children’s laughter from a distant neighbor’s pool served as a kind of summer white noise. The lawn, baking in the afternoon sun, sent up a hot, sweet, musky scent.

The sun warmed the back of my legs. My toes curled and uncurled. The steady chuck, chuck, chucking of a neighbor digging in her flowerbeds, hands gloved and hair carefully tied back, continued. I turned the pages of my book and read a passage written with such perfection that I had to set the book down and close my eyes. I lifted my head and took a deep breath.

This, I thought, is the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

MJ & K-Mart

Question: What do Michael Jackson and K-mart have in common?

Answer: They both have boys' pants half off.

Sonogram

Ms. Britney Spears had her first sonogram yesterday and, insiders report, Britney cried when she first saw her little baby on the sonogram monitor.

Several sources inside the Spears camp leaked the news that Britney's tears upon seeing her baby were actually tears of relief, knowing that the baby had to be hers and Kevin's. She knew the baby was theirs, insiders report, because the baby's legs were behind its head.

Yesterday, I Almost Died

I knew I was in need of a day off when I called Josh H. with news of my imminent early death.

"Are you serious?" he asked, skeptical of my condition.

"Yes, Josh. I think I have Lyme Disease. And I have this weird swollen lymph node in my left armpit that aches a little bit and that tiny tan bump on my leg isn't going away and, Josh, I'm think I'm dying. I know I am. And I'm having two root canals, Josh. TWO. And I have a headache."

"Josh, you're not dying and you don't have skin or armpit cancer, Lyme Disease, or anything else. How much sleep have you been getting?"

"Not much. And it's Cancer of the Armpit, Josh. That's what they'll call it after I succumb to it," I said, quickly realizing that maybe all I needed was a nap.

But, seriously: two root canals? Who's great idea was that?

Gettin' Sporty With My Sistah

Tonight my nine-year-old sister asked me if I'd play basketball with her. (Okay, so technically she's my step-sister, but we're close, so usually I just drop the "step" business.) I had brief flashbacks of junior high physical education classes but, after we grabbed two basketballs and hit the court in our driveway and just started playing, we managed to have a pretty good time. Check out how my little sister is really committing to that shot. She's hardcore. And, hey, I even made my shot in the picture above.

And don't you love that I'm playing basketball in a khakis and flip-flops? Just keepin' it real, y'all. Just keepin' it real.

Tom & Katie's PR Love Fest

Let us discuss, if only for a moment, how fake and ridiculous this relationship looks. Tom Cruise, 42, seduced Katie Holmes, 26, just as they both have huge summer blockbuster movies coming out. (Cruise is in “War of the Worlds” and Holmes is in “Batman Begins.”) Being together is a brilliant PR move because it publicizes both of their movies at the same time. I’m betting anything that this relationship is entirely negotiated by agents and PR reps.

It also makes me very suspicious that they’re kissing every time they show up in public. They did it on “Oprah” and they do it on the red carpet and, seemingly, any old time they can when a camera is around, as if to say, “See! We’re real! We’re in love!” Their kiss on “Oprah” last week felt even more stilted and awkward than the infamous Al and Tipper Gore kiss five years ago during the elections.

Can’t you just picture Nicole Kidman sitting on the veranda of her fabulous home in Sydney, wrapped up in a silky robe with smart little eyeglasses perched on the end of her nose, reading a newspaper story about Tom and Katie and laughing so hard that she almost chokes on her Danish and coffee?

This morning CNN’s web site featured a story titled “Holmes on Cruise: ‘I’m so Happy!’” Is it just me, or does that headline sound kind of pornographic, as if Ms. Holmes was riding the Cruise stick shift and declaring her happiness at the same time in some sort of debauched press conference? Maybe CNN needs a new goddamn headline writer.

Oh, and isn’t it also a bad sign when you not only must have continual pictures of you kissing in the press, but then you have to make sure and declare your happiness over and over again, underlining it for the press corps and the general public every time you’re out and about?

But I guess, in the end, it doesn’t matter if the Tommy & Katie relationship is real or not. It got our attention anyway, didn’t it? And it also got us to mention “War of the Worlds” and “Batman Begins” (see first paragraph). So then maybe this agent/PR rep organized relationship is a success after all.

The Boyfriend Swap

You know, one of the funny parts of being a gay man in just about any city in America is that, eventually, you'll probably swap boyfriends with somebody you know. It's sort of like how on "Dawson's Creek" or "Friends" or "Felicity" (or just about any other sitcom, drama, or WB production) where there are only a limited number of cast members who must find new and interesting ways to mix up who's having sex with whom. Same rules apply to the gay dating world (apparently).

A year ago I was very close friends with L, a girl I worked with, and her gay friend, N. Just a few months earlier I had broken up with my boyfriend, B, whom I had been with for three years (from age seventeen to twenty, spanning the end of high school and the beginning of college) and I was spending quite a bit of time with Josh K., L, and N.

Over the course of the next year I started to lose touch with L and N, not because anything was wrong, but just because we were all extraordinarily busy with school and our own lives.

Last week, however, one of my friends informed me that she'd seen L and N, my two good friends with whom I'd started to lose touch, out on the town with my long-term ex-boyfriend, B.

To make a long story short, not only were L, N, and B hanging out, but L and B had become regular drinking buddies and--here's the clincher--N and B have now been dating for a month.

I laughed and laughed when I found out. They're the most unlikely pair. Imagining N and B having sex is difficult to do and, mostly, just inspires immature giggling. But I found it even weirder that my two friends were hanging out with my ex-boyfriend and that my ex was now dating one of them.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that a few months after B and I broke up that he was asking me if Josh K. was single and available for dating?

That's right. Mr. Three Year Boyfriend wanted to date my best friend, right after we'd broken up. Classy, hmmm? I told him, with careful and kind words, that he could go fuck himself.

But I guess if you can't nail my best friend you've got to at least start going through my outer ring of friends, right? ;)

No, seriously, maybe that sounds venomous, but it's not really a big deal. Mostly I just find it funny. But my friend V finds the whole situation "trashy" and "scandalous." "The gay world is not that small," she said to me on the phone. "Can't N find anybody else?"

But maybe the gay world is that small after all.

Anyhow, I went out and had a drink with all of them on Saturday night at Red Dragon and Rudolph's on Lyndale Avenue. It was totally fine. The weirdest part was realizing that I was a complete stranger with B, this guy who'd been one of the most important people in my life for years. But on Saturday I realized that, if I had been meeting him for the first time that night, we probably wouldn't even have been friends or had anything to talk about. I think that's the most troubling part of the whole thing--how former lovers can become perfect strangers.

At The Restaurant

Robert Downey, Jr. (left) and me (right, obviously)

Last night at The Restaurant (you know, the one downtown where I work) one of the tables stopped me and said, "Oh my God, do you know that you look just like Robert Downey Jr.?" I looked to see how much they'd been drinking, but it didn't seem like they were that drunk. It was an interesting suggestion, though. I informed them that I do much less heroin than Mr. Downey, Jr. (which is to say that I've never done any) but that, uh, I would take their suggestion as a compliment. Maybe. Sort of. They called me "Robert" for the remainder of the evening.


One of the favorite games of staffers at restaurants with higher-end clientel is called "Guess Who's Got Implants." Last night we had a woman who took no guessing at all. She had her big fake-tanned knockers hanging right out of her shirt in a button-down contraption that looked rather complicated and, most likely, uncomfortable. Throughout dinner she leaned forward over her food and drinks as if she was engaged in conversation, but it seemed instead that she was just trying to hike her jubblies out onto her table, as if they were a morsel to be enjoyed with the meal and the fine wine. The wife of the couple having dinner with Ms. Implants and her husband looked none too thrilled with her own husband's eyes roaming the hills and valleys of Ms. Implants' chest. Hell, I'm a homo and I even had to get a better look.


The Restaurant recently won a few awards and has appeared in many more local papers and magazines (and even garnered attention in the Chicago Sun last week) and last night, by 4:30 p.m., half the tables in the restaurant were filled. (We don't even officially open each day until 5 p.m.) The wait for a table was consistenly more than two hours throughout the night and we had reservations for tables up until midnight (with tables continuing to fill up until nearly 1 a.m.).

After a hard night like that the best part is when the owners make the whole staff fresh margaritas and make a dinner for the whole staff to enjoy. Last night it was an exquisite spicy pasta and shrimp dish, not even offered on the menu, that went perfectly with the ice cold margaritas. It's great when your boss at work slaps down a margarita in front of you and says, "Good work tonight, kid. Drink up." There really should be more jobs like that.

Magnolia of the Rich and Famous

Does anything here look familiar?

On page 27 of the May 23, 2005, edition of Us Weekly there’s a picture of Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber sitting on a park bench drinking coffee from Magnolia Bakery and sitting in a little park across the street on green benches with stone tables, which happen to have chessboards engraved on them—but you can’t see that in the photo.

How do I know that the tables have chessboards on them? Because on the first day of our vacation in New York, after having dinner at Penang in SoHo, Josh and I (along with our friend David) walked over to Magnolia, got some of their famous cupcakes, and sat in the exact same spot where Naomi and Liev are sitting in the photo above. Nifty, huh?

The caption of the photo reads, “On May 4 in NYC, LIEV SCREIBER and NAOMI WATTS picked up coffee at Magnolia Bakery before heading over to a Greenwich Village park. ‘They were laughing and talking quite a bit!’ says an eyewitness.”

And not that I would ever be caught reading a copy of Us Weekly. A little bird told me about the picture. (Cough, cough.)

Below is a picture of me noshing on Magnolia cupcakes and sitting right where Liev Schreiber is sitting in the photo above.

10,000

Since March 20, 2005, we’ve had 10,000 hits on our blog. We want to thank all of you who’ve come to Josh and Josh and read our silly little stories and continued to come back (and especially to those of you who leave comments—we love ‘em). We hope to have you with us through 10,000 more. :)

Day Four: Josh & Josh Leave NYC

Josh and I spent our last day in New York looking at apartments with David. We saw one at East 96th and Madison that looked great from the outside, but it was a fifth-floor walk-up, one of the bedrooms didn't have a window, and the kitchen also happened to be the living room, all for the nifty price of $2100 a month.

We saw another apartment on Broadway and the West 50s, this time through a brokerage, and the renovated apartment was gorgeous and the rooms were spacious (okay, spacious only in Manhattan terms), but the rest of the apartment building was a total wreck. It was straight out of one of those ghetto scenes in a scary movie set in New York. They let us know that they were renovating everything, starting with the apartments, but that meant the rest of the building might not be done for years. We passed.

The three of us had a huge lunch at a high-energy, entertaining tourist-trap restaurant in Times Square and it was great to load up on food and talk about our vacation.

At four o'clock the three of us got on the A train and headed to Brooklyn and JFK. David kindly went with us and snapped the picture below--our very last picture in New York.

A couple hours later we were on a plane, watching Manhattan spin by below us, heading west to Minneapolis.

Day Three: Josh & Josh Take New York

Josh and I slept in a little bit on our third day in New York and had a fantastic brunch at the famed Sarabeth's on Madison Avenue before walking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (pictured above and popularly called "The Met"). Josh and I read in The New Yorker that the Met had a special Chanel exhibit showing and we sheepishly admitted that we both wanted to see that while we were there. (The exhibit was classic and classy, as would be expected from Chanel.)

Josh and I hit the modern art wing of the museum and, as we were casually browsing some of the pieces, we saw a familiar guy browsing the gallery with us.

That's right. Mr. James Bond himself, Pierce Brosnan, was walking around looking at the art with his (homely) wife. The best part was that everybody left them alone. I love that about New York. Celebrities can just do their thing. New Yorkers don't even care anymore because seeing a celebrity there is like seeing leaves on trees. It's old news. Anyway, we bumped into them a few times going through the museum. When a couple kids approached for an autograph I snapped this picture and then Josh and I hightailed out of there. We didn't want to interrupt his day any more than we had to.

Once we left The Met we decided to walk to the Museum of Modern Art (popularly called "MoMA"). We walked down Fifth Avenue (which quickly became a favorite activity of ours) and, just minutes after seeing Pierce, we bumped into another celeb, this time on Fifth Avenue around 55th Street.

Josh K. turned to me on the street and said, "Josh, do you think that's Antonio Sabato, Jr. walking in front of us?" I said I didn't know and we followed him for half a block and neither of us was absolutely sure it was him. He was very well groomed and looked gorgeous, but it wasn't until he smiled and we saw his trademark dimples that we were sure. I just had to snap that picture, even if I couldn't get his full face in the picture. It's so strange to be walking down the street with male supermodels. That just doesn't happen very often in Minneapolis. (If you haven't already checked out Antonio Sabato, Jr.'s exercise book, check it out. I promise you that the pictures, if not also the information, are worthwhile.)


The MoMA was an entertaining experience. We enjoyed most of the museum and some of the photography was really phenomenal. But a few pieces, like the one above, inspired a little questioning. The sculpture above, by Robert Gober, consisted of the bottom part of a mannequin stuck into the wall with candles on his calves and on his left ass cheek. But in all seriousness, we were glad we went to the MoMA. It was cool stuff.


Josh and Josh at the musical "Altar Boyz."

After our museum adventures we met David and his friend, Matthew, at 50th and 8th to see the evening performance of "Altar Boyz," a hilarious, high-energy show about a Christian boy band. Josh and I both come from Catholic backgrounds (and now call ourselves "recovering Catholics") and that made the show even funnier. It was all very tongue-in-cheek.


After the show David insisted that we wait to meet Tyler Maynard (second from the right in the "Altar Boyz" picture above), the actor who played the in-the-closet gay guy (and who just happened to be gay in real life, too). David knew a friend of Tyler's and Tyler warmed up to David right away after the show. David introduced Tyler to Josh and me and, suddenly, Tyler invited us to the CD release party for the "Altar Boyz" soundtrack at Pop Rocks in the Village later that night. When he asked if we were going it was a no fucking brainer.

When the three of us arrived at Pop Rocks an hour later we were stopped at the velvet rope and asked if we were on the list. David told the doorman that Tyler put us on the list. The doorman asked, "Are you Josh? Josh and Josh?" and pointed at us. We confirmed that we were and the velvet rope slid away and the three of us entered the club. (We nearly peed our pants in the process.)

Inside we met up with Tyler and he gave us tons of free drink tickets and the producer of the show came up and said, "Are you two Josh and Josh?" and was totally charming, making small talk with us. We hung out with Tyler and met another of the (hot) stars of the show, during the course of the evening.

We left shortly after midnight, knowing that we had a day of taxing Manhattan apartment hunting ahead of us. It was a pretty cool night, though. And it also seemed like Mr. Tyler Maynard may or may not have had a crush on Joshie K. . . .

Day Two: Josh and Josh Do New York

Josh and I started our second day in New York in Times Square. We took the 2 train from 110th Street to West 42nd Street and started hunting for a show to see. We stopped at "Avenue Q," but they didn't have an afternoon matinee (they don't until later in the summer), we missed the 10 a.m. rush seats at "Chicago," the line was way too long at "Mamma Mia" and we entered (but did not win) the ticket lottery at "Wicked."

When we realized an afternoon show was probably out of the question we decided to have a day on the city, exploring as we pleased. We enjoyed Times Square, despite the fact that so many New Yorkers find it a totally gauche place, and did some serious shopping at H&M before making our way down Fifth Avenue from 42nd Street all the way to West 8th Street. Along the way we hit Kenneth Cole New York where Josh and I splurged on two absolutely gorgeous watches that perfectly fit each of our personalities. (No, really, they're hot watches.)


We worked up quite an appetite from all the shopping and decided that some good ol' New York style pizza was in order before we could finish taking on the city.

We thoroughly enjoyed Washington Square Park and walked around the neighborhood, hitting the NYU campus (which was gorgeous) and we discovered a part of the Village, around Bleecker and MacDougal, that made us drool by simply imagining what it'd be like to have an apartment there.

Then Josh and I made the brave and fabulous decision to walk all the way home from Washington Square Park, a 100-block trek. It was a fantastic seven-mile adventure that landed us at another H&M where we bought more clothes and brought us by the Trump Tower, Tiffany & Co., the Plaza, through Museum Mile, and some of the most fabulous real estate in the city. It was absolutely worth it.


We took this snapshot in the East 90s on our way back to the apartment. The sun was setting over the reservoir in Central Park and the way the sun came through the trees and behind the legendary apartment buildings of Central Park West was breathtaking.


Back at David's apartment we ordered Chinese take-out from Yaon Ming Garden before getting ready to go out for the night. We decided to go to Phoenix, an intimate and low-key gay bar in the Village. We met up with some of David's friends there and made new friends of our own (including one cutie who gave his phone number) before we caught a cab home at the end of a long, but definitely fabulous, second day in New York.

Day One: Josh and Josh Do New York

This morning Josh and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and scrambled to finish getting ready for our trip to New York. Josh K.'s sisters picked us up at 5 a.m. and drove us to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport where we nabbed a quick breakfast and boarded our plane shortly after 6 a.m. A half an hour later we were airborn and heading east toward New York.

After a two-hour flight, Josh and I landed in New York at 10 a.m. We got our baggage and our friend (and future roommate), David, met us at JFK in Brooklyn. We took the A train into the city, dropped our stuff off at David's apartment on the Upper East Side, and then hit the city full force.


We started with Central Park, exploring the Conservatory Gardens (just steps from David's apartment), wandering through fields of bright flowers and mazes of shrubbery, marble statues, and ponds. We took in views of the city skyline from the reservoir and popped out of the park around East 90th Street to get a hot dog in front of the Guggenheim Museum. (We snapped the picture above just outside the park's wall in front of the Guggenheim at East 88th Street and 5th Avenue.)


We hopped back in the park, found the small pond where children float sailboats and parents read newspapers at a small waterside cafe. We sauntered over to the Bethesda Fountain, one of the most famous fountains in the world. A fantastic live jazz quartet played nearby while we sat at the fountain. (This fountain is the setting of the gorgeous final monologue in the HBO film "Angels in America." If you haven't seen the movie, rent it ASAP. It's amazing.)


We wandered out of the park and found a five-story Barnes & Noble on 66th Street and then snapped this picture in front of the fountain at Lincoln Center. Shortly after we left the entire cast of "Desperate Housewives" was photographed here for an ABC promotional event. You may also recognize this fountain as the place where Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw had her big date in a perfect gown and a dazzling chignon updo, but I digress.


The three of us walked to SoHo and had dinner at the fantastic Penang restaurant (seen above). The food was delicious and the service was whip fast. We wandered the streets of SoHo, drooling at the apartments and boutiques surrounding us, stopping at the Mac flagship and at Magnolia, a famous bakery. We ate our goodies from Magnolia in a small, leafy park across from the bakery, breathing in the New York spring night air. It was the perfect ending to our first day in Manhattan.