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.