Archive for November 27th, 2009
How easy is it to crash something like a State Dinner?
We debated on whether or not to address this in a post, because we don’t intend this to be a “How to” for crashing private events — and we can’t talk about Michelle and Tariq Salahi faking their way into the White House without noting how, honestly, easy it is to do these sorts of things.
All of us here are, or have been, event planners or worked in hotels and restaurants either in college or grad school or otherwise through the years.
Based on all of our experiences, especially at high-end events here in Chicago, or at super-lux hotels in other cities, it’s remarkably easy to gain access to just about any event, provided the following:
(1) You look the part: so you are dressed up expensively for an event like the State Dinner, are wearing business attire for nice cocktail parties/candidate events, or are dressed in nice evening wear for things like society wedding receptions
(2) You are a male/female couple (drawing less attention than someone alone, or two men or two women together)
(3) You take the time to figure out what other events are going on that night — so just in case you are stopped going in somewhere, you can say, “Isn’t this the Horowitz Bar Mitzvah? I saw Susan Zuckerman walk this way and we just followed her in…we are SO embarrassed! Can you point us in the right direction?”. And while you are standing there in the room, and the person who stopped you is directing you, you scan the room for the service entrances off the banquet service corridor, memorizing them, so that you can try to use that back door to enter the room later.
(4) You bring rocks glasses (like for scotch) with you (so that if you can’t get a drink at a bar somewhere and bring it to the event, you can have them in a purse ready to use as props). People carrying drinks look like they just left the event for a smoke (as no one is allowed to smoke inside)…and can use the “oh, we’re in there, we’re just going back in because we were smoking”. If you are smart, you will have gotten enough cigarette smoke on you before you try this so that it “feels right” to whomever’s at the door
(5) As mentioned above, use back doors as much as possible…all banquet and event rooms are serviced by discrete doors leading to service hallways. Drunk guests wander back there all the time, and the service staff, if they see you, can easily be told “oh, we’re lost…we thought this was the way to the bathroom”. Older venues in Chicago are a warren of these service areas.
(6) If you speak a foreign language other than Spanish, you are GOLDEN. If stopped, pretend you don’t know English and start gibbering away. The reason Spanish isn’t good is because a large part of the behind the scenes staff in hotels is Mexican, so there would be no problem at all finding an interpreter for you. But Latvian, Polish, and even French? You can easily get away with being confused, then use broken English to convey that you were just trying to get to the event and are lost…and someone will be happy to help you.
At really nice hotels, in particular, anyone who is dressed like they have a lot of money and are a legitimate guest can get away with just about anything. The staff is so terrified of offending any hotel guests and causing a scene (because the guests are always right, no matter what they do, and in this economy firing a banquet server is easy to do, as former mortgage brokers and day traders are now working banquets to make ends meet, so hotels know they can replace just about anyone tomorrow).
The only thing that’s tough to pull off is sneaking into an event where food is served, because the place settings are written in stone, with the food costs under strict control.
Cocktail parties, fundraisers, seminars, etc. are much, much easier to slip into. Especially if there is an option to have paid for the ticket online. Chances are, the person working the registration table will believe you if you tell them you paid for your ticket online…and that you did it that morning. Then there’s the variable introduced that you might have really paid for it, but that they were working off an old list for checkin, which happens.
But, the Salahis sneaking into a State DINNER is what’s really odd, as seated dinners have the strictest guest lists of all because of the aforementioned food controls (the numbers for how many plates to serve are checked and double checked, and the kitchen won’t make any more than is absolutely required because a chef has high food costs to control and a tight budget to work from…literally, there is rarely even one extra plate made).
The only times we’ve seen people have an easy go at sneaking into seated dinners are when:
(A) There are a lot of no-shows expected, so there is not a tight count of who’s there
(B) There are a lot of people who for whatever reason have been left off the guest list and are labeled as just “Friends of So-and-So” etc.
At some events, there are people who don’t want their names to be on a guest list, or people who get invited at the last minute, never confirmed they were coming, etc. and are just under some sort of umbrella reservation. “Oh, we’re with the group from Wisconsin. We didn’t think we’d make it, but we did. Tina told us to just say we were “the Wisconsin people” when we arrived”.
This sort of thing is maddening for anyone running event check-in, but it happens all the time. Typically, the person looking at the guest list will nominally pretend to be checking it, and might offer a little resistance, but if the people look like they belong there and there’s a long checkin line, they’ll just wave them in.
It sure feels to us that there were a lot of people at that State Dinner who were not on an official guest list — and that their names weren’t listed for whatever reason.
So, having two people like the Salahis arrive, who looked like they belonged, but didn’t have names on the list didn’t strike anyone as odd, apparently. Especially not if something like that had been happening all night anyway.
We have a sinking suspicion more people than any of us will ever know were at that State Dinner without being on an actual guest list.
You are hereby ordered by the State of Utopia to prepare merrily for Obamamas, December 13th
Festivus, which is RAAACIST, has lost its aluminum pole and airing of grievances to the new holiday of Obamamas
As we reported the other day, Dr. Utopia, our illustrious current president, has become so jealous of “that nobody” the baby Jesus that he’s ordered an Oprah-sized “holiday special” on ABC (the All-Barack-Channel) for December 13th to commemorate the nation’s first “Obamamas”, a holiday sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas that honors the nation’s first admittedly biracial president.
When Abraham Lincoln, who was president so long ago the only thing he’s good for these days is for use by the current president as an endless campaign prop, officially made Thanksgiving a holiday in the 1860s, hardly anyone knew what to do to celebrate it. Some people would have just smacked themselves upside the head repeatedly the whole day if they weren’t given proper direction — and a convenient list of Thanksgiving Do’s, Don’ts, and Definitelys.
Clearly, the new national holiday of Obamamas is the chance for all Americans to be proud of December 13th for the first time in their adult lives.
The holiday will culminate with the airing of the new Oprah Obamamas Holiday Extravaganza on ABC, but throughout the day all Americans are directed to spend the day honoring the current First Family, lest they be called “damn, dirty RAAACISTS”.
Here are some Obamamas-related hints that we’ve been able to gather so far:
* Keep the decorations as close to Smurf blood blue as possible. This effiminate, weak color of blue is Dr. Utopia’s favorite. In 2008, it was used extensively, from his creepy campaign posters to the fake presidential seal he created for his personal use.
* Everything should be as gaudy and self-serving as possible. Obamamas is not a day for volunteering or doing anything remotely good for anyone else. If possible, instead of giving gifts, you should steal small things from your neighbors, things they won’t notice are missing. Like their freedoms. Or, possibly, their garden gnomes.
* Women should wear hideous dresses made from upholstery fabric. Men should wear shiny, tight pants that frame their rumps well, as Obamamas’ official greeting is a deep bow, followed by a drop to the knees grovel, just like Dr. Utopia does when meeting Muslim royalty or encountering anyone with the title “Emperor” somewhere on their business cards.
* Refreshments that should be served include, but are not limited to:
- arugula salad tossed with ACORNs and other nuts with a bitter, clingy vinaigrette dressing
- large vats of purple Kool-Aid (so reminiscent of the waters of Lethe)
- hope
- whatever you can take from your neighbor’s fridge and redistribute to your guests
- rainbow sherbet melted into random puddles here and there throughout your apartment
- rice crispy unicorns
* Family members should take turns reading directly from one of the two Holy Books of Obamamas: “Dreams My Father Told William Ayers” and “The Audacity of Promising Things I Have No Intention of Delivering”
* Your former Festivus aluminum poles are now Obamamas poles, because Festivus, like almost everything else in America, is RAAACIST. You will take your Obamamas pole and hang an empty suit from it, to honor our Lightbringer in the manner most reminiscent and befitting to him. Use wire hangers, Joan Crawford be damned.
* “The Ayering of Racial Grievances” will be held in your living room, near your Obamamas pole. You will open your windows and stand in the middle of the room to shout loudly all the ways in which you are a RAAACIST for not giving all your money and everything you worked hard for to random black people. If you have a job, you will tell how sorry you are that a black person does not have that job instead. Everyone in the room should take out crayons and paper plates and draw pictures of their favorite Race Industry leaders, such as Al Sharpton, Henry Gates, Jesse Jackson, Eric Holder, Spike Lee, James Clyburne, John Lewis, Deval Patrick, and of course, Dr. and Mrs. Utopia themselves. Tape these plates to your Obamamas pole so everyone can know how glad you are to have these people in our national lives, doing the things they do all day to distinguish themselves.
* Force someone you know to join a union against his or her will
* Fill out voter registration forms for as many dead people or cartoon characters as you can think of. String these forms around your apartment the way you used to string Christmas lights. Marvel at how many fraudulent voter registrations you can complete.
* Make sure there’s enough room around your Obamamas pole (with its empty suit) for the Obamamas barely-clad male dancers to shake and shimmy. This is Obamamas’ nod to the Nativity scene during the former holiday of Christmas, where a miniature stable was put on display to remember the manger in Bethlehem where the Christ child was born. Since no one is still sure where Dr. Utopia was born, you could either use acqaurium figurines to recreate a Hawaiian or Indonesian village, or make miniature Kenyan huts for yourself. Or, you could get the strippers to recall the many fun times a young state senator had at Man’s Country in Andersonville. It’s all good, and totally up to you, but the less the men wear the more accurate Obamamas will be.
GOP candidate for Governor in Massachusetts Charlie Baker chooses openly gay Lt. Governor
Charlie Baker
Richard Tisei
Here’s interesting news from Massachusetts: Charlie Baker, one of the GOP candidates for governor next year, has chosen openly gay state senator Richard Tisei as his running mate (who, apparently from the photos we have of him, is also a giant).
Tisei would, as far as we know, become the first openly gay Lt. Governor in the country should Baker defeat Dr. Utopia’s longtime close, personal friend (and fellow David Axelrod project) Deval Patrick, one of the worst governors in not only the country currently, but in Massachusetts history.
Baker’s running against Christy Mihos for the Republican nomination. Mihos is a man, despite the fact that most people we know think he’s a woman (and some people, like our friend Panda, think he was one of the daughters on Empty Nest, but that’s lesbian actress Kristy McNichol, who played tomboy “Buddy” on Family as well). We know little about Mihos, but suspect “I’m not a woman no matter how much you think I am” won’t be an effective campaign slogan for him, no matter how much of his own personal fortune he wants to waste in this race.
Baker feels like he could defeat Patrick, while Mihos looks like a loser at first blush. Patrick’s incredibly vulnerable, since Massachusetts residents have lived with the Axelrod brand of Hope and Change for much longer than the rest of the country — and they aren’t too happy with the results (remember, Patrick’s 2006 campaign was Axelrod’s Guernica, testing the messaging, branding, speeches, and even campaign colors and font before using them for Dr. Utopia’s 2008 run).
We would very much like to see Patrick lose his re-election bid, for a variety of reasons, but mainly because whatever’s effective in bringing Patrick down could (also Guernica-style) be instrumental in defeating Axelrod’s other, more dangerous creation in 2012. If Patrick goes down for the count in liberal Massachusetts, then Dr. Utopia will be vulnerable indeed in 2012.
We look forward to learning more about Baker and Tisei in the days ahead.
Any of you from Massachusetts please chime in and let us know what you think, as this is not a state we have ever followed closely, with no personal connections there of our own.
The man who made that crazy "Hope" poster, Shepard Fairey, now spoofing Obama
This is really interesting, because it’s something we would never do to the people we believe in.
Shepard Fairey, the artist who stole an AP image of Dr. Utopia and used it to make the famous (or, infamous, depending on where you sit) “Hope” posters of “The One” staring blankly into the sky, reproduced ad nauseum on every flat surface in 2008, has started spoofing the monster he helped create.
Fairey did the spoof image for a new album out called “The Audacity of Hype”, by Jello Biafra.
So, essentially, Jello’s now making fun of the Kool-Aid gang, which is just twelves shades of ridiculous and yet apt.
Obama's Bows and Ford's Falls
Here’s an interesting article by Peggy Noonan called, “He Can’t Take Another Bow” where Noonan talks about the photos of Dr. Utopia happily prostrating himself before everyone from the Saudi king to the Emperor of Japan and President of China. These are shameless and disgusting photos that must serve as porn for the far-left: an American president practically on his knees, his rump joyfully in the air, slobbering over foreigners and telling how great, and much better than Americans, they are.
Disgusting.
In Noonan’s piece, she says the obvious: this is something Dr. Utopia is doing personally, ad hoc, with no consideration for protocol. This is a president who believes he truly is “The One”, that he can do whatever he wants, and that everything that came before him is irrelevant. The world began the day he was born and will end when he leaves this mortal plane to take his seat in the heavens as the living god he presumes himself to be.
“Well, I don’t care if it’s inappropriate and un-American to bow to foreigners, I wanna do it. I want to stick my butt in the air for all the world to see and I want to kiss the King’s ring, it look so juicy and delicious. If I want to do it, I’m gonna do it, and you can’t stop me. I won! I do as I please! I can show my butt to whoever I want, whenever I want!,” is what the current president seems to be thinking in all of these photo ops.
Noonan brings up Gerald Ford and the hit job Saturday Night Live and others did in turning a grafeful former football star (and athletic model) into a clumsy, Homer Simpson-esque laughing stock by way of photos showing Ford taking various falls to the ground. Noonan argues those photos became iconic for his presidency…and we add that they’re similar to Jimmy Carter looking stupid in his sweater and being attacked by a swamp rabbit on his little dinky boat.
When people think of Ford, they still picture him falling down those stairs on Air Force One. When people think of Carter, he’s still that grinning idiot apologizing for America’s exceptionalism while wearing a stupid sweater in the Oval Office.
Noonan believes Dr. Utopia’s bowing photos are what’s going to define him, iconically, because they feed into the ever-growing (and accurate) perception that he is a weak and naive president in over his head, who hates America and is driven to see this country humbled and humiliated as much as possible. He will bow where no president has ever bowed before. He will stoop and kiss the rings of kings. He’ll stick his butt high into the air to prove how humbled he wants America to be. We don’t even want to know what this man will — or wants to do — for foreign leaders behind closed doors. ”Why is the president naked and on his knees again?” seems to be a question the Secret Service has never had to field until this administration, whenever a Muslim leader is within a 100 mile radius, in particular. Welcome to the Neverending Global Apology and Dhimmihood Tour, already in progress.
Hope you like that Change.
We wonder how the bowing photos are filtering down to regular Americans, those who don’t consider themselves to be all that interesting in politics or the news. How do they feel about these spectacles? Do they want to see their president with his butt in the air like this? How do any of them think this can be in any way good for this country?
What are you hearing on the ground in your necks of the woods?
2009 Thanksgiving in Boystown
On this site, in addition to talking about politics, we like to give you a window into our little world here in Boystown, Chicago. Sometimes, it helps us remember how much our gay little Disney World here on Halsted differs from the worlds we came from in places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, San Antonio and the like.
For starters, did you have a Thanksgiving costume this year?
Because here in Boystown, quite a few people were dressed up as sexy pilgrims and barely dressed Indians. Our friend Panda dressed up as Pocahontas and then kept pretending it wasn’t him when we spotted him (just like he pretends he’s not Chicago’s #1 Lady GagGa impersonator, Baby GooGoo, but we know it’s him. Just can’t prove it…yet). ”Why do you always think I’m secretly a drag queen, and that wasn’t even Pocahontas, it was Sacagawea, from those golden dollars nobody uses, stores think are fake, and strippers at the Lucky Horseshoe resent,” Panda insisted today, post-Thanksgiving, with just a hint of what we think was eyeshadow still on. ”I am not Chicago’s drag Sacagewea!” Yah, keep telling yourself that. Whatever makes you happy, Panda.
It is fun, though, that here in Boystown guys do what women all over the country do every Halloween: take things that are normally in no way sexy and make them bawdy and interesting at holiday time. Strippers in black patent leather with little white collars and buckled hats, sharing go go stages with other fellas in their fringed leather loin cloths and vibrant turkey feathered headdresses, like they were all sent to work that day dressed by Cher. ”It’s a Bob Mackie Thanksgiving up in here,” we heard someone say at one of the pre-Thanksgiving parties on Wednesday.
A lot of bars, like Sidetracks, showed funny clips from Thanksgiving episodes of various TV shows…or bloopers from America’s Funniest Home Accidents or whatever showing disastrous and silly Thanksgiving-related “reality” mayhem. People randomly had little Thanksgiving buttons and pins on their coats, little cornucopias and whatever, which was festive. As were all the Christmas decorations up everywhere, with all the twinkling lights — even though Christmas bleeds over into Thanksgiving and Halloween, so we never get to see gorgeous fall decorations anywhere on Thanksgiving, with all the colored leaves and oranges and reds and browns. Which is a damn shame, but the Christmas stuff IS pretty. We just wish Thanksgiving could be moved to the middle of November, so maybe it could have more of an identity of its own before the red and green a-palooza hits town like a hurricane.
Hanging in the air in Boystown on any holiday is the shadow of unaccepting or difficult families, which is hard for us to talk about around here, because of the wide range of familial support we all have. Some of us, like Robby, have parents that are straight out of a PFLAG parade, who knew their sons were gay and loved and accepted them before their sons even knew what was up about themselves. Others of us, like Sebastian, have parents who still tell lies about them having girlfriends, and who pretend their sons aren’t gay, all evidence to the contrary. You might not realize how soul-killing something like that is, but it’s especially profound on a holiday that’s about people coming together — how do you get to do that when your parents have created a fantasy world back in Cleveland you never got a script for, that you are embarrassed to go home to, since random Clevelanders will loudly stop you and ask all about your latest girlfriend, of whom you’ve never heard of. Robby gets to head back to Mineral City and have a big family affair — and the rest of us are all invited, of course — but those without loving and accepting families have to create their own alternate holidays, with their own alternate traditions every year.
For most of us here, that’s involved some kind of volunteering, which we do because we like helping people, but also because it’s a great way to get people off our backs when they’re busy in the leadup to holidays asking everyone “what are you doing for the big day?”. It’s socially unacceptable to say you don’t have any holiday plans because your family hates you because you like guys. To admit you’re not welcome back to Pittsburgh or Cleveland, where your relatives will be gathering, because you live in Boystown and “can’t keep quiet”, as some would like, is humiliating on more levels than we could ever share here. So, spending every Thanksgiving or Christmas waking up early to clean, cook, and serve dinner for a charity is the way many of us have chosen to spend our holidays — where we not only feel like we are contributing something and can be surrounded by good people, but also it’s where we can escape all the “why aren’t you with your families?” pressure.
When you go out in Boystown around Thanksgiving or Christmas, you see on a lot of faces a certain kind of sadness we recognize immediately. Some of the guys out there wish their families, especially the religious ones, would accept them and welcome them at the holidays. Those are the saddest faces in a room, the ones who WANT to be somewhere else, stuffing their faces back in Dayton or St. Louis or wherever, but dealing with the fact they’re not invited unless they meet all the conditions that invitation would carry (“You can’t talk about being gay. You have to pretend you have a girlfriend. You cannot mention Glee in the slightest or say anything about the new Sister Act musical being written. And for the love of Mary, don’t wear that Pocahontas costume again. Damn near scared the neighbors!”).
All the effort put into Thanksgiving-themed Boystown fabulousness won’t ever help those guys, because no amount of Pilgrim and Indian strippers, no matter how historically-inaccurate-yet-hot they are, will ever take the place of Aunt Ida’s sweet potato and marshmallow casserole.
Then there are other guys who like to sit there reliving Thanksgivings and Christmases past, remembering what it was like to be part of the big family meals, before they came out and lost that connection. It’s sad, but in the year 2009 it’s still a Sophia’s choice in coming out: either you admit to your family one of the driving reasons behind your love of the Golden Girls is because you are gay, or you keep pretending you’re only watching the show “because nothing is on” and you “are just waiting for football to come on”. Please. The Golden Girls RULES. And all of us here are of the generation that doesn’t much care for keeping lights under bushels and pretending to be something that we’re not. But, in guys 10-20+ years older than us, we know it’s a different story. So, when we are out around a holiday, we make sure to be extra nice to these people, to wish them happy holidays and give them a smile, because more than presents or invitations to dinner, that’s what people are looking for…a little kindness on a day that used to be chock-full of that for them, but in recent years, for whatever reason, has seemed shades of cruel and lonely.
All of us here are in our early to mid-30s, so it’s really interesting to see the next generation in Boystown starting to replace us, seeing how differently they react to holidays. They’ve had the benefit of growing up in the post Queer as Folk, Will & Grace, Matt on Melrose Place and Jack on Dawson’s Creek world. We don’t hear as much from them about family members refusing to accept they like guys, or pretending they have imaginary girlfriends. Most of them seem to end up going back to whatever small town they are from for the holidays with no illusions from anyone about them being anything other than who they really are. There’s no live one way in Chicago but pretend to be something else back home business going on there. It seems a lot of their parents are PFLAG at hear, whether they are marching in the parade Patricia Melton or Debbie Novotny style.
That’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to behold, because we hope to be the last generation that has to deal with the pretend girlfriends forced on us back in Cleveland nonsense.
Before we get back to our regularly scheduled snarking on politics and other current events, we do want to stress how big a deal it is to accept people for who they are, especially at holidays, and particularly if you consider yourself to be such a religious person. There are a lot of things we don’t especially like about all sorts of people who are always welcome at Buzzquarters for a meal whenever they want it. We have friends and family members who are loud and obnoxious and who force their opinions on others. We know people who use “ADD” as an excuse for everything, whether it’s their bad behavior, perpetual lateness, rudeness, or inability to follow any conversation that is not about them. We know others who drink too much, smoke too much, and treat prescription drugs like candy. There are plenty of straight people in our lives who cheat on their spouses and are more promiscuous than anyone we know in Boystown. You might go to church every Sunday, but if you think what you get up to the other days of the week goes unnoticed, you’ve got another thing coming. Glass houses + your shennanigans = no stones for you.
So, if there are those out there who want to make holidays about judging, or being ashamed of someone for something, we’d just like to say, “Let the judging begin!” because we’re CERTAIN we could have a few choice words about just about anyone at the table. And what we’d say would more likely than not be biting, accurate, AND funny, instead of just malicious and mean-spirited for no apparent reason, with random Bible quotes, or what near-illiterates think are Bible quotes, thrown in haphazardly.
Friday Open Thread: November 27th, 2009
What’s on your mind this Friday?
Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving yesterday? Any good stories to share from the meal?
We are STOKED that we can start playing Christmas music now, which is our favorite music of all…starting with our favorite holiday album of all time, Twisted Sister’s A Very Twisted Christmas. We’ll take our carols with a side of hair band, please.
Out of curiosity, are you going to be amongst the crowds strambling around to buy things today, on “Black Friday” (how RAAACIST!)?
It’s interesting that none of us came from families that made a big deal out of buying STUFF for Christmas, birthdays, or any other present-giving holiday. Instead, our families all mostly made things. Our moms, aunts, grandmas, etc. would all make whatever they were best at: special holiday cookies that you’d only get once a year, given to you in a giant metal tin that grandma picked out special for you; crocheted scarves, hats, tablecloths, afghans, you name it; framed photo collages from all the pictures taken that year, etc.
As kids, we made whatever arts and crafts projects we’d learn at school, to various degrees of success. Later, as we got older, we’d scan family photos into the computer and use photo-mosaic software to create those pictures-within-a-larger-picture mosaics of relatives or friends. We’d also write little stories and bind them into books at Kinko’s.
We never spent a lot of money, but poured more effort into all of this than going down to the store to purchase something in a box that was made in China or Japan.
As kids, the Sears catalog DID arrive every year, in those pre-Internet days, as a window into this magical world where all the new toys lived, begging you to play with them. We’d pour over that catalog for hours and hours and hours (ultimately, as the years went by, losing interest in the toy section and discovering what fun the underwear parties seemed to be in the men’s and athletic support sections). We never asked for any big ticket Christmas presents, though…and we can from families that all did fairly well for themselves. But, buying STUFF was never what the holidays were about in our houses.
When we see people pushing and shoving to get into stores at six in the morning, we just shake our heads and wish they’d learn the true meaning of Christmas.
