HillBuzz

H/t Cary for the Word Cloud

Last night was an eventful night in Boystown where various topics of interest were covered, as we ran into a random assortment of characters, at various levels of coherence and sobriety.  So, no different than any Saturday for us, really.  But, the takes on Anthropogenic Global Warming, nationality experts, score-settling dance-offs, and Sarah Palin were interesting enough that we thought we’d share them with you, if on this Sunday morning you’d like to curl up in your Snuggie with a cup of Mineral City-worthy coffee and take a trip to Boystown with us. That means putting your abacus away, Lea and Karen, because we’re not concerned with watching the word count in this as much as we are giving you a glimpse of what life is like in the political middle, living in a gay enclave in a Liberal-dominated city where group-think rules with an iron, if pinkened, fist.

We started the night at Scarlet, a bar that Joaquin likes because it reminds him of all the frat parties he used to have back in Texas, only this is a much fancier frat house, with crystal chandeliers, stained glass, and framed photos of old-timey, 19th Century men on the walls hugging.  Every time we walk into Scarlet, those pictures make us smile, because the men in them aren’t actually gay.  There are whole apocryphal books of these sepia-toned photographs, which gay men all over town display (but rarely open) on their glass and chrome coffee tables, piled on top of Bruce Weber and Tom Bianchi compilations (in older guys’ condos) or Joe Phillips and Glen Hanson anthologies (in our age group), to make guests think the owners are “big thinkers”. “Lookit how I love history.  I have that book, and the photos in it are super old.  Some of the guys in there are hot, even though they are all dead now.  Lookit how gay they all are. Guys were super gay and hot back then. Lookit”.

No, you lookit.  Men were just much more affectionate in general back in the 1800s, for whatever reason.  Taking a photograph was a big deal back then.  Some people were terrified of cameras because they thought they’d steal their souls.  Panda’s still kind of wary of them for that reason.  So, having a photo made was a big, big deal.  The men who now hang in gilded frames in Scarlet were close friends, brothers, or fathers and sons.  All those coffee table books don’t mention that, but it’s true.  If they really WERE gay lovers, chances are they wouldn’t want to be photographed together, considering the time they lived in (just ask Abraham Lincoln and Jonathan Katz, via seance, next chance you get).  Few people had cameras, so tromping down to the photographer’s studio to pose for a picture as lovers seems like something few guys would do.  It’s just amusing to us that Boystown doesn’t think about much in depth, but instead takes whatever it sees on the surface and runs with it.

Appearance, and looks, are everything.  If something’s pretty enough to win a guy’s attention, he just fills in all the rest of the blanks himself, making up whatever backstory he wants for a person, place or thing.  It’s why, in a sense, male gay relationships are so tenuous…because once a guy turns out to be nothing like whatever story the other guy invented for him in his head, he’s toast.  “Why did you break up with Drew?,” we asked Joaquin once, about a nice guy he was dating who really seemed to like him, had a good job, was interesting, and was even funny too. “I don’t know, he wasn’t who I thought he was, and he was clingy.”

“Clingy” is the equivalent of Paula Abdul’s “pitchy” in Boystown.  The standard go-to generic put-down for any guy you don’t have a particularly good reason for not liking, but who more likely than not just didn’t live up to whatever make-believe tale you told yourself about him. If half the guys in Boystown were as “clingy” as some claim them to be, then tens of thousands of guys would scientifically be clung to one another by now, like scores of those little wacky wall-walker octopi smooshed together in a big bag.  Wouldn’t all these clingy people cling to one another, if so many of them were clinging around?

Scarlet has a Nintendo setup in the back and routinely has beer pong games going, with giant $5.00 40-ounce beers, so Joaquin says it’s “just like” all his old frat parties from school, except the guys are checking each other out and nobody’s paying any attention to the girls.  We feel bad for the pretty women who venture into Scarlet, because unlike at Sidetracks or Roscoe’s, guys into the frat vibe don’t give a damn about playing with living dolls, so the women won’t get the “I love your shoes!” or “Who did your hair, it’s fabulous!” stuff they’d get in other bars on Halsted.

The look of perturbed disappointment on their faces is hilarious and sad at the same time.  We tell straight women repeatedly that Dorothy didn’t much like her time over the rainbow either.  She kept wanting to go back home, because Oz wasn’t as fabulous a place for her as it was for others, and in the end poor Judy only had a lifetime addiction to booze and prescription pain killers to show for her troubles.  It’s the same with straight women and gay bars.  They say they like being around a lot of great looking men who won’t cause any problems for them all night, but in the end, problems are still caused because the women feel bad they haven’t been hit on or admired the way they want to be.  That’s especially true for women who go out on a Saturday night hoping to meet someone.  Honey, if you start dating a guy you met at Scarlet, you have only yourself to blame when he ultimately leaves you for Brad someday…because he thinks you’re too clingy. And Brad has a penis.

We ended up taking a couch by the Nintendo game in the back, where we had a great perch to listen in on more than a few conversations going on while watching a couple of guys playing old-school Super Mario Brothers (badly).  It was fascinating listening to a pack of Brendens talking about the recent spat of earthquakes around the world.

Brendens, for the uninitiated, are low-information Boystown guys, in the 20-something age range, squeezed into tank tops or little American Apparel low-cut V-necks and jeans so tight they could be painted on.  Like Ken dolls, their hair’s all cut the same way, though it can be any color, and for some reason in Chicago, the style’s still vaguely set on “faux hawk”, though that fad came and went a few years ago (thank Great Merciful Zeus).  Brendens just really like the look, and keep rocking it like Dracula with that red velvet cape and moldy tuxedo. No matter how much the faux-hawk is staked, it just keeps coming back again and again and again.

“You know, like, Chile was totally destroyed by that earthquake or whatever yesterday,” Brenden #1 said, taking a big gulp of his $5.00 40.

“Can’t they just make more? It’s just chili,” a tank-topped rocking dancer named Jeff asked, not trying to be funny in the slightest. Jeff’s a barback, and is also an actor-model.

“No, Jeff, you retard, Chile the city, not the food.  Chile was totally destroyed by an earthquake.  It’s all Global Warming again.  I saw it on CNN. The whole planet is falling apart.  First it was Haiti. Then it was somewhere else, like Australia or something. And then now it’s Chile.  I don’t know where it will be next, but I saw in a movie that Los Angeles is supposed to have a big earthquake and that it will be because of Global Warming that happens,” Brenden #2 said, clearly repeating things he heard Anderson Cooper say here and there over the years.

But, maybe he learned all this in a puppet show.  Brendens love, and are in fact, puppets.

And, yes, sadly, the word “retard” is thrown around far too casually in Boystown.  Words like “c***”, “b****”, and “w****” are also tossed out, against women, at the drop of a backwards-facing, knit, faux baseball hat too.  Thoughtlessly, needlessly, recklessly.  Welcome to Boystown.

“Well, I don’t even have a car, so I don’t know what else I can do about the earthquakes.  I take cabs all the time because I have to, since I live so far from stuff, and it’s cold,” Jeff explained, with the Brendens nodding in support.

“Global Warming sucks.  I know someone who went to Chile once, and if he was there now, he might have been killed, so I’m kind of upset right now, you know, thinking about how he could have been killed if he had been there instead of being there four years ago when he went there but didn’t take me too so we broke up.”

“I remember that guy, Brenden.  He was so clingy.”

“I know, right? Totally clingy. But, I’m still glad he wasn’t killed in that earthquake, and I’m kind of upset about it”.

“It will be okay, Brenden.  As soon as they solve Global Warming, there won’t be any earthquakes, and then Chile will be okay”.

“I’m kind of hungry now.”

“I know, right?”.

“Chili sounds good”.

As we’ve said plenty of times before, the sad thing is how little we’re exaggerating with this.  If you’d walk up to 80% of the guys in Boystown and asked them if Global Warming caused earthquakes, you’d get a “most definitely” from them, because they think they heard this on MSNBC or CNN, or because “my friend who is smart told me, and he’s a doctor/lawyer/fill in the blank so he knows”.

We have no idea whatsoever how to counter this.  The DNC, by way of the MSM, has these guys 100% under their control.  They believe whatever they are told, unthinkingly.

Probably the ONLY way to ever get through to them would be to run public service announcements with really great-looking, Adonis-grade, Speedo-clad gymnasts telling gay men that, no, Global Warming does not cause earthquakes, no matter how many times Anderson Cooper or their friend Brenden tells them that’s true.  A bare-chested, almost nude, total hottie is a surefire way to get the attention of the Brendens and the Jeffs and the Caseys or Whatever.  It can even focus our friend Panda, who has ADD or ADHD or HGTV or whatever he loves using as his excuse for never being able to focus, or to show up on time.

Like last night.

When he finally walked into the bar, we’d already spent an hour or so listening to the Brendens. Panda strolled into Scarlet and his signature song, Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”, got cued by the DJ the second she spotted him. Just like he wanted, with everyone waiting for him to appear.

It’s an in-joke in Boystown Panda LOVES, because it’s all about his propensity for challenging various people to “dance-offs” whenever he’s peeved with them.  Score him no points for originality, since he lifted this from the Wayans Brothers’ “White Chicks”, which is Panda’s second-favorite movie (after “Willow”, which he actually thinks is called “That Princess Bride”.  The actual “Princess Bride” he calls “Weekend With Fred Savage” for some reason).

In “White Chicks”, there’s a big dance-off scene where “Crazy In Love” plays, and Panda spent days learning the moves for both sets of competing girls.  Surprising to some, Panda is an EXCELLENT dancer who is never embarrassed to shake his rump on the dance floor, in loud, Mr. Furley checked pants, Truman Capote thick glasses, and an Inspector Gadget gray hat with mismatched cardigan and bowtie.  Panda is a piece of work, who can move like a young Rahm Emanuel at Studio 54, but we love him.

Well, everyone except Joaquin, who thinks Panda’s kind of embarrassing.  But, Joaquin doesn’t like Sidetracks either, because he thinks Showtunes and 80s Request nights are “embarrassing” too.  He refuses to march in Pride as well, because that’s “embarrassing”, so he’s embarrassed by all sorts of things.

Not all gay guys are like Panda, flaming loud and proud and always being the life of the party.  Joaquin likes the label “straight-acting” even if he’s 100% out here in Chicago, but still closeted to his family back home in Texas.  At 32, he still shops at Aberzombie or Hollister, and uses ‘Sup as a greeting. So, Panda and he can be like oil and water sometimes, and are best when not paired together exclusively on a project, because Panda’s always trying to get Joaquin to wear a beret or some other crazy ethnic hat, and Joaquin’s forever trying to get Panda to “tone it down a notch, dude”.

Someday, we think those two will be married.  They both hate when we say that, but it’s funny and true.  It would make a great sitcom, trust us.

When Panda approached the rest of us in the back, of course we heard people shouting PANDA! as he worked his way through the crowd in Scarlet, stopping here and there to hug various bar friends, making sure to tell every third girl he saw how pretty she is (because he insists this is his solemn duty as a gay man, to positively reinforce the good fashion choices women make…this from a man who looks like he rolled out of Studio 54′s coat check, after getting dressed in the dark…though he does SOMEHOW manage to pull it all off). When he made it to us, “Crazy” was just winding down, and Panda was all out of breath from the walk/dancing/waving/compliment-giving-and-receiving.

“Sorry I’m late, but I forgot where I was going.  I thought Scarlet burnt down, but I guess it’s still here, because it didn’t burn down after all”.

There was a fire at Scarlet last year, and the original bar burned down one night.  They rebuilt, and have been open for months, and Panda’s been there with us many times already, including re-opening night when the place was packed with go-go boys dressed memorably as hunky firefighters, but whenever he’s hours late, he makes up an excuse like this.  We, of course, just let it slide.  His employers, however, never seem to understand why Panda thought Macy’s or Lord & Taylor “burnt down” or accept that as a reason why he was late for work, again.  ” I forgot where it was and went to the wrong one,” is also not a valid employer excuse, as Panda has learned.

Good thing little old ladies love getting their makeup done by “Mr. Panda”, or he’d be out of work.

“It’s boring in here, let’s go,” Panda said, before he even had a drink, which he blamed on his ADD.  Really, once he gets to make his big entrance, the rest of a night is anticlimactic and he just wants to head to another bar to make a big entrance there, too, or hopefully run into one of the various drag queens he’s “feuding” with around town.

“Feuds” to Panda are what bamboo is to, well, actual non-gay, non-fabulous, real and legitimate pandas.

As we were leaving Scarlet, some random football-player looking guy grabbed Sebastian by the arm and demanded to know “what nationality are you?”.

Sebastian’s the tallest of all of us, and though he swears he never works out, still has the body of the high school and college hockey player he used to be, with dark hair, dark eyes, and pale skin that for some reason makes Chicagoans obsessed with figuring out “what nationality” he is.  Whenever we go out, at least one guy in every bar will grab him and demand to know where “he’s from”.

“I’m American” is Bast’s stock reply, as he, as politely as possible, lifts the other guy’s hand off his bicep and tries to make his way through the crowd to the door.

“No, where is your family from?”, the Random pressed, and Bast just said, “Ohio” and kept trying to head for the door. If they press further, Bast says “Cleveland” and that’s about it.

“Listen, buddy, just drop it.  We’re leaving.  He doesn’t want to talk to you, “American” is his answer, so leave it at that,” Robby interjected, trying to head things off before they turned into the 3,569th performance of a one-act, crappy play all of us have seen staged time and again over the last three years here in Chicago.

Robby’s a little blond, all-American guy who’s an almost dead-ringer for a tone-deaf version of Neil Patrick Harris’ kid brother. So, him “standing up” for Bast is like a feisty Jack Russell intervening on behalf of a Great Dane, who can more than take care of himself (and cross-check you into next Tuesday).  It’s kind of funny, actually.  But, all of us are as sick of the “nationality expert” garbage as Sebastian is of getting it.  Constantly.

When we were outside, walking up Halsted towards Hydrate, Panda asked Bast why he hates that question so much.

“You know, I know you don’t like this, but I don’t know why it bothers you so much.  Why don’t you just tell them what you are?”, Panda wondered, adjusting his hat and glasses, before stopping to tell an otherwise plain Jane that he LOVED her sparkly periwinkle scarf.  Her face lit up, she said thank you, and Panda double-timed it to catch up with the rest of us.  Huffing and puffing like he’d just run a marathon, when really he just ran passed the windows of Nookie’s Tree, more skipping than anything.

“I don’t like it, Panda, because I’m American.  When they ask me “what are you?”, I tell them I am American and they don’t accept that as a valid answer, and so I don’t know what else to say.  I have no immigrant relatives.  I don’t give a flying f*** about Europe.  I’ve been there dozens of times since I was a little kid, and it’s a backwards, lost place that had its chance.  People come to America to be Americans and to be part of something better than the place they left.  I love this country with my whole heart and I’d fight and die for it any day of the week, if they’d let me.  I’d be a United States Marine if I could be. So, I don’t have allegiance to someplace people I’m related to lived hundreds of years ago, and I don’t really give a damn about any of those dead people.  I care about the people alive in my life today, and the country I live in and love here and now.  That’s why it bothers me, because those idiots don’t just leave it at that.”

“I still don’t get it.  Just say “French” or “Hungarian” or “Italian” or something and they’d just shut up, you know they would, so just say it”.

“Because, Panda, he doesn’t want to say that,” Robby chimed in. “It’s not how he feels and he doesn’t want to read from their script and tell them what they want to hear.  If they ask him a question, he answers it the way HE wants to.”

“You should just say Italian and be done with it”.

“Well, I’m not Italian, so that’s wrong to me.  I’m American.  I don’t know anyone in Italy.  I don’t think I have any relatives who lived there, unless you want to go back to the days of the Roman Empire, in which case, probably a lot of my relatives were wearing togas and watching lions rip people to shreds.  If these nationality experts go back far enough, apparently we’re all from Africa, and that first tribe of humanoids that crawled out of a gully and into the savanah to start the Holocene era.  So, maybe I should tell these idiots I’m African.  But, that won’t shut them up either.  All I want, really, is to just be able to go out with my friends and not have these jerks grab me and start this nationality expert crap.  I really start to hate this city sometimes.  I really and truly do”.

Someday, we’ll find a good way to articulate exactly what bothers Sebastian about the nationality question.  There has to be a way to communicate this in a sentence or two, but it’s a very emotional thing for him, centering on the fact that he loves this country, has never known a loyalty to any other country, and he gets upset when Liberals insist America isn’t good enough to accept as an answer to the question…and that some random far-away place needs to be talked about when the greatest country in the world is the one we live in.  It’s insulting to Sebastian, and to the rest of us, really, because if Europe was so great, then why do people leave and move here?  If Europe was so great when all of our ancestors left there, why did they leave?  When do you stop going back in time to say where you are “from”?  Is it 100 years ago?  Is it 200 years ago?  Why not 3,000 years ago?  Who gets to define when “from” is?

And it’s hilarious Panda weighs in on this question at all because we’re his friends and only one of us even knows his real name.  None of us know where he’s “from”, and he was actually born in another country and only became a citizen in 2008, after living here on a green card for many years, because he wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton and decided to study and take the citizenship test and make things legitimate, at last.  Panda’s “from” somewhere in Asia, but calls himself “Gaysian” when asked “what are you?” by randoms in a bar.

“I am Gaysian.  And when I say that, people laugh, and then they stop caring and ask me about my hat or glasses or something,” Panda said, yet again not taking the opportunity to narrow down where he was born.  China? Japan? Vietnam? Korea?  The Philippines?  Your guess is as good as ours…only we’re not guessing because Panda is an American, and has the citizenship papers and passport to prove it.

Plus, even more than that, if someone asks “what” Panda is, we say he’s our friend, that’s “what” and “who” he is.  And that’s good enough for us…even if he does embarrass Joaquin occasionally (they are so getting married some day, we swear).

When we got to Hydrate, we instantly spotted one of the best drag queens, Cyon Flare, who was dressed head to toe in a stunning Moulin Rouge-inspired blue can-can outfit with tiny little top hat, which on a 6’4″ towering black drag queen had the effect of making her seem even more larger than life.  Cyon is just amazing, people, with the wildest makeup and fashions, coupled with the sweetest and most endearing heart.

Of course, Panda’s “feuding” with her, in one of his many feuds of which the other party is wholly unaware.  This is similar to Robby’s sister, Ann-Louise, and her decades-long grudge match with Sarah Michelle Gellar (whom Ann-Louise believes “stole” the titular role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer from her, even though it was Kristi Swanson who went up against her in the audition for the movie Buffy, and not the TV show Buffy.  “But nobody knows who Gloria Swanson or whoever is, except gay guys, so it doesn’t get me anywhere to feud with her”, Ann-Louise explains, to us, and to Sarah Michelle’s assistant several times a year whenever she calls her agency to try to re-stoke “the blood feud”).

“Oh, it’s ON bitches, Cyon’s here.  Time for a dance-off,” Panda snapped.  “It’s time for a re-match, and I’m ready.  Somebody start playing my song!”.

“But, Panda, you won the last time, remember?  Even Cyon said so, she was all tired out and bowed to you and said, “Nobody dances better than Panda!” and everything.  Remember?”, Robby counseled.

“Yah, but that didn’t count.  I want a re-match because I learned some new moves and I’m going to mop the floor with her!”.

Truth be told, Cyon Flare is such a wonderful human being that she let Panda win that dance-off, because she knew it was much more important to Panda than it was to her.  Afterwards, Sebastian went up to her and thanked her profusely for being such a good sport, and humoring a slightly intoxicated Panda. “Oh, honey, I’m happy to do it. Let him have his fun.  And he really CAN dance.  I just want everyone to be excellent to each other, that’s how we all should be, all of us, every day.”

To that end, Cyon’s been trying to form a “Justice League of Drag Queens” in Boystown, getting together all the “girls” who perform around town, and uniting then for common charitable causes.  All of the various queens have their own following and separate gigs hosting various parties and theme nights at all the different bars.  Cyon hosts some shows at Hydrate, including the male burlesque Sidedoor Johnnies Show on Thursdays.  Miss Foozie, the white-wigged pineapple-loving unofficial Mayor of Boystown (kind of like our Mickey Mouse, dressed as Minnie Mouse, who is a quasi-mascot in the neighborhood), does Male Call at Roscoe’s on Sundays, and events and parties at Circuit and Cocktail and other things.  There’s also Honey West, Frita Lay, Jade (from RuPaul’s Drag Race), and other excellent performers.  All of whom, we stress, are some of the nicest people we have ever met, in and out of character.

There’s also a new performer, “Baby Googoo”, who is a spot-on Lady Gaga impersonator, who we believe is in reality Panda in drag, but he won’t admit it.

“I’m not Baby Googoo, stop saying that.  I don’t dress up in drag,” Panda scolds, whenever we bring up the fact that we’ve never seen him and “The Baby” together in the same place at the same time.  So, that’s suspicious, because whenever any celebrity is in Chicago, Panda’s usually right at her side, showing her around town.

“Well, we’ve seen you with Cyndi Lauper, Elton John, Aaron Schock, that gardener from Desperate Housewives, Kathy Griffin, and all sorts of other people, so we know you aren’t them,  but you and Baby Googoo have never been anywhere together, so it makes us wonder. That’s all we’re saying”.

He’s so Baby Googoo.  And he’ll admit it eventually, but is probably afraid Joaquin would laugh at him, more so than usual. Despite his insatiable appetite for feuding, Panda is a soft and fragile soul.

The funny thing is that it takes more courage and strength to perform in drag than it does to do just about anything else out there.  A guy has to be really secure with himself and know truly who he is inside as a man to be able to create a believable drag alter-ego and hit the streets taking all the abuse that will be flung at him.  The rest of us do not have the guts to do that, we’re sure. Panda sure does, so in that way he’s more a man than the rest of us combined.  Wearing those Mr. Furly checkered pants ALONE was brave.

Drag queens were the first volley in the Stonewall resistance back in 1969, when they stood up and threw the first punches against the New York City police department’s brutal attacks on the gay community. They remain leaders in Boystown, as clowns to bring laughter and fun, as attention-getting spokespeople to draw attention to things that are important, and, quite honestly, as angels and fairy godmothers who walk the streets and light into bars to bring love and positivity to people who need it.  Cyon Flare for one, has done many interviews where she talks about guys coming up to her and telling her their relationship problems, or talking about how their parents hate them because they are gay, and Cyone gives them a great big hug and for that moment makes things better.

It would be wonderful if actual parents could give their sons those hugs, instead of leaving it up to a giant black man in a dress, as wonderful as he is.  But, maybe someday queens won’t have to play the part moms, aunties, and grandmas should be playing.  Not everyone’s mom is a PFLAG all-star like Robby’s own Pattymelt.  They should be, but that’s life. And Patricia Melton is one in a million.

“The Justice League of Drag Queens” concept is just wonderful, because if each of these ladies is spreading so much joy and raising so many spirits individually, just imagine what they could do if they joined forces (kind of like the Mineral City Coffee Club, which is an assemblage of the best investigative and political minds in central Ohio, joined together over coffee every morning in Pattymelt’s kitchen).  It would be kind of incredible, so we’re going to keep watching what Cyon Flare is up to, and hope this Justice League can form, and maybe educate the guys in Boystown so that they aren’t just getting their news from MSNBC.  It would take a miracle for even a Justice League to get guys to think for themselves, and we have no delusion the League would talk about anything besides gay issues (so, no Global Warming doesn’t cause earthquakes education, people), but we have hope for something good to come from this.

And if anyone can make it happen, it’s Cyon.  Someone who’d let Panda win a dance-off because his self-esteem and ego needed it is a queen whose heart is ten sizes too big, and we expect VERY big things from her in the future.

We ended up closing the night out at Sidetracks, where Sebastian only got the nationality question two more times, deflecting them both relatively easily.  Randomly, we ran into our friend Diane from the Hillary campaign, whom we haven’t seen since Clinton suspended (but never ended) her presidential run.

Diane phonebanked at Buzzquarters almost every day with us for months.  She’s an awesome, awesome person…and, apparently, one of those beautiful straight women who like coming to gay bars once in a while, to “scope hot guys and look but not touch”.

In catching up, sadly, we learned Diane’s firm went under in the last year.  She lost everything, and things were tough for a while, but she found a new job with the state and is doing well, so we’re relieved.

There was an awkward moment where we hoped against hope that Diane hadn’t turned into an Obot. To our knowledge, none of our Team Hillary here in Chicago became Obots.  One guy, Deacon, ended up working for the Utopia campaign after Hillary suspended, because Deacon wants to run for office and had to stay in good graces with the party here in Chicago.  So, like it or not, Deacon did what was best for himself long term, so we can’t fault him.  Everyone needs a job, and if you want to be elected to something in Chicago, you can’t cross The Machine.  As we have well-learned.

Diane, however, told us straight up she thinks Dr. Utopia is, in her words, “an unmitigated disaster”.  “It’s even worse than I thought it would be,” she told us.  “And I saw that you guys are Republicans now, which is weird, but I consider myself an independent because I don’t recognize the Democrat Party anymore”.

We corrected her, because we’re not Republicans.  We’re conservative/moderate Democrats, who also can’t recognize the Democrat party anymore, because the party as we know it doesn’t exist anymore.

Diane said, “Well, I saw you did all that Democrats for McCain stuff, and you love Sarah Palin.  I just hate her.  I do.  I don’t want to get into it with you because I’m drunk, but I hate her.  I just hate her.  I can’t do it”.

THAT took us for a big surprise, and Diane wouldn’t elaborate or give us a reason why she hated Palin, but we told her that Palin is 100% right on everything we’ve ever heard her say or do, and that we most definitely will be phone-banking and campaigning for her in 2012.

“Well, I won’t be coming to Buzzquarters to do that, but I miss you guys and want to catch up”, Diane said, and we parted for the night intending to get together soon, where we’ll hopefully find out more about why she says she hates Sarah Palin.

That’s an interesting perspective, of a diehard daily Hillary phonebanker who does not support Dr. Utopia, thinks he is a terrible president, but who claims she hates Sarah Palin.  So we wonder what she’s going to do going forward.

When we have lunch with her, we’ll be sure to fill you in.

Just as we’ll keep you updated on all the adventures in Boystown, as long as you keep wanting to hear about them.