Stella Boston is an Italian restaurant in the South End that I enjoy for food and cocktails. The bar staff are among my favorite in the city and the crowd is always friendly.
Here I am with my former trainer, Stew, Sergio, and my current trainer, Kris. These guys are as friendly and nice as they are handsome. Both of them are great trainers at the South End Boston Sports Club (BSC).
Temperatures in Boston spiked today, with the mercury climbing into the upper 90s (for those outside the United States that translates to 35-36 degrees C). It is the middle of the week and I’ve already clocked 30+ hours, but I’m determined to enjoy the evening since I barely looked outside my window all day. I’m going to meet a friend at a neighborhood restaurant / bar called Tremont 647.
When the weather is beautiful and you want to let off some steam or get caught up with a buddy where do you like to go? Share the names and locations of your favorite places.
Hanging with the handsome and flirtatious Matt Kurkowski at Boston Pride’s 2012 Sunday block party. This former Men of Twitter (from May 2011) is a great guy. If you are on Twitter check out and follow Matt at @MKurkowski.
Last night Sergio and I went to a dinner party hosted by a friend and blogger of the gorgeous blog, Frenchie and the Yankee. The name of the blog refers to the writer who is originally from France and his partner who is of solid Midwestern stock.
We first met at a mutual friend’s birthday party last fall and shortly after started bumping into each other around the neighborhood (notably at Melanie’s killer abs class at Boston Sports Club South End).
Anyone who is familiar with Frenchie and the Yankee blog knows David has an exceptional eye and marries many of his posts with beautiful images of food he cooks / bakes. Having now sampled his cooking firsthand, I can assure you it is as delicious as it looks. The dinner party was such a wonderful start to our weekend, and I wanted to post a quick thank you to both David (a.k.a. “Frenchie”) and Mark (a.k.a. “the Yankee”) for inviting us to their home.
This past weekend I attended a wedding, and the justice of the peace pointed out while the tradition of marriage is not new, the two getting married were among the first generation of gay men in the US to legally wed each other. So I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize the two grooms, Jason and Randy who invited me to bear witness to their ceremony and say, “Thank you.”
Their reasons for marrying had little to do with politics and more to do with a desire to build a life together, but their actions taken in context of a larger trend show that as more men and women come out of the closet and come together the taboo of being “gay” is disappearing. Massachusetts would have never legalized gay marriage in 2004 had it not been for the tens of thousands of gay men and women who stepped out from the closet in the 70s, 80s, 90s and even recently.
For those living in places where being gay is still “bad” or “wrong” I hope you read this post and can see your future in the life Jason and Randy are now starting together. No matter where you live in this country, the laws are changing because the public’s perception of what it means to be gay is changing, and a lot of that is due to men like Jason and Randy who are just living the American Dream with a bit of a gay twist.
Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. A cultural and religious holiday commemorating Saint Patrick – the patron saint of Ireland. While I cannot speak for Ireland, it seems the holiday here in the U.S. shares more in common with Cinqo de Mayo and Fat Tuesday. Random holidays that are now used as excuses to meet up with friends to have a drink.
Unlike those other dates, cities around the world (Boston included) will host parades and festivities celebrating all things “Irish”. For me, St. Patrick’s Day is synonymous with “bar” and in particular “beer”. So get your green on, hang out with some friends and toast St. Patrick today.
Here is a picture I just received of me yakking it up with my good friend Ben at a Christmas Party in Boston earlier this month. Ben is one of the men who will be joining Sergio and me on our maiden voyage next month.
Its unbelievable to me that 10 years ago yesterday (September 9, 2001) I said good night to my friend Graham (pictured above). He was leaving for L.A. in two days, and we were to connect the following weekend so he could tell me about the trip which was a mixture of business and pleasure.
September 11th remains etched in my memory. I was unemployed at the time and at home so I actually saw the smoke from the first plane that had flown into the WTC, but my mind couldn’t really process what I saw on the news. While showing live footage of the initial crash I watched the second plane (UA FLT 175 – the plane as it turns out Graham was on) fly into the WTC.
For the past week, my very good friend and former roommate, his wife and their 10-month daughter, Taylor, have been staying with us. Its been fantastic for me to catch up, relax and chat with Mom, Dad and to meet Taylor for the first time.
This trip was full of firsts for Taylor. It was the first time she met me and a lot of her Dad’s friends, it was the first time she saw rain (they live in Austin which is in the midst of a terrible drought) and the first time she was on a swing (which she enjoyed quite a bit). There were some other firsts related to her diet which caused her Mom to raise her eyebrows and threaten Dad with diaper duty. However, all told it was a very pleasant week and now I’ll miss them quite a bit as I hug them goodbye and wish them safe travels back to Austin, TX.
I arrived in NYC on Friday with my buddy Paul for a fun weekend in the city. We took the Acela from Amtrak down to the city and arrived in plenty of time to enjoy Boxers, crazy happy hour festivities.
Bars are not allowed to have happy hour promotions in Massachusetts so true to form we drank more than intended and left pleasantly buzzed with plans to head out to Hell’s Kitchen after a quick pit stop back at the hotel to freshen up and a quick bite to eat.
We’d both been to Hell’s Kitchen but it had been several years (at least for me since my previous visit). One of the things I really like about the neighborhood is how easy it is to bar hop. We started by checking out Industry. It was one of the busier bars we visited and the music was great, but neither Paul nor I were feeling it so we walked across the street to Therapy. However, Therapy was fairly dead by comparison so we opted to head over to Ritz.
Entering Ritz would make just about anyone feel claustrophobic but of all the places, this had the most energy and the by far – the best people watching. We worked our way to the back room and danced up along the walls.
Paul and I spent most of the evening watching a young couple “get familiar” with each other, some A-List wannabes with killer bodies shake their groove thing and chatting with people to our left and right – there always seemed to be a constant ebb and flow that brought a new someone every 5-10 minutes.
There are plenty of other bars all close by and when visiting its so easy to bar hop its enough to make my head spin. What bars in HK do you like and why? Leave a comment to share because I’m hoping I can head back soon.
How does a guy from Boston (a town best known for perpetuating preppy) end up looking like a porn extra? Its easy, just spend an afternoon in the Haight in San Francisco with Sean and David (pictured below)… I look like a cross between Captain Stubing and a Solid Gold Dancer… sorry for the early 80s reference, but its the best I can come up with…
Curious who dressed me? This handsome couple, Sean & David… You may recall I met these guys last summer and participated in their wedding as they eloped to Provincetown to get married because their home (California) is too small minded to be able to conceive of two men living happily ever after. I shouldn’t come down too hard on California. If those state residents hadn’t been so small minded with their vote on Prop 8, we would have never met and they’ve been such a wonderful couple to get to know (despite their fashion sense).
Work rarely takes me away from home for more than a day, but tomorrow (Wednesday) I leave for San Francisco. I’m using the opportunity to extend my stay through the weekend to visit with friends.
I was in San Francisco last summer for work, but the trip was a blur. I arrived in the evening and flew out the following day before lunch. This trip will afford me the opportunity to enjoy the city and get caught up with friends. I will be staying at the Fairmont San Francisco for the conference that is bringing me to California. This is a charming property that is fairly central. After the conference I will head over to my friend’s Sean and David where they have offered to host me in their Castro Apartment. I’m really looking forward to seeing them and my good friend Jeff.
I don’t anticipate having much time to blog, but I will be tweeting on my account, twitter.com/BosGuy.
Quick Update Just got upgraded by the Fairmont thanks to my tweets about travel. One more reason I love Twitter.
Today is my birthday… not a milestone like last year but still a fun day is planned with family and friends.
My brother’s birthday is next week so we’ve combined our celebrations and will be heading to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox game this afternoon joined by about 30 others. The day has started sunny but brisk (in the low 50s BRRRR). Hopefully the sun will remain and the mercury will start to rise before game time in a few hours.
My birthday wish this year would be that you have a wonderful day. Let’s spread some good karma around.
This morning I had the opportunity to meet another guy whom I chat with on Twitter and who’s blog I’ve followed off and on for awhile now. Incidentally, I just added his blog in my “stuff I read” section. I feel somewhat fortunate in the fact that everyone I’ve met in person has been so nice and interesting; I must have good twitter and blogger karma.
Anyway, Thom (of TeachingThomas fame) was so sweet and nice, what started as a “let’s meet for coffee” turned into a “let’s have breakfast”. Thom lived in Boston for several years, but moved back to his native Maine and lives in the Portland area now. He comes back to Boston frequently, so I’m looking forward to seeing him again and getting to know him better.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Thom is a bit of a techie so I asked for his help with Facebook too. Alas, my problems with leveraging that site persist. I can’t seem to figure out how to make sure people on facebook can find my blog page there, but I wanted to say thank you to Thom for all his help and patience.
Last night I was able to finally meet Alan Ilagan. I first started reading Alan’s blog about a year ago when I stumbled upon it quite by accident. At the time he was fixated on planning his wedding to his partner, Andy. I enjoyed reading about his dashes from Albany (where he and Andy live) to his pied-a-terre in Boston to tend to the endless list of details pertaining to the pending nuptials.
It is a strange thing when you meet someone who you know so much about but have never met in person. I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few bloggers since starting BosGuy and without fail it has always been a great experience. However, when you meet someone for the first time after reading about their life for a year, inevitably you end up referencing or inquiring about events blogged about from the past. While much of the conversation revolved around past posts, more time was spent chatting about the ridiculous ranging from urban myths to funny trips. I look forward to having cocktails with Alan in the near future again since he regularly makes visits to Boston.
BosGuy 