OakMonster’s Den

Hey, it’s STILL Friday! And a double feature!

Me and Nhien got all goofy at Amy’s house.  And you know when people gather at Amy’s house, good times are ALWAYS had.

We partied among Amy’s fellow international MBA graduates from USC.  The world came together in this history Spanish home in Glendale, and so was the food.  There were the famous Pete’s tri-tip, Korean barbecue, lamb skewers, Chinese barbecue duck and crispy pork.  Then there were Tsing Tao, Dos Equis, Heineken, and wine of all variety and regions.

We ate. We drank. We talked. We laughed.  Tons of innuendos and inside jokes floating about everywhere.  Those lovely wigs included.  (Pete will provide accompanying video which I will surely share later on.)

Seriously good times had by all!

Oh, and yeah, hello there boys and girls from the party!  If y’all had my Moo card (and if you remember what the hell it is the next morning), you should be reading this by now.

Master Greg and his friends joined Brandon and I last night out on the hard stone grounds of the Orange County Performing Arts Center for “The Muppet Movie” under the stars. The movie was free, however the parking was $8 a car. Brandon and I had to drive separately so it wasn’t too “free” for us. But if I didn’t leave early like I did, we wouldn’t have any place to sit down. And thanks to a tip on Yelp, we did bring enough cushioning to sit comfortably for the hard floor.

The grounds was packed with both outer and inner children of all ages. Everybody STILL loves the Muppets!

I remembered watching the Muppet Movie a long, long time ago. Again, one of those I saw before I understood English properly or any of the humor. What I remember most is the fact that I was freaking out at seeing Kermit’s legs! Him riding the Schwinn terrified me for a few moments. And then I remember the “Fork in the Road”. I didn’t know what that means, but I remember seeing that fork on the road and wonder, why was there a fork in the road? Americans are so funny.

Being there with 3 gay guys, of course, any mentioning of “bears” was hilarious. “Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear,” got the most giggles. Added, predictably by our band of chorus, “Guess what else in the American bear swell?”

More giggling ensues at Dr. Bunsen’s lab in the ghost town outpost.

Floyd Pepper: [about the growth solution] What else do these pills make big?
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew: Oh, they work on anything, but the effect is sadly temporary.

The adults in the audience cracked up all over the grounds. More importantly, it took grandpa in front of us a few seconds to get what all the other dirty minds were thinking, then he started laughing. That set us off into an entirely different giggle.

Throughout the show, we were singing along and interjecting our own sound effects. There’s nothing like the crowd going “Hiiiii-yah!” when Miss Piggy went kung fu on the baddies or “A-ni-mal! A-ni-mal!” growls at any time Animal was on.

Good fun for everyone last night.

ETA: We also never realized how much of a drag queen that blondie in Electric Mayhem is!  Good god.

I have made a complete transitioned into piratehood last night as everything I drank was made with rum.

Rum. Yum.

I can blame Master Greg for this new addiction.  The orange juice + 7up + rum that he had at his 4th of July party got me hooked.  So if I’m don’t feel like a beer and can’t really handle a martini, I ended up asking the bartender to surprise me with “something with rum, just not coke”.

Last night, as you might have seen the updates on my Twitter, was hell of fun.  One of my rare impromptu night out, and the first one with my coworkers Dave and Nik and former coworker Erin.  It all started innocently enough.

I got a few usual suspects together after work last night at Suede to congratulate Nik on his upcoming wedding.  Great turn out for this non-bachelor party for the Groom To Be!  [Insert 1.5 servings of the OakMonster: orange juice, grenadine and rum.)  Dave kept trying to leave to head home so he could party in his neck of the woods, the east end of West Hollywood, without having to worry about driving.  After much discussion and convincing, the Groom, Sequoia, Erin and I decided to converged with Dave in a few hours.

First stop, Bar Lubitsch.  This is where I had the best rum drink ever, served up by our gorgeous bartender.  Dark and Stormy consists of dark rum, lime juice, and ginger beer.  Obviously a rare find at bars because most place doesn’t carry ginger beer.  So. Totally. Delicious.  Here an absinthe drinking lady befriended us.  I got to finally taste absinthe.  And it wasn’t pretty.

I did enjoy the taste.  However, if there is no chance that you’d hallucinate on the U.S. version, why bother, really?  Without the real green fairy, absinthe is just like fancy licorice Everclear…

…which when Nik arrived, he ordered a properly prepared glass.  And the boy DOWNED it at the encouragement of 2 Ruskies next to us.  I mean, Nik shot the fucking absinthe!

The rest of the evening was filled with more booze, a little dancing, equal parts of trash talking about other people and some soul gazing, deep conversation.

Oh, and then we hopped the bar over to our original first choice (which Sequoia couldn’t locate and therefore went on with her friends to party elsewhere), Winstons.  Very cool bar.  Here I sipped dark rum, pineapple juice, triple sec and soda concoction.  We also had stopped counting what number of beer Erin was on, nor the vodka and cranberry or Greyhound Dave and Nik were having.  We did, however, took notice that I seriously banged my knee on one of their chic black  wooden chair.  The girls at the table went “Ooooh!” when I hit it.  I kept walking on to walk off the pain.  But I mean, seriously, a BLACK chair in a dark club.  Whose fuckin’ brilliant idea was that?

Not a few minutes after Nik left, some big Asian girl grabbed Erin and started dancing with her.  Erin laughed her butt off and looked at Dave and me.  The Asian Girl saw Dave and dragged him off the bar stool to dance with her.

Well, more like groping Dave and molesting him for a few minutes.

Erin and I couldn’t even sit on the bar stool we were laughing so hard at Dave’s desperate and feeble attempt to get away, and his pleading expression for us to bail him out.

On that high note, Erin and I left Dave to himself and headed to Astro Burger.  And wow, the BEST veggie burger I’ve ever had in my life!  Then again, I was buzzed and hungry.  But man, that sounds REALLY good right now!

I got home around 2 a.m.  And predictably passed out.

And now, here I am, nursing a minor hangover and a swollen welt on my left knee cap.

But my god.  That was THE BEST TIME I’ve had this year!

An internet pass-around from Raven X.

What to do:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s Flickr Toys.

Answer these questions…

1. What is your first name? - Oakley
2. What is your favorite food? - Japanese food
3. What high school did you go to? - Santa Margarita Catholic HS
4. What is your favorite color? - Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? - Jason Statham (Hellooo Delicious!)
6. Favorite drink? - Guinness
7. Dream vacation? - Kuaii
8. Favorite dessert? - Creme Brulee
9. What you want to be when you grow up? - Philanthropist
10. What do you love most in life? - Music
11. One Word to describe you. - Quirky
12. Your flickr name - OakMonster

Do yours and share your link here! 

Upon arriving back at the house, Brandon mentioned that James needed to take a break for a while since he’s been with Dresden all day. So the boys plus Bob went to get donuts and coffee. Since neither of the girls had dinner yet, we packed Dresden in a car and headed out to pick up greasy goodness at John’s.

Dresden was happy most of the time until he realized a) the car stopped moving, and later, b) he was finally really, really hungry. Otherwise, that kid was the happiest kid on the planet the entire time.

See?

Pretty much the same way he was yesterday at Girls Night Out. Aurora, Lee, Lupe, and myself went to Joe’s Sushi with Dresden. We passed him around the table so Aurora can eat. Everyone had a different style that night. Lupe just plopped Dresden on her massive boobs.

“Oh, you wish these were working pairs, don’t you, kid?” she said at one point.

I took the walking route and gave Dresden a tour of the restaurant. Lee was more of the quietly swaying type, and managed to get Dresden to take a nap as we were paying our bills. We did really realize the true meaning of how it really does take a village to raise a child and develop a new sense of appreciation for single mom everywhere.

The nap didn’t last very long as when we got out of the car at Aurora’s, the little flirt was wide awake and smiling at everybody all over again.

“Ah, crap,” Aurora said. “He’ll be at it for another 3 hours. I’m never going to go to sleep tonight.”

Whoops.

On the same note of being supportive of people you care about, Bill wasn’t on the bus yesterday but the support for Gunny continues.

Lee on The Bus donned his USMC t-shirt although you can’t really see that on him.

I was thinking of doing the same but I figured you can’t really a shirt when the print is in the back and when we are all sitting down on the bus. So I brought mine and draped it across the chair for all to see.

Let me just say that if that commie who complained was on the bus that day, that should be a strong statement to him/her.

Gunny was very appreciative of all of our continuous support.

Welcome aboard the most patriotic bus in the region!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy ID4!

Me? Not doing much. Just chillin’ here with the hubby for the day. The biggest plan of the evening is me cooking up a couple of filet mignon for dinner.

However, you can see from my Twitter history that last night at Master Greg was quite fun.

I went to the party with Aurora. Poor thing, Dresden was a little brat all day apparently. Well, until we were leaving the house when he was in an absolute bliss, laughing and cooing all over the place. So it was a good few hours off for mommy.

But of course, Mommy got tired so we had to go. But then Shane and Tamara showed up, so I stayed behind and hitched a ride home with them instead. I haven’t been up until 2 and feeling buzzed for a long, long, LONG time.

Rum + Orange juice + 7up = My new favorite drink. Hmm. Rum.

Oh and so many gay boys to gawk at at Greg’s party. And even a few straight ones! At some point, Tamara and I were on rooftop, being introduced to someone’s straight guy friend as “the other token straights”. Now that guy was soooo good to stare at. LOL.

And speaking of hot, as we were telling Greg about being the token straights, he started to tell us that one of his friend wanted to know who the “straight hot bear in a hat with a goatee” was. Then he kind of squealed.

“Oh my GOD! Shane! He was talking about YOU!!”

The hot bear in a hat. He’s NEVER going to live this one down.

George Michael. 25 Live.

Amazing.

Master Greg and I went on our “first date” last night at the Honda Center. We arrived a little early, grabbed a few drinks and headed for our seats. The seats weren’t bad at all for something you’ve won from a contest. And our neighbors were all very cool.

It’s the first time I’ve ever realized how powerful some of his lyrics are. I mean, seriously. I haven’t really paid attention. Suddenly, George has become my songwriting hero. And inspiration.

He sounds exactly like his records. His voice is amazing. Sometime during “Roxanne”, I turned to Greg.

“I want to put him in a gilded cage so he can sing for me everyday.”

“I want to put him in my bed and make him sing a totally different tune,” he replied.

Oh yes.  Gay or straight, the man is still pretty hot.  He still sounds like he does back in the days.  Still shakes his booty the same good way we all remember too.

Oh, how we both loved the concert.

I took a few videos but they were all grainy. So I’m going to borrow some clips from another concert goer just to share the joy.

It was hot as hell at AIDS Walk Long Beach. But we did it.

Yey, us!

…is half of a Max Burger at 410 Boyd.

(The EQUAL packet is for scale. AND Erin and I shared this puppy.)

+ a pint of draft Red Trolley Ale

+ laid back but attentive bartender/waiter Jared.  *Hi!*

+ great friends with awesome sense of humor

So the Lesser Weevils had our little fundraiser dinner tonight at Thai Issan in Cerritos.  Samone and Tom, the owner, graciously donated 10% of our tab to AIDS Walk.

And they are promising 15% donation from now until June 27, one week after the walk (which I can still turn my money in, I think) at their other restaurant, the Delightful Crepes Cafe in Long Beach.  The Yelp review for the place is a little iffy.  Even I who had been there once think the place still needs a little work.  But they ARE working on improving the menu.  Give it a shot if you want to try something new.

Delightful Crepes Cafe
1190 Studebaker Rd
Long Beach, CA 90815

At least give a new place a try WHILE SUPPORT THE WEEVILS! Just tell your waiter that you’re supporting Oakley’s Team at AIDS Walk Long Beach, and they’ll make a note of it.

Or you can just donate to the Weevils directly and not try a new restaurant.  Up to you.  Any kind of donation helps.