England Swings Like a Pendulum Do. If By Pendulum You Mean 50,000 Square Miles Inhabited by 51 Million People Ruled by Constitutional Monarchy.

I have been to London!

I have met the Queen!

Actually, two queens.

Co-owners of 69theGrope.

I mean, 69theGrove, the charming B&B where we stayed in Vauxhall, a quiet residential neighborhood where visitors can enjoy some good clean fun.

We met in church David said, squeezing Kanley's hand.

Normally, I'm not that comfortable staying in the sort of place where you have to stare at a notecard proclaiming Christ is Risen while you eat breakfast. But in this instance, Christ seemed to be risen from his disco nap, just before slipping on some tight pants and heading out to the local.

Because London is all about a good time.

I know what you're thinking, dear reader. Wasn't traveling difficult with my current injury? Well, though the flight was no picnic (despite the presence of plastic cutlery), the week itself was great, since like certain other international travelers, I realized the value of having a strong young man to tote my luggage.

Of course, when you've been with someone as long as I've been with the Cheez, you know he isn't merely a rent boy. More a long-term lease boy.

Remind me to use my stomach muscles to support my spine I said before we departed. Which he took as license to spend the entire week shouting Suck in that gut, soldier.

England was very educational. Even the flight over, on which we watched The Young Victoria like we were cramming for the history exam.

Here's what I learned: circa 1830, sending a chick sheet-music was the equivalent of making her a mixed tape in 1987.

If my knowledge of Brit history was shoddy, my knowledge of Brit geography was even worse. Riding the tube from Heathrow to the B&B, I realized that everything I knew about London came from Clash songs.

White Mac at Hammersmith Tube Stop

As we wandered around the city that first day, I did manage to recognize Buckingham Palace. Even without the usual assortment of flowers and teddy bears they festoon it with every time something so crap happens in Britain they put it on the American tellie.

Oh my, I hope they aren't going to pre-empt my Wheel of Fortune for this one

Tellie, btw, is British for T.V. This is one of the confusing things about Britain: they barely speak English over there.

Fancy a fag? is British for Want a cigarette? whereas Fancy a bloke? is British for Fancy a fag? It's an amazing place, really.

Speaking of fancy fags, at the Tate Britain we learned about the early-17th-century roots of Glam Rock, as in this stunning work, Portrait of James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, Later 3rd Marquis and 1st Duke of Hamilton, Aged 17.

Nothing I enjoy more than a little glitter dust and an interregnum.

Much of the art in England seems to be portraiture. This is not exactly a good thing, given how unattractive the British are.

That is not me being narrow-minded, btw. It is a proven fact. It was in the Telegraph. The Telegraph is British for slightly less sleazy newspaper than most of the rags we've got over here, but what are you complaining about, at least when we're reading them on the Tube you don't have to see our faces.

It was actually the ugliness that sold Cheez on the trip in the first place. Let's go to England, he said, we will be like Supermodels compared to everyone there.

We were mostly supermodels of rudeness, since we spent the entire trip talking in a wide array of fake British accents. Upon viewing this JMW Turner painting, Cheez felt the need to proclamate upon its subject matter:

Religious cows is queued up for church. More godless ones is in the foreground, grazin. Whereas I would find myself rummaging through my luggage as I struggled to get dressed each morning, intoning Where's all me knickers at?

The thing about the British is, they really talk that way. All the damn time. We saw a family in the park playing with their dog, a fluffy white terrier named Snowy. At some point, the adorable daughter of the family threw the ball and Snowy caught it just before it landed in the lake in the park. A mustachioed sixty-something man passing by happened to observe the scene and said to the dog, Well done, Snowy. As if the pup had just rescued his entire regiment from the Germans.

I swear, the whole country is like a freakin Monty Python sketch. Right down to the physical comedy.

Turns out, John Cleese etal. weren't writing comedy. They were merely transcribing it.

I took that video at the Tower of London, another educational stop. We learned that if you are locked up in the Tower awaiting execution, you might as well graffiti the hell out of the place, because what are they going to do if they catch you?

Also we learned that you can trace just how fat Henry VIII was at any given time by checking out his suits of armor, which escalate in size from Normal to Husky to What Else Can We Melt Down to Get Enough Metal to Cover this Fat Fuck?

It is a true fact that there is nothing I enjoy more on vacation than a

ranger-led tour.

In England, due to not having had the good sense of inventing Smokey the Bear, they do not have rangers in Smokey the Bear hats.

So their version of a ranger-led tour involves a guy dressed up like the bloke on the gin. Who spends an hour or thereabouts traipsing around the Tower of London telling you tidbits like For five centuries, we had a moat here that was the largest open toilet in London. Quite a line of defense. Or Pardon me, that was the marmite and cheese panini repeating on me.

Apparently, they should actually call this attraction The Body Functions of London.

We had a great empire not so long ago Smokey the Beefeater noted. We should be proud of that. But we're not. Because we're British.

It's true, they were British. I love it here said Cheez the Canuck I've never been any place where people embarrass even more easily than me. And he was right. At an event at the Victoria and Albert Museum, when a young hipster approached a craft table out of turn, I jokingly muttered Orderly queue under my breath--causing said hipster to apologize profusely and flee the room in mortification.

They were such easy pickings, it was hardly worth mocking them.

And yet, we did.

More of which to be detailed in my next blog post, which at the rate I'm going, should be made sometime in July. July 2011.

Fooken Ayslund

Maybe you should rethink that vacation my doctor said.

Maybe you should rethink that vacation physical therapists 1-4 said.

No! I said.

I mean, just because I'd been having shooting pain down my leg for months, was no reason not to go on vacation.

Because my squeeze the Cheez and I really need a vacation. A nice, romantic, just-the-two-of-us-and-the-millions-of-strangers-in-a-crowded-metropolis good time, the kind we haven't had in ages.

It'd been hard enough to find nine glorious days when my work schedule and his work schedule lined up. Hard enough to get past the panicky arguments in the travel section of Powells over where we should go. Hard enough not to drop dead at the cost of booking airline tickets, let alone the B&B, with the dollar sucking as it does on the world market.

Now that we'd done all that, nothing was going to keep me from going. Not searing pain. Not doctor plus physical therapist admonition.

When are you leaving? the doctor asked Wednesday morning, eying me in that M.D. means real doctor way they have.

The day after tomorrow I said, eying her in that Macaronimaniac means real maniac way I have.

She scribbled something doctorishly illegible on a piece of paper, and told me I was about to meet Pearl. Magical Pearl.

Pearl is so magical, not only could she read what the doctor wrote--but, upon reading it, she could get my deadbeat health insurance to approve a same-day MRI, and then magically schedule self-same MRI for within one hundred and twenty minutes of the time I stood before her.

Which is how it came to pass that by the end of that very day, the neurosurgeon had joined the chorus urging me not to go on vacation.

Something about a ruptured disc and a long flight and really who would want to go on vacation with Cheez when instead she could be having back surgery?

But surely, back surgery wasn't going out of style. I mean, I could go on a wouldn't-it-be-loverly vacation, THEN come back to back surgery. Or so I figured, when I went to bed Wednesday night.

Only to wake up Thursday morning to hear the nice man on the NPR saying something about a volcano in Iceland grounding all air traffic to Heathrow.

Granted, all the pain killers I'm on are making me kind of groggy, but volcano in Iceland?

People, it's got ICE right in the title. How much hot lava can there be, way up there?

Enough, we now know, to screw me, the Cheez, and millions of others out of the pleasure of defying medical authority.

Well, maybe not everyone affected was flying, or trying to fly, against doctor's orders. But still, it made me wonder when Pele the Volcano Goddess joined HealthNet's list of Preferred Providers.

Icelandic volcano. What are the chances? I wondered to my college roommate Little Orphan Annie, who'd spent eight hours the previous night flying halfway to Copenhagen and back again, thanks to Mount Nbdycnfrkinprounsit.

Slim she answered matter of factly, sucking down what was clearly not her first martini of the day.

Slim enough that when I told a co-worker, he responded Don't you mean, Greece's economy has failed, causing riots across Europe and that's why you can't go, because that at least is somewhat plausible.

Of course, Greece's economy--and the rest of Europe's--is screwed in no small because of the gross fiscal negligence of a certain other pseudo-European nation that shall go unnamed. Unnamed because none of us can pronounce any of its proper, or for that matter its improper, nouns.

It's been a hundred and eight-nine years since the damn thing last erupted Cheez noted you'd think that would give them enough time to send out a press release.

By Friday morning, we had both cell phones and an assortment of laptops fired up, trying to figure out if there was any chance of us going anywhere. Would all those hours spent poring over travel guides and boning up on Brit history by watching Anne of a Thousand Days and Mary Queen of Scots be for naught?

Well, at least the latter gave us enough appreciation for hard-drinking, hot-blooded Scotsmen to appreciate this guy in a Hooter's hoodie.

So that's what we're reduced to. Quoting a guy in a Hooter's hoodie. Which is what we do every day when we check the NATS update to see if there's any chance our rescheduled flight (for later this week) will actually take off.

I suppose it could be worse. The volcano could have trapped us once we were abroad. Like a certain someone who's probably done pining for the fjords after the flight ban left him to take a taxi home from Norway.

And I suppose it could still happen. The volcano could calm down enough for us to get to England, then kick up again, keeping us from leaving.

Note to our cat sitter: we just laid in 140 pounds of litter. Have a great time while we're gone!

Or all that Icelandic ash could just keep pluming its way across Europe like an Abba cover band. In which case, it's back to back surgery after all.

Schmaltz Across Texas, Part Two

It's so nice 'n' romantic to keep a little mystery in the relationship.

Our first morning in Houston, Cheez was indeed mystified by me.

Specifically by my comprehensive knowledge of the lyrics of every song played on 97.1 FM Country Legends, the radio station I found on our rental car radio.

Okay, maybe hearing your girlfriend belt out the Oak Ridge Boys' Tryin' To Love Two Women isn't exactly romantic. But when your full up on the Hyatt's continental breakfast, it puts you in the mood for something.

First stop of the day: the Rothko Chapel.

Which I have to admit, had me kind of confused.

Mostly because:

1) I could figure out where all the Rothkos were;

and

2) I didn't understand why they need so many acoustic panels in such a small room.

So yes, I wasn't much of a fan of the Rothkos.

Although I'll grant you that it's better than what they usually mean when they say We have a Jew hanging in our Catholic church.

Being a wandering, rather than a hanging, Jew, I was ready to ramble over to the Menil Collection, one of those lovely museums where rich people put all their stuff on public display for the edification of the masses.

It was indeed very edifying.

There was a three-foot-tall wood carving of a humanoid figure with long red hair.

It looks like one of those Hawaiian totems I said.

Or like a leprechaun Cheez said.

I squinted at the curatorial tag. Turns out, we were both right. Memorial figure from New Ireland, Melanesia it said.

How edifying is that? If it weren't for the Menils of Houston, I would never have learned there was any place to get a pint of Guinness and a plate of boiled cabbage is all of Oceania.

The Menil also had a large exhibit of Surrealist works on display. But we hurried through that gallery. Surrealism doesn't really melt my butter I noted to Cheez although I guess it does melt my clock.

Next stop: the Museum of Fine Arts. Which was a focal point for our Texas trip, actually. Because they were having an exhibit of Moon Art.

Again, edifying. Such as footage of Mission Control during the moon launch. That is so amazing said Cheez, who has loved lunar landings ever since those long childhood days he spent reading old National Geographic magazines at his grandparents' house (note: Labrador is not a vacation paradise for nine-year-old boys. Or anyone).

You mean, that we really sent people to the moon and back? I asked.

No, that the guys who worked at Mission Control could smoke RIGHT AT THEIR DESKS! he answered.

Other learnings: eighteenth-century telescopes were made of cardboard. We had just bought a kaleidoscope for Cheez's nephew, on which we squandered an extra eight bucks to get a metal rather than a cardboard specimen. Turns out, we were robbed. We could have had a more authentic ocular device if we'd started with the core from a tube of toilet paper.

We also watched this lovely 1902 French film, La Voyage Dans La Lune



It was no Panic in Year Zero, but still it was the second best film of the trip so far.

Doougie Rocker, PhD and Little Lord Portleroy had to wander off and leave us, because we were spending way too much time in the moon exhibit. Indeed, it soon became clear that though they are dear friends, we were not entirely perfectly matched traveling buddies, being as they are the sort of people that believe vacation should be leisurely and relaxing. Whereas I believe it should be crammed full of as much nuttiness as possible.

Thus, after the museum closed, we agreed to all return to the Hyatt and freshen up before dinner. At which point Cheez and I doubled back to the Menil compound to see the separately housed Dan Flavin exhibit.

Can we take pictures in here? I asked the guard.

You're not supposed to he answered but I can't be following people all through the building watching what they're doing.

Given that it was 6 pm on a Sunday night and we were the only people in the entire facility, I realized he was not going to be taxing himself on our account.

So here, without further ado, is the Flavin exhibit:
Unless of course you who are reading this happen to be a lawyer employed on behalf of the Menil Collection, in which case those brightly colored lights you're seeing are just part of the fabulous decor of Tan Tan, the Vietnamese restaurant where we had dinner.


After a long day of fine art, who doesn't want to unwind with a refreshing Salt Plum Soda?

Which, in case you're wondering, is a small bottle of soda water, which is brought to the table and then poured by the patron into a glass that contains a salted plum.

Be sure to stir vigorously to distribute the salty plum flavor evenly!

After eating a ginormous amount of delicious, deep-fried delights, we wandered around the neighborhood, taking in the neon-lit sights.

The adjacent strip malls offered everything you could possibly ever want or need, from fashion to housewares to groceries to law enforcement.

We couldn't quite figure out why Johnny Law needed quite so much wattage, until we wandered into the Asian grocery store and spotted this sign:
In one form or another, this sign is ubiquitous throughout Texas.

What a helpful reminder to bring only your LICENSED weapons with you when you run out to the store for that oh-so-adorably packaged squid or anchovy snack.
And so ended day two in Texas, with Oak Ridge Boys tunes in my head, art of all sorts amazing our eyes, and visions of salt plums dancing in my belly.

Shmaltz Across Texas, Part 1

My squeeze the Cheez and I always say we have so much fun together, we could go on vacation in a paper bag and still have a great time.

This winter, we didn't go for some little lunch sack. We headed for a full on shopping bag, the shmancy kind with those little ropey built-in handles.

It's was a big bag we vacationed in. A big bag called TEXAS.

So big, we couldn't take it on all by ourselves, so we invited some pals to join us. No, not Miss Ellie and JR, I meant a couple of real live actual friends:

1. Doougie Rocker, PhD, everyone's favorite Riot Grrrl/Classics Professor

2. Doougie's honey, Little Lord Portleroy

As Little Lord P noted, we were ideally suited for this journey, representing North, South, East, and West. To wit: Cheez as the Northerly Canuck; me as that exemplum of east coast, a New Yorker; Doougie as a native of the westward Oregon Territories; and Little Lord P heading up the South, having been raised in the Ozarks in a Doomsday cult that supported itself by BeDazzling the concert costumes of Elvis Presley.

And to think, people believe the South is more f*ed up than other regions.

Anyhow, we set off not to mess with Texas but to mesmerized by it. Cheez and I spent eight years in LA. We thought we'd seen all there was to see of the delicate intersection between big wads of cash and really tacky taste. But Rodeo Drive has got nothing on rodeo gaudy.

I just asked Cheez for an illustrative example. He answered I think that $170 leopard and rhinestone belt we saw in the store in San Antonio certainly counts as Texas Tacky.

Actually, I disagree. I think it just counts as proof that Texas has so few Jews, people actually pay retail.

So here is a recap of some highlights of the trip. I'm sorry if the recap is long(horn). Texas is big. There is an awful lot for me to mock.

Day 1: Complimentary breakfast at the hotel:

A Texas-sized vat of deep fried pig.

And to think I said this was a goyim-heavy state.

With that much bacon, it's more a heavy goyim state.

Much to Doougie's despair, Little Lord P immediately embraced the Texan belief that everything is better with bacon. Even yogurt.

Once we had filled up, we headed out to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. It's a gorgeous building filled with memorable pieces.

Such as this room-sized sculpture . . .

made out of mint-green candies.

We're big fans of found-object art. But this was our first exposure to found-in-the-bottom-of-some-grandma's-pocketbook art. If the sculptor had thrown in a tissue with a blotch of coral-pink lipstick on it and a bus transfer from 1962, it would have been perfect.

After leaving the museum, we happened

upon a once beautiful but now somewhat rundown art deco building.

We snuck inside to investigate.

We made our way through ornate halls, poking into side rooms

littered with old box fans and duct tape-mended couches, until

at last we passed through giant doors labeled "coliseum," and discovered that we were inside the rodeo dome.

And that, although there was no one else around, the soundsystem was playing full blast. And that the song it was blasting was Barracuda.

Because nothing says rodeo like decaying art deco and false rumors of lesbian love.

And speaking of girls who like horses, our next stop was the Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Highlights included the following quotes from Hall of Famers:

Who'd want a husband when you could have this wonderful horse? Mitzi Riley

Of course, when you do as many things as I do, it takes a lot of outfits. Fern Sawyer

Basically, anyplace you can be down on marriage and up on outfits, is my paradise. I celebrated by galloping over to the gift-shop and purchasing myself a sweet little filly of a cowgirl hat, which to Doougie's mortification I insisted on wearing just about every place else we went in Texas.

Full up on Fort Worth, we headed to Houston, checked into the Hyatt, and spent the evening watching Panic in Year Zero, which I can say without a doubt is the finest film about nuclear holocaust directed by and starring Ray Milland and co-starring Frankie Avalon that I have ever seen.

And that was just day 1.

More Texas-sized tales of terrific travel to come, I promise. Until then, settle back with some yogurt-coated bacon, and dream of all the open prairie has to offer . . . even if they are selling it at retail.

I da ho? Oh no, you da ho

Summer tourist season is upon us. And thus, like every newspaper and magazine in the country, I suppose macaronimaniac should have special Travel Issue.

Or two, if I can figure out how to milk the topic again later in the week.

Let's start with this exciting vacation destination:

The Old Idaho State Penitentiary!

It must be a bona fide tourist site, as it has the three internationally recognized elements.

1. AAA discount on admission

2. Bronze plaque attesting to vague historical/
architectural/cultural importance you would never be able to detect were it not for the plaque on display

3. Jacked up cost of a bottle of water









But the Idaho Pen goes even further in welcoming visitors.

Especially return visitors.

By 1973, living conditions in the over 100 year-old penitentiary were so bad, the prisoners rioted, forcing the state to move them to a modern penitentiary south of Boise. Almost immediately after being closed as a prison, the facility was registered as a historic landmark and opened to the public.

Who apparently, weighed down as they are by their fanny packs and sunscreen, are not as quick to riot.

To further edify visitors, several of the prison buildings now house museum exhibits, on seemingly random topics: medieval weapons, electricity, and telephones.

Makes for a very strange version of One of These Things Is Not Like the Other, doesn't it?

Although it's hard to choose a best part of the exhibits, I'd vote for how incredibly outdated they are. A thick layer of dust covers both the treasures and the accompanying curatorial tags. Which is probably for the best, given their mutual obsolescence.













Of course, if you are the type who just likes to laze away the vacation day, you may find the Idaho Pen is not the place for you.

Or perhaps the loafing reference is an allusion to la cuisine d'hôtel . . . better known as bread and water.





Truth be told, the Pen no longer billets overnight visitors, although I suppose the accommodations are on par with the average youth hostel.

Note the can of Right Guard spray deodorant left by a former lodger, circa 1973.

What are you in for?

Crimes against the ozone.





Though we were only there for the day, my squeeze the Cheez and I felt the Idaho State Penitentiary was a highlight of our visit to the Spud State.

Draw your own conclusions about what that means regarding the relative attractions of Pocatello or Twin Falls.




Seriously, the Idaho Pen had a certain romance to it.







And by certain, I mean deeply morbid.







So if you're looking for a fascinating place to visit this summer, you really can't do better than the Idaho State Pen. Pick up your touch-tone Mickey Mouse phone, and make your reservation today!