Little Bo Peep Show! (Not her real name, but it should be.) Such a cutie.

See, look — i’m pretending again. Only i wouldn’t mind smoochin’ this darling.

That’s James, i believe, in the middle. Catty calls him Popeye (if you can’t tell, we’re really big on nicknames).

Carol, you’ve been working out! Me, too! I’ve been swimming at lunch.

This sassy scantily clad steamstress was big fun.

Again, there’s just something hilarious about asses in faces. When was the last time you played Twister, mister (and mistresses?)

All in all, twas a fun Market Daze, indeed.

Don’t feel toooo special, Richard. It kisses EVERYone.

That hair is so wrong it’s right. I don’t know why she was blowing up a black Beachball of Death, but i’m sure she had a good reason.

This beauty was sassy and fun. Of course Quiche had to have his picture taken with her!

Looking up, we saw these dudes dancing in the window. At this point, we were down to a trio — me, Quiche and Carol. We decided (unanimously) that we should try crashing the party. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

As you can see from Carol’s silhouette, we were successful in our infiltration. Now, being welcome was a whole other ballgame.

We think it was this dude’s apartment. We played nice as we made some drinks.

I’m not really in ecstacy. Seriously. I mean, come on. He was a harness-clad letch in leather gloves. I’m just pretending. That’s how good of an actor i am. Watch out, Sprunger!

Shortly after these pics were taken, we were asked to vacate the premises. I think someone might have spilled a drink, but i don’t remember. I do recall pouring my drink from a glass to a plastic to-go cup before we headed out the door, down the stairs and back onto Halsted…

…where we chatted with an obviously Satanic silversmith

and Medusa herself!

Fancy Frank only has eyes for you.

Market Daze is that magical time of the year when peoples who have historically been enemies, say the cowboys and Indians, can come together in peace. Kind of like Thanksgiving…but waaaaay gayer.

Twist ‘n’ shout!

Carol thinks she’s something else, posing with Mr. Maguire. He’s a thespian, known for such modern-day classics as Brad’s 20-Hole Weekend.

The Twister game just cracked me up.

Catty and Richard, are you ready……..to LIPSYNCH FOR YOUR LIFE!?!

I am, obviously, obsessed with bulldogs.

Speaking of, here’s a funny report on Puglsey, the bulldog in custody of my ex, Greg:

puglsey has a new hobby: tanning. he loves to lie in the sun and scootches around the apartment as it makes its way across the floor throughout the day. i keep trying to get some sun screen on him, but he prefers to fry. meanoma here he comes!

he also has a new and amazing vet (he gets ear infection a LOT lately, sigh). the vet has her office decorated like an olde timey western saloon. it’s beyond weird, and quite wonderful. he gets picked up by a doggie chauffer. yes. i have become “that guy.”

and you know what? i realized that i didn’t know if puglsey was 6 or 7 years old!! i think 7 (as on June 5)….but don’t remember for sure…do you? i’m a bad dad. but when i was in geneva i went to a costco-esque store and bought him a GIANT bag of rawhide bones to make up for it. he has been gassy ever since.

Paint on those shorts, why don’tcha?

Carol goes to town on that weiner.

Good morning, Vietnam!

Tres dapper.

Look! We must’ve run into Eric Daly at some point.

You lookin’ at MEEEEEE?

Michael regales his “fans” with stories of filth and bitterness, sadness and decay. But in a really funny way.

Awww. Ain’t love grand?

Quiche  goes in for the kill.

Swayze, good sport and honorary homo that he is, lets Quiche suckle on his teat.

Here they glow in the aftermath.

We haven’t seen Sydney in forever. It has been so long that she thought i was Michael Peterfi. She was very excited to show off her newest “assets” — and by assets, she of course meant fake boobs.

Still more to come……

 

The dude on the left is one of the owners of Minibar, i believe. They had a huge framework setup — it was definitely the most impressive of the bars on the strip.

Quiche and Michel bought some rotgut vodka and poured the bottle into blue Gatorade. I bought a mimosa (actually, the sign read, “Mamosa”) and then kept having the two of them fill up my plastic champagne glass. Our tongues got blue from the drink, which i dubbed Smurf Piss, a holdover from my collegiate days.

I know, i know. Give it up, Wally. I had a running joke going. I don’t want to be uncouth…but it involved Smurfette and cunnilingus. And look at Stephanie — she’s not even attempting veracity with that airkiss.

The Joker ain’t the only fool who’d do anything for you.

Hello, kitty! Yeah, OK, dude. You can pretend you’re dressed up in that getup cuz you want people to adopt poor widdow puddytats. But i know a friggin’ furvert when i see one.

Which one’s Bono and which one’s Richard?!

Totes grotes. Why does Michael’s tongue have a dent? It didn’t have its tongue pierced once upon a time, did it? (I think it still has its navel ring.)

I’m a sucker for spectacle, and i think the nouveau club kid/drag queens make street festivals more fun.

We ran into Carrol and Fancy, and then this little darlin’:

I want a puppy i can carry around in a purse! DADDY! I want one NOW!

so.cute. Let’s take a closer look:

Awwwwww!

Back in the summer of 2009, had a band and we tried real hard.

Well, not quite. It was Mikopolis who had a band, Project Ultra, and we headed to Market Daze early (like noon-thirty!) to see them perform at the Roscoe Stage.

On the way in, i told the gatekeeper that i wasn’t paying as a protest against the VIP stage. (At street fairs in Chicago, they ask for a donation, usually about $5.) The woman said, “But that’s how we pay for the street fairs,” and i said, “Have you heard about the VIP stage? They’re asking $30 to $50 to see a band at an outdoor festival? That’s ridiculous.”

“Believe me,” she said, rolling her eyes, “i know all about it.”

I’d like to think my small action has big results. Let’s see what they do next year. Then again, a few people refusing to shell out an entry fee wouldn’t add up to even a few nitwits who actually pay all that money to see The Village People up close and personal.

I always have to have a prop, and today i brought along eyes ripped off of the pinata i bought for our condo’s fiesta. Aren’t they creepy-cool? Here Swayze models them — doing remarkably well without his hands.

Carol started the eye-boob trend, which carried on throughout the day.

There’s Michael…i mean APOLLO. “That’s his stripper name,” Carol says. He’s a legend at the Horseshoe. It’s always Showtime at the Apollo.

GOD! Remember Myron? Back when we were TWELVE at Cocktail?

This little buttboy sprayed us with his hose, and we loved it.

Miz Laura sent me these shots from her iPhone. It was Skunkboy’s birthday BBQ (though he’s acutally now an “otter”) — and fake mustaches and a create-your-own-insult book made the rounds.

If you can’t read that one, i says, ANUS FOLDS.

I had gotten one earlier that was just too creepy: FETUS GOBBLER. Way too abortionist for my liking.

I’ve got the Oedipal DVD of Weeds to return and i’ve got my mystery to read — after only 20some pages, i simply couldn’t handle the insufferably esoteric Umberto Eco novel, The Island of the Day Before, and instead picked up Martha Grimes’ The Old Wine Shades, which is lighthearted and fun, and doesn’t take place entirely in the philosophical ramblings of a shipwrecked young man’s mind — but of course i’ve forgotten nuts.

When i get to Old Folks Row (not it’s real name, but an accurate one, nonetheless, given the high-rise packed with scowling elderly Russians), i’m leaving Duke a play-by-play voicemail, and i see one of our tiny friends and i don’t understand how they know us, but they just do. The second i’m in his line of sight, he sits up on his back legs, and his front legs are over his white chest, doing that adorable pose Duke and i call, MEEE?, ’cause you can just imagine them saying that. And i watch the little bugger as i pass him by and he turns to follow me with his eyes, and i can just barely handle his disappointment.

Penny Farthing’s serving up coffee and the music’s great but the patio is crowded with attractive young parents, so i head over to Blockbuster to return the DVD, suddenly realizing how hungry i am. As i pass by the Jewel parking lot, i see Champ across the way. He’s got on a gray t-shirt and his windscreen glasses and he’s clutching an aging basketball. He’s standing by the Italian joint near the bus stop, and the next thing i know, he’s launching the basketball across the street and it bounces not three feet behind me, hitting the black wrought-iron fence before bouncing back, narrowly missing the bus that has just pulled up.

I knew Champ was crazy, but, man, the dude is CRAZY. He likes to live on the edge. I’ve seen him go to the edge of a busy street, look both ways, toss his tennis ball out when the traffic has died down a bit, run after it, then dart back to the sidewalk. It’s a wonder he’s still with us.

I also saw him picking up a prostitute in the alley around the corner on Argyle. Good for him, i thought.

So i sip my iced latte, wondering if three shots of espresso is a bit much to have every morning on an empty stomach — i remember people in Mexico thinking we Americans weren’t very bright, having our coffee first thing in the morning without any food to coat the stomach — and as i pass the sidewalk café at Tweet, checking out the brunchers, i see the Reverend coming. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that i HEARD the Reverend coming. He’s constantly nattering away, usually unintelligible rumbles, though once in awhile he breaks out with something coherent.

He’s got his microphone, as always (just a prop — he doesn’t have any batteries in it) and there’s a $20 bill wrapped around it this morning. Someone’s on his way to McBreakfast methinks. There’s no escaping him, though, and he walks right up to me and leans in and says, “You know you gotta push out the bad if you wanna get back to Heaven.”

I didn’t know i had been in Heaven before. Maybe he’s preaching reincarnation.

I’m just happy that this morning i’m not a White Devil going to Hell.