Some hoser from Canada visited me

...and all I got was an awesome belt buckle!

Several weeks ago, my Canadian friend Dwayne visited, so we packed in a lot of sightseeing and local color: the porno office, the Chrysler Building, the Lower East Side, DUMBO. On his last day, there was a sadly telling incident wherein my beau was taking a few pictures with his phone camera of a spiral-themed plaza in the City Hall area, because it had been designed by noted landscape architect Martha Schwartz, and that's his line of work. Some peabrained security guard with a prominent gun about half his Napoleonic height, holding his arms out far from his body for the appearance of extra bulk, came storming over yelling in broken English at my (decidedly not intimidated) BF, who had maybe taken one shot in the general direction of a government building. Because, you know, that is how terrorist spies operate: Get two conspicuously tall men and one conspicuously attractive woman openly taking photos in a public area. That is such a good spy tactic!

I could have pointed out to the security guard that he was the one with the weirdo accent, but instead I just covertly snapped this photo of him hassling the beau. See? I am a good spy. (Dear FBI: disregard last sentence.)



After that confusing reprimand, as we still weren't sure what we had done wrong, I seranaded our Canadian visitor with Neil Diamond's 1981 hit, "America." What a great example for our progressive neighbors from the north, eh?

Fortunately, New York had already redeemed itself the evening before.

My guest Dwayne there in the front righthand corner, apart from being shy as you can see, is an actor and does a lot of voiceovers. One of his cartoon projects in the works is an urban character called The Billionist, and so we had to outfit him with the proper bling at my local Fulton Mall. As our custom BILLIONIST and COKANE belt buckles were being made, we befriended everyone working in that store. Dwayne even went out and got my main man Malik there (back left) coffee and met the rest of everyone in Fulton Mall, while Malik sanded down the letters in his buckle so they would fit. He doesn't do that for just anyone.






This matching-set couple made a brief but stressful appearance.
"YOU GOTTA BELT IN 48-50?" he demanded, then a heated argument ensued with Malik about which way the Italian-flag belt buckle should face, as beads of sweat gathered on High Blood Pressure's bald head, and then I don't think he even bought anything. I can't be certain, because during the hubbub I was distracted by his ensemble. You can always spot new clothing trends in Fulton Mall. I would file this man's trend under "logo-crazed hoodies," other variations of which include diamond-shape-covered hoodies, and the two I spotted this morning, horseshoe-covered and Sanrio-style monkey-head-covered hoodies. On grown men, all. But let it be noted that this man carried his Marvin the Martian theme onto his T-shirt as well.

In all, we must've spent about an hour there, and it was one of the warmest times I've had while living in New York. We went back the next day so I could get another hole punched in my belt, and were greeted like old friends by all the shopkeepers.