Evanston!

I live in the burb. I know... New acquiantances would never think that I do. They asked how it could be. My fashion sense is so avant-garde it needs its own name; no way it comes from the burb!

Truth to the matter, I live in Evanston, a leafy northern suburb of Chicago. This is a town on the shore of Lake Michigan, where Northwestern University is located. On a nice day, its lovely parks are filled with jocks playing rugby and peeping tom homos with camouflage outfits and telephoto lenses.

The town's social structure is nicely stratified. Its ghetto is notorious for the drive-by shootings and 24-hour Currency Exchanges. One mile away, illegal immigrant workers cultivate Louis XIV-style gardens on lakeshore mansions. Half of the high school graduating class goes to prestigious universities for a four-year journey filled with Cliff Notes and date rapes. The other half goes to flip burgers at local McDonalds.

The most obvious clash of personalities occurs right in front of my house at an 18-screen movie theater. It's so luxurious The Chicago Magazine voted it as the best movie theater in Chicagoland. On a typical Saturday night, soccer moms in their LR3s drop off their teenage kids. Ten feet away, queens from the neighboring gay ghetto sashay down the sidewalk in their lilac Hollister shirts and Capri pants.

Even the movie theater is split to cater to the dichotomy of characters. Half of the screens plays exciting cinematic breakthroughs like “40 Year-Old Virgin” while the other half plays artsy-fartsy flicks like “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.”

Charlton Heston, the most iconic Evanstonian and Northwestern Alum, also presents a conflicting image. He is the president of the NRA, the gun-touting extension of the Republican Party. He did so after making a comfortable living starring in movies such as Planet of the Apes, Of Human Bondage, The Private War of Major Bensen, and Agony and Ecstasy. Is he a straight-laced Republican? Baloney! He made homo-erotic movies about privates, ecstasy, apes, and bondages. Ooh yees, he's gaay.

Evanston is apparently the destination of choice for upwardly mobile gay men who have coupled up with either men or women. My gym is filled with them. While the straight and gay guys typically work out from 6pm to 7pm, our down low brothers flock the steam room at around 8pm. It would be a sociologist's dream to study DL brothers exchanging subdued flirtations in the locker room.

Janette, my trusty fagnet, and I share the same favorite pastime activity. We love sitting on my patio on a Sunday morning. With cocktails in our hands, we would count the number of gay dads that passed the street in front of us. Sometime they would stroll the street with their cute adopted Chinese daughters. The whole scene was totally Ellen (before Anne turned straight). If Log Cabin Republican needed to pick a place to do a photo-shoot for their promo, they should do it here.

I love Evanston!

Pictures are courtesy of:

Two rugby players and a hiney - Mayhem RFC

Century movie theater - Fehlman LaBarre

Charlton Heston touting a gun - NRA

Charlton Heston in a leather daddy vest - MGM

Four guys in the shower - Kings Cross RFC