I'm having head problems. I hit up the GR store yesterday evening to pick up the new issue. While there I grabbed one of the new GR hats, a knowledge hat made from amah bag material.



Eric showed me the first one awhile back and I was immediately coveting so I was happy to finally be able to grab one. I just like the use of such a fantastic, ubiquitious material. Unfortunately... I have an unusually large head. It's rare to find a baseball hat that will fit my head and I usually have to have it closed on the last tab if at all to wear it. The hat is beautifully made, there's nothing wrong with it, I just really do have problems with hats. It's why I tend to become attached to friends' hats if they fit - I can't believe I found one. In fact I stuck it on Cheryl of GR and my friend's head yesterday and it fit them perfectly fine.



I mean seriously look at that bulbous noggin, that swollen brain case. So the thing doesn't fit my ginormous cranium.

And then today in my taqueria the girl I see every few days who works the register sort of made an unpleasant noise that went "Ayyyyyyyyyyieeeeee" when she saw my newly short short hair.

Anyway, great work on the new issue. It's pure conicidence I met Dan-ah Kim at the same time Eric was interviewing her, and the piece is a great reflection of the wonderful person I've come to know and champion here. I was way into the music articles in GR48. Also, you get to see Eric with fake boobs and Martin with a swan cock or something as well as a fighting Dave Cho mannequin. That mannequin sits in Eric's living room and it has scared the piss out of me and I saw Dan freak out once late at night bumping into it.

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One of my favorite places in New York is the Babycakes bakery. As Dan has pointed out some of us just can't digest the dairy... Information that wasn't in the user's manual. For people like us, this place is manna from heaven. My inability to handle lactose kicked in during my mid twenties, which is pretty typical for asian males.





I had no clue so I thought I was sick until an article way back in GR helped me figure out what was going on and I cut out dairy entirely. So I had memories of all the foods I had to stop eating. Lactaid helps but it's like stomach roulette - one in six times it doesn't help. Vegan desserts had never done it for me - they're too flaky and dry and don't taste right; too bitter or sweet. I suppose I have a fairly wicked sweet tooth. But then Eric gave me a cupcake from Babycakes during one of his trips out to NY and I became a convert. They are the best vegan desserts I've ever had. Granted, it's no creme brulee or caramel soaked chocolate chip bread pudding with vanilla ice cream...



But somehow without using milk or eggs, they craft really exceptional desserts here that some people can't even tell are lacking using the best ingredients. The result being I can pig out on brownies and cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies.



Ask em for a cookie sandwich if you ever hit them up... And best of all they're open late. So after a giant Ktown feed and then desserts we went to see Paris, Je'Taime on a complete whim, missing the first short, which I wrote up awhile ago. Early reviews weren't too kind but since release it's garnered more critical support and I think it's absolutely worth seeing because the short film is an art in itself - and in many ways it's harder to pull off a good short film than a feature. Surprises abound in the thing and it has a sweet, breezy quality. Many of them are great, but for me Tom Twyker's is worth the price of admission for a stunning montage that compresses an entire relationship into minutes. Something I always wanted to do in a music video but I don't think I would've done it as well. The best quality is how many of these are moving; no easy feat in a short film to capture emotion.

I joked last night that they should do I Love New York, and I guess it's happening, with a whole other host of directors including Chan-Wook Park. I think it's a brilliant idea and hope they keep moving to different cities. One curious thing is the preponderence of stories about English speakers hanging out in Paris. And also, to see what a Christoper Doyle directed piece is like. I would describe it as "feverish". Ahem. But overall a very enjoyable movie to drop by on a whim in the East Village late at night.