GET HUBBIED

"Here's a not-at-all surprising fact about me & Liz: we love creating traditions & rituals. Serious ones, silly ones, whatever. Sometimes they last a very short time before petering out. Sometimes they last years. So it should further be no surprise that we have a Valentine's Day tradition.

But here's a maybe-surprising fact: our Valentine's Day tradition pre-dates our relationship. Or rather, pre-dates our romantic relationship. Liz & I, along with Liz's then-co-worker Jane, were casting about for something to do on V-Day, back in 2004. We were three singles, at least somewhat irritated by all of the coupledom around us being celebrated. We decided, simply enough, to go out for drinks. So we went to Hop Louie, a great divey bar in Chinatown. The evening was super fun. So much so that the three of us went back the next year (though by then, Liz & I were together). By 2005, you could no longer smoke in Hop Louie, but it was still a great night, filled with many whiskey sours, Glen the bartender's hilarious running commentary on what was on the teevee, and the occasional cartwheel.

We've gone back just about every year since. In 2006, Liz was in Germany for work, so Jane & I made plans to go on our own, only to find that Hop Louie was closed for filming. We still had a great night at Dinner Club M, but somehow it was reassuring that Liz seemed to be needed for the V-Day magic of the tradition. In 2007, we had to bail on Jane, as Liz was sick. So I went to the video store and picked up the very cute comedy Mystery Men. Halfway through the movie, lo and behold, there's a scene at, yes, Hop Louie! The tradition lives on! Jane has since moved to the Bay Area, but Liz & I carry on the tradition.

So what's this about serendipity? In an early meeting with Bettina, she told us about an earlier project, the HubbyCo CoTour, which included stops at some of her favorite east-side locales. I think you can guess which awesome Chinatown bar was prominently featured.

If you don't know Hop Louie, you should. And if you're there next year on 2/14, feel free to buy us a whiskey sour".

-JZ, 2/15/11

Just a shout-out to friends-of-this-project over at Dinner Party Download.

This week, they discuss an historical wedding both incredibly adorable and somewhat objectifying/exploitative: the 1863 wedding of Charles Sherwood Stratton (aka Tom Thumb) to Lavinia Warren. I know that there's a degree of objectification in most weddings -- with the couple as object -- but with some weddings this is more true than others. When PT Barnum organizes your wedding, there's more objectification than most. And when your wedding is a piece of art, there's also more objectification than most.

To be clear: I am not trying to make any point about being an object or a tool (relative to Bettina or to GetHubbied) in the way that I think most of us suspect that Tom Thumb was primarily a tool for Barnum. Bettina is incredibly respectful, and has gone to great pains to ensure that there's no trace of exploitation in this enterprise. But from the perspective of The Couple, it's hard, at times, not to feel instrumental.

As a special bonus, this week's DPD contains an interview with Chris Burden. (Which, in an oblique way, is yet another wedding reference, though perhaps only for one-half of the creators of DPD itself.)

Anyhow, check it out. Good stuff.

-JZ

In the Los Angeles Times today, Jonah Goldberg - who holds down the far-right pole of the paper's syndicated op-ed columns - weighs in on gay marriage. One of the nice things about some on the far right is a degree of intellectual honesty, and a shared analysis with those of us on the left (e.g., the fact that we're in a class war).

Goldberg celebrates the victory on repealing DADT, and on inching closer to social acceptance of gay marriage. Not because he cares about such cultural fights - he doesn't care too much either way - but because the fact of the fight is itself a form of victory for the right:

Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love." And avant-garde values....

[Now], the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning.

Welcome to victory, friends. The stores are open; shop as usual.

-JZ, 12/28/10

I wouldn't say that this isn't art, but hopefully you'll find a higher caliber of art at the HubbyCo wedding. (Pun most assuredly intended.)

From the Associated Press, dated today (and linked here):

Man shoots bride, best man, then himself at wedding party after announcing a 'surprise'

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A bridegroom fatally shot his new wife, his best man and then himself after announcing to horrified guests that he had a "surprise" for them, authorities said Monday.

Witnesses reported that 29-year-old Rogerio Damascena, a sales manager in Camaragibe, outside the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, did not give any previous indication that anything was wrong at his wedding reception, police investigator Joao Brito said.

Brito would not speculate on a possible motive, saying family members were in shock and he had not interviewed them yet.

Brito did say the killings are believed to be premeditated because of the groom's announcement and because he had hidden a gun in his father's pickup truck.

Twenty-five-year-old bride Renata Alexandre Costa Coelho and best man Marcelo Guimaraes were both killed in Saturday's murder-suicide. A brother of the bride was treated at a hospital and released.

The website Globo.com quoted a sister of the bride who left before the shootings as saying she didn't believe it was a crime of passion.

"My sister was a wonderful person who loved and wanted to be loved," Lucia Helena Coelho was quoted as saying.

"He was happy, she was happy, the party was beautiful. His family adored her and doesn't understand this," Coelho told Globo.com. "He revealed himself as a sociopath who fooled the entire family and killed his best friend, who was ... the best man."

I may be missing the main point here, but: why would the guests have been horrified at the announcement of a surprise (prior to finding out what the surprise was)? That seems odd.

-JZ