File under: No you D'ehnt.

You know the universal "Whew, it's hot!" gesture, the one where some fella --usually a range-weary cowboy or pro-ball player-- takes his hat off, wipes his brow with the back of his hand or shirtsleeve, spits, and then slaps the hat back on his head?

Well I just saw a guy on Metropolitan Avenue do that...with his dentures.

Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead!
Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.

Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. He's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead

You know, it's not the heat... it's the whining.

A quote by this guy I often appropriate on 95 degree days.

armchair pop-psy: a beginner's guide

I use a metaphor to investigate patterns in life. It goes like this: If you are struck by lightning once, it's a miracle really. A one in a million. Chalk it up to bad luck or bad circumstances, either/or. If you are struck by lightning twice...wow! What are the odds? You are possibly the most unlucky person to have ever walked the earth. Struck a third time, a fourth? Time to call the Guinness Book my friend... but in the future you might want to reconsider your habit of laying underneath oak trees on the beach (wearing that copper full-body armor you fancy so much) during lightning storms.

I don't usually go in for causation/correlation self-deterministic, new-agey nonsense, but the metaphor is pretty handy at separating out the you-been-fucked wheat from you-fucked-up chaff... Just got dumped by the love of your life? You know, the person who called you "emotionally immature" while slamming the door on your face? You, pal, have been fucked. Just got dumped by the SIXTH consecutive person to call you "emotionally immature" while slamming the door in your face? Hard call, right? No! You fucked up. You keep fucking up apparently. You should not be allowed to date. Now go sit in your cubbie and think about what you've done.

My new favorite poem:

God must love little bitches;
He made so many.

Written by Missanthropy

She got a walk walk walk a doodle walk hey!

...speaking of things that give me a shit-eatin' grin, my theme song has never failed to deliver. A warning: if you invite me over, ply me with cheap-ass wine and hand me a ukulele-- I'll play it until you toss your cru de te. Just hide the ukulele before I get there.

Kim and Cookie

This short film did it. Pulled me right out of my blue funk and put me into a whole new groove. Well I still feel funky but now it's more like Phwanky, you know, like nasty when you don't mean nice'ty.

Thanks to cowboy_sally for making my day.

Down with People

I'm in a foul, foul mood. A blue funk. There's no getting this frown turned slightly upward let alone 'upside down'. No Sir.

So here is some linky goodness to keep you occupied until I readjust my head. I'll start by trying creative meditation and if that doesn't work I'm hitting the gin. And yeah, it's only 8am, but as my great aunt used to say while reaching for her mid-morning nip, "It's night time somewhere."

84 reasons to trim the Bush
Carrie Hoffman gives Maud the day off
McDonalds gets a conscience?
Doug dares you to "Make his Day".
"Because Quality Counts in a Magic Wand..."
and finally Candyboots. Cuz the site is so damn pretty.

True Story #42

In a previous life, about six careers ago, I was a licensed sub-contractor. It started out as a temporary gig, a stop-gap after I was fired from my job as a counter-girl at a pizza shop, or was let go, or quit; I still don't know. What do you call it when you phone your boss from the road en route to a hospital six hours away, explain that you wouldn't be in for your shift that afternoon because your mother just had a heart-attack, and your boss tells you "I don't care... if you don't make it in to work today don't bother coming back" and you don't? Well that.

So I was unemployed. After about a week of hitting 'the usual suspects' (restaurants, bars, temp agencies, etc.) and getting nowhere, I did what any sensible person would do. I called my friend J, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and suggested we buy a few bottles of cheap wine and get drunk.

Bottle one: I complained; he raved about Reagan.
Bottle two: I cried; he raved about how coupons are actually a form of government surveillance.
Bottle three: I wailed "Rent is due in a week! What the fuck am I going to do?!" and bashed my head through the wall; he raved about the mood-altering drugs his landlord puts in the drinking water, told me he could get me a job sub-contracting, and threw up a brilliant tapas/red wine combo all over the couch I had just bought from the Salvation Army.

The evening was pretty much over after that, we threw the couch to the curb on his way out (not because he threw up on it... because it occurred to me he undoubtedly wasn't the first to throw up on it). Well, that and J's explanation of the process of 'sanitizing' second-had furniture, which --according to him-- consisted of spraying Lysol around the thing ceremoniously and slapping on a tag. The more I thought about dust mites and cockroaches and some old smelly fat guy's butt crack hair, it struck me that paranoids, like stopped clocks, are probably also right twice a day.

But still, imagine my surprise at 6am the next morning when I awoke to the bleat of the phone and a voice that said, "... so you ready for work motherfucker?".

Funny, I had figured his other non-delusional moment was the coupon thing.

leaving normal

My friend and I have this joke. Well it's not a joke really, more like a deeply denied sadness, something that must be sublimated each day in order to press on without reliance on MAO inhibitors.

Our joke: because our young lives were so beyond screwed up, whenever we talk or write about it we have to 'tone down' the stories; in fact, if we were to simply describe actual life experience no one would believe it. The characters would be too fantastic. The plots too implausible. The settings, dialogue, the very core would be written off as a bunch of melodramatic hooey. There's a whole other aspect of going the non-fiction route that disturbs us that I won't get in to, but suffice it to say it has something to do with having a genuine affection for our family members, a penchant for forgiveness, and a heart-arresting fear of being brought up on slander charges. Don't kid yourself: more than one Thanksgiving dinner has been saved by replacing the words "auto-biography" with "creative non-fiction". There's great peace-keeping power in being able to say you took a grain of truth and made up the rest.

I got to explore that other aspect while watching Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Plymouth. (It was excellent by the way, highly recommend seeing this cast before it goes rep.) There was a moment that made me think of my friend, of family, and the properties of disclosure. The lights came up for the second intermission and the stranger sitting next to me said, "These people, their lives, it's so..." and paused. In the pause I began to insert 'spot on?' 'eerily familiar?' 'a perfect reenactment of every family gathering ever had?' but instead he finished with, "...horrible. Unbearable. Who could survive that..."

Um....me? With subtle differences, the characters in that play ARE my family. Emotionally unavailable, tight-wad father; check. Drug addicted, non-existent mother; check. Sibling One, a good-for-nothing drunk moocher, Sibling Two, diagnosed with a potentially deadly disease; check and check. And sure, a group of people who sit in a room and criticize each other's bad behavior while simultaneously causing and enabling it IS absolutely horrible and unbearable...only where I come from it's called Monday.

Anyway, I don't know if my friend and I will ever be able to write about our lives biographically. Eugene O'Neill wrote Long's Day's Journey (an auto-biographical play) in 1939 and demanded that it may not be published or produced until 25 years after his death.

I dunno, I say 25 years seems a little risky.

All hail the chief (pssst...that's you)

Hey Bush is right, nation building is fun!

If you'd like to try your hand at making critical decisions, bowing to the demands of the UN, and struggling to keep crime low and standard of living high; go start your own country. Or perhaps consider a move to The Democratic Republic of Kadonia, my little stronghold in the North Pacific.

Link followed from Alas, A Blog

Smoke this.

On June 18 our state government plans to enforce Public Health Law §1399-ll which puts a stop to all on-line and mail order cigarette shipments into New York. This means that come Wednesday every other state in the union will still be able to purchase cigarettes online or by mail-- except us. This law is designed to force New Yorkers to pay the exorbitant state taxes that are the brainchild of our governor, AND the additional New York City tax on cigarettes that is part of --quite obviously-- our mayor's personal vendetta against smokers on the whole.

Without going into a boring diatribe about our current tax system and our current administration's tax agenda, let me simply be clear that I am not anti-taxation. I am in no way opposed to the taxing of cigarettes or any other good or service that I purchase. My argument is not about the existence of a cigarette tax, but the way cigarettes have been singled out as a quickie means of generating extra revenue --from citizens least able to afford it-- each time the state legislature has a bill to pay.

Head over to the CDC and do a little research. You will find data you may be familiar with; the majority of smokers in America are below or hovering around the poverty line, are mostly non-white, and have only a high-school or GED equivalent level of education. Also (according to statistics) people trying to quit have less success if they are poor, of color, and undereducated. Given these facts, how can our state even pretend that the body of laws concerning tobacco sale and use are anything other than blatantly biased against the poor. Punishing an already disenfranchised group for using a mass-produced, mass marketed, legal consumable --whose proceeds bankroll the punisher's political campaigns-- is beyond disgusting. As much as smoking is detested by many, a thoughtful person might wonder where the slippery slope of class-biased legislation may lead. Maybe some like to watch our government continue to enact legislation that clearly targets people of color and the poor, but I can't stomach it.

If you agree please make the following (rich,white, non-smoking) men aware of your opinion:

George Pataki
Phone (518) 474-8390
Fax (518) 474-3767
Or email him here.

Arthur J. Roth, commissioner of taxation and finance
General Tax Information (800) 225.5829
Cigarette Tax Information Center (800) 972.1233

Oh, and don't worry, you can still have your new golf clubs shipped from Pebble Beach without paying NYS and an additional NYC sales tax. They haven't changed the legislation on that, thank God

six shooters and cats-o-nine tails

My extra-delicious, super-famous friend Mr. Xavier has just released two new bits of electronic delight for your listening pleasure. The first cut, Spaghetti Western, invites you to re-connect with your inner desperado; an invaluable skill to have while fighting for your life during the Spring Blowout Sale in the women's shoe department of Century 21.

The second song, Strutter, will make you see a little film behind your eyelids. A film that's part 2001, part Momento, inter-spliced with wisps of a porn flick staring a modern dead-ringer for Betty Page. Well that's what you'll see now, you know, since I suggested it.

After you listen, send him feedback. This way you can say you know an extra-delicious, super famous guy too.

Curious George

This gem courtesy of my pals over at Subintsoc...

The Segway Human Transporter: the revolutionary device that is so gyroscopically stable, it's impossible to fall off of... Unless you're G.W. Bush.

You must see this.

We shall overcome...

There was this guy at the 6th avenue F station this morning tagging the word “Bushit” everywhere. Super clever, huh? Because see…when you read it, it just looks like “Bush it”, but when you say it out loud it sounds like “Bullshit”. By simply adding the letters ‘i’ and ‘t’ he turned the president’s name into a dirty word, and in so doing converted the word into brilliant political commentary.

Oh…you are so clever, clever pants! We all know people who deface public property are usually the first to have their convictions taken seriously, and certainly the most likely to bring about lasting, positive change.

Thank you for showing the world that those of us who disagree with the agenda of this presidency are an erudite army of ACTION, principled through and through; totally unconcerned with any such nonsense as retaining a moral high-ground…get that message out, brother! Bravo!

Action!

If you are curious what a day in the exciting, glamorous, fast-paced world of commercial film production is like… this will give you a good idea.

say something

I ditched my comments a while ago, and when it became apparent it wasn’t a server fluke I had a few people ask me why I got rid of them. When I asked one friend (who I might mention never, ever left a comment himself) why it was so all-fired important to him he replied “I don’t know. I just liked to know I could if I wanted to.”

And I can respect that. I had big sads over the closing of a store in my neighborhood for the same reason, a store I had never entered once, ever. It was always comforting to walk by and know I could go in if I wanted to. It’s the principle, really.

But I’m not bringing back the comments. Instead I’ve installed a kind of running commentary. Who am I kidding...it’s a guest book. But hopefully it will fulfill the ‘some things just need to be there on principle’ principle.

Sorry.

Now go’head, talk amongst yourselves.

Could somebody throw me a bone here?

I arrive at work to find our voice mail box jammed to capacity with messages from a fire-breathing, freaked-out producer. One of the things I was in charge of having on set today --a specific PC video game--was not there. Well it was, but it was the wrong one (I had purchased the “extreme” version which made all legal permissions go flying out the fucking window). In the world of film coordination this is a BIG mistake; job-ending stuff. The scene they needed it for was being pre-lit and I had about an hour and a half to get the right game to the set. In Jersey.

The Problem? The game is out of circulation. No longer distributed on this or any other planet according to the manufacturer. It took three days of phone calls and internet research to find the ‘extreme’ version in the first place. So with about an hour to go I had no other recourse than to creep around video-geek newsgroups and gaming clubs, and hope that a peer out there in cyber land owns an old version they would be willing to let me ‘borrow’ from their hard drive.

So yeah, I found it, downloaded it from a guy at a gaming site. Sure, I had to chat him up and promise I’d be back later to play a little D&D-style role-playing. (Newsflash Dungeon Master Dave… I’m not showing up. But I do feel bad about it though. You did save my ass after all, not to mention give me that groovy fantasy chick name and all those tricky super-powers; one of which, I might add, was the ability to sense the raging hard-on you were sporting you freak monkey).

But saving the day doesn’t get you any props when it was you who might have ruined the day. No one is going to comment on how I was given an impossible task at the eleventh hour and pulled a solution out of my ass after no one else could. No one is going to give me my due for being the Can-Do Queen of All Time. When the discs show up no one is going to gaze down on them and nearly faint with disbelief; or stand dumbfounded in awe of my mad, mad skills.

I guess what I’m saying here is although I realize I didn’t solve world hunger or anything I made the impossible happen, and I feel pretty good about myself right now. Is it too much to ask to want a simple freakin atta-girl?

Atta-girl’s can be sent to:
Antigeist[at]earthlink[dot]com

Get the (little green) man off your back

“Since trying Michael Menkin’s Helmet, I have not been bothered by alien mind control. Now my thoughts are my own. I have achieved meaningful work and am contributing to society. My life is better than ever before. Thank you Michael for the work you are doing to save all humanity.”
- Jon Locke

If you, like Mr. Locke, have been plagued with alien mind control in the past...you can stop their ceaseless brain-buggering by making your very own thought screen helmet.* It is unclear, however, if the thought screen works for other forms of dreaded (and sometimes deadly) mind control. We can only hope Mr. Menkin is working on it.

*thanks to Monk for the link

Testy

In the cover article of this month’s Jest, the author* describes a trip to the Guggenheim with his father-in-law-to-be to see the Cremaster Cycle. After a bit of peeking around, and a brief explanation of what –exactly- a ‘cremaster’ is, the father-to-be asks, “You mean this whole show is about balls?”

If you were wondering the same I’m here to tell you… why yes it is! It’s a five-part tale of balls both literal and metaphorical; as a matter of fact I’ve never seen anything so full of balls in my entire life. And I know some of you have dragged your heals because Matthew Barney is the media darling de jour, or you fear the place will be packed with idiots and art morons (which it was…I got to overhear quotes like “Dude…you can totally see her nipples” interlaced with “I think the artists treatment of gender neutrality in the face of modern gender specificity is tantamount to his blah blah blah”; but screw them. The show fucking rocks and you have two more days to see it and you should.

* Apologies for not mentioning the author’s name and for the paraphrase…I’m at work and don’t have the mag in front of me right now. I’ll amend the post when I get home. Anyway, the article was pee-the-pants funny. Milk-through-the-nose funny. Go read it.

The Importance of Being (Like So) Earnest

(Two impossibly well-appointed twenty-something models in Soho)

Him: ...and like, the meeting and all, the whole thing, God, it was SOOOO retarded.
Her: I know, I know.
Him: I mean if they want to...wait...do we even say 'retarded' anymore?
Her: I don't say it anymore, but, you know, YOU can.
Him: Oh sure! Like leave me hanging out on the retarded branch! Like Hellllooooo? Last passenger on the good ship "Retarded" could you please report too the POOP DECK? I'm sooo sure...
Her: I'm so sure? Did you just say "I'm so sure?"
Him: It's retro
Her: OOhhhh....right.

Feeling my age

At work today, going over wardrobe selection with a cast member...a teen.

Stylist: "...You get the picture of what we're looking for, a young, conservative, preppy teenager...think Michael J. Fox... Family Ties years."
Teen: Michael J. Fox?
Stylist: Yeah.
Teen: (pause) I'm sorry...I don't know who that is.
Me: You might know him from a show called Spin City...he played the Mayor's assistant I think, or (to stylist) press agent?
Stylist: I think he was his press secretary.
Teen: Never saw it.
(The producer comes around the corner)
Producer: He was his press secretary. But he left the show, you know, because of his Parkinson's...who replaced him? A Baldwin? No...
Stylist: Charlie Sheen.
Producer: Ah yes, Charlie Sheen.
Teen: I don't know who he is either.
Producer: It doesn't matter. Just think "Young Republican".
Teen: Charlie Sheen?
Me: (laughing) ...don't think so.
Producer: No... Michael Fox.
Teen: ...is a Young Republican?
Me: Well he played one... on Family Ties.
Teen: That show was on before I was born.
All Adults: (pause, doing math)...oh...right.
Teen: Do you guys just want me to wear a tie, or what?

grey flannel morning

My boyfriend went off to work this morning in a suit. This is different than most days. Just yesterday he was a student who could wear whatever fell out of the dresser and God love him usually did. Today he is an employee of a company who expects him to wear a suit. Not any fun grandpa-plaid affair you pair up with a retro tie and your Fluevog wing tips . No…an actual suit, the three-button traditional kind you (thankfully) receive a two-page description of in your “orientation package” so that people who don’t wear suits, like my boyfriend, know what kind to buy. The kind of suit you can’t buy at Beacon’s Closet or TJ Max, we came to discover.

So he trekked off into the streets this morning wearing a real-live suit --grey wool, burgundy tie, cap-toe oxfords, hair all gelled down just so-- the whole sha-bang. You have no idea how mind-blowing and preposterous that is. Without going into a lengthy explanation of his character, personal philosophy, musical taste and past voting record, let me use this as a shorthand…he is a man who--for several years of his life--would not wear shoes. Not just ‘some kinds’ of shoes. No shoes. No sneakers, no boots, not a single flip-flop, skid, or sandal. No shoes at all, ever. Yes --on purpose.

Okay, now picture that guy in a suit.

This morning as he was peeling the plastic dry cleaning bag off the jacket [brief pause while I wonder if I have ever had anything dry cleaned in my whole life…and that’d be a big ‘no’] he said, “Time to make my transformation into The Man.” We laughed at that. Nervously.

In other news...

Knock me over with a feather, the Baghdad Blogger was real. So real in fact he has a by-monthy gig at G2 starting next Wednesday. Check out Salam's story here.

(Link lifted from Technorati)