OK, gross.

Wow, just when I think I can't hate Vice more, there's this. (via Maud.)

Shotglass hits the wall, a tiny victory

Last night I went out with my dad to DOC, where we go almost every time he's in the city and where he never fails to embarrass me in front of the very goodlooking Italian waitstaff. Last night the very pretty one gave us glasses of Mirto, which she described as "blackberry liqueur." Blackberries from Chernobyl, maybe. It's got myrtle berries in it too, I guess. Whoa fucking nellie. We had simultaneous out-of-body experiences.

This morning I managed to argue successfully against using "http://" when referring in copy to web addresses without "www". This is tougher than it sounds when the person closest to your age in your department is still 25 years older than you are. They still use terms like "Information Superhighway." And "log on." Google is a novelty of pie-in-the-sky proportions.

Oh, and I know that this site looks screwy in IE6, don't it? We're working on that. We're Trying Our Best.

Yes I Did, Now I Do

Over at The Morning News, marriage after severe trauma:

Mary Elizabeth Beynon will marry Dr. Paul A. Jackson next Saturday at the home of the bridegroom’s parents in Saratoga Springs, NY.
The bridegroom is the son of Drs. Richard and Gail Jackson of Saratoga Springs. His father is a endocrinologist at the Saratoga Springs Hospital. His mother owns her own ophthalmology practice.
The bride’s parents were mauled last year by a streak of tigers.
The couple will honeymoon in Virgin Gorda.

My sound'll make you jump around like calypso

Whoooo. Nothing like a packet of Emergen-C (half of which I spilled all over my keyboard while pouring it into the water bottle--Jesus, it's a wonder any of my friends let me near their cocaine) to quell the aftereffects of an evening spent drinking glass after glass of Valpolicella while puzzling over HBO's new fall lineup (ie, going to bed, drunk and weary, at 10:15).

I think the Antic Muse is, as usual, right fuckin' on in her assessment of Vice magazine, and, in particular, Vanessa Grigoriadis' obsequious prattling on the topic in the Sunday Styles section of the Times:

But, seriously, I don't understand why anyone should be either defensive about or shocked by hipster conservatism. Being cool or hip is, by its nature, conservative: Exclusionary, status-seeking, rule-bound, elitist and devoted to, yes, conserving a specific set of ideas and principles. The only difference between the editorial board of Commentary and that of Vice is the size of their bar tabs at the Pink Pony.

• Maybe the Times should consider a moratorium on Greek-American writers. I mean, there's barely enough hate in my heart for both VG and Anemona Hartocollis.


• I am willing to admit that Vice is, on occasion, funny. It's still a piece of shit: I get a kick out of the fact that it's marketed toward the hippest 18-25 year olds yet it's helmed by 3 pudgy, balding 35-year-olds. At the Creativity Now! conference, Whatshisface, the one who is not Gavin McInnes or that other guy, said that Vice maintains some level of moral legitimacy because they don't accept cigarette ads. Yeah fuckin' right. We're still talkin' about the magazine that once had an embossed coke-on-mirror cover, right? And McInnes ain't no Jim Goad, though I do hear he's impressively endowed. Where was I goin' with this? Anyhow.


• In my estimation, Sarah Silverman has officially gone from being Okay for a chick to Pretty much a cunt status,* after she was quoted as saying "If you think Vice is misogynistic, then you are a self-centered white woman." No, Sarah, you are. And you're dating an adenoidal, pearshaped man-child who probably grunts a lot during sex. So HA!


• This deserves its own bulletpoint: With regard to Sarah Silverman, I *do* think she's funny. But what she says is unfairly championed as Comedy Genius because a)she's female and b)she's attractive. It's a rare Boolean lineup--funny AND attractive AND woman. Plus, it's the only time** in which being a woman is actually advantageous, because each of the first two factors is enhanced by the other three: She's funnier because she's female and pretty! She's prettier because she's funny and a girl! Trust me on this; I know: I work this angle at cocktail parties all the time (throw some alcohol into the above equation and I become Ogden Nash and Groucho Marx in Famke Jenssen's body).

*Which is actually quite an achievement, seeing as the only other people in that category so far are Courtney Love, Ann Coulter, Sofia Coppola, and a certain woman whose name I won't mention for fear of a libel lawsuit but who published very unflattering things about yours truly in our college paper's gossip column (the same column that launched Jared Stern into fame, I might add) and also announced to a roomful of people that I had a third nipple. I have procured pictures of her taken minutes after the birth of her baby, if anyone's interested.

**Well, that and being on a sinking ship when the lifeboats come around.

The Role of the Delete Key in Blog

This seems like something I should be interested in reading but am not. Perhaps you will find it more useful. (And why "in blog"? Why no article? Why not "in blogging"? The mind boggles.)

Lurking uncertainty about what standards should be applied to Web logs written by journalists bubbled to the surface last week after The Bee's ombudsman made public a recent decision by editors to screen Web log entries of Daniel Weintraub, one of the newspaper's leading columnists, before they are posted on The Bee's Web site.

Fred, I think we have an eater

Good christ, but this is depressing.

Many families are unaware their relatives will need a special coffin until a funeral director measures the body and informs them. Some then face difficult choices. Grace Moredock of Evanston, Ill., said that in 1999, when her mother died weighing 340 pounds, the family could not afford an oversize coffin and opted for cremation. "Because of our faith and our religious belief we would have preferred to have buried her," she said. Ms. Moredock herself weighs 400 pounds and she said the experience had affected her own funeral plans. "I'd prefer to be buried," she said. "But I wouldn't say to my family, `You have to bury me,' because I wouldn't want them to be in a bind if they couldn't afford it."

When my friend Bill died a few weeks ago (yes, sadly, he died the day after I saw him, September 1, and it was tragic and terrible and I chose not to mention it here because I can't quite parse it yet) it cost $4500 to have him cremated. All of us, including Mary, his girlfriend, were shocked at how expensive it was, and in hindsight we wondered if the funeral parlor had somehow pulled a bait-and-switch. But what are you going to do when you get handed a bill and you know it's either pay it or not get your loved one's cremains?

Fuck. All the more reason to donate my body to science. Gut me for organs (leave the liver, if you know what's good for you), skin me and make chaps, render my tallow, put my brain in a jar and send it to Pinkie Masters' , hide my eyeballs in my mother's handbag.

Books online and shit

This year, the Kings County Public Library system is hocking its unwanted books via Amazon, which means you no longer have to live in Seattle to get your hands on a copy of New Tax Codes That Could Affect You in 1992.

This is disappointing to the scores of spinsters and man-children who eagerly awaited the sale each year.

"I was hardcore, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself because every year I would see people I saw once a year," [presumably because they otherwise never leave their basement apartment in their mother's house?] she said....The new arrangement will raise the price of the books but will also be more convenient for people who couldn't attend the sales, Iverson said. Last year books sold for $1 apiece, or $10 for a bag. Books yesterday sold at the online site for as much as $16.80, not counting shipping costs."I imagine they will miss this, and I think that's regrettable," Iverson said. "But when you look at the charge to King County Library System, it isn't to provide rock-bottom prices for citizens to actually buy and take the material."

ONLY A GIFT GOD COULD GIVE.

...or, you know, 5 minutes in the stockroom.

This reminds me of when I was editor of my highschool literary magazine. This girl Amorette submitted a poem about the birth of her daughter. One of the couplets read She came as a surprise/Unexpected. Um, a surprise? Unexpected? Sweetheart, you're in my gym class. It was no surprise to the rest of us.

Of course I published the poem anyway, because I was afraid she'd beat me up.

Server error

My brain cannot parse the fact that I had to discover the death of Robert Palmer via dong resin, who, unlike Mr. Palmer, actually did mean to turn me on. How did he know that industrial-grade machine shop lube is one of my "things"?

Like a knife fight in a phonebooth

Farbeit from me to dictate what your next record purchase should be, but since I *probably* have better taste in music than you, listen up:

Check out Dead Man Shake, new album by Grandpaboy.

Look, it's the Puss-idon Adventure

::groan::

Wow, how incredibly sexy, getting banged by a scuba diver.

Via Get Swank.

How to succeed in business

Over at sarahspace:

I hate to be criticized, but also can be rather uncommunicative and a bit lazy. So when I know that I have done something wrong, I have worked out a pattern of behavior that I find prevents deserved criticism. Attack the person whom I have wronged before they can bring up the matter with completely insane accusations. "I can not continue to work on this project with things as they are. I am not paid to take abuse from you. You continually send me emails full of imperative sentences. How do you think that makes me feel?

The Power of Pussy

I am about to commit a blogging faux-pas and talk about my cat. (Please, don't any of you tell the A-listers.) See, K and I got totally suckered into adopting a feral kitten found by a coworker of mine. We brought him home last night and he immediately disappeared for about 3 hours. Hey, I thought, this cat thing isn't so bad if he rarely emerges.

You know I have this thing about pets, right? Don't ask me how I got snookered this time. I mean, this kitten is cute and all, and I've actually *named* him: K and Dana's Imperial Mr. Gordon Lightfoot. We'll see how long I remain charmed by him. (Don't worry, I promise not to blog about it.)

Anyhow, he eventually did emerge around 5:30 this morning. He stood on my chest and proudly performed that standard kitten pelvic ballet I like to call

This. Is. My. BUTTHOLE!

So I got up and fed him. He ate and then disappeared again. How is this supposed to lower my blood pressure?

Lina Koutrakos, Tuck and Patti Fans Rejoice

The Bottom Line has gotten a temporary reprieve. Oh, thank heavens. I was worried that I would have to find another venue to enjoy $7 Amstel Lights and dessicated chicken fingers while listening to jejune rock and rollers.

Hey good lookin' boys

OK, how psyched am I about the Bruce La Bruce photo show at John Connelly?

Tomorrow night's the opening. (<---- I set 'em up, you knock 'em down)

This brave new world's not like yesterday

Picked up free stuff at the Free Stuff Fair across the street. It's actually intended for students, but what, like they're gonna make me give back the Zyrtek Beer Koozie? I don't think so.

I got some safer sex stuff at one table, mostly out of curiosity (because I prefer my sex to be unsafe and preferably totally anonymous), and came away with pink dental dams, black condoms, and peach-flavored lube. Is this what they're teaching kids these days? "Be prepared to fuck Tawny Kitaen."

Next up is Robert Chambers on this season's neckwear

"He has contacts in prison," Hoffman noted. "He knows how to go into prison and get a story."

1) Beat the bejesus out of your adopted daughter till you kill her
2) Go to jail and make contacts
3) ???
4) Profit$$$

You're so pretty, you've got money and ambition

I remember at some point I used to read and see interesting things and occasionally write about them here. But now I feel like reading is for people who have run out of things to think of when they're rubbing one out.

Anyhow, this weekend I saw Cabin Fever, which was both better and worse than I'd anticipated.

Then over at Stereotypography this a.m. I found this: Zombie Pinups! Synchronicity.

We are the fucking world

I decided last night that my least favorite form of pandhandling/busker-ing in the subways is those breakdancing duos--you know, the ones that consist of a Svengali older teen and a young boy. They hit play on their boombox and start clapping and shouting and doing some weird bootleg Cirque du Soleil routine that involves a lot of touching the fetid, pestilent floors and groin-on-groin contact. Then they go and shake everyone down for money.

It's not the vague Death-in-Venice vibe that bugs me about the whole deal. It's not even the obvious exploitation of the children involved. It's the fact that I like to ride the train home in relative peace, sans loud clapping, and if I wanted to pretend I was living in fucking Calcutta I'd stop washing my fruit, taking birth control, and using antibiotic ointment on my cuts, OK?

Watch Her Twirl that Mike Around

Although I'm sure she'd prefer that I not attend, I'm sure the rest of you are welcome to go see Maud perform at tomorrow night's Pindeldyboz reading/karaoke event.

("Hot Blooded," Maud! "Hot Blooded"!)

Things are bad, she's posting poetry

Dolor

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight,
All the misery of manila folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

-- Theodore Roethke

Oh, and

I'm still finessing the finer points of MT (read: cursing Tourettically at my desk), and I realize that there are a number of 404 pages yet. Please to be patient. Thank you.

Hormones

It started yesterday while I was reading the Men's Fashions of the Times (don't worry, I'll leave it up to TMF,TML to offer mo' better opprobrium of the Gray Lady) and thought to myself, This is a pretty good issue. I mean, those photos of Chris Elliott (which don't appear to be online) made me laugh out loud. HAR. And those big gay Dolce and Gabbana ads.

No, maybe it started on Saturday when I awoke to find three throbbing, subcutaneous pimples on my face. Grr. I poked at them and made them angry. GRRRRRR. No amount of Bobbi Brown could render me camera-worthy for my aforementioned interview yesterday. I asked my friend to smear some Vaseline on the camera lens. "That's what they do for Cybil Shepherd," I pleaded. No dice. Finally he agreed to film me in a dark bar, which is my natural habitat anyhow.

Or maybe it started this morning, when I ran into my most favorite, recently departed work stud(y) guy at the front desk. "What on earth are you doing here," I asked, secretly wishing for a fan or a hijab to cover my grotesquely deformed face. "Oh, I'm back working in the office."

"Really. Well, then you owe us for that pizza we bought you on your last day."

John Waters would've fainted had he witnessed the sheer salaciousness of my arched eyebrow. Work study guy looked nervous.

(Commence breathing exercises at my desk.)

Mr. Impound

I had my car towed away today by Mr. Impound of Elmhurst, Queens. I waited for him to give me my Top Dollar Guaranteed, but he laughed and said, "What'm I gonna do with this piece of shit?" I pointed out that it still had a lot of good parts. He shrugged. (Note to self: Get the money *before* performing fellatio.)

I mean, really. I thought I was at least gonna get a little bit of beer money. But no, fucked without a kiss.

Whatever. This afternoon was fun, as I was interviewed for my friend's documentary about women artists in NYC. People looked at me like I was somebody famous. Actually, I'm just someone who can talk for hours on end by myself. (Act surprised. No, really. Do it!) Part of me really enjoyed it. I got to spiel about Women Artists. I think I may have made some enemies today, but my hair was perfect. And isn't that what a woman's all about anyway, right?

So, a few things about my new digs here. You'll notice that I'm using my Christian name. It's Dana. That's my name. I'm okay with that. My folks thought I was gonna be a boy (and hey, they might've been right after all, given my penchant for porn and Skoal), so they only picked out boy's names. Bruce and Damian. Yeah, they were drunk.

Dana was a sorta last-minute free-throw deal, right after the epidural kicked in.

So, there's that out of the way.

Second, here's the provenance of the web address, and hence the title. My favorite band is the Minutemen. Lead singer D. Boon was my adolescent hero. One of the songs off Double Nickels on the Dime is called "Number One Hit Song," and it's essentially gibberish.

On the back of a winged horse.
Through the sky pearly gray.
Love is leaflike.
You and me, baby.
Twinkle twinkle. Blah blah blah. E! T! C!

Wow, there's all these spiffy templates that "ship with" Movable Type, but they don't have any built-in prewritten interesting posts, do they? More some other time. In the interim, please enjoy these lovely factory-direct fonts and colors. I will probably be changing them shortly.

Finally, none of this would be possible without the patient, prodding, altruistic assistance of dong_resin. He will likely hate me for shattering his exquisitely preened vitriolic, carbuncular veneer, but man was he helpful and stuff. Seriously, Thanks Be to Dong. It was totally worth the daily hams pressed on glass photos I promised him for the next five years.

Good Morning!

So here we are. This launch is soft. Right now I'm trying to relearn HTML to do something spiffier; currently alls I can remember is the BLINK tag.

The cashier wore Prada

There's this one nearby deli that has a halfway-decent saladbar (ie, I've never seen any Rajneeshis or liquified-feces-carrying crazies there, but then again, I can't be there all the time. Oh well. History is written by the winner, after all) and sometimes if I'm too lazy to pack my own lunch (what, you thought I had Zone Diet lunches delivered to me *every day*?) I go there and get some gelatinous, msg-laden foodstuffs by the pound.

The cashiers are all rather friendly Korean girls. They're preternaturally happy. (Probably Moonies.) So I'm there yesterday and the girl ringing me up points to my sunglasses and says, "How much did you pay for those?

Here's the deal. I'm not too much of a label whore. Not really. (Of course, if anyone at Dries van Noten reads this, feel free to send me some freebies.) I'm also a fairly altruistic, fair person. Ask anybody!

My inner drag queen says HELL MOTHERFUCKIN' YEAH.

I smile demurely and finger my invisible strand of pearls. Ah, the proletariat, they don't understand that one doesn't ask such things. I responded in my best Locust Valley Lockjaw, "Well, you see, they're the real thing, so I bought them at the Prada store, and they were a bit pricey-"

"I know," she cut me off. "I have the same ones. I got mine in the Seoul store."

Well, darn it all. Turns out she paid 40 bucks less than I did.

My hootchie-cootchie man

Ah, nice visit to the gyno. I like to call him the Shoe Shine Boy (it's the stirrups). Sometimes, though, when I go to see him, he's not in, so his brother works in his place.

"Hi, I'm here to see Dr. B?"

"Great, have a seat. But he's not in today, so you'll have to see his brother."

[beat]

"OK. Is he a doctor too?"

That joke just never gets old. Seriously.

Dr. B2 is not as charming or as friendly as Dr. B1. He also dives into you like he's birthing a foal. This would explain why he's still single.

Both Dr. Bs are Orthodox jews. I kinda like this, because it means that they don't give you the usual scant hospital robes you're forced to wear by the Gentiles, they give you these huge swaths of fabric. By the time Dr. B comes into the exam room, I'm looking like a pink bathtub virgin. Right on.

So Dr. B2 came in today. Here's a rough approximation of our conversation:

"How are you, Dana? Still refusing to step on the office scale, I see. And how is your chocha?"

"Well, Doc, the chocha's fine, but I'm a little sad today."

"Why is that?"

"Oh, I'm just sad about my man JC dying is all."

Judging by the look on his face, I should've said "Johnny Cash." There was some confusion with the initials there. He got a little nervous 'cos I think he thought I was referring to the Crucifixion.