We interrupt the usual inane blathering to bring you important information

Santino has posted an excellent collection of links to agencies providing aid to the victims of the tsunami. Go there, click through, and please give money.

Fuck Me Gently with a Chainsaw

I knew my shameful addiction to "Gilmore Girls" would pay off. I just found out, during a commercial break, that my absolute favorite teen movie is on the WB Thursday night at 8. Wheee.

If you love something, set it free

I left a lot of things upstate when I moved down to the city 7 years ago. Some of it was intentional abusing of my former housemate's good will, but a lot of it was detritus that I forgot about completely. Like all my REM cassettes. I mean, who needs those after 1990, right? I forgot them.

A couple months ago, while I was organizing my CDs, I noticed that one of my Gun Club CDs was missing. Now, I've been in two long-term relationships and 5 apartments since college and I knew, I just knew, that "Fire of Love" had disappeared somewhere along the way. I mean, I currently possess three copies of the Stones' "Beggars Banquet." You do the math. There's a certain amount of musical attrition when relationships end.

So how delighted was I to discover, while I was visiting my old housemate yesterday, that she, in fact, had my copy of "Fire of Love"? (Answer: Very.) Hidden behind her husband's Genesis and Toad the Wet Sprocket CDs (I wish I were kidding.) was my Gun Club CD.

In celebration of this reunion, I present to you Sex Beat, by the Gun Club. Same as it ever was.

How many children have we known like this?

Y'know, I thought my xmas was a little weird and disfunctional, what with my mother dropping every single potato on the floor before serving it and me breaking the news to her that I'm sure as shit moving to another country sometime soon*, but damn if Bad News Hughes doesn't have us beat.

*Slight exaggeration. I'll only be disconnecting my phone and putting tinfoil up on the windows of my apartment.

If We Make it Thru December

OK, I've been upstate 4 days now and mama, I'm comin' home.

My mother might be deteriorating mentally, in ways that would be funny if they weren't so profoundly depressing. (Or is it that they'd be profoundly depressing if they weren't so funny?)

PANCAKES!

This is my favorite Xmas story to date:

Their chaperones herded the group toward the diner. A waitress, out for a smoke, forced a cheery, "Why look at all the Santas!" as they approached. She was greeted with the reply, "Pancakes" from one of the Santas in the center of the line. They tugged at their garments and filed into the restaurant, delighted, I'm sure.

There's a Stranger in the Manger

Nativity Display Can Stay. And so can the Zoroaster poster, written on the back of a tag sale sign. Sadly, the Festivus message must go.

I found this story entertaining, not simply because every single year another creche scandal arises, but because Zoroastrianism is PRETTY GOT-DAMNED FUNNY.

There's a hideous creche that goes up annually in my hometown on the lawn of the town hall. It must be at least 30 years old, because I remember it as a child. Anyhow.

Even as a young socialist/nihilist/rabblerouser, it never fucking occurred to me that this creche was a violation of that...ah... church/state separation stuff. Too busy reading up on the Shining Path and writing AFRICA UNITE on my All-Stars, I guess. (Give the anarchist a cigarette.)

After I left my hometown, people from New York City started moving there in droves. This sudden influx of New Yorkers meant the inevitable import of non-Christians, which really freaked a lot of people right the fuck out. Remember that episode of Little House on the Prairie when Laura met the Jewish blacksmith and discovered that he didn't REALLY have horns under his hat?

Hasn't happened yet back home. Most of what they know about Jews they learned from that episode of Geraldo with the flying chairs.

So the first thing the City Folk did after settling in with their overpowered SUVs and duck boots and Bag Balm was write letters to the editor of the local paper (formerly the province of the truly crazy and Town Supervisor candidates) decrying what they felt was a tacit endorsement of Christianity. Of course they were right. Absolutely they were right. Really, I mean, it's silly that we didn't do something about it sooner.

The problem is that the New City Folks coming in like gangbusters and the fact that they were The Jews on top of that made some ordinarily blasé -to-the-point-of-being-comatose locals circle their wagons in a most apoplectic fashion. All over a rode hard and put away wet plastic nativity scene manufactured (some sources say) only about 14 years after the birth of Christ himself. More than anything, it was an embarassing statement on the the tightwaddish ambivalence of the Christian community.

I don't even think that whoever's in charge of putting the nativity scene up every year did so out of good Christian Soldier duty. I think they did it because it's just what we've always done. Unfortunately, the hue and cry--the call to tolerance of other world views--didn't raise awareness of other cultures whatsoever: it only served to cement the locals' "MY JESUS! MINES!" chest-thumping sensibility, which up until that point had been fair-to-middling.

Of course, they couldn't hate The Jews forever. I mean, we have a bagel store now.

BAGELS!

Ride the lightning, Jesus!

If God Were King of the United States: Teh Xmas Crazy has arrived early.

[Insert clever mix of lyrics here]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Kissfits. Via Can't Stop the Bleeding, via this guy who can't be arsed to update his once-hilarious blog anymore, jerk.

Psy-Ops in Union Square

Has anyone else noticed that the public address system on the Lexington line platform at Union Square is an endless, looping soundtrack of increasingly urgent entreaties? It begins with a woman's voice that says, "Ladies and gentlemen, your safety is important to us. Please stand clear of the closing doors." Immediately following is a man's voice that says, with slightly more import, "Ladies and gentlemen, your safety is important to us. Please stand clear of the moving platforms." This immediately segues into the woman's voice, who adds, liltingly, "Ladies and gentlemen, please step aside to allow the passengers off the train." Then the man jumps in and says, almost accusingly, "Ladies and gentlemen, please report suspicious activity to a police officer or an MTA employee." Periodically a real live human will break the monotony by saying something like, "Ladies and gentlemen, there is a downtown local train approaching 23rd Street." Then the automaton woman starts in again with the moving platforms warning.

Is the MTA really just gung-ho about warning people, or is there something more sinister going on? Is this all part of a plan to demoralize commuters even further?*

*Amateur researchers please make note: My 3-month anniversary being off of the pills is when I start having delusions that the MTA is going to kill us all.

Never put me in your box if the shit eats tapes

I loved Stavros' paean to cassettes and youth so much that I'm ganking his topic and repurposing it as my own. (Be grateful he wasn't writing about the genius of Nora Ephron 'cos I'm suggestible and uninspired today.)

I still have the first mix tape anyone ever made for me. It's a clear blue-and-green 90-minute Maxell, labeled PLAY LOUD! and loaded with music I'd never heard previously--the Mekons, the Minutemen, the Soft Boys, Nick Cave--but which became a staple of my teenage years. My first real pen pal made this tape for me. I was 14, and his letters were written longhand in blue-black ink with a Pilot fountain pen. They were funny and cryptic and, to my mind, brilliant. I keenly awaited his weekly dispatches. I even went out and bought a Pilot fountain pen with blue-black ink cartridges and went around quoting John Giorno to my nonplussed friends-- this was precisely what my penpal did to have me in his thrall, and I was his acolyte.

Because, of course, I wasn't just enamored of his genius; I had fallen into profound puppy love. This is why I remember every detail of this mix tape: I listened to it for hours and hours on end, scouring it for meaning, for proof that maybe he liked me too. (How I could possibly find hints of romance in a Einsturzende Neubauten song is anyone's guess, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Fortunately it only took me a decade to realize the love was totally unrequited. In those 10 years, each of us had moved 27 times but we still managed to correspond via snail mail (even after the advent of the intarweb), still sending each other mix tapes now and then. I still have all of them, except for the last one, which was eaten by my crappy car stereo. I nearly cried, even though I didn't really like Avail, which was the song playing at the time. It turns out the music industry had nothing to worry about--the only thing home taping was hurting was my fragile, delusional heart.

Pull Down Your Bloomers and Slide on the Ice

Oh gosh. The Scared of Santa photo gallery had *me* in tears. (Via mefi.)

Play Music!

Because I live in a cave, I only just discovered More in the Monitor. Here's the concept:

It seems like more and more newspapers and magazines have decided that reviews of live music aren't worth the space. We think that sucks. Every night hundreds of shows unfold just in New York City. And people go. But the scene is largely unreported.

[Via Lacunae.]

My other car is a vagina full of centipedes*

Sometimes a news article offers more than just the news. Sometimes, it offers us a delicate strand of bagatelles. Bagatelles that are too beautiful not to share.

Altered tag is a felony in first arrest of its kind:

Calling it "the lowest form of human endeavor," [Ed: !] Suffolk County Sheriff Alfred Tisch last month vowed police would crack down on drivers using altered, forged and fake handicapped parking permits - and, for the first time, charge them with felonies instead of merely issuing them a summons....

Caggiano was allegedly caught using it to illegally park her 2004 Chevrolet Suburban in a handicapped space outside the First District Court building in Central Islip. [Ed: !!]

"She's very shooken up about this," [Ed: !!!] Michael Caggiano said last night, adding: "Any other day, she would have just gotten a parking ticket."

*Viz.:this. Seanbaby in origin? I don't know.

We won't go until we get some

I'm giddy with excitement: I just got a copy of Kiki and Herb Will Die for You. This is better than Christmas coming early, this is like...it's like getting your period just as you were about to throw yourself down the stairs with an iron strapped to your stomach!

Anyhow, since it's almost Xmas, here's a little ditty from one of K&H's other albums, Do You Hear What We Hear?

It's called People Die.

What would you do in exchange for your soap

I was doing my laundry at the Laundromat That Never Sleep (which no longer calls itself such--they went to great expense to fix the neon sign--but you can see a photo of how the sign used to look at Jenny Toomey's blog of all places) the other night and I got spanged by a drawn, strung-out young man carrying half of a gilt frame.

"Excuse me, miss, do you have any change?" he asked plaintively.

"No, I don't, sorry." This was true, because although ordinarily I'd have lots of change with which to do laundry, this is one-a them newfangled laundromats where you put money on a card and stick the card into a slot on the machine.

"Do you have a dollar?" he suggested hopefully.

It was at this point I noticed that he was wearing a North Face parka. Still, I didn't tell him to scram. What the hell, I thought, perhaps this will make up for the time I set that hobo on fire.

"I don't know. Let me check." I began rummaging through my purse. He stood there patiently, expectantly.

All of a sudden I heard a cellphone ringing. I checked mine, but it was silent.
RING
RING
RING

The Littlest Junkie stood there, looking uncomfortable. Finally, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a cellphone, and muttered, "I have to take this call." He wandered away and didn't return.

The moral of this story? If you're going to waste your parents' money and drop out of Middlebury and come down to NYC to play experimental music and get hooked on heroin, will you at least learn to suck a dick for your drugs like the rest of us? Leave the laundromat folk alone.

Bastards.

U.S. Officials Knew of AIDS Drug Risks:

The 2002 warnings about the drug, nevirapine, were serious enough to suspend testing for more than a year, let Uganda's government know of the dangers and prompt the drug's maker to pull its request for permission to use the medicine to protect newborns in the United States. But the National Institutes of Health, the government's premiere health research agency, chose not to inform the White House as it scrambled to keep its experts' concerns from scuttling the use of nevirapine in Africa as a cheap solution, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press....One lesson derived from a closer review of the Uganda research is that even single doses of nevirapine can create instant resistance, meaning patients may not be able to use the drug or others in its class again when their AIDS worsens....

Idle Browsers are the Devil's Playthings

Hey, inkeeping with my OCD-Judeo theme today, please go attend my pal Jennifer Traig's Virtual Book Tour. She'll be discussing her latest, a memoir called Devil in the Details.

Love your handbag

When I can actually be arsed to pack my own lunch I carry it to work in a liquor store bag. This was once a source of embarassment for me, but consider the alternatives: 1) I once had a special thermal lunch bag. Carrying that made me feel like an engineer. 2) Some people carry their lunch in small, handled shopping bags, usually from the nicest store they've ever gleaned something from. To me this screams: I am a member of the secretary pool or perhaps the lower eschelons of middle management; I enjoy scented candles, Cathy, and Weight Watchers desserts; my boss gave me a paperweight from Tiffany 5 years ago.

Treyfalicious

My coworker brought in some gelt on Friday. Now, I love all things chocolate and foil-wrapped. But this gelt is weird: it's done in imitation of the Kennedy Half-Dollar.

Complete with the phrase "IN GOD WE TRUST."

Breaking news

Maybe you've heard of this band called the Pixies? Anyhow, apparently TicketBeastMaster just released a whole bunch more tickets for their NYC shows. ENYOY.

Absolut Naptime

I only just noticed the recipe in the Absolut Wonderland ads. It's vodka, 7Up and grenadine.

It's like the pedophile's Shirley Temple.

Bear with me

I have a number of talking points written on the inside cover of a matchbook that I'd like to discuss with you all in just a few minutes.

Take off your skin and dance around in your bones

Cartoon Character Skeletal Systems. [Thx, Stv]

I'm not locked in here with you you're locked in here with me

Yeah, I admit it--I attended the Vice Records Tour show on Saturday night. It was the Panthers, Death From Above 1979, and Vietnam.

What did you say? Yes, as a matter of fact, I am precisely 5 years too old to be hanging out at Rothko and/or paying attention to anything associated with the dreadful Vice Empire. I was with a group of 6 friends whose median age is 32, so indeed, in as much as I can speak for everyone else, we all felt a bit like school dance chaperones.

The show was quite good, and I would recommend that anyone go see these bands if they get the chance. Unless you don't like BALLS TO THE WALL ROCK.

So I have been to Rothko twice now. Twice I have come away feeling all Brian Wilson: I just wasn't meant for these times.

[REDACTED: Really large, solipsistic jeremiad against everyone and everything]

I know, I know: Bitter much, Veronica? But I've got extra vitriol today, having just received the invite to our office xmas party: It's a potluck. Fuck a potluck. They didn't even give us raises last year and now they want us to cater our own fucking party? (If pressed, I am willing to contribute the bag of pork rinds and the bottle of Old Crow I have in my desk.)

We'll find out where the woozle went

It's old codger's day here at TTBBBE. NPR had an excellent interview this morning with Neil Innes, the comedic and musical genius known for many things but most importantly The Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band.

55 years ago today, in the back of a taxi

Happy Birthday, Tom Waits.

Do you have to see the body bags before you make a stand?

Wow. Those of you who read Mefi regularly have probably already seen this thread, but the charges are so outrageous and dispiriting that I thought I would share the wealth of abject horror with all of you. (Heck, why don't you join me in a pre-noon boilermaker? Now that I have my own office I don't need to conceal my alcoholism. It must be 5 o'clock somewhere in the world.)

Essentially, this BBC program charges the ACS with using NYC's foster children as AIDS drug guinea pigs. These allegations are incredibly shocking, and not at all unsubstantiated. You can read the transcript here, which contains this heartbreaking monologue:

In a mass grave owned by the Roman Catholic Church close to Manhattan, over a thousand children’s bodies, including some who were enrolled in the trials, lie beneath a tarpaulin. Officially their deaths are recorded only as resulting from ‘natural causes’.

Why is it that this is all news to me, a NYC resident? Why hasn't mainstream, American media touched on this at all?

Update:
Hm, my knees hurt from jerking so much. A psychologist specializing in inner-city HIV research and treatment posts two interesting rebuttals to the claims put forth in the BBC documentary. What's interesting--and this is something I didn't realize--is that the one medical professional who's interviewed extensively in the documentary denies the connection between HIV and AIDS and believes that the medical treatments offered by mainstream medicine are toxic. That should have sent up warning flags to the producers, no?

We've always expected great things of her

Big (belated) congrats to the Old Hag for winning Caketrain's 2004 Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her collection, "Check-In," will be released in a perfect-bound limited edition in 2005. Everyone should buy one now so that she can buy a nice new domain name for when her current one goes tits up at the end of the month. Bastards.

Ain't That Some Shit.

Oh frabjous joy:

In his testimony, Giambi described how he had used syringes to inject human growth hormone into his stomach and testosterone into his buttocks. Giambi also said he had taken "undetectable" steroids known as "the clear" and "the cream" -- one a liquid administered by placing a few drops under the tongue, the other a testosterone-based balm rubbed onto the body.

My schadenfreude runnethed over this morning in the shower when I heard there might be a connection between his drug use and the benign tumor on his pituitary gland. "Whoo-hoo!" I crowed. "I hope his testicles shrivel up and drop the fuck off."

"Christ," N said. "A brain tumor isn't enough for you?"

"Oh c'mon. It was benign."

OK, let's be serious for a moment.

Today is World AIDS Day. Bush is in Nova Scotia. Let's see if he even mentions it. Christ, Andrew Sullivan hasn't even mentioned it yet, but I suppose a paean to Big Pharm about how wonderful it is that he can afford his drug cocktail is forthcoming this afternoon.

Things, as usual, are looking pretty damned grim this year. From a global standpoint, women now account for half of all AIDS cases. In sub-Saharan Africa, the statistics are even worse. But get this:

In some places, Human Rights Watch said, police confiscate condoms from AIDS outreach workers and use them as evidence of illegal prostitution or sodomy....Worldwide, Human Rights Watch said, less than half the people at risk of sexual transmission of HIV had access to condoms, and even fewer had access to basic HIV/AIDS education.

Brent Staples had a disturbing op-ed about AIDS in prison. Now, I know that Brent and I part ways on a number of points, but this essay drove home something that everyone should know, but that the gubmint isn't comfortable with:

A recent study of male inmates in several prisons, for example, found that more than 40 percent had participated in sexual encounters with another man...But as of now, condoms are banned or unavailable in 48 of 50 state prison systems.

OK. Anyhow. Finally, please go to Wooloo Productions and interact with the art. Every project you click on means more money donated to an HIV education center in South Africa.