At home he's a tourist

Before we continue with the #1HS tourist’s guide to Seattle, I guess I should probably say something about the weather.

*sigh*

Does it rain here? Yes. Might it rain while you are here? Yes. Should you keep your rain-related jokes to yourself? Oh god yes. See, according to NOAA, Seattle actually averages less rain per year than either Boston or New York. Look, it does rain here a little every summer, but never very hard and rarely for the whole day. Suck it up and deal. Sniveling is frowned upon.

And now that that’s out of the way – on with the show. Here are a few suggestions as to what to see in Seattle, broken down by neighborhood.

Danielle Howle - "Thank You, Mark"

From the “second chances sometimes pay off” department: the first time I spun Danielle Howle’s Thank You, Mark, I got about two and half songs in before giving up. She just seemed so overwhelmingly stiff, sterile and dry. Fortunately, I gave the album another spin and stuck with it this time. I don’t know if the horn section brought the bourbon with them, but when they show up on the swing number “Oh Swear”, Howle loosens up considerably. I think she needed something that was missing from those first couple of cuts, something for her to push against.

Welcome to Seattle - Now Go Home

Hi, bmarkey here. As you may already know, Dana is off gallivanting around Italy right now, leaving the rest of us to stew in a pool of our own seething jealousy. Or maybe that’s just me. At any rate, her trip reminded me that A) it is tourist season, and B) some of you might be thinking about coming here to Seattle. Now, as a local, I am required to discourage that sort of thing. Times being what they are, though, we could use the economic boost that only you auslanders can provide. Come, bring your sexy American dollars (or, y’know, your sexy traveler’s checks), spend them, and then leave.

So, in the spirit of the Great Northwest, I will now provide you with a little useful information to facilitate your having a good time and our getting your money. Win-win.

Country Teasers - "The Empire Strikes Back"

I have a memory of a house party I attended, back in about 1985, ’84, somewhere in there. Not a huge, raucous thing, but a small gathering of maybe 15 – 20 friends, most likely after a show. We’d been drinking most of the night, and those who partook of the various herbs provided by the host had been doing so just as long. We were relaxed. Or we were right up until the moment one of my friends (we’ll call him Loki, as he was something of a trickster) slipped a copy of Lou Reed’s Berlin album on the turntable. For those of you unfamiliar with that particular outing, the Pitchfork review sums it up nicely: “a package of ten spiteful, depressing tracks about poverty, drug abuse and suicide.” Being a bit of a Reed fan at the time, I recognized it right off. Most of the folks there had no knowledge of Uncle Lou aside from “Walk On The Wild Side”, though, and Loki knew it. Not at all sporting of him, but it was interesting to watch the scenario play out.

We are experiencing a lull

Big thanks to Maud for putting me on her list of favorite entertainment sites. Hello EW readers. I'm sorry for the dearth of fresh content! I am passer des bonnes vacances, but thank you for stopping by.

As much as I find Maud's compliment incredibly thoughtful, I also think--and I'm sure many of you will agree--that it's an entirely spurious claim. But if you wanna hang out, I'll point you to some of the posts I feel are PERSONAL FUCKING TRIUMPHS.

-On visiting the gyno.

-On visiting the strip club.

-On music

-On not picking up furniture on the street

-On stealing

-On Mardi Gras

-On shooting guns

-On why I won't ever reproduce, and that is probably a good thing

-On shoes (but not in a girlblogger-y way)

-On Tom Wolfe

-On pie-making

-Oh, you'll love this one: Serial Killer or Rock Critic?

-On overpriced headgear

-On the L train (man, I'm glad I moved to Queens).

I can't think of anything more because right now I'm operating on three hours of sleep and waitaminnit I'm in FUCKING ROME RIGHT NOW and what am I doing posting here?

Ciao brutto

So in just over 24 hours we depart for Italy, to stay with the Great Leader and Her Greatness, J. I have crapped 17 times this morning because as a Virgo I am governed by my bowels or something and right now I fear that everything will go horribly wrong. I know for certain that we will fall victim to a dishonest cabdriver as it's happened to two people I know, one of whom even blogged about it, apparently because he has no shame. In addition, we will get some sort of parasite that will make us crippled with the backdoor trots--it's inevitable, especially in a city like Rome, with its open sewers and marauding bands of cannibal children.

Finally, we will be set upon by an angry mob. The Great Leader is begging us to bring "The Old Glory." N said we will if he can find a bulletproof model. I said we'd compromise and bring a Canadian flag.

So, this is a buildup to say that I'll be ghost for a couple of weeks, unless I run out of churches and art to look at. My copilot bmarkey will be here, however, and there are completely unsubstantiated rumors that Reeves might show up too.

Wish me luck that I might not crap my pants--and, thus, lose my fix--at la dogana. I'll be back in July with photos from the beach, if you know what I mean. (<---boobies)

Tom wonders why I hate Chicago and then he sends me shit like this and I'm all like It's because you're afraid of vibrators

I hate white people's kids. And I also hate white kids' parents

Hitler cats!

Hearty congrats to Hackmuth; he's hitched!

Vincent Gallo: Like God and syphillis, he is everywhere

Celebrity sightings in NYC, a place where fully 34% of the population is famous, are kind of too commonplace to get excited about, unless they're in some curious or salacious context (eg, Anderson Cooper at the Phoenix* or Ben Affleck taking a shit at Enid's** or Grady Sizemore in a jockstrap jumping up and down on my bed.***)(Oh, and Grady, I'm also planning on doling out some punishment after last night's game. Jesus).

Still, if I had to pick, Vincent Gallo is probably my favorite "celebrity" sighting. This is not merely because I think he's a terrific douchebag. It's because I truly believe that he has some metaphysical ability to be in five places at once. It's something like the Caine-Hackman Theory. Either that, or he's so desperate to be relevant that he's hitting the pavement every day, pressing the flesh and kissing babies. Whatever. I've seen him pretty much everywhere in this town, and sometimes at the same time that someone's seeing him elsewhere.

Newsflash! Kids in upstate NY can't wait to get the fuck out of upstate NY

This made my sphincter contract. Painfully.

Open wide for some soccer

Surely by now you are aware that there are soccer matches going on somewhere. We are--or at least half of us are, as mainly my interest in the sport is watching sexy guys with great legs run around a field--a soccer household. Football. Whatever.

There have been some crushing defeats. Jeff was devastated by Serbia-Montenegro's loss. And N, obviously, wasn't particularly happy about yesterday's USA v. Czech Republic match. We're actually flying into Rome on the day of the USA v. Italy match, which N plans to watch in some bar somewhere despite the distinct possibility of being set upon by a mob of angry strangers. Please, I beg of him, Don't say anything while you watch the match.

On a lighter note, the advent of the World Cup has allowed me to employ numerous permutations of one of my favorite Simpsons quotes: This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on earth - Mexico or Portugal!

N's already getting a little tired of it, but I swear to Christ I'm gonna ride that one till the wheels fall off.

Why bridges are important to wildlife

Oh man, I wanna go to the Touch and Go Records 25th Anniversary show. Killdozer!

Vidiot has posted some great recipes

No, Markos, you are the "insecure, catty bitch"

Hail Satin!

Great gift for Mom!

A la recherche du temps perdu

Remember the other day when I was whingeing about missing Great Aunt Chi Chi's ropa vieja? The truth of the matter is that I actually know how to make it--well, a version somewhat like hers--I'm just too lazy.

But N loves it, and because I know it's my wifely duty to have a hot meal on the table when he gets home, I make it every now and then, particularly if there's a sale on stringy, fatty cuts of beef at the supermarket.

Most auspiciously, the pot I cooked this particular batch in actually belonged to Chi Chi herself. It's just a crappy stainless steel pot, but for some reason it's perfect for stews. I actually liberated it from my mother's house last time I was upstate.

My mom: "Do you want the Cuban pot [see, we called it the Cuban pot because it was Chi Chi's and it was all she cooked with and for all I know she rowed all the way from Cuba in it]? It's taking up too much space."

Me (eager to have a big pot and also to piece-by-piece disassemble my mother's Collyeresque kitchen before she moves to Florida*): "Hells yeah."

So, herewith: Chi Chi's Ropa Vieja Simulacrum.

Strange Reaction has a 1984 Fall bootleg

I'm not particularly fond of Deadwood but Heather Havrilesky gives a compelling argument: "Those that doubt me suck cock by choice!"

Jesus Christ. What year is it again?

The (un)talented Mr. Kevin Walker

NYC restaurants, organized by subway stop

Six Rules for Eating Wisely [Via Elise, who offers her critique]

After a year-long inquiry, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons has released its findings: Confronting Confinement

About goddamn time: U.S. Approves Cervical Cancer Vaccine. Now can we just work on making it not quite so prohibitively expensive?

Won't somebody think of the ratings!?!

There's an excellent post here about the "50,000" media meme that just never dies. NBC's newest golden-egg-laying goose, Dateline's To Catch a Predator, has minted its latest incarnation: Yes, friends, there are 50,000 sexual predators online! Right now! Waiting to talk to you.

To Catch a Predator first aired at least 100 years ago and is hosted by preening, sanctimonious douchenozzle Chris Hansen. Every week, a crack team of Perverted Justice acolytes (who seem to like their job a little too much) and beefy cops collude to ensnare dimwitted sexual predators. It's your standard sting operation, but for one small twist: It's broadcast to millions (or at least 50,000) for our own private titillation.

I. AIN'T. BUYIN. IT.

I was Russell Crowe's stooge [Via]

Max has posted some photos from a rogue band of wheatpasting culturejammers... ladies and gentlemen, GENTRIFY BROOKLYN

Possibly the best celebrity sighting ever: Morgan Spurlock at a churrascaria

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it last night: Diamond Dave does a bluegrass version of "Jump"

Unsure whether the more disturbing aspect of this is the flashing itself or the fact that he was wearing a sarong [Someone just emailed me to point out that this guy and this guy have the same surname--Hoyt. If they are related, I wonder what the holidays are like at their house.]

Pretty much anyone who's ever lived in Brooklyn can empathize with this

There is so much that is wrong with this story that I don't even know where to begin. For instance, one man was killed, two were badly burned, and the focus is on the mother? Furthermore, how do you go about looking at fabric samples seconds after a giant blast tears through your house?

How touching.

Only one guy in the USA is a descendant of Ghengis Khan. But don't let that stop you from taking the test yourself or anything

It's what you've all been waiting for: The National Day of Slayer (and we all know that max is particularly delighted)

Asobi Seksu - "Citrus"

Here’s an example of the online musical ecological system functioning as it was meant to: I first heard of Asobi Seksu on a few different mp3 blogs; I downloaded a couple of tracks, based on the descriptions; I was sufficiently intrigued to buy and download Citrus from eMusic; now I’m reviewing it online. The system works when you let it. Suck it, RIAA.

9/11 conspiracy theorists convene in Chicago, making things rather convenient for the NSA, I presume

Howling like a hypocrite at an auto-da-fe

Sometimes I am so filled with dread that I am actually sad. Today I am going to a meeting where I anticipate being yelled at, not because I've done something wrong, but because...because things are the way they are and there is nothing right in this godforsaken shitsucking world. (I would love to elaborate, but self-interest and my love of dental insurance prevents me from doing so.) Dealing with difficult clients (and the farcical use of "client" is something I am obliged to do based on my job description) makes me sometimes wish that by "clients" I actually meant "johns" because if I am going to get fucked I'd rather be paid $300/hour for the duty. As my gentleman's agreement stands now, I'm lucky if we're served spiritless apricot danish.

Speaking of getting fucked, see this? These are all iMacs, just like the one I work on, except the difference is that mine is sitting on my desk and it doesn't have a yellow "AUTHORIZED FOR DISPOSAL" sticker on it. Wanna know why I'm the only person in the office who is working on a five-year-old computer? Yeah, me too.

And although N and I have confirmed our extended trip to Italy (starting in less than two weeks, Thanks God for blessing our expat friend J with a legitimate visa so that we may frolic with her and The Great Leader on beaches where banana hammocks are considered Puritanical) I can't help but feel that vacation time is not coming soon enough. Maybe partying will help.

I am so itching for a vacation that I'm feeling increasingly homesick for Hollywood, Florida, a town I haven't visited in 15 years, but which was my childhood home every year during the winter months. Things I miss about Hollywood: Walking with my grandfather every morning to get the paper and stopping to look at the jewelry in the windows of the pawnshops--singing the Mulligan Guard the whole way; eating chicharrones at the dog track flea market; stealing grapefruits with my grandmother from the neighboring yard; swimming in the not-very-warm Atlantic, dodging Man O' Wars and giant globs of tar that floated in on the tide; 3 o'clock Sunday spaghetti dinners; hanging laundry in the back yard near-overwhelmed by the stink of bleach and rotting sapodillas; my great aunt Chi Chi's ropa vieja and flan (a dessert I truthfully didn't like at the time, but now of course I'd give my left arm for her recipe).

Of course, Hollywood then was famous for two things: the largest French(-Candadian)- speaking population in the USA (and its attendant and impressive assortment of distended-beer-belly-Speedo-overhangs) and the Hollywood Mall, where Adam Walsh was abducted by Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. Yay Hollywood!

(Hm. There was jai alai, too, I guess.)

The fact is that Hollywood was sort of the Edith Bouvier Beale of South Florida. It had the most gorgeous Art Deco-to-'40s architecture, and a lovely, if slightly decrepit, downtown circle where you could buy espadrilles and girdles and Floridian (emphasis on the "florid") shirts. Since I've been gone though there's been a renaissance of sorts and now you can get Thai food but probably not a reasonably priced, pre-owned three-finger gold ring that reads Raphael. As is the case with all festive rehabbing, you can thank the gays for this.

What was my point? Right. As we watched Big Love last night, I even began thinking, You know, Utah is kind of pretty. I wonder how far that compound is from the SLC airport?

Oh, and by the way, we missed the season finale of The Sopranos, so woe betide he who mentions any of the plot points to me today.

Wendy McClure's tale of jukebox sadism reminds me of what I like to call my Frankie Teardrop Revenge

Tom sent me this. The description doesn't say if he's bendable or has functioning orifices. How sad

This is the cutest thing you'll see all day

As a wise man once said, In the real fourth reich, you'll be the first to go

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

Psychic pets and landmines: Genius

Maud on the predictability of the Times' best-of lit list: ...when New Yorker readers from Connecticut make up a quarter of a jury pool, pardon me if I don’t faint from the shock of multiple ballots cast for Updike and Roth.

We tripped the life fantastic on the sidewalks of NY

[Ed note: Did someone really link to me on Fark? I'm sorry, was there a shortage of exploding dogs and size JJJ boobies yesterday or something?]

I've begun my annual, fruitless mission to find a styling product that keeps my hair from being frizzy without making it look all Jermaine Jackson. My hair never used to be frizzy, not even when I lived in GA. Now, however--and I blame my nascent early menopause*--my once-soft-and-curly locks have gone all wiry and Smith College-y.

So dig this big crux: Last fall, I actually found the miracle product. It was remaindered at The Christmas Tree Shoppes. Fifty cents! Had I known how perfect it was, I'd have bought every last bottle. Now I can't find it anywhere. So I have to press on.

In my search, I had consciously avoided the hated Ricky's NYC, a chain that carries specialized hair and cosmetic products. I can't quite put my finger on why I hate Ricky's so much; it could be the fact that often their products are overpriced and old and dusty. And that sometimes the price of the product will vary from bottle to bottle. And they put stuff on high shelves.

And also they won't allow you to try on more than three wigs per visit. What nerve.

However, since my search for this elusive magical "grooming cream" had turned up nothing, I went to Ricky's. Resignedly.

No luck on my particular brand, so I picked out various "grooming creams" and opened them all, partially because I wanted to find the one with the closest consistency and also because they expressly ask you not to open the bottles. Ha, suck it, Ricky's.

I ended up purchasing a cream that wasn't altogether satisfying, but it was cheap. And then I headed up to the train. La la la, lovely spring day; it was that time in the afternoon when the sky is just beginning to pinken and everything is gorgeous because you're about to go home and drink seven tumblers of scotch.

I walked about eight blocks when my arm brushed up against something cold and sticky on my coat. I looked down.

I had somehow managed to squirt seven tumblers of grooming cream down the front of my jacket. White, viscous ooze. All over my stomach. It looked like I'd had a chance encounter on 4th Ave. with Peter North.

Eight blocks like this. I frantically shook off my coat and ran into the nearest napkin-dispensing establishment--a Tasti-D-Lite, yet another chain store I don't go into. (To add insult to injury, I had to ask for a napkin. Is there no unfettered access to napkins anymore in this city? If it's really such a big problem that homeless people are helping themselves to them, why can't we just dispense toilet paper next to the ketchup and Equal?)

Anyhow. Fuck you, Ricky's.

*Fun fact! My grandmother went through the Change at age 35. I've already ordered the Carvel cake for my party. It's going to say Goodbye self-lubrication, Hello moustache! Naturally, it's a Cookie Puss.

100 bucks to kill four people is a pretty good deal, when you think about it