The dead only quickly decay

Historically, I am accustomed to living in squalor. (Well, relative squalor. Crackheads underneath the porch and cockroach infestations? No problem. Vomit in the stairwell?* Yes indeedy. Shitting in a bucket? Hmm. Maybe check back this time next year.) In more recent times, though, I've been fortunate to live in what could strictly be defined as decrepitude.

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.

The pause that refreshes

This morning, while on my way to the train, I was harrassed by a squat, ugly, greasy little weasel. I could see him coming--he began licking his lips and muttering puerile, nasty things halfway down the block. As he approached, I was overwhelmed with the desire to yank him by the front of his shirt and shout into his face Pendejo, I wouldn't fuck you with a stolen chocha, and, after shaking him violently, I would repeat what seems to have become my mantra over the past few years, You fuck with me, you fuck with you.

Perhaps I was enervated* emboldened by my recent commitment to weight lifting at the gym. I was feeling a bit perra macha. But he was on my left, and my right arm is dominant. And I wouldn't want to injure my pitching arm this early into the season.

Clearly, the lesson here is that I need a vacation.

So, while I spend the day calming my nerves by feeding poison to the bums in the park, can I direct your attention to the right side of this blog, which some of the people whom I call friends have told me they never read?

So bmarkey has a review of the new Built to Spill and Howling Rain records. And also, you should know that he broadcasts his own radio show, Radio Lethargico, on an irregular but frequent basis, generally late in the evening. You should check it out.

And also, check out my review of Gary Amdahl's Visigoth.

And I hereby declare today "Let's Punch Greasy Little Dudes in the Cock Day." Hurrah!

*Ed note: As someone pointed out in the comments, enervated is not the right word. I hate when I make that mistake. I hate words and phrases that don't mean what they sound like they mean. Like intelligible. Or non-plussed. Grr.

I went to sleep with cum in my mouth and now there's cum in my hair

Not really, but isn't that a funny idea? Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gangbang.

It is shaping up to be one peach of a day; City bastards put up a NO PARKING sign right where our car was parked and I swear to Christ they put it up just this morning.

Two cow-orkers are out and one of them, unfortunately, has chicken pox. I haven't had chicken pox. I don't want them now. If he tries to come back to work this week, I will have to beat him with a broom handle, which is a shame because I actually like him. And to top it all off, because of this illness, I have to "produce" some (profoundly unglamorous) photo shoots (everything I do at my job sounds impressive but is not at all).

But there are some things to look forward to in the next few days: A review of Gary Amdahl's Visigoth, and bmarkey's reviews of the new Built to Spill and Howling Rain.

And a return to sweetness and light!

ADDENDUM: In addition to the aforementioned slings and arrows, I just discovered that I've been walking around with my fly down all morning.

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht

Holy crap. I had to look outside to see if a cloudburst of blood and toads was falling from the skies--the "editors" of Gawker actually admitted that maybe letting defrocked gossip columnist Jared Paul Stern take the reins for the weekend wasn't such a good idea.

Anyhow, as I've obliquely alluded to before, JPS and I share alma mater. (It's funny, re-reading that old post, it makes me wonder about something: Hypothetically, if Mercedes loaned you one of their new models for the weekend--out of the generous and altruistic spirit emblematic of the automotive industry, I'm sure, and not, say, for the purposes of getting a little love in your column--I wonder if they'd expect to get it back in one piece. Just asking.)

A lot of Gawker readers expressed shock and dismay at JPS's misogynist jabs at some models, but mostly they were appalled at the mediocrity of his writing. For those of us who remember reading his gossip column in the college paper--before the advent of editors--lemme assure you that these are his true, folksy cadences. On a couple occasions at school, some people accused him of plagiarism, but honestly: that style...it's quite inimitable. (Besides which, who would cop to being the real author anyhow? You'd have better luck getting Salinger out of hiding.)

JPS was dancing as fast as he could this weekend, trying to delete and edit the nastiest of the nasty comments, some of which implied that he was bisexual while in college. This is libel, plain and simple! Although there was a certain Secret History-meets-Metropolitan effeteness to his social circle, and although some people might have said that JPS didn't like girls very much (and I don't mean that in the Montgomery Clift way), he most definitely fucked them.

Anyhow, this weekend's experiment teaches us a couple things: 1) that unless you're Don Rickles, playing the Unabashed Asshole card has diminishing returns; 2) that Gawker has learned that not all publicity is good publicity and 3) that some people don't forget certain blind items in the college newspaper gossip column.

Funnily enough, this weekend the Times travel section features North Bennington in its "36 Hours in..." column. What a waste of ink. Frankly, the only two reasons I can think of to spend 36 hours in North B are if your postbac boyfriend got a QP of mushrooms or you're recuperating from a partial-birth abortion at the medical center.

There is victory in the Lord

Those who post images on their blogs know that it's only a matter of time before someone comes along and hotlinks to them. I've been kvetching about this forever, and have had negative luck with .htaccess as every time I try to put it in my directory, my blog goes tits up. (This is because I am an idiot, but that is neither here nor there.)

I've discussed the hotlinking issue at length with jpo, who is my go-to guy for all things computery.

"Why do you care about the hotlinking?" he asked. "Doesn't Dreamhost give you like a gajillion gigs of bandwidth? Or is it a moral issue?"

Of course it's a moral issue, I explained. Because it seems as though the three biggest perpetrators of this horrible, horrible crime--a crime that pales only in comparison to baby-raping and the systematic campaign of terror that is Andie McDowell's film career--are Livejournalers, frequenters of racist message boards, and Italian soccer fans. (I don't have too much against that last group, but they need to learn some couth. If they know how to post images, they should know simple intarweb protocol. I don't care how they do it in my home country.)

It's particularly creepy with the racists/Freepers. So anytime I find someone from the 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne, Armchair Regiment who is linking to, say, a photo of MLK, I post the above photo in its place. This is satisfying, but only to a certain extent.

Then on Thursday afternoon I discovered that I could, in fact, block hotlinking via my Dreamhost Web Admin Panel. (I know, I know: DOYYYY.) So now, when I check my stats page, I see over 100 failed requests in the referrer report, and they all come from, like, MySpace and FreeRepublic and weird Scandinavian music discussion forums. Whoopee! Monumentally satisfying.

Greasy Neal Pollack Stuff

Neal Pollack, shut the fuck up.

Sure, it's been said before, and with better reason, but if there's anything that gets my Irish up more than some sebaceous Quincy punk spouting off about the Iraq war, it's some sebaceous Quincy punk spouting off about what a cool dad he is.

13 1/2

Hey hey hey kids! Guess what tomorrow is! Tomorrow is the day that I am required to perform my service as a citizen of the United States of America. Yes; I begin jury duty. I get to travel to Kew Gardens, Queens, which sadly looks nothing like the famed Kew Gardens of West Sussex, and is mostly known for its parkways and the Kitty Genovese murder.

Although I've made it as far as voir dire in the past, I've never sat on an actual jury. This is not because I've gone out of my way to avoid it--that would be unethical, and maybe even illegal [ED FCTCHK]. See, the thing is, I carry the taint of just about every possible misdemeanor, not to mention a couple felonies, and when you add to that my love of the whole Law and Order franchise, prosecutors shit their pants and public defenders shrivel in their Today's Man suits.

And yet the menfolk still love me like a schoolboy loves his pie.

Anyhow, posting will be intermittent. We will return to regualr programming after justice is served.

The Raft of the Medusa, Or, My Morning Commute

Heh. Can you imagine how excited all the NYC bloggers are right now? We all have Something Important to Blog About. This, my friends, offers the opportunity for real heroes to step up to the plate.

As far as public transit-less commuting goes, the only thing separating me and my place of work is a river and 34 blocks. Last night, I told my superiors that I would be "telecommuting," thinking it a reasonable solution. No dice. The email from on high read: "It is incumbent upon every member of the company workforce to be present and accounted for. We have set up cots in the gym for those of you who cannot, otherwise, make it to work."

From the County Seat of Bah Humbug

Well, only one xmas package lost in transit...that's something! Most of the presents were for N. I had to describe all the items--ordered off of Amazon--to the DHL customer service rep. In a magnificent stroke of synchronicity, it turns out her 13-year-old son likes the same things he does, and that all of my unknown-whereabouts purchases come *highly* recommended.

The zipless fuck you

Recently a man squished me within an inch of my life on the uptown Lexington local. At least 6 feet tall and probably a suit-size 46 (my vestigial retail talents...), he was made even bigger by a 3/4-length shearling coat that I'm certain was composed of no fewer than 16 sheep. It lent him a certain ancient Magyar air.

Ho.

Last night N and I had dinner with my endearingly batty Texan friend, clearly the person I'm going to become in 30 years [insert requistite punk rock disclaimer here], and I was unable to attend Phil Campbell's book party OR the special History of Violence screening with Cronenberg and my future second husband, Viggo Mortensen (I'm really looking forward to the "bruises all over my body and scabs on my back" part, as you can well imagine). Incidentally, if you haven't seen HOV, you should try to catch it because it's Cronenberg's most sophisticated movie ever and he's one of the few directors who can make both sunny days, blue skies, and William Hurt seem really, really sinister.* /critical posturing

We are all New Yorkers today

Saturday night, I found myself at a midtown karaoke bar for a birthday party. A birthday party whose goofy exuberance was deftly, and swiftly, quashed by a drunken Irishman.

He and his three compatriots were sitting adjacent to our party, and at first I thought they were Scandinavian, because they're usually the ones in unintentionally gay garb. They were all drunk, but only one of them was truly making an ass of himself, singing along at the top of his lungs, stealing the mic from the people who'd paid the lordly sum of one dollar a song, and generally being unpleasant. It got to the point that my friend L stopped, midsong, and shouted "NO!" at him, the way one yells at a cat for scratching the couch.

If there's one thing that can lift me out of general malaise...

...it's the baffling, cryptobigot wording of this Gawker post:

Muslim-by-way-of-Portland blogger Laila Lalami celebrates the publication of her first novel, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, with a reading at the Barnes and Noble on Astor Place tonight. If you’re gonna be a Muslim blogger in this country, you might as well be one in Portland.

But, yes, as reported by Gawker, Laila Lalami will be reading at the B&N Astor Place tonight, which happens to be located in New York City, the perfect city to live in if you're gonna be a Jewish blogger in this country.

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Adolf Hitler!"

Halloween stands tall in my list of least favorite holidays, right after Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, but winning out over Valentine's Day and the Fourth of July. (Being irreligious, I have no opinion of that Springtime Christian Groundhog Day, which for me means eating everyone else's cast-off black jellybeans and Peeps the Monday after. And I kind of like Flag Day, because in fourth grade my class performed a play I wrote about Betsy Ross, the Revolutionary War comfort woman, and I got to wear a wig.) The problem with hating Halloween is that everyone assumes that I'm merely fun-impaired, that I shouldn't let past negative experiences dog me, and that if I loosened up and really, really tried, I'd have a good time. Not unlike anal. I've been cajoled into participation in both. Both times? Like John Lydon: Dissapointed!

Listen folks: It's not you, it's me.

The Autumn of My Discontent, or Quit It with the Tapered Pants Already: Fall Fashion Roundup

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.-Mountain Goats

Fashion has always sort of eluded me, and I have photographic proof. (For another time.) I can think of a few occasions when I've been au courant and for the most part it's unintentional. Periodically the longhorn-wrangling lesbian look comes into vogue, you know. It's fine. I have other things to worry about. Like FAMINE and NUCLEAR WAR.

However, working as I do in the young rich kids' shtetl, and confirmed by various sources, I have glimpsed 2005 fall fashion trends, and I am disturbed.

Life During Wartime

Things are going to hell in a handbasket in LIC these days. First of all, they're doing some sort of construction on 11th Street that necessitated the construction of not one, but three sturdy, tarpapered huts. Now half of the street is closed to traffic. Permanent-looking structures in the middle of a thoroughfare: NOT REASSURING.

Moving along, TEN63, purveyors of the best coffee in the five boroughs, have been strongarmed out of their lease by shady, shifty, and other sh- words new landlords who will hopefully have their cocks cut off by hobos.

Next, we have the alarming news that just down the street, McReilly's Pub, which has one of the top ten burgers in the city and a lavish assortment of all those weird brown condiments folks from the British Isles are fond of, faces almost certain demise, because their new landlords (also destined to have their cocks cut off by hobos) have doubled their rent.

But you know what TRULY makes me curse the injustice of the world? It's those FUCKING SUBPAR FLOWERS in the lobby; they insult the good people of Citylights.

The Trick Is Deceitful Above All Things

This week's New York magazine features an article by Stephen Beachy that attempts to unmask the hoax that is JT LeRoy--and does a pretty good job at it.

It blows my mind--and I've said this before, 18 different ways--that even though "JT LeRoy" possesses all the earmarks of a hoax, "his" legions of fans remain loyal.

The jaws that bite

The reason I have not made any substantial updates is because I am too busy wrangling with my RSS feed. It appears to be broken. Any ideas?

I paid a visit to the dentist* yesterday after an embarassing-number-of-years-absence from the Poke and Scrape La-Z-Boy. Predictably, I have two cavities. (Well, two new cavities, in addition to my already-established ones, wink.)

Sometimes I feel like I can't even shop*

It's not often that I have two big-time celebrity sightings within 24 hours of each other! (Except for the time I saw Matt Damon sucking cock in the sauna at the gym two days in a row.) I'm a huuuuge starfucker**, so as you might imagine, the past two days have been rather auspicious.

If only I were in the Book Depository or the Clocktower right now...

Fucking hell.

We'll Take Manhatten

It's time for another installment of Mocking the Malignant Gawker Typos.

Things That Make Me Angry, Part Soixante et Un

I know in my heart of hearts that I shouldn't read the Times' Sunday Styles section. I know to avoid the Pathmark circulars. Why does this particular obstacle prove so challenging?

Just Nod If You Can Hear Me

Is there some sort of autopilot working at Gawker lately?

That's not happiness to see me, is it*

Take a look at Charlie Dreyling. Cute kid, right? Shoe salesman, lifeguard...interests are playing soccer, fishing, and, ah, FLYING AIRPLANES. I'm sure he didn't mean to bring his homemade bomb with him to the airport. No sir.

*He looks so tooootally bummed out in his mugshot, doesn't he?

The Ben and the Herman

My first job in NYC was in the editorial department of a large, faceless B2B publisher. As is customary for most recent college grads, it was a shitty-beyond-belief job, but it was a *job*, and unless I wanted to commute to Short Hills to manage a High-End Preppy Retail Store (a vestige of my previous life as a retail slut, and incidentally it would've paid 6K more a year, but there's something soul-deflating about owning 5 pairs of chinos, which I did, and in different colors to boot), it was my only option after a month and a half of fruitless searching (and Lewis Lapham wasn't returning my calls).

These are your orders. Seems like it's do it or die

This is what I love about summer in NYC: We get crazies from the tropics.

Falling Down, Italian style

Genovese family capo (and 20 others) indicted:

Matty the Horse has been around so long, nobody in law enforcement is sure how he got his nickname — so FBI agents asked him yesterday. "I have had it since I'm a kid," he said...."When they went to Matty's house he obviously had been asleep in an easy chair and the credits were just rolling up on the Godfather Part III," said a federal law-enforcement official.

Tamika Huston

Anyone with any information about this case should call 864-596-2035/2036

See this woman? She's been missing from her home in Spartanburg, SC, for over a year now. Have you heard about it? Probably not. I hadn't heard about it until this morning when I read this article:

FBI statistics show that men are slightly more likely than women to be reported as missing, and that blacks make up a disproportionately large segment of the victims. As of May 1, there were 25,389 men in the FBI's database of active missing persons cases, and 22,200 cases of women. Blacks accounted for 13,860 cases, vs. 29,383 whites.

The Harder They Come

You know, I actually worried that I'd be at a loss about what to write about this morning--this always happens on Thursdays, I don't know why. But hey, I have an embarassment of riches for you, multimedia stylee! (Consider this my tryout for Krucoff's crimeblog.)

Just to recap: Still no word on the woman DANGLING FROM THE BRIDGE. Still no one apprehended in the G train rape, but now we know why it happened so easily: There were no cops manning the station like they're supposed to. How ya like them apples? Since 9/11, the NYPD has placed police booths in all subway stations near waterbodies. This station's near the East River and the Newtown Creek. Apparently the police don't feel that the threat of pirates invading via the Newtown Creek is enough reason to endure "noxious odors" in the station. (I'm going to assume that the odors are at least in part due to the panoply of deposited human waste, which--for the sake of argument--means that if the cops would actually sit in the box once in a while, there'd be fewer noxious odors. But that's just Monday-morning quarterbacking on my part.)

See, this is funny because I think about the stories of my Uncle Nick who lived near the Gowanus and during the Cuban Missile Crisis decided to arm himself to the teeth in preparation for his own Special Cuban Invasion. The Gowanus is +/- 1,200 miles from Cuba. I say: would it be considered profligate on the part of the NYPD to make sure that pirates don't come down the Newtown Creek? I vote no. And when they're not saving the good people of North Brooklyn and Western Queens from pirates, the NYPD could perhaps STOP RAPES every once in a while.

Anyhow, see that picture? That was the scene a block from our apartment this morning. Oh, there was just all sorts of blood everywhere. At first it was just a few droplets, but then the blood formed spiral patterns that went down the sidewalk, over to the payphone, and then onto the wall of the DEP building (see photo), where the droplets turned into giant, gloppy smears that culminated in a nice big puddle of coagulated blood.

Lovely. I decided to snap a photo of the crime scene so that I would have proof that some sort of crime had actually occurred. (I felt a bit like Candy Jernigan though the only crack vials I've ever brought home were inadvertently wedged into the treads of my boots.) Hey, I'll keep you posted if this incident makes it into the news!

Slow News Day

No, there's still no news on the Mystery of Pulaski Bridge but today the news reported that a woman was raped in my local G train station.

[Sidenote: It's shocking that the loss of the West Side Stadium hasn't rendered every asshole in the five boroughs impotent, but I guess that's neither here nor there.]

Ugh. The 21st/Van Alst G station is desolate and creepy. The token booth clerks are more often than not sleeping or absorbed in prayer [!!!] and once you make it out of the station, there's not much in the immediate area. When I read this news report, the first thing that crossed my mind was Jesus, the victim could live in my building. And then my second thought was Fuck, so could her attacker.

He's a car salesman on Long Island, you're crazier than a shithouse rat: Clearly, a match made in heaven.

"He says he has nothing to hide, but he changed his email password, twice!"

Five things I hate that everyone else likes

The taxi is arriving in ten minutes to take me to the airport so this is a bit rushed. In theory, there is an unlimited number of things I hate that everyone else likes, but I'll try and pinpoint it.

1) I'm sticking with my original choice of Desperate Housewives: I don't get it. Skinny old slags on TV. Woooo.

2) Dave Barry: Sorry.

3) Uma Thurman: Horseface.

4) The Gorillaz: ANNOYING.

5) Anything directed by Todd Solondz, Neal LaBute, and/or Harmony Korine: I want to punch all of them in the cock.

Thank you Brittney for the opportunity to vent my spleen so early on a Friday morning. I'm off to Flor-i-day: C U Next Tuesday! (Really, see you then.)

Like a line of coke sniffing itself

[Ed note: For some reason I'm getting a bunch of visitors who are oddly attracted to a post I made over a year and a half ago about Amy Sohn marrying a Bennington alum. Welcome Maud readers! You people like Bennington, huh? I'll give you Bennington, fuckers.]

About a week ago, Gawker ran an interview with a Bennington alum who is so obsessed with Bret Easton Ellis that he's writing a novel about him. (Apparently he managed to alienate his idol a couple years ago--I'm guessing they've made up. How one could alienate an established media whore is beyond me, so kudos to you, Jamie, and kudos again.)

Anyhow, this Gawker post serendipitously appeared the same day as my Alumni magazine, which they faithfully send to me every quarter even though I never graduated and haven't given them a cent. This issue included a huge, congratulatory spread about the extensive renovations and "rebirths" of the buildings on campus, including the common rooms of all the original houses and the entire alumni house.

I wish I could find these photo spreads online, because my words can't possibly capture the honey-hewed wood, the sun streaming in through gossamer curtains, the Ethan Allen-style sofas and cub chairs. It's a stark contrast to how I remember the common rooms, what with cigarette butts, used condoms, and dried blood being noticeably absent, and especially to how I remember the drafty, creaky alumni house, the perfect (well, cheap) place to spend a post-college weekend when you want to do a bunch of mushrooms and are afraid you'll jump off the roof of your Williamsburg tenement if you stay in the city.

I, of course, emailed D, a fellow alum, about it immediately, as we delight in scrutinizing both the alumni magazine and the Pottery Barn catalog alike. He replied:

Yes I did get the Alumni Magazine, which is apparently now called "Country Curtains."

Gazing in disbelief at the picture of the living room made me wonder "Is this the place we used to love? Is this the place we used to burn furniture and crucify raccoons?"

And please don't even bring up the Alumni House, site of so many disasters, including [redacted]'s car wreck in the Mercedes station wagon and subsequent hiding from the police. I particularly remember [redacted] breaking a glow stick over his head and then rubbing the mess all over the curtains and upholstery. This after pissing on the stage at Martha Hill. It now resembles a Pottery Barn catalog. The only thing missing is one of those noxious chalk boards with the sick-making "reminders" like "buy merlot" "Hannah's violin lesson- 4PM" and "Take Jake and Sam to Soccer." Only it should read, "Buy Xanax" "Pick up kegs for Fels" and "Fetch Cardamom from the abortionist."

My conclusion? Bennington's raucous days as detailed in "Rules" "history" and others and lived by thee and thou were an aberration that became thought of as the norm, much as the 1950's are held up as an era America has devolved from, when in fact they too are an aberration. The living rooms will last. And did you see the rock-climbing room? In my day it would have been turned into a meth lab.

It's the saddest night out in the USA

It's not often that I find myself in a tony club on the Upper East Side at a black tie event hosted by an organization that promotes "protecting the freedom of all [but, really, we mean Christian] religious traditions," rubbing elbows with William F. Buckley, Jr.

It's even LESS often that I am armed with a cameraphone on such occasions.

I hate when that happens.

My sincerest condolences to the residents of the two existing behemoth apartment buildings in LIC whose views will be obstructed by the construction of yet another 20-story apartment complex.

Heh.

Public Service Announcement

If you have tried to call me in the past few days and haven't gotten through, it is because I am floating in a cellphone limbo that is certain to last for 3 to 8 business days. If you've left me a voicemail, I haven't gotten it, and I won't be able to retrieve it, ever.

I have never felt so free.

Metropolitan Diary

Setting: The sidewalk outside of Fabianne's Cafe, Williamsburg.
Dramatis personae: Me & M, walking down sidewalk; two men drinking coffee at outdoor table.

Man One: ...and Albert Schweitzer-

Man Two: Wait, who is Albert Schweitzer again?

Man One: ...

Man Two: Wait, is he the one with the moustache? [Puts fingers to mouth, makes "spindly moustache" gesture]

Man One: [Nods enthusiastically.]

Me, in my Fantasy World: [Bludgeons the two to death with 21-inch barbarian club.]

Me, in Reality: [To M] Well, they're gay, so at least they won't be breeding.

This ain't the Mudd Club

I think I broke something in my cerebrum last night. That's neither here nor there.

Everyone should have a doctor who just comes right out and says stuff like, "OK, I'm going to give you a prescription for either Xanax or Klonopin--which do you want?"

Or maybe everyone shouldn't.

I, of course, when faced with such a time-sensitive decision, immediately thought which one will fuck me up more?

"Don't they give Klonopin to schizophrenics? And, like, epileptics?"

I thought about these girls at school, the two Heathers, who wore matching Victorian hooker garb and fancy wigs and whose chins lolled on their chests at parties because they ate Xanax like M&Ms.

Then I thought about Margo Kidder in that Dumpster. "I'll take the Klonopin, please."

He wrote the scrip on a very official-looking prescription pad, with serial numbers and water marks and embossed frippery.

My doctor, who always sits as far as he can from me in the examining room, then extended his arm, the scrip in his hand. "Is this one of those meds that...ah....will go down on my permanent record?" I said.

He jerked the scrip away from me for a second, holding it aloft as though he were playing Monkey in the Middle. "Why, you running for President or something?"

"Well, no, but I might have to pass a co-op board's muster at some point in my life, sheesh."

"Nah, this won't be a problem."

"What if I want to adopt a dog or something?"

"Probably not an issue."

Thank you, Doctor Feelgood.

Speaking of doped-up retards in goofy outfits, over on Tale of Two Cities, there's been a sighting of these party dolls originally identified in this post.

I had no idea that anyone but me noticed these people (though--DUH--how could you NOT notice 'em?) but I see them EVERYWHERE. My earliest sighting was at the 2003 Tokion Creativity Now thingy, and later at the Greater New York show at PS1. I sort of assumed that they were Parsons undergrads. They wear matching costumes and hairdos--performance artists with false nostalgia for some period or scene that never existed. I knew Leigh Bowery, and YOU, SIR, are no Leigh Bowery!

(Jesus, here they are again.)

[Edited to add: And here are the costumes they wore to the Creativity Now conference.]

The Klonopin side of me says that they ain't hurting nobody (unless they send their poor mothers to their graves with those crazy hairdos of theirs), but the bitchy killjoy in me, the one who can slip out of any pharmaceutical rope-knot, wants to tell them to quit it with the maribou and the body glitter or else they'll never be promoted to shift manager at Oren's.

And I Want You To Stop Stealing My Vodka

Oh, my stars. I'm sure most of you remember Shut Up, Little Man, the audio odyssey of Peter and Raymond, the two drunken closet cases.

I've found an open directory of 36 SULM recordings. ENYOY.

Everybody has their own opinion

Yeah, this "my music is being perverted by evil consumerism" trope is, well, getting trope-ish, but goddamn: what sort of idiot advertises his beer using a song about heroin addiction? Coors Light does, that's who.

It's a shame that Ann Coulter couldn't be inside of the smokestacks while they demolished them*

Waterwire's done a nice histoical background of the soon-to-be-gone Schwartz Chemical Factory. Also, go check out the new Forgotten NY page. (Thanks, Vidiot!)

*Viz.

Keep your hand on the plow

And now the third of the four smokestacks is scaffolded and the disassembly continues. The Great Leader was kind enough to send over a little film, shot by the Minister of the Moving Image, which I will call: Inside the Schwartz Chemical Company. Watch it and imagine where the Pilates studio and the smoothie bar will be!

[NB: Don't try this at home, kids.]

Light your blunts and down your beers 'cos you can never fuck with number one hit song....

So, the smokestacks at the Schwartz Chemical Plant are being dismantled as we speak. I noticed the scaffolding about a week ago, first on one chimney, then on another, and then the slowly diminishing height.

When I really want to get my Irish up I go over to the Queens West discussion board, which is essentially a message board for the residents of the two giant apartment towers in LIC.

When they're not complaining about the flowers in the lobby, bitching that the 7 train's motormen are too heavy on the brakes when they're traveling under the East River*, or bemoaning the absence of a Gap or McDonalds** in LIC, they're rubbing their hands together in delight that the McKim, Mead & White designed Schwartz Chemical Company is coming down.***

The Class War will be televised on the closed-circuit security cameras in the high-rise lobbies, motherfuckers.

*This cracks me up, considering the commute from the Vernon Blvd 7 station to Grand Central takes all of 5 minutes. Suck it up, pantywaists.

***Another funny thing: Half the participants on the board are historical revisionists who don't even believe that the plant was designed by MM&W. I'm sure their background as...stock market lackeys and marketing flacks?...makes them experts in architectural history.

I ask you:

What reputable fucking insurance company would use a logo like this? These are the people with whom I'm negotiating a (please god let it be) big payout for the stupidity of their stop-sign running client.

For the visually impaired, let me break it down for you. It's an outline of the United States as envisioned by someone using a slice of American cheese and his teeth. Inside, a rasterized eagle that I'm pretty certain is ripped off from the US Post Office sits atop a child's drawing of a car.

I need to emphasize that this insurance company specializes in insuring taxi and livery drivers. The next time you get into a cab or a black car, think about this. Think about the efficacy of an insurance company whose corporate identity was designed in MS Paint.

In with the good hate, out with the bad hate

In my ongoing grousing about disappearing breeder coworkers, my friend and I had this conversation:

B: In my many many years of in-house work, I watched countless mothers-to-be leave with presents and a promise to return to work, and not a single
one of them ever came back. if I'd been on my toes when I quit to go freelance I would have pretended I was just taking a leave to have a baby, then I could have at least gotten some loot out of it.

Me: We've had four leave this past year alone after promising to return. Seriously, stop fucking lying to yourself, bitches.

B: That'd make a great t-shirt: Seriously, stop lying to yourself.

Me: Hmm, I like the premise, but does it sound a little too "Landmark Forum"?

B: I'll amend it to read Seriously, stop fucking lying to me.

Me: Coming soon to Cafe Press.

You are special.

Hey, haven't seen you in a while! Wow, the baby sure got big! Li'l slugger!

Yeah, so how's it going? You enjoying being a stay-at-home? Yeah, gosh...I think the last time I saw you was when the office threw you that baby shower. Wow, you got a lot of stuff! And then...what happened?

Ah. Right. You never came back to work. Even though you said you would.

I'm glad you don't feel...y'know...embarassed or anything.

Taking everyone's presents and good will and giving us sweet fuck-all in return.

And, y'know, showing up here, clearly to garner more undeserving praise for pushing out that ugly little ball of drool and DNA.

Oh, isn't he precious.

Jesus Hates Subarus

You know, back when I drove an '83 Ford T-Bird, I couldn't do nothing wrong. That hulking monstrosity was like Ali, floating like a 1-ton butterfly through the streets of NYC. The few dust-ups I had left it, and me, completely unscathed. Why'd I get rid of it?

Since then, I've owned two Subarus. The first died a tragic death on the day of my 28th birthday. The second suffered a few indignities, some at my hands, and some at others', but last night man, last night...well, it isn't totaled. I broadsided a taxi who ran through a stop sign. (Oh, and hey, if the insurance company calls you, I told them we were coming from a fundraiser for thalidomide babies.)

I don't think anyone was hurt, thank goodness. But the front end of the car is all smushed inand creaky and making scrapey sounds when I drive. It limped home.

Things could be much worse. Thank you to N, Reeves, and my friend P for being such cool (and not to mention unhurt) friends.

After Laughter Comes Tears

A coworker's brother bought his girlfriend a $25,000 engagement ring.

"Are you fuckin' serious?" I said.

"I know, can ya fuckin' believe it?" she replied.

We curse a lot around each other.

"That's what we fuckin' take home after taxes!"

"I know! No shit!"

"Christ. What's it look like?" I was envisioning something roughly the size and shape of a sattelite dish.

"I don't fuckin' know. But she better not take the subway home anymore."

"Yeah, no shit. Where's she live, anyhow? We could roll her."

"Right?"

I thought about the implications of a 25K ring, and what it says to your betrothed. It's essentially saying "You better give it up any time I want it," no? It's like, "You mines, bitch."

Hell, if I bought someone a ring that expensive I'd be demanding anal every goddamned day.

A Thank You to Our Sponsors

Hey, thanks to everyone who put TTBBBE back on the first page of results when you google Caitlin Flanagan. Your totebag and umbrella are in the mail.

On "Knowing Karate" VS "Knowing Ka-razy"

You know what sucks about reading two years back in your archives? (Well, what sucks if *you* are *me*...) You realize how much funnier you were two years ago. Anyhow, here's a guest-post from my pal Stv, whom I've known for two years and who's clearly stolen my funny from me.

I witnessed this dude ambling amicably around penn station, trying out his new oh so money headline on the public.

I yelled "NINJA!" and he actually played along, whipping his head around and dropping into a kung-fu crouch as if he were ready for an attack!

Then we both laughed and I didn't give him any money, which made me laugh even harder. If there's anything i hate more than a homeless, it's a friggin homeless poseur.

you know, these guys who run their shtick with the big plastic change jugs, or the crackhead newsletters, or the crusty punks who blow it all on facial tattooes until they have a bad week and go crying home to westchester.

the only homeless i respect are the really completely bugfuck swatting at imaginary demons ramblinatin' shamblinators, like all those reagan-era nuthouse dischargees who i'm almost starting to feel nostalgic for. At least they didn't punch off the clock at 5 and take off the crazy suit before their commute.

you can't see it in the pic, but this guy had some pretty nice sneakers on. i guess he needs them in order to run from ninjas - occupational hazard.

although, now that i think about it, when i saw him, the smilies weren't there on the bottom of the sign. he must have added them in order to disabuse passersby of his literality. wink wink, nudge nudge.

i really need to get into this racket -i'm a good sign writer!
I know i could do it!

"I HATE MYSELF ALMOST MORE THAN I HATE YOU. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY."

"NEED SPARE CHANGE TO FIX TIME MACHINE SO I CAN
GO BACK AND KILL MY PARENTS BEFORE I AM BORN."

"NEED $$$ TO BUY NICE NEW SUIT TO SMOKE CRACK IN"

"CAN I HELP YOU CARRY ANYTHING? I LIKE TO HELP."

Let there be no road too narrow

OK, I'm leaving for the Catskills. (I'm HUGE in the Borscht Belt, you know.) Sorry I've been stewing silently these past few days.

Anyhow, in the meantime, check this dude's car out. Imagine, if you will, the car you fantasized about at age 12. Then imagine, say, 15 years down the road, that you have the time, money, and wherewithal to create this car. Oh, and also imagine that you're still mentally 12. [Thx, Stv.]

Don't make me sic King Wenclas on your ass, Ayelet

I happened to read the article on mom blogs* in the Sunday Styles section only because I was at the coffee shop and the only other section of paper available was Automobiles.

As soon as I saw the title of the article, I muttered under my breath, "Mrs. Kennedy better be in here."

Because not only is she extremely entertaining, but she's also...well, she's also one of the few bloggers with child that I "know" and hence I just thought she deserved to be featured in the article.**

Ayelet Waldman, who happens to be Michael Chabon's wife, is also featured in the article. Ayelet Waldman goes on to dis Mrs. Kennedy in her blog, wondering, "Why was she included?"

Ayelet, perhaps Mrs. Kennedy was featured in the article because she's been blogging for over three years. You've been blogging since November. Ease up there, sparky.

[Caveat: I don't speak for Mrs. K. I just happen to like the woman. She did a bang-up job as a guest blogger. A message to those who malign anyone who's guest-blogged for me (except Reeves, because he enjoys the abuse): I will punch you in the mouth.]

*Hey, who can find the egregious grammatical error in the article? I know someone who can't: The Times' copy editor!
**Kinda like when you're stuck talking to your neighbor during some flight out of East Jabipp and he says, "You're from NYC? My cousin lives in NYC! Do you know Frank?"

Caitlin Flanagan: How can I libel you this week?

Well, I just noticed that this site has slipped off the first page of returns if you google "Caitlin Flanagan." Time to do something about that!

Lately WNYC's been airing a gratuitous Caitlin Flanagan soundbite, presumably in order to pimp the station to the untapped Dittohead demographic. She appeared on someone's show, around the time her article slamming women who hire nannies came out, and I'll be damned if that perky yet smug voice of hers doesn't add a whole new dimension to her despicableness. When she describes what is CLEARLY AN EXAMPLE OF THE HYPOCRISY OF THE LIBRULS she has the same self-satisfied tone, the same deliberate pauses in delivery, as a Westchester housewife bragging about what sailing camp her children are going to this summer. (Just out of curiosity, who on the WASP steering committee decided that Caitlin passed their paper-bag test anyhow? 40 years ago she'd be mopping Hendrik Hertzberg's floors.) Caitlin also went on to argue with Barbara Ehrenreich and Sara Mosle. Ms has a good take on the whole kerfuffle. (Who here can find the egregious editing error in that piece? Soft-headed feminists!)

Anyhow, last night I couldn't sleep. As I listened to the discomfortingly loud wind, it occurred to me that Caitlin Flanagan would be well-equipped to expand her empire as America's Leading Journalistic Comfort Woman to reach beyond the jejune pages of The New Yorker.

FWD: The Abyss Looks Into U!!1!

My aunt, who is on the state payroll, I might add, has been sending me the most banal email forwards all day. They're the equivalent of paintings of wolves on velvet, Franzia, and the Starlight Vocal Band, rolled into one.

Anyhow, I wanted to share one with you.

I have no dog in this fight

Well, I had no dog in the original King Wenclas-vs-Tom Bissell fight, mostly because I would be hard pressed to give a shit about either of these malodorous ninnies, but when Ninny Number One starts talking smack about Maud Newton, that's when I start throwin' some 'bows. If he wants to play, I will shock him like a Chinatown cellphone, mark my words.
So now I do have a dog. In the fight. Where was I?

Clearly, King Wenclas displays such truculent behavior because his interaction with women closely mirrors the flower-throwing scene in the original Frankenstein movie, and we all know how that turned out. I'm also going to go out on a limb here and say he probably describes his writing as "Ford Madox Ford meets Raymond Carver, only with BALLS." Given these two purely conjectural, borderline slanderous character flaws I've just outlined, is there any doubt that this man's judgement is, to put it nicely, impaired? He will never successfully besmirtch the name of Ms. Newton, and he better recognize this and back the fuck down.

But on the other hand, I gotta admit, everthing this one has to say is pretty spot on. Baby blood drinker!

Can I swim in your money bin?

Holy crap, Joel interviews Bill Gates. Bill Gates thinks blogging is SUPER-IMPORTANT!

I feel validated.

I forgot to forget to remember

Hipsters or lesbian couple? You be the judge. (Actually, these belt buckles are collaborating on a novel.)

If you haven't seen the N+1 takedown of Wes Anderson, you're living under a rock. But I wanna say I've adored
N+1 since their Conversation with a Bookseller. Anyhow, if you take nothing else away from the critique of "The Life Aquatic," it should be this:

What will the hipsters be remembered for? ...The most common answer is “Nothing.” New York Rock? So much retread. The hipsters’ championing of vintage clothing? Sorry, you can’t be remembered for remembering. The embrace of white-trash chic--trucker hats and so on? Interesting but evil. Though not authentically evil. The hippies had Charles Manson, one friend noted. “We haven’t even produced a decent serial killer.”

Don't do drugs. Also? Don't get drunk and try to scale a building. I went to high school with this guy. Poor Mike. Tragically, most of the people who didn't leave my hometown seem doomed to a rather undemocratic fate.

When I was one year out of college, my parents called me to say that my neighbor, a classmate, had died in a car crash. "We didn't know how to tell you this," they said. "You must be sad."

"No way," I replied. "This guy poisoned cats. He used to beat me up on the bus in middle school. He said I was a dyke. Where's his grave? I'ma go take a piss on it."

Who knows, though? Maybe he could have been the serial killer of my generation.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Commodify Your Dissent

Ask Me How Much I Loathe Your Ugg Boots. [Via Mefi]

Also? This hurts. But I want it.

Party Over Here Ain't Shit Over There

Setting up the new speakers last night proved to be so taxing that we fell asleep around 9 pm. Weak. So that means I was awake at 8 this Sunday morning with little to do other than read the Times. I was, of course, faced with this article: A Literary Life Born of Brutality.

I love hoaxes. They remind me simultaneously that humanity isn't as bad as I think it is and that, on the other hand, people are assholes. Two of my favorites are the cases of Anthony Godby-Johnson and