me stalk pretty one day

Tonight I went to see David Sedaris with Carlos, Marshall and Jason. I've been a fan of his for years, but then I'm hardly alone there. His reading was just as funny as you'd expect, but relaxed. I don't think I'd ever seen quite so many white people in my life.

Anyway, I don't know if you're like me. God, I hope you aren't. But I sometimes get in my head an obsession. You know, after reading about something in a book, I'll have to see it, or even eat it. That's how you find yourself trying to bake madeleines at
1 a.m. Oh, not a good idea to try to craft makeshift madeleine pans out of used aluminum foil either, just so you know.


Anyway, after reading about Hugh, David's partner, over and over, I became obsessed with finding a photo of him. It was well nigh impossible, but I'm not one to shy away from a challenge....and a while back I finally succeeded. (see above)
It's pretty cute too, I think. Now I can put a face to the stories, not that it really mattered after all.

hoped it was frying shrimp...

Kinda hard to tell with the weed wafting over from the Jazz Fest but seems"A pungent fuel smell is wafting over much of the New Orleans area, and residents curious about its source have been jamming government phone lines for information"

just guh-reat.

fyi

"It takes 7 seconds for food to pass from mouth to stomach. A human hair can hold 3 kg. The length of the penis is three times the length of the thumb. The femur is as hard as concrete. A woman's heart beats faster than a man's. Women blink twice as much as men. We use 300 muscles just to keep our balance when we stand. The woman has read this entire text. The man is still looking at his thumb."

What I'm listening to every morning lately

I'm making myself try to actually learn the lyrics, so I don't have to hum really loud faux "frawnch" in the car.
It's not working.

I think I might just get some gold eyeshadow and a rose instead.

35 things done this weekend in Lafayette

1. Missed Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, (and Sharon Stone and the Gap Band too, for that matter.)


2.Saw part of the World Trade Center, with a quote from George Bush, who apparently spoke fluent French in 2001.


3.Willingly let someone commandeer my camera to take photos of whatever he wanted. Apparently he wanted to take photos of lots of white boys.

4.Watched what seemed to be a pretty brazen hookup at the Sierra Club booth, between plaid boy one and plaid boy two. Maybe they'll both pretend to be lumberjacks.


5. Watched a "I'm gone be 76 year old" woman in a gold sequined dress belt out a song about "flipping it over" and hittin' it good" (I paraphrase)

6.Admired these sexy hairy legs.

She was hot.

7.Was charmed by the kids in (completely uncalled for) costumes.

8.Watched some Capoeira in a lovely little park. Apparently it's the Brazilian art of erotic battle farting...set to music.

9.Watched this hippy (above) and this hippy (below) watch a 76 year old woman sing about flipping it over and turning it out.

10.Decided Sarge here probably needed to be flipped over and turned out by a 76 year old black woman.

















11.Watched Michael's friend manage to go from taking a distant photo of one (presumably) straight guy (below), to, getting him to take a picture with me (redacted), to, three or so hours later, upon reencountering him on the street, having a long, lingering conversation with him and getting a phone number (?).

12.Stepped back in awe of such skills.




13.Watched total strangers oblige and take a picture with a pervert (me)...for a bigger pervert(?) (him).


14.Watched Michael's friend's Grindr contact's live-streaming masturbation video minutes after seeing him on the street.

15.Learned that everyone in Lafayette has an Iphone, and apparently people do these things.

16.Was ambushed by wannabe performers, Guy in Pink Hat With Girls. The one in the white glasses was clearly the star. She gave an impromptu, very unasked for, miniature washboard performance on the curb. Even the washboard sounded like she'd been smoking.



17.Photographed model-in-his-own-head watching Capoeira. Every move he made was as if he were posing for a Calvin Klein ad, c. 1999.



18.Envied these tattoos that looked like nylon seams, but were not.





19.Feared gaining weight by simply coming into contact with huge bread bowls filled with crawfish and cream concoction.



20.Successfully avoided eating fried bacon on a toothpick, with shrimp somewhere inside.



21.Envied (?) a Burt Reynolds t-shirt on straight tourist from New Orleans, like me, only not.



22.Envied a K and B t-shirt on a gay tourist from New Orleans....like me, only better.

23.Fell victim to eating a mediocre meat pie.

24.Fell victim to Michael's evil plan: "So, how old do you think he is?" (he asks me, in regard to his friend). "Ummm...39? I said, tentatively rounding down.

The answer was 32 and there is no way out of that hole ever. Never.

25.Made clover chains while sitting in the grass, the idea of which seemed to spread. Gave mine to this adorable little girl.




Michael gave his little one to a full grown woman, who later asked to have his baby. Coincidence? I think not.

26. Watched as a "bear" stripper, stripped (counterintuitively)
starting out in skimpier underwear than he ended up.




27. Watched someone (Michael) eat chicken salad (on avocado) in a Mexican restaurant.

28.Failed miserably in resisting the lure of duck-fat fried fries with aioli.

29.Fantasized about walking around around the festival with the aioli around my neck, sucking it from the squeeze bottle like a big pacifier.

30.Went to a gay bar which had switched up its regular gayzak to cajun music.

31.Learned by way of the very charming Dave the trick to two stepping: "Imagine your right foot is nailed to a plank on the floor" (I paraphrase)

33.Saw this French Canadian band live. 34. Moshed a bit...in French.
35. Vacated mosh pit when huge kilt wearing man bounded in, reaking of a "hummus"-like BO (as Michael maintains).

how I'm feeling about now

A walk to the museum

Every now and then I walk over to the museum and wander through after work. I used to do it regularly when I was in college, skip class...loiter around the museum on a drizzly Thursday. But that's how you end up having to repeat Statistics...twice.
Anyway, the other day I went over again and took my sad little camera. I'm honestly the worst photographer in the world, but I do like to pretend to be a tourist sometimes, and then it becomes a handy prop.

I love the big old urns in the front of the building. They're identical. The only difference is that the one on the right is facing the opposite of the one on the left.




I was suprised to see a number of huge Joan Mitchells in the entrance hall. They really don't photograph well at all. In person they were wonderful.




The exhibit is one of African American art, this painting was one of my favorites (and the only one I could find a photo of online). It's kind of Matisse-y.
There were a number of really nice works there. I might go back again this week in fact, if I'm not dead tired after work on Wednesday. (the only day now that it's free, sadly, it seems.)



The dated looking side gate....very 1988 in my mind, but still kind of fun.

Dap Kings etc.

I'm hoping to get away next weekend to Lafayette, to visit my friend Michael, and the Festival International, during which the city is overrun with Francophones.

Sorta.

What I'll miss, however, is Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, (noted francophones, I'm sure) who are just fabulous. Love her. Love them.

Unfortunately, they're playing during the week, and as much as I'd be willing to play hookie, my recent illness dissuades me from taking off any more time.





Anyway, every time I type "Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings" I find my fingers being compelled to type "Sharon Stone and the Gap Band".

Freudian slip hope

Now that, lemme tell you, I'd get on the bus to see. Toute suite, baby.

Have you gotten your copy yet?

I need to get Oprah's army of retouchers there for my ass, however.


thanks so much to Ask The Cool Cookie at the wonderful
periodically anachronistic. I'm thrilled!

Matinee at Tiffany's

Today, rousing myself from my deathbed, I took my lonesome to see a matinee of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I hadn't seen it in at least a decade, and never on the big screen. I noticed that the humor fell completely flat, but the pathos seemed magnified (kinda the opposite of what happened with "Casablanca" when I saw it on the big screen...odd)

Pre-show there was even a raffle, like they'd do back in the 30s and 40s, or so the owner's son (who had to rush upstairs to turn on the film) said, when they'd give away dishes and the like. I won a dollar, which was nice, but I would have rathered some dishes.

Anyway....the movie left me with lots of food for thought, but I'll begin with the superficial.
That's probably for the best right now.

I'm going to try to leave dear old Audrey out of the post altogether, if that's possible, and focus on very random stuff I'd never noticed before.

1. Where, oh where does O.J. Berman (Holly's "agent") get such huge bed pillows. I wish I could have found a photo of them. His are huge and almost square. (insert too easy double entendre here). I have but a queen (insert even easier double entendre here) bed, but my little queen pillows float around on it like rafts on the Pacific.
Oh, and there were reclining beds in 1961?! Why don't we all have one by now....with jetpacks?

And he has a fabulous lamp, with a gilded sheaf of wheat base, much like this table, a twin of which I saw in an shop in Houston last year for an exorbitant amount of money (but still want)
















2. Patricia Neal. Need I say more? I mean seriously. She's too fabulous. I want to be her when I grow up.


Or at least have her come and "decorate my apartment," if you know what I mean. ('cause I don't)
Of course, Audrey is the style icon and all, but I think Pat's clothes are every bit as stylish.
She is a very "stylish girl" after all.

I dream of a desk kind of like this. Just the thing to write a check on, no? (that lamp however, she can keep)

3. Under Holly's bathtub settee,






I noticed one of my long standing wants, a zebra rug. I'd never noticed it before.

4. Lastly, George. Cute. I know, but honestly, I'd never really noticed before. He's not my "type", whatever the hell that means, but he was awfully cute. Even I have to admit.

call her madam

THE CANAL STREET MADAM from Cameron Yates on Vimeo.

My friend Mark up in Toronto, who keeps up on these things (you know: madams, New Orleans) more than I do sent me this this. The old brothel is practically in my hood.

I have to say, however, I'd want better decor in my brothel. I mean god bless her and all, but those Priscilla curtains are killing me.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but everytime that evil David Vitter sends me spam (how did his minions ever get my email?) I retrieve it from the junk folder and send it back with something like "resign!" or "diaper!" in the subject heading. I know it's a waste of time, but it's something.

the night the lights went out in Georgia indeed.

As if Malcolm M. wasn't bad enough news, now this? ahem

God bless her.

Five random things seen today (but not photographed)

Airline Highway, noon:
Aileen Wuornos doppleganger: bleached denim, bleachedier hair and dazzling white hightops leading her john (30 something black male still in a fluorescent orange highway construction vest) to her room.

Goodwill, 1:00 pm:
A pair of unopened Dior earmuffs.
(Unrelatedly, why are the wigs always behind the counter with a copy of Whitney Houston's second to newest cd, a rhinestone tiara and a pristine box of Iman relaxer, in "cherrywood"? I suppose the cashiers know what shoplifters want.)

Red White and Blue, 1:45, Salvation Army, 2:00 pm
Husband and wife from "La Iglesia de la Profecia de Dios de los Profetas" (I paraphrase). Him: ordinary Hispanic man, 30. Her: petite, pretty 25 or so year old hispanic woman, dressed in a long navy Amish-esque gown, to her feet, with a ruffle....a crocheted doily perched atop her long wavy hair.

Carrollton Ave, 2:30 pm:
A young man in rolled jeans crossing traffic to get to the Camellia Grill, carrying an open Tupperware container of water with a 10 inch long alligator struggling to free itself.

My street, 5:00 pm:
Black girl riding bike in baby blue prom dress and 1950s crinoline...second time this week.

pop quiz

The above is:

A. The cache of Tiffany J., a white girl from Westwego, tragically stomped to death at a Stevie B concert in 1989.

B. Mine

C. The cache of a 40 something black man who beats the wall in a drunken rage every Saturday at 11 a.m. while screaming at the top of his lungs about having to pay back child support.

D. Rescued stolen by me from the trash.

E. Gay

F. Overflow from the Smithsonian

G. The cache of Paul Lekakis, who now lives below me and beats the wall in a drunken rage every Saturday at 11 a.m.

H. All of the above

K and B

So, seeing BrooksNYC's profile picture the other day made me wax nostalgic.

I doesn't take much.

I remember hating K&B (a once ubiquitous chain of New Orleanian drugstores, before Rite Aid etc, much like the nutria, invaded and destroyed its natural habitat)...but mainly because of that color.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, that
Of course this guy didn't win. Too arcane? Not gay enough? Too subtle? Too old?
Who knows.

My attitude with time has softened into nostalgia. That's how it often happens.
That purple and white, however, I still can't get behind.

Back in the day, you could, of course, buy anything you wanted there, from pencils which I (mortifyingly) had (clearly low on the school supply totem pole)

to vodka (which I did not have, but which would have been clearly been high on the school supply totem pole)





I remember the K&B at the mall, the big one. It had lunch counters, each table with its own little jukebox. The waitress would walk down an enclosed aisle to serve all the tables abutting the low wall. You could get a hamburger and fries....in a drug store. Can you imagine wanting to eat in a drug store now?
I barely want to get a pack of chips in one now.