"Sassified"

Last night's "party" was thankfully dull. I drove out to the westernmost suburbs of the city. We had dinner in a nearly deserted, garishly lit former Pizza Hut-cum- Mediterranean restaurant.

Lisa's ex husband sat at the head of the table and performed like the diva he is.
Lots of gesticulating hands.
There was an inordinate amount of talk about hysterectomies and melon ballers at the dinner table...not the type of thing one wants to hear while eating grape leaves.
Despite that, it was nice enough.

Then we were coerced into going to the casino.

I don't know if you've ever been to a suburban casino bar on a Saturday night, but you truly owe it to yourself.

It was like walking into a low budget David Lynch movie.
Seriously.

I'm talking 70 year old women in pink plastic barrettes doing the "Boot Scootin' Boogie,"
The morbidly obese pantomiming Clarence Carter's classic "Strokin',"
Midgets doing the "Electric Slide,"
And one tall skinny 60 something who did nothing but twirl in the center of the dance floor...for a good hour straight...sometimes without music.

The birthday girl had 10 long island iced teas, and her gay ex-husband won a thousand dollars.
I, however, had the unhappy job of entertaining her current boyfriend, the librarian, as he bombarded me with round after round of random trivia.

Fun times.

Anyway, here's dear old Clarence himself. If you can imagine this video recast by David Lynch, you might be half way there.

in praise of dull parties

Tomorrow is my friend Lisa's birthday.
On my machine she gives me the line up.
It'll be very simple, a meal at a Greek restaurant and maybe some party games.

Her guest list includes the following:
1. her live-in boyfriend,
2. her flamboyantly gay ex husband,
3. her non-live in boyfriend (impotent and of possible Nazi ancestry),
4. her ex-boyfriend who is straight.
5. her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend,
6. her ex-boyfriend from high school who is a priest (and possible pedophile, but amazingly a completely different one from the one mentioned below.
I know, huh?)
7. a former coworker who may...even more amazingly... be the most bizarre of them all (but that's a story for another time, like after a few drinks)
8. me

The last time she entertained was...ummm...interesting.
I'm hoping for a dull party.

going old school

Alice Ghostley's recent sad passing
made me remember "To Kill a Mockingbird," one of my favorite films....
not to mention the five, count 'em five, in-a-row synopses of the movie...uhhhh... I mean "book" (it's part of our summer reading list) I had to listen to today.

Anyway, on to the point here. Somewhere along the line I got to thinking that if I could invent a man, I think I might just have to invent Gregory Peck.
From that voice to those eyes....to the (albeit fictional) character, and, I don't know about you, but it's all enough to make me swoon.

update

As per request of sillymonkey, here's an update. I've just gotten my car back from the shop...for a while. It's now working, and they they did a great job repairing it...or so it seems. It looks almost like it did before.
It's supposed to go in again to have the bumper replaced, but that has to wait for a while.

The guy who hit us was caught. He was in jail (the last I heard).

He had borrowed the car (or stolen) not sure, from a friend. It's the friend's insurance with whom I have to deal. We may have to go to court, because he might not have had enough insurance to pay for all three of our cars' damages.
It's been a real hassle.

On the upside, I enjoyed using the cd player in the rental car....got to listen to music for the first time in two years!
I drove to work today listening to a disco compilation of music played at the Loft and Paradise Garage that Michael had made for NYC...and back home listening to St. Etienne...very soothing in the rain.

propaganda

Let's take a little trip back to the German 80's...shall we?

Portuguese love

Just because...here's one of my all time favorite Teena Marie songs....and it's hard to winnow them down too.

She and I are so similar it's uncanny...both white, lesbian wanna-be black girls, you know.

just exactly what I needed

So, after a long day teaching out in the wilderness,
I come home and climb into bed from sheer exhaustion. It's pretty much all I can do after a day of work nowadays. By 8 pm I'm asleep.

Tonight, half awake, I hear a knock on my door. I open it to find my downstairs neighbor.

"Are you parked in front of the building?" He asks. "Ummm...I think so," I answer. I honestly had forgotten where I'd parked.
"Is that your car, the gray one?" "Yeah," I answer.

"Oh, man, somebody's hit your car."

We run down to the street to see the front of my car crumpled up like a piece of paper.

A white car, even more crumpled, air bag inflated in the driver's seat, axle twisted, tires deflated, shattered plastic and glass everywhere, is lodged about a foot into the front end of my car. It looks like they've been merged into one.

There's a crowd gathered around. The neighbor across the street tells us that he saw it happen. The driver, driving 50 miles an hour or more, hit two cars up the street, hit the car in front of me (my insane neighbor's by the way) and then finally hit mine, coming to a sudden stop.

He jumped out of the car and ran off. He's a heavyset (no doubt drunken) black man, about 40 years old, that's all they could tell.

I called the police, only to be told that they had already received a call. Nearly an hour later they actually show up. (God help us had someone been raped or robbed.)
They take the information. They (presumably..hopefully) are searching the culprit.

The neighborhood is still filled with milling people and cop cars.
I've just finished giving all my information to the police. It's taken 3 hours, and I'm dead tired.

Anyway, the short version of this story is that now I have no car and have to figure out some way to work tomorrow at 6 am.

ahem

Blythe goes to Grey Gardens

For/from Michael.
They've clicked her eyes to match the poster background.
Nice.

health and fitness

How do I spend my day off after working in the seventh circle of hell all week?

A four hour march through the streets of New Orleans...beginning at 9 am...on a Sunday.

Actually it was pretty nice.
It was the annual No Aids Walk. This year it was back uptown, along Magazine St. and Audubon Park, and the weather was really nice....as long as you avoided the sun.
And for just two drink tickets one could buy a Bloody Mary or a screwdriver to accompany you down the walk.

I walked with Dennis and his friend Jeffrey and met up with my friend Geronimo and his roommate, Michael.

While chatting with Geronimo, a photographer accosts us and asks to take our picture, because Geronimo is wearing a rainbow beanie...with a propeller.

Our photo, so we were told, will be featured in "Health and Fitness" Magazine (no smartassed comments thank you)...which, although it sounds pretty impressive, I think is one of those free circulars found at supermarkets.

I'll be the one not wearing the propeller beanie.

Out there I saw a least five people I know, only two of whom I avoided, not a bad average. Among the five were Myke and Tina. I chatted briefly with them. Myke mentioned his fear of running into past dates, which I think was the chief motivation for everyone there to keep moving. There's no better motivation than trying to avoid someone you've dated. Bataan death march? pshaw...bring it on.

put your body in it

Here's another great old jam...once (so I now know) in heavy rotation by Larry Levan at the legendary Paradise Garage
Of course, back in middle school, listening to Disco 97, (our local disco radio station) I didn't know all of that, but I did love this song.

Stephanie Mills' slightly freakish voice is perfectly used here.