"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.

pre-halloween

I just learned that this is what's happening not too far from my home...up near the cemeteries.
I'd noticed the activity around there a while back and wondered what was up.

Someone, it seems, has bought one of the old funeral parlors and is making it into some sort of attraction. It's not my bag by a long shot, but it's a good sign, I suppose...revitilizing the area a bit.
Hordes of overfed Goths from all over the Midwest might spur a revival of sorts. Who knows.

In the commercial you can see the old Jewish cemetery where I (Carlos, Marshall and Vincent and his friends) spent a foggy new years night a few years ago.

(and by the way, that's "foggy," smartasses)

bad reputation

When I was in middle school, my mother allowed me to join the Columbia House Record Club. Remember them?




The above was one of the many 8 tracks I ordered.

Ummm...you'd think would have been something of a clue for her?
But nope.



And by the looks of this youtube clip, The Ritchie family is still quite popular in Kazhakhstan it seems.

Who knew.

Tim Gunn's Guide to What Not to Wear

So, judging by the highly scientific poll here, a slight majority of you love Mr. Gunn, but didn't much care for his new show. That's exactly how I felt myself. I have to admit that I was disappointed with it, but I can't say that I was all that surprised at being disappointed either.
I sort of had a feeling it might not be that great, not awful, but not great.

I do love Veronica Webb, always have, so that's a nice plus, but I can't say I'll be rushing home to watch the next episode.

I really didn't care for that first contestant either. She was far too fawning for my tastes. I like a little feistiness in my makeover contestants, a little fire in
the belly. I like to see Stacy and Clinton brow-beat and wrestle a feisty one into submission.

Well, I used to.
Now, I'm just kind of over it all, you know.

And that whole bit of Tim's presenting the husband with the purchased ring stuck in my craw (and an ICE.COM (tm) diamond ring stuck in the craw is not fun, lemme tell you)

Anyway, I'm not sure the world needs another makeover show, not that I have even the vaguest idea of how to package Tim Gunn and his dazzling silver charm into a tv
show.

Maybe have him dress up in little outfits and give vocabulary lessons?

That I might actually rush home to see.

F**k me pumps

So, I just got a package in the mail, and I'm falling in love...

with Amy Winehouse.

(thank you Veronica!)

Sure, she and I have been acquaintances for quite a while. I mean I've heard 5 or so songs out there, I've read every detail of her sordid life...but now she's getting her claws into me....and it's nice.

Big blue marble

Seeing Vincent's clip from 3-2-1 Contact, I got to remembering one of my favorite shows as a kid, Big Blue Marble.
Does anyone out there remember it too?

It featured segments on how others lived around the world. It was very 1970's.
I loved the show. One aspect of it was a prominent pen pal program. You could write to the show and they would set you up with a pen pal from some far flung exotic locale.

Sort of like Match.com

Of course I signed up. My personality hasn't changed that much since age 9.

A few weeks later, I got the name of my pen pal. I eagerly opened it, only to find out that he was from the far flung exotic locale of....
rural Ontario.

He wasn't even from the French speaking part of Canada. I was so disappointed. I had wanted a pen pal from France, from Nigeria, from Japan! Those were the pen pals they advertised.

(It was just like the Sea Monkeys.)

But I still wrote to him, eagerly telling him about where I lived, pumping up the exotic factor (I figured he was just as disappointed to have a pen pal in the boring old U.S.) asking him all sorts of questions about Ontario.

He'd been down south to Florida, so there was nothing I had seen around here (even alligators) that he hadn't experienced already...hell, he had probably gotten to ride them in Kissimmee or something, what did I know?

And the way he described Canada was not at all the way I pictured it. He seemed to live on a plain old boring farm, not out in the North Woods swarming with Dudley Do-rights the way I imagined.

We kept corresponding for a year or so I believe, but then it lapsed, as I'm sure most such correspondences did. I wonder what happened to him?

my first day of school

Finally, nearly a month late, we've opened school.
Today was the first day of actual teaching. (not just manual labor)

I've spent 8 hours without air-conditioning or sitting down..in New Orleans, in September.


Not to be repetitive, but we still have only 1/2 of the class rooms framed, one port-o-let (with a bottle of hand sanitizer) for 600 people, no running water, no boards, no phone service, no books, no doors, no desks, no copier, no computers, no rosters, hell, we don't even have an office, no cafeteria, no potable water, no intercom, no bell....and barely any order.

Still, somehow, goddammit, I managed to teach all 150 of my students.

Of course, promptly as soon as school let out, it started to storm again.
On the 5 hundred foot trek through fields of mud to exit (by foot) all 650 of us were completely soaked to the skin.

It's 4:30 pm, and I'm going to bed.
God help me.

"This one's for....

Whoever taught you how to kiss in designer jeans."

Anyway just because I need some cheering up...here's perhaps my favorite Prince song
(Lady Cab Driver)

(set by some ingenious soul to a real NYC taxi cab ride)

yarn wigs, Betty White and scat

Sometimes it's funny to see what draws people to this site. Here are some of the
google searches that have lead poor unsuspecting strangers here:

Yarn wigs

(I'm sure I'm the premier site for yarn wig information.

Betty White's "Tonight is the Night"

(God, what I wouldn't do to hear that.) Though this is all they found

Jason Clarissa scat

(I'm afraid to even ask)

Those of you who know me, know of my (inexplicable?) distaste for the "Welsh Beauty" and her pedophile.
(Actually, come to think of it I think I caught it like a virus from Michael.)

But anyway, I just happened upon this site and thought it was a pretty genius idea there.

Might I recommend the:
Michael Jackson
the Paltrow
The Madonna
and
the Sharon Stone

Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci.....

"One night at a disco, on the outskirts of Frisco"


"Dreamgirls", Shreamgirls.
When's their movie coming out? That's what I want to know.

mommy time

More fun from the "Welcome to my House" girls.
(And Carol Channing!)



Too funny

three snapshots

It's easy to get down on New Orleans, (especially in September, especially in 2007),
so it's good to remember the good sometimes:

Today:
On my way to work, an army of angry geese rushes to the water. The ducks and swans are already in. A flock of wild parrots flies up to their palm tree nests. On the way back, Vietnamese women squat in the neutral ground, shaded by coolie hats, weeding the monkey grass as if it were a rice paddy.
In the afternoon the Hare Krishna families from their Victorian Swiss Chalet home on Esplanade, all in saffron robes, are walking along the bayou, passing the lesbians walking their dogs.

At Hanukkah time:
A menorah-mobile weaves through the Uptown streets, blaring Jewish folk songs. It is a small compact car, with a full scale electrified menorah on the roof. Passing Audubon park, a group of Tibetan monks in full regalia are walking, as if escapees from Lost Horizon. A bit further on, they pass two very tall, chicly dressed transsexuals.

this Sunday night:
Driving home after a midnight meal, we spot two boys bouncing blithely through the Marigny streets in nothing more than very tight white underwear. Coming up from the river bank is an older man with hair hanging to his back, wearing a short jacket... and nothing else. On Elysian Fields are two midgets, both in perfectly ordinary clothes.
On the way home, a middle aged woman is riding a long haired pony down the streetcar rails of St. Charles Avenue.
It is 1:30 AM.

The best part of all, however, is that I could probably think of a hundred more such sights if I tried.

1-900-bizarre

Here's a freaky 1-900 commercial.
What can they possibly be hearing on the other end of the line?



via videosift.com

Why do I suddenly want to call?
This is some genius advertising here.

"I've got a feeling, it's automatic"

I love this song.

Back in the earlier 2000's it seemed like Electroclash would rule the world.
Well, at least Williamsburg.
That never quite happened. Jacques Lucont went on to get involved with Madonna...and Fischerspooner never quite caught on...the Scissor Sisters discovered Elton John....Miss Kittin went back to Grenoble (?)
...and electroclash seems to have faded away.

I still think Zoot Woman holds up however.
It seems like as toddlers they were listening in their cribs the same things I was back in the 80s.