February 2004 Archives

Because I don't have the heart or the energy to write anything for the old blog today, I thought in honor of Johnny Cash's birthday, I'd post something H.J. wrote on the Gusto group the day Johnny died. If anybody feels like writing up a 2-3 sentence description of his/her favorite J. C. song, I'd be thrilled to post it (for the record, my rather unoriginal preference is "Folsom Prison Blues," although the "Jackson" duet with June always gets me riled up... "We got married in a fever / hotter than a pepper sprout").

"25 Minutes to Go"

My favorite song is one he didn't write - "25 Minutes to Go." Or maybe it's just my favorite performance. In first person, he counts down the minutes until a prisoner is hung and talks about the things happening around him. When that deep, hardened voice of Johnny's sings "He's preaching fire / but I'm so cold," I reach for a blanket every time.

I was thinking about it this morning, actually, because last night I saw Sullivan's Travels. In that movie, a pampered Hollywood director wants to travel the rails as a hobo in order to get life experience, so that he can make an important movie about the plight of the outcast poor. In the end, he has a revelation after being cooped up in a swamp prison down south. The prisoners live these miserable lives and their only escape is through laughter and forgetting their problems.

So I thought of that when I heard that Cash died. Because he was a man who had the opposite experience of "Sullivan's Travels." He knew that speaking about the plight of outcasts, the poor, murderers, thieves, and the lost doesn't have to be a drab dissertation. He knew the dignity and hope and spirit of the characters he sang about, and for that he'll live on.

p.s. Shel Silverstein wrote "25 Minutes to Go," and he made an appearance on an episode of Johnny's variety show that I never would have seen if it hadn't been for the terrific MNN show Media Funhouse (scroll down to episode 532 for more information).

Just for the sake of closure, I feel I should provide an update on the Smarmster. Dr. "Cat Whisperer" Sullivan (I mustn't make fun - he has my cat's life in his hands) called to say that Smarms' liver enzyme values are way elevated, indicating a "serious liver problem." He said he should start treatment right away, so I hauled his kitty butt back to the vet to be admitted until Thursday, at the earliest. They don't really know what it is. I'm terribly worried, and it's too lonely and quiet in the apartment without him.

I promised myself I wouldn't let the old Teapot Dome degenerate into a freakish cat blog (mainly because I know I have these dark cat-related depths within me). However, I'm going to make an exception today because I'm going crazy waiting for a callback from the vet with the results of my cat Smarmy's bloodwork. Apparently the urine sample indicated a liver or gall bladder problem, so they took some blood to see what's up.

We originally took Smarms to the vet yesterday because of a little lump on his head. Taking any animal to the vet is generally an unpleasant experience, but Smarmy becomes an entirely different creature altogether. At home, he is the sweetest, laziest, most docile creature. At the vet, he becomes this snarling, hissing, writhing, scratching menace. I knew it was bad yesterday when the vet -- who has a glossy 11x17 of himself on the wall inscribed with the words "The Cat Whisperer" -- yelled "GET THE GLOVES" to a co-worker after a failed attempt to weigh Smarms.

However, "The Cat Whisperer" fared better than Dr. Katz (I'm not making that up) in Amherst, who ended up with a 7-inch bloody scratch down his forearm. While I'm generally humiliated by Smarms' bad form at the vet, in retrospect I think Smarms may have responded appropriately to Dr. Katz, who ascribed an itchy condition that caused Smarms to lick off all his belly fur to "narcissism" and "masturbating" ("He's into some weird stuff here, this cat"). Of course, it turned out to be just allergies. ("What are you going to do -- test a cat for allergies?" Dr. Katz had said.)

Anyway, all of this is to say that I'm freaking out and distracted waiting for them to call back. I'll keep you, dear three readers, posted on Smarms' results.

Very, very little time to write this week, because of work. 1) Two points - go away, Ralph (I've already written an impassioned email); and 2) This cracked me up, as it is is my fashion [lack of] sense in a nutshell.

Article via Wonkette. Key quotation from Tom DeLay:

"Americans 'have been tolerant of homosexuality for years, but now it's being stuffed down their throats and they don't like it.'"

Alternate quotations (several courtesy of friend Paul):

"Americans are sick of having juicy tasty cocks stuffed down their throats."

"Americans are sick of homosexuals ramming and thrusting."

"Americans are tired of having hot, hard man-meat shoved up their asses."

"Americans are sick of the soft butterfly kisses on their vaginas from lipstick lesbians."

 

The other night I watched this surprisingly good show called "The Trail Mix" on MNN (for non-New Yorkers, that's public access TV). One of the guests of the week was a fashion designer, who started designing clothes after she lost her job and realized that most of her talents, while useful for "life on the prairie," aren't currently bankable skills.

This immediately reminded me of my friend Emily. If I had a time machine and could beam Emily back to, say, early homestead times, I'm fairly certain it would be a smooth transition for her. She's strong, practical, and extraordinarily resourceful, with a wry sense of humor that would equip her to withstand bear attacks, food shortages, or nosy, sanctimonious townsfolk. Plus, she can quilt like nobody's business -- here's a picture of beautiful Mr. Quilty, which she made me:

Have a great birthday, Em, and come visit us soon!

Miscellany

I'm coming out of a lengthy dry spell with reading. I was beginning to think that the web is destroying my attention span, because I would start one book only to get distracted and begin another. Now I'm reading two, but they're both so good that I have high hopes for finishing them.

One is A.L. Kennedy's Indelible Acts, a solid collection of short stories. I discovered Kennedy's Original Bliss completely by accident at the Jones Library in Amherst. It's about a bizarre but strangely moving love affair between a porn addict self-help guru and a woman in a loveless and abusive marriage. Since then, I read another of her books, Everything You Need, which was also good (and briefly made me want to live in a cabin in Wales).

The other is The Sun Also Rises, which I had never gotten around to reading before. Hemingway can knock me out with a simple sentence (Emily describes them as the "essential sentences of purity") like no one else can. "It was amazing champage."

A decent close for the weekend, perhaps. Watch or un-watch some porn. Read a self-help book to kick your self-help addiction. Drink amazing champagne.

On a *slightly* less somber note, I did see about 15 minutes of the Celebrity Spelling Bee on Friday. MAJOR thumbs-down. H.J. insists I should have known it would be awful, but I wanted it to be good, I really did.

I think different rounds may have been sponsored by corporations. In the first, the washed-up stars had to spell various vacation spots, like "Tahiti" and "Caribbean" (Likely Corporate Sponsor: Travelocity).

But the real kicker, the part that said, "fall upon your remote, you foolish girl" was the second round. After Meshach Taylor and some Sopranos dude spell "Darjeeling" and "Cappuccino," Alan Thicke (or somebody - I can't be bothered to check who) gets up to spell his word... and it's fucking "FRAPPUCCINO." This was wrong for just so many reasons, not just the obvious one. After "Cappuccino," anybody but a moron could have figured out the latter. And any guesses about the Likely Corporate Sponsor?

I didn't hang around for the third round, but I'm fairly certain somebody missed "Retsyn."

I've been trying not to talk politics too much here, but I can't help commenting today. It's with a little bit of sadness that I hear about Howard Dean's [inevitable] dropping out of the race. Ever since I first heard him speak in the West Village last spring, I felt he really was the only candidate whom I didn't simply see as the "lesser evil," particularly back then after the war had just started. Contrary to article after miserable article, six o'clock news story after six o'clock news story, it wasn't just his "anger" that I related to -- he offered a vision that jived with me: a pragmatic plan for getting health care for everybody, commonsense fiscal policy, even support for civil unions.

But even though I personally liked Dean, I think I always knew the rest of the country wasn't ready for him. I guess that's where the sadness comes in, because it underscores that, even though I've felt politically in sync with the last three places I've lived -- Cambridge, Western Massachusetts, and New York -- my views are wildly out of step with the rest of the country's.

So instead of feeling like I'm voting for something, it's back to rooting against, with two safe and pretty candidates who vote in safe ways and don't yell into microphones.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

We are ugly, but we have the music. -- Leonard Cohen

I had a purposefully low-key weekend, with a few excursions, once for sushi with Rebecca and once for tapas ("Ay que viva la sangria!") with H.J. The rest of the time I spent mostly window shopping or curled up with a book.

As often happens after a period of restfulness, I'm beginning to feel the urge to go dancing. Recently I pointed out this flier to a [nameless] friend but was taken aback when he said, "I'm not good-looking enough to dance in New York City."

Pish-tosh!
Nonsense!
Pshaw!

My evangelical background probably makes me a little bit more sensitive about this than it would others. As most of my friends know, my dad was a minister in a denomination opposed to both movie-going and dancing, and it's probably no coincidence that I love both of these things. Although I don't dance as frequently as I see movies, I like to think I give the dancing a little extra gusto ("Hey! You're the girl who was dancing with my sister!").

H.J. teases me about my weakness for dance movies, even if they're really, really god-awful (Think Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo.) I especially love what I call the "workin' hard montage" in these films -- a dizzying succession of scenes where the previously two-left-footer sweats, learns the steps, and at some point, becomes, well, a DANCER (note: there's a variant of the workin' hard montage in any underdog-eventually-wins movie - Rocky, or again with the The Karate Kid.)

Now, I'm neither particularly attractive nor a terrific dancer (despite many clandestine workin' hard montages to Run-DMC's Raising Hell in the church parsonage basement), but I must shake the booty. And as long as I have a booty to shake, I will be doing the white-[wo]man's overbite all across our fair city.

Songs of the Day

"I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar" - Jonathan Richman
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson
"Peter Piper" - Run-DMC

Again, with the work, but I hate to disappoint my three loyal readers, so I'm going to give you a gift from the Bishops. Ever wonder what those loveable Catholic Bishops think about your favorite films? I know *I* have! The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been kind enough to pre-screen and review both past and current movies for you. An excerpt:

The Karate Kid

High school student (Ralph Macchio) learns about life, friendship and the martial arts from a kindly Japanese-American gardener (Pat Morita) who shows him how to deal with the bullies tormenting him. Directed by John G. Avildsen, the movie is made extremely appealing by the performances of the two principals despite its message that violence solves all ills. Parents should be sure that their youngsters realize karate is considerably more lethal than depicted here. (A-II) (PG) ( 1984 )

The best part of these reviews is that they're neither wholly didactic nor wholly aesthetic. I picture balding Monsignor Donovan in his corner Vatican chamber, conveniently wired with a killer home theater system ("It's my duty to the Congregation!"), as he gleefully scribbles notes for his next review. "Delightful!" "Sparkling!" "Oh so sinful!"

I don't have much blogging time today (alas, I do have to work sometimes), but I wanted to post a link to this Billy Collins poem, Nostalgia. Whenever I get too mired in pop culture (which is frequent), this poem reminds me that there's a larger historical context of which this decade, this generation, even this century, are only a part. I suppose that could be a depressing thought, but given how fast (American?) culture cycles through these days (Janet Jackson's boobie is soooo last week), I find it comforting. Hope you enjoy.

Free Art Garfunkel!

(When the radical priest comes to get him released, it's all on the cover of Newsweek.)

File under "Unsurprising Arrests."

I am excited, perhaps exessively so, about Fox's upcoming show Celebrity Spelling Bee. I realize that they're probably simply pandering to the audiences who loved Spellbound , but that's FINE BY ME. Pander away, good folks at FOX!

One of the most crushing disappointments of my life was that I never got to go to the fifth grade Sumner County spelling bee in fifth grade. After making light work of the paltry Union Elementary competition, I began to study in earnest ("s-a-c-r-i-l-e-g-e") for the county competition the following Saturday. By Thursday, however, small red bumps had begun to erupt on my head and arms... strangely itchy... the fucking CHICKEN POX. I sat beside the radio, scratching and crying, crying and scratching, spelling the words correctly, ten times faster than those drawling Tennessee jokers.

My friend Steve always wonders aloud what his life would be like if he'd taken art class instead of chorus in middle school. I always wonder what would have happened had I gotten to go to the all-county.

At any rate, I'm fully aware that this show is going to be ridiculous. It reminds me of that old Celebrity Jeopardy! ("I'll take TheRapist's Couch for a thousand, Alex") skit on SNL. It's not that celebrities are de facto stupid, but the networks seem to know that it gives us everyday Americans great pleasure to believe to be drooling morons those richer and more fabulous than we. I predict simple words misspelled, badly, by bumbling and not-terribly-fabulous famous people.

But I'll be watching every second.

I haven't had anyone make me a mix tape/CD in a while, and I'm starting to wonder if a) I'm just getting old and/or no one is actively trying to court me; or b) Mixes are going the way of the dinosaur. The former certainly is possible, as I'm facing down my 30th birthday at the end of next month, but I'm also wondering if the age of the download/MP3 player has destroyed the mix.

It's certainly much easier to *make* a mix than it used to be (I really am heading into young fogey territory here - see below). I remember taking out all my cassettes to find the perfect songs, painstakingly cueing up the songs in order so I could find appropriate transitions, rewinding and re-recording, obsessing over any little blip on the tape. It was an all-day event, the making of the mix tape. And since it was really a sacrifice to put one of those things together, it was a true honor to get one from someone.

Anyway, since I'm in the mood for both listmaking and reminiscing, here's a list of a few of the more influential mix tape songs of the '90s, in order of when I received them.

"A New England" - Billy Bragg
"Blonde" - The Wedding Present
"The Unpredictable Landlord" - Bedhead
"Here" - Pavement
"She's Real" - Kicking Giant
"Street Hassle" - Lou Reed

In other music news, William Hung's American Idol audition is firmly planted in my head for all time. "She bangs, she bangs..."

I have no regrets at all.

(Here's hoping tomorrow's entry is more exciting. I feel utterly distracted today.)

Mattthew sent me this public service announcement for the RIAA, and I can't help thinking that if downloading music stops random parties, the anti-drug lobby could perhaps use downloading to curtail pesky rave parties with their attendant drug use and excessive water consumption.... Dr. Seuss hat sales would plummet. Ah, the possibilities!

Downloading - the anti-drug. Who knew?

Also, does this mean that she actually downloaded the party onto her computer?

I'm confused, yet intrigued.

Next weekend, H.J. and I will be attending a birthday party at the Gershwin Hotel. If you live in New York, you've probably seen the bizarre facade with its tusk-like protrusions -- my friend Tobias described them as "slugs."

While I'm sure it's a fine place to have a party, some of the worst Citysearch reviews I've ever seen indicate that the hotel itself leaves something to be desired.

Frankly, I don't care about the Gershwin, but I do care about comedy. It deeply troubles me that, when writing scathing reviews of this hotel, not one person riffed on the Gershwin theme!

So, if there's anyone out there who has money to burn and feels like staying at the Gershwin, hating it, and writing some bad reviews, I've come up with the following taglines for you to use, free of charge:

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
'S Crappy / 'S Overhyped / 'S Eurotrash
Rhapsody in Pewww
Slummertime
An American Inn, Garish

Silly Poem for Nephew Kenny Kenny R., superstar Your loves and hates, they bear down hard Punk rock fiend, 17 I'd do anything for you but give you beans Smelly clowns, lake water drowned Whenever they see half a frown Not a jerk, toil you shirk But someday you'll make communism work When the leaves sprout, you'll fly out We'll have a hot dog with extra sauerkraut I'd mix a fun potion, 'cept you've got all the lotion (You know what I'm talking about) Epcot and London, they're both burning We got life lessons that nobody's learning And even though I'm not scrappy, you always make me happy, cause you're the Funniest kid on earth

 

Here's my favorite two-panel comic from Kenny entitled "Scandal." He sent this to me in two emails, and by the time I got the second one, my hand was already on the phone to call in a remote intervention. Then I laughed.

H.J. thinks I'm a major suckup for doing this this, so I hope you enjoy, Kenny.

Ow. Apparently bad combination of Thai food and Veuve Clicquot has kept me up indefinitely.

Running into old friends is something that's been happening to me a lot lately, sometimes intentionally, sometimes completely by accident. As someone who frequently thinks about (if not lives in) the past, I generally feel good when this happens -- more complete, like my life isn't just a series of unconnected episodes but a more cohesive whole. That's all I can really say about this now....

I'm going to have to get more comfortable writing about myself if I'm going to blog!

In the meantime, I'm off to down some Xantac and watch bad TV.

Song of the Night

David Byrne - "Finite = Alright," for obvious reasons.

p.s. The saddest BoaSaS ever, made even sadder because it's from one of the most creative people I've met.

I'm putting up this photo for Alician, and as proof for Andrew & Michelle. Note presence of a) Al B. Sure! poster; b) bad 80s hair; and c) really awful wood paneling.

What the hell happened to The New Republic? I used to think it was a solid mag that took charmingly outrageous views and argued them until they seemed somewhat plausible, like a contentious but persuasive friend who can convince you of something whether he believes it or not. Now they just seem irrelevant and mean (e.g., Easterbrook's near-maniacal fascination with belittling Dean). For Chrissakes - Lieberman? I suppose the field was short on Iraq hawks, but c'mon!

What makes me think of TNR today is this New York Observer article on Chris Rock. Despite the slightly "white-guy-writes-pandery-headline-about-black-comic" headline, it's a fairly good profile. On the other hand, in 2001, TNR wrote a painfully misguided article (sorry I can't link to the actual story, but TNR's archives don't go back that far), describing Chris Rock and Chris Tucker as "reactionary" and accusing them of relying on a modern-day minstrel act.

Anyway, I think Rock is right to avoid being politically pigeonholed. In December, I saw this C-SPAN panel discussion among editors of The Onion, moderated by Eric Alterman (if you want to watch, it's here, but buried about three-fourths of the way into the episode). As Alterman is a budding pundit himself, he kept trying to impose a political agenda on everything in The Onion, but the editors frustrated his every attempt. Finally, one of them rather testily explained to him that their goal is comedy, not politics. I think the two are not incompatible, but the balance has to be just right.... The Daily Show versus Janeane.

Must work now, but I shall leave you with this. The nerds will rise up, and I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Recently overheard at the Video Stop on 3rd Ave.:

[Conversation about Johnny Depp's collective body of work that I didn't catch but could infer]

Video Store Guy #1: "I didn't even like Pirates of the Carribbean."

Slightly Less Friendly Video Store Guy #2: "Really, Man? I thought that was great! Why not?"

Video Store Guy #1: "Too... piratey."

Oh - and also, tonight H. J. told friends Andrew and Michelle my first real concert experience was Al B. Sure! [sic]. He mentioned the poster in the bedroom, as well. I would have told an equally embarrassing story about his first show, but his was New Model Army or something, which just makes him look kinda cool in comparison.

p.s. I had that sheet music for "Nite and Day." No lie.

Night!

Thanks to Rebecca for sending me this on an otherwise very dreary, hiberatey kind of day.

This is the first installment in what may be a recurring column, depending on my whims and free time. Feel free to email me any feedback, although don't use "hi," "hello," or "virus" in your subject header, or I won't see it as we're averaging 150 virus messages a day now.

Strange dates like 2/3/04 remind me of August 8, 1988 (8/8/88), the year I and other young evangelicals thought the end of the world might happen because of this book. For more on this and related evangelical childhood baggage, check here.

In completely unrelated news, I can't get the word "chingy" out of my head. I haven't heard much of Chingy's music, but if it's as catchy as his name, he's gonna make a lot of money.

This article on the drawbacks of porn on HDTV cracked me up. I'm no porn connoisseur (really!), but it does strike me that old timey 16-mm porn wasn't nearly as good at masking bodily flaws (read: butt pimples) as today's technology. But maybe we're headed for a butt pimple renaissance.

Nobody really wants to see porn with "normal" people having sex…or at the very least, normal women. People want to see 22-year-old models pretending to be 18 1/12-year-old amateurs.

It's different with men, of course, as women in porn can be generally attractive whereas the men must be very specifically gifted. I would imagine that the percentage of males in the general populace who are both genitally endowed and conventionally attractive is fairly small, which might explain the success of Ron Jeremy.

I love the scene in the documentary Porn Star where Ron Jeremy's physicist dad tells the story about nurses in the hospital exclaiming, "My husband wishes he had that!" What must it be like to know your baby's fate the minute you first see him? "Well, I guess he won't be a surgeon or lawyer… My baby's gonna be a porn star." There is no higher calling.

(p.s. In case you're as sick [or as curious] as I am, Google comes up with nothing under "butt pimple fetish.")

Speaking of Ron Jeremy, I have to admit to taking a certain guilty pleasure in "The Surreal Life" on the W.B. This season is even better than the first, because instead of just yelling at each other and talking Corey Feldman out of suicide, the washed-up stars (Ron Jeremy, Tammy Faye, Vanilla Ice, Eric Estrada, Traci Bingham [in a lacy thingum], and that chick from The Real World Vegas), are actually connecting on some level. And while I know it makes me sound like a creepy Hands Across America-kinda gal, Ron Jeremy and Tammy Faye actually becoming friends does sort of give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Annoying Corporate Moment of the Century

Back in December, the President of the parent corporation that owns the firm I work for sent out a message to everyone in the company canceling all holiday celebrations because of "cost concerns." As if that weren't bad enough, he has no apparent sense of irony, as he closed the message "Your Pal."

Songs of the Day

Bahamadia - "Spontaneity" ("mad explosive spontaneity")
Gang of Four - "Guns Before Butter" (this one's for you, Kenny - got that bass part down yet?)
Silver Jews - "Trains Across the Sea" (thanks to Greg for playing a very nice cover for Harry J. the other night)

Definition of the Day

Young Fogey: Arelatively young person who believes media, art and culture were somehow much better before one was born. EXAMPLE: "Harry's inability to enjoy the Jeff Koons show showcased what a young fogey he is (or simply the presence of taste)."