forksplit

On the Block

2011-10-24T23:43:00.019-04:00

Even though I'd heard that Patrick Kennedy sleep drove while on Ambien, a few months back my insomnia made me desperate enough to fill the prescription my shrink gave me.

Side note: Don't do it. The Ambien, I mean.

Side, side note: Maybe the adverse reaction to Ambien was just the nuances of my own particular brain. Xanax has saved my life what with my own truly awful panic attacks. I think that Xanax is the shit.

You just have to control your intake. A lot. If you want to be able to take it for panic attacks and not get all Valley of the Dolls.

Anyway, after having a Friday night, twelve hour dream wherein I grew a third nipple on my shoulder and the Zimbabwe peace faction talked me into breast feeding Estelle Getty back to life I woke, toked, took a shower and decided to leave the house for at least an hour.

Naturally, I hit the Marshall's at Atlantic Center.

Not to shop but to take pictures and then to create a narrative photo montage for my friends.

The Atlantic Center Marshall's is like a flea market run by a recovering meth addict whose own dreams include Jacob's Ladder, The Rapture, and a Lita Ford video from the 80s.

Its merchandise is new yet visibly pawed over and disgustingly marked, dirty but still new.

Whenever I'm there and pick something up, nine times out of ten, I hold it aloft, stare at it and then throw it down, disgusted.

It's not unlike when I was a little kid and my brothers would leave their worst, skid-marked briefs under my covers as a special goodnight surprise.

An errant shoe hangs out in the detritus of the luggage, which is also where most of the women's lingerie seems to congregate. Maybe women are approximating how many bras and panties can fit into a certain piece of luggage.

More realistically, a fair number of the ex-con types cruising around in there are taking bras and panties from the Intimate Apparel section and jerking off with them in the luggage section because it's the least frequented area at Marshalls.

Half-used, off-brand hair products tip over on their sides next to Perry Ellis America ties. Slow cookers hang out next to shower curtains and can openers. Badly selling Pilates bands keep company with Nicole Miller makeup cases.

I fucking love it.

To be fair, about a year ago they got a new manager. Presumably, their headquarters were tired of being flooded by thousands of calls on their 1-800 number.

Things have gotten slightly better since.

Meaning, you no longer find shit-filled diapers in the shopping carts. Only used tissues. (Phlegm? Cum? Who knows?)

The new manager, God bless him, installed a new concept in Junior Wear, dubbed "On the Cube" which is evidenced by a huge pink cube heralding the arrival of fashions with labels like Pretty Girl, Teaze, and Hot Stuff.

In my photo series to friends I like to call it, "On the Stroll."

Before you think I'm being elitist, half of my wardrobe is Pretty Girl, Teaze, and Hot Stuff. Which I buy from the Cube when I'm stoned. Which is pretty much the only time I shop.

A while back, I tried to take a guy there on a Sunday morning.

"Let's go," I begged. "We'll get stoned and you will die laughing. It's incredible. I take pictures and send them to friends with captions."

I could make him seem like the villain with a dismissive kicker but he didn't do anything like that.

He was a nice guy, really. Boring but nice.

Just not a weirdo.

Good for him. Really.

He just shook his head, smiled, and said no.

He wanted to go to an exhibit at the Whitney.

I sat back, deflated.

"Fine," I said. "Okay."

We could've gone to a found object exhibit at the Atlantic Center Marshall's and I knew I'd be way more into it but I was trying to be a good girlfriend.

We broke up a month and a half later.

The Sunday after we broke up, I found a used condom in the Home and Housewares section.

It was nestled next to a Suzanne Sommer's Thigh Master.

Stacy

2010-08-04T23:19:00.009-04:00

"Stacy" bugs the fucking shit out of me.

You probably don't know "Stacy."

Or maybe you do.

See, "Stacy" is "the" prototypical viewer of the network at which I recently, quite literally, slaved night and day, including weekends, during their big, fat Upfront push (Google that shit and puke), bringing-in-millions-of-ad-sales-dollars and then getting stridently chastised after charging for that, oh I don't know, seven extra hours every single night.

Anyway, "Stacy" is mid-twenties; early thirties. (Rather than paying worker chumps a fair wage, networks prefer to funnel the bulk of their fundage into focus-group bullshit I could figure out after the price of two pulled pork tacos and a dime bag.)

"Stacy's" interests include Sex and the City shoe-type bullshit, chocolate cravings during her period, Twitter, clubs/restaurants she reads about in New York Magazine, hanging out with "the girls," and having a four-hundred-thousand plus wedding before she turns thirty.

Basically, "Stacy" is every loud-mouthed, excruciatingly annoying twat who's stood behind you in line at the Midtown Starbucks you're forced to enter because you're too astoundingly hungover to venture elsewhere for morning caffeine before showing up at the job you really, really hate.

Presumably, once inside said Starbucks, our prototypical friend "Stacy" yammers away on her Mariah Carey Swarovski-encrusted cell-phone to her BFF about the mojitos she had last night with their other BFF and then some ugly guy was like, Hey don't I know you and I was like, Uh NO, are you kidding. Maybe like, um. I don't know. Why are you even TALKING to me? Come ON.

Yes.

"Stacy" is every cunt-ish twat towards whom you want to take off your shoe, turn around in that loud, wretched, acrid-smelling Midtown Starbucks, wildly and without any thought of legal consequence, just break out her fucking front teeth, simply to see and hear the wonderful powder, cinder crunch of her cosmetically-whitened chompers turning to dust, even though it means you'll go directly to the pokey.

Anyway, friends. Sorry. Every network you watch has a "Stacy."

They all do, even the ones you think are kind of "cool." You know. A little "smarter." A little "edgier."

Trust me.

All consumer networks do, anyway. Because they're pimping shit during commercial breaks. I've pimped myself to networks near and far and it's the same shit everywhere.

Some prototypes are consumer "high end." One of these in particular is called "Evan."

This virtual, Socialism 101 nightmare enjoys international travel, bottle service, high-price technology, and even higher-priced, um, girls who are down with international travel, bottle service, plastic surgery and, of course, programming that focuses on plastic surgery.

Basically, "Evan" is fifty-five percent of the men you meet in Manhattan.

So maybe, now that I think about it, those venal network fucks are onto something.

Anyway, I have to go bed now. I have to be up early.

"Stacy" has a lot of discretionary income I need to whore for.

Another network. Same fucking shit.

Coke Used To Be Sexy

2010-06-13T16:23:00.003-04:00

I've suspected for a long while now but I thought that it would go away; that it was just a lark, much like American Apparel '80's-ironic-statement tard-o sunglasses, yoga with your dog, and Williamsburg facial hair choices, in general.

But no.

Coke has made a definitive comeback.

Maybe it's ironic. Maybe not.

Either way, it's here and it seems, not going anywhere any time soon.

Anyway.

A friend sent me this link a long while ago (I just haven't been writing) because he knows how much I love coked up rock goddesses of the past.

The guy from TV on the Radio was talking about the notoriously poor sound quality on SNL and cited the above link as an incredible exception.

Whatever sage musings that guy offered, all I got is: Stevie's performance makes me want to do coke again.

Even though one of my greatest achievements in life; my only great achievement in life is managing, despite all my self-destructive tendencies, to not do coke anymore. Or at least, to try not to.

And to mostly, most of the time, to succeed.

Instead, I suggest you watch it over and over, chainsmoke, drink Stoli, diet tonic and lime, Boone's Strawberry Hill, whatever the fuck rot-gut you got on hand, and then drunk dial men (or women) you swore you'd never, ever drunk dial again.

Because you know, fuck it.

Look how fucked up and misguided and tweaked out Stevie was. And look how great that performance was. That's what you're supposed to do. You know. When you feel things. You're supposed to get kind of lost. Kind of fucked up. It's just the way it works.

Which is, of course, the biggest, most bullshit excuse for alcoholism, drug addiction, poor relationship choices ever. Ever.

My favorite though, besides Stevie's at-times-unblinking-coked-up-beyond-belief-eyes-in close-up, is the '80's L.A. rock scene drummer-for-hire.

Clearly, he's partaken of plenty of the hella powder and for him, as long as he keeps pounding the shit out of his kit, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

Not his ex-wife's alimony payments, his receding hairline situation, or his myopia.

It's a beautiful thing to watch. And to hear.

Because whatever happened to ugly, nebbish, square-looking people being able to rock out? That shit doesn't happen anymore.

Everyone's so fucking self-consciously styled, sneering-for-the-camera, and dickishly Nylon-ized these days in rock world.

Now that I think about it, the guy in the Stevie video, in the Members Only jacket who gets on stage and twirls and head tosses with our coked up rock goddess, would be featured in a Nylon 2010, flashback-to-the-late eighties fashion spread.

Even though I want to, I can't hate him.

Because homeboy reminds me of my very first (gay) bf, Henry.

Henry, who'd promise me the last Ding Dong if I'd back him up in dance routines he'd painstakingly choreograph; if I'd maybe throw in a stray pop and lock here and there.

I was a chunker as a little kid. I'd always do it.

Years later, I got skinny on coke.

For a while, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Still, I'd eat lots of Ding Dongs when I was straight even though I no longer liked them because the taste reminded me of being chunky and invisible to men.

This was in a gambit to gain weight so my mother wouldn't catch on that her only daughter was a cokehead who drunk dialed men she swore she'd never, ever drunk dial again.

Because you know, Jesus.

That's what you're supposed to do. You know. When you feel things.

One day, a good fifteen years after his choreography sessions and three years into an art director stint at a magazine that dedicated the bulk of its pages to lip gloss and eating disorders, Henry saw me in New York, all skinny and fucked up looking.

He hadn't seen me in a while.

"Look, bitch," he said after a long moment of stunned silence. "You know that I love skinny. But you look fucking gross. You need to stop doing blow and get some sleep and maybe eat a cheeseburger. And if you don't, I'm calling that crazy ass fucking brother of yours and I'm telling him how much shit you've been hoovering up your nose. You look like Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, without the bowl cut and bandeau dress."

Not too long after, I stopped doing blow.

I got some sleep.

Finally, I called my big brother and told him that I was kind of sad.

He took me out for a cheeseburger.

ON THE DRUGGG!!!!

2010-03-11T01:41:00.013-05:00

This one is for you, Off-Your-Meds Frank, who used to post comments to this blog like, "GET STERILIZED, U CRAZY FUCKIN BITCH!! UR ON THE DRUGGG!!!!"

I'm sorry, Off-Your-Meds; Off-Your-Fucking-Nut Frank. I'm sorry to disappoint you with regards to your life's work: ridding the world of godless, drug-loving, sexed-up evil doers like me, in addition to too-much-goddamn-fur-on-their-tiny-bodies kittens; scarred, three-legged Michael Vick rescue dogs; those lazy Haitians we’re currently flooding with AMERICAN money, goddammit; swishy gays; too “white-acting" blacks; too "accent-y" Mexicans; shifty-eyed ragheads who want to burn America to the ground and turn every Walmart into a mosque; children with leukemia; and the worst of the worst, old men with Down's Syndrome.

I mean, come on. What is this world coming to?

My friend Frank, I agree. The world would be so much simpler without any of us goddamn evil doers to muddy up the moral waters.

I am truly, truly sorry, Off-Your-Fucking-Nut Frank that, in my absence, I haven't bought a ticket on the After Life Express with a bottle of online painkillers purchased from CheapCanadianRX.com and a half pint of Boone's Country Kwencher, Tri-Fruit Flavor.

Like most people out there, I expect, I've just been weathering the current economic k-hole/reach-around/rusty trombone.

Meaning, I've been working like an un-pimped, strolling-the-eerily-empty-side-streets-at-night hooker with no concern for physical safety, police presence, or venereal diseases.

Luckily, I work in advertising, so the powers-that-be are okay, in fact downright supportive, of my concessions.

Besides, why shouldn’t I just work at selling the American public shit programming that even I wouldn’t watch when stoned out of my mind at three in the morning and sock away whatever cash I can, while I can? After all, everything in the “literary pursuits” part of my life this past year has absolutely broken my heart.

Maybe there’s no moral to my stories. Maybe I swear too much. Maybe the people in my essays are just awful, depressed assholes who stay awful, depressed assholes. Even in the last paragraph. Especially in the last paragraph.

Redemption has never been a particularly appealing concept to me. Not in my life, to my own detriment and to the people unfortunate enough to become close to me. Not when I’m reading a book or watching a movie or listening to a song. And certainly not in my own writing. I like reveling in the filth. It's kind of funny to me.

I just don’t find redemption funny. Not sidesplittingly so, anyway.

And if I can’t have the funny and the filth, I’m just another mediocre writer who over-shares and drinks too much and smokes too much and orders, via various online Canadian pharmacies, pills that are meant to allievate pain from old people’s hip replacement surgeries.

I swear a lot and I hate a lot, myself the most, and I thought those things were negotiable when it came to what I wrote.

But I guess they’re not.

That realization has made me feel better than anything else in a long time. Well, not as good as the sixty-count Oxycodone I still can’t even fucking believe I was able to order online with no prescription. But still.

And I had Frank acting as my Morgan Freeman-from-Shawshank-Redemption-type guide this past year.

You know, that movie every positive, well-adjusted person you know and hate immediately rattles off as their favorite movie ever.

It’s true. Frank was my spiritual guide, of sorts. That is, if noble, dulcet-toned Morgan Freeman were a fucking sociopath who’s repeatedly advised you to get busy ODing or… well, to just FUCKIN DIE ALREADY. And whose IP address you’d recently shared with the New York City Police Department.

Frank, you truly horrible, hateful, racist, misogynistic, homophobic asshole, you never gave up on me, did you?

I’d removed my email address from the blog because I felt like a worthless sack of shit when people would write to tentatively inquire if I’d finally accidentally ODed or choked on my own vomit and was I going to ever post anything again and did I have bigger stuff going on, or what.

Finally, the emails from the nice people stopped. I was relieved because I wasn’t writing at all.

But see, Frank must’ve saved that old email address because he never gave up.

At least twice a month, sometimes more, I’d get an email like, "Where RU, whore? U fuckin dRUGGG whore. RU DEAD YET??? HOW CUM UR NOT WRITIN???"

Thank you, Frank. You gave me back everything. You made me remember why I started writing in the first place.

Not out of money, or recognition, or "love of the craft.” That last one makes me laugh, Frank. You and I both know I’m not that good and that I don't deign to call the shit I sling “craft” or “art,” either. Right?

But out of hate.

Those soy latte drinking, organic, Patagonia heads I was supposed to be writing for this past year? They’re like mosquitoes to me. They don’t bother me much. Not really. As long as I’m not trying to get into their headspaces and not trying to write some tepid, gently critical PG-13 shit they’d have a mild, appreciative chuckle over on a Sunday morning before heading out to yoga, they don’t bother me. So they don’t bother me at all, anymore.

But people like you. Ignorant, truly horrendous, quite possibly criminally insane people one only becomes acquainted with while watching the Anatomy of a Serial Killer marathon on A&E.

That, I can get my hate behind. You make me feel really alive. And thrilled that there are people so much more ineffably fucked up than I am cruising around, as yet unapprehended by law enforcement officials sent by the National Institute of Mental Health. Or by the ACLU. Or both.

I'm serious, Frank. Thank you. You made me want to write again. No one else this year has had that power.

So now, your work is done. Now you can go back to torturing puppies and kittens and campaigning for the legalized euthanasia of gays, blacks, Hispanics, Arabs, Down’s patients, and the elderly. Especially the Down's Syndrome elderly.

I guess I’ll write something soon, once I’ve finished off this sixty-count stash of Oxycodone.

And hey Frank, guess what?

I’ll be ON THE DRUGGG!!!!

Village Sniper

2009-02-22T17:30:00.003-05:00

This is really funny.

Corn Nuts

2009-02-03T01:05:00.024-05:00

The other day after work, I took the 4 home and stopped into the Atlantic Center Target.

I go there on week nights to avoid the sight of 1) mothers beating, I mean disciplining their children in the Health and Beauty Aids aisle and 2) throngs of identically styled, anemic looking Greenpoint girls fighting over the last size two, Alice Temperley for Target jumper.

While there, I threw all the items on my shopping list into my cart. I don't know why I never meet that Special Someone in Target. I mean, I'd fuck me if I saw what was in my cart:

Alka Seltzer
Nair Hair Remover for Sensitive Skin
Dr. Scholl's Moleskin Inserts for Callous Prevention
Tampax
Midol
Tilex Mold and Mildew Remover
Corn Nuts
Efferdent

That's right. Efferdent. I buy the economy size box. And yes, I still have all my teeth. See, I wear a mouth guard at night because I grind my teeth like a recovering meth addict their first week into rehab. I wake with horrible headaches, the severity of which the night guard helps only minimally. But it helps a little at least. Which is why I deign to wear it.

In the morning, it smells like bad breath and cigarettes, even though I've savagely brushed and flossed my teeth the night before. It immediately goes into a bluish pool of Efferdent.

Anyway, I was in line, reading about Britney's recent three hour hair weave session while the kids waited in the car and thinking how very happy I am that that girl is still alive because she does more to make me feel better about my own mental health and shitty life choices than all my shrinks combined, when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

It was Simon, an "artist" I dated a few years ago, when I first moved to New York. I use the quotes because Simon had a trust fund as big as his talent was minimal. He had no problem, however, identifying himself as an Artist, when asked what he did.

Why I dated him, I have no idea. I was lonely and horny and he knew who Wire was. In those days, that was enough for me to endure the seriousness with which he took himself and his "art."

"Hey!" he said. "How are you? I haven't seen you in so long!"

That's because I stopped pretending to read, or even care about, Art News, I thought.

I eschew, abhor, detest pretension, particularly artistic pretension more than anything. Because of this, I'm embarrassed of the fact that I ever dated this shitheel.

Regardless, I certainly didn’t want a guy who'd once had his penis in my vagina to think that I'd since lost my fucking teeth.

So I just smiled and said hi and hoped he wouldn't look in my cart.

But he did.

"Ha ha," he snickered. "Efferdent? You lose your teeth?"

It took everything I had not to retort, No, but did you finally manage to keep an erection?

Yes. Simon had problems keeping wood. It sucked. Because, believe me. I sucked. A lot. And still, limp rope.

As I stood by my cart in Target, looking up at him, I started thinking, probably quite irrationally, What if I had lost my teeth? Would this fuck still be making fun of me?

I stared down at my Alka Seltzer and Efferdent and I thought of all the guys I've dated who had flaws I overlooked, ignored, forgave. And in return for this, made no attempt to overlook, ignore, or forgive mine.

And I thought about how much I wished I could somehow, someday find the words to say to them in real life, what I write about them in the safe anonymity of a blog, with their names changed and details blurred to protect their fragile egos. Even though they never did the same for me in real life.

And I just started getting angrier and angrier.

I opened my mouth.

I was going to tell him what a bad boyfriend he'd been; what a shit lay he'd been; and how no, his finger paintings of dwarves break dancing on top of washing machines were never going to set the art world on fire and if they did, I was going to vandalize his trust-funded studio by tacking up, horror of horrors, dorm room-type posters of Monet's Water Lilies.

Then I saw the Corn Nuts in my cart and suddenly, all the fight drained out of me.

They just looked so...ridiculous, sitting there next to the Tilex Mold and Mildew Remover.

"No," I muttered finally. "It's for my, um, mouth guard. I have to, you know, wear it at night."

"Oh," he laughed. "Well, that's good. You've still got your teeth. Hey, did you hear that I was in the Whitney Biennial last year?"

Sam the Eagle Keeps Listening

2008-11-21T14:32:00.010-05:00

This cracks me up.

No matter what nasties Gonzo's serving up, at least his pal Sam's hearing him out.

Something Important

2008-09-16T21:08:00.015-04:00

Thanks, Bruce.

Last Saturday, I hung out with my oldest brother Ben.

"Meet me in Washington Square Park," he'd instructed. "I gotta do something important there."

Long accustomed to his bizarre edicts, I didn't question him about what kind of pressing business he had in Washington Square Park, on a Saturday afternoon.

When I got there, he was sitting on a bench with Ariel, his long-suffering girlfriend.

"Hey," I said. "What're you guys doing?"

Ariel looked at me miserably. She pointed to a neighboring park bench.

"That's Ben's stuff," she said, gesturing to a pile of shirts, a suit, and three pairs of shoes. "He wants to see how long it takes someone to try to steal them. And what, exactly, they try to steal."

I stared at him incredulously.

"You're fucking nuts," I exclaimed after a long moment. "What is wrong with you? Why would you do that? As if you're not angry about enough shit, as it is. Now, you're creating situations where you go mental?"

"I thought we'd be here fifteen minutes at most," she continued. "But we've been here for two hours! He won't let us leave!"

"The shoes are Gucci," Ben said to me, ignoring her. "The suit's Zegna. Two of the shirts are Varvatos and one's Prada. The trick is that a couple of the shirts are pieces of shit from the Gap. Let's see what goes first."

I shook my head and looked at Ariel.

"Is that stuff new?" I asked her.

"No," she replied. "He was cleaning out his closet and then he said, 'Hey, wanna have some fun?' and started bundling it all up. When he brought this stuff with us, I thought he was going to drop it off at Housing Works before we had lunch."

"That was your first mistake," I told her. "Believing that he was going to do the normal thing with this shit."

A young guy gingerly approached.

My brother stared at him intently and then, at the clothing items on the next bench.

After catching his glance, the guy wandered away.

"What the fuck?" Ben hissed. "Why would he not go for that shit?"

"Maybe because you were giving him the stink eye," I said. "And anyway, what are you going to do to the person who takes this stuff? You going to give them a beatdown?"

He looked at me irritably.

"No, chode-munch," he said. "I'm going to let them take it. To prove a point."

"To whom?" I yelled.

A crusty-looking older man in ripped Vans, a stache, and a dirty baseball cap sidled over and fingered the suit.

He was either an ironically aging hipster or just downright homeless. It's hard to tell these days.

He looked around furtively.

Then he snatched up the suit and walked away quickly.

"Good for you, buddy," Ben beamed after him. "Good for you."

He looked genuinely delighted.

"Mark that down," he ordered Ariel. "The homeless guy went for the Varvatos."

"Oh my God," I laughed. "He's making you take notes?"

She nodded miserably.

"What for?" I said to Ben. "What are you, conducting research for like, the Pew Foundation?"

"Shut it," he snapped.

He took a bite of the hotdog that had been on his lap.

"Look at this I-Banker fuck coming over. How much you wanna bet he goes for the Gap shit?"

"You're an I-Banker fuck," I protested.

He ignored me and then began cackling.

"This dumb fuck wants a new Gap shirt to wear to his next Dave Matthews concert."

I turned to Ariel.

"Why?" I asked her. "Why do you put up with this shit?"

"Shut it," my brother demanded. "Ariel likes it. It's fun, right?"

She rolled her eyes.

I sat down on the bench with them.

I reached over and took Ben's hotdog. He didn't protest. He was too intent on watching potential "customers."

I took a bite of the hotdog and watched my brother watching passerby.

I watched Ariel watching him with an expression of dull boredom and a weary kind of acceptance.

And I felt better, so incredibly, inexplicably, lovingly-somehow better as I always do when I hang out with Ben.

Because it's nice to know that the Crazy didn't just get me.

It got my brother, too.

Piggy Motherfuckers

2008-07-25T00:58:00.009-04:00

It always warms the cockles of my heart when I discover that my tax dollars are being used to bail out filthy rich, crooked fuck ups.

Even if you're an Us Weekly reading tard like me, this video (hopefully) will make you take action before it's too late.

Or don't. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy that vigorous financial ass-rape. After all, those bankers need the money more than you do.

Jade, Irene, and Alan Alda

2008-06-16T22:20:00.014-04:00

I just spent a few weeks out in LA, visiting the boyfriend.

He wants me to move out there. I said I'd hang out for a few weeks and see how I liked it.

After the few weeks were over, I told him, No fucking way. If you're that gung ho for us to live in the same city, you move to New York.

Anyway, this could lead to one of those Why I Heart the Big Apple Over LA stories and I've already sent my friends enough clichéd emails about that during the past few weeks, one of which is cut and pasted below.

("All i do is drive around looking for places to park and then end up at malls...because it's easy to park. Parking is like, this HUGE consideration. they fucked up at the car rental place so i have a PT Cruiser, one of those cheesy ZZ Top looking cars. Tim refers to it as the PT Loser and sings Legs and does the ZZ Top finger point whenever I get behind the wheel. Call me later on my cell. I'll be at my office, the Panda Express in the Beverly Center food court with a bunch of tweens and senior citizens, the chief midday demo. was at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf today. shit, man. the line was moving like molasses...and no one seemed to care! and fuck you about checking out the fucking nature trails. i went to Runyon Canyon and it was wall to wall tards in like, Gucci shorts and cell phones. They drive Hummers BUT they don't smoke and look at anyone who does like they're a fucking pedophile. btw, people in Priuses may be environmentally conscious but they're COCKSUCKERS to other drivers. Fuck this shit. I can't wait to come home.")

When I went out there, though, I thought it would be nice to be far away from my mother, at least geographically. But she caught up with me. Just like she always does.

This time, though, it was through total strangers.

One day, after frequenting two malls and my favorite LA hot spot, the In-N-Out Burger, I stopped off to get a pedicure.

I always try to have a polite but anonymous experience during pedicures. But I feel so guilty that some poor woman is being forced, for socio-economic reasons, to buff my heels and file my toenails that the polite but anonymous experience rarely happens. Instead, I almost always end up having deeply personal conversations with the nail technicians.

After Jade (not her real name but easier for stupid, culturally ignorant Americans like myself to remember when it comes time to tip at the reception desk) had finished telling me about how she never went college; never even finished high school and now she was a single mom and that was why she was so strict with her two daughters, aged twelve and fifteen, I cleared my throat.

"My mom raised me and my brothers alone," I offered hesitantly.

"You go to college?" she demanded.

"Yeah," I replied. "Graduate school, too."

There's no point divulging that last part to people, except in a self-deluded, ham-fisted attempt to impress. Some of the dumbest, couldn't-get-themselves-out-of-a-phone-booth fucks I've ever met, in fact, I met in graduate school. But I figured Jade would be happy to hear this.

She looked very satisfied.

"I don't let them get no nail polish done," she revealed. "The fifteen year old, she wanna be a lawyer."

"That's so great," I enthused.

She frowned.

"I want her be a doctor, but lawyer okay, I guess."

"Either one's great," I agreed.

"But no nail polish," she repeated. "And no lipstick and eye shadow."

"Yeah, my mom too," I said. "Or mascara or blush."

I left out the That Was for Whores part.

She nodded approvingly.

"She smart, your mom," she said.

Crazy as shit, too, I wanted to add but instead just nodded back.

"I guess she was, huh?" I replied simply.

A few nights later, right after getting into the PT Loser to meet Tim at a show, I received a strange message on my cell phone.

"Hello?" croaked an old lady. "This is Irene. You'd invited me to the Alan Alda show and now it's been a week and I haven't heard back from you. I'm wondering why you haven't called me back."

I sat in the car, torn.

Shit, I thought. If I call her now, I'm gonna be late. Old people talk a lot.

Then I thought of little old lady Irene sitting there, waiting for the phone to ring, when it never would.

Fuck, and what with the time difference, I had to call now.

"Hello?" said the elderly female voice that had been on my voice mail.

What sounded like Matlock was blaring in the background.

"Irene?" I asked.

"Yes?" she said loudly.

"Um, you don't know me, but you called my phone?" I said. "About some Alan Alda tickets?"

"Yes?" she said even more loudly.

"I think you have the wrong number," I said, raising my voice to be heard over Matlock. "And that's why no one's calling you back."

"Are you a part of the Alan Alda show?" she asked.

"No, no," I assured her. "I'm just some random 917 number you called. I just wanted to let you know that you had the wrong number."

"Well, that's very nice of you," she said after a long moment. "Very nice of you to call. A lot of people wouldn't have bothered."

You're absolutely right about that one, Irene, I thought. A lot of people WOULDN'T have bothered. Because a lot of people are fucking monsters. MOST people, in fact. So hold on to that social security check and don't be so friendly to total strangers calling you on the phone.

"No problem," I said instead.

"Your parents did a wonderful job," she added.

I muffled a snort.

"Thanks," I replied. "I'll tell them that. And sorry to call a little late but I'm in Los Angeles right now and the time difference, you know?"

"Are you there on vacation?" she asked.

"Visiting my boyfriend," I said.

"That must be hard," she remarked, stalling. "You being in New York."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Well, I'm sure it'll work out," she said brightly. "You seem like a very nice person."

My heart broke for her and for the bald loneliness that was in her voice. And for the fact that no, I am not a very nice person; that a lot of the "altruistic" things I do are based on a twisted sense of survivor guilt and that I see my mother in all the lonely, desperate people who seem to gravitate towards me; or maybe towards whom I gravitate.

It didn't matter, anyway. Not saying much had made Irene feel better, just as it had Jade.

It's easier to let people believe what they want to believe. And ultimately, it's nicer, too.

And besides, I was a stranger. I was three thousand miles away. And I was late.

"Thanks so much," I said to her now.

"You're very welcome," she replied.

"Well, goodbye," I said.

"Goodbye," she said reluctantly.

I hung up.

And felt kind of guilty the whole night.

Pizza or Flesh

2008-05-22T08:18:00.019-04:00

Since my job ended a few weeks ago, I've been stoned out of my mind. It's been great.

I didn't think it was possible to get as stoned as I've been. But it is, people. It really is.

See, I have a modest cushion of cash now so I've decided to take the summer off to apply myself to my personal, non-livelihood-related artistic endeavors. At least, that's what I've been telling people.

The truth is, I've been stoned. Out of my mind. And I've never been happier.

Mornings, I wake up and make myself some coffee. I spark up, and then watch The View. I watch it with the sound off and Ozzy's Crazy Train blaring from my iTunes. This makes for an hour of unbridled hilarity.

Around noon, I head over to Not Ray's for a slice. I think the guys over there know I've been sparking up a lot. I think this because I can barely get my order out without cackling like a hyena.

Also, my eyes look like I've spent several hours in an overly chlorinated pool.

After eating, I write anywhere from five hours to five minutes. Usually, for about five minutes.

When the sun starts to set, I call my friend Jake. He's always up for pot. Or booze. Or pills. Or all three.

He'll come over and we'll watch The Descent, Director's Cut. Again.

For me, this movie has replaced Dawn of the Dead, 1978 version, as my go-to stoner flick. Dawn of the Dead is still the original and still the best but I've seen that shit, I don't know. Probably thousands of times.

After watching several spelunkers get disemboweled, we'll hit a bar where he'll spend the better part of the evening making fun of girls who look like American Apparel-bots. This continues until he makes me go talk to one for him. Usually, I'm too drunk to say no.

This isn't to say that it's an easy social interaction for me seeing as my eyes aren't dead; I don't speak in a monotone drawl; and I actually get excited about things. And don't pretend not to be excited.

For these reasons, I usually just say to them, "See that guy over there? He's A & R for Interscope."

It's a complete lie, of course. But I figure if that's the kind of shit that seals the deal for them, they deserve Jake's jokes about the difference between donkey balls and Noam Chomsky's Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew.

People sometimes ask me why Jake and I aren't together.

Besides the fact that he's one of my oldest friends, he's even older friends with my ex-boyfriend. Who's out in LA. Who I'm seeing again.

This makes bar night out with Jakes an almost monastic experience for me. I can't hit on anyone; let anyone hit on me; or even let my eye wander too long around the bar. Because Jake will yell, "What about Tim? What are you doing? Don't fuck Tim over! He's the greatest, man!"'

I know this. Jake knows that I know this.

Still, it doesn't stop him from watching me with eagle eyes. And I can't really blame him. Because he used to hang out with me when I was single.

Not too long ago, he cut loose the American Apparel-bot he'd been working because he didn't like the way I was talking to a casual friend at the bar. Who happened to be gay.

It's become really annoying. I can't get away with shit when Jake's around. Which is probably why, when I think about it, I've been hanging out with him so much lately.

All I know is, I always end up back home at around 3 AM, with no new numbers plugged into my phone. And I always feel an odd sense of relief about this.

Depending on how much vodka I have churning through my system, I drunk-dial Tim. More often than not, he'll make a joke about how many guys I gave my number to.

Don't I wish, I always think. Fuck you.

Still, if I were him, I wouldn't trust me either. But the truth is, he has nothing to worry about. If he did, I wouldn't be relieved to be back on my couch, alone on a Saturday night.

After we get off the phone, I smoke a little more pot, clock in a little time on YouPorn, take care of business, and then watch the rest of The Descent.

Finally, I crawl into bed, congratulating myself on what a good girl I am these days. And, not counting the booze, pot, pills, and porn, I really am. For me, anyway.

When I finally drift off to sleep, I dream about the Not Ray's pizza guys disemboweling some American Apparel-bots who went cave-diving.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck's there, too, reporting on the tragedy.

"It was a blood bath, Barbara!" she keeps screeching. "An honest-to-goodness blood bath! We weren't sure if it was pizza or flesh! They were from Not Ray's!"

Her nasal whine wakes me up and I find that I'm laughing in my sleep.

Later that day, I also find that I don't have much appetite for Not Ray's.

Pedialtye Delight

2008-01-09T22:37:00.004-05:00

I just read some article online about how to cure hangovers.

If you must drink, chastised the article, limit it to just one or two.

At this, I laughed aloud.

Whoever can stop at one or two wouldn't be reading the article in the first place.

Be sure to drink plenty of water when you get home, the article continued. Replenishing fluids will ward off any and all hangover woes.

Great idea, I thought. But how about the nights you come home so fucked up, you can barely fit your key into the lock of your door, much less make a beeline to the kitchen to patiently chug the twelve gallons of water it would take to sufficiently flush out all the alcohol in your system?

I don't not drink water when I get home because I don't know that I should. I don't drink water when I get home because usually, I can't. All I can do is stagger toward my bed, flop down onto it with all my clothes on, and then pass out.

I read on, waiting for them to mention Pedialtye but they didn't.

When I reached the end of the article, it became clear that whoever wrote the thing, no matter how many letters he had behind his name, didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

I may not be a doctor but, being a lush myself, I know a thing or two about hangovers.

Pedialtye is the shit the morning after, man. I used to drink Gatorade until my friend Boozer Pete told me all about Pedialtye.

Boozer Pete is one of those guys who's known as a fun Man about Town. Until he hits his thirties, of course. Then he'll just be known as an Alcoholic.

“I order it by the case,” Pete told me. “A lot of the delis near me don’t carry it.”

“That’s fucking pathetic, dude,” I said.

On principle, it's why I won't buy cigarettes by the carton. I mean, I smoke them by the carton but to buy them that way. I don't know. It's just so...sad. What's comes next after buying cigarettes by the carton? Drinking Tang instead of orange juice? Hitting Atlantic City every weekend to feed the slot machines? Staying home during the day so I don't miss my "stories?"

I don’t know. I just can't seem to buy my smokes by the carton. Even if they are ten bucks a pack.

“It’s not pathetic,” Pete insisted. “You know what's really pathetic? Waking up feeling like you’ve been run over by a truck and being out of Pedialtye and your bodega doesn't sell it. And then having to take the M-14 bus crosstown to a Rite Aid while you have shit cramps from the two gallons of sangria you had the night before. That’s pathetic.”

Weed also really helps hangovers. This actually isn't any big secret. But, along with greasy, salty food, it's one of the great next-day curatives. It smoothes out all the rough edges and transforms the sharp, thudding corners of your headache into fuzzy circles that only pulse.

Xanax also does this. Combined together, weed and Xanax make you feel almost human again, providing that being incredibly high and incredibly torpid is a normal human condition.

When I was a kid, my father relied on the old school Bloody Mary to cure his incredibly frequent hangovers. These he'd drink as my mother screamed bloody murder across the breakfast table at him; that if he kept on drinking the way he did, his liver was going to be shot to hell and never mind what it was doing to what was left of his brain cells and what's more, maybe me and the kids won't be here some morning when you finally decide to wake up; how would you like THAT? Oh, what am I saying; you'd be HAPPPY about that, wouldn't you? Don’t shake your head at me, you goddamn, drunken bastard. Just stick your head in your drink and do what you do best.

I used to really hate my father for what he did to my brothers and me. For leaving us to fend for ourselves with a mother who became, for all intents and purposes, our responsibility.

When I became an adult and became intimately acquainted with the vicious throb of hangovers myself, sometimes I can't blame him. Not really.

I wouldn't want to listen to that kind of shit either when I'm hungover.

Never mind having three stricken-looking children silently eyeballing me in mute reproach.

My father was a drunken bastard. But I understand him a lot more now that I'm grown-up.

Because I grew up to be a drunken bastard, too.

Rad vid

2007-12-13T13:50:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure if working in the ad world is a prerequisite for finding
this funny but it made me fucking weep with laughter.

Maybe because I once had a boss/failed artist/functioning alcoholic who'd throw staplers against the edit bay wall if the music in my promos didn't drop out "clean like Noguchi."

Whatever that meant.

I always just assumed she was busting an old school Beastie Boys rhyme, but now that I think about it, she probably meant something else.

In spite of the hemorrhoids...

2007-11-08T18:45:00.003-05:00

My mother loves historical biographies. A lot.

Sometimes, when we talk on the phone, I hit "speaker" and go about my business, as she jaws on about Queen Victoria and King George and the despots of yore.

You know, the good old days when rich, elderly white people ruled shit and peasants knew their places.

Other times, when she wants to dodge a question that's just been posed to her, she'll unceremoniously begin a lecture on the Diet of Worms; what led up to it; and the repercussions it had on the Protestant Reformation.

Last night, we were in the middle of a heated argument about my brother Sai. They haven't spoken in months, since his wedding, and I've been trying to play mediator.

“Jesus, Mom," I said. "Just call him already. I'm sick of listening to this crap."

She grumbled but said nothing.

"Seriously," I groaned. "I can't take much more of this shit."

“Czar Nicholas II had horrible hemorrhoids, you know,” she said suddenly.

“What?” I asked, puzzled.

“I was just reading his diaries. Apparently, he’d sit on the toilet for hours. His hemorrhoids were just very, very painful, he wrote. They were under constant surveillance by the Bolshevik guards at the time. So even a long rest on the toilet was a luxury to him back then. In spite of the hemorrhoids, he seemed like a wonderful man. A real family man. And a very fair ruler until Lenin signed his death warrant.”

“Huh,” I grunted. “If he was so great, how come the peasants were revolting?”

“And whose DNA do you think they used to identify the remains of the Romanovs?” she demanded, ignoring my retort.

“I don’t know,” I said disinterestedly. “Whose?”

“Prince Phillip’s!” she exclaimed.

“Wait, how could you have read that in Czar Nicholas’ diaries?” I queried, genuinely puzzled. “I mean, isn’t Prince Phillip alive now? He’s the one married to Queen Elizabeth, right? Jesus. How old is he?”

She clucked disgustedly.

“Kids these days! All you read is Us Weekly and Celebrity Drug Addict Monthly. You know nothing about history! Nothing! I didn’t read that in his diaries! It’s common knowledge!”

“Yeah?" I replied, snickering. “Well, does Prince Phillip have hemorrhoids? Is that common knowledge?”

“I’m not sure,” she mused, either ignoring or not noticing my sarcasm. “But more than likely, he got his big nose from his father, Prince Andrew.”

I remained mute.

“Prince Andrew was from Greece,” she explained.

I let out a long groan, making no effort to hide my irritation and boredom.

As she rattled off Prince Phillip’s Battenberg pedigree on his mother's side, I hit "Mute" and lit a second cigarette.

“Why are you telling me this?” I finally interjected. “Why don’t you call Great Aunt Edith and tell her about Czar Nicholas’s hemorrhoids? That’s all she ever talks about anyway. Her hemorrhoids and her bunions and her rheumatoid arthritis and why Mexicans are lazy and don't deserve citizenship. On second thought, though, maybe she only likes talking about her own hemorrhoids. Maybe old Russian aristocracy hemorrhoids are pointless and boring to her. Just like they are to me.”

There was a long, hurt silence.

And suddenly, I felt bad.

“So what was the deal with Rasputin?” I asked, after a minute. “He was the crazy old monk dude they kept trying to assassinate, right?”

“Well,” my mother began dramatically. “First, the royalists sent him poisoned cakes and poisoned wine. Laced with arsenic! And he wouldn’t die!”

“And what happened?” I asked, interested in spite of myself.

“They took him out and shot him. They had to keep shooting him! Bang, bang!”

She let out a horrible, blood-curdling screaming sound, by way of demonstration, I guess.

I pulled the phone away from my ear with a grimace.

“And he kept getting up and staggering towards them!” she continued. “Like the zombies you see in the movies! Or you know, what’s his name; Jason from those Friday the Thirteenth movies. But finally, they managed to kill him. And then they threw him into the River Neva.”

“Kind of like what Aunt Edith and the whitey clan were gonna do to Pops after the wedding reception was over, huh?”

To my surprise, she laughed.

“Please,” she said. “We won’t be that lucky. That crazy drunken fool will outlive us all. Mark my words.”

"Yup," I agreed.

“And besides, your brother would never let them do that to him,” she added. “God knows why, but he’s loyal to his father.”

"Yup," I said.

“I raised a good boy,” my mother said. “His loyalty to that drunken idiot says a lot about his character.”

"Uh huh," I agreed again, muting the phone and lighting my third cigarette.

I exhaled.

"But you know what?" I said. "Sai's a good boy, too. You do know that, right?"

There was a pause.

"Did you know that Prince Albert was rumored to have been mildy retarded?" she asked urgently. "You know, Queen Victoria's grandson. Also, some people claimed that he was Jack the Ripper. He married a Catholic shop girl, though. So I guess the gay rumors weren't true."

Maybe It's Funny With Pot

2007-08-22T23:26:00.007-04:00

God, I fucking hate Ellen DeGeneres. Usually, my hatred for her is tempered by the fact that I don't have much exposure to her, seeing as I don't watch her tepid-ass talk show and I stopped tuning into the Oscars after the time I lost forty bucks in the office pool. Half an hour of careful ballot consideration, only to be beaten by someone who'd simply copied all of Entertainment Weekly's picks.

A few years ago, I was sure that Ellen Burstyn would win for Requiem for a Dream. How could she not? She was fucking incredible.

Julia Roberts won, of course. For Erin "Fuck My Titties" Brockovich.

And continuing the tradition of safe, pedestrian mediocrity that inexplicably enamors itself to the general public, Ellen DeGeneres is now doing those annoying fucking American Express commercials with that Flying fucking Tomato kid and Martin Scorsese. Watching those, it's like, Marty, say it ain't so. Say the coke dependency ain't that bad that you need to be doing this shit. You redeemed yourself with The Departed, man. Stay on that tip. Please. I want so bad to like you.

And there's Ellen, making a lame, safe, non-funny joke about how her bathing suit bursts into flames when she swims. All delivered with that bland, non-threatening demeanor. It happens every time I swim. Hehe.

I just don't get it. How is that funny? How is any of her shtick funny? Or am I missing something? Am I supposed to cut her some slack because she had a hard time in Hollywood before she came out?

When my bud Henry makes a lame joke, I still won't laugh and he's one of my best friends and he's a cocksucker and he knew it by the time he was about five and he got the shit beaten out of him for it by a lot of meatheads when we were growing up.

Fuck him, though.

If a joke's not funny, it's not funny and I'm not going to laugh at it simply because it was made by someone who likes dick. That'd be like laughing at a non-funny joke about what happened when the banana crossed the road that a Special Olympian just made, because you feel bad for them. I don't feel bad for Henry.

I don't define him by his sexual preference and he's not my token main gay, either.

I hang out with him because he's a good friend to me and he's even meaner and smarter than I am, and he's way funnier, and he should know better than to make an ass backwards joke and expect me to laugh. I hold him to a higher standard than that.

I don't give him pity laughs.

Maybe it's me, though. Maybe lots and lots of people think that Ellen DeGeneres is funny. Maybe most people think she's funny. Maybe I have the problem. Maybe it's me.

More and more, lately, I've been thinking this. Maybe it's me.

Maybe it's not other people. Maybe hell isn't other people. Maybe I create my own hell and populate it with people who make me want to club them upside the head with a blunt instrument.

But maybe they're not hellish at all. Maybe they're pretty okay and have healthy worldviews and are the rational judges of this world and it's me who's all out of wack. Maybe it's all just me and my diseased, Schopenhauer-esque worldview.

I think this at work when an innocent email asking me about a project code sends me into an almost epileptic fit of rage. I think it when someone’s backpack sharply nudges me on the subway, from the Broadway-Nassau stop to Times Square and I try to figure out what the legal ramifications would be if I just turned around and punched them in the face, as hard as I could.

But maybe it's not just me. Maybe a lot of other people out there are fucking pissed off and sick of bland, disingenuous shit that hacks and flacks try to push off to a bored public as the Next Big Thing.

That Shia Labeouf kid? Why is that fucking kid on the cover of Vanity Fair? Does anybody know who the fuck this kid is? And more importantly, does anyone care? Why are they comparing him to Tom Hanks? Does anyone really even like Tom Hanks?

Hanks annoys the shit out of me every time he's on screen, all jowly and bellowing about the fire he made and becoming instant BFF's with the large black man whose incarceration it was his job to enforce.

And all that shit a while back about him being the new Jimmy Stewart made me cringe because Jimmy Stewart has always fucking made me cringe.

Yeah, yeah. He's a National Treasure and the quintessential Everyman and all that Leonard Maltin crap.

Whenever I watch It's a Wonderful Life on TV, his voice always sounds like he has marbles in his mouth and didn't he do Campbell Soup ads? So every time I hear his voice, all I can think about is someone choking on chicken noodle soup because they had a mouthful of marbles and couldn't swallow.

There are a couple young comedians coming up that are being hyped to shit. I won't say who because they’re still small potatoes and that’s not cool. Non-bold face names are off-limits. It's cowardly and smacks too much of peer envy to bash non-famous assholes. Once they're rich and famous, bash away. That's my philosophy, anyway.

But good God. These two comedians are not funny.

One is a guy who is “cute," or what passes for "cute," in comedy world. His whole shtick is how tough it is being a nerd even though after shows, a gaggle of skinny jeans who recently moved to Williamsburg from North Dakota throw themselves at him and invite him along to Misshapes.

The other is a girl who peppers her comedy with dirt, dirty, icky poo, potty talk. Sometimes she even uses the, gasp, C word. Somehow, this is meant to make her tired social observations and awkward racial slurs hilariously irreverent. Again, she is "cute," in a comedy world sense of the word.

Both seem to be scarily ambitious, though. And attention whores. Which is probably why, in the next year or two, you'll be seeing them on the cover of Vanity Fair, with some kind of tagline like, "Can X Save Comedy?"

This begs the question: Why do magazine covers always ask you, the reader, if so-and-so can save the film and/or music industry? Or, “Is X the Next Hot Thing?”

Um, I don't know. I'm reading your fucking magazine in my underwear, in my crappy apartment in Brooklyn. I'm stoned; I think I got food poisoning from the Caesar salad I ate at lunch; and I'm about to be fired from a job I hate but that I really need so I can pay the rent. If I knew what could save the film and/or music world, don't you think I'd be doing some other shit besides sitting here getting high by myself? Why the fuck are you asking me? You do the research, assfuck. Then report back to me.

Don't even get me started about music industry hype. I exhausted myself bitching about that a while back.

I don't know what's worse: how shitty and in what poor taste most mainstream culture is or the hyper-possessive, ever-fickle elitism of New York tastemakers. The vast majority of mainstream culture is complete shit and bemoaned by said tastemakers. But the minute mainstream culture discovers something belonging to the tastemakers they, in turn, impugn it. If it's been accepted by mainstream culture, it's lost its relevance.

It's sort of a lose-lose situation.

In the end, though, as much as tastemaker assholes throw their hands up about the stupidity of the mainstream consumer, they need that stupidity.

After all, if everyone knew about some band that's playing next week in a burned out warehouse in Greenpoint, where would they be? Who would they be? They'd be just like any other schmuck. I mean, they might as well be living in Des Moines, Iowa, for God's sake. They might as well not have had that haircut and not gotten those ubiquitous fucking glasses and be working a boring, non-creative, nine-to-five job. The horror. They didn't move to New York for that. No sir. They're gonna do something Really Creative here. Possibly Get Famous. Actually, just the Get Famous part is okay. In the meantime, they can at least listen to the same music Really Creative people listen to. And wait to Get Famous. And at least live an Artistic Lifestyle. Even if they don’t have an artistic bone in their bodies.

If I go to one more fucking party and some fuckbucket challenges me to an iPod-Off, they're going to get it smashed right in their fucking face.

Yes, I have hot-this-millisecond hype bands in mine. Yes, I also have all of The Fall's albums. And yes, I know that punk did not start with Green Day. Eat it. Get your fucking iPod out of my face and take your odd combination of self-congratulation and insecurity and go exorcise it on Facebook.

Come back to me when you have more important shit to stress about than whether or not your iPod is curated impressively enough. Then we can talk. Then we can listen to some depressing shit and get drunk together and you can tell me about the day you realized that you and me and most of our peers are fucking idiots with strictly first world problems and that we have way too much time on our hands and that we waste way too much of it obsessing about stupid shit while somewhere else in the world, a twenty pound kid with a distended belly and flies circling his head just keeled over from malnutrition.

God Bless Russian Weddings

2007-08-15T22:51:00.002-04:00

Low tech, low res, and totally awesome.

If this video doesn't make you feel better about your own drunken, violent, fucked up family, they must be really drunk, violent, and fucked up.

Meathead Sandwich

2007-08-13T23:53:00.005-04:00

The last night of the Whitey Reunion, starved of pot and shot of nerves, I retreated to the porch to (not) smoke, per my mother.

I just sat there like an asshole.

No booze (again, per my mother).

No weed.

No nothing.

Sure, I'd taken a couple of Xanax throughout the day but after listening to my great aunt Edith complain about all the "illegals" taking over the country, the pills weren't doing shit for my nerves.

I don't bother arguing with the WASP clan anymore. I just don't.

"How are they taking over the country, exactly?" I used to ask. "Are they doing it by way of those hot-ass kitchens they work in for under minimum wage? Or by their incredibly insidious plot to steal all those highly lucrative food delivery gigs? Especially the ones in neighborhoods cops won't even venture into but that they pedal through on their bicycles, in trashbag raincoats?"

Now, I say nothing.

I'd love to be punk rock and say that I just don't care anymore; that they just don't touch me.

But the truth is, they've just beaten me down. And I'm too depressed to argue with people who won't, don't change.

Because people don't change. They really don't.

And someone that old and bitter and white...

Chances are, they're going to stay old and bitter and white.

And just because I recently read Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life doesn't mean that it sufficiently fueled the fire of opposition in me enough to go head to head with a woman whose ideas about racial purity are really no different than those of Fraulein Fuck-the-Jews, circa Nazi Germany.

She's just a lot more polite. And has a family crest. And knows a whole lot about equestrianism.

These days, my mother's family just makes me...tired. And angry.

Anyway, my last night there, I sat down on the porch and stared out at the lake.

It was quiet and peaceful and beautiful.

I let out a long sigh and tried to relax.

I was kneading the knot in my shoulders when I heard the TV being snapped on in the living room.

Larry King's voice wafted suddenly onto the porch.

"So we're here now with...who's had four operations to become a fully functioning female."

"Huh?" I heard my brother Ben bellow. "What? What the fuck? That's not a guy! That's a lady!"

"Tell us," Larry continued. "You are a man who likes having sex with women. Couldn't you just have sex with women as a man?"

Ben chortled loudly.

"No, Larry," a slightly-straining-to-be-high-pitched voice replied. "I'm a woman, inside. I want to have lesbian sex. And I needed a vagina to do that."

"No way!" my brother yelled.

I peered inside.

He was sitting alone on the couch, eating what looked like leftover lasagna wrapped in a piece of pita bread.

I sat back down, unseen.

"So what you're saying is," Larry pressed. "You had your penis removed so that you could have lesbian sex, with a vagina? Is that right? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, Larry. That's what I'm saying."

"Who'd cut their dick off?" my brother mused loudly to no one in particular, mouth full of makeshift sandwich. "Who would do that? That's fucked up! Just get a wig and some high heel shoes! And one of those girdle things!"

I wondered if I told him that I was right outside, having tried to no avail to get fucked up on Xanax all day but still trying in vain to relax after a long, trying day, if he'd shut the fuck up.

But I knew that he wouldn't.

In fact, I knew if I said anything at all, he'd make some crack about me being a transsexual, lesbian muff-muncher who also has a dick and that's why things never work out with my relationships with men.

I also wondered if I told him that Larry and the transsexual guest couldn't actually hear him, even if he was yelling at the top of his lungs, if he would stop.

But I knew that he wouldn't.

In fact, I knew that he'd ask me if I could hear his foot going up my ass, if he shoved if up there as hard as he could.

So I just sat there, my head tilted back and my eyes closed.

"Are you thinking about bigger breasts," Larry chuckled.

"I sure am," came the giggled reply.

"No way!" Ben yelled. "Can they even do that, when you're that flat? Do they put the meat from the dick into the boobs?"

I clawed through the pocket of my jeans for another Xanax.

They really hadn't helped today but one more certainly couldn't hurt.

"How come your five o'clock shadow's gone?" my brother demanded of the transsexual onscreen. "But I can see where your mustache was? What happened with the hormones?"

He sounded genuinely puzzled. And concerned.

"Well, you're very brave," Larry remarked. "Thank you for being our guest."

"Thank you for making me want to throw up this fucking sandwich," Ben called. "I don't want to hear about some guy's nut sack getting chopped off!"

He stood up, heaved out a long belch, turned off the TV, and left the living room.

Except for the sound of the crickets and the water lapping against the dock, it was quiet again.

Sometimes, I think my brother is smart. Really smart.

Other times, I think he's a total, fucking retard. A slightly bigoted, meathead retard.

You have to understand.

I love Ben more than anyone else in the world.

And these fucking "vacations" make me even hate him, a little.

I really need to stop going.

Go Fuck Yourself, Pops

2007-06-25T22:56:00.003-04:00

Every year on Father's Day, my brothers and I email each other poorly constructed poetry that pays homage to the auspicious date. The sibling with the best (i.e., the worst, most stilted, forced rhymed, and juvenile) verse wins.

There's no prize. Just the dubious distinction of being the one to most effectively slander our progenitor.

Here's mine from last week:

Pops, another year's passed
and you're still a drunk.
So on your special day, I'll do what I always do:
smoke weed, smoke pot, and listen to punk.

You always ask me if your daughter's a whore.
If I said 'no,' would you love me more?
Actually, Pops, did you ever love me at all?
Even a bit?
You know what?
I don't give a shit.

I'm becoming a fuck-up just like you.
I smoke and I drink and I even screw
and I still can't make
that weird Yemeni lamb stew.

I didn't win.

The verse most certainly wouldn't win a place in the Best of the Pops Poetry Slam, but I suspect that points were deducted because I'd included references to having sex. This makes my brothers both angry and uncomfortable. They also don't like that I smoke a lot of pot and have a tendency to booze.

Luckily, they don't know the half of it.

Here's Ben's:

Go FUCK YOUSELF, Pops.

Ben's been a little busy this year.

Still, both Sai and I admired his work for its sleek, minimalist construction and crisp, declarative style.

Sai thinks that limericks are poetry so his looked like this:

There once was a man named Pops,
Who drank until Mom called the cops.
He fucked a lot of ho's
Now his health blows
Cause he smoked two packs a day for thirty years.
Plus he liked Johnny Walker not beers.

Sai won, because in just six short lines, he covered the most slanderous territory: the hardcore drinking, the profligate whoring, the incessant chainsmoking, the cops being called, the overall sense of, well, dissipation.

Years ago, when we were a lot angrier, we would've forwarded the winning poem to our Pops.

We don't do this anymore though. With all the shit he's inflicted on his body, the guy could croak at any minute.

And me and my brothers, we don't need guilt about him.

Not on top of everything else.

Balls

2006-12-14T01:02:00.006-05:00

If I were a young, single guy living in New York, flailing around in a dating pool of women who'd chow down on cock in exchange for a night out at the Beatrice Inn and perhaps an introduction to Leo, I think I'd be the biggest fucking misogynistic prick in the world.

As it is, surrounded by those kinds of women myself, sometimes I suspect that I'm rapidly becoming a female misogynist.

Let me qualify that, though.

I have plenty of chick friends and I love them. They're super fucking smart. They're funny and raunchy. Beneath all that, they have good hearts and are great, loyal friends.

We don't compete with each other about our "careers," or the way we look. And we don't compete for guys. Period. If one of us likes a guy and calls it first, the other just steps off. And that's it.

No cliched, catfight bullshit.

Our philosophy is, I guess, that there's plenty of dick to go around. At least, enough so that we don't have to destroy a friendship over some guy who will be a minor footnote in our lives a few years from now. My chick friends and I, though, we're in it for the long haul.

My best friend Karen, for example.

If that crazy-ass bitch needed a kidney, I'd give her one of mine. Even though I am a hypochondriac and a germ phobe and there's a very good possibility that I'd get septic shock, or some shit, from the surgery.

If she needed my kidney, I'd still give that shit to her.

And fuck, I'd give her my last bit of Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer, if she wanted it. Even though her skin tone doesn't really match mine.

It's not that I can't jaw on about the merits of Nars eye shadow verses Lorac with the girliest of them. I can. It's just, that's not all I like to talk about.

And it's not that I'm intimidated by other women's beauty.

One of my closest friends could model if she wanted to.

I’m not unattractive, but standing next to Hannah at a party makes me feel like Weiner Dog from Welcome to the Dollhouse.

There’s pretty and there's beautiful and then there's un-fucking-believably beautiful.

Hannah is un-fucking-believably beautiful. Genetic Freak beautiful.

Her beauty is made even more excruciating due to the fact that she has very little idea just how beautiful she is. This makes her even more beautiful, at least to me.

While annoying, it's also why she's my friend. She's more than just a killer face.

She's really bright. She's got a filthy mouth on her that rivals mine. She's also super bitter.

Sure, she's beautiful, but her father's enthusiasm for unbelievably sloppy embezzlement tactics landed him in jail when she was sixteen. Her family's humiliation was splashed all over the papers for more than a year. Right around that time, she filled the Missing Daddy gap with crystal meth and ended up in rehab by her seventeenth birthday.

This, her mother celebrated by committing suicide not three weeks later.

These days, Hannah's just a stoner, albeit an inveterate one, and has so many unresolved, um, "issues," even the perfect mug staring back at her from the mirror in the morning isn’t enough to assuage the urge to smash her face into the glass. (She doesn't do this anymore, though, although she did back in her crystal meth days.)

She's in the My Family Was Beyond Fucked Up Too Club so I tolerate her staggering beauty. Members of this club are granted unending reserves of empathy by other members. It's the unwritten rule.

Even if their bone structure and naturally cut abs make you want to fucking puke.

Even though I have a lot of male friends, I don't trust women who say they, "You know, get along better with guys." This usually means they enjoy the perverse pleasure of giving their male friends BBD (Blue Balls Deluxe).

A hot chick with only male friends spells, "You'll never hit this; but I enjoy your adoration anyway." Additionally, if you try to penetrate the all-guys-and-one-chick circle of friends, you'll be greeted with horny appreciation by the peen in the group and outright hostility by the queen bee.

That shit's a little too Wild Kingdom for my taste. It's weird.

Me, I do get along better with guys than girls, for the most part. I had two older brothers growing up. I live for crap and fart jokes. So, based on that, I guess you could say my chick friends are like guys. When people meet my female friends, in fact, they'll invariably say that we're like guys; you know, how we talk about dick like it's pussy and how, when a hot guy walks by, one of us will mutter, 'Damn, I'd like to hit that' and shit like that.

I don't think we're like guys, though.

Objectifying men as brutally as men objectify women and having a healthy sex drive doesn't make you a man.

It doesn't make you an asshole, which is what men who objectify women and have healthy sex drives, are labeled.

It doesn't make you a slut, either, which is the female label. It just makes you a girl who appreciates balls once in a while.

Your own balls, while still being a girl and owning it.

I wish that chicks writing about their shocking, scintillating, excruciatingly graphic sex-ploits weren’t so encouraged to do so by the publishing world. As if the only thing a chick writer has to offer is why, after her fortieth degrading blowjob in the bathroom at CBGB, she had, “like, a revelation.”

It’s fucking insulting.

It’s tired. It’s boring.

There are so many other things to write about. You know. Things that guys are encouraged to write about. Just fucking find them. Get your mouth off the cock and fucking find them. Jesus Christ.

And I wish there were another word besides "balls" to convey "cool" and "punk rock" for chicks. I wish girls didn't have to repudiate the female in them and have to convey their righteousness by saying that they're "just one of the guys."

Because sometimes, just sometimes, men don’t have balls. At all. For example, Christopher Hitchens, who just wrote a thoughtful treatise/publicity stunt for Vanity Fair about why, exactly, women aren't funny. There's empirical evidence, yo!

Read it. He still uses the word “squeeze” as a noun. You know, as in “boyfriend.” This dude’s clearly only ever fucked in the missionary position and thinks that when confronted with a Manolo Blahnik blow-out sale, all women, everywhere, no matter who they are, shit their pants in ecstasy while simultaneously cumming and wondering which stilettos to wear while planning their baby showers.

But wait!

Cultural icons like Nora Ephron and Fran Lebowitz are backing (backstabbing women everywhere) his fat old ass up! He must be right.

Are Nora Ephron and Fran Lebowitz still even alive?

Ladies, please. If your feminist convictions have waned that much or if you need a jolt of publicity that badly, there’s a pole at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club on 51st and 12th just waiting for you. It’s not as upscale as Flashdancers, but your tits are kind of shriveled now and you have, after all, agreed to enter Male La La Land. It’s a bitch, ladies, but that’s what happens when your money and past glories insulate you from the real fucking world, where young women struggle against Lipitor-addled decrees like the one your pal Christopher just issued in a magazine with a circulation of millions.

I have to say, despite the monthly cramps and the decision to have my pubes voluntarily ripped out by hot wax once every few weeks, I don't hate being a girl.

I don't apologize for it and I don't try to "rise above it" by being "just one of the guys" so men will take me or my humor more seriously.

I love being a girl. I really do. And fuck anyone, male or female, who has a problem with that.

And I don’t think that having a physiological ball sack makes someone's writing any more or less funny.

So, Christopher Hitchens, you bitter, old fuckbag, suck my left one. Or else, go muff diving at a Lilith Fair Festival. No bikini waxing there. Just big, ol', need-a-bush-whacker and-some-scuba goggles to navigate underbrush.

And that shit ain't funny at all.