Carol Channing is a Thug
June 7th, 2004
I was a normal person this weekend with a proper Saturday and Sunday (and Monday!) off from work. After an entire weekend of dreary wet weather I finally got my full of staying in and updating this blog, so I spent today out and about downtown. I don’t kick it down there much, so when I go it’s always so refreshing. I took my new little toy (who I have named Kiddo) out with me and it was just a really nice time. Does anyone else ever go out on their own and just have the best time? Maybe that’s weird, I’m not sure yet. I try not to stay solitary for too long b/c I tend to start going insane when I’m left to my own devices.
So I metup later with my dawg Brigid @ her cute apartment on the Upper East side and we were gonna head down to this downtown spot called Mojo that I needed to try out for work. They’re actually owned by the same people who run Suba, where I was heartily fed and treated like a KING the night before — no I’m serious; tapas, shrimp, martinis, steak, chocolate, it was just endless and I, the pickiest of all eaters, chowed down every single delicious thing they brought me. What’s up with that?! When did I start eating full meals? Hello, I eat @ Burger King. Anyway, Brig and I ended up settling for some spicy Southern grub @ Silver Spurs instead. God, it was good food. I had a Cajun roast beef sandwich with spicy fries, it was so fucking intoxicating. Brig left and I walked uptown for awhile after dinner… all the way up through Tribeca and Gramercy to midtown, taking the night in, overidentifying with emo-lyrics. Things on my mind. It amazes me how different things are now than the way they were for me this time last year.
The entire new Ben Kweller album is a damn anthem. His ballads are just sublime. Almost as sublime as LL Cool J introducing Carol Channing on the Tony’s last night, and then her tearing the roof off the mother with her rap solo version of “Hello Dolly”! When Hugh Jackman said, “Carol Channing just got arrested for a driveby shooting” I about lost my shit. I checked Miss Channing into Hudson once and I’m pretty sure she likes our hotel because of all the dim lighting, that woman’s skin looked like a display from Madame Tussaud’s in Times Sq. God bless her hip-hop loving ass, she must be older than God.
Southern Belle Adele
June 6th, 2004Have I told ya’ll about my pen pal thing? A few weeks ago, I was chatting with my dawg and babymomma Princess Melissa (how the hell did she and I become actual IM-chatting, cell-phone-calling friends? I have no idea but we’re in ill cahoots) and we got to fancying the premise of writing letters to people in prison — Melissa explains it all here, and her description is priceless. For the record, I blame her. Also for the record, she was here long before Dan Renzi, God bless him.
You see, in addition to some rude stuff I’ve gotten, there have been a lot of insanely nice emails from random people across the world who read my blog and seem to like what they find. This is all from regularass people who just sit in their daytime offices, or kick back in a Starbucks on their laptop, or at home late at night at their computers, and they take the time to just shoot me their thoughts after readind the things I say. The idea of doing the same thing with somebody who might otherwise have zero access to anyone that really wants to know more about them? is just an exciting and wonderful idea. A lot of them just want someone to talk to, and dammit, I can do that. Besides, you never know what kind of a difference that might make for them, or for you. All this and also it’s just kinda cool to get letters from somebody who got locked up for robbing banks and shit.
It took me some time to get things together but I finally got the P.O. Box going (the LAST thing I need is ro give out my home address and have some bazooka-toting freak busting outta The Clink and camping out across the street from my apartment) and sent my first letter to my pen pal. She wasn’t my first choice, but I think that might make our friendship even more interesting. I’d like to introduce her to all of you. Ladies and gentleman, please put your hands together (and hide the knives!) for the sweetest little murderer in Texas…
Miss Adele Hartwig
Adele is 57yr old former teacher, nurse, artist, rancher, cheerleader, and Protestant gymnast who also happens to have killed a husband or two. And no, I’m not joking. This woman actually exists. She’s a Virgo. In her ad @ WriteAPrisoner.com, she descibes herself as “an orchid in boots and jeans” who “still respects and admires the male species”. Is she not fucking fabulous? You just can’t keep a good woman down. I fell in love with Adele the moment I saw her makeshift country-western album mug shot there, and I especially love the crackled gold-leaf veins running through photo. She’ll be getting out of prison in about 30 years and I have no doubt that on that day she’ll be two-stepping and line-dancing her way out of those prison gates, walker in tow. And I’ll be there with open arms and a smile on my face, and a bigass can of mace in my back pocket just in case.
Shit man, I’m not stupid.
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls
June 5th, 2004This evening I was gearing up for my date — I scored reservations @ Suba, dinner in the lower grotto surrounded by that illuminated water all around you, and spent all week managing to NOT be too excited about it. Water enclosed dining! No, I saved all the excitement for today! — and running around trying to get things together. I’d gone tanning the other day and was looking mighty fine, all aglow against a crisp white slim-fit button down and some pinstripe pants (anything to present the illusion of fitness and height). By the way, I’d like to point out that I have never ever gone tanning before the other day and had always hosted some serious hateration in this dancerie for New Yorker’s who go tanning (…it’s like keeping a car in the city — WHY?! GO TO L.A.!) but it was free and only took 20 minutes, so I indulged myself. Bring on the irreversable skin damage. Anyway, I’m getting ready and decide to take a quick second shower before I head out, does anybody else ever do that? and got the shower running. Full blast, perfect temperature. I popped over to my computer to finish synching up my iPod mini and wound up getting all caught up reading blogs (further proof that the web is vampire sent to DRAIN). Also, Ronald Regan had just died and I was reading up on that, too. By the time I got back to the bathroom I realized it wasn’t the shower I’d left running, it was the BATHTUB FAUCET. Full blast. Water was GUSHING over the edge of the tub and pouring across my bathroom floor, and it had been doing this for I don’t know how long. “OH MY GOD!” I screamed, splashing into the bathroom and leaping for the broken faucet handles. Of course, in my frantic state I twisted furiously at the wrong knobs and turned the shower on instead. So I’m standing there in the tub, up to my knees in water, and my freshly ironed dinner outfit is soaked to hell. Right away, the first thing I thought of was my downstairs neighboors and the fit they were gonna throw down over this. I can’t even explain to you how insane it was: my bathroom mat was floating! Finally I got it all shut off, sloshed out of the tub and just beheld the waterworld I’d created. I wanted to cry. Wall to wall, I was standing in like, 3 inches of water and it was SO damn close to spreading into the rest of my ALL WOODEN FLOOR apartment.
What the hell does a normal person do in a situation like this? They go get a big towel and begin sopping up the reservoir, right? They soak, ring out, and repeat. NOT MY ASS. I panicked. Ran into my living room, hurled the coffee table across the room, snatched up my 2 Urban Outifitter 5×7′s off the floor and flung them onto the bathroom floor. SPLAT! water all over the place. But I didn’t stop there. No, then I ran to my hamper and scooped up all of my dirty underwear, towels, and clothes and added THOSE to the damn pile. I have NO IDEA what I was thinking, dudes, the goal was just to keep doing things until I figured I’d done everything. Eventually, about an hour and 20lbs of wet clothes later, my bathroom was back to normal. My downstairs neighbor and my building super both came a-knocking later that evening to ask about what was going on. I lied through my teeth. “What? A plumbing leak, really? No, I haven’t had any trouble at all today.” Ugh, it’s awful. Do you think I’ll know many other people in Hell?
I had to reschedule my dinner reservations, which sucks so much… but I guess in the end I was surrounded by water anyway. And my bathroom floor is really shiny now.
“You’re Terrible, Muriel”
June 5th, 2004Everytime I start to feel like an adult, something erratic happens and I am reminded of just what a big spaz I can be. Remember that guy Jack from “Three’s Company” and how he was always getting into outlandish scenarious far beyond what normal people encounter? That’s what it felt like today, and I was the bumbling (excuseably-gay) fool trying to stop the madness.. Total sitcom hijinx, so ridiculous that it deserves entry on my RANTS page. Read here for more.
A hotel guest who’d been getting on my nerves all week with her high maintenance and fussy requests totally suprised me the other day. I’ve been finding it annoying when hotel guests employ me for Personal Assistant-type shit. Faxing documents, making reservations, those are things I don’t mind doing, but I’m there to provide an extra service; to go above and beyond for the hotel guest and perform amazing feats like getting last-minute center-section seats to a sold out show like Wicked, or having champagne setup for a helicopter tour that a guy plans to pop a suprise proposal on… not to do mindless shit that they could do themselves. Please don’t ask me to call SuperShuttle and book your $17 shuttle to JFK, sir, here’s the toll free number, you can call from your room. Just tacky. This woman had been hounding me all week about getting really good-but-cheap tickets (an oxymoron) to the David Bowie concert @ Jones Beach on Friday night. She had me looking all over Ticketmaster and Telecharge and Admission and a dozen other amateur, no-comission-paying outlets for her and her friends. That woulda been fine enough if she also hadn’t been uncertain on whether or not she really wanted to go see the show, she kept wanting me to convince her that David Bowie was still really popular and exciting. I’m not much of a Bowie fan (altho he was the First Lady of Metrosexuality) but I knew he had The Polyphonic Spree opening for him, and I LOVE those guys. They’re a fucking cult, I know it, but they’re great. Anyway, she finally booked all the tickets and actually GOT ONE FOR ME TOO. She said I sounded so enthusiastic about the opening band that she thought I should be there to see them. 
I ended up passing on the ticket cuz I had plans already, and she had a backup friend to give the ticket to anyway. But it was so sweet of her, made me feel bad for wanting her dead before.
Is anybody else a little bit worried about Anna Nicole Smith? I mean, I know she looks great now that she’s lost all that weight but it’s not like she’s on some new health kick or anything. A guy I work with is on Trim Spa, it’s a dietary suppressant and it totally drains you of any energy, which is why all the weight comes off. Should we really be this happy for Anna, isn’t she just trading in the Paxil and Prozac for Trim Spa? You know Anna’s just popping them little pills like Pez.
So, I recently came very close to giving in to an act of desperation. Nothing dangerous, per say, but just definately the kind of thing that would set me back into a place that I’ve heartily been working to get away from. I’ve always felt that people should always do what’s really in their hearts to do, regardless of whether or not it seems like “a good idea”. You can’t really live your life so securely, and I like to think that even when something looks daunting you should just go for it anyway. But not this time. This time it’s better that I just let things simmer, I’m glad nothing came of it. Self-respect is much more important than anything else, really, even if it kinda drives you crazy.
Despite that whole ordeal, recent subway shootings, and the death of former presidents, I’m setting out to TRY and just enjoy my weekend. There’s all kinds of semi-upbeat stuff to get caught up with, like The Big Gay Thing in Queens, or That Big Gay Thing in Manhattan, but I’m actually thinking about going to that wild shindig instead. Fight the power. As if they MTA hasn’t fucked with us enough, what with that whole fare-hike last year, now they wanna ban pictures on the subway too? I’d love to meet the MTA out on the playground afterschool, man. Those bastards need to get smacked around some. I think Adele could help with that.
I watched Muriel’s Wedding on Showtime today. That part where the two slutty bitches start catfighting while Muriel and Rhonda are onstage dancing and lip-synching to “Waterloo”, and the crowd is going nuts for them? makes me grin from ear to ear. Such a great movie. I remember hating it when I first saw it b/c I didn’t really understand the way indie’s work, so I was furious that there wasn’t a conventionally happy ending. “What? Muriel’s still fat and poor! Why is it ending? What the FUCK?!” 
See, I was a little bit shallow back in the day. Heh. SO GLAD I grew out of that.
Salacious & Bite Size
June 4th, 2004
Meet Cy, the hottest little thing rocking my world lately. Tiny, sexy, cheeky, and sweet as hell — they don’t engineer girls like this very often, folks. Brick house, mighty mighty. Cumming soon to a bedroom near you… or me. Hmm. Does the plot thicken? One’s game suddenly gets so much more interesting when options are introduced.
See that bag on her arm? it’s full of Victoria’s Secret shit. But I don’t think I’m ready for the jelly. Don’t ask questions, it’ll spoil the presentation.
Because I’m Worth It
June 3rd, 2004
“Hi, you don’t have any iPod mini’s in stock, do you?”
“Yeah, just 2 left. The blue one.”
(
)
I can’t believe I’ve finally got one. I know, I know — why go and downgrade from my current iPod that holds 2,500 songs to a smaller one that only holds 1000 songs? Style over substance, dude. No, the truth is I just don’t have enough music to need all that space. Out of 10GB, I’ve only used up 5GB, and out of all of that I only really listen to about 300 songs. Now this means I’ve got TWO iPods, but I’m actually trying to sell my previous 10GB to a coworker for an exact $250 to curb any upcoming buyer’s remorse that may strike me. So far I’m not regretting it. It actually came with this limited promotion from Apple that secures an immediate replacement for it if the battery dies anytime in the next 2 years, and if it’s outdated by the time that happens (and it probably will happen), they’ll upgrade my replacement to whatever the latest model is. I also bought a tiny little latex jacket to slip over the case to protect it, like a condom. Are these even cool anymore? I have no clue, I just love it. It’ll be outdated in like, a week or something (they probably already are) but I don’t even care. I’ve got my very own blue ipod mini now and dammit, life is looking up.
I did a whole Audio post right after I walked out of the strore but I’m not gonna post it cuz it’s just embarassing how excited I am. Shut up, haters. Just lay out your congratulations, mkay? You know how we do.