ok, so i can finally start gearing up to complain about the subway again, as they've decided to go back to work. not only that, but i just recieved two pretty rad gifts from the people for whom i work: a very pretty bowl and a bottle of APPLE BRANDY!!!! hurrah! have graduated to point where even my boss gives me alcohol.yes!next stop: church basement.barring any major developments in anything, i'm signing off until the new year. tomorrow we have the day off, and all signs point to me finally getting my ass to the met's van gough exhibit, assuming it's still on. from then on it's a mixture of chinese food, plane flights, fruity cocktails, sunshine, blue waters and figureing out how to use the camera i have it on good authority my 'rents got me for xmas. wait, channukah. 
happy new year to all my faithful readers!! :)wcs
Man #1: ...Shit! Why did they have to strike during the winter? Right before the holidays, no less.Man #2: Well, the transit guys need to get paid more and they need other things that I'm not too clear about.Man #3: Fuck 'em! I don't give a shit what their problems are! Everybody has problems, not just them! They want more money? Well, then they should have thought about that before dropping out of high school! Bunch of lazy fucking losers!Man #4: Hey, I work for the MTA.Man #3: Well, then: fuck you, too!
--Brooklyn Bridgeoverheardi came in today and found out that one of my crazy coworkers apparently lost his goddamned mind and walked from bay ridge. that's not funny. i managed to stay downtown at a friend's, but since i left the bag with my work clothes at my apartment and so only had jeans and a budweiser tshirt, i'm currently wearing one of his sweaters, which is huge but extremely comfortable.
ratner's destruction of brooklyn(tm) is beginning today. curbed says that the jackass is gonna rip down buidlings on dean street and atlantic ave. today.
my neighbor is the quizmaster for last exit's quiz night, and last night was my second attempt to dig the depths of my brain for all the pointless information i've been hiding there for the last 20 years or so in order to win some cash. but last night, there were questions i don't even want to know the answer to, one of which was: name the first nancy drew or hardy boys book. another was: what was the name of roscoe p. coltrain's dog on the dukes of hazzard. this is the kind of information you should be shunned for knowing. although xy roommate couldn't figure out how i knew amf is associated with bowling, and it think he should be shunned for not knowing that. in the end, we put on a fairly good show, but boy do we suck at european geography.
so, here i am at work. a coworker's friend gave me a lift into town. most of my friends managed the day off, which i am sad about, but i don't have a ride tomorrow, so perhaps all is not lost. what the hell is this bullshit, though? i'm not sure i could get any more annoyed with any person associated with the public transportation in this town. the union guys are being pretty freaking greedy, and they are inflicting serious damage on the city's economy, which will only end up hurting them in the long run. here's about the only quote i can stomach right now:Michael T. O'Brien, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America, Local 100's parent union, warned the board that he could not support a strike because he believed the authority's most recent offer represented real progress
i've seen links for this all over, but i finally got a chance to watch it today, and i can't even describe how lovely it is. it's an ad for a TV, but here's a rare moment where a piece of real art was co-opted for capitalism instead of just shite for shite...it takes a while to load, but it's worth it. i wish i'd been in san francisco the day they shot this, cause it's just beautiful.click mehere are some logisticsvia yeti don't dance
why the hell is lenny kravitz in the lobby of my building?
'tis better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all. (by the by, when did we ditch "'tis" for "it's"? i feel like we could have really avoided a lot of it's its confusion if we'd stayed with the 'tis...) but, 'tis it better to have made it to the finals and lost, than to have never made it to the finals at all?our first game, at 1pm, was no cakewalk. the more these dudes rolled, the more i thought they were hustling us, considering they hadn't won a single game in the regular season. but we trounced them in the end.the second game was more than a little unfair. our opponents were seriously hungover and put on a pretty good showing, but alas for them, we rocked their asses, too. it was somewhere around 3 o'clock, and our next game wasn't until 6, so we hunted down some lunch at waterfront ale house. i had the pulled pig. they hold their own in the bbq department. we returned to floyd with an hour to kill and did our best to re-animate. a few early afternoon beers followed by a lengthy lunch is a pretty solid recipe for lethargy. at 6 we faced Off the Wall. these guys nearly shredded us. they beat the shit out of us in the first game, but we came back to win in the end. they were super kids, excellent sports and they hung around to support us - even giving us strategy tips - for the final game. for me, the game against OTW was far more nerve-wracking and intense than the last game. it was a real competition and i'm relatively sure they should've won the game, but we did, and so went on. we did have the pleasure of awarding them the "balls of integrity" at the awards ceremony.at 8, we played a flock of tools called "coffee flats". the name is so lame i don't even want to know what it means. they had red jerseys with fucking numbers on. it's really bad enough to have jerseys, but numbers? it's a bar bocce league, kids, not the olympic trials. but whatever. they beat the shit out of us, so maybe i'm just bitter. i'm sure had we won i would have seen them more as a group of really committed players who were just trying to get by in this crazy, crazy world. they were a pretty good team, and the law of averages, murphy's/sod's law, occam's razor and godwin's law dictated that we were due for a loss at the time when it would be most irritating by simply getting totally creamed by a bunch of nazis. so we end the season with an 11-1 record, which is pretty fucking awesome when you think about it. and we did get t shirts, even if we didn't get trophies.we learned a lot about each other, about teamwork, about beating the odds, about beer, about getting too drunk on a monday night, about the hard bank left on the court, and about ourselves. in the end, even though we came in second, we won.[music swells][members arrange themselves for team photo, yell "bocce"; freeze frame][roll credits]
manlio's hungover...
so there was no strike. or a "partial strike" whatever the hell that is. transit union workers are pussies. i wanted to stay home from work, dammit.anyway, there are no diversions this weekend, so take advantage. of course, chances are you won't want to go anywhere because the city is overrun with out of towners who think having a caricature of themselves drawn in central park is a good idea.there is no safety reminder of the week, so go nuts! hang off the side of a train, ride on top of a train, lean on the doors, run down the stairs. throw caution to the wind!
the times magazine thinks making meat overnight in "a countertop device similar to a bread maker" is a good idea.one can eat too much cheese.
the iraqis are a-voting. the times says that people have dressed to the nines to go vote. and things are going really well "in spite of some explosions". what the hell kind of situation is that? As the polls opened at 7 a.m., a mortar struck the middle of the Green Zone compound in central Baghdad, the site of the American Embassy and the offices of top Iraqi officials. About the same time, a roadside bomb exploded in Ramadi. There were no immediate reports of casualties in either blast.sounds like things are really coming together.
ok, so over the last few days, i've noticed a really strange increase in people misspelling "its". more often than not, it's people using "it's" instead of "its". i know, the apostophe makes us think it's possessive, but it just isn't. i can let it slide in regular old blogs, but today's and yesterday's gothamist were riddled with them and i just found one in bloody time out. not only that, i nearly defaced private property last night when i walked past a banner in front of someone's house that said, "happy holidays from the [lastname]'s" from their what? their dog? it's just pluralization, a very simple concept. people are super excited about apostrophes. it's just like people saying "i" when they should say "me". all over the media they're fucking shit all up because they think it makes them seem smarter. ho ho ho!! dumbasses.on the same street, i passed a guy with a teeny little dog. a westie or something of that size. i'm pretty sure this wasn't his dog--at least if was he didn't seem to like it too much--and as i passed him i resisted a very strong urge to just say "dump her" to him. some woman bought an annoying punting dog and is making her sad sack boyfriend walk it in 18 degree weather.
ok, so some dude's got it in his head that we should try to break the guinness world record for snowball fighting in prospect park. here's a link to the craigslist ad, or you can just email this address brooklynsnowballfight@gmail.com and it'll sign you up for a list. who knows if this will be at all feasible, but it would be pretty hilarious if he could get 3K+ people to show up in the park someday.
is someone sabotaging my daily bomb? is it boring? are we tired of hearing about it? is it not of importance? where is the times on this one?incidentally, i heard on the radio this am that 30K iraqis have died so far. yeah! way to go us. what's the number for genocide?sunni shot and soldiers carbombed.hooray for democratic elections. as long as you make it to the polls alive.
gothamist found what might be the most useful tool ever. you click where you are and where you want to be, and this nifty little map tells you how to get there. it gave me an entirely new idea to get to work, i'll be testing it on the way home.
our bocce game last night was less than intense, considering our opponents decided to sit it out. we took the forfeit and played each other. it's a good thing those other dudes didn't show up, because we were not in top form. look for the very blurry details of this weekend's finals on monday.
slightly more interesting: we saw the guy who played steve on sex and the city. to gawker stalker or not to gawker stalker, that is the question.manlio lets us all off the hook for various reasons.
just appreciate that i found this line in it:What is my skin for?Skin is the stretchy bag you live in.a stretchy bag. that i live in. i live in a stretchy bag.
bahrainian goods are now cheap(er)!megavote
friday i went to see my friend jeremy in a play. it was a version of 'a christmas carol'. he played bob cratchet (sp?) and a couple other characters. he was fantastic. especially when he started giggling at his own comic brilliance. i am often giggling at my own comic brilliance, so i know how it is. anyway, tiny tim is a monkey puppet, so you should go see it. here's the official plug:Nosedive Productions Presents"A Very Nosedive Christmas Carol"The Kraine Theatre, 85 East 4th Street December 8-10, 15-17, Thursday through SaturdayAll shows are at 8 p.m., tickets are $15. Eggnog will be served.Reservations: (212) 696-7342.saturday was the maj deegan's insane holiday party. i brought the cardamom cookies and the sweet potata' pie, she made (literally) 12 other goodies. including egg nog, which is extremely effective at getting me wasted in a very short period of time. sunday maj, xx roommate and i went to see the nose, for which joemca did the sound design. i'd tell you all to see this one, too, but it's over now. it was a neato little puppet show at theater for the new city. joemca's sound was awesome, per usual. he's promised to make me a cd of all the beats he threw together for it. on the way home xy roommate met up with me and xx roommate and we bought our winter solstice tree. xx and i were discussing how it wasn't as fun as last year, when the two of us dragged the tree 7 blocks home laughing our asses off because we could barely hold it up. xy just popped the thing up over his head and walked it back home. the whole ordeal was far easier this year.
natwest banks are taking clocks down so people won't complain about waiting in line. so, they'll still have to wait in line, but they won't know exactly how long...unless they have a watch or something.
quoteness:
with a clock there, it was difficult for us to disagree with them. without them it's harder for them to complain.
(via fark)
but lebanon is here to toe the line...anti-syrian dude killed in car bomb.
and for your southern hemispherical violence pleasure: syndey hops on the riot train.
and, richard pryor died this weekend.
i am listening to the john vanderslice performances on kexp (which has the get up kids doing "never tear us apart", btw) when i saw, via stereogum, that JV has one of his SFO shows up on his website. yum. oh, and also the rogue wave show at the earl in the atl.
huh. some "mega-churches" are gonna skip christmas services because christmas is on a sunday. um, what?guess even the christians have joined the war on christmas.
instead of our regularly scheduled bomb?
the f is skipping 4ave, 15th st-prospect park and ft hamilton.D -- ok until 59th streetG, M, N, R -- no diversions scheduled. Safety reminder of the week: Please use handrails on stairs and escalators.
after meeting up with the enthusiasm normally reserved for high school girls at a mall appearance of their favorite boy band, the maj deegan and i got on the r train to laguardia. i've gone to laguardia on the train more times than i'd like to count, and i always, in a fit of panic, check the subway map. this time, however, i was too busy squealing with delight and maj deegan and i got right on an r train. because that's what i thought we should do.the rest of this killer tale of my vacation after my ghetto-style jump.
according to the news on soldier radio, afghanistan is doing great! but there's still a lot left to do.
ok, so i am listening to "soldier's radio live" on itunes radio. i was just looking through and couldn't resist the temptation to find out what the men and women of the us army are listenting to. but i just heard something so ridiculous and disturbing that even the shitty song playing right now sounds comforting in comparison. it was a kletzmer version of some christmast carol. basically, they turned whatever this song was into something a little too close to "hava negilah" for my liking. so i guess that's it: happy christmikah. or is it chrissmmakkah?for those of you who are interested, the US Army apparently enjoys "little red corvette".
that smell is back. i caught a whiff at lunchtime. gothamist has very slightly more.
ok, so after we got back tuesday (i'm still working on that one), i came very close to skipping this show. i was knackered and i knew the music would be chill enough to make me fall asleep standing up, but i gathered my last ounce of energy and went in to meet co-worker chris and the jensenator for some unbelievable shit.tim fite was up first...this guy is all gimmicks. some of it's funny, he's got some drawings and he refers to himself as "the gentleman with itchy legs". but it got old real quick. sadly, his music was pretty good, but i was leaning towards not liking it by the end for all of his schtick. calexico were up next and holy hell, these guys are so fucking awesome live. i loved it because there are so many people up there and they are each interesting to watch. there are two trumpeters, one of whom doubles as a xylophone, accordian and guitar player, and the other of whom does these awesome, for lack of a better term, mexican style whoops. they played for about 30 minutes or so, which was annoying, cause i would have rather seen more of them than the first dude. at the end of one song, they did a little bit of the specials' "ghost town", with a little mexican attitude, it was hot. i'm gonna say this again just to make sure you get the point: these dudes are fucking awesome.after that was an older mexican dude who'd never been to new york before. he's on the first or second track of the "in the reins" ep. he did some pretty cool shit, but i missed a lot of it when i went out for a smoke. the howling trumpeter from calexico played a little, too.then there was a band that sucked so much ass i'm not gonna say anything else about them.finally, i&w came out. they played about four songs from woman king and some stuff i didn't recognize. there was a quick tease when sam played the first four notes or so from "such great heights", but it turned into another song that sounds similar. that would have been pretty cool. then, little by little, calexico came back out. they played most or all of the ep as well as an awesome version of "all tomorrow's parties", which was so fucking loud and full and layered, it was like a wave breaking over me. they also covered "wild horses", for which they brought out a special guest. he was a freaked out looking kid who didn't seem to have ever heard, let along sung, "wild horses" before, but it was still very pretty.all in all, a show worth draggin your entirely exhausted ass to. streams available of other shows at kexp and npr.
well, it's been coming down the pike for a while now, although somehow i hoped we'd find a way around it.london's routemasters are retiring tomorrow...these are the old style hop-on busses which are as much a part of london as the houses of parliament and the thames. i get all misty eyed thinking about the creaky 23 taking me from liverpool street station to westbourne grove, with the conductor coming through and checking everyone's tickets.there will still be double-deckers, but they're the new style ones with the non-spiral-staircase in the middle. also, there will be notorious "bendy busses". we new yorkers are familiar with these as an entirely inefficent way to design a bus. the idea of putting as many people as possible far away from the doors, making it impossible to fill and empty the bus, confuses me endlessly.someone once asked me what kind of car i'd want to be and without missing a beat, i said "a red double-decker bus". when pressed as to the reasons behind my choice i said: "it's totally silly and extremely useful, and red".here's to you, #23.
mariah fucking carey? when is this woman going away? at least amy grant went back to her christian foxhole.what's with her stupid album names, anyway? the emancipation of mimi? ugh. no matter what happens, the neptunes will reel in a few more gramaphones for their hot asses.here's the list:Record Of The Year We Belong Together Mariah CareyFeel Good Inc.Gorillaz Featuring De La SoulCox, Danger Mouse, Dring & Gorillaz, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams Green DayHollaback GirlGwen Gold Digger Kanye WestAlbum Of The Year The Emancipation Of Mimi Mariah CareyChaos And Creation In The Backyard Paul McCartney Love. Angel. Music. Baby.Gwen Stefani How To Dismantle An Atomic BombU2 Late Registration Kanye West Song Of The Year Bless The Broken Road Bobby Boyd, Jeff Hanna & Marcus HummonDevils & Dust Bruce Springsteen Ordinary PeopleW. Adams & J. Stephens Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your OwnU2, We Belong TogetherJ. Austin, M. Carey, J. Dupri & M. Seal Best New Artist
Ciara
Fall Out Boy
Keane
John Legend
SugarLandBest Female Pop Vocal Performance
It's Like That Mariah Carey
Since U Been Gone Kelly Clarkson Good Is Good Sheryl Crow
I Will Not Be Broken Bonnie Raitt Hollaback Girl Gwen Stefani Best Male Pop Vocal Performance Sitting, Waiting, Wishing Jack Johnson Fine Line Paul McCartney
Walk On By Seal
Lonely No More Rob Thomas
From The Bottom Of My Heart Stevie Wonder Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal Don't Lie The Black Eyed Peas Mr. Brightside The Killers More Than Love Los Lonely Boys This Love Maroon 5 My Doorbell The White Stripes if you still give a shit about the rest of the noms. here they are.
look for things to get worse until the election. and then look for things to be catastrophic.
there's a calendar in the mailroom which was generously bestowed upon us by UPS, a company we rarely use, as we are apparently maniacally and cultishly devoted to federal express. december says: 'let's turn "it can't be done" into "when do you want it?"'i'm pretty sure whatever it is, unless it's a human organ, it's not that big of a fucking deal. you know what? i think we should be saying "it can't be done" a little more often. "can you email this guy and ask him a question for me?""it can't be done""can you fax this somewhere?""it can't be done"if ups doesn't deliver on saturdays, no one has to go to work saturday because the thing might come in and we should do something with it. let's turn "sure, no problem, i'll collate that and reorganize your budget even though someone else fucked it all up" into "go fuck yourself".
although it'd probably be interesting, i'm not going through the last few days of news to find all the bombs. i'm sure there were at least a few, though, because that is the way. but i managed to find the time to get you today's.
we got to 46th street (in queens) when i noticed we still hadn't gone above ground, and wasn't that strange? then i looked at the map on the car. oh, yes. we should have taken any other train. the maj and i collapsed into giggles and decided at that point, it'd be easier to get a car to the airport than worry with the subway anymore.
so we went above ground and wandered aimlessly for a while before going to a deli and asking for a number. they said we didn't need a number, just stick up your hand. so we did. successfully.
we got to national car rental, home of our pricelined vehicle, and breezed through the paperwork. the lady at the counter told us to go to the green area of the parking lot and pick any car you want. i bolted out the door with fire under my heels. i was to be sorely disappointed. all they had were minivans and suvs. the maj and i were both immediately voicing our disapproval. neither of us like driving big cars, we have no need for all that room, and it would have cost twice as much in gas. i went back in and asked if there was anything else. we made them give us our shitty little car.
in case any of you are like my mother, who asked me three times what we had, it was a white chrysler seabring. i enjoy having a white rental car because lots of people on the road think you're a cop, and i am a fairly mean-spirited person, so i enjoy scaring the crap out of people.
we drove to our houses and picked up our crap (i'd decided since we were driving to just take all my laundry with me) and got on the road about 7. at about 12 (is that right, maj?) we were tired and in virginia. since we'd passed dc, we figured we could stop whenever, so we started looking for cheap motels.
we went to five different places before settling on a $60/a night econo lodge. whilst the maj was checking in, i saw two shooting stars. it was a little random. our room had a couple of special features: first, it was room 212, second, there was a little note pad by the bed, which someone had previously scrawled the number for pizza hut and domino's. turns out, he or she wasted his or her time, because the number for domino's is on all the key cards.
the next morning i woke up and couldn't find the maj anywhere. her bed was empty, but i didn't hear anyone in the shower. suddenly, in all my sleepiness, it dawned on me: that crazyass bitch went running.
i berated her the moment she walked back in the room. then i berated her for making my first act of the day an angry one. she laughed at me and got in the shower and i watched tv. i think this is when we saw the cooking show in which the chef, who was making cookies that bend, looked like a fucking serial killer.
we had acheived our goal of staying below the waffle house line, and so dined there for breakfast. although we had bonnaroo's ipod/radio thingy, we spent a good deal of time seeking through various radio stations, one of which blessed us with the gem: "i'm not cool, but it's ok, my god loves me anyway". you're not gonna get any cooler singing a song like that, are you?
we didn't really push ourselves too hard friday. we stopped at an outlet center, where i bought a sweater and jeans and maj deegan got a sweater and some trousers. then i got a harley-davidson shirt for my uncle. we got back on the highway and exited again almost immediately for a subway excursion. then we got back on and off again to go, because there's nothing else to do, to south of the border.
let's take a little side trip with south of the border here. their billboards start roughly 150 miles from the actual destination. while the maj deegan figured it out immediately, i didn't know what the hell pedro's sash thingy was for about 65 miles (each mile has a billboard, i think). i thought it was a giant, phallic firework. pedro is a stunning depiction of a mexican dude who is clearly a human version of speedy gonzalez. each billboard features strange and usually non-sequitorial word plays...e.g., "holy mackeral" with a picture of a fish and a halo; or "hi!" on an unusually high billboard; or a picture of pedro kicking a donkey for no apparent reason.
holy lord, i just found this on their website:
Recently married?...Honeymoon at Pedro's in one of our 20 "heir-conditioned" honeymoon suites complete with a complimentary bottle of champagne. Nothing but the very best will do for your bride!
it's worth a look at the website, just to see how bizarre and more than midly offensive this place is.
anyway, we drove in, the place is seriously depressed. i think it's fading fast as a piece of americana. still, we bought some fireworks and i got 18 beers for $16, so all was not lost.
then we stopped again about 10 mintues later because i wanted a blizzard at the DQ. maj had a chocolate-dipped cone. the lady working at the DQ was one of the saddest souls i've ever seen. she was in her 40s probably, and working at a DQ/stuckey's off 95 in south carolina. she just didn't look like she cared about anything anymore. she made a wicked oreo blizzard, though. i hope she appreciates her talent in that aspect. i've never been so happy with the oreo:ice cream ratio before. NB: the blizzard just turned 20. i remember when it was introduced. this is a depressing fact.
we got back on the road and vowed not to stop until we got to the house, which almost worked out. but we stopped at the BiLo to pick up some groceries first.
now is a good time to list the menus of the trip.
friday dinner: tomato/basil risotto and sauteed veggies, baguette and goat cheese; beaujolais nouveau
saturday breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast with herbed brie, toast and damson jam; tea
saturday lunch: pbj; bud light
saturday dinner: @ Poe's tavern, cheese fries, mahi-mahi tacos (maj had the tuna tacos); anchorsteam/palmetto ale
sunday breakfast: poached eggs and cheese/garlic grits; tea
sunday lunch: oysters, crab legs, pulled pork, baked beans, cole slaw, cheese cornbread; bud light, michelob ultra, budweiser select (it was in tubs in the backyard, i wasn't about to complain)
sunday dinner: salmon with dill and lemon, grits cakes, artichokes; bud light, miller light
monday breakfast: salmon and eggs with more grits, toast and damson jam; tea
monday lunch: pbj
monday dinner: chinese food in ashland, va.
tuesday breakfast: waho!!!
tuesday lunch: subway
the origninal plan was to go on the cheap, with a couple bags of pasta and sauce and pbj's the whole time. but then we got to the grocery store and decided to do it up. it was all delicious.
getting to the house was awesome. i've been there about a dozen times and the maj has been there a few, too. it's giant. there are five bedrooms, two full and two half baths, a bar, a huge kitchen, a tv room and many sqaure feet of decking all around. we ate dinner and got drunk and discussed how awesome it was to finally be there and i did my laundry .
saturday we ate breakfast on the upstairs deck. it was fucking awesome. it might have been 60 degrees, brisk, not a cloud in the sky. later that afternoon, we dragged the papasaans up to the deck and "read". i was awakened from my "reading" by a phone call from dave, a friend who's spending some time in charleston with his older brother, john, who lives there. dave suggested we get some dinner.
we went to a place called poe's tavern. they have a fireplace. which was lit. even though it was 65 degrees that day. i am not in any way complaining. we had a lovely dinner, and then john and dave came back to the house and we played cranium and drank a fuckload of beer. i do a killer michael jordan impersonation, by the way.
sunday dave came over and the maj deegan and i schooled him in beach bocce. maj won the game, which is good, because our last game is on monday and we gotta bring it. we jumped in john's car and drove to john's island. this took us over the new someone ravenel, jr. bridge. they're deconstructing the old bridges, and it looks so fucking weird. like future movie or something. the new bridge, which is a nice piece of architecture and the longest something bridge in the americas (?acc. to wikipedia), it's all white with two triangle shaped things of cables. but it runs right down the center of where the two old bridges used to go. so there's two half bridges on one side and then two half bridges on the other side. it's totally cool. i didn't have my camera, of course. the ronald mcdonald house is using blast the bridge as a fundraiser. you enter to have a chance to blow up part of the old bridges. weird idea, but i'd do it. here's a video of a blast. i couldn't get it to work. here are some uber rad flickrs. those show the old bridges and new bridge in all their glory.as we drove along, we were listening to 96 wave, which i remember from high school and college as a very good radio station. hilariously, they are still a good radio station, but not much of the format has changed. they play a lot of nirvana, foo fighters, pearl jam, stone temple pilots, jane's addiction and pixies, with a dash of the grateful dead, phish, the white stripes and death cab thrown in for good measure. beleive it 20somethings, we have our first oldies station.the drive was about 1/2 an hour, and we got to the party and walked down a long gravel driveway and under the house to emerge in a backyard that abutts a marsh. there was a long dock out to the water and huge live oaks with spanish moss and a stage with some christmas trees hanging off it. it really threw me off when i'd see christmas decorations everywhere, it was so warm and sunny, it just didn't feel like december. the maj and i kept reminding each other that it was, in fact, december. so that afternoon, at about 65 degrees, we enjoyed steamed gulf and local oysters, crab legs, bbq and many beers. we listened to the blue dogs, who are friends of john's, we went out on the dock, where oddly some older locals were listening to eminem, we watched the sun fall down in the sky, and i saw venus for the first time (at least that i was aware of). we played ping pong until the little kids asked if they could have their ping pong table back (which didn't take too long). we danced a little bit. we made fun of some of the people around us, we watched the hot camera guy all night. it was a gorgeous time. the perfect southern party, where you think to yourself, "maybe i could live this kind of slow, laid back lifestyle and not be slogging through three inches of slushy muck on the way to to work". we went back to the house and made dinner and watched movies and drank. for the second night in a row, we figured we'd each had upwards of eight beers but neither of us had felt more than a light buzz. the charlestonian way of drinking allows for very long hours of drinking without getting smashed until very late. it worked out well for us. monday i was watching the weather and realized that our plans to leave around four were probably over. we packed up and left around noon, took a quick car-tour through downtown and got on the road back to new york. the maj drove and was very excited to drive through four hours of rain and then an hour of freezing rain and sleet and finally snow. we called it quits around eight and found a motel 6 in ashland, va. home of "scotchtown", which i haven't figured out yet.the guy at the counter of the motel 6 told me how he'd played a trick on the people who were checking in in front of me. it was four big black dudes, who were apparently also from brooklyn, and the clerk had told one of them that he'd won $500. i'm sure it was hilarious, he sure thought it was. but he went the other direction with us and gave me the AAA discount, as well as charging me for one adult and one child instead of two adults. we got out of there with a $40 room, which is pretty damn good. we drove around to get some food and found a chinese restaruant, and as ashland, va is known for its chinese food, we figured we should get some. as we were leaving the parking lot, a cop got on his car bullhorn across the street and said in his very mechanical sounding voice: "be careful driving. it is bad." i'm not sure if he meant the weather is bad or driving is bad. we made a quick stop for a sixer at a gas station, i won't even get into how stupid and fat the people who worked there were, it was pretty impressive on both counts, though.we had a pretty smooth ride back to the city. didn't even hit much traffic in staten island. we dropped our assloads of crap off at our houses and returned the car to lga. the end.
since my return yesterday afternoon, the long arm of the mta has enveloped me and squeezed the ever-loving shit out of my remaining patience.first, i checked my email yesterday to find this:
F
No diversions scheduled.
G
No diversions scheduled.
M
No diversions scheduled.
R
No diversions scheduled.
yeah. i go out of town, suddenly you can use the subway on the weekend. thanks. not only that but the safety reminder is:Safety reminder of the week: Carry babies and folded strollers on the stairs.then, last night after the show, we caught a train at union sq. the q took about 20 mintues to come (at this point it's 1230, i'd been up since seven, driven for 5 hours and stood for the past 4, so i was pretty well over it). the q is going local from canal to dekalb, though. at dekalb, an n comes through on the local track, but when we pull into pacific st...we're on the bloody express track. so then we wait for a d running local and finally i get home at like 130. not a happy camper.then, this morning, i needed a new metrocard. i have transitchecks so i have to go to the booth, which is annoying anyway. but i get to the booth, and there's no one the fuck in it. i waited about 2 minutes before i finally realized whoever it was wouldn't show up for a while. i went to the machines. the first one wouldn't read my card. the second one didn't give out new metrocards. the third, of course, had a line. i bought my $10 shit and went to the platform only to find it insanely crowded. i was 20 minutes late for work. it's a pleasure to be home. run down of the trip and the iron & wine/calexico show TK.
well, it's almost time to head down to the home of phrases like "my back teeth are floatin'" and get my beer and beach bocce and sleeping a lot on. maj deegan and i are headed for charleston sc in about 2 hours. we're driving, so i am pretty sure the adventure will be well documented and up here sometime after tuesday, when i return and also see Iron & Wine/Calexico at Webster Hall.have a good weekend, kids. watch those videos!!
ok, this is some SERIOUSLY hilarious shit: hall & oates vs. michael mcdonald/kenny loggins in a song writing competition. it's utter brilliance. and totally absurd.i'm not kidding, if i find out you read this post and didn't watch the linked clip, i'm coming after you. you will laugh until you cry. you might choke. there are more.bonus is that in #1 the washed up messina looks a lot like adam levine of maroon 5.(via stereogum)
londonist found a poll for tube etiquette. i got to the first page and realized i wanted to tick every box exept the one that says "i'm just looking". i guess annoying people are the same either side of the pond.although i've never seen anyone do this on the subway:People who pick their nose and flick or eat the contentsbut i have seen someone having a wank, so i guess it evens out.
an italian. christmas. donkey. he's from brook-a-lyn. the italian christmas donkey. the italian christmas donkey. say it to yourself, savour the words. stop the tears from streaming down your face. what's worse, someone actually played this song this morning on mix 102.7 (yes, i listen to garbage when i'm in the shower). and do you people out there want to know how much i bloody love you all? here is a link to an audio clip, cause i'm not having this stuck in my head alone.and now, the recap from last night:went to joemca's show at cake shop . it was a party for sentimentalist magazine, some other bands were there, too. Moto:Rosa were on when i got there, they seemed OK, although the sound and heat at cake shop makes me wonder if what i heard is anything like what they actually sound like. it was freaking roasting in there, and pretty crowded. not exactly the smartest set up, either. it's on a pretty steep incline and the "stage" (read: painted rectangle) is probably three feet lower than the back of the room, so pretty much no one can see anything. the sound was god awful. i could barely hear the lead vocals and heard little else but the bass and the drums. i hope they return to playing merc. constantly soon, i like it way better.i didn't stay for hopewell, because i was tired and i wanted to get home. i stopped by a friend's on the way, and saw some of his new art. he has a piece that's a buddha painted on what i think is a motherboard (but what the fuck do i know?) and it was called, "divination in zeroes and ones". it's pretty hot.and when i got into the subway, the train pulled in right away and whisked me back to my borough of choice. and it was awesome.
i like it when the article does the work for me:
Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face.
and earlier, when i had a similar reaction.
thank god jasmine the rotweiller didn't get me or i'd be up for one of these, too.
when there are no cookies?pretzels are not cookies.
Q: Cinnamon or nutmeg? A: Cinnamon is a nice spice people are comfortable consuming throughout the year, sprinkled either on toast or in a delicious coffee beverage. Nutmeg is a nasty, gritty substance that wants nothing to do with us in the spring or summer but demands our favor come November, only to disappear to the back of the shelf for another year. Why do we continue to accommodate this so-called seasoning? Nutmeg is a stupid jerk. mcsweeney's butterball help-line help-lineand also, the new yorker cartoons in progress.
do youself a massive favor and have a chuckle with vice's don'ts.
now is a good time to mention that not too long ago, for no reason whatsoever, my roommates and i had a 2/3 of us are sober, unaccompanied karaoke night, during which "don't stop believin'" and "livin' on a prayer" were both grotesquely mutilated.
i came out of the subway at the NYPL and thought it was weird that there were a bunch of people in yellow hats with yellow flags. then i thought it was weird when i saw that these yellow hats and flags were for some nascar event. i further thought it was wierd when i passed the waldorf-astoria and there was a HUGE YELLOW FLAG with nascar written on it hanging off the front. what a shameful day for the waldorf: flags of world nations replaced by the flag of the redneck nation. its maids are walking around with their heads hung. then further up park, was another group of people with the yellow hats and flags and whatnot, apparently waiting for some nascar cars to make thier "victory lap" and park in front of a building. so there's your nascar news round-up.
but i did manage to rustle up a kidnapping for you.
mr. miyagi is no more. goodbye, mr. miyagi. sniff, sniff.
this week's sunday times magazine's ethicist has a blurb about some dumb bitch who went to get her eyebrows tweezed and is annoyed because the beautician told her she didn't really need to have it done and promptly charged her 25 smackers to tweeze four hairs. randy gets a little randy in his answer: when the beautician told you that you shouldn't have anything done, that was your cue to say: "Thank you for the advice. In that case, I won't be needing your services." You then stand up, tip her generously, put your clothes back on -- did she have you undress? the dipilatory world is alien to me -- and leave.oh, randy. i don't care how foreign the dipilatory world is to you. under what circumstances outside of your own very active imagination, would someone need to take her clothes off to have her eyebrows tweezed? this is not some movie where the beautician accidently spills hot wax on the patroness's shirt, and the first reaction is to just take it off and smear hot wax all over the rest of her so she matches.tsk, tsk, randy. not so ethical, are you?and i still don't think "building stories" is funny.
there's a door to the stairwell in my office. for some reason, this door also leads to a tiny, fenced-in something or other that goes outside. basically, you open this door and there it a 13-story drop, defended by chain-link. pigeons seem to like to hang out in this little area, but it seems that they're sorta getting stuck in the chain-link and it pulls their feathers off. then their feathers blow under the door and into the lobby of the office. and today, somehow, they made it all the way down the hall of one side of the office. in short: there are disease- and insect-ridden pigeon feathers on the floor all over the office today.UPDATE: there is now a large clump of disease- and insect-ridden feathers rolling back and forth in the elevator bank.
when you wear a princeton t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of cornell basketball shorts, you look like a well-connected date-rapist.
with a strike looming, the mta is really doing all it can to satisfy its employees:combining the conductor and the driver into "subway operator" (it's like employees at subway sandwiches who are "sandwich artists")having booth people/"customer assistance agents" (those dorks in the maroon vests) do a little tidying up, i. e., dust and wipe down the booths, empty trash cans and do other "cleaning functions" ha! cleaning functions. like cleaning urine and feces and semen off the platforms!! yeah!and there'll be stricter rules concerning sick leave and less substantial health care and pension benefits for future employees; apparently, if you call in sick for the MTA, you might be visited at home in order to check and make sure you're actually sick and not just going to six flags...bummer.i'm sure no one will end up satisfied at the end of this, least of all those of us who ride the mta daily. the post seems to think everything will be fine.
and the daily news is pretty sure everything's gonna suck ass.
here's a list, via gothamist, of movies that took place in new york but were shot in toronto. i was pretty surprised by some...and disappointed, the olsen twins let me down.
the supreme court is falling apart. you decide whether i mean literally or figuratively.phallic nation.people are stupid.people are stupid. (anyone else catch Nature last night? and forgive me, but there's a palestinian zoo? and arabic speaking parrots!!! al-qaeda should be all up in that if they knew what was good for them)hippies in mass. are burning wood to stay warm.have a giant bottle of pbr you don't know what to do with? c'mon, kids, send it to w'burg.
ok, so i am lazy as hell when it comes to cutting my hair. generally, i just don't think about it. but then one day i'll wake up and be completely focused, determined - nay - obsessively driven to get a haircut. this happened a week or so ago, so by last friday, the dam was bursting. i went to a place next to the gym and told her to cut it as much as she needed in order to get rid of all the fried hair at the bottom.
but the next day, after i washed it and looked like a cross between a mushroom and a nascar fan, i realized i could not have this. i could not.
so i went to another place and regailed them with my tale of woe and they promised to fix it. and fix it they did. and now, i have very little hair, but i like it much better than looking like mrs. brady.UPDATE: according to some shit on gawker, this haircut may or may not be referred to as a "femullet". use of this word within 10 meters of me is not advised.
the 2:03 train was jammed, and i barely made it on anyway. things cleared up around jamaica and i got a seat. i was that annoying person standing in the aisle, hitting people with a backpack and yacking on a cellphone for a while. i was terribly self-conscious about it, until i realized it was a loud, packed train and they could bite me. when i arrived at my aunt & uncle's house, my uncle was deeply engrossed in an a&e special about conjoined twins (i guess siamese isn't allowed anymore) who are attached at the forehead. they are 37 years old and one of them (the less-developed one who sits on a high chair sort of thing with wheels on) is a country singer. they have a music video. for all intents and purposes, my "welcome to your family's for thanksgiving" was a country music video by a siamese twin who is on a high chair with wheels on. the other twin kindly bops up and down to the ditty.i decided this was an opportune time for me to start a fire, a) because i am a pyro, b) because it's one of my favorite fireplaces, and c) because, to be honest, the twin thing was freaking me out a little. just as the flames got going, a&e's programming went to an "investigative reports" about murder on the rails. i love hobos, so the first part was awesome. talking to old hobos about their lives on the rails, eating beans out of cans and whatnot. then they started talking about some of the sick fucks who murder hobos by knocking them out and putting them on the tracks so they get sliced in half. sweet. but i love hobos and fires, so i was still pretty stoked.then there was the part at dinner on weds, when my aunt asked my uncle if he'd brought all his guns in. my uncle is a hunter, and a pretty conscientious gun owner, but still, "did you put all your guns away" is a weird thing for me to hear at the dinner table.
at one point, i was sitting with my aunt & uncle's rotweiller puppy on my lap and she seemed to be getting a little pissy. do not let the word "puppy" fool you. there was no way i could move with this lump on my lap. she's a nipper, but nothing dangerous, but that didn' matter when she decided to play-bite my cheek. i yelled and my uncle sprang to life from his nap and grabbed her off me. she didn't break the skin, but i nearly shit myself. i mean, she is a rotweiller and she did try to bite my face off. we made amends, though, apparently she gets more bitey when she needs to take a shit, so i guess i'm lucky she tried to bite me rather than use me as a toilet...other than that, thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. we watched a lot of blues clues, which i seemed to be the most engrossed by, even though they got rid of steve. i came back to brooklyn thursday night and began one of the laziest stretches of my life. i did manage to get to the gym every day, and we finished recording the voices for the next project and i bought some tofu scallion cream cheese.
i'm off! enjoy your time with whomever you're spending it. don't forget to drink!
random observations from the last 18 hours or so:they slipped CYHSY into the office last night. jim is the hippest hipster in scranton, pa!there was a guy using a leafblower in front of the Rite Aid on 5th ave this morning. a leaf blower. for a sidewalk. funnier still, the wind was whipping up 30+ mph gusts, so it was not really doing much of anything. there are a lot of girls with ponytails and red jackets running around the rockerfeller center area. this can only be related to the parade, right? they're leaving soon, right?
this morning on npr they did a story about how georgia doesn't charge sales tax for bibles. (the story was filed by my old friend georgia public broadcasting, complete with a report from hippy-dippy bookstore and crystal outlet, phoenix & dragon.) i'm gonna skip the part about how i'm slightly more interested in whether or not it's gonna break the freezing mark today or snow tomorrow than some feather-ruffling junk about how southerners are all assholes, and just say this: we don't need a fucking law to prevent this. it's a perversion of the constitution.basically, the situation is as follows: they don't charge sales tax for bibles, but they do for other "religious and spiritual texts". so the ACLU thinks it's a good reason to take the state of georgia to court on a free speech rampage. personally, i think you should have to pay extra tax to buy religious texts, but that's beside the point. i see where people think it's unfair that you don't have to pay tax for a bible, but you do for text of lesser-known religions, like hinduism and ba'hai. what was more annoying than the story itself was that they didn't mention until the very end that you don't have to pay tax on the koran and they didn't mention at all that you don't pay tax on the torah. it was slightly over-focused on the idea that it was the christian bible what was sold on the cheap, as though it was some mass conspiracy by the georgia state government to convert the entire state to christians (which, at its inception, it may well have been). however, despite the aclu's whining and the moron who runs Phoenix & Dragon bookstore saying that it's telling people that by buying the bible they've chosen the "right religion," and if they want something different, it's telling them it's the "wrong religion", the story did manage to point out that any religious text or sect can apply for this tax-exemption; the koran became tax free only ten years ago (something tells me the torah was tax free as soon as the first jew found out there was no tax on the bible). so, really, there's no issue here at all. all that has to happen is for people to get their religious leaders to petition the gov't and they'll get their 7% discount, just like those holier-than-thou christians. honestly, i just don't see why this is that big of a deal, and i definitely think they should charge tax on all these types of books. but no one needs to waste the court's time when you can just file a freaking petition!ugh.
ok, more shit-for-brains activity from our hometown boys of worthless public transport. there is a bagel shop called "f line bagels" at smith and 9th street. just across from the smith/9th street F train stop. with me so far? the mta sent this BAGEL SHOP a cease-and-desist order, which was today held up in court, regarding the use of mta logos. there aren't all-caps big enough to illustrate the boiling rage building in me. the mta are wasting time, money and resources on a fucking bagel shop that is ADVERTISING FOR THEM EVEN THOUGH THEY DON'T EVEN FUCKING DESERVE IT!!! in the words of the cabbie in half baked, "you should be kissing my ass!"anyway, gothamist's comments are taking care of ranting for me. particularly inspiring is the guy who recommends changing the name to "f-the-mta bagels". if they change their name to that, i promise to get off the train and go buy a bagel there every day for a year (or until they're put out of business).
guess who's thinking about striking? a) meb) the macy's balloonsc) the transit uniond) the dvd sorters at netflixthe answer: cit seems that no one really likes the way the mta is run, including the people who work for it. i wonder, could that wasted ass $50m possibly help resolve this problem? (had some of you freaking out with the netflix option, didn't i?)via gothamist
there's always "silver bells" to look forward to.
starring: lesbian/non-lesbian/nutter Anne Heche
and "i dated most of hollywood's hottest actresses but somehow managed to never get my own real career" tate donovan.
more effective than a bottle of ipecac. bonus points if you can figure out which of them looks worse in this picture.
