Goodbye Gato

I think I did a bad thing yesterday.

There's the little tiny grocery store around the corner that I go to to pick up milk and juice or cookies and stuff. I call it The Bodega. Anyway, there's always this cat in there sitting by the door watching people. Sometimes it follows you around.

So I recently decided I hate the cat and I hope it gets trapped in the ice cream freezer. I don't know why, I just want to hate it, ok?

So I ran in there yesterday to get a couple things, and that fucking cat was there as usual, and it followed me over to where the ice cream is. No, I didn't put it in the freezer, but the point is, nobody can see you over there, so after I picked an ice cream, the cat was in my way so I kicked it and then made a bag of potato chips fall on it so it would get scared. Then I lunged at it while it was trapped in a corner, and it ran away from me. I continued shopping, and the cat kept running away.

Anyway, after I checked out, I went to leave and the cat was sitting by the door again, and someone was opening the door to come in. When the cat saw me coming, it got scared again and ran away out the door and went around the corner towards my apartment, but when I turned the corner it was gone. I looked but I couldn't find it anywhere.

I didn't know what to do, so I decided to go home and eat my ice cream. Anyway now the cat is probably dead and the people at the bodega are watching their surveillance videos to figure out why it ran off and they're going to know it was my fault because I threw a bag of potato chips at it and I can never shop there again.

But it's not MY fault cats freak out at every dumbass thing people do to them! Geez, take a joke.

Vindication

Ugh, thank God, I was hoping they'd come forward about this.

Dylan Hears a Who

Ok, we're going to excuse the fact that his voice drives me to serious homicide because you have to check this out: Dylan Hears a Who.

Bob Dylan sings Dr. Seuss books. Like, the entire things, some of them are long tracks. Anyway, it's entertaining enough even if the repetitiveness is annoying. Does anyone know if any other musicians have sung Dr. Seuss?

2-SECONDS LATER UPDATE: Ok on second thought, this music is driving me nuts. I don't know anything about Bob Dylan. Does he always sound like this?

Buffy's Boho By Bobo Bonobo

Seriously, let's talk about this. This is Sarah Michelle Gellar before some Oscar's afterparty. Any of you who know me are aware that I'm this huge Buffy fan and that none of the cast can ever go wrong by me (except that no amount of money would ever be enough to make me see The Grudge 2.) And if you Photoshop out her dress and cheeks, Sarah's skin and hair look fantastic. But come on.

First of all, unless you live in a mudpit, the color burlap has been out of style for 500 years and is never coming back. I'm not sure how this works, but the dress actually clashes with the adorable gold clutch and those 10,000 fortune-teller bracelets. I don't quite understand the earrings, but I like them even if they make no sense. My guess is she forgot to take them off when she changed out of her 60's go-go-themed outfit she was possibly wearing earlier.

And darling, we know you're short, but we'd still like to be able to locate either your hips or breasts. Good dresses have one or the other, if not both. And don't make any excuses about comfort because those shoes prove that it is not a priority (but they're very cute if also inexplicable.)

It's weird, it looks like every part of her is trying to wear a different outfit, and the torso was trying to put on something "neutral" to bring together the various attractive but disparate choices of the rebel limbs and head. Either that or the outfit was picked by a clairvoyant monkey.

But then Crazy Claudette the Cosmetics Cadet came along and said "YOUR BLUSH MUST MATCH YOUR EARRINGS WHERE IS YOUR ORANGE BLUSH???" Now sometimes makeup can match an accessory, but if that accessory is the color Livid Orange, it might be best to have your make-up match your face. I know I'm nitpicking here, but that's the way of it.

I dunno, I'm just disappointed. What the point of having awesome hair and glowing skin if you're just going to ruin it with a Black and Tan that's far from intoxicating?

A Chorus of Tiny Violins

Part I : Introduction

Oy! Have you ever had one of those mornings where you're thinking about how to blog it and the phrase that keeps coming up is "as if that weren't enough"? I have experienced a string of crappy things so long I could knit a sweater for every impoverished child on earth and still have enough left to hang myself.

It started out lovely, I got up at 7:00 no problem, no grogginess. (I was having a dream about being in a movie with Laurence Fishburne called Laurence Wishburne, in which the man played himself as a bumbling genie who always granted the opposite of what you wished for. Yes, even my dreams are filled with stupid puns, which is why I was so happy to wake up and escape the lameness.) I showered. Oh right then my house keys were gone, my milk was spoiled, I spilled tea on my couch, I stubbed my little toe, and I couldn't find the Blacula DVD anywhere to return to Netflix. So now I was in a crappy mood, but the cheerful song in my head and the discovery of my house keys (under the fridge, I blame the cat) kept me optimistic. I got out of the house with time to spare.

Oh, but then. I stepped in a slush puddle, I had an unsavory run-in with a man on the street (more on that later), Idiot Boy was working the machine at Starbucks and forgot me and screwed up my order as usual, and then the 6 train wasn't even running and it took the girl on the loudspeaker 25 minutes to inform us of such, so we all had to take the smelly ol' bus that stops every 2 blocks and was crowded full of disgruntled people. The only saving grace of the morning is that I got to read about 50 pages of my novel while I waited for MTA to get its act together.

Part II : The Run-In

So let me tell you about this run-in. A year ago before I lived here, I visited New York over Christmas and New Year's. I was walking by myself down Christopher St. on a pleasant afternoon when this skinny hoodlum guy told me I had a sexy walk, to which I replied awkwardly "Oh... yeah ok... thanks." He then said he lived nearby, implying that he wanted me to come up so we could have what would probably be the worst sex ever. I declined, obviously, and he was kind enough to just leave, but what really stuck in my mind was that bizarre "sexy walk" comment, which I never thought I'd hear again because who says that?

Well, apparently more people than I think because it happened again this morning. I'm walking along, and this guy passes me and then calls back to me, and I thought I had dropped something. He looked decent enough, clean, but he had a quality similar to that hoodlum of Christmas past. He held an ice scraper. And the way he spoke to me: "I like the way you walk" didn't immediately remind me of the other time because I didn't think he was coming on to me. I thought he was making fun of me, but he looked sincere enough, so I said "Oh... yeah ok... thanks." He asked why I was in such a hurry (I walk fast) so I lied and said I was late for work. (It was 8:30, I was totally on time.) He asked if lived in the neighborhood, and I was thinking "No, idiot, I just like to walk around the Upper East Side before work to catch the sites and did you not just hear me tell you I was late?" but I said yeah and figured ok that's it. I walked on.

But then, ick, he's all "Wait, one quick question!" so I took a breath to control the roundhouse kick to the face I felt stirring and he said "So when do I get to see you again?" and that's when it all dawned on me. Sexy walk! Shit! First of all, see me again? We haven't seen each other in the first place. This is not a date. This is a creepy encounter on the sidewalk. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I'd say "As if, you're gross and skeezy and have a disquieting goatee" and then he'd bludgeon me with his ice scraper, so I went with "Oh... um....uh... what?" instead.

"Not gonna happen?" he Nancy Drewed.
"No," I confirmed and started to walk away.
"Wait, one more question." Jesus Christ.
I turned around. "What???" He tried to take my arm, I backed away, and he said "Don't be afraid of me. You dating anyone?"
Now I'm backing away. "I'm not afraid of you, and yeah, I'm seeing someone. Goodbye." But he wasn't done.
"You ever been with a black man before?" At this point I could have rushed him and knocked his teeth out. We were about 10 feet apart at this point, and he's shouting this at me with people walking by. It was probably the trashiest exchange my UES neighbors had heard in their charmed lives.
"No!" It was as much an answer to his question as a command to shut his face and not follow me.
"Wanna try it?" Are you deficient??? What about my demeanor and body language suggests that I might want to give you a shot? So I turned and walked away and said with my back to him "I really don't!"

I would say that ruined my morning, but my morning sucked to begin with. In conclusion, if this ever happens again, I'm paralyzing myself and getting a wheelchair. Sexy walk my ass, what the hell is wrong with people?

Oops, I tripped and fell on the keyboard and it wrote a drunk post

Wow, I'm never allowed to drink again. At least I can spell and type ok when I'm under the influence, though the period key seems to elude me. And the shut the fuck up key.

Goodbye, new readers. To everyone who hates me now: You're not stupid for being on a list at a club, I was just shooting my mouth off because one kid in line last night was a dickhead asshole who thought the world owed him and also because I'm secretly jealous that I'll never be on a list in my life because I'm unpopular and sit at home alone Friday nights watching vampire movies.

I'm also reading a vampire book right now called You Suck and my favorite thing to do is read it on the subway and look like I'm deliberately pointing the cover at someone with no self-esteem so they get paranoid. I don't think this is something A-list people do.

What I am not apologizing for is boasting about how hot I looked last night because you don't even know.

I am cool

OMG drunk post let's go HEY!

This is mostly a public service announcement. If your name is Gay Guy In New York, I'm going to advise that you never to go to a place called....ummm... Regal..... Rectum.... Rancid...... Rebel! It's called Rebel. Ok, don't ever go there because first they tell you it's $10 to get in, and you're like Fine, I have exactly $10 in my wallet and then they make you empty your pockets and they search you for drugs and bombs and finger your anus and it's totally invasive and the guy doing it isn't even cute and then they say Oh it's $15 so you have to ask the guy next to you to help you get in but it's ok because he invites you to his Oscar party and so you win but whatever still it's embarassing and then when you get in it totally sucks anyway and you're like "I wish they hadn't anal searched me because I'd really like to use that bomb I was carting around right about now" but you can't and then that guy with the really sexy long hair disappears into nowhere so there's nobody left to make eyes at and then all you want to do is get a beer but it's like $8 so fuck that and in conclusion gay people suck and the only reason there are lists at bars like this is because it makes stupid gay fag boys feel like they're important even though they can't even put a sentence together when you're like totally using words like miasma and paradigm and loquatious and versimilitude because you wish you were a famous writer even though you're not...

And oh my god, I wish you could have seen me tonight because I looked totally hot, like ok let's assume for the sake of argument that you thought I was hot and sexy and you were in love with me before, good, so you don't even know because I changed my hair and yesterday at work was a failed experiment but today it was so totally sexy and if you loved me before, you would probably shit yourself over how hot I looked tonight with my new hair even though it was kinda Happy New Year 1997 I don't care and I was wearing this cute shirt I bought in January with my sexy jeans and all these people were all "I may be 50 but let's totally do it" and I was like "As if" but then people were like "I may be 26 and hot let's totally do it" and I was like "Thanks, but no thanks" so tonight I ruled and you drooled, sorry that's just the way it is.

To conclude I've been drinking for 10 hours and I'm going to an Oscar party with some kid I took money from who I think might be Jewish but it doesn't matter I will probably forget he existed tomorrow my night was funner than yours k thx bie!

Chinese Vampire Primer

Nothing at all happened yesterday or today; all I did after work was play video games and watch TV, and all today I worked real hard, so I haven't even read the news or anything. So instead, I'm going to tell you about the Chinese vampire movie I saw this week (Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters) about these vampire hunters that pretend to be caterers for some reason and then wait for this vampire to come. I am going to talk to you about it by teaching you what it taught me about Chinese vampire mythology:

Chinese vampires start out as zombies because they are unlucky. They rise from the grave or are resurrected by a necromancer and then hop around with their arms straight out in front of them like hopping mummies. Zombies are mindless hopping killing machines, and the only way to stop them is by putting a piece of paper on their face. Once they kill someone, they get promoted to vampire (with extra responsibilities, but a hefty raise to go with it.)

Chinese vampires are made out of still-wet paper maché. They are very powerful. Their superpowers are flying, evil halitosis, super-strength, and Go Go Gadget Arm with fingernail guns and kung-fu action grip. Do not get close to a Chinese vampire because the evil halitosis is deadly and will set you on fire. If it does not set you on fire, it will paralyze you and then you will start to jiggle and your blood will come out of your eyeballs and mouth in a fine, refreshing mist that will float into the vampire's face through his mouth and eyeballs. Then it will set you on fire. It's pretty cool to watch, but not to experience.

All Chinese vampires are pregnant, and if you cut off the head with your flying-zen samurai moves, the fetus will be very angry. He will come out of the vampire's stomach and become a new vampire with Super Scary Slime coating. It probably smells pretty bad too.

Oh, I forgot to say that Chinese vampires have Gopher Powers and can burrow underground very fast. Prepare to dodge the moving mound of dirt. Sometimes the vampire will put his special metal hands in your body and move them around real fast until you turn into a pile of skin. Try to avoid that too.

The only way to kill a vampire is to be a zen master. Teamwork is also a good strategy. Grenades and dynamite are the weapon of choice, but don't stand too close.

That is all there is to know about Chinese vampires. This movie also teaches you valuable lessons about snakes, consummating your marriage when you have the chance, the value of friendship, and why to avoid covering your dead relatives in wax and putting them in a room together to have dinner (because they can come to life and hop around and even kung-fu can't stop all 25 of them--that part was pretty funny... put them in bunny suits, and it would look like Revenge of the Mall Easter Bunnies!!!!!)

Anyway, the movie was awesome even if it was in Chinese and the subtitler sometimes made up English words that don't exist. Let's calculate the score:

Evil hopping zombies : +10
Plot like an episode of Three's Company : -5
Snakes (+1 ea.) : +1
Confusion factor because all the characters look the same (this is NOT a racist thing) : -20
Paper maché vampire : +50
Engrish subtitles : -2
No hot actors: -5
Tilt for awesomeness : +700

All in all this movie gets 729 stars. Rent it for your niece or the girl you babysit for. She'll love the bunnies.

Meow.

This is me about coming to work this morning.

Triplegangland

On the corner today, some guy embarassed himself by thinking I was famous. It was weird, he was just standing there next to me waiting for a light to change when he suddenly sprung into action like somebody unpaused the DVD of his life and he said "Hey, were you in Dodgeball??? Wait... wow, you look just like that dude in Dodgeball!"

He clearly did not know what to say next, so I took the Lame Baton and said "Yeah? Cool, I've never seen that movie." That was a lie, but it was easier than saying "I saw that movie 2 years ago and don't remember it and anyway, you're probably wrong." At this point we were crossing the street together and had to keep talking, so he said "Well you could be his stand-in or something", which is pretty much the stupidest thing he could have said. I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny, but I decided that if I pretended to laugh and he wasn't joking, I'd look stupid whereas if I didn't pretend to laugh and he was joking, he'd look stupid. So I didn't laugh and let him be the one to look dumb as punishment for being awkward.

We got to the corner, and we were clearly both going in the same direction, but he did the thing where you pretend you're going the other way just to escape a horrid situation, so he turned left. I don't remember if we said goodbye.

As soon as I got back to work I looked up Dodgeball to see who he was talking about. It would seem there are two possibilities, so I am going to leave it up to you to figure out which one he thinks I look like. It's either:

Justin Long

or Joel Moore

neither of whom is very attractive, but I'm trying not to take it personally, especially since it's still a step up from Marilyn Manson.

I don't think I look especially like either, but they both have long faces and prominent noses, so they're the candidates. So let me know which you think it is because I can't decide. He's the most recent picture of me for reference:

Language warning: Lock your kids up, I'm gonna say "scrotum" a lot

As a librarian, I feel the need to chime in on this, but I'm pretty sure I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said. Whatever, the point is, the 2007 Newbery Medal winner is getting a lot of uptight librarians all of a tizzy. The book that won is The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, a woman with an amusing name considering the outcry her book has caused.

I've never read this book and have no idea what it's about, but that never seems to deter people from participating in these conversations, so I have no guilt. Besides, the objectionable material is on page 1, so it's ok. One page, yes. One word, in point of fact. Cover your children's ears and have them leave the room because I'm about to say the corrupting word that will send them down a slippery slope towards the dreaded Pr's: Promiscuity, Prostitution, and Pregnancy! Yes, that is what will happen when your child opens up this book and sees the word........ scrotum.

Now please try to contain your horror. I notice that a number of you have fainted, and I ask for those still standing to attend to those on the ground. It is important that we discuss the appalling context. The main character of the book overheard the word when an adult was talking about how his dog got bit by a rattlesnake in his scrotum.

Ok, seriously now. While not a pleasant image in any way, it disturbs me that librarians of all people are freaking out. I expect it from parents, I mean they object to everything, but I used to pride myself on being a part of a community that touted freedom of expression and freedom from censorship. Every cataloger learns never to provide evaluative data in their output. Librarians provide access to resources and teach their patrons how to do their own evaluative analysis, and keeping this book--a Newbery winner at that--off the shelves because of what they consider to be one offensive word goes against everything that I hold sacred in this field.

But enough librarian talk. Now were going to talk about the other reasons this is ridiculous.

“I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that.”

On the contrary, Susan Patron knows exactly who her audience is. Quite frankly, Mr. Muller, I wouldn't want you explaining it to my kids either. Make a word sound naughty and taboo, and that's all it will be. If you teach kids that words like this are objectionable, you're the one creating the objection. On the other hand, if you teach them that it's simply a word for a body part that they all have--or that half of them have--they'll all snicker a little (because that's what kids do) and that'll be the end of it. If you're comfortable with the situation and teach the word as a natural part of our language that can show up in books and conversation, it will not be naughty. It's when you try to hide things from kids that they yell it out on the bus for shock value because when they discover it on their own, it's not from someone who can present it in a mature manner. This book's use is mature.

So these stick-in-the-ass librarians need to seriously consider what they're objecting to because from my perspective, it looks like they think 'scrotum' is inappropriate for children because they're uncomfortable with the word themselves, probably because of the way it was presented to them.

Susan Patron is not out of line. If she said "balls" or "nads" or "sack" or "teabag" or--ok, I'm grossing myself out... but that'd be a different story. It's a scrotum. It's a thing. You've got one, Mr. Muller, and so do your third- and fourth-grade patrons, and I don't care about your own personal issues, but I seriously object to teaching kids that their bodies are something to be ashamed of. That goes for all of you.

UPDATE: I would like to apologize to Susan Patron that Blogger automatically alphabetizes my post labels.

Celebrity Hard-On for February 2007

I give you all permission to think I'm crazy when I tell you my newest celebrity hard-on. He is not taken from the traditional pool of hot famous men that everyone takes from. Also, he's kinda old, and like AnnaSophia Robb, you can't look at his imdb pictures because he looks stupid in all of them with his head shaved. Anyway, he is Billy Zane.

To the right is a picture of him when he was younger. He has good hair, and I can't figure out why he insists on shaving it all off like yucky Vin Diesel. But anyway, if you pretend he doesn't so that, he's really dreamy, mostly because his eyes make him look lazy and drugged-out. I'm not sure, but maybe that's what "bedroom eyes" means. Whatever, either way he's sexy. (Actually, he looks almost too drugged out in this picture here... ignore it.)

And when I say that he's my "newest" celebrity hard-on, I'm actually being somewhat misleading. He is the most recent, yes, but in reality, he's my oldest (oldest, not eldest) as well. See, I very specifically remember being 11 or 12 years old and discovering my dad's copy of Lake Consequence, which is a TV movie about Billy Zane and Joan Severance and all the sex they have in the water or something. I don't really remember, the only part that sticks in my mind is how Billy Zane was half naked the whole time. So it's kind of like I'm going back to my roots or something.

On top of being studly and everything, Billy Zee looks like he'd be real charismatic and charming like we'd have as much fun going out as we'd have staying in. I've found that all my celebrity crushes have been more about how I imagine their personality to be than just how they look, which is why I was never attracted to Colin Farrell. My conception of Zane's personality is primarily based on his appearance in the 7th season of Charmed, where he was all flamboyant and romantic, so I have no idea what he's really like and I don't care. Oh, and I just noticed he was in Titanic too, but I don't remember that movie at all because I hated it.

Yeah, so I love a character from Charmed. If you need me, I'll be getting my ass kicked in the upstairs boys bathroom.

Anyway, that's it. I thought it was important that I keep you up to speed on who I'm obsessed with since my blog is so personal and soul-searching. Now I'm going to go on Wikipedia and make sure Billy Zane doesn't have cancer or anything that would make me feel bad about dissing his bald head.

Curse of the Golden Flower ; Bridge to Terabithia

This long weekend I did lots of things. I may have made two new friends, but that depends on if they call me ever or not. One is Jewish and the other works for a girly magazine (meaning titty mag, not Asinine Adolescent or whatever shit teen girls are reading these days.) I also saw two movies, both of which you have to see immediately I don't care what you're doing.

The first movie is Curse of the Golden Monkey. (P.S. Raise your hand if you hate imdb's total extreme makeover.) Golden Dragon is about the emporer and empress of China like 1,000 years ago. She's sleeping with his son, and he's slowly killing her with poison mushroom tea. I pretty much love stories about royalty of any sort and how they plan and plot and want to kill eachother but then have to go to a party and dance together. It's fascinating to me, and I was going to write this whole long insightful blog entry about all that, but I changed my mind.

Anyway, Curse of the Golden Crab Rangoon stars Chow Yun Fat (Yun-Fat Chow?) who barely does any kung fu at all. What fighting there is has that Crouching Tiger fakeness that you either love or hate. I like it.

Right, but the appeal of this movie beyond the crazy nobody's-a-nice-person cast is purely visual. It's SO full of vibrant colors, it makes me with I knew the first thing about what they all mean. It was like a gay pride parade got hit simultaneously with 15 paintball guns, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and the Care Bear Stare. You've just gotta see it.

Lastly, I want to bow down a bit to Li Gong, who played the Empress because she was fantastic. You may remember her from such films as Da hong deng long gao gao gua or the fabulous Du xia II zhi Shang Hai tan du sheng, but Curse of the Golden Chopsticks is truly her best performance since Xin tian long ba bu zhi tian shan tong lao. Also, she's gorgeous and wears the most fantastic dresses. This movie was a drag queen's wet dream. I knew lending the studio my collection of golden headdresses would be a worthy sacrifice.

The next movie I was was Bridge to Terabithia, which was good, though you have to ignore the fact that it uses a million stereotypes. Also, Josh Hutcherson=NOT CUTE. I don't care if I shouldn't be talking about the attractiveness of 15-year-olds, I'm saying it anyway. But whatever, he's an ok actor. Violet Beauregarde, on the other hand, is so pretty and absolutely lights up the screen. (You'll like her better if you don't look at her imdb pictures in that stupid pink dress. It takes kids a long time to learn how to smile for a camera in a way that doesn't make you want to slap them, and she's not there yet. So ignore the pictures and just believe me... she's fantastic.) Nonetheless, these things aren't important.

Anyway, I remember reading this book (by Katherine Paterson) in the 6th grade and crying a lot. I think the school was trying to weed out the student body that year because we read two depression-suicide-inducing books, the other being Where the Red Fern Grows. Anyway, the only thing I want to say about this movie is that even though some of the plot devices are a little contrived, it's one of the most important stories of our day. Eschewing discussion of actor-cuteness or talent or weird CGI monsters or directing, producing, whatever... I really believe everyone should experience this story. Whether you read the book or see the movie or listen to some little kid's book report, I dont care--just find a way. You'll either learn something or remember something, and I can guarantee you it will be worth holding on to.

Ok, I gotta wrap this up. It's time to go home and watch one of the other most important stories of our day, Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters.

in the what?'s new theme song

It's my lunch break. Today is Immature Gay Humor Day.

Celebrate with me.

Oh my God, I just made up a joke. Wanna hear it? Ok.

Q: Why did the early music ensemble cancel their tour?
A: Because their van baroque down!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I'm hilarious... man.....

...no wonder I have no plans tonight.

Rimshot

This is old news by now, I know, but I just found out today, so you have to deal with it. The article is kinda long, so to sum it up, ex-NBA star John Amaechi came out as gay. It's pretty cool, y'know. If you read the whole article, people have had different things to say about it--some good, some idiotic. It's all to be expected. My favorite is always "As long as he doesn't come onto me, I'm ok with it." Right, thanks for the warning. I'm sure he was planning to get you drunk and seduce you because you're so irresistable you manly hunk of man hunk.

Lots of heterosexual men use that as a really lame attempt at sounding PC, but what it really means is "I'm ok with it as long as he doesn't come onto me, talk about other men, look at other men when I'm around, or act in any way that would suggest he is actively gay rather than just taking the label." It's crap, it's avoidance, and honestly, when you say that, people still think you're an asshole. And that's why I like people like Tim Hardaway.

Hardaway made this big ol' honkin' statement on the radio about how he hates gay people and would never want one on his team and thinks the world would be better off without them. Thank you, Tim, you sack of shit! You're an idiot! And I'm not the only one who thinks so. But y'know what? I'm glad you spoke up. Really really.

See, I like my biggoted assholes like I like my child molesters: exposed. Like when Michael Richards made that comment a while back, I was glad to hear it. He, like Tim Hardaway, spewed out some ridiculous apology afterwards. Know why? Because he had to cover his own ass. You can't go around saying stuff like that, and they know it. It doesn't to them any good to mouth off, they take a hit for it, their apologies mean nothing, and we know to stay away from them in the future. I bet you won't see Tim Hardaway on any Wheaties boxes anytime soon.

I'm not saying everyone should just speak up and start lynching the minorities (they'd have to do me twice), but when people hide racism and homophobia away in their rhetoric, avoidance, and "as long as he doesn't come onto me" bullshit, they're able to dispense their agendas in other ways. It's scary to think about how many times we've accidentally voted these dipshits into office. Let it all out so we can cast you aside and ignore you. It's happening more and more--outspoken jerks getting discredited. I'm sick of people being polite to save their reputation or career. Although, that makes me think that "biggoted asshole" might be becoming a bigger stain than "gay" used to be. Think we'd ever start preventing them from getting married?

Valentine's Day Massa-car

I got somethin' to say, and you all had better listen because I'm mad, and I've been keeping it in almost a whole day! You can tell I'm pissed because my title-punning is terrible.

Yesterday I was pleased because my Valentine's Day plans changed from me getting rush tickets and going to the opera alone to me reserving tickets and going to the opera with someone and not having to pay at all. We were meeting for dinner at this place called Mr. Chow (hereafter referred to as Dr. Tang) on 57th St. There's your background information.

So this restaurant (which I also have some things to say about, but now is not the time) is not far from my apartment, but when it's all cold and icy, it's not something you'd walk. I was going to get a cab. Obviously, right? Well apparently there was some sort of subway problem, not to mention the fact that it was Valentine's Day dinnertime and disgusting outside, so everyone was getting cabs. This made my task decidedly more difficult, so I decided to walk down 2nd Ave. and just wave around for a cab when the cars were going in my direction.

Eventually, I tracked down a cab. At this point, I was at 72nd St. or so, and having just walked 7 blocks, I was wet in the feet and cold in the ears and getting annoyed. But whatever, I had a cab. The driver did that rude thing where they open the window and ask where you're going before you get in so that if they don't like the answer they can just drive away. I decided to thwart his dastardly plan by opening the door and starting to get in before I said anything.

So when I told him my destination, he said it wasn't far enough or something, I dunno, I couldn't hear him nor did I care about his stupid assface opinion. (I love ignoring cab drivers, it's like a sport... there are so many ways... you can pretend you thought he was speaking into his hands-free cell phone... you can pretend you can't understand his accent... OR you can pretend you have your own incomprehensible accent so that he'll ignore you... but I parenthetically digress.)

Right, so here's the corker: instead of getting mad at me for ignoring him (I wouldn't care anyway) or saying it again when I sat down (I wouldn't listen anyway), the dickhead decides to just drive off.... while I'm halfway in his car! He BEE-LINED out of there like he saw a shiny nickel on the street 10 blocks down. So with a "Jesus Christ, [racial slur of which I am ashamed]" I managed to get out of the way, get his door closed, and not die, though I did slip and twist my ankle pretty badly, which made the remaining 15 blocks right difficult. Ever tried to walk down a snowy sidewalk with a twisted ankle and shoes with no traction? It was like A Christmas Carol on Ice except being almost 6 and a half feet tall, I fall a lot harder than Tiny Tim.

So I was a half-hour late to dinner, but we both were. He also had a nightmare cab story, though mine was better. Ooooh, I was so aggravated. I was totally rude to this waiter, but that's more a part of the Dr. Tang (Mr. Chow) story, which perhaps I will regale you with later.

Anyway, the point of the story is that I need your help. My ankle is fine, but my anger burns with the fire of a thousand McDonald's coffees. Sadly, I have no idea who this cab driver is or for which company he worked. So next time you are taking a cab in New York, do me a favor and punch the driver in the head. When he says "WTF???" just say "That's the tough arm of justice at work!" You may be concerned about beating up innocent people, but that's the cost, sorry. We'll get him eventually.

Don't read this, my brain is broken

So, we have a long weekend coming up. Did you guys know? President's Day or something. I'm sure we'll all be at home observing this important holiday. Since I had no warning about this lamest (but still welcome) excuse for a day off ever, I have no exciting plans this weekend. I coulda goed somewhere like Boston or Texas or sunny Indiana, but now it's too late. I have friends in those places, that's why.

Wanna know another holiday that just sorta showed up? Valentine's Day. Did you notice that one? It's tomorrow, right, and I'm usually so on the ball with it with the preparing and collecting strangers to use as valentines in the inevitable Absence of Boyfriend that I always experience. Then I go to a party or out drinking and eat all this candy my mom sent me. (I don't hate Valentine's Day, see, it's my favorite.) But this year, yeah... no valentines, no candy (it's coming late this year), no parties. Luckily, I accidentally made plans to go to the opera tomorrow, so I'm pretending it's my gift to myself on this special holiday. The opera's called Jenůfa, and it's about infanticide, which isn't really Valentinsy unless you pretend the little circle above the 'u' is actually a heart. Then it makes sense.

I think I'll wear my gay pink scarf tomorrow and draw little hearts on everything I catalog. Either that or call in sick and hide from the cold. My apartment is toasty (meaning warm and full of crumbs.) Too toasty. Last night I was sitting around in my underwear until I couldn't stand it anymore and turned on my air conditioning.

God, none of this is making coherent sense. I can hardly put a sentence together. I think my brain needs a holiday, which I suppose it's getting tomorrow and Monday. I hope I'm not getting sick. Don't cough on me.

Anyway, back to what this blog entry was supposed to be about when I originally conceived it: Please be my valentine. This post from last year details the requirements. You may notice that the entry has no comments, so judge me accordingly.

Marian the Libarian

Also, an amusing, library-related entry from Overheard in New York today:

Thug teen: I wanna take out this fuckin' book.
Librarian: Okay, well, go to the check-out desk.
Thug teen: I got to go to the other fuckin' desk, mothafuckah?
Librarian: Yeah, motherfucker. The other fuckin' desk.

In conclusion, librarians understand today's teens.

等我搞破壞!, or, I wish I could but I just Cantonese

Yesterday evening, I took my second trip to Chinatown since I moved here (my first being a date back in April or May). Oh, and I caught a bus there once. I never go because I have no business there, but as it happens, I know some Chinese people. Well, one. And yesterday, the one and I met some of his friends at a new karaoke bar that opened up.

Don't ask me what it's called, there was no sign. To enter, you had to walk down this creepy staircase that looked like it led to the lair of some psycho killer. Y'know, dirty concrete stairs. It was like a dark alleyway except tucked snuggly underground so nobody can hear you scream.

The place itself was well-lit and kinda trendy-looking, though, so whatever. I remain un-axe-murdered to blog another day.

It was one of those Asian-style places like in Lost in Translation, so we got a private room with a karaoke machine and unlimited drinks. Really a great deal, though everyone insisted it was better at another place they know. But for $23, I got a milkshake, 2 beers, a healthy-sized snack and 4 hours of entertainment, so I ain't mad.

I was the only loser singing songs in English. Songs, I might add, that were horribly cataloged, most with no artist data. And they were organized first by number of words in the title and then alphabetically. Very bizarre, I dunno if it's some Chinese thing. All the controls were in Chinese, too, so I needed extra-special help using the little remote control--help that I got from everyone else in the room who could read what it said. I felt like a 90 year-old at a technology convention trying to set the clock on my VCR.

So the 5 people I was with were all singing songs only they knew in a language I couldn't possibly begin to approach. I learned the sounds of a couple characters, notably a pretty one that looked like an L with three marks around it. (It sounded like "sa", looked like the Japanese for "fu", and often came at the end of a line. Anyone?)

So here's my advice: If you ever go to Hong Kong, bring your own iPod. You have never experienced 4 straight hours of Cantonese power ballads. Yes, every song that was played (except for my country and 80's favorites) was a power ballad. I think it's their only genre or something. It was like the early 90's on Mars. But the videos were pretty cool, so don't get me wrong, I was highly entertained and got to make up my own meanings for what the songs were about. One was about a princess who followed her demon teddy bear into a mystical wonderland. Another was about gay mechanics and the women who love them. Yet another was about a little Inuit girl whose entire tribe was eaten by polar bears, so all she could do was sit in her igloo and cry. One was Cirque du Soleil on acid, and another was Cirque du Soleil on anti-depressants. Each song was a dream, and each dream was an adventure.

I felt real self-conscious being the only person singing in English, so one of the first songs I picked was The Ketchup Song, a personal favorite of mine. I picked it because it has Spanish in it, and I felt like I was getting revenge. Nobody cared. Anyway, then I got over it because the girl next to me said she liked my voice. I also sang: Friends in Low Places, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Earl Had to Die, All My Exes Live in Texas, Under the Sea, Colors of the Wind (my personal tribute to the Cantonese power ballad), Strawberry Wine, and Leavin' on a Jet Plane, and I was awesome and won a Grammy.

I had a great time, but I think I'm gonna stick to the American style of karaoke, the way it was meant to be... where I can stand on a stage and have everyone look at me for reasons that do not involve my being a minority.

Walrus Taco Fairydust

Well, it would seem my site statistics are down to their usual piddly levels now that I'm no longer a celebrity. I guess all those people who visited me only liked me for my featured article, I GUESS I'M NOT WORTH SUBSCRIBING TO OR READING OR TELLING ALL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT!!!! Whatever, I don't read your shitty blogs either.

As punishment, I am going to tell you about my cat. Her new favorite activity is called Licking the Bedspread, and I don't know why, but it's all she likes to do now. I thought maybe she was trying to clean it like how she licks my hair when I don't shower, so I washed it yesterday, but she's still doing it. Also, when she eats she sometimes likes to push the food out of the bowl onto the floor before she eats it, probably so she can pretend it's alive and trying to get away, but sometimes she forgets it's food and she beats it all over the house like a toy, and she apparently is doing it a lot more the past few days because when I get home, there is cat food all over the place and she is licking the bedspread.

Here's a link about cat brains. Don't click on it if you don't like pictures of cats with no fur or eyeballs.

This is your final warning, if you guys don't make me famous right away, I'm going to make every blog entry stupid like this and then we're going to play Clockwork Orange where I'm the scientist and you're the psycho with his eyes forced open and all you get to do is read my blog archives all day until you stop impeding my inevitable stardom.

Blame it on the Music

You may have noticed I haven't updated my blog in a couple days. It's not my fault. Yesterday evening, I wrote this whole big thing about Easy Bake Ovens, and it was hilarious and probably would have won me a prize if it didn't get erased when my web browser hiccuped and I accidentally closed everything instead of just waiting it out. Whatever, today I'm going to do that thing where I link to a news story and tell you why it's stupid. Here's the link. And here we go.

Bitch, please. It's my life to toy with, and if I wanna cross the street with some music playing, I'm willing to accept my own consequences, thanks. My life, remember? For me. Mine.

But ok ok, , I relent. I know that when some space case walks into traffic, other people are put in danger as well. But, y'know what? It's not an iPod's fault. I don't know about you guys, but I've got these nifty eyeballs that can see traffic signals and cars barrelling down the road even over the din of a portable music device.

Personally, I've never seen anyone walking down the street playing video games, but I guess it happens. Honestly, though, if someone's differently-abled enough to do that, they have the coma coming. That's different. Video games require total concentration. Fine away. But if people are talking on the phone or listening to music, they're just as capable of looking at a traffic signal as someone who's off in their own daydream world, which, by the way, we all are. Fine people for walking against a red light or jaywalking or whatever it is whether they have their electronic devices on or not. (Start with the bikers, those bitches run lights and knock people over all the time.) But don't blame it on the music. Nobody in this city is paying any amount of attention to what's going on around them. Nobody.

But what's happening is when they're tuning into their iPod or Blackberry or cell phone or video game, they're walking into speeding buses and moving automobiles. It's becoming a nationwide problem.

Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that you take a look at those "speeding buses". Specifically, I'm referring to the ones that change lanes on a dime, try to cut eachother off going down a narrow road, and turn into pedestrian traffic expecting people to hop out of the way. Cab drivers too. Cab drivers especially. Gonna ban them?

Fine, ok, I accept that people are ignorant and pay no attention. And for the sake of argument, I accept that audio devices and cell phones play into that to the point where it's "endemic," whatever that means. But the last thing we have to consider is the Get Real Factor. Do you honestly think people are going to wait on a street corner until they finish their cell phone call? Or remove their ear buds to cross the street? I don't care how much you threaten to fine and arrest people, bitch, nobody's going to pay it any mind. We have our way of life, and there's only so far you can intrude on that before people start blowing you off. Do you really think people will be threatened? I've never once seen a cab driver or kamakazee bike delivery boy reprimanded for being an idiot asshole, though I've been nearly killed by a hefty number, and none of us were wearing iPods.

So be realistic. Fixing this problem by banning iPods is like fighting hate crime by banning racial comingling. Maybe it would bring the numbers down in theory, but nobody would follow it because they'll think it's stupid, and it's punishing people who do nothing wrong.

You can't save everyone. People will always find ways to walk into traffic. If it's not their favorite song, it's a bad date or an argument or fancies of being a supermodel superhero that will occupy people's attention when they should be looking down the road. No amount of legislation can hold everyone's hand and teach them to look both ways. The best you can do is teach them the dangers and hope they keep their eyes open.

Glitter and Macaroni

Remember a couple entries ago when I mentioned that I don't know anything about anything? Yeah, and a couple before that when I mentioned I had no class? Right, cool. Keep those thoughts in your head and then imagine me at the Spanish Art Exhibit at the Guggenheim today.

I know zero, absolutely, about art. I don't know who paints what, I don't know what pictures are supposed to represent, and I especially can't tell the difference between what's good and what sucks.

Actually, I should give myself a little credit. I know some things. I can identify Rothko because it's just a bunch of stupid squares. Picasso's pretty obvious. I know him because I always see his work and want to say "Ah, miss, your eye. Your eye is drooping again, shall I show you to the ladies room?" But that's it.

So today, I'm walking up the giant seashell looking at the nice pictures and reading the walls along the way, and I'm trying my super hardest to think of something intelligent to notice, but all my brain did was categorize them into two main groups and a couple subgroups.

The main groups were "Paintings that Look Like Something" and "Paintings that Only Sorta Look Like Something." Within the latter group, each work was either "Looks Like a Person" or "Looks like a Food, Sheep's Skull, or Nothing." Within the first group ("Paintings that Look Like Something"), it was either "Contains Exposed Breasts and/or Midgets" or "Doesn't."

As you can expect, the only things I thought of to say were along the lines of "She's totally falling out of her top" or "Wow, that's a lot of grapes" or "Man, imagine sitting for 8 hours while someone paints you and then having it look like that." I mostly kept my thoughts to myself.

So, try as I might, I learned absolutely nothing about Spanish art today. And of course, there were tons of people around me who were all "Yes, clearly Picasso was employing this technique" and "Hmmm, indeed, it would seem that this is a new paradigm for Cotán" and "Hobbity-hob-hob-hob..." so that made me feel real good.

It wasn't the exhibit's fault. They had some prime information on the walls, though I sadly had no context through which to interpret it. Don't get me wrong, some of the pieces were really great to look at, and I had a really nice time, but as we walked through, I thought more and more how I'd probably be better of with a nice rubber ball or maybe a four-piece jigsaw puzzle with a duck on it.

Because I know about ducks. They say 'quack' and waddle around. I can relate to that.

BoB Awards Open for Nominations

As I've gotten more into blogging (which means doing it longer rather than doing it more in depth because like many 20-something gay guys, I fear depth), I've started reading the work of a bunch of other people. Maybe just a few. Whatever, the point is, there are a lot of people writing blogs today who do consistently great stuff, yet can't seem to (or maybe don't want to) bump up their site traffic very far.

That's that the BoB Awards are for. Basically, they give out yearly awards in a bunch of categories to relatively unknown bloggers of [potential] merit. And guess what?!? Nominations are now being accepted! Isn't that thrilling? Doesn't that just make you go 'Ooooooh!'?

As a loser blogger with no friends, I speak from the heart when I implore you to ooooooh on over to the BoB Awards and nominate your most favoritest blogs for some recognition.

It's easy. Click my handy link, then click the category you want to nominate for. Then, enter your name and your own URL if ya want, and in the comment section, link to the blog you like and say why. Or maybe don't say why, I dunno. A monkey could do it, and this monkey's going to pretty soon. So go. Now.

P.S. This isn't a plea for nominations. My blog sucks. I just think it's a nice thing because not everybody can be Dooce and Raymi and have a million friends.

P.P.S. I don't really fear depth, that was a joke ok?

Bleh!

So I have this new project. And by "project" I mean "excuse to sit on my ass in front of the TV." I needed it because I just finished the last season of Smallville. This project is called Vampire Moviefest 2007, and it is off to a good start.

In case you are stupid, I will explain it. The idea is that I watch a bunch of vampire movies. Whether or not I will follow up by putting you all to sleep with vampire blog entries is still up in the air, but I'm leaning heavily towards no, so don't worry.

The reasons for this project are three: 1) I already told you, it's so I have something to watch instead of starting Charmed over for the hundredth time, 2) Vampires are pretty awesome, and if you were a vampire, you'd have a much better chance in dating me, also 3) I don't know anything about anything, so I figure knowing a lot about vampire movies will help me out at a party some day.

So I joined Netflix and queued up a bunch of movies (chonologically, of course, because I'm a librarian). Tuesday I watched Nosferatu. It was funny. I liked the part when the shadow creeped up the stairs because it looked like a paper cut-out on a stick and reminded me of the "Grr, argh!" monster on the Mutant Enemy logo. It was also a pretty fantastic movie except for when it got really slow and pointless during the boat trip scene.

Wednesday, I watched Dracula, which redefined awesome. My dad was always a big Bela Lugosi fan, and I never understood why except that they kinda look alike. But there's a reason it's a classic, and that reason is Fierceness.

I usually reserve the word 'fierce' for women, but Bela Lugosi gets to wear it on his nametag too. Don't fuck with him. He'll knock down your house.

Anyway, now I'm waiting patiently for Vampyr and Mark of the Vampire, but I'm afraid that once I get out of the 20's and 30's, I'm going to stop liking the movies. This is, of course, with the exception of Blacula, which I expect to watch 15 times in a row.

Oh, also, there's room on my couch for one more (and only one more.) So if you want to watch a vampire movie with me, let me know! Bram Stoker's Dracula is already booked.

P.S. Really, I'm serious. I don't care if we've met before, that's how lame I am. But keep in mind that my Virgo-librarian OCD really likes the chronological order idea. So to get me out of that, you have to be either really persuasive or exceptionally attractive.

Release.

Shit bitches!

None of you care, but with no ado, we have a release date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 7/21/07. Right near the movie.

So in about 6 months, the whole thing will be over. I'll have to find something worthwhile to do with my free time. Maybe that can include having a life.

OMG I can't decide who to preorder from OMG. Luckily, it's a on Saturday, so I don't have to take time off work.

Ok that's all, go away.