1/31/09

I was on your side, Bill, when you were losing.

My horoscope today says:

"Favors granted- Today you will focus your attention on getting ahead in some way. You feel strong, vigorous and confident. Your relationship with your superiors is good, and they may grant you some favor that will assist you in your efforts. Nevertheless you do not feel dependent upon anyone now, nor do you feel that you need recognition from others. Instead you draw satisfaction from knowing inside yourself what you can do. You have a good understanding of yourself, and the calmness that usually goes along with this influence enables you to plan with a cool head. Your personal and family life are also benefited by this influence, because your personal strength is coupled with a sense of responsibility and the knowledge that you don't have to take away anything from your loved ones in order to get ahead."

What it should have said:

"Way to go losing your wallet, you fucking idiot."

I woke up this morning with dirt, twigs and leaves on my t shirt and in my bed. My sweater and jacket were fine, though missing my motherfucking wallet. I don't know how I got dirty. Something happened in between when I took off my coat when I got home and when I got into bed. I'm really struggling to figure out how I managed to roll around on the forest floor in my bedroom at one in the morning but the more I think about it the more I think it may be related to losing my wallet and there seems to be only one explanation and it is: ghosts.

1/30/09

T.Y.B.

Shirley Manson often says that her band Garbage makes poppier records music when they're depressed, and only really makes the sad music ("Only Happy When it Rains") when they're feeling good. I'm the same way. I'm pretty sad today so I wanna blog about James Franco.

I feel like he and I would be good boyfriends together, I'd like to start off with that. I'm sort of afraid to write this big long post because I think that it'll jinx it, or that if we end up going out (which, statistically, we might-- we have a lot in common) then he might see this post and it'll freak him out. But y'know what? In my fantasy, he doesn't care, it doesn't phase him, and we'll be so in love it won't matter. (I told Sister Pico that I was scared of posting this post for fear of blowing my chances with James Franco, and Pico said "Hold on lemme ask him" = GENIUS). I sort of feel like this is really happening. Or at least, the feeling is real. (That girl Billy? Her feelings are real).

After much ballyhoo, I finally saw that movie Pineapple Express last night. I saw all this stuff about how it was a stoner buddy movie, but I kept thinking it horrible some action shootout thing. So I was surprised and pleased to see that it was really kind of a romantic comedy. James Franco plays the woman, sort of. The stoner femme top switch pajama bottom headband romantic. He just wants to talk about his feelings. Do you see why this is resonating with me?

Ok. I think James Franco is probably not that much like his character in that movie, but I am. He's such a good actor. He's basically a man playing a woman, it's like drag. He's so talented. And if you think about it? It makes sense for me to go out with an actor. Not an actor in the sense of how I'm an actor (WHICH BTW I TOTALLY AM KTHNXBYE) but a real Hollywood actor. I think it makes sense for me to have a very busy, very famous boyfriend. This seems plain to me.

So I've heard things about him being gay. That horrible Gawker rumor that I won't even dignify by linking to (it wasn't about James Franco it was a blind item about another gay celebrity) at least made people realize that we all sort of think he's gay. He might not even be a total 100% fag, he might just be "cool" or whatever, you know? Like, he's so liberated that if you wanna box him into "gay" or "straight" it means you're the uptight one and you should chill out and listen to Grace Jones and let him give you a massage. Also, along the lines of him being gay (I won't even begin to get into rumours cause that's not fair and also I want this to happen), we know at least that James Franco is totally cool with watching gay orgies happen.

My new favorite band, The Younger Lovers, have a song on their record Newest Romantic called "Mr. Franco". The lyrics begin: 'My baby likes to get faded. / Talks shit until he passes out'. Brontez clearly has a crush on James Franco too, which (for me) makes it hotter. It's no secret that I'm obviously in love with Brontez. Part of my celebrity crush on James Franco is bound up in my celebrity crush on Brontez. Brontez recently got into an online scandal with the band Black Lips and wrote a beautiful scathing missive that was posted here. Brontez is really smart and right-on politically and just generally a really groovy guy and I wish we lived in the same city so I could ask him out on dates. Listening to Brontez lust after James Franco is part of what is such a turn on, seeing Brontez get turned on (hearing, rather). Here is a series of music videos for Brontez's band The Younger Lovers.



He's such a sexy dancer. I'm getting a little too excited. Let's get back to James Franco.

I read blogs pretty regularly, and usually blogs by people I know or whatever. My new favorite blog is PAPSYDAISY, by my friend Jess Paps. She's kind of a genius, and as I said she and I were born on the same day and year (August 7th-- with means our half birthday February 7th is coming up, you should get us things). I tend to think that Jess and I are sort of kindred spirits, psychically. We think a lot alike. She got into James Franco before I did (she made the image at the bottom of this blog post), and she also posted this really touching blog post, in which she juxtaposed two images from Interview Magazine, one of James Franco and one of Me. We were in different issues, though. I sort of took that as a sign from the universe that James Franco and I were meant to be together. Seems like that's as clear as these things get, yeah?

Also, James Franco is from Palo Alto, California. That's also where the Donnas are from, and I am not at all ashamed to say that I like the Donnas, and I like their rival arch nemesis band The Electrocutes a lot too. Okay, this is a fucked up thing to admit on my blog, but recently I slept with this guy from Palo Alto but I don't remember his name. I just know that, recently, I was in bed with someone and making jokes about the Donnas. Who was it? This is incriminating, I don't think James Franco will mind. Anyways, the guy I was with in bed (I just remembered who he was, and it was like a MONTH ago I have no memory at all, oops) HATED the Donnas but I think they're really great, and the fact that I like them and they have the same hometown as James Franco is, I think fortuitous.

I've been talking a lot to my friends about this, about how someday I'll probably be going out with James Franco, and I want my friends to just be cool about it, okay? No one is taking me seriously and that's fine, I guess. It's hard for people to deal with celebrity stuff-- I get that. Anyways, I feel like we will inevitably be together, even if he is straight, I feel like we can be boyfriends, right? Watching Pineapple Express last night was so sweet because I kept thinking "Oh! He is so cute! I can't believe my future boyfriend is so funny in this movie! When we actually meet and fall in love, I'll have to remember to tell him how much I am enjoying this movie right now." So in conclusion: I wish we could just go out already, y'know? I just wish he'd hurry up and get here.

And by "James Franco," I mean the future.




Glory Daze. Florid Gaze. Thorny Glaze.

A few posts ago I compared myself to Bruce Springsteen and I want to share this picture of him. I've posted it before, I'm sure, because I always think it's sexy, and so different from the Bruce Springsteen of today. You know he wrote Patti Smith's "Because the Night"? So I map Patti onto him and make it ok to think this is a sexy photo.


1/29/09

ok i'm ready to switch lives now.

I'm down in my grave, writing in my diary. Writing love letters to you, boy.

Strange. You want it from one place, it arrives from another. You go to the well and it's dry and you're thirsty. Then on your way home you fall into a lake and you drown. Oops. It comes from an unexpected source, or it comes after you've given up on waiting for it. Fucking Mercury in retrograde. I can't wait to forge new ground. It is painful and exhausting to reckon with everything again. The same flashes: fire / cold.

Some unexpected surprises, though. A little of explaining, of filling in some gaps. That's always nice. A former lover sent me an email this morning, apologizing for what happened almost three years ago. It's really touching and unexpected. And a little unnecessary-- I had forgiven him (in the capacity that I'm able to forgive anyone) a long time ago. Strange, nice, confusing.

Hung out with Jiddy and Paps the other night. We got groovy in my room, ate Israeli candy and soy iced cream. We watched Fern Gully and talked about starting a band. We jammed: Paps on guitar, Jiddy on ukulele and me on keyboard. Trying to work up a stoner-rock version of "This Land is Your Land". I thought we sounded pretty noisy and shoegaze-y, like Mogwai or MBV (yeah, I abbreviate, lover, I got no time to waste). I think our band, since we're all Leos (Paps and I were born on the same day and year, in fact-- 8/7/84) should be about being a Leo. Songs about famous Leos, etc. I see a real future in this, but I don't think that's so strange.

Got into a fight, on the internet, with another friend. Not even a fight. I just feel so insecure sometimes, but then I also feel like: my insecurities aren't the problem. If someone does somethign hurtful aren't I allowed to say something? Dear Blog Readers right now you are watching me bleed and you're welcome. This morning I drank very strong coffee with soymilk, it was so black it started to curdle the soymilk I had to drink it quickly. And dark wheat toast with smashed avocado on it, and a chocolate yogurt. Feelin' like a woman, lookin' like a man. I feel like I have a big geography test coming up but I never study for it. Thinking of boys in pictures and boys without pictures and pictures of nobody in them (my favorite).

B-SIDE FROM MY NEW SHOW LOVER, FEROCIOUS AT DIXON PLACE FEBRUARY 24TH 8:00PM

Scott Panther broke my heart / ruined everything. Before he did, we went out to dinner and I asked him if I could tell people I was his boyfriend. He smiled and said yes, and tried to grab my dick under the table but his arms weren't long enough and I wasn't in the mood (I was eating).

Scott: Billy, I have three pet peeves. If you're gonna be my boyfriend you should know there are three things in the world that I totally hate, and here is what they are:
  • Christopher Columbus-- 'Cause... y'know. I just think he's really fucked up and I don't think it's cool that we celebrate him or whatever.
  • Cool Ranch Doritos-- If I smell them, I get nauseous. Like I don't even wanna talk about it. I won't even sit near where someone is eating them, I can't stand it. But this one time? I got so wasted that someone gave me a bag and I totally ate them. I was so fucked up I didn't even care.
  • Men in sandals-- I just... I dunno. Even in the summertime. I don't think it's a good look. I don't think boys should wear sandals, or flip flops or whatever. I mean, it's gross and dirty, A, shit gets all over your feet, it's New York City. But also: I just don't like it. Like jeans and flip flops? I will never wear that. I don't want to be that type of boy. I don't like that type of boy.
Billy: What if I wore flip flops? What if I came to pick you up for a date in the summertime and I was wearing sandals?

Scott: But... you would never do that.

Billy: I know, but what if I did? What would you say?

Scott: I wouldn't say anything. If you did it it would be okay, you'd probably still look cute. I'd still have sex with you.

This is based on stuff that happened a few years ago. I have moved on from the source material of Lover, Ferocious. (My next show is going to be about making a movie. The artistic process of making a picture. it's gonna be a lot harder). Now, actually, I live in a world where a lot more men wear sandals. Maybe this is to say that I live in a world where I can coexist among the "things I hate". These days men wear sandals and show pictures of themselves, wearing flip-flops in (what appears to be) the permanent summer of a personal ad.

I Am, his sandal photo skyline-in-the-street smile says to me, That Type Of Boy.
"Feminist deconstruction for kindergartners. A psychic queer warrior poet for the lunchbox set. "

1/28/09

You Could Move Closer

Oh Claude Sarne.
Where are you now? The mean girls still have things to discuss with you. Our dogs are all chained up and our cigarettes won't smoke themselves. Come back.




12Rounds pleasant smell from Alex Orlowski on Vimeo.

Figuring / Fingering

Like Bruce Springsteen and people who pretend to be poor cause they think it makes them seem real I want to celebrate this thing until it becomes an altar, man. Fly me into my concerts and carry me home.I'm a singer and I sing the point of a personal ad: "I've made my bed, who wants to fuck me in it?"

We pose like moms with open arms legs. Gesture as if giving. Our posture? Generosity. All this fucking cheer and goodwill and listing like catalogs as if a menu as if edible. Like you're in a restaurant. You can have anything you want. Here are the things I am offering: me, myself, my pleasure, I, a spot for you in the "we" of the evening, before everything we're scared of happens. We don't offer TIME, ever, to each other. I act generous submissive but I offer only the exact things I'm hoping you'll take and in the order I want you to take them. You think you're going to fuck me and you think you're giving me what I want and you think you're really in control now, huh? Even on top of or underneath me you think that you're really "getting" me, the "real" body accessed through some alchemy of vaseline sweat and gin, you think you've found a key. You think it is through your malevolent femme good looks, your perfect uncurved dick, your haircut, your eyes (correct me: what color are they exactly? all i see is glass and plastic). You think you are just so tough you can take me away from myself. You think you are so real that you can call the reality out of me. Honey I led you here. The trail of breadcrumbs the trail of white stones shining up in the moonlight it ends with me. I hid it, it pretend my hands are tied up and underneath my pillow. I wrap my arms around your neck I'm not choking you I am taking your pulse and making go slower faster. My fists are filled with the bait that brought you here, you're too turned on to know how to ask for it by name, huh?

Monitress. Tete-a-tete.

Marrs, lover. Steinke, lover. Rachel + Radio guest starring, lover.
(No one except for my old home girl Cotton or maybe Perfect Little Daniel will appreciate how beautiful and strange it was that the Need joined Mocket, briefly. They toured as Mocket / The Need with Atari Teenage Riot and my friend Nate went and didn't tell me and I was furious. Remember that Vaselina 10" when the Need included Joe Preston and DJ Zeena and they were kind of veering towards this weird West Coast trip-hop-tronica sound? Glory Daze).



Listening to New Wave, drinking soda pop and listening to our walkmen. You could break it so that it'd play the cassettes backwards. We take turns listening on the headphones while we walk downtown it's September on a Sunday. We're listening to the song we wrote last night at midnight, about aliens, metal nerves and electrified blood. We try on silver space go-go boots at the thrift store. We walk home through the rain to your aunt's house in Tumwater and we spend the afternoon smoking clove cigarettes and playing keyboards. We bake out Casios in the oven to bend their circuits. My friend Duchess told me about doing that. Punk Pacific Northwest Nu-Wave Witchery. Audrey Marrs was so cool. I still think she's cool, now she's a movie producer.

1/27/09

POWER OF LOVE



Kylie Minogue, 1991



Madonna, 1991


Versus, y'know:



Deee-Lite, 1989

Son In Me

1/26/09

Make Yr Own Kind of Music


"You're gonna be nowhere
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be rough going
Just to do your thing's the hardest thing to do"




1/23/09



They're exactly the same. In their heads they're exactly the same. They are really only the same size. They say "Look at us, we're the same size we understand each other". The size they are is not uncommon and it is not beautiful. Everyone who has a TV understands that size, you two aren't on the same team, anyone can tell you that. I would tell you that but I'm not allowed to. My breath stinks, it smells like: fire, vinegar, piss, venge, revenge, avenge. Eyes turn from baby boy blue to jungle poison snake green. Emerald City man behind the curtains green. Industrial Jealousy. I'm not gonna measure you. I'm saying quantities of the same stupid doesn't make a book it and it doesn't make a song, or a movie, or a picture. It makes a distraction mostly.
And your dumb fat friend with the fake tan is jus driving me up the wall. I feel bad for her, she's like a dog you trained to humiliate itself. You call out a command the poor bitch pisses on the kitchen floor and stares up at you starving. Gosh everyone's so scared of you it's a wonder you have any friends at all, your dumb new documentary-- she sits there nodding bleached crimped hair. You feed her cheap wine and you feed her cheap butter and bread and ask her "Do we look like we're the same?" Dumb fat idiod girl sucking her bottom row of teeth. I know she can't measure but in the dim light of every weeknight 9-12 yeah I guess the beige turns into a blue and you two really seem a lot alike. Whatever, your poor friend I feel bad for I'm bored.

I'm not bored, actually, I'm famished.

Sassiest Boy In America

I actually have a lot to say on his work, because I think he's kind of this genius thinker, but for now I just wanna talk about how Former Sassiest Boy In America (according to Sassy magazine) Ian Svenonius is so cute.

He's way smart too, I'll talk about it later. Or you should just read his amazing book The Psychic Soviet, I'm sure you can buy it online somewhere. He's a theorist who connects gender theory, the occult, postwar politics, pop culture and history. It's really brilliant. And his bands (Nation of Ulysses, Cupid Car Club, Weird War, Scene Creamers, David Candy & the Make-Up) are pretty much all totally 100% necessary. In high school my best friend Becky went to see the Make-Up when they were touring in support of In Mass Mind. She said that everyone wore suits onstage and looked very cute and very mod. This was in 1998, it was before the Gossip or the Strokes or it was cool to have a 1960s thing. I was so jealous that she got to see them. The bassist Michelle was in one of my favorite bands, the Frumpies.

Anyways. PS Ian Svenonius a super fox.

Is it weird or offensive to draw attention to someone's speech impediment?
Like, is it demeaning to point out that Ian Svenonius has a lisp, if I'm only pointing it out to say that I think it's completely adorable?


Because a) he does, and b) I do.




Some more contenders for slogan / motto of 2009:

I MAKE A LOT OF MONEY OFF OF THESE COLLARBONES


or (if that one sounds too bratty)

RESPECT THE PROCESS

(which is my excuse for not getting anything done)

what do you think, Universe?

1/22/09

Counting By Color

  • Avocado
  • Lime
  • Kiwi
  • Pistachio
  • I'm not in the mood to tell anybody how hip or cool they are
  • Red wine
  • White wine
  • Jameson's
  • Export 'A's
  • Camel Lights
  • Kamel Reds
  • Djarum
  • Lifestyle
  • Trojan
  • Kimono
  • Blue
  • Black
  • Grey
  • Purple
  • Green
  • I want what I want the way I want it
  • I want big failure
  • But I want to decide when
  • Peanuts
  • Peanut butter
  • Explaining to someone who understands
  • Last night the Universe sent me stoned and two hours late to the wrong theater in the wrong borough. I pouted at a party that I wasn't invited to, I just burst in. Room full of unfamiliar faces, I knew I should have checked before somehow. Mercury facing backwards for another two weeks. Irrelevant, but I was wearing a really cute outfit and smelled really good wearing voodoo oil, I'd been burning prosperity herbs all night. I felt really great and wanted to see my friends perform. The Universe sent me out as if for practice, then reminded me that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I trudged through ice and snow and meditated on the positive aspects of the season. I called my old homegirl Cotton and we gabbed for a bit about being in touch with our old friend Antlers.
  • Reading Burroughs' The Wild Boys I could have saved myself so much time if someone had given it to me as a kid.
  • Back home in bed ate havlah and watched "Capote". I've said this before but I think Catherine Keener should star in everything ever.
  • The Universe gave me a hint and I listened to it and it's too cold.
  • Ice cream
  • Sodas
  • Making you a mix CD with the songs as messages
  • You love the way it feels to suck on my lips
  • But you know you won't get the chance again

I JUST RECENTLY DISCOVERED THAT I'M FIERCE

"Miss Thing, Miss Thing, Miss Thing, Miss Thing / She had to pawn her diamond ring / She went on down to Burger King / And found they weren't hiring"

I just adore Uncanny Alliance.


I am so glad that these videos are finally online.
They're both definitely some of my favorite songs ever. Both from their sadly out-of-print and totally underrated 1994 album The Groove Won't Bite.



(House music intertextuality, vis-a-vis Crystal Waters' "Gypsy Woman", natch.)



(Bette Midler does a surprisingly faithful cover of this song. This is the only time I'm gonna talk about Better Midler on my blog, probably ever. Only in the context of the Divine Miss M as she relates to Uncanny Alliance. Good morning.)

1/21/09

mercury retrograde is so 2005

Zen Up In It

On another note. Meanwhile, across town...

I've been really trying to make a Radical Acceptance a regular practice. Especially with my interpersonal relationships. Like, someone does something that hurts my feelings or confuses me: so I turn with an open heart towards them and show them the respect and compassion that I would like. Luckily, it works 99% of the time.

But then there are other cases. I'm not thinking of anyone in particular and certainly not anyone that would deign to read my weblog (although if Sitemeter is to be believed a bunch of people are stumbling here -- thank you! I must be so wonderful and talented and interesting har har har. But seriously I appreciate all the traffic I think it's really good for everyone involved). I'm thinking of a specific person who has (for their own reasons which I am sure are valid and relevant to them and that is OK) a vested interest in being super mean to me. Not in the ambiguous "What's that supposed to mean?" kind of meanness that I usually complain about. But in the seriously "I hate you, Billy. You're so fucking stupid, Billy. I can't believe how fucking awful you are, Billy." So it's for real. I have witnesses. Shit gets kinda intense on the rare occasion that we have to speak to each other. So I'm trying to approach the situation from my 1970s Libber/Lover (no one's allowed to rip that off of me, I'm saying it now) kind of HEALING mindset. I'm thinking: 'Gosh, this person really seems to want me to hurt'. Then I think to myself: 'Well, they must have so much anger because they're such an ugly person on the inside as well as the outside and if I hated myself as much as this person hates themselves then I'd probably be violent towards everyone else too." It's a good thing I have zero contact with the individual.

My point is that I know it's not the same thing as compassion, in fact I guess it's the opposite (condescention) but it makes me feel tender instead of reactive towards people who wanna fuck with me when they're (physically, psychically, emotionally) repulsive.

Namaste. Or whatever.

Three Hundred Sixty Five Nights

At some point every year, I come upon a phrase or quote that serves as my mantra for the year. In spring of 2006 when I was finishing college, I listened very closely to "Groove is in the Heart" as if it were the answer to the questions: "Where is Groove?" or "What is in the Heart?". It just seemed really brilliant and applicable to my life. I ran straight to Bobo's dorm room and told her my feelings about that slogan, saying that it would be my motto for 2006. Then we spent the rest of the night playing with finger puppets and working on our long-on-hiatus e-zine, NoMenClature. My 2006 motto: Groove is in the Heart, turned out to perfectly sum up my year, and became a sort of prophetic voodoo when I ultimately met Lady Kier that year.







In early 2007 I was listening to a lot of Cheryl Lynn's first record. To be fair, I'm always listening to that record, it's totally crazy. In January of last year, I found that "Got To Be Real", in addition to being maybe my Favorite Song Of All Time, seemed like a pretty good motto for the year. And I can say in retrospect that in 2007, THINGS GOT MIGHTY REAL. In good and bad ways. No regrets.


I don't remember my motto for 2008 and I don't want to bother looking it up. It's probably buried deep in this blog, but honestly who cares, right? Let's keep going.




Last night hanging out with Hunter I was brainstorming (which is what I usually do when convening with other Grand Dames of Leisure, respect the process honey). I came up with two good mottos for 2009. The runner up is:

HEY, YOU'RE ALREADY DOWN THERE...

I like the idea of being "down there", as it refers both to anatomy, geography and the feeling of being 'down' as both "in the know" and "depressed". Like the opening of that Sylvester song where they say "I've been down so long that getting up hasn't even crossed my mind." But I've decided on my motto for 2009, I think, stolen from Dr. Seuss:

IT'S FUN TO HAVE FUN, BUT YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW.

1/20/09

Over Dinner

Me: I like our new French room mate, Bobo. She's cute.

Bobo: Yeah, and her cute French boyfriend is cute too.

Me: Yeah, they don't know the words for things sometimes, and I don't help them out. Cause, y'know, it's America. Figure it out.

Bobo: Yeah.

Me: But I have this problem with them lately. Or actually, with anyone who has an accent. Whenever I'm talking to someone with an accent I subconsciously start speaking with that accent too which makes me sound really condescending and also makes it really offensive when I talk to people with lisps or deaf people.

Bobo: Oh my god. Oh my god.

Why Start?

1/19/09

A Basic Woman

Today is a test, and I'm passing (but it's hard).

Horoscope: "LETTING GO-- Today you may have to encounter and even oppose powerful pressures and forces exerted upon you, both from without and from within. The way you live and exert your energies will be tested today, perhaps forcing you to make radical changes in the areas of your life that you find are not working very well. The best way to use this influence is to let go of old patterns of behavior that today's events demonstrate to be invalid. Holding on to them will only make your life more difficult, and if you give them up, you will have room for the positive creative changes that can take place now. Also you may have to contend with the breakdown of machines or situations. Anything that tends not to function very smoothly will work very poorly today. It is time to straighten out the situation or fix up the mechanical problem."

Justin Bond was splendid last night, probably b/c she was born during Mercury Retrograde. It is really the Season of the Witch. I'll blog about her show later. Brought tears, but then again most things do if you give them permission to

THIS WEEKEND:

Highlights include cheesecake and Prosecco and Matt Nasser and X-Men, on Saturday night, all in one. A panacea against myself for a few hours. I told someone recently, I forget who, about how much I love to read that Dusty Springfield biography, where she just cuts herself over and over again. Wishin' and Hopin' just won't do it.





"Uh, I had to leave my condo to come to this.
Well, I’m back, but this time I’m with my man.
And these women are puttin’ their hands all over his Yamamoto Kanzai sweater that I bought.
And I’m much, much unhappy about that.
I’d hate to come down to their level and become a BW--
A basic woman
But if they don’t stop it’s gonna get scandalous. "












This weekend I got chapped and I got burnt. Burnt girl.

Gosh, Sue P. Fox. Her records seems like she understands.
Thinking of THE TOWN IDIOT.
And thinking of Kicking Giant. La JJ in London is having a rough Mercury Retrograde, and now I am too. Thinking of the Kicking Giant love song, "She's Real". And she is.

My computer is breaking. Is broken, at work. That's the mechanical failure. The habits I'm letting go of are passivity. It seems counterintuitive, and maybe I am wrong. But I'm trying ACTION rather than having any idea thought or decision precipitated by weeks of pain. You won't do it just by wishin' and hopin'.







Look, I'm an easy target. It's so easy.











"YOU CAN'T GO THROUGH LIFE WITH A BIG HOLE INSIDE OF YOU"



And I'm eating these chocolate chip pancakes and I'm choking on tears. Hello fifth grade. Hello Moon. It never makes its way up my List Of Things To Do: just run out of the diner in tears honey. Snowing sideways I wonder what I'll get up to tonight. I have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to a doctor to make sure that I don't get the cancer that my little brother is so afraid of. You know, everyone's treating me like I'm making it up. Not just the cancer but everything. I get all this shit from people for being an asshole, people treat me as if I'm a primadonna as if I love myself so much. It's not true. I'm my smallest fan ever, and then to get bullied about it is pretty fucked.












So action. So Laura again: "I've been sold by sailors, I've been worn by tailors, soldiers wound me, but you my captain are medication for my reputation."

1/17/09

totes adorbs amorable amordorable

well you're just more and more adorable every day

1/16/09

That's right, Miss Sarah

You show them.
Let's show them all, tonight.




R-O-Y-G-B-I-V

Coughing myself awake I taste like that kid. What's his name. Grumbling into my mouth all night, about "back home" or whatever. I wake up coughing him out of between my teeth. My room is too bright, the sun comes in the windows sideways, I have to tie a rag around my eyes to get any sleep around here. It's blazing in my room, half empty half full glass of water cracks the sunbeams into rainbows across, my bedroom. Shoots a rainbow into bed with me. Look at me like I'm some dumb kid: does it turn you on to think that I know the order of colors in a rainbow? Because, I mean, I do.

Bright but cold, I know it will be. It's so cold the streets freeze, black asphalt ghosts itself down into the chalky ladies of the avenues. Crisscrossing, lazy. White at day and orange under the heat of streetlights at night. It's so cold that it makes walking home easy, the streets are glowing even a myopic superstar like me can find his way around.

Morning no rainbows I drank that water to wash you out of my mouth. Took a long shower and burnt incense and I got down on my floor honey and I listened to Miles Davis. You know I like all that groovy shit. Paint my toenails bright blue. They'll match my Grace Jones t-shirt and you'll see them tonight if yr lucky. I cook some fake chorizo, Bobo and I smoke a cigarette. We play video games and we talk about childhood memories. Lazarus tells me about learning to heard goats in Italy. I'm not saying the stakes aren't high and I'm not saying I don't wanna fuck but I'm saying that it's not all punctuation, lover. You're doing it wrong if you're missing the vowels. You sound like a neanderthal and baby I'm a poet. Ask anyone.

We're getting ready. Cold not dead. Or not dead yet. Tracy + the Plastics call and response "You're not dead yet." Well I live in the NYC, you can't have a fight without me. The option was never here. Eliminate the lie, you disappear. But you say: 'No Man I'm Okay'. Put me in a place, put me in the year 2000, I waited for the power to get cut off while I was on a beach. We launched a Christmas tree into the bay and I fell in love with a girl, she looked like a drummer but she couldn't play.

Lyrical reference, a theme from Miss Laura Nyro: Womanchild on the side street, flashing in blackpatch. Lipstick on her reefer, waiting for a match.

Some things are in season even right now.
There are things ripening as we speak, you just have to know where to look.

1/14/09

There'll be trains of blossoms


MEET ME, CAPTAIN ST. LUCIFER.

DARLING I'LL BE THERE.
DON'T YOU KNOW?


Every winter I get obsessed with some song or band. Winter of 2006 it was definitely early 90s house music: Crystal Waters, Uncanny Alliance. Also Planningtorock, and that song "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" by Baccara.

Last winter it was Lykke Li and Dot Allison and Dusty Springfield. And I was bumming so hard, for some reason. Acting the proverbial fool.

Anyways, it's winter again and this year all I want to listen to is Laura Nyro.



I'm reading Michelle Kort's biography of her, which is reverent to a fault, almost. But I'm learning a lot. I know, I know, that everyone talks about Eli and the Thirteenth Confession as being the masterpiece, but for my money New York Tendaberry is quickly becoming one of my favorite records of all time ever. And she was (hello!) 22 years old when she made it. Insane, huh?

All of the songs are so tight, and clever. There're like symphonies in each little refrain. I was trying to describe the music to someone by saying that it's all hooks. It's the hooks and melodies of three songs, but playe together as one. I think Tendaberry might be my favorite because it's so much sparser and darker. It doesn't even invite you in, it seems polarizing, like someone cuts off the lights, some of you will be able to navigate and some you will not. Also: it has the 'Captain' songs ("...for Dark Mornings" and "...Saint Lucifer", natch). It's just so difficult, it's the sound of someone figuring out how they feel, and then changing their mind.

She's said, on the subject of Columbia's decision not to renew her contract with them: "I feel like a soul mother in my prime, even if Columbia doesn't." Her songs are like houses and boats because just from looking at them you can tell their structures serve a purpose and have been shaped by someone. I sound like so sentimental and I don't even care. It's 2009 and I'm working on some techno songs, and proto-singer-songwriter stuff is profoundly uncool. I know. I am fucking OBSESSED with "Stoned Soul Picnic". It's been covered a million times and almost always fail. So much of the appeal of the song is the totally nuts vocal arrangements. Also the word "surry" isn't an actual work, Nyro chose it because it "sounds nice". Yes Elizabeth Fraser. Yes, that's right, make up a word and make that money, girl. If you have the good fortune to be invited to hang out with me at all this winter, I will probably make you listen to this song again and again and again.

Surry on sweet train.

1/12/09

Lettuce, Mice, Kiss Kiss Kiss

Friday night I met up with Bobo and Lazarus to go to the Deitch opening. The Liz Renay exhibit was just gorgeous, and we saw Darlinda, Ves, Erin, Joseph and Thain all there. Got to meet the legendary Dirty Martini. The Steven Sprouse show at the other Deitch space literally blew my mind, it was just great. We met up with Liz and went for tacos at La Esquina. I had been up all night on Thursday partying in the East Village, so I was ready for bed and parted with them as they went out in Wburg. I stayed in, played Nintendo (excellently, I might add), ate some painkillers and drank herbal tea. Read in Cabinet magazine about the philosophical and revelatory possibilities of the emotion 'shame'. Passed the fuck out.

Woke up early on Saturday to magickal snow flurries. Had some very good black coffee from California and soy chorizo and burned a lot of Nag Champa. Met up with the ferociously talented VGL Gay Boys to shoot for their very exciting new television show project. They were very funny and they bought me a sandwich. I came home, cleaned the apartment and napped. In the evening Dan came over and we got ready for QxBxRx, which now has a new blog (check it out on the links list). We tried on outfits, drank a 40oz and talked about philosophy. QxBxRx was crazy fun, despite a mild panic attack at the outset (over nothing, really). The VGL Gay Boys were there, we're starting a band (Jeffery Cole Dan Max). Get pumped. Perfect Daniel was there too, living it up. Buddies all around. At one point, I was at the bar ordering my umpteenth free drink, when a twee cover of the Amps' "Tipp City" came on the speakers. I started screaming hysterically over the heads of the crowd looking for Dan. I apologized to Allison Wolfe, into whose face I had unintentionally been screaming, saying "Sorry. I'm trying to find my friend Dan. We're obsessed with Kim Deal." Allison raised an eyebrow and said "Well, I have a Kim Deal story..." and she did, and it was hilarious and involved the Donnas, but I'm not gonna put it here.

Backstage I complained to the other go-go boy that it took too long to wait at the bar for a drink, and since I had only had like nine glasses of gin I felt like I was really in a hurry or something. "Oh I don't even go to the bar," he said "Andrew Martini snuck a little bottle of whiskey over to the DJ booth". Being the GIRL ON THE GO that I am, proceeded to entirely wreck myself on warm whiskey. At some point in the go-going, I started trying like mad to convince everyone else to take off their clothes too. To my complete delight: they did. Got pretty hot and heavy with one of the party's regulars. There's something liberating in going to second base, in public, in your underpants. Unfortunately / hilariously, someone brought a camera. We had a grand old time without our shirts on and everyone made out with everyone else. At the end of the night we headed out to Brooklyn for last call at Metro. Thain, Daniel and I went in a cab that got us lost. I don't really remember what happened because I was blacking out in the back seat, but I know that after about 35 minutes of driving around (not, though, over the Williamsburg bridge, which I think was our first mistake but no one listens to the drunk kid in the back seat), we were dropped off somewhere in Cobble Hill. Daniel sweet-talked our way out of not paying for our lovely cab ride since he didn't actually take us where we needed to go. They managed this conversation while I slunk into a bus stop to fall asleep. I don't remember getting there, but at some point we got onto the G Train, where Thain had to say goodbye. We got (like, finally) to Williamsburg. The people at the Metropolitan wouldn't let me in, since I kept falling over and it was after last call, but I pleaded that I just needed the ATM. Which, now that I think of it, was a lie, I had just gotten paid from go-go dancing and had wads of cash stuffed into my underwear but go figure. The ATM was broken and I stormed off. At some point people on the street started screaming at me, large groups of people, saying "Don't walk on the subway grates! They're slippery!". I looked at the black ice on the sidewalk and have a clear memory of thinking "Well, that's what you say. I'll show them!" Started slipping uncontrollably on the metal grates, careening towards the oncoming traffic on Metropolitan Avenue, and got an insane bruise on my left hip. Daniel scraped me off the sidewalk and we met up with Dan, who has some unwelcome rodents in his house that he'd rather not hang out with. We all piled into a car and came to chez moi, where we drank coconut water and fell into bed.

Woke up, sort of too early. I made a bunch of jokes and having a sleepover with Dan and Daniel, thus making a DANWICH. I still think that's fucking hilarious, but go figure. We went out to brunch at Quantum Leap and had the most hilarious meal I've ever had, ever. Daniel went to the bathroom and came back a few minutes later, very solemnly, saying "I got so into washing my hands that I forgot where I was for a minute." That kind of day, dig? Went home to interview room mates. Patrick and I were completely charmed by our new room mate (for two months, anyway). She is a Parisian fashion student, makes jewelry, has an adorable accent and we're gay and could not stop fawning over her. It remains to be seen whether she passes the real test of room-mate-dom: doing your dishes. Took a much, much needed nap and went back to the city. Ran into the gorgeous Isabelle Payne-Rancier, my favorite designer. We're collaborating on a little thing that you will hopefully like, especially if you're name is La JohnJoseph and you live in England UK. Went to Trader Joe's and bought so many snacks. Had a fabulous time home alone last night, chinese food and the golden globes and reading comic books in bed. What could be better.

I feel exhausted from all that typing about myself.
You're welcome.

1/9/09

1/6/09

ADDICTED TO YOU

I've had too much caffeine at work, and am having sexy chat messages with Francine online so I'm thinking about ROMANCE this afternoon. Thinking about articulating desires, making the fantastic real to ourselves.















My point is that Alec Empire is the sexiest man alive. Don't you just want to cuddle him? I know it gets cold in Berlin, and I'm sure he'd be freezing from spray-painting and breakdancing in the streets. I just want to make him something warm to drink and touch his hair and tell him that he can scowl all he wants, but I know he just wants to listen to American pop records and eat candy with me. As a Gay Person (cultural minority / oppressed or whatever) I think it is so cute and so charming that he has dedicated his career to destabilizing systems of oppression. I take it as a personal compliment and I am flattered. When Alec is screaming, his violence is holistic. I don't much feel like Destroying 2000 Years Of Culture, but I am more than happy to tell my friends that my ultimate dream fantasy boyfriend Alec couldn't meet us tonight, because he has to go smash western civilization with his friends. Again.








Here is his music video for "Addicted to You" off his solo album. It is a real turn on. I'm getting a little hot under the collar. But man! If I was at that show I would probably be all mesmerized paralyzed and backwards dancing too.






CHOICE LYRIC: "Excuse me, but I'm kinda dying"


Okay and I know it totally goes against his whole aesthetic of spooky digital hardcore goth breakbeat punker stud, but DOESN'T ALEC EMPIRE HAVE THE CUTEST FUCKING SMILE?




















I wish I could find a video of him speaking because his accent is adorable.

If you're reading this Alec (who knows?) I'm not joking.
It's on.

There are boys who want her dead

1/5/09

What You Portray Any Longer


Shannon wright Live from matruqks on Vimeo.




Shannon Wright makes sense, yeah? She's maybe the most under-rated singer I know. She fled to Europe, and I don't blame her.

Taking A Shine (To You)

You pervert, you think you're starving. Handfuls of empty calories all afternoon and yet you think you live in times of famine. Everything makes him hungry. He goes for a walk in the middle of the night and like a sun rising in his belly he discovers a craving for the discarded tinsel on so fucking many dead christmas trees, on the curb. He wants to chew on them, pull trash out of the gutter and shove it into his mouth because it's definitely easier than talking and the foil might do some good. You know, being what you eat. Some tinsel, aluminum foil, snorting glitter and mixing ground glass into your food. You think: get some shine in you. Get a little sparkle in there, huh? Are you hungry now?

You think that these things, food and nutrition and light, are scarce. You think that things like attention and fame and affection are limited. That someone else having this thing means that you will have less of it. And you know that you're wrong, you understand fundamentally that this is just not true. The resources of, like, stardom and complex carbohydrates, are technically infinite. They will grow back.

But try explaining that to him. That the rows of well-fed high-heeled cabbage patch kids all living the high life are not a threat. That wanting what someone else has is futile. It is, I know, but I am like someone learning a new language: I didn't know they had a word for this. To see so many things that seem to be mine the second they are articulated as someone else's. I don't want to find a new way to put this I don't think another metaphor is going to help. Lover the sad fact of today is that things are just not important enough. I am so tired of being anybody. Of guys coming up to me at fag bars or even worse the internet and trying to get me into bed by saying how they'll fuck anyone. Who wants that? Who wants to be reminded of the fact that we are anyone? The truly successful folks, the ones who can actually stomach my company? We all know that a certain amount of imagination is necessary to keep me from turning into anyone, the faceless mass of your exboyfriends who you avoid and honestly you should keep avoiding because I probably will do something stupid. So gulp mercury pull out all yr metal fillings and make a necklace out of them. Dig really deep (advice to self) and if you don't have a little light to let shine then either fake it or take someone else's. Where is the audience, huh? Where is the reader? There was a time when it felt sexy, voyeuristic to live on both sides of the curtain but I just want to go to bed and not with Anyone. Tell me, come on, that I don't have to worry about this. Congratulate me like I'm winning. Cheer Me On.

1/3/09

Alright everyone, calm down. There's enough of me to go around.

1/2/09

Futures Bright

Photo from New Year's Eve, by America's Next Art Star Sam McKinnis, from his wildly underrated blog, Weekend Party Update.

I'm gonna go meet my sister Pico at the gym. We've got some things to take care of.

Narcissus of the Parking Lot Puddle

This is fascinating because it actually happened to me slash is constantly happening to me. I'm like Gertrude Stein in a number of ways, lover, but primarily in that I live in a continuous present. Buttons forever pressed, triggers pulling forever / infinite.

Trying to locate myself in a filthy pool and get angry that I don't see a reflection there, just the rainbow of an oil slick. The Narcissus of the parking lot puddle.

I guess I'm just tired of settling. My coworkers and I threw the I Ching on New Year's Eve and I got Hexagram 21, or Biting Through. It says that I should let justice be administered, and I'm inclined to agree. I feel encouraged to take some decisive action, and am tickled as always that the universe is urging me to cast judgement. That my discriminating and certain gaze should do the work of good versus evil is always a nice thought. Auspicious for the new year. I am setting some limits and I'm not telling everyone about them (not all of them). I'm sorting things out.