Standard

Snarky is the new Aqua, which was the new Orange, which was the new Brown, and so on and so on, down to the color of the house that Jack built, which was itself the new Flagstone.

Now, it’s no secret that writers who report on trendy events and commodities tend to get a little catty. When your goal is to stay one step ahead of the game, cattiness gives you a well-shod leg up. As in, “Ooh, girl! Look at Miss Thing over there, with her handbag pulled straight from the Fall 2006 time capsule!” Suddenly you’re at the vanguard, and Miss Thing is trapped waist-deep in the bargain bin.

Recently, though, cattiness gave way to something more insidious: snarkiness. I know it’s a thin line–thinner than [insert celebutante joke here]–but there’s a difference. Catty is all in good fun. Catty is over the top. Catty is drag queens who dish it out, then share a bag of coke in the men’s room. By contrast, snarky is mean, underhanded, and underplayed. Holier-than-thou with a jigger of envy thrown in for good measure.

Recently, I’ve noticed an uptick in the nation’s snark level. Maybe it’s just because, as an avid homosexual, I’ve been reading the news from Fashion Week–which, by its very nature, veers toward unprecedented levels of snarkification. But even in that milieu, voices like those of New York magazine’s Fug Girls have been mitigated by tamer voices like Cathy Horyn, Eric Wilson, and even Guy Trebay at the New York Times, who prefer to give readers some historical context for their thoughtful critiques.

Well, unless you’ve been living under a heterosexual male rock for the past couple of weeks, you know that Cathy Horyn has started a blog. And she’s calling Thom Browne’s collection “Hobbitville” and wondering if she should buy a wig. Oh, Cathy….

Who is responsible for this? Some would point to the Michael Musto-Liz Smith cabal of gossip mongers, who’ve been doing this kind of thing for years. Others would cite that cave drawing from Lascaux where a tribesmen is snubbed after wearing the same loincloth for both hunting and gathering. But whether such shenanigans have been going on for decades or millenia, they’ve never made it to the mainstream. Now, suddenly, we’ve got pundits on every streetcorner–the equally hideous, equally ashen Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck come to mind–and they’re all sporting the same arched-eyebrow sneer. What the hell happened?

Personally, I blame Gawker. (Or credit them. The jury’s still out.) They single-handedly made snarky both fashionable and readily available. And they’re funny. Let’s face it: snark sells. But alas, not everyone can pull it off–which is why you may find me getting catty now and then, but I’ll take the long way around Snarkville, ’cause baby, I know when I’m beat.

Standard

An Experment in OMG

Last week I had a problem with an Amazon order, and today I wanted to resolve it. So I went to the Help section of the website, and on the right-hand side of the page, I noticed that I could contact Amazon not only by email, but also by phone. “Provide your phone number and customer service will call you right away,” it said. So I clicked through and entered my phone number, expecting a callback sometime later in the afternoon, but…well, try it.

Ultimately, it’s no different than dialing a customer service center [in Bangladesh] yourself. Yeah, technically they’re calling you, but you still get put on hold ’till a rep becomes available–same experience in the end. Still, by framing it as a “call back” and by making that “call back” happen immediately, they make it seem like Amazon is really on top of its game. Pretty sneaky, sis….

Standard

One of four ministers who oversaw three weeks of intensive counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard said the disgraced minister emerged convinced that he is ”completely heterosexual.”

Haggard also said his sexual contact with men was limited to the former male prostitute who came forward with sexual allegations, the Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur told The Denver Post for a story in Tuesday’s edition.

”He is completely heterosexual,” Ralph said. ”That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

—New York Times

During his prolonged period of self-examination, Haggard also discovered a talent for scrapbooking, a passion for fine sea salt, and a chest of pirate booty hidden beneath a rock in the meditation garden. “I think I’m the luckiest boy in the whole world!” exclaimed a visibly excited Haggard, surrounded by seamen who came to see his booty.

Ralph went on to say that occasional cockgobbling is acceptable evangelical behavior, as long as it’s not a constant thing. “By our reckoning, anyone is completely heterosexual if they’re straight 51% of the time.”

The other three ministers, however, insist that Haggard is a disco dancin’, Oscar Wilde readin’, Streisand-ticket-holdin’ friend of Dorothy.

Standard

So there I was, driving around town–which wasn’t especially pleasant, given the rain and the cold and the weird pain I get in my ass when I sit on my wallet for too long–and a song came on the radio, and for the first time in, I dunno, 20-some-odd years I heard the lyrics. And what I heard for the first time was:

She had a pocket full of horses–Trojans, some of them used.

And of course I know the line, I can sing it in my sleep. I even remember the video and how very “video” it looked. But unlike the rest of America–nay, the world–I’d never processed what Mr. Minneapolis was saying. And when I finally did, today at 2:15pm, after finishing a rare meal of fast food–not rare because I hate fast food, but rare because stupid, corporate, stinko fast food restaurants have been the last to open here in still-ravaged New Orleans–I blanched and laughed and belched all at the same time. Because, really, what kind of girl carries around used condoms? In her pocket? And shows them off? To dates?

  • Psycho bitches?

  • Amateur geneticists?

  • Lesbians too poor to visit the sperm bank?

  • Beauty-obsessed women looking for the Next Big Thing in skincare?

  • Finicky prostitutes?

  • Recycling enthusiasts?

  • Atkins fanatics who sometimes need a snack in the middle of the afternoon?

  • Drag queens?

So today, when I at last saw Prince’s date in my mind’s eye–some girl with a Toni Home Perm pulling over to the side of the road, thrusting her ass in the air so she can squeeze a hand into the front pocket of her tight, acid-washed jeans and pull out a handful of foil-wrapped contraceptives and a few disheveled, lint-flaked latex receptacles with semen-filled reservoir tips–I kinda swerved and almost ran a Chrysler Pacifica off the road. Which would’ve been okay because those cars give me the creeps anyway.

Standard


Liz Renay
April 14, 1926 – January 22, 2007

I never got the chance to meet Liz Renay. I am not terribly familiar with her oeuvre. I have never been able to finish My First 2,000 Men (you know what I mean), much less her other monographs. Most of the world will probably remember her–if they remember her at all–as an actress who screwed her way to the middle.

However, for me and many of my boy-kissing brethren, Liz Renay will always be known as Muffy St. Jacques–the most glamorous woman in Mortville!–from John Waters’ masterpiece Desperate Living. I don’t know if Liz accepted that role because of actor-driven egomania, Waters’ considerable persuasive abilities, or her own desperate living situation, but who cares? Armed with a few dozen lines and a stupendous, spotlit rack, she strutted and shimmied her way into the celluloid heavens.

I was surprised and saddened (surprisingly so) to hear of her death this past Monday, and I feel some sort of tribute is in order. I’ve thought long and hard about my Mardi Gras costume, debating geisha vs. Ganesh, skirt vs. leggings, purse vs. pockets, parasol vs. nothing at all–but now I’m leaning toward something much, much simpler, in Liz’s honor. I’m not committing to anything yet, but don’t be surprised if on Fat Tuesday you see someone who looks a lot like me stumbling down Royal Street in a platinum wig, patent leather pumps, and hose pulled up to my armpits–belted at the waist–screaming “I sleep in the room next to you! Naked!“

[obituary notice dutifully provided by jonno]

Standard

State Farm, the nation’s largest home insurer, reached an agreement today with Mississippi officials to pay hundreds of millions dollars to thousands of homeowners in the state who have been unable to rebuild in the nearly 17 months since Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast….

Under the agreement, State Farm would pay an initial $130 million and perhaps several hundred million more by the end of the year, depending upon how many policyholders request that their claims be reopened. About 35,000 homeowners along the Mississippi coast are eligible.

Today’s agreement does not apply to Louisiana, where the destruction was even greater, and where lawyers and insurers say no settlement talks have taken place.

—New York Times

Perhaps someone should call Louisiana’s Insurance Commissioner, James Donelon, and do some yelling.

Standard

I don’t make a habit of reading The National Review. I get plenty of far-right rhetoric from my father, our Commander-in-Chief, and Bill O’Reilly (when that schmuck with the bad dye-job is on the treadmill at the gym); I don’t need to search the shit out on my own.

Luckily former neighbor and ex-pat New Orleanian Kevin Allman is not so uppity. A voracious reader and supremely talented writer, Kevin was (un)fortunate enough to stumble across John Derbyshire’s nerdy, whiny, mean-spirited disparagement of New Orleans and has, quite rightly, taken the man to task.

Of course, as I’ve said a bezillion times before, I don’t wanna imply that there’s not room for plenty of critiques of Our Fair City–goddess knows she ain’t what she should be these days–but anyone who starts his review of New Orleans with a thinly veiled attack on blacks and queers has clearly landed at the wrong airport. Give the man a swift kick to the ‘nads and leave him at the doorstep of some gated cracker-topia in Colo-freaking-rado….