Standard

Listening: Blue Cantrell, “Hit Em Up Style (Oops!)”

While he was schemin’
I was speedin’ in the beemer just steamin’
Can’t believe that I caught my man cheatin’
So I found another way to make him pay for it all…

So I went to Neiman Marcus on a shopping spree-a.
On the way I grabbed Soleil and Mia
And as the cashbox rang, I thought everything away…

Too bad no one online or off seems to know much about her. She’s listed nowhere. Sad, really.

Reading: Gore Vidal, Palimpsest

On his adolescent friend and paramour, Jimmie Trimble:

If not seated together in class, Jimmie and I would signal each other when a hard-on had arrived unbidden. When the other boys figured out what we were doing, they began signalling, too. At twelve, erections come and go, like T. S. Eliot’s ladies, talking, most appropriately, of Michelangelo.

Damn, that’s some fancy writin’.

Standard

Five reasons life would be better if you lived in a Dario Argento film:

1. You’d be fluent in Italian.

2. You’d have most dramatically lit house on the block.

3. You’d have a distinctively chic wardrobe–although people might start confusing you with Princess Stephanie of Monaco (pre-Pool Position, of course).

4. With mortal danger lurking ’round every corner, life would be chock full of surprises!

5. Even your worst enemies would envy how good you look when you’re running for your life.

Standard

Can you play the piano? The guitar? Drums? The glockenspiel? Well, I can’t. That’s why we’re having auditions for the Hedwig band tomorrow. Rumor has it that this chick is gonna show. I’m wet.

Standard

I’ve officially crossed over.

No, I’m not drunk. Nor have I suddenly gone cukoo for Coco-Puffs. No, I mean I’ve traversed that dreaded threshold, crossed from light into darkness, from Edenic perfection into a post-lapsarian shadow world. Like Peter Murphy, I’ve transmogrified into a half-being, a member of the undead clan.

I can no longer drink coffee.

Maybe I’m being a little too dramatic. Okay, I can, theoretically, still drink the java, but the weather’s become so hot and humid that the mere thought of swallowing hot coffee is enough to make me swoon. And iced coffee can be dicey–some people actually believe you can just throw hot coffee over ice and–poof!–that’s iced coffee! They act as if they’d never heard of the cold drip process. Yick.

So for the next coupla months, me and Diet Coke are again inseparable. I’ll miss you, Mrs. Olsen. See you this fall….

Standard

My boyfriend gets queasy every time I drag him across the state line into Mississippi. I mean, I’m sure that his own childhood was filled with Bronx versions of rednecks and racism, but I guess all the Confederate flags and seersucker and sultriness of Mississippi give it its own repressive, conservative character.

I sympathize with Jonno. Were I in his shoes, I’d probably feel the same sense of trepidation. But he could have it worse–I could be suggesting roadtrips to Skullbonia.

Maybe later.

Standard

Note to self: in the future, avoid consuming copious amounts of hummus immediately before bedtime–it makes for very odd dreams, indeed. All I can remember now is that I was in Singapore producing some show–what kind? I don’t know–and I was obsessed with tracking down my friend Keng from grad school. It was maddening and pointless all at the same time. Like Kafka with palm trees.

Needless to say, I didn’t last long in dreamland. It’s not even 8:00, and I’ve already been up for nearly three hours.

Of course, that’s not completely bad. During the course of my groggy surfing, I came across the presumably new personal homepage of one of my favorite Japanese artists (actually, one of the few I know by name), Gengoroh Tagame. I first saw his drawings on Richard‘s old site, then I began running into him all over the place. His work is a virtual parade of hunkalicious Asian daddies, many of which have decorated the covers of G men magazine, a Japanese publication for bear lovers.

Looking through his most recent illustrations, though, I’m struck by how different they seem from his earlier work. The first pieces I ever saw were very, well, Japanese, with kimonos and that wacky fundoshi underwear and stuff. Today, though, his style seems practically Western, complete with Chelsea fag-type models in wifebeaters; even their eyes–which should stereotypically signal the model’s ethnicity–are generic.

Am I fetishizing Asians? Or am I lamenting the global melting pot–fueled by airplanes and televisions and AOL–that is blurring what were once fairly distinct identities into a single Western whole?

You know what? I don’t care. The drawings are hot, end of story.

Standard

File under “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say ‘No’.”

I thought my summer was going to be a slow one. Nothing to do, really, other than mount Hedwig, which, while not the simplest play to put together, should be, more or less, a labor of love. Then we decided to expand the play’s marketing plan with special Hedwig appearances (e.g. sending her out to open K-Marts, do book signings, guest dj on the local German punk rock station, the usual stuff), which’ll require extra strategic planning and headaches and BC powder. And then, of course, I’d forgotten that Jonno and I are moving soon; we hope to be in the new house in another couple of weeks, mid- to late-June maybe–which is great, sure, but along with that come a series of headaches: packing, schlepping, unpacking, cleaning the old apartment, finding new tenants for it.

Then things got even more complicated: the owner of Le Chat Noir, the venue in which we’ve been doing the cabaret, asked if we’d be interested in keeping the show up all summer long. I was flattered; Barbara’s a savvy business woman and producer, and she knows what sells; if she likes it, that’s a pretty nice compliment in my book. So, since flattery’ll get you everywhere with me, I said “Sure, we’ll figure out a way to keep it going through August,” temporarily forgetting that the show has a rotating line-up of performers, meaning that I’ve now got a summer’s worth of torchsingers and jugglers and ventriloquists to line up.

I know, I know: the whining seems pretty disingenuous. I mean, what have I got to complain about? One play on the boards, another cool play on the horizon, and a new house around the bend. Sure, I’m very happy, but I’m also very, very tired. I wanna spend time with my boyfriend and time with my dogs and, well, I can do without the cat, but I’d like to get out of town more often to see my dad and brothers and my buddy Lesley in Jackson, and, well, maybe just spend the day…I dunno, fishing maybe. A break. A big, fat, mindless break.

Calgon, you know what to do….

Standard

Yes, it’s been quiet over here. Don’t really know why. Not much to say, I guess. Not much has happened either. The Minx arrived yesterday, that’s good. And we’re expecting someone else next week, which ought to be interesting. And the plays are going well. And I had pinkeye. And yadda yadda yadda…. Perhaps I’m experiencing a bit of early summer malaise. It’ll be gone soon.

In the meantime, why not expand your vocabulary with a few of my favorite words beginning with the letter “A“?

  • AGONOPHILIA: Person who is aroused by a partner pretending to struggle
  • ALVINOLAGNIA: Stomach fetish
  • ANACLITISM: Arousal from items used as infant
  • ANDROIDISM: Arousal from robots with human features
  • ANTHOLAGNIA: Arousal from smelling flowers
  • ANTHROPOPHAGOLAGNIA: Rape with cannibalism
  • AVISODOMY: Breaking the neck of a bird while penetrating it for sex
  • AXILLISM: The use of the armpit for sex

Use any one of these delightful terms five times today, and it’s yours forever.

Standard

Ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, Hedwig!

Does that make up for four days of no posts?