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Note to self: kick-ass eggplant and spinach linguine + a bottle of moderately priced pinot noir + a nightcap of Pernod = disturbing and/or strange REM cycles. Case in point: last night I dreamt about filling out a really long grant application that would have brought Nina Hagen into New Orleans’ public schools for a year-long arts residency.

It wasn’t an exhausting dream; I mean, I wasn’t hurrying to get the thing finished for a rapidly approaching deadline or anything. In fact, it was kinda fun because I had all this cool stuff from her agent (CDs, glossies, etc.) to use as supporting documentation for the grant. I was, however, a bit concerned that Nina wasn’t exactly a good fit for high school students. Not that that stopped me.

Then I woke up, meandered to the bathroom (after all the liquid I’d consumed, I’d worked up a good piss), and when I got back to bed, I told Jonno what I’d dreamt. He kissed me, applauding the integration of Ms. Hagen into my daily routine.

Silly? Yes. But so far, it’s the high point of my Friday.

Yo, yo, yo: giving a shout-out to Bill (who simply must know our pal Varla Jean Merman) for sending me the article in question.

Pretty creepy, huh? Not as unsettling as if it were an accident, but still. Ugh.

At the gym yesterday, I was on the treadmill and I was watching the incomparable Lynne Russell on Headline News. And at the bottom of the screen, where they flash those impossible-to-read little news blurbs, I could have sworn I read about someone accidentally falling into a tree shredder. Given my sometime fascination with things morbid, I’ve been trying to find the story on the web, but no luck. Was I hallucinating?

There’s a strange thought that goes through my head sometimes. It’s one of those “what if” sort of stoner thoughts that I tend to get when someone else is telling me a really long, pointless story and my eyes glaze over and my mind wanders.

The thought is this: when I’m gathered around a table with a dozen other people and we’re discussing something relatively mundane, what would happen if I were to slowly undress, crawl naked to the center of the table, and start masturbating? What sort of expressions would I see on the others’ faces? What would ultimately happen to me? Would I get carted off? Or would everyone else simply leave the room and vow never to speak of the incident again?

I mention it because that very thought came to me moments ago as my colleagues and I sat around the conference table interviewing a potential employee. The same thought used to run through my head at Christmas and Thanksgiving as my brothers and I listened to my father and grandparents gossip about people we’d never met. Of course, back then I knew why I never followed through with the idea: the look of shock/horror/anger on my grandmother’s face would have killed me (if my father’s bare hands didn’t do the trick). But what is it, exactly, that keeps me–or anyone–from doing it now? Personally, I think it would have been pretty amusing if I’d done it today–a much better means of evaluating the guy’s performance than the standard interview questions everyone else was asking.

Societal norms are funny and arbitrary.

Just a thought.

I belive Sandra Bernhard said it best when she said, “Will someone please tell me why the world is chock full of so many IDIOTS!”

If I were running a campaign that had been consistently described as flat and undynamic, I think I might have made a different choice in running partners. Moral rectitude is fine and all, but couldn’t Gore have found someone a little jazzier to compete with the Bush/Cheney ticket? Um, and, like, maybe someone from the west coast or at least the midwest where things are a little more hotly contested than New England? Looks like we may have to get used to hearing the term “President Bush” again.

Oh well, at least we get to be the ones with the “Don’t blame me” bumper stickers for the next four years.

Actually, this may not be such a bad thing. I think queer politics has floundered these past eight years because of Clinton: we haven’t felt any pressure to get out there and push for things because we’ve got someone in the White House who’s on our side. At least Dubya will give us someone to villify, to work against. ‘Cause we all know that big GOP tent he keeps talkin’ about doesn’t have much room for homos.

Children are sexy again–overtly so. During The Simpsons there was a Gap Kids commercial featuring these 10 year-old boys doing a saucy Britney-esque group dance to an 80s-style rap version of “You Really Got Me” (reminiscent of Midnight Star) . I’m no chicken hawk–not by a long shot–but just the look in those kids’ eyes…. They were clearly selling sex.

Personally, I think it’s a good sign. Yeah, we’re still a long way from the inter-generational relationships of Ancient Rome, but it’s a start. I welcome anything that moves us away from that “Won’t someone please think of the children?!” rhetoric that assumes those under the age of 18 have no sexual agency–that’s the basis for a lot of homophobia in the West these days. It’s a correlative of that lame, unfounded “recruiting” trope. Like we set up tables and pass out brochures at county fairs in an effort to teach teenagers how to give rimjobs….

Now, that doesn’t mean I think all teens are/should be sexually active, but it’s insulting (or it was to me when I was that age) to say that kids don’t know what they’re doing when they have sex or when they feel love or lust. If I’d made Little Darlings, I would have had ’em all boinking like rabbits instead of wussing out because they realize, “Gosh, sex is a really special thing that only grown-ups should do, and I’m just not ready for that.” Sure, some of ’em would have flaked, but how could you have an entire camp full of girls and not one of them sleeping with a 16 year-old Matt Dillon? Really.

So it seems that someone finally figured it out: Missy–or rather, Parker Posey–is indeed the one.

Of course, Brian still hasn’t claimed his prize. Perhaps someone else would like it (whatever it turns out to be)….

[Coyote Ugly] looks like a big-budget version of a Miller’s Genuine Draft commercial. (After extolling the fun of alcohol, the movie is lacking only the somber tagline “Drink Responsibly,” which actually makes the Miller television spots morally superior.)

No one writes a movie review like Janet Maslin et al.

Mattie and Moesha may be in trouble.