muffy bolding

Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.

Six Facts:

(I did ten. To hell with boring convention.)

1) I come from a New York family with a pronounced carnival and vaudevillian background; oh, and a strong East Coast “family” background — if you know what I’m saying, and I think maybe you do. Leave the gun…take the cannoli.

2) Every time I read about all the controversy that continuously swirls around this whole “pink/no pink” issue, all I can think of is: CHRIST, ANOTHER BULLSHIT BUSY-WORK FIRST-WORLD DISTRACTION. Enough already. Who really gives a fuck? Dress your kid however you want to dress them — pink, purple, black, blue, yellow, flowing diaphanous burlap: WHATEVER — and then just teach them that people can be whatever and whoever the fuck they want to be NO MATTER WHAT COLOR THEY ARE AND NO MATTER WHAT COLOR THEY WEAR. As a female, to have my choices limited to just pink is fucked up — but to CHOOSE PINK IN THE FIRST PLACE JUST BECAUSE I LIKE IT, despite the fact that annoying busy-body pricks are constantly yammering in my ear that choosing pink is some raging political statement as opposed to merely an aesthetic preference, is BUTCH…and god knows, I’M BUTCH.

My two FIERCE, feminist daughters — who are now 18 and 22 — both LIVED for pink EVERYTHING when they were little. Hell, the older one, in between inking her arms, piercing her face, and studying to be a wardrobe designer, STILL worships at the altar of the pink and the sparkly…and I DEFY YOU to fuck with either of them, my friend. Go ahead — though I have no idea how on earth you’ll manage to eat your annual 4th of July corn on the cob WITH NO FUCKIN’ TEETH.

3) After over four years of very odd but specific symptoms, I was just diagnosed three years ago with a very rare, chronic, and incurable autoimmune disease. Whatever. Fucking bring it.

4) Every night, I sleep surrounded by a king’s ransom worth of fine pillows. In fact, my husband and all three of my children do, as well. I decided a long time ago — even when I was poor, poor, poor as a churchmouse — that soft, luxurious, high-end bedding was a necessary splurge. Even in their cribs, my babies have slept on/been surrounded by down and feather pillows and irrationally high-thread-count sheets at all times. What decadent pigs we be.

5) I am endlessly shocked that so many of the awesome, hilarious people I went to high school with back in Fresno — who used to be TOTAL AND COMPLETE STONED, DRUNKEN, BELLY LAUGHING, HOSEBEAST FUCKPIGS and CUM-GUZZLING COCKHOLSTERS — are now born again HARD. I mean, once you have children you gotta get your shit together, no doubt — but, goddamnit, you don’t have to lose your humor and your humanity, become a fucking Republican, worship Rush Limbaugh, get all up in a faggot’s marital bidness, and defend ABSOLUTELY LUDICROUS, WORTHLESS piece of shit morons like Sarah Palin just to pay penance for the time you got caught giving Tom Brinker a handjob in your mother’s station wagon behind Foster’s Freeze sophomore year, bitch. Look I can totally understand needing to clean it up a bit after you have a family. I mean, despite the fact that I front otherwise, except for an ice cold Corona with lime about once a year, I pretty much quit any and all hooch back when I had my first baby some twenty years ago. The thought of that little baby girl waking up scared in the middle of the night and having her only comfort be some boozy, slurring, smoky, stinking hooker was just something that I could not abide. And I have just never really been a drug or substancey person — mostly because I crave clarity and communion above all else. So, consequently, I probably live a FAR more righteous life than most hardcore neighbor-judging, margarita-guzzling, in-tongues-speaking, xanax-gobbling, wife-swapping, tax-cheating, pro-life-except-of-course-when-it’s-my-own-precious-teenage-daughter Christians I know. How fucking HILARIOUS is that?

6) My favorite ethnic food is either Mediterranean or Vietnamese; I can never ever make up my mind. Oh, and Ethiopian. And Afghani. And corn dogs with lots of mustard eaten under the lights of a carnival midway.

7) I rarely stumble upon actors who really do it for me…so, it is with great surprise that I find myself currently obsessed with Clive Owen. I normally go for the academic, intellectual, nebbishy type — so the only thing I can figure is that the working class girl in me is drawn to the working class boy in him. It seems you can take the blue-collar girl out of Fresno, but you can’t take the welfare cheese out of the blue-collar girl…or some such ridiculous metaphorical drivel like that. I think I’d just like to nail him.

8) And speaking of obsession, I am working on the film treatment for a true story that is so fucking ALL-talent, that I even visit it in my dreams. I can’t get enough of it. It makes me breathless just to think about it — which is pretty much all the time. How lucky I am to have a job that I love.

9) A few years ago, I banged around with my husband in the downstairs bathroom of the Seattle-Bainbridge Island Ferry whilst it was in transit across the sound. I got no shame.

10) I own legions of plain black t-shirts, as well as black dresses, jumpers, sweaters, skirts, and other assorted articles of clothing. If you peer into my closet, so much is it a vast sea of solid black…that a friend of mine actually commented that it looks like my husband is married to a nun — at which point I just threw back my head and BELLY LAUGHED AT THE IRONY.

As for Le Tag — do it if you wish…and if not, fuck off, lady.

Take one film — one single film in the entire history of films — and claim it as your own. Which film would it be? What is the one film that says the most about who you are? What you desire, what you value? What film would you most love to claim as your own?

As the medium of film is one of the greatest loves of my life, it puckers my undercarriage to think of picking just a single one as my very own…but if I must:

Oh, poop, I can’t. I just can’t.

But because I am such a living, breathing, sashaying contradiction-in-terms, I can absolutely do three:

<a href="
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/”>The Godfather, What’s Up, Doc?, and Arthur

What about you?

My husband, Gregory, is — just like the rest of us — smitten with the fabulous Ms. Ayun Halliday…whom he called, “An interesting combination of goofy and sexy.”

And how.

From the Inexplicable Life Files of Muffy P. Bolding: At the MIGHTY New York City Bust Craftacular in December, NO LESS THAN FOUR separate crafty girls approached me to tell me I look exactly like Exene Cervenka. Other than the red lipstick, the thick waist, and the ever-present cardigan, I find this comparison absolutely baffling.

To all our Knittas out there: If you are on Ravelry — and have a knitting obsession, a foul mouth, and a scandalous soul — please join the group founded there by myself, CJ Arabia, and Kimberly Scott — The Vulgarian Yarn Mafia! We carry sharp, pointy sticks and are planning a hilarious, hostile takeover of the planet. Join us in our revolution, won’t you?

http://www.ravelry.com

Restauranteur Elaine Kaufman of Elaine’s Restaurant in NYC, surrounded by some of her distinguished clientele from amongst the creme de la creme of the New York literati.

A friend recently told me they saw a picture of Elaine Kaufman in Vanity Fair, and that looking at it, they immediately thought of me — me in the future. And having been obsessed, from about the 6th grade on, with Elaine’s and the whole decadent, hilarious, brilliant, literary mist that swirls about the place, I must say that I was intrigued by her comparison. So, I googled Elaine — who by all accounts has a reputation for being a well-read, whip-smart, bawdy, rollicking, belly laugher of a broad — and sure as shit…it is DEAD-ON like looking in a mirror into the future.

Accompanying one of the pictures I found of her was an interview she did with The New York Times where, when asked how she finds the energy to keep doing it after all these years, she pursed her lips and answered, “If you slow down, you fuckin’ die, honey!”

By the way, in case you hadn’t already guessed it, despite her quick and erudite mind, and the esteemed company she keeps (up until his death in 2003, the writer George Plimpton was one of her closest friends and is pictured here above her right shoulder), “fuck” is apparently her favorite word, and she feels free to pepper her language with it quite liberally. If you google “Elaine Kaufman” and “fuck”, the results are positively breathtaking.

There’s a story about Elaine, told by New York journalist Bob Drury, that pretty much sums her up. I shall let him tell it:

And, of course, there was Elaine’s—Elaine Kaufman, she loved reporters and cops. I had met her back when I was a kid sportswriter, maybe seven or eight years earlier. A literary agent owed me 11k—a lordly sum at the time for me; even today now that I think about it—and he was hosting an afternoon party at Elaine’s for another one of his clients. When I arrived at the door he was greeting people and handed me the check. I didn’t know anybody so I slinked over to a corner of the bar and ordered a beer. When I went to pay, and the bartender told me it was an open bar, I jacked him a two-spot tip. Three or four more beers later, three or four more $2 tips later, I notice that there’s this, er, zaftig women giving me the voodoo eye from a couple of bar stools down.

“I know who the fuck you are. I saw Jay give you that check for eleven grand when you walked in and I’ve been watching you tip my bartender with every drink. My name’s Elaine, and you’re welcome in my place any fuckin’ time.”

It seems she and I have a lot more in common than just a hair-do, funny glasses, a zest for living, and a fondness for black dresses and smart men.

As a child, I fervently believed that Mincemeat Pie was made from mouse meat…and therefore, refused to eat it.

Awhile ago, my son, Hunter, and his entire crew of then-11 year old skateboard buddies were lounging around my living room — eating Hot Cheetos, drinking root beer, and watching South Park. I had an appointment and was way in the back part of the house taking a shower and getting ready to go. I was hauling fatass so as not to be late, and was distracted, so I had no idea that there was a flock of dudes with their lanky selves spread out all over my furniture.

After I pulled on my white cotton granny panties and white cotton sports bra, I realized that the black t-shirt I wanted to wear was up in the laundry room — right off the kitchen. So, in all of my oblivious, hurried glory, I sauntered my fatass in that direction. It was only as I saw them — and more importantly, THEY SAW ME — that I realized the horrific truth: I was strutting practically naked past a roomful of pre-pubescent boys. In my trauma, I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I looked over at their stunned faces, cocked my head to one side, pursed my lips, put my hands on my hips, continued to strut, and shouted in a voice that was large and in charge:

“Don’t look, boys, it’ll turn you queer!”

Hilarious fucking line, I know.

Too bad it wasn’t mine.

It was Shelley’s.

As the story goes, she was shooting a film way back in the day — after she had gained quite a bit of weight — and was unexpectedly called to the set. She wasn’t exactly dressed and ready, but being the consummate fucking professional that she was (oh, and she WAS) she ran out her dressing room door, still pushing and tucking her ample flesh into her girdle. As the story goes on — half dressed and with copious titties and tummy asplay — she passed a group of young male actors waiting for their call…and as she passed them, she shouted out that immortal line:

“Don’t look, boys, it’ll turn you queer!”

Goodnight, Miss Shelley. There’ll never, ever be another you.

Mark your calendars, my Scandalous Knitty Exhibitionists! “World Wide Knit in Public Days 2010” are the 12th & 13th, as well as the 19th & 20th, of June. The Vulgarian Yarn Mafia Los Angeles Chapter will undoubtedly hold some sort of a gathering — come join us if you’re in town! Sharp sticks and even sharper tongues — that’s us!

http://www.wwkipday.com/

We shot the film Furnace at the spooky old Nashville State Penitentiary a few years ago, in the freezing cold dead of winter. First things first: Nashville is motherfucking COLD — colder than a whore’s heart. I had no idea, people. Even now, just remembering it, my cooter, she is shivering.

Second things second: During my big scene, my hair was in a HUGE sassy secretarial bouffant, not seen before or since with these hairs of mine. That hair was epic — EVEN IN HELL.

And third things third: Said scene was just me and Michael Pare’ from “Eddie and The Cruisers” fame. He is fucking brilliant, funny, and oh, so LOVELY. I was absolutely smitten, and remain so to this day.

During the last take, unbeknownst to everyone else on the set, the director, Billy, and I took a small liberty with the script. Originally, Michael — who plays Detective Turner to my Polly, his secretary — sweetly asks me, “Are you propositioning me, Polly?”, and I look over the top of my glasses at him, read him, work my neck like there’s no tomorrow, and respond with, “Ummm, no — and trust me, honey…YOU COULDN’T KEEP UP.”

Billy and I — with one wicked eye on the inevitable outtakes reel — did the last take this way instead:

Michael: “Are you propositioning me, Polly?”

Polly (patting her bouffant, throwing down her file folders, and peeling off her sensible sweater before lustily crawling over the top of the precinct desk at him): “As a matter of fact, I am, Mr. Eddie and The Fucking Cruisers. Let’s get back on it!”

Needless to say, it brought down the gottdamned house — and belly laughing louder and harder than anyone else was Mr. Michael Pare’. He’s a good egg. Oh, and did I mention he’s still a top shelf piece of ass?

Goddamnit, I love my job.