muffy bolding

For each of the following categories… write in which one thing had the biggest influence in making you who you are today:

(I can never ever answer just one thing…so indulge me.)

Book: The Journals of Sylvia Plath and Europe by Norman Davies
Movie: What’s Up, Doc?, The Godfather, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Fame
TV Show: The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts and The Carol Burnett Show
Musical Artist/Group: in chronological order: The Bay City Rollers, The Ramones, Cheap Trick, The Clash, U2, The Pixies, The Breeders
Friend: Billy, Tania, and Gregory
Family Member: My sister, Jenny
Class: Poetry, as taught by DeWayne Rail
Club/Organization/Entity: National Organization for Women (NOW) and The Jackals

My One True Love in a $7 cowboy hat and a plain white T. Be still my wicked heart!:

Hey, kids, it’s time once again for “The Significant Other Meme”! I totally loved doing this one — because it’s all about a subject on which I just love to wax poetic, ad nauseum: Gregory!

1. They are watching TV. What are they watching?

Oh, god…Gregory has such a talent for this. Every time he turns on the television, no matter what time of day or night it is, it is a mathematical certainty that one of the following shows will be on. It’s spooky because it’s almost as though he conjures them out of pure desire: Iron Chef, Man vs. Wild, Mythbusters, Southpark, Deadliest Catch, or his new favey fave, East Bound and Down. But his most beloved shows of all time are Extras and Get a Life. Oh, and because our oldest daughter is a fashion design student, he has been a devout Project Runway acolyte since the first episode of the first season. Yup. He called it long before it was cool.

2. You’re out to eat. What kind of dressing do they get on their salad?

He will either get bleu cheese or a wet and dry dressing, i.e., balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil with bleu cheese crumbles on top.

3. What’s one food this person doesn’t like? What’s one food this person could not live without?

Loathes: The humble and hideous lychee nut (they smell like LOAD.)

Loves: Cheese. All kinds. The stinkier, the better. Ah, The Feet of the Angels! We followed our noses throughout Europe, stopping at every odiferous cafe, cave, market, and fromagerie we could find. He occasionally threatens to quit his job and become a full-time cheese monger.

4. You go out to the bar. He/she orders…

A Heineken at a bar, a Guinness black and tan at a pub, a Sapporo when out for sushi. Apparently, he’s a very thematically appropriate drinker.

5. Where did he/she go to high school?

Lexington High School in Lexington, Massachusetts.

6. What size shoe do they wear?

10 or 10 ½.

7. If this person were to collect anything, it would be…

Hands down: Art. Modern, such as Picasso, Klee, Miro, Pollock…or, conversely, work from The Dutch Golden Age. Just as he has a brilliant ear for music, he also has a brilliant eye for art. His taste in all things aesthetic is absolutely impeccable.

8. What is their favorite type of sandwich?

Turkey and avocado on some delicious, interesting, exotic bread.

9. This person could eat ______ everyday.

Sushi. In fact, we have actually made a pledge to each other –- to someday be successful enough to afford to eat sushi everyday. Spicy Tuna makes our hearts race and our pulses quicken. That’s some incentive to succeed, I gotta tell you. Breath Like Prom Night for the rest of your natural life. Bring it.

10. Favorite cereal?

Shredded Wheat or Raisin Bran.

11. This person wouldn’t be caught dead wearing?

Ha! We actually joke about this all the time. Sandals, a Hawaiian shirt, and what he and I hatefully call a “Zydeco” hat –- such a fucking Boomer uniform. Fuck the Boomers! Never!

Some anonymous Boomer in a slick, expensive Zydeco hat — thinking he looks ICE COLD, no doubt:

12. Favorite sports team?

The Boston Red Sox. And yes, our son the sports writer-to-be is a to-the-death Yankees fan. And yes, I realize that this means war.

13. Who did he/she vote for?

O’bama.

14. What is their sign?

Cancer…and all that that implies.

15. What is something you do that he/she wishes you didn’t?

And speaking of applied astrology, I suppose I am not always as vigilant about taking care of my health as Cancer would like me to be, i.e., I am not always as thorough as I could be about making sure I take the necessary pain and preventative medications when it becomes unbearable. I like to pretend that I have perfect health, you see. It’s more fun that way.

16. How many states has this person lived in?

Four: Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington, California.

17. What is his/her heritage?

Russian Jew…with a little Romanian thrown in just for good vampiric measure.

18. You bake them a cake for their birthday. What kind do you bake?

Chocolate with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles and chocolate filling and chocolate lube oozing from my cooter as I serve it up in a chocolate licorice t-back thong. This is a motherfucker who likes chocolate.

19. Did he/she play sports in high school?

This question actually made me belly snort out loud. If guzzling hooch pilfered from one’s parents’ liquor cabinet, endlessly listening to Bob Dylan records, and staggering through the woods of suburban Boston yelling into mailboxes with drunken buddies qualifies as a sport, then the answer is a resounding yes. He lettered, even.

20. This person could spend hours…

Watching “Lawrence of Arabia”, reading about “Lawrence of Arabia”, and talking about “Lawrence of Arabia” –- and has. And this is just reason #672 of why I absolutely adore him!

21. He/She wants a new…

Season of “Extras” — though, of course, that’ll never happen. That flabby, brilliant, British ship has sailed.

22. The CD I would probably find in their vehicle is…

Anything by Frank Black, Elvis Costello, Radiohead, Stereolab, Queens of the Stone Age, The Breeders, The Shins, and The Like.

23. What can you do that will guarantee a laugh from him/her?

Wear a big, fuzzy mouse suit whilst smoking a cig with a bored, jaded look on my face. Lays him out every time.

24. Does he/she get along well with their family?

Well, they’re still alive, aren’t they? Define your terms.

25. If money wasn’t an option, I would buy him/her…

A life of non-stop travel, discovery, and adventure; a life lived out of a suitcase. A life of unlimited railpasses and unlimited dreams.

Watching the violence and carnage of a broad giving birth is like standing at the foot of her cooter and shouting, “HEY, KOOL-AID!” — Doug Stanhope

I read a book about John Dos Passos and according to
the book once radical-communist
John ended up in the Hollywood Hills living off investments
and reading the
Wall Street Journal

this seems to happen all too often.

what hardly ever happens is
a man going from being a young conservative to becoming an
old wild-ass radical

however:
young conservatives always seem to become old
conservatives.
it’s a kind of lifelong mental vapor-lock.

but when a young radical ends up an
old radical
the critics
and the conservatives
treat him as if he escaped from a mental
institution.

such is our politics and you can have it
all.

keep it.

sail it up your
ass.

— charles bukowski

My Great Uncle Pete was a pretty famous Western painter and rodeo cowboy in the earlier part of the 20th Century, and his ever-present paintings provided some of the mightiest and most memorable images of my childhood. He worked out of Tuscon, Arizona and legend has it that he and the uber-butch actor, Lee Marvin, used to regularly get pissed together in The Tap Room bar at the now historic Hotel Congress. Apparently, several of his paintings still hang there. Despite the official word, knowing my family, they were most likely traded as payment for bar tabs run amok. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

From their website:

The Tap Room has been popular with the locals since its inception in 1919. In the late 1930s and 1940s, the Tap Room was given its touch of western class. Pete Martinez was a famous artist and rodeo cowboy. While he roped & bucked with the best in New York, his artwork was featured in art exhibits, including the lobby of the Garden & Woolworth Galleries. He retired in Tucson with his wife. Though it’s been suggested that Martinez painted pictures to pay for his keep here at Hotel Congress, they are just rumors. His paintings grace the walls of the Tap Room for one simple reason — it was his watering hole. He enjoyed the company and the drinks so much that he bestowed some of his art to show his appreciation. Many celebrities and regular folk collect Pete Martinez’ work — in fact, we are regularly asked to sell his work to collectors. We always smile and say “No”. We want his work to remain where he felt at home.

Yeah, right. Way to clean up the filth for the unwashed masses. Even though Uncle Pete was certainly one of the more savory characters in my family’s tawdry, madcap history, he was no saint, either. He is, after all, related to me.

A few years ago, I was casually thumbing through a ragged copy of Architectural Digest magazine in my Rheumatologist’s waiting room and was pleased and surprised to find that apparently one of the most avid and enthusiastic collectors of his work is the actress Diane Keaton. She has several paintings of his hanging in her exquisitely restored Spanish Colonial home in Los Angeles, including a rather uncharacteristically large piece of his that serves as the aesthetic centerpiece of her formal dining room. When I saw the pictures, it made me smile to discover that one of my delightfully scandalous clan actually excelled at something other than crimes committed or time served.

Hurray for Great Uncle Pete.

The quote I have printed up in a delightfully large font and scotch-taped to the front of our microwave for my children and all the world to see as they warm up their corndogs and Trader Joe’s frozen burritos — because I’m just that kind of dame:

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit.”

— Rocky Balboa

Amen.

So, last Saturday night we had our massive, annual Halloween bash at a very cool new club downtown: The Edison Bar. It’s located in the ancient brick bowels of a gorgeous old building in a space that used to be a private Los Angeles power station in the early 1900s. All of the original brickwork, fixtures, and ancient columns have been carefully preserved and used to carry the “early electricity” theme throughout the club. Even the monolithic, old brick boiler room was left standing intact — dredging up horrific images of steam rising and Freddie Kruger chasing your fatass through the dark with a cocked fedora, a sharpened claw, and a wicked belly laugh. It is perhaps the most amazing nightclub I have ever seen — and trust me, I have seen them all over the world.

At any rate, this annual party was first held 12 years ago in Billy’s backyard in Silverlake…and the invitations then numbered about 200. This year, the guestlist swelled to well over 1000 people, hastening our mass exodus to The Edison. What originally started out as just a drunken Jackalfest for Billy and a bunch of his degenerate friends — many of whom were then working in entry level positions in the entertainment industry and have now moved up the food chain considerably, to say the very least (though, trust me, they are still degenerates) — is now the fucking Halloween event of the season; NOBODY throws a party like Billy. Caged go-go dancers, circus acts, taiko drummers dressed like demons, entire housing structures magically transformed into accursed pirate ships, cotton candy machines, the best gottdamned drag queens and dance music in the city, and even entire Southern Baptist church choirs bringin’ it home are par for the course. People leave this party feeling utterly satisfied — and this year was no different.

Billy is the King, baby…and as you can see from my ridiculous, self-snapped, stereotypically-posed, quasi-myspace picture — I was The Queen.

Two sides of the same coin; Billy and I at The Night of a 1000 Villains Halloween Party, 2006, Los Angeles.

Christ, I just can’t get off that goddamned Blackberry, can I?

The funny part about this latest Facebook meme making the rounds (making one’s profile pic a fictional character that you feel best represents your personality) is that even though I am absolutely convinced I am either the bawdy, brazen, outrageous Auntie Mame or the equally scandalous Mrs. Flax from the movie “Mermaids”, my husband insists that inside the me that nobody knows but him…I am AMELIE.

There is not person ONE under the age of 30 in this entire gottdamned country who’s got a single motherloving pube on their cooter — NOT A SINGLE ONE. And yes, I’m talking about YOUR born-again-hard, purity-ring-wearing teenage daughter, too, lady. Nowadays, it’s ALL about the SMOOTH COOT. But I officially predict that the HUGE, UNRULY, SWAMP of a post-70s BUSH will make a triumphant return.