As of late, between a screenplay and two books, I have been writing so long, so hard, so much, and so close to the marrow, that, just for tonight, I feel so completely raw and clotted with words…that images are about all I have left to give.
Each one a trinket of my affection and esteem…like a bite, like a cameo, like a microchip, like a bone.
This Diane Arbus photograph makes my heart soar like a hawk.
The best and most satisfying part of all this?
You just know it’s true.
But, then again, really…who doesn’t after a few cocktails?
Jesus Christ. I just got home from the gym and laid down to take a quick nap before getting back to work. It seemed like I had just dozed off when I felt the bed violently shaking and quite clearly heard the headboard hitting the wall in forceful, rapid succession — and not for any delightfully wicked sort of reason, either!
Yup. Earthquake. And a pretty good one, at that. Not too terribly long in duration, but relatively intense. From what I am seeing everywhere, it is being reported as a 5.8.
Whatever. Shake it, bake it, slice it, dice it. For better or for worse, she’s the most beautiful and influential city in the world — and she’s home.
I Love L.A.
Here is a fabulous interview with my friend, Leslie Jordan, in which he talks about his exciting new cable show, Sordid Lives: The Series , which also stars Olivia Newton-John, Rue McClanahan, Bonnie Bedelia, Anne Walker, and Beth Grant. I’ve seen the play more than once here in town, and the series looks every bit as hilarious.
Leslie plays the part of Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram, an institutionalized, cross-dressing Southern boy with a Tammy Wynette fixation who dolls himself up as the Country Music Queen in order to keep her memory alive. He’s positively brilliant in it and as far as I’m concerned, it’s his best work ever. He’s an absolute fucking scream.
Oddly enough, the best part of the interview is that despite the fact that Leslie is wearing a fur-lined, pink satin dressing gown, false eyelashes and a FULL face of make-up, this may very well be the BUTCHEST I have ever seen him. Go figure.
So, watch his interview and then be sure to watch his show, Sordid Lives: The Series, which will be airing on Logo Network beginning this week.
I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
My friend, Gabriel Liston is not only an extraordinary artist, he is honestly one of the most interesting people I know.
I recently read on his journal, , that, because of their particular size and feel, he is in ongoing, perpetual need of a steady supply of a very specific edition of some old-school paperback books from like the goddamned 70s or something. You see, in addition to all the larger paintings he does, he has created a marvelous process in which he treats and seals these books in some mystical fashion unknown to plain ol’ trash like me, and once prepared, he uses them as compact canvases for what he calls The Blue Book Tiles. As I understand it, when he originally started working in this medium, he ingeniously employed ink from the humble ball point pen, but now uses a deep blue pigment that creates an image so intense it actually alters my breathing when I look at it. They are absolutely mesmerizing and I have long held the desire to possess one.
If any of you have read the American edition of Bee Lavender’s brilliant, critically-acclaimed memoir, Lessons in Taxidermy, (and as a quick side note, if you haven’t, you need to get that dead ass up right the fuck now and go do so. Go on. I’ll wait right here for you to get back.) you will recognize Gabriel’s very distinctive work from the front cover.
It was actually through a very generous introduction by Ms. Lavender that I was introduced to Gabriel in the first place. So, thank you for that, Miss Bee!
At any rate, one day I was thinking about Gabriel and his blue book tiles and decided, “Hey, I should procure a brace of those little bastard books and send them off to his eccentric ass! It would be one less thing he’d have to think about for awhile, and he could concentrate on whatever brilliant piece of art or upcoming gallery show or adorable baby he was focused on currently, without having to worry about gathering fucking art supplies. Hurray for giving some tiny peace of mind to someone you adore!”
And so, I found some and purchased them. Since he was visiting his awesome, rambling family in Colorado (my rapidly emerging Liston Family Envy is a journal entry all its own, believe you me) and my fatass just couldn’t wait to get them in the post, I sent them on to him there…along with a rather inspired packing material: several fistfuls (okay, a whole lotta fistfuls) of PEZ dispensers for all the cute babies lurking about (one of the benefits of my arrested development is that Crazy Auntie Muffy totally knows what the babies like!)
Well, sir, it made me happy as a fat clam to have done it — and that was that. In the larger scheme of things it was a small trifling, ’tis true, but something he needed…and that is what I live for: delivering up treats to those I love.
However, as I was to discover a few days later, that was not that, after all. My son and I stopped by the post office to retrieve my mail and in between all the zines and New Yorkers and impersonal poetry rejections from The Paris Review (tasteless, elitist bastards!)…there was a large-ish, puffy envelope with a very distinctive handwriting scrawled across the front. I immediately recognized it from all the charming handmade postcards sent to me by Gabriel on a fairly regular basis over the past several years. They always have one of his drawings on the front, and some chatty, amusing update about his life on the flipside. Despite the fact that I have quite a considerable stack of them accruing in a shoebox all their own, each one I receive never fails to thrill me anew. Gabriel is the sort of splendid correspondent they don’t really make much of anymore and I feel privileged to be on the receiving end of his musings, be they about his latest literary acquisition, the comings and goings of his adorable offspring, or just the productive, precarious, present life of a working artist.
So, I tore open one end of the envelope (being very careful, as I save everything he and everybody else sends me in its original, mortal form) and slowly pulled out what was inside — and as I realized what I was holding, I just stood there…and began to cry. My boy — at this point quite used to my copious tears at beer commercials, Russian literature, Sexton poems, and grass growing — was not alarmed, but rather, curious. It took me a full ten minutes before I could properly respond to his questions in complete, cohesive sentences.
In the envelope, I found this:
What left me speechless was not just the fact that I was holding — in my grubby, unworthy Sicilian mitts — one of Gabriel Liston’s infamous Blue Book Tiles…and that it was apparently intended for me (gulp!) — but it was, in fact, that the particular tile I was holding (which is just one, I am sure, of quite a numerous collection) was the one I had been greedily coveting. I just stood there, blinking away tears, trying to figure out how the HELL Gabriel knew which one I had been slavering over. Was he not only an amazingly gifted artist…but a motherfucking clairvoyant, as well?
After I got home, I cruised back through his journal and found that lo and behold, I had at one point left my drool all over it in a previous post of his. So, while he may not necessarily be The Great Listoni — psychic, rogue, and man about town — he certainly is thoughtful enough to have remembered that, as well as generous enough to have gifted it to me in the first place. So, thank you, sweet Gabriel, from the bottom of my heart. It shall occupy a place of great honor in my home for all time — and I shall think of you with great fondness and affection every single time I look at it.
However, with all this lofty talk of your art, please allow me to say that the one creation of yours that I am truly in love with and which far outshines all the others is this one. But then again, you already knew that:
Be still, my bewitched, besotted heart!
Happy Birthday, Gabriel! May all your wishes come true!
From
A message to and from friends of The Prids:
updated Tuesday 7/22
Our dear friends The Prids – David, Mistina, Joey and Maile – and two of their significant others – Kristin and Chris – were in a serious accident early Sunday evening while en route to Los Angeles on tour. A tire blew and they lost control of the van and it rolled several times. David was airlifted from the scene of the crash, he suffered a broken collar bone, broken ribs and has 6 staples in his head. Chris broke his arm in two places. Maile has a broken vertebra and toe and a severe cut with stitches on her knee. Joey broke ribs, Mistina suffered a concussion, and Kristin has a snapped joint in her collar bone.
As of late that night, everyone had been released from the hospital but David had to go back in the middle of the night and was released Monday afternoon. Maile is currently back in the emergency room. The rest are currently staying at a hotel in Fresno waiting to go home with their friends, Marshal and Kiisu, that drove down from Portland with a cooler full of vegan food donated by Food Fight (Portland).
A special paypal account has been set up to help out and donate directly to The Prids. They need help getting home and paying their hospital bills. If you can’t help out monetarily, please repost this info on your blogs, etc. They could also use lots of vegan food and comfy cushions/pillows/bedding for their long ride home to Portland. Thanks!
If you would like to help an awesome band with some much-needed financial help — getting home to Portland, replacing destroyed musical equipment, and paying undoubtedly outrageous and rapidly mounting medical bills — you can do so via paypal to donate@theprids.com.
Thank you!
So, because I am an OG Fresno hooker, I was contacted yesterday by both and for assistance in finding local lodging for those members not still hospitalized. I immediately shot out an email to some old friends of mine, Brian Kenney Fresno and Felix Muzquiz (we have all known each other since childhood), who are not only the coolest, most amazing people around, but who themselves spend a substantial portion of their year on tour, as well. In fact, they stay with us when they are down Los Angeles way for a show.
Well, being traveling musicians themselves, they were immediately down for opening their home to The Prids. And even though it turned out that the band had fortunately procured the funds for an extended stay at the hotel where they had already set up camp — thus meaning they did not have to pack up and move in their horribly injured states — I want to make sure and give a major shout out of thanks to both Brian and Felix for, quite literally without a moment’s hesitation, offering up both their hearts and their home to a group of fellow musicians in a bad situation. This is what it’s all about, kids.
As for me, I am so proud and enamored of my friends and their accomplishments, I can hardly contain myself. Brian is an amazingly gifted musician and showman, and Felix runs what is frequently lauded as the greatest public agricultural bonanza in the country, The Vineyard Farmer’s Market in Fresno. So, when Brian and Felix come to your town — and the way they so relentlessly tour, I assure you, they will come to your town! — do make sure and come out to see them. You will not only have the opportunity to take in a magnificent and hilarious show unlike anything you’ve ever seen, you will most likely make some new and extraordinary friends in the process. I love them both mightily and thank them for their kindness and generosity from the very bottom of my wicked, wicked heart.
or does Adam Sandler’s baby girl, Sadie…
look exactly like that Nick Jonas person that every bastard and their brother is talking about these days?
Ummm…that’d be DEAD-ON, my friend.
(Oh, and PS: If there is even a remote chance that Herr Sandler would be upset by my making this comparison, to that I say, “FUCK HIM; He’s a Republican.”)
One of the dolls on my friends list told me that some of her co-workers are whining and raising hell and saying these little baby booties are just “so wrong”, in addition to countless online message boards that echo their sentiments — and I would like to consult my facebook poppets for your humble opinion on the matter. Are we amused or mortified?
Ha! I find myself both amused and mortified — AT WHAT A BIG FUCKING DEAL EVERYBODY IS MAKING OVER THESE. They are puffy baby booties shaped like high heels, people — not poison-tipped blowdarts carrying a whole new, impervious to vaccine or antibiotics strain of the bubonic plague, for fuck’s sake. They are not even intended to be toddled upon — they are merely ornamental. I say, if you think these are hilarious and want to put them on your baby daughter (or son, even better!) for a huge belly laugh, then do it! And if the whole sexualization-of-the-young issue really eats at your milky white soul that much (because, make no mistake, those most outraged by these have just GOTTA BE WHITE PEOPLE), then shave her up a nice fade and put your girl in a teeny Steelers jersey and tighty-whities to really BUTCH her up before placing these booties upon her sweet little hocks. Your privileged, Protestant guilt will be mightily assuaged, I promise!
And since you asked, please allow me to state for the record that I think the whole, “I AM SO OFFENDED” horseshit in this country has gotten WAY out of control. Lemme tell you something, if you find this trifling little novelty offends your tender sensibilities that much, then I suspect you need to have your OUTRAGE GAUGE recalibrated, motherfucker. How about a month in Darfur for starters?
And while you’re there, why don’t you ask some of those mothers helplessly watching their children suffer and die just how offended they are by your pathetic, bullshit, First World, politically correct issues regarding a pair of cloth baby booties with an extra inch of fabric and stuffing attached to the underside.
Get back to me with your answer. I’ll be right here waiting — angrily strutting back and forth in my extra-large, custom-made, leopard-skin, stuffed cha-cha heels and my piss-poor attitude.
I’m a shitkicker and a shrew. Anybody got a cigarette?
I ask you — what on earth could possibly be better than a “circus punk marching band”?
Nothing, that’s what.
Band Geeks…you may now officially take your place at the head of the table of American culture — where you have always belonged, for chrissake.
Ladies and gentlemen, get your fatasses up and ready to writhe, rhumba, and rotate.
I give you: Mucca Pazza
Earlier today, I left a comment in response to a friend’s post about the recent birth and rather unique naming of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s twins: Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.
It went a little something like this:
“Knox was on my shortlist for our son, who is now 14. I heard it used in Dead Poets Society (Knox Overstreet was the name of one of the boys) and immediately fell in love. All I can say is THANK GOD I didn’t use it, because if I had, I would be beside myself with FURY right about now. Just think of all the small-minded, unimaginative, lemming morons who will now be bestowing it upon their sons. UGH.”
To which my delightful friend responded:
“Hah! You made a lucky break. Out of curiosity, what name won out over Knox?”
To which I answered:
“Well, in the end, as far as my husband and I were concerned, there was only ONE name that would possibly do. We named him after our favorite writer. The best part is, as it turns out, our son plans on being a sports writer and commentator — so his name turned out to be not only a gift, but an absolute infusion of the traits that would eventually shape the person he would become.”
For the record, our son could not be any prouder of his name or the extraordinary writer from whence it originated; he is now his biggest fan.
muffy bolding 
