muffy bolding

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was
the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man. Look here. Look, look, down here,” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him
in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie
of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit. Are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye.
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And abide the end.”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?'”

— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol: The Second of the Three Spirits

As I sit here in full kabuki make-up, an orange jailhouse jumpsuit, and my own urine, watching Mitt Romney’s campaign surrender speech — in which he is essentially ceding the Republican nomination to John McCain — I am struck by how very predictable and frightening these neo-con pricks truly are. So far, right on schedule, he’s trotted out all the old Republican favorites for demonization: welfare mothers, single mothers, unions, fags, larsbins, Latinos, African-Americans, godless heathens, abortion-craving whores, violent video game-playing pre-teen scalliwags, and all the unpatriotic traitors among us who don’t support this despicable, illegal war. Hell, even the freakin’ French are thrown under the wheels of the bus driven by a guy who is probably only a single goddamned generation out of the cultural and religious practice of buying, selling, trading, and breeding pre-teen females like they were cattle. His overriding message? The current “culture of dependency” is destroying this once-great nation of ours. You hear that, all you sinful, single, welfare mamas out there shoveling waxy government cheese into the gaping maws of little Ignorance and Want?

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

Of course, the problem couldn’t have anything to do with all of the hypocritical bastards who claim to be all about Strong Christian Values and the absolute condemnation of The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name — and then get caught in their wife’s lacy pink t-back thongs rubbin’ feet and bumpin’ nuts in men’s airport restrooms in the Midwest or, better yet, gettin’ nailed (bareback, no doubt) in the sanctimonious keester by some greasy, tweaking 22 year old hustler named Jared they picked up on Craig’s List, now could it?

How they demand that abortion be made illegal in this country by outlawing a woman’s profoundly fundamental right to control her own body and reproductive destiny — and then do NOT A GOTTDAMNED THING to help take care of all the unplanned babies that have already arrived — like perhaps provide them with quality, affordable, available healthcare. Oh, gosh, but so many of them are that awful brown color.

How they just LOVE sending other people’s sons and daughters directly into harm’s way in a counterfeit, profit-driven war that never should’ve happened in the first fucking place — particularly if those sons and daughters have said awful brown skin, no economic prospects for the future, and last names like Washington, Jackson, Lopez, and Garcia — while their own precious offspring (who are also every bit as fit and eligible to serve as those goddamned Bush twins, I might add) safely toil away earning their Gentleman’s C’s at places like Yale and Harvard and meet for tea every Thursday night in the sacred bowels of Skull and Bones to plot out how they are going to carve this fucking planet up a little smaller amongst themselves and the murdering, racist, imperialistic, dynastic families from which they hail.

People of good conscience in this country need to pull the flags outta their asses and open their gottdamned eyes to the rape, pillage, abuse, and exploitation of our nation that has been perpetrated by the unparalleled mastermind criminals who currently steer this rapidly sinking garbage scow we call home. I have had it. These neo-cons and all of their vast legions of sick, twisted, pasty, inbred, repressed Prayer Warriors can all suck my left one. Tend your own fucking gardens and stay out of my uterus and out of my bedroom, you latent, self-righteous, misguided cocksuckers.

Look, kids…go to church. Go to hell. Go to Fire Island and strut back and forth on the beach in mesh chonies and cha cha heels with sparklers shooting out your ass, I don’t really give a shit. Just go. I wish you into the cornfield. I want my country back. Hypocritically pious pricks like you are completely insane and off-track — and even worse than that? You can’t fuck and you never could. Trust me — Dick Cheney cannot fuck…and that’s a deal-breaker in my book. Fuck off.

Though on a more conciliatory note, in closing I must say that after watching Mittie’s speech in its entirety, it was comforting to find that despite how much I loathe him and his kind…we can at least agree on ONE very important issue.

Oh, and trust me — IT REALLY, REALLY DO:

Romney Pulls Out

Try as I might, I don’t think I will ever be able to adequately communicate the peace and strength that I draw from these 27 words — but I shall definitely spend the rest of my life making the attempt. For me, this is The Answer to The Great Question — and it’s just so fucking simple.

Of course it is; it would be, wouldn’t it?

My definitive life mantra…from a surprising source — some soft and flowery Lifetime Intimate Portrait show that I would never, ever watch and just happened to stumble upon whilst dancing channels. That’s how my greatest lessons and revelations always appear — from the corner of my cold, cold eye and when I least expect them:

“I get it now; I didn’t get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible…and enjoying everything in between.”

— — Mia Farrow

My BFF, Satania, took the train down and stayed with us over the three day MLK, Jr. weekend — and for several weeks prior to her grand and glorious arrival, I was verily trembling with excitement! How can you not adore someone who gave you so many of the things that made you who you are today — like Elvis Costello, Bucky Fuller, and Bill Burroughs — and fail to verily drip with quivering anticipation regarding their impending arrival? Someone who is always there for you — even when you act the fool and the no-talent meathook? Someone who never judges you and yet still gives the bestest advice on every aspect of life? Someone who will play Ethel to your Lucy every time — and not question you nor hesitate for even a moment when you turn to her and breathlessly exclaim, “Okay, we got just five minutes to stuff all this cheese into a tuba before boarding our transatlantic flight for the states. Are you with me?” Someone who will selflessly lift her shirt and show her titties to your husband so he can finally see what you’ve been talking about all this time when you say, “They may not be as perky as they were when we were 18, but goddamnit, she’s got good nipple placement, doesn’t she”?

Next to Gregory, Satania is by far the most intelligent person I know. Lemme tell you, I consider myself to be no slouch in the smarts department, but compared to these two, I am a moron of biblical proportions. Both are self-taught, early, ol’ school programmers, and when they get going on their technical and scientific stuff, all I can do is just sit there in my prison jellies, singing old Bay City Rollers songs and pickin’ chiggers from deep within my girlish bouffant. I suck. But most important of all, like my husband, she is endlessly interesting. For me, that is a non-negotiable character trait. If you don’t possess it, I can certainly like you — but I can never, ever adore you.

Satania I adore.

Two karaoke hookers, circa the Lampoon era; in smoother, skinnier, smokier, perkier, less spider-veined times, Tokyo Garden, Fresno

Like me, she was born into a working class, blue-collar family and grew up in The San Joaquin Valley. When we met, I immediately recognized that she so clearly belonged to what Thomas Jefferson called, “The Natural Aristocracy”, a wise and gracious nod to the kind of character, virtue, and awareness that no amount of money can buy you…the kind you are born with, not to. Within five minutes of our first meeting as waitresses at Bob’s Big Boy in Fresno, we both understood we would be inseparable forever. She was standing by the pie case minding her own bidness when I blew past her with a wry smile and a handful of steak knives, and said, “Step aside, sister, or I’ll shank your ass.” We were immediately like peas and carrots — and all these years later, we remain so. We have five kids, four husbands, three ovaries, and over 20 years between us; we are The Neverending Story.

Unlike me, however, she is naturally chic and stylish — in that amazing, effortless, French sort of way. We are both just over 5 feet tall, but she has one of those lovely, feminine, pear-shaped sort of bodies that clothes just seem to fit. I, on the other hand, look like a linebacker for the Colts — albeit a diminutive linebacker for the Colts who is wearing a Dorothy Parker wig and crimson lipstick; her body is mine flipped upside down. And her hair? Bitch has got what I call a $500 head of hair; brown and lustrous and perfectly curly — the perfect hair for a bob (which, of course, she claims mine is, but fuck all that.) So, looking like she does, she could very well be a contemptuous, catty bitch — but the wondrous part is, she isn’t. She’s butch like I am — what I call a “Third Sex” woman…and she is every bit as generous with her style tips and wisdom as she is with everything else in her life. We have shared cigarettes, toothbrushes, literature, men, money, clothing, secrets, and bathwater. She is endlessly decent, endlessly ethical, endlessly loving — and I love her endlessly. She is a wonder.

A few weeks ago, I sent her a rather austere email containing simply the following two pictures that I believe very clearly illustrate where we’re headed a few decades down the line. I think this pretty much says it all:

Satania at 60:

Muffy at 60:

Two words:

DEAD. ON.

At any rate, after several fun-filled days of lying around, obsessively watching all the History Channel shows I had TIVOed in anticipation of her arrival (Cathar Trail documentaries coming out our buttholes? You betcha! Hurray!), talking in great meticulous detail about every little thing, working on a project we are writing together, and drinking copious amounts of our favorite hot tea (Earl Grey REPRESENT), on Sunday morning we decided to actually get dressed and head out to the awesome Melrose Trading Post Flea Market at Fairfax High with Gregory, and then over to Canter’s for some serious Jew Food. Gregory’s pipples sure know how to chow! Yummy!

When we got there, we were positively famished from scouring all the hipster bins at Fairfax High. Ah! Luckily for us, the menu is vast and astonishing and our tummies were all a-flutter with gastric juices!

The ceiling at Canter’s is like this ancient, back-lit, plastic tile amalgamation of an idealized East Coast Autumn day — crisp, fiery orange leaves with a breathtaking blue sky behind them. Get thee to New England in the Fall, goddamnit!

And it’s one of those ol’ school delis that presents you with a plate of complimentary dill pickles and provides phone jacks at every table. They are ensconced behind the condiments, which, pre-cell phone era, served to accommodate all those Hebey VIP types — and as anyone who knows me knows, I have always wanted to be a Hebey VIP…which explains why I married one!

We ordered Matzoh Ball soup (the best in the city!) and Reuben sammiches (With corned beef, of course. Pastrami reminds me too much of my mother’s Filipina cooter. Don’t ask.) and proceeded to eat like savages. In between my ridiculous tearing up every five over the sweet sweet sweet little old Jewish lady eating soup across the aisle from us, all I could do was gaze over the pickles and bagels, smile, and pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. After all, outside of one’s babies, how often is it that you get to spend an entire day with the two people you love most of all in the whole wide world?

Come back, Satania! We love you!

“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the “good life”, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway

“I loathe psychology as one of the major faults of our civilization nowadays. There’s something not right about this amount of introspection. I can only give you a metaphor: When you move into an apartment, you cannot start to illuminate every last corner with neon light. If there are no dark corners or hidden niches, your house becomes uninhabitable. Human beings who are trying to self-reflect and explore their innermost being to the last corner become uninhabitable people.”

— Werner Herzog

Reason #4,652 that I love my husband:

Not only will he cheerfully accompany me to major department stores in search of leopard print scarves and crimson lipstick — he will amuse me (after much begging, pleading, and desperate promises of a little squat-hop-in-the-asparagus-patch on my part, of course) by donning stupid fucking trendy ironic bullshit porkpie hats generally worn by annoying, 23 year old Silver Lake hipster boys who don’t realize just how ridiculous they look wearing them.

Me and my sister, Mo. She is a club lady. I am a hooker.

1.What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?

Lost an ovary and lost a sister.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t really do the whole resolution thing, but I do try to live deeply and fully in every moment and feel extremely confident that, for the most part, I am successful in that endeavor. In fact, whenever I lament the fact that, because of my history as a child bride and mother, I never really got to participate in all the fun drug experimentation that everyone else got to experience, Gregory always says, “Honey…you are one of the few people I know who is so profoundly present that you don’t require mind-altering substances to see what’s beyond the veil; you are already there.”

Thank you, baby. I suppose this means that that peyote and Slim Fast cocktail is completely out of the question?

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Wow. Gosh. For perhaps the first time in my entire adult life — and despite having legions of sisters of childbearing age — I think I can safely say no. How odd.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My little sister and my beloved, belly laughing granny.

5. What countries did you visit?

Oddly enough, I did not leave the country this year. That’s a goddamned outrage.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

An effortless body.

7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

February 25th. It was the day they found my sister’s body.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Writing, writing, writing every day, no matter fucking what.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not doing more to save my little sister’s life; I shall live with that forever.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?

Well, aside from possibly looking down the barrel at ovarian cancer and coming out the other side less one ovary and one toomer l’orange, just the usual chronic and ongoing assortment of glandular and auto-immune disease horseshit. Yawn.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Wes Anderson’s shooting script for The Royal Tenenbaums.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My younger brother, for reasons I shall trumpet: the current mastery of his addiction. You go, bro.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

My older brother, for reasons I shall not trumpet; the way he conducts himself and his life is beyond undignified.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Books, red lipstick, sushi, teenagers, and hospital bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Hands down: My career. Recently, I was absolutely floored to be breathlessly referred to as a “walking, talking fucking goldmine” by someone with a unique and longtime overview of this industry. Yeah, an ol’ hooker like me. Can you even believe? Ah, perchance to dream! Whose ass do I gotta kiss? Oh, to have the power to write/produce/direct/act in awesome projects of my choice and my making. I just wanna travel, write, act, have fun, and get work for all my friends, goddamnit!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?

“Cherry Bomb” by Spoon. It is so totally my new groove, I cannot even begin to tell you.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? I am always appallingly happy.
ii. thinner or fatter? I think I am hauling around about the same amount of fatness I was this time last year. Large and In Charge, goddamnit –- that’s me. But, I am working on it!
iii. richer or poorer? Define your terms. My lights are on, the rent is paid, my babies eat like Trader Joe’s kings, I am loved and cherished by the most amazing man in the world, my family makes me belly laugh until I can scarcely breathe on a daily basis, and I am able to buy the latest Ted Hughes tome if I want it. I am alive. In other words, compared to where I come from and where I’ve been, I live a motherfucking dream life.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

No question: travel.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Mourning the dead.

20. How did you spend New Year’s?

At home with sweet Gregory and a brace of adorable 13 year old dudes who rang in the New Year with Guitar Hero, The Dead Kennedys, homemade pizza, and the circle of true and devoted friends they all love most in the world.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?

Oh, please, I fall in love a thousand times a day. Currently, I am in love with this cup of coffee and the smell of my husband’s pillow.

23. How many one-night stands?

Oh, go fuck yourself.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Hands down: Californication. I saw just five minutes of it at a friend’s house before I immediately got my fatass on the horn with Showtime to subscribe. Unfuckingbelievably good.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I am definitely not a hater. Ultimately, I just don’t give away my power nor my energy to those I don’t like; if I don’t like you, you simply do not exist for me.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Spoon.

28. What did you want and get?

My life back.

29. What did you want and not get?

My sister’s life back.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Hands down: Juno.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Fuck off, lady.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Glowing health; I’ll get there.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

Trying to be more of a grown-up lady; i.e., less thrashed 20 year old green Chucks, more leopard print scarves and red lipstick. I am working a fabulous fat French whore look. LOVE IT.

34. What kept you sane?

I kept myself sane. In fact, according to those who know me well, I am the sanest motherfucker you will ever meet.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Ricky Gervais. Oh, and David Duchovny in Californication; he can put it anywhere he wants to, my friend.

37. Who did you miss most?

Jules.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

My first husband’s new girl, Jeri: Positively darling, darling, darling! Welcome to the circle, honeypie. The babies love you and Gregory and I love you.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:

”I get it now, I get it; I didn’t get it then. That life is about losing and about doing it as gracefully as possible…and enjoying everything in between.”
— Mia Farrow

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Into The West

Lay down,
your sweet and weary head.
Night is falling.
You have come to journey’s end.

And all will turn,
to silver glass.
A light on the water.
Grey ships pass
Into the West.

— Annie Lennox

The only thing that could possibly make me love this video anymore than I do is if my darling niece and nephew were in it.

Oh.

They are.

Hipster 101

Buttons strung across your chest on the strap of your fabric DIY bag? Check.
Square, black Geek Chic spectacles? Check.
Skinny leg jeans and deck shoes? Check.
Raggedy Anne Red hair dye? Check.
Worn out Converse? Check.
Exposed chest on the girls? Check.
White belt? Check.
Disordered hairstyle? Check.
Conditioned facial hair? Check.
Self drawn tattoos? Check.
Vintage shoes? Check.
Elvis glasses? Check.
Conceited head tilt? Check.

“Williamsburg”
Armor for Sleep

Hold your own jacket please
I’m not in the mood
Millions of trains under the ground
This city was the blueprint for hell

You will all die…

Fuck Williamsburg.

Silver Lake represent.

What I love the most about this is not the fact that this pre-school child looks exactly like said deceased actor and comedian — even though she does. In fact, she looks so much like him that I sincerely hope someone sends a copy of this picture to dead comedian’s parents — so that they can see what the grandchildren they were cheated out of knowing would’ve looked like. Goddamnit, she’s so dead-on it’s eerie.

The best part is that the photo of her, and the proud, beaming woman I assume is her adoring mother, clearly says, “proof” across the front of it…meaning that it was probably discovered by some 23 year old college student with a good eye and even better sense of humor working part time at some photography studio somewhere in the Midwest, who immediately recognized its genius, and unbeknownst to his/her employer or the smiling subjects therein, scanned it and sent it out over the interwebs — a genie unleashed from its bottle, never to be contained again.

With the way this virtual ephemera makes its way around the world with such lightning speed, I wonder just how long it will take before someone who knows this girl and her family receives the photo in a belly laughing email and forwards it to her mother with the subject line: “Ummm…I don’t really know how to tell you this, Barb…”

Ladies and gentlemen…I give you:

The Reincarnation of Chris Farley

Happy Halloween!