New Fun Thing: The FADER's Annual Icon Issue, featuring Siouxsie Sioux

Sadly, I think Siouxsie Sioux may have reached that point in her career where she's celebrated more for what she did than what she does. This has probably been obvious to everyone but me for a good ten years at least but a fan's gotta hold out hope that his fairy godmother—the one who got him through his adolescence with lullabies like "Bring Me the Head of the Preacher Man" and "Rawhead and Bloodybones"—will continue to produce endless slabs of manna for him to feed upon and force his friends to stick in their ears. And, really, she's been churning out the goods for quite a while. After the Banshees broke up in 1996 she put out two more albums with her husband, the drummer Budgie, as The Creatures, and collaborated with Basement Jaxx on a song. Then, after divorcing, she did a great solo album two years ago (her 50th year on the planet) that went virtually ignored in this dumb country. But she's been awfully quite lately. What's a gaywad to do?

I'm REALLY hoping she's planning her next project right now, but it's very possible that I'm staring down the lonely path of a Siouxsie-less future. This is terrible, obviously. This woman could release a recording of herself washing dishes and talking to her cats and I'd buy it. (Why doesn't she just do that?) Thankfully, after stumbling out of a work function the other night where they served me too much booze, I walked past a magazine shop with the latest issue of FADER in the window featuring my #1 lady, which gathers together a few great images of her that I've never seen. It also assembles a bunch of quotes from young musicians giving props to a woman who is a million and 7/8 times cooler than they are.

It also connects the musical dots, via a handy scribbled graph, between Sioux and the other icon the magazine focuses on, dancehall legend Shabba Ranks, which is interesting! Also, it's obnoxious, because Shabba Ranks is one of those Jamaican musicians that hates the gays so much he has to write lyrics about how much he hates them. (Siouxsie loves the gays and would probably have a few choice words for Mr. Ranks should she ever stop kicking him in the face with her gay-ass Catwoman boots. [This is what she does to him in my dreams.])

Come back, Siouxsie! I need at least two more solo albums before you turn 60.

Idaho News Story Frighteningly Confirms the Fears We All Secretly Have about Our Cats

They want to scratch us all up. Take a break. And then scratch us all up again.

Thankfully, my cat Stella would never do this to me unless she was really hungry or bored, bless her.

Sean Hayes is Unpleasant

Sean Hayes is one of television history's biggest gaywads, and this is just a fact. He played Jack on Will and Grace for many years and was pretty funny usually many times often. Sometimes annoying but mostly funny, like most gays we all know and are. But there was always something weird about how he wasn't openly gay, right? I'm right, right? Weird, correct?

He recently officially came out in an interview in the Advocate, which apparently is still published. The interview was billed as "the interview you've waited 12 years to read." Um, not really, but ok.

Here's the thing: Sean Hayes has had basically two prominent acting roles: his first one was in a gay movie (they're called gayvies) called Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss and the second one was Jack in Will and Grace. It would seem that the whole "being gay in public" thing would be a resolved issue. Yet he's always been cagey about his gayness and why is that?!

He claims he's was never "in" and that he is what he is and all that. But he never gave interviews to the gay press. Which is fine, I guess. The gay press is annoying, and not every gay man has to be a poster boy, God knows. Moreover and additionally, he clearly kept mum because he didn't want to ruin his chances of landing straight roles, which is a little hilarious, but just a little, so stop laughing! But come on. Some things are as plain as the gay nose on your face. Accept it and move on.

In a way I feel for him. But I just think Sean Hayes is weird. Something about this whole johnny-coming out-lately thing seems so anachronistic, like it would have been news in the 90s, but now it's like, "yeah, and where's the sex tape, Nancy?" And he comes out in advance of his debut appearance as a straight character on Broadway. That's verging on sketch comedy territory.

And did you listen to his interview with Terry Gross? Uncomfortable. She asked him why now, why come out in the Advocate interview now, and he said "So we wouldn't have to talk about it." Which obviously worked.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Joan Rivers

Sometimes when I'm walking down 23rd Street in search of snacks after work I see stars. Real big stars. Once I saw Uma Thurman getting out of an Escalade to attend the premier of her new movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema. (Uma really needs Quentin Tarrantino back in her life.)

Well, the Tribeca Film Festival is alive and writhing at the Chelsea, and because I'm really just a starf*cker at heart, I've been gawking and gaping over the past few days to see whom I might seduce. Who will it be today? Brad Pitt? Richard from Lost? The lead singer of A-ha?

Oh look, Joan Rivers.

Anyone else? No? Just Joan Rivers? You sure?

[eye roll, sigh]

Gimme the damn camera phone.

Laydeez I Love: Paula Poundstone

Paula Poundstone is a national treasure. She dressed like a blogger decades before there were bloggers! One of the reasons I was so sad that my company changed health insurances last year was because the endocrinologist I wouldn't be able to go to anymore looked exactly like her. You don't find many doctors like that. (Plus she never asked me to keep a blood sugar diary.)

As you know, Paula is periodically on the NPR show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and last Saturday she was on. She proved her worth to the universe during the "Not My Job" segment, during which she had the following exchange with Buster Olney, an ESPN Magazine sports journalist and baseball obsessive:

Paula: Can I ask you a question? Is there a point at which you've said everything that can be said about baseball?

Buster: Absolutely not! There's a new game, a new story every day!

Paula: (not even trying to sound convinced) Yeah.

Listen to it. The exchange starts around the four-minute mark:



Now, before all y'all start calling me a gaywad for wanting to say "amen" to her question, let me ask you: how many of YOU hit a home run in Little League, hmmm? Cause I did, so hush up.

Also be assured I would ask the same type of question--substituting the word clothes for baseball--if I were to interview Tim Gunn from Project Runway.

Just Doing What Andrew Sullivan Tells Me To

So have you slobs heard all about the South Park dust-up? They recently did a two-part special for their 200th (and 201st) episode that featured all of the celebrities and sacred cows they've pissed on since their first season (Tom Cruise, Kanye, Scientology, Jesus, etc.) and they cheekily decided to go there and feature the prophet Mohammed, Jesus' cousin, which you're not supposed to do under any circumstances because he is shy. (Also because you will join an elite group of folks, such as Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh and author Salman Rushdie, who have had fatwas issued against them and have either been killed or had to go into hiding.)

Remember a few years ago when that Danish newspaper printed that cartoon featuring Mohammed (am I even allowed to type that?) with a bomb for a turban? Yeah, the Muslim extremists kinda went nuts over that.

Anyway, so South Park went there and made a cartoon (a fucking cartoon) featuring M*hammed and were predictably (but obliquely) threatened by a NYC-based Muslim group who suggested that Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park creators, would likely go the same way as Theo Van Gogh if they aired it. The boys still did what they wanted to do, even disguising the prophet in such get-ups as a bear suit, a U-Haul delivery guy, and Santa Clause, but Comedy Central caved and censored any actual image of the prophet and bleeped out any mention of his name.

Now, interestingly, before 9/11 South Park did an episode in which they featured all of the mascots of the world's most popular religions, and M*hammed was featured. That's the video above. There was no brouhaha at the time. But as you know 9/11 changed everything. (I myself haven't used my M*hammed dildo even once since.)

I'm putting this video here because I'm a blind follow of blogger Andrew Sullivan, who is friends with Parker and Stone and a big fan of the show (and because I have a deep and abiding admiration for Matt and Trey!). Andrew is my papa bear, my baby daddy, and my pool boy, so whenever he asks me to do something easy and painless, I'll do it. From his site this morning:

Here's a suggestion for the free speech blogosphere. The Youtube above, showing the 2001 episode now also taken down from the South Park Studios site, may not last very long. Embed it in your blog this morning. We need to show real solidarity with Matt and Trey. God knows Comedy Central isn't (with the grand exception of Jon Stewart, peace be upon him).

If the angry Muslims come after me, Andrew, you're going to have to take care of my cat.

Jukebox: Glee

Jimmy and I haven't started watching Glee yet (our Netflix discs are on their way), but the above snippet almost lives up to the hype. This video is hilarious, what with it's repurposing of a Madonna classic to sex up a few cheap love scenes. But the thing that makes it REALLY funny is the suggestion that dudes that sing Madonna so enthusiastically, harmonically, and with vibrato, want to have sex with a lady. THIS DOESN'T EVER HAPPEN! (Ladies, you know it's true, come ON.)

Next up: Ricky Martin guest stars and bones Jane Lynch to the strains of "I Will Survive."

Booh, Chachi is a Wingnut :(

Wow. How have I missed all this craziness? Scott Baio has lost his damn mind. Jezebel has a rundown of the once-great Scott Baio's hilarious and sad Internet meltdown. Baio and his wife are both hideous web monsters, yikes! They're generating so many Internet memes so fast our computers are all about to explode and shut down Iceland's airspace.

Y'all, he wasn't like this when he was with me in my dreams in the 80s. What happened? Has he always been a smug hateful asshole or did those traits develop over time, like when his career ended? (Did I type that?) And I always like to think that you can count on the woman in a man's life to set him right, but Scott Baio's wife is just as bad. She has invented and used the insult SHITASS to describe a person, for God's sake. Gross.



How can the man that played Bob Loblaw on Arrested Development be this terrible?

The answer is socialism.

UPDATE: This is worse than I thought. Jimmy's new term of endearment for me is "far left lesbian shitass."

Hawt Karaoke Picz

Back on Wednesday night, when most real ‘Mercans were hard at work on their tea party costumes for the Tax Day protest and feverishly looking up words like obamanation and fashist in the dictionary so they don’t get called out by the librul media for bad spelling when they descend upon the nation’s capital to be retarded, my friends Sarah, Roth, and I were at the Matchless bar in Greenpoint trying to figure out the best way to help Obama destroy America. Our consensus: karaoke singing!

So above you have Roth wrapping her stealthy pipes around “I Can’t Tell You Why” by . . . who is that by again, Roth? Some bearded ‘70s fucker, no? (Answer: several ‘70s bearded fuckers, the Eagles! I’m kind of disappointed it wasn’t Loggins and Messina.)

Next up was me, doing my famous rendition of Heart’s “Alone.” See how I’m pantomiming the lyrics “I wonder where you are tonight/no answer on the telephone”? It’s called art. (For more on my feelings about this song, visit here.)



And lastly but certainly not leastly, here is Sarah singing Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” which she dedicated to Jesus and Imelda Marcos.

Holy Shit Natalie from Facts of Life is in a Gay-Themed Movie!!

Dearest readers, everyone knows that American gay movies generally suck balls. It's just a fact. It's very strange, because the Mos are all OVER Hollywood making straight movies, but once it comes to making gay movies they make complete and utter shite. Why is that?

Yes, there are exceptions. Sure, in the history of American gay cinema, there have been movies that have not made me want to throw up all over my dildo: Milk, Torch Song Trilogy, Parting Glances, Longtime Companion, Jeffrey, Hedwig, The Boys in the Band, My Own Private Idaho. (Brokeback Mountain, as good as it was, doesn't count because even the dude that did makeup on that movie was straight.) But In and Out? Another Gay Movie? Trick? Shortbus? Adam and Steve? The Broken Hearts Club? These movies are hideous. (Sorry, Jack, Broken Hearts Club is the SUCK. But I love that you like it!)

In the terrible 90s I once rented a movie from the local Blockbuster called Lie Down with the Dogs and just about lost my eyesight from all the eyerolling I was forced to do. God, that movie was terrible.

ANYWAY. American gay movies by American gays are fucking weak. In general. (Unless they aren't, miraculously.) Which brings us to OH MY GOD NATALIE GREEN IS IN A GAY MOVIE I'M TOTALLY GONNA SEE IT WHO CARES IF IT SUX LOL OMG OMG!! The preview above already includes a few soon-to-be-classic quotes. ("I'm the oldest living fag hag." "I'm waiting behind the shrub." "What have you manifested?" "FUPA.") It's quite possible this is a DVD I will buy. Y'all.

For real, this movie looks kinda smart and sweet. I hope it relaunches Mindy Cohn's career, because George Clooney is NOT the only Facts of Life alumnus who deserves recognition. She's been gone too long and needs to do a cabaret show or some shit where she just sits on a stool and reads a series of Natalie's one-liners. ("From now on it's goodbye Natalie, hello Hotlips!")

In honor of the forthcoming release of this movie, which is apparently called Violet Tendencies, you should join me in watching my favorite ever episode of Facts, "Come Back to the Truck Stop, Natalie Green, Natalie Green" below.

The Bad Diabetic. Today: Cheese Straws and Hershey Bar Pie!

Folks, you know when you're hooked up to a bunch of wires at a sleep clinic on a Friday night and there's only one channel available on your room's teevee and that channel is Oxygen and they're playing Steel Magnolias on a loop all night? Heaven, am I right?!

Anyway, it was during the wedding reception scene when Dolly Parton is talking to Olympia Dukakis about an old woman shakin' it tragically on the dance floor that I had a brilliant idea. The ladies were having this interchange:

Dolly: Well, I haven't left the house without lycra on these thighs since I was 14.
Olympia: You were raised right.

It was at that very moment that I thought: I wanna make cheese straws tomorrow!

Now, I worked at a bakery in north Raleigh when I was 16 called The Coterie that had the best dang cheese straws I've ever put in my mouth--and I've put a LOT of cheese straws in my mouth. I don't know what it was about them and I never was able to get a gander at the recipe we used, but if time machines existed the very first thing I would do would be to troll on down Leadmine Road to Greystone Village and get a cheese straw specimen so I could recreate them in the here and now.

I've tried to make them before and have had a small degree of success. The last batch I made were more like small cheese scones, but they were ok. But this time I really wanted to go for it. Make 'em real cheesy and biscuit-like. I searched for good recipes on the internet and couldn't find anything decent and then I thought, hey, I have Amy Sedaris's cookbook. Surely she'll have something retarded in there.

Sure enough, she has a cheese puff recipe. But it called for swiss cheese, which is lame. I wanted to use sharp cheddar. So I made some adjustments to the recipe and ended up with the most succulent, mouthwatering, and buttery batch of cheese biscuit thingies I've had since the Coterie days. They still weren't up to the Coterie's standards, but they were a close second or fourth. Hey, here they are:



Don't you just wanna eat 'em?

While I was at the store buying the cheese I decided, hell, why not go ahead and make a pie? So I decided to make another one of my famous Hershey Bar Pies, which are so easy to make and which are better than they sound, so shut up with your dismissive judgments. You just mix two giant melted Hershey bars with a thing of Cool Whip in a bowl, add some nuts or something, pour it into a pie crust (make sure you cook the pie crust, dummy), and then put it in the freezer. When the pie has set, top it with some more Cool Whip and then maybe some chopped nuts and/or crumbled Heath Bar or Peanut Butter Cups or some shit. Then have a photo shoot:






Don't forget a close-up with a slice cut out so you can see the delicious gooey insides.



Then check your blood sugar, have your insulin pen ready, and maybe even plan a bike ride for later. Those blood sugar levels aren't gonna come down to acceptable levels by themselves!

Creepy Chinese Propaganda Poster of the Day

Yikes, y'all, this poster is the stuff of nightmares. Where did I get this godawful thing again? I think on the New Republic site, which obviously makes the New Republic an accomplice to terror and they should be waterboarded by the Tea Party Patriots 183 times.

Trying to determine what is most creepy about this poster is a challenge, certainly. Is it the fact that the mom and dad in the picture both look about 12 years old? Is it that they also look like Stepford Muppets? Could it be because the little baby seems to be casting a spell that he can only conjure by touching his parents' downy cheeks at the same time and saying "Chairman Mao" backwards three times? Could be. Or perhaps it's all of that plus the fact that THERE IS A TERRIFYING DEMON-EYED PANDA ON THE BABY'S OVERALLS THAT WILL LIKELY EAT YOUR FACE OFF AND SHIT IT DOWN YOUR THROAT AS SOON AS YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES TONIGHT? Maybe?

I'm sitting here wracking my brain trying to think of a way that this image could be any more distressing and spooky. Is it humanly possible? I can't think of anyth— wait a minute...



There we go.

Sleep tight!

Congratulate Me: I've Got Sleep Apnea

Some of you may remember that I recently underwent a sleep study to determine whether or not I (a) have sleep apnea, (b) am just a big god-awful snore monster because God hates me or (c) Both of these things. The answer is either A or C because I have officially been diagnosed with the most beloved sleeping disorder among 15 to 94 year olds, yay.

Having this disorder means that it's likely that I've never had a decent night's sleep ever, which makes me wonder what I could have accomplished in my life by this point if I didn't have a bad habit of stopping breathing while sleeping. Could I be a successful owner of a bait and tackle shop? Could I be a hot male gymnast? Could I be a sharply dressed black man? We'll never know the definitive answers to these questions, which is sad.

Sleep apnea is usually treated by something called a CPAP machine, which involves the sleeper sleeping with a mask over his face and being force-fed a prescribed flow of air throughout the night so that the sleeper does not stop breathing. (John Hurt was attacked by one of these masks in the 1979 movie Alien, picture above.) So tonight I have to revisit the sleep clinic and test-drive one of these masks.

Will I have my first ever good night's sleep? Will the mask implant an alien baby egg inside my stomach? The answer to both questions is maybe.

Shootin' It, in Which Tim and Jimmy Discuss the Issues of Our Times. Today's Topic: The White Stripes' Jack White's Wife's New Music Video

Tim: Oh Lord, get ready for a pose-a-thon. This one's a model.
Jimmy: (silent judging)
Tim: (loud clearing of throat)
Jimmy: Hmm.
Tim: (barely audible removal of eye junk)

[ONE MINUTE LATER]

Jimmy: I kind of like this song.
Tim: Me too.
Jimmy: Too bad about the hair.
Tim: Right?
Jimmy: She shouldn't do that.
Tim: You're just jealous because she HAS hair.
Jimmy: If I had hair I would never do that.
Tim: Even if Jack White made you? For rock 'n roll?
Jimmy: I'd shave my head again.
Tim: Bangs are dangerous.

RIP: The Rockford, Raleigh, NC

Holy shit, y'all. My favorite hometown restaurant/bar/bacon dispensary The Rockford is closed! WTF, Michael D'Amelio? Where are people gonna go to be denied ketchup now, huh?

This is a sad day for lovers of the Pacific Tuna Melt and Prosciutto Chicken Melt worldwide. And for lovers of those lovers.

:(

Drug-Addled Pennywise the Clown Now Stumbling Through Germany

As you may remember, Pennywise the child-eating clown was recently seen in Pakistan being horrific and terrible. Well, he's obviously finished his tour of South Asia for the time being and is now bounding through the lands of the former Holy Roman Empire. He's drunk, high, hopped up on quaaludes, and saddled with a ferocious case of the munchies, so achtung, kinder!!

New Fun Thing FAIL: Michelle Bachman Birthday Card

So yesterday I was on my favorite Washington, DC porn site, Wonkette, and they had a post about how you can go sign congressional dummy/rotted corpse of Joseph McCarthy Michelle Bachman's birthday card. They assured me, the Wonkette did, that they had no problem getting their rude message through Bachman's webmaster's freedom censors, so I figured, hey, I should offer my birthday greetings to America's greatest lobotomized hero.

But no! The computer hackers from ACORN have failed me. My birthday message (above, clickety click) has not been posted. Yet this ALL-CAPS-happy comment from a Dr. Frank in Charlotte, NC made it through:

Happy Birthday and THANK YOU FOR WHO YOU CHOOSE TO BE!

Dr. Frank, you should know already that it's NOT A CHOICE!

Things We Figured Were True: Scott Brown Will (Eventually, One Day) S*ck a C*ck (If He Hasn't Already)

Look at Massachusetts' pretty boy senator Scott "41st Vote Against Whatever" Brown enjoying himself at some tawdry gathering with his wife and friends. Now look at the performer. Now look back at Scott. He. Is. Fascinated. By what he sees. There. In the performer's crotch area. He can't take his eyes off of it. What's so interesting, Scott? Are there tax cuts in those pink shorts?

In conclusion, Scott Brown will be inviting this guy to "campaign" with him in his truck from now until November 2012.

Sorry, But This is Funny

Whoever made this will be visited by Willow and her friends one of these random nights.

Jukebox: Monae

This video makes me want to be a sharp-dressed black man with a bow tie SO BAD. Also, it makes me want to be a black woman in saddle shoes and a pompadour for the ages. SO BAD. This video, basically, makes me want to be the opposite of what I am.

SO BAD.

I'll work on becoming these things over the weekend.

Oscar Mayer Will Kill Us All

Folks, we all know the horrible truth: the only thing keeping every one of us from sitting at our desks all day eating bacon and jerking off is that you have to cook bacon, which takes two hands. This is ultimately good for us, because bacon is terribly fattening and bad for your heart (though it is a GREAT lubricant). But now Oscar Mayer has gone and done the unthinkable: they've cooked the bacon for us! So now all we have to do is go pick it up at the shop, sit back down with a napkin stuffed in our shirt, and get down to business. This will ruin lives, lower productivity, and kill us all. (And how will Rush Limbaugh survive? The answer is: Obamacare.)

How long has this pre-cooked bacon been on the market? I never knew it existed. Sure, Jimmy does all the grocery shopping for us (he always wanted to be Barbara Billingsly when he grew up), but surely I would have seen commercials all over Fox News for this by now. (Fox News viewers never stop eating bacon.)

I'm hereby calling for a government takeover of all pre-cooked pork products. Come on, Barry/Reid/Pelosi, save us from ourselves.