Escape from New York Part II: Chicago

Ahhh, Chicago. The Windy City. Home of the Bulls. (The who?) The Cubs. (The what?) The Bears. (The which?) Second City. Oprah. And Chicago-style pizza. Is it home of anything else? Probably. Check the internet.

You might remember (you won't remember) that recently I did a post about my visit to Chicago, during which I ogled a wonderfully random and tacky statue of Marilyn Monroe. Well, at long last, here's some pics of the non-Marilyn parts of town.

I was in Chicago to take care of my friend Rachel's cat while she was away in California. I was very nervous about being responsible for someone's cat and house, but Rachel had this very reassuring message on her microwave, which calmed me down a little.

Unfortunately, the next morning I put a to-go coffee cup that apparently has metal in it in the self-same microwave and nearly blew the thing up. (Rachel, I'm so sorry.) But the good news is that I didn't burn the house down or accidentally kill her cat. So I consider the whole thing a success.

Anyway, on to the photos.

Here's one that Rachel took of me in Boystown before she left. As you can see, things get pretty blurry in Boystown.

The top photo and this one above are of, I don't know, two lit-up white brick towers in Millennium Park? With films of women making various facial expressions while cascades of water fell down over them? Pretty alluring.

Was a TOTAL tourist and went to Gino's East for pizza and I'm not apologizing for it because it was delicious. My only criticism is that their pizza display out front is kind of misleading. I was expecting to actually be able to climb on top of my pizza to eat it. But I gotta say, the best meal I had was at Kuma's Corner, a burger joint where all the different types of burgers are named after heavy metal bands, the way God intended.

I got the Kaijo, which I guess is a Japanese metal band? I don't know, Google isn't much help with this, but it's not important, because this is what it looked like:

It was the most delicious plate of heart disease I had all week.

Here are some shots of beautiful downtown Chicago, and Millennium Park. So clean!

And now the pictures I took from the Skydeck at the top of the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower. There were these glass balconies you could step onto and see directly below you, which provides a great opportunity to suffer from vertigo.

And then the glass broke, and I started falling, but luckily my return flight picked me up and whisked me into a comfortable cruising altitude.

That's downtown Chicago in the center. Bye, Oprah!

Fashion Is Important: Fashion's Night Out, NYC

Fashion Week is here again, as it always is, everyday, everywhere, into eternity until we all die fat, ugly and wearing the only clothes we can afford (dishrags, from H&M). On Thursday, Fashion Week Eve, there was the Fashion's Night Out boutique walk on shopping streets around Manhattan, and since my friend Alyson had tickets to go to a promotional party-type-thing for ABC's new Pan Am show starring Christina Ricci at the Lisa Perry store on Madison Ave. on the Upper East Side, I invited myself along because I'm a big fan of free alcohol.

This Pan Am party had everything: ninja dwarfs, pepperoni and opium pizza, a live Blue Man Group circle jerk, gorilla trannies, a glittery (but, let's face it, ahistorical) reenactment of the Battle of the Bulge, and a row of Virgin Mary pinball machines with gay samurais dancing on top. I don't have pictures of any of that, sadly, but I do have these:

Hey, it's Christina Ricci's blurry face! She looks adorable in that stripey thing, but surely this dumb Droid phone can get a better picture than that.

Ok, this is as good as it gets. I'm not good with this thing when I'm under pressure. I'll tell you this, though. Christina Ricci was cute, tiny, and all that, but she's had some awful bullshit pumped into her lips. They looked like gummy worms, for real. She's too young for that idiocy. Come on, Ricci, we expected better. (Silver lipstick and a blue wig? Maybe.)

Anyway, here's some photos of some fake Pan Am stewardesseses.

And me with one of them. She was sweet. I wonder how much these fake stewardesses get paid, cause I'm out of a job soon. (You can just go ahead and ignore that sweat streak made by my bag. I'd just biked cross- and uptown, like 50 blocks, gimme a break! Sweat is fashion forward, anyway.

We twirled on down Madison to this shop, which had a cotton candy machine that just sent people into paroxysms of joy, since cotton candy is so easy to throw up.

My girl Alyson points at the popcorn machine because why not?

Okay, here we come to a window display we can all really sink our teeth into. What shop was this again? Oh, who cares, there are women dressed as peacocks writhing in the window. They were locked in a pose-a-thon deathmatch for about five minutes, and I think the girl on the left (also featured in the top photo) won. (Alyson thinks it's because the girl on the right isn't used to dancing around without a pole, and I kind of agree.)

Here's a scene at Jimmy Choo. This cute coterie of costumed young-uns kept having their picture taken by one of the shop assistants, so I felt like I should take one too.

Alyson and Lisa get ready to cut a bitch over some boots.

And now we've arrived at Agent Provocatuer, which sells dirty silky underthings. They had a whole paparazzi theme going on, which meant real-live human mannequins in the windows, upstairs and downstairs.

The view from inside looking out, at the "paparazzi" trying to get all up in that.

Outside again. Was trying to get a good photo of that dude in the black t-shirt and suspenders, because he's the sexiest fake paparazzi photographer I've ever encountered. (And I've encountered my share in the weekends I've spent hiding in the bushes outside Charo's dude ranch.)

Here's a short powerful film I made about two young models finally making it big in New York and getting the respect they deserve.

Alyson thinks this edible bra looks delicious.

Good lord, all HELL broke loose at this shop when folks on the street discovered that Nikki Minaj and one of her wigs were exiting. There she is, posing with a fan. Some old person said "who is Nikki Minaj?" and Alyson said, "She's basically the black Lady Ga Ga." This is quite true.

So as a freaking ginormous cluster of people follow Nikki and her entourage as they walked to her shiny black SUV, cameras were frantically clicking and human lives were hanging in the balance, because Jesus, Nikki Minaj fans, stop trying to push me into traffic, okay bitches? It was insane. I struggled to get a photo with my dumb phone that is SO FREAKING SLOW COME ON, DROID THIS IS 2011! Above, there she is in her car.

This one is dark and poetic. Is she looking at me with a genuine smile or with bravely concealed fear. Undeterminable, because I forgot to turn the flash on, dammit.

And that's my fashion report. Wasn't it stupid?!

Escape From New York, Part 1

Okay, okay, at long last, what everyone (i.e., no one) has been waiting for: the first bit of texty yammering about my vacation, which happened a hundred years ago. As you may not even remember, I recently went down to NC to visit momma and go to the mountains and the beach/get a savage tan/eat Bojangles cajun chicken biscuits. But before we get to any partial nudity, let's spend this particular post having a look at the latest additions to mom's Shakespearean Tragicomic Plush-Doll Display. Mom, see, loves stuffed animals and spooky hand-painted dolls. And she likes to display them on her living room ledge as if they're having a little tea party (before they eat you in your sleep). Above, from left to right, is the bear she bought last March in Asheville, a new plush collie, a poodle (?), a fluffy white kittycat, mom's beloved doll Victoria, and a pink bear, because why not?

Also, here is the doll cabinet in the guest room. I had to try to sleep while these dolls just sat there, looking at me, salivating.



And another plush kitty sitting at the top of the staircase to laugh as you as you fall back down in horror, just like in Psycho.



This bear is so cute he deserves a picture of his own.



Oh, and what is that I see over there, in the corner of the dining room, lurking next to the china cabinet? It's a fake tree, yes, but what's that beside the tree?



It's the attack of the Unseasonable Santa. And he's pissed. Just look at that maniacally evil face.




Anyway, it took me a while to recover from all of this, so you'll have to wait until Part 2 to see pictures from my visit to several western Carolina mountain churches (frescoes!) and footage of our eastern-NC scuppernong grape shopping spree.

Get back to work.

The World is Retarded

I've been a bad blogger this summer. So lazy! But whatever, who cares, amiright? Anyway, Michele Bachman and her gay husband have now won the Iowa straw poll, so the world is officially over, for real. No more Mojito Mondays! (Or Felching Fridays, sad face.) And fuck it, I'm tired, so I'm putting on my fashion sunglasses and heading to Atlantic Beach, NC, where I will attempt to drown myself, get wasted, and then do some crossword puzzles, in that order.

To tide you over until I get back and decide to start typing again, here's a fun picture of a snowbilly grifter not stealing the spotlight from a bunch of vampire bats.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Tacky Marilyn Monroe Statue in Chicago

I recently took a trip to Chicago (my first one ever) and will be posting more hot pics from the trip soon once I stop being so lazy, but I wanted to start with some shots of the big 'n shiny nonsequitur that is this Marilyn Monroe statue that sits on Pioneer Court, a very prominent spot on the city's Magnificent Mile right downtown. What does Marilyn Monroe have to do with Chicago? If you said "nothing," I'm pretty sure you'd be right.

Anyway, this statue has stirred some controversy! Some folks aren't bothered by the statue's tacky irrelevance. Walter Jacobson of CBS2 NEws said, "So we did not get the Olympics, but we have Ms. Monroe, keeping us on top of the outdoor world, and just when we need it, a smile on that mile." Well, he ended with a rhyme, so I'm convinced.

But then there's killjoy Tribune columnist/stone-cold-bummer Mary Scmich, who lamented that the display was "as tawdry as a peepshow." But how can you take this woman seriously when she doesn't even bother to put together a decent rhyme? ("It is cheap and dirty and it ain't even purdy." See how easy it is, Mary?) Plus, do guys even go to peepshows anymore? Don't they just watch them on youtube?

Anyway, it was just a happy coincidence that just as I arrive in Chicago the statue was unveiled. I read about it on the Intertube and immediately hopped on a train to see it because, as you all know, I love big statues. I got the obligatory shots of her underwear and such, but I must say some gentlemen spent an unnecessary amount of time and pixels on the statue's back side. It was gross. Take the dudes smutting up the below family-friendly shot I took:



Or this guy accumulating wank bank material:



Dizgusting. But, okay, I know you want to see what they're seeing, because you are also a 12-year-old boy, so here's a few artistic shots:





And a less interesting one taken from the front:



And in case any of you sweaty adolescents need more wank bank material, here's one with me. You're welcome.

So What/Who Cares?

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever. Why is that? I asked myself every day for the past week and a half. And the answer is: "Eh, so what/who cares?" This, as all writers know, is the death knell of continued typing. Because if you are a writer and you start asking yourself those two questions, you will not come up with a satisfying answer. Because, basically, so what/who cares?

Anyway, I've been kind of meh lately, which is why there's been so little blogging from me. Plus, I've been busy singing Heart songs at karaoke (see above). Rest assured, loyal fan, I will be back with coverage of my visit to Chicago and other dumb bullsh*t soon, once I summon the energy to press more buttons on my computer than I have the motivation to press right now.

In conclusion, here's a funny picture.

Oh, Miss Winehouse

Jeez, this is depressing. Not a huge surprise, no, but just so freaking sad. Amy Winehouse was a force of freaking nature. One listen to any one of her songs--or a viewing of, say, the videos for the swinging high-drama "Back to Black" or the trampy, stomping "My Tears Dry On Their Own"--and you knew there was no denying that this lady was, in PJ Harvey's system of measurement, a 50-ft Queenie. Her hair alone could have had a fabulous career. Huge bummer.

Above is footage of her last public appearance, dancing on stage on July 20 while her god-daughter, Dionne Bromfeld, sang. Amy looks, yes, a little fucked up, but she also looks happy.

RIP, Miss Amy.

Also, here is a delightful interview by Jonathan Ross from 2003 or so when her first album came out.

This Is What I Looked Like When I Showed Up To Work Today

Yes, I looked like a sweaty, sagging, and soaking-wet 140-year-old woman of indeterminate race. My shirt was clinging to my body like Marcus Bachman does to his Top Gun Special Edition DVD with the deleted post-volleyball shower scene. It's so hot outside today that it's painful. Really painful. Painful like Marcus Bachman trying to slam his flipper feet into the high heels he bought for Michele. I caught my reflection in the glass of a movie theater window as I passed by it and saw that my face was so agonized from the heat I looked like I was weeping. Weeping hard. Weeping like Marcus Bachman at a midnight showing of The Boys in the Band.

In conclusion, Marcus Bachman is a gay barbarian.

Announcing the Arrival of Your New Favorite Band That Has a Viola Player In It

Folks, there are tons of bands out there begging for attention from the unwashed masses of folks who want music for free. And everyone's wondering, "Which one of these bands is the next Lady Gaga?" Well, I'm here to tell you, my band simpleshapes is not the next Lady Gaga, but we are pretty close, and here's why: First, we are attention whores. Second, I was wearing a meat dress when my bandmate Taylor saw me playing viola on the NYC subway. Third, why do you need a third? That's two very good reasons.

Anyway, yeah, simpleshapes is the musical outfit that fits your active lifestyle the best. Five out of seven dermatologists agree. Below is a homemade video of one of our songs, "A Heart." There are also a few more tracks at our Reverb Nation page, because why not? The simpleshapes material is the first three. (The other tracks are Taylor's old stuff that we haven't re-recorded yet.) Enjoy them! Also, please "like" us, "become our fan," and "give us blowjobs." This will help our doomed careers.

Why Is This Cheeto Trying to Seduce Me?

You know, I typically like to eat my Cheetos surreptitiously, without the prying eyes of those who would judge me. But how am I supposed to keep things on the downlow when into my hand falls such a suggestive Cheeto? This is primo top-tier grade-A sexual harassment. The inanimate kind, which is the worst. When's the last time you were sexually harassed by a corn-based salty snack? It's been a while, hasn't it?

This is the most unnerving snack-related sexytime since the time a pile of Fritos Scoops gave me that hella painful back rub.

Happy 4th, Paytreeuts!

Hello, illiterate nation, it's your birthday, so have a cupcake, have two! It's been a few years since I've revisited the above video, but the magic is still all up in there, in the cinematography, hair, drama, teeth, clouds, pronunciation, stars, stripes, waves, children, tank top, angels, and much, much more. This is the second most patriotic video ever made (the first is the Todd and Sarah Palin sex tape, which is surely out there; the third is the youtube of Ann Coulter eating a Mexican anchor baby).

Don't forget to sit through the three minutes of credits that start at the halfway mark. Don't you want to know who all you should thank for this? Of course you do. But in case you don't have time, I'll present to you below a short list of those responsible:

To My Family:
Linda
Danger Dog
JR
Puppy
Puppy Jr, Honey, Honey
KIDD
Patchouli
B & W
M & M
Mr. Blago
Honesty
Neighbor
Champ
Jersey
And All Our Loves to Come

But what about 3 Musketeers, Incense, Charity, and Long Island? Don't they deserve some credit for this?

Lessons from the Internet: Fans of Canadian Ice Skaters Are Fragile

The Internet is a wonderful place, full of fascinating people to meet and things to see that you would otherwise have no interest in knowing about. I never realized I needed the sweet embrace of Lolcats, for example, until there they were on my screen, lol-ing. You know one thing that the Internet is also full of? That's right: sensitive, mean idiots off their meds who love to type things twice in a slightly different fashion into their computer machines.

As none of you may recall, back in April I had some fun with a picture of Canadian ice skater Meagan Duhamel elbowing her skating partner in the face, because why not, am I right? Life is boring! Now, months later, some poor fraggle going by the name "unknown" has found this blog entry and is SO PISSED about it. Why? Because Meagan Duhamel is an amazing skater and I can't believe you would make something up about a famous person and put it on the Internet!

So now I'm being encouraged by a random person on earth to get a new job because this one is clearly not working out, due to my being a doorknob. Salient point. Doorknobs can't blog.

Fashion is Important: Men's Summerwear Edition

There's nothing more instructional than a men's summerwear catwalk pose-a-thon. That's why the Men's Fashion Week extravaganza in Milan was the most educational event to take place in the world since Live Aid. It's extremely important for us hot dudes to know what to wear to Brighton Beach, where we go every summer Sunday to do laps in the ice-cold Absolut swimming pool. And I don't know about you guys, but I wouldn't be caught dead NOT wearing the above collection of epileptic and ball-hugging pattern explosions. Why? Because stripes are slimming, especially when they're spastically shooting out in every possible direction: they confuse people into thinking you're thin, hooray!

There's a word for this ensemble, but that word is Russian and I don't know how to type/pronounce it. But it really sums things up quite nicely.

In conclusion, in the future all men will look like they were mauled by a gaggle of bitchy gay zebras.

Best Ever Gay Marriage Text Message I've Received

On Friday I was at band rehearsal (that's what you have to call it if you're in a band and you're 38) and Jimmy was at home doing what he loves: making dinner. After laying down a powerful viola track, my phone buzzed with the above text message from Jimmy.

I was so surprised and deeply deeply moved, after 14 years of being together. Because I thought we were having pizza.

Come On, New York, Stiffen Up and Make the Gays Happy

My friend Taylor and I were at the Guitar Center on 14th Street on Sunday to get a paisley pink viola chin rest (they didn't have any!) and we were trying to decide where to go next to search for one (Taco Bell?) when we heard the approaching cacophony of a demonstration, yay!

Turns out it was a pro-gay marriage stomp, which made me think: isn't there some sort of vote happening up in Albany regarding same sex marriage or something, and isn't it really close to passing?

Yes.

This better f-ing happen, Jesus God.