Our friend Todd's birthday was yesterday and we all went to dinner last night, but I failed to do a birthday blog post for him, so here it is, a day late.
Todd, this is your fiance, Ms. Rachel Roth, doing a provocative dance with a gatefold record sleeve at the Kentucky Derby Party last Saturday after you guys went downstairs to play ping pong. The person laughing like a monkey with a megaphone is Jimmy. He's so loud because he's had more booze 'n pills 'n medical marijuana 'n echinacea than the rest of us.
I've never watched the Kentucky Derby before. Usually I just stand outside the Off Track Betting place on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint and watch the desperate slobs betting on it. More fun! But my friend Rachel (above, in red) had a Kentucky Derby Party last Saturday, and since the event would only be 2 minutes and we could spend the rest of the time eating nibbly things and drinking booze, of course I went! I even betted. On Dean's Kitten. Who came in 14th.
The winner and her earnings.
This guy showed up in a shirt that said "Horse F*cker" but we made him change.
This is AMAZING news. I was flipping through the Onion yesterday and happened to see an ad for the Primitives' upcoming show at the Bell House in Brooklyn and just about spat out my KFC Double Down. The Primitives?! WTF?
Now, as dedicated readers know, I'm a huge '80s blonde power pop fan, and the Primitives were that thing I just typed incarnate, from around '86 to '91. In the intervening years I've kind of felt like I was the only person aboard that particular train. Sure, my friend Dani loved the Primitives like I did, but who else? Ok, Morrissey did once wear a Primitives T-shirt and proclaim them his favorite band. Any other folks? I'll tell you: no. Like every British band that ever graced the cover of NME or Melody Maker in the '80s, they completely vaporized after the mainstream British culture had finished with them. With a band like the Soup Dragons, this is understandable. But the Primitives surely had more power pop in them. Sadly, nobody cared, the end.
Or so I thought. Apparently, the Primitives have enough of a fanbase to have launched a 10-date reunion tour of the UK and a one-date reunion show in the US and OMG I'M GOING TO THE SHOW ON SATURDAY I'M GONNA SEE TRACY TRACY FACE TO FACE. Even better, I get to see PJ Court (above, second from right), the guitarist and main songwriter, who I crushed on mightily in high school. But wait a minute. Who's that handsome stranger on the left?
Anyway, because you won't be there, you should enjoy a little Primitives for yourself below. It's their 1986 single "Really Stupid," way before they'd learned to polish their instruments.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
