Balderdash Report

Like all Americans, I spent my Thanksgiving crippling myself with turkey, carbs, and vodka/diet cherry 7ups. Also, I played Balderdash with friends. For the uninitiated, Balderdash is a game where you must write a fake definition to a real word and fool your fellow players into thinking it's the correct definition. My boyfriend Jimmy is really good at this game, as you can see from the definition of furfur he provided above. Believe it or not, furfur does not mean "with furvor [sic] but more." It is "an epidermal scale, as that associated with dandruff." But I'm going to start using it to mean "with furvor [sic] but more" regardless.

Next up, the word hawhdah. What do you think this means? If you guessed this thing that Jimmy wrote, you are wrong!



I don't remember what hawhdah actually means and can't find it on the Google machine, but use it in a sentence anyway!

Attention Christmas Shoppers

Dearest readers:

Do you happen to know what would make the perfect gift for the pole dancer, parole officer, dognapper, preacher, teabagger, go-go boy, cat lady, or ex-stepmother in your life? I do: My book! Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries is available on Amazon, and if you act now a book will be delivered to the recipient of your choice via the U.S. mail. You don't see offers like this every day! So head on over to Amazon and clickety click!

Happy Sarah Palin Day!

Once again, real Americans get to roll around all day in a shit puddle of happiness because it's officially Sarah Palin book release day, yay! I posted the above video promo a few months ago and got zero respect for it by the lamestream media/random blog commenters, which is unfair because it's terrible! Anyway, to celebrate the further decline of American letters, I offer it unto you again. Enjoy it now, because when Sarah becomes president you'll only be able to watch videos like these via Taiwanese animation.

Karaoke is Dangerous

Sometimes you find yourself hanging out with your friends who will be leaving New York soon, getting some dinner and then going to see a few bands, all the while getting spectacularly wasted. So far so good. But then, then you go get a private room at Sing Sing Karaoke on St. Marks Place, a place that is hella busted, and things take a turn towards danger, or as they say in Japanese, "Sing Singのカラオケはすごいあぶないだよね!"

The danger is this: someone will take your awesomely dependable Droid phone. Yes, after you've spent the evening taking pictures/video of your friends swappin' slop with their lovahs, dancing epileptically to the live music, skinning their knees trying to get into cabs, and then singing "Magic" by Olivia Newton-John relentlessly into the microphone long after the actual song has finished—someone will crash your party and kidnap your phone for selfish, probably disgusting reasons that don't bear thinking about.

Then when you get all the way home to Brooklyn at 3 in the morning and discover you don't have your phone and you use Jimmy's phone to call Sing Sing to ask that they check the room you were in, the criminally unhelpful lady on the phone will tell you that she can't disturb the party that is currently in the room. Now, on the one hand, you understand this uniquely Japanese policy, because karaoke makes people mean and violent. But on the other hand, WTF, asshole, go get my phone from those thieves!

There is a lesson to be learned from this. The lesson is not "Don't get wasted and then expect to be able to keep track of your phone as you take it in and out of your jacket pocket to take dumb photos/video." The lesson is "If you do all that, don't go to Sing Sing Karaoke."

Lesson learned.

Alluring Local News Screen Grab of the Day

You don't even need to see this local news story from the swamp somewhere. It's all there in the screen grab. The only possible thing that could make this better would be if this screen grab could talk and you could hear this adorable man warble his story. I'm glad his beard is growing back.

Big Jesus News: Statue Completed in Swiebodzin, Poland

Magnificent news out of Poland, folks. (Wow, when was the last time I typed that?) Construction on a new ginormous Jesus statue is complete and, in terms of sheer size (which is all that matters), it beats the holy flippin' bejezus out of the breathtaking Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. (Which I still haven't seen.) So the question becomes: when are Jimmy and I booking our flight to Swiebodzin? The answer is: gimme some money, Obama, so I can go to Poland.

The good Swiebodzin people are hoping that this new statue will be a draw for Jesus-loving tourists the world over and a new site for Christian pilgrimage, like Paula Dean's restaurant in Savannah or Sarah Palin's swimmin' hole in Wasilla. And why shouldn't it? This Jesus has a golden crown, bitches, just like in the Bible. (It's the crown that makes this Jesus the largest in the world.) In addition, he's handsome and so, so white--also just like in the Bible. Look at that bone structure.

But the key question now is this: are we allowed to go up and inside the Jesus head? This is important, because if not I'll bring my pogo stick and a little parachute with me.

Important Book Marketing News: Tune in Tokyo Bookmarks A Go-Go

Everyone knows that any author who has self-published a book, even if that book is stupidly award-worthy like mine, faces an uphill struggle in the fight for visibility in the marketplace. People just don't care about your dumb project! That's why it's the author's job to make them care. Force them to care. Dare them to care. If you are successful at this then you will have a world full of people wondering what life was like before they cared about the book you wrote. And the best way to be successful at this is obvious: bookmarks.

People love bookmarks because they can be used for many things: picking your teeth, cleaning your fingernails, scratching your upper back, dusting the dandruff out of your hair. But did you know they can also be used to mark your place in a book so that you can go back to that place easily the next time you are on the toilet? It's true. So the good news for you is that I now have Tune in Tokyo bookmarks available. The first 10 people to email me and ask for one will get one. Just email me and tell me Tune in Tokyo is the book that made you want to be a dancer, and I'll send you several! Because you deserve at least that many.

Cage Matches I'd Like to See

Jimmy and Tim discuss the issues of our times:

Tim: You know what I'd like to see? A Michelle Obama-Sarah Palin cage match.
Jimmy: That'd be good.
Tim: Totally. Poor Michelle sure deserves one.
Jimmy: Except Sarah Palin would win.
Tim: Nu-uh. Michelle would sling Sarah's ass all over the damn place. She's from the south side of Chicago! And Sarah called her husband a terrorist!
Jimmy: Doesn't matter. Michelle's not inherently evil and crazy like Sarah Palin. So Sarah will win.
Tim: Interesting world view.
Jimmy: Sad but true.
Tim: Is it wrong that I really want Michelle to tear Sarah's face off and feed it to Bo the dog?
Jimmy: I'd rather see Sasha and Malia do that.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Sanity/Fear Rally in DC

That's right. I was there, bitches. With my friends. And we couldn't hear shit. You know why? Because too many other people were invited. The closest we could get was 7th street/avenue (whatever) and we just couldn't squeeze any closer. But we did see a lot of signs! And we did hear Ozzy singing crazy train! (One curious thing: Cat Stevens was on stage singing "Peace Train" during the same bit, which was a little shocking because isn't he an extremist fundamentalist Muslim who called for the death of Salmon Rushdie back in the day? Has he changed his, er, tune?)

Anyway, you can click the photos for a bigger, better view. (But you still won't be able to hear shit.)

































And, lastly, the below photo, shot at the Marriot hotel bar, of a blurry Colbert getting ready to unwind.

Halloween Jukebox: Zola Jesus

Zola Jesus is one of the most exciting singers around these days, and her song "Sea Talk" is awesome for many reasons. One of these reasons is the video, which combines three of my favorite things: the movie Poltergeist, sleepwalking, and static electricity.

So on this Friday before Hallowe'en, in order to celebrate the birth of Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's most electable witch, I offer the gift of this video unto you, my readers, all of whom live at Riker's Island serving time for illegally downloading terrorist porn and then selling it to Todd Palin.

This Trannie Should Be New York's Next Governor, Obviously

Kristin Davis is not messing around in her direct mail pieces, not at all. You may recall I received this one on Monday and I fell in love with it for its glamour and pizzaz. Well, the one I got yesterday is even more gay, if you can believe it. And I don't just mean esthetically. I mean Lady Davis calls out Andrew Cuomo for being limp on gay marriage. And she uses the word "homo" in her tagline:

Vote Homo
Not Cuomo

And she prints the word "homo" in rainbow colors, yay!

Sure, the logic behind her tagline is a little bizarre, just like yesterday. Is she saying she's a homo? She sure looks like a trannie. Maybe she's saying she's an honorary homo, because she looks like such a trannie? (Or because she supports the gays, whichever.)

In any case, if Kristin Davis doesn't become New York's next ex-governor, she should AT THE VERY LEAST be given her own variety show at LipsNYC and her own talk show on Bravo.

Powerful Campaign Mailer of the Day

It's wrong to be swayed by a campaign mailer isn't it? Wrong, right? I must say, I've never even looked at any of the words on one of these mailers before, but something about this one sent by Kristin Davis—the former madam who provided Elliot Spitzer with high-priced ladyfriends and "went prison" for it (according to the flyer) and who is now running for Governor of New York—caught my eyes and dragged them across its giant, glamorous surface, all the way from the word Redemption at the top to the puzzling/alluring final couplet at the bottom:

SEND THE NEXT GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO A MESSAGE
VOTE KRISTIN DAVIS FOR GOVERNOR

I must say, as much as I like Kristin Davis and think that Kristin Davis would make at least as good a governor as Carl Palladino —if mainly because I firmly believe that any candidate for Governor of New York should have seen the inside of a women's prison, and much as he may have tried, Paladino just hasn't—that's a pretty confusing message to send to your newly elected governor. Kind of like a waiter coming to the table to announce the bodacious blonde dinner special of jumbo shrimp over angel hair pasta in a luscious cream sauce after you've already finished eating your plate of Italian sausages.

But she was probably just being funny. (Maybe she meant to put NEXT GOVERNOR in quotes?) The point remains, though: do we citizens of New York really want the same old 52-year-old Italian sausage in Albany, delicious as it is? Or do we maybe want to try a dinner special that looks delicious (pro-marijuana, pro-gay marriage, and pro-gambling) but might give us food poisoning?

Democracy is a series of incredible choices such as these.

Today on Sarah Palin Loves the Gerund

Americans love a leader who can speak clearly and convey in economical phraseology exactly where he or she stands on a particular issue. This is why Sarah Palin is so beloved by the country, because there is no better platform for such terse clarity than Twitter. But sometimes Sarah Palin, because she's so versatile, removes herself from her Tweet-machine and ventures out into the public arena to prove that she can do more than just type the -ing forms of words and construct entire sentences without subjects on her Blackberry. She can do this stuff orally, too:

"Marco Rubio started and kinda taking on the establishment and mavericky, going rogue, you know, doing it," exclaimed Palin. "And I look at him and I think, you know, we kinda started a whole bunch of this stuff. So, very very proud and encouraged by Marco."

Exactly. God, someone give this woman a book contract!

This Dog Is Not Having Fun at This Parade

So I was at the Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade last Saturday looking around for dogs dressed up like Sarah Palin, and I saw this poor critter, whose owner had seen fit to dress her up as Scarlet O'hara. It was a great costume, sure. But as I marveled at the amount of effort put forth to construct the unwieldy thing I couldn't help but think that that dog looks pretty miserable.

Sure, that might just be a function of her genetic predisposition to be cloudy-eyed and have her tongue flopped out sideways, but the overall effect was of a Scarlet O'hara that, as God as her witness, most certainly WOULD be hungry again, in fact she's hungry right now and her acid reflux is acting up and she's about to take a dump in her dress and she has an itch down below and why couldn't you have dressed her in a much more comfortable Batman costume and who are all these assholes taking her picture and she doesn't care if they want to burn Atlanta again just get her out of this goddamned dress!

Tune in Tokyo Gets Some Love from the Logo Channel!

Great news for you, readers! My book Tune in Tokyo has been written up by the Logo Channel's Trip Out Gay Travel site, yay! I know it's very important for all y'all to have new TiT-related things to read while blowing off work and touching yourself inappropriately.

Your welcome!