Catfight!

OUCH! I got into the middle of a real catfight Wednesday morning, and the aftermath is painful!!

My roommate's "alpha female" cat had snuck into my room during the night. When my Wednesday morning work alarm went off at 6:45, the "alpha" cat and my own cat Grace got startled and went at each other... I stupidly stuck my bare foot in between them to break it up, thinking they would both just run off, and as a result have multiple puncture wounds from the roommate's cat, who LATCHED ONTO MY FOOT as if she were a pit bull! Seriously, I had to shake that cat in the air to get her to let go of my foot!

The result: I haven't been able to walk for the past 3 days! I can hobble and hop to the bathroom and to the kitchen, but that's about it. That cat HURT me! I've never known pain this bad---it wasn't just cat scratches, but rather teeth sunk into tendons. I've been living on mega-doses of Ibuprofen for the past three days. And, in the meantime, cursing that cat every time I've seen her. (I love and like cats, and would never hurt a cat, but... I called that cat a "bitch of a cat" today and bellowed at her in my loudest voice to get "the fuck" out of my way. I feel bad for my own cat, Gracie, who's been dealing with this cat in my room on a day-to-day basis. I've witnessed the two squabbling every day, but never to the extent that I was just attacked... Grace must have been hurt.)

Lindsay Lohan Redux

Strange to address a 20-year-old as "La," but... LA LOHAN! :)

Yeah, yeah, I'm also mightily excited by the fact that she's been fooling around with a girl lately, but that aside... I'm tellin' ya... This girl's been lumped in media-wise with Paris and Britney, et al, but she's nothing like them. She can actually act and she photographs like a dream... those gorgeous, deep eyes have nothing to do with the blankness of Britney, Paris, Duff, etc.

Chelsea Styles, part 2

If you happened to read my March 18 blog entry, you might remember my encounter with a straight-outta-Blue-Velvet (and not in a particularly "hip" way!) hair salon in Chelsea called "Chelsea Styles," where I got my very first haircut in NYC.

At my first visit, I was slightly freaked out by all of the 80-year-old women with pastel hair shades and by the huge hairdryer I was eventually placed under... But in fact the haircut turned out to be something I was complimented on, and it was only $31, so... I decided to give the place a second shot today.

Same little old ladies hanging around, same Robert Goulet-ish gay man holding court, all engaged in a spirited conversation about the Poconos (except for the one little old lady who was just sitting there staring off into space; I never could determine what she was having done)... Though later, a good-looking, sexy old lady came in to liven up the joint a bit. She was only 70-ish, rather than 80-ish, so a real spring chicken. But her features were fantastic! She had on a ton of makeup and her personality was overt to match. (Though her "banter" with Mr. Goulet was actually un-funny and a bit cringe-inducing, I still couldn't stop sneaking looks at her in the mirror, because she really was good-looking! I wonder if she was a small-time actress years ago...As my cut was finished and I was leaving, I was blessed with her pronouncement: "Young Lady, your hair looks terrific!" Uh-oh. I think I just figured out why I keep coming back to this place... Here, I really AM still a "Young Lady" at 41!) :)

Anyhow, ageing actresses aside: Since last time the lack of hair gel and big ol' hairdryer so distracted me, this time I cleverly thought I'd be proactive by asking outright after the cut if I could have gel (while my hair was still wet) rather than mousse (on my dry hair), and if my stylist could use the hand-held blowdryer... My hairdresser was amazed by my gel request---

"You don't use mousse? Have you ever TRIED mousse? You don't want mousse? Last time we used mousse."
"Well, yes, I used to use mousse---back in the '80s..."
"Don't worry, we have gel. We'll use gel. We want you to be comfortable."

At which point she reached into an unmarked tub of Vaseline-looking GOO and started to slather it onto my head, where it sat there in big greasy blobs...The stuff wasn't even a cute pink color, like my mother's old 1970s Dippity-Do (the forerunner of today's gel), but, really, some heavy-duty Vaseline-colored PASTE that coated my hair, refused to dry, and then, once finally dry, created a completely dull finish...

Oh, speaking of drying...Nothing weird there. The stylist did happen to own a hand-held hairdryer and used it proficiently. (Thank goodness. Since it was a warmish day, and the salon door was propped open, I hadn't especially relished the thought of having passing tourists GAWK at the FREAK SITTING UNDER THE HAIRDRYER!)

All was well, pleasantries exchanged, etc., until it was time for me to pay Mr. Goulet, who apparently runs the joint. The charge was $31 for the cut. And... $30 for the blowdry!!!!! I thought the man was kidding! And then he pointed to a pricing sign on the wall: sure 'nuff---it did indeed say "$30 for a blowdry"! Now, the only place in my life where I've ever been charged to have my hair dryed is back when I was a poor student in Austin and had to go to SuperCuts, where the basic cut was $8 and then they added on charges for every little thing, like shampooing, drying, requesting a specific stylist, etc.

I'm afraid I offended Mr. Goulet with my astonishment, because he stopped talking to me while and after I forked over the dough! Ooops! I've offended "Chelsea Styles"! Perhaps it was all just too magical to last...

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I did salvage one good thing from my visit despite that mighty faux pas: I learned (from Mr. Goulet, back when we were friends) where a really good shoe shop is in the neighborhood! I desperately needed more work heels; my ONE $100 pair that I'd bought from Macy's weeks ago wasn't quite sufficient for the work-week! This shop is called "Bently Shoes," and it's on the same block across from the Chelsea Hotel that the "Styles" shop is on. It's tiny, but the selection is great, the proprietor Mr. Gurses very nice, and the sales today fantastic----I got a pair of Etienne Aigner for only $40 and Bandolino for $30 (marked down from $98)...

For sure not in Kansas!

Just look at this! The view from my office window. (Why I have an "office window" as a temp, I'm not quite sure. It could be taken away at any minute, so I thought I'd capture this one brief shining moment.)



And just look at these shots of my workplace cafeteria! My goodness. I have indeed been in work-cafeterias before (and have usually been impressed merely by the fact that my workplace even HAD a cafeteria), but this gorgeous attention to detail in a cafeteria is something else.

I'm not in Kansas any more. I've magically found myself, rather, in the land of "Things Done Right and Impressively." What a treat.

You Rude, Thoughtless Little Pig

"Hey, I want to tell you something, OK? And I want to leave a message for you right now. 'Cause again, it's 10:30 here in New York on a Wednesday, and once again I've made an ass of myself trying to get to a phone to call you at a specific time. When the time comes for me to make the phone call, I stop whatever I'm doing and I go and I make that phone call. At 11 o'clock in the morning in New York and if you don't pick up the phone at 10 o'clock at night. And you don't even have the G**damn phone turned on. I want you to know something, OK?

I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.

And when I come out there next week, I'm going to fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue. I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You've made me feel like s**t and you've made me feel like a fool over and over and over again. And this crap you pull on me with this G**damn phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to get on a plane and I am going to come out there for the day and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you. Do you understand me? I'm going to really make sure you get it. Then I'm going to get on a plane and I'm going to turn around and come home. So you'd better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me. So I'm going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig, OK?"

I'm a former 12-year-old kid who went through having my own father call me names in the aftermath of a divorce. The think was, he was calling me names way before the divorce. And, even though the divorce wasn't nasty, he still called me names afterwards.

Reading this made me sick to my stomach. The good part, though, was the revelation that yes, indeed, fathers do indeed talk to their kids like that. It's evil, and now "outsiders" finally get to hear what it sounds like.

Baldwin is a fucking sadist. I can see exactly why Basinger divorced him.

Die Kleidung Macht Frei

After being so delighted with my interview outfit found at Macy's and getting the job, I then realized: Oh. I've got to dress like this (aka "corporate") EVERY DAY from now on! The one outfit wouldn't cut it. So I had to go scrounge up some outfits for at least 3 or 4 days a week (I'm just gonna have to re-wear stuff the other 1 or 2 days---I AIN'T gonna buy 5 suits!)...

Dear god. After the amazing Macy's experience last week, I today descended into the pits of shopping hell... aka "Filene's Basement," the one on Broadway and 79th. OK, it wasn't horribly godawful, just pretty annoying.

I've since cruised around online to find reviews of this place, and the consensus seems to be: "You've got to really love shopping and finding bargains to love Filene's." Well, I don't particularly looooove shopping. Usually because of the crowds. And this place, on a Saturday afternoon, had "the crowds."

Actually, the masses of humanity there weren't that bad. People were polite and said "Excuse me" a lot as they struggled to inch past you in the narrow aisles. And the suit choices and prices were appropriate for what I needed---a cheap, conservative suit. (I ended up getting a cool-looking black pinstriped Calvin Klein suit for $129 before heading off to the Gap and Banana Republic to buy some extra shirts.)

The hellish part was THE DRESSING ROOM. I had two rounds of clothes, and the wait each time was at least 15 minutes. Being from Texas, land of malls, there are so many department stores that no one ever has to, god forbid, WAIT IN LINE to get into a dressing room! The arm-load of clothes got damn heavy after the first 4 or so minutes!

Still, it wouldn't have been so bad had there not been a DRESSING-ROOM NAZI at the gates. (Again, the people themselves in the line were patient and nice. Where anyone ever came up with the concept of "New Yorkers are rude," I can't understand. In general and as a whole, people here are friendly and down-to-earth and darn polite.) The Nazi was one of those who took her "position of power" way too seriously---except it wasn't "seriously" in terms of doing a good, efficient job. She was a big mess---talking loudly and condescendingly to everyone in line ("Step back, we must keep this area clear", etc., when no one was blocking anything. I kept expecting to see a "Die Kleidung Macht Frei" sign over the entrance.) and making a huge production of how many items you had. (For instance, my suits that I was trying on counted as 2 items per suit. Duh. Thanks for pointing that out, to me and people for miles around.) But then she would wander off aimlessly; we in line would see others come out of dressing rooms, so obviously some were now open, but she wouldn't be there to let us in.

As I was coming out of my first round in the dressing room, the dressing-room-woman was in a heated argument with another customer. The customer was saying "Madame, you obviously are overwhelmed by your job and don't know what you're doing." "I DO know what I'm doing; why do you feel the need to yell?" "I'm NOT yelling. [to other customers behind her] "Am I yelling?" Jesus.

Of course, I eventually became part of the fray. (How does that happen?!) When I was exiting, or attempting to exit, after my second round of trying stuff on, I tried to hand the clothes I didn't want to the woman. She waved me off, since she was busy counting the items of women who were coming in. I stood there for a minute or so, and when she still wouldn't take my clothes, just laid my clothes and number on a pile sitting beside her and walked out.

"Ma'am, where's your number?! WHERE'S YOUR NUMBER?! WHERE'S YOUR NUMBER??!!"

In my first instance of being publicly rude to someone in New York, I bellowed back: "IT'S ON TOP OF THE CLOTHES! I'm not going to wait to get OUT of your dressing room!!"

Luckily, I was able to go ahead to the checkout counter without having her CHASE me! (The Gap and Banana Republic that I went to later, BTW, were also pretty crowded, with a pretty long dressing-room line at the Gap...however, there was no DRAMA involved!)

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As I wrote the above, I just witnessed a car crashing into a parked car outside my window along the Hudson. The first guy made a real mess of the other's rear fender--- stopped and got out of his car briefly to check on his own fender, and then drove off. I did write down the license number. Should I be a Good Samaritan and report him to the police, or leave a note on the wrecked car's windshield? (Don't want the Kitty Genovese rap hanging over me... Funny (!), but that horrible story is one thing I remember hearing in the media about NYC in my youth---"You can get stabbed to death there and scream for a half-hour and no one'll help you!" That, and the Scorsese movies and "Midnight Cowboy,"---oh, and the Son of Sam murders---formed my early impressions of the city. I also claim to remember a time when I was about 4 that my mother and I stopped over in NYC on our way to Frankfurt; I remember getting into a cab at night, and the cabbie being a stereotypically old-school beefy white guy with a cap---much more Peter Boyle than Travis Bickle---but my mom claims that never happened!)

Depression on Campus

Given Cho-Seung-blah-blah's recent 32-person-killing-rampage at VA Tech, I started thinking about my own miserable feelings upon my first 2-or-so-years at the University of Texas in 1983.

While I stopped studying for 5 hours a night and began partying after the first three months to relieve the stress and fit in, I was also so depressed about a girl back home that I was hating almost every moment there. There'd be dorm-conversations about "what part of boys' bodies do you like best"---I didn't give a fuck about their wrists or their eyes. There was no one there that I could talk to about wanting this girl and being deeply depressed about not being able to be with her...In my sophomore year when a friend from high school called me up at my dorm and wanted to hang out---I could barely speak to him, I was so depressed about wanting her and the fact that she'd stopped calling me. He had always been a perfectly nice guy that I'd liked a lot in high school, but in the mental state I was in, I could barely be civil. No, I didn't get together to hang out. To this day, I regret my rudeness to him.

Another college campus regret is that I was never a member of the paper staff. I'd been Editor of the school paper in high school and loved writing, the deadlines, the pseudo-excitment (really, how exciting can high-school journalism get)... When I tried out for the paper staff in college, it wasn't really a try-out... you wrote one thing, and then some bitchy guy critiqued it and told you how your writing basically sucked. At 41, I'd say "fuck you," but at 18, those sarcastic "older"-boy fuck-wads scared me. I didn't have the guts/balls to keep on, despite the asshole critiques.

Today, I have a 4-year-old nephew, who's the best, most sensitive and funny kid...Before I moved to NYC, I loved talking to him and being around him, and I was his favorite---he'd always want me to sit by him and he'd listen to me before he listened to his mom and dad... I don't know how to keep him from ever being scared other than to tell him to fucking FIGHT the assholes... That's not quite right, but he's got to.

I felt scared most of the time I was in college. (Finally, after a few years' off, I got stronger and I decided I'd get "over it" and just finish the hell up with my BA, without trying to "feel" anything...but in the first years, it felt awful. I don't know how kids do it, unless they're 100% supported, both financially and mentally, by their parents and frats/sororities.) Back in the actual day, though, when I WAS trying to "feel" things: While I liked my writing classes and loved hanging out with fellow writers after class, there was also a lot of ugly stuff...like one campus parade, I forget the occasion. I stood by the sidelines of the main drag, Guadalupe, gearing up for some spiritedness... Then one frat boy next to me, referring to a gay-themed float on the drag, laughed to his buddies and said, "Look at those fuckin' faggots." This was in the mid-'80s; I wasn't out of the closet yet myself; that guy made me feel sick to my stomach. And I didn't feel I could do anything about it. Today, in 2007, at 41, I'd tell that idiotic motherfucker to go to hell. At the time, I was scared of him, and he made me feel like shit, and made me hate who I was and where I was.

Nowadays, I give the hook'em sign and am proud of being a University of Texas grad. Because I struggled for it. It sure as hell didn't come easy. And I certainly don't "bleed orange" as I've heard many UT grads say. (I always wonder about people actually that blindly gung-ho about anything...including Joan Crawford. You've got to be an idiot to see things in such utterly black-and-white---or burnt orange---terms.)

For One Flame Hour

Man, but I'm uptight tonight. I miss Julie... a lot. A lot. As I once told her, I could sit at her feet for hours just listening to her explain stereo equipment. (That, my friend, is love. Or lerv.)

Blues aside, I just read something neat by Claude McKay:

THE CITY'S LOVE

For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
The gracious city swept across the line;
Oblivious of the color of my skin,
Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast.
The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.



And then I read this, by Sara Teasdale:

UNION SQUARE

With the man I love who loves me not,
I walked in the street-lamps' flare;
We watched the world go home that night
In a flood through Union Square.

I leaned to catch the words he said
That were light as a snowflake falling;
Ah well that he never leaned to hear
The words my heart was calling.

And on we walked and on we walked
Past the fiery lights of the picture shows---
Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by
On the errand each man knows.

And on we walked and on we walked,
At the door at last we said good-bye;
I knew by his smile he had not heard
My heart's unuttered cry.

With the man I love who loves me not
I walked in the street-lamps' flare---
But oh, the girls who can ask for love
In the lights of Union Square.



I'm new here, but I do love this city already. Profound beauty and grandeur combined with unpretentiousness... My absolute dream girl.

Black Like Me

In light of recent bitchin' by black "spokespeople" like Jackson and Sharpton about how blacks are allegedly underrepresented on US TV and in film, I'm reminded of a poll I saw a couple of years ago, which asked US teenagers what percent of the population they thought black people were. The result: They thought something like 40%, primarily because they saw and heard so many blacks on TV and on the radio.

In truth, blacks make up (according to the last census) only 13% of the US population. Given that 13% number, ARE they under-represented in the US media? Take the 2006 Oscar noms, for example: Forrest Whitaker won for Best Actor, Will Smith was nominated; Eddie Murphy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor; Jennifer Hudson won for Best Supporting Actress. Black actors won 50% of the top 4 categories. A far greater percentage than their actual 13% of the population would indicate. (Hispanics, BTW, also consist of about 13% of the US population---do you hear them bitching? They have more of a right to, since they have nowhere near as great a presence as blacks on mainstream TV and radio, or in movies.)

I'm bored to death with blacks whining, "We're underrepresented in the media!" Just quit, already, with the great big "oppressed" thang. When your fathers and mothers couldn't drink out of white people's water fountains and had to sit on the back of the bus, I felt sympathy for you. Nowadays, that same prejudice doesn't exist and I'm mightily irritated by your constant boo-hooing. You're no longer overtly discriminated against, yet you keep on bitchin'... There are plenty of Asians who came to this country and started from scratch and started up stores, making something of themselves... If people new to this country can do it, then why can't YOU do it? Perhaps you should take a look at yourselves rather than blaming Asian shop-owners or the white "powers-that-be." Every college and corporate opportunity is now available to you, and has been available to you for the past 40 years. If you're not smart or talented or hard-working enough to make it, then look at yourself before blaming "whitey the oppressor." In 1860 or 1960, that might have washed, but it doesn't play now.

Sexy New York

...yet another first today---the day I got my real NYC library card! I'd tried to get one a week or so after arriving in February. Since I didn't have any bill with my NY address on it, all I could get at that time was a 3-day temp card.

A couple of days ago, though, my cell-phone bill arrived---with my new address on it--- and, yes, my first thought was not about paying the bill but rather: "Hurrah! I'm now going to be official!" (That's just my own dorkiness---you're not "from" a town until you've got a library card!) So today, after Macy's, I walked on over to the gorgous NYC Public Library and got my card. And even put a book (the new Assia Wevill bio) on hold---my first official act as a library-card holder. Woooo! ;p

While walking into the architecturally grand and beautiful library, I was struck by the thought: This city's just DAMN SEXY and does things DAMN WELL. Growing up in Texas, I've been in many libraries in my day, but they've mostly been in rinky-dink strip-mall-type buildings. Even when I worked at the University of Texas library---one of the biggest university libraries in the country, with 6 million volumes---the place was just ugly; generic '70s "architecture," gaudy blue/UT burnt orange/"harvest gold" chairs, cheap carpet... Walking into the main NYC library, in comparison, was a friggin' Aesthetic Experience. From the massive lions and pillars greeting you out front to the hardwood floors and deco lamps of the reading room... Gorgeous. This whole town is gorgeous. I'm so appreciative of being able to be here.

Macy's Day

Ah, another "first" in New York City today!

Let's see...there've been my first books bought (5 books about NYC at the famous "Strand"---world's largest bookstore!), first haircut (at the Blue Velvet-esque "Chelsea Styles"), first movie seen ("The Queen" at Chelsea Cinema; 2nd was "Flamingo Road" at the MoMA), first bar/band seen ("Brighton Bar" in Jersey/Ian Mitchell of the Bay City Rollers), first restaurant (the "Coral" in Washington Heights---a whole gyro plate for only $7.50!), first job (smearing makeup for MAC cosmetics)...

Today, I did my first clothes/shoe shopping in anticipation of a job interview with a major finance corporation on Monday. When I found out about the interview this morning, I knew my wardrobe as is was completely pitiful and unfit for corporate consumption. I had brought exactly ONE pair of dress slacks with me from Austin, and one pair of dressy shoes, and all my shirts were sweatery (since that was all I could fit in my suitcase when I packed in February; not that any of my blouses are in too good a shape, either)...And I can't even blame the fact that over half my clothes are still back home---In Austin, I worked for a publishing company for several years, where I could wear jeans or pants of jean-like material, and only the top editors (if that) bothered to wear suits or expensive clothes; I just had no nice businesslike-clothes ANYWHERE!

Another stressor was that I had no clue where to shop in NYC. Austin has malls galore, and I knew the few good boutique stores to go to for "cool" shoes or vintage clothes. Here, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. (I'd asked a co-worker back at MAC, who was from Queens, and she had recommended TJMaxx!---They have those back in Austin; I've been there maybe twice and I HATE their disorganization and overall crappy quality. So that was out. And this time I really couldn't afford something high-scale like Bloomingdale's...

Anyhow, after canvassing the few other women that I knew here in town and telling them what I needed, I came up with a plan to go to Macy's. I had no idea what to expect: my old NYC tourist guide that I consulted basically said that it was the world's largest store (10 floors) and a madhouse! So I was a-feared. Unnecessarily so. It was right off the Penn Station subway stop, and the greeter at the door was a dream, directing me to a handy visitors' guide that spelled out exactly where everything was located. After one saleslady directed me wrongly, I finally made it to the "regular" women's department (non-juniors, non-large, non-petite---all on separate floors---the place is HUGE!), where the three people I consulted were super-friendly and helpful. Got my crisp white shirt, got my crisp black slacks, and--for an unexpected bonus--got a cool gray-patterned suit-jacket marked down from $169 to $49 (I'd had no idea it was on sale---I'd tried it on on a whim and it looked so good I decided to get it, regardless of the price; what a treat to get it for only $49! Similarly, the shirt was regularly $70-something, but I'd happened upon a sale and it was "magically" only $29!) That was basically my whole outfit, and it only took around 1/2-hour of shopping time! No waiting time for the dressing room or at the register, either. (I was there pre-noon, and allegedly weekday mornings are the least crowded times at the store.) The check-out lady was chatty and funny, admiring the shirt I was getting; so I had to tell her the whole story---"My first job interview in NYC!" Good vibes.

The shoe shopping wasn't completely delightful, but still pleasant enough. "Andrew," a cross looks-wise between Andy Warhol and Michael Stipe (with Warhol's personality), was my salesman, and he was nonchalant and pokey as hell. (There's a system where your name and "order" is entered into a hand-held device and supposedly a little elf in the back fetches your shoes; I had to sit there for 15 minutes while Andrew walked around apparently aimlessly... At one point I had to ask him, "Is someone back there getting my shoes?" "Oh, yes." Wait...wait...wait.) Finally, I got the shoes, liked them, was ready for checkout, which is when Andrew had to give the "You know, if you get a Macy's charge card, there's a 15% discount" spiel. I was saying, "No, trying to avoid more debt," when he funnily, bitchily said, "Our fur department's just over there---you could get a great bargain." When I laughed and said, "No, no furs today," he continued, "Perhaps some fine jewelry then..." Now, I'd already been checking myself out in relation to the other shoppers in the store. I was wearing all black, had my subtly cool leather coat and boots on, my hair and makeup looked good, so I knew he wasn't mocking me for looking like a Joisey-Goil or something... It's hard to explain how I knew he was just being funny instead of being horribly mean, but it was funny and silly and I walked out of there in a good mood.

To make the already hugely long story slightly shorter: Bras and hose---no problem. Nice, helpful salesladies; both items on sale; neat and quick dressing room for the bras...

Yee-haw, I'm absolutely set to go Monday! Two or so weeks ago, I was on the subway and especially noticing a young woman in her 20s, all business-suited up, glancing nervously every minute or so at a resume in her hand. Of course I invented a whole story in my mind for her: Fresh out of school, on her way to interview for her first job... I forget now what exact part of town her stop was (somewhere Midtown), but I remember mentally wishing her luck as she got off the subway. And thinking how sharp she looked and wondering if I would ever be that well-dressed. Well, this Monday I WILL be that well-dressed! (Granted, it's only one outfit...And if I get hired, those folks might be surprised when I don't look quite as nice the rest of the next week or two... but, hey---my foot'll be in the door and after my first paycheck or so I'll just have to go back to Macy's and add a little week by week to my new wardrobe. And if I don't get hired, at least I'll have ONE darn spiffy outfit to wear on other interviews.)

This first shopping excursion was a big mental hurdle leapt. I definitely still want to learn where the best vintage and non-department-store boutiques are, but at least I now have a solid grounding that I can always fall back on. Thanks, Macy's, for a nice day!

BTW: I was kind of freaking out on the escalators today---there was something about how they looked that created an optical illusion as I was trying to get on or off, and I found myself always hesitating when embarking or disembarking, feeling as if I were going to fall... Tonight I read online that they're the original wooden escalators, from circa 1902; there IS something weird about how the moving parts blend in with the non-moving parts at the top and bottom... (Not to mention reading how a couple of kids have gotten fingers sliced off there lately! It's sad when it happens to a kid, but not-so-sad when the headline reads "Yokel from Texas Can't Figger Out Escalator"!)

Idolatry

(Gee, I just hate blogs that talk about stuff like this...)

But... I'm sick of the American Idol powers-that-be, and their suck-up media, dissing Sanjaya! (Thanks, Howard Stern, for your Sanjaya vote campaign, however twisted it is!) ;p

This week, Sanjaya's rendition of "Besame Mucho" was goose-bump raising. The kid and his vocal were very sexy, despite Simon's half-assed back-handed compliment. (BTW: I'm not sure why the judges have been dissing Sanjaya...If they didn't think he could sing, why then did they let him through to the finals? If the quality of the finalists is lacking, which it has been in cases like Haley's, for instance, then it's no one's fault but the judges'.)

My favorites, talent-wise, are Blake and Melinda, but Sanjaya's got that subtle, original something... In fact, I predict that Sanjaya will be in the final 3, along with Melinda and Blake (with Chris and Lakisha close runners-up---Chris, however, is a Blake wannabe, just as Lakisha is a cruder version of Melinda. Jordin is pleasant, but very generic. Phil's already outta there.)

Imus and Rick's Cafe

MSNBC just dropped Imus's show completely, and, though I've been a fairly regular viewer (I'm up at weird hours), can't say that I care much. The only reason I'd been watching was because it was a low-key thing to have on in the background while I was either on the computer or trying to go to sleep at 6 a.m. Other than that drowse-factor, most of what he had to say wasn't particularly interesting or funny or...anything. It was just kind of "there."

That said, I think this latest brouhaha is ridiculous. Imus has constantly been "good-ole-boy-ragging" on various groups since Day One. As a woman and as a lesbian and as a Democrat, I've listened to his constant barbs against "my people" and thought "yeah, yeah---you're soooooo witty." I've been listening to dumb guys talk all my life, so there wasn't much new there. What I resent about his firing from MSNBC now is the fact that somehow asshole-ish comments about blacks are considered "verboten," whereas similar comments about women and "fags" and Muslims and Asians and what-have-you are still considered fair fodder for mainstream "comedy." As I've mentioned on this blog before, why is it that you can't say "the N-Word" (NIGGER-NIGGER-NIGGER----there, I've said it) in the mainstream media, but that saying "bitch" or "ho" or "fag" is still acceptable and winked at? Imus didn't get fired because of the "ho" part of his comments about the Rutgers team, it was the "nappy-headed" part that got his bosses' PC panties in a wad.

And where are all of Imus's big-time media friends now that he needs them? Nowhere to be found. Imus sold out long ago to the powers-that-be, in the process completely toning down and taming any real wit or political iconoclasm that he might have once brought to the airwaves. He had his money and his big-time gig, and so didn't want to bite the conservative financial hands that fed him. Conversely, making fun of non-blue-collar-guy easy targets like Muslims and Asians and queers and Hillary Clinton seemed perfectly safe, so he tried to milk that for all it was worth, thinking it made him look "outspoken" and "honest"---"Just tellin' it like it is, folks." That kind of shallow, easy thing. And he's now paying a heavy price for his sell-out. The Northeast conservative boys won't back you when the chips are down. Imus should've taken Howard Stern's lead long ago and just been himself. Stern is utterly obnoxious, but he's a helluva lot funnier than Imus, without any annoying claims to "respectability." And Stern has completely done it "his way" and is now unbeholden to and unencumbered by false loyalties to mainstream money-men.

That Imus got busted for the "nappy-headed" comment is ridiculous. "Nappy-headed" is one of the lesser casual pieces of shit he's tossed out at various groups over the years. And for black "leaders" like Jesse Jackson (Mr. "Hymietown") and Al Sharpton (Mr. "Tawana Brawley") to jump all over him is hypocritical at best. Those guys are shysters and leaders of nothing; and the white cowards at NBC who caved in to them are the worst of all. You don't let someone go on for 30 years in the same vein and then all of a sudden act all self-righteous, as if you'd just discovered there was--gasp!--gambling going on at Rick's Cafe.

White Hot!

For how many months and months and months did I sit and listen to this 1978 album and stare at the cover?! (Those boys were decadently, semi-scarily pretty, as was the album. Most freaky of all...the "Angel" logo reads the same upside down!! More hours spent pondering THAT, without the benefits of marijuana even! It's fun being young and just delving into things! Which reminds me... way back then---early '80s, when turntables still existed---we really DID still play the Beatles' White Album and Sgt. Pepper backwards to hear hidden messages...based on what all of those '60s journalists had told us...)

I was just browsing the Internet for info on "White Hot" and was deeply disturbed to discover...the critics didn't like it! And they mocked Angel! They be crazy! That album is fantastic from beginning to end and I can still hear half the lyrics in my head..."I love you, I love you, I do, girl...but you ain't gonna cheat on me. I need you, I need you, I really do...CHOOSE! Is it him or meeeeeee... I ain't gonna eat out my heart any more..." Or what about: "Winter is here, and it's cold this time of year. There's frost on the windowpane. Winter nights are here again (la-la-la-la-la-la)..." This was definitely one of those junior high "spending the night at a friend's" cool albums to listen to at 1 am; so decadent to be up that late at age 13, drinking Coke after Coke and eating frozen pizza and reading "Creem" magazine, with its hip captions...(For the longest time I couldn't figure out what "natch" meant...)

Speaking of FANTASTIC, the lead pretty boy of Angel, Punky Meadows (once mocked by Frank Zappa in a song called "Punky's Whips"), now owns a tanning salon in Virginia called...TANFASTIC. Online profiles claim he's straight, he's straight...How the sexy have fallen...

"Hey Girl, come on, don't bring me down!"

Me, Debbie, and Ian Mitchell at the Ian (Bay City Rollers) show last Saturday Night in Joisey. After a 2-hour drive from NYC and getting waaaay lost. After meeting and arguing "philosophy" with local barfly "Ken Bastard." After watching Ian (who wore a tutu during the show) getting majorly hit upon by a local Irish skank post-show and falling for it! Not to mention my friend Debbie bemoaning that she was past her official groupie days and loyal to her fiance and couldn't show that girl what's what! ;p

The Joisey bar, "Brighton Bar," was completely local and regular. A semi-dive with a smattering of local kids, plus older 30-to-50-year-old obvious regulars. I hadn't quite known what to expect for a "Bay City Rollers" show... Embarrassingly, I was early-on mocking some way-older women who were there wearing tartan skirts (the Bay City Rollers were known in their '70s heyday for wearing tartan). When I struck up a conversation with a young guy at the bar who (mockingly) admired my tartan scarf, I was like, "Gawd, did you see those old Bay City Roller groupies?!" Cough-cough...They weren't groupies--they were the opening band, the Catholic Girls! Doh! Looks like me and my junior-high-school friend Debbie were the oldest groupies there!

The Ian-of-the-Rollers show wasn't great to me---turns out, he was actually touring to promote his non-saleable upcoming album, "Growing Up Glam." And only played 3 Bay City Roller hits the whole night! Still, I had fun singing along to the 3 hits with Debbie, and had fun out drinking in Joisey. (Though said drinking led to desperate peeing on the side of the highway half the way home when we couldn't hold it any more. I let Debbie go first, in case something came out of the bamboo to bite her on the ass.)

The neatest thing was meeting up with my Azle friend Debbie after...25 years! She's been in NYC now for 10 years, but I hadn't seen her since the early '80s---she was my absolute best friend in junior high back in Azle, Texas. She introduced me to KISS and the Stones and Angel and all sorts of cool music that I'd never heard about before. When I think of being 13 and spending the night over at a friend's and staying up late listening to albums and watching "Midnight Special" and "Saturday Night Live" and talking and talking and talking about whatever and getting weird/neat vibes, I think completely of her..."13" really is a magical time of life if you've had the right person in it. Debbie was a real guide. I can't quite explain it right, but she is..."organic" to me---a real part of my past; someone who mattered, someone who "knows me"---me, my mom, my brother, my old house, my old initial love for the Bay City Rollers and Shaun Cassidy... All of that both real and goofy stuff. When you have a true friend at age 13, they know the rest of you, regardless of what year.

The Girls at MAC Wear Black

I've finally decided to stop lying around and get a job in NYC. Albeit a temp job (ha! as if I could find anything else!). At any rate, my first temp job was/is at MAC, a cosmetics company, which I'd never previously heard of, but which is apparently very big world-wide. My job was to smear samples of cosmetics---eye shadow, lip gloss, lipstick, mascara, etc.---onto squares on sheets of paper. A bit tedious, but also flashing me back to kindergarten and coloring, which I always liked and got kudos for.

What was most interesting to me was being around the whole "fashion culture" for the first time. To start, my temp-agency agent told me to be sure and wear black---all black---when I showed up at MAC. I'd told my agent that I was from Texas, and I thought she was just messing with me, since Southerners are, I guess, known for wearing pastels or something. But no---when I went to MAC on my first day, I asked my boss: "For real, we have to wear all black?!" She was extremely nice---"Yeah, that's just what we kind of wear. But not on Fridays. On Fridays you can wear different colors. But not red. I've never seen anyone wear red." (Woooooo! I cut loose with a smoky blue shirt this past Friday.)

The second thing I noticed about said culture is that: The women are very nice-looking and extremely well-put-together. Living among the Dominicans in Washington Heights in north Manhattan, I feel very blonde and sexy. In SoHo (MAC's location), however, I feel, in comparison, like a big ol' non-famous frump. I guess there are two ways of dealing with that: One, I should "Just Be Me" and "Be Happy With Me." Two, I should get off my ass and exercise and get better makeup and clothes. Hmmmm... I think I'll get off my damn lazy ass and get some clothes! Seriously, the girls I've seen walking around in SoHo are, if not HOT, then at least interesting-looking! I half-expected to see Lindsay on my lunch-hour today.

Speaking of lunch-hour: A tourist shot photos of me today! I was sitting in front of a building scarfing down a slice of pizza during my lunch hour, and I looked up to see a guy across the street shooting me! I was puzzled: "Am I sitting in front of a historic building?" I wasn't. And then I wondered: "Is he shooting me 'cause I'm so New York or 'cause I'm so weird?" Whichever,look for my "slice of New York" photo on some freak's blog in the coming weeks!

I am absolutely in love with SoHo... what a pretty---nay, gorgeous!---part of town. Now...I'll just get to work on my best-selling novel so I can eventually afford to live there.

Big Pile o' Crap Alert

This just in from Neily, one of the creepy trio whose Joan Crawford book was supposed to be out already (the publisher nixed the book, but Neily's still pretending it's coming out "later"):

"I have been working hard on the upcoming Joan Crawford book with co-authors Michelle Vogel and Joan Crawford's own grandson, Casey Lalonde. This book will hopefully shed a new light on Joan. Casey, Michelle and I also have a huge project that we are so excited about because it will without a doubt shed some new light on Joan Crawford. We will most likely announce this “news” in a few months."

First of all, Michelle Vogel's writing skills are...amateurish. Don't look to me for critique, just look up her reviews on Amazon. She apparently puts out a book every 6 months, and they all...read as if they're put out every 6 months. Her reviews are terrible. Just as her last "Joan Crawford: Her Life in Letters" was terrible.

Second of all, Joan Crawford's grandson Casey has been milking his 3 or 4 meetings as a toddler in the early '70s with his grandmother Joan for about 2 years now. And for some reason he's now the "expert" on all things Joan---??? The guy knows nothing about his grandmother other than what he reads on my website.

Third, I just have to laugh about Neily. What he usually does is copy items from my own Joan website, then back-date them a day or two on the "announcements" page and then proclaim "You heard it here first!" (And then e-mail me dramatically: "I have a son! I have a son! I'm family-oriented and you're not!" Not to be mean, but... Neily, your boyfriend fucked around on you while you were together and had a son...doh! I would say "Who cares," but since you've brought it up...your "happy family" isn't quite as happy as you've pretended it is. You're a complete, creepy hypocrite!)

UGH. Watching these 3 trying to make money from Joan's memory is repulsive.

"Stupid tourists!"

Thanks to my roommate for taking me on a car tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn Saturday. (I'm completely anal, so thanks to her patience with my "Um, could you crack your window when you smoke?" "Could you turn the heat down?" "Could you turn the radio down?" "Could you not flick ashes on me and not touch my boob when you gesture??" But that's just me. Despite me, she was a very patient guide.)

We saw bits of Brooklyn and Brighton Beach, stopping by the Atlantic for a brief whiff of East-coast ocean air. (I smelled it, she didn't.) To me, the Brighton Beach sea-bordering homes were depressing as hell. For one thing, they reminded me of San Francisco "suburban" homes, which I hated while I lived in that city. The main drag of Brighton Beach was Russian to the core---lots of shops and activity as we drove by there around 6pm on a Saturday night under a subway line, but... being around Russian immigrants depresses me. Call me shallow, but... When I lived in SF in the mid-90s, I was also in a Russian immigrant 'hood, which was also depressing, 'cause people always looked at me funny since I wasn't Russian! Though I took Russian for 2 semesters in college (the "glamour" of the 1917 Revolution inspiring me), and I enjoyed translating the Cyrillic of the store-fronts this past evening... No way would I want to live in this particular 'hood!

A friendly thing about our hours-long jaunt about town was the willingness of random folks on the street to give us directions when we got lost in Brooklyn. My roomie thought that was worth mentioning. I thought it seemed like normal behavior for New Yorkers---In the past 3 years, I've visited NYC 3 times and have been living here for 6 weeks now. Never once has anyone been rude to me when I asked them for help!

Which flashes me back to a couple of past-life experiences: One, as a kid, visiting St. Augustine, Florida, one of the oldest cities in the US... My mom, dad, brother, and I were out walking in the town and it started to rain. We all started to run for the car, and then a car-load of guys driving by yelled at us: "Stupid Yankees!" Jeez! I was 10 years old or something, but it made me feel creepy; even at that age, I was analyzing: "First of all, we're from Texas. Second of all, why on earth would we be 'Stupid Yankees'? Because we were caught in the rain??"

Another creepy tourist experience took place when I lived in San Francisco in the mid-90s: I'd been there as a grad student for about a year, and my Austin friend flew out to visit me. Her husband brewed beer for a brew-pub in Austin, and we were on the look-out for SF pubs, walking the streets, looking at a map as we walked... Sure enough, we got a carload of people yelling at us: "Stupid tourists!"

What the fuck?!

Which reminds me also of some snotty media comments I've read here and there regarding retirees who travel around the country sight-seeing... Why in the world would traveling the country to sight-see be a detrimental thing? Seriously, shouldn't the desire to see other places in the US be considered a GOOD thing? And not just as a retiree... shouldn't the fact that people come to your town to look around be a COMPLIMENT?

I think to New Yorkers (many of whom are new themselves) it IS indeed a compliment; an annoyance at times, yes, but also a compliment. I'd be mightily surprised if a New Yorker saw me studying my map on a street corner and yelled "Tourist!" at me. How provincial that would be. How dumb-ass.

"Why Do Straights Hate Gays?"

Larry Kramer in the LA Times.

Things go along just swimmingly in your everyday gay life (if you happen to be living in a big city, that is). And then you read bad shit like the above, which unfortunately reinforces what you've just been watching on the mainstream news channels, but haven't been wanting to believe, since you've been feeling so "safe"...

Why the fuck is saying "nigger" on the air verboten, but saying "faggot" still OK? And why the fuck are black men, of all people, so weirdly anti-faggot, when they themselves have long been the targets of irrational prejudice?

Think about it, all you once-and-current "oppressed people"---and let's just use the military for an example: At one point, black men weren't allowed in the military. Would cause too much disruption for the prejudiced white boys.

Later, women weren't allowed. Would cause too much disruption for the prejudiced boys.

And today, gays aren't officially allowed in the military...would cause too much disruption for the prejudiced straight boys.

Start to see a pattern that perhaps the prejudiced BOYS have the problem?? (Or that prejudiced-boy surrogates like Ann Coulter have the problem?) When WILL any public leader stand up and say OUT LOUD that the anti-gay rhetoric is downright wrong? A bunch of fucking cowards we have for "leaders."

Dusty Springfield/Carole Pope

My roommate turned me on to the under-recognized Canadian singer Carole Pope... don't much like her music (Meat-Loaf-ish, very late-70s, though her bondage-image was cool and avant-garde at the time), but I was interested in her 6-month affair, according to her 2000 bio (courtesy of roomie), with Dusty Springfield. Dusty was apparently a big ol' mess (drinking heavily to the point of hospitalization and cutting herself), but there were also sexy/cute things like Dusty singing to Carole in bed when they were lying next to each other and Dusty's blow-by-blow accounting of the Charles/Di wedding... The bio itself was dull-ish, being that "Canadian stardom" is kind of dull (though Pope made forays into NYC and now lives in LA). Pope did appear on MTV in its early days and on "Solid Gold" (lead singer of "Rough Trade"), and did have several albums out, but the Springfield episode was pretty much the highlight of her public existence.

FRISCO FRISCO FRISCO

Back when I was in grad school in San Francisco in '94-95, I had no urge to call the town "Frisco," yet I heard reiterated a hundred-snotty-times: "Don't call it 'Frisco.'" You know what, fuck you, "Frisco." That's what's so dumbly snotty about the city: "Frisco" should be a cool thing, a complimentary nickname. But noooooo...

In this week's "Village Voice" (out of NYC), a young writer trying to be cool followed the decades-old-line, trying to correct a "Frisco" mention by a local rapper: "It's NOT called 'Frisco'." My take on that would be: If a rapper mentions "Frisco"---then probably he's been to "Frisco" and it's "Frisco," ya dumb 20-year-old Columbia graduate!

Perhaps if we all started calling "San Francisco" "Frisco" then maybe they'd regenerate their lost art and music scene, ya think? There hasn't been anything going on there since the '60s.

Imagine if PC New Yorkers suddenly went on a snooty rampage: "Don't call us 'The Big Apple.'" Luckily there are 8 million or so New Yorkers, intellectuals as well as construction workers, who take pride in "The Big Apple" and wouldn't dream of being so stupid or obnoxious as to protest a friendly nickname.

It's the fuckin' Big Apple. And everyone here fuckin' knows it.

Chelsea Styles, AKA "The Canopy!"

I got a haircut in Austin from my regular stylist of 7 or 8 years just days before I left for New York City, trying to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible: having to get a new hair-dresser. This isn't a ladies' "Lifestyles" column, so I won't draw the whole dilemma out too much: In short, I'd been to the Chelsea area of New York to see some Joan Crawford movies; I'd seen a lot of hair salons in the area; I couldn't remember their names afterwards, so today when I decided I really needed my hair cut, I just looked in the Yellow Pages for names that started with "Chelsea."

Which led me to "Chelsea Styles," which is right across from the Chelsea Hotel (or, "Hotel Chelsea"---Please, don't get all "Frisco" on me). I called at 3:30, apologizing for the short notice, but did they have an opening...they did, for 4:30. When I arrived, I was expecting it to be a "hipper-than-thou" place---I'd put on extra makeup and dressed up a bit, in anticipation. Instead... there was one 75-year-old lady there getting her hair done in orange-vanilla who asked me about the weather; my own hairdresser was in her mid-60s and admired the bob I wanted, because she'd been seeing it since the '50s; the one (gay) male in the place looked like Robert Goulet, had worked there for 30 years, and had to go out and shovel snow after the store's canopy suddenly collapsed under the weight of yesterday's ice... I loved hearing the "CANOPY" conversations afterwards: SEVERAL OLD LADIES to PSEUDO-GOULET: "You really got your work-out for the day!" PSEUDO-GOULET: "For the DAY? You mean, for the YEAR!" [much laughter] Turns out, according to my own hairdresser, that just hours earlier on 23rd Street, yet ANOTHER CANOPY had collapsed from the snow, ALMOST injuring a young woman, who could not stop shaking afterwards! BEWARE OF THE SNOW-LADEN CANOPIES!!

OK, hair-story short: Once my wet hair was cut, the woman sent me to a big ol' hairdryer---the kind that comes down over your head and blows on you for 20 minutes! Yes, I was expecting a hand-held blow-dryer, per my past life 20th-century-experience... When I came out from under the Big Dryer, my hair looked like a fuzzy mushroom. Which my hairdresser insisted was instead "fluffy" and "natural." Upon my insistence, she did provide me with some mousse---a TON of mousse, sprayed directly into my own hand... "That's a lot of mousse..." "USE IT, QUICK!" OK, OK!!

You know, the cut wasn't horrible. It cost a mere $31, which is less than I paid for the exact cut I liked back in Austin, and is, I'm sure, way less than a more up-to-date (read: "hipper") Chelsea salon would charge. This first NYC cut wasn't particularly skillful or sexy, but... it's salvageable. And wearable for 5 or so weeks.

I didn't mind my venture into the world o' "Blue Velvet," but... if any female or gay male New Yorkers are out there reading, your hair salon recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

Sinnataggen

Hey, lil' baby. You know you're cute and that I love you.

Mick Jagger/Rock 'n' Roll Circus

A couple of nights ago on the local PBS station I saw the Rolling Stones' 1968 TV special: "Rock and Roll Circus." What initially made me seek this out, aside from my general interest in '60s music, was the fact that I knew that John Lennon and Yoko had appeared on this special; it was John's first solo performance sans the Beatles. He performed "Yer Blues" (which would first appear on vinyl the next year on the Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album "Live From Toronto"), under the band name "The Dirty Mac," which included Eric Clapton and Keith Richards on guitars...and Yoko in a black bag at the foot of the stage. (Luckily, the camera didn't show more than 2 seconds of her. I find that kind of thing pretentious as shit.) "The Dirty Mac"'s next song had the same backup band, but with a fiddle player (can't remember his name) and Yoko doing her now-"famous" caterwauling that did somehow manage to correspond with the squeaky fiddle.

That said... John and Yoko were interesting for historical purposes only. But what/who I was truly mesmerized by was Mick Jagger. Good lord, I've heard "androgyny" hyped out the wazoo ever since I was a teen, to the point where it had long become meaningless. But...this guy's eyes and face and body movements defied anything I'd ever read or seen before. Extremely erotic. Today, there's Prince and there are gay guys trying to act sexy (or provocative), but they're generic in comparison---Mick Jagger in 1968 was something truly, transcendently gorgeous. The censors couldn't touch him because they couldn't quite put their collective finger on what it was that was so odd and "scary"...

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y N-I-G-H-T!

I've written about the Bay City Rollers here before, but just wanted to reiterate... My very first favorite band. The very first two albums that I bought ("Dedication" and their debut album). The very first band I almost saw in concert. Which brings me to my current tale... Me and my Azle, Texas, friend Debbie (my best friend in junior high) ALMOST saw the Bay City Rollers in concert at the Tarrant County Convention Center in Fort Worth, Texas, in something like 1978 or '79. My mom bought the tickets and was going to be our chaperone (since we were junior-high kids). Unfortunately, the group couldn't sell enough tickets, so had to cancel the show. The end. Debbie went on to become a groupie for KISS and Motley Crue and various death-metal bands (and has since become a regular professional businessperson), and I... went on to listen to the Beatles and Julie London.

Fast-forward 25 years: I checked out my high-school's website and got back in touch with Debbie. We e-mailed a couple of times, but one thing stood out: She said she's now living in Brooklyn, and if I ever needed help moving to NYC... At the time she mentioned that, I had no real plans, but when it came time for me to actually make the leap to the Big City, I got in touch with her. Turns out I didn't need to stay with her after all, but we still exchanged numbers and made indefinite plans to meet up in NYC at some point...

Long story short---the Bay City Rollers are playing in New Jersey on March 31! And Debbie and I are going together! I can't think of a better way for friends to hang out again after 25-odd years!

Love this town (and its surrounding, easily accessible areas)!

Snow snow snow snow snow snow SNOW!

Who needs 50 words? (Or however many the Eskimo allegedly have.) It's 4:30 am March 16, and the SNOW SNOW SNOW is coming down like mad. I'm absolutely enamored! I grew up in Texas, and every other year or so, there'd be one weather alert: "There might be an inch of snow"---which usually turned out to be, every 3 years, a tiny bit of ice, enough to completely shut down schools and work for a day.

For the past 3 days in NYC, it's been about 60. UGH. "Just like Austin," I thought. And I didn't WANT "just like Austin." I'd lived in Austin for 23 years, except for a 2-year stint in grad school in San Francisco in the mid-'90s, and like clockwork: come mid-March (i.e., "Spring Break" for the University of Texas and the SXSW music/film fest), all the trees bloomed and it was permanently spring. "Spring" lasting about a month, before 85-degree weather kicked in through June, then 90-to-100-degree weather through October.

I'm sure if I'd been in NYC since last November, I'd be dead sick of wintery-ness. But, a-ha, I HAVEN'T been here since November, only since February. I'm mean and selfish. I want some blizzards. The forecast for tomorrow and Saturday is: up to 6 inches of snow! Hurrah! Snow is magical. It's NEAT when it hits you in your face. I like trudging through it to buy a pack of cigs or some beer. Makes you feel challenged. And then cozy when you've finally made it to the "comfort" of the subway, or of your apartment. (But, really, check with me next year at this time, when I might perhaps be bitchin'..."goddamit, in Austin, it was never cold!" That will be the true test! ;p

The city that never sleeps...hah!

A new city's not broken in 'til you've made a drunken food run in the wee small hours. Which I just did. At 5:40am, I trudged the 2 blocks to the McDonald's on Broadway, craving a McNuggets Happy Meal. Too bad for me, the store was closed. But with only 10 or so minutes to wait 'til the 6am store opening, I stood outside the store, feeling somewhat like a hooker for hanging around on the street in the dark. Only, I actually didn't feel like a hooker since there were plenty of people out and about. Though I did feel disgruntled---most hamburger joints in Austin are open 24/7, so what the hell happened to "the city that never sleeps," huh, huh?!

A couple of minutes before 6, another woman joined me in our short "line" outside the store. She said something in Spanish, which I didn't understand, and then she said, in English: "Are you German?" I laughed and gestured to my blonde hair, and she nodded. Now, I do happen to be HALF-German (mom), but it was funny to me that just being blonde would make someone think I was German! She didn't ask "Texan" or "Swedish" or any other stereotypical blonde thing... Anyway, it put me in a good mood for some reason. (The same way, back in the '80s, a guy at a bus-stop in Austin who asked me if I was from New Jersey---I guess 'cause I was wearing all black---made me feel good.)

When I got into the McDonald's though, I forgot about my joy-in-Germanity and was again disgruntled: At 6am they only served the breakfast menu, no McNuggets. Now, seriously---Austin, Texas, is small-town compared to NYC, yet Austin's McDonalds have the full dinner menu available 24 hours a day (not to mention side salads, which this McDonald's doesn't carry, ever).

Alright, the message for today is: This city sleeps. And Tiffany's has kids working at the counter.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I went into Tiffany's today. Fifth Avenue in NYC has all the "big" stores: Tiffany's, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf-Goodman, et al., and I went walking down "the row" today, checking stuff out. When I went into Tiffany's, it wasn't particularly glamorous: The salespeople looked like salespeople in an Austin mall's Zales Jeweler's store. Not a put-down, but just...that's how they looked---like young salespeople.

I was just reading a Capote bio (he's the author of "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), and he mentioned where he first heard the phrase: An older gay friend of his had just been with a young guy the night before. The next morning, the trick had been so good that the old guy was feeling generous and said, "Let's go eat breakfast---anywhere you want." The "richest" thing that the young guy could think of --- "I'd like breakfast at Tiffany's." The origin of the title of one of the most famous works of American literature: A dumb gay trick! Gotta love it!

Mannahatta

MANNAHATTA (by Walt Whitman)

...I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient...


I see that I've got a lot of work to do. Born and raised in Texas, I was also simultaneously indoctrinated with Texas lore, in both school and my everyday life: the Alamo, et al. Now I'm looking out at the Hudson, not the Colorado, and there's a Revolutionary War heroes' cemetery two blocks down the street, with a plaque commemorating a battle on that very spot that we lost against the British. Of course I know, vaguely, about the Revolutionary War, but not specifically. It's also taken me a month to figure out what the hell "Long Island" is and where it is in relation to the island of Manhattan and Staten Island, et al. A whole other world. (Though I've enjoyed greatly walking around in 20-degree weather without complaining and having snow hit me in the face in Times Square, in awe of the blizzard against the neon billboards, and goose-bumpy at the tourists taking pictures of the blizzardy neon scene---"I'm in a place so beautiful that tourists take pictures of the scene.") The tugboats on the Hudson outside my window also remind me of the boats on the Rhine that I watched while visiting Germany as a young person 20 years ago, mesmerized by the strangeness of tugboats going by on a river.

I bought 4 books today in The Strand bookstore in Union Square: "The New York Chronology," "The Epic of New York City," "Literary Places: New York," and "Poems of New York." And then went and had some pizza while reading the new Village Voice and took a crowded subway home.


OBSERVATION (by Dorothy Parker)

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

It Girl

Give her something serious to do onscreen, please.

Washington Heights

While I'm irritated at being called "Gringa" on the streets of my new north-Manhattan-Dominican-dominated NYC 'hood, I'm nonetheless damn happy to be here in this city! : ) My initial shopping excursions to nearby grocery stores were oh-so-difficult ("Where the HELL are the refried beans, and the Paul Mitchell products?!"), but I've since found other shops that come close to catering to my particular whims... which don't happen to include a yen for store-bought "Human Hair"! (Check out the marquee on that one store-front.)

That said, this Washington Heights 'hood is interesting (one block away is the site where George Washington lost a battle to the British in the Revolutionary War, now a cemetery; and then there's a house from the first Dutch settlement in the 1700s a few blocks further north). Plus the gorgeous view of the Hudson River outside my window... While I bitch about refried beans, I'm in the meantime mightily impressed by my beautiful, and historical, surroundings.

Not to mention already getting to see both "Flamingo Road" and "The Best of Everything" in my first 3 weeks here. (With "Sudden Fear" and "Johnny Guitar" upcoming in March.) Any place that looks this good AND offers up Joan films on a regular basis... I'm in love.

Hudson River, 3am

How pretty is this? The view from the window of my new home. I wrote this poem while it snowed on Valentine's Day (three days after I moved here):

Hudson River, 3am

The snow is falling, thick and silent, beautiful bemused
Erasing tracks and torments, lights fantastic
everything we used to guide our way

Alligator at the door

Dream: After a party where there was vintage furniture being sold and many female party hosts were inexplicably sleeping, I was trying to get across a shallow puddle in a dirt road, along with 3 of my long-time girl-friends. I spotted an alligator on the sideline; at first it ignored us, then it struck...I had some sort of long hook with me and some kind of spray and I fought it, catching it through the chin with the hook. Some guys came along, from my high school, and started spraying ME with the same spray that I was aiming at the alligator.

I was outraged at the guys: "That thing was AFTER us!" What's weird is that the friends that I was with started questioning ME about my actions, while the guys admitted secretly that I'd been in the right. All before the whole thing was set to go to trial. So much hostility and tension and fear... Alligators/crocs really freak me out. And the outrage that I was fighting one and then got punished for it...

The Black Beast

I just loved this car. And now it's gone. Thanks to a nice young Indian gent here at the University of Texas to study Electrical Engineering. He and I (and his two friends) spent a LOT of time together over the past 3 days as we maneuvered around the difficult business of selling a car. During various test drives and various mechanics and waiting for the ultimate title transfer, I learned about his life here in Austin and in his home of Bombay. Here, he's in a 2-bedroom apartment that he shares with 5 (!) other Indian students. There's not really a problem for him since in Bombay his home was small and he shared it with brothers and sisters and cousins and so is used to being in close quarters. But he prefers motorcycles to cars because he likes the open air. And is depressed by the suburbs he's seen in Dallas, where no one ever seems to go outside their homes. And he can't yet tell his way around Austin, because every street seems to look alike.

The competition at the primary university in Bombay is fierce, simply because there are so many talented people vying for the same positions. That said, some of the programs, like in Electrical Engineering, in the US are known for being the best in the world, which is why Indian students want to come here. While the buyer of my car is still in school for a couple of more years, one of his friends has a job lined up in Dallas; the other in Mississippi. After working in America for several years, they all plan on eventually going back to India, although they're tempted by the higher standard of living in the US.

S. was also a hard, but fair, bargainer. I'd done my research before selling the car---looking up the rates on the Blue Book and NADA, as he'd also done. I'd listed the car for $3750, and he bargained me down to $3400, after the mechanic examined the car and noted the belts and two tires that needed replacing. When we went to the state office to officially transfer the car title, the woman looked up the state-determined value of the car for tax purposes: $3480. Perfect.

I was proud of myself, because I'd never actually sold a car of mine before to an individual. (Which is much more involved than selling back to a dealer, for instance. The dealer will take care of all of the taxes and paperwork, but will also give you a lot less for the car. Also, in the past, for another car or two, my mother had done all the work for me. It felt good to do "grownup" stuff by myself.)

One funny thing: I had 4 bumperstickers on the car: the Joan Crawford "JC" oval; the anti-Bush "W" with a slash over it; a "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" sticker; and "Keep Austin Weird." Before I'd tried to sell the car I'd gone to an auto parts store to see if they had anything for removing stickers. Oddly, they did not. During the whole selling process, there was no mention of the stickers. After I'd received the money, I asked S. if the stickers bothered him and if he was going to try to remove them. He hadn't given them much of a thought, other than that he and his friends had been trying to figure out what the "anti-W" sticker meant---they had figured out amongst themselves, "anti-WAR." I was kind of bemused---those stickers had always been so personal to me. And if I had bought another person's car with his/her stickers on it, the first thing I would have done would have been to take them off!

Fuckin' HELL!

I have Ted Hughes' picture up because it just reminded me of a story in Plath's journal, about how he broke a bone in his foot getting up from a chair (or was it "exercising too hard"?). Anyway, I just did something to my mofo foot, while merely examining my car (which I'm trying to sell today) in the driveway. Luckily, there's only a huge lump on the side of my foot and I can still walk and put my shoe on...but, GEEEEEZUS, I do not need this right now. Goddamn it. What's weird is that I nearly blacked out when it happened, and a cold sweat started up... The only time I've ever felt physical pain like that before is when I've gotten cramps. (Seriously, don't mock---I've blacked out and thrown up from really bad cramps before.)

In short, I'm not going to a doctor, I'm not spending any money, I've got a car to sell today, I've got a big city to get to in 6 days. So this bone-break, or whatever the fuck it is, better just go away. Godammit.

OK, break (a figurative one) in the above narrative since a bunch of Indian guys just came over to look at the car. I had the Blue Book report, I had the NADA report, and I still felt suspicious offering the car for $300 below value. I kind of hate selling stuff, since I feel like a schuyster (sp?), even if I'm not a schuyster... But people from India---let me just say that they're not rubes! They rival old-school Germans in their efficiency!

Back to Ted... Back when I was in grad school at San Francisco State, my thesis advisor once told me that she'd met Hughes when he came to SF for a poetry reading... He later asked various professors to come for drinks... My advisor refused because she felt "bad vibes" from him! Good lord, woman! THE "Ted Hughes" and you're not going to drink with him because you feel "bad vibes"???! Sensitivity is wonderful, but that's just nuts. When Ted Hughes asks you for a drink (and/or to sleep with him), you just say "Yes." That's all there is to it. Please, I'm 80% gay, and sleeping with Ted Hughes...A lesbian can reject most average males, but this man is, oh, like Garbo or Crawford or something. He's seriously sexy and transcends.(And he doesn't have the Pee-Wee Herman front flip that most metrosexuals sport today---I can't decide which is worse, that flip or "the goatee." Older British, European, and Russian men know how to wear their hair.)

BTW: I once sent Hughes some of my poems, via his publishing company Faber & Faber, saying how much I hated my grad school program and admired his work, which was nothing like what my program considered "worthy." And that I'd had a dream, where he and I were sitting across a wooden table and I handed him my poems... He wrote back, a hand-written note, saying he liked my poems...

The Poet Laureate of England said he liked my poems. And some people wonder why I'm egotistical! ;p

Turn me on dead man

I'm just curious, both guys and girls...what gender would be most likely to be turned on by this photo? I found it more freaky than sexy---when I was looking at it, I wasn't so much turned on as kind of fascinated by the graphic-ness of it. (Kind of like issues of "Hustler" I've seen---there's nothing sensual about those photos, but there's a kind of hard-core "freak" aspect to them, like seeing photos of dead people or slowing down to witness the aftermath of a car-crash. You can't help but looking and reacting.)

One of the reasons I ask is because the same person who posted this photo (elsewhere) once e-mailed me a Hustler-style photo of a woman on her hands and knees, with her genitals graphically displayed, thinking it would be sexy to a woman... (Again, it wasn't really "sexy," just something to look at, like an accident.) The person who sent this to me was claiming to be a woman at the time; when I showed the photo to a girlfriend of mine (an actual woman), the first thing she said was, "A guy sent that."

Is there a hard-core "wiring" for "male," regardless of whether or not someone's had an operation?

Wouldn't You Like It

I got this album for my birthday in the summer of '77, at the same time the "Son of Sam" killer was loose in NYC. I remember listening to the album on my birthday and, with Son of Sam in mind, being freaked out by "Wouldn't You Like It," since it had weird, distorted vocals in some parts that sounded psychotic to me... (Which reminds me... I was also pretty freaked out by the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper," which I heard a year or so later... I got incredibly bad vibes from it. I later asked my younger brother and another friend what they'd thought, and they were also a bit disturbed by it. Now that I'm 41, I kind of miss tuning in so completely to albums... I remember when Pink Floyd's "The Wall" came out, with accompanying movie... I was in my sophomore year of college and depressed as hell and I thought the movie was the profoundest thing ever... Every bad thing I'd been thinking about the world was right there... A horrible, profound movie... I don't know that I'd want to watch it again now. When you're young you can handle the awful truth, but as you get older you want to forget it...

Bye Bye Baby

It took me 6 hours tonight to divide up my books for moving. I was trying to be nice to my mom and not give her tons of books to mail to me in NYC later, but I couldn't help it---I'm gonna want those books later! All the Joan Crawford books went into the SEND IMMEDIATELY pile. And all the Plath books, and the NYC-related books, like the history of, and the drag queens of... Plus Rilke, Eliot, Yeats, early Hemingway... Seriously, there are something like 10 boxes of books, and I can't have all of them... Nor can I immediately have all of my clothes or shoes... I've had to pack up the clothing boxes and label them "1" or "2" for priority...

I'm listening to the Bay City Rollers again right now, and "Summer Love Sensation" is on---I LOVE that song! I never particularly liked Derek, but when he says "Baby, I love you..."---Yow! ;p And now "Bye Bye Baby"---My German cousin Susi told me this was their biggest hit in Germany.