Now I'm Out $12.50!

Last night Solomon and I went to see La Mala educación, and that was super fun. The movie was filled with rampant sexiness, made all the more sexy by presenting the sexiness just slightly out of the frame, or under water, or behind a pair of extremely wet and terribly transparent white cotton underpants. Mmpf! That Gael García Bernal makes for a sexy manlady. The movie had a fascinating twisty plot, which I won't reveal here, and also a lovely gown with sequined boobs that I believe was made by Gaultier.

What I'm saying is that the film has a lot to recommend it.

Afterwards, because we were in the neighborhood, Solomon suggested we stop in at Lucky Cheng's "if it's still open." He didn't mean whether or not they had closed for the evening - it was only 10pm - but rather whether they had closed forever (they hadn't). But since he brought it up, it did make me think how times have changed. New York used to have at least two competing Asian drag restaurants, along with a white-people drag restaurant, and a bondage restaurant as a bonus!

Not without irony, under the Bush administration several of those theme restaurants have closed. Nowadays I think there's just two drag restaurants and no bondage restaurant at all. I'd like to blame it on Bushie the lesser, but I have to admit that serving really expensive and French Nouvelle cuisine in a bondage setting was a bit redundant.

Solomon used to hang out at Lucky Cheng's in college, and he knows some of the "ladies" from there quite well, at least one of whom has now a become a lady without the quotes around it. The miracles of modern medicine!

But he did mention that before she became a lady, when she was a "lady," she frequently did stage shows and lip-synchs and so forth for bachelor and bachelorette parties. (The "stage" at Lucky Cheng's is actually a boarded-over goldfish pond that used to be the hot tub in the gay bathhouse that the restaurant used to be, but that's another story, never mind, anyway....) It's apparently not uncommon for bachelor or bachelorette parties to take place there, and it sometimes the performers interacted with the groom-to-be even after the stage show was over.

It's funny especially because there's probably some delusional bride somewhere who specifically approved her fiance's choice of bachelor party venue as Lucky Cheng's rather than Scores or Wiggles, only to have her plan to keep her groom-to-be faithful backfire when he buttfucked a pre-op drag queen in a dingy basement stock room. (Although I'm guessing that later the groom probably doesn't mention that sort of thing to his bride-to-be, even if the priest remembers to asks him to "speak now or forever hold your peace" during the ceremony.)

In looking up the website for Wiggles, one thing led to another and I ended up finding this website of local escort ads (I was actually looking for escort reviews, which are funny, especially when they are reviews of former White House reporters). The escort ad website includes ads by delusional heterosexual men who think that a woman is going to pay a man for sex. Even at the rate of $25 an hour, it's unlikely. Any woman I've ever heard of really just needs to decide how many drinks she wants the man to buy her before she deigns to give him access to her chaste treasure, not the other way around. And she probably doesn't call it her chaste treasure, either.

So, the following link is not safe for work and contains a penis, but when you can, please look at this escort's posting, and then tell me something I've always wondered - if you're going to go through the trouble of photographing your genitalia and posting it on the internet for everyone to see, couldn't you please please pick the trash off of your filthy floor first?

I know a backdrop is a lot to ask, much less proper lighting, but couldn't you at least point the camera away from pit of garbage that you live in before you flop your member out? It's like the horrible window display I was talking about earlier.

It's as if Macy's did a window display using the clothing which they think is the nicest and most enticing that they want people to buy, and took those clothes and just threw them, mannequinless, on the floor of the window display before piling in some used condoms, dog feces, and surplus AOL 9.0 installation CDs.

Hey, you can see the dresses, right? What difference does it make?

That is all.

Let's Just Say I'd Rather Not Sit Down, Doctor

This is a photograph of one of my favorite things - a bad window display. In my mind, a window display should contain an interesting tableau of items that entices people who are outside the store to come inside the store. However, some shopkeeps, such as the owner of the above window display, have decided that the window display should simply contain a spastically-selected array of the items that are available for sale inside the store, displayed purposefully based simply on the space available in the window, much as you might fill a dishwasher with the most efficiency.

When, as in the above photograph, the store is a medical supply store, the tableau created involves such whimsical outfits that they answer the question "How do you make an adult-sized terrycloth bib sexy?" with the resounding answer of "Why, pair it with a jockstrap!"

You won't be able to beat the ladies away from your wheelchair when you wear one of these ensembles, even if you did have the use of your arms!

"How can I draw attention away from my arm sling?" "Have you tried a medical corset? Warhol used to wear one!"

Or how about this scenario - you're incontinent, but you don't want to let THAT get in the way of getting some loving - so pair your adult diaper with a sexy black lace bra!:

For the gal on the go, might we suggest a lightweight aluminum crutch with that diaper? Or how about a compression boot? I hear the men like a lady with thin ankles - especially if they're wearing a sexy double-insert mastectomy bra!

That is all.

Wiser? Perhaps.
Older? Definitely.

I went to the record store at lunch so I could pick up Tori's The Beekeeper, which came out last week (sorry I'm late, Tori!). After waffling over whether or not I needed the Deluxe Mega Super Edition, which includes a packet of seeds but costs $6 more, I decided to get Hot Fuss by The Killers instead.

Okay, I got both of them, actually.

I haven't been to a record store in ages, and I remembered why:

1. Bjork is still releasing every single sound that comes out of her body in limited edition CD-single form, and that continues to piss me off. As Todd would say, there there isn't enough mommy in the world to support a cause like hers. In fact, while I was browsing in the CDs I found an additional two remixes for Hyperballad which I don't have and can't listen to, and also she's released live CDs of several of her studio CDs, in case you want to buy everything twice. I can't keep up, and therefore I give up. She can take her weird-ass hairdos and mutlicolored teardrop snot and her paper dresses and lug them back to Iceland for all I care. For now.
   
2. I get distracted by all the pretty colors on the CD boxes and start thinking I need to buy them all. It's very confusing and I need to remind myself that while I like the photography and art direction on all the Kylie Minoque CDs - and there's about 50 million different singles, even before you get into Danii and the other, lesser Minogues - and I did see that cool video at the gym once - I have to remember - I don't listen to Kylie Minogue, except for that one remix of Did It Again by Razor which took out almost all the words. I just like her outfits and her playful insouciance. No offense, Kylie.

On the bright side, however, whilst amongst the singles I came across the CD single for If You Don't Know Me By Now by Aubrey. To be perfectly frank, I actually don't know her all that well by now, but the CD single contains a remix by my friend, famous New York DJ Kevin Graves.

It's terribly exciting that I know someone who has a record in the record shop - aside from my entirely imaginary relationship with Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, of course - so I imagine it must be even more exciting for Kevin, whose is actually on the record. I hope he's suitably excited - the record is even available on Amazon today, his birthday is tomorrow, and his super-exciting party-rama is at Crobar this weekend. The only way this week could get more exciting would be if a porn video of him getting fucked by Fred Durst gets hacked from Pam Dawber's cell phone, and since I made that last part up it probably won't happen.

The CD single - which is a reasonably-priced non-import not-limited-edition CD single (thank you!) - is real, however. You can hear a clip on this page, except they did that super-smart thing - and by super-smart I mean not-smart - where they take only the first minute of the song, which is mostly intro, so you don't get much of a sense of it. Maybe they'll have a clip on Amazon soon.

In other news, the local news was practically fingering itself in dizzying excitment over a pending mega-snowstorm, which in actuality ended up being like three inches and very boring, so I suppose it was like one of those blind dates NKOTB was telling me about. My boss still managed to come in an hour and a half late, though, despite the fact he lives about five blocks from me and takes the subway to work. I guess that's why he gets the big money.

That is all.

The Crackers

Talk amongst yourselves - I'll give you a topic. Look at this photograph (don't worry, it's not dirty). Consider this: art must be remade in the form of snack food in order to be more "digestible" and therefore understood by the typical American.

Does this relate to the American problem of obesity? Is art more or less of a commodity when it is made into a tote bag? Why or why not? Is that ugly tie I got in high school with Van Gogh's Irises on it considered camp, kitsch, or crap? Are those three categories mutually exclusive? Discuss.

In Which I Am Humbled Before Greatness

I have returned from my fun trip to visit Todd in LA, and work has piled up to a remarkable height, despite the fact that our office was closed the whole time - who knew?

Sooooo today's entry is very short - while visiting Todd, we happened to watch one of his roommate's skillions of DVDs, the DVD of The Apple, which is, coincidently, the very worst movie ever made. It's fantastic. It makes Showgirls look like Sophie's Choice. Now that I think about it, maybe Showgirls IS Sophie's Choice....hmmm, I'll have to think about that. We also watched Can't Stop The Music, which - in comparison to The Apple - seems like a quiet meditation - a tone poem, perhaps? - a rumination on coming to terms with the self.

After watching The Apple, I rushed to the toilet to vomit, but all that came out was glitter.

Anyway, while looking up IMDB messages and Amazon reviews, I chanced upon this reviewer, Tim Edstrom, who has written quite possibly the funniest reviews ever - here's a sample:

Normally, the duality of man is an exploration performed within one person. Yet, the Olsen twins, the highly talented tandem of Mary Kate and Ashley, are themselves a dual representation of duality, the former as good and the latter as evil. New York Minute is not a lament about childhood experiences, but rather an interesting celebration of awareness. Not only is the story compelling, the script is exceptional.

And another:

Air Bud 3 is Orwellian brilliance: in the style of the George Orwell classic Animal Farm, human actors are put into an animal form to create an allegory that within this film is nothing if not overtly transparent.

As you might imagine, on THIS sort of a scale, Citizen Kane got two stars, and The Apple gets five. Haute! Read them and weep. If I was this funny, I would explode. Either he's the cleverest review writer ever, or he's German.

That is all.

In Which I Apply To Become A Media Whore

All this time I thought I needed, like experience or talent to get a career in journalism. Silly me! Now that I know the correct procedure, I'm expecting my White House Press Pass any day now.

Once I have that in hand, I'll have the access I need to get you, gentle reader, the latest and greatest news on the spectacular plans of the Bush administration: from George W. Bush's wonderful programs to create jobs to his flawless program to dissolve social security; from the great things he's done to the great man he is. And nothing else!

Okay, on occasion, for balance, I'll do a story on the stupidity of the Democratic Party, or on the biased media - the LIBERAL media. You can tell the media is biased because because they question things like God and the President, when really they should accept that since God picked the President, Bush is doing God's work, and that's all you need to know.

Here at the Comfort Zone, once I have that press pass, we'll be FAIR and BALANCED, just like Fox News, so I'll just be reading the White House press releases fully, wihtout comment, and you know that I know all about full releases.

That is all.