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Frank Bruni: gustatory everyman, fighting for truth, justice, and moderately priced wine lists, or needlessly coy sybarite who's really better suited to devise clever, double-entendre titles for porn flicks? On the plus side, he does have the nice, rounded features of a frat boy gone to seed--and if the NNDB is to be believed, he bats for our team. All you pun-loving cakeboys, have at him....
7:48 AM
 UPDATE: Thanks to the educated guesswork of another New Orleans-based photographer, the mystery has been solved! The artist behind these lovely Mardi Gras pics is Victoria Ryan. (By weird coincidence, her photograph entitled "Peeping Cowboys" in the Fragile Legacy portfolio was taken in front of my house last Mardi Gras. Look closely and you can glimpse Drew, Don, and wee little Tania enjoying themselves on the stoop.) It's a small world, ladies and gentlemen--and in New Orleans, it's even smaller.... PREVIOUSLY: I found this roll of 120 B&W film in front of my house on Fat Tuesday afternoon. I'm pretty sure the pics were taken at Marcus' house, prior to the start of the Ste. Anne parade. Anyone know the photographer?
3:05 PM
 I'm just gonna come right out and say it: I don't like Sarah Silverman. Sure, as a comedian, she's fine. She's moderately funny. She's a tad raunchy. Her personality borders on borderline. Overall, a C-plus player, sometimes B-minus. She could hold her own in the Catskills or at the Jersey shore. Her show on Comedy Central, though...I mean, is she paying royalties to Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert? 'Cause with its canned outrageousness, its mildly off-kilter worldview, its cast of characters who are always and forever out to lunch, the whole thing is pretty much Strangers With Candy Goes to LA. And somehow, far less interesting. What bugs me most? Bitch is always smiling at her own jokes--not laughing, which I suppose would be worse, just smiling. You know who else does that? The token non-white fat guy on Saturday Night Live. And you know who's the least funny asshole on Saturday Night Live? That's what I'm sayin'. (Coincidentally, that other non-white fat guy also used to laugh at himself. So jolly they are, those non-white, overweight people. Not like some tragic, walking-heart-attack, cracked-out, fatass crackers I could name. John Goodman, you're next.) And on top of it all, Silverman's a wimp. She's afraid to really, truly offend; she wants to come out looking nice. Case in point: the AIDS episode where she gets pelted with tomatoes by the "good guys", the sensible, sensitive folks (i.e. us). Silverman wants viewers to laugh at her character but to understand that she doesn't really feel that way herself. She gives herself an out. Pussy.
5:19 PM
Published over the weekend: an interview with Ken Foster, one of the most rational, thoughtful, and--above all--talented writers living in New Orleans today. His assessment of Our Fair City comes as close to my own as anyone's--right down to the dog-philia....
10:16 AM
10:42 AM
Here's a shocker: I'm not wealthy. It took a while for that to sink in. For years I lived slightly beyond my means, enjoying weekends (and weeknights) at clubs, treating friends and strangers to dinner, downing rounds of drinks and other comsumables of dubious legal status. Frankly, I had a great time, and if I were to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe I'd skip those Fluevogs that made my feet hurt, but other than that.... For whatever reason--boredom, age, a growing list of watering holes from which I'd been forcibly removed--I gradually pulled myself together and began living like a responsible adult. Today, I pay my bills, taxes, yadda, yadda, yadda. Dullsville. Bring on the tapioca pudding. When do they replace my hip? Yes, this is all going somewhere. Due to the weird timing of certain financial obligations, I'm experiencing a bit of a cash crunch this month. Nothing too bad, but I need to watch my spending. The problem? It's Carnival, and I've got three costumes to build--two for me, one for Jonno. I suppose I could just recycle bits from last year, but where's the fun in that? So although I've gotten out of the habit, I'm going to live in willful ignorance for the next few days. I'm going to pull an Edie Sedgwick: she'd stuff them all in a big envelope and she'd take a dozen people to the Ginger Man for drinks --Edie: American Girl And fyi, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the impending release of the film and everything to do with a youth spent reading the Stein/Plimpton oeuvre and poring over the pages of Interview magazine (shoulder-to-shoulder with our school's own Edie, Missy/Parker Posey). What else was a kid from Mississippi to do?
5:47 PM
So, my sister has been entering her animations in film festivals, and her video for "The Rebel" has been nominated for a People's Choice award at one of them. Why don't you drop in and give her a vote or two? (Note: "The Rebel" is video #12).
1:16 PM
Given the less-than-encouraging events of the past month or so, I hesitate to post this New York Times article about brain-drain in New Orleans, but it's a real problem--moreso now than before Katrina or even immediately after it. Not many of us want to talk about it, and I don't know of much that's been written on the phenomenon lately, at least not in any complex or meaningful way. It's not for the faint of heart:
In the end it's a little vague, a little ambiguous, a little "Here are the facts, now figure it out for yourself, reader", but then, that's how it is, right?
6:15 AM
 Let's be honest: we all want to love Top Design. The concept's clean and simple, the hosts are kinda hip, and its spot on Wednesday night fills a gaping hole in our entertainment calendars until Project Runway returns. (Or at least until the weather heats up enough to warrant leaving the goddamn house.) But perhaps most importantly, as homosexualists, Top Design really speaks to us. Or rather, it should.... If the Bravo execs were to ask me--and surely they will someday--I'd tell those fatcats in their big fancy Aeron chairs and their three-piece suits and their big cigars, which they have to smoke on the terrace of the skylobby because the building's non-smoking, that there are two simple, fixable problems with the show: the writing and the casting. Allow me to elaborate. The writing: Okay, so Top Design is produced in Los Angeles, a city of how many million people? And they hired writers who pen alleged catchphrases like "You can stay" (when designers are allowed to stay), "Goodbye" (when they aren't), and "See you later, decorator" (as a final, unnecessary kick in the ass as the loser is leaving the studio)? Did they find those writers in a parking lot at the Galleria? Were they a gift-with-purchase at the Clinique counter? Or was the script drawn at random from entries submitted by third-graders across the country? (Congratulations, Susie Higginbotham of Dothan, Alabama!) The producers need to firebomb the writing pool and start from scratch with native English speakers. Like me, for example. The casting: Let's start by looking at casting that works--namely that of Project Runway. We've got a lovable mentor in Tim Gunn (everyone's favorite gay high school teacher); a sassy, supersexy, opinionated host in Heidi Klum; and bitchyfunny sidekicks in Nina Garcia and Michael Kors. One big, happy, fashionably dysfunctional family. Top Design's producers have tried to mimic this arrangement, but like Todd Oldham's bronzer, they're a little off. Todd is, of course, an accomplished designer, but he's got a deeply disturbing teleprompter-of-the mind thing going on. Even when speaking off-the-cuff, he sounds like he was programmed by Stanley Kubrik. He's more wooden than some of that crappy pressboard furniture they use on the show. (Case in point.) And I see the Botox fairy has come to visit. Repeatedly. He looks like a cute, talented, mahogany camel. Please call in Amy Sedaris for an intervention. Then we have Jonathan Adler--another great designer who's as stiff as brushed aluminum for most of the show. Occasionally he'll revert to human form, but only when he's dishing with the other judges. On the plus side however, those Windsor knots are ferocious. As it stands, the only likeable people--nay, the only people--on Top Design's panel of experts are Kelly Wearstler (good-natured, friendly, stunning, hot socks) and Margaret Russell (patrician, catty, gorgeous, MILF). They bring originality and spunk to a show that's obviously based on a formula where someone forgot to carry the two. The solution? Fix the fags. Boot Todd altogether and move Jonathan into the teacher slot. Bring in someone with personality for the judging--someone likeable. Mizrahi comes to mind, though he's not considered an interior designer. At least he's got some range in his vocal cords. Alternately, the producers can hire me. And the girls? They can, like, totally stay.
7:58 AM
Courtesy of Slate, one of six great poems about sex:
And yes, I'm still busy, but very, very bored.
5:38 PM
I'm busy designing crap for some crappy crap. Why don't you listen to my sister's latest mix instead? She's way more interesting--today and every day....
1:50 PM
5:22 PM
7:49 AM
 Grand Time: Thanks to Ray "Undisclosed Location" Nagin's stellar inability to get things done, New Orleans' Municipal Auditorium remains out of commission, so we held this year's Mystic Krewe of Satyricon bal masque in a warehouse space that no one in the krewe was very excited about. And wouldn't you know, it was fan-freaking-tastic. Maybe the best ever. The Boyfriend got some beautiful pics. Me, not so much. Grand Guignol: On behalf of crackers everywhere, I would like to apologize to anyone born south of the Rio Grande for the allegedly journalistic, allegedly comic writings of irrelevant lunkhead Angus Lind--in particular, today's "guide to all things Mardi Gras", intended for New Orleans' "new Hispanic neighbors". Although Lind tries to play up the quirks of Carnival à la Nouvelle Orléans, in the end he sounds like a fatass gringo in some Tijuana cantina who's had one too many shots of tequila and is now dancing an atrocious hat dance around a novelty sombrero. I mean, Lind could've addressed the article to anyone residing outside the levee system and it would've been fine--hell, there are still oodles of things New Orleanians themselves don't understand about our city's version of Carnival. There's a cultural barrier there that's tailor-made for comedy. (And one that's been milked to death, but whatevs.) Lind, however, goes one step further and adds a language barrier to the mix, and...well, you know how it is when you've got on the perfect dress or suit or costume, and you add that one brooch too many, and suddenly you look like an idiot? That's what happened. And to my lesbian friends and other politically correct types, let me be perfectly clear: I don't care whether or not Lind is being culturally or racially insensitive. I care only about the fact that the Times-Picayune hasn't yet put the man out to pasture. Grand Gaffe: Does anyone find it slightly ironic that a Grammy™ winner--a Grammy™ winner receiving an award for a song called ""Jesus, Take the Wheel", no less--would blurt out "This is unbelievable. I owe everything to Simon Fuller" during her acceptance speech?
6:44 AM
Oh, Anna. In the immortal words of Joan Jett, I hate myself for loving...well, not you per se, but your boundless spirit of fucked-uppedness, your joi de vivre (or perhaps, joi d'ivre), your willingness to grab a stereotype by the triple-Ds and run with it all the way to the bank. Case in point: You may be dead, but your spirit, your breasts, your nose, and portions of your lips will remain with us always.
7:05 AM
Snarky is the new Aqua, which was the new Orange, which was the new Brown, and so on and so on, down to the color of the house that Jack built, which was itself the new Flagstone. Now, it's no secret that writers who report on trendy events and commodities tend to get a little catty. When your goal is to stay one step ahead of the game, cattiness gives you a well-shod leg up. As in, "Ooh, girl! Look at Miss Thing over there, with her handbag pulled straight from the Fall 2006 time capsule!" Suddenly you're at the vanguard, and Miss Thing is trapped waist-deep in the bargain bin. Recently, though, cattiness gave way to something more insidious: snarkiness. I know it's a thin line--thinner than [insert celebutante joke here]--but there's a difference. Catty is all in good fun. Catty is over the top. Catty is drag queens who dish it out, then share a bag of coke in the men's room. By contrast, snarky is mean, underhanded, and underplayed. Holier-than-thou with a jigger of envy thrown in for good measure. Recently, I've noticed an uptick in the nation's snark level. Maybe it's just because, as an avid homosexual, I've been reading the news from Fashion Week--which, by its very nature, veers toward unprecedented levels of snarkification. But even in that milieu, voices like those of New York magazine's Fug Girls have been mitigated by tamer voices like Cathy Horyn, Eric Wilson, and even Guy Trebay at the New York Times, who prefer to give readers some historical context for their thoughtful critiques. Well, unless you've been living under a heterosexual male rock for the past couple of weeks, you know that Cathy Horyn has started a blog. And she's calling Thom Browne's collection "Hobbitville" and wondering if she should buy a wig. Oh, Cathy.... Who is responsible for this? Some would point to the Michael Musto-Liz Smith cabal of gossip mongers, who've been doing this kind of thing for years. Others would cite that cave drawing from Lascaux where a tribesmen is snubbed after wearing the same loincloth for both hunting and gathering. But whether such shenanigans have been going on for decades or millenia, they've never made it to the mainstream. Now, suddenly, we've got pundits on every streetcorner--the equally hideous, equally ashen Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck come to mind--and they're all sporting the same arched-eyebrow sneer. What the hell happened? Personally, I blame Gawker. (Or credit them. The jury's still out.) They single-handedly made snarky both fashionable and readily available. And they're funny. Let's face it: snark sells. But alas, not everyone can pull it off--which is why you may find me getting catty now and then, but I'll take the long way around Snarkville, 'cause baby, I know when I'm beat.
7:43 AM
Last week I had a problem with an Amazon order, and today I wanted to resolve it. So I went to the Help section of the website, and on the right-hand side of the page, I noticed that I could contact Amazon not only by email, but also by phone. "Provide your phone number and customer service will call you right away," it said. So I clicked through and entered my phone number, expecting a callback sometime later in the afternoon, but...well, try it. Ultimately, it's no different than dialing a customer service center [in Bangladesh] yourself. Yeah, technically they're calling you, but you still get put on hold 'till a rep becomes available--same experience in the end. Still, by framing it as a "call back" and by making that "call back" happen immediately, they make it seem like Amazon is really on top of its game. Pretty sneaky, sis....
5:06 PM
During his prolonged period of self-examination, Haggard also discovered a talent for scrapbooking, a passion for fine sea salt, and a chest of pirate booty hidden beneath a rock in the meditation garden. "I think I'm the luckiest boy in the whole world!" exclaimed a visibly excited Haggard, surrounded by seamen who came to see his booty. Ralph went on to say that occasional cockgobbling is acceptable evangelical behavior, as long as it's not a constant thing. "By our reckoning, anyone is completely heterosexual if they're straight 51% of the time." The other three ministers, however, insist that Haggard is a disco dancin', Oscar Wilde readin', Streisand-ticket-holdin' friend of Dorothy.
5:50 PM
9:20 PM
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