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Thursday, February 28, 2008
Around 6:45 last night, I plopped down on the sofa and prepared to check my email one last time before the delivery guy from the Chinese place arrived and Gay Night officially began. (Gay Night, for you Normies--yeah, we call you Normies--is the night on which ANTM, Gossip Girl, and PR audiences turn off their cellies and watch fabulous train wrecks unfold on national television. They're not especially different from the train wrecks you'd see on Rock of Love or Flavor of Love or whatever love show that mini-muncher Tequila is hosting now, but everything's wrapped in gold lame. Or silk charmeuse. Always with the silk charmeuse.)
Anyway, I was sitting there with my laptop, and I happened to click open the New York Times, and there, splashed in the center of the page was the announcement that William F. Buckley is dead. And I thought to myself, "Holy! Freakin! Crap!" And then I thought, "Fiiiiinally!"
I let out a little squeal of delight, and I shouted the news to Jonno, which wasn't really necessary since he was only about five feet away, but he was all, like, "Duh, it's been up there all day." And I know it's grant season, and I know I've had my head down, cobbling together endless paragraphs of jargon--the kind that gets government panels absolutely soaking wet--but really, how did I miss news this big? Why didn't my co-worker squeal with similar delight earlier in the day? (She's free of grantwriting duties, and she totally hearts the Times and NPR all day long.) And for that matter, why didn't any of you IM me to let me know? For shame.
I guess it's not very nice to celebrate someone's death, even when that someone was a complete freaking nightmare of ruination like la Buckley. And I know that soon--very soon--the death of mortal evil will be balanced by the death of mortal good. (Avoid ham sandwiches, Al Gore! Beware the Ides of March!) But for this brief shining moment, a part of me--perhaps a not-very-nice part of me--is happy that someone responsible for galvanizing a lot of hurtful ideology, someone with a pulpit who knew how to use it, someone admired by a worldwide audience of people who aren't very fond of me or my ilk, is dead.
But why, oh why, couldn't it have been Ann Coulter?
Maybe next year.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Continuing New Orleans' long tradition of transsexual banditry (and there are more examples from before The Storm, if only Google would cooperate), we find this titbit in today's Picayune:
St. John the Baptist Parish deputies are searching for a hammer-wielding man in a dress who smashed through the locked glass doors of a Reserve convenience store and stole money from a cashier...
The man, who wore rolled up blue jeans under the green dress, covered his face with white material and his head with a black hood, the report said...
--Times Picayune
He doesn't sound as classy as the other thugettes--but of course, they were plundering Magazine Street.
On a practical note, I'd start rounding up the redheads. 'Cause everyone knows that only a redhead could pull off a green dress.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Dear People:
Why is Ralph Nader still alive?
I've never been in the same room with the man, and even if I had, my hunting rifles are locked up at my dad's house.
That's my excuse. What's yours?
Please do something now.
Your BFF Jill Richard
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Random New Orleaniana
Anthony Bourdain partially redeemed himself--at least in my eyes--by honoring Donald Link (for his ballsy opening of Cochon) and slamming Alan Richman (for his bitter, pointless rag on New Orleans) at the 2008 Golden Clog Awards, which he created with fellow chowderhead, Michael Ruhlman. That doesn't completely make up for his New Orleans segment on No Reservations, but I can't hold a grudge for very long anyway. Except where Chris Rose is concerned. For the three of you who haven't read the government's analysis of formaldehyde levels in the trailers that FEMA grudgingly provided to Gulf Coast residents, Slate was kind enough to publish the actual document from the CDC. My favorite comes on page three, when trailer denizens get unsolicited health advice: "Do not smoke, and especially do not smoke indoors." Which is essentially saying, "If you must chase lung cancer, do so outside; FEMA trailers are reserved for headaches, dry eyes, nasal mucus, nausea, asthma, and another type of cancer entirely." Apparently, part of the new Wolverine movie is set to film in New Orleans. Ladies, y'all can have Hugh Jackman--just break me off a piece of Liev Schreiber. Damn if I ain't a sucker for scruffy, Jewish, ex-hippie voiceover artists.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Twelve reasons to watch Portrait in Black
It's now available on a DVD double-bill with Madame X, and trust me: Ricardo Montalban and Constance Bennett are worth the price of admission. Lana Turner's gowns--by Jean Louis, natch. Lana Turner's husband (played by an exceedingly tan Lloyd Nolan), who lasts for about the first ten minutes of the film. He's totally evil--you can tell because he strokes a Siamese cat! Lana Turner's face as she watches her late husband's business partner pushed over a cliff. It's like Diana Ross in the car scene in Mahogany, but way better. Lana eats her own fists! No gag reflex! The shady chauffeur played by Ray Walston (aka everyone's favorite Martian). He's as gay as Dr. Smith--whom he resembles strikingly at times. Did anyone ever see those two together? Scandal! Tawny, the maid, as played by Anna May Wong in her final big-screen appearance. (From where I sit, she looks an awful lot like Ann Miller in Mulholland Drive. Or maybe it's Ann Miller who looks a lot like her.) I'm guessing Anna's fatal heart attack one year later had something to do with all the lead paint in the scenery, 'cause girlfriend chews it to a pulp. Anna May's leitmotif, which is olde skoole, Chinese restaurant background musak: an orchestral fortune cookie that says, "This lady's Asian!" Lana Turner's son, played by an actor made entirely of ham. Sandra Dee--who plays Lana Turner's daughter one mo' time--escaping Lana's crazed lover in the middle of the night by climbing onto a third-story ledge overlooking San Francisco bay. The aforementioned crazed lover (Anthony Quinn) following Sandy onto the aforementioned ledge, and, because he's a murderer having extramarital sex in 1960, subsequently plummeting to his death as a boneless dummy. The clunkiest Edsel of a plot ever. Like noir, but in Technicolor. Seriously: when the Big Twist is revealed, you're all like, "Whaaaaat?" Telenovas ain't got nothing on this shit. A entire cast of characters you wanna slice and dice. Remember in Place in the Sun how Shelley Winters is so fucking annoying you can't wait for Montgomery Clift to shove her out of the canoe? It's like that. But for everyone in the cast. They're all just faaaaabulously awful.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Most people have key baskets to contain the bite-size bits of crap that fill up their lives--keys, gum, bits of string, Carnival doubloons. Really civilized folks have leather valets that sit austerely on their dressers. And even everyday slobs know to dump it all in the junk drawer when company's a-coming.
But I'm not most people, or really civilized folk, or even an everyday slob. No, I'm what every fifth grade teacher craves: an enthusiastic constructor of elaborate dioramas. Unfortunately, mine have less to to with Moby Dick than pure laziness. And instead of old Hush Puppies boxes, my masterpieces live on the kitchen counter for all the world to see. Here's a guided tour of this morning's contents:
1. The Lafcadio postcard mentioned elsewhere. If only I scrapbooked, I'd file it away. In a scrapbook, I guess. (Note: I hope that's the only time in my life I use "scrapbook" as a verb.)
2. Gayest birthday card ever. From October. Also ripe for the hypothetical scrapbook.
3. My all-time favorite coffee cup. It's 100% genuine plastic, so it can go in the microwave. And it does. Repeatedly. All day. Jonno hates it.
4. Poor Gaynell. Also from October. Certain people in the house have an unnatural attachment to Gaynell, or her ass woulda been in the garbage months ago. To her credit, however, girlfriend can move a docket.
5. Candle to St. Somethingorother, possibly Ramon. Is there a St. Ramon? Maybe. But who cares? It's more useful as a source of light when the grid goes down than as a means of invoking aid from mythological beings.
6. Immodium. To combat the hot, sexy stomach virus/food poisoning currently wreaking havoc on my innards.
7. My attempt at a key basket. Except it's not a basket, and it's way too small. For no apparent reason, it's become the only designated repository for sunglasses, postage stamps, jump drives, and half-used tubes of Chapstick.
8. Carnival-themed assemblage including one Cover Girl compact (which belongs in my makeup tackle box), one set of vintage fleur de lis cufflinks (never worn), one can of wood filler (mahogany tint), one glass container (filled with the fortunes from every fortune cookie ever opened on the premises), and one opal ring in a gift box (given by my krewe as a token of their appreciation--for not walking in the ball, I think).
9. A small pile of porn. Always with the small piles of porn.
10. The one pair of sunglasses that escaped the key basket, as they belong to a former student who left them here on Mardi Gras morning. Which say a little about the former student and a lot about me.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Huckabee Today
On running for the United States Senate if this presidential thing doesn’t work out: “It’s more likely I’ll dye my hair green, get a bunch of tattoos and go on tour with Amy Winehouse.”
New York Times
No really, Mike: that sounds, like, totally natural. Not canned or planned or anything. Certainly not like you've been coached to get the youth vote. I'm sure you're really into pop music and not that Righteous Brothers stuff like everybody says. They're just jealous of your mad style, yo. I'm sure you're all into txt msgin ur homies, and I know you've got a lot of dope shyt to say, and that you refer to it as such. Somebody said you were making a bunch of stickers with Hillary's face on 'em that are all, "Bump that beeyotch!" That's hot. You're so totally our next president, dude.
But does Miss Winehouse know that she's been in your mouth today?
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Liveblogging Antiques Roadshow: Orlando
Because I'm really, really gay. And no one's invited me to do the presidential debates anyway.
6:01pm -- Damn, but Mark Walberg looks good in a suit. Much better than that Mark Wahlberg guy.
6:01pm -- Omigod, who saves crap like that? It's like low-rent Precious Moments, which is kind of redundant. Not to mention weird.
6:02pm -- Well, at least we get to see Richard Wright do his thing. He's always worth a chuckle. Middle-aged queens with beards and long dangly earrings always get my vote.
6:03pm -- $5,000? I...I'm freakin' stunned. And very disappointed.
6:04pm -- Antique print. Snooze. However, I'd like to know what Country Gentleman magazine was all about.
6:05pm -- Really? $20k - $75k? Apart from being really high, isn't that a little vague? Like, it'll bring somewhere between five bucks and $30,000. No, that seems reasonable. Totally reasonable.
6:05pm -- Honey.... Honey.... Honey, did you forget that Antiques Roadshow is a TV show? Do you own a comb? Or a bra? Honey.... Nice jewelry, though. I'll trade you a Wonderbra for it.
6:08pm -- Oooh--Egyptojunk. High likelihood of fraud and fakeness. Schadenfreude detector activated!
6:10pm -- Nice tie, Mr. Appraiser.
6:11pm -- Damn, it's real. And apparently, really valuable. Sell it and use the money to get rid of that butt-cut!
6:12pm -- Tuning out. Pottery bores me to tears. Not least because I can't collect it, since we have a house full of clumsy, rambunctious hounds.
6:13pm -- Here comes a know-it-all. I love it when folks walk on with stuff they've researched and allegedly know a lot about, and the appraiser's all like, "Oh, isn't that cute? You think you're a little expert! But lemme tell you, bitch: you're wrong. I didn't spend 27 years as an apprentice at Sotheby's for nothing."
6:16pm -- Bo-ring. Bo-ring. Expensive attic crap. Bo-ring.
6:17pm -- Omigod, it's all so boring. I guess everyone thinks their own family history is fascinating-- I know I do--but having to listen to someone else's...wow. Naptime.
6:18pm -- Disney memorabilia. Somebody call Chris Marsh. I'm going to heat up some leftovers. Which Chris would probably also like.
6:25pm -- What the hell is that? I'm gone for six minutes and 66 seconds (my favorite microwave time), and it's like they hauled out the Ark of the goddamn Covenant... Oh, never mind, its just a hunk of glass. A very pretty hunk of art glass, but glass nonetheless.
6:27pm -- P.S. Not Tiffany. Everyone always walks in thinking, "Oh, yeah, I've got me some Tiffany in here," and they, like, nearly always get shot down.
6:28pm -- Etagère. Fabulous word. Not so fabulous television.
6:29pm -- SHE IS WEARING CROCS! ON TELEVISION! WHITE CROCS! But at least she's got a bra, so I guess that counts for something.
6:29pm -- Not a fan of the Keno twins. A don't use this word often, but they seem a bit foppish. Pas de sexy.
6:30pm -- Train prints. Like 60s wallpaper. Or Petticoat Junction ads. On that note: Was Petticoat Junction a spin-off of Green Acres or The Beverly Hillbillies? I oughta google that one day. (P.S. Blogger, which is owned by Google, is cool with "Google" capitalized, but thinks "google" is totally misspelled.)
6:33pm -- Copper chafing dish. Which Lady owner polished, thereby decreasing the value. Lady does not know what "patina" means. Not a regular viewer.
6:35pm -- Hello, Hairhelmet Lady! With a snooty punch bowl!
6:38pm -- Hairhelmet Lady is underwhelmed with her $2000 punch bowl.
6:38pm -- Omigod. This guy with the miniature portraits so totally fits the profile of a middle-aged man who still lives at home with his mother and polishes the silver on Friday nights.
6:40pm -- Omigod, foxy Christie's lady is flirting with the middle-aged silver-polisher. Hussy! Tease!
6:41pm -- I love Berj Zavian, everyone's favorite stereotypical Jewish jewelry dealer! Now with suspenders!
6:41pm -- More Tiffany--this time for real. An ink well. A mosaic ink well at that. People at the turn of the century sure had a lot of time on their hands.
6:45pm -- I love the word "Chinoiserie". Even more than "etagère". But it's still on the dull side. Can't someone screen these people for fabulousness? Or at least make sure they're mildly retarded?
6:47pm -- Another woman underwhelmed by her appraisal. Bitter, party of one?
6:47pm -- Well, that oil painting is certainly no oil painting.
6:48pm -- That appraiser, though...Alasdair something or other. Scottish bear in pinstripes. Yowsa.
6:51pm -- $180,000?!? Like Doris Duke over here really needs it. How cute.
6:52pm -- Did I mention how good Mark Walberg is looking these days? 'Cause he is.
6:53pm -- And...we've reached the end. Where otherwise normal people make fools of themselves in front of an unmanned videocamera. And tonight is no exception..... Ooh! New Simpsons in five!
In other news: I am a big nelly fag.
"How big," you ask?
Big enough to follow fashion week coverage in both the New York Times and New York magazine. And big enough to sift through that coverage to find photos of the Project Runway shows.
Of course I found them. On the New York splash page, even.
And at first, I thought: "Holy crap! New York magazine just revealed the identities of the three finalists!" And then I thought: "Oh, never mind. All five designers had shows; two must've been red herrings." And then I thought: "Holy crap! I'm really getting into this whole Project Runway thing!" And then I had a drink and wondered whether or not to spoil the finale by looking at the photos anyway.
So, that's how gay I am.
And by the way, this comes from a man who's worn the same black belt for nearly a decade. With everything. Even brown shoes. My obsessiveness makes about as much sense as Maya Angelou scouring the society columns for news of the debutante circuit--and maybe she does, but it still doesn't compute.
Anyway, if you, too, are a big nelly fag, or a FOBNF ("friend of big nelly fags"), feel free to take a gander yourself. The only thing that's spoiled is the identity of the guest judge--who, seven years ago, might've impressed me, but now not so much.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
So, with all due respect to you folks outside New Orleans, I think y'all may be a little confused.
Thanks to the minuscule flame war that erupted after my Chris Rose rant, and thanks to a couple of emails I've recently received, it's clear that some folks think New Orleans is still wallowing in sorrow like a P-I-G hog. That's in part due to the fact that the media has moved on to cover presidential candidates and fashion week, meaning that images of the modern-day, new New Orleans have been fewer and further between in the national press
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, how many more times can we hear Anderson Cooper give the same field report about devastation and displacement? (I could watch it with the sound muted, but only 'cause he's so freakin' dreamy.) On the other hand, since you might not have seen us on the evening news, you might not know that many of us have gotten over it--the "it" being Katrina, the Corps, bureaucracy, political posturing, etc. Here's an excerpt from a response I sent to one of the email queries that pretty much sums up my feelings and those of my family, friends, and co-workers:
Nearly three years after Katrina, yes, it is VERY safe to assume that many of us are tired of hearing the victim narrative. No, things aren't fully back, but whatever: change is inevitable anywhere, the change in New Orleans was just accelerated. We've settled into the New Normal, and unlike that asshole Chris Rose, most of us aren't weeping into our beer every evening. In big ways and small, most of us have moved on, emotionally speaking. Those who haven't have moved on, geographically speaking.
Yes, we all hope that New Orleans will gradually become better than it was before the storm. (In certain ways, I think it already is.) Will it be perfect? Will it be utopia? I'm probably the wrong person to ask. To me, perfection has to exist in a bubble, and given the fact that everything is interconnected these days--informationally, electronically, meteorologically, and so on--that's pretty much impossible. But New Orleans will continue to be a hub, there will be people living here, there will be Mardi Gras, there will be crime, there will be inequality, and there will be an ease of life unknown in most of America.
Also, I don't think I'm the only one with these opinions. They're pretty well documented elsewhere. Very few people--except some of the hippies who moved here after the storm and don't know when to give it a rest--are still griping about storm-related stuff. Anyone who's still here has to have made peace with it in some way.
I should add that by focusing only on the devastation and sadness that Katrina brought, in 60 minutes Chris Rose and Anthony Bourdain erased two and a half years of progress. The homes that have been rebuilt, the families and businesses that have returned, all the little triumphs that many of us have had, most of which came thanks to personal chutzpah and savings accounts--it's like none of that mattered. Which is offensive and condescending and reprehensible, to say the least.
After however many months--29?--I'm really tired of making this argument, and I'm sure lots of people are really tired of reading it. But it's like civil rights, or AIDS, or any other struggle for equality and recognition: until the dialogue shifts and we stop playing victim and become empowered, everything we do remains obscured by floodwater. Which sounds pretty hippy-fied, quite honestly, but there you are.
And besides, isn't everybody over the whole "woe is me" story anyway? That dog won't hunt no more.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
As usual, I only snapped a handful of usable Fat Tuesday photos; it's really hard to crack open a beer, touch up someone's mascara, and operate a camera at the same time.
Never fear, though: Jonno took, like, three bazillion shots and is posting them at breakneck speed. Or as soon as he gets a chance to vet them. Voyeurs rejoice!
Monday, February 04, 2008
Regarding tonight's episode of No Reservations: New Orleans, I have this to say:
Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen. Chris Rose is a pussy and a drama queen.
If you're going to keep pulling the woe-is-me/I'm-crying-in-my-beer Katrina routine, do it in a closet somewhere. Somewhere like Chicago.
And fuck you, Anthony Bourdain, for taking the easy road and telling the story you thought most of America wanted to hear. Seriously, fuck you to death.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Saturday, February 02, 2008
[Alex] Borstein interrupted [Seth] MacFarlane to say that, as a Jew, she didn't like how [Edelweiss] glorified the Austrians' role in WWII. MacFarlane considered this, and then replied, "Carnegie Hall is not the place to bring your fucking Hebrew baggage."
--NY Mag
It is entirely possible that I have missed yet another defining cultural moment of my generation.
Friday, February 01, 2008
I'm looking forward to the 2008 presidential election. You might even say I'm optimistic. Cautiously, anyway.
And it's not just because I think any one of the four major contenders will be better than The W...although seriously, any of the four major contenders will be totally way better than The W. No, I'm excited because for the first time in 16 years--a full generation in the Spears family--we won't have a Southerner in the White House.
Now, I'm obviously a Southerner myself, and often proud of the fact. I subscribe to Southern Living (duh: I'm also gay), and I firmly believe that pineapple upside-down cake should be added to the list of major food groups. But there are times I want to distance myself from all that Good Ol' Boy-ness--thanks largely to the "aw, shucks" attitudes of Bush and, to a lesser extent, Clinton that have radically redefined what it means to be Southern.
See, after The War (as my grandmama refered to it), Southerners needed to boost their self-esteem, and they did so largely through the arts and culture. "Them Yankees may have won The War," the reasoning went, "but they ain't nothin' more than a bunch of savages in suits. Althea, play that lovely waltz on the harpsichord, won't you, sugar?" They prided themselves on inherited, genetic artistocracy and cultural superiority. Good breedin', as they might've said. (NB: this is not surprising, since it's practically the same mindset Southerners used to justify slavery.)
Along with all that came a great deal of intellectualism--practical intellectualism, you might say. You see it in the works of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, even Fannie Flagg. There's a quiet intellectual rigor, a willingness to think, to follow ideas and thoughts to their various ends, without being overly philosophical and abstract (though Faulkner admittedly has his moments).
But thanks to Bush--and in fact, thanks to the conservative movement that's swept the South for 30 years--all that died. Especially since 1994, when the conservative movement really galvanized politically, intellectualism has been looked upon with suspicion: Why you gotta ask so many dang questions? Why can't you just be content with doing things the way we've been doing 'em? My daddy talks like that a lot, which is why most of my trips to the homestead last less than 24 hours.
Now, I'm not saying that Clinton or McCain or Obama or, goddess forbid, Romney, would start up a White House Book Club. And I certainly don't think that you're going to see any of the four discussing Hegel in public anytime soon. But at least they won't be burdened with that tired, tired chestnut, which insists that in order to be themselves, they have to forsake independent thought. It'll give them more room to do as they please (maybe), and with luck it'll give Southerners time to rebuild that part of their identity.
As soon as we get rid of Rebecca Wells and that Sweet Potato harlot, that is. Jethro, pass me some cookie dough and my strychnine--I'm gonna make me a bitter pill....
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