macarewwwwww

I've been woozy and fluish and grouchy the past couple days, flipping off Jehovah's witnesses, suckling chicken soup out of a gym sock (it's like a Brita for Campbell's, people!)and gumming Saltines like a goddamn infant--the whole nine. I was almost to the end of Under the Cherry Moon when I flipped over the Premium box to check the sodium content, lest I become too bloated to pull off my hot pink giraffe print fleece footsie pajama set for the (spoiler alert!) Christopher Tracy death scene, and horror of horrors, wouldja look at what I found?



Saltine macaroons? Seriously, goyim? Now Google and I both know that the delicious macaroon, while oft touted as a Jewish delicacy, in fact has a noble European pedigree, having been a longtime staple in both Italian and French cuisine. HOWEVER, smiting the treasured coconut macaroon with white flour ingredients, especially in the form of Saltines, fer G-d's sake, is just bad form. I haven't seen such a flagrantly white trash de-Kosherization of a Passover standard since my one time roomate made chicken n' dumplings and frybread for seder in lieu of matzoh ball soup. Bless her hillbilly heart, she couldn't find any matzoh meal, and it's the thought that counts, after all. Nabisco, what's your excuse?

you are my sunshine

R.I.P.

It's been a rough coupla days.

Stormy weather

Life's funny. One minute you're just lighting up a joint in the middle of another brisk spring day and the next there's a raging thunderstorm and you're tap dancing to Amon Duul in your living room after polishing off an entire box of Viactive calcium chews. Man, those hit the spot. I was interrupted mid shim sham by what I assumed was the knock of an angry neighbor with sensitive ears and/or no appreciation for the arts, but it was just Aaron stopping by to say hi and borrow a Cormac McCarthy book. He's a cool kid, works at a porn shop. The other day, he said, he was on the phone with a customer who'd requested some fancy schmancy girl-on-girl bondage movies. "We're getting some good ones in on Friday," Aaron told him. The guy said "Cool. Go Lakers!" at which point the conversation veered from S&M to NBA. Perverts (that's not a pejorative in my book) of a certain stripe can get especially loquacious where their boners are concerned, I remember that from my video store days. Not content to merely slink up to the counter and pay for Bang Bus, eyes averted, these guys would come up with 4 volumes of Dirty Debutantes sandwiched between, like, The Pianist and You've Got Mail and would then proceed to "distract" me with a frantic Rainmanesque monologue about weather or food or time travel or the legacy of post-structuralism, in one case (this was San Francisco, mind you). I always liked those guys. They had manners enough to uphold social niceties in the midst of depravity, and above all they seemed to care about how they conducted themselves around a lady. Not that good breeding ever came between them and Jessica Romans. Aaron's looking for a "real job" now, but he's gonna miss the porn shop. He's a real people person. Before he left my house he said "I hope I'm as cool as you when I'm--" then he said my age. I said the things that look cool to a 22 year old are usually the earmarks of spectacular failure and emotional immaturity, but thank you. I'm sure that by the time I perfect the lindy hop I'll be able to gracefully accept a compliment, but that shit is harder than it looks. I've got a ways to go if Kemp and I are gonna pull off Mr. Bojangles and Shirley Temple by Halloween.

Tengo la camisa sucia porque tengo una alma sucia

I work in the restaurant industry, so it's a given that I devote a fair amount of time to the exploitation of strapping young hispanic males. Not my fault, I don't dress em up in those sexy goddamn undershirts. Sometimes I put Juanes on the stereo and scream "Cumbia! Cumbia!" til one of em dances with me (they told me it was cumbia, but later I found out it was the worm), but that is my God given fucking right as red-blooded American member of middle management, comprende?



It seems that what began as a mere company sanctioned dinner break dalliance (helping Guillermo carve cucumbers into penis shapes, shouting "!Eschucha me, Pablo! !Yo soy una gallina!" before I farted) has since evolved into a full-fledged obsession (threatening Pablo with disciplinary action if he doesn't let me braid caution tape into his hair, offering Kain 20 bucks to remove his shirt and use it to clean the windows). I lack self control, is the thing. And my scruples are atrophying with age. And I'm easily corrupted by power. I'm not sweating it, though. Bottom line, demanding quid pro quo neck massages from hot teenage resident aliens is a helluva way to pass the time. We all have our little tricks--just ask Pee Wee.


The ritual enactment of castration fantasies is the bread and butter of the service industry, after all.



Man, those latino boys and girls have some kinda magic, for sure, and I think I have tapped into its source. Wanna know what it is? Why sometimes I feign crying so I can bury my face in Edgar's freshly laundered lapels? Why I creepily lean forward in line at the 99 cent store so as to catch a whiff of the mujer limpia in front of me?


That's the stuff, people, on the bottom. Ariel. I'd been courting that scent since second grade when I used to swap jackets at recess with the ever fragrant Alejandra Melgoza and years later I snagged a $1 bag of this stuff from the Mexican market when I ran out of Tide and que magico! I was instantly transported. Alejandra, what has become of you? Last I heard you got knocked up senior year and now you work at Wells Fargo and have a bunch of babies with that Air Force guy who used to buy us Strawberry Hill. You were always beautiful and kind and good at math, are you still? Wherever you are, I hope you're still buying your laundry soap off the bottom shelf. I hope your kids look like you and smell like you and that someday I'll lean forward in the 99 cent store line and recognize them and say hello, how are you, you don't know me, but I knew your mother once, how's she doing? Where the hell has she been?

Tear my heart out, why don't ya.

How do you feel about free carne asada tacos? For em? I thought so. What, do you suppose, is the best way to enjoy them? On a stool in the loneliest corner of the carniceria, gargling tamarindo spiked with Old Granddad and swabbing Tapatio off your lap with the Erotic Services section of the Weekly? Or besieged on all sides by sweating, feather-and-loincloth-clad Aztecs flailing and undulating in unison and pounding out rhythms so intense that you cover your ears and swiftly assume the countenance of a senile village doctor stethoscoping a jackhammer? Both ways are acceptable, but opt for the latter if you get the chance, especially if Eddie is the one who tells you about it. Eddie is a stand up guy, a swell chef and a talented dancer to boot, but he is not gratuitously friendly. If he invites you it's not because he wants you there, it's because he thinks you need to see it.




Don't give me that look. You don't know what you need.



Julia and I spent a few minutes prior to the performance cracking tasteless 2012 jokes and waiting for the kickass pyramid formation that never came. Instead, we were treated to something much more impressive.


This was nothin. At one point he crouched above the fire and scorched his inner thigh until my spirit balls were sweating.

I'd seen them perform before, but this was the first time I'd seen the female dancers included. The interplay between the male and female dancers was incredible.


Don't think I'm jonesing to try this at home, mind you. I've still got my heart set on tap dancing and besides, Eddie's solemn appeals to the crowd, however eloquent, weren't steeped in that inclusionary lets-all-clasp-our-many-hued-hands-and-circle-round-the-cozy-wozy-unity-fire vernacular that I grew accustomed to in San Francisco. He stressed that this performance wasn't merely for the audience's amusement nor was it an attempt to recruit us, but that he hoped it would persuade us to explore our respective cultures. Which sucks, 'cause there is a noticeable lack of pelvic thrusting in the Russian Jewish tradition.

You know what? We never did get around to trying the tacos. I guess we still have time.

I will be in the bar with my head on the bar.

Happy Mozz Day.



The Bell Jar, Rollerderby zine and parent's divorce notwithstanding, I would not be the dour, well-shoed and rapier-witted failure I am today were there no Steven Morrissey to reluctantly pied piper me into womanhood, kicking and keening and spouting clove smoke like some sort of trenchcoated teenage freight train. Like many a disaffected youth before me, I cried to Morrissey. I danced to Morrissey. I made out to Morrissey. I ditched English class and ate donuts in the car and cried some more to Morrissey. Remember that shit? Life was good when no one else but you and Mozz understood how bad it was, wun'it? It has become fashionable in certain circles of the cognoscenti to disparage Morrissey for his adolescent histrionics, and Morrissey fans for their decidedly un-ironic, near religious devotion to a man whose literary pretensions and relentless wry self-effacement long ago threatened to render him a caricature of the beleaguered art fag. A pox on them, I say! Morrissey is resilient. Yeah, he's put out a coupla clunkers over the years (listen to a loved one drag out the word "hamburger" for eight syllables and you know it's intervention time). Yeah, he's self-obsessed (seriously, guys, would you have it any other way? Would we have our dreaded sunny days at the cemetary gates if our hero weren't perpetually sixteen, clumsy and shy?) and hypocritical (though who but a sanctimonious vegan could fault an aesthete his penchant for well-made leather shoes?),but his stately demeanor is unfuckingflagging, as is the surplus of humor, venom and melancholy that has endeared him to eternal adolescents and doomed romantics of every stripe. You know who you are. And naysayers be damned, the "Maladjusted" tour effin ruled.
That, and I'm pretty sure he's a miracle away from getting sainted by the Catholic Church. Smith's reunion tour, maybe?


Happy birthday, Steven. I'm kinda sick of your songs playing all the time at work, but I love you unrepentantly.

You can leave your shirt on.