Bad Advice

Law & Odor

Last night, Law & Order CI came to Williamsburg and I almost missed it. (There's some great video in that link.) Luckily I'd checked my computer before pulling on the jammies and saw an email from my buddy Travis, informing me about this little bit of entertainment history. This was Jeff Goldblum's first episode—he took over for Detective Mike Logan (aka "Big" aka big, hunky Chris Noth)—and it was a laff riot.

I generally love all the Law & Order franchises, but CI must've lost all their good writers when they shifted to USA Network. It was like your uncool Aunt Sally wrote the dialog with only a dog-eared set of circa 1974 World Book Encyclopedias for reference. Not since the "punk rock" version of Quincy has a show gotten it so hilariously wrong:

• Like when the Black (naturally) drug dealer announced that one of the hipster vics had asked for a "lid" of weed. A lid?!?! Are we at Woodstock? Prior to being brutally murdered, he was no doubt planning to smoke this primo doobage while jamming out to Procul Harem on 8-track. Another fave line: "there's a whole lotta bogus going on." I'll say!

• Or when one Hasid explained to the other, that in matters of life and death, you can use your cellphone on shabbat—all this while staring at a murdered corpse. I'm not saying Hasids don't keep to the sabbath, but this bit of manufactured tension was obviously just stuck in there to show the writers had done their research on these exotic bearded creatures. Get it—hipsters and Hasids are thrown together and the result is a giant culture clash. Where was the bike lane conflict? That could've been a great subplot!

• For some reason, the writers opted out of using Puerto Ricans as the third group a-culture-clashing in the 'burg and opted (inaccurately) for African Americans instead. I guess Black people are just scarier—the nice little slutty hipster girl certainly thought so! And where were the Poles?

• The bedbug-infested loft where the hipster doofi lived was obviously based on 255 McKibben. Nice touch, but the forensics through bedbugs was really pushing it.

• How difficult would it have been for casting to line up some actual hipster-infested band to play their cable-tv debut? You can't spit on Bedford Avenue without hitting a guitarist. Instead, Aunt Sally got her clarinet-playing nephew to line up his uncool friends to come up with some jammy R&B riffs. Even this uncool old broad thought they sucked—and not in a "kids today and their crazy music" kind of way!

The Horror!!!!!

Happy Birthday, John Waters!

Mr. John Waters is, hand's down, my favorite filmmaker of all time, and in unrelated news, today is his 63rd birthday! He's also on a very short list of writers who never fail to crack my ass up. Even though I've had my (signed, hardcover) copy of Crackpot for approximately, one billion years, I still go back and re-read it ever few months. "101 Things I Hate" makes me laugh every single time.

I can't remember the first John Waters movie I saw, but the first one I owned was Polyester (in Odorama!). My mom used to marvel that Divine was more feminine than her and I still remember channeling my inner Lulu and pummeling my belly while screaming, "I'm going to have an ABORTION!" when I got mad at her. (My mom, not Divine.) I also adore Female Trouble and Pecker. But really, why choose just one or three—they're all great.

In recent years, Waters has been doing art and comedy shows. He currently has a show up at the Boesky Gallery in NYC and another one at Gagosian in LA. Unfortunately, plans for his Christmas kids' movie, Fruitcake, have been scrapped. Bah humbug!

The world's ugliest chairs

I've decided that I really want a big, crazy, animal-striped chair for the living room . . . something that straddles the line between gaudy and gorgeous. Like a chair Gianni Versace might've owned. Because I'm currently poor I thought I'd check out Overstock.com. What I found there was actually kind of frightening.

This was the first item I uncovered: The Burbank Orange Chair. Despite appearances, this chair is not cheap. If we were playing Price is Right, I would've guessed about $12, and I would've lost. It's actually $279.99. I've never been to Burbank and hadn't realized they favored such uncomfortable-looking seating.
This one is possibly worse than the Burbank Orange, because it's that pale diarrhea shade of brown vinyl that I can't imagine anyone wanting to put in their home, yet a million home-makeover shows illustrate every day how wrong I am. I will never understand Americans' fixation with this milky-brown shade of pleather. Blech. Also, again, not cheap. In fact, it's $659.99. And it doesn't even vibrate.

These big squishy leather (?) chairs are epidemic in American homes (again, I'm gauging by all the home design shows I watch). They completely creep me out for a variety of reasons:
1.) They look like they'll swallow you, chew you up, and then slowly regurgitate you back out onto the carpet.
2.) Sitting in a big squishy leather chair feels like you're being enveloped by a ginormous naked fat person. That does not spell relaxation for me.
3.) Within one week's use, all those cracks and crevices will be packed full of loose change, cookie crumbs, skin flakes, cat hair, and even with a great vacuum cleaner, you'll never be able to suck all that crap out of there.

Some stuff I like

Happy birthday, Crispin Glover. You are the wind beneath my wings.

The ladies of The Rich Girls are Weeping are right up my alley, taste-wise. Their recent round-up of Lene Lovich videos cemented my love for them.

Said in Bed cracks me up.

My old pal/editor Jeff Koyen is now a contributor to True/Slant. Go read his stuff!

This lady gave her husband (who, btw, is my birthday twin!) the best birthday gift ever.

If I ever had a formal dining room, these would be my chairs. Mrow!

Don't know if I ever showed you this before, but if I had money (stop laughing!) I might just buy this place. I'm usually not a mid-century modern fan, but the cozy little writer's studio sold me. Well, sold me if I had any sort of purchasing power. Speaking of cute houses, this place had a price cut and is still on the market. Only 108k, but still only about 400 square feet. Though that riv vu sure makes up for a lot of shortcomings.

I may check out the Arcade Museum next weekend. Otherwise, I'm just sort of half-heartedly searching for jobs. That's right, fulltime, benefits-packed jobs. Blech.

Ancient History

I've been reading New York Magazine's collection of people recalling their first years in New York City and it got me to thinking about mine. My first birthday here was twenty years ago today. My then-boyfriend declined to spend the evening with me (asshole!), so I went out with my sister Stephanie, and we spent the night drinking at the Continental. I don't know if it was called that back then, but that's where we were.

So anyway, it was around 4AM and she and I were stumbling home from the bar. She lived on 3rd & B, while I lived a half-block further, between Aves B & C. Now there are sushi restaurants and frat boys, but 20 years ago it was a pretty sketchy neighborhood. I'd heard a guy beg for his life and then subsequently get murdered outside my building and gunshots were so ever-present that I'd sworn they were firecrackers. Never mind that explanation would mean it was the Fourth of July every day. 

Though I was drunk, I still knew to be wary, and always walked with my keys sticking out from between my fingers. The idea being I'd cut a bitch who tried to rob me. Tough girl!

Predictably, some skell sees two drunk girls wobbling home and decides we'd be an easy mark. The guy comes running up behind us and tries to grab my sister's bag. Except she won't let go, and falls to the ground, still holding on. We both start screaming holy hell. You don't know loud until you've heard two drunk Irish broads howling their faces off.

I shriek something along the lines of "I'M GOING TO KILL YOOOOOOOUUU!!!!" and go after him with my keyed up fists. Lights start to snap on down the block and our mugger decides that we're more trouble than we're worth (if he'd only known we had about four bucks between us). So he takes off, but I'm on an adrenaline (and beer) high and take off after him, screaming that he's dead meat or something else equally stupid.

I chase his ass for about half a block until the realization hits us both at the same time that he's about twice my size. He turns around to come after me. I make like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone and just stand there frozen, screaming at the top of my lungs. 

Someone yells from across the street, snapping us out of our staredown. The mugger runs off again and I sprint back to see if my sister was okay. (She was.) Our neighbors were pissed that we woke them up (though they said it would've been okay if we'd been hurt or you know, actually robbed) and the cops rolled their eyes after my sister swore the guy had "come out of nowhere." She lost an earring in the struggle, but otherwise we escaped unscathed.

Still, I hope this birthday is a bit better than that one.

Any ideas?

Friday is my birthday and I'm kind of stumped as to what to do. I wanted to go out to City Island and stay at this place, but their phone is out of order which doesn't bode well. I thought we'd have some oysters and romance, but now that plan is shot.

Then, the BF suggested Mohegan Sun. I wasn't wild about the idea, but I looked into it. Lord knows I love a hotel. Except rooms start at $599. No thanks! We considered Montauk, but that seems pricey even off-season. My dad thought a trip to Jersey City was a great idea—but why stop there? Why not Bayonne? This classy joint has something called a "jacuzzi room" and I have a pretty good idea we could pay by the hour.

So if you have any good, cheap(ish) ideas, please leave them in the comments. I like boats, oysters, chocolate cake, riv vu's, and cute places that aren't all attitudey. Isn't this cake nice? When I was a little girl my grandfather bought me a cowgirl outfit because I loved horses. Though this wasn't my cake, apparently some other Judy is quite the aspiring cowgirl as well.

More London Stuff!

This is my friend Scarlett and her baby, Marlo. Besides my sister Sue, I spent the most time with them in London. I've known Scarlett for many years and she's the only human I will allow to call me Granny. She calls me that because I have been known to fret over her and also, I like to go to bed on the early side. This photo was taken on my first day in London—Sue and I had gone to Borough Market (which I loved) and then to the roof garden of a nearby pub on the South Bank. The South Bank was my fave part of the city.

Here's my sis at the Princess Di Cafe. You can eat a lovely falafel and gaze upon hundreds of photos of the People's Princess. You would think a cafe named after royalty would be fancy, but you'd be wrong. The food was fine, but somehow I kind of doubt the Princess ate there very often.

More scintillating photos of my trip after the jump . . .

Adventures in British Advertising

I just got back from a fun-packed trip to London. This bus ad was on seemingly every other bus and made me feel ill each time I looked at it. Does anyone find the idea of salmon zipped up into a crunchy crust appealing? Plus, the phrase "fish finger" just sounds dirty to me. But then I've always been partial to using "finger" as a verb.

This ad for an apartment cracked my ass up. "Living here you won't be mocked." Aside from the questionable grammatical structure, what a funny thought: "buy this apartment and people will stop laughing at you!" If only it were that simple.

When I think auto insurance, I do not think Iggy Pop, but apparently the Brits do. I would be more inclined to hire a spokesperson along the lines of Martin Sheen or even Rachel Ray. Someone who looks like they use turn signals—not a guy who rolls around in broken glass. But these ads are all over the place and they are rather cheery.

This isn't exactly an ad, though it is designed to draw customers in, so I'm including it. "Warm" pita bread. I'll bet it's "delicious."

I'm an Auntie!

This past weekend, my youngest brother and his wife squeezed out their first child! Her name is Viviana Frances (Frances was my mom's name) and she's very cute as tiny babies go. Thankfully she's avoided the squeezed-up old man face you often find in newborns, but perhaps more importantly for her mom's sake, she also missed out on the McGuire Giant Head gene. She's an Aries (like me!) and is, according to my astrologer friend Kiki T, destined to be quite the handful.

She's only about five hours old in this photo and already giving 'tude.