Bad Advice

Why I love a granny panty

I had a bad day this past Monday and my underwear had a lot to do with this. I was wearing a cute new dress and a pair of hipster briefs that may have been a little past their expiration date. They were nylonish and started giving me trouble almost the second I walked out the door. But, being late for my doctor's appointment—an orthopedist for my aching feet—I kept going. Mistake.

As I hurried down the subway stairs, my underpants started to hurry down under my ass. Ugh. I gave them a yank and got on the train. It was a beautiful early fall day. I got to the doctor and she told me I have unusually high arches, which is why jumping up and down like a lunatic hurts my feet and ankles. Because I'm old, I get to see a podiatrist next week who will x-ray my feet and likely prescribe me orthotics. Sigh. Anyway. . . .

By this time my underpants have had enough of me and are making a run for it. I leave the doctor's office, walking down the street, actually wrestling with my underpants through my dress with one hand. I walk with intent, certain that within minutes I'll be purchasing some new underwear and I'll quickly find a place to change into them. Duane Reade! Yes! I found a three-pack of plain Hanes for eight bucks. My plan was coming together.

Now I just needed a place to change. You'd think this would be easy, but there are no dark alleys on a bright, beautiful sunny day, so I stuck the Duane Reade replacement underpants into my bag and went downtown so I could pick up a Time Out Guide to Paris at Barnes & Noble and change my underpants in an unused row of books. I realize now this was a supremely stupid plan.

I got to the store and, despite the fact that nobody actually buys books anymore (at least not MY BOOK), the store was packed. But there weren't many people on the second floor, in the kids section, so I stopped there and furtively ducked down an aisle. Just as I had my hand up my dress, a mommy happened by and shot me a look. Duh. Grown-ass lady with her hand up in her business in the children's section at Barnes and Noble, news at 11.

Foiled, I ran out of there and went into the Starbucks across the street. The line to the bathroom was eight deep and by now I was in a rush. So I did the sensible thing and hailed a cab. You can do ANYTHING in a NYC yellow cab and the driver won't even blink. So I told him where I was going, yanked off those panties and stuck them in my purse. I didn't full-on change into the new ones, but just getting rid of those bastards felt so much better. Anyway, from now on, fuck the hipster briefs, the bikini bottoms and the novelty boy shorts. I'm going strictly granny panty from now on. Just thought I'd share, what with it being fashion week and all.

Brooklyn Based Interviewed Me!

Check out the second listing for my book. $128.72. Where'd they get that number from?

I'm talking about the book, because today I was interviewed by David Chiu at Brooklyn Based! They also had me come up with a few songs I thought represented the philosophy of the book. Check it out!

Remembering Fran (my mom)

My mom died twenty years ago today, August 3, 1992. I was 28, she was 54.

I was talking to an old friend who lost her mom around the same time and we agreed it feels more like five years. Not like yesterday or last week anymore, like it did for the first couple years, and not even one year, because a lot of details have faded.

But twenty years just seems so impossibly long ago. A lot of memories are hazy, but too many are still pretty fresh. Like my brother calling me just as I arrived home to tell me our mom had died. I remember he said she'd "passed." Though we knew it was coming, I was still confused by the phrasing for the first few seconds. "Passed" what?

The most tragic thing about my mom's life—and there were many tragedies—was that she never really felt good enough. She never felt pretty or smart and for that I blame my grandmother, the she-beast.

I'm having a book party tonight!

So please come! We're talking Thursday, July 12, from 7-9 pm, at Powerhouse Arena, in glorious DUMBO. Rich Juzwiak, Mike Edison, Princess Freakin' Superstar, Bob Bert, Erin Bradley, Eric Davidson, Zachary Lipez and Michael Gonzales will all be reading. Oh, and me too. There will be prizes, thanks to Babeland, my friend Leah, and my wallet. FREE BEER, courtesy Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Once they kick us out of Powerhouse, we're going around the corner to Superfine for dollar PBRS and fine music, courtesy my iPod. It will be fun, I swear!

Who Wants a Nacho?

Oh my, cuteness! My friends Ziss and J-Ro found little Nacho roaming the streets of Boerum Hill, thinking he was all that. They scooped him up, and unlike most of the ferals they've fostered, this little boy wasted no time making himself completely at home. He purrs, cuddles and is unspeakably cute. He went to the vet today and is in good health. The vet estimates he's between nine and 10 weeks old. Give little Nacho a forever home! If you're interested, go to J-Ro's blog—all the contact info is there.

The Long, Twisted Journey of My New Book, "The Official Book of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Lists"

I started writing this long mopey piece about my new book and the arduous journey it's taken to get it published (cancer, cancellation, and then my editor quit!). But then I realized that I was being an asshole so I deleted the whole thing because hey, I have a book that's getting published in the next month or so. Or right now, if you order from Amazon!

That's exciting! And fun! The melanoma appears to be gone and so what if it got cancelled by the first publisher—that just means I got paid (very little) twice! And very-little twice is certainly better than nothing, or even very-little once. (Thanks for the perspective and for selling it twice, Mike Edison!) I'm going to Seattle to have a book party and I'm going to do some stuff in New York too.

If you have a couple extra bucks I'll love you forever if you buy a copy. Thanks!

A little pornographic stained glass with your hippie home

I'm sending this post over to my friend Phyllis at Reclaimed Home for verification, but I am pretty certain that this stained glass, featured in this listing for a home in Woodstock, is of a blonde-haired lady getting finger-banged.

Look carefully. She's reclined, with her head is resting on his knees. They're kissing, and he's got one arm wrapped around her, while the other hand is down yonder.

Keeping images of ones' sex life is not uncommon, but committing it to stained glass? That's something that had never occurred to me, possibly because I'm not crafty. But why would you leave it behind? Maybe the couple in coitus isn't together anymore. I guess that could be the case. However, I've seen enough home design shows to know that most realtors wouldn't consider porno-glass a selling point—it's not like a walk-in closet or granite countertops. Hell, they usually advise sellers to get rid of fully-clothed family photos.

I'm sure there are some home-buyers who'd consider pornographic stained glass a bonus, but I can't think they're in the majority. Am I wrong here? Do I just have a dirty mind and this is actually not a fingerbang in action? Help!

Radio and Other Updates

I haven't mentioned this in a while, but I do a radio show with the amazing Mike Edison. It's called The Mike & Judy Show and it's on Heritage Radio Network, straight outta Bushwick. (I just thought that sounded tough—we actually have a studio in the back of Roberta's restaurant. You can get a nice Riesling and organic veggies—not hardcore at all.) We go live at 2pm on Sundays for the finest half hour in internet radio.

Above you see my friends Freshkills. They came to the studio, played some music, and were highly entertaining. Zack and Mishka are both accomplished writers and you can buy their stuff by clicking on their names. For about three more days, their latest release, Raise Up the Sheets for five bucks on Amazon. We've also played host to Gary Lucas, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Cudzoo (sans Fagettes), Reid Paley, B from STFU Parents, and a host of other luminaries.

I just finished Mishka's third Kindle Single, Are You Lonesome Tonight?, and it's kind of stuck in my head. I've read and really liked the other stuff he's written, but this one was so disturbing, so creepy! If the genders had been reversed, it would've been outright terrifying, but . . . well, I don't want to give anything away. If you have a Kindle, you should buy it. It's only two bucks! I have to get in on this Kindle Singles game.

This week we welcome Carolita Johnson, who's not only a cartoonist for the New Yorker, but a truly amazing writer; hilarious yet also heartfelt, she's my favorite part of The Hairpin and I can't wait to read her book (once she writes it). It's so nice to get excited about books again, especially after reading the disastrous Mike Doughty memoir, The Book of Drugs. Oy. I know it got pretty good reviews, but I was completely disappointed. Page after page filled with complaints about shitty bandmates and thousands of words spent bemoaning what could've been if he'd been unencumbered by the people he got famous alongside. So bitter I could taste it. I need to go re-read some Redmond O'Hanlon or Jackie Susann to cleanse my palate. 

In other news, I still write my Seattle Weekly column, I have a piece coming out in Cosmo (!!!) next month and my new book, The Official Book of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll Lists comes out in June. You can pre-order it here or here!

Why I Quit Writing About Music*

This is a piece I wrote for a Vol 1 Reading Night called Three-Minute Punk Stories. Unfortunately, most of the readers didn't time their pieces, so it wound up being 20 people telling 10-minute punk stories and I didn't go on until nearly everyone had left the building. So I figured I'd post it here. 

It's always scary to meet people you admire as much as I loved Joe Strummer. So when I got the assignment to interview him in 2000, I was both excited and scared shitless. What if he was nasty or rude? I'd be crushed. And wouldn’t that kill White Man in Hammersmith Palais for me forever?

Sure, I’d had some good experiences with music journalism. Like when Shane MacGowan laughed in his publicist’s face after she instructed me not to let him talk about booze. Or when Jello Biafra asked me not to write about the weirdo green macrobiotic shit he poured into his water at dinner. Murphy’s Law were always a good time, Stanford Prison Experiment were sweethearts and even Skinny Puppy—who’d just lost a member to a drug overdose—were cooperative and nice.

But it’s not like those times like that had made up for the bad.

Jarvis Cocker is Deeply in Love with Me.

Sigh. Poor Jarvis. Poor, poor, Jarvis. I HAVE A BOYFRIEND ALREADY! Yet look at the way he's staring at me. That's Jason Buckle, also of Relaxed Muscle, cockblocking his bandmate. It's been quite a run at the Whitney Biennial. I'm off now to perform dance publicly for the very last time. I hope Jarvis can keep his tears in check. (That's my foxy fellow non-dancer Deb Aruta with me and the boys. Without her moxy and Mike Edison's iPhone, this photo would've never happened.)