No Control + Alt

When taking a photo with a celebrity on a windy day, it's important to keep your sunglasses on until the last possible moment, lest dust get in your eye and make you look like you have an uncontrollable twitch.


Exhibit A: my photo with Carol Alt

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

I will be the first to admit that I'm completely out of touch with today's music scene.  And I'm glad.  With talentless prepubescents exploiting autotune all the way to a Grammy nomination, singing show contestants marketing their way to the top of the charts and Lady Gaga's monsters losing their shit every time she queefs out another album of words repeated over and over again to a dance beat I can honestly say I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore.  I miss the days when songwriters wrote with feeling, words that got deep inside your groove and moved you to tears or joy or action.  Maybe I'm getting old, but I'll take the heritage bands on my iPod over the synthesized bubblegum crap with no depth or soul to it any day.  As Pete Townshend famously said, "Who the hell are you?"

An Audience With The Pope (of Trash)

New York has more to offer culturally than almost any other city in the world.  From museums, opera and Broadway to subway performers and the Naked Cowboy, there's entertainment for every taste and socioeconomic level, which is how I found myself in Bryant Park today on my lunch hour listening to John Waters, director of chicken fucking, toe sucking, dog shit eating sleazefests like Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and my all time favorite Serial Mom dishing about his adventures hitchhiking across the country and the assorted oddities he encountered along the way.  Meeting John Waters in person is like seeing a unicorn, a pixie or a double rainbow.  It's like finding a beautiful black rose speckled with glitter and cheap rhinestones.  It's like magic for your eyes, making you forget how many calories are in that chicken caesar wrap you ate because you weren't sure how long he would grace you with his presence and you only have an hour for lunch.

Who's That Girl?

Before Paris Hilton was an itch in her father's pants (and a cum stain on society) Cornelia Guest was society's premiere 'It Girl'.  Dubbed 'The Debutante of the Decade' this '80s wild child made a career out of turning up at all the right places with all the right people, counting Warhol, Halson, Capote and Scavullo as friends on her way to becoming the world's first celebutante.  She is the O.G. of the party girls, and in some ways responsible for unleashing Kim Kardashian and her horrible family on humanity.

Rumer Has It

The 20th season of Dancing With The Stars (20 seasons?  What ARE we doing with our lives?) came to an end last night with Rumer Willis taking home the mirror ball trophy, proving once and for all that you don't even need to be famous to be on the show at this point.  You just need to come out of the right vagina.

Quarterback Throwback

Believe it or not, I used to be a football fan as a kid.  Growing up in Fredonia, NY (population 27, plus three dogs, some cows and a chicken) it was a big deal when the Buffalo Bills started holding training camp at the local college, and my mom and dad used to take my brother and I over every day to watch practice and get autographs, only to have it backfire spectacularly when I invited players over for dinner without asking permission first.  (This may have been the seed of my preoccupation with celebrity, and if so, my therapist is right: it's always the parents!)  We had season tickets on the 20 yard line and my brother and I would fight over who got to go with Dad to the game on which weeks.  We would tailgate in the Rich Stadium parking lot before the game, and would sing along to the Bills fight song every Sunday ("Buffalo's got the spirit, talking proud, talking proud...."), waving our Whammys, Whammy Weenies or whatever other Bills related tchotchkes Bells supermarket was giving away that week like a bunch of fucking lunatics, even when the Bills were losing or it was freezing cold out, both of which were most of the time.  Those Sunday afternoons bonding with my Dad were magical and still put a smile on my face when I think about them, so you can imagine how it felt to see Bills quarterback (and Pro Football Hall of Famer thank you very much!) Jim Kelly again after all these years.  Like a throwback Thursday on Monday!

Then I Got High

I wanted to write something incredibly witty about my homie Snoop Dogg, but I must have been too close and caught the vapors or something because now I'm feeling woozy and I've got the munchies.  In this economy you have to get your high any way you can.

Free The Nipple!

One of the earliest signs that, "hmm, maybe I'm gay?", was going grocery shopping with my mom as a kid.  While she was forever on the hunt for the leanest cut of beef or the freshest produce, I would wander over to the magazine aisle (back when it wasn't considered neglect to let your child out of your eyesight in a grocery store) and browse the teeny bopper magazines for the latest news about Boy George and Madonna, secretly hoping for a shirtless photo of Billy Hufsey, Rob Lowe or John Stamos mixed in for good measure.  I remember the flush of excitement and fear whenever I'd see a shirtless guy; excited because who didn't want to see Matt Dillon's nipple in 16 magazine, and scared that someone might see me spending too much time looking at Matt Dillon's nipple in 16 magazine.

Fast forward twenty (typo, and it stays!) years, and Matt Dillon is in town to promote Wayward Pines, which looks like a Dollar Tree Twin Peaks knock off.  Sadly, his nipple did not make an appearance.

"We Don't Vogue. We Are Vogue."

I just heard George Michael's Freedom! '90 and now I've got supermodel on the brain.  ("Bitch, when DON'T you have supermodel on the brain?" - you).  I was obsessed with that music video when it came out - Christy walking barefoot wearing only a sheet, Naomi, in headphones and a great wig, lost in song, Cindy luxuriating in the tub, Linda's blonde crop cut and oversized turtleneck, and Tatjana casually smoking as the jukebox explodes.  Good memories!  There's an untouchable power in those 90's supermodels that you don't see in the anonymous, undernourished instagram bitches that exist today.

It's hard to believe that video is 25 years old! 

And Christy's still got it going on!

Losing My Religion

Watching the news these days is really fucking depressing.  You've got right wing religious fanatics quoting 'scripture' to deny gays our civil rights, Arabs and Israelis fighting over a patch of desert that nobody even wanted until 1948, and Muslims bombing shit and beheading people 'in the name of Allah.'

WHAT THE FUCK?

When I was a kid I was taught that Jesus preached love and compassion for those less fortunate, understanding and acceptance for those who were different, and forgiveness, not hatred.

Kinda like the Reverend Jim Ignatowski without the flashbacks.