‘course’ language

Breaking news: Democrats grow spines!

rose tint my world

My piece on Shock Treatment, the lackluster sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, appears today in the New York Press. It's one of those short reviews that's damn near impossible to write, and ends up sounding like I hated the film. I didn't hate it, but I was disappointed.

I was a total Rocky Horror junkie in high school. Knew all the words to all the songs, including the audience participation bits, even though I didn't get to one of the infamous midnight screenings until early college. Shock Treatment was always a mystery, this legendary thing that none of my fellow Frankie fans had ever seen.

A few weeks back, I finally got around to watching the movie with Gayest Neil, who agreed that it just didn't work. It made me sad, I think, because it brought to mind my teenage self and the way young people idealize the unknown world. When you grow up (and wise up, Janet Weise), you eventually see that some things are better left undiscovered.

yummy

This week's illustration was completed not long after I had the chance to visit my friend Robert Richards in his studio. We had a great conversation about colors and textures (among, oh, a thousand other topics). I wouldn't call the drawing an homage to Robert's style — we're worlds apart. But I can see how his approach to monochromatic backgrounds may have influenced me.

The Blotter: A homeless man told police that he'd swallowed some rat poison ...

one-handed reading

I bought the new issue of Utne because I was intrigued by the cover teaser, "Porn Culture: What it's Doing to Us."
The package inside didn't so much provide the promised answer. I found the opening essay by Julie Hanus to be particularly lifeless. But a few pages in comes this fascinating little piece by Charles Foran, "Damage on Parade: As we shed our inhibitions, we shed our humanity." I'm not sure I completely agree with the argument he poses about porn's impact on community standards, but there are lines that did stick in mind:

Flickering across a million monitors in a hundred countries at this moment are images of women and men, most of whom are performing lewd sexual acts before a camera because they are poor or damaged, or because they have been coerced into doing so. It shouldn't be so easy to ignore this while we are pleasing ourselves.

What's most interesting here, I think, is a point that the Utne package makes abundantly clear: Popular culture and porn culture are increasingly the same thing.

Exhibit A: Choose your own Cleaning Hunk. Note that it follows the classic porn script: Hot stranger arrives to perform a service (he dresses as either a construction worker or a gladiator!) then strips and "gets the job done." Ahem. Instead of the money shot, you get a sales pitch.

Exhibit B: The Lion of Chelsea. Full disclosure: I have a friendly relationship with Michael because of my job, and he's scouted my apartment as a possible location for one of his films. (It wasn't used.) I'm not including the link to his profile out of any sort of moral judgement, but when you have the mainstream press spilling so much ink over a guy who makes gay porn, it's clear that something major is going on in our society.

it's loud and tastelessand i've heard it before

Fourteen hours. Actually, that's not true. Fourteen hours, plus the time spent every week discussing the show with my co-workers and other friends, plus another three hours writing about the show for a freelance assignment. By my guess, and going by my freelance rate, the producers of Project Runway owe me somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,300 for wasting a considerable chunk of my life just to watch goddamn Jeffrey take home the season's top prize.

I should add another grand just for emotional damages, even if I have to deduct the payment I received for said freelance work.

Seriously, what happened?

Fan favorite Michael went all bling-bling with his final runway show. He called it "safari," and it certainly looked like someboday got lost in the jungle. As Sean pointed out in an earlier comment here, those gold accents made me want to kick him in his recently braced teef.
And what about that swimsuit? My name isn't pretty-pretty, it's Barbarella!

Laura, who I was secretly rooting for, didn't lick Nina Garcia's pussy and stuck to her usual matronly act, which is a true pity. Of the final four, I sincerily believe she's the most talented.

And then there's Uli. Simple little Uli. I'll have to say her collection had a lot of surprises. It wasn't the usual tie-dyed tomfoolery we've seen all season. Judging from this runway show alone, Uli should have won the competition, but we knew it could never be.
Instead we get Jeffrey, he who made somebody's mother cry, who went over budget in the end and was accused of outsourcing his stitching. In a season that's been characterized by cheaters and haters, Project Runway got the winner it deserved: A surly, unsympathetic, overgrown brat whose whole "rock 'n' roll" aesthetic is the definiton of dated and pathetic.

Maybe it was a sad attempt to be "edgy" on the part of the producers, or just a ploy to prove that the fan favorite may not be the fashion favorite. Either way, this finale is like waking up on Christmas morning and finding a boot full of vomit under your tree. You didn't see it coming, you can't believe it happened and you feel awful for looking forward to the event in the first place.
I just want my 14 hours back.

land of a thousand words

I held off on posting my first Scissor Sisters story here because I had hoped that a better one would come along. The patience paid off. I'm a lot more pleased with how my piece for CL turned out; it's a comparison of the Sisters with the Pet Shop Boys, including quotes from lead singer Neil Tennant. He was a fun interview but seemed annoyed with me by the end of our 15-minute chat. At least I wasn't being boring.

Fundamentally flamboyant
Why hasn't America embraced the Scissor Sisters? Ask the Pet Shop Boys.

And to address a few comments sent to me after I earlier mentioned that I wasn't in love with the new Scissor album: I've warmed up to it a wee bit through repeat listening. "I Can't Decide" (my favorite song right now) seems to be the theme of the disc: Sometimes I think the retro thing was a stroke of genius, other times it feels a little tired. "Paul McCartney" could have been on their debut and has been a dark horse favorite on my iPod. In general, I think I was expecting a sound this time around closer to the electro sympathies of the first disc, and that's just not what this album is about.

some offices have watercoolers

We have the Bear Hat.
Um, yeah.

once there were parking lots, now it's a peaceful oasis

My most recent drawing is sponsored by the muted palette and autumnal hues of the mid-1970s. I wanted to do a moody, early morning, let's-just-have-a-cup-of-Sanka-and-talk-about-it kind of picture. I think it works as an illustration, though I'm not sure it quite fits the outlook of the crazy bitch from the actual story.

Blotter: A woman climbed a tree in a parking lot ...

to get over his 16-year-old crack habit!

sew sew def

In my blogging hiatus, I never got around to posting my piece on "Project Runway" that ran in the New York Press last week. Here it is. Too bad I submitted it before the judges pulled the dirty trick of sending all four finalists to Fashion Week. Those Bravo queens are crafty.

Blair Witch 'Project'
When did 'Runway' turn so evil?

yo mama

Last week's Blotter illustration falls into a category I seem unable to resist: Parents fighting while thier small children look on.

The hilarity just never ends at the bus stop, apparently.

Blot: One morning, two mothers got into a verbal spat ...

to hell and back

I counted up today and figured out that I was out of town for a little less than half of the summer's weekends, which is to say nine trips to various destinations from late May through early October. No wonder the BF and I feel so out of touch with New York.

Three weekends back we finally bid farewell to Fire Island with the last outing in our share. I think we both have mixed feelings about the experience. It's a gorgeous retreat from the city, especially during brutal dog day temperatures, but also not the relaxing oasis we thought it might be.

I came to see the Pines as even more cliquey than we previously surmised, and certainly a lot more fun if you know more people — or if you don't know anyone at all and can just spend the whole trip catching on back issues of The New Yorker, which I never got to do. Will we do it again next summer? Signs point to no, though there are many months between now and then.

Two weekends ago we made a fast stop in Atlanta to visit family. I had the usual airport drama going there and back, which always happens to me en route to that particular city. I've come to realize this is the universe speaking to me, saying I shouldn't be traveling back to Georgia in the first place. When will I listen?

This past weekend the BF found ourselves not only in the city, but in the glorious state of having no plans. Praise the Lord!

On Saturday, we took part in Open House New York, visiting five or six of the buildings and residences on the tour. The best was a sweet loft in the West Village, with a rooftop deck and old subway doors in the bedroom. The BF insisted we check out Washington Irving High School, which actually did impress me, in a sort of creepy Sixth Sense kind of way.

And speaking of creepy, last night the BF and I ventured over to Brooklyn for Hell House, a secular theatrical troupe's mounting of an actual evangelical outreach tool aimed at scaring teens back to Jesus. Think: dying AIDS patients, a school shooting and a reenacted abortion. Truly terrifying. No wonder this country is so fucked up.

After leaving the theater, we walked along Water Street and admired the amazing view of lower Manhattan. It was our first time exploring up-and-coming DUMBO and the lovely Brooklyn Heights, and the BF particularly liked the feel of the area.

"Do you want to move to Brooklyn?" he said.
"Why not?" I replied. "It's not like we're ever home in the first place."