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Sunday, June 7th, 2009
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9:00 pm - I Am The Fashion Police
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Scene: Interior of a SOMA nightclub
industrial musician's teenage girlfriend: Hey, I think that guy is stealing a purse!
Lil' Miss Never (runs after him): Hey mister, is that your purse?
Muscle Man: No, it's my girlfriend's purse.
Lil' Miss Never: Cool. Then you won't mind if I come along while you bring it to her.
Muscle Man: That's none of your business. Are you calling me a thief?
Lil' Miss Never: I'm just saying that purse doesn't go with your shoes.
Muscle Man did, in fact, turn out to have a girlfriend. Girlfriend's purse was returned to her. Muscle Man called me some names. Girlfriend thanked me for being conscientious and apologized for her boyfriend, who was being a jerk.
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(10 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, June 5th, 2009
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11:19 am - Sex Offenders A-Go-Go
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Dear Sex Offender,
I appreciate that you came here in person to explain your situation, but my organization is not going to take your appeal. It's not because you are mildly creepy or because it took me twenty minutes to get you to admit that the reason you went to jail was that you had been convicted of attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor. It's not because you excuse your behavior with a mixture of, "I knew it was a cop all along!" and "She started it!" I am sorry that you have "unipolar" depression which made the four months you spent in prison particularly unpleasant in a variety of ways which you have taken the time to relate to me. I understand that you don't belong in prison, since you are white and middle class and you've been to law school - twice! I am sorry that you were not pleased with the performance of your defense attorney, who must have been in collusion with the local police department. I am sorry that your judge must have been corrupt, as evidenced by his promotion to the court of appeals. I understand that you are certain that your ISP has violated your civil rights in some way, by allowing the FBI to place a cookie on your machine which allowed them to keep track of the 12 hours a day you spent browsing pornographic websites. Yes, I appreciate that browsing pornographic websites for 12 hours a day is not illegal. Indeed, that may be why the charges against you were not "excessive porn-browsing." Yes, it is terrible that our tax dollars are being used to employ second-year law students to pose as 14-year old girls looking to sex chat with men in their thirties. Yes, I heard you the first time you said that was entrapment. It is shocking that your attorney advised against making that argument at trial. Please, feel free to file a malpractice claim against him. No, we are not going to do it for you.
Oh sex offender, it is not that you are mediapathic - I would send helpful links to Hitler if Hitler had been sent a fraudulent DMCA take-down notice - it's that I don't see anything in your appeal that would create new precedent in the field of digital civil liberties. I understand that you would like to speak to an attorney - surely, I am turning you away because I do not have the finely-honed legal mind that it takes to grasp how appropriate this case is for my mysterious workplace. Now I want you to understand that even if you were to speak to an attorney, they would send you to me. If you email them, they will forward that email to me. If you leave messages on their voicemail, they will send that voicemail to me. We are not going to perform tens of thousands of dollars in free legal services on your behalf, sex offender. Now please get out of my office before I have to call the police.
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(21 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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3:28 pm - Holiday
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The holidays sneak up on me - not just the Christmases and Thanksgivings, but Arbor Days and Valentine's Days and days on which we buy Hallmark cards for various nuclear family members. I can never remember Memorial Day, so it always takes me by surprise. It might be because ess eff does not have seasons - we have climate - so the year does not progress from cold to warm to cold again in the traditional fashion. It might be because my year is measured by different holidays: Gorey Ball, South by Southwest, Yuri's Night, Fourth of Juplaya, Folsom St. Fair. The truth is that I forgot that I had a three-day weekend and I didn't plan a damned thing to take advantage of my suddenly copious free time.
This does not mean that my long weekend was not action-packed. I have met Trent Reznor. I have seen Nine Inch Nails. In 1999, I might have made this statement with a great deal more enthusiasm. In 2009, this experience bore an uncomfortable similarity to my recent trip to Disneyland. Let there be no mistake: no one will ever characterize the soulless Shoreline as the Happiest Place on Earth, but J's corporate masters scored us VIP tickets and backstage passes, so it seemed worth checking out.
The first thing you learn in showbiz that is there is VIP and then there is VIP. So we thought we were pretty cool when we had our own secret entrance to go through, when we were handed extra badges with curious notations, when we were allowed past the VIP gate, through the VIP bar, down some stairs, past the dressing rooms, past animatronic Trent Reznor (skin tan, neck enormous) signing albums and having his picture taken, to a table filled with Trent's pizza and beer, which we were allowed to eat for free. We waved our free beers around in the gauchest manner possible, mocking those poor suckers at the VIP bar who paid money for drinks, right up until some LA girl sporting a laminate even more arcane than ours, strutted by with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, presumably for the people who had paid $1500 each to stand off to the side of the stage during the concert on what the roadies had dubbed "The Douche Platform." It was at this moment that I realized there are no winners in this game, only losers.
Once I had finished feeling like a sucker, I went to find our seats approximately 1.5 DNA Lounges away from the stage. The crowd was old. Perhaps I am being uncharitable: I would estimate the average age of a Nine Inch Nails concertgoer to be thirty-five. No one under the age of thirty cares about Trent Reznor, at least not unless they had been dragged along by their parents. The new, tan, Rollins-necked Trent sang Head Like a Hole and I was moved, profoundly moved, moved in that way you can only be moved by music that was very important to you when you were in high school. I sang along, and no one could hear me, which is a mercy. I sang along and I imagined all of us, grey-haired and aging, sitting in wheelchairs and covered by blankets in communal homes for the elderly, with Nine Inch Nails piped in through the sound system, and all of us rockin' feebly to the oldies.
Trent Reznor had just made me feel profoundly uncool.
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(22 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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2:41 pm - Tell 'Em I'm Eating
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Timing is everything. These are bad times for people with mortgages and credit card debt. These are bad times for people who own nightclubs. Times are bad if you happen to me and you want to make progress with your tissu routine. They're bad if you do not enjoy the sound of jackhammers outside of both the Bunker and the Mysterious Workplace or if you do not enjoy sewage in your living room. These are grim and terrible times, my imaginary readers who have not yet abandoned LJ for Facebook or Dreamwidth or whatever the kids are using these days to fill out quizzes to tell them which X-Men character they are.
But take heart! It is a glorious time in ess eff for people who enjoy food, which all reasonable and right-thinking people do. There is a new farmer's market inside of the decaying corpse of the Metreon. The temple to Sony branding is being replaced by an oyster bar, where I plan to eat raw oysters until every last one of those slimy little bivalves has been destroyed. The farmer's market is only here for the summer, since their lease expires in the fall when the Metreon's evil corporate masters will attempt to reinvigorate it with some kind of remodeling. I am hoping that the aptly-named Island Earth Market will float from one retail disaster area to the next, spreading joy and organic produce throughout downtown. I will be disappointed if the market does not take over the now-defunct Virgin Megastore next, and then perhaps CompUSA.
It is a glorious time for people who wish to stalk the creme brulee cart, which they may now do via Twitter. Truly, this has helped me to divine Twitter's ultimate purpose, which is to help me to locate roving guerilla street food. Twitter will also provide the location of the Magic Curry Kart and the Mobile Pho Truck. If you are not a denizen of Bay Area, you may wish to consult this list of street food vendors who use Twitter, which is conveniently divided by city. Soon, I have been told, our stoner Frenchmen will be setting up a truck by the Bunker which will serve take-away French food, which I take as proof of a kind and loving god who answers my entreaties.
How can anyone despair at a time when technology conspires to bring us so much delicious food? I know that there is a War on Fun and Guantanamo Bay isn't closing and the Obama administration is defending warrantless wiretapping and we're all broke, but when the repo man comes - tell him I'm eating.
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(14 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
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4:04 pm - Down And Out In Orange County
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San Franciscans are morally obligated to hate Los Angeles, but when they're hating on Los Angeles, what they don't realize is that they're really hating on Orange County - a series of strip malls held together with freeways. Orange County is suburbia gone wild, allowed to spread and grow, undifferentiated from horizon to horizon. Orange County is not a place, but a collection of brands (Walgreens, Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Marie Calendar's, Bucca de Peppo) which surround the ur-Brand, Disney, in their comforting embrace.
Fear me, for I have been to Disneyland. I have emerged from the belly of the Mouse and this is my tale.
I'm trying too hard, aren't I? The truth is that as much as I hate suburbia, I am largely indifferent to Disney in all of its forms. Unlike certain science fiction authors I might name, Disney never infiltrated my childhood. Perhaps if there was a worldwide brand and theme park devoted to Fraggles or The Muppet Show or the collected works of Isaac Asimov, I might feel differently. I recall going to Disneyland - I must have been nine or ten years old - sitting through It's a Small World, and the spinning teacups, waiting in line for Star Tours and Captain Eo, The Haunted Mansion and the pirate ride, but there aren't any emotions attached to those memories. My parents, for whom American pop culture was largely theoretical, trudged from Main Street to Tomorrowland to Adventureland, propelled by a sense of duty which included showing their daughter The Happiest Place on Earth, but they didn't really understand what it was there for. My parents were always deeply suspicious of happiness.
Let it be known that while I did not experience the sort of Disney delirium that overtakes some of my peers, Disneyland is at least a Mildly Pleasant Place on Earth. I could have done without all of those Johnny Depps on the Pirates of Caribbean ride, but the Haunted Mansion was good fun, as was the Indiana Jones ride, which ended with a very neat ducking-under-the-boulder-which-is-coming-right-for-you trick, and the Tower of Terror - located in the ridiculously-named California Adventure park, was crumbling and Art Deco and genuinely scary. In the photo meant to commemorate my ride, I am either screaming or grinning like an idiot.
I'd go again, because it's sunny and my Bunker is dark and travel is broadening, but I think that next time, I would like less of Mickey's Magic and more roller coasters.
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(23 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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10:24 am - First Day of School
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Last month, I broke up with my aerials instructor.
That's not actually the way it happened, but it's the fastest way to explain it. E was my very first teacher. I have followed her from studio to studio for years. She remembers a time when I could not haul myself up onto the rope, when climbing the tissu felt like wrestling in quicksand, and I could not do a single L-sit pull-up on the trapeze. The notion of pulling my entire body weight up by my arms was boggling. I could not hang from one arm any more than I could spontaneously grow wings and fly. It is to her credit that I have good basics, that I am relatively strong and still flexible, and that I am one of the few aerialists who has made it this far without sidelining themselves with an injury.
E is a fantastic teacher, but she has been injured in one way or another for the last couple of years, which hampers her ability to get on the equipment and demonstrate moves. It became more difficult to find the minimum number of people we needed to fill out an intermediate/advanced level class. Eventually classes devolved into A and I playing around on the equipment, trying out moves we'd seen on YouTube, while E put the newer students through their paces. If I ever wanted to get better, it was time to go.
This is a lie.
I didn't decide to go. I'd noticed that my progress had leveled off. I'd toyed with the idea of switching schools. But when it came down to the breakup, I let A do it. A delivered the "it's not you, it's me," speech while I looked down at the ground and mumbled something about how if A left, there wouldn't be enough people in the class. I am a hypocrite and a coward and now I am the new girl in a very serious circus school full of professional circus folk.
The Very Serious Circus School has terrible hours. If you are taking classes at the Very Serious Circus School, you are either so young that you get out of school in the middle of the afternoon, or you are so dedicated that you have made time in the middle of the day for your very important circus studies. On Saturdays, I come to the school at 9:00 am, glowing with virtue, only to discover that the gym is already open and there is an acrobatics class that has been there since 8:30.
I have come to a place where I am thoroughly middle-of-the-road, neither a professional-in-training nor a beginner. The conditioning classes are not unlike a particularly rigorous session of bootcamp, if bootcamp lasted for 2.5 hours instead of 1. A Russian girl training at the national circus school in Montreal takes over my rope conditioning. Within seconds, she has improved my speed and form. I learn a bunch of new variations on the double star drop. I wake up the next morning so sore that I can hardly go running.
I miss my old gym. I miss my old class. I miss my indulgent and familiar teacher. I miss my comfortable old schedule, which left me with time for running and yoga and classes, and which had long since stopped making my muscles uncomfortably sore. But if I am ever going to improve, this is what I have to do.
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| Sunday, April 19th, 2009
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11:33 am - Mediocrity, Here I Come!
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On Friday evening, at the DNA Lounge, several feet above the crowd, I achieved a dream that I have been working towards lo' these many years: I became a mediocre aerialist. I performed a relatively simple routine without any particularly flashy drops. I performed it with relatively straight knees and pointed toes, even if I could have wished for a better straddle-up before my roll-down. I held my poses for long enough for the audience to see what I was doing, but hopefully not so long that they became bored and started hoping that I would do something impressive. I hit most of my beats and stayed in character, and even when I spent the last thirty seconds of the act figuring out how to make up for some lost time without looking rushed, I am told that it mostly did not show on my face. It was not a great performance, but it was a vast improvement over my show at Sigil. I did a solidly mediocre job and I am not ashamed.
I will not pretend that I was not nervous. Half an hour before the start of the first act, just as it was occurring to me that I should warm up, I suddenly understood what it must feel like to be an alcoholic. I wanted a drink. A drink would solve all of my problems, it would calm my nerves, it would give me the strength to get out there and do what needed to be done. At the same time, I knew that a drink was, in fact, the worst idea in the world. Climbing many feet into the air to do a physically rigorous, carefully-timed routine in which a careless mistake could lead to a head-first landing on the DNA dance floor is not something you want to do while tipsy. So I paced and jumped and rubbed rosin into my palms about a thousand times while waiting to be escorted to my tissu by a nice man in a gorilla suit.
When it was over, the bartender made me an absinthe mojito and many people said nice things to me. I was offered a gig in Santa Cruz in June. Jim will let me perform amongst the Hubbas again in July. I am happy and relieved not to be a bad performer anymore. It mortifies me to be a bad performer in front of my friends. But mediocrity is a good and comfortable place. It is a promise I can deliver.
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(36 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
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2:06 pm - The Bride Stripped Bare Pt. I
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If you are not at all interested in the internal workings of weddings, look away now. There is nothing for you to read here. It turns out that some brides like to keep all of the wedding details secret, so that the Big Day (they all call it the Big Day, like they're planning to storm the beaches of Normandy) will fill their guests with shock and awe. I am more inclined to walk the fine line between discussing my adventures in wedding planning and not boring everyone to death by detailing the colors J and I have chosen for table linens. I promise not to say a word about table linens unless something especially hilarious happens to them.
When I was a kid and I tried to imagine my adult life, I always imagined that I'd be alone. I imagined a flat in Mill Valley (patterned after the abode of my 5th grade English teacher) with water colors on the walls and a futon on the floor and piles of books and perhaps some cats. My English teacher had a koi pond and a plum tree. I thought that perhaps I might like those as well. In hindsight, it sounds a little sad and bleak, but I looked forward to adulthood. I imagined that it would be a time when no one would interrupt me while I was trying to read.
I never imagined that I might get married, so I never imagined a wedding. The first time that I went over to another girl's house and found her room covered with wedding magazines, I was horrified. I thought less of her. A lot less. I don't think that I ever came over again. It turns out that most women have been planning their wedding since they were six years old. I have been planning my wedding since the middle of February. But, uneasy as I am with all of the cultural baggage that comes with weddings, I have to admit that I think it would be fun to throw a party. I think it would be fun to invite all of our friends. I think it would be nice to have a dress made for me.
I am perhaps understating my excitement about the dress.
Let it be known that I love clothes. I love clothes and costuming and dressing up. My sense of self is deeply bound up in dressing to express. So I set about trying to imagine the dress which I will be wearing while J and I throw this party. The first thing that I discovered was that ninety-nine percent of all available wedding dresses are designed to crush my soul. The dress is typically a strapless number with a great white cone of the skirt. Most of the options seem to involve varying quantities of lace, beading, or embroidery meant to make the bride resemble a lemon meringue.
I am not a lemon meringue. I am not a dessert item of any sort.
The first thing I did was lift a couple of white fabric swatches to my face and dismiss the notion of a white dress. I am a thirty-year old woman marrying my partner of ten years. I think that I can safely set aside any claims to blushing innocence. Besides, I look awful in white. But I do look good in red. Lots of red - the color of sex and fear and signs that say DO NOT ENTER. All of my favorite things in life (with apologies to Kinky Boots).
Once I'd decided to go red, I knew that I was going to need a seamstress. I knew that I was going to need someone who could interpret my crazed hand gestures and photos of Mina Harker and Skin Graft jackets and Moulin Rouge and Cleo de Merode and turn it into a dress - or, sensible girl that I am - separates. I am only getting married once, but I wear fancy clothes just about all the time.
That's how I wound up spending Easter Sunday driving down to San Jose to visit L, the most single-minded, meticulous, and technical seamstress I know of. She had a skirt all pinned and draped on a dress dummy for me. This is how the bustle will go. This is what the knife pleats will look like. Here we have half a dozen different shades of red fabric to choose from. Silk duponi will not drape the way you want it to, but this black-shot silk taffeta will catch the light just so. Here is the skirt with a train. Here is the skirt without a train. Here is the reed boning for your corset. Here is the quilting for your jacket. Here are buckles and straps and overlapping lacing. Now take off your dress so I can take your measurements.
We tried on corsets and talked about her other projects and I made appropriately appreciative noises at her collection of antique corsetry. We devoted twenty minutes to a discussion of flossing, both decorative and functional. I don't know if the drama, the rending of hair, and the gnashing of teeth comes later, but so far I am pleased.
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(45 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 9th, 2009
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2:56 pm - Shoppingfraude: or, What Do You Get the Girl Who Has Everything?
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I am a bad person. I know that I am a bad person because I take enormous pleasure in the suffering of others. Specifically, I wait until a major economic recession and then I browse craigslist for furniture being sold off by sad, desperate, laid-off people who are moving back to wherever it is they originally came from. I look for phrases like "only used for staging," and "won't fit into new apartment," and "must sell before moving day." Then I throw my head back and laugh while I mentally redecorate my Concrete Bunker.
Of course, I want things all the time and I do not buy them. I never did buy that Edwardian hat or that three-speed bicycle. I ought to buy a bicycle someday - it would please J to no end. Every time I prepare myself to buy a bicycle, it begins to rain, and then I remember that biking through the rain is miserable work. Instead of buying a bicycle, I amuse myself by browsing the furniture being unloaded by what I presume are unhappy and broken people. J and I bought a set of half a dozen antique dining room chairs (which our cats have since shredded) during the last dot-com bust. We made the check out directly to the man's landlady, who stood beside him, tapping her foot. To this day, my heartless J insists that we should have also bought his 12 ft. tall ficus tree. Our cats would have enjoyed sitting in it. They are heartless as well.
In my head, I throw away a couple of the overflowing bookcases in the living room and replace them with one of these. Ideally, I would buy two of them - one on either side of the gaudy flatscreen television - so that I could have a wall of books secured neatly behind glass. All of those years with my parents' ugly Soviet furniture must have left an impression on me. I still feel as if a bookshelf is not a proper piece of furniture without glass fronts to protect the precious books from dust. Furthermore, the red shelves would contrast nicely with my green walls, which soothes my soul.
In my head, I buy this cocktail bar, even if it comes from some retail establishment and is probably not the product of recession-related suffering. I have a terrible weakness for art deco furniture. I always imagined that if I had a bar, I would sit on my chaise in a kimono and drink cocktails in the middle of the afternoon. In my head, my life with a cocktail bar is very glamorous. In reality, it is probably better if I do not own this thing.
While I'm at it, I would like this chair. I would find a place for it in my bedroom, under a lamp (because my bedroom is a dark cave where no light can reach), where I could sit and read without having to sprawl myself into some improbable position on my bed, propped up by pillows. I do not know what this lamp might look like because there does not appear to be a single attractive lamp on all of craigslist. But while I'm looking, I'll take these barstools. They will not make reading more comfortable, but all of that rebar is pleasantly industrial. It would match the concrete countertops.
In my head, after this orgy of shoppingfraude, my Concrete Bunker would magically become clean and well-organized. Random bits of paper would stop accruing in corners. Dust would not dare to settle on its surfaces. Life would be fraught with order and meaning. And it will be, my readers, it will be! Just as soon as I find the perfect lamp.
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| Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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11:24 am - Please Hold
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I spend a lot of time on the phone with strangers at the Mysterious Workplace. Sometimes, they're good phone calls. On Tuesday morning, I spent twenty minutes on the phone with a gentleman who had some questions about the legal rights of users on Facebook. I did not have particularly cheery news for him, but when we were done, he asked me to put him through to the membership department and he made a $500 donation. Sometimes the phone conversations are not so good, like the caller who got so upset at me for not giving him free legal advice in an area outside of the Mysterious Workplace's expertise that he called the director of my Mysterious Organization and yelled at her for ten minutes, demanding that I be fired immediately. I am fortunate to have an employer who understands that if a caller is yelling at her on the phone, screaming for my head, that he probably wasn't very nice to me either.
Sometimes the phone calls are a little weirder than that. I spent much of the morning playing phone tag with a gentleman who wanted to sue the state of New Jersey for violating his civil rights when a judge stipulated that he could only use the internet for the purpose of finding a job.
"What about my civil rights? Isn't this a violation of the First Amendment?"
"Let's take a step back here. Were you convicted of something?"
"Megan's Law."
"Ah, so you're a sex offender."
"But I need to use the internet at work! And I can't find any other job because of my criminal history! Nobody will hire me."
"The First Amendment does not actually guarantee you the right to use the internet at work."
"What about the Eighth Amendment?"
"Are you seriously suggesting that banning you from using the internet for any purpose aside from seeking employment is cruel and unusual punishment?"
"Yes."
"I don't think that's a legal argument my organization is willing to make."
I am then treated to several minutes of the New Jersey sex offender telling me all about how, if we are not going to take his case, he might as well kill himself. I cannot even transcribe this dialogue. There is simply no way to make it funny. Man From New Jersey, I am sorry that being a registered sex offender is inconvenient for you. If you are having suicidal thoughts, I recommend that you contact your doctor immediately. But there is simply nothing that I can do to help you. And now, I am going to eat some lunch.
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| Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
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5:15 pm - Messin' with Texas
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Help me. I think I lost my ability to write while I was in Texas. I left it at the Hilton in downtown Austin, next to the convention center. Too much happened at South by Southwest and I did not write it down. I did not take pictures. I did not take notes. While I rehearsed endless pithy little observations in my head, every time I try to write them down, I get bullet points instead of complete thoughts. I cannot entertain you with bullet points, my increasingly disinterested readers.
I had such plans! I had things to say about Austin. Things that were considerably more astute than the tired old observation that Austin is just Berkeley inexplicably transplanted into the middle of Texas. I was pleased by the many, many venues for live bands. I was surprised by the level of support that Austin has for its local entertainment scene - it's active interest in maintaining its nightlife. I spent a lot of time explaining to locals that I am from a land called "San Francisco," which has declared war on fun. Austinites were horrified to learn that in San Francisco, if a band is playing inside the club and you can hear them on the street, they're probably violating noise restrictions. How else are you supposed to know if the band is any good before you go inside? I, on the other hand, was surprised to learn that the crab chowder was slightly non-vegetarian because there was bacon in it.
I had things to say about Austin's Burner culture, which includes art bicycles, marching bands, clowns, hula hoopers, and poi spinners, but has not yet developed a serious circus arts contingent. I had things to say about the vintage clothing of Texas, which has not yet been completely plundered by hipsters. Vintage is relatively cheap unless you're looking for vintage cowboy boots or a large, ironic belt buckle. I wanted to talk about the delicious gumbo and that time we holed up in some place on 6th Street and ordered 1.5 pounds of crayfish and two dozen oysters, leading to the Crayfishpocalypse and Oystergeddon.
I wanted to talk about the number of times we were mistaken for a band (four) and the number of times I was kissed by unknown drunk girls (two) and the number of times I had my picture taken with strangers possibly because they thought I might be famous (two). A girl passed me a note in a bar to tell me that she thought I was pretty. I spoke in front of group of people who appeared to be interested in what I had to say and mostly did not flee the room in the middle of the panel. People ran up to J and fanboyed him during SXSWi. Some guy quoted Zawinski's Law during a panel where JWZ was in the room. We all smirked mightily. I slept through the fair use panel because it started at the ungodly hour of 10 am, which was a pity because I heard that it was very good.
And there were bands. So many bands. More bands that I really would have gone to see myself. JWZ was our crazed indie rock sherpa, who insisted that any waking moment spent not watching a small, unknown band that is unlikely to ever tour San Francisco was an epic waste of time. Once I had acquired some ear plugs (bands in Austin play at a deafening volume), I was forced to admit that he was mostly right. I enjoyed a bewildering variety of adorable little punk and indie rock bands featuring underfed and often crazily young female singers. The Coathangers screamed at the top of their lungs - including one song in which half of the lyrics were in Russian. Ume was inscrutable and Swedish. Polly Mackey of Polly Mackey and the Pleasure Principle turned out to be sixteen years old. Not to be outdone, The Tiny Masters of Today were fourteen and so bad that J and I retreated to the bar to drink mojitos. The Ettes were loud and punk rock and every member of the audience wanted to have sex with their drummer. Au Revoir, Simone featured three girls with keyboards and nearly identical haircuts who were so adorable that I almost did not resent having to stand around for an hour while they did their sound check. Alina Simone performed a slow, sad cover of Oops, I Did It Again. Fight Like Apes covered the Pet Shop Boys. Amanda Palmer seemed deeply alarmed to be playing in a church - she brought Margaret Cho out to sing a duet with her and then she sang I Google You, which is a sweet little tune about internet stalking. The Decemberists played songs from The Hazards of Love, which I did not like at all.
On the days when we were slack and lazy, we saw a mere ten bands. At the height of our frenzy, we saw seventeen of them, including Shiny Toy Guns, which we saw by standing out on the street in front of the venue and sticking our heads through the windows until we were practically backstage. I came home, listened to torrents, and immediately discovered three more bands that I did not get a chance to see at SXSW, including Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down, who are blessedly local.
I had so many things to say that I feel exhausted just thinking about it. Pretend I've told you witty stories. Pretend I've recommended many, many bands. Next time I have an adventure, I promise to take notes.
current music: Skibunny, Up Down
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| Monday, March 9th, 2009
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7:37 pm - Gypsy
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Hubba Hubba Revue, I know that I said I love you, but there's one thing you do that really drives me wild. I like it when you put on that fake mustache and dress up as Baxtalo Drom. I can't help it. My knees just go weak with burlesque and belly dancing and Balkan beatbox. Baxtalo Drom has managed to combine nearly-naked dancing girls, drinking, and shopping, which are several of my favorite things. It is a wonder I am not broke. It is a wonder I have not died of shame. It is a wonder that I remember hopping onto the bar to let R do a body shot off of me for highly compelling reasons which slip my mind at the moment.
A high school teacher from Los Angeles ran up to me and praised my outfit with such intense enthusiasm that I was afraid she might rip my red and white striped circus-tent bloomers right off of me. I did not see HUMANWINE at all, but they were rumored to be something I would like very much. Z danced me around the mezzanine. Someone may or may not have offered to sell me his spare Leonard Cohen ticket. N took pictures of us go-gos back stage, photos which seemed to be composed entirely of breasts. I was informed that the June Hubba Hubba Revue would be circus sideshow/carnival themed, which led me to fantasize about putting together a Siamese twin aerials act. I have promised not to use the Siamese cats' song from Lady and the Tramp.
J pulled a face and said that all of the girls at the club looked as if they had been stamped out at the same factory: exposed belly, shorts, shorts, vest, and bra, back tattoos and bellybutton rings - to which I replied that we'd done this purpose. We are go-go dancers. We have thematic continuity!
I woke up the next morning and ate crawfish beignets at Brenda's. If you are not eating crawfish beignets from Brenda's at this very moment, then your life has taken a wrong turn. Repent. Repent even though it will probably mean waiting in line for almost an hour on Polk St. before they let you in.
Life continues to be glorious and occasionally full of gypsies. When it is not full of gypsies, it is full of tin foil hat people. Today's tin foil hat person wrote me several emails in which she complained about government planes flying over her house. The government has apparently also blocked her account on the online service run by J's corporate masters. J's corporate masters have failed to respond to her many support requests on this subject. It is a conspiracy.
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| Monday, February 23rd, 2009
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10:22 pm - Let the Good Times Roll
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I've never been to New Orleans, not for Mardi Gras or for any other thing, but I think it might be something like the Hubba Hubba Revue's Mardi Gras. There was a big brass band and and I couldn't find the King Cake and I had armloads of beads to throw and just as we were lining up to form the parade for the opening number, someone asked me, "Do you want a confetti cannon?"
Do I want a confetti cannon?
I have waited all my life to hear those words. Of course I want a confetti cannon. I only regret that I needed a free hand for bead-throwing, which prevented the kind of two-fisted confetti cannoneering this event clearly called for. Confetti flew and beads flew. The club owner showed me his tits, which were profoundly disappointing, and Sparkly Devil did not, which was unusual. Then people congratulated me and they congratulated J - they brought us drinks while belly dancers wiggled on stage. I cannot reliably tell the difference between Good Belly Dancing and Bad Belly Dancing, but I have generously decided that Sister Kate will be spared when the Great Belly Dancer Apocalypse comes. Then there was singing and voodoo and a terrific Walk of Shame and I might have asked Jim to make November a Very Hubba Bachelor Party, which he seemed to be mildly excited about.
Girl after girl walked up to me and offered to share Obscure Wedding Lore. I feel as if I have been inducted into a secret society. I am deeply intimidated by all this talk of venues and caterers and scheduling. I have discovered that I don't look good in any shade of white and that I hate taffeta. I have discovered that Facebook targets ads at people who have set their status to engaged. So far, Facebook has advised me that I need a $4,500 videographer, that I should be married at a yacht club, and that I need to lose weight to look good in time for the Big Day. Presumably I can pay for all of this with the $5000 a day I will make by posting links to Google.
I stumbled home with a head full of confetti and absinthe mojitos and catering advice. I was asleep before I'd made it all the way through the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. Life is dizzy and glorious. And the good times - they roll.
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| Thursday, February 19th, 2009
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1:10 pm - On Marriage
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For as long as I can remember, I have generally been opposed to marriage. I may have said some things to that effect, once or twice. Some of those things may have sounded a little harsh. I may, for example, have told my friends that I would gladly come to their first wedding. I might have mentioned that marriage is the leading cause of divorce. At some point, I may have implied that one or two weddings constituted a terrifying reenactment of the bride's pretty princess fantasy. I may have said that the best way to show that you're serious about spending the rest of your life with someone is to shut up and do it. I might have quoted Tina Modotti's wedding speech in Frida. Okay, I quoted that speech a lot.
I promise not to be surprised when people say all of these things back to me when I tell them that this weekend, on the tenth anniversary of our relationship, I asked J to marry me. He said yes. I think that means that we are now engaged.
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| Thursday, February 5th, 2009
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3:30 pm - Issa
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| Monday, February 2nd, 2009
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12:29 pm - Party On
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I know that I am not well when I do not do my favorite things. I did not go to MEAT v. Death Guild because I decided I had enough time for a quick disco nap and awoke at 2 am. I did not go to my aerials class because the afternoon's search for a zombie prom dress left me anxious and self-conscious in a way that made turning myself upside down on ropes while wearing an unflattering lycra leotard profoundly unappealing.
Incidentally, if you are trying on overpriced dresses at Jessica McClintock and the sales associate asks you "What's the occasion?" "I'm looking for an ugly dress for Zombie Prom" is the wrong answer. The unquestioned winner in the Ugly Prom Dress competition is Ross, where no one cares if you are planning to gleefully destroy the sparkly polyester monstrosity that you are trying to wiggle into.
I can't be that unwell. I went to a lovely house party thrown by some nice people who are fleeing Ess Eff in favor of the East Bay. D brought a contraption that squeezes the absinthe out of shrieking green fairies. M demonstrated his powers of lawyerly persuasion by nearly convincing me that taking an international law class with John Yoo might be a good idea. People tried to drink out of shot glasses made of ice. A boy tried to dance with me in the hallway. Our hosts' many cosmopolitan friends geeked out over language and travel. I did my best by conversing in a number of languages and telling the tale of the Worst Bathroom in All of China, but I was completely outdone by B, who had a story about being arrested in the Kurdish region of Iraq. His story had a happy ending, which is unusual for tales of arrest in war-torn Middle Eastern nations. If I'd had some sort of storytelling trophy, I would have gladly awarded it to him.
And so, my mental well-being is mixed. My sense of accomplishment is mixed. My victory over ugly dress shopping is mixed. Later this week I will wear this ugly dress with makeup that makes me look dead and rotting and I will dance on a box. And the next time I take a disco nap because going to the club, I am setting an alarm.
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| Monday, January 26th, 2009
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4:14 pm - Unforgivable
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Forgive me, Imaginary Readers, for I have sinned. I have worn the same outfit three nights in a row to a costuming event. I can hear you mocking me, but please understand that there were mitigating circumstances. I wasn't going to attend all three nights of the Edwardian Ball. My second costume fell apart entirely - half of the essential parts had been lent out and were not returned to my care in time. I had a hat, thanks to the timely intervention of a friend, but I had no time in which to cover it in ostrich feathers. Every time I started to assemble another costume, I would frown at my kimonos and silk dresses and think: is this more awesome than my Victorian bathing costume? The answer, my nitpicky readers, is no.
It is possible that nothing it this world is quite as awesome as my Victorian bathing costume. I should wear it to the office.
Normally, I approach non-DNA events with some trepidation. The first time I went to the Regency, I vomited all over the floor and passed out during a Skinny Puppy concert. The Regency staff was convinced that I was a no-good drug-taking hooligan. In actuality, I was the victim of malignant vegetable korma. I fought the korma and the korma won. Now every time I enter the Regency, I do so convinced that I will fall over, black out, and embarrass myself in some novel way.
I did not do any of these things at the Edwardian Ball. I did not do any of these things for three nights in a row. Instead, I watched Rosin Coven in the lovely costumes that Monique made for them, and Jill Tracy on the piano. I watched Rasputina, which is now two girls and a guy. I saw W and C do obscene things with butter during the Dark Garden fashion show. J took a group photo of the Gashleycrumb Tinies, including Nifer's fabulous Winnie, embedded in ice and Dougie's Death with a perfect umbrella. Aerialists performed The Disrespectful Summons. I was flagged down by a boy I had not seen since he was fifteen and we were in high school together. S bit my finger while I pretended to hit him with my parasol. Skin Graft tried to take all of my money. One of my former aerials instructors performed in the Masonic lounge in front of a set from Faust. I found a penny farthing, but it was gone by the time I lured my friends upstairs to show it to them. We passed flasks around. I was attacked by a string of plastic balls. I survived the after party and the after-after party. J made wonderful late-night crepes. Steam-powered machines opened my pores. T and I mugged for the camera in our matching bathing costumes.
If I could, I would come home tonight, put on the same goddamn outfit, and do it all over again.
current music: Gotan Project - Mi Confesion
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| Friday, January 23rd, 2009
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2:13 pm - Is This Desire?
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I skipped Christmas, more so than usual for a secular Jew. J and I put up a Christmas yolka, which we covered in black and white ornaments and topped off with a great big raven. I engaged in some perfunctory gift-giving. I ordered J's presents mere days before Christmas and they arrived late, which he graciously forgave. But by the time the holidays were in high gear, I was spending most of my free time in the Neurological ICU hoping that my father would not die.
Under such circumstances, the only acceptable answer to "What would you like for Christmas?" is "I would like a moratorium on death, please. Think you can arrange that for me? Because if you can't, now would be a good time to shut up."
I knew that I was sad because I couldn't eat. Then I knew that I was sad because I couldn't bring myself to exercise. Finally, I knew that I was sad because I couldn't shop. I was entirely free of capitalistic cravings. I did not want to buy anything. The very thought of buying things for me to wear or read or to put on shelf seemed pointless and dumb.
I'm much better now.
I have toasted the last day of the Bush administration over dinner at Jack Falstaff. I have run many miles on the stupid little treadmill and turned myself upside-down countless times on the rope and tissu. And I want things. Lots of things. Everything. It's actually a little embarrassing.
I want a bicycle. This is a bicycle that would successfully roll me across the flatlands of the Mission and SOMA. It has fenders and a chain guard and basket! I could ride it while wearing a skirt. It has a ludicrous, dorky-looking frame. This is the bicycle equivalent of librarian glasses. How could I be expected to resist such a thing?
I want the new Revamp1930's suit, or their Edwardian jumper, but I will settle for the dress they have thoughtfully named after me.
I want a great big Edwardian hat to wear with my Mexican wedding dress, for Gibson girl Day of the Dead purposes. There are little top hats and tricorns aplenty available online, but a wide-brimmed hat which can perch atop my headsquid continues to elude me.
I want a comfortable leather chair for my living room, where I might sit and read books. I am sick of reading books while sprawled out on my bed. It is perhaps a sign that I am growing old, but reading propped up on my elbows makes my shoulders hurt.
I want a variety of little crystal chandeliers to hang from my ceiling, which is ridiculous because the light fixture in the kitchen has just fallen down and shattered and I need to replace that before I can hang new and ridiculous things from my ceiling. The kitchen light fixture will not be replaced with a crystal chandelier.
I want Retroscope dresses, though I would probably cut the bell cuffs off of that first one. I even caught myself wanting couture.
This has gone too far. A girl must draw the line somewhere and I am drawing it at Alexander McQueen. Soon I will be reading fashion magazines and dieting and putting together tear sheets. I will lose the ability to think about anything more complicated than coordinating eyeliner. I will want and want and want until I become a stupid, hungry, compulsively-shopping ghost, howling the names of designer labels. I will become so shallow that I will be perfectly transparent and then I will disappear in a puff of frivolity.
Truly, it is awful to want so many things. I'm just going to go read Late Victorian Holocausts until this feeling passes.
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| Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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12:18 am - Under Pressure
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Remember when I said I did not operate well under stress? Sometimes I don't know the stress is there. I just wander through my day forgetting to bring a power supply to my parents' house, finally destroying the clutch in my car, and failing to put my money in the correct drier for my laundry. Now I have failed to turn in my weekly report, rung up a $900 car repair bill (did you know that my back axel was nearly rusted through? Neither did I!), and there is a mountain of soggy laundry in my living room. For a moment, specifically the moment in which I flung my wet clothes back into the Bunker, I actually wondered what was upsetting me.
I am not what you might call "in touch with my feelings." This is okay, because my feelings mostly make my left eyelid twitch and my head hurt.
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| Friday, January 2nd, 2009
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2:17 pm - At Least You Still Have Your Health: 2008
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2008, you and I were going to be friends. We were happy together! I spent the year working at a job that I love, achieving some level of competence at aerials, posing for paintings, surrounding myself with wit and wisdom, in hopes that some of it might rub off on me. But you had to turn mean on me, 2008. Just when I was getting nice and comfortable, you had to sucker punch me. First you tried to kill my cat. Now you're trying to kill my father. We are through, 2008. The calendar has turned and you have no power over me. My cat's fur is growing back and my father is being downgraded from intensive care to the regular ol' not-dying-immediately part of the hospital. I'm with 2009 now and 2009 had better be good to me.
I'm not a big fan of the Year In Review. I'm just glad to have made it out of 2008 in one piece. I'm glad that someone else decided to throw the New Year's Eve party so that I could wake up in the middle of the afternoon on January 1st to a house that does not smell like stale beer. I am glad that J took photos in which I looked fabulous. I was happy to have seen the fireworks, even if they were mostly blocked by that new hotel that looks like it was designed by Apple. I was happy to have completely missed the bit where some girl vomited on E's lap - indeed it was an enormous relief, because I have angered the Gods of Vomit and you can be sure that if there is vomit, I will somehow be exposed to it. I consumed pleasant drinks and tasty cheese. I saved Dr. S from a man in a sparkly red shirt. I told what I hoped were funny stories about the hospital - the floor chaplain has not, as it turns out, accepted Odin as her personal savior - and cheered H as she did many, many pull-ups. Around six o'clock in the morning, I think I may have fallen asleep draped across the bartender.
Tonight I will dress up as an Eastern European Tribal Gypsy Circus Punk and dance on a box. There are worse ways to start the year. And I still have my health.
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