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Wednesday, May 13 2009 12:05 PM |
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The other evening I was shuffling things around in the basement to make room for my little hobby area. Which is the problem, really. My little hobby isn't so little anymore and it seems that every day I need more room. You trying to squeeze a wall of Biomedic Research Animal Housing modules next to the hot water heater. It hardly leaves five inches of free space for the trolley, let alone the gurney. Don't even get me started on the chromatography pumps, electrochemistry drug infusion system and the emergency eye wash station. Don't get me wrong —someday I will succeed.
In the meantime, it's just nice to have a little extra room. It can get hot in that basement. Believe me, there are times when I have to check myself to make sure I didn't accidently slip into my Egon Von Furstenberg full length men's fur instead of my lab coat!
So as I was moving crap from one side of the basement to the other I came upon a black portfolio case I had never seen before. Or rather, seen before so many times that I just assumed that I knew what was inside it. But I unzipped it and inside was Dennis's art school portfolio.
Along with his colored pencil renderings of tomato sauce cans and glasses of green fluid was something from my own former life which I had not seen since I was in the middle of living it: The October 1980 issue of GQ magazine with Richard Gere on the cover.
I hadn't realized how thoroughly I once studied this magazine until I opened it and began turning its newsstand-condition pages.
The ad for Hathoway shirts with the man wearing the eye patch. I could remember fixating on this ad and wondering how the man lost his eye or if it was only a temporary infection. It made me nuts that they wouldn't say. And why an eye patch? Why not a hearing aid or a leg brace?
The ad for Clinique Skin Supplies for Men. It's in black-and-white because back then, most men "cleansed" their face with the shampoo run-off and then auto-moisturized during the day with forehead oil. It would have been seen as recklessly wasteful to blow money on colors. In retrospect, Clinique can be seen as a pioneer marketer, using this one strong ad to communicate to men the importance of moisturizing and to reassure them that by doing so, they are not switching over to play for the other team.
Then there was the multi-page spread for Egon Von Furstenberg. I can remember desperately wanting that man's name and also his full-length fur coat.
A "portable" AM/FM/Cassette deck the size of a briefcase is advertised as, "small." This, then, would have been the iPod of its day.
The editorial layouts had a "power" theme: executives on office building rooftops, exiting the glassy, glamorous offices of Merrill Lynch. Two executives are seen holding —but not using- early cell phones, each as large as a brick and with an antenna.
Young people who wonder why their parents are so tacky and technologically useless - unable to operate even the most common cell phone camera and only recently acquiring a facebook page- need only thumb through the October, 1980 issue of GQ magazine to understand.
In my teenage years, graph paper was seen as a cool design element. Teal was just about as wicked-awesome as a color could be. And a shirt made from shiny, kitchen-yellow fabric was a terrific idea, especially if you had feathered hair to go with it.
But before you get too smug and superior, just remember: one day you will be mortified that you carried your music around with you in a little box that had wires attached which plugged in to your actual human ears. Your children will be astounded. And when they see pictures of your choppy, random, meticulously messy hair they will shriek, "Oh my God! How could you have even gone out in public?" And you will wonder. You will.
Because however we listen to music in the year 2029 and no matter what our hair looks like, it will be better and it will make everything we do today seem silly and naive. It's like how being in an airplane makes all the cars and houses look so small that they cease being real and you cannot imagine that the people occupying these tiny cars and houses or swimming in those bean-sized pools actually have real, large lives. As history has shown, distance dehumanizes. Moral or philosophical distance, physical distance —it doesn't matter. The further away they are, the less like us.
I am from the 1980's but so are you. So was my grandmother and so was your great-great-great grandfather. We're all from the 1980's. Even the guy in the cave drawing animals with a coal-tipped stick. You can be sure even he thought, "I can't believe I have to do this shit with a burned stick. Someday, I bet somebody figures out something better. God, I was born way too early."
Okay, I have to go now. My Oodles of Noodles are ready.
Click to go Back to the Future.
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Sunday, April 26 2009 11:00 PM |
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Drew The Website Guy somehow caused people in the United Kingdom to pack a box with MEAT FLAVORED POTATO CRIPS and then mail it to me. This arrived on Saturday. As you can imagine, this ranks among the best things that has ever happened to me. When Drew told me he had Squirrl flavored chips? I did not believe him. But here they are: Cajun Squirell. I will look at them but there is no way I will try even one. However, the others are all made from acceptable animals. I don't know, there's just something so wonderful and completely insane about duck flavored potato chips. What duck ever imagines it could come to this?
Well, it got me thinking. Everybody always loves specialty food items made in small batches by hand. These little nubs of goat cheese that you find at Whole Foods -just a little knob of the stuff is twenty dollars because it was made by a Lesbian with a Ph.D in sustainable farming -and she also shows her paintings in galleries- and the goats from which the milk comes are all named for Greek goddesses except for the two goats, Sigorney and Jodie. And, you know, they're milked only on astrologically correct dates and only at midnight. That kind of thing.
So why couldn't I create a specialty food item? A bespoke potato chip? If those wonky Brits can make poato chips from Squirlls, why can't I make potato chips from the vermin that defile my yard? Boll Weevil Potato Chips, Country Rat Potato Chips, Neighbor's New Small Dog 'Croatian Spice' Potato Chips.
In other news: I am home now. Drew said it's shameful that I haven't made a new video and make you watch the Live from Sundance vido and he is right. But each time I have made a new video, my nose has looked too large. So I am waiting until it looks smaller and then I can post one.
I just finished going over the proofs for YOU BETTER NOT CRY: Stories for Christmas. This will be out in October and actually? I think I might not have fucked up this book too much. I was surprised that reading it through as page proofs didn't make me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
I've been twittering away, so make sure you follow me. You MADE me, so now you have to endure.
Dennis is out in the yard with that satanic leaf blower. I will never understand the point of a gasoline powered blowpipe that you carry around the yard and point at leaves. So that it can blow them a few feet away. This is New England: WE HAVE WIND FOR THAT. |
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Saturday, April 18 2009 10:20 AM |
Drew said I should make a video to tell you that I was home and thank you for joining me out on the road for my paperback tour. And he's right, I should do this. Except I would have to shave first. And I haven't got time to shave. Also, he said he sent us some of his British multi-animal flavored potato crisps. Which is obviously a whole video in and of itself.
So yeah, home. The first night back, Bentley had a night-poo on the bed, which we of course did not see. Pity us wrestless sleepers. I will let your imagination fill in the sordid details. Take comfort knowing your imagination is dead right.
And then Dennis got sick. This marks the first time he has been sick in all the years we have been together. He has not had so much as a cold. And suddenly, possible pneumonia. Which he learned today is not pneumonia. It was interestng to see how he responded to illness, people are so different in this respect.
Dennis is like a dog that slinks away and wants to be left alone behind the rotten stump to die. It infuriated him, I learned later, that I emailed the doctor at midnight because he seemed worse and then ran out in the middle of the night up to the 14th Street twenty-four hour pharmacy. He “hate being coddled.” I hardly considered picking up a bottle of 500mg tablets of KILL ALL GERMS to be laying it on too thick, but I see now that it was.
Next time, he dies. Next time, he locks himself in the Dead Granny guest bedroom and does not come out until he is either back to normal or in a body bag. None of this terrible in between stuff.
His meanness did not temper my astonishment and near bliss over my new laptop. I have used a ThinkPad for years because I am very hard on computers and Macs, though I had used them for many years, ceased being able to stand up to my indelicate ways. But the ThinkPad is a glutton for such punishment.
Except? The last two I purchased. They were...different. It's hard to say exactly why, but they felt cheap, somehow.
And the very last one was defective. A first. I had to call customer service, which I naturally assumed would be twenty minutes on hold followed by a number of hoops. But no. They picked up on the second ring and told me the problem I was having -keyboard flex to a comical degree- was not a recognized issue. This, too bad.
I was revolted by the “We Have your Cash, Go Away Now” tone of voice and decided not to engage the customer “service” person in any kind of debate. Instead, I would never buy a nother ThinkPad and would advice you to do the same.
I bought instead, an HP EliteBook. Now, the Mac people among you will look at this and be like, “Oh, wow. Yeah. That is so cool.” But those of you who drive Volvos will love this laptop. There is nothing else like it in the world. It's not cheap, but it's also unlikely you will need to buy another laptop until you are nearly dead anyway.
It is not made like other consumer electronics. It's made more like a German sports sedan. It is so durable that it inspires deep trust. And the keyboard is better than ThinkPad. Why did nobody tell me about this computer? I would rather lose both legs than have it taken away from me.
But I saved the best for last. Jennifer is my new twitter friend. I had to twit and twat my way through the day for Picador, and Jennifer made a comment and within her comment was the word, “cake.” Which naturally captured my attention. As did the link she sent.
http://www.jenniferdionne.com/wedding/index.html
Yes, Jennifer is a cake decorator. But she is the Picasso of cake decorators. The word needs more Jennifer's. Jennifer said, “I love my job” and I fully believe her. Because, is it possible to decorate a cake like one of these and be...bitter? Exactly how much can your life such when you spend eight hours of it with your face four inches away from a bag of frosting?
I spent a good thirty minutes on her site, mentally selecting my cakes and tasting them with my mind while I chomped on British Kit Kat bars. I love the weddnig cake above because, imagine bending over and opening your mouth right on the edge, on top of a clump of white frosting roses. But in all honesty, it's impossible to select a favorite. Because did you see the little Baby blocks? That's a clever little cake. It makes you want to go out and have a baby so you can get your hands on of those baby block cakes.
People who are miserable and hate their jobs and their lives should think seriously about a career in the confection industry. Our society's vigorous anti-sugar mentality, which is primitive and incorrect, only serves to incite prejudice and fear. If we must hate something, let's agree to hate yeast. Or ham. Especially ham because the smell of bacon sizzling away in a cast iron skillet can cause me to have a seizure where I suddenly end up dragging the tash cans outside or mopping something. It is a seizure of cooperation. I will do anything for bacon. I am like the Beggin' Strips dog on TV. Or was that thirty years ago and you have no idea what I'm talking about? Anyway, but the thing is, I cannot eat bacon because they make it out of pigs. And I love pigs. I just do. Pigs are extremely smart, possibly smarter than us and dolphins combined. And I just do not think it's civilized to eat things that can think. Like how they say this new genetic corn is perfectly safe. Which is why all of Europe has banned it? We know it's safe because Dr. Frankenstein, who created it, told us it was safe. But nobody knows for sure. What if that tiny bit of fiddling around created something that will bond with the fumes of something else and turn into an entirely new thing, which is terrible. The thing is, it could happen. We do not have all the information. Therefore, we cannot make a conclusive claim. It's the same with pigs. WHY did they have to go and make bacon out of pigs? That is so perverse. Who thinks this stuff up? Bacon should come from rats.s
But, yeah. So cakes! Somebody should order one of these and tell me how it is. I would order one myself? But then I would eat the entire thing.
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