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Friday, November 21st, 2008
djmrswhite
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5:46p
A clarification, since everyone seems to be reposting this thing...
About the YouTube video I posted earlier of the little girls shrieking in tear-firehosing, rage-filled agony over the "American Idol" finale in which David Archuleta lost to David Cook (which, by the way, was sent to me by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) poppychirpy):
Yes, those kids are hilarious. But they're behaving exactly like they're supposed to behave. They're little girls, after all, and little girls have a right to invest every ounce of their being into crazed temporary worship of pop idols. Or whatever. I am pro-them all the way.
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(10 comments | comment on this)
djmrswhite
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9:16a
Somebody hands you a tambourine...
1. So my weekly reviews are up at Movies.com
http://www.movies.com/
I don't know why "Bolt" isn't posted yet. It should be. Sometimes their updating-thingie is slow. I don't know why. I assume it'll be up soon.
UPDATE: "Bolt" is up now and the review queue of the most recent reviews has me giving everything A's and B's. If you aren't a regular reader of my reviews on that site then I can assure you that this is an unusual moment.
2. Also this excellent friend of mine decided to be A TOTAL COPIER OF ME and is doing her own LJ Garage Sale. The thing about this is that her man is an unrepentant packrat and so they have a truckload of stuff.
She's uwillluvthis and I totally recommend buying that Natsuo Kirino book. Seriously, that lady's books are amazing. I heartily endorse "Grotesque" (although that's not the one being sold on UW's page right now) about these two sisters and one's a dead prostitute and the other one has always hated her for being the beautiful one even though her beauty turned her into a dead hooker and so the not-dead one is the wildly unreliable narrator and knows more than she lets on as she tells the story and.... and anyway UW was the person who turned me on to Natsuo Kirino and when she handed me "Grotesque" she goes, "It's like Lynda Barry's "Cruddy" but without the hope."
So go to her page right now and buy cheap books and weird items.
3. I'm seeing Sandra Bernhard tonight at the Orpheum. Thanks Terry Mustache! That's my friend Terry with the mustache. He bought the tickets and is, therefore, an almost-perfect human being. Chastity, get in here!!!
4. So I call the Estee Lauder spa at Neiman Marcus at Northpark mall in Dallas to schedule a pedicure for my mom when we're in Texas next week (we leave on Monday morning and come back the following Monday) and the woman answers the phone with, "Sorry, the spa is closed." Not, "Good morning, Neiman Marcus, may I help you," or anything like that. Just "Sorry, the spa is closed" and I'm thinking, "What, for repair? Renovation?" And I go, "What do you mean?" and she says, "They closed it permanently."
JERKS!
Cynthia The Pedicure Lady! Where is she? I need her to pedicure my mother. Did they just erase her? My mother's feet look better now at age 66 than they looked during my entire childhood thanks to Cynthia The Pedicure Lady. I will have to spend part of today figuring out how to make this happen.
5. On Sunday I DJ at the Eagle from 3 to 9. Then I have to pretty much stay up all Sunday night long so that I'm guaranteed absolute knocked-out sleep on the plane the next morning. Thankfully I'll have moroccomole by my side to usher me along in my stupor. We're staying at some fancy new Hilton out in the sticks where my family lives and where my mom's nursing home is. Or at least closer than if we stayed in Dallas proper. As usual, expect not to see us while we're there. It's mom and family and Thanksgiving week. Unless you happen to run into us at a mall while we're purse shopping. That could happen.
6. Apple discontinued the 160g iPod for some reason. I've been waiting until I could afford one because that's the size I need. I have 30,000 songs in my itunes and an external harddrive to hold them all. But now that they're going away I decided to buy one. It should be arriving today.
4. There's this:
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(24 comments | comment on this) Thursday, November 20th, 2008
djmrswhite
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8:10a
True Grim Bitter Frost-bitten DISCO PARTY!
So I saw "Australia" last night.
Contrary to what some of you may think, I'm not made of hate-rocks. And I am, for some reason, reasons I'm still not even sure I understand, Baz Luhrman's bitch. His movies turn me into a bowl of vanilla pudding. I don't cry at movies. Except his. I don't stand for fanciful blah-blah melodrama fakery I've seen 10,000 times before. Except at his. I'm still trying to understand why. This is not a review, though. The review goes up next week when it opens.
Before the movie, xtreem_aaron asked, "Will Kylie Minogue be in this?"
Me: "No. This movie is about the olden times when there was no Kylie Minogue."
Then we both silently wondered about how uncool the world must have been before she came along to make it better. Anyone who still yet doesn't understand that law of physics is invited to view the following:
After it was over, xtreem_aaron said, "Now I want a bloomin' onion."
Oh, and remember like nine million years ago before the election and the protesting and the whatnot and how I went to that Prada event and wrote about it for the "L.A. Weekly" and I was like, "Oh yeah, it's going to be in this Thursday's issue?"
Well it got held and held and held because of all that darn NON-FASHION-EVENT-RELATED-FRIVOLITY. Now that the world has its priorities straight again, my piece is running in the new issue, on stands today. If you don't live in Los Angeles or else you're just too lazy or averse to ink-stained hands after touching one of those things, you can read it here. I'm more or less pleased with myself:
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-11-20/columns/night-out-man-39-s-spiritual-journey-begins-with-prada/
PS: Darkthrone, as referenced in the above Prada article, is this. As good as Kylie, obviously. Just in a whole other way. Lots more trees.
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(23 comments | comment on this) Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
djmrswhite
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10:20a
Team Jacob!
moroccomole and I went to the advance "Twilight" squealing--er, sorry, I mean screening--last night and I have the following things to say about it, no spoilers involved:
1. I just read the review he wrote for MSNBC.com and I felt compelled to warn him that he should figure out a way to lock down his online contact information because he's about to be attacked by some very upset people.
2. I thought it was a blast. Naturally, I'm right.
3. If you have any inclination to see this movie, even if it's a simple "what's this thing going on in pop culture that I've been ignoring up until now" kind of curiosity, I urge you to go on opening day if possible and/or at least this weekend. The audience that was at the press screening last night was as ape-crazy and as full of shrieking delight as any I've experienced in a while. Their collective desire to MAKE OUT WITH ROBERT PATTINSON RIGHT NOW is that intense. The wacky sexual-anxiety-mania was a definite part of my enjoyment.
The other good thing yesterday was that one of my favorite gays, Kevin S.simonbear, was passing through town and so we spent half the day together Christmas shopping at Barneys. I found gifts for family members, one for MM, enjoyed touching a Raf Simons jacket that would look good on one of you super-skinny guys on my friends-list but not on me, not even if it was manufactured in my size. But still, a good jacket, all intentionally wrinkled and sewn that way permanently. Weirdly rad.
Then, for some reason, we talked about "The Wizard of Oz." I don't know how that came up in the conversation. But it did. SB hates it. So does MM. Now I know two people who don't like that movie. Do I know more? Maybe I'll find out in the comments section. But for me, it's just this movie I was shown at an age so young that I don't remember a part of my life in which it didn't exist. And I've just always liked it because I think it's a great movie. I liked it even before it became known to me that I was supposed to like it in some kind of essentialist fag way. Anyway, then I had a turkey/brisket club sandwich at the Barney's restaurant on the top level of the store and that awesome SB paid! I love free lunch.
Oh yes, and when you walk into the Barney's restaurant now, they ask you if you have reservations. Ha. Yeah, sure I do. I called your dumb department store to make lunch reservations for your overpriced sandwiches.
But the best thing about being at Barney's yesterday was that I had this interesting conversation with a saleslady about purses. I used to buy my mom a fancy purse just about every year for Christmas. She loved that. After the stroke and the move into the nursing home and the subsequent loss of her purse collection (long story that involves extended family who fill me with hateful thoughts) she was left with one brown and white-striped Kate Spade purse that's now somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 years old. It's still big and sturdy enough to carry the essential items we need when I visit her and we go out of the nursing home for a trip to the mall or a movie: extra clothes in case of a dining or restroom accident, tissue, Wet Ones, fold-up umbrella, hat, whatever.
But it's 12 years old. And it's the only one she has left. And she's bored with it. And the last time I visited and we went to the mall we rolled by lots of purses in various stores and she'd stop and coo over some of them. And I was like, "Well you don't need these anymore, really."
And so yesterday I'm with SB just looking in the lady department for something maybe to get for my mom for Christmas, something that won't be too conspicuously luxurious in a nursing home and therefore subject to certain theft, and I told SB this little story. And the woman at Barneys said, "But she wants them. It's a reminder that she can go out and do things sometimes. And that she can have a nice bag when she does it."
The cynical among you will say that she just wanted to make a sale, but she was a really nice saleslady and wasn't just jacking me off at all. She had some wisdom. So next week in Texas while we're out doing stuff I'm going to take note of the bags she gets excited about and that's going to be her gift.
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(38 comments | comment on this) Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
djmrswhite
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5:36p
I figure as long as Newt Gingrich is getting himself back in the news...
...by calling us all gay fascists and terrorists and whatnot, wouldn't it be fun to live up to that a little? I mean, you know, minus sending corn starch in anonymous envelopes and spray-painting private property and being actual terrorizers.
I plan to try this simple and easy plan of annoying married, conservative heterosexuals soon...
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/sexandgender/755/a_marriage_manifesto..._of_sorts/
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(21 comments | comment on this)
(17 comments | comment on this) Monday, November 17th, 2008
djmrswhite
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1:50p
Trust me, when it's pre-order time on Amazon I'll be letting you know...
It all seems fake when you're doing it. When you're writing some dumb thing that you know is inconsequential because it is, after all, written by you and you're not a famous writer, like, at ALL, and you barely take your career seriously because you know how gross it is when people do that. And then the emails come and there's a contract and then there's a little check that covers maybe a third of your rent for the month but still you go, "Well, they say this is going to be in a book and that it will come out sometime soon and yeah I'll believe it when I see it."
And then THIS COMES IN THE MAIL:
And your name isn't on the back yet because it's just an advance galley but you got sent the high-res picture of the back cover by your editor a few days ago and you're not really supposed to show on your blog yet so you won't, but your name WILL be on the back cover because all the names on the cover are the same as in the order the essays appear in the book and your essay is second-to-last in it.
Anyway, it's called "Love is a Four-Letter Word" and Michael Taeckens is the editor and the contributors are:
Junot Diaz, Wendy McClure, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Dan Kennedy, Kate Christensen, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Maud Newton, Josh Kilmer Purcell, Margaret Sartor, Michael Taeckens, Lynda Barry, Emily Flake, Patty Van Norman, Gary Shteyngart, Michelle Green, Brock Clarke, Jami Attenberg, George Singleton, D.E. Rasso, Pasha Malla, Amanda Stern, Dave White and Wendy Brenner with an introduction by Neal Pollack.
It is published in July of 2009 by Plume/Penguin.
It's silly of me to say and feel this because through mutual friends I kinda/sorta know her a little and hung out with her a couple times so I could never treat her like a big star but that doesn't diminish the fact that she's one of my idols and now HOLY BALLS I AM GOING TO BE IN A BOOK ALONGSIDE LYNDA BARRY. And amidst all these other somebody-writers I get to be one of the nobodies and I'm about to pee my pants.
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(28 comments | comment on this)
djmrswhite
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10:35a
Chapel of Ghouls
Some things I did this weekend:
* DJ shift at Eagle. There was this leather swap meet going on. Leather guys trading and selling their disused gear to one another. It was kind of like one of those Christmas craft fairs in a way, but everyone was selling ball-stretchers. Because it was packed and full of guys in chaps, I took the opportunity to really blast lots of hard stuff. I will never not be grateful for a chance to play Morbid Angel and Death for a bar full of gays and get paid to do it. I figure this is the music I love to play and people do come to the booth and tell me how much they like it. And the bosses seem to not mind. I will be taking a "classic rock" shift tomorrow night, Tuesday, from 10pm to 2am, so come on out and enjoy that. I will not be playing Morbid Angel then.
*Protest downtown. Who knows how many thousands of people. Also some famousish people like Lucy Lawless, Ricki Lake, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Pink, Alec Mapa, Wanda Sykes (who basically announced she was a lezbo this weekend) and Matt Lucas from "Little Britain" and that guy from "Noah's Arc," some speaking and some not. It was great. I went to the rally but not the march because--and here's where the too-much-information-part begins--I had a doctor's office procedure last Tuesday to remove every fat man's favorite malady, seven skin tags, from my inner thigh, that had been unpleasantly rubbing against my other thigh and... uh... some other parts, and had become all irritated. It made it stingingly painful to walk for the rest of the week, like some tiny monster was biting me with every step.
*Roberts & Tilton opening on Saturday night. Ed Templeton and Matt Leines. These are two artists whose work really blow my mind, especially Leines's. I tend to shy away from openings because I can't look at the art in peace. I tend to like to go to the show the next day the gallery is opening at like two in the afternoon. Then I can be alone. In fact, I usually only go to openings when I think I'm going to buy something.
I was extremely tempted to do just that, but I already own two things from Leines and I've got my art-dollars mentally saved for a show I know is coming this coming spring from an artist I like named Lydia and the gallery owner has already told me that she'd "take care of me." Leines will show again and, if this small batch of work is any indication, his imagination has not yet begun to fully freak out. I advise anyone into things that are obsessively detailed and beautiful and not of this world to go get his new book "You Are Forgiven" which includes work from the past seven years of his career. He's created an entire mythology of warriors and tigers and one-eyed creatures with multi-level square heads and mystical space-shamen who hang out with bearded clouds.
Meanwhile, the Ed Templeton part of the show, in the main gallery, is overwhelmed with painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture of every shape and size, all crammed together to cover the main spaces' huge walls. I plan to return to this show again and again and bring as many friends as possible.
http://www.robertsandtilton.com/exhibitions.html
*Speaking of art, a recent thing I got is a multiple from Terence Koh. He used to do this queer punk zine back in the day and then, suddenly, in the past 10 years or so he's become a huge art star and his work goes for jillions of dollars. When Mr. Nigella Lawson is onto you then you can more or less safely assume your career is going well.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/terence_koh.htm
Fortunately, in keeping with his old-fashioned punk-rock roots, he also makes relatively affordable limited edition multiples that schmoes like me with limited budgets can buy. They range in price from like 200 bucks up to like 12,000. You can guess which end of that spectrum I fall on. chris_gardner got one, too. In fact, he got his first. I'm a copier of him. Time for pictures:
Oh and PS, just in case anyone is going to take that piece the wrong way, then don't. If you've ever seen or heard Terence Koh, imagine that gay pug from "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and multiply it exponentially to the sun and back. This work has nothing to do with ridiculous, vintage ideas about masculinity.
*Caught up on more Season 1 episodes of "Mad Men" in Tivo. And, okay, yes, Don Draper, he's all man and whatnot. But I have a new crush and her name is Joan Joan Joan Joan Joan...
*This LA Weekly piece I wrote last week about the protests...
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-11-13/columns/diary-of-a-gay-traffic-snarling-sore-loser/
...has already gotten me a handful of comments calling me an idiot. Check it, fools. I eat your hate for breakfast. Also Pop-Tarts.
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(34 comments | comment on this) Saturday, November 15th, 2008
djmrswhite
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5:07p
Gary Cotti started it. It's fun.
Matty Mishkoff shall overcome someday.
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(4 comments | comment on this) Friday, November 14th, 2008
djmrswhite
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4:24p
Your Clutter Crew can move on to someone without a plan already...
It's Friday and that means that my new reviews are up at Movies.com. You can now go to the main page and click on the text near my face or you can click this link and read away...
http://www.movies.com/movienewsandreviews/
"A Christmas Tale" should be coming up soon at the next update in a few hours. My editors tell me the site updates at regular intervals during the day. So if you go there and don't see the review for that one it'll be up eventually.
Speaking of the most wonderful time of the year, someone forgot to tell me that it was already December 23rd. Because I just got home from Target and it felt like the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past was heck-bent on simulating Armageddon in the shampoo aisle. And all the other aisles. I usually go to Target at 8 AM when they first open. I have the store to myself then. But I just thought, "Oh well it's only Friday afternoon at 1:30. How busy can they be?" And now I have my answer. Wild trampling hordes of shoppers desperate to make their lives look as amazing as all those Target ads on TV. I will go at eight in the morning again from now on.
Food thoughts:
1. Nerds Ropes are surprisingly delicious candy. xtreem_aaron brought some home and I declined to put one in my mouth when XA told me that the rope part was licorice. Well, a Twizzlers-kind of of licorice. And I don't like Twizzers. Or Red Vines. Or licorice of any sort. But then XA convinced me. "Have you ever seen me eat plain Nerds or plain rope?" he asked. And I had to admit that he has never gnawed on a piece of rope in my presence. Then he said, "But together they're fantastic!"
So I took a bite and now I, too, am a Nerds Rope enthusiast.
2.moroccomole brought home a pint of peanut butter-and-chocolate Haagen Dazs. So I had a few spoonfuls. (My new thing is to take three spoonfuls of ice cream and be done with it instead of sitting down with an entire pint in my lap. I know, I'm super virtuous now. Be more like me, won't you?) And it's tasty. But it's no Baskin-Robbins peanut butter-and-chocolate. That's the best make of that particular flavor. B-R has the most peanut butter-ish stuff in the chocolate ice cream. They don't skimp. They give the PB its due.
Other stuff:
Watching Oprah and that Australian clutter guy right now. I agree with all the things he's saying but here's my problem with the organization experts on TV: they rush you. They make you do everything at once and they force you into getting rid of things before you have time to have a good, reasonable sit-down-and-think about it. I don't work that way. I make tortoises look like hares. I'm not a procrastinator, nor am I a pack-rat. I'm committed to editing my possessions and living more simply. But keep your pushy bossy experts off my ass because until I have a cup of tea and time to think about stuff, nothing's leaving the house. It may have taken me months and way too many LJ Garage Sale posts but I've moved almost 400 books out of this house. So yeah. I'm molasses but I make it happen.
And now that my work week is over it's time for me to do a lot of nothing...
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(21 comments | comment on this) Thursday, November 13th, 2008
djmrswhite
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7:15a
Diary of a gay, traffic-snarling sore loser.
I woke up last Saturday thinking about being a hermit all day. Then my editor at the LA Weekly emailed me and asked for a piece about the protests. So then that night I went to the protest and in the latest issue, which is out today, my piece is running. If you live in Los Angeles you can pick it up wherever the paper is distributed or you can just go read it here online:
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-11-13/columns/diary-of-a-gay-traffic-snarling-sore-loser/
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(8 comments | comment on this) Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
djmrswhite
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9:52a
Three things that don't involve me selling books.
1. So my friend Matty mattycub is helping out with this Saturday's nationwide day of homo protest and he tells me that anybody looking for more info about the protest in LA should go to this site:
http://protest8la.wordpress.com/
On this site there's a way to submit your contact info if you want to volunteer and here are fliers you can download and print out to spread the word.
2. Best bar patron last night: the guy who came to the booth and was so wasted he couldn't even stand still, he just bobbed back and forth like one of those heavy-bottomed punching toys they (used to?) make for kids.
Him: glurblemushmeh
Me: What can I do for you?
Him: muzhuhmilrmadonna
Me: No Madonna.
Him: Zhubizumabillyidol
Me: No Billy Idol.
And then he lurched away. Sometimes you think of the gooder version of an answer only after the fact, which is what I did when I kicked myself over not adding the words "chips" and "Pepsi" to the end of my responses.
3. In email contact with my mom's speech therapist about her new communication board. It's going to attach to her wheelchair and she'll point to pictures and communicate that way. Somehow. The therapist emailed me yesterday to tell me that my mom is learning how to use the board and it's still being programmed with information that'll help her adapt it to her own needs. This has me very excited to visit for Thanksgiving week and see how much she's able to use it so far. I'm also reading "My Stroke of Insight," the book that the Harvard neuroanatomy professor wrote about her own massive stroke and eight year-long recovery and every time I read a piece that I think my mom might be interested in I call her and tell her about it on the phone. I think she wants me to read the entire book to her. I could start when I get there and whatever I don't finish during that week I could continue on our daily phone chats I suppose.
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(19 comments | comment on this) Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
djmrswhite
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6:06p
You will stand next to my fire.
I'm subbing for Steve, the usual Tuesday night Eagle DJ. I'll be there from 10pm til 2am. I know. WAY-ass past my bedtime, which is about 9pm. (And if I can be in my pajamas and on the couch by 7 or so I'm even happier. People who try to call me after about 8 or so usually get voice mail.)
Anyway, it's "Heavy Equipment" night. That's what they call Tuesday nights. It's all classic rock, so I've edited down my CDs and leaving the 2008 stuff at home.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
djmrswhite
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12:59p
As threatened...
In case you happen to be new to this or never saw my original explanation for why I'm selling stuff here, it's because I'm in the middle of a big stuff-purge of our apartment. I want our home to weigh less. Also, I like money. And eBay is a hassle. I like buying stuff there but selling stuff there is kind of a last resort or for things that are really actually valuable.
I figure, why not just have an internet garage sale and sell cheaply to people I already somewhat know?
Pay whatever you want plus some postage and we're good. If you want it comment here or email me at dlelandwhite@aol.com
Charlie Kaufman - "Being John Malkovich" (screenplay, paperback) UPDATE - claimed
Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle - "Platoon/Salvador" (screenplays, paperback)
John Kenneth Muir - "An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith" (paperback)
Billy Ingram - "TV Party" (paperback, tons of information about vintage television shows) UPDATE - claimed
Mark Simpson - "It's a Queer World: Deviant Adventures in Pop Culture" (paperback)
Pedro Almodovar - "Patty Diphusa and other writings" (Hardcover) UPDATE - claimed
Richard Hell - "Godlike" (paperback)
Maurice Yacowar - "Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen" (hardcover)
Kevin Smith - "Jay and Silent Bob STrike Back" (screenplay, paperback) UPDATE - claimed
Sally Potter - "The Man Who Cried" (screenplay, paperback)
Tom DiCillo - "Living in Oblivion" (screenplay, shooting diary, paperback) UPDATE - claimed
Steven Dillon - "Derek Jarman and Lyric Film: the Mirror and The Sea" (paperback)
Thomas Weisser - "Asian Trash Cinema"
Richard Kelly - "The Name of This Book is Dogme 95"
Mark Salisbury, editor - "Burton on Burton" (about Tim Burton, that is. Foreword by Johnny Depp, paperback)
Cameron Crowe - "Conversations with Wilder" (about Billy Wilder, hardcover, big book) UPDATE - claimed
Stanley Kubrick - "Full Metal Jacket" (screenplay, big oversized paperback) UPDATE - claimed
Gene Brown - "Movie Time: A Chronology of Hollywood and The Movie Industry from it's Beginnings to the Present" (that present being 1995, HUGE oversized paperback)
Wes Anderson - "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (screenplay) UPDATE - claimed
Claude J Summers, editor - "The Queer Encyclopedia of Film and Television" (another very large oversized paperback)
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(9 comments | comment on this)
djmrswhite
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12:51p
The Jerkface of Movies: a non-spoilerish mini-rant
Saw "Quantum of Solace" last night. It's rad, in case you're wondering.
And again, I won't spoil anything here. But this one guy right in front of me, during one awesome scene that directly visually references a classic Bond film, turns to the man on his right and says, out loud, "[title of earlier classic film]!" and then, when the man on his right doesn't respond in anyway, the guy then turns to the man on his left and again announces that title.
GUESS WHAT OLD MAN? WE ALL GOT IT ALREADY! STFU!
There. That's all I wanted to say. And please, if you've seen the movie already like me, either at an advance sneak or because you live in the UK where it's already out, don't spoil it for people in the comments.
I'm about to post like three more LJ Garage Sale lists. Books, more books and some CDs.
Aren't you excited?
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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