Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Our Town

What a nice Thanksgiving. I relaxed at my parents' for almost a week and it was so nice and slow. To illustrate: On Saturday night, I called my friends Anne and Alex to see when they wanted me to come over. Turns out, as Alex explained to me, Anne was tired and they were heading to bed. It was 6:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time. I had already eaten dinner and my friends were in bed.

I took out the car and drove around in the utter dark. Not having spent a night out of the city since August made me appreciate how bucolic my hometown is. It never really gets dark in NY, which highlighted how dark it really got out there. No streetlights, and the headlights on my Dad's car hardly put a dent in the dense dark. While driving I heard a set of Iris Dement on a radio station from Rhode Island, and it was beautiful. Had heard her name a bunch but never heard her warble before. And what a pretty warble it is.



She also has a nice version of "Let the Mystery Be"

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Credit where it's due...






Just wanted to give everyone a look at my lovely friend Kate Sears's beautiful pictures of mashed potatoes in today's Dining In section of the NYTimes. We've been friends for over 10 years and, in addition to being a riot, she's a talented photographer with a great eye. If you've never been on a photo shoot, please know that those wine glasses probably took about 45 minutes to get in exactly the right spot. Those mashed potatoes were probably really good, but I'm certain no one on the shoot ate them. I sure would have tried them had I been there. Once I got to go on a shoot with Kate for a company that makes these amazing stuffed cookies, where I singlehandedly invented the quadruple stuffed Oreo. That shit was goooooooood. Enjoy the preview of good things to come... and some tools to get you there. Or your Mom.

Well what had happened was....

Hey y'all, here at the farm, busting ass in the fields, and wanted to leave you something from Chicago. I've only ever heard this song in Chicago, as it's constantly on the radio, and it was a crowd-pleaser at my last job (not far from the Church where this video was recorded). In the summer it is not uncommon to see grown women jam out to this song in their cars, singing and clapping. Work it out!

Jesus Can Work It Out- Cosmopolitan Church of Prayer, Chicago, IL.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Rinse and Repeat



Hi everyone! Thanks for coming back even though I haven't posted in a while... sometimes things get out of hand for a minute, but here I am! Thanks to all who yelled/commented/glared at me to remind me that I didn't post. Really motivating.

So, last weekend I hosted my friend Kael and his "ex" Natasha at the Petit Palais in Bed-Stuy. It was awesome to see him, and we did the math and figured out that we've been friends for over 20 years (check out his blog for proof and pictures.) The happy non-couple came into town because the lovely Natasha was performing in "LARD: like grease, but thicker" with Big Moves, an amazing group of plus-sized dancers, singers and actresses. I had a great time at the show, which told the story of a medium-sized girl who moves to a new school and just isn't skinny enough to hang with the skinny Dietrons, but isn't meaty enough to fit in with the Fatties. It was really cool to see these girls do their thing, as they moved really well and there were some excellent voices amongst them. Also, they eat burgers, fries, and mac n cheese on stage, which is some great direction if I've ever seen it. Natasha is a blond beauty with lots of sass and a great sense of style, and she brought me some delicious cookies. I appreciated the inclusive attitude of these girls, and many were queer. In fact, there was a marriage proposal at curtain call, and nary a dry eye in the crowd. Let's just say I'm a BIG fan, and yep, that's a fat joke.


So Kael is super popular and kept on running into people he knew here, and judiciously only speaking to some of them, as we were on a mission to buy me some shoes. Omg, shoes! Let's get 'em! As a result, the three of us were channeling Kelly all day long on my search, which is always fun, betch. So at some point during the show Kael asked me if I wanted to see Margaret Cho's show later on that night, because he and another friend who was in town are friends with one of the guys in her Sensuous Woman revue, comedian Ian Harvie. Kael knew Ian from Portland, Maine, where he lives, and he invited us to come to the late show that night. At this point I was jazzed because Margaret Cho is fucking Mario Hilario.

The Sensuous Woman was amazing, practically flawless. It was super queer-oriented and in true burlesque style, the performers seemed to love the hooting and hollering coming from our section. I mean, that show had everything: gay rappers, lots of stripping, the indescribable and incomparable burlesque of the littlest stripper I've ever seen, Selene Luna, a transcomedian, and omg, Kelly! Kelly really broke it down for us, performing "Shoes" and "Let me borrow that top." Actually, Diana Yanez (who's my new favorite) joined her for a Spanish version of Shoes which brought the house down. But really, "MY PUSS" is something you all have to watch right now, you'll die. Just remember: "my puss won the fifa world cup; your puss makes me sneeze and throw up."


It was great to meet Kelly and compliment her on her rack, especially because I had been saying "Let's get 'em!" all fucking day. Thanks to Kael and Naughty Natasha for coming through town, and to Ian Harvie and Margaret Cho for the tickets. If you get a chance, definitely check out the show, betch.