Auld Lang Shark

A little something to help you start the new year off right because nothing says I Love You quite like shark lingerie.

Greatest Card of the Season

For a good time, click on My Menorah.

Highlight of the Day

It's a tie between receiving a Christmas card written from the point of view of a family dog and hearing a country version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus complete with hoe-down dance break in the middle. Sometimes I wonder why I came back to the U.S., but then I hear the phrase "Santa's cowboy hat" and I know exactly why.

Conversation From Today

84 Year Old Grandmother: Do you have a washing machine in your apartment?

24 Year Old Me: Sure do.

Grandmother: Where?

Me: By the kitchen, in a little closet.

Grandmother: I bet you like that.

Me: It's nice. I've never really lived in an apartment with a washing machine. It's kind of weird not to go down the street to wash clothes.

Grandmother: Well I wouldn't want to use a washing machine that other people's dirty clothes have been in.

Me: That part never really bothered me.

Grandmother: You never know who has AIDS.

Me: [silence. silence] I don't really know what to...

Grandmother: Do you want some ham biscuits? I love ham biscuits.

Me: Umm...I'm not really hungry.

Which one of these doesn't belong?

A) Inside the Actor's Studio: Kevin Spacey
B) Inside the Actor's Studio: Charlize Theron
C) Inside the Actor's Studio: Jack Nicholson
D) Inside the Actor's Studio: Jennifer Lopez

Here is documented proof that James Lipton is a pasty, bloated brick of steaming hot poo. This may very well be the most blatant illustration of the mediocre parading as the great I've ever encountered. For tonight's television-watching extravaganza, it's a choice between this, Britney's Most Shocking Outfits (already watched Britney's Most Shocking Moments which shockingly featured the same band of impotent blowhards), or a surgery on The Learning Channel in which a severely disfigured man undergoes a procedure to have a port wine stain birthmark removed from his face. I'm consciously choosing J.Lo (who claims she didn't name herself that, in case any of you were wondering) because my capacity for intaking sad things is finite, whereas my capacity for watching the freak parade is endless.

For the past period of time, I've felt like nothing good is happening, only bad and strange. I say 'period of time,' because I'm not sure when exactly I began feeling this way. For every positive story I read, there's 20 on pain, heartache, devastation, hunger, poverty, rape, disease, pollution, hatred, danger, fear, divorce, underfunding, overpopulation, accidents, death, lies, crime, drugs, carelessness, guilt, greed, envy, desecration, stupidity, and just general unfortunate circumstance - none of which, you have the power to change or even forget. It's depressing and it makes me want to hole up in an isolated, overly wealthy community, focus on those with better bodies, better bank accounts, better beings, and simply become fat. (I say all this currently eating both a handful of peanut M&Ms and my third sugar cookie while watching the E! True Hollywood Story of Dian Perkinson - The Price is Right model who did Playboy). Welcome to the American dream.

For Your Listening Pleasure

"Out of all the applicants, I want to be an applican."

Proof That People Will Buy Anything

Why is this selling for nearly $60? Crazy Brits.

A Post In Which I Realize Only After the Fact That This is More Losery Than Posting Pictures Of Your Pet

Every year the boyfriend and I search far and wide for THE worst Christmas decoration we can possibly find. The decoration can't just be ordinarily bad, it has to be awful, so awful and so nonsensical that it calls out to us, yearning for a spot in our horrifically tacky decorations collection. The goal is to one day accumulate enough decorations that we can have a tree full of hilarious/absurd decorations from throughout the years. It's really a celebration of our humor.

The search for the worst holiday decoration is one of my favorite Christmas rituals. Past winners include:

Bust of Emperor Ludwig I of Bavaria (purchased in Belgium) (2001)


Cardinal Riding Duck Riding Pig Riding Weathervane (2002)


Crystal Angel Holding Phallic Candle (2003)

and Horrifying Ice Cube Smiling Creepily While Calipers Lobotomize Him (Or Her) (2004)


This year's hunt was long and hard, but yesterday we found the most perfectly awful decoration of 2005. The bottom of the statue reads "Highland Fling," but we like to call it "Sweet Son of Zeus Why Is There A Topless Snowman With A Fiery Mullet-Mohawk Dancing A Jig As A Confused Pajama-Clad Man Looks On? Who Thought That Would Be A Good Idea? We HAVE To Buy That! Buy It Right Now In The Name Of All That Is Holy And Good!!!!!!" (2005)

You can't see it from this picture, but the long, manly mane extends down the snowman's frigid back and flows into the wind behind him. This may be the closest I ever come to seeing God.

La Vie Boheme

This past weekend I saw Rent, which, unlike Good Night and Good Luck, was not both slow-moving and anti-climactic. This metal robot heart of mine was touched by the useless artists of New York. I cried when it was revealed that everyone had AIDS or was addicted to smack. I cried when people broke up. I cried when characters got back together. I cried every time this super hot kid in a cute scarf came on the screen and my heart cried a little when I got home and looked up his high-ranking-on-the-lickability-scale picture and realized that no, he doesn't actually wear those glasses around in real life. What a shame. Honestly, do the public a favor and just wear a pair of dark frames around as if you do really need glasses. Do your part of keep America beautiful and nerdy-looking Anthony Rapp. Through the plotlines of AIDS and death and addiction, I cried the hardest when they sang about measuring their time on earth in love. THEY'RE MEASURING THINGS IN LOVE PEOPLE...WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU MEASURED ANYTHING IN LOVE? Yeah, that's what I thought.

There's no way to watch Rent and go home without a tiny piece of you secretly wishing that you lived in a New York tenament with no heat and no real family except your rag tag team of lovable pseudo-degenerates. In all sincerity, I'm pretty sure that if given the choice, I would give up the nice-ities of heat and reliable electricity and at least a couple of members of my family to live in a world where people broke into spontaneous song and dance, unafraid of the majesty of the jazz hand. When mentioning how close to heaven a perfectly in-tune choreographed world would be, a friend brought up this point: There are far more crappy songs than good ones out there. Would a world of crappy songs and crappy dances be worse than no world at all?

In reconsidering my stance, I thought of all the eye-rollingly bad car commercial jingles and boy band songs these innocent ears have been scarred by over the years. Then, like a gift from the gods of all things auditory, I was sent this today and my faith in music, hockey, and the power of the handlebar mustache has been returned. I will NEVER doubt again.

Hitler was a Painter

Every Thursday night, my mother and I take a painting class, which, I think is supposed to be a way for us to bond, but instead is just a way for me to remember how bad I am at painting and how good my mother is at schooling me in all things that matter. Our 3 HOUR CLASS (written in ominous courier font to show how hard it is to get through) typically begins with a lesson on drawing and a couple of exercises then we spend the reamining 2.5 HOURS working on whatever project we've got going on.

This past Thursday, the lesson was on gesture versus contrast drawing and how, in order to get the most realistic painting, you should combine the two. "Good painters know how to seamlessly transition between the two," my teacher said. "It's like the idea that two heads are better than one. In this case, combining two ideas about art are better than just using a single idea." And I was with her all the way up until the next part.

"It's like that book, you know, the one that talks about how the perfect society is a blending of socialism and communism. One idea alone won't give you the best results. You know, that book, what's it called? Mein Kampf. Yes, Mein Kampf. When you're painting, try to think of Mein Kampf. Make your artwork like Mein Kampf."

I looked around the room and in our class of eight, my mother and I were the only ones NOT nodding as if to say yes, I personally have always found the musings of the man who systematically exterminated more than six million Jews to be artistically inspiring.

And that was it. Class proceeded as if an accidental Holocaust reference hadn't been dropped and moreover, that it wasn't a complete sin that in a class of nine adults, many of whom probably had parents who fought in WWII, only two people knew what Mein Kampf was. Conversations quickly shifted to upcoming weekend plans and holiday stories. While my mom was getting out her oils to finish up her parrot portrait she was working on, I scribbled this note and passed it to her:"You should tape it to your easel," I said. "For that instant dose of Aryan inspiration."
"Hitler was a painter," she said, tearing the note into microscopic scraps, and somehow, coming back with "too bad that didn't work out," didn't really seem fitting.