i own this fucking blog, sugar tits

Huh. My sister used to work here. Too bad she's not Jewish. And doesn't work there anymore. Can the healing begin yet, or does that wait for his discharge?

In other Hollywood jew-news: this looks like an interesting movie. Except it's not very Verhoeven - I was expecting the female lead to spread her cooch and have giant mutant bugs leap forth, dealing death to a group of suspicously nubile space-marines. In Dutch. If possible.

axis of tweevil

X and I went to see Midlake, an emerging Denton band, last night. They're in the midst of a national tour and a lot of good press about their new album, The Trials Of Van Occupanther.

We'd never seen them before, and I knew nothing about them except for the clips from their MySpace page. From what I could tell, it was all really pretty and melodic pop.

What I didn't know was how popular they are locally. When we got to Hailey's, it was absolutely packed - like being inside a smoke-filled jar of capers. And their setup was elaborate - lots of the usual guitar/bass/drums, but also several keyboards, along with a DVD projector and a screen.

The music was great (X rated them only a "good") but it turned into a game of "name that influence" - oh, this is the 4AD song! oh, now they sound like RadioColdHeadPlay! and oh, this is very Flaming Lips! Finally, we settled on James, the English band from the early 1990's that had it's biggest hit with "Laid."

The best encapsulation of the night, however, came on the way home, when X said:

"Midlake is the final member of the Axis of Twee, after Belle and Sebastian and Coldplay. No, wait: the Axis of Tweevil."

you had me at prancing zebra

This sounds like my kind of movie:

“Shadowboxer,” a gaudy thriller saturated in sex and violence, is an extravagance that leaves you with your mouth hanging open — partly in admiration of its audacity and partly in disbelief at its preposterousness. Playing one of the most unlikely couples in screen history, Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr. are Rose and Mikey, contract killers and lovers living in Philadelphia who happen to be stepmother and stepson. And oh yes, Rose is dying of cancer and eventually exits the world with the kind of bang not seen since Jeanne Moreau’s self-annihilation in “Going Places.”

Helen Mirren? I looooooooove me some Prime Suspect. Plus, it's got interracial quasi-incest and guns! Chicks with guns! X - I'm sorry, but we are SO going to see this.

Holy shit - there's more:

The intensity of Rose and Mikey’s passion goes way beyond conventional Hollywood sex, and the fact that it is interracial and intergenerational (Ms. Mirren is 22 years older than Mr. Gooding) lends it an extra transgressive kick. I haven’t seen a black man and a white woman make love like this in an American movie since Ellen Barkin and Laurence Fishburne tore at each other in “Bad Company” in 1995.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I totally think America is ready for this. The only other thing this movie needs is a zebra! Wait! Oh my god! There's a zebra?!?!

“Shadowboxer” settles right down to business in delivering its jolts. Clayton (Stephen Dorff), a sadistic mob kingpin who lives in a mansion with his pregnant wife, Vickie (Vanessa Ferlito), and a pet zebra that prances on the front lawn, commissions Rose and Mikey to assassinate several of his mob associates and his wife in one fell swoop.

"Fell swoop" is kind of a fey verbal construction for a review of a gangster movie. It would be like Pauline Kael, writing about Reservoir Dogs, saying, "and then he cut of his ear and shit down his neck in one fell swoop!"

This may sound pretty edgy for a 60-odd-year-old Englishwoman like Helen Mirren, but I remember a fabulous movie she did almost twenty years ago called The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, in which her husband, a scumbag restaurateur, catches her having an affair with one of his patrons, and has the guy killed.

She gets revenge by having her lover roasted whole and forcing her husband to eat the dead guy's cock.

Now that's edgy.

how phlegm paid my rent

I was reading PhlegmFatale today, and when she mentioned a time in her life when she worked at Neiman Marcus I had a total flashback to a horrible stunt I pulled there once.

At age 18, I wandered into Neiman's one day and found this amazing shirt by Jhane Barnes. Sadly, the $145 price tag (and this was in 1989, friends) took it right out of my price range. Still more sadly, once upon a time, I was a vicious, horrible queen who believed that he deserved a Jhane Barnes shirt because it would make me more attractive and popular.

Nevertheless, even though it was outside my price range, it wasn't outside my mother's, who was dealing with a huge load of guilt over moving to Hong Kong with her new husband and my sister and leaving me behind to go to school at UT of fucking Arlington. So when she flew into town a few months later for her mother's funeral, what did I do? Oh yes, that's right - I took her to Neiman's and worked it, worked it, worked it until I got that shirt.

Today, I realize the futility of wearing a single Jhane Barnes shirt when you live in a shitty apartment off Collins and 360, and the next-most-expensive piece of clothing you own is a pair of Tommy Hilfiger shorts from Dillard's, and you drive your mother's car, because who takes a 1989 Mustang to Hong Kong? But at the time, I felt like a newly-minted rap star rolling in bitches. I wore that shirt constantly, over and over, like Cristal, like grills.

But all good fairy tales (ha!) must come to an end. Because the next time I was short on rent money, the next time I couldn't pay my Amex bill, the next time I wanted groceries, I took that shirt, tag still attached, worn twenty times, back to Neiman's for a refund. Which they gave me.

And I like to imagine that it was ol' Phlegm, with her "best megawatt smile (fake as shit)" who forked over the dough.

the happy couple (pun intended)

"Honey, I have a great idea for our engagement photo!"

"Yeah? What?"

"Okay. Well, what I was thinkiiiing is that you could pick me up and slam me up against a wall. Then, I wrap my legs around your waist so it looks like you're, like, totally banging me!"

"Score!"

"Totally!"

i almost croaked

After I fed my dogs last night I let them outside, as per usual. Normally, they conduct a who can poop fastest? contest (Tolstoy usually wins) and race each other back inside so they can lick their empty bowls. But last night, after a good five minutes had passed without the telltale scratching at the door, I went to investigate.

I opened the back door and both of them were sitting about five feet away from the back door staring at a giant toad that was perched on the doorstep.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Get in here! I can't believe you guys are afraid of a toad. Especially you, Tolstoy."

They came in, but both skirted the toad as much as they possibly could. Tolstoy practically folded himself in two as he scooted past, walleyed with fear.

Hours later, I was sitting in the office goofing around on the computer when I heard a scratch at the back door. "What the hell?"

I got up and looked, and it was. The. Toad. Scratching at the back door. As I stood there, it slowly slid back down the glass again, little toad toenails grating all the way down. And suddenly, dog-fear didn't seem so silly.

the grieving sofa

I love these girls.

gay superpowers

"I'd shoot razor-tipped sequins out of my fingertips," Lorne replied. "Oh, and my skin would be tinged blue, like an Indian god."

X chimed in. "Yes! And when you activated your superpower, you would grow six arms!"

"What's your hero's name?" I asked.

"Bombay Sapphire! How about you?" he asked me.

"Let's see. I think I'd be able to do rope tricks, only with my bondage wear. It'd be like Wonder Woman's lasso of truth, where she ties you up and you have to be honest, only I'd use a harness. Oh. And I'd know kung fu. I am the scourge of the underword! I am...The LEASH! X, how about you?"

"Oh, I don't have a gay superpower."

"Oh, yes you do," I replied.

"Yeah," Lorne said. "You'd be the gay who infiltrates the straight world and reports back on their nefarious doings so we can defeat them."

"Yes, and your name is Stealth! The Stealth Gay!"

Cordelia was last and we started making suggestions. "How about if you shoot softballs and golden retrievers out of your ass?"

"No," she said. "Lesbians like chain wallets, so I'd have one of those."

"From Paul Frank?"

"No, that's too scenester," she said, "it'd be a Harley Davidson chain wallet. And it'd have razor blades on the inside, and I could swing it around and kill people with it."

"That's cool. What would your name be? Vagina dentada?"

"No, Chainsaw Mary."

pressed flat

I made my usual Saturday trip to the usual dry cleaner's this afternoon. I plopped down my shirts and pants on the counter and asked Bunny, "Can I have the pants pressed flat, with no crease?"

Aside: "Bunny" is an all-purpose name that X and I use for a guy who's cute in a non-sexual way, not unlike, say, a baby rabbit.

Anyway, my request made Bunny smile. I heard an answering laugh and turned to see another employee who apparently found my request mirth-y.

"What?" I asked.

"We sort of have you memorized," Bunny explained. "There are a handful of people we all know. You don't have to tell us how you want your pants."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I guess if my special ordering causes you amusement I should..." I trailed off for a second as it dawned on me what a strange thing he had just said. I had to force myself to finish the sentence: "...just keep on doing it."

But what I really wanted to ask was: What do you mean? Why do you have me memorized? When you see me drive up do you all start swanning around the store demanding to have your pants pressed flat? What the fuck?