racist dogs

My brother and his girlfriend adopted a dog, but their attempt was ill-fated. He writes:

So we are definitely "voting the dog out of the apartment" this week. While he is fun when he wants to be, he is also a freakin jerk a good portion of the time. He doesn't listen almost at all. He steals. He barks to ridiculous extents. He whines like a bitch. He tries to bite us sometimes (not hard but it still sucks). And he also tries to attack people of... how should I put this... colorful ethnic backgrounds. So yeah, Joey the dog turned out to be a big fat racist pain in the ass. It's really upsetting too. I had high hopes for this dog. He's such a smart dog. Unfortunately, he chooses to use his intelligence not for good, but instead for evil. Stupid dog.

I inquired about the dog's racism: does he discriminate based on skin tone alone -- barking louder in proportion to the darkness of the skin tone? Or is racist against one variety of non-white people exclusively? "How about tiny Japanese women?" I asked.  "Could you trick him with a tanned Caucasian, or an albino African-American?"

He replies: "Well so far we have found aversions to Mexican painters, a small black girl, and a very non-threatening Indian man. We do have a good sampling here in the DC area. He has yet to bump into any Asians though. I'm sure it is only a matter of time."

That dog's gotta go. I mean, I figured that if it were just one demographic -- for instance, tiny Japanese women-- then perhaps the dog was once beaten by a tiny Japanese woman and is thus reacting in a rationally protective manner. But I doubt this dog has experienced abuse at the hands of Mexican painters, a small black girl, and a very non-threatening Indian man.

How does a dog go so wrong?

Not that racist dogs weren't said to have been trained by police during the '60s. In lighter New Zealand faux-news, racist dog spoils dinner party.

I'm curious -- do dogs pick up racism from their (in this case, previous) owners, or might some dogs have a natural predilection to attack anyone who is ethnically dissimilar to their owners in an attempt to "protect" them? If the latter case, would Joey the Dog, if then adopted by a non-white person, begin to attack white people in an attempt to protect the new owner? Is this an entrenched racism, like that of humans, or might is be a malleable sort of xenophobia?

an exclusive

What comedians read on the road, from Carolyn Castiglia.

"gravitas" has been one of my favorite words since high school

This article discusses how the term "perky" has been typically applied to women only, and "grativas" to men only

There may be such a thing as a perky man (Richard Simmons comes to mind), but in reality, "perky" belongs in the realm of adjectives used to modify women. Its antonym, "gravitas," is presumed to apply to men only. " 'Gravitas' is a code word," according to Connie Chung. Chung, who co-anchored the "CBS Evening News" with Dan Rather in the mid-1990s, told Newsweek for its April 17 cover story that people who say Couric lacks gravitas are implicitly endorsing a sexist point of view. "It has an offensive, chauvinistic connotation that should not be applied to any newswoman today."

But Camille Paglia, a feminist who is often at odds with the feminist establishment, said many women possess gravitas, a term that was applied to Roman senators of antiquity who were expected to demonstrate leadership and sobriety. She would exclude Couric but include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the novelist Toni Morrison, and the late writers Ayn Rand, Lillian Hellman and Simone de Beauvoir. "Women, if they ever expect to ascend to the presidency and be commander in chief, had better learn what 'gravitas' is and stop blowing it off as some sort of backlash word," she said.

Thank you, Camille. I don't think I tell her that enough.

Of course women can fucking have gravitas. Madeline Albright, anyone?

my grandfather used to send me his copies of Skeptical Inquirer when I was twelve

I am delighted to find a thorough scientific investigation of the topic Can We Tell When Someone Is Staring At Us?

Because of the possibility that subjects, when cognitively focused on an important activity-like eating or drinking, or reading and studying, or problem solving-would not or could not attend to weaker or more subtle stimulation from psi or other paranormal sources such as "feelings of being stared at," a second study was carried out. If subjects were told that over a fixed time-period they would be stared at on a number of separate occasions, they might well be able to detect when they are being observed. Since they are focused on the problem of "being stared at" rather than competing activities their ability to detect stares should be maximized.

Funny Bone photos

This is me on stage at the Boise Funny Bone, looking somewhat troubled.


This is me with Funny Bone manager Brian, feature act Tracey Ashley, and ten-year-old comic Trevor Hattabaugh (he's drinking root beer). It's awesome to be pushing thirty and find someone who's balancing your job with a demanding sixth-grade courseload.

The headliner was taking the photo and thus goes undepicted here, but had a great seven shows. Here, buy his CD.

a conundrum

An outfit that is entirely appropriate for a warm night out in the East Village is completely inappropriate on the walk through East Harlem to the subway.

Now that I think about it, though, a little chocolate with my vanilla sounds nice, thank you for offering.

we went to college for this?

This is the back of my iPod, as first presented in this post:



Brian Van, remembering my Magritte jest*, sent this.

*S.M., however, pointed out that "Ceci n'est pas une iPod" loses a bit of its verve when printed on an actual iPod, rather than a representation of one. However, on the blog, that problem is solved!

posty blog post bloggity post

I'm at the Boise airport, where there's free WiFi, McDonald's serves Seattle's Best coffee, and a woman traversing terminal B just shouted "Hey, I saw your show last night, good job!"

I'll be at the spelling bee tonight. You know, in case you want to stalk me.

dear world

I love the forward-post-to-a-friend feature on Craigslist. For instance, if I see a posting that says "Six-foot-tall black actress needed for comedic short film," I could click on "forward to a friend" and send the posting to a friend who meets that description.

However, if you don't quite want that person to know you're the one who sent the posting, you can simply put the recipient's address as both sender and recipient, and the recipient receives an email ostensibly from herself, to herself.

This gets weird when you start getting Craigslist postings and you don't know whom they're from. For instance, if you wanted to send someone a posting that said "scary, ugly type needed for gangster role" without that person knowing you thought they were ugly, you might send such a thing anonymously.

Yeah ... so, every once in awhile, someone forwards me a Craigslist posting for "Strong women needed for ball-crushing video."

Thanks.

Boise blues

I am currently emceeing at the Boise Funny Bone, right across the street from...

Steven Segal's blues band.


He's ... uh ... not drawing well.

spelling bee news (I'll be back on Monday)

Congratulations to our Season 3 Finals winners!

1st - Jonathan Lill
2nd - Megan Rudesill
3rd - Adam Daland
4th - Emily Helfgot
5th - Noel Claro
6th - Mint Lynch-Macduff


Those boobs that are overpowering the photo (not a complaint) belong to Mint :)

The Season 3 Finals demonstrated a sort of poetic justice as Jonathan Lill, winner of the first-ever Williamsburg Spelling Bee in September, 2004, deservedly took home a season championship.

Now, the slate is wiped clean, and a new season begins Monday...

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee
Monday, May 29th
Sign up at 7, compete at 7:30
Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. in Williamsburg

A real adults-only spelling bee, as featured in the New York Times, made kinder and gentler by a three-strikes-you're-out policy. 1st place - $25 bar tab, 2nd place - $15 bar tab, 3rd place - free panini sandwich (plus eternal glory!)

p.s. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is back on board as a sponsor! Each regular season bee winner will get a t-shirt from the musical, and the winner of this season's finals will get a pair of tickets.

SpudFudge!

I'm still in Boise. As I've been staying on stage, "I like to have a little respect for my audience -- no jokes about potatoes, and no references to the fact that your state's name has the word 'ho' in it, especially in relation to anyone's mother."

The new Boise downtown is called "BoDo." I had a great breakfast there this morning. The menu had ten-odd potato options. It's a tasty place for a high-carb diet.

I walked into an Idaho souvenir shop and found this!


SpudFudge!

the state that's got yo momma's name in it

Holy shit, I'm in Idaho.

I commented to the young guy working the desolate but lovely Moxie Java that it was my first time in Boise, and that so far I was enjoying all the personal space (and WiFi -- I'm waiting at baggage claim!) in the airport. He said Idaho was indeed "the land of personal space."

Better than the 6 train!

Tom's Diner radio, for real

I used to think Mapquest was the thing that really made the internet all worth it. I mean, sure the Hamsterdance had its day, but what did we used to do before Mapquest? Visit the AAA? Look up street names in an alphabetical list in the back of a big heavy road atlas we kept in the back seat of our car?

I mean, I certainly spend a lot of time on the internet, but much of it is just a substitute for brain-numbing television. (From gofugyourself's post today about Heather Graham: "I can't get over it: That is a supremely fugly, fugly crime against denim. I believe the wife of the mayor of Fugtopia wore that to his inauguration.")

But now I think that the point of it all might be Pandora.

Serenade No. 13 in G Major

Half an hour ago, I bought an album called "250 Minutes of Mozart" off iTunes. Four hours and ten minutes of music seemed like quite a bargain for ten bucks. The Theme from Figaro went very well, but now Serenade No. 13 in G Major is reminding me how much I hated Mozart when I was twelve, because he wrote such monotonous viola parts. The second violins didn't get it much easier, either. The first violin section gets all the fun, while we're stuck playing "D" in eighth notes for, like, five minutes. Sometimes I'd get bored and stop looking at the music and then I'd realize I should've switched to playing, say, "F" for the next five minutes.


Violas are slightly larger and deeper than violins.
I have one in my house that I never play.
In 2004 I was broke and considered playing Christmas songs
in the subway, possibly while jingling bells on some part
of my person, but I didn't really have the nerve.

Mozart is very boring when you are a twelve-year-old violist who works very hard and just wants to play something that does not make her cerebral cortex melt from sheer monotony, because if she wanted that, she'd have taken up child factory labor, not playing orchestral music partly in order to hang out with the cool upper-middle class kids whose parents sent them to summer orchestra camps, which I'm sure weren't quite as exciting as American Pie would have us believe band camp might be*, but which nevertheless were a high and mighty aspiration that led her to Serenade No. 13 in G Major, and then, in the tenth grade, after seven years involving up to thirty hours a week of practice, suddenly realizing that it really wasn't worth it, and that she preferred listening to classical music while doing something else, such as watching a movie with a well-matched soundtrack, or, as now, drinking inexpensive Pinot Grigio from an East Harlem liquor store while wearing the new polka-dot dress** she bought and was trying on before getting distracted by a familiar stretch of violas playing "D" and blogging about the whole mess before she got caught up in the Pinot Grigio and forgot.

* Violas are not only bigger than violins, but also substantially larger than flutes.

** Total number of polka dot dresses owned: now five.

This is a photo of me on the first day of tenth grade. If you think I look cool here, imagine how awesome I looked carrying a hard-shell viola case. I do mean that self-deprecatingly, although, if I were a middle-aged man, I'd do her. I mean, certainly there would be hotter girls in the school, but if you're a middle-aged man screwing high school girls, you might want the added wholesomeness-meets-perviness of screwing the girl who carries a hardshell viola case on the bus. But from the perspective of my current self looking back at my former self, maybe I could've skipped the viola, gotten some better glasses, and declined to pose for first-day-of-school photos in front of the family bookcase. Also, no one looks good carrying a backpack.

Monday: I want your adverbs for Mad Libs

Pete's Monday Evening Stand-Up
Free Comedy Show, featuring New York's top young comedians, free candy, and Mad Libs.

Monday, May 22nd
7:30pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer in Williamsburg (L train to Lorimer)

Featuring Jim Dodge, Laura Mannino, Rachael Parenta, Dan Allen, Rebecca Ciletti, and Eric Andre.

East Harlemites

This evening as I bought three forty-watt lightbulbs from the bodega on the corner of 117th and 3rd, the man behind the counter said to me "This neighborhood all full of white people -- I think is good idea."

Oh, I murmured, and nodded sheepishly in response to what was obviously a sarcastic remark about gentrification. When I moved here three years ago, I scoffed at such ideas -- I, the gentry? Hardly! I lived in penury and what seemed a prodigous quantity of late-eighties Ghostbuster slime. But now I have health insurance! So, truly, what can I say?

The man behind the counter was unsatisfied with my self-deprecating response, so he clarified. Turns out he had not meant his remark sarcastically at all. He really meant "I think is good idea." He explained that the street was now much quieter.

When People harshes on black people, it's gratingly obvious. But I'm just not trained to parse racism from people of ambiguous Middle Eastern descent towards Hispanics. It's just not clear, for instance, what stereotypes Jordanians might hold against Mexicans. It's like being a drug dog suddenly told to sniff for pirated software.

And besides, he needs white people to come buy his lightbulbs? It's not like he's selling paninis or smoked Gouda over there. It's a store consisting entirely of plantain chips, cigarettes, and forty-watt lightbulbs.

Update: The bodega at 116 and 2nd is selling SOY AND RICE MILK. It is the end of El Barrio as we know it.

Related posts:

• macho behavior has a purpose, such as defending...
  
• a malicious battle of the sexes need not be waged...
  
• The East Harlem down low
  
• hey mami, you sexy

housing discrimination on Craigslist

From a special bulletin on Craigslist:

A group of lawyers is suing craigslist over a handful of allegedly discriminatory housing ads posted by our users... While craigslist takes fair housing issues very seriously ... the 100 ads cited were a little surprising. Some were roommate ads involving constitutionally protected speech and the right to free association, such as "prefer christian roommate", or were ads containing incidental and harmless remarks such as "near St Gertrude's church," and "Buddhist temple nearby." Others simply celebrated the diversity and tolerance of the local community ("vibrant southwest Hispanic neighborhood offering great classical Mexican culture, restaurants, and businesses"), or sought to appeal to some groups without excluding anyone ("Great apartment for graduate students, married couple, or small family"). And for a few it is difficult to determine what protected classification is at issue ("wants one nice quiet person").

You know, I really don't think housing anti-discrimination laws were meant to apply to, say, 20 year old college girls who would prefer to share their bathrooms with other 20 year old college girls. I mean, wouldn't you want your 20 year old daughter to be able to "discriminate" against 40 year old men as potential roommates?

But if anti-discrimination laws do apply to renting-out-a-room situations, do they then apply to actual "roommate" situations -- that is, people advertising to actually share a bedroom? Surely, they cannot! If you are offering to rent the bunk above your bunk, I think you can choose a bunkmate based on the "least likely to rape me" criterion.

a made-up diet based on made-up religious trivia? sign me up!

Could people get any fucking dumber?

my ass-modeling career continues

Sometime in the last year, I was hired as an ass double for this movie poster, but I could only make a half-day shoot, so they hired another model for the second half of the day in case they didn't get the perfect shot in the first few hours.

There ended up being a problem with the lighting for much of the early part of the day, so I'm pretty sure this is her and not me. I saw some of the raw photos, though, and, as we're wearing the same wig and shoes, it was really hard to tell the two of us apart from that angle.

All photos by Sarah Small.


This is a funny candid from that shoot of the photo assistant doing a light check to make sure my ass will be properly lit. This one is definitely me:

fluff

I bought a Magic Bun and it totally works. Look at me -- I really do care about novelty hairstyling gadgets. I also sometimes read celebrity magazines on the subway late at night. Generally I will use my mid-day subway time more productively, but by nightfall my brain quits on me and I really do want to know "Who wore it better?" and gloat when, for once, Marcia Gay Harden "wore it better" than Paris Hilton (due to, say, her handbag coordination skills), according to an unscientific poll of 100 people outside Macy's.

dolphin arouser

New on the Sarcastic Sex Toy Blog

The LA Tour, as portrayed by T & A

I'm still in LA -- this is me on stage at the Tomorrow Show at the Steve Allen Theater. I had a great time there and was treated to a hilarious performance from Hard & Phirm. It was nice to find a scene in LA where the Williamsburg jokes work just fine ;)

And here's a totally gratuitous front view of the shirt.


One nice thing about a midnight show is that it's easy to do two shows in one night, and this was the first time I've ever done the "History of Philosophy in 90 Seconds" (listen on MySpace) twice in one night. I don't whip that out on just any crowd!

where to find a 16-minute MP3 of me reading responses to a fake sex ad I posted on Craigslist

I have, for some time, had a CD for sale on iTunes. I have been informed by my digital distributor that instead of telling people to "search for my name on iTunes," I can send you directly to my magical iTunes place via this link:


Jen's CD on iTunes
(click me, baby)

L.A. thus far (plus, Emo is hilarious)

I have steadfastly avoided tourist attractions, including the "offbeat" ones that are supposedly less uncool. So far, I've seen at least one enormous Scientology building, a tar pit, some kind of notable lake, and the building where Disney had his first studio, all out the passenger-side car window, which is fine by me.

I'm not much of a traveler. I go someplace unlike home, and I immediately try to make it as much like home as possible, by going to Whole Foods and purchasing the exact same groceries I buy at home, and then finding a gym, and then setting up my computer, and then stealing a black-and-white patterned cat and sternly instructing it in acting like my home cat.

On a more legendary note, I had dinner with the great Emo Philips, who is a good friend of Lord's, and then we all went to Emo's fiancee's show at the Improv Olympics (now "I.O. West"). For being Emo Philips, the man is quite humble, and extraordinarily nice. Here's a Flash joke-thing from Emo's site that he encourages others to post on their sites. Watch me comply!

a million more wedding photos

And as always, a million props to photographer Ryan Brenizer.
This is me with my parents at an informal wedding rehearsal the day before the wedding. Note (foreshadowing alert!) the large yellow art object behind me, directly blocking the stage. This piece of art consisted of a large, non-functional speaker painted yellow, with a silver tray of fake brownies nailed to the top. A small plaque declared that the work was entitled something like "Fuck You Installation."

This is the back of my head. And this is my mother. My mother is not, in fact, offering me a coke; she just happens to be holding one. I did, however, while getting ready in the bathroom, poke my head out and request a bagel with lox and cream cheese, and soon, one magically appeared (thanks, Syd!) Apparently there are some perks to being the bride.

This is a bird's-eye view of people mingling before the ceremony. Not that birds are allowed in CB's, or know an f-stop from their asses.

Lord gesticulating in front of not just one, but two pieces of art (anybody know whom the black-and-white gentleman is supposed to be?)

This is my brother and father moving "Fuck You Installation" to a safe, non-stage-blocking location. As my father always said when I was growing up: it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

I have previously posted pictures of my sneaking out the back way from CB's (with an umbrella and the soundman) so I could come back in the front door and walk down the aisle, but none of those photos depicted the madness that is, apparently, a pile of bricks stacked carefully on a discarded mattress.

(Note: when most brides disappear out the back way with the soundman, they don't come back).

(Also: this is the same soundman who asked if my bridesmaids were going to be hot, and declared that he had "a roofie with someone's name on it." How lovable!)

I like this one because it shows I've been working out. Or else that door is really heavy. Also, it appears that a band called "Jen's Haulage" is going to be playing. I don't know what that means.

What's on the ceiling? Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be doing what? Oh, right.

(Note: My friends Catherine and Roberto contributed flowers as a gift and made those bouquets themselves. Years ago, I went to their wedding in Oregon, and since have referred to them as "the people who got married standing in a stream." It was wet).

Me and my bitches.

You can't really tell here, but their dresses were rather cleverly coordinated. Molly's was black with a big white bow up top, and Megan's was black with white polka dots and a little bow at the waist.

Walk towards the fuzzy people!

Gettin' hitched.

What am I all the sudden, earnest? Unironic? Don't tell.

The recessional back down the aisle. Note the conspicuous absense of Fuck You Installation.

The typical family-in-front-of-punk-club portrait that every Ramones-loving clan has. Note the enormous man on the left. I didn't hire a bouncer; that's my little brother.

Photographic evidence of me eating carbs.

And sixty small, plastic, made-in-China, heart-shaped bottles of bubbles were opened.

You can't keep me away from a microphone, even when I'm supposed to be demure. I'm actually, I think, announcing that we're all going to walk to dinner at the Ukrainian East Village Restaurant.

The parade down St. Marx Place from the ceremony to dinner. I love this guy in the background with the sunglasses and the nonchalant attitude. Actually, we paid him to be there. Just like we piled that mattress with bricks ourselves. We like a little urban flavor.

bobbyblue, my spelling bee co-host, and musical comedienne Adira Amram (who's getting married in June!)

Enormous bottles of Czech beer -- both economical and stylish!

College friends.

New York friends.

Related posts:

first wedding picture
Pictures: Pre-Wedding
Pictures: The Ceremony
Pictures: After the Ceremony
a very CBGBs wedding
CBGBs

Hoodia

I just got a spam promising that Hoodia would "provide unperturbed energy (not jitters or sleeplessness)."

I wasn't aware energy itself could be perturbed. Does Anna Nicole Smith have unperturbed energy as a perk of her Hoodia endorsement deal?

The Buzz of the Vespine Mistress

I was riding in a car, staring out the window at something when I had the thought that "Honey" was a nice name, and a good stripper name, but hardly original, so I tried to think of something else to put it with when I thought "Honey Smacks ... why does that sound familiar?" and of course that's a cereal, one which -- as I recalled when (later, not in the car) I googled up an image -- is embellished with a frog. It is, one might say, a peculiarly ranine cereal. A cereal of or like a frog. Did I know the word "ranine" prior to beginning this blog post? Why, no. No, I did not. I looked it up. Here, for your enjoyment, are some additional Latin animal words:

anserine = goose
aquiline = eagle
asinine = donkey
bovine = cow
canine = dog
caprine = goat
corvine = crow
equine = horse
feline = cat
glirine = rodent
hircine = goat
leonine = lion
leporine = rabbit
lupine = wolf
murine = mouse
ovine = sheep
piscine = fish
porcine = pig
ranine = frog
serpentine = snake
ursine = bear
vespine = wasp
vulpine = fox

I want to begin a detective novel: She was a vespine woman, and her sting was deadly.

Or how about: Honey Smacks was employed in a nightclub in which, in accordance with what the suits now call "branding," one might expect her to affect a leporine image. But Honey was more of the vulpine variety, as likely to eat men alive as to nibble at lettuce. For her clients in this backwoods honkeytonk, she represented a substantial improvement over their bovine wives, and the ovine assignations they kept as clandestine ("clandestine" being medieval for "on the down low") as the bleating would allow.

lexicographical humour

For God’s sake, Webster...

Los Angeles Comedy Tour: Forsaking All Others

This isn't the show that was webcast last night (anybody catch it?); rather, this is a video from Friday's "Beyond Borders" show in Culver City.


Thanks to Chris Mancini for booking us and putting on the show.

I'm webcast! Watch me kill/bomb in realtime.

Tomorrow night I am doing this show in LA:

May 6 (Saturday)
Kulak's Woodshed
5230-1/2 Laurel Canyon Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91607
818-766-9913
8:00 - 10:00pm PST WEBCAST LIVE!

If you are not in LA, you can watch the show for free online, 8pm PST (11pm New York time).

People magazine is totally racist

How did no one catch this?

Click to enlarge.

Let's recap:

Keira Knightley's "long, thin nose" is "an indication of social graces and manners."

Jamie Foxx's "broad base on nose" is "a sign he enjoys material things."

Are you fucking kidding me? Later on in the "About Face" feature, we learn that "A person with a broad-based nose is earthy and centered; one with a long, thin nose has aristocratic character."

Oh, no -- dividing people into "aristocratic" and "earthy" groups based on their noses isn't racist. Jesus. You might as well call them "colonialist" and "bushman."

The "face readings" are credited to one Angi Ma Wong, who says "The Chinese have been practicing face analysis as long as they've been practicing traditional Chinese medicine."

I guess People thinks it's okay to say that people with broad noses are "earthy" and materialistic (and not, apparently, aristocratic or possesed of social graces and manners) because, well ... at least the person who said it wasn't white. So ... that's okay, right? Maybe next time they should just cut to the chase and hire a person who "reads" skin tones.

At least we also learn that Reese Witherspoon's pointy chin means she's "very emotional."

Spelling Bee FINALS

It's time for THE FINALS!

If you placed in the top 3 of any spelling bee this season, you're qualified to compete. Please reply to this email to RSVP (include your name, age, and profession so we can list you all on the blog).

If you have not previously qualified for the finals, you can still come out to watch the drama unfold ... and to compete in little mini-contests (spelling backwards, speed spelling, etc.) in between rounds.

BIG PRIZES including cash and gifts from sponsors!

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee F-I-N-A-L-S
Monday, May 1st
Sign up at 7, compete at 7:30
Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. in Williamsburg