Unchain My P.O. Box!

July 31, 2005

Ray Charles is getting a post office named after himself. I can hear the irate customers already (because what post office doesn’t have irate customers?)

Customer: You couldn’t find my package? What are you, blind?!

Postal Worker: Hit the road, Jack.

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those "Free Stress Test!" guys could’ve just stayed at home on the computer

July 31, 2005

A post on Craigslist reads:

existential vacuum

Alright kids, I got a hole in me that sex drugs and rock and roll can’t fill. First cult with a convincing pitch gets a new member. No Xtian.

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who says "hound dog" anymore?

July 30, 2005

A museum in Vienna is letting naked people in free. The Museum of Sex in New York is currently doing an exhibit on objectifying the male body. If they let naked men in free… hmmn.

On a serious note, this article on Salon — by a black woman author about white men defeminizing her — is simply heartbreaking. She writes “You have to give racism its props; it’s the only force proven to trump what a hound dog the average man is.”

Salon provides such a weird panopoly of news and commentary — it almost seems like it’s half detailed, investigative articles about the Iraq War and Karl Rove, and half articles about nannies and internet dating.

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comedians can be serious, although it really backfired that one time for Margaret Cho

July 29, 2005

In Tuesday’s Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column (requires login) accusing the media of passivity in reporting about genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush barely manages to get the word “Darfur” out of his mouth. Still, it seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush’s negligence, when my own beloved institution - the American media - has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.

He also wrote that genocide in Darfur hasn’t even received as much coverage by the American media the Armenian genocide did in 1915.

So, I went googling and found DarfurGenocide.org, which takes donations and uses them for advocacy, saying that “aid can only do so much” (i.e., airlifting bags of rice into a war zone is obviously a very temporary form of assistance). It seems cynical to say that the best way for regular people to try to abate a genocide across the world is to hire PR people, but Res Publica, which runs the site, seems to be as successful as anyone — they were behind getting Bush to declare Darfur a “genocide,” and they’re using PR to get Sudan advocates into the media.

I always speak cynically of an event that occurred annually at Dartmouth in which a number of Dartmouth students slept outside on the Green to show solidarity with the homeless (of which there are not that many in New Hampshire and Vermont, although there is certainly poverty and hunger; it’s simply very cold, the area is sparsely populated, and housing is relatively cheap compared to food and other expenses). Anyway, the students would demonstrate solidarity with the homeless by sleeping on the Green in their L.L. Bean sleeping bags. I may be misremembering some details, but I remember feeling so much distaste in seeing this event; you could certainly help more people by sending the cash value of an LL Bean sleeping bag to any sort of social service organization (or simply donating the sleeping bag), and then going out for pizza. Your “demonstration” doesn’t help anyone.

(I feel much the same way about, for instance, radical feminist performance art against Bush, which usually involves someone shaving off their pubic hair in combination with some “No More Bush!” rhetoric. I mean, if it has value for you, cool, but that’s the purest form of preaching to the converted. Middle America is likely to find such an action extremely unpersuasive, even if it should somehow happen to be televised).

So, I feel a bit unfortunately similar about the act of blogging on behalf of Darfur, but I suppose that’s why there’s a donation button, so our online navel-gazing can have some effect outside of our navel regions. I donated and I think the site and organization are eminently worthy of support.

When you “check out” with your donation (”add Darfur to your shopping cart!”), you get an unfortunately worded receipt that says “Donation to Darfur Genocide.” But don’t let that stop you.

Stop a Genocide

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I just want to be connected to Hyderabad

July 29, 2005

I purchased a rather embarassingly-titled book from a used book seller on Amazon. For purposes of this post, let’s just call the book “How to Cure Your Back Pimples.”

The book never arrived, probably because my post office never delivers packages to my house, so I have to pick them up at the post office, and I try to consolidate post office trips by waiting until I have other things to mail, and then I wait so long I miss packages.

So, I went to Amazon to report the nonarrival of my book, and was told that I need to contact the seller directly. I would really prefer to deal with an automated system, and/or customer service reps who just don’t care about anything, or are in India, or both.

So I just sent off the email. “Hi, I’m Jen, the one who ordered ‘How to Cure Your Back Pimples,’ and I didn’t receive it, and I really need it!”

Embarassing. I am embarassed by nearly everything.

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more on this topic later, perhaps

July 29, 2005

You know, I’m pro-choice and all, but a male comedian’s routine last week reminded me that I am a little creeped out (or at least turned off) by men who are too pro-choice. They’re like “Oh my God, a pregnant woman is the most horrifying thing I can imagine! God forbid I EVER have to take responsibility for another person! Back, woman, back!”

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Victorian pinup tarts

July 29, 2005

Molly Crabapple, illustrator of “Gibson Girls gone bad,” has t-shirts for sale as well as hotpants. This is me wearing one of the shirts (also in Leonard Cohen’s room at the Chelsea Hotel, as per previous posts). Those are my lips in the corner. Molly’s web store is located here.

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"It’s like you’re a zitty, chubby rock star." - Jessi Klein

July 29, 2005

Rachel Kramer Bussel has written for the Village Voice about the sex lives of comedians.

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the one-liner of the day

July 29, 2005

With John Roberts on the Supreme Court, abortion might become illegal soon. I’m not worried, though — there will still be alternatives, like the morning-after punch in the stomach.

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we’re molting, we’re molting!!!

July 29, 2005

You know I clean my bathtub nearly every day? It seems everyone is exfoliating the fuck out of themselves. At one point, I think there were three people (including me) living here all using St. Ives Apricot Scrub, which contains crushed walnut shells as a “natural” means of scrubbing off all your unnecessary skin cells.

When did the top layer of our skin become unaccceptable?

My tub is full of sand. And, presumably, skin.

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never, ever in a bathroom

July 29, 2005

Two alert readers have now sent in this item from the popular Overheard in New York blog:

Guy #1: She’s the one that gave me a hummer in the bathroom. That one over there.
Guy #2: Doesn’t she run that NY website? Jen something.
Guy #1: She’s famous? Well I can assure you it’s not because of her BJ skills.

–McNally Robinson, Prince Street

Now, when I first saw this, I knew it wasn’t me because I am highly against any kind of sex in public bathrooms (as well as in a majority of privately-held bathrooms). Oh, and also because I’ve never been to McNally Robinson. Also, notably, the item began with “I Guarantee This Quote is False,” which makes me wonder who thought of it, and why post it?

If I had just read this item on my own, I wouldn’t really have been presumptuous enough to assume it was me, but then readers Sylvia and Fox put “jen” and “famous” together, so I went to the site and emailed creator Michael Malice, and he told me the item is really about Jen from Gothamist, which kind of brings the puppets singing “It’s a Small World After All” to a sort of incestuous, full-circle kind of place, as I was not long ago featured in Gothamist regarding the spelling bee. In an article by Jen Carlson, but I think Michael Malice meant Jen Chung.

Too many Jens. And one of them is still at large, giving sub-par BJs.

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It’s so hot my eyelids are sweating

July 27, 2005

I sold three t-shirts last night at Chicks & Giggles. Very exciting! Pics coming soon.

If you sign up now for my mail list, you’ll get all this stuff first. Update: I think I’m gonna call my newsletter “Premium Jen,” like “Premium Blend,” because that’s kind of rhymey.

In trying to think what extra perks and pleasures I can offer to my (all very sexy) readers, I came up with:

  • downloadable comedy MP3s (put me on your iPod!) and new photos
  • first crack at the t-shirts (I have a limited edition of 36 and it seems like everyone wants the exact same scoop-neck girly one)
  • a top-secret report on my adventures in LA … where I am selling my eggs to a wealthy gay man (really)

And … here’s the signup box again:

Join the jen is famous dot com mailing list for your city! Subscribers get access to secret comedy clips and posts.
Email:

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At least you have an excuse to be lazy. And asthmatic.

July 27, 2005

From amNewYork, about yesterday: “New York became a 96 degree mixture of humdity and air pollution.”

Charming. The article went on to talk about “dangerous levels of particle matter and ozone in the air, making even outdoor exercise unhealthy.”

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what is the exchange rate between cows and goats and, say, wombats?

July 27, 2005

This is at least pretending to be real. An African foreign minister has offered 40 goats and 20 cows to Bill Clinton for his daughter Chelsea’s hand in marriage.

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they Photoshopped out my "f**k the world" tattoo

July 27, 2005


This is my posterior, wearing Molly Crabapple hotshorts, in Leonard Cohen’s room at the Chelsea Hotel.

Of course, you can choose to believe none of that, except the hotshorts part. It could be someone else’s butt, and it could be anywhere. (Well, anywhere really well lit).

The hotshorts are available for sale on Molly’s site. (No, not this particular pair). Photo by Surfinbird.

Update: The more I look at this photo, the more inhumanly airbrushed it looks. Personally, I love looking at those trashy tabloids that do a periodic “Stars with no makeup!” issue where you can see celebs with all their zits and wrinkles. So, I have no problem reporting here that, like most people, I have normal human skin texture (and an occasional freckle) on all parts of my body. Surfinbird is an amazing photographer (and Photoshop artist).

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regarding actual cowboys, not my cowboy, who has the hat but is from Boston

July 27, 2005

I’ve got this stack of newspapers here from Saturday to today (although I never received Sunday’s, as per my previously-blogged newspaper delivery problems), and there’s an article about farmers in South Dakota protesting protective regulations on prarie dogs, which devour the vegetation the farmers need for grazing cattle, but which are protected because they are a food source for endangered ferrets. One rancher, Charles Kruse, said:

“I like ferrets, but I like people, too. It’d be like a bunch of cowboys coming to New York and saying ‘Let’s save the rats.’”

I actually have a comedy bit about the pet store near my house selling pigeons (basically flying rats) for $5. (”It’d be like if Bed Bath and Beyond started selling kitchen roaches.”)

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Germans do not have spelling bees (insert joke about how long they’d be up there spelling)

July 27, 2005

Julian, the photographer from Monday’s spelling bee, has blogged about me in German. I fed the page into Google’s translator to get this shaky English version.

As far as I can figure out, he has said I remind him of is this person, a writer who has created an online gallery of rejection letters she has received.

Julian also wondered about the relationship between the “bee” in “spelling bee” and the insect variety. No one had been able to properly explain it to him, which is unsurprising, as it’s a quite obscure explanation. From Random House:

The sense of the word bee meaning ‘a social gathering to perfom some task or engage in a contest’ was coined right here in the good ol’ U.S.A., and dates from the 18th century. The meaning emerged from the social nature of the insect, and came to be used more commonly than match for such activities.

Originally, there were spinning bees, husking bees, apple bees, and even raising bees for house raising. Bees involve a group of people in a community taking on a task that would be too hard to accomplish alone, or that is more pleasant to accomplish in the company of others. A friendly competitive atmosphere also helps work get done faster–who can nail the most planks on the barn roof? who can husk the largest number of ears of corn?–from which the competition we know of as a spelling bee emerged.


Update: My German friend Tilmann verifies the lack of spelling bees. “Nope,” he writes, “after sixth grade, spelling and such no longer influence the grading process. You either have it or you don’t — most don’t.”

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dating suicide bombers is dy-no-mite!

July 27, 2005

I did a (quite!) well-received set at the Chicks and Giggles all-female comedy show this evening.

I even have a recording of my set, which will make its way to being an exclusive MP3 download in the next few days — sign up for my newsletter (like, in that annoying signup box located approximately everywhere on this site) to hear why I want to date a suicide bomber…. (Come now, I’m a comedian. I’m allowed to say that).

Today I picked up my new Jenisfamous.com t-shirts and sold three at the show! Pics and purchasing info tomorrow — I’m presently exhausted. The cowboy is also exhausted; I had to send him home to Brooklyn.

My CD is sold out at CDBaby. Um … you could buy a t-shirt instead?

On the way home, I sat on the train next to a woman with a tattoo of a hand with its middle finger up, followed by the words “THE WORLD.” A tattoo! And, fortunately, I had my camera. Also fortunately, she wasn’t paying attention, because she could totally have kicked my ass.


Update: Comedian Shaun Eli has pointed out that the hand has FIVE REGULAR FINGERS AND NO THUMB!!!

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it’s my special day! no, not THAT special day; that happened when I was thirteen.

July 27, 2005

Today was my special day at Oren’s, which means that after purchasing twelve coffee beverages over some punch-card-weathering period of time, I finally get my thirteenth beverage free! So, of course, I ordered the most expensive beverage on the menu, a great big iced mocha.

When I first ordered it, the guy behind the counter (who probably makes 1.5 large iced mochas an hour in current coffee-shop exchange rates) may have been thinking I was yet another yuppie white girl who orders $4.75 coffee beverages, but when I surrendered my disintegrating punch card, I think he saw me for the system-gamer I really am.

Incidentally, I think it’s kind of funny that, even though there are people for whom I would happily buy a coffee beverage for the slightest of reasons (my friend is broke or got broken up with; I’m on a date and it’s my turn; my Mom is nice), I would NEVER give anyone my punch card. I don’t care that its cash value is under five dollars, that fucker is MINE. I EARNED it. Through capitalism. Shut up.

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I look so … thirty.

July 27, 2005

In case you were wondering what the spelling bee looked like, here are some photos by Julian Voloj, who was shooting for The Brooklynite magazine. More of Julian’s photos will soon be added to the Williamsburg Spelling Blog.

Related posts:

e-u-o-n-y-m
maybe a rumor, maybe not
bobby and I are, ephemerally, one square inch of major news media
well, i’ll bet THOSE spelling bees don’t have beer specials

Also see: German Public Radio, The Williamsburg Spelling Blog

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