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what this blog needs is more posts about Rabelais

January 29, 2008

A person leaving the name SFP posted a comment on a recent post of mine, and I thought I’d re-post it here because it is just the sort of linguistic trivia I relish:

The Spanish for ‘gargantuan’ is ‘pantagruelica’. Rabelais wrote about two giants, Gargantua and Pantagruel. We picked one giant, the Spanish picked the other.

And while we’re on a Spanish language kick: in 2004 I posted about the Spanish version of the Army’s “An Army of One,” and in 2005 about the Spanish words for “escalator” and “pregnant,” and in 2006 about the Spanish word for “unicorn.”

Why did I spend half an hour making a digital avatar of myself?

January 27, 2008

Apparently, I’m fourteen years old and procrastinating about doing my algebra.

Get a Voki now!

Williamsburg Spelling Bee Theme Song

January 25, 2008

This is my first-ever internet singing video:

I make no claims to being a singer; I wrote the lyrics to the song, my co-host bobbyblue composed the music, and for the first several seasons he sang it alone, until finally he demanded that I join him. I am also shaking egg-shakers.

with my complements

January 25, 2008

My mom sent me this article, Twins Earn Matching Perfect ACT Scores, and the page was accompanied by this ad:

Hahahahahahaha.

To “complement” is to coordinate with or make whole; to “compliment” is to say something nice about. An essay that “compliments” your test scores would be a quite silly and solipsistic essay.

Would you trust these people with your college essay?

This is just one reason why New York’s parents trust me with this task instead.

seen in Midtown

January 23, 2008

Illogical Semitic headwear of the day: velvet yarmulke* and earmuffs.

Look, if God wants you to cover your head with a tiny hat, wearing a larger hat would simply be exceeding the requirements.

* Good name for Klezmer band

BaconSalt – for naughty, naughty kosher vegetarians

January 22, 2008

BaconSalt is exactly what it sounds like.

I told my brother about it, and he wrote back:

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. I wonder if they could have made that taste like bacon.”

Monday Evening Stand-Up at Pete’s

January 21, 2008

Last Monday’s video features Melissa Surach, Brooke Van Poppelin, Tom Myers, Dave O’Gara, and Brad Aldous, as well as me reading my piece, “A Representative Pastiche of the 61 Replies I Received to My Room-Rental Offer on Craigslist.”

newsflash: I now have bangs

January 20, 2008

Photos by Stacie Joy from Thursday night’s In the Flesh Reading Series, hosted by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

does he know something we don’t?

January 18, 2008

This evening in Times Square, I saw a street vendor selling campaign buttons for the 2008 election.

The only choices?

“OBAMA”

and

“BLOOMBERG???”

article in W magazine

January 16, 2008

This is the agency I donated/sold my eggs through:

Daddy’s Little Helpers
Thanks in part to surrogacy coordinators Growing Generations, gay Hollywood is in the midst of a baby boom.

I feel especially awesome being a contributor to “gay Hollywood.”

Tourism is up! Fuck.

January 16, 2008

Tourism is up in NYC! George Fertitta, “chief executive of city tourism office NYC & Company”, offers a reason:

“The city is more vibrant, cleaner and safer – and it’s just more exciting than ever before.”

It is not possible for something to be cleaner and safer and also more exciting. This is why no one has used a dental dam since the original AIDS scare.

Maybe the reason is that, the more you make Times Square look like an Asheville, NC shopping mall, the more visitors you get from Asheville, NC.

“Oh, look, our Foot Locker isn’t nearly that edgy!”

the New York primary is February 5th

January 16, 2008

When Obama won Iowa, the Intrepid Young Journalist called me from the west coast and clued me in on how it had all gone down; the demographics of who voted for Hillary (older women, old party loyalists) and who voted for Obama (people under 40; the two black people who live in Iowa) confirmed everybody’s expectations (well-covered on Feministing) that young women were breaking rank with Second-Wave feminists, who really do plan on voting for the female candidate for that reason alone.

A few days later, back in New York, the Intrepid Young Journalist, who was registered as an independent, was running up against the deadline to switch his affiliation to Democrat so he could vote in the primary; he discovered that it was the last night, and that rather than try to postmark the form, it was safer to go to the registrar’s office, which would be open until midnight, and wait in line.

Aside from the fact that states around the country are reporting recordbreaking numbers of voter registrations clearly sent in just before the deadline to vote in the primaries, the line at the NYC office, the Intrepid Young Journalist reported, was made up entirely of young white guys and middle-aged-to-older black men: a pretty good profile of Obama voters. In any case, even in NY in the clutches of the Clinton machine, a sizable contingent is planning (as am I) to vote in primaries for the first time ever.

The IYJ also notes that New York is a shared-delegate state, so even if Hillary, being our Senator, is destined to best Obama, your primary vote still matters, because the delegates are split up in proportion to the votes each candidate receives (in contrast, Republicans in New York run a winner-takes-all primary). Here is a nice little article that explains how everything works.

And finally, I realize that in writing this post, I’ve made a number of assumptions about those reading my blog. I’m fine with that. (My European and Canadian readers, of whom I have a rather delightful number based on the Comments, may go take a coffee break).

a brief note from the Kips Bay Starbucks

January 15, 2008

Today a black woman asked how I got my hair so black.  I felt like I had accomplished something, even though I totally just use $7 bottles of dye from Duane Reade, and try not to wreck the grout in my shower when rinsing it out.

"Ballin……going home in white strecthes"

January 13, 2008

I occasionally read a discussion list about comedy in New York. Recently, someone posted this finely-crafted prose about the comedy industry; I found it quite astute:

I havent written in while … But dont only difference between cats who have been doing comedy for a while and me is because I come out there and say “I am the CEO” On no bull shit… Putting on $20,000 watches I will be damned if some bull shit comedy manager dictate who I am what Ive become. People in here thought I gone mad with all that I shit I spit a few years ago. But Now I am doing what I set out to do. Fuck all “I need a favor” “Can I get 5 minutes on the set” Nah fuck that….. Just doing my thang in NYC and Santa Barbara and still going to school with 18 credits and charging people $40000 for people to be on my shit. Dont erase cause some people need to hear this shit. All of you guys are talented but dont have your hand out waiting for a deal. There is a reason I got the 4 bedroom 3 bath out there in Cali and tall light skin chicks and all the niggas that wanted me banned from this site cant do a shit about it. Stay away from funny n**** and remember you are the CEO of your life. No bringers ….. and stupid ass comedy managers in their 400 sq foot manhattan apartment. Straight ballin

Lest anyone think I reprinted this just to comment on its grammar, I’d like to begin by saying that I agree enthusiastically with the spirit of this commentary. I reiterate: being pathetic is not going to help your comedy career!

Now, I am not certain if the author here means “ballin” in the sense of basketball; in the sense of sexual intercourse, which peripherally involves balls; or in the sense of garnering greater levels of social and economic power, which could be metaphorically referenced by either basketball or intercourse; but I am behind the message regardless. After any of these things, a ride home is required, and why not in a white stretch limo? It is nice to have one’s vehicle coordinate with the economic stratum of one’s timepiece.

I think that this writer makes significant reference to the laws of supply and demand and the balance of power inherent in the comedy industry. If you always “have your hand out waiting for a deal”, or are begging just to get on stage and do a five-minute set for free, you will be perceived as someone who has little to offer and little power to wield.

Having marketable non-comedy skills — and a $20,000 watch, and tall, light-skinned chicks — does wonders for conveying to others that one is not desperate, and that the balance of power is more equally distributed. If Cali still desired to perform as a stand-up comic after having attained economic success in an unrelated field, I imagine he would find the power dynamic to be agreeably different. If only there were a way to broadcast more readily that I am the owner of several dozen pairs of brand-name high heels, obtained through entrepreneurial acumen, and meticulously arranged in their display case.

“Fuck all ‘I need a favor’”! Why have I never before expressed that thought in such a concise and perspicacious manner? You can rest assured that I will say this to others several times today, throughout the week, and at unspecified points in the near and far future.

Gulliver’s Travels at the Mad Money premiere

January 11, 2008

TINY SCIENTOLOGISTS ARE DELICIOUS WITH SATAY SAUCE!

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