Wednesday, July 31, 2002

M-m-m-more Movies!

True Romance
Resevoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Rumble in the Bronx
Galaxy Quest
The Muppet Movie
Joe Dirt
Stripes
Groundhog Day
What About Bob?
Tootsie
Desperately Seeking Susan
Foxy Brown
Shaft
Truth or Dare



Alexia's Got a Squeezebox

Yow! I'm going to see The Who on Saturday. Robert Plant is opening. Even without John Entwhistle, I predict a rockin' good time for all. What to wear, what to wear? Any ideas?

Dan Savage is holding a "My Boyfriend Sure Looks Hot in His Tighty-Whities" contest. You have to view 75 pictures of men in tighty whities before you can vote. Some are cute, some are not, and some are downright scary. I'm sure co-workers strolling past my desk were slightly disturbed by the images clicking by on my monitor. That's what those nosy bitches get, I say.

People, please stop me from going to karaoke. What does it profit me to sit around a horribly smoky bar, drinking too much gin, waiting for over an hour to bust my ass singing a four-minute song while half of the underage, 'NSync-loving audience stands with their back to the stage, loudly relating the stories of their latest back-alley conquests or drunken stumbles or simply glaring at the other men in the bar, silently angry that they can't get laid. No fun, I tell you! I love Pieces, but I'm too old to be hanging out there after 9 pm on a Tuesday. If by "old" I mean "super-bad-ass cool," of course.

Two Thumbs Way Up

I just read Sars' essay on movies she owns and why she likes them, when I realized that I don't own any movies myself. I have The Craft taped from Pay-Per-View, and I have Ab Fab: The Last Shout on an Ab Fab marathon tape I made from Comedy Central on Mother's Day weekend, 1997 (while I was looking for apartments in the City, actually), but I don't have any fancy video tapes with the cardboard cover and whatnot. I really don't count the bad Tori Spelling movie one of the Kozmo guys gave me as a joke. I have a lot of video tapes lying around, though. Buffy Seasons 1-3, random other Buffy episodes, Yoga Essentials with Denise Austin (very perky), tapes of Stephen King miniseries that are half taped over with Buffy episodes, home video of the last day at CLOC, How to Dance the Macarena -- you know, what everyone has at home. But it's gotten to the point where I've watched so much Buffy I can recite the dialogue, so I need other video entertainment.

Movies I Want to Own

Legally Blonde
Zoolander
Bring It On
Election
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Mystery Men
Pretty in Pink
The Wedding Singer
Son-In-Law
(God help me, I love this movie.)
Wild at Heart
Blue Velvet
Pret a Porter (Ready to Wear)
Tank Girl
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
(Hey, maybe I need to see a movie more than 1000 times!)
The Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
Better Off Dead
Grosse Pointe Blank
Raising Arizona
Backbeat
A Hard Day's Night
Purple Rain
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Matrix
Edward Scissorhands
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Boogie Nights
Ed Wood
Hairspray
Serial Mom
Beetlejuice
Earth Girls Are Easy
Mars Attacks!
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure


OK, I'm tapped out for a while. As you can see, I like movies that are colorful and amusing. They make me the happiest. I can watch a serious or sad movie, but I wouldn't want to own it. I loved Philadelphia, but I don't feel that I ever have to see it again. Too much crying.




Tuesday, July 30, 2002

Back in the Saddle

Finally back from an exhausting weekend relaxing at the lake. Between the swimming and the hiking and the drinking, I got a lot more exercise than I normally do on a weekend. It feels good to be sore, though. Perhaps I'll try exercising on the weekends more. Maybe spending time walking through a park or something. I could do to firm up the old bod, no question about that. Also, I discovered I really have very little lung capacity. Almost time to quit smoking, I think.

Funny think about the blog: it feels like a diary, but it's not. You have to be very careful about what you write, so as not to offend potential readers or give away secrets. But you want to write about all those little things... just the act of writing a blog makes one the kind of person who needs to tell things. I have been one of those people for a very long time, maybe for my whole speaking life (and that's not much shorter than my whole breathing life). I find it very hard to keep anything completely to myself. Sometimes I try, but it always comes out, at some point, to someone. Do I have any secrets, shared with no one? I don't know. I don't think so. Some I've only shared with one or two other people, but it's enough. Never tell me a secret that I can't at least tell to someone who will never meet or know you. It has to come out somehow. What is that? Is it a feature of narcissism? The need to be listened to or to be entertaining in some way? I find it very hard to be quiet or internal. For me, living is interacting with other people, discussing thoughts and ideas, not keeping them all to myself.

I'm a highly social animal. I don't know why. Even when I don't particularly like the people around me, I do my best to be a good conversationalist and try to get them to like me. I like being alone sometimes, but often I want to be around other people. Otherwise I just feel like I'm not really living enough.

Friday, July 26, 2002

Dazed and Confused

I think someone slipped me a mickey at the bar last night. Granted, I had only had a small pasta dish for lunch when I downed a T&T and a kamikaze shot in under an hour, but I have stamina, I can normally handle that. I was only about a third through my second T&T when I realized that I felt nauseated and couldn't see straight. After being given a Sam Adams visor thingie (it's cute, but makes me look very JAPpy), I tried to stagger out to catch the N train, but my friend Lenny palmed me a twenty and asked me to take a cab. Good idea, that. I have not been that plastered in a very long time, and it was only 9:30 when I arrived home. It was just strange. I actually almost lost it in the cab, but I regained some composure as we approached my exit on the BQE. I swear, something was off.

Unfortunately, I had to pack for my weekend at the lake, drunk, so my suitcase is very heavy and is probably missing something vital, like pants. Pants are pretty vital.

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

A recent study found that women have more receptors for emotions in their brains than men do, and that they can remember emotions better than men can. Really? I mean, I guess it's good to get a confirmation, but haven't we always known this? Men are from Mars, women are from Earth, that sort of thing? Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the menfolk. But I've also been around enough to know that they're just different from the womenfolk. The only thing that concerns me is how small the sample size was in this study. A sample size that small will get you laughed out of the 5th grade science fair. However, like all studies that support my own untested opinions, it will get my full support.

Just a thought, what if being more receptive of emotions handicaps us in some way? What if, like Star Trek's Mr. Spock, men are really superior to us because they don't have to deal with as many of those pesky feelings? Is that why we don't make as much money as our Y-chromosome-havin' counterparts? Nah, that can't be it.

I'd be interested to see what the study says about the types of emotions men and women experience differently. I've seen men hold onto an emotion like rage or jealousy a lot longer than most women, whereas women may feel something like sadness or bitterness more intensely than men. See, this is why I could never go into psychology. Too much projection. Psychologists should be put through personality tests to confirm that they're not projecting their own issues onto these studies. Of course, if you gave those tests starting in the freshman year of college, the major of Psychology would have considerably fewer students enrolled by sophomore year. Never met a more screwed up bunch of kids than the Psych majors.
Death By Chocolate

What the hell is going on in our nation's candy factories? How can someone fall into a vat of chocolate, during regular working hours, and die there? Did he drown in melted chocolate? Did he get tangled up in the mixing apparatus? I'm thinking, I fall into liquid chocolate, I attempt to swim to the side and yell for help. Co-workers hear and rescue me. That's why I think it was foul play, no matter what those Philadelphia police say.

More News of the "Duh?"

You know, I thought man had some sort of mastery over fire at this point. (Also, even though the article only refers to the trees as "sequoias," the Salon link uses the other name for them, "redwoods." Why?) I'm concerned for our giant redwoods. But can't modern technology find a way to control forest fires? Giant CO2 canisters or something? My brain hurts.

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

That Was 1988... Ugh

I've been rather disturbed lately about a new television show coming out this fall. It's about this guy, who's about to turn thirty, but he somehow goes back in time to high school. In 1988. When I was a sophomore. In high school. Do you see where I'm going with this, people? I just don't think I'm ready to confront the tackiest years of my life right there in incredible true color, blazing from my masterful 13" TV set. I mean, don't they make these kinds of shows about old people? There's something very wrong here! At least the WB's version of this concept is set in 1981. More of the Freaks & Geeks age group. I'm much more comfortable with that.

Secondly, they put the show on Fridays, at 9 pm. Am I really part of the demographic expected to be home on Friday at 9 pm? It's just unfair. Sure, sometimes, I'm home then, and occasionally I'm watching television, but I'm usually just checking out a little Sabrina the Teenage Witch before I go out, for wild and crazy partying, the sort that very, very young and irresponsible people do. Am I alone at being disturbed by this? Add to that that the Oldies station I listen to (shut up) has started playing Naked Eyes and Hall & Oates, and it's no wonder I sleep until 4 pm on Sundays! I'm being conditioned to believe I am old and decrepit, and I won't have it, do you hear me? This is me, not having it.

I need to go do something stupid now to prove that I'm still young and nubile. Oh wait, I did that last night. Maybe I'll just rest up for stupidity. Go home, sit on the couch, watch The Shining, have a nice cup of tea, maybe do a little needlepoint.
Saved By the Cell

It's so strange, sometimes life just gives you what you need, what you never expect. I had a particularly pleasant surprise last night, at a time when I was considering doing Bad Things (TM). It was the right thing at the right time, and it made me happy.

And I owe it all to my cell phone. No one is more chagrined than I.

The only problem with being in the two week gap between giving notice and starting the new job -- okay, not the only problem -- is not being able to call in sick for a hangover. I can barely focus here, and they want me to work? All I want to do is eat Double Quarter Pounders and drink iced coffee, while watching tapes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and laying on Grinda. That's the couch. Keep up with me, people.

All My Jawas

Do you like Star Wars? Do you like love stories? Check out this video at The Brunching Shuttlecocks' site. The story is a little hard to follow in places, but the cinematography is just amazing. Can someone tell me what the second to last scene was all about? I'm confused by so many Leias.

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Despair

What is this world coming to when my secret boyfriend is being macked on by my friend? Alas and alack, I say. Woe, woe, woe is me!
It's A Small Borough After All

Mayor Mike says that they can't build Disneyland at Coney Island, but he's open to ideas about development. Guess it's time to write some letters to Dan Doctoroff in the Department of Economic Development. The address is City Hall, New York, NY 10007. If I were to take an educated guess at the e-mail, I'd say it's ddoctoroff@cityhall.nyc.gov. I will march down the boardwalk, naked, dragging Mickey Mouse behind me in a noose, before I see Coney Island become another Times Square. Of course, I might just do that next weekend, so it's not much of a threat.

A piece of advice: If you are staying at your super-cool aunt's house while on a visit to a large and dangerous city, and you decide to stay out all night before your 11 am flight, call your super-cool aunt and let her know, because she just might wake up at 6:50 am and freak out that you're not there. Plus, she'll call your dad, and you'll be in the shit when you get home.

All Work and No Play Makes Alexia Watch Too Much TV

That TV mini-series of The Shining is sooo creepy. Plus, it's six hours long. How can you beat that? Menacing and ambulatory topiary animals! Hissing and spitting hotel boiler! Whispering ghosties! Redrum! And have you ever noticed how pretty Rebecca de Mornay is? That kid needs a decongestant, though. Conclusion on Wednesday...


Monday, July 22, 2002

This Just In

My friend got mugged in the PATH Station at 9th Street. It was only 11:30 pm! And on a Sunday, even. A good reminder to watch out for yourself and stick near groups of people if you're walking alone. Advice I never take, but maybe I'll start being a tad more cautious. Take care out there!
The More Things Change, The More They Make Me Want to Puke

I heard that they're eliminating live music from Brownies. Why would anyone want to go there if they don't have live music? The ambiance?

Also. Disney buying up Coney Island? They must be stopped. I read the headline over someone's shoulder on the train today, but I can't seem to find the story online. I did just find out about Burlesque at the Beach, which happens on Friday nights. Sounds like an absolute blast. Coney Island has become my new summer place, and I don't think I can stand to see it Disney-fied. Surely, the strange and unusual denizens of the area are rising up to protest somewhere.
I Want A T-Shirt That Says, "I'm Too Old For This Shit"

The Siren festival was a good time, specifically the Cirque de Siren, "when Siren festival is gay for one hour," according to MC and renown drag king Murray Hill. Lady Bunny was raunchy in the extreme, the Dazzle Dancers got nekkid (big surprise), Armen Ra played "Kashmir" on the theremin (spooky), Drag King Dred bit the apple of his loins (it's complicated), The Glamazons shimmied in fringed bikinis, Cashetta sang a charming ditty about the endowment of black men, LAVA demonstrated that girls can be strong and pretty, Joey Arias did a brief (and briefly clothed) version of "All of Me," Lance the tap-dancing drag queen and Little Dickie did a surreal cow-milkmaid number, the knife thrower of the Autonomadic Sideshow almost removed what Murray Hill doesn't have, and Sade Pendavis brought down the house, er, beach, with an incredible rendition of "New York State of Mind."

There were also more Special K jokes than you could shake a stick at. It was probably the dirtiest thing I've seen in daylight. Although I enjoyed the hell out of it, I think it probably didn't do much to advance the cause of gay acceptance among the crowd of regular beach-goers who wandered into the audience. I mean, Lady Bunny and all her jokes about crack whores, hormone pills, VD, and alcoholism, though hilarious, aren't representative of all gay people, though she would have you think so. I mean, aren't the people in Cirque de Siren just your everyday freaks? I wouldn't have said that Cirque de Siren was gay, just chock full of eccentric performers, most of whom happened to be gay.

This is all my friend Larue's fault. She talked about how she didn't think the Pride parade represented her, and I had to go and start thinking.

In other news, my niece is enjoying herself in big, bad NYC. We all enjoyed ourselves so much on Saturday night that I slept until 4 pm on Sunday (they were out of the house by 11:30 am). Oh yeah, I'm a hell raiser.

Conserve electricity and water! And remember that I love you.

Friday, July 19, 2002

Two Weeks Notice is Two Weeks of Hell

Fooling around with the template is fun. It reminds me that I actually know how to do that HTML thingie.

Kidney beans disturb me. They're right up there with sunflowers and chinchillas. So very, very wrong. And there one was, in my beet and chick pea salad, staring at me with it's lack of eyes, daring me to fish it out. Then, another one! The cursed wretches! Damn salad bars. Too much dressing, too. I think these may be high-class problems.

People who complain about the heat are obviously wearing too much clothing. This is a simple solution.

See, you were worried that reading my random musings would be dull, tedious, and possibly upsetting. But no! It makes you sweaty and out of breath, and you wonder what other intriguing little ideas are churning around in Alexia's gray matter. You know it's true. You want to tell all your friends, but you are protective and don't want share. Plus, you don't have that many friends. That's okay, I can be just for you.
"Whoo, Mama" Is Not a Good Come-On

Ugh, I've had it with people treating me like some kind of object. Even the women in my office say, "Sexy dress!" It's 88 degrees outside people, I just want to stay cool and look presentable. I don't want to have your babies. I swear, I'm just going to keep eating and get really fat, then I'm going to stop wearing makeup and wear clothes from the Jacklyn Smith collection. That wouldn't work either, I guess. Then I'd just be another sad old fag hag, and I surely wouldn't get very far in my career.

I never thought I would hate being a hottie. Hotties need love, too!

Rollercoasters and Indie Rock

This weekend is the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. Edgy chick bands like Sleater Kinney and The Donnas are playing, but I'm especially excited about the "Cirque de Siren," a drag circus featuring the Lady Bunny and Murray Hill. Oh! And the Duelling Bankheads. I may just burst into flame.

I scored "Cool Aunt" points when my niece mentioned wanting to check out the "music festival at Coney Island." "Siren?" I said. "Oh, I didn't know that it was this weekend, I went last year, it's super-cool. You can go with me and my friends." What a bald-faced, desperate attempt to win the admiration of my 18-year old niece, thus proving to myself that I'm still hip. Er, dope. Yeah.

Thursday, July 18, 2002

Quandries

This is crazy. How can I be expected to work a full-time job and be a consultant on a project that I truly believe is destined to fail? But if I say no to the consultancy, I'm a deserter. Loyalty and ethics suck.

In happier news, I am all alone again. All the boys leave, all the time. Well, at least I won't have to worry about how to bring a guy home while my 18-year old niece and her friend are crashed out on my flip-out sofa, Grinda. Yes, I name my furniture. OK, you got me. IKEA named my furniture.

I think stream of consciousness is the best thing for now. My question: what is classic industrial? Can anyone help me with this? Is it Nine Inch Nails? Is it Neubauten? Is it some pretentious little 23-year old twit's idea of how to sell their wretchedly boring little club night to a bunch of equally lame and socially deficient black-clad weirdos who can't manage to get a date? Well, it sounds cool to me, I'll be there.

St. Eve

Now, this is exciting. St. Eve, the fabulous band fronted by the beautiful and talented Gabrielle, will be playing at Alchemy on Monday, July 22. Alchemy is held at the CBGB Gallery (313 Bowery, NYC). It's a swirly Gothic night, from what I remember. Monday's are tough for me, but I may be able to swing this one.

Ah, the concept of blogging is coming together for me. Instead of bombarding my friends with e-mails all day, I can just note all the cool upcoming happenings and current annoying fixations on the blog.
Like a Virgin

Why blogging? Eh, got nothing better to do, I suppose. Also, I like to copy people.

Plus, I can't FTP to my website right now, and I want to be able to get stuff out to the masses. Ooh, stuff. My level of sophistication is so obvious.

Hmm, I can see that this blogging may make me seem terribly caustic and bitter. I'm okay with that.