Tarhearted.

TURNING POINT.

Happy New Year's Eve, everybody! 2008 kicked my ass. Seriously, it was rough. It wasn't all bad though. Here are some highlights:

-My play The Chalk Boy opened in three cities and was well received by anybody who isn't ugly, old, straight, or stupid. (Thanks for nothing New York Times and Bitter Lemons!)

-I adopted a kitten, Augustus (Gus) Conkel-Rohn. Here he is, high as fuck on painkillers after getting castrated.

-I got inot EST's Youngblood, which has pretty much kept me from giving up on art all together.

-I made it another year with The Boyfriend. It'll be five years on Valentine's Day!

-I got a new job and left my old cunt rag of a boss high and dry.

-I became more politically active.

-I started jogging and doing yoga, like a yuppie asshole.

-I turned 28.

Um... I think that's it.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get crunk and shake my ass tonight.

Speaking of shaking my ass, I'm gifting you horse faced Sarah Brightman's (along with her band Hot Gossip) disco hit, I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper.

Don't ever say I never gave you nothin'.

Happy New Year's Eve, my lovelies!

MARRIED TO THE SEA AND THEATER.

I'm currently working on two new plays. The first play is about an effeminate little boy who lives a lonely life on a farm. His only friend is a depressed chicken named Linda, who he's trying to rescue from being "processed". Standing in his way is his cancer-ridden Granny, who roams around the farm all day with her oxygen tank spouting off demensia babble, and a little boy rapist who lives down the road.

The two little boys might be played by women, a la Mary martin in Peter Pan. But, like, more fucked up, obviously. I think Granny should be played by a middle-aged man with a shaved head and pendulous fake breasts. Linda the Chicken will be played by a woman in a chicken suit, naturally.

It might also be a musical.

The other play is written to be performed in my apartment and concerns two co-workers/best friends who invite everybody from their office over for an Oscar party. Little do their guests (the hapless audience) know that the two women are going to kill themselves... right after they give a short Power Point presentation about loneliness and depression.

I'm starting to think my critics are right when they say I'm contemptuous. But, honestly, both plays are funnier than they sound.

Anyway, part of the inspiration for the second play (and I'm getting to the point here) is my well-documented obsession with:

1.) Women who wear white sneakers on the subway and then change into heels when they get to work.

2.) Cathy comics, my love for which goes back to boyhood and only deepened when a boyfriend of mine years ago would erase Cathy's thought bubbles and write in things like, "Ack! I have AIDS!"

So in my search for Cathy comics online, a friend (hi Kelsi!) introduced me to the amazing Married to the Sea, which rightfully dubs itself "the champagne of comics".

Behold three gems:

I can, and have, read this shit all day long now. Are there other online comics as good as this? I need to know.

PATTI SMITH GOT OLDER.

Happy birthday, Patti Smith!

62 years old... wow.

I can't begin to tell you how much your music has meant to me all these years. I had Horses and Easter way back when there nothing else in my life but loneliness, assholes, and algebra. All these years and I still hold by my opinion that only ugly people don't like you.

In tribute, I present Patti performing "Ask the Angels' circa 1976.

CAT DANCERS.

The Boyfriend and I watched the best documentary on HBO last night. Cat Dancers is the true story of wigged out Ron Holiday and his super tan wife Joy who, with a younger man named Chuck Lizza, made a career out of performing with giant cats. The three outsiders create a sort of three-way marriage for themselves which, along with their cats and very lives, ends in tragedy.

The tarhearted part of me wants to enjoy the aesthetic of the movie: tans, tigers, wigs, sequins! And I do, I really do. The softer human side of me, however, was really affected by the story and the real tragedy that befell these three people. It's REALLY good.

That said, Ron Holiday is my hero in wiggery! Enjoy the trailer:

SPOILER: Tigers are dangerous!

Also, let it just be said now that Let the Right One In is the best film of 2008. No, seriously. Go see it.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

I love the holidays! I just took a long walk through snowy McCarren Park with a hot cup of coffee, and now I'm sitting down to work on my fucked up play about a little gay boy whose only friend is a chicken.

Oh, jingle bells!

Tonight The Boyfriend and I will probably celebrate baby Jesus' birfday with a bottle of whiskey and our favorite Christmas movies; Black Christmas and Gremlins, respectively. Money has been tight, so for the first time ever we set a limit on Christmas spending because we usually go bananas on our holiday shopping. I didn't go over the limit we set, but only because I kind of shoplifted two of his presents. Yes, I shoplifted, and I don't feel bad either.

Anyway, I wish you a happy holidays the only way I know how, with 1972's Tales from the Crypt story in which the ever glamorous Joan Collins murders her husband and is subsequently stalked by a maniac in a Santa costume.

I love you! Happy Holidays!

I'M NOT FOND OF RELIGION.

I was doing some reading on that crazy old coot Rick Warren when I came across this Newsweek piece. In it, Ricky sits down to have a conversation with one Sam Harris, one of my personal heroes. For those of you who may not know, Sam Harris is one of our most prominent atheist writers and thinkers and is currently working on a PhD in evolutionary biology.

As you can imagine, Mr. Harris may as well be talking to the wind.

Sam Harris is part of a growing Atheist movement in the United States. I myself have been an atheist for several years and have recently found myself suddenly not being able to be quiet about it. Why? Because of what religion has been doing to this country. I mean, I could talk about Muslims in the Middle East too, but let's start at home. Here is a short list of reasons I'm kind of buggin':

Because of people like Rick Warren who believe that gay and lesbian people don't have the right to exist.

Because we had three candidates for the presidential nomination who did not believe in evolution.

Because children all over the country are getting sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies due to a lack of proper sexual education, thanks to the howls of religious zealots.

Because four states stripped civil rights from American citizens in God's name this election cycle.

Because there's a museum in Kentucky where families are taught that Adam and Eve lived amongst dinosaurs and that the world is only 6,000 years old.

Because this junk science is taught next to evolution in many of our schools.

Because of things like this:

And this:

Anyway, check out sexy, sexy Sam Harris on Bill O' Reilly's retard show. The difference is striking:

It's time to stop saving a seat for the wackos at the table. If this is the face of reason, then I'm for it.

HOT.

One of the frustrating things about living in Williamsburg is constantly mistaking hip dykes for cute fags. Is it just me, or do we all kind of look alike? Super textured black hair, skinny jeans, designer tee shirts, converse... it's become a uniform for dykes and fags alike, which really confounds me.

I'm taken anyway, but I like to look. I mean, I'm married, not dead. Too bad I have such shitty vision. This leads me to find myself attracted to lesbians on a regular basis, which in turn makes my private parts feel confused and a little excited. Take Samanatha Ronson for example:

 

No, SHUT UP! She's a totally hot top. Lindsay is one lucky girl.

She looks like this kid named Jack from my middle school who sold LSD. I had a crush on him too. If, like Jack, the Williamsburg hipster dykes start hanging out in front of gas stations with their skate boards and treating me like shit as I walk inside to be a slim jim and a mountain dew, I will lose control.

Sigh.

I GOT OLDER.

Here's to another 28 years of junk culture, booze, and radical faggotry!

OBAMA'S FIRST STRIKE.

I haven't been posting so much because I've been extraordinarily busy lately, but I wanted to quickly put in my two cents about Barack Obama inviting fruitcake Rick Warren to speak out at his inauguration. It's difficult to articulate my feelings on this but I think for starters I'd have to say, FUCK YOU, BARACK OBAMA!

Rick Warren? For realsies?

For those of you who don't know, Rick Warren is this douche:

What a charmer! I can't imagine why progressives would be upset by his being invited to speak at one of the most historical events in American history.

BARF.

Of course Obama put out a statement about bipartisanship, even when people disagree on "social issues". Bitch, please. My life and my pursuit of happiness aren't a "social issue". Civil Rights aren't a "social issue"... because they're not an issue, but inborn and inerrant rights that everybody should have without question. That's why they're called civil rights and not civil priveleges.

If rick warren had said these things about an ethnic or religious minority he would be relegated to where he belongs... obscurity, at best.

Here's my girl, Rachel maddow talking about it:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Thanks for nothing, Barack!

THE ORTHOFOX.

This may surprise you, but I am not a religious person. In fact, quite the opposite. Having grown up Southern Baptist (actually, Church of God, which is even more ape shit) coupled with being the victim of religious bigotry my entire life has left me extremely uncomfortable with religion of any sort. This makes living a few blocks from Hasidic Williamsburg a little awkward from time to time.

I think everybody in Williamsburg is as secretly obsessed with the Hasids as I am. They are incredibly private and one wonders what their day-to-day lives are like. I'm often surprised where they turn up. Often, in our wilder days, The Boyfriend and I would see a Hasidic Jew at some hipster party, like Misshapes or Motherfucker.

Then too are what The Boyfriend and I call the Orthofox, or foxy orthodoxy. These are dudes that seem totally hot under all the ill-fitting black and white clothes, weird hats, and full beards. I saw such an Orthofox on the L train this morning and was reminded how religion can be a cruel slave master.

I hope one day we'll live in a society free of religion, wherein people embrace reason over dogma and dudes are free to embrace grooming, designer jeans, and to be hot as hell.

I love you, Orthofox!