So Anil and Alaina are moving to San Francisco soon.
I hate to be all me me me right now, when I know it was a hard decision for them to make, but screw that, my New York mom and dad will be lost to the hated Left Coast before the summer is over, and so I will throw a hissyfit and selfishly stamp my feet on the floor like I did when I was four. Who will prod me out of my lazy, antisocial shell on Sunday afternoons? Who will order tasty family-style feasts to fill my belly in Chinatown? Who will patiently listen to me whine about my dumb little issues or complain about stupid governments and how much I hate people and tell me everything will be okay and make me believe it?
It’s the end of an era and New York will miss you both lots, but not as much as I will.

The Vatican warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.
Let’s go through that one more time, shall we? The Vatican is telling other people to show respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.
So funny it goes straight past into the realm of unfunny and right back through to being funny again.

After years of wanting to go after I’d first heard about it and an entire year of planning (which almost came undone by me falling asleep and not waking up until a full hour after I was supposed to be at Chris‘ apartment in Brooklyn), I went to Night of a Thousand Stevies 14 last Friday. The Knitting Factory‘s a hard place to take pictures, especially if you hate using the flash, and anyway I forgot to charge my camera battery so I had to use it sparingly but here are the least crappy of my photos:

Legendary NYC night club impresario and NOTS founder Chi Chi Valenti rocking it out. The crowd cracked up when she picked up a tambourine with a crow attached halfway through her act. She had the most gorgeous dark red shantung gown on plus a top hat with a gigantic feather for the rest of the night; I don’t know how she managed to not die of dehydration because the Knitting Factory was boiling hot but she looked good and was a great host.

Billy O singing Beautiful Child (from Tusk). Later on in the night he did Everybody Finds Out (from Say You Will), which I was hoping someone would do. I was very glad he was the one to do it! You can see two short clips here: 1, 2.

Chris is a perfectionist and don’t let anyone ever tell you any different. I guarantee she was the only Stevie in the place with faux cocaine smeared around her nostrils. Really, the only way she could’ve been more accurate is if she’d had a deviated septum created specially for the occasion.

Well, okay, maybe not that much of a perfectionist. After all, she did take this photo of me without including the least bit of what I was wearing. Um.
(I went for the mid-70’s Stevie look: a black ballet top and blue peasant skirt over knee-high black boots with four inch heels and a white knit shawl.)
And now, for no real reason other than they came out okay, here are four photos of the crowd:




I bet you’re thinking, wow, are all those men gay?
Well, duh.

The highlight of the night was easily master puppeteer Basil Twist‘s recreation of the Gypsy video complete with Stevie twirling from age to age. I managed to get a short clip of the fantasy land twirls at the end.
Mssr Twist and his friend (who had matching homemade Stevie barbies in white and black outfits!) were sweet enough to come up to me after the show and say they thought I was pretty and were glad I hadn’t put on a wig because I stood out as a brunette in a sea of blondes. Little did they know my wiglessness had more to do with me being crap at fixing hair both real and fake rather than wanting to stay as I am, but I thank them kindly for the compliment.

Johnny Tingle & Max. Right now I am blanking on which song they did but remember that it was excellent.

Yes, that is Boy George. The Boy George himself. He did a reggae version of Go Your Own Way (from Rumours), so kickass I can easily forgive him for it being, you know, a Lindsey Buckingham song.

And last but not least here’s a picture of Mike Albo‘s ass in skivvies from when he joined the Ho-Ho’s as they performed a mashup of Stand Back and the song it was inspired by, Prince’s Little Red Corvette. My world and Anil‘s collided for a few brief but shining minutes.
Other performers of note: BellaDonna wasn’t quite the prettiest of Stevies but her love shines through—as Chris said to me, you know she’s a serious fan when her drag name is a Stevie album. Her Running Through the Garden (from Say You Will) was great fun, especially the giant pink flower with the picture of Lindsey in the middle! The Stevie Nicks Experience gets extra points from me for doing the Stand Back disco version instead of the original, because we all know it rocks so much harder. Lisa Jackson and Steve Gib did a beautiful cover of Leather & Lace and the super hot Jessica Rabbit Domination sang Gold Dust Woman, Courtney Love-style (i.e. frequently off-key but still good) to close out the show. Too bad Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman couldn’t make it, I’d sacrifice small goats to see what they’dve done. Oh well, there’s always next year!
Check out Chris’s account of the night. And then, of course, there’s the inadvertent hilarity of a not-so-sharp kid whinging about how badly the show sucked, when in fact she left well before the show even started. Oopsie.

Most of you have probably seen this already as it made the rounds about the same time as Qveere Eye for thye Medieval Man, but it still cracks me up:

[ via djswifty ]
Previously, Kelis talking about “I hate you right now“.

lia: i was so pissed yesterday
lia: i saw a preview and i was like, eugene levy! yay! i am watching that movie!
lia: and then twenty seconds later the damn olsen twins
andrew: haha you got Punked!
lia: fucking new york minute
Damn you, Eugene Levy! Damn you!
And damn all of you character actors I love for taking roles in shitty movies, ensuring I will stay awake long past my bedtime watching them on cable tv just to see you deliver ten short lines!
See also when good actors go bad, part one: Christopher Walken, with a special appearance by Stockard Channing.

Posted by lia from Flickr.
Stewart and Caterina‘s photos from their recent Tokyo trip turn me green with envy each time a new one’s posted!
I have my heart set on going to Japan next year, which will be my first time there as an adult and, even more key, with a digital camera. Anyone want to come with?

I’ve been using Kinja for a while now (you can see my digest, if you like) and am glad it’s finally in beta and everyone can sign up for it, because now we can play one of my favorite dork games: see if the internetty early adopter people I know or read have signed up yet by typing their usual usernames in.
Here’s a quick run, off the top of my head:
david – yes!
alaina – yes!
anil – no, and
anildash – no.
mathowie – yes!
jkottke – yes!
hchamp – no, but
heather – yes!
derek – no, and
powazek – no, but
fraying – yes!
dirtynerdluv – yes!
waxy – no, but
waxpancake – yes!
torrez – yes!
onfocus – no, but
pb – yes!
cory – no, and
craphound – no.
jish – yes!
I found eleven out of the thirteen people I tried, most on the first try.
Conclusion? Clearly we are all nerds, except for Anil and Cory.
Um.

My second day at my current place of employment, I was happily chowing down on some fried chicken in the shared kitchen when the co-founder came up behind me and stared at my plate. “Oh, you eat meat?” she said. “Thank god you’re here, I thought we were going to be outnumbered by the vegans!”
And before you ask, yes, obviously I am working at a non-profit.
Anyway, today we had a mini-party to celebrate our lovely office manager’s birthday, complete with cake and ice cream—only the ice cream was actually soy cream. Double Happiness’ Rainbow’s Vanilla Bean Soy Cream, to be precise.
Against all odds, Miss Dedicated Carnivore here tasted it. And… it tasted like raw cookie dough—only much, much better. And not only did I like it, I liked it so much so that I actually went back for seconds.
Now I feel dirty for liking crazy vegan soy cream, so dirty and so guilty. I feel like… like I just cheated on cows.

Previously: my mom comes to terms, sort of, with my very first workplace-related injury.

In the future, many, many years of hard work by highly-paid reproductive scientists finally make it possible for a gay man and a post-menopausal diva to finally reproduce. Only the strange, strange product of their strange, strange love was unhappy growing up in the shadow of his strange, strange parents and wanted to live, if not a normal life, then one where he could at least make something of himself without always having “the son of” appended to his name, but it seemed to be an impossible dream.
He knew from the photos scattered around his family home that the scarred recluse who lived in their pool house was once a very famous man who ruined his life having surgery after failed surgery in the attempt to make himself over in the glamorous image of his mother. He always pitied this poor, broken thing, until he realized just how exploiting his own resemblance to his mother could change his life. Until the day he realized the only place he could ever be anything other than “the son of” was… the past. *cue dramatic music*
Long story short, he murdered his parents to get his inheritance a little earlier, used the money to fund time travel research and escaped to 1986 as soon as he could, to murder their house guest while he was still successful and take his life over. This explains both Michael Jackson’s horrendous visage of recent years (not so much the result of misguided plastic surgery as attempts to save him from the ugly side effects of experimental time travel) and why Bad wasn’t quite as good as Thriller.

And no, I’m not doing drugs. No, really.
I read about the crazy ass David Gest/Diana Ross rumor on Gawker and watched this unfold in my dreams Thursday night. So it’s all Choire’s fault.
Also, my favorite comment so far about this rumor is from this page, by Doom Nation:

Naw lady, everybody dosen’t know Ms Ross is strictly dickly. Do you really know? We do know that she’s dramatically drunkally. She’s been out there in Hollywood. Who’s knows if she’s had girlz under her hood. She could be into experimentation. Maybe this Gest guy is swinging big time wood. Don’t let looks decieve you. I’ve read that Gest is a revitalizer of has beens. Maybe Ms Ross is trying to make a comeback. I could see this; Ms Ross sings the national anthem at the Master’s and Gest walks by and pulls off her bra exposing silicon enchanced tities. Sorry folks but Ms Ross is doomed

update: Brad points out Best Week Ever also arrived at the formula—but not the accompanying story. That particular craziness is mine, all mine.

Speaking of hate, I like this 2001 interview with Kelis where she speaks about speaking about hate:

drDrew.com: What’s interesting to me is that you sing “I hate you so much right now.”
K: That’s important, that’s really important. No one ever notices that, but that’s so fucking key; it’s not forever. I say it all the time. It’s that momentary feeling and it’s a feeling of outrage. People say that hate is a really strong word and it is. “Right now” makes it so real. You can be in love with someone and at that moment you can hate them because of something that they’ve done or something they’ve said or however they’ve made you feel. Sometimes we don’t say it because it’s like, “Oh, I really love this person.’ Fuck that: You’ve pissed me off really bad and I hate you right now. I can’t say it any better.

If you’ve missed the reference, check out the lyrics to “Caught Out There” off her 1999 debut Kaleidoscope. Frankly that song terrifies me, although it’s great to listen to when you’re pissed off. Having said that, I’m not really a fan of hers although I think her current single “Milkshake” is an excellent piece of work. If you haven’t seen the video for it yet, now’s your chance.