Hi Hater

Aren't we all feeling a little tired and terse? It's the end of Summer '09 (Labor Day a wink away).
A doozy. A DEATH doozy. Ted Kennedy and Dominick Dunne not so shocking as Michael and Mays and all of those damn plane crashes. But my.

News of Ted hit me rather hard, and my beautiful roommates Pillow and Petrova had to put up with a little maudlin, 1/2Irish, unfounded political espousing last night (love y'all). What else was I to do. I was verklempt and defensive and thinking about my Grandpa and forgiveness and non-forgiveness and war crimes and the lack of national health care and fast trains and regulated banks and why Elliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey aren't governors anymore.

I've gone into the red twice this month. And it's really sinking in, that (economist please) this 'reception' isn't over. It'll drag on for hours. We need some effective coping mechanisms (the old [expensive] ones just won't do).

The other night at Britney, toward the very end of the show, through which we danced and sang and drank screwdrivers (cute), the ornery chick sitting next to me tried to step. I could hardly hear her. She said something about her boyfriend (who had been eye-&?%*!*$ us for over an hour) and how I should "calm down" (the NUMERO UNO COSA you do not say to me). And I got upset, irrationally upset, because I had been drinking vodka and juice and because I just don't know why some people have the urge to shame total strangers. Pillow and Pet and our girl A. Marx, in the way of comfort, told me about something really important that night : the phrase and song, "Hi Hater (You See Me)."

Brooklyn rapper Maino is responsible. I really dig the track, and its flashy remix (sort of...not really), and the resulting tall-tee phenomenon, declarative shirts printed with the title or some variation of it. I've been getting into affirmations (thanks sis and Miss and Castlemates), remembering how potent a few oft-repeated words can be. "Thank you" is my go to; so is "Many blessings," language leftover from summer mushroom trips. And now, something a bit less humble (who needs humble): "Hi hater. You see me." It is a call for unashamedness. It is a declaration of one's presence, one's weight in the world, one's fearlessness in the face of underminers and babydrinkers and the present and the future. It's a provocation. And to say it and think it and hear it costs no money and no lives and not very much time.

At a certain point in the third verse, Maino states, "When they hate on you then you know you doin' somethin'." And isn't this ego-boosting sentiment, this choice to convert "slings and arrows" into a funny foundation for personal strength, the very meat of popular artmaking? One must, at least for a little while, believe in one's efforts in spite of the storied hundreds of detractors and closed doors. One must be a bit delusional, certain one is famous without yet being famous, full to the brim with bravado--HI HATER. YOU SEE ME. I see you too. And I'm unfazed. In fact, I'm peachy.

Nostalgia

I should be wearing this outfit (or some version of it) most days, because it makes me feel like I'm 10 years old listening to the radio in July.

I'll See You at 8 o'clock

1981

BLESS WEEKEND (don't go to Rockaway)

A.M.

My baby Pat Kiernan told me this morning that, at some instersection or other in Manhattan (I missed a bit of the segment), the City is trying out a set of those goofy countdown pedestrian signs. I think they're fine for other cities, like Baltimore or Philadelphia...or Providence. But Here in New York City (particularly in the Grid of Manhattan) I feel as if they might permanently alter the way walking is done, the strange and unstudied discourse between pedestrians and drivers and corners and crosswalks. There is a luck and a magic and a hilariously inexact science to being a pedestrian here. Forgive me for this hard-line, old-fashioned take, but I like it how it is.

Dwayne Wayne. And Shame Shame.

Girlfight

"I don’t want to give him anymore press. He doesn’t need it. But that Santino Rice -- I was ready to take a cyanide capsule. I mean, he just sucks all the air out of a room."
Tim Gunn explains what concerned him the most about Project Runway: All Stars to Maureen Ryan of The Watcher.

TFLFriday

p: christian is at boat
a: ode on a grecian urn
p: come on
a: what?
p: HOW MUCH DOES A GRECIAN URN

Happy Birthday John Stamos!

Bad Gurl 4 Lyfe

"I have to say... And I'm not like a huge advocate of drugs for whatever reason... it is kind of fun."
Rebecca Gayheart, actress and spokeswoman, in what may be her best work to date.

News at 0:11

Top Knot

Elegance. Opulence.

Intervention with wall pieces.

Hot Commies

Hearts

JEEP GLAMOUR

Monster Mash

Perez Hilton officially launched a new website today, meant to bring together fashion and entertainment (how novel!) for the greater good of 20-something ladies. I'm guessing it's just going to be another forum for him to make up words and use "u" instead of "you", and the fashion angle gives him unlimited space and content with which to be a behemothic misogynist. In the most recent 2 pages he calls Kate Moss "geriatric" and thanks Chanel for not showing Lily Allen's face in a new ad campaign that the singer is featured in. Oh yeah, he also did this.

Light in August

What About Style?--1986

The worst song I ever loved. Sometime, in the fall of '04, when I was minutes away from being booted out of Massachusetts and College, I tripped out over "More Bounce (In California)." It appeared on episodes of The O.C. and Laguna Beach. It stuck. It was on constant repeat. One of my roommates was Californian, from (the beautiful and important) Humboldt County. She hated this song's guts and was stupefied by my obsession with it, as I am now. Crackpoint. Enjoy the stunning montage and ditty:

Oh My God Oh My God Oh My God

REX - Trailer from The REX Team on Vimeo.

Full Pilot Episode Here.

Who's Asking?

Verses

"Dance Hall Days"
Jeremy Ryder (or, Jack Hues)
1983

Take your baby by the hand,
And make her do a high hand stand.
Take your baby by the heel,
And do the next thing that you feel.

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days.
We were cool on craze.
When I, you, and everyone we knew,
Could believe, do, and share in what was true.
Oh, I said:

Take your baby by the hair,
And pull her close and there there there.
Take your baby by the ears,
And play upon her darkest fears.

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days.
We were cool on craze.
When I, you, and everyone we knew,
Could believe, do, and share in what was true.
Oh, I said:

So take your baby by the wrist,
And in her mouth an amethyst.
And in her eyes two sapphires blue,
And you need her and she needs you,
And you need her and she needs you.

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days.
We were cool on craze.
When I, you, and everyone we knew,
Could believe, do, and share in what was true.

ICK

The Teen (meaning 8-yr-old) Choice Awards.

Books

'Walking limitations' discourse dressing.

DOS OCHOS