"Looks like it's gonna be another one of them hot summers."

Verses

THE CRASS MENAGERIE

PELT-MAD BILLIONAIRE IN YACHTS OF TROUBLE

Which one of you #$%%**s took the last doughnut?

Verses

This week-ish, 3/4 of A&P are moving into a new apartment. And it's been a little hectic, and, if you can believe it, I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT PAULA ABDUL (FINALLY) ADMITTING TO A PAST (HA) PAINKILLER ADDICTION! In honor of Paula and her fatty morphine patches, a poem:

"HEY PAULA"
Paul & Paula
(1963)

Hey hey Paula, I wanna marry you.
Hey hey Paula, no one else could ever do.
I've been waiting so long for school to be through,
Paula, I can wait no more for you,
my love, my love.

Hey Paul, I've been waiting for you.
Hey hey Paul, I wanna marry you too.
If you love me true, if you love me still,
our love will always be real,
my love, my love.

True love means planning our life for two,
being together the whole day through.
True love means waiting and hoping that soon
wishes we made, will come true,
my love, my love.

Friends, I'll be wearing some version of this ensemble everyday this summer.

Excuse My Beauty

I Feel Better?

Bloomberg spent 74 million on his first campaign, 77 on his second. He intends to spend 80-100 on this next push. What a waste. What an idiot. What a billionaire! But really, these figures have somehow helped me to appreciate not being a megalomaniacal turtle-man with too much money (There is such a thing as too much, right? He just seems to have too damn much!). Spending $250,000,000 to get people to vote for you smacks of student council or greek council, or desperation or something.

Founding Fathers

Stephanie Lynn Nicks: The original blonde-new age-hippie-goth. She allows me to believe that all things are possible, and that I can be whoever I want to be; depsite my fair hair and fuzzy mind.

On Liberty (II)

Above is an image of Ellsworth Kelly's ultra-elegant solution to the problem of "developing" the WTC site. Papa Able has kept the clipping in his office since 2003, and I find I'm moved each time I see it. There will simply never be any buildings better-looking than the originals, perfect twin icons of a certain 60s/70s sensibility long gone (leave the new sorts to Shanghai and the Emirates). And, honestly, any effort to fill them up with offices, theaters, malls (?) would be a bit gross. However, an entirely spare, green, open field, a "collage" conceived by one of our greatest painters would be something rather holy, a clear reminder of the loss, the scale, as well as a point of renewal, pleasure, oxygen in the midst of grey Lower Manhattan.

Raggedy Ants

I discerned a characteristic of Portland that would enchant me over the course of a week, as I explored restaurants and bars, artisanal cafes and mushrooming food carts, funky neighborhoods and weird little museums. Amid economic catastrophe — Oregon has the country’s second-highest unemployment rate — there was a general indifference to wealth. In its place was a dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends. It’s the good life, and in Portland it still comes cheap.

This dumb speech is nestled somewheres in the first paragraphs of Matt Gross: Frugal Traveller's Times ditty on "Frugal Portland." And G-d but isn't that picture the most clunky/fugly/irritating thing you've seen in days?! And G-d but isn't Matt Gross the biggest Pollyanna alive?! You see, this "good life" stuff throws me off. I know Portland is physically beautiful and rents are low, which is cool, but that unemployment rate is no joke. And, though I've never been, alls I know about it (from friends, acquaintances, and Elliot Smith) is junkies and strippers and dead ends (for reals). And I'm pretty certain that they're not so much indifferent to wealth, as petulant at wealth, each with a Middle West blue-collar childhood-sized chip on their shoulders. People who live this sort of self-consciously cobbled together, socialist-ish existence do so in clear opposition to the bourgeois and slick, ever-aware of those they wish to be unlike. Also, I really just don't trust this guy to tell me what looks and feels and tastes good. Done.

Irregular Verbs

I got sucked into Vice-land again on Friday, perusing the Dos/Don'ts from last summer/fall, the photographs of folks doing what I wasn't (Dos: night-milling around Willbur' and Lower Manhattan in "outfits"/Don'ts: looking bad). But this parenthetical description of what Don'ts do is not wholly accurate; sometimes (lotstimes), these boys get it way wrong. Sometimes, they put this Mami in "WHO CARES?" pants on the bad list with some glib, sizist bullshit non-funny epitaph, when really she's a subversive genius, making the sweatpant-with-text-on-ass avant and existential--WHO KNEW? And I'm not going to get into why the aging heputzes at Vice make bad choices, because duh and I've tried to before (with ishy success). I just want to talk about pants-Mami and our 24th birthdays and how much I don't want to talk about heputzes (also see: dandelion dipshits and boxcar children) anymore. But of course I will (talk about them, I mean). I plan to in my next post even. I'll just try not to pose questions in a ho-hum-I-feel-old sort of way--because oh-my, we, at 24, certainly are not--or in a I-hate-my-ex-boys sort of way--because, word, I do (with good reason), but I'm tired of talking about those old shoes (and so are you).

I felt too old to attend the "illegal party" that Petrova did on Saturday (I've been on the outs with uppers since '06). And I've been a tricky post-birthday case, feeling sorry for myself about not being a kid anymore and getting crushes on boys who look like boys I got crushes on in 8th grade and acting indignant when they hook up with 18-year-olds instead of me. But it's getting warm and I'm feeling cheerier and I just want to celebrate how much easier my life is now that I don't really CARE about what others think as much as I used to, as much as aforementioned 18-year-olds must still. At A&P, we are young enough to expertly navigate contemporary pop culture, but old enough to have something to say about what came before. And we don't have kids yet. So, there's that. And if we wanted to do something, like write a book about the early aughts or open a bar, we could, and maybe be taken seriously. And I can't help but think (forgive Bradshawism) about the year when Oprah was always gloating about turning fifty and being wise and knowing thyself. Maybe what I miss most about my yout' (15-23) is the occasional, theatrical rush of mis-identity (and eating whatever I wanted). But if I'm being honest, that mis-identity rush is more like losing your lunch and feeling like a fraud than having a nice time. Knowing what I like to wear and drink and think is a damn blessing.

Bless.

Happy Mother's Day! (III)

We'd be doing a disservice to ourselves if we ignored ABBA today. So, Happy Mother's day, Mama Able, Mama Petrova, Mama Pillow, and Mama Alpha! We love you very much; please send money.

On Liberty

Tonight I was at a party overlooking the pit that got shut down by the authorities fairly quickly due to concerns about "structural integrity" or something kind of DUH-like. A few hundred revelers had to empty out and try to salvage their nights but just ended up milling about on the Stuyvesant ped bridge, the steps of Trinity, or Liberty Plaza before we all eventually shuffled off through the wind tunnels inhaling WTC dust our whole way home.

Generally the city tends to lay off when this particular promoter throws a jam but tonight was different from the get-go and it's pretty clear why. If we had actually all met our demise because the five floors of a former strip club collapsed onto each other it would have been just another link in a chain of embarassing and totally preventable tragedies and mishaps that have haunted the WTC since the city first attempted to rebuild.

Tonight capped off a full month of painful reminders of that awful September day and the months that followed but the most soberingly awful of all is the fact that seven years later there's still nothing but cranes and cinderblocks and cherry pickers and chain-link fences and a Century 21 sign and a night of the living baseheads perp walk.

Happy Mother's Day (II)

I'm OK. You're OK.

Over the past few weeks, Able and I have been on a mission; a mission of self-help. We both picked up various self-help must-reads, the most epic being the classic manifesto of borderline personality disorder I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. You see, your dear bloggers happened to have been the victims of borderline lovers, a fate I would not wish on my worst nemesis (for reals). The borderline person is vengeful, full of rage, self-destructive, needy on the level of a newborn, and wonderfully manipulative. They also love you so much they would die for you one minute, and hate you so much they want you dead the next. The point is that this disorder and recovery from being close to someone who suffers from it have been at the forefront of our thinking here for a while, and has probably colored a good number of posts over the past few months. So now that I've sufficiently over-shared, let's get to the entertaining part: I've compiled a list of some songs that I love that were obviously written about one of these nutbags. Enjoy:

6. "Hate on Me" Jill Scott

5. "Battle for the Sun" Placebo

4. "Hot N' Cold" Katy Perry

3. "Sweet Side" Lucinda Williams

2. "Shadow" Britney Spears

1. "Shadowboxer" Fiona Apple

Happy Mother's Day!

Album Cover For the Weekend

Stacy Lattisaw, Sneakin' Out (1982).

Aural Diptych for Thursday

Love in this Club

Augustus Caesar.

I'm OK. You're OK.

Paul Signac and Lisa Frank

Some People Started Singing it not Knowing What it Was

I've always hated the expression "if walls could talk" but SERIOUSLY guys? Do you think they just went back and forth like "you're beautiful...no you're beautiful."

Now That We've Found Love What are We Gonna Do

Verses

"Sweet Side"

Lucinda Williams

You run yourself ragged

Tryin' to be strong

You feel bad when you done nothin' wrong

Love got all confused with anger and pride

So much abuse

On such a little child

Someone you trusted

Told you to shut up

Now there's a pain in your gut

That you can't get rid of

No one heard your screams

When you were nine

When bad dreams filled the summertime

So you don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

You're tough as steel

And you keep your chin up

You don't ever feel

Like you're good enough

You've had the blues

Ever since you were six

Your little tennis shoes

And your pick-up sticks

You were screamed at and kicked

Over and over

Now you always feel sick

And you can't keep a lover

Every Christmas there were presents to unwrap

But the things you witnessed

When you were five and a half...

So you don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

Someone deserted you,

The damage is done

Now you don't deserve to be loved

By no one

Hands that would feed you

When you were two

Were the same hands that beat you

Black and blue

You get defensive at every turn

You're overly sensitive

And overly concerned

Few precious memories

No lullabies

Hollowed out centuries of lies

You don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

I've seen you in the kitchen

Cooking me supper

I listened to you bitchin'

And I watched you suffer

I still love you baby

'Cause I know you

Don't mean to do the cruel things you do

I've seen you sewin' buttons on your shirt

I've seen you throwin' up when your stomach hurt

I stick by you baby

Through thick and thin

No matter what kind of shape your in

'Cause I've seen your sweet side

I've seen your sweet side

I've seen your sweet side baby.

Two Glamorous Minnie Riperton Album Covers

Best Thing Going (For Wednesday)

Guess what y'all. Russian dressing is so-called because sometime at the turn of the century, in the private rooms of grand New York restaurants (points of reference for Hello Dolly set designers) it may have contained caviar. Mayonnaise and caviar! What an adorable combination! I want to put old-fashioned Russian dressing on positively everything.

Holy Denali Party

Marc Jacobs....."don't talk about me like I'm not herrrre!" You too Topshop!

Though it's in my nature to be suspicious and territorial when it comes to usage of my patria placename, I must admit, Marc's bag and Topshop's various eighties video girl/hottest b*%*$ at the trailer park items do closely resemble my racks of jumpsuits and satchels and maternity dresses from the local Goodwill (circa 2006). Right on, I guess?

Thanks for Making Me a Fighter Elizabeth Edwards

The fates are funny. Every Seis de Mayo I wake up with a kind of terrible sense of forboding that accompanies any Great Hangover like "god, will I ever feel normal AGAIN?!" After trying to medicate with aspirin (no) bathing (no) and pot (yes), I've managed to regain a little health just in time to settle into a morning with my best girlfriends Kathie Lee and Hoda. Today's episode looks to be a juicy one, as any jilted wife/national cheating scandal is a great opportunity for Kathie to wax nostalgic about being cheated on and publicly humiliated usually is. Ricki Lake will be joining us later in the hour, and all is right in the world.

Only One Peach

It's been 9 years since Peaches' debut album Teaches of Peaches first penetrated America's ear drums. In those 9 years, Peaches has become an underground cult hero while still acheiving mainstream success, appearing on soundtracks for Mean Girls and Lost In Translation and in ads for The Gap.

Her fourth studio album, I Feel Cream, is a more cohesive blending and understanding of her dual roles than 2006's Impeach My Bush, and a return to the smoother, more seductive eletronic beats she utilized in 2003's Fatherfucker (arguably her finest album), still with clear signs of evolution.

This is Peaches' first time to commission outside producers on an album, a risk that certainly paid off. The result is sexy and seductive, nasty and classy, with a song for just about any occasion.

Feliz

click to enlarge.