
Something I’m very excited (and very nervous) about: I’ll be appearing at this month’s How I Learned Series, which is happening this Wednesday, August 24, at 8pm — at Happy Ending bar! I’m honored to be part of this lineup:
OPHIRA EISENBERG
(The Moth)
CONNOR GAUDET
(Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood)
BRIAN GROSZ
(Lapdance Academy)
CATIE LAZARUS
(Employee of the Month)
D.E. RASSO
(Love is a Four-Letter Word)
Created, Produced + Hosted by
BLAISE ALLYSEN KEARSLEY
It’s free, did I mention that? Please attend! I’m bringing a copy of the first book I ever wrote. It’s laminated.

So this is crazy. How often does my name get to be on Esquire.com’s home page? Answer: Not often. And somehow I got to write about romance, which is pretty much the thing I am least qualified to write about (other than cap and trade and taxidermy). An excerpt:
So who are the victors on Valentine’s Day? The purveyors of Red Lobster, shitty chocolate, oversize teddy bears holding normal-size teddy bears holding tiny little teddy bears, middlebrow jewelry, and Tawny Kitaaen-inspired lingerie. (Which, incidentally, makes most of us feel like cats wearing costumes. Or surgical cones. I’m sure not every woman has run around in a backwards, drug-addled circle in an attempt to escape a frightening undergarment, but it’s not unheard of.) If women had no input on what constitutes an appropriate Valentine’s Day present, the output would resemble a Spencer’s Gifts collection co-curated by Anton Le Vay and David Lee Roth.
Somehow, what was penned as a bitter jeremiad was massaged into advice. God help anyone who follows it!
Twenty-fucking-eleven. I’m approaching my 13th anniversary in this stupid city. And speaking of which, I picked up a copy of Gary Benchley, Rock Star, while I was down in Florida for the holidays (it takes Florida an average of four years to receive books that aren’t bibles, written by Glenn Beck/Elmore Leonard, or from the Left Behind series) and it was very entertaining. I feel a bit guilty that I didn’t buy a copy when it first came out. The other book I brought with me (but didn’t make any headway into) is Boozehound. The former book, being a lightweight paperback, was a lot more comfortable to hold. And I am lazy.
And I’m going on (at least) six months with Go Down Together and am halfway through about two dozen other well-written and intriguing titles, which would mean that I only read one goddamned book in 2010, and I bought it in Florida five days before 2010 ended.
We got to Florida and spent a week furiously maintaining a food- and alcohol-induced torpor. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) the wine selection in central Florida blows. (I really hope Vine opens an outpost for us once we move down there.) It’s a sea of plummy, jammy, big New World reds with 14% alcohol and koalas or Model Ts on their labels. A popular brand is called Chocolate Cupcake or some shit like that — seriously, if you go into restaurants and ask for red wine recommendations, the servers will ALWAYS recommend the Chocolate Cupcake Merlot. All the French and Italian wines are super-expensive (though at ABC Liquors I did manage to grab the last three bottles of a $13 Chablis on sale, and a pretty decent bottle of Chapoutier something-or-other whose most memorable quality, 10 days later, is the Braille on the label). So we generally drink a lot of Spanish stuff. Mostly things with wood prints of dragons and cavalry on the labels. I don’t know why.
The worst wine I have ever — EVER — had was in Florida.* And it was made in St. Augustine, our home away from home. After years of turning up our noses at it (and laughing at the billboards advertising the FREE TASTINGS everywhere), we gave in one night after walking around the Winn Dixie wine section for ten minutes, grapelessly.**
How bad could it be, we thought. We brought home a “red.”
Me: “Does this taste like…Chocolate Now’N Laters to you?” I asked.
N: “It has hints of banana, with lingering notes of Robitussin.”
It was so bad it couldn’t even be salvaged with 7-Up.
Now we’re back home, drinking our cheap Italian wines with NOTHING BUT TYPE on the label. I’ve been told it snowed while we were away.
Fear – New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones
Bo Diddley – Bring It to Jerome [supercool image above stolen from Tom.]
*Also the worst Tom Ka soup, which I swear was made with Coco Lopez and squeezy-bottle lime juice (and very little else). Yes, serves us right for ordering Thai food from a place in a strip mall, but virtually everything in Florida is located in a strip mall. The only things not located in strip malls are megachurches and the malls that are too big to be strip malls. When the waiter asked us what was wrong with it, we said — using a phrase we learned from an Italian friend — “It is prepared in a manner to which I am unaccustomed.”
**NO we don’t just buy wine at supermarkets, it’s just that the Winn Dixie is right next to the Blockbuster and since we don’t have a car and rely on N’s parents’ goodwill to get around; we’re trying to be considerate. (Needless to say, the wine at ABC Liquors and Wine Warehouse is not all that much better.) We rented The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo this time around — the cashier behind the counter held it up and said, “Y’all know this isn’t in English, right?”
Argh I’m busy. And lazy! Busy and lazy. So here are some links.
But FIRST! Great news. Binary Sunrise is playing CMJ next week, Trash Bar in Williamsburg, Oct. 21, 9pm. As you know, I love this band. You will too. Be sharp; the CMJ machine operates with ruthless efficiency.
OK, so:
- The Interactive Map of Springfield
- Interview with Sandy Pope, who’s challenging James Hoffa in the Teamsters election
- New language discovered in India
- Interview with Shanti Das, author of Hip-Hop Professional: A Woman’s Guide to Climbing the Ladder of Success in the Entertainment Business
- An excerpt from the Secret Historian, a biography of Phil Sparrow — professor, tattoo artist, and sexual renegade
- Jared Leto cosplay (no, I don’t get it either)
- Soldiers, a photo essay by Suzanne Opton
Where did she go?
I am lazy. If you're bored, go visit my tumblr, updated daily with other people's witticisms and erudition.Also by me
Archives
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- December 2005
- October 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- October 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- October 2003
- September 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- January 2003
- December 2002
- November 2002
- October 2002
- September 2002
- August 2002