the slack daily

Unicorn Farts: Skittles & Cheeseburgers?

2009-07-13T14:37:16-07:00

A email exchange betwixt myself and the fabulous Betsey Booms.

Me: There are people who think our relationship just farts rainbows 24/7.

Betsey: Now does it fart rainbows like maybe 20 hours a day/7 days a week? I'm just curious what one eats to fart rainbows. Please say it's booze related.

Me: We have farting and we have rainbows but they have yet to intersect. Will tries to convince me that they're rainbows. But that would mean rainbows smell like rotten eggs. Which means unicorns smell like...oh god, I don't want to know.

Betsey: I'm pretty sure that if unicorns could fart it would be Skittles and cheeseburgers.

You can find Betsey & her husband Jason LIVE! every Friday night on Ustream at 7pm PST with their show "BoomTube!" and Jason spins house music at "Droppin' the Boom" every Saturday night at 10pm PST!

We're Baaaaa-aaack!

2009-07-10T13:28:20-07:00

BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice!) returns tomorrow night! Check the show out here, and the interview Will and I did with Laurie Percival of Lalawag here!

All in the SlackFamily.

2009-07-08T11:45:09-07:00

(Click to embiggen.)

Greatest Hits: Ambrosia!

2009-07-04T11:15:45-07:00

The slackmistress is currently working on two ghostwriting projects plus her regular job, so she brings you a slack daily classic from July 2007....

I was determined that Will experience the small-town-ness of Glen Ellyn, and there was no better way to do so than 4th of July Fireworks. SlackDad dropped us off at the high school football field and we bought cokes and popcorn and made our way through the muggy night up the bleachers to find a seat. The place with packed with blond men and blond women clothed in matching khakis and polo shirts. Their blond children twirled glowsticks in their sticky popsicle hands. Will leaned over to me and said

Is Mayor McWhitebread attending the festivities?

We laughed and sat back and I pointed out where my friends and I would swing on the swings by the lake when we'd cut class and where my red-and-black 84' Firebird almost slid down the hill. Our conversation was interrupted by the zip! and pop! of a test firework being shot off.

Yes sir! came the voice from behind us. You can do it!

Does he think the fireworks can hear him? I asked.

Maybe he's a fireworks lifecoach. They need encouragement, too.

And encouragement they got. With every zip! every pop! every bang! came the parade of cliches yelled out into the night.

C'mon, higher!

Way to go!

His wife shushed him and he tried to be quiet for a firework or two, but he wasn't able to contain himself.

That's the way daddy likes it!

Show me the money!

We weren't the only ones that noticed; our entire section on the bleachers was laughing openly. It wasn't malicious, it was just one of those moments where you all were in on the joke, even the one with Patriotic Tourettes.

Bring it home!

As the finale wound down and the last sparkly bits of fire streaked across the sky, he sighed and declared.

Ambrosia!

Will and I walked home through the muggy night holding hands and telling stories about our respective hometowns. As we walked through the front door into the air-conditioned house I thought

Ambrosia, indeed.

Meanwhile, in Gotham...

2009-07-01T15:50:18-07:00

Is it weird for a guy to blowdry a woman's hair if he's not her boyfriend (or a hairstylist)? Weigh in on Will's blog, here.

Check out the preview for Older SlackBrother J.'s upcoming iPhone release, Beat the Cooler! Fan Beat the Cooler on Facebook.

I am a liar, liar, pants on fire. But maybe it's not me? Can someone please find me the Other Nina Bargiel?

It's tough to be a rescue dog. Check out the Tails of Tiny Tim. (Don't tell Daisy!)

Will & I will be guest hosting LA GenX radio on Saturday, July 18th!

I think my Barbies lived in one of these.

Have you seen Jason Permenter's Bullshit Quarterly? You should.

Why You Shouldn't Invite Me Anywhere.

2009-06-29T22:13:45-07:00

Will and I were at a the wedding of a friend of his a couple of weeks ago. I had met the friend twice and his bride all of none times, but the best thing about weddings is that there's an open bar everyone's incredibly happy to be there, celebrating in the couple's special day.

The reception was held in the old Public Library in Redondo Beach, right on the water. Along with the theme, there was a card catalog table set up with notecards and pens, so you could write something and file it away for the happy couple.

Will and I each took a card. He was finished writing long before I was. He grabbed me a glass of wine from the bar and brought it back as I filed my card in the catalog.

How long does it take to write Best Wishes? he asked.

Oh, I thought it was for advice. I stammered.

What did you card say?

Um, I might have used the word 'asshole.'

He shrugged. You're probably the only one to write 'asshole' on their wedding cards.

I took a sip of wine. Twice.

His eyebrows shot up.

Look! Mini pizzas!

...

For the record, I wrote something akin to this:

On your wedding day, you're going to get all sorts of advice, but there's always going to be someone who says "don't ever go to bed angry." If you don't go to bed angry, you might not get any sleep. And it's never a good idea to argue when you're exhausted. So I'll say this: when they're acting like an asshole, just remember: they're your asshole. That's the asshole you fell in love with, and you still love. Don't forget that part.

(Okay, so three times.)

Happy Birthday SlackMom!

2009-06-26T11:41:36-07:00

I would like to take this moment to wish SlackMom a very happy birthday. Also, to thank her for not strangling me when I was 4 9 13 17, oh hell, at any point when I was growing up.

Me-n-SlackMom, Russian Christmas 2007

In honor of her birthday, I'd like to share a couple of my favorite SlackMom stories.

Am I Adopted?

Your father plays Tetris much better when he's naked.

I am sitting in my parents' bedroom with my mother engaged in head-to-head combat with her new SuperNintendo version of Tetris 2. The game system and the game itself are both presents to my parents from my brothers and I. My parents' Nintendo had given out just a few days previous, and they were suffering from severe Tetris withdrawal.

I freeze in terror as my mother manages to destroy her last few blocks, edging me out of my Tetris crown.

She's quite the clever adversary.

Good tactic, mom. I begin to reset the game.

No, he really plays better naked. It's fascinating.

I drop the controller and flee in terror. She calls out after me, her throaty voice echoing down the hallway. Come back! You have to play! I paid for your education!

The House of Fuck

I was five years old and in kindergarten, wearing my red, black and yellow argyle wool dress with a white blouse, thick black nubby tights and patent leather mary janes, my long black hair hung to my waist in two thick, shiny plaits. The entire class was seated at two long tables, seventeen sets of eyes all on the substitute teacher. We had never had a substitute teacher before, and in my childhood mind, this was my idea of intrigue. Drama. I didn’t know how this woman was, but now she was going to lead our motley group in Arts & Crafts!

She was blonde, and I remember her as pretty, although I remember everyone as pretty back in those days. Her too-big adult hands worked the pint-sized scissors through a thick piece of construction paper. She folded and cut and unfolded and cut some more and suddenly she had in her hands the form of a round-bellied little person.

You’ll decorate them to look like you! Won’t that be fun?

This is where she lost me. I didn’t appreciate her patronizing tone. My mother didn’t use it. My father, when I saw him, didn’t use it. Out-Sick Mrs. Parmeter never used it.

Besides, I would have rather decorated them to look like someone else. I was just a five year old with a big brain and long black hair; that wouldn’t take long to do. I wanted to decorate my paper doll as Famous Writer or Famous Veterinarian. Or Lost Russian Princess, sitting on a wine-colored sofa in front of a roaring fire with a fur blanket pulled around me for warmth.

But this wasn’t an imagination drill, so I’d toe the party line like I always did, and leave the imaginationing to my brain, which always worked overtime in such cases.

We formed a polite kindergarten line to receive our materials, having been taught the Rules of Polite Society by our Mrs. Parmeter. First the twins, Alice and Sarah. Then Amy. Then Jay. Then me.

She handed me a piece of thick white construction paper and a pair of scissors with green rubber gripping on the handles.

Those are lefty scissors, I told her.

There are other kids waiting in line, she told me brightly.

I'm not a lefty.

The other kids are waiting.

That was it. I’m not a fucking lefty, I told her. And those are fucking lefty scissors.

All color left her pink face and her mouth formed a round O. I shrugged and dropped the green-handled scissors into the box where she had gotten them from, and selected a pair of regular scissors. I grabbed them by the blades, point down. Safety first and all that.

I returned to my seat and began working on my doll.

Later that evening, my mother attended a PTA meeting. I was at the kitchen table, reading a book and eating crackers when she came home. She made herself a cup of coffee and asked if I wanted one. I did. She sat down at the kitchen table and shook out a cigarette from her package of Newport Lights, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it. I sipped my coffee and watched as she inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. I loved the smell of my mother’s cigarettes.

She finally spoke. Did you say fuck in school today?

I thought back. Yeah, I did.

What happened?

I told her about it. The paper dolls, the patronizing tone. The sheer lack of imagination. The lefty scissors.

Am I in trouble?

She tapped an ash into the ashtray on the table. No, no you are not.

It suddenly occurred to me that I might be in trouble. I looked at her nervously. She smiled, shaking her head which made the afro-like curls on her head bounce.

Language like that we should only use at home. That’s not for school.

Oh. I didn’t know.

I know you didn’t. It’s not your fault.

I’m sorry.

Don’t be sorry, you didn’t know. Now that you do, I know you’re smart enough to figure it out, kid. I just forget that you’re five sometimes, and not forty.

It happens. I shrugged.

She laughed and tapped out the cigarette on the green glass ashtray, this time resting it on the notched edge so she could pull out her double deck of cards. She shuffled and began laying out a game of solitaire.

I watched, mesmerized, as I always did. I took a sip of the sweet, hot coffee. Mom selected a card and began to play.

What the fuck, mom?

She laughed again, not one of those aren’t-you-adorable? laughs, but a real, throaty, adult laugh. She took another puff on her cigarette.

Yeah, kid. What the fuck?

Pin the Glove on MJ.

2009-06-25T21:01:49-07:00

Where I grew up, junior high started at sixth grade. I remember the year clearly, as it marked the first year that I took a bus to school. That I had a locker. That girls started "going out" with boys and being popular became A Real Thing. It was the start of the Mean Girls and cafeteria food and being split up into "teams." Each team had a similar amount of kids as well as a "advanced" class and a "regular" class.

There were two (or three? someone help me out here) teams of sixth graders at Hadley Junior High back in 1983. I was on Team B.

The A and B teams rarely assembled together except for grade-wide field trips and the End of the Year Party. Each End of the Year Party had a theme. Our theme was Michael Jackson. There was a "Pin-the-Glove on MJ," there was a moonwalk contest, and there was a Michael Jackson impersonator that was slated to perform.

Only the Michael Jackson performer got lost and stopped for directions at a White Castle, where he was promptly mobbed by a crowd. He never made it to the party, and instead Todd and a couple of other guys showed off their "breakdancing" moves, which included some sorry-ass poppin' and lockin' (we were a bunch of suburban white kids, y'all) but no headspins as the teachers were afraid he'd break his neck. (This was before Todd started assaulting me between classes. He's the only guy I've kicked on the nuts on purpose and I'd do it again right this very minute on behalf of seventh-graders everywhere.)

Michael Jackson died today, and as the news came out over Twitter, I found myself sadder than I thought I'd be.

Will and I were talking about it this evening, asking why were we so sad for a man who was so profoundly flawed, a man who was, by all accounts, a child molester. As we told our stories about buying our first Michael Jackson albums, I realized what it was.

Michael Jackson, while he belonged to our parents as part of the Jackson 5, belonged to us when he went solo. Michael Jackson was our music. Michael Jackson was the first album that a lot of us ever bought. Ironic that the man-child marked my first foray into adulthood, which was developing my own musical tastes. My dad listened to the Temptations and the Four Tops, and mom was a Rolling Stones/Beatles/Simon and Garfunkel fan. But Michael belonged to me.

Many of us look back on the 80's through a veil of hipster irony and nostalgia, with our Thompson Twins and our Duran Duran and our Culture Club. Most of the music seems dated. Michael Jackson - who we watched endlessly as he pranced on the light-up sidewalk of Billie Jean on the newly-formed MTV - seems timeless.

Except that today, his time was up.

I'm sad because it's a small reminder that while it seems like yesterday that I was playing "Pin-the-Glove on MJ," I'm nearly 37 years old. At some point my time will be up, too.

Everyone is embedding Thriller, which of course we learned in dance class that year. However, my favorite MJ song (which we also danced to in class years later) is Smooth Criminal. Enjoy.

Imagine I'm Saying This R-E-A-L-L-Y S-L-O-W.

2009-06-23T22:11:10-07:00

Will and I were watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey Reunion show tonight. Or I was watching, Will was muttering how they were all terrible people, except that nice Danielle who everyone always gangs up on. However, the true target of his hate? Caroline Manzo.

The way she talks, she annoys me, he said. As he tweeted:

(Clearly he is wrong. Caroline is the best of them all. TEAM CAROLINE!)

The show drew to a close and I handed him the clicker.

Hey, I asked, about that email you sent? The one where you said you had to fly to ___ for work? You never go to ___ for work.

Oh, my intern is giving a presentation about her job this summer, he responded, so I thought it would be a good idea if I went along.

So let me get this straight. You're flying to ___ with a young woman? For "work."

When you say it like that, he said, drawing out his words, choosing them carefully, you make it sound like, you make it sound like...sound like...oh, just don't say it that way. It's work!

Fine. I leaned over and smiled. But just because you say it slowly doesn't make it true.

Reason #37 that Will is a Much Nicer Person than I Am.

2009-06-22T21:19:27-07:00

I was reading Gosselins Without Pity working in the back of the house when Will walked in. He looked sad.

What's wrong?

I don't think I can watch Cake Boss any more, he told me.

Why not? I asked.

Because I'm just watching to make fun.

That's okay, I assured him. I think that's why most people watch.

Well that's not right. They try so hard!

...

In other news, today I had a phone interview for this job. They announce the Top 50 this week. Stay tuned...