kedes.org

“Holy crap its already November” I said to myself as I looked at my last blog entry which was in July. I was however keeping up on reading other people’s blogs religiously without feeling the slightest bit guilty like the girlfriend who says she is going to work late but then goes out drinking appletinis with her friends.

I only came to this confessional box after reading Liz’s blog in which she says that she will “totally write on this blog every day for a month”. It has something to do with NaBloPoMo, the Welsh-Japanese opera singer. I challenge you to a duel madam. En gard!

Here is where the thievery comes in. While listen to NPR’s Story of the Day podcast today (yes, I am hip to current technological trends. I got it off the internets) they talked about McSweeny’s new book called “Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney’s Book of Lists” in which there are lists such as “Signs Your Unicorn Is Cheating on You.” I know what a list is, can I make my very own list? To make and to cherish till death to me and the list apart? Yes I can.

People I saw at the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade dressed up as

Sexy nurse
School girl
George W Bush with a toilet seat around neck
Sexy nurse
Goth girl
Victorian era woman
Goth man dressed up as a Victorian era woman
Sexy nurse
Homeless person
Zombie person
Mentally retarded person
Borat
Peewee Herman
Sexy nurse

Standing in Times Square on the 31st while freezing your buns off is strictly, strictly for tourists only. No exceptions. Unless some girl you like thinks its a good idea. But sitting, and then later standing, shoulder to shoulder with other people while enough sweat to fill a small pond collectively runs off of everyone and the smell of fermented garbage wafts through the air is perfectly fine. (Must stop with the run on sentences). Watching fireworks from the Brooklyn Promenade isnt that bad at all.

I used to think people saying ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’ when a particularly beautiful firework burst in the sky was only in the movies. Not true. I even caught myself doing it a couple of times.

Anyone who doesnt get up to give a pregnant woman a seat on the subway should be kicked in the where ever it is that would hurt the most. Unfortunately women are not issued those yellow tags that say ‘Baby On Board’ anymore. It’s summertime and everyone, even those who shouldn’t, are wearing fewer and fewer clothes. The spectrum ranges from ‘That person must be a model’ to ‘I wish subways had vomit bags.’ That lady that just climbed aboard, is she pregnant or just has a pot belly? If I don’t get up thinking this woman has to put down the Ben and Jerry Chunky Monkey Double Fudge Dunky, and I’m wrong, then I loose my place in heaven when I die. If I do get up and offer my seat and she isn’t carrying a future subway rider, well, there is a good chance that I might the most hurt look ever. And maybe get yelled at. And loose my seat.

imdb.com is on my top 5 list of sites that I most frequently visit and now I have my own page on the site (thank you, thank you). The process of getting your own page isnt as easy as I thought it would be.

To add a credit you have to be involved in a film already registered with the site. Then, you have to submit an ‘update’ form with all your data. A staff member reads your form, verifies the data and then adds you to the site. This process takes around 4-5 weeks.

I first came to know about the “The 1 Second Film” from a video I saw online. In the video they show various actors being approached at Sundance and asked to donate money for a film project. Based on the amount given you received a credit in the movie. Rates are as
follows:

$1 - $9.99 : Associate Producer
$10 - $99.99 : Producer
$100 : Executive Producer

There is currently a bidding war going on between Andy Dick and Tom Green to be the top rated Executive Producer.

The movie is going to be shot on 70mm film and as the title implies is going to be 1 second long. 1 second of film consists of 24 frames so in the movie they are going to film 12 5ft x 9ft painting for 2 frames and join them together. Each painting had its own ‘director’ and were painted by hundreds of people during an all-night event at CalArts on March 8th of 2001 (International Women’s Day). This 1 second is going to be followed by 90 minutes of credits over a ‘making of’ documentary. After the premiere the paintings are going to be auctioned with proceeds going to the Global Fund for Women.

They managed to get a lot of name actors to give money (excluding Steve Bucemi) and the offer is open to the public. They have a detailed site setup which gives all the information about the project.

The film itself is a joke, but everything surrounding it seems like a fun idea. My total investment of $1.12 landed me an associate producer credit and a page on imdb.com . I’m getting my headshots done tomorrow. Going to go with the hand under the chin pose.

I currently have a lot of stuff lying around my room like a suitacase full of clothes and stereo equipment still in boxes. I’ll get around to it this week but out of boredom I wondered if there were people that ‘arranged’ stuff for you and there they were on craigslist. I started clicking randomly. There were posts from the usual cleaning and organizing service companies and people who had hourly rates etc, but the following ad was much more interesting. (Actual Ad)

Cute Cleaning Girl!
Reply to: …@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-05-31, 10:29AM EDT

Hi guys! Just moved into a new place and need some help getting organized? Is your apartment a bit of a disaster and you need some help tidying up? I am the girl for you! I specialize in light cleaning and organizing. I’m available on weeknights after 7 and weekends. I charge a flat rate based on the size of your apartment and what you need done. They’re reasonable and negotiable. Specialized wardrobe upon request.

Questions:

1. Why does someone you pay to clean your house need to be cute? Would that be discrimination against ugly service people?
2. How ‘light’ is the ‘light cleaning’ you specialize in? Would a dirty sink be out of your specialty?
3. If your rate is reasonable, why is it negotiable?
4. What options are available for the ’specialized wardrobe upon request’? I am a man of fashion you know.

Mushaboom by Feist was originally released in 2004 and Postal Service did of remix of it a couple of months ago. The original version is very folksy but this version has added a lot of synthetic Postal sounds without changing the singers voice.

Coney Island in May consists of scorching, burning, cruel heat from the sun and shocking, numbing, icy water from the ocean. But it was still the most fun I had all weekend. I hadn’t been there since I was 4 years old and always imagined it to be far, far away. It turned out to be a surprisingly short ride from Park Slope on the Q and we got off right in front of ‘Nathan’s Famous’ (rumor is that Angelina asked for their hotdogs to be flown in to Namibia to be consumed after giving birth the Jesus #2). On the beach in 10 minutes, blanket out, shoes off and racing to the water in 12, feet losing all sensation in 13. There were some people swimming but my guess is that they were not human. At 12pm the beach wasn’t that crowded so finding a nice spot was easy.

Astroland had horns in every other ride that kids will press every other second. We could all learn about the ‘Zen of Patience’ from those ride operators. I was there for only a little while and I almost started to believe there were elves in my head trying to push my eyes and ears out. I was diagnosed as being allergic roller coasters so the Cyclone was off limits for me. I get uncontrollable explosive diarrhea when I go near them.

Always seeking adventure, we ventured into Nathan’s for lunch. None of the usual ‘hotdogs’ or ‘hamburger’ crap for me, I got the soft shell crab sandwich, the high class crap sandwich. It consisted of a bun, piece of lettuce, tarter sauce and something deep fried that was shaped exactly like a small crab with claws. I don’t know what I was expecting. I bit into it and imagined someone slowly driving a vat of frying oil on the beach with two people just shoveling stuff into it for sandwiches.

I’m glad we had a large order of the ‘bacon cheese fries’ which consisted of oily, oily fries drowned in cheese and covered with crumbled bacon. It’s a very complicated recipe but they tasted… great.

By now the beach had gotten very crowded and you could see that the people from the morning were turning either lobster red or burnt pie crust brown. While heading back we passed the ‘Shoot the Freak’ game. The ‘freak’ turned out to be a guy just standing in a long alley wearing top to bottom padding. He didnt have any customers at the time so he was cleaning his suit off and just wandering around. The ’shooting’ consisted of a paintball gun but the most entertaining part was the game’s announcer. Here are some of the things he was saying…

“Its Coney Island! You come here, go to the beach, eat a hotdog and then shoot a freak. Its tradition”
“Do you know how satisfying it is to shoot somebody in the face and get away with it?”
“Its American people, its American to be able to go to the beach, pick up a gun and shoot a freak”

On the ride back home I noticed that I hadn’t even wiped the sand of my legs and then felt it in places that even the sun didn’t reach, but it was all good. It was a fun day.

Update: Last night I played around with the ‘notes’ feature in flickr and went note crazy.

Due to all my back and forth trips lately I had started to think that I had trained my body to sense my stop in Queens open my eyes at the right stop and walk out the door. Lately however my built in sensors have been malfunctioning and on that night I think they had blown a fuse.

The next thing I remember after closing my eyes in Brooklyn was the conductor kicking my feet telling me to get out. Without thinking for a second I ran out and over to the other side of the platform and sat down. The F train runs every half hour or so at night and I had just missed one according to a man who had set up his studio apartment with attached bathroom on the platform. The rumble of the train woke me up and I got on. Its only two stops I thought and closed my eyes. 5 stops later my eyes flew open, I swore loudly and again ran out the train and over to the other side.

This time I knew that if I missed my stop again I would jump onto the tracks in rage. While waiting for the next train back I fell asleep trying to think of ways not to fall asleep. Maybe if I knew what was going to be onboard I wouldn’t have been so worried. I got on and sat down on a completely empty train right in front of a transvestite that looked like he/she was kicked out of transvestite special ed school. He who was a she or vice versa was very scary looking and for whatever reason smiling broadly. I knew I had only two options, one, act as if nothing was wrong or two, move to another seat so that my brain would stop screaming. After some consideration, I thought that option number two would lead to unpleasant confrontation, something along the lines of yelling (what’s the matter? you got a problem with me?) followed by a beating. I don’t know, it was late.

Two stops later I got off at my stop. I don’t think I even blinked the whole time. 2 hours and 35 minutes after leaving Brooklyn I had finally reached the shores of Queens. The MTA is not your friend.

This week I have two subway stories. The first one, i’ll tell later because it involves Me Vs. the F train and the F train won. Yesterday while coming home I was reading an article from the NYT magazine about this ‘logo-less’ shoe company called BlackSpot. A hippie’s dream shoe which comes with a red spot at the front of the right shoe (according to the site) “For kicking corporate ass”. Its made from hemp and used tires is made by union workers in europe and has an ‘anti-logo’. Groan.

While reading this article I saw the shoes of the person sitting right across from me. He was wearing the same hippie shoes! Thats some co-incidence. So I took a picture. Here is where the fancy ‘pants’ come in. I spent some time setting up this picture display that doesnt take up too much space in the post. Click on the thumbnail below…

My digital camera has no display (dont ask) and people arent exactly pleased when you ask to take a picture (of their shoes is even worse), so I had to look through the viewfinder, hold the magazine and pretend to be so interested in the magazine that I had to take a picture of the page (cant think of any reason why someone would ever do that but..) Then, just before the click I tilted the camera to get the guys shoes in the frame.

The Blaine has done it again. No, no, outdone himself again. Now some of you might be asking how idiotic physical endurance constitutes as magic and to those people I say, stop talking. Mystery shrouds Mr. Blaine’s aura like deliciousness shrouds cheese. Who do you think Mr. Blaine spent one week underwater for? For you! The legions of fans who lined up to visit him did their job and Mr. Blaine made sure to acknowledge the fact. “This was a very difficult week, but you all made it fly by with your strong support and your energy. Thank you so much, everybody. … I love you all.” That’s right, everybody. The Blaine is way too superior to take insult and mockery and talk about being a pathetic street freak. He loves all.

Can you even imagine how someone might take care of excretions underwater? Let it float to the top and scoop it out, a lesser person might say. Mr. Blaine used tubes, that’s right, tubes. I don’t see anyone else shoving tubes into their outlets to relieve themselves, underwater or above it.

The man just cannot disappoint the public. He cant. Its magic. Those two minutes that he fell short of breaking the record for holding his breath even after they showed a 2 hour documentary on his 6 months of grueling preparation for the feat? Think of it as a gift people. A gift from Mr. Blaine to you. Use them wisely. I personally will use those two minutes and many more when I witness The Blaine’s next magical feat. Listening to the entire Britney Spears collection non-stop, hold on dont start clapping yet, for 38 days. Thats right, 38 days.

Speaking of Mrs. Spears, she was also in the news today for what the press called “dropping her baby bombshell!” during a taping of the Late Show. Expecting some really dramatic dialog I read the following excerpt.

Letterman asked, “So, we’ve established now that you are in fact pregnant, is that right?”
Spears answered: “Yes, sir.”

Unstoppable this woman is.