new forms of communication

so that i don't have to repeat myself multiple times a day, i have taken to making little notes that i can use over and over again. one such note that came in quite handy at work today:

you can take me home but i will never be your girl

*Meta-Post Disclaimer: I think I was drunk when I started writing this post two weeks ago on the damaging effects of heavy Liz Phair listening. I no longer have the strength to really get to the point of all this but maybe I'll be inspired later on, after all my tears have dried and my iPod is functional again.*

I may have encountered Liz Phair a little too early on in life. Exile in Guyville came in my BMG mail when I was maybe thirteen, certainly before I had listened to Exile on Main Street and perhaps immediately following the dumping of my first boyfriend ever (who would wtf later date my younger sister for two years). Although kissing with tongue was still somewhat disgusting, I could really get into a song like, say, "Fuck and Run:"

"Whatever happened to a boyfriend
The kind of guy who tries to win you over
and whatever happened to a boyfriend
The kind of guy who makes love cause he's in it
I want a boyfriend
I want all that stupid old shit
Letters and sodas."

At that time I believed, thanks to Liz Phair, 13 or 14 year-old me was wise beyond my years. I could see it pretty clearly: the 14 year old boys were never really going to grow up, and the above scenario laid out my inevitable future. Liz Phair, all monotone and detached, had this cool way of looking at things that bore no resemblance to any of the girls I went to school with. My friend Ryan once compared her to a potato [Note: this was actually Courtney Love, in some random book I read in high school]). She was an uber-girl. She understood things that we didn't.

And so, armed with guitar tab and cassette tapes, Liz Phair became my fucked-up older sister. She sat in the passenger side of my Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme ("Batmobile," J.D. Salinger style: "Fire up the Batmobile / Cause I gotta get outta here / I don't speak the language / and you gave me no real choice / you made me see that my behavior was an opinion") while I did all the stupid things I did in high school. Consequently, I know every word to every Liz Phair song released before 1999. After remembering my obsession last week, I went on a Juvenilia / Exile / Whip-Smart / Whitechocolatespaceegg bender and realized that the memories of every one of those songs are so wrapped up in being 16 or 17 that it was almost unbearable. [Note: last week I reached my saturation point. I listened all day, cried for like 3 hours, and was eventually cheered up by Billy Joel.]

Oh nostalgia rush 1998 Lilith Fair: my best friend and I lied to my parents about staying with friends on Long Beach Island (where we would sleep in my car in some parking lot), obviously not stopping in Camden for the most ridiculous but secretly great concert featuring not just a rare performance by stage-fright-ridden Liz Phair but also Supa Dupa Fly era Missy Elliott.

The potential outcome of all of this — attending Sarah Lawrence — never materialized thank god, but along with my snail mail Matador Records newsletter came plenty of premature emotional baggage. On some level I feel lucky to have had this kind of amazing progression from these interesting and unique female pop culture voices. Sassy folded circa 1994. I would re-read the vaguely feministic articles in back issues while listening to Ms Phair lull me into the commitment-phobic independent daze that has plagued me throughout most of my adult life, a condition afflicting both genders that I have recently identified as The Dude Factor. Her take on the power dynamics of relationships is vulnerable, political, utterly dysfunctional, highly attuned to the emotional workings of the adolescent girl self. Whip-Smart, Track 3: "I don't need a support system"; Track 6: "I don't crack the door too far for anyone who's pushing too hard on me" followed by the haunting refrain "I won't decorate my love"; Track 11: "Just putting your body wherever it seemed like a good idea" ("Jealousy" also awesomely rhymes "He's got a family who deals heroin" with "and you're on the edge of your chair and").

mega liz phair post tk asap

as in, during the last week or so i realized that many of my major emotional issues were perhaps shaped by wayyyy too heavy listening to liz phair at too young an age.

in the meantime, read this related article. in the meantime, i've made this liz phair mega muxtape to prepare you.

http://hope_chest.muxtape.com/

greenpoint summer rox

The best thing about having a blog that nobody reads, besides documenting boring things such as the slow road to recovery from my battle with nicotine addiction, is sharing NOT boring things that are better left unsaid for strategic purposes. Among these: Pio Pio Riko

Pio Pio (that's what we call it for short) is secretly one of the best things about Greenpoint. You can get half a chicken for $3.25, and it's a fucking amazing chicken. And it comes with this mysterious green sauce — we are guessing the ingredients may include, but are not limited to, avocado, lots of black pepper, garlic, cucumber (?) — that you could easily bottle and sell at the Garden if preservatives were added. Last night, after a long day of beaching, I wanted nothing less than Pio Pio. My $8 order of 1/2 chicken and fried sweet plantains will easily comprise three meals. A key component of the insanely huge $21 family combo meal is salchipapas = french fries with sliced hot dogs.

Despite the fact that the Pio Pio chicken sits in my fridge waiting, I joined friends tonight at the actual Pio Pio restaurant for the first time. I have never ventured inside. Roommate #G once recounted a story in which the back room was filled with Latina strippers, and I'd have to say I was put off. Not after tonight my friends. From now on every function I have will be held at Pio Pio.

Spanish-translating friend Christine noted that the neon posterboard sign on the wall of the air-conditioned backroom announced that dances with the waitstaff would cost $2. The bathroom is stocked with hair gel. The backroom has those amazing lights — you know, the kind that can make any night extraordinary — in addition to plenty of dance space, tables ripe for card games, a separate bar, an interior fake roof which rivals that of the back room bar at West Philly local fave Dahlak. Besides that, you can get a jar of beer for $15, or a half-jar for $9. Our five Coronas totaled $17. More good times to be had every weekend I hope, with or without the strippers.

tv news

we have cable again!

it was busted for a week and things got all weird in the apt: g sat down with me at the dinner table one night and asked (uncomfortably, as if on a first date) what my favorite movie was; monday night, i had a dream where i had become so frustrated with not having tv that i decided to turn my life into a tv show--all my dialogue was scripted and every room i was in only had three walls, but there was never a film crew in sight. i woke up very confused and a little freaked out (and i'm not even on the nic patch). i guess i was super productive. that was good. but me being productive might as well fall into the weird category.

anyway, our house is now back to normal and you can expect h and i to act accordingly. meanwhile, in other tv news...




SPOTTED: C in CHELSEA at a bar on 23rd and 9th. he apparently ALWAYS has this face on--sitting at the bar, walking out of the bathroom, asking for a light, laughing...it was amazing. rumor was that he was in there with blair. that was never confirmed. he is short.














while I'm talking about cw, why are they remaking 90210? and why is it starring aunt becky with a black son?