Monthly Archives: June 2005

I don’t understand my fascination with Tom Cruise and his slow but certain decline into madness.

Those of you who share this inexplicable obsession would do well to take a look at Tom Cruise Kills Oprah. You have to have the sound on to get the full effect. It’s safe for work, at least as far as thinking about such disturbing matters is safe for work.

I love the Reverend Brendan Powell Smith. I love him because I love his creation, The Brick Testament, a pictorial Bible done with Legos.

Here, for example, is a scene from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Tell me: how could anyone not pant for the author of such a work?

A while ago there was apparently an article in The New Yorker about a new book called Popstrology, which describes itself as “a revolutionary method for gaining self-knowledge by examining the alignment of the pop music charts at the moment of your birth.”

My brother told me about this when it came out, and naturally I pooh-poohed it; if I had any more self-knowledge I would explode.

But then I went to the Popstrology web site and realized that it is 100% accurate.

Because, though I was born in the Year of Roberta Flack, my Birthsong is Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.”

I guess this stuff really works, huh?

Sometimes I think that getting to live the life of a vagabond artist, making my way by my wits and leaving so much to fate and everything else to luck and also having to pay for my own health insurance, is the most wonderful thing in the world.

And then sometimes it just so totally sucks.

Two orders of business today.

First, if you live in New York and you’re looking for something to do tonight, tomorrow night, or Saturday, let me highly recommend this show, produced by a friend of mine:

I saw it last night and it was the most enjoyable evening I’d spent in the theater in a long while.

And can that girl dance!

Second, I am so making myself these Rainbow Hotpants and teaching step class in them:

Except my abs are totally better than his.

[Edit: I emailed the author of the pattern asking about resizing, and it turns out that yes, that is a woman’s body, though the pattern described the hotpants as “totally gay” so I hope I can be forgiven for assuming that it was just a particularly bottomish guy. It’s not really fair to say that my abs are better than hers, as men’s and women’s bodies are very different when it comes to body fat percentages. Perhaps I’ll just post a picture of my bare midriff in those shorts when they’re done, and you can all weigh in.]

Can anybody help me?

Actually, let me rephrase that question so that it’s a touch less broad and the answer is less obviously “no.”

What I mean is: the posts between June 13 and June 20 inexplicably show up as being written by “Faustus,” with no “MD” after his name. The horror of having people think that I think it’s appropriate to have a moniker that ends in a comma is really too great to bear and I’m considering booking a flight to Florence and throwing myself in the Arno, just like Lauretta threatens to do in Gianni Schicchi if her father disapproves of her relationship with Rinuccio, though between you and me I believe she has mild borderline personality disorder.

But before I take such an extreme step, I figured I’d ask if any reader is computer-savvy enough to make a suggestion. My display name used to be “Faustus,” (first) and “MD” (last); I’ve already gone into my profile and changed the first name to “Faustus, MD” and left the last name blank. So posts from here on out should be fine. But I also republished after that, which should mean that all those posts show up with the new version of the display name, but on my screen they don’t. I even started deleting posts and reposting them until I realized that of course the comments would then disappear and I would have no evidence that anybody realized I existed at all over the last two weeks, and my therapist really has enough to deal with already. So if you have any ideas about how to fix this, please email me.

Oh, my God. I used to post about orgies on this blog. Now I’m posting about the minutiae of programming. Maybe I should book that flight to Florence anyway.

While out walking my dog this evening, I passed by a corner box that held Gay City News, a “weekly newspaper serving gay, lesbian, bi & transgendered New York City.”

Someone had written the following request on the top of the box: “GOOD PLEASE NO GAYS + LESVIANES.” Elsewhere the same person had written, “GOOD LOVES YOU,” and elsewhere still, “ONLY MEN & WOMAN.”

Really all this did, other than causing my dog to strain at her leash to get away from the poor syntax, was fill me with an intense and burning desire for a lesviane. Does anybody know where I can get one?

Everyone should come see this Tuesday’s WYSIWYG Talent Show at P.S. 122. There may be a few tickets left if you call 212-477-5288.

I’ll be singing a song, reading some haiku, and also reading something from what I hope will turn out to be my second book.

Or perhaps I’ll just show up drunk and cry.

Either way it should be entertaining.

Well, that was clearly a roaring success.

I want to die.

(“Oh,” I hear you say. “That means it must be a weekday.”)

But I want to die even more than usual. Because today I consumed no caffeine and no sugar.

I did this because I hoped that taking such a step might allow me to wake up tomorrow at some point later than 6:00 a.m., the hour at which I have been sitting bolt upright in bed every morning for the last month.

We’ll see if it works, but even if it does I think I’m going to have to settle for being awake at that hour rather than giving up Diet Coke and M&Ms.

Because this is so horrible as to defy description.