the gilded tongue

out and about and this is what i have to say:

2011-11-06T17:48:00.000-05:00

it’s the first shortened day of the season and what better way to maximize the mass crankiness that abounds than with a day’s recount of old fashioned rants? so i present to you a critically personal walk through the city and a list of the truly important things that happened. nothing else really mattered.

the marathon
today was the new york marathon. i’m really on the fence about this one: on one hand, as a potential participant two years straight (who, both times, had to bow down, err, out to a fucked up knee) i get a prickly sense of pride and accomplishment as i see those runners freshly crossed over the finish line clutching their foil capes and hobbling home; on the other hand, something is to be said about their piss poor attitudes toward anyone who didn’t run the marathon. that hawk-eyed look that basically says, “yeah, i did it. i ran 26 and change miles, and now i’m better than you. i’m gonna be on NPR tonight.” right. as if we’re all afforded the ability (and opportunity—getting in is some comPETitive shit) to run a marathon. maybe they’re just tired. anyway, my pissed meter may bob slightly, but nobody feels as badly as those people just “out for a sunday run” who, when reminded of the marathon that is going on basically all around them, must feel like total assholes. a defeatist surge of shame pulsates through their body as they turn up the lady gaga on their ipods and push even harder, their skin pitting like golf balls with the harsh, shameful glares from all the people around them. it’s like thumb wrestling at a WWF match.
the moral(s) of the story is(are): swap your hater-ade for some gatorade. -or- there’s always next year.

cafe prague
with our takeover of eastern europe almost nigh, i made a point to stop by the idlewild bookstore to rub elbows with the well-traveled intelligentsia i figured i’d encounter there to talk about, you know, books and traveling and stuff. but before i got there, several storefronts down, in probably my most cliche moment of the week, i stopped by a little restaurant called cafe prague.
still decked out in halloween decorations that included life-sized talking vampires and bloody brides, i found cafe prague irresistible and walked right in, hoping to leave all my mental baggage of the day outside. banking on a cliche and actually trying to cram some authentic culture into my afternoon, my visit to cafe prague was the escape i wished it would be. it’s run by czech staff and is actually czech in origin, a fact confirmed by the authentic menu items displayed on the large screen TV behind the counter: goulash, svikova, polom’s chicken (named after a village in the czech republic, otherwise nondescript save for its eponymous chicken dish) and other indigenous fare. i initally frowned upon the selection of pre-made panini in the deli case, but seeing them here granted me the realization that panini, the biggest sandwich trend to hit the US since, i don’t know, the big mac?, may, in fact, be a universal thing and i should turn down the snobbery should i encounter said panini once i’m actually in prague. i sat down with a cherry tea and chocolate prague square (a two layer ganache/yellow cake thing) and enjoyed a nice departure from my sunday afternoon in nyc, but my real moment of escape came when the title song to the neverending story played on the sound system. i don’t know who was responsible for that musical blast from the past, but suddenly i felt not only worlds away, but decades as well and cafe prague earned a category of star that had never previously existed.
the moral of the story is: when in doubt, go to prague.

oh, and after complaining about the same thing like 74 times, i came up with a new concept: a regular series called “nothing is worse than:” that generally expresses the most recent things i find distasteful, and probably will for years to come. so yeah, go me for self-expression.

nothing is worse than: a door that closes loudly, and never gets fixed.

at-home cake pops
walking aimlessly in the city is like the cheater’s edition of where’s waldo because it just throws in your face all the things you’ve been looking for your whole life. like this at-home cake pop maker at the bed, bath & beyond (editor’s note: initally, i wasn’t going to disclose the location, but i figured why delay fate, right?) so this is the at-home cake pop maker, another obesity-causing obsession started by starbucks now makes its way into american homes through the black hole of excess and waste known as “under the tree.” because who wouldn’t want this for Christmas? or Hanukkah? or Kwanzaa?
the cake pop started out innocently enough—a little cake to satisfy a big need.
but this is america, people—big needs need big cake. i’m sure the makers of the at-home cake pop maker thought, with the best of intentions, "we'll make 12 slots so there will be one cake pop for every girl at the sleepover" when the sad reality will go something like this: on a cold, frosty winter night some weeks after Christmas an obese female college student will find herself in the home aisle of the tj maxx deciding between the martini glasses with the flowers painted on them or the margarita glasses with the glittery pink cactuses, when both shrivel into oblivion as the at-home cake pop maker catches her eye and gives her 12 reasons to forget about the festive stemware entirely.
the moral of the story is: just say no.

(a modified version of the theme to “the price is right” that has more of the vintage 70s gameshow horns plays in the background)

and now it’s time for “that’s my obsession!”

the vibram five fingers information series
i love, with all ten toes, the five fingers line of footwear from the italian company vibram. aside from comfort and ridiculously engineered ergonomics, these shoes make you feel like a superhero. a superhuman sense of agility and strength comes to you and you find yourself (ok, i find myself) wanting to balance on curbs instead of simply walking home; curling my foot to avoid cracks in the sidewalk simply because the flexible sole allows me to; walking up the side of buildings to see how high i can get. and this feeling is mutual among other five fingers wearers—we have a code, a shared understanding signified by a smile, similar to the way jeep owners wave and beep while passing each other. we are partaking together in some esoteric way of life that has brought us fortune most of the world will never experience. or something like that. anyway, with the pros come the cons, and thankfully, mine have nothing to do with the design or performance of the shoe. it’s with the audience reaction.
let me start by saying vibram five fingers should be marketed exclusively to "exceptionally extroverted persons who may possess aspirations to pursue a career in motivational speaking" because the second you slip these suckers on and step out in public, you're the center of attention, the man with a plan, the one with all the answers, keanu reeves in speed, and expected to act accordingly. people look up to you for answers, asking left and right about your shoes and expecting an answer that can also solve the economic crisis. questions range from the inane "are they comfortable?" ("no, I find it easier to maintain my morning erection by stimulating my s&m fetish all day long") to the actually interesting, “i saw them in the conde nast traveler and was thinking about getting a pair...can you tell me about them?” at the beginning, i decided being called upon so frequently to deliver these lectures came with the territory of wearing such unique shoes, and it was my just duty to deliver the good. but once I started missing subway stops and fell behind on my book club reading because of my impromptu seminars, i raised my arms to the heavens and pleaded, “Lawd come save me!"
today, i got a break. kind of. the public commentary on my vibram five fingers hit a new high...or low. or perhaps a new level of whoa! An MTA employee was all laughs as she told me on a recent episode of CSI (or it may have been CSI miami, apparently the difference is crucial) the killer had been wearing the same pair as me. (ha ha ha, oh). she was then kind enough to share some advice, which I could have predicted with one eye closed: “don’t go killing anybody now!” my response laugh was so over-rehearsed, its shallowness rivaled that of the puddle of pee on the seat adjacent to me. and with that the doors closed, separating our worlds forever, and the train pulled away taking me with it, head down and headphones on, avoiding eye contact and any future run-ins with tourists hungry for information on “those toe shoes that crazy boy is wearing.”
the moral of the story is: one doesn't want to be rude.

that’s all for now.
Xs and Os
BMLI

a makeover is on the way

2011-11-06T17:28:00.002-05:00

it sure is. and a new entry will follow this to usher in a new look, new thoughts, new philosophy, and a whole new underwear collection.

agua sucio

2011-07-05T17:47:00.000-04:00

this is why coconut water never comes in clear bottles.

weighing in on the weiner

2011-06-17T11:41:00.001-04:00

i just have to say something. so anthony weiner: YOU ARE such a WEENIE to resign! a cocktail weenie, at that--small, unsatisfactory and somewhat wrinkly. after all that, you throw in the towel (most likely the one your bulge tented) leaving a legacy that's like an unfinished story in a freshman level creative writing course. i. just. can't.

i think anthony weiner's resignation is a bow to hypocrisy. yes, his resignation--not his twat tweets--serve as validation to pure dishonesty. everybody who pointed their fingers at him for this "awful thing" he did then go home and use those same fingers to click around Internet porn and tweet twats of their own. those insipid americans love the smell of blood, and this lust for an open wound completely dominates their purpose in life. now that they can't shake their fists at the weiner anymore, they'll squat like vultures until some other wounded figure comes on the scene, outwardly bleeding the same insecurities they hate about themselves, into whom they'll sink their blunt beaks and tear away the flesh. they're nothing without their tabloid dirt and high fructose corn syrup. if they didn't have the intouch "celebrities: they're just like us!" tutorial to follow, they wouldn't know how to shop at the CVS, eat at a restaurant or walk down the street.

if you look at what anthony weiner actually did, or didn't do, for that matter, the actual deed shrinks in comparison to the hype and hullaballoo that's been made about it. so he jerked off to porn, sometimes interacting with those who moan onscreen--noooobody in america does that! the horror! perhaps the whole picture exchange crossed the line, especially since he was married, but the same heartfelt apology that would patch up any normal american couple should have applied to him. no, suddenly "weinergate" erupts and people who haven't even heard of anthony weiner before are yelling and screaming and holding signs. i guess that's what sad, unemployed people do instead of looking for jobs.

as a matter of fact, i think what weiner did with his weiner was probably good for him. getting his rocks off is normal for any red blooded male, and was a chance to let off some steam, increasing his effectiveness at his job (which, btw, is mighty stressful...representing constituents of such high levels of assholeism takes its toll). exchanging a few LOLs with a porn star (who, btw, is now rep'd by gloria allred. really?) now let's discuss her.

ginger lee--who currently makes her living as a stripper--this morning stammered through a twang-inflected speech where she exonerated herself from any inappropriate behavior with weiner. now that's assuming, of course, that every hard-dicked american male watching her had forgotten about the six months of porn star boot camp ladies such as herself endure, where she exclusively took it up the ass so she could get second-tier billing on the DVD cover. yes, let's listen to what ginger lee has to say, a real woman of repute. then we can all go get her autograph after she performs at the pink pony in atlanta tonight. and after paying gloria allred to stand next to her in a st. john suit, she'll be forced into another six months of hard anal labor just to pay her rent.

and now, for more hard-earned america banter...

i think "weinergate" is a terrific example of what a daycare center this country is: a playpen full of simple-minded, easily-swayed, quickly-agitated toddlers who lust after the shiniest toy in the chest and only until it's ice cream time, at which a greed-fueled feeding frenzy ensues, followed by a nap. like toddlers, the swell of america are selfish because they haven't learned the virtue of consideration yet--they're hand fed, hand-held and told they're #1 from the beginning, inflating an ego that's easily damaged but never deflated. gay marriage can't happen 'cause God don't like it,' but nobody has voicemail from the big guy explicitly stating why. they take every word proclaimed by the neighborhood bullies as the truth, but only until a louder, bigger bully with a shinier toy (or a red skirt suit and rimless glasses) appears and steals the show. have you ever seen a daycare center on a class trip? it's a single line of followers, like a chain gang, absolute obedience, no questions asked. they listen to the leader until the leader stops giving them candy. then they throw rocks at him and look for another leader. when president obama couldn't make unicorns with soft serve machines strapped to their saddles appear in every american's backyard, they turned on him like every other "mean mommy" who wouldn't let their kid have more than one flintstone's vitamin every day. "too much of a good thing could make you sick," she used to say, and it has. but instead of a vomit fest, this sickness stays inside, telling people they are part of "the land of the free" when really, they're a mass army of good, little obedients.

2011-04-13T14:07:00.002-04:00

i'm so sick of hearing of celebrities and well-known people (there is a difference between the two) taking to twitter, as they call it, to tell someone off, instead of just saying it to them. it's like, because they are celebrities (or well-known) they only exist when their actions are witnessed by the public, and cant' do anything unless other people are watching (if a tree falls in a forest but nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound? if a celebrity or well-known person does something in the privacy of their own home without tweeting a pic, does it actually happen?). i stumbled upon the ridiculousness of this while perusing an article about the whole showdown between donald trump and bill cosby. while i'd love to spend at least 5 minutes wondering why the latter even plays a role in this, i'll get straight to the point: donald trump, and i fully realize the positive implications i'm making in favor of the donald by saying this, to his merit, has always succeeded in doling out his grievances toward others right to their face--ok, with a little help from foxnews or the today show--but at least he backs up his bite with a little facetime. who can forget probably the most monumental public duel with rosie o'donnell? the one she apparently rekindled just last month, when she took to fucking twitter with some comment about his hair (that's only not old when oprah talks about it). but at least he voiced his opinion, no matter how assholic it might have been, directly to her, instead of hiding behind a bunch of @ and # signs. "he said/she said" sounds poetic; "he tweeted/she tweeted" just sounds fucking douche-y.

really. twitter has created a national epidemic of passive aggressive personality disorder, and there's nothing cute about that. as if today's celebrities and well-known people aren't megalomanic enough--now they can get their fixes for fame from the comfort of their own bedrooms or drug dens, one in the same, if you ask me, considering their craving for 'fame fixes' rivals that of the most addictive opiates, by sparking a fight with a fellow celebrity or well-known, over a poor dress choice or offensive hairstyle. because people live for twitter, and i mean liiiiiiiiive, my chica favorita kim kardashian is paid a paltry $10,000 per tweet, but that's all in a day's work right? $10,000 just so i can look at more pictures of her angled-downward-to-hide-her-huge-nose face sporting a pair of fucking skechers.

i'm glad i don't watch tv anymore.

xoxo
BMLI

happy

2011-04-12T16:17:00.001-04:00

yesterday's anger sure gave way to today's humming mood. i realized my obsession with "born this way" is borne of a repressed childhood need for such a song. at a young age riddled with confusion, hate, conflict and adversity, i really needed an anthem like "born this way" but all i really had was "express yourself." it's a great song and all, but i was a smart cookie and trying to adapt the message of "tell your man what you want so he will respect you" was too far of a stretch to actually to extract any actual confidence. and i wasn't a feminist, so an upbeat tune was all "express yourself" could ever really offer me. now born this way comes out and it's literally all about me because it's about everybody. if i had "born this way" in 6th grade, i would have told a lot more people to fuck off. hell, i'd actually have the guts to use the word "fuck" and that, in itself, would be an advancement.

and as far as "born this way" bearing any similarities to "express yourself," other than embracing your own needs of self-love before those of anyone else, i honestly don't hear them. like not at all. whatever. i'm beautiful in my way...

xoxo
BMLI

stuff that annoys me this week:

2011-04-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

go blunt or go home, that's what i always say. i also say that the most important thing one should do each day at work is take care grooming one's desk flare. what's that? you don't have desk flare? well then it's time you started evaluating what it is by way of trinkets, tchotchkes and even cutouts from magazines that makes you happy, that stirs your mind and adds sugar to your creative juices. yes i'm talking about the mess of knick knacks and paintings, clipped quotes and fortune cookie fortunes so yellowed with age, the restaurant has since relocated three times. desk flare is essential to one's well-being at work. it's keeping what inspires the very essence of you all around, and watching each piece dance around in a mentally-construed choreography that brightens up the dullest of afternoons. no one understands the importance of desk flare as much as the very global proprietors of kitsch, none other than etsy, bestowing upon each new employee $200 to buy any variety of merchandise hawked on the .com flea market they think would make suitable desk flare. anything.
that makes me happy. as does my collection of desk flare, and the liberties that allow me to maintain my cubicle gallery that today welcomed two sanskit inscriptions of om mani padme hum.

but you know what doesn't make me happy? many things in this world.

like nicki minaj. i've been ready to tear into this one for some time, and now my pink-hued moment of glory has arrived.

what, THE fuck, is so SURPRISING, nicki minaj, that you always have to wear a look of such profound amazement on your face? it can't be that pink hair because we've seen the 7,894,327 ways you can wear pink hair. you ain't nothing spektakalar, girlfriend. i don't even know what you sing, and because the sight of your face is instantly so repulsive, i am thus repulsed to give your music a go. so shut up because i'm running out of snarky things to say about you.

and the kardashians. speaking of uni-face, that kim kardashian always makes the same, exact, "i-point-my-face-down-yet-look-you-straight-in-the-eye-because-i-learned-from-my-bff-since-we-were-like-six-paris-hilton-that-it-makes-your-nose-look-smaller."

umm, why do we care, again, what kim kardashian's nose looks like? why do we care about kim kardashian? and why does their family have like 6 shows on every channel? i saw today that the tranny one (and i can call her that because she said so in her cosmo article) has ANOTHER show with her husband. am i odd man out because i just don't care about these girls with all the misspelled names?

ok i'm done venting negativity.
'till next time.
xo
BMLI

mondaysmiles

2011-03-14T15:37:00.000-04:00

i love that little flash of "whoa, they got me" resignation i get when i transcend the normal consumer and realize a clever marketing campaign worked on me. sporting more than a savvy eye on the business, i know the ins and outs of clever words like "organic" and "natural" and their ability to turn shit to gold; i'm the pin to the happy balloon of hopeful language; i know why certain things are on certain pages of certain magazines, which makes them seem insipid before i even acknowledge what dry celebrity is even on the cover. and yet, i get a thrill out of catching myself past the threshold of "wendy's healthy options," actually thinking, because it's fish and has something to do with salad, it qualifies as healthy, this warm yellow thought washing over the next few weeks of menu planning before abruptly turning grey with the realization that the same rancid oil deep fryers and burger presses used to make the rest of the fare are most likely responsible for the preparation of said "healthy fare."

it's as sincere a marketing campaign as the eggland's best attempt at reconciling with PETA.

one day, the filibuster alone caused by a congressional bill called the "it's all fun and games until everybody dies of morbid obesity act" will spur reality shows, their sequels, and several tell-alls published on edible paper sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and i'll be swinging on my trapeze in heaven, engaged in a straddle whip with my husband, laughing at all those silly people down below, chewing themselves to death.

was that morbid or funny?

xoxo
BMLI

putting it out there

2011-02-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

i have nothing to say but at the same time everything. somebody throw me a life saver filled with mental metamucil because i am creatively constipated. just the opposite of a block, i'm full of stuff to say but an inability to say it for whatever reason has caused my creative sphincter to clench without rest.
con. sti. pa. ted. is the opposite of constipated emancipated?

i've decided to start posting regularly on this thing again. i haven't contributed anything recently because, as i said, i've been creatively constipated. i felt that, if what i posted wasn't some huge, conceptual essay with the bite of baby and universal appeal of those damn stieg larsson books, then it wasn't worth posting. well, it's my blog. it's my voice, my wall, my forum, my shopping mall. if i choose to open a kiosk that sells outdated calendars well past the holiday season simply because i like the look of them, then i will open that kiosk and situate it right next to my favorite mall store, the hot topic. because in a high school like wyoming valley west, sometimes going goth is all a boy has to stand out from the logo t-shirt, ill-fitting jeans sporting crowds.

i want to shed my skin for a day and try something else on. see how the others live from their perspective, just so i can be reminded that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, so that at the end of the day, i can retire to my vividly verdant meadow and rest assured that i'm not missing out on somebody else's party. mine is just fine.

ok i rhymed enough to get some semblance of juice flowing. here i go, again on my own...
xoxo
BMLI

awakened

2010-11-18T10:09:00.001-05:00

i woke up this morning from a dream in which i was hosting a morning talk show, feeling the searing pain of a hangover while interviewing president obama, and the first words out of my mouth as i emerged from bed were, "tonight i'm going to see marie osmond sing the hits from 'les mis'" and i'm not sure what any of this means, but there it was and there it will always be.

i think subway seats should be reserved for those holding a special ticket, one passengers pay extra for, and for which they must qualify. i use my commute time constructively, as many of my fellow passengers. i write on the train every morning, words that form the foundation of what will one day be history's greatest literary masterpiece and when i can't sit because some geriatric would rather take up two and a half seats so she can SLEEP the whole way there, a whole new magma-laden pocket of rage arises and i shake with ire and anxiety. i must give off heat.
so to get one of these special passes, one must take an aptitude test to make sure one qualifies, submit writing samples, etc. this man who is always on my D train, who must embody at least 5 different ethnicities, makes jewelry on the way to work every morning. he is talented. he should have a seat. i write every morning. i make
beautiful words. i make people happy. i should have a seat. a woman who insists on wearing the same tweed burgundy tam every day of the week, with every outfit, has been reading the power of now deserves a seat, as she'll no doubt spread her newfound knowledge of self-awareness with the rest of the world. we should all sit together.
miss mabel williams, who parks her 3 foot derriere over the span of two seats and treats her 15 minute subway ride as if it were a private sleep chamber, should not have a seat. it's called tylenol PM and it's available over the counter. go to bed earlier. there's no more "golden girls" to watch at 8am every morning, at least until Christmas is over, so sleep an extra half hour. there are options to being more alert, and stealing two seats from me is not one of them.

i've said my peace and it feels like a huge burp after more than my helping of dessert.

xo
BMLI

sitting pretty

2010-11-17T13:41:00.000-05:00

my fascination with women applying their makeup on the subway lent an interesting thought today. i noticed that, no matter who the woman is, how much makeup she is applying, what forms her aesthetic inspiration (gwyneth paltrow vs. elvira) or who she wishes to channel as she leaves her subway vanity fully made up, she always forms the same serious, almost grave-like stare devoid of movement. this makes her look like a statue.

veddy eenteresteeng.
xo
BMLI

the light at the end...

2010-11-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

just became so insignificant when compared to the string of environmentally-friendly LED lights that line the inside of the tunnel. just saying.

so today is special because i thought of something fantastic before bed last night--i'm getting all transecndent on your asses, so get ready.
as i drifted off to sleep, one last thought poked its pointy head through the black velvet curtains of sleep: i am. and before i could interrupt with a, "what?" he said, "i am here."
duh. so am i. then i realized my pointy-headed sleep character was, in fact, me, as he lives in my mind and is a product of my inner manifestation of thought. but "here" took on a new meaning, as if a scroll were unfurled before me and a golden explanation shone forth. i can never be there. only here. because once i reach there, wherever there may be,whether it's a goal set 20 years from now, or a location two feet away, the point from which i projected my desire to be there will be a place i was that now exists in the past, and the past does not, in fact exist. (memories exist, but the past cannot physically exist).
so i will always be here. i can be there, but when i am there i am actually here because it is in my present, the only time in which i can physically exist.
i love that. it speaks volumes in favor of equanimity. releasing one's actions into the world without the faintest concern of their effect, a contentment brought on by one's ability to release such actions from a source of inner peace.

also, the other day when i was walking, i noticed i had harbored a rather annoying rock in my shoe for several hours, and even though i was mere feet from the subway station i was about to descent into, i stopped, took my shoe off, tipped out the stone, and realized how precious that moment was. and how overdue.

life takes on new meaning when it is weighted with reason. i feel like a word that a writer deliberates underlining. the word screams for more definition, practically jumping off the screen, begging, pleading for recognition from all the other words, and finally, the writer highlights the word, clicks the underline button, and voila! that word stands out loud and proud.
meeting my gian paolo has given me that definition. i feel a source of inner light that grew dim suddenly roar to life. the tunnel i had been navigating isn't just illuminated, it's dotted with colorful bursts of light like endless strings of holiday lights, adding that evocative touch that only holiday lights can, in an unexpected yet yearned for way. like seeing such lights at a summer party. the holidays aren't a present thought, especially in the middle of july, but those lights warm an inner part of every attendee. something we all want, and when we receive it, something we all find we need.
as does the sweet wine that fuels such joviality.

Xs and Os to all
BMLI
(note new signature)

Blurgh

2010-10-06T12:19:00.005-04:00

[Note: the following is expressed with copious amounts of duly-felt rage, but under the guise of proactive political embellishment, kind of like some perverse Hallmark series]

So I’ve officially had it with this world. It’s no surprise, my disgust with much of this plane, but in the tradition of things taking the cake to define their superlative nature, this takes it back to the bakery and throws it into the face of its baker.

I am so over all of these teen suicides spurred by repressed homosexuality. I’m not referring to the conflicting feelings of those who kill themselves, but to the repressed homosexuality of the ones who dish out the relentless taunting, the arbitrary judgment, and the assholeism that causes other people to question themselves, resulting in a murder. The word “suicide” is the prosecutor’s scapegoat for not having enough constitutional evidence to convict one of a crime they committed with words or their fists. To call these base humans “bullies” is laughable. True “bullies” are harmless, and only exist within the confines of teenage television shows. The “bully” on Clarissa Explains it All never called Sam a faggot, as he would have in real life. Those in question here are not bullies. They are nefarious beings with evil intent, committing a different kind of first degree murder, plotting the death of their victim and carrying out the execution with words, verbal (and sometimes physical) daggers, like a slow torture. Nefarious, and yet confused. I pity them. They are a people afraid of their own identities, afraid that they won’t be the things they regard as ideal, and their lack of self respect causes them to lash out irrationally to suck whatever semblance of self respect they sense in others, gay kids, who flaunt it. They’re vampires, and they kill just as the fictional figures so trendy and money-making nowadays.

It’s disgusting. I want to produce my own “it gets better” video but I’d also include the “bullies.” Those delusional people who secure their sad existence by feeding off others. I’d take a musical version of it to rural and suburban high schools and middle schools, where hatred is tolerated. Hatred IS tolerated, proliferated, and celebrated in this country. If you allow it to happen, you support it. Suspending a “bully” as a disciplinary action is giving him a day off to watch Ice Road Truckers and rest up for another day of torture. We’re not the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” Nobody here is free. We may have been free for five minutes, but human nature positions others to use their freedom to take away the liberties of others. They are the vampires. They are the cowards. So much for being brave. Humans are sad, self-destructive creatures. No other organism in this world is as self-destructive as the human race. Cancer cells are better than humans—they may attack all that surrounds them, but at least they are nice to each other.

Look at the psychological side of it even deeper—these “bullies” depend upon their victims for validation, to officiate their mere existence. The more validation they get, the more they want. It becomes a dependence, an addiction. After the third beating, they may even forget why they do it. Sure the initial impetus to beat and assault is brought on by hatred born from difference, generated from lack of intelligence, and probably congenital, but after it becomes more about attending to an addiction to feed this vampiric need, this torture becomes a routine for the one who doles it out.

I think humans are the best, if not only, example of an organism that cannot live with freedom. They exploit it. They create arbitrary rules and then alter them to simply contain other humans. Marriage: I don’t care how many instances of it there are in The Bible, it is a manmade institution. Man created it, and now man can control it. Yet man will assign his fabricated institutions to God, giving them religious weight, more food with which to quote The Bible only when it’s convenient for them. Separation of church and state can exist only when it works in middle-American man’s favor, the partially hydrogenated, high fructose corn syrup-laden majority that makes all the ill-fated decisions that ultimately become the burden the educated constituents of this sad, toddler of a country must bear. Don’t tell me I’m free because I am not. I can’t marry who I want to marry. I am prohibited from living the same life as the person next to me on the subway, and therefore, I am not free. And neither are you. Prohibiting one liberty compromises all liberties. Next up: Gay. Let’s pretend gay is an elective decision like most of this sad country believes. Let’s put rules on what gays can and can’t do. Let’s subject gays to a modern day version of the Jim Crow Laws, and let’s turn our head the other way when it actually comes to repairing this situation. Let’s let ignorance run the country it established.

Freedom doesn’t work. It’s the sad truth that forms the basic delusion that every American believes they have, or at least recites without investing further thought. I’d like to bulk up on twinkies and head out west, stopping somewhere between Ohio and Mississippi to ask random, overweight, 9-11 commemorative t-shirt wearing people, “So, you patriotic Americans, living the ‘American Dream,’ how are YOU free? What are your individual liberties?” Once they’ve picked through the Pop Tart wrappers and remember something about “that there Constitution thing” that may (or may not—you know conspiracy theories are born from metastasized balls of Little Debbie boxes) have formed the basis of this nation, their answer will probably sound like, “Well I’m free to eat what I want to eat, and think what I want to think.” Yes, on the first count, they are absolutely correct. And their skyrocketing triglyceride levels, not to mention their supple fupas, form the archetype for the typical American citizen. I’ll also sound for them the “correct!” bell on the second count, as they can, indeed, conceive as numerous and creative thought as possible. But what good are thoughts if they don’t become realities?

Freedom of Speech is the only pure liberty we have, how quickly it can be turned into a weapon that imprisons others. Read this: Shit at Funerals
Even if you feel you can exercise your own freedom of speech, there are many areas of your life that are governed by others, whether by morality or choice, their authority related to you via speech. We are all imprisoned by this "liberty."

Thoughts are like a barren cabinet, where you find only a box of baking soda and that familiar orange cylinder of baking powder, two vital ingredients for something that could be decadent and delicious, two ingredients that remind you of something so wonderful, so attainable, yet so powerless. And you could do something about it, but that would require effort. Motivation. Intelligence. Three things most Americans lack. Americans are humans. Humans are stupid. You do the math.

I’m not saying Americans are the ones responsible for this ridiculous behavior known as human nature, but they are the ones closes to home (for obvious reasons). Sometimes I think the Bubonic and Black Plagues came just in time, as ignominy sneaked up on the world, welling up among its people and just before it could completely take over, BAM! Dead people all over the place. It was a bloody mess, but it was a cleansing mess. Sometimes you have to dump that box of baking soda all over the counter in order to get a shiny finish, but after it’s all cleaned up, your counter looks like brand new. And then you’d have the motivation to go buy the rest of the ingredients to make your damn cake. I feel that if something like that were to happen, I’d look down from heaven and, despite the very nature of heaven exonerating its inhabitants from experiencing any form of regret or concern over the cause of one’s death or the consequences, feel like my demise contributed to this new beginning.

I sit here now and I feel what those five dead teenagers should be feeling, watching their murderers from heaven. They are free, and probably laughing at all the shit humans have to deal with. Laughing not because they have it better, but because they see just how unnecessary it is. How all this unrest and inequality is created by us, for us. “By the people, for the people.” Sound familiar? Democracy was intended to preserve freedom, but seeing as how freedom just doesn’t work, democracy has sublimated into the thin glass veil that forms the tank that contains a population comprised solely of male Siamese fighting fish, all flaunting their fancy fins, on the edge of tearing to shreds their closest inhabitant.

Now after that dramatic ending, the resolution, for I’m nothing if not consistent (I’m also intensely random at all times, the frequency of which still qualifies me as consistent). The way around all of this, the way to exist successfully in a world devoid of pure freedom is to reinvent freedom and feel it on a more personal level. It’s simple in both concept and execution. It’s also been said many times before: express yourself, don’t repress yourself. Pass on this word. Speak up. Carry mace and spray those motherfuckers in the face when they call you a fag. Get sent to the principal and tell them that the liberties bestowed upon you as a fellow American have been compromised. Let them suspend you. Expel you. Then take your day off, wake up late, watch The Golden Girls, then The View, get all pumped up and call CNN and tell them why you’ve been suspended. Tell them you fought back. Tell them you could have been the next suicide victim, the next murder victim, chased to your death by a very real form of assault, but you kicked the chasing hounds in the face and defended your liberties. You shouldn’t be hunted—you are not prey. Not to worry about your school record being marred—I think the defense of one’s liberty in the face of growing corruption would inspire one hell of an application essay, launching a feeding frenzy for college admissions committees. Brand yourself as a revolutionary before graduation and your diploma will be worth its weight in gold. Work for it. Earn it. Turn that moment when you turn in your cap and gown into a significant shedding of all that has bound you to stand for second best, and sing the following anthem to melodically lead you in whatever direction your individual liberty will take you. And for goodness’ sake, smile.

there he is!

2010-09-26T21:01:00.000-04:00

back i am. and though i haven't gone anywhere, i feel as though i've taken a trip around the world and came back with a dog and a new haircut. that is the cliche, isn't it? or was that just the odd appendage that lurked somewhere near the climax of the first sex and the city movie? hmmm.
anywho.

though i didn't go anywhere physical, i did, in fact, take a trip. i took a trip around me and learned a few things. strengths. weaknesses. the ability to appreciate both. now you may ask, "but bryanambition, how did this all come on?" well i'll tell you, and i won't even stretch this part out in an arbitrary way to build suspense, ultimately leading to an announcement that could come as both a triumph or a tremendous disappointment to those who read it, relative to the person who is, in fact, reading it: LOVE (ooh, and it's in capitals!) mindblowing, reinventing (and consequently inventing) love. i'd go into more detail on this love, but i think its immense power and energy will unfold as i write, both here and in future entries (of which there will be many, of course, and at a rather accelerated frequency. love inspires).

but what i will say here will be very personal. and, in true tradition to all matters personal, highly ambiguous, for the love i want to convey i wish to be applicable to all.
gian paolo:
made ME love.
opened my eyes.
made me happy (and four and a half seconds spent with me gives the impression that i'm, like, way happy, right off the bat. well that wasn't nothing).
showed me who i was.
made dunkin donuts feel like the petrossian bakery.
made me humble. i feel like i've learned how to honor.
and, for once, at a loss for words.

more to come, as the sun is always rising.

xo
b.a.

current stuff

2010-07-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

an unprecedented flash of what's happening:

obama meets with british p.m. david cameron...

and they dressed alike for the occasion. [CNN]

pennsylvania installs breathalizer monitors on wine vending machines...

i'd really like to know why PA thinks it must run this underdog race against liquor. you could buy beer in the damn duane reade in nyc, but verboten booze on a sunday in pa? ridic. [MNN]

blohan goes to jail...

and qualifies as breaking news on e! online, spurning a "lindsay jail primer" and streaming video feed. i suppose the oil spill now palins in comparison. [e!]

the plans to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks in NYC...

ummm...to quote my bff, "really?" i've put more deliberation into which foot to start my weekly nail trim. remember the three-word slogan that ruled the 90's, just say no? let's try that. [CNN]

and last, but surely not least, the apple iphone 4 shituation...

seriously? it's an iphone. if you don't like it, you're obviously jealous. like my favorite sorority t-shirt read in college, don't hate what you ain't. go pretend you're cool with your big bad android.

and i've just realized that wasn't very much fun. the whole news thing. tomorrow i'll be back to perversifying just about every ethical notion i can get my hands around.

b.a.

it's a dealbreaker, gentleman.

2010-07-07T17:09:00.000-04:00

recently i found myself watching the episode of 30 rock that featured protagonista liz lemon preaching a tirade of dealbreakers, a knack realized after creating a similar character for the show she writes. after hearing such terse bits of advice as, "he thinks he deserves a vajayjay update. he doesn't. he's not tom brady. shut it down--dealbreaker," i realized that the ladies could have dealbreakers, too. speaking in a heterosexual stance, i saw one this morning, and i'm going to relate it to you plain and simple:

girls...who cap their jersey dresses off with a backpack and a yankee's cap: dealbreaker! i don't care what your flip flops say. you shouldn't be wearing them, either. double dealbreaker!
girls...who think a jersey dress qualifies as anything but a jersey dress: dealbreaker!
girls...who think "coordinating your outfit" means matching your coach monogrammed bag to your coach monogrammed sneakers: dealbreaker!
girls...who wear sunglasses sporting a "D" on one arm, but no "G" on the other: dealbreaker!
girls...who refer to their male companions, romantic or platonic, as any or all of the following: my man, my beau, or the guy: dealbreaker, dealbreaker, DEALBREAKER!

meanwhile, i've a night of multiple shake weight workouts ahead of me. if you'll excuse me.
xo
b.a.

stubbed toes and no-shows

2010-07-01T13:35:00.000-04:00

normally when you make glue, first you have to thermoset your resin...

eew. i just had warm tuna tartare. it was awful and completely unnecessary. like children.

so today i'm going to wax a bit personal. i hope you don't mind. it was brought to my attention today by a concerned reader/fan/devotee/drone, whatever we're calling consistent blog readers nowadays, that the entries of the past few months allude to the fact that i might, in fact, have a heart. and consequently a soul. and such a prospect frightens me. duh, something beats in this 22 year-old chest, but you can't let them know that. and so i fervently sought the evidence, and found this, this, and THIS (which, incidentally, caused me to elicit an outright UGH at myself). what's happening? this same boy who, just recently, extolled the virtues of incorporating the C word into her vernacular to his mother, is now pushing balloons as part of jolly home decor?

i suppose people do change. and it has nothing to do with getting older. that i don't do. that i won't do. that i can't do. and speaking of change, today i realized that i have this intense desire to befriend an older woman. something about a certain white maned, post-menopausal vixen sporting prada glasses and carrying a 92nd st Y tote bag that i encountered on the subway the other day held the appeal of a goldmine of patent leather, and i found myself inordinately attracted to her. i wanted to hang out with her. i wanted to hear her floorboards creak as she walked from the kitchen to the couch, sat herself next to me, and presented me with my third cup of chamomile tea. i wanted to discuss rope rugs and how she used to fool around with girls while at smith, before marrying her amazing husband of 46 years who is currently studying primates in sub-saharan africa as part of CUNY's doctoral program on primate anthropology. and how she wants me to join her tonight to watch mildred pierce on TCM and how when she watches movies, she can't just sit there and watch the movie so she is a closet needlepointer, never daring to expose her 'guilty passion' as she calls it to her friends, for fear they'll make the same association between needlepointing and old age that she's held fast to since she watched her very elderly grandmother needlepoint as a little girl. but she needlepoints, and i would needlepoint that night, too. and i would take the same subway home afterward if i weren't invited to stay the night first.
and all would be well.

so i'm accepting applications for an older woman friend. and by older woman, i'm staying within the confines that exist outside of both cougar and colostomy bag chick.

and that, my dear suze orman-watching friends, is all for today.
xo (and everything in between)
b.a.

falling off the wagon

2010-06-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

so last night was my first fashion party in ages, but it can't quite qualify as me having fallen off the wagon, considering there was no temporary euphoric high. and rather than rant and, well, rant about how it went, i thought i'd sum it up in a cache of memorable quotes:

"i think she's a little overdressed." "a little?" "ugh, and that jewelry--honey, it's lariats of fire!"

"see that dark corner where nobody's standing? get me there. the less i see, the better."

"as for the hors d'oeuvres, solely comprised of mini cupcakes, i have apt bite-sized advice: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. little moment, little lifetime. think about it."

in response to all the gaga references, both implied by the overwhelming presence of holey leather pieces and fingerless gloves and such, as well as the fact that the words "lady" and "gaga" hung like a dank cloud not far above the crowed, "that lady gaga is a pain in the ass, and not the good kind."

as for the abundance of men's gladiator sandals, "i wrote a status about those once, and you know that's never a good thing."

after making the acquaintance of a boy named "pasha," "you know as well as i do that guy was born roger herbert himmelstein. his l.l. bean backback read RHH until he was 13 and found one of his mother's vogues."

"wow, nice pale pink jacket. i've never seen that one before." and to same unfortunate wearer, "honey, is that a comb over?"

"there's more lady gaga in here than on the girl who thinks she's madonna."

"bowties should never be paired with daisy dukes. never."

"nothing makes a cheap dress look worse than a room full of cut-off tank tops."

"this place is full of so much unintentional irony." "there is a lot of irony in here." "but do they know they're being ironic?" "even alanis got the meaning of that word wrong, and she wrote a song about it." "do they think they're being fashionable?" "probably, but i think they're just assholes."

"this place is a testament to the fact that hair products should require a license to be purchased. last time i saw hair this bad was when i thought about the hair at this party."

regarding the two boys who feigned twindom by dressing like "identical" nerds, "don't you dare tell me they're from brooklyn, the land where kitch grows on trees and hummus is a food group."

and that about sums it up.

xo
b.a.

i can't friday

2010-06-11T09:47:00.002-04:00

today, the latest testament that no one is safe from my photographic reign of terror

so one of my usual tirades of wicked, impetuous judgment brought on by tired mornings made me particularly attuned to this kicky topper, and not surprisingly as i made my way down the UWS, the city's archive of old school weirdos, housing in perfect preservation both the pre-stonewall queens, admirably deluded into thinking chaps and gold hoop earrings are still in, as well as the oddly articulate "ladies who layer," a term that describes both their excessive use of sunscreen that results in a signature ghostly pallor, and their tendency to layer as much color and texture as their vintage laura ashley and chico's wardrobe will allow, into a fashion statement that best resembles a cross between your favorite braided rug and a renaissance fair costume, all providing an essential enclave of vital new york city heritage, sort of like a living diorama from the museum of natural history but set to a donna summer-heavy soundtrack.

and it was in that milieu, that hat. clearly a conscious decision on her part, and even clearer are the demons that possessed the quadrant of her brain responsible for common sense.
girlfriend looked like mackenzie phillips from the front, which would have explained a lot, what with the tomes of psychological studies linking the cranial use of boiled wool with childhood incest and all, but i was still trying to understand why this "i made it on the daily bus ride to and from make your own granola class' arts and crafts hive of hell finds itself atop a head in full salute in the middle of june. and just when i thought the answer would dawn on me, it sat down next to me, and the faux crackled leather skirt that nudged my leg roused up a whole 'nother hive of issues.

and what's why nyc will kill ya if you live here too long.

xo
b.a.

[ed. note: this was the 200th entry. candles.]

breathing in

2010-06-09T09:45:00.000-04:00

i don't think one should ever finish a book they enjoy in any place other than their favorite. take it for granted that one's favorite place can change whenever one discovers a more superior destination deserving of one's personal devotion. the course of the book can be enjoyed anywhere one pleases, whether consummating a quiet night at home, providing an entertaining distraction while in transit, or infusing an academic pursuit with relative knowledge, but the that book should not end where it is not appreciated, bathed in a light of complete love and openness of heart. to finish a book where you can't appreciate is to do that book an injustice.

the hypocrite of circumstance i am, at least for today, finished the sun also rises, a book i had to quickly mature well beyond my years to appreciate, while barreling down the west side this morning, and even though the ending can be filed under 'bittersweet,' assigning to it a cliche that makes it more memorable, i suppose, all i remember is the word 'pretty' and i'm none too pleased about that. call it lack of willpower. call it overwhelmingly compelling. what makes me happier than happy, though, is the tsunami that surged through that subway car at the very moment of conclusion. regardless of my ephemeral state, i still felt hit by the immense weight of every word that formed the final quote as it happened, sealing the book as the most intense of memories, a vicarious experience full of places and textures and smells and wetness i never lived. but it wasn't the cresting tsunami that hits the island and clears a path of destruction, it was the infantile tsunami, the one that slightly lifts the tiny boats that ironically bob on the surface of the ocean many miles out, as it passes underneath them, imperceptible but carrying the same mighty weight that will both change and end lives a matter of minutes after the tiny swell nobody even notices. i was the tsunami, the other passengers were the boats. i didn't let out a sound or even twitch in reaction, but exuded an electricity, and everybody in that car exited an ion at the next stop.

and that is me, for today.
xo
b.a.

catching the breath i've been running after all these years

2010-05-27T16:29:00.000-04:00

i could hardly think straight (well, considering) after i heard this little tidbit of news: today is definitely a time to shine, especially for the queens who voraciously raid the racks at the forever 21 for anything and everything sequined in XL that they can get their shiny claws on, as hsn went pubs about the exciting line of clothing and accessories designed by none other than the matron of mein herr, the wigged witch of the west, the heroine of heroin, the bedazzled acme of alcoholics, the one and only, now and forever (and ever and ever, it would seem) miss deck-the-halls-with-boughs-of-judy-garland-holly's daughter, liza minnelli. that's right, the queer queen bee is hanging her sequined hat on the model form, but instead of turning in the towel, she's giving it a smattering of rhinestones and spawning a line of clothing and accessories that are sure to stun, stupefy, but surely not suck your wallet dry (add some vibrato to that) for it is hsn, after all.
so what can we expect from the lady for whom a day without lamé is downright outré? no specifics have been divulged yet, but the 64 year old is nothing if not the scion of longevity. who else can rewear the same black sequined poncho for thirty years straight without one slam from joan rivers? who else is capable of, well, just wearing palazzo pants? who else can make the same dykey hairstyle work for the past 50 years? and really, every other alcoholic of her era either made themselves comfortable six feet under ages ago or plugs into a machine everyday for renal refreshment, and ol' girl just last year pops onstage and coughs her way through a collection of showtunes called liza's at the palace and takes home the mothereffing tony! i'm just saying.
so whatever finds itself at the retail helm of an over-madeup, extension-wearing, goes-by-kathy-but-was-probably-born-deborah salesgirl during some fashion hour on hsn is bound to be in-fucking-credible. we can't promise the above halter number that found fame as the ideal gear for riding a chair in cabaret, but where there's a liza, there's a ~~lush~~ way and we've no doubt the only risk associated with her venture into fashion will be the slip of the loose sequins strewn about the floor (you can't expect a six year-old to master such painstaking detail at such a young age).
and the best news, by far, for the aforementioned queens on a mission, is that liza's looks are as close as the nearest stolen wifi signal.

friday fabulous

2010-05-21T18:05:00.002-04:00

in exactly 20 moves, the queen will top~~ple~~ the king...

nothing beats a stream of consciousness fueled by a muscle milk. nothing.
neither does sporting a biker shorts/tank top combo in front of a window that allows the entire south side of the facing building to observe one's progressive fashion antics en masse.

so just to recap the day: it was nice out, sunny and vibrant, which for any location below 14th street, means the mean queens in ripped jeans strut their tiny asses in gladiator sandals and sunglasses so dark they think they're making a fashion statement but can't see clearly enough to actually take notice. and you don't look at these queens, oh no. that's the surest way to spending the rest of eternity cast in concrete, for their icy stares take you straight to stone. a leisurely stroll around soho finds itself soured by the cloudy infiltration of the dark force they bring (and boy do they bring it) for they only travel in twos.
i was brazen enough to indulge my craving for a hot dog avec everything on a corner so long as i consoled myself by humming "i am what i am" and imagining how good my post-wiener spearmint wisp would feel preparing my palette for the rest of the afternoon and what/whom would lie in it.

now i feel empowered.

and that, my dear friends, is how a weekend should begin.

xs and os
b.a.

supplications fulfilled twenty years just in time

2010-05-13T20:59:00.001-04:00

this is my roommate. he's a raging alcoholic, but he has a reason...

so arriving home from yet another day that exceeded the ante set by the previous, a pattern made exponentially upward, has made this week one of the most momentous i've ever experienced, at least in the case of vocational inertia. in other words, i love my fucking job. and i'd go on and on about why/how/who and where, but that's a whole other issue with a whole other blog heading.

tonight is about dreams come true, or at least one in particular. ok that would also qualify as a venerable header to discuss my new job, but no. this dream is far different. this reality has fulfilled a dream that formed long before such concepts as "job" and "equity" and "botox" even entered my vocabulary. and like every major revelation to hit humanity, i suppose it's still subject to the "one man's treasure is another man's travesty," tenet, which makes the polar opposite of the joy i feel right now a regard of absolute disgust and degradation, which probably causes you to want to know even MORE what my major discovery is. and never one to keep my people waiting too long, i present the unequivocal answer to ~~years~~ generations of ceaseless supplication:

figure A

ok don't even tell me i was the only mizundaztood seven year-old in northeastern pennsylvania so enamored by dog treats that he wasn't only tempted to try them, sinking his little chiclet teeth into the girthy, crunchy mass, but formed an all-out obsession with them. and this is more than just the real deal. as anyone who has come within a stone's throw of my, well, unusual list of personal proclivities knows, it's not just the shape of these that touches a boy's heart via his esophagus, but their graham cracker composition secures them the highest position on my list of, you know, favorite things. a temporary reprise in high school spawned by the discovery of an organic variety of dog treats made of "human-edible" ingredients was but a mere tease for an itch that would require something very specific to scratch (see fig. A). and while i know there's something sick and fundamentally wrong with feeding your children graham crackers shaped like bones that are clearly (and frighteningly) evocative of dog treats, i sort don't give a flying flea what it is

of course the psychotropic euphoria induced by this visceral discovery is to blame for the subsequent pop tart purchase, but with the weekend mere hours away, the time to burn all 200 calories per tart shouldn't be hard to sink my teeth into.

and that, my dear friends, is the high-fiber, omega-3 enriched, ooey gooey goodness of bryanambition for today.
with love, life and lesbian-themed journals,

xo
b.a.

my MO manifesto

2010-04-25T02:06:00.001-04:00

so i've finally reached my mission in life. i knew it was going to be something big, hence why it took so fucking long, but here i am with my story and not the abridged version:

i'm going to start a new race of human being.

it's simple. due to a slew of recent occurrences that left happy bryanambition subdued, hostile and rather bitter, he took his new found negativity and put it through the mental sifter calcified by five years of therapy and honed in on the main problem...the common denominator...the glob of plaque that took up residency in your grandfather's coronary artery causing him an agonizing myocardial infarction and/or subsequent death is, was, and always will be: LOVE.

i'm not going to get all bitter gay on your asses, because the epidemic known as love affects the breeders just as much as it does the gays, and it's not my style to be classified as any one thing for any long period of time anyway, but i'll say this past month has been filled with a shit ton of unnecessary pain, heartache and general hassle that i can all trace back to love. if love weren't present, i'd still be shiny happy bryanambition sucking on a candy cane.
april usually brings showers that inevitably, and with little influence from punxsutawney phil, bring may flowers, but for me, someone who's professed love and positivity as being scions of true life with the ceaseless enthusiasm of the fat yearbook girl in high school, it brought death, disappointment and moral destruction. my favorite aunt just up and died. i lost a wonderful human being i called my boyfriend, and love, ultimately, bore its vicious, serrated and quite snaggle-flawed teeth at me.

well, love, you've smiled your last snaggletooth grin at me. it's time for some invisalign, and by the way--i'm killing you.

so this is what i thought i'd do to save the rest of the world from the nefarious force love is, always has been, and will continue to disguise as such feelings as virtue, happiness, euphoria, pleasantness and validation. i'm going to pretend i don't hate every multiplying cell in the body of every child existent on this planet and get a few of my own. real young ones. young, soft--baby soft--and formative. who don't know life-giving water from runny turtle shit. and i'm going to raise them on the most wonderful organic food there is. i will coddle them, feed their every whim, support them with all the pleasant virtue there is, imbue morals and polished ethics, but i will not, for one second, love them. i will hug and kiss and be sweet as pie. i will provide them with everything that will make them happy. but i refuse to infect them with the worst virus of all, the one for which there is no cure or treatment, and that is, unfortunately, congenitally transmitted in basically 100% of modern births. that virus, of course, is love.

they don't need love. they don't need that awful butterfly feeling bobby anderson causes them to feel before dumping them in front of sandra peters on the playground and making their first crush at age 6 something that will set them up for exponential future disasters. humans don't need to love to live, and if you don't know it to begin with, then you're not deprived of anything. it's the same logic everyone who argues with my pricey philosophy on buying cage-free eggs, that if hens don't know a liberated life that exists outside of a cage, they won't mind spending their life in one. so let's take that ignorance up to the human level, shall we, and see it for the enlightenment it really is.

humans aren't naturally loving creatures. they're social and they're feeling: that's scientifically proven. love is just a superfluous feeling that's bred into them, like the hormones passed from one hen to another that results in increased egg volume, without which they'd live completely fulfilling lives and, as i can attest to, healthier ones. a mother holding her baby so intimately can be displaying love as much as she can be administering tender nurturing. and while a mother can say "i love my children," i've no doubt she does, but does she need to love them? is procreation not, but its very basal existence, simply to ensure proliferation of the human race? love was just stuck in there to keep them coming back for more, and now we suffer worldwide famine and disease because of overpopulation. see where love got us there?

and there's no denying that love causes stress--too fucking much, if you ask me. with love comes a whole set of perfunctory rules that face drastic alterations on a case-by-case basis. if your boyfriend, whom you love doesn't call you when he says he will, you freak out and, obedient to these rules established by the disease, further expand the problem by not calling him OR answering his numerous phone calls. this leads both of you to experience great amounts of unnecessary stress, wasting precious moments of both of your lives and undoubtedly causing early deaths.
then there's the aftermath of a breakup. who the fuck invented this and why? i'll tell you who--LOVE. that's who. the same thing that made you feel like you can't live without that person because they made you feel oh so wonderful about yourself suddenly leaves you feeling like you've lost your reason for living. and questioning yourself, your validity, your worth. and we all know how this shitshow can end up. so why bother loving in the first place?
and marriage?! what the fuck is marriage about. so it's in the Bible. so is stoning, walking on water and parting the red sea, and we don't have any of that today, do we? aside from being the chief biblical text of many a faith today, it's also wonderfully accurate historical record and while some people today still think it's necessary to "put a ring on it" to ensure one's security with another, because that's what love is all about, isn't it--a fucking ring--it's time we moved on like the rest of the world did in the, oh, 3,000 years that's passed since the old testament made its way on papyrus.
people will still procreate because sex feels good, although at a much lesser rate, saving the world from the destructive overpopulation it now faces.

in her guidebook to all things amorous, all about love, author bell hooks cites m. scott peck's definition of love as her most palatable, "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." sure. you can call that love. and because i don't think the same force behind that will would cause the excruciating heartache and cruel self-flagellation that exists after a breakup, i don't think it should be called love because love is, after, all, responsible for both. i'd rather we identify the word the above definition embodies consideration. if you didn't love to begin with, you wouldn't be the one crying now. and i wouldn't be the one seething with the bitterness of overcooked garlic.

did you ever notice that "begin" and "being" are anagrammatic? cute, since you really can't go into being without beginning. and after you've begun, you are, which is a participle of being. wow.
(see, i haven't completely lost my sparkling touch)

but back to my tirade. i'm going to get a whole bunch of kids, completely unrelated, of course, for we wouldn't want an extra chromosome taking the place of the love i plan to remove. that would be a whole other exorcism in itself. but i digress.
i'm going to raise these children with the unrelenting care, attendance and nurturing they deserve. i want them to have the best of everything. i will raise them to their fullest potential NOT because i love them, but because i care for them. i want them to be happy--fully, genuinely happy. one simply can't be happy with love in their lives.
crazy, right?
here's why: because even if you have met the "person of your dreams," you only think of them as perfect for you because they check off every box on your personal eVALUEation form. get it? they have what you want. they have what you desire. they have what you think must be present in your life to ensure your happiness, and if you really find yourself complete because of another person, good therapy ain't that far away (even with an HMO).

and of course there's friends. "oh i loooove my friends!" that's what we all say and, judging from what love has always done to me in the positive sense, i sure as shit love my friends. they're the most loyal, attentive, considerate and thoughtful people that ever lived. because of the way my friends treat me, i appreciate, revere, respect, will care for, nurture, and support them to ensure their lives are as wonderfully fulfilling as can be. now did we really need to use the word "love" up there? it's not like love is the ultimate feeling.
the rules society has preached to us since the beginning of time have made us think so but love is NOT, in fact, the ultimate feeling. nirvana. the superior euphoria. if it were, it wouldn't be used as casually and freely as it is, to describe such ephemeral things as gum and nailpolish colors, and most importantly, it wouldn't make us feel like slitting a wrist when things go wrong with those we appoint as "loved ones."
i'm so right i stink.

my children will grow up to excel in every activity in which they engage. they'll have the same challenges every other child faces except the invisible, unfair crippling distraction love can cause, from the moment it first occupies the tenderest areas of your heart until it hardens it as you breathe your last breath, unsurprisingly sooner than your body planned but undoubtedly due to unnecessary stress.
and these children will walk the earth spreading cheer, wisdom and compassion everywhere they go. they'll wear the latest fashions and sport the trendiest haircuts. i'm hoping several of them are gay. they'll no doubt couple up with other humans to fulfill the naturally social inclinations bred into our pathetically vulnerable race, and inevitably raise their children with the same caring, nurturing values devoid of the despicably gangrenous virus called love. they'll live every second of their lives on a level of enlightenment. they'll feel all the natural feelings life must experience in order to successfully move from one moral plane to another, but they won't find themselves hapless victims fighting a futile war against something so horribly vicious, yet deceitfully invisible.
stress will, inevitably, fade to something felt only on the most extreme occasions, and lose its casual presence.

and those who still hear themselves asking, "but bryanambition, why would you want to rid the world of something so wonderful?" i say, "look up and read those words this time" and then read this:
wonderful? why is love wonderful? because we're told it is? if your parents raised you to walk sideways on St. Patrick's day, justifying this new direction with the same logic behind not touching a hot stove, you wouldn't question it. that is, you wouldn't dare question its existence until that brisk march holiday found you the laughing stock of the entire first grade class, teacher included, mockingly asking, "why are you walking sideways? we don't do that."
as that poor child who suffered needless persecution as he proudly strutted in his classroom wearing green but devoid of exactly one half of his peripheral vision, i've never been more awake, alive and alert. now you're that kid and i'm the class. i'm your wake up call. just because the rest of the world says it's right doesn't mean it is. like spitting your gum on the ground. it makes you a litterbug no matter how you look at it. listen to me and don't be a litterbug. stop shitting on your life.

so join the carpenters and me as we joyously bid adieu to that horribly caustic disease we call love with the same champagne bubbly skip that find its way into your step after receiving great results at the doctor's office.

xo
b.a.

the gilded edges on that rule are tarnished, sweetie

2010-04-14T12:02:00.000-04:00

...reckless is eschewing rent and using your first paycheck to finance something in patent leather from prada that measures approximately 13" x 9".

so yesterday i got to thinking, and as history has shown, that can be a dangerous engagement. i realized something crazy about our little society that, despite the occasional flaws of corruptness or disparity, prides its virtuous existence on being founded and governed by the basic morals and ethics of humanity.

right.
because even cavemen galavanted up and down madison avenue ignoring the conditionally destitute but intrinsically equal homeless cavemen begging for rocks and sticks.

my crazy socioloical discovery goes something like this: we all live the golden rule without even realizing it. no childhood, no matter how traumatic or unusual the method of rearing, escaped regular infusion of the golden rule. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." for many of us, it was the first time we heard the word "unto," intriguing for a first grader. it's a value. a code. a rule, and although anybody who's made it past the age of three knows that rules are meant to be broken, the golden rule is not one of them because we exercise and follow it every day, all day, and in every moment of our lives.

just think of how you normally treat others--if you're a kind person, you give without expected reciprocity, always doing favors and maintaining a somewhat regular sunny, positive disposition. you probably have a photograph of a flower on your computer desktop and if you pass a bakery you find yourself inclined to buy a "just because" cupcake for a friend. if you're a rotten person, you constantly judge others, acting from an invisible pedestal of entitlement. you make fun of homeless people. you don't give your roommate a quarter for laundry even though you have seven in your pocket right now. you operate your evil empire by some nefarious list of commandments kept valid by some equally arcane strength of contempt. and if someone walks into the office with their mentally disabled sibling in tow, you're the audacious one who actually laughs.

the "others" i refer to includes every other human being with whom you come into contact on a daily basis--individuals as random and unknown as fellow subway riders or as intimate as your sister. coworkers and wholefoods employees alike. the guy who bumped you while crossing the street and the lady who told you your shoe was untied. the only person i left out isn't the most obvious, but clearly the most important: yourself.
you have a chance to communicate with all of these people but you won't end up talking to most of them. you will, however, hold constant communion with yourself, from the moment you wake until your eyes start shaking with REM sleep, and as the day goes on, you deal with yourself just as you deal with other people. you contemplate decisions with yourself just as you do with a coworker. you discuss the sadness of a loved one's death with yourself just as you do with your sister. you love yourself just as you love your boyfriend and you hate yourself just as you hate your enemy. just because you can't hear the conversations that pass between you and yourself doesn't mean they don't occur.

i suddenly thought, "that makes a shit ton of sense. why wouldn't i extend to myself the same treatment and regard as i do others?"

i think we tend to overlook ourselves as the same weighty individuals as those we coexist with because that existence doesn't register with the same logic as someone separate from us who we can see and hear and interact with. strip the skin off us and we'd look the same as sally mae heathers across the aisle wearing those hideous purple mary janes. if we were computers, our systems would run on only one operating system just like the mac that brings you this very important message--there's not one OS to run your life and a separate OS to process everybody else. there's just one, and the set of instructions it contains that tells us how to act influences our behavior toward ourselves in the same way it directs our behavior toward others.

where it gets really crazy, though is when you consider the amount of harm you do to yourself compared with that you dole out to others. say today you are rotten to five different people: lydia at the duane reade, jamal at the whole foods, your mother, candace at your credit card company and some anonymous guy who caught your headphones cord on his mad dash out of the subway. motive aside, you judged lydia for being too slow, you laughed at jamal because he was wearing an eye patch, you told your mother to shut the fuck up because she was harassing you about finances, you told candace at bank of america to shove your overdraft fees up her ass after she's done fucking herself and the headphone cord guy escaped with his life and both testicles by the grace of the subway door that closed just in time. you splattered five people with negativity on five separate instances. your motivation for being mean isn't what's important here, it's simple mathematics. even though five completely unrelated people fell victim to your negativity, each one only suffered one hit.
and then there's you: every time you viewed yourself, asked yourself a question, weighed the options, caught a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, or reviewed something you had written, your perception was tainted with the same negativity you extended to everybody else, and you were just as rotten. this time, however, it's you taking all the hits, and considering how active the human brain is on a daily basis, there may have been thousands of them.
no wonder you're such a bitch.

we treat ourselves just as we treat others. it's the golden rule sans the one asset that forms the very core that deems it a virtue: free will.

then i realized how cyclic human behavior can be. when you're nice to others, you're nice to yourself which makes you happy which makes you nice to others which makes you nice to yourself which makes you happy...yeah. i get it.
but when you're rotten to others, you're rotten to yourself which only makes you feel even more rotten which makes you rotten to others again and back to being rotten to yourself and even though this insidious pattern keeps therapists in business, maybe it's time you planted a nice ficus tree in the junkyard of your mind and broke the cycle. my mama always said, "you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar," but that rule only holds true when you take to heart the bedazzled tenets rupaul extended at the conclusion of her short-lived but no less iconic vh1 show, "love yourself because if you can't love yourself, how the hayll you gonna love somebody else?" thanks.

xo
b.a.

the death knell ringeth again

2010-04-12T18:39:00.000-04:00

saturday, april 10th, 2010.
while most of us were awoken by the realization we wasted most of the day in bed, delta burke, no doubt, saw the first light of day shining from her ringing phone. a scratchy answer set off a trumpet blare on the other end, her manager, that probably went something like, "dixie's dead! get out of bed, glue on those falsies and make up some memories, sister, because you're a eulogy away from a new career!"
ya'll loved designing women so don't deny it.

but, seriously, what is with this sudden onset of pop culture mortality? this recent article really cemented the fact that everyone who is anyone has met their demise, and it's befitting a rather morose trend.
last year lost bea arthur, michael jackson, farrah fawcett and patrick swayze. and my grandmother. this year dixie carter, corey haim, john forsythe, and the munchkin coroner from the wizard of oz added a second date to their IMDB profiles. and my aunt.

i'm not sure if any of this has a point, but there is the point where one has to stop and smell the formaldehyde and say, "people, stop dying!"
there also has to be that point where people stop wearing shirts that billow out like mushroom clouds. there's nothing cute about extra room except when it's on an airplane.

later, gators.
xo
b.a.

a slice of the divine

2010-03-25T15:18:00.000-04:00

God exposed himself to me today on a slice of chocolate marble pound cake facing outward from the display case at the starbucks on broadway and bleecker. at least i thought it was him. it was clearly a face, a nonchalant expression, just staring at me. it was distorted, of course, just as any face that chooses to manifest itself in a piece of marble pound cake is expected to be abstract. how did i know it was God? because only the really special faces are allowed to form the chocolate swirls of a starbucks 400 calorie slice of marble pound cake into their likeness. he had really droopy cheeks and his eyes were almost sad, but they could have just been preoccupied. i was going to buy the divine slice as i had no doubt all 21 grams of fat would be delicious, but instead i just said "hi" back and made my third request for soymilk from the green-aproned incompetent behind the counter.

sometimes the best faces pop up in the most obscure places.
case-in-point, skip to 2:36 in the above video for one of the best songs of this generation and you'll see the innocently radiant face of a boy who launched a thousand ships, only to have them return because all thousand crews missed him so. he put his face inside God's and look what happened.

today my face says, "frame me with more flattering hair, please, and some vitamin D would be nice--regardless of how allegedly dangerous it is to obtain." i put sunglasses on.

xo
b.a.

jeepers, creepers

2010-02-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

where'd ya get those peepers?

so today is going to be one of those saccharine sweet recollection moments. as i reached for several feet of toilet paper to accommodate the technicolor flood that was to pour out of my nose any second (because mere tissues just don't cut it) i noticed an unopened roll sitting nearby, a testament to a certain roommate's regimented thinking ahead and frequent trips to the costco, the label of which contained the word "embossed!" written in pink. at first, i thought how silly to make note of the pattern pressed into the very paper used for post-defecation clean-up, but had that small accent not been presented to me in such a vivid hue, and in such an incidental moment, i never would have taken notice of not only this diminutive detail, but so many others casually thrown into life that, when their very collective magnitude is considered, contribute a great deal of beauty into this world. for reals.
so today is dedicated to the small things that make us smile without even realizing it, like those moments in movies or during sitcoms where you find yourself smiling but don't remember actually employing the muscles to arch your mouth into a display of happiness. monday, february 22nd is for the gold strip nailed to the bottom of the doorway threshold with the woodgrain pattern molded into it. it's for the watercolor patterns stamped onto the bounty big roll. it's for the school bus yellow enamel on #2 pencils that, had it not been for some executive decision to make them sunny, could very well have been boring bare wood or industrial black matte. it's for scented erasers that, even though their intrinsic function is to disappear, please even the most crotchety of noses. it's for the decorative pattern etched into the stainless steel panels that line elevator cars, giving the idle eye something more amusing to fall upon. it's for the yellow and blue plastic strips on zip lock bags that combine to make green without fail, each and every time the bag is zipped. pure magic. it's for whomever decided to make salt and pepper dispensers whimsical, giving the person asked to pass them double duty, both enhancing the taste of food and delivering a smile. it's for the comments that are about to follow...

xo
b.a.

slender shut-ins

2010-02-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

so lately my meager commentage has been primarily comprised of spam messages, most of which are unintelligible ads for male enhancement drugs and penis enlargement devices, but this particular one caught my eye, as it sounds like something gertrude stein might have written had she a) lived past 1946 and b) blogged.

the beginning is both colorful and direct, "design the animalistic with two backs casinos?" but i ADORE "cloth this pacific liquid behind the ears." that is SO a page out of tender buttons and, had it been written today, would probably have been called something like, "sinister ice."

thanks, gertie. ol' girl is talking from the grave.

b.a.

the whore of decor

2010-02-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

because i do think one ought to go to the man's place, if one is able...

so today i was thinking about home decor, a concept i rarely find myself exploring. aside from being the broker joker out of virtually everyone i know, the consequential lack of funding preventing my living space from resembling the andy warhol museum which, if left to my own devices and wads of cash, it inevitably would, i never thought i possessed the correct aesthetic to properly convey my personal likings to furnishings, accents and wallcolors.

then i thought, fuck it, it's my space.

and that's when i realized balloons don't serve nearly enough purposes in the world. filled with helium gas to make them buoyant, the fun, often brightly-colored inflatable misshaped orbs float around all sorts of special ceremonies, providing colorful bursts, quite literally if you take a pin to one, for birthdays, bar mitzvahs, even displaying strict color themes and logos for graduations and weddings (and whomever thought of color schemes for weddings is a whole other issue) but they rarely find a permanent place in the home as part of the interior decor. i suppose this is due to their short lifespan, as the average helium balloon wanes to a sad shrivel after several hours of innocent floating, but on the same ephemeral token, so do flowers. i mean, flowers last significantly longer with proper upkeep, adding special chemicals to the water to prolong both rigidity and color, so maybe a special type of helium gas blend and impermeable coating could be applied to a balloon to increase its life? just think of how chic a few bronze orbs would look silently hovering amidst sleek, black leather couches, shiny brass light fixtures, a brown cowhide rug and a stack of art books on an industrial metal coffee table. chic isn't even the word--more mysterious, perhaps. such an unexpected presence of color and presence itself mid-level in the room, an area past the backs of couches and chairs but not quite high enough for pictures and mirrors and various wall hangings, is both intriguing and curious. and due to their usual appearances at gleeful parties, balloons, regardless of their color, always seem to inspire pleasant memories--birthdays, communion parties, anniversaries, promotions. you never see balloons at funerals or affixed to tombstones, which is my grievance with flowers--an abundance of flowers in any house turns even the most opulent rooms into a somber post-funeral space, the air heavy and eyes averted downward.

so let's keep the latex companies in business and start decorating our houses with balloons.

b.a.

it's getting hot in here

2010-02-07T22:47:00.002-05:00

so take off all your clothes...

I want a breakthrough. I want a lot of things. But right now, what I really want is another Pop Tart.
I just took my third bath of the week. I hadn’t bathed in six or so years, either a stand-up shower stall was all that was available, or time wouldn’t allow (and since when is it acceptable to invest so much authority in something as fleeting and invisible as time?) but recently I found myself with both a tub amply-sized for even semi-luxurious bathing and periods of time I feel would have disappeared had I not spent them submerged in sweet smelling, bubbly water. I think taking a bath is one solid way we can truly exercise our authority in this world. There’s something empowering about creating one’s own body of water, giving rise to one’s own island with one’s own rules and policies and statutes. It’s God-like to create, to sustain, and, with one quick maneuver that may involve lifting a lever or dislodging a C-town bag from one’s drain, to destroy. Bathing can also be therapeutic, giving one the opportunity to figuratively unload superfluous cares and stresses into the same water that will soon join millions of gallons like it in an amorphous mass of discard. Water is never really thrown away, but I don’t think about the repurification process. I don’t care what happens to my water after I’ve used and released it.
Bathing is intimate. All sorts of unloading, unleashing, disencumbering can be excised and released into one’s protective moat of bathwater. Aforementioned anxieties, primal urges, the contents of one’s bladder, even, and because the only judicial presence is created and upheld by you, the bather, no preordained judgment can exist. Of course the masochistic society that governs our sadistic world sticks its adulterated finger into our steamy broth no matter how opaque the shower curtain, but after a few shy attempts, you’ll soon find yourself bathing and in the singularity with which you were born.
Bathing is amniotic. Nothing else matters, nothing else has to exist. It certainly could, if one allows it to, but as the first time spent in the amniotic sac didn’t really extend much choice in the matter, why not resolve to the primal for a while? If “what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” since when are you so affected?
Sometimes I wish I could hold my breath for days. With few exceptions, mostly involving instances in the entertainment industry, very little activity ensues when one holds one’s breath, rendering them virtually dormant. I wish I could be dormant for days on end. I’d come up for air every three days or so, but aren’t we entitled to some time off? There’s something so peaceful about catatonia; I often wonder if the medical conclusions affirming the environmental awareness of comatose patients don’t simply exist for the well-being of their loved ones, to revise their purpose in life to acclimate to the new conditions. Reading to deaf ears is more reassuring than reading to dead ones. Regardless, those ‘trapped’ in comas never wear expressions of pain or agony, rather, they exude peace. They’ve peaced out and they want everyone to be aware of it, but instead of announcing their departure with a sign or party, they simply lie still until their lack of response garners them more attention than an outward shout. And yet a coma wouldn’t be for me—I’d rather the warm feeling of suspension, slight movement predicated only by the natural movement of all with which I exist.
It’s a shame we can’t eat Pop Tarts under water.

xo
b.a.

we don't need another hero

2010-02-01T13:37:00.002-05:00

sing it, tina...

i've situated my usual writing spot in front of a dimly-lit mirror today, round and tarnished, as my expression is nothing but mournful, pulled down not from the gravity centered magnetically deep inside the earth, but the closer one, sourced within my own heart. i'm in what could be the last six, pitiful weeks of my most successful bout with botox yet, and the clean, evenly-spaced ridges on my forehead that made their first appearance in months splashed mud on what would have been a pristine pair of white pants of a morning.

ok, i'm over it, but the real dramedy begins when, upon checking CNN for my daily dose of what's up, i stumble across the video of heidi montag's plastic surgeon, dr. frank ryan, heralding his latest frankensperiment as as hero. the girl with too-big titties and tranny eyes is a hero. nevermind the fact that 50 years ago today four black men took a radical stance against the racism that made their lives unbearable, and mobilized something along the lines of the civil rights movement. they weren't nearly as important as heidi's surgery and the profound effect it has had, and will exponentially continue to have, upon the well-being of this planet. those men and their so-called brazen efforts should pale in comparison. why, they probably had evenly-spaced eyes and cottage cheese thighs and nipples that lined up and--because they were students--most certainly were gifted with brains, deeming them out of miss montag's league and serving as a rich text box bordering what's sure to be several chapters in revised american history textbooks. imperfection is so passé.

heidi's plan to be the flashbulbs' biggest beauty yet severely backfired, sending obscene vibrations through her jigglies, no doubt. she just removed herself from the very spotlight she craved. nobody's taking pictures of heidi montag, anymore--they're capturing a modern day frankenstein. they don't want her story, they want her man-made curves. they want their million dollar close-up of the crowned queen of body dismorphic disorder, now that michael jackson is gone, for at least his vocation was showing people the real beauty of life through art.

i think montag's only act of heroism is the resulting gaggle of people being driven--most likely against their will, as psychological disorders can prove more crippling than physical handicaps--to therapists by friends and spouses for exhibiting similar heidious behavior. psychoanalysts and psychiatrists alike around the world are probably planning their lushest vacations in years, as they've got their work cut out, cropping what's certain to be an emulation trend of madonna proportions. parents, there's no easy way to tell your six year-old that a blepharoplasty is not for them, and heaven help those dealing with the incendiary resolve of teenagers seeking the knife as adamantly as they once vied for manic panic as a way of being 'different.' and as much diy fun as we had piercing our own belly buttons and scraping pen-ink tattoos on our ankles, plastic surgery requires anesthesia, so don't.

the quest for perfection must be a lucrative business for whom or whatever perfection is, because it's been able to finance one hell of a botched surgery job of its own, becoming both unrecognizable and elusive to all its hopeless seekers. at least when the epidermal dust dies down we'll have plenty of hoarders to watch. imperfection can be so empowering.

xo
b.a.

all that's missing is adam lambert

2010-01-27T14:02:00.005-05:00

my love's a red vulva...

[image lilithfair.com]

a two-time attendee of the previous lilith fair music fests, i can say i've a pretty good handle on the concept. it was a celebration of women in music, and past acts that included sheryl crow, natalie merchant and the borderline lady lover in charge, sarah mclachlan, hewed lilith fair a stable place amongst music's finest fests in little over two summers.
it was all about an easygoing couple of hours. get there early, spark up, and let the 20 or so acts lull you into a feminist haze anybody could love, even reluctant boyfriends (who doesn't enjoy swaying to 'everyday is a winding road?').
the best occasion to crack open miller lights perched on your finest tapestry, the lilith fair dissolved just as quickly as it gained momentum and after an 11-year hiatus, it's back, slated to be one of summer's most amazing acts.
or at least that's the plan...and i'm not so sure i'm all that happy about the lineup. i was ecstatic when i heard confirmations included sheryl crow, erykah badu, tegan and sara, norah jones, cat power and heart--i was even still crossing my fingers ani difranco would drag her pink haired ass out for once. but my smile faded as quickly as a frat boy's hard on at an indigo girls show when i read that, joining the aforementioned legends, was ke$ha (the name alone turns my stomach inside out), la roux, AND the gossip! the only mismatch missing is miss adam lambert herself, obviously repudiated due to excessive use of eyeliner. ke$ha's been around for five minutes, and i'm sorry, but crows feet + bad extensions does NOT equal any type of lasting power, dear.
i can just imagine the digestive havoc wreaked when there's glitter in the granola...

xo
b.a.

admission

2010-01-14T12:02:00.004-05:00

ke$ha does not make me feel young...

to stave off, yet not completely put to rest, speculation about my actual age, an official number that's escaped even me, i'm sharing a revelation i experienced yesterday. it's on--i've entered my late 20's/early 30's and not by tears shed over checking off the next age bracket on some random form. no, i was unofficially sworn in by a sudden appreciation of the columbine/harlequin tomfoolery forever enameled into the kandler-crafted miniature sculptures on display at the met.

modern translation: i like knick knacks. it all goes downhill from there.

embrace your age but certainly not ag(ing).

xo
b.a.

with a little help from my friends

2010-01-12T12:15:00.003-05:00

there's nothing you can do that can't be done...

so as luck and a 21-year bout with insomnia would have it, i was awoken by one prickly pear of a dream last night involving a condition where my bladder was suddenly intolerant of acidity, rendering its very existence futile (and rather deadly). who dreams that?
so i propped myself up in bed to continue reading the book of the day, the witches by the magnificent roald dahl because, really, one childrens book a week is a trans-fat rich dessert for the soul. there i was reading about the laudable efforts of witches to turn children into mice, ridding the world of such excess pestilence, when i was suddenly aware that i wasn't alone. a quick glance downward spotted--you guessed it--a mouse! a tiny grey mouse with a little white tail and eyes that weren't as beady as mice usually have, but had a glimmer of personality to them. he knew he was seen, and by kind eyes because he didn't immediately scamper away. (could it have been that awful boy who lives upstairs, whose noisy existence i've rued since the day i moved in? supernatural things like that happen all the time, you know. so does wishful thinking). it was my characteristic index finger wave that finally got him on the run to whatever nest he had constructed under my dresser. unfortunately, he was a mouse, after all, and his teeny tiny brain probably construed my gleeful wave as some impending wave of doom, so 'bye, mouse.'

obviously my pristine existence has no room for some foraging rodent born of the filth that kernels this city, but the very nature of his small size couldn't have tracked in much dirt and he was merely seeking warmth, as this con-ed paying schlub was doing as well. also, due to my parents coming around to the fact that dogs are not furry incubi of rabies and mange and instead loyal (and potentially non-shedding) life companions until well after my departure to higher education, the faunal part of my childhood consisted of a multitude of rodents so i was no stranger to my unexpected (but certainly not uninvited) houseguest. still, i thought, he must go.

so i enlisted the help of a few friends, namely j.d. salinger, kate chopin, nathaniel hawthorne and bell hooks to facilitate the containment and relocation of my small friend (bell hooks' all about love acting as appropriate motivator behind my humane approach). i was thinking maybe the central park zoo would fare him better, both warmth and fellow feral rodentia abounding. see above pic for cnn's account of my homemade mouse trap, baited with organic peanut butter rich in omega 3s and a small chip of a tostitos hint-of-lime. why shouldn't my mouse share my sapience of all things tasty on his last night here?

with the trap set, i resumed with my book and slowly dozed off, confident that i'd awake to my little mouse napping in the bowl that would find him safely taken to his new relocated home. unfortunately, the little fucker was smarter than i and managed to eat both the peanut butter AND tostito hint-of-lime before making a safe escape to wherever he might currently be hiding in my vast expanse of an apartment.
so much for literary ingenuity. there's always tonight to try, try again.

and that, my friends, is just one more way to live in a world so many see as nefarious. off to buy more tostitos hint-of-lime.

xo
b.a.

lobbying to the oldies

2010-01-11T14:34:00.004-05:00

there's a she-wolf in the closet...

if i can extract two nuggets of wisdom from the burdens lifted from corporate participation rendered by the past two months of funemployment, they would be: that the term "professional dress code" is as obsolete as bloomers and the people living upstairs have way too much fucking time on their hands. but pressing on the former, a stiff suit is not, in fact, required to make the workday a productive one. if anything, i owe the folks at 2(x)ist major hugs for providing me with the new uniform of success i've so distinctly pioneered. nothing beats seamlessly moving from a crossword puzzle in bed to pressing my email's "send" button on the couch, releasing yet another literary contribution into the world, wearing little more than a polyester blend fig leaf.
and nowhere is the un-standardization of today's dress code for success more evident than on the exuberant back of america's favorite phys ed teacher, mr richard simmons (née milton teagle). while the wardrobe of high school gym teachers mostly stuck with two-piece pastel sweatsuits for the ladies and the ultra-stylish combination of a polo shirt paired with old navy's latest track pant offering for the men, simmons dares to venture out of the box-step and is rarely, if at all, seen sans his beloved sequined and rhinestoned creations. something even tells me he may have a creative hand in fashioning said attire, as such applique can't be found past bob mackie's HSN collection, and i doubt he'd don anything less than couture jersey, as pictured on today's wendy williams show (another louboutin-clad lass who stomps to no other beat than her own) pictured above.

but what really dampens my torso over richard simmons is the fact that these jo-ann fabric explosions comprise his everyday office attire, and not just in the sweatin' studios. the man who paradoxically made us dance and shimmy to aretha franklin has become america's latest, if not only, sequined political pundit. the rhinestone cowboy, if you will. most of simmons' time, including his 200 plus days traveling each year, is spent lobbying for the improvement of physical education in schools, extolling the virtues of not being a 12 year-old fat ass. and people listen to him. his seriousness, no doubt, stems not only from his longevity in being the poster child for personal fitness, but also from the onus of listening to someone with big hair and a whole lotta swarovski belting in your face. and while he's not exactly conducting synchronized knee thrusts on the congressional floor, his efforts are noticeably progressing. i seriously doubt he'd be as far along if he squatted in some gabardine tailored travesty all these years. and really, if his MO weren't so noble, i'd certainly pin this situation as being one where what was on the outside trumped what lied within.

so three of today's cheers goes to richard simmons (née milton teagle) because even though my level of excitement over sequins and rhinestones burns enough calories to keep me sweating to the oldies, i can definitely identify with the man who's using his own universe brimming with adoration to fuel a brigade for the betterment of the world, starting with making it ok to not conform to what 'everybody else is wearing' to work. and as one who brought bowties back to bergdorf's, i'll be sweating to my own tune for a long time to come.

xo
b.a.

but we actually laughed

2010-01-03T21:20:00.003-05:00

if it's on tv, then it's for real...

um so for real, before today, i was thoroughly repulsed by those commercials for mucinex. i thought, 'why would the concept of a talking, acting and fully-conversational mucus blob ever make it past the ideas table and into the ever-widening spaces between my favorite sitcoms?' then i was introduced to snookie, but i digress. after this morning's expulsion of technicolor nasal ephemera that could provide the couturiers of the emerald city with more baubles, bangles and beads than they'd know what to do with, i've realized that despite the throbbing and blinding pain of a maxillary sinus cavity stripped bare and bloody, there is, after all, a whole family of green and yellow blobs just hopping around up there refusing to make an appearance that would provide worlds of relief, like a staunch child or a poltergeist. this type of marketing, and i think i'm being quite fair when i regard it as rather shocking (i mean, it may not be profanity but last time i checked it was as equally uncool to snot rocket onto someone's sweater and expect a benign giggle in response), actually works. show me some arbitrary information climbing up a chart in two disparitious red and blue lines and i change the channel; show me an obnoxious family of mucus blobs with familial italian inflections, and i'm at the duane reade faster than when glaxo was giving out those free trial vouchers. and though drugging myself to prostration as way of treating aforementioned ailment usually isn't my style, i'm neither incapable nor beyond swigging some 12-hour relief with something that requires a corkscrew to pour.

some parents pass down blond hair and blue eyes to their children; mine lovingly bestowed upon me oily skin and poorly draining sinuses, rendering me an acneic nerd as a child and snorter as an adult. at least i've got my hair.

and as my parting gift to you, i present a commercial that has what i like to call the madonna effect: it's annoying as shit, but despite the most stalwart resistance, it will infect your brain and you'll sing it as you snap your orbit gum. without further ado, and you're welcome, cablevision, i present 877-393-4448: the musical. listen and fall in love again.

xo
b.a.

booze-soaked bowties

2010-01-01T22:38:00.003-05:00

never trust a man whose thighs touch when he walks...

so i realized something rather defeating today, that if it weren't for other people in my life, i would live in the dark. i'm not getting all sentimental on your asses, but literally--when light bulbs burn out, i rarely ever get around to changing them, rendering my physical existence dimmer than it could be. or should be.

last night was new years, and now it's 2010, and i'm not terribly excited about it but i'm not disappointed, either. i'm writing a book this year, so i've got a full vagenda to contend with.

the title of the aforementioned book, now that i've finished it, can finally be disclosed: call me by your name by andre aciman. NOT twilight, as foolishly propositioned by some, though i get how the "E." reference could have been linked to protagonist edward cullen and his admirable, yet paltry attempt to make pallid skin and jaundiced eyes sexy, though the movies only serve to parlay one director's vision of edward's character. no, my "E." referred to elio, and i'm still internally raging over him.

what's with this entry not being the yellow and white striped circus tent of positivity i've come to emit with semi-regularity? could it have something to do with my blinding hangover? or my mind's preoccupation with piecing the shards of last night together to make one coherent memory of one of the best new year celebrations i've ever had? either way, i figured it would be wickedly uncool not to start the year with some sort of blog contribution, and by the power vested in me and all the metallic shit i wore last night and well into the morning, i bring you this. and please run--don't walk--and buy call me by your name. it's not a love story; it's not even a lust story; it's a human story, a strong attempt to debunk and decode but never successfully dispel the inexplicable attractions human beings inevitably form between themselves, providing a sliver of insight into understanding our social proclivities, and presenting a side of desperation that would never survive the beer-fueled iteration of a hair-tossing, boy-eventually-gets-girl teen movie.
some endings are neither happy, nor sad, but when you've jerked off to pretend to have sex with a character you've never met, the pieces fall into place as you realize you're just as divine as someone you've idealized well beyond worship, and they just as human as you.

and to that boy on whom i spilled shiraz last night, i didn't mean it, and i'll gladly foot your dry cleaning bill. i'm surprised you weren't one of my 74 facebook friend requests today. flattered, i am.

xo and happy new yearaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
b.a.

and here we are

2009-12-28T15:25:00.003-05:00

it's a serious one, kids. bryanambition = bryanrenovation...

Could you love someone out of sympathy? Someone who is so badly hurting, aching to the deepest marrow of their bones, trembling in fear and shivering cold, devoid of the womblike warmth they crave without knowing it, the only airtight, secure comfort that could ease their pain and warm their minds. Using the convex curve of whatever feelings you expel that comprise love to fill in the concave void of theirs would make a perfect circle, wouldn’t it? Pain, like love, is blind. It can come on like a sneeze and never needs a reason, but has plenty; death, broken heart, loss. And those are just internal pains. Cuts, scrapes and broken bones cause wincing and tears, but there’s no Neosporin for the soul.
People in pain are vulnerable; they’re open and they want. And people with the right heart want to give them what they think they need. Their hearts focus on the afflicted and spit out register tapes teeming with reasons why that person is suddenly attractive, reasons why you should comfort them and possibly later be with them. So could you ever love someone simply because you felt sorry for them?

I admitted to myself that I’m falling hard for someone, and the more I consider why, the more I realize it’s because I feel sorry for them. I put forth sympathy whenever I allow myself to be around them, and it’s starting to freak me out. Not once did I consider my motives to not be of a noble nature; I sympathize because I empathize. I know exactly what he’s going through. The pea under my pillow is that I don’t know what this person looks like. I’ve never actually met him, but I know him well. E., I’ll call him, is a character in a book I’m reading that will, upon completion, be the most amazing book I’ve ever read. And my use of amazing isn’t a routine substitution for terrific, brilliant or incredible. I am amazed, awed, left beyond words and comprehensive thought by this book. E. feels the worst kind of love there is, the stabbing, renewing pain of unrequited love and the crippling confusion it causes.
I’ve called this character by his name. I’ve cried with him. I’ve contrived with him. My hands have crawled down my pants and met my erection with his name on my tongue and the vision I’ve assigned to him on my mind, no doubt a conglomeration of all I hold sacred in this life; his lips, nose and eyes the most perfect quilt of what I love. His brain, his mind, a projection of my own, speaks in paintings and poetry, an abstract language only we understand.
I think I may love him—I run to his books and read his poetry. I find myself constantly obsequious to him, the same reason I found him attractive in the first place. His happiness is contingent on someone he holds dearly, and it’s costing him his life. Those are tears that flow with a deep red the heart pumps at its slowest, keeping the body alive just enough to still exist.
Yesterday I held his head as we napped; my left hand rested on the open book while my right cradled my own head, and though the nap lasted well over three hours, I didn’t move an inch. And I never thought about it.

The media is scrambling to affix an arbitrary summation to 2009; I’ve heard it called The Year of Mourning, filled with death ranging from Michael Jackson to Patrick Swayze (but not forgetting Brittany Murphy); another station swore 2009 should stand in hotpants and patent leather as The Year of Lady Gaga. And aiming to shed more unnecessary light on the cultural phenomenon known as Jersey Shore, one network aimed to forgo the “somewhat” memorable events of the past 11 months and hew 2009 as The Year of the Jersey Shore. Regardless of what some two-hour compilation airing in late May of next year recalls about the ninth year of the new millennium, it will always be the year that taught me how to love.
Love—one word with more uses and explanations than fuck, the same number of letters and not so different when you really think about it. Both can cause pleasure as well as pain; they both can make you scream, thought the initial lightning bolt of pain when getting fucked quickly flashes away when compared to the skin-tearing, searing pain love can drag on you. Both are passive as well as aggressive. You can both love and fuck the shit out of somebody. You can be loved and you can be fucked. But an oracle by the name of Peaches taught us a very valuable lesson when she revealed her own lascivious form of therapy when she sang “fuck the pain away.” Yes, you can fuck the pain away, but you sure as shit can’t love the pain away. Not when it’s your own pain, when everything you’ve ever held as comforting, secure, identifying and reassuring has tarnished, lost its color, or become so foreign to you that you can’t remember it, and that’s the real tragedy, losing yourself. That’s when someone else can love you based on your loss, your tragedy, your sorrow. You’re open and they’re giving. They give and you receive. But who is that someone? And is it possible?

I’m taking both this thought and E. with me to bed tonight. I’ll be holding tightly someone who, to some, is little more than crisp black letters stamped on an ecru page; to me he’s the perfect embodiment of someone I met this year, who knows both love and fuck so well, the pleasure as well as the pain, the loss as well as the gain, someone who was under and in and on top of my nose for as long as I can remember: me. And I’ve never been so happy to share my bed.

xo
b.r.

shameful, sort of

2009-12-15T15:51:00.002-05:00

hey mr. arnstein, here i am...

ok i know what i'm about to admit heats to white hot the batallion of bludgeons with my name on them. my ceaseless scrutiny of the wildly popular glee has earned me a sour moment each week among my friends who adore the show, and for good reason. it's an anomaly for someone who's trumpeted showtunes from the womb to disapprove of such a dream come true for many, but all that just went down life's great garbage disposal when the assiduously focused rachel saved the motherfuckin DAY (and the glee club's success at sectionals) with an impromptu, unrehearsed BLAZING performance of the great barbra streisand's "don't rain on my parade."

my sister of the schnoz has a serious set of cords and girlfriend ripped the shit out of this song. babs is, no doubt, proud. now for that madonna sampling we've all been promised...

xo
b.a.

screw york

2009-12-12T02:09:00.005-05:00

i'm ranting of a white...

yeah yeah one of those 'it's been a while moments' is obviously in order. as the harrowing image above displays, i've relinquished the rat tail and all sorts of wonderful things have been happening. my appreciation for the Y chromosome has been newly ignited, we've had a "bye bye, blackbook!" moment but even though to incorporate 'bittersweet' would make one bitchin' alliteration, there was nothing bitter nor sweet about it. even soymilk has an expiration date. i'm in negotiations to turn my moroccan harem of a bedroom into something a bit more arboreal and, gasp, brighter. and--why am i sharing this information with you? i haven't said "fuck" once and it's beginning to scare me, too. read on, bitches!

so did you notice how when you're in a constant state of elevated irritability, the otherwise mundane suddenly becomes utterly offensive and borderline unbearable?
so yeah, it's like -70 in NYC now and because i spend the time before embarking on my favorite city provisional, that, of course, being the dysfunctional, constipated small intestine of track-lined tunnels this city calls a transit system, in this bitter cold, my playful distaste for the subway quickly hardens into a permafrost of violent hatred.

so without further hassle, a new rant for those who appreciate them most.

it's like 1:05 am and, like most human beings up at this hour, i'm slightly buzzed. i've waited for the subway for a little over 20 minutes...19 minutes too long in my book, but when it finally does come the pickins are slim and not one to risk slip and sliding on the patent loafers, i resort to riding the next 11 stops in whatever train car is closest. after lumbering in at a painfully slow feet per second, the screeching halt places in front of me the most dreaded and reviled option of the traveling night owl--the ethnic car.
now I'm not going to go all hating on race and start discriminatory shit--it doesn't matter what color your skin is or what accent may touch upon your words, this has nothing to do with black or white or red or yellow, but a certain propensity virtually exclusive to a certain former resident of a certain republic that that shares an island with haiti to abuse the loudspeaker function on a mobile phone to play the same 15 seconds of some reggatone song at inappropriate volume levels at this time of night is comPLETely uncalled for. and ridiculous. and the fact that said audible trash is usually littered with baby sounds from the 74 strollers around the car (my proposed bill to ban such unnecessary traffic causers never made it past christine quinn's desk) is only the icing on the diabetic birthday cake.
but the fun didn't stop there, oh no--we had a few more guests on tonight's shitshow of a ride home.

the two-seater

normally i'd be all over a two-seater (literally--i've got more legs than a bucket of chicken) but sans a peep of discontent, as few things rival the chic factor of a vintage rusty red alfa romeo blazing down the street or gripping the cliffs of the amalfi coast. but when it comes to the dirty orange of the nyc subway, if you take up two seats, you should be denied basic human entreaties. nothing irks me more than some godzilla from brooklyn taking up more than one seat, their smug expression suggesting--no, CONFIRMING--their contentment with what i see as one of life's most abhorrent inconsiderations. the one pictured here actually took the seat from me by winning the race to the lucky pair once their (as they didn't share one owner before) previous sitters got off the train.

german tourists

being a denizen of the uws i've always looked forward to nearing the 103rd street stop, as the neighborhood hostel usually yields groups of haughty foreign tourists, and there's nothing like a troup of serbian boys on a hot august afternoon. the british are always fun too, as many of them assume a partial residency in light of the short distance between nyc and london, and often spark up lively conversation. even the occasional boisterous italian or stuttering french elicit a curious smile, but when those spitting and hocking germans board (and i own this one, bitches--there's tons of bratwurst in this boy's blood) i find my already present look of disgust contorting as deep as my botox will allow. they're crass and rude and travel in inordinate numbers. i feel like saying, "yeah, you instinctually seek occupation--we know. i get it. but ya didn't conquer the U.S. then and you sure as shit ain't setting up camp in car #5 of this uptown 1 train now, at least while i'm on it."

handle people

ok picture it: you're on a crowded train, standing next to someone lucky enough to be sitting (and hopefully not taking up more than one seat). you either lean on or wrap your arm around the vertical bar at the edge of their seat to stabilize yourself (because to hold on with your actual hand would contract unnecessary germage, but i digress) but upon resting in a position that will comfortably support you for the next 11 or so stops, your hip stops short against something slightly squishy, yet rocky and hard--a HAND! further investigation identifies it as the hand of the person sitting in the seat. the lucky fucker comfortably resting in a sitting position while you have to stand ALSO needs to hold onto a bar to maintain their security on the train. all you have is your two feet and a bar you can barely do anything with because of their tactless gluttony.
it's one thing to "get a grip," and even a firm one while riding a moving vehicle, but if it happens to be unnecessarily close to my ass, and i haven't solicited it, fold your hands in your lap and twiddle your fucking thumbs.

so a newly-freed bird in a solid gold cage of you.
xs and os
b.a.

rant-coated lollipops

2009-11-11T10:12:00.004-05:00

honey, you don't bring sand to the beach

so today's stimulant-fueled musing deals, once again, with one of our favorite films of all time, romy&michele's high school reunion.

there's a terrible anachronism going on at the flashback of the senior prom. You may recall the nefarious christy masters announcing r&m's eccentric dress as, "oh, look--it's the madonna twins!" however she failed to include a nod to one of our heroine's psychic abilities. while they both did incredible jobs at emulating our favorite bitch, they theoretically didn't do their homework; while michele impeccably looked the part of 1984's grungy desperately seeking susan madonna, romy opted for high ponytail-severe makeup-bustier bound blond ambition madonna, and seeing as how they were the class of 1987, and blond ambition didn't commence until late 1989, a full two years later, there's no way that look could have existed for romy to accurately portray to wear to the prom.
kudos for trying, though.

next up--[yet another] nyc mta rant and what i like to call "the extra chromosome amble."
by definition, a syndrome characterized by one's inability to sit in a perfectly vacant and therefore available seat upon entering a subway car. the first thing you think is, "look for an open seat and sit down," right? well, not really.

you've seen them--they get on, they see plenty of available seats, and yet they walk in a completely uncoordinated, unstructured pattern, like there's an extra set of chromosomes going on there, if you know what i mean. they're unable to apply the logic protocol necessary to: enter train--see seat--sit down--continue to destination.
what's going through the teleticker their mind? questions, contemplations, perhaps they're waiting (or wishing) for a name tag to appear, or for the plastic seat to change to their favorite color like a mood ring. or maybe the concave curve of the seat back reminds them of the convex television screens of their childhood and they're waiting for the pointer sisters to count to 12 in a catchy pinball cartoon.

sit the fuck down before i can't.
oh, wait, i already can't. i caaaaaaaaaaaan't with these people and have no qualms about slicing between them and seat(s) in question and stealing the vacant bastard fair and square. it's bad enough i have to step over baby carriages and rolly suitcases to get there, but when an incompetent human poses as yet another superfluous obstacle to a peaceful commute, i sprout devil horns and want to slash some throats.

and that's today.
xo
b.a.

let's talk stalk

2009-10-30T13:07:00.002-04:00

lights...models...guest list...just do your best, darling

ok so i had a great idea on the subway today. this idea has occurred to me several times before, of course, but today i actually acknowledged the viability of it and considered actually executing it TOday.
so i think it would be super fun to pick a particularly interesting person riding the same subway as you, and follow them. get off when they get off, and stalk them! yes, stalk them. follow them like you've been hired by a distraught significant other and trace their steps from several feet behind. if they stop at starfucks for a cinnamon latte, you trail two people behind and order a green tea (subsequent preparation time can really slow a stalker down and if your target ducks into a bathroom while you're not looking, it can mean disaster!)
and once you've 'accompanied' them to their destination, you must find the nearest reflective surface and look yourself in the eye and laugh laugh laugh that you've actually just followed someone you didn't know for reasons you've yet to reveal, thus validating every self-deprecating stalker joke you've ever made.

life can be so fun.

xo
b.a.

obituary v. 2

2009-10-22T11:53:00.003-04:00

sticky and sweet

once again, the sweet life of one of ny's finest has been snuffed by the very pressures that tend the fires of fabulous.
deceased: bryanambition
date/time of death: october 21, 2009; 10:23 pm
cause of death: cosmetic asphyxiation

that's right--michael hutchence isn't the only one who died for pleasure--poor guy thrilled himself a bit too much while choking the chicken and ended up a KFC special. in the never ending race against time and aging, this medieval gadget known as the face trainer has found its way into the hearts and onto the heads of the forever young, yours truly one of the newest devotees. you basically strap on the contrap and voila! instant resistance created by the ergonomic shape of this neoprene genius causes your facial muscles to work themselves out, thus creating an equinox for the face. kind of crazy, right? aside from being scary as shit and helping the wearer to capture their very own hannibal lector moment, i kind of get it. as my beauty motto has consistently been "if it doesn't hurt, it doesn't work" this mask rates a 15 on the discomfort scale of 1-10, and considering it's most effective at night and therefore should be worn to bed, one would expect those uber-obsessed with beauty would share a similar penchant for prescription sleep aids, thus increasing the efficacy.
so after donning my new bedfellow tonight, if i fail to wake tomo, at least i'll be creaseless.

xo
b.a.

cumulative smells of the past

2009-10-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

**written on the berry, so deal with the lack of italics**

i kind of love when you put on an item of clothing that you wear repeatedly without consistent washes, and it has an aroma of a variety of fragrances, the levels of which you could really distinguish between if you really put the olfactory to work, and how each fragrance, once separated from the amalgamation contained within the fibers of your garment, recalls a particular event or special occurrence. or just relaxing in front of a documentary or six.

yeah, i definitely love that.

and how about the fact that everybody who works at the airport is weird? i'm weird--should i be working at the airport?

peace for now, ya'll. spain, here i come. the BRYANAMBITION tour is back on, bitches.

xo
b.a.

tear jerk off

2009-10-02T20:29:00.003-04:00

have you ever heard music so beautiful it made you cry? not like fuckin' backstreet boys' 'i want it that way' reminding you of your former heterosexual days and debbie lemon's milky white breasts on your yellow chenille bedspread while your parents watched who wants to be a millionaire? i'm talking about when music hits something inside of you, a chord (no pun intended) that when perfectly rung vibrates the whole of you, from your heart outwards, and makes you actually cry, out of what i imagine is joy.
i may have just rolled a tear onto my lapel. and i'm wearing a t-shirt.
enjoy.

rub it in

2009-10-02T11:29:00.003-04:00

today i'm trashin' fashion.

so today i'm wearing my most festive item of clothing, and no, it's not one of my mother's borrowed quacker factory sweaters. it's my pair of vans made to look like jack-o-lanterns, and i couldn't be happier in them. aside from the giggles they garner on the subway, the sheer audacity of a 22 year old sporting something that was no doubt intended for the petite feet of, say a five year old gives me more pleasure than my first fifth grade orgasm.
SO
onto bigger and duller things. observing all the sartorial goings on overseas, i.e. milan and paris, my embitterment has caused me to really think about fashion. the force that governs something we see every day. you know, the industry that pays me what some may refer to as a salary.
after pondering why fashion is the "it" of the moment, contributing flimsy plots and shallow inspiration to books, movies and television shows alike, i've come to a conclusion: fashion is so highly regarded by so many simply because it's so criticized. the protective layer in which we drape our bodies is always under such intense scrutiny we end up spending more time, money and effort caring for it than we do for our skin. and this opprobrium extends to fashion in all its forms--as art, as personal choice of exterior decoration, and as mere functional shielding against the external elements. additionally, this formidable force fashion is ends up spontaneously generating its own set of rules and regulations, a governing body of laws that ensure all wearers of clothing, basically 98% of the world's population, are constantly monitored by their own insecurities and abide by such militant enforcers we call "trends."
federally-imposed laws prevent people from being naked in public, and those same institutional rules and regulations have given birth to a petty brood of superficial, fickle and fiercely harsh laws that govern, and subsequently protect, the opinion, rather than the function, of the society that exists around how people choose to abide by the law of "no nudity." it's not simply a matter of covering up--just as the revolution shall be accessorized, so should your conscious decision to be a law-abiding citizen. these laws of fashion are less lenient than the constitutional ones that mold and support our nation. self-appointed fashion police are constantly chattering disapproval and criticism and arbitrary reason for change from our TVs, movie screens, and pages of in touch and us weekly.
so basically, the laws state, "one must wear something on the exterior of one's body to shield the rest of the world from the potentially unsightly presence of one's pee-pees and boobies," then in the most demonic form of nepotism, sic their bratty paris kardashian kids on the legislation aspect, yielding "who wore it better" and pushing red carpet coverage from intellectual discussion of awards to be presented to whose clothing designs one sports, and all the catty rivalry that's accompanied.

the fact is, fashion, what wikipedia describes as, "styles and customs prevalent at a given time" is inescapable. it's as difficult to avoid as it is to relate. you know, everybody "loves" fashion. you could have a job picking out discarded items of clothing out of the staten island landfill but as long as your title reads something like, "sanitation fashion extractor" you'll never be short of the oohs and aahs of admiration. whether or not one consciously subscribes to the tenets and statues of fashion, they're still slowing at store windows and leafing through vogue in the checkout line, and for what? because marc jacobs' fall '09 line matters more to them then they care to admit, and even though they may be sporting hot pink elastic waistbanded sweatpants in that very checkout line, they're confident in the fact that someone else out there looks worse (according to the laws of fashion) than they do, and that's ok. right?
whether your pret-a-porter is saint laurent or a snuggie, you can't escape the laws of fashion by virtue of the necessity of clothing.

i'm a real hater today.

xo
b.a.

because i love middle america

2009-09-03T20:22:00.002-04:00

i thought i'd share this with all of you.
you're welcs.
xo
b.a.

I CAN'T of the week

2009-09-01T16:01:00.001-04:00

now, if they did this to children, weeding out, you know, 'the unwanted ones,' there wouldn't be anybody left to do this to the poor chicks.

sick, sad world.
xo
b.a.

this is where i am today

2009-09-01T10:19:00.001-04:00

xo
b.a.

so i wonder

2009-08-19T11:45:00.002-04:00

i remember when...i remember i remember when i lost my mind...

ok so i feel this oddly oppressive force totally infringing upon my aura today, and i'm none too pleased about it. this may turn into one of those random entries where random words and phrases are just spit at you by the screen. i suggest you hunker down with something cold and at least 9% alcoholic and enjoy it. it's only 11:51am? that didn't stop you last saturday.

so onward.

i was thinking about that "glug glug" sound that we hear when pouring something slightly more viscous than water out of any sort of narrow-necked bottle. like olive oil, the very substance that sparked my interest in that sound. where does it come from? the wider belly or neck of the bottle? and does the bottle create it or the actual substance inside? it can't very well be the impact of the liquid on the side of the bottle, virtually no force (besides that of gravity) are involved in a simple pouring. yet before it even makes its way out of the bottle, the sound is heard. i just don't get it.

i also don't understand why everything telephone-oriented has become automated. i feel like i've pressed enough buttons to dial the call--operating a remotely controlled vocal response system is not only frustrating, but in the scheme of things, inefficient and completely futile, as we all end up pressing "0" to reach a human being anyway.

and i also can't stand how air conditioning in america is always so fucking frigid. it's air CONDITIONING, people, not air FREEZING. the multi-form machine we refer to as an 'air conditioner' is merely meant to condition the air with an effect as to render it more comfortable amidst stifling hot temperatures.

and overcooked steak. i can't stand that either.

and spam email with seemingly familiar subject lines, like "bryanambition, as per our conversation last night." really? like i'm going to click on that when i can clearly see it's from "cialis4less@dfjalkd;fjdadsk.com"

ok i think i'm done with shitheadedness for the time being.

xo
b.a.

this may be out of character, but...

2009-07-29T17:22:00.002-04:00

i really don't take pleasure in spewing bitchy comments about people's choice in clothing, but when i saw this, i had to say something. i mean, maybe katy perry kissed a girl and all, but regardless of whether or not she liked it, what she should have kissed was this sad, one-piece "i was going through a box of my 90's toddler clothes that had tragic laundry run-ins with bleach" keepsake goodbye. not that her bod isn't killer and all sorts of cute, but i can think of several thousand other ways to show it off and a cut-off delia's sundress isn't one of them.

wishful thanking

2009-07-29T17:14:00.003-04:00

don't dream it...be it

one of these days i'm going to have one of those moments where i'm singing the shit out of survivor's "the search is over" at karaoke and the swaying crowd, so visibly moved and engaged, parts to reveal an individual spectator in the back, slowly advancing down the path toward my stage, and as i hit the high G of 'then i touched your hand' it turns out to be the one for whom i was searching, and the song ends in a mellow 'love was right before my eyes...' and our faces touch.

yeah, i can't either.

xo
b.a.

nerves on end

2009-07-27T17:21:00.002-04:00

wigs was flyin'

so i noticed today that the more dressed up i get, the less i'm able to concentrate and focus on the project(s) at hand. which is all sorts of odd, considering the more ridiculous my outfits are, the more i feel like i can fly in them.
today's ensem was somewhat experimental--a bold, black and white graphic shirt depicting an asian-inspired mountain scene, rather narrative with tigers and tree branches and what not, buttoned low and tucked into a pair of newly-made jean cut-offs that i made this morning. the experimental part was that the jeans were like, a 31 waist--several sizes too big pour mon petit waist, but the relaxed factor added a unique silhouette. at least i thought it was unique in a good way when reflected in all black in the microwave this morning.
as i barreled down broadway, however, the shiny storefronts each told a different colorful story. crown chicken said, "your legs look like sticks," while electronics boutique said, "the fact that these particular bottoms aren't posing a threat to your circulation provide a vastly different look for you--go for it!" the rite-aid, however, had it "rite" with, "if this were a runway, it would totally werk. experimental always works if you have a story to back it up, babe." so into the subway i descended.

then i spent all day thinking about how i can't work because of what i'm wearing.

Xs and Os

and here again we have

2009-07-24T16:50:00.002-04:00

once again i'm forced to endure such acute nausea in the subway. like the blistering heat and filth inherent to the MTA aren't enough.

things i love about nyc

2009-07-24T13:09:00.002-04:00

the subways say the darndest things

so i love this sign posted in various languages throughout the much-abhorred subway system. a girl, so obviously in despair that she decided to pair street jewelry with her delia's fur-trimmed parka, facing an unplanned pregnancy. it reads "FREE ABORTION ALTERNATIVES." umm, like affixing the matted pelt of a german shepherd to your coat and looking like the gypsy wagon left without you?

little sydney sadness here is not the face of unplanned pregnancy.

buy me a puppy

2009-07-24T12:55:00.003-04:00

je suis dans le jardin

people are really something, aren't they?

so i find it funny how when you're around somebody with a british accent, or even australian for that matter, you're compelled to adopt a sorry iteration of your own. why is this, and more importantly, why exclusively British? you never hear haughty greetings in an indian or even spanish affection on the morning elevator ride. maybe there is just something whimsical about a severed vowels and neglected "t" that makes speaking a little brit funner than plain old english.

then there's the title best friend. what once was, i'm relatively certain, a coveted title bestowed upon a singular--that means one, and only one--member of one's immediate social circle by another to indicate the strong and profound bond they share has soured from exclusive to a collection for target. a title once weighty with letters and devotion has even suffered several amputations of the fatal kind, as notebooks, facebook profiles and crystal-encrusted t-shirts alike bear the tag BFF in ubiquitous numbers. perhaps we have the human evolution from simple laborers to intel duo-core processor driven cyborgs to blame, as each social environment in which we find ourselves should warrant the need for a best friend...or BFF, even.

we're so quick to trust.

like at this very moment, the lady with whom I've been chatting about the sheer nature of my shirt is my BFF on the subway. then of course there's the work BFF, as well as at each subsequent appointment i attend. there are BFFs from college, from one's indigenous locale of rearing, and perhaps even down to the vaguely communicative coos and shrieks in the nursery for the few fleeting hours after birth.
and in a world tilting under constant oppression, iniquity and shitheads who can barely steer a baby carriage, it's nice to know, as far as fellow meandering humans go, you've got more than an, " is this seat taken?" to depend on.

hope your weekend is loaded with lots of sex and deep-conditioning treatments.
Xs and Os
b.a.

d-do ya have it?

2009-07-10T13:01:00.003-04:00

toast lightly, 3 min on each side...

so i've decided, after careful consideration of audible proof, that british women (altogether) with vocal volumes over, say, 60 decibels, that of a normal conversation, should be banned from television, especially hosting shows where their frequent exuberant interludes guide the progress of the show.

i first noticed the repulsive quality to their hyper-tone-ic voices during one of the thousands of episodes of nickelodeon GUTS i watched as a kid, where the host moira quirk, aka "mo," shouted contestants' scores between challenges at an unnecessarily high volume, turning my eyes away from the tv and my hands to my hears. "SHUT UP, WOMAN!" i'd say. and i'd cringe whenever host mike o'malley would utter those four fateful words that always lead to an interaction with mo, "back to you, mo!" i was like, "how about NOT, mike?"
i think the intensity with which these women speak gives their accents an almost hyperbolic quality, making them sound like they were purchased with a pack of parliament lights at a drug store. also notice the lack of vocal resonance--the sounds are abrupt and tinny, loud and cavelike, and CONTSTANT! i get to a point where my ears refuse to allow themselves to be subject to such offensive noise.

my opinion of said offensive vocal onslaught was reaffirmed when i caught about four and a half seconds of 'so you think you can dance,' where host cat deeley's british screech practically split my flatscreen in two.

aside from the fact that i find her episodic freak out exceptionally appealing, even the haughty entertainment factor can't eclipse the disgust i feel at her voice.
I
CAN'T
TOLERATE
IT.

but to prevent the british from hating me, and my subsequent passport denial, i will say the mass termination of female british tv hosts is unnecessary--like all rules, there is one exception here, and her pixie-cut name is ann robinson.

though she was a total bitch and the show was contagious for about the same time as the common cold, her accented voice didn't annoy me, and for the tongue's sake, that's all that matters here.

au revoir, bitches.
xo
b.a.

bitter is better

2009-07-06T18:29:00.002-04:00

because bittersweet chocolate makes the sweetest cookies

http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/the-bitter-fashionista/8725

flick off my nose

2009-07-06T11:47:00.002-04:00

tits out to the world...

so last night i saw "up," and my tears were as 3d as the rest of the movie. i'd preface my reaction with, "now, i'm not normally a crier," but last time i checked, half of regis&kelly was blurred this morning due to the salt river that carried its licking currents over my corneas, over a commercial, no less. it was for some appliance company--maybe kenmore--and women were wearing flowy gowns and destroying their old appliances by pushing them off diving boards and slingshotting them into the sky and the music was almost lamentative, very 'lifetime,' and next thing i knew i was gushing into my kashi go-lean. ok, i'm not normally that soft, but "up" really hit a brother, know what i'm saying?
i'm not going to rehash the plot--go see the damn thing, and in 3d, if possible--but for me, it was a colorful, exuberant deeply-touching work of art, so full of personal nuances, and abounding with stark symbolism.
aside from the bold glasses worn by the protagonist, characteristic to someone so near and dear to me, yet so distantly alienated, it was the sense of freedom gained that i found so beautiful. freedom that was acquired not by action, but by relinquish. the simple act of letting go can make such a difference. it's rarely done, as we frequently view the shirking off of duties as laziness or a deliberate unwillingness to do something, but in reality, making the conscious decision to simply let go of something that you know isn't good for you, no matter how wonderful it may be, can open secret doors.

which got me to thinking. starting today, i'm going to make a list of everybody in my past, no matter how recent or distant they were, who affected me by limitation--whether they doubted me, judged me, underestimated me, or just didn't care, anything that didn't allow me to be as i was and am--and pen a deep letter to them, acknowledging how and when they hurt me, but letting them know that i hold no negativity toward them at all. i'm going to embrace the time we shared, chalking up what i felt as a beautiful lesson of life, and only retain the threads of love that were still present. to quote a muse that has come through time and time again, "what's too painful to remember/we simply choose to forget/so it's the laughter we will remember." barbra may be gayer than the last 'grey gardens' party i went to, but the woman's got a way with words.

and after the letters are written, each dripping with active memories like a comic strip, the words forming cartoonish faces, strong dialogue just short of speech bubbles, raw thoughts and feelings woven through the paper, i'm going to take any remaining anger, hurt, remorse and regret, seal them all into the envelope, then i'm going to kiss those envelopes goodbye and get all 80's movie montage conclusion and throw them into the river, watching as they flutter down and land with barely any splash, but smirking at how rectangular envelopes still make perfectly circular waves.

you'll always love me more...miles away

2009-06-19T10:56:00.007-04:00

gio, jesus is seriously staying in your hotel? don't luz him!

nowhere is the law of karma more present than in the realm of umbrellas. an umbrella is a funny thing, isn't it? it's not really an accessory, more an occasionally used functional device. even though umbrellas encompass an infinite range of colors and patterns, and serve as an excellent billboard for corporate logos posted on them, no matter how pretty they are, they're never outwardly displayed to complement an outfit or strategically looped off the handle of a purse. even so, as benign as they may seem, umbrellas are a major force in today's world.
i truly believe the ubiquitous population of umbrellas on this earth are the scions of the current state of karma on the planet. like life and all its parts, umbrellas are transient. they're always on the move and never really owned. you can buy an umbrella, but sooner or later, you'll lose it, either by leaving it somewhere or having it stolen by someone who apparently needs it more than you do. as audacious as this act may be, we should never look at it as a nefarious offense against us. for the same reason we don't hate the lion that eats the pretty zebra, the motion of umbrella movement through the universe is very much like the circle of life, ensuring constant renewal.
and though this perpetual motion is uninterruptable, the direction with which the umbrella moves can be influenced by those with whom the umbrella comes into contact. you. me. the guy who lives below you. the girl who sits next to you at work. the child in yellow and red wellies on the subway. we all play an active role in the journey an umbrella takes during its lifetime, but the real magic comes in dissecting just how structured this journey is.
just think from where the umbrella you last used came, and considering the precipitation the last few weeks of nyc weather has endured, it shouldn't be too hard to recall the last 94 umbrellas you used. but i digress. did you remember? chances are, you probably found it. sitting quietly under your desk. in a random umbrella collection bin. at the bottom of a bag. you found it.
or
did it find you? did the universe provide that umbrella where you needed it, when you needed it, like it has thousands of times before? and was that chance warranted by the countless umbrellas you "owned," but seemingly relinquished, either by fate or the act of giving? yes, yes, and yes. you gave, so you received. if you lent miss social sally you work with your umbrella (of the moment) so she could keep her helmet head dry as she schlepped to the chipotle to grab lunch, and realized you never received it back long after the carnitas burps ceased, that was your give. but yesterday, as random downpours ravaged our fine metropolis, you should have noticed that you weren't without protection, and that was your receive.
additionally, certain fringe conditions exist, for instance if you were to lend someone a broken umbrella that allowed water leakage to ruin the right shoulder of their suede jacket, you'll, in turn, receive an umbrella marred in certain areas that may or may not provide the same compensatory reprimandation. and that's karma.

NEXT UP--A RANT!!
tighten your bra straps and adjust your weiners, kids, 'cause a good 'ol bryanambition rant is just around the corner.
and here
it
is:

THX: abbreviation or aberration?
initially, i may come off as a slight hypocrite, scorning the abbreviation of a commonly-used word, what with my propensity for such abridged terms as whatev, whoev, wherev, totes, et al. but the difference in those words lies with their pronouncability (yeah, it's a word).
because the mere reduction of these words lies in pruning three syllables ending in an ugly-sounding "err" sound to a more efficiently-included two syllables ending in a lip-stimulating buzzy "v," we find them not only lexiconically pleasing but also a whole lot more fun to say, not to mention a clever way to 'save breath,' as some would say. with one's lifespan being so limited and all, i'm sparing every syllable i can. think how many breaths would have been wasted on superfluous syllables we waste every year, cumulatively. thousands, maybe millions!
so for this type of abbreviation, there is, in fact, a very warranted need.
the use of thx, however, as a shortened form of "thanks," saves virtually nothing. you're not going to pronounce it any differently. the mere typing of it on either a keyboard or blackberry saves, what, three keystrokes? conversely, it also commands an extra stroke of the "x" key, because last time i, a former spelling bee champion, checked, there was no "x" in thanks. thanks.
and let's be honest--to shorten the word 'thanks,' which is already an abbreviation for "thank you," is, in and of itself, a condescending venture, basically notifying the receiver of this cheap sentiment of gratitude that they aren't as deserving or worthy of the full version. furthermore, without the "you" attached, the supposed recipient of this exponentially fading act of graciousness is left ambiguously staring at three carelessly juxtaposed letters, THX, wondering to whom it's actually directed. "oh, is it me they're thanking, or did the T, H an X just randomly wander onto my backlit LED display?"
with all the sorrow in the world right now--unemployment, dead airline pilots, political insurrection, fat girls in metallic leggings--a more sincere motion of appreciation is definitely in order. a "thank YOU!" given to somebody who truly deserves it, with the aplomb it's supposed to carry, can make a universe of difference. your mama taught you "please" and "thank you," so whatev you've learned since, forget it and go back to the basics.
and let's not forget our civic duty to perpetuate the flow of karmic energy through the world's population of umbrellas. unless, of course, said umbrella happens to be a skeletal mass of crooked metal and ripstop nylon. that lamentable mess deserves a proper burial, the procedure of which i suppose we'll discuss in a future production.

love and lemon drops on this humid friday, lieblings!
xo
b.a.

a horse is a horse

2009-06-18T11:37:00.003-04:00

and no one can talk to a horse, of course, that is, of course, unless the horse is the famous mr. ed

this is a day where random has to work. my brain needs to throw up--a thick, viscous, pungent bile of thoughts, visions and words. a sick confetti. colors and odd shapes flying in the air. eyes closed and mouth flapping. i've always hated the correlation between 'mouth' and 'flapping.' like, lips don't actually flap, and if they do then there's a problem.
i'm sick and tired of always being the obsequious one. the one who gives only to receive on such a limited basis. like the warranty runs out and i'm left with a broken toy. it sits there not doing what it's supposed to because it's broken, but you still love it because it's a toy that you coveted and worked for and admired from afar, but because it's broken you start to resent it for not doing what it's supposed to and it isn't the toy's fault that it's broken, and you may not have been the one to break it, but since the warranty has run out and there's nothing you can do about the broken toy, you're forced to know that they toy is broken and just deal with it by not dealing with it and that's the worst part of all.
and then you're like, "well why did the toy even have to be mine to begin with?" remember that you'll never know the taste of something bad until you've tasted something good.
i wouldn't say i'm depressed today, but i'm dreadfully tired and the mere weight of the weather has an awful subduing effect on the positivity of both my mood and outlook. i would yearn to crawl back in bed to seek solace and comfort, but the lack of external activity would cause me to ferment all these flying ghosts of unrest into something even more potent.
and all this 80's music going on reminds me how fickle love is--everybody has a different opinion of it; some believe in it, some don't; some want it, some hate themselves for it (joan jett); some rock out to it, some melodiously serenade it. and will it, or has it, ever been the same thing? can and does love have a uniformity?
i better stop before this turns into something sappy. i need an advil.

xo
b.a.

the land of the free and home of the spread-legs

2009-06-15T09:52:00.004-04:00

hot comb...ouch, mama! that was my ear!

now we're in serious troubs. saturday's demise of analog television has forced all americans to go digital, giving even more people access to the sad programming agenda MTV is offering up nowadays, just in time for this gem of a series. entitled "16 and pregnant," this documentary-style reality show will follow several teens on their moribund road to single motherhood. "so, what's the big deal" you ask? it's not like this sort of trash-spawning behavior isn't going to occur anyway. i mean, come on, people--it's america. as long as food stamps are being spent on minute steaks and beer and fast-food institutions such as pizza hut defy the calorie-cutting measures even mcdonald's has taken to advocating by debuting their solid-pound-of-meat-and-cheese-p'zones, there will always be the majority of uneducated, immoral "little houses," as anna wintour put it, spawning children at inappropriate ages. and what's behind it, really, aka "please don't let your spooge enter my vagina," isn't that hard to follow, now is it?

but what really gets my nuts in a knuckle is the fact that regardless of the 'mistakes' these girls are owning up to by coming forward with their stories, nobody hates a reality tv star. not even spencer and heidi shatt. if they're good enough to be on tv, regardless of what got them there, they automatically warrant worship and devotion. what they have to say matters, even if it's expressed in terribly incorrect grammar. or through gold teeth. or through no teeth.
so by the very nature of their show, these knocked-up, bonne bell-wearing trash bags will be instant heroines, further plunging this country into a pit of low morals and garbage disposal ethics.

what's even sadder (and really, what's more sad than a parliament light as a teething aid?) is that we've got real class leading this country. i truly believe the obamas represent a new level in class and prestige, and so a presidential veto should be extended for the proliferation of this show. the program's "stars" should be shipped off to an island somewhere and assigned to isolation. give them the essentials--a few terrycloth onesies, hair gel and black eyeliner--and let them fend for themselves. save us the edited ob/gyn appointments and instead broadcast a few hours of blood-curdling screams as little patty premature labor gives birth on a rocky shore somewhere west of ecuador. what better entertainment to tail-end the brett michaels shitshow of love than some party-on placenta, no?

i'm exceptionally crabby this monday morning, so let a brother vent and maybe later we can share a few smiles in the park under the sun...if, in fact, that burning ball of gas that supposedly sustains life while ending it but only after a beautiful tan still exists.

OBITUARY

2009-06-12T12:13:00.002-04:00

Bryan [AMBITION] Levandowski, 22, pronounced dead at approximately 3:12 am. Cause of death: excessive retardedness on the rocks. Bryan is succeeded by a brother and sister who still live somewhere in Pennsylvania. He bequeaths his wardrobe to all of his amazing friends who happen to fit into sample size, as well as the last $3.47 in his checking account. An organ donor, Bryan selflessly donated his immobile forehead to the less-fortunate victims of expression lines and naso-labial folds.
In lieu of flowers, he asks that donations be made to the Veuve Clicquot charity so that he can do it all again tonight.

xo
b.a.

pssssst...

2009-06-01T21:49:00.003-04:00

they ain't MY fuckin' children!

long live...

2009-05-31T21:18:00.002-04:00

that's as redundant as 'gay piano bar'

one of my favorite things about NYC is the non-elusive but rarely seen old queen. they were once at the top--and sometimes bottom--of their game. they were the reason for fabulous. these pre-stonewall princesses gave all seven colors of the rainbow their own special meaning, and they're still prancing about the town dressed like elaine stritch.

bitch is on the big screen

2009-05-22T15:50:00.001-04:00

eat it up

now you take that to the bank and cash it

xo
b.a.

only 10 paltry minutes of your life

2009-05-17T17:40:00.003-04:00

is all that is required to indulge in this newfound meaning for life.
especially starting at 4 minutes.

don't let this happen to you

2009-05-14T17:00:00.003-04:00

who needs therapy when you can't show emotion on your face anyway?

alright, boys. it's time we had a little heart-to-heart. i'd say 'head-to-head,' but not everybody's into docking (or uncut, for that matter). anywho--it's about shorts. length, to be specific. i know the whole appeal of hipsters wearing shorts with, frankly, embarrassing revelation of thigh made it ok for the rest of the city, and therefore the world, to adopt such a trend, but come on, people. who follows crowds anymore? did rent make you want to go contract AIDS and shoot up?

so why am i all hatin? honestly, look at boys in too-short shorts. they don't look right. their legs are all knobby and body hair gets all weird on the upper thighs, like little bald spots and stuff. a coworker argued, "well what if they're like, athletic-looking?" to which i replied, "if you're running a marathon, fine. but would you wear hot pink-piped biker shorts to the met ball? don't thiiink so."
and what's worse than too-short shorts is when they're paired with saddle shoes, like some five year-old kid in a laura ingalls fucking wilder-based movie. i'm all about taking measures to preserve youth (i mean, ALL ABOUT) but dressing like a five year old when you've got twenty years on it makes you look like a shithead, and there's nothing cool about that. i'd make fun of you, and i wouldn't laugh and conclude my scrutiny with the perfunctory 'just kidding' hug.
yeah, dress in the aforementioned mess and you'll probably get your picture taken during fashion week, but remember one important fact--more people were laughing at bjork than with her.

like the FDA's pharmacopoeia controls the distribution and formation of drugs to protect humankind from harm, there should be some sort of fashionable restraint instituted to prevent those who prefer the form and function of shorts from looking like assholes.
this commercial has gone entirely too far, giving the world permission it should never have received. like a loaded gun.

i'm out, bitches.
xo
b.a.

p.s. i'm bringing this shit to video soon, ya heard.

if wishes came true

2009-05-09T13:19:00.006-04:00

don't threaten me with a good time...

it would seem, by the lovely pic i took of the hudson river this morning from the flawless vista 145th street provides, that prayers have been answered and new jersey is, in fact, disappearing, fading into the viscous mire floating above a river so polluted it could spawn three-eyed fish similar to that on the simpsons.

i think to dump anything not needed by humans into a river is one of the most audacious activities a human can complete. water that flows, and has flowed, for millions of years (save for the thousands it froze during the ice age), between grassy banks of land does not, in fact, resemble a garbage can. a wastepaper basket. a trash can. a place for refuse.

so why then is it so outwardly opportunistic to receive all sorts of materials humans refuse to use, garbage, debris, discarded ephemera, let alone highly toxic industrial waste? what if we never polluted in the first place? sure, thousands would have drowned in the undercurrents pursuing a splashy day of aquatic fun in the sun, but their deaths would at least have been attributed to natural forces, not high toxicity levels of polychlorinated biphenyls.

and that, my friends, is what a hungover weekend rant looks like.

my fave thing of the week

2009-05-08T15:20:00.003-04:00

check this out, seriously, and comment something. kiefer headbutting jack. if you need last names, you should have clicked on this ages ago.
I CAN'T!!!
I CAN'T!!!
I CAN'T!!!

it's rantin' men

2009-05-01T15:33:00.002-04:00

"if you want to be taken seriously, you need serious hair." -melanie griffith in 'working girl'

you know the swine flu hullaballoo is out of control when your mother actually texts you expressing concern that you'll contract the mythical ailment merely by living in the locale of the nyc. so needless to say, i'm sick of hearing about it. and when robin roberts corrected herself for shaking matthew fox's hand after interviewing him on 'good morning america' on tuesday, it dawned on me just how sick i was of hearing about it.
but i don't think we should instantly just forget about it--i mean, i may be sick of it, but people are getting sick from it, and some are even dying. faced with the inevitability of its existence i wonder why we always give pandemics such ugly names. as with any bleak topic of gossip, americans love to hear themselves say such buzzwords over and over. past hot-topics-on-the-tongue have included SARS, anthrax, nine-eleven, ground-zero, bird flu, and even salmonella, which made its merry way from tomatoes to jalapeno peppers to peanut butter factories, all while keeping its post on the news and tongues of us overweight americans. so just imagine if we were to give it, and any subsequent diseases that break out, fancier, more pleasant names, and i'm not talking about political correctness. who says the name has to relate at all to the disease itself, or its cause? we all know it's going to be bad anyway--it's a pestilence, for goodness' sake. what if we called it the 'tulip flu,' or 'dancing flu?' they had the right idea with scarlet fever, that's for sure. it makes me think of lush, crimson velvet drapes, or scarlet o'hara from gone with the wind, not scabby rashes and swollen tongues. and that makes the world a little bit better.

NEXT RANT

big [ed note: grown up] girls who sit on their man's laps. honey, you're 34. and a big girl. big in many ways. do you think sitting on your boyfriend's lap makes you look cute? do you think it feels good for him? do you think passersby will think, "aw, they look so cute sitting like that,"? with so much 'no' floating around, you should know better. and from the looks of it, your boyfriend doesn't lack the cushion for the pushin' but that doesn't mean he's your jennifer convertible. get the fuck off and act your age.
girls who do this kill me, they really do. they're the type to own clothing and jewelry adorned with such middle-american colloquialisms as, "daddy's girl," "princess," and, my favorite, "spoiled rotten." yeah, something's rotten.

NEXT

gisele as the face of...sigh...true religion. i mean, what happened to, you know, other girls? other models? gisele has become the face of absurd ubiquity--she's everywhere, and while she may own the new billion dollar-face, it always looks the same (save for her dior ads, which chameleonically can transform susan boyle into doutzen kroes...or maybe lily allen).
what's the point of having models and an industry devoted to them if they just end up being the same person?

AND LASTLY

there is so much wrong with the subject of this photo, i don't even know where to begin. again, we have grown women acting like young girls, sitting on their boyfriends' laps and now wearing jelly shoes. shoes made of sparkly plastic. whimsical webbed footwear meant to go no further than 18 months of age, before actual walking occurs. jellies are cute when they're three inches long, not a size 10. like drugs or carcinogens, just because they're manufactured doesn't mean you have to buy then.
i'm out.
xo
b.a.

wtf?

2009-04-30T12:59:00.003-04:00

i knew the I CAN'T of the day would rear its ugly [inbred] head sometime.
it's inbred time, kids. OH, IS THAT WHAT TIME IT IS?

return of the rant

2009-04-30T10:43:00.008-04:00

complaining gets you nowhere...guilt gets you everywhere

now my discontent with the concept of the airport is nothing new, but recently, what happens after you step from the gate onto the aircraft has pressed a certain button. i don't think anything in this world is as audacious as the class system set forth and maintained in an airplane. it's a completely universal proliferation of the indian caste system, and though every living, breathing being is aware of my deep love for the indians, to subject any society to such an oppressive social structure just ain't right.
anywho--those with means, aka money, are naturally afforded more privilege simply because they can pay for it, but right in the faces of those who find themselves not so fortunate, though both ends of the spectrum are on that vehicle for the same reason, to get from point A to point B with beverage service in between, though the latter are reminded of their lowly place in that moving microsociety every time the cart delivering complimentary wine and newspapers stops just short of a certain section of seats. the flight attendants overseeing the first and business classes look onto the rest of the plane, a gaze both pitiful and intriguing, as if to say, "sorry, but not really," or, "i know, it's sad that you don't matter as much as these people up here, isn't it?"
i mean, from the get go, who ever thought to introduce a class system, a social structure so stratified, that goes against every democratic value of america, on something so ephemeral as an airplane, a mere transient mode of transportation no more important than the morning subway commute to work? and worse, what made it right to actually refer to the different constituents of the system as "classes," as if to hearken to our feudal past?
think about the dynamic of the whole situation--when you're on a plane you, along with every other passenger in the cabin, are headed for the same destination. you've all chosen flight as the most expedient route to your destination, and you all made the same effort to board that plane (though exactly what queue you used to get there is a far different story) there's no argument there. so what force of nature justifies the guy two rows in front of you devouring filet mignon washed down with a fine cabernet while reclining on a full bed and watching adult entertainment on-demand, while you unwrap your glorified tv dinner and chisel away at defrosted mystery meat? money should not be the answer here, kids. why in the very tradition of the human spirit aren't all passengers provided with beds and on-demand entertainment and filet mignon and cabernet sauvignon? MONEY! why should money determine how well one travels? isn't the destination the point at which financially-acquired indulgence takes place?

but here's the bryanambition twist

i'm not completely blind to the fact that weathering the eight hours of a transatlantic flight is much more enjoyable in a fully-horizontal position and under the influence of a wine-enhanced sedative haze. and having flown business class myself, i can definitely say any subsequent flights in coach are bleak and tedious (see aforementioned subway commute). but think of how the quality of life on earth as we know it would drastically change if we all flew in luxury; if the very bain of long-term movement we know as travel were suddenly transformed into a positive and enlightening experience. if basic human consideration were extended to all, equally. first class amenities for the price of coach. nobody likes flying--it's cramped and germy and the mere anticipation of reaching one's destination clouds everything, so if comfort were there to cushion in the form of beds, libations, delectable food and exclusive attention, that positivity would, no doubt, continue to flourish once the plane landed, exponentially spreading all sorts of love and happiness throughout the world, transcending cultures and making airports the places of excitement and innovation they once were, not to mention lessening the dark circles and epidermal dryness so common after long flights.
and economically speaking, what would this really cost airlines? i've concocted an equation that basically balances profit--better seats are larger than the conventional sardine can seats of coach, so to outfit the whole plane with them would mean less seats per flight. less passengers per flight requires less flight assistance per flight, so staffing could be economized. however to accommodate the same volume of passengers, airlines would have to increase the frequency of flight schedules, giving travelers more options, and therefore cultivating incentive to remain loyal to one airline. airline loyalty means happy customers. happy customers mean more money, and isn't that why airlines charge more for first and business class anyway?
i could be the wizard of oz.

now the only problem that isn't solved is what i like to call the cocktail hour syndrome. there are those people on EVERY flight who treat the plane ride, whether 10 minutes or 12 hours, like cocktail hour, constantly hopping from seat to seat to socialize with whomever they know on the flight.
first of all, you can, you know, request seats together when booking them. and for real, just because we, the fellow passengers that happen to find ourselves beneath you, or the victims of one of your hapless elbows, for which we receive no apology (not even that all-american perfunctory kind), don't say anything in objection, it doesn't mean you're not totally pissing us off. now go sit the fuck down and OD on sleeping pills until we get there!

and with that, i'm out. watch out for more rants on a bryanambition near you.
xo
b.a.

misery loves company

2009-04-29T17:56:00.004-04:00

you know you've made it when people have to make excuses for your behavior.

so today was originally scheduled to be a total rant day--i had pictures and everything, i swear--but instead, i had a mini-breakthrough thought. when talking about some of my favorite places to just "be," locations that both induce serenity and spark intense bouts of creativity, i thought out of the box and, for that matter, out of the continent and came up with a rather obscure place that streams with initial morbidity, but ends up making complete sense--the pere lachaise cemetery in paris.
the hours i've spent there, perched on some random grave, either idly thinking about nothing and everything, or churning out page after page of what i consider to be ingenious writing, could add up to years.
so yeah, it's a cemetery, a place of rest, and if you really think about it, in more ways than one. the dead rest because, well, that's what the dead do. but visitors also; nobody runs in a cemetery, so pace is, by default, slowed, and it's customary to pause in front of certain graves to pay respect (or laugh).
but what really does it for me is the ironic activity of the place. there's just so much going on at once--the severely uneven topography of the place creates very limited horizons, so you're always intrigued as to what lies around corners and over small hills. the ornate grave markers are a life's worth of architecture lessons--in every glance is a conglomerate of different aesthetics--one mausoleum is fronted by classic roman architecture, warrior-and-chariot frieze and all, the one right next to it smooth, angular art deco, while the one directly across from it is flanked in fluted greek columns. even the surrounding grave stones yield all sorts of classic design in the forms of scripts, fonts and scrolling.
i don't think of my love for pere lachaise as beauty in death, or some other colloquialism of a high school literary magazine, but more along the lines of serenity amidst chaos. just because the people under these monolithic messes of mish-mosh design aren't moving around doesn't mean the world above them doesn't teem with fascination.
and speaking of fascination, i bet there's a subculture of people out there who yearn to get locked in pere lachaise and find themselves forced to spend the night in a cemetery. i also bet this same faction of people share the subcultured appreciation for the humorous side of buffalo bill from silence of the lambs.

rants tomo, i promise.
xo
b.a.

le$$on$.

2009-04-24T08:07:00.000-04:00

if there's one thing life has taught me thus far, it's that nothing in life can't be fixed with a little metallic spray paint.
word.

sometimes i shock even myself

2009-04-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

I almost just bought a book entitled, "breakup babe" from an american bookshop in milan.
What does that potentially say about me? Maybe it was just the lichtenstein-esque pop art cover that attracted me, or the iconic cartoonish, raven-haired heroine on the cover that promised a maelstrom of gurl powah within the pages, but I managed to resist and instead gorged on due gustos of gelato, me, the lactard. Nice.

these are a few...

2009-04-20T17:13:00.000-04:00

So I love nothing more than the shocked looks of slight disgust I get shot when washing down a sleeping pill with a glass of wine while commencing an international flight. It's like, "that's the kind of shit we see unruly adolescents doing on 'law and order' just before they die and lead chrish and marish on a beautifully-edited hour of intense, climactic forensic investigation."
It's always interesting to contemplate who your seat mates will be, and fantasies abound during this contemplation, like, "will I get seated next to a polyester-wearing spinster with red hair who smells of avon and passes the flight crocheting, telling me about her yorkies and the gorgeous shade of aubergine her rarest of rare bed of mums will sprout this summer?" Or, "will I sidle in next to a slightly-balding, tan, hairy-forearmed hottie in a polo shirt with whom I'll exchange hand jobs?"
I've got eight-and-a-half long hours to contemplate my life and fate, and I'm beginning to think that, aside from a pot-induced haze, moments like this must seriously foster the creativity necessary for the most ethereal forms of entertainment, i.e. 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,' or 'rock of love: the love bus.'
I love life, and if I keep reminding myself of that, I'll eventually garner the high praises certain individuals preternaturally receive from the fates.
Loves ya'll--be back once I've landed in milalalan.
X's and O's
b.a.

revolutionary rogue

2009-04-17T15:28:00.006-04:00

repetition hurts my teeth...

so i'd like to use this third friday of the month to tip my hat to change; to exercise my right and rule to change, or at least to contemplate it.
as much as i've hailed the welcome of change in my life, recent consideration has duly enlightened me to the fact that i actually fear it. change is when the current conditions to which we've become accustomed take a turn toward something different. sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. sometimes up, sometimes down. sometimes top, sometimes bottom (i had to). but basically, it's a shift that affects us in both subtle and profound ways. change can be gradual, and it can be rapid. it can be voluntary, as well as involuntary, just, as well as terribly unjust. but when change has the power of will behind it, and [usually] a positive goal in mind, it becomes revolution. a conscious effort to alter the way things are as a way of improving them for those they directly and indirectly affect.
ok, i'm done being webster. this has a point, i promise. i'd like to discuss the above image: that, my pals and confidantes, is a fritaco. it's what happens when a bag of fritos is spiked with grade C beef, shredded iceberg lettuce and government-supplied cheese. it's also what happens when you attend a marginally-scholastic public school that includes a "taco line" as one of its lunch options (the other two obviously being the 'hoagie' line [the mere phoenetic sound of the word falling beyond my capabilities] and the pasta line). and in this taco line, one could find a breed of taco that even today stuns those to whom i relate it. it was a bag of fritos...good, ol' fried corn fritos, curved nuggets of golden crunchiness, stuffed with aforementioned grade C beef, shredded iceberg lettuce and topped with a lovely carotene and white blend of shredded government-supplied cheese. this was lunch. the same school that preached against allowing junk food to encroach upon the food groups was serving it in their very cafeteria.
this, in my opinion, was wyoming valley west's way of being audaciously revolutionary. instead of just spending pennies more and importing mass amounts of old el paso taco ingredients, they fortified snack-sized bags of one of the ultimate in home movie snacking with a few extra tidbits and called it a taco (or fritaco, as i like to remember it). that's revolution.

like many of you, i've, of late, gotten completely sick of hearing about how bad the economy is, how bad it's getting, and how bad it was eighty years ago. i think the reason the economy has maintained such a shiteous condition is simply because change hasn't been instituted.
so prez obama's all about his stimulus initiatives, which i'm sure are all terrific ideas, and will inevitably work, but maybe the real cause, or what's suspending the recovery, is just beyond his view.
how, exactly, are we aware of the economy's current condition? from where do we get our information, both stagnant and updated? from the media, that's where--the television news, newspapers, internet, podcasts, the radio, fucking twitter, for goodness' sake. but it all trickles down through the media. what is this media? is there a group of five people who meet in a chrome-lined, fluorescently-lit room in comfy leather swivel chairs around an elliptical table that refer to themselves as "the media" and generates all sorts of concepts for the world to believe? because i'm beginning to think so.
think what would happen if, for one day, things were to flow in the other direction, economically. if the media were to report that the economy, the ridiculously ubiquitous word that's taken the blame for just about everything nowadays, was actually doing wonderfully. if brenda blackmon and sue simmons blinked their indigo-lined eyes in front of the camera and flapped their frosty lips and told us that "yes, we HAVE recovered from this economic crisis! everything has miraculously lifted, and we can all get jobs and spend money like normal now." obviously, all of america would listen because they're all fat, stupid fritaco-eating zombies who believe everything that comes out of their flat screen tv. the only criticism would come from the intellectually elite, i.e. rachel maddow, keith olberman and suze orman (basically my week's worth of DVR'd shows), and by the time their opinions aired, much action would have taken place. people would spend, probably not too much because even though we're a stupid people, we'd still be precarious at first, but they'd drop a few dollars here and there (not on credit, of course). money would go from wallets to economy. economy would go from sad to happy. parched job reservoirs would refill, and life would, much more rapidly if my thoughts and subject are to be believed, resume normalcy as it was before the big crash.
just think--could one day of progressive spending revolutionize the current economic status?

and by far, my favorite. these signs always kill me. it's like the restaurant's way of boosting conscientious activity. like saying, "we know you have an option when cleaning up after urination and defecation, but we just want to let you know that our employees don't. they must warsh their hands after every usage of this bathroom."
well what the fuck about the rest of the users of the same bathroom? disgusting pigs that they are. i think the restaurants should start using a little ball-power and posting signs that read, "everybody is required to wash their hands after doing whatever it is they're doing in this bathroom. thanks."
so i've taken it upon myself to generate stickers that read "everybody" and i'm going to conveniently re-word each and every employee-hygiene sign i encounter.
how's that for revolutionary?

make it a great weekend, kids.
loves ya.
xo
b.a.

I CAN'T of the week

2009-04-08T15:58:00.003-04:00

c*mon feel the noize

so last night i had the privilege of seeing 'rock of ages' in all its opening night glory. the crowd was a carefully put together melange of ex-concert goers who weren't too far removed from their lighter-wielding days or the age of aqua netted bleach jobs, the only thing keeping them in 2009 being their brooks brothers suits and updated hair cuts. they, however, were the ones that kept me out of my seat.
the show, all in all, was nothing short of genius. ok, you're giving me shit already: i know, it's not the first of its type of 'jukebox musicals,' and the kitsch factor seriously outweighed the plot, but after screaming my head off trying to sing along to the heavy metallic tunes that formed my musical repertoire of the 80's, i can't find fault with either.

at first, i was like, this reminds me of the time i performed "you's a ho" wearing tap shoes in college, and one of the roommates declared it was "you's a ho: the broadway version." the show's vocal talent basically consists of classically-trained voices singing heavy metal, but on some strange, amp'd level, it works. the guys and gals of broadway rock put just enough raw angst and grunt into their performances, convincing us they could take their ballads and war cries way past karaoke. james carpinello, aka stacee jaxx, is such a natural rock'n roll prick (and i mean that in the nice way), i forgot who was under that rhinestoned and peroxided mess. smashing onto stage crooning "dead or alive," i actually recollected seeing him in concert before, but then realized, "oh, nevermind."
and speaking of concerts, i may be a nasty bitch most of the time, but i do give credit where it is due, and mr. constantine maroulis, you, my friend, are due credit. boy has a set of vocal cords, nothing the idol people have ever heard, lemme tell you. he carried that stage like a pro, ima hope he stays around for the whole run! and who would forget the unforgettable performance(s) of miss amy spanger. at first, i was like, "elle woods, dude." but girlfriend turned her volume way up and ground her way through "harden my heart" and i was bought and sold.

i could go on for days, but that wouldn't leave me time to listen to all the metal songs i just downloaded, and i need some selfish time this week, so deal.
loves ya, betches.
xo
b.a.

'merican idol

2009-04-06T14:23:00.006-04:00

do like yer mama said...

i'm about to foray into the forbidden territory known as 'american idol,' but only for a few sweet moments. as you may or may not know, i'll never watch the show. i know what ya'll are thinking, "oh, he thinks he's too good for american idol! too good to watch such regular tv," and they're right. i am too good to watch that show, and we can spend all night talking about why.
but for now, let me revel in it a bit. so this morning, i was wallowing through my usual wake-up call, regis&kelly, who featured recent 'idol' reject megan joy singing her token ballad, 'walkin' after midnight,' the very song that earned her repudiation from the show. evidently, that simon cowell didn't approve of her husky vocal delivery, and in a turn of defiance and, quite possibly, borderline valor, she refuted him with, "i don't care." well, neither do we, sweetheart because even though i've never seen the show for more than five seconds at a time, i know better than to trust that rotten simon. i've never cared for his crass, declasse and not-at-all-constructive comments. he's not even american, for heaven's sake.

but oddly enough, six hours later i find myself with that song stuck in my head, and mainly because i really enjoyed megan joy's performance of it. so with the world at my fingertips via internet, i canvas her life and times, and after mentally constructing a mini-biography of her, i've concluded she is, in fact, an american idol. at least, according to my semantic version of the title.

-girlfriend stood up for herself, defending her performance and all the individual choices that developed it, exercising her right to freedom of speech under the first amendment to the constitution.

-having a two year-old child at age 23, she is, in fact, a shining monument of the american dream, at least for 7/8 of this palin-lovin' country.

-and like 7/8 of this palin-lovin' country, she's still rocking the spiral perm, a true pinnacle of progressive aesthetic beauty.

but in all seriousness, i want to see this bitch succeed. i want to see her name headlining marquees all over the country, not just little venues in that marginally-cool space between new york and los angeles. i want to see her post-trend smoky eyes on a makeup contract, something really classy like mark or maybelline. i want to hear her smoky cords smoldering the speakers at coachella next year, and maybe even co-headlining an incarnation of lilith fair. i'll tie in women's rights anywhere i can.

ok i'm getting out of control now.
later, bitches.

and p.s. i love your emails of praise re: this blog. i really do. i'm flattered; touched; hard as a rock. and i love you too. but for the sake of all that's vain and uholy, can ya leave a comment or two?
Xs and Os

unpretty

2009-04-01T11:46:00.003-04:00

i scraped off my epidermis last night, so i won't be gorgeous until friday.

it looks like one of those personal accounts moments, kids. today started not unlike the most mundane of days. i woke up. ser in the kitch. the girls miserable like me. we're not morning people.
i spent last night in the hallway wearing an oversized light blue gap hoodie that i got for $6.97 back in the day (incidentally, when the gap reduces something to a ridiculously low price ending in .97 it means that it's down to the lowest shit it will sell for) reading a book and listening to brain wave music. i needed a moment of mindless self-indulgence spread over a span of several hours in a sterile space, and where better than our white, chair-railed hallway to accommodate such a spatial need?
i wanted to quote the above song from of montreal, "wraith pinned to the mist and other games," let's pretend we don't exist/let's pretend we're in antarctica.
did you ever wish you could have one of those moments from "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" where you're with the one person you want to say something to, but aren't able, for one reason or another, and it's just you and them and everything is so clear and wide-eyed, sober and quiet and white, and without even talking you can share the exact thought that's burrowing back and forth through your head with a shiny, jagged knife like swiss cheese? i think the two words that matter most here are quiet and white. i need both of those right now.

act like it.

2009-03-31T10:50:00.004-04:00

bitch, get your stroller wheel off my shoe.

the morning subway commute spawned its usual insightful nugget when a stroller wheel dared to trespass on my shoe. i realized that not only should some form of legislation prohibit such apparatuses on an already marginal system of public transportation, but said legislation should also impose certain stipulations on children altogether.

get ready for this, bitches.

so a dear friend of mine shared this website with me yesterday, appropriately titled why the fuck do you have a kid.com. for reals. what is it about having children that people find so appealing? despite the ridiculous societal expectations, of course. look at all the problems children are causing in the world right now.

AIDS in africa--children are proliferating this disease. uneducated parents infected with HIV and AIDS are having children, not realizing they're natally passing the disease down to their children, and basically ensuring its survival. they're ensuring the survival of a fatal disease over that of their offspring. this world needs to simply educate these people, hold mass tribunals so they can understand their actions. get AIDS under control so natal transmission ceases. you would think common sense would set in automatically to initiate this principle, yet the world is all panty-ruffling over the pople's stupid condom comment. i really can't with that.

what kills me are the many things in the world that require a license, compared with the many things that don't. you need a multitude of licenses to operate a variety of vehicles, from cars to tractors to mopeds, and why? because without proper certification, improper operation of aforementioned vehicles could result in death, rendering such vehicles potential weapons. yet at the same time, improper raising of a child could easily yield a sociopath, a serial killer, the next geoffrey dahmer. the next charles manson. the next adolf hitler. we're all familiar with the wrongdoings of these three notorious men, but from where did their abhorrent behavior come? obviously, the parents. in her article "if only hitler's father had been nicer," daphne merkin directly references the abuse young hitler sustained at the hands of his father, as well as that of stalin and mao. now i'm not saying that all children who come from abusive families, obviously unfit to rear a child, will become such highly-regarded, yet destructive people. i know a few people whose childhoods were full of tears and bruises who have become the most copacetic, lovely people i know, but it just goes to show what could happen. what has happened, and what will continue to happen if unfit humans are allowed to proliferate their destructive ideals to their offspring.

i think pro-life weirdos who yield thousands of improperly-raised children by a "quantity, not quality" tenet are just as destructive as doctors who administer abortions. they're merely littering the world with useless humans who will cause more harm than good simply by existing without proper morality and education, resulting from the simple fact that the parents weren't able to administer such care, impacted by their lack of proper parental wisdom. just because a uterus can contain a fetus doesn't mean it has to.
take octo mom, for instance. had she been pre-screened and evaluated for proper maternal abilities, none of this mess would have happened. instead, she throws eight little pieces of trash into this world, admits she was to rely on the rest of this country to support her through welfare, and rests assured in the fact that she made the right decision. as a result, nadya suleman screwed her own life, her own children, and the government, not to mention her lips (and her poor nipples), without even being screwed. this is an I CAN'T of the week! you're not a jellyfish, honey.

i'm not a completely unsympathetic idealist who refuses to see beyond that cynical practicality of procreation. obviously i recognize there's a certain sense of beauty associated with having children. many people feel birthing a child consummates their being a family, so if they want to be that wholesome kind of family, why shouldn't they first prove themselves worthy of such a feat? if only to guarantee that child will survive this world and come out a winner. to guarantee their upbringing will be as sound and healthy as they deserve. to guarantee they won't spend summer afternoons knee-deep in dog shit wading in a baby pool in the back yard. to guarantee they won't wake up malnourished, only to find moldy captain crunch in a cabinet crawling with roaches. to guarantee they won't be whispered about by teachers because of suspicious bruises. to guarantee they won't be denied medical care because of their impoverished parent or parents' inability to pay for it.

and what happens when two people who so deservedly, on the surface, are found to be unfit to bring a child into this world? then they go to what i'd like to call procreation college. give them a dose of education their parents never had or passed down. prevent the serial killers before they spawn. save my shoes.

it's still the land of the free and all, right? so, in that tradition of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, wouldn't you want your child to enjoy all three?

xo
b.a.

monday i can'ts

2009-03-30T12:30:00.002-04:00

i'm sudafedrunk today.

new york city is full of crazy people (big shit, bryanambition. we know this. duh.) but for real. and my highly-medicated state on the subway today really made me more perceptive to the crazy. first, on the 2 train, this old gal emitted a shrill noise, to the dismay and surprise of her fellow passengers, then simply dismissed it with an acknowledging smile. then she did it again. and again. by the third time, i laughed out loud because i realized she didn't care, so why should i?

then on the Q, this old guy was like a patron saint to all the straphangers, in that he vocalized what we were all thinking, but then it got out of hand. "come on, get this fucking thing moving!" he exclaimed. we all nodded in approval. "i don't have time for this!" i mean, you could tell his elevator didn't go to the top floor just by looking at him. but each and every stop elicited another comment from him, and to tell you the truth, those automated trains announcing the stops are too much for me to handle the way it is, and i definitely didn't need this double narration.

one final thought--crazy people always smile at themselves. i think they're genuinely happy.

ok i'm going home to sleep the afternoon (and this horrible flu) off.
peace, bitches.
xo
b.a.

all we need

2009-03-26T17:45:00.004-04:00

hey fellow LGBT members! now we have a place to go to when we get old and gross and need people to slide bedpans underneath our drippy asses--it's called rainbow vision, and i can't wait until they open a chelsea branch! (and if you ever refer to me as a member of the "lgbt community," you can count yourself excommunicated from my community)

to quote a really clever facebook status i recently came across (ok, posted), "there's nothing worse than being old, faggoty and incontinent."

wow, tuesday really got fabulous all of a sudden.

groomsday.

2009-03-26T12:10:00.005-04:00

you know it's going to be a shitshow of a day when, while fastening your belt for the first time in the morning, you find it makes its way to the innermost hole, indicating you've lost yet another pound and conveniently reminding you, "oh, right--i haven't eaten three meals in several days."
last night's entree of a sleeping pill washed down with copious amounts of water laced with it may really work/it may not really work airborne, purely for preventative purposes or maybe just for the hell of it, may not have been the best idea, but at the time it made the most sense. yesterday's hasty lunch of a dripping burger was my one indulgence of the week, and it didn't fall short of reminding me of that via many tasty burps since, so my appetite was just short of diminished at 10pm when i was finally able to sit down and consider the food situation.

**at this point, i could totally launch into an attack of how it's the fault of this f-ing city that no real meal structure exists and condemn the demise of any real domestic structure, but i'll spare that shit for a cranky monday**

contrary to popular belief, i don't monitor my dietary intake to avoid weight gain (i can't gain any) so i just chalk it up to my list of the many inevitable things i fear, and the accompanying anxiety makes it that much easier to boost the metab. among potential threats of kidney stones, prostate cancer, age spots, wrinkles, undereye bags and discoloration, adult acne, and open water, getting fat is the only real avoidable one. and due to the regrettable fact that being an american automatically predisposes me to a compromised life of obesity and ill-fitting jeans, i refuse to follow the normal man's path to eating and needing and instead stuff myself into the slenderest pantalones i can find as a way of showcase and maintenance.

if you build it, they will come.

if you stuff it, they will tough it.

see, it's purely a matter of logic and restraint.

and what a shame my mother never wanted me to come out in a kimono.

the I CAN'T of the day

2009-03-25T18:39:00.003-04:00

so in today's amNEWYORK, page four's headlining article read, "doomsday for straphangers,' obviously in reference to the outrageous fare hikes we proletarian advocates of public transportation must endure.
right.

because this isn't doomsday already.

i really need to get over my grievances with the subway.

stimulation

2009-03-24T11:04:00.002-04:00

i live a caffeinated existence.

new york freaks me out. fer reals. there's so much pressure to be; to be here; to be there; to be prim; to be proper; to be in season; to be on time; to be fashionably late; to meet; to greet; to live; to lie; to fake it; to make it; to fake it (in order to make it); to turn on; to turn off; to project; to aim; to flame; to listen to and most importantly, to be heard.

new york city is one big infinitive, and that annoys the shit out of me, because unless you can conjugate it, you'll never find your own place.

without offending the proprietary sense of the word, i'm going to say new york is a mecca. people come here, and it's always in pursuit of something. nobody says, "let's escape to manhattan for a nice, relaxing weekend." unless you're spending that weekend in the orangerie on the roof of the apthorp, you're not relaxing anywhere. even in the midst of the most sultry, copasetic summer afternoon spent in a desolate corner of central park, the anxiety that surges through the city's arteries and keeps this frenetic island afloat seeps up through the sod and into your life.
so yeah, people come here with the hope that whatever it is they're looking for will be found in its purest form, just hanging out in the east fucking village, or whatever district is currently in vogue.

and it's always going. no wonder coke's back.
i hope i don't sound bitter. i just found it slightly unnerving that my commute to work today is, was, and has always been enveloped in a caffeine high with motivational music blaring in my ears, hidden behind the darkest sunglasses i could find and like my least favorite holiday, that being new years eve, is the most anticlimactic activity one can engage in. it's like i travel in a pod because everything else is too much to handle, and at the end of this elaborate ritual, nothing but a routine workday is to be found.
i suppose you can take the boy out of wilkes-barre, but you can't take the wilkes-barre out of the boy. then again, the day i start speaking in double-negatives and incorrect participles will be the day i'm reminded why i sought new york in the first place.

peace out, whores. the summer's coming!

rants and shit

2009-03-19T12:09:00.006-04:00

ok here i go with the subway again. a dear friend recently related the tale of how one of her mexican clients gave her a newly-discovered wondercream, the active ingredient consisting of human embryo, and considering my intense dislike for children, i was more than intrigued.
then this (see above) happened on the subway this morning.
why not just give the fucking baby and his m1a2 abrams tank of a carriage their own subway line? this is getting out of hand. either prohibit carriages on subways or manhattan altogeth. leave the babies in the boroughs.

and speaking of boroughs, let's talk brooklyn for a minute. i don't hate brooklyn. i don't even vaguely dislike it, but some things that proprietarily belong there should simply be left there. case-in-point, girls who wear ugly glasses.

despite the $15 she was paid to pose in this american apparel ad, does she honestly believe she looks good wearing these glasses? is she so completely deluded that she convinces herself that those sophia petrillo-esque frames compliment the delicate lines and folds of her face? obviously. old granny glasses are for vintage eyeglasses boutiques and senior citizens' nightstands, not for 24 year-olds. lissssen up, ladies: i don't know who you think you are, or who you're pretending to be, but if you're going to ruin your face with a pair of gross glasses that should never have been in vogue to begin with, please stay within the confines of the brooklyn side of the L train and stop polluting my island with your marginal attempt at individuality.

lastly, i came across this little quote i bbm'd to another dear friend in the midst of a rather haughty party at greenhouse last night that drew every rambunctious queen into its forest of fabulous faux flora. i was inspired by a rather audacious display of bad weavage, a picture i was tempted to capture in the blackberry, but couldn't bring myself to actually ask permish to take it, for fear i'd rip it out and laugh at the blood that flowed.
"it's either 'just because you've got jeans so skinny they could be surgical stockings,' or 'just because you've got a bad weave in the front doesn't mean you can pee where the vaginas are.'"
excuse the improper sentence syntax, but i was in a hurry to axepress thyself.

love ya, kids.

all in love is fair

2009-03-04T16:26:00.001-05:00

no, it isn't.

boredom breeds irritability

2009-03-04T13:27:00.002-05:00

so here i am marooned in PA blogging sans commactual punctuation because for some odd reason my comma key has stopped working but anywho i came across this shoddy performance of my favorite concerto ever bach's brandenberg no.3 in g major allegro and i wanted to share it with the world.
it's no one's fault really. one must take into consideration the extreme complexity of a three-part composition and the fact that half of this orchestra took a little too much ambien the night before. momma hasn't had her coffee yet.
so i have to go. enjoy.

smile.

2009-02-27T20:06:00.000-05:00

Whomever invented the martini deserves a nobel prize. Or a major prize in general.

what does it take to make a face?

2009-02-25T09:43:00.003-05:00

when you think about that moment of your life.

whether or not the wedding/committment/bond thing applies to you, there will always be someone with whom you have that moment, that spark, that atomically-lit glance where you acknowledge that it's ok that you spend your life with that person, that your connection is both bona fide and validated.
think of hopping in a car after your wedding/ceremony/dinner at crown chicken, and after returning the exuberant well-wishings of your friends and attendees, you face that moment of slumping back into your seat, situated next to your sig.other (a moment so beautifully accompanied by the 4:38 mark of the brandenburg concerto no. 3) and facing their gaze, looking at their face, studying their countenance with a discernation never before felt, like a warm, new awareness, perhaps because of the ceremonial champagne (unless, of course either of you are a recovering alcoholic) and realizing with an amorous flush, and perhaps a preternatural tinge of primal doubt, like that stubborn bubble in your slightly dirty martini, that you actually want/love/are fulfilled, both to and by the fact that you're spending your life with this person. now's the moment to let go of anything imperfect--a stray hair, large pore, uneven eyebrow, misplaced tooth, and open your mouth, eyes, ears, tongue and fingertips to nothing but love. time stops to honor this thought.
and then it's their face--an open, vulnerable, secret candid look. An expression no one but you will see and love. it's your look. two eyes open so liberally to you. So what does it take to make a face? a face just for you, just about you, to cosign and coexist and colove with you? what does it take to make a face?

love

2009-02-24T17:46:00.001-05:00

i'm sorry but facebook and statuses and twitters and shitters and whatever have grossly gone out of control with the onset of fashion week. i sign onto facebook to take care of, you know, business, and my screen is filled with torrents of "blah blah is in line at THIS show" or "so and so has THAT show right after whatever." i don't mean to be the cheeto in the chex mix, but these people who take fash week so damn seriously just kill me. attitude and cuntery is everywhere and to proliferate the currently most-overused phrase in new york, "i can't." these girls who confuse alexis carrington with carol channing. put your fuckin american apparel glasses away and go back to brooklyn 'cause I didn't windex my shoes for you, bitch.
now back to meryl's mamma mia.

sad

2009-01-19T20:03:00.003-05:00

i got to thinking today, aside from a lack of public bathrooms (i refer to standalones, barnes & noble doesn't count), there's absolutely no space in the city for someone to go and cry if they need to. i suppose crying isn't released as often as #1 or #2, but it is just as healthy a bodily function, and when you're not home or in a place of sanctuary, you should have a place to go.
in the past three days, i noticed at least one person a day (present company not included, which would make it four) with tears running down their face from reddened, sad eyes. they should have a place to retire to, to reflect within, and where they can truly release the emotion that needs liberation.
i'm taking a short sabbatical from being the perpetual optimist i am to admit that it is, in fact, a sad, sad world and we should be able to cry when, where and how we want. it just shouldn't be inside the uptown 1 station.

i'm out.

the real answer

2009-01-05T13:58:00.003-05:00

hey kids
so i'm a little distraught today over the newest slew of bombings and air strikes between israel and palestine. i mean, seeing as how belligerent human beings tend to be, the concept of war is never going to be obsolete, but there should be a basic inherent rule that limits the amount of time one can rage on without resolution. have we learned nothing from the hundred years war?
the whole debacle between israel and palestine has been going on for a thousand years too long, and i think it's about time for both sides to admit that a) neither of them are willing to remit, and b) it's time to accept that and stop killing people.

but here's the real impetus that i honestly think will solve the problem entirely, or at least initiate the momentum: build two ikeas near the border--one for each respective territory--and watch the sparks stop and the wrenches fly.
think about it--everybody loves ikea. whether you actually need anything, any time a friend mentions they're venturing to the local (or not-so-local) ikea, you jump on that bandwagon like mayin bialik bangs in the early 90's. and you always end up leaving with a bench or colorful trash bin or more tea lights than you know what to do with. but regardless of what stuffs your recyclable blue bag, the one thing we always leave ikea with is a big ol' smile. the mere thought of owning such fun, innovative, easy-to-assemble furniture at such an affordable price turns many a frown upside down and makes every house a home.
so if the israelis headed to the border to pick out the perfect dresser to match their futon, instead of, you know, firing shells and all, they'd probably forget altogether what they were fighting about. and if the palestinians spent more time realizing they could furnish an entire kitchen in coordinating fire-engine red appliances and cupboards for under $1,500, they'd flash the israel that lies behind their ikea a big ol' smile, and their biggest concern would be deciding between print or solid contact paper.
if i were king.
xo
b.a.

a new year, same me

2009-01-02T15:17:00.007-05:00

hey kids! happy 09. yeah, a new year, but it doesn't feel so different, and if you really think about it, why should it?
i mean, it occurred mid-week. the weather is basically the same. nobody's hair color changed. despite drunken new years eve rows, your friends haven't changed. yet, we all strive to overhaul something in our lives to commemorate the passing of one year into the next. present company included, don't get me wrong, i just thought i'd muse about the funny idio's of the human spirit.
so down to business.

first, i'd like to dedicate today, jan 2, to stella vine. one of my fave artists, she has a way of making the soft, delicate blurs of watercolor into something so eloquently vulgar that it actually is beautiful. whether it's the haunting face of sylvia plath or the infamous spread-eagle masturbating girl who's "in it for the money," i wouldn't be ashamed to display one of her magnanimous masterpieces on my dining room wall.

and now for my breakthrough. this morning i came to a major conclusion about the way life runs: life, my friends, operates in a way very similar to the popular video game "guitar hero." for those of you not versed in this cultural, and often drunken phenomenon, the game is played with modified guitars as controllers, and each player watches a corresponding fingerboard on the screen, where a series of notes that match color-coded buttons on the guitar glides past. playing the notes makes real guitar sounds that compile the actual notes and riffs on real songs, and elicits colorful flames, and, long story short, you end up feeling like slash and rocking the F out in your living room.

the thing about guitar hero, though, is that it's not just a matter of up-down-left-right joysticks and the occasional click of an "A" or "B" button. it takes real skill and practice to become adept at playing it, and even once you've mastered a song, it's still going to be hard as balls to conquer the rest. so this is what dawned on me. life is like that fingerboard--events, like notes, come gliding at you. you have to deal with each and every one of them. some of them you hit beautifully, smiling at your accomplishment and the great music you're making. others aren't so easy, and you find yourself challenged. angered. frustrated. sad. but keep playing, and you'll eventually hit another great note, then you realize it isn't all that bad, and you're encouraged to strum along. there's always hope for a better note or a better song, and as long as you don't put that guitar down and stop playing, you're guaranteed to get another series of wonderful notes and you end up with a pretty terrific song.

so the moral of the story is, and i have to throw in a little bit o'dirt to keep it bryanambition, in the spirit of lil kim, who once said, "you ain't lickin' this, you ain't stickin' this, "you don't keep strummin', you won't keep hummin!"

let's make 09 FINE!
xo
b.a.

eternal bryanambition

2008-12-22T17:25:00.003-05:00

ok so i realized something today--the reason i'm so obsessed with youth and the mere act of preserving it is because i've inadvertently been doing just that since the very day i was born and started aging! let a brother explain.

so as i've been going through life, and experience those situations where i get to reflect on myself and how/where i stand, both chronologically and geographically, i've realized, as of late, that i'm still stuck in a "long time ago" era. i've been in nyc for just about 10 years, yet i still don't grasp the full realization that i live, work and exist here. in another 10 years, i'll have lived here for a longer period of time than in PA, where i was raised. maybe that's the cutoff for true realization. hmm.
but the oddest part was when i looked beyond the geography of my existence to the chronology--where am i on the timeline of the life of bryanambition?
to someone i've known for a few years, i'd appear as a dashing 27 year-old (that's right, kids--i said 27. twenty-fucking-seven. that's me. i'm not owning up to be proud of it yet, but next year's pre-reunion botox should put me in my place [and keep me there]) with messy hair who works in fashion at a magazine. and listens to weird music. and can undulate his stomach. ok the descriptions can go on for years, but the one that rings the WTF bell for me is the age part. twenty-seven.
now, it's no news that i've had an issue with my age since i was 22, but what really gets me is not the number--it's the time and space that's lapsed. when those reflective moments hit, i think of myself as a 12 year-old, in his gaudily-decorated bedroom, murals and hieroglyphics strewn across the walls, under the reign of his traditional, yet oddly progressive parents, and not having to deal with any real issues in life, such as bills, student loan payments and criminal records (ok that last one was for good measure), who parted his hair down the middle and wore green and black braces. but i'm not that kid anymore.
so maybe by continuing to feel like him, i won't age?

later, alligators.

ok enough

2008-12-16T14:49:00.002-05:00

this is what i have to put up with on union square on a daily basis. the only thing that would make this scarier is if all the children riding this rickshaw of a device sported uniform bleachjobs and had icy blue eyes. oh, and if they all turned their heads at once.

children are getting out of control.

grateful.

2008-12-11T12:32:00.003-05:00

did you ever know that you're my heeeeero...ok not gonna happen. but i'd like to start by captioning the above image with, "there are slow walkers, and there are slow talkers, but the real plaque in the arteries of the morning commute are the assholes who just meander in their chunky-soled shoes."

today i'd like to list the things of the moment for which i am grateful:
-mcintosh apples
-asparagus pee
-coffee pee (because it eerily smells of cheerios)
-red wine
-ck one
-holiday music in the shower
-american express platinum cards and the men who own them
-peanut butter and plastic spoons
-rhymes
-chipotle and the rap i made up while i was there (i'm a the chipot/it's like a muthafuckin' antidote/ to the sins of last night--boy did i give a fright/i be traipsin' around widdout makin' a sound/treatin dems boys like they was some toys/runnin' and runnin' and runnin' them down
-mayim bialik

and that's all for now. later, alligators.