Manhattan Offender

Phone-cam quickie: Doctor Zismor's retro graphics

This is obviously meant to help ladies in their 50's - their 1950's.

Gonna be so totally lit ...

My shopping crackpipe is now extinguished with the purchase of these two lamps.  All that is left is the cabinets and shelves that are being made by a friend with a shop and home will soon be home, suhweet home.

MOrning, Part One

Twenty seconds before the alarm sounds, my eyes open.  It's six a.m. and birds are singing a haphazard, obviously unrehearsed chorus.  The sunlight bathes the room through a filter of new white sheers and puts a warm glow on my rested body which would be amazingly sexy, if my skin was tan, but  maybe that's just a personal preference.

When the alarm sounds assorted voices battle for attention from the three different radio stations that are competing for this particular spot on the dial.  The station could be tuned precisely to one station (as it was at one point) but the cacophony of English and Spanish is chaotic and unembraceable.  But as I am already awake, the effect is wasted, so the snooze button is hit.

There is nothing more annoying than those that wake up with a burst of energy.  And, being annoying, I first go to the kitchen to have a glass of water along with a fish-oil pill and mega-man b-plus vitamin, grabbing my cell phone along the way. 

Downing the water and pills, text messages and voicemail are checked.  Not for work purposes, but to check the assorted drunken dialing of friends that can go out on Tuesday nights without impunity. For whatever reason, the majority of the people I know have less regimented schedules than me and can go out when the real fun is happening, or at least that is how it seems to me.

One text message is a response to a message that I barely remember sending during lunch the day previous, which forces me to wonder about that friend's commitment to new technologies.  One voice mail from a friend with an upcoming performance is stated in rushed and overexcited terms is deleted about a quarter of the way into the message.  It's not that I'm a bad friend; it's just that he called me three days ago telling me all of this same information.  My second message is a friend making fart noises for 45 seconds, but, in case there is more information at the end of the call, I continue to listen.  But it's just fart noises.

Next to the e-mail.  Thank god someone out bid me on the Siamese Cat television lamp.  The glowing eyes appealed to a drunken me on a recent night but upon further review they just were not going to play well in my reboot of the apartment.  Meanwhile my other two auctions (which won't be shared with you as no one is to be trusted with this information) should be finishing my lighting needs soon.  In other e-mail,  Ken's parents used to own the same style sofa that now graces my livingroom, there are ample opportunities for me to purchase Viagra, and I have won yet another European e-mail lottery.

End Part One.

Phone-cam quickie: Wisdom

And here's Wisdom, looking smart in his Little Edie Beale inspired cape-headwrap.  Note how effectively it protects his face from harmful UV rays.  Wise indeed.

(From the front of a building right off of Madison Square Park that I pass every day, but have no clue what is.)

Let there be lighting

Among several new purchases to transform my old apartment to my new apartment have been some lighting purchases on eBay:

Another obsession is "television lamps".  Popular in the 1950's they were used to create background light in a room to contrast with the glare of the small black and white screens of early televisions.  The intention is to create a small wall full of these.  But the first purchase may actually be alone as a "Don't ride the white horse" homage:

 

Finally, another accent lamp in wood cutouts that looks awesome on the new sofa (much better than this picture) from Target:

Not so summery weekend summary

"Hot summer streets//And the pavements are burning
I sit around//Trying to smile but//The air is so heavy and dry
Strange voices are saying//(What did they say)//Things I can't understand
It's too close for comfort//This heat has got//Right out of hand"
- Cruel Summer, Bananarama

The weekend, summery:

• Brownouts in my building caused my air conditioner to blow fuses a couple of times, but unlike some, I was not substantially effected by the blackouts in Astoria.  Unlike local gay bar, Albatross, which has had some difficulties.  Granted good neighbors can always turn their lemons into lemonade.
• The final Snaxx of the summer was Friday night at Westside Tavern.  Not met by whom was expected, solace was found in several other burly boys and my dear friend Jack Daniels.  Props go out to the staff of Westside Tavern that handled my call the next morning regarding the loss of the battery cover of the cell phone very well.  Props also to the staff of the Tribeca Grand who were able to navigate this question:  "Well, I know the room number was 503, and the name, was, um, Tom, maybe?"
• Warm Up was more an opportunity to visit the new exhibitions at P.S. 1 than a chance to dance.  The exhibits were, well, tamer than what P.S. 1 offered pre-MOMA, although the exhibit of body mutilations found more than just me running out of the room.
• The outdoor courtyard space is much more logically arranged this year, but it seemed as if this weekend's event caught the museum hosts by surprise.  Music was served in the indoor space, as was the beer.  A sweltering beer line wait was followed by the immediate pounding of two $6.50 Heinekens leaving a tipsy me holding the third for a while.
• Tolerance of roommates would allow for such amazing space, but at what age is it still acceptable to have a "roommate"?
• Note to the jittery/quiet table in the middle back of Metropolitan:  When your friends arrive that might be in a different state of mind than you, at least try be conversant.  Try.
• Is there anything more fun than doing dishes and vacuuming at 8:30 in the morning?  And mopping?  And (best for last) Swiffering?  It would so totally work up a hunger, theoretically.
• Promise to self:  next weekend try the beer blast at Boy's Room on Sunday.  The beers are only $1.00 although you can't really see yourself biting into a burger grilled by Formika.  Oh, self, who are you kidding?  See you at the Eagle, you tawdry thing.
• Prioritize the following purchases for me, someone?  Bicycle (for efficient travelling to various locales in Brooklyn), microwave (for time-efficient heating of food), bookshelves (for the efficient display of books to new friends), chairs (for not everyone wants to sit next to you on that hot new 10-foot sofa.)

  

  (Shown in it's previous residence, not mine. Please, those floors?)

• A song in this case is just a song, as my summer has been far from cruel.  In fact, it's chugging along rather sweet.

MO Beach Reads: Star

Part E True Hollywood Story and part Jackie Collins, Pamela Anderson's fauxography Star follows it's lead character from a less than modest Florida background through a string of lucky breaks that eventually land her in a celebrity-soaked, salacious world.  Don't you totally relate?

Star follows the story of Esther "Star" Wood from dirt poor Florida.  Her existence is a simple one, work at the nail and tanning salon as well as a local restaurant, play with local friends, and general life in her small island town.  As circumstances carry her suddenly to L.A. she eventually learns to take more control of her own destiny.  And along the way, she has sex.  Lots of sex. 

While you would expect little gay content in the book, quite the opposite is true.  Pam Star's discovery is due much to meeting up with "the gays" while on a trip to Miami with Brandi, a friend with whom she lesbianically dabbles.  There is even a little man-on-man action at an orgy (yes, orgy) that Star attends.

This is perfect beach read, page-turning material.  You will have no personal revelations.  You will not be riveted.  If you lose your page, you can easily just start up somewhere else.  Perfect.

Buy Star!

And they say that I cause trouble at the Eagle?

Louis Rosano somehow managed to be locked overnight on the Eagle's roofdeck following Sunday's Beer Blast.  (I'm suspect ing Jagermeister was involved.  Isn't it always?)

Waking up on the roof Monday, Rosano yelled for help.  His cries were heard by a parking attendant across the street, but were ignored.  Said parking attendant Rigo Rodrigo, "I went to lunch and came back.  He was still up there."  Rodrigo, fully nourished, called 911; a police rescue unit used a ladder to bring Rosano down.

Louis Rosano may be the bestest mostest shamelessest drunk of the year.  Accepting no personal responsibility, he said after coming down from the roof, "You know they're supposed to check the club at closing.  Well, the idiots didn't." 

No snarky commentary here.

(MO hugs to Dan for mailing this Daily News story.)

Boom, boom, huh?

One block from my home last night, manholes were exploding, fire engines were wailing, Con Ed was working.  Oblivious to all of this and having finished my third beer of the night, it seemed like a good time to pick up the laundry.  Expecting a quick jaunt to "sweetheart", my laundry lady, instead there was a departure to an eerily quiet landscape with a crowd of 50 onlookers.

Half checking out the scene, half looking for people that I knew, and half looking for people that I might want to know I wandered over.  The big action had already passed and the denouement was rather dull.  Seeing no one from whom I would want to learn what had happened, I left not really knowing what the fuss was about, but secure in the fact that it wasn't going to affect me.

Onward to the laundry, my neighbor/friend Joshie (pronounced with a hard 'o' - it's foreign or something) appears.  Dragging him into the laundry with me, handbag-style, I get all of the details of the explosions, the curtailed subway trains, the fires and the blackouts.

"So much happens outside when you're inside, just drinking some Buds and luxuriating in your air conditioning,"  I tell him, garnering a warning from him that non-essential appliances should be curtailed.

"But air conditioning is kind of necessary, right?" I ask.

He answers, "Well, yeah, totally."

If Madonna calls ...

In a moment of true blondeness, every phone number input into my phone since June was erased last night.  Which means starting a whole new booty call list.  And that I now know the meaning of the word "overwrite".