Post 3 - ART - Fashion

Fashion Night Out - September 10th, 2009

The end of summer always depresses me. The way the seasons seem to go by a little bit faster every year makes me think about how I am getting older. I wonder if I have done enough with my life, I wonder what surprises the future will bring, but most importantly I wonder ... why the hell I never have anything to wear!?

When Fall comes around the only thing, I find, which can cheer me up (besides a gigantic Labor Day binge) is shopping. In fact, why separate the two? A drunk shopping binge is perfectly lovely as a little pick-me-up, especially when the leaves are all golden, redish brown. But in tough financial times like these, debauched, reckless spending just doesn't seem tasteful. If only I had a plausible excuse to spend the minuscule amount of money I have left after being fired last winter. But what could that possibly be?

I have the answer -


Fashion Night Out, the "biggest shopping event in New York City History," is taking place on September 10th courtesy of Vogue Magazine, Mayor Bloomberg and the CFDA (that's the Council of Fashion Designers of America not the Colorado Funeral Directors Association). Stores will be open across all five boroughs until eleven o'clock at night, complete with block parties, musical performances and celebrity sightings.

What's that you say? That a city wide party is not enough reason for me to max out my credit card (again)?

Well, firstly, I have to go, as according to the promotional video, P Diddy has personally invited me.

Moreover, the fashion industry in NYC employs a "huge" number of people - 175,000 to be exact (out of 8.36M or 2.09%) and they are counting on me to support them for their 10 billion dollars in total annual wages. Now that might sound like an exorbitant number but Isaac Mizrahi and P Diddy assure me that these numbers are "definitely true". Also, the Fashion Night Out t-shirts support the 9/11 Museum downtown and there is a week long clothing drive in conjunction with the event to support the NYC AIDS Fund.

Let me decode all this for you.


Those Zara jeans I was going to buy anyway (and I totally was, too) - well now, when I buy them, I can feel patriotic, philanthropic and charitable all while being drunk in public in a socially acceptable way. Forget supporting the fashion industry - Don't you want to support the American dream of shopping tipsy on money you don't have with Sarah Jessica Parker while pretending to be a humanitarian?

If Parker isn't "your bag", do not fret, you can pick from a wide variety of celebrities who will be strolling around the event all night long!


There is Zach Posen, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Anna Wintour (who looks more and more like Diane von Furstenberg every day), Diane von Furstenberg (who looks like Anna Wintour after she got laid), Isaac Mizrahi (who will go basically anywhere, anyway, even Target), Elie Tahari sans Lance Armstrong (wow, that's a throw back, right?) and the crack-head Olsen twin (I think).

Even if you hate America, Fashion Night Out is global, taking place in the UK, Greece, Italy, Russia, France, Brazil, India, Spain, China, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. That means if you don't go you will be lame in at least twelve countries.

And if ALL of this still isn't reason enough to drop a few bucks, try this on for size - I have heard rumors about corner eyebrow waxing stations. So dig deep, really deep, your roomate's pockets deep, and get out there and do what you know is right for NYC, for the nation, for the world and for all mankind.

Just, please, don't make it leggings. I am so over leggings.

Post 1 - TRASH

Truck Nutz - "The Ultimate Truck Accessory"™

Eloquence fails me on this one - Truck Nutz?! What does one say about Truck Nutz?

I have been driving for, let's just say, 'quite awhile' and yet, somehow I completely missed the fact that pick-up-truck drivers and motorcyclists have been attaching plastic models of male ball sacks to the undercarriage of their bumpers.


To be sure, I am rendered quite speechless by this new low (or high) in white trash culture, but I must say something about it on behalf of decent citizens everywhere.

The obvious conclusion to draw from Truck Nutz is -

1. If the man who needs to drive around a large metal phallus in the form of a car or motorbike has a small penis; then ...

2. The man who needs to drive around a large metal phallus in the form of a car or a motorbike with a large set of plastic balls attached to it has no penis at all.

But I find this line of argumentation a bit weak. When my attention was first drawn to this disgusting ornament , I was so deeply offended that I cannot now attribute it to a mere display of masculine failure.


Truck Nutz reminds me of a story a friend of mine once told me from her trip to the Italian coast. Bear in mind that she is a very sweet girl and somewhat naive. Let's call her "Bella".

Having spent a pleasant day tanning on the seaside and walking along the beach, Bella found herself a bit lost and decided to go to a nearby train station in order to ask for directions. However, as it was a weekend, there were no train attendants working and the platform was empty except for one man sitting alone on an old wooden bench. Without any other options, Bella decided to approach him and asked if he knew the way back to her neighborhood. After hearing Bella's request, he pulled one knee up next to his chest, wrapped his arms around it and began to give her the most highly detailed directions she had ever heard in her life, complete with excerpts of the town history.

While this might sound like a very friendly, good-natured thing for a total stranger to do for young Bella - here was the problem - when the man bent his leg up, his balls came tumbling out of his too short shorts (he was not wearing underwear) and they were laying flat on the bare wood of the bench for the entirety of his monologue.


Bella was completely dumbfounded. She stood there, grounded to the spot, politely nodding and maintaining intense eye contact so as not to accidentally look down at this man's balls - despite much gesticulating on his part. After Bella extricated herself from this awkward encounter, she rehearsed the exchange in her mind and became convinced that the man knew exactly what he had been doing all along.

This man is the same man who buys Truck Nutz.

Post 2 - ART - Film

Inglorious Bastards (2009) - Quentin Tarantino

Forget living to see the day a black man would be President; did you ever think you would live to see the day Hitler would finally be murdered on film?

I didn't.

I thought that it was my fate to sit through film after film secretly (hopelessly) praying that this time, maybe, just maybe, this time they would get Hitler - that it was only right I should walk out of each WWII film dejected and disappointed but resigned to reality. I believed that I would never experience the forbidden, blissful catharsis of seeing Hitler's body riddled with bullets until unrecognizable.

And then it happened! I could barely believe my eyes! I wanted to grab the person sitting next to me and demand of them, "Are you seeing this?! Tell me it is true!"

Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to remember that film is not merely a medium for historical reenactment - it can also produce fantasy! (Who knew?) While fantasy was, in fact, film's original aim, it was accidentally buried under 195 min. of "Schindler's List" in the 1990's. Happily it back from the dead and kicking.


For an otherwise flawless film, I have one criticism ... Exactly who's idea was it to include Bridget von Hammersmark as a good guy? I am not a huge fan of feminism but, I am afraid I am going to have to level a sexism charge against Tarantino here. Who creates the pan ultimate dream of Jewish revenge against the Nazi's and then decides to include a beautiful blonde German woman on the side of right!? Naturally, no male Jewish viewer will have a problem being given the opportunity to shamlessly eye hump the "good shiksa", but what about the female Jewish viewers? Nice way to smack half your audience in the face.

Moreover, Diane Kruger's performance only served to prove Nietzsche right when he stated that the German people have no ability to produce rhythm or tempo in their speach. Kruger seemed plainly perplexed by the "fast talking, girl Friday" lingo, leading one to believe she memorized her lines phonetically. To make matters worse, Kruger's air-headed character directly caused the early death of the only attractive German male in the film, Til Schweiger in the role of Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz.

I for one, was not sympathetic to von Hammersmark's untimely demise in the film. Though I guess women could let this slide for the man who made "Death Proof".

Post 1 - ART - Theatre

Much Ado About Nothing - Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

If Greenwhich Village had wide open, green pastures, low rent and a large quantity of broken down vintage cars it would be the Hudson River Valley, New York - an area able to boast of both exclusive residential areas for millionaire commuters and a bohemian population that borders on (often spills over into) plain madness. I have always had a soft spot for this 'neck of the woods' where on lazy, Sunday drives one can be panhandled by a sixty-year-old Motley Crue fan while antiquing.

Which is why I was thrilled to attend the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival yesterday evening, an annual summer showcase of the bard's tales performed with a contemporary, nuanced reading; spare but colorful decor; and such originality that it smells faintly of intoxication. At its inception, the festival had ties to both the American Conservatory Theatre and New York City, non-for-profit outfit, Twenty-Ninth Street Project. Since then it has taken off on its own and for the past twenty-two years has been flourishing at the historic Boscobel Estate in the hamlet (that's right hamlet) of Garrison, New York.

Attendants often show up early to picnic on the grounds. There, on a bluff overlooking the river, one can enjoy a homemade chicken salad sandwich and some cheap white wine while admiring a view that rivals the paintings of Frederic Edwin Church. If a bag lunch sounds like too much trouble for a theatre evening (or if, in your haste to catch the train, you have simply forgotten) - fear not - you can always hit Garrison's local culinary jewel, Tavern, where the produce is hand-picked, cooked up by Eric Gabrynowicz, former sous chef of Manhattan's Union Square Cafe, and, served country style on communal tables made of ruff, warn, wooden slabs.

Now that we are all full - on to the main event.

Each year the troupe manages to include at least one unexpected D-list actor or actress. This year it was Wesley Mann who, I am sure, we all remember from his work as Mr. Lawler on "That's So Raven". ("Back To The Future II"? "But I'm A Cheerleader"? No? None of those? Ok, anyhow.) While it is always endlessly engrossing to watch someone you originally knew as a film actor take a stab at theatre (giving you that surreal feeling that you must be watching a television set as this can not be reality) my true favorites are the troupe's local stars.

Nance Williamson, now on her 11th season, always manages to snag the lead role, proving that in some places well-hewn acting chops still beat out perky breasts. While at first the leap of imagination required to view Williamson as the sexy, sassy Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" might seem like a breach too wide, by the end I, at least, was convinced she couldn't possibly be over thirty. Playing opposite Williamson as her unlikely love interest, Benedick, was Jason O'Connell, who after only two seasons in Hudson Valley has hit his stride as a brilliant and hysterical jester. O'Connell is brazen enough to pantomime his own penis as a fire hose, while genuine enough to really make the audience sweat it out in the more tense scenes. Though he is no doubt a bit of a showboat (his improvisations threw cast members for a loop) he is certainly a welcome addition to any stage without a set.

As a whole the troupe gives such unfailing energy to each performance, it is hard not to wonder if they are having more fun than the audience. By the end of the evening, after laughing for nearly three solid hours in such an intimate setting, it is easy to be tempted by the feeling that one personally knows these wacky people, that perhaps it is possible to curl up on the spacious lawn to wait for tomorrow's showing. But sadly, when the last of the applause died down, I knew it was time for the hour drive, down dark winding roads, back to New York City, where the eccentrics cultivate their oddities consciously and it is impossible to see a star on a midsummer night.