TODAY IN SPONTANEOUS INSTANT MESSAGING POEMS:



Buy more furniture! Smoke more cigs!
Get high paying jobs! Have a boat load of kids!
More to New Jersey! Landscape your lawn!
Its just adulthood! It sure lasts long!

TODAY IN REASONS TO NOT TRY AND DO GOOD THINGS FOR YOUR BODY:


As some of you might know, I have a really bad earwax problem. Doctors usually get pissed off at me when they look in my ear. "You have an lot of earwax!" they scream. And I feel bad about it, but don't necessarily think its my fault. Its just annoying to them because they can't see into my canal (or what ever they are checking for when they look in your ears...spores or cobwebs or microchips or whatever.) So one PA called Neil Grossman finally sat me down and instructed me to pour hydrogen peroxide in each ear and lay on my side for 20 min. TWENTY MINUTES!!!??? Who has time for that! And that's EACH SIDE! We are looking at 40 min of laying down and not moving or doing anything! That's called sleep. So anyway, after two years I finally found some time last night.

If you pour hydrogen Peroxide in your ear it makes a popping noise super loudly and itches like all get out. You start to think that maybe pouring things in your ears ISN'T the best idea in the world. But hey, Neil Grossman is a PA right? He would know!

So I woke up this morning almost completely deaf in one ear. Not just deaf like when you have a head cold and you can't hear your own voice that well, but deaf like deaf. Like Justin at work says something along the lines of "Did that guy from the Casino get back to you?" and you slug him for calling you an asshole.

Lesson learned: Never do anything that doctors tell you.

TODAY IN 6:03AM:

I have been at the UCB theatre since 2am this morning. As I am not a night person, still being awake at this time was no easy fete. Here is how to do it:

1) get off work at 4pm
2) go to Astoria, take ONE tylonel PM
3) toss and turn for 40 min, decide you can't sleep, get up and eat some pastries your roommate left in the fridge as well as a boca burger deciding "hey, I've gone with no sleep before! I can do it at the Del Close Marathon from 2am-10am!"
4)6pm get back in bed and read "Dry" by Augusten Bourroughs.
5)6:10pm suddenly fall in to a deep sleep.
6)wake up with alarm at 8:25pm after a dream about an airplane and motorcylces crashing into your roof.
7) The Tylonel PM has made you stoned out of your mind.
8) 9pm ride the train to Greenpoint.
9) 10pm break down and cry infront of your friend about how "no one will ever get close to me because I am so overwhleming!"
10) 10:45pm eat a steak sandwich and tator tots.
11) Pass out suddenly
12) 1am awake with alarm (and alarm clock)
13) 1:15am-1:45am ride on back of bike to UCB theatre.
14) Commence internship.

Only 3 hours and 45 minutes to go!

TODAY IN GENIUS PRODUCTS:
(A subsidiary of Today in Cheap Beer)


While at work today researching the Czech Republic I learned that "A grant from the Czech Ministry of Agriculture financed research in 2006 into creating an 'anti menopausal beer' (2% alcohol, with added phytoestrogens) that may ease annoying symptoms." - Lonely Planet, Czech and Slovak Republics.

This is the kindest and most brilliant gesture to the female population I have ever come across. Matching my love of beer with my desire to not go fucking crazy once a month? Go Czechs!

TODAY IN AWESOME LISTS OF CELEBRITIES THAT ARE FUCKED UP ON DRUGS LIKE LINDSAY LOHAN:

"Lohan joins a long list of young actors who have battled problems with drugs, alcohol, or both. They include River Phoenix, Drew Barrymore, Corey Feldman, Anissa Jones, Danny Bonaduce and Macaulay Culkin." -yahoo news

ha ha ha. Danny Bonaduce. Ha ha ha.

That rules.

TODAY IN WHO SAW THAT COMING?:

Drew Carey was officially named as the new host of The Price is Right. I think this is the latest down step in what was once a promising career for a shapeless and funny comedian. I don't know if you "plebes" have ever seen his stand up, but its lovely. He had a joke about being drunk and driving up on the side walk 'round Christmas time that I quote to this day. (I just did I youtube search and couldn't find a thing!)Then he had that so-so sitcom with the weird musical numbers that I WANTED to like because I certainly love musicals (no problem with youtube there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI3Ay_0ehQ0)and then he FUCKED up "Who's Line is it Anyway" for Americans by announcing OUT LOUD every FIVE MINUTES that the points didn't matter, which is something that it took you at least 10 episodes of the English show to realize. As well as forcing Wayne Brady on the world. And now, he's going to age on TV like a sad child actor, only instead of becoming hot and legal, he will become pasty and wrinkly and then he will die. The price is wrong. So very wrong.

TODAY IN FYI:


You know that really annoying person who eats a breakfast sandwich on the subway and pokes you with their umbrella and then everytime they turn the page of their Entertainment Magazine they scrape your arm with the edge? That's me. I am the subway asshole.

TODAY IN AMAZING OFFENSIVE SIGNS At Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin Robbins behind the cooler where you get water bottles:

NO PETS PLEASE
But We Do Allow Imaginary Friends

service animals assisting customers are always welcome

Ohhh! Burn! You thought you're frickin' seeing eye dog was your friend, you thought that because "dog is man's best friend" that your working dog is also that friendly with you, but NO! That friendship is all in you imagination! I mean, sure your service animal pretends to be your friend when he's working, but the minute he's off the clock he hits the dog park with his buddies, its all "man, screw my master!" and then they eat poop. the end.

TODAYS SUPER BRILLIANT INSIDE-MY-BRAIN DIGRESSION:


"Ah, Dunkin' Donuts: Necter of the Gods....well, Nector of the Less Impressive Gods....or....Nector of the Demi-Gods....hmmm...Nector of the humans...not so much nector....Dunkin' Donuts: Drink of the Humans...eh...average humans...well...Dunkin' Donut's: Drink of the Subhumans."

TODAY IN NATURE:


"A worker holds two weeks old black panther,
Milica in Belgrade's Zoo, Saturday, July 14,
2007. The cub is adopted by a dog, who helps
rear it along with her own puppies, after baby
panther's mother tried to eat it.
(AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)"

I hate to say it, but what if mom tried to eat it 'cause it's evil? Just something to think about.

DOS JULY

TODAY IN THE TERRIFYING OF GREEK PEOPLE:

So being super white (read: pasty) like I am, I'm pretty used to severe sunburns in the summertime. The one I got this weekend are on the outside of my thighs, and look like a toddler attacked me with a small paint roller drenched in magenta Benjamin Moore.

As I walked down the street to the train I became aware of looks of horror and concern from all the non-white and not-quite-as-white folks around me. At the corner of 31st and 30av and old Greek man, himself tanned to a beautiful shade of umber, glanced at my legs and shouted "Oh my good God!"

I realized that to them, I have third degree burns and should be shuttled quickly to Beth Isreal for a skin graft.

But we super pasty people, we have no need for such foolishness. We board the N train and make people horribly uncomfortable all the way to 34th St and then peel our dead skin off infront of our co-workers.

Thats how we roll.

TODAY'S INSIDE JOKE THAT WILL NOT BE EXPLAINED:

ADORABLENESS!!!




This past Sunday I went on a long motorcycle trip all over Long Island with my friend James (he drove, I rode) and I noticed that every so often he would stretch out his right hand as we drove. For a while I thought he was just getting cramps but eventually I realized that he did it everytime another dude on a bike drove the other way. I asked him what the deal was, and APPARENTLY all bikers wave at each other in passing! Isn't that the most adorable thing you've ever heard? They wave like two cadet girl scouts recognizing each other from the colour of their sash and hugging on main street in front of Pop's Chocklet Shoppe!

On a serious note: when you do an image search for "biker" under google, an amazing amount of pornography comes up. Even one featuring a horse. Go ahead...see if I'm lying.

TODAY IN HUMANS: based off what I saw at Grand Central Station at 11:30pm on a Saturday night:



We look bad.

HEY! THINGS WERE "DIFFERENT" BACK THEN! Um....ahhh.

Ok, I am the worlds biggest Tintin fan, but I know that Herge's first comic "Tintin in the Congo" is horribly racist. He admitted later in life that his limited experience around African people and the general racism of Belgium sort of confused his artistic vision. Alot. A frickin' huge amount. Like the most offensive and ungodly way you can ever imagine in the world of cartoon racism. (But hey "Tintin in Tibet", right? What a ride that comic was, right?) So, anyway when I read that UK Borders were taking "Tintin Au Congo" off the shelves I could pretty much understand why.

BUT THEN!

Here's what David Enright, a London-based human-rights lawyer, said about the comic:

"My black wife, who actually comes from Africa originally, is sitting
there with my boys and I'm about to hand this book to them....
What message am I sending to them? That my wife is a monkey, that
they are monkeys?"

Ha ha ha. "black wife".

I guess that's the new "PC" term that human-rights lawyers use.

GOOD NEWS FOR ALL PEOPLE!

C, C, + C Improv factory once again won Cage Match at the Upright Citizens Brigade! If you haven't seen them, I think you'll get a chance Aug 2nd at 11pm.

Do it.

TODAY IN CAMERA PHONES:

Last night after a night of light drinking and improv I was riding the 7 train into Queens blissfully reading the L Magazine's Fiction Issue (which is splendid ) when the women sitting next to me tapped my shoulder. I turned my head to look at her (middle aged, business woman eyeliner, randomly assigned the ethnicity of "Armenian" by my brain) and she made a slight gesture with her fingers to the seats across the way. I turned oh so subtly and saw two guys sort of asleep, leaning into each other. "Yah," I thought "That's adorable, but is it really worth pointing out to me?" She saw that I didn't "get it" so she pointed again, more in the direction of the sort of sleeping man across from me. I tried to look at him really hard to make her happy and then I noticed it....the thing I've heard about but never seen....the right of passage all New York Women must go through to:

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, he had a camera phone between his legs and he was trying to take pictures up my skirt.

At last I have arrived!

TODAY IN AMAZING!

Does anyone else remember the 1994 movie The Paper?

It pits Glenn Close against Michael Keaton as head editor and editor on a NY Post type paper. The climax of the movie revolves around the headline making story of two blacks guys who are accused of shooting two white guys in Williamsburg. The black guys are caught and charged, but Michael Keaton, being a hot shot reporter, has done his own investigating and is SURE that they are innocent and wants the head line to say THEY DIDN'T DO IT!! But Glenn Close says there is NOT ENOUGH PROOF that the guys didn't do it and demands they run her head line instead: GOTCHA!

Which is a funny head line. Or was it? The joke ended for me today when I saw the front page of the NY Post:This goes beyond life imitating art. This is life imitating art which is actually a parody of its self. God lord, I love being alive!

SLIDERS AND BEER:



Recently my friend Justin and I began a quest for the best sliders in the city. Location One: PS 450 in Murray Hill. http://ps450.com The picture online made it look like it was a bar that 1) really enjoyed "red: the power color" 2) was possibly completely covered in velvet and 3) took its self VERY seriously as an after work locale. All in all, if the menu hadn't offered $10 slider platters, I would have rather just gone to Blue and Gold and drawn pictures of sliders, whilst nursing a PBR can. BUT fortunately there WERE $10 slider platters (in burger, cheeseburger, BBQ burger, and pulled pork) so Justin and I showed the bouncer (at 7pm mind you) our ids and tripped inside.

Inside PS 450 everyone looked like this:

And Justin and I looked like this:


Which was awesome. We found a seat in the back away from the aggressive office groups staggered by the bar and ordered two (2) slider samplers and beer. Justin played it safe and got a Corona, while I had to be all fancy and order a Stella draft. When I was served a bud light draft minutes later, I understood that it was my fault. Both beers cost $6. The slider platters arrived and I have to say, they were some of the best I've had. The bread was on the challah side of the world, and toasty. The burgers themselves were about half an inch thick and no frills-perfect (maybe a few onion chunks) and served with huge tub 'o' ketchup.

Sad to say, the best of the bunch was the Pulled Pork slider, which is not a slider at all, and there for fucks up the whole plate. But it was a Carolina sweet BBQ style of pork so I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth and considered myself lucky. More beer (an actual Stella this time) added to the experience and we ended the night with two jack Manhattans, which is a drink that no one ever has any business ordering unless they feel left out from all the other patrons Cosmopolitans and French Martinis. Which we did.

Highly recommended.

TODAY IN SELF CONTROL:

On the 30th Ave Station of Astoria today as I watched a W train randomly bypass our station, I wanted so badly to say "What, is it because I'm black?", but I didn't.

TODAY IN LOGIC:

It seems reasonable to me that when a strange man on the street opens the door to interaction with an offer like "Hello Sweetie", I should be able to offer back "Go fuck a donkey", and not get my ass kicked.

Because communication with strangers is always a crap shoot. I understand that, but somehow men don't.

CHEAP BEER PART II:

I was in the Phily suburb of Villanova with my comedy contemporary over this weekend . On Saturday night we found ourselves at a very special place called The Rusty Nail http://www.thenail1.com to see a Hard Core band called Through the Noise http://www.myspace.com/throughthenoise play. You must follow the links to experience the full...uh...experience.

Hard Core music is amazing in a small space because when the singer flipped off society, he basically stuck his finger up my nose and then later Becca got a table thrown at her. HARD CORE.

Besides that I learned two amazing things:

1) If you are 25 years old in a Phily Suburb you are married. No excuses. Becca and I were the only two ladies without a diamond ring and a wedding band from Villanova to the King of Prussia Mall and all the way to the outskirts of Bucks County. It is surreal. In the way that we New York kids toss around phrases like "is the L train running tonight?" they say "Is she engaged?", with the assumption that of course she is.

2) You can buy a PBR tall boy for $2.50. Beyond that you have the choice of a PBR bottle or PBR on draft. I chose the tall boy can, obviously, and thought myself very cool and hip. Becca's friend took one look at me and laughed and informed me that if you are drinking a PBR in PA you are a red neck, not a super cool hipster like I think I am. But I also learned that after 3 PBR tall boys you don't really care about being a redneck or a hipster but you are in fact, drunk.

Cheap beer wins.

Here is a new word I invented:



HICKSTER: (n) An actual flannel shirt and tight pants wearing 20 something who lives in a rural area (usually Pennsylvania), and not Williamsburg.

Here is how I plan to use it in a sentance for my brilliant rewrite of "Animal Farm":

"The creatures outside looked from hipster to hickster, and from hickster to hipster, and from hipster to hickster again; but always it was impossible to say which was which."

deep!

Reason 98 TO Hate Gus Van Sant

When ever we refer to the real Psycho, we have to call it Psycho (1960), instead of just Psycho.

That fucking psycho.

Really good future titles for all those Bourne movies the boys seem to like so much:

The Bourne Conundrum...
The Bourne Conniption...
The Bourne Delirium...
The Bourne Terrarium...
The Bourne Octogenarian...
The Bourne Alsatian...
The Bourne Moderation...
The Bourne Idiom...
The Bourne Emaculate Conception...
The Bourne Recession...
The Bourne Production Coordination...
The Bourne Allocation...
The Bourne Memorization...
Son of Bourne: The Next Generation...

Last night as I was buying a cheap beer at the Upright Citizens Brigade the bartender, a comedian I admire and work with during my internship at the theatre, said to me:

"You know Phaea, now every time I see you I think of vomit."

.....

Just for the record: The vomit in question was not mine. I was just the last face the bartender saw, before they vomited. I was like the last song you hear before you leave the house and then its stuck in your head all day. Is that the songs fault? No, but it's forever placed in a different category in your mind. Like that Target ad that goes: "A little bit more, a little bit mo'.... a little bit more, a little bit mo'." That song, while at one time a fine and dandy tune in my life, should now go fucking die.

It makes me worry that just being around for bad things, even if I am on the side lines, implicates me in the event.

Per example, Tim saw someone get stabbed on Tuesday night at McDonald's. Does this mean that he will somehow always be associated with blood splurting out of some dude's head and some other dude jumping over a counter with no pants on and running into the basement to flee the police (as I understood the story to go)? Does it mean that simply because I might have been standing next to a drunk friend as they might have tried to pick a former teacher of ours up with their arms, that somehow I did something wrong?

Unfortunately, yes. My freshman year of college I had a long feud with a girl in my dorm who would always come into my bathroom and steal tampons. I finally put up a sign which said:

"to who ever is stealing my tampons,
bad karma to you and your family"

which, seeing as I am not a Fakir or a Swammee means exactly dick in real life. Later that night my best friend Viky and I were crashing a party in the New Dorms. As we walked into the room, eagerly searching for the keg, a giant ugly upperclassmen swooped at us.

"You're fucking banned! Get out!" He gargled and he literally picked us up and tossed us both out the door, an experience which, if has never happened to you, I highly recommend for keeping your self esteem and ego in check. Behind the upperclassman's sweaty shoulders I caught a glimpse of my enemy from the dorm pointing and laughing at us. I was later informed that she had told the ape man that I had "threatened her family."

I was upset, obviously. A bit angry and really embarrassed. But it was nothing at all compared to my friend Viky. She lay on the grass, gnashed her teeth, pulled her hair and sobbed.

"I didn't even do anything and just because I'm with you they throw me out of a party and i though this was going to end in high school!!! Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She cried, her face turning bright red.

As betrayed as I felt at the moment (shouldn't BFFs stick together?) I can understand her pain. She was placed in the loser category simply by turning up with me and there was nothing she could do about it. She was a loser by association, and would remain that way to those people for the remainder of our stay at college. She didn't take it well.

But I guess you choose your friends and choose to go to Mickey D's and damn it, you choose to hang around improv theatre where people might get food poisoning, so in the end, its all just your fault. I will accept the vomit into my heart because ultimately, doesn't it just mean I'm living my life to the fullest extent that I can!?

Sure.