Tag Archives: Bahston

The hopeless romantic

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Friday night’s Boston Common “theater in the park” production of The Furtive Masturbator brought new meaning to the term “ham fisted.” The audience barely noticed as the protagonist, played by a previously unknown Latin actor, entered from stage right. The audience went so far as to continue conversation loudly even after the performance began, but this is understandable owing to the abysmal lighting conditions which failed to illuminate the action.

The acting was clumsy at best, the actor beset by a lumbering physicality that somehow managed to remain wooden. The costuming can only be described as bland and unappealing, shades of beige doing little to flatter the complexion. The audience failed to engage with the subject matter in the least, prefering to natter away incessantly. The actor responded with increasingly breathy vocalizations which demonstrated his total lack of skill in projection, becoming plaintive and insistent.

Finally, completely frustrated by the audience’s utter disregard for his craft, the actor left his position and stormed off into the wings. Audience members examined their fingernails and applied more lip gloss.

***

That’s right folks, when Lambchop and I clear a room, we really clear a room. First we dispatched tourists trying to read the giant monument where we were perched with a snarling “what are you looking at?” Then it turned out that even a needy pervert is no match for our withering self-involvement. Of course we do owe a debt to Stephin Merritt for writing the lyrics that Lambchop loudly recited to ruin our intrepid friend’s special moment.

On the way home, a woman projectile vomited on the train. Attempted auto-bukkake and actual vomitola all in one night? The universe arranges itself expressly for my amusement!

-xxoo

GO SPORTS

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Like most of you I was watching The Game last night. And since I live in Boston, medicine this entailed shrieking and touchdown breakdancing. After spraying our living room with champagne (typically, sovaldi sale I caught it in the face), tadalafil we took to the streets for the scheduled RIOT. It was tame compared to the last time, but we had fun trying to make the crowd chant “Morrissey” and “Equine Internet Porn”. So pardon me if I am, umm, hoarse today.

Oh the laughs just never stop. Especially when the fire department hosed us.

In other news, there is a hot new band in your midst. We are Glamazon, Gdget, and Chickie Baby. We are Le Chevron. And our new single, Electrolyte, will be available as soon as we have made enough shrimp skewers for the release party.

-xo

She’ll Drive a Big Car

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Oh God how I hate the motherf@#$ing B. (For those of tuning in from a safe distance from Boston, the B is a hulking, train-like object that crawls down the street crammed with the dense folk that populate Boston University). I thought it was bad in the summer, all those chunky college girls in low slung spare-tire-pushup pants. Rolling bare guts everywhere. When I got a seat they would surround me at eye level. I felt like I was trapped ina bag of marshmallows.

Oh but winter promises a crushing of the soul. The morning train is packed and its all elbows and humongous backpacks and cellphones. It fills me with hatred for my fellow humans. It laces my inner monologue with a frenzy of “motherf@#$er” I take deep breaths- its not their fault they are two human sizes too large and they have to read Lord of the Rings with their elbows planted in the small of my back. Of course one must flip their waist length hair with one’s hands, even if it lashes into my eyes and mouth.

I wish I were a Woodsman by trade. Then I could board the train with an axe slung over my shoulder (and a jaunty feathered cap!)

I took a taxi twice this week. What bliss! I sail into work on time with well-groomed fingernails and a broad smile. I talk to Greeks, Haitians, Dominicans, Trinidadians. We laugh and agree that life is short so fuck it. I admire the skyline, I tip well.

I can’t help it that I was also born a human, but I just can’t take Satan’s Herd!

-xo

The Simpsons Are Going to Japan

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Thanks to my pal Thrifty J for pointing out the stupid cheap $360 fare from Boston to Tokyo! Huzzah. Turned out to be a misprint (it normally would have been $3000 for us to fly on those dates), but American honored it anyway. When I called to finagle it, the world-weary Texan lady who answered said “Oh, the Boston thing again.” Sigh. And now it’s gone, and someone probably got fired. I can’t wait for April. We’ll pirouette ‘neath daintily falling cherry blossoms, and I’ll croon “Hot Child in the City” with some drunken businessmen. Mr. H is all hot to go to a country n’ western bar.

Other than that stroke of luck, today was a major ass-ramming. And not in that good way. Just as poor Heather suffers from ailments of the tract, there seems to be a capricious gnome squatting in my chest. His friend Stabby lives in my throat. Maybe it’s rabies. I’m about to hit the Nyquil pretty hard.

We took Spare Cat (a stray who lived on the front porch) to the animal shelter last night, and he savaged us right and proper. I understood, I really did. I don’t like to get crammed in tiny boxes either, even with my very small frame. You’re right, I *can* curl up into a very small ball. Oh no, you flatter me! It didn’t help that Spare Cat had space madness from being stuck out in the cold. In a triumph of my mother’s meddlesome DNA, I made him a wretched little insulated hovel on the porch, which is how he survived the past week. If anyone is interested in a handsome devil of a white cat (with big blue eyes and an extra toe), I can point you in the right direction. Unfortunately he does not play well with other cats, which is why we couldn’t keep him. And he’s got a meow like a rusty hinge.

-xxoo

Jackie O.T.

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Dear Diary,

I have been put in charge of filing the orders of a very important customer. So I ask myself: what goes better with a glittery silver top- glittery silver polish or just the plain silver???

Life is six-cups-of-coffee-by-day,-on-the-rocks-yes-please-salt-the-glass-by-night, kind of good. Now that I am a Drudge like the rest of you, I can see it has some merits. The free flavored coffees, the bad moods, the charmingly misspelled articles in the Metro. I can stand around the copier, plucking at my highlights and talking about the South Beach diet in a South Shore Redux. (the South Beach diet is the one where you eat clam rolls and waffle cones, right?)

Since Helen and I opened the Pandora’s Box of Lambchop and Licketysplit memorabilia, I also sifted through my own box of Stuff That Used to Matter. Among the myriad of fascinating items were (1) a Brownie Smock, (2) a collection of orange Honor Roll buttons (they say “Honor Roll” on them in chunky black letters. This way all non-Honor Roll types can make them out and know they are in the presence of Achievement. I wear these to work.), and (3) a report card that says my long division Needs Improvement (NI) but my Spelling is E for Excellent!

I am going to start issuing Needs Improvement cards to my friends and associates. There really ought to be a system of checks and balances for the faux pas’ of our acquaintance, to address horrible sweaters, placing knees on the table, and interrupting ME when I am saying something fascinating.

The last thing I want to rant about, before I go back to punching holes in things, is a startling new development in Boston culture (didn’t know we had any, did you?). Musical amplification devices and Wind Instruments are strictly VERBOTEN! from subway platforms and trains. No more can that batty old geezer plonk out “Alleycat” on his Casio. And the tortured yearnings of the acoustic guitar player will also go unheard as he whispers, ampless. This is all Licketysplit’s doing, for it is she who went around paying these chaps to STOP playing. The frightening result of all this is that it has opened the floodgates to ACAPELLA. My betteylunchbucket morning commute is now punctuated by the few brave soloists who try their hands at Crooning. The resulting bellows and caterwaul make me feel like Day Room at the madhouse again.

-xo

Leaving on a jet plane

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Well, not really. Not at all. But Mr. H and I are fleeing thickly settled Somerville at long last! We’re moving to beautiful downtown Lowell. Yes, that’s right, Lowell. We just put a deposit on a loft in an old factory. And don’t get me wrong, this is a yuppie loft. It might sound all industrial, but I have no interest in sledge hammering out my own breakfast nook. There are people to do those things, and those people thankfully already did them to this place. Nothing to do but figure out what art to hang on the walls and enjoy paying less than $1 a square foot per month because it’s LOWELL. Also, there is a surveillance system. I’ve always wanted to hover my finger over the button marked “hounds” when various relatives pitch up. Or to be fair, my own relatives as well, although they are easier to anticipate because they are usually blowing on jugs.

I’ve noticed there’s a baseball series of some sort going on, and it seems to involve a Boston-New York rivalry. How quaint! I don’t really follow the sporting world aside from hating figure skating, but I have heard the strident hooting in the streets.

The fact is that I don’t think Boston cares that it’s not New York, and that infuriates New Yorkers infinitely. People who enjoy Boston enjoy it for what it is. It’s city-lite, with just enough historical nonsense tossed in to feel legitimate. I’ve lived in Boston for about seven years now, sticking around after college like everyone else. I’ve lived in the Fenway, in Brookline, in Beacon Hill. I’m an around the way girl. It’s been good, and I am lucky.

So I must recognize some of the acceptable things about Boston. It’s so cute and manageable, so clean. Ridiculously easy to get around, provided you keep your intended use of public transportation to civilized hours. We have adorable miniature similarities to New York things without all the fuss and bother of muggings and traffic. They have Central Park, we have the Boston Common and Public Garden. They have the Statue of Liberty, we have…um…that phallic thing in Bunker Hill. They have the Empire State building, we have (oh jeez) the Pru. They’ve got Chinatown, we have the Fung Wah bus drop off and a stone lion or two. Hey, we’ve got a bridge and a tunnel. We’ve even got hipsters and eurotrash, for chrissakes!

Essentially Boston is like a cunning little souvenir snow globe filled with people with hilarious accents. A snow globe with lucrative employment opportunities and overpriced real estate and bars that close shockingly early. Don’t make it out to be something it’s not, be ye Bostonians or flatland touristers. Boston is forever doomed to be irritating Scrappy Doo, but New York is doomed to be Bluto. Pick on someone your own size for a change.

And…I’ll be in Lowell, opening a Sushi Samba rip off. Hahahahahahahahaha.

-xxoo

The business of strange people

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According to the ol’ Crate & Barrel registry, we are at t-minus 12 days until W-day. Please God, we mutter, make it come even sooner. Sure, the favor tins haven’t been dropped off at Teuscher to be filled with sweeties, my harlot dress is still hanging in an alterations shop, and Mr. H is a rugged wooly mammoth in need of a visit to his stylist. The florist hasn’t been paid, the programs aren’t written, nor are we exfoliated. But I’d show up in pajamas, my hair crusted with ape dung (aren’t you glad I specified just which kind?), if it would stop the constant flood of bizarre questions from assorted helpless out-of-towners.

N.B.: for the purposes of wedding etiquette, ‘out of town’ also includes people who live 20 minutes away and typically know how to help themselves. There is surely nothing someone who is in the throes of planning a major event would rather do than book other people in for manicures! This is the beauty event of my young life, now please do endlessly explain what YOU plan to wear. Not to worry, the photographer has been armed with a “do not commemorate” list, much as the band has their “do not play” list.

And apparently being married across Boston Harbor is practically a scene right out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with guests forced to hop across from the mainland on floating chunks of ice while being pursued by slavering hounds. “I saw the water taxi is going to stop running, can I take a regular taxi?” We picked the spot for the stunning view of the city skyline, but had I known I would end up having to hire an amphibious assault vehicle, or heaven forfend, tell people to take the damn T, we might have made a different choice.

My standard answer to these nervous nellies is much the same as my code for living: “Ask the concierge!” Although somehow they have mistaken ME for the concierge. Is it my silly little hat? My wing tips or name tag? What gives me away, I wonder. A pox on them.

***

Deep breaths. True, all I accomplished on my day off today was fielding endless calls and emails (and eating 2 pudding cups). But I did have a swell weekend, thanks to the undeservedly fine weather. We were lured into South Boston by the jutting bones of the new convention center. After a thoroughly random drive, we ended up at Castle Island, loafing in the shadow of the giant fort and watching planes take off. We enjoyed greasy ridged fries from the snack bar and meeting friendly dogs. File it under things I never fucking knew about, and go see the Harbor Islands website.

Later that day we sprawled out in the shade in Columbus Park, full of orange gelati from the North End. Life is good even if having a wedding isn’t. But it’ll be quite the bash. We picked the single worst song ever written for our first dance: “I can’t stop loving you,” by Phil Collins. Relatives will probably wonder why all of our friends are laughing uncontrollably. Then we drink, straight on til morning. I hope someone remembers to put us on our plane the next day.

-xxoo

Postcard for Berlin

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(we interrupt the schedule griping and carping to umm…gripe and carp! in german!)

Eine kleine Frau sitzt im Buero in Boston und denkt an Euch. Nach zwei Wochen fernsehglotzen in meiner Unterhose, unhealthy spiele ich Sekretaerin in einer Anwaltskanzlei. Wenn es nichts hier zu tun gibt, zeichne ich kafkamaessige, alptraumhafte Skizzen von Menschen die im Buero sitzen und nichts zu tun haben. Ich male mein zweites Kampfbild im Atelier. Obwohl ich so fleissig bin, finde ich irgendwie noch Zeit oft betrunken zu sein. Nach wie vor bin ich Eure,

heather

Tequila Sunrises and other forces of nature

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Your intrepid lambchop is still in search of gainful employ. Walking through Post Office Square at lunchtime is like entering a yuppie petting zoo. If only there were dispensers of kibble. I take heart from the monument to the Hungarian Revolution on Kilby Street. It looks like a woman holding up a baby and the plaque quotes Kennedy “it was a day of courage, conscience, and triumph…” Looking for work does not have much in common with bloody uprisings (no threat of evisceration, really) and yet i mutter this phrase to myself before every hearty handshake with a prospective employer. Which is very likely the reason I am still looking for a job.

I should just change my title to:

flaneur \flah-NUR\, noun:

One who strolls about aimlessly; a lounger; a loafer.

The studio practice is back in full swing. Stay tuned and see!

Yesterday I was on the loose with my pal Stu. We drove through perilous lightning and cracking thunder. We drank pink gin and tonics with our friend Mr. King and wrestled on the wet asphalt. We took turns racing Mr. King’s bicycle down the rain slicked street and Stu came up bloody. We thought he was kidding. Sometime around four it began to rain again and we just stood in the street getting rained on.

xo