THE WEEK MAGAZINE is so awesome
by Jessica Delfino
This magazine is really the best magazine I've ever read. It's caption under the masthead reads: "All you need to know about everything that matters" and I think that is a good description of what the magazine contains. It is a conglomeration of dozens of other news sources mashed up together with some butter and salt to explain what is going on in the world to people who hate reading the paper, such as myself. For example, the New York Times to me is a mammoth project. It's a huge, thick paper that is full of stories I don't care about and then also, a few that I do. I want to know what's new and important, but I don't want to have to spend several hours of my day weeding through the bullshit to try to discern the good stories from the crappy ones.
That's why THE WEEK is so great. It does that for you. It's like TIVO for people who like to read the news. It covers The Main Stories in the news & how they were covered, World News, (The World At A Glance) People, Best Columns in the US, Europe and International papers, Talking Points, Health, Science & Technology, Arts, Books Reveiw of reviews for Stage, Art, Film & Music, Consumer Interests, Travel, Food, Obituaries, Business, Companies in the News, and what's good on TV. Every topic is covered in a page or two, so about the time my attention span is starting to wander, it's time to turn the page.
Some of the best reading I do every week, I do in my favorite columns in THE WEEK, which are located under Talking Points in a box at the bottom of the page containing the headings "Only In America," "Good Week For:" and "Bad Week For:" and "Boring But Important." B.B.I. is usually just that, so I don't read it, but I can see how someone else might.
Here they are from the week of Sept. 26th of THE WEEK.
ONLY IN AMERICA
The makers of the Slip 'n Slide are suing the producers of the hit comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star because the film shows the water toy being used in a manner that violates safety guidelines. The Wham-O company is demanding that film-makers remove a scene in which David Spade does a belly flop onto the plastic sheet without first turning on the water. The company also complains that its directions specifically limit the slide to children ages 5-12, weighing less than 110 pounds.
A new Minnesota law requires schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a week, but schools are having trouble complying because they can't afford flags. "It's very expensive to outfit a school like this with flags and flag holders," said principal Mary Mackbee of Central High in St. Paul. Instead, students are now pledging allegiance to the image of an American flag on classroom TV sets.
GOOD WEEK FOR:
Forgiving and forgetting, as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee circulated a letter urging the House cafeteria to put the word "French" back into its fries and toast.
Law and order, when a soccer match between anarchists and communists in Berkeley, Calif., was halted because the teams had failed to obtain a permit for the field.
Corrections, as Atlanta Falcons officials, with their team leading 17-0, approved publication of a newspaper ad contratulating coach Dan Reeves on his 200th career victory. The Falcons lost the game, 33-31.
BAD WEEK FOR:
Sharing, when a riot ensued at a Florida shopping mall after an eccentric philanthopist flung $10,000 in $2 bills into a crowd. Twelve people were injured in the stampede. "They were trampling all over me," said a 14-year-old girl.
Healthy appetites, as the Bolshoi fired one of Russia's most famous ballerinas, saying the 110-pound Anastasia Volochkova had become too heavy to lift.
Ben Affleck, as Los Angeles passed a law requiring strippers to stay at least six feet away from customers at all times.
I'm only putting in one of the BORING BUT IMPORTANT segment:
Retired general Wesley Clark entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clark commanded NATO's 1999 Kosovo campaign, and has been a frequent critic of the Iraq war. He is expected to be a contender despite his late start and lack of political experience. "His liability--that he isn't even a politician--is his greatest asset," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's campaign in 2000.
This article is from a segment called The Last Word and it is sort of long, almost 2 pages, but it is so good, I typed it out for you to read. It took me like, 40 minutes to type it out, so if you have 5 minutes, read it. It's called:
It is reprinted from a story included in the The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003. I think I'm supposed to have permission to reprint it, so just read it, but don't tell on me.
The Adventures of and Old Shirt
by George Packer
What happens to the clothes you give to charity? Journalist George Packer followed on jersey T-shirt around the world to find out.
If you've ever left a bag of clothes outside the Salvation Army or given to a local church drive, chances are that you've dressed an African. All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent and you'll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the stranges of places, like the "Let's Help Make Philadelphia the Fashion Capital of the World" T-shirt on a Malawian laborer. The white bathrobe on a Liberian rebel boy with his wig and his automatic rifle. And the muddy orang sweatshirt on the skeleton of a small child, lying on it's side in a Rwandan classroom that has become a genocide memorial.
A long chain of charity and commerce binds the world's richest and poorest people in accidental intimacy. It's a curious feature of the global age that hardly anyone on either end knows it. A few years ago, Susie Bayer bought a T-shirt for her workouts with the personal trainer who comes regularly to her apartment on East 65th Street in Manhattan. It was a pale gray cotton shirt, size large, made in the U.S.A. by JanSport, with the red and black logo of the University of Pennsylvania on its front. Over time, it got a few stains on it, and Bayer, who is 72, needed more drawer space, so last fall, she decided to get rid of the shirt. She sent it, along with a few other T-shirts and a couple of silk nightgowns, to the thrift shop that she has been donating her clothes to for the past 40 years. When I told Susie Bayer that I was hoping to follow her T-shirt to Africa, she cried, "I know exactly what you're doing!" As a girl, her favorite movie was Tales Of Manhattan--the story of a coat that passes from Charles Boyer through a line of other people, bringing tragedy or luck, before finally falling out of the sky with thousands of dollars in the pockets and landing on the dirt plot of a sharecropper played by Paul Robeson.
Twenty-four blocks north, up First Avenue, the Call Again Thrift Shop is run by two blunk-spoken women named Virginia Edelman and Marilyn Balk. They sit in their depressing back office, surrounded by malfunctioning TVs and used blenders and a rising sea of black garbage bags. The women inspect every item that comes in, searching for any reason to get rid of it. Their dank little basement, crammed with last year's mildewing clothes, has no more room. Their shop space is limited, and their customers are relentlessly picky. One day a few years ago, relief came to them in the form of a young man named Eric Stubin who runs the Trans-mericas Trading Company, a textile recycling factory in Brooklyn. He said that he was willing to send a truck every Tuesday to haul away what the women didn't want and that he would pay them three cents a pound for it. Bayer's T-shirt goes straignt into the Trans-Americas pile. "We have a thousand of them," Edelman says. "Get it out of here."
This is where the trail grows tricky, for what had been charitable suddenly crosses the line that tax law and moral convention think inviolable--it turns commercial, and no one likes to talk very much about what happens next. Some sources estimate that of the 2.5 billion pounds of clothes that Americans donate each year, as much as 80 percent gets trucked off to places like Trans-Americas. Trans-Americas' five story brick building stands a block from the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Inside, 60,000 pounds of clothes a day pour down the slides from the top floor, hurry along conveyor belts where Hispanic women stand and fling pieces into this bin or down that chute, fall through openings from floor to floor and land in barrels and cages, where they are then pressure-packed into clear-plastic 4-foot-high bales and tied with metal strapping--but never washed. Watching the process feels a little like a visit to the slaughterhouse. There are more than 300 export categories at the factory, but the four essential classifications are "Premuim," "Africa A," "Africa B," and "Wiper Rag." "Premium" goes to Asia and Latin America. "Africa A"--a garment that has lost its brightness--goes to the better off African countries like Kenya. "Africa B"--a stain or small hole--goes to the continent's disaster areas, its Congos or Angolas. By the time a shirt reaches Kisangani or Huambo, it has been discarded by its owner, rejected at the thrift shop, and graded two steps down by the recycler.
Standing in Trans-Americas' office, Eric Stubin casts a professional eye on Bayer's T-shirt. In a week, a 54,000-pound container of used clothes will set sail on the steamship Claudia, destination Mombasa, Kenya. Stubin spots a pink stain on the belly of the T-shirt below the university logo and tosses the shirt aside. "Africa," he says. At the vast Owino market in downtown Kampala, Uganda's capital, you can find every imaginable garment, all of it secondhand. The used-clothing market is the densest, most electric section of Owino--the only place where ordinary Africans can join the frenetic international ranks of consumers.
I knew what this thrice-rejected clothing had gone through to get here, but somehow "Africa" looks much better in Africa--the colors brighter, the shapes shapelier. A dress that moved along a conveyor belt like a gutted chicken becomes a dress again when it has been charcoal-ironed and hangs sunlit in a Kampala vendor's stall. Some of the stock looks so good tha tit gets passed off as new in the fashionable shops on Kampala Road. On a Saturday afternoon in December, the truck carrying the Trans-Americas shipping container with Bayer's T-shirt pulls into a Kampala warehouse after its long drive from the port of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. Seven customers--wholesalers from all over Uganda--anxiously wait along with Trans-America's buyer in Kampala, a Pakistani named Hussein Ali Merchant.
Among the wholesalers is a heavy woman in her 40s with a look of profound disgust on her fleshy face. Her name is Proscovia Batwaula, but everyone calls her Mama Prossy. As the bales start leaving the container on the heads of the young porters, Mama Prossy literally trhwos her weight around to claim the ones she wants. Stubin has stenciled my initials on the bale containing Bayer's T-shirt. But I never imagined 540 bales coming off the truck at a frantic clip, turned at all angles on young men's heads, amid the chaos of bellowing wholesalers. Finding the T-shirt suddenly seems impossible.
Moments later, good luck. Merchang spots my bale coming off the truck, the initials "GP" all of three inches high. Mama Prossy insists on the right to tear it open and have a look. She angles for a price cut from Merchant. They settle on the equivalent fo $60 for the bale, a price that amounts to 19 cents a shirt. At the market in Jinja, a city some 50 miles east of Kampala, Mama Prossy sits like a queen on her wooden storage bin and watches the morning trade. At her feet, half a dozen retailers poke through the innards of the Trans-Americas bale. Her retailers sort hte T-shirts by their own three-tier grading system. Bayer's is rated second class and goes for 60 cents to a slender, grave young man in slightly tattered maroon trousers who seems intimidated by the queen on her throne. His name is Philip Nandala, and he is the next to last link in the chain. Nandala is an itinerant peddler of used clothes, the closest thing in Uganda to the 19th-century rag dealer with his horse drawn cart--except that Nandala transports his 50-pound bag from market to market by minibus or on his own head, five days a week on the road.
The end of the road is a small hilltop town, green and windswept, called Kapchorwa, about 110 miles northeast of Mama Prossy's stall in downtown Jinja. Nandala spreads his wares on a plastic sheet at the foot of a brick wall and works hard all day, a tape measure around his neck. Poor rural Ugandans, the chain's last links, crowd close, arguing and pleading, but Nandala is now the one with power, and he barely stirs from his asking prices. One young man comes back half a dozen times to try on the same gray gooded coat. But Nandala wants $4.70, the customer has only $1.75. The customer finally walks away, and suddenly I feel sad. Now that I have seen how Africans prize so hightly what we throw away, the trail of Suzie Bayer's T-shirt only seems to tell one story, a bery old one, about the unfairness of the world as it is.
The T-shirt is buried deep in Nandala's pile. My flight back to New York is leaving in four days, and I am concerned about missing it. So I reach into the pile, wanting to position the T-shirt more advantageously. As soon as I touch it, the shirt flies out of my hand. An old man in an embroidered Muslim cap, who is missing his lower front teeth, holds it up for inspection. Tracing with his finger, he puzzles out the words printed in red and black around an academic insignia: "University Pennsylvania," he says. He dances away, brandishing the shirt in his fist. Ninety cents was his first offer, but Nandala won't budge from $1.20. Eventually, the old man pays. Yusuf Mama, 71, has found what he wants. I asked him why, of all the shirts in the pile, he has chosen this one. "It can help me," he says vaguely. "I have ony one shirt."
Later, when I tell the story to people back in Kampala, they shake their heads. Yusuf Mama wanted Susie Bayer's T-shirt, they say, because a white man had touched it.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
THINGS FOR SALE
HOW TO BUY MY CD
I have a CD for sale! If you listened to my songs and you decided that you like them so much that you want to buy the entire cd or send a friend or loved one a cd for Christmas or to celebrate the birth of a new family arrival or what have you, then you have come to the right place. My CD has seven songs on it, including "Sudden Change," "Rock N' Roll Pussy," and "Lullabye," which Wil Wheaton called the lyrics of, the funniest thing he ever read.
Here are your options:
1) Click below on the BUY NOW! button to make the CD "Dirty Folk Rock" your own, using a credit card.
2) Come to a show (see my upcoming shows link) and purchase one at the show.
***Save $2.00 mailing charge by coming to a show!***
If you have any questions or would like to verify that your check was received, please e-mail me at jessdelfino@yahoo.com.
Thank you for your patronage of my CD.
THINGS FOR SALE NEWS
COMING SOON:
Believe Chicken - THE BOOK
This book is based on the back in the day comedy show co-hosted and co-produced by comedian Liz Laufer at Nightingale's in Manhattan. Every week I would send an e-mail out to a thousand people inviting them to the show. Sometimes the e-mail was a story, sometimes it was a vulgar blurb, but the content of each e-mail was special, and included the line-up for the show and show details. The line-up is interesting because some of the comics have since gained notoriety and some of the comics have since quit the business. This book also features photos, memorabelia and interviews with performers. This book will be lots of fun whether you attended or not the phenomenon-like thing that was known as Believe Chicken.
MY OTHER BOOK - Yet Still Unnamed
In March, 2004 a dating book I co-wrote will be released. It should be very interesting and you will hear more about it when the time comes.
HOW TO BUY MY CD
I have a CD for sale! If you listened to my songs and you decided that you like them so much that you want to buy the entire cd or send a friend or loved one a cd for Christmas or to celebrate the birth of a new family arrival or what have you, then you have come to the right place. My CD has seven songs on it, including "Sudden Change," "Rock N' Roll Pussy," and "Lullabye," which Wil Wheaton called the lyrics of, the funniest thing he ever read.
Here are your options:
1) Click below on the BUY NOW! button to make the CD "Dirty Folk Rock" your own, using a credit card.
2) Come to a show (see my upcoming shows link) and purchase one at the show.
***Save $2.00 mailing charge by coming to a show!***
If you have any questions or would like to verify that your check was received, please e-mail me at jessdelfino@yahoo.com.
Thank you for your patronage of my CD.
THINGS FOR SALE NEWS
COMING SOON:
Believe Chicken - THE BOOK
This book is based on the back in the day comedy show co-hosted and co-produced by comedian Liz Laufer at Nightingale's in Manhattan. Every week I would send an e-mail out to a thousand people inviting them to the show. Sometimes the e-mail was a story, sometimes it was a vulgar blurb, but the content of each e-mail was special, and included the line-up for the show and show details. The line-up is interesting because some of the comics have since gained notoriety and some of the comics have since quit the business. This book also features photos, memorabelia and interviews with performers. This book will be lots of fun whether you attended or not the phenomenon-like thing that was known as Believe Chicken.
MY OTHER BOOK - Yet Still Unnamed
In March, 2004 a dating book I co-wrote will be released. It should be very interesting and you will hear more about it when the time comes.
GREAT NUTS - A Sketch About Nuts
by Jessica Delfino
MOM
Honey, hand me that can of beans.
SON
This one, mom?
MOM
Yes.
Son hands the beans
MOM
These are my favorite kinds of beans. They’re perfectly small and round. They remind me of your little nuts when you were a baby.
SON
MOM!
MOM
Shhh. I made those nuts. I can talk about them!
SON
It’s just embarrassing!
MOM
Don’t be embarrassed! You come from a long line of ancestors with great nuts.
Your father has a great set of nuts.
SON
MOM!
MOM
Honey, stop making a scene. We both know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen your father’s nuts before.
SON
They are pretty perfect.
MOM
And so are yours…
SON
They’re okay, but they’re not as great as dad’s nuts.
Dad comes in. He’s wearing a preacher uniform.
DAD
What are you guys doing?
MOM
We’re just making dinner and talking about family nuts.
DAD
Oh, the family nuts? Yes, we’ve got great nuts in this family. Perfect nuts. I have great nuts, your grandfather had great nuts, and my grandfather had great nuts.
SON
It’s just sort of weird talking with you and mom about nuts.
Mom and Dad look at each other and laugh at the son
DAD
Well, it would be weird if we didn’t have perfect nuts, but we do. So, what’s weird about that?
MOM
Yeah, what’s weird about that?
SON
Nothing, I guess.
DAD
Nothing is right!
MOM
Or more like nut-thing!
Mom and Dad laugh together. At this point, everyone sits at the table and prepares to eat.
DAD
Come here, you two. We’re a great family, and we wouldn’t have this wonderful family if it weren’t for the blessed nuts we got. The lord works in mysterious ways.
MOM
We should pray.
DAD
That’s a great idea, Mom.
DAD
Let’s all bow our heads in prayer.
Everyone bows their heads
DAD
Dear lord, we thank you for life, we thank you for food, we thank you for the great nuts that you have bestowed upon myself and my son.
SON
Yeah, thanks, lord!
DAD
And thank you for the best nut handler in the world!
MOM
Stop it!
DAD
No, you stop it!
Mom and Dad laugh and share a long, dirty stare.
DAD
In the lords name we pray, amen.
MOM
That was a great prayer.
SON
Yeah, that was.
MOM
Honey, where’d you get this funky get up?
DAD
I bought it at a yard sale down the street. It fits perfectly!
MOM
Isn’t that something!
DAD
I thought I’d wear it for Halloween!
MOM
That’s a great idea!
(to son)
Your father has such a great sense of humor!
DAD
Yes, I do! But not when it comes to this family’s nuts!
SON
Dad?
DAD
Yeah, son?
SON
Do you think the lord has good nuts?
DAD
Son, I bet the lord has perfect, perfect nuts.
MOM
Let’s eat!
by Jessica Delfino
MOM
Honey, hand me that can of beans.
SON
This one, mom?
MOM
Yes.
Son hands the beans
MOM
These are my favorite kinds of beans. They’re perfectly small and round. They remind me of your little nuts when you were a baby.
SON
MOM!
MOM
Shhh. I made those nuts. I can talk about them!
SON
It’s just embarrassing!
MOM
Don’t be embarrassed! You come from a long line of ancestors with great nuts.
Your father has a great set of nuts.
SON
MOM!
MOM
Honey, stop making a scene. We both know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen your father’s nuts before.
SON
They are pretty perfect.
MOM
And so are yours…
SON
They’re okay, but they’re not as great as dad’s nuts.
Dad comes in. He’s wearing a preacher uniform.
DAD
What are you guys doing?
MOM
We’re just making dinner and talking about family nuts.
DAD
Oh, the family nuts? Yes, we’ve got great nuts in this family. Perfect nuts. I have great nuts, your grandfather had great nuts, and my grandfather had great nuts.
SON
It’s just sort of weird talking with you and mom about nuts.
Mom and Dad look at each other and laugh at the son
DAD
Well, it would be weird if we didn’t have perfect nuts, but we do. So, what’s weird about that?
MOM
Yeah, what’s weird about that?
SON
Nothing, I guess.
DAD
Nothing is right!
MOM
Or more like nut-thing!
Mom and Dad laugh together. At this point, everyone sits at the table and prepares to eat.
DAD
Come here, you two. We’re a great family, and we wouldn’t have this wonderful family if it weren’t for the blessed nuts we got. The lord works in mysterious ways.
MOM
We should pray.
DAD
That’s a great idea, Mom.
DAD
Let’s all bow our heads in prayer.
Everyone bows their heads
DAD
Dear lord, we thank you for life, we thank you for food, we thank you for the great nuts that you have bestowed upon myself and my son.
SON
Yeah, thanks, lord!
DAD
And thank you for the best nut handler in the world!
MOM
Stop it!
DAD
No, you stop it!
Mom and Dad laugh and share a long, dirty stare.
DAD
In the lords name we pray, amen.
MOM
That was a great prayer.
SON
Yeah, that was.
MOM
Honey, where’d you get this funky get up?
DAD
I bought it at a yard sale down the street. It fits perfectly!
MOM
Isn’t that something!
DAD
I thought I’d wear it for Halloween!
MOM
That’s a great idea!
(to son)
Your father has such a great sense of humor!
DAD
Yes, I do! But not when it comes to this family’s nuts!
SON
Dad?
DAD
Yeah, son?
SON
Do you think the lord has good nuts?
DAD
Son, I bet the lord has perfect, perfect nuts.
MOM
Let’s eat!
Friday, September 26, 2003
The Ride
by Jessica Delfino
I got into the cab at Thompson Street. The cabbie looked me over through the rear view mirror like a sandwich being made to order behind the glass at Subway. He didn't say anything, but his eyes asked me a hundred questions. "Um, hi." I said. I'm always so polite, especially to people who don't give a fuck whether I'm polite or not. "I'm going to 55th and Broadway?" I said. I always talk like I'm asking a question, my words curling up at the end like one of those flat plastic fortune fish you can maybe still find in Chinatown. I don't know why I do that, but I might say it has something to do with my being afraid of everything. "55th and Broadway?" he actually did ask. "Uh, yeah," I ascertained. I always start out my sentences with Uh or Um, which some psychiatrists might attest to me feeling insecure. I don't feel insecure, I swear I don't, but I must be, because I'm always saying uh or um, and my statements come out like questions.
He pressed the meter button and pulled out into traffic like a fighter jet. Michael Buffer yelled at me to make sure I get ready to rumble for safety, and reminded me to please buckle my seatbelt. My friend and I had been talking about that just earlier. What kind of person can have a job like that - one where they hear or see or do the same thing over and over all day long. We agreed it takes a very special kind of person, who, every time he clicks the meter button hears Michael Buffer's voice, or every time he punches the card sees his life fleeting by in a series of beeps or boops or ca-chings!
We flew up 6th avenue like we were on a runway. I checked the clock on my cellphone - it said 12:07 am. If I die, I thought to myself, I made it into another day. I am always constantly thinking like this. Death rides me piggy back style every day, every where I go. And I just let it. My mother would insist this has something to do with the fact that my father left when I was young, but I think it has more to do with him being gay.
"I'm an outlaw!" he screamed at my boyfriend once during a phone conversation.
But it could be something else all together. It could have something to do with 9/11, or
being cuddled too much as a child, or eating too many dairy products, or having a mental disorder of the undiagnosed kind. My friend and I were talking and he said that 50% of the population has an undiagnosed mental disorder. I don't know if I believe that statistic or not, but I bet you a pair of shoes that everybody thinks they're sane, whether they're crazy or not. Even the people who swear they're crazy think they're a hybrid sane-crazy, and probably really mean goofy or just overextended.
The driver and I begin talking. He's studying to be a nurse. He drives his taxi 6 days a week. He used to study chess, every day for 6 hours a day. I've never met so many people who play chess in my life as I have in New York. I play chess, but only as a game. When they say 'play' chess here, it means something different. It means tutors and expectations, tournaments and Yahoo! games accounts, clocks and books and knowledge of masters and autographs, $1 an hour and coffee and chainsmoking and side bets and pieces having monetary worth and your name on the line. The driver insists, "No, it's for fun!" But if it were so much fun, then why did he quit following his dream of being a master to take up nursing? Is it because nursing is more fun than chess? In the games he played, I bet so.
The driver missed 55th and went up to 57th. Cars flew by us, along side us, horns screamed over our conversation, street lights winked knowingly. I looked out the cab windows and saw buildings all around me like sleepy giants, hungry for the morning when the people would come in and fill their empty stomachs. At the corner of Broadway and 57th, a bus pulled out in front of us. I breathed in the fumes and imagined them hardening like nail polish on my lungs. A doctor might say that I'm a hypochondriac, but I think I'm probably just bored and a little bit stupid.
Another taxi, one of those fancy all black ones who think they're better than the yellow ones because they have leather seats and charge a million dollars an hour, blazed past us. The driver yelled "Fuck You!" out the window. I watched his face, twisted up and crinkled, like christmas wrapping or steak and eggs. I bet he did that kind of shit all the time. He probably broke stuff out of anger on regular occasions.
Finally, the cars let up and we turned down Broadway. The taxi glided back downtown like one of those satin tampons. I saw my destination hovering in the near distance, like a chaperone. The driver pulled alongside the curb on Broadway and I panicked for a second, imagining a car careening out of control and smashing me into the telephone booth as I daintily stepped out of the taxi. I paid the driver and thanked him graciously, as I always do to people who don't care if I'm gracious or not. "Thank you so much?" I said in my soft-scrub scratchy voice. My boyfriend would say that I speak that way because I'm sweet. I would say, too many cigarettes on top of fear of death. He would say, "Why do you have shit to say when I'm trying to compliment you?" Then I'd feel bad.
I think about it for a second as I get out of the taxi without incident, then I forget about it. I'm safe, thank god. No smashing phone booths or bus crashes tonight. A cool breeze littered with the sweet smell of garbage and relief hesitates around me, then passes. I made it here alive. These are the things I celebrate in life. Making it to my destinations, not dying at this or that moment in a flame ball. As I'm walking up the sidewalk into the building, I realize I'm very tired. I push the up button on the elevator and start to wonder. Can these things still fall?
by Jessica Delfino
I got into the cab at Thompson Street. The cabbie looked me over through the rear view mirror like a sandwich being made to order behind the glass at Subway. He didn't say anything, but his eyes asked me a hundred questions. "Um, hi." I said. I'm always so polite, especially to people who don't give a fuck whether I'm polite or not. "I'm going to 55th and Broadway?" I said. I always talk like I'm asking a question, my words curling up at the end like one of those flat plastic fortune fish you can maybe still find in Chinatown. I don't know why I do that, but I might say it has something to do with my being afraid of everything. "55th and Broadway?" he actually did ask. "Uh, yeah," I ascertained. I always start out my sentences with Uh or Um, which some psychiatrists might attest to me feeling insecure. I don't feel insecure, I swear I don't, but I must be, because I'm always saying uh or um, and my statements come out like questions.
He pressed the meter button and pulled out into traffic like a fighter jet. Michael Buffer yelled at me to make sure I get ready to rumble for safety, and reminded me to please buckle my seatbelt. My friend and I had been talking about that just earlier. What kind of person can have a job like that - one where they hear or see or do the same thing over and over all day long. We agreed it takes a very special kind of person, who, every time he clicks the meter button hears Michael Buffer's voice, or every time he punches the card sees his life fleeting by in a series of beeps or boops or ca-chings!
We flew up 6th avenue like we were on a runway. I checked the clock on my cellphone - it said 12:07 am. If I die, I thought to myself, I made it into another day. I am always constantly thinking like this. Death rides me piggy back style every day, every where I go. And I just let it. My mother would insist this has something to do with the fact that my father left when I was young, but I think it has more to do with him being gay.
"I'm an outlaw!" he screamed at my boyfriend once during a phone conversation.
But it could be something else all together. It could have something to do with 9/11, or
being cuddled too much as a child, or eating too many dairy products, or having a mental disorder of the undiagnosed kind. My friend and I were talking and he said that 50% of the population has an undiagnosed mental disorder. I don't know if I believe that statistic or not, but I bet you a pair of shoes that everybody thinks they're sane, whether they're crazy or not. Even the people who swear they're crazy think they're a hybrid sane-crazy, and probably really mean goofy or just overextended.
The driver and I begin talking. He's studying to be a nurse. He drives his taxi 6 days a week. He used to study chess, every day for 6 hours a day. I've never met so many people who play chess in my life as I have in New York. I play chess, but only as a game. When they say 'play' chess here, it means something different. It means tutors and expectations, tournaments and Yahoo! games accounts, clocks and books and knowledge of masters and autographs, $1 an hour and coffee and chainsmoking and side bets and pieces having monetary worth and your name on the line. The driver insists, "No, it's for fun!" But if it were so much fun, then why did he quit following his dream of being a master to take up nursing? Is it because nursing is more fun than chess? In the games he played, I bet so.
The driver missed 55th and went up to 57th. Cars flew by us, along side us, horns screamed over our conversation, street lights winked knowingly. I looked out the cab windows and saw buildings all around me like sleepy giants, hungry for the morning when the people would come in and fill their empty stomachs. At the corner of Broadway and 57th, a bus pulled out in front of us. I breathed in the fumes and imagined them hardening like nail polish on my lungs. A doctor might say that I'm a hypochondriac, but I think I'm probably just bored and a little bit stupid.
Another taxi, one of those fancy all black ones who think they're better than the yellow ones because they have leather seats and charge a million dollars an hour, blazed past us. The driver yelled "Fuck You!" out the window. I watched his face, twisted up and crinkled, like christmas wrapping or steak and eggs. I bet he did that kind of shit all the time. He probably broke stuff out of anger on regular occasions.
Finally, the cars let up and we turned down Broadway. The taxi glided back downtown like one of those satin tampons. I saw my destination hovering in the near distance, like a chaperone. The driver pulled alongside the curb on Broadway and I panicked for a second, imagining a car careening out of control and smashing me into the telephone booth as I daintily stepped out of the taxi. I paid the driver and thanked him graciously, as I always do to people who don't care if I'm gracious or not. "Thank you so much?" I said in my soft-scrub scratchy voice. My boyfriend would say that I speak that way because I'm sweet. I would say, too many cigarettes on top of fear of death. He would say, "Why do you have shit to say when I'm trying to compliment you?" Then I'd feel bad.
I think about it for a second as I get out of the taxi without incident, then I forget about it. I'm safe, thank god. No smashing phone booths or bus crashes tonight. A cool breeze littered with the sweet smell of garbage and relief hesitates around me, then passes. I made it here alive. These are the things I celebrate in life. Making it to my destinations, not dying at this or that moment in a flame ball. As I'm walking up the sidewalk into the building, I realize I'm very tired. I push the up button on the elevator and start to wonder. Can these things still fall?
Some Websites To Check Out
by Jessica Delfino
NEW LINKS:
Johanna Buccola's blog - Johanna is a good friend of mine who helped me a lot with my show at UCB. She is a very talented and funny performance artist who does really great characters. When we get together, we laugh a lot and talk about how stupid boys are.
Ned Vizzini's Website - Ned Vizzini is a friend of Touching You. Ned writes novels and he is young so I think it is cool that he is an author at such a young age. He is cute, too. I think he and my sister would be a nice couple.
OTHER LINKS:
The (Liquid) Tape Deck - This is the website of one of my new favorite bands. The Liquid is silent.
Reodorant - My friend Joe's website - it has lots of funny and disturbing comics and writings on it. If you like dark, depraved humor, this is gonna be your shit.
Bad Dentist - This is a very unusual website - Someone started a campaign against this dentist because he fucked up lost of people's teeth. Good reading. Info you should know if you live in NYC and go to dentists.
COMEDIAN FRIENDS WEBSITES
Bar Mitvah Disco - A lesson in Jewdaism from a friend of mine who's also a comedian. Funny pictures.
Julie Klausner - This is what super talent looks like.
Laurie Kilmartin - We share the love of the rape joke.
Chelsea Peretti - Chelsea is hard to be friends with, but I like her anyway.
Josh Wade - The kind of guy girls want to strangle and make out with at the same time.
Victor Varnado - One of my favorite people or persons. He moved to LA but he'll be back.
Jim Norton - He's funny, he's gross, he's Jimothy Norton.
NON-COMEDIAN FRIENDS WEBSITES
David's Blog - Home of "The Official Record" - interesting point of view regarding politics and entertainment.
Abby's Blog - My sister's blog. She's the smartest, bitchiest person I know.
Brodeur For Mayor - Christopher Brodeur is running for mayor. Very interesting.
I'll strain my brain for more links and update this post every never in a while.
by Jessica Delfino
NEW LINKS:
Johanna Buccola's blog - Johanna is a good friend of mine who helped me a lot with my show at UCB. She is a very talented and funny performance artist who does really great characters. When we get together, we laugh a lot and talk about how stupid boys are.
Ned Vizzini's Website - Ned Vizzini is a friend of Touching You. Ned writes novels and he is young so I think it is cool that he is an author at such a young age. He is cute, too. I think he and my sister would be a nice couple.
OTHER LINKS:
The (Liquid) Tape Deck - This is the website of one of my new favorite bands. The Liquid is silent.
Reodorant - My friend Joe's website - it has lots of funny and disturbing comics and writings on it. If you like dark, depraved humor, this is gonna be your shit.
Bad Dentist - This is a very unusual website - Someone started a campaign against this dentist because he fucked up lost of people's teeth. Good reading. Info you should know if you live in NYC and go to dentists.
COMEDIAN FRIENDS WEBSITES
Bar Mitvah Disco - A lesson in Jewdaism from a friend of mine who's also a comedian. Funny pictures.
Julie Klausner - This is what super talent looks like.
Laurie Kilmartin - We share the love of the rape joke.
Chelsea Peretti - Chelsea is hard to be friends with, but I like her anyway.
Josh Wade - The kind of guy girls want to strangle and make out with at the same time.
Victor Varnado - One of my favorite people or persons. He moved to LA but he'll be back.
Jim Norton - He's funny, he's gross, he's Jimothy Norton.
NON-COMEDIAN FRIENDS WEBSITES
David's Blog - Home of "The Official Record" - interesting point of view regarding politics and entertainment.
Abby's Blog - My sister's blog. She's the smartest, bitchiest person I know.
Brodeur For Mayor - Christopher Brodeur is running for mayor. Very interesting.
I'll strain my brain for more links and update this post every never in a while.
Great Things Are Happening At Jessy Delfino's Blog
Lots of exciting changes are going on around here! There are new buttons at the top of this page that you can click on to find out fantastic information about what is going on in Jessy Delfino's life! Look straight up and see for yourself - There is a new photo album! There is a schedule of upcoming shows! There is a button that leads to my e-mail address! There's a comment board! There's even a link to my dirty folk rock songs. Be sure to make a date to check back often, as the schedule and photo album will be updated regularly. You guys are the greatest.
Lots of exciting changes are going on around here! There are new buttons at the top of this page that you can click on to find out fantastic information about what is going on in Jessy Delfino's life! Look straight up and see for yourself - There is a new photo album! There is a schedule of upcoming shows! There is a button that leads to my e-mail address! There's a comment board! There's even a link to my dirty folk rock songs. Be sure to make a date to check back often, as the schedule and photo album will be updated regularly. You guys are the greatest.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
COMMENT
by Jessica Delfino
NEW!!!!!!!! - A comment option is now on my blog following each individual entry. See how it shines and sparkles, below every segment, beckoning you to write something. See the way it shimmers in a bright, seductive color, enticing you to click it with your mouse! Watch as it sits there, waiting for you, getting sad when you don't pay any attention to it. Please do not make my comment section cry. Donate your time. Become a commentor on Jessy Delfino's Blog. You may not be glad you did, or have an opinion about it one way or the other, but for America's sake, for Christ's sake, that space IS you. Use it, abuse it, reuse it, cruise it, who's who it, lose it, bemuse it, news it, ooh's it, eww's it, defuse it. It's all about you and what words you know how to spell and string together.
by Jessica Delfino
NEW!!!!!!!! - A comment option is now on my blog following each individual entry. See how it shines and sparkles, below every segment, beckoning you to write something. See the way it shimmers in a bright, seductive color, enticing you to click it with your mouse! Watch as it sits there, waiting for you, getting sad when you don't pay any attention to it. Please do not make my comment section cry. Donate your time. Become a commentor on Jessy Delfino's Blog. You may not be glad you did, or have an opinion about it one way or the other, but for America's sake, for Christ's sake, that space IS you. Use it, abuse it, reuse it, cruise it, who's who it, lose it, bemuse it, news it, ooh's it, eww's it, defuse it. It's all about you and what words you know how to spell and string together.
How I Consume
(In A Way That Is Not Unique Or Clever)
by Jessica Delfino
Fall is speedily approaching us, maybe it's even here, I don't keep up with dates, calendars are for Garfield fans, and I notice my desire to consume is intensifying. I guess it has something to do with the cold weather, but probably not, because I consumed all summer long, too. However, right this week, my cavewomanly instincts are silently, yet physically manifesting themselves in a real 'money in exchange for goods and services' kind of way, and I feel as though this is me, modernly storing my nuts for the winter, so to speak. I used to think I was an entirely unique being until I began just paying attention to people a little more closely, then I discovered that we are all actually replicas of one another, influenced by the same major record label bands, big three television programs, popular clothing brand trends and fizzy on-sale soft drink beverages. So, no, I'm not a special onesie. I'm just one parts special onesie and the rest of me is you and you and you and you, sir, in the back. Please stop doing that.
Interesting, or maybe not even, though we are so similar in so many ways, all made of stars, as Moby told me in a song, there are enough products on the planet that we can all have a large array of favorites and perhaps, that is the most unique thing about us - how we consume. Supply and demand. It's the awesomest. If it weren't super duper, big companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars a year implanting images and ideas into our lives and our heads and our sleep. I bet you a shiny dollar coin bill that in the year 2031, big businesses will find a way to broadcast advertising into our dreams. If you sleep with the tv on, they've already got you. Sucker.
Here are a few of my favorite ways to consume that are not unique or clever.
SECRET brand deodorant - Remember the commercials back in the 80's? (If you were born before 83 you might recall) Strong enough for a man - but PH balanced for a woman! I watched those commercials for years growing up. AND NOW.....I am using the shit every single freaking day. Coincidence? Yes. No. Who gives a clammy asshole? I use all the various scents, however, I prefer powder fresh flavor. It smells so good, I could eat it. I heard once that deodorant gives you alzheimers. I don't know if there is any merit to that or not, but if there is, please fuck off. Don't tell me about it, because I like to use it. Plus, when you're old your memory goes to take a shit and never returns anyway, so what's the big deal? Also - I have been using Secret for many years and though it does smell nice, it doesn't keep me from sweating like a fat greasy fatso. I always have sweat spots on my tee shirts. If you don't believe me, next time you see me, just come up and put your hand in my arm crevice. If it comes out dry, I'll freestyle you a poem. PS - Secret costs about $3.00. You can sometimes find it at Odd Jobs for less.
AU BON PAIN - I don't know french or what that means, but after 3:00 pm, they have a half price sale on all their baked goods. So, their coconut cranberry macaroons go from a buck fifty to .75. I don't condone pigging yourself into fatness, but I do condone coconut cranberry macaroons and discount baked goods.
ANY BOOK BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK - I really very much enjoyed "Survivor" the book about a guy who was in a death cult, but then when the death cult patrons all died he escaped dying in the death cult in a special way that you have to read the book to find out more about. It was especially interesting to me because my fiance grew up a Jehovah's Witness, and though he isn't one anymore, it gave me an interesting insight as to what life might have been like for him. Some people consider the J-Dubs to be a cult. I am not exactly sure, because I don't know a lot about the organization, but I do know that it was nothing like the cult in Survivor. The cult in Survivor was closer to say, Waco, Texas or Going Up Heaven's Chimney in Mr. Show. I think Survivor costs about $12.00, but I borrowed my sister's copy, so technically, I didn't consume here. But she did, and I will not let that be in vain.
Those are three things I consume. This has been How I Consume. Tune in to the next How I Consume to read about three more things I consume.
PS This is in no way an endorsement to any of these products. I strongly encourage you not to consume in the same way that I do. That is one of the things that makes me an individual, an American, and I won't let you take that away from me. So fuck off. Consume your own array of name brand shit. But please continue to read about the way that I consume, and thank you for your business.
(In A Way That Is Not Unique Or Clever)
by Jessica Delfino
Fall is speedily approaching us, maybe it's even here, I don't keep up with dates, calendars are for Garfield fans, and I notice my desire to consume is intensifying. I guess it has something to do with the cold weather, but probably not, because I consumed all summer long, too. However, right this week, my cavewomanly instincts are silently, yet physically manifesting themselves in a real 'money in exchange for goods and services' kind of way, and I feel as though this is me, modernly storing my nuts for the winter, so to speak. I used to think I was an entirely unique being until I began just paying attention to people a little more closely, then I discovered that we are all actually replicas of one another, influenced by the same major record label bands, big three television programs, popular clothing brand trends and fizzy on-sale soft drink beverages. So, no, I'm not a special onesie. I'm just one parts special onesie and the rest of me is you and you and you and you, sir, in the back. Please stop doing that.
Interesting, or maybe not even, though we are so similar in so many ways, all made of stars, as Moby told me in a song, there are enough products on the planet that we can all have a large array of favorites and perhaps, that is the most unique thing about us - how we consume. Supply and demand. It's the awesomest. If it weren't super duper, big companies wouldn't spend billions of dollars a year implanting images and ideas into our lives and our heads and our sleep. I bet you a shiny dollar coin bill that in the year 2031, big businesses will find a way to broadcast advertising into our dreams. If you sleep with the tv on, they've already got you. Sucker.
Here are a few of my favorite ways to consume that are not unique or clever.
SECRET brand deodorant - Remember the commercials back in the 80's? (If you were born before 83 you might recall) Strong enough for a man - but PH balanced for a woman! I watched those commercials for years growing up. AND NOW.....I am using the shit every single freaking day. Coincidence? Yes. No. Who gives a clammy asshole? I use all the various scents, however, I prefer powder fresh flavor. It smells so good, I could eat it. I heard once that deodorant gives you alzheimers. I don't know if there is any merit to that or not, but if there is, please fuck off. Don't tell me about it, because I like to use it. Plus, when you're old your memory goes to take a shit and never returns anyway, so what's the big deal? Also - I have been using Secret for many years and though it does smell nice, it doesn't keep me from sweating like a fat greasy fatso. I always have sweat spots on my tee shirts. If you don't believe me, next time you see me, just come up and put your hand in my arm crevice. If it comes out dry, I'll freestyle you a poem. PS - Secret costs about $3.00. You can sometimes find it at Odd Jobs for less.
AU BON PAIN - I don't know french or what that means, but after 3:00 pm, they have a half price sale on all their baked goods. So, their coconut cranberry macaroons go from a buck fifty to .75. I don't condone pigging yourself into fatness, but I do condone coconut cranberry macaroons and discount baked goods.
ANY BOOK BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK - I really very much enjoyed "Survivor" the book about a guy who was in a death cult, but then when the death cult patrons all died he escaped dying in the death cult in a special way that you have to read the book to find out more about. It was especially interesting to me because my fiance grew up a Jehovah's Witness, and though he isn't one anymore, it gave me an interesting insight as to what life might have been like for him. Some people consider the J-Dubs to be a cult. I am not exactly sure, because I don't know a lot about the organization, but I do know that it was nothing like the cult in Survivor. The cult in Survivor was closer to say, Waco, Texas or Going Up Heaven's Chimney in Mr. Show. I think Survivor costs about $12.00, but I borrowed my sister's copy, so technically, I didn't consume here. But she did, and I will not let that be in vain.
Those are three things I consume. This has been How I Consume. Tune in to the next How I Consume to read about three more things I consume.
PS This is in no way an endorsement to any of these products. I strongly encourage you not to consume in the same way that I do. That is one of the things that makes me an individual, an American, and I won't let you take that away from me. So fuck off. Consume your own array of name brand shit. But please continue to read about the way that I consume, and thank you for your business.
Monday, September 22, 2003
The Drink
by Jessica Delfino
The little girl turned her sweet potato-shaped face upward at her father. Her eyes shone blue like the water which he'd held her under, in respect for the wishes of his, nay, their christ. She shivered, her eyelashes clumped together like a gathering of wet hair mopped up from the kitchen floor. The corners of her mouth flitted, quickly escalating into a tiny smile, the rows of baby teeth shimmering like jewels, but worth much less.
"Daddy, what will I be when I grow up?" Her father beamed down at her like the way Mr. Sun shines on our planet. "You will be whatever the lord tells you to be." She let out a giggle as if she were choking on water, hiccuped in the air and the breeze, and squirmed with the happiness that came along with being in her father's arms. In that moment, she understood that she had the ability to please or disappoint her father, whenever she wanted, for the rest of her life. "God willing, papa, I will be a good daughter." Her father was warm all over, like an oven baking a pot roast inside. "Yes," he said. He was going to say something else, but then he felt the whisper of God in his ear and all over his heart, telling him that he had said enough.
Father took a small flask of whiskey from his pocket and turned it upward towards the lord in heaven. He took in the bitter fluid and breathed out harshly. Daughter smelled his potent mouthwind, winced, and then relaxed, familiar with the hot rush of the air escaping from his throat. It was the source of daddy's good moods. "Daddy, can I taste?" Father looked at his precious arm bundle and then at the glass rectangle of liquid. It caught the light and spilled squares of color onto the ground below. "Yes," he said. He was going to say something else, "No" perhaps, but the lord had moved into him at that moment and shared with him that to teach your children the ways of the world is a parent's only responsibility. Father held his hand below her delicate, twig-like neck and helped her to steady the bottle to her lips. When she began to taste the dark poison, he held the bottle fast, so she had no choice but to swallow.
"I must teach her to be aware now, while she is young, so when she is older, she will not follow satan to the evil manor, where the floor is bathed in velvet carpets and strobe lights dance alongside the writhing bodies." He exclaimed out loud, "I will not have it!" So thunderous was the passion behind his words that birds flew from a tree above his head and his voice echoed out across the lake. He smiled, as he knew that an echo was God's voice, broadcast from the heavens to be transformed to the tone of that of a mortal man.
He helped the liquor gone astray from his daughter's mouth with the back of his hand and stood her up. She was affected by the swig and swayed just so slightly. Daddy took her tiny pinecone sized hand into his giant meathook and tugged her lightly. "Let's go home, porcupine. God's work here is done."
by Jessica Delfino
The little girl turned her sweet potato-shaped face upward at her father. Her eyes shone blue like the water which he'd held her under, in respect for the wishes of his, nay, their christ. She shivered, her eyelashes clumped together like a gathering of wet hair mopped up from the kitchen floor. The corners of her mouth flitted, quickly escalating into a tiny smile, the rows of baby teeth shimmering like jewels, but worth much less.
"Daddy, what will I be when I grow up?" Her father beamed down at her like the way Mr. Sun shines on our planet. "You will be whatever the lord tells you to be." She let out a giggle as if she were choking on water, hiccuped in the air and the breeze, and squirmed with the happiness that came along with being in her father's arms. In that moment, she understood that she had the ability to please or disappoint her father, whenever she wanted, for the rest of her life. "God willing, papa, I will be a good daughter." Her father was warm all over, like an oven baking a pot roast inside. "Yes," he said. He was going to say something else, but then he felt the whisper of God in his ear and all over his heart, telling him that he had said enough.
Father took a small flask of whiskey from his pocket and turned it upward towards the lord in heaven. He took in the bitter fluid and breathed out harshly. Daughter smelled his potent mouthwind, winced, and then relaxed, familiar with the hot rush of the air escaping from his throat. It was the source of daddy's good moods. "Daddy, can I taste?" Father looked at his precious arm bundle and then at the glass rectangle of liquid. It caught the light and spilled squares of color onto the ground below. "Yes," he said. He was going to say something else, "No" perhaps, but the lord had moved into him at that moment and shared with him that to teach your children the ways of the world is a parent's only responsibility. Father held his hand below her delicate, twig-like neck and helped her to steady the bottle to her lips. When she began to taste the dark poison, he held the bottle fast, so she had no choice but to swallow.
"I must teach her to be aware now, while she is young, so when she is older, she will not follow satan to the evil manor, where the floor is bathed in velvet carpets and strobe lights dance alongside the writhing bodies." He exclaimed out loud, "I will not have it!" So thunderous was the passion behind his words that birds flew from a tree above his head and his voice echoed out across the lake. He smiled, as he knew that an echo was God's voice, broadcast from the heavens to be transformed to the tone of that of a mortal man.
He helped the liquor gone astray from his daughter's mouth with the back of his hand and stood her up. She was affected by the swig and swayed just so slightly. Daddy took her tiny pinecone sized hand into his giant meathook and tugged her lightly. "Let's go home, porcupine. God's work here is done."
Fun With Tastelessness
by Jessica Delfino
FAMILY TIME PRESENTS: GOOD, CLEAN RAPE JOKES
*An "I can't read without my glasses or an adult helping me sound out the words" publication. (Ages 4-84)
*Approved by Good Housewrecking Magazine
*4 out of 5 Dentists agree, "They're clean, alright!"
*Winner of the Boogle Search "Rape Topic" Award
*Declared GYNO-licious by the AMA
*Fun for at least half the family, not necessarily guaranteed!
*"Oprah's Reading Party" (TM) certified perusing material
*In association with the Apex Tech "Learning Can Be Dark and Make You Uneasy" program
Q: Why did the drunken crew of frat boys attend the sorrority pot luck supper?
A: They wanted to try the broccoli rape.
Q: Why did the battered wife still find attractive about her husband?
A: His rapiers wit.
Q: What do you call a hungry call girl?
A: Call her whatever, just don't call her rape for dinner.
Q: Speaking of dinner, when said call girl has accompanied her date to a restaurant, what does she do with the food she can't finish?
A: She has it raped up for later.
by Jessica Delfino
FAMILY TIME PRESENTS: GOOD, CLEAN RAPE JOKES
*An "I can't read without my glasses or an adult helping me sound out the words" publication. (Ages 4-84)
*Approved by Good Housewrecking Magazine
*4 out of 5 Dentists agree, "They're clean, alright!"
*Winner of the Boogle Search "Rape Topic" Award
*Declared GYNO-licious by the AMA
*Fun for at least half the family, not necessarily guaranteed!
*"Oprah's Reading Party" (TM) certified perusing material
*In association with the Apex Tech "Learning Can Be Dark and Make You Uneasy" program
Q: Why did the drunken crew of frat boys attend the sorrority pot luck supper?
A: They wanted to try the broccoli rape.
Q: Why did the battered wife still find attractive about her husband?
A: His rapiers wit.
Q: What do you call a hungry call girl?
A: Call her whatever, just don't call her rape for dinner.
Q: Speaking of dinner, when said call girl has accompanied her date to a restaurant, what does she do with the food she can't finish?
A: She has it raped up for later.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Debunking A Bullshit Cliche
by Jessica Delfino
Today I will cover two important topics. For starters, I will discuss how my rich relatives don't give me any money. Second, I will address how I'm not rich, even though I have lots of rich friends and relatives, you know, like the expression says I should be. Let's do this.
Someone just told me that if you drink soda, it deteriorates your bones, and then you just pee out bits of your bones. I don't know if this is true or not but why did she have to tell me that? Now I can't even take a pee without crying because I'm sad that I'm peeing my innerframe away, not to mention all the imaginary pain I'm in. Supposedly when you get old, that's when it's the worst. So, one day I'll just be a mushy fleshwalker and I'll fall apart, leaving a floppy mountain of skin on the ground. Then I'll die. Great.
The fact that I'm going to get old and deteriorate is only one of the millions of reasons that I have to get rich really soon.
My friend is going to be a millionaire in a few weeks. I am very excited because he's going to be rich and he's my friend, my very good friend, probably one of my favorite people, and did I mention really sweet and kind and caring and just a perfect example of a human man? But he won't be my first millionaire friend. Another millionaire I know is this guy from Europe who came here with $7 and a dream or whatever, washed dishes for a few years and then had a few good ideas that materialized themselves into big houses and BMW's and Mercedes and snookers tables and fancy watches. Now he's living elevated upon the dog and no more dish washing, not by hand, anyway!
I could go on and on listing all my millionaire friends of which I have a million, but that's not what I feel like doing right now. Instead, I'm going to take a break from that and list a few wealthy relatives.
My step-dad is a wealthy man, both in dollars and pubic hair. He started a lobster wholesale business amongst the rocky coast of Maine and it fared him well. My grandfather is a millionaire a few times over. He made his fortune in the stock market. He has tennis courts for his tennis courts.
But look, you - don't covet my relatives, neither one of them give me money or support my endeavors. I might as well have a poor dad and a poor grandfather, they'd probably be more generous. I haven't asked for help that many times, but the few times that I have, I've heard the same old hokey pokey. "If I give you money, then you won't respect yourself because you didn't earn it yourself." Noted. Consequenes accepted. Can I have some money now, fellas?
You might be thinking, "Hey, why should your step dad give you any money? And I answer by writing: Now listen here, you. He's not just some guy who married my mom, moved in, humped her for a few years and then took off. First of all, they bought a house together. Second, he humped her for ten years. Third, she left him. It's very important that you understand those details. I got spanked by him, I mowed the lawn, I shoveled snow, I was his intensive little softball project, he pushed me off a boat when I was 8 and chipped one of my adult front teeth disfiguring my smile until I worked at Banana Republic when I was 22 and got dental insurance to pay for it to get fixed, (pure porcelain, baby!) he made me eat seafood for dinner every night, and then when he and my mom got divorced he kicked me out, so listen up! It was no bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios being the only step daughter, what with my step sister constantly reminding me that she was daddy's favorite because she was his real daughter, and my step dad standing behind her saying, yeah! OK, this is getting a little bit off topic and too close to what was the only home I knew.
The bottom line is, fuck you. I deserve money. I'm not asking for a lot, just a few bucks here and there, maybe a computer or a car, or both. Seriously, I don't even care that my dad and grandfather haven't given me any money. Even though my grandfather's a dick for saying it, I'll say it, my grandfather's a dick, he was right about me feeling better about myself if I made my own money. Still, he could have tossed me a few fivers now and again.
The bottom line is this: Why does the expression about how you should hang out with rich people and you'll be rich too not apply to me?
Cause you know what? I hang out with rich people, god dammit.
And I'm not rich.
by Jessica Delfino
Today I will cover two important topics. For starters, I will discuss how my rich relatives don't give me any money. Second, I will address how I'm not rich, even though I have lots of rich friends and relatives, you know, like the expression says I should be. Let's do this.
Someone just told me that if you drink soda, it deteriorates your bones, and then you just pee out bits of your bones. I don't know if this is true or not but why did she have to tell me that? Now I can't even take a pee without crying because I'm sad that I'm peeing my innerframe away, not to mention all the imaginary pain I'm in. Supposedly when you get old, that's when it's the worst. So, one day I'll just be a mushy fleshwalker and I'll fall apart, leaving a floppy mountain of skin on the ground. Then I'll die. Great.
The fact that I'm going to get old and deteriorate is only one of the millions of reasons that I have to get rich really soon.
My friend is going to be a millionaire in a few weeks. I am very excited because he's going to be rich and he's my friend, my very good friend, probably one of my favorite people, and did I mention really sweet and kind and caring and just a perfect example of a human man? But he won't be my first millionaire friend. Another millionaire I know is this guy from Europe who came here with $7 and a dream or whatever, washed dishes for a few years and then had a few good ideas that materialized themselves into big houses and BMW's and Mercedes and snookers tables and fancy watches. Now he's living elevated upon the dog and no more dish washing, not by hand, anyway!
I could go on and on listing all my millionaire friends of which I have a million, but that's not what I feel like doing right now. Instead, I'm going to take a break from that and list a few wealthy relatives.
My step-dad is a wealthy man, both in dollars and pubic hair. He started a lobster wholesale business amongst the rocky coast of Maine and it fared him well. My grandfather is a millionaire a few times over. He made his fortune in the stock market. He has tennis courts for his tennis courts.
But look, you - don't covet my relatives, neither one of them give me money or support my endeavors. I might as well have a poor dad and a poor grandfather, they'd probably be more generous. I haven't asked for help that many times, but the few times that I have, I've heard the same old hokey pokey. "If I give you money, then you won't respect yourself because you didn't earn it yourself." Noted. Consequenes accepted. Can I have some money now, fellas?
You might be thinking, "Hey, why should your step dad give you any money? And I answer by writing: Now listen here, you. He's not just some guy who married my mom, moved in, humped her for a few years and then took off. First of all, they bought a house together. Second, he humped her for ten years. Third, she left him. It's very important that you understand those details. I got spanked by him, I mowed the lawn, I shoveled snow, I was his intensive little softball project, he pushed me off a boat when I was 8 and chipped one of my adult front teeth disfiguring my smile until I worked at Banana Republic when I was 22 and got dental insurance to pay for it to get fixed, (pure porcelain, baby!) he made me eat seafood for dinner every night, and then when he and my mom got divorced he kicked me out, so listen up! It was no bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios being the only step daughter, what with my step sister constantly reminding me that she was daddy's favorite because she was his real daughter, and my step dad standing behind her saying, yeah! OK, this is getting a little bit off topic and too close to what was the only home I knew.
The bottom line is, fuck you. I deserve money. I'm not asking for a lot, just a few bucks here and there, maybe a computer or a car, or both. Seriously, I don't even care that my dad and grandfather haven't given me any money. Even though my grandfather's a dick for saying it, I'll say it, my grandfather's a dick, he was right about me feeling better about myself if I made my own money. Still, he could have tossed me a few fivers now and again.
The bottom line is this: Why does the expression about how you should hang out with rich people and you'll be rich too not apply to me?
Cause you know what? I hang out with rich people, god dammit.
And I'm not rich.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Wil Wheaton loves ME now!
by Jessica Delfino
When I was young, I used to have a poster of Wil Wheaton on my wall that I'd removed from the center fold of a Teen Beat magazine. Before I'd ever kissed a boy, I kissed the shit out of the lips on the Wil Wheaton poster. I kissed them until there was nothing but faded, worn paper where his pink lips (sigh) had once been. Once I got bored of kissing Wil Wheaton, I'd move in on Julian Lennon, also hanging on my wall. I always felt bad kissing Julian in front of Wil, and Wil in front of Julian, but that didn't keep me from ruining the faces of both posters.
Now, it's MY turn to bask in HIS love. Check it out -
http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/001379.php#001379
You guys did some weird shit when you were young. Most of you are still doing weird shit.
So f off.
Wil Wheaton has written a few books, is married and still acts, so don't ever go up to him in a restaurant and say, "Hey, didn't you used to be an actor?" Cause that's not cool.
Hey, while you're reading this, make a note to come to UCB this Sunday and see me do improv. It should be - something.
Level 1 Class Show!!!
Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater
307 W. 26th St. (@ 8th Ave)
NY, NY
5:30 PM
212-366-9176
www.ucbtheater.com
The show starts at 5:30. Don't be a dick and show up at 9.
by Jessica Delfino
When I was young, I used to have a poster of Wil Wheaton on my wall that I'd removed from the center fold of a Teen Beat magazine. Before I'd ever kissed a boy, I kissed the shit out of the lips on the Wil Wheaton poster. I kissed them until there was nothing but faded, worn paper where his pink lips (sigh) had once been. Once I got bored of kissing Wil Wheaton, I'd move in on Julian Lennon, also hanging on my wall. I always felt bad kissing Julian in front of Wil, and Wil in front of Julian, but that didn't keep me from ruining the faces of both posters.
Now, it's MY turn to bask in HIS love. Check it out -
http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/001379.php#001379
You guys did some weird shit when you were young. Most of you are still doing weird shit.
So f off.
Wil Wheaton has written a few books, is married and still acts, so don't ever go up to him in a restaurant and say, "Hey, didn't you used to be an actor?" Cause that's not cool.
Hey, while you're reading this, make a note to come to UCB this Sunday and see me do improv. It should be - something.
Level 1 Class Show!!!
Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater
307 W. 26th St. (@ 8th Ave)
NY, NY
5:30 PM
212-366-9176
www.ucbtheater.com
The show starts at 5:30. Don't be a dick and show up at 9.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Lullabuy
by Jessica Delfino
This is the lullabuy my mother used to sing to me when I
was a little girl.
Slow tempo in C
You should go to sleep right now
You should go to sleep right now
Close your eyes and rest your head
I'll tuck your body into bed
Be glad that you are young right now
because It just gets worse from here
You will encounter disappointments at every stage
in your life, I promise you
And most of your dreams will not come true
though people try to say they do
I promise that life will be full of awkward confrontations
you'll get stuck in ten thousand awful conversations
you'll be late to an important meeting
someday you will get bullied and end up bleeding
someone you love will not love you back
and you'll never, never win the lottery
you will feel emotions such as anger, pain, shame and sadness
over and over, listen to me
you will get into at least one car accident
and you will make foes
you will lose close friends and relatives to cancer
and other horrible unpredictable scenarios
and then you will die, cause everybody dies
life is but a fleeting string of sorrows
but don't think about that right now
just close your eyes and think of angels and rainbows
you should go to sleep right now
you should go to sleep right now
and remember.......
Mommy loves you
by Jessica Delfino
This is the lullabuy my mother used to sing to me when I
was a little girl.
Slow tempo in C
You should go to sleep right now
You should go to sleep right now
Close your eyes and rest your head
I'll tuck your body into bed
Be glad that you are young right now
because It just gets worse from here
You will encounter disappointments at every stage
in your life, I promise you
And most of your dreams will not come true
though people try to say they do
I promise that life will be full of awkward confrontations
you'll get stuck in ten thousand awful conversations
you'll be late to an important meeting
someday you will get bullied and end up bleeding
someone you love will not love you back
and you'll never, never win the lottery
you will feel emotions such as anger, pain, shame and sadness
over and over, listen to me
you will get into at least one car accident
and you will make foes
you will lose close friends and relatives to cancer
and other horrible unpredictable scenarios
and then you will die, cause everybody dies
life is but a fleeting string of sorrows
but don't think about that right now
just close your eyes and think of angels and rainbows
you should go to sleep right now
you should go to sleep right now
and remember.......
Mommy loves you
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
List of Things To-Do
by Jessica Delfino
EXAMPLE 1. - Actual "To-Do List" dated July 19, 2003.
1. Lose Weight
2. Get Computer
3. File Tax Returns for 2003
4. Apply for Job at the Art Institute
5. Talk to Mark about the Temp Agency
6. E-mail story to Details
7. Talk to William Morris lawyer
8. Read a book
9. Buy comfortable shoes
10. Take clothes to good will
11. Write in my journal
12. Try to figure out the psychology behind F.H.
13. Laundry
14. Make a lot of money
15. Quit this crazy scene
16. Write a good song
17. Talk to Wayne about the show
18. Call Conan - Find Alyssa
19. Sell palm pilot on e-bay
20. Update blog
Number of things I did since July 19, 2003: 3
Guess which ones they were?
(pretend this is upside down) Answer: 1, 18, 20
I have been keeping to do lists ever since I was old enough to do. I remember I started them as a recommendation from an english teacher or guidance counselor. I can't help but think that if either of them had just done what they had written on their to do lists, none of this would even be happening right now.
I usually try to write things on my to do lists that I actually intend on doing. It hurts me too much when I write things down on the list and then I find a list crumpled up between a book and a shoe on the floor, and I read the list and I realize I wrote the list a year ago to the day and the only things that got done were done through inertia and the inevitability of life happening. (Refer to items 1, 9, 11, 13, 20.)
It's not really that great to write to do items that are going to happen whether you mean for them to or not, there's no achievement in that. Sometimes I write, do the dishes, and then a few months later, I do them, but it is somehow unfulfilling. On the list, it's a good idea to write goals that you would like to accomplish or things that you have been putting off. For example: Get through a phone call to mom without feeling irritated, or, Call mom.
Some people might think of to do lists as something that a business person or type A personality or organized douche-bag type would do. Not so. Though I am probably a little bit of all three of those
examples, I had a friend who was none of those who used to keep awesome to do lists. My friend was affectionately referred to by last name only. Masten was one of those kids that you knew would go no where in life, and that's exactly what he did, and he did it with such ferocious vigor, you can't help but love him even more. We shared an apartment in Augusta, Maine, back when I was 18 and he was just your basic run-of-the-mill loser. I was in college at University of Maine, and he decided he wanted to get his shit together, so he sat down to write a to do list one day. It looked like this:
1. wake up
2. get pills
3. buy weed
4. take nap
I think he even spelled it "by" weed. When my roommates and I found that list, we laughed so hard that he became our favorite person. It was too perfect.
If you're thinking about starting a to do list, now might be the perfect time. It's easy. All you need are the following materials:
Paper
Pen
TIP: A pencil or marker will do
Directions:
1.Write down the things you want to do in the order which you want to do them in.
2.Do those things
OR
2.Don't do those things*
*but now instead of mentally knowing you had things to do and feeling bad about not doing them, you have a written note to yourself as a reminder to continue being aloof.
Congratulations, you're one step closer to being less (or more) aloof. Carry the list in a place that you will remember to look at it, like your pocket or purse, or on the fridge. Try not to lose it. If you lose it, on your next list, be sure to write down not to lose the list. It's also fun sometimes to write as an item, do the things on this list.
If you can write a to do list and then do all the things on that list in that day or the next day, you are a better person than anyone in the world. Please go and pat yourself on the back. If you can't, don't feel bad, neither can I.
by Jessica Delfino
EXAMPLE 1. - Actual "To-Do List" dated July 19, 2003.
1. Lose Weight
2. Get Computer
3. File Tax Returns for 2003
4. Apply for Job at the Art Institute
5. Talk to Mark about the Temp Agency
6. E-mail story to Details
7. Talk to William Morris lawyer
8. Read a book
9. Buy comfortable shoes
10. Take clothes to good will
11. Write in my journal
12. Try to figure out the psychology behind F.H.
13. Laundry
14. Make a lot of money
15. Quit this crazy scene
16. Write a good song
17. Talk to Wayne about the show
18. Call Conan - Find Alyssa
19. Sell palm pilot on e-bay
20. Update blog
Number of things I did since July 19, 2003: 3
Guess which ones they were?
(pretend this is upside down) Answer: 1, 18, 20
I have been keeping to do lists ever since I was old enough to do. I remember I started them as a recommendation from an english teacher or guidance counselor. I can't help but think that if either of them had just done what they had written on their to do lists, none of this would even be happening right now.
I usually try to write things on my to do lists that I actually intend on doing. It hurts me too much when I write things down on the list and then I find a list crumpled up between a book and a shoe on the floor, and I read the list and I realize I wrote the list a year ago to the day and the only things that got done were done through inertia and the inevitability of life happening. (Refer to items 1, 9, 11, 13, 20.)
It's not really that great to write to do items that are going to happen whether you mean for them to or not, there's no achievement in that. Sometimes I write, do the dishes, and then a few months later, I do them, but it is somehow unfulfilling. On the list, it's a good idea to write goals that you would like to accomplish or things that you have been putting off. For example: Get through a phone call to mom without feeling irritated, or, Call mom.
Some people might think of to do lists as something that a business person or type A personality or organized douche-bag type would do. Not so. Though I am probably a little bit of all three of those
examples, I had a friend who was none of those who used to keep awesome to do lists. My friend was affectionately referred to by last name only. Masten was one of those kids that you knew would go no where in life, and that's exactly what he did, and he did it with such ferocious vigor, you can't help but love him even more. We shared an apartment in Augusta, Maine, back when I was 18 and he was just your basic run-of-the-mill loser. I was in college at University of Maine, and he decided he wanted to get his shit together, so he sat down to write a to do list one day. It looked like this:
1. wake up
2. get pills
3. buy weed
4. take nap
I think he even spelled it "by" weed. When my roommates and I found that list, we laughed so hard that he became our favorite person. It was too perfect.
If you're thinking about starting a to do list, now might be the perfect time. It's easy. All you need are the following materials:
Paper
Pen
TIP: A pencil or marker will do
Directions:
1.Write down the things you want to do in the order which you want to do them in.
2.Do those things
OR
2.Don't do those things*
*but now instead of mentally knowing you had things to do and feeling bad about not doing them, you have a written note to yourself as a reminder to continue being aloof.
Congratulations, you're one step closer to being less (or more) aloof. Carry the list in a place that you will remember to look at it, like your pocket or purse, or on the fridge. Try not to lose it. If you lose it, on your next list, be sure to write down not to lose the list. It's also fun sometimes to write as an item, do the things on this list.
If you can write a to do list and then do all the things on that list in that day or the next day, you are a better person than anyone in the world. Please go and pat yourself on the back. If you can't, don't feel bad, neither can I.
Friday, September 5, 2003
UPCOMING SHOWS
SEPTEMBER 2003
Friday, September 5th
Boston Comedy Club - Back To School Show
82 W. 3rd St. (bt. Thompson and Sullivan)
8:30 PM
NOTE: Free with school ID
Tuesday, September 16th
Meow Mix
"Smells Like Comedy"
269 East Houston St. @ Suffolk
212-254-0688
8 PM
Saturday, September 20th
Deep Dish Cabaret
675 Hudson Street, #3N
10 PM
NOTE: Really Fun Show
Sunday, September 21st
Upright Citizen's Brigade
Level 1 Class Show
307 W. 26th St. (bt 8th & 9th Sts.)
212-366-9176
5:30 PM
NOTE: This is an improv show.
Saturday, September 27th
10:17 Comedy Show
Gershwin Hotel
7 E. 27th Street (between 5th and Madison)
***IMPORTANT - It starts at 9 PM.***
Don't be a weiner and show up at 10:17.
SEPTEMBER 2003
Friday, September 5th
Boston Comedy Club - Back To School Show
82 W. 3rd St. (bt. Thompson and Sullivan)
8:30 PM
NOTE: Free with school ID
Tuesday, September 16th
Meow Mix
"Smells Like Comedy"
269 East Houston St. @ Suffolk
212-254-0688
8 PM
Saturday, September 20th
Deep Dish Cabaret
675 Hudson Street, #3N
10 PM
NOTE: Really Fun Show
Sunday, September 21st
Upright Citizen's Brigade
Level 1 Class Show
307 W. 26th St. (bt 8th & 9th Sts.)
212-366-9176
5:30 PM
NOTE: This is an improv show.
Saturday, September 27th
10:17 Comedy Show
Gershwin Hotel
7 E. 27th Street (between 5th and Madison)
***IMPORTANT - It starts at 9 PM.***
Don't be a weiner and show up at 10:17.
(Pretend) Book Segment and (Made-Up) Author Comment
by Jessica Delfino
A segment from Harvey Coggin's latest book, "I Was A Child," Miscellaneous Shack Press, NY, NY.
"I raised the mirror up to my face and looked into it. And I saw myself, looking back at myself, about to do a line of the powder so white, it transcended the lightness of the whitest beard of the oldest man. It made me feel like a child who was getting to take a snow day from school. I thought about hte great enjoyment that would come from the line, the buzz, the slap in the nose like a dog who'd been bad, the shock to my brain! Utter joy. I moved my nostril near, nearer still, nearest yet, until my nose and the dusty controlled substance were united as one, joined together in unholy matrimony, and I sniffed, deep, full, with entirety, like I'd never sniffed before, and when I had finished sniffing, the powder was gone. But it was not forgotten, nay. And it was technically not even gone. It had been relocated to my cerebral cortex, as if tranported in a shitty rented van, where it was now pitching a tent for what, unbeknownst to me, would be the last time."
A word from Harvey Coggin, author, "I Was A Child."
Hello, friends. Thank you for reading this segment from my latest book, "I Was A Child," Miscellaneous Shack Press, NY, NY. As my fans will attest, this book is very dear to me because, as my fans know, I was a sincere drug addict with a severe addiction for many fun-filled years - so haphazard and carefree this time was that I often refer to it as, "the best years of my life." During the best years of my life, every morning I would wake up, inhale cocaine, then really wake up, make myself breakfast very very quickly, throw it away as I wasn't in the mood to eat, and then do other things about the house. I know that this, the story, brings you, the reader, many questions. Was I living a lie? Perhaps. Was I a drug addict? Some might say. Did I sleep? Not oft. All great questions. I am so happy to be here to write this. I am clean and sober now for seven years and I still think about the cocaine. I do. Every day, all day, in fact, but thanks to my fans and god's love, that life is behind me now, like a jail sentence that has been completed. I have been paroled, thank the lord, from the prison which was made of the best years of my life. I hope to never return to that place, unless I someday accidently happen by on my way to heaven.
Thank you.
by Jessica Delfino
A segment from Harvey Coggin's latest book, "I Was A Child," Miscellaneous Shack Press, NY, NY.
"I raised the mirror up to my face and looked into it. And I saw myself, looking back at myself, about to do a line of the powder so white, it transcended the lightness of the whitest beard of the oldest man. It made me feel like a child who was getting to take a snow day from school. I thought about hte great enjoyment that would come from the line, the buzz, the slap in the nose like a dog who'd been bad, the shock to my brain! Utter joy. I moved my nostril near, nearer still, nearest yet, until my nose and the dusty controlled substance were united as one, joined together in unholy matrimony, and I sniffed, deep, full, with entirety, like I'd never sniffed before, and when I had finished sniffing, the powder was gone. But it was not forgotten, nay. And it was technically not even gone. It had been relocated to my cerebral cortex, as if tranported in a shitty rented van, where it was now pitching a tent for what, unbeknownst to me, would be the last time."
A word from Harvey Coggin, author, "I Was A Child."
Hello, friends. Thank you for reading this segment from my latest book, "I Was A Child," Miscellaneous Shack Press, NY, NY. As my fans will attest, this book is very dear to me because, as my fans know, I was a sincere drug addict with a severe addiction for many fun-filled years - so haphazard and carefree this time was that I often refer to it as, "the best years of my life." During the best years of my life, every morning I would wake up, inhale cocaine, then really wake up, make myself breakfast very very quickly, throw it away as I wasn't in the mood to eat, and then do other things about the house. I know that this, the story, brings you, the reader, many questions. Was I living a lie? Perhaps. Was I a drug addict? Some might say. Did I sleep? Not oft. All great questions. I am so happy to be here to write this. I am clean and sober now for seven years and I still think about the cocaine. I do. Every day, all day, in fact, but thanks to my fans and god's love, that life is behind me now, like a jail sentence that has been completed. I have been paroled, thank the lord, from the prison which was made of the best years of my life. I hope to never return to that place, unless I someday accidently happen by on my way to heaven.
Thank you.
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