so torn . . .

i can't decide if i want you all to watch my boyfriend tonight on the colbert report or not. i don't need a million irreverent-sass-loving viewers falling for him and challenging me to dance-offs and scrabble tournaments in his honor . . . but he wouldn't go on tv so he could not be seen . . .

fuck it. i can take you. watch, damn it. watch hard. and know that i have memorized every two-letter word in the dictionary, and i am not afraid of you, and i will beat your ass.

what, no intersex option? bigots.

for months i have been frequently fleetingly befuddled by sony's ad campaign for its bravia flat-screen television, the tagline of said campaign being, "the world's first television for men and women™." yes, i've typed that deliberately and correctly—this golden droplet of marketing sputum has been trademarked. it's left my brow furrowed frequently because i have been forced to take equal pause every time i've heard it and fleetingly because i dismiss it the second the ad ends, as i'm not interested in purchasing a television or in defragmenting the decision-making processes of the men and women who are interested in purchasing televisions. but tonight, for whatever reason, i cracked. what is it about this shiny box that makes it capable, at long last, after millenia of stereotyping, mutilation, glass ceilings, and saccharine self-help books, of bridging the previously boundless gap between the sexes? how has the bravia succeeded where all other projection media have failed?

well, it hasn't, unless "bridging the gap" is now a euphemism for putting little blue hats on the boy babies and little pink hats on the girls. in fact, sony's web site does this more or less literally, using distinct horizontal bands of the two colors to express to consumers how happily their respective genders can now coexist in a single space. (even on planet happy sony, however, the genders remain separate and unequal; the pink band is less than half the size of the blue and is trapped underneath it.) the site doesn't dangle any carrots; all of the appliance's secrets are revealed under two headings: Why Men Like It and Why Women Like It. in case any of you men and women out there are too crippled by your current asexual viewing experiences to know what you like and why, here are the bravia's draws:

1. amazing hd picture
2. wider viewing angles
3. broader color gamut
4. slim design

stop thinking now! these are The Reasons! you do not like anything else about this television, and no other television can offer you these things! and these are The Reasons for all of you. The Reasons are androgynous; it's your reasons for liking The Reasons that give you away on a gonadal level. the masculine appeal of wider viewing angles is as follows:

and you thought you'd only get to hog the couch. with a generous 178° viewing angle, now you can hog any piece of furniture in the whole living room and get outstanding clarity and detail no matter where you sit.

who needs a couch? climb on top of the trophy case! build a nest of empty beer cans and dirty socks in the far left corner! be the crazy frat-house animal that dumb broad—i mean, your restricted line of vision—has never allowed you to be! but don't beat your chest too hard about it, because for the ladies we offer the feng-shui-obsessed flip side:

why does the couch always have to be in the middle of the room? with the bravia lcd tv it doesn't have to be. its 178° viewing angle gives you 178° of space to design. so rearrange the living room any way you want. you'll still get an outstanding picture no matter where you sit.

the remaining 182° of space will be lost to you, as all space not penetrated by tv-generated radiation eventually collapses into a vacuum, but you'll be too exhausted from the furniture moving and hypnotized by the pretty colored lights to ever miss it. bravia is huge! it's shiny! it's outrageously expensive! and even if you go out of your way to keep it from being at the center of the room, it'll still be all you can see no matter where you look! just like the diamond that you know in your heart he'll never give you.

men and women are different. they like different things. but i'm pretty sure that when it comes to a television, we're all asking the same question: how's the picture? we want our images sharp and our pixels undetectable and our colors rich and true to life. but even the bravia can't serve up anything that comes close to the visceral impact of immediate reality, not that it appears to want to extend anything more than 1950s-era condescension and a gleeful passing out of footballs and feather dusters. tonight the commercial drove me away from my own television and toward my sofa, which i've moved not just out of the middle of the room but into a different room, a room filled with books and plants and paintings, all of which are quite vivid and utterly enthralling. after all these months, sony's marketing department has finally gotten through to me. from the bottommost recesses of my uterus, sony, thank you, for reminding me not to settle for eyesores.

friday celebrity-letter blogging

dear john krasinski,

you're awesome. did you know that you and i have the same birthday? we're both from massachusetts, too, and you went to brown, and i totally wanted to go to brown because i was obsessed with their radio station, but then i didn't go because i thought a different school would be better for a pre-vet major, and that's so good because right after i graduated from high school their radio station started to wicked suck, but anyway, we have all that stuff in common, and so i think that means we're soul mates. what's conan o'brien really like? did you guys talk all the time about being from massachusetts? did he ever let you wear any of his ties? he has some sweet ties.

i never used to watch your version of the office because i didn't believe that anyone could ever outdo ricky gervais, but you're really cute and tall so then i watched it sometimes, even though i think i was right and it isn't as good as the original one. but now you're, like, not even on it! what's up with that?

so, i know you're making a movie about some book, and i just wanted to tell you that if it isn't good i'm going to be superpissed and tell everyone that you only say your birthday is the same as mine because you wish you were as cool as me. no, not really, i'll totally still love you!!!! ;p but, seriously, i hope it's good. like, for your sake.

ttfn!

your soul mate,
juniper

an apology for lsz*, and some other crap

oh, muffin. i'm a bad blogger. bad, bad blogger, leaving you out here to fend for yourself in the wilds of the internets like an infant foisted off on a band of harpies. i tricked you into counting on me, and then i pulled the rug out from under you and walloped you over the head with it. i shall die a fiery death for my sins, i assure you.

the tragic truth of it, though, is that i, too, am bereft of interesting news about pretty boys and political evils. let me see if i can dredge up a little something to rouse your curiosity, anyway.

1. i don't exactly watch dr. 90210, but i frequently pause on it when they're in the middle of actual surgical procedures, just because i'm somewhat transfixed by the ease with which a living thing can be made into listless meat, and also i'm sort of hypnotized by the shininess of it all. anyhow, on an episode that aired recently a male-to-female transsexual went in for breast implants. all during the consult and surgical prep, we were treated to uncensored full-frontal torso, but once the implants were in place (and i mean the second they were in place; the doctor hadn't even put down his forceps) the show began to pixelate her nipples. this struck me as immensely bizarre and disgustingly misogynistic. the patient wasn't more or less a woman with the implants in, she just fit the societal mold a little better. are athletic, flatter-chested genetic women less female than naturally larger-breasted girls? the patient still had a penis; technically, medically, those were male nipples on top of those synthetic fun bags. but they were on top, and so they couldn't be displayed. my vexation is tempered only by the thought that the patient may have been pleased. . . i guess i'd have to talk to her before i made a solid stand.

2. i am now only four months behind on the new yorker, and am slogging through my accumulated stack at a tortoise-steady clip that i'm certain will get me caught up in no time (in the past week i finished two and a half issues by deciding that i didn't really care about classical music or athletes; i guess this is how everyone else manages to keep from falling behind in the first place). today i finished the jan. 16 issue and can not believe the magazine ran a two-page plug for the family guy. what? what?!?! i mean, anyone who knows me knows i love lowbrowing it, but even i couldn't watch enough of this show to write an article about it. i wonder how much the author was motivated by the series' recent financial success from its dvd sales; she did mention it pretty prominently. nancy franklin, do you *heart* lucrative ventures? and why have you taken the looking-glass position that indulging in potty humor makes you a feminist? and how dare you compare harvey birdman to drawn together? harvey, like everything of its ilk williams street has blessed us with over the years (space ghost coast to coast, sealab 2021, etc.) is an inspired burst of irreverent oddness with a mind-blowingly stellar cast (gary cole, stephen colbert, peter macnicol, to name a few). drawn together is the animated equivalent of the thing the roto-rooter man pulls out of my bathroom sink every fall. maybe brian should go back to work at the new yorker, nancy. perhaps he could take your office.

3. roasted turnips are delicious, and have practically no calories. oh, what's that, nancy? you find my calorie counting a self-effacing act that sets the feminist movement back half a century and only assures the industrialized world's capitalist patriarchy that it's got me right where it wants me? well, if you eat too many of them they'll give you gas that could make a dead hyena's eyes water. how's that?


thanks for checking in on me, kids. and all the gentle nagging about my prolonged absence . . . thanks for that, too.






* what the hell . . . i'll extend the apology to all the rest of you who feel you have one coming.

tuesday half-assed blogging: the "things joon digs" issue

1. smart car!!!!! these suffocatingly adorable little critters were all over italy, and every time i saw one i wanted to run up and hug it. i held myself in check, mostly, but i did stroke a few lovingly on my way past. we couldn't understand why they weren't equally prevalent in the states, even taking into account the burning capitalist desire for military-grade recreational vehicles. turns out the real roadblock (heh heh) was bringing the car up to code with u.s. safety regulations—but their time has come. here in new england, they'll only be sold in new hampshire, connecticut, and rhode island, but that's plenty close for me. of course, i'd never get rid of my electric kiwi ilsa; my baby neon has been a true friend to me through thick and thin, and smashed, and arrested. but nothing lasts forever, and maybe by the time she exhales her last fumes i'll have enough tucked away to buy a sparkly new pod. i think she'd want me to remarry.

2. crispin porter + bogusky, the masterminds behind the sometimes bewildering, frequently unsettling, and eternally genius tv spots for the most recent burger king ad campaign. i was traumatized by their insistence that i wake up with the king, but their newest commercial for the cheesy bacon whosywhatsit is the platonic ideal of 30-second media. it's positively haunting. now, i know you've seen it, and maybe you're thinking, "come on, juniper. that's bullshit. it's a dude riding another dude who's dressed up as a chicken. whatever, i don't think you and i can be friends anymore." but there's a world of difference between seeing this commercial and watching this commercial. i need you to let go of all of your preconceptions and demands about what constitutes art, and give yourself over to the experience. trust me, my darlings, it will not go unrewarded*. i notice something new every time.

3. chad vangaalen is the dreamiest thing to come out of canada since, um, well, i bet you can guess. there is no better boy than the d.i.y. indie rocker, and chad's got it going on, what with the 4-track self-recording and the video he put together on his own. he covers all the bases and then some, too, with songs that bounce from feedback-heavy garage rock to sweetly melodic plaints. he's part thom yorke, part sufjan stevens, part something no one else can touch; i have no idea what he looks like, but i'm pretty sure i'd marry him tomorrow regardless.

4. wonder showzen, which i am not linguistically nimble enough to describe. for anyone who lives for outré humor presented in striking and peculiar contexts, though, it's something you shouldn't have to live without. the first-season dvd set came out today, so if the web site leaves your mouth watering but you don't have the fortitude to sit awake all hours of the day and night hoping mtv2 will throw you a bone, pick it up and hide it from the kids.

and i'm awful sweet on you all, too. now go out and embrace the freak show.






* it will also not make you want a sandwich, but sometimes you sacrifice a little bit of function for form. like with bulldogs.

sunday best-of blogging: the tv issue

best opening theme song: the original tune written for the boondocks, which i really, really, really wish were a full-length song on a full-length album that i could buy. *ahem* HINT HINT

best presidential footage: the bit that's been all over the air of him spacing out on a dangling camera like a baby faced with a shiny mobile absolutely destroyed me, in several ways. i laughed, of course, to see w forget where he was when presented with a lone misplaced object, but it was painful too. i'm sure you understand.

worst name for a metal band: as i lay dying. i caught this band on the mtv2 resurrection of headbangers ball (yes, i sometimes watch headbangers ball; do you never yearn for the innocent days of your youth?) and thought i would give them a chance, but they do not deserve to be trotting this title out like a fancy lap dog. faulkner is whirling like a dervish on glass, i'm sure. for shame.

best network programming surprise: saturday night live is funny again! i hadn't watched it in eons (aside from the weekly update, which i can't resist, because i've had a crush on amy poehler since upright citizens' brigade) because it was so stilted and forced and unprofessional, but i tuned in last night to catch dane cook, whom i adore to no end and had missed when the show originally aired, and man, was i surprised. i don't know if it was due to his influence, because he can turn that shit around, but the skits seemed more uninhibited and inspired than they have in well over a decade. that bit about the talent show? things that defy description shot out my nose. i've been optimistic about the fate of the show recently because the cast members are truly talented, rachel dratch and maya rudolph in particular (maya has also done some great work for the also surprisingly hilarious show campus ladies), but i couldn't help feeling like the skits were just never going to top par, and there's nothing worse than a talented individual succumbing to his or her meritless environment. but i've been happily surprised, and i can only hope that this recent standard will be maintained*.

most unwatchable new television show: i have, all my life, longed to bludgeon lisa loeb with a cast-iron skillet. her music burst vessels in my eyes, her scrunchy nose and cutesy cat glasses curled my tiny nerdy hands into furious riot-grrrl fists, and possibly worst of all, she created an unshakeable personal aversion in me to brown university, the school whose radio station saved my life and whose campus i owe the majority of my happy teenage memories to. now, i thought her last show, dweezil and lisa, would successfully convince the public that she was in no way deserving of its attention, but the chipper little fungus is staining the media yet again with #1 single, which debuted this week on E!. here's the intro to the first show, as found on the show's own publicist-approved page:

Meet Lisa. She lives in Los Angeles with a quirky collection of gnomes and Hello Kitty dolls. The singer-songwriter is single for the first time in about 12 years, but she's hoping a serious dating blitz will soon turn up her soul mate--she hasn't managed to meet any eligible guys on tour.

Her sister Debbie Loeb thinks all Lisa really needs is a good push-up bra. The problem is, date number one, Steve, seems barely worth a sports bra. He doesn't eat vegetables (don't ask) and serenades Lisa with a cringe-worthy karaoke version of her own hit "Stay."

oh, lisa. the song was always cringe-worthy; a karaoke version is probably the only truly fitting tribute, and i'm sure it's infinitely easier to listen to. i didn't want to watch, i swore i wouldn't watch, but i stumbled upon it completely by accident one afternoon and, as when watching an inevitable car crash play out from a distance, i was as horrified by my own inability to move or avert my eyes as i was by the fact that it was happening in the first place. while making kugel in her mother's kitchen, lisa weepily confesses that she used to look at the old people alone at parties and think to herself, wow, poor them, they're not married, how sad, and now (*sniffsniff*) she is one of those people (she's about thirty). when her mother cautions her against letting herself get trapped in another six-year relationship with mr. wrong, lisa assures her that she isn't staying with anyone else for six years unless she's getting married. ivy-league educated, successful (for a moment, anyhow) in a competitive artistic business, confidently kitschy, tall and not ugly and smarter than plenty of girls—life set lisa up to be the poster child for self-assured, independent, gen-x singer-songwriters, and here she is using what's left of her celebrity clout to engineer a high-profile private dating service, because she'd rather die than be single for one more second. it is great to be loved, lisa, and there's plenty to be said about the upside of being in a happy, committed relationship, but it is okay to be single at some point between the ages of 18 and 30, too. it can even be good for you. trust me.

girls named lisa, man. they're nothing but trouble.

worst commercial: the new zetia ad that features a wise old doctor meandering through the grounds of a hospital with his herd of bright-eyed young newbies wins for sheer awfulness, as its premise is nonsensical and we're beaten over the head with it for an interminable period. but honorable mention must go to the contact lens commercial where some whiny woman opens with a fully disqualifying statement along the lines of, "when my contact lenses are bothering me, i just can't go on with my day!" unbelievable. i wonder what would happen to her if we told her she had to drink full-fat lattes for the rest of the afternoon. you know what, honey? don't. don't go on with your day. the world doesn't need you.

most shocking project runway development: chloe broke unimaginably new ground this week by veering miles outside of her standard color palette of turquoise, black and beige to stun the world with this remarkable combination:

look at that chocolate brown! it's revolutionary! and that white is a very honest white—no beige in sight. no wonder the judges can't get enough of this girl. she's the only one who's keeping them on their toes.



* if you saw the show and thought it wasn't that funny, keep in mind that i had downed most of a very stiff tanqueray-and-tonic by the time it aired.

dear santino rice: don't go breakin' my heart

ohhhh, santino, you brilliant, beautiful, bratty son of a bitch. you very nearly killed me last night on project runway, burdening a figure-skating outfit with a five-inch-deep carpet of plumage. some feathers can be intriguing, but those feathers were gertrude mcfuzz on a pill-berry bender.

what? what? we get it, already: you're a visionary. how about you suck it up and prove that you are also capable of being a competitive businessman, and construct any one garment with someone besides yourself in mind. this is a contest, honey. you have to play to win*. the pretty little skater girl told you exactly what she needed, and you gave her none of it. bad designer, ignoring your client—even if i did like your idea, and why was everyone so excited about chloe's turquoise? she uses that color in every single design. turquoise and beige, turquoise and beige, dull as rocks, smother me with a bolt of chiffon. whatever. i know the producers have as much, if not more, say about who stays and who goes as the judges, so how could you not end up going all the way, being the charismatic instigator that you are… but i don't care about sports, so this is my superbowl, and your attitude is fraying my nerves to such a degree that it resulted in an honest-to-goodness anxiety dream. wrote a song about it; like to hear it? here it goes.

in the next competition, the challenge was to design a formal gown for hillary rodham clinton to wear to a fundraising gala, and you whipped up this crazy blood-orange-and-espresso affair with an asymmetrical skirt hiked up over the knee on one side and brushing the floor on the other and, like, cattails or something sticking up over one shoulder, and michael kors and nina garcia rushed the runway and beat you with their chairs, and you fled and went into hiding in a mud hut in a mountainous region of asia, vowing never to handle another shred of fabric as long as you lived. but john galliano** sought you out, and when he found you he revealed his secret identity as the master of a little-known meditative art that centered on the endless sewing of tiny stitches, all identical in length. through his dedicated teachings you learned to gain control over your opprobrious egocentricity, and after what played out like years but must have actually been about eight hours, you went back to project runway and presumably wiped the floor with everyone else's refuse (i can't say for sure, as i was awakened by my alarm before things were allowed to play out fully).

rock.

but it'll only be one girl's glorious dream if you haven't stopped being an abrasive, narcissistic jerk. have you stopped that, baby? i bet you have. well done. and not that i'd have to say it, but really, darling, you don't belong at banana republic. they're prudes. just, you know, keep your rational, intelligent, calculating eye on the prize. and if you've already lost, at least nicky hilton's got your number.




* unless you are playing against me, in which case you could probably just slap some glitter glue on a scrunchie and tell me a story about the first time you saw a fish, and i'd throw up my hands and forfeit, 'cause, um, you're fucking fabulous. but snotty. but fabulous.

** the dresses in john galliano's most recent autumn/winter collection made me simultaneously weep and ovulate.

i'll never complain about acne again.

this is noventhree, and i'm watching a documentary about him on the learning channel called, with television's usual degree of tact, subtlety and pavlova-esque grace, FACE EATING TUMOR (hyphen left out by the network, and yes, it is killing me to not insert it myself). noventhree suffers from a disease known as gigantiform cementoma, which causes the middle layer of his teeth to grow uncontrollably. the lumps are bone, not soft tissue, and in this picture make up more or less his entire face. he's five years old there. you can read about his case and his surgery here, and this show will be airing on TLC several times over the next few days. it'll knee you right in the emotional groin.

every once in a while i like to slap myself around with something like this, just to make sure i'm looking at my life through appropriately colored lenses. "touching the void" kept me from complaining about anything for a while, because no matter how bad a time i was having, i sure as hell wasn't dragging my shattered leg down a frozen mountain with no food and no water for the fourth straight day. today i spent an embarrassing amount of time poking at two overly ripe pimples on my sweaty, premenstrual chin, but that's all done with now. let my entire face erupt into pustules and hemorrhagic lesions, i'll sing a little song about it and curtsy my thanks.

it's never any less amazing to me, what human beings will find a way to suck it up and suffer through. one of the best days of noventhree's young life was the one on which all of his basic facial features, like his nose and mouth, were recognizable. there is nothing, not one thing, wrong with my life.

greetings from the land of queasy disbelief!

that little dog sure
can dance. slap some chaps on him,
he's michael flatley.



the latest addition to my ever-expanding independent network lineup:

WHO'S THE ASSHOLE?

in each episode, jonathan antin, the surreal star of bravo's reality program blow out (who would like to emphasize to the viewing audience that he's "just hair") will compete against some hopeful individual. jonathan and his rival will both be followed around by camera crews twenty-four hours a day for one week, and at the end of that week all of the footage will be submitted to me. i will lock myself in a room with it and review it exhaustively in order to determine which contestant has made the most ridiculous, arrogant, outrageously obnoxious comments in the set time period. keep in mind that "most" will consider both quantity AND quality, meaning one monstrous jaw-dropper could outshine a hundred mildly egregious quotes. once i have made my decision, jonathan and potential asshole x will be brought to the screening room and asked to stand side by side facing the door. i will come out of the room and immediately punch one of them right in the face; that person will be declared THE ASSHOLE and will subsequently be presented with a gigantic platinum sphincter that can be mounted on the roof of his or her house like a satellite dish. my money's on jonathan ten to one under any circumstances, but i'm compiling a list of folks who i think might pose a commendable challenge. i can't release those names at this time, however, because i'm thinking this show will work best if the contestants don't have the world's clearest idea of what they're vying for. but, i mean, you never can tell.

speaking of ridiculous comments, it's time for a rousing round of "know your pope!" for fifty points and a "get out of eternal damnation free" card, which wacky pontiff made each of the following statements:

1. "human life, as a gift of god, is sacred and inviolable. for this reason procured abortion and euthanasia are...crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize."

2. "there may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

for the game, explain to me in twenty words or less how these quotes are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

fabulous boys are fabulous! love them! love the fabulous!

i used to wonder
why i loved gay men, but then
i met some straight ones...



fabulous is an utterly nonsensical word. whatever.

hooray for jay mccarroll, the glorious champion of bravo's "project runway," a deep pleasure of mine that was at first guilty but is now so free of sin you'd think it was born in a chastity belt. i am sad that austin (scarlett, who is so dreamy and please visit his website right this very second. THIS SECOND!) got rejected by some bimbo from E! and then was forced to throw a collection together in a month to cover bravo's butt, but i'm sure he's fine now. well, i mean, i'm not sure he's fine, everyone has their own private dark place, but i am sure that he's pretty. oh, um, i mean stunningly talented. and pretty, i meant that too.

austin...? you're pretty. *blush*

i once drove to new york city on two hours' sleep to meet a boy i had spoken to once because the first time i saw him he was wearing an ascot. that's an important thing to know about me. the boys in the ascots, though, they don't make for happy relationships. and that's an important thing to know in general.

jay, you're pretty too! and you won! and i'm too tickled over it, and if you ever open a store i swear to god i will never shop anywhere else, as long as you don't open it in that tragic little hole of a hometown of yours. i dig your dad's tanks, though. those were pretty fly.

okay. i wish i could sew, i loathe my vagina, i'm starving and i don't know how to sleep.

have a good night, y'all.

this, um... this might not be very interesting.

i don't have much of
anything to say today.
like that'll stop me.


i do understand that arafat did some rather unpleasant things in his day. maybe i was sad about something else and projected it onto him. i could say he's a man who needs to be taken in his own context and that it's impossible for me to understand what growing up in that context can do to a person, but the evangelical american midwest is its own context, as well, and i don't understand it, but i'd never make excuses for it. let's say i made an emotionally informed judgment and leave it at that.

i've just watched "inside the actor's studio" with johnny depp and i'm thinking two things:

1. it should be "actors'," shouldn't it? perhaps it is and i don't remember. if it is, excellent. if it is not, someone should get on that this instant.

2. johnny depp is a truly lovely young man. i generally adhere to the advice given me as a young girl by Voice of the Beehive, which is that little girls shouldn't treat little boys they happen to meet like little gods, but i think that in his case that simply doesn't apply. i hope his wife makes ritualistic sacrifices in his honor at least twice a month.

and since we're nearly on the subject, you can buy the director's cut of ed wood's "necromania" from fleshbot. probably from amazon, too. i think you should, but we all know i'm a bit biased towards freakish filth.

i'm starving. i'm not kidding, people, we're talking ravenous. these past few days i can not get enough food in me. i had to get out of bed at 11:30 last night for a snack because i was too hungry to fall asleep, and it's not like i'd denied myself during the day. an hour ago i ate an entire pound of spinach, half a pound of tofu and a bell pepper, and right now i feel like it's been weeks since my last meal. i don't know what to do. is there something i can eat that will expand in my stomach? besides gorilla glue, i mean, because that stuff is sort of dangerous. flour? caulk? i'm so distraught by my unappeasable insides i'd maybe eat some sponge if i didn't know where all of my sponges had been.

so here's cirque du soleil. i know about cirque du soleil because when i was in high school my best friend was psychotically obsessed with the tour guitarist from nine inch nails. his name was robin finck, and at some point in the 1990s robin finck stopped touring with trent reznor and joined the cirque. my crazy beautiful friend momentarily considered dropping out of school and finding a job as a stagehand before discovering that mr. finck no longer wore dredlocks or a bondage collar while performing, at which time her interest began to wane. you know what they say about love which alters when it alteration finds. or some such guff. whatever, we were seventeen. i would have run away from home for twiggy ramirez if an opportunity had presented itself. i'd still beat someone up for one of his dresses. never mind that. i occasionally scan one of the perpetual offerings of cirque du soleil on bravo for a glimpse of robin, but i haven't found him yet. maybe she was wrong about it the whole time.

people make mistakes. it's all good.

sleep SO well, chickens. really, do. and don't catch my cold, it's a bitch.

i am a marketing genius.

i was told the fur
trim was fake, but in the rain
it smells like wet dog.




brilliant idea of the day:

spongebob squarepants tampons. they're super-absorbent.

i think there's an enormous subset of cynical weirdos like me that is utterly underrepresented by the advertising world. we buy stuff too, you know. if you want us to buy more of your stuff, try making stuff that we want. like spongepons, the ultimate vaginal contribution.

humm...

humm...
Originally uploaded by juniper pearl.

god bless qvc
for aiding my filthy mind
in its quest for smut.



from the angle at which i first saw this delightful figurine on television just now, the tot appeared to be playing something rather different from a saxophone. i tried and tried and tried to find a picture that might have better made my point, but this is the best i could do. anyhow, i'm sure you can imagine. those who are with me should be giggling as they place orders for hummel's "spirited saxophonist," the perfect gift for unwitting great aunts and grannies all across the country. those who are not with me, well, i'm sorry you had to see this. and i'm even more sorry that you couldn't have seen it three times larger from the side.

it's not just the roses that smell like poopoo

i'm so wide awake
i could balance the budget
with an abacus.



here are a few of the benignly bewildering things a person in my time zone might happen upon if she were awake and browsing her available cable television channels at, oh, say, 4:17 am:

* dweezil & lisa, a program about a couple that I for one shudder at the existence of, dweezil zappa and lisa loeb. lisa loeb, as we know, attended brown university, contributed a soul-sucking why-me whinefest of a song to the reality bites soundtrack, rode that song into the bloody ground, and then blessedly vanished from the face of the earth. and now here she is on the freaking food network, dragging poor, sweet dweezil through soho, trying desperately to keep him from noticing what a wash she is by stuffing him with pizza and tandoori chicken. it just goes to show you, kids, that knowing ethan hawke might carry you for a while, but that ivy league degree probably won't mean shit ten years from now.

* kevin mcdonald, of the kids in the hall and, more recently, invader zim, breaking up a mock fight between feuding fans of the opposing halves of outkast

* <¡destinos! in high school we were required to watch the "educational" hispanic soap opera destinos in our upper-level spanish classes. it was excruciating. i was a model student, but i was still driven far enough over the edge to hide all of the destinos video tapes (along with our spanish teacher's shoes) in a filing cabinet. i never thought anyone would ever watch this junk unless they were being forced to, so i definitely can't imagine who would be watching it on public access at four-thirty in the morning.

* zia mastatabi, who will reach his retirement goals 8 years ahead of schedule!†

* salvador dali's castle, which was fucking insane, and his friend ultraviolet, who is actually pretty normal. i want to say that it's odd that dali was chummy with alice cooper, but i don't know that much about either of them personally, so who knows. they may have been two perfectly matched peas in a comfy cozy pod.

* who is this, good charlotte? linkin park? well, some poster children of the mid-dial quasi-alternative bourgeoisie have decided that a little rough-edged animation will bolster their street cred. they are mistaken. sadly, sadly mistaken.

* here's some scary, scary, scary claymation of a knight in a furry hat and his red-haired damsel swinging in a wheat field outside of mary poppins' london. oh, no, they've been asked to leave. they'll have to sleep in that foggy field with the broken scarecrow. what, he's leaving without her? what a jerk! she'll have to wait for him at the top of that hill until the blizzard buries her alive, because god knows he ain't coming back. he's riding gleefully in a sleigh pulled by two horses made out of doilies beneath the doily moon. he wants to catch the doves, but they keep turning into soap bubbles. how tragic. i'm beside myself with melancholia. seasons by ivan ivanov-vano, apparently, if you're rapt, and how could you not be. i'm not kidding, by the way. i'm not doing this justice, it's crazy to watch.

and this wasn't televised, but flannel shirts are once again being featured for $35 a pop in the urban outfitters catalog. like no one saw that coming. please, please, in the name of all that is good and right, do not allow the fashion world to run grunge up the flagpole twice in under twenty years. eddie vedder has only just begun to heal.




† unique case, results may vary

'cause i'm hot (HOT!!!) sticky, sticky sweet...

was today's the last
warm rain of the year? don't sigh.
there will be more years.



i'm just talking to myself there. pay no mind. maybe it's always warm where you are. maybe i hate you.

maybe i don't. i guess you'll never know.

there was a visibly agitated green wing macaw just like ours on scrubs tonight. i know that they're at their most adorable when they're all poofy and whatnot, but it isn't generally a good thing to see, especially when the bird could reach you with a quick sudden jab. a word to the wise: do NOT let parrots sit on your shoulder, no matter how many times your pirate mentor calls you a scurvied wench. there's a very real chance that you could lose most of your face. i'm teeming with bruises and puncture wounds, and my crazy bird knows and trusts me. of course, in the end, it's your face and your decision. but if you've ever wondered why so many pirates wear eye patches, well, i think you can guess what my theory is.

i'm a fickle whore, but forget everything i've ever said, i'm going to quit my job and devote myself to stalking sufjan stevens. do you ever think about stalking people? i think about it sometimes, and what i think is that if i were going to do it, i would do it like this: i'd buy up about two hundred pounds of valentine's candy and stash it in the trunk of my car, which i would park somewhere near my beloved's homestead. every morning i'd fill an extra-large shopping bag with candy and get comfortable within sight of, but not unsettlingly close to, the front door; i figure across the street would be about right. whenever my stalkee entered or exited the house, i would keep pace with him from my side of the street as i hurled fistfuls of necco hearts and pink m&ms across the tarry divide. perhaps i would sing a song, maybe "pour some sugar on me." what do you think, three weeks before he was mine? less? it would win me over. and, too, you don't know this, but, i mean, i'm cuter than a freakin' button. does anyone know about almost bendy and the psychic bib productions? if so, you might be interested to know that i am also almost cuter than a zipper, and if you dig chicks who cut their own hair and never take the extremely chipped nail polish off of their jagged bitten-up nails, i'm verging on paper clip caliber.

please try to watch the presidential debates thursday. it's awfully important. i understand that public political statements are cultivated and groomed like topiary, but still. there's a chapter in "the man who mistook his wife for a hat" where the author talks about a group of psychiatric patients watching a televised presidential speech. most patients in the group have a brain disorder that has rendered them incapable of understanding the literal meanings of spoken words; they can still carry on conversations somewhat successfully, though, by interpreting the facial expression, tone and cadence of the speaker and deriving meaning from those patterns. during what would appear to be the most serious portions of the speech, the entire group consistently cracks up laughing, because they know the president is telling lies on top of lies.

there are some things you can only pick up in the moment, is what i'm saying, and most of us have to pay intensely close attention even then. so watch. it's your country, it's your planet, it needs your help.

the earth and i love you, even if you're not sufjan stevens, even if there's no hope of you ever carrying a tune. big sugary smooches to one and all. smooch. smoochsmooch.















smooch.

bad brawny brent! bad!

the christmas tree shop
is a retail garage sale.
franchising breaks hearts.




my matty would be so touched to know that i'm holding my pee until the next commercial break in this current episode of "charmed." i guess i wouldn't tell him that i only watch it because i have a crush on rose macgowan. mcgowan? macgowan? i don't know, but she's purty. this little kid, though... i am in no way a subscriber to that "all babies are beautiful" theory; some of them are downright beastly, and this is one of them. BEASTLY! i'd hide him in a sack. and nick lachey does not belong on television. he can't act, and he isn't cute enough to make up for it. like alyssa milano would ever be suckered by that meathead. wasn't she engaged or married to the singer from remy zero for a while? there's no way, timberlake incident aside.

oh, shush, you know i didn't mean that about the sack.

i'm feeling especially critical today. i think i'll run with it. ten things i hate:

1. the new trendy poncho
2. the quizno's commercial for the big beef dip thingy sub. i can't believe anyone would eat that.
3. holiday decorations
4. pointy-toed shoes
5. people who say mean things about ted kennedy
6. people who can't admit it when they've fucked something up
7. drugstore period romance novels where the girls are always renowned for their impossibly tiny waists which are constantly being grasped by someone brawny named devon or brent. (my mother loves them, if you were wondering how i knew that.)
8. when perfectly good pets are euthanized because their owners can't make the minimum down payment, and any other situations of that "finances first" nature
9. knowing that i would never have the balls to sing a terrible song i had written about a boy on his front lawn at two in the morning
10. the word "clot"

not in that order, not at all. those are ridiculous things. i'm not thinking all that hard.

i would marry any member of califone, but i'd probably leave him for jason schwartzman. i don't know what that says about me. i don't particularly care.

forget you ever saw this.

notes from the most recent meeting of NAGPLA

i never liked the
air conditioning, thin tinned
synthetic comfort




zach braff seems like a good kid. it's just, i wonder, i mean, if he hadn't been in the movie, like, would you all still adore him for having written it? it's always bothered me that writers and directors don't get the same sort of admiration as the more visible participants. i know i couldn't pick tom tykwer out of an otherwise empty room, but if he called me up and told me to meet him in munich for scrabble and pretzels tomorrow i'd throw on some shoes and knock over old ladies on my way to the airport. i'm not, you know, i'll plug the guy until i'm blue in the face, but everyone's all excited about his thoughts on kites and toothbrushes, and i'm probably one of the worst because i might never have seen garden state if there hadn't been that line on scrubs about the suckiness of any movie featuring andie macdowell, which i doubt he even had anything to do with, so it's all good. i think i'm saying . . . nothing. i think i'm saying nothing. as usual.

i am so surpassingly smitten with the moldy peaches. indie boys are neurotic, but hey, i'm starting to feel okay . . .

wasn't that chick from scrubs on roseanne at some point? it was her, wasn't it, the girl who took over for the original becky? i hated her then because i'm so rigidly opposed to change, but she's all right, really.

chester, the hand puppet (i think he's a dish glove) from sifl and olly, is my number one crush lately. i'd love to insert a picture of him here, but i can't because i'm an utter technological failure. instead i'm going to offer you my favorite quote, guaranteed to fill me, someone just like me, and possibly you with squishy bubbly (interspecies?) love. prepare for your stolen holiday:

i'm chester, and i'll take you roller skating, and i'll push dudes down to let them know where i stand. i'll scar 'em up.

squishy bubbly! mmmmmmmmmm. but if you don't have a picture of his floppy doofus face in your head none of this is worth two clucks in a henhouse, so i'll let it go. and . . . it's gone. but know that you, too, are cut out to be a real winner.

repeats of the daily show spank the collective behind of all those up-to-date "legitimate" news shows. remember to always vote for the candidate who lies the least. i really want to tell you to pay close attention to their views and plans and all that rot, but that only works if you can simultaneously apply that first piece of advice, so, i don't know. know your facts, go with your gut, do the best you can, politically and otherwise. karma shall smile on your well-intentioned head.

'night, kids.

two thumbs up to the cast, but...

body of a bird
in the road. i stepped around
it, apologized.






i'm the only person i know who doesn't like "the breakfast club." i've never even been able to sit through the entire movie. the public's reliable shock and dismay over this fact has driven me to try harder to sit through the movie than i've ever tried to do anything else in my life, and after all my most sincere attempts i've managed to change my dislike into full-blown loathing. i despise "the breakfast club." there, i've said it. bring on the torch-wielding mobs.

it doesn't matter, you know. i hate a lot of things that don't deserve it. my natural hair color, birch beer, reggae, almost all cooked vegetables... for all i know it isn't even about the movie, it's some repressed tie-in to an intestinal spasm i had the first time i saw it when i was eight or something. i don't know what you'd like me to do about it. i don't ask you to lie about things that you don't like. stop persecuting me, damn it. i'm doing the best i can. *sniff*

new t.v. show! eatusnbc is proud to present "Yup...That's How That Is." this program airs for twelve minutes once a month, because any more than that would be excruciating for me and other people who know its star. i'm not telling you her name because it just isn't relevant, but she's OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST so unbelievably irritating. imagine the voice of a midwestern chain-smoking mickey mouse encased in the akward body of an insecure middle-aged librarian. now imagine that voice commenting quietly to itself on EVERYTHING EVERYBODY DOES. oh, you don't understand, you could never understand. here, stay with me anyhow. i'm putting that woman in a chair in any high-traffic area, a street corner, a convenience store, a supermarket produce section... let's use that for now. she's just sitting there, no one's even looking at her, she's wearing a microphone and you hear this:


"i'm sitting next to the grapes. i like grapes. like me some grapes. especially when they're cold. some people like fruit better when it's room temperature, but i like it cold. these grapes aren't very cold. i'd like them better if they were cold. maybe someone could put them in the refrigerator. i bet there's a refrigerator in the supermarket. lots of things that you find in the supermarket need to be kept in the refrigerator. maybe someone will put these grapes in the refrigerator. that woman's buying some apples. she's buying some peppers, too. but she doesn't have any grapes. i wonder if she doesn't like grapes. maybe she just likes apples better. i wonder if she would have wanted the grapes if they were colder. i'd like the grapes more if they were colder. and i like grapes. that's funny, i like grapes, and here i wound up sitting right next to them."

did it take you a minute to read that? maybe less? could you imagine twelve minutes? i work with her for nine hours every day. she's not handicapped, she's not on drugs, she's just the most annoying woman who ever freaking lived. and i'm going to make her famous, because i've got nothing better to do.

if you hate it, that's okay. i appreciate that sometimes there's just no way around it.

buy my hookers, suckers.

down with mass media!

carbphobic? relax!
heed the rasta elephants,
think gap, buy more crap.





in my experience, television is reliably unwatchable as often as oral birth control is reliably effective. thanks to the reality fad, the two now also have the same potential side effects, such as nausea and extreme irritability. i, for the most part, would rather listen to people discuss their birth control than whichever asinine lineup they ogled numbly the night before, and the night before that, and so on and so on... but every so often a shining star squeaks through, and even if those stars are snuffed immediately upon their discovery, it's good to know that someone is still trying.

i'm not going to list my favorite shows for you because, well, who the hell cares. i am going to tell you that after watching the better part of a "west wing" marathon the other weekend i was sure the only way for me to be happy was to run away and work for howard dean. and that, my loveys, is what art is all about: inner voices and the dream of a better life. i mean, i love weird cartoons and john waters movies and that crazy canadian lady with the butt plugs as much as anyone does, but until the networks are willing to air all of those things during peak hours i'll remain deeply dissatisfied, and the fact that a program about a fake presidency ties with "the daily show" for most inspiring mainstream political coverage is beautiful--but sad.

how much time do you spend every week watching a shiny screen? how often does anything you see on that screen move you? remember, this screen counts, and i'm not trying to be one of the better things you might see. i'm just saying.

so, my lovely and faithful toadie and i have begun to fantasize about owning our own t.v. station. tell me with a straight face that you wouldn't watch all of these shows:

1. "Happy Hour with Dave Attenborough." Sir David Attenborough hosts a British nature documentary series, "the life of birds." toadie and i have turned the hour-long program into a fabulously simple drinking game: every time dave says "birds," we do a shot. because the number of "birds" can be anywhere between twelve and eighty, we tend to play with a pitcher of margaritas instead of a bottle of tequila. "Happy Hour" would mostly consist of the documentary in full screen with a streaming broadcast of the two of us and her pet macaw playing this game in a smaller corner window. maybe you don't think this would be all that funny, but, oh my, it is. and to appease the PETA crowd, no, the bird does not drink with us.

2. "Radioactive Fly." toadie is toadie because she's my assistant at work where, as i've mentioned in past entries, i inject cats with radioactive iodine to treat hyperthyroidism and occasionally perform other nuclear duties. for a while there was a fly the size of a human head in our ward. he was originally fodder for a comic strip, but we think a serial cartoon would be a better medium. he, like all supervillains, is often seen stroking his (frothing, glowing, hideously mutated) pet cat while wearing a smoking jacket. he eventually takes me as his bride, and together we lead a horde of three-legged greyhound minions. we'd love to get jhonen vasquez on board with this one.

3. "the joys of hexing." a weekly martha stewart-esque show where we guide our viewers through a variety of simple yet effective voodoo curses using everyday items found right within their own homes.

4. "michael." michael is a co-worker. he's insane and will talk for hours and hours about anything from the pros and cons of different political regimes to the sex toys he bought on-line last week. we love michael to death, but we aren't sure whether he'd be as effective in a less spontaneous set-up. because of that, the plan is to secretly record his conversations and then play the dialogue over different formats (stop-action animation, puppets, interpretive dance, etc.). we know, we know, this isn't a completely original idea, but michael is a completely original human being, and we don't think any comparisons to "tv funhouse" will be made after the first fifteen minutes. we don't want to distort or distract you from anything he's saying, we just want to complement it.

i'll include program updates in this blog as i think of them. our first feature film involves centimeter-high chenille pipe cleaner chickens and naked plastic babies just the right size to ride the chickens. we're still deciding whether the babies and the chickens coexist peacefully or not. if you pay attention to our fearless leader's public orations, you know that the peaceful coexistence of humans and wildlife (in his case, "fishes") is a key topic, so, just in case you thought that my starting off about "the west wing" was lofty and irrelevant, i have now brought things full-circle. everything is political in one sphere or another.

except "american idol." that's just bullshit.