Sunday, January 29

Dept. of Verbiage



Oh, you guys know you've missed See Tim Blog's self-hating Sarah Palin coverage. For years we here at STB have provided you with the best unadulterated Palin porn the Internet has to offer, and ever since she sadly announced she wouldn't run for president of the United American States of Alaska it's been a challenge to keep the coverage coming, because what are we supposed to do, stop the presses whenever her mouth-breathing husband decides to endorse Newt Gingrich for dog catcher or one of her daughters decides to get plastic surgery to look less like a Palin? No. We will not stoop so low. We want the real deal, and if Sarah ain't talkin', don't come a' knockin'.

Anyway, it's been a while since we've checked in with Planet Palin, but every so often some idiotic drivel seeps out of the mouth of our favorite hair weave model and plops onto our internet screen here at STB HQ that absolutely must be blogged about lest it be lost to history forever. Herewith, I present you with some words Sarah Palin said to some Fox News toady or other in response to a question about hideous elephantine ball sack Newt Gingrich:

“They maybe subscribe such characterization of Newt via words like that, but they don’t subscribe those to say Mitt Romney when he or his surrogates do the same thing. That’s that typical hypocrisy stuff in the media you know I’ve lived with over a couple of decades in the political arena,” she said. “It is hypocritical of the media to subscribe to one candidate and not another, that kind of ‘angry attack muffin’ verbiage to one and not the other.”

I ask you, dear readers, would knowing exactly what question was posed to Sarah Palin before she began moving her lips to attempt pronunciation of these words make the resulting sentence any more coherent? No, that's why I didn't bother to look the question up. That's how easy Sarah Palin makes it to blog about her. She's a real time saver.

In conclusion, 59,934,814 U.S. Americans voted for this sitcom character to be Vice President of the United States in 2008. Not that long ago!

Friday, January 27

My Latest Piece for The Nervous Breakdown...



Is now up over at TNB. Here's a teaser:

The late eighties were a great time to be a fanboy of weirdo new wave ladysingers from outer space (mainly Britain). It seemed like every time you turned on your new favorite show, 120 Minutes, some wackadoodle dame dripping with otherworldly moxie was popping up sporting a leotard or a tutu or a completely bald head, leaving your mouth gaping in wonder at the sheer brilliance of it all. You had your helium-voiced ethereal fantasist (Kate Bush), your ferocious and feline Weimar Republic throwback/riding crop enthusiast (Siouxsie Sioux), your tiny elfin powder keg (Bjork of the Sugarcubes), your scary trannie android (Annie Lennox of Eurythmics), and your testy and tempestuous ingénue (Sinead O’Connor). All of these ladies had allure to burn and the musical chops to back it all up.

[continue reading]

Tuesday, January 24

The NYC City Clerk's Marriage Application Website Gets Judgy



So, first! Jimmy and I are getting married, isn't that hiLARious? Yes, we figured that since we've been together for 14 years and it's legal to get gay-married in New York now--and especially since it has been a long-standing goal of ours to destroy traditional marriage (you're officially on notice, Rick and Karen Santorum)--we're going to get hitched, and not only because I want to get on Jimmy's health insurance, how could you even think that?

So last night we submitted our application online and were instructed to show up at the City Clerk's office within 21 days with our IDs, Social Security numbers, and preferred brand of condoms so that we can say "I do" and get this shit over with. But before I got to the confirmation page, I was instructed to type the letters "LUWD" into the space in order to prove that my application was not gay spam.

Really, City Clerk's office? You want me to type those letters into the space? You want to sound that out for me?

In conclusion, why is the random letter generator on this website such a homophobe?

Thursday, January 19

Holy Crap, I'm on Andrew Sullivan's Blog!



Wow, this is really quite something. I've been reading Andrew Sullivan's blog religiously for about 5 years, ever since he became the only conservative voice out there who wasn't a completely delusional nutbag. In fact, he's one of the most clear-thinking and intellectually honest writers I've ever encountered. Anyway, one of the great things about his blog is that, though it's heavily weighted towards politics, it also covers a lot of other great topics that are out there--among them religion vs. atheism, marijuana use among MANY Americans, scientific debates, and, most importantly, the Pet Shop Boys. It's all there. And one of his pet topics is how much he loathes the publishing industry. He did a video response last week to a reader who asked why he hates the publishing industry so much, which was fun. I wrote a letter to him and his team in response and yesterday they ran the letter and, even though I didn't mention the name of the book in my letter (I dropped big clues, but I didn't want to be too unseemly--it's bad to dress like a pimp when you're pimpin'), they actually found the book on Amazon and included hyperlinks for folks to buy it OMG!

Truly, truly a thrill to be on that blog. I love it dearly. It has done a lot to keep me sane over the past decade. Plus, he's as obsessed with Sarah Palin as I am.

Tuesday, January 17

Dept. of Duh: Paula Deen, Fried Chicken, Krispy Kreme Donut Cheeseburgers, and Type II Diabetes



Oh, Paula. What a bummer, that Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Who could have predicted that? Certainly not me or any other living sentient being whose brain cells have not been deep fried and dunked in a chocolate fondu. You eat so healthfully! But you know what is also a bummer? You keeping this diagnosis a secret for three years before telling your many many fans, who wait with baited breath for every masterful recipe you come up with for Twinkie-infused, caramel-smothered, deep-fried sugar-blasted carbohydrate pie. It's... unseemly.

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE Paula Deen. I went to her Savannah restaurant last year with my mom and sister and we ate like hawgs. (Not like hogs. Like hawgs.) But when you deliberately keep from the public the fact that you've been diagnosed with a disease that is directly related to the culinary lifestyle you are a purveyor of, that's like eating a hot dog and leaving off the hot fudge: just wrong.

As some of you may know, I'm a type 1 diabetic. I was diagnosed when I was 15 after my pancreas just stone cold walked off the job of producing insulin, which my young body needed in order to not die. My diagnosis, as us Type 1 diabetics like to smugly point out, had nothing to do with my lifestyle, my diet, or my love of sugar-coated everything. Type 1 diabetes is a mysterious beast and if it chooses you, there's nothing you can do to stop it from turning you around, bending you over, and sticking it to you good and proper, over and over, for the rest of your life--or, rather, forcing you to stick yourself (usually sitting upright, though not always), sometimes three or four times a day.

But Type 2 diabetes is an altogether different plate of Double Stuffed Oreo Crumble. Like Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 has a hereditary component to it. If you have either of these two in your family, there is a chance you will be chosen by the Diabetes Fairy to wear the crown and sash. But while Type 1 diabetics are shit out of luck when it comes to prevention, those in danger of becoming Type 2 diabetic can actually intervene and lower the likelihood that they get the disease. The key is to reduce your risks: if you have diabetes in your family and you are overweight and eat like a hoss (Hi, Paula!) then you really need to make some changes, like not eating corn dogs wrapped in chocolate chip almond creme truffle pancakes and washing it all down with a mug full of Boston creme all day, every day, forever. And it would be helpful if, when you are told you have the disease, that you not hide this fact from an audience that depends on you for its fix of crusty-toffee-white-chocolate-cherry-chunk-orgy-of-death by chocolate cake recipes. You might think of, you know, educating your flock about the dangers of eating cholesterol directly out of the bag with a soup ladle.

And now Paula has masterfully transitioned to a brand new gig as a Novo Nordisk spokeslady*. Novo Nordisk is the maker of a diabetes drug that will now be the likeliest diabetes drug to be on the tip of Paula's millions of fans' tongues. That is, when their tongues aren't too busy making their way through an entire Wilmington Island Marsh Mud Cake. Ninety-nine percent of these fans will be receiving their Type 2 diabetes diagnosis in 5... 4... 3... 2....

Well played, Novartis.

*corrected

Thursday, January 12

Get Ready to Roll Your Eyes



Oh, Jesus, New York Post, you really are the worst, aren't you? When I saw this headline today I just about choked on my own tongue. Are you kidding me?

As some of you may know, there's a new book out called The Obamas that dishes some dirt on the supposed friction between Michelle Obama and members of the administration, particularly hot rod Rahm Emmanuel. (It is extremely important and relevant to note here that this book currently sits a mere four slots above my own book about the Obamas, Tune in Tokyo, on Amazon's Kindle nonfiction top 100 list OMG.) The White House has responded to the headlines this book has generated by downplaying the drama, and part of this effort was Michelle Obama doing a sit-down interview with, for some reason, Oprah's best friend Gayle King. During this interview, our FLOTUS said this (copied directly from the Post):

“But that’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since, you know, the day Barack announced that I’m some angry, black woman.”

This is true! Remember the legend of the Michelle Obama "whitey" videotape that every right-wing reptile was dying to get their hands on? (And by the way, like I said, I copied and pasted the above quotation directly from the Post's website. Notice how they cheekily left out the comma that should go after the word announced so basically it looks like she's saying that Barack announced that Michelle is some angry black woman. Nice touch, guys.)

Anyway, so of course the media are going to cover this response of hers, and unfortunately the New York Post is classified as "the media," so of course we were bound to see something about this on the famously right-wing daily's front page this morning. And what did the bilious baboons over at the Post decide was the best headline for this story? That's right: Mad as Hell Michelle!

I bet the Post newsroom smells like a high school cafeteria.

Sunday, January 8

Today in Growing Old Gracefully: Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons



I was reading that new book about MTV recently (the same one I referenced a few weeks back), and it was pretty a pretty fun read, with lots of dirt and a few stomach-turning moments. Everyone was such a drunk slut in the '80s. So gross and unfair. Anyway, one part in particular jumped out at me, because I'd been wondering whatever happened to Dale Bozzio, the lead singer of Missing Persons. Beth McCarthy, an MTV producer, explains on page 134:

Mark Goodman asked me to go to his dressing room to get some notes for him--I was the assistant to the line producer, so I would do errands for the VJs. I ran to his dressing room, opened the door, and, um, Les was getting a blow job from Dale Bozzio. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and closed the door very quickly.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Dale Bozzio? Giving a blow job to the executive vice president for programming for MTV? That doesn't sound like her. Why would she do that? To get her videos played, sure, but why else? Anyway, Dale doesn't seem like the type of trollop that would suck on a dick to get ahead. I mean, look at her, does she look like the type a gal who would compromise her integrity just for the sake of some modest airplay on an upcoming cable network?



Okay, yeah she does. But how about we give Dale an opportunity defend herself on page 135 against this scurrilous rumor, shall we? Go ahead, Dale:

I don't have any comment. I appreciate your time, but I'm not interested in being interviewed, okay? I'd rather have nothing to say.

Okay, yeah, she did it. But who among us didn't give a blow job in the 80s for a little bit of airplay? We all did this. Poor Dale. I feel for her, this being the only thing she's remembered for in a 600-page book about MTV. But at least this passage led me to the Google machine to look her up. I hoped she was doing something life affirming and worthwhile, like growing medical marijuana or appearing in dinner theater productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I was in for a bit of a letdown.

Oh how the mighty have gotten arrested. Yes, Dale was arrested for animal cruelty in 2008, an event that led to the above mugshot being taken of our dear Dale. She was convicted in 2009. So basically, Dale Bozzio has become a crazy cat lady. Except worse: she's a crazy cat lady who neglects her cats. WTF? This is a like an 80s pop singer who doesn't give blow jobs.

Anyway, this seems like as good a time as any to remember Dale Bozzio in better days, so watch this video, won't you?

Saturday, January 7

Oh Yeah, and Before We Move on to 2012, Tune in Tokyo Was Named One of Publisher's Weekly's Favorite Reads of 2011!



It's true. Capping off a great year for TiT, Publisher's Weekly swooped in at the last minute and made my Christmas. I LOVE the first sentence of this blurb, which is a backhanded compliment of the first order: "Since this is “favorite” rather than “best”, I’d single out Tune in Tokyo by Tim Anderson as a laugh aloud treat."

PW has been so kind to Tune in Tokyo over the past year, for which I extend my heartfelt ありがとうず。I'm available for guest columns, interviews, and topless centerfolds should the need arise, y'all. Just let me know!

Thursday, January 5

Escape From New York: Christmas in Chinatown, Then New Year in Raleigh


Folks, for some reason, it's hard to get back to blogging after two weeks or so of not doing it for whatever reason (laziness). Why is that? Is it because it's a challenge to logically present all the idiotic, useless things bouncing around in one's head since Christmas that probably nobody wants to read about? Maybe.

So anyway, one way of getting through this blogger's block is to just force you guys to look through photos of all the stuff I got up to on my Christmas vacation! So this post is going to be HUGE because there's lots of territory to cover and I'm impatient to get it over with. Or, if not HUGE, it's at least going to have a lot of pictures, which the illiterates among you will really lov. Onwards!


Jimmy and I had our usual Christmas-day-in-Chinatown face stuffing. The picture up top is my curry chicken noodle soup and above is Jimmy making his way through beef something-or-other with rice. His hand is blurry because he's eating fast, in order to eat more. After Christmas, I headed down to Raleigh to see the family AND to have a Tune in Tokyo event at Humble Pie downtown on the 28th, yay! Stella didn't want me to go:


But I did, and here is the only picture I have of the event because I forgot to ask folks to take pictures. :(



Yes, that's a Hello Kitty toaster on the display table and no, you can't have it.


Willis, my friend Dani's cat, was devastated that he didn't get to go to my reading but he made himself feel better by eating a couple cheeseburgers and getting even fatter. Ok, bummer alert:


As some of you may remember, my Dad died last December 29. Well, this year on that day I went to lunch with my mom and my brother Kevin, then we went over to the Columbarium where his ashes lay and visited for a little while. It was a nice, sunny day, and it was thoroughly lovely. Mom's doing very well!


I think it was the next day that Kevin and I went on a walk behind the art museum, and there were some fun installations on display. The above one was my favorite because it was made of tires, and I love rubber.


Then I went over to my friends Ruth and Mike's house for steaks and met my friend Deana's new baby, who is a peanut. Oh my God he was just mesmerizing...


On New Year's Eve afternoon, Kevin and I went downtown to Fayetteville Street because we heard there was going to be a Ferris Wheel in the middle of the street. I wanted to ride it! Sadly, the line was way too long because it was the only fun, non-alcoholic thing on offer at the time, so we didn't bother. But we did keep walking because I wanted to see the big acorn that always drops from a crane as Raleigh's answer to Time's Square's juicy apple. It wasn't hoisted onto the crane at the time so I was able to get a close-up.


There was also ice skating happening...


But we weren't in the mood for that. What we were in the mood for was alcohol, if I'm being honest, so we went to the Raleigh Times bar and had a few very large draft beers while sitting outside and enjoying the view of folks gathering for the evening's festivities. We stayed there until it was too dark and cold to enjoy ourselves and then made our way back through the center of Fayetteville Street and what we soon realized was a parade. I love a parade!



After stopping in at Brewmasters to stuff our faces full of THE AWESOME FOOD THERE, we walked through Nash Square back to Kevin's car and for the first time I saw the firefighters memorial that had been erected there in 2006. It was all lit up so I took a picture...


Also, do you like dogs, especially puppies? Then you would love Kevin's young pup Griffin, who is so hyper and excited that he's very hard to photograph. But I managed to get a decent shot of him when he was briefly still behind the fence of Kevin's back yard.


And here's another of Griffin and his buddy Youna, who is also an attention hog and never sits still, so I had to move away to take this one, therefore they look like unhappy prisoner dogs but they are not!


On my last night, mom, Kevin and I sat around the table and I finally got Kevin on video playing his teeth like a xylophone, which I've been meaning to do forever. Enjoy this clip, kids...



And that is all! Happy New Year, six days late when it's old news and no one cares anymore because Michele Bachman's husband will never be First Lady, which is so sad!