My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Morrissey at Radio City

Can you believe that I'm almost 40 years old and I haven't ever seen Morrissey live? Wait, let me ask that again. Can you believe I'm almost 40 years old? Isn't that crazy? Like completely bonkers? Like you can't even make heads or tails of that fact? Can it be possible? I know, I know, it doesn't make any mathematical sense, but still, you can't really argue with the mathematical sense it truly makes.

Anyway, listen to this magical story: I was just lamenting the other day, after realizing that I'd just missed bumping into Morrissey at the Strand bookstore a few Sundays ago, that I'd never seen that charming man live. How could that be? Then, out of the blue, I get a text from my dear friend Laura asking me if I had any interest in going to see La Mozzer at Radio City on Wednesday. What are the odds? Of course, I was all "Yes, yes, a million times YES!"

I was a little worried that his voice would be weak from all that hard core vegan eating he's been doing (I heard that he's got a pretty bad arugula habit), but he sounded robust and flawless. He began the show by immediately throwing us sycophants a bone with an exquisite rendition of the timeless Smiths slowjam "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me."



It was nice to see Oscar Wilde make an appearance between songs.



It was less nice to have to sit through the interminable PETA agit-prop snuff film played during my least-favorite Smiths song "Meat is Murder." There's really nothing like watching cows and chickens and other farm animals being slaughtered on the big screen for your viewing pleasure. Nothing like it. Feel good movie of the year. I wasn't surprised that Morrissey went there--he's a strident little thing in his old age--but gah.

Another complaint: too many new songs. I know, I know, he must get tired of being told to shut up and play the hits, but all I wanted from him, really, was "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side," and it's a bummer that he couldn't have swapped out one of these forgetable new tunes to make room. Sure, I probably would have wet my pants if he'd played that, but that's why I wore my Queen is Dead-brand adult diapers.

Still, the man delivered a fine, fine performance, and pretty much everyone in the house was beside themselves with adolescent joy, particularly the fellow in the row in front of us who I'll call "Ducky from Pretty in Pink," who was going all in on the fey hand stabs and the new wave hair tweaking.

You wanna know what hits he played, so as you can be more jealous of me? Okay: "Shoplifters of the World Unite," "Every Day is Like Sunday," "Still Ill," "Speedway," "Spring-Heeled Jim," "Ouiji Board," "I Know It's Over." Could you be more envious? Yes, of course you could, but the fact that you harbor even a tiny amount of psychotic envy makes me not only happy but downright smug.



In conclusion, enjoy this blurry and off-puttingly low quality video of Morrissey getting bum-rushed during "Still Ill."

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Dina Martina at the Laura Beechman Theater, NYC

Jimmy and I enjoyed a night at the theatah last night, because we are urban sophisticates who sometimes find something we both want to do on the same night. I recently discovered Dina Martina thanks to my secret conservative extra-marital boyfriend Andrew Sullivan and his blog. Andrew started featuring Ms. Martina on his web series Ask [Someone] Anything, in which he gets a prominent person--usually a political or cultural pundit--to sit down and field questions from readers. Dina Martina is a nice "lady" singer Andrew loves who performs all summer in Provincetown, where he summers like a big old gaywad, and so when she landed in NYC to do a stint of shows, he asked her to sit and preview her show/field questions from the unwashed Internet. It was her insightful and edumacational answers that convinced me that Jimmy and I could not spend our Sunday night doing anything more meaningful than basking in the glamor and clammy glow of La Martina.

She did all sorts of stuff from the great American songbook, from "Genius of Love" by the Tom Tom Club to "Legal Tender" by the B-52s, from the theme song from "The Love Boat" to a song for children that she'd written on a crumpled up piece of notebook paper she appeared to have found in a public toilet. It was, as Mitt Romney might say, "marvelous." She's on her way to London, so London peeps, she's playing at the Soho Theater from October 23 to November 3, get your tickets, it's good clean American comedy, like the Osmonds but so much better.

Jimmy darted out before I could force him to take my picture with her, but that's okay because I just took one myself, minus me, plus a nice woman with electric red hair.

Below, watch Dina take a question. You'll learn something, maybe.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Keith Haring Exhibit at Brooklyn Museum

Eighties gays that we are, Jimmy and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the Keith Haring exhibit here in Brooklyn, and it was stupendous. So many dicks, y'all. So many dicks.

Three cocks, a heart, and a bunch of squiggles. Reminds me of the night I lost my virginity.

This one also reminds me of the night I lost my virginity.

Some Pig.

Such a cutie.

Just your normal everyday drawing of fallen angels f**king some dogs they found.

If you know anything about me you know that I can't leave a museum without photographing any freely available naked male statues. This one was a little small for my liking--probably half my size--but still quite handsome.

Another non-Keith work, included for obvious reasons. Now, this... this reminds me of the smoke breaks Jimmy likes to take in between painting me in the nude. And yes, my butt is that milky white.

Jimmy was really moved by this exhibit, and he was dropping some mad rhymes about it on the way to see The Hunger Games afterwards. I must say, he was getting pretty jiggy with it in a funkified psychedelic situation.

My Camera Phone Will Not be Denied: Magnetic Fields, Beacon Theater, NYC

Went to see the Magnetic Fields the other night at the classy Beacon Theatah, and what they lacked in adrenaline and synths they made up for in good old fashioned loveliness. They played my favorite of their tunes, "Smoke and Mirrors," from the album Get Lost. And yes, they are this blurry in person.

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!

Wow, Sure Glad I Decided to Check in on Occupy Wall Street on Sunday, Before They Released the Dogs

Wow, that was some great timing. Jimmy and I biked into town on Sunday to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams and afterwards Jimmy suggested we bike down to Occupy Wall Street and see what all the hippies are doing. I thought this was a great idea because I hadn't been there in over a month and surely the interpretive dancing is off the hook by this point. (See video above.)

So we twirled on down there and Lord Almighty it smelled. Like, it wasn't a pungent smell like sewage or fart or piss--it wasn't that obvious. It just felt like, as we made our way through the encampment, we were walking through a big brown cloud of... something. Something that smelled... unpleasant. Kind of sort of deeply, deeply, profoundly unpleasant. Something you couldn't bear to put your finger on.

Anyway, on to the pictures:

Should have brought my viola, my weave, and my earnestness. Left all three at home.

This is where they keep all the dildos.

Cute bicyclist powering a generator with his blurry legs.

Flu shots, first-aid kits, condoms, lube, mints, dental floss.

The PB&J preparation table.

Entrance to the library, which sadly has now been destroyed, probably by illiterates.

Now that's more like it. What I came here for. Thank you, Mr. Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test!

Wait, what's a krip? Isn't that racist? Or, no, I think it's a really potent weed. If so, I think I've found my favorite contingent.

We'll always have Zuccotti. (Well, not in the literal sense.)

And, in conclusion, here's more of the interpretive dance that was taking place across the street from the park. Maybe this is the reason behind the police crackdown?

Camera Phone Denied: The Anderson Cooper Show

I recently decided that I should take advantage of being unemployed and attend the taping of a terrible daytime talk show, because I'm in New York, and what could be worse than being unemployed and getting sucked into discussions about meaningless bullshit and/or awful personal tragedies? That's right: getting sucked in in person.

Did you know that Anderson Cooper has a new daytime talk show? It really makes perfect sense, because, though he has a perfectly respectable career as a swoon-worthy silver fox newsman, his biggest and most devoted fans are housewives with no gaydar and gay dudes who work the pole at night, so why not tap into that Cooper-ready audience of Nancies? Anyway, I got tickets to a recent taping because I figured it would be a great opportunity to talk to Anderson about my new book and, you know, give him a copy and encourage him to tweet about it or something. Or maybe I'd have a chance to hold it up in front of the camera? So me and my friend Rachel trolled on down to the Time Warner Building in Columbus Circle at the dreaded hour of 9 a.m. and got in line.



It took forever to go through all the security rigamarole and get taken to our seats. To our delight, the usher with the Madonna microphone headset on, after consulting a person on the other end, escorted us right up to the front row OMG! We quickly decided that it must be in Anderson Cooper's rider that the front row be filled with only beautiful, camera-ready people, and they took one look at us and decided we were the very definition of that. After sitting down, we leaned back and soaked in the looks of envy showered upon us from the commoners behind us. "Hey girls," I waved to the queens staring daggers at me from the balcony seats. Soon enough, though, Rachel and I realized that we were absolutely out of range of any camera in the entire studio. There was one immediately behind us, one behind us on the other end, and several in the audience, but we were uniquely positioned to remain forever completely unknown and anonymous to the America viewing public. Was Anderson fucking with us?

The topic for the day was a doozy: transgender children. Jesus, Anderson, can't you just chill out, it's daytime teevee, for God's sake. Why no Kathy Griffin? Why no empty-calorie celebritard interviews? Why no cooking segment? This dead-serious topic ensured that Andy had to wear his Concerned Face for the entire two-hour taping, which was kind of a bummer, because when's he gonna do a segment in his Speedos?



And we weren't given ANY free shwag! None. All the guests on the stage were sipping from cool Anderson mugs and I was hoping we'd get one on the way out, but we didn't get shit. I know Anderson is no Oprah (yet), but still, couldn't he have at least put a Snickers bar under our seats or something? And the only photo I was able to take before the handlers got all stern and grabby was the one up top, taken quickly and under duress.

Okay, so I'm being pretty negative, but here's the good stuff: Coop is, of course, devastatingly gorgeous, and he was dressed adorably in fitted slacks and a snug sweater with a collared shirt. (Fun fact: I used to go to his gym, so I've seen him in his underwear, bitches.) And the stage manager was hella sexy. Rachel almost took a bite out of his butt when he placed it in front of her for a minute.

The episode will air on this Wednesday, apparently, if you're interested. Two days after the one where Joy Behar gives money saving tips, ARGH!

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Dum Dum Girls at Bowery Ballroom

The Dum Dum Girls are fishnet-fetishist vampy vixens from outer space (California) and lead singer Dee Dee knows how to craft a sparkling pop tune so it was only a matter of time before I saw them live. As you all know, I get easily bored if there's not at least one woman on any stage at a given time, so you can imagine how punch-drunk-happy I was to be able to see these four hot tomales surface from their glitter gutter and show off their legs, lipstick, and la-la's last Friday at Bowery.

Lead singer Dee Dee is so skinny that she can only be seen from this angle.

If I were straight, these are totally the girls that I would have been afraid to ask out in high school.

Gratuitous leg shot.

The only thing that would make this band more perfect live is if they had a topless tambourine player.



If you can read upside down, you'll see that "Wrong Feels Right," the Dum Dum's best song, is weirdly absent from this set list. This is unacceptable, and I'm still waiting on an explanation. Since when do bands completely ignore anonymous internet comment posters?!

And the obligatory artistic blurry shot, the end.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Ladytron at Terminal 5

Y'all know I'm a fool for Ladytron, the gang of synthpop robots from the planet KORG who visit our fine solar system every few years to bless us with more of their carnal keyboard knowledge. Well they beamed themselves down to NYC last night for some musical interfacing with us humanoid slobs and it was sublime.



Ladytron have reached a point in their career—they've been around now for as long as the Cure were when they released Disintegration, and their new album Gravity the Seducer has a bunch of new gems on it—where they've got a solid grab-bag of songs to choose from, and could play awesome shows for days without repeating themselves. So seeing them live these days is a treat from first to last, because as you stand there, wasted from all the vodka/diet Cherry 7-ups you downed before leaving the house so you wouldn't have to spend money at the bar, you just know that whatever they play is going to be awesome because YOU LOVE THEM LIKE NO OTHER, so you can just take a deep breath and get ready to dance robotically and play air-synth again, yesssss!



They came out and looked great. Lead singer Helen appeared to be wearing a Mickey Mouse hat, but I'm thinking now it might have been a giant bow? Anyway, they started with "Soft Power" and "International Dateline" and oh my God is Mira the Bulgarian one on the left pregnant?!

She's usually so svelte, like Dr. Spock. But she's a little bit pear-shaped now, it seems. Which is fine, I'm not being weight-ist! But, hmm, yeah, I think I'm gonna go ahead and call it: Mira from Ladytron is pregnant with a baby alien robot, must credit SeeTimBlog!!

And here's my secret boyfriend Reuben Wu, the handsomest android in pop. I'd love to get a gander at his circuit board, if you know what I mean. You know, see his hard drive. Pop his control panel. (I want to see him naked, is what I'm saying.)

Yep. Totally pregnant.

Keyboard swap.

And they end with "Destroy Everything You Touch," one of their most beloved songs, and one that I've never really warmed to. So Ladytron, stop ending your concerts with this song, pls. And there was no "Playgirl" or "Sugar," which upsets me. But they did play "Discotraxx" and "High Rise," so I accept their apology.

After the show, the 'Tron boarded their spacepod for the after party, which was on Tatooine, the end.