ultranow

to a perverted criminal

will the pervert who has been stealing my underwear from the laundry room (black n2n contour pouch brief and black cin2 lo-rise square cut for example) do one or more of the following, and i mean now:

• wash and return them
• be a man (by which i mean if you're a woman become a man because i'm a homo), put on a pair of mine you stole, knock on my door, and be available for hours of passion (or to get punched in the face if you're not cute enough)
• wash a dozen you stole from some other guy and give them to me (must be size medium, or potentially if my workouts go as planned, then can be size small)
• knock it the fuck off

thanks so much,  ya munt.

ellen's plea

how does flirting over cake turn into a horrible discovery?

so i go for a walk on christmas eve, or as it's known to jews - december 24th.  i'd eaten dinner already, felt cooped up in my apartment and despite the cold, just needed to get out.  the plan was to hang out with friends on christmas proper.  december 24th was going to be all about digital cable and non-digital food.

so i end up on a popular consumer strip where i knew some places would still be open and i wander into a shop that sold dessert among other things.  i'll treat myself, i figured.  i was absorbed in the cake display and told the clerk i needed more time, eventually asking him, with as much serious as such as a question could allow "do you have any cakes specifically designed for jews on christmas?"  to which he replied "oh, you're jewish?  are all jews as incredibly handsome as you?"  which blindsided me to the max.

i'm not entirely used to compliments out of the blue like that (though of course we all know i'm incredibly handsome, ahem, my body language is one of the most effective deterrents to human contact known to gay man.)  i'm also naturally suspicious, so i say "only those of us who are about to decide how big a tip to leave."  which is an asshole thing to say on my part, but it's what came out.

so he says he's not saying it to get a tip and he doesn't say that to everybody.  so i say "i'm the only jew in the world and i'm the best looking jew."  which gets into bizarre territory as attempted flirts go because it makes no sense and doesn't go with my first response.  so i then pick the strawberry white cake white icing with almonds (which is called a "gateau" on the little card).  i chose it because it looked suitably garish and decadent, especially in terms of the price.  continuing my fumbling, because he is handsome, i point out that gateau means cake, which i told him i figured out from the context.  off-putting body language is looking pretty good in comparison to this exchange.

he's still smiling though when he has me walk around to the register side.  he asks me my name and i say and then he tells me his, which sounds like, let's just say, a wwii related word.  then he goes to the back to get my slice, since he needs to leave the display case one alone for future garishness.

when he comes back i ask him the spelling of his name, because if it was what i thought he'd told me, it would have been a sleight on my person and jewishtacity.  he said, oh not that way it's [such and such spelling.]  we made a little more small talk, then i belatedly thanked him for the compliment and told him i was flattered and he said he was glad he'd at least learned my name and he hoped i stopped by his store again soon.  i felt he was sincere at that moment.  i walked home with my slice and it was good, especially the strawberries.  i thought of potentially better responses like:  "since your shop isn't crowded right now, do you mind if i stand here and flirt with you stupidly for awhile?"  though i don't know if that's really better.

waking up today, i felt good about a guy hitting on me, though i still partially felt maybe it had been for a tip or to fuck with me in some way.  but part of me definitely felt it could have been genuine and maybe i should stop by his shop again after all.  i resolved to talk to my friend about it later [today] and get some advice.  so i go over her place for christmas dinner, or december 25th dinner.  and by the way earlier today, g-d or mother nature or whoever was so cliché because it was snowing on christmas.  whatever.

because his first name was so distinctive, and because i'd learned the spelling since it was a homonym for something horrible so i'd asked, i of course googled him before i left for her apartment.  i found a myspace for a music group he's in, saw his face picture and everything.  so at my friend's apartment, i tell her the whole story up to this point, google him to get his myspace and before i click that, i scan down for other google results.  what i found is after the jump.  and it's not pretty.

can star trek iv (or greenpeace) please stop this from happening?

massive whaling expedition (i.e. whale murder)

in defense of idaho senator larry craig

larry craig.  larry craig.  senator craig.  senator larry.

• people shouldn't be arrested in airport bathrooms for allegedly looking through a stall door, tapping one's foot (even if in that come hither way), blocking the underneath of one's stall door with luggage, and waving one's hand under the partition.  none of those things are sex or in and of themselves lewd.  they just aren't.
• when he says he's not gay, i see no reason not to believe him.  as christopher isherwood expressed beautifully:  being homosexual means you want to have sex with a man while being gay means you can fall in love with a man.  or something like that.
• while i understand the desire to call him on hypocrisy since he's this "family" values, anti-gay legislator, i don't think it's necessary to have airport lewdness on him, or other examples, in order to criticize his voting record based solely on that record, not his personal life.  otherwise, it's saying he's worse than the other "family" values, anti-gay legislators out there and last i checked, enda isn't law yet despite what heterosexual things do or don't go on in the bedrooms and local airport bathrooms of those legislators.
• the late night talk shows (letterman and leno in particular) have made homophobic jokes about the situation that are cringeworthy and disgusting.  here, i'll make up one myself that's just as good:  "a closeted gay senator named larry?  shocking!  what's next, a power bottom florist named bruthe?"
• straight men have sex with other men every damn day of the world life week year.  take that in, america.
• at least he's not peeling off his shirt like putin.
• as if idaho is going to elect some gay activist in his place.  whoever replaces him, if he resigns or doesn't re-run, will probably be worse.  i don't see gayle king running for idaho senator and she's the only one who could turn it around for us.  love me some gayle king.

catch-up post

i've definitely not been posting as much lately.  at first i thought it was because of blog block.  then having nothing to say about the world, which would be called more generally world block.  but since i always have something to say about just i everything, i ultimately realized it's just been because i've been devoting my energies elsewhere - shopping, social life, netflix, career.  so i don't lose the "now" in ultranow, i am giving my blog a promise ring to keep it fed, and you all too.   the promise ring is made of tinfoil, because i'm cheap, or at least am again after all the shopping i've been doing.  here's some stuff that's been stuck in my brain.

• the lindsay lohan "it's not mine!" excuse around the cocaine in her pocket is infinitely implausible.  since when has she done anyone a favor?  plus this guy in line at a safeway i bought vinegar and a protein bar at said to what i reasoned was his aa buddy that the holding it for someone else deal is totally 6th grade.  then he tried to flirt with this woman by saying her dove bar looked good.  she tried to unflirt with him by denying his existence.
• whoopi goldberg is a horrible choice for the view.  she hasn't made me laugh since the color purple.  shoulda gone with kathy griffin, babs.  whoopi will never get the youtube hits needed to to to...what do youtube hits do?
• i'm going to take some graphic design classes at night because that's what night is for because day is for work.  i'm totally going bilberry, blueberry and carrot-tastic so my eyes don't fry.  when you get older, your lenses get stiffer so it's harder to transition from near to far and back.  it can cause strain.  and i'm oooollllllldddddd.  though i'm still generation x.  that won't ever change.  now i'm mid to late 30s is all.  still have time to be the next grandma moses.  plus phyllis diller didn't start comedy until 37, or at least didn't get paid for it until then.
• in the back of my head, i think i read somewhere that there is going to be a new fame movie but i'm scared to try to confirm it.  fame is nothing without gene anthony ray, so they shouldn't fucking bother.  you just know an american idol castoff will be cast and ruin it.
• ratatouille is a fine movie, if you like excellent animation, tight action, hordes of rats which when swarming are rather nauseating but when in small groups or as individuals are serviceably cute, and about 40 different morals jammed into the mix.  for my book, that's 41 too many.  i think i'm going to get a beta.  need some life in this apartment, beyond the judy blume books i've been taking out of the library.  did i ever mention i dream of being a children's book author, or more specifically a published children's book author, or more specifically judy blume or roald dahl or judy dahl or i guess me because they can't write what i write either.  although i swear i would've come up with a book called fudge-a-mania too, just like judy did.

david vitter makes hypocrisy unhip

republican u.s. senator from louisiana david vitter is a lot of things.   

according to his site he "...is dedicated to making life better for his young family and all louisiana families. he’s focused on putting louisiana first as an independent and outspoken reformer, and on advancing mainstream conservative principles."

according to me, he was on my short list for sexy senators (of which john thune was the winner).  trust me it was very slim pickings so he shouldn't let it go to his head.

and according to the news, senator david vitter admitted today that his old phone number was in the phone records of the woman who currently holds the title "the d.c. madam".  he calls it a "very serious sin in his past" (just has to get religion in there somewhere) and neglects to cite the hypocrisy of his 2004 campaign promise regarding "protecting the sanctity of marriage" and his co-authoring of the anti-homo federal marriage act.  perhaps he'd be in favor of a law which granted homosexuals equal rights to frequent whores?

p.s. he also authored a bill prohibiting senators from being johns.  okay, that last one isn't true.  exactly.

chris benoit murder suicide extravaganza

of all the professional wrestlers who could possibly kill their families and then themselves, why did it have to be chris benoit's murder suicide shenanigans?  why couldn't it have been hulk hogan to do the deeds?  at least then daughter brooke's music career would be over.  oh wait, it already is.

time will tell if it was 'roid rage, but for now i'm just glad chris never took me up on an offer i made via a homemade sign i brought to a wwe show at seattle's key arena a few year's ago.  it was simply a downward arrow pointing at myself and the now horrifying words "future mrs. benoit!"  my alternate sign "take me to the edge!" directed at, of course, edge had actually been greeted with a friendly nod by edge himself.  benoit thankfully ignored me.

joking about the deaths last night with a friend, because that's how we roll, we wondered if benoit had killed them with his trademark crippler crossface.  since his son died of being smothered, this actually now seems like a possibility.  somehow murder suicide is not funny today.  or at least not as funny.

but back to air quotes funny.  since he was known as the rabid wolverine, perhaps the medical examiner will discover he actually had rabies and there can be a panic inducing headline "rabid wolverine kills family then self!"

he's still one of the hottest pieces of rough trade wrestling has ever produced, even if he's dead.  goodbye chris.

p.s. possibly wwe should have waited on airing the hours long benoit tribute it did on monday night.  tributes to murderers aren't as cool as they used to be.

alaina alexander is desperate for gay fans

if you're an ex-american idoler, can't sing like kimberley locke or frenchie davis, but crave a gay fan base, whatever do you do?  well if you're alaina alexander, who made it only as far as the top 24 last season, you lend your voice to a video on those murdered by homophobes.  watch it here.  yes, i am that jaded that i think she's doing this not because she's anti-homophobic murder, but is purely seeking the gay market.  shockingly, she can actually sing, but then i was crying so loud i could barely hear her, because the video includes a clip from that jenny jones episode where a guy had a surprise crush on another guy, which resulted in the crusher being crushed by the crushee with total murder.  seeing that tiny clip was so sad.  i really miss the jenny jones show.

carefully placed horror

a white house spokesman said president bush was horrified by the war in iraq and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of iraq.

oh wait, i'm sorry.  i misquoted.  a white house spokesman said president bush was horrified by the virginia tech shooting rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of virginia. 

no horror with iraq.  iraq is just fine.  and also dandy.

sexy sexy criminal

it's convicted irs defrauder and identity thief evangelos dimitros soukas modeling the color of the moment, if that moment is 8 years in prison only broken up by today's testimony before the senate finance committee on how easy the irs makes it to file fraudulent tax returns on people's behalf, a goal of which is to then take out refund loans in that person's name.  sexy and smart.  he's kevin federline.  except sexy and smart.  love the suit jacket over the prison orange.  so ralph lauren.  not the ralph lauren.

lesson in seattlelism

packed bus.  guy standing in the aisle rants about how he's going to cut the next person who messes with him, who asks him to move, who touches him, who basically does anything in relation to him.  he says repeatedly he has razors and he'll cut someone and take them out or punch them bap bap bap then run off the bus and get away.  some people smirk and the person nearest to him in the aisle on one side shies away from him.  ignoring is fine.  not making oneself a target is fine.  shying away is fine.

but if this were philadelphia where i used to live, i can't help but think people would have literally gotten off the bus out of actual fear or yelled for the bus driver to do something.  or called the police on their cell phones.  seattle is so damned laid back that even someone giving all the signs of being a real threat (and providing the added negative motivation of smelling like shit and vomit) is ignored.  the response of most appeared to be turning up their ipods.  well npr won't save you when you're being razored and punched.  and last i checked threats were considered assault, then battery is the actual attack.

i want seattle to be in the present.  i want seattle to have emotion.  i want seattle to be real.  i want the same things of myself.  i was crammed in the far back of the bus.  nowhere to move.  no cell phone.  alone in my emotions.  with a threat between me and the door.  that's not a good place to be.  i need a bath.

dragging barbra streisand's image in the mud

the editor's choice as to what jon peters photo would best accompany this article partially screencapped below is reprehensible to the max.  and i don't say reprehensible to the max just because i doubt anyone else has ever said reprehensible to the max and it feels good to be different.  i say it because what does barbra streisand have to do with jon peters allegedly sexually harrassing a woman and her child?  did she help jon insert golden globes into unwilling orifices?  are they the bonnie and clyde of sexual harrassment?  the only crime on her rap sheet is that '70s perm.  barbra's a good egg.  leave her out of it.

triumph of the pigeon

this afternoon i witnessed a chemically altered and/or mentally challenged crackhead nutjob go apeshit on a pigeon on a downtown seattle sidewalk.  when the seattle pigeon, which like all pigeons is biologically equipped with a form of radar so could handle itself quite well thank you, did not get out of his way as fast as he wanted, he went all stompcrazy on it, thankfully missing repeatedly in a tom and jerry manner.  while the pigeon skillfully hopped and fluttered out of his way and in between crazed stomps slurped up sidewalk crumbs, the everyone and everything is out to get me man screamed "why won't you get out of my way!?  get out of my way!!!  i'll kill you!!!!!  kill you!!!!!"   if anyone from the future was recording the incident, i'm sure it will make it into the webster's 2743 edition video dictionary entry for taking things too personally.  right next to oprah and the whole james frey deal.

for the serial killer who has everything

i killed jonbenet! no i killed jonbenet!! no i killed jonbenet!!!

so the guy who says he killed jonbenet probably didn't kill her because he wasn't even in the same state or whatever at the time.  my theory is he's masturbated while fantasizing that he'd raped and killed her so often, he lost touch with the truth.  either that or he's raped and killed so many little pageant girls, he lost track.  now that it's clear to all the deranged that one can become (in)famous by claiming to have committed a popcrime, i expect other wannabes will be jumping on the paddywagon, claiming responsibility for such dastardly acts as:

• 9/11 commemorative/exploitative pop-up silverish coin
• entertainment tonight
• american eagle outfitters
• professional tennis players wearing clothes
• masterminding the "madonna is still relevant" conspiracy
• the end of the world
• danity kane

shooting at jewish federation of greater seattle

this is a breaking story, so go to a real news outlet for updates (please not fox).  newslinks below.  what i do know is:

• a lone gunman shot up the jewish federation in downtown seattle today at about 4pm, killing at least one and wounding several others, including a pregnant woman.  he is now in custody.
• police and fbi currently don't know that there's a connection to an organized group, and do believe at the moment that the gunman was acting alone.
• they found out (possibly from him) that he parked in the garage under bed, bath & beyond. the whole area with his car is blocked off so they can bring in the bomb squad.
• swat teams drive shiny black trucks.  i saw a few zooming to the scene.
• it may be retaliation against israel's actions as of late.  and while i have never been unilaterally supportive of israel's postures and actions (actually i've been critical), i am unilaterally against shooting up the jewish federation of greater seattle.
• this led to the dumbest cell phone comment i've ever overheard on the bus: "what a weird place to have a shooting".  let me break this down.  "have" makes it sound like it's a party or a picnic, like people were invited to the shooting.  "weird" makes it sound like it was just some wacky idea to shoot up people in a jewish organization, analogous to a comment such as "jews...what a weird thing that they were killed in the holocaust".  it's not "weird", lady.  it's an intentional hate crime.  scary not "weird".  scary, hateful, say it with me.
• this is totally fucked and i'm scared.  more scared than normal.
• and angry.  but i'm not picking up a gun in response like some people in this world.

news:  seattle times | seattle p-i | northwest cable news

horror and whatever the opposite of horror is

• for the cuh-rafty cuh-pedophile who pays his cuh-victims, it's the undies wallet.  while i accept that non-pedophiles may enjoy making one and that it may be some innocent yet kitschy project, it's still totally creepy with a capital creep.
• undead viral marketing to which i am a willing partner.
• beedogs has new beedogs and equally as joyous and hypnotic as the beedogs is the coaxifying next page link language such as "controversial new research has suggested that prolonged periods of beedog viewing can be detrimental to one’s health. is clicking through to the next page a risk you are willing to take?"  so glory in the new batch or start from the beginning while i put beedog honey in my tea.

buses are awesome

got on the bus this morning so it could pull me down the hill to work. sat down on one of the elevated seats right over the tires because it reminded me of that same kind of special seat on the schoolbus, especially special to me as a kid because i thought that curve was an exciting bonus footrest. it took me years to realize it was like that because of the tires. so i sit down and immediately regret that i haven't updated the songs on my mp3 player in a awhile. do i really want to hear that same brini maxwell podcast again? do i really want to hear the pipettes again? my regret did not last because the woman sitting in the seat in front of me whipped her head around and screamed at me "why are you sitting there! nobody can sit behind me! why do you want to sit behind me! move now!"

m is for massacre

this is probably not breaking news for you since it happened on saturday and got national coverage, but in case you weren't aware there was a massacre in capitol hill, seattle. not to divulge my address or anything, but let's just say if i'd been awake at the time, i would have heard the gunfire and since i don't live in philadelphia anymore, would actually have had a reaction to it.

since the people killed were part of the raver and/or goth scenes (and by the way the murderer was not raver or goth) my best friend who is goth has the whole friends with someone who's friends with someone who got killed thing. and i have the two workers at my natural food co-op got killed thing. it's just a total what the fuck. i wish raver peace and love could have killed the guy dead in his tracks. if a cop hadn't been close enough to get there just about 1 minute after the shootings started, pretty much the guy was set to kill everyone in the house, including the people locked in the bathroom who had ducked down in the tub after a gunshot went through the bathroom door. and the people hiding in the basement dialing 911 on their cells. and the people hiding behind the furniture in the living room. and the people...

while death is not a taboo among goth culture, i'm still betting actually dying pretty much is, especially when you're 14 or 32 like two of the victims or anything in between. how about guns are illegal forever then? it's easier to take someone down who's wielding an axe or machete than a gun, right? he killed and killed and killed then killed himself after the cop confronted him. details are still coming out and i almost don't want to know more. guns don't kill people. people with guns kill people.

update: more coverage here, here and here.

deep inside madonna

sitting on the bus peering into all available apartment windows i saw the impossible - a bucket of kentucky fried chicken lamp. the hypothetical "colonel" was clearly glowing and edison was clearly thinking this was not what he had in mind with the whole lightbulb concept. since i cannot find a kentucky fried chicken bucket lamp online, i must assume it is a one of a kind, likely created by a sassy and ironic vegan.

even though kelly clarkson is just about as mainstream as you can get, i still am excited she's performing on the grammy awards. being as she's a size 8 or maybe even 10, she never would have gotten a record deal without american idol and will always seem to me a bit of an industry outsider. i'll always root for her. it's sick but i will. i say put her up just before madonna to make madge's voice look maximally post menopausal quaaluded alvin and the chipmunks. i hope madonna falls down and cracks open then everyone will see there's nothing inside but sweaty spandex and loose change and a halfway made friendship bracelet.

that's hot!  well at least the shot himself in the head part, not the hurting and killing other people part.