ultranow

attack of the killer vacation

i need seattle to be in the distance for a bit, but more than not being here i need to be somewhere else - a faraway land called vacation. the last 3 times i've been on vacation were 6, 9, and 14 years ago. i've had days off of work and gone out of my neighborhood, and even traveled for work, but i haven't had a pleasure destination in ages. i must break this trend and fast. here are some options i'm considering. suggestions welcome.

philadelphia
plus: i used to live there so it would be poignant and include a trip to more than just ice cream for the tallest apple pie east of pittsburgh
minus: i used to live there and i'm not in the mood for garbage tornadoes and mysteriously horrible south philly manufacturing smells

israel
plus: high level of fitness at least among those of military age would be a joy to behold
minus: 'splosions and the lack of appreciation for my inevitable taking of the nestea plunge into the dead sea

star trek 40th anniversary celebration in las vegas
plus: definitely being within 100 yards, i mean space yards, of nichelle nichols
minus: potentially being within 100 yards of the shatner

ikea
plus: welcoming
minus: foreboding

l.a.
plus: high percentage of classic gay fern bars
minus: "l.a. proved too much for the man...too much for the man..."

san francisco
plus: of course
minus: would be unable to leave thereby defeating the whole vacation concept since what i want is to look forward to returning to seattle in some small way

straight to hell
plus: toasty
minus: jews don't believe in hell

oprah barbie hypocrisy

oprah's all on board with the dove campaign for real beauty, but when a mattell corporate shill gave her a one of a kind oprah barbie or "oprarbie" oprah gushed "look at her waistline! love it! thank you so much!" when what she should have said is "listen bitch, i'm not a skinny bitch. i'll accept this doll after it eats a sandwich and some pie, bitch." couldn't mattell have carved out a figure that was a bit more true to life or at least padded the vera wang replica dress a skootch? realistic body image is something oprah seeks for other women, but not for herself? hypocrisy!

ahhhhhhh

they're your weather girls

it's all about the weather girls. meaning it's all about martha wash and izora armstead. however, the weather girls themselves are not all about it's raining men, as proven by the smooth, glowing and powerful i depend on you [expired], which features a healthy dose of casio keyboard stylings and homosexual inspired monotony. perhaps martha and izora are singing to each other in some crypto lesbian manner. perhaps they are singing to g-d(dess) in some crypto lesbian manner.

p.s. i saw the weather girls live in the mid '80s in the single greatest possible gay friendly vs gay hating pop culture moment that preceeded the eminem elton john self-promo fest. specifically they took the stage at my local coliseum and poured out all their disco goodness as the opening act for eddie murphy who then told don't let a faggot kiss you cause you'll get aids on your lips "jokes". and hey if an offensive joke is funny i wouldn't put air quotes around it, but it just wasn't funny. i suppose his buckwheat material was borderline minstrel show racist and since the weather girls are black women they could have hated him for that too. the fact that eddie murphy was the main draw explains the complete lack of applause for martha and izora damn it. i recall timidly applauding. not enough for them to hear unless they had the hearing of a couple of fruit bats. good thing they didn't depend on our applause. they had each other or g-ddess or both.

damn don knotts

don knotts is dead which while that's sad or at least supposed to be sad it just brings back memories of anger because the apple dumpling gang, in which he played a bumbling thief along with tim conway, did not contain any apple dumplings. i went to the movie theater and in fact did not receive dumplings of any variety, including the aforementioned apple. all i got was a movie with stuff that happened. my little kid taste buds and stomach suffered and i will never forget. though don knotts' bug eyes were likely edible and tender, they could never have satisfied me as could have an apple dumpling.

curse this mess

so every five seconds oprah's having another show on "have you let yourself go?" or "have you let your hair go?" or "have you let your husband go?" since oprah's not calling me and changing my life i'm staging my own "so you've let your apartment go?" show/intervention in the middle of my apartment. i don't want to live here anymore. so i'm going to move is what i first thought. like to some all white no furniture shiny surface miami vice-ish place with a heated pool in the living room. i at least have the urge to throw my giant couch out the window. my friend convinced me to instead make a list of all the clutter then she'll help me nate berkus-ify everything. not the nate berkus $27,682 worth of furniture and accessories from all over the world makeover deal (does oprah really need to pay for a new kitchen for kirstie alley?!). just the nate berkus decluttering. once i identify all the clutter, she can figure out what i need to do to get organized. perhaps it will involve a bin. perhaps a post-it note. i really have no idea.

all i know is i grew up with a messy room on purpose because it kept my parents out. technically i knew then and know now where everything is but that's not good enough anymore. when it gets to the point where i want to move and when i think tossing the giant comfy couch will help (when in fact my friend told me it would just move the clutter on the couch to the floor), it is time for a makeover. i've let my apartment go. and it is time to move. move in to where i already am. i don't need it to be messy to keep my parents away anymore. mainly because they are either dead or don't know where i live. one or both of the two. after everything is decluttered then i'll decide if i want a change from my giant white leather '80s couch to something sleeker and more gallant. home prices being what they are around here, i'm going to be an apartment dweller for at least the remainder of my 30s so i may as well get comfortable. why is there a bottle of maple syrup on my kitchen floor?

white sheets white walls unaccessorized utter nudity

my pants broke

'70s inventions

in the '70s i mastered bernadette's weird arm thing, made a battlestar galactica mothership replica out of legos, and wrote a letter to jimmy carter asking him if he was still a peanut farmer now that he was president (to which in response i got a color booklet featuring pictures of amy carter giving a tour of the white house - where does her junior sized gold velvet smock dress end and the plus sized gold velvet curtains begin - nobody knows). however i never really invented anything. i wasn't an original. i wasn't the first late bloomer jewboy fagboy nerdboy in the suburbs. i wasn't the first kid to play dungeons & dragons, though i did have the very first edition when it was all booklets, not even books, to guide one along through group hallucinatory adventures.

i did not, unlike someone i met later in college, get famous as a kid actress on broadway for a hot minute for the line "give me the fucking keys", which is pretty damn funny when said by a 9 year old moppet. i did see tony randall at a museum once. you know the most amazing thing about seeing a famous person in public? they're just standing or sitting or talking or eating or doing nothing. nothing is happening. this is because "famous" is an adjective not a verb. they can't be standing there "famousing". if they could, that would really be something.

i didn't star in bad news bears, though i would have been perfect in it. i was only so-so at four square - the lemon drop got me every time. i could only recite pi to the sixth digit after the decimal point - less if i got punched in the face halfway through. i wasn't the only kid to have a star trek phaser squirt gun. i probably wasn't even the only boy who wanted to be nadia comaneci (as seen in the olympics and the leroy neiman series of olympic posters available through mcdonald's at the time), though i did have the best nadia pose in gymnastics class - arched back, hands straight up, i'm perfect attitude. yes that's it. i was the best boy nadia comaneci of the '70s.

no medals. no perfect 10s. no magazine covers. no bela karolyi giving me a bear hug. just me in a pose in gymnastics class at summer camp. feeling good. feeling strong. last night after her perfect short program performance, figure skater sasha cohen said to herself "this is me". i could read her shiseidoed lips clear as day. "this is me". said to herself after a triumph. in the '70s this is me. in the '00s this is me. i am in the same pose. presenting myself to the world. open. accepting. joyous. read my lips. this is me.

ebay metaphor for my current sex life