ultranow

a very kathy griffin new year

not sure why this didn't get censored. oh yeah, it was live on cnn. don't mess with kathy! good stuff starts about 30 seconds in. loves it! yeah i know using a paris hilton catchphrase is inappropriate after i dissed her in the last post, but hell paris doesn't own the word love now does she.

kathy griffin now on the d+ list

kathy griffin: my life on the d-list won the emmy for outstanding reality program yesterday, launching kathy from d to d+ status.  no more waiting for a table at denny's!  her competition was identical to last year:  antiques roadshow, dog whisperer, extreme makeover: home edition, and penn & teller: bullshit!  as this was the creative arts emmy's, it wasn't broadcast, but the emmy is still real.  of course michael j. fox has won lots of emmy's, so basically it's a meaningless honor.  still according to kathygriffin.net, her acceptance speech included the gem: "Can you believe this shit? Hell has frozen over. Suck it, Jesus, this award is my g-d now."

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.

exercise for me(n) only

so i went to a personal trainer 9 times in december and waxed about it halfway through in things that hurt.  and it did.  but then it didn't hurt as badly and i recovered more quickly each time and began to notice improvements, not that i'll be appearing clothesless here anytime soon.  i am definitely an exhibitionist but only at home with the blinds drawn and the lights off and my eyes closed.  now i've joined a gym and have started working out on my own as in sans trainer as in the only people around me are grunting busybodies and i'm one of them.

today was my first day at the new gym and i pushed myself about 85% as hard as my trainer had which by some misinformed math means it will take me 15% longer to reach my goals which by the way i don't have any specific goals besides being stronger and healthier which i already feel.  so it's not about attaining certain measurements meaning i don't plan on hanging a weight from my dick but if i did i'd hang the 22.5 pound dumbbell because i like saying dumbbell because it's so how they threw shade on leave it to beaver.

the gym is not the enemy.  it's just work.  it's just tough.  and then i go home.  the best part was being too lazy to change back into my bacco bucci low boots so i wore my blue black ben sherman pants with my white asics sneakers, like diane keaton wore a skirt and sneakers in baby boom for her commute and basically every woman did too in working girl except melanie griffith whom i think wore stilettos on the subway.  since i haven't name brand dropped enough, let me add the socks were smartwool and the underwear was sweaty.  though sweaty is not a brand.  it's a lifestyle.  okay, calvin klein red band because they're comfortable and mr. ck is not rich enough.

while i was doing this, the media was still obsessing about britney spears falling asleep in a vegas nightclub on new year's eve.  or maybe she passed out drunk.  i don't care.   it's just to distract us from the real issues - wars/occupations, the fda approving cloned food, and kathy griffin being banned from several major talk shows because people are afraid of her.  now i need to eat organic chicken and broccoli and yams while wearing american apparel sweatpants and t-shirt.  this would be a good deal more pretentious if i'd mentioned dolce & gabbana once.

most insignificant piece of pop culture effluvium ever

on a recent episode of my life on the d-list, kathy griffin went on a temporary diet to drop pounds for a star magazine article hawking the kathy griffin diet.  this included eating broccoli, which made her horribly ill, turning her stomach into what she termed "the perfect storm".  she noted that broccoli is a silent killer, second only to heart disease, and asked her then husband matt for tums.  which by the way the manufacturer of tums is super rich because how do you ask someone to get you just one tums?  when you say get me some tums, they get you more than one.  next thing i try to sell, i'm adding an s to it to move more than one at a time.  such as "would you like to buy my peniss?"  so he gets her the tums and everyone moves on with their life.

well now cut to kathy in a smart little antacid commercial.  "my friend told me try this...i told him no it's too rich...just try it he says...so i tried it...then i ate the whole thing...and i was sick to my stomach...so i took alka-seltzer."  alka-seltzer as in not tums.  yes i know her show was probably filmed pre-alka-seltzer contract so they didn't know to match up the product placement, but still kathy is confusing me.  is it tums for her precious d-list stomach, and alka-seltzer for those of us on the e (as in everyone else) list?  why aren't i good enough for tums?  why does kathy want me to suffer?   and most importantly, could there be any pop culture dissonance that is less significant?

five self-embarrassingnesses (yes, paris hilton is involved)

five  sometimes i'm afraid to make eye contact with people because i think their eyes are going to shoot death rays and turn me into a colander, and not the good kind of colander from sur la table but the bad kind from ikea (which i pronounce icky).  i have never been proven wrong.

four  i don't always think kathy griffin is 100% brilliantly hilarious (more like 79%).  face it people, she's d list for a reason.

three  i've turned down one night stand opportunities that i actually secretly wanted at the time but was too busy maintaining a self-contained i'm looking for a boyfriend posture to admit to myself that the person offering wasn't boyfriend material but was sexbomb material that would have made everything better for exactly that one night.  these turn downs do not even include men who've flirted with me to whom i've remained oblivious because i'm not in a mode that can conceive of a man flirting with me because i'm not feeling my best at the moment.  what's embarrassing are the lies i've told myself about men, about who they are and who i want them to be.  and the lies i've told myself about myself, about who i am and what i want, and who i want to be, and who i want to want and why.  if it feels good do it is not what i'm talking about.  if it feels good, consider doing it.  if it feels good, it feels good.  feel.  good.

two  if i ever get a dog, i'm going to name it mr. rogers and we'll watch mr. rogers together and cry often and deeply, especially during that episode where the goldfish dies.  and most especially on that episode where daniel the tiger does anything because i love daniel the tiger.  still.

one  after being clued into its existence yesterday by chrisafer at blah, blah, black sheep, i can't stop listening to this song [expired].  as in can't stop.  as in its play count in my itunes would be 27 if i ever let it get to the very end.  as in its play count on my mp3 player would also be 27 if it could count.

michelle kwan and al parker - together in a blog post for the very first time (probably)

i can stop holding my breath because michelle kwan has been named to the u.s olympic team. after being unable to compete in nationals due to injury, she had to perform her short and long programs for a special panel (as had nancy kerrigan in '94) and they thankfully determined she's olympics ready. so now the olympics can officially happen, because i don't know what we were going to do without her. after all, she's already in all the promos. that said, i hate the nationalism of the olympics. i seriously root for everyone to do their best and i hate the "go usa!" coverage. isn't it supposed to be a way for nations to gather in a peaceful (albeit competitive) community spirit? instead nbc fills the airwaves with profiles of u.s. athletes instead of showing non-u.s. athlete's performances and acts like it's all about medal count. oh and i just remembered my two most hated words every olympics - bob costas. his sincerity makes me sick. i say get kathy griffin to host everything. 2 hours 55 minutes a night of clay "gaiken" jokes with 5 minutes of "so and so won...so and so won...now back to gaiken!"