In the Place Where Words Should Go: LOL

LOL abbr. What you place in a sentence after something that is decidedly unfunny to anyone with the perspicacity to not bracket a joke with "LOL."

Hairspray is for Hiking

I am hardly out of shape, yet I cannot seem to hike Runyon Canyon in West Hollywood without curling over and feeling like I'm going to cough my lungs out my face. Why? Do all those hours clocked at the gym mean nothing?

As I'm asphyxiating two women jog by with the combined body fat of a single stick insect and perfect blow-outs. My addled respiratory system is temporarily set adrift from its desire for analgesics and mystified by their hair. Was there a stylist van at the foot of the trail I missed? Does the Botox in their foreheads mean no sweat will mar their enviable coifs? Are they actually lungless hiking puppets, sent by the city to fill yet another place to call "on location"?

In the great outdoors, filled with all that fine smoggy air, perhaps their helmet-y layers provide protection against the elements. Maybe the spray and lacquer that surrounds them acts like a buffer, makes purer molecules to breathe than what surrounds us on the climb. I imagine myself dressed as an apeable doll, my movable limbs film-worthy as in an up-do I arrive at the best place to view the Hollywood sign, take a deep breath, and await my close-up. If only that van did touch-ups at the top.

Mystery Solved: Survival of the Hipster

During the economic downturn of this last year-plus, one social group has emerged oddly unscathed, revealing to us all their deceptivity. Hipsters: how are they still able to afford $225 skinny jeans and $5 lattes? In this chilly fiscal climate, how is it their BMRs need only a diaphanous ethnic scarf atop their narrow UO duds to keep them warm? The answer, while simple, has eluded us all thus far: Hipsters are actually made of potato.

Potatoes never get cold. They just don't. Have you ever heard a potato complain about being put in the refrigerator, or told it needed to adopt a budget for hard times? Have you ever had to dissuade a potato from riding bikes to the print shop to pick up its latest band poster? No, you haven't, because you don't feel like driving either, especially if it means losing your good parking spot.

In order to maintain a certain lifestyle, you need to have the right friends. I mean you need to know people. And who knows more people than potatoes? They don't even have to go to sample sales, they get their Danish modern designs shipped direct. When it comes to culture and design, they've got good eyes. Don't believe the thick overlarge glasses; those are mere props to accentuate the socially awkward behavior and use of language. You expect so much: as if potatoes have practice with public speech!

Have you ever been privy to eco-friendly catering? If so, you have eaten with a fork made of potato. The only drawback is that you cannot use them with food cooked in alcohol, because they will disintegrate. Haven't you ever seen a hipster after a night at Spaceland or the Knitting Factory? He or she, resembling a mangled cat, paws at mascara stains and ripped jersey, barely suppressing an all-too-witchy mumbled "I'm meeeelting, I'm meeeelting!"

And by "witchy" I mean "starchy," because everybody knows pagans are made of carbs, and vegans hate Atkins, and spuds wear Grey Ant duds.

Q.E.D.

You can read about Hipsters On Ice here, and Potato.com here.

Pigeons Dangerously on Edge of Extinction; Cities Forced to Find Replacements

NEW YORK—Due to a recent discovery that pigeons are quickly becoming the latest animal to make the extinction list, city officials have been forced to replace the creatures commonly known as "flying rats" with colorful glass doppelgangers. Advocates for the once-populous birds were seen protesting as early as 6:30 this morning, claiming that the substitutes proved dissatisfactory, due to their lack of interest in such comestibles as old bagels, stale Cheez Doodles, and something from Papaya King. While these stand-ins do have the added feature of lighting up when plugged into sockets, "It's just not the same," sobbed an old man in Central Park. "How am I going to weave magic into the everyday landscape of urban life without those grey feathers?" chimed in a lurking shaman. "What am I going to needlessly insult?" added a passing tourist. One thing is certain: if Mayor Bloomberg doesn't act fast to partner with zoological specialists, the city filled with coos may soon fall silent.

Dress British, Think Yiddish

Yesterday not only did this kid get to meet living legend A.C. Lyles, a Paramount Pictures institution since—no joke–1929, but I got to play Vanna and hold the award he was collecting while he told stories about the stars. Mae West once gave him a lucky penny upon hearing the mailboy's producer aspirations, and said to wear it in his shoe until he made it (he did on both counts). He even graced us all with a nugget of advice which sums up what I've always suspected about success (aside from in-cent-ives). Lyles paused, said, "Dress British, think Yiddish." Dear audience, with this noggin, I am only one Topshop trip away.

iSpam

In my spam folder: an email from "Audrey." Subject: "Hi Audrey." First line: "Please don't ignore me. I found you on that dating site..."

After reading way too many self-help books in my early twenties and then dating way too many people that were wrong for me, it is official. I am romantically pursuing myself. Or rather, some scam company that uses spam to hunt for suckers is trying to lure me...with me.

"How could you turn you down?" the email seems to pander. "Is it not that you appreciate yourself enough to try going out on one little date? Is it not that you will also send my work colleague in England who frequents Craigslist $10,000 so that he can double your money through a legitimate business proposal?"

Perhaps this emailing trickster saw one of my new headshots, and thought, "She'd definitely go out with her." As if I needed a middleman. I'm out with me right now.

Victories on my Mind

Key Search Words Brought to You by Sitemeter!

Recent visits to Sitemeter to check out what is drawing an audience to this very blog has revealed that I am most popular in Germany and the Netherlands, where apparently searches for "ponysex" and "texxxt" and "tranny bars" pull up this site. To widen my readership, I hereby offer a list of other key words, which surely will leave me with hordes of visitors a day.

Nut milk
Lederhosen
Mermaid choreography
Chewy asphalt
Perturbed rabbit
Basement highlighter
Kleptomaniac shrink
Bowling tightwad
Legendary absence
Koala feet

And, to sum it all up...

Money on rollerskates.

Obama in a Yarmulke!

Nothing says "You're my President" like this accessory, Senator!

Wii and Cohort Goes Maxi

Feminine hygiene product, complete with aim and shoot diagrams? And thinly veiled pro-choice ad? I suppose gamers don't have time for babies anyway.

Specificity in Casting

Full Moon Rising

Does the moon have an eating disorder? All this waning-waxing business sounds a little too much like binge and purge. At least now we know the moon most likely came from a white upper middle class household with controlling parents and horseback riding trophies from middle school.

Hey Raw Vegan, Where Do You Get Your Protein?

I'm serious. You are never going to build any muscle if you keep on with the fruits and the vegetables like this.

MTV Movie Awards 2008 Spoof King Ad

After a month airing on MTV and in movie theaters nationwide, the MTV Movie Awards actually went ahead and happened. So while you can't flip the channel or head to Loew's anymore to catch it, the ad is now posted (illegally) on YouTube. I maintain that all those years temping as a receptionist were just for bringing authenticity to this role...and of course hanging out with that much popcorn, a man in a Godzilla suit, and the coolest AD ever, Big Riff.

The Fastest Furry

The setting: an idyllic Topanga Canyon estate. A sunny, gorgeous day. A talented cast and crew to zip through shots with.

So why, I asked the director, was I so freezing cold?

He said, Because you're wearing a toga and your underwear is dipped in sugar.

For your viewing pleasure, click here.

Hipsters On Ice

First the Lower East Side, then the Mission District, now Los Feliz, Silverlake, and Echo Park. Managing always to be surrounded by these tight-pantsed tattooed creatures, I've moved from enclave to enclave, learning their language of apathy for anything other than outdated technology and bicycle riding. Between the fauxhawks, and the American Apparel, and the takeoff on ethnic scarves, they are unmistakable. They studied art and the social sciences, mashed up mod and punk and hippie and anarchist, and attempt the appearance of low-income lifestyles while spending about half a million dollars every day on a hand-crafted latte. They are mulleted yuppies on wheels, meant to work in a show called Hipsters On Ice.

Imagine hordes of waifish men and women in grey jeans posing and skittering across a glossy rink while the White Stripes play over the intercom. There could be a girl dressed as Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing figure 8s while the president of Urban Outfitters skates with a rose in his teeth to a pack of boys admiring moccasins. There could even be a giveaway where the winning audience member gets a messenger bag filled with an ironic Christmas sweater and a vegan burrito. The winning audience member will be picked by the cast member who has the worst posture and owns barrettes made out of Legos, which will also be criteria for getting cast in the first place.

The sequel to the show will of course be called Hipsters On Nice, in which it is revealed that all the little poppets really wanted in the first place was to go back to their childhood in the 80s. The marketing potential therein is endless. They've got to slouch and remain their teenage weight for something.

Potato.com

Potato.com will mark the dawn of an era of websites that don't even require words. What I'm saying is, Illiterates, we want your money too. You will simply open the URL, scroll down to the image of a potato of your choice, and click on it. That potato will be added to your cart, by which I mean an elderly woman in your neighborhood will hustle up to your porch with the potato and put it in the basket on your porch. Nothing says you don't read like owning a basket, or knowing someone old. Voila! You've bought a brand new potato, and now I have your clams in return!

Why the potato-by-potato approach? Culturally we're moving towards the unique, the individually prepared, the hand-picked. Nobody's going to want a bushel of potatoes--who knows what bad fruit therein lingers? I don't know about you, but there's something about an individual root vegetable that screams, You're going to be my pet chicken Cackles and follow me around like the lover that you are until one day, I roast you for dinner.

And yes, there is a bit of resemblance in potato.com to those websites for Russian brides, but the difference is weight. Those brides are way fatter, no offense. And they talk more and relate to you, and if I get you correctly, you'd rather be eating or making stamps with a third grader than knowing somebody on a personal level. Bottom line: potatoes aren't demanding. They fry well, and go with ketchup. And coming to a website near you, they'll be available one at a time.

Me, Dita Von Teese, and a Piece of Bacon

Girl Woody

Sometimes I do feel like a girl Woody Allen. Even aside from the Sagittarius Jewish New Yorker comedy writer part. In recent history I felt terribly depressed, and when asked why, could only say, "Because I'm so happy." I was! I was very happy, and quite frankly, it was bringing me down.

Unable to successfully get out of bed this morning like the Aries stockbroker goyim, I reminisced about a better time in which I may have still experienced depression and sadness, but was at least on my feet for it. Oh, the motivation I had, bounding from my slumber to stare mournfully out the window! I can respect that: stumbling through one's personal fog in sneakers.

You psychoanalysts out there might be saying, "Oh, that's actually an agitated depression you're describing; there's the difference." I wouldn't say that the former experience was agitated so much as vertical. When the makers of the DSMV V call me back, I'm going to explain that here on out there should be two kinds of depression listed: vertical and horizontal. Maybe it's a blood-flow sort of issue: when you're horizontally depressed, there's some sort of biochemical effect such that if you stand on your feet or your head, the blues get worse. If I could find my old board game with the guy you operate on and when you do it badly, the whole thing lights up and honks at you, I could really prove this theory of mine.

But don't get me wrong, when all you want to do is hide under the covers, even a neurotic person such as myself longs for happiness. Even when I recognize that it might make me a little anxious, and therefore maybe a touch sad. If I have a say, however, I'd like to request the kind of happiness that does include lying down.

In Honor of Groundhog Day, The Mighty Beaver