Deranged Psychopath Fitness System

For a classy mock infomercial, click here:
Deranged Psychopath Fitness System

Tranny or Banana?

It's a fair question. An innocent question, asked by a small Philipino child wandering the Old Pasadena Target with his mother. Impossible that this kid queried anything in earnest but what I heard: "Tranny or banana?" Aisle after aisle, wanting to know, "Tranny or banana? Tranny or banana?"

Those on the banana side. At work yesterday a customer left behind a book with his tip. Perhaps the lunch quenched his thirst, leaving knowledge in the lurch? And who totes the complete history of the banana in the first place? The book, called simply Banana, appears to be an undelightful 200+ pages of what can only be thinly veiled references to foreskin and bunches. Call me adolescent; I can handle that name; I don't moniker around, though I do enjoy a certain yellow fruit.

And as for the tranny vote, the selfsame day, in walked a gorgeously handsome F-to-M. I'm normally uninterested in facial hair, but his appearance is helping the tide turn, lovely girlfriend in tow. With all the confidence in the world, a tranny wrecks a girl's sense she's seen all in compelling masculine expression.

I should've stopped the kid in his tracks, called the argument off, said "Tranny AND banana, my friend, tranny AND banana."

A Brief Chemistry Lesson

“There is a difference between nonfat and lowfat milk,” I calmly explained to the baffled 19 year old. “You see, when I drink lowfat milk, I’m consuming milk that has approximately 1-2% of the fat remaining in it. When I consume nonfat milk, all of the fat in whole milk has been removed, leaving 0% fat. I prefer lowfat to nonfat. And yes, there is a difference between the two,” I concluded.

Newly educated, the Starbucks barista went back to doing his job.

And Now a Word From An Anonymous Library Patron

Cracking open a public library copy of Tim Kasser's The High Price of Materialism, the first thing I read is not the author's quoting of Lao Tzu. Instead, I have the benefit of a pencilled-in brief review of the tome I have waited weeks to arrive at my local branch. On the title page, in careful script, Anonymous speaks.

The following is the work of said unknown author.

The writer of this book is a professor of a well known University and in his book he showing his resensment against the achievement of others. A professor! In other words there is no promise of success in high or good grades in school.

Maybe poverty makes people happy. To be a tramp, a welfare recipient for life is an honorabel thing to do. The author appear like envious in his writing.

Tim Kasser: psychologist, researcher, professor, writer, hobo loyalist.

Come All Ye Traif-ful

Such a good Jew am I that even after my dietary revisions to exclude blood agglutinating wheat and body poisoning sugar, I toss my unsweetened spelt pizza crust on the counter pre-bake and proceed to dress it with mozzarella and pepperoni. Lots of pepperoni.

Ignore the picture, folks: it's meant only as a vague representation. Imagine loads more pork and nitrate filled deli sausage slices piled high. Maybe for effect stick an angry rabbi in the background, or at least my horrified mother who is convinced that her toaster was bequeathed to her from the machinations of Adolf himself.

Dietary regimens, cultural history, the sensitive digestion of my people: all touchy subjects; subjects that can lead to two sets of knives and/or being unable to order anything on a menu, as you consider it Not Real Food. Come now, you say: Pepperoni? You consider that Real Food?

No, say I. Oh no. It's dessert.

GI Tracking Treasure Down

Wearing my fauxjamas tee with "THE NEW BEGINNING" splashed across it like so much punk rock, I hereby set out into virgin territory: creating my first Wikipedia page.

You never know how fast you're going to grow up. One minute you're rubbing your fetal little eyesockets, and the next, you're home with the flu doing mindless internet research about what you should do to get better. And then: the sound of the pik-axe hitting precious cargo. The phrase to end all phrases.

Greedy colon.

Physician Goodhart of London first made the remark that excess loss of water in the intestine leading to constipation could indeed be the result of a "greedy colon." A colon that is greedy, lest you get the wrong idea, is actually thirsty. A thirsty colon becomes greedy for more than the average colon's share of H2O.

Do you not see how fateful this discovery is? Do you now know my destiny as the writer of a Wiki page about the concept of greedy colon? I welcome all research, scientific, historical, and diagrammatical, for I am but the messenger to a public anticipating ne'er but at least a stub, dear Reader, demystifying that which end on end runs foot after foot and won't be satisfied even with every last drop.

Love Movies I Hate

1. Shakespeare in Love (1998).
In this piece of dreck, the fatty lips of Joseph Fiennes star alongside the Struggle To Be An Artist. Bard aficionados were given two hours and three minutes to resorb references with which to torture those of us who think there is more than one great writer in the canon.

2. Love Actually (2004).
Because we're supposed to believe that a woman who wears a size 8 is too large to be loved. Oh, Hugh Grant's character is so enlightened!! We can't believe he isn't also on Keira Knightley's doorstep!!!

3. The Last Kiss (2006).
Paul Haggis = genius; remake of Italian film = bad idea; script = disturbing; Zach Braff = makes a heinous character even more loathsome in such a way that literally terramotos career suicide.

4. Just Friends (2005).
Yes, I actually watched it. That's embarrassing. But what's really embarrassing is a movie filled with nothing but second-hand Jim Carrey moves and only but few Anna Faris moments.

Anna Faris! I love her.

Behold, As a Grown Woman Finds Solace in a Stuffed Animal Worm

LOTS OF GUYS

Dear Single Rejected Job Applicant,

You should totally come to our event--there will be LOTS OF GUYS!!! I know we didn't hire you for the job, even though you did your best impersonation of a Marina socialite on the phone to sell yourself to us. I know that you probably don't want to be on our emailing list. And I know that the only reason you haven't clicked "unsubscribe" is because there's still a whisper of doubt in your mind that you may be buried with the cats you may one day have.

Seriously: LOTS OF GUYS. You can come too, for only $37! That's the equivalent of being around guys at a bar full of guys, but guys you'd actually like, who are buying you three Manhacosmotiniopolises with conjunctivitis and lime, except instead of the guys paying for them, you are, but in advance. What I'm saying is, being single costs money.

I know what you're doing right now. You're IMing with your married friend, and she's telling you about how her husband's in the kitchen whipping up din-din. You're in your heart-print pajamas, paying your electric bill, and wondering if you will someday take up knitting tea cozies. Don't. MEET LOTS OF GUYS.

It's all nice and good now, with your romantic dreams of making soup and talking to another person who is not you. You're planning out a future filled with lovingly placing a miscreant toe-clipping into the bathroom garbage, and laundering pillowcases with his drool on them. What a dashing existence you'll have.

Lady, that is so then. This is NOW. These are LOTS OF GUYS. Lots of guys, in lots, looking for lots of you. Lots of 37 year old guys! 37 dollars! 37 guys! A dollar a day keeps the drying up away! THIRTY SEVEN LOTS OF GUYS!!!

So you want a relationship. With like, hanging out, and even being sober. Fine. Suit yourself.

Sincerely,

We Didn't Hire You, You Are Single

P.S. LOTS OF GUYS

My Stylist Says I Have a Jessica Simpson Forehead, But I Don't Think So!

Why did I say this out loud in public?

I guess we'll never know.

Things with Faces

You lookin' at me? By "you" I mean of course an inanimate object that purposefully or not is sporting a face. The answer to the question, then, is always "yes," as in: yes, I am indeed lookin' at you.

Maybe I was left alone too much as a child, or maybe I'm congenitally immature, but I feel the need to surround myself with things with faces. I want the Philippe Starck gnome stools, with their sleepy eyes. I want Salvor pillows lush in their animalia. I even have Koziol stirring spoons that grin as they lap my homemade marinara.

In college (cue eyeliner) I took a series of photographs of things with faces out in the world. Marching my battalions of plastic wind-ups about, I staged the emotional response of pulseless beasts. I called the whole project "Please Don't Lick the Walls," partially in honor of the beloved James Marshall children's books entitled "The Stupids," and because I wanted my transcript to read "Please Don't Lick the Walls." Which, by the way, it does.

As the emotional branding of products becomes all the more transparent in the early oughts of this century, I find myself more at home in the world. I have always wanted a huggable world, a love-filled and punch-drunk comedy populated with exquisite bodies. I walk into the world and meet the gaze of a stool, a pillow, a spoon. Believe me, I look.

Viva Los Girlparts

Why, oh why has it been EONS since I've last written a Talking Pony blog entry? Great gallumphing grasshoppers, the answer is simple. I have been wading through the vats of fabulous audition opportunities for women in their twenties!! Because there are so many delightful possibilities for me to choose from, I decided I would share a few with you, dear Reader.

Sara
Sara is a ditzy, but very supportive girlfriend of a small-time criminal.

Lucy
Understanding, compassionate, trying to come to terms with her baby's death.

Cindy
Looking for enthusiastic and expressive women who can give a good angry/disappointed performance.

Galeatea
A corporate executive of a weapons manufacturer. She’s tough and sharp minded. As well she’s spent her life as a robot without knowing it.

Brenda
Pretty, compassionate, and innocent, Brenda is one of the most popular kids at the school. While her friends enjoy watching Bobby get picked-on, she feels sorry for him. She is soon seduced with magic slam poetry into dating the school bully.

Gwen
Attractive and fierce, Ben's mistress. Must be able to play an arrogant stubborn woman, a.k.a. 'the bitch.'

Susan
Bitchy, arrogant, and manipulative.

Andie
Sensual, musical, bit of a space cadet. NUDITY REQUIRED.

Carmen
Intellectual, snobby, effete. NUDITY REQUIRED.

Nikki
A spunky and comedic 17 year old girl. She's a tomboy, yet she has feminine mystery. She's a fun character! (Nudity and sexual situations required.)

Girl on Date
Date is in one scene, brought home by Damien, the lead. Has lines.

Corpse, Etcetera
Featured extras to play twisted bloodied corpses, Satanists (nudity required and raw sexual acts in an underground orgy with masks on), two cops, small church group.

Wise "Man"
Follow the star to Bethlehem. Sing "We Three Kings". Also doubles as Priest/Neighbor.

Small Dog
One adorable Jack Russell Terrier for the short film. Must be quiet, sweet, and be still on the executive's lap. The Jack Russell Terrier will also be wearing a cute antlers on its head!

Money Belt
Meter Maid, heavyset, any ethnicity.

For Continuity's Sake

Call it overexposure to media, or the rising persistence of the masses, but regardless I've just been suckered into as many as eight episodes of a single trashy show, released on Netflix and anticipated for months. Was the writing up to even past semi-par? Did I not have other compelling things to do? Why, after the first two episodes fell so terribly flat, did I not simply shut down my laptop and return to the order of the day? Continuity, you needle me so.

On Monday I filmed a scene, and for those who work in the medium know, you don't just shoot what's in the script. You cut, you jump, you angle. Listening to these performances, with tech changes inbetween, teaches you that the camera is sent to record stutters. The boom pole catches whiffs. Relationships of space and time are divided into fragments, toothpicks of meaning. These whittled nothings are sewn back together again, glued as seamlessly as possible, so the gaps are invisible.

Life's all fits and starts. You make plans by logic, by the order of things, for continuity's sake. Then everything leapfrogs, clips and fragments dashing in bounds over one another. You step outside of yourself to watch the story be told. And as any good editor would, you come up with a sequence to form the frames.

I Like You, Amy Sedaris

If it wasn't enough that I already doodle in my diary, "Dear Diary, Someday I'm gonna meet Amy Sedaris and we will be BEST FRIENDS. We'll make matching aprons with squirrels on them, take our pet rabbits for an easter-egg hunt around the dirt-brown sofa, and crawl into the bottle together," now the jimmy-covered tramp has gone and written a fabulous new book, "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence." Since I am illiterate, I skipped straight to the audio CD version. I got it at the store.

The four-disc set is read by hers truly and offers such helpful hints as how to decorate for deaf children, discourage having guests pee in your bed, and how to recycle half-eaten cheese balls. Basically, it covers everything you need to know about being the hostess with the mostest rump roastest. Barring that, you will at least learn that you should never interrogate widows at the wake, two year olds do well with gifts of old lightbulbs, and googly eyes are an excellent way to send Ms. Sedaris off in style: by which she means, bury her wearing them instead of her real eyes.

There were, however, a few things missing from this tarty little packet of shiny roundy things that made all sorts of sounds that I experienced as words. One, where she purchases her plastic baked turkeys. Two, if her agent calls her in for cable access commercials for funeral homes. And three, if the box the CDs came in is edible. Hope so. Ran out of whipped cream and sprinkles...isn't imitation the highest form of flattery, or in this case, hospitality?

When I Have Fans My Neurosis Will Be Validated

Do you recognize me? I hope not. I have made my best efforts to go incognito to our neighborhood restaurant. Yes, I know I come here several times a month—I try to switch it up so you won’t know me, but unfortunately I really appreciate this particular menu.

Why am I so paranoid? What exactly am I donning sweatpants and a hoodie to hide from? When is the last time I washed my hair, and who is that well-dressed and groomed person that looks vaguely like me and also seems to live in my building?

Am I actually famous and chased by paparazzi?

The answer, my friends, is no(t yet). And why would such a nervous Nelly aspire to such prominence when she doesn’t even want to make eye contact with the waiter? Why would this native New Yorker with her fuck-you shell to coat her shy insides even consider such a public career as acting?

Because when I have fans, my neurosis will be validated. After all these years of therapy, I am still neurotic. That’s not heading out any time soon. So as a hallucinatory person may pull up a chair and cut cake for their imaginary friend, so shall I court my audience in my hobo outfit. So shall I.

Gratuitous Post About A Dog

Armstrong is only the greatest beagle ever. Why? Because he's my nephew, and we spend every Saturday together, and he's completely adorable.

Is it sort of embarrassing that I am using my blog as a vehicle to rave about a two year old puppy? Yes. So here I go.

Lil' Bones was rescued by my dear friend Sarah from a laboratory where he was pumped full of who knows what experimental drugs for humans. He lived to see the day he wouldn't have to inhabit a metal cage anymore, but retains much of his non-dog autism. The guy doesn't know how to lick your face to say hello, or understand that other dogs might bite you. He tries to make a sound, but was debarked.

This dog, however, is the sweetest thing you could imagine. He's interested in everyone, and is incredibly friendly and welcoming. He carries around the octopus I bought for him, and has learned to wait patiently while Sarah finishes teaching her Bikram classes. Once he hears the final breathing sequence, he sits still, knowing his mommy and aunty are about to come out and slather him with love.

Did I mention that I am smitten with Armstrong? He is the best. Right now I'm exclusively dating myself, but I think he's my wingman. He makes things happen. He's housetrained. And there's nothing like taking a nap with that guy nestled in your arms, snoring away like a rattly engine.

Marketing Executives Are Slipping

Two of my friends and I were sitting around the dinner table. The question posed: “If you could change any part of your body, what would it be?”

Claire shrugged and said, "I've always thought my feet were a little small. I guess I'd like my feet to be bigger."

Shana brought up the tiny scars on her leg from her semester in Nepal.

I said, "More seratonin!"

There used to be a day when three twentysomething women sitting around a dinner table post-grind would push away their barely-touched plates of pasta, throw up their mitts, and wail about lipo. They'd whine over implants, drool at the mention of augmentation, and put their thighs in the line of fire. They would actually consume that poisonous substance they call artificial sweetener.

Clearly marketing exectutives are slipping.

Accessories: The King James Version

Tragic, but true: in my search for affordable fashion pieces I committed a socialist sin. Last weekend I bought a headband at Forever 21, that bastion of teenybopper trendiness. How could I help it? Krista was in town and needed to tour downtown shops, and our twinhood demanded velvet bows!

And yes, I am aware that the reason my headband was $2.80 was because someone somewhere was sorely underpaid. Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed talks about how her co-workers at Target were hard pressed to even afford a $5 shirt on sale, and when trolling through the obscene mounds of dresses at Forever 21 I think about that loveliest of shopping epiphanies, class struggle. I'm there buying the cheapest thing I can find for my penny-filled wallet, and those to whom this adolescent bargain basement is a steal troll the most expensive thing they can afford, and so on and so forth, creating the layer cake of bank accounts, the, ah, SAVE WATER DRINK BEER flocked ringer at the store, if you will. For teenagers, no doubt, who needn't worry about being forever 21 as they haven't yet been it.

And then there was the bottom of the shiny yellow plastic schoolbus of a bag the headband came in. JOHN 3:16. Oh, dear Jesus. I had to consult the King James online to find out that the passage reads as follows: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now, I find it mighty ironic that the very company which makes clothes built to last as long as one's first menstrual cycle is concerned with everlasting life. Are cheaply made garments a marker of time, a signpost declaring "only eternity more to go"? I'd look awfully silly in my headband in less than 35 years, if it lasts more than three months, that is. And if I wanted to return my purchase I couldn't. The store doesn't offer refunds. Forever mine.

Dear reader, I ask you this most of all: does anyone honestly want to believe in God so that one can not only live forever, but be forever 21?

Ask the Obstinate Tortilla Again

Dear Obstinate Tortilla,

You gave such good advice before, that I wanted to write you with a very pressing concern. Namely, that I was wondering what topics people really try to avoid bringing up on first dates, such as anal leakage (of which I, for better or worse, have none).

Love,
Shana

Dear Shana,

The Obstinate Tortilla knows the answer:
Put cheese in me, I'm toasty and warm.
Additionally I will add:

Camel toe
Those heinous pizzas with garlic cream in the crust
Any Baldwin
Hepatitis (C or otherwise)
Rapacious neighbors
Athlete's foot
Love of canines

Yours truly,
The Obstinate Tortilla

P.s. Anyone is encouraged to write in to ask The Obstinate Tortilla with their questions. I will answer, but you must provide SALSA!!!

Dundee Cake

While reading Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman about the making of the OED, I stumbled upon a mention of Dundee cake. Allowing myself total narcissism at 5:30 in the morning after a night of tossing and turning (baby crying next door, angsty dreams about dormlife past), I thought, "That's MY cake!" and scuttled off to find a recipe online. Tragedy of all tragedies (hyperbole, folks), it's really a glorified fruitcake. Now, as Sir Moore of Belfast outlying would say, I AM a fruitcake (genus Americana), but I would like to retort that though I may be, I don't wish to EAT one.

Nonetheless, for you readers who enjoy things cooked with fruit peel, the recipe below. Requirements: think of me, and of mother Scotland.

DUNDEE CAKE

1 cup flour
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup blanched almonds
3 T mixed fruit peel (oranges, mostly)
6 oz each of currants, raisins, white raisins
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp baking powder
2 T whisky
2 T boiled milk and 1 T sugar

Cream the butter and 1 cup sugar in a bowl. Slowly add the four eggs (one at a time), plus a spoonful of flour with each, beating well all the time. Stir in the nuts and fruits.

Sift the flour with the baking powder. Add this dry mixture in with the eggs, butter and sugar. Add the whisky. If the mixture is too stiff, add a touch of milk.

Place mixture in an 8-inch greased and lined cake tin. Flatten the top with hands which are slightly wet. Cover with foil or greaseproof paper and bake at 325 F for two hours. Halfway through, take off the foil and arrange the split almonds in concentric circles on the top of the cake. Check the cake with a skewer towards the end of cooking to ensure it comes out clean.

Boil the 2 T milk with the 1 T sugar. 5 to 10 minutes before cooking is finished, brush the top with the sweetened milk to create a dry glaze. Keep in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out on a wired tray. Store in an airtight container. Do not gift results to your friend Audrey, even though her dang birthday falls so close to Christmas.