Eat It, Bitches

Because I am going to two, that’s two fabulous concerts. Tomorrow night Mrs. Nator and I are going to see the very talented songstress Joan Osborne at the little old Southpaw, and in June we will finally be able to see the “D-List” goddess herself, Kathy Griffin, live in NYC. Although we will be in ye gods for that show, I am excited enough to start squeeeeee!-ing, already. I’ll just have to bring binoculars (and pep pills for the next morning, because I am too old for all this hullabaloo on work nights, let me tell ya).

And now, just because, here is a video of Kathy Griffin dressed as a giant rat.

Link Lives!

Heh. Some people have way too much time on their hands. Of course, I'm one of them.

Feng Shui My Blog

I’ve been getting complaints about my red type again, and I’ve been generally itchy over the layout and name of this blog, lately. I think the basic colours and graphic suit my personality, and the name worked as tongue-in-cheek for a while, but perhaps it’s time to move on. I have some ideas for redesigns and names, but my limited Blogger coding skillz may slow down the project. Still, if y’all have any suggestions, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be in a dark room trying to channel the spirit of Saul Bass.

How To Celebrate The Holidays

1. Pesach: Have a little Popcorn on Passover, by listening to Gershon Kingsley’s Moog synthesized operetta for the Seder.

2. Easter: Celebrate great moments in Rock n' Roll history with Peeps.

Have A Gurney Standing By

I have my first session with Big Black Sex Trainer tomorrow. He seems like a really nice guy, and I’m sure he’ll basically be evaluating my fitness to start, but I’m still intimidated. I’ve been really pooped and not working out much the past couple weeks, so I feel like I’m slipping back into gelatinous blob mode. Wish me luck!

I Heel For You, I Think I Love You

According to the NY Times, super-high heeled shoes are going to be all the fashion this spring and summer. I suppose I should not be surprised, as Mrs. Nator, who seems to always just be slightly ahead of the trends, sent me a picture of some terribly tall Steve Maddens she simply had to order yesterday. Mind you, this is a woman who went through embarrassment and excruciating pain after breaking her foot in a fall down a hill from towering platform shoes several years back, but who am I to judge? She does have great gams to show off, and I can’t say that some of the hairdos I wore in my stylish past (yes, I had one) couldn’t be life-threatening.

The thing is, even more than I worry for women’s feet and about submission to the patriarchy (because P-Funk reunions aside, how many men do you think will be sporting stacked heels anytime soon?), I’m afraid Mrs. Nator won’t be able to even hear me anymore. She is an unusually tall woman to begin with, and with these types of shoes she may border on altitudinous. It might fit in with her plans to feel big and strong, but I still subscribe, for several reasons, to the tradition of being a woman in comfortable shoes, and I’m not sure how it will affect the relationship if I am continually at crotch licking level while standing up. Although that might fit in with her plans, too, come to think of it.

Does anyone know where I can take stilt-walking lessons?

I Didn’t Know It Was Actually Pronounced “Oops!”

This past Christmas, I got a video iPod. I’d heard that they scratch easily, so I ordered a nifty case online right away. Here is where my heartache began.

It turns out that, although it did not indicate this anywhere on the store site, the case I had selected was not yet available. So, several weeks later, having received nothing, I emailed the store. I got no response for a few days, so I called them, and got someone who put me on hold forever and then told me that the only person there who knew about email orders was out indefinitely. I wrote again. I got no response until I finally saw they had posted something on my account page rather than emailing me. The note said the case was expected within a month or so. I considered cancelling or exchanging the order, but I figured that with all the trouble already, I might as well just wait until the unique case I really wanted arrived.

So I waited, and every month or so I emailed, to no response, and the occasional update on the store site saying the case wouldn't come in for another (X) weeks, after all. I had given up, until one day a couple weeks ago when I finally saw a UPS sticky on my front door with my name on it. This was annoying, not only because I hadn’t been notified, but because the package had been sent to my home address when I specifically requested it be sent to my office (why don’t most service providers and sellers realize that most people cannot be home between 9 and 5 to wait breathlessly for the UPS/Cable guy/meter reader?). Having experienced that mistake before, however, I thought I’d just call UPS, request a change of shipping address and get the package. I was wrong.

Instead, the package was sent back to the store, with no explanation. I had to call UPS and complain, and then call the store to have it re-sent. Again, I indicated it should go to my work address. Again, several days later, I got a UPS sticky on my home door. Again I called with the work address.

But wait, there’s more!

The package disappeared. Poof - no word for several days. When I looked it up today, the tracking said “delivered”. Um, no? So I called UPS again. Oh, it was delivered, alright. To a completely random person at an entirely unrelated address.

Nice.

Let’s just say I wasn’t as full of sunshine-y goodness when speaking with the UPS people this time. I did get put through to a supervisor. Who then managed to put me on hold and disconnect me (“accidentally”?).

May I just ask, how exactly does this sort of thing happen? It’s not like I screamed at anyone at UPS or the store and thus deserved some spit in my lemonade. I was somewhat terse and annoyed, but that’s it. The only thing I can think of is that the whole mess was due to just plain incompetence. You’d think that by now, with my dim and pessimistic view of the human race, in general, I’d be used to this sort of thing – and I am. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make me pop a vein, now and then. I mean, it’s no moral outrage or anything, but it’s the type of occurrence that makes me want to write personal letters to each an every creationist outlining this chain of events and asking “so, tell me why it is, again, that you think that humans are too majestic to be evolved from apes? Once you’re done picking the ticks off your brother, that is - take your time.”

I finally, after calling again, got transferred to a “special department that can make outside calls to track packages” (ooh, the freedom! And just what did they do to earn those privileges? Are the rest of the phone reps in lockdown?). There a somewhat bumbling, if seemingly well-meaning lad (he messed up my name twice and my address four times) claimed to have contacted whoever it was who signed for the package at whatever location, confirm it could be picked up there and let me know it would then be sent to my work address. Supposedly.

Nearly five months after my order, I look forward to finally getting my fancy iPod case, which now has more miles on it than John Madden’s bus. I also look forward to putting it on my iPod, which now has so many scratches I have to hold it at different angles depending on the time of day to be able to see anything on the screen.

The moral of the story? Humans are stupid, though we can make tools. Next time, I’ll make me a case out of Saran wrap and duct tape.

Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’

Do you think that my heavily-muscled potential new personal trainer might be offended that Mrs. Nator and I have started referring to him as “Big Black Sex Trainer,” in homage to Keith on Six Feet Under? It’s well-meant, and certainly more flattering than the nicknames we have for other regulars in the gym, such as “The Guy With The Neck,” “Yami Guy,” “The Dour Lesbians” or “That Lesbian You Hate”.

Perhaps all this should be filed under “things I should never have admitted to,” along with “wanting to see that new Antonio Banderas where he teaches ballroom dancing”… whoops!

O Happy Day

I am a complete lightweight. I had one measly glass of wine last night, and woke up this morning with a terrible hangover.

I was roused to consciousness by the desperate voices of 9/11 victims on recordings of their last calls for help, thanks to NPR news.

I now have to go to the interminable weekly departmental meeting. These usually last over an hour, in which nothing that has anything to do with my job is addressed.

I have to go to the dentist this afternoon. It’s likely he will have to drill.

I have concluded that today must be perfect day to buy a Mega Millions ticket.

But Tell Me What You Really Think

I tried an interesting series of little online exercises recently, called Implicit Association Tests. Designed by scientists at Harvard, they are meant to determine what one's underlying preferences or attitudes are about certain subjects. For example, in the test for determining if you have a preference for black people's faces or white people's, as explained on the BBC News site:

• Users put positive and negative words, such as "failure", "glorious", "wonderful" and "nasty" into categories of "good" and "bad", then do the same with images of black and white faces.
• By responding to the prompts as quickly as possible, the test aims to side-step what's known as "cognitive control" - the brief, but significant, time lapse we need to give an "acceptable" answer rather than a truly honest one.
• Depending on the magnitude of the result, respondents are judged to have either "little or no bias" or a bias rated as "slight", "moderate" or "strong".

Personally, the test results or me indicated that I have "implicit" preferences for gay people over straight people, black people over white people and Richard Nixon over G.W. Bush (now there's a case of weighing two evils if I ever saw one). None of this overly surprised me, considering my political beliefs and background. I was a little bit surprised at my slight bias in favour of black people at first, since I'm convinced white racism is so prevalent in United States society that we must all internalize it by default, but not overly so, considering both my upbringing with a semi-radical black stepfather and a general aversion to, as they say, The Man.

It does seem, however, that a lot of people are surprised by their results, and this has touched off a lot of dialogue and self-examination, particuarly regarding the race test results. Of course, as even the designers of the test admit, the results may not be entirely accurate. The methodology of the tests have been questioned by other scientists, naturally, and taking a quick online quiz based on reaction times is not exactly an exhaustive, controlled analysis. But, even if you don't necessarily believe the tests to be completely accurate or comprehensive, as I don't, they do make for good conversation pieces and tools for confronting one's own attitudes.

Try them yourself here, and let me know what you think.

Via: Cooper King's blog

Go Orange For The ASPCA

Don't forget to "go orange" in support of the ASPCA's 140th anniversary on Monday, and send a donation while you're at it.

Do y'all think Queen Bitch Cat would slice n' dice me if I Manic-Panicked her a construction cone hue?

Comments On The Fritz

Please stand by... for some reason I am receiving comment emails but they are not appearing on the blog, nor am I able to respond to them. It may be a wonky side-effect of the template I tweaked, but it's been working for a while, so it could be a blogger thang. I hope to get it fixed, soon.

Update: OK, it seems the comments code I have doesn't want to take links, which was the problem. Unfortunately, I don't have time to muck with it and figure out why, just now. Carry on.

Dear New York Times

I hate your new online layout. I can't find shit, anymore. Whose bright idea was this, anyway?

Also, I hate that damn freaky Ralph Lauren flash ad with the spooky little blonde girl all I-see-no-I-AM-dead-people floating around over a flashing sky and "quaint house". Please make it go away NOW.

Thank you.

EEK!

I Wish I Knew How To Make Everybody QUIT IT

Okay, seriously - is this Brokeback Mountain reference thing going to go on forever? I mean, I think it's great so many people have seen a film about homos - oh, wait, not homos, queer love... no, oops, it's just about love, silly me - so sorry! Actually, can we just say it's about queers? Because, although everybody's cooing that it's about universal love and how it should be celebrated no matter what genders it's between, blah bling blah, the fact is that the central theme of the movie is how the characters can't express that love because they are, in fact, queer. I'm not going to get into debate over labels and were they gay, bi, just in love with each other, whatever, because the fact of the matter is that if you fall in sexual love with someone of the same sex you are officially queer. Thank you.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good film, with great cinematography, some excellent moments and a nice adherance to the exquisitely written original story. I have to say I can't tell you exactly how good I think it was, because, quite frankly, all the hype clouded my perceptions to the point that I can't decide whether I really liked it or not. But I do know that I'm sick of that hype. The fact is, Brokeback Mountain has become some sort of cutesy shorthand for being gay, and it's really tired.

For example, back in February my friend at Life Below The Line was reporting the annoying prevalence of straight men using Brokeback Mountain to tease each other. You know how it goes, one guy expresses some kind of emotion and the other "jokes" something like "Hey, don't get all Brokeback Mountain on me, here." This may be mildly amusing the first several times, but at this point it's just being used to reinforce the same stereotypes that any other fag jokes do, except just replacing the word "fag" with the hipper version, "Brokeback Mountain." It also allows the straight jokester to deflect any protests to his or her joke by alluding that if they are sensitive and liberal enough to have seen BBM, or even just heard of it (which... who hasn't?), then they can't really be bigoted and offensive. Right.

At the same time, even homages within the gay and gay-friendly world can be tiresome. As Joe.My.God reported, among other things, BBM catchphrases are showing up in both romance and retaliation between gay men. Elsewhere, several sites on the Web have been chuckling over an ice-skating routine done by men dressed as cowboys (did the creators know it was gay? Was it produced before or after BBM? How gay would it be on the scale of gay dependant on that fine point?). Meanwhile, here in NYC, Jacques Torres is selling chocolate Brokeback Bunnies for Easter. Is it an adorable homage, or a passé marketing ploy? Looks like both to me.

Which all boils down to: listen, people, enough's enough. It's just not cute anymore, and it's certainly not fashionable. Yes, even I indulged in references up until several weeks ago, but it has reached its saturation point. So quit it. Because much further and we'll be out of Montana and into Macarena territory.

Da Amazing Natori

I've been into magic since I was a kid. I remember getting one of those 20-something-in-one magic trick kits when I was about six and playing with it endlessly. Not that I really learned anything, because I was a) too unimpressed with some of the really hokey, plastic tricks that were painfully obvious in execution and b) too lazy to do anything hard. Mind you, that didn't stop me from bragging to my first grade teacher for months that I was learning magic, until she put me on the spot and asked me to just come in tomorrow and show the class a trick, already. I don't remember if I even tried to learn anything that night or just blanked out in a cold sweat, but the next day I did a coin-from-the-ear penny palming trick that was about the worst ever (I made it up on the spot). To her credit, Ms. Rain oohed and ahhed over it, perhaps saving my cute little face, but I still felt shame within.

Popular magic shows - besides the Harry Potter movie variety - seem to have taken a much more "street" turn of late, what with the rise of David Blaine, Criss Angel and their like. I will forever bemoan the loss of Siegfried and Roy's extravaganza before I could see it, but it kind of makes sense. Street magic is much more appealing for the ironic/skeptical hipster youth of today, and also often both cheaper to produce and more convincing, when done properly.

Recently, however, I happened to see newly popular "experimentalist", Gerard Senehi, on the Ellen show and was intrigued. Senehi seems to use some of the more modern street magic effects while maintaining the "mysterious mentalist" demeanor (and suited dress code) of more innocent times. It's a pretty good combination, and more reminiscent of a more understated Uri Geller than the in-your-face hijinks of Blaine or Angel. Like them, however, Senehi's techniques are impressive enough to get many in his audience to wonder if his tricks are actual psychic/telekinetic phenomena, and he's taking his spoon-beinding skillz to the bank (although in his case, there's talk that his profits are mainly going to a creepy cult run by a less benign charlatan).

All of this led me to fondly recall my childhood love of magic and wonder, could I learn any of these tricks? Back then, magicians carefully guarded most of their secrets, and only revealed them to a select, interested few via magic-shop gatherings and writings. However, now we've got the Web, and guess what? For a certain price, it is entirely possible for anybody to get DVDs that will teach them to melt forks or levitate themselves like the pros.

So, the answer is, yes, I can learn them. And I'm definitely adding some of these goods to my birthday list, so I can entertain friends and party guests. But it's a little sad to know that modern magic is not only far less glam, but available to easily buy. Maybe, if I want a little fun, I should just drop the spoon-bending instructions and get me one of these.

Betrayed With A Kiss

I am utterly fascinated with the authentification of yet another early Christian text, the Gospel of Judas. It is very intriguing, indeed, to see how early Christian texts and sects were approved or condemned to form the bible and churches we have today. It's a great illustration of how politics, power and religion influence each other throughout history.

There are, however, two downsides to all this. One is still having to deal with the continual insistance by religious groups that their particular text and interpretation is the only true word of God(s), despite the evidence of tampering and fabrication over the centuries. The other downside is, of course, dreading the time when Dan Brown hops on the bandwagon.

Captured and Captivating

The online-only American Museum of Photography has some great exhibits up on Pulp/Noir photos and Photomontage, but it's their historical exhibits that get me every time. Viewing the AMP may not be as cool as a trip to the International Center of Photography, but it's worth checking out now and then.

Hiii-YAH!

If you haven't seen Ask A Ninja yet, check it out posthaste. Very funny stuff, as you may witness by this example.

Dear U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving

No, no, no, no, no.

I may be a little behind the times here, but the new ten dollar bill? Fugly. I mean, I thought the $20 was bad. But this? Wow.

Listen. Are you listening to me? Okay. Dark green and light orange do not go together. Ever. I understand you want the new bills to be all safe and secure and whatnot, but stop it. I can deal with the changed bust sizes, the watermarks, the security tape, even the new images. But the changing ink colours were pushing it (are we paying for groceries or attending a rave?) and the tiny 10s or 20s all over the new bills look like nothing so much as a contagious pox. And now this.

I understand that a lot of people have been really wedded to the old green and black bills. I know change is hard. But if you're going to do it, don't go all half-assed and try to appease the traditionalists, foil the forgers and get arty about it. If you're going to change the bills to several colours, just make them a brighter mix and be done with it. Hell, even red, white and blue would be an improvement. Or, even better, make it a practically a painting. I'm particularly fond of Tahiti's tender, for example.

Thank you for your attention to this very important matter,

Da Nator

What Do The Rockefeller Laws Indicate For This?

When I got home from the gym this morning, I glanced into the kitchen and stopped short. At first, I couldn't really tell what the substance was on the floor. One cat was yowling at me for breakfast in his usual manner, but then... all three other cats were writhing on the linoleum. Queen Bitch cat, in fact, was rolling drunkenly not one foot from both Loaner Cat and The Little One, both of whom she is normally trying to draw and quarter. Yes, the substance on the floor was, indeed, a copious amount of catnip.

It seems that somebody managed to squeeze his or her little paw into a small, inadvertant opening in The Forbidden Drawer, haul out the entire bag of nippage and rip it to shreds, dragging it as he or she went. I suspect Loaner Cat, since he's young, curious and an unknown factor. Also, he was trying to swallow the plastic nip bag when I came in.

The Little One made herself scarce, but not before I saw she was practically bedazzled with herbal flakes. The others were all the same, with Queen Bitch perhaps the most dishabille, three sheets to the wind and close to farting pixies. If they'd have managed to have the Dead playing on the boom box and the lava lamps on, I would not have been surprised.

It took some time cleaning up, between the hysterical laughter and unwrapping eleven pounds of Loaner Cat from the broom every few seconds. The stumper is, did we have this coming, as we were clearly depriving the children, or do they deserve some sort of punishment? Do felines get hangovers?

Weighty questions, indeed. I, however, received my 'awa in the mail today. So, I suspect between that and celebrating Mrs. Nator's landing of a large grant for work, I may spend the better part of the evening butt-waxing the lino, myself.