iPod Dancer/Cat Burglar

The music was thumpin'!

My heart it was jumpin'!

The bar line was dumpin'

Wonder Woman's spirits down.




Her eyes were a rollin'

At the bartenders' lollin'

Hence a bottle of Stoli

(along with mixers and cups)

Got stolen away.



Who knew it was in us?

Halloween rules.

We Went To The Brewery Last Night And I Thought That I'd Found Heaven

Imagine that Prometheus and Epimetheus, after designing the men and the beasts, were brought out of retirement and requested to design bars.

Epimetheus, the impetuous and foolish demi-god responsible for wasting all the warm hides and superspeed on cats, would begin throwing light shows and throbbing beats about willy-nilly, adding platforms and dancing girls to top them. There would be a "tini" menu, and several bartenders would eschew shirts. (Epimetheus would create Marquee).

Prometheus would be left with a warehouse, some $3 beer tokens, and 12 card tables.

Much like he managed to make man out of dirt, with this chaff he would create Happy Hour At The Brooklyn Brewery.


Thanks, Prometheus.

Gauntlet: Thrown

New goal is to have a job that I like by end of November. This frees up December to find a new place to live next year (goodbye, sweet undervalued doormanned Upper East Side sublease), and will provide all this useful information, like, "What can I afford?" and "What subway lines will be most convenient?" and "I don't have to move to Queens, do I?"

Anyway I'm transferring to a different department on Monday because... whatever, I am a temp. I don't care. I think I have rickets.




-



Today's review of The Times They Are A-Changin' was possibly the meanest I've ever read. Worse than last year's Barefoot in the Park, worse than 1998's The Capeman, worse than that Dorothy Parker review where she says some famous actress "ran the gamut of emotions from A... to B."

Ouch.

Fire Drills, Grown-up Style

Evacuation drill today. Remember when they used to be called "fire drills" and you were supposed to leave everything behind?

1. I think it's now "evacuation" to cover anthrax et al, because auction houses are totally pissing off the devoted right now.

2. Like hell the Christie's bitches aren't going to save their Fendi handbags.

Tuesday Night Bleh

It's here. Some might call it "brisk" or "crisp," but I can no longer leave the house in just a sweater. Yeah, I need pants to go with it now. And a jacket. It's COLD.

In honor of winter, I have gotten sick. Yes. Sick. Ill. An incubus of viral and possibly bacterial plague. I stayed home last night hoovering soup and watching Friday Night Lights and Veronica Mars. Friday Night Lights, by the way, is really good, if less than optimal to watch while gagging on one's own snot. I think they film it with a Shakicam.

That was a pleasant image, wasn't it?

Meh

I don't understand fantasy sports. I'm sorry, from the description, I can't match the level of intensity males have about this with what it actually is. But I do not judge. I attempt to learn. I will sit a mile at someone's else's computer screen. I will gain perspective.

I will do Fantasy Congress (the game, not the The West Wing).

I actually got kind of excited about it.* I sent a big email out to all these people, ready for the Christie's server to crash beneath the weight of eager responses, and so far...

...I have two.

I am alone in dorkitude.





*And the weirdest part is that last week, before discovering fantasy Congress, I was like, they should totally do fantasy Awards Show Season, with your actors gettinng points for like, SAG awards and ISAs leading to a final valuation and trade before the Oscars, with post-season points added/detracted for number of mentions on E!'s Fashion Wrap. Seriously.


***UPDATE: THE LIST HAS GROWN TO SIX!!!

I'm An iPod Dancer... but I'm a SLU--no, just an iPod dancer

Cragin suggested it, Jen seconded, and I think I'm going to do it. Foregoing "Naughty Nurse, But Like An Actual Naughty Nurse In Scrubs And Crocs Who Goes Around Slapping Asses" and "Jeffrey Sebelia," I have decided to be An iPod Dancer for Halloween. Yes, I'm going to slap on some black layers, braid myself a funky hairdo, and groove the night away with an empty playing card box painted white with little dials on it and maybe a glow stick inside, attached to Mem's broken white headphones. Awesome! And it'll be warm! Fantastic!

Except I can't DO anything with it, because the Saturday before Halloween, my long-lost cousin decided, is the perfect day to get married.

ARGH.

My Really Good First Impression

Sometimes you know you're going to meet someone, and this someone is important to someone who is important to you. Like, maybe she gave birth to him. So, like, you brush your hair and attempt to present yourself as someone who is not a complete disaster and hopefully the rest will go okay.

In this spirit, I can now recommend that you really try to avoid her meeting you in the bathroom as you stare in fear at an overflowing toilet tank, the flusher thingy broken off in your hand, as toilet tank water surrounds your feet and refuses to stop. Scenes from Meet The Parents will start cycling through your head in a very unhelpful manner, and all your efforts to Disapparate, no matter how you try, just will not work.

On the up side: no small talk.

Shilling, Schiller's

Schiller's Liquor Bar advertises six kinds of wine: Red or White; Cheap, Decent, Good.

DK and I put our names down, were told it was a wait, and went down to a bar we'd passed earlier, noting the HAPPY HOUR TIL MIDNITE: $2 BUD LIGHTS. Several dollars later, we headed back. Another ten minutes. A few minutes after that I gave the captain the sad eyes and it appeared, three juice glasses and carafe of... what was it? Ah yes, the secert fourth varietal at Schiller's: Free.


So by the time we sat down, I was drunk.

By the time we left, I was still drunk.

Calamari, nachos, and fish and chips (and, okay, a carafe of Good) hadn't cured it, although I did feel a little barfy. I was drunk enough that when we went to his friend's apartment, which was, in retrospect, a pretty freakin' sweet place, I didn't immediately calculate the rent-to-square-footage ratio and start asking about his building amenities but instead flopped on the couch, declined a vermouth-cassis (was he serious? It did look tasty, though) and watched selected scenes from Match Point, guzzling water and providing omniscient narration in a variety of accents from across the British isles. It's a wonder no one killed me.

Cabbed it home. I think this weekend is going to be good.

On Tuna Salad

If anyone has tuna salad, keep it the fuck away from me.


I think I need a better job.

That's all.

Federleazy Makes His Dramatic Debut; World Continues, Inexplicably

She has started in on the tote bags. AGAIN. O-5 THE TOTE BAG, WOMAN.

To distract her, I brought up last week's episode of the otherwise stupid bad boring bad reasonable-suspension-of-disbelief-beatdown of a ratings powerhouse CSI, guest starring Kevin Federline. I mean, after the success of Chaotic, serialized procedural crime drama is the next natural step, right? Dan taped it for me special, and it was off the heezy.

Check out the screen shots:






Okay, those are actually all candid shots I got off Go Fug Yourself. But, if you erase Bit Bit from the middle shot there, this is a fairly accurate recap of the performance. I think the only request made was that he remove his blingy earring.

Awesome.


(Nice fat DC post coming soon. One knows it was a good weekend when Tuesday morning comes around and one is still tired and mildly hungover. Go Redskins!).

Great Moments In Real Estate

P. came up to my desk, looking a little perturbed.

"Uh... yeah. Meghan, I have to go. Just so you know."

"You mean, like, to lunch?"

"No, I have to go home."

"Everything ok?"

"Well... my walls fell down."


Apparently, a reason things are cheaper in Brooklyn.



Happy weekend! I'm off to DC.

Col. Valerio(bagG)

Had lunch with my former professor/mentor/friend today. I am his poorly behaved pseudo-protege, except not really. It's awesome. Anyway, we're discussing my future and its general murkiness, and finally he's like, "You can always join the Army. You could recruit. Go down to Duke. Colonel Valerio."

"Yeah, Colonel Valerio!" I reply. "Hey guys! The Army's awesome! I did Hoof 'n' Horn!"

"Colonel Valerio," my trusty comrade sighed. "It's like you're from Star Trek."

One's All You Need

> From: BackStage Access
> Date: Oct 11, 2006 1:33 PM
> Subject: PRESALE: Tenacious D at Madison Square Garden!
> To: xxxxxxx@gmail.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> To view an HTML version of this email, visit:
> [http://msgnyc.com/viewmsg.cfm?n35043s3010c13281115t2774]
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> PRESALE: Tenacious D on Friday, December 1 at
> Madison Square Garden!
>
> Tenacious D announce a date for Destiny! The platinum-selling comedic and
> musical duo Jack Black and Kyle Gass are starring in a new movie, Tenacious
> D in the Pick of Destiny which follows Tenacious D on their quest to become
> The Greatest Band on Earth!
>
> Tenacious D is coming to NYC on Friday, December 1 to play Madison Square
> Garden with special guest Neil Hamburger. This is a show not to be missed!
>
> As a member of Backstage Access, you can buy tickets Thursday, October 12
> @ 10:00am before they go on sale to the general public on Saturday, October
> 14 @ 12NOON.
>

Picture it:

2003. My last PWILD August trip. Somehow, a burned copy of Tenacious D becomes Default CD to the entire staff. Steev may or may not have distributed copies. An enterprising guitarist on basecamp learns the chords, so "Fuck Her Gently" may continue to ring throughout Pisgah National Forest. We teach it to 400 freshmen. For some reason, Enrique Iglesias's immortal ditty "Don't Turn Out The Light" is inserted on track 8, and we raise our voices in pop-Eurotechno on the drive home.

I love KG.

Me and KG. KG? That's me.


Yes we have tickets.

Fuck YEAH!!!

Logline Tuesday

Last time I did Logline Wednesday I came up with some largely secret-agent-based winners (I'm sensing a sale for The Three, a sexy thriller about bickering crime-fighting triplets who pose as one all-powerful Foe of Evil, two of whom must put aside their difference when the third is kidnapped by Demi Moore, any day now) (was that the title of the awful screenplay Charlie Kaufman's imaginary twin wrote in Adaptation? I think it was. Man, I hated that movie. Never mind, now my movie is just called Three, no The; it's totally different). This week I'm going for TV shows.

Why TV? Well, I love TV. You know this. But I think it's gotten kind of tame. What's the big edgy new show? Ugly Betty? Dexter? Backstage hilarity at Saturday Night Live? Throw in a unibrow and a sympathetic serial killer, and somehow it's the forefront of our Golden Age of Television?

Girl, please.

May I suggest:

Mindy
A richly textured portrait of a female statuatory rapist, struggling to keep her job as a middle school guidance counselor after being forced to register as a (repeat) sex offender. Find yourself cheering for Mindy as she fights prejudice and preteen/teens' constant, lascivious advances at every turn!

Baby Arm
Talkeetna has a problem: she just doesn't fit in. Not only is she the only American at her predominantly French high school; she also has a stunted left arm! Laugh harshly at Talkeetna as she struggles to pick up the Hello Kitty pencils her Gallic classmates scatter before her locker. Told from the POV of Guillaume, a half-French, half-Thai bully racked with self-loathing and a penchant for kicking Talkeetna in the boob.

Racists
[NB: Southern affiliates only].

Scatology
A hilarious romp through the life of Grandle, a lowly magazine staffer who loves to eat poo.

Magnificent Jewels

They only provide non-dairy creamer for coffee in this office, which sucks. Coffee must always be made/purchased and creamed off-premises to ensure drinkability, which sucks. Productivity and morale dampened by shitty coffee is certainly unequal to the $10 they would have to spend weekly on half-n-half.

Anyway, maybe they cheap out on the creamer because of the Monday pick-me-ups, which today was going to the staff walkabout of Magnificent Jewels From The Collection Of Ellen Barkin's Gifts From Ron Perelman During Their Short Marriage And Kept In The Acrimonious But Profitable Divorce.

I thought I was late meeting everyone, so just proceeded to Gallery One. Man, those jewels are magnificent. They're so perfect they look plastic. I would totally spend $2 million on a plastic-looking ring.

Eyes wandering from the rocks, I saw a table of lox and mimosa. Fuck half-n-half! Yeeeeeeeeah smoked fish platter! As I shoved a delectable half-bagel of salmon and obviously full-fat cream cheese between my cheeks (too creamy), I looked around at the people. For some reason, the only staff at the walkabout were between 55 and 70. And for some reason, no one was squealing about the emerald bead necklace formerly belonging to Doris Duke, but rather looking at it critically, as if picturing it with various blouses at home.

Turns out I wasn't late for the staff walkabout, but rather crashed the VIP viewing. Why did I think they'd have staff lox when they don't have staff milk?

Subjects of the Studio 60 "Crazy Christians" Sketch Are Real!

So... in exchange for not protesting at the funerals of five little girls executed this week, Psychotic Hatemongering Freakshow Christians, Inc., get an hour of airtime on Mike Gallagher's radio program.

Reread that. Slowly.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Psychotic Hatemongering Freakshow Christians, Inc. founder Fred Phelps, who, I assume, is hellbound anyway for only halfway taking her husband's name, says "Those Amish people, everyone is sitting around talking about those poor little girls -- blah, blah, blah -- they brought the wrath upon themselves."

She is saying SIX-TO-TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRLS brought BEING SHOT upon themselves. By being AMISH. By being, in other words, NICE. And eco-friendly.

OH my dear do I hate freakish Christians. Hear that, freakish Christians? I hate you because you are freakish Christians, much as you hate gays because they are gays, and you will rot in hell, which for you, my non-friends, is the back room of Babylon from Queer as Folk: US, and you are all bottoms.

Don't reward them with radio time, people. Come on. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We capture and kill. Let them protest, and then dump flaming tar on them when they show.

Bloaty Totey

So the girl who sits by me really wants a company tote bag. She found out, somehow, that my friend who works here is, like, the keeper of the company tote bags. But said friend cannot give out company tote bags willy-nilly, and said girl who sits by me cannot grasp this.

"So did you ask your friend about the tote bag? Sorry to be a pain, but can he get the tote bag? I know he isn't supposed to, but why can't I have a tote bag? Why won't he get in trouble in order to get someone he doesn't even know a stupid canvas tote bag? Tote bag? Tote bag? IF I CAN'T HAVE A TOTE BAG I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR SOUL."

I was talking to another girl, and was like, "Dude, she's kind of really attached to this tote bag thing."

"Yeah," she said, glancing nervously to the side. "Plus... I think she already has one."

Crazies.

Meghan Faces Off With The Expectorator, Emerges Victor

I was leaning against a post, waiting for the 6, pondering the hygienic safety of leaning on said post, when he came and stood facing me. He was tall, buzzed, suited, and BlackBerried. I hated him on sight.

"That dude," I thought to myself, "is no friend of mine."

I thought further.

"Were we at a party, I would doubtless tell everyone he played for Duke lacrosse."

I probably would, too.

Mr. Lax continued flipping through his wireless communication device, cocooned from and oblivious to my gleeful spite. The years in Chappaqua had been good to him; his stay at home mom, kind. He read something that made him chortle. It made him chortle hard (probably some kind of sexually explicit email forward). It made him chortle so hard, he spat. On me.

I mean, what do you do? What do you say? How do you reprimand an obvious date rapist/banker type with a saliva retention issue?

I didn't say anything. I stared. I stared with curled nostrils, as if slowly realizing I had stepped in poo. I stared so hard he looked up, and turned rose pink.

"Shit," he said. "Sorry. Ha. Don't worry, I'm not sick."

I continued the stare. I have a pretty good stare. I allowed the stare to start morphing into The Meghan Killer Death Gaze, which I think Mr. Spittle noticed, because he began stammering.

"Really, I'm sorry, it was just... my friend... really, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry! I'M SORRY, JUST MAKE IT STOP!!"

I turned around as the train banged in.

Pussy.

What Was Probably Going Through My Teetotaler Cousin's Head When She Got Married In Vegas This Past Weekend

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Man, that tea was really good. Much better than that stuff we got in Utah. This sure is a long drive. I'm so happy we have Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media on tape to get us through. Hey, we hit Vegas soon!

Yeah, health insurance really is expensive.

What's that, honey?

Hm.

-

Oh well. Congratulations, cousins!

And Happy Birthday to me!