More N Madness

Darlings, I never even thought of this until thombeau brought it up in the N post below. I frequently sign my messages to the old dear as "Neely," an homage to the great Valley of the Dolls heroine, Neely O'Hara (interestingly, thombeau often claims the persona of Helen Lawson, the bitter, washed up old hag of that great work. Just sayin') Anyway, I had never considered the fascinating little known fact that my real middle name, bestowed by my sainted mother, is Neal.

Also interestingly, at one point in my mid-twenties, I had to look at my birth certificate because I couldn't remember if my name was spelled Neal or Neil. Maybe it was the drugs. I don't know.

Today's Game is Brought to You by the Letter N

I try not to do these meme things too much, although I love them. They’re like narcissistic solitaire. I got this one from The Other Andrew

Use the first letter of your middle name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things... nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person you took this from had the same first initial. You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.
Famous artist/band/musician:
Nico

Four-letter word:
Nerd

U.S. state:
Nebraska

Boy name:
Nancy

Girl name:
I don’t know any girls.

Animal:
Nutira (they’re nasty swampy things in Louisiana that have big, orange teeth. Honest.)

Something in the kitchen:
noodles

Reason for being late:
Nervous nellies

Body part:
Noogies

Drink:
Isn’t there something with peach juice in it that starts with N?

Something you shout:
Now. Get out of my way you stupid motherfucker.

Something you eat:
noogies

Ball o' Fire

Thanks to the wonder of Netflix, last night we watched Ball of Fire, a 1941 Howard Hawks movie I'd always heard about, but never seen. A young Gary Cooper, looking suave and luscious, and Barbara Stanwyck with her fabulous gams uncovered pretty much the entire running time. The plot is some gibberish about a professor studying slang. Hey bopa ree bop! Slide, jackson and make a mook with the cardpass! Don't be a log, put the clutch in!

Some of that was actually in the movie, some I just made up, all of it sounds like most of the dialogue, painfully delivered by a roster of MGM character actors who deserved better trying to sound hep and coming up pretty short. Like George Bush discussing the interwebs. It was amazing, though, to see Babs rise above the material and prove there was no movie she couldn't survive. This is just one more reason R Man is so suspicous of letting me loose on the Netflix queue.

The Return of the Houseboy

You may remember how concerned I was that our houseboy Hubert Rodrigo had vanished after winning the 2007 Stitch and Bitch award from the Bay Area chapter of Creepy Old Queens Seeking Unique Crafts (below, at the COQSUQ awards luncheon.)



Imagine my surprise when we finally tracked him down to discover that he had accidentally become a World Wrestling Federation superstar. Honestly, these boys, you have stay on top of them every single minute.


Anyway, we're all glad to have Hubert back crocheting in the dorm where he belongs. Plus, he's full of the most amazing stories about the WWF, especially the dressing rooms. You just wouldn't believe what goes on there. I am a little worried about the fact that his nipples seem to have become sort of stretched out, but we're working on that.

Joe*2*Lunch

It's only my extreme laziness that has kept me from mentioning that I had lunch on Thursday with joe*2*hell who was visiting here from New York. Joe, it turns out, is devilishly cute, ravishing, and the quintessential New Yorker, talking faster than a cab driver on speed and all the while managing to be amusing and charming. He left me fluttering behind him, gasping in his wake as he revealed his life story, sordid episodes and opinions bam, bam, bam. I loved it, it was the most fun I've had at lunch in ages. Part of the Joe News was that he's fleeing New York City for the more quiet environs of some upstate burg, where he will, no doubt, become the town hussy shortly. I quietly mentioned a parallel I noticed between him and Eva Gabor (if only Miss Gabor had worn a beautifully trimmed beard it would be even more pronounced) and even started singing the theme song from Green Acres, but he seemed unimpressed with my acumen.

Dahlink, I love you
But give me Park Avenooo.

One of the most interesting things about the lunch was the shop talk about writing a blog. http://joetohell.blogspot.com/ If you read both of our blogs, take it for granted that we were talking about YOU.

oh. Mandie.

When we were in Las Vegas, we stayed at the Hilton where Barry Manilow, Mr Music and Passion himself, was playing. To promote his act, the key card for our room had his picture on it, complete with his little monkey face grimacing as he's belting out one of many, many big numbers. When I got back here I found the key card in my wallet and in a moment of misplaced whimsy, propped it up on my desk at work.

Since then several people visiting me have been most struck by it. (I want to mention that when they redecorated our office I adamantly refused a visitors chair for my cube under the mistaken concept that if people couldn't sit down, they wouldn't stick around to bother me. I obviously underestimated the stamina of my co-workers.) Anyway, these visitors keep commenting on it, always in sort of mystified tones. "Is that Barry Manilow?" they ask in disbelief. It's not that these folks are so cool that Little Miss Manilow is beyond them, more, it's that they grasp on some level that I am not, and could never be, a Barry fan. Still, they feel compelled to share their fond, fond memories of the man who brought us Mandie. One of them started humming something. I have no idea what.

I have to get rid of that goddam key card.

Earth Hour 2008

I'm always wiling to sit around in the dark. I like it.