Lady Mags

I have a love/hate relationship with women's magazines.

I love how thick and glossy they are, filling my mailbox with the intoxicating scent of perfume and the promise of a lazy afternoon spent looking at candy-colored baubles and the freakishly static, almost meditative planes of Nicole Kidman's face.

But I hate how lazy and vapid they are, assuming that women don't appreciate real wit or sarcasm, pretending that we don't notice that they just publish the same fucking "Easy Summer Beauty" or "The No-Diet Diet" articles every single issue with different pictures, and assuming that if they run a single photo of a real woman or plus-sized model that it undoes all of the subtle "hate your body" messages they've been sending for decades.

Sometimes, though, they go beyond insulting.

To borrow a phrase from Tropic Thunder, sometimes they go full retard.

Allure, for example, features "insider's guides" in each issue that offer fashion, beauty, and social advice from experts. They mean well, but if you just read the headlines it's hilarious.

I took the liberty of imagining a literal explanation of one of this month's entries...

How To Wear A White Shirt
(adapted from the June 2010 Allure)
1. Go to closet; open it.
2. Pick out a shirt (the item of clothing with no legs that isn't long enough to cover your ass) that is not red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, black, brown, pink, or any of the aforementioned colors in pastel. Also avoid prints. Pick something the color of clouds, only not rain clouds… or sunset-reflecting clouds. Hmm, that could get confusing. Ok, pick something the color of fresh fallen snow that has not been peed on.
3. Does the shirt button up the front? In that case put your arms in the holes and then fasten all the buttons. If there are no buttons, stick your head in the top hole and your arms in the side holes and pull the front down over your chest and stomach.
4. Oh, wait, do you have breasts? If so, reverse step 3 and put on a bra first. Since your shirt is white, your bra must be that fetching shade of beige that recalls a two day-old Band-Aid, or leftover flan, in order not to show through.
5. Ta da! You’re done. Except for pants, which will be discussed in next month’s issue.

I loathe the bus...

I miss the days when bus drivers were actually allowed to talk. Most of the time they were boring, just announcing the stops in monotonous voices that sounded not unlike the grown-ups in Peanuts, had they lost the will to live. But sometimes, magic happened.

Like this one time, during rush hour, when my bus driver growled, "Next stop... hell!" (At least he was being honest.)

And I'll never forget the time my female driver said, sighing, "To the two men giving each other a hand jobs, we can see you. We can ALL SEE YOU."
Now we just have automated, voices with flat, regionless accents that jabber incessantly between stops. One recording warns passengers to "protect yourself," and every single time I finish the sentence in my head "... before you wreck yo self." (Those automated voices should totally rap.)

There's also the transit tunnel buzzkill robot who basically tells us that the crumpled Subway wrapper on the floor beneath the sleeping homeless man, next to the cup of either pee or Mountain Dew, is probably rigged to explode.

And then there's this one: “If you see an elderly, pregnant, or handicapped person near you, offer your seat. You’ll be standing up for what’s right (pun intended). Courtesy is contagious, and it starts with you.”

Look, I have nothing against the elderly, pregnant, or handicapped. I'll stand up for what's old, or fat, or blind. But courtesy is not contagious, no matter how much you pun. What's contagious is the hacking cough of the man leaning against the pole (DUDE. THAT IS NOT. YOUR. POLE.) ...or the glances of relief when the very vocal insane person decides to stop arguing with the Metro Driver of the Year poster and exits the bus... or, surely, the bench being used by the two men giving each other hand jobs at the back of the bus….

Lost

I love Lost.

Last week, I actually wept watching it--and I don't even cry at funerals. (I know; I'm a terrible person.)

Anyway, as anyone who’s been following Lost knows, the final season has been set up as a kind of good versus evil spiritual showdown between two characters I could not care much less about: Jacob (the goody-goody, who looks perpetually stoned, like a middle-aged Jeff Spicoli) and The Man in Black, who is NOT, cruelly, played by Tommy Lee Jones and who is apparently going to destroy the world as we know it. When not in human form, he basically looks like that Icelandic cloud of volcanic ash that’s been fucking up air travel for the past few weeks. When the show ends I guess he’ll go back to following Pig Pen around.

While I know that the ultimate battle between good and evil forms the basis for many pop-culture pairings (I’m speaking, of course, of duos like Garfield and Nermyl, Amanda Woodward and Allison Parker, and Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan and Krystle Carrington), I’m left kind of cold by this story arc. Don’t get me wrong—I’m still totally obsessed. It’s just that if the entire basis of Lost turns out to be Radio Raheem’s monologue from Do The Right Thing, I am going to be pissed.



“Lost,” though, I will grant, is a much better title than “The Story of Right Hand, Left Hand.” (Ahhhh! Which brings us to Mr. Hand, Jeff Spicoli's history teacher nemesis! I love it when my blogs come full circle. Also, judging from yesterday's and today's posts, I think I need to Netflix Fast Times at Ridgemont High.)

I Pity the Fool

I've always kind of hated April Fool's Day. I mean, if you can come up with a really good prank that's cool, but most people just use it as an excuse to lie.

Like, telling your boyfriend "I'm pregnant," waiting for the look of horror on his face, and then being all, "April Fool's!" is not an April Fool's joke.
I'm pretty bad at April Fool's jokes. The only good one I ever pulled off was in 2005, when a guy I was seeing foolishly gave me his email password (which was, awesomely, 80085... get it? Try typing it into a calculator) to check something for him while he was stranded somewhere computerless. I abused my powers by firing off an email to his family telling them that he couldn't hide it anymore, that he simply loved the work of Anne Geddes (The guy I was dating was a photographer and he hated Anne Geddes. If you showed him a baby dressed as a pea pod he might drop-kick it.) That was a pretty sweet moment for me, and one that I have never bested.

Happy April Fool's Day, though!

P.S. I'm really a man.

Faux Boyfriend of the Week

The fact is that I’m having a hard time picking hot new dudes and am tempted to start recycling them – kind of like my past boyfriends.

Let’s be honest, it’s pretty sad when some of the actors from the Harry Potter movies start looking like good options. And I’m not talking about Ralph Fiennes or Gary Oldman, I’m talking about Rupert Grint. Yeah, I know, disturbing. I’ll admit to having spent some time looking for hot photos of the kids. I’ll also admit to thinking he’s doable. Sure, he’s 14 years younger than I am, but who cares? He’s 21 and as far as I’m concerned, that’s old enough for me.

That’s when it occurred to me that I was limiting myself to TV and movie stars. There’s a whole world of hot and sexy athletes that I haven’t explored (literally and figuratively).

So, my dear tens of readers, this week I present you with hot British Baller, Michael Owen.

Here’s what I can tell you about him, he’s British, he’s hot, and he likes to play the soccer. That’s good enough for me!

Peen as a Weapeen

I just read the most hilarious news article on BBC News. According to a report coming out of Scotland, a man was fined for assaulting a female officer with his peen.

His girlfriend called the cops on him when he was all hammered and belligerent. When the cops got there, he was sitting on the couch in his man-panties. It’s unclear how it all happened, but he ended up standing over the female cop and trying to slap the officer in the face with his dick.

Many of us know this as “foreplay”.

I'm a Risk Taker!

Fuck jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or off a bridge. Forget being set up on a blind date or driving without a seat belt. I’m doing something that would make my mamacita proud.

In fact, I think she’ll cry when I tell her about it later today.

What’s the big risk I’m taking? I’m eating peanut butter that expired 6 months ago. That’s right! I’m living on the fucking edge!! I’m staring food poisoning right in the face and saying, “Fuck you, food poisoning. Fuck you in your stupid ass.”

There’s nothing wrong with the peanut butter, it’s fine. In fact, I had some yesterday too and I didn’t get sick. I’m not scared of a stupid little expiration date. It’s not like it’s dairy products or condoms.

Speaking of condoms, I threw out 8 perfectly good ones yesterday morning. I should have known when I bought them that it would all go to shit and they’d end up in the garbage. You see, fine readers, condoms and I have a tumultuous relationship. I buy a 3 pack and things go grand. The second I buy a 12 pack everything goes up in flames and 9 end up in my bedside drawer mocking me for years.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to this expired peanut butter.