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Fri, July 28
Dear Lex,
Do you ever notice that when your parents use email, they somehow forget how to spell and use Capital letters when necessary? Its like, once they've embarked on the information super highway, all hell breaks loose. Punctuation? Who needs it? Commas? Pshhah!
Worse, sometimes, parents try to be cute on email. A sample email sent from my mom to me, this morning in anticipation of my homecoming tonight:
I bought Tostitos with Lime for us tonite to drink with cold Penot Gregia.
Daddy will grill hamburgers to perfection while I simmer the onions to put them in a warmed bun. Fresh corn from the garden will accompany the meal along with Heirloom tomatoes served with a delicate vinegrette.
OK with you?
Posted by lexzog at Fri, July 28 | Comments (0)
Wed, July 26
Photographic Evidence: The Bachelorette Weekend!
See? This is the man in the white pants with the prostitutes on either side of him.
And this is the picture that was taken right before the woman on the left tried to bite Amy's nipple.
S.in her bachelorette wear.
Seconds after she mounted the bull. Seconds before she was catapulted off.
Posted by lexzog at Wed, July 26 | Comments (0)
Tue, July 25
Remember "Barely Breathing?"
Duncan Sheik wrote the music for this amazing play I had the pleasure of seeing last night. Sex! Puberty! Repressive 19th century Germany! This is a play you MUST catch before it goes all Broadway on us Spring Awakening at the Atlantic Theatre. The music is incredible. Lea Michele (who plays Wendla) is a vision with a powerful voice and the school girl/school boy costumes are sure to inspire the runways this Fall. Well, maybe....The girl who plays "Ilse" (Lauren Pritchard)rivals Joss Stone with her voice. The musical gave me the feeling of watching a really excellent, passionate rock concert.
Posted by lexzog at Tue, July 25 | Comments (0)
Mon, July 24
Nigerian Email Chain
Have you ever heard of those nigerian email spam scams? My friend Dave is currently having an amazing time emailing back and forth with one of them. Enjoy! Read the original email, then his response following that.
From: aisha_konnee9@yahoo.co.jp [mailto:aisha_konnee9@yahoo.co.jp]
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:55 AM
To: aisha_konnee9@yahoo.co.jp
Subject: urgent request
From Miss Aisha Kone
ABIDJAN COTE D IVOIRE
WEST AFRICA
Dear Respectfull one
Good day to you,I have a proposal for you-this however is not mandatory nor will I in any manner compel you to honour against your will,i am happy to request for your assistance and also to go into business partnership with you, i believe that you will not betaryed my trust which i am going to lay on you.
I am Miss Aisha Kone ,21 years old and the only daughter of my late parents MR.and MRS MUSTAPHA KONE. My father was a highly reputable business magnet-(a cocoa merchant)who operated in the capital of Ivory coast during his days.
It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in France during one of his business trips abroad year 12th.Febuary 2004.Though his sudden death was linked or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an uncle of his who travelled with him at that time.But God knows the truth! My mother died when I was just 4 years old, and since then my father took me so special. Before his death on Febuary 12th 2004 he called the secretary who accompanied him to the hospital and told him that he has the sum of Ten Million United State Dollars.(USD$10 000 000) left in a security company in a mettalic trunk box, but the security company didn't know the content because it was registered as family valuables personal for security reasons.
I am just 21 years old and a university undergraduate and really don't know what to do. This is because I have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of incessant political crisis here in Ivory coast. The death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life. please,I am in a sincere desire of your humble assistance in this regards.Your suggestions and ideas will be highly regarded. Now permit me to ask these few questions:-
1. Can I completely trust you?
2. What percentage of the total amount in question will be good for you?
Please consider this and get back to me as soon as possible.
Thank you so much.
My sincere regards,
Miss Aisha Kone.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David W
To: aisha_konnee9@yahoo.co.jp
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:15:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: RE: urgent request
Dear Miss Aisha Kone,
What a pleasureful delight to be receiving your correspondence via the electronic informational superhighway! It puts much happiness into my chest cavity, and I am gleeful with excitement. Perhaps I shall drink many bottles of wine as I drive home from my edifice of employment this evening.
Please be assured that you can lay any amount of trust on me, and I will not betray it, even one miniscule iota. Unless you want me to, if you are knowing what I am meaning. Oh no! Please do not misundertake me. I am making joke for laughters.
I am deepeningly saddening at news of the loss of your father. I remember him in great amounts of fondness. I recall meeting him at the 2002 Nigerian email conference, during which he confided his secrecy in me regarding thes amounts of moneys. I remember your uncle as well, and his multiple attempts to seduce me with promises of tiger's milk and soybean futures.
I am sorry for the many sorrows in your life. I would recommend, as you are a university student, that you engage in many self-destructive behaviors, including substance abuse and making loves with numerous mens and womens. They will bring you pleasures and joys greater than anything that may be found in metallic trunks.
Regarding the magazines of this dollar amount, I would like to be helpful, but i am currently very busy in my current businessed identity as the CEO of a multinational baked goods provision agency, and additionally limited due to my legal status of probation due to an unfortunate incident during which I wandered naked through the premises of a debutante ball for the daughter of the Beninese Prime Minister. I would greatly appreciate any assistance that you can offer to me in my current state of hard copy.
1. You can trust me. completely. Forever. I will eat cats for you.
2. I would like one million percent of all of the amounts in all of the questions.
Aisha, if this transaction is completed, I would ask that you join me in American States and take my hand as bride. I will bring you both happiness and many baked goods.
I love you.
Posted by lexzog at Mon, July 24 | Comments (0)
Sun, July 23
My Friends Do Cool Things
Below, and article about my friend Gillian Klempner's documentary film and bicycle tour.----------
Around the World on a Bicycle
More than a hundred years ago, 23-year-old Annie Kopchovsky traded in her flowing skirt for a pair of bloomers and set out to make history as the first woman to bike around the world.
The New York World called it “the most extraordinary trip ever undertaken by a woman.”
Now two Washington women are setting out to tell her story and reenact her journey.
In August, Gillian Klempner, 25, and Meghan Shea, 24, will don bloomers, climb on their bikes, and re-create part of the tour to raise money for their documentary film, The New Woman: Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky, based on a manuscript by Peter Zheutlin.
“We feel like if she could do it at a time when women weren’t even supposed to have aspirations, nothing should be stopping us now,” says Klempner, a documentary filmmaker who lives in DC’s Mount Pleasant.
For the last year, she and Shea, a GWU graduate student in interior design, have spent every free moment in pursuit of their dream. Now they have to raise some serious funds.
So they will pedal from Boston to New York City, collecting sponsorships along the way just as Kopchovsky did.
For a couple of hundred dollars, corporate backers can get their logos on the duo’s jerseys. Those with deeper pockets can buy an ad on the pair’s U-Haul, and if the price is right, Klempner and Shea would be willing to adopt a sponsor’s name—just like Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky took on the name of the Londonderry Lithia Water Company.
Klempner, Shea, and the rest of Team Londonderry will begin their ride August 12 in Boston and cycle to Manhattan, where they have reservations seven days later to party like it’s 1894.
—Jessica Gould
Posted by lexzog at Sun, July 23 | Comments (0)
Never a Bride
Another weekend another wedding/bridal shower/bachelorette party. This weekend was two out of three.
Erica and I met after work at Grand Central and took the stinky train to Norwich, CT. I wore my baby doll Free People shirt, and was encouraged by Erica to wear a belt with it. Typically she'll make me wear things that make me look stupid so she can get a little giggle out of it, so I felt somewhat skeptical when she pushed me to add the belt. Though, no one kicked me out of the shower so hopefully I didn't end up looking like Eloise like I feared.
We felt a little out of place with all the Connecticut gals at the bridal shower. First of all, we were the only ones without diamond rings on our left fingers. Second, we weren't blonde. Occasionally someone would ask us, "How do you know S. (the bride to be)?" and we would tell her we met her at our old job. "ohhh. So you're the New York friends," they'd conclude. We'd nod, they'd turn back to their conversations, and that's about the extent to which we got to know her friends from home over the weekend.
We played bridal shower bingo and had to guess what kind of gifts S. would receive that night. I won a bag with Bath n' Body works goodies. Everyone told stories about S. getting drunk at one time or another, most of them ending with S. walking home on the streets without her shoes on. S's little sister spent most of the night pouting because it was her birthday and all we could do was celebrate her sister's bridal shower. Thankfully there was a birthday cake for her. She's twenty-five.
S.'s aunts were the coolest and the best part of the night was hanging with them and S. after the party was done, eating Ruffles and dip. Her aunt Ilene took us to her house to see the baby kittens she recently got and I fell in love with black cats for the first time (once you go black you never go...I know, cheap shot.)
That night I woke up to the phone in S.'s Grandma's house ringing and ringing. It was S'.s sister trying to get let into the house at three in the morning. I wasn't feeling too good but chalked it up to too many brownies and chips. I ended up puking my brains out (definitely not from drinking, I'd only had two glasses of wine the whole night.) I found out the next day that half the party got sick too, so it wasn't just me.
Erica and I got driven to her parent's house outside of Boston. I basically napped and snacked and recovered.
At seven we headed back to Boston to meet the bachelorette crew at S.'s house before the Party Bus showed up. Yes, we had a Party Bus and a bus driver named Jay Jay. He took head counts of us every time we boarded the bus. It was like a school trip, but with alcohol and karaoke. Each of us was ordered to wear a "slogan" T-shirt as in "Idaho? No, You Da Ho" and the like. We walked into Whiskey Bar and watched the horde of overweight thirty somethings in button down short sleeves slowly take over the bar. We were pretty much surrounded by a wall of men figuring out how they'd penetrate the inner bachelorette circle. It was pretty amusing. One guy came up to our table to ask S. if she was getting married and if she'd thought about what she was planning to do:
"Hey, you're here to celebrate your wedding and I'm hear tonight to celebrate my divorce. I bet you wouldn't believe I was married fifteen years. What a mistake! Why are you getting married, you look so young anyway?"
S.'s friend Amy chimed in, "Well, you know, she's pregnant, so she had not choice. Here, S. take a swig of this martini you know, for the cramps."
The guy looked at her in disbelief and asked how far along S. was. "Two months!" she shouted gleefully, before downing some beer.
There was this one faaaaat guy there wearing super tight white pants. He had two sluttily dressed ladies with him that were each rubbing his legs. "Does this guy make a lot of money you think?" Erica asked me. One of the slutty ladies put a table candle between his legs as if he needed more attention drawn to his crotch. One of the gals straddled his leg, at which point, Amy decided it was the perfect photo Op. She jumped onto the man's lap and posed for all our cameras. Then, unexpectedly, one of the sluts leaned in and started to bite Amy's boob! Amy jumped up, horrified. We told her to go get an STD test since technically, she got to second base with a prostitute.
Ahhh. Good times. We boarded the Party Bus to the next locale: Liquor Store. I always wanted to see a bar with a mechanical bull and this was my big day. There was a huge ring around the bullring and women were clamoring to ride. S. lasted about two seconds, but we gave her big props for attempting.
On the dance floor we danced carefully. That means, we had to remain alert to all the guys that would slyly sidle up to us and stand there as if when we turned around, and noticed them, we'd immediately want to start dirty dancing with them. I know the dancing-with-my-friend-pretending-we're-lesbians move is so high school, but it still works! Just when we were having a pretty darn good time dancing to "Margheritaville", one of the bachelorettes started shaking her beer for emphasis, sprayed it all over everyone and then threw the beer at S.! S. tumbled to the floor, which drew attention to our group even more, and low and behold...WE GOT KICKED OUT OF A BAR.
Since no one had thought to eat anything the whole night, it was time to stop for pizza. We ate greasy pizza in a corner of the alley by the bars and the girls called out to passersbys random names to see if any of them would turn around, "Hey Joe! Yo Liz! John!" Erica, CK and I cowered in a corner away from that mess...
On the Party Bus on the way home, however, S.'s friends told us some pretty funny stories, so all in all, it was a pretty fun night. I heard the best shit story ever involving a long train ride, diarrhea, and a banana peel.
Erica and I got to sleep four whole hours before we woke up at six and jumped in a cab to take the Peter Pan bus to NYC. I am dog tired. But I will go do some downward dog in an hour or two--yoga will hopefully repair some of the damage done...
Posted by lexzog at Sun, July 23 | Comments (0)
Wed, July 12
And the Show Went On!
Ok guys, this might be that lucky lucky time that the taping of the show actually WORKED! Once I have it I will find some way to link it here so if you missed the big show you can watch it.
I had a really nice turn out last night, especially for a super muggy summer night. Every seat in the venue was occupied, and things almost went perfectly until after the third performer when I realized that Jessy Delfino WAS MISSING! I called her and she was like, "oh shit", and ran on over. I was so happy to see she got in the spirit and wore a bonifide prom dress complete with side ponytail up do.
jessydelfino.blogspot.com
Thankfully, until she got there, ThisisJoshua held down the fort and did a NEW SONG about the World Cup that we all loved. I called him back at the end for the crowd favorite, "NYU Girls".
thisisjoshua.com
Susie did an amazing job reading for the first time. Favorite quote: "I ran around in a field hockey kilt and pretended I liked the bitchy cokeheads on my team."
Julie killed it with her reminiscing about a crush who won her heart in 5th grade when the teacher asked what the class would do if they were stranded on a desert island and her crush answered, "Kill and eat Julie K." This was her best show ever.
Download file
Elon rawked. The evil grandma bit got laughs each time she was mentioned. Em told me Elon's been practicing projecting his voice his entire life and it shows.
Download file
Emily herself has such great dead pan delivery. The punchline of her piece was so surprising to everyone in the audience and she carefully set it up so that the entire time you're thinking its going to go one place, but the piece ends up in another place.
Download file
Raquel is always a crowd favorite. She gets up there and people start laughing. The piece is so much different when read aloud in Raquel's funny voices:
Download file
And finally mine:
Download file
As usual, afterward a bunch of us went out to celebrate. We had a huge table for 12 at Lil' Frankies and drank wine and ate pizza. I feel so blessed to have such talented people who make this show so great, and such good friends who come and support it.
Everyone loved Dan's invites.
The other night I was walking with Dena after dinner, and for the first time in forever I actively sought out dessert. Women tend to not buy dessert for themselves--it is strictly something they eat when it appears in front of them, say, in the office, or when a boyfriend orders it. Or, in the secrecy of a table in the back of a restaurant with a good friend. You see, that way, the calories don't count.
But this time, I had a craving and I read somewhere that you should never deny cravings because they'll just build and build until you eat like, an entire Entemmans. So...I went to three different delis looking for these Viennese wafers my Grandma used to bring to our house, Manner Schnitten they're called. I found it at the third deli, and was so excited, I tore into the package. I felt like Proust with his Madeleines. All the memories came rushing back, the times with Grandma, drinking tea with her after school. I was so entranced, that I didn't even hear the homeless man in a wheel chair who was sitting outside the deli crudely ask for some money from me. I put the chocolately wafer in my mouth, when I heard loud and clear:
"Miss, you better watch out with those sweets. You're gonna get FAT!"
I was horrified. Basically this guy who doesn't even have TEETH was giving ME diet advice. I suddenly wasn't hungry anymore. I tossed my treat into the nearest garbage can and tried to listen to Dena when she told me he's just trying to get my goat. Oh, and then I flipped him off. Well, the bum succeeded in hurting my feelings and in hindsight I wish I'd gone back and taunted him with the food he didn't even have the option of eating (so hah!). That's the last time I buy chocolate for myself. I'm going back to the back of the restaurant dessert ordering. And will continue to not feed the homeless. Hmph.
Posted by lexzog at Wed, July 12 | Comments (0)
Wed, July 5
Why You Should Always Bring Your Own
This weekend I was hanging out at Rockaway in what we call "The MTV Beach House" i.e. J's cousin's place right by the beach. I had just come out of the shower, and my contacts were feeling dry. "Ah! A bottle of Renu saline." I said to myself. "Oh, not much left. I should probably use the bigger bottle of saline right next to it." I tilted my head back and unleashed what was supposed to be a refreshing stream of solution.
HOLY MOTHER OF #$*&@)!">?. It burns! It burns!
With one eye open and the other eye dripping with acid, I turned the bottle around. Can you guess what was hand written along the side of the bottle in fading black marker?
"Rubbing Alcohol."
I washed my eye out with water for ten minutes and screamed for J to pick me up some emergency eye wash. I walked around with a very red eye, that had swollen halfway shut for the rest of the night.
For the rest of the weekend I endured cheap jokes involving my new "lazy eye." Like when I'd be talking to someone, they'd deadpan: "Hey Alexis! I'm over here!"
Why the rubbing alcohol was kept in a squeeze bottle container that is shaped exactly like a saline container beats me. But I am the only person so far who has made that mistake, so shame on me.
Eye is better now. Cornea is healing.
Posted by lexzog at Wed, July 5 | Comments (0)