It's Christmas time in the city

Even though I am living in Jew York City, and Fox News reports that there is a war on Christmas going on (seems to be going about as well as that other war, huh fellas?), there's at least one place in NYC where I can always count on Christmas to arrive just after Thanksgiving: My apartment building.

As you come creaking up the wooden steps that sound like the Old West, you are met with a stairwell magically transformed, almost as if by elves who might wear these numerous wee stockings. The stairwell is bedecked in the greatest Christmas finery the dollar store has to offer. One of the more inspired displays years ago featured a MERRY CHRISTMAS greeting at the first landing in foot-high garland letters.



Note the "surprised" raised position of the ears on the center stuffed dog below. Reminds me of the lamb in the stop-motion animated Rankin-Bass Little Drummer Boy Christmas special. During a marching-in-the-woods scene, the lamb somehow magically gets air and hovers with its ears and legs splayed; that never fails to crack me up.



Anyway, I don't think I even need to say this, but the decorations are pretty special.



I don't know where Jesus is now, but if he could see this stairwell, he would probably be pretty happy about his birthday.

Wanna get Flashed?

I just want to let you guys know that the future is now.



Jazz hands!

I can't have anything nice, part 2

When I wake up in my apartment on weekday mornings, my bed is shaking, and I didn't put a quarter in to make that happen. I get it free just by living in a boomtown neighborhood with a shit-ton of simulataneous construction. And yesterday, probably because of this whole lotta shakin', senseless tragedy struck in my own apartment.

While home for Thanksgiving, I watched numerous documentaries on The Science Channel and The Travel Channel. I will pretty much watch any show about the Bermuda Triangle (it was covered on two diff shows on Friday's extended sitting), those field markings that might be from aliens, the giant Peruvian field-drawing thingies that can only be seen from the sky but which were made way before aeroplanes, ancient crystal skulls, Stonehenge, the Loch Ness Monster (again, on two diff shows), ghosts ("Most Haunted"--AWESOME), and so on.

They are really into using re-enactments on these shows, which inspired me to recreate the unfolding of yesterday's unfortunate incident.

NARRATOR: 7:30 am. Colleen's alarm clock radio comes on, tuned to a station playing a tribute to the recently deceased Anita O'Day. It is accompanied by the vibrations of local construction. Only this morning, something is different. The sounds and vibrations are more intense than ever. She hits the snooze button.

7:37 Anita O'Day comes on again. Colleen decides to add some of Ms. O'Day's recordings to her Amazon.com wish list. She again hits snooze.

At 7:51, Anita O'Day comes on again. Colleen continues hitting the snooze button for approximately another half hour. At 8:20, she finally gets up, feeling annoyed about the local construction.

The day proceeds as normal, until approximately 3:00, when she receives an alarming email from her roommate, with the subject line, "Oh no."

Just wanted to warn you:
I came home today to some vintage-bowl carnage. (namely, all  but two of the breakable bowls from the middle stack on the shelf) I'm guessing the giant house-shaking machinery of nearby construction sites had something to do with it.  Sad times. But great excuse to buy more!

I saved the major pieces, anyway, if you want to try to glue them...
Hope you're having a good day otherwise...



NARRATOR: Shocked, Colleen wondered if the building really could have been shaking enough to knock bowls from the shelf. From her office, she tried to imagine the scene that had greeted Hannah back home.



AUDIO CLIP OF COLLEEN: This is one of the vintage causalties, a Fire King bowl, I'm going to guess it's from the '60s or '70s? Fire King was a competitor to Pyrex, and not coincidentally, in Latin "pyrex" means, "fire king." Way to rip off Pyrex, guys. This bowl used to have a twin, which perished in an earlier kitchen accident. No damn wonder no one knows Fire King today, while Pyrex continues to go from oven to microwave to fridge to dishwasher in the new millenium.



NARRATOR: The investigation is still missing testimony from the only possible witness: Gypsy the Cat. When approached for comment, she blearily stared, then went back to sleep. Unless she comes forward ready to shed some light on what she saw, we may never know exactly what happened that day.



NARRATOR: Until then, we are left with the two survivors of this mysterious mishap, and one enduring question: Why?




WRITER/DIRECTOR: Colleen Kane
ACTORS: Colleen Kane, Hannah White
RESEARCH: Hannah White
THANKS FOR NOTHING, AS USUAL: Gypsy the Cat


Behind the scenes:

One year of blogging on the regs

I'm a blogger, you're a blogger, he's a blogger, she's a blogger...

I hate the word "blog;" it embarrasses me. I was reluctant to join in on a phenomenon that can be so navel-gaze boring, or mean-spirited celeb-slamming (in a bottom-feeder attempt to gain one's own blogebrity), or possibly just another online timewaste.

But now I wish I'd started sooner, because I've found a boundless new media. This here bloggery concern has taken the place of my journal, other than for the most personal (BOY) stuff. But unlike with most of my many personal journals and diaries from over the years, here I am in a better place than I was this time last year, due in part to what I've written in this public blog.*

I have an entertaining record of all the year's trips, all linked neatly just over to the left there. At least, uhhh, 10 more people are aware my writing stylez, and some of 'em even seem to dig it. And after an aggravating series of Faux Beaus, I met my awesome official boyfriend through this blog partially due to writing that whereever he is, he should speak up. Our meeting can also be attributed to my gun-toting main photo on myspace that originally led him to this blog, so the lesson is, don't bother with those jerkass books that bank on women's neuroticisims stemming from dudes being jerks; just let rip that (in my case, gun-toting, blogging) freak flag.

Another unexpected development: An old abandoned diner my pals and I found upstate this summer might have been purchased thanks to this particular blog entry. It could be getting rescued right now by a fella who restores diners who found my blog and contacted me about the diner, though I haven't gotten an update from him in awhile, so if you're reading, please give me the scoop. Anyway, once the restored diner is up and running, I'm pretty sure he's going to cut me in on the profits, so look at how much blogging has paid off already in one short year!

And since that bf request worked out so well, let me try something similar. If you are an agent, or someone who wants to give me a book deal, or hire me to freelance for your publication, or talk about crazy online love connections, or what have you, might I respectfully inquire as to what you are waiting for.

...Annnnnd go. cokane at hotmail.

Wouldn't you like to be a blogger, too?

If you would also like to fill up the Internets with your own bloggery, here are some tips that have driven traffic to my site.

It helps to have a nickname that is synonymous with an illicit recreational drug, especially one that's spelled incorrectly, so as to bring in all the folks dumb enough to do an Internet search to find drugs.

Do you have a sexually promiscuous friend? Get her to start a popular blog and link to you.

Got exes/other random creepy people in your past who might google you? They spell readership! I seem to get multiple lurkers who searched for my name reading this blog each week. They'll find your blog and silently follow your adventures. Kinda like moral support, only possibly the opposite...?

Mention less-popular search terms: sexual perversions such as "pee in bodysuit" (the way one German reader found me, although I didn't use the words in that order), obscuro medical procedures like "toe shortening," and C-or D-list celeb names, like "Gunnar Nelson." Oh man, I am gonna get several more hits just for that last sentence. The key is talking about things some people still search for but which wouldn't be talked about by, say, big shots like Perez Hilton.

Really, I don't know, just be awesome and they will come. That's my plan, anyway.





* Oddly enough, though, I made excerpts from my teenage diaries public this year by reading in Mortified, which also benefitted me just through the gratification of getting laffs from a crowd. Even if they were laughing at my childhood traumas, obsessions, and delusions.

Singing (to) the Blues

Um. What follows is a corporate shill doing a shameless reworking of U2's "One" for some kind of Bank of America gathering. Sample lyric: "We'll live out our core values while the competition crawls."



Appalling, yes. But maybe not as bad as I originally feared when I read the title and thought they were going to cover Metallica's "One."

Vermont is for hippies

Vermont is also good for sitting outside and staring.



None of the above was exactly breaking news, on a group trip to a friend's Vermont vacay home this weekend. This was, though: Karin showed us how to call birds to us by making a pshhh-pshhh sound they either find annoying or intriguing.



It was exactly like being Snow White God.

I also learned that if someone in your group encounters a New England mud suction vortex trap, even if the trap's victim was suddenly, shockingly sucked halfway into the ground as if there were superfast quicksand, you shouldn't laugh uncontrollably for like ten minutes solid. It doesn't help matters any.



(I again apologize to the muddied victim.)

cokane + MetalSludge = true &hearts 4-evr

Scratch that last posting, Internet; you are very interesting today. Remember the mysterious photo shoot I went on a few weeks back?

The subject of the shoot was the dress-wearing WWE wrestler Vito. Just now I Googled to see if the article I'd been interviewed for that day was up the WWE website, because wouldn't that be fun to share if I was on the WWE website? It ran two weeks ago, and is already gone, but you can read it here. The story was also picked up by a bunch of wrestling websites, like this and this and this.

Not all that surprisingly, some of the comments accompanying these stories...uh, let's just say some people wrote before they thought. Or read. Or they are lacking reading comprehension skills. Not to mention that the idea of a dress-wearing wrestler posing nearly nude in a magazine dedicated to showcasing naked male form seems to make these men a bit uncomft.

But I am most honored that because of all this, my name has made an appearance on the formidable MetalSludge.com. MetalSludge is a metal news/gossip site that infamously features reports from groupies on many rockers' endowments and (offstage) performances. It also features awesomely bitchy commentary on matters like the decline of Warrant's Jani Lane (you must follow this link, if no others in the posting, it's that good/tragic and other such, well, addictive metal sludge.



It's an awesomely metal ending to a slow work day. Yessss!

Attention Internet:

You are boring on Friday afternoons. Email and MySpace are deadsville. I'm hardly getting any friend requests on MySpace from young women who sell their handmade little felt pouches with darling birdie designs on them, knitted and crocheted items with pirate/devil/flame motifs, and so forth.



Note: These aren't felt pouches, but do have the birdie design, and were on the home page of literally the first crafty-girl website I went to to find a photo. As was some sort of craft that looked like a swallow. If you haven't gotten the memo, pretty much just slap a cute animal on anything and you'll be good. Furthermore, I have the following shocking bulletins: KNITTING ISN'T JUST FOR GRANNIES ANYMORE! CRAFTING IS COOL! BURLESQUE IS ALSO BACK IN FASHION!

Back to the subject at hand: dead-Internet Fridays. I haven't even gotten my typical 15 spams from Bebo today.

Come on, Internets; it's Friday, I need the day to go fast so the weekend will be here and I can go to Vermont. This is when I need you the most!

OK folks, see you on Monday with some maple-flavored Blogging Gold.

Acapulco: I'm bringing Mexi back

Oh yes I di-id just make that pun. So I went on another press trip to Mexico, this time to sunny Acapulco. It was f-in' sweet.



Our resort, Las Brisas, was right up my alley, midcentury-girlie-cuteness style. The 50-year-old resort is all done in pink and white and labeled whereever necessary with a darling round '50s script font.



Las Brisas consists of numerous bungalows on the hills overlooking Acapulco Bay, and nearly every one has its own pool. My casita was luxuriously spacious, but definitely intended for two. I was basically in a honeymoon suite sans honey, just the moon.



Still, can't complain. (Though someone else on the trip found a way to complain about most everything, which as always was awesome.)

Acapulco's main strip of activity was not my cup of tea. (Can you still call it honky-tonk when honkies aren't the natives? Honkies were certainly in abundance there, anyway.) It features such exotic attractions as El Rey del Hamburguesas, Los Estarbucks, y Manzana-bees.



However, just beyond that in the downtown, stuff for the real Mexicans is sold (as are certain legalized services from female and male providers). You can find merchandise like Uruapan, which apparently means, "a muscular pig who is so eager to be eaten that he marinades himself."



Of course, this area was way more fascinating and picturesque, but slumming wasn't really part of our tour skedj, so we only got a few tantalizing peeks.





I love that we experienced the swankiest properties and restaurants, but also brushed with the less seemly stuff. Three of us who became buds on the trip were taken to a club by a young restauranteur whose mother is a prominent figure in Acapulco society (and an all-around amazing, accomplished woman), and in addition to a chauffeur driving us, we had a silent goon stationed in the back, presumably making sure our man wasn't kidnapped. Awesome!

Like our host that night, all the Mexican people I encountered were just so sweet and friendly. And I guess they don't even mind when there are souvenirs all over the place like this:



Yep, a wee sombrero with a little bottle of Mezcal on it. (Not to mention the ever-present image of the oh-so-tired Mexican under the sombrero with the poncho taking a siesta against the cactus.) This seems about the equivalent of selling a tiny Paddy cap with a pony bottle of whiskey, or...well, let's not even take that analogy much further.

And just what in the name of the Lord is this.



You cannot tell me the religion I was raised in is not creepily morbid to the max. It's no damn wonder I turned to horror movies. Speaking of horror:



One of the best group events was our yacht ride to watch cliff diving, though three less hardy souls couldn't handle the choppy waters and we turned back early--ARRRR.



The diving scene totally reminded me of that Woody Woodpecker cartoon where they're going over Niagara falls in barrels and the specators are going, HOORAAAAAY!

The other highlight was when our grand dame society lady took us on boat rides through the Lagoon of Tres Palos, in waterway paths through mangroves where we saw herons and endangered pelicans and dessert-scented lotus lily-pad flowers and all kinds of real stuff. Not to mention the true Mexican food we got afterward at the lagoon-side eatery--picaditas and fried bananas con sweet crema for me, as well as pescadillas, spicy shrimp soup and red snapper for the others. I majorly chilled in a hammock, and everything was a photo op.



This poor guy could've used some of that food we'd stuffed in our maws.



That is some National Geographic shit right there. Not pictured: previous photo, where he appears to be sporting a woody. It's good to know that he still has himself a good time.

And then, of course, there were the addictive snacks. Just as here in America-land, food mascots in Mexico seem to be growing increasingly more urgent and manic and EXTREME until they are almost punching you in the face.



This delicious example IS trying to punch you in the face.



And they're all flavored with delicious chile, cheese, and lime, so I stockpiled. Doritos come in Pizzerola, Diabalo, and what looks like Rolling Stone flavor but is actually Salsa Verde.



Back in Brooklyn, my cab dropped me at the corner, I got honked at while struggling perhaps a second too long with my six bags and parcels. Inside, my small bedroom became an instant mess as I unpacked the bags, and as it rained I could hear bits of my ceiling and wall crumbling and falling inside the walls, but also occupying some of the real estate was my sizeable bf, and everything was back to normal.

Creepiest MySpace message evs?

From:
Belle La Femme

http://www.myspace.com/bellelafemmeband

Date:
Nov 10 2006 2:46 AM

Flag spam/abuse [ ? ]

Subject:
Don't be shy...

Body:
I am a camera.
Click.Click.Click.Click.Clik.Click.Click.Click.
Click.Click.Click.Click.Clik.Click.Click.Click.
Click.Click.Click.Click.Clik.Click.Click.Click.
Click.Click.Click.Click.Clik.Click.Click.Click.

you are mine.

-BLF18640


Profile has already been deleted. Thanks for regulating, MySpace Tom, whoever you are (I don't care who you really are, oh corporate market research team of Rupert Murdoch, speaking of creepy).

A rapidamente review of Trail of the Dead at Irving Plaza

Hola amigos. I just got back last evening from a very busy press trip to sunny ¡Acapulco! [report forthcoming, natch], whereupon I was whisked away to a ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead show by my old man (I mean my bf, not my dad. I'm pretty sure BK is not into Trail of the Dead; well, maybe their early stuff). I hadn't been exposed much to these young laddies, but they obvs have the best band name ever, so even though my tired ass had to be propped up Weekend at Bernie's style, I had to hand it to these young lads. A stonerly rocking good job, Mick Mars Junior all hunched facing the speaker, gangly Thurston Moore Junior, and rafters-climbing Eddie Vedder Junior, whatever your real names are (I don't care what they are).

College! Woo!

The BF is applying to grad schools and we went to check out Harvard's program. Being there brought on some Jersey mouse vs. fancypants mouse feelings in me. Like, I hope amidst the old boys network who grew up on yachts and caviar and what have you, I don't accidentally mention vibrators or something declasse and then the needle will rip off the classical record and raised pinkies with teacups will halt in mid air and dignified eyes will look disapprovingly through monacles and my jig will be up.

That's why I took extra delight in this defaced help-phone box on the storied Harvard campus.



Aw yeah.

YESSSS!

I just got a MySpace friend request from a profile called "MTV CASTING," which claims:

HELLO! New York - MTV is currently auditioning girls with strong vocals who appear to be 18 to 24 years old for lead in new scripted series. If you are edgy, offbeat and can SING, and you'd like to audition for the role of the burgeoning rock star, send an email with a picture attached. If possible, include an audio clip

And claims to be looking to meet:

GIRLS WHO ARE VOCALLY TALENTED AND APPEAR TO BE 18-24 YEARS OLD.

Wow, MTV Casting...18-24? Really?
Oh, YOU!
START!
...or maybe it was ecs they were looking at in my main photo...nah. It was me.