Funny Strange....

Unless You're Over Thirty, This Probably Won't Freak You Out.

I totally don’t want to go off on one of those “in my day things were different” rants, because of course, everybody thinks that, and frankly, I feel the EXACT same as I always have, like in my mind I'm still in high school, only I have a job and more stuff.   So really, the only way I even know I'm getting older is because time is passing and my friends' kids are turning into actual, coherent human beings who can take phone messages and have conversations about global warming. So, I don't usually indulge in that kind of "in my day Saturday Night Live was better, and people didn't talk so loud on their cellphones, and   music had meaning," rhetoric, because really, where's that going to get us? 

But, ok….I noticed something the other day, and I just can't keep quiet about it.  I guess I started thinking about this after reading this hilarious post about how the game Candyland has changed since we were young.  I was in the grocery store over the weekend—have you noticed that the packaging for breakfast cereal has gotten really scary since we were kids? I’m not just talking about “oh, that Captain Crunch has gotten a little more sinister looking.”

I’m talking, friends, about this:

Is it just me, or does this squirrel look not only like he’s eaten far too much of the sugary breakfast cereal he’s advertising, but also like he’s tweaking on meth?

And, what about Lucky the Leprachaun? For the record, I was one of those kids whose mom wouldn’t let them eat sugary cereal, so I never even had Lucky Charms until college. But, when I did have them, I’m 99% sure that Lucky did not look like this:

 
Jesus Christ! What happened to Lucky? Did he always look like a 3-D rave partyboy dancing in a club?

   I don't think so.  And, what are all those new charms?  Has the cynicism of this modern age even managed to permeate our breakfast cereal?   

To answer your next question, no—I was not high when I started wondering these things. I haven’t been high since the nineties, dude. Can you imagine how weird my mind would be if I did?   Maybe I was off on a nostalgia tangent because we were in my hometown over the weekend, and maybe while I was there I started thinking about how very long it's been since Lucky Charms even occurred to me.   Maybe this is due to the fact that on Saturday, we were eating in a pizza place, and randomly started talking to this kid who worked there, and during the conversation Stephan said "oh, my wife's from here," and maybe then the kid said "What year'd you graduate?"  And maybe I said "Oh, a long time ago....we probably don't know any of the same people."

And maybe then Pizza Kid said "Oh, come on-- what year?  I KNOW ALOT OF OLDER PEOPLE."
 

Do This: The O.J. Simpson Murder Mystery Tour

Not even a joke—someone stopped me on the street in Santa Monica the other day (maybe it was two weeks ago, before I got the Zombie Death Flu(, specifically to ask me if I could tell them how to get to Brentwood, so they could see “the O.J. Simpson house.”  Maybe there is renewed interest in this because O.J. Simpson's NEW girlfriend (the one who looks creepily like Nicole Brown Simpson) is now in the hospital, after being beaten within an inch of her life (O.J. says she fell, but I'm going to let you draw your own conclusions).  Of course, I'm not even going to comment on the Darwinian aspect of being the girl who looks like the dead wife of a guy who probably killed her, and who goes ahead and moves in with him anyway.  That is another story, and THIS story is about you and your trip to Brentwood.

I don’t know why I have this much information floating around in my head about this subject, but I did make it a point to tell them several interesting trivial things and their locations, which I will share with you now. If you already live in L.A.and/ or you don’t care about this, maybe now is the time to go back and read another in my hilarious collection of blog posts, like this one, about story songs.

I guess if you were going to start a tour called “The O.J. Simpson Murder Tour,” you’d have to start it by flying into LAX, renting a car, and driving on up the 405 freeway going north, where you would turn off on Wilshire going west, then turn right on Barrington, where you might then want to park your car in one of the copious overpriced lots, then have Pinkberry. You might also want to try hanging out at the Starbucks on the corner of Barrington and San Vicente, because this is a good place to see people like Ben Affleck and the guy from Napoleon Dynamite.

Be sure to schedule your flight to get in during the morning or at night, though, or you're going to have to do this first:

 







There’s not really a lot left that was originally there in 1994 when the double-murders occurred, but you can certainly take a couple of hours, drive around up there, and get a sense of the place, and perhaps try to imagine yourself in a white Bronco, running from the law with a knife in your car and a duffel bag full of bloody black clothes (was that out loud?) The original Nicole Brown Simpson condo used to be at 875 S. Bundy, which is around the intersection of Bundy and Dorothy (South of Montana). The address is now 879 S. Bundy, and here is a picture of the gate.

 

 

First, though, you would want to go and have dinner at the Peet’s Coffee, which is what they turned Mezzaluna into. Apparently after the murder and the trial Mezzaluna got LESS popular, so they turned it into a coffee place.

Then you’d walk down the street to Bundy and turn left, where you’d only be able to see the gate of 879 S. Bundy, because I’m sure the people who own that place are used to people coming over all the time to see if there’s still blood in the walkway. Since the place underwent a complete remodel before it was sold, I doubt it, but it’s always fun to visit the scene of something notorious, I suppose. 

Next you’ll need to get into your car so you can take the famous O.J. Simpson drive up San Vicente, right on Gretna Green (ah, you’re remembering the trial transcript now, aren’t you?), on up to Rockingham. The lot is at 360 N. Rockingham, and here is an interesting “before and after” of the house as it was, and what it looks like now (someone tore it down in 1997).

More Big Big News!

Finally!  Something on this blog that isn't related to the Great Flu of 2008. 

I was holding this announcement in case it was confidential or something, but now the news is out-- 
I'm doing a book with Prentice Hall Press next year!  It's called MILLION-DOLLAR WEBSITE: Simple Steps to Make Your Online Business Compete With the Big Boys -- Even on a Small Business Budget.  This book will be out in Spring/ Summer of 2009, and will finally aggregate all the years of website-related knowledge I've accumulated.  I'm super excited about it! 

In case you're wondering, yes, this is a whole new book, and completely replaces a similar book on websites from several years ago that never saw the light of day.  This one is going to be much MUCH BETTER!  So, in case you're wondering what happened to that other book, now you know.  Obviously, I am thrilled to have found a home for it, and am so excited to be working with the Prentice Hall people, who are already so cool you wouldn't believe it.

More updates on this as soon as I have them!  Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm soooo close to finishing that YA novel, it's not even funny.  Hopefully I'll have some good news about that one soon too, and I can have THREE books come out in 2009!   

Things I Have Wondered About....

Ha-- someone sent me an email just now that they were afraid they were going to get the flu just from reading this blog over the past week.  That made me totally laugh-- like, the experience was so REAL for you that you feel like you need to wash your hands after you read it?  That 's funny.  Yeah, that's how I felt too.

Speaking of the flu, I'm still digging out of a ton of work and emails since I was stricken by the virus last week, which frankly seems like a non-bonus of being sick.  I'm so happy to be better, but now I have twice the work and stuff?   No fair. There should be someone who comes and does all your work for you when you have an eight day long fever and are losing white blood cells.  So, that is to say, if you sent me an email or are expecting something from me, I'm so sorry!  I'm getting to it! 

Recently I decided to start writing down some of the searches I do, like through Google and Wikipedia, because I thought these sorts of things might amuse you.   Maybe you're like me and you love the internet so much-- I can't imagine how I got through junior high/ high school without being able to know things at the drop of a hat, like I can now that I have a Blackberry.  Of course, maybe this means I want to know more random stuff, but who cares?  The internet is amazing.  Here are some of the things I have wanted to know about recently:

1.  What's with the Nation of Islam and the bean pies? 
2.  What are some natural ways to get rid of fever?
3.  What is Spinoza famous for?
4.  What's the name of the guy who wrote "If I Could Fly?"
5.  Can you get Botox while pregnant?  (I'm not pregnant-- oh my GOD no!  I was actually just wondering this in regard to Nicole Kidman).

Hey, did you know Lindsay Lohan is naked on the internet?

Is it Wednesday already?  I've recovered almost all the way from the flu, though I'm going to be honest, it was rough!  That fever lasted until Saturday (that's an eight day long fever, in case anyone is keeping track), and then all I could do was sleep, as if I was permanently encased in quicksand.  Did I mention my doctor called me on the phone to tell me my WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT WAS LOW?  Yeah, that "malaise" and "aches and pains" feeling you get when you have the flu is really the feeling of a virus eating your white cells.  So, that's fun.  I now know of two other young and healthy people who got the flu shot, then got the flu anyway.  Watch out!  Wear one of those surgical masks if you have to, dude.  The flu will eat you alive!   It's a zombie flu!

Oh, you did hear about these pictures?  Well, maybe you should go over and take a look.  Because it's not creepy AT ALL that Lindsay Lohan is doing the same poses with the same photographer that Marilyn Monroe did about a month before she died.  Nope, not creepy one bit.  Also, I think it's a little weird that picture # 2 in this series is a montage of the actual Marilyn shoot, so we can all scratch our heads and go "wow, Lindsay Lohan really doesn't even come close to filling Marilyn Monroe's shoes!" or maybe "Wow, the star power of today's stars doesn't even compare!"  Although, maybe I'm missing the point of this photo shoot.  As Stephan said, "Who cares?  You could bounce a quarter off of Lindsay Lohan's ass!"

Also, is it wrong of me to say that I think Lindsay Lohan has WAY too many freckles to do a naked photo shoot like this?  I am officially authorized to speak on freckles and pale skin, and I say-- yikes!   Finally, I don't know why her mom/ manager felt compelled to speak out about how she thought the naked photo shoot was "in good taste" and "artistic."  Like, since when are we taking her word about what's in good taste?

And.... now that I have my wits about me again, I have to go back to writing.  Thank you one and all for your wishes of good health.   

Dear Internet,

Flu Watch: Day Seven (yes, SEVEN). Still going. Um, isn't the flu supposed to go away in 3 - 10 days? I thought when they said that they were just being conservative. The fever came back last night, so I still haven't had the "24 hour fever free" period that indicates you're done with the flu. What the HELL? I'm almost out of pre-written posts, too. Here's one that was written on Monday night, before I was overtaken by the virus.

An Open Letter to the Internet Is there something you've been hiding from me?  How come you never told me that, instead of listening to me drone on and on, day after day about weird people, and made up words, and jobs I wouldn't want, that what you really wanted to see was GAY VEGETARIAN TOURS OF LOS ANGELES?

Internet, this can be the only reason why traffic to this blog MORE THAN DOUBLED on the day I posted that tour, far surpassing any amount of traffic ever seen here before, setting a personal blog-history record for me, even surpassing that day, that fateful day, when someone over at TMZ ran a piece about a book I wrote that supposedly pissed someone off.   Yes, I'm talking about THAT much traffic, coming to read all about how you can get a massage at a spa, then go to Real Food Daily or Toast, then dance your gay head off with your arms above your head at The Factory. 

Really, internet?  Instead of articles, and websites, and novels, and non-fiction books, and more websites, and theater reviews, and book reviews, and fashion show reviews, what you really wanted me to be writing was GAY VEGETARIAN TOUR GUIDES?

You know what?  I don't even care why they came.  I'm just happy they did.  Check back next week for another fantastic tour!

By the way, I've now watched all of Season One of "The Wire." I get it! It's a good show. I ordered Season Two, just in case my Freak Flu decides to go the whole ten days.

This Just In: Olsen Twins Have Bad Breath

Flu watch: day six. My fever finally broke, and now I am a little less of the zombie version of Lori Culwell though still not doing anything more strenuous than blowing my nose. Also, I am completely bored out of my mind. Finally, have taken so much Tylenol, I might need a new liver. Anyone got a lobe they can spare? Kidding, of course. If you go multiple days with a high fever you have to go to the doctor specially for "fever management," and they tell you what you can take, and what mixes with each other so you don't hurt yourself. But, let's just say that this is a fever that never breaks, it just goes down, taking you from "I'm going to die" to "I feel really hot and cold at the same time, but I'm kind of okay with it. On the plus side, ALL of my skinny jeans fit again. Speaking of skinny girls, here's another post from over the weekend, just so you don't have to only get the flu update. But really, send me some healing vibes.

OMG, you know what's funny about these sub-headlines? 

What's funny is that Stephan and I have been saying this for YEARS, ever since those pictures of Mary-Kate Olsen, with coffee and Marlboros in hand all the time, started surfacing everywhere (a couple of years ago).  Specifically, I think we said that they look like they starve themselves, then drink coffee, then smoke Marlboro Reds, then eat toilet paper, then drink all night and throw up, and they look like their breath generally reflects all of these things.

Maybe I should start a career as a celebrity psychic-- like, predicting things about celebrities that are probably true, then they get confirmed later by trashy magazines.

Or maybe I already did. 

Hey, Guess What?

I have the flu. The flu! How on earth?

As it turns out, even if you're obsessive about getting the flu shot, you can still get the flu! A doctor told me today that the shot is only 80% effective, and since you know I'm a SUPER overachiever and I always defy the odds, I decided to just go ahead and be one of those statistics. In fact, I've had it since Saturday, and am now on DAY FIVE of an absolute high-fever extravaganza. Yes, I went to a doctor (two, actually), one of whom determined I have "Influenza Type B" in blatant defiance of my flu shot. And hey, do you know how he determined that?

Nasal swab. Like, old-school "test the employees at NBC for anthrax right after 9/11" nasal swab. The kind that, even if you're HEALTHY, is not pleasant. After the test came back positive, the doctor was like "isn't it cool that we know why you feel so lousy?" And I swear it was only my constant elevated temperature and lack of energy that kept me from punching him in the face. The night before last, my fever was so high, I slept for TWO HOURS, leaving me ample time to sit up and ponder-- why, when your body needs sleep the most, does it prevent you from doing that very thing? Also, I watched a bunch of episodes of CSI online, so that was fun.

I'm just posting this in case you happen to be one of the people who already know I'm sick, so when these blog posts keep going up, you don't think I'm faking my illness and writing anyway. I am so beyond not doing that. These posts were mostly all written over the weekend, when I was about 125% less sick than I am now, in the days that I am fondly referring to as "When I Could Get Out of Bed," or "When I Could Go Downstairs Without Getting Winded Like a Ninety Year Old."

Once again, special thanks go out to my sweet husband, who is taking good care of me even though he has germaphobia and I know it's hard for him. Big props!

Riddle Me This....

After seeing this picture of Jamie Lynn Spears over the weekend, I started wondering-- why did they even tell anyone she was pregnant?  I think if I were their mom, I would totally have been like "come home, have the baby, and then we'll pretend it's your niece or nephew, or that I (the mom) had a new baby, or whatever.  At this rate, no one would even have noticed, is all I'm saying.  You'd think with the resources that family has, they would have been able to stage an old-style Hollywood coverup.

This reminds me of a totally depressing article I read in People Magazine while I was getting my nails done with my friend in San Francisco (see-- because if I admit I was reading People Magazine and it's NOT in a nail salon, then you'll lose respect for me).  The article was chronicling the lives of, like, five teenagers who had gotten pregnant in high school, and what they were doing now.  I don't know if it was just the journalistic slant the author/ magazine were going for, but I thought it was very telling that the ONE AND ONLY girl who was remotely well-adjusted and happy, and still pursuing any of her dreams was the girl who gave her baby up for adoption.  Her quote was like "adoption is the most amazing thing I've ever done, period."  And now she's free to go on with her life.  The others were, oh my God, pregnant in the seventh grade, dropping out of school, barely getting by working as cashiers at the market and hoping their babies' fathers would still talk to them.  YIIIIKES!  DOUBLE YIKES!

I'm not going to spark up a wad of controversy by suggesting that, perhaps, just because you CAN make a baby, you should go out and do that, and that if you're not smart enough to figure out how to use birth control, maybe you shouldn't be procreating.  Because, you know, this blog isn't the place for that.  But, I think you see my point.  Didn't Jamie Lynn see Juno?

Speaking of the Spears family, did you see this Amy Winehouse performance at the Grammys?  Sha-DAMN, dude.  She's been sober for what-- fifteen minutes?  Someone should call up Britney Spears and tell her THIS is how you do a comeback. 

The Answer is No

My Blackberry is not working. 

Oh, wait-- did you not hear about this?

Do This Tour # 1: A Gay Vegetarian Tour of Los Angeles

I know, the heading sounds funny, but this is a real thing. In case you don’t know this amusing trivial fact about me, my dad was in the military when I was growing up, so I I’ve had the good fortune of traveling all over the United States and Europe and have lived in a bunch of different places. One consequence of this is that I know alot of cities pretty well, so if you’re going to a major metropolitan area, I can probably tell you a few cool places to eat, or to see art, or to get a cupcake, or whatever your thing happens to be. Seriously, this kind of thing happens about once a week, only last week it happened twice. So, I’ve decided to start archiving these tour suggestions right here on Funny Strange in a category called "Do This", so you can print them out and take them with you when you go places. Because you know, no one likes to be wandering around a new city with nothing but a map and a fanny pack full of money. Actually, that might be the first thing to do on a tour called “Get Mugged,” now that I think about it.

"Do This" Tour # 1:  Gay Vegetarians Visit Los Angeles

Here’s some stuff you can do if you’re gay and vegetarian but don’t know your way around Los Angeles, assuming some of the stuff you might want to do includes going to a spa, eating at a restaurant, and dancing your gay head off at a club on Santa Monica Blvd.

This tour was recently road-tested and given a thumbs up by real San Francisco gays.    Assuming you want your first stop after the airport to be a spa, for a good spa experience, I would say it's Burke Williams all the way.  The massages are, like, $95 for an hour, but the ambiance is totally amazing-- cucumber water, a fireplace, and unlimited access to hang out there as long as you want, using the steam room and the sauna with real hot coals (which are authentic as well as being extremely hot-- see what I did there?).

There's a Burke Williams in West Hollywood (people who live and hang out there call it WeHo), and one in Santa Monica. I have only been to the Santa Monica one, which I have found to be quite lovely every time I've been.  Here's the info for the WeHo one:    http://www.burkewilliamsspa.com/home.htm/.   You want the one on Sunset Blvd.

If you have time after the spa, it's at least worth a few minutes to stop into the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Sunset Plaza, where you can usually spot a few celebrities.  We've seen Lindsay Lohan, Dave Navarro, and Rachel Bilson here recently, and this is where Perez Hilton used to do his blog (he might still go there-- I'm not 100% on this).

For a hotel, I will recommend a few around the area of the Beverly Center, which gives you access to WeHo/ Hollywood, and is easy to find from the airport (you just follow La Cienega alllllll the way from the plane to the hotel).  Also, if you stay around there,  you can go to restaurants and clubs and drink, and not have to cab very far.  One good one near there is the Sofitel.  There's also a Le Meridian over there, or I have some recommendations in Beverly Hills that you might like.  Maybe $300/ night is your average for one of those.  Definitely don't just book something random in L.A.  Get a recommendation!!!

Re:  food.  Is there a better place to get veggie/ vegan food than LA?   The answer is no, there is not.  Here are just a few good examples:

http://www.realfood.com/
http://www.veganglory.com/

Two other places that I like to eat in West Hollywood (but which are not necessarily vegetarian) are Toast, where they make a great egg scramble frittata thing, and King's Road, where I personally like the chicken salad.  Both of these places are very "scene-y," meaning they're the place where you go to lunch if you're, say, Famke Janssen, Josh Harnett, Scarlett Johanssen, or Mischa Barton.  Expect a fair amount of people staring at each other, trying to determine "is that.....?" and then of course being too cool to actually acknowledge them.  It's fun, though, if that's what you're into.

I'm not even going to try to recommend gay clubs, but I heard my friends had a good time at The Factory.

An important note on traffic in Los Angeles:

The key with LA is that you don't want to waste all of your time driving around and/ or getting stuck in traffic, so you need to strategically locate your destinations logistically.  Get out a map of LA, and try to plan things around one destination, like Santa Monica or West Hollywood . Do NOT go there thinking “I’m going to totally see the Santa Monica Pier, then I’m going to see my friend in Eagle Rock, THEN we’re going to see someone else in Manhattan Beach.” No, you are not doing that.  Because while these things may LOOK like they’re not that far away from each other on a map, you’re not factoring in the impenetrable wall of traffic that you have to get through in between each of these places. Keep in mind that the freeway system only works the way it’s supposed to in Los Angeles in between 3:14 and 3:16 am on Sundays. Every other time, there are about ten times as many cars as there should be, and the result is this:





Not a joke.  Not an exaggeration.   This is the actual reason why people from the west side don't go east after, say, 2pm.



That said, If you find that you’re staying on the Westside and someone invites you to do something really fun in, say, North Hollywood, I would recommend AT LEAST checking the SigAlert website, which tells you how fast each freeway is moving.  SigAlerts, by the way, are named after Lloyd C. "Sig" Simon, and you can read more about that here.  It's also fun to scroll your cursor around the map, just to see where the freeway is going ZERO MILES PER HOUR.   If the little dot is diamond-shaped, it means someone overturned an oil tanker or an entire truckfull of chickens, and that no one within that red diamond is going anywhere for a long, long time.  Try to avoid going that way.   Also, I am a big advocate for taking Sepulveda for eastside- westside access, though Stephan disagrees with me on this point.  Sepulveda never lets ME down, is all I'm saying.

That's it for "Gay and Vegetarian in Los Angeles."  Feel free to email me recommendations for new tours/ cities.   I'm fairly confident that no matter where you want to go, I can find some cool stuff to do.

Hey, you asked for it.

Sometimes people email me and they say that they'd rather see MORE blog posts, rather than posts of a higher quality.  I can dig that, and so today, I give you:  a blog post about dog teeth.

A couple of months ago we noticed that Baxter had some bad tartar on some of his teeth and some really foul breath, which I guess I would too if I did this all day and never brushed my teeth:

Since he’s 6 ½ years old and we though his teeth might start to fall out if they got any dirtier, we figured that some dog tooth cleaning was probably in order.  I actually started out as one of those people who brushed their dog’s teeth with the chicken-flavored toothpaste and the long toothbrush, but as I’m sure you can imagine, more pressing things got in the way of this delightful pastime, like how much he really didn’t like it when I stuck the long toothbrush in his mouth, or how he tried to get away from me, or generally how I have better things to do than try to wrestle a dog to the ground in order to brush his teeth for him with some chicken-flavored toothpaste.  He doesn’t want me to do it, okay?  That should tell you something.

But then I took him to the vet for something else, and that vet was like “hey, your dog’s teeth are pretty scrungy,” which I guess is pretty bad coming from a vet.    I wasn’t nuts about the idea of them having to knock him out to do the cleaning, though, because, well, he’s sensitive, and it makes me sad when he’s sick.  So, I might have been putting it off, or waiting for a better solution.

As it turns out, because this is L.A., there is an alternative!  My dog daycare / boarding place just started offering a no-anesthesia tooth cleaning, and I’m not even kidding, it’s like a dog tartar miracle happened.  We picked him up after San Francisco, his teeth were clean, and he wasn’t even traumatized.  I even took a picture on the way home, so you could see the true dog tooth splendor.

Is this more amazing if you know that the fancy L.A. no-anesthesia dog teeth cleaning lady first whips some kind of hypnotic mojo on the dogs to get them to sit still?  Yeah, apparently she has this chair, and she sits in it with them, and then she lasers off all the plaque, and the dog keeps this stoopid grin on his face the whole time.  I'm so impressed with this, I want her to be my dentist.  Honestly, I don't usually buy into these sorts of Los Angeles specific fancy dog things, mainly because Baxter is really big and would look ridiculous in a designer sweatshirt.  Actually, someone at the dog park told me they go to a vet who also does dog acupuncture, but that might be where I draw the line.

Probably not, though.  Did you know we drove the dog cross-country when we moved from New York?  Yeah.  We did.  And it was fun.

The Funny Strange Podcast is here!

As you might recall, last year we were doing an internet radio show called "Funny Strange Live."  While we had a total blast doing this, the logistics proved to be too complicated, so we put it on hiatus for awhile, and decided that the way to go was to take the part we most enjoyed doing (the "witty banter" part), and just make it into a podcast, due in part to a suggestion by Alex Albrecht, who is a friend of a friend and who basically told me a few weeks ago that there's no reason not to do this as a podcast. 

So, here you go.  Episode One of the Funny Strange Podcast includes references to Britney Spears, Mel Gibson, Los Angeles guilt, Pete Burns from Dead or Alive-- basically, a discussion of what you can find right here on the site, only with audio funny.  You can download it here and start listening while I figure out how to get it into iTunes and everywhere else.   

Blindfolded Rubik's Cube Guy Blows My Mind with Mad Skills

Here is some video I took in a bar in San Francisco last weekend (a different bar, in case you're keeping score) of a guy solving a Rubik's Cube while blindfolded.  He and his friend were Rubik's Cube RACING, and without the blindfold, apparently this guy can solve it in 90 seconds.  SECONDS!  With the blindfold, he averages about four minutes.    I guess the secret to this is that all the colors have different markings, and if you practice alot, you can memorize how they feel.   I'm not even going to try to guess how long that took.

I know what you're thinking-- if this guy has the time to develop this skill, he must never get laid.  In fact, that is what we thought.  But, apparently the whole "Blindfolded Rubik's Cube Solver Guy" thing is working for him, because his friend said he was doing just fine in that department. 

You probably can't hear it over the regular bar noise, but right in back of me was a Scottish woman who kept going "Ack, that is SHITE-- he needs to get a REAL HOBBY!" As if blindfolded Rubik's Cube solving was something that she knew how to do, and she was so over it. 

Dead or Alive, or......Gender Ambiguous?

So, we went to San Francisco last weekend, and hung out with some cool people, and watched that TOTALLY AMAZING SUPERBOWL, and good times were had all around.  And hey, did you know that if you're a little hungover (mostly from not getting enough sleep), and then you eat bacon twice in one day and drink a bunch of club soda and eat a hamburger, you might wake up the next morning with high blood pressure?    Who knew?    Yes, I know, that's alot of sodium-- someone should've warned me.  At any rate, it went away in a day, after I switched back to regular water.

Still working on the rewrite, which (after some brainstorming with my witty and brilliant husband-- who once again deserves a medal), seems to have picked up its pace again.  Even so, I'm going to call this "the hardest project I've ever worked on," maybe because I have a mental block going on in another area of my life and it's carrying over.  Who knows?   I don't think you want to hear about that, and frankly, I'm not going to become the kind of blogger who just complains all the time.  Not fun!

Anyhoo, the main topic of today's post is that eighties band Dead or Alive, because frankly, this is JUST the kind of thing that belongs here-- strange and baffling.  Saturday night we were in this bar in SF that just happened to be playing nothing but eighties music.  I love bars like this, because they give me a chance to re-experience my youth while I'm listening to bands like Bronski Beat and Tears for Fears.  About halfway through the round of drinks, that Dead or Alive song "You Spin Me Right Round" comes on, which leads to, no kidding, a FASCINATING discussion about whether or not the lead singer, Pete Burns, is now a dude or a chick, or a dude who looks like a chick, or maybe a transitional chick-dude, or maybe a dude who really, really looks like a chick.    I mean, it's not like any of us really have any INVESTMENT in this, but it's good bar convo.    Everyone had a different opinion, which intrigued me.

As it turns out, no one could answer the question, and even after several days of research and near-obsession on the topic, neither can I.  The (man) just can't be pinned down, ok?  He defies ALL stereotypes.

Now, for the photos.  Just in case you're just joining us on the "Pete Burns might be a she-male" discussion, Pete Burns is the guy from Dead or Alive who used to look like this:

And now, for some reason, looks like this, while continuing to call himself "Pete" and use the masculine gender pronouns:

I'm just going to let you sit here for a second and try to get your head around this.  Of course, it's been FOUR DAYS since I saw this, and I still don't get it.   Go ahead, look at this photo a few times.  Take in the gorilla skin coat, and the giant lips, and the black roots. 

Ok, was that enough time?  I'm not kidding when I say that I Googled this guy, then sat up until 3:00 am on Saturday, trying to make sense of all this.    Here were some of my theories, which were then disproved by further research.

1.  Maybe he's a pre-op transsexual.

Nope.  He says in an interview that he still gender identifies as a man, and there is even a picture of him with this face and his genitalia exposed on Google Images, though I know I'm not going to include that here because some of you would be all "I can't believe I opened that up at work!" or "Dude!  You gotta warn me before you put up a picture of balls!"  So, that's all I'm going to say about that.   In fact, he is still a man.

2.  Maybe he's just a transvestite who seems to have cut his face to look like a woman's, in some sort of bizarre perma-drag.

Nope.  He's also gay, and married to a guy.  There is even a rumor on Wikipedia that a tour with he and Morrissey broke up after Burns RAPED THE MOZZER!    And if Eddie Izzard has taught us anything, it's that most transvestites are straight men who like to wear women's clothing.  He's not either of those, and as far as I can tell, he ONLY wears women's clothing, though he does it with some GIGANTIC man hands and no boobs.

3. Maybe he was involved in some sort of industrial accident, and a woman's freaky face is all they could make out of what was left.

Nope.  This was all elective surgery, though he does say in one interview that one (or more) of them was botched, and they're still repairing that.    Though, not to be mean, I'm actually wondering which part was intended, and which part was botched.

4.  He's a performance artist, and his face and body are his canvas.

This was the closest I got to an actual, functional theory, about which I could nod my head and go "yes, yes....that makes sense!  I can put that in a category in my mind!"  Although, he does still call himself a singer and isn't a professor in a art department (and doesn't have a book on performance art out), so this thing he's doing might not be an intentional challenging of cultural and gender boundaries.

I know this will surprise you, but in the interviews I read, he does sound a little bit mental, like he belongs in the "Too Weird to Do Practical Things" category from last year.  So, I guess the only conclusion that I can confidently draw from the information I have is that Pete Burns is the true meaning of the term "androgynous."  This is the way he feels inside, and he's just letting his freak flag fly for all to see.  And, I guess-- good for him.  Still, I think you'll agree, it IS weird if you haven't even thought about him since 1984, and then suddenly you see a photo of him in his new (ahem) iteration.  Shocking even!

And now, back to the book.