Happy Samhain and Shizz

bex faces her fears, originally uploaded by starbexxx.

Happy Halloween, people. Let me share with you this photo of a true moment of greatness: even though pumpkins burn my skin and make me HURTY, here I am (replete in my rainbow brite sweatshirt of wonder) actually carving a punkin. Whilst wearing rubber gloves. So the evil pumpkin juices couldn't eat me alive.

And here are our pumpkins. My boyf's is the big, silly looking one. Mine is, (duh) the small albeit scary cylon. Because if jack-o-lanterns are supposed to be scary, then a cylon is the scariest thing I know.

All the Cool Kids Wear Spoons on Their Noses

spoons on noses, originally uploaded by starbexxx.

So, I was at this party in a little teensy town upstate. I'm with my friend Clif, and Clif's ladyfriend's son Fin. Clif is not always dressed like a pirate. I do not always wear my scarf indoors. But everyone knowses, and Moses supposes, that the coolest kids in the room are the ones wearing spoons on their noses.

Kickawesome

miami sunset 2, originally uploaded by starbexxx.

This photo is from the day I arrived in Miami. I was quite taken with the sunset. Also with the weed, as I was quite crizzonked.

A List of People For Whom It Should Be A-Okay For Me To Wallop in the Guts with My Gym Bag

1). That stupid lady who always hustles IN to the train as it arrives in Times Square before the other people get OUT. LET THEM OFF FIRST. If you saw a very, very small elevator that was crowded with four people, you'd realize one needed to step off before you could get on. It's the same thing with the subway, just imagine that little elevator is a lot bigger and with more people. But YOU NEVER LEARN! So I shall wallop you in the guts with my gym bag. WHOMP.

2). Those groups of teenage Christian missionaries in their little suits and matching shirts. You NEVER MOVE and you stand in a clump and nobody can go up the stairs. WALLOPED! Kerrung!

3). That family that insists on standing four abreast in the middle of the sidewalk, completely impeding traffic while someone takes your picture so you have shiny lights in the background. MOVE! Whomp whomp kerrump whomp.

4). That Scientologist who stands on 43rd and 7th. I see you EVERY SINGLE DAY and I have NEVER TAKEN YOUR POSTCARD! The postcard on which you invite me to the scientology center to see a movie. I DO NOT WANT YOUR POSTCARD! Nor will I ever. If you don't move out of my way, I will whomp you. Whomp.

5). People watching the Incan pan flute players perform "My Heart Will Go On." Look, I know you love the song, but I have an abs class to get to. Whompity whomp whomp whomp.

6). "Do you like comedy?" Whomp.

7). To anyone going to see Phantom of the Opera for a Wednesday matinee: really? I mean, really? You're in Manhattan to see a show and you're going to Phantom? Everyone in America has seen Phantom. The story hasn't changed. Pretty girl gets help from Phantom to sing, pretty girl meets childhood boyfriend, Phantom gets jealous, oh, wow, a fucking chandelier. Suck it. And git out my way! There's vegan butternut squash soup to be had. WHOMPTASTIC whomps.

8). Any street musician (steel drums, keyboard, saw) who plays "Fur Elise." That song will puncture my sinuses. And you can't even play it rhythmically. You must pay. Kerrang whomp.

9). You two, you ladies who need to catch up in the middle of the street. Yes, Gloria's hair looks great, and, great, Janice, your son is going to Rutgers, please take it to a Starbucks and get the fuck out of my way. Whomp. Sorry. Not really. Whomp

(Honestly, I'm a nonviolent person, but I have a lot of pent-up rage and aggression at the state of the world today, and sometimes I am overcome with the desire to whomp people. I haven't yet, but if someone authoritative would just tell me that it's a-okay to do so, it might be a very therapeutic activity for me. Please?

The One True Thing in Life That Will Always Make Me Laugh

Granted, there are many things in life I find funny. Things such as:
* With Six You Get Eggroll (with five, baloney!)
* When you flip a pancake and it sticks to the ceiling, and then just as you look up at it, it splatters on your face (also funny with pizza dough, but slightly less so)
* Kitties playing in paper bags
* all of Three Amigos
* When pickles look like penises
* Rich's top model recaps
* The phrase "fall down go boom"
* The idea of a unicorm baking a cake and using his unicorn (unihorn?) to stir the cake batter, and then his friend the baby panda comes into the kitchen and licks the cake batter off his horn and says "MMM! Deliciouso!"

In fact, I feel the need to illustrate that for you:


Regardless. Irregardless. There is one true thing (or, "bit," if you will) that will always make me laugh. And today I am in a not so hot mood, so I thought I would share this one true thing with all of you, just so you can bookmark this post and come on back everything you're, let's say, hypothetically, frustrated with the jobby and miffed at a buncha other things. Voila. Viola. Violin! Villon!



I don't what that first frame is, but, hell, I'm just stealing this from youtube. But, oh, Dana Carvey doing chopping brocolli, and Uncle Sigourney Weaver is in the background along with fantabulous Phil Hartman. The best of the best. You know Siggy Weaves totally gets it, and just look at how Phil Hartman savors the sheer genius that he is sucking up the like nectar of the finest cake baked by a unicorn (with vanilla frosting).


Oh, also? You should watch Celebrity Paranormal Project on VH1, Sundays at 10/9c. I've been doing the promos, so, please, tune in and make me feel like I matter.

Cylon-o-Lantern

My little bro' Adam hipped me to this awesomely fearful sight: GODS DAMNED, this is one frakking scary punkin.

(Note: all punkins are scary to me because their gooey flesh makes my arms break out in hives. When my arms are elbow-deep into their innards, that is. Not, like, if I'm in the same room with them. At Jew camp, there was this kid who was allergic to peanuts and so no one in his bunk could eat peanut butter because the peanut molecules in the air would get him. I can breathe punkin molecules - I just can't plunge my arms into 'em).

Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge

When I was a wee one, I used to dream that someday I'd take a fantasy vacation. To a place with snow-covered peaks, figure skating, and perhaps a heart-shaped bathtub. And there was really only place to go: Mount Airy Lodge. However, because the commercial aired about a kabillion times during the course of my most-impressionable years, we-of-a-certain-age always referred to it as "Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge."



Whether we were playing Barbies or blocks and we wanted to play that we were somewhere magical, it was always Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge. It seemed like the most wonderful place in the world -- we didn't know why we were aroused (in fact, I don't think we even knew we were aroused) by the heart-shaped bathtubs, but we were. Oh, we were.

I always thought that someday I'd grow up, and me and my loved one could do whatever it is that two-people do in a heart-shaped bathtub!

But, I shall never get the chance to go. Woe unto me, it is gone gone gone.

Let us keep track on the scoreboard of that wild game we call "Life":
Yet Another Childhood Memory, Destroyed: 37

NOBODY BOTHER ME

I am in a foul, foul mood today.

A mood that can only be expressed by sharing this:


(Superthanks to Steve for the tip).

Also, in total bizarro-land, the jingle was apparently written by Nils Lofgren. You know, this guy.

FRAK MY GAK! Fraggles and Badgers and Riddley Walker, Oh My!

So I'm IM'ing with Josh about how there's going to be a Fraggle Rock movie and how I want to help write it because man-oh-manischevitz, do I know Fraggle Rock.

In fact, I refer to this chart I made two years ago, to chart my life and self-identity with regards to varying stages of fraggleness:


I should note, that as of October 20th, 2006 I have pulled away from the Wembley/Boober amalgam, and I would presently plot myself along the Red/Gobo axis. Life is good. (But I don't have photoshop on this computer so I can't update it right now; just go with me).

ANYWAY! So we're talking about Fraggles and Josh brings up "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas," which he and I both loved. I love it so much, even though it makes me cry. It makes me cry because how is his momma going to earn any money if there's a hole in her washtub??? BOOHOO!

Regardless, "Emmet Otter" was written by Russell Hoban. Who also wrote Bread and Jam for Frances, one of my fave books in the whole world (as a kid). And the very same man ALSO wrote "Riddley Walker," which is one of my dad's fave books and I read it as a kid and it fucked my shit, man.

And also inspired Mad Max.

But mainly it fucked my shit.

1-800 Whosie Whatski?

Pardon me, but I find this to be so very crazy confusing.

So I ordered flowers for my Bubby today because it's her birfday. And this is my email confirmation. And I want to point out one crazy important thing:


1) 1-800-Flowers.com (leave off the last com for savings!) can actually be reached at 1-800-468-1141

WHICH DOES NOT SPELL "FLOWERS!"

It potentially spells HOT-1141, but that ain't flowers.

Why, why, why would you call yourself 1-800-Flowers and then actually have a phone number that spells out 1-800-HOT-1141?

This is crazy talk, and henceforth they are dead to me.

WOWIE MALAWI By MANDY STADTMILLER

Yo, people! Look who's quoted in this hilarious article in the Post today.

It's intentionally obnoxious! We're making fun of trendyness, not of the babies themselves!

Actually, we're all going to hell. Together, in a red handbasket.

Things I Hate

There are many things in life of which I am not so found. Such items of my detestation include:
* Water chestnuts
* Olives
* The noise the subway makes when it brakes (or breaks, but I'm sure the sound of a breaking subway would be so spectacular I almost wouldn't hate it)
* Crying babies
* War
* Steely Dan (the band, not the dildo)

There are also many things in life that make me cry. Such items of my lacrimation include:
* The end of "Boys on the Side"
* The black and white segment of "The Wizard of Oz"
* That scene in "13 going on 30" when Jennifer Garner goes home and crawls in bed with her parents because she's so, so sad
* When I am really, really frustrated with problems that are out of my control
* When I feel like a major drag because I have a a perma-migraine
* Getting yelled at

But there is one thing in life that makes me cry because I hate it so much.

And that, friends, is the horrible-horrible song "Found a Peanut."

You can find the lyrics right here, but I'd really only advise reading them if you want to cry. And you can right-click-save-as right here if you want to be terribly tormented whilst reading this blog entry.

In fact, just thinking about "Found a Peanut" makes my eyes well up with tears. Alas, it becomes so difficult to type these words, as I imagine the horror the horror that is "Found a Peanut."

My parents used to sing this song on car trips and I would cry.

And then sometimes we'd be over for dinner at a friend's house and my parents would make the other grown-ups sing "Found a Peanut" and then I would cry.

I'm sure, for the record, that if this were a normal phobia, like, say, fear of dogs, my parents wouldn't have asked other grown-ups to throw dogs at me, but I'm sure everyone was quite entertained that just singing, "Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut last night" would make me cry. Copiously.

My parents often asked me why "Found a Peanut" made me cry. And I think, many years later, that the song upset me so frakking much because it has the world's worst moral. The song says that the peanut-eater got a tummyache and went to the hospital and had an operation and then he DIED. Despite the best administrations of the doctors and the hospital stuff.

WTF, yo?

No wonder I hate going to doctors. And don't trust them at all. Because
a) when I was 13 (going on 30) and I had a tumor in my lip, this suckfest doctor from my hometown removed it but he removed it wrong and it GREW BACK and I had to have it removed again and now I have a scar under my lip and a predilection for wearing dark lipstick
b) why bother going to a doctor when you're just going to die anyway, as exemplified by "Found a Peanut" ???


PS: Fret not, I am currently under three doctors' care for my perma-migraines. So I have somewhat gotten over my doctor distrust/hatred. Especially because my neurologist went to Wesleyan so I have to love him.

PPS: Incidentally, even though "Found a Peanut" is sung to the same tune as "Oh My Darlin' Clementine," I have no problems hearing anyone sing about Clementine. It's just when you stick peanut-centric lyrics in there that I will start to bawl.


mp3 download: Found a Peanut by the Countdown Kids.

Balactica Video - Old Skool vs. New Skool

It's times like these that I wish I worked for Sci Fi. Look at this kickawesome promo thing they created to celebrate the fucking radness of Balactica (Battlestar Galactica, for those of you who don't use my slang).



Special thanks to reader Jake for the tip.

The Creator of the Pop-Up Video Sound

This is a public service announcement.

Should you ever find yourself about to google "who created the Pop-Up Video sound?" -- you know, that little "bloorp" noise that accompanied the factoid bubbles -- look no further:

Matt Richman, sound designer and audio engineer extraordinaire, is the man who created the distinctive sound of the bloorping pop-ups.

Let us admire his handywork by watching the pop-up video for Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to do With it."
So we can enjoy the bloorps, and also Tina Turner's gams.

Comedy Wednesday Night!

Yo people!
I'm doing stand-up tomorrow night. Because I am a jew! And who doesn't love Jews?
Mel Gibson.
HA HA HA.
It's a show called "World War III" and it's an evening of Jewish comics and Arab comics. We'll be killing each other with THE FUNNY!

UCB Theater - 307 west 26th Street.
Wednesday, 10/11 9:30pm

World War III
"Just in time for Ramadan and Yom Kippur comes World War III! Come and see jovial Jews and amusing Arabs bringing you the funny. It'll be a mix of Comic Strip Live, The Tonight Show, and the 1936 Intifada."
Hosted by Mo Fathelbab and Ilan Bachrach
And scheduled to appear:
Hot Sauce
Ronnie Khalil
Catie Lazuras
Helen Maalik
Nasry Malak
Dean Obeidallah
Bex Schwartz
The Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz
and Former President Jimmy Carter

Go See "Makeout Session"

My awesome friend Kenan wrote this amazing play called "Makeout Session" and I highly advise that you go see it.

From the website:
SYNOPSIS
An afternoon. A couch. A boy and a girl. In Act 1, they are 15. Innocent kissing leads them stumbling toward the brink of their first sexual encounter. In Act 2, they meet again ten years later, but the past is closer than they think.

An exploration of sex. An exploration of love, and an exploration of the overwhelming question "are they going to kiss?"

I saw a workshop of this play last winter (as a matter of fact, I was about to walk into the theater when my roomie called to tell me that our apartment was on fire!) But then, the next night, after all the my-love-which-is-a-building-which-is-on-fire crizazyness was over, I actually got to see the play.

And so should you.

So say we all!

Wine! Cocks! Woohoo!

I keep seeing these ads all over New York City! Hooray, I feel so loved and adored. Because I'm Bex. And I love cocks! And wine! And these giant billboards promote all three elements of awesome:
1) Bex
2) cock
3) wine


(Okay, in my mindhead, anyway. Apparently, the ad is really for Rex wine. Poo).

(original, undoctored photo by Mark Copyranter.)

Crazy in Love With This Bunny

Everytime I see this Skittles commercial, my heart is filled with an overwhelming desire to own this bunny. And then I start giddily giggling. This phenomenon often happens at the gym. And then I fall off the elliptical.

I LOVE THIS BUNNY SO MUCH!

HogaDuce: The Odd Couple

I directed this little slice of heaven featuring Danny Bonaduce and Hulk Hogan in an homage to the old "Odd Couple" open. Watch the new season of Celebreality on VH1!
Sunday, October 22nd!
Hogan Knows Best at 9/8c
Breaking Bonaduce at 9:30/8:30 c!



(Music by Eargoo)
(Written/Directed by me)
(Produced by Michael Flexner)

You Are My Potato

When I was a little kid and our parents would take me and my little brother into the big city, there were a lot of homeless people. I mean, especially around the touristy areas we'd visit like 5th avenue or Central Park or the Museum of Natural History -- there were lots and lots of homeless people around. (Do we still call them homeless people? Or is there a more proper term for them? Persons without Roofs?)

Remember the 80s in the big city? There was porn on 42nd street and there were lots of homeless people. Until Giuliani had them all executed in the great Clean Up NYC act of 1999. But I digress.

Once, we were walking along Central Park when we saw a homeless man (person without roof?) pushing a large, rusty shopping cart. The shopping cart was full of aluminum soda and beer cans. The homeless man stooped to the ground and picked up a shiny Coke (surely it was New Coke) can. He held it at arms length, took a deep breath, and serenaded it:

"Yoooooou are my Poooo-taaaa-tooo!"

It was beautiful. Tears sprang to our eyes. We instantly debated the meaning: was he calling the can a potato as a term of endearment? The way the French call their beloved their little cabbages? Or had he found the one can that would give him the $.05 deposit he needed to be able to purchase a potato?

We didn't know. But we were awestruck and impressed.

This morning, I saw a homeless man pushing a rusty shopping cart as I as walking to work. His shopping cart was full of aluminum cans. And a boombox. The boombox was blasting "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner.

It was so beautiful. Tears sprang to my eyes.

To you, homeless man who loves Foreigner, this is a shout-out and dedication:

Oh no! The Depression Virus! It's Out of CONTROL!

So those frakking "Depression Hurts spots for Cymbalta are on all the time and they make me insane.

I mean, whatever, I'm sure people who are depressed experience physical pain and I'm not out to deprive them of new treatment options.

But the way Cymbalta presents itself as if it owns depressed-people-with-pain and that it's the only option -- and that BREAKING NEWS, depression is painful and depression hurts EVERYONE, even your pretty Lassie dog and even if you hide behind the filing cabinets at work you can NEVER STOP THE PAIN -- doesn't it kind of seem like Cymbalta is somehow claiming that EGADS, depression has evolved and the newest strain of depression causes physical pain, and sweet jesus, the only way to stop it is with Cymbalta?

Like Anthrax:Cipro :: Depression:Cymbalta.

STOP THE DEPRESSION VIRUS FROM EVOLVING!!!!

Oh boy! More Lesbians on Top Model, Please!

So I'm reading this interview with former top model contestant Megan (you know, the one whose mom kept her warm after the plane crash), and she totally just outed Michelle (the hotter/tomboy creepy twin) as being gay.

Now Michelle is even more awesome (how is that possible? Except: FIX YOUR POSTURE, GIRLFRIEND) and I love this show more than ever.

Except, I must say that the triple-whammy of Model/Lost/ProjRun is almost too much for my poor little brain to handle on Wednesday nights. Wednesday is also the day of my ass-kicking total body conditioning class, so then I get home and can't move my arms. So watching three straight hours of TV PLUS not being able to move my arms sends me into paroxysms of overwhelmedness.

Fuck It Like a Squid

(Squid gif by Eric Cheng)

So last night I went out with a posse of friends and we were discussing squid sex. Well, we weren't "discussing" it, per se, but rather, I was telling everyone about this documentary on cephalopods that I watched, which went into very interesting detail about how squids mate.

Basically, the boy squid very quickly and stealthily stabs the girl squid with his sword-like penis, right below her squid head. Like, if you were pretending that you were a squid, it would be like someone stabbing you with a sword penis in the shoulder.

So, of course, we had to hoist a glass and toast the fact that we don't have sex like squids.

Several glasses later, we were singing "Fuck it like a squid" to the tune of Snoop Dogg's "Drop it like it's hot."

When the pimp's in the crib, ma
Fuck it like a squid
Fuck it like a squid
Fuck it like a squid.

Whilst singing "Fuck it like a squid," one must jab one's friends in the shoulder with one's index and middle fingers. (Make a sword-like appendage with your first two fingers and jab it violently into your friend's shoulder.) Voila! You're fucking it like a squid!

We really hope this expression and accompanying gestures catches on. Please feel free to sing the song whilst fucking your friends like a squid.

The Very Reverend Bex

I am very happy to announce that I am now an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church.

So! If you'd like to get married, or baptize your kids, or renew your vows, or anything you might need an officially ordained minister to do, I'm your lady.

Only in the state of NY, though - so if you want to do a destination wedding somewhere exotic, please let me know so I can extend my ordained-ness.

I will happily script your wedding ceremony to whatever theme you might desire. Star Wars wedding? Sure. Battlestar Galactica wedding? Even better. I'll even do it in rhyme. Or write your entire wedding as a series of Weird Al-esque parodies! I might have trouble writing a sports-themed wedding because, as we all know, I don't do the sports thing (except for figure skating). But, in all honesty, I'm sure that if we work together we can make your wedding dreams come true.

I know it's a somewhat odd concept for an ex-Jewish atheist to become a minister, but truly, if you think about it enough, it makes perfect sense.

Yours in the path of the lord,
bex

Rocking the Scarborough Country

Oh boy! Tonight (10.2) at around 9:50pm (8:50 central, 7:50 mountain), I'll be on the ol' Scarborough Country on the ol' MSNBC to discuss today's round-up of entertainment/pop culture shizz.

Break your fast then watch me on the TV!

Ring the Dragtastic Alarm

So my boyf AD'ed the video for Beyonce's "Ring the Alarm." So we've watched the finished product a few times.

And someone just sent me this kickawesome re-imagining of the video and I lurfs it.


The thing about the original "Ring the Alarm" viddy? I totally think it's Sophie Mueller's version of David LaChapelle's video for No Doubt's cover of "It's My Life."

Which, in and of itself, was just David LaChapelle's version of Rob Marshall's version of "Chicago."

Ourobouros, on!