Category: Uncategorized

My Last Alcoholic

My Last Alcoholic

I don’t like to say that my family is all alcoholics, but we have pretty strong numbers.  My grandfather was dead at 45, his liver rotted through, leaving behind a small family and a whole town of party buddies who thought he was really great.  It’s an established fact that alcoholism runs through families.  It doesn’t necessarily breed other alcoholics, but it breeds codependents and nurturers and excuse makers and people who seek out alcoholics as partners.

I’m not an alcoholic, and my sister isn’t, but we find ‘em and we date ‘em.  It’s what we’re good at.  She is of the opinion that there’s no man in the world who’s not an alcoholic, because she hadn’t met one yet.

I can tell when someone is an alcoholic or an addict without ever seeing them use. It is my superpower, because if you are an alcoholic or addict active in your addiction,

  1. I will find you attractive.  I will feel that magical flutter in my chest that only happens in the movies and which I now associate with fear.
  1. Alcoholics will tell you the same stories over and over, and they forget the things you tell them, because they weren’t listening. They tell you things when they’re drunk and they don’t remember when they’re sober.  This is your problem.
  1. Alcoholics may brush with greatness, but sometimes they don’t seem to have achieved very much. Maybe they were nearly in a big band, or they used to be in one, or made some great art when they were younger, but now they’re 40 and call themselves a photographer but the last time they took a picture was last year sometime, or they just keep losing job after job because everyone else is a JERK.
  1. Alcoholics don’t prioritize sex. Personally, I love sex, and if I love you, I really want to have sex with you, lots of it.  Alcoholics might have sex with you if they are able to after the bar closes and if there’s no booze in the house.  And that’s abnormal.  Science tells us that healthy men will prioritize sex over food, over sleep, over personal safety- but not over addiction.
  1. Sometimes you can tell someone is an alcoholic because nothing is ever their fault. If you hang around long enough, everything will become your fault.

6. Sometimes you can tell someone is an alcoholic because they are so charming and wonderful, and when they are nice to you, it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, and it covers you in warmth and light, and when it turns off it feels like the planet Hoth. Alcoholics are two different people. You think that once they stop drinking, the bad selfish lying part will go away and the sweet smart creative will stay behind and love you, but the fact is that the second thing is a fiction that allows the first thing to survive.  The mean drunk is who they really are.

My last alcoholic was a super smart very handsome photographer that had been a TA for twenty years and wasn’t sure what had happened. He came to visit me from San Francisco and suggested we go to a bar in LA, and at the bar in a city where he didn’t live, everyone knew his name.  So I was concerned.

We had a couple drinks and some fun chit-chat and I told him I was ready to go home.  WINK.  You know, to have sex.   And he told me he was ready to have a couple more drinks.   And I said OK.  He was on vacation.   I would like to remind you: he was super hot.

Finally, the bar closes. We go back to my house.  We go to bed.  And we started to have the first sex.  Of our new connection.  First time.  All the heat.  All the desire.  I was on top.  I looked down at this man.  His eyes were closed.  He was transported by desire.    His eyes stayed closed.  For kind of a long time.  I leaned in to check.  He was snoring gently.  He had fallen asleep.  Not his dick.  Everything from the dick back was asleep.

I dismounted, expertly, passing one leg over his body to not disturb him.

He woke up a moment later, I guess because his cock was cold.

He smiled and started making love to me again, and was looking very handsome.  His dark, beautiful eyes locked onto mine, and then gently fell closed as he fell on top of me.  He was asleep again.

You know the old saying, fall asleep inside me once, trick’s on me, fall asleep in me twice, I’m going to pull the condom off and throw it away and go to sleep.

He woke up in the morning and turned to me and said, “I’m starting to think I have a problem with alcohol.”  And I said “yep”.  And he said, “you’re not even going to pause on that? You’re just going to say yep?”  And I looked in his beautiful face and I said, “I hope you have a nice drive home.  I hope you do examine your relationship with alcohol.   I’ve unfriended you on Facebook and blocked your phone number.  You are my last alcoholic.  Goodbye.”

The blessed lesson from this experience is: I know I don’t have to ask whether someone is or is not an alcoholic.  If this article was familiar to you, you don’t either.

I don’t have to wonder what life would be like with that person.  I know what it’s like.

I don’t have to ask whether I could help them stop drinking.  I know that’s not my responsibility.

And I don’t have to keep them in my life if they don’t want to get better.

– See more at: http://www.lovetv.co/you-are-my-last-alcoholic-relationship/#sthash.XlWtzcEE.dpuf

All Jane, Meet All Dick Envy

The funniest thing about the poster isn’t its existence.

The funniest thing isn’t the claim that all penises will be severed on site.

The funniest thing is that the guy who made it doesn’t know it’s funny, and doesn’t want his last name to get out in case his girlfriend gets mad.

Postscript: OK, this guy didn’t wind up protesting because he was “frightened for his safety.”  It was a little bit funny for us, looking around at sweet, cute, smart lady comics, people who wear cardigans and glasses, and feeling like we were in the middle of a gender war, but he also might have stayed home because it rained most nights.  Who knows?  Anyway, we never saw him.

All Jane got lots of great press from this threatened protest, from revered feminist institutions like Bust and Bitch, as well as the LA Weekly, Willamette Week, Portland Mercury, etc.  However, with the added visibility, we also started getting spammed by transgender individuals who were offended at the cissexist name, All Jane, No Dick (meaning: assuming there are only two genders.)  Never mind that the festival, its organizers, and its participants are trans friendly and supportive, never mind that one of the performers on a short roster is genderfluid comic Rye Silverman.  A volunteer had to spend a whole day deleting negative comments from the public spaces about All Jane, and lots of comics and organizers were shame-faced to have raised ire from the trans community for our name, even though we know it’s “edgy” and funny.  That’s what comedy is.

But I wasn’t ashamed.  I was mad.  In my unpopular opinion, whether it’s straight men telling women what to do or transgendered persons telling us what to do, it’s still men telling women what to do, and I’m sick of it.  The MOST gender-specific trait for men is telling women what to do, how to be good girls and not offend anyone.  We can make whatever we want, we can call it whatever we want, and we’ll do whatever the fuck we want.  If we offend people?  Good.  Don’t come.  Life is not about never being offended.  Riot Grrl Comedy!  Rant over!  We had fun!  And Sizzle Pie and Montage fed us and it was great!

Postscript: This year, the festival is just called “All Jane.”

GLENDALIA 7!

GLENDALIA5Finally!  We are reunited for GLENDALIA!  Dax returns to bring his mighty presence back to the Complex on Tuesday, October 14th at Complex, 806 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA! Reunited, and it feels so good!  We have fun!  The event is here!

*Dax’s return has been greatly overstated. By Dax.

No Gracias, Madre- my review from Yelp.com

  I have always loved Gracias Madre SF and was looking forward to checking out the new Melrose location.   Every time I’d been to San Francisco, I’d made it a point to visit Gracias Madre, even though it was always a wait and jam-packed with happy customers.  I had been talking our local outpost up to local and far-flung vegans.  It was a bit of a wait, as usual, but our spicy Purista tequila drinks and cauliflower and cashew cream were fantastic.

When I got my entree, however, I bit down hard on a tooth-sized shard of glass that had been inside.   I felt that unpleasant nausea and tasted blood as I scraped my tongue.  We called the waitress over and she apologized and told the kitchen.  The manager came over and apologized again.  I graciously accepted the apologies.

I was offered a comp dessert, but I found that my appetite was reduced after the glass chewing.  The last thing I needed to deal with was glass-filled Mexican wedding cookies.  I was pleased to see that the tab was reduced to just drinks and one entree and we sent our card to pay.  An apologetic waitress came back over and said she’d gotten it wrong, she was only supposed to take off the entree that had the glass in it, and brought us a new tab.
Look, I’m not complaining that I got a large, sharp shard glass in my food, which ruined my dinner and evening.  I know that this stuff can happen, and in their defense, glass is totally vegan.  I’m just surprised that the comp was only for the food that had glass in it.
I hate to review a vegan restaurant like this, but I really feel that this was handled poorly.
See the receipt with the code for foreign object discount, which for some reason made me laugh.  In short, gracias but no gracias, man.

My receipt, showing the discount for a foreign object in my food. Yum!

So, You Think You Can Dance Downtown?

photo (1)

I’m a big fan of the show So You Think You Can Dance.   I felt lucky to attend some shows last season, and when I got an email for two shows this week, I jumped on it.  I was wary when I saw that the address was for the Orpheum and not the CBS lot, but when I got there it was clear that it was: Auditions.  I didn’t want to go to fucking auditions.  

In recent seasons, I haven’t even watched auditions.  One in twenty people will be good, one in forty will be amazing, one in ten will be completely delusional.   It’s the reality TV shock-jock portion, where people fall and cry and lie and the desperation seeps through and they edit to support the judge’s decisions.  However, I had already parked downtown all day for six dollars, so I stayed.

 It was kind of cool to be in the Orpheum and to see the familiar carpeting and to see a pile of dance bags and the warm up room.  We were seated and introduced to the newest judge, Christina Applegate, who has been a dancer her whole life and who crossed the stage in gold heels so high she needed a handler to come down the steps to the judge’s dais.

  Nigel Lythgoe went through a list of don’ts for the dancers.  He listed out things the judges were tired of seeing.

1. Don’t extend an arm and reach out pleadingly to the judges, wild-eyed.

2. Don’t jeté , tumble, then leap into the air to jeté again.  OVER IT.

3. Don’t look at the floor. (This is also a good tip for comedy!)

4.   Don’t wink.

5. Don’t put your finger on your mouth.

6. Don’t blow a kiss.

7. Don’t lip-sync.

8. Don’t hold your leg up.  This is So You Think You Can Dance, not Do You Think You Can Hold Your Leg Up For An Assload Of Time.

I stayed for the day and saw all 114 dancers although it felt like a billion.  I now have my own list.   It’s kind of inside baseball, but what in life isn’t?

List of Most Of The Dancer Types from So You Think You Can Dance Auditions:

1. Mama’s pretty pretty princess, the best ballerina in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas.  This represents 20% of the attendees.  Wearing a sports bra and leggings.   Has long, pretty girl hair.  She will do one million pirouettes and lift her leg up by her head and will get yelled at because all the other pretty princesses have done the same thing.

2. Mama’s pretty pretty princess got a mohawk and earrings and is all edgy and shit.  She will do a ton of pirouettes and lift her leg up in the air.

3.  Mama’s pretty pretty princess (male).  Appears to have a sixteen-pack of abs.  I don’t even know if this possible.

4.  Breakdancer type one:  Learned on the streets.  Looks to have been homeless as recently as this morning.  Amazing dancer.   Doesn’t appear to hear or understand instructions but can pop and lock like a sonofabitch.

5. Breakdancer type two: Learned at boarding school.  May dress like Parappa the Rapper.  May have a rat-tail.  (Rat tail odds doubled if Asian)

6. Ballroom dancers who have spray-tanned their legs to match their shoes, which is awesome.

7. Girl with a big bottom and men’s shoes?  Lindy hopper.

8. Tap dancers, who never get through even though some of them are awesome.  The sound and size of this show are never great for tap.

9. Hot-Ass Male Russian Ballroom Dancer.  (Thank god.)  (Please take your shirt off.)

10. Asian Twerk Twink.  Wears harem pants.

11. Midwestern Sincere Contemporary Dancer (male)- Wears what looks like pajamas and his one black Lucky Spinning Sock, which is black.  He’s the best modern dancer in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas, but he’s not as good as Contemporary Eric.   Why not wear a light colored sock?  You look like a rube, Trent!

12. Elderly street dancer- He’s here to do all of Michael Jackson’s moves!  You can see him tomorrow in front of the Hollywood Boulevard wax museum.

13.  The Only Gay In The Village: A chubby small-town club dancer with a lotta heart and board shorts and a couple of awesome moves.  He is trying not to lip-sync.  My god, he tries.  But that’s not a reasonable ask for a gay club dancer.  He would have to put duct tape over his mouth, or put a Lucky Spinning Sock in it.

Good luck to these and all the dancers that auditioned, I look forward in seeing you on the show in a paint-covered t-shirt or a Victorian zombie outfit!