Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Not what fantasies are made of
On Saturday, my BFF LL Cool Jew took a quick break from her in-laws to have dumplings and drinks with me. While we were sitting at P.D. O'Hurley's slugging down Irish coffees, we heard some of the local fellas at the bar talking about how Plaxico Burress "shot himself in the foot."
"Did Plaxico Burress fucking shoot himself?" LL Cool Jew asked, alarmed, as much of her domestic peace hinges upon the Giants' fortunes.
"That can't be!" I said, myself alarmed not because of concerns about disrupting my marital bliss, but because Plaxico Burress has been stinking up my Fantasy roster all season. I immediately scanned the many televisions tuned into College Game Day on ESPN and assumed there would be something on the ticker about it. I did not see anything about Plaxico shooting himself, so I said, "Nah, dude, it would be all over ESPN if he had. They must mean figuratively, because of his attitude problems all year."
"I hope so," said LL Cool Jew, looking nervous about the prospect of attending the circus later that day with her husband BigBagel, brother-in-law, and father-in-law, all of whom are rabid Giants fans.
"Me too. That motherfucker is on my Fantasy team and I was hoping to trade him for a draft pick next year to someone who actually made the playoffs," I said. Unfortunately, despite my Fantasy team being the defending league champions and looking super hot on paper at the beginning of the season, most of my marquis players failed to do jack shit all season. The only silver lining is that, though Tha Razzies paralleled the exceptionally disappointing Seattle Seahawks, at least we won more than two fucking games all season. Therefore, I planned to trade Plax and all these underperforming douchebags for draft picks or better keepers and hope Tha Razzies have a bright season next year.
LL Cool Jew and I didn't see or hear anything further about Plax at the bar, so I forgot about it until I got home and noticed that she had texted me: "dewd, he DID shoot himself!" I immediately went to the trusty internets and realized that the moron was at some shitty club carrying the gun in his waistband with the fucking safety off, and, while his foot escaped unscathed, he shot himself through the thigh. I should add that Plax was not hanging out at some thugged-out shithole in Bed-Stuy or the South Bronx. He was at the Latin Quarter, located in the utterly non-dangerous Radisson Lexington Hotel in East Midtown, where the salsa band that played LL Cool Jew's wedding performs on Wednesday nights and guests enjoy Chef Ralph Mercado's tasty "LatAsian" creations with their bottle service. This is the kind of establishment where you are more likely to dodge spray-tanned bridge-and-tunnel types in pastel Kangol hats taking kamikaze shots than bullets. There is absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER, except for validating what an idiotic asshole you actually are, to pack heat at a place like this.
Furthermore, Plaxico told the lamest lie in the history of prevarication when he said he was actually shot at an Applebee's where he ate before he hit the club. I guess that sounds slightly better than "I accidentally shot myself because my gun WITH THE FUCKING SAFETY OFF started to fall out of my pants while I was holding a drink," but not by much.
LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's crew are not the only ones as outraged as myself at Plaxico's idiotic firearm skills. Thanks to the greatest newspaper in the history of print journalism, the New York Post, and its fellow tabloid the New York Daily News, I have spent the last three days being reminded of Tha Razzies' grim Fantasy reality every time I walk past a bodega or get on the subway (my favorite is the "GIANT IDIOT!" Post cover):
Now the Giants have suspended and banned Burress for the rest of the season, and are rumored to be getting out of the remainder of his $35 million dollar contract. It's bad enough that Plaxico might wind up booted from the New York Football Giants, since he'll probably go to the one team that, if Adam "Pac Man" Jones is any indication, welcomes violent criminals with open arms: the hateful Dallas Cowboys. At least if he goes to the Cowboys, I can probably trade him and watch media hilarity ensue as he tries to coexist with Terrell Owens's ego. A much worse scenario involves Plaxico's fate at 100 Centre Street, AKA the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. New York City has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, and possession of an illegal, loaded firearm carries a 3 1/2 year mandatory minimum sentence. Which means that if Plaxico is convicted in spite of hiring celebrity gun charge lawyer extraordinaire Benjamin Brafman, my Fantasy team goes from disappointing to totally fucked. Thanks a lot, Plax.
Labels: BigBagel, crime and punishment, Fantasia, guns, LL Cool Jew, NFL football, NYC, retard rage
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Louisiana
Name: Louisiana
DOB: 1803 (territory acquired), April 30, 1812 (state admitted to Union)
Occupation: weird awesomeness
Hometown: N/A
Current residence: check a map
Anyway, I know all you dedicated Razzyphiles and Haters alike have been without a place to direct your respective adoration or ire, so, as unhappy as I am about my brief vacation being over, I’m pleased to make my glorious return to the internets. And I may as well start by gratuitously telling you about how awesome my trip was!
I already knew that the trip was going to be a serious departure from New York during my flight on Saturday afternoon. Everyone on the plane seemed to know each other judging by their constant chatting with each other. The people behind me were returning from a vacation to New York and were busy telling their seatmate, a stranger who just happened to know about 50 mutual friends, acquaintances, and cousins-by-marriage. They were busy exchanging stories about what they did during their trip, like which restaurants they went to and how many times they visited Ground Zero, which they referred to as “9-1-1” (not “nine-eleven” or “September 11th”, but “nine-one-one”, like the emergency hotline). After two and a half hours of listening to these chatty folks yammering about Tom Colicchio’s sandwich-making prowess and whether or not they liked Wicked or Phantom of the Opera more, I wasn’t entirely out of New York bitch mode and tolerant of the constantly jaw-flapping Southern attitude. I was ready for a damn drink.
I was delighted when LL Cool Jew picked me up and informed me that our first stop (after a quick drive-by of the ruins of the Magnolia Projects where Juvenile came up) was going to be some fancy old hotel bar for mint juleps. We subsequently met up with BigBagel for dinner at Cochon, this upscale place serving expensive versions of old Southern favorites. After a bottle of wine and big plates of pig ears, pork cheeks, salad with fried beef jerky, and frog legs, we went to change in preparation for the requisite tourist visit to the French Quarter. This also seemed like a natural first stop since, like me, this part of town is known for its exposed breasts.
First we had a few drinks and then met up with LL Cool Jew’s former colleague, who I’ll call Lil’ Darlin’, because that’s the name of the strip club she swore was the hip-hop club. After taking our seats and receiving a fistful of dollars each from BigBagel, we were ready to see some girls shaking their jelly to Lil’ Wayne songs. Much to our chagrin, as a new peeler took the stage, we heard the melancholy electronic opening notes to a RADIOHEAD song. “What the fuck?” LL Cool Jew and I both simultaneously said. Who strips to Radiohead? Strippers humping poles are supposed to be fun and sexy, not morose and whiny.
“This place is going downhill since the last time I was here,” said Lil’ Darlin’. “I guess they changed the format.”
“Where are the bitches writhing around to ‘Lollipop’?” demanded LL Cool Jew.
BigBagel was unable to answer because, in spite of the Radiohead or possibly because of it, he was in front of the stage slapping down ones and getting his nipples twisted by the stripper.
We stayed another ten minutes to see a few more bored-looking women shaking their cans to Linkin Park before we decided to venture out in search of hand grenades. Luckily upon getting back outside, some guys were standing on a balcony throwing beads.
“Go get some beads,” LL Cool Jew said.
While this is annoying and touristy, and I actually hate beads because when you’re a packrat with lousy housekeeping skills like myself they do nothing but contribute to clutter, I figured that I could not be on Bourbon Street and not participate in its most famous rite of clichéd debauchery. So I lifted my shirt for the bead-bearers’ benefit and walked away with a Mr. T-sized bundle of gaudy disposable neckwear. Unfortunately for all you guys, we forgot the camera for this part of the trip, but I brought some beads back to New York with me to recreate this scene from the comfort of my own apartment:
I had never eaten crawfish pie before, and in fact did not know what it was. It turns out that it’s like a giant piece of baklava that is made with a shit-ton of etouffee instead of syrup. I think it was probably at least 5000 calories, and I gladly ate my way through three quarters of it before I finally had to surrender. Those Haters who love to tell me how disgustingly fat I am will surely enjoy pointing out that I probably gained at least ten pounds in four days on this trip, and that crawfish pie probably accounted for at least two. Needless to say, it was awesome. I think I could probably write ten pages (one for each pound) alone just rhapsodizing about all the shit I ate while I was there.
After lunch, LL Cool Jew and I had a few hours to kill prior to our swamp tour, so we drove around through the countryside taking in the rural sites. We stopped at a Sonic for limeade and milkshakes just to make sure we really exceeded our lunchtime calorie intake by at least 300% and went for a drive. On our way to some old plantation house we were going to walk the grounds of, we found a completely improbable mural dedicated to the FDNY on a volunteer firehouse in the small town of Parks. LL Cool Jew insisted on taking my picture showing off my Sonic cup and acting the fool in front of it, right in time for a car of old ladies on their way from church drove by with a “Support our Troops” bumper sticker on the back of their giant Cadillac. I don’t think they liked me doing what probably could be construed as mocking the sacrifices of New York’s Bravest on what the people on my plane ride down indicated was locally known as “9-1-1”. They shot us looks of undeniable disapproval and hostility.
"Dude," she said when she snapped the picture and they passed. "Did you see that look those women gave us when they passed by? There's nothing like the icy hate of a Southern lady. It freezes, precious!"
We decided that in spite of my plane ride down leading me to believe that "911" is a perennial favorite place for Louisianans to visit in New York, it's not cool to do tourist activities around their random murals dedicated to New York's Bravest in Louisiana. We also decided that it would be a good idea to do something more officially touristy to ensure that none of the locals get pissed and give us directions to the House of Wax.
Therefore we went to Shadows-on-the-Teche, a plantation house with a big garden on a bayou. We didn't have time to do the whole tour, but we at least got to walk around the grounds and take in the pretty flowers and the oddly juxtaposed pagan-and-Catholic sculpture collection. There were a bunch of obviously half-naked Olympian god-type figures decorating their tits in preparation for a presumptive impending bacchanal…beside some very pious-looking Catholic saints.
“Hey Razzy,” said LL Cool Jew. “Name that saint for me.” She pointed at a particularly stern man with a long beard.
“Pretty sure that’s St. Peter. Simon Peter denied Jesus’s SOG (SOG=son of God) status three times to your messiah-killing, Barabbas-freeing mob of Druish agitators before the cock crowed but still managed to win appointment as the first pope. He’s like the OG Catholic, dude. The rock upon which Josh Christ built his church.”
“How can you tell?” asked LL Cool Jew.
“Well, he looks stern and humorless, and obviously too pious to shave. St. Peter was kind of wild before Jesus tapped him to be the original HBIC of the Cat-lickers, but once Jesus died and rose again he became a joyless old curmudgeon just like Benedixteen. He even insisted on being crucified UPSIDE DOWN once the Romans started getting their persecution on, because he didn’t think anyone should have the luxury of being crucified right-side up like JC. This guy’s demeanor looks and sounds about right.” Then I thought better of it and came clean about my ability to identify Catholic saints based on their unlabeled random statuary. “And the local parish church down the street is called St. Peter’s.”
“Pretty sure that’s St. Peter. Simon Peter denied Jesus’s SOG (SOG=son of God) status three times to your messiah-killing, Barabbas-freeing mob of Druish agitators before the cock crowed but still managed to win appointment as the first pope. He’s like the OG Catholic, dude. The rock upon which Josh Christ built his church.”
“How can you tell?” asked LL Cool Jew.
“Well, he looks stern and humorless, and obviously too pious to shave. St. Peter was kind of wild before Jesus tapped him to be the original HBIC of the Cat-lickers, but once Jesus died and rose again he became a joyless old curmudgeon just like Benedixteen. He even insisted on being crucified UPSIDE DOWN once the Romans started getting their persecution on, because he didn’t think anyone should have the luxury of being crucified right-side up like JC. This guy’s demeanor looks and sounds about right.” Then I thought better of it and came clean about my ability to identify Catholic saints based on their unlabeled random statuary. “And the local parish church down the street is called St. Peter’s.”
We went down to the bayou to see if we could find any nutria, but didn't see any. And speaking of nutria, it was time for our trip to the swamps for a tour. I was sure we would see some.
Our guide was this guy named Walter "Butch" Guchereaux, who not only knew an insane amount about the history, flora, fauna, and current legal status of the swamp he showed us around, he had the world's greatest accent. He was also very sweet and assured me that he would keep us a safe distance from any spiderwebs.
I got right down to business and asked if we could go to wherever the nutria reside.
"Nutria? You're not gonna see any. If you can see da nutrias, da gators can see 'em too." Then he advised me that about ten years ago, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a nutria. However, the nutria population started disappearing coincident with the proliferation of the local alligator population. I can see how that would be, because while we didn't see any nutria, we saw two gigantic fucking alligators.
After about an hour of tooling around checking out birds and reptiles and listening to Butch's corny jokes ("What do you call da most lonedsome bayou? Bayou self") and his stories about how he built a self-sustaining duck blind out of toppled cypress trees ("I got my own ecosystem goin' here"), we headed to Lafayette to the hostel where we were staying. Initially when LL Cool Jew told me she booked us a room at a "hostel" for our night in Cajun country, I was extremely skeptical. "HOSTEL, dude? I don't stay in hostels." I reserve nothing but scorn and disdain for backpacker types, and the idea of sharing a communal shower with them is entirely reprehensible.
"Dude, we have a private room with a private bath. Do you think my JAP-tastic ass would stay in a backpacker-type place?" she said. I had to concede that point. If I'm adamant about my "no backpackers" policy, LL Cool Jew's unwillingness is probably greater by a logarithmic order of magnitude. However, we couldn't check in for another hour, so we went to get a cold beer at the artfaggy joint across the street, a bar appropriately called "Artmosphere."
We were surprised to see such a hipster place in Lafayette, Louisiana (home of the UL Ragin' Cajuns), but we couldn't complain about the $3 beers, even if there were some vintage t-shirt-wearing tools smoking hookahs there.
Then we went to dinner at Prejean's, this Cajun restaurant where we proceeded to consume our weight in fried seafood. LL Cool Jew wasn't kidding when she said their smoked duck and andouille gumbo was one of the most mind-blowing thing she'd ever eaten. We also ordered an oyster bake that was a little disappointing. When our (hot and obviously knowing it) waiter put it in front of us, the whole thing was covered with bechamel sauce and I made a crack about how I like to eat things that are splattered with hot white sauce, he just gave us our plate with a shifty look. LL Cool Jew ate one of the oysters Rockefeller, and I went for the other type of oyster.
"You have a weird look on your face," she observed.
"It's a weird oyster," I said. "The sauce is like...creamy tomato. It's odd."
LL Cool Jew tried one then. "Dude, with the tasso in it, it tastes like...I don't know...some kind of fake-me-out Italian food. It's like a piece of pizza or something."
"Pizza oysters!" I said. "It's like the Prejean's equivalent of a New York slice."
"Dude, pizza oysters made with fucking Prego," observed LL Cool Jew.
Apart from the disappointing pizza oysters, we otherwise gorged ourselves on fried fish and shrimp, and jammed for a while to the weird Zydeco band of old men who took the stage with their accordions and fiddles.
After we were about to burst open from overeating, we decided that instead of dessert we'd opt for some liquid to wash down our dinner. To avoid having to drive, we went back to the Artmosphere.
Within five minutes we met a bunch of dudes who invited us back to the hostel for some--ahem--herbal cigarettes. One of these guys, a good-natured recent traveler to Amsterdam, told a hilarious story about how he was in the Air Force right after the Iraq War started, he met Senator John McCain, who--according to him--wrote on his tent "Give 'em hell! Fuckin' Senator John McCain."
"Dude, did he really write 'Fuckin' Senator John McCain?'" LL Cool Jew demanded. "Because that would be awesome." Unfortunately, the narrator had just added the "fuckin'" for emphasis.
We also met Fuckin' Senator John McCain's friends. First there was Carlos, a "documentary photographer" (translation: unemployed vagabond with a camera who gets laid more when he says he's a documentary photographer), who wouldn't stop marveling that "it's amazing to meet not one, but TWO women who have read a book."
"We've both read more than one, too," I assured him. LL Cool Jew was rolling her eyes. We promised him a ride to New Orleans the next day but bailed two hours early so we didn't have to listen to him raving about what he considered an abnormal amount of female literacy. We did, however, reap the benefits of his photography skills:
Rounding out our group of new friends was Brett, an aw-shucks type of fella who kept trying very, very unsuccessfully to hit on myself and LL Cool Jew by laying on the country bumpkin sweetness thick. He even went so far as to ask if I could take him inside and teach him how to use the internet because he's "not familiar with the technologies" (I declined). He looked like a cross between Tom Selleck and Matthew McConaughey, and it's fitting that he is seen here in front of a "Sugar Cane Loading Zone" sign:
Then we went back to drink more at the Artmosphere, but were quickly lured away again by our new friends to their pal's "convenience store." John Pastore, proprietor of John's Quik Stop, welcomed us through a thick cloud of joint smoke to what is probably the world's most inconvenient convenience store. In addition to this place only being open between 3-7 pm, there appeared to be only one of each item he sold, and most of it was packaged foods and random trinkety crap manufactured by companies we'd never heard of. Check out his toy section:
"I went to the dollar store and bought one of everything!" said John proudly of his inventory.
"Dude, maybe you should go someplace different," said Fuckin' Senator John McCain. "Would you eat this?" He held up a can of "sliced beef, gravy, and rice" that I swear was dog food packaged for human consumption.
"Hell naw!" exclaimed John. "But that don't mean somebody won't!" He was very confident in his business model.
As befits my taste, I immediately went to the most expensive item in the store: the $25 alligator heads. I didn't buy them, but I did try to French them a little bit:
After another drink at the Artmosphere, LL Cool Jew and I passed out. She regaled me with the tale of how she got into it with this random Lebanese guy who joined our group at some point. LL Cool Jew had received a great deal of curious inquiries into her ethnicity from the locals. At one point, Brett asked her "Now what's y'all's extraction?"
"I'm Jewish," LL Cool Jew replied.
"Jewish! Well how about that? I thought y'all was a gypsy!" I'm glad she's not a gypsy, because "LL Cool Gypsy" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
LL Cool Jew had been fielding queries regarding her possible Judeo-Gypsy status all night, so it wasn't a big shock when this Lebanese guy wanted to know. Unfortunately, he reacted a little different than Brett's "I thought y'all was a gypsy" response. He was apparently telling her that halvah could be had at the Cedars Deli nearby.
"It is Jewish-style halvah, though," he said, grimacing. "You aren't Jewish, are you?"
"As a matter of fact, I am," said LL Cool Jew.
He scowled at her and said condescendingly, "My people have been enjoying halvah for two thousand years." LL Cool Jew said that it was apparent he was trying to pull out some "oh, SNAP, Jews!" moves and refused to be baited into saying something that would confirm her status as a Zionist pig to him. I thought she should have been like "Oh yeah? Well, my people have been enjoying halvah for 5,678 years!" or something like that, but she apparently just gave him a withering look and announced she was ready to retire to our quarters.
The next morning we got up, blazed out of the hostel before Carlos could meet us and tag along all day complimenting our intelligence, and got a breakfast at a place that exemplified exactly why there are so many fat people in Louisiana. Check out the guy behind LL Cool Jew:
Then we proceeded to drive around for a bit. We were reminded that, in spite of places like the Artmosphere peddling hookahs and weird artwork, there were still plenty of people more in line with what I would expect...CLASSY:
I totally am getting a sign like that for my dad to put on the back of his "rig," along with a pair of truck balls for his trailer hitch.
Then we got some beef jerky and went to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. We saw more alligators there, along with more birds, and a shitload of bamboo. It was pretty but uneventful, and we proved two things I already know: that I hate Tabasco (I'm a Tapatio/Marie Sharp's kind of girl) and that LL Cool Jew can still flash a mean lesbian gang sign even though she's gone the breeder route in terms of life partner selection.
Once we got back to New Orleans, it was again eating time. I think I nearly killed myself trying to lay waste to a soft-shelled crab po' boy. Then we went to LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's local pub for trivia night. They do this every Monday, and we were sure that between all of us, we would be able to lay waste to the competition. Unfortunately, that dream was shattered when LL Cool Jew earned the pub dunce cap by identifying the opening line of The Godfather as being from the film Yentl. The look on BigBagel's face in this picture says it all.
We may not have won trivia night, but we did have a really fitting team name. We decided that, in keeping with 50% of the team's Smith College traditions, we'd go with Current Events in Lesbianism as inspiration, and called ourselves "the Lohan-Ronson Invitational Clambake." Even more fitting, I've realized that Lil' Darlin' and I actually look like Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. It's unfortunate that I have to be the Samantha Ronson of the pair, but you can't win 'em all.
And even more fitting than that is the fact that when we got back to Casa de Cool Jew-Bagel, Lil' Darlin' shared a bed with me and requested that she be permitted to "play with (my) boobs." Of course I gave my consent, and raised her an "as long as you're at it, you want to fuck?" Unfortunately, she has a boyfriend she's actually loyal to, so our imitation of LiLo and SamRo remained superficial. I did get my tits felt up, though, which ruled.
The last day of our trip was one of the most highly anticipated: our journey to Kentwood, Louisiana to see the Britney Jean Spears museum. Actually, the museum was called "The Kentwood Historical and Cultural Museum," but apart from a memorial to Kentwood's brave military people, it was all Britney.
One of the greatest disappointments of my trip was the fact that no photos were allowed. I can't imagine why, because you would think that they could use the publicity. When I signed the guest book, I noted that we were the first visitors in 3 days. Hazel, the ancient woman whose threadbare coat identified her as the "curater" of the museum, didn't slack in attempting to give us a show. She led us into a dark room, then asked if we were "ready," and flipped a switch. There, before us, was a model of the stage from Britney's first tour that some dude in Oregon spent six months making.
"I was thinkin' his wife should get the credit for puttin' up with him fiddlin' with it for six months," said Hazel. LL Cool Jew gave me a look that plainly said, "Sha right, like the gay dude who made this has a wife."
Then we checked out the memorabilia collection. It was really impressive. They had Britney's "Best New Artist" American Music Award, her first MTV video music award (pre-Moonman), her Mickey Mouse Club jacket, and what looked like all of her platinum records. They also had a wall of Britney magazine covers, including a hilariously ironic one that said, "Britney Spears: Why I'm Waiting." Probably the weirdest, most disturbing thing was the hermetically sealed room containing all of Britney's childhood bedroom furniture and Madame Alexander dolls, with a picture in the foreground of Britney from the most Lolita-ed out Rolling Stone photo shoot of all time.
"That's like some gross old pedophile's fantasy jerk closet," LL Cool Jew whispered to me in a tone low enough not to be heard by Hazel as she tottered around.
We consented then to a tour of the military memorial, and listened to Hazel yammer on about how Taylor Horn, another local entertainer who already looks like a total whore at 15, was going to be a big star. It became apparent that the people of Kentwood are trying to divorce themselves from Britney, and even Hazel was probably hoping to replace the BJS section with a Taylor Horn section. We also noted that the "Welcome to Kentwood: Home of Britney Spears" sign that was supposed to greet us had been taken down ("that's cold" observed LL Cool Jew). It's pretty rich that the people of Kentwood think they're too good for even crazy, Frapp-slurping Brit Brit. Kentwood was probably one of the trashiest towns we went through. Half the buildings in town were abandoned and collapsing. The entire place seemed in a state of gradual decay. They didn't even have a Wal-Mart or a Winn-Dixie (although to our delight, they did have a Sonic).
After our tour, in the course of listening to Hazel ramble about Kentwood, its residents, and things we should do during our visit (in which she very amusingly told LL Cool Jew to "take your Yankee to Nyla's Burger Basket for some fried catfish"), we managed to get directions to Serenity, the Spears family "estate." LL Cool Jew and I immediately went there, and drove by several times trying to discreetly take a picture and hopefully see Jamie-Lynn's pregnant ass waddling around.
Sadly, there were no Jamie-Lynn sightings, so we just grabbed more drinks from Sonic and headed back to New Orleans to watch some Lord of the Rings for old time's sake. LL Cool Jew and I watch LOTR movies when we have nothing better to do. It was a great way to end a vacation that was entirely too short.
I have to go back as soon as possible, because I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. Specifically, I didn't eat any nutria! I didn't even SEE any nutria. Every time we passed any type of swampy body of water, I was scanning eagerly for those little guys swimming around, but it turns out that they are pretty elusive for an invasive species. Obviously, I MUST at least see nutria at some point even if I can't eat them, so I'll have to go back.
"Nutria? You're not gonna see any. If you can see da nutrias, da gators can see 'em too." Then he advised me that about ten years ago, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a nutria. However, the nutria population started disappearing coincident with the proliferation of the local alligator population. I can see how that would be, because while we didn't see any nutria, we saw two gigantic fucking alligators.
After about an hour of tooling around checking out birds and reptiles and listening to Butch's corny jokes ("What do you call da most lonedsome bayou? Bayou self") and his stories about how he built a self-sustaining duck blind out of toppled cypress trees ("I got my own ecosystem goin' here"), we headed to Lafayette to the hostel where we were staying. Initially when LL Cool Jew told me she booked us a room at a "hostel" for our night in Cajun country, I was extremely skeptical. "HOSTEL, dude? I don't stay in hostels." I reserve nothing but scorn and disdain for backpacker types, and the idea of sharing a communal shower with them is entirely reprehensible.
"Dude, we have a private room with a private bath. Do you think my JAP-tastic ass would stay in a backpacker-type place?" she said. I had to concede that point. If I'm adamant about my "no backpackers" policy, LL Cool Jew's unwillingness is probably greater by a logarithmic order of magnitude. However, we couldn't check in for another hour, so we went to get a cold beer at the artfaggy joint across the street, a bar appropriately called "Artmosphere."
"You have a weird look on your face," she observed.
"It's a weird oyster," I said. "The sauce is like...creamy tomato. It's odd."
LL Cool Jew tried one then. "Dude, with the tasso in it, it tastes like...I don't know...some kind of fake-me-out Italian food. It's like a piece of pizza or something."
"Pizza oysters!" I said. "It's like the Prejean's equivalent of a New York slice."
"Dude, pizza oysters made with fucking Prego," observed LL Cool Jew.
Apart from the disappointing pizza oysters, we otherwise gorged ourselves on fried fish and shrimp, and jammed for a while to the weird Zydeco band of old men who took the stage with their accordions and fiddles.
Within five minutes we met a bunch of dudes who invited us back to the hostel for some--ahem--herbal cigarettes. One of these guys, a good-natured recent traveler to Amsterdam, told a hilarious story about how he was in the Air Force right after the Iraq War started, he met Senator John McCain, who--according to him--wrote on his tent "Give 'em hell! Fuckin' Senator John McCain."
We also met Fuckin' Senator John McCain's friends. First there was Carlos, a "documentary photographer" (translation: unemployed vagabond with a camera who gets laid more when he says he's a documentary photographer), who wouldn't stop marveling that "it's amazing to meet not one, but TWO women who have read a book."
"Dude, maybe you should go someplace different," said Fuckin' Senator John McCain. "Would you eat this?" He held up a can of "sliced beef, gravy, and rice" that I swear was dog food packaged for human consumption.
"Hell naw!" exclaimed John. "But that don't mean somebody won't!" He was very confident in his business model.
As befits my taste, I immediately went to the most expensive item in the store: the $25 alligator heads. I didn't buy them, but I did try to French them a little bit:
After another drink at the Artmosphere, LL Cool Jew and I passed out. She regaled me with the tale of how she got into it with this random Lebanese guy who joined our group at some point. LL Cool Jew had received a great deal of curious inquiries into her ethnicity from the locals. At one point, Brett asked her "Now what's y'all's extraction?"
"I'm Jewish," LL Cool Jew replied.
"Jewish! Well how about that? I thought y'all was a gypsy!" I'm glad she's not a gypsy, because "LL Cool Gypsy" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
LL Cool Jew had been fielding queries regarding her possible Judeo-Gypsy status all night, so it wasn't a big shock when this Lebanese guy wanted to know. Unfortunately, he reacted a little different than Brett's "I thought y'all was a gypsy" response. He was apparently telling her that halvah could be had at the Cedars Deli nearby.
"It is Jewish-style halvah, though," he said, grimacing. "You aren't Jewish, are you?"
"As a matter of fact, I am," said LL Cool Jew.
He scowled at her and said condescendingly, "My people have been enjoying halvah for two thousand years." LL Cool Jew said that it was apparent he was trying to pull out some "oh, SNAP, Jews!" moves and refused to be baited into saying something that would confirm her status as a Zionist pig to him. I thought she should have been like "Oh yeah? Well, my people have been enjoying halvah for 5,678 years!" or something like that, but she apparently just gave him a withering look and announced she was ready to retire to our quarters.
The next morning we got up, blazed out of the hostel before Carlos could meet us and tag along all day complimenting our intelligence, and got a breakfast at a place that exemplified exactly why there are so many fat people in Louisiana. Check out the guy behind LL Cool Jew:
Then we got some beef jerky and went to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. We saw more alligators there, along with more birds, and a shitload of bamboo. It was pretty but uneventful, and we proved two things I already know: that I hate Tabasco (I'm a Tapatio/Marie Sharp's kind of girl) and that LL Cool Jew can still flash a mean lesbian gang sign even though she's gone the breeder route in terms of life partner selection.
Once we got back to New Orleans, it was again eating time. I think I nearly killed myself trying to lay waste to a soft-shelled crab po' boy. Then we went to LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's local pub for trivia night. They do this every Monday, and we were sure that between all of us, we would be able to lay waste to the competition. Unfortunately, that dream was shattered when LL Cool Jew earned the pub dunce cap by identifying the opening line of The Godfather as being from the film Yentl. The look on BigBagel's face in this picture says it all.
The last day of our trip was one of the most highly anticipated: our journey to Kentwood, Louisiana to see the Britney Jean Spears museum. Actually, the museum was called "The Kentwood Historical and Cultural Museum," but apart from a memorial to Kentwood's brave military people, it was all Britney.
"I was thinkin' his wife should get the credit for puttin' up with him fiddlin' with it for six months," said Hazel. LL Cool Jew gave me a look that plainly said, "Sha right, like the gay dude who made this has a wife."
Then we checked out the memorabilia collection. It was really impressive. They had Britney's "Best New Artist" American Music Award, her first MTV video music award (pre-Moonman), her Mickey Mouse Club jacket, and what looked like all of her platinum records. They also had a wall of Britney magazine covers, including a hilariously ironic one that said, "Britney Spears: Why I'm Waiting." Probably the weirdest, most disturbing thing was the hermetically sealed room containing all of Britney's childhood bedroom furniture and Madame Alexander dolls, with a picture in the foreground of Britney from the most Lolita-ed out Rolling Stone photo shoot of all time.
"That's like some gross old pedophile's fantasy jerk closet," LL Cool Jew whispered to me in a tone low enough not to be heard by Hazel as she tottered around.
We consented then to a tour of the military memorial, and listened to Hazel yammer on about how Taylor Horn, another local entertainer who already looks like a total whore at 15, was going to be a big star. It became apparent that the people of Kentwood are trying to divorce themselves from Britney, and even Hazel was probably hoping to replace the BJS section with a Taylor Horn section. We also noted that the "Welcome to Kentwood: Home of Britney Spears" sign that was supposed to greet us had been taken down ("that's cold" observed LL Cool Jew). It's pretty rich that the people of Kentwood think they're too good for even crazy, Frapp-slurping Brit Brit. Kentwood was probably one of the trashiest towns we went through. Half the buildings in town were abandoned and collapsing. The entire place seemed in a state of gradual decay. They didn't even have a Wal-Mart or a Winn-Dixie (although to our delight, they did have a Sonic).
After our tour, in the course of listening to Hazel ramble about Kentwood, its residents, and things we should do during our visit (in which she very amusingly told LL Cool Jew to "take your Yankee to Nyla's Burger Basket for some fried catfish"), we managed to get directions to Serenity, the Spears family "estate." LL Cool Jew and I immediately went there, and drove by several times trying to discreetly take a picture and hopefully see Jamie-Lynn's pregnant ass waddling around.
I have to go back as soon as possible, because I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. Specifically, I didn't eat any nutria! I didn't even SEE any nutria. Every time we passed any type of swampy body of water, I was scanning eagerly for those little guys swimming around, but it turns out that they are pretty elusive for an invasive species. Obviously, I MUST at least see nutria at some point even if I can't eat them, so I'll have to go back.
Oh, and PS...LL Cool Jew thanks all the readers requesting pictures of her tits, but her reply to your request is "NO WAY IN FUCKING HELL."
Labels: BigBagel, Britney Spears, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dirrty Dirrty, gluttony, LL Cool Jew
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Ray Nagin...AGAIN
RAZZY Note: this was written by BigBagel, managing editor of our Hate-On-Ray-Nagin department here in the old RAZZY.org newsroom. He is so hardcore about hating on Ray Nagin that he lives in New Orleans just to keep an eye on him, and homeskillet has an actual Pulitzer for his reportage. Seriously, this is a PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING JOURNALIST writing for my website. That's how we roll here at RAZZY.org: nothing but the best. I expect to get my own Pulitzer as soon as they invent one for blogging.
Name: Clarence Ray Nagin (on the right, with Police Superintendent Warren Riley)
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: (Better question for Nagin: Non-douchebaggery? )
This is Monsieur Nagin’s second trip to douchebag lane, so I thought it best to switch things up a bit and make it a photo caption contest. There’s so many places to go with Nagin's fucktardedness, I’m gonna struggle to remain focused on the above photo. Mostly, dear fellow Razzyphiles, I felt that this photo was too precious for the whole world not to see.
And I’d like you to view and caption this photo in the following context: Even though NOLA is down about 40% from its pre-Katrina population, the city has recaptured the title of America’s "murder capital", according to the FBI. (By that, they mean most murders per capita.) The city recorded a total of 209 homicides in 2007. Now to do a bit of crude math for you all, that means there’s about .696 murders per 1,000 population, making New Orleans more dangerous than the countries of Colombia and South Africa, and more than twice as dangerous as Jam-Rock Jamaica!
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
So you’re probably asking yourself, is Nagin worried? Can he speak to us here in Razzyland? He can, in his own words: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword."
I was just wondering to myself if I should put the above picture into it's true context….nah! Considering the stakes of the game Nagin’s playing and the number of opportunistic self-serving fuck-ups he’s committed, I don’t think he’s earned any benefit of the doubt anymore. So without further ado I’m gonna end this and skip to my favorite captions from the NOLA.com blog this photo first appeared on and some a caption from colleagues at work. I encourage you Razzyphiles out there to come up with your own.
My favorite (from a colleague): "God this brings back memories, huh Ray? Remember we used one of these in our first convenience store hold up back in '78, out on Crowder. Man, that white bitch was so scared, I thought she was going to crap her pants."
My (pathetic) attempt: “No, really, I ain’t fuckin’ playin. Gimmee yo’ goddamn money.”
My favorite from the blog it first appeared on: "OK, lets go find Marc Morial!!"
(Morial=previous mayor of NOLA.)
Another good one: “City leaders unveil new throws for next years' Mardi Gras.”
So what you got, people of Razzyland?
[RAZZY Note #2: LL Cool Jew sent me this take on it. It's my favorite:
So get down to business coming up with captions of your own. LL Cool Jew says that she'll give me alcohol if I help her win the leftover plastic Mardi Gras tiara that her co-workers are offering to the best entry in their office caption contest. And if you didn't have enough douchebaggery on Nagin, read the article that was originally attached to this picture in the Times-Picayune (favorite newspaper name ever). Nagin actually takes time out of his photo op to welcome the NBA All-Stars to the city. With an assault rifle playfully pointed at the superintendent of the NOPD. Nice.]
!!!First ever Daily Douchebag photo caption contest!!!
(winner will bask in eternal glory)
(winner will bask in eternal glory)
Name: Clarence Ray Nagin (on the right, with Police Superintendent Warren Riley)
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: (Better question for Nagin: Non-douchebaggery? )
This is Monsieur Nagin’s second trip to douchebag lane, so I thought it best to switch things up a bit and make it a photo caption contest. There’s so many places to go with Nagin's fucktardedness, I’m gonna struggle to remain focused on the above photo. Mostly, dear fellow Razzyphiles, I felt that this photo was too precious for the whole world not to see.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita
So you’re probably asking yourself, is Nagin worried? Can he speak to us here in Razzyland? He can, in his own words: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword."
I was just wondering to myself if I should put the above picture into it's true context….nah! Considering the stakes of the game Nagin’s playing and the number of opportunistic self-serving fuck-ups he’s committed, I don’t think he’s earned any benefit of the doubt anymore. So without further ado I’m gonna end this and skip to my favorite captions from the NOLA.com blog this photo first appeared on and some a caption from colleagues at work. I encourage you Razzyphiles out there to come up with your own.
My favorite (from a colleague): "God this brings back memories, huh Ray? Remember we used one of these in our first convenience store hold up back in '78, out on Crowder. Man, that white bitch was so scared, I thought she was going to crap her pants."
My (pathetic) attempt: “No, really, I ain’t fuckin’ playin. Gimmee yo’ goddamn money.”
My favorite from the blog it first appeared on: "OK, lets go find Marc Morial!!"
(Morial=previous mayor of NOLA.)
Another good one: “City leaders unveil new throws for next years' Mardi Gras.”
So what you got, people of Razzyland?
[RAZZY Note #2: LL Cool Jew sent me this take on it. It's my favorite:
Labels: BigBagel, Daily Douchebag, Dirrty Dirrty, guns, LL Cool Jew, politics
Monday, February 04, 2008
To FAS or not to FAS?
Today I received an email from BigBagel and was most dismayed. Buoyed by his team's glorious triumph in the Super Bowl last night, he wants to cease and desist with using a demeaning moniker for Eli "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome" Manning that he himself came up with (probably).
Furthermore, BigBagel created a monster when he started calling Eli "FAS." I was getting text messages last night from HotLawyer being like "fuck yeah, fas!," and HotLawyer has never even met BigBagel. At the Super Bowl party I was at, a bunch of grad students who have also mostly never met BigBagel were also shouting words of encouragement like, "Let's go, FAS! Come on, FAS!" FAS is a nickname that makes so much sense that once people hear it, they never want to call Eli anything else ever again. I'm certainly not giving up a name that good for "Ice Water." Maybe "Bud Ice" or "Smirnoff Ice," but not "Ice Water."
Anyway, though, although I disagree with BigBagel's position, I figured that it would be only fair to pose this question for public debate. So please weigh in on the comments page. Should FAS Manning be a glorious denigrating nickname of the past and be replaced with the slightly more impressive "Ice Water," or should it forever be used to describe young Eli Manning? Fetal alcohol or ice water? Holler back.
To: Razzy (razzy@razzy.org)In short, NO! He's still a damn Manning, and I hate all of them. Archie, Peyton, Eli...it doesn't matter. I loathe the Mannings and every last one of their tick-ridden, poorly enunciating, jaw-lolling country kin. I hate that I'm going to be tormented by inordinate MasterCard and DirecTV commercials featuring Eli as well as his annoying big brother. I hate the way Eli is going to be elevated in fantasy draft rankings next year and how I'm going to be listening to all the New York sports pundits crowing about his greatness for months to come. FAS had a good end to his season, but that doesn't mean he's covered from the serious case of slack-jawed yokelism he's likely had since birth. Fetal alcohol syndrome is a permanent condition. Not even Super Bowl MVP status can cure a bad case of FAS.
From: BigBagel (bigbagel@somefellowshiporsomethinginthedirrty.com)
Subject: an entreaty
It is time to put to bed the nickname FAS Manning. Instead, he is, as Plaxico Burress put it, Ice Water. Or, for short, I.W.
I do not know whether or not I was clever enough or not to invent the nickname FAS. It mighta happened in some Mississippi bar with some Ole Miss fan tellin' jokes over over the 15th beer before driving home in one of the few states where it takes 3 DUIs before it's a felony. Or, it mighta been some divine inspiration because I will freely acknowledge that Eli is a mouth breather.
But, Super Bowl MVPs are defined solely by that accomplishment until they die, unless they retire, go to med school and cure cancer. Otherwise, they will always, always be Super Bowl MVPs. Case in point: Ray Lewis. How often after he won the Super Bowl MVP did you hear him referred to as an "alleged murderer who happened to win the MVP"? Never, he was just a SBMVP. He still is simply a SBMVP. His team sucks. He's psychotic and overbearing. He'll never win another. He's got a bloated contract and now that he's off the roids and rage juice, he's kinda relatively lackadaisical. And he probably killed someone with a knife at the Super Bowl in Atlanta in 1999 before going on to whip my beloved Giants ass' the next year in the SB. But none of that matters, cause Ray Lewis was a well-deserving SBMVP. And so was Eli.
Now, I will fully admit that I was down on Eli. Besides Olivia Manning, who wasn't? He stunk, made dumb decisions and fell down whenever a D-lineman so much as burped at him. It didn't help that he rarely was able to conjure up more than a, "Oh gee, that was awful, huh?" after doing something stupid on the field. His brother, what's his name? Oh yeah, Peyton "douchebag" Manning was always very articulate, playful. Peyton seemed to be a real engaging guy with an otherworldly ability, whereas you wondered often if Eli was capable of lacing up his own cleats.
But I was made a believer in the Dallas game, the Divisional Championship this year, at the end of the first half. Down 14-7, Giants get the ball with about one minute to go. The Cowboys, America's team starting America's quarterback dating America's favorite trashy pop star in America's favorite stadium, had the momentum. But Eli was cool. He marched them right up the field like he'd been doing it all day and scored. Tied at the half. Cowboys momentum completely deflated. Ice Water.
How about being down by 4 with about two minutes to go in the MOTHERFUCKING SUPER BOWL against what many were calling one of the greatest teams of all time? What did he do? He won. Straight up. No controversial ending. No flashy show. He didn't taunt the Patriots, talk shit, act a fool, throw a trick play in. (Ahem, Yoko Romo and Philip "Ah'm frum Gnawrth Cahrowleyenah nd ah cayun play quortorback" Rivers.) He didn't throw amazing passes, dazzle with his athletic ability or rocket arm, or put on a show. He just won. End of story. Ice Water.
I acknowledge that there is a chance that some of the FAS may contribute to his Ice Water-iness. I mean, maybe he's too dumb to know the gravity of some of the incredible situations he's able to dig himself out of. Yet he keeps doing it, keeps finding a way. And he also keeps not making mistakes. I'm sorry Ang, but as skilled a quarterback as Matt Hasselback might be, he's never performed to the level Ice Water did for for the last 6 weeks. There's a whole heaping helping of supposedly "brilliant" quarterbacks who haven't come anywhere near putting on the consistent performance of Ice Water at the end of this season.
Just keep saying it: Ice Water. Ice Water. It works, right?
Furthermore, BigBagel created a monster when he started calling Eli "FAS." I was getting text messages last night from HotLawyer being like "fuck yeah, fas!," and HotLawyer has never even met BigBagel. At the Super Bowl party I was at, a bunch of grad students who have also mostly never met BigBagel were also shouting words of encouragement like, "Let's go, FAS! Come on, FAS!" FAS is a nickname that makes so much sense that once people hear it, they never want to call Eli anything else ever again. I'm certainly not giving up a name that good for "Ice Water." Maybe "Bud Ice" or "Smirnoff Ice," but not "Ice Water."
Anyway, though, although I disagree with BigBagel's position, I figured that it would be only fair to pose this question for public debate. So please weigh in on the comments page. Should FAS Manning be a glorious denigrating nickname of the past and be replaced with the slightly more impressive "Ice Water," or should it forever be used to describe young Eli Manning? Fetal alcohol or ice water? Holler back.
Labels: BigBagel, correspondence, fuck the Mannings, NFL football
Monday, January 28, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Sergio Cool Jew-Bagel
DOB: November 2007
Occupation: being sickeningly cute
Hometown: Covington, Louisiana
Current residence: casa de Cool Jew-Bagel, New Orleans, Louisiana
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: I'm not so sick and depraved as to be into bestiality--especially not with puppies--so I don't really want to hit Sergio, but I simply had to weigh in on how FUCKING OBSCENELY, RIDICULOUSLY CUTE LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's new puppy is. I got a call from LL Cool Jew to check my e-mail a while back, and found this letter:
Hi,
My name is Sergio, and I am the newest member of the Cool Jew-Bagel family. I weigh about 2 pounds and like my new big sister, I am a long-hair chihuahua. I am about 9 weeks old and was born in Covington, La.
Here are some pictures of me.
In the first one, I am showing my ability to mug for the camera, or at the very least be really freaked out by that giant human shoving it in my face and making funny noises.
In the second photo, my new sister is showing how excited she is to meet me.
In the third photo, I take my first bath. It sucked.
In the final photo, there I am with the scary but warm lady who keeps making coo-ing noises.
Anyway, nice to meet you! I hope you make it to New Orleans soon to see me in person.Sergio is a hot, fluffy little piece. If my apartment weren't already overrun with dogs, I'd want one of those little 2-pound feather dusters for my very own. For one thing, it would be nice to have a small dog that is actually small (versus one that weighs in at a monstrous THIRTY pounds like Chingy! the Hutt, who is presently putting my feet to sleep and snoring loud enough to sound like a fucking wood chipper...CHONGAY CHONG, Sergio!). For another, I'm just a sucker for cute puppies. I can't wait until Sergio gets to meet his Auntie Razzy. Looks like a trip to New Orleans is in my near future.
-Sergio
Labels: BigBagel, Caese Doggy Dogg, CHONGAY CHONG, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, doggity style, LL Cool Jew, the D
Friday, October 19, 2007
Let's DOUBLE UP!
It took a few minutes, but reality has finally sunk in. Imagine this: a crisp night in late November, and all the ingredients necessary for total, unmitigated, overwhelming, divine awesomeness...
Razzy
LL Cool Jew
Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, Lawn Guyland, New York
Robert Sylvester Kelly
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!! LL Cool Jew and I are going to see Kells the day after Thanksgiving!!!! Talk about having something to be thankful for! This may be our equivalent of what going to Mecca would be for us if we were Muslim. I don't think I've ever been so excited to go to a concert, and that includes when I went to see New Kids on the Block in the fifth grade and was absolutely CONVINCED that my intended betrothed, Joey McIntyre, would spot my artfully sculpted high bangs and spiral perm swaying seductively to "Please Don't Go Girl" in the 200-level of the Kingdome and propose on the spot. Well, that didn't happen and I didn't get to be a child bride with a twink on my arm, and now I'm destined to be always the cum dumpster and never the bride. Alas. Anyway, I was pretty excited about that show before Joey McIntyre dashed my dreams of love and marriage by not noticing me, but that is nothing...and I mean NOTHING...compared to how I feel now, almost twenty years later, knowing that I will be seeing the magnificent, unmatched King/R-uh/Pied Piper of R&B live and in all his glory with the only person I know who can appreciate this just as much as I: LL Cool Jew.
All day long yesterday we were Google chatting each other with excitement. LL Cool Jew went to Kells's MySpace and found this gem, and for the remainder of the day, we discussed how R. Kelly would be blessing us with a live performance of his "mackadelic nightspot realness:"
So you can all expect me to talk about R. Kelly incessantly. I have a little over a month to figure out how I can get up in the VIP with Kells, so expect updates about my progress as far as that scheming is concerned.
KELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLS...
Razzy
LL Cool Jew
Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, Lawn Guyland, New York
Robert Sylvester Kelly
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!! LL Cool Jew and I are going to see Kells the day after Thanksgiving!!!! Talk about having something to be thankful for! This may be our equivalent of what going to Mecca would be for us if we were Muslim. I don't think I've ever been so excited to go to a concert, and that includes when I went to see New Kids on the Block in the fifth grade and was absolutely CONVINCED that my intended betrothed, Joey McIntyre, would spot my artfully sculpted high bangs and spiral perm swaying seductively to "Please Don't Go Girl" in the 200-level of the Kingdome and propose on the spot. Well, that didn't happen and I didn't get to be a child bride with a twink on my arm, and now I'm destined to be always the cum dumpster and never the bride. Alas. Anyway, I was pretty excited about that show before Joey McIntyre dashed my dreams of love and marriage by not noticing me, but that is nothing...and I mean NOTHING...compared to how I feel now, almost twenty years later, knowing that I will be seeing the magnificent, unmatched King/R-uh/Pied Piper of R&B live and in all his glory with the only person I know who can appreciate this just as much as I: LL Cool Jew.
All day long yesterday we were Google chatting each other with excitement. LL Cool Jew went to Kells's MySpace and found this gem, and for the remainder of the day, we discussed how R. Kelly would be blessing us with a live performance of his "mackadelic nightspot realness:"
As the undisputed king of R&B, R. Kelly never seems to be far from the current soul scene. Be it collaborating with his homeboy Snoop ("That's That") or trading verses with Ciara ("Promise Remix"), this Chicago soul man has displayed a consistent brilliance throughout his fifteen-year career.I'm amazed I actually got any work done yesterday, considering all day long I was sending and receiving Gchats consisting of random R. Kelly lyrics. LL Cool Jew and I have attained an advanced degree of learnedness with respect to Kells's lyrical repertoire, and thus she knows exactly what's up when we send one another messages saying things like "It's three's company, bitch, call me Jack Tripper", "Girl we off in this Jeep, foggin' windows up", or "You say you wanna take first class trips, well I want to work those first class hips, yes I do." We spent all day that we weren't doing this or just typing "KELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLS!" at each other discussing truly important plans, like what we planned to wear and our chances of getting backstage. And we were just a little bit delusional about it:
Since 2002, R. Kelly has blessed his fans with a new album every year, and 2007 will be no different. While the rest of the music world slept, R. Kelly has been inside his famed studio the Chocolate Factory making countless beats, laying down mackadelic vocals and creating wonderful music.
Much like his musical forefathers Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway (the latter two also hailed from Chi-town), R. Kelly makes songs for ladies lounging in suites as well as homeboys b-balling in the streets. Aptly titled Double Up, Kelly's new disc features a wide ranch of songs that pushes the sonic envelope while staying true to his game.
"Everything I did in the past, I'm about to double up on it," says the windy city maestro. In other words, the listener will not be disappointed with the fierce production, superior lyricism and hyper collabos one has come to expect from a Kells project. Just in time for summer, with its whirlwind of backyard barbeques and beach parties, Double Up is filled with enough anthems to dominate the season.
Firing the soul shot heard around the world, "I'm A Flirt (Remix)" is the self-expletory title of the first single. Over a smooth mid-tempo groove, R. Kelly lays down a bit of nightspot realness. "Soon As I See Her Walk Up In The Club (I'm A Flirt)/ Winkin Her Eyes At Me, When I Roll Up On Them Dubs (I'm A Flirt)/ Sometimes When I'm With My Chick On The Low (I'm A Flirt)," he sings. Joining forces with his homies T.I and T-Pain, Kelly has constructed the perfect player's anthem.
Razzy: i'm telling you, dudeIt's probably for the best that we are in the super nosebleed section, because I think if I was actually standing in the same room as the genius who blessed us with incomparable nightspot realness like "I Like the Crotch on You," "Don't You Say No," and "Sex Planet," I might actually spontaneously combust. I can't remember the last time I was so fucking excited to see a concert. I'm going to see Morrissey at the Hammerstein Ballroom next week, but frankly, once I found out LL Cool Jew and I were fit to double up, I was like, "Morrissey who?"
Razzy: nobody appreciates kells like you and i
Razzy: it will be like going to church and actually meeting jesus
Razzy: or yahweh or whatevs at synagogue for you
LL Cool Jew: i know it will
Razzy:mogomgomgomgomg we're seeing kells
LL Cool Jew: DOOOOOOOOOD
LL Cool Jew: this is like, a huge moment for us!
LL Cool Jew: bigbagel said, you have to bring the digital camera
Razzy: umm, YEAH!
LL Cool Jew: i was sincerely bummed out, to be honest, at the very real prospect that Kells would be touring and we would not, in fact, be able to witness it juntos because i couldn't afford the extra flight
Razzy: and some hennessy
LL Cool Jew: BUT this is SUCH a blessing!
LL Cool Jew: I know, I was like, what kind of suggestion is that even to make???
Razzy: I KNOW!
Razzy: this is going to be on par with the signing of the magna carta, the erection of the great wall of china, the fucking great schism, jonas salk's development of an effective polio vaccine, the collapse of soviet russia, etc;.....
Razzy: KELLS!
LL Cool Jew: Seat location: section 301, row P, seats 1-2
LL Cool Jew: let's figure out where that is
Razzy: section 301
Razzy: probs third level
Razzy: YES
LL Cool Jew: YES
Razzy: YES
LL Cool Jew: YES
Razzy: KELLS
LL Cool Jew: KELLS
Razzy: KELLS
LL Cool Jew: KELLS
Razzy: Kells will probs tell Neyo and Keyshia Cole that he's going to perform their sets for them, because he's going to spot us in the audience and take it upon himself to perform the greatest concert ever to impress us
LL Cool Jew: who the hell sells 386,000 copies in the first week anymore?
LL Cool Jew: kells appeals to the spendy "tyler perry's why did i get married" crowd
Razzy: kells appeals to EVERYBODY
Razzy: the entire nation was calling the number on the screen when their man wasn't hitting it right
LL Cool Jew: it's true, he is finally, finally being recognized for the true pop culture icon he is
Razzy: i KNOW!
Razzy: it's like the world woke up and said, "why haven't i heard this awesomeness before?"
LL Cool Jew: bizarrely, thanks to "trapped in the closet"
Razzy: how could society have ignored the man who wrote "i promise it will be painless as we travel to uranus"?
Razzy: i know, everyone really got into TiTC
Razzy: and once it dropped on IFC
Razzy: it's like Kells got some hipster street cred
LL Cool Jew: fuck all the latecomers
Razzy: he's like the Harmony Korine of R&B
LL Cool Jew: i mean, i'm glad they're here to help kells replenish his legal coffers
LL Cool Jew: which is probz why he is touring in the first place
Razzy: we've been with kellz since he was asking us to "check out this freaky style" in 19 motherfuckin 93
LL Cool Jew: THEY AINT GOT NO EVIDENCE
Razzy: HE IS INNOCENT!
LL Cool Jew: you've been massaging his toes while i braid his hair
LL Cool Jew: i gotta figure out where the f row p, seats 1-2 are
LL Cool Jew: i hope we can see his face
Razzy:and he gets back with us, if he's not asleep, or smokin some trees, or havin a little sex, or if he's not faded, or making a baby
Razzy: we must be staring into the deep soulful eyes of robert sylvester kelly
Razzy: this is almost curing my hangover
Razzy: why you listening to them jealous, hatin, no man havin ass hoes anyway?
LL Cool Jew: i wish i'd brought my ipod today
Razzy: i can't believe you are not spending all day being blessed by kells's mackadelic nightspot realness
LL Cool Jew: isnt that awful?
Razzy: yes!
Razzy: dude what outfits do you think he's going to wear?
Razzy: you know he's going to change clothes a few times
Razzy: and how is his hair going to be braided?
LL Cool Jew: better than plaxicos (burress) that's for sure
LL Cool Jew: what are WE going to wear??
Razzy: i'm thinking some type of bodysuit
LL Cool Jew: oh yeah
Razzy: that looks like a bathing suit
Razzy: large earrings
Razzy: and instead of walking into nassau coliseum
Razzy: we'll crawl sexily
Razzy: like the playerette flirters in his videos
LL Cool Jew: yes!
LL Cool Jew: do you think there will be lots of moms there?
Razzy: i think there will be lots of PLAYAS
Razzy: and i don't mean spanish beaches
Razzy: and yes, it is natural for playerette flirters to have kids after all that sex
Razzy: we've got to figure out how to get backstage
Razzy: so we can get all up in kells's tour bus or something
Razzy: threaten him with a good time
So you can all expect me to talk about R. Kelly incessantly. I have a little over a month to figure out how I can get up in the VIP with Kells, so expect updates about my progress as far as that scheming is concerned.
KELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLSKELLS...
Labels: BigBagel, hot dudes, I LOVE IT, LL Cool Jew, Robert Sylvester Kelly
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Daily Douchebag: Tiki Barber
DOB: April 7, 1975
Occupation: Honorary non-threatening black person on NBC's 'Today' Show and Football Night in America/Sunday Night Football; retired, overrated running back for The New York Giants (AKA the holiest triumvir in my triple marriage)
Hometown: Roanoke, Virginia
Current residence: New York City
Douchebaggery: OK, disclaimer - I definitely don’t know very much about football (I just learned, for example, the definition of a “play-action pass” Monday night). But because I married BigBagel - a New Jersey native who bows his head toward East Rutherford five times daily - it’s important that I keep up on my news of The New York Giants. And since football involves a bunch of strategery I can’t follow (Blitz? Go for two? West Coast offense? Jigga wha?), it’s easier for me to just stick to the football gossips on the Internets. (RAZZY EDIT: Note that this is LL Cool Jew writing this...I know what "West Coast offense" means, and now, so does she, as I explained it to her last night.)
Seems the big news this week is that Tiki Barber has stooped to mouthing off about Eli “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome” Manning and what a “comical” leader he is – to which the FAS managed the surprisingly lucid, almost snappy comeback observation that at least he’s never tried to retire in the middle of a season. Oh, snap! Doesn’t Tiki Barber know better than to pick on retarded people? Sure, Eli is comical-looking with those long ears and that slack, glistening jaw. But cracking jokes at the expense of the mentally infirm is not such a good look for someone who is apparently better known for his fashion sense and non-threatening way with white people than for any truly distinguished athletic achievements.
First of all, Tiki Barber’s well manicured hands seem to be missing a Super Bowl ring. And according to BigBagel, he never set any NFL records, only Giants records (even douches like Jeremy Shockey have done THAT). In fact, Tiki's most recent award came from that clearinghouse of sporting news, Vanity Fair magazine, which named him one of the best-dressed men on the international scene, along with other football legends like effeminate German socialites and South African models. OK Tiki, so you’ve got a good tailor, but it seems like whenever I was paying attention to games in which you were playing, you spent most of your time running your much-ballyhooed back into a pile of dudes who were a lot bigger than you, dropping the ball, and making my husband cry like a girl.
Speaking of crying like a girl, it seems this latest round of public retard-bashing isn’t out of character for Tiki. He whined about Michael Strahan’s alleged greed during the latter’s 2002 contract negotiations (I’m sure Tiki appeared in those annoying Visa and Cadillac commercials out of a deeply held sense of enlightened public interest). Then, he repeatedly got his jock strap stuck up his mangina about Coach Tom Coughlin, whose coaching skills he questioned and who he claimed “demeaned and talked down to” him. Judging from the heated conversations about Coughlin in which BigBagel engages with Brother and Papa Bagel, this fella isn’t the league’s greatest coach. But those are observations to be made by five-figure-making fans like my family members, and not by the overpaid, underperforming, fumble-happy running back who sailed prematurely into a retirement that unfortunately exposes us all to his boring, self-satisfied airs with greater frequency than we were forced to endure when he was a football player.
As Tony Kornheiser so aptly put it, “Why is Tiki Barber in the fourth hour of the 'Today' show? Because there is no fifth hour.” And we’re supposed to also read your book about how great you are? Crack-smoker! Seems to this casual football observer that Tiki should stop talking so much shit and count his blessings, lest people begin to take honest stock of his just-slightly-above-average career and say to themselves, “Hey, wait a minute – just because this guy can speak white-people English doesn’t mean we necessarily have to endure his unfunny, uninteresting droning during our football games and our late-morning news shows!” Or, better yet, "Let's give all of Tiki's post-retirement perks to his twin brother Ronde, who aside from being able to keep his mouth shut, has also won a Super Bowl!"
Labels: assholes, BigBagel, Daily Douchebag, LL Cool Jew, media whores, NFL football
Monday, September 24, 2007
Looks like I started a trend
This weekend, BigBagel e-mailed me to let me know I'm not the only one with a brand new MacBook. He went ahead and demonstrated that he too was capable of using Photo Booth, although because he's not as cool as me he didn't show his tits. Okay, my tits are better than his (it's not like he's a NFL head coach and can outdo me in the rack department), so I can't blame him for being shy. Instead he appropriated his and LL Cool Jew's 5-lb Chihuahua, dainty lady, and urinator extraordinaire Dulcinea to showcase all the fun effects:
Looking at these pictures, I can almost hear LL Cool Jew saying on D's behalf (because we both have voices we do to speak for our dogs, and we are so accomplished in speaking them to each other send each other texts in these dialects), "OHMAHGAWD, Antzi, I look RELLAY weird. I almost look as funky as that asshole Chingy!.
Almost, D. But not quite.
Oh yeah, and there's not really any point to this post except that people (including myself) like to look at pictures of cute dogs. Almost as much as they like to look at bare breasts. But not quite.
Looking at these pictures, I can almost hear LL Cool Jew saying on D's behalf (because we both have voices we do to speak for our dogs, and we are so accomplished in speaking them to each other send each other texts in these dialects), "OHMAHGAWD, Antzi, I look RELLAY weird. I almost look as funky as that asshole Chingy!.
Almost, D. But not quite.
Oh yeah, and there's not really any point to this post except that people (including myself) like to look at pictures of cute dogs. Almost as much as they like to look at bare breasts. But not quite.
Labels: BigBagel, CHONGAY CHONG, doggity style, LL Cool Jew, the D
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Daily Douchebag: Ray Nagin
RAZZY note: This was written by BigBagel. I tried to convince him to become an official contributor, but he was concerned that doing so might reveal his "secret identity," as he has blogs elsewhere or something (where?). So instead he constructively used the "senioritis" he is suffering at the last days of his job as a newspaper reporter to go off on Ray Nagin, the hungry, sleepy mayor of New Orleans below.
Name: Clarence Ray Nagin
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: Endless.
In all fairness, Nagin has a hard job, probably harder than any American mayor in modern history, except maybe Ed Koch when he was first elected. To all the Nagin apologists, and there are sadly many, allow me to make a case for why I am obligated to point a spotlight on his douchebaggery, using Nagin’s own words from his 2005 State of the City address. He chose that platform, of all places, to gripe at the local media for being critical of him and not holding him on a pedestal like the national media. (Which was a douchebag move.) "You see, a wise man once told me a story – I believe it was my father. There was a young colt who looked and acted different than most other colts. One day this colt fell in a ditch. Everyone who passed by threw a rock at the colt in the ditch. They threw so many rocks that they filled up the ditch and the colt eventually walked out. The moral of this parable is: every knock is a boost. Thank you for the knocks: they are boosting me out of the ditch."
Well, Monsieur Nagin, allow me to throw a handful of rocks at you in the hope that you and the Big Easy get out of that deep-ass ditch a little more quickly. In the interest of brevity, I’m going to do it in his own words, which are pretty much the source of his profound douchebaggery with one exception, the famous WWL radio interview after Katrina in which he said, "Now get off your asses and let's do something…"
‘Twas a shining moment, from what I hear. I missed it, busy with my own mountains of debris to climb over. However that was like a fleck of gold in a river of bear shit. According to countless accounts, Nagin was beset with paranoia before and after Katrina, bumbling every important moment with misplaced hysteria and hyperactivity. Even pre-Katrina the dangerous foolishness was planting roots. Nagin swept into office in 2002 promising to reform New Orleans government's notorious corruption. The councilman, Oliver Thomas, whom he proclaimed "had his back" recently pled guilty to corruption charges. But I digress.
Again in the interest of brevity, I’ll just skip right over all the other dumb stuff he said and stuff he didn’t accomplish pre-Katrina, and just put in the highlights of his post-Katrina foot-in-mouth dance. Man, they cannot pay his communications director enough. From MLK Day last year: "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country. Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves." (i.e. yes, I am a messianic messenger.)
Same day: New Orleans will rebuild as a "chocolate New Orleans"…."You can't have New
Orleans no other way. I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." (ie. fuck the white people.) Nagin later tried to say he was sorry by saying, "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk and it becomes a delicious drink. That's the chocolate I'm talking about." (ie. watch me attempt to surgically remove my foot from my mouth. Oh, wait. No! Now I just sound like a fucking nutjob.) At a town hall meeting in October 2005, Nagin said: "I can see in your eyes, you want to know, 'How do I take advantage of this incredible opportunity? How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers." (ie. yeah, who needs cheap, hard working, and immediately available labor when your city is in ruins?)
And now we get to the real reason Nagin deserves the title of daily, if not immortal, douchebag. Violent crime, i.e. people shooting other people in the head, is out of fucking control in New Orleans right now. It is an orgy of violence in what might as well be the ashes of Gomorrah that is rightly scaring away tourists, industry and lord knows what else. Nagin on that subject in a TV interview: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. "
As if that weren’t enough, Nagin also reacted to the murders of New Orleans brothers Demond Phillips, 29, and Michael Phillips, 27, who were suspects in 14 recent murders, this way: "It is symptomatic of the things we've been struggling with since Katrina and really before Katrina. Some of these guys are so violent that it is hard for witnesses to come forward, and they get involved in repeat criminal activities. So it is unfortunate that they had to die, but it did kind of end the cycle that we were struggling with." (Because obviously they couldn’t have had any other brothers, friends, homies, cousins , etc., who would seek retribution.)
I feel that commenting any further on the merits of those statements, anything else moronic he said, the moronic stuff his press secretary has said to excuse it all, or the mountain of dumb things he did would be like drowning or electrocuting a pitbull that didn’t perform well in the fighting ring. Since I am no Michael Vick, I’ll just re-run the highlight of the second to last statement, and let Nagin’s douchebaggery hang out there like the lingering stale smell from a port-a-potty that was just violated by a stressed-out, portly Katrina survivor after weeks of constipation because of eating nothing but Spam and PB&Js. Enjoy.
"It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there."
DOB: June 11, 1956
Occupation: 68th Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana
Current residence: New Orleans, Louisiana
Douchebaggery: Endless.
In all fairness, Nagin has a hard job, probably harder than any American mayor in modern history, except maybe Ed Koch when he was first elected. To all the Nagin apologists, and there are sadly many, allow me to make a case for why I am obligated to point a spotlight on his douchebaggery, using Nagin’s own words from his 2005 State of the City address. He chose that platform, of all places, to gripe at the local media for being critical of him and not holding him on a pedestal like the national media. (Which was a douchebag move.) "You see, a wise man once told me a story – I believe it was my father. There was a young colt who looked and acted different than most other colts. One day this colt fell in a ditch. Everyone who passed by threw a rock at the colt in the ditch. They threw so many rocks that they filled up the ditch and the colt eventually walked out. The moral of this parable is: every knock is a boost. Thank you for the knocks: they are boosting me out of the ditch."
Well, Monsieur Nagin, allow me to throw a handful of rocks at you in the hope that you and the Big Easy get out of that deep-ass ditch a little more quickly. In the interest of brevity, I’m going to do it in his own words, which are pretty much the source of his profound douchebaggery with one exception, the famous WWL radio interview after Katrina in which he said, "Now get off your asses and let's do something…"
‘Twas a shining moment, from what I hear. I missed it, busy with my own mountains of debris to climb over. However that was like a fleck of gold in a river of bear shit. According to countless accounts, Nagin was beset with paranoia before and after Katrina, bumbling every important moment with misplaced hysteria and hyperactivity. Even pre-Katrina the dangerous foolishness was planting roots. Nagin swept into office in 2002 promising to reform New Orleans government's notorious corruption. The councilman, Oliver Thomas, whom he proclaimed "had his back" recently pled guilty to corruption charges. But I digress.
Again in the interest of brevity, I’ll just skip right over all the other dumb stuff he said and stuff he didn’t accomplish pre-Katrina, and just put in the highlights of his post-Katrina foot-in-mouth dance. Man, they cannot pay his communications director enough. From MLK Day last year: "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country. Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves." (i.e. yes, I am a messianic messenger.)
Same day: New Orleans will rebuild as a "chocolate New Orleans"…."You can't have New
Orleans no other way. I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." (ie. fuck the white people.) Nagin later tried to say he was sorry by saying, "How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk and it becomes a delicious drink. That's the chocolate I'm talking about." (ie. watch me attempt to surgically remove my foot from my mouth. Oh, wait. No! Now I just sound like a fucking nutjob.) At a town hall meeting in October 2005, Nagin said: "I can see in your eyes, you want to know, 'How do I take advantage of this incredible opportunity? How do I make sure New Orleans is not overrun with Mexican workers." (ie. yeah, who needs cheap, hard working, and immediately available labor when your city is in ruins?)
And now we get to the real reason Nagin deserves the title of daily, if not immortal, douchebag. Violent crime, i.e. people shooting other people in the head, is out of fucking control in New Orleans right now. It is an orgy of violence in what might as well be the ashes of Gomorrah that is rightly scaring away tourists, industry and lord knows what else. Nagin on that subject in a TV interview: "Do I worry about it? Somewhat. It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So it is kind of a two-edged sword. "
As if that weren’t enough, Nagin also reacted to the murders of New Orleans brothers Demond Phillips, 29, and Michael Phillips, 27, who were suspects in 14 recent murders, this way: "It is symptomatic of the things we've been struggling with since Katrina and really before Katrina. Some of these guys are so violent that it is hard for witnesses to come forward, and they get involved in repeat criminal activities. So it is unfortunate that they had to die, but it did kind of end the cycle that we were struggling with." (Because obviously they couldn’t have had any other brothers, friends, homies, cousins , etc., who would seek retribution.)
I feel that commenting any further on the merits of those statements, anything else moronic he said, the moronic stuff his press secretary has said to excuse it all, or the mountain of dumb things he did would be like drowning or electrocuting a pitbull that didn’t perform well in the fighting ring. Since I am no Michael Vick, I’ll just re-run the highlight of the second to last statement, and let Nagin’s douchebaggery hang out there like the lingering stale smell from a port-a-potty that was just violated by a stressed-out, portly Katrina survivor after weeks of constipation because of eating nothing but Spam and PB&Js. Enjoy.
"It's not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there."
Labels: assholes, BigBagel, Daily Douchebag, Dirrty Dirrty, intentional buffoonery, natural disaster, politics
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