Godammit, I’m Mad!

I’m not interested in Royalty, but I love old photographs.  Today I came across a forum for people who are obsessed with Royal families and it is a motherlode of vintage photos.

An unexpected bonus is the number of arguments that break out between the people who post there. I wonder if people have to argue in online forums. Maybe it’s just the competitive nature of people who are proud of their expertise.

My husband reads a forum for audiophiles and he says they don’t argue there.  I’m surprised that guys who can tell the difference between five different masters of a Jimi Hendrix record can accept each other’s opinions without jockeying for authority. But moderators are there to end discussions, so who knows what would happen if the posters were left alone to boast about their rare Japanese boxed sets of obscure Eric Clapton demos.

Check out “Alexander Palace Time Machine” for amazing photos and petty arguments! Start here.

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* According to a forum regular, here are the Royals who are worst at being Royals:

Prince Charles of Great Britian.
Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall.
Prince Harry of Great Britian.
Princess Anne of Great Britian.
Crown Prince Philip of Belgium.
Prince Joachim of Denmark.
Prince Albert of Monaco.
Victor-Emmanuel of Italy, Duke of Savoye.
Marina-Doria of Italy, Duchess of Savoye.

Last night I went to see Amanda Palmer, aware that I might feel emotional, since Max loved Amanda and introduced me to The Dresden Dolls in the fist place.

I couldn’t get as close to the stage as I’d hoped, but we managed to find a pretty good place to stand. Before the opening act started, a girl directly in front of me felt compelled to dance theatrically to the piped in music. I turned to my companion and said: “This is a test from god. He put her in front of me to see if I can take it.” I added that all I really wanted was to not get my nose broken by her flailing elbows.

We managed to move closer to the stage and away from the dancing girl. In a break between the two supporting acts, I got something in my eye and asked a big friendly girl to hold my drink for a minute. She was adorable, like an enormous puppy but I can’t remember her name. She works at Trader Joe. I felt happy about our camaraderie and excited about seeing Amanda.

Suddenly, I experienced the shock of being whacked in the face by a plastic bottle that some fucker had thrown in my direction. The people next to me had seen it coming and I turned to see them cringing in horror. I felt my nose to see if it was still there. I wanted to cry but decided not to. You can’t believe the force of a flying plastic bottle! When I got home, I saw that there was a small bloody cut on the bridge of my nose. (see above)

Why did I have a premonition about my nose? Did I manifest a blow to the nose by Putting Out a negative thought? Does everyone get hit in the nose if they go to enough concerts?

Amanda was terrific, as always. Her embodiment of both male and female energy is so mesmerizing, and luckily, marriage has done nothing to tame her.

One of Amanda’s rituals is to answer personal questions from fans, selecting them randomly from a basket. She started reading one that didn’t make sense. It was just a name, like Quinn Something. She threw it aside, but someone in the audience yelled that Quinn was asking for a middle name. She said “Oh, sorry, I guess I didn’t read the whole thing.” Then she paused for a moment and shouted: “MAX!”

Suddenly everything became surreal. I expected Max to appear, summoned by Amanda Palmer. My jaw dropped in wonder. It was only a second but it was amazing. I was thrilled, freaked out, then tearful.  She added. “It’s one of my favorite names.”

Was it a sign? Say yes.

And what about my nose?

Goodbye to Dad

Two walkers, December 2009

High School graduation, June 2011

Max and Pico

Playing guitars

and finally this photo by Antanas Sutkus. I can’t describe how much I love it. It is so exquisitely tender! It sums up everything for me. I want to kiss the little child and to reassure her. But I know she is me.

When I was little, I loved mermaids. I loved the illustrations in my book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. I drew pictures of mermaids over and over, draping them in strings of pearls.

Now that I’m addicted to tumblr, I’ve discovered that mermaids are more popular than almost any other image. A mermaid also encompasses two hugely popular tumblr subjects: Tits, and women submerged in water. While tits need no explanation, the drowning women are disturbing.  Paintings of Ophelia tend to be lovely and melancholy, but depictions of modern women floating under water or laying dead in bathtubs are reminders that people like to see women in jeopardy (if not actually dead.)

Mermaids are always beautiful and young, so that aspect of their attraction is obvious. In mythology and folklore, Mermaids are sirens who lure sailors to their death.  Do men find this danger seductive?

More important, mermaids have no genitals. Do men love them because of this or in spite of it? Does it relieve them of performance anxiety? I’m convinced that the anatomy issue is key somehow.

For me as a child, The Little Mermaid was a beautiful fantasy of a daughter who was loved by her family and showered with jewels.  I didn’t really understand why she would leave her home. I wanted a home filled with love and warmth. I didn’t feel good about her deal with the sea witch. The prince seemed kind of dimwitted not to recognize her or to intuit her love for him.

Later on, I remember reading The Little Mermaid to little Max, at bedtime. The book I read to him was an old unabridged translation of the original Hans Christian Anderson stories. It probably took several nights to get to the end, and I was so engrossed in the story that I forgot what was coming. I choked up with tears and tried to think of a way to spare Max the tragic last paragraph: The Little Mermaid threw herself overboard and turned into seafoam, comforted by some angelic sprites who asked her to join them. I think I made something up but I can’t ask Max.

Why do we love a story where the heroine sacrifices everything for love, even suffering constant excruciating pain, and ends up getting nothing but death? Until Disney changed the ending and turned a classic tragedy into a sappy feel-good product to sell other products, it was, for me, an inexplicably melancholy story.  It punishes a girl who seeks adventure and romance, so what else makes it such an enduring favorite?

Theories, memories, insults, anyone?

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has acquired, in its wisdom, a 340 ton granite boulder that will form the centerpiece of Michael Heizer’s massive outdoor sculpture, “Levitated Mass.”

LACMA director Michael Govan points out that the huge rock is “only part of the sculpture,” which requires the construction of a subterranean slot upon which steel rails will support the rock, I mean the sculpture.

“The largest part of the sculpture is the negative space, the channel in the landscape,” he says. “It has its own independent sculptural presence. The marriage of these two forms comprises the sculpture.”

When was the last time you got to hear the term “negative space” used without facetiousness?

Anyway,  the logistics of moving this huge rock are a nightmare. A company that moves “extreme objects” has been hired to figure out how to do it.  Some utility lines, street lights and stop lights will have to be taken down by the local area’s utility companies as the boulder passes through crowded urban areas, and the route the rock will take can’t be confirmed until permits are cleared.

At a cost of somewhere between $5 and $10 million dollars, this is a coup for LACMA.  Michael Heizer, the artist, is best known for “Double Negative,” the 1,500-foot-long land sculpture he cut into a desert mesa in a remote section of southern Nevada.

Breathtaking, isn’t it? To quote Heizer: “There is nothing there, yet it is still a sculpture.” So true.

As we ponder the meaning of art, the suffering of Sisyphus, and the value of ten million dollars, let us not forget that people are idiots.

This is Dimitri Alexandrou.  Some of you prefer more rugged, masculine houseboys, so help yourself to the new candidates.

Here’s a hunk of tattooed burning love. Don’t know his name, don’t care. He’ll need to keep his hands off my earrings.

Sylvain Norget looks like he means business.  I can imagine him with a vacuum cleaner. I like it.

Daniel is a model and not really my type. But when I look into his eyes, I see him serving drinks and fluffing pillows.

What about this guy? Long hair to play with but enough manly pride to fold laundry with military precision.

Shah Rukh Khan is an Indian movie star ( I think) but I would like to see him lounging around after washing my hair.

I can’t resist a man in a dress. This may actually be my ideal houseboy. He doesn’t look judgemental: a plus!

Houseboy Sasha Marini is kind of sickening on the one hand, yet one might enjoy a scuffle with him as you try to get him to shave. I don’t know. Your call.

Now we’re talking. Francis Lane is the exact combination of youth and androgynous beauty that my house needs. I’d like to see him wearing embroidered satin slippers as he sweeps away the dog hair. I would even get him a feather duster!

Let me know if you found anything you like.

You know I can’t resist penis jewelry. Here are two new penis options from Vivienne Westwood.  I love the cufflinks but I wish they were earrings.  $151.51  Penis key-ring below,  $118.82

If you don’t crave penises, some other new VW pieces are elaborately pretty and clearly inspired by Salvador Dali’s jewelry.

Boulevard Pearly Queen Bracelet: $277.75   Boulevard Pearly Queen Brooch, below: $150.51

Available here.

Dali’s jewelry is exquisite and eye-popping.  If you’re not familiar with it, get ready to scream “Oooooooo!” and go here to get started.

Oh god, what a fucking travesty. I’ll try to break it down for you.

A large group of untalented people “sang” awful songs for an enthusiastic audience of vacuous industry types.

Lady Gaga pretended to be The Fonz and wouldn’t stop. She made you long for the meat dress. Britney Spears won an Achievement Award and thanked her little boys. Kanye and Jay-Z butchered an Otis Redding song by rapping over it, and Justin Bieber thanked both god AND Jesus.  Is Justin confused, or am I? Isn’t Jesus their Lord or what?

Adele offered a moment of true artistry and elegance. She was totally out of place.

Chris Brown danced around in a white suit and then flew around in one of those harness things. He was no Pink, let me tell you. At least he didn’t punch anyone in the face, or not during the show, to my knowledge.

Beyonce performed an uninspired pop song, her hair blowing in a wind machine, and revealed her pregnancy by patting her small tummy.

Katy Perry won an award that belonged to Adele.  Some guy called Something the Creator won an award, and a guy called Pitbull presented a mystery as to his ethnicity and popularity.

Russell Brand introduced a tribute to Amy Winehouse, striking a sour note by calling her an addict and an alcoholic. What a fucking cunt™. I can’t hate him enough. He made things worse by asserting pompously: “There IS a solution.” No, you cunt, there is no solution to addiction except to not start doing drugs in the first place.  Rest in peace my darling Amy, Max, and everyone else who could not be helped by 12 steps or 12,000 steps.

Tony Bennett was poignantly humble in his admiration for Amy’s genius. and played part of the video he made with her.

Bruno Mars horrified me by singing “Valerie,” but in the end he made me cry by singing directly to Amy. God bless him with his retro pompadour and his great horn section!

Lil’ Wayne came out and rapped about how angry he was. Every third word was bleeped out but one “Fucking” escaped in the last verse, in which I think he compared himself to John Lennon. He took his shirt off and ran around like a crazed monkey. I’m sure he’s a very nice person in real life.

That’s all I remember. Let me know if I missed anything important.

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics.

You are all stardust.

You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded. Because the elements, the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars. And the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode.

So forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be here today.”

- Lawrence Krauss

Today we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art to see an exhibit of graffiti and street art. Little did I know it was The Place to Be, with a long line of hipsters waiting to get inside the museum.  My husband and I thought “Fuck this” and decided to leave , just as we saw my adopted son Chris and his girlfriend Ada walking toward us.

It was wonderful to realize that we crypto-hipsters all gravitate to the same places. Ada became a museum member to help us avoid the long line for non-members.  The guy who helped her had 14 piercings in his face.

The exhibit was crawling with people who could each qualify as a piece of graffiti art. The was no air inside, where the temperature hovered near boiling point. Everyone was madly taking pictures of the art and each other. You had to dodge the iPhone flashes as you tried to avoid screwing up someone’s photo op.

I complained to my husband in a non-stop whine, but he’s learned to live with this. I objected aloud to a wall of Shepard Fairy crap, noting “Shepard Fairey is a fucking punk!” and thereby quoting my own self. I loved the cars and some black and white photos of Chicano homies. But most of it seemed boring and outdated, like break-dancing only less dimensional. Shuffling along the narrow passages between makeshift rooms, I felt like a character in “Hi, Mom.”

I wondered what would happen if someone broke out a can of spray pain and graffiti’d the graffiti.

Out in the street, an even longer line of hipters stood sweltering. I said to my husband: Haha, look at them. We walked to a Yogurtland, where a pretty girl sitting next to me blabbed about her reality show and insisted to her morbidly obese friend that what she really wanted to do was “make art.”