Godammit, I’m Mad!

I fucking love Werner Herzog. I love his interviews and panel discussions as much as I love his movies.  He is a master at articulating abstract ideas and finding absurdity and allegory and pathos in almost every human endeavor. Max loved him too. He used to rent a couple of DVDs at a time and bring them over to watch together. We never got through the entire Herzog catalogue, though. I will have to go on with that alone.

Today I came across a writer, “Erik K.,” who knows how to get the most out of Werner. I’ve reprinted his post here but you can also read it at his blog  here. I love him and you will too.

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A diverting game to play while in miserable circumstances

Earlier this week I found myself in an extremely interior circle of hell. I speak of the Comcast Customer Service Center in Chicago, where I thought I was just stopping by to pick up some self-install equipment. This stopping-by turned into over an hour of queueing followed by one of the most angrymaking customer service interactions I’ve ever had. I resurrected my long-dormant yelp account just so I could vent my spleen. Having gotten that out of my system, let me tell you about a fun game I play in situations where I might otherwise have a rage-out:

THE WERNER HERZOG GAME

Number of players: 1 (2 if you count imaginary-Werner-Herzog-in-your-head)

Prerequisite: Having seen one or more Werner Herzog documentaries (ideally late-period ones where the voiceovers approach a brilliant kind of self-parody)

How you play: Imagine Werner Herzog narrating your horrible experience. Allow his doomy-yet-weirdly-soothing Teutonic soliloquies to transmute your experience from one of mundane frustration, boredom, etc. to one of sublime terror, or one that exemplifies the murderousness of nature, or the pitilessness of the universe.

Some examples to get you started:

• “I believe the common denominator of this food court is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.”
• “The blank stare of my oral hygienist bespeaks a terrifying malevolence. The scraping of her tartar pick is the nightmarish sound of cannibals whispering darkly.”
  
• “The post office is a place of pestilential despair, a primordial soup one wishes to crawl out of, if only to evolve to further Lessons of Darkness.”
  

Tip: If you’re having trouble channeling your inner Werner Herzog, imagine the person standing behind you in line, or jostling you on the overstuffed train car, or whatever, is Klaus Kinski, and he is trying to murder you. This always helps me get in the mood!

Here is Rihanna at the Met Costume Gala.  Forget about her dress and look instead at the stray feathers shed all over the red- carpeted stairs by artist/socialite/muse/adultress Daphne Guinness.

Here’s the Daphster:

Earlier, she got dressed in the window of Barneys New York, in a dramatic performance one can only describe as Nuts.

And here is one of my favorite Daphne moments:

Can anyone explain the subtext of this photo?

I have PTSD and the world is going to hell, but for the moment I’m choosing to focus on other matters. For example, here is a challenging dilemma:

Who is more annoying. Gwyneth or Chloe?

On the one hand, Gwyneth has that awful website and now she has a recording contract as a country-western singer.

On the other hand, Chloe has her stupid fashion line for Opening Ceremony and that hipster lifestyle.

Gwyneth has the rock-star husband and the unforgivable names of her children. But Chloe has no talent and she looks like she needs a good hot bath. Each of them is a grating irritant in the oyster of my psyche, neither producing a pearl.  I would say it’s closer to a blister. I hate them both.

Don’t get caught up on the word “hate,” if that bother you.  Just tell me who you find more annoying, and why.

Ready, set, go.

Even though we’re sick of him, admit it, we’re not through with him.  There’s already an app to block out Sheen and Sheenisms, so you’ll never have to see his name or face again online.

At the same time, there is a craving for more, for some escalation of his madness and for a resolution that one hopes will be somehow shocking but not involve him blowing his head off on TV.

What does Charlie Sheen do for us, do you think? Is it a simple distraction from our own problems or the problems of the world? Is it some primitive need for human sacrifice? Is it the perverse satisfaction of watching a privileged Prince turn his own life into tatters? Is it his need for attention that repels us, even as we give in to him?

I never gave a shit about him before. None of my family has watched his TV show until this week, just to confirm that it’s truly, inexcusably awful.

But now I need something from him and I’m not sure what.  I feel like a Roman waiting for the lions or something. It isn’t going to be anything good, that seems clear.  Maybe he represents human nature at it most base and out of control.  Maybe he needs to act out our secret fantasies of going insane.

If you have any insights, lets hear them!  I’ll say one thing:  I have no interest in a Sheen-blocking app, but make one for Lady Gaga and I’m there!

It’s easy not to care about looking old when you’re not old.

Later, it’s just a constant struggle to accept the changes in your face, the face that in your mind is eternally 18 or 30 or whenever you liked it best.

Seeing Carine and Madonna look like women in their 50’s is such a comfort! Get old, you two!

I decided to see the difference between a face in repose and a face smiling.

I made the biggest smile my face could do, and voila! I’m genuinely old.

If  you have no expression, you can keep up the illusion of youthfulness.

I am unable to age gracefully because I’m too shallow and preoccupied with appearance. I want everyone to wrinkle up like a prune. The only procedure I would rule out if I were a millionaire is the lip enhancement, because nothing says tragedy like a duckface.

I am waiting patiently for Demi Moore’s face to fall. On the day it does, the drinks are on me!

How do feel you will handle getting old? If you are old, how hard is it for you to combat vanity?

Just quickly:

Rhianna needs to take up prostitution and get it over with. Lady Gaga needs to get the fuck over herself. J Lo needs to lose the hair extensions and her creepy husband. Mick Jagger needs to eat and Bob Dylan needs to give up smoking.

Cee Lo Green was a one-man mardis gra and Gwyneth should be killed for ruining his performance. Lady Antebellum needs to die but not until they apologize for everything. John Mayer channeled Johnny Depp but fucked up the ever-haunting “Jolene.” Babs Streisand was a waxy looking monolith but proved that a diva can hold a mic without all that crazy finger action.

Bruno Mars was a worthless punk as usual but Janelle Monae saved the day with her adorable androgynous rockabilly presence.  Justin Bieber fought back tears as he lost to the regal Esperanza Spalding, who will singlehandedly bring back the Afro according to me, god bless her.

Eminem confirmed his status as the rapper we’d most like to have sex with. An angry ball of rage,  Eminem is on fire! He is the Ryan Gosling of rap. Talent plus intensity plus physical charisma = YES.

Muse sang a song that sounded like all their songs and Arcade Fire demonstrated that committed, liberating rock lives on, even in the age of horrible American Idolesque canned pop and the dreadful scourge of Taylor Swiftian confessional bleating.

Does that cover it?

Two years ago I discovered Rumi Neely’s blog and pronounced that I hated her. Tonight, I must heed the wisdom of Rumi the sufi poet, who said:

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.

I am filled with love for Rumi the blogger because she’s a beautiful girl who has never been mean, pretentious, or self-aggrandizing. She likes what she likes and she shares this with her readers, who still have the option of leaving comments.

Having looked at hundreds of style blogs, I now realize that Rumi is the prototype for nearly every girl who’s slim enough to mimic her style. Every other girl is aiming for some approximation of the Rumi look. It might make us sick but it’s not Rumi’s fault that she’s seized the imagination of so many girls around the world. It’s a relatively simple look but it’s one that she developed naturally, an obvious extension of her personality and her lifestyle.

The hair, the hats, the shorts and loose sweaters, the clumpy shoes, it’s all Rumi. She carries herself so casually that it invites imitation. Not many girls try emulating Susie Bubble or Jane Aldridge, because their respective looks are too complicated or too pricey. Rumi’s style is more egalitarian.

But nobody comes close to her. Accept no substitutions! The original Rumi has an ineffable sweetness that tempers her sexiest pose. She is seductive but endearingly awkward. She doesn’t look like she’s practiced in front of a mirror all day.

I mistook her bubbly So Cal speech pattern for a lack of intelligence but in fact she has a quick wit and a great sense of the ridiculous. She would be the perfect friend for a sleepover. I like to think she’d be up for some prank calls and a midnight drive to get ice cream. She’s be fun to shop with and she wouldn’t pretend you look good in jeans that make your butt flat.

It’s Rumi’s world, at least for now. I love knowing that she’s not a bitch because god knows I’ve tested her, and all I got was openhearted kindness.

Lets congratulate Rumi for winning two Bloglovin Awards! If it weren’t for her existence, we might be inundated instead by man repellers or egomaniacal girls teaching Radical Self Love!

It serves me right for reading Bazaar magazine, but when I came across this picture of Sting and Trudie I was filled with horror and outrage. Why does he keep trying to make us sick?!?!

Here’s the good part: If you read the interview, you will grasp the folly of designer labels.

“We like fashion,” Sting says, wrapped in a Rick Owens coat, while Styler wears an artfully ripped Balmain T-shirt and Yohji Yamamoto coat. “We enjoy it; it’s fun. We like going to shows.”

Ugh! Designer labels just define you as a stupid greedy knucklehead. Better to buy your clothes from Target or Walmart.

Thanks, Sting. Now leave the planet. Your work here is done.

*(photo by that other cunt, Terry Richardson)

*

Turn up your speakers because she mumbles, and you don’t want to miss a word.

I really don’t know what to say except Ugh.