I Found it Online

The copyright police will probably make me take this down, but I did find the comeek online, posted herewith:



My copy is yellow-brown and obviously spent a lot of time folded in quarters as it was transferred from wallet to wallet.

Now, interestingly enough, in 1990, I was dating this guy and that guy (aka, sleeping around, remember when you could do that and no one thought badly of you?), but somehow I must have known that the big lifetime thingamajig that other people seem to do so easily was going to elude me, probably forever. Otherwise, what would have prompted me to hold onto this tattered cartoon for TWENTY YEARS? Holy shit, I just realized I've been holding onto it for TWENTY YEARS!

Christ, that's scary.

Happy Holidays Shot

Not a creature was stirring, not even Miss Kitty.

I don't know how an old crank like me ended up with the cutest, sweetest widdle kitty.

2009 Wrap-Up

I thought I'd try to do one of those sagacious and tenderly humorous end-of-year wrap-ups, but I realized a couple of things before I started: One, that it hasn't been such a hot year for anyone (except maybe for performance artist extraordinaire Lady GaGa), and Two, I'm not Garrison Keillor.

So, I've decided instead to tell you 20 things that are on my refrigerator. Hey, in this era of excessive navel-gazing, when 70% of Americans actually believe that they can become famous (hello, Salahis!) based on their ability to do exactly nothing, isn't one end-of-decade list as good as the next?

And so, I give you the accumulated refrigerator detritus of Jane. Make of it what you will.

1) Assorted magnets of various vacations I've taken: Alaska, Montreal, Captiva Island, Colorado, Washington DC, Boston, New Orleans, Yosemite. I'm clearly still deep into exploring our North American continent.

2) An Indian Larry commemorative sticker.

3) A full-page magazine headshot of George Clinton in all his multi-hued dreadlocked glory. Make my funk the P-funk, I wants to get funked up.

4) An article from the NY Times Book Review about a biography of Darryl Strawberry. It has what I think may be the funniest headline ever written: "Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crack." I think it was Jerry Lewis who said, "funny better be sad somewhere." Well, there it all is, in six little words.

5) A quote from Augusten Burroughs: "I like flaws and the people who have them. I myself am made of nothing but flaws, stitched together with good intentions."

6) A snapshot of Miss Midwesterly's dog Sprocket, sprawled in what looks like total doggy bliss.

7) One of those buy-after-you-ride shots of Roni and me on the Coney Island Cyclone. Both of my hands are thrown in the air and I am grinning like my face is about to split open. Roni's eyes are squinched shut and her mouth is open like Ms Pacman. She is holding on with both hands and her arms look a million times better than Michelle Obama's. I am wearing an oversized Penguins tee shirt and look a little chubby, to be honest.

8) A snapshot of me, on my bicycle about 50 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, taken in August 2000. I was rider number 107, and the expression on my face is joy. (Had I known what John McCain would dig out of Alaska's primordial ooze eight short years later, maybe I wouldn't look so happy.)

9) A snapshot of Roni and me, dressed as mermaids in 2007. I am wearing my turquoise Louise Brooks wig. We are in a bar, next to the jukebox, and I'm sure we are both probably pretty drunk.

10) Another column from the NY Times in which my Pittsburgh childhood pronunciation of a famous philanthropist/robber baron's name is validated by none other than the corporation AND the university that bear his name. It's "Car-NAY-gie," people.

11) My NYS Supreme Court Juror Pass. Serving on a jury was one of the most important things I've ever done, and I'm grateful that I did it. People may say that bringing a life into the world is the greatest responsibility you will ever undertake -- I believe that essentially taking away a man's life is greater. A man murdered his wife and we put him away for 25 years.

12) Miscellaneous ticket stubs that I've saved for no real reason -- Blues Traveler at Irving Plaza, some Mets game in 2004 in which I remember Mike Piazza had an important hit, the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Rent, Lestat, Lee Oskar and Magic Dick at BB King's, and la creme de la creme, a ticket stub for the Cream reunion concert of 2005 which I am pretty sure I saved simply because of its ridiculous face value of $354.50. (No business transactions or sexual favors were exchanged for that ticket, and what I remember most about that concert was that the audience consisted primarily of suburban white guys in relaxed-fit jeans, blinding white sneakers that had obviously never been used in any kind of sport, and leather bomber jackets, the kind with the knit waistband. You know, the basic uni of the guy who has been "given permission" by his wife to go out on a school night. Oh, and Jack Bruce was wearing leather pants, which I found oddly upsetting.)

13) A tiny classified ad from The Daily News, placed by someone selling purebred puppies. "Shit Tzus," to be exact. I'm still tickled that an excretive expletive made it into the newspaper.

14) A Colorado bookmark. Think I miss it much?

15) A windy Cary Tennis excerpt that boils down to, "Jesus, get OVER yourself!"

16) A Lynda Barry cartoon clipped from the Village Voice in 89 or 90. Ernie Pook's Comeek, "Report on Love." The best distillation of love I've ever seen boiled down to four cartoon panels.

17) A tiny photo of Jake Langbehn, who died last year in Malibu

18) A really old photo of me on the beach in Puerto Rico. My body at its most slammin' -- I had a 24-inch waist!!!

19) A quote from my friend Bill Repsher, who said to me in 1990, "Love is a test of sanity. We'd all fail miserably if life wasn't graded on such a generous curve." Genius.

20) The only poem anyone ever wrote for me, with the opening lines, "To the bartender: Be sure that when you mix my drink/the water is holy/And blessed by barmaid/ assassins trained by the Vatican to cross their hearts/before overpowering defenseless men." I kept the poem but for the life of me I have NO idea of the guy's name who wrote that poem.

Well, there you have it, Jane's "I Survived This Awful Decade" list of 20 things that I have on my refrigerator.

The Snotmonster Returns

Are you kidding me? I seem to have been invaded again by the microbes from outer space which are hellbent on manufacturing tsunami levels of snot to pour from my nose. So far today I've managed to create a blizzard of soggy tissues and eat two bowls of the homemade chicken soup that I made over the weekend, besides watching several hours of mind-numbingly awful daytime television.

The kitties seem happy to have me around, though, since a warm, inert lump of flesh is always welcome in Kittyland.

Teabagger, Please!

According to the National Review, the teabaggers, after months of TV commentators smirking in their faces, were finally brought up to speed about what teabagging actually is.

So I guess they've decided that they don't want to be called "teabaggers" anymore, or maybe they just want the word "teabagger" to become their version of the "N" word, or they want to try to make liberals who have enjoyed a good laugh at them for the past few months "ashamed" of using the word by asking them, "what do you mean by 'teabagger' and why do you smirk?" to which the smart liberal will answer promptly, "Why, it means that you suck men's balls, of course!" Ahh, there's nothing quite like seeing gay panic growing in a wingnut's eyes to fill your heart with Christmas spirit!

Even though Jay Nordlinger is proposing that the more decorous "Tea Party Patriot" be their nom de revolucion going forward, I myself like the sound of "Dirty Sanchezers" or "Rusty Tromboners" much better.

Just as I Thought, Lawyers are All Talk

So after my lengthy, inexcusable absence, I checked the email that is connected to this blog and found a comment from Mr. Archer dated November 30th, threatening to stand under my fire escape playing the ukelele until I posted again.

You know, a couple weeks have passed since that comment and I haven't heard note one of the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole version of "Over the Rainbow" anywhere in Bushwick.

Hmph.

Lawyers.

I Know I've Been Missing For Awhile

No, I haven't disappeared in the Facebook, and I continue to refuse to be a Twit(terer). I've just been preoccupied with other things. Work has been distracting, my old cat now has a diagnosis of high blood pressure requiring daily medication (blind, deaf, shaky in the legs with hypertension -- I swear my Dad has come back to reside in this fur person), and I just haven't had much to say.

I honestly think this cat is going to live to be 25. Someday you will see me featured on Huffington Post, I just know it. "Mambo, world's oldest cat, turns 25." Yikes.


Jack Skellington's Cat











Wait, I always have something to say...I just haven't been saying it on the Blog. Huh. I keep having ideas for blog posts then not writing them.

Besides, I think I have been quite admirably silent on the subject of Governor Quitter for long enough. Don't you know how HARD that has been for me?

Some of the ideas that came and went since October 22nd:



Did you really think I was going to put the actual book on my blog?

November was apparently "Special Olympics of Publishing" month, as half-a-retard Wasilla housewife Sarah Palin got a whole lot of trees murdered on her behalf. A book ghost-written for a maroon who doesn't think, to be bought by a whole lot of other maroons who can't read. But frankly, isn't it about time the white trash parts of America get a coffee table book to call their own?

But it does inspire me to suggest some holiday mischief for all you holiday Krampuses (or is that "Krampii?") At any rate -- go into your local Barnes and Noble or any big box bookstore and move the books around. Switch "The Nation's" version with the "not written by Sarah Palin but by her Ghost Writer Lynne Vincent" version. Move them one at a time to the bookshelf outside the store bathrooms. I have to confess to doing some variation on this petty vandalism every time I travel -- I move Glenn Beck's books around in airport bookstores, turn them upside down, or put two copies of someone else's book on top of his. Since most people who are looking for Sarah Palin's book have probably never been inside a bookstore before, it should be really easy to fool them.





If you look really closely, those two Penguins are Evgeni "Geno" Malkin and Sidney "Sidney" Crosby

I went to the NY Rangers game on November 30. That would be the one where they got totally spanked, and really hard with a wooden spoon drilled with holes, by my beloved Penguins. The Rangers have been on a bad slide after a strong start, mainly because they seem to be relying on Marian Gaborik to throw the entire team over his shoulder and fireman-carry them through the entire season. If he gets hurt they are TOAST. In other hockey news, Alex Ovechkin, who is probably the best player in the NHL -- I have to admit, that guy is an ANIMAL -- learned about karma the hard way, not only getting kneecapped and injured, but he earned a suspension in the bargain. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, Sergei Gonchar had to have said (like that Chinese guy in "The Hangover"), "see you later, muthafuckaaahhhh." Don't know if Ovie's back on the ice yet.




Apparently morning TV needs another Mommy.

No matter how much I try to like her for being the "liberal" voice on "Morning Joe," I find Mika Brzezinski completely annoying. She gets this purse-lipped puss on her face and climbs up onto her moral high horse where she wags her finger at Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle every morning. Blecch.




You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what's funny!


Bullet in the Eye, Back of the Garbage Truck. I have to admit to having this fantasy, folks. First, you have to imagine you hear the piano outro from "Layla" as background music. Then, long shot on a Cadillac. Pink. Camera moves in, to reveal two dead people in the front seat. Look, it's Dick and Liz Cheney! Fade to shot of refrigerator truck, move past frozen slabs of beef on hooks, to show another frozen solid corpse on a hook...Joe Lieberman! Last, but not least -- and "Layla" is still playing, folks, while Ray Liotta supplies our voiceover -- we see the garbage truck, churning its fetid refuse, turn out the bloated corpse, with a closeup on the bullet in the eye, of Glenn Beck! Ahhh, a girl can fantasize, can't she?


ET, phone home.

I saw "This is It," in November. I have to admit, in between marvelling, "That's a 51-year old man!" I wept several times. MJ was like some creature from another planet that we got to borrow for a little while. What a loss.


International Paper -- Drunk on Black Liquor

Last but not least before I check out and go to bed...if you want another group of corporations to be angry with, I say, go with American paper and pulp manufacturers. Not for the expected reasons (decimation of forests, replacing them with those heinous "managed forests") but because they are pocketing your tax dollars, to the tune of billions -- yes, that's billions with a "B" -- by exploiting a loophole in a bad piece of legislation. They're getting checks written to them by the IRS -- that's BILLIONS, folks -- for something called "black liquor." I suggest you check out a blog called Dead Tree Edition. And if you were wondering how Baucus and company got Snowe, just consider that the loophole is scheduled to close at the end of 2009, and Maine happens to be where an awful lot of pulp and paper is maufactured. Congressional back-scratching at its finest, folks. It makes me feel dirty.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight, folks. But just remember, black liquor.

Oh wait, one last thing: that 16-second "surprise kitty" video may be the cutest video EVER posted on youtube. I think it even beats the NY Lottery Sweet Millions commercials.