Variety 101: Inside The Bruising Dem Leadership Fight

Hi,

Having fallen behind for the last ten or so days, you'll just have to assume that my life is either pretty important or at the least more interesting than the life of a person who keeps coming here looking for points of interest to bring up at dinner parties where you play the role of ivy-league-educated upper-middle-class thirty-something-mom on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Anyway, here's a little recap of what you've been missing.

1. The movie Tempest starring a young version of everyone's favorite hot older woman is pretty lame. Except for Molly. She was great. A real natural.

2. I'm gonna update the gig section of this page when I finish typing this sentence.

3. Yes, Nick and Danny are also starring in The Old Fashioned Ladies Club this Wednesday, November 10th at 11pm.

4. Well, actually, yeah I guess you're right. Starring might be a slight exaggeration. It's important to be encouraging though. I think it brings out the best in people.

5. Speaking of The OFLC, thanks to a certain stage manager who forgot to get her voter registration changed from the great state of Illinois to the even greater state of New York, Steve Jackson and I lost the NY State gubernatorial election by one vote.

5(.5). Thanks a lot.

6. In unrelated news, you'll be relieved to know that Christine O'Donnell is still making the front page of The Huffington Post because she's appearing on a show running opposite a show hosted by a guy who used to rely on Al Roker but now can afford to run about a hundred and twenty seven ads on the front page of the Huffington Post.

7. And for those of you who have trouble sleeping at night, apparently there are also articles that don't show pictures of Christine O'Donell on the Huffington Post.

8. You too can find fashionable accessories for me to wear at the next Mother Feather show at The Dressing Room. Located on Orchard St. just south of Broome, The Dressing Room is your one stop shop for vintage bedazzlement (See accompanying photo), new designs from new designers and a fully stocked bar. Tell them I sent you and I pretty much guarantee that no one will care.

9. The movie Jackass 2.5 is pretty depressing.

10. I swear to god I saw one of the guys from Atomic Tom at a house warming party the other night. I think he plays the Sony Walkman, but I was too nervous to talk to him and find out for sure. Luckily for us, they've become too busy to perform at this week's edition of The OFLC. We totally didn't want them on the show anyway.

11. The net point I'm gonna make is something I like to call: Foreshadowing.

12. ...

13. The following point references a rejected joke for The OFLC wherein I attempted to reference the bankruptcy proceedings of a certain used to be famous mononymous person while passing a tip bucket.

14. The replacement promises to be funnier than the other rejected joke involving a boxing match between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr.

15. I bet my mom saw this:

16. This guy is a jerkface.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Don't forget to mark your calendars for today.

P.P.S. Nick Afticano is playing at Rockwood Music Hall.

P.P.P.S. At 10pm.

P.P.P.P.S. His guitar player is very tall.

P.P.P.P.P.S. 32nd best song ever:

English Lit 101: Kill The DJ

Hi. Hello. Greetings.

I know. I know it's hard. To have spent the last 24 hours with your browser pointed here, incessantly refreshing and pining for some relief from the disinhibited attachment disorder you most likely haven't been diagnosed with and simply chalk up to being old enough to have grey hair yet unsettled enough in career to still be living with roommates and occasionally borrowing money from your amicably divorced parents, only to find that I really had just plain skipped a day in posting a posting. It's hard. I know it's hard. I get lonely too. Sometimes I even read old letters. (And, when it gets really bad, I watch It's A Wonderful Life and cry like an infant.) So, I'm sorry if you feel like I haven't been giving you the attention our relationship has so obviously been needing. I'm sorry if you feel like I haven't been working on myself and how sometimes, that can, you know, affect both of us sometimes because you care so much. You really do. Truth is that I was thinking about you. It's just that I was also looking at someone else and wished you looked as good. Or at least dressed as fashionably. So there, I said it. Are you happy now? No, I didn't think so. Nobody ever really wants to hear the truth. A lotta these phonies just wanna hear a bunch of phony phoniness.

And there was a pretty long line at McDonald's. And I was rushing around a lot. Here's proof:

And speaking of phonies...

There's real phony DJ album that's been playing, and pontificated on by the Columbia PhD candidate cum barrista, here at the new Starbucks over on Bedford and N. 5th St. Basically, this phony took a bunch of classic pop songs from the early 1980's and slowed them down. So Phil Collins and Tears For Fears and Eurythmics all sound, well, a little bit like me singing. Only more in tune. He's also added in a really dumb delay effect that was really pretty embarrassing if you think about it. I'm surprised he didn't add in some real phony "woosh" sound effects like the guy that used to mix the audio for VH1 promos would always put in to make them seem like something exciting was actually gonna be airing next Friday at 9/8c. Actually, that woulda been pretty damn funny. But he didn't. So it isn't. Actually that album and the fact that the free internet signal I was getting there being down caused me to relocate. Now I'm at some joint called the L Stop listening to Sean Paul (who like me, looks pretty damn good for his age) and 50 Cent. I feel like I'm in Connecticut. And I like it. I should go visit my Aunt Vincie one of these days. Or mamma Lynne. Christ, I've got a lot of catching up to do.

In case you don't know who Sean Paul is:

And in case you don't know my Auntie V. This is the view from her back porch where we smoke cigarettes and dispose of them in an old I Can't Believe It's Not Butter container filled with water. We double check that the lid is on tight because you never know when something will catch fire.

Legend has it that my grandfather Gaetano Basile made his own wine from the grape vine to the side of the garage. I don't know if that's really true though because he was dead before I was born so I never got to ask him. I do know that my grandmother Anna Basile, who we called Noni, made the best fig cookies you'll never get to taste because she's dead too. She used fresh figs from the trees not shown in the photo above. Trust me, they're there. And they were the best fig cookies ever and if you disagree I'll punch you in the face.

In other news...

There has been a lot of pretty interesting news over the last couple of days. Notably the death of freedom fighter, and principle ghost-author of the Republican Party's Contract With America back in 1994, Howard Zinn. A champion of white male dominance he consistently espoused obfuscation in the seminal work A People's History Of The United States, playing one of the 20th centuries great cruel jokes on the liberal elite and their conditional bleeding hearts. Because when prominent liberal voices are filling the void of youth with the tyrannical declaration that, "Democracy doesn't come from the top. It comes from the bottom. Democracy is not what governments do. It's what people do..." I thank my lucky stars and stripes that I don't live in a democracy.

This man however, does live in a democracy...

(click this sentence for more information on the greatest documentary ever produced and the history of Socialism for the Rich, Capitalism for the Poor.)

In today's installment of "The Fashion Police" ...

To the good looking fellow in Emily Easterly's band. Here's the tie I was telling you about:

Call me sometime. We'll go shopping.

And in today's installment of "About Last Night" ...

You'll be happy to know that DreamWorks Records not only came a' scouting at the Lucinda Williams Tribute at Banjo Jim's but in the end were so impressed with my rendition of Pineola that they've decided to DROP Casey Shea and have signed me to a 13 year, 9 album recording contract on the condition that I never again step foot on the same stage as Chris Cubeta and the Liars Club. We're still working on the details of the contract, but with any luck I'll still be able to consult with Jeff Berner on where to get a decent drink on Grand St.

Finally, to the guy who keeps writing me asking for further explanation on how Emile's foot got burnt when he tried to use boiling water to clean his bathtub... He tried using boiling water to clean his bathtub for crying out loud. The best part is, he left his socks on, so it held the heat in.

And another finally...

The Casey Shea Band will finally gonna be done saying our weekly 1AM penance at Rockwood Music Hall this Saturday. Come down. Or don't. It's fine... nobody likes you anyway.

M

P.S. Oh... and stop going to the gym so much.

P.P. S. You're too skinny.

P.P.P.S. But don't get fat either.

P.P.P.P.S. R.I.P.