The Bird

I am bringing back the finger.

Where on Earth did the finger go?

New Yorkers need the finger. In fact, I can only assume that the finger was created here. Who else would come up with such a meticulous method of communicating frustration and disgruntilation?

The eighties was big time finger time. As was the nineties.
I remember.
My mom gave everyone the finger, but, I think now, sadly, she might the only person using it.

Have we moved on to something greater.? Something with more truth?
No.
No, we haven't. In fact, I say we're lame.
We have not benefited from the decline of the finger.

I say, let us not let the finger die. Give someone the finger today.

It is times like this when we need to preserve what we hold most dear.

A

AAAAA(screaming)AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH(screaming)HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAA(screaming)AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH(still screaming)HHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wanna hear what I just heard?




Walking to the subway:



"Well, my friend had an abortion last summer, and I really saw, that it's not all it's cracked up to be...











AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A funny story about Kevin Klein

My sister and I were walking up to the theater where I performing on Friday Night.

We were both carrying a heap of stuff: blankets, bags, a box, and a television.

All of a sudden, Kevin Kline was there too.


Just as I normally do when I see a famous person on the street in New York City, I simply said, "hi!"

It looked like Kevin Klein was about to become one in a long line of "said hi's to", aline which includes F. Murrary Abraham, Susan Sarandon, and Al Gore.

But, instead, unsatisfied by my cursory "hi," he looks at my sister and I and all our stuff and says:

"Well, don't you two look homeless."

It was here that I started explaining to him that I was about to do my Solo Show in a theater upstairs and that he should come.

He explained that he had to go home and memorize lines for Cyrano de Bergerac.

I told him I understood.

But I tried to tempt him...you know, Austin Pendleton directed a show that is in this festival.

He made a little bit of a face...still not sure if the face had anything to do with the festival or Austin Pendleton. Suppose the world will never know.

Then he says, "well, wait, what is the name of your show?"

To which I reply, "On how to dress your children the day you are going to pretend that they have polio."

The he says:

"Oh...you've done that before..."

To which I blink, "Yes!! I have!!"

"Well," he says, "break a leg..."

KK, just incase you read SHAWDENFREUDE from time to time, you know, just in case, I want you to know I had a wonderful show and I'm going to come see Cyrano. Hey, haven't you done that one before?

talkin' 'bout my generation

Oh How to Dress Your Children the Day You are Going to Pretend That They Have Polio is tonight.

There is going to be a great deal of winging it.

Don't think for a second I know what I am doing. That is for professionals.

Those of you who I will see tonight, see you soon!
Those who have sent their love from afar, I love you too.

I love all you guys.

(Redundant) Love,
The soon-to-be Preacher

Burning Man, part one

Where can you go to have your breasts painted, see/become/participate in art, sleep on a trampoline, drink free booze for five days straight, and meet a Superman from Switzerland who can break into your car?

Well, Burning Man, of course.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you have not been, we are going together next year.

Burning Man, as I have been explaining since I have returned, is a combination between a carnival, an amusement park, a gallery, a magic spell, Christmas, Hanukkah, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, camping, and an American attempt at Utopia.

Things go up in flames at Burning Man.
Things are magic petals at Burning Man.
Things are hot and dusty at Burning Man.

I fell in love on the Playa - with the Playa.
The fact that I was taken away on Sunday in a Ford Explorer bound for Los Angeles was cramped and sad compared to the love fest that Burning Man was, that the desert was.

I am very tan. I am covered in burns and cuts.
Burning Man is an intense adventure where one could be playing pool one minute and being bathed by an almost-stranger the next.

I took a magic love potion, ran away from a 17 year old who tried to kiss me, had a guy guess where I live by my zip code, saw a double rainbow, drank absinthe, survived two major dust storms, and Journeyed with a Shaman who was also giving out Sno-Cones.

Pictures soon.

I slept 17 hours yesterday.

God Bless,
Melissa

What to do if you are kidnapped by Terrorists

This was actually on MSN this morning, cortesy of Slate.

Are these how-to articles, in this, our modern age, in this, our twenty-first century, going to begin substituting articles in places like Cosmo? Will this be on page 128 instead of that euphamistic article about how to give a better blow job, or how to be Anorexic without even really trying?

The way it was placed this morning, in the same spot I have clicked on articles like Beat Your Temper Before it Beats You and Blueberries: a Superfood, made me feel like it was a joke. If I am not mistaken this could be a headline in the Onion.

I think it comes just short of telling you not to lose your head.


Well, at least I know what the fuck to do now, don't I? Whew.

RIP Violetta

I was walking along the Hudson at just about Midnight. It was one of these cool evenings we've been having. I was lucky and brought a sweat shirt. I go there, sometimes, when I am on the West Side, to work things out. Sometimes, I yell into the water and blow kisses at the moon.

I was near Christopher Street and all the couples that hang out there. There is a huge gay community that hangs out near the water. It's gay guys and the occasional runner, at that hour, on the Hudson.

I was going nowhere in particular, when I passed a woman who looked not unlike an aging Sissy Spacek with two pig tales and freckles. This, however, was not Sissy Spacek and she was busy balancing a box on top of a shopping cart. A Medium-sized Manhattan Mini-Storage box, to be exact.

She was tying twine around the box. Once, Twice, Three times, the twine went around.I was approaching from the north and, for a moment, didn't think too much about it- then I realized how weird it was. As I got closer, I noticed that the box was covered in hand written words. I strained my eyes to read the black sharpie scrawled over the printed blue advertisement for Manhattan Mini-Storage.


RIP beloved Violetta.


A little speaker when off in my head:
Attention. Attention. Please proceed to the nearest bench to watch the rest of this unfold.

I knew what was coming.

The Sissy Spacek woman finished tying the box shut, centered it, heavy with dead animal, which I could only assume, by its size, to be a cat, on her shopping cart and began moving to a spot with a clearer shot of the water.

I watched, amazed, with one eye, fifty feet away, so as not to disrespect her or scare her away.

She checked over her shoulder a couple of times making sure she was in relative privacy.

And then, picking up the box, gauging a fair distance between she and the railing, she swung the cardboard sarcophagi:


One.

Two.

Three.

Burial at Sea.

There was a splash and she peered over the railing. She settled in, elbows resting on the piping, back curved, closed off from the sky.


I watched her for a few moments, from my distant seat, without moving. Suddenly, I felt very alone myself and full of loss. I'm not sure who sunk into me more, Violetta, dead and adrift in the cold and lonely waters of the Hudson, or the woman, aging and likely now, without companion.

I felt very blessed in that moment to be neither.


It began to feel wrong having witnessed the funeral and not having given her my best. Before I knew it, I was walking over to her.

I stood next to her. My knees resting on the railing; I peered over. Violetta was bobbing on the water. She was sinking, but remained steadfast with 60% visibility.


I turned to the lady who looked as if she was amazed by what she had just done, in shock that the cat was dead, and confused by my presence.

I looked at her and smiled lightly.

"Cat?"

"Uh-huh."

She immediately started crying.

I told her I was very sorry for her loss she told me she had had her for fifteen years. I told her losing cats is the worst feeling in the world; she continued to cry.

I hugged her and told her I would leave her be in peace.

"Thank you for stopping," she said.

I said, of course, and be well, as I walked away from her and the bobbing Medium- sized Mini Storage box, now only 40% visible in the Hudson River