America's media-saturated soul hits the club for the evening.

Every straight man in the club was sitting in the VIP. My friend Jillian was celebrating the first anniversary of her lesbian night at the Funky Buddha with a party that featured live goldfish in plastic cups and an appearance by Amanda Lepore. We sat around drinking some vodka-and-juice thing called X-Rated while attractive women made out on the dance floor to house remixes of Snoop Dogg songs. Amanda Lepore's entrance, somewhere around 1 o'clock was part movie star red carpet and part in-store meet and greet; every club photographer in town swarmed to get her picture, along with the gay club kids trying to get a shot of themselves with a club legend.
If you want to be famous for being famous, you have to be willing to make an effort. Becoming a transsexual with Jayne Mansfield tits and collagen lips too outrageously inflated to be compared to any woman living or dead works, or at least it does for Lepore. On paper, at least, she was at the club to perform. She's got a few clubby tracks that she sings on, and her single "Champagne" is definitely the number one best pop song by a transsexual probably ever. But the real reason she was there was to hang out. Hanging out is what she does. She's so good at it that all her singing and David Lachapelle and Heatherette modelling just look like side jobs, the way that everyone else in the place works at Whole Foods or waits tables. The Buddha's VIP section is just a roped-off area in the bar's corner, so everyone could see how the world's most famous professional clubgoer hangs: There's a lot of posing for pictures. There is a sidekick in punk-kabuki makeup and a stuffed animal backpack that may or may not be a conscious throwback to the Party Monster club kid era. There is an enormous bottle of champagne. Beyond that there is just hanging out.
It's hard to put your finger on whatever it is that makes Amanda Lepore compelling, but she is. She's a knot of America's unravelling sexual identity, the artificial incarnation of the blonde bombshell, the heartland's sexual ideal made out of skin-straining breast implants and a surgically-crafted pussy. I think what makes her matter has a lot to do with sacrifice. Lepore's something of a martyr, putting herself on the altar of the surgeon's table so we can all gaze upon the results. Think about it like this: she's Jesus, Andy Warhol is God, and on the edge of the scene in a darkened corner Marshall McLuhan is chuckling into his balled-up fist. It's 2005 and that's not too far from the truth.

The latest public apology.

I would like to publicly apologize for any comments I have made last night comparing graphic designers' overuse of the Cooper Black typeface to Richard Pryor "burning through a huge bag of rock, all ending up in the hospital, covered in burns." Richard Pryor is a comedy legend and an American icon, and I hope my comments did nothing to tarnish his legacy of being high as hell on cocaine.

1000x"Huh?"

Biz Markie is DJing a fundraiser party for Hillary Clinton at Crobar on the 3rd. I want to be there when Hillary and the Biz shake hands and rupture the fabric of the universe.

Weekend tips and cock teases.

There's going to be a good bit of juicy hip-hop gossip hitting the charts soon. I've sworn not to release the actual information, and because in the past year or so I've developed some sort of "ethics" or something I won't actually drop the specific info. But it's kind of rad news if you're into rappers going crazy, which I am; I don't know about you.
Tonight (11/18/05): I am doing a Sparks thing at St. Alfred ( which is across the street from Reckless/Rodan and they sell very fancy kicks) where you can hear super-new music from people on Ghostly and other totally famous labels. RSVP to krabby@stalfred.com. There are also goodie bags.
And after that the Avatars are playing at Beat Kitchen. If you like bands like the Pretenders or the Ramones, or if you own a shirt from a garage rock record label, you should be there.

Class actions.

I need a new coat. I went out shopping tonight, ready to drop triple-digits on some winter outerwear and maybe a Look upgrade. The past two winters I've been wearing the same Gap clearance-rack parka, and I was considering stepping my style up a notch with a nice-looking overcoat-type jam. I generally dress like someone splitting the difference between smacked out Stones and an acid casualty with femme tendencies and too many records. I'm nearing 30, and at some point I'm going to make the decision to either wear nice-looking clothes or go quietly into the eternal record store clerk/Thurston Moore night. I found an affordable, good-looking coat at H&M that actually fits me, and I almost dropped the $150 on it, but decided to hold out, sleep on it for a minute. Earlier in the day I had bought the new issue of Spin and within minutes found myself checking out what Franz Ferdinand is wearing for possible inspiration. It had left me troubled, finding myself in the midst of such a desperate action.
When my co-conspirator/occasional editor/full-time fashion consultant Jessica Hopper swung by I asked her opinion on the coat matter. "You should get a big puffer coat in a bright color. Just go to Rainbow and buy a girl's jacket."
As the universe is eternally drawn towards entropy, so am I ever drawn to tackiness, and the girls' section clearance rack.

He's like the hip-hop Katamari.

Dude, 50's entourage is absorbing entire other rap groups (2nd item).

Lies, Damn Lies, and More Lies

Oh snap! Fuck Napster's ad people, the Bush administration is bringing the real heat on the truth/not truth/are you really going to waste your time thinking about what the truth is (because really, thinking is so booooring)/bullshit-slinging. And fuck whoever says that G.W. Bush has got no talent: as an experiment, get a half-dozen friends or co-workers together and see if you can tell them, "Congress shouldn't pass laws interfering with C.I.A.torture prisons, but the C.I.A. doesn't actually have torture prisons," without either cracking up or breaking into tears.

OhSnap 2.06 beta

Big ups to whoever in the ad agency Napster's hired for their "Have Everything/Own Nothing" campaign that's currently plastered all over our bus shelters. If there's not already an award for advertisements that put the product's un-consumer-friendly features (in this case, the fact that if you sign up for Napster you don't actually own the music you download, but rather sort of rent it for the time you subscribe to the Napster service, and once you quit it you can't fuck with your own music that you paid for) there should be. The next prize in this category will go to whoever comes up with Sony's "If You Actually Legally Buy Our Music We Will Put Malware On Your Computer That You Wouldn't Get If You Downloaded Our Shit Illegally But Fuck You Anyways" campaign, if they have the balls to really go through with it.
In related technology news, I'm developing a program that will immediately place any manipulative emails from your exes into the your junk mail folder, along with an autoreply of an email with an animated .gif of a Mummenshantz guy giving the sender the finger. I'm calling it iThoughtyouknew.

The situation as it stands.

The kids out tonight at the bar I DJed were obnoxious, and it seemed like half of their dance-moves repertoire was "stomp your feet really hard on the ground." The other part was "jump up and down with your hands in the air," so my records were skipping like craziness, and it was super hard to cue shit. But they were moving, so I gave them what they wanted, which was last years indie rock hits, 1999's catchiest rap singles, and half of the Bloc Party remix record. At least they danced, at least I was getting paid, and as much as I questioned their lack of enthusiasm for any black artist after the late 80s I had to respect the way they made a muddy beer mess on the floor right off the bat to wallow in for close to four hours.
The cat's been edgy recently, but that's becoming the status quo. Like anyone whose gone from being the wallflower to being the life of the party she's going through a phase of unabashed whorishness, basking in the fact that anyone wants to touch her and letting anyone who wants to do so. I know I've been there. Maybe you have. But also the barometric pressure is up, and I know it's affecting my knees and I think it maybe was why that one dude had his shirt off at the bar, cold freaking hippie chicks like whatevs. If I've learned anything from watching people the cat will probably keep on this thing for a while and then either move into her own place to get her shit together or get a job bartending. I have to admit that I'm hoping for the latter, because bartenders make a lot of money and the fact is that the cat hasn't ever been able to chip in on rent or bills.

Requisat in Sock

During last night's festivities an unnamed sock monkey was accidentally immolated. Though the fire damaged only the beast's tail, the gruesome extent of the damage and the fact that it stank like burnt polyfiber filling was enough cause to determine the injury fatal. A short ceremony was held in the kitchen, after which the unnamed sock monkey was laid to rest in the trash can, and then shortly after in the dumpster behind the building. The sock monkey is survived by another, unnamed sock monkey and a stuffed animal of indeterminate species named Jose.