Choire Sicha

Saturday, May 17

[While I have your attention, an aside to New York Times visitors: I am currently auditioning well-read men between the ages of 24 and 44 (such as yourself?) for the role of boyfriend. Lawyers, bankers, doctors, and sanitation workers are encouraged to apply. My interests include beach-lounging, rocking out, social-climbing, arguing about novels, yoga, impulse purchasing, and laughing hysterically. I don't drink any liquids besides decaffeinated teas and water, I have an incredible music collection, and, unlike so many internet denizens, I am not hideous (I'm kidding, people! No, I mean, I'm not hideous, but... oh, never mind). Link to my nerve ad is available if you drop me an email, or you can stalk me at the Electrelane show tomorrow night. Bring it on.

Ironically yet totally seriously yours, Choire.] ⊕

Electrelane at the Bowery Ballroom, Sunday night. I hope you'll consider joining me this Sunday at the Bowery Ballroom for the only U.S. show of the best band in the world. Reviews, ticket information, and even an mp3 are all here. Prepare to rock with the four girls from Brighton. ⊕

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Friday, May 16

I wish I lived in your building. ⊕

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Thursday, May 15

"I realized on this cruise that I didn't have to worry so much about what people thought of me. 90% of the time they're not thinking. They're not thinking about anything." That inadvertently hilarious quote ends the tale of one man's odyssey aboard a gay Caribbean cruise as broadcast tonight on MTV's hour-long Sex2K special. I can't believe my housemate made me watch it -- I want to pluck out my eyes.

Three men are followed throughout their weeklong adventure on the high seas. I've never felt so strongly in favor of homophobia in my life. Shallow (in the bad way), neurotic, badly-styled, and generally hateful, the three guys highlighted (in most cases, literally) meet men, have sex, ramble about the search for The One, and criticize other men for their body fat percentage. At least one -- the pretty one -- is obviously on ecstacy or meth; by the end of the documentary he is so exhausted he barely makes sense. The dippy but funny one meets a man and becomes jealous on the third day when the chinless object of his desire talks to other people. And the nice one actually meets a man, and is considering moving across the country for him. Well, good for them.

I'm pretty much done with this whole gay thing: at this point, I really am only in it for the sex. Gay culture seems sometimes to have stopped being creative after Genet -- all we have left is torn remnants of camp, self-hatred, and cruelty. Ack, gotta go -- Will and Grace is on.

[For more about Sex2K, check out John Styn's account of an episode about -- gasp! -- sex on the internet.] ⊕

Last night I wore my glasses to the movies for the first time. With clearer vision, I could see just how vapid Keanu is. The wise Wachowski brothers have their puppet speak less and less; the camera falls on his un-sunglassed visage less frequently. The eyes really are the windows to his skull.

The violence is so stunningly beautiful. I'm enamored of the deep unresolvable conflict at the heart of the movie -- a war rages on, but a war of virtuality, while the ancient paradox of free choice and a completely artifical predestination vie for sense, both issues implicit in the very form of the movie as it pretends to communicate meaning while visually disrupting any actual array of ideas. These movies are utterly empty except as high fashion, Kubrickian mystery, and Spielbergian drama. But when it works, which is a great deal of the time, it's immensely satisfying and even breathtaking. No expense spared -- except it's all two dimensional, and the credits last forever, and afterwards one is hard-pressed to remember the film's arguments, because they were beside the fabulous point.

These movies actually only produce a yearning to live in such a glamorous future. It's distressing to be human, and live in an apartment, and to have to pee, after all the flying and shooting and magic stop. I want to ride it again. ⊕

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Wednesday, May 14

Sweet Christ. Off to day three of jury duty. This is murder. Literally, actually.

Incidentally, there is much derision by the old-school New York judges during voir dire about our description of the neighborhoods we live in. Yesterday we were advised by one cranky old-timer that the Upper West Side does not officially begin until above 103rd Street. So far there is no East Village/L.E.S. flap, but there is certainly a division between Latina grandmothers who are all Loisaida and us white punks on dope who are all East Village in self-identification. Fascinating. I may switch camps today. ⊕

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Tuesday, May 13

"The Chinatown McDonalds is where the east bumps privates with the west; the interior features deep red panels accented by faux jade. Themed wall art has a multi-cultural rainbow of children celebrating their diversity on an inner-city playground. Ronald is surprisingly nowhere to be found. Fiona takes my order; she wears a navy blue sash covered in miniature bright gold arches. A pockmarked Ally McBeal-framed woman named Wing mans the fry prep station. The store’s hard plastic booths are lit by Ikea track lights. Ric foregoes his usual Big Mac for a double cheeseburger that he doesn’t enjoy quite as much because the sandwiches’ layering is out of synch." McUrban Memoirs. ⊕

New writing right here: Bling Bling Strategies for the New Economy, or, How I Learned to Capitalize from Tragedy. ⊕

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Monday, May 12

You're shitting me. The 2nd Avenue subway line plan is announced, and guess what subway-underserved neighborhood will remain isolated? That's right, mine! Now we know the East Village will always be old school; the 2nd Avenue subway merely utilizes already existing stops at the L and the F, 14 blocks apart. Sure you can now (and by "now" I mean "when I have grandchildren") go uptown instead of crosstown from our existing stations. Well, BIG FUCKING DEAL. Those of us in Tompkins Square Park-land live in a dreaded triangle of subway-lessness. People here take busses (and by "people" I mean "the poor"). Now we will always be the ghetto. Landlords weep. Commuters curse. I'm getting on the waiting list to buy a cab medallion. ⊕

I'll cry tomorrow. So I stayed up as late as I could Sunday night, writing a light and silly piece about dating. Lance and I were cruising online personals and while we were making fun of people together, I got more and more bummed out. I'm not sure I'd date anyone in this world with a ten foot Nerve.com credit. Perhaps it was just that words like "genuine" and "self-assured" and interests like "Moulin Rouge" and "Jonathan Franzen" were making me dizzy and ill.

This morning I have jury duty. Monday is my day off, and instead of lollygagging in bed, sleeping until noon, I will be downtown Manhattan at 8:30 a.m., sitting in a dusty room, surrounded by Manhattan's creme de la creme. I am wildly unhappy about this, and at this hour I cannot promise my complete honesty during voir dire. I'm sure I'll feel sunnier tomorrow. If not, well, at least we have the death penalty now and my single-in-Manhattan rage can accumulate a body count. ⊕

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Sunday, May 11

Added to my regular music site reads: Rub, the blog of the week over at submeat. Speaking of music blogs, don't miss The Modern Age's Coachella Music Festival reportback. It's almost better than being there in the desert, sweating and vomiting from the mushrooms. ⊕