Happy Halloween

It just ain't Halloween unless the celebtard enter-taint-ment media (of which, I'm a disenchanted member) rates some Hollywood spandex wang.

Sugar in their coffin

On Oct. 22,Lower East Side club Mo' Pitkins closed its neon blue spotlighted doors.

The popular celeb cabaret hangout, which sported the likes of Cyndi Lauper, Moby and Nina Hartley, had fallen on some hard times.

The New York Post reported last September that Walker & Malloy hocked the building and its contents for a cool $5.5 mil.

It's a shame, too. The forlorn waitstaff who shoot haggard looks as if you're asking to sneak slaves through an underground railroad in lieu of simple chocolate martini, notwithstanding, Mo' Pitkins was one of the last great cabaret spots in the city.

It's the place where you can see unkillable downtown drag king Murray Hill's ultra campy variety show as well as upstart female comics in 'Chicks and Giggles.'

On one of the last CMJ Music Marathon performances at Mo' Pitkins, yodeling cowpoke Curtis Eller bawled through a banjo-picking litany of Civil War tunes, subtly poking the dead comparison horse as he asked "where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" with a brainy NPR-resolve. It's punk rock meets the Blue Mountain Ridge.

Check out more of Mr. Eller's music here.

Forest for the trees

Colin Meloy is a self-professed musical theater heretic.
The bespectacled frontman of The Decemberists told National Public Radio’s Terry Gross that he dabbled in The Music Man with a geekboy fandom in high school and there’s even his unreleased musical floating about the nether-regions of Portland, Ore.

So it isn’t any wonder that the band’s 2006 Japanese folk opus The Crane’s Wife was transformed into a prog-rock-meets-Broadway masturbatory fantasy on the band's most recent tour.

The Carson Ellis-inspired theater curtain looked like an indie-drenched interpretation of Swan Lake with a fairy tale scene of frogs and sunkissed princes. Combined with the paper-thin Japanese lampshades that hung above the performer’s heads, the Decemberists stage layout was almost a baroque-rock summer formal.

“It’s the third show of twlight in the Fearful Forest tour 2007,” Meloy said in his trademark literary blowhard prose as he tossed bookish meat to the crowd.

CMJ

Metromix: Care Bears on Fire, Holler, Wild Rose!, Hot IQs / Club Midway
Metromix: Ha Ha Tonka, Scotland Yard Gospel

Nashville Scene: New York Minutes

Photo above: Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars

Homeless Kitty of the Week

Back when my roomie and I had dirt poor issues, scrounging through garbage cans for discarded Hot Pockets and the like, we adopted kittens in hopes of providing them with a syringe-less bed to curl upon. We didn't divulge our urges to the goodness of a higher calling, oh no.

You see, we provided the sick kitties with a place to stay for cold, hard cash. (Next week, I'll talk about my hooker-dom.)

Jezebel (pictured, right) was the kitty who suffered an abortion. During mid-preggers, Jezebel had a complication which ended with the result of her babes being yanked from her uterus.

I called her Jezebel because she was a whore, a dirty filthy kitty whose soul I prayed away to Jesus. I can't recall who adopted Jezebel, but suffice to say, her soul's been wiped clean.

Shakshuka

This dish was Jew-licious! I'll say one thing about Israel—those Jews can cook!

Pan with tight fitting lid
A few splashes of the best olive oil you can get
4-6 cloves garlic, roughly diced
One 28-ounce can tomatoes (lightly smashed and pressed in a fine strainer, save the juice for a Bloody Mary)
A few pinches of Israeli Spice Mix (to personal taste)
3-4 large eggs

1. Oil the pan liberally and lightly saute diced garlic. Add the tomatoes, Israeli Spice Mix and more olive oil if needed. Mix, bring to a low simmer and cook uncovered, over low heat until thick, stirring occasionally. (20 min or so)

2. Bring Shakshuka to a medium simmer. Make a "well" in the mixture using the back of a large spoon and gently break the eggs into "wells" of the tomato mixture. Cover and continue to cook for about 3 to 4 minutes, until the eggs are set. Bring the frying pan directly to the table.

The Sexually Repressed Christian

My first crush was gay for Jesus. I really wanted him to be just gay for me.
It’s a common refrain for Southern-bred liberals, a forlorn tune that echoes in the deepest hollers of the human heart: “My lover left me for Jesus after he discovered we’re going to Hell.”
“God, do you know how many almost relationships get fucked up by Jesus?” my friend Amanda once told me over a glass of ice tea, crushing her sugarcubes against the glass into an indiscernible white cokelike dust.
“You can’t win against Jesus, Joey,” she added. He always has more to offer. Trust me, going up against Jesus, you’re fucked every time.”
And yes, at the end of the day, I was the one left holding Satan’s bouquet.
The social exorcism of small-town doldrums had my sexually repressed Christian under its thumb. And for two people who could barely utter the words “gay” or “homosexual,” this presented, a shall we say, “unique challenge.”
I would have dreams of showering with the sexually repressed Christian.
His pubes are splendid. They're all bushy tailed and neatly plucked, emitting a Panteen Provene sheen. His adorable eyebrows arching upward as I soap my balls.
The downside is that the shower is emitting toxic chemicals and we're soon bespotted in chemical burns. Our skin gradually turns into a bloody landscape of gaping holes and pockmarked grayish pus. We looked like rejects from a Cesar Romero pic.
"See what happens when you have the homosex," my Repub aunt would say during the dream capstone, "your pecker nearly burns off for Jesus."
For my sexually repressed Church of Christ crush, this really was a spot-on analogy. I mean, since I was Methodist, to him, our denomination was a few steps behind Satanists, anyway. If we did have
My sexually repressed Christian worked at a Christian-themed after school program for inner city children. He would rattle off a few stanzas of “Jesus Saves” to disenchanted Kinder-a-care children, little eyeballs blinking back an insurmountable void. They figured that the “Jesus Saving” was the only thing negating the rapscallions from turning into a bad Michelle Pfeffier movie.
But at was that day in the elitist school parking lot that my relationship with the sexually repressed Christian screeched to a grinding halt.
“You’re breaking up with me?” I said. It wasn’t really a relationship per se, only if you called steamy text messages and late-night wank sessions “a relationship.” Since I was merely 16, and desperate for any kind of gay sex, I denoted it as such.
“I can’t see you anymore,” the sexually repressed Christian said. “Each time I see you, you’re sending me one step closer to Hell.”
I had never broken up with anyone before, but that just seemed a tad hyperbolic to me.
A railroad spike had punctured my heart repeatedly with its sheer brute force right to the chest.
I thought I could win the sexually repressed Christian with a few good Cap’n Crunches to the face and a proffer of mom’s subscription to Guidepost.” But at the end of the day, some things aren’t meant to be.
The sexually repressed Christian kept his distance. He had 401K plans, stock options and a Stepford Wife to keep him busy. I had pretty much blotted the sexually repressed Christian out of my life until one day when I stumbled upon a familiar looking face in the Gay.com chat room.
There was the sexually repressed Christian, plain as day. He looked good.
Since he fucked up my ideals of a teenage puppy dog romance, I decided to fuck with him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be straight?” I typed furiously.
There was a dead pause. You could feel the terror across the intertubes of the Internet.
“Do I know you?” the sexually repressed Christian asked. “Because y’know, I’m just curious about the whole gay thing.”
Frankly, the whole “Do I know you?” query frustrated the living shit out of me. “I jerked you off for two years,” I typed. “And do I know you?”
And then it dawned on him. He knew.
“I’m sorry,” he wrote. “I never meant to hurt you with the whole you’re going to Hell thing.”
And there it was. The apology that I thought I would have to move heaven and hell to procure.
The sexually repressed Christian decided to meet the next afternoon for snacks. It was to be a coming home party for homosexuality.
I primped my hair and Jeff Gannoned my appearance. I wanted to be the poster child for turning my fellow Christians into queers, so I wore a freshly ironed shirt and pleated khaki pants. I looked like I had promise for once.
That night, the sexually repressed Christian made love to me under the stars. I won’t go into much detail, but after repressing his sexuality for so long, it must’ve felt good to let that shit out for a change.
After we finished, the sexually repressed Christian piped up yet again. “I have to go see The Passion of the Christ with my church group.”
And after casting the chains that bounded our sexuality, our very being into drone
I was free my chains and shackles, comfortable under the blanket of gay Christianity. He was not.
Even in the midst of gay sex, the fundamentalist version of Jesus was still screwing me.
“Okay. Have fun.”
Suffice to say, the sexually repressed Christian didn’t return my phone calls after the Passion of the Christ. But this time, I actually saw it coming for once.

Question of the Week

Could somebody please stop letting Sarah Jessica Parker dress herself?