Lindsayism.com

High Horses Not High Heels

* Vulture: Only 5.9% of today's Emmy-nominated late night comedy writers are women.

* (Possibly) Related:  Women think Sex and the City is funny. (Personally, I think the dearth of women in comedy is less "women aren't funny" and more "women are perceived as not being funny", but nobody's helping the situation by making up words like "shoegasm.")

* Totally Unrelated: Holy $%*, a guy shot himself in the head while being caught on "To Catch a Predator" a year and a half ago.

* Idea: an RSS feed feature that automatically eliminates posts with certain tags from your feed. Inspiration: Harry Potter.

 

I Kid Because I Love

I know this is a little late, but I keep meaning to get to it and forgetting and Emily's post just reminded me: I totally broke up with a longtime boyfriend on March 13, 2004. That band guy? What's his face? Anyway, please leave your condolences and tell your own breakup stories and ask me out in the comments. Thanks!

Also: should I eat ice cream and if so, what kind?

Knocked Up!

Pretty much everyone I know saw Knocked Up this past weekend, and everyone I've talked to has said some version of "It was more heartwarming than I expected." Most of them mean that in a slightly pejorative way ("heartwarming" not being a compliment in my circles). I said it, too, though I might have lost my pejorative-use-of-heartwarming privileges when I got misty at the end (so did all my friends, though.)...

(Spoiler Alerts: the following half-assed analysis of the movie's stance on gender relations may spoil the next five minutes of your life, or possibly certain aspects of the movie if you've lived under a rock for the past month.)

 

When Retards Attempt Satire: Neighborhood Barbies

Okay, so this is kind of fish-in-a-barrel, but the only thing funny about this "parody" of New York neighborhoods through their corresponding Barbie dolls is how hysterically wrong it is. You know those stupid forwards sent around by well-meaning-but-clueless Moms and spinsters with cats? I imagine this is that sort of thing for the chick-lit-reading, sample-sale-squealing, $400-shoe-buying sucker set:

I give you, the parodist's Barbie representation of the Lower East Side (of what, I'm not sure. Maybe somewhere in Arkansas?):

"Lower East Side Barbie"

"This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewis knife,a Chevy with dark tinted windows, and a Meth Lab Kit. This model is only available after dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceable bills) ..unless you are a cop, then we don't know what you are talking about."

Um, what? Was this EVER the Lower East Side?

The rest are here. (Park Slope and Red Hook are also unintentionally funny, but for all I know, Bensonhurst is dead-on.)

(I Sent Her the Link. It Was the Right One.)

(Pasted with permission. If you've read this site for a while you might find this amusing.)

To: Me

From: [XXXX]

Sent: Just now

Subject: Oh Dear Lord Help Me Find This Link...

"This is totally a shot in the dark, as I'm not sure it was your blog where I read about this:

Quite a while ago you wrote about a blog written by a self-important female, who wrote about her expensive travels and rich boyfriends. She apparently was from old money or something and had reddish hair. You mocked her self importance, which was hilarious. 

I can't remember anything else about the blog in question, except that her boyfriend at the time you wrote about her blog made his money by playing poker (LR: I don't remember this, but then, I only ever skimmed).

She also had a photo collection of the evolution of her hair styles, which made her appear insanely self-absorbed. It's driving me crazy that I can't find this blog! I was telling my friend about it and wanted to show him, but I can't find it! If you know what I'm talking about, please email me the url when you get a chance. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then this will probably sound like the ramblings of a lunatic and I'm sorry!"

(Something tells me XXXX will have a lot of fun catching up.)

"structural and cheek issues"

Wow. Has anyone ever begged for a takedown like this woman? I mean, there isn't even anything you can say! (Except a silent cheer for "Terrence")

(But this site does a good job)

UPDATE, from her 50,000 word "About Me" page:

"Various ex-boyfriends: I had three not very serious relationships in the three year period between Brien and Terrence. You might find mentions of them in the archives as the Mensa guy, the lawyer, and "Mr. Indecisive"."

You. Cannot. Make. This. Shit. Up.

Jacqueline Passey Paisley Mackie Whatever, welcome to the 'Sitting There, Just Waiting to Suck' section of my RSS feed.

a new dimension in which to suck

Q: Why is Modern Love now available as a podcast?

A: So blind people can hate it too.

My Field Trip to Saks

On Saturday I went to Saks for the first time in my life (and almost certainly the last, though it was fun in an anthropological observation way.) My friend and I noticed the counter for De La Mer, makers of the famously expensive Creme De La Mer ($110 per ounce). When we walked by, my friend said "Let's get samples!" She marched right up to the counter and grabbed a tub and opened it while I stood in awe, but it was empty. A salesgirl rushed up and my friend said confidently "We'd like a sample, please."

The look on the salesgirl's face was priceless -- a combination of eyerolling, sighing and silently judging us all in one look. She got out a precious tub of the priceless creme and used a mini spackler to apply a microscopic amount to each of our hands, instructing us in her Eastern European accent to pat it on our faces, not to rub. I just slapped it on my cheeks and started rubbing. "No, you are doing it wrong! Do not rub!" So I started patting, but it was taking too long so I rubbed again. The salesgirl stared at me angrily. "You are clogging your pores right now. That is what you are doing, you are clogging your pores" (imagine Natasha of Boris and Natasha saying this.) My friend and I laughed all the way out of the store and down the street, doing imitations. "You are clogging your pores right now! You are trash and you are clogging your pores. Tonight, you will die in your sleep." (Oh, if you're wondering what makes Creme De La Mer so special, don't ask me. I think you could get the same effect with Vaseline. Pat, don't rub!)

Paging the MacArthur Foundation

Some dark genius had a dark night of the soul and somehow found a way to make Sex and the City EVEN MORE STUPID.

(Note that it's not even the real, shitty actors saying the shitty lines, it's some shitty voiceover actors saying the vapid, bad-pun-laden, written by a 13-year-old, lines instead! "I wanted a man who could commit...not a man who was committed!")

* I finally thought of

* I finally thought of something to say about Maureen Dowd aka last month's news: When a woman says "There are just not enough SUCCESSFUL men who like SUCCESSFUL women"...

The first "successful" means "rich" and the second "successful" means "enjoys shopping." Please take a moment to let the undisputable truth of this statement wash over you. Then think of all the women you know who say this. I know, right?

* Speaking of, I hear that among the attendees of Andrew Krucoff's going away party last night (to which I didn't make it, unfortunately) was none other than Jessica Cutler. She's using my quote on her official site too, which is funny.

* Said over Scrabble last night:
"If "Jizzpie" is a word, then "Jizzpier" is also a word."

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

branding

I suggested to a friend that there should be a special condom just for sex with Jessica Cutler. Five minutes later, this (click to enlarge):

stripper feminism

Is it just me, or somewhere along the way did Jessica Cutler come to the realization that there was an opening in our culture for "Mother of All Whores" and make a conscious decision to jump in and fill it?

I'm not just being rhetorical here. I actually believe that there was a moment, probably shortly after her blog first appeared on Wonkette, when Jessica lay in her bed atop the permanent yet ever chemically changing wet spot, a few crisp twenties curling in an envelope on the bedside table labelled "rent", when she sat up quickly and said "My god that's it! I will take this to a national level."

I'm serious. I think it really happened. And she never veers from her talking points. She's like the Bush Administration! Seeeeee?

Straight Up and Braggy: The Other Side of "Fame"

I promise, I swear, I vowed to myself never to mention a "girly blogger" by name again, lest another idiotic person ask me about some nonexistent "blog feud", and because the whole subject is boring and I'd rather concentrate on the more well-known ways women humiliate themselves and each other in public (like chick lit or the Times' Modern Love column), but something just happened that has made it impossible to keep that vow.

I was just ordering an iced tea in the crowded cafe of the Borders at Columbus Circle, when I hear someone in the cafe yell "I'll link to it! On my website! And you'll get TONS OF TRAFFIC! I have TEN THOUSAND READERS PER DAY!" I glanced at the person yelling from her laptop-laden cafe table, then glanced at the person she was yelling to - an older woman sitting nearby, clearly a stranger. I guess the stranger didn't hear the first time because the person yelled again "TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE READ MY SITE EVERY DAY!"

Before I even had time to process the embarrassment I felt for this person for saying such a David Brent sort of thing, I realized (I'll admit: to my glee) that this misguided young lady was none other than the lastest recipient of a half-million dollar book deal from Judith Reagan: Miss Stephanie Klein.

I'm happy to report that the self-confidence (cough! euphemism! cough!) she manifests on her site, is, in fact, also present in real life. From my gawking spot across the cafe, I can't testify to her firmness or fashionablness, but I think everyone in that cafe was busy facing it - she's fetching.

As Miss Klein is the Queen of the "I totally got recognized on the street by one of my thousands of fans!" post, I was DYING to ask for an autograph, hoping to end up on the site, but I chickened out. The end.

I Think That Fish Needs Penicillin

Oh. My. God.

You know, I would love to train the whole arsenal on this one, but the fact is, the awfulness of the article (and the blog it's based on is completely self-explanatory, and to point things out would be an insult to your intelligence.
(It's like that show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" - I don't need to watch this guy watch things and make witty comments, I have wittier friends who make wittier comments, you know?)
My overwhelming feeling after reading the article and perusing the blog (as well as the blog of the "other woman" the article refers to was this: I don't know which I'm ashamed of more right now: being a blogger, or being a woman.

I'm going to stop procrastinating and go through all the responses you sent in to the Busting the Chick Lit Myth post a few weeks ago. Maybe this Heather girl will find it in her daily self-googling and maybe it will help her get some self-respect and a life of her own and stop web-stalking blogger musicians who, as Julie the Co-worker just pointed out, "isn't even hot!!!"

Oh, I was just scrolling down the page and saw where Fishy's object-of-blog-stalking-obsession referred to her as "bloggerati." There are actual people who speak this way with a straight face and take blogging seriously ?

(Yes, there are. And they live in a magical place called the Upper East Side and blog about their "addiction to Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream" and wonder why they can't get a boyfriend to save their lives. Helen Fielding, so much to answer for.)

.

Busting the Chick Lit Myth

I was sick yesterday, but I really need to run my mouth about Sunday's NY Times:

First, this article, "Television Without Pity" explores the repercussions of the case brought against the writers of "Friends" by a disgruntled former writer's assistant. I'm really new to collaborative writing, but from what I've seen and participated in, the writers are absolutely right. If your sensibilities are easily offended, you have no business attempting to work in a creative collaborative situation. It's cases like this that keep women out of writer's rooms. This chick should have tried for a job at Oprah or on Lifetime: Television for Victims instead.

Speaking of things that make me ashamed of my gender, this article by Jack Marin on the new bestseller "He's Just Not That Into You" , written by former Sex In the City writers is right on the money in its proposition that maybe, just maybe, he's "not that into you" because there's something wrong with you:

"Any single guy will tell you there aren't that many good women around, either. When he finds one, he marries her if she will have him. Let's agree that neither sex is exclusively to blame when things don't wind up in wedded bliss.

There is something wildly condescending about the image of women as helpless creatures standing around minding their own business until men come into their lives and break their hearts. This, after how many waves of feminism?"

Right on! I don't think the writer goes far enough, though. (Though maybe his harsher opinions were edited out. Being, for better or worse, my own editor, I'm happy to step in and express mine.)

I have a lot of guy friends, and from listening to them I know there is just as much of a dearth of "good" women as "good" men. From my own experience and from observation, it seems like women fall into two categories: either they're successful with guys or they're not. Either guys fall for them hard and right away, or not at all. Either they always call, or they never call. And there's no way of telling who is going to fall into which category - it certainly seems to have nothing to do with looks. When Jack Berger told Miranda that the guy who didn't call her back just "wasn't that into" her, he should have added "Because you and your friends are desperate, painfully un-funny, materialistic cunts who have nothing to offer conversation-wise but lists of things you've recently purchased and no interests of your own and no curiosity and no motivation but snagging a rich husband as soon as possible."

That applies to the four women of that awful show, but they're just archetypes. What about real people? What makes some girls sought-after and others not? I'm going to get reamed for this, but why do I keep having the same conversation in hushed tones in ladies rooms about the Chick Lit Myth, that unquestioned accepted wisdom that men are jerks who never call the next day, that it's so hard to find a good guy...when this is the exact opposite of our experience? And nobody ever talks about it!

In my experience, this city is is chock full of "viable" guys. They're everywhere! I honestly think that any girl who thinks otherwise is just not interested in being friends with straight men - or she has no common ground on which to relate to them. The girls I know who are most successful with guys are the same girls who have a lot of platonic straight male friends. There has to be a connection there.

So, I'm asking what makes you pursue one girl over another? (And let's leave looks out of it, since we're assuming you were initially attracted to her enough to go out with her.) Email me at lindsay(at)lindsayism.com and I'll tally and post the results of this unscientific survey later this week.