Dude!

Cringe gets a mention on page 88 of the new issue of Spin, in the article “The Best Nights Out This Month.” We get four stars!

Living Proof

My friend Doug is the founder and president of Living Proof, an organization devoted to suicide prevention, especially among teenagers.

They’re having their first fundraiser, a cocktail reception on Thursday, May 25, in the Public Space at Chelsea Market. It’s a good cause, and sure to be a lovely evening. Maybe you want to go?

The injustices I will suffer to see Ian McKellen

Last night we saw The Da Vinci Code. I had read the book a few summers ago, one morning when I was desperate for something to read on the train. Like eating an entire bag of Doritos in one sitting, or having sex with an ex, it seemed like a good idea until the moment you finished. The movie was slightly more bearable due to the fact that we poured tiny bottles of rum into our giant cokes and turned it into a drinking game. Basically, you drink whenever the movie is on the screen.

Afterwards, in line for the ladies’ room, while I was concentrating on standing very gingerly so as not to put any more pressure on my bladder, Nicole Kidman walked out of the stall in front of me. After entering, I had to wonder if she was the one, or just one of many, who had peed on the seat.

Crimes against humanity

I was just reading today’s goldenfiddle update, and it is drowning in good shit—multiple instances of celebrity comeuppance, Arrested Development news, a fine piece of photojournalism about Tom Hanks’ hair, even a link to the most recent Vice Dos and Don’ts. All precisely the kind of news you want to read at 4:45 on a Thursday.

Then I saw this link about Ghostbusters 3 and I was all OH HELL YES until I got to the part where it says “Ben Stiller will fill in for Bill Murray.” NOOOO! My colleague Jay Carlson weighs in: “The man will do Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties, but not reprise the role that made us love him?”

Speaking of horrible ideas, Julia Roberts is the voice of Charlotte in the new Charlotte’s Web. (Why did they need to update that? Is AOL involved?) Guess who plays Fern? Dakota Fucking Fanning. If Tom Cruise played Templeton and they all exploded in the end, this would be my new favorite movie.

P.S.

Cringe is tonight. You should come.

I ruined the Constitution

Our D.C. trip was fantastic. Perfect weather, good food (thanks for the Banana Cafe and Jaleo recommendations, internet), saw everything we wanted to see and more. Secret star: Air and Space Museum. Totally pleasant surprise, thousands of people on class trips aside. Laurence Fishburne as planetarium show narrator gets 5 out of 5 stars from me. (Our own AMNH offers Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford, and while Ford has the better nighttime sky voice, Hanks has the more interesting show.) Heather spotted a helicopter on display and became so excited and confused that she started singing the Magnum P.I. theme. I was like, “What? What are you doing? Is that Airwolf?” Thanks, public schools! Thanks, television! Also saw the Spirit of St. Louis, which apparently was made out of construction paper. Seriously, I would not fly across my backyard in that thing, much less the Atlantic. But I don’t have a backyard, so let’s move on to the part where I ruined the Constitution.

Oh wait! First I have to tell you that Ford’s Theater was showing a matinee of Shenandoh starring Scott Bakula. Too many Quantum Leap jokes to choose from there. I saw a pillow stained with Lincoln’s blood and totally teared up. Also, I was standing next to a group of cargo-shorted, be-visored high school senior trip boys who were having this debate:

Brah 1: What did the guy yell, after he killed him?
Brah 2: Something Latin.
Brah 1: Right, because it was what Julius Caesar yelled when they killed him, too.
Brah 3: No dude, he just said “Et tu Brutus?”
Me (unable to hold it in any longer): He yelled Sic semper tyrannis, which means “Thus always to tyrants,” and allegedly Brutus said it when he killed Caesar.
Brahs (nod, don’t make eye contact, edge away)
Me (calling after): It’s also the Virginia state motto!

Proving that I’ve still got what it takes to make an entire group of high school boys uninterested in and annoyed by me.

So. We went to the National Archives to see the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They’re kept in a darker room under special lights in special glass cases and all that. No flash photography allowed. As we walk into the room, the guard says, “Ladies, there’s no line system,” and boy was he right, but there should be, because some people were seriously hogging some documents. One thing this trip taught me is that while I’m way into America, not so big on Americans. Like the one lady in front of me who wanted to take twenty pictures of the Constitution from every angle instead of just buying a postcard or looking it up on the freaking internet. So while I waited for my turn in the no-line system, I turned my camera off to save the battery, but when she moved suddenly, I saw my window, turned the camera back on, aimed and shot. And immediately realized that I had forgotten to re-turn off my flash, thus adding my name under Nicolas Cage’s on the list of People Who Are No Longer Allowed Near the Constitution.

Pictures live here.

If prompted, I will talk about my hair for a good 5-10 minutes.

If you aren’t sick of me right now, you will be by the time you finish reading this interview by the very nice Leahpeah!