Mark Allen's Top Thirteen for 2/10/05:

1. Nicole duFresne's memorial at Rivington and Clinton streets - ASS CENTRAL!
    So if you live in NYC, you probably heard about the completely tragic murder of 28 year-old Nicole duFresne - which occurred around 3AM on Thursday, January 27th on the corners of Clinton and Rivington streets on the Lower East Side, as a result of a "mugging." They killer and his accomplices were eventually rounded up.
    On the corner of Clinton and Rivington (which is literally right down the block from me), there is now a make-shift memorial to her with lots of candles and photos and momentos and flowers and things people have left in her memory. It's really growing, and it is all still there as of this writing. There's even this chime thing hanging from the street light that you can gong to pay tribute to her.
    The crime, obviously, struck a really blunt cord with many people in the surrounding communities. Lots of people are stopping on the corner to observe all the the momentoes and tributes left at the location, and it's become a little meeting place for people to congregate and talk about crime in the community, etc.
    So anyway, because it's so close to me, I pass by it all the time. I remember the first time I saw it, it as about two days after the murder. I stopped and looked, and it took me a second to realize what it was for. Lots of people were stopping, and talking amongst each other... everyone was plugged into the crime because it had been all over the news and papers. It was a friendly little mob scene.
    As I was standing there looking at a New York Post headline that had been taped to the wall, I remarked out loud to this girl standing next to me that they had apprehended several suspects, which the headline revealed and I hadn't known at that point. The girl was in her 20's, very pretty, with long dreadlocks tied up in a scarf and a miniskirt and long black coat. Right as the girl started telling me about how they indeed had the gunman, and that he had confessed (as she leaned down to light some candles she had brought), this weird guy abruptly placed himself between me and her, and began talking to her with his back squarely to me. It was like a football move or some kind of war games strategic thing.
    I've seen this guy around town before, he's 40-something, white, kind of scruffy and vaguely homeless. I would say he's pretty handsome though... but in a creepy way. I see him hanging around the streets all the time... he seems to live in a kind of semi-fantasy world where he's a kind of "bad character." He's always does that shifty thing where his head faces one direction, and his eyes look right at you (with a slightly crinkled brow), like he's trying to figure out if you're in on the fact that he just robbed a bank (in his mind) or something.
    So anyway, he had placed himself between me and this girl and seemed a little threatened that I was even speaking to her. At first I thought she might be his girlfriend, until I realized that he was speaking to her in a way that you speak to someone you are meeting for the first time. She just stood up from her crouched position and all I could see was her big dreadlocked-head nodding as this guy started going on like "Oh yea it's so sad... so sad... I can't believe this happened in our community... if we stick together, you know... hey, what's your name?" He kept saying the word "community" over and over... and the little speech he was giving her was the most absurd kind of cliché crap about violence and humanity you could imagine... worse than that cheer-up speech Peter Boyle gives Robert DeNiro on the street outside the Belmore Cafeteria in that scene in "Taxi Driver," you know the one that's like "...one guy's a doctor, another is a lawyer, one guy dies, another gets well... people are born... you're gonna be all right Travis."
    I didn't think too much of it, and I stayed at the memorial and chatted with some other people.
    I walked back the next night, there were even more candles and momentoes placed around the memorial... and there was still a small crowd standing around it, looking and talking. And believe it or not, I saw this same guy there from before, petting a (different) girl's dog and talking to her... I swear he was giving her the same cornball speech he had given that other girl the night before.
    I went down the block to get my camera (to take the photo above), and in the three minutes it took me to walk down to my house and turn around and start heading back, I literally pass this guy and the girl with her dog on a leash, walking in the opposite direction away from the memorial. Whether they knew each other before, or had just met and decided to leave together was unclear. The girl had a concerned, heartfelt look on her face as she walked along, keeping her full attention on this guy's face. The guy was walking slowly, with his hands in his pockets and his head down towards the ground. As I passed him I heard him saying in this overly-serious tone "...yea I saw her all the time... I dunno I can't really accept that she's gone..." or something like that. As they walked right by me, I swear to God, I saw tears... fucking crocodile tears in this guy's eyes. They obviously had just met.
    I couldn't tell if the girl with the dog was buying his act or not... she seemed pretty bright and may have just been humoring him until she could safely cut him loose.
    Well it must have been the later, because when I was back at the memorial, not three minutes after I passed them... this guy walks quickly back! Literally, running at the eager pace of a little school kid trotting to the cafeteria buffet when the lunch bell has rung. Alone, his mood completely changed from mere moments earlier, totally dry eyes, he reached over and grabbed the little metal thing next to the chime hanging from the street light and started banging on it robotically as his gaze met the curved lines of two girls bent over the memorial lighting incense. As I walked away I heard him say to one of them "Hey did you know Nicole too?"
    As of this writing I have seen him at the memorial no less than two more times, once he was sitting on a trash can and, I-kid-you-not, had an audience of three girls standing around him listening in awe as he solemnly talked about "Nicole."
     I know this guy must have scored once already using this shtick at Nicole's memorial... or else he wouldn't be returning so frequently and with such vigor.
    Good luck dude... I hope you score tons and tons of fresh ASS at the memorial of Nicole duFresne. I hope this tragedy, which has surprisingly brought a lot of people together in the neighborhood, spells out "P-U-S-S-Y  B-U-F-F-E-T" for you and the notches on your bedpost.
    You and your boner really have an angle there. What, are you like Maude from "Harold & Maude?" Do you go to stranger's funerals to try and score? Do you chase ambulances with a bag full of handkerchiefs and edible panties? Do you loiter around morgues and weep in the parking lot, hoping to find a sympathetic soul with a shoulder to cry on, who also happens to have a great set of jugs? I'll bet that old episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where she can't stop laughing at Chuckles the Clown's funeral is like hardcore porn to you. Maybe you should dress like Chuckles and hang around outside a children's terminal cancer ward with a handful of colored. flavored condoms and make delightful balloon animals out of them that you can use to schmooze the kid's moms when they are leaving in a distraught emotional state.
    The weeks after 9/11 must have been a motherfucking orgy for you.
 
 
 

Fort Worth, Texas police officers Brett Mills and Jamey Pinkston pull over a vehicle with a busted light in an area known for drug activity. The officers question the driver who claims that he is in the city to visit his friend. Suspicious of the driver's story, the officers inspect his mouth and remove a blue bag containing cocaine from under his tongue. The officers arrest the driver and charge him with possession of a controlled substance. As seen on the Saturday, January 29th episode of FOX-TV's "COPS."

2. Texas charm as seen on the January 29th episode of FOX-TV's "COPS" (sexy points: a bazillion!)
   If behavior is nothing more than the sum of the mechanical activities of our bodies, then would someone please extract the DNA of the Texas kid who's behavior caused him to get arrested on the January 29th episode of FOX-TV's "COPS" and inject it into the corpses of long-buried nuns, just to see if their skeletons rise from the grave and start humping everything in sight (for a sexy points score of: 1,000,000,000!)?
    My hypothesis? It might work!
    So anyway, while watching one of my favorite shows on television ever: "COPS," (sexy points: 80) like I do almost every week, I saw one of the most boner-inducing captures of all time in the show's 16-year history (the guy in Pat Benatar drag caught inside his 18-wheeler at a truck stop who tried to act like nothing was out of the ordinary, runs a close second [sexy points: 1,000]).
    The episode was in Fort Worth, Texas - of course, since Texas breeds the most frighteningly unflappable sex beasts in all the land (Anna Nicole Smith? George W. Bush? Helll-lllooooooo?!) and it involved the usual "pulling a car over that had just left a know drug traffic area" thing. The car was a white pickup truck (sexy points: 50) and when the cops approached the stopped vehicle, you could see the silhouette (sexy points: 15) of the driver, a young man with some kind of 50's hair style (sexy points: 45) and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth (sexy points: 98) fumbling (sexy points: 1,000) with something in his glove compartment and pretending not to be able to hear (sexy points: 1,000,000,000) the police asking him to move into the range of their flashlights.
    When the guy finally showed his face, he looked like a hypothalmus-gland-fantasy-mind-meld (sexy points: 3) of a younger, goatee-ed Ethan Hawke, if Ethan Hawke had Progeria disease (sexy points: 100), and also maybe a little Johnny Depp from "The Ninth Gate" except with less faggyness and an actual lower jaw (sexy points: 100) and Brad Pitt in "Fight Club" with the imaginary hole blown through his skull at the end, minus the Brad Pitt and minus the skull, just the hole (sexy points: 100) and Soundgarden-era Chris Cornell, as is (sexy points: 100) and every other "boing!"-inducing guy you've happen to seen on the street that is "boing!"-inducing only to you (sexy points: 100), but who also looks like major trouble (sexy points: 1,000,000,000) and who might just disappear the next morning from your apartment with your DVD player and ATM card (sexy points: 1,000).
    He had a goatee (sexy points: 40 [note: goatees can backfire on the wrong-shaped cranium!])  and a little pussy-tickler thing under his lower lip (means he likes girls mostly, hmmm... that's sexy points: 500,000,000,000?). He was in his 20's and was very slim (sexy points: 100) and muscularly toned (sexy points: 98). Every time the cops asked him a question he answered with a kind of slow, high-pitched, Texas drawl (sexy points: 12,000,000) and he did that bizarre thing that suspects on the show always seem to do: insist on smoking a freshly-lit cigarette while being interrogated (sexy points: 0), to prove some kind of point (sexy points: 0) I guess.
    Anyway, he was talking with his teeth kind of clenched (sexy points: 9)... which was kind of weird (sexy points: 109)... and he had this weird (sexy points: 109) smirk (sexy points: 70) and kind of seemed to be stringing along the most minimal amount of false information (sexy points: 75) necessary, which kept changing with each question from the cops (sexy points: 25)... and the whole time had this look on his face like he was playing some kind of joke on the police (sexy points: 1,000,000). He didn't say "sir" to the police once the entire time (sexy points: 100).
    And... in the "reveal" of the episode, of course it turns out that the whole reason he was speaking with clenched teeth was because he was trying to hide (sexy points: 100) a tiny bright blue bag of cocaine (sexy points: 0) at the back of his mouth (sexy points: 25), which the cops finally realized and soon jumped on him and held him in this kind of semi-heimlich maneuver (sexy points: 50) until he spit it out (sexy points: 2).
    Much like an unexpected mudslide can ruin the mood after a raucous bout of anal sex, it indeed was something that could have been avoided altogether with a little forethought and preparation (best analogy ever! [sexy points for me: 1,250]). Thinking a little more ahead about where to hide or dispose of the drugs you just bought while in your car in case you get pulled over by the cops (sexy points: 75) is something you want to spend a little time on, probably.
    He revealed his past (sexy points: -100) after he was handcuffed in the back of the cop car (sexy points: 110), and told the story to the police, with nary an iota (sexy points: 100) of sorry-ness (sexy points: 0) or pity-pleading (sexy points: 2). He'd been doing coke since he was fifteen (sexy points: -1,000,000) and was in prison once already (sexy points: 1,000,000) for three years for possession (sexy points: 0). All the while he spun his suspicious tale (sexy points: 100), he spoke it in that sexy-as-Satan high-pitched Texas drawl (sexy points: 11,000,000).
    So anyway, after seeing the episode I've decided that maybe he's kind of bright (sexy points: 100) but also not quite that bright (sexy points: 100).
    Of course they never revealed the guy's name so I can't stalk him (sexy points: 100). Somebody should get this guy and agent or something an put him in movies, or maybe commercials about how to get your sex drive going again. Oh wait, no... that's right he's back in prison probably (sexy points: 110). Oh well... I'm sure they have talent shows in prison where he can utilize his talents (sexy points: 1,000,000)... and maybe some late-night, not-so-official talent shows, after lights-out, where he might happily utilize some of his abilities (sexy points: infinity).
    This whole part of this "COPS" episode was a masterpiece of fantasy material and that, in my humble opinion (sexy points: 0), is my obnoxious opinion (sexy points: 1,000).
    How come no brainy writers (sexy points: 0) and theorists (sexy points: 0) ever take male sexuality (sexy points: 1,000,000,000) seriously? It's always "...the mystery of female sexual allure..." (sexy points: 0,000) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!! (sexy points: zzz...) Maybe they never write (sexy points: -10,000) about this because most of those writers (sexy points: 0) are fags (sexy points: 0 x infinity) and it's all so much a part of their reality (sexy points: yawn-ers!) already and they have no need to explore (sexy points: 0,000,000,000) it.
    Anyway, I think (sexy points: 1,000,000,000,000,000) this episode is a prime (sexy points: prime), throbbing (sexy points: yuk!) example of sexy (sexy points: duh!) men (sexy points: huh?) and why they are so alluring (sexy points: too big a word!) to both sexes (sexy points: bo-ring!)... for a billion (sexy points: 1,000,000,000!) different reasons that I am too lazy (sexy points: can't decide) to explore (see? [sexy points: 100 for me, for bring that full circle!]) This entire 7-minute (sexy points: 8) exchange (sexy points: oooohhhh!) between (sexy points: oh yea!) this (sexy points: right on!) guy (sexy points: throb!) and these two cops (sexy points: cliché! yawn!) is the whole (sexy points: gasp!) reason (sexy points: slower!) men (sexy points: oh god!) are (sexy points: aaahhhh!) sexy (sexy points: squirt!). Period  (sexy points: gross!).
    I learned (sexy points: 1+2=5) the hard way (sexy points: no!) that there aren't clips or tapes for sale of "COPS" episodes because I would so love (sexy points: nothing to do with it) to have a copy of this. Did anyone tape this episode? If so I will so not hate you (sexy points: zillions) for a copy! DID ANYBODY TAPE IT!?!?! (sexy points: taping things is sexy!)
    I'd like a copy of the episode because I'd like to walk (sexy points: 100) over to the lesbian bar (sexy points: confused) that just opened up around the corner from me (no joke! in my crime-ridden [sexy points: 100], white girl-shooting [sexy points: 0] neighborhood!) some crowded night... and just stroll in with a battery-powered VCR and TV screen strapped on the top of my head (sexy points: 15,000,000), just playing the videotape of this episode over and over for them all to see, and just be all "Hey backwards ladies! Just thought you'd need a reminder of what you're missing!" (sexy points: pure genius!)
    Don't try to read any projection (sexy points: -000) of my own insecurities (sexy points: 1,000,000) or sexual frustration (sexy points: 1,000,000,000,000!) or mental issues (sexy points: deny!) into what I have written above (sexy points: ?).

    NOTE: I tried to actually calculate all the sexy points in the above write up to come up with an actual figure (that will be awarded to the Texan guy who got arrested with the bag of coke in his mouth on 'COPS' as a judgment of his sexiness) but it was way too confusing to calculate. Does anyone with brains (sexy points: 1,000,000!) want to take a crack (sexy points: oooooh!) at it?
    NOTE (2/12/05): Reader Josh writes in to tell me that according to my math (and 'minus all the joke parts'), this kid who got arrested on "COPS" gets a sexy points score of 2,505,041,E12 x infinity, with a self congratulatory sexy points score of 1,350 awarded to myself, and a sexy points score of 1,000,000 awarded to Josh for doing the calculating. When I asked Josh what the "E" in the final figure meant, he told me that he didn't know, and that it just appeared that way on his calculator. The "E" must mean something! That score actually seems pretty low! Without spell check and calculators, we're dumber than rhesus monkeys! Without my readers, it's like I have earplugs and blindfolds on, inside an isolation tank located in a cave on Mars somewhere! Help!
 
 
 

Fantastic Voyage

3. Drudge Bush image, January 27th, 2005 - PHOTO OF THE YEAR
    My friends may have moved on years ago, but I still look at DrudgeReport.com every day. I've invested ennergy and opinion in it and now I have to pay my dues.
    It's as if the site is an expensive painting I drunkenly blew a million dollars on at an auction... and now it hangs front and center in my living room as I'm forced to gaze at it every day so I don't feel like I wasted my dough. I actually feel that way about a lot of things in my life.
    Anywho... whether it's soft gay porn (almost always) or Republican servitude (always), Matt Drudge still has the best/simplest-designed, ironic news source on the web. There's really still nothing exactly like it out there. It's a perfect home-load-in page because it gives you the short version facts instantly (and embellished-ly!) and hysterically pairs headlines about freak Siamese twins joined at the ass, and Bill and Hillary Clinton (with the photos and captions often indistinguishable from one another). Looking at his site (usually for about 2.5 seconds) every morning is just like old times for me.
    So anyway, the whole reason I wrote all that was just to link to leading story on Drudge from January 27th, 2005 - a story about Bush calling for computerized medical records. It wasn't the story at all really, it was the accompanying photo (which wasn't up for very long)... which is hands down photo of the year. I can't find the photo credit anywhere (Drudge often just uses collected photos from the wires for headlines), but if anyone knows who shot it, congratulate them!
    For an archived capture of the whole page, click here. For a bigger shot of the photo itself, click here.
 
 
 

Vote for thy neighbor as thyself...

4. Christopher X. Brodeur... my neighbor... my baffled but earnest vote...
    Christopher X. Brodeur is an outsider candidate running for mayor of NYC. He's inevitably one of those oddball characters that is obviously very smart, and is one of those pain-in-the-ass types who's not afraid to open his mouth towards the slightest whiff of what he believes to be bullshit.
    Apparently this is not the first time he's run for political office.
    He lives in the building next to mine, and I see him coming and going all the time. He also sometimes throws these totally kick-ass music performance parties on the roof of his building (sound familiar?)
    Unfortunately for his political aspirations, he's the type of candidate hopeful that usually ends up on "...and in the lighter side of the news folks," on local TV, or covered very heavily in hidden, downtown bohemian rags. Too bad... because I think his "100 Innovations for NYC" list is a fun but also often highly intriguing read for anyone that has lived in the city for at least a couple of years.
    Only about half of the ideas even make real sense when you really think about them, but out of those, there are a handful that are some seriously beautiful ideas that could actually work if the city was forced to get behind them... and would mean a wonderfully more blissful metropolitan life for all. And (almost) anything's better than the ghost-in-the-shell mayor we have now, or that shifty-eyed camera hog we had before him.
    I know you won't win Mr. Brodeur... but I'd love to see you voted up to the point in the race where the superstar candidates have to actually acknowledge you. Although they may already have, as two weeks ago, I was awoken from my afternoon autistic rocking by some very loud sounds, and ran to my window to see some out-of-uniform NYPD guys in several unmarked vans hauling a very perturbed and vocal Brodeur out of his building. It was quite a spectacle, very tinfoil hat... and as I saw a loudly arguing Brodeur being led away by Area 51-esque guys in dark suits, I was like "I'm so voting for this guy..."
    Anyway,  somebody very rapidly reported the incident to Gawker.com and it made the small news-rounds that day. Yes, I saw what he's supposedly being charged for... he even more has my vote now!
    No really, I'm voting for this guy for mayor, and I'm not just saying that out of drunkenness or spite (my usual motives).
    Christopher X. Brodeur official campaign site.
 
 
 

David Woodard with the Schweikhart brothers, descendants of pilgrims who founded Nueva Germania with
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and hubby Bernhard in 1886 (photo 2004 Christoph Schubert, MD)
NOTE: this photo has nothing to do with David Woodard's Joe DiMaggio requiem

5. David Woodard's requiem to Joe DiMaggio (and other things Woodard has done)
    So I recently I got to meet and talk over the phone several times with David Woodard for an article I wrote for the NYTimes about Dreamachines. Based in California, Woodard is a prolific composer/conductor, artist/conceptualizer who also makes custom Dreamachines and Wishing Machines, among other things. He wrote and performed a "prequiem" for Timothy McVeigh (by invitation) at the site of McVeigh's execution. He began and is involved heavily with a community rehabilitation project in Nueva Germania, Paraguay. He was good friends with William Burroughs and worked with him during the writer's later years. The list goes on and on... oh yea, also... one of his favorite films is the 1953 sci-fi film "The Twonky."
    David is very soft-spoken, and very articulate. Although all of his quotes ended up not making the final edit of my article, it was certainly a weird joy getting to know him, and I hope to meet him one day in person.
    One of the greatest things, in my opinion, that he ever did was another requiem (originally intended as a 'prequiem') written and performed for Joe DiMaggio, at Blair Field baseball stadium in Long Beach, CA, sometime in the summer of 2000 (Joe DiMaggio died in 1999). It had been an ongoing work in progress for a few years and, according to a 2000 OCWeekly article, Woodard apparently tried to get permission to conduct it in DiMaggio's hospital room - before DiMaggio was dead. When you read about the performance itself you'll understand more clearly how jaw-dropping this would have been.
    Performed in front of a full stadium of real baseball fans, the performance, which took place on the field during a break in a game, consisted of Woodard being announced by the MC, then playing discordant "dissonance" (which weaved in and out of 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game') on a wooden pump organ (which eventually smoked and caught on fire), a giant number "56" being held up by players, and people dressed as wizards with fake beads scurrying around the isles. Needless to say the players in the dugout and audience members in the stands were more than a little divided in their opinions of the memorial to DiMaggio. You can read about the whole experience here in the OCWeekly article, by a writer who kind of doesn't know what to make of Woodard (he has the reputation in some circles as a kind of P.T. Barnum-type). The part about the Dimaggio memorial is near the end.
    You can check out most things Woodard has done or does at his site.
    Recommended.
 
 
 

Slaying willing Siths amongst a sea of fannypack-ed libidos...

6. Ray Park - obsessive sci-fi nerd crush drooling stalk-y alert
    Any guy who is queen bee of a gaggle of giggling sci-fi nerds in full fantasy costumes, who drool, monitor and gasp in awe at his every martial arts move... is the guy for me! Or maybe I'm just identifying with him, or someone in his scenario that I'm imagining in my own head.
    Not so long ago, coming to a galaxy near to you... is Ray Park, who could be some kind of movie hunk in the near future. His movie credits to date are mostly as stunt doubles and stand-ins (and some martial arts choreography). He was the body and face (but not the voice) of the much revered Darth Maul character from the latest Star Wars movies, and was also the headless horseman in Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" (again, no voice). He actually did act (with sound!) as the Toad character from "X-Men," and he has his first starring role in the upcoming Marvel superhero movie adaptation "Ironfist," as the lead.
    Again, in most of those roles... he was the stand-in, stunt guy, whatever. Nevertheless he has made an entire career out of it, as he goes to sci-fi conventions all over the world and is fawned and slathered over. And who wouldn't? I mean... look at him! I'd attach a pair of bouncy rubber horns to my eyebrows, paint my skin blue, wear a silver cape and wait in line just to gaze at him - through shiny contacts with circuit board patterns imbedded in them, of course... I don't care what the convention security guard says!
    But it looks like half the stalking has already been done by a lovely girl named Jen, and her site dedicated to Ray at: "Jen's Home for Ray Park v2.0" Those who never remove movie merchandise from it's original packaging thank you Jen.
 
 
 


7. The Mystery Worshiper
    Better put on your "happy face!"
    I've never seen anything like this (even during my bazillion year-long Texas Southern Baptist shoved-down-my-throat upbringing). It's like Jerry Falwell crossed with Mr. Blackwell. This guy (based in Great Britain) and his minions go to churches all over the world and review the services, very bluntly and matter-of-factly. They then mince no words as they post what they thought of the whole thing on their website, which is a database of reviewed church services stemming from any and all Christian denominations.
    They of course never tell the church they are coming, and leave nothing but a cryptic calling card in the collection plate as their marker.
    They are not making fun of Christianity, are Christian themselves, are sincere about church services... but also have an obviously deep, self-deprecating sense of humor about their faith and themselves. Um, I think my brain just exploded?
    Here is a link to "The Mystery Worshiper" index of reviews. The site is also connected to the much larger "Ship of Fools" site, which I don't know quite what to think of yet.
 
 
 

Inspired minds want to know...

8. Gus Mattox
    It was after I saw a write up in the "Shelter" section of the Village Voice that I found the highly complex website of multi-talented (and lately porn star) guy Gus Mattox. Gus has lived in NYC for a really long time, and has a kind of history on Broadway, and in music. But recently he moved up to the mountains of Catskill, NY, and bought and renovated this totally amazing cabin in the middle of the woods. I mean... he really, really renovated it... like, whoa!
    Anyway, besides relegating himself to eternal inner peace... he now flies back and forth between here and LA to be involved heavily in the gay porn business, in which he seems to know everybody and also has starred in a bunch of titles with really big names. He also writes stuff for magazines and has read his monologues on radio, and he's a really great cook as you will see when you start reading his calendar entries, which have really faggy (let's face it) but amazing recipes. He's like John Holmes crossed with Martha Stewart crossed with the Unabomber.
    So anyway, if you think you have it together, go look at Gus' site and get really depressed... haha! No, I mean... inspired! I have spent hours going over this guy's site and find it to be highly unique.
    Recommended.
 
 
 

"I did it all for you Damien! All for yyyoooouuuuu!!"

9. You know the way child psychologists let children act out their fears and traumas through puppets?
    I have kind of turned my cam back on in the last few weeks, you may have noticed. Just like mold times!
    Anyway, I have this little Keane doll that has been handed down to me from old friends of Jim's... and I had kind of been playing around with it in the last few weeks on cam... kind of moving it around my apartment over the course of a few hours while the cam  updated every minute... like a little cartoon that only someone watching my cam on major quaaludes (is there any other way?) would be slowed-down mentally enough to be able to see.
    So anyway, this guy named Joel in France who has this website where he mostly writes and goofs on stuff on my webpage (it's a little obsessive... but he's a very friendly, cool guy... and aren't we all a little mad?) has taken those images, edited out all the little bits that aren't relevant to the doll, and made little animated movies out of them. They're great!
    This was the first one (click below the image to watch the QuickTime clip), this was the second one (my favorite), and this was the third one. There will probably be more in the future.
    Joel also made this move from one morning when my cam was pointing out the window.
 
 
 

"Rag-weed pollen!"

10. Missing Microbiologists
    I was going to write about this whole string of missing microbiologists that I stole from Metafilter.com, but I'm too lazy to write about it so I'll just link it here (read it! it's interesting!) and put up a picture of the fantastic Kate Reid being interrogated in "The Andromeda Strain."
 
 
 

...it's reportedly deadly!

11. Curious Cat
    Curious? Click here for Curious Cat.
 
 
 

NYC Hollyweird

12. Jim and Mark go out in public again - BLODFACE NAMS edition!
    Jim was here this weekend and we kind of had a whirlwind social weekend. On Friday night we went to see Jim's friend Michele O'Marah's work at White Columns gallery that's part of a group show. She has concocted, as has been discussed on these cathode ray pages before, an entire video recreation of the film "Valley Girl," using all her friends in the cast, homemade costume re-creations, paper and cardboard props and various constructed and found locations as sets. It's not "shot for shot" but it's close... and all the dialogue and acting is scene-for-scene exact. We watched some of it at the opening (playing by itself in a white room), it's definitely really great (any movie with fake cardboard sushi is for me), and since I inexplicably have never actually seen the real 1983 film, it was like I was watching it for the first time, oddly. So I highly recommend going and checking it out.
    So anyway, I was going to write a big long tale of Jim and I's weekend to share some of our lives for you... but I'm too tired of writing all this stuff! Look at all the text on this page! My fingers are vienna sausages! So I will just cut to the chase and tell you all the big boldface names we rubbed shoulders with on Friday night, and "celebrity sightings" we had, since I know that's all you really care about (remember the end of 'Monty Python's Meaning of Life?' just replace 'pictures of grotesque penises' with 'celebrity sightings').
    Here they are: Kim Gordun, Richerd Kurn, Eythen Hawkes, Reeta Ackerman, Miceal Pit, Jeeneene Gorillaglow, Vinsent Gallow, a pritty gurl, Bigfut.
    Awesom!
 
 
 


13. The coconut milk/noodle soups at Malaysia Village, Chinatown, NYC
    Jim and I (Jim actually discovered it) found a new food obsession: Malaysia Village (212-962-5555) at 1 Doyers Street in Chinatown (you know that weird, winding street with the hidden post office?) Their curry noodle soups are AMAZING and very cheap. The place is nice, compact (but not too compact) and no-frills. The service is super-smiling and very efficient and the clientele (as well as the staff, duh!) is almost all Malaysian.
    Jim and I went here twice in the two and a half days he was here. One of the days the soup was practically our breakfast. I say start with #18 on the menu: Kari Ayam Mee ($4.00), and then work your way through all the soups from there. Kari Ayam Mee is the blueprint for all the giant bowl noodle soups, and is a huge upside-down helmet sized bowl (the waitress has to carry it slowly across the restaurant with both hands) of GIANT fat noodles, chicken parts (still on the bone) weirdly spiced potatoes and other stuff, all piled very high, with a sea of swirling coconut milk and curry spices like a mote around a castle. Once you start eating it you literally won't be able to stop, and then you'll want more. Jim got this one soup that had this weird stuff in it that was long green peppers stuffed with fish, really good. All the soups are almost too much to eat... I mean you get a lot of fucking food for four bucks (the soups range from $4-6)! The mixture of the coconut milk (white) and curry spices (undulating bubbles of deep orange) in all the soups does this wild thing in the bowl, as Jim pointed out, where it looks like a projected psychedelic liquid backdrop at a Deep Purple concert. So while you're slurping it down you can be all "Smo-ooo-ke on the waaa-aaa-ter..." Totally, totally delicious.
    NOTE: they are closed on Wednesdays for some reason.
    Highly recommended.
 

Copyright 2005 Mark Allen

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