René Risqué C'est Moi

On Thursday night, Renée and I attended one of the best concerts I've seen since Paul Young played the Mann Music Center in 1986. Granted this isn't saying a great deal, but the show we attended Thursday at the Bowery Ballroom was sublime. You see we had the rare and wonderful opportunity to catch René Risqué & the Art Lovers before the fabulously and famously artsy band implodes, like the true stars that they are. Or before members wind up incarcerated in a Turkish prison on coke trafficking charges.


Comprised of members René, Luffa, Dryden, Johnny and Dolce--stage names all, lest the reality of "real names" drag them down--this hilariously talented group of raging ids/sex machine musicians, crooned about drug-addled dementia, dissolute behaviors and all around illicit acivity that makes you realize how much more louche and libertine the rock star lifestyle is. And how much better it is than yours.

Deciding that naming myself fan club president would only earn their Euro scorn, after the concert I went to their website and immediately ordered their CD instead. You should check it out, but only if you want to be cool. When you click on the music link, you can hear 4 of their songs including "Not a Top, I'm a Bottom" and "Hotel Paramount," whose lyrics, I quickly transcribe for you here (with a verse or two missing since my typing is good, but not scary good:

At the bar of the Hotel Paramount
no one seemed to mind,
I had about twenty too many cocktails,
and I was nearly blind,
least of all you...
On business in New York from LA
Looking for a mu-tually convenient cheap lay.

The morning room service girl seemed ready to go
So I started my day with a mini-bar sherry and a nose full of blow,
It was goodbye to you.
Lying there unconscious and sastified.
Keep thinking about the new things we tried.

All the way,
is never enough
Too far, is when you start getting to the good stuff.

(Luffa) At the bar of the Hotel Paramount
What should I find?
We had about 20 too many cocktails
but I didn't mind...

How easily you gave the slip to me...

All the way,
is never enough
Too far, is when you start getting to the good stuff.

If you were to fashion a statue of me.
How sexy would it be
to have me standing there?

In your mouth (In my mouth)
In your eyes
In your, you know
it's not life without ....
experience.
yeah.
Experience.
uh yeah.
Yeah.

Good dirty fun. Just like we like it!

R's Bragging Rights

Normally I don't like to toot my own horn, but sometimes genius has to be acknowledged. So today I point out my great foresight in choosing ex-Ithacan Renée Kaplan as my writing partner. Why today, you ask? Well, because yesterday there was official outside confirmation of her prowess as a scribbler.


In this week Publisher's Weekly magazine, there's a review of the anthology, Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith Homes, to which Renée contributed an essay. Forthwith that review, and please take special note of whose quote they singled out to reprint from this multi-authored 280 page tome.

Half/Life: Jew-ish Tales from Interfaith HomesEdited by Laurel Snyder. Soft Skull Press, $15.95 paper (280p)

This anthology of 18 essays takes for granted that Jews will intermarry, and that the children of intermarriages will be "halfs," or half-Jews. Being a half, says Snyder, is not second best; it is not a pale imitation of being really Jewish. Rather, "half" is an interesting, incorrigible, perplexing and profound moniker in its own right, a label that somehow captures the existential angst that all people experience. Read cover to cover, the anthology begins to feel suffocating in its predictability—smart folks reflecting smartly about their struggles with identity. But many of the individual essays are engaging, funny and provocative. Dena Katzen Seidel describes, in a strikingly detached tone, the emotional abuses doled out by her flaky mother, a Christian Scientist. Novelist Thisbe Nissen explains that every New Yorker is a little bit Jewish, while Renée Kaplan observes that the only deal her mismatched parents ever made and kept was the agreement to raise the kids Jewish. "My half-Jewishness is a memento of that short-lived moment of concord between the two," she muses with a touch of melancholy. Half-Jews will see themselves and their families in this book, and they will laugh, and maybe even cry, while reading. (Apr.)

Nice, huh? Like I said, genius. And you will be considered very savvy yourself if you purchase a copy of this book for your bookshelf when it comes out in April!

More on Lust

When we inaugurated the new R&R feature "Lustables" last week, we immediately received a torrent of e-mail (1's a torrent, right? I mean it's not like I said "torrents." Okay, shut up, I know what you're thinking.) Anyway, this flood of response makes us believe we've hit a nerve in the collective subconscious. Apparently you people have a whole lotta lust in your hearts as well, and R&R want to do everything we can to help you express your affection for material goods.

Matter of fact, we want to give you the space here to tell us about your new found objects of lust. So we're especially honored and thrilled to kick off this "share the lust" column with the offering of Alison Pace, hilarious and lovely author of If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend and the upcoming Pug Hill.

Alison has recently fallen in love with her new label maker, and well, I leave the love letter to her Brother P-Touch 55 in her capable hands:

At present, with the last proofread of my novel complete, the release of said novel exactly three and a half months away, and a proposal for my next book somewhere in the vagaries of the “I'm not ready to talk about it yet,” stage, I find myself in the unusual state of being between projects.

So in between emailing introductions and book information to pug meetup groups throughout the country –those pug people are a welcoming group indeed, and I salute them—I have decided to embrace the task of organization. First, I shunned the Hold Everything 1’ by 1’ wicker filing basket that up until now had been the epicenter of all that was organized in my apartment. Then I ordered from Staples a proper filing
cabinet that fit into my linen closet, and then, ordered my treasure of all treasures, the Brother P-Touch-55 label maker. Never again will I leave things in piles all over the place. Never again will the site of my messy handwriting irk me. The label maker arrived Friday afternoon. It’s really quite fantastic. You type on it as if you are text messaging, hit print, and a perfect label (complete with peel-off backing) pops out in any number of varieties of font size. And I swear I’d already decided to stay home for the night even before the label
maker arrived.

And five, six hours of labeling later, in addition to the regular, expected files, Agent, Publisher, Current Projects, Magazines (empty), Future Projects, I now have a spectacularly advanced system of files devoted to the historical fiction novel everyone keeps telling me I shouldn’t write. I have pulled out brochures from writer’s conferences that I had shoved under my bed and filed them. I am contemplating a file called Announcements on Publishers Marketplace That Upset Me. I feel that would be nothing if not productive. I have a Culture file, where my cousin told me it would be a good idea to save ticket stubs from films I’d enjoyed and Playbills from plays I’d seen. Why had I never thought of that? Come to think of it, I should make a Frank Bruni file, too. I have a Dog Stuff folder. I have a Keepsake folder. So far it has all last month’s Christmas cards in it though admittedly I may not to need to save every Christmas card I received. I have made optimistic files like Pug Hill: Press Clips and Pug Hill: Foreign Sales that I choose to believe are not jinxy. Rather than something prosaic like Bills 2005 (too bulky) I am now the proud proprietor of such organizationally sophisticated folders as Cash Receipts 2005; Receipts 2005 (Charged on Amex); Amex 2005; Chase 2005; Other Bills 2005. I did the same for 2006 and 2007, too. The idea of individual folders for Cingular, Vonage, Time Warner, Con Edison, Rent, Book Purchasing, calls out to me like so many sirens. But alas, I have run out of label tape.

I’ve ordered some more. I had to order more hanging file folders anyway. See, I didn’t like the way it all looked in the filing cabinet with all the clear hanging folder tabs. I ordered colored hanging file folders just so I could get at the colored hanging folder tabs. I know that to return the hanging file folders after removing, let’s say, just five or six colored tabs would be wrong.

The fact that when I was in yoga class yesterday and the guy in front of me had his two towels and water bottle behind him when everyone puts their two towels and water bottles in front of them (it’s just how it’s done) really threw me for a loop, and to tell you the truth I couldn’t get past it and kept crunching my neck looking up from my downward dog to see if maybe he had moved his towels to their proper place and to check that his stuff wasn't actually encroaching onto my yoga mat(which I would love to label though I’m not sure the adhesive would hold up) did set off an alarm bell or two. I wondered if maybe having something like a label maker when you’re a person like me is less of an express train to an organizational dreamland than it is to the bad place.

But maybe, as soon as my replacement tapes arrive, I can just take out my Brother P-touch 55 and label the bad place, and then I’ll know not to go there?

Want more lust in your life? Well write in and tell us about it! We'll pretty much post anything sent in within reason (and which won't land any of us in criminal or bad taste court).

Things To Do in D.C.

So you'd planned the road trip. You'd taken the day off. You'd packed the Scooby snacks and energy drinks for the long ride down. But when you land in D.C. later this afternoon prepared to be first in line to get the best possible seats, you learn much to your horror, shock and dismay that the R&R SHAKING HER ASSETS reading has been cancelled because, well, you were the only one who'd signed up to come.


Friend, we're truly sorry about this. We'd been very excited for the trip as well. But try not to fret, you're in our nation's capital, after all. The Capitol, in fact. (And feel free to switch the "A" and the "O" in Capit*l if I just screwed up the usage.) So we feel it's incumbent upon us to give you some ideas as to how you can spend your time down there when you're not seeing the dynamic duo read and do the little burlesque routine that we'd worked up. (By the way, the world should know that Renee can now spin a fire-tipped baton poised over her hoo-ha like nobody's business.)

So here are our alternate suggestions to make the most of your time in the Beltway:

Tour the Monuments - Our favorite is the one that looks like a big dick. When you're done there, the obelisk is worth a visit, too.

As for Museums, DC boasts some good ones. The Smithsonian is currently running an exhibit on Frost (no, not Robert, and un-uh, not the way conservative doyennes act in bed, neither). This is Frost: Life and Culture of the Sámi - Reindeer People of Norway. Who even knew there were Reindeer people?




The National Gallery is also running a fascinating exhibit with the photography of Nicholas Nixon, which Renee and I got the chance to see when it (and we) were touring in Houston at the Museum of Fine Arts there.

We know the "Memorial" scene in Washington is supposed to be quite impressive, too. You've got the Lincoln one, the Jefferson one, the FDR one, the Korean War one, the Vietnam Vets one, the WWII one, the Civil War one, the Iwo Jima one, the George Mason one, the Women in Vietnam one, and so on and so on and so forth. But frankly, Memorials depress us, so we advise skipping those.

We suppose you can tour the White House. There's also the Capitol and the Supreme Court buildings.


No doubt there's also some sort of "scandals" tour you can take, too, where you'd visit the Watergate (twice), smoke filled back rooms, the crypt where Cheney and his minions are kept, and not a few bi-partisan brothels.

So though we're very sorry you made the trip and didn't get a chance to hear us read, we're certain you're going to have a great time in Washington regardless. Oh, and if, while you're there, you happen to see the President, please send him our regards. We leave it to you to decide how much of the moon you'd like to flash him.

Lustables

Before Salon.com went south, introducing its new format and cutting back on real content (favoring instead a dumbass thing called a "blog," which anyone with a brain knows means "half-baked opinion drivel"), it had a great weekly feature called Object Lust. The premise was that writers would wax poetic on an object they owned that improved the quality of their lives. Not only did this feature introduce me to some cool new shit that I subsequently started lusting after myself, it encouraged me to look around my petite West Village boite to evaluate the objects I already had in my life.

One of them seemed to fit the bill perfectly, so I wrote up a little piece for their website and submitted it for potential publication. Quite literally the week I submitted my piece was the week the website decided to eliminate the column and thus my lust went unspoken. Well, time for that to change. So today we pick up where Salon dropped off and we introduce a new feature on Chat with R&R called "Lustables." The inaugural column will feature the lust of an object (hey, why else have a blog if you're not going to use it as a place to dump your writing, right?) But in the future Lustables can be about anything we really really love or really really want, like people, a free Tibet, or for harm to come to an overexposed hotel heiress and her little dog, too. And now, the object of my lust for your perusal:

The Haier Portable 6-3/5-lb. Compact Washer

I can make it rain. All I have to do is run out of clean underpants. You see I learned I had the power to change weather a year ago when I moved into an apartment building with no laundry machines on the premises. Thereafter, whenever I had to go to the self-serve Laundromat down the block, carting my dirty laundry on my back, looking like a shamed, turned-out Mrs. Claus, inevitably it would start raining. And after I’d gone through $17 worth of quarters to dry the stuff, generally a monsoon would touch down just in time for my walk home.

Whenever I mentioned my washing woes to friends, they would encourage me to use the drop off service offered by any Korean laundry facility worth its soap. But I have a thing about people I don’t know touching my underwear. I just can’t condone it. So when one day a few weeks ago, the women working at the Bank Street Self-Serve Laundromat waggled their fingers at me and said, “No self-serve! No self-serve,” I was wet, exhausted and ready to pick a fight. “What do you mean, ‘no self-serve’?” I asked with indignation. “I’ve been doing my laundry here for a year and besides, it says right out there on the huge sign above your door, “Self-Serve Laundromat.” To this, one of the women replied, “No self-serve!” Then, she pointed to a new sign, handwritten with a sharpie on half a sheet of notebook paper that indeed read, “No self-serve!”

Beaten back by the unassailable authority of a Post-It Note, I raised the soiled white flag. Still dirty and now fuming, I trekked back home and typed the word “washing machine,” into Google. Within 0.11 seconds, I’d stopped cursing and was on my way to a fresher, cleaner me -- I spotted Bizrate.com’s listing of portable washing machines, and clicked on Target’s offering: The Haier Portable 6-3/5-lb. Compact Washer for $199.00.

I couldn’t figure out if that meant the machine itself weighed 6-3/5-lb. or that’s how much laundry I could wash, but at about 2.5 feet high and 1.5 feet wide, it didn’t seem to matter since the cute little thing would fit in my closet! I then read five out of six glowing customer reviews (all written by what seemed like very nice women), most, who seemed to have done extensive research on the subject. They wrote this machine was by far the best they’d found. The sixth woman said the machine worked well at first, yet she later had problems with the spin cycle. But I was willing to take my chances, even that fifth dentist found something to complain about.

My portable dream machine arrived three days later. The only snag I hit in the set up was with the water-inlet hose, which attaches to the sink. It took me a little while before I realized I’d have to purchase a wrench to untwist the regular drain filter so the machine’s hose could screw right into the faucet. But as soon as I got that working, each time I set that spin cycle washing, I start twirling around my apartment.

A washing machine in my very own apartment! Not only is the whole concept novel to this New Yorker, a girl who’d previously assumed washing machines were a luxury item available only to million-dollar co-op owners and fancy-pants people who probably get their “girl” to do the wash anyway, but the little thing actually works.

In fact, it’s remarkably easy to operate, and stows away in my small coat closet. The only problem is that I now find myself recommending the portable washer so frequently, the number of conversations I’ve had about other people’s dirty laundry has become a bit disturbing. Still, I know that if by raising the subject I can help others come clean, like the muse of that naughty Nine Inch Nails song, I’ll get them closer to God.

!Ask Robin & Renée!

We at Chat with R&R realize we've been remiss in checking the overflowing mailbags we've accumulated here in the past few months, and we apologize to all our faithful letter writers who've been awaiting response (particularly to you, Holding My Breath Until You Respond). So without further adieu to you and you and you, it's once again time for our randomly regular feature: !Ask Robin and Renée!

Dear R&R,

I'm big on making new year's resolutions and in addition to the one I made about reading your blog everyday and encouraging every new person I meet to purchase your book, I've also decided to join the humanitarian effort in Darfur. I plan to tend to young victims of the ongoing war that America has turned a blind eye to. Any advice before I go?

Yours,
In To Africa

Dear In To,

First, R&R would just like to applaud your efforts to help people, because clearly once you tell them about SHAKING HER ASSETS, the quality of their lives will improve dramatically. Secondly we're very impressed by the nature of your resolutions and admit that ours, "learn belly dancing," while no less important on a global scale, might be a bit easier to bring to fruition. Even if one of us is spectacularly uncoordinated in her belly. But the one piece of advice we do have for you on a practical level is this: make sure you go into the war zone with the proper body armor and not the shit they've been giving to our brave troops in Iraq because that stuff will get you killed.

Happy New Year,
R&R

Dear R&R,

I read A Million Little Pieces and the book changed my life. Now that I know the whole thing was a fraud, does this mean my new life is a fake, too?

Love,
A Million Little Pieces of Shit

Dear Piecemeal,

Affirmative.

All the best,
R&R

Dear R&R,

Okay, here's the deal: I'm an Olympic Medalist in skiing and I just got my chops busted for talking about how I *might* have skied drunk during this one race. But see, I didn't mean that I was actually skiing drunk, bra. What I meant that I was totally hungover before that race--not trashed while doing it--which is 100% different. Can I get an "Amen" from the A.A. chorus on that one? Anyway, my question to you is this: How are you babes able to party like rock stars at night then perform so well the next day?

Peace out,
B.M.

Dear Fellow Special Olympian,

Though we'd like to tell you that we have some magic cure, the truth is neither R nor R ever drinks to much of the hooch. Ever. We'd like to be able to sympathize with your plight, but we can't because it goes beyond the power of our imaginations. However, we can suggest that you consult with a one James Frey. From what we gather he's been in this exact position and should be able to offer you some advice. And if he can't, rest assured that he's more than capable of making it up.

Luv,
R&R

Democrats Take aggressive Tack; Depantsing

If precedent proves you can knock off a supreme court nominee for reasons like pot use (goodbye Ginsberg), alien nanny services (auf wiedersehen Wood), and awful facial hair (buh-bye Bork), I suppose you're going to go after what looks like a Teflon Supreme Court candidate with both barrels. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the arsenal they've aimed at Alito is comprised of a super soaker and cherry tomatoes.


My Dems are in a tough spot with Alito sitting across from them in the confirmation hearings this week. Even though we all know the dude has a long record of anti-Roe musings, we're pretty sure he's anti-affirmative action, isn't so big on this whole "starre decisis" bidness, the Democrats just don't have the votes or the power to derail his nomination on these grounds. And since the dorkbot Alito has wanted to be a Justice since his days in college--days when most of his coevals were experimenting with drugs and cheering at Yale football games--he can't quite be taken down for his youthful indiscretion, either.

However, thanks to something he did once he graduated from Princeton University, the Democrats have finally found ONE thing to latch on to. Alito went ahead and joined "Concerned Alumni of Princeton," a conservative group co-founded by William Rusher, former publisher of the National Review. In an essay published in a magazine put out by the group in 1983, stated:

Everywhere one turns, blacks and Hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and Hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children.

Now Alito has said he hadn't read the essay and I'm inclined to believe him on this. I'm also inclined to believe that he joined this group not because he was trying to keep women out of Princeton, per se, but because he was an opportunist looking to secure his cred as he was trying to get a job in the Reagan administration.

This doesn't make me fear him any less as a nominee, it just makes me sad. No, not sad that the intimation that he was a bigot made his wife start boo-hooing at the hearings. Sad that this is all we got against him and that the seat of Sandy D. is going to warmed by a man whose beliefs I think will lead this country further in the wrong direction.

What's the Matter With Kentucky (Fried Chicken)?

I have vegetarians in the family. Some of my closest friends are vegetarians. I'm even down with the idea of letting you turn sallow, weak and protein-deficient if it makes you feel happy that you're following your ideals. But dudes, for the love of all things tasty and fried, keep your pasty paws off my Extra Crispy.


I was walking by the KFC on 6th Avenue and West 4th this weekend and lo and behold, I found myself in the middle of a bloody chicken coup, or coop, if you'll permit. Turns out there's a huge anti-KFC movement achickenfoot these days. Apparently PETA is going after the Colonel and his special recipe with their shrieking hell hounds in a manner more befitting Anna Wintour.

Now granted, I haven't become intimate with the ways of the Colonel and his chicks. I mean, okay, he probably abuses them. And as a feminist, on principle I'm anti-chick abuse across the board. But these little chickadees are being raised for the slaughter. Really, do we really, really think that if we treat chickens more kindly, when their time comes--and come it will--they'll be all like, "no, my peeps, it's cool if you slaughter me now because it's been a wonderful life!"? Are we, the people, that dumb to think that chickens think like we do? For God's sake it's called bird brained for a reason!

But the most hilarious and truly stupid part of the campaign against KFC has got to be the idiot kid who changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.Com to raise awareness. Awareness about what, I'm not quite sure. But I'll bet his parents are proud of him... too bad he won't be able to carry on the family name in their honor.

You Can't Win Unless You Play

When I was growing up that was the motto of the Pennsylvania lottery, and there was just something about that quote that I adored. I even used it on my application to Princeton in its "Hodge Podge" section, which appeared after the arduous essays, and asked for a list of our favorite things from movies and source of news to quotes. The written instruction on that section said something to the effect of "This is a section that's supposed to be fun so don't worry about your answers, we just want to get a better sense of you." (Don't worry about your answers -- Riiiiight -- let's just say I was such a basket case, Harry and David's created a commemorative "Fruitcake & Nuts" sampler of me.)

Anyway, even though I wasn't sure I'd gotten the right answer for "favorite movie" (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure), I was 100% certain that they, too, would totally get my quote (and it was going to be a million times more clever than people who went with something from Rilke or A.A. Milne.) Read it again: You Can't Win Unless You Play. Sure, it's an advert promoting gambling, but it was poetry in my mind, lifting the spirit with precisely the right combination of encouragement, hope and motivation. Wordsworth was just talking about the Alps.

The meaning and importance of the motto has stayed with me over the years (and still strikes me as MUCH better stated than New York lotto's own far crasser version of the sentiment, "You Gotta Be In It To Win It"). And whenever I'm trying to do a cost/benefit analysis of whether I should do something or not, I factor it in.


Still, Hugh Hawkins for shame! This Iowa Powerball Lottery winner who just stepped forward to claim his $54 million prize had declared bankruptcy but seven months ago. And instead of ooh, I don't know, paying off his debts, putting money back into the hands of the people who gave him money before he went belly up and defaulted on his fiscal responsibilities, Hugh goes and wastes his money on impossible to win lottery tickets. Hugh, that's insane! And irresponsible! And downright stupid! And if you'd like any more advice, I do a bit of consulting work and I'm sure we'd be able to work out some sort of payment schedule.

Chacun a Son Gout... I S'pose

I'm not even talking about tattoos here because, bleh, they're just disgusting. I'm talking about the fact that today marks Adam Carolla's debut behind Howard Stern's storied microphone, and I find the fact that he was chosen as Stern's replacement as sad, sad, sad. Perhaps you've seen Carolla. He's frickin' everywhere, late of The Man Show, Loveline and most recently Too Late with Adam Carolla, Crank Yankers, Drawn Together and that show on the Discovery Channel (insert your own joke about monkeys fucking here).

Now I'm not a gigantic Stern fan, but I get what it is people like about him. And I know finding someone to take his place will be tough. Still. Adam Carolla? The man is a blight. He's not funny. He's not innovative. He's not outrageous. He's just ubiquitous. And I have no idea why.


Does anyone? Really. I'm serious. Yes, I know complaining about "not getting" a pop culture icon makes me the asshole, but come on! What is it about this nasal-toned over-sized Eddie Munster that makes him appealing? As always, your thoughts on the matter are appreciated, and if you can come up with a convincing enough response, in the spirit of the Man Show, I'll send Renee over to your home to jump on a trampoline for you.