Leninade and Chambord

My first Christmas away from home produced some radical stocking stuffers. Haven't decided whether I'm actually going to use them to make a cocktail, or else make them pajamas and sleep with them at night.

To Whoever Found My Blog By Searching "Dinosaur Eating Jesus Fish," I Implore You

I hope you don't claim ignorance, I simply won't believe you. You had to have known about my dinosaur-eating-jesus-fish post beforehand. Or perhaps it was some Divine Intervention that brought you to me. Welcome.

I posted on my Facebook recently: "So if I roll out my new Timeline will there be dinosaurs?!" I can only hope. Leahdactyls will be plaguing the blogosphere, soon. Very soon. (Pterodactyl noise below.)

This Decrepit Payphone is Pretty Symbolic

I was taking Girl Dog Named Jack for a walk today and joked to her owner (over text) that she was "Jackee from 223" (unfortunately they don't live in 227— remember the TV show "227"?!).

So I let her lead the way, which unfortunately included some pretty glass-spanked sidewalks in Hollywood, and we came upon this payphone. It's rusted, its receiver has been ripped off. It's useless. Not that payphones are useless. But it seems like...days gone by, you know. We're more accessible now, but maybe almost too accessible. And still lonely. And still without "227." Payphone, I'll be your friend.

RIP Lee Groban, Great Artist. Some Film Clips of His For Your Viewing Pleasure.

(Photo by Fred Burkhart)

I remember an old car I had, the trunk was filled to the brim, I can't remember much what was in it, but I remember there was a huge stack of pages that Lee Groban had given me. Light purple and white pages. Typed text — typed on a typewriter. Lee was a poet, best known for his work "A Cure for Insomnia," coined as the longest poem ever written, which totaled over 5,000 pages. (You can see Lee reading from his "A Cure From Insomnia" and also listen to an audio recording here.)

He was an artist, always working on experimental videos, traveling often to NYC to take advantage of the gritty grafittied landscape. He would write me long postcards from there, or San Francisco, or wherever he seemed to end up. And he would walk around with a tote overflowing with papers and drawings and sometimes DVDs that he would slip me, and ask me to watch, and ask for my feedback. I included some samples here, below. They were unlike anything I'd ever seen, and regret now that I didn't write more about them at the time.

Lee was that tall looming figure you'd always see at gallery openings — or places like the Burkhart Underground, hosted by another iconic Chicago artist Fred Burkhart. Lee added color, he was a symbol of true art, attempting to put a vision or perspective or movement out there in the world that was truly his, haunting and beautiful. And funny too sometimes, see video below.



I remember sitting with him at a cafe in Evanston, where he lived, when I was editor at a fledgling community newspaper (where I published a shorter piece of his), and he told me that he studied library science, and all the bizarre regions of the world mentioned in "A Cure for Insomnia" and the ancient lords and empires, had all existed at one point in history. It sounds unbelievable, but I wouldn't be surprised. Lee's mind was a deep and vast one.

The epic poem was turned into an experimental film that ran over 87 hours (or 3 days and 15 hours), it's basically Lee reading the poem, spliced with heavy metal and porn vids. It played at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, from January 31 to February 3, 1987. It was never released to the public, but had it been made available on DVD, it would've been about 22 discs.

In the vids below, Lee stands there sometimes, blending into the background, becoming part of it, adding to the color and dimension — or else he's dancing and weaving through it, as he did through life. You could always count on him to start or join a dance party. Lee was a work of art himself.





A memorial service for Lee Groban is scheduled for today, Sunday Dec. 18 from 1-4 p.m. at Packer Schopf Gallery (942 W. Lake St.) in Chicago. Visit his website here. I'll miss you Lee, thanks for the inspiration.

Dear Santa, Have You Been Naughty or Nice?

Have you been a NAUGHTY Santa...



...or a NICE Santa...?



I'm supposed to be going to that Human Santapede comedy show tonight, but LA is the Land O' Flakes, so you never know what's going to happen until the last minute. I saw the drawing above on the ground, I don't know if some coloring-book-toting kid dropped it or if someone purposely pasted it there. It's shore purty though...

Will This Post From My iPhone?

Kind of slow but seemingly working. I am at Denny's. Attempting to work. Write. But I'm fuddling on Facebook. Fuddling is my new word, multi-defined. I'll have the hot fuddle sundae please.

An Art-Sharing Scenario That Wasn't Shit

I biked in the rain-ish cold to Hotel Cafe in Hollywood last night — located a bathroom that either most people don't know about, or else they prefer to be seen standing in line outside the other one — and found this gem of a sticker all by itself on the shiny silver container reserved for us ladies' personal and private "time-oh-the-month" refuse.



Pretty hilarious I thought. So I texted it to a streety artist friend of mine, who sent me this back almost straight away. Weird!

You Know You Want This Dumpster.

I know I do. I bet it's a spaceship, too. And a time machine.

On a totally different note, it's always bothered me that AP style requires "Dumpster" to be capitalized. Sure, it's a brand name, but it's a container for garbage — does it really deserve that kind of journalistic regard? Yeah, I guess. Maybe that's the one thing that will remain stable in this downward spiral of an industry. Good thing I now have the means to travel through space and time to escape this trash can of an economy, hooray!

Oh Oreo Cakesters, How You Didn't Disappoint Me...

I was expecting a mouthful of sawdust debris and a stale Chewy-Chips-Ahoy-texture filling resulting in a grimace much like the ones I get anytime I try to eat Mexican candy. But no. These were pillowy soft, foamy circles of goodness! They tasted like sugar-cookie dough. Without the E. coli.

Spotify: Digital Music Service or Stain Remover?

I'm totally late to the Spotify gate, but I've been using it lately — and also often, as it pops up every time I load my computer, which is kind of annoying, but at the same time reminds me on a daily basis that I've been relying on my comfort-zone pool of tunes, and that I should really get out there and explore more music — Bon Jovi's "I Wish Every Day Could Be Like Christmas" anyone? (I fixed the song title for grammatical accuracy, it had "every day" as one word which ain't right.)

So today — after finally listening to some serious Florence + the Machine (it's a whiff whiny, no?) — it popped into my head that Spotify sounds like a stain remover product. After pondering this further, I realized that that wasn't quite right, because that might imply that you're "applying" (i.e. "-fying") a spot...for example, "I'm going to spotify my shirt with pretend puke so I can go home early from work/school/daycare."

Conclusion? Spotify is a digital music service. It is not a stain remover. But it is a new verb that I'm going to use next time I spill red wine on myself — "Damn, I just spotified my white pantsuit, I just had this unspotified!" Or if I ever have a dog name Spot, it would go something like this: "Be sure to take Spot out before you leave so he doesn't spotify Gramma's new Snuggie."

(P.S. I took this image from the blog Grubby Girls, which gives some great advice on how to de-spotify an ink stain from your clothes here.)

I Knew I Smelled Something Funky

Ha, made ya look. In other news, there is a funky smell in the bathroom right now and my history of growing up in a house with many mice — and therefore many dead mice — leads me to believe that it is, in fact, a dead mouse. Mouse droppings discovered yesterday confirm our suspicions. I will now go listen to Deadmau5. In other other news, the RAID ant traps are working — I'm sorry ants! I'm going to start a band called Dead8nt.

How I Found Out Early About a Live Reading of "The Princess Bride" With Paul Rudd as Westley — But Am Not Going

So I was in the audience for "The Tonight Show" on Tuesday. Dana Carvey was on. High-larious. His Republican candidate impressions are spot on, and here's one of my fave jokes from the night — "It's only a matter of time before Rick Perry pulls a 'Mission Impossible' and pulls off the mask and it's [George] W."

And director Jason Reitman was on. And Jason Reitman announces that he's going to direct a live reading of "The Princess Bride" with Paul Rudd at LACMA Thursday — yes, that's tonight. (He's done previous ones of "The Breakfast Club" and "The Apartment.")

Okay. Love "The Princess Bride." Love Paul Rudd. Love the outside of LACMA and have really been wanting to go see the art inside. I was in the audience of the show before it aired (aka before a ton of other people knew about it and the $10 tickets sold out, you can get in a stand-by line starting at 6pm if you're into that). Ummm....I didn't go and buy tickets immediately after the show.

Why, you ask? Hmm... brainfart perhaps. Or loyalty maybe. Or loyalty-inspired brainfart? I'm on the list tonight to see my pal's band Nightmare & the Cat, at Hotel Cafe, and songstress Carina Round, who I have yet to see and have been wanting to. And because it's LA, you really have to choose between one or the other, especially when you're on bike...or did I have to? Couldn't I have done both?

I'll never know. But I keep telling myself that it's going to be annoyingly crowded anyway right? And Paul Rudd couldn't possibly be as nerderrific as his characters in "Clueless" and "I Love You, Man." Right? RIGHT?!?!?!?! Aw shit, you know who would do a high-larious reading of Westley? DANA CARVEY!!!!

Please keep me in your prayers during this difficult time Church Lady.

Ride Ride, Bang Bang

I will not let cycling in the City of Angels kill me, I shall overcome! Hills, you will make me stronger! The hills kind of represent life here. You work so hard to get to a peak, you fly down, wheeee!!! And then you're at the bottom again, working your way back up... Metaphor for life in general, I guess.

My LA Doppelganger?

I was walking down Sunset Boulevard and this bearded guy pushing a shopping cart glances over at this sticker on a nearby van. Then he looks at me, nods his head back over to the van, and says: "That looks like you."

My diet is working!

How Many Women Have Seen Newt Nude?

And I'm not talking about his wives, his mummy, babysitters he had when he was a kid, or any girlfriends that he may have had before he got married — I'm talking about women he's banged while married (oh wait, his current wife is one of those). If he and his wife/wives have an agreement, that's fine. I'm not judging here, well maybe I am, because he has put himself in the position of questioning other people's morality when it comes to sex... wait, why do so-called "moral" conservatives want this wife-cheating guy in the White House again?

And they think that a "fidelity pledge" is going to do the trick? That would be like asking him to vow to go vegan — you know that dude eats a big fat steak at least twice a day, he probably sprinkles foie gras on his frosted flakes. Foie gras that he probably bought with food stamps, which he has condemned. Remember, this guy is a hypocrite. While he was rallying for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, he himself was allegedly having an affair.

In other news, instead of seeing Newt nude, I'd prefer to see him dressed in all plaid sometime so I can call him Newt Gingham-rich.

Our Stray Ran Away, And I Can Cry If I Want To

I'm gonna shoot a short film starring my current housemates and call it The Lovey Bunch. Last time I was in town, Heidi rescued a ratty Yorky-like dog that was tied to a fence on her period. She cleaned Emma up (below), got her fixed, helped find her a home. I swear, I understand now why Bob Barker always said, "Help control the pet population, have your pet spayed or neutered." The stray population (not to mention the homeless human population) is bursting the City of Angels at the seams. I don't know if that sentence makes a ton of sense, but you get what I mean.



This time around, Amber lured a chihuahua she'd seen roaming the neighborhood after she'd almost hit him driving. Lured him in with a piece of rotisserie chicken. He was scared but then he warmed up, cuddled. Crawled into my lap and leaked something on me. Which after he started humping the female dog in the house, I realized was semen. Oh these poor horny animal scamps! I didn't care what he leaked on me, he was such a lover and had a goofy happiness about him as he shivered and shook as chihuahuas tend to do. And he was very clean and very soft.



So anyways, Amber was posting about him on Craigslist, and looking for lost dog posts thinking she could maybe find his owner — and even looked up stores that might carry the brand of his cool skull-and-bones collar so we could go hang posters there. But when Dim let the dogs out into the yard the next day, "Cheech" (as I started to call him) snuck out through a crack and never came back. Amber saw him again on the street but couldn't get him to come to her. I seriously teared up last night, which I haven't done because of an animal in about five years — when I walked in on a friend suffocating his coma-like cat so he wouldn't have to pay to put to her down.

From this day forward I am going to walk around with a rotisserie chicken in my pocket just in case I see Cheech.

It's About That Time

I didn't take this photo. A certain psychic I know sent it to me today. So I'm assuming I don't have to tell him that I'm using it because he already knows because he's psychic.

One Reason To Go Rent a Jackhammer

Or would that imply that I don't "like" it?

Tin Man Fire Hydrant

"Just give me some oil and few twists, and watch my heart juices flow. Sorry no poppies here, move along."

The Pied Piper Was a Kidnapper. But a Shrewd Businessman.

So in my previous blog, you'll notice how I gorged myself on some twisted form of pepperoni pizza, and alliteratively enlisted Peter Piper in the headline ("Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pepperoni Pizza Pretzels...").

So it's weird that later that night, when I was babysitting, the first story one of the girls picked was the Pied Piper. Maybe I'm looking too much into this slight connection, but let me tell you, this story of the Pied Piper wasn't how I remembered it, and I think holds a lesson for all of us pipe smokers, I mean, pipe players in the Game of Life (yes, there's a SpongeBob Squarepants edition).



Sure, the Pied Piper gets called into town because the rats are running the place and biting babies and eating cats and dogs — and yes, he gets rid of the rats by playing a tune on his pipe and getting them to follow him to the river where they jump in and drown like acid-tripping lemmings.

But see, then the Mayor and his Council refuse to pay him the thousand "guilders" they had promised. So what does the shrewd Pied Piper do? He starts playing a tune, all the children in the town start following him, and he leads them into some secret door in the side of a hill into some magical land where they are supposedly super-happy for the rest of their lives (there's probably a lot of pizza and Xboxes) and their parents never see them again.

The town keeps trying to send messages to the Piper that they'll pay him even more than they had agreed on, but the Piper either never gets the message or couldn't give a rat's ass (I'm thinking the latter). There are various endings to this story I guess, some a little more gruesome than others.

Moral of the story? If someone gets rid of the grodiness in your life, pay them at least what you told him you would. Unless you don't like kids.

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pepperoni Pizza Pretzels...

...and gave them to me. In my daydream. Thanks PP (imaginary fist bump).

I Saw Bill Cosby, and Then I Downloaded His App. Well, First I Watched the Funny Video About It.

So yes, I'm in LA, and I got the chance to be in the audience for "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" the day I got here. Leno came out before the show in jeans and a denim button-down to take pics with some audience members, like this black guy named Cosby (no joke, unless Cosby was lying, that would be funny, ha ha, funny joke Cosby, show me your ID!).

Anyways, the Bill Cosby was a guest and I kind of punched the arm of this dude next to me I was so excited. I grew up with "The Cosby Show" (link to one of my fave show moments here), my dad loves him, and Bill Cosby reminds me of my dad in some ways — the patterned sweaters stretched out over a perfectly round paunch, and a hearty laugh.

Mr. Cosby had his pseudo-stern humor about him during the show — like when we applauded when Leno announced that he was 74 and Cosby just looked out at us like, why are you laughing, and goes into a joke about how we're basically applauding that he's closer to death. Funny, because he was there promoting his book, "I Didn't Ask To Be Born: (But I'm Glad I Was)."

When I got back to where I'm staying, I freaked to my housemate about getting to see Bill Cosby and she said, "Have you seen his app?" Excuse me, what? A (free) Bill Cosby app? He spoke of no such thing! And then she followed with: "The video of him talking about the app is even funnier."

And so it was. One of my favorite parts is when he's talking about the different ways you can download the app and ends with: "..and the berry of my people — the BlackBerry."

The Accidental Gang Sign

So I was walking down Sunset Boulevard, headed to be in the audience for "Let's Make a Deal" (Little-Mermaid-aerobics-instructor costume in tow) and a bus stopped near me, and this blond-haired girl toppled out wearing a floppy black canvas hat. A smile burst on her face and she flashed me a peace sign — a bold and vertically old-school 1960s "this has the power save your life sister" one, reminiscent of an upside-down Eiffel Tower.

I was so startled and wanted to return the favor, show her that I was down with her peace-iness. So I smiled back and quick went to do my own peace sign, but because of how I was holding my bag, it somehow ended up looking like this upside-down peace sign, it was very gangster.

I posted this instance on Facebook, because isn't that what you do after something like that happens?

A colleague of mine who'd grown up on the far South Side of Chicago commented, "We need to show you some real gang signs now!" I Googled "gang signs," and happened upon a photo gallery on the Huffington Post called "White People Throwing Gang Signs." These are my peeps, I suppose. I've now become inspired to start a gang called the Honkie Crocs and this little girl is my first recruit. This will be our trademark "Throwin the Croc, Rar!"

Chopknives!

This is what happens when I order the stir fry at a family diner. Terminator Leah, meet red pepper.

Cain "Suspends" Campaign...And Should Suspend Whoever Decided to Use This Photo on His Website's Homepage

He looks like a poster child for Metamucil. "Herman Cain—He Will Cure This Nation of Constipation." I'm gonna start calling him HerMetamucil Cain.

By the way, I hate to say this, but his website is pretty good. But I do think that all political candidates should have a "Let's Get This Out of The Way" section (maybe just innocently titled "Miscellaneous") — where they basically disclose anything that will inevitably come out that will cause their campaign to tumble like a game of Jenga — so then they can own it when it comes up. Cain could have pics of all his mistresses, blog about the times he allegedly sexually harassed someone, and he can also talk about pizza. Now who wouldn't vote for a guy who blogs about pizza?!

Oh wait, that website picture is now beginning to make sense... too much cheese makes you constipated, duh.