Lady Gaga is Number One No More.

1. If FaceBook ''status updates'' are any indication, ''swine flu'' is the new ''Lady Gaga.'' God bless faggots; nothing excites them more than factory made pop-music and diseases you can't get from fucking.

2. Last night, I had a dream where Lady Gaga performed a remix-ed cover of "Get This Party Started" at my Super Sweet Sixteen. Afterwards, my mother, Madonna, revealed her gift; a fire engine red BMW roadster with a bedazzled hood. My friends; Lindsay, Brittany and LC, were SOOO JEALOUS. It was a beautiful dream.

A Mouth Only A Grandmother Could Love.

Originally Posted April 19, 2009

This weekend, Grandma Arlene took me to get my wisdom teeth removed.

Here are some of the more emasculating high-lights:

1. As the Novocain needle juts into my gums and rubbery numbness coats the left side of my mouth, I can hear Grandma talking to the nurses in the next room.“He’s tried to get a job in the City. Nobody is hiring. Do you know any law firms that need . . .?“

2. After the procedure, my mouth is numb and bloody. The doctor instructs me to bite down on a swab of gauze covering the wound so as to promote healing and control bleeding. As you would imagine, speech is uncomfortable if not impossible. As we enter the car, however, my Grandma, like a gold fish, can’t seem to remember the condition of my mouth explained to her five minutes before and keeps asking questions that require answers beyond that of a chin nodding ’yes’ or head shaking ’no.’

“So how did they do it, Ant? What did they use? Did they use pliers? What did they use?”

For this, I have but one weapon available to me; Tyra Banks’ “Dead Eye.”

Grandma gets the hint and says:“Oh, okay, you can’t talk. . . “

We listen to the radio for awhile until my Grandmother’s cell phone rings. It is my mom. My Grandma begins to tell my mom about the operation. And then, inexplicably hands the phone to me: “It’s your mother, tell her how you are feeling. . . . “

I once again call upon the silent language of “America’s Next Top Model” and “Smile With My Eyes.”

“Oh, you can’t talk still? Okay. Sherry,” she says taking the phone back to her mouth, “He says he can’t talk still. Do you want him to call you when we get home?”

3. Before we go home, Grandma graciously takes me to the A&P in order to stock up on soft, cool food stuffs fit for my haggard mouth. As we wheel twin shopping carts full of protein drinks and Activia yogurt back to the car, my Grandmother, apropos of nothing, says:“Do you know how much that operation cost me?”

When I don’t answer, my Grandmother yells: “Huh? Do you know how much that cost me? It cost me so much I can’t even kill you anymore. It would waste too much money!”And that is when my Grandmother loses control of her shopping cart and lightly crashes into an oncoming Hyundai.

“Sorry!” She yells. When the car moves on, she says: “Look what you made me do!”

4. 9 a.m. the next morning I am sleeping. My Grandmother walks into my bedroom, stands over my bed and looking at my unconscious body says, “Do you want to sleep still?”

When, still asleep, I don’t answer, she asks again, “Do . . YOU . . WANT . . TO . . . SLEEP . . . STILL!?!?!”

At this point, I wake up. Noticing I am conscious, she asks: “Do you want to sleep still?”

5. On the second day, in order to prevent infection, the doctor prescribes a salt rinse about every three hours. Grandma Arlene, for reasons known by none [especially not herself], becomes maniacally fixated on the salt rinse and institutes a Draconian schedule to insure its regular implementation.

However, not even Arlene’s inexplicable obsession with salt-as-health can compensate for her tragi-comic loss of short term memory.

On the third interval of scheduled rinsing, I am on the toilet. Though we are in a one-bedroom apartment and my whereabouts can be determined through a simple process of elimination (not in the kitchen, not in the bedroom. . . ), Grandma decides to yell:“ANT! Where are you!?!?! Where the hell did you go!?!?! YOU NEED TO —”Grandma, mid-Banshee call, has forgotten the words “salt" and "rinse.”

Not one to be stopped by mere Alzheimer’s, Arlene begins to yell - “You need TO DO YOUR MOUTH!!! Come on! DO YA’ MOUTH!!!”

When I get out of the bathroom my Grandma is incensed. “Where WERE you!?!? You need to -”

“’Do my mouth,’ Grandma?” I ask with a facetiously arched eye brow.

“Yeah, what is it called?”

But I am too busy gurgling to answer her.

Incontrovertible Proof of Asshole-Ness: A Conversation Between Our Own “Tony Eats Puppies” and Whateverishly.com’s “Stella Glass.”

“The Love That Does Not Know Its Name.”

Tony Eats Puppies: How should I refer to you in my blog? I have you as “ASHLEY,” “Ashley McCUNTRAGZ,” but maybe I should use your blog handle?

Stellaglass: Yeah. And then link to whateverishly.com

Tony Eats Puppies: What is your handle?

Stella Glass: Stella Glass.

Tony Eats Puppies: Sounds thin!

Stella Glass: I know! It motivates me to reach my goal weight!


“Two Assholes, Fat and Thin.”

Tony Eats Puppies: [in a chirpy, cheerful fat girl voice] “Staying thin is okay for you, but I prefer to stay a ‘size ME.’”

Stella Glass: HAHA!
Stella Glass: [in a self righteous but really kind of defensive fat girl voice] “Hey, maybe I’m not perfect, but I’m a perfect ‘size ME’!”

Tony Eats Puppies: Oh, fat people. . . What WILL you come up with next!? Will up be the ‘new down?’

Stella Glass: I know! Tell me the one about how your FAT thighs are beautiful, FAT GIRL!

Tony Eats Puppies: Okay, here I go, [Desperately trying to be ‘sassy and sexy’ fat girl voice] “In some cultures, ‘cottage cheese’ is the preferred consistency of flesh!” Wink Wink, growl!!!!!

Stella Glass: [Any fat girl voice used above – Choose your favorite fat girl!] “Guys like it because it reminds them of food . . . and they LOVE eating!”

Tony Eats Puppies: Guys like it if when you are naked, your vagina isn’t obscured with stomach flesh because vaginas remind them of fucking . . . and they LOVE fucking!

Stella Glass: LOL You are the dev-ill!
Stella Glass: You are the voice of my most wrenching insecurities.

Tony Eats Puppies: Don’t put your mother out of a job, now. I’m your ‘personal Jesus,’ Judith.

Stella Glass: Judith! Judith! Judith!


“Stella Glass and Tony Eats Puppies Reflect on the Sarah Lawrence College Creative Writing Program” or, alternately, “Two Assholes Work a Lame Metaphor to Death.”

Tony Eats Puppies: I am writing a blog about not being able to write. It’s pretty ‘meta.’ Prepare to be fascinated!

Stella Glass: I’m salivating, literarily speaking! That’s actually a really good way to get unblocked

Tony Eats Puppies: You said it! I can feel my flow getting heavier with each stroke of the key board.

Stella Glass: Some of my most publicly lauded works have come from that place.

Tony Eats Puppies: “That place. . . ” Snicker. Snicker.

Stella Glass: [in a nasal, self important, deluded SLC creative writing student voice] “You know, like , as a writer, I find that growing my work organically in the garden of my spirit and really approaching language from a place of genuine untarnished authenticity is what gives rise to some of my most resonant work. . . .”
“But that’s just me.”

Tony Eats Puppies: Good one. Sarah Lawrence Creative Writing was all about agriculture. My class with Carolyn Ferrell was like ‘Green Acres’ or some shit. I, of course, was the Zsa Zsa.

Stella Glass: [the SLC creative writing voice again] “I don’t like to think of myself as a writer. I mean, everybody writes! My step-mom WRITES grocery lists for our maid. I prefer to think of myself as someone who nurtures stories, like a Word Farmer, almost!”

Tony Eats Puppies: Yeah, you were the only one in our class who came to workshop with seeds.

Stella Glass: And a rake!

Tony Eats Puppies: “Little did I know, I’d be the one who would ‘grow’ from the experience!”

Stella Glass: LOL! “Little did you know that my speech was the vitamin d you needed to galvanize the photosynthesis of our writing process!”

Tony Eats Puppies: [Sarah Lawrence College faux-Robin Williams Creative Writing Teacher voice] “You know what? I think this rough draft is SHIT!”
“And by ’shit,’ I mean . . .”
“The fertilizer out of which you are going to grow a really, really awesome story!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

Stella Glass: HAHAHAHA.

Tony Eats Puppies: “We nurture our writers with laughter!”


“Stella Glass and Tony Eats Puppies Remember An Old School Chum.”

Stella Glass: Totally. Mockery was the soul food that I fed “Autumn Trees” for an entire semester,and look at her now!

Tony Eats Puppies: Uggh, I’d rather not look at her at all. . . .

Stella Glass: You and me both my friend!!!

Tony Eats Puppies: I just remember our first “Coming Out Dance,” carrying her drunken ass up the hill when her tit flopped out at me.

Stella Glass: HAHAHHAHA

Tony Eats Puppies: And she was crying and moaning. . . And drooling.

Stella Glass: That did NOT happen! HAHAHAHA
Dude, I can’t stop laughing.

Tony Eats Puppies: And, what’s more, she REFUSED to return the tit to its proper receptacle. She insisted on staring at me with that third, pink eye!!!
COULD I MAKE THAT UP?!?!

“Remembering An Old School Chum: Part Deux” or “Look How Stella Can’t Roll With Her Own Metaphor.”

Stella Glass: She just let her tit hang out?

Tony Eats Puppies: All of it, the entirety of a single boob.
Like a pale, dry, spotted tongue

Stella Glass: Ew, I bet it was an awful beached whale of a tit too!

Tony Eats Puppies: It was like that scene in the CRAFT when NANCY goes crazy at the beach.

Stella Glass: Yeah, but Nancy’s tit doesn’t come out.

Tony Eats Puppies: No, idiot, but she beaches all those sea mammals.

Stella Glass: Oh riiiiiiight.
HAHAHAHAHA

Tony Eats Puppies: The tits are the beached whales. It’s the metaphor you started.
You are so dumb sometimes.


“Remembering Another School Chum: This Time, No Tit.”

Stella Glass: Dude, that night I spent the wee hours with “Lady Priest” as she drunkenly sobbed on the hillside about wanting a boyfriend and all else that was wrong with the world . . .

Tony Eats Puppies: Isn’t she a lesbo now?

Stella Glass: Well, she’s dating a chick, last I heard. But that was a while ago

Tony Eats Puppies: Either way - Irony alert!!!

Stella Glass: Yeaaahhh!!!!

Tony Eats Puppies: “Lady Priest” is officially the one thousandth spoon after we’ve needed a knife.

Stella Glass: What?

Tony Eats Puppies: It’s a reference to Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic.”

Stella Glass: Oh jeez, I’m not sorry about missing that reference.


“Stella Glass and Tony Eats Puppies Take a Moment to Contemplate the Future. “

Stella Glass: When does “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” premiere?

Tony Eats Puppies: Not soon enough.

Why Watch Says It Is HAMMER O'CLOCK. . .

Originally Posted January 22nd, 2009

Nothing gets under my skin quicker and deeper than when two-bit punks trying to wax encyclopedic come whack on an old school jam. One such oft' maligned joint is Hammer's (he had dropped the M.C.) "Pumps And a Bump." [Press 'Play' on the Youtube window and feel that beat in yo' seat while we confab on a hip-hop masterpiece.]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exy1YMHsDLI]

No, New Jacks on Youtube, the song is not called "Pumps IN a Bump" or "Pumps AND a RUMP" or even "RUMPS IN A BUMP." Hammer's ill fated, "gangsta" party anthem is an ode to every black man's two greatest loves; high heel shoes (that's the 'PUMP') and twittering behinds. ("BUMP") "BUMPS," interestingly enough, is both noun, the derriere, and verb, the thrusting motion Hammer attempts to elicit in same. Hammer's layered, nuanced exhortation for us to "Bump" (in our "Pumps") collapses the distinction between form and motion, object and subject, and dancer from dance that has plagued "booty philosophers" like Uncle Luke, Teddy Riley and Jermaine Dupri for years. Is Hammer a semantic genius? A booty prophet preaching to unknowing masses? Maybe. Probably. Definitely!

But genius like Hammer's is lost on haters. Hip Hop Purists (hmmph!) and Pop Culture Piss-Ants alike identify "Pumps And a Bump" as the definitive moment Hammer had passed into embaressing, fitfully self denying irrelevance. For more on that myopic point of view, look no further than the grass roots, cultural think tank that is Amazon.com .... http://www.amazon.com/Funky-Headhunter-MC-Hammer/dp/B000002L1X
To them I offer the following, numbered-for-easy reference talking points as they watch perhaps one of the most under-rated music videos the world has ever 'dissed. . .

1. Hammer chooses to open his video in black-and-white whilst preserving his woman-servant's valentine red high heel shoes (PUMPS) in full, illustrious color. The contrast is stark and hypnotic ("I certainly couldn't take my eyes off those PUMPS!") and evocative of another 1993 cultural phenomenon, Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" wherein after some two hours of black-and-white Holocaust drama, the main character, a Nazi arms manufacturer played by Liam Niesen, has a Jew-loving epiphany upon seeing a little Jewess in a fully technicolor, red jacket. . . . or something, I haven't really seen that shit all the way through.
Since Hammer and Steven SCHPIELBERG's projects came out at roughly the same time, I think it fair to say that those two great voices of their respective peoples were tapping into the same nascent zeitgeist of pretensious pseudo-artsy-ness that, although unnamed at the time, would come to define the early '90s. (Think 1990's "Coprock.")
The parallels between Steven Schpielberg's Holocaust epic and Hammer's encomium to dance-ass are too numerous and profound to contemplate here, but I would advise my gentle readers to at least come away from this short discussion with renewed certainty that: The Jews won't stop until they steal everything from the Black Man. Every. Thing.

2. Some of you might not catch this, but listen up. Approximately three minutes and fifty seconds into the video, Aaron Hall of "Guy" fame (he also dated Patra) starts singing a New Jack Swing hook that is like smoothe, hot, air-born butter all up in your ear. I can listen to him coo all day.
And, of course, apropos of everything creepy, Hall appears in the video wearing a skull cap, dark glasses and sporting a long, wooden walking stick as if to signify to observant viewers that: if this '"Pumps and a Bump" thing doesn't pop off, I am equipped to do some voodoo exorcism shit on Hammer's lovely home.'

3. Okay, perhaps I was so excited by Voodoo Master Aaron Hall's appearance that I missed the obvious sartorial jubilee that is Hammer's zebra banana hammock, a look we are unlikely to see outside Escuelita's blatino stripper madness on Sunday nights (is it still on Sundays?) much less within the hip-hop community. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I will leave for you to decide. I for one, appreciate a man (who has a lot of money) who is secure in his body (and isn't fat and disgusting) showing the world a little something (as long as the little something isn't that little).

These three talking points only scratch the surface of "Pumps and a Bump." I invite my fellow hip-hop-heads to continue what I have started: take another look at this diamond in the rough and reflect on the many facets of its unrecognized genius. Or be wigiddy whack and don't.