Lawn Saint Corner

Jesus, 37th Street Between 31st Avenue and Broadway, Astoria, Queens

Inadvertent Symbols

I was walking from the bank to the cheap Mexican place on a new route today when I passed the house pictured below.

The sign reads, "Dear God, Please give us a new congress. This one is broken and corrupt. Amen"

Yes, that is a teabag hanging below a sign imploring God for a new legislative branch. This assemblage is flanked by two American flags and the dessicated remains of a Palm Sunday frond. Here in Queens country, where last year 74% of voters cast their ballot for Barack Obama, we have a Teabagger. I will admit to being shocked at first, thinking this whole teabag phenomenon a construct for the flyover states to express latent racism and a means whereby a certain Australian billionaire can market a right wing tax scam as a grassroots movement. The shock passed quickly though, and I smiled, because the owners of this home were a special bunch. They were stridently buying the wrong narrative and in doing so had inadvertently created a touching symbol of the modern Republican party.

Think about it. The two flags, patriotic and aggressively so. Almost insisting that by quantity, their patriotism is stronger and better than yours.  The palm frond, dried almost beyond recognition, a sad and not at all genuine religious gesture. The cheaper-than-cheap motel curtains, pulled tight against the world, asserting their lack of welcome or fear of what’s outside, or most likely both. The sign itself, a plea to God but one directed at the street, as if that were a natural place for supplication from above. Finally, the tea bag, a hilarious malapropism, a clear indication that the vernacular you’re speaking is forty years past.

I’ll admit to feeling weird about taking the picture, because I knew I was going to be mean about it. But sort of like a kid that pounds on the glass until the lions become enraged at the zoo, I couldn’t help myself. And walking home, I had that feeling you get upon leaving that zoo. Yes, the animals were strange and wonderful – unbelievable, really! – but it’s sad that they live in cages in such close proximity to their own filth and far from the places that usually harbor them.

Waterproof Makeup and Nose Plugs

The phrase the aggressive lesbianism of synchronized swimming just went through my head. I fear I won’t be able to use it too often.

It’s a Nice Day for a White Woman and her Kwanzaa Cake

And here is Sandra Lee and her famous Kwanzaa Cake Recipe. It looks like something Satan would force down your throat in hell as J. Edgar Hoover and the bad Lassie gnaw off your toes. Enjoy!

Text Message Exchange and Video Clip Free Association Corner

I know this whole ‘corner’ thing is getting needlessly complicated, but I love some needless complication.

First, the text message exchange. ‘M’ signifies my friend Matthew, who is a truly superior person. ‘J’ signifies me.

J: I’m very busy stepping in paint and showing passersby the top of my ass when I bend over. [Note: I was painting a bunch of stripes in a store window as part of a freelance job.]

M: Ur ass is good for business!

J:  Ha! How much is that ass in the window?

M: I’m sure it ain’t for sale….:(

J: I am off the market, again.

M: Yeah, till ur not.

J: Yes. Till I’m not. I’m sure I’ll flail around again and fail. A complicated series of flailing and failing.

And now the video clip. From the Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime.

Mental Programming Note

I’m trying to do this thing where when I start to think a needlessly critical thought about myself or others I stop and think something nice, or nothing at all.

Forcing myself to think like this is miserable.

Rather, thinking like this is wonderful. Yes, wonderful.

I’ll Call You Back, George

While searching for a version of Ashes to Ashes on YouTube that I could embed, I came across this live version which made me smile for several reasons. They’re listed below:

1. Mark McEwen! Whatever the hell happened to him? To think, I remember the days when it was de rigueur for your black weatherman to have a mustache.

2. David admitting that he was too “stoned” to remember much of what transpired on his 1976 Soul Train appearance.

3. George! Little George who only listens to Bowie! My heart (primarily composed of tinsel and black ice) just about melted.

Regardless, enjoy.

Unfortunate Reminders

The first and, to date, only boyfriend I have lived with wore a cologne by Sonia Rykiel. It was purple colored and came in a bottle shaped like a t-shirt. See below.

I smelled it at the gym today and almost vomited. Smell can be funny like that.

Hannibal knew something of the power of our olfactory senses, too.

Welcome to Excerpt Corner!

From The Jewish Hunter by Lorrie Moore.

“During mating season the doe constructs a bed for herself, and then she urinates all around the outside of it. That’s how she gets her mate.”

“So that’s it,” murmured Odette. “I was always peeing in the bed.”

Pinky’s gun suddenly fired into the trees, and the noise filled the woods like a war, spilling to the ground they yellowing needles of a larch.

“Ahhhhhh!” Odette screamed. “What is going on?” Guns, she was reminded then, were not for girls. They were for boys. They were invented by boys. They were invented by boys who had never gotten over their disappointment that accompanying their own orgasm there wasn’t a big boom sound. “What the hell are you doing?”

Ch-ch-changes?

Frequent visitors to this poorly updated web log might have noticed something different. Yes, I’ve changed the theme here at The Incorporeal Hangnail. I was getting bored, plus I felt some really great (ha) things were getting lost as the last theme could only display two posts at once. So, um, enjoy?