Brenda and the F Word

Funny post coming up later….

Yes, I saw him hanging out in a glass at a local bistro last night. Guess he’s between episodes, waiting to shoot more  Bored To Death.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to chat. The ice was in the way.  So I just banged on the glass and gave him a thumbs-up. We love you Ted. Come back soon.

Otherwise, comments dilemma appears to be resolved. Feel free to test…In the meantime, am out there flogging The Craigslist Murders. In fact, succeeded in storming my way into the office of the Barnes&Noble inventory buyer yesterday. Sweaty palms, shaky knees, talking faster than a speeding bullet. And I do believe they might stock it in-store. Heading down now to Leonard Lopate’s studio in the hopes of passing it into the hands of the producer. Watch for headlines in the Post tomorrow when I’m arrested for disturbing the peace. (Last time, I made an “appearance” on Lopate, I described it as “the interview from hell given by God!”) But never mind.  You do what you gotta do. If anyone out there has read it and likes it, please, please think about posting a review on Amazon. In fact, post a review even if you haven’t read it. JK, guys. JK.  Bye for now.

Aside from the scary comment from Remonster in Mosul re deleting his comments (Which, by the way, has been happily resolved), the extraordinary Blue Girl has just told me that she has had similar problems throughout the past week. Maybe it’s Charlotte, my murderous “heroine” getting back at me. In any case, please know that I have not DELETED anyone’s comments. I seem to be having problems getting them. FUCK! Who you gonna call? The cyberghostbusters?

Nineteen year-old Levi Johnston, the ex wannabee (or not) son-in-law of America’s ex wannabe V.P. (I refuse to mention her name) recently stripped off his skivvies for Playgirl. Whether he has also bared his soul remains to be seen. But yesterday I heard from a source, an eyewitness who there was at the scene when the far from dirty deed was done. Here in his own words:
“Found myself at the LJ shoot last week. LJ showed up (dressed) in a black Yukon with his management–the Jones brothers who seemed to have his best interests at heart. On the elevator on the way up to the studio, Tank (yes, Tank) talked up a soft-spoken girl who insisted that she had to get out on her floor and start her workday. LJ wanted to know why he couldn’t just leave the girl alone. Because I want to have a fluffer on the set, Tank retorted.
Upstairs, we all crowded in the make-up area. Turned out there was a problem with LJ’s hair. LJ and Tank didn’t like the way it stood up or lay down or something and the hair guy prudently backed up into a corner. Tank plowed his thick fingers through LJ’s locks. Finally, the Northwoods look was achieved and LJ started to disrobe.
He wouldn’t take his shirt off for the camera until he pumped up. Tank’s brother took a towel in both hands and LJ pulled it to his chest in a series of quick reps.
Don’t make me sit on the floor, he said to the photog. I don’t want to look fat.
You’re not fat! one of the assistants said, breathlessly.
LJ allowed himself to be dressed with a hockey stick. Period. The strobe fired. LJ put on a 1,000 yard stare and I looked at my producer.
Shoot every inch of him, she said. Every time he moves a muscle, shoot.
I admired the way he had his name–JOHNSTON–tattooed on his forearm–like a logo.
He seemed like a totally nice, nineteen year old guy/kid.

Back when the original British TV series, The Prisoner, hit the air, the idea of a man known only by a number was the stuff of sci-fi nightmares. Below is a partial list of the activities in my daily life that demand “personal” ID numbers in order to function and/or access.

Bike lock
ATM card
Amazon
Orbitz
Continental Airlines
Air France
Laptop
Gmail
AOL
Website
Paypal
Chase
Amex
Mastercharge
Garage door
Social Security
Expedia
Blog
Health Insurance

FUCK! Please feel free to add to the list…

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
From Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars A flaming arrow into the dark heart of Manhattan’s filthy rich, November 15, 2009
By L. Jacobs (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
The Craigslist Murders: A Novel is a flaming arrow into the dark heart of Manhattan’s filthy rich, and also a sharp portrait of our culture’s psychological health. Cullerton knows this milieu and her portrait is all in the details a la the New Journalism that stormed the Sixties. Perhaps it’s no mistake that Cullerton’s heroine, or rather anti-heroine, is named Charlotte Wolfe. This Charlotte — as opposed to Tom Wolfe’s recent, ridiculously dated I Am Charlotte Simmons — is a true embodiment of her time, contemporary compulsions at war with distant ideals. And while she’s murderously troubled, she’s also amazingly sympathetic. This is not easy to do. The book flies cinematically, riffs ferociously, and then floats in moments of poetic contemplation and longing. Swift, sensational, The Craigslist Murders reads scathingly and emotionally true. A tour de force!
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Tempted? Click The Craigslist Murders

Cute, right? These were the words painted on the decorative white water rescue buoy that was stripped off Madoff’s Montauk fishing boat. The estimate listed in the catalogue for the the US Marshall Service: National Forfeited Jewelry Auction on Saturday at the Sheraton was $140.00-$160.00. It went for $7500.00. Bernie must have thought it was pretty funny, that little play on words. Which is why what I really wished might happen as I sat there in the ballroom watching the last of his worldly (and not so worldly) possessions disappear into the hands of the curious, the bargain hunting, and the celebrity-obsessed was this: I wished that Bernie himself had shuffled onstage in his manacles and new prison duds and been forced to sit there as every little reminder of his freedom fell under the gavel.
“You tell me, boys. Where we gonna go? Do I hear $500, $600.? I see a $1,000.” shouted the Texan auctioneer as his male helpers walked up and down the aisles hootin’ and hollerin’ like bronco riders at a rodeo. “Don’t be shy, folks. Show us who you are!” Far from the faux Oxbridge accents at Christies and Sotheby’s, the speedy patter also seemed like something straight from a cattle or tobacco auction. And so it went…

Three freshly laundered, Ralph Lauren white crew neck shirts with “Bull” emblazoned on the chest ($1300.), twelve pairs of ‘gents’ (some fucking gent!) cuff links, the stationary and pile of Post-Its, the 4 black plastic pens made in Taiwan w/logo ($2500.00)….And the watches. What the fuck is it with rich men and their watches? There must have been at least 35 Breitling, Hublot Classic, and Piagets. I wonder if Bernie would have squirmed in his seat when a photo of lot #237, his Rolex “monoblanco” chronograph “Prisoner” watch, popped up on the screen to the sound of muted laughter? (It went for $65,000.) Or how bout the tacky lithographs of seascapes and the duck decoys? (Estimate: $60-80. Sold for $3,250.00)

Then when we reached the lady’s items, the purses and alligator belts, the wallets (one of which still had seven Ella Fitzgerald stamps neatly folded inside it), I wished that Ruth had made a surprise appearance. Ruth who seems to have headed into heavy hiding with her paltry 2 million after news of Bernie’s cocaine, North Pole, days at the office, not to mention the mistress and hookers. They could have sat up there, squirming together, in one final excruciating moment as their life passed before their eyes in the form of everything from dog bowls and dishes, to picnic glasses, china plates, and furs.Oh my! The furs.

“All that money and no taste,” whispered an elderly black woman behind me. She was dressed in her Sunday, church-going best. The Palestinian Israeli next to me chuckled. “What I like about being here,” he said. “is it proves you can’t take it with you.” He’d come in from Brooklyn to bid on Bernie’s Hofstra college ring. On my way out, I eavesdropped on a banker in the lobby. He was being interviewed for Channel 1. Dressed in an impeccable blue pin-striped suit (Brioni,” he said) and shooting his snow-white cuffs with tiny gold studs, he preened in front of the cameras. “I”m here to watch history being made,” he said. “Financial history. Madoff will end up has infamous as Hitler.” I wanted to ask him how much he was taking home for this year’s Christmas bonus.

Finale- Craigslist Murders

“I’m not sneaking a look at your legs,” he explained. “It’s your slippers. Everyone loves them.”
“Ah! Two different slippers. It’s one of my signatures,” she winked.

While Peter polished off the his extra portion of fish and fingerling potatoes, Charlotte crossed her ankles beneath the table and wondered how Vicky was doing in Aspen. Friendships, like marriages, took years to fall apart. She knew that. But Charlotte liked being precise. The business of interior design depended as much on precision as it did on the imagination. Measuring the exact dimensions of everything from furniture to oddly-shaped windows, selecting the perfect tint of alabaster white marble from the Cararra quarry in Italy, mixing and matching from thousands of different shades of paints and fabrics. This is why she wished she could pinpoint precisely when it had all started to go wrong with Vicky; when her role had switched from that of trusted friend and confidante to something more along the lines of a personal assistant.

In college, Vicky had inspired an almost child-like sense of awe in Charlotte. Slender and exquisitely feminine (versus savagely female which is what she had now become), there had been a nonchalant grace, a sort of effortless splendor, about her that made her seem both innocent and seductive. Even her awkwardness was alluring.

Startled out of her reverie by a burst of prolonged applause, Charlotte rose to her feet with the crowd. They were cheering the the gnome-like giant of finance at the podium. Charlotte could see his spittle as he stammered through the beginning of his speech. Returning, gratefully, to her own musings, she smiled. Vicky’s adoption of her as best friend had been marked with the gift of two cashmere sweaters. They were hand-me-downs from her father. One was a pale shade of beige, “the color of a baby fawn,” Vicky had said. And the other, a deep emerald green. “To match your wonderful eyes.”

Charlotte still wore the green one around the house. The sleeves had unraveled and there were gaping holes beneath the armpits. As worn-out and frayed as their friendship, Charlotte had neither the heart nor the courage to throw it out. Throwing it out would imply that she had abandoned her youth; that she’d given up on the pleasures of being needed. This is what Vicky had taught her. That being needed was almost as good as being loved.

The rattle of dinner plates as waiters cleared the table and refilled water glasses jolted her back to the present. Eyeing her nervously, the curator scribbled something on the back of his menu and slid it in her direction. She peered at the tiny, crabbed handwriting.
“May I ask you for a drink later” it said.
She scribbled back. “Maybe next time!”

Charlotte would never had dreamed of taking the boy up on his offer. But at 37, she still appreciated the gesture. Waiting for Philip’s cue to leave, (she’d agreed to join him only if he promised that they’d leave before dessert) Charlotte tapped her foot. The cue came in the form of his hand, pawing her thigh. Placing her own hand gently on top of his, as if to stroke it, she proceeded to pinch the flesh so hard with her fingernails, he yelped.
“Ready to go?” Charlotte asked, sweetly.

As the curator stood up and gallantly handed over her sequin clutch, she caught Philip whispering into the ear of the Russian girl while pocketing her business card. Had the man no shame? She wanted to kick him. His secret was safe with Charlotte, of course. To tell Vicky would wound her pride. As bright and polished as the shiny sheel of a ladybug, this thin veneer of pride was all that remained of the girl Charlotte had known in college. It had to be protected. And this was Charlotte’s job. To protect and to serve, she muttered to herself. Just like New York’s Finest.

Months ago, I wrote a funny post about women sleeping with monkeys. And drinking wine with monkeys and even bathing with monkeys. I thought it was pretty fucking peculiar. Especially when the monkey ripped her friend’s face off. Well, it sure doesn’t seem funny now. Not after Oprah invited the woman without her face on television and asked her to remove her veil, or blanket, of whatever the hell she was wearing to cover up the tragedy. I didn’t watch it. I don’t watch Oprah, ever. In fact, I remember walking, more like slinking out, of The Color Purple with my husband. We were terrified our early departure would offend the mostly black audience. But this? This kind of sensationalism–no, I’d call it more like sadism–beggars belief. To add insult to injury, millions of fans out there applaud O’s compassion. Her dignity. Puhlease. The only media story I found even more repulsive  this week comes from a male journalist who interviewed a woman with vaginal prolapse. Huh? Yeah. It seems her vagina FELL OUT! I’m not sure if it fell out on the air or what. But the “journalist” was incredibly PROUD of his story. “I wish her only the best,” he said. “And I admire her brave honesty.” Enough.

There are maps of cities and countries and rivers. There are even maps of the moon. But oh how I wish I had a map of me. I’d pin it up on the wall above my desk and look at it every morning. And there I’d see a big, fat arrow. “You are here!” it would say. I’d breathe a sigh of relief and continue on my way. Or maybe I could get a GPS implant. That would be good, too. “Turn left at life’s next intersection,” I’d hear that reassuring mother-like voice tell me. Or “Go back three miles. You missed a golden opportunity.” Of course, you need to punch in a destination on your GPS. And I don’t have one. I seem to be lost or stuck in Park with nowhere to go. This must be why I’m so addicted to my speedy ‘power walks.’ Because between the hours of 10 am and 11, every day, I know exactly where I’m going. To 42nd St. and back.