big wig, bigger heart

And speaking about My Beloveds...you need to read this fabulous interview with one of my bestest girlfriends and Souplantation scarfing partners...Drag Superstar, Writer, and Dog Lover, Miss Jackie Beat, who, trust me, is every bit as beautiful inside as she is out. She's also a complete cunt, but of that, I shall speak no more...today.

Love you, Miss Jackie!

my roots are showing

For a trashy, working class girl from Fresno, there is NOTHING better than scarfing a mustard-slathered corndog, knitting up a storm, and enjoying an AWESOME evening of demolition derby with your beloved friends -- C.J. Arabia and Mather Zickel...and your beloved, Gregory Babior -- at The MIGHTY Los Angeles County Fair...which is precisely where my fatass is headed.

ALL HAIL THE MALACHI CRUNCH, bitches!

dream jobs!

Just got axed, "What's your Dream Job?": I have two! Tweedy, eccentric professor of European History at some awesome Medieval university located someplace cold, blustery, rainy, and grey...OR, one of those tour girls on the Storybook Land Canal Boats at Disneyland who wear rick-racky lederhosen jumpers and knee socks, and always sound like they have a stuffy nose as they tell you all about the London park where Peter Pan taught Wendy, Michael, and John to fly!

miss vicki

The gorgeous writer, rocker, and raconteur, Miss Vicki Abelson, hosts (quite LITERALLY hosts...as in "in her GOTTDAMNED LIVING ROOM") the hottest monthly literary salon in Los Angeles, and my fatass is lucky enough to have wrangled a highly-prized invite for today's mighty assemblage. I am a HUGE fan of Miss Vicki -- she is one amazing broad -- and she inspires me NO END with her unfailing support of West Coast writers. I am putting on scarlet lipstick, bringing along a huge, heapin' helpin' of my infamous Aztec Salad for treats, and might even pluck my chin beforehand in a feckless attempt to impress her. Fancy!

23

23 Things That Changed My Life: Knitting, Gay Men, Coco Chanel, My Babies, Anne Sexton, What's Up, Doc?, William Butler, The Cedars-Sinai Rheumatology Dept., Fresno, Miss Bonnie Hearn, Valley of the Dolls, Los Angeles, Phyllis Diller, Dogs, 100% Cotton Granny Panties, My sister Jennifer, Baby Wipes, Judy Garland, Breast Reduction Surgery, Madeline Kahn, My One True Love Gregory, Red MAC Lipstick, The Wife of Bath.

truth. the marquis'.

"The assumption that I agreed by mere birth to your so called 'social contract' and to your entire body of ancient and useless laws designed primarily to deform my character and limit the possibilities inherent to my essential being is an obscenity and an absurdity, Sir!" -- Marquis Donatien De Sade 

pose

Did you know that "Yoga" is the Sanskrit word for, "I can smell my own vagina"?

truth. maya's.

"Don't make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you. All the other tangible rewards will come as a result." -- Miss Maya Angelou

zooey kate and katy olsen

Fuck it. I give up. No matter how much or how hard I study, I CANNOT for the life of me tell Zooey Deschanel and Katy Perry apart. Has anybody DNA-tested these bitches? This is a goddamned OUTRAGE.

shitstorm!

If you enjoy TALKING SHIT -- and frankly, if you are one of MY degenerate friends, how on earth could you NOT? -- then you need to get your fine ass on over to Casita del Campo in Silver Lake tomorrow night and buy tickets to see my amazingly talented friends turn themselves inside out for your entertainment (and I mea...n that QUITE LITERALLY) in the one-night-only show, SHITSTORM!

Hear Drag Superstar Miss Jackie Beat, Miss Selene Luna, Mr. Billy Butler, and others tell you their hilarious, humiliating stories of self-defecation, i.e., THE HORRIFYING TIMES THEY EACH SHIT THEIR PANTS IN A PUBLIC PLACE. Miss Beat will be performing some SHITTY songs and there will also be awesome SHIT TALK VIDEOS by the delightful Miss Margaret Cho and Miss Sherry Vine!

As I have always said, FECES IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER...it's what we ALL have in common and it dudn't care if you are rich or poor, black or white, Jewish or Muslim, fat or skinny. When you got a happy crap on deck, my friends, WE ARE ALL THE SAME.

So, pull your thumb outta your butt -- unless it's corkin' the dyke, that is -- and come see the show! There are only a few tickets left! Come early and enjoy a DELICIOUS Mexican meal, some hot SALZA, some cool Don Julio and maybe even create some SHIT STORIES OF YOUR VERY OWN! Oh, and for the love of christ, don't forget your baby wipes!

though she clearly, at some point, ran outta yarn

"Knitting is the saving of life." -- Virginia Woolf

boy

I am blissfully sitting at a salon...watching my gorgeously eccentric, intellectual, 16 year old son, Otis, get his hair cut into a Mohawk. There's not a single, solitary moment of my life that doesn't rock. Even when it gets hard or complicated or painful...it's still lovely beyond words.

truth. MINE.

"Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really." – Agnes Sligh Turnbull

with a fucking bullet

The title of the first #1 single from my new band, "Fatter Than Gladys": Jackie Beat Can't Hold Her Mud."

sip this. bitches

Don't know much about history. Don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much about the French I took. I don't know much, but I DO know this: I'd rather be a Socialist than a Fascist. If given the choice to err on either the side of ineptitude or the side of malfeasance -- I'll take ineptitude EVERY GODDAMNED TIME. And you can pack that in your ass, steep it, and suck it, motherfuckers.

we got the beat

Muffy Bolding Chola Moment of the Day: Today at Target, I actually got into a FULL ON girl skirmish/bitch fisticuff with Miss Jackie Beat...OVER A DRESS WE BOTH WANTED. Shit, Homes...I took off my hoops, put the baby in the stroller, handed my Bud Light to Junior and Lil' Tiger, and proceeded to rechristen that pinche puta as Jackie BeatDOWN. I got a fistful of that bitch's tired weave...and she got the dress. GOOD TRADE.

the bliss that is this

A meaningful little message to all the tiresome, uninteresting misanthropes, pricks, and infernal whiners in the world: "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?" -- The Righteous, Hopeful, and COMPLETELY ON TRACK Oddball, Kelly's Heroes, 1970

skin. mine.

Today, a friend gave me a lovely and most unexpected compliment about the luminosity of my skin -- and asked me to give up my beauty secrets as to how I maintain its peachy, healthy glow. Well, Miss Holly, here is my special, medical-grade, triple-top-secret skincare regime:

1) I wash my face with whatever fucking bar soap happens to be in the shower -- Ivory, Dove, Coast, Trader Joe's honey/oatmeal...whatever. Anything and everything except, of course, Dial...which, as every self-respecting woman knows, gives you The Tuna Rot something fierce.

2) Other than my single tube of red MAC lipstick (literally, the ONLY item of makeup I own or ever buy), I ONLY wear makeup if I am being paid to do so. I fucking LOATHE the feel of it on my skin.

3) I drink as much hot coffee and iced tea as humanly possible, also enjoying the occasional cigarette and tight whack of Thorazine in my ass, as needed.

4) As the light is much better there, I regularly sit out in the car and pluck the hairs from my chinny-chin-chin -- a small price to pay, as far as I am concerned, for the AWESOMENESS that is being of Sicilian criminal trash descent.

5) I am not wholly adverse to taking a well-placed, authoritative load to the face on birthdays, anniversaries, or the Jewish High Holy Days. Shana Tova!

gym de la giove

"I'm too fat to live in a castle." -- In 2009, I breathlessly and shamelessly announced this to an entire room of film colleagues and friends, after walking up a particularly lengthy and steep set of stairs in the STUNNING 900 year old Italian castle of awesome movie producer Charles Band. After just three days of this cold, stone conditioning, I no longer struggled...and my GUNT was visibly smaller.

ALL HAIL, CASTLE GIOVE!

"nobody loves a fat girl, but oh how a fat girl can love"

“From birth to 18, a girl needs good parents. From 18 to 35, she needs good looks. From 35 to 55, good personality. From 55 on, she needs good cash. I'm saving my money.” -- Miss Sophie Tucker (Who was, for the record, one of my most powerful and profound influences and inspirations. Sophie was SOME BROAD.)

crazy from the heat

Last week was blustery, cold, and delightfully grey -- and I was BESIDE MYSELF with glee. I was writing and knitting like a madwoman and reveling in both my element and the earth's eternal promise of the chill, dark days to come. Today, as I sit here watching the temperature inexplicably rise ever closer to the century mark...it is literally making me SUICIDAL. Nature? She is a whore -- but then again, WHO ISN'T AFTER A FEW DRINKS?

truth. mine and davy's.

“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.” -- Dave Barry

(By the way...if you ever want to see my fatass UNLEASH THE FUCKING KRAKEN -- just treat a wait person poorly or with disdain in front of me to make yourself look like a hotshot...and see what fucking happens, my friend. MAMA DON'T PLAY.)

truth. larry's.

"It's only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdry that you can get tenderness." -- Lawrence Durrell

incontrovertible science and stuff

Muffy's Scandalous Science Sunday: According to rigorous experimentation using the Scientific Method, these two facts we know to be empirically and categorically true: 1) One cannot possibly sneeze with one's eyes open...and 2) One cannot possibly floss one's teeth without smelling the floss. Shantih, Shantih, Shantih...and Amen.

se7en

From Miss Jackie Beat: Post 7 completely random, unrelated things that you LOVE!

Here are mine: Roman Centurion Titus Pullo of the MIGHTY XXIV; Noro Japanese yarn; "The Wife of Bath"; the Frito smell of my chihuahuas' paws; the soy sauce smell of my husband's paws; the shimmery, silvery sound of George Harrison's Rickenbacker guitar on the first breathtaking, earthshattering chord of "A Hard Day's Night"; the superlative poetry of Miss Anne Sexton. 

on track

Black Cock Down

shitlist

Yesterday, my friend, Miss Jackie Beat, posted the following query on my wall -- " I need to know, WHO PISSED YOU OFF!?"

Here is my response:

Phyllis Schlafly.

ANYONE, ANYWHERE who harms a child or an animal.

The angry, vengeful god of the Old Testament.

NO-talent meathooks who, without invitation to do so, correct everyone's grammar and punctuation, whilst producing nothing of worth themselves.

Mrs. Kravitz.

My older brother, the undignified miser.

That Bosnian piece of shit who threw those puppies into the river.

Those who attempt to hinder and dissuade others from achieving their dreams because of their own self-loathing, small thinking, and petty jealousies.

The old woman my father was doing a job for who wouldn't let my siblings and I use her bathroom when I was a kid, because we were "brown and dirty."

The heartless prick who got rid of the original FEN-PHEN recipe.

TOT MOM.

Those guinea bastards who shot Sonny on the causeway. Goddamnit, I love me some Sonny.

"and the inquisition's here, and it's here to stay!"

YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS. I already have an inexplicable, scorching case of diarrhea -- and now I unexpectedly start my period, as well? This is a GODDAMNED OUTRAGE, I tell you. Now I know what a torture chamber must smell like.

That is all.

truth. mine.

An open letter to all you ANNOYING Self-Appointed Language Police Pricks out there. Here's my heartfelt message to you: GO FUCK YOURSELF. The language? She is MINE...to do with as I please. I wake up with copies of Strunk and White in my stool, bitches. If you don't like or approve of how I use the language, DON'T READ MY SHIT -- as, trust me, it's not written for someone as pathetic and uninteresting as yourself anyway.

Now, FUCK OFF, LADY.

cold war hookers

I was recently informed that I look like a vintage Cold War Russian spy in my picture with the faux fur coat and ancient black spectacles so, in celebration, I have adopted an appropriate top secret moniker...but SHHHHHH! Don't tell anybody, for chrissake. It's secret.

From now on...call me Muffalinka Squatenkoff, dahlink.

truth -- miss jackie beat's

"At a certain age, everyone finally admits to loving babies, puppies and California." -- Miss Jackie Beat (Goddamn, I LOVE my brilliant friends!)

you gottdamned right they do

This morning as I was taking my son, Otis, to school, I was thinking about how very lucky I am to be married to My One True Love -- which then led to thoughts of what exactly makes a good marriage? Aside from all of the usual criteria we include when compiling a list of what constitutes an exceptional matrimonial match -- i.e., affection, communication, compatibility, kindness, likemindedness, trust, lust, etc. -- it occurred to me that much of what makes a really good marriage can't really be quantified. IT JUST IS.

Driving along seemingly endless verdant boulevards lined with ancient Live Oak trees, this realization made me ponder the people in my life who have the very best marriages, the marriages where, even after years and years together, the two of them still take absolute delight in each other's ideas, company, and accomplishments. Marriages where, even through the most difficult times imaginable, they are still hopelessly devoted to each other and -- most importantly -- THEY STILL HAVE FUN.

And of all the friends I have and have known, I came up with three couples who are also lucky enough to be married to Their One True Loves, and obviously have a damned marvelous time in the process. These kids are examples to the rest of us as to HOW IT'S DONE, BABY.

I stand in utter amazement, admiration, and joy at the longtime, exuberant unions of my friends Bryan Lee and Cathy Lee; Charles Angyal and Yvonne Angyal; and Paul Stolp and Susan Presley. May you all have many lifetimes together, kids -- because, if you're anything like me and my Cute Jew Boy, you realize that there will NEVER be enough time together in just this one. Mazel Tov!

sauron shrugged

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. " -- John Rogers on Kung Fu Monkey