timmy

"Intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac." -- Timothy Leary (SO FLATTERING...because yes, the old bastard DID hardcore hit on me in 1993...back, of course, when I didn't look like Ernest Borgnine.)

high

“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do, and if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor: go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your cds and burn 'em. 'cause you know the musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years...rrrrrrrrreal fuckin' high on drugs.” -- Bill Hicks

izzy

"Most human beings today waste some 25 to 30 years of their lives before they break through the actual and conventional lies which surround them." -- Isadora Duncan

eggplant

In my opinion, the "Sicilian" scene between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken in "True Romance" might just be the greatest 10 minutes ever committed to film and for that, I thank him for his brilliance.

With that said...FUCK DENNIS HOPPER. For me, if you were born a Right Wing fascist and lived your entire life as a Right Wing fascist, then even though I consider you to be OFF TRACK, I'll still give your fatass a pass because you were clearly born unenlightened. This guy, on the other hand, KNEW THE FUCKING TRUTH. When he was an Angry Young Man, he touched it, tasted it, even helped to cook it up and serve it hot to a bold, new generation of Americans who had grown weary of the small-minded thinking of their parents -- and yet HE STILL ENDED UP A GODDAMNED REPUBLICAN MEATHOOK IN THE END. So, in my mind, HE LOSES...FOR ALL TIME.

Requiescat in Pace, Herr Hopper -- AND PUCKER UP BUTTERCUP...

AND KISS MY FAT DEMOCRATIC ASS.

i am

Let me tell you who I am. I am NOT the hot 23 year old with the titties and ass that go POW! whom you take to the party and then go home with afterward and fuck into next week. I AM THE BRASSY, BLASPHEMOUS, BELLY LAUGHING BROAD HOLDING COURT IN THE CORNER WHOM YOU SPEND THE ENTIRE PARTY TALKING TO while ol' T&A hangs out in the kitchen with the girls chatting about bikini waxes and Jimmy Choo shoes. That's who I am.

smoke up, lil' brother!

I am sure if I researched it a bit, I would absolutely discover that this SHAMELESS Fat Armenian Chain Smoking Toddler is somehow related to my fatass.

THIS IS SO MY GODDAMNED FAMILY, I CANNOT EVEN TELL YOU.

nancy

“I refuse to admit that I am more than 52...even if that makes my children illegitimate.” -- Viscountess Nancy Witcher Astor, First woman to sit in the British House of Commons, 1879 - 1964

his penis is less than zero

Bret Easton Ellis can SUCK MY DICK.

git it, punkin!

Absurd Muff Fact #663: While we were shooting a movie in Nashville a few years ago, my best friend, Billy, talked me into doing an exuberant Underpants Chicken Dance to and fro in our room -- TOPLESS...wearing only white granny panties. I did, of course -- ANYTHING for a BELLY LAUGH -- and he filmed it with his phone. Imagine our abject horror when he lost that same phone about an hour later during brekkie at a Pancake Pantry. Trust me, when that video eventually hits YouTube, it'll be epic...EVEN IN HELL.

leave it

Some things just need to be left inside your fucking head. Some things should remain in the past. Some things lose their beauty when brought out into the light for inspection. Some things are the domain of dreams for good reason.

dada

"I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste." -- Marcel Duchamp

vagine

From http://www.formspring.me/muffybolding: "What flavor is your vagina?" Well, first of all, thank you so much for such a thoughtful and intelligent question, Anonymous. My vagina is flavored with the tears, subjugation, oppression, and patriarchal rule of 10,000 years. Oh, no wait...sorry, that was wrong. It's "Green Apple Jolly Rancher."

alton brown...ask me again, i'll knock you down.

The Food Network is like the best goddamned thing on tv, especially that brilliant old queen Alton Brown -- LOVE HIM. He is like a physicist, an historian, a game show host, a master chef, a belly laugher, a favorite uncle, and your best flaming friend ALL ROLLED INTO ONE. The only thing I loathe about TFN is that during the live shows, the audience always CHEERS WILDLY when the chef dumps extra garlic or wine into the recipe -- sort of like stoners react when they look at the clock and realize it's 4:20.

God, I hate that shit.

bloomin' truth

Absurd Muff Fact #772: Come every lovely and fertile Springtime, whenever I happen to saunter past one of the flowering, olfactorially-triggering plant kingdom behemoths that I affectionately refer to as a "Load Tree"...I will actually experience a prom night flashback and AUDIBLY GAG.

generosity of spirit

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." -- Mark Twain

pass

Dude...how come Woody Allen, Pete Townshend, and Roman Polanski get a fucking pass?

...

TUMMY. OFF. TRACK. TODAY. NOT. GOOD. THANK. THE. GODS. FOR. BABYWIPES. AND. CLEMENTINE. AIR-FRESHENER. WHERE. IS. YOUR. GOD. NOW. MOSES?

beyond the pale

Contrary to the Right insisting otherwise, I personally believe that MUCH of this anti-immigration fuss is based in a profound and deeply-entrenched cultural and historical racist ideology. I think that there are racists walking amongst us who quite literally have NO IDEA that they're racist -- because such narrow-minded thought is all they've ever known. To ask them to examine their own white privilege is like asking a carp, "How's the water?" They simply have no idea; THEY ARE FUCKING SWIMMING IN IT.

teach

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.” -- Neil Gaiman

the freshmaker!

Last night, Gregory and I watched one of those Biography Channel profiles of ABBA, and watching it, I realized two things. 1) I LOVE the music of ABBA...and 2) that no matter how much I LOVE the music of ABBA, even at its very best, it STILL sounds like it could be used as the oddly-stilted-in-that-specifically-European-music-sort-of-way background jingle on a goddamned Mentos commercial.

ditto

"I think anyone who's an activist but doesn't own up to their contradictions is not doing anyone a favor." -- Beth Ditto

ruff duty

Haven't these Chinese astro-bastards heard of Space Food Sticks and Tang, goddamnit? Eat fucking raccoon, or hedgehog, or those awful pink-faced monsters, the possums. But for christ's sake -- DON'T EAT THE SWEET BABIES. They're much more valuable as friends than as something to make hearty the motherloving space stew. The size of their loyal and loving hearts FAR outweighs the size of their JUICY HIND LEG.

OFF TRACK.

meat

What's up with Luke Wilson and that inexplicable meatface? His body looks pretty much the same...and yet his face looks like...well, it looks like MINE.

wither

Though it doesn't get nearly the same attention as its grey, Wintery sister, Summer Seasonal Affective Disorder is a right bitch. This time every year, the sun singes my soul and I watch the weather forecast every night with dread and horror. If I see the temp is going to be over 80ish...I can feel the blackness start to creep in around the edges. Sometimes it takes everything I've got to make it to Fall -- and I mean that quite literally.

cut

Oh, CALM DOWN, Mary. Someone needs to step in and tell ol' Cindy Lou Who to SHUT THE FUCK UP about the switchblades, already -- she is humiliating herself even worse than when she performs with that hokey horseshit pre-fab "hardcore punk" band she fronts. Where are this child's parents? Where are the elders wisely guiding her down the very treacherous path on which she finds herself? Who is helping her to distinguish between what is real and what is just a product of THE MACHINE, i.e., YOU AIN'T THE CHARACTER YOU PLAY ON TV, chile? Do we really need a repeat performance of Lindsay Lohan's very tragic and very public death march? Because don't kid yourself, my poppets -- that's exactly what this is:

Chaining the maidens to a rock by the sea.

t&s

The Minotaur

The mahogany table-top you smashed
Had been the broad plank top
Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-
Mapped with the scars of my whole life.

That came under the hammer.
That high stool you swung that day
Demented by my being
Twenty minutes late for baby-minding.

'Marvellous!' I shouted, 'Go on,
Smash it into kindling.
That's the stuff you're keeping out of your poems!'
And later, considered and calmer,

'Get that shoulder under your stanzas
And we'll be away.' Deep in the cave of your ear
The goblin snapped his fingers.
So what had I given him?

The bloody end of the skein
That unravelled your marriage,
Left your children echoing
Like tunnels in a labyrinth.

Left your mother a dead-end,
Brought you to the horned, bellowing
Grave of your risen father
And your own corpse in it.

Ted Hughes

ride 'em, cowgrrl

On my way back from a delicious brekkie with the BRILLIANT Billy Butler this morning, I heard on NPR that a new exhibit is opening at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage here in LA: "Gays and Lesbians in the Old West." I immediately thought to myself, "Ummm...aside from Miss Kitty...I'd be willing to bet that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN in The Old West was a BIG OL' BULLDYKE. After all, what other broads would be BUTCH enough to SURVIVE the fucking Old West? CERTAINLY NOT MY FAT ASS -- and trust me, I'M BUTCH!"

cartman gets an anal probe

Oh, and just a quick note to all those parents out there who refuse to let their kids play video games or watch mainstream tv or eat anything other than jicama on a stick. I got a little secret for you: Your kids are getting their Twinkie fixes, their South Park fixes -- AND THEIR VIOLENT, FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER VIDEO GAME FIXES -- at their friends' houses. Yes...YOUR KID, TOO.

ESPECIALLY YOUR KID.

Congratulations. You've made it all shiny and alluring for them by locking it away.

BELIEVE IT.

petulant

My last word on Courtney Love: I guess I am just done with the sad, pathetic trainwreck and am being selfish and petulant because I want the old Courtney back, goddamnit -- the one who wrote FIERCE, BRILLIANT, INTELLIGENT music and screamed it at us with one leg cocked up on a speaker and one tit hangin' out FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SUCK.

cuppa

I'm getting TONS of work done on a screenplay I'm writing, but I'm also feeling sort of baggied-out and sketchy. I'm going to pour myself one more, but trust me...I need another cup of coffee like Kate Gosselin needs her pussy stretched.

jmv

Lord, this guy was a TOP-SHELF PIECE OF ASS IN HIS DAY. Too bad he's now COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS GODDAMNED MIND -- as well as looking like he got eaten by a wolf and shit directly off a cliff. But, boy...he WAS beautiful, wasn't he?

bitch

"I'm the last bitch standing." -- Courtney Love

oh, sherry!

Vacuous Muff Fact #964: If you were to stop me on the street and ask me to open my bag, inside you would find a copy of my favorite play of all time, "The Man Who Came To Dinner" by George Kaufman and Moss Hart. I played the part of Maggie Cutler in college, and it is a huge inspiration to me writing-wise, as well -- I am never, ever without it. Whenever I am in need of a shove -- or even some breadcrumbs tossed along the path to guide me -- I just open it up and I am HOME.

nonviolence

"Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

broads

We did it with Miss Betty White...and now we need to do it with a woman who is one of the greatest comedic inspirations of my life -- Miss Carol Burnett! As an oddball kid growing up in Fresno, California, I never ever missed her show. Along with Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Gilda Radner, Bea Arthur, and Phyllis Diller, she was one of the performers who taught me that women could ABSOLUTELY be as funny and outrageous as men...and that by being smart and ambitious, we could create our own destinies, as well.

ALL HAIL CAROL BURNETT!

the bags

As many times as I've seen it -- surely somewhere in the hundreds -- I never, ever tire of watching this movie. In fact, it is in my top five favorite movies of all time.

This is the VERY ESSENCE OF ON TRACK.

old friends

Can I tell you just how fucking surreal it was to be thumbing through various youtube music videos...and to suddenly and out of nowhere see my husband, Gregory, as a very young and cute college student, leaning over a studio soundboard enthusiastically discussing recording ideas with an equally young and cute Kurdt Cobain? VERY SURREAL. Their bands often shared the bill at shows all around the Pacific Northwest and one of the songs Gregory produced and recorded for them ("Dive") would later be included on their historic "With The Lights Out" boxed set.

He doesn't talk about it much, but I do know this: He misses his old friend very much and wishes that there had been more time.

Look for them at 1:35.

she said "wood"...

Even now, at age 27, it STILL shocks me that I am not married to Woody from The Bay City Rollers.

a spicy-tongued biatch speaks

Speaking solely as one of the LOW-LIFE, BROWN-SKINNED, COCKROACH, FUCKMACHINE, SOCIAL-CLIMBING BASTARDS getting ready to mount world domination SIMPLY BY MOUNTING EACH OTHER...I've been saying this exact same thing FOR YEARS:

WE ARE GOING TO BREED YOU OUT OF POWER, MY PALE, THIN-LIPPED FRIENDS...AND THAT IS A MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY -- FOR IT IS THE DOOM OF WHITE PEOPLE THAT THEY CANNOT FUCK.

And how do you definitively know if you're white? If you and your family have, at any time, sat your puckered, uptight, Protestant asses around an Ethan Allen Queen Anne dining room table and silently and dispassionately eaten a dinner consisting of pork chops, green beans, applesauce, and white rice with a perfectly square pat of butter on it -- or, if you're related by blood to any child named either Tucker or Madison -- YOU'RE FUCKING WHITE, my friend.

Anyway, I hope y'all like curry, tortillas, wasabi, hummus, and collard greens -- 'cause hot dogs and apple pie are goin' the way of the eight-track, motherfuckers.

Viva la America!

betwixt and bewitched

Nothing makes me happier than a chihuahua in a sling...hanging betwixt my BOSS HOOTERS.

NOTHING.

shine on, you crazy diamond

It's so odd. When you are auditioning actors in Los Angeles, you see lots and lots of really beautiful, talented people -- they're comin' in the goddamned window, for chrissake. But I gotta tell you, it's only every so often that an actor or actress walks through that door who just FILLS THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH THEIR FUCKING PRESENCE. When that happens, it's a breathtaking thing to experience, I assure you.

shine on, you crazy diamond

It's so odd. When you are auditioning film actors in Los Angeles, you see lots and lots of really beautiful, talented people -- they're comin' in the goddamned window, for chrissake. But I gotta tell you, it's only every so often that an actor or actress walks through that door who just FILLS THE ENTIRE ROOM WITH THEIR FUCKING PRESENCE. When that happens, it's a breathtaking thing to experience, I assure you.

beautiful girl

My friend and colleague, the writer Maia Rossini, with whom I worked on the anthology, "Mamaphonic; Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts", is one of those women you meet only every once in awhile who, so naturally and without any effort at all, inspire you to live your life more fully. On top of being a really fine writer (READ HER BLOG -- it'll BOWL YOU OVER), she is also a magnificent hostess (I stayed at her home -- an absolutely stupefying old ruined and restored farmhouse in Upstate New York -- when we were on the book tour for Mamaphonic), a glorious gardner (check out the breathtaking photos on her blog), and she is DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, to boot (ah, the injustice of it all!)

But when you know her, it is very apparent that where she is truly extraordinary is as a mother. Her son, Spike, who I think is 10 now, is one of those little boys you could just sit and talk to all day -- so sweet and funny and kind and smart. And two years ago, Maia and her husband, Ryan, decided to add to their family by adopting a BEAUTIFUL baby girl from China. As Maia recounts, they journeyed to that ancient land to meet their daughter, found the other half of the sky -- and their lives were changed FOREVER.

(On a selfish note, I do hope Maia plans on writing a book about this journey they are all taking together, as I am first in line to buy it.)

Anyway, that little baby is now a most lovely and LUMINOUS preschooler...and she is known by her Chinese name, Fang Fang (which, if I am not mistaken, is pronounced "Fong Fong"...though I must say I do LOVE the idea of a little girl running around with the name Fang Fang, pronounced the good ol' fashioned American way. HA!) FF is like a little blossom, burgeoning with life and love and beauty -- all with a little help, of course, from her amazing Mama, Daddy, and brother.

I originally saw this remarkable video a few weeks ago -- taken during the family's first few hours together there in China -- and almost not a day has gone by since that I have not pulled it up just to silently watch and listen. It is honestly one of my most favorite moments that I've ever had the privilege to witness. Be forewarned: it will take your breath away with its profound, quiet beauty. Thanks for sharing it with us all, Miss Maia.

In Maia's own words:

"Two years ago today we met FF for the first time in an office in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

She cried for about fifteen seconds, then quieted down and became the silent, watchful girl she would be for the next 24 hours or so.

Except, for this miraculous moment, when I started singing to her - a Chinese lullaby called "Ibiyaya". The minute I started singing, her head snapped up, she grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes, and started rocking in time. It was an incredible moment of connection. The first of so many we'd have."

Beautiful Girl.

candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker

So, recently I showed up at Mather Zickel's 40th birthday party at the historic and infamous Sportsmen's Lodge...wearing a black dress, black bob, black shoes, black sunglasses, and red lipstick -- and, immediately upon my arrival, the birthday boy sauntered over with a glass of fine scotch to tell me that, standing there in the bright sunshine, I looked like I had just stepped out of a Fellini film.

Goddamnit, I love me some Mather Zickel.

court

"[I am really good in bed] because I was never pretty. Pretty girls just lie there. Us girls who grew up a little more homely have to try a lot harder. That's why pretty girls never threaten me -- it's like, yeah, you want to take me on? Take me on. Go for it." -- Courtney Love, explaining why she is such a TREMENDOUS WORLD CLASS FUCKMACHINE

so unbelievably awesome

Listen to what I am saying to you now. Put down the Xanax, the crucifix, the straight razor, the bullwhip, the Botox, the Don Julio, the Crisco, the tit-clamps, the Jumbo's Clown Room frequent flyer card, and the latest issue of Trannie Hands Weekly...and take just five minutes out of your busy schedule of whining and sniveling about your miserable goddamned existence and READ THIS STORY. This may just be one of the greatest things I have ever read IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.

THIS IS HOW YOU FUCKING DO IT, my friends.

truth

Okay, and now that I have paid proper respect to the recent story of the tragic stabbing at the Target in West Hollywood...now it's time for me to keep it real and admit my FIRST ACTUAL THOUGHT after I got the news that everyone involved was going to be alright.

All I could envision was this crazy, Liv Tyler-lookin' bitch running through housewares and small appliances, stabbing complete strangers with a cheap, store-brand paring knife...and with each slash, screaming, "CLEAN-UP ON AISLE 7!"..."CLEAN-UP ON AISLE 22!"..."CLEAN-UP ON AISLE 12!"

Yes, yes, I know. I'm going to Hell. God, I hope they have Taco Bell there.

target

Two days ago, a dangerously imbalanced woman lost her fucking mind and began stabbing people with a cheap kitchen knife at the West Hollywood Target store. She managed to slash a total of four random strangers before being subdued by an off-duty LA police officer with a gun in his holster, a soft pretzel in his hand, and a jumbo pack of Huggies tucked under his arm.

Everybody survived, thank the Blessed Virgin...but I just saw this picture of the suspect, Layla Trawick...and I'll be goddamned if, with a little Coast soap, a bush-trim, and a blow-out...this couldn't be Liv Tyler.

Let me tell you something, my friends...only in LA do even the most psychotic homicidal maniacs look remarkably like Tolkien Elven nobility...with pillowy lips and the sexiest goddamned overbite you ever saw in your life.

God, I love this city.

nyc

"New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city." -- Patti Smith, when asked if it was possible for young artists to come to the city and find the path to stardom that she did.

you got it, chief

Muff Fact #1712: The iconic crying Indian Chief in those "Keep America Beautiful" PSA's from our youth was named Iron Eyes Cody...and not only was he NOT Native American -- he was Sicilian. His real name was Espera de Corti AND HE WAS MY GREAT UNCLE -- a fact that did NOT keep me from belly crying every single time I saw it. And I'll be goddamned if it didn't work: I am a militant NON-litterer and am mightily disdainful of anybody who isn't.

tres fierce bitches

Our friends -- the absolutely BRILLIANT Jackie Beat, Selene Luna, and Nadya Ginsburg -- made a satricial and hilarious spoof, inspired by "The Corn Refiners Association" propaganda commercials, which just got a mention in the New York Times! You don't know ON TRACK 'til you've hung with THESE FIERCE BITCHES, my friends. Hurray!

shut up and fuck

"I really, really want to make love in a wheat field."

By the way -- just for the record -- if anyone earnestly uses the phrase, "make love" in my presence...that's a GODDAMNED DEAL BREAKER, my friends. Mama don't play that shit. You either FUCK...or you DON'T FUCK.

That is all.

merwin

Merwin is one of the greatest delights, inspirations, rapturous loves of my life. He is my last living link to all that was. When he is gone...I shall be inconsolable.


For the Anniversary of My Death

by W. S. Merwin

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

pork

Wait a minute...I just realized something very vital to my Kevin Bacon/Pigface thesis: The KING of All Pigfaces...bears the surname of "Bacon". Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

get it, girl

Happy Birthday to my HILARIOUS, DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS little sister, Julia, who would have been 38 today but chose, instead, to depart for regions beyond. Someday, when we are all together again -- probably in some place VERY VERY warm -- you can tell us why...and we can kick you right in the fucking taco, with what will undoubtedly be hooves, for ever leaving us. WE LOVE YOU and MISS YOU, JULES! Save me a seat by Oscar Wilde!