weak nights

Can your baby stare down the sun?

Lord Ra incarnate, we solute thee!  Happy Father's Day

Super Tuesday, Okay Roommates

I can’t tell you how to vote, but I can tell you this: I have, at one time, shared an apartment with each of the four presidential-nominee candidates.

I’m as shocked as you are- four of my past roommates are all running for President at the same time. I didn’t even realize this was the case until yesterday evening. I was arguing with a passerby about my problems, when my roommate called me into the living room.

“Hey, Lily, didn’t you used to live with that guy?” and pointed at the televised Republican debates.

“Yeah, which one do you mean specifically?” I said.

Twenty minutes of pleading later, Rosario convinced me it was my civic duty to make public knowledge my roommate experiences with the candidates.  So here are some impressions made on me by Hills, Mitt, Micky-K and ‘Bama as roommates…you draw what conclusions you will.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (Gayley 3456, 3 bdrm @ $780)

Hillary wasn’t on the lease. She wasn’t supposed to live with us. One of my roommates, Marjorie, announced a friend was having man problems and needed to crash at our place for a weekend. I assumed she would hole up in Marjorie’s room, but I ran into her putting sheets on the couch.

“She’s sleeping on our couch?” I asked Marjorie, and before she could answer, a medium sized woman with frosted tips strode into the room wearing navy blue pumps holding a giant empty bag of pretzel rods.

“Oh, Lily, this is Hillary.  Hillary, this is Lily.”

Hillary just smiled, popped the bag fully open, tilted her head back, and funneled the remaining loose salt and crumbs down her gullet with a rushing sound like a rain-stick.

I'll say this for HRC, even when I made it to my early classes; the couch was empty in the morning-- she got up every day at 5 a.m. for barefoot yoga on the roof of the apartment building. She never left dishes in the sink.

One time though, I was getting ready for a big date (3 month anniversary diner) so I was taking a little long in the bathroom. I’m at the sink straightening my hair, when I hear Hillary outside the door, she knocks and yells, “Someone in there?”

“Yeah, me. Occupied!”

“I’m kind of in a hurry. Are you going to be much longer?”

“Yeah, sorry. Can you use Marjorie’s bathroom?”

“Look, are you even showering? I don’t hear water running. I need to use the shower.”

“Can’t you just, uh, use Marjorie’s?” Silence.

Then, I heard a rustling sound. I look at the bottom of the door. A small hand mirror was being slid between the bottom of the door and the floor. I didn’t know what to do at first, and then I took the robe hanging on the door and dropped it onto the mirror. I could hear someone breathing behind the door.

“Hillary?” I called. “Did you just slide a mirror under the door?”

Silence.

I heard someone get up with difficulty-- like she was trying to get up really slowly without making the hardwood floor squeak, and then I hear a little cry and a heavy thud against the door, and the sound of her scrambling to get back up, like she had fallen over. Then, I heard footsteps running down the hall. She was gone the next week-- making our shared time together about two months.

JOHN MCCAIN (8807 Western, 2 bdrm @ $995)

 

I answered John’s Craigslist ad the year after I’d graduated and was working a shitty PA job in Hollywood. I later realized I had meant to respond to the ad above his. I went back and read the ad after I’d agreed to move in with him, so I still remember it pretty much word for word:

WE ARE CHRISTMAS NOW

Please enjoy, as our Christmas Gift to you, this holiday album.

Five brand new holiday traxz performed and produced by the gang here at Weak Nights.

You can burn these mp3s onto a disk and print out the album art or simply upload them to your playlist.

Have a happy and safe holiday and from the gang at Weak Nights: Oh-Eight? Oh Great!

Clownin' Around!

Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and if there's one thing I'm grateful for, its a smile!

Before I got involved in freelance clownery, I was in the career doldrums. I was depressed with my job as a grievance counselor for the middle schools, and the women's state penitentiary had rejected my application to work on their security team twice. What could I do, go back to LATTC? However, after discussing my problems with coworkers, I realized I had a gift-- I could make people laugh!

That's when I decided I was willing  to take a chance-- on me. I would bet on me! I would be the smallest greyhound at the track, and the man in the tattered sports coat waving his arm yelling "RUN, shit!! SHIT!!! RUN!!!!"--at the same time.

I quit my job with no savings and moved back into my sister-in-law's basement. I pounced on the after-Halloween sales and got a great clown costume and make up. I stayed late at McDonald's sketching and working out complex equations on napkins.

Then I put the ad on Craigslist-- $12 an hour, any party, all the laughs you can handle!

Since that day, I've been putting away $486 a week on average with engagements!

A Letter From Your Patroness

Good morning honey, There’s a fish fry going on at the Hammond’s this afternoon but this morning let me sit peacefully among the honeysuckle on the porch and think about you- about your hopes, your dreams, and how hard you worked in school. Lord, child, I have believed in you lo those four years. I, a perfect stranger, an affluent and genteel southern woman, took one look at your credit rating and parent’s signatures and thought “Here is a young soul who craves to learn, and craves to earn.” And I reached into my heart and pulled out a checque to the tune of 10,000 dollars for you.

My, but how I’m sure you did work in school! Lord help me, I don’t have the same head for books and quizzing that the young ones do these days. When I was in school I learned the three Rs and the gentle art of keeping a home for my husband and children. You took on transgender women studies with a concentration on the Brazil Rio Festival and its socioeconomic impact on advertising in America. I can only imagine the high powered job you have netted with such tools under your belt and what incredible wheelings and dealings you’ve got your hands in these days. That is why I am so shocked and down-right perplexed that once again your repayment to me is delinquent by 23 days.

Tips for Dating and Escaping

Jaimah Leigh James (at board)
Head of Domestic Abuse Recovery Facility
#5601 Figueroa St. Los Angeles

Men! Men, men, men! It seems everywhere you go they are walking around, driving down the streets, ringing up your purchases, or running for political office.
Fact is, most women want one or the other thing out of a man: to give him all their loving, or to get out of his basement with all of their fingers.
I have talked my throat hoarse trying to explain the intricacies of the male psyche to one too many jelly-soft domestic abuse victims. I'm not going to repeat myself anymores! Here's a reference you can print out and consult: my last word on the how's and who's of dating, and escaping, men.

New Pants, New Perspective

I bought some pants at a local surf shop the other day. I am talking out-of-someone's-garage kind of local. While I was getting rung up ($24) I noticed a bunch of old beaten up skateboard decks up on the wall, about four of them almost at the ceiling. They were exceptionally scratched up and one had broken in half. I asked the guy about it, he seemed like a very very happy young man just a-selling some surf stuff. "Oh, the kids in the neighborhood turn those in." he said smiling.

"What a great idea!" I beamed back at him.

I was back a couple of hours later with a pair of shoes of mine. The bottoms were incredibly worn and a small hole was eroding in the toe-al area.

"Check it out." I said. "These are for your wall."

He looked perplexed. "Well, gee, thanks I guess," he said "but I don't know if a pair of moccasins that are all worn out really has the same impact as skateboards. Maybe if they were skateboarding shoes but even then--"

"Thank you for being upfront with me." I said. I left the shop and ran home.

I was back moments later. I pulled an old pair of underwear out of my pocket.

"This crotch is WORE OUT," I said.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Southern Fried Chicken

Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar Winning Actress, has come up with a unique blend of 15 Creole Secret Spices to make the crispiest, juiciest, most flavorful fried chicken you've ever tasted!

Don't know what to do for dinner? Why not bring home a bucket of smiles? With the down-home flavors of 15 Creole Secret Spices in every juicy mouthful of tender Southern-Fried Chicken, it’s a real-deal meal-deal- Gwyneth Paltrow Style! 

"It was Sir Anthony Hopkins who inspired me to make my Southern-Fried Chicken available for you and your family to enjoy." Gwyneth Paltrow sez. "During filming of 'Proof', I chanced upon Sir Anthony in a stairwell bent over a bucket of KFC. I demanded to know what was going on and he handed me a wing-piece. I took one bite and said to him, 'Tony, I have had yeast infections that tasted better than this chicken.'" 

That’s when Gwyneth Paltrow started sumpin' in the kizzen with her Godmother Zaya, whose down-home Creole recipes had been Paltrow family favorites since Gwyneth was a little girl. 

Ask Gwyneth, she'll tell ya :"Zaya practically raised me! I grew up in the kitchen with her, surrounded by stewing potions and ancient story-songs. Up until I was about seven, I was a toddling tow-head that spoke a pidgin mix of Creole and Monimbo." 

It was wise Zaya who passed onto Gwyneth the blend of 15 Creole Secret Spices -and now she is offering a taste of authentic Southern-fried chicken at a real value for families! Gwyneth Paltrow's Southern-Fried Chicken comes in buckets of eight, twelve,  or sixteen pieces- with your choice of Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits or Cornbread Wedge and two sides. Or have a downright barbecue with a Paltrow Party Pack- a superbucket of 24 pieces of her mouth-watering crispy chicken, four large sides and a two-liter bottle of soda- all for just 19.99 ! 

Gwyneth Paltrow Southern-Fried Chicken- "Cay Caribo!"

Now What Do I Do With All These Baby Chicks?

Easter was a blast, don't get me wrong, but Now What Do I Do With All These Baby Chicks!" That’s what many of us have found ourselves screaming, tufts of hair in hand, from the middle of our backyard or living rooms this last week. It seemed like the most festive touch. And they were so delightful nestling through Easter baskets and hard-to-reach tickle spots Sunday last. But now what do I do with all these Baby chicks? I don't know what they eat, I've already sat on two of them, and their beady eyes are empty and cruel. A house full of chickens is not tolerated in even the shabbiest ghetto. And baby chicks are on their way to becoming chickens twenty four hours out of three hundred and sixty fi' days a year!

Believe it or not, you are not the first person faced with this dilemma. In fact, this probably isn't your first time dealing with this same exact problem (remember last year?) and there's a whole big wide world just waiting to absorb your extra chick run off. IF YOU ACT FAST!

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