Archive for December, 2008
Monday, December 29th, 2008
My mom has two dogs, two cats, and one teenager, so throwing my little puppy into the mix over Christmas basically turned the house into a farm. There were animals everywhere. Hair and pee and blood and drool all over the damn place. It was like living with Paula Abdul! I kid, I kid. She’s going to see this and then I’m going to be at a party with her and she’s going to throw her drink at me. But I won’t even get wet because it will actually be a martini glass filled with pills.
Anyway, Merry Christmas! Christian and I flew to my mom’s house in Ohio first, for the few days before Christmas. We got to see my whole extended family, my first time in three years seeing everyone. Then we flew on Christmas morning to Maryland to spend a few days with his family. We had a great vacation away from New York and work-life. Lots of eating, watching TV, driving cars, relaxing. I barely even checked my e-mail for a week!
Why do I lie awake at night regretting the most pointless things? I stare at the ceiling wishing I hadn’t gotten up in front of my fifth grade class to play keyboard with Sean Swift and forgotten all the words to “Particle Man.” I don’t regret fighting with people or not going on a trip or buying this thing over that thing; the things that nag me night after night are always the things that only I remember. Giving away something that wasn’t mine in kindergarten because I was mad at the owner. Not accepting a friend request from someone I later realized I did actually know. Blurting to some A-list star “you must be beautiful” as if that made any kind of sense. Why can’t I regret a one night stand like normal people?
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
I’ve done a few photo shoots with friends in the last few months that I haven’t gotten around to looking through until now because they happened in busy weeks. I just re-found them and gave them some attention, so now here are Marta and Devin:
Devin is a friend of mine who started off as a friend of a friend. I can’t really say anything personal about him because of his job (it’s important)… every little story or factoid about him that I think of to write involves his job or some other identity-revealing bit of info, which he is understandingly a bit paranoid about having online next to shirtless photos of himself. So this is Devin, that’s all.
Marta Abrams (along with Elise) is a co-founder of Moody Mamas, the maternity clothing company for which Christian designed a guest line this year. They are old friends of his and new friends of mine, and we love them to bits. Marta was nervous about her shoot, but she looks so good; she’s classic and comes across looking like she’s lived her life as a painter’s subject.
The puppy has taken to peeing on people. First he got excited and peed down the front of Sam, then he was lying on my stomach watching TV, stood up, looked me right in the eye and peed on my chest. I had to tell him I wasn’t into that and put him in his little bed-cave while I hopped into the shower. We’re remaining pretty calm about it, just sort of… as soon as he does it we put him away and ignore him. No yelling or getting angry, just taking away our attention, and then after a while when he goes to the bathroom on his little wee-wee pads we congratulate him and take him back out. That’s the way to do it, right?
Friday, December 19th, 2008
All right. I am about to take step one. Step one is admitting you have a problem. I am admitting now that I have a problem… with Xena: Warrior Princess. Thanks to Netflix instant watch I have 130+ episodes of Xena in the queue and ready to pull up at any time with the click of a remote. Christian got me started and at first I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Gabrielle is horrible. Lucy Lawless is kinda good but… come on. A guy asks her “you… embroider?” and Xena answers “I have many skills.” And now? I can sit there and watch ten episodes in a row. They are hour-long. I’m deeply invested in Xena’s welfare, and whether or not Gabrielle gets into Bard school. I wonder why they didn’t eat the ambrosia and become gods. Every episode they find forbidden true love with different men. How did they get the rights to randomly – and oddly artistically – show so much of Spartacus in what was basically a clip show? I am addicted. I’m not going to try and quit; I’m just letting you all know I’m hooked. But just wait for the withdrawal when I get to the end…
Alana came over to see the puppy last night, and we took some pictures. She hadn’t seen Topper before and now like everyone else she is in love! It’s hard not to fall in love with the little guy. He’s teeny tiny and his paws are still baby paws so he slips and slides on the polished stone floor.
Next week is going to be a lot. I have a couple of shoots to do, including an actor I like for an upcoming OK! magazine “Hunk of the Week” feature, and then Christian and I are going both to Ohio and Maryland for our respective family Christmases. We’re flying on Christmas day, even. Yesterday I shipped all my mom and brother’s Christmas presents home… can’t wait for the day they open everything!
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
Tara from Support Shirts let me know today that their web store just got in a bunch of new stock of a new style of the “I Support Same Sex Marriage” shirt (previously mentioned here), and that she’s giving us a 15% discount on any order placed before Dec. 31! Use the code SUPPORT08 at checkout.
I added a “mobile uploads” section to the sidebar on the left, so I can send pictures from my phone directly to this website via my new Flickr account. I maybe be literally the last person on the planet to have a Flickr. I think there are tribes of uninterrupted primitive people in the Amazon rainforest who had Flickr accounts before I did. So far I’ve uploaded some backstage shots from the Today show and some stuff around the house – the puppy, Christian, a Karl Lagerfelt finger puppet that Victorya Hong brought over last night (a gift from Jack Mackenroth) – and now when we go to these big events I can snap a photo of Lohan or Richard Simmons on the red carpet next to us and upload it right away. Because patience in America in 2008 is now a cute antique notion.
My remix of Britney’s “Womanizer” has now officially been downloaded over a million times from my server.
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
Lady GaGa wore a specially-designed outfit by Christian on the Today show yesterday for her appearance with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. She taught them some of her moves to “Just Dance” and we were there on set to watch, and to giggle as quietly as possible at the absurdity of this happening at eight in the morning when GaGa just woke up. At the Z100 gifting suite last week she was wearing her stage outfit (she was opening the show and about to perform) with the big white crystals on the shoulder and I got p-p-p-poked in the face during the double cheek kiss. Luckily this time the greeting was stab-free.
We did some photos in the outfit and backstage in the makeup area, and upstairs on set with the fourth hour ladies. GaGa is really funny, we were basically all just laughing for two hours. She needs to add a stand-up routine to her live shows! And we met her super sweet mother, who was backstage and hanging out with us just off camera during the filming. I always like meeting moms, it’s really interesting to see where people come from.
While we were milling around in the lobby for a while, we looked up and standing right there waiting for his cue was Tom Cruise. Apparently yesterday was his first time back at the Today show since the whole Matt Lauer “glib” thing a couple years ago. We ended up in his dressing room for a minute and his entourage of friends and handlers were like a style army; a big group of people all intensely focusing on what he looked like and then what he was saying on the monitors while filming. We didn’t talk to him because… well, what do we have to say to Tom Cruise? At least with Madonna I had hair to discuss. “Hi Tom, you’re pretty famous, huh? How about that time you made Brooke Shields sad?” Better just to watch.
Monday, December 15th, 2008
I’ve known Leigh Lezark for a few years; I met her first through Trent or Sarah when Misshapes still occurred at Luke & Leroy, and before Madonna came in and helped turn the party into a worldwide cultural obsession instead of just a New York phenomenon. When I first met her, the web and NY gossip columns were abuzz about what a cold bitch they imagined she was, so I was pleasantly surprised back then when right away she was super nice and fun to hang around with.
Leigh’s always been gorgeous and sought after by fashion media and designers alike, but ever since she signed with IMG she’s been doing crazy photo shoots and magazine covers around the world with the most amazing photographers. Christian and I wanted to include her in his book, so we did a little shoot yesterday at home and managed to get some amazing stuff considering how limited my equipment was (I’m waiting for some new bulbs to arrive).
In addition to my last post of a photo of our Christmas tree here in Brooklyn, here’s an IM conversation particularly representative of my family, which I had with my mom about her own Christmas decorations back in Ohio:
MOM: [My little brother] Rob’s playing with the nativity scene, laughing and saying in a sick voice “dead baby Jesus.”
MOM: The three kneeling kings are about to be executed.
BRAD: You have a nativity scene?
MOM: Todd’s mom gave it to me. Precious Moments.
MOM: I have it up here on my ledge in the hall with a bunch of gold Buddhas.
MOM: “Baby Jesus is about to kill Charlie’s Angels”
MOM: I have to go watch.
Click through to see a video that Christian and I made this weekend. It’s pretty awesome… (more…)
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
Thursday, December 11th, 2008
Urban Outfitters sent a response statement to New York Magazine after they picked up my piece about Tara Littman’s “I Support Gay Marriage” shirt being abruptly pulled from store shelves the week of Prop 8. Their statement is a poor lie, easily refuted. Important updates made to the end of my original post, here. Please go read!
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
This weekend Christian and I were the special guest chefs at 24 Prince, the restaurant of Top Chef’s Nikki Cascone and Brad Grossman. Nikki is a good friend and we love her restaurant, so when she asked us to come host one of her awesome Sunday pizza nights, we were there!
We arrived before dinnertime to design our special pizzas – Christian’s was a macaroni & cheese pizza with gouda, carmelized onions, and pancetta; and mine was a barbecue pizza topped with ricotta, sausage, scallions, and pecorino – and then we got to just hang out and eat with our friends upstairs. Matt Dallas from Kyle XY and his mom came, and sat with us all to try the pizzas. If Nikki is to be believed, Christian and I sold an exactly equal proportion of our respective pizzas, but… you know… I’m sure I was the winner. She probably just didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
Two more quick things. First, at the music section of this website, there are now download links next to my remixes, so you can click through and download them for free. Lots of people ask me how to get them. Well, that’s how! Second, I just activated this new LG Lotus phone that they gave me a while back, since my HTC Touch (which runs Windows and, accordingly, has all kinds of problems including freezing) started to get really annoying. So far I really love the Lotus. I definitely recommend it; you can do pretty much everything I did on my old phone (which was sort of a first generation Sprint ripoff of the iPhone), except it doesn’t have a touch-screen. Which I don’t miss, actually.
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
I could write a whole essay about this, but it’s hard to want to think about it for more than a minute: among the disgusting things that ignorant people say nonchalantly about gay people as a whole, we can now add them likening us to animals at the zoo. It hasn’t been long enough to forget “separate but equal,” treatment as second-class citizens, and perception of a group of people as animals are the injustices that sparked the black Civil Rights Movement. It happened in my mother’s lifetime, and she’s not old.
