Ephemerist

So, this is a thing on the internet now: cats on treadmills. Be amused for the requisite amount of time until the next something on the internet comes along. (Geese on surfboards? Has that happened yet?)

So, the trailer for the new X-Files movie, subtitled I Want to Believe, is up on YouTube and…yay? I thought I’d be more excited but I’m not, which is odd, considering X-Files was as much a part of my college experience as the ever-present bong on the coffee table. My friends and I would gather each week at someone or another’s apartment to watch a new episode when it aired. If anyone had missed the previous week, inevitably two or three people would supply a very animated, overlapping recap, after which we’d settle in and watch the episode in near silence. Following, there was typically vigorous debate as to the meaning and its place in the overall mythology of the series. (Was anyone ever so young as to live in a world without Tivo or iTunes or watching online? To actually pencil in an evening of television watching? I’m here to tell you someone was.)

But with all sorts of zeitgeisty cultural phenomenon, there was a gradual waning of attention. The thing could not sustain the interest, or the interest could not measure up to the weight of the thing. Either way. The first X-Files movie came out, I graduated, the liquid metal cyborg from Terminator 2 became a regular, and the series finally bowed out sometime after the millennium. (This chronology might be suspect.)

Our current reality seems much more shadowy and rife with lies and manipulations that anything cooked up by Chris Carter, and yet in a way more clearly black and white — though not in the way that is spun out by pols and pundits and think tanks.

Will I see the film? Out of curiosity? Probably. Do I want to believe? I’m not entirely sure I care to.

In which, yet again, I discuss poo. Add my fascination to the growing list of things to discuss with my (hypothetical) therapist.

Related:  these posts.

“I am a legend. I want to take drugs.”

Spinner [via Goldenfiddlr]

Off the grid. Will be back soon.

Memoirist Josh Kilmer-Purcell has always been coy as to the identity of his longtime boyfriend, who he only referred to in various missives as “B.” Now, the elusive “B.” has been outed, by the author himself. Not that it was much of a secret, as Kilmer-Purcell readily admits his hilarious/harrowing drag queen-meets-meth-tweaker-memoir I Am Not Myself These Days was dedicated to him, the “B.” being Brent.

J K-P writes in an email and on a MySpace bulletin, “Brent and I met in 2000, shortly after the demise of Aqua. Which was good, because he’s deathly afraid of drag queens in the same way that some people are afraid of clowns. At the time I was deathly afraid of dying as a result of my inability to control myself. So at least we had deathly fear in common.”

But why the outing now? And what the eff does Martha Stewart have to do with it? Well, besides the fact that Kilmer-Purcell has a new book coming out, a work of fiction this time, entitled Candy Everybody Wants, the Reader’s Digest version is that “B.”, er, Brent was working on fundraising for Mt. Sinai’s geriatric clinic, wrote the domestic doyenne a letter, and flash forward to now where now he works, as the author states, “with Martha full time, heading up her Health & Wellness Division across her magazines, television shows, and radio. Some of you may already know him. He’s been ‘Dr. Brent’ on Martha’s daytime talk show for a couple of years, as well host of ‘Ask Dr. Brent’ on Martha’s Sirius Satellite Radio channel.” Aw. Fun. And! The goats that they raise on their farm (ugh! jealous!) just made a guest appearance on the Martha Stewart Show, as the milk from their goats is being used to make soap. Hmmm. Charmed life.

(As it is abundantly clear now that there is no chance of me making Kilmer-Purcell my “gay homosexual lover,” — and I was even willing to overlook his friendship with fabulist James Frey — I suppose I must attempt to vie with Choire for the affections of Neil Patrick Harris.)

Anyway! Full text of the missive (with photos) from Josh Kilmer-Purcell after the jump.

(more…)

The Old 97’s recently played on Leno in anticipation of their forthcoming album Blame It On Gravity. But, you must be asking yourself, WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND THE ALBUM? Ha, luckily there is this hagiographic YouTube promo clip to answer that very question. And the answer is…it’s another album. That they wanted to write. Or something. Whatever! I need no excuse to moon over preternaturally attractive, floppy-haired frontman Rhett Miller’s visage.

Sweet puckering pie holes! The odd, clandestine rites of the Grand Old Party continue to amaze. In between chatting up underage pages online and toe-tapping in public toilets, it seems like some of those hoary perverts like to gather (sans ladies cuz they ruin all the fun!) for a yearly celebration in which they fry up some lamb’s testicles. BALLS! In order to eat them! Because, it is said, they possess “unusual medicinal qualities.” (Pray they aren’t some sort of natural Viagra.)

The whys and the wherefores of this annual fete are beside the point, suffice it to say that the only reason this made it into print is that White House counsel Fred Fielding choked — though apparently on some other part of the lamb and not the aforementioned delicacy! So they claim! — and got double-teamed on the Heimlich maneuver by operatives from the failed presidential campaigns of Messrs. Romney and Huckabee. There to witness the heroic groping were Dark Lord Cheney and Sen. Ted “the internet is a series of tubes” Stevens. (Whether Fielding was actually choking or it was some elaborate game of grab-ass they play every year in order to lure each other into a bear hug and grunt, like horny prison inmates, is best not pondered.) [WaPo via Maddow]