How to Prank a Telemarketer

Ever get a telemarketer phonecall and wish that you could turn the tables?

Please please please check out http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com - this is some seriously hilarious shit. I have played it over and over and have been laughing my ass off.

Just go. Hurry.

And take notes.

Citibank Cutting Jobs to Appease Shareholders?

WTF?

The irony is that I read this article after a half-hour on the phone with a Citibank customer service rep who didn't seem to realize that there were Citibank branches in New York City. Nor could she explain why my replacement card for the one that's about to expire wasn't sent out...and the word VAPID doesn't really quite capture her essence...

But I digress.

The fact is that according to the above mentioned article, it appears that Citigroup, Inc., is considering cutting about 15,000 jobs - and most of them from the customer service sector...and it's to appease shareholders of the company who are bitching that the company isn't making enough money and so their stocks aren't as groovy as they'd like.

My experience today with their customer service, as with a lot of theirs, actually, is that if they start cutting THAT part of it, they're going to screw themselves royally, because that part is already suffering. I like my bank. My parents have been banking with Citibank ever since I was wee, and it makes sense that I bank there. I dig it, for the most part (trust - I've used several different ones, and so many of them SUCK).

But what gets me is that they're talking about just cutting jobs like it's no big deal. A bunch of shareholders sit around like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland shouting "Off wiff der 'eads!" and nobody bats an eye. And this happens all the time in Corporate America.

Of course, I'm writing this from the my desk at a Corporate America job...so I best be off before my head rolls downhill as well.

DJ Colleen Crumbcake In The Village Voice

How exciting! A pal of mine, DJ Colleen, a.k.a. Matilda Von Crumbcake, from East Village Radio was recently written up in The Village Voice.

Congrats to DJ Colleen - she's a great gal with an amazing taste in music...who has turned me on to all kinds of stuff. Check out her blog, Sugartown, and check out her radio show on East Village Radio - Sandy Acres Sound Lab with Colleen Crumbcake, Saturday mornings from 10am-12pm.

Dennis Driscoll: Inwood Stories

A new acquaintance of mine that I met at WritersCafe.org, Dennis Driscoll, is the co-owner of one of my favorite restaurants, The Old Devil Moon in NYC, over on 12th in the East Village. He is also an amazing writer and has a new CD of stories told over amazing music, Inwood Stories which talks about what it was like growing up in Inwood as a youth who dealt with drugs, local perverts, friends& family, and the neighborhood.

At his website, above, you can buy the CD for a mere $10, and really be entertained. Driscoll's Inwood/Upper Manhattan dialect depicts tales that include incredibly vivid characters that are made all the more fascinating by the hypnotic tunes by Mark Suall and Robbie Mangano. The second story, What a Difference a Day Makes about when, as a youth, he OD'd on heroin, one might say is reminiscent of Trainspotting, except that this is coming from a New Yorker's point of view, in a different time - and goes into description of how his friends struggled to revive their friend even though they were nearly at the same point themselves.

Please check him out - as a person and a writer, he's fascinating.

I've also been meaning to write a blurb about Old Devil Moon for a while on here, so that's going to be my next task...

(for those of you who remember when I got Daddy his cake for his 75th birthday from Masturbakers, that bakery also works out of the Old Devil Moon Restaurant)

Bryony Gordon 's Golden Arches

I read a post at the U.K.'s Telegraph today that had me in stitches. Bryony Gordon wrote a post about Prince Charles attacking the McDonald's food chain and how ridiculous it is that people blame McDonald's for the rise in unhealthy overweight people in the world - not the people themselves for walking in and asking for a Supersize, or for parents who teach their children that eating fries with every meal is a norm - not an occasional treat.

I didn't agree with everything in her post - for example, I think it's cool that Mickey D's has added a few healthy things to the menu, but I can understand her point of view when she says:

"...It shouldn't even be encouraged to sell healthy food. Who goes to the golden arches to eat salad? You go there to eat fat when you're feeling a bit indulgent, but I don't know anybody who eats there more than once a month, and if they did, would it be the fault of McDonald's?..."

Hell, I suppose I can even agree with that a little... It IS the kingdom of indulgence...

What is really a hoot are the comments from angry people who complain that she "has the audacity" to write something like that about Prince Charles...or that she is condoning unhealthy eating (she starts off talking about how yummy Mickey D's is).

I think that her point is simply this: that by simply suggesting that we remove fast-food restaurants we won't get rid of the problem. We'll simply be removing people's right to indulge when they want to. People have to take responsibility for their own actions and quit blaming others for the reasons why they are 400 pounds...

Sure, I'd like to blame the awesome Polish bakery around the corner from my crib in Greenpoint as the reason why I recently put in 30 pounds, but I know it's because I sat on my fat ass watching Stargate SG-1 and shoveled in about two of their fabulous pasteries a day in my mouth while stuck to my futon. That, among many other foods...

Southern Culture on the Skids Are Coming to NYC, and Tickets Go On Sale Today!

Southern Culture on the Skids is playing March 16th in NYC at the Mercury Lounge, and tickets went on sale today. I haven't seen them in 7 years - missed them every single damn time. So, when tickets went on sale at 12pm, guess who was fumbling with her credit card?

Their latest album, Countrypolitan Favorites is a collection of awesome country covers, SCOTS-style.

I've seen these cats live in Oxford, MS; in St. Louis, MO; and now, I'm looking forward to seeing them here in my hometown. They are one of my favorite bands, and I'm thrilled that they'll be here soon.

Go buy a ticket or two or three and get on down to the Mercury Lounge, May 16th, 9:30pm.

Dylan Hears A Who!

Ever since my last marriage, although I've always enjoyed and loved Bob Dylan, I've had a difficult time listening to him too much over the last two years because so much of what my ex-husband wanted to listen to was Bob.

Bob this, Bob that. Almost every music concert we went to was Bob. We saw Bob Dylan in concert probably about four times together while we were married, and who knows how many other times he went that I bowed out.

So nowadays, although I of course dig the mastery of Dylan, I turn the dial more often than not; like someone who used to like chocolate but ate too much and now can't eat it; or, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, who just associates too much sensory overload with the music of the composer, I can't fucking take it.

This, though, is priceless. www.DylanHearsAWho.com is absolutely, brilliantly hilarious fun - it's someone in the voice of Bob Dylan (sounds just like him) singing the words of Dr. Seuss...including the Cat in the Hat.

Check it out - it's great.