This classy-as-all-get-out ad was spotted by @Juliaem, in the 59th Street subway station in Brooklyn, taped to a trash can:

DATING – ONE NIGHT STANDS ONLY
MEANING SODA DATE
COFFEE DATE
CAKE & ICE CREAM DATE
MEANING A WALK DATE
MEANING MAYBE ROMANCE
DUTCH DATING
THE LIBRARY
BOOK STORE
WINDOW SHOPPING
FEMALES ONLY
THE AQUARIUM
THE ZOO
A CIGARETTE MEET DATE

HAPPY VALENTIMES!!!

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you may recall that I used to play typewriter in a band with some piano-playing chickens.

I’m here to tell you that chickens, like monkeys, go from cute to despicable in about half an hour. They’re vile, magnificently brainless creatures that defecate the way that cats shed – casually, constantly, and in occasionally impressive clumps.

It comes as no surprise to me that Werner Herzog feels the same way. Here’s a little clip on Vimeo (shared by my former human bandmate Tim Gordon)

Werner Herzog on Chickens from Tom Streithorst on Vimeo.

One of the latest viral videos is of happy gorillas in the jungles of Uganda taking in a tourist as one of their own. Now this is an amazing video, so sweet, so heart-warming, and it got me cruising YouTube for gorilla videos – and there are plenty. That being said, I am personally not going to be hanging with the Wild Mountain Gorillas.

I am not saying you shouldn’t hang with wild gorillas –  if you want to. Go ahead, it looks like fun.

It is just that they are both intelligent and they are wild animals, plus they have ideas on how things should go.

*Note to self – do not take your pet baby orphan gorilla into the jungle.

Personally I think I understand gorilla culture and etiquette, as it looks a bit like the culture and etiquette in my family. But as my husband knows, I avoid hanging with my family because they behave like mountain gorillas. They are cute and cuddly until you challenge them. You never quite know what you said that got them all riled up, all you know is that they are suddenly screaming and somehow its your fault …

Also a Safari into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda is like $300 a day, and I’d like to see what $300 a day could get me in Vegas.

I know that someone reading this might be thinking, “but  - but –  but….have you seen Koko the talking Gorilla who speaks sign language? Bill Shatner has!”

And I say to the imaginary Koko loving person in my head, “Oh yeah but what about the story of the Petronella Yvonne de Horde, she loved gorillas! She was convinced that the Gorilla named Bokito, who lived at the local zoo in Rotterdam was her friend…and so she went to visit him almost every day.  She would make kissy faces at him and he would make what she thought was kissy faces back….

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I saw these doorways on the subway at the 4th and 9th streets in Brooklyn – with layers and layers of paint chipped away so that workmen could get to the padlocks holding them shut. I thought they were just breathtaking, like a micro-geologic event in slow-motion action. The paint looks like steppes or a canyon slowly eroded by wind and time, doesn’t it? Kinda like another planet where people have to hike down those paint layer steppes into this treacherous valley with a gigantic ceremonial padlock in the center, like some sort of ancient alien ship.

And like, every million years a giant hand yanks the ship away and rips the planet apart, shaking everyone off to drift into their deaths in the cold wilds of the outer atmosphere.

In case you were wondering, I was, in fact, late to my destination. And yes, I do find psychedelic drugs to be redundant. Enjoy the pics:

Creaghead and Company is pretty much Caroline Creaghead. And Caroline Creaghead is pretty much awesome. She helps to book and produce the And I Am Not Lying Live show, in addition to a bunch of others. One of the other shows in Caroline’s stable is “Heart Of Darkness” with Greg Barris. According to Flavorpill, Heart of Darkness (with the live band the Forgiveness) is a

psychedelic stand‐up show … a visceral experience from the downtown comedy underground. Accomplished thinkers, authors, poets, and artists join Barris and his band to become one seamless, improvised comedy freak show.”

I caught the sold-out show at Union Hall last Saturday. What I could see of it was really, really awesome, when I could see around a pillar. Everything sounded great, though.

Reggie Watts dropped in at the last minute and did a hilarious set, improvising all kinds of hilarious music and completely surreal standup that made perfect sense and told right-on truths as long as you didn’t listen too closely. If you did, you’d realize he was riffing on the kind of played-out onstage cliches you hear from most hip-hop and rock ‘n roll stage banter.

Here’s a pretty sweet clip. In it, Reggie Watts covers Maroon 5′s “Moves Like Jagger,” freestyles and improvises, and raps like the lead singer of a Cookie Monster death metal band:

Reggie Watts – Touching Songs Improv – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

In this clip, Reggie, Greg Barris and the Forgiveness improve a long jam about slack friends, vampires, teen smoking and more:

Reggie Watts & The Forgiveness – Improv Jam – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

Both clips were shot and edited by Alex Gaylon of Karmalize Productions.

I got off at the wrong subway stop last night on the way back from telling a story about Rick James at Luca Lounge. But as it turns out, it was so the right stop. These guys were just blowing out some serious funk underground, after midnight, for the entire world. The whole experience felt exactly like the mental image I had of New York in the decades before I moved here. And naturally, I requested that they play some Rick James.

Brother, did they ever deliver:

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I love jukeboxes – pack ‘em right and everyone in the bar’s a pretty good DJ, all night long.

The jukebox at Washington DC’s Black Cat is out of order. Or, it’s out of order as a jukebox – it works just fine as a multi-disc CD player, stuck on shuffle. Someone took the protective covering out from under the glass on the front, and you can see right into its guts. It’s pretty beautiful, I think.

I took this photo with TrueHDR via a wide-angle lens stuck to the front of my iPhone 4, then ran it through the Photoshop app and some other stuff to get this image:

My grammar isn’t always perfect, but I do okay. When something’s misspelled or written incorrectly, it feels like a string out of tune. Or like hearing bagpipes – in tune or not.

It seems like copy-editors are getting laid off left, right, and center – as though nobody cares anymore. Sure, typos happen when you’re writing and posting fast. And everyone knows what you meant to say. But it’s like giving a big presentation with your fly all the way down. Sure, people know that you meant to put pants on. And your wang is probably still covered. But it still makes a distinct impression.

It looks like a rogue copyeditor took the red Sharpie to this Uniqlo ad on the C train. They just couldn’t take it anymore.

Good for them. It works better now, doesn’t it?

That Hipstamatic app sure is popular. It’s fun to use, and it makes your photos look cool.

But it’s not as fun now that everyone’s using it. I mean, it still looks cool and all, and if you’re having fun with it, go nuts. Or continue going nuts. I’ll have to cop to a certain amount “before it was cool” mentality here, and admit that I have this deep and maybe not incredibly attractive need to have people know exactly how creative and special I am all the time.

This feature got me all excited and inspired to go beyond taking a photo, running it through an app, and calling it a day: Tricking Out Your iPhone Photos.

The iPhone is such a powerhouse of a tool for photographic creativity. It’s our century’s Polaroid, right there in your pocket. Rather than emulate the look of a time past, why not get stoked on creating a look for now?

I saw this girl in the mall by my office that looked like she fell through a wormhole in 1974 and landed up against that wall smiling and playing with a BlackBerry. She was kind enough to let me take her picture, despite probably finding me a little creepy. Fair enough.

I’ve had Karen Young’s 1982 jam “Deetour” on a permanent loop on my iPhone for a couple days, too. It makes the commute into this spacey disco loop, like someone tied my brain to a rollerskate and sent it over a beige rainbow bridge. I probably listened to the song ten times while I ran this young lady’s picture through Decim8, Instagram, TrueHDR, TiltShiftGear and StripeCam — ultimately ending up with this:

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Summer colds are such a ripoff. At least when you’re sick in the wintertime you can enjoy being under a blanket and watching TV indoors. When I’m sick in the summer everyone else is having the most idyllic day of their life — the whole world is tossing a frisbee in slow motion while a death march plays in my head.

Ever since I’ve moved to New York, I’ve gotten more colds. And more of those colds have mutated into full-blown sinus infections. Last winter I coughed so hard I thought I cracked a rib.

I used to wonder why I got so sick all the time, and figured it had something to do with touching all those handrails on the subway all day long. Take a look at this guy I saw on the N train this morning — I think I’m right:

He rode the subway all the way from Atlantic/Pacific to Canal Street with his nose smushed against the railing, pausing only to give it a deep picking. I don’t know if I’m grossed out for that guy, or because of that guy.

From now on, I’m commuting in a HAZMAT suit.