thanks alot, carrie-tucker-person-who-shares-my-name. thanks a whole, whole lot. because of your poor personal decisions, people occasionally wonder if i am a scandalous, fallen beauty queen.  just, NO.

it’s important to know that i am NOT miss new york 2000, carrie tucker.  this is miss new york 2000:

NOT ME!

see?  i don’t even know how to smile that big.

this is me, reading at the national arts club PAGE series:

ME!

so, again:

i AM NOT the carrie tucker who was miss new york.  i never participated in a beauty pageant in my life.  i don’t own anything remotely resembling an evening gown, and if you ask me what i’d do to save the world, i’d probably tell you i’d make a real life genie through some sort of magic.  my middle name is “jo.”  i was not born in new york.  in the year 2000, i was living in l.a. and working as a content manager for an ill-fated dotcom with jarring orange floors that sloped because the architect who designed the space wasn’t really an architect.

now i’m all angry.  to cheer myself up, i’m going to watch my dog walter cronkite fight his bed:

justin cronin predicted it in the passage, y’all!  KILLER VAMPIRE BATS ATTACK 500 PEOPLE IN PERU.

i hope everyone is preparing NOW.  but honestly, mr. cronin and myself hate to tell you that there’s not a whole lot you can do.  (at least until the second novel.  for now – get ready for year zero.  and babcock.)

what do you think will come true next?  cloverfield?  will the killer vampire bats become so inbred that they grow to fifty feet, and then have to fight the monster of cloverfield?  i sure hope mothra robert smith can somehow be involved in this battle, too.

disintegration was the best album ever.

(mothra robert smith image via south park wiki)

hello!  it’s your google calendar reminder here.  have you updated your creative field personal branding today?  let’s go through the short checklist!

1.  social media:

be sure to post/update at least five times a day, all relevant articles and/or witty comments that generate pings/trackbacks/the title of “mayor”/over twenty comments or “likes” to the following accounts: twitter, facebook, linkedin, foursquare, youtube, faceplace (HA!  fooled you!  that’s only on law & order; although, hm…who wants to “monetize”?), myspace (HA!  fooled you again!  who even USES this anymore, amirite?), flickr, ning, google buzz, lastfm, tumblr, classmates.com, stickam, vampirefreaks.com, crunchyroll, yelp, and finally, xanga, xing, and xt3.

now remember, you’re not done until you’ve devoted at least three entire working days to this and have started all over again.

2.  events:

get out there, buddy!  you’re the only brand you’ve got!  and you want other people to see it, right?  five nights a week, minimum – and NEVER saturdays.  seven nights makes you look desperate or like an alcoholic who doesn’t have to get up and work at anything, monday’s the new sunday, and thursday is completely passe.

events on your calendar this week should include something having to do with fashion, some sort of intelligent literary party (anything involving sloane crosley is a good choice), an art opening no one can get into that’s not at dietch, the opening of a new swimming pool (it’s summer, duh), a sample sale with at least a two-hour line outside (you can, of course, simply breeze past this line, you being you and all – but do you really want to waste all the NETWORKING time and PHOTO OPS BY STREET BLOGGERS?), one big blow-out identified only by a single sponsor’s name (i.e., “are you going to the POP BURGER party?  no?  you’re going to the VITAMIN WATER one?”) that is actually some sort of benefit, and finally, something on a rooftop somewhere and/or in the hamptons at an outpost of a store that’s down the block from you in manhattan.  brooklyn!  i mean, brooklyn.

3.  image:

well, this is sort of a silly one, since personal branding is ALL ABOUT your image!  but we’re talking completely superficial physicality here.  have you posted at least one photo to your social networks (see above) today?  this will tell people you are cute/cool/hip and you would look good in their office/at your desk/on their masthead.  you should be someone companies are PROUD to claim as their own.

acceptable photos include:  ones with you wearing glasses, ones of you holding up a print article about yourself, a clever paper mache sculpture of your head that one of your social networking fans has created, your nail art, ones of you in tokyo, any shots of you and someone more famous, with them pointing at you with their forefinger and/or making a “thumbs-up” sign.

so, got it?  now get to it!  c’mon, little trooper!  as your personal google calendar reminder, i can tell you that you’re booked solid through next week.  and i can also warn you NOT to attend that embarrassing second cousin’s birthday party at – my god, it hurts me to say it, because who even GOES there anymore? – la esquina.

(image via theadclass)

two of my favorite things, thanks to pinky diablo (aka tom sale):

if i were a millionaire, i’d order fifty of these and just line them up right above my kitchen cabinets.

(via make and pinky diablo)

jezebel has a great article on drinking games for readers (via a recent ny times essay):
“Geoff Nicholson extrapolates from writing-workshop maxims to create these drinking rules: ‘Drink what you know, drink regularly rather than in binges, avoid needlessly exotic booze, and leave the table while you can still stand.’ But why stick with what you know when you can challenge yourself — and your liver — with a game of William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway? You can play these games in groups — by, say, having one person read aloud (this will probably get even more fun as the reader’s voice slurs and his/her eyes lose focus).”

jezebel already suggests some genius games, my favorite of which happens to be the william faulkner (“every time a sentence goes on for more than a page, drink the entire bottle.  then make out with your sister.”)  i’d like to add the justin cronin as it relates to the passage:  drink whenever you encounter “thrumming”, “littles”, or “flyers” (the exclamation AND the being).  or the jean-philippe toussaint:  drink every time a character’s existential crisis spurs him to complete and utter inaction.

to return to nicholson’s essay for a minute – if we’re extrapolating drinking rules from writing workshop maxims, may i also offer the following additions?

* drink constructively, yet critically

* don’t say, “that’s a great drink!”  explain WHY it’s a great drink – the layers of flavor, perhaps?

* justify a bad drink with, “it’s not my thing, but i can see how others would appreciate it.”  if you’re bold, please add, “i wanted more from it.”

* avoid cliche in your drinking

and if you’re unsure as to whether or not you have overdone it…

* just get it out.  you can always drink more – and better – later.

(via jezebel and nyt)

best morning t.v. around. what? don’t look at me like that. i love regis & kelly. i watch them every morning, and even sent in a picture of walter to be featured on their “dog days of summer” feature this week. i like it when regis says things that make sense but don’t make TOO much sense, like “world medalist”:

(see how i did that, how i squeezed in a johnny weir clip, too?)

but i have to admit that my favorite is when anderson cooper steps in for reeg when reeg has to get his hip replacement surgery and stuff. i could watch at least two hours of a.c. and kelly. it’s also probably exciting for kelly, because she doesn’t have to explain herself to her co-host as much. she must be happy that a.c. “gets it” and can really pick up the cultural references she puts down.  i mean, he uses the atm machine and knows who lindsay lohan is, right?

anyway, i think the whole point of this is that i’ll know i’ve made it when i am invited to be a guest on regis & kelly, and a.c. is sitting in for reeg.

also, in totally unrelated crap, i’ve discovered that lots of people get annoyed when one doesn’t use capital letters. sorry lots of people. my fingers sure are lazy.  should i have a meeting with them and explain how it’s unprofessional and annoying, and that if they don’t start familiarizing themselves with the “shift” key they won’t get their annual 3% cost-of-living increase?

an oldie but goodie:

whenever anyone says, “i can’t”, it makes me wish he’d get stung to death by about ten thousand bees. when he says, “i’ll try”, five thousand bees. “i can”, one bee.

(via deep thoughts by jack handy)

woah, mark mahoney in ari marcopoulos’s short film “no way back” for yves saint laurent. everything about this is beautiful and brilliant. “evil and darkness, darkness and evil” at 4:35! gosh, i just love pranks.

i was tattooed there when it first opened.

vader wears band of outsiders, clone trooper wears a.p.c….

but why the hell does my beloved boba fett get stuck in supreme, and JAR JAR gets margiela?!

might i request a nice dior homme suit, hedi slimane era, for mr. fett?  ’cause danger and mystery, supreme is not.

(via refinery29 via behance)

just in time for next sunday!

lime juice, vodka, and black olive.  better than “chilled, carbonated blood…cruelty-free, with an essence of citrus”?

via vintage ads