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I think the paintings of Alex Katz were an early inspiration for my show, Sexual Intercourse: American Style. I look at a picture like this (which was taken from a book so the quality is a little shitty) and I think, “yes! That’s exactly what I want SIAS to be like.”

The whole painting is wonderfully artificial and strange—just these flat, bourgeois couples, stiffly holding each other, surrounded by nature. I like how everything looks like a Land’s End catalogue. You say to yourself, “wait, is this a joke?” No, this is not a joke. This is deadly serious.

[EDIT: Wordpress won't let me go past a certain size picture so here's a detail:]

A Journey Jukebox Musical.

There. That’s it. There’s your million dollars. Does it need any more explanation?—A Broadway Musical centered around Journey songs. Now get crackin’ playwrights—all you have to do is figure out some loose narrative that can successfully weave “Don’t Stop Believin’” into “Wheel in the Sky” into “Open Arms.”

It is hardly a secret that every single person between the ages of 30 and 45 who has even a whiff of an interest in the Broadway Musical is an enormous Journey fan. More than ABBA, more than Billy Joel, certainly more than Frankie Valli —go to any karaoke bar and you will see the “musical theater crowd” wailing away to Journey songs. There is gigantic audience out there in desperate need of a Journey Jukebox Musical willing to pay good money! I don’t even like Journey and I’m tempted to take a crack at it.

I was at my cousin’s wedding this weekend.

All of my friends seem to be of marrying age—just waiting around, waiting to get married. Or deciding never to get married. One or the other. I’m not entirely against the idea. And I think I would like to have some sort of ceremony, rather than running off to City Hall.  It would be fun to have music and readings and such.

Maybe one reading could be Stan Apps’ poem,  “A Massive Image of Elmo”…

A Massive Image of Elmo

A massive image of Elmo is in the air above Elmo.

Elmo is surrounded by monsters of other colors

Looking at Elmo, listening to Elmo.

Elmo in the air holds his paws up and out

Reaching out to the world, to beseech, to cuddle

Blue monsters look at Elmo, green monsters look at Elmo

Monsters made out of used rags shake Elmo’s hand

Elmo is at the center

Elmo creates the circle that surrounds Elmo

There is nothing more deeply human than the family

The family is a dynamic power structure

That contains individuals by circumscribing them

Circles are sacred; the center of circles are sources

Elmo creates the circle that surrounds Elmo

The circle creates the massive image of Elmo

That is in the air above Elmo

All the monsters around Elmo take meaning from Elmo

Monster society is the production of monster consciousness

and monster being by monsters

The massive image of Elmo above Elmo is on a wall

The meaning that Elmo offers us is not a created meaning

Elmo is a monster at the center of the world

Which is where monsters belong

And the world shall serve the interests of monsters now

Rather than the abstract needs of imaginary beings

Despite the shame I feel, knowing that some of my new students may be reading this, I’m going to come clean and say that I make an internet TV show called “Sexual Intercourse: American Style” and I recently opened a MySpace account to promote the show. Dear students, don’t worry—the show is a comedy.

So, won’t you be my MySpace friend? Click here to add my show to your friends list.

Click here to see the show on channel 102.

And come to the screening of the new episode this Monday at 8:00 at the Anthology Film Archives on 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street.

I was in Providence last week.

The people of Rhode Island pride themselves on their strange and miserable food—milk with coffee-flavored syrup, stuffed clams, lemon slush, vaguely clam-flavored fried dough. These are Rhode Island specialties, each with its own peculiar local name.

Another specialty item is the New York Hot Weiner or the New York System:

This particular style of hot dog has only a tangential relation to New York City, being brought over to Rhode Island in the 1920s by a pair of Greek immigrants living in Brooklyn.

The New York System is: a hot dog, a bun, a “meat sauce,” mustard, chopped onions, celery salt. I’m actually really eager to try one. If this type of hot dog ever existed in New York, it has long since vanished, replaced by the “papaya”-style frankfurter. And of course, Chicago is truly the place to go if you have any interest in hot dogs.

But ultimately, you really should be eating less meat, for a host of reasons.

So I was in Providence visiting Kaveri. Hopefully, I’m going to move my art studio there for a couple of weeks. While I was there, Kaveri and I fought terribly. We are both stressed out. And living apart while she’s off at graduate school has been tough. So, tough, in fact, that I appear to have developed a cold sore.

Here is a picture of Kaveri in Providence:

Hello Netflix.

It seems as though I’m constantly shaving.

I may grow another beard when Summer ends.

Look for pictures.

That’s what I’ve been thinking for the past two days. I’ve also been concentrating on a pain in my left ear that hasn’t gone away, even after a doctor removed a big ball of wax.

The lyrics to the Sea Breeze jingle were, “beautiful skin can be a breeze with Sea Breeze.” If you stripped away the cheesy 80s production the melody is pure Bosa Nova. In fact, if you eliminate the last note (which resolves the melody in a overly-cutesy way), the “Sea Breeze” jingle begins to sound a lot like an Antonio Carlos Jobim composition (with its sophisticated chromatic run on the “be a breeze with” part).

So, good going, to whoever wrote that jingle.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for the next Sexual intercourse: American Style. The story has to revolve around the character of Tom, played by the talented Matthieu Cornillon. Any ideas?