Stevie Nicks is listening...

my profile died

2009-10-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

after the basket case diaries pointed out that i was dead in the blogosphere (the tombstone with "some name" was just too good to pass up), i felt it was time to write a eulogy. until i remembered just how funny i am.
so i uploaded a new photo as part of my user profile and with a new lust for life, i'm returning to my roots. my dark brown roots.
get pumped. there will be more posts coming at you soon. it'll be swell! we can talk about the phillies, my cats, good new bars in town, people i loathe, you know, the usge.
love yous! go phils! xoxo

buongiorno tutti!

2008-10-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

When I woke up yesterday at 4am in a strangely excited moment of jet-lagged energy, I started thinking about you, dear readers, and I couldn’t wait to unleash all of the ups and the one or two downs of “Kevin and Lily’s Italian Getaway 2008: A Journey Through Time and Space” (literally).

However, one day later, and one day closer to the greatest day in my 29 years of being a Philadelphian, I am feeling less inclined to scintillate you with a gut-busting narrative of our trip so in stead here are some short and hopefully humorous bullet points divided into two categories: “Highlights” and “Lowlights” (both of which I’ll be getting done to my hair this Saturday.

So we begin in Venice…

Highlights

Venice: Seeing the nowhere-else-like-it-on-Earth city for the first time since I was 8 years old. With the Grande Canal and narrow waterways – it’s like Disney World for adults. Simply amazing! Plus I finally got my gondola ride and drank some sensational coffee. The architecture Biennale was on and featured cool ass stuff by Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, among others. Plus, saying Biennale made me think of “The Big Lebowski” and I hoped to bump into “Sandra”. And of course, surprising my father-in-law on his 70^th birthday was tops.

Fivizzano: town with a totally dramatic setting amongst the mountain range known as the Alpi Apuane in northwestern Tuscany where our friend Tom has an apartment. We ate a couple of great meals in nearby (and by nearby I mean up the mountain and down and up and down again and around and backwards and down windy, windy, windy road after windy, windy, windy road and BARF – I ended up having to buy motion sickness meds. Maybe that’s a lowlight).

Portofino/Santa Margherita: Lovely Mediterranean seaside towns with beautiful scenery and lots of posh peeps. Upon disembarking the ferry at Portfino we were greeted by my friends, Mr. Vuitton, Mr. Dior and Dr. Ferragamo. It was yachty/poshy madness!

Pisa: That Leaning Tower is ridiculous! I loved it! It is just amazing to look at such a great architectural fuck-up. There was also a major demonstration by college students protesting the prime minister’s attempts to cut funding. A fab meal in a grotto-like restaurant. Plus I bought a cool new jacket.

Siena: Holy hilltop medieval city! The drive between Florence and Siena is abso gorgeo! How you imagine Tuscany to be. Vineyards, villas… loved it! Awesome restaurant and hotel – and lots of gelato. Much cooler than its mortal enemy Florence. BURN!

Rome: It wasn’t built in a day and I don’t recommend trying to see it in one either. However the Colosseum was quite a sight to behold as were the other remains from the Roman Empire. History is bitchin!

Lowlights

Venice: Totally mediocre food – like what you get served up in a school lunchroom and I don’t mean the delicacy that was the chicken patty. Also we were witness to a seagull dropping the well masticated wing of a poor Venetian pigeon. It was grosser than gross.

Fivizzano: Getting there in our royal blue Fiat Panda which was like a can of Fancy Feast cat food on wheels. However, Kevin’s driving was stellar and I could sit back and enjoy the autostrade. The church bells across the town square that rang every hour and half hour and limited our sleeping intervals to 29 minute sessions were simply terrible!

Portofino/Santa Margherita: Everybody there was like 1,000 years old.

Pisa: Like the Philadelphia of Italy: lots of colleges and other than a major attraction or two, there were dirty/ugly people everywhere.

Siena: I don’t think there is one – except I woke in the middle of the night for some reason and couldn’t fall back to sleep.

Rome: Big, crowded, dirty, pickpockets, gypsies, and the Sistine Chapel closes at 2 o’fucking clock on Sundays. Poor Kevin didn’t get to see the ET fingers touching! Shit airport but great Duty Free shopping.

There you have it. I’m sure I’ve left out some major details but I figure the pictures, once I upload them, will tell a thousand words.

Ciao bambini! xoxox

SARAH SILVERMAN is AMAZING!

2008-09-26T06:46:00.001-07:00

GLUTARDS are the best TARDS!

2008-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Last night was an amazing adventure into the culinary underbelly - an underbelly that does not contain gluten.
Mark Summers, Miss Philadelphia, Miss Outstanding Teen Pennsylvania and a bunch of Jon-Benet Ramsey wannabes were all there to support those people who are allergic to wheat gluten. It was incred! Not to mention a certain Philadelphia 76er who "supports, supports".
There was enough food to feed a nation of glutards and the food was delicioso. Short ribs, duck nachos, corn flan with robiola, lobster mac and cheese - we were so happily stuffed by the end.
I'm happy I got to share the experience with my dear, Celiac-diseased friend, Ali, who, despite coping with a neck injury and looking like Joan Cusack in "Sixteen Candles", had the best night of her life.
Now come over and get your bags of gluten-free food, B!

you take the good, you take the bad...

2008-09-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

I just learned that in 1987, The Facts of Life was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling. (Moonlighting won. Max Headroom was also nominated.) Tootie must have been pissed!
I wonder if 227 was ever recognized. I mean, I recognize it every February 27 - aka 2/27 - which is like the best day of the year. That Marla Gibbs was an inspiration!

In other news, the guy from Moviefone died. "Why don't you just tell the name of the movie you'd like see?"
R.I.P.

welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out

2008-09-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

so here we are. it's been so long! how i've missed my dedicated disciples.
i figure that after a friday night that included bringing a 20-pack of Depends to a strip club, i should probably get back on the old blogging bandwagon. my life stories are simply too dang amazing to not be shared on the WWW. plus i think the threat of a libel lawsuit has quietly gone away.
above is a recent photo of me with austin powers that i thought you might enjoy.
here's some lily news for those who care:
i live in a much nicer house now in a much better neighborhood.
i recently met the mayor of newark, delaware: vance funk.
i have been eating really unhealthily lately.
we're going to italy in mid-october.
babylson came out.
i really need to work less so i have saucy things to talk about.
stubbs and artie are thriving.
i promise to post something more interesting the next time around which will hopefully be in less than a year (crazy!). big love! xoxoxoxoxoxo

America the "Ugly"

2007-09-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

“Ugly Betty” is so lame! Can I get a “hell yes!”?!?!?
Seriously, I don’t watch TV to see “ugly” (they said it first) people. I work for the City of Philadelphia and this place is a freaky deaky freakshow 24/7.
I watch TV to see the likes LC from “The Hills” who may not be beautiful but her lifestyle sure is. Then there are the dudes – Sawyer from “Lost”, the little Italian guy on “Heroes” who played Sly Stallone’s son in the latest “Rocky” movie with the unpronounceable name. That’s what I’m talking about. That is quality programming!
Can ABC just cancel the effing boring-ass show and admit that that shit is only on because it makes them feel less superficial. These are the same people who air “All my…” freaking “Children”.
I’m just sticking with HBO. “The Wire” is great TV!!!!

2007-07-10T13:44:00.000-07:00

as a "writer", i am fairly obsessed with words/sexual positions. As some of you know, my signature act to discuss is the “blumpkin”. I first heard of it in college when an acquaintance who worked for sony music was recounting a night she had spent with spin doctors wannabe, dave matthews. At the time, she used it as a verb (“i blump, you blump, he/she blumps”) and the idea doing that to another human being truly disgusted me for it is not for the faint of heart. But the name stayed with me for some reason and I have subsequently and successfully used it as an ice breaker on several occasions (discussion of, not the actual act!).
recently, i was made aware of another rather saucy maneuver that trumps my beloved “blumpkin” both in name and the feat it describes. I’m talking about the “french motorboat". let's just say it involves a saucer of milk, a drinking straw and a scrotum.
Since i am doing absolutely nothing at work at the moment, I have decided to compile a list of some of my favorite urban legend moves (for definitions, please see urbandictionary.com). I can’t put that type of smut on my blog, thank you very much!
p.s. if you have any others you think I should know about please don’t hesitate to share your knowledge!
Here’s my list of faves:
Tony Danza
Danny Glover
Hot Carl
Pennsylvania Pinecone
Rusty Trombone
Cincinnati Fuckhouse

ZIPPETY DOO DAH!

2007-06-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

this is the best news i've had in some time!

My Latest Nicks Fix

2007-06-21T11:31:00.001-07:00

Last Friday night, I went and saw Stevie Nicks in concert for the 800th time. The hilarity of the night started at Good Dog, with a waitress named Pooper. Seriously, she wore a red, Datarock-esque track jacket with the name “Pooper” on the back, and to be totally honest, the food was uncharacteristically shit. Thanks, Poops!From there we hopped in a cab and headed down to Penn’s Landing to take the ferry across the Delaware (a la George Washington) to the hyper-illuminated Tweeter Center. Upon entering, the female/lesbian bag-inspector asked what I had in my purse, made a really bad joke about my iPod and then went to second base with me. Personally, I think my pink, sleeveless hoodie with original Stevie Nicks artwork that reads “Stand Back” made me look extra touchable. I haven’t been patted down like that in years! Thankfully, we got there just in time to miss Chris Isaak and bought ourselves a few beers. All around us were flowing skirts, anklets, banana hair clips, tie-dyes and perms, but all in all, everyone was pleasant enough. We found a central spot on the lawn and parked ourselves on our blanket, and shortly thereafter, the woman who claims to see crystal visions emerged on stage, triumphant, exuberant and shawled-up as ever. For 59 she rocked pretty hard. She played the classics – Landslide, Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Edge of Seventeen, Stand Back – as well as some really bad ones which shall remain nameless because no one who’s reading this has probably ever heard of them (except for Brynn). For an encore, she wailed on Led Zepplin’s “Rock and Roll” and it was awesome! During the show, some weird things happened. Firstly no one in her band in under 50 and there was an unrelenting amount of leather (and not a lot of lace) up on the stage. From her back-up singers’ jackets, to her lead guitarists pants (he had Sideshow Bob hair to boot), to the OJ Simpson gloves Stevie herself had on at one stage – it was an older persons’ leather-fest… and then there were the scarves/shawls. At one stage – Stevie and Sideshow Bob were engaged in an elaborate, hunched, swaying dance with shawls flowing over both of them. Back and forth, back and forth. Really, they looked like stingrays mating. It was reasonably nauseating/hilarious/confusing. I would rank this concert as the second best I have seen Stevie give. The best being my first Stevie concert back in Hartford, CT in the summer of 1998. It even beat out seeing the entire Mac together (sans Christine McVie) in Sydney in 2004. We also had an impromptu photo shoot on the ferry but those pics are a little too x-rated for this blog!

awesomest new song recorded yesterday!

2007-06-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

synergy - feels so sweet!

Carolla loves Paris

2007-06-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

Last night, at a fancy, overpriced meal I made my parents take me to and then pay for, I asked my mom what she thought about the Paris Hilton “get-out-of-jail-free” situation. I should preface this by saying that my mother is not a huge fan of celebrity gossip – I mean, she likes a good and meaty, scandalicious story about a secret lover, murder, beastiality, etc but the day to day activities of dimwitted “celebutantes” doesn’t realty interest her. I wasn’t even sure if she knew who Paris Hilton was. But duh, Paris is everywhere (why? I still don’t get it!), so of course my mom knew all about her, the sex tapes, the driving with a suspended license, going to the slammer (even getting there early to serve her time). But all of Carolla’s knowledge was no match for her shocking response to my initial question. What did she think of Paris being under house arrest in stead of in the big house? I’m paraphrasing here, but she basically said: “Zippety doo dah! Paris is free!”.

My mom seems to think that it’s appropriate/fair that her sentence was reduced as it was based on the crime she committed. Carolla Cope, Esq. said no one ever goes to jail for driving with a suspended license and that even being under house arrest is a severe punishment. Between us, I would love to be locked in my house for a month and have people come and see me, bring me food, watch movies… it would be like the best vacation ever, like law-enforced laziness! I could even ask Christie of Christie’s Nails to make house calls. But I digress…

Really I don’t give two shits about Paris and hope the rest of the world gets on board with me soon. Yes, it’s unfair that the rich white girl gets special treatment. Maybe we should petition that she get the death penalty instead.

Actually I believe this is a good response to the whole ordeal.

LIKE/HATE

2007-06-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

i know that you, my dedicated readers, are disappointed by my lack of bloggage lately but i'm coming back!
here is a "like/hate" that sums me up pretty accurately at this stage of my life. as some of you know, i used to make such lists in middle school. what this says about me, in a nutshell, is that i am a woman of extremes with a limited vocabulary. enjoy!

Like/Hate

Sun / rain
Stevie Nicks / Lindsay Buckingham
Kevin Mercer / Seth Laver
JonBenet Ramsay news / Natalee Holloway news
TGI Fridays roofdeck / Continental’s roofdeck
Kittens with missing limbs / regular kittens
The Scrunchees / Jethro Tull
Hebrew Nationals / Nathans
Nice eyebrows / Muffin-tops
Bourbon / Vodka
To play / To work
Skinny wrists / Chubby Wrists
Golden Girls / Designing Women
Mac n’ cheese / Deviled eggs
Opening presents / Opening bills
New clothes / Tattered crap
Brown people / white people

stevie news

2007-05-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

what a well written piece! it's got me pumped for june 15th!

best song ever

2007-05-07T05:51:00.001-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/thescrunchees

pop stars, luxury cars and royalties

2007-05-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

i am a rock star… well, almost. last night I spent several hours laying down the vocals for what promises to be an international #1 single – “rock rodeo!”. The music and lyrics are by cope david, but the vocals I provide are 100% COPE LILY and totally stellar (understatement of the year!!!). we still need to add a couple of background vocals, etc and then we’ll have the best song ever recorded. I must admit, when I hear it, I think I sound like a pathetic, female cope david impersonator… but david thinks we’re going places… seriously. I told him we could call ourselves the Copenters… I have always dreamed of being anorexic.

Getting Nailed

2007-04-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Right by my office is the world’s worst nail salon. While it is cheap, they seem to only employ blind people with Parkinson’s disease. After a nail treatment there, my nails begin to chip and peel almost instantly, not to mention the amount of polish that they apply to the skin of my fingers which makes me feel like an old bag-lady. I hate it there. But (and this should not come as a surprise to anyone) I am cheap and lazy so I continue to go.
Usually when I am there, a DVD of either Shania Twain in concert or “Michael Jackson live from Lithuania” is playing. Both are severely nauseating. Shania’s outfits are beyond disgusting and her songs are rage-inducing (“Man, I feel like a woman” is the worst song ever recorded and should be outlawed!) Meanwhile, Michael’s still wearing those short, black “when’s the flood coming?” pants and moonwalking and grabbing the sock stuffed into the crotch of his pants and pointing while throwing his head back. There are lots of shots of his adoring fans who are all wearing those Dr. Huxtable sweaters because they are poor and from Eastern Europe. Again, I want to yak. But the worst thing ever which put me off the salon for about a month was a Steven Segal movie that could not have been more fucking torturous! What the fuck are his movies about? Supernatural alien army ghosts? What the fuck is that shit? What is his appeal? That was the last straw… for a while anyway.
This past work week I’ve been in twice and I will need to go in for a third visit to have a nail repainted today but major things are happening at City Nails… there have been new (and arguably good) movies playing. On Monday evening, I was treated to 25 minutes of a confused and upset Brad Pitt crying and yelling and getting frustrated in “Babel”. Then last night, I watched some of “blood diamond” with the director’s commentary. (Conflict diamonds are bad!) It’s nice to get out of the office to rot my brain not only with the fumes of the polish but also with the sights and sounds of Hollywood’s heavy hitters.
I can’t wait to see what they have screening today!

tips for taking red carpet photos that i learned on yahoo.com

2007-04-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

1. Turn partially sideways, planting one foot in front of the other.
2. Pull your head forward to eliminate double chin.
3. Hold arms slightly away from the body.
4. Take a deep breath as you pull your shoulders back, chest forward.
5. Look away from the camera, then turn towards it, breaking into a smile before the camera clicks.
6. Wear an entire outfit of just one color.

saint stevie

2007-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

seriously... what a gyps-errific lady!

oh, make me over!

2007-04-19T07:02:00.000-07:00

i have this chemise. but mine is never this wrinkled. come on, kelly! get it together! i also saw this shirt on one of the characters from the recently deceased "o.c." which i never watched but was flipping through one time and voila, there was "summer" in my bcbg blouse...
i like this top in theory but like on kelly, it fits me strangely and is generally unflattering.
if this jesus-loving, proactiv-using, since-you-been-goning cheeseball is wearing this... i need a makeover! i also need a kirstie alley/valerie bertinelli partner in weight-loss as i prepare to lose 7 lbs. any takers? what a summer it'll be!

i heart america!

2007-04-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

this is pretty amazing!

i'm hyperlinking

2007-04-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

thanks, sam, for teaching me so much!
mess
fat
goddess
i'll construct a complete sentence next time.

self-tanning update

2007-04-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

hear ye, hear ye!
i bought the tanning mousse and sponge/stick combo so now i can tie-dye myself at home! get ready for a summer of splotchiness!
yeah boooiiiii!!!!

get your kicks on route stevie nicks

2007-04-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

In 1998, I went to my first stevie nicks concert. It was in Hartford, Connecticut, where my friend brynn grew up. I had just finished my freshman of college in nyc and was back in philly for the summer. It was may 27th… the day after stevie’s birthday to be exact, and we were pumped.
I took the train to Hartford and brynn and I immediately realized we had to do something special to commemorate stevie’s big 5-0. We took what brynn’s mom described as a “good” sheet (it was a white, cotton, twin flat sheet from kmart)and then bought some spray paint and went to work. We sketched the words painstakingly in pencil first and ended up with a red and silver mega-banner reading “happy b-day stevie 5/26” (we wanted her to know we knew her birthday was the day before.) long story short, all it ended up being used for that night was as a curtain while we took turns peeing on the lawn. It made great wall decoration in my dorm rooms during the subsequent years at school however. I think my mom tossed it, that wench!
In the parking lot in Hartford, we were offered hot dogs laced with pcp. Sadly, we declined. We ended up passing out during a three-song medley that consisted of stevie songs I had never heard before and hope to never hear again.
Later that summer, brynn and another friend from college, Louisa, came to philly to see the stevie show in camden. I brought along two friends from high school and it turned out to be a glorious summer evening. I drove everyone in my mom’s black Volvo station wagon and we picked up some “provisions” en route. While sitting in the car, we decided to partake in some of said provisions and before we knew it, a bike cop was standing by the driver-side door, smiling. At this stage I had moved to the passenger seat and louisa was in the driver seat. After about 30 seconds of stationary silence (we must have all thought "if we don’t move maybe he won’t see us and will go away"), we urged louisa to roll down the window. The extremely kind officer simply took one of the glass provision holders from lou and emptied it. he returned the apparatus and went on his way, but not before telling us not to do any more. Needless to say, we didn’t listen.
Not too much later we decided to go into the venue. As we moved away from the car, I knew I was not feeling so good so I decided to lie down, right there in the middle of the parking lot, in a lane of traffic, to rest a while. Eventually my friends were able to bring me to my feet and we entered the arena.
I have been obsessed with stevie ever since and have been to other shows. i even saw her perform with fleetwood mac (minus Christine mcvie) in sydney in 2004. that show sucked because all the middle-aged aussies felt compelled to sit and be silent throughout. I was told to “shut the fuck up!” and “sit the fuck down” which resulted in me spilling an open container of Bacardi Breezer all into my purse. I was like, “hey convicts! This is a rock concert!”
Fingers crossed, I’ll be back in camden with stevie this june!

gobbledygook

2007-04-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

coming soon: excerpts from my 5th and 6th grade diary known as "ptk" or "personal thought keeper" (i got the acronym from an oriental rug dealer by the same name that used to be down the street from my parents' house).
friends have suggested that i try to get ptk published but I don’t think that’s very likely and it’s mostly because I don’t want to make celebrities out of the dipshits and nimrods who broke my teeny 10 year old heart back in the day (yes, sam blank, jonah peterson and seth laver – I am talking about you!)
ptk is beyond ridiculous, completely embarrassing and I must be loca to be posting it. it is full of “like/hate lists” (apparently jethro tull is the worst band ever) and I had a new best friend everyday (some things never change).
ptk also features guest writers, mainly my slightly less embarrassing friends, who wrote as if ptk were their own personal thought keeper. ptk was cool like that.
in closing, by posting snippets of ptk, my goal is to eradicate the world of all its ills and provide the little people out there with laughter which - as someone who is not familiar with, nor mentioned in ptk once said - is the best medicine. stay tuned!

meeting in the ladies room

2007-03-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

my myspace page is pretty useless. i am not a musician/creative type with demos/reels/etc to show off and i really only want to be friends with people i know because everyone else is a potential freak/sexual predator and belongs in the capable hands of dateline nbc's chris hansen.
but i finally realized the perfect song to accompany myself.
initially, when i figured out how to put songs on (and it took over a year), I selected a song my my fave contemporary band from the north of england, maximo park. their music makes me want to pogo real bad. unfortunately it did not have the same effect on my friend samra who told me it made her terribly anxious. so i switched to amy winehouse's "rehab" because at the time, rehab was all the rage (lindsay, britney, robbie williams, the gardener from "desperate housewives" who got his big break on nbc's "passions") and i've been a fan of the wino since her debut album came out in 2003. anywho, that got played out and after i projectile vomited last week and probably could have used my own stint in rehab, i have been going songless since... and then it hit me.
as i stood with a group of coworkers while we were waiting to sneak out of the world's most boring luncheon ever, one of them said she was going to the ladies room and instinctively i began to sing the klymaxx classic "meeting in the ladies room". it's a great little ditty, poignant and catchy, and it has been one of my favorite songs since i can remember. i don't even know what it's really about (what are they meeting about in that ladies room? wasn't there a conference room free?)
as it turns out, klymaxx has their own myspace page only they don't allow you to use their songs on your own. what greedy bitches! so if anyone knows how to take a song from the outside world and bring it into myspace, give a holler.

fake tan (aka "little pieces of ice")

2007-03-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

in my continuing quest to be the most beautiful woman on earth, i took the plunge and had fake tanner applied professionally to my entire body yesterday.
i'm slightly orange and my friend/co-worker moira said my hands look weird (they are the only part of my body exposed today since it's 56 degrees and they don't put it on the face). and while it is true - my hands do look weird - it felt great having a stranger apply brown mousse to my body with a sponge on a stick. and she went everywhere with that sponge on a stick. not to shock anyone, we totally went to "second base" and maybe some other bases but i was too busy talking about all sorts of rubbish to take note. actually the best part of it all was the full-body dead sea salt scrub beforehand which made my skin feel tear-jerkingly soft.
i would do it again only next time i will not chit-chat so much so she can concentrate on covering my fully nude physique with the strange-smelling crap. the threat of un-moussed pieces of flesh (there are a few today) is worth the awkward, "hey your sponging my boobs" silence.
all in all it's pretty exciting to be tan for no reason... and for only $50 (the same price as my pink, sleeveless, stevie nicks hoodie). but what i think i'll do next time is pay a friend to do it in exchange for a bottle of stoli.
next post: i'll discuss the "beaches" of our generation... which i decided is "beaches".