this is an audio post - click to play

Baby It's Cold Outside: Personal Appearances and Gifts
Ok many of you can wish for no better present than to be in the presence of the one and only Bunni. I hear your plea.


Rabid's Reading @ La Negrita on December 6th at 7:30


You can bet I'm going to get an angry phone call about this one, but she's an amazing poet. And there's a bar. You can't go wrong with that combination. Hot poetry, smile like an alligator, and liquor. And as her mentor, you can bet I'll be there. Early. Gotta make sure she is properly marinated to work her magic.

La Negrita is located at 999 Columbus Ave near 109. Lines that run nearby? B, C, 1 to 110th.


Bunni's Gangland Style Takeover of the Open Mic @ Rohr's Cafe on December 14th at 6:30


Rohr's is a favorite Bunni haunt. Once a month, they host an open mic, which may possibly feature some of the worst poetry since Grunthos the Flatulent went into "retirement." As such I have decided that one of my birthday presents to myself as well to the patrons of Rohr's is to "raise the bar" and round up all the people I know and have them perform at the open mic. Bring it? Well it's already been broughten! Trust me, the body glitter I wear for these kind of events alone is worth seeing. It's like Las Vegas distilled into one person.
Rohr's is located on 303 85th st bet. 2nd and 1st avenue.


Are You a Party Animal Free on December 17th?


Yes, it is time for Bunni's Birthday Baccanal. This year taking place at an as unyet unspecified location and time-if you want in on the action, send me an email, and I shall add you to my list of "people to be kept in the know."


Can't Come, But Still Want Me to Know You Care?


I understand how some of you misguided poor souls on the other side of the Pond might not think I'm worth a quick trip over here. Well, you're wrong, but as Kenneth Cole says, this is the season to be for-giving. And with that in mind I have registered with Sephora under the name Bunni Speigelman from NY. If you search Amazon's wish list function for misslapin@hotmail.com, you'll come across some other goodies I might enjoy. If you need a snail mail address, let me know. Never let it be said that I stood in the way of presents. Of course, you can always just send me the makings of a cosmopolitan, hot shirtless bartender included.

Have Bat, Will Travel
I have to interrupt my travelogue here because I was apprised this morning of a situation which I can not even begin to wrap my mind around. Some of you here may know Billy of I could have been a contender. I haven't added the link because the blog is now password protected. It seems Billy has suddenly left his wife and children for some piece of tail from Mexico. And I might add left his wife and kids with only a note to explain his sudden absence.


Some have commented on his behavior. His wife, who has blogged in the past and taken in it up again, needs support. I can not begin to understand how someone can do this. I feel guilty leaving my cat for a few days, and I can not begin to conceive of how anyone could do this.


Since rage is my milieu, my response is to say, if he ever surfaces I am getting my bat and making sure that he eats his meals through a straw for the rest of his natural life. To be so blessed with a loving wife and children and treat them like this should be consider a violation of the Geneva Convention. Anybody with me on this one? Margaritas on me on the flight home should you care to join.

Destination Unknown
"There is a place you want to be...go there"-Billboard on the way to JFK

All of my travel stories start with "I never wanted to go there but..."


I never understood the big deal about Vegas. To be honest, I never really thought about it. I mean, I knew it existed, but that's about all. It was a dot on the map with a name by it-it had about much reality for me as say Skokie, Illinois or Gnome, Alaska or any other number of town/cities in the US which I don't contemplate.


It must have been a relief for Eric. To tell someone he was from Vegas and see an utterly blank expression. No glazing over with glee at the prospect of slot machines and glitterified strippers. He told me stories about the neo nazis in his schools. He told me about how his mother would go to the store to buy groceries for dinner and disappear for three hours playing video poker. He told me about the black widow spiders and people cooking to death in their cars.


He told me how much he hated it, and how afraid he was he would end up there because, "everything is so easy there." It

The only reason I went to Vegas. The only reason I stayed in Vegas. Him.



And now I was going back to Vegas. Not to be with someone, but to escape. To escape my family. To escape my exponentially increasing social failure. To escape another year having to listen to roadkill stories while trying to prepare roasted parsnips and carrots while my aunt eats the ingredients off the chopping board.


In the car on the way to JFK, there is a billboard that says "There is a place you want to go...go there."


"Where is that?" I wonder.


Paris? Pompeii? St. Petersburg?


No, not so much a place I want to go, but to a person.


No, not so much to a person, but to a feeling.
I was in Las Vegas, the last time I was there actually, and I went to a birthday party with Eric's mother. Eric wasn't even there because he had to work that night. So there I am at this birthday party in this elite room at the top of Mandalay Bay. There's a Tom Jones impersonator singing "Sex Bomb" and we are drinking expensive bottles of champagne. His mother is trying to convince to move there by telling me that, "In NYC, you are one of thousands of smart people, but here you would be part of the elite." Trying to sell me moving there because this is where the stupid people are. But everyone was kind to me, refilling my glass, offering me advice and connections, complimenting my outfit. I'd just gotten the call that I was going to be teaching, really teaching, my first full class at NYU. Eric and I had our plans for getting married. As twilight fell, I went out there on the terrace and watched the sun set. And I couldn't tell where the stars ended and the lights in the city began. In that moment the universe seemed filled with so much possibility, so much surprise. I looked out at the night feeling loved and wanted and thought "If an one had ever told me that I would be happy in Las Vegas. That I would be in this city at all, never mind happy, I would have told them they were fucking crazy. And now here I am."
I hadn't been back since then. Since things fell apart two months after that day. I wanted to go back to that feeling-that promise, that rush, that beauty. But I don't think JFK has a ticket there. I only know where that feeling wasn't likely to be found.

At the restaurant at the airport, I arrange myself. For the plane ride, I bring my Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I alway try and read something to prepare me for my trips: Paris to the Moon by Gopnik for Paris; I, Claudius for Rome. But there isn't a lot of Vegas based literature-no Jean-Paul of Circus Circus unless you count Wayne Newton. By the end of my second glass of wine, I'm tipsy. Some might call me drunk, but my standards are different.


Before I get on the plane, I see a guy wearing a t-shirt with a centaur. The centaur has a bow and arrow. Like me, this guy is a sag. Beneath the mythical archer, bow drawn, is the inscription "Without Fear."


You can't buy symbolism like that.

I get on the plane.




    This page is powered by 
Blogger. Isn't yours?