I guess the holidays are really upon us now. The countdown. The late-night, last-minute shopping at Rite-Aid. That case of wine so you can at least hand someone a bottle when they give you something totally useless. Stocking stuffers for the kids. But what, let me ask, do Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli, and her new freakish husband have in common with the holidays? Well, a lot in my book. See, there s this guy at the Midtown Artist Market that makes refrigerator magnets. He simply takes a photograph, slaps it down some of that magnetic backing stuff, and cuts it out. Voila! Any kind of picture. So, while flipping through one of the celebrity rags, we ran across the wedding picture of the aforementioned party. Jackson looks as weird as anyone has ever looked in the history of civilization, Taylor has on a hat with a veil and looks vaguely like she should have a monkey on her shoulder and should be playing an accordion. And Minelli and her husband, well, you get the picture. And I got the picture which is now a fabulous refrigerator magnet and the perfect last-minute holiday gift. It bears a striking resemblance to an ad for a horror movie. I balanced it out by getting two Matt Lauer magnets pre-haircut and current haircut. And now when I go to fridge for ice the only consumable product in there, save for about 40 Indian and Asian condiments I see his little smiling face, along with the group of freakazoids. So run over there with your favorite photo before they close up shop on the 23rd. This has such great potential. You could, for instance, download the Mr. T. Chia Pet Head image from www.stupid.com (they are currently out of the real product, as they are the Mr. T. Soap-On-Rope and Mr. T. car air freshener, and the baseball hat with faux antlers decorated with battery-lit Christmas lights; I really, really wanted that one) and have a wonderful magnet. You could take a photograph of Trent Lott, superimpose a KKK hood on him, and have a collector s edition magnet of the maggot himself. You could even have a little cloud coming out of his mouth with the song title I m Dreaming of a White Christmas coming out of his mouth. The perfect, not to mention timely, holiday gift. You could take a headshot of George W. Bush and place it on Gumby s body. Or Tina Louise s from Gilligan s Island. Or you could get your computer literate friends to superimpose his face on a Mad magazine cover, but, well, no one would really notice any difference. You could take his mother s face and put it on a dollar bill but, well, no one would really notice any difference. This has opened up a world of possibilities and I intend to go back and purchase many more for just a few hundred of my closest friends. In the meantime, here s a little look at some of what s going on around town this week.
And I guess it s because the holidays are upon us now, but the pickins this week are a little slim. Tonight, Breezeway Theatre opens its two-night run of Nate Eppler s Modern Love at Theatreworks. The Distraxshuns are at Elvis Presley s Memphis. Preston Shannon is at Isaac Hayes Food * Music * Passion. And The Cloots, Wet Labia, and Crypt Orchid are at the Hi-Tone.
