February 15, 2013
Debbie Harry
7. NEW YORK LEGENDS
It’s hard to tell if this is an act because the “Old New York” thing is to be sullen and unapproachable, but my God are these people sullen and unapproachable. I met the guy who did Andy Warhol’s prints once and when I stuck out my hand to shake his, he looked at me like I had just pulled out my dick. I got the same reaction when I met Lou Reed at a reading he was doing. After talking to the singer of the New York Dolls on a plane for five minutes, I realized he was asleep. Debbie Harry seemed all right when I first started interviewing her, but when I misunderstood one of her answers, she recoiled in horror like I puked on her pants. I”ve spoken to others who have dared to fraternize with New York’s late-70s bohemian in-crowd, and not one of them has left the encounter without being drenched in fuck-yous.
8. COUGARS
Though they”ve reclaimed the word, it still denotes a spinster who spent so long working on her career, her eggs dried up. She pretends not to be bitter about this but now that she has some power, she wields it with the same iron fist we saw in the movie Nine to Five. Virtually all the check-writers in media are women. I”ve been around these alpha females my whole career and if they”re not making some young male intern do coke with them in the bathroom, they”re taking out a handsome sales rep for dinner and making him eat her out. The glass ceiling smashed long ago and now the shards are being used for revenge.
9. DOCTORS
Is there a less funny profession anywhere? I don”t think they can even wrap their brains around knock-knock jokes. After filling most of their mental hard drives with Latin terms and liabilities, the only thing they have room for is sitting together in the hospital cafeteria and talking about how wonderful they are. If you think MSNBC has its head up its ass, try having lunch with someone who “saves lives for a living.” I once heard a doctor describe his job that way.
10. RASTAFARIANS
They look like a lot of fun when they sing about sunshine on kids” shows, but Rastas are Jamaicans and even Jamaican nerds will cut off your face. Rastafarians take the Caribbean’s latent racism, crime, homophobia, and sexism and make it into a religion. Their bizarre belief system meant Bob Marley couldn”t amputate his cancerous toe (as Jim Goad put it, “Haile Selassie? Highly retarded”), but they”re convinced the whole thing was part of an evil Caucasoid plot. They think they best cure for homosexuality is a “gunshot,” and the worst swear word they can think of is women’s sanitary napkin. One love, indeed.
11. OLD LADIES
Old black ladies in New York will turn purple with rage if you don”t let them out of the elevator first or give them your seat on the train, but old white ladies are on a rampage. They will shove you out of the way if you get too close to them on the street, and they”ll swing their handbag at you if you have a problem with that. If you”re in a bar and an old lady walks in, she will interrupt the conversation, demand a menu, assault the bartender with 100 questions, and then slam the menu down when she hears something she doesn”t like. If you dare interrupt any part of this ritual she will smash you with her purse so hard, you”ll have a quilted Chanel pattern on your face.
12. BABIES
As a pro-life breeder I”m allowed to criticize these little angels. Holy Jesus, are they a pain in the ass. Here’s a notion: Ever heard of not screaming for one second of one day? They don”t merely cry like they”re watching a sad movie. They bawl their eyes out like they”re being attacked and no matter how hard you try to appease them, they keep screaming. They”re almost as bad as liberals. I understand that evolution has taught babies to be in a constant state of panic and they”re scared we”re going to abandon them in the cave, but that was 40,000 years ago. It gets to the point where the constant accusation of being abandoned is insulting. I”m not a deadbeat Neanderthal, dude. Chill the fuck out.
Malcolm X was right. When in doubt, the safest bet is to go with the guy who only seems like an asshole. At least he’s being honest about it.
Image of Debbie Harry courtesy of Shutterstock
