B-rad

11:23 am

oh my god i sucked so bad last night. i fucked up the beginning, i was pissed enough at random people that i wasn't into it for the first half, and as soon as i was done singing i left and went home. definitely my worst performance ever. but also, i don't care.

03:55 pm

there was confusion again and i have a few new people around here so here's the deal:

this livejournal (bradsabastard) exists mostly so i can read peoples' friends-only stuff. occasionally i post a super personal friends-only entry that i don't want the world to see, but mostly this one is for show.

my real blog that i use most often is at http://ihatebradwalsh.blogspot.com but livejournal people can see it in their friends list by adding the feed ihatebradwalsh.  all you have to do is add it like a normal friend and then my blogspot stuff is automatically syndicated here.

also, i DO see the comments left on the bradsabastard livejournal, but i do NOT see the comments left on the ihatebradwalsh blogspot feed.

ok.

09:56 pm

01:31 pm - OHIO PEOPLE

the rapture and the presets are playing the fucking GROG SHOP tomorrow (saturday). i am beyond speechless. the grog shop is the size of my god damn living room. fucking GO TO THIS SHOW. i could cry i miss the grog shop so much. in new york they play agora-sized venues or larger. they are two of the greatest live bands performing right now, you will not be disappointed. fucking presets, man. jeez

also, if you take pictures i will publish them.

02:55 pm - Syndications!

Thanks to gwenzilla and allaboutgeorge, you can now add livejournal user ihatebradwalsh to your friends list and you'll see all the updates I make to my regular blog!  Sydication is fun!

And they did it for Kathy, too, at disinterestenui!  The internet is magic.

11:46 am - Reminders

Two things:

1. Remember! I have a real blog where I write things and post pictures all the damn time.  You can also see it here.
2. Remember! My birthday is June 15 (that's about a week away!), and I have an Amazon wishlist, should you give a shit.

10:26 am

No more Livejournal for Brad, you'll have to go read my actual blog if you're so inclined.  I'll still be here reading yours, though.

11:30 am - Collisions

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Collisions

Monday, January 30, 2006. 8:44pm

Music: The Roches - Another World

Since one fell and shattered all over my floor, there is no mirror in my bedroom.  There is, however, a giant framed print of Jean-Leon Gerome’s Pygmalion and Galeta that I stole from my mother’s house when I moved out, one that I’ve looked at almost my entire life.  The light from the windows makes it difficult to see parts of the painting in the mornings, but it makes it easy to see my reflection, and to superimpose myself and anyone standing near me into it.  And to take a picture of that.

There are few things sadder yet few things more exciting than an armful of dollar store candy.  The paper always sticks to it and the ingredients are printed in some other language and there’s usually a coffee ground after taste, but it’s so cheap.

Have you ever tried, because each and every one is mislabeled, to take a stack of several hundred unorganized photos and match them up one by one to 600 pages of a book that is going to be reprinted?  And do you think you would be able to do it in about two working hours?  Do you hate hearing and reading the words “helter skelter” as much as I do?  I work now with someone I knew well years ago, and I remember what she looks and sounds like when she laughs hysterically, but these days we don’t say hello, and she wears different clothes.

Remember learning about Pangaea, the giant supercontinent that preceded the seven that we live on today?  For some reason, I decided that I needed to read more about it today, and I learned for the first time that Pangaea was not, as I have always thought, the land mass that was around when the Earth formed.  Before Pangaea was Pannotia, and before that, Rodinia.  Rodinia formed over a billion years ago, split apart about a quarter of a billion years later, and Pannotia formed 600 million years ago and split fifty million years after that.  In elementary school we learned that Pangaea divided first into Laurasia and Gondwanaland (which they apparently just call Gondwana now), and those split into the continents we know today, but I never learned that Gondwana was also a name given to one of the four continents that came from Pannotia and collided to create Pangaea.  More info on Pangaea, Pannotia, Rodinia, and Gondwana, if you’re interested.

Selections from e-mails that television stars have sent to me:

1. “I need a major face lift.”

2. “OMG I just farted!  I’m not kidding I totally did!”

3. “Tell Kathy to call a nigga.”

4. “I love your rape pictures.  What are you talking about?  Rapist = hot.”

5. “LUMPY TRANNY ASS?  CAN NOT WAIT!”

6. “Can’t remember.  I smoke weed.”

10:34 pm - It Hurts to Look

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

It Hurts to Look

Friday, January 27, 2006. 6:51pm

Music: more Jenny Lewis.  Only Jenny Lewis.

Today, coked on daytime medicine that isn’t supposed to make you drowsy, I watched a piece of bread sink slowly into my soup like a small, carb-heavy Titanic for five minutes before waking up and blinking my dry eyes.

Are you being surveilled?

06:12 pm - The Events of Yesterday

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

The Events of Yesterday

Thursday, January 25, 2006.  6:03pm.
Music: Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat

BRAD, EATING LUNCH: You should have a children’s book called Klumsy Kathy where you fall down and choke a lot.

KATHY, SLAMMING FORK DOWN: You should have a children’s book where you get AIDS and suffer, and then die alone when you’re 45 in a hospice.

FRIEND, LOOKING AT PHONE: I need to sell some human growth hormones to this guy tomorrow.

JOAN RIVERS, POINTING DOWNWARD: [My vagina] looks like a toothless old man smiling at you!  It’s Willie Nelson!

BRAD & RICHIE: Ha ha ha ha!

JOAN RIVERS, SMILING AT US: If you haven’t got teeth, you shouldn’t be in the Hamptons!  Lizzie Grubman single-handedly rid the Hamptons of white trash with her SUV!

BRAD & RICHIE: Ha ha ha ha!

JOAN RIVERS, HAND ON HER HIP: Donatella Versace looks like something you hang over a door in Africa!

BRAD & RICHIE: Ha ha ha ha!

09:41 pm - Extremely Important Things

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Extremely Important Things

Monday, January 23, 2006.  6:16pm.

On Saturday Kathy and I were relieved that we didn’t commit a faux pas and wear the same shirt as this girl:

Me: "Mine was in the wash."

Kathy: "Mine had a hole in it."

All Richie ever has to do to get rid of our Paparazzi flyers when he and I go out promoting is tap someone on the shoulder, look them in the eye, and smile. They all smile back and get that I’ll do anything you say look in their eyes, and then they take a postcard and fan themselves with it.

Lindsay Lohan keeps appearing places either when I’m there or right after I’ve left, and I keep missing her, god damn it.  Apparently, as recently as last night.  Everyone I know has hung out with her.  All bloggers.  Isn’t that weird?  I think that’s weird.  Lindsay Lohan, let’s do this thing.  Pootie be damned.

Little Tempestt Bledsoe certainly enjoys her ball.  So much so that she pees in it and then runs around in her own pee, and pee goes up the side and falls onto her head.  I spaced and began to rinse it out while she was still inside, which I’m sure she didn’t like, but as soon as she got back into her cage she shook it off and got to work on one of her chew sticks, so I guess she wasn’t too traumatized.

Breaking news:

1. Everybody left New York for Sundance.

2. My mom got a new gallery space for her furniture.

3. I was driving my car right next to the SoHo fire.

4. Rich cokeheads like to tell me secrets.

5. Kathy is the Floozy in the Jacuzzi.

6. Finkel is Einhorn.

7. Call me, Lindsay.  Trent & Perez have my number.  Haters beware.

11:29 pm - Smell Ya Later

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Smell Ya Later

Friday, January 20, 2006.  9:40pm.

This January hasn't been very good for friendships.  I have three unrelated pairs of friends who've had giant, possibly permanent splits this month, and in the last 24 hours I've decided to finally cut ties with two gentlemen friends of my own.  Maybe the stars have started retracting inward, or maybe everyone's just pissy about having to sit through the next three months of gray and white, but most people I know seem to be shaken up.  I even got a mad at Kathy the other day for leaving a mess on the table right after I'd cleaned it, but then I realized that that's more than a little dumb.  Her position in my life recently came into question by an idiot.  She's my best friend and I love her like family.  Not as accessory, or as fag hag, or as "and Kathy."  The men in my life who have written her off as such have not only completely missed the point with her and her incredible individuality, but they've also never heard from me again.

She and I, by the way, sat in front of a microphone and mixed together a podcast for JUNK, which you can download here and find the track listing for here.

Paparazzi went well last night, the photos are crazy.  A few of my favorites:

04:36 pm - FREE STARBUCKS!

A girl who works at our Starbucks was today sitting on the windowsill by the entrance when we walked in. We got into the (very long) line and prepared to wait at least twenty minutes to pay $5 each for our bad tasting coffee-flavored things. She "psst"d us and asked "what are you having?" Kathy said "just a regular coffee." The girl broke from her break to walk by the long line and behind the counter, where she poured a coffee for Kathy and brought it back. Astounding. She asked me what I wanted; "a mocha, right?" "Nooo," I said, "too much trouble, I can wait!" "Watch my phone," she told me. She made me a mocha in thirty seconds. She gave both drinks to us for free, either because she remembers us going in there all the time or because we both looked particularly famous today. I told her she was amazing and I gave her a few Paparazzi flyers, the professionally printed full-color glossy ones, and told her to come out tonight. "For me?!" she said. I love this lady.

11:11 pm - umop-apisdn

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

umop-apisdn

Wednesday, January 18, 2006.  10:51pm.

Music: Morningwood - "Jetsetter"

Today it rained sideways and upside-down up into my face and underneath my umbrella, drenching my top and bottom halves before I even made it to the subway.  I wore a hat and gloves, which got wet.  I wore a scarf and double collar, and those also got wet.  The wind almost blew me over, and when the D line traveled above ground over the Manhattan Bridge between Atlantic and Grand, it trudged slowly so as not to hit a gust the wrong way and topple sideways into the river.  I was, of course, brushed by the cold wet hats of stumbly and apologetic old ladies and the warm wet hands of all ages of men who just didn't give a shit.  When the doors opened at my stop, the two people standing in the doorway didn't even begin to move, and in the elevator in my office building a woman stepped specifically from "out of the way" to "wholly blocking the door and not moving" right before the stop at my floor.  So I shoved three people today.  And I gave Unnamed Starbucks Barista Boyfriend a Paparazzi flyer.

08:18 pm - Tempestt Bledsoe: Am I the Imaginary Socialite?

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Tempestt Bledsoe: Am I the Imaginary Socialite?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006.  6:35pm.
Music: Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins

On Martin Luther King Day I, too, had a dream.  That dream was to drive my salt-ridden Mazda to the pet store to pick me up something small that scuttles.  I wasn’t sure going in if I was going to find anything I wanted, but as soon as we stood in front of the black hamsters I punched Kathy right in the arm and shouted “YES!”   I picked out a female, got a cage and furnished it royally, and the girl who worked there snatched up my favorite and put her in a takeout box with a handle on top.  Turns out my friend for life will probably only be my friend until her lifespan completes in 2-3 years, but I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna spend that time chasing her around our apartment in her clear yellow ball and feeding her pieces of corn that are bigger than her hands.  At first I wanted to buy the two that were living together in the pet store cage, but the girl said that when they grew up they’d probably beat the shit out of each other.  So just the one, and her name is Tempestt Jolene Bledsoe.

I may be the last person to have seen Brokeback Mountain, but I think I should have been the only one to not have seen it at all.  I was bored.  I have lousy taste in movies, though.  I thought Heath Ledger was good, Jake Gyllenhaal was trying too hard, Michelle Williams was surprisingly very good, and Anne Hathaway was as out of place as possible.  Also, whoever was in charge of the aging effects should have been fired.  From Heath’s awkwardly made up face to Anne’s everything... in the end she was supposed to be at least forty, right?  She was very clearly a twenty year old in a bad wig.

Because I haven’t plugged it enough, don’t forget that Paparazzi is this Thursday at Don Hill’s (see the flyer below in my last post).  It’s open to everyone, but let me know if you want to be on the list.

11:33 pm - Please Repost

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Please Repost

Wednesday, January 11, 2005.  11:19pm.

You're invited.  Any pictures you take at Paparazzi can later be uploaded to the party's website by you from your own computer, making the photo record of the evening as varied as possible.  Everyone's on both sides of the camera!

If you repost this flyer, please hotlink it using this web address, so that when we add more details to it later and replace this image file, it will also load correctly wherever you've posted it.  Thank you!

06:21 pm - Paparazzi

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Paparazzi

Monday, January 9, 2005.  6:10pm.

I'm hosting a new weekly party, Thursdays at Don Hill's (Spring & Greenwich), called Paparazzi.  Everyone's a celebrity the minute they step inside.  Photographers left and right taking your photo, to be published in Junk and Useless.  I'm hosting and DJing, and Conrad Ventur will co-present it with me.  We're going to have lots of special guests in the booth and on the stage, and it will be beautiful.

The official launch is Thursday, January 19th.  There will be drink specials and no cover charge.  We're having a mini preview this Thursday the 12th, and I can put you on the list if you e-mail me.

Today I noticed a woman on Spring Street walking a stubborn dog that wouldn't do what she wanted it to do.  I smiled at her and when she looked up it was Famke Janssen.  Fantastic.

Here are Conrad and Nelson:

05:40 pm - Stripes

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

Stripes

Friday, January 6, 2005.  5:22pm.

It occurred to me last night as I was photographing the underwear-clad smut star in the booth with my friends the DJ, the dancer, the actor, the painter, the musician, and the world famous transsexual – while drinking a free vodka & red bull – that at some point my life became a picture that I wouldn’t have even been able to invent three years ago.  I’m page-turning my way through some crazy living book about nightlife and strange relations, trying to compile myself a slideshow to study later, like there’s going to be a test.  The text messages on my phone could themselves be compiled into at least a short story.  I’m feeling lucky, for several reasons.  Lucky to have people, particular people, in my life.  Lucky that affection is reciprocal.

So, I get e-mails from strangers, and I always try to write back, but sometimes they are just so strange that there’s absolutely nothing I would be able to say other than “please find help,” and I’m not going to write that to them.  So every now and then I post something up here to give them a little hint.  I’m absolutely flattered and surprised when people go out of their way to say something nice to me, and I’ve even made several real-life friendships out of situations like that, but let me just make it clear that there probably won’t be a “next time [I’m] in Barcelona.”  Not unless you want to fund my trip there and set me up in a hotel with no sex-strings attached, in which case, bark all you want, crazy.

Someone I really respect and admire and was thrilled to learn from in college apparently reads up on me every now and then, which is a reversal that truly baffles me.  Sometimes I wonder if I remind him of him; I breathe air and he googles his own name more often than I do, so it’s impossible to imagine that I don’t.

I forgot to post this before, but Kathy and I are having an Art Party this Saturday the 7^th at our apartment at 7:00pm.  Drink some, eat some, paint and draw some, put it up on our bare hallway walls or take it with you.  Let me know if you want to know how to get here.  Some incredible people are coming.

Number three on my list of most ironic people: Writers of self-help books on how to not waste your life.

08:18 pm - I Only Drive Recliners

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

I Only Drive Recliners

Wednesday, January 4, 2005.  8:11pm.

Updated the photos sections again, lots of new ones in "Celebrities" and a few new ones in the other sections.  Go take a look.

Chris: Melissa had a dream about us.

Brad: When?

Chris: We were driving a big lawn chair down a freeway or something.

Brad: Well, that's weird.

06:45 pm - 2006: A Mass Transit Odyssey

Posted to BradWalsh.com:

2006: A Mass Transit Odyssey

Tuesday, January 3, 2005.  6:20pm.

Lots of these pictures were taken by Conrad.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that people who’ve appeared in pornographic films are stupid.  The only porn star I know is smarter than most of the people I graduated Oberlin with.

We were smart enough on New Year’s Eve to not overdo it by running completely all over the city.  I went to Patricia Field’s house with Conrad for a couple hours and the midnight moment, and then we stopped by MisShapes for just a minute before going home by two.

I didn’t get to meet up with Matt at Princess Superstar’s Delancey thing, but that was okay because I saw him yesterday.  I like Matt.  Someone from Fall Out Boy was DJing at MisShapes, and I got to see some friends while we were there, but there were so many people packed in.  We were in and out.  Tim was happy to leave, but he bitched about everything that night (I do love him, though).  I also love Thomas.

At Pat Field’s, Tobell Von Cartier was running the barbecue, Amanita watched television with rich lady gloves and a dog in her lap, and I made friends with girls in nice dresses who were professional personal shoppers and had twin brothers with my name.

A man outside who was very tall and very drunk watched my feet as he came closer to me.  I was wearing freshly-cleaned white tennis shoes.  He didn’t slow down as he approached me, just looked down at my feet, lifted his leg and stepped lightly on the top of my right shoe.  He pulled his foot back, leaving a big brown mud mark.  I was angry for about five seconds before I realized that that was one of the greatest things I’d ever been a part of.

The night before the 31^st was the New Year’s Eve Eve party at the girls’ fancy new apartment (which I keep accidentally calling “The Quad”), and the night after was spent in the DJ booth at Avalon while Conrad was DJing.

I still don’t like Avalon at all, but Conrad can make anything fun.  Back when it was Limelight, Avalon was the first club I’d ever been to in New York.  How times change.  Larry’s still on tour in South America, probably fighting off advances from young Brazilian men who want to kiss him and give him their demos.

Yesterday I decided I wanted to buy a pet and name it Tempestt Bledsoe, but I hate fish and we can’t have a dog or a cat, so we set out to find a hamster or something similar.  The last hamster I had was when I was in elementary school.  He was named Chum, like the one in The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and my mother left it completely up to me to take care of him.  He died pretty quickly.  I had two mice in college, a brown one named Whiskers that Laura Matters and I traded off, and a white one named Madonna because she was simply that famous.  Kelsey saved Madonna from being eaten by a snake, and I already had a mouse cage.  The mice also died, only naturally this time, and they both had proper burials.

We went all the way up to the pet store with the four puppies in the window near Union Square to find that the only actual animals they sold were those four window puppies.  It was a pet supply store.  So then we went home and drove way the fuck out into the middle of the most boring and gray collection of streets on the planet to a pet store we found on the internet.  Couldn’t find it.  So today I have no pet, no little Tempestt Bledsoe to kiss goodbye on my way out the door at eight.

Kathy and I had a conversation while waiting in the subway the other day that ended with me saying “I guess I’m high-maintenance.”  She responded with “ba-ba-ba-bwhaaat?  Reeally?  This is nyeews!  New information!  Whaaaat?”

I never set resolutions for a new year, but I have a few goals in mind for 2006.  I am so incredibly lucky to have such good friends and opportunities.  Sometimes I think it seems that I might take things for granted, but I’m always telling Kathy that I can’t believe people like me enough to hang out with me.  I find myself pretty boring most of the time.  When I came to New York I expected to be on the outside looking in, but from the moment I got here I have met and become friends with amazing, talented, smart, and fascinating people.  I hope they know how awestruck I still am.

A voice mail message on my telephone from my mom that made me smile every time I replayed it: “Hey Brad, it’s yo mama.  You know how you like to call me and tell me when you got something interesting going on?  Well, I do, so I thought I’d call and tell you.  I’ve been ripping up the carpet in the living room and the hardwood floor underneath is beautiful.  It’s beautiful!  It’s in awesome shape!  So I just wanted to tell you that.  I’m ripping up carpet, I’m working on ripping down the wallpaper in the kitchen, and I also found some glass paint at Pat Catan’s that were on sale over in the Deals & Steals, 50 cents a bottle.  So I’m painting the tile backsplash (laughs)!  It looks pretty good, it looks like little glass tiles.  So that’s what I’m doing.  I don’t know what you’re doing, but I hope you’re having as much fun as I am.  Love you, hon, and Happy New Year!”

The inside of my Jones Soda bottlecap told me that “Wednesday is the day to make [my] move.”  So watch out for tomorrow, dudes.