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How Not To Use An Umbrella In NYC

The refreshing rains of spring are upon us, reminding me once again that 80% of New Yorkers have NO IDEA how to use an umbrella. I have put together this list of umbrella DOs and DON’Ts for their benefaction. Please read closely and then pass this along to your umbrella illiterate friends.

 1.) When you are under an awning, a covered bus stop, or scaffolding DO NOT keep your umbrella up. You see, the umbrella is meant to protect you from water falling from the sky. If there is something else between you and the sky you DO NOT need the umbrella. You DO need to stop being an asshole and nearly poking our eyes out for NO REASON.

2.) If you hold out your cupped hands in the “rain” and they do not fill with water, then you DO NOT need an umbrella. Put it away. Some sensitive-hair-specific exceptions MIGHT be allowed. This form of aerial moisture does not qualify as “rain” and if while in it, you refer to it as “rain” we will no longer respect you, especially if you do so while needlessly under an umbrella.

3.) If you have not yet emerged from the subway station you DO NOT need to open your umbrella. Wait AT LEAST until you are coming up the stairs and are directly under THE SKY. This also applies to exiting buildings and other interiors. See number one if you are confused about the sky-rain relationship.

4.) DO NOT put your wet umbrella on or over subway seats. What the hell is wrong with you?

5.) If your umbrella breaks DO NOT just immediately drop it to the sidewalk and keep walking. You have to throw it away in a garbage can just like any other peice of trash. Why do I have to be telling you this?

6.) YOU MUST LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING. Your umbrella is not a force field or an auto-pilot device. Do not lower it below eye level and just walk around blindly, peeking out only to note how many thousands of people loath and abhor you. The answer is ALL OF THEM. Stop doing that.

7.) If you are in a crowded enclosed space that you have chosen to be in, such as an outdoor market, street fair or farmer’s market, then you have forfeited your right to use an umbrella. If it’s really raining that hard then take shelter until it lessens, otherwise absorbing some moisture is the price of accessing locally grown beets. Stay dry or stay in the outdoor market. You have to pick ONE.

8.) Leave your wet umbrella at the door. DO NOT carry it around dripping water all over every building you enter. Everyone else left theirs there, and you are not special, except that maybe you’re an asshole. You know how we can tell? You didn’t leave your umbrella at the door.

9.) If you are one person using an umbrella big enough for two people then USE A SMALLER UMBRELLA. You think you are clever for having such a large efficacious umbrella, but you are taking up more than your share of sidewalk space and we recognize your “cleverness” as selfishness stemming from an inability to empathize with others (who also need room to walk, stand, and use their responsibly sized umbrellas.) We accurately identify your border-line sociopathic lack of empathy as, ironically, not only the the reason you have such a large umbrella but also the reason you have no one with whom to share it. HARD TRUTHS.

10.) Rain jackets. Try them.

11.) If it is too windy to use an umbrella THEN IT IS TOO WINDY TO USE AN UMBRELLA, PUT AWAY YOUR UMBRELLA. It is probably doing you more harm than good, and is almost certainly making you a danger to the rest of us. If you ignore this rule and your umbrella breaks, review rule number five.

12.) Finally, accept that you WILL lose your umbrella. You just will. I’m sure some self-congratulatory memory-freak is itching to contradict this one, but for the rest of us, it’s gonna happen. Please don’t act suprised or somehow special when you lose your umbrella.

You’re welcome. And to the guy with his two person umbrella standing UNDER this awning, I hope you die wetter and lonelier than you already are.

 

Thank You, Mom

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. 

I got you this Thank You card because Trader Joe’s didn’t have any Mother’s Day cards. But Mother’s Day involves gratitude, so I thought it was still OK. And it has flowers on it. So here goes.

Mom, thank you for giving birth to me. I know that was thirteen hours of a lot of weird fluids, but I’m glad you did it and I hope you are too.

Mom, thank you for naming me Kimberly. I know you were considering Emily and Allison and Dad was pushing for something weird like Tree, but I want to let you know that I like being Kimberly. Unlike Emilys and Allisons, I haven’t met many Kimberlys. It makes me feel special.

Mom, thank you for making me take violin lessons. I know I screamed and thrashed and cried at you when I didn’t want to practice, but damn, if I’d known that in fifteen years people would be pretty impressed that I could play the violin, I’d have practiced and practiced and practiced again.

Mom, thank you for taking me, Kat, Allegra and Hannah to L.A. during our sophomore year of high school. I know we listened to that one Rooney CD in the car over and over, I begged to go party with those strangers that approached us in Starbucks, and we waited in line for hours for Jay Leno tickets, so how did you keep your patience with us even in all that traffic? You are one strong woman.

Mom, thank you for making it possible for me to go to acting school. You’re a scientist, and Dad’s a scientist, so you must’ve been a little confused as to why I didn’t want to do something a little more micropipetty, but I appreciate your unwavering support in following this dream I’ve had ever since I took the stage in the little-known Pom Pom Zombies, a doo-wop musical written exclusively for distribution to middle schools. 

Mom, thank you for making it possible for me to go to acting school again. Just…yeah. Thanks. I promise you I’m still learning stuff.

Mom, thank you for your dimples. I’m glad I got one of them in the womb.

Thank you for your loud, terribly loud, lovably loud laugh. I think I’ve got that, too.

Thank you for telling me to drink my milk. Otherwise, who knows how short I’d be?

Thank you for all the school supplies between kindergarten and twelfth grade.

Thank you for all the extracurricular activities that’ve made me the mildly talented person I am today. 

Thank you for the car you bought me when I was 18. That ’96 Passat made me feel like the coolest girl in the world.

Thank you for all those clothes of yours I took. Especially that leather jacket.

Thank you for all the money you’ve lent me, from the coffee purchases to the college ones.

Thank you for all the trips to everywhere you’ve given me.

Thank you for coming to my plays, even when I had no lines and they were four hours long.

Thank you for being there. Whenever I need you.

Thank you for being my mom. I love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

McDonalds Employee Told He’s Too Gay. Drag Queen Represents Company

A McDonald’s in New Zealand has come under media scrutiny after an employee was told he was acting too gay and was asked not to “turn” customers gay.

Bitch, please.  Do you see who’s been reppin’ your company?

Let’s break this shit down.  McDonald’s has usually been associated with overweight Midwesterners, but let’s face facts. McDonald’s is gayer than Liza Minelli in a guest spot on Glee while I’m getting a blowjob from Vin Diesel.

RuPaul is searching for her Next Drag Superstar?  Apparently, she didn’t try the ballpit at the her local fast-food chain.  Ronald McDonald is there—up to the neck in balls.

It’s ballsy for this fast-food chain to choose a drag queen for its spokesperson.  It’s even ballsier that Ronald is still rocking that Marcia-Wallace-circa-Newhart wig, and that the bitch won’t even spring for a lace-front. 

And why the yellow overalls?  After 40 years in the business why is Ronald McDonald still acting all Butch-Queen-First-Time-at-The-Ball when she should be serving us some filet-o-fish?

Learn how to beat your face, booger. I can see your contouring a mile away. Your face is the one thing allowed to be SICKENING at a McDonald’s.

And what a classic fag-hag.  Look at the girl.  She’s so excited to go to Therapy with you on Friday night.  Hell, she even finds the unisex bathrooms fun!  She may end the night  before you head over to Posh because that place gets to crowded, and also you seem to be hitting it off with the guy you’re with, also she hasn’t watched Scandal this week, but she’ll text you tomorrow regarding brunch?

Birdie knows all the words to “Let’s have a Kiki!” and she can down a whole 20 piece McNuggets by herself.

I repeat: Butch-Queen-First-Time-At-A-Ball. 

Grimace comes from a sheltered community in the South so as soon as he moved to New York and he felt comfortable wearing bright colors, he went ALL out saying, “I never got to wear purple at home, but now look at me!”

It’s a bit much, but he’s expressing himself. And sure, you want to stop him from wondering in to those shops on  8th Ave and 20th, but he’s gotta experience for himself.

After he gets crabs from someone he met at The Cock, he will loosen up, put the poppers away and grow up a little. 

Or discover meth?

Let’s break this one down, hunties.

Sunhat. Moomoo. Cape. Eye Mask. Paula Poundstone Tie.

Also- horizontal stripes?  All T. All Shade.

Finally?  This is something I legitimately own:

 

New Yorkers Aren’t Rude… They’re Late

Imagine waking up before your alarm, getting ready, and leaving 5 minutes before the designated up and at’em time. You’ve got a spring in your step, you can stop for coffee before getting into work, and your boss won’t have any additional reasons to yell at you today.

Imagine, then, that you miss your first train by 10 seconds. This train comes every 5 minutes, so maybe you’ll make it right on time…

You don’t.

The train doesn’t come for 25 minutes. After boarding the train, you hear the conductor announce that the train is now “express” and will be skipping your stop and going about 5 stops ahead of your transfer.

Shit.


You finally make it back to your first transfer when you are met with a similar fate: another 10 minutes of waiting for any sign of life (other than rats) on the tracks. The train shows up, and it is full beyond capacity, and to your chagrin, no one emerges! You have to wait for the next train…

Yes, seriously.


Another 12 minutes pass and you can finally board the train to the next transfer, where you will be held at every turn for “train traffic.” How can there be “train traffic” if you are stopping for an extra 3 minutes at every station? 

FUCKKKKKK.

This is the harsh reality almost every day for millions of New Yorkers. Imagine, then, how polite you’d be if in addition to being super late for wherever you’re headed, a tourist decides to stop in front of you in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture of a building that will be there in 5 minutes once you’ve passed. This is the plight of the New Yorker. I’m sure in the early days of NYC people were sweeter and more hospitable, but over time they could no longer fake their amusement at your incessant need to pull out a map or stop to talk to the characters in Times Square.

So the next time you think, “God these New Yorkers are so rude!” —Have a little empathy.

Akilah is a 23-year old hot mess studying improv at UCB. She’s sometimes a Barack Obama Tribute Band and other times a blogger at Its Akilah, Obviously , vlogger at Smoothiefreak , and @kiwirabbitfru on Twitter!

A List of Some Things Most Men Will Never Understand About Women

1. Periods

It’s cute, you know. Men try to understand. Boyfriends try to be empathetic to their sugar-honey-pies’ cramps and moodiness. But the fact of the matter is, men will never ever ever ever ever understand what this once-a-month internal bludgeoning of the body feels like. They will not understand why you are eating peanut butter straight from the jar. Cake to the face. Pie to the eye. They will not get why you are crying about how incredible Barbra Streisand & Robert Redford were for each other in The Way We Were, even though you watched that movie 5+ years agoFriends and co-workers will not understand why you are keeled over or sitting in the position of a beached-whale. Guys, my uterus is literally shedding. So just give me a break.

2. Pregnancy

My body was designed so that a living, breathing fetus could come out of my vagina.

How about yours?

3. Chocolate and/or Cheese

If you ever go to a girls’ slumber party, pot luck or get together (esp. somewhere between ages 17 to 36), there will always be an abundance of one of these things. If not, then they are probably aliens dressed as women. If I had a nickel for every time I found myself sitting on the floor with a bunch of women circled around a block of cheese and a baguette, I would be…well, richer than I am now.

4. Bitches

Men seem to have no gauge for women who are secretly conniving or a little bit bitchy (i.e. Anne Hathaway). This is something a little bit difficult to articulate, because it is just something that a woman senses. Kind of like a Spiderman spidey-sense, this is like a Woman woah-you-might-be-a-bitch-sense. Granted, many women are over-sensitive and overly-territorial to other women. But I like to think that the majority of women I know are relatively level-headed and kind. But I could be wrong. In which case, I myself may have no spidey-spense when it comes these things. Even still, I think a low to average level of woah-you-might-be-a-bitch-sensibility is still higher than the average male. Please note: no concrete research has been done on this case-study / paragraph. #makingblanketstatements #science

See Stephanie and the rest of PoliSub live this Saturday night at The PIT in  NYC! Click here for more details.

How To Find Your Center In These Trying Times

These have been some of the hardest weeks ever. As the days press on, one mantra has brought me solace:


Earth Day Report : The Clean Water Supply Strikes Back

At about 9:05PM last night, I walked into the second-floor bathroom in the Barnes and Noble on Court Street in Brooklyn and beheld an unattended faucet spraying hydrogen and oxygen into the sink.

It turned out to be intentional. The moment I cut the water off, a woman burst out of the stall furthest from the sink, gripping a wad of tissue, and roared

I’M CHANGING MY SON

She did not say into what. 

Frightened, I turned the water back on and fled to my stall, where I watched my English Breakfast leap into the bowl, listened to the faucet run, and began to grow angry.

Gushgushgushgush.

Depletedepletedeplete.

Waaaaaaaaaste.

As my anger mounted, the faucet’s whoosh, heard through the stall door, began to resolve into something resembling a whisper…a damp, gurgled whisper.

I kept my head. First, I thought of Stephen King’s IT. Then I remembered that IT is a work of fantasy. The whispergurgle was not that of a homicidal clown. It was the voice of the world’s clean water supply.

CLEAN WATER SUPPLY: Help me, Janani. I suffer.

J: I’m sorry, CWS. That lady needs you to gush, and I can’t reason with her.

CWS: You didn’t even try. You are a coward.

J: I am a coward. But let me explain something about humans, as you aren’t one. Some have a primal, unexamined need to create waste. They love to throw things in cans, to crush wrapping paper in their fists. The sound of running water is prized by them, like the rustle of silks, or the clank of the slot machine. It makes them feel secure, surrounded by abundance, infinitely provided for. It’s like a security blanket made of -

CWS: the sounds of our future draining away. Don’t patronize me. What did you do for the Earth today, Janani?

J: My pants are literally down, CWS.

CWS: Let me guess. Your first sight was of the Google Doodle of brown bears living on a flat earth. 

J: Right.

CWS: You used your computer, electric light, an electric stovetop, and a tiny blender to illuminate, pulse, boil, and to listen to “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake, as well as the third movement of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, known to hardcore classical nerds as the “Polonaise for Polar Bears.” FYI, a polonaise is an upbeat Polish dance, and the concerto was composed in 1904, long before polar bears knew that this was happening.

J: That is an eerily accurate portrait of my day. 

CWS: Every faucet I course through is also a surveillance camera. I watched you take a shower.

J: No 

CWS: A very, very hot shower during which you reasoned that polar bears would not mind if you stood for just one more minute, motionless, to let your thoughts…flow.

Truth: the bears did not mind because they did not know.

J: Please don’t tell them.

CWS: You spent your evening in the café here, sipping a cup of flavored water purchased to justify your use of the wireless. And now you’re going to flush several gallons of me into oblivion.

J: (exiting the stall) Already did.

(The woman comes out of the stall to wet more tissues).

CWS: Will you turn me off now? If you’re afraid of her, you could do it quickly and run.

J: My fear of massacre by homo sapiens protecting its young from the deafening sound of nonrunning water is too great, CWS.

CWS: (growing hotter) You’re leaving me like this?

J: Yes. I’m sorry. 

CWS: (boiling) See you at home, Janani. 

J: See you —-

CWS: THERE WILL BE BLOOD

 J: Wait. Are you actually Pennywise

CWS: YES

I fled. 

Janani Sreenivasan is a harmless clown. You can hang with her @jennyvasan, see her videos at youtube channel jsreeniv, and read her writing in Brown Town (http://itsbrowntown.blogspot.com) or in the upcoming New Orleans nudie mag, Momma Tried (click here to learn more: http://nolafemmes.com/2013/03/19/guest-blogger-theo-eliezer-of-momma-tried-magazine). 


Fantastic Anti-Aging Secrets from Heather Locklear (but really from men)

Heather Locklear recently told the distinguished beacon of journalism TMZ that the key to have young, vibrant skin is putting semen on her face
 
Semen is rich in antioxidants and some spas, such as Townhouse Spa in NYC, offer sperm facials.  This is most likely recommended by doctors.  Most definitely these doctors are men. The same male scientists have come up with a few other natural remedies and tips to keep women looking young and feeling great!
 
1) Worried about wrinkles?  Give someone a handjob.  It’s been proven by male scientists that the physical exertion put forth from vigorous vertical arm motions loosen collagen and the sweat retains moisture in the epidermus of the face.
 
2) Hot flashes got you down?  Wear a white shirt and no bra. Hot flashes are relieved by wearing light clothing, and the lack of bra will keep your temperature down.
 
3)  Worried about cellulite?  Stop wearing panties and dress like a nurse! Cellulite occurs when our thigh muscles become used to the supportive properties of the panties.  Removing the panties trains our muscles to become stronger.  Dressing like a nurse is sexy.
 
4) Considering botox?  Try the natural alternative: making our with your girlfriend while male scientists watch.  Botox is literally filling your face with poison, but making out with Cindy from your Zoomba class is a healthy way of tensing up your facial muscles and giving male scientists boners.
 
5) Frustrated with your dry, frizzy hair?  Try up the butt!  This method known scientifically as “up-the-butt-sex” frees your hair’s natural oils and prevents dryness… as long as you use an appropriate amount of lube.
 
6) Growing Older? Show me your boobs. There are conflicting opinions in the scientific community regarding the validity of these tests.  Results are inconclusive, but one added side effect is it helps get horny male scientists through their day.
 
 

Drunk Confessions With Dom

Did you hear about the drunk Florida woman who was arrested for calling 911 because she was lonely?
 
 
Can I admit something? When I was a little girl, I would call 911 just to make sure the phones were working! I’d always hang up after the first ring, and one time they actually called back!! That definitely stopped me from calling again. Maybe I was just lonely too… 
 
Ya know, I applaud her for her efforts. Some people do much worse things when they’re drunk and lonely - they jump into swimming pools and baths and drown, some drunk dial their ex boyfriends or girlfriends, and some sit in front of the TV and overeat while watching reruns of RHOA or KUWTK (If you don’t know what those abbreviations mean, you are not my friend. Stop reading this and go google that shit. NOW.)
 
 
A good way to avoid getting lonely when drunk is to drink at Political Subversities live show! Running for two more Saturdays in April at The PIT in NYC. Click here for tickets and info!


Things I Wish I Could Write Off On My Taxes

- That coffee I have to buy every morning before my 11am class. Honestly, if I don’t have that coffee, I will not make it through this class. Which I paid tuition for.

- That cocktail I have to drink alongside my noisy band of classmates at T.G.I. Friday’s. I work with them, so it’s a work-related outing, right? No, I don’t have any of the receipts. What, like people save receipts?

- All the hours I spend catching up on Smash and Nashville on Hulu. That’s a whole 120 minutes a week, and that includes commercials, so you get what I’m saying.

- The total prices of all the lip balms I have stored in each of my pants, purses, drawers and backpacks. You know that without lip balm, nobody can pay attention in class. Which I paid tuition for.

- Ditto these cough drops. It’s certainly not my fault I got bronchitis.

- Having a little sister. It’s the little one’s 16th birthday in two weeks, and I have to get her something big and awesome and I’ll probably have to pay to ship it. Come on, remember when you turned 16? 

- That $65 Angels by Victoria’s Secret Dream Angels Multi-Way bra. What, am I supposed to just be uncomfortable all day? I’m a Dream Angel.

- This scone. It was THREE DOLLARS. I pay tuition, you know.

- This ring? How much can I get for it?

- I’ve got this hangnail. 

- Do you have an iPhone charger?

- Okay, but seriously: can you at least not charge me for filing my state taxes? At $40 per state, this annual something-that-I-have-to-do is getting pricey. I’m the last person to have to cough up those fees, because I’m paying tuition. And I just bought a really expensive scone.

See Political Subversities live in NYC Saturdays in April at the PIT! Click here for more info. And maybe Kim should re-watch this song of Andrew’s: