Goddamn. To think, it feels like it was only yesterday as Andrew was violated "just enough" when Bakes got snuck in through the back porch. Little did we know she'd get the master bedroom, and get a mud room installed, too. As the Deputy Undersecretary of Clusterfuckery Cheer around these parts, I hereby declare today The Opening Of Skiing Season.
Holy shit. I'm clearing out the cobwebs here. It's been so long since I've taken to the left side/since Paolo first blogjacked it that the floorboards are all creaky and I just got some dust up my snooter and ACHHLEW! [Ed. Gesundheit!] Speaking of which, there's a party tonight: it's Katie's birthday! And speaking of skiing, Katie's a great skier. Srsly!
Anyway: this reminds me of that time, like, a few weeks ago, when I offered the backchannel an opportunity to hold a roast for 99 at his birthday party (predictably, at Joe's, The Most Depressing Bar On 6th Street That Isn't The Cherry Tavern). Nobody responded, so for his birthday, he ended up with one drink (purchased by me, which does nothing to chip away at a year's worth of YM-subsidized booze) and an email full of bad police brutality jokes.
As for Bakes, I would roast her, but it's hard! For example, my source material:
She has this innane obsession with Mickey Kaus that I really don't understand.
Did you know there was once a picture of her in Business Week when she was like, ten, because she ran some kind of forum for thicknecked Rangers fans on Prodigy or something? Truth!
She also has friends who don't work in media, and she doesn't work in media, which makes her media fetish as unhealthy, strange, and worrysome as Curt's. That being said, if she ever gets a job in media, I'm leaving New York: that'd be like going home from college to find out the Girl Next Door got addicted to Oxycotin after hanging out with all the bad kids for so long and managing to completely stay out of trouble. DO NOT WANT.
I can't think of a single person who doesn't like her, which sounds like non-compliment, but around these parts, it's really not. Also, she taught me what advertorial was and didn't make fun of me for not knowing sooner for more than, like, a week.
Katie's the kind of person that can survive having a facist roommate without bludgeoning them, which is also impressive. This actually happened, and the worst thing Bakes really ever did about it was break down the door to her apartment, which she contends was not an act of agression so much as the need to go to the bathroom. She's even too nice to admit that she was raging against the (Jewish NeoCon) machine.
She devotedly wears her Giants jersey when she watches games at home.
The point is, there's really not that much to roast Katie over, or maybe there is, but really, like, how could you? Anyway. She's (predictably) having another party at Barramundi and I fully intend on buying her and her charitable cause a drink. She is wonderfully smart, talented, a great friend, by far, the funniestwriter on the YM masthead and inextricably (maybe, for her - and especially for Dave - tragically) part of the family. Katie, you might be a shiksa, but you're our shiksa*, goddamnit. This joint goes out to you:
*But Bakes is not the only shiksa in the YM-Tang Clan! I'm not sure exactly what persuasion Spiers is, but she probably renounced it, like, nine years before you've even heard of it, anyway.
Shit's true: YM and the YM Tumblr have multiple contributors, most of whom tend to blame one another when asked if something that went up is theirs (my tip: if it's indignant, it's Nic, if it's self-righteous, it's Andrew, and if it's intentionally bad, that's me). Well, to the nine people reading this, you've now got someone else to blame for our shit: meet the newest contributor to YM, Bakes.
When the Dramaspora was still in full force, two secret guest-bloggers were invited to contribute, one by Andrew, the other by me. I brought Bakes on because there's too much penis up in this motherfucker, and I can only handle the snausages-fest for so long before my propensity for extended dialogues about Glenn Danzig and "fuck the po-lice" reaches its breaking point. I broke the news to The Boss about three weeks after she had been on board - he called my slipping her the login "just violating enough," which is an incredible compliment around here. Violating the Boss is something you only get to do once every Full Moon over San Loco. She's done nothing but great things since then, and she's a sneaky one. I can't tell you how many times I've emailed Andrew or Bakes asking which one of them wrote a particular item on any given day. Yes, it's true: we aim to confuse, and she's captured the spirit of that in a manner befitting someone I delight in having around, when I can tell it's her.
Bakes hails from one of the Whitest Places in America, and it confuses her when I talk about "that rapper music." She knows a lot about money and shit, and bars like Dorian's that we'd never be caught dead in before but can now venture into with a certified safari guide; i.e. places that are both the hive of some of the biggest assholes in New York and a locale further up our own asses then ever previously spelunked. Best of all, Katie's a good fit for us as evidenced by a conversation we once had in which we discussed the nature of her birthday party, filled with both three-piece business types and bloggers. We were discussing the disparities in that way in which we discuss things, and Katie astutely noted: "You guys are far more judgmental of them than they would ever be of you!"
"Of course!" Andrew and I simultaneously exclaimed.
The fact that she's still around means she is definitely one of us. Welcome to the shit, soldier.
