Loving Hugh Is Easy Cux We're Both Beautiful...

In honor of Hugh Laurie winning yet another well-deserved awarsh*, I give you today's audio nugglet:

Hugh Laurie
written by Jason Stratham of The Cold Inclusive
Read by Ed Shepp (which if you're reading this blogsh, you kinda oughtta know by now, beeplet).

Enjoy!

Beep!
Ed Shepp

radio show + mp3s + CDs + myspace + article + all the other links

*awarsh (n) /əˈwɔrd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-wawrsh]: Merteuillian construction of award. The source of the construction is the movie Dangerous Liaisons, with Glenn Close as the Marquise de Merteuil, in which she tells the Vicomte de Valmont: "Come back when you have succeeded with Madame de Tourvel, and I will offer you... a rewarsh [reward]."

Myne Act of Contrition

Hi. Thanks for coming here.

Shhh, don't speak.

This is my confessional. I know it doesn't look like much--like some cardboard box that I threw a black veil over--but this is a holy place. Everything that happens here is between you, me and the backlit Nomi Malone picture on the chamber's ceiling. We praise you, Nomi.

I have something to confess, something horrible. Something that, if discovered, would render me untouchable, like a moldy piece talking tofurkey jerky. Something worse, in the world's eyes, than all the deadly sins combined, even the sin that dare not speak its name: Jessica Simpson. I have chosen to open myself to you because you are the only soul who is compassionate and merciful enough to look beyond my vile transgression and heal me with your pure, bootylicious love.

Hear me now with pity and patience, for now, to paraphrase Flaubert, it's on and crackalatin.


I...

like...

to.....

listen.....

to.......

....the Dawson's Creek song.

No, don't look at me! I don't want you to see me like this, so dirty and shameful.

But it's true, it's all true. I like the Dawson's Creek song. I don't know how it happened--one day I was mocking it with friends, singing "Doo doo dooooooo do dooo doooooo.....," then before I knew it the chorus would randomly recur to me during the day. Soonafter I got a copy of it and began occasionally istening to it, "ironically" (or so I told myself). Eventually it, like some satanic Soloflex commercial, wriggled its way inside of me, throbbing, pulsating, pumping me sardonically with lubricity. I started listening to the song all the time--I would wake up to it, play it all day at work, then receive it all night, until I collapsed, exhausted and drenched with sweat, from rocking back and forth to it for hours. I would repeat this the next day. I would sing it too--in elevators, in bathrooms, in the shower... I would tape myself singing it and experiment with singing harmony to it. I would have other people sing it. I would drag friends to Mexican restaurants so I could request it from the live mariachi band. I would crash weddings and impersonate the singer, just so I could assault the guests with the song. It got to the point that I was keeping a journal in which I expounded on the new meanings that I would discover daily within the song. All I could think of was the song; it had become my entire existence. I was to humans what Lohan's nose is to blow: a gaping hole, sucking everything into its warped universe.

It wasn't until 2 weeks ago that I saw what I had devolved into. It was 2am, and I had been rocking along to the song in my room and composing letters to the editors of several major newspapers, demanding that they stop suppressing this life-changing song and filling envelopes with Shower to Shower. Because editors tend to have foot odor. Well, I accidentally got a bunch of the powder on my face, when I miscaculated a dance move and plunged headfirst into a bowl of Spring Breeze. I went bathroomward to cleanse myself, and when I looked in the mirror, the sight before me was unrecognizable. And ghastly. There I was, in my Paula Cole wig and costume, my face coated with ghostly white powder and my body soaked with sweat and urine , smelling like bouquet of flowers on the floor of the 136 st. subway station. In that instant I saw at last what this song had done to me. I broke down and the floor, sobbing, wailing, wiping the stains of the toilet bowl and repeating, "I don't wanna do what his father, his father, his father, his father, HIS father did!"

I don't know how long I stayed like that before a holy light shone from deep within the toilet bowl, and a serenity washed over me like pus from a weeping sore. Then the spirit of Nomi Malone herself appeared to me, rising from the toilet bowl like a celestial, barely clothed pop tart. She blessed me, forgave my sin and told me to confess it to the most compassionate soul I know. I praised her and reached out to her, but she said only, "Bitch!" before doing a dance move with her arms and silnking with a swoosh down her porcelain altar into heaven.

For the next week I fell ill, into a joyous delirium, and the week after I built this confessional. And now I have brought you here, and revealed my disgrace spread-eagle. Now, in the spirit of Nomi, I will remove my garments and accept your forgiveness physically. Remember--you are doing Nomi's work; you mustn't hold back. Take pity on me, but please...

don't be gentle.

Beep!
Ed Shepp

radio show + mp3s + CDs + myspace + article + all the other links

Epistelary Beeps like Frozen Sparkles, Six-Sided

Dearest Arpogenia,

My, what a difference a day makes! One day it's all warm and rainy and womblike, so you crack the window, take a few handuls of fiber tablets (mmmmmmmm, good stuff!) and retire, hoping for dreams of Hugh Laurie and ylang flowers... the next morning you wake up in a frozen brown mound after one long nightmare, in which Paris Hilton stuffed you between the massive fat rolls concealed by her hypergravitational girdle, where a nonstop loop of The Day After Tomorrow III played. Which is worse, Paris Hilton, tofurkey jerky or an unidentified gas smell?? At this point I don't think anyone could say.

Yes, we're undergoing a huge cold snap here in the (cr)Apple. All the Christmas oranges and lemons have frozen solid--which, luckily, makes them great for pelting slow pedestrians with. You should see them when they slip on the ice and slide down the big hill--it's just like a life-size pinball machine. Doesn't Markie Post have one of those? I suppose she'd have to, with all that Night Court coin, right? HAHAHAHAHA LOL! But seriously, it's damn cold here--I went out to mail something at around 1pm, and the music froze in my headphones--Electric Youth, no less!! I thought that song was a scorcher. It melted my heart; I figured it could withstand 19 degree temps, right? Wrong. So what did I do, you're asking? Thanks for asking. Here's what I did: I removed my earbuds and decided to put them someplace piping hot--my backyard downtown chocolate muffin oven, if you know what I'm saying. And what I'm saying is: my butthole. Li'l Brown Eye. The Panic Button. I stuffed them there and squeezed as hard as I could, remembering what Sensei always said: Backdoor squeeze make big geyser heat (especially when Debbie Gibson's involved, right?!?!?!?). Sadly, that didn't have quite the effect I was hoping for. After some minutes I took them out, and saw that they had crystallized into diamonds! Sigh. I handed the dazzling blinglets to someone passing out Spanish herbal weight loss pill fliers and continued walking, making the music in my head. I guess I should have known better, especially after last Wednesday, when I ate a bunch of corn and then egested several hundred thousand pounds worth of flawless topaz on Friday. ...Or was it amethyst? I'll ask Shlomo next time I'm in the diamond district. He sells all my jewels. I don't think he gets the best prices, though--I'm always giving him diamonds that I'm sure are worth thousands, and then he comes back with a Happy Meal, asking for change! I really should investigate that. Note to self: Biopsy Shlomo's brain next Monday. Get Greg House in on this.

Still, cold or not, it's absolutely gorgeous out today. The sun is gleaming, much like those earbuds I just gave away, and the smell of burnt tires fills the air. That's because the glare from the streets is causing all the taxicabs to smash into each other. But don't cry for them, Arpogenia, because I've always made a point of lecturing them on driver safety every time I go to that Pakistani place with the $2 noodle bowl. (You know the one--the noodles have that curry-with-a-hint-of-urine flavor? It's that one we ate at just before you sprouted that frog limb for a week.) Did they listen? Obviously not, even when I talked the same gibberish to them that they do with each other. You could say they're getting their just desserts--I'm selling pies on the corner of Park and 30th (right outside the OTB where found your last husbands), and everytime some taxis crash I go and throw a pie in each cabbie's face. It's kinda like when they sing Happy Birthday to you at Olive Garden or the rest area. Or, when they used to, you know, before the ...unpleasantness.

And that's really all I have for you. Everything else is much the same. Still trying to get that wax-museum-where-the-statues-are-made-of-white-chocolate-and-butt hair started, and I think I may be close to a breakthrough with that: I met a swarthy middle eastern businessman who promises me every night that he'll invest lots and lots of money in the idea. And then he drops a barrett and, well, I think you know what happens from there. I wish he'd stop doing that, but whatever. Sensei also used to tell us that Path to Wisdom have many stop on Hershey highway. I always keep that in mind for those three minutes that I'm counting the Cheeto fragments on the floor--God, there are a lot of crumbs down there--I really oughtta get a mouse. I will say this, though: if I don't see some money soon, I have a feeling that one middle eastern businessman is going to have a 4-inch diamond Where the Wilde Warts Are!

That's the beep for now. Kisses! Give my best to the toilet bowl the next time you purge.

Beep!
Ed Shepp

radio show + mp3s + CDs + myspace + article + all the other links

Less Hate, More Mercy

Well, another weekend comes to a close and, of course, I have diarrhea. Does anything more need to be said about that?

Let's go over the days.

Friday was all about Pseu Braun. She was in a bad mood and was projecting it all on to me. I was telling her about my friend Parshan, and how we would go to bars where he would then flirt heavily with unconventionally attractive people and then we'd both go home. And I would say to him, "Why aren't you going to go home with that guy? You seemed to really like each other." But then Parshan would say he was kidding the whole time. I told Pseu that I thought he was embarrassed to like someone unconventionally attractive, and was not going home with him because he didn't want me to see it. (You know, how sometimes someone does it for you, but you're with friends, and they don't think ze's cute, so you pretend you don't either?) And I even reiterated my philosophy: whatever does it for you does it for you, and you should follow your own desires irregardlessly of what others think. Then Pseu loosed her bomb: You're a cock block. That's what she told me. A cock block! Imagine!

I told her that I am certainly no cock block; that it was my friend's insecurity that kept him from hooking up, not me. Yet she still continued to pour blame all over me like vitriol glaze, saying that I should have been "supportive" of my friend, saying thing like, "You go, girl! You go get some! Hellz fizzuck yeah! Uh-huh! I'm goin this way, and you're going that way, to the boom boom room! Hellz yeah!" And I'm like, Wingapo?! What, I have to coddle people? Ludicrous. I mean, I'll be supportive, but come on, I only cheerlead for $1,000 an hour, and usually that's for Asian businessmen.

But that's not all! I was also telling Psue about this new book I'd seen called The Science of Orgasm. As I ungastan it, the book says that you can have all kinds of different orgasms--brain scans have revealed that just touching some parts of the body can elicit orgasm. And that people who are paralyzed below the waist can also experience orgasm--I had no idea. Well, Pseu said to me: Duh, I've always known that. And I was like, Why didn't you tell me? And she's like, I didn't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. And I'm like, We're having the conversation right now, and I'm not uncomfortable. I just couldn't believe that she would have this kind of information and not share it. Isn't that the type of information you share with people? "Hey, check it out: you can have an orgasm just by being touched." That's the kind of thing I would want people to know. I guess I'm just more righteous than Pseu Braun. Hmmph.

Later, I was discussing the whole cock block thing with my roommate, who remembered one time when a friend of his did a mercy fuck. And I was like, What a good deed! A mercy fuck! So I'm calling for 2007 to be all about mercy fucks. Less hatefucking, more mercy fucking. Everyone go out and do one mercy fuck this year. And no, that does not include me, because we all know that I have been celibate for some time (yes, voluntarily) and intend to remain so. I'm righteous, you know, which is exactly why I should be the person to head up this movement. Everyone spread the word and the clap.

Lastly, an audio moment. I'm getting addicted to this having-audio-to-post-with-entries; it's awesome. So today's offering is this little thing I read in Black Book magazine. I think it's excerpts from a story called The Lonely Doll. Click here for the file. And remember Dead Palestinian Girl, that piece by Mark Baratelli that I recorded my slam version of? Well, here are Mark's versions: #1 and #2.

And that's the beep for now, gzooplets.

Beep!
Ed Shepp

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Sleep Slammed Against mp3s

A holiday weekend is coming up, and since I'm American, I have to write a list of target goals for said weekend. (Really, they make us do it--you have to submit your weekly target goals with your taxes, and now to the Department of Homeland Productivity.) So here are myne: 30 hours of sleep and ~5 hours of light therapy. But mostly sleep.

Why can't sleep come in a serum? A little vial that you drink, or a nose spray or a suppository--a supplement that gives you all the benefits of sleep without actual sleep. And no, I'm not talking about something to make you more awake or help you get to sleep. I'm talking about something that gives you the benefits of sleep--the cellular repair, the cementing of memories, the refreshment, the relief of dark circles.... It would be something you could take if you only got 4 hours of sleep--it would give you another 4-6. Or you could take it if you got 8 hours of sleep and just felt like having more. Presumably it could help some people stay up and (groan) work, but I think it would be more useful to people like me: the ones who, for whatever reason, can't get into bed before 1am but still have to get up in the morning. Imagine how amazing it would be if you could wake up, feel refreshed, keep going all day (maybe having a chemical cat nap or two), hit midnight, watch 2 episodes of Frasier, followed by 2 of The Golden Girls, crawl into bed around 3, wake up at 6, take your flask and start over again, never getting all crabby or dark-circley or comatose.... That's what I fantasize about these days. Not being rich or famous or a sex symbol or any of that, just getting more sleep. And not having to take public transportation. And being a rich, famous, well-dressed sexpot who has 5 Japanese cleaning ladies with ever-changing haircolors.

I hope you heard last night's Against ****: A Polemic show, because, I reiterate, it's a goodun. Go stream the mp3 while you can--it turns into a realaudio file heartbreakingly soon. Basturmatory as it may sound, I have to say that my ability to interpret text has improved drazmatically over the past couple years. I've listened to the show a bunch of times, and the number of cringeworthy, "I should have stressed that word," or "I need to round those phonemes" or "I need more control there" moments that I notice is well under the average. Yay! Again, here are the two excerpts I put online, one of which is the theme: excerpt (~7Mb) and theme (~2Mb?). Available for a limited time only!

And I have one more slonic gem for you. Last night I was feeling cheeky, caterwauling along with Jackie O, the Opera (mostly the spoken parts: "I'm taking the veil, she said, and retired... Jackie's been in retirement, licking her ...woooooounds... She's bigger than Mars... Drip, dress, drive and dance! Throw off your veil! ...the old Norma, Claudiata, Lucia--I said No, I'm sorry. I cannot DO routine! I need new productions! ...If you have to find a gesture; when you want to find how to ACT on stage, all you have to do is listen. If you take the trouble to listen with your soul and with your ears and I say soul and ears because the mind MUST work! But not too much...." Yeah, those last ones were the Maria Callas character. She ROCKS ...in that opera way)..... OK, another long parenthetical bit. I'm prone to that. So I was feeling cheeky and decided to record a teensy slam version of something my friend Mark Baratelli wrote, called I'm a Dead Palestinian Girl. Here's the origin of that: I saw the phrase in the Voice or somewhere and thought, Hey, that would make a great name for a band! So I mentioned that to Mark and he wrote a li'l bit from her. He sent me a quick draft and later recorded a full version of the song (I can't find it online at the moment). Anyway, last night I went to that old email and recorded my own li'l slam version (at least how I imagine slam) of it. Click the link below to listen (it's a small file, like 1.6Mb):

I'm a Dead Palestinian Girl, written by Mark Baratelli, slammed by Ed Shepp.

And that's the gzoop for now, gwinbeepsterlets.


Beep!
Ed Shepp

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Against Hair: An Experiment with Excerpts

Well, beeplets, it looks like The Ed Shepp Facial ExpHairiment has, regrettably, come to an end. A couple days ago I shaved off all that wonderful beard hair (which you see on the left) that it toook me all of 3 weeks to grow. Sigh. Why did I blitz it? There were a couple of reasons: 1) I thought that keeping a beard would be easier than shaving. Not so. It's harder, because once it's grown in (which takes only a few weeks, but it feels like longer), it grows zippity fast, and then you keep having to trim it. Every few days or so. If you don't, you look kinda ratty. More like Matisyahu than House. 2) A certain comment that I kept getting. Literally five different people told me, "You look like an ***** *****," or some variation thereof. These were not five people who all knew each other, who could have gotten together and agreed to tell me I looked like an ***** ***** with the beard. After a while, I couldn't look in the mirror without thinking "***** *****." That, combined with the usual January doldrums, was too much for the hair to bear. So I blitzed it. I might grow it again one of these days, but methinks I'll have to get one of those electric trimmers before doing that, sos I can keeps it manicureds.

In another blip, be sure to tune in to The Ed Shepp Radio Experiment Thursday, the 11th, because it's a goodun (6-7pm Eastern time, 91.1fm or wfmu.org). You know how I do my xmas cards on CD now? Well, this show is gonna be my valentine CD. Because I take text extensively from my favorite book, Against ****: A Polemic, a work I want peops to read. The prose is [mostly] pretty breezy and casual, so it makes for good audio. And since I so want you to listen to this one, I've actually put up (for a limited time) teaser excerpts: Here's one segment from the show and Here is the theme mix for this particular show, which is actually more than a remix, because the lead vox are different. So tune in, beepsters! It'll be a blast!

And one last burplet of news that I should have posted before, but forgot: My platial map, Where I Was When 9/11 Happened, won a platial award in the Best News/World Events Map category. Yay! Everyone go to the map and leave your mark.

And that's the gzoooples for now, gbeepsters. Need more? You can go visit my facebook and last.fm pages, which I just recently put up. Go ahead and add me whilst you're there.

Beep!
Ed Shepp

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The BIG STINK of 2007

All right, the big news of today is the mysterious gas smell hovering over the NY area. I'm dubbing it the BIG STINK of 2007, so everyone follow my lead on that. C'mon, I'm trying to "reinvent" myself as a trendsetter. Or journalist. Or phrasemaker, or whatever the hell. Anyway, I'm working on my story now for when people start asking, "Where were you during the BIG STINK of 2007?" I haven't got much yet, but the skeleton involves plus-size Brazilian models, a paint wheel in a SoHo loft and lots and lots of operatic caterwauling.

What was I really doing? Stumbling out of the house, cursing the Monday on my way to work. Of course it didn't occur to me until lunchtime to send out the perfunctory Don't let me die a virgin!!! email--can't let those opportunities for terror sex go by, right? So anyway, at around noon I clicked into my gmail address book and went straight to the group called Emergency Terror Sex Contacts to draft a message. Imagine my shock when there were (portentous minor chord on strings, maybe that diminished-5th type thing)..... NO! NAMES! THERE! [big girly scream] What's worse, I didn't even have a form letter email drafted--just the subject: Don't let me die a virgin!!! Well, needless to say, I have to rectify this post haste. I'm drafting an email that will automatically be sent out to craigslist and associated salacious sites in case of the following: unidentified smells, terror attacks, snowstorms, Republican conventions, traffic jams, returns of Christ or other gods or godlike beings, transit strikes, grey hairs, zombie attacks and any other occasions in which immediate anonymous intimacy is called for. If you would like to be added to this mailing list, alert me here, especially if you have the good pillz.

But for all you people who are freaking out about the potential deadly odor, don't cry for me, Tallahasseans. Because I have NO INTENTION of dying with this 48-inch waist (or until I have 10,001 myspace friends--add me here)! HELLZ to the NAHW!!! Even if someone rains zombie smallpox on the city, I will NOT expire until I'm down to my regular 26. And with that in mind, I've scheduled an emergency meeting with my bulimia coach and a trip to Mexico to get some outlawed diet drugs. Who cares if they made hundreds of cattle literally cook in their skins? If they can make me poop this fat out faster than the water supply in Mexico, I'm there!

In other news, what a weekend! Saturday I went to the WFMU holiday party, where I hung out with my friend Corey Smith and got hammered. Then he convinced me to go to the Black Dice show at the Bowery Ballroom, which was awesome. Then I slept late Sunday. Ooh! I just remembered: Everyone tune in to my show this week. I'm reading extensively from my favorite book, Against ****: A Polemic. I'm actually giving this as my valentine for this year. So sign up for the Emergency Terror Sexymailything if you want a valentine.

That's all.

Beep!
Ed Shepp

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