Salute, here’s to you and:

10. Less work and more jobs.

9. More dry wine, preferably from a clay amphora.

8. No More Uggs. Because giant, fat, floppy elephant feet are not attractive, especially on girls. Soggy and stained, giant, fat, floppy elephant feet seem worse.

7. No more Loud phones with shitty speakers you can talk at while holding on an awkward angle to your face so everyone can hear your inane conversation and peg you for a massive douche. Although, at least they peg you as a massive douche so the rest of us can just avoid you out right.

6. Phones and other devices that are built to last. What happened to making things out of bronze?

5. Fresher herbs and spices.

4. The Hobbit. BILBO LIVES.

3. Smarter profiling at airports. Because detaining me in a windowless room and then body searching me was a waste of everyone’s time. If I’m going to blow something up, it’s obviously going to be an Ugg store.

2. A new cabinet for Obama.

1. More love. More liberal, hot, true, furry, crazy, skinny love.

This insecure right wing sociopath who channels Edith Bunker (if she thought like Joseph Stalin at the height of his paranoia) came into my neighborhood and shit himself over a guy walking his dog on Bedford ave. His fragile constitution prevents him from being comfortable with individualism – that’s what we call it in America you ignorant homunculus.  They’d murder this guy in Texas.

As part of a personal, ongoing investigation of the mysteries of this universe, spirituality and all a matters ineffable, I recently consulted with a Medium (one who channels communication from the spirit world). At the end of a long, strange session where I asked broad questions about the energies that surround and influence us, I asked about my friends. It was mostly broad responses about being overly empathetic and how I tend to from strong but sometimes overly dependent bonds with friends.

The Medium honed in to Daniel and how I first met him (spiritually speaking) on a U-boat serving in the Deutschland Kriegsmarine off the coast of Morocco in 1939. It’s harrowing tale of wartime adventure, Casablancan intrigue, and Mediterranean women. It makes sense cause we both like Aryans and tough nautical sweaters.

Most importantly, Daniel showed me that I didn’t need to mercilessly dominate others just to feel good (not in ’39, but a few months ago). He probably has something to show you too.

Daniel is an inspiration and all round good guy. He is a man among legions of hopeless noobs, in these hapless times. He is a beacon of love, white light and music. Of good times and better costume design. A lighthouse by which you may steer your crippled ship home.

Dig Daniel’s born to be nervous if you ain’t already.

The first time I saw Tunde he was opening up for The Fall with a very early, laptop heavy incarnation of TV on the Radio.  He’s been blowing my mind ever since.

Dig this chat about acting, our national preoccupation or lack thereof of “race,” his passion for cartooning, and yes, music.

Most know her as Allie, if they are fortunate enough to know her at all. But her true name, like her true self, is a great deal more complex, beautiful, and frightening. More interesting. Most people really are not interesting. They may be pretty, or famous, or speak French fluently, but they’re just weird bags of mostly water that can walk around and buy things.

Alexandria just wrote a play called “Dream of Me,” and it’s real good. It’s about love and the mess that goes along with it, especially being young and in New York City. Though some of it is just about sex too… where the two overlap, no one knows.

It’s structure and presentation is thoughtful and inventive. You may be made uncomfortable. More so if you’ve ever been in love and lost it. There’s some full female nudity that may be gratuitous, but it makes sense, it punctuates a character that is already exposed and vulnerable. There’s even some laughs.

She’s a bit too young to be successful, but like her charismatic ancient namesake there is much to do while young (drunken Dionysian orgies, founding cities, writing plays, conquering the world). Hey, whatever they may be, follow your dreams. Love requires someone else to go along with it.

“Dream of Me” runs at the Cell theater, in Chelsea, through March 15th: Tickets.

Megs with her beloved (& abused) Paddington.

Hated Meghan Czerwinski when I first met her. She was my friend’s little sister and a constant teenage burn up. It was torture trying to hang out at his house, she was in a perpetual foul mood, a territorial animal that just ruined everything. Still, it was kinda hot. At some point I realized she wasn’t a worthless psycho and she realized I wasn’t a worthless loser and we declared an uneasy truce, sharing her brother.

We went on like this for a time, dividing him like he was some queer Poland occupied in an uneasy, but mutually beneficial alliance (not sure which of us was the fascist/communist).  Only, instead of breaking our treaty and going to war, we disarmed. Been legendary pals ever since.

She is one of the strongest people I know, yet she can cry on command. I have no idea why Meghan still even remotely struggles with the rest of us, someone should be paying her in diamonds just to hang around and tell them what’s what. Actually, some people already do.

HBD!

Life ain’t much without em, other than suffering and dying horribly alone.

The Whisk and Ladle is a private supper club in Williamsburg, near the river, in one of those buildings where magical shit still happens. I went there recently one snowy night with three of the most attractive and brilliant people in Brooklyn, trying to pull my weight. Christina twinkled, Daniel did a dance, Allie entranced everyone with her veiled dinner party hat.

We were greeted first by Mark, a charming host who catered to all our whims and inquiries. In the open kitchen we met Danielle, spatula in hand and a large silver cleaver dangling from her neck. Amazing placement. She must be responsible for the magic. Other “staff” include a changing roster of cooks (we had one from Momofuku) with changing culinary themes.

The place itself is a mélange of good lighting and great smells. A bi-level loft, the interior is both cozy and spacious, with most of the bedrooms upstairs and the entertainment downstairs…unless you’re a naughty customer (I was upstairs).

Cocktails are served at a small bar that fancies a bit of cocktology… rye, rum, tequila concoctions. There were little squishy rice cakes covered in a slightly spicy sauce, absurdly simple but great. Everyone seemed happily buzzed during the long cocktail hour, om noming appetizers and making new friends.

Amid the mingling, Mark showed us some kind of cooking device that looked like a science experiment. It was cooking a sealed cut of beef in gently bubbling, cool water. Something about ions. The idea was that the beef never touched air and thus did not oxidize until the moment it was served. The whole thing made me feel like a buck-toothed Klingon.

By the time we were seated and served wine people were starving and sizing each other up. We sat at a table with two girls who seemed ready to eat each other. One had lost her voice and the other spoke in strange rhythms I did not easily comprehend. My companions did most of the talking but after a time I developed a rapport with the voiceless girl next to me, gesturing and tying to “sign” things while becoming increasingly intoxicated. The soup came just in time, but was a single wonton in a spoonful of broth. Though incredibly delicious, it served only to wet appetites that were already drenched.

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Fashionably late to the post…. Last New Year I rode a roller of emotional highs and lows for days before and during the big event, desperately trying to hold onto someone who was once dear to me while taking a whip to my privates over world events.

No more!  Or maybe lots more. But right now, I have hope in my heart, a mind like the cutting edge of a katana, and the physical vigor of a Panther.

Here’s to 09…