Join me as I light the votive candles in the Mario Lopez shrine in the closet of my guest bedroom. Words fail me as I reflect upon the greatness that is Mario, so I choose to let Olivia Newton John speak for me at this time.



One would think the earth would implode at the moment of Mario Lopez's birth, wouldn't one? You would think that at that moment, human evolution had undeniably reached it's apex and the universe would say "OK...that's a wrap. It don't get any better than that. Our work here is done." Then the universe would disappear like the blip of a 1950's black and white TV when you turned it off.

Mario's beauty exists on a different celestial plane that we mortals can't comprehend. The last votive has now been lit. Let us kneel at this time.

A friend of mine that follows my silly little blog brought me lunch today and when we started talking about the blog...said "you never really say what you actually do". I know what Laura meant. I don't blog about mundane stuff I "do" except gardening. I blog about mundane stuff I "think about". Ok..here's one post about mundane stuff I "do"....

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This is the photo I am including in our April press releases.

This is the "lead display" in the store now. The lead display should show a Clift Notes version of the whole store and make customers intrigued enough to shop the rest.

*(When I'm not terrorizing Blogstream, this is the kind of stuff I am doing. )

The spring assortment for the store starts in my head around September. I start looking at next year's Pantone predictions, I check out what my peers in LA and NYC are doing, I spend days looking at images from websites of cool European and Asian retailers. By November 1st, I have a pretty clear general idea about what I want the visual message and merchandise assortment to look like for spring and summer. Then I'm ready to plug actual merchandise into the formula.

So off to NY for the big trade shows. Most people think we party our ever lovin asses off during these trips. Ok...maybe a little...but 99% of the time, we are sitting around talking about shit like..."is it aquamarine, tourquoise, or robin's egg??? what's the BLUE next year??? how coral is coral this year??? did you have "items" for fourth quarter?? did you get "press"??? my margin sucked. where did you get margin??? I can't get margin anymore from these cut-throat vendors! who's got the margin??? Oh oh oh...I have a freight carrier for ya! Vendor-so-and-so has incentives in march! Woohoo

That sucks. Here we are...a bunch of attractive gay buyers that have formed this little fraternity over the years simply by being in the same places at the same time in Chelsea in February for 20 years...we should be mackin' on the hot little Chelsea Boys parading all around us...but NO...over the years our conversations have increasingly been taken over by "factoring", "sourcing", "microdemographics", "spotting", and the dreaded "margin".

It's a wierd fraternity..this gang of mine that has met up 3 times a year for the past 20 years in Chelsea. At one time, we were all buyers for chains. Slowly over the years we have all now started our own businesses. We ARE the gay mafia of independant retail. It sounds really dumb to type, but we support each other like crazy...and we celebrate each other's accomplishments when we see each other in NYC. I love these guys like family.

10 years ago we would be mackin' the hot little Chelsea gym boys and kissy-kissy-drink-and-dashin' and hookin'-up...but now we sit in this hot little gay bar on Eighth Avenue, discussing shit like profit margins and freight carrier discounts and Chinese product sourcing and Google feeds for our websites. Me and my boys have become what is known in the vernacular as "trolls" I fear. Fuck it. I love being a troll. It means I survived.

Aaanyways...here's another pic of Heliotrope's lead table for April. 10 vendors represented...10 merchandise categories represented...a totally 2008 fashion-forward color scheme...the perfect fucking retail display.

With times being what they are, I feel it is important...nay...imperative... that each and every one of us pause for a moment and embrace our inner Bea Arthur.

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How Bea Arthur are you?

A Holy Mother plaque I bought in Guatemala. I'm not Catholic, but from what I gather, you have to telegram Jesus through her if you are, so we thought the sign would be kinda funny.
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Another Holy Mother plaque from a yard sale, some random Mexican luminary candles, and uh...a clay pig we found that looks like it was painted by somebody while they were doing 'shrooms.
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A fish that Marc caught on a trip to Destin, Florida with his dad.
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Some string lights we added because we felt the back porch just wasn't quite gay enough. They actually do look very cool at night.
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A vintage tin sign I got for Christmas one year and a bunch of cool broken glass that we were gonna make a table with.
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The "hamster-witch"...(don't ask...it's a very silly story)...peeking out of some strange turn-of-the-century medical device I found at a flea market and the big ol' triangle I got for my birthday one year. I freakin' love that triangle. I like to step out on the back porch and bang on it and yell "COOOOME AND GIT IT" at random times throughout the day and at the top of my lungs.
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And our gardening boots that we left out over the winter.

By the way, today is our 7 year anniversary, yall.

My last post was too freakin' serious. I need to clear the air with a fun little ditty from Tom Tom Club and these quotes from Mitch Hedberg. Enjoy.

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I got a business card, 'cause I want to win some lunches. That's what my business card says: "Mitch Hedberg, potential lunch winner." Call me some time, maybe we'll have lunch... If I'm lucky!"

I bought myself a parrot; the parrot talked, but it did not say "I'm hungry," so it died.

I need to go to the Apartment Depot. Which is just a big warehouse with people standing around saying "Hey, we ain't gotta fix shit!"

I'd like to see a forklift lift a crate of forks. It'd be so damn literal. "Hey, you're using that machine to its exact purpose!”

I don't have a girlfriend. I just know a girl who would get really mad if she heard me say that.

I want to be a race car passenger. Just a guy who bugs the driver. "Say, man, can I turn on the radio?" "You should slow down." "Why we gotta keep going in circles?" "You really like Tide."

I hate turtlenecks. Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really really weak guy. All day. Like, if you wear a turtleneck and a backpack, it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down.

I went camping once, and got into an argument with a girl friend in the tent. This is a really bad place to get in an argument, because I walked out and attempted to "slam the flap." How are you supposed to express your anger in this type of situation? Zipper it up really quick?

I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastromi. Some one needs to tell the turkey, "Man, just be yourself." I used to draw you. (holds up hand)

I was writing a letter to my dad. I was going to write "I really enjoy being here," but I accidentally wrote "rarely" instead of "really". I still wanted to use it, so I wrote, "I rarely drive steamboats, Dad. There's a lot of shit you don't know about me. Quit tryin' to act as if I am a steamboat operator." I knew this letter took a harsh turn right away. Hello dad..

I have a cheese shredder at home. That's a positive name for a cheese shredder. They don't call it by it's negative name, because nobody would buy it: "sponge-ruiner."

On a traffic light red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go. But on a banana it's the opposite. Green means hold on, yellow means go ahead and red means "Where the fuck did you get that banana at?"

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

I opened up a yogurt, and underneath the lid it said "please try again" because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. Come on Mitchel, don't give up, please try again! A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on Bottom, Hope on top.

They say the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime. But I tried to make it at home; there's more to it than that. "Want some more homemade Sprite?" "Not 'til you figure out what the fuck else is in it!"

I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. I was like, "Dude, you have to wait."

I was going to have my teeth whitened, but then I said "Fuck that, I'll just get a tan instead."

Fish are always eating other fish. If fish could scream, the ocean would be loud as shit.
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Mitch Hedberg....RIP brother!