The Bangkok Five - CD and Video Release Info

If you're in LA, hit the Viper Room Thursday, June 12th for a party so hot it will make your head explode.

I wear red nail polish and tell vulgar stories.

28 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

I am more popular than Kung Fu Panda.

I don't know how long this will last, but as of today, if you go to www.hollywoodpreviews.com and look under "Most Popular Videos" - the #1 MOST POPULAR VIDEO is The Bangkok Five Interview - Patricia Frost. It is more popular than the trailer for Kung Fu Panda. Thusly, I am more popular than Kung Fu Panda.

HOLY BALLS.

p.s. Don't tell me when it isn't true anymore. Just let me live in this moment forever.

This is rad. REALLY REALLY RAD.

Wanna see me being interviewed? This is Officially My First Interview. It will go down in history, you know. So check it out. And try not to cry from happiness.

Click here to see the joy.

Why haven't you clicked yet?

Dooce. Sounds like moose.

I've recently become incomprehensibly addicted to http://www.dooce.com/. It started out innocently enough. I clicked on a link provided by Kim's Kitchen Sink and read an entry and thought it was sweet and promptly forgot about it. Then one day I was a little bored and went back to see if anything new had been posted and it had so I read that and thought it was cool, whatever, no big deal. Then one day I was more bored and beginning to feel sad and lonely and so went back to the blog and this time, rather than just read the newest post, I started going back and reading past posts and then before I knew it I WAS COMPLETELY HOOKED. Every day now I read a little bit more. I'm reading backwards in time and this woman's life is just so compelling to me. I LOVE HER.

Anyway, now when Poompy asks what I'm doing as I'm sitting glued to the computer, my answer is nearly always, "Living vicariously through Dooce." And when he says, "Maybe you should turn off the computer and change out of those sweatpants" I say, "Dooce is my friend. LEAVE ME ALONE."

Purity Balls THIS, Dickwad.

Sibley posted an article he found in the NY Times about "Purity Balls". I clicked on it expecting to find some funny article about some weird, new age-y psychedelic thing to help you with your health or something, but that is not what a "Purity Ball" is at all. It's a ball (as in formal event involving dancing) for fathers and daughters to attend where they dance all night and make pledges to each other about how they will remain pure in thought and action. The fathers promise to be pure and faithful to the girls' mothers and the daughters promise to stay pure in mind and body until they get married.

This makes me feel crazy for several reasons.

For one thing, pledging to your daddy that you will stay pure until you marry is just creepy. Sure, it's nice that daughters and fathers can talk about sex (or are they just promising never to talk about sex?) and it is certainly nice that the dads are promising to be available and supportive when their little girls are faced with pressure to have sex. That is one thing. But this goes a lot further than that. There is a photograph accompanying the article of a young girl (she looks about 14) and she's on her knees in front of her father, and he's staring down at her and she's gazing up at him with big doe eyes and as she promises to stay pure until she gets married. It just looks a little inappropriate. What normal man would feel comfortable making his teenage daughter get down on her knees in front of him and make promises about sex? Isn't that weird? Or am I the only one who thinks so?

That aside, I have a really big problem with parents teaching their kids that they must stay virgins until they are married. I mean, sure, ok, people can do whatever they want. I know I wouldn't want my 14 year old having sex, but should I make her feel like she is a bad person if she does? Because it seems like that is the message these people are trying to send. I also think that when you teach your daughter that she must stay a virgin until she gets married, you're encouraging her to get married at 19 to some schmo she's only dated for six months. Personally, I would rather my kid experiments with sex safely than marry someone before they're even old enough to have a cocktail. Marriage is a not a little thing. It's not something you do so you can have sex without worrying about sinning. Marriage is a life-time commitment and I just don't believe that 19 year olds are ready to make that kind of a commitment. I know I wasn't when I was 19. I didn't fully realize the hugeness of the commitment until after I was married. I'm just thankful I married Poompie and not one of the schmo's I dated before I met him. I would surely be divorced by now. Oh wait. I did and I am. EMBARRASSING.

You know what else? I would rather my daughter experiment with safe sex than have anal sex because she thinks she can stay a virgin that way. WHAT? you say. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT FROST? I'm talking about all the girls I knew in high school, good little Christian girls who wore purity rings and swore to their daddies that they would wait until marriage to have sex, who let their boyfriends stick it up their pooper because they could satisfy their boyfriends and stay virgins at the same time. And they didn't bother with condoms because you can't get pregnant if he's just putting it in the back door! But seriously? (Heh, heh. Butt seriously.) If you're having anal sex, you aren't a virgin. It's sex. It's sex. It's sex. You aren't a virgin, stop lying to yourself.

Then there's the whole idea that once you have sex, you are no longer pure. What is it about sex that is so dirty that once you do it you are no longer pure? These people are also quoted as saying things like, they want their daughters to be girls of "integrity and purity". So wait. Let me just get this straight. if you have sex you don't have integrity? Oh it gets me riled up.

One girl interviewed for this Purity Ball article says, "The culture says you’re free to sleep with as many people as you want to.” Really? REALLY? Because I'm pretty sure the culture says if I have sex with as many people as I want to, I'm a whore. I think this culture says that if I want to be a well respected woman with class, I shouldn't have any sex at all. Or, at the very least, I shouldn't enjoy it. The guy who organized this particular Purity Ball is quoted as saying, "Fathers, our daughters are waiting for us. They are desperately waiting for us in a culture that lures them into the murky waters of exploitation. They need to be rescued by you, their dad.” Fuck you. I'm sorry, but that is the only thing I can think of to say. FUCK YOU. A culture that lures them into the murky waters of exploitation? What a joke. These jerks are giving their daughters some horrible complexes. Want to make your daughter feel ashamed of her vagina? Embarrassed of her sexuality? Want her to feel guilty whenever she actually enjoys sex with a man she loves? Just tell her, at the tender age of fourteen, that in order to have integrity and be pure of heart, she has to be a virgin. I think these beliefs just encourage girls to feel bad about themselves for having sex and worse, it encourages them to feel bad and dirty and guilty for actually enjoying sex.

And why aren't there Purity Balls for boys? Because boys don't like going to balls? How about Purity Baseball Games? Or Purity Soccer Matches? Or Purity Video Game Nights? I guess it's because boys don't have to worry about their purity.

A girl friend told me recently that, during a break up, the guy she was dating said, "I don't want to be friends with benefits because I think you're classier than that." Because apparently women who have consensual sex simply for the pleasure of sex are not classy. What about the guy who has consensual sex simply for the pleasure of it? What is he? Does he still get to be classy?

I'm really interested in what you think about this. I want to know what other people think. Really. Even if you call me a whore.

I'll take an apple with that epiphany, thanks

Yesterday I went to Duane Reade to pick up some face wash and I ended up getting some Epiphany as well.

I was standing in the girly aisle, looking for this Oil of Olay foaming face wash that I'd tried recently and really liked. I'd run out of my usual facial cleanser the day before and knew it would be at least three days until I would be able to go to the only place in Manhattan that carries it, so I needed to get something to tide me over. I can't just not wash my face for three days, after all. 

I've had problems with my skin since I first hit puberty. I've been Acne Girl for most of my life. I've tried every acne treatment under the sun including but not limited to: ProActive, vitamins and herbal supplements, cortisone injections in my face, Accutane (which made me bleed out of my anus for six months) (no, unfortunately, I'm not kidding), over $5,000 of laser treatments (which I thankfully didn't have to pay for, but still), regular facials, prescription meds, over-the-counter meds, Microdermabrasion, the list goes on and on. After all this, I have discovered that A) my acne is hormonal B) my acne is exacerbated by anything that dries my skin out even a teensy bit and C) my skin looks the best when I wash it with super gentle cleansers and use tons of moisturizer. With all this in mind, it's kind of a big deal that I tried a new cleanser that I really like and that doesn't cost $20 AN OUNCE. And as I'm standing there searching the Oil of Olay products for the foaming face wash I’m planning to buy, I'm fantasizing about how this new cleanser is going make my skin so be-a-u-tiful and how I'll save money in the process since it's $7 for 12 ounces and the other stuff I've been using is $20 for ONE OUNCE. I find the cleanser and happily pull it off the shelf, admiring the snazzy label and smiling at how clever I'm being and how much money I'm saving. I flip the bottle over in my hand just to be sure the back label has the four magic words I always look for: Not Tested On Animals. And they aren’t there. To add insult to injury, I discover that Oil of Olay is distributed by the Godfather of ALL Evil Corporations, Proctor & Gamble*. My heart sinks. I really want to buy the cleanser because it is cheap and I believe it will not cause me to break out, but I really don’t want to buy something that is A) tested on animals and B) distributed by the demons at P&G. And as I’m standing there, I swear to you, a little red cartoon devil pops up on my left shoulder and whispers, “It’s ok. Just buy it. Your skin will be so beautiful! Just buy it this one time. One bottle of the stuff doesn’t kill or save a rabbit.” And then a little white cartoon angel pops up on my right shoulder, “Really? Can you REALLY live with yourself if you wash your face with something that was shot into the eyes of a rabbit just to see if it would burn his little rabbit eyes?” The cartoon angel won. I put the bottle back on the shelf and picked up a different product. I can’t remember every product I looked at that afternoon, but I will tell you that I looked at about seven different products and of the seven, all but one were either distributed by P&G or did not claim no animal testing. Only one. So I bought that. But I’ve gotta say, it was really really frustrating to spend upwards of twenty minutes trying to find a face wash that wasn’t distributed by P&G and wasn’t tested on animals. And the whole time I was looking for something I would not feel guilty buying, the little cartoon devil was sitting on my shoulder trying to convince me to just forget it, don’t worry about it, just buy what I want to buy because I’m not gonna make much a difference no matter what I do, I’m only one person.

And it hit me, for the first time ever, what that story** about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge really means.

As it is told in the Bible, God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and they didn’t know why. But once they disobeyed Him and ate the fruit of that world-changing tree, they figured it out pretty quick. They ate the apple and were suddenly filled with shame over the nakedness of their bodies and they were suddenly aware of their sins and blah blah blah, right? So, as I am figuring it, and till now I’ve honestly really never given it much thought, if they hadn't eaten the fruit, they would’ve lived their lives happily oblivious to their nakedness and their various sins. It was only because they had knowledge that they felt shame and guilt.

Is the Bible saying that people should be ignorant? I mean, I think what it is saying is that if you have knowledge, you experience shame and guilt. If you are ignorant, you live in happiness. Like that old phrase, “Ignorance is bliss”. Is there an old phrase meaning “Knowledge is torture”? Maybe there should be.

This popped into my head because I’m standing in the aisle at Duane Reade wishing that I didn’t know anything about P&G, that I didn’t know about animal testing, that I didn’t care about my carbon footprint, that I didn’t give a shit about nutrition or the overall health of my body. I’m standing in Duane Reade reading the backs of bottles and wishing that I was completely ignorant of all this shit that seems to only make my life more complicated. But I am not ignorant and I do know and I, personally, cannot take the guilt that comes along with ignoring the facts.

I’ve eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

I’m fucked.

*Proctor and Gamble admittedly does terrible things to animals during testing. Terrible, disgusting, awful things that are so disturbing I won’t write about them here. But I will tell you that P&G spends more money per year advertising that they are using “alternatives” to cruel animal testing than they spend on trying to find actual alternatives to cruel animal testing. And they test on dogs and cats too. Just so you know. If you are interested in learning more, check out www.uncaged.co.uk.

**I hope I’m not offending any of my readers (all four of you) by calling it a story. Isn’t that what it is, though? I have no idea.