Stealth Toilet: Target Acquired

I meant to blog about this fearsome item for quite a while, but I've waited so long that we no longer need fear. The local bar where I found this particular porcelain fixture in deepest, darkest, ray-gobbling black is now closed. What's the big idea, hey? How are you supposed to see this frickin' thing even when the lights are on? And heaven help you if you miss, because you're going home alone tonight. (Probably.)


Anyway, this location is now occupied by an establishment that offers "Japanese comfort food". We have no actionable intel on the bathroom fixtures (or the "comfort food", for that matter, although your blogger is a long-time fan of omelettes stuffed with fried rice). Here's hoping that they've got some of the fancy, high-tech commodes for which our foreign friends are well known. Stay tuned for visuals. Sayonara for now!

More Lavatory Panoramas

Since my recent post about the bathroom demolition, I've been confronted by a quantity of anguished wailing about nowhere to pee in the Access. While it is true that, for a time, there was nowhere to pee in the Access, there are now -- finally -- two places to pee in the Access. I obtained some exclusive panoramic photographs that give you basically no sense of what the bathrooms actually look like, except for the color.

1) The back bathroom by the dressing rooms has been rebuilt without a window or any charm. Hot water is anticipated. Ventilation is not. See below:


Scorecard
-Originality: C
-Style: D
-Usability: A (Who else has a can backstage? Mitzy Newhouse?)
-Preshow Accessability: B-
-Magazine Readability: C (During Performance) A+ (During office hours)
-Indispensability: A-

Cumulative Score: C

2) Meanwhile, the lobby bathroom has been daringly restyled by Stephen Speights and now features a chandelier; innovative, wall-mounted utility "cubes"; and the color "brown".


Scorecard
-Originality: A+
-Style: A
-Usability: B (Might benefit from a standard toilet paper holder)
-Indispensability: A
-Magazine Readability: D- (There's a line outside, I promise.)
-Brownness: A+

Cumulative Score: A

So if you were hesititating about coming to the Access because of the lack of bathrooms, you can go back to complaining about the stairs again. See you soon!

Better Bathrooms Every Day

More news about the toilets in the Access!

1) I showed up last Sunday to scope the incremental, minor improvements in the bathrooms, and dangit if the first thing I hear is the sound of the dressing room toilet running. Have a look:

It's just crappy, bargain-basement hardware. You know, if the contractor realized he had access to a seasoned toilet semi-professional like myself, you'd think he'd have the sense to ask for guidance on good supplies and best practices. But no! Why not? Frickin' cheap! Well, I'll just have to keep clearing this flapper every other day. Makes for better blogging, I suppose.




2) Meantime, Speights showed his characteristically bold style by selecting this fancy chandelier for the lobby bathroom:

Note the smoky topaz crystal chains! Well, maybe you can't see it very well, but take my word for it: you'd want to hold a seance in there if there weren't twenty people behind the door trying to get in before the intermission ends. Still, fancy!!!

More changes coming, stay tuned!

Toilet Blog 2.0

Hi everybody! Thanks for hanging on for me to catch up with the toilet blog. I'm forever in your debt. So here's the true story of why Fix My Toilet has been dormant for...wow, nearly a year.

Truth: I fixed all the toilets.

Seriously. I was even going around offering to fix people's toilets, but no one seemed to have any that needed fixing.

In addition to that, I'd always intended to refrain from writing silly stories that didn't refer to toilets, or random thoughts, or satirical observations about the New York theater scene. We get plenty of that shit from all over. What we don't have is blogs with practical advice for dealing with toilets. In the absence of busted toilets, what could I do?

Well, then this happened:

Forces beyond my control at Access Theater have conspired to bring our historically significant premises into compliance with the NYC building code. This is not a wholly bad thing, especially if you can't get around without a wheelchair. The first step was demolishing every trace of a the bathrooms on the 4th floor, where the theater is. Take a look at the panoramic view:


Goddammit. Yes, ladies and gentleman, there was once a bathroom here, complete with a toilet. Now, only barren nothingness.

But hang on! I must admit I was bitter at first, but I'm coming around. Stay tuned for more updates about the bathroom situation for the rest of the year. It's gonna be a wild ride!

Cheers!

Your hoohah is beautiful!

Thanks to Phantasmaphile for this link--gorgeous, flower-shaped porcelain bathroom fixtures by San Francisco artist, Clark Sorenson. Click here for flower toilets.

I believe the artist's aim is an effect known among the ancient Greeks as antiprosopopoeia, or the depiction of a human as an inanimate object. Plainly he's trying to comment on likeness of these beautiful, bud-like toilets and your own hoohah by placing them in a spacial juxtaposition.

Or maybe it's semiprosopopoeia, since it's just a part of the human.

On the other hand, this might be regular prosopopoeia, since it's really a toilet posing as a flower. Whatever it is, it's prosogymnasmata, and that's for damn sure.

What the hell do I know? Two things only: that your private parts are like flowers, and how to fix a darn toilet.

But please, be careful not to slip and fall on the urinal shown above. Looks dangerous...

50 Ways to Break My Toilet

In the mischevious spirit of the holiday and at Mr. Szymkowicz's behest, here are fifty (beginning with five) super-sly ways to break my toilet:

1. Disconnect the flusher chain from the flapper or the flusher arm. No flush!

2. Remove the flapper valve and hide it in the trash. Water runs forever!

3. Turn down the inlet cutoff valve. No water at all!

4. Break off the flush valve overflow tube. This was perpetrated by an interloper at the Access once. It can't be fixed without taking the whole goram tank off!

5. Stuff a big wad of TP down the flusher valve. Wreck the whole thing!

Now, these sabotages are for entertainment purposes only. If you pull any of these "tricks" on one of your friends, it's because you're a dick and it's not my fault. And if you try it on my toilet, I'mma bus' yo' shit UP!

Having said that, have fun! Stay tuned for the next forty-five!

Seeking Corporate Sponsorship!

Hi, everybody. I'm sorry I haven't blogged about fixing a toilet lately. I really intended to write exclusively about fixing toilets, but to my surprise, there aren't many toilet issues cropping up lately.

In the meantime, I fixed the backstage slop sink at the Access on Monday night. I thought I'd take a moment to appreciate two special plumbing goodies: teflon tape and silicone adhesive. Anyway, the drain pipe was leaking and, upon closer inspection, I noticed that the 1 5/8" nut that attaches the drain to the tail piece had a bad fit.

Now there's nothing like teflon tape for fixing a problem like this. You just take a good length of tape, wrap it around the pipe threads in a contrary direction to the tightening of the nut, and even a poorly fitting nut becomes watertight.

Unfortunately, the tool room was a mess and I couldn't find any tape. Instead, I found a caulking gun with a tube of silicone adhesive. This works just as well as the teflon tape, but it's just a little messier. I gooped the whole joint and then washed the adhesive from my ten fingers with the best available solvent, a bottle of bay rum. Mission accomplished!

Now there are lots of plumbing parts on a toilet, so teflon tape and silicone adhesive belong in any toilet-fixer's tool kit. So I'm appealing to teflon and silicone manufacturers to sponsor my blog. In exchange, I'll conspicuously use your product on each of my toilet fixes. I'll also wear your t-shirt in the pictures. Sound fair? Send me an email and let's get this PR party started!