Friday, April 27, 2012

Back Again After A Brief Hiatus Again

Tony Shit (@ohtinytony) reached out across the vastness of the Internet to ask me, a toilet thought leader, to post this valuable informational graphic.

I oblige, naturally.  This crap is serious, y'all.  Good luck and godspeed to you, Tiny Tony, and all your Tiny Team!

Lack of Sanitation


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Monday, March 08, 2010

Back After A Brief Hiatus

To my fans:

I'm back.

I haven't posted anything about toilets in almost three years.  Why not?  Because life is long and difficult and full of things that easily surpass blogging in importance.  Does that mean I wasn't out in the world fixing toilets?  Of course not.  (Are you kidding?)

Listen:

Some men are born to lead.  Others, to follow.  I am here to fix toilets, and I know this because wherever I go in this world, there is a toilet awaiting my attentions. 

Here's the toilet in my apartment, now making its first appearance on the Internet.  I woke up on Saturday last to find that my flapper chain was broken.  I wasn't even able to leave the house that morning before needing to plunge my hands into the tank.

(Since I'm sure you're curious, those items on my tank lid are, from left to right, a turtle-shaped candle holder, pomade from Bumble & Bumble, and my favorite Burt's Bees hand salve.)

Fortunately, this was a pretty easy fix for a Saturday morning.  I stopped at the local hardware store and bought a replacement chain for $1.49.  At first the clerk insisted they weren't sold separately, but I don't take any guff when it comes to toilet parts.  As if I wouldn't know they were sold separately...

I reattached the flapper to the flusher arm with the new chain, taking care to re-use the original foam floater ball to ensure a one-touch flush.  Simple.  Elegant.  Effective. 

And now my toilet (and my blog) are back in action.  Stay tuned for more fixes because, as you all must surely realize, I can't outrun my destiny.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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!

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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

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!

Friday, August 17, 2007

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!

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

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!

Monday, November 06, 2006

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...

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