Currently a guy is "reenacting" the senator from Idaho's claim that he didn't really proposition an undercover cop while in a bathroom. The senator, while in a bathroom stall, hooked his right foot around the cop's left foot, which is apparently a signal for wanting a discreet hookup (or is it discrete? The one that means secretive, not separate plots on a line). The senator claims he just uses a "wide stance", but the brave and truth-seeking newsman shared his thoughts on how it would be difficult to get one's foot that far into another stall accidentally, showing how far he can get his with his pants around his ankles.
This was immediately following a segment about a woman whose fence was graced by a knot in the shape of Jesus' head!!
Paper writing times usually coincide with music acquisition times, for obvious reasons. So allow me to share the albums that have got me in their tentacley grasp during these trying times (aka, me trying to work and mostly failing)
This is one of those instances where I pick up something on Pitchfork's recommended list, and I turn out loving the shit out of it. A genre that can only be classified "electrofunk", it may only be 2/3rds of the way through 2007, but I'm calling the Gregorian calendar year right here and now: this is as funky as it is going to get. The album is about 75,000 times more interesting than you think it would be based on the cover art seen above. Adjust that number if you particularly like or dislike the cover art. But there's no way you can listen to a few lines of "Bonafied Lovin'" without needing to dance a little. Or you're a soulless blight on society. Bonus Chromeo factoid: they're the best Arab/Jewish collaboration since my favourite episode of Wonder Showzen.
3. Neil Young's Greatest Hits. This also needs no explanation.
Also listening to: of Montreal's entire catalog (although I was shocked how different most of their earlier stuff is), Tracey Thorn's solo album, and the Pixies and Posies.
Unlike misbehaving pets (damncatthatpissedonmyLegos15yearsagoruiningmywholecollection), you can't take cultural mini-trends to a guy who couldn't handle med school veterinarian to be put to sleep. But if there were such a Dr Kevorkian for Memes (a concept I detest - fuck you Richard Dawkins - but is somewhat fitting here), his first order of business would be to give the gift of death to the stupid love affair people have with pirates and ninjas these days.
The way in which those two figures have been given such prominence is interesting in its own right. Why have both gotten grouped together and treated in a similar fashion? The clearest similarity is that both are incredibly anachronistic...but then, so is butter churning, black smithery, and Republicanism, and those things aren't inherently "humorous." I think the way in which both archetypes operate entirely outside the social order is the decisive factor - the interest in pirates and ninjas belies a wistful longing for the possibility for an individual to truly operate contrary to the rest of society in a successful and active way (aka, not just hiding in a bunker in Montana or being irrelevant to society). It does not appear likely that individuals will ever have that level of power vis-a-vis society again. Celebrities and the super-rich are usually even less powerful than most, because they are bound more than most by the demands of society. Owning expensive things doesn't have much to do with power, typically...money can liberate from basic needs, but it can also be its own form of shackle if pursued relentlessly (witness any reality show "star" who structures even their privacy around the need to be a pathetic clown for a brief payday). Ninjas and pirates were never about having really expensive things (or at least, the idea of both that we have....remember the Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa are looking for buried treasure, and they have that hilarious flashback to a pirate suggesting that they keep the stolen treasure to buy things instead of burying it, and the captain just stares at him for a moment in silence before shooting him in the head?).
That unplanned tangent into the psychology of our interested in pirates and ninjas notwithstanding, the point is that these things aren't inherently funny. Anything can be funny given the right context, but people substitute cliches for imagination and wit. I realized that things had gone too far when I received the following facebook invitation:
What is this?? Why are ninjas fighting pirates? Why do I care, or feel the need to pick sides?!? Just as our collective need to talk about snakes on a plane was forever cured by the movie Snakes on a Plane, we need some massive event to get all this pirates and ninjas crap out of our system permanently. That's why I want them to make a big, empty, absoludicrous movie Ninjas vs. Pirates. No protagonists, no plot...just a bunch of ninjas fighting a bunch of pirates for 100 minutes. After that, no one will talk about ninjas or pirates again for CENTURIES.
...actually, that movie would probably make a ton of money. I always knew I should be a Hollywood producer!!
1. My grandfather, while alive, was one of those total grandfather-cliches. His life consisted of playing trombone in World War 2 while fighting (I'm fairly certain he did both at the same time while marching uphill). After that he owned some vague company that neither I nor my mother are really clear on the details of. Then he spent the rest of his life playing the piano and trombone, finding fault with things, and playing golf. He would do pretty decently at senior PGA events and whatnot. Although I guess one really interesting thing about him was how he was the only one of 10 siblings to abandon the Mormon church; so I have him to thank for my non-Mormony life, I suppose.
In any case, I never thought that I follow in his golfing footsteps....until now!!! I discovered the British site Eye Candy Caddies.com, which is the first (that I'm aware of) merger of caddy services with an escort site. Hot women who don't know anything about golf will carry around your clubs for you. Have you ever been as excited to be 70 in your life? If you need to kill a few minutes look around in the "meet the caddies" section. Two of my favourites:
My questions: Do they both carry the clubs at once, or do they trade off? And if so, what does the one who isn't holding the clubs do - just stand there? Why do they have different hobbies and film stars, but the exact same favourite facial feature, singer, and holiday destination?
b. Sky Bliss This is the most fucking intense caddy ever. It looks like he watched Zoolander and then decided to make the look "Blue Steel" come to LIFE. Look at that gaze. Could you remember what your own name was in the midst of that arched left eyebrow, let alone whether to pull the ball left or right on the 11 hole? I love how his favourite part of his own body is his "personality", and that, when asked to use just one word to describe himself, he went out of his way to add an unnecessary word in "Sublimely friendly." Sky Bliss doesn't play by any of the fucking rules. I'm just shocked that his favourite colour isn't "tree" or "happiness."
I mean...I could really keep going forever with this. One chick's answer to "favourite film" is "I love films!!" The girl whose favourite holiday destination is "Catherine Zeta Jones" (and who is a fine example of British taste for beauty). The girl whose answer to "best facial feature" is "I have 2 lips, eyes." This guy's hair. It is all so perfect.
2. Some kid who was in Charles in Charge, Willie Ames, has apparently made a career for himself doing shit-ass Christian knockoffs of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers called "Bibleman." The show is pretty brilliant -
but the new forthcoming video game based on this show really, really takes the cake. WATCH THIS CLIP. This is a NEW game. I love it.
3. And now, for something actually useful. Well, kind of.
It was strange, getting into electronica in college...if just because I had almost no friends who shared my tastes, and living in Walla Walla....well, there's not any good chances for me to go see this music in clubs. It is hard to get a feel for what is going on with most electronica genres unless you live in San Fran or New York, really. Finding new music was particularly confusing because there are SO MANY genres in electronica. For anyone interested in looking at the different genres, subgenres, hearing what each sounds like, and seeing how they are intertwined...this is a great guide some guy has been maintaining for a few years now.
4. Usually TV is pretty dead during the summer - not that I need to waste my time on it - but it seems like there is always one show that is worth watching. Last summer it was the final season of Deadwood...and this summer we get two. Flight of the Conchords (which I've already mentioned, but I encourage everyone to look up their old songs/performances on youtube, they're really quite good), and also Damages, which I just saw the other day. Glenn Close and Ted Danson doing the best TV they've ever done (well, after Becker). It is excellent - and I typically hate legal dramas.
This is an addendum to the post before last...another thing I would do if I had a lot of money and, like, didn't care about starving people and whatnot - I would DEFINITELY buy a ton of animatronic robots from Chucky Cheese and similar places and program them to sing along to some of my favourite songs. Some memories from your past dig into your brain more sharply than others, and for some reason the way in which Boris and Natasha's robot mouths moved when they spoke at the Bullwinkles in Montclair my grandmother used to take me to....entranced the shit out of me (the jets of coloured water helped too). In any case, this video is clearly the greatest thing humankind has ever done. Except for the song choice.
Someone from my undergrad philosophy programme sent me the following link, which is fun stuff - a random nietzsche quotation associated with a random family circus cartoon.
This is already a well established fact, but celebutards are stupid. Why do these talentless whores get boring pets like hairless dog-rats, or biting monkeys? If I had money like that and I wanted a pet that reached absurd levels of cuteness, then I would try to get:
1. A pangolin.
2. a Pudu, the smallest species of deer ever.
3. A sentient, transsexual trash heap (I'm not joking. One episode of Fraggle Rock the trash heap changed from a woman to a man. This confused the Fraggles).
4. A Kurt Russell.
But then again the only reason celebrities get pets is to have "unique" fashion accessories. I think that fashion is a force more dangerous than landmines. A fashion mentality is the ultimate expression of wasteful capitalism - wanting and valuing things based merely on their newness and rarity. This mindset has taken over technology, politics, music...is it a stretch to say that Project Runway should inspire as much loathing as Project: Manhattan?
I apologize for taking a 2 week absence from my writings here. In reality, I have a handful of half-finished entries that I shall endeavor to publish in the upcoming days. My lack of productivity mainly has to do with the fact that I refuse to spend time blog-writing while at home (where I have a combination of paper writing, Oblivion, and increasingly busy social life to keep me occupied). But here's some of the note-worthy events to occur recently: -Saw the White Stripes at the BU arena. Missed damn near a third of the show, but it was still fun. -Lost my glasses about a month ago, and thus had to stumble around blind for weeks until I could get a new prescription and have new glasses ordered. Damn expensive too - of the many health insurances I've had throughout my life, the one you pay Boston College a ton for is easily the worst. I got more off my glasses due to a "BC student pity discount" the eye place I went to has than anything my insurance was doing for me. -My good friend Erin is moving to San Diego soon for the next phase of her academic career, so it has been "Erin Week" this week. I realize that it is also Shark Week, but that is ok, because Erin is more or less just a sexy shark. This involved my very first karaoke experience - a rousing rendition of "The Humpty Dance." I riffed on the "All the Samoans in the house...do the Humpty Dance" line considerably. - We threw an 80s party, which featured a grand total of zero philosophy folks (first time that's happened), but there were loads of rowdy Irish folk, fun new friends, and a bunch of cops! First time the police have shown up at any of our parties (out of 11 or so majour ones we've had the past few years). Great fun.
Graduate student in philosophy. All of my interests - philosophy, music, humor, etc. etc. - involve the creation of connections across an array of difference. Sense made in leaps, harmonies of absurdity that culminate in laughter. Oh, and I'll probably talk about beer brewing, basketball, politics, and random stupid shit too.
