(i don't care if they're girls or boys, they'll all be chill and have cool hair).
new single here!
I'm liking it... i think it's a return to their roots as well as shows maturity. Jules' voice and Albert's guitar are in top form.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
So glad we blew Dodge....
....I mean, Portland. Wait. We didn't blow Portland collectively..maybe just a few... well... since you're involved in the "us"... probably more than a few! But I digress...
Check out this NYT post... That city is deteriorating before our very eyes.. On the OTHER HAND! I'm currently making a mailout for the 'ol real estate company right now that features this little tid bit "Top 10 Best Big Cities for Jobs" Forbes, April 2010...Austin #1!... "Top 10 Least Stress Cities in US." #5 AUSTIN! followed by a Number 6 OKC!... "Top 10 Cities for the Next Decade" #1 AUSTIN! "Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs" #3 AUSTIN! ... Need I go on?
Normally (and by Normally I mean ALWAYS) I hate this shit... And I ESPECIALLY hate that I help people (PEOPLE I DONT LIKE read: rich people) move to my fair city. But I'll make an exception this time just to drop a hint to you...
KALAMAZOO IS NOT ON ANY OF THESE LISTS!!
move!
Check out this NYT post... That city is deteriorating before our very eyes.. On the OTHER HAND! I'm currently making a mailout for the 'ol real estate company right now that features this little tid bit "Top 10 Best Big Cities for Jobs" Forbes, April 2010...Austin #1!... "Top 10 Least Stress Cities in US." #5 AUSTIN! followed by a Number 6 OKC!... "Top 10 Cities for the Next Decade" #1 AUSTIN! "Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs" #3 AUSTIN! ... Need I go on?
Normally (and by Normally I mean ALWAYS) I hate this shit... And I ESPECIALLY hate that I help people (PEOPLE I DONT LIKE read: rich people) move to my fair city. But I'll make an exception this time just to drop a hint to you...
KALAMAZOO IS NOT ON ANY OF THESE LISTS!!
move!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
question, answer.
via the hairpin.
So I've been "seeing" (i.e. boning) this guy for a couple weeks. I haven't gone down on him yet because I wasn't sure he'd reciprocate and that pisses me off. So tonight, he said "you're not too much of a feminist to go down on a guy, are you?" to which I responded truthfully that I'm not, DUH. I actually really enjoy it (but, I do have issues with people who feel it's perfectly fine for me to go down when they find the reverse unappealing). Then he goes, "good, because I'm too masculine to go down on a girl." UM, WHAT!? was my inner response although I'd sort of expected it since he hadn't made any moves (but was still kind of hoping he'd come around; he's a bit inexperienced/very young and I thought maybe he was just afraid to botch it). I told him that some dudes love it, at which point he told me some dudes are weird and asked if I'd ever done it (negative, for the record, which seemed to weaken my point in his eyes).
So here's my question: this is what I want, but I feel weird/manipulative holding BJs hostage in return for something he clearly isn't interested in/ready for. Is it unfair to pressure him like that? Plus, it's obviously no fun for me if he's gritting his teeth (so to speak) through the whole thing. But at this point I also don't want to give him a free ride on my mouth. Should I lose this guy or is there an appropriate and effective way to approach this? Oh, also, we work together. Also, is he gay? I have never encountered this before.
WELL. First? Too much of a feminist? I like to think of myself as a "male ally" in really the most humorless of Dude-Feminist fashions. I also really like a blowjob now and again. And since I was wary of defensively mainsplaining around this particular topic, I wound up googling "feminist blowjobs" before answering this question. Thankfully, the feminist blogosphere gave up a post by the fantastic Jill Filipovic (one of the many smart feminist bloggers this Dude reads frequently).
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/06/19/feminist-politics-of-blowjobs/
Her post has to do with some kind of blowjob-related Internet blog controversy–the originating posts of which appear to no longer be online–but nevertheless is pretty independently cogent on the score of how mutually respectful partners can start a conversation about de-patriarching the oral. (If they want to! Choices for everyone!)
But back to like the advice I guess? I don't even wanna execute a search for "too masculine to get face down in a vagina." Essentially, this is because you say this guy is young. I have no idea how old you are, nor what "very young" means to you–but I think you should a) try not to take this personally and b) blame it on his age. He doesn't know the gospel of vagina worship! He has not accepted the well-pleasured clit as his personal redeemer! That's cool. It calls to different men at different times. But even an inexperienced dude is aware of the power and mystery of the whole god-shaped vagina-kissing-hole in his soul–and can be a little bit scared by that emptiness in his repertoire. For all I know, your guy may have just recently figured out how to get his dick-swerve on, and he might want to stay within the realm of the familiar and be feeling that power for a while. Presumably you're into what he's capable of doing on that level, and so there's no immediate reason to boot him.
Still, his semi-hostile narrowness on the oral front obviously has the potential to bring you down in a comprehensive way over the long haul. Ultimately you'll want him to trust you enough to bust through his comfort zone and get down. There are ways you can help him through this, instead of turning it into a blowjob-withholding fight straight from the drop–especially since it seems you're significantly older, and since you like giving blowjobs. (SIDE NOTE: pretending not to like things that you actually do like will only make things more confusing for a young guy. Or hell, for lots of older guys, too. Avoid doing this, if at all possible.)
A guy who is told that other guys like things or can do things that he doesn't do in the bedroom will often react by calling those other guys "weird." Those other boys are the ones with the problem, got it? That's natural, because he's feeling inadequate. But you know what else is natural? Being sexually proud as fuck that you're with an older chick who TEACHES YOU THINGS IN THE BEDROOM. If you can turn him into that character, psychologically, he'll sign up for all the advanced placement tests. Has he met your older friends? Maybe he should! And maybe when you're all out for drinks, one of them can casually tell your boy-not-yet-a-man how impressed she is that he can hang with you. How he's really stepping up and being a man by vaulting from his age cohort and into yours. There are other ways to do this. You get the idea. You're going to solve the problem of repertoire-fear long before you solve the problem of men being entirely too much in thrall to their egos. But one outta two ain't bad.
So I've been "seeing" (i.e. boning) this guy for a couple weeks. I haven't gone down on him yet because I wasn't sure he'd reciprocate and that pisses me off. So tonight, he said "you're not too much of a feminist to go down on a guy, are you?" to which I responded truthfully that I'm not, DUH. I actually really enjoy it (but, I do have issues with people who feel it's perfectly fine for me to go down when they find the reverse unappealing). Then he goes, "good, because I'm too masculine to go down on a girl." UM, WHAT!? was my inner response although I'd sort of expected it since he hadn't made any moves (but was still kind of hoping he'd come around; he's a bit inexperienced/very young and I thought maybe he was just afraid to botch it). I told him that some dudes love it, at which point he told me some dudes are weird and asked if I'd ever done it (negative, for the record, which seemed to weaken my point in his eyes).
So here's my question: this is what I want, but I feel weird/manipulative holding BJs hostage in return for something he clearly isn't interested in/ready for. Is it unfair to pressure him like that? Plus, it's obviously no fun for me if he's gritting his teeth (so to speak) through the whole thing. But at this point I also don't want to give him a free ride on my mouth. Should I lose this guy or is there an appropriate and effective way to approach this? Oh, also, we work together. Also, is he gay? I have never encountered this before.
WELL. First? Too much of a feminist? I like to think of myself as a "male ally" in really the most humorless of Dude-Feminist fashions. I also really like a blowjob now and again. And since I was wary of defensively mainsplaining around this particular topic, I wound up googling "feminist blowjobs" before answering this question. Thankfully, the feminist blogosphere gave up a post by the fantastic Jill Filipovic (one of the many smart feminist bloggers this Dude reads frequently).
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/06/19/feminist-politics-of-blowjobs/
Her post has to do with some kind of blowjob-related Internet blog controversy–the originating posts of which appear to no longer be online–but nevertheless is pretty independently cogent on the score of how mutually respectful partners can start a conversation about de-patriarching the oral. (If they want to! Choices for everyone!)
But back to like the advice I guess? I don't even wanna execute a search for "too masculine to get face down in a vagina." Essentially, this is because you say this guy is young. I have no idea how old you are, nor what "very young" means to you–but I think you should a) try not to take this personally and b) blame it on his age. He doesn't know the gospel of vagina worship! He has not accepted the well-pleasured clit as his personal redeemer! That's cool. It calls to different men at different times. But even an inexperienced dude is aware of the power and mystery of the whole god-shaped vagina-kissing-hole in his soul–and can be a little bit scared by that emptiness in his repertoire. For all I know, your guy may have just recently figured out how to get his dick-swerve on, and he might want to stay within the realm of the familiar and be feeling that power for a while. Presumably you're into what he's capable of doing on that level, and so there's no immediate reason to boot him.
Still, his semi-hostile narrowness on the oral front obviously has the potential to bring you down in a comprehensive way over the long haul. Ultimately you'll want him to trust you enough to bust through his comfort zone and get down. There are ways you can help him through this, instead of turning it into a blowjob-withholding fight straight from the drop–especially since it seems you're significantly older, and since you like giving blowjobs. (SIDE NOTE: pretending not to like things that you actually do like will only make things more confusing for a young guy. Or hell, for lots of older guys, too. Avoid doing this, if at all possible.)
A guy who is told that other guys like things or can do things that he doesn't do in the bedroom will often react by calling those other guys "weird." Those other boys are the ones with the problem, got it? That's natural, because he's feeling inadequate. But you know what else is natural? Being sexually proud as fuck that you're with an older chick who TEACHES YOU THINGS IN THE BEDROOM. If you can turn him into that character, psychologically, he'll sign up for all the advanced placement tests. Has he met your older friends? Maybe he should! And maybe when you're all out for drinks, one of them can casually tell your boy-not-yet-a-man how impressed she is that he can hang with you. How he's really stepping up and being a man by vaulting from his age cohort and into yours. There are other ways to do this. You get the idea. You're going to solve the problem of repertoire-fear long before you solve the problem of men being entirely too much in thrall to their egos. But one outta two ain't bad.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Quattro Zaaaaany!
NO IDEA if this is even funny..(I'm at work and feel that watching this video on the clock may cross the line)... but what a name.. QUATTRO ZAAAAAAANY!!
http://splitsider.com/2010/12/today-in-four-loko-parodies/#more-1891
http://splitsider.com/2010/12/today-in-four-loko-parodies/#more-1891
Sunday, December 26, 2010
"One of the great tragedies
of our lives is how much we miss out on because we think there's something more interesting happening wherever were aren't; it is a lesson always learned too late."
--the awl
--the awl
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
This Song Will Be Our Demise....
BRILLIANT!
Here are some imporant things to know about "Hey Soul Sister"
"Hey, Soul Sister" was the only rock song to land in the Billboard Hot 100's top 10 this year. This is pretty much proof that rock music is dead, right? We're not gonna tell Nickelback to come back because all is forgiven, but this warm washcloth of facepalmy puns and cutey-poo pukulele might be why Captain Beefheart died.
It's pretty much the whitest song to ever have the word "soul" in it, and that includes Death Cab's "Soul Meets Body." There is less soul in the entirety of Train than in the palest single member of Collective Soul. "Hey, Soul Sister" is soul for people who refer to peanut butter and jelly as "soul food." It makes the California Raisins look like the second coming of Sly and the Family Stone. It's so white, Sarah Palin just named it her running mate for 2012.
At its outset, it sounds like that All-American Rejects song that was popular last year. Remember that one? Here, we just Googled it for you. Train, you owe us 20 seconds of our lives back, and we owe All-American Rejects a cut of our vast F2K10 riches.
The chorus is jacked from an even worse place. "Hey Soul Sister" is an orgy where bad ideas trade STDs, and the most syphilitic brain-fart stumbled in drunk from a Smash Mouth show. (For those of you who arrived late, Smash Mouth was a band from the late '90s that was formed when a soul patch met cake frosting. Their wikki-wikki scratching and dorkpie hats did to music what blood-soaked clowns do to the dreams of sleeping children.) Listen to "Hey, Soul Sister" a few times and you'll inevitably be reminded of the "whistling solo" from the Shrek house band's inescapable "All Star." From Smash Mouth, Train picked up an earworm that burrowed into society's asshole, laid 4.7 million iTunes eggs, and gave birth to a grey cloud of banality that covers the Earth.
The lyrics represent the weird hippie fantasies of a yuppie toolbag. Quoth front-nozzle Pat Monahan: "I just wrote on my computer for a while what I saw as a group of beautiful women at Burning Man dancing around the fire. I've never been there before, but that's what I imagined it would be like." Yes, this song is the result of a grown bajillionaire who dresses like a 19-year-old Dane Cook stan sitting pud-handed at his MacBook and writing fan fiction about the fun times hippie girls have at Burning Man. Dude is like five feet and 10 inches of midlife crisis.
How much do you want to bet that the initial rhyme to the word "direction" in the second verse was "erection," and not "Love Connection"? Because, really. Erection.
It makes hashtag rap look poetic. The references to the '80s in "Hey, Soul Sister"--the untrimmed-chest bit, the Mr. Mister and Madonna name-drops, Love Connection--they're all lazier than Garfield in a lasagna coma. Oh, fuck-now they've got us doing it!
The ukulele. The fuck?
It lowered the bar for blowjob references on pop radio. "Your lipstick stains / On the front lobe of my left side brains"? Congratulations, Flo Rida: You just became the front-runner for the National Book Award (Fellatio Division). When the inevitable "keep Train's song out of our precious commercials" movement sprung up, it was called Stop Advertising From Pulling a Train, which is a better sex joke in that it a) makes sense and b) wasn't sung over a ukulele.
The ukulele player looks like Howie Mandel. I mean.
It was the lone pop song to manage cultural ubiquity in a year when that was pretty much impossible. Think about the last time you were stuck in a long line while making a toilet paper run, or were forced to spend time on hold with somebody who assured you that your call was very important, or forgot to DVR Project Runway so you had to sit through all the ad breaks. You probably heard Pat Monahan's weiner warble at some point. That's because "Hey, Soul Sister" is made for those moments when you're forced to do nothing else but listen to it, and it's just catchy enough to rattle around in your head during that downtime's aftermath, disrupting any activities you actually enjoy.
It's never going to die. You thought "Hey, Soul Sister"'s ubiquity on the adult-contemporary charts was enough for it to live on in Walgreens' white-noise perpetuity? Well, there's a country version of the track as well, with the fiddles and vocal harmonies and slide guitar turned all the way up. Somehow the lyrical reference to Madonna is intact -- c'mon, guys, "Loretta" scans just as well, and if you think hard enough you can probably squeeze a reference to "Fist City" in there!
And just think: When your shitty kid marries someone you violently disapprove of 20 years from now, this song -- with its references to blowjobs and songs that were ground into the ground before the kid was a twinkle in your eye -- will serve as the couple's first dance. As you watch your offspring and new in-law twirl around the dance floor, you will reach for a glass of Champagne Loko (President Kid Rock won't try to ban the stuff until he's up for re-election in 2032) and wonder how everything went so, so wrong.
The 20 Worst Songs of 2010:
20. Far East Movement featuring Ryan Tedder, "Rocketeer"
19. Ringo Starr featuring Joss Stone, "Who's Your Daddy?"
18. Godsmack, "Cryin' Like A Bitch!!"
17. Trade Martin, "We've Got To Stop The Mosque At Ground Zero"
16. Lil Wayne, "Paradice"
15. Susan Boyle, "Hallelujah"
14. Liz Phair, "Bollywood"
13. Christina Aguilera, "The Beautiful People (From Burlesque)"
12. Jackyl Featuring DMC, "Just Like A Negro"
11. NeverShoutNever, "cheatercheaterbestfriendeater"
10. Die Antwoord, "Orinoco Ninja Flow (Wedding DJ's Remix)"
9. Santana featuring Scott Stapp, "Fortunate Son"
8. Ludacris featuring Nicki Minaj, "My Chick Bad"
7. Aaron Lewis featuring George Jones, Charlie Daniels, and Chris Young, "Country Boy"
6. Salem, "Trap Door"
5. Artists for Haiti, "We Are The World 25 For Haiti"
4. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, "Don't Pull Me Over"
3. Cast of Glee, "Loser"
2. Bret Michaels, "What I Got"
1. Train, "Hey, Soul Sister"
Here are some imporant things to know about "Hey Soul Sister"
"Hey, Soul Sister" was the only rock song to land in the Billboard Hot 100's top 10 this year. This is pretty much proof that rock music is dead, right? We're not gonna tell Nickelback to come back because all is forgiven, but this warm washcloth of facepalmy puns and cutey-poo pukulele might be why Captain Beefheart died.
It's pretty much the whitest song to ever have the word "soul" in it, and that includes Death Cab's "Soul Meets Body." There is less soul in the entirety of Train than in the palest single member of Collective Soul. "Hey, Soul Sister" is soul for people who refer to peanut butter and jelly as "soul food." It makes the California Raisins look like the second coming of Sly and the Family Stone. It's so white, Sarah Palin just named it her running mate for 2012.
At its outset, it sounds like that All-American Rejects song that was popular last year. Remember that one? Here, we just Googled it for you. Train, you owe us 20 seconds of our lives back, and we owe All-American Rejects a cut of our vast F2K10 riches.
The chorus is jacked from an even worse place. "Hey Soul Sister" is an orgy where bad ideas trade STDs, and the most syphilitic brain-fart stumbled in drunk from a Smash Mouth show. (For those of you who arrived late, Smash Mouth was a band from the late '90s that was formed when a soul patch met cake frosting. Their wikki-wikki scratching and dorkpie hats did to music what blood-soaked clowns do to the dreams of sleeping children.) Listen to "Hey, Soul Sister" a few times and you'll inevitably be reminded of the "whistling solo" from the Shrek house band's inescapable "All Star." From Smash Mouth, Train picked up an earworm that burrowed into society's asshole, laid 4.7 million iTunes eggs, and gave birth to a grey cloud of banality that covers the Earth.
The lyrics represent the weird hippie fantasies of a yuppie toolbag. Quoth front-nozzle Pat Monahan: "I just wrote on my computer for a while what I saw as a group of beautiful women at Burning Man dancing around the fire. I've never been there before, but that's what I imagined it would be like." Yes, this song is the result of a grown bajillionaire who dresses like a 19-year-old Dane Cook stan sitting pud-handed at his MacBook and writing fan fiction about the fun times hippie girls have at Burning Man. Dude is like five feet and 10 inches of midlife crisis.
How much do you want to bet that the initial rhyme to the word "direction" in the second verse was "erection," and not "Love Connection"? Because, really. Erection.
It makes hashtag rap look poetic. The references to the '80s in "Hey, Soul Sister"--the untrimmed-chest bit, the Mr. Mister and Madonna name-drops, Love Connection--they're all lazier than Garfield in a lasagna coma. Oh, fuck-now they've got us doing it!
The ukulele. The fuck?
It lowered the bar for blowjob references on pop radio. "Your lipstick stains / On the front lobe of my left side brains"? Congratulations, Flo Rida: You just became the front-runner for the National Book Award (Fellatio Division). When the inevitable "keep Train's song out of our precious commercials" movement sprung up, it was called Stop Advertising From Pulling a Train, which is a better sex joke in that it a) makes sense and b) wasn't sung over a ukulele.
The ukulele player looks like Howie Mandel. I mean.
It was the lone pop song to manage cultural ubiquity in a year when that was pretty much impossible. Think about the last time you were stuck in a long line while making a toilet paper run, or were forced to spend time on hold with somebody who assured you that your call was very important, or forgot to DVR Project Runway so you had to sit through all the ad breaks. You probably heard Pat Monahan's weiner warble at some point. That's because "Hey, Soul Sister" is made for those moments when you're forced to do nothing else but listen to it, and it's just catchy enough to rattle around in your head during that downtime's aftermath, disrupting any activities you actually enjoy.
It's never going to die. You thought "Hey, Soul Sister"'s ubiquity on the adult-contemporary charts was enough for it to live on in Walgreens' white-noise perpetuity? Well, there's a country version of the track as well, with the fiddles and vocal harmonies and slide guitar turned all the way up. Somehow the lyrical reference to Madonna is intact -- c'mon, guys, "Loretta" scans just as well, and if you think hard enough you can probably squeeze a reference to "Fist City" in there!
And just think: When your shitty kid marries someone you violently disapprove of 20 years from now, this song -- with its references to blowjobs and songs that were ground into the ground before the kid was a twinkle in your eye -- will serve as the couple's first dance. As you watch your offspring and new in-law twirl around the dance floor, you will reach for a glass of Champagne Loko (President Kid Rock won't try to ban the stuff until he's up for re-election in 2032) and wonder how everything went so, so wrong.
The 20 Worst Songs of 2010:
20. Far East Movement featuring Ryan Tedder, "Rocketeer"
19. Ringo Starr featuring Joss Stone, "Who's Your Daddy?"
18. Godsmack, "Cryin' Like A Bitch!!"
17. Trade Martin, "We've Got To Stop The Mosque At Ground Zero"
16. Lil Wayne, "Paradice"
15. Susan Boyle, "Hallelujah"
14. Liz Phair, "Bollywood"
13. Christina Aguilera, "The Beautiful People (From Burlesque)"
12. Jackyl Featuring DMC, "Just Like A Negro"
11. NeverShoutNever, "cheatercheaterbestfriendeater"
10. Die Antwoord, "Orinoco Ninja Flow (Wedding DJ's Remix)"
9. Santana featuring Scott Stapp, "Fortunate Son"
8. Ludacris featuring Nicki Minaj, "My Chick Bad"
7. Aaron Lewis featuring George Jones, Charlie Daniels, and Chris Young, "Country Boy"
6. Salem, "Trap Door"
5. Artists for Haiti, "We Are The World 25 For Haiti"
4. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, "Don't Pull Me Over"
3. Cast of Glee, "Loser"
2. Bret Michaels, "What I Got"
1. Train, "Hey, Soul Sister"
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