I’m sort of annoyed to admit that Katy Perry’s Hot And Cold isn’t quite as awful as U R So Gay or I Kissed A Girl, mainly because to me it sounds like a Killers song from four years ago, when I liked the Killers. And I understand that the point of MTV Awards ceremonies around the world is to embarrass talentless celebrities in a way that MTV can exploit for years to come. But seriously, is there really any excuse for this?
I mean, she does seem a) drunk and b) unaware of that the cake was made out of something harder than cake. And I guess it’s not her fault that MTV kept the cameras running for so long after it was over. And sure, there’s nothing to say that she herself had any say in the performance at all. But Jesus. At least six people should lose their jobs over this.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I was thinking about posting my first-ever single-artist mixtape today, since I’ve pretty much done nothing but listen to PJ Harvey this past week. But then I just read that The Long Blondes have broken up!
Worst of all the breakup is medical-related; songwriter/guitarist Dorian Cox had a stroke a couple of months ago and I guess can’t move certain parts of his body now.
The news came right as the group put out “Singles,” a collection of their early stuff, including Autonomy Boy, the early song that this blog (and my internet persona) are named after.
Here’s some highlights from their short career, which will probably make you weep or dance, or probably both, for the next thirty-five minutes:
A Knife For The Girls (demo)
Polly
Last Night on Northgate Street
Darts
Platitudes
Peterborough
Once and Never Again (single version)
All Bar One Girls
Separated By Motorways (Sexamatronic Mix)
Five Ways To End It
Filed under: Uncategorized
I just stumbled across the Facebook profile for the Museum of Sex. I’ve still never been inside the museum, even though I say I’m going to every time I’m in New York.
I was quite taken with this (uncredited) photo on their page. Mostly for the cat pillow.
Speaking of New York, how distraught am I that the Art Book Fair is this weekend and I’m completely out of money? Some really cool publishers are going to be there. Specifically, really cool dirty gay publishers. But alas, I have literally about three dollars to my name*, and they’re mainly in pennies and nickels. It means I’m also going to miss the chance to see the Banksy pet store thing, too. Damn it.
(*Or less, if you add up all the utilities/dental bills/parking tickets/student loans I owe. But I think it’s better not to think that way.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m not sure why, but I’m really delighted that the new gay.com appears to be tanking. It’s alarmingly slow, the interface looks really corporate, and chat rooms that used to have hundreds of people in them now have maybe a few dozen.
To coincide with the relaunch, there’s a new Mr Gay.com event happening. Today is, I think, the last day to vote in the first round of the competition. There are fifty contestants in each of five categories: Silver Fox, Muscle Stud, Boy Next Door, Jock, and Community Leader. The contestants themselves picked what category they were entered in, and the whole thing was first-come, first-served, which means this is clearly going to fail.
Mind you, if I were going to post pictures of myself on a gay website that was in the middle of a big relaunch, I might take the effort to, say, take pictures with something besides my phone. Or take pictures that weren’t blurry. Or maybe check the definitions of Silver Fox and Community Leader before I nominated myself to be in those categories.
Similarly, if I were a major media corporation that was relaunching my website with an interactive jpeg pageant, I might screen the contestants to make sure that they weren’t totally hideous. And I would spell-check their bios, too.
But, you know, I’m not the average gay.com visitor. And I’m certainly not the gay.com marketing department.
So, let’s have a looksee at some of the nominees in the Silver Fox category, shall we?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today: gay twink sites 300 dpi, badabum cha cha translation, dead jock, “oliver north boy choir”
Yesterday: laura palmer costume, dream hunk naked, david garrard college, gloog red tub
Right now I’m about to do my radio show. Across the hall an a cappella group is practicing and it sounds like needles. Wimpy, wimpy needles.
Filed under: Uncategorized
While cleaning out some old piles of notebooks today, I came across this list of my favorite movies ever. I made it in April 27, 1997, which would have been about two weeks before I turned sixteen. At that point, I had never gone on a date, had sex*, worked, been to a city without my parents, or, um, done much of anything else. But I sure liked movies! I’d usually rent one or two a day, leading to all sorts of parental drama because the nearest video store wasn’t in walking distance and I always ignored my homework in favor of watching Merchant Ivory productions and the important Hollywood social dramas of the sixties and seventies.
In my typical overwrought fashion, it was, of course, a top 100, almost entirely comprised of movies that won lots of Oscars. It was very neatly written, for some reason with the title, year of origin, first-billed actor (!!), and genre. In the margin I wrote the rating and, later on, I guess, the director’s name. Probably because I was really bored all the time. I won’t replicate all that here. But here’s the list:
100. Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte
99. Angels and Insects
98. Oklahoma!
97. The Enchanted April
96. The Secret of Roan Inish
95. GoodFellas [This one's crossed out, for some reason, but later, or at least in a different color pen.]
94. Once Were Warriors
93. The Wizard of Oz [I thought this was a very boring movie as a child, and think it's a very boring movie now. This must have just been a phase I was going through.]
92. Hairspray
91. Fatal Attraction
90. Rain Man
89. Breakfast At Tiffany’s
88. JFK
87. Anastasia
86. The Madness of King George
85. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie [Because that movie surely means a lot to a tenth-grader.]
84. Psycho [I don't particularly think this is one of Hitchcock's better movies, btw.]
83. Heathers
82. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
81. Avalon
80. Malcolm X
79. Gigi
78. Tootsie
77. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure [This should have been much higher!]
76. Beetlejuice
75. How Green Was My Valley [Oh, really now.]
74. Hannah and Her Sisters
73. Pulp Fiction
72. The Producers
71. South Pacific
70. The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe [The French one, not the one with Tom Hanks.]
69. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
68. All The King’s Men
67. In The Heat of the Night
66. Network [I'd put this much higher, later on, but I was probably too scared by it to like it too much.]
65. Fantasia
64. The Dresser
63. The Crying Game [See Network above.]
62. Beauty and the Beast
61. Lost Horizon [I have no recollection of ever having seen this movie.]
60. The Gods Must Be Crazy [I didn't know better!]
59. Crossfire
58. Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam
57. Raising Arizona
56. Foreign Correspondent [My favorite Hitchcock movie now, probably. Top 3, anyway.]
55. Glory [Look forward to a post in the near future talking about this movie...]
54. An American In Paris [I don't remember liking this. Doesn't it take an hour to end?]
53. Witness For The Prosecution
52. A Room With A View
51. Terms of Endearment [Shut up.]
50. Dead Man Walking
49. Platoon [My family made me see this in the movie theater when I was five. True story!]
48. Short Cuts [But after I watched this with my family, I wasn't allowed to see R-rated movies anymore.]
47. To Kill A Mockingbird
46. Young Frankenstein
45. My Left Foot
44. Gone With The Wind [If you had asked me yesterday, I'd have told you that I never watched this all the way through.]
43. 2001: A Space Odyssey [This either, actually.]
42. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
41. Howard’s End [I'm surprised this isn't higher, based on how many times I remember watching it.]
40. Goldfinger
39. Rear Window [Again, not one of my favorite Hitchcock movies.]
38. Fargo
37. The Graduate [I was this again and was bored to pieces, incidentally.]
36. Tom Jones
35. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
34. The Bridge on the River Kwai [Good choice, actually.]
33. Blow-Up
32. You Can’t Take It With You [I just had to look this up to see what it was. I still don't remember it.]
31.5 Adam’s Rib [This is handwritten in with an arrow, which I guess is why GoodFellas was crossed out?]
31. Annie Hall
30. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
29. A Man for All Seasons
28. Casablanca
27. Schindler’s List
26. All About Eve [I should see this again.]
25. Top Hat
24. Mrs Miniver
23. The Philadelphia Story
22. My Fair Lady
21. A Hard Day’s Night
20. The Player
19. Singin’ In The Rain
18. Strangers On A Train
17. The Thin Man
16. M*A*S*H
15. The Day The Earth Stood Still
14. On The Waterfront
13. Citizen Kane
12. All Quiet On The Western Front
11. Vertigo
10. Bonnie and Clyde
9. A Streetcar Named Desire
8. Roman Holiday
7. West Side Story
6. Star Wars
5. North By Northwest
4. Dr. Strangelove
3. The Last Picture Show
2. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1. Nashville
(*I mention that too because those two happened, when they did happen, in more or less in reverse order than most other people do it.)
This week’s Top 40, including the listener-voted list of the ten best songs to ever come out of New Zealand, is happening right now! Follow along here.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Trying to mention some of the stories that are clogging up the RSS reader. Sadly I did this alphabetically and only got as far as B…
People, and unfortunately people in charge of government agencies, continue to forget that willingly having sex for money is not the same thing as human slavery. [via $pread]
$pread could also use your help. They’re very short-staffed at the moment. [also via $pread, obviously]
Margaret Atwood continues to be a very smart lady. [via Art Fag City]
Speaking of Canadians, Mia Kershner (remember Exotica?) has a new book out that sounds pretty crazy. [via Bookslut]
Geri Halliwell wins a book award; David Beckham and Jamie Oliver’s wife will be writing for kids next. (Really!) [also via Bookslut]
Filed under: music
For a couple of weeks now I’ve been trying to figure out precisely what Womanizer sounds like to me, and last night I finally figured it out. There’s this song that people in my family sing to babies, that goes “[Name of Baby] come in, come in, come in, you’re welcome in my ha-ouse, [Name of Baby] come in, come in, come in, you’re welcome in my ha-ouse!!” It has almost the same melody as the “I-I know just-just what you a-a-are” line in the chorus, although I’m assuming it wasn’t intentional since I don’t think anybody outside my family has ever sung that song.
Anyway, the Womanizer video is out. Behold, while it lasts, anyway:
I like it, even though it’s pretty predictable and has those ridiculous Nokia phones that are in every video to come out this year. But it also has a kinda hot dude, square eggs, Britney with a black wig and glasses, and dancing with businessmen, which I always like. In fact, it just reminded me of this David Fincher-directed festival of awesome:
I’m not so big on the Britney in a sauna parts, where she’s awkwardly singing her jerky chorus while writhing around naked for no reason that relates to the rest of the video. But overall, I’d say it’s a good effort.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m still head over heels in love with The Rosebuds. They’re so unpretentious. After last year’s Night of the Furies (which was probably my second-favorite album of the year, after Kala), they’ve come back with Life Like, another stunningly great ten-track album. It’s a little louder than Night of the Furies, with more of Kelly Crisp singing and less of Ivan Howard’s vocals; a couple, the duo take turns singing over arrangements that make you wish it was still acceptable to call things “pop-rock.”
The album came out Tuesday on Merge; I’m not posting any mp3s because I’m still having all manner of dumb computer issues, but check out their Myspace, which is streaming about half of the album, including the title track, the creepy Cape Fear, and the wonderfully nerdy Bow To The Middle.
Also on my stereo a lot this week is Difficult Fun, the bouncy debut album by Swiss group Larytta. It sounds like a bunch of European computer dorks wanted to create a pop album, but only listened to white R&B Justin Timberlake and ABC. I’d compare it to Jamie Lidell, too, except that the Jamie Lidell album made me want to commit murder and this makes me just want to dance around while I clean the kitchen.
Difficult Fun’s out this Tuesday on Swiss label Creaked.
