It’s been five months since the Franz Ferdinand album came out and I could still sing its praises joyously. In a year when everyone from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the Noisettes to Shakira to Bat For Lashes have been partying like it’s 1977, Franz Ferdinand have added an intriguingly (and, in my opinion, necessary) masculine counterpoint.
Can’t Stop Feeling, though a great song, isn’t one of the standouts of the album, but it’s being released in the UK anyway as a single on Monday. Unfortunately, the video takes all the sultry, sexy, suit-wearing aura of the album’s artwork and previous singles and replaces it with, uh, something that can best be described as “most reminiscent of recent Weezer.” There’s awful face-making, pointlessly low-budget effects, and Alex Kapranos is wearing a sweater that kind of looks like it has water stains. Why, I ask you. Why? When the song is about, oh, thirty times as much fun as it looks like they’re pretending to be having…
Filed under: gay, hookers, lists, movies, music, not hot, people from rhode island | Tags: the gays, bloc party, hiv, movies, blogs, porn, the 700 club, michelle rhee, amber rhea, timbaland, mcsweeney's, geneology, hoaxes, abortion
Former Rhode Island senator/current gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee came out in support of gay marriage this week, with an editorial in New England gay rag Bay Windows.
Speaking of Rhode Island, our ridiculous governor made an appearance on The 700 Club the other day.
The Washington Post had a pretty fascinating report on Michelle Rhee, who heads the DC school system. (Not particularly relevant to this blog, but worth the five-page read nonetheless.) The most disturbing part of the story, I think, is the part about how lots of kids can’t graduate each year because bureaucratic nonsense prevents them from getting the credits they need.
Audacia Ray guest-posted on Feministing about the HIV scare in the porn world.
Amber Rhea is done, uh, being.
Timbaland’s getting sued for unauthorized sampling.
McSweeney’s is looking for new columnists.
Bloc Party just announced a new non-album single, which will be out in August.
Al Capone’s possibly-grandson has a website that came across my path last week. I don’t even remember how.
Anti-abortion website April’s Mom was, it turns out, a hoax. Allegedly created by a woman pregnant with a terminally ill child, social worker Becca Beushausen eventually birthed a doll. In a fit of crazy, Beushausen says that the had originally created the site only for a few of her friends. Because, I don’t know, who doesn’t think it’s a lot of fun when their friends make websites devoted to their imaginary terminally ill fetuses?
Unreality came out with a list of the ten most polarizing movies of the last decade. The list is all Hollywood, so Demonlover and Irreversible aren’t on there. I’m pro-Eyes Wide Shut and anti-Moulin Rouge, for what it’s worth.
David Archuleta’s dad was caught up in a sting at the Queens of Reiki massage parlor in Utah this past January.
Finally, if you’re looking for something else to follow on Tumblr, I really like Nashville Needs More Metaphors.
Filed under: books, gay, heterosexuals, hot, magazines, not hot, porn | Tags: hiv, sarah palin, books, porn, commercials, murder, david letterman, matt lauer, sex trafficking, wrestlers, assholes, meteorites, le tigre, christina aguilera, steven klein, the jews
The Sarah Palin-David Letterman feud fascinates me; the Alaska governor told Matt Lauer all about girls having low self-esteem because of comments made by older men, which maybe isn’t necessarily wrong, exactly, but holy shit does she have a horrific way of conveying her ideas. Also I don’t believe she ever thought he was talking about her fourteen-year old daughter. And it’s completely unfair to claim that Obama’s family got away with shying away from media scrutiny and her family didn’t, since the Palins actively sought it out; also the Obama children aren’t working examples of why his political stance is flawed. Letterman’s response to Palin’s insanity was extremely well-handled and actually pretty funny, considering the subject matter.
The Curvature reports on a horrific story about a father and son who kidnapped women and held them hostage as sex slaves; when they were finally arrested recently in Nashville the three women–at least one of whom had not seen freedom in several years–were all booked on marijuana possession charges.
The two Nebraska wrestlers that appeared on naked-dude website Fratmen.com said in an ESPN interview that they’re surprised anybody even found out what they had done. That’s the cute-ish Paul Donohoe pictured up at the top of this post.
A Fox News writer in a speeding SUV hit a cyclist in Central Park and dragged him on his hood for 200 feet before speeding off.
A 14-year old was hit by a pea-sized meteorite traveling at about 30,000 miles per hour.
Le Tigre are apparently not broken up, and apparently they’re not completely mired in the major-label bullshit they for some reason seemed really anxious to get into, but they are working with Christina Aguilera. Personally, I’m hoping this results in Xtina covering The The Empty.
After working out, choosy robots choose instant mashed potatoes.
Timothy Boham, who performed in gay porn under the name Marcus Allen, was found guilty of murder the other day. His lawyers had argued that the victim, Denver businessmen JP Kelso, had committed suicide, and that the murder scene was staged later to collect insurance money.
Perez Hilton leaked naked pictures of a drug-addled-looking Dustin Lance Black barebacking and giving somebody a blowjob. As with Milk, the film that made Black famous, I was largely unimpressed. Even though I thought this warranted a mention, I still can’t bring myself to link to Perez Hilton.
Towleroad reports on Steven Klein’s new cover for Electric Youth magazine. I have no idea how big EY is, that it can afford to send a famous fashion photographer to South America to shoot something like this, but the whole thing sort of gives me the willies.
A porn performer tested positive for HIV recently; the LA Times wrote a story with conflicting ideas about what that might mean for the industry.
“Like Jews elsewhere, the four represented varying degrees of Jewishness.”
Last summer I decided only to read Harlequin romances when I went to the beach, and I started with one called The Virgin And The Unicorn, which was about a princess and a boxer with meaty thighs who wanted to open a home for wayward children in her evil father’s castle. This year, I think I might have to investigate Tess Mallory, who writes time-travel romances about Scottish rogues.
Filed under: gay, heterosexuals, hookers, music, not hot, people from rhode island, personal
Stuff that happened this week that I didn’t get to post about because I spent all day yesterday drinking Miller High Life and watching grown people play kickball.
Dr George Tiller, who performed abortions in Kansas, was murdered this morning on his way in to church, presumably by a pro-life loon. His clinic had been vandalized earlier this month and reportedly the FBI was asked to investigate.
I pulled Reclusive Leftist off my Google Reader; there’s only so much time in the day and I don’t know want to spent any more time than absolutely necessary being completely annoyed. (I know this isn’t news because I’m sure no one cares, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.)
Bat For Lashes has a new video.
So do the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
And somebody thought it would be a good idea to include Brooke Hogan on a remix of Birthday Sex.
Voting’s open in Peta2’s Sexiest Vegetarian Alive contest. I went with the same two as last year, Erykah Badu (because she is eternally awesome) and Sage Francis (because he is from Providence, and also hunky.)
Melissa Gira Grant reported for Slate on why the Craigslist decision hurts more or less everybody.
Rhode Island has its first gay internet radio station. I expected to hate it and, um, I’ll be nice and say that it’s not as bad as it could be. But jeez, the first thing I heard was a house remix of I Hate This Part.
Echidne of the Snakes, one of my favorite feminist blogs, is ceasing to be. So, for that matter, is All Aussie Beef, which mainly had rugby-dude porn.
Finally, today I unsubscribed from the frankly very annoying change.org weekly newsletter. Every Sunday morning I was getting a list of things to be worked up about, and while theoretically I think it’s great that people are getting informed about government abuses and animal rights and civil liberties, the presentation usually comes across more like “Panic about this! Wait, stop, now panic about this! And then this other thing, panic about that, too!”
The final straw was today’s e-mail blast, which listed “falsely excusing prostitution” in the same string of articles that also included battery-caged hens and government lies about Guantanamo. Here’s what they had to say:
Often times the excuse that “Prostitution is the oldest profession in the book” is thrown out there as a means of avoiding the harms caused by the practice. As Human Trafficking blogger Amanda Kloer writes, this excuse is B.S. Prostitution is old. So is hunger. So is poverty and murder and tyranny and cancer and child abuse. Just because something is old, rooted in society, and difficult to fight, doesn’t mean that it should be ignored. Because, as Kloer writes, the pervasiveness of prostitution in history does not make the 14-year-old on the streets of Las Vegas any less exploited.
I have no use for e-mail blasts like that.
[Sage photo by Anthony St James; ganked from the Myspace.]
Fred Phelps and his creepy minions came to town today to protest. There were only four protesters, I think, including Phelps, a child, and some lady that looked about 132. I took some pictures. It was all very unexciting, despite the fact that most of the counter-protesters were dreamy and probably underaged boys. (Local high school GSAs banded together to protest, since the church went and picketed a local high school earlier today.)
More after the jump: (more…)
I just posted about Fred Phelps’ visit to town on the other blog I write for, but on the off chance that any of you a) are local and b) don’t read that one, I’m re-posting his Scripture-infused itinerary, along with this vaguely-relevantish picture of the eternally awesome Nina Hartley, whose name I just found on Indopedia’s list of LGBT Jews.
Phelps’s targets, along with his lengthy typo-ridden and deranged reasons for the pickets, after the jump. I’m debating whether or not to show up with a sign that says “God Likes It Up The Ass”.
Filed under: gay, heterosexuals, hookers, hot, music, not hot, people from rhode island, personal, porn | Tags: 2010, colors, dragonette, google, melody gardot, new zealand, porn, robyn, sexcrime (two thousand nine), size queens, teairra mari
Or, things I saw on the internet this week but didn’t write posts about:
Russian man gets penis enlarged by three inches, then changes mind when the chicks don’t dig it. [via The Edge of Vanilla]
New Dragonette! New Dragonette! New Dragonette! [via, oddly, Sexual Ambiguities]
My new favorite Tumblr. Mainly because its very first post (two months ago) is still possibly the best.
Is your Jason Mraz lyrics?! [via My Ecdysis]
This interpolation of I Got Your Man makes no sense, and does nothing to change my feeling that Robyn peaked creatively in 1996. The Girl and the Robot’s growing on me, though, but it has little to do with her and everything to do with Royksopp.
There’s a new site for the 2010 New York Sexbloggers calendar. Coincidentally, I just got around to hanging up my 2009 calendar this past week. Hopefully the ‘10 edition will be more practical and not fill up every single box with messages. (I forgot about two events I was supposed to go to today and no matter how many times I try Google calendar just isn’t my thing. Arggh.) [via Debauched Domestic Diva]
In New Zealand, a “sexual appetite” is akin to having a “dark side.” I mean, I’ve seen Once Were Warriors, but Jesus. (Actually, this is an article about an escort who fell in love with one of her clients and then killed him when she caught him with another woman. Tawdry!) [via $pread]
The Ivor Novello Awards, which are British awards for songwriting, were presented on Thursday. The Ting Tings, somewhat surprisingly, won for Best Album. [via This Is Fake DIY]
This is quite possibly the sleaziest porn I’ve ever seen. Just hearing 30 seconds of that music gave me a popper headache, and by the end I felt like I should be puking Jager. [via Sperm My Cumhole]
Teairra Mari’s new single has a video with terrible acting at the beginning and a crazy neon paint towards the end. The song’s chorus sounds like it should be a sample, but isn’t. It’s kind of an anti-chorus, really.
I really like Melody Gardot’s old-timey video for Baby I’m A Fool. At first I was thinking she sounded like Adele, but then I realized the song just sounds like jazz for old people. In other words, I feel like a big lamewad for liking it as much as I do.
OK, off to shower. If you’re in Providence, there’s a fair chance you’ll see me dancing at Xanadon’t tonight. That is, if I can convince the BF to leave the house.
While I was typing that last post, a popunder started telling me that I should really think about shaving my armpits. It scared the shit out of me, mainly because I wasn’t expecting it and couldn’t figure out how to make it go away. The animated clip–because, you know, real armpit hair is scary–can be seen here.
As an ad, it’s not really terrible, and I guess it’s a logical market for Gillette to be pursuing, since they’re in the business of shaving. And I do sort of like how the clip starts with an animal husbandry metaphor before moving in to instructions. (Don’t you want your armpit to smell like an empty stable?) I also kinda laughed that the first instruction is to put onehand on your head. But God, I hope this doesn’t become a trendy thing to do. I can see it now, millions of guys growing neat little beards on their faces while shaving their chests and armpits. Ick.
Filed under: gay, hot, music, not hot | Tags: adam lambert, afterelton, jason mraz, justin timberlake, the gays
Last week AfterElton came up with their annual Hot List, comprised of 100 dudes that send the gays swooning. Because the list is decided by the public it is, of course, kinda dumb, particularly since the public in question are the mainstream gays who still aren’t over Queer as Folk.
39 of the top 40 spots on the list, not surprisingly, are all white dudes. #39 is the president. Apparently, in order to be considered really “hot” you need to either a) be gay, b) play gay, or c) be on some crappy TV show where you take your shirt off a lot. Neil Patrick Harris, who’s two for three, tops the list, probably propelled to the top by his Joss Whedon connection. Being in something Joss Whedon-related is basically the equivalent of being knighted in the Kingdom of Gaydonia.
You know who I would never want touching my ass ever?
The King. Although at least if he came up from behind I wouldn’t have to look at that spooky, spooky head.
[via Towleroad]
