I’m organizing a pretty major event that’s happening for 11 hours tomorrow. And Thursday I’m probably just going to be sleeping all day. And then I might go through some computer detox over the weekend, maybe. So I might be laying low for the next coupla days. Sorry! In the meantime, here’s the video for the new Girls Can’t Catch song, Keep Your Head Up. I love how the director went for “battle of the sexes” and took the group’s sporty name as inspiration, but then went with a) a game that doesn’t involve catching and b) the least exciting sport in the history of people moving around. Bonus points for setting the whole thing in a junkyard for no reason.
Filed under: personal, the dan fogelberg and hair metal decade | Tags: celebrity, judy garland, michael jackson
I wasn’t going to, but the death of Michael Jackson has occupied enough of my mind this weekend that I figured I’d try to articulate it. Most of these thoughts have probably been written dozens, if not hundreds, of times by other people with better blogs than this one. But here goes:
I’m sort of intrigued by the way news of his death spread. I personally found out via Twitter, originally via (I think) Pete Wentz, and then within seconds from everybody else, celebs and non-celebs alike, nearly all of whom felt the need to write heartfelt eulogies in 140 characters or less. By the time any paper could have possibly gone to print with anything, the whole world pretty much knew every detail, and had hours and hours to make their own observations, form opinions, and talk to their friends, rendering the whole print news vehicle sort of useless. Twenty-four hours later, people were over the shock, and pretty much everyone had already moved on to writing thesis-y thought pieces about the (self-proclaimed, lest we forget) King Of Pop. I’m actually pretty excited about this kind of information transition, if it’s done right: newspapers, no longer necessarily the bearers of hard facts, could actually get smarter. (Of course, that’s assuming things stayed relatively fact-based on the internet; and I guess that’s a lot to expect, as we all know.) (more…)
I’m taking part in a fundraiser for the Providence chapter of Books Through Bars this summer. It’s a Read-A-Thon, and for every book I read between now and Labor Day people will donate money towards sending books to people in prison. There’s over two million people in jail right now, and a lot of privately run prisons don’t have libraries (because, you know, why would anybody want to educate prisoners?) Anyway, they get book requests daily, and the postage involved in sending the books adds up.
If you’ve got some extra money to spare, or think you will after Labor Day, and you want to sponsor me let me know. (Even if you’re not in the Providence area.) Yurigellerbentme@gmail.com is the e-mail.
Filed under: books, gay, hookers, hot, music, people from rhode island, personal | Tags: art, rhode island, pride, kate bush, a newfound interest in massachusetts, solange, bearapalooza, stonewall, michael jackson, the coup, chuck barris, flickr
Two years after a hatchet-and-gun attack in a gay bar, New Bedford, Massachusetts, had its first-ever gay pride event last Saturday. New Bedford used to be one of the world’s major whaling ports, and it’s still a very surly, very Portuguese Catholic, city. (If you’re curious, it’s also the city where I bought the cutest pants ever, as it’s also become kind of an antique/vintage haven.) Here’s a tedious photo montage thing of last weekend’s events. I don’t mean that in a mean way, and I’m glad they’re doing it. But really, what a tedious photo montage thing.
San Francisco Pride, happening tomorrow, is bound to be infinitely more exciting, though.
Speaking of festivals, in the unlikely event that you happen to be near Longfork, West Virginia, next weekend, it’s Bearapalooza. (And, if you do get there, I’d like to see pictures!)
Joe.My.God reports on the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall riots and incudes a really condescending Daily News article from 1969.
With so many people rushing to their blogs to broadcast their love of all things Michael Jackson, I’m glad that somebody remembered to mention “Lisa, It’s Your Birthday.” [via Art Fag City]
As I’ve noted before, both anti-prostitution bills in Rhode Island might stall, with the legislature wrapping up before its summer break and spending some of its last hours debating whether or not we should be allowed to have Yankees license plates. (On a brighter note, they might finally legalize MMA fighting in Rhode Island.)
Irish Kate Bush fans attempt to co-opt James Joyce’s holiday, for some reason. (Okay, that happened two weeks ago, but still, why?)
For some reason this song, which appeared on a mixtape someone made me about ten years ago, started running through my head the other day.
Chuck Barris, former game show host, alleged former CIA agent, and inspiration for the wonderful, wonderful Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, has a new mystery novel out.
Check out the Nudie Blues, as pictured above. I’m not sure who made them; the Flickr profile just says it’s a male in Berlin who is taken. I’m assuming his name is Alain, but I don’t know anything beyond that.
Superqueer Art Happening opens tonight, you hear! E-mail yurigellerbentme@gmail.com if you don’t know where to go. It’s 6-9 tonight, and then I’m keeping it open all next week (by appointment, thought it’s closed for sure on Sunday and Monday.) I’m so excited!
It will be infinitely better than whatever Pride-related activities you might have had planned for tonight, though your odds of getting laid/buying drugs are probably slightly lower at the art show. Although really, who am I to say who you’ll meet here?
Is this an insanely funny person or someone just trying to score a book deal? Who knows, really, but I totally love Keggers Of Yore, which was just brought to my attention by sofresh.
In other news, I’m very tired, but made the mistake of making my nightcap a little too strong. Now I’m positively giddy and listening to old Jennifer Lopez singles. I completely forgot about the amazingly awesome smorgasbord of cheese that is Let’s Get Loud. It’s kind of a masterpiece, in its way. That, or I’m drunker than I thought…
It’s incredibly nice out right now. Part of my is itching to go hang out in the park and watch kickball. Another part of me really wants to go to the mall to see V Factory. Another part of me wants to nap. And another part of me–the part that will win, ultimately–is the part that has a tentative photo shoot set up this afternoon with a very bossy six-year old. It’s for an art project I’m doing, one whose deadline is alarmingly close. Between today and tomorrow I need to get four or five more shoots done. And since I’m sharing the car with the boyfriend–and since we’re going to see John Parish and PJ Harvey in Boston tonight–I’m not sure what I’ll be able to manage.
For those of you that are in Providence, tonight’s the second and final night of Happy Endings?*, a movie about the Korean massage parlor industry in Rhode Island. It’s screening at the Columbus–an old-timey movie theater turned porn cinema turned indie theater again; I interviewed the film’s director, Tara Hurley, the other day for an article I’m writing, and I think it’s going to be a pretty good movie. (I haven’t actually seen it yet, and the chance to see PJ Harvey overrides anything else that might be happening tonight.)
(*Not to be confused with the Lisa Kudrow/Steve Coogan/Tom Arnold/Maggie Gyllenhaal/Laura Dern movie Happy Endings)
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.]
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.
Filed under: music, personal | Tags: complaining, franz ferdinand, illness, providence
I’m somewhat annoyed right now. I feel like crap. Actually I feel like I’m getting strep or something, which is reeeeeeeeally annoying. Annoying because tomorrow I’m going to see Franz Ferdinand. And Saturday I have a wedding to go to. And Sunday I’ve got my radio show in the morning and then I’m working the door at a show that night. And Tuesday’s my birthday. And I’m applying for two jobs, and need to get both resumes and cover letters in by tomorrow. And cover letters always take me forever. Because I hate them. Hate hate hate hate hate them.
But on the bright side, Franz Ferdinand! Yay! I’ve never actually seen them before, somehow. They’re playing at Lupo’s, which is this club that’s been in Providence on and off for about thirty years, though not in the same location. When I first started going to shows as a teenager, they were the best place to go because that’s where all the cool bands went and they were always all-ages. My first show (the Cardigans with pApAs Fritas, at a free afternoon show) was there, as was my second, which coincidentally was also the Cardigans. (It’s not that odd, really, since First Band On The Moon came out just a couple of months after the Life album did in the US.)
