Not much time for posting today, because I’ve been too busy napping all day (true story!) But I just came across this Calvin Klein campaign from the nineties. Obviously the advertisers were going for lewd and creepy, with the basement paneling and the disguised-sounding voice behind the camera and everything, but I wonder whether these ads had as much of an impact when viewed one at a time.

Anyway, maybe you’ve seen them before. There’s over a million youtube views and 2200 comments, most of which could be summed up as “Ewwwww.” Although, since it’s Youtube comments I’m talking about, they tend more towards “Ewwwwww yure fucking stupid I hate you your a dumb fag.” But you get the idea.

[via Boys Keep Swinging]

Today:
“old porn” blog
splits
mpho box n locks mixtape for hookers
“jincey lumpkin”
hung nerd

Yesterday:
craigs list women that want to fuck ever
sex bunny party
naked american well hung men
dave clark five
hookers party fotos
saint etienne i’m too sexy blogspot

Sunday:
u2 – with or without you
slab mixtapes
lady gaga ero naked pictures
well hung boys old movies
history of dance

Saturday:
matinee “blue artichoke”
casey kasem
topless coffee bar
karen o nacked
shirtless actor filterui:face-nonportrait

Friday:
ugly old hooker porn
nude sarah connor
michael weather gay
sad bukake
boxers before after

Thursday:
henrik zetterberg’s wife
henrik zetterberg girlfriend
ri prostitution
michael phelps pubes

Wednesday:
sophie ellis bextor blond
craigslist now require account bullshit
“keith fullerton whitman” zip
grossest porn ever
cat power sea of love

[photo: Jean and Casey Kasem]

Because I am a sheep, and because I am for some reason not sleeping right now, I’ve linked all my posts to a twitter account.  So if you want to know when I post something new, or just want me to feel like a popular person, be sure to befriend @mixtapesforhos.  I really doubt I’ll be adding anything exclusive there, since I’ve already got two Twitter accounts in addition to all the blogs and crap, but if you check your Twitter a lot and don’t use an RSS reader it might be convenient for you to follow me.  I’ll even follow you back, if I don’t forget the password by the morning.

Summer jam artiste Mpho’s debut album Pop Art won’t be out for months yet, but that doesn’t mean she’s not keeping busy.  To sate our thirst after listening to Box N Locks approximately three kajillion times in the past two months, the British/South African singer’s taken to the Youtube to present us with a moderately acoustic cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.  With the aid of just a keyboard, a drummer, and a drummer’s backpack, Mpho transforms Kate’s original* from a dated-sounding dance tune for gay wiccans into something a little more soulful and less otherworldly, despite making only very minimal changes to the vocal delivery.  Sorry Placebo, but this is now the only cover of this song that I want to hear (besides Kiki and Herb’s, of course.)

Since Kate Bush revivalism is the #2 trend of the year (after disco revivalism), it’s not actually that very surprising that the woman touted as the newer, more ethnic Santogold would choose to cover this song.  But I don’t care how shrewd a commercial move it is, I’m still wicked excited right now.

[via ArjanWrites]

It’s on.  And it’s possibly not getting archived, so listen now!  Because my Bastille Day Eve tribute to French pop is unmissable!  And, you know, mumbly and shoddily executed, in my fashion.

Call For Entries:

Body of Work is the working title of a small group exhibit that will take place in Providence, Rhode Island in September of 2008.  Focusing exclusively on art made by sex workers, the show will attempt to shatter common myths about what it means to be a sex worker, while also providing much-needed gallery space for talented artists who may lack other means of showcasing their work.

With Providence quickly becoming the center of a national prostitution debate, it is vitally important to remind people that sex workers have minds as well as bodies, who should not be reduced to simple stereotypes.  Because of this, work submitted to the show need not necessarily be sex work-related or even sex-related.  Sex workers are a diverse group of people with diverse talents, interests, and skills, and this will be reflected in the final exhibit.

Submissions by hookers, strippers, rentboys, sex educators, porn stars, burlesque performers, dominatrices, go-go boys, and more are encouraged, though due to time and space constraints it should be emphasized that Body Of Work will ultimately focus on work by a small number of artists.  If the quality of work reaches beyond the scope of the gallery, a larger exhibit may take place in a different venue at a later date.

If you are interested in submitting your work to the show, more specific/logistical deets are after the jump:

2-D, 3-D, and video media are welcome, as are works by writers interested in reading or performing at the event.  Performance submissions are also encouraged, though the gallery’s small space will render large-scale performances very unlikely.  The show will coincide with the second anniversary of Mixtapes For Hookers and be promoted as such, both locally and online.

To submit work for the show, e-mail (with the word ‘proposal’ in the subject line) yurigellerbentme@gmail.com. Include your name, location, and information about your work (titles, dates, dimensions, media.) Jpegs should be included as attachments. Links to artists’ websites are also encouraged.

About the show:

Work can be no bigger than 24X24, including framing.  If the work is unframed, larger pieces may be acceptable.

Unfortunately, shipping will not be covered, so consider that if you are a non-local artist.

The deadline for submissions is August 7th.  Work must be delivered to the gallery by the first week of September.

Any sales will be split 70 (you)/30 (the gallery.)

If you have any other questions, feel free to e-mail.

[My year-long recap of my favorite songs of the decade continues, very very slowly.]

4. The Strokes, Last Nite

When The Strokes’ debut album was released in the fall of 2001, it was as if music critics collectively decided to play a game wherein they would each talk about how amazing the album was, both on the grounds that it was revolutionary and also because it sounded a lot like some other completely unrelated band from history.

Rolling Stone said the album sounded like British mods covering James Brown and Buddy Holly; the late Nude As The News heard the Stones and a feisty Lou Reed as influences.  Entertainment Weekly also mentioned Reed’s band The Velvet Underground, particularly Moe Tucker’s drumming.  Television was also thrown around as an influence by critics, as were Oasis and the Dave Clark Five and pretty much every other band ever beloved by rockists.  And I haven’t even gotten to the reeeeeally enthusiastic British press.  (NME’s review, though comparison-free, is pretty comically overwrought today.)  But at the time nobody–absolutely nobody–picked up on the group’s biggest influence of all.

Listen:

And now listen to this:

The drums, the guitars, the desperation in the vocals.  It’s all there.  Tom Petty noticed, although I can’t find any mention of the similarity online anywhere, aside from one passing mention in a 2006 Rolling Stone interview about the Red Hot Chili Peppers stealing Petty’s ho-hum Mary Jane’s Last Dance for the wretched Dani California.

Anyway, it’s strange, is all I’m saying.  Not bad at all.  I thought Last Nite was a great song then and I still think it’s a great song today.  Also, I wish more people would borrow their ideas from American Girl, because that’s a great, great song.

I think the thing that elevates Last Nite from good to great is Julian Casblancas’ enthusiasm in the vocal delivery.  I don’t know what he’s singing about, exactly, but it doesn’t really matter because whatever it is he sure as hell means it.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the song is also insanely fun to dance to.

[ed. note: Today is the end of SoundSession, Providence's biggest music festival.  There's music all day and into the night, and a parade, and basically I'm pre-booking tomorrow as a hangover day.  So you're getting your news delivered early, you lucky so-and-sos!]

Levi Johnston gave his thoughts about Sarah Palin’s resignation, which, whatever, but whoever decided to place him in an enormous swivel chair in front of a million books deserves three raises.

Americans aren’t so sure what sex is.

Casey Kasem, who I’d probably call my hero if anybody ever asked me who my hero was, is stepping down from the mic (again).

Choire Sicha’s thoughts about Bruno almost make me kind of want to see it.  Even though Dreamy David Rakoff thinks it’s bad for the gays.

Carnal Nation reports on condoms and porn.

There’s only one thing I read more than blog posts about why sex work isn’t necessarily a sign of desperation.  And that’s blog posts about the relative merits of people buying v. sharing their music.

Male swimmers shaving each other is fine, I guess, for practical reasons, but the massive push for men to shave everything is really bringing me down.  (See also.)

Louisiana’s Southern University is feeling the Solange.

There’s more to South African music than you might know.

The Dalai Lama made a surprise appearance in Apartment 3-G yesterday.  I don’t know if you’re familiar with the strip (we don’t have it in Providence) but it’s the only strip I’ve enjoyed for the past, oh, decade or so. (Occasional individual Get Fuzzy and Rex Morgan strips aside.)

Pop Song of the year?

A big trend this week is people who know nothing about the Billboard album chart complaining about the Billboard album chart.

Finally, National Geographic offers tips on how to make homemade food that tastes like it was the opposite of homemade.

Because I spent most of today figuring out my stupid rent situation, here’s a song for the destitute.  It’s Elizabeth Cotten’s version of Shake Sugaree, a Cotten wrote with her grandchildren.  Notable covers include one by the sadly neglected Fred Neil on his Everybody’s Talkin’ album, and one by Mary Lou Lord on her major-label outing Got No Shadow.

Cotten’s version appears in the depressing but lovable 1991 Vietnam-era film Dogfight, for those of you recognize the song and spent some part of your life obsessed with River Phoenix and/or Lili Taylor.

Wallpaper, the guiltiest of guilty-pleasure magazines, pays homage to the tart card in their new issue.  The calling cards, stuck in phone booths by London prostitutes advertising their wares, have gained something of a cult appeal over the years, particularly as phone booths are on the wane.  So the magazine asked a boatload of designers to come up with their own cards, with the added design-nerd twist that each one is hawking a different typeface.

Some of them are funny, some are sort of clever, and as usual I feel like there’s something really fundamental that I’m just not getting about the stylings of Daisy de Villeneuve. The whole thing would be sort of entertaining, in a dorky way, if the sidebar didn’t suggest that every single London prostitute is being trafficked against her will.

Designer Mike Dempsey, who works with trafficked women in London, wrote a response to the project, and I honestly can’t say that I know enough about the lives of London’s sex workers to judge what he’s saying.  However, I’m guessing it might be an exaggeration on Wallpaper’s part to say the whole project evokes “the sinister world that lies beneath every card.”  (Also, if they’re going to look at every woman as a victim, then the whole project is pretty tasteless, isn’t it?)

[above: Jeff Leak's ode to Cooper Black]