The Gay Recluse

John Prine has made me cry, too, for the better part of three...

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:17:08 -0400

John Prine has made me cry, too, for the better part of three decades. I think it’s the way he conveys the most brutal truths, very poetically but without any bullshit.

Two more JP tear-jerkers on YouTube:

Sam Stone (about a Viet Nam war vet/junkie)

Paradise (about strip mining in KY)

alexbalk:

This song is pretty much guaranteed to make me cry every time. Maybe it’s the thought of anyone having to visit the Twin Cities alone, but I think it’s probably something else.

“Barstool Blues” by Death Culture at Sea (a cover of...

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:56:36 -0400

“Barstool Blues” by Death Culture at Sea (a cover of the Neil Young song from Zuma).

Maureen Dowd

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:49:20 -0400

alexbalk:

I just figured it out. She’s the worst girlfriend ever, the one who gets loaded at the bar and then starts talking about what a pussy you are if you won’t go fight that gigantic biker in the corner. Even though you explain that, actually, the biker will eventually fuck things up for himself, but it’s an unfair world and if you swing first you’ll get blamed for it, she keeps shouting and yelling and calling you effeminate names and intimating that your cock is too small.

Forget about her. You’re much better off with the nurturing type who understands that the visceral reaction isn’t always the smart reaction, and that just maybe you know what you’re doing. The kind of girlfriend who understands you and doesn’t try to mask her own emotional neediness by trying to put you down. The kind of girlfriend who wants you to succeed. You know, the Nick Kristof type.

This is totally true. Dowd really needs to get a grip on the fact that Obama isn’t running to be her boyfriend. My slightly different analysis of the same problem here.

On a Story of Floating Weeds

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:20:10 -0400

On a Story of Floating Weeds

“Perfect Circle” R.E.M. (Death Culture at Sea...

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:35:18 -0400

“Perfect Circle” R.E.M. (Death Culture at Sea version)

Part of me was dying to see My Bloody Valentine…but a...

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:40:00 -0400

Part of me was dying to see My Bloody Valentine…but a bigger part of me couldn’t bear to go.

My new band is called Death Culture at Sea: this is a cover of...

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:10:56 -0400

My new band is called Death Culture at Sea: this is a cover of “The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen, one of the best songs from the one of the best bands from the 80s (yikes, I hope I didn’t butcher it!)

Mornings are easily the best time of day in Washington Heights.

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:55:25 -0400

Mornings are easily the best time of day in Washington Heights.

A Disability Epidemic Among a Railroad’s Retirees

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:27:45 -0400

A Disability Epidemic Among a Railroad’s Retirees :

“Virtually every career employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time.”

This article is amazing, particularly if you consider the idea that the LIRR is probably not that unusual…beyond the obvs scandal/corruption/graft here, it makes me think that government is really the last bastion of the middle class, because — at least in my experience — corporations tend to pay laughingly high salaries to the (mostly) idiotic VIPs and shockingly low ones to the masses who are permantly stuck in the quagmire below.

Orchids everywhere for the one-year anniversary…

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:10:28 -0400

Orchids everywhere for the one-year anniversary…

“This Same Day and Feeling” by Saturnine, or more...

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:12:52 -0400

“This Same Day and Feeling” by Saturnine, or more psychedelic trix…

This is where Sarah Palin doesn’t live. (Or John McCain,...

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:45:21 -0400

This is where Sarah Palin doesn’t live. (Or John McCain, for that matter.)

mikedressel: cajunboy: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL....

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:50:38 -0400

mikedressel:

cajunboy:

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL. On.Fucking.Point.

I didn’t want a woman to be President, I wanted to be President, and I just happen to be a woman! And I don’t want to hear you compare your road to the White House to my road to the White House. I scratched and clawed through mud and barbed wire, and you just glided in on a dog slead wearing your pageant sash and Tina Fey glasses!

(via frangry)

Fey and Poehler together again. Fantastic.

This was indeed perfect. I love how they ask the media to “grow a pair” at the end, too. (But hey, at least The Times has started to publish some fairly critical stuff about McCain — so many outright lies! — and Palin, who sounds like a real small-town thug.)

“Song for Saturday Morning” by Saturnine (actually...

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:39:51 -0400

“Song for Saturday Morning” by Saturnine (actually just me, which will be pretty obvious, cause I wrote and recorded this in like fifteen minutes to try out my new MacBook — fun! sort of? — so please bear with me…) When I was an indie-rock snob we used to make fun of anything that wasn’t 100 percent analog, but I have to say, it’s a relief not to have to rewind. Oh and the effect on my voice is called “Epic Diva.”

All the Women in My Family...

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:00:28 -0400

who btw live in Pennsylvania and Ohio are furiously forwarding the womenagainstsarahpalin e-mail that Doree mentions in the article…(being gay, I was included!). For some reason I feel slightly less depressed today…I think people are starting to overdose on Sarah Palin — and see through the hype — so that what seemed like a “genius” choice a week ago is starting to look kinda flimsy.

doree:

Hey, just in case you weren’t already sick of all the Sarah Palin talk these last couple of weeks, I wrote a big long thinky piece about her in this week’s Observer.

Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs.

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:58:49 -0400

I agree with all of this! I think they’re letting like these big (but excrutiatingly contrived) plot devices — the tunnel, the Mexican kingpin, etc — drive the characters instead of vice versa. Also, assholes like Doug are only funny when they’re in a position of (suburban) power, so that you can laugh at them. As a loser/homeless guy, he’s just not that fun (or sympathetic). And yeah, the goth girls having sex with Shane who looks like he’s nine just doesn’t ring remotely true. (Same with the way he hit the popular kid in the face with a tray — if any kid ever tried that in any school, he’d be strung up from a flagpole in about five seconds.) In short, I’m not buying much of anything in Weeds this season, and I’m not saying it has to reflect reality, but resonate with some kind of truth and insight.

I’m thinking True Blood (wait, is that what it’s called?) is the new Weeds. I liked the first episode! Maybe HBO is back (even though I really hate their pretentious pre-show jingles).

homophile:

People who watch Weeds: that was disturbing, no? First we got to see Andy’s semi-erect pecker, and then that DEA agent got fucked up Hostel style. I was like daaamn, they went there! I mean, the show isn’t exactly “conservative,” but they seemed to be pushing the envelope with that episode.

Anyway, I am really concerned for Nancy’s well-being, and I detest the fucking mayor. She has been in way over her head before, but this shit is serious.

Powers that be: CAN THEY FUCKING GO BACK TO THE OLD TOWN? I don’t care for Andy’s dad, the Mexican bitch is annoying as fuck, Doug was a lot funnier when we didn’t get to see him as often, the old cougar bitch that’s fucking Silas ain’t that cute, and the creepy goth girls are fucking weird. AND I FUCKING MISS HEYLIA AND CONRAD. I don’t like any of these new people. Except for maybe Clinique, but she isn’t exactly new.

Hey—we’re renting a room in our Washington Heights...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:12:45 -0400

Hey—we’re renting a room in our Washington Heights townhouse if you or anyone you know is looking. (No giant fish tanks, though!)

Srsly, Wtf Is Going On at The Times?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:40:28 -0400

As encouraging as it is to read about the 40 million people who watched Obama’s speech on Thursday night, along with — at least on Tumblr! — some of the firsthand impressions of those who were there — it is seriously disheartening to see The Times trying to desperately downplay the event.

Check this out, in the same article about the 40-million record:

After an initial burst of coverage on the network morning programs, the images from Thursday night were quickly overwhelmed by conflicting reports about Senator John McCain’s likely running mate that completely took over news coverage on cable.

That sort of repetition from the previous night is ordinarily what presidential campaigns count on to spread the better moments of their nominating conventions to those who did not watch them. But Mr. McCain’s unexpected selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska left no room for a look back at the night that had passed, although online the speech had been viewed more than 300,000 times on YouTube by Friday evening.

Overwhelmed? No room for a look back? As if they had no choice in the matter? Like they were required to keep Sarah Palin on the front page for 24 hours and shower her with accolades? Even the title of the above article — “Obama’s Speech Is a TV Hit, with Viewers and Commentators Alike — slyly denigrates what was clearly a more important moment than your average “TV hit.” Ughh, after so many shitty elections, I swore to myself that I’d stop caring, but it’s depressing to see the major newspaper of New York City succumbing to the same conservative (and racist) tendencies that plague the rest of our stupid country. (File under: why I’m glad the MSM is losing revenue and will soon be buried by the blogosphere.)

Times Trend: Why Must Sad Losers Spend $$ on Pets (Don't These Monsters Love Children?)

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:10:29 -0400

Umm, I know this may or may not be getting old, but here’s a regular (by which I mean at least two!) column you’ll find in The Times that could be filed under: “What kind of stupid loser would pay $$ to save an animal? Don’t they understand that I love my children more than I love pets?”

Today we have Judith Warner, who in “Dogged by Guilt” writes (this first part, which is total wtf, is quoting some crazy she admires):

“When I was a kid, if your dog was hit by a car and was badly hurt, you’d take him out back and you’d shoot him,” the father, who grew up in rural North Carolina, told me. “You wouldn’t take him to a vet to have him put down – you did it yourself. It was kind of an act of honoring the dog, an act of love.”

It seems to me that pet ownership has become – like so many other aspects of modern “parenthood” – a realm in which the goalposts have been moved to greater and greater lengths of expense and absurdity. I actually count myself lucky that I can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on my dog’s health care”

Then, in 2005, we had Daphne Merkin’s “Let the Fur Fly” in which she wrote:

At the risk of drawing ire, I would like to suggest that there is something profoundly awry about the way our culture treats pets. To wit: We spend more money annually on pet-related supplies and services (an estimated $35 billion last year) than we do on toys for children.

I know I can’t be the only one to find myself increasingly nostalgic for the days when a pet was a pet and not a handbag-size celebrity pooch named Tinkerbell or Bit Bit.

This is my response. I don’t know why or how I even found either of these dumb articles, since I hate Judith Warner and The Magazine — so there may be more! — but whatev, two is more than enough. Now I’m going to play with the cats and go to bed.

OMG -- Why I hate Adam Nagourney

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:23:19 -0400

The current lede on the front page of the NYT.

“John McCain’s choice of running mate was a surprise, and — as designed by Mr. McCain’s advisers — eclipsed the acceptance speech delivered by Barack Obama.”

(Ital. mine)

Really, Adam? Picking a nobody from Alaska who is basically an ugly (in the metaphorical sense, obvs) right-wing Christian conservative with no experience eclipsed a speech that was one of the best in modern history?

Why does The Times hate Obama? The undermining begins.