Manhattan Offender

Today is the day I lower myself to the level of taking pot shots at Jessica Simpson

It's not her we despise.  It's what she represents.

When music is dictated more by the marketing department than by an artist, it's more brand imagery than it is art.

Jessica Simpson is not an artist.  She is an instrument.  Or perhaps a better word would be a tool.  Jessica Simpson is a tool.

And probably was a sweet girl.  And probably still is, under all the plastic and makeup and peroxide. 

So shame on me for taking a pot shot.

YouTube Tuesdays: Cazwell vs. The Knife

Via In a Vault Underground who hated Cazwell and loved The Knife.  But I like both.

Recent phone conversations

All of the below are from recent calls.  Sometimes 1 is me and sometimes 2 is me.

    1:  "Did you just call me doodle?"
    2:  "You're not dude-ish enough to call dude."

    1:  "Was everybody talking about me last night?"
    2:  "Now that you mention it ..."
    1:  "Let me guess the burger lady outside the Eagle."
    2:  "I don't know no bushes lady."

    1:  "What the hell are you doing?"
    2:  "Ruining everything!"
    1:  "Where?  I think I'd like to see that."

    1:  "This is my favorite Madonna song."
    2:  "That's not Madonna; that's JellyBean Benitez."

    1:  "We don't have to have sex to have fun."
    2:  "We don't have to have fun to have sex."

Phone-cam quickie: The shoes of summer

Given the current forecast, will white shoes be wearable at all before Labor Day? 

About the banner

A familiar site to anyone visiting Fire Island Pines, this year High Tea had a resident DJ.  Converting the entire upper deck to Lina's Lounge seems to have worked out well.  Rumor has it that by next summer there will be a massive renovation of Pavilion which will more than double the space at High Tea.  Which is good as the place is consistently packed with hotties.  Which is bad as the place is consistently packed with hotties.

Daddies b @ the laundromat

<Spoken>:  I don't get it man, why not just drop your laundry off ...

<Begin backtrack>
<Begin verse>

The ladies at the laundry can get my clothes clean.
Them ladies work hard.  Each one's a machine.
But there's something at the place,
Puts a smile on my face ...
    Gonna hafta explain.

Daddies be at the laundromat.
None
Too lean
And none
Too fat.
Recently divorced or maybe wives liberated,
Each one comes to mind while I've masterba<skratch>.

Daddies be at the laundromat.
Clothes
Need clean
And that
Is that.
From machine to machine they drop their load.
Wash, rinse, spin dry and fold.

Some of them, totally clueless;
My respect goes to their trueness.
Whites, colors and permanent press.
Men can do laundry and not wear a dress.

<Break>
<Guest vocal>:
    But what's this I hear about your craigslist ad?
    You ask me that shit's crazy, kinda sad.
    It's cool your launnymat gots wireless installed,
    But having a bear window open you gonna get mauled.

That ad, you know it's a joke;
Consider myself a humorous bloke.
Do wack things
When I smoke.

Truth is somethin' 'bout doing my clothes.
Meditational.  It gives me peace y'all.
But this is a rap;
not a goddam confessional.

<End break>

Daddies be at the laundromat.
Sleeveless
Shirts and
New York
Mets hats.
They're finishing up and starting to fold;
Uncomfortable eyecontact never gets old.

Daddies be at the laundromat.
Clothes
Need clean
And that
Is that.
Daddies be at the laundromat.
Daddies be at the laundromat.

    Holla.

Phone-cam quickie: Human Hair

Leaving Devin's wake, it was appropriate to see something that he and I would have shared a laugh over.

Phone-cam quickie: Saint Marks Baths

The first thing you see when entering the Offender compound this piece of art that I found in Philadelphia, a poster for the Saint Marks Baths from back in the day as done by the science fiction/fantasy artist Boris Vallejo. 
 

So much think in my head, deux

Rantwise, this is pretty mellow.

• In my continuing steps toward becoming a total stereotype, my first missed connection has been posted.  Really not my best writing effort ever.  And against my principal of "Just say hi" which is my favorite opening line.
• Speaking of opening lines and on my earlier post regarding mantras, one of the best things to tell yourself before going out is this one:  "Just remember, people are a little overwhelmed by your good looks."  Totally works.
• My birthday is October 2.  Which is a Monday.  Which means it starts on a Friday and ends on a Monday.
• Call it over-planning, but is it better to have a temp-boyfriend in place for your birthday or to keep your options open?  Or maybe have a temp-boyfriend that is open to options?
• Only a temp-boyfriend will spend cash on you.  Which means I could get this.  Which you'll have to watch the video to understand.  (Via Gawker)
• And then there's Project Runway.  Someone that's met Robert Best tells me he's a great guy.  But his storyline was over. 
• But the truly awesome part is the tiny stories in last night's episode.  Laura Bennett's pregnancy is curious, but way more interesting to me is Jeffrey Sebelia.  Suddenly he makes sense.  His "addiction to alcohol" makes him a "program queen", or, in this case, a "reality program queen".  And the whole "my mom is crying because she is so proud of me" self-delusion is compelling as the mother is obviously scared that her son is going to let his bitterness destroy his chances on the show. 
• Speaking of manufacturing reality, Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty debuted on Oxygen this week as well.  It seems that Doherty suffers from the same "hey, no, really, I am super-nice and not a total bitch" affliction from which Tyra Banks suffers.  If this show really wants to succeed, Shannen needs to go for the balls (or boobs) and give an unrelenting squeeze.
• And, as this post needs a picture, consider Jeffrey Sebelia as X-Men character Chamber.  Chamber lost his mouth and vocal chords in a "psionic blast" and keeps that area covered in black leather.  Perhaps Sibelia could take a tip there?

My mantrap, er, um, mantra

Bouncing back from bad news is rough, but over time surely the spate of bad news of late should end the flow and begin the ebb.  Back in May a friend introduced me to a prose piece by Leonard Cohen that sort of sums up my goal.  It is far from ambitious and yet challenging at the same time.  When a piece of bad news hits though, it's the reference to which I return.

What is a saint?
A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility.  It is impossible to say what that possibility is.  I think it has something to do with the energy of love.
Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence.  A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago.  I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order.
It is a kind of balance that is his glory.
He rides the drifts like an escaped ski.  His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock.  Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. 
Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape.  His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world.  He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart.  It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

- Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers (1966)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled MO retardation.