Archive for September, 2009
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[ 3 Comments ]Posted on September 20, 2009 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Why I wish I were having Chinese tonight.
I’m not generally prone to star-struck fanboy-ness, idol worship, and fantasizing about romance with movie stars, but Bai Ling has changed all of this. I had seen her name and random photos in the media on occasion, but wasn’t aware of her remarkable depth as an actress* until seeing her performance as a crack whore in the over-the-top but definitely-worth-a-watch Crank 2: High Voltage
. Maybe it’s just her archetypal Chinese beauty. She looks like an ancient stylized rendition of a royal warrior, partly because of her strangely-proportioned nose, which I could gleefully ski down, and partly because of the way her bangs frame the gaze of her disturbingly asymmetrical eyes. Or maybe it’s her musical talent. You haven’t really experienced the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” until you’ve seen Bai Ling performing it. Or maybe it’s her nipples, which she seems to be obsessed with herself. In this Mr. Skin interview (NSFW), she’s asked what the favorite part of her body is, and she replies: “Probably you already know. My nipples! Once in Asia they asked me ‘what are the windows to the soul?’, and the word ‘nipples’ almost came out of my mouth. But then I swallowed and said, ‘The eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul.’ And that’s true too. But sometimes after I get out of the shower I look at my nipples and think, ‘Wow, they’re provocatively something else.’ I feel like they do not belong to me. They’re supposed to be like an African woman’s nipples. They’re something sexy.” But really I think it’s because Read the rest of this entry »
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 19, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
It’s probably going to be a long time before Talk Like a Pirate Day and Rosh Hashanah coincide, so let’s talk for a moment about Jewish booty.
If I were an idiot savant, I’d tell you when Rosh Hashanah and Talk Like a Pirate Day will coincide again. But I’m not, so I won’t. But I will suggest that this rare event may be a good time to place your advance order for the book Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom–and Revenge
, due for release November 3. Yes, apparently there were Jewish pirates, including Jean Lafitte (aka The Buccaneer). For some reason this fact was overlooked in the 1958 film The Buccaneer
starring Yul Brenner. Other holidays remaining this month include the rest of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which continues through October 15. Strangely, in spite of the GOP’s apparent disdain for Hispanics themselves, they like the culture; the observance was initiated by Ronald Reagan, of all people. Also in September we have Native American Day, which we as we pointed out previously sort of supercedes “Citizenship Day” on the 17th somehow. And on September 27 we have Yom Kippur, on which all the Jewish pirates will presumably atone for their wrongs.
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on September 18, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Friday, September 18th, 2009
A friend accused me of being cryptic the other day. I begged to differ.
n pbhcyr bs lrnef ntb n sevraq bs zvar gubhtug ur jnf orvat ernyyl pyrire ol fraqvat zrffntrf va jung ur gubhtug jnf n frperg pbqr. ur jbhyq glcr n zrffntr va na r-znvy, gura punatr gur sbag gb n jvaqbjf “jvatqvatf” sbag. jung ur qvqa’g ernyvmr jnf gung ur jnf hfvat n zrgubq nf byq nf napvrag ebzr, gur fhofgvghgvba pvcure. gur snpg vf, gur nirentr crefba pbzrf hc jvgu cerggl ynzr zrgubqf sbe rapelcgvba. rira jvgu fvzcyr gnfxf yvxr cnffjbeq perngvba. guvf yvfg, sbe vafgnapr, pbagnvaf gur 500 jbefg cnffjbeqf bs nyy gvzr. bar gung v hfrq gb hfr dhvgr bsgra vf ba vg. vf bar bs lbhef? n tbbq rknzcyr bs whfg ubj tbbq rapelcgvba pna or vf gur xelcgbf fphycgher ol nzrevpna negvfg wvz fnaobea, juvpu vf ybpngrq ng gur pvn urnqdhnegref va ivetvavn. gur orfg rkcregf va gur svryq unir bayl fbyirq guerr bs sbhe cnegf bs gur zrffntr. vs lbh’er ernyyl vagb guvf fbeg bs guvat, gurer ner cyragl bs obbxf ba gur gbcvp
, ohg gung yvax vf n gbgny erq ureevat; whfg na bccbeghavfgvp nznmba cebqhpg yvax. gur fbyhgvba gb gb gur fvzcyr pvcure hfrq sbe guvf negvpyr vf eryngviryl rnfl gb svaq; bar zrgubq jbhyq or gb hfr gur vzntr ng yrsg naq qrpbqr vg jvgu gur fnzr fvgr gung rapbqrq vg, juvpu hfrq fgrtnabtencul. vs lbh’ir znantrq gb fbeg guvf nyy bhg, cbfg gur grkg bs gur negvpyr vagb gur pbzzragf naq v’yy onxr lbh fbzr pbbxvrf be fbzrguvat nf n erjneq. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 17, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
Having a Hyena as a pet may sound like fun, but the Hyena will probably have the last laugh. If you really want an exotic pet, there’s always Photoshop.
When I first saw Pieter Hugo’s photos of the Hyena Men of Nigeria , I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a Hyena Man of Nigeria. The problem being, of course, that I was neither Nigerian, nor had a Hyena. Nor was I bad-ass enough to walk around with a Hyena on a heavy-duty chain, and convince a Baboon to wear a Beckham jersey every day. Still, as an animal lover I’ve always had a childish fantasy of having a few especially beastly animals as pets. In my beastmaster vision, I have a falcon on my shoulder while I walk my black panther and white wolf, who happen to all be best of pals. Alas, as anyone who’s watched Grizzly Man 
knows, these attempts at bridging the gap between man and the wilder members of the animal kingdom don’t always turn out so well. That doesn’t seem to stop a lot of people from making the absurd decision to try, leading to “tragedies” like the Siegfried and Roy mauling, the occasional Elephant rampage (that video’s not for the faint-of-heart), and the random nature show host’s death. I’ll probably never live out my little dream; the fact is that trying to turn wild animals into pets generally ends in either the tragic death or injury of a human, or the tragic neglect of the animal. If you really want an exotic pet, there’s always Read the rest of this entry »
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 16, 2009 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
And he sold Bush a bailout that Bush didn’t understand. But can he sell you a book?
So Long, And Thanks For All The Crocs! |
I guess the fact that Hank Paulson is releasing the book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System
in 2010 should instill in us all a comforting feeling that the financial crisis is well behind us now. Well, it doesn’t. It does however, instill in some of us the feeling that Paulson is a greedy self-engrossed bastard that is so out of touch with the reality of those of us that are paying for his spectacular destruction of capitalism as we know it that he thinks we’d buy his book. Or be able to afford it, for that matter. It also – along with the impending release of Bush speechwriter Matthew Latimer’s Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor
– makes for some hilarious pre-release reading. The only thing that might give you a better laugh than Latimer’s self-aggrandizing piece in GQ is Wonkette’s reaction to it. My favorite excerpt is when Wonkettes’s Juli Weiner takes Latimer’s passage “Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat” and translates it as “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.” Taking a more serious tone, the Vanity Fair piece Henry Paulson’s Longest Night rambles on in an almost surreal attempt to build compassion for Paulson by telling us what a tough job it was for him to hoodwink Washington with his buddy Bernanke and then sweep their frightening mess under the rug using the veil of secrecy provided by being in charge of the Federal Reserve. Probably the most gratifying thing in this piece is when the author describes Paulson throwing up in the next room while he talks about Nancy Pelosi. I can’t wait for more of the continuing flood of these opportunistic and treacherous “insider views”, but so far the most interesting thing I’ve learned from Latimer’s, Paulson’s and Tom Ridge’s tell-all sellouts is that Bush wears Crocs*. Read the rest of this entry »
When I first saw Pieter Hugo’s photos of the Hyena Men of Nigeria , I instantly knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a Hyena Man of Nigeria. The problem being, of course, that I was neither Nigerian, nor had a Hyena. Nor was I bad-ass enough to walk around with a Hyena on a heavy-duty chain, and convince a Baboon to wear a Beckham jersey every day. Still, as an animal lover I’ve always had a childish fantasy of having a few especially beastly animals as pets. In my beastmaster vision, I have a falcon on my shoulder while I walk my black panther and white wolf, who happen to all be best of pals. Alas, as anyone who’s watched Grizzly Man