The Perfect Ratio

2011-06-10T06:22:00.001-07:00

From the AV Club's 4 Part Interview with Dan Harmon:

For the large part of this episode, I was in this room alone with Megan [Ganz]. I remember that experience very well because I was at my emotional wits’ end. I had been told numerous times before that, as early as episode seven, that I was at my wits’ end. People kept telling me to stop. They would say, “You’re at the end of your rope.” And I’d say, “Why are you saying that? That seems like a weird thing to wish on someone. I’m really happy. I love my show.” And they’d say, “No, no, you are exhausted, you need to cool out.” And I’d go home from those meetings thinking, “I think that they just wish that I wasn’t me.”

And it’s funny, because on that episode, I found out what the actual end of the rope feels like, because there is definitely no point in both seasons where I’ve been so terrified of my own failure. I’ve never been able to taste it like that. It was a combination of being that far behind schedule—there was no breaking the story, having a draft, table-reading, getting notes—and the episode obviously wouldn’t have existed if that had had to happen, because that process was designed to stop weird things from happening. And for good reason. There was too much risk and not enough reward. There is money being made and a business being transacted on every other network, and here we are on this little island of “Who gives a fuck?” But at some point, it doesn’t even matter. “Stop overthinking it; stop being weird. What’s the worst thing that could happen to your numbers if you go home and sleep a little bit?”

Sometimes you focus so much on getting away with stuff because you think, “Oh, if I could just get away with it, then everything will be great.” But then you get away with something accidentally, and you realize, “Wait, I get away with everything. I’m at the tippy-top of a $2 million investment into a half-hour of television about what? What is even going on in this story?” And it surprises people to hear me describe it that way, because mostly it was just a cute episode. It wasn’t perceived by anyone—and I refuse to read any reviews of this episode—but it seemed from the Twitter feed that really all of my anxiety was… the disparity was really odd.

The humility in this, especially in this part: Sometimes you focus so much on getting away with stuff because you think, “Oh, if I could just get away with it, then everything will be great.” But then you get away with something accidentally, and you realize, “Wait, I get away with everything. I’m at the tippy-top of a $2 million investment into a half-hour of television about what? makes me want to print it out and send it to Matt Weiner.

The Best One Line Emails My Dad Has Sent Me

2011-03-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

“This Saturday your LSAT score expires.”

“The bedroom tv broke now i can sleep. love dad”

“Mail me your tax returns today love dad to all ”

“Don’t get too excited how much are they offering u? love dad”

“Nothing is going on. Please call tonight. Love dad”

Cosmo's The Ten Hottest Texts To Send A Guy. Edited. By Meeee.

2011-02-10T07:40:00.000-08:00

Fire off one of these very naughty 160-or-fewer-characters messages and your man will drop whatever he's doing to come see you.

At work having very NSFW thoughts about throwing you down on my desk...

At my physical therapy appt having very NSFPT thoughts about throwing you down! I wish you were crippled too. I feel like you've been distant since the accident.

See if you can decipher this abbreviation: OMG IWUIM

See if you can decipher this abbreviation: OMG IWUIM

Hello?

No guesses? ;)

It means Oh My God I Want Uterine Infection Meds

Hello?

Practicing yoga poses...totally naked. Wanna see how flexible I am?

Practicing yoga poses...totally naked. LOL!!! Downward dog makes me queef!

Just went to the bathroom at the [bar/party/restaurant] and took off my underwear. One less thing for you to remove tonight...

Just went to the bathroom at the [bar/party/restaurant] and took off my underwear. I splashed the area with toilet water to make it nice and clean for you!!! Oh god I am soooooo drunk!!!! Can u come in heer and help me find the door :)))

2011-02-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

I've always thought they should change the words on Lucky magazine stickers to sayings that will prompt womyn to emotionally wallet-vomit. Like "Your Dad isn't very proud of you." "I heard your YOUNGER sister is married already!" "Didn't call back, huh?"

Headlines for Unusable Getty Images Round 2

2011-02-02T14:02:00.001-08:00

"Playgrounds Help Caregivers Broach Nursing Home Options With Aging Parents"

"Study Suggests Gluten Intolerance Higher In Winnebago Drivers."

My problem with this billboard

2011-02-01T06:56:00.000-08:00

She just doesn't look that in need. Maybe hack off one of the pigtails and leave the ends really razored and matted like homeless dog fur? I dunno. What are some problems you guys have with billboards?

This is so funny!

2011-01-31T14:16:00.001-08:00

The Best Answers To The Question "What wine goes with bolognese?" From Internet Commenters.

2011-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

I'm guessing Red Wine,that's what they serve in the resturants in Calgary.

as long as its wet it dont matter lol

Anything you enjoy, or maybe your trying to impress someone. In that case ask them what their favorite is. Its that simple. everyone has individual tastes. Live,experiment a little.

Red or white

my favorite wine is dandelion wine. my cousin rob makes it at his house.

From the last essay in the new Geoff Dyer collection, on his marriage.

2011-01-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

'Aside from its amazing cheapness, the only unusual thing about our wedding was an agreement we made—a private addendum to the regular vows—whereby I would be free to write anything I wanted about us and our relationship, irrespective of whether it was true."

via GLK.

Deborah Solomon is the worst.

2011-01-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

This:

A friend of mine says that nightlife represents the greatest waste of human energy in the history of mankind.

1.) "A friend of mine says" is the journalistic equivalent of "my girlfriend in Canada."

2.) Why you gotta fight with every one, Solly? You're like one of those straight-out-of-college-with-something-to-prove boys that think a good conversation involves antagonizing someone about retarded things.

Here are some lines from my Sex And The City episode that HBO ended up pulling of the air.

2011-01-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

Headlines for Unusable Getty Images

2011-01-20T11:00:00.001-08:00

"Study Finds That Bearded Men Require Two More Hours of Cake Sleep Than Unbearded Men."

"Many Actors Do Light Stock Photo Work On Their Way To Comedy Careers."

Just think

2011-01-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

At least you’re not Jennifer Aniston. Think about much it would suck to be Jennifer Aniston. Once you’re Jennifer Aniston you’re Jennifer Aniston forever, as the cardinal rule of Being Jennifer Aniston goes.

This is true and good!

2011-01-07T06:33:00.001-08:00

Men who are douchebags think, somehow, they are special flowers with beef jerky petals. Men who think they can write the rules in the snow with their own hot urine. They are men who cannot man up, little boys who don’t share their rad stuff and who don’t play well with others. A douchebag is a douchebag because he smelt it and unknowingly dealt it. Let’s try not to be one, okey-dokes?

Lines From The X-Files I Used On The Ticket Agent To Try To Get On A Plane To New York During Snowpocalypse

2011-01-04T06:41:00.001-08:00

“I’m a doctor. I SAVE LIVES.”

“You've never seen me panic. When I panic, I make this face.”

“After all you've seen you can just walk away?“

“Fine, here’s the truth. I'm the key figure in an ongoing government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It's a global conspiracy, actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet.”

“Get me on this plane.”

"Better To Leave Something To the Imagination"

2010-12-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

You know how at some point an older dressing room attendant at Nordstrom's said this to you when you were like, "Can I pair the miniskirt with this belly shirt?" (Haha I have never once asked that.)

I think it's dumb advice, because people have crazy imaginations. Like you would never want to dress in a way that leaves anything to the imagination if you were dating James Cameron, because then he'd inevitably be disappointed you didn't have an electric blue 10-ft-long tail/flying horse syncher tucked in your baggy pants.

I DUNNOOOO, THIS IS JUST SOMETHING I WAS THINKING. DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER. IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO.

2010-12-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

“If you can’t afford to hire a bartender,” he added, “you shouldn’t be having a party.”

You shouldn't even have friends. What would you and your "friends" do? Walk? OUTSIDE? Play the recorder on the 5 train platform? Lick a banana peel you found lying on top of a city garbage can and say it's okay because of the "three second rule"?

Let's Not Forget About The Burritos.

2010-12-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

Tommy Lee’s born-viral letter to Sea World condemning them for masturbating a whale reads, in part:

“We understand that you refuse to release this frustrated whale because he is your chief sperm bank, and we know that the way you get his sperm is by having someone enter the pool and masturbate him with a cow’s vagina filled with hot water. Even during my wildest days in Motley Crue I could’ve never imagined something so sick and twisted.”

A PERFECT RATIO NOTE ON THIS: It’s like, okay, small clap, Tommy Lee, you're a bonafide animal rights hero and a hilarious Internet meme for the day of December 9th, BUT buuuuuuuuuuuuut let’s not forget you used to fuck breakfast burritos on your tour bus to get the smell of groupies off of your penis. Not quite as disgusting as hot n'wet cow pocket, I agree. But then, of course, you, as a human being, are not the same as a whale. Balancing out the differing species expectations, I might go so far as to say that sticking your junk into a breakfast burrito is maybe just as sick and twisted. I remember when I read this anecdote in The Dirt I underlined it and then wrote the best side-of-page note I've ever written, which was simply: WHY NOT SHOWER?

(A motto I now live by.)

Audience Questions Are The Best

2010-12-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a screening of Blue Valentine. There was a Q and A after and every single audience "question" went something like this. Audience "questions" are the best.

Susan: Hi my name is Susan, and my question is, well, I think that scene in the motel when you're making love was really intimate... like it just speaks testimony to your skills as actors,you know? I mean when you guys were on the floor rolling around it was just great to watch, I really loved it, it felt super real, though I suppose you must have had a thousand camera men around you, right? Ha ha. But just considering how intimate it must have been and how realistic it seemed to us, you know?"

DEAD SILENCE

Susan:...So I guess I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that?

Fake Lyrics To Taylor Swift's New Fake Song "Dear Jake"

2010-12-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

Can’t believe it took until today
To realize you’re just another Kayne
I thought it all was so clear before
but now I know the score, now I know the score

[Cut in Brokeback Mountain audio: “I just can’t quit you. you. you....you.”]

The day we went out and sipped coffee,
laughing freely, for all to see,
Said you didn’t want to live without me
Told my Mom, and she said “Careful, T”

I’m way too young to be played around this way
really i was like basically born yesterday
Did I mention I hated “Runaway?”
This song is about Jake Gyllenhall

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah....fades.

An Imaginary Conversation With The Cat On My Block.

2010-11-17T02:01:00.000-08:00

Cat: God bless you, mami.

Me: What?

Me: Seriously, did you just say something?

Cat: Meow.

Strong Open

2010-11-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

The great thing about keyboard smiley faces is that they allow us to quickly express emotions that are sometimes difficult to put into words.

Three Songs That You Wouldn’t Possibly Think Are About John Mayer That Are Actually/Maybe About John Mayer

2010-11-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

While Swift isn't naming names on "Dear John" — well, last names at least — she doesn't shy away from calling out someone for a love gone terribly wrong. There's no confirmation that the tune is about Mayer, but some lyrics that have appeared online have everyone wondering if he's the John she's singing about.

1.) Frank Sinatra “Fly Me To The Moon”

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars

In 1952, Mayer was a freshman student at Berkelee School of Music. By the end of his first semester he contracted both mono and the typical white boy itch for an alternative education. The itch begets the prolapse, as prostate wisdom goes, and Mayer fell quickly into drug dealing. His particular cocktail of cocaine cut with spermicide was nicknamed Moon Trip not for any sort of launch sensation it provided but because it was typically packaged in ass-centric pornography pages ripped from vintage Hustler issues. You know the rest of the story. He was contacted anonymously. He was floored by the visage in the doorway. He spent the night in a penthouse giving his idol a sponge bath. Both client and provider were genuinely moved to tears, like a grandpa realizing his lapdog has just pooped on the couch for the last time.

2.) Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere

True fact: John Mayer drives a Ford GT, the older, meaner brother of the Mustang, with 550 horsepower, and two side mirrors that can be angled to catch the light glints reflected off of both driver cheekbones. His GT is custom painted in road cone orange and choke sex blue ensuring that at no moment the outer world mistakes him for anyone but John Mayer, and he never has to wonder about the horror of making a right turn unnoticed. Anyway, one time in 1993 Tracy Chapman was hitch-hiking on Route 101 and Mayer saw leather and the promising outline of breasts and he pulled over. Chapman asked him, “Maybe we make a deal?” but the terms could not be met.

3.) Blessed Union of Souls “Hey Leonardo”

She likes me for me
Not because I look like Tyson Beckford
With the charm of Robert Redford
Oozing out my ears

They were just a small town Ohio band. A 100 lb bass in a Midwestern pond. But they had dreams. Dreams that invaded their daily thoughts when they were in line for concessions at the Apple Creek drive-thru or stirring soup on the stovetop. The dreams were of Billboard Top 100 fame, the kind of get me out of this damn place Springsteenian fantasies that make people very bad middle country boyfriends. One night, Elliot was driving around town with his girl sitting shotgun when John Mayer’s “Your Body is a Wonderland” came on the radio. “I COULD do this, Lisa!” Elliot shouted, hitting the steering wheel emphatically, “I could!” And Lisa, her poor potato-eyes looking to the sky for divine intervention, took to petting her boyfriend’s ego like it was a shaken and fragile cow that had just been tipped. “Baby,” she said, “I like you for you.”

I've never really understood

2010-11-05T09:26:00.001-07:00

the bizarre synergy between Liz Phair and Keith Richards. Mainly because Richards has always seemed more myth than man to me-- you know, he's the large-than-life rock God sustaining a vampiric existence care of 4am speedballs and maybe/probably daily unicorn blood transfusions, and as much as Liz Phair rocks and rocks hard, her persona seems to be culled as a direct affront to the very sandbox in which Richards' plays. Sure, Phair's Exile in Guyville was a tribute (or was it more of a jab? or was it be BOTH? OMG FALLING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE.. WHERE'S MY SPEEDBALL?!!) to the Stones' Exile on Main Street, but it also a painfully human bitch-out of the boy-owned world that she desperately wanted to enter and simultaneously wanted to destroy. I feel like circa 1993 Phair would call it a hate fuck.

Anyway, here is the Liz Phair of now reviewing Richards' biography.

Pseudo-Intellectual Thought of the Day!

2010-10-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

It's interesting that the Jackassers closed Jackass 3D with a song called "Memories" and flashes of their baby pics, because the whole humor of Jackass necessitates being entirely un-precious about life.

That is all I have to say about that.

Here's Something Happening Tonight!

2010-09-29T08:41:00.001-07:00

Experimenting with my Beta Blocker dosage now.

Bed Intruder Halloween Costume

2010-09-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

Remember how last month a news report of an attempted rape became the number one most watched video on YouTube, essentially because the victim's brother was super gay? Maybe you really enjoyed that one? Well now you can play the highly entertaining role of a poor sing-songy dude from the projects whose sister almost got raped... for Halloween!

Is this costume:

A.) irrefutable evidence we're now living in a dystopian society where there's no discernible distinction between "news" and "entertainment"?
B.) an easy way to get people to pay $25 for a tank top and a bandana?
C.) Both.

You stab the hot dog sections with the uncooked spaghetti and boil.

2010-09-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

Do You Know Where Your Memes Come From?

2010-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

It’s an unverified fact that many of the major Internet memes of the last year (Chatroulette & IWriteLike, to name two) have sprung from the brainmush of young Russian geniuses. At the same time, we have apprehended at least one very sexy Russian spy known to canoodle with tech bigwigs on U.S. soil, and a handful of inconspicuously unsexy Russian spies with a knack (unrelated to point) for growing healthy hydrangeas (Also unrelated to point: is that girl like SO happy she got a joke into the Times? I mean, I would be SO HAPPY.) My first theory was that the poor unfortunate spies were victims of some sort of Hot Tub Time Machine journey and were mistakenly operating as if in the Cold War era (a plot perhaps to be turned into a Brendan Frasier* movie), but, consider this comrades: what if these SPIES were here to learn our taste and proffer us endless cultural delight and constant virtual candy designed to lull us into the acquiescent state of puppies getting a good belly rub? Like what if their memos back to the motherland were “129-456 Like deciding which famous person they are similar to” or “234-868 Like showing genitals on grainy web cams”? I mean, just WHAT IF?

This post is sponsored by the I Couldn’t Think of Anything To Write About Today Foundation.

*Brendan Frasier, I hath not forsaken you!

A Short Story About Soho House

2010-07-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

(phone rings)

Hey you! What’s that? You want me to come to Soho House? Sure, I mean I was just at Soho House last night. HAHAHAHA, I know. Soho House is the shit! Yeah, no problem I’ll just catch a cab to Soho House. Okay, getting in the cab to Soho House now. I’ll see you at Soho House, girl! Wait, did I tell you that hilarious thing that happened at Soho House LAST week? OMG, it was just so so typical Soho House, you know? Just totally Soho House being Soho House. Okay, I'm seriously on my way to Soho House now. (“Soho House, pls. Can you avoid 6th Ave?”) Be at Soho House in 5 minutes! Wait outside of Soho House for me, k?

Protagonist arrives at Soho House.

Fin.

Mad Men Season 4: Prediction Time!

2010-06-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Matt Weiner, Mad Men creator/tyrannical czar, recently told Entertainment Weekly:

"The theme of the season is 'Who am I?' It's about stripping away the things that these people think define them. Once they're taken away, they just may have to look at who they really are."

What are these essence-defining things our favorite elegantly-draped, abulically unhappy characters will have to learn to live without? Some guesses:

Don will lose his penis (or at least a section of it) in the front seat of his Coupe de Ville, one fateful night with the over-earnest, possibly unhinged school teacher, you know, World According To Garp-style.

Sally will lose her lisp, and her long hair, so she can emerge from puberty as the tool-bearing "little lesbian" we all know (and hope) she can be.

Joan will lose her dick of a husband in the war (THANK GAWD). And to get a little meta here, hopefully Christina Hendricks will lose her unfortunate penchant for giving dumb interviews that make her seem far more one-dimensional than the character she plays.

Betty will lose all the money that she inherited after her father's passing when her family's BP stock plummets during the oil leak in a special Doctor Who/Mad Men mashup episode.

Pete will lose his clothes, his apartment, his car, his toilet...basically, his dignity. Oh wait.

And Peggy is perfect and she doesn't need to change shit and don't you dare disagree with me here.

If I Knew How To Edit Film I Would Make A Montage of All The Computer Disk Scenes From 90's Movies, But I Don't.

2010-05-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you choose to do it, please start with these incredibly hilarious shots from The Net:

Do You Know What A Brooklyn Hit Is?

2010-04-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

I shall tell you.

In this life, you will meet people who do activities because they enjoy doing them, and people who do activities because the activities like them back. You might also meet people with horrific handicaps who are incapable of activity. If I hadn’t already adapted my drafting compass for use as a sophisticated heroin injector, I would Venn-D this shit because there’s some obvious overlap between the various camps—like if you’re born with the natural physique and testosterone stores that make one innately good at crushing nerds into garbage cans there’s a good chance you’ll probably learn to like crushing nerds into garbage cans.

The real important point of this exposition is that I’m part of the latter group— I power walk because my body does good at a bouncy 4 mph. I put the hamburger in my mouth because that cow specifically requested to be there. And now I bowl, because I recently scored a 111, which I’ve been told is great score for a lady without a mullet.

There are many terms batted about the universe of bowling—“Strike,” “Spare,” “Where’s the fucking money Lebowski?”—but today we’re going to concern ourselves with a shot called the Brooklyn.

A Brooklyn is a roll that hits at the opposite side of the pocket from where it was thrown. If you’re a rightie, that means the ball impacts at the 1 & 2 pins; for the left-handed among us it’s a shot to the 1 & 3. It’s a fairly ugly ball that rarely yields any marks (but when it does it’s called a Brooklyn Strike). Contrary to many Internet rumors out there theorizing that the Brooklyn hit is a geographical metaphor—the logic being the denizens of Manhattan are DOIN’ IT RONG when they “cross over” to Brooklyn, the true derivation is from another, smaller-balled sport: baseball. Specifically, a baseball team, The Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1956, after a stunning season in which the Dodgers finished in first place with 93 wins, they went on to face the New York Yankees in the World Series. There they were humiliated like shaved Chihuahuas before a pack of wolves. The Yankees won all seven Series matches, one of which was a perfect game thrown by Yankees’ pitcher Don Larsen. Thus the sloppy form of the Brooklyn Dodgers during their disasterous ’56 World Series showing became immortalized as a term for a typically ill-fated bowl to the opposite pin side. And this is what we talk about when we talk about Brooklyn Hits at dirty bowling alleys.

2010-04-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here is an interview I did while RAGING on ENERGY JERKY!!!!!

And here is a fascinating article about how the Donner family WERE NOT actually cannibals.

The only relation between these two things is that everything you know is wrong.

Lines From Emails I'd Like To Find Another Use For

2010-03-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

"Ditto what your Mom said about last night."

"If they're not here by tomorrow, I'm going to start killing one Girl Scout for each day they don't arrive."

"MY BWLCH IS BOOMSLANGING ALL OVER THE PLACE."

"You know what just totally crept up on me this year like snakes on a plane or my heroin addiction?"

"DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT MESS WITH THE ZOHAN?"

"Well here's the thing about the laid off menfolk. he's going to be all waaaaaaaah, you know my life is really difficult and i've got a lot of shit going on right now."

"OK after I see Dear John and the Ghost Writer I will work on that."

"Masturbate on everyone's chair! Weeeeee!...Do you think I'm retarded? I'm asking you honestly."

Thank You, Janeane Garafolo, In A Few Very Long Run-On Sentences

2010-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

On the long list of small kindnesses that Janeane Garafolo has bestowed upon me over the years-- the majority of which are oft-repeated quotes from The Truth About Cats And Dogs that, in 1996, probably resonated a bit too much with my woeful B-grade girl soul, comes this most recent kindness, via the hazy, dense medium of anxiety dream. Janeane starred as an RA-figure of sorts (Side note: WOULD SHE NOT BE THE GREATEST RA? Tell me a bedtime story about date rape, Janeane!) in a rodent-infested dormitory for grown-ups. You know how dreams have a sort of inviolable logic of their own that you don't think to question when you're in them? Like, say, Stalin is disguised as your brother at the dinner table, but you can't signal this to your parents because he's implanted mini-Russian poltergeists in their souls or something? So whereas in real life if you were confronted with this situation you would just be like, "Mom! That's not Danny! THAT IS STALIN, THE DEAD DICTATOR OF RUSSIA!", you can't in your dream, because he'll know about it and then kill you with his alpha-red laser eyes. So in the internal logic of this specific Janeane dream, the mice infesting the dorm loved water. Thus I was afraid to even take a shower, but at the same time, I really needed to take a shower. Janeane took me aside and told me in her totally cool, even-keeled voice, "Look, girl, there are going to be mice in the shower, and they are going to freak you out, and you are going to get so freaked out you're going to fall down on the shower floor." As I was only beginning to process the terribleness of this prediction, Janeane bent down and started painting my knee caps with this sparkly-glue like paint that smelled like My Little Ponies. Then she moved on to my elbows, and as she was painting my elbows the paint she had put on my knees was starting to dry into a sort of rubber encasement. "This is paint-on protective gear," she told me, "I invented it after I couldn't get work as an actress. This will protect you from breaking your kneecaps when you fall in the shower." In the end, even though this was an anxiety dream and I had to get in the shower with rodents, I felt a lot better about things.

So thank you Garafolo.

BETCHY LINES YOU CAN SAY ABOUT NAPKINS AT BUSINESS DINNERS

2010-02-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

Senior year of college our attendance was encouraged at a black tie-mandatory Etiquette Dinner held at Brown's Faculty Club. It was hosted by an ancient lady with a Winehouse-esque beehive that probably hadn't been taken down since 1982 and was clearly mummified with toilet paper each night. She spoke with a long-lost upper-deck-Titanic affectation and over the span of three courses, she taught us how to give a toast, how to excuse oneself from the table, and all the other behavioral niceties one should know for a business dinner. During the Q & A after dessert, one student asked what she should say if a business associate had food on their face.

"There are times when I find a napkin very useful."

Adorable Letters from People Born At The Turn Of The Century Who Still Don't Quite Know What The Internet Is.

2010-02-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

There was such a thing as an era before irony, or at least widespread, cultural mainstay irony. Nothing exemplifies this better than my Grandma's consistently hilarious use of quotation marks in her Hallmark cards. The latest, for Valentine's Day (includes a $20 bill):

Dearest Lauren,
Have a "fun" day! I miss your calls. Hope all is going well for you in New York! Share your "treat" with Joe!!

Love,
GaGa

Dear Gaga,

Thank you so much for the "treat!" Joe and I shared it and while at first it was a little "uncomfortable" I definitely, DEFINITELY got used to it! We used the $20 to buy smokes and "cognac" for after!

Love you,
Lauren

I Ate Domino's So You Don't Have To

2010-01-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here.

The Best Thing To Do

2010-01-10T09:33:00.000-08:00

The best thing to do when you encounter a shark circling you in the water is to pull out your tampon and wave it all around. If there’s one thing sharks hate more than tuna nets and harpoons, it’s a human lady on the rag. Seriously! If you had a choice between a chicken on the rag and a free-range, totally organic, rotisserie chicken not on the rag, which one would you eat for dinner?

The best thing to do when your boyfriend tries to break up with you is to plead for one last request: ask him to conduct the conversation in triple negatives. Say “ This is the one thing you can do for me as you don’t not unbreak my heart.” It might not work, especially if you're into college grads, but it does increase the chances of an inadvertent reconciliation by at least 30 percent.

Though the best thing to do is to just date a type so hideous he’ll never break up with you in the first place. Like maybe you could look on Match.com for someone who lists “Pumba, but with more 9-11” under Celebrity I Resemble Most.

The best thing to do if you happen to be a time-crunched parent with the goal of teaching your little DNA souffle the authoritative nature of the larger world while still providing maternal or paternal comfort, is boil down nighttime lullabies to their most essential thematic sentence. Like: Hush little baby don’t say a word.

Sing the sentence. Turn off lights. Shut the door medium-hard behind you.

The best thing to do with crotchety old people is put them in a hot tub.

The best thing to do if you want to avoid bodily harm is always stay home. Find pleasure in a Lean Cuisine. Perform Lady Gaga's Bad Romance for your stuffed animals.

Though if you're stupid enough to leave your house and encounter a violent person in a dark alley the best thing to do is sing Bad Romance while simultaneously wetting yourself. Violent sociopaths loathe performance art.

The best thing to do when fighting a nasty fever is get in the hot tub with the old people you put there two tips ago.

The best thing to do when your wife confronts you with her doubts about Santa Claus’s existence is sit her down and tell her the truth. Santa is dead, but Tom Cruise is real. And if she's a good girl, Tom Cruise will put a pony in her socks.

The best thing to do in just about every situation is to smile with teeth and then have each individual tooth smile with all its teeth and so forth and so forth. Especially if you’ve done one of those Crest Whitening kits lately. You'll blind your enemies! And your lover! Then you can stop incessantly whitening your teeth for that asshole.

Maybe You're Jewish and Alone Too?

2009-12-24T10:15:00.001-08:00

Hey you guys! Here is an Avatar review I wrote! Don't poop on it. It's Christmas and I'm Jewish and alone already, okay?

Weight Loss

2009-11-16T07:36:00.000-08:00

Today I start my Whatever You Like (T.I. inspired) diet.
A pair of edible underwear for dinner,
another pair for lunch,
Patron for a 4pm snack,
and late night sex, so wet and tight, for dinner.

Unlike other diets which can seem embarrassingly middle-aged and Midwestern, the Whatever You Like diet doubles as great party conversation, and most people will think good things about you because they connote edible underwear with fruit roll-ups and fun-loving Delia's models.

2009-11-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

As it happens, Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! were also my first words as I was climbing out of a space-age German coffin upon birth. Is it weird to say I'm so proud that Lady G is part of my tribe?

2009-11-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yo Betches. I finally got around to uploading my story on female eaters in the latest issue of Bitch. You may read it here. Or you may go here and watch Axl Rose being stoned by a fan. Your choice!

LOL Tom Cruise, EL OH EL.

2009-10-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

From the Onion interview with Bronson Pinchot:

We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit. We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn—we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange.

UHHHHHH,

“You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?”

TOM CRUISE CAN'T EVEN MAKE HOMOPHOBIA MAKE SENSE. I mean, it can't be that hard. Dumb rednecks get it right all the time. I'm beginning to think Tom Cruise might be some kind of Dadaist art project. Someone get him to buy me a Snuggie and a bag of peanuts. I bet it's possible, you guys!

Crawling into empty chicken buckets left and right.

2009-10-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

How To Write A Modern Love Column.

My Boyfriend

2009-10-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend is a rabble-rousin' son of a gun. I mean, literally, he is a son of a gun. You're probably all like, how is this possible? Well, stop, because I'll shoot you.

Betty Gives The Most Perfect American Men's Magazine Interview EVER

2009-10-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

January Jones outfoxes even Megan Fox's I-fell-in-love-with-a-stripper attempt in successful pandering to red-blooded American menfolk in in the latest issue of the GQ. When a blow up doll falls in love with a stripper, it's sexy, sure, but also obvious? Overwrought? TRYING TOO HARD? Our Betty doll does one better-- she enthuses about downing 27 beers in one night, downs at least six with the interviewer, and effing takes him to Chili's. Tell me you are not in love:

January wants to go to the Chili’s near the H Gates. She loves the queso there. Loves it even though it doesn’t always come in one of those little cast-iron skillets like at regular Chili’s and they don’t have a “red beer” (beer and tomato juice) here like she’s seen at the franchise’s other midwestern outlets. It doesn’t matter that the place is noisy and crowded and the only TV is tucked way up behind the bar and she probably won’t be able to catch the last preseason Bears game. The queso’s that good.

One minor dispute: Chili's queso really isn't that good. The apps to choose from at Chili's are the Boneless Buffalo Wings (operative word: boneless) and the Texas Cheese Fries. But I won't be able to make the final decision for you. Asking me to choose between wings and cheese fries is like asking me to choose which breast I cherish most. They both hover too close to the heart.

Then again, apparently the queso cals go straight to the breasticles. So.....

Once

2009-09-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Once when I was shaving my legs I got really excited thinking one day you won't have to shave your legs, but then I realized that this wasn't true, or rather, it was only true of the day that I die. I was in the shower, so my tears weren't painfully obvious, but now I just have my interns shave my legs for me, to avoid the memory. #itcametrue.

It's ON, Bitch

2009-09-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here.

2009-09-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Are you on the Facebook? I am. Twice actually! I have a fake profile for a 22 year old dancer named Lauren B*ns who lives in Delaware. It felt like an Internet security issue to be the sole search match for my name. Everyone thinks dancers have great bods and Delaware is good for my business taxes. That is why I picked those two things.

Anyway, let's keep this short. Today I got poked by a man named Tato. His profile pic was of a snake that swallowed some sort of mammal, it looked like maybe a bunny. I mean, that's a statement right? You're going around poking people with that kind of deliberately intimidating profile picture, that says something, you know? If not about who you are exactly, then something about who you want people to think you are. I mean, I felt a little victimized. So I googled "what eats snakes" and did some reading on the subject. Then I changed my profile pic to that of an African Honey Badger and poked him the fuck back.

The End.

Announcement

2009-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hello readership!
(i.e. Mom and Googlers arriving from a "Sarah Palin peeing" search)

Next week I start blogging at Slate's lady blog about culture and stuff. This is exciting to me. And to you, Mom. Probably not so much to the rest of you. But if your interest is peaked, please give me your loving clicks.

Also, Just Kidding! THIS IS THE BEST SEASON EVER.

2009-09-23T10:05:00.001-07:00

The Informant: It Is Good.

2009-09-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Informant: it is good. Very good. Soderbergh essentially makes over his 2000 Erin Brockovich gem with an asshole lead, casting a bloated Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, a whistleblower who is less unappealingly horsey-looking than J. Roberts, but who has an entire stable in his backyard bought with the money he swindled from the food additive company he later decided to report to the FBI for price-fixing. So, yeah, there are valid, vaguely horse-related reasons to dislike them both. But please note that to doubt Steven Soderbergh's talent is an anti-American sentiment punishable by law.

It's weird, however, that in these hard times of economic destruction at the hands of greedy corporate white dudes you almost like Matt Damon in spite of his criminal conduct. It helps that the movie's inside his head at all times, and his headthoughts are hilarious. And apparently delusions of grandeur are always more slapstick, and less anger-inspiring when they come with a bushy moustache. The non-fiction book the film is based on is decidedly less funny (though I wish the film would have played up Whitacre's obsession with The Firm more, that comedy just writes itself) which makes it all the more daring that Soderbergh made a somewhat sympathetic, or at the very least, lighthearted, portrait of a corporate criminal and pulled it off successfully. (Madoff, look alive boy!)

In Which We Await The Imminent Robot Takeover

2009-09-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

at TR

A Note

2009-09-09T10:08:00.001-07:00

I would drown myself too if I were trapped in the MOST BORING SEASON EVER.

Hi Friends

2009-08-31T07:45:00.000-07:00

I'm guest blogging at XX this week!

2009-08-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Gah! You guys, it's been soooooo hot here the past few weeks, I sweat constantly and wake up stained like an abuse victim from cuddling packages of frozen berries. I wasn't really born for this kind of weather, I slid out on a cool 53 degree day in the Fresh Forest climate of 1980's Minnesota, and since then I've basically needed temperatures that sound like deodorant scents to really thrive in my environment. I've been rewarding daily survival with Uncle Louie's ices and the most twee of air-conditioned rom-coms. I mean, now is the time for emo pornography, my panties are already wet from the heat.

I thought Paper Heart was going to be like Juno lite, and maybe Michael Cera could be less of a non-committal jerk without the stress of a 16 & Pregnant love interest, but apparently not-- he dumped his love-inept Asian girlfriend two weeks before the movie's release date, purportedly to roam the interiors of hotter Hollywood starlets. Of course, I don't blame lil' Cera, Charlyne Yi looks like a 12 year old who's never masturbated, and she spends the entire movie whining about her unlovability until it essentially becomes true. Her major fear of falling in love is getting ousted from the "one of the dudes" club. Evidently you can't play Nintendo once you start using your female organs. She's clearly never seen this picture:

Yi spends some time interviewing random Americans about their conceptions of love, which is sweet reprieve from the rest of the movie: a painfully self-conscious fake documentary that consists of a scripted Michael Cera awkwaromance and an actor PLAYING the film's director sighing and moaning, "We need more footage. How is this documentary ever going to come together?" (The answer: Oh! We'll just write super terrible dialogue on the pains of our artistic process!) The documentary pieces aren't enough to carry the movie-- none of the real people, though often charming, say anything you can't learn from some Hallmark cards and an Anne Lamott book.

Also, are we supposed to have heard of Charlyne Yi before? The movie spends like 3 minutes in the beginning making the case for her importance by showing off her quasi-famous friends, who then never reappear in the film, with the exception of Michael Cera playing Michael Cera. I mean, there is maybe nothing more detrimental to the specific appeal that Michael Cera has going for him than to expose it as a self-conscious act. Will the real Michael Cera PLEASE STAND UP, PLEASE STAND UP, PLEASE STAND UP. Haahahaha, that was a 1999 Eminem joke. No standing up necessary, I really don't care. I'm off to District 9 to forget this movie ever happened!

Thirteen Was Bad

2009-08-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here.

In Which This Is Not Love

2009-07-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

Here.

On Media

2009-07-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

So maybe I'm slightly floundering. When I told my Dad about my excellent HDL level(93 BETCHES!) his first response was, "Well if you're gonna live so long you should probably get a real career or a rich husband." I mean, c'mon Dad! I'm working on some shit and stuff, but there's a distracting mouse in the apartment, and I accidentally watched too much Sarah Connor Chronicles today. Also I have this idea for a tee shirt. It's going to read "I Have Socialist Leanings....toward Blow Jobs." Which is kinda funny, and even more funny to a certain crowd of folks who like what the Internet apparel industry calls "Attitude" tee shirts and hate the political concept of Socialism. Once I get rich from this, I'm going to ban the word floundering from my vocabulary and the vocabulary of those I surround myself with. But I will still eat cooked food and retain the same friends, save for a few, namely the ones who use the word floundering. I mean, god damn this industry, right guys? And god bless attitude tee shirts and the chokehold of hope they have on my heart.

2009-07-22T08:30:00.001-07:00

I think Chicago and I got off to a bad start. I visited my sister there earlier this Spring-- my first time back in 10 years-- and asked her to take me "somewhere cool." We ended up at the cafe in Nordstrom's on Michigan Ave. They did have really good chili, but still.

This time I was further uptown, near Wicker Park, for Pitchfork. I had been told two things about Pitchfork before I went: 1.) That it's extremely smelly and 2.) That the Chicagoan attendees are cherubic hipsters. Neither turned out to be true. It was 60 degrees the entire time so there was no sweating, and everyone seemed hot and svelte. The boys had a certain bearded lumberjack look. A few crazypants teenagers had seizures and at least one aging hippie fainted during the Flaming Lips. I drank Sparks from 2 until 10, my teeth turned orange, one night I got my first lap dance from a stripper named Alicia who had just graduated culinary school, and I didn't poop for three days. It was pretty frakking fantastic.

2009-07-16T11:06:00.001-07:00

I like this. I only wish there were more fireworks in trash cans.

That Other Dood Who Died That Day

2009-07-08T14:42:00.001-07:00

A post about Seeds' singer Sky Saxon.

teh baseball

2009-07-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

Behind homeplate spitting-distance seats.

Two of Mauer's foul balls caught. (Heh: Two Foul Balls)

The One Stop Shop for Your Next Period Piece

2009-06-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

You know how period films are all kind of the same? Like you can expect that there will be adorned bosoms, tea cups, English accents even if it's set in France, and some sordid interclass sexual relations between two white people that the rest of the upper crusties turn their Anglo-noses up at until it's discovered that the poorer party is really a prince or inheritor of his estranged father's tea biscuit fortune? Thus true love is allowed to thrive while keeping all of the same crappy social conditions that prevented it in the first place. (The same bizarro logic exists in rom-coms too: be an unhappy single woman and kvetch to everyone about your destitute, lonesome life and you'll get swept off your feet by a handsome man who loves slobbery dogs and will unrealistically find your moodiness and bitter quips about the terribleness of the male species completely charming.)

Anyway, I find the trailer for Cheri hilarious, because it really is a cliche of itself. I mean, sub the actors out and the formula could be used for ANY period piece trailer. Start with ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE, CUE VIOLINS!, INTRODUCE KEY FORBIDDEN LOVE CHARACTERS, CUE VIOLINS!, CUT TO TEA TIME WHERE NOTHING INTERESTING IS BEING SAID, CUE VIOLINS!, SHOW POST-COITAL LOVAHS, CUE VIOLINS!, CUT TO HEARTY ENGLISH LAUGHTER, CUE VIOLINS!, MORE HEARTY ENGLISH LAUGHTER, CUE VIOLINS! And scene.

The future is totally frakked.

2009-06-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

In the parental oligarchy that is Park Slope, anxiety prone caregivers have hijacked the sport commonly known as little league baseball and reformed it-- the batter swings (and swings and swings) until he hits the goddamned ball. The fielding team merely tosses the ball in the right general direction to score an out. I mean, I understand the desire to build a saccharin world free of hurt and rejection for the precious being that came into the world care of your doula and a Cat Stevens album, but God forbid the imminent future looks like an aluminum wasteland and Wall-E has been specifically designed to annihilate the human race and your kid doesn't even know what it feels like to be struck out at home plate.

2009-06-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

OH FRAK. I kind of made a bargain with myself never to post a cute animal video based on an unproven theory that CAVs are the gateway drug to, like, Daily Kitten subscriptions, and PETA memberships, or worse 100 million hours of YouTube videos metatagged: ANIMALS, LOLS!, ADORABLE that become an Interwebbian mandate as your brain craves more and more dopamine, and eventually only novelty clips like a Golden Retriever puppy spooning a handicapped cheetah will suffice. But I'm making an exception for this Slow Loris video my friend sent on Friday. Because the Slow Loris is being tickled. And it is so cute. And because I'm sure as soon as Pixar sees this YouTube video they'll exploit our Slow Loris friend in some animated feature. You can say you saw it first here.

Word to the wise: The Slow Loris is an endangered species so if you see one please tickle it and give it one last LULZ. For the Internet minions.

When Duty Calls

2009-06-11T15:37:00.001-07:00

NO ONE WANTS TO BE HERE.

Not even the unemployed, or the soul-destroyingly employed. Which may be why they screen a video first thing airing all the complaints of people like you walking into the court building for jury duty. The powersuit: "But I have SO many projects at work going on. They need me at the office!" The colorful Hispanic woman: "Why they show me bloody pictures?! What they want me for?" A pixelated 1970's Diane Sawyer offers a brief soliloquy on the nobility of jury duty and the rule of law, nevermind betch was probably just coming off her stint as Nixon's press aide. By the end of the video an American flag is waving in the breeze (meaning: justice has been served), and kvetchers are reformed, Intervention-style. The theme song from Titanic or Braveheart or The West Wing commences and the former naysayers spring out onto the court steps enthusing about their enlightened views. A Wall Street tycoon with a face like he invented roofies tells you his clients can wait because his first priority as an American is to be good citizen. A bird passes above some Melanie Griffith-in-Working-Girl head, which really only reminds you of the fact that you're inside a windowless room with archaic fluorescent bulbs. A room that reeks of medicinal farts and the sounds of throaty mucus.

The man running this shindig is mean. Every time an innocent approaches the podium with a question he answers him or her straight into the microphone despite the fact the confused party is standing inches away from his face. Thus littered in between role calls are caustic one-liners like: "Let me teach you how to read." "Funny, you LOOK like someone who knew how to listen." "How do you pronounce this crazy name of yours?" There's one guy in the second row who looks like Rick Moranis, who maybe actually could be Rick Moranis, who laughs at every single one of these. I've labeled him the Betrayer, he reminds me of the Jewish guards who ran the ghettos. Closer to home, home being this electronic light box burning up my lap, the overweight Army man next to me is a mouth breather. I know he's an Army man because he has a buzzcut and his computer screen is a rendering of a beefed-up Uncle Sam with the slogan, "IT'S WAR TIME. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HELP?" My typing annoys him. I can feel his rage in the form of heat and I imagine he's really upset right now that he's not spanking recruits out on a grassy field.

The Internet connection here blocks Blogger.com, it seems so undemocratic. And what they call straws are really stirrers and the sucking force they necessitate is putting me at risk for a brain aneurysm. I feel like a betch for betching, you know, it's just jury duty, but my shoes have been wet all day, now my feet are dank and cold, and I've just gotten to the part in the book I brought where one Euro satanic metal dude eats another Euro satanic metal dude's brain and I guess I just feel like a relatively good person comparatively and maybe like I deserve this outlet. Even if maybe I don't.

2009-05-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Least Offensive Theory of Shopping goes like this: Your younger sister drags your begrudging self into a Strawberry’s. After playing on your cell phone for a few yawny minutes, you start casually filing through some of the racks because.... Sequined Fergalicious blouse. Pleather leggings. “Cuddle Power” Carebear underwear. By the time you reach the faux-denim romper with gold heart buttons you’re like, hey, is this cute? Five minutes later: Yeah this real cute. It’s only when you get home, far away from the Gloria Estefan-pumping confines of the store, you tragically realize your 30 bucks would have been better spent on new floss and a precautionary tube of athlete’s foot cream. Point being: Cuteness is environmentally relative. The latter sentence: the new signature on my credit cards.

Land of the Lost, Land of the Malls

2009-05-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Oh hi! Haven't posted for a while. I was visiting the parental abode last week, spending perfect spring days alternating my time between the indoor confines of the Mall of Amer and various chain restaurants, getting to intake some much missed trans fat in a state that still doesn't have a senator.

Anyway, I saw Star Trek last night. What a rollicking romp of a revel! I have much I want to say about it, but not really in any coherent paragraphic form, so bear with les bullets:
1.) Flip phones in the first scene, really? This is supposed to be "the future" after all. Is this foreshadowing some terrible fate for the iPhone? Do Romulans gain majority shareholder stake in Apple during the space year 5306-87-6839? So many questions. And a little sadness, for I think the movie could have gone differently had the Federation possessed iPhones. Impending spaceship crash? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT (TM)

2.) Captain Kirk is dating Audrina, or so says OneIndia, the most reputable source for Hollywood gossip. Or Hollywood gossip, outsourced.

3.) Okay, that bar scene in Iowa--- was that not Good Will Hunting meets space age setting? Genius townie walks into a bar, flirts with hot female cadet, she insinuates he doesn't know what xenolinguistics is. Genius Townie gives a perfect definition. Male cadet comes over and is like, "Is this dumb townie bothering you?" Hot cadet is like, "no, I can handle him." Still, fight ensues because Genius Townie loves fights! Then academy professor looks up Genius Townie's files and discovering that his "apptitude tests are off-the-charts" gives him a lofty speech about his destiny. Moral being: No Undisclosed Genius is Ever Left Behind, Ever. Not in Boston. Not in Iowa. Not in the Future. NOT FAIR.

4.) Homeland Security should take comfort that the chauvinistic American cowboy personality is always right, even in space. Western Hem's future dominance assured! Terrorists lose!

Lastly, they showed a preview for Land of the Lost before the film last night. I will see this because I like Will Ferrell. I also thought it was interesting that half of the comedy seems based on "ironic CGI", like this-scene-is-funny-because-it's-painfully-obvious-that-Will-Ferrell-is-standing
in-front-of-a-blue-screen (see top picture). This is good, because CGI nowadays is like an annoying scholarship student always showing off its accomplishments.

2009-05-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

There is a questionably homeless man who sits in the Minneapolis skyway (pictured right) playing an acoustic guitar and singing a song called "Tim Pawlenty Must Die Because He Lies" which sounds similar enough to Corey Flood's "Joe Lies" that I'm going to call it a possible reimagining. I should probably also take the opportunity to inform you that though the skyways are crazyfuntimes, I'm not quite sure why there is a collected mass looking out on the street in this picture. Guesses: Prince sighting, cow parade. Hey!

I bring this up, because it's pretty obvious now that Tim Pawlenty will die, albeit not in the literal means outlined by the skyway man. Nate Silver had a good rundown on 538 yesterday about Pawlenty's plummeting approval rating due to the fact he refuses to give us people an acting senator and is instead towing the party line, and for no good reason. ( Didn't he learn his lesson when the GOP, standing in his homestate's convention center, proclaimed Sarah Palin their VP pick?) Luckily he has a pocketful of "my wife won't have sex with me...she's fishing" jokes that will play real well with the other ice hockey Dads when he's out of a job in 2010.

Here is A Case Study

2009-05-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

How Flocabulary, A Study-Guide Publisher Reinvented Itself.

2009-05-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

Enjoyment of “reality” shows like The Hills or Daisy of Love come with certain conditions. One: it’s a bad idea to watch alone. Or at least without a solid Internet connection and the misguided notion that blogs are friends. There is nothing more demoralizing than sitting down by your lonesome to a show whose main value lies in the external dialogue created around it. The Hills is basically that back page of Star magazine “Week’s Worst Dressed” wherein C-grade comedians and sometimes Julia Allison make unfunny, mostly incomprehensible quips at the expense of the terribly dressed. (Picture: Martha Stewart dressed in striped shirt, Quip: “Looks like someone misses the prison couture.” Yes, THAT one.) The point being that the terribly dressed celebs are a platform, just as reality shows like The Hills showcase stupidly attractive narcissists vaguely acting out scripted reality so Ivy League grads with loosely defined bloggery-type media jobs like yourself can expound on your campy enjoyment of it or sit around at Monday night viewing parties and make sharp-witted comments. And don’t get me wrong--- THIS IS A GOOD THING. But my point is that if you took away that meta-TV reaction, you are just sitting on your couch alone watching morons who will never earn your emotional investment. That can’t be fun. I mean, I suppose there are people in the world who take The Hills very, very earnestly, hence Lauren Conrad getting a Kohl’s line, but I’m pretty sure those people are stupid or preteens. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to address the stupid or the preteen.

I hope you don’t consider yourself violated when I tell you that this has all been an overly meandering exposition for a fairly simple sentiment: I frakking LOVE MTV’s high school reality show Taking The Stage. Mostly because the equation doesn’t compute. MTV + high school + reality show doesn’t = dumbfuck microcelebs. And, as it turns out, that’s more refreshing than a 4pm Fresca after a mid-afternoon tampon change. Sure the students have banal high school anxieties— half of Mia’s time is spent trying to decipher the lame-ass flirtations of Tyler, who has a girlfriend he is very clearly too pussy to leave. But after Mia finishes her naïve, navel-gazing rant about how great they would be together, the fact remains that she sings like this:

Contrast that against Heidi Montag’s ill-fledged music career or Spencer Pratt’s should-be-trademarked method of existential dickbaggery, both of which unfortunately have more staying power than swine flu. Isn’t it kind of nice to watch a reality show with people you like, despite their annoying traits? With people who maybe have some obnoxiously grandiose dreams, but are so talented you’re not upset by all the props MTV throws their way? I think this is what being a really nice person feels like, and I like when TV inspires positive character growth in my person.

2009-04-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

In Which We Drive So We Can Get Laid.

2009-04-17T12:10:00.000-07:00

Inquiries and
Mitigations Made by
Both Your Financial
Consultant and Your
Gynecologist.

Hipster Grifter

2009-04-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, this story is crazy, and obviously, so is this girl.

But I felt when I was reading it that there was undue emphasis on her being a sexual manipulator-- like, not only was she a con artist, but she (gasp!) preyed on innocent men who were only trying to be good caretakers to her! This graph is what really got me-- it's pretty much positioned as evidence that she was some sort of femme fatale, manipulating the very earnest (almost suspiciously so) men around her with her devastating sexual prowess:

It was also around November that a guy named Troy was at Union Pool, the Williamsburg bar, when the bartender passed him a note from another customer. It read, “I want to give you a hand job with my mouth,” and was signed “Korean Abdul-Jabbar.” It was, according to Troy, from Ms. Ferrell. Another time, a patron at Fabiane’s, the café on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, said Ms. Ferrell passed him a note which read: “I want you to throw a hot dog down my hall.”

I mean, isn't there a chance that I WANT YOU TO THROW A HOT DOG DOWN MY HALL wasn't part of her manipulative technique, but rather her being funny? Because it's pretty fucking hilarious, and I am adding it to my lexicon. Thank you, Ms. Ferrell.

Of course there's no denying that she conned boyfriends. But considering the number of women she tricked, the idea that she was out on the hunt for another male prospect seems forced. But who am I to argue against a crazy maneater story, cue Hall & Oates please.

2009-04-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

If Hollywood dramas were an accurate barometer of the efficacy of our education system, pretty American children would have colonized Mars by now and inadvertently found a cure for AIDS during a game of I, Spy played on the shuttle ride up there. Kids are pretty much always absurdly precocious in movies, and their innocence only adds to their brilliance. They can sense what you’re too old and world-weary to sense: Dead people, aliens, the pain of a sweet fawn hunted down in the forest. Knowing, the Nicholas Cage apocalypse drama, is no exception. Despite the title and Cage’s role as a widowed MIT astrophysicist, it’s the overachieving nine year olds that have the power to preserve humanity. Though keep in mind we’re referring to the same humanity that has continually served Nicholas Cage terrible, terrible scripts, bad judgment, and male pattern baldness verging on Lithgowian. So, uh, you decide the value of that.

The plot begins when Cage’s 9-year-old son, Caleb, brings home a page-long number sequence from a time capsule buried at his elementary school back in 1959. The page was scrawled out obsessively 50 years ago by an unnaturally pale girl named Lucinda (who really would have been put in a special ward for schizophrenia in ’59, but whatever, for the purposes of the film she went to public school). After partaking in the widower’s evening whiskey ritual, Cage drunkenly sets his glass down on the paper leaving a circular mark that allows him to see the pattern. It’s a doomsday calendar! Listing the dates of major disasters, the location coordinates, and the number of people killed. It conveniently begins after the Holocaust and conveniently excludes Vietnam, Sudan, and other war deaths, yet somehow includes the Arizona hotel fire that Cage’s wife died in years earlier that had a total death toll of, like, 40 people.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, the crazy girl Lucinda wasn’t crazy-- she was hearing alien voices, which were noted in the subtitled hearing-impaired screening I found myself in as “inaudible whispering.” (Note: If you’re hearing impaired I would suggest not seeing this film as half the movie and 100 percent of the suspense is the “inaudible whispering”) Cage’s son, Caleb, as it turns out can hear the alien whispering too. What’s scarier, the aliens aren’t some looming unseen, they look like Tilda Swanson in a bald cap, or my friend thought more like Spike from Buffy, and they drive around in a ’70 Chevrolet following Caleb, and leaving what turn out to be plot-meaningless black pebbles everywhere. Also, once they show Caleb a vision of doomsday that features a hilariously majestic CGI moose leaping out of the brush on fire, like a Lisa Frank folder in need of an exorcism.

At the same time, Cage is following the numbers to the sites of all these huge disasters. Essentially the movie becomes disaster porn, and nearly all of it in New York. Okay, I get it. Middle America can only stomach Hollywood tragedy in the location they visit for a weekend every five years.

Like in some other civilization dramas-- Contact, springs to mind, Cage, the once stubbornly atheistic scientist is awed into religious submission. It doesn't even matter if it's God or aliens by the end-- they're one in the same for all intents and purposes. The movie conflates Cage's new faith in determinism with his reconciliation with his preacher father, and devoutly religious family. Cage becomes a son again, and his son, Caleb, in some ways becomes a father. Science, in turn, becomes a myth, and not even a particularly helpful one. Note to astrophysicists: UR LIFE IS A LIE.

The lives which turn out not to be completely useless however, are those of two upper crust white kids, both from Lexington, Mass. who the aliens want to propagate the human race on the retired set of What (Wet) Dreams May Come. Good to know what higher beings value about the human race: PBS, Nantucket Nectars, and L.L. Bean.

2009-03-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Now is not a bad time to be a straight guy. While most markets are disintegrating faster than Dick Cheney, the heterosexual dude market has exploded with successful diversification. You can be constipated by your own masculinity like Don Draper or an effeminate Apatowian weeping into a maxipad and still have throes of female admirers. In the forthcoming comedy Hang Over, Bradley Cooper, whose abs are more contoured than an upscale dildo, pals around with comedy schlub Zach Galifianakis in Vegas. Fifteen years ago, the same pairing would have Cooper tying Galifianakis naked to a flagpole and smearing his balls with mayo. But in a world where chicks are writing fan fiction about nailing Michael Cera, Animal House-era masculinity rules don’t really apply anymore.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

As Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall proves, emasculation is comedy gold, but no longer a disqualifier for heterosexuality, or even unattractive to the opposite sex. When Segel’s bawling in his Hawaiian suite over his recent breakup, Mila Kunis, the cute hotel receptionist, calls his room to check in after getting guest complaints about a “weeping woman”. As he frightfully deliberates jumping off a cliff into the turquoise water Kunis yells up at him, “I can see your vagina from here.” Later that night they bone. Regardless of his figurative genitalia and what Mahnola Dargis describes as his “suggestion of an A cup”, Kunis still wants his pee in her vee.

It's acceptable to be a wimp and a heartthrob, especially in comedy. The jokes in these movies are formulaic, but funny, mostly because we have not yet reached the event horizon after which the idea of a mangina ceases to be funny. A dude does something traditionally feminine, his friends balk, he defends his actions with masculine authority, his friends make some sort i-see-your-vagina joke. If Jonah Hill played a guy going to Weight Watchers meetings, the setup would go something like this:

Hill blots the cheese on his slice with a napkin, then on second thought just peels the cheese layer off entirely. He pulls out a small black book and calorie calculator.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Um, it’s called ‘Bite it and Write it’, asshole. Journaling what you eat is the first step to discovering your triggers.”
“Maybe you’re not fat, dude, maybe you’re pregnant.”

The greatest victory of neo-masculinity is the Bromance. To bastardize the feminist idiom, bromance is the radical notion that men are people. They have emotions and the desire for close relationships, even when it comes to their same-sex friendships. It’s kind of about time. I'm serious!

The main problem with Bromance movies is that they typically marginalize the female characters. In Superbad, the bromosocial bond between Jonah Hill and Michael Cera was so strong that girls were pretty much an obligatory pursuit, one that was directed entirely by the penis. The girls are boring or underdeveloped, so there’s a trade-off: Give up fun for sex. In I Love You, Man Paul Rudd at the very least really wants Rashida Jones, but we're unsure of why. The two split up for a brief second after Rudd asks her, “Why are we even getting married?” and then get back together based on Rudd assuring her, “There are so many reasons I want to marry you,” without actually listing even one of them.

But I do think Bromances are generally good for straight male sociality, if only because they self-consciously carve a place for openly compassionate male-male friendship. Over on the televisual funbox, the first season of MTV’s Bromance had Brody Jenner repeatedly using the line, “You’re just not being real” to kick off potential brofriends. The dudes who he couldn’t connect with on a personal level, mostly the dudes who didn’t tearfully confess some family trauma during the one-on-one sessions and subsequently binge-drank were the ones eliminated first. Oh and the elimination round was always in a hot tub. Because seriously, nothing proves you’re straight like being comfortable enough to jokingly insinuate you’re not.

Sunshine Cleaning Essentially IS Little Miss Sunshine

2009-03-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

I think maybe it’s a problem that I can’t forgive any family drama for not being as good as 2nd season Six Ft Under.

But still. The main problem with Sunshine Cleaning is that you’ve already seen it. There’s a wide-eyed, ostracized kid who’s wise beyond his years. Alan Arkin as the immature, oddball Grandpa who pals around with said kid. There’s the holy triumvirate of fam drama: money problems, relationship problems, grieving problems. And an unreliable, but beloved used van. Like, couldn't they have at least picked a different car model?

What’s weirder is that Sunshine Cleaning even recycles the “sunshine” metaphor. In both Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning, the “Sunshine” entity, be it beauty pageant or cleaning service, enters the movie first as an ironic marker of the family’s dysfunction, but later ends up being the source of their redemption.

I think if I were tech savvy enough, this all would have been best expressed via charticle.

My other gripes include: The movie ends with a self-discovering road trip, which has lost all non-spoof purpose since Britney Spears did it in Crossroads.

My likes: Amy Adams, if her smile does not fill you with warmth inside than you are a nanobot. Emily Blunt, a beautiful, beautiful duck.

I Read All The King's Men And Summed It Up In The Following Haiku So You Don't Have To!

2009-03-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

The South is depressed
And the adored Gov. corrupt!
Don't do his biddings, k?

Blog lapses happen.

2009-03-10T20:51:00.001-07:00

I am trying to Tumbl but I don't quite get it yet

2009-02-27T06:01:00.000-08:00

LaurenBans.tumblr.com

OMG U CAN SEE ITS BRAIN

2009-02-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

I Just Can't Quit You, FB

2009-02-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

I have a small contribution to Facebook Rules.

He's Just Not That Into You

2009-02-17T07:15:00.000-08:00

Molly and I talk HJNTIY!

In Which I Just Blogged To Say I Hate You.

.

Us in Dia: Beacon

2009-02-16T17:06:00.001-08:00

SHOULDA PUT A RINGTONE ON IT

2009-02-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of Marie Claire features a HJNTIY-themed interview with two of the film's leading actresses, Ginnifer Goodwin and Jennifer Aniston, and one of the film's barely-on-screen-but-pegged-as-leading
-actress, Drew Barrymore.

The interviewer asks the three ladies what helps them get through breakups.

First Drew lies about eating carbs. I know this because she answers, "Macaroni and cheese. Kraft. Deluxe. The kind with the cheese you squeeze out of the bag that takes at least a month to pass through your body." As any student of carbohydrates knows, Kraft Mac n'Cheese comes with the powder-based cheese. Only Velveeta brand comes with tubular liquid cheesestuff. Celebpretties will deign to know the essence of KFC-induced diarrhea if it makes them seem relatable. Tsk Tsk poseur.

Jennifer Aniston hilariously responds to Drew's comment: "I don't eat a lot. (ed. note: DUH) I go straight to my girlfriends."

Thus a discussion of the importance of girlfriends ensues, which is odd, because HJNTIY hates your girlfriends. And your Mom. It lays its case against them in the opening montage.

First a little girl gets punched and told she smells like shit by a boy on the playground. She runs weeping to her mother, who tells her: "Don't cry. When little boys do that it means they like you." Next four women comfort a crying friend at a bar, cooing, "He just couldn't handle how amazing you are." All while the narrative voice is informing us, "You see, you've been brainwashed all your life into believing that when a guy doesn't call it means he likes you..." OMG, Moms are to You as Scientology is to Tom Cruise! Cut the umbilical cord! Punch ur friends! Frak you, Mom!

A mother looks on encouragingly as her daughter throws herself all over a carrot that is so clearly Not. Into. Her.

But it's hard to stay mad at your girlfriends for long, because they're dogs. Or some kind of cute, little naive animal. Ginnifer Goodwin laps up Justin Long's advice about men and dating (the HJNTIY philosophy) like a dutiful canine companion, looking up at him with sorrowful puppy eyes that seem willing do all kinds of rolling over for just one link of meat. The women are in the film to learn, to be taught, to be trained. Infantilizing, sure. But, on the other hand, Ginnifer's haircut was crazy ADORBS, and who doesn't like a good dog-com?

GIRL, HE IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO INTO YOU!

Besides, taking He's Just Not That Into You seriously is like taking the babysitter seriously. The movie breaks every rule that it makes. After enduring two hours of Justin Long screaming at Ginnifer: "He Ain't Into You!", something magically snaps and the movie morphs into He Just Doesn't Know HOW Into You He Is, in which the males are not disinterested, they're just in self-denial about their own feelings because their luv for you is too strong to consciously bear.

Consciously bears in luv!

There are some other plots going on. Drew Barrymore gets thrown in as the token Tech 3.0 dater who communicates through pretty mainstream mediums like e-mail, Blackberry, text message, and MySpace, but talks about them as if they were cutting edge technology and the rest of the world is full of lame luddites stuck on landlines. Which is actually true of the film's other characters. The movie is strangely anachronistic, an oddity they tried to reconcile by setting it in Baltimore, where people who haven't seen The Wire can believe Internet is not mainstream yet.

Also, Drew Barrymore has all gay friends which showcases how technologically advanced she is.

ScarJo is the Quirky Aggressive-esque character. She plays a one-dimensional slut with the soul of a vacuum cleaner who jumps naked into community pools and says crazy things to married men like, "You have an ass I'd like to dry hump." Her boobs are the elephant in the room that everyone's thinking about grabbing.

The moral of the ScarJo plot is that if you're a wanton woman you'll end up a lonely lounge singer on qualudes. And that she needs a new agent. She didn't even manage to get one Tom Waits cover into the soundtrack.

You're Just Not That Into You

2009-02-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

Maybe the problem is you hate yourself too much.

You're Just Not That Into You on The Morning News.

Usher's "Trading Places"; Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy"

2009-02-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

What's up with Usher wanting to be a chick and Beyonce wanting to be a dood, and then both of them having moronic conceptions about what it means to be the opposite sex? Someone please get them together so they can have a retarded androgynous baby who will save the world from the perils of gender.

But, uh, I still think the Usher song/video is absolutely awesome and hilarious.

1.) He imitates a female orgasm at the end.
2.) Folgers coffee gets brand recognition.
3.)"You order Chinese food right before you do me."

Manifestations In Laziness: REPOST

2009-02-02T18:22:00.000-08:00

Dear R.,
Facebook informed me that your birthday is this week. We haven't spoken since the mishap with your planted pet, but I do hope you're super. I'm reposting this June blog entry about you. I could position the repost as a birthday gift, but that would make me a huge betch.

Chumma,
P.R.

If, for some reason, you've been living in the seams of my grandmother's house dress for the last five years, I have something to teach you: the world wide web is full of friends. You don't even have to know someone in reality to be friends with them on the Internet! The web is also full of pervs. Sometimes someone can be both a friend and a pervert.

Have you facebooked Paul Reubens yet?.... Why the hell not?

I'm in the habit of accepting any Facebook friend request I receive. As an old-timer, I've lived through the Great Friend Drive of 2004 (aka the founding of Facebook.com). I've experienced the mad rush to accumulate a decent number of online social network pals, the kind of desperation that leads one to friend request that weird Communist girl who brought her parents along to a naked party in college and had no qualms about her dad ogling fellow students' nubile bodies , or the ex-boyfriend who told you he preferred smaller boobs. I feel your pain, newbies.

As a direct result of my empathetic nature, I have many new friends from the Philippines, Mexico, and India.

R., my most recent international friend, uses a picture of the late Bollywood hunk Raj Kapoor for his profile picture.

This profile picture conveys the following messages to your loyal Facebook readers/friends: 1.) I can sing and dance 2.) I died in 1988 and 3.) Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and The Olive Tree is my fav book ever.

When R. friend requested me on June 4th, he included a slight neg in his accompanying message.

June 4th, 2008 7:58am

Hello Lauren

You look sexy and nice. Would you like to be friends? Your the girl on right side?

R.

At the time, this was my Facebook picture:

The girl on the right is my sister. I responded "Yes" anyhow. This is what the Internet is for: pretend.

Over the next few weeks, R. proceeded to inundate my notification box with a variety of sexual quiz invitations.

Quiz: What kind of lover are you?

Quiz: What's your favorite position?

Quiz: Are you sexually compatible with your partner?

I was beginning to regret friending R. He posted "Hello sexxy" on my wall. I deleted it immediately.

But then I noticed R.'s status messages. Rather than cliched sexual come-ons, his status messages were filled with inspiring, motivational words. It was like absorbing the wisdom of a Des'ree song without having to endure the moans of light rock saxophone:

R. is: you've got to be wise in life.

R. is: believing in true love.

R. is: love your friends. Friends 4life!

But recently R. started down a dark public announcement path:

R. is: feeeling lonely.

R. is: not understanding.

R. is: scared.

R. is feeeling so lonely.

The last reiteration of R.'s loneliness was posted late Sunday night. I was alone myself, with both my housemates out of town and no one to intercept my idle chatter. An hour before, around midnight, I had realized I was sitting on the living room floor in just my oversized "MATH MASTERS" t-shirt, clipping my toenails while intoning "Wall-EEEEEEE" to myself. That realization will make anyone reach out for late night contact.

I messaged R.

June 29, 2008 12:45am
Hey R.

I've been noticing your Facebook status messages are kind of sad lately. Hope everything is okay!

Lauren

The response:

June 30, 2008 5:17am

My chia pet died! Stay good, sexy.

And that's what friends are for.

Typo on CNN News Ticker

2009-02-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Obama to Muslims: "Americans are not your enemas."

And He Didn't Even Kiss Me Goodbye!

2009-01-29T13:36:00.000-08:00

In These Blog Times

2009-01-27T08:39:00.000-08:00

Post-colonic Oscar predictions over on TR.

In Which These Were The Real Best Moments in Film.

Inaugural Chat-Thoughts.

2009-01-20T10:15:00.001-08:00

Evident Truths on Drinkware.

2009-01-19T07:47:00.000-08:00

2009-01-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss

Breaking News Ladies! You don't have to see He's Just Not That Into You despite the mandate that is the coy hamantaschen between your legs, because pretty soon science is going to render the dating advice industry nonessential. Take that $10 and spend it on a classy cheeseburger.

"Really Ginnifer, do you notice how you always get cast as the round-faced rejectee? Maybe you should, like, stop eating carbs."

Yes is the new No! According to the New York Times article, it won't be long until we're being love raped at bars with a hormone mixture that induces feelings of attachment and bonding. Or in the whimsically-worded forecast it sounds like date rape at the hands of Benjamin Button: an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink!

Rule #1: If his head is cocked to the LEFT, then he's just not that into you.

The findings revolve around two hormones. Vasopressin creates urges for bonding and burrowing when injected into male prarie dogs. Oxytocin promotes much the same in female prarie dogs. I'd be willing to go out on a limb and add that the similar-sounding oxycontin makes everyone want to have sex with everything.

Rule #2: If you're not Jennifer Aniston, then he's just not that into you.

Oxytocin has also been in the news of late for being the big O behind the orgasmic birth trend. It is as it sounds-- an orgasm during birth, helpfully described by one midwife as "powerful and juicy." Having placed my black market order for O, I've already started praying to God for quintuplets.

It's heartening to see science really prioritizing its research budget during these times of economic recession. Now that coupledom will be reduced to a chemical concoction, perhaps womanity can take a second assessment of the Sex & The City franchise and discover it has little to no anthropological use.

Rule #3: If you use sex to finance your extravagant purchasing habits, he's just not that into you.

I see this coming to market in a variety of ways: Love supplements, love cologne, love lipstick, all replete with addictive hormones. Maybe we'll eventually have diaphragms that secrete vasopressin upon contact with a penis making it feel intractably drawn to the entered vagina.

And I thought my Crazy Glue-in-the-cooch method was effective.

Remember still, it is now a certifiable CNN fact that women shouldn't say "I love you" first. Instead you should devote years of your life to a monkish study of The Rules (or, apparently now you can just lap up these kinds of advice nuggests from mainstream news outlets) until he puts a ring on it, all the while waiting impatiently sans bread products for the technological advances that will allow you to trick him into loving you via chemical addiction.

And remember once upon a time you thought relationships were intuitive! Psssht.

Operation: Valkyrie Reviewed.

2009-01-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

In Which We Can Look Forward To A Nazi Spring.

My Senator.

2009-01-06T14:17:00.001-08:00

A Gift From The Barely Employed: I Read Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and Summed It Up In The Following Haiku So You Don't Have To!

2008-12-29T06:15:00.000-08:00

I am bringing this blog column back. Mostly because writing full-length book reviews is too daunting and How I Met Your Mother is waiting.

Next gen immigrants

Why they all marry white peeps?

Parents, learn to deal.

Now to get yourself into the right Lahirian state of mind watch like, uh, five minutes of Kumar Goes To That Girl From The Real World's Vagina (commonly referred to as The Namesake), get in a fight with your parents by refusing to eat their ethnic kugel and screaming, "I only eat American food now!" before slamming the door and running out to White Castle. Come home, glutted on grease, and ponder the ramifications of your assimilation.

Bonus fun fact: Kal Penn (Kalpen Suresh Modi; case in point!) America's favorite/only go-to Indian actor was a Women's Studies major at UCLA.