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Happy Burns Night
No Haggis. No singing or dancing. No recitations of “Address to a Haggis.” No kilts. Just chips, queso and a bit of Balvenie 14 year old Caribbean Cask.
Be careful with earbuds at bedtime
I woke up early this morning, like work-day early, and i figured I’d get some listening time in. I’m still working on the last 20% or so of American Gods. Well, I guess I wasn’t really ready to be awake, because I fell back into dreamland while listening. In my dream, I was at my father’s place in Florida, with the family on a visit, I suppose. In the dream I was listening to the same audiobook, and I guess he was trying to get my attention, so I pressed stop on the player, but the words kept coming. Strange. So I pulled the earbuds out of my ears (in the dream) and the WORDS KEPT COMING. There I was, confused as to why these words kept coming from inside my ears with no player and no earbuds. After a few more dream moments of this confusion, I woke up, laughed, removed the earbuds again and was actually relieved when the words stopped in real life that time. One of those recursive dreams would have really thrown me for a loop.
Pizza Dare
I think the fairly recent trend of “Pizza Dare” videos, in which women order pizza and then answer the door naked, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, is a scam.
I think it’s a full-scale, all-out scam, orchestrated by the pizza delivery industry, in order to convince men, most of whom do not feel they get to see their share of naked women, to take the job at whatever low hourly wages are offered, hell, even for free, on the off chance that they’ll get to experience a live naked girl answering the door.
Also, there’s a double standard at play here. If *I* do it, I’ll have to register as a sex offender. Women almost NEVER get arrested for indecent exposure. Go figure.
Joni Fan
Somewhere near my home is a fellow Joni fan. I will allow myself a mild case of tunnel vision in assuming this refers to Joni Mitchell. Because to my knowledge, there is no other Joni that can be referred to as simply Joni.
I can’t remember my first exposures to Joni. I was too young. I remember buying The Hissing of Summer Lawns, though, on vinyl at a yard sale in my late teens. I remember it because I also bought a few Jethro Tull albums at the same time. I still have them all, including the version of Stand Up with the band popping out of the album when you open it.
My early exposure to Joni probably included Big Yellow Taxi and Help Me, because I grew up on 70s popular radio. Hissing was the first in-depth exposure to Joni I ever had, and it floored me. I couldn’t believe there were so many great songs I had never heard, all in one place. I listened many, many times. I still know the record by heart. I had never heard anything like The Jungle Line before. Edith and the Kingpin still gives me goosebumps today.
Not having a guide, I explored some of Joni’s other works as I happened upon them. Court and Spark and Ladies of the Canyon, while obviously great albums, never quite resonated with me the way that Hissing did, although I still smile when I hear Joni’s version of Woodstock, which I sometimes prefer to CSNY’s cover. Sometimes. Depends on my energy at the time, I guess.
Then I met Eve, who introduced me to Hejira and reintroduced me to Blue. Blue, which I had heard before and just not given a fair listen. Blue, which I probably just wasn’t mature enough to hear the first time. Blue, which has some of the greatest songs Joni ever wrote. How did I miss that? And Hejira, wow. Hejira had me at the very first listen. By the time I had found Hejira, I had already found Furry Lewis, so Furry Sings the Blues resonated powerfully. Coyote, Amelia, and Black Crow were just icing on the cake. Perfect gems of powerful, lyrical icing. I’d put Hejira on my 10-album desert island list any day.
So thanks, fellow JONI FAN, for making me think of Joni on the way home tonight. Even though I was listening to American Gods, I was thinking of you. Perhaps you too are an American God incarnate.
Gearing up for One More Saturday Night…
(and a Friday, and a Sunday). My manager came into my office on Friday, and said, “I guess I know what YOU’RE doing on July 4.” I didn’t. I hadn’t heard. I had heard that an announcement was coming, but the ripple effect hadn’t quite reached me yet. “What?” Then he told me the Dead had made their announcement.
One last time, three nights at Soldier Field in Chicago. July 3, 4 and 5 of this year. Then that’s it. No more. Final. Nice way to close out fifty years of playing. Not quite as grueling for the band members, who are getting on in years, as a full tour.
Somehow my passion must be infectious, because I got the go ahead at home, and my ticket requests are in the mail! I had Sabina help me with decorating the envelopes, a decades-old Dead tradition. Did you know that there has been a scholarly paper done on Dead fan envelope art? Fascinating. You can check it out here: Uses for Fan Envelopes from the Grateful Dead Archive as Digital and Traditional Primary Research Sources.
There is a certain “Great Pumpkin” feel to it. You hope that the effort put forth in your envelope decoration will be rewarded with the ticket(s) you seek. The reality is, we don’t know if we’ll get tickets for any of the three nights, much less all three. But today’s the first day for mail-order postmarks, and mine are in there with everyone else’s, so I like to think we’ve at least got a fair shot.
I went, with this same manager, to State College, PA in 2008 to see them at the Change Rocks show. Then I went to two of the shows during the 2009 reunion tour — I took Sophie to see them in Charlottesville, and Eve came up to Philly with me to see them just a few months before the Rectum, errr, Spectrum got demolished.
So yeah. Add that to all the times I saw them in the 80s and 90s (RFK, Cap Centre, Three Rivers Stadium, Madison Square Garden, etc), and yeah. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Marketing small condoms
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/02/the-challenge-of-marketing-small-condoms/36464/
It’s a shame that so much of male self-esteem is wrapped up the confidence of having an “adequately” sized penis. That’s some caveman shit there. Other than the sheer difficulty of consummation with a “micropenis,” studies have shown that there is no correlation between penis size and fertility/virility.
In fact, they have found something that determines fertility far more accurately. anogenital distance (AGD), which was found to be a much better indicator. AGD is the distance between the anus and the closest connection of the scrotum. Less than two inches means likely impaired fertility. Of course, none of this matters in terms of our roles in the universe… but my AGD is fucking huge. Just sayin’.
Of course, the marketing geniuses are having a tough time marketing condoms to those whose length and/or girth is considered “below average.” I mean, you don’t want to give a guy a complex, right? God forbid you’re buying them in the local drugstore, and Tammy behind the counter learns that what you’re packing is, maybe, less-than-impressive.
As the article points out, this refusal to address size in a transparent manner can result in serious consequences, such as increased rates of infection due to a failure to navigate size propaganda and find the correct fit.
The truth is, a lot of men don’t know how a condom is supposed to fit anyway. Newsflash: It’s not supposed to squeeze you like a sausage. If you complain that condoms reduce sensation, that’s probably why that’s happening, you’re too-tight condom is restricting blood flow and making it numb. Go for a magnum next time. It doesn’t need to be that tight, it just needs to not fall off.
MAYBE, just maybe, if we can get the condom size thing sorted out, we can get WOMEN sorted into various anatomy types and fit preferences, so that those with tighter anatomies who aren’t comfortable with serious stretching can gravitate toward those guys who will fit them the way they like, and the size queens can gravitate toward the over-endowed.
And in Other Penis News
I figured I’d get this other penis news out of the way now rather than post another penis article right away and be accused of being penicentric.
During Vietnam, both the South Vietnamese and the Vietcong soldiers believed that you meet your god in whatever form you are in when you die. So they would cut the penises off of dead soldiers and insert them into the soldiers’ mouths.
I don’t know what kind of God they were envisioning here. The God of high school jocks, who will point and laugh, humiliating the newly-arrived dead soldier for arriving with his own dick in his mouth? Please. I like to think the welcome would be more like, “Welcome. Sorry about the dick thing. War is hell.”
Looking forward to tomorrow night!
Postponed from last week, new date is January 13th. I don’t suppose any of my subterranean historic degenerate friends will be there.
