No, you don't get it, I'M the blanket.

Sent, at 4:01 am, to my Ghostproof Blanket email address.

[This seems like as good a time as any to say that I'm permanently abandoning this site for my Tumblr. It was a good 4+ year run, this place as a repository for my ADD-addled thoughts and the songs I was obsessed with. But I'm on Tumblr way more often in general, and I'm trying to simplify my life. It's why I wear this same burlap jumpsuit every day now.]

Follow me on Tumblr here.

W.O.W

Words to live by.  Wendy O. Williams was legitimately famous in the mid 1980s and I'm hard pressed to think of anyone like her that exists these days. Lady Gaga is the closest thing we've got to a female musician who isn't afraid to be unpretty once in a while. Which makes total sense, given the current climate in pop culture, where anything less than cute virtually guarantees a woman's invisibility (and yes, Wendy was totally hot in her own way, but in today's world she'd be ripped to shreds by Internet trolls who probably need to get drunk to even dance in public). 

"There's a lot of women out there with good heavy metal bands, but they persist to sing like pop singers."

Tonight I'm seeing two bands I've wanted to see for a long time now: Metronomy and Class Actress. "Slightly melancholy dance music made by smart people" is pretty much my favorite.

Metronomy - We Broke Free from the new album The English Riviera

Metronomy - Heartbreaker (Kris Menace rmx)

Metronomy - Radio Ladio (Mac 3000 rmx)

Has anybody seen my tambourine?

Tim Curry had an enormous impact on my tiny mind. I still watch this every Halloween, because it is perfection and has STATE OF THE ART video effects. So futuristic.

Most children's programming bored me when I was a kid (the rest of "TWW" included, sorry Fairuza Balk! Better luck next The Craft!). This might be because I had parents who thought that sitting me down and introducing me to Rocky Horror Picture Show was an important rite of passage at age 11. If it didn't have either Muppets or 'adult themes' I basically wasn't interested. I still feel this way.

According to the Internet, some people don't like Lana Del Rey. After her first album flopped she changed her name, her sound, and sexed herself up — and it kind of worked, since everyone's talking about her now. I wouldn't call that story uplifting, but again it DID work, so I'm not sure she's the one we should be mad at here. Plus, reinventing one's self is pretty standard stuff in the music world.

I could do without some of her baby-waby cooing but I'm super into this song. And if we're all weighing in on her appearance, I do love that she looks like a lost member of the Carrie Nations, or the "in her heyday" picture of a ravaged old Hollywood starlet.

I'm Mortified

If you're in Chicago this Friday at 7:30, you should come see me at the Mortified show at Schubas. I'm reading a piece centered around my 8th-to-12th grade diary entries (lots of LSD-addled poetry, my dilettantish attempts at being wiccan, and sundry 'nobody understands me'isms). The awesome and supportive producers of the show helped me put it together and it might be the hardest I've worked on anything all year. Well, the hardest I've worked on something that's actually finished. This weekend I got to hear a couple of the other readers and their stuff is funny-awkard-adorable. Come out!



Mortified Chicago Promo from Shay DeGrandis on Vimeo.

I tried to watch the "New Girl" pilot without prejudice, but I just can't relate to Zooey D at all. I think it's because she strictly plays two kinds of characters: either girls that must have strawberry-scented farts, or girls that make NO farts. "I'm offbeat and wacky but never, ever in a way that makes me look remotely unattractive!" Zzzzz.

I'm practically STAR MATERIAL.

Take the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Remy Ma - Conceited (There's Something About Remy)*

*Currently serving time for shooting a member of her entourage

Personal - Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

A toast to Courtney Stodden, or: You could just skip this post and read "Marriage" by Gregory Corso

Last weekend I went to a farm in New Jersey and I watched two of my favorite people marry each other behind an old silo. A recurring theme of the toasts at the reception was how the two of them bring out the best in each other, and that's something you hear a lot in toasts like that. The difference was that in this case that old you complete me sentiment is absolutely 100% true. They turn a light on inside each other and you can see it happening. With a lot of other couples in my life —some married and some that will probably marry — I see the opposite, where being around their partner makes them a little duller and a bit less funny or fun, as if the other person has a tranquilizing effect on them. And maybe that's what some people need: someone that will make them more tranquil.  I don't profess to know what's best but I know that's not what I want.

Two men have expressed the wish to marry me in my life. The first man later recanted his wish; it was ultimately the right decision and we parted with a lot of respect for each other. The second man proved to be so mentally unstable that I still half-believe he'll show up someday to turn my skin into a suit (for the record I never returned his sentiment). As for my own feelings toward marriage, I'm somewhere between indifference and skepticism. I'm not against the institution and if we all could have what Coach and Tami Taylor have then by all means sign me the fuck up. But between my lamentably short attention span and the impermanence that's characterized most of my life, I have a hard time believing I've got what it takes.

By "what it takes," I mean both the ability to maintain interest in one person for all of my days and the stones to jump in with both feet and believe with my whole heart that it will work. I went to dozens of weddings in my twenties and several of those marriages are over now. If I've learned anything it's that there's absolutely no rhyme or reason as to what lasts. A couple that dated for 6 months beforehand fared no worse than one that had been together for 7 years. When I was younger, hearing about a rash and probably ill-fated engagement would horrify me — I'd think they were making the mistake of their lives. Now I know so many divorced or remarried people that when I hear of two people getting engaged, somewhere inside I just do a standing ovation for their fucking bravery. Have I ever been so sure of anything in my life? These days I'm wondering what good things can possibly come out of caution and safe bets. I'm becoming increasingly averse to risk aversion. Good for them I say, good for all of them.

Little Dragon - Ritual Union

Ricky Nelson - Fools Rush In 

Split Enz - History Never Repeats

Department of Eagles - While We're Young

Boyfriend Rap

My friend Hanna and I totally took some time out of our busy prank-calling schedule to call that Vanilla Ice 900 line back in the day. 

Sassy Nostalgia Corner: Funny Old Ads

I thought "Nicolas Cage awoken by naked man with Fudgesicle" was the best headline I would read all day, but apparently not. [via Gawker]

Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf

My mother died a year ago today. She loved David Bowie, and dancing, and driving so fast that it scared my high school friends. Her favorite Muppet was Animal and she was probably a lot like him before she quit drinking. She dyed her hair to match mine, she chain smoked and then she quit, I watched her make people laugh so hard they cried, she could go from sunny to squall to hurricane in no time at all, she could be meaner than most people couldn't be if they made twice the effort, she was beautiful, and she tried as hard as she could.

David Bowie - Golden Years

Testament

by Connie Voisine

The cat wants to be a strong thing—a hand, a tree.

The girl wants to be a pirate, in a tree.

The tree wants to be the pond with its face of shining.

The pond wants to be the sun who dumps its sugar on the grass.

The grass wants to be the foot, its sole, its heel.

The foot wants to be the brain who always gets to choose.

The brain wants to be the feet dumb in their shoes.

The shoe wants to be the buckle that the girl shines with a cloth.

The buckle wants to be the magpie lifting what shines.

The magpie wants to be the egg in the nest touching its brother.

The egg wants to be the feather.

The feather wants to be the mite, devouring its plume.

from Poetry Magazine July/August 2010

This song is dedicated to Natalee Holloway/I feel for her daddy so I wrote this on Father's Day

Is it insulting to say that I'm surprised by the level of female-positivity on this track? Well, except for the part where Game pronounces the women on "Basketball Wives" not cute enough.
Really? They're not cute enough? Nice face tattoo that covers up your old butterfly face tattoo, Game.

I love ya ass like Milhouse love Lisa, I love ya ass like the Ninja Turtles love pizza.

Game ft. Drake - Good Girls Go Bad

Tiniest Lights from Randy Sterling Hunter on Vimeo.

I went to see Angel Olsen play last night at the behest of another talented Chicago-based singer, Angelina Lucero. Her performance was great and the music had a "ghost of an old country singer" vibe that this video captures really well. I was totally hypa-matized. If you get a chance to see her I highly recommend it.


Angel Olsen - If It's Alive, It Will by batheticrecords

All of these signs are amazing. 

My favorite might be: As Jesus said about gay people, "      ."

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

Little Dragon - Ritual Union

I want the entire Universe to get off my lawn

Party of however-many-people-TMZ-is: Your table in Hell is ready.

Telepathe - Chrome's On It (Gold Panda Remix)

[image via]

ssshhhh gal whine n flex yeah

The quality of the music in the classes I take at the gym is usually Vengaboys-level of lowest com denom, so I was pretty psyched that a Bob Sinclar song played yesterday. I've probably posted this video before but it is the best so whatever.