Jesus Hell, the Sixties were awesome

the follwing contains excessive use of the word "awesome"


So, I am continually compiling a sixties playlist. It reminds me of driving around in the summer time with my mom, plus, fucking duh, the sixties were the most badass moment in music ever. This quest for the perfect, all-inclusive playlist usually starts with me downloading one specific song by an artist, then going back and looking for other titles by said artist. That always ends with me finding about six TOTAL JOY INDUCING awesome hits and exclaiming with glee, "JESUS HELL, THE SIXTIES WERE AWESOME."

Seriously, how did so many bands write so many ridiculously spectacular songs?! For bands whose songs are in every movie, commercial, etc, why are people not as obsessed with them I am?! Get with the program!!! Fuck Hendrix or the Beatles or whoever it is you're name dropping all the time.

First off, let's talk about Three Dog Night. TELL ME you don't squeal with delight when you hear "Jeremiah was a bullfrog..." being belted out of your radio. Or
"One (is the loneliest number)". That piano lick is classic! Or "Mama Told Me not to Come"? Words of wisdom if I ever heard them. Go download "Shambala" and "Never Been to Spain." If they don't ring a bell you'll know them when you hear them. Any one of these songs would've singlehandledly been a feat of rock genius, all of them together is enough awesome to last me forever.

The Turtles. "Happy Together" is probably the standout hit for my generation thanks to a way overplayed Golden Grahams commercial in the 80's, but my favorites are their slower, vaguely creepy hits like "Elenore" and "You Showed Me" which feature some pretty sweet experimental synths and rather strange harmonies. "Elenore" in particular has some of the kookiest lyrics ever like the exuberant chorus, "Gee, I think you're swell, you're my pride and joy, et cetera." Dude, anyone who can write the nerdtastic words gee, swell, and et cetera into a cool song is a musical force to be reckoned with. Not to mention the rhyming poetry of the lines "your looks intoxicate me/ even though your folks hate me" and "they'll turn the lights way down low/ maybe we won't watch the show!" LOVE IT.

Tommy James and the Shondells. These guys wrote "Crimson and Clover," which just so happens to be, in my expert opinion, one of the most awesomely arcane psychedelic songs ever. It would be totally possible for me to listen to that song on repeat forever and still love it. Not only that, they also wrote the audaciously catchy "Moni Moni" which even people raised by wolves have heard and the restrained groove "Crystal Blue Persuasion." I also adore "Sweet Cherry Wine" but my very favorite is the garage-y "Hanky Panky." But then, I love anything that sounds cute and filthy. I missed my calling as their go-go dancer.

The Four Tops. If you think you are too cool to drive around belting out your mom's Motown, you suck at life and should quit. The Four Tops pretty much wrote every awesome song that isn't by the Temps. "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" is so catchy it makes my teeth hurt. So is the fabulous "Same Old Song" and the bitchin', motivational "I'll Be the There." I know you sing the back up parts and drum on your steering wheel, don't lie to me. Plus, they get major credit for taking on the daunting task of writing a song about a girl named Bernadette. It gets pretty philosophical too, "While I live only to hold you/ some other men they long to control you/ but how can they control you, Bernadette/ when they cannot control themselves, Bernadette/ from wanting you, needing you?" Wow, if someone wrote me a song like that, it might almost make up for my name being Bernadette.

scamtastic

I just got the following text:

fr: UNKNOWN

Hey, I got your number from a friend of mine, but I bet you can't guess who I am! My username's cute_tease, if you wanna come see if you recognize me online at cute_tease.match-pit.org. Well, hope to see you soon!

12:35PM Tues, Jun10



Seriously, I don't know anyone who uses the word "wanna." Sadly, that IS was the first thing that came to mind. To be fair, however, I was impressed by the comma after "hey." I'm also pretty confident that no dudes I know, nor any I would like to know, would call themselves a "cute tease."
Spammers, you need to take it up a notch.

thoughts on Iron Man

I can wholeheartedly say that Iron Man was all the awesomeness I hoped for and more.
My only criticism was that they didn't rock Black Sabbath the whole time. In fact, I think they really could've taken all the music up to eleven. Other than that, however, the smartassedness was delicious and that has got to be the finest damn goatee I have ever spied. The Marvel inside jokes were also pretty great (although the "blue and gold spandex" line in Xmen was probably the best) especially the S.H.I.E.L.D. gag which so perfectly set up the bonus clip with Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury. I was actually so excited I sat up in my front row seat and shrieked, "Nick Fury is black?!?!? AWE-SOME!!!!" I've never been this excited by anything relating to the Avengers.
Wow. I am such I nerd.

Less of a Bad Thing

Months ago I compiled a top 10 list of things not to tell anyone you've just met.

Over the past week in Turkey I met lots of people I didn't know. Let's see how I did:

1. Anything involving Old English, Middle English or the recitation of texts in either language.
2. The sentence "I am in a circus."
3. The word "exsanguinate."
4. My first high school "boyfriend" impregnated a midget.
5. I have an oral fixation.
6. And no gag reflex.
7. I received a Colt semi automatic for my 18th birthday.
8. I worked at Rick's Cabaret for three months.
9. My rock show go-go dancing debut was at a Lords of Acid show at a slightly underage 17 years old. The encore was "Spank My Booty." Guess what happened.
10. I participated in the barrel racing event at the rodeo.

At first glance, this would seem to be quite a success. In reality, however, it turns out my original list was missing a few items including:

• I eat fire.
• I can pole dance. ( And have done so recently. In public.)
• I am proficient in several styles of Middle Eastern dance.
• Unsolicited tirades detailing the inferiority of states that were never independent republics.

Honestly though, I still can't quite figure out how I manage to start speaking Middle English and people continue standing there listening to it. Enablers! All of you!

More Fire

"Hey, look! This is way cooler than what's going on inside the club!"

Burning on the sidewalk. Stopped traffic. No arrests.

Watch for the fire grab at :40 and the "dragon's breath" at 2:00.


More fire, pole, and dance on Facebook.

Mission Accomplished

Me: Hey, mom. Did you see my video?
Mom: Yes. Jesus!
Me: Did you like it?
Mom: No!!! God, I mean, jeez, well... This is your Bub's fault for always letting you light the candles at Thanksgiving! Here's your dad.
Me: Hey, Daddy. Did you see my video?
Daddy: Yeah. My one question is: is it hotter than Tabasco?

Absinthe. Fire. the Usual.

So the absinthe party was another success.

The offerings included:

• Willy Bouvete (Swiss)
• Kubler(Swiss)
• Tunel Black Absinthe (Spanish)
• Alandia Gold 68 (German)
• Absinthe Neuzeller (German)
• red velvet cupcakes with fresh berries
• gaucamole and creamy jalapeno salsa
• catfish pate

As mentioned before, Willy Bouvete is a le bleue and my personal favorite. I bought Kubler here (in the US) the day of the party and was pleasantly surprised. It is made in the Val-de-Travere like many other fine Swiss absinthes and was very smooth and had an excellent louche. I'm not sure how it is legal here unless the laws have changed since last year. The other "absinthes" available in the US are still a big thumbs down. Absente has no wormwood in case you were keeping score and Lucid which used some distilling loophole to reextract the wormwood out to legal levels is not technically legit AND it's not that great. A third I've been seeing around is Tournament which I haven't tried. Again, I'm not sure what trick they're using to import it. Anyway, moral of the story is that Kubler is pretty swell if you want to buy Absinthe stateside although I'll have to get back to you on the actual wormwood content and distillation process.

Guests followed the usual pattern of starting with my recommendation of milder, more authentic Swiss le bleues, moving on to the extra wormwoody and thusly VERY bitter Alandia, and put the nail in the coffin with the knock-you-on-your-ass Black Absinthe. I have to say, although it is unreasonably alcoholic and gimmicky with the black (I'm goth, ok?), the Black Absinthe is pretty good if you're not devoted to authenticity. Or if you ARE devoted to getting blitzed. The coloring is natural and the stuff actually louches a murky blue. Always a crowd pleaser. Unless you're Eric. Then you end the evening vomiting and yelling, "Witch! Poison-witch! You poisoned me!" I should add that I think he was already sick before he started drinking. No ears were excised (van Gogh joke).

Last but not least, I had the brilliant idea to light shit on fire INDOORS and put in in my mouth. This was also a crowd pleaser. No fire alarms were alarmed, no flammable objects caught fire, and my apartment did not burn down. Yay, me.

Here is video of me dicking around for the camera. I believe my exact words were, "We have to make a video so I can send it to my parents and scare them!"

Daily horoscope

Horoscope for 4/11/2008
You need to recharge your emotional batteries at home -- maybe even going back to the place where you grew up. Once you've reconnected with whatever feels real, you should feel great.

Pfft. Done and done.
I just spent 3 hours sleeping fully clothed on my parents' bed this afternoon.

AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!

http://news.aol.com/entertainment/music/music-news-story/ar/_a/dr-pepper-urges-axl-to-drop-democracy/20080326072009990001


Dr.Pepper has vowed to give every American (notably excluding Slash ans Buckethead) a FREE CAN of delicious Dr. Pepper if Axl releases the long awaited Guns n Roses album "Chinese Democracy."
No, I am totally not making this up.

Dr.Pepper really is the awesome.

Advice

My mom is full of good advice today:

-"Non illegatamus descendre." Latin, don't let the bastards get you down.

-"Don't eat too much fire." Re: the fire-eating workshop I'm attending this weekend.
Tres exciting.

until you could taste heaven perfectly

To avoid a embarrassing effusion on the subject, I was simply going to post Tori Amos' "Sorta Fairytale" in its entirety which I think roughly sums it up. It turns out I have already referred to the song twice in this blaaag, which is worth noting.

Now, unlike my mother, who claims Mick Jagger sends her signals throught the radio, I am not quite so superstitious about musical signs, but "Sorta Fairytale" has be something of a running soundtrack for the past three months. It just keeps popping up. If you're not enough of a know-it-all like me to google it now, I will give you the brief biography of the song.

Tori Amos' own description of the story goes like this: The protagonist Scarlet meets guy, immediately and deeply believes him to be her soulmate ("and I knew then, it would be a lifelong thing, but I didn't think we could break a silver lining"), they take off on the epic American West road trip, and somewhere along the line discover their insurmountable differences and end up going their own ways. The serendipitous meeting and the subsequent falling out make the tale an incomplete love story, or sorta fairytale.


Once I'm sure of something I am awfully hard to dissuade and once I've decided someone is great I'll go kicking and screaming all the way before I admit I was mistaken. I fight hard to keep my promises, and I made a big one. So it is with the deepest disillusionment with my own powers of persuasion and whatever cosmic forces who govern such things that I quit.



and i'm so sad
a sorta fairytale with you