You aint gonna find Oprah recommending this on that goddam show of hers. This is true grit, set in 1980s NYC, the best time and place imagineable in my imagination. This is a story about bad girls and how they become worse before they can get better. Most of all, it's about the things that mothers and daughters do to eachother. Read up ladies, I give this one a few puffs of smoke. (That's how we rate things from now on by the way).
I just had my first Slurpee of the season and let me tell you, it was amazing. I bypassed the Crystal Light, no sugar added pomegranate crap for a delicious Black Cherry Lemonade. Not only was the black cherry to lemonade proportioned perfectly, but there was also enough cherry coloring it in to dye my tongue red, but not give me pink teeth. Don’t let me down Mother Nature, you actually have me convinced that it will finally be summer soon.
"I'm going to have a Christie's auction,"
"(My house) is like a mausoleum."
"My daughter doesn't need to inherit a giant ... bag full of flannel ... shirts,"
"A sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to `(Smells Like) Teen Spirit' — that's what my daughter gets. And the rest of it we'll just ... sell."
"I still wear his pajamas to bed. How am I ever going to go form another relationship in my lifetime wearing Kurt's pajamas?"
Apparently, all the proceeds will go to charity. I wonder which one, maybe C.U.N.T. (Courtney's Unified Narcotics Trust)
obviously summertime is all about the festivals. but i hate coachella (heatstroke), bonnaroo (smelly hippies), and lolla is amazing but hard to get to. so instead, we're heading to baltimore to get shot at the Virgin Festival.
i've only been to Balto once but there were crack vials in the streets and it was terrifying. and that was at 9 AM. if this festival doesn't end in bloodshed, i will want my money back. but the lineup is sick.
BEASTIE BOYS, 311, BOOKA SHADE, BAD BRAINS, CHEAP TRICK. CHRIS CORNELL, FELIX DA HOUSECAT, THE CRYSTAL METHOD, FICTION PLANE, CSS, FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE, DEEP DISH, THE FRATELLIS, DIESELBOY & ANDY C, BEN HARPER & THE INNOCENT CRIMI NALS, MC GQ and MC Messinian, INCUBUS, GIRL TALK, LCD SOUNDSYSTEM, INFECTED MUSHROOM, MIGUEL MIGS, INTERPOL, MODEST MOUSE, M.I.A., PAOLO NUTINI, MATISYAHU, PETER BJORN AND JOHN, THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, THE POLICE, REGINA SPEKTOR, SASHA & JOHN DIGWEED, SPOON, SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT, VELVET REVOLVER, DANNY TENAGLIA, WU TANG CLAN, TV ON THE RADIO, YEAH YEAH YEAHS, SANDER VAN DOORN, JAMES ZABIELA, AMY WINEHOUSE
for the past week, i've been a hot mess thanks to G00gle. in my random applications for random jobs, i've applied pretty much everywhere, even at NASA. but when i heard back from G00gle (the Boston office, mind you) regarding my application, i thought it was some kind of prank.
the posting i applied for was for an administrative assistant position. i did it on a whim, as i have no experience in that area and i'm terrified of fax machines. i would technically make a horrible secretary, but g00gle actually emailed me back and asked me a few more questions. i responded to those and the next thing i knew, i had a phone interview with some folks in California. they didn't seem too interested in really talking to me, and instead said it was very important that i head into the Boston office for an interview and teleconference.
i hit up the Boston office on Monday morning after a flight in from landing a job in Philly. i walked into the office and it was all pimped out in primary colors with neat chairs and sofas and a coffee table. there were engineers walking around, and two huge plasma screen TVs on the wall. one of the TVs had a bunch of weird words and phrases popping up, some in other languages. turns out, the phrases are things being searched on g00gle, with X-rated stuff filtered out. neat.
a gentleman came and introduced himself. he took me into a room and asked me if i had any questions. this is when the mindfuckery began.
me: what would my day-to-day responsibilities be?
g00gle dude: i don't know.
me: what hours would i work?
g00gle dude: no idea.
me: who would i report to?
g00gle dude: not sure.
as you can see, they were already throwing monkey wrenches into my brain. within the first five minutes i realized i had no idea what position i was even being considered for. so then we moved on to the logic test and writing sample portion of the interview. they stuck me in a tiny room, and asked me two really tough logic questions that were the biggest mind bogglers i've ever encountered. i'm not very logical by nature, but this was something else altogether. it was like four of the SATs put together with the GREs and some madlibs. i scribbled and tried to work out the questions for about an hour and then moved on to my writing sample.
once that was finished, i hunted down my interview guy. he let me have some lunch while he reviewed my answer and then i had a teleconference interview with two other admins, one in Seattle and one in Mountain View, CA. these ladies gave a little more insight into the job, which wasn't really answering phones and emails but instead was to serve as a contact person for a staff of engineers and five directors. i would also plan events like the grand opening of g00gle Boston, and maintain relationships between g00gle and MIT by throwing ice cream socials. i'd also spend my first week working in Boston and then fly out to the G00gleplex for 3 weeks to train. amazing.
i finished my teleconferences and had another interview with the Director of Engineers. he was pretty rad and we hit it off. by the time i left, i had a g00gle name tag, and my head was dancing with g00gle dreams.
for the last few days, i've been like one of those psycho girls who wants a boy to call her after she fucked him, like "maybe g00gle is just busy or something" or "shouldn't g00gle have called by now? don't they even care about me?" or "let's just drive by g00gle's house and see if it's home" or "that's it, i'm going to call g00gle again and see if they pick up the phone!"
but i didn't get the job. they said they liked me a lot, but that the girl that came after me really blew them away. so yeah, that whore took my job. the reality is, i'm not sure how good i am at planning parties. i'm mostly just good at going to them and embarassing myself. i realized that the job sounded amazing, but my background had nothing to do with the job. for some reason, i wanted it anyway. the kind of people g00gle hires makes you want to work there. it's like being invited to join an exclusive club of people with two brains instead of one.
i guess g00gle didn't really ruin my life so much as they threw me for a serious loop when it came to the interview. but at the end of the day, i guess i'm proud i even got the chance to interview there. although, if i had it to do all over again, i would have stolen a few more things or at least flipped them the bird on the way out, yelling 'G00GLE THIS!'
Satan's name, I forgot how amazing this album is. When I was about 13 years old, my friends and I would run around my house, high on music, yelling and singing this at the top of our lungs and then collapse into a big huge pile of girlness on my bed. Gordon Gano is the lead singer and the only way I can describe his voice is like sandpaper and crackers. If that allures you, GET THIS ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
everyone was up in arms when the new tracks from the latest Nine Inch Nails offering Year Zero started showing up on USB drives in foreign bathrooms during shows. let's be honest, these tracks should have stayed as close to the toilet as possible so they could be shat on after the first listen.
i'm not going to bore you with a full-blown review. but i will tell you that My Violent Heart is basically the same song as Only but with different, quasi-political lyrics. i wouldn't even recommend listening to it to see if i'm right about how awful it is. not only that, but apparently this album is based on Orwell's 1984, so any claim that this is thought-provoking or creative is bullshit. if he's going to base a concept album on a book he didn't write, i bet i can make a career selling photographs of masterpiece paintings such as the Mona Lisa. if you bought Year Zero, surely i can interest you in a snapshot of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which i did not paint but i have a reproduction of.
i just cannot deal with this man and his savage posturing, rich-boy depression, and bullshit sobriety because he's obviously huffing dust-off while smoking crack on E if he's releasing this shit.
Get out your tea and cuntettes ladies - the new rave in nail polish is pastels. I personally love them, check out these shades from O-P-I's new line named Garden Party.
Featuring colors with names like 'Hearts & Tarts' and 'Just Tea-sing' they promise to look just as darling as they sound. I'm all about freshness in the spring and griminess in the sack, and I trust these colors on my nails would make a great companion....at a brunch or in a gang bang. Keep it tight ladies!!!
I'm not a sore loser, just a little shocked at which of these designs actually won this competition. Coincidentally all of them are from Whistler...hmmmmm.
http://www.whistler2007.com/2007/masterpiece/
The guy who drives the Orange Line train is an Engineer, housewives are now calling themselves Domestic Engineers, trash men are Sanitation Engineers.
When does the gratuitous use of the word Engineer stop? I went to school for 4 years (UMass Amherst represent!), and had to pass an 8-hour, hard, tedious exam that summarized what I learned in the 4 years, just to get the title Engineer-In-Training. How can the US have such little respect for engineers (thanks Dilbert), and throw around the word Engineer like it is a cheap hooker when other countries highly regard engineers?
Rajeev Bajaj an Electrical Engineer noticed this too when he came to the US from India. That’s why he decided to make raps to show how cool engineering can be. Here’s the rap video, enjoy the coolness that is real engineering.
so the hottest news since the fall of the iron curtain is that Russia is planning to build an underwater tunnel to Alaska so they can be united in wedded bliss. architects are all creaming over this and think it is awesome, and i guess i do too.
above is my best guess at how they will create this tunnel of love. i'm not a doctor, but i took a stab at it. hopefully this means that rather than spending tons of money on a plane ticket to Russia, i can just spend tons of money on a plane ticket to Alaska and then spend tons of money to get into the tunnel. early estimates are that it will cost $65 billion and take 20 years to build so it should only cost about $14 million per person in 2090 to get a ticket into the thing, but it's worth it just to rub it in the faces of your friends, bosses and coworkers. SCIENCE!
if there is anything to learn over the past two weeks, it's that hype can backfire like a motherfucker. the internetz was all a-buzzin' over the Bjork/Timbaland collab and most people were saying this duo would ruin the world. unfortunately, it was nothing but some spastic nonsense because the song Earth Intruders sucks so bad that i would rather chew on broken glass sprinkled with poison than listen to it. the beat isn't that fresh, bjork is doing the same shit over and over again, and i'm pretty sure half of her vocals are looped enough to drive any sane person crazy.
the other piece of shit everyone was talking about is the song Umbrella with Jay-Z and Rhianna. i wasn't expecting mozart but i was at least expecting something worth dancing to. this song sounds more phoned in than Miss Cleo's accent. Rhianna throws in some half-assed jamacian moans and calls it a day, while Jay-Z does the same thing he's always done which is rap about bitches, hoes, cars and love. why didn't someone stop this???
i don't get it. two hot collaborations, zero hot songs. at this rate, i could do a better job "collaborating" with an alley cat and an empty garbage can. i HATE YOU, MUSIC!
(thnx to dirty harry & said the gramophone)
while most of the emo and hipster kids in the universe were rocking out to the following songs, i was busy saying how much i hated emo and hipster kids. then, all of a sudden, i found myself with the following songs on repeat. tell me they aren't catchy and i'll know you are lying.
arctic monkeys - 505
bright eyes - make a plan to love me
bloc party - i still remember
F-you “The Notebook.” F-you! I finally got around to watching you (thanks little sis for the Christmas present) and you made my cold heart a little warmer. Darn you and your perfect paring of Rachel McAdams/Ryan Gosling and cute old people in love. You know how much I love old people! Not only are they adorable, insightful, fun boozers, but 9 out of 10 grandparents agree: I am absolutely delightful. Now I need to hope that there are tissues on sale at CVS, so that I can have a full box for when I watch you again this weekend. Yes you, “The Notebook.”
years ago, the real world was considered all hardcore and dope. however, BET has finally stepped up to the plate with College Hill, which puts some folks from the Virgin Islands in a house with some Cali natives. i caught an episode of this at about 4 AM, bombed, and could not believe what i was seeing. this fight between two of the girls in the house is enough to scare the crap out of you. it's mature content and also not very uplifting. but for some reason this clip horrified me and i couldn't take my eyes off of it. this is what happens when people stop being polite and start being real.
so it's been a few days since bitchparade has been, well, bitching. i've been mad swamped with work stuffs, so this is how it goes down every once in awhile.
here is a list of things i'm obsessed with right this very minute:
sunglasses
warm weather
upcoming girl talk
getting a damn job
hollering
arctic monkeys
stealing shaving cream
yeah, i know it's kind of boring but i'm hungover from a long weekend and wayyyyy too many interviews.
XOXOOXOX
A quick note, the double feature Planet Terror and Death Proof is a must see, but U.K.'s Ms. Amy Winehouse is a must everything. You must listen, you must learn, we must all recognize that someone our age knows what they're doing when it comes to the throwback. In her songs, Ms. W addresses rehab, ex boyfriends, booze and tenderness with grit and velvet. She can sit right next to Ella Fitzgerald, Cilla Black, and each and every Supreme and blend right in. I highly recommend her music and I also applaud her Nicole Ritchie transformation....
I’m just going to come out and say it. I hate the Orange Line. I like the Blue Line, the Red Line rocks, and the Green Line is okay when I am going to Copley, but I hate the Orange Line. It is the only train where people are annoying enough to crowd around the doors, not move to the middle and insist on standing when there are open seats. Like this morning, there were people crammed into the train only near the door, with 3 open seats 2 feet away from them. If I hadn’t asked someone to let me out of the door clump, I would have been close enough to the three ladies around me to make it illegal in five states. Why did no one else think of moving in? When I used to ride the Red Line everyday, people would claw each others eyes out for the opportunity to sit. Somehow that seems more civilized.
this was up for awhile yesterday and then it was taken down. please get this while it is hot and let me tell you it is SO hot. this is a public access show from atlanta and it's solid gold.
i've said it before and i'll say it again: get over the penis power and take back the vagina power. shit, make him hit the walls and work the middle. and don't you dare let him take you to Long John Silver for shrimp.
i've got a serious addiction to Half.com right now. it's gotten to the point where there is at least one book in my mailbox every day. yesterday, Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Pearlman showed up and i'm in love. this opening quote sealed the deal:
I'm trying to get my thoughts straight, but I'm all flustered. I got people coming at me from all directions, they are shoving free newspapers at me, into my hands, down my shirt, in my back pocket and its only fucking 7:15 in the morning!
My thoughts on the Metro vs. BostonNow war, breaking out at a T stop near you.
So, I encountered him again at work: High-Five guy. I can't quite pin point the date when the high-five became too dorky for me to do other than at sports games, but I think it was when I could count my age on two hands. It's funny, I didn't realize that I was high-fiving him everytime we met, until it was too late. Now it's like when you forget someone's name, but you've known them too long to ask them what their name is (sorry dude in college, you know who you are, because you called me out on it once, and I ran away). Now, when I see high-five guy, I cringe while I have to high-five him, then I try real hard to get out of his vicinity as fast as I can, because I know he's going to try to high-five me again. Maybe if I carry a foam finger around at work it will make the high-five acceptable.
right now, the objects of my musical affection happen to be three brothers from the UK named The Fratellis.
to me, The Fratellis sound like getting drunk in a pub and waking up hungover the next morning. they swap between sounding like the Beatles and a bunch of angry men with accents. every now and then, some kind of insane driving guitar will pick it up and give a hint of punk rock. perfect for optimistic days of walking through the city with a spring in your step or blasting while you're chugging cheap booze with your friends at a party. they are playing some dates around the US, and are slated to hit up Lolla.
hot tracks: cuntry boys & city girls, everybody knows you cried last night, ol' black and blue eyes, little baby fratelli
I have entered yet another design contest. Grand prize is $1000. I personally like "Circus" better but I'm markin out anyway, check out the 3rd to last.
Theres some pretty decent competition. I hope I win just so I can blow it all on booze!
my two favorite things in this world, as a straight woman, are books and strippers. well, they are the things i spent the most money on in the past two weeks so roll with it. every now and then, i'm going to write about a book i'm reading and you're all either going to pretend to be very, very interested or write me off as a troubled drunk hooker. either way, let's begin.
the real star the book buffet this month was Chad Kultgen who wrote The Average American Male, one of the most demeaning, sexist, sexy and honest books i've read in a long time. you get to follow one man's penis from relationship to fantasy to relationship to almost-marriage and beyond. it is a fascinating trip through genitalia-land. kultgen has mastered the art of telling the truth in such a disgusting, repulsive way that it is actually compelling. finding out how often men think about knocking boots was a real eye-opener. i mean i thought it was a lot, but i'd never have guessed it was as much as this.
was it offensive? sure. did it turn me on? of course. was it true? i would bet my ass. and no amount of whining from you sissy jordan-catalano-types will convince me that this book isn't the exact portrait of a man in a relationship and out of one. so too bad for you, i know what you all think about pussy and i have one.
so apparently involvement in the iraq war and, you know, those pesky iranian hostage situations rank pretty closely to a blossoming problem with the impact of cell phones on BEES in england (read the following paragraph in a british accent for an extra good time):
Some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.i don't even know what to say about the news anymore. if it's not about 31 people being shot to death, then it's about how badly we're treating the world and also how we're going to pay for it big time. call me crazy, but i'm running out of things to care about. right now the list looks like this: coffee, cigarettes, america's next top model, my own personal success as a human being, avoiding falling down a flight of stairs and knocking out all of my teeth, nail polish, puppies, ants, and then bees. so yeah, i guess after reading this, bees moved up on the list.
They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.
I was never a kid that tied double knots in my shoes, because they never usually untied themselves (that and I was too lazy to take all the time to undo a double knot). Lately, however, I have had to double knot most of my shoes. I will walk about a quarter of the way to work, and feel my shoe getting looser as my lace is untying itself. I think the shoe manufacturers are making shoelaces slipperier so that you have to buy more shoes. Think about it, if shoelaces are not slippery, you only tie them twice a day: once to put them on, and once to take them off. If they are slipperier, they come undone more and you tie them more than twice during the day. This means more shoelace use, which means more shoelace wear, and then you end up buying replacement shoelaces since the old ones are all worn out. I know I have never bought a replacement pair of laces, I usually just find new shoes. So the shoe companies are pushing us to buy new shoes via the shoelaces. Where can you even buy shoelaces that actually match your shoes?
apparently all of those rumors about Rage Against the Machine and Wu-Tang Clan weren't just a bunch of jive. they will, indeed, team up to take all of your money play a show in NYC on July 28th.
tickets, of course, are $83 + your first born child. is this worth it? will you even get tickets if you have the cash? i'm not sure. my high school self says hell yes. my quasi-adult self cringes that i'd have to hear bulls on parade inevitably and also see bobby digital without big baby jesus.
---> thanks erin!
well, it looks like Lollapalooza has done it again for the first time. this is such a psychotic line-up that it almost looks like my i-pod on shuffle has come to life.
i don't even know how to comprehend this many of my favorite people in one place. i have a terrifying feeling this concert is a ploy by Al-Qaeda to kill all of the hipsters. either that or it will self-destruct ala Woodstock, which i'd also like to see. this load of amazing will run from august 3-5 so try not to get AIDS before then.
Pearl Jam, Daft Punk, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, Muse, Iggy & the Stooges, Modest Mouse, Interpol, My Morning Jacket, Satellite Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Snow Patrol, the Roots, Patti Smith, Kings of Leon, the Black Keys, Regina Spektor, Spoon, Lupe Fiasco, TV on the Radio, Pete Yorn, G. Love & Special Sauce, Paolo Nutini, Amy Winehouse, LCD Soundsystem, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Silverchair, Femi Kuti, Yo La Tengo, the Hold Steady, Jack's Mannequin, Stephen Marley, Sound Tribe Sector 9, M.I.A., Slightly Stoopid, Blonde Redhead, Sparklehorse, Sean Lennon, !!!, Blue October, Son Volt, Motion City Soundtrack, Polyphonic Spree, Peter Bjorn & John, Silversun Pickups, CSS, the Rapture, the Wailers, Roky Erickson, Tapes n Tapes, Heartless Bastards, the View, the Cribs, the Fratellis, Ghostland Observatory, Tokyo Police Club, Rhymefest, Soulive, Cold War Kids, Annuals, Fields, Electric Six, Jim Noir, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Sam Roberts Band, Black Angels, Charlie Musselwhite, Aqueduct, Juliette & the Licks, Dios, Viva Voce, David Vandervelde, Los Campesinos!, Chin Up Chin Up, Ryan Shaw, Colour Revolt, Satin Peaches, Illinois, Arckid, Mickey Avalon, The 1900s, Bang Bang Bang, Bound Stems, High Class Elite, Carey Ott, Matt Roan.
this is almost just too much, isn't it? it's like having a friend who buys a new car and the car is painted with 14K gold and has rims made out of diamonds and it runs on cristal. you're almost too overwhelmed to be jealous.
oh yeah, and it's not in a FUCKING DESERT (i'm talking to you, coachella).
while most people were hitting the roof over the re-release of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song "Sealings" for the hipster-wanna-be Spiderman soundtrack, The Music Slut rocked it this week by posting up a YYYs B-side that's been stuck in my head for the last four days. "Let Me Know" was apparently an extra track for Show Your Bones that never made the cut. but damn, it sounds like springtime. definitely summer mix worthy.
i think by now, most people know i have a huge love jones for the president of iran and kim jong il.
i know it is taboo to love these men, but there is something about the combination of insanity and power that is very attractive. the idea that one day you could be having sex with someone and he'd nuke you is appealing to me. additionally, i like that both of these crazy, sexy men have affinities for members only jackets and rambo, respectively.
i don't know how he got up into those mountains, but he looks damn good doing it.
the day of reckoning is soon upon us.
may 4th is the next girl talk extravaganza. it's also my last day of work. essentially, i will dance myself straight into unemployment. i just pray to god there isn't as much savage posturing as the crooklyn show at Studio B. even though we snuck backstage and smoked cigarettes all night, it wasn't that deluxe. plus there was that fist fight i almost got into. it was kind of like a dance off, but with fists. i mean it probably would have been in time to the music, but it wasn't going to be a dance-off, per se.
