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Wednesday , August 25, 2010
the NOGOODFORME Guide to Picking Up Girls
(Some dudes we'd like to get picked up by. L to R: Spock, John Cale, Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band)
SAY HELLO, DUH
Awhile this dude was telling about about some "pick-up artist" (or something like that) who basically taught men how to hit on women. His name is Neil something? (Neil Strauss.) Anyway, apparently one of these tricks was this thing of hitting on a girl's friend to make the girl you're actually interested in jealous. Or something like that. It doesn't matter what the particulars are, because this is the stuff that makes the invention of the slang term "douchebag" a total necessity. Dudes, if you are reading this, PLEASE don't listen to this vagina repellent. It might work on femmebots who clog up the Meatpacking District on a Friday night, and hey, if that's your type, THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU READING NOGOODFORME? But if you're into a cool, smart, hot girl (who sees through this shit in a second), then a basic "Hi" followed by a genuinely interested question about the book we're reading/magazine we're carrying/notebook we're scribbling in/whatever often works. Sounds simple, but it does work. (Kat)
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Tags: babe conventions, books, chatterbox cockblockers, chatterboxing, coolness resumes, crackers, dudes are so hot, good manners, Halloween, holding your liquor, listening, Peter Wolf, pickup lines, Reputa the Beauta, skaters are hot, smoking
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by Liz in nogoodforme IX
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Tuesday , May 4, 2010
nogoodforme's Ultimate Workout Jamz!
I don't listen to anything remotely cool or hip when I work out. I'm always amazed when people tell me they were listening to shit like Caribou or Titus Andronicus (or whatever else is Regulation Indie) while running on the treadmill. It's like I'm listening to aliens speak or watching Tolkien elves play the harp, or something like that. I look at them wondrously and think to myself: Who are these crazy people? I'm frankly amazed at their hipster commitment! Me, I figure if I'm putting my body through the physical effort of working out, I can give into my cheesiest music impulses: hence, I really only like rap, metal, cheesy 80s dance-pop and reggaeton when I work out. Yeasayer are kind of an odd exception, because while the kids love them, they sound like androgynous Tears for Fears, which is just vaguely related to cheesy 80s pop. This song is really just fun to go out jogging with; I like to time it where I come out of my warm-up and into the strenuous part of my run right when the drums start crashing in. I seriously have to stop myself from shouting "WHOO HOO!!!" and pretending I'm a naked white person running through the desert like in the video. But luckily I just channel that energy into an interval sprint or something. Because it would actually kind of suck to a naked white person running in Riverside Park. (Kat)
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Tags: 2 Live Crew, Ace of Base, aerobics dreams, ballet, Cheap Trick, fancy treadmill feats, gay men, Girl Talk, hair metal vs. hipster metal, Helter Skelter, Jamie Foxx is not Ray Charles, Kanye West, McDonald's sundaes, Michael Jackson, Motley Crue, Nikki Sixx, non-worlds, nostalgia, Paul McCartney, Quiet Riot, running, Tawny Kitaen, whales, working out, Yeasayer
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Wednesday , February 10, 2010
nogoodforme ix: Beloved Odes to Female Independence
Fiona Apple, "Paper Bag"
WARNING: This song is NOT an ode to female independence. "Come and put a little love here in my void," begs Fiona. "I want him so bad oh it kills," Fiona continues, desperately. I like the part when she sigh-sings, "I thought he was a man but he was just a little boy," and you say "Oh Fi-OH-na!" in your head. You say, "It's just so hard, isn't it, Fi-OH-na?"
I'm here to tell you about a night I lived. This is the "female independence" part. Jenny left two bottles of Molson Stock Ale on my balcony and, because it is February, they stay ice-cold out there. There are so few types of beer in the world I'd even consider drinking; it all comes down to label design. I drank them. "I should download Fiona Apple's first two albums," I thought. Connect to my adolescent self. You need to do that sometimes. These songs are good. Jon Brion was so obviously the George Martin of the late 1990s. There are no downsides to having put that mirror up on my windowsill. I look at myself constantly. Give myself a wave and a wink. I thought I was done my beer but found out I wasn't, when I spilled it on myself. I wore platform sandals and a high-waisted pencil skirt and the hotter of my two red bras and watched myself sing Fiona Apple into my now-empty beer bottle. When you're cool, everything you do is cool. You can't do this kind of thing, when someone else is in the room. All women need to do this, though not necessarily with Fiona Apple. Anyone from Lilith Fair will do. Shawn Colvin, The Indigo Girls, Erykah Badu. Though not Sarah McLachlan. That's just fucking LAME. (LJ)
Salt-n-Pepa, "None Of Your Business"
Something I keep forgetting about myself is that Sandra "Pepa" Denton is my fucking hero."BE MORE LIKE PEP," I wrote, in orange pencil crayon, in my notebook. I'm trying. I'm trying really, really hard. We all need to be more like Pep. I'm iffy about Salt. She kind of creeps me out. She reminds me of a bull terrier. Also, by the time The Salt-n-Pepa Show rolled around, she'd found God and renounced her past awesomeness, so that's lame, Salt. The best thing to do is fast-forward "None Of Your Business" to 2:05, just in time for "Never mind who's the guy I took home... to BONE." And then it becomes Pep's part. Pep's beautiful, amazing, empowering, badass, cayenne pepper-soaked beautiful gorgeous miracle of a part. Maybe "SO, YO, SO-YO-HO" should be my next musician-worship-tribute tattoo. I think that Pepa and I should co-star in our own reality TV show, where Pep teaches me how to be cooler. Please forward this paragraph along to Pep, please. If you happen to know Pep. (LJ)
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Tags: BE MORE LIKE PEP, being awesome all day long, Charliebro, controlling famous musicians, cunnilingus, dance, drinking alone, dudes, Erykah Badu, Fiona Apple, Huggy Bear, Jimi Hendrix, Lilith Fair, music, Neneh Cherry, pancakes, Pebbles, preteen girls need sex-posi anthems too, Prince, Ringo, riot grrrl, romance, Salt-n-Pepa, sex, Tony Alva, vehicular sex
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Wednesday , January 20, 2010
nogoodforme ix: Our Dream Dinner Party Guests
ANITA LOOS
In the Old Hollywood/flapper era, Anita Loos was a clever, sharp, funny screenwriter, novelist, columnist and general media personality. Most famous for her novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (which is satirically, comically brillsville, by the way), she was also known for her stylishness, her cosmopolitan lifestyle and her work ethic. She also uttered one of my most favorite quotations about fashion: "I've had my best times when trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I've always loved high style in low company." She was proto-nogoodforme before nogoodforme.com was a twinkle in the bleak universe of the Internet, and I'd invite her to our dinner party as a kind of godmother to the nogoodforme troika. At our dinner party, she would dispense career advice to me, Liz and LJ, we'd talk about clothes and publishing, and she'd warn us to never ever marry a schizophrenic and let him manage our money. I need reminding sometimes, and Anita would be the good woman to do it. (Kat)
MARK E. SMITH
The most memorable dinner parties I've been to have had at least one semi-bananas element to them, whether it be narcotics, a duel or open, prolonged seduction. Mark E. Smith would bring the crazy to the nogoodforme dinner party in a big way. Judging from the scattered but brilliant wordplay of his lyrics, his cryptic interviews and his formidable extracurriculars (writing plays about Popes, acting in artworks, inexhaustably hiring and firing the Fall), he would have something interesting, if a little incomprehensible, to say. And as the night goes on and the wine flows, he would perhaps go crazy and rant and raconteur and probably go find a dowager to shout and shake his fist at. It would either be a disaster inviting Mark E. Smith to a dinner party, or a stroke of brilliance. Get the man a new business card: "Mark E. Smith, bringer of dinner party anarchy." (Kat)
VIGGO MORTENSEN
Viggo fulfills the "hot older dude who is also intelligent, modest, well-spoken and non-creepy" quotient of our nogoodforme dinner party. Here are the questions I would ask Viggo Mortensen, who I would also want to sit next to at our dinner party:
What was it like being married to Exene Cervenka?
Did you keep your sword from The Lord of the Rings?
Can you buy me a horse?
And can I see your "Fellowship" tattoo? (Kat)
JOHN LENNON
Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too obvious?
I've been pretty torn up over whether I should invite "Cartoon John Lennon" or "Wack Attack 1967 John Lennon on Acid" to my Imaginary Dinner Party, but in the end, I'm going to have to go with Wackadoodle LSD John, for obvious reasons, which are: 1) He's real, and 2) He'd "acid me out," which is like "smoking me out," only with acid. So that would be neat! We'd talk about the sky, and all the different colours it can be, and one of us would posit that the sky isn't real, and then the other one would argue that the sky is real, and then we'd compromise on the sky being time, and it would be HEAVY. "'Big Sky' by the Kinks is superior to 'Because' by the Beatles, as far as sky songs go," I would say, cheekily, to John Lennon. "Oh no you dih-in't!" John Lennon would rebut. "Bitch PLEASE!" I'd offer. And then I would have said "Bitch PLEASE" to John Lennon, and nothing could ever be bad again. (Laura Jane)
THE DUDE I STOOD IN LINE BEHIND AT THE VILLAGE MARKET THE OTHER NIGHT
Have you ever stood in line behind an attractive, well-dressed gentleman buying Orangina, nachos-ingredients, and ice-cream-sundae-ingredients (ONE OF WHICH WAS BLUEBERRIES), and thought "I could spend the rest of my life with you"? I have! Obviously*. Adding some serious non-insult to some serious semi-injury, he then proceeded to buy a pack of cigarettes! A smoker who likes nachos and ice cream sundaes? Are you kidding me? Those are, like, my three favourite foods! Upon his departure, he gave me a real whopper of a smile, which was undoubtedly meant to communicate, "Oh, girl buying three Ambrosia apples, chocolate-covered almonds, and a can of Diet Coke, I could really imagine you being the mother of my children." I caught the subtext; I'm no fool.
In the end, guess what I ended up saying to Mr. Nachos & Ice Cream Sundaes? If you guessed NOTHING, you're correct! You win NOTHING. But really, I should have ran after him, grabbed him by the tweed-coated shoulder, and breathlessly asked, "Would you like to attend the Imaginary Dinner Party I'm co-hostessing this Wednesday? You can totally bring your famous 'nachos made with pre-made Tostitos cheese sauce that is disgusting to me but I forgive you for liking it because you're cute'! Anybody who's anybody is gonna be there- John Lennon included." But I didn't. Instead, I went to the Wine Rack. And then I blogged about him. (Laura Jane)
*Though wouldn't it be weird if I hadn't? And that was just the "meeting a dude" situation of my screwy-yet-banal dreams? Well, it's not. The "meeting a dude" situation of my dreams involves a hat flying off my head, and a dog picking it up in his mouth. In a bizarre twist of fate, however, it does, involve homemade pico de gallo.
ANY, OR ALL, OF THESE WEIRD DUDES
These weird dudes are named "The Wuzzles," and I discovered them by Google Image Searching "disney animals" twenty minutes ago. Apparently these adorable freaks had their own television program in the 1980s, which Baby Laura totally missed the boat on. That's a shame, because it seems really up Baby Laura's alley. Clearly, my only opportunity to rectify this massive disservice I unknowingly performed against the Wuzzles is to invite them to my Imaginary Dinner Party. I'm ambivalent about the Wuzzles. The coolest one (the John Lennon of the Wuzzles, possibly) is Moosel, who is the moose/harp seal mash-up in front. According to Wikipedia, Moosel "has a vivid imagination, which makes him believe in monsters." I feel that. The obvious weak link of the group is Rhinokey, the doltish-looking monkey/rhino hybrid at far right. Rhinokey is a "fun-loving, happy-go-lucky prankster. He loves to play practical jokes, [but]... can be obnoxious," No fucking kidding. Ew. The rabbit/hippo one is also terrifying.
The Wuzzles would be really fun for John Lennon and I to interact with while we were "tripping." And then, in a classic Laura Jane display of "having personality traits akin to those of the girl from 'Girl' by the Beatles," I would spend the entire Imaginary Dinner Party ignoring Nachos/Ice Cream Sundaes, who'd leave early all wounded. The inability to comprehend why I would neglect him in the name of playing with a half-bumblebee/half-lion while on acid with John Lennon? DEALBREAKER. (LJ)
FAMOUS PEOPLE I HAVE (ALMOST) KNOWN
Apparently I didn't "get the memo" on how we're each supposed to invite only three guests to our imaginary dinner party. Or: I got it, but then forgot, and ended up inviting 12. Basically it's a bunch of cats I've interacted with in real life, sort of, and would now like to get to know a little better. The party will be lavishly catered by the taco truck that's always outside the Vons on Alvarado Street; the Elizabeth Barkers will flow like wine. Here's the guest list, plus a bit of our backstory:
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Tags: Barker is bad at following directions, celebrities, Charliebro, creepy gropers, Enzo, Facebook, falling in love with strangers, flaxseed oil, Fugazi Fan Club ice cream socials, Iggy Pop, John Frusciante, John Lennon, Julian Casablancas, Kiefer Sutherland, KRS-One, Laura Loves the Beatles, lemonade, LSD, Mary Timony, Mike Watt, Miranda July, nachos, Robert Downey Jr., The Hills, the sky, The Wuzzles, Twitter
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Tuesday , January 5, 2010
nogoodforme ix: Our Most Irrational Fears
PIGEONS
I am hesitant to qualify my extreme phobia of pigeons* as being "irrational". It makes perfect sense- pigeons are disgusting, dirty, stupid, creepy, filthy, gross, horrifying, weird-colored, disgusting, gross, gross, disgusting, creepy, filthy, revolting, and ugly as sin. Every single thing about pigeons is frightening to me, especially the way they puff their chests out on subway grates and all huddle together in a sickening mass of repulsive pigeon energy and make that fucking creepy fucking "coo" noise of theirs and they're so scary I hate them ew ew eweewwwww EWWWW!!!!! I'd rather break my own leg than be trapped alone in a room with a pigeon. If I was trapped alone in a room with a pigeon, I'd pass out from fear, so that's kind of cool, at least I wouldn't have to deal with the pigeon. You'll notice there is no image of a pigeon accompanying this paragraph. This is because I am too scared of pigeons to even Google Image Search pigeons. If I had to look at that many pictures of pigeons, I would throw up. Also, if there was a picture of a pigeon up on nogoodforme.com, I wouldn't be able to look at my own blog until it dropped off the front page. I guess I can see how this is a little bit irrational. (Laura Jane)
* My ornithophobia is not limited to pigeons. I'm fucking terrified of ALL birds, not counting the small wee cute ones who hop around, but pigeons are the worst of it. Turkeys, vultures, parrots, macaws, and cockatiels are also immensely scary, but they are a smaller part of my life than pigeons, so I care less. That being said, if there were as many turkeys roaming the city streets as there are pigeons, I'd be scared-er of turkeys than pigeons.
WALKING DOWN STAIRS
This is actually a mild but real phobia of mine. I hate walking down stairs. I can do it, but I have to concentrate and stop talking or whatever it is I want to do. When I was little, I imagined hands coming through the backs of each stairs, grabbing my ankles and making me fall and break my neck. And now: YOU WILL TOO, MUAHAHAHAHA... (Kat)
THE POSSIBILITY THAT "THE CREEPY ALARM" MIGHT BE REAL
ABOVE: What Google Image Search thinks the Creepy Alarm looks like, which is kind of cool of Google Image Search
Sometimes I feel like every dude I've ever had a crush on is in possession of something called a "Creepy Alarm", which rings and/or sends him automatically-generated e-mails anytime I ever do anything remotely him-relatedly creepy. It rings when you gossip about him, it rings when you Internet-gossip about him, it rings when you gossip about him to your mom. He knows. If the dude has a Tumblr or a Twitter or a band Myspace, and you refresh it twenty times in the space of five minutes, the Creepy Alarm will ding and alert him to the fact that you're behaving like a psychotic fucking stalker. "Cut this crazy bitch out of your life, like, STAT," drones the Creepy Alarm. The Creepy Alarm also works in conjunction with Facebook to tell your crush how creepily many times you creepily creeped his or her profile today; what's more, I hear that a Creepy Alarm iPhone app is in the works. (Laura Jane)
HARRY HAMLIN SUDDENLY APPEARING IN THE BACKSEAT OF MY CAR AND TRYING TO KILL ME WHEN I'M DRIVING ALONE AT NIGHT
(Harry Hamlin: Sexiest Man Alive, or cold-blooded killer?)
If you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, I'm not going to tell you, because it would be super-spoily of me and I hate spoily people. But yeah, I think about this a lot; it's a total mindfuck.
Other than that, all of my fears are entirely rational: heights, car crashes, plane crashes, roller coasters, disease, dying alone, losing the people I love, homelessness, creative failure, ghosts, earthquakes, fire, sharks, drowning, and all the other "biggies." So that's why you're only getting one blurb from me here. (Liz)
CHOKING TO DEATH ON BATH BEADS
ABOVE: Baby LJ Awaits Impending Death By Bath Bead
Remember bath beads? Opalescent magenta or turquoise orbs that soften and release fragrant oil into your bathwater. They were a big part of my life in the late 1980s, when I was four. My parents thought putting bath beads in my bathtub was a real "treat" for me. GUESS THE FUCK WHAT, MOM AND DAD? IT WASN'T.
As a child, I was convinced that bath beads could somehow work their way into my mouth, and I would swallow them, and then they would get lodged in my trachea, causing me to choke to death in the bathtub at the tender age of four. I don't know why logic didn't intervene here- this situation is a literal impossibility, unless I physically put a bath bead into my mouth, and even then, I'd still have to make the decision to swallow it. Considering I was too freaked out of bath beads to touch or even look at a bath bead- it was never gonna happen, Baby LJ. But I guess that's why children aren't adults. Because they're stupid. (Laura Jane)
WHEN A TV IS ON IN AN EMPTY ROOM
I get this directly from The Ring. Ever since seeing that movie, I really hate having a television set on when the room is empty because I'm convinced a restless evil spirit will enter through it and literally frighten me to death. (Kat)
PEOPLE MIGHT KILL THEMSELVES IF I DON'T E-MAIL THEM BACK TEN SECONDS LATER
Hi, everybody. I'm sorry that I'm not as diligent at e-correspondence as I used to be. In fact, I'm no longer diligent about e-correspondence at all. I'm slack about it, but it's not because I hate you. It's because I am no longer governed by the irrational belief that the spiritual well-being of others is wholly dependent on the speed with which I respond to their e-mails. So chillax, Gang! I promise I'll write you back one day. Though definitely not today. (Laura Jane)
EMPTY PAPER BAGS BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
I blame this on my friend J. from high school, who once told me she imagined severed heads inside empty bags by the side of the road when she saw them. Goinks! Now I imagine that too! (Kat)
QUITTING SMOKING & THEN DYING IN A PLANE CRASH EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Wouldn't it fucking suck so bad if you went through all the trouble of quitting smoking, only to die in a plane crash eight months later?
Yes. It would. It would fucking suck worse than fucking anything. This is my main motivation for never quitting smoking. It's too much of a gamble. (Laura Jane)
Tags: bath beads, childhood, death, fear, Harry Hamlin, neurosis, nogoodforme ix, paper bags, pigeons, psychosis, stairs, The Creepy Alarm
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Tuesday , December 29, 2009
Liz's Top 9 of 2009: A Words-and-Pictures Retrospective
Well, cover me with eggs and flour and bake me for forty minutes - 2009 was a big year! I can't remember all of it, but according to a quick review of my Facebook status updates from last January on, these are nine things that really sharpened my pencil over the past 12 months or so. I hope your pencil's real sharp too.
MY THINKING CAP, MY ZEBRA-STRIPED SKIRT, AND MY MAIDEN VANS
These were the three best things I bought this year, by a country mile. Stocking up on knee socks and thigh-highs was also a real smart move. I thank my fellow bloggers for their masterful influence, always and forevs.
SURFING
(Emily Richmond took this photo. That's me, brushing my hair. That's our friend Alisa, stretching her arms. This is our surf spot. Come visit!)
In 2009 I started surfing, after wanting to surf forever and forever. It's so great! I'm so proud of myself! Emily Richmond is so the best surf bro a girl could ever ask for! The funniest part was when we rented boards our first time out and then didn't tie them tight enough to the roof of Emily's Element and they fell off and we dragged them on the Pacific Coast Highway for a while, kinda ruined them and then had to buy them. The unfunniest part was when we almost died!
Anyway, here's a compilation of all my surfing-related Facebook status updates from 2009:
-is going surfing on April 19th.
-is going surfing!!!!!!!!!!!!
-now owns a surfboard
-drank half the Pacific Ocean
-has two halves of a surfboard. (which do not make a whole. mostly because they're in a trash can in santa monica.)
-five hours of ocean. now my bed feels like a wave.
-really gross/awesome/painful/gigantic black & blue on my right knee.
-i love my sandy bed.
-forgot to scrub the ocean-tar off my feet before going to sleep.
-is full of injuries
-surfing with lots of dolphins
-is never not sandy
-achieved eye contact with anthony kiedis for the second time in three years last night. that's what's called being 'on a roll.'*
-3 consecutive surf days = not enough at all
-i think ed hardy is gaslighting me.**
-perfect surf + eating lotus root
-full of surf bruises, yay!
-why is the ocean so cold????!!
-halloween surf with dolphins and fake blood!!!
* surf-related because it happened at a surf movie screening
** not actually surf-related at all, just brilliant and hilarious
PETE & PEGGY
A little while ago this dude told me Peggy from Mad Men reminds him of me, and at first I was peeved but now I get it: We are both big-eyed, dedicated, and full of secrets. On November 17 at 11:51 a.m. I typed "another thing i have in common with peggy: a willingness to do it with pete campbell," which was probably one of my 20 favorite Tweets of 2009. I already fessed up to my Pete lust a few weeks back; his creepy teenager voice and the-boy-can't-help-it smarminess really just bake my cake. And I've yet to live up to last month's pledge to Pete-esque-ly exclaim "A thing like that!" whenever wowed, but there's always 2010.
BOB & TERRY
I saw Where The Wild Things Are twice; the first time I was all "ZOMFG!!!!", the second time I was like "Hmmm..." So it doesn't totally hold up to repeat viewings, but one thing I'll never get tired of is Bob and Terry. Especially their knock-knock joke. In fact, I wish I could be told Bob and Terry's knock-knock joke a minimum of thrice daily. Why can't I be friends with more owls, I keep wondering to myself.
MY WEEKEND IN THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
One of my funnest adventures this year was the January weekend when my buddy Alissa the Sea Czar kidnapped me and drove me 400 miles up the coast of California. My second fave part of the trip was visiting the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and listening to the song from the opening credits of The Lost Boys on repeat on my iPod and taking pictures of the Lost Boys carousel while Alissa rode the Lost Boys roller coaster. My first fave part was when we drank a lotta beer and shot some really bad pool and played a bunch of Allman Brothers songs on the bar jukebox. My third fave part was how Santa Cruz has tons of places where you can get really good cookies.
EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED FROM GOSSIP GIRL
Meaning: I'm so in the dark about new music these days, and about 77 percent of the stuff I do end up hearing all comes from Gossip Girl. Like "Bad Romance," which I downloaded after Lady Gaga's appearance on the "Last Days of Disco Stick" episode and then played 47 times in one day. I also got really into "The Reeling" by Passion Pit after it was on The Hills. Other than that, the only new records I fell for this year were I'm Going Away by The Fiery Furnaces and The Empyrean by John Frusciante. I'm trying to love the new Devendra but it hasn't happened yet. Oh and We Be Xuxa by Mika Miko's real boss too, and I'm so sad that band'll be dead in just a few days time. R.I.P. MIKA MIKO!
GETTING "FAULDS" AND "BARKER" TATTOOED ON MY ARMS
I mean, I didn't really. What happened was Emily Richmond wrote "Faulds" and "Barker" on my arms with a Sharpie and then took a picture, which served as illustration for a story called "Getting Back To Where We Once Belonged," by Elizabeth Barker & Laura Jane Faulds. My part's mostly about Paul McCartney, who's the most important thing to happen to me in 2009 - so important, in fact, that I'm not going to write about him here at all, if you can pick up what I'm putting down. And it's cool if you can't - maybe just listen to this song, written and sung by Paul himself. It goes by the name "Tomorrow" and it's now my number-one "life jam."
ALL THE DEAD CELEBRITIES
All I really remember about Douglas Coupland's Generation X is the neologisms printed in the margins; in particular, "celebrity schadenfreude," which is defined as "lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths." Celebrity schadenfreude is maybe my number-one vice; it's so lame and twisted and possibly cruel, and it made 2009 a real scream, in a depressing kind of way. I took this photo in a liquor store, the day we had our summer tea party. After Michael, I'm saddest about Patrick Swayze.
THE BEST COMMENT NOGOODFORME.COM EVER RECEIVED
It was on a post I wrote about necklaces, and it goes like this:
"It all began when I discovered the sleepy fang hiding beneath my quilt. At first I didn't think much of it, but when I returned later in the day and found it still asleep, a course of action was needed. As I tried unsuccessfully to rouse it I noticed a series of teeth marks embedded along its smooth creamy body. I recognized this as the work of the white dream cat and muttered under my breath something which I won't repeat. Carefully placing the fang on a square of velvet I was interrupted by some pint-sized chattering coming from the paper house on my desk. Its inhabitants had gotten into an argument and as I listened I discovered that the now sleepy fang had been keeping them up most of the night with one of its infamous rave's. My worries at bay, I decided to skip the afternoon's lectures and curled up on the quilt with my sleepy fang."
Top that, dudes. This cat's one of the first results when you Google-image-search "sleepy fang," btdubs. WHO IS THE SLEEPY FANG?????
Tags: 2009, Alissa the Sea Czar, Barker loves the Beatles, celebrities, cookies, dead people, Douglas Coupland, Elizabeth Barker, John Frusciante, Kat Asharya, Laura Jane Faulds, Mad Men, Michael Jackson, Mika Miko, neologisms, Patrick Swayze, Paul McCartney, road trips, surfing, The Lost Boys, The Sleepy Fang, thinking caps, Vans, Where The Wild Things Are
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Monday , December 28, 2009
nogoodforme xix: Kat's Top Everything of 2009
Spiritual Scandinavia
In 2009, I discovered my inner spiritual Swedishness and finally found the perfect way to explore and integrate my troubled darkness with my cozy sweetness.
ACNE Bat Sweater
I bought this sweater for an almost unholy amount of money but have never regretted it once. Soft, beautifully designed, simple, modest, sensual, versatile.
Fever Ray
My record of the year, my favorite videos of the year, and one of my favorite live shows as well. Karin Dreijer Andersson was my favorite genius of 2009.
The xx
This had so much hype that I really, really, really wanted to dislike it, but I was powerless in the face of such spare, gorgeous sound. Rarely does such reticence and self-effacement sound so enticingly sexy.
Sunn 0))) (Live at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple)
True confession: I went to this show on a blind date. Needless to say, being pummelled by sheets of dark metal noise while standing next to a new dude is a strange, strange experience. I think my innards re-arranged themselves a few times during the night -- whether from butterflies or the super, deep, evil metal, I couldn't tell.
Moderat
They do electro so well in Berlin! I big-upped a track by them on a Heavy Rotation not too long ago...listen to them again!
Taken By Trees
This came to my ears a bit after my spiritual Scandinavia kick, but I'm glad it did. It's the perfect early-winter record -- melancholy enough to fit with the cold weather, yet buoyant enough to lift you out of the blues a bit.
Lady Gaga, "Bad Romance" and "Alejandro"
Can no one shut up about Lady Gaga? Whatever, man...I know an infectious pop hook when I hear one, and if my three-year old niece can come away singing "Bad Romance" after one listening, you know the shit WORKS. As for "Alejandro," well, musically it's as if Gaga internalized ABBA and Ace of Base in a major way. As far as how she was able to penetrate into the inner recesses of my sexual fantasies for the lyric, well, it just proves that Lady Gaga has magic powers, I suppose...
The White Ribbon
I was kind of a hater on my Livejournal and said I wasn't impressed by a lot of movies this year, but I'm a liar. The White Ribbon was one of the most masterful pieces of filmmaking I saw in 2009. It's not a romp in the park, but it's hard to deny Michael Haneke's power and artistry.
A Serious Man
I almost can't believe I'm putting this down as one of my favorite films of 2009. It totally confounded me after I first saw it, but I kept thinking about it in a way that I did with very few films this year. There are some truly indelible images in the film, not to mention the stoned bar mitzvah scene was kind of genius.
Avatar
I don't think Avatar's a great piece of cinematic art by any means, and when you think too hard about the political subtext, you have to roll your eyes because it's so ham-fisted. (Seriously, the whole "white man goes native" thing has been handled way better before.) But man, was I effin' entertained when I watched it! I saw it in IMAX 3-D and couldn't even evaluate it as a film; I felt like I was on a big, stupid, gloriously crazy carnival ride the entire time. Just for the sheer adventure of the filmgoing experience, I'm putting it on my list.
Still Walking
You know those films that make you feel the immensity of the human experience? This is one of those. Hirokazu Kore-Eda is one of my favorite filmmakers, and his work has a wisdom and discernment to it that you rarely see in the Western hemisphere.
In the Loop
My favorite comedy this year. If you love biting British humor, super-smart politics, a lot of awesome profanity and the dude who played John Malkovich's valet in Dangerous Liaisons, this is your movie. If I could swear like Peter Capaldi does in this movie, I'd have a new secret weapon. Plus, his character is kind of how I imagine Timothy Geithner would be in a really bad temper. Throw in some of that creative swearing that I adore, and voila! Movie crush!
Jen Brill & Josephine de la Baume
In 2009 I only gave my fashion attention to fashion people who were petite with real, normal-to-curvier body types like myself. I vaguely know what these two lovelies "do," but it matters little to me. I like Jen's red lipstick, her Asianness and her long hair, and Josephine has great curves and bangs and looks a bit like Julie Delpy's kid sister. That's all I really need for a fashion crush!
Stil in Berlin/sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy
Stil in Berlin is the only street fashion blog I look at these days, and sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy always gets my brain going in a good way about cities, architecture, and urban space and experiences. Plus, it's written by my brain crush, Owen Hatherley. I need more brain crushes in 2010! Tell me your brain crushes!
Georgia O'Keeffe "Abstraction" exhibition at the Whitney Museum
If all you know about O'Keeffe is a bunch of stylized flowers, this show will alter your perception of probably the most iconic female artist ever in a way that will rock your world. This is just pure beauty.
Bubble tea
My poor Twitter peeps, always subjected to my bubble tea anticipation and pleasure-revelling! Yet having some bubble tea always made my day, plus every other straw seems so wimpy now compared to those those super-thick colorful ones you get with bubble tea.
Twitter/Tumblr/soup.io
Web toys! Twitter is self-explanatory. I love posting lovely visual inspiration at my Tumblr. And my soup.io gathers every web-y type thing I do into one place.
Red lipstick and serious lingerie
I fulfilled my quest to explore my inner Dita Von Teese and wore red lipstick and bought some crazy-sexy lingerie this year. Without getting into too much detail, life was HELLA BELLA FUN TIMES TEN for it. I highly recommend.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: my strange crush on Timothy Geithner, which I still can't explain; PJ Harvey and John Parish, "Black Hearted Love"; Julia Restoin-Roitfeld; the Nitzer Ebb show at the Gramercy Theatre; the Tim Burton exhibition at MOMA; Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen; running in Riverside Park; how hot was Penelope Cruz in Broken Embraces?; reading The Economist for the news reporting; Google Reader but not Google Wave; Cass McCombs, Catacombs; White Material, directed by Claire Denis; District 9; Converge, Axe to Fall; Bodkin; Anna Sheffield for Target, saying that 'something' is the 'magic unicorn' of 'something.'
Tags: 2009 is done!!!!
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Tuesday , December 15, 2009
nogoodforme ix: Dating Dealmakers for Dudes
Coined, possibly, by our good buddy Cathy de la Cruz, a dealmaker is the polar opposite of a dealbreaker. Dig?
MODEST GENIUSNESS
This is probably the rarest Kat dealmaker, like the unicorn of Kat dealmakers: it has never happened, but I believe in magic and am convinced that I will meet such a creature one day. The hard thing is that most dude geniuses know that they are geniuses and are kind of egomaniacs about it, and God knows I hate an egomaniac because they usually just talk relentlessly about themselves. (Dealbreaker, yo!) Sometimes I want to shake a dude and yell, "There's a diff between a healthy ego and a big ego, and yours is the size of Australia, fuckbrain!" But I don't. I just smile politely and then fake illness and leave quietly into the night, depriving them of my beauty, soul and creative profanity. Figure that out, smartypants! (Kat)
(l-r: This image is what I get when I Google image-search "intellectual unicorn." I was kind of disappointed, to say the least; Jean-Paul Sartre, who was perhaps a genius but WAS NOT MODEST and in fact kind of a shit-faced assmonkey to Simone de Beauvoir. HE IS NOT AN INTELLECTUAL UNICORN FOR KAT. And not a tall European! Anti-example!)
CULINARILY ADVENTUROUS
First off, I can't deal with a dude who doesn't eat; it makes me feel horrible about myself. Which is also "an issue on my part," I realize, but it's really kind of the pits when you order a small pizza with a guy and he has one of those baby-slices and claims to be full and in your head you're all "WTFuck?" and it just ruins everything.
Anyway, men who won't try new things and/or who rule out more than three types of cuisine altogether are so annoying too - and probably a total bore in bed to boot. But boys who love to eat just win my heart, and my faves are the ones who get such a kick out of eating with you. Before I met my Best Boyfriend Ever I'd never eaten sushi (which sounds like some wacky double entendre but, umm, it's truly not) and was sort of terrified of trying it, for some reason. But he totally made a sushi-lover out of me, which involved this very careful, months-long process that began at cucumber rolls and ended with eel or something, and it was so life-changingly awesome.
Now I'm melting from happy nostalgia, and I want to eat all of this sushi boat. (Liz)
PLAYS THE SITAR/ DRINKS TEA/ IS BRITISH/ WHATEVS
(l to r: George Harrison hot-ly plays the sitar; Ray "Dream Dude" Davies hides his legendarily adorable front-teeth gap; the only thing sweeter than regular Paul McCartney is "Paul McCartney when he's hanging out with Martha"; a dude named John.)
Really, the more "like a Beatle" a dude is, the more chance a dude has of being fallen in love with by me. For instance, I'll date pretty much anyone with a British accent. If I lived in Great Britain, I'd be a problematically slutty human being. Hi! Are you a balding fat soccer thug from Manchester? Cool. Let's get married. Recently, I went out to dinner with my Dad, and there was a dude playing a sitar at the restaurant. He was nerdy, and average-looking. But did this prevent me from "falling in love" with him? Hells no! Being in any way "George Harrison-esque-" trumps "ugliness" and/or "lack of chemistry" in a heartbeat, which is why I spent all of dinner ignoring my father and making goo-goo eyes at my non-hot new sitar-playing non-boyfriend. Some other Beatles-y dealmakers: looks like a Beatle, looks kind of like a Beatle, likes the Beatles, knows "Savoy Truffle" is a song that exists, is "Early Beatles Clever", owns an Old English Sheepdog, is- or isn't- the walrus, describes things as being "grotty", has unspeakably thin legs, experiments with tape-loops, dated a Japanese girl once, drops tons of acid, has the same first name as a Beatle, has the same last name as a Beatle, has the same zodiac sign as a Beatle, drives a Zephyr Zodiac, wears many rings, has visited India, is a musical genius, etc.
The same rule applies to Ray Davies of the Kinks. I'd date a serial killer, if he had a cute front-teeth gap in check. (Laura Jane)
USES CREATIVE PROFANITY AND EXPLETIVES
If there is one thing I heartily enjoy in life in a visceral, heart-warming way, it's the clever and hearty bellow of the expletive "FUCK!!!!!" I know some people think swearing is uncouth and un-klassy, but you know, those people are either Sarah Jessica Parker or have church ladies as their spirit animals, and I don't want to know any of them. I don't like swearing when it's used in an abusive or anger-type concept, but I like swearing with gusto, like when a dude swears in a way reminiscent of when little kids first learn bad words and say stuff like "dick breath" or "assmonkey" or "shitburger." It's gleeful and funny and oddly endearing. By the way, this is a ladyfriend dealmaker as well. Many of my lovely ladyfriends are world-class, sailor-grade swearers, and I value this trait in them immensely. (Kat)
FACIALLY RESEMBLES ME SOMEWHAT
(l to r: Keith Moon; Paul McCartney; Syd Barrett; Ad-Rock: the pick of the "Could Be My Brother" crop.)
And not just because I think doe-eyed Gallic-Semitic megababes with vampiric eyebrows and glowing olive skin are hot. Though that, a bit, too. But mostly it's cuz I'm hilarious, and my preferred brand of hilarity is the sort that inspires people to make "tsk" noises, and then say "You're terrible, Laura Jane!", like when I Twittered "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL McCARTNEY!!!!!!!" on John Lennon's Death Day, and my Mother reprimanded me. I've covered this Ultimate Dealmaker on the blog before (PS: Isn't it weird to think that "which Beatles Laura Jane wants to have sex with" once counted as new information?), but never in so official a context. See- in my books, there is no gag more hysterical than: showing up somewhere (ideally, a formal and/or work-related occasion) with my hypothetical boyfriend, introducing him as my BROTHER (ideally, my fraternal twin), and then sloppily making out with him in front of strangers who think we are siblings, thus making them want to vomit all over themselves. This is the kind of joke that can never get old. This is the kind of joke that can keep a relationship alive long past its expiration date. What's more, any dude who could get on board with "participating in momentarily-humiliating incest pranks" is clearly the kinda dude who should be dating Laura Jane. (Laura Jane)
TALL EUROPEANS OR HOT MEXICAN (FORMER) SKATEBOARDERS
These are the type of dudes that I generally go for. I don't know why; it just happens. (Kat)
(These are the dudes from Wassup Rockers. They'll grow up and I'll probably date one of them one day.)
PASSIONATE ABOUT BASKETBALL
It's really hot to watch a dude watch basketball. Or baseball. Or even football. It's this completely wholesome, wide-eyed display of virility, and it gets me every time. SWOON. (Liz)
SEXY EARTH SIGNS
(My potential future husbands, according to HOTTAUREANS.TUMBLR.COM: Iggy Pop, Vincent Kartheiser, Ghostface Killah)
Something fascinating about 2009 is that every lad lucky enough to win my affections was/is an earth sign. I'd like to think that's an indication of great progress being made on my Odyssey-esque journey toward The Taurus Of My Dreams, the dude-to-end-all-dudes I prophesied as el amor de mi vida sometime in the spring of 2003. I'm a goat girl and I need a lifemate who's 1,000 percent down with my obsessively self-disciplined Capricornian ways, not someone who's gonna give me guff and paint me as some uptight stick-in-the-mud - like, for instance, WATER SIGNS. Water-sign dudes make me so bonkers. And I've fallen in love with all the air signs and they had their moments but in the end it's all just broken hearts. Fire signs are predictably fiery, and usually wicked fun, but that seems to be the extent of it. (Although I've never dated an Aries and am masochistically curious as to what sort of knock-down, drag-out wars of words we might inevitably, incessantly get ourselves into.)
So yeah, I want a Taurus, a sexily stubborn, bull-headed Taurus. The second sentence of the Astro.com Taurus profile reads: "He is deliberate and relaxed and enjoys his food" - which sounds just aces to me! And the other day LJ found this rad series of Tumblr pages devoted to babes of ever star sign, and HOTTAUREANS.TUMBLR.COM revealed that my creepy crush Pete Campbell/Vincent Kartheiser is a bull, and now I just adore him all the more.
Also, speaking of Pete Campbell/Vincent Kartheiser: that unnervingly youthful voice is so another dealmaker of mine. So maybe I'm the creepy one here, after all. (Liz)
I LIKE 'EM DIRTY
And I'm not talking about dandruff and body odor, if you know what I mean. Probably, you know what I mean. I mean that the missionary position's for pussies. If you know what I mean. (LJ)
Tags: Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, basketball, Capricorns, dirty sex, earth signs, incest, Keith Moon, Laura loves the Beatles, Mad Men, Paul McCartney, Pete Campbell, Ray Davies, Ray Davies' front-teeth gap, sitars, skaters are hot, sushi, Syd Barrett, Zephyr Zodiacs
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Tuesday , December 8, 2009
nogoodforme ix: Dating Dealbreakers for Dudes
IT IS ENTIRELY WITHIN YOUR RIGHTS TO JUDGE MEN BASED ON THEIR ASTROLOGICAL POSITIONING
Aries- dudes are the most fucking frustrating little mice-babies on the planet. That being said, Aries-dudes are great to have around for "booty call" purposes. I could never date a Taurus, because Tauruses don't have emotional breakdowns, or even understand what emotional breakdowns are. What's that about??? I already dated a Gemini, for three high-stress years of my life. Sometimes- often- he would turn into his Creepy Gemini Other, and I'd cry. I'll probably date a Gemini again, because Geminis are attracted to Laura Jane Faulds like fleas to filth or white on rice. I'd definitely date another Cancer, because Cancers are the only people who truly understand me. However, it probably wouldn't be a very good relationship. It would be "emotionally exhausting," is what it would be.
Leos are stellar in the sack, so let us all bear that in mind, about Leos. I used to hate Virgos, but after finding out that I'm a Virgo moon, I am warming up to the idea of Virgos. I'd take a serious relationship with a Virgo over a serious relationship with a Leo, an Aries, a Taurus, or an Aquarius. So that's pretty good! You're movin' on up, Virgos. Libras are the astro-dudes I tend to date the most, cuz they are complex and ebulliant, like John Lennon. In the future, I hope to date Libras less, because they are insane egomaniacs, like John Lennon.
I wouldn't really recommend dating Scorpios, unless you are in a highly self-destructive phase of your life. Scorpios are assholes. I think that Scorpios & Leos should only date each other, and then leave the rest of us alone. My new goal in life is to seriously date a Sagittarius, because they are fun and chiill and happy and sane. So if you happen to know a handsome Sagittarian Beatlemaniac, please send this dude my way. Everybody knows Laura Jane loves a good Capricorn. Capricorn dudes= the Elizabeth Barkers of Dudes. PS: Syd Barrett was a Capricorn! Aquarians are wacky flakes who think they get it but don't. I'd rather marry an Aries than spend one week of my life shacked up with an Aquarius. Pisceans are the greatest sign of the entire Zodiac, and I love them best of all. I will never get married, unless he's a Pisces.
I highly urge everyone in the world to compose their own set of Astro-Dating Precepts. It will spare you a great deal of misery and dude-dramz. (LJ)
BEING A BAD TIPPER
I used to think I could never date someone with atrocious grammar, but then I dated a whole slew of Europeans who were quite creative in their solutions in dealing with nonsensical English grammar rules. I also used to think I could never date anyone with anything but superlative taste in music, but then I dated a few guys who weren't music nerds and they ended up being better boyfriends than the ones who were -- most likely because they were not obsessed with not making me watch portions of the Circle Saturnus Reality DVD three times in a row. Now dealbreakers for me are more about being a kind, decent human being, being relatively well-adjusted, having an adventurous intellect and a passion for something in life -- none of which are fun to expound upon in a nogoodformeix. But one thing I can't go back on -- I cannot deal with dudes who are lousy, chintzy tippers. You don't know how many times I've been on a date and been appalled at how cheap-ass some people can be. I have no problems with a cheap date because I know what it's like to be broke, and I'm not a fucking princess that needs to be wined and dined and pampered like some MTV reality tv assholette. But if you get genuinely bad service on a meal, talk to a manager, you know? Leave a minimum of 15% if you live in a big city, 20% if you're really awesome. I have a theory that bad tippers are really lousy in bed, because if they're stingy at the table, they'll be stingy between the sheets. Unfortunately, I've never gotten past the bad tip to really test out that assumption because that's how unsexy being Scrooge-y is. (Kat)
NOT GIVING A DAMN ABOUT THE CLASH
One of my BFFs says her number-one dealbreaker is Not Appreciating The Simpsons - which I get, but I'm not passionate enough about The Simpsons to slide that one into my top three. I suppose Not Giving A Damn About The Clash is my version of the Simpsons dealbreaker, and it's something I strongly urge all boy-lovin' ladies to abide by (that is, if you're a girl who typically couples up with rock-loving dudes and not, like, a serial dater of opera aficionados or jazz-fusion enthusiasts or whatevs). The Clash doesn't have to be his favorite band, or even in his top 37 favorite bands, but he must be possessed of a real-serious and unshakable reverence for the almighty Joe Strummer. Otherwise there's just something missing there - like, you know, his soul. (Liz)
P.S. Probably they should change that epithet to "The Clash: The Only Band That Matters (When You're Dating Liz Barker)."
NOT KNOWING "SAVOY TRUFFLE" IS A SONG THAT EXISTS
Once, I was talking to a dude who was an idiot. His job was "rock band manager." Being drunk at the time, I forget what spurred all this on, but our conversation ended up at a place where it was contextually appropriate for me to say "WHAT ABOUT THE BEATLES, DUDE???" Said said losery douchebag :"The Beatles had three managers over the course of their career." I said "No they didn't," because they didn't. The dude got all touchy in the way that lame dudes will get when they feel threatened by a woman who knows more about the Beatles than they do. "Yes they did!" insisted the dude, "From 1967 on, Lennon even had his own individual manager." "That's not true!" I hollered drunkly. "Yes it is!" hollered the dumbass drunkly back. "Tell me one of those managers' names," I sassed. "I don't remember any of them right now," said the jerkbox with his tail between his legs.
In conclusion: if you don't know that "Brian Epstein" was a person who existed, you are not allowed to talk to me about the Beatles.
In further conclusion: A lot of people think they like the Beatles, but actually don't. The failsafe gauge for detecting whether or not a person is a real Beatles fan, or just owns an ugly Beatles t-shirt and saw the movie Across the Universe, is whether or not they have heard of a song called "Savoy Truffle," and have an opinion about it. I don't date dudes who don't have "Savoy Truffle" opinions. Oh, what the heck-
The Beatles, "Savoy Truffle"-
PS: If people were Beatles songs, I'd be really into dating a dude who was "Savoy Truffle." (LJ)
TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF NON-STOP
I live and date in New York City, where people are always talking about themselves. It's kind of obnoxious, but at the same time, if someone's genuinely, passionately into what they're doing with their life, I think it's the most beautiful, inspiring thing in the world -- and that's why I love living here. That's what the electricity and energy of New York is about for me. But there's a huge diff between talking about your passion and talking about yourself. I've been on dates that have almost been like performance art in their degree of monomania, where the dude is sitting there, expounding and extrapolating and telling me how awesome his band/book/documentary/whatever is and what he thinks about this and that and the only reason he asks you questions is so he can tell you his opinion about his answers, blah blah blah, please someone hand me a gun and shoot my brains into a million different pieces? Sweet Jesus! I can't believe people like this exist on the planet! Send them off to Pluto and hope they never breed! (Kat)
BEING A CRIMINAL, MAYBE
(Mega-datable criminal John Bender.)
If I were a comedian whose schtick was based on the trials and tribs of being a hip single girl in the city (The Carrie Bradshaw of Stand-Up Comedy, if you will, or maybe just Janeane Garofalo in the early '90s), I'd totally have some lame joke about how I always make a first- or second-date point of asking dudes if they've ever been to jail, and they often say yes, and I usually keep dating them anyway. But seriously! It's actually a damn good conversation stimulator, albeit one that should probably come at least 12 questions after basic getting-to-know-ya stuff like "Where'd you grow up?" and "Do you have any brothers and sisters?" And keep in mind that having been behind bars doesn't necessarily mean he's some scary degenerate thug - a couple of my friends got arrested once for sitting on a rock in a park after dark, and they're pretty morally solid people. I guess the important thing is to gauge your comfort level with whatever's on the guy's rap sheet, and then go from there. Like, maybe you're not down with dating anyone who's done time at all. Or maybe your whole dating mission is to find your way to some dashing outlaw who'll be the Clyde Barrow to your Bonnie Parker. Although if he's already been locked up, then maybe that means he's bad at being a criminal - and that's something to mull over too. (Liz)
BEING A REPUBLICAN
Sorry, can't do it. There are a lot of charming, kind, intelligent Republicans out there (I went to a college full of them) but I just can't bring myself to make out with them. I'm sure they feel the same way about Democrats, Greens, etc., so there's no love lost there. (Kat)
(Some dudes Kat would totally never date. L to R: 50 Cent, Alice Cooper, Dennis Hopper, Vincent Gallo.)
HATING CERTAIN THINGS, OR EVEN JUST DISLIKING THEM
Sometimes hating stuff is so cool! But sometimes it's so troubling. For examps, I break out in hives a little whenever anyone (dude or dame) speaks the words "I don't like rap." (First of all, it's "hip-hop" - "rap" is a verb, not a genre. Second, if you've got no love for Wu-Tang or Biggie or Jay-Z or even nerd-appealing stuff like De La Soul or A Tribe Called Quest, then I kinda feel like maybe you're boring and bad at life - which might be unfair, but "unfair" is so the name of the game when it comes to dating.) I also get skeeved out when boys speak the words "I don't like sports" - but I know some girls are totally into that sports-hating thing, because it means the dude's sensitive or something (ewww).
Most important, of all the things I've said here: DON'T EVER PAIR UP WITH A GUY WHO HATES HIMSELF. It's the sort of thing you can usually suss out within a cocktail or two, and it's really really sad, but it's for him to work out and not for you to try to fix. Because the thing about a boy who hates himself is he'll invariably end up hating you too, in some way - and even if you're intellectually cognizant of the fact that it's not your fault, it'll still leave you feeling spiritually icky. And no lady needs that spiritual ickiness. It takes such an irritatingly long time to scrub off. (Liz)
IF U CAN'T DANCE, U CAN'T DO NOTHING FOR ME BABY
Considering what an aggressively non-traditional person I am in nearly every arena of my life, it may come as a surprise how much I care about old-timey chivalry. For one thing: A GENTLEMAN SHOULD ALWAYS WALK ON A LADY'S EXTERIOR. Secondly, I'm really into getting drunk for free. And why should a lady ever have to open a door? It is performing sweet little gestures like these that will ultimately get you laid, Dudes. Speaking of getting laid: if a dude can't dance, he probably can't "dance", either. Dudes who don't dance are self-loathing buzzkills, and I don't want to have anything to do with them. I'm not even saying they have to be good dancers. Probably we should just hop around to the Kinks in my bedroom. If you can't get on board with that: go do your physics homework, dweeb. (Laura Jane)
Tags: Alice Cooper, astrology, Bonnie and Clyde, Brian Epstein, Carrie Bradshaw, chivalry, dancing, dating, dealbreakers, dudes, jail, Laura loves the Beatles, Laura loves the Kinks, republicans, Savoy Truffle, The Clash, The Simpsons, Vincent Gallo
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Wednesday , November 11, 2009
nogoodforme ix: Favorite Cookies!
LAURA JANE CONTEMPLATES THE RELATIVE BANALITY OF OREOS
I try to do most of my eating at places where you can buy a certain number of things and then they give you a free one. It's so validating when they hole-punch the little picture of the cup of coffee into your coffee card. It permits you to exclaim-think, "I'm a financially responsible super-saver!" And then, you get to live that magical day when you wake up smiling and remember: today is the day I get "my free one"! On the day I got my free slice of cake at Future Bakery, I impulsively ordered Oreo cheesecake, because it made logical sense to me that I should go to town ("Decadence Town") with my free one. Bad call, Laura Jane. The first thing that sucked about "my free one" was that the dude cut me the most bullshit slice of cake I've ever seen in my life. Miserly. The second thing that sucked about "my free one" was that it sucked. Except for the Oreo on top! It had been aeons since I'd last eaten an Oreo- what a mistake! Oreos are simply delicious. There are few things in this world more revolting to me than drinking a straight glass of milk, unless there are Oreos involved. This must mean something huge about the deliciousness of Oreos. What's more- Oreos are in crosswords a lot! (Laura Jane)
GIRL SCOUT THIN MINTS
I forget whose idea it was to do cookies for this edition of nogoodformeix, but at first I was like, "Huh?" Because I'm not a baked goods kind of girl, except for brownies, and my favorite sweets are either lemon drops, Sour Patch Kids or anything gooey, creamy and/or cold. But give me a box of Thin Mints and it takes me right back to my own Girl Scout days. I miss Girl Scouts! I get all corny when I remember going to camp, sewing on my badges, saying the Girl Scout promise and law, getting my uniform....awwwwwwwww. I'm like a puddle of mush right now, but luckily it's Girl Scout cookie season in about a month for me soon. I plan to order as many boxes that can fit into my freezer and eat them in about a week. (Kat)
URBAN HERBIVORE CHOCOLATE CHIPS (BECAUSE THE WORD "CHUNKS" IS GROSS)
If you are interested in stalking me, a good locale to stake out would be Urban Herbivore, the greatest restaurant on the planet. I don't go to Urban Herbivore every day, but I do go there most days, and the days I don't are definitely haunted by its absence. I treat Urban Herbivore like it's my own home; I go there with wet hair constantly. Here are some notes on Urban Herbivore cookies I scribbled down while wildly stoned last night: "The barbecue tofu tastes like Zoodles. But the cookies. Dude. The COOKIES! Literally best cookies ever? Hearty. Banana bread-esque! The way the chocolate melts. These bad boys were like born to be dipped in coffee. Write write-up as if stoned?" (Laura Jane)
THE RASPBERRY ROSE MACARONS I ATE THE DAY I WENT TO SEE MARIE ANTOINETTE
"Oh will she shut up about the goddamn raspberry rose macarons already?!!!" you all cry in unison. Okay, yeah, sure, but first let me say for the last time ever that going to Boule and buying a little blue box of raspberry rose macarons and then taking them to the theater to see Marie Antoinette was one of the three smartest things I've ever done. A few other "smart cookie" moments of mine from recent years: the afternoon last summer when I skipped work and took my buddy from outta town to Venice for I Love You, Man fish tacos and we got a plate of warm sugar-dusted chocolate chip cookies for dessert; the morning three falls ago when I'd just had the best date evs and my friend and I went to the Downbeat Cafe for a "dish session" and split one of their ginormous peanut butter cookies; anything involving Uncle Eddie's Vegan Cookies, especially the oatmeal raisin; the time I went to the rollerderby for a bachelorette party and got a Nutty Bavarian Love Biscuit from the Freshly Baked stand and then gave lots of people Freshly Baked cookies for Christmas. And I think that's it. (Liz)
MY MOM'S CHOCOLATE PUDDING COOKIES
My mom used to make these cookies called Chocolate Pudding Cookies; they had chocolate pudding in them, or maybe just chocolate pudding mix. Sometimes she'd send me back to school with a whole tin and I'd share with my friends, because once in a blue moon I'm good at sharing. One night sophomore year I went down to my friend's room with the tin of Chocolate Pudding Cookies and she had a boy over, some total dreamboat who had the best bluejeans and used to do this real debonair thing of putting girls' cigarettes in their mouth for them when they asked to bum a smoke. (Trust me: it was COOL NOT SLEAZY.) So I gave a cookie to the boy and he took a bite, declared it too rich, then put the rest in the ashtray and ashed on it. It's probably the worst thing I've ever seen anybody do. (Liz)
STARBUCKS POLAR BEAR COOKIES REDUX
There is no law stating that you can't write about Starbucks polar bear cookies twice in one week. Less than one week. I am inspired by Starbucks polar bear cookies. I am inspired by Starbucks. I want to write an essay called "If The Beatles Were Starbucks," and have it be the best thing I've ever written. But anyway, yeah, Starbucks polar bear cookies are my jam. Today I was eating one, and I thought to myself, "It's going to be so terrible when winter's over and I don't get to eat Starbucks polar bear cookies anymore!" I can safely say that this was the first time I've ever thought the sentence "It's going to be so terrible when winter's over." It's going to be such a trip come November 2010 when I eat a Starbucks polar bear cookie for the first time in like ever, and feel an insane rush of nostalgia for November 2009. I triple-dog-dare every single person reading this to go eat a Starbucks polar bear cookie today. DO IT!!! (Laura Jane)
I Google-imaged "starbucks polar bear" and this was one of the results it gave me. I decided I wanted a picture of a baby polar bear on my blog more than I wanted a picture of an ugly cookie that you probably see every day at Starbucks anyway, so: YOU'RE WELCOME
KEEBLER SOFT BATCH COOKIES
This was my favorite childhood cookie. My sisters and I used to gobble them up, and my mom had to hide them from us like they were crack. 'Cause that's what they were: kid crack. During my first year of film school, i.e., the craziest shit-crazy crazy year of my life, I got nostalgic for them, ate a quarter of a package and became sad because they were just not the same as I remembered! (I went through this with Cheetos Corn Puffs as well.) I guess being the cynosure of my entire childhood is just too much weight for a humble cookie to carry. Man, life can be so depressing! (Kat)
THE KIND YOU COULD GET AT MY HIGH SCHOOL CAFETERIA
While I was in this phase of my life, I came up with the brilliant idea of staging elaborate Friendship Ceremonies with my best girlfriends- sort of like the time Carrie Bradshaw married herself so that Tatum O'Neal would buy her new shoes, only less lame. I pitched this idea to my great pal Jenny, and we decided that our Friendship Ceremony would involve smoking a ton of weed, taking public transit to our old high school, and eating "caf cookies" at our high school cafeteria. Since graduating, Jenny and I have yet to hang out with once without lamenting the inadequacy of post-caf cookies existence. Caf cookies were necessarily chocolate-chip, and cost either sixty cents or two for a dollar. But the best way to eat them was to share four with one of your babes, off a translucent paper napkin soaked through with cookie-grease. Caf cookies were amazing because they were dough. They were slightly, slightly cooked around the edges, but the middles were straight dough. When you stacked up four of them, they would mush together in the center. They were so sloppy and hard to eat, but who really cares about these things when you are stoned and sixteen and at school? I didn't. I still don't. Caf cookies= "literally best cookies ever." (Laura Jane)
THE LIFETHYME NATURAL MARKET VEGAN RASPBERRY TOOLBOOTH COOKIE LAURA SENT ME IN THE MAIL TWO SUMMERS AGO
Have you ever gotten a cookie in the mail? Not like a whole package of cookies that you ordered from somewhere, but just one big beautiful cookie sealed up in an envelope also holding the power animal pin your fellow nogoodforme-ers so adorably snagged for you on a jaunt to Sodafine? I have, I have! And it's bliss. It's weird cuz I remember exactly what the cookie tasted like but not in a way I could ever describe to you: It's just a feeling, a golden groovy feeling. What happened was I checked my mail on the way to a party, ate a bit of the Lifethyme Natural Market Vegan Raspberry Toolbooth Cookie, put the cookie in my bag, went to the party, got pretty stoned maybe, and then came home and ate more cookie and wrote this big thing about how "each of us has a 'spiritual age' that exists separately from our actual biological age" and how "once you're able to work out what your true spiritual age might be, you should be allowed to exist at that age through all eternity and infinitely possess the same intensity of awakeness/aliveness that was with you in your most awake/alive year." Which is almost the same as when Paul McCartney got stoned for the first time and decided "THERE ARE SEVEN LEVELS," maybe. Anyway, here's a another photo of Paul McCartney, this time with the Cookie Monster and some dude named Charlie whose Flickr I ganked the pic from. Sorry, Charlie! (Liz)
Tags: boys, caf cookies, Carrie Bradshaw, Cookie Monster, cookies, drugz, food, free shit rules, Friendship Ceremonies, Marie Antoinette, marijuana, moms, Oreos, Paul McCartney, polar bear cookies, polar bears, rollerderby, Starbucks, Venice Beach, Zoodles
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by Liz in nogoodforme IX
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