Cracker Lovers

END OF (view these photographs at your own risk.)

Verses

Splish splash, I was takin' a bath
Long about a Saturday night, yeah
Rub-a-dub, just relaxin' in the tub
Thinkin' everything was alright

Well, I stepped out the tub, put my feet on the floor,
I wrapped the towel around me
And I opened the door, and then
Splish, Splash! I jumped back in the bath
Well how was I to know there was a party going on

They was a-splishin' and a-splashin',
Reelin' with the feelin', moving and a-groovin,
Rockin' and a-rollin', yeah!

Bing bang, I saw the whole gang
Dancing on my living room rug, yeah!
Flip flop, they was doing the bop
All the teens had the dancin bug

There was lollipop with-a Peggy Sue
Good Golly, Miss Molly was-a even there, too!
A-well-a, Splish Splash, I forgot about the bath
I went and put my dancin shoes on, yeah...

I was a rollin' and a strollin', reelin' with the feelin',
Movin and a groovin', splishin' and a splashin, yeah!

Yes, I was a-splishin' and a splashin'
I was a-rollin' and a-strollin'
Yeah, I was a-movin' and a-groovin'...woo!
We was a-reelin' with the feelin'..ha!
We was a-rollin' and a-strollin'
Movin with the groovin'
Splish splash, yeah!

I was a-splishin' and a splashin' one time
I was a-splishin' and a splashin'..woo-woo!
I was a-movin' and a-groovin'.....

Love in this Club

This is totes obvious, but can we talk about Max Hodges, pretty, pretty surfer TMZ correspondent? Lordy!—I can't help it—he is (one of) my love(s). Boy is dumb and looks like a lady, but he's such a stoned jock, an utter high school crush.

Love in this Club

Giant Cactus

What About Style?

Bye-Bye Birdie and my father's college ties and sweaters were my introductions to the peppy, preppy, slightly confused (but indelibly chic and pleasing) early sixties. 'Cilla B. Presley and Frank Stella followed close behind. Here, Ann Margaret (Elvis's most high profile 'other woman') learns that Conrad Birdie, raven-haired Rock n' Roll heartthrob, is coming to Sweetapple, Ohio to give her a kiss.

Tyra Show

Seven Lamps

Verses

Petrova filmed the pilot of her show in a space in Long Island City partially inhabited by a crazy (and cute) band of (how to describe?) pop-hippies. One of these is a pretty, spritely girl who eats nothing but nuts and wheatgrass and records dance songs; Pet and I are kind of convinced that she might be the next Madonna (with proper direction ... our direction?). Here is a bonkers and entirely earnest bit from her MySpace page (note: she wears a lot of neon and lives in a neon-paint-splattered room).

Love Girl is a character I (thought up: created) to help bring LOVE and cheer to (someone's: everyone's) day, in so many, various different ways! Let's sing, let's dance, let's laugh and LOVE! Life can be tough and you might need a hug! But NO need to fear! LOVE GIRL IS HERE! All around NYC, singing songs and being giddy. She's made art out of her Electric Heart and will sell it away on eBay Thursday (insert date) to start. A percentage will go towards her refugee fund, so someday Love Girl can fly across the ocean and love those who've been abandoned. Love is deeper than material things; it's unconditional in truth and lives everywhere, in everything. The sky, the earth, sound & touch, your eyes, your words… we are all LOVE.
All you need is love!

Fever and Wind Advisory

Last night, Joaquin Phoenix was on Letterman—

A Basterd's Work Is Never Done

[note: I thought I'd talk like a Reservoir Dog in this post for effect. Enjoy.]
It's been so fucking long since I last fucking heard about Quentin Tarantino's fucking script for a crazy fucking World War II epic/Spaghetti Western film that I had almost fucking thought he shoved it up his nose along with everything fucking else he could fucking find nearby. Apparently, it was slowly but fucking surely getting fucking done, and here, my friends, is the fucking pay-off:


I'm so fucking German, and I'm still so fucking down with fucking this... jesus fucking christ, even i get tired of typing "fucking" for this long... how did he used to do that?...

Folk Art for Wednesday

Daily Mirror

We continue to address women's issues of remark and the Grammy's. Petrova knows everything first. I have several keen memories of her relaying news to me: receiving a text in the midst of a hazy IHOP breakfast, "Lindsay Lohan arrested," or my interrupting bookmaking class to announce Anna Nicole's overdose, after receiving a text from same. Sunday night, Pet alerted me to the massive, ugly, urgent story of Chris Brown's assaulting Rihanna; the pop power couple were slated to perform together at the Awards ceremony, but at showtime, he was in jail and she in the hospital. Details have emerged slowly, but today, TMZ posted this vivid account.

When I first heard, I thought about a photograph of Rihanna that had circulated last week. She walked in Los Angeles with a friend (assistant? family?). She wore a boys oxford, tucked into a flouncy mini; it reminded me of something I wore in high school, sweet and summery. I was curious about her short hair. I was jealous of the West Coast weather. In general, I thought her to be the adorable girl-de-jour, the confident, sartorially influential hitmaker. Yet, several days after, I wasn't so surprised by the altercation. The equally adorable, momenty and talented Chris Brown had a violent childhood, a step-father who hit his mother. Supposedly, the scene of the crime was a rented Lamborghini, a symbol of speed and new money and ego, an essentially angry and entitled (and insecure) car. Maybe I always jump to this conclusion, but I figured drugs were involved. They're so young (he, 19, she, 20), and so suddenly rich and famous, the tenor of their lives utterly strange and out-of-control. Axl hit Stephanie Seymour. Ike hit Tina. Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin (pretty abusive and off-kilter). Sam Cooke didn't have a very good record. Nor did crazed, gun-lover, Elvis.

Mostly I'm pleased that Chris Brown's career and public image, having lost multiple endorsements and been banned from KissFM, could be so tarnished by this terrible abuse. I mean, it's a big deal; supposedly, as the fight escalated, he told Rihanna that he was going to kill her and strangled her until she passed out. Brown fled the scene; when the cops arrived (she had previously made a 911 call), Rihanna was still unconscious, which leads one to believe, Brown might have thought, in the moment, that he had killed her. But also, part of me is dismayed that he will be demonized, called an exception, exiled, and, all the while, folks (myself included) will continue to valorize and closely watch other celebrities. Our attentions to the famous are so total, that personal life determines how and whether an album can get made and sold. Not all information is worth having, and the aspirational collective imagination about people like Brown and Rihanna is a farce. They are imperfect people. Kids, really.

Liberia

Now, I get upset over the proclaimed, G-d-fearing virginity of today's Disney starlets (see below), but it's nothing new. I, in the midst of a book about Britney Spears (that now appears to be more of a general glance at female sexuality and pop culture in the aughts, through a Spears lens), know full well that our generation of bubblegum, Disney-born pop-sters splashily claimed virginity (falsely) at the start of their careers, only to splashily claim their sexual potency in later work. I imagine that more explicit albums and a series of drug and sex confessions are around the corner for Miley and co.; there have already been rumblings, suspect MySpace photos. Imagine making a graph, an illustration of this funny game: 1998-2003 "virginity," 2003-2007 "sexual expression," 2007-2010 "virginity," 2010-- "sexual expression." The flux is hilarious. And damning.

Disney-Virginism is bleak stuff, but I am equally dyspeptic over this, a Brooklyn bartender's "sex diary" published yesterday on New York Magazine's Daily Intel. I bet the diarist thinks that her missive reads like neo-feminist "sexual liberation." But it reads like problems! The whole damn thing is self-conscious and screwy and sad, "anime porn" and "scenesters" and "Friend one-ups me with a story of a coked-up five-hour BJ resulting in her not being able to close her mouth for two days. My regaling her with tales of a foursome doesn't beat it. Damn." Her friend sucked a dick for five hours?!—that's not funny. Just read it; you'll spot the inherent flaws pretty quickly.

I hate to think that women are so busy propelling Madonna-Whore Complexes in men and themselves. I'm not perfect, but I don't go around declaring my purity (ha) or bragging loudly about my slutness (I mean, I used to, but I'm grown now). Neither extreme is liberated; both are patriarchally-determined. I've found that, whatever came before, however lucky we were to be born after Roe v. Wade and equal opportunity and free love and greater civil liberties regardless of color, each person must choose to exercise those freedoms. We still fight the Culture Industry (and its stringent, violent gendering and aspirationalism), we do not inherit lessons, we learn them in real time, somewhat like our predecessors (with better odds).

Chinese Democracy

My Plague of last week has returned with a vengeance and brain fever; so forgive me, it's taken a long minute to address weekend news. At Sunday night's Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift (Poor Miss Swift has previously appeared in this, our shaming segment, and despite A&P's decidedly anti-Swift stance, we don't really know where she came from, MySpace or American Idol? One of thems.) and (horrors!) Miley Cyrus (another young A&P punching bag and "Chinese Democracy" alum) sang an "unprecedented" duet. This meager performance was sandwiched between a J.T. and Al Green duet (which was difficult for me, because it felt like an attempt at Timberlake making the Reverend relevant, not the other way around—and woah, Justin said in an awkward preamble that Al lived down the street from him as a tyke. Al Green lives in Millington???!!! I'm gonna need a minute.) and a Stevie Wonder and The Jonas Brothers duet (which—yeah, I get it—is the meeting of two "kid sensations," one less of a kid these days than the other, but those Jonas hoes just stress me out, in the words of PMC, "They look like they were bad-touched," and I don't buy for a damn minute that their songs are actually really good and that they're some kind of latter-day Monkees.). And, Lordy, I hope you are aware that all of these tricks (Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and the Bros. Jonas—not J.T., the Rev, or Stevie) are Evangelical Christians who go about declaring their holy virginity. And all of this just makes me feel old and angry. And to return to the point, as I boiled in anger over these dumb children (and the very fact that I was watching The Grammy's), Cyrus and Swift performed an "intimate" (gross!), acoustic rendition of Swift's song "Fifteen," as in "When you're fifteen [years old]." The gall! The yelping! The WHY ARE WE LISTENING TO/CELEBRATING THE VOICES OF HIGH SCHOOL?! I wanted to see super-preggers M.I.A. perform "Swagga' Like Us" with the boys, but I couldn't wade through anymore of this shit to get there.

Cool and Correct

News of Familia Obama's first weekend at Camp David drove me to get another peek at the place. And, it's so Eisenhower (Carter also came to mind)! The pool in winter is hued like an old prom dress. The whole looks so modest and correct.

Church

Last night, I dreamt that an old, now distant friend had died. The funeral was Roman, triumphal. Afterward, Pillow and I swam with leopards. They bit us a little, but it didn't hurt. I woke. I watched several episodes of One Tree Hill and The Sopranos. I wrote for a while.

Try as I might, I just can't be happy on Sunday. School dread, the notion that any pleasure is finite (wholly unlike Saturday or Tuesday). And try as might, I just can't shake how good I am at being blue. I give into it completely. I mix a bloody and listen to this, over and over and over. I think of no one in particular, but myself and warm weather and other clothes and calendars and cars.