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Warning: explicit language to follow.
I know, I know — we’ve heard it all before: Ticketmaster(bastard) sucks big fat donkey dick. But I feel the need to bring this matter to light again because I just finished purchasing my Modest Mouse tickets and am (as per usual) fuming over the service charges.
Today’s topic: coitus vs. fellatio. Fucking vs. blowjobs.
I’m coming (sorry) at this from a specific (heterosexual) angle; let me lay it out:
When I was in high school in the ’70s, getting sex from a girl was hard to come (sorry) by. Perhaps I just wasn’t a very good closer, or maybe I preferred the company of “good girls,” but in order to, in our lexicon, “ball a chick,” you pretty much had to date a girl for awhile, have said the L-word and perhaps even hinted that you were considering a long-term future with her.
Then the girl might let you “make love” to her — usually in pretty uptight, unimaginative ways. (Not that we complained.) Let me stress that these were the experiences of me and most of my friends — rarely, in high school, did a guy come rollin’ up with a story about how he scored with some chick he just met. It may have been different elsewhere, but I get the sense that this is a pretty fair depiction of the sexual mores of teenagers during my late adolescence.
So with enough diligence, you could get laid. Blowjobs, on the other hand, were a different matter. That was a major leap, and a young man would be very proud indeed if he was able to procure such a service (from his girlfriend, of course). By and large, the high school girls we knew and dated were of the I’m-not-putting-that-nasty-thing-in-my-mouth mindset. Blowjobs were dirty.
That script seems to have flipped. From anecdotal data I’ve picked up from some of my younger friends and colleagues, blowjobs have become a sort of social currency. No big deal. One friend of mind, who’s now 30, remembers having first dates with girls in high school whose stance was, more or less: I won’t fuck you, but I’ll give you a blowjob.
I’m a little envious, I guess. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been the beneficiary of a casual blowjob; even later in my life — after the whole blowjobs-are-nasty thing went by the boards — it was always part of the foreplay. Thinking back to the never-ending horniness of my high school days, casual blowjobs would have done the trick most of the time. That said, I’d never want to trade blowjobs for fucking. Given one or the other, I’ll take fucking almost every time.
What interests me now is more or less when this worm turned. When did high school girls get over the not-in-my-mouth attitude? I’ve heard that they work on technique — they want to give good blowjobs. (Ok, now I’m definitely envious.) When did blowjobs get easier to come (sorry) by than getting laid? The ’90s? I can’t say — although I think it’s, at least in part, fallout from the AIDS era — because I’ve been out of the game for a long time. But if anyone has any thoughts, regarding a time frame for this script flip, or any other aspect of the fucking/blowjob continuum, I’d love to head, I mean hear, it.
When will the madness end? As if $4-a-gallon gas wasn’t bad enough, now our energy bills might go up.
An Inconvenient Truth: The Opera!
Sex and the City mania hits the U.K.; men stay away in droves. Um, isn’t this a little self-defeating, guys? Do the math: Whatever you may think of Carrie, Samantha, et al, cinemas this weekend will be the ultimate hook-up.
Will Bird and Magic be suiting up? Lakers clinch spot in NBA Finals; Celtics are one game away from meeting their Left Coast rivals.
Good news everyone: You can rest easy, as I have taken one for the team and stopped global warming in its atmosphere-choking tracks. For the first time since I purchased them almost two months ago, I remembered to bring my reusable cloth grocery bags to the store. Please, hold your applause until the end.
(Photo Credit: Heidi K.)
“Can You Count, Suckas?” a Warriors-inspired original by Matt Sharp.
1. A multi-media art show, Warriors, Come Out and Play, pays tribute to Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic film, The Warriors.
2. Progressive guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew brings his sizzling licks and sonic tricks to Skipper’s Smokehouse.
3. Tampa Museum of Art kicks off National Gay Pride Month kick with Pride & Passion 2008, a fundraiser for TMA and a celebration of the GLBT community.
4. Dress up in your fashion forward best and head to The Table for its pre- and post-Sex and the City premiere parties. Read Lance Goldenberg’s review later and decide whether or not the film deserves his 2-star rating.
5. Enjoy all-you-can-eat crawfish, funkified live music and a family-friendly atmosphere at NOLA Café’s second annual Crawfish Boil to benefit Voices for Children.
Comedy legend Harvey Korman died May 29. Korman was an integral part of the talented ensemble on The Carol Burnett Show, and was often cast in Mel Brooks’ movies. Enjoy this classic scene with Korman from Blazing Saddles.
I’m so happy this morning …
The Today Show was on the TV while I was making my lunch, and I happened to see two women, editors from Cosmopolitan magazine, sit with Ann Curry and talk about “Happiness Myths.”
I quickly grabbed a legal pad to take notes. I didn’t get it all, but check out some of these tips for finding happiness that flashed on the bottom of the screen while the women were talking:
• Money and possessions don’t necessarily make you happy.
• Money problems can lead to divorce.
• Focus on all moments of your life.
• Acting upbeat doesn’t mean happiness.
• If you have a serious issue, deal with it.
• A lack of goals can cause pressure and anxiety.
• Never, never be inauthentic.
There were others but I couldn’t take notes fast enough. I went to the Today Show website, but they didn’t have anything on “Happiness Myths” so that I could read the rest of them. That doesn’t make me so happy.
But — Wow! — am I’m so happy I saw that segment.
I’m so happy this morning.
1. WMNF welcomes jazz guitarist Terrence Brewer (pictured) to its intimate live music broadcast and performance studio in Tampa; Brewer also plays at the Studio at 620 in St. Petersburg on Saturday evening.
2. During a free public forum at HCC-Dale Mabry, local media professionals and religious leaders debate the topic, “Race, Religion and Media: Are We Getting the Coverage We Deserve?”
3. “Pay What You Can” night at Venue Actors Studio, where the ensemble theatre company stages Standing on the Corner or A Day in the Life of a Paper Box by local playwright Gidget Cross.
4. Support the creative endeavors of Bay area students at Noche del Arte 2008, a fundraising gala to support the Endowment for the Arts scholarship.
5. The Florida Orchestra featuring guest violin soloist James Ehnes perform a program of Beethoven and Brahms at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
The peasants are revolting: “You said it, they stink on ice.” King Gyanendra has 15 days to abdicate throne in Nepal.
You read a news report about “baby for sale” and figure it must be from the Onion, right? Wrong.
But this report about Obama’s facial expressions is indeed from the Onion.
Finance for dummies: spending less money means you’ll have more to save.
Friendly Fisherman’s still in the lead, so if you’re a FoFF (Friend of Friendly Fisherman), get in there and seal the deal with your final votes. But if you want to see another waterfront spot get its due, now’s your chance: Voting closes at the end of the day today, May 28. Find your ballot here.
There’s an obscenity brouhaha brewing in Australia over a prominent photographer’s use of 12- and 13-year-old models for a series of nude pictures that were hanging in a Sydney gallery until police seized them last week. Authorities are considering initiating an obscenity prosecution against photographer Bill Henson.
The Australian arts community has rallied to his defense. Among others, Cate Blanchett signed an open letter that said, in part, “The work itself is not pornographic, even though it included depictions of naked human beings …”
Here’s a link to the only online image that I could find.
Some of Henson’s backers have claimed that the photos are not sexual. I’m not buying that one. The pic I viewed didn’t do anything for me, but to my eyes it’s clearly sexual.
Is it obscene? I believe in the adage that you know obscene when you see it, and in this case, I do not see obscene. I don’t think Henson, who has shot a lot of stuff other than minors in the buff, should be hauled into court. As far as whether the 20 nudes should be hanging in a Sydney art gallery, I’m not so sure about that one.
But one of my colleagues did make an interesting point: That by seizing the artworks and condemning them, Australian authorities have sensationalized these photos. In effect, they’ve turned them into kiddie porn.
Last Friday evening at Ruth Eckerd Hall, The Kids in the Hall capered their way through a 90-minute intermission-free set featuring new material, some familiar characters, minimal props, and the occasional film-style short projected onto a huge screen that also served as the set.
I had high hopes for the show and was not disappointed.
The shenanigans opened with a self-referential short film that found Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson – all the KITH members – planning out their tour and brainstorming some fresh new ideas. Of course, the best (and really only) proposal came from McKinney, who, after some persuasion, shared it with the group. “What if we rape Kevin?” Kevin McDonald is the token KITH nerd – wild curly hair, big googly eyes and a way of capturing a look of absolute fear on his face in the most comic way possible. His response: “Isn’t raping me kind of dark and obvious?”
A series of more than a dozen sketches followed. Among the highlights were a skit about a couple with a smug, superior, hateful baby ala Seinfeld (Foley: “It’s like I’m cradling all of human suffering in my arms!”); a new Thompson-as-gay-socialite-Buddy-Cole skit, where he used the Bible as the source for topics like the mounting evidence of the son of God’s gayness, which includes Mary Magdalene as the real beard of Jesus; a number about two drunks in a bar, one of them, Foley, a time machine owner who uses his device to go back in time to last call, with the machine revisited in several other skits to hilarious effect; McCulloch and McKinney’s return as shady salesmen who are pimping a fat-reducing invention called “The Gut Spigot”; a new skit with secretary gossipers Kathy and Cathy (McCulloch and Thompson) that found one of the gals on a new “diet in a pipe” otherwise known as meth; a hilarious film short where a woman goes to pick up her car at the mechanic only to find a secret sex ring of car fuckers doing their dirty deeds in the back (McKinney: “I like to flip PT cruisers over on their back – they look so helpless!!”); a cute “how we danced” skit in which all five members performed dance moves as they did through their high school years; and a skit about an unlikely superhero, “Superdrunk,” and his drink-mixing, bartender sidekick. The gang encored with “Headcrusher,” which had McKinny crushing the heads of the audience members via a hand held camera, then crushing the heads of each KITH member individually before ending the show with his own headcrushing suicide.
The gang played off each other with all their trademark comic chemistry, even busting up at themselves several times when they couldn’t hold back, and generally proving once and for all that despite several years and new careers, they’ve still got what it takes to generate belly laughs.
Caught about a half hour of the Ron Diaz and Ian Beckles Show on WDAE this morning. The topic? Yep, the Rays and their sorry-ass attendance. Only a reported 10,511 (per the Rays’ website) showed up to last night’s game against the Texas Rangers, a figure that fueled today’s conversation as Ron and Ian tried to figure out why we can’t seem to support a first-place team. Isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for? A team that no longer guarantees the Yanks and Red Sox victories when they pop up on the schedule?
Callers and hosts alike brought up the familiar reasons — we’re not a baseball town, the drive to the stadium sucks if you live in Tampa, the Trop is a terrible baseball venue.
In his Riffin’ on the Rays blog post, Eric Snider opined that there are plenty of would-be fans (like himself) out there teetering on the precipice of attending more games, but have become so used to the Rays being lousy that old habits die hard.
My ears perked up when Ron said, in the light of the Rays’ attempts to get a waterfront stadium and the embarrassingly low turnout, the team should move to Charlotte or Las Vegas, where they’ll find better fan support.
So I wonder: Are we simply not a baseball town? Sure, this area is the home of spring training for many major league teams, but a lot of those fans filling stadium seats are tourists. And those that live here and attend those games carry their old allegiances. It’s not like they’re chomping at the bit for the regular season to start so they can visit the cavernous Trop and support the lo
