GPOY Tiara Edition
The most revolutionary part of this picture? The absence of pink. I’m not kidding here: go to any children’s wear store and look around: PINKPINKPINKPINKPINK as far as the eye can see, right up to the boy’s department, which has every colour except pink. Why? Seriously, why? Is it in fact essential that total strangers be able to tell our children’s sex from three furlongs away? Or is it, come to think of it, kinda freaky, not to mention tacky?
I think you know my answer.
420 Vancouver by gillicious
Yes, it’s a civic holiday in Vangroover (not really, but yeah) and there’s a distinct likelihood that several, if not even plenty of my readers, yes, we can see you out there, you left the webcam on and your eyeballs look like piss holes in the snow, may be somewhat affected by, shall we say, hyperlocal atmospheric conditions.
So, in the spirit of serviceyness, we present a couple of handy-dandy guides that will help you pretend not to be completely fucked up.
First up, Mowing Your Lawn on PCP:
Great! Don’t you feel productive now? But the night is still young, so don’t stop the buzz now! Grab a bottle of some refreshing liquid and follow along with Jenna Marbles as she shows you how to do makeup drunk.
And now Hannah from My Drunk Kitchen shows you How to Make Poutine, which you will want if you got baked, yourself:
She should definitely NOT have licked up the gravy that dissolved the dust from Burning Man and washed it down with a Caesar. She was only drunk before: now she’s a bad case of All Of The Above.
One thing that should not be attempted under the influence: singing in the car. If you’re the driver, you shouldn’t be messed up, and if you’re not the driver, you’re annoying the driver. Besides, no matter how awesome you think you are, you aren’t as awesome as this guy (yes, more Canadian Content; we’re just that much better at being drunk/stoned than you are):
And, no matter how awesome you think you are, even if you are sober and your audience is completely shitfaced, you will never be as good as Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers, who use their van as a recording booth while tootling around San Francisco belting out cover tunes.
You’re welcome.
Fran Lebowitz is Frantastic
We’ve already heard from the revered Fran Lebowitz on this topic, but in this short PBS video she lays it down concisely and precisely: consumers have no responsibilities, citizens have numerous and important responsibilities, democracy is unnatural, and dictatorships are natural. “People are bad.” Somehow, she does it in a way that leaves you feeling optimistic. Hey, she’s a genius, what do you expect?
Big Bird: pictured left to right, same dude
You think I’m kidding, don’t you? You’re probably feeling pretty smug about your OWN Sesame Street recaps, perhaps for good reason, but once you read this recap from Scott Lynch on Livejournal you’ll have to give it up to Scotty; this shizz is genius. Hat tip to Bourgeois Nerd for this awesome discovery.
Seriously, do you have anything like this, from a visit to the museum in which Snuffy and Bird run into a 4000 year old Egyptian ghost, a demon, and Osiris.
To which Big Bird interjects: “That’s not fair!” I am absolutely not fucking kidding. This is the part of the program where Big Bird defies a god and argues justice for the tormented soul of his little buddy … You think you know a Muppet… but it’s plain that we’ve had Big Bird figured all wrong. He’s no kindergartener. He’s a previously unknown aspect of the Eternal fucking Champion.
Take that, Elmo!
Wonder Woman kicks ass, takes names, brings home the bacon, and fries it up in a pan. And no you can't have any.
Now THIS is an avatar of feminine power we can all support. Sure, she may have taken jobs away from the odd dashing prince or fairy godmother, but now they can find new, rewarding careers as ghost writers for her autobiography, fan club presidents, or personal assistants. Win/win/win!
Besides, it’s not like those off-the-shelf Disney Princesses turned out so goddam well.
Hipster Ariel will self-harm if she doesn't get a goddam beer already
Which brings me to a slight rant, not for the first and surely not for the last time.
Have you been to the GA lately? No? Been to any populist movement of any kind recently? Even a City Council meeting? And seen? These girls? (and they’re always girls, you know?) Who really, really want to make the world, like, a better place, and, huh, oh, just want everyone to FEEL oKAY about it, okay? Okay?
“In case you hadn’t realized, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you’re talking about? Or believe strongly in what you’re, like, saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical ‘you know’s and ‘you know what I’m saying’s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? Declarative sentences, so called because they used to, you know, like, declare things to be true, as opposed to other things that are, like, totally… not?” – Taylor Mali
Yes, our movement is a tentative one. It is conditional. It is not sure it should be out so late on a school night, and it doesn’t want to run into its boss at the GA. “If there ever was a time it would be now,” says Third Eye Blind in their Occupy anthem, and that’s as conditional a statement as was ever shoehorned into a revolutionary theme. Ambivalence is the precondition of all Occupiers, but we needn’t let it paralyze us. Let’s get okay with uncertainty, with backlash.
Kids, girls, poke your heads out of your scarves for a moment, unturtle thyselves, and listen to me:
Hipster guys for whatever reason don’t seem to insist that everyone feel okay about things, so I’m leaving them out of this rant although I’m sure to rant on them sometime or other, if only for their choice of novelty facial hair. It’s the girls (and yes, only some of them but enough that it’s led me to conclude this is a problem with the hipster worldview per se and not just two or three girls who bug me) who really want to change the world, who realize that to do it you need to step up into a position of action and power and who, once there, turtle themselves into their scarves, stare at their pigeon toes and hold up the GA while everybody gets “okay” with things.
Girls, you’ve got halfway there. Once the spotlight is on you, remind yourself this isn’t a photoshoot for Tumblr. This isn’t an audition for Suicide Girls (think about that name).
This is your chance to change the world, our REAL chance to change the world, and it requires more courage than anything any of us have ever done before. It is okay to fear. There is plenty to fear. But fuck “fierce.” Become fearsome.
Hold your heads high when you facilitate a GA. Shut down the randos; empower the change artists. When you’re stacking, own your power, because the power of the GA flows through you; you are a vessel of democracy at that point. Feel it. Live and breathe it.
And then lay it on an unsuspecting world.
raincoaster 