3-Word Record Review: The Twilight Sad, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters

"Mogwai, meet Interpol"

Release date: April 3, 2007
Info: Amazon, MySpace
Listen: "Cold Days From the Birdhouse"

3-Word Film Review: The Host

"Monster, Wes Anderson."

Info: IMDb

3-Word Record Review: Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

"Totally Jackson Browne."

Release date: May 15, 2007
Info: Amazon
Listen: "Hate it Here"

Seattle Weekly printed my ... err, Beth F's letter

Third letter in this week's Weekly:

I'd like show an image of the cover (it has some war dudes on it), but VVM has other ideas:

Note that after hitting the send button, I had no contact with Mr. Seely or anyone on the Weekly staff regarding Beth F's missive. Mostly, it's because I forgot which e-mail address I sent this from (to my surprise, ******@***.com isn't legit).

By the way: This marks the 653rd letter the Weekly has published from one of my 653 unverified pseudonyms. Which is funny, considering that in real life, I'm Mike Lacey.

What about the bitches, Mike?

I made the mistake of reading Seattle Weekly this afternoon. Why? The cover-story headline was "The F-Word," and its writer was Mike Seely. I thought: Ann Coulter plus this guy (on left):




Instead, the "F" in question was "frat," as in "frat boy," which Seely apparently was. And he can't beat the stigma, thanks to those hateful indie-rockers in Seattle:

Kurt Vonnegut was a frat boy. So were Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Larry David, Will Ferrell, Zach Braff, David Spade, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Ben Stein, Billy Crudup, David Schwimmer, Matthew McConaughey, Drew Carey, Jeremy Piven, Bob Woodward, P.J. O'Rourke, Dennis Miller, Brad Pitt, and Jim "Jesus" Caviezel (UW Sigma Chi, class of '90). Both Simon and Garfunkel were frat boys, as were R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and current alt-country darling Bobby Bare Jr. ...

[But] here in Seattle, the self-proclaimed capital of all things indie, the schism between creative types and supposed Greek conformists couldn't be more pronounced.

Throughout the piece, Seely nicely quotes a ton of Seattle-area fraternity brothers, fraternity alumni and indie-rocker types. Most echoed his refrain about an "indie-frat chasm and the stereotyping therein."

But in the war of words, Seely says (or at least implies), it's the indie-rockers who've ended up stereotyping:

The stigma associated with frat boys is not a one-size-fits-all-proposition, but has rather been expanded over time to signify anything that anyone might find remotely annoying about white heterosexual males.

I know, I know—poor little white boys. To that, I'll grant you that of all the oppressed groups in society, ex–frat guys should be low men on the totem pole. But like cheerleaders, gays, urban Republicans, white-collar defense lawyers, and Air Supply fans, we deserve to be out, proud, and freed from the shackles of prejudice, once and for all.

All well and good. Except all the dudes Seely chose to address this divide for the long article were ... dudes. Which was weird.

Even weirder, I wrote Seely a letter. Full disclosure: I wrote it under the guise of an acquaintance, Beth.

--- Beth F ******@***.com wrote:

> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:36:59 -0700>
From: "Beth F"
<******@***.com>>
To: <mseely@seattleweekly.com>>
Subject: What about the bitches, Mike?>

Hi Mike. Just read your "F-Word" story on the indie-vs.-frat cavern.

Where were the women in this article?

A few got groped by John Roderick (lovely!) and another hypothetical one was hypothetically hit on by a publicist.

In real life, ladyfolk do comprise a large sector of the hipster and indie-rock contingent that could be defined as creative types. And in many cases, yeah, they're anti-Greek-conformist. Just like they're anti-football. Or anti-beer. Or just decidedly pro-cat.

To me, this is what fuels the divide between creatives and Greeks. Creatives build many of their social groups around gender neutrality, usually because the music and art they flock to does as well. Greeks, meanwhile, live and usually hang out in all-dude or all-chick packs.

Now I don't mean to come off like I just finished a feminist studies lecture at Evergreen State. I graduated from the largest public university in Missouri in 1997. I look back at the bands I played at the college radio station, drove to St. Louis to see and ultimately used to help build my circle of friends -- and all either had women in their lineups (Sonic Youth, Pixies, Sleater-Kinney), came off as adorable pussies who wouldn't physically mess with us (Sebadoh, Pavement, Elliott Smith) or were fags (Magnetic Fields, REM). Girls listened to these bands. Guys listened to these bands. We had nothing else to do, so we all hung out together.

Rereading the last two paragraphs of your article, I do see that you're trying to liberate the term "frat boy" from being a blanket term for "idiot." OK.

But why use "hipsters" and "creative types" as the counterpoint and defendant of the blanket use of the term without bringing a single woman into the argument? We fucking run the hipster planet, dude. It *is* all about sex.

Cheers,
Beth F

A bad day to be a purple blob

This thing ...

... is not one of this nation's 150 favorite pieces of architecture, according to an American Institute of Architects/Harris Interactive survey, summarized in today's Wall Street Journal.

As the accompanying story points out, Las Vegas' The Bellagio Hotel and Casino did make the list (No. 22).

Also missing from the list:

As well as this:


... which also is home to the world's largest working carousel, adorned by many naked women:

---

UPDATE:

Blair Kamin, The Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic, reacts.

Will this $458 casserole dish buy me a job?

Gawker has acquired and posted a fine missive that Laurel Touby, headmaster of media-education/gossip portal thing MediaBistro, sent to 200 unsuccessful applicants for her open Laurel Touby's Assistant! position.

Here it is.

And here's Laurel:

If you're basing your presumptions on this photo alone, you're probably correct.

Meanwhile, one Gawker commenter posted the 1999 wedding registry for Ms. Touby and husband Jonathan Fine. It included:

• A $303 casserole dish
• A $458 casserole dish
• A $117 chili mill
• A $55 champagne whisk

Whoa -- considering those are pre-9/11-world prices, I guess that journalism degree could pay off, after all.

And sorry, prospective giftgivers of the late-but-advantageous variety; all of the above gift requests were filled, except for the whisk.

I don't understand the music of The Knife

But thankfully, The Knife's Silent Shout did not top Heart on a Stick's Consummate Spreadsheet Aggregation of Bloggers' Top Albums of 2006.

Dance lessons

Just thought it might be a good idea to get back to this blog's roots.

As if

Romo Defeats Truman

What I really want for Christmas

This Christmas was crap. All I got were:

• A drum set
  
• A new watch
  
• A Lexus SUV with a big red bow on it
  
• A few books
  
• Random bones
  
• An ellipsis for a heart
  
• A foot-massager
  
• Mystical powers
  
• Hot-tub sex
  
• Glaucoma
  
• And another virgin birth
  

What I really wanted was this adorable, drowsy dinosaur:

Has it really been 2 months since my last post?

No, it has not.

Next question.

You can't fire me because I quit

Horatio Sanz is off "Saturday Night Live" -- on his own accord.

Possible future career options:

• Drinking
• ?
• _

We made The Stranger

Horatiosanzserif – well, Horationsanzserif – well, Horationsanzserif’s Lover – made Last Days, a column in the Sept. 7 issue of Seattle’s The Stranger:

A more legible version:

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 The week continues with one of the more amazing Hot Tips Last Days has ever received, courtesy of Hot Tipper Horationsanzserif's Lover, who begins by explaining the lay of the land: "Near my house is an ongoing public-utilities project that often reroutes two-way traffic down a narrow side street. Around rush hour today, I noticed two cars—a newer SUV heading south and an older Oldsmobile heading north—in an apparent standoff, with neither letting the other pass. Actually, what I saw was the SUV driver—a Gordon Gecko type—shrieking every possible 'bitch'-related phrase at the driver of the Oldsmobile, a hippie guy who sat motionless in his vehicle. Soon, the SUV driver was joined in his torrent by an equally shrieky blond woman, who pulled up behind the hippie in the Olds, thus spurring the SUV guy to return to his vehicle and accelerate full-throttle into the Olds' front bumper. Here's where it gets AWESOME: The SUV driver then got out of his car to retrieve something from the back seat. A rifle? A tire iron? No—his INFANT SON, whom the man handed to the blond woman (did they know each other?) for a better view of Daddy's next act: jumping up and down on the Oldsmobile's hood, after which the man retrieved his son, backed up his SUV, and went home." Deep thanks to Hot Tipper HL for watching and writing, and congratulations to the hippie in the Olds for winning the standoff.

Grammar geeks: Note the misplaced clause beginning with “after which.” It's modifying “hood!” Snort!

YouTube for the righteously indignant voter

As thrilled as we were to see BusinessWeek's Jon Fine run out a post with the unexpectedly delicious title of "The Silent Pain of 'America's Funniest Home Videos'" a few weeks back, we were even more excited to learn that The Washington Post and friends had created a video database of this year's political-campaign ads.

The Post's package is called Mixed Messages, and it's delightfully easy to navigate.

Find it here.

Of note:

• 30 ads are labeled as "attack" messages
• 9 ads feature a soldier or military imagery
• 6 ads reference Sept. 11
• 0 ads feature farm animals

Why no campaigns based on animal-related rhetoric? Well, folks, Rick Santorum has moved on. Why can't you?