Album Review: All Of The 80's Music You Hated Loving

Redux: The new Scissor Sisters album is inspired madness. I never hated/loved the 80's so much/more.

It's like listening to Sirius XM's 1st Wave channel but not recognizing the songs; it's a Prince album before he went all Jehovah's Witness. It's when gay was straight, but totally gay.

The Scissor Sisters have their first totally great album.

Happy Gay Pride 2

We're Still National Champions

Your gods demand tears for your epic fail!

Just in case you forgot, the Crimson Tide is still the National Champions.

Raven AND Nina AND Pandora Boxx AND Ongina

RuPaul's Drag U will start July 16. All my favorite bitches from the first two seasons will be competing, so watch out.



Nina Flowers should have won the first season, and Raven should have won the second. Most of the others were serious contenders from both seasons.

Drag queens taking tragic women and remaking them is, quite possibly, the most brilliant idea for a show since Top Chef. Or RuPaul's Drag Race.

Uh-oh

The US Navy is massing warships, including the nuclear carriers Eisenhower and Truman, near Iran.

This confluence of warships may only be a transfer; but given the G8's condemnation and Israel's naval positioning and alleged pre-basings, I am concerned.

Unless we (and by we, I mean NATO, Israel, and those Gulf allies who want to remain nameless) have special ops and civilian intelligence in place to do the dirty work that smart bombs can't, any preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear centrifuges could be a disaster.

Or, it all could be nothing: a show of force whose political implications will be, in my opinion, nothing but stupid. Bombastic, insincere bullying should be left with the previous administration's 2nd-term failures. And sincere, not-thought-out military actions should be left to its 1st-term debacles. We should not lend our support to such wearying, unproductive nonsense now: all military actions should be approved by Congress (per our constitution).

Either bomb them right or get away. Doing either would make Obama demonstrably better than Bush the Younger.

I Found It!

When I was in Chicago last year, I was on a bus tour with my parents (against my protestations). And I saw, 2 streets off where we were driven, a building that warmed by mind.


By accident, I happened upon what it was. It's called The Contemporaine; and it won multiple awards. It's a residential building, which makes me both happy and ill. Why are such buildings so rare?

Happy Gay Pride

Best. Camp. Scene. Ever.*




*not directed by John Waters

I [Heart] Pandora Boxx

I was a huge Raven fan for Ru Paul's Drag Race season 2 (the best contest reality show filming). But I loved Pandora Boxx a whole lot, as she was a great showgirl and comedienne.

Case in point: this inspired nugget (give it until about 1:18):



That bitch is fucking comedy genius.

Gay Fun Alert: New Scissor Sisters Album

Not for everyone...and barely for me: the (mostly) fun-as-hell gay campy-rock, retro-disco Scissor Sisters will have a new album out June 28. Their last one came out in 2006, and I enjoyed it kinda a lot but not totally. Like their first album, it had great songs peppered amongst some forgettable just-ok songs.

But it's good to see the gays taking back their rock/disco/new-wave musical birthright. And if nothing else, the Scissor Sisters do that.

From their first album:



From their second:



And, their best song ever:


_________________________________________________

From their new album:

Epic Gods Fail

Chicago experienced an amazing storm this week, and the photos prove that all the gods failed.

Sometimes, a photographer goes out in search of a good photo--and, because of unforeseen circumstances, he comes back with a great photo, one that gets displayed all over the world.

And so it was last night as Tribune photographer Chris Sweda headed to the John Hancock Center skydeck to snap a few shots of the official debut of the Trump Tower spire--and a supercharged storm broke over Chicago.

Chris got the assigned shots as the spire turned from red to blue to white (below), but he got something much more powerful: A rare shot of lightning bolts simultaneously striking the Trump Tower and the Willis Tower (above).

A safe vantage point?

What Chris Sweda didn't capture is this: lightning also struck the building he was in, the elegant John Hancock Center (my favorite skyscraper ever). And at the same time.

But someone west of Chicago caught the whole thing on video.

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

Compare this to the Epic Gods Win posted a few days ago, and I think it's safe to say that the gods are total crap.

Mitchell!

Watched MST3K's "Mitchell" with Mendez last night. Until we couldn't take any more/stay awake. "Eye of the Sammich"

Penn Gilette. I love that guy.

Penn Jillette Is Willing to Be a Guest on Adolf Hitler's Talk Show

It's not just us.

Beware Manos, the Sequel of Fate

One of the funniest, geekiest things I have ever read.

S H O R T I M A G I N E D
M O N O L O G U E S .

- - - -
I'm Comic Sans, Asshole.
BY MIKE LACHER

- - - -

Listen up. I know the shit you've been saying behind my back. You think I'm stupid. You think I'm immature. You think I'm a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I'm Comic Sans, and I'm the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

You don't like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don't like that I'm all over your sister-in-law's blog? You don't like that I'm on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I'm standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest. Maybe sometime you should take off your black turtleneck, stop compulsively adjusting your Tumblr theme, and lighten the fuck up for once.

People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

When people need to kick back, have fun, and party, I will be there, unlike your pathetic fonts. While Gotham is at the science fair, I'm banging the prom queen behind the woodshop. While Avenir is practicing the clarinet, I'm shredding Reign In Blood on my double-necked Stratocaster. While Univers is refilling his allergy prescriptions, I'm racing my tricked-out, nitrous-laden Honda Civic against Tokyo gangsters who'll kill me if I don't cross the finish line first. I am a sans serif Superman and my only kryptonite is pretentious buzzkills like you.

It doesn't even matter what you think. You know why, jagoff? Cause I'm famous. I am on every major operating system since Microsoft fucking Bob. I'm in your signs. I'm in your browsers. I'm in your instant messengers. I'm not just a font. I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery.

Enough of this bullshit. I'm gonna go get hammered with Papyrus.

The Lord has spoken

6-story Jesus statue in Ohio struck by lightning

MONROE, Ohio -- A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.