AND NOW, LEPRECHAUN NAZIS! WITH WHIPS!

Meanwhile, as I'm not all that Irish, here’s the closest thing you’ll get to a St Patrick’s Day post from me.



[Via RetroSpace and The Groovy Age of Horror]

Carefully laid-on horror,

This is dF

IS ANYONE HERE FROM PLANET EARTH?

FACT: I have never fought in the Sex Wars.

Which is to say, I’ve never really bought into the pop-psych-culture premise that men and women are socioculturally polarized to the point of inevitable friction, and that both sides only really put up with each other because the alternatives are loneliness and/or never having sex again unless yr at least bi-curious.

The whole Men & Woman Just Don’t Get Each Other trip is the basis for almost every sitcom and romcom made since the 1950s, as well as a staple of daytime television talk shows and self-help books. And it’s a mentality I’ve never really understood. For years, I’ve been trying to think of a way to articulate this.

Thankfully, figmentj  has done it for me with this post.

The executive summary goes like this (and I'm paraphrasing here):

Yes, men and women are different. Obviously. So can we please get the fuck over it, take it as read and move on to the real mysteries of life and relationships instead of rehashing the same old stereotypical Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus ground with indignant outrage as though it’s news and the only solution is to bring the other side under control?

The only thing I can add is that none of this should be a surprise to anyone who has even the vaguest idea of our origins. I think the reason so many people have unrealistic expectations about love, sex and gender relations in the 21st Century is because we’ve basically taken millions of years of evolutionary programming and layered on one complex strata of social mores, superstition and morality on top of another. Result: we’ve taken the simplest, most natural act there is and buried it under an insanely complicated matrix of sociological procedures and traditions riddled with shame, guilt, ideology, drama, superstition and politics.

It’s what separates us from the beasts, you see.

Anyway, yes. Go read that. figmentj  is wise.

Make love not war,

This is dF

INTO THE GROOVE

Just look at these photos of the grooves of a vinyl record magnified 500-1000x under an electron microscope.





[Via BoingBoing]

Looks like the surface of an alien moon, doesn’t it?

It does to me, anyway.

Vinyl planet,

This is dF

ALPACA DON’T SURF

Until now.

"I've surfed with a dog, a parrot, a hamster and a cat, but when I was at a competition in Australia I saw people surfing with kangaroos and koalas," said Mr Pianezzi, who trains the alpaca in the Peruvian beach town of San Bartolo.

"So I thought that, as a Peruvian, it would be interesting to surf with a unique animal that represents Peru."

But of course.

Everybody’s surfing now,

This is dF

CHILDREN BY THE MILLIONS SING FOR ALEX CHILTON

So Alex Chilton is gone. Which is especially bad news for those of you who had hoped to catch Big Star at SXSW this weekend.

At first I wasn’t sure if I would post something about it, because it would mean admitting to all here that when it comes right down to it, I was never really into Big Star.

Sorry. But it’s true. Not that Big Star were bad, or deserved to remain an obscure indie cult favorite rather than become as big as, say, REM (or at least The Replacements). But I never really connected with them emotionally, for some reason.

On the other hand, it’s not as though Chilton hadn’t touched my life in other ways. He was a good record producer, for a start. And his production credits include the first album from The Cramps, which included this song here.

"The Thermals - Into the Code" (Watch on YouTube)

Also, Chilton did co-found and play guitar in at least one other band I liked: Tav Falco’s Panther Burns.

Like so.

Oh, and there was that one song by the Box Tops, of course.

Respect.

If he was from Mars, wouldn't that be cool,

This is dF