Author: Aaron Weber

The Bird And The Bee: A Debt To Nouvelle Vague

This song is a lot of fun, and will appeal to anyone who liked Nouvelle Vague’s bossa nova renditions of new wave classics. I also like “F***ing Boyfriend” although the video for that track isn’t done. This video, for “Polite Dance Song,” is directed by Eric Wareheim of “Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job,” which should give you an idea of the aesthetic at work here: Silly, deliberately amateurish, but also sincere in some twisted, roundabout way.

It Is Hard To Honor Civil Rights Leaders In The Gossip Column Format

I spent a lot of time and energy today trying to think of a way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Glitterati Gossip, while also promoting our giveaway of free MP3s from MusicPass. Do I try to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin by focusing on the Wesley Snipes tax-evasion trial rather than the Kiefer Sutherland DUI incarceration, or on Foxy Brown over Britney Spears? I mean, it seems to be in poor taste, but then again, the whole blog is in poor taste.

Ultimately I just posted a YouTube clip of Dr. King’s greatest antiwar soundbites, just like everyone else.

My Letter To Iced Out Gear

I noticed that Icedoutgear.com doesn’t sell a rhinestone-encrusted Euro pendant to go with their rhinestone-encrusted dollar pendants. I wrote in to find out why.

Yo,
I was wondering if you would consider selling iced-out Euro sign (€) pendants in addition to your dollar-sign ($) pendants. With the fall of value of the dollar, and the fact that the bills are available in denominations of up to €500, criminal enterprises (and people who emulate their style) are increasingly using euros as well as or instead of dollars. If you do sell them, please let me know: I’d love to order one.

Yours,
Aaron Weber

Rest assured, I’ll post any response here.

Idiots In Power

Congress has decided that we should send more business overseas. Now we can’t even kill horses. Of course, you can euthanize your own horses with a pistol on the back 40, no problem. Or you could just leave it out in a field to die on its own, if you’ve got a field to spare, and can bear to watch it suffer. Or you could pay a large-animal to dispose of it for you. But you can’t sell a horse to be killed professionally for glue or leather or meat… in the US. So you now have to send them to a Canadian or Mexican slaughterhouse. Because if there’s one thing an old horse needs other than to be killed, it’s to be shipped to fucking Canada before being killed.

Cows, deer, bison, llama, alpaca, goats, sheep, chickens, fish? All totally OK to kill, as long as you don’t film it (filming it makes it horrible, you see.) But killing horses? You monster! Horses must never die!

The Boston Globe Is Writing About The Urban Paramedic

I got an email from someone at the Globe yesterday asking if I was available to be interviewed about the blog “Other People’s Emergencies,” a.k.a. The Urban Paramedic. It’s basically just the stories of adventure and frustration and medical drama that play out when you’re a paramedic. It could be a TV medical drama, except that it’s realistic and well-written.

It’s one of my favorite blogs, and the person writing it knows a hell of a lot about what they’re doing, about the city, and about duty and justice and commitment. And they’ve signed up to be a JAG, too, which is also incredible.
comment on it often enough that I guess the person writing the story tracked me down and emailed me.

I wrote back and told the reporter I was available, but they didn’t call me. I guess they had enough sources or something. That’s OK. I’m glad someone’s working on a mainstream media story about the Urban Paramedic, because that’s a voice that deserves to be heard.

Half-complete thoughts

Branding: Ads for the gay market.

Rebranding: Decapitated mannequins.

TV: It’s not Dickensian… it’s far less optimistic than that.

Quotation: Success is great if….

Posthumous blogging: “If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.”

Reading: Judith Thurman. It breaks my heart that she is a much better writer than I am.

Thurman is unflinching and devastating on an amazingly wide variety of subjects. About performance artist Vanessa Beecroft, she says “Eating disorders and Maoism seem to share a common ground: They are a form of utopian moral extremism – a belief that, with enough ruthlessness, it is possible to achieve perfection.” Several articles later, Edna St. Vincent Millay “now seems as ersatz as the high-flown pastiche that A. S. Byatt supplies in wholesale quantities for her imaginary Pre-Raphaelites.” I don’t know whether Byatt or Millay comes off worse… and I love every minute of it.