Things To Not Do With Your Profile Picture, Gentlemen's Edition

The problem with critiquing men's photos first off is that what really ruins almost all of their profiles is their text, and their photos only serve to make it worse.

But the bigger problem is that I often see things here that don't necessarily require a different photo selection, but a different guy.

I mean, this is who he really is, right? (Or, at least Who He Was In The '90's, Back When He Had More Hair.) This is an accurate depiction. And if all the advice I have is if you'd like to get laid, try not being you, well...I can see why that would be less than helpful.

Seriously though, the ladies are not wrong sir: Why yes I am a Wizard is not the best look for you. Or any of us. It somehow manages to make you look uncomfortably smug about being something that very few of us want to even be near. It's also kind of like winning The Ugliest Dog competition: I'm A Winner! Being the top of the dork shitheap is...What I just said it was.

But what do I know? There's a whole buncha LARPer girls running around out there, and they need relationships too. They, unlike the rest of us, would feel positively privileged to be the lady consort of The Dungeonmaster, here.





Sausage For One! Okay, this one is Hey Ladies, I can cook!, or maybe more like Hey Ladies! I can set the table! The problem being that you have set the table with what appears to be a largish bowl of guacamole to accompany the four lone, lonely sausages that adorn each plate. Your Fiestaware plates. And maybe no one else is there, but at least Mr. Snuggles is. (Hey Ladies! I have a cat!)

It gives the rest of us the perhaps mistaken impression that each and every night you throw yourself a pretend dinner party, in which you and your cat entertain all those friends of yours. Who aren't there.

But unfortunately, most of all it's Hey Ladies! I have this goofy light fixture growing out of my head! Look, I know that you didn't realize it at the time, but since then you've looked at the photo, right? And you had time to edit, or just not select this one.

(Actually, this isn't even the creepiest of his photos. No, that's the one in the hammock, where the Up-Shorts angle of the shot gives you an unwanted preview of what Sausage For One can really mean.)


The magic of Context, yet again. I imagine that you were in the middle of doing something that your friends found incredibly funny. But that doesn't come through here.

Thing is, here again is a case where I struggled to pick out which photo was Worst, and it was an epic struggle. You Can't Photograph A Personality, and perhaps you shouldn't even try. I say that because you've got several things against you that come out in all your photos.

The fact that you're not being exactly forthcoming with yourself about your male pattern baldness is not a good sign, and your dead, staring eyes aren't going to be melting any hearts any time soon. It's not your fault that you're no one's idea of a heart throb, but it will be your fault when you cause them to flee in panic.

The hardest part is that I suspect you're actually smart, and you probably actually are quite funny. Humor is how all the best people I know coped with growing up, especially the homely ones. Now you've got to stand up straight. Literally. Please stop doing that thing you're doing in this picture.



Remember that time when you were really annoying? Yeah, so do we.

This one's a triple-decker. The Magic of Context, You Can't Photograph A Personality (especially if most of said personality revolves around Irony) and Yes, This Is How I Actually Am, Unfortunately.

I don't know what else to say here. You probably do alright, actually. Lots of girls like douchebags, and unlike the resta these guys, you're okay looking, at least.

There will be a number of ladies, though, that will look right at you and see Exactly What I Don't Want To Grow Old With. That's the central tragedy of You. Well, that and your abysmal lack of self-awareness.


That theme continues here. Except this also introduces a brand new category: Must Love Hats!
I don't know what the hell it is anymore; used to be that we could make fun of the ladies for their slavish adherence to the fashion in hats (you know, back when you and I were growing up in the 1940's), now they're onto shoes and it's the menfolk who are weird about their headgear.

Looka this mack daddy! He's exactly what I think of when the term "Urban" is thrown around. Snoop Josh, The Iron Pimp Hand! Damn! How he be so sweet?

So...if you're being ironic, there's still too many of you in this world, and if you -against all reason- are being one hundred per cent serious, I'll say it again: there are women out there that do want this, and you should do the rest of us a favor and take them. But do the rest of us a much larger favor and Do Not Get Them Pregnant.

I forget whether or not this guy and the guy above him are actually the same guy. They may be. They're two sides of the same coin, in any case.



Must Love Hats! But this is a different kind: I Am Endearing Because I'm Too Real To Care That I Look Ridiculous.

And I'm outdoorsy! Or at least I was outdoors once! Or I'm a hippie, kinda, and this hat is really important to me because it was given to me by the indigenous natives of some place you've never heard of! It's their tribal colors! This is the primary focus of their primitive art culture: making stupid hats to sell to tourists!

No man; wear whatever the hell you want but...Well while we're at it, what's up with that shirt?



You might want to spend a little time thinking about The Subtext, too. It's hard to know what anyone who's Not You is going to be thinking at any given time, and it's unfair to ask that of a person.

So you must know in advance that you can never be sure. Can't know if you'll be seen as charming and whimsical, or just plain creepy.

And since at least some of the subtext is necessarily going to be sexual, know too that someone out there is going to read this as here is how my face will look when we put a camera in your cervix!



Almost as numerous as pix of men showing off their collection of whimsical hats (which certainly aren't there to hide their creeping baldness) are pictures of guys holding guitars.

You know, people really do find musicians sexy. God knows why, but they actually do. And that also carries a whiff of Rebel, you know, despite how fairly commonplace it is to play an instrument, have once upon a time been in a band, what have you.

Despite the fact that you're now an office manager, you've been there! You know what it is to live the rock n' roll lifestyle, what with being the...bass player and all.

Sure, all your other pictures are of what you really look like now that you're the owner of a small copy shop, but here is what you are At Heart: a guy who once upon a time had a very brief moment of relative stardom in his own mind.

But at least you look like you were in a Guided By Voices cover band. Most of the I Have A Guitar photos reveal their subjects to have been in metal/nu metal/whatever-bullshit-passes-for- "punk" these days type acts.


I have seen a disturbing amount of people's senior year high school yearbook photos while engaged in this project. Here's me looking Thoughtful In High School.

And it's only the men. Women never do this. I'm not sure what conclusions could be drawn from that. Maybe none. But I do know this: I see this a lot, and it's never a good idea.

I don't remember what else this guy had on offer in the way of photographic representations of himself. I seem to recall they were boring, which is how he looks here, even at his most philosophical. Gotta remember: one guy's Deep Thinker is another guy's Where The Hell Did I Leave My Phone?


Other things wrong with this include: the lady you would attract with this picture is the lady who wants to bang teenage dudes. Remember that.




Don't think I'm being unnecessarily cruel when I say: it's not really all that hard to make the software work for you, you know? There's really no reason for you to be all sideways like that.

I see tremendous amounts of these. Ladies and men. Not sure why, but it really bugs me. Perhaps because you're making us work overtime, stranger. You're suspecting in advance that we already love you as much as you love yourself, which just isn't true.

But there's still less of these than there are those My-Half-Of-The-Picture, hastily cropped, from your last relationship.


And last but certainly not least here is this man, who decided that Penilimplant69 would be a good profile name. He is seventy-six years old, and lives right here in the area. He sums himself up with the phrase "SEXUAL MAN JAZZ music."

Along with weeping in front of the television while enjoying a thirty-two ouncer of something, his interests include "sexual incounter with ladys and want to visit NUDIST RESORT."

He digs hanging out at FREDS (Meyer's, I'm guessing), DENNY'S (how did I know that?), SHILOW (Shilo Inns...You know, I feel like most Republicans I've met are elderly swingers, actually) and FISHERMANS (Supply, probably. Ditto what I said about Republicans for "fishermen." It really just means I want to rape you on my boat).

His dislikes include "politions" and phony people. Man, no matter what the age, gender or orientation, the Phonies just can't catch an even break in this world. He also can't discern between a comma and an apostrophe, judging by his use of words like "can,t" and "don,t".

He likes Portland for its "open mined" people, and the last concert he attended was "jazz." It's difficult to tell whether or not this is some incredibly cruel joke on the part of his buddies or just what, exactly.

Things To Not Do With Your Profile Picture

A lot of controversy surrounds the selection of profile images for online dating sites. If you say that you don't care what your potential partner looks like, I submit that you are a liar. (And if you only care what your potential partner looks like, you're shallow.) Above all else though; the people who refuse to show you a picture of themselves have only themselves to blame.
I mean, if all goes well you're eventually going to be meeting face to face, yes? So why not go ahead and represent yourself honestly? And while you're at it, take a little time to represent yourself well, too.


So, I bet what is really going on with this one is that you just didn't have a decent picture of yourself anywhere. You decided that a webcam photo of the side of your face, middle of the night, is better than nothing.

But I think what you're really saying here with this kind of image is actually subconscious: I'm just saying in advance that you won't remember me. I will be a blurry, hazy, washed-out half-memory. You know; that girl I dated once. She had...eyes of some sort. Nose-shaped nose. Hair of indeterminate length.

Just like choosing "Insert Witty Title Here" for your screen name, you do yourself a massive disservice by going ahead and a little too openly acknowledging how little effort most people put into most things.


If I had to guess, you picked this picture of yourself because you think it makes you look pixie-ish and cute. I fink I'd wike a widdle snuzzle fwom you now, pweeeze...Besides, that's Your Look You Do! It always fucking works! It never does not work! And thennn, your Twenties came to an end, and things started to change.

What the astute observer sees in this image now is the look of someone who desperately wishes for The Look to still be working. What you can't help but see is that fucking Thing She Does With Her Face that she'll be doing for the rest of her life.



Now, this one gets points for honesty. Here's how I really look. Straining away at some unseen task, not trying to be pretty. This is how I'm going to look at you when I'm wondering just what the hell you meant by that, and perhaps when I'm crying, as well. And this is probably the look I have on my face when I'm being fucked.

So yeah; this is the face you're going to be looking at for the rest of your natural life, if all goes as planned. How do you feel about that?
I say: Madam, there is something to be said for mystery in potential relationships. Step away from the real.


Now, I can even see what you thought was going to happen here. She's whimsical! Fun loving! Not afraid to have a bit of a laugh, even at her own expense! She has a...BIG, TERRIFYING FUCKING SAWED OFF TEDDY BEAR HEAD ON HER SHOULDERS!

And I'm sure it's my fault, somehow; I don't know her. I lack context for this image, but that also is why...WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING? PUTTING YOURSELF ON A GODDAMN WEBSITE WHERE YOU'RE TRYING TO ATTRACT SOMEBODY, NOT SCAR THEM FOR LIFE!


When all is said and done, what impression of you will people come away with? You should be asking yourself this question. You should seriously ask yourself this question shortly before selecting your profile picture.

Especially when the picture you are thinking of going with is heavily pixillated, and betrays an image of yourself as someone who yells a lot. Or is literally slack-jawed.

Best part of all, I bet you were doing something fun when this picture was taken. You were having a good time: "Oh, no you DI-N'TTT!!!" The problem is, the rest of us weren't there.


Women are mysterious, as is often noted by men. Women note this a lot too, somewhat mysteriously. Motives are hard to parse in anyone, I suppose, and we are all just big ol' puzzle boxes.

Nowadays, people can be all sorts of things. There is nothing at all saying that the chick on the Harley with all the tattooes will not make an awesome grandmother. That chick who you always saw blowin' dudes in the bathroom down at the Chunder Blow in the early '90's? Guess who grew up to be The Artist currently known as Your Mom?

Having said all of that, let's remember one of the great laws of advertising here and ask ourselves, now why in the hell would she want me to think of that jackass's underpants every time I think of her?

Now of course I'm pretty sure I could have charges of Being Mean levelled against me here. But look here: for one thing these are pictures of themselves that they chose to use on the Internet, and besides; I too have put up embarrassing pictures (as well as embarrassing remembrances) on the Internet so let's not bother with that line of inquiry.

Note too that I'm not going after people for being ugly, fat or anything you can't fix, really. I'm just saying about the choices they make. Also: plenty of them have the mistaken impression that putting up a picture of their dog is a good juxtaposition to make. It isn't.

Item, and Report

(NPR recently ran their apparently annual contest in which you write a story based entirely off a single image. It is referred to as the Three Minute Story, and has a word limit of 600 words.

The deadline for submission was the last night of February. I blew it. But the reward, such as it was, was to have some poet read your story on 'All Things Considered', I believe. So I kind of don't care about the reward aspect anyway.

Anyway, there's the picture. Let's rumble.)


First of all, I would like to object to the obviousness in the placement of the drop. He is supposed to be a professional, not some sort of false-flag. If he thinks that it's acceptable to just get up, throw his empty coffee cup in the bus tub and just casually walk away from his "newspaper," then someone needs to speak to his superior. There are people watching who know exactly what this really means.

Now I am forced to sit here and actively ignore the thing. He did do an excellent job of not acknowledging my presence in any way, knowing as he probably does that the people who "work here" are probably Unfriendly. They ignore me too, except to serve me coffee that I carefully observe the preparation of, accept my money and a little too convincingly wish me a "good one."

But after he so cavalierly tossed away this drop, I cannot access it to see what the message was. It's too hot. Probably every fourth person in here is working for someone, and I can't even say if that was even my Guy. For all I know, that isn't a message at all, but a deadly virus delivery system, and every fourth person in here will soon get up, flee as casually as possible, as the rest of us are left to slowly expire, struck down by a silent killer.

I betray no outward sign of all this, though. I was trained by people who knew their business. Serious people. People who were so good at the basics of Turning and Instruction that they sounded like my own voice. Like they were literally in my head. I cannot thank them enough for the training I received, as it has probably saved my life more times than I can tell.

And this Operation, if I may say so, has been interminable. Seemingly as long as I've been alive. I have seen Operatives come and go. They never seem to stay very long. That is the nature of the game: they get reassigned, they get transferred, and yes, sometimes they are liquidated.

Worst of all, we who reside within the parameters of this game are never allowed to know its aims and ends. It's best not to ask, and just understand that each of us fulfills a vital purpose within it, but still it can occasionally chafe, even on the most seasoned professional.

For instance, I cannot even talk to my own family about this. My sister says that I am crazy, and unfortunately I can do nothing to allay her concerns in this area, since not only must I keep my silence on this, but she would scarcely understand anyway, were I to tell her. How could I? Some of us are watching out, while the rest of you sleep.

The battle goes on, and there is no one to help with this problem in my head. A growing doubt, a crisis of faith, that there may not be anyone watching anymore, or listening. What if my handlers are all dead? Or have turned their backs, as sometimes they must do? How will I know? How can I?

But I have the best cover of all. That's right: just some guy in a coffee shop. Pay no mind. It's just like I'm living my life. That is why I keep my silence, over here in this chair, staring but not so anyone would notice, at the headline on the page, UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES SKYROCKET, and try not to look suspicious as the server comes over and asks how "everything's going over here."

Home of the Classy Boozehound

It's sad that after all these years, you can hardly see the mural of Stars of Yesteryear at the Sandy Hut anymore. It's too dark in there, a Golden Tee machine covers most of the last panel, and while I approve of the archival thinking that caused them to put a sheet of plexiglas over the
damn thing, it's kinda too little too late, and now the reflection it causes makes it almost impossible to take a picture of it.

When I first encountered the Sandy Hut, it was dark in there like it is now. It was entirely the purview of old men and hookers. As the years went by, more and more people realized that you could get a brain-damagingly strong drink there for pennies, and they were none too diligent in their carding. So lots of young 'uns like me started patronizing the joint. The lights came up a lot higher, almost to industrial cafeteria strength.
This revealed exactly how nasty the place was. A fine sheen of brown gravy covered everything: years of neglect and airborne nicotine had made it so. At some point, a dancefloor that could house perhaps two and a half dancing patrons had been installed and forgotten. There was a shuffleboard table.

But of most interest to me was the mural. The way Sinatra is depicted says that it dates back to the early '50's, and the only sort of signature was the enigmatic tag line, "Color by Vera". Its conceit was that of The Bar in Showbiz Heaven, where all the great ones got sauced.
And I used to annoy my friends by asking them how many of these highly recognizable faces they could put names to.


The first panel actually starts out with an indistinct bit of anonymous customer and a waiter with his back to you, signalling an order. Then comes Danny Kaye, Adolphe Menjou ("The Best Dressed Man In Hollywood". His grandson lives in Portland, and we worked together for a while), Harold Lloyd, Bette Davis, Dame Edith Sitwell, Arturo Toscanini, Frank Sinatra sitting with Marilyn Monroe, someone that is either Clark Gable or John Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson and Marcel Marceau as 'Pip'.

The middle panel is given over to comedic stars o' yesteryear. W.C. Fields has an enormous bottle, while Buster Keaton has a tiny, tiny shot glass.

Charlie Chaplin has his back to you. Groucho and Harpo Marx are there, but no Chico. (Much less any Gummo or Zeppo.)

Laurel and Hardy are present, but does that rightfully cancel out any sort of Abbott and Costello presence? "Who's On First?" (like it or not) pretty much provided the template for most modern American comedy.

Exactly why Harold Lloyd isn't in this panel is anybody's guess. Or for that matter, George Burns, Fred Allen, Jack Benny...

(Or Bob Hope! Or Bing Crosby! Anyway...)





The final panel has Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong crossing clarinet and cornet over the action below, which happens to be an unlikely table at which Jimmy Durante and George Bernard Shaw might mingle, with Peter Lorre looking ominously on. Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein are also present, but so is Veronica Lake. Someone that is either supposed to be Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo is ignoring all of them.

Behind that stupid video golf machine is Pablo Picasso (that one stumped me for years, and then someone pointed out that both of his eyes were on one side of his face) and Kate Smith. It's easy to forget how much of a star she was, once upon a time.


I had the idea over the years that maybe someone should do the same thing on the wall opposite, but with stars of today. But who would that be? A bunch of people who you wish you saw less of anyway? People whose work you might appreciate, but frankly aren't especially distinctive looking?

Especially when in charicature, Tyra Banks would look like Beyonce who would strongly resemble Vivica A. Fox. You would recognize Obama, or Schwarzenegger, but do you want to look at them while drunk? I like Catherine Keener and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (for instance), but would they make any sense as cartoons?

And besides, to be really true to the idea, you would need to include statesmen and philosophers. Famous artists. (And, I suppose, any famous mimes you could think of.)

Funny too that the Sandy Hut ("Home of the Fat Man Sandwich," it said for decades on its sign, while having discarded it from the menu long ago) was probably never a classy joint, but the conventions of the day caused it to somehow need to present at least the cultural signifiers of classiness, because drinking alcohol is always to be presented as fun.

In short, it didn't promise you an evening with Garbo, just the idea that any evening spent drinking was going to be a romantic adventure. Even on a flatiron block at NE 15th and Sandy Blvd. in Portland, Or.

Adult Babies, Virgin Killers

LARS LARSON IS A CHEAP LITTLE PUNK.

(Sorry. The experiment continues.)















Also, here is the Ziggy Circus that most recently caught my eye.
Yet again, Ziggy is mistaken for someone's father, and Jeffy's idiotic anger takes on ominous new dimensions.






And...Oh dear...

Well, this is an album cover image I've heard about for years, but have never actually seen. I have the album myself, but the photo on the jacket is a pretty innocuous one of a buncha German longhairs lunging at you, faux-intimidating-ly.

The Scorpions have a long history of banned album covers. Lovedrive features a man in the back of a limo with a shirtless woman. He is attempting to get a goodly amount of bubble gum off of her breasts. It was replaced by a big, blue scorpion on the U.S. release.

Love At First Sting had a lovely black and white image of a guy and a girl on a motorcycle. He has decided that this might be a good time to give her that scorpion tattoo on her thigh that she always wanted. She is smiling. In the U.S. release, they/we briefly panicked and replaced it with another black and white image of a buncha German longhairs walking faux-intimidating-ly at you while wearing leather. Then everybody remembered that there was absolutely nothing offensive about the original cover, and put it back like it was.

Animal Magnetism's cover features a woman and a German shepherd kneeling obediently in front of a tight jeans-wearing man who is enjoying a Carlsberg beer. In the U.S. release, it was exactly the same.

So that one up there? I found this picture of what certainly appears to be someone a great deal younger than 18 in an article about it not being viewable on Wikipedia, "despite the lack of obvious vulgarity."
Oh, I'd say that it's vulgar. Even "While the girl is clearly naked, her genitals have been subtly covered by the imposed image of cracked glass centring exactly between the legs."

(Dig the use of 'subtly'. Also, just so we can be certain of pure journalistic intent and no accusations of merely appealing to prurient interests can be made, the image itself on this page is fucking huge.)

And lastly, "The album’s original cover design has never been banned, and is still available to this day." Well, I've owned the album on both cassette and LP, and both had the entirely tamer cover. So despite being banned, apparently Mercury decided to police itself a bit -voluntarily- this side of the pond.


Virgin Killer is actually a pretty good album. It suffers from lyrics that are written in English by non-speakers of that language, but they have grown up with American and British rock n' roll and have lived pretty much all of their lives with a U.S. military presence in their country.

So that's why it's not hard to see where they got their bizarro-world ideas about what your average rock n' roll customer would view as An Ideal Life: "And you like the rock and roll-a/ a better life/ with whiskey-cola!"

It also features the talents of Uli Jon Roth, the "German Jimi Hendrix," or at least that's what he called himself. This leads to hilariously-overplayed songs like "Hell Cat," where embarrassing attempts at amazing guitar pyrotechnics sit alongside weird attempts at street-wise raps.

But best of all, for all who know, is The Message Song. Now again, I know that I'd embarrass myself if I tried to write an album in German. Lucky for me, most of the world's rock and roll is sung in my native language.
So up the ante a lot when you note that if you're going to release a rock n' roll album in the Seventies, you're going to need to do a Message Song. The Message Song is supposed to do many things: it should identify the problems that you -The Youth, that is- face. There should be a note of hope; a suggestion perhaps about what The Youth should do. There needs to be some mockery of Some Who Say. The song should be anthemic; it's okay if it's melodramatic.

"Crying Days" is all of these things, minus any sort of specificity as to what it is we are discussing here ("A question mark up in the skyyy!!!" notwithstanding. That would be a problem, though. I imagine it being purple and enormous, hanging over Stuttgart, say.)

And the condemnation of Those Who Say is kind of off, too: "Some people say we'll do it better/ some people say everything's goood!" Well, I'm gonna have to stop you right there. Nobody ever says that everything's good. Well, except hippies, but they don't really mean it.

Oh, I could go on. But anyway, now we have juxtaposed Lars' name with both an Adult Baby and a piece of what could easily be described as child pornography. Excelsior!

The Ziggy Circus

I've mentioned this before. Since 'Ziggy' and 'The Family Circus' appear right next to each other on the comics page in my particular paper, it has become the habit of me and many others in this town to see what you get when you give them each others' punchlines.














(I wish that I had the basic computer skills to just switch the punchlines over myself, but at this time, I just don't.)

















Sometimes the juxtaposition is just surreal, like this one. The real star here is the waiter, who in his long-term bitterness at his neglectful childhood, has decided that Ziggy is his father, which as we all know, can't be possible.
Furthermore, under the parameters of this game, everyone in Ziggy's universe ends up getting called "Mommy," or "Gramma," or whatever.

















And then sometimes the joke only works in one direction, in this case not least because of what a shitty, tired joke the 'Ziggy' panel has. But look how sad Zig looks as he informs his parrot named Jeffy of the death of Twitter.




But then I saw that Tom Wilson, author of 'Ziggy', had also written a book. "Oh good..." I thought.


Zig Zagging is exactly what you never, ever asked for: the guy who writes 'Ziggy' gives you some advice on life. It's about as good as it sounds, I bet, but even more interesting are the reviews...

"Ziggy cartoonist Tom Wilson didn't see it coming: after losing his beloved young wife to breast cancer, it's up to him to raise two children alone and keep the laughs coming in his cartoons worldwide—even as his own personal orbit is falling apart."
That is the Amazon review, written by someone who works at Amazon. Aside from the weird feeling it gave me when they pointed out how extra sad it is that someone's young wife died, that was pretty straightforward.

"Wilson's leg was crushed in a car accident, his wife died at age 44 of breast cancer, leaving Wilson with their two sons, and his father—both mentor and hero to Wilson—also had a serious illness. Immobilized by depression, Wilson's faith failed him, and he concluded that the mercy of God [was] an apparent fiction...With ideas like imagining Moses as the first Superman, Wilson delights with fresh, well-considered insights..."
That's the Publisher's Weekly review. There is what might very well be some concealed laughter going on around the office, based on some of those passages.

"Tom Wilson is a man who gets it.

"But there is a difference here: Tom IS love. That fact didn't come easily for him, and if anything he fought and resisted in even though he was a part of him the whole time and literally staring him in the face. But he had to go through this amazing journey to learn that. But in the end the result is a ménage a trois between Tom, Ziggy and God; an interesting relationship to say the least."
Now that is the work of one Ric Morgan, who is kind enough to provide us with some bibliographical information about himself:

Ric Morgan is the author of a power-packed, life-changing little book called The Keys: The Textbook to a Successful Life, nominated for a 2009 Pulitzer Prize and two Nautilus Book Awards...http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Textbook-Successful-Life/dp/1438202636/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207241325&sr=8-1

(And I imagine that he meant 'God' is love, not 'Tom', but who knows? Furthermore, I know I'm not the only one around here who got a terrible mental image regarding 'a menage a trois between Tom, Ziggy and God'.)

So really, it's just logrolling, his being here. Matter o' fact, let's look at some reviews of Ric's work...Well, aside from 'Sunsphere Lover' of Knoxville, the only other person to review Ric's work is one Elfreda R. Pretorius.

(Sigh) And who's that? Well, Elfreda Pretorius is the best selling author of Stop Struggling, Start Living, of course! Who likes it? "Tony Davies, Business Executive," that's who!

Now, for all I know, this is a totally worthwhile body of work being put forth here by these nice people who I do not know at all, but all I see is the logrolling, in which they all review each others' books, glowingly. If you Google 'Elfreda Pretorius', you'll find very little about her that wasn't written by Elfreda Pretorius. It's possible that the self-help scam is finally drying up, leaving a bunch of vanity press authors alone with each other, in a big, echoey room.

Speaking of a big, echoey room:

That poorly miked video there was Elfreda's co-author Mike O'Hare, "&nbspand I am the owner," he wants you to know.

He also wants you to know that "I want to provide you with the very best information about Internet markeing."

I admire his forthrightness. Here is a man who is one hundred per cent certain of what his spiritual path is. But what do I know? I'm a man who doesn't get it.

Lessons to be Learned from VH1's "High School Reunion"

1. If someone walks up to you after twenty years and says, "I love you from the bottom of my heart, and I always have," the proper response is; Oh no you do not. Because if it were actually true, they would have pointed this out to you nineteen and one-half years ago at the latest.
As opposed to it just meaning; I am insane, and on television.

2. The bitchy women of twenty years ago remain themselves, but in the meanwhile, they have also learned the language of victim culture, so if you tell them what bitches they are, they will respond with endless amounts of counselling speak about how you don't even know them, and they would never judge You...And basically how you still don't have any right to speak either to them or about them. They will even try to appeal to your adult sense of fair play that you've no doubt acquired by saying, "You're judging us, just like we used to judge you!"
So what you need to do is say, "Ironic, isn't it? Ya' leathery fuckin' cunts!" and laugh in their orange-skinned faces.



3. The asshole of the class, i.e. "The Troublemaker" will almost never have taken that next step into being genuinely interesting or entertaining. He will, however, have developed some sort of ideological thing where on the few occasions that anyone challenges him, he'll be all like, "That's just your opinion! If you don't like me, that's not my fault. Move on. MOVE ON!"
In short, he will have evolved into a Libertarian. This means that he is now passionate about individual rights, as long as the rights under discussion are his own. What you need to do is remind him that shit like this is why he will never get laid. That oughta do it.



4. The one who was picked-upon, for whatever reason, will have never gotten over it. Actually, this is not true of life necessarily, but absolutely true of "Reality". When they confront their tormentors, they will do this in such a way as to make you care a great deal less about whatever relative amount of pain they experienced in adolescence.
The rest of the house will help out, though, by browbeating the asshole bully until he apologizes in some really unconvincing way.




5. The Late Bloomer, just like you always thought, while now some simulacrum of Hot, is actually kind of an idiot. This will go unremarked.

6. People who are Not White are basically there as decoration, just like they were in the Eighties.

7. The Nerd is not necessarily more mature, or even smarter than anyone else. Indeed sometimes their deeply-harbored resentments are the worst of all, and since they're no longer teenagers, this is no longer cute.

8. The Big Secret will come as no kind of surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.

9. Even knowing what you know, it will be difficult to believe that these people graduated from high school.

10. Jacuzzis are gross.


(Note: photos do not necessarily correspond to actual identity. As always.)

(Little) Lars Larson wants Cheap airfare and Is dating A Punk tonight

I have an ongoing experiment. A while ago, in these very pages, I made use of the phrase "Lars Larson is a cheap little punk." Because he is.
For a minute or two, that meant that if one happened to Google that phrase, my use of it was the only entry there. Then I went on Blogtown PDX and mentioned how proud I was of this. So then there were two entries.

Now there's five. Four of them are me, and then there's a page put together by some faceless spam engine somewhere.
Lars Larson is a cheap little punk is a page of shopping options for those who dislike Lars Larson, I guess you could say. Or more accurately, for those who want cheap airfare while dating Punks, and have no idea how to use a search engine. I can only wonder where this will go next.

And as to the site itself, it really seems to have nobody home. Follow it all the way to the bottom, and what you'll get is a place that dispenses free sub-domains. Fascinating stuff, sort of.
It also kind of makes me wonder if other things I've written are -completely to my surprise- being marshalled to the cause of helping people find cheap airline tickets. Is this a security issue for me and mine, or is it just what happens when you Google-bomb a phrase, in the immediate vicinity of the word "Google"?

Oddly enough, the one person I know who could answer this question is someone I haven't talked to in a couple of years.
Also, I like to go that one step further and juxtapose Lars' name with an embarrassing picture.

There.

Not allowed to Delicious Strawberry

Gum: it pretty much sells itself, so whatcha gonna do with yer advertising budget?



(If I keep this up, I'll need to start a new tag for "favorite gum commercials". Maybe even a tag for 'Trident commercials', specifically.)

There's just something about the advertising industry. Gum, by its nature, isn't really all that exciting, and everybody who was on board with this commercial knows that.
So instead, they made a commercial about commercials. And I am the target audience for this sort of thing.

That ridiculous extreme close-up of the babysitter on the line, "Of course you can pay me with gum!", where her irises actually start to gleam with zeal. Then, the unheralded arrival of various workmen.
And that little easter egg again- for people like me: I had to go back several times to verify that the little girl acutally said the line, "We weren't allowed to delicious strawberry!"

If one were to watch this on teevee, it begins so abruptly that you can't even quite tell what's happening at first. Mom's laughter sounds like screams or cries, and that babysitter sure does seem like she was surprised in the midst of doing something she should not have been: "Mis-ter Jo-nes..."

So it's this weird, perverse, thirty-second thrill ride. Awesome, Trident. I wanna go again.

** ** **

Uh, I have started a blog just for pictures, with no captions or talking about it at all, which is strange for me. It is called Photeaux, and features completely out of order, out of context shots from the digital era in my life. Earlier (analog) shots will be scanned in eventually, and Oh What Fun we'll have then.
For instance, I may very well take a month and just upload all the portraiture I was once so fond of doing. In everyone's case, that'll be pictures of you that are at least ten years old. Prepare to be boarded.

Yeah, another thing that has changed for me is that I no longer wish to title my photographs clever things. Other people do that, and frankly, they can have it. These days I let the image do the talking for me, in general.

My flickr account is flickr.com/photos/richbachelor, and many things can be seen there.

Next time, that Ronnie Milsap show needs discussin', as will the Gladys Knight show tomorrow. Ta.

Covered

One may learn a great deal from album covers. I spend way, wayyy too much of my time looking at them, since I spend wayyy too much of my time shopping for used vinyl. This has led to the place where the ones you always see have a ritualized sort of joke vocabulary to them.

But also, returning like long-lost friends, I see the ones I saw as a kid, and could not make heads or tails of. I see now that there was good reason for this.


The duo of Hall and Oates have a spaceship. Maybe you'd like to take a ride in what we around here like to call the Halloatesamaship.

Along the way, we'll have some good times, maybe write a song or two, enjoy the upholstery on these couches, and be forever thankful that we stocked up on the proper supplies.

And what would those be? Oh, I don't know...Would you like a RITZ (tm) Brand Cracker? If you are going to be exploring in the Halloatesamaship, you're going to need nutrition, and there's no way to get as much nutrition as the nutrition in a RITZ (tm) Brand Cracker!

I now see that the Halloatesamaship actually is tiny. It's exploring a mixing console, or a series of them. Tiny Hall, Tiny Oates, and the tiniest box of RITZ (tm) Brand Crackers I've ever seen in my life.


You know, it never once occurred to me as a child that possibly this duo's name could have come from their last names. I looked at this record, and it seemed pretty clear to me that they were describing the harmonious blend of two very different types of people who could, under certain circumstances, get together and make music.

Because the guy on the left is very clearly trying to pantomime being a seal, right? And that means therefore that the guy on the right is a 'croft', right?

And what -just going on what little information I have here- do crofts do? They rock out, that's what. That guy is totally fucking rocking out.

Seals, on the other hand, are religious, or something.


Gordon Lightfoot's albums all have a big picture of Gordon Lightfoot on them. This is comforting, lest one were to suddenly forget whether or not one was listening to an album by Gordon Lightfoot.

It being the '70's and all, I became pretty fluent in the vocabulary of Gordon Lightfoot album cover art. Summertime Dream has a dreamy, blurry picture-that-is-made-to-look-like-a-drawing on it, of Gord, looking pensive; smoking. It looks like the logo on a bottle of Lightfoot: The Cologne. Sundown's picture features a somewhat surprised-looking Gord, seated casually on the floor of a barn.

But here, image and word fit perfectly side by side. Well, I mean, just look at him: he is gold, isn't he? Good God, it's Gold Gord!


This one always bothered me. Still does.

Is Billy thinking, man, where'd that stranger go? Is he thinking and how come strangers always leave masks? too? And beds. And boxing gloves.

Or is Billy the stranger? Is he strange because he sleeps with a mask? He looks like he's talking to it, and perhaps he is: "Hey what's happening, mask? Are you a stranger?"

Along with the rest of these ruminations, it occurred to my young mind that maybe Billy Joel had a very boring life, and seemed to have a nightlife about as exciting as my own.

If this was what being an adult was all about, I wanted no part of it.


In keeping with the singer-songwriter thing here, let us consider the case of Kenny. Man, does that guy love livin'!

He is completely ecstatic to be doin' what he's doin', ala all blind artists, who must be consistently photographed with beatific smiles on their faces, since it's so much fun being blind. But on the other hand, this is casual Kenny, just kinda, y'know, what the hell? Let's go put on a multimillion dollar road tour, what with the fireworks, and me looming impossibly tall over my fans! I'll bring my guitar penis!

This photo is possibly inaccurate in how willing or likely your average concert goer is in wanting to touch Kenny. Possibly that is a file photo taken at some other concert.

(By the way, that image of Kenny was found at Dagnabbitstubbs.com, which is a weird little site about what certainly seems to be a Ween-esque joke band. They suggest that perhaps they will attend a symposium on how to pose for an album cover hosted by Kenny!)


There have been more embarrassing pictures taken of Rod Stewart than pretty much any other person on earth, I think. Not just on his album covers, but pretty much every time I've seen his image captured on film.

And it doesn't help his case at all that these are pictures of Rod Stewart, if you follow me. It's just not much of a jump to go from "he just looks like he got caught doing something disgusting" to "Rod just got caught doing something disgusting again." His reputation has always preceded him.

If it were anyone else, you'd be like, 'hm. He looks odd. Probably just an awkward time for him.' But this isn't anyone else. This is Rod, and the whole thing just feels wrong.


Ah, mysticism and symbolic imagery. It says so little but means so much, you know? And when you're a little kid walking around Bi-Mart, and you encounter such deep symbolism that you'll never really truly ever figure it out, the first thing your mind goes to is that little kid is gonna poop.

Yup, him and all the rest of those naked children are crawling up those cold rocks, and god knows why, it probably means something about angels or something, and...I'm sorry, but that little pink kid is gonna take a shit!

Well, you try being a big shot designer some time. It's really hard, man...You want people to be happy, but not too happy, you know? You kind of want them to walk away going, "what the fuck was that?" a little bit, secretly, to themselves. And then feeling bad that they didn't get it.

And here, I think, is the very first album cover I ever came to truly know and love. Paul Simon tries out the first of many ways of calling attention away from his male pattern baldness, while caressing a shiny knob. Art Garfunkel's baldness, which was much, much more excruciating based on how his hair is/was, has not yet begun.

Even better though, is the fact that they were encouraged to smile on this cover, which they pretty much never did otherwise. Here, they trotted out those blazers that they owned but could never wear because kids would have thought them "uncool".

Here, we see how rock n' roll is for grown-ups and kids alike! These aren't gritty folk-rockers, these are the two nicest boys in debate club! The finest our school has to offer! Won't you please buy?


And of course, I took this picture one hundred per cent literally. How the hell'd they do that? How the hell didn't everybody die?

I was also obsessed with the name of this band, and thought it the most badass thing ever, leading me to attempt to form a street gang: The Daredevils. We were...In second grade, I believe, and had no idea what sort of things street gangs did. Mayhem, I guess.

We got in some trouble, though, for smashing a bunch of berries onto the across-the-street neighbor's bright, white garage door. We disbanded shortly thereafter.

About the cover, though? Well, it strongly resembles both Lynyrd Skynyrd's Street Survivors and Chicago's Greatest Hits. I like too, how you cannot mistake the goofiness. The goofy just won't let you go, and it's entirely because of the over-the-top mugging. As if to say, We're Joking! Ha! Ha Ha! Look at us Joke!

There's about twelve thousand more of these, of course. I just can't think of them all right now. Get back to this after my next visit to a record store.

Things I Have Said on the Internet

"Oh Ed Helms, what won't you do a cameo in? He's well on his way to being the Ava Gardner of his time."

"Since we're so deep into inexplicable love of terrible bands, could someone try to explain why anybody at all likes Kings of Leon? They're so terrible they've almost wrapped around into Ironic Appreciation Land. Not yet, though."

"I mean hell, Anita Bryant's most productive years were the mid 70's, when we were all on quaaludes and cocaine while having swinging key parties."

"I'm still shopping around my own script titled, 'Unpleasantly Detained'. Try hearing the late Ed La Fontaine saying that one in your head."
(Ed LaFontaine who did every movie trailer voice-over for the last twenty years, it seems.)

"Five Dollar Footlong: Hounded out of his boy's wrestling coach job, Ray is forced to seek employment with a national fast food sandwich chain. Some mayonnaise slathering ensues (cc)."
(Each year, many hours are spent on the Internet, making up fake names for porn. In this case, a vehicle for Ray Romano.)

"I hold it as entirely feasible that my lack of appreciation in this area only confirms my lack of education on the subject. Wait, what the fuck are we talking about?"
(I'm gonna have to go back and actually see what we were talking about. Ah. Larry the Cable Guy. Of course.)

"Yeah...So true. How's the rest of your weekend going? Or am I looking at it?"
(This was in response to some asshole who took me to task at great length for not knowing the proper name of an Ethiopian dish.)

"Considering the mood of America at the time, it's amazing that a show about a trucker and his pet chimp was not universally embraced, and still on the air to this day."
(Clearly discussing NBC's 'B.J. and The Bear'.)

"Just like many non-comedic cinematic ventures could very well be improved by a stark black and white card that reads, "It was very sad, and they all died."
(Y'got me.)

"'America- it's where all my stuff is' certainly outshines the only slogan I've got for our landmass here, which is 'One nation. Inexcusable.'"

"I often refer to Idaho as 'The Albania of the Americas' for their similar love of killing tourists."

"Sure, but the thing about dreams and expectations is...Ah hell; go watch some old 'Twilight Zone' episodes. You'll get it."
(Responding to some young n' idealistic type, clearly.)

"Wouldn't 'her take' be staring at you crosseyed and bearing her two front teeth, as is her reaction to pretty much anything?"
(Referring to Anna Paquin, and her acting "abilities".)

"'Raise your game, clownshoe,' is something I'm going to start saying now. Thank you."
(Oddly, this comes from a discussion thread about the latest Dave Matthews Band release.)

"And just think: all this is happening in a world where Kings of Leon actually command respect. I think we all should die."

"(ahem) Would you describe self preservation as being the basis of existentialism? Or; what do you think of those damn kids?"
(A press conference with the Head Janitor?)

"When you were 'young with a great hook'? Songs of that 'error'?"
(Typoes, again, are comedy gold.)

"Well, both seem to be corpse-fucking of the worst sort, but what do I know?"
(Probably referring to remakes of something near and dear to us all.)

"I always kinda thought "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper" was an okay euphemism for shitting."

"Shana, that sound you heard a few minutes ago was the collective tumescing of the members of each n' every tortured geek in this here room."

"I would so totally watch a movie called 'Crimes and BURNING TO DEATH'."

"The point here isn't semantic; it's literal. You have rather stunningly missed the point now several times, and maybe someone else would like to take a crack at it."
(From a discussion about how 'not guilty' is not the same thing as being innocent.)

"Dick Cheney still walks the earth as well. And you know what? People will overstate his achievements and downplay his egregious missteps when he dies, too."
(This was from that firestorm couple of weeks in which lots of celebrities, for manifold reasons, suddenly died.)

"Good lord. Sorry I offended you. I keep forgetting how tender some of you are."
(So was that. I had been inadequately reverent in the passing of Farrah Fawcett.)

"Hey everybody come down here! Scrotum Jones is suddenly making sense!"
(He came, stayed briefly on the 'AV Club' blog, and left as suddenly as he'd come.)

"I'm trying to bring back use of the word 'scintilla', and the usage of the word 'queer' to denote 'odd'."

"Oh, and of course; being upper middle class in no way means you're not an ignorant, vapid piece of shit. Wealth ain't taste, folks."

"I heartily applaud the arrival of 'so I'm cautiously' as our new thing to say around here."
(People's inability to type is the source of many a cheap laugh.)

"Yeah, but it's pretty amazing that we live in a world where Ashton Kutcher is considered to be worth a shit, too."
(One may apply this line to so many discussions.)

"Yeah hell; I haven't done anything in earnest since 1992."
(In response to the usual cry of 'oh you hipsters are too cynical to actually care about anything...' that one tends to hear from tortured geeks.)

"But hey- we keep straying from the main point: this movie sounds really boring."
(Referring to the movie 'Humpday', which was filmed in Portland.)

"But not a one of you defends the magic that is Mexican Pepsi. In a glass bottle, cane-sugared...Also a fictional sexual position."
(I'm always amazed when someone actually starts up the old Coke v. Pepsi discussion.)

"Well yeah; the only thing more sad than sitting here all day discussing your opinions about movies and shit is cultivating this weirdly misplaced rage against those who do so. I mean really, sister; why all the sand in yer oyster?"
(In any truly long discussion thread, some brave soul will eventually wander in and do the whole 'WHYYY ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIIIS?' number, in which it is pointed out that there's so many more important things we could be discussing, like topics the brave soul cares about, for instance. They achieve this important end by trolling discussion boards on entertainment websites.)

"'Golden Corral' as a metaphor for 'death'?"
(Popular steakhouse, as well as uncomfortable imagery-producer.)

"Or for that matter, when did the standards for ass-busting get so damn low?"
(Internet trolls are also very likely to view themselves in a strangely heroic light for doing things like interrupting discussions about some damn movie or something. They just gotta bust asses; cocking snooks at We, The Establishment, i.e. people who sit around all day talking on the Internet about relatively pointless things.)

"Fowler's Modern English Usage: Full Tilt Boogie"
("What you would title the sequel to various things that will never have sequels.")

"In a better world, there would have been Pointlessly Vindictive Spice."
(Spice Girls jokes never really go out of style.)

"As is the case with lots of arena rock, the music's pretty damn good, and the lyrics are the product of an abject moron."
(Journey, I believe, we were discussing?)

"Back when I was a young 'un who admitted to enjoying -say- The Jefferson Airplane or something, and some wanna-be clever Boomer would say, 'Bit before your time, isn't it?', my stock reply was, 'You like Mozart at all?'"

"No no; a schooner is the little glass that looks kinda like the cooling tower at a nuclear power plant. Beer comes in it."

"Oh, being raised in Texas makes you not exactly American as far as I'm concerned..."
(For some reason, that one really pissed people off. I'm not sure why. God knows, if you talk to your average Texan long enough, they'll bring up the whole 'We could secede at any time!' thing, so I always say, 'Let 'em!')

"The protective demon of cosmetology!"
(The word verification word someone had had to enter was 'noslipra'.)

"Oh, they're thinking of children all right..."
(Joke about the FCC being a bunch of pedophiles.)

"Mad Magazine always held that the proper sound effect for a boob slipping out was, 'poit'."

"Better still, naming yourself 'Yusuf Islam' is more or less literally naming yourself 'Joe Surrender'."
(Cat Stevens under discussion here.)

"Somebody get this man to a Chinese restaurant!"
(A callback to an old Woody Allen line about where old Jewish people go when they die.)

"A lot of musical artists whose work I love are indeed crap human beings, as far as I've noticed."
(Someone else talking about Cat Stevens.)

"You fucking misspelled 'typo'."
(After a lengthy screed about how all of the rest of us are such grammar/spelling nazis, and we should all just relax.)

"Commonly Used Phrase: The Movie"
(Or, 'Adjective Noun' movie titles, as I often refer to them.)

"Shit Fucker IV: Double Pits to Chesty"
(Someone had noted that the crew on the video-game movie 'Street Fighter' referred to the film as 'Shit Fucker', and we were coming up with awful sequel names. I chose the most gratingly awful [and I think purposely awful] phrase used in recent advertising, which comes from an ad for an awful product: Axe Body Spray.)

"This convention sucks!"
(Someone had referred to our discussion thread as 'Cynics Con '09'.)

"Well, redneck fashion and gay fashion overlap at many points. They both tuck in their shirts, wear pleated shorts and feel that Tommy Hilfiger isn't embarrassing. So there y'go."
(Both redneck and gay: please excuse the gross generalization.)

"Well, at least you still have your poetry career to fall back on."
(Responding to a poster whose screen name was 'Rilke'.)

"Triumph is the even-more-Canadian Rush!"

"I always held that The Buzzcocks were what The Beatles would have sounded like had they made it to the late '70's."
(I actually believe this.)

"Well, Garth (Brooks) fits here because like it or not, there's a lot more of his type of country than the other kind, and this has always been true. Much as you may enjoy all those old country songs about drinking, fighting and fucking, murder and so on, the majority of them always were heavy on God, The Flag, the importance of Family, the Work of Your Days. Garth is the rule, Jerry Jeff Walker (say) is the exception."

"I don't think I'm being unfair when I say that there's no surer way to doom yourself to looking like a douchebag for the rest of your life than getting your fucking face tattooed.
For extra douchebag points, make sure to complain about the discrimination you receive for your tattooed face. Eeersh."

"Excuse me, but was the fictional band in that movie named 'Low Shoulder'?
If so, clever! That is all."
(In re: the movie 'Jennifer's Body'.)

"Oh dear NonServiam: way to be completely irrelevant to the central discussion and occupy the easiest space of unearned moral high ground simultaneously. You sound like a Reed student trying to get laid."
(In which sanctimonious douchebag gets all superior to Portland, which as we all know is racist. Then, content with themselves, offer no solid ideas as to solving said problem.)

"The dirty little secret of lots of hipsters is that they spent their early twenties/late teens following some jam band. I have endless anecdotal evidence for this.

Thing is, I've often been annoyed by the central argument here that entire genres just plain old cannot be enjoyed, when actually a true music nerd likes a little of everything.

So really the dichotomy isn't hippie music vs. cool music, it's simple vs. elaborate, ripping off The Clash vs. ripping off Frank Zappa."
(In response to Carrie Brownstein's 'Phish Project'.)

"I'm pleased to note that if you Google the phrase "Lars Larson is a cheap little punk", the only thing you'll find is a blog post of mine."
(Remember that one?)

"I believe I shall start a blog called 'Your Blog on the Internet'. It will be about Everything."
(In response to some asshole who wrote Wonkette about how 'ignorant your blog on the internet' was.)