Rainbow Brite: trend-setting fashionista

While surfing the Web, my friend Drew and I made a fascinating discovery.

Amy Winehouse and Rainbow Brite have the exact same hairdo. That Rainbow Brite — she was light years ahead in fashion. See for yourselves:

I wish I could write a story like this!

Best story in The Austin American-Statesman EVER.

Bargain hunting urbanites changing the fabric of East Austin

Midrise condos tower over 60- to 80-year-old houses where many original families still live.

By Marjon Rostami
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Two bars sit on opposite corners at East Sixth and Pedernales streets.

In one, hipsters drink cocktails and bob their heads to the folky strains of Feist.

At the other, a more than 30-year-old neighborhood pub, regulars drink Bud Light, listen to loud Tejano artists Gary Hobbs and the Hometown Boys and ash their cigarettes in empty soda cans.

The Peacock and Kellee’s Place are in the center of a whirlwind of change on the east side.

Midrise condos, with office and retail space and residential units priced as high as $300,000, tower over 60- to 80-year-old houses where many families of the original owners still live.

The new development is raising property values, even of the older homes.

According to the county appraisal district, property values for an average-priced house in the area, now about $120,000, have increased more than 100 percent from 2000 to 2007.

And though some residents see such gentrification as a good thing, the clash of cultures — professional upper-middle-income white singles and couples moving into a historically working-class Hispanic neighborhood — has others regretting the interest in their part of the city.

KEEP READING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Craig Ferguson is not funny

Morrissey and Kathy Griffin were both on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson tonight. I love Moz, but sitting through Ferguson was almost not worth it.

He’s just NOT funny. How did this guy ever get the job over Michael Ian Black?

Seriously?!

I still love you

And I always will. Even if you never ever beat the Spurs. F those haters! There’s always next season. Maybe before Nash turns 80. I love you, Suns!!!! At least the Mavs are out! That makes me a little happy.

Marelynnisms: Death & Cancer

12:06 PM marelynn: bg

i think i am dying

12:07 PM

why is something always wrong with me

web md is useless

lol

me: i feel ya, bg

i feel ya

12:09 PM marelynn:

i don’t know what to do

12:12 PM me: just go to the dr,  bg

for peace of mind

marelynn: that is the thing

i don’t have time

or money

12:13 PM

i’m screwed

i am going to die

12:14 PM me: lol. your job doesn’t provide insurance?

12:17 PM marelynn: yeah

but it is a long process

i would have to select a physician to be my pcp

and figure out my copay

set up an appointment

12:18 PM and then show him or her my lip

in all reality i’d rather die

than try to fit that in my ridiculous life right now

calling my insurance is worse than death by cancer

seriously

prompts

incompetent employees

misinformation

bitchy doctors

long waits

claims denied

really?

i would rather die

but i’m still sad about it

12:19 PM me: LOL.

Best of, worst of…

El Paso always gets a bum rap.

It’s fat, sweaty and you can never get date, allegedly. Well, the date part is right on! Now we also have bad teeth. Great!

Story here!

Cities with the Worst Teeth

Rank	City Name
100	Lubbock, TX
99	Philadelphia, PA
98	Spokane, WA
97	Salt Lake City, UT
96	Jackson, MS
95	El Paso, TX
94	Portland, OR
93	Tulsa, OK
92	Tucson, AZ
91	Baton Rouge, LA

A Newspaper Can’t Love You Back

David Simon, the creator of The Wire, wrote this awesome biographical essayish piece, A Newspaper Can’t Love You Back, for Esquire. I believe the online version is not complete, but was a preview for the March newsstand issue. It’s not really a spoiler for The Wire, for those of you without cable (like me), since only the first two introductory paragraphs talk about season five. By now, we all know season five is about journalism and the Baltimore Sun. But anyway, read it if you have the time. It’s pretty long.

Ah, Journalism. How I love to hate you. And how I wish I was actually good enough to land some fabulous feature writing job. I peaked at The Prospector. Alas, here is my favorite part of the feature. It talks about fucking up in the newsroom, of course. I am no stranger to that.

From Esquire

By David Simon:

“To this day, I can — if I suffer to think on it — stand apart from the moment, watching as I try to slip my own skin, to disappear myself.

I have hair and forty less pounds. I’d pressed my pants for the first time all semester, even worn a tie, though I took it off in the car, thinking it made me look presumptuous. Shit, I am in that newsroom looking like the college kid I am, a fifth-year senior anyway, surrounded by the battle-hardened professionals of a delicate, precise craft.

They know I am ridiculous.

They’ve read it, in fact.

At the four o’clock meeting in the conference room, there is revelry — at my expense no doubt. From my perch on the metro desk, I hear Phelps, the state editor, say something, his words followed by a burst of laughter. Fuck, shit, fuck.

That week — my first as a Baltimore Sun stringer — I had done something remarkable. I had managed to declare that oral sex was no longer a crime in Maryland. I felt sure of this when I wrote such and had it published in my state’s largest newspaper. Having edited the campus daily the year previous, I was confident in The Diamondback’s reporting and comfortable using it as boilerplate for Sun articles I wrote about the university. And in covering a rape trial involving a student victim, I misinterpreted an appellate decision and single-handedly liberated the blowjob from the shackles of Old Line State tyranny.

The first phone call came from a member of a gay-rights group, and while I abhor stereotype as much as the next man, I confess he lisped at me in disgust: “Check your facts, mister. When I suck cock, it’s very much a crime in Maryland. . . .”

The second call, somewhat more restrained, came from John Bainbridge, The Sun’s man at the court of appeals and a lawyer in his own right: “Listen, I read your article today, and I’m not sure you’ve got the appeals decision correct. . . .”

So it’s my first correction — an ugly one. And my secret, sacred, wafer-thin plan to write my way onto a major metropolitan daily had been rendered ridiculous in a solitary blow. All that remained was a Bushido-like end to it, a slow, ceremonial evisceration on the newsroom floor. Listening to my excuses, Phelps had been short and blunt: “Write the correction and call it in to rewrite.”

The rewrite man — the legendary Jay Spry — took the time to re-explain my obvious failings in the matter, all the while addressing me as Mr. Simon, as if decorum required the condemned be granted one last comic honorific. So journalism was out. And I was still about forty credits short of an academic degree. Options: I had been a busboy. I had played guitar in bad bar bands. I had edited my college newspaper, and now, given the chance to report for one of the great gray ladies of American newspapering, I was a fucking joke.”

There is also a Simon column on the Huffington Post about the season five’s criticism. That one totally is a spoiler, but read it one day. It’s awesome too.

Oh, and by the way, JKM sent me this article back when we still worked as interns in D.C. Haha. Thanks, JMK!

Je t’aime

Marelynn sent me a link to a story on Rolling Stone.com about hip rock t-shirts.

My favorite:

Bollywood

As you may or may not know, I’m obsessed with M.I.A. Particularly with the sample for her song “Jimmy.” Taken from the 80s Bollywood film “Disco Dancer,” I can’t help but love its overdone, ridiculous nature. I found a clip of the original on YouTube the other day. I just wanted to share.

Disco Dancer

M.I.A.’s Jimmy

Touch Gloves

Sometimes my life is really funny.

Venice kicks ass twice in 45 seconds.