The Boys Consider KU's New "Men of Merit" Calendar / Plus, a Topless Coffee Shop?!

Some years back, KU developed a "Women of Distinction" calendar as a sort of academically-focused counterpart to the classic "Women of KU" calendar, which is centered primarily around titties. Now a new calendar called "Men of Merit" is being developed, which "aims to provide positive role models for young men and identify people who are bucking trends that show increasing numbers of men dropping out of school" (LJ-World). The calendar will draw on students, faculty, and administration, and the boys are hoping to be included among the lucky 12 ("Meet Richard N.ggle, professor by day, raunchy blogger by night").

Chip: "First off, I've never felt a real need for the 'Women of Distinction" calendar. Surely the women of the 'Women of KU' calendar are distinctive enough, not to mention far hotter. Just take a look at this shot, from a photo shoot for the upcoming 2009 'Women of KU' calendar, and tell me there aren't at least two very 'distinct' things about it:

















Also, when will KU produce a 'beefcake' calendar to titillate the ladies. I'd rather be a hunk of beef than a man of merit, myself."

---

The boys often sit around and ponder various businesses they'd like to see open up in downtown Larryville (late-night diners; fried chicken franchises; Victoria's Secret). But somehow the perfection of the following idea escaped their consideration: a topless coffee shop.

Grand View Coffee, in the small New England town of Vassalboro, Maine, recently opened as a topless coffee shop, attracting big business in its opening days. A CNN.com story reports: "Many local residents were irate over the idea of combining coffee and nudity. Crabtree, however, saw a profitable business venture. "I know what people want," he said. "People like nudity, and coffee is profitable."

Richard: "This would make grading papers in a coffee shop much more interesting and I'm fairly certain I'd give better grades as a result."

Chip: "One soy latte and one lap-dance, please. I'm sold. Best idea ever."

The Boys Consider This Weekend's Movie Releases and Richard Recommends a New Band / Plus, This Week in Campus News!

The early months of the year are often considered a sort of dumping ground in which studios release a few pictures that aren't worthy of the summer action season or winter awards contenders.. Even so, this weekend looks to have a couple of good choices: Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience and Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li.

Chip: "The Jonas Brothers 3-D Experience allows 13-year old girls to feel as if they're getting a lapdance from their idols. It's a very healthy thing."

Richard: "I'll wait for someone to make the Zooey Deschanel 3-D experience! Street Fighter, on the other hand, looks excellent, but it will be hard to match Jean Claude Van Damme's memorable turn as Col. William F. Guile in the 1994 version."

Chip: "Movies based on video games get a bad rap from critics but there have been some very fine performances indeed in these films. Take, for instance, Bob Hoskin's great turn as Mario Mario in Super Mario Brothers."

Richard: "Right. And the fact that Dennis Hopper failed to get a supporting actor nod as King Koopa in that film is ridiculous. In many ways, it's as scary as his work as Frank Booth in Lynch's Blue Velvet."

See you in the lobby, readers.

---

Hipsters, if you've worn out your Transmittens' on vinyl, perhaps you should turn your attention to another quirky duo, Mountains, out of Brooklyn. The New Yorker describes them as follows: "The group, a creation of two art-school graduates who've been friends since junior high, mix gentle soundscapes, often derived from field recordings of thunderstorms or the rustling pages of a book, with spare guitar parts and other instrumental touches like accordion or organ."

Chip: "I stopped reading after 'art-school graduates.'"

Cl.thier: "In the background of my Yacht Club set tonight I'll be employing field recordings of local trains, which I believe will serve as a powerful complement to my ballads about hoboes and traveling."

---

This has been "sexual awareness" week at KU. (Chip and Richard: "Believe us, we're always very sexually aware of the nubile campus women."). The festivites wind down tonight with a pub crawl, starting at Henry's at 10:00, to gather signatures in support of a comprehensive sex-education plan in schools.

Chip: "I'll bet that at least one of the sorostitutes involved in this pub crawl gets herself knocked up by the time the night's over."

The Boys' Book Club Ponders The Death of the Novel! / Plus, an Important New Hedgehog Update!

Occasionally the boys like to take a short break from the LC's usual boner humor to consider the state of American letters. Today we ask the oft-asked question: "Is the novel a dying art form?"

These days it seems that would-be "artists" would rather publish a raunchy, jokey werewolf series in installments than set down with pen in hand for a serious examination of the human condition. And a new work called
“Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry" seeks to shake up the form a little more. The work appears to be an auction catalog but is, in fact, "a literary conceit: What this book-type object really does is show us the trajectory of a failed four-year relationship — by showing us the physical detritus that two (fictional) lovers leave in their wake" (Amazon).

Chip: "I seriously doubt that ever again will anyone publish a work as good and true as, oh, let's say My Antonia. I mean look at Time magazine's newest list of the 100 Greatest Novels. Watchmen is on there, for goodness sake! It's a comic book, people. A comic book."

Richard: "Myself, I totally look forward to teaching 'Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry' in my consumer culture course."

Ian McEwan, novelist: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead." (New York Times Magazine).

---

The fame of young Judson King, local hedgehog enthusiast, keeps growing. On March 9, a crew from the Colbert Report is slated to roll into town for an interview with him and Mayor Mike Dever.

Richard: "Sure, I'm a little sad that I've been satirizing Larryville for years now and Colbert is going to swoop in and get the credit for exposing our silliness! But if it has to be anyone else, I'm glad it's Colbert!"

The Boys Consider a 0.0 Hipster Review from Pitchfork! / Plus, Harry Lupus returns!

Readers, Lent is upon us and Richard briefly considered giving up blogging for awhile. Then he remembered that you all needed a daily dose of hipsterism, boner jokes, and hot lycanthropic action, so he returned to his post!

On a recent evening, Richard found himself at Harbour Lights, shooting the shit with another hipster named Richard about the low score (1.3 out of 10) which Pitchfork had given to the Airborne Toxic Event's otherwise largely-lauded album. Our Richard was informed that Pitchfork had actually been known to award the occasional 0.0 award, most prominently to Travis Morrison, former leader of the beloved hipster band Dismemberment Plan. Learning this, your humble narrator had to see this review for himself. Here's an excerpt:

"At times, Morrison's matter-of-fact lyrics and fascination with history actually recall Schoolhouse Rock...A bigger problem with Travistan is Morrison's tendency to leave themes unresolved... The brutality from "My Two Front Teeth, Parts 2 and 3" returns on "Song for the Orca", in which he sings about zoo animals who dream of retaliating against masters who abuse them, but never makes it past the gruesome panorama. After years of turning hyper-detailed imagery into terrific stories, Morrison now seems to lack the sustenance or patience to provide closure on the books he opens."

Kip: "I thought all hipsters loved Schoolhouse Rock. And Electric Company. And kickball. And all things the rest of us gave up at age eleven or so."

Cl.thier: "I will buy this fucking album just to spite Pitchfork and their snarkiness."

---

Love him or hate him, Harry Lupus, boy werewolf, is back for another installment today, and the polls have been close lately, with readers torn between a desire for sticky, furry werewolf-sex and a need for adventure (with only Richard voting for simplistic moral lessons). But you'll get what you want in coming weeks, readers. Don't worry. And make sure to tune in next Wednesday, March 4, when a special guest writer is slated to step in and further the escapades of our horny friend!

Previously...

"As the full moon rose outside his bedroom window, Harry Lupus woke up with a very furry boner. He began to howl. Somewhere in the night, a lonely she-wolf was waiting for him, and he set off at a lope to find that bitch.

Even at a half-mile’s distance, Muffy’s musky wolf-scent seemed to invade his nostrils and Harry felt the fine hairs on his balls tingle at the thought of mounting her later that night: indeed, he was starting to love the wolf-life.

But the wolf-life had not always been so easy. Harry remembered his first transformation a year ago, which began in the midst of a perfectly human heavy petting session in the back of Muffy's mom's Oldsmobile. One minute he was incompetently pawing at her bra and the next he had long wolf-nails which slit that bra clean in half. Harry looked at his hands in horror, then back up at Muffy, who smiled a were-toothed smile and whispered, "I'm one too, Harry," at which point he leaped from the car half-naked and ran home, a wolf-tail springing from the back of his tighty-whities and fur sprouting where there was no fur before."


And now...

"As it turned out, the town was lousy with werewolves. Those furry fuckers were everywhere. Somehow Harry had just not been aware of their existence, so engrossed had he been with Grand Theft Auto and masturbation and all the usual occupations of boys his age. But once his own transformations began (presumably the result of a "love-bite" from Muffy), Harry soon found himself out sporting with the packs almost nightly. Mostly it was innocent fun. Just raiding chicken coops and such. And of course random fucking in the park, which led the old codgers of the neighborhoood to shut their windows tight against the ceaseless howls of passion.

But one pack, calling themselves the East Side Lycanthropes, refused to follow local werewolf ordinances. They were known to sneak over to neighboring towns, such as Kent, and Mayfair, and rip out a throat or two. The police mostly avoided them in the same way they avoided local meth labs. It was easier to ignore. But Harry lately found himself wondering if they could be ignored indefinitely, especially now that some of them had been sniffing around Muffy's fine wolf-ass."

The Boys Special Mardi Gras Photo Blog!

It's Fat Tuesday, readers, and the boys have been hitting the streets of downtown Larryville to mix and mingle with the hippies in the 2nd Annual Larryville Mardi Gras parade! Pour yourself a Hurricane and enjoy the pictures and brief comments!

Cl.thier has a theory about hippie chicks which he often shares after a beer or two. He believes that many of them actually wear clean and sexy underwear.

















Here is Chip, in full wizard regalia. But why is he carrying a spoon along with his magical staff? (and note the look of fear on the hippie in overalls).


















And here is Richard. His outstretched arms represent his consistent embrace of debauchery in all its many forms!
















We look forward to seeing you (and your breasts) on the streets tonight!

Larryville Gets a "Gourmet Burger" Joint (in Dempsey's Irish Pub?) / Plus, the Boys' Music Round-up

Most people don't even know Larryville has a Dempsey's Irish Pub, much less that Dempsey's now has a "Burger Stand" manned by a local gourmet chef, dishing out burgers that can be topped with apple chutney, shallot-bacon marmalade, pickled cauliflower, and tzatziki sauce.

Chip: "Well, Dempsey's is rarely open when it's supposed to be and there's never been more than five people in there at any given time as best as I can tell. I give this 'Burger Stand' three weeks, tops. As for me, I'll eat my beef at Jefferson's while watching the sorostitutes."

Richard: "I like Five Guys Burgers and Fries myself, mainly because it rhymes."

But what do the locals on the LJ-World on-line message boards think. Let's take a look:

Jeremy (Anonymous) says: "This is just free advertising for Compton's failing bar.
For what he and the bank did to Rick's place, I will never, ever, eat or drink there!"

---

Besides Cl.thier's acoustic hip-hop jam at the Yacht Club on Friday, are the boys anticipating any other upcoming musical experiences? It just so happens they are.

As our regular readers know, Richard has three primary indie chicks he wants to bang: Zooey, Jenny [Lewis], and Neko [Case]. Neko's new record "drops" next week and is said to challenge old-fans with an experimental closing number full of chirping crickets and frogs. It's called "Marais la Nuit," (Night Swamp] which "is 32 minutes long, uses four-minute repeated loops, is amphibian in its tonalities and comforting in its effect." (New York Magazine).

Richard: "Wow, I've often dreamed of banging Neko while listening to frogs chirp."

And what's on the horizon for Chip? He's excited about DJ Spooky's upcoming Lied Center performance next month called "Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica," described as "a multimedia performance rooted in man’s relationship with nature, featuring field sound recordings and images of Antarctica." (Lawrence.com)

Chip: "When I see a DJ, I expect to be able to shake my ass. Can I shake my ass to this? At the Lied Center? Yes, I can, and will."

The Boys Consider the "Baby Mangino" Picture / Also, Weekend Box-Office Results / Plus, the LC is Ready to Get Its Mardi Gras On!

Surely all local sports fans have seen the hilarious picture of five-month old Bode Lubbers dressed as KU football coach Mark Mangino, a picture that's been making its rounds on the internet for awhile now. Today the LJ-World steps in with a full-page profile of the tyke, complete with steps on how to turn your own fat little baby into a side-splitting internet sensation:

"As it happens, turning your baby into a bite-sized version of Mark Mangino is not a difficult task. It requires a miniature KU track suit ($24.99, Target), a tube of brown Mary Kay eyeliner ($10, consultant) and approximately five minutes." (LJ-World)

Chip: "Eighteen years from now Bode will be a fratboy at KU and that picture is going to get him laid like crazy, so long as he loses a little bit of weight between now and then."

---

With the Oscar telecast tonight, moviegoers across America probably spent the weekend boning up on last year's greatest cinematic achievements. Right? Maybe not. Number one this weekend, with $41 million dollars, is Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, the latest in this series about a wise-cracking black granny (played by Mr. Perry) who teaches important moral lessons to her family (and all of us). With America in a constant state of uproar over the racial implications of Obama-related political cartoons, here is a welcome respite for everyone to laugh like hell at offensive racial caricatures presented as family entertainment.

Chip: "First off, men dressing like women is always funny, unless it's a drag show, in which case it's serious and important."

Richard: "I love when movies announce their basic premise in the title and I hope this is as good as Ernest Goes To Jail, which was very good indeed."

---

And speaking of men dressing like women, will the boys be participating in the Bourgeois Pig's Mardi Gras Cross-Dressing Party on this Fat Tuesday? Or will they be around the corner at the Sandbar, drinking Hurricanes and handing out beads in exchange for seeing sweet sorostitute titties? With any luck, they'll make it to both events, and report back with tawdry tales to delight you all.

The Boys Consider a New Local Sports Controversy! / Plus, the LC's Consumer Corner / Also, The Critics Weigh in on Harry Lupus!

Many local basketball fans, wary of changes in tradition, are in an uproar over the piped-in loudspeaker techno music (similar to an NBA game) which supplemented the band at this week's Iowa State game.

LJ-World sports-columnist Tom Keegan offers this analysis in today's paper:

"The day Major League Baseball cranked up the volume spelled the end to father-and-son chats about the benefits and drawbacks of drawing in the infield. It's shocking KU has gone down this road, considering the customer-friendly, classy nature of recent improvements to the game experience in both football and basketball."

Chip: "If Keegan equates 'classiness' with a sea of frat boys and sorostitutes shouting 'Rip his fucking head off' after an afternoon spent boozing and boning each other, then I agree one hundred percent."

---

Occasionally the LC likes to consider new products and new trends that catch their fancy. Today we offer three things that we're enjoying at the present moment.

1) Firefly Distillery's "Sweet Tea Vodka"

Richard: "In the South, we love our sweet tea! And this beverage is going to make boring family dinners a lot more interesting."

2) Martin Margiela Spring 2008 Tabi shoe

LC-supporter and local fashion maven Beth pointed out this sexy new fashion trend to the boys. Yes, it's a shoe/boot that looks a lot like what's often referred to as "camel toe," which is despised by some and loved by others (for those unclear on the term, let's look at this amusing definition from www.urbandictionary.com: "A very aesthetically pleasing phenomenon, whereby a woman's venus mound is clearly discernable under the snug fabric of her lower garment. Typically, the fuller the labia, the more pleasing the effect."

And what does Chip think of this new fashion trend?

Chip: "Dude, I'd totally screw that shoe."




















3) Iphone's "iFart" application

Yes, it's an application (or "app," as cool people call it) that allows your phone to make farting sounds. Recently, it was the number-one downloaded application for the Iphone.

Richard: "Farting is hilarious. But I also enjoy using my phone to make telephone calls."

---

With Richard's Harry Lupus series well underway, local critics have had a chance to weigh in. Let's take a look at what folks are saying:

Cl.thier, local troubadour and poet: "Perhaps the moon, a prevalent and positive symbol in much "feminine" literature and often associated with the Triple Goddess (Graves) should be a sort of nemesis to Harry - a harbinger of doom and evil, rather than the symbol of sensuality and femininity it appears to be in the Norville excerpt."

Dr. X, Southern professor: "Once we start publishing this on Twitter, we're going to get rich as fuck."

Heather, local pastor and Harry Potter fan: "It's easily the worst part of the blog. I quit reading after two of them."

Richard, author: "It's funny because it's actually less ridiculous than the shit people are really reading!"

More Piano Bar News! / Plus, a Look at Today's LJ-World Oscar Coverage

Certain local stories captivate the boys and demand continuing coverage here, such as last year's battle to "Save the T," this year's domestic hedgehog legislation, and the rise and fall of the great synth-duo Transmittens.

The March opening of the new "dueling piano bar" called The Barrel House in the former home of Last Call promises to be another such story. Fascinationg tidbits continue to be revealed, such as today's announcement in the UDK that the co-owners of the new establishment are Emily and Alex Akers, twin sisters and KU Seniors.

Chip: "Like all normal men, I have a fantasy about banging twins. I hope they are hot."

Richard: "I hope they slide around on top of the pianos in red dresses while singing 'Makin' Whoopee,' a la Fabulous Baker Boys."

Chip: "I don't get that reference, but I hope so too."

The bar is slated to open on March 27, and the boys will see you there on opening night.

---

With the Academy Awards this Sunday, the LJ-World naturally devotes a full page to the broadcast today, relying on the best available local film experts: Larryville high-school students.

While it's an excellent idea to gauge the views of the youth on this year's crop of films, Richard was forced to stop reading after this early sentence:

"Interestingly, none of the four film students gathered from Lawrence High had seen any of the best picture nominees."

The Boys Consider Metal Bands and Mardi Gras!

Aside from a few hipster metal bands (The Esoteric!), Larryville clubs rarely provide a venue to thrash in, playing host instead to a never-ending parade of twee bedroom pop and freak folk. Tonight that will change, as the Jackpot welcomes the "doom metal" of Goblin Cock, who perform in "black hooded robes with downtuned Metallica axes" and are fronted by someone named Lord Phallus (Lawrence.com).

Chip: "I believe their name is some sort of sexual innuendo, but I can't quite figure it out."

Richard: "The idea of hipsters in a mosh pit makes me giggle. Won't they spill their PBR?"

---

Also on the horizon is Fat Tuesday, and the boys do love their Mardi Gras festivities.

Chip: "Aside from Stop Day (which may soon end if we don't fight the power), Fat Tuesday is the best day to see titties on the street. And I love the idea that you can see them in exchange for cheap plastic beads, which are much less expensive than the usual two or three shots of Yagermeister it costs a man to see some breasts."

Richard: "And don't forget the Percolator's Mardi Gras Mask-erade this Saturday, readers! One can only imagine it will resemble the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut."

Harry Lupus: Boy Werewolf / Plus, the Boys Consider GQ's "Most Stylish Man in America"

Previously, on Harry Lupus: Boy Werewolf...


"As the full moon rose outside his bedroom window, Harry Lupus woke up with a very furry boner. He began to howl. Somewhere in the night, a lonely she-wolf was waiting for him, and he set off at a lope to find that bitch.

Even at a half-mile’s distance, Muffy’s musky wolf-scent seemed to invade his nostrils and Harry felt the fine hairs on his balls tingle at the thought of mounting her later that night: indeed, he was starting to love the wolf-life."

And today...


But the wolf-life had not always been so easy. Harry remembered his first transformation a year ago, which began in the midst of a perfectly human heavy petting session in the back of Muffy's mom's Oldsmobile. One minute he was incompetently pawing at her bra and the next he had long wolf-nails which slit that bra clean in half. Harry looked at his hands in horror, then back up at Muffy, who smiled a were-toothed smile and whispered, "I'm one too, Harry," at which point he leaped from the car half-naked and ran home, a wolf-tail springing from the back of his tighty-whities and fur sprouting where there was no fur before."

---

GQ magazine has named the "most stylish man in America" and once again the winner is neither Chip nor Richard. It's Justin Timberlake, and here's why:

"Timberlake has a knack for targeting trends just before they crest. He might not spark them, but he's the guy who broadcasts them-whom we point to for making, say, hats popular again, or for making suits look like they were meant to be worn with sneakers, or for wearing a beard that's not quite a beard per se but is pretty much what every guy at the club wears these days" (GQ).

Chip: "Fuck him. I've been doing that not-quite-a-beard thing for years and no one singles me out as 'stylish.' I also believe myself to be largely responsible for the local trend of hooded sweatshirts."

Richard: "We should all be grateful to Timberlake for bringing sexy back a few years ago and, sure, he's the reason I always wear a hat, but I'm just not ready for the suit and sneakers look yet."

The Boys Consider the Academy Awards / Plus, Richard and Harry Lupus Meet The Competition!

Like several other straight men across the nation, the boys love the glitz and glamour of Oscar night. But they are a little concerned about this year's competition. Last year the telecast received its lowest ratings ever. Can this year's recapture the magic? Rumors are that major changes are in store. Besides hiring this year's "sexiest man alive" Hugh Jackman to host, producers have supposedly revamped the previously mundane way the awards are presented: "this year's Oscars will have a story line related to making movies and will lean heavily toward live theater instead of endless film clips, with the award presentations almost Shakespearean plays within a play" (NYTimes).

Chip: "Supposedly the producers want the telecast to reconnect with the 'average' viewer, but I suspect this 'meta' approach is not the way to do it. If they want people in Forttt Scottt to watch the Oscars, they need to nominate Paul Blart: Mall Cop for Best Picture and hire Larry the Cable Guy to host. He could 'get 'er done' in less than four hours, I assure you."

---

Just last week Richard believed that he had cornered the market on young-adult werewolf fiction. But somehow he had completely overlooked Carrie Vaugn's 'Kitty Norville' series, feauturing a female werewolf who hosts a radio advice show (the newest installment, Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand, checks in at #13 on the NYTime's Mass Market Fiction list this week).

Is there room for both Kitty and Harry?

Richard: "I believe so. Kitty seems to be going for a female audience that's slightly older than the readers of Twilight and Harry Potter, and supposedly there's a 'feminist' element to her work. I'm going for the untapped young male audience who doesn't want a 'political' edge to their work but just wants to read about a young werewolf killing and fucking. Plus, our styles are quite different. Let's take a look at this excerpt from the Kitty series:

"The forest was silver, the trees shadows. Fallen leaves rustled as nighttime animals foraged. I ignored the noises, the awareness of the life surrounding me. I pulled off my T-shirt, felt the moonlight touch my skin. I put my clothes in the hollow formed by a fallen tree and a boulder. The space was big enough to sleep in when I was finished. I backed away, naked, every pore tingling. I could do this alone. I’d be safe. I counted down from five—One came out as a wolf’s howl."

This is excellent, of course, and fully deserving of Times bestseller status, but there's a sensual, feminine element to it that I seek to avoid in my work with Harry. It gives me a boner, sure, but I suspect the love scenes in this series verge on the Harlequin-romance kind, whereas I'm going to make sure that Harry and Muffy, in my work, screw like animals. Wolves, to be precise."

Chip: "If your werewolf series doesn't pan out, you might consider writing a series of novels about a young Abe Lincoln and his sexual misadventures. Lincoln is so hot right now. And I feel there are a lot of horny young history buffs out there who would love to hear about Honest Abe sporting wood in his log cabin."

The Boys Consider Recent Magazine Covers!

The boys like to consider themselves well-informed, so they keep a close eye on the country's most respected publications. Two covers in particular caught their eye last week. One gave them a fright; the other gave them a boner.

First was this shocking proclamation from Newsweek:














Chip: "When I first saw this, I felt like I imagine people must have felt when they heard Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast. But then I quickly remembered, Obama or no-Bama, that I was still a capitalist pig, and I felt better after that."

But of course the major cover in the news last week was that of the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, a moment that red-blooded American males wait anxiously for each year.



















Richard: "Readers, we live in a world where it's so easy these days to just log on and watch real people doing it, and that's nice, don't get me wrong. But there's something so...old-fashioned and innocent about the SI Swimsuit Issue. It just makes me proud to be a man and an American, who likes sports and boning women, in that order. And this issue is even better, because we can all feel multiculturally aware, knowing that we're beating off to beautiful Israeli model Bar Refaeli."

Chip: "The cover serves as what journalists call a 'hook.' It makes me want to look inside and see if she actually removes that bikini bottom" (spoiler alert: "She doesn't.").

The Boys Weekly Box Office Report / Plus (Finally) A New Episode of "Is It Art, or Isn't It?"

Readers, Valentine's Day is over, and we hope you all had your fill of chocolate and sex and expensive flowers that are wilting in the windowsill even as we speak. But the boys find themselves feeling sorry for women across the country today. Why? Because so many of them were forced to see the opening of the new Friday the 13th "reboot" this weekend and have the series explained to them by their cinematically ill-informed frat-boy boyfriends ("See, the first one came out in probably, like, the 50's or something. It was in black and white."). The film grossed $42.2 million this weekend, easily the largest opening ever for the franchise and proving once and for all that American prefer disembowelings to romance (the chick-flicks Confessions of a Shopaholic and He's Just Not That Into You were left in the dust). But the boys would like to assure the ladies of America that, if you were dating them instead, they'd have gladly seen Shopaholic with you...so long as they were guaranteed a blowjob afterward.

---

At the Pig tonight, the "Youth of Today" exhibit, featuring photographs by Chris Ortiz, gets underway with a reception. But is it art, or isn't it? Let's take a look.

















Chip: "Photography in general is not 'art.' Anybody can take a fucking picture. And I can't be absolutely certain this is a lady's ass, which makes me feel nervous about my boner."

Richard: "The linking of sex and commerce is always profound. I'll vote 'art.' "

The Boys Consider a New Obama Product / Plus, THE Hipster Pick for V-Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, readers, and if you're looking for something to spice up the day, a new Obama product may come in handy (and we'd like to thank Pitchweekly's V-Day sex shop and strip club issue for alerting us to this product, which somehow flew under the boys' normally keen cultural radar). It's the "Obama-dildo," featuring the president's face at the tip and standing 7.5 inches tall. It comes in Democratic blue or presidential gold. (yes, this is real: go ahead and google it yourself for shocks and giggles).

Richard: "First off, I think it's good for the economy to have a president who's also a successful 'brand name.' Second, it's nice to have a president that people want to screw. We haven't seen that since Clinton. However, let's just say it, there are some rather disturbing racial implications here. Just who is the target audience for this product? And will they be a bit disappointed it doesn't come in 'black' and that it isn't a little...bigger."

Chip: "Okay, this satire is making me awfully uncomfortable on a day when I'm already nervous as hell about the K-State game, which I always refuse to watch. Today I plan to sit alone in a cornfield and meditate while eating cheap Valentine's chocolates. Can we talk about something else? Like maybe that riduculous 'cuddle party' at the Replay tonight?

Chip is right, hipsters, tonight's the night. Put on your comfiest PJ's (with footies!) and head down for the "Sonic Douche Cuddle Party." Sonic Douche, of course, is a "shadowy cabal of “musicians” [that] has been plaguing the Lawrence music scene for 10 years, and they’re resurfacing on Valentine’s Day for a triumphant reunion/pajama cuddle party... They’re planning an ultra-velvety night of romance and beef hearts for Valentine’s Day, with underwear and heavy petting strongly encouraged." (LJ-World).

Chip: "It's rare that I spot anyone at the Replay that I'd enjoy seeing in their underwear."

Richard: "Myself, I can think of at least two bartendresses I'd like to 'cuddle' with."

If the Replay sounds a little too "interactive" for you, the TapRoom takes it down a notch with "a recitation of St. Valentine's love poems, cheap chocolate and the usual soul-funk-disco-80s-hip-hop-booty-bass dance classics. Edible underwear, gross-tasting message hearts, and overpriced flowers will be on display." (LJ-World).

And if that's still too much, fliers at the Pig announce that they'll simply be playing albums by My Bloody Valentine and Magnetic Fields (presumably 69 Love Songs) all evening. Come sit in the dark and sing along to Stephen Merrit's bittersweet (and bitter) tales: "A melody is like a pretty girl / who cares if it's the dumbest in the world."

More Squirrel Controversy! / Plus, Larryville Gets a Piano Bar / Also, Valentine's Picks for Hipsters and Sorostitutes!

Predictably, local "progressives" are far more concerned about the recent squirrel massacre in Tonganoxie than they are by the dog sodomy case in our own backyard. Perhaps they believe that the man/dog sex was consensual? Or that the language barrier simply led the Turkish grad student to misunderstamd the term "doggy style" In yesterday's editorial pages, an Adonia David draws upon the words of Ghandi to express his (or her?) dismay at the squirrel hunt:

"As Ghandi said, 'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.' The people who participated in this bit of cruelty in Tonganoxie on Saturday made us all poorer in spirit."

Chip: "I wish we could get beyond this and focus on something even more distressing, something that profoundly affects us all: the possible elimination of Stop Day."

---

Last Call, former home to weekly gunplay, will soon reopen under new ownership as The Barrel House, a dueling piano bar, a recent trend gaining popularity nationwide among young and unhip white people. Will it work in Larryville? The owners insist that it will fit right into the local music scene and are currently hiring a stable of local piano players for the establishment.

Richard: "Unless the piano players know a lot of Pavement, this shit won't lure a single hipster away from the Taproom."

Chip: "Doomed to fail. Our local musicians aren't responsible enough to show up on time and do their duties for this kind of operation."

---

Larryville offers something for everyone on Valentine's Day. Tonight is an event perfect for sensitive hipsters: a midnight screening of Say Anything at Liberty Hall.

Richard: "Any reasonably sensitive young male hipster of a certain age can get himself laid by any reasonably attractive hipster chick of a certain age simply by a reasonably close recitation of the following speech from Lloyd Dobler:

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

Chip: "The old boombox serenade sometimes works too. At other times, it leads to restraining orders.

If you're a frat boy or a sorostitute, you'll likely find yourselves at Abe and Jake's Valentine's Party tomorrow night, which is slated to include special appearances by former basketball heroes Brandon "I never brought my book to Richard's class" Rush and Mario "Super Nintendo" Chalmers. While Chalmers' now-legendary 3-point shot in last year's championship victory may not have necessarily translated into immediate NBA glory, it has won him everlasting respect in Larryville. All he has to do is walk into Abe and Jake's and point at the sorostitute of his choice to have her sink to her knees and do his bidding.

See you on the town, readers.

The Boys Discuss Another Cinematic Trend/ Also, Campus News (No More Stop Day?!) / Plus, 25 Random Facts about the Boys, Part II

We all know about the cinematic phenomenon of "torture porn" (the Hostel films, etc) but are we now witnessing the birth of "shopping porn?" The mind-boggling success of Paul Blart suggests so, and this weekend Confessions of a Shopaholic will truly reveal if what cash-strapped Americans truly want to do right is salivate over films set in department stores. Advance reviews are surprisingly positive, with several (from Ebert and Owen Glieberman) comparing Shopaholic-star Isla Fisher to screwball comediennes such as Lucille Ball.

Richard: "I want to screw Isla Fisher as much as the next guy (probably more than most), but I suspect she's the next Lucille Ball in about the same way that Ashton Kutcher is the next Buster Keaton."

Chip: "I've seen some movies about cheerleader confessions that I found in a 'special room' at the back of Miracle Video. I wonder if this film is anything like those?"

---

Scheduling committees at KU are considering a plan to eliminate Stop Day, the traditional day off between the end of classes and the beginning of final exams, stating that Stop Day's current incarnation on Friday is unecessary (since the weekend obviously already provides two days off before finals). What do the boys think?

Chip: "I'd rather cancel Christmas than Stop Day. Stop Day Eve is Larryville's most drunken holiday, the likeliest time to see tits on the streets except for a national basketball championship victory, which seems unlikely to ever happen again."


---

As we reported earlier in the week, the boys love Facebook for many reasons, not the least of which is the ability to look at Quinton's waitresses in various states of undress and learn important facts about their likes and dislikes which can then be used at the bar to start conversations ("Jack Johnson and Yagermeister is a stellar combination").

But it's hard to concentrate on anything else on Facebook right now besides the "25 facts" meme. Here are a few more:

Chip: "I have shaken hands with two famous basketball coaches and seen the crank of one at a Yacht Club urinal, but I have not shaken the hand of the one whose name we do not speak, currently residing in N.C."

Richard: "I have shaken hands with Mrs. Cosby, Phylicia Rashad."

Chip: "I once spent three days lining pennies up in a row to help my community set a Guinbess world record. I am proud of Forttt Scottt and my contribution to their feat."

Richard: "I once participated in a radio station publicity stunt where an army of us playing 'Louie Louie" on kazoos marched in a parade through downtown Little Rock."

A New Installment of "Harry Lupus, Boy Werewolf" / Plus, Other Animal Tales (proceed with caution)

Readers, we realize there's a lot of great literature to choose from right now, such as Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (""Oh, my golly," said Jean. "The poor baby," I said, squeezing tighter. "It's adorable."). Or the Twilight vampire series ("And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino.") And John Grisham's latest opus, The Associate ("The agent/cop hadn't moved an inch"). [actual quotes] But we hope you can find room in your heart for one more character: young Harry Lupus. Here is volume four:

"As the full moon rose outside his bedroom window, Harry Lupus woke up with a very furry boner. He began to howl. Somewhere in the night, a lonely she-wolf was waiting for him, and he set off at a lope to find that bitch.

Even at a half-mile’s distance, Muffy’s musky wolf-scent seemed to invade his nostrils and Harry felt the fine hairs on his balls tingle at the thought of mounting her later that night: indeed, he was starting to love the wolf-life."

---

The LJ-World loves its animal stories. From hedgehog legislation to cute baby foxes on the EastSide to cow farts to squirrel scrambles, it's a rare day when some piece of animal-related news doesn't hit the front page. Today brings us a cover story on thousands of robins who have taken to arriving on the WestSide each evening to nest in the trees ("It's a phenomenon. It's an extraordinary event," Robbins said." --did you notice the guy's name is also 'Robbins?'). The article ends by assuring us that "The birds don't represent a threat to humans...".

Richard: "I'm not assured. I've seen that Hitchcock flick."

But, readers, a less pleasant animal story has also made headlines this week. At last night's weekly LC board meeting, Cl.thier expressed surprise that the story of the Turkish grad student jailed for sodomizing a dog had not proven blog-worthy. Richard explained that it was hard to find the humor in a man fucking a dog in the ass and had chosen not to include the sordid affair in the LC. He fully intended to stick to that vow too, but an editorial in today's LJ-World has forced us to address the matter after all. Mr. John Hoopes, of Lawrence, writes: "I hope I'm not the only one to note the cruel irony of your paper's coverage of a Kansas University student's felony charge for animal cruelty while featuring Tonganoxie's third annual Squirrel Scramble on the front page. One man faces serious penalties for 'intentionally and maliciously killing, injuring, maiming, torturing, burning, or mutilating any animal' while organizers of the squirrel hunt see it as 'a good way to get the children outdoors' and relish the idea of cutting off squirrel tales to use as fishing lures.'"

Chip: "Maybe I'm wrong here, but I feel that something has gone astray in the local environmentalist culture when they can't tell the different between hunting animals for food and sport and raping the family dog."

The Boys Discuss New Cinematic Trends, "Loku" Poetry, and Animal Pollution!

Remakes have long been a staple in Hollywood, but the "franchise reboot" is a newer phenomenon. Essentially, the idea is to take a stagnant series (a film and its sequels) and relaunch it for a new generation, capitalizing on their complete ignorance of cinematic history. And the newest franchise to get a "reboot" is Friday the 13th (the new film hits theaters this Friday in a clever bit of Valentine's Day counterprogramming that the LC predicts is going to rake in major cash). But will the boys check it out?

Richard: "In a recent New York Times piece, the justification for relaunching this series is that the films got bogged down in a "ridiculously convoluted" mythology. I disagree. Basically, in the first one, you've got Jason's mom, then Jason's on the loose, and he's in 3-D in part 3, he dies in part four, he's replaced by a Jason-imposter in 5, he's a zombie in 6, he reverts to a child in 8, gets exploded in 9 and becomes a spiritual force able to hop from body to body, and of course goes to Manhattan and later to space after Earth is destroyed, where he becomes a cyborg. What's complicated about that? If there's going to be another film in the series, I fucking demand that it tells me how he gets back to Earth and becomes a man again! Also, I'd like a Kevin Bacon cameo."

Chip: "I have no particular loyalty to this franchise and would consider seeing the 'reboot' if I have a sorostitute there to hold my hand during the scary parts. I hear there's a nude waterskiing scene."

---

According to a recent LJ-World piece (which provides virtually no evidence for its assertion), Larryville has given birth to a new poetic form that is sweeping the nation. It's called the "loku," and as best as we call tell it's a 3 word poem consisting of one-syllable words. Here's the opening of that article:

"Lawrence, Kansas is a melting pot of people and creative ideas erupting with artists, singers, song writers, performers, and entertainers of all varieties. From this epic center of creativity explodes a new form of poetry referred to as Loku (pronounced low koo)...".

Chip: "Although I'm not sure how the origin was traced to Larryville, it seems very believable to me, since most of our artists are indeed too lazy and stoned to write more than 3 words. However, in Forttt Scottt, I was taught that a poem is not a poem unless it has at least six words."

Richard: "At the opening of the Percolator's upcoming 'Trees I Have Known" exhibition, I will be presenting a series of lokus that I think you'll find quite stimulating. Here's one example: 'Trees are sweet.'"

---

But what's on the front page of the LJ-World today? Well, if you must know, it's a story about a proposed government plan to tax livestock flatulence, specifically "operations that emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions in a year."
Here's a sample quote from an interview subject in the piece: "I bet if you walk over there behind our cows you'll see some poop, but you're not going to hear a lot of gas."

Chip: "I'm fairly sure you can't levy a tax on cow farts."

Richard: "At the LC, we pride ourselves on our 'boner humor' but fart jokes have been largely neglected. I love this story very much."

The Boys Consider Facebook Memes and Hipster-Band Feuds!

Perhaps the most popular 'meme' on Facebook right now is "25 Random Things About Me," in which people list their chosen facts, 'tag' their 'friends,' and request they do the same and pass it on. Like all quick-spreading phenomenons, it has drawn as much ire as praise, with Facebook 'groups' quickly forming to express their hatred of the meme. A recent Salon article documents how the author's initial dislike of the phenomenon slowly blossomed into an appreciation of how the task sometimes reveals hidden depths in one's most seemingly superficial 'friends' list.

But how do the boys feel? Well, of course, they love this meme (Chip: "What's a meme and is this really a word people use now?"), but at the same time feel that 25 random things is a lot to process in one sitting. So the LC will now parcel out 25 random things about Chip and Richard over the course of a few weeks, starting today:

Chip:
1) Sometimes I eat gravy by itself with a spoon.
2) I take bubblebaths to help me relax.

Richard:
1) I secretly prefer Patrick Swayze's Point Break to Welles' Citizen Kane.
2) Once I hit a guy over the head with a frozen corndog at a party, but only because he asked me to do it.

---

How bad must a band be to receive a 1.6 rating from Pitchfork? And how could a band receiving accolades from so many other hipster publications attain such a low score? It's hard to say, but it's happened to Airborne Toxic Event, who'll be riding a wave of sold-out shows into Larryville's Jackpot next week.

Pitchfork says this:

"In a way, The Airborne Toxic Event is something of a landmark record: This represents a tipping point where you almost wish Funeral or Turn on the Bright Lights or Is This It? never happened as long as it spared you from horrible imitations like this one, often sounding more inspired by market research than actual inspiration. Congrats, Pitchfork reader-- the Airborne Toxic Event thinks you're a demographic."

Chip: "First off, I already wish those albums never happened, every day. Second of all, of course Pitchfork readers are a 'demographic.' All it takes is a visit to the Replay or Jackpot and a can of PBR to realize this."

Dissatisfied with such poor treatment from the taste-makers at Pitchfork, the Airborne Toxic Event fired off an open letter defending their merits, which is worth quoting here at length:

"You compare us to a lot of really great bands (Arcade Fire, the National, Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen) and even if your intention was to cut us down, you end up describing us as: “lyrically moody, musically sumptuous and dramatic.” One is left only to conclude that you m ust think those things are bad.

We love indie rock and we know full well that Pitchfork doesn’t so much critique bands as critique a band’s ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don’t match it. It’s true that the events described in these songs really happened. It’s true we wrote about them in ways that make us look bad. (Sometimes in life you are the hero, and sometimes, you are the limp-dicked cuckold. Sometimes your screaming about your worst fears, your most trite jealousies. Such is life.) It’s also true that the record isn’t ironic or quirky or fey or disinterested or buried beneath mountains of guitar noodling."

Cl.thier, local Pitchfork-hater: "Amen!"

Richard: "Will I be at the Airborne Toxic Event show? You bet I will! Their name, as you will know if you are hip, is a barely-veiled nod to Don DeLillo's White Noise, and I'm betting there will be more than a few quirky, indie-chick DeLillo readers in the audience who might want to discuss Great Jones Street and have sex, not necessarily in that order."

The LC's Box-Office Report / Plus, the Boys Consider KU Theatre!

As Richard predicted, He's Just Not That Into You is doing big business this weekend before Valentine's Day ($27.5 million). Although the critics have mostly been unkind, a few are willing to come to the film's defense, such as Mick Lasalle from the SF-Chronicle, who says:

"...face it: If a movie this well made had Spanish or French subtitles, we'd all be talking about it as a searing examination of sexual politics."

Chip: "Finally, we have a critic who realizes that films such as this and Sex and the City: The Movie are the modern-day equivalent of, oh, let's say, Ingmar Bergman films in terms of their profound and incisive commentary on relationships. In fact, the only problem I have with this film is that it's 2 hours and 12 minutes long, which is longer than some of my most fulfilling relationships have been."

Richard: "I have to admit that I sort of miss the old chick-flicks that told women true love was possible, instead of this new generation of films that tells women their vibrators are almost always preferable to real men. I blame Hollywood solely for the fact that I'm single."

---

KU rarely if ever performs a play in its original version, apparently believing that Shakespeare is completely irrelevant to modern viewers unless its set in space or on a pirate ship, and it's always fun to guess the ways in which they will "modernize" their plays each season. What has KU Opera done to the current Gilbert and Sullivan 19th-century opera Patience, you wonder? Let's find out from this LJ-World review:

"The opera department chose to set this particular piece at KU in the 1920s, where a chorus of greek maidens, ala Chi Omega or Kappa Kappa Gamma, pose and pursue the fleshly poet, Reginald. Their former beaus, members of the KU football team, are confused and upset...".

Chip: "A chorus of sorostitutes?! Opera, you just got interesting for the first time ever!"

Not content with one level of modernization, the production also includes contemporary references to Obama, Biden, and Palin.

Richard: "I don't very often like to speak in my real voice on the blog, but let me just say this: what the fuck?"

The Boys Consider Li'l Wayne, Tech N9ne, and....Clown Ballet?

Sure, Li'l Wayne gets all the national attention. He's poised to win eight Grammy's tomorrow (this year's leading contender), and his lyrics truly speak to all of us. Maybe you've heard your grandmother humming this ditty:

"Man I swear I'm on top like the attic
Yeah bitch, I be with my dog like Shaggy
And we stay clean but get dirty like Harry
Flyer than bluebirds, cardinals and canaries
Fuck me, I'm all about "Oui" like Paris"

But in the Midwest, we've got our own private Wayne, and his name is Tech N9ne. N9ne makes his triumphant return to Larryville tonight, an occasion that always makes the town's less-progressive white folks a bit nervous. The boys are expected to be on hand tonight, watching the sorostitutes sing along to N9ne's songs such as "Fuck 'em girl," a powerful celebration of female sexuality that recalls the best of Sex and the City:

"She’s goin’ out to find a thick stout to out her dig, that dress’ fittin’ catcher’s mitten is out there big."

Chip: "Is the 'catcher's mitten' her ass?"


---

But where should the high-brow crowd go while the kids are having their fun? How about to a 'clown ballet' in KC called "The Coppelia Project," which "follows the quest of Dr. Coppelius-Coppola, an inventor on the verge of creating the world’s first automaton... Presented in red nose and full of foibles and folly, the piece grapples with the question of beauty and where it lies; if the eye of the beholder cannot find it… does it exist?" (Lawrence.com).

Richard: "Can one perform ballet in those ridiculous clown shoes?"

Chip: "I'm as scared of ballet as I am of clowns. This is the stuff of nightmares. I'd feel safer at the Tech N9ne show."

Larryville vs. KC Art! / Plus, the LC's Hick Pick of the Weekend!

The Percolator is widely acknowledged as the place in Larryville for "local bohemia at play" (LJ-World), but a new gallery in KC's Crossroads Arts District is poised to give the Perc a run for its money. The "Slap-n-Tickle (me)" gallery has a major "erotic art opening" tonight featuring more than 30 artists from KC and New York along with a burlesque performance and a fashion show. Top that, Percolator! Their website proclaims that the gallery is also open for "special appointments."

Chip: "Perhaps the 'special appointments' are to provide a little private 'gentleman's time' with the erotic paintings. I think it's safe to say we've all been turned on by a painting at one time or another--The Mona Lisa, for instance, always gives me a boner--but have found it impossible to surreptitiously beat off with other people milling about nearby. The Slap-n-Tickle may have solved that problem."

---

Like all real men, the boys enjoy hunting and eating animals, and you may well find them this weekend at nearby Tonganoxie's "Squirrel Scramble," a squirrel hunting tournament which in its third year has warranted a front page story in today's LJ-World which will no doubt elicit a major outcry from Larryville's anti-hunting activists (who have recently been stalking local editorial pages in protest of the LJ-World's photos of hunters modeling with their dead deer). But lest you think the 'scramble' is a wasteful activity, the article notes that most hunters do indeed eat the squirrels and even use their tails to make fishing lures.

Chip: "They use all parts of the squirrel just as Native-Americans used all parts of the buffalo."

Richard: "My favorite quote in the article is this: "It's getting to be a big thing around here. Go out in the woods for 20 bucks; you can't beat it." Back in Arkansas, we hunted squirrels for free."

This Week in Campus News: KU Info Gets a Human Face! / Plus, Los Campesinos! Recap and a Werewolf Update!

For many years, local stoners have had to rely on the disembodied voices of KU Info's phoneline to provide them with information they could easily access themselves if they weren't so fucking high. But now that's changed. A small booth along Jayhawk Boulevard, vacant since 1974, is now occupied by an assortment of volunteers who will do their best to make sure you can find various buildings on campus and the best local pizza deals and such.

Richard: "Oh, I love this shit. It's like visiting a wizard! You can find me out there most afternoons asking random questions."

Chip: "I'm going to ask them who is the sluttiest sorostitute on campus!"

---

The boys are often too hip to actually attend various important hipster shows, but KC's Wayward Blog is fast becoming the go-to guide for concert reviews. Here is an excerpt from their Los Campesinos! experience:

"It was an all-ages show, but instead of watching the usual mass of high schoolers form a half-assed mosh pit, I spent the night dodging grown men who were jumping around and dancing."

Chip: "This is classic Larryville hipsterism right here. The youngsters are home studying and the aging hipsters are down at the bar."

---

The acclaim for yesterday's third sentence of Richard's werewolf opus was so strong on Facebook that the LC now plans to present a new installment each Wednesday, until people grow bored or the cultural spotlight shifts to a new monster (in which case Richard will keep the story's foundation and just change the references).

Chip: "I hope Frankenstein-monsters become cool again. I like those."

Richard: "What I envision for my werewolf story is sort of a mix of Hardy Boys-innocence coupled with exreme Apatow-style raunch, and full of Updike-like bad sex scenes. Who's the audience, you ask? Who isn't?"

Local Budget Cut Update! / Plus, the Boys Consider Chick-Flicks, Valentine's Poems, and Werewolves!

An overflow crowd at last night's meeting quickly led the city fathers to scrap the idea of major budget cuts for the Prairie Park Nature PReserve.

Chip: "This was to be expected. Local 'progressives' would rather see every school in town close before euthanizing a single fucking bird."

---

The Pitch weighs in today with an early review of He's Just Not That Into You:

"If all you ask for is a few gay jokes, a perky score, pretty shots of Baltimore, and some clever but callow observations of sexual mores in the city, He's Just Not That Into You is an amiable-enough night out."

Richard: "I'm pretty sure this is exactly what most people ask for in a romantic comedy (aside from maybe the Baltimore stuff), and I predict this will outgross Paul Blart: Mall Cop this weekend."

Chip: "It sounds great, but I wonder if its premise will lead women to believe that their significant others are not 'all that into them' and result in numerous fights on the way home? Or whether it will lead to important discussions of sexual issues that result in several intense bouts of post-film sex. I'm hoping for the latter. In fact, I'm counting on it."

---

The boys love Valentine's Day, and this year they are taking a cue from former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, who for fourteen years running sent a special Valentine's poem to all the important women in his life (plus a lot of random women who signed a mailing list, eventually numbering up to 2700).

Let's look at one of Kooser's Valentine's poems:


The Hog-Nosed Snake

The hog-nosed snake, when playing dead,
Lets its tongue loll out of its ugly head.

It lies on its back as stiff as a stick;
If you flip it over it'll flip back quick.

If I seem dead when you awake,
Just flip me once, like the hog-nosed snake.

Chip: "Is this romantic? Is the snake an elaborate erection metaphor? I suppose so. But rest assured, ladies, that the poems I am sending will not rely on such poetic subtleties. They are all quite clearly about boners."

---

As Richard has predicted, werewolves are about to enter the cultural spotlight in a major way, making the time perfect for his own series of angsty teenage werewolf novels. The new Twilight film will focus more on its werewolves characters; a new Wolf Man film starring Benicio del Toro will soon appear (and gross more in one afternoon than his 4 and a half hour Che will gross in its entire run); and even Fox has greenlighted an all-female werewolf show called "Bitches." (Chipnote: "See, bitches is a name for female dogs. This shit is wicked clever."

Richard, hard at work, has now added a third sentence to his werewolf opus:

"As the full moon rose outside his bedroom window, Harry Lupus woke up with a very furry boner. He began to howl. Somewhere in the night, a lonely she-wolf was waiting for him, and he set off at a lope to find that bitch."

The Boys Discuss Local Budget Cuts, Upcoming Films, and the Grammy's!

The first sentence of today's LJ-World cover story on local budget cuts is perhaps the most ominous yet: "Birds would likely be euthanized."

Chip: "Relax, readers, it's not every bird in town. It's just the ones at the Prairie Park Nature Reserve."

---

Now that the boys have seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop three times each, they are ready to turn their attention to something new and the most deserving film seems to be He's Just Not That Into You, a chick-flick arriving just in time for Valentine's Day (actually a week early) and based on the best-selling self-help guide by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo.

The book seems intended to help women "get over" unworthy guys and move ahead with their lives, and it's chapters are organized into various signs that guys are not "into" them, such as "He's just not that into you if he doesn't ask you out, if he doesn't call you, if he isn't constantly having sex with you, etc."

Chip: "First off, it's about time we started turning self-help guides into films. Films should be more practical. The average chick-flick sends women the harmful message that they'll eventually find the perfect guy, but here's a film that keeps them searching, as it should be. The problem, however, is that some of its assumptions are wrong. For instance, myself, I don't always ask women out on dates, but that doesn't necessarily mean I don't want to bone them. Some of us are just socially awkward. But the one about 'he's not that into you if he doesn't want to have sex' is absolutely on the money. As a guy, I think it's safe to say that if you let us, we will fuck you."

Richard: "This film sounds good but I'm hoping for a film version of the 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' books, hopefully starring Morgan Freeman as 'the soul.'"

---

It's a long wait between the pure excitement of the Super Bowl (Arizona?) and the glory of the Oscars (Hugh Jackman is hosting?), but at least the Grammy Awards will tide us over this weekend. The boys' favorite category this year is best rap song, and most expect Li'l Wayne's (very deserving) "A Milli" (analyzed here in the past) to claim the prize. However, the LC wants to champion another worthy nominee in that category: Snoop Dogg's "Sexual Eruption."

"See my game is outrageous I got her to the crib
And exchanged some fuck faces
But it wasn't no use for me to rush to bust one cuz I wanted her to have an eruption."

Chip: "I like songs about orgasms and this one is especially interesting because it corrects the misperception that rappers are mostly inconsiderate lovers. It should go a long way in reassuring parents whose young daughters might be dating a rapper. Note the real tenderness in the line 'exchanged some fuck faces' and his insistence on pleasuring the woman first."

Richard: "Snoop is sort of overlooked these days in favor of Kanye and Lil' Wayne, but he's still doing important work, such as the recent "Johnny Cash Remixed" album which adds some much-needed funky beats to the Man in Black's work. Pitchfork calls the album "a beautiful union between two worlds that are perfect for each other."

This Week in Local News: The EastSide People's Market is Closing!

After a long struggle and numerous fundraisers, the People's Market is slated to close by February 5th.

Chip: "So long, Commies! Your ideas are beautiful on paper, but not so practical in reality. Despite the best efforts of local radicals, capitalism remains strong!"

Richard: "While I support the idea of a neighborhood grocery, the threat of having to engage in an hour-long discussion about 'free market economy' outweighed the ease of buying a half-gallon of milk there."

The Boys' Grammar Corner!

The second largest city in England, Birmingham, has passed a rule to get rid of apostrophes on all street signs. A city official explains that many apostrophes denote "possessions that are no longer accurate" (King's Heath) and generally "confuse people." A city official says: "If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it." Grammarians are quite naturally in an uproar: "They are such sweet-looking things that play a crucial role in the English language," said Marie Clair of the Plain English Society...".

How do the boys feel?

Chip: "As a public educator, it's sadly but clearly the case that we're in a losing battle over proper grammar. In this era of 'instant communication,' the best I can hope for in a student paper is that it's at least as good as a well-written text message, rotflmao"

Richard: "I can stand to lose a few apostrophes, but nobody better take my fucking commas. In addition to their beauty on the page, I like them for their ability to make readers pause."