Monday, December 21, 2009

The Chronicles Is on Holiday Break!

Readers, enjoys your holidays (Chip: "And keep the Christ in Christmas, you Larryville liberals!).

We'll see you in the new year!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

A Heartwarming Story of Hipster Protest!

With the KC Chiefs' experiencing a TV "blackout" today for the first time since December 16, 1990, the boys are having a hard time figuring out what to do without their usual Sunday tradition of watching the Chiefs find new ways to lose (Chip: "They have taught us so much about failure.").

But let us look instead at a more hopeful story, a tale of lady hipsters banding together in a topless "Freedom Ride" to oppose the removal of a bike path in a Jewish neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn:

"The hipster cyclists blame Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the loss of the lane because Williamsburg's Hasidic Jewish residents "can't handle scantily clad women" on wheels, said bike messenger Heather Loop, who organized the action." (interweb).

Sadly, this weekend's blizzard kept the event from proceeding exactly as planned, with the cold weather forcing the hipster women to wear plastic sets of titties over their clothes to prevent frostbite. Presumably, most of the neighborhood's Hasidic residents were smart enough to stay indoors during the storm, and probably had no idea the event actually occurred.

Chip: "If they truly care about their cause they should be willing to run the risk of a few frozen nipples."

Here's a photo and story regarding their previous rally (click to enlarge):

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Hipster Holiday Pick of the Weekend!

Do hipsters celebrate the holidays? Sure they do. They celebrate by hosting very hip events at their favorite bars, such as tonight's Chomp Womp Rock and Roll Circus and potluck dinner at the Jackpot, featuring bands from the local collective known as Chomp Womp, such as Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Boo and Boo Too, Bandit Teeth, and Rooftop Vigilantes.

Do you dare eat a dish cooked by the Vigilantes?

Boo and Boo Too's Drew Gibson explains his approach to music on www.thetripwire.com:

"I’ve never had the attention span to learn an instrument That’s why I use a lot of alternative tunings so I don’t have to learn to play guitar correctly. I use effects and things to either cover up my mistakes or amplify them; whatever sounds cool to me.”

The Tripwire's extensive piece on the bands contains a multitude of fascinating photos you should peruse:

http://www.thetripwire.com/blog/2008/11/30/on-the-cover-notes-from-middle-america-chomp-womp/

We'll leave you with two of them (click to enlarge).

This is Baby Birds in a bathtub:















And this is DJ Norrit:

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Boys Box-Office Report: Avatar! / Plus, Hipster Photo of the Weekend!

Readers, we don't have much time to spare today because, like all true film-lovers, we are currently in line to watch a $500 million (?), three hour, 3D, environmentalist action picture full of Amazonian blue creatures called Na'vi's.

Yes, fanboy excitement (and skepticism) has been at fever-pitch for months, but what do the geeks think now that it's finally "fucking their eyeballs?" (a phrase they've been using throughout the year).

Let's turn to geek-central, AICN, for answers:

antonphd says: "I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't love the fuck out of this film. Honestly. They have fallen from grace as film watchers. They have become too wise for their own good. When you can't love a film like this... you have lost touch with your humanity. You are a poor lost soul. I'm completely serious. This movie is all heart and strength and love and beauty and awe and grace and mercy and triumph and if you can['t] connect with it then you have [become] a fucker. Plain and simple. And I feel sorry for you. You are really missing out on life. Not because you missed out on loving this film, but because if you can't love this film then you simply have a problem with loving anything."

kinetickoala says: "Just saw it. And it was fantastic. By the way, unobtanium is a real scientific term. I'm tired of saying this a trillion times. And your criticism of the dragons is idiotic...you came in with a set idea that they would be stupid. No wonder thats what you wound up thinking. Lastly: The Na'Vi that Saldana played looked exactly like her, so I don't know what you're talking about when you say only the avatars look like their real life human counterparts."

And, finally, Mariusz says: "I'm not impressed. This is the equivalent of the much anticipated Guns N' Roses album: Chinese Democracy. In closing, what a pair of limp dicks."

See you at the multiplex. And in the meantime, enjoy the following picture from A. Rusc.n's recent photo-shoot at the Cursive concert. This guy is so hip he can't even choose between PBR and Miller High-Life ("the champagne of beers"): he must have them both at all times.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Boys Consider the New Look of Lawrence.com / Also, Bellydancing!

Just when local hipsters were finally adjusting to the recent changes in their beloved guide to local culture, the "homies" of Lawrence.com (as they consistently term themselves, in a baffling and possibly racist manner) have changed the look of their site yet again, incorporating some sort of high-tech bar of images at the top that lets you scroll through the most important hipster stories.

What do the readers think? Let's look at their comments:

bd eek, the mysterious local graffiti artist who never appears in public, writes: I have came, I have looked and now I leave feeling very underwhelmed.

artstew (obvious lover of sentence fragments) says: "If you fixed your calendar system so events did not repeat into infinity even if they have ended. Where you could download them into iCal (or Google Calendar, etc.) with all of information attached (like the name and address of the event location ... hint, hint). Then I think your site would still have some redeeming qualities.

And, finally, Keith writes, "Just think of it as 'Go' for the thirtysomethings."

---

Like it or not, however, surely we can all agree that the site's profile today of local bellydancers is top-notch.

In this piece, we learn that Amber Proct.r, Larryville's sexiest belly-dancer (pictured below), has now started her own company called Chainsaw Shimmy Productions, which is currently "performing more provocative tribal-fusion dance at nightspots like Wilde’s Chateau 24 and The Jazzhaus."

Amber explains that, "Belly dance is probably the oldest form of dance in the world, and I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it was used to teach girls a little something about sex."

Chip: "Watching it has taught me many things about sex."

Amber's company performs at the Jazzhaus tonight. See you there.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The LC's Science Corner! / And a Visit to "Anna Undercover's" Stripper Blog!

Now that our good friend Dr. C's "Stately Pleasure Domes" blog is defunct, the boys' have lost a great source for fascinating scientific facts (not to mention occasional pictures of titties).

Major news out of the world of science yesterday, however, simply can't be ignored, so we'll cover it ourselves.

It seems that an octopus has been spotted carrying coconut shells which are then used to construct a shelter, offering us "the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal" (interweb; picture below of octopus hiding in shell).

Chip: "So far the media is ignoring the terrifying side of this discovery, which is that these fuckers might continue to evolve until they come right up out of the ocean and use their many tentacles to enslave us and take our jobs and steal our wives."















---

The boys love "Anna Undercover's" local stripper blog, but local conservatives continue to take her to task in her talkbacks section due to her "immoral" lifestyle.

In the comments-section of her most recent post, "Pogo" writes:

"Dirty words from dirty minds; written in a toilet town

stripping is a Grade D- job in the entertainment industry; it's like being in a “rock band”, which is also most typically Grade D- entertainment from the Peter Pan set.

This strumpet might want to get over herself. It's going to catch up with her anyway….one way or the other….."




"Anna" herself is prone to appearing in the comments section to offer rebuttals, and she gives as good as she gets (which sounds delightfully dirty).

At one point she claims that she loves intelligent "disses" of her chosen profession:

"If a truly exceptional person wields words written or spoken with the sensitivity and dexterity of a genius, they can never dis me enough!

When I am lucky enough to meet such a person, I quietly pull them close to me, secretly hoping they will delight me with some bitingly clever 'abuse.'...

...More satisfying than any physical climax, I quietly crave these 'disses' more than anything else in the world."



Richard: "Wow, this chick is kinkier than I thought, and I'd love to 'diss' her while getting a lapdance.'"

Chip: "Her use of the word 'climax' gave me a boner."

Check out the full talkback and Anna's discussion of her upcoming trip to Paris here:

http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/anna-undercover/2009/dec/14/im-going-to-paris-and-heres-whos-coming-with-me/

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Boys Consider Larryville's Possible New "Diesel/Electric Hybrid" Buses! / Also, The Boys' Read This Year's Award-Winner for "Bad Sex In Fiction!"

Larryville's city fathers are expected to consider the possibility of adding three new "diesel/electric hybrids" to the city's bus fleet at tonight's meeting. The buses cost $600,000 each.

Are the boys excited?

Chip: "No, but this may actually increase the T's ridership. Local progressives might be willing to get on board if they can be further convinced they're saving the environment."

Richard: "But will they feel that saving the environment is worth sitting next to a smelly homeless person for a half-hour or so? This seems doubtful.


---

The boys, of course, are huge fans of intellectual, contemporary literature and they always feel like it's a nice treat when serious literary works include a sex scene or two (Chip: "I've probably beat off to Updike and Roth as many times over the years as I have to Hustler.").

Each year, the boys pay particular attention to the "Bad Sex in Literature" award, handed out to a "serious" writer whose sex scenes may not measure up to the standard of the rest of their work. This year's award has been given to Jonathan Littel's The Kindly Ones, a behemoth of a WWII novel that also checks in at #10 on Time's Best Books of the Year list.

Here's one of the excerpts that earned Littel the distinction:

"Her vulva was opposite my face. The small lips protruded slightly from the pale, domed flesh. This sex was watching at me, spying on me, like a Gorgon's head, like a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks. Little by little this silent gaze penetrated me to the marrow. My breath sped up and I stretched out my hand to hide it: I no longer saw it, but it still saw me and stripped me bare (whereas I was already naked). If only I could still get hard, I thought, I could use my prick like a stake hardened in the fire, and blind this Polyphemus who made me Nobody. But my cock remained inert, I seemed turned to stone."

Richard: "I like the part where he reminds us that he's naked."

Chip: "I've never found 'vulva' to be a particularly erotic word, but I'll admit that this still gave me a boner, bad or not."

Monday, December 14, 2009

The Boys Consider Time Magazine's Best Album of the Year (Which They Use As An Excuse For the Return of "Country Corner!")

Are you fucking with us, Time Magazine? Do you really think that country superstar Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night is the best album of the year? (clocking in ahead of Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca-- #2--and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest--#8).

Let's take a look at Time's justification:

"The real risk-taking emerges in his songs about women, which, like the brilliant "The Pants," manage to be funny, sexy, and sensitive."

The song in question explores the patriarchal notion of "wearing the pants" in the family, with the narrator chiding someone for his old-school, macho mentality :

"You wear the pants
Buddy good for you
I'm so impressed
Yeah, whoopty-doo"


Time singles out the following lines in particular as an example of Paisley's excellence, so perhaps we'll give them the old "Country Corner" treatment today for your amusement:

"In the top drawer, of her dresser, there's some panties
Go try on that purple pair, with lace and frills
With your big old thighs, I bet you can't get in 'em
With that attitude of yours, hell, I bet you never will"


Richard: "What seems at first like a playful, comical suggestion--a macho man trying on frilly panties which ends with a clever double meaning about how (a) the man literally can't fit in the panties and (b) his attitude prevents him from banging the woman in question--is actually a bold challenge to Paisley's heterosexual male fans to embrace their more feminine side. This song may actually help prevent domestic abuse, as well as create a few white-trash cross-dressers."

Chip: "First off, any song that uses the word 'panties' immediately gives me a boner, so it's got that going for it. Second, I agree completely with your assessment. However, the song becomes more problematic as it progresses, and ends up reinforcing the kind of static gender roles it first seems to question. Look at these lines:

"A big old boy like you can probably bench 350
A little thing like her can barely lift the bar
Just wait 'til that woman has a headache
And she sits there with her legs crossed
Well, we'll see how strong you are"


Ultimately, females are viewed here as tiny, pretty things whose only weapon is sexual power. Sure, that's most often true, at least in Larryville, but there are a lot of 'big old boys' out there who actually enjoy banging large, unattractive women, and these kinds of relationships don't get fully explored here. Also, the title of this song is outrageously boring. Why couldn't it be called, at the very least, 'The Panties Song," or, even better, 'Pussy Whipped.'"

Sunday, December 13, 2009

This Week in Local Crime: A Mass. Street Gun Battle / Plus, KU Gets a New Coach

After Saturday night's DJ set at the Granada, the club's officials apparently pushed a fight out of the venue and onto Mass. Street, where a series of shots were fired, followed by a later series of shots (possibly fired by police officers?). In the melee, a 19 year-old was shot (non life-threatening), a police officer was "battered," and a couple of cars were filled with bullet holes. Instead of dispersing, crowds reportedly hid behind various "barriers" along the street and enjoyed the show.

Richard: "Sad. It seems like only a few weeks ago when we were settling our feuds the old-fashioned way, like gentlemen: with cue balls wrapped in Crown Royal bags."

Chip: "This is why I NEVER park downtown."

Here's a link to a video where you can hear shots being fired and people screaming "motherfucker."

http://www2.ljworld.com/videos/2009/dec/13/28005/


---

After nine suspenseful days, KU has a new football coach: Buffalo's Turner Gill.

Presumably, we're all prepared to support him 100%, right?

Let's check in with the LJ-World talkbackers:

Uhlrick_Hetfield_III (Anonymous) says… "Why would you pick a flash in the pan coach with a losing record when you have a consistent winner in a hot conference ready to coach here? Perkins, you're an idiot."

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Richard Reviews a Concert! / Also: The Return of "Is It Art, Or Isn't It?"

Readers, there was not a hipster in sight at last night's performance by the Dave Rawlings Machine at the Granada (voted #1 music venue in this week's "Top of the Hill" awards). The audience consisted of: (a) old folks out way past their bedtimes, (b) tall, lonely-looking music geeks obsessed by the sound of Rawlings 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop guitar, and (c) a few stray hippies who were more interested in Rawlings' backing band (three members of Old Crow Medicine Show) and the evening's New Belgium beer specials.

Standing close to the stage while his friend M.ck attempted to (illegally?) record the proceedings using a tiny Iphone, Richard revelled in 150 minutes of sheer guitar mastery and beautiful Gillian Welch backing vocals in a set consisting of excellent originals, hootenanny classics ("Hot corn, cold corn!"), and a set-closing cover song jamboree in which Bright Eyes' "Method Acting" morphed into Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" before giving way to Dylan's "Queen Jane Approximately" and culminating in an audience sing-along of The Band's "The Weight." (Chip: "Which band?" Richard: "THE Band, damn it!").

Richard gives the show four out of four hippie-microbrews and feels sorry for the hipsters down the street at the Replay at the same time listening to Baiowolf (yes, as in Scott Baio), although those same hipsters were also certainly feeling sorry for those of us at the Granada for shelling out 20 bucks for a transcendent musical experience.

Chip: "Okay, but there's still one thing I'm confused about. Were there any sorostitutes at this show?"

Pictured: Rawlings and Welch

















---

Local hipster siblings Aaron and Kendra Marable have brought us a lot of joy over the years with their DJ sets and their art, and tonight brings the opening of Kendra's new "found art" show at Wonder Fair. She describes her work as follows:

"Perfume bottles, bird nests, broken toys, religious icons, rusty spoons, feathers and teeth settle in together allowing their meaning to shift within the poetry of relation."

Let's take a look:




















Richard: "The lock featured prominently at the top of this piece potently suggests the difficulty of retrieving ("unlocking," if you will) the lost world of childhood imagination and all its variety. I'll vote art."

Chip: "What I like about this piece is the bunny. Art."

Friday, December 11, 2009

Stop Day!

Readers, it's Stop Day, a local holy day when real work is forbidden and we all recover from the debauchery and orgies of the night before.

Even so, we'll bring you one photo from last night at Q's, in which a grinning, unshaven Cl.thier tries to surreptitiously capture women at the bar by pretending to take a photo of himself. He wasn't overly successful and later he was questioned by Q's "den mother" about the evening's photography, at which point he politely explained that he was simply documenting "local nightlife" for a blog called The Larryville Chronicles (luckily, he did not mention that said blog was also planning a contest to see which waitress had the "sweetest titties.").

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Boys Reflect on Stop Day Eve and Offer Their Pick for Event of the Day! / Also: Style Scout!

The boys' fondness for the local holiday known as Stop Day Eve has been well-documented here. What's not to love about a day that's centered entirely around college students taking a break from their studies in order to get fucked-up and then get fucked?

But is fall's Stop Day Eve as nice as the one in spring? Well, no. There's just something about the warm weather in May followed by the promise of three months of vacation that makes people especially horny. And with tonight's sub-zero windchills, it's a safe bet that even the sluttiest of sorostitutes will be dressed in layers as opposed to the revealing attire of spring, not to mention less prone to having sex in the alley behind the Wheel. Still, it's a treat to remove all those layers at the end of the evening. It's sort of like opening a Christmas present. A very nubile Christmas present. And a man with a warm car outside the Hawk at 2:00 might do very well for himself.

But where do the boys plan to go tonight? Abe and Jake's, of course, is the obvious bet. But the more in-the-know crowd may stay closer to campus given tonight's frigid weather and opt for the newly opened dance-club called The Cave which is (somehow) already functioning in the still-half-constructed Oread Inn near campus and hosting a Stop Day Eve party showcasing the club's "state-of-the-art lights, lazers, smoke and bubble machines, and sound" (Lawrence.com). (Richard: "Lazers are even more awesome than lasers!").

Chip: "I'm going to pick up a group of sorostitutes at The Cave and go spelunking, if you catch my meaning."

---

Today's Style Scout profiles Thomas Hardy (no, not the dude who wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles), a 24 year old Larryvillean who describes his look as "Western meets geek," speaks of his fondness for vests, and offers this explanation of his distaste for the trend of "backward hats": "One time at Henry’s, this guy wearing a backward hat spilled my full drink."

Chip: "Quit crying, Hardy, I totally apologized for that."

So, ladies, is he stylish, or isn't he?





















Today's Scout is brought to us by our favorite fashion-blogger Katy Seib.l, who has recently been offering us many looks at her new short haircut, which was the result of a contest on her blog in which viewers could vote on her new look. Here's one of those shots:













Richard: "I voted no on the short haircut, but I still find her outrageously attractive."

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Boys Check In With A. Rusc.n's Hipster Photo Spreads /Also: Is a New KU Sports Scandal In the Works?!

When future historians write the history of Larryville hipsterism, A. Rusc.n's photos on Lawrence.com will surely be one of the most valuable resources. The intrepid photographer was on hand (of course) at the recent Farmer's Ball and those pictures have finally appeared on the site this week (late as always).

Let's examine three of them.




Richard: "I'm increasingly willing to look ridiculous if it will help me get laid at the Replay or Jackpot, and I think a mustache may be just the ticket. But which style should I cultivate? I'm thinking the one on the right."







Chip: "I wonder who he likes best: Ol'Dirty Bastard or the RZA?"



















Obviously, this is Jesus in a NASCAR shirt.
















---

An article in today's LJ-World sports section focuses on the free throw shooting abilities of the men's basketball team. In the piece, Markief Morris talks about how Coach S.lf recently tried to rattle Thomas Robinson during his attempt to make five in a row:

“Coach started grabbing him and said, ‘You’ve got a nice body,’ and Thomas missed the last one.”


Richard: "Be careful there, Coach! If you ever start to lose a few games, they'll accuse you of inappropriate 'touching' and homoerotic or homophobic comments, depending on how that's interpreted."

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Boys Consider the UDK's "Top of the Hill" Awards!

At this time of the year, the boys love to read best-of-the-year lists (and to make their own). One of their favorites is the "Top of the Hill" awards chosen by KU students, and this year's list offers the usual mix of the predictable and baffling.

Let's start with the baffling.

Free State Brewery wins for "best steakhouse?" Can you be a steakhouse if you only feature one steak on the menu and are patently NOT a steakhouse? The boys vote no.

More predictable is the choice of Abe and Jake's for "best dance club" for the third year running. Newcomer Wilde's Chateau clocked in as a strong runner-up, however.

Chip: "If I wanted to grind, I'd go to Abe and Jake's, no question. Unless I wanted to grind on a dude, at which point I guess I can see the appeal of Wilde's."

For "best coffee," KU's non-adventurous students opted for Starbucks over local favorites Java Break and Milton's. La Prima Tazza didn't even register in the polls, which is surely making a lot of grad student hipsters cry in their Iced Cinnamon Chai Lattes right about now. In fact, chains defeated the locals in many categories: Five Guys Burger and Fries defeated Dempsey's Burger Stand in the "burger" category (Richard: "Actually, I agree with this.") and Buffalo Wild Wing's bested Biemer's in the "barbecue" category (Richard: "Morons!").

The winner for best live-music venue: Granada. Actually, hipsters are probably happy about this one, as it means that students have perhaps not discovered the Replay yet.

Oddly missing from this year's categories: "best overall bar." Quinton's was the hands-down winner last year, and Chip will surely be upset that Q's didn't get a chance to repeat.

The boys are currently hard at work (and we do mean hard as in "erect") on their own Quinton's-related awards, which features categories such as "Best Overall Waitress" (will it be perennial favorite Woodchuck or sexy newcomer 'library chick?') and "Sweetest Titties."

Monday, December 7, 2009

The Boys' Video Game Column Is Back!

The boys have gone on record many times with their belief that video games are "not art," so how did they feel about the recent NY-Times profile of a group of young, innovative, independent video game designers who are determined to make games that are about more than just graphically shooting zombies or pretending to be the Beatles. They want to create games that are "meaningful in deep, fundamental ways.”

First off, who are these people? The article explains:

"Rohrer himself is a kind of Thoreauvian game designer, a 31-year-old back-to-the-land programmer-philosopher who lives in Las Cruces, N.M., where he codes his eccentrically engrossing games, which can feel like digitally mediated poetic moods, on an ancient computer and makes them available free online."

Chip: "If this guy was really an outdoorsy type fellow, I don't think he'd be playing video games. I'm immediately skeptical."

Perhaps, Chip. But some of these games do sound "meaningful." For instance, there's Blueberry Garden, "which features little instruction and no puzzles — other than the question of what exactly to do next — but roaming among the garden’s flora and fauna to the sounds of a Debussy-like soundtrack is captivating."

Will players take to this kind of experience? A player quoted within the piece sounds quite impressed:

“Dude, you just kind of float around and get those blueberry power-ups."

Richard: "I totally can't wait to get stoned and play this shit!"

Another of the new games is called "Flower," which is described as follows:

"Flower has an environmental message, about the fragility of life, but more important is the primal experience of playing. You can experience it like a film, passing through a whole range of emotions from beginning to end. “Flower,” Chen says, “is about the sublime.” It is a game to be played in one sitting, he said, and preferably “alongside your lover.”

Chip: "The problem here is that people who play video games do not have 'lovers.'"

Richard: "If I can 'experience it like a film,' why shouldn't I just watch a film?"

The piece ends with an inspiring image of the young designers who are described as "wandering down Haight Street holding a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and drinking from paper bags. “I don’t care about money,” Soderstrom said. “I just want games to be something like art.”

Read the full piece here (it's good!):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15videogames-t.html?pagewanted=1&sq=can diy supplant&st=cse&scp=1

And here's a "screen shot" from Blueberry Garden:

Sunday, December 6, 2009

The Boys Box-Office Report Returns For Oscar Season!

Readers, it's the time of year when most films playing at a theater near you have their eyes on box-office gold and are more likely to deal with overweight and illiterate young black women getting raped (Precious) and the kid from Spiderman as a confused war veteran (Brothers) than they are with giant fighting robots. But occasionally something light-hearted find its way into the mix, such as this weekend's Translymania, a parody which attempts to cash in on the recent vampire craze. It's clocking in at an unheard of 00% on the review-aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, but is it really that bad? (somehow we suspect it's better than Twilight).

Let's take a look at a few reviews.

The Orlando Sentinel says that the film contains "One laugh -- Vampires, stuffed in their coffins on a horse-drawn wagon, whining to the driver -- "Are ve DERE yet?"

Chip: "That's pretty funny."

And the AV-Club delivers an "F" along with their wonderfully scathing review:

"Transylmania is such a colossal comedic misfire that it makes the execrable Scary Movie films look like masterworks of Preston Sturges-esque genius by comparison. The business of competently executing a joke seems utterly beyond the grasp of directors David and Scott Hillenbrand and writers Patrick Casey and Worm Miller... But no matter how many farting horses, vomit buckets, and penis-catching laptops they toss out, Transylmania slowly drains viewers’ blood and makes them wish for a stake through the heart."

Richard: "A guy with his dick caught in a laptop is also pretty funny. Maybe we should hire this guy named 'Worm' to handle some of our Chip-jokes."

Chip: "I saw a farting horse at yesterday's Old-Fashioned Christmas parade."

Saturday, December 5, 2009

The LC's Holiday Coverage Begins: Free State Glass Party and Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade

Readers, it was one year ago this weekend when Richard discovered Larryville's greatest party. Perhaps you remember? He wrote about it here in a post entitled "Richard Discovers Larryville's Greatest Party."

Let's reprint his original description:

"Despite the fact that Richard has lived in Larryville for a damn decade, he only discovered Free State Glass's huge word-of-mouth holiday party last night (a party which, we should mention, has been going on for 24 years). The party attracts everyone from Larryville's "old guard" (many in formal wear) to beautiful underage party girls, and begins with a glass-blowing competition taking place in a ring surrounded by drunken onlookers (Richard originally suspected the ring was for bare-knuckle boxing or a cockfight, and was only mildly disappointed by its actual purpose). Featuring two bars of free booze, catered meats, a large stage, live bands, a dance floor, and a special "weed room," the party truly holds something for everyone and Richard's ignorance on the subject seems to call his hipster status into question once again, although he prefers to believe that it's a party so cool that it only reveals itself to someone who is truly ready to appreciate it."

Naturally, Richard spent most of this year waiting for a chance to introduce his less-hip friends to this great event, and last night was the big night.

Here are three highlights:

In a Keystone Cops-ish moment, King Tosser, in line for the bathroom, was bumped into by a very drunk woman, knocking him against a wall which ignited a fire extinguisher which led to a mass exodus from the first floor and a warning from the band on the second floor that someone had made a "real mess downstairs." Did the Tosser's antics affect any of the precious glassware of the first floor, perhaps endangering the future of the business and, most importantly, the Christmas party? We'll see.

Brian was pinned to a wall and nearly mauled by a ravenous cougar!

On his way out, Richard had a brief but delightful conversation with "international rockabilly superstar" Li'l Rachel, who was wearing a very sparkly dress.

See you at the same time next year (if you are cool enough).

---

After the evening's debauchery, Richard was up bright and early to stake out his spot at downtown's Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade, one of the nation's largest gatherings of horse-drawn carriages.

Here are two shots of the event:


Richard: "Notice how my shot carefully juxtaposes the frontier spirit of the restored Wells Fargo Wagon with the modern trappings of the street light, with the no U-Turn sign working here to symbolize the loss of a simpler time and the impossibility of 'turning around' to recapture that innocence."










Chip: "I think the little horses are the prettiest horses."

Friday, December 4, 2009

The Boys Consider Mang.no's Resignation

So, after weeks of controversy, Coach Mang.no agreed yesterday to a contract buyout, resigning before AD L.w could fire him or have him assassinated. Now that the time has come for our Coach to make his exit, surely we can all put aside our various feelings on his tactics (and his weight) and congratulate on his years of service that took a mediocre (at best) program all the way to an Orange Bowl victory. Let's check in on some of the KUSports talkbacks to hear some well-wishes from local fans.

stuckinchanute (anonymous) says... "Adios meatball!"

cshjhawk (anonymous) says... "He can now go home and be with his homies!"

Bontster023 (anonymous) says... "Fare well mangina"

blue73harley (Anonymous) says… "The shortage situation on Eggo waffles in Lawrence has just improved."


Chip says: "I like that last one. Somehow this blog has not yet addressed the most severe crisis facing this great land: the Eggo waffle shortage caused by production interruptions at the waffle-plants. We're all so focused on issues like Mang.no and Afghanistan this week that people seem to be forgetting the things that truly affect the common man, like whether or not I have enough fucking Eggos to get me through the winter."

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Boys Consider Trends in Boozing / And Photos From Richard's Thanksgiving Break!

If you've ever noticed Chip's ever-present flask of Malibu Rum in his boot or Richard sipping a "Hollywood Martini" at the Eldridge on Thursday evenings, you already know about their fondess for rum. Apparently, they are on the leading edge of a major rum-revival, according to a piece in yesterday's NY-Times: "The boom coincides with a dawning recognition that midcentury tropical drinks, many of them based on rum, constitute a rich and nearly untapped vein of American mixology."

The piece focuses on a Los Angeles bar called The Tar Pit whose drink menu is largely centered around rum and whose "ambassador" is a concoction called The Night Marcher, which consists of "a large, grimacing tiki mug; bondage gear; store-bought Cholula hot sauce; a sense of humor that is hard to distinguish from weirdness; rum."

Chip: "I can't wait till this drink makes it to Larryville bars. It sends the message that (a) I enjoy rum and (b) I want to tie you up and spank you."

The piece goes on to point out that the "rum rebellion" also "takes advantage of a growing sentiment that the bartending scene has gotten a bit full of itself. Nothing can deflate a pretentious cocktail faster than a sharp poke with a paper umbrella."

Chip: "Amen. So many people these days care too much about the taste of their 'microbrews' and their fancy martinis, forgetting that the purpose of drinking should be simply to get hammered, get laid, and pass out. "

The article also singles out the bar in an arepa restaurant in hipster-central Williamsburg, Brooklyn called "Roneria Caracas" which features 30 rums and "unexpected ingredients like bay leaves, blueberries and coconut bitters."

Richard: "I'll bet Adam is drinking there right now!"

---

On his recent trip down South, Richard stopped at a restaurant in Collins, Missouri, that comes highly recommended by Chip. He dined on a delicious meal of fried chicken livers, beans with ham, potatoes and gravy, and a hunk of cornbread as thick as wedding cake, and on the way in he spotted this sign, which reminds us of something that we too often forget: liberal Larryville is indeed a small, hipster-filled oasis surrounded by the rough and rugged frontier.





Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Boys Consider the Continuing Mang.no Controversies / Plus, Is This Band Hip, Or Isn't It?

With the inevitable firing of Coach Mang.no still hovering in the (near?) distance, former players continue to come out of the woodwork with troubling allegations, such as today's claims by 02-03 player Cory Kipp that the coach forced him as a punishment to "bear-walk" across the Astro-Turf, which burned his hands.

"The thing was, that day, it was so hot on the field," says Kipp (LJ-World), who apparently has pictures of a blistered hand to prove it.

What do the boys think?

Richard: "I think I could deal with an occasional poke in the stomach or a blistered hand in exchange for the pussy these players get."

Chip: "Look, we pay this man to inspire our players however he sees fit, and sometimes he sees fit to make them 'bear-walk' on steaming hot Astro-Turf or yell at them about how they'll end up like their alcoholic daddies or their street-corner 'homie' buddies. I'll take a guy who can win an Orange Bowl over the likely too-soft replacement who will probably insist on taking the team out for sundaes, win or lose, and maybe buy them all a kittycat if they make it to a bowl game."

---

We've been having some trouble deciding whether tonight's show at the Granada by Deluka is hip or not.

Let's try to figure it out.

First, it's at the Granada, which immediately suggests unhip because the band is obviously already well-known enough that they need a bigger, less hip venue instead of the Replay or Jackpot.

However, they are from Birmingham, England (which sounds hip) and are fronted by "enigmatic frontwoman Ellie Innocenti" (which sounds hip).

BUT, they have a song featured on the soundtrack of one of the Grand Theft Auto video games (perhaps irredeemably unhip?).

Finally, we must check the reviews.

NME describes them as: "Girl-charged electro-skuzz punk, akin to Ladytron snacking on The Killers for brunch."

Richard: "Fuck it, I'm in. But I'll make sure to go to the bar and ignore them when they play that Grand Theft Auto tune."

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Boys Check Back In With Anna Undercover's Local Stripper Blog

After weeks of pussy-footing around(!), Anna Undercover's newest entry finally gives her readers what they have been clamoring for in her (very busy) comments sections: a vivid description of a typical evening at the Outhouse (which she consistently and cleverly disguises using the code-name of East Lawrence Ballet).

Here are two excerpts.

In the first, Anna gives a female customer a lapdance:

"I climbed onto her and locked my eyes on hers. I began to move slowly and deliberately around her lap like a snake exploring innocent, trusting prey."

Chip: "Notice here how she insists on viewing herself as the predator, obviously a tactic that keeps her from realizing how much she's being exploited by this culture. No. I'm kidding, folks. I'd totally want her to sit in my lap and spin around like a goddam pinwheel."*

[*modified line from Heathers]

And in this next excerpt we see Anna suffering a rare and touching moment of self-doubt and embarrassment:

"The song ended. The other girls hooted and hollered at me. Hehe! Naked except for fishnet thigh highs and stilettos, I beamed and curtsied like a ballerina. “Thanks guys!” I waved. Inwardly, I mocked myself for treating them all like an audience at a “real” dance show. I angled my butt away from the audience as I re-dressed on stage."

Richard: "There's nothing to be ashamed of, Anna. Obviously, this is far better than a real ballet."

Chip: "I'd like to be sitting in the front row while she curtsied."

Read the full blog here:

http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/anna-undercover/2009/nov/23/saturday-night-at-the-east-lawrence-ballet/