Style Scout / Porn for Your Kindle / BARRR Meets the Cum Draculas / More Garage Fest Coverage

We love it when Style Scout profiles local bartenders. Today brings us Hoap Wilson (yes, that's how it's spelled), who has served us a number of swanky drinks at Esquina recently (have you tried the Dark and Stormy?).

Hoap describes her style as "kind of character-y or cartoon character-y, but...always heavily influenced by Dolly Parton."

Chip: "When I think of Dolly Parton, two things pop out at me, if you catch my meaning. I mean that Dolly Parton has large breasts."

Hoap's secret is that she doesn't like vampires, True Blood, or Twilight.

There's no reason to keep it a secret, Hoap. Vampires are old news.

We can dig Hoap's style. Can you?


















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Perhaps the most intriguing thing we've read today is a piece from Slate about the rapidly increasing popularity of e-reader pornography aimed at men (who usually like their porn a little less literary). Did you know that the number one bestselling title on Kindle is not Franzen's Freedom (it's #2) but rather a work by Jenna Bayley-Burke called Compromising Positions:

"David Strong knows how to do a lot of things—run an international fitness company, finesse stock portfolios and stay out of emotional entanglements. That is, until he gets tangled up with Sophie Delfino and her Sensational Sex workout. He's supposed to help her demonstrate Kama Sutra positions for her couples-yoga class. … And his co-instructor unexpectedly tests his control to the limit."

Chip: "The best thing about the Kindle is that it makes it easier to read porn in public. I no longer have to try and hide my Penthouse inside a New Yorker. But I still have to try and conceal my boner."

Another popular title is Office Slave, "in which an attractive female CFO is found to be embezzling from her manufacturing company. Rather than go to prison, she agrees to her boss's demand to become the company's sex slave. She is forced to wear slutty (or no) clothing at work; he films her in intimate acts; he instructs male coworkers to beat her physically for perceived transgressions; and she has sex with everyone imaginable, including factory workers (to reward productivity gains), prospective customers (to secure new contracts), a coworker (as a retirement gift), teenage boys (who deliver lunch to the office), etc. And—whaddya know?—no matter how physically abused and mentally degraded she is, she finds she actually enjoys it."

Our feminist readers: "Thanks, LC. Now we're going to assume that every male reading a Kindle in public is engrossed in this sort of sick shit. Oh, who are we kidding? We already assumed that."

Order your copy of Compromising Positions here (Chip: "Already did."):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002HE1IBM?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002HE1IBM

And read the full story about e-reader erotica here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2269132/?from=rss






















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Readers, we've made no secret that Wayne Pain's music hurts our ears more than anything else in town, but apparently it's gaining popularity among the hipster set. Go here to check out BARRR chatting with Kenneth Kupfer (of Fag Cop and Wayne Pain and the Cum Draculas, both of which are playing the Replay's Garage Fest pre-party on Friday):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-d-d/id393281425

Direct link in sidebar.


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We've profiled two of the headliners of this weekend's Garage Fest already (Raveonettes and The Gories). But that leaves two more. Headlining the Granada's bill is the Oblivians, yet another legendary Memphis band, newly reunited, "featuring a musical chairs-style rotating set-up consisting of two guitarists and a drummer who constantly switch roles and take turns at the mic, this trio mixes punk, garage and gospel in a way that is really almost impossible to describe...".

Go here and check it out:

http://www.myspace.com/officialjackoblivian

Readers, it's going to be very hard to decide which is the hippest venue on Saturday, so please write in and let us know where you'll be hanging at and which bands you plan to see. We'll join you if we deem you and your choices hip enough.

A Krause Cookbook / More Press for Hurray for the Riff Raff / Garage Fest Coverage Continues

Readers, how often do you sit around wondering what to fix for dinner and desperately wishing you knew how to make a Wild Boar Dog? Now that the Krause's long-awaited cookbook has finally appeared, the time for you to weird up your dishes has finally come. The cookbook's not-so-catchy title is The Cook’s Book of Intense Flavors: 101 Surprising Flavor Combinations and Extraordinary Recipes that Excite Your Palate and Pleasure Your Senses. The authors will be signing copies at the Bay Leaf on Saturday afternoon for those of you who insist on believing that chefs are celebrities.

Richard: "I'm going to ask them to sign my copy using squid ink from my Esquina squid taco!"

The LJ-World talkback for the cookbook story is full of the usual haters, such as timeforachange: "You can keep your autographed book to feed your ego to yourself. I have eaten at The French Laundry, Gary Danko's, and elBulli so I do understand good food. You are not in their league. Not even close."

But our favorite, short but sweet, comment is from Andini: "The McDonalds on 23rd Street reopens tomorrow!!!"

Read the full article here:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/sep/28/flavor-profiled-lawrence-restaurantuers-robert-and/

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Readers, allow us once again to promote New Orleans' Hurray for the Riff Raff, whose background and subject matter make them perfectly suited for their Friday night gig among the hobos who hang out at North Larryville's Gaslight Tavern. Here's the bio from their press materials:

"Hurray for the Riff Raff began when a teenage Alynda Lee Segarra began hopping trains, traveling across the country while learning to play banjo. Eventually she settled in New Orleans, and allowed music to take hold of her life. She quickly embraced the city's community of street musicians, who encouraged her to develop her banjo skills and sing old Jazz songs. She was soon performing with many of the traditional jazz bands who perform on the sidewalks of the French Quarter, playing and singing while learning from the music of the city she loves.

Here's their album cover and a press photo. Wouldn't you like to have a beer and maybe hop a train with these folks on Friday? We're planning to ask Alynda to tell us the top ten funniest hobo names she learned while riding the rails (check this out, in the meantime: http://www.e-hobo.com/ ).

































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We like to think that our Garage Fest coverage may be the most amusing in town, but it's probably not the most useful. We'll give that award to Abner the Owl over at Balanced for Broadcast:

http://balancedforbroadcast.blogspot.com/

(direct link in our sidebar link list).

Her newest entry posts tracks from each of the bands playing at Liberty Hall that night, which is certainly useful for you lazy hipsters who can't be bothered to track down all the individual Myspace pages of the bands. Abner describes her approach to Garage Fest coverage as "sooo much easier that writing a bunch of pretentious jibberish about of lot of bands I know little to nothing about."

So the LC will fill your need for "pretentious jibberish" and leave the high-tech stuff to Abner.

Most of our time at Garage Fest is indeed likely to be spent at Liberty, partly because we're old and lazy and like the idea of sitting in the balcony and heckling the bands like those two old guys on the Muppet Show. We're especially looking forward to headliners The Raveonettes. Check out these lyrics from their song "Love in a Trash Can":

"If you touch that girl
You know it's okay
People say she's a whore anyway
I think she looks like a nice vamp
Looking for love in a trashcan"

Chip: "Is this a song about fucking in a pile of garbage, or is the title a metaphor regarding the difficulty of establishing real connection in our sex-obsessed modern era? Please tell me it's the first one."

The LC Celebrates Banned Book Week, Checks in With the City Fathers, and Looks Ahead to GarageFest

It's Banned Books Week, and Chip lobbied hard for us to publish a photo of him rubbing one out while reading Ulysses. Lucky for you all, the photo was deemed more disturbing than inspiring, so we direct you instead to the Lawrence Public Library Facebook page, which features a series of photos of local librarians posing with banned books:

http://www.facebook.com/lawrencepubliclibrary

It's a nice touch from the LPL, though we'd personally prefer more pictures of very sexy librarians. You know, the mousy-bookworm-by-day / nubile-sex-kitten-by-night type.

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If it's Tuesday, it's time for a City Commission meeting, and you progressive types will certainly want to show up tonight and shout loudly in opposition to the newest "big box" store, Lowe's, soon to appear in West Larryville along 6th Street. According to today's LJ-World, at least one of the city fathers is slated to object to the proposed location near Free State High School, claiming that it will mar "the look and feel" of the area. True, we don't want to block anyone's view of the new Smashburger and Taco Bell, but just think what a delightful evening one could have in a few years once the new Lowe's and the newly-located Lawrence Community Theater are in the area.

Chip: "My recipe for a perfect evening: purchasing some lumber, eating a Smashburger, and taking in a performance of Nunsense."

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Just how hip is this Saturday's GarageFest? It's so hip that Pitchfork's beloved Best Coast is relegated to an early evening slot (7:15 to 8:00 at Liberty Hall), leaving the evening free for lesser-known but even hipper acts.

Perhaps realizing that there's no way in hell that lazy hipsters are going to pack Liberty Hall (not to mention three other venues) at 4:00 in the afternoon for the Vigilantes kick-off set, the promoters have once again (according to a Tweet we spotted yesterday) started offering free tickets via this website:

https://secure.scion.com/scion/ssl/rsvp/garageFest.do

So snag them now, hipsters, if you haven't already, and begin plotting your course for the evening.

We'll be offering you a few tips here on some of the major acts.

Today's pick: The Gories. There's nothing that scenesters love more than when an obscure band reunites, giving them an opportunity to pretend they loved the band from the very beginning. Expect the buzz and the crowd to be intense for the Gories 10:00 headlining set at the Jackpot.

Here's their bio from their Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/therealgories :

"Formed in January of 1986 over a six pack of Budweiser and "Scum of the Earth" on the record player. Played dives around Detroit for six and a half years with a couple of trips to New York City and Chicago. Released three LPs and a handful of singles. Toured Europe in the Spring of '92. Broke up."

We don't know about you, but we plan to bone up on their back catalogue and use that musical knowledge to get ourselves nice and laid.

Hurray for the Riff Raff / Garage Fest Coverage Begins / The Captain Chanute Column!

Readers, when we make a promise to a New York music promoter, we intend to honor it (because it might eventually help to make us famous in our own right). So allow us to encourage you once more to check out New Orleans' Hurray for the Riff Raff this Friday at the Gaslight. Their press material offers this description of their sound (and you can hear for yourself in our sidebar): "They are influenced by the sounds of classic country like Hank Williams, Sr., 1960's Rock n Roll, and master singer/songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Neil Young." This gig should be a nice soothing way to start your Garage Fest weekend, since the Riff Raff seems to be a band which understands that amps don't necessarily have to be turned up to 11.

Enjoy some further tunes from them here:

http://www.myspace.com/hurrayfortheriffraff

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After your excursion to North Larryville on Friday, you should still have time to catch some of the GarageFest pre-party at the Replay, featuring a nice selection of local and KC garage-rockers who didn't get invited to Saturday's big event (the one local spot is reserved for everybody's favorite Vigilantes). Larryville's own Wayne Payne and the Shit Stains will be one of the featured bands at the pre-party. No, wait, it seems they now have a new name on the show's fliers (though not yet on their Myspace): Wayne Pain and the Cum Draculas. We can dig the new name, but we still can't make it through one of their songs in its entirety. But feel free to give it a try yourself:

http://www.myspace.com/waynepaintheshitstains

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We were under the impression that hipsters across the nation drank only PBR and Hamm's (and maybe Schlitz), but that's not what we learned from the following piece by our foreign correspondent Captain Chanute, who brings us this sordid tale from the New York Craft Beer Festival. Enjoy! And look for the Captain here again in the near-future, as he's doing the important duty of covering the Vigilantes' New York CMJ appearances for us. (Note to the captain: sorry for the edits, but lazy hipsters won't read anything longer than a Pitchfork article):

"Fellow degenerates,

it is with pleasure that I write to you from uber-hip NYC to bring you on-going coverage of hip events outside the friendly confines of Larryville. This special occasion has submerged me, Capt. Chanute, balls deep in the glorification of shit-facery. That is, Friday marked the beginning of the Third Annual New York City Craft Beer Week and it's been a bed-spinning, belching last couple days. Now, although my inebriation typically leads to lechery and libertinism, this auspicious time of year most often leaves me in a puddle of piss on a curb in one of the seedy underbellies of this God-forsaken Babylon. Thankfully, I took notes, so come along and observed what's transpired!...

As mentioned, this fine event began Friday night. My lone colleague and I have been slobbering drunk since then, scratching notes and snapping a few photos of the proceedings (and some titties) for your reading (dis)pleasure. Here are just a few highlights of my last 48 hours...

+Another stop on my journey was Heartland Brewery, a small-time-turned-seven-location brewhouse in Manhattan. Heartland, resembling our own local brewery, provides a selection of staple beers (Ambers, Wheats and Oatmeal Stouts) as well as seasonal selections. I opted to try a seasonal, the French Toast Ale. A Belgian-style Saison that blends “bold European pale malts and spicy Belgian yeast,” this frosty ale was crisp and refreshing on a rather warm NYC Saturday. This led me to question why Free State serves all their beers at the temperature of tepid toilet water. But I digress, the beer got a solid (ie, rock-hard) 4 beer boners out of 5 from me. On a side note, one libation I was unable to get my hands on was the Smiling Pumpkin Ale, advertised at the bar by a carved pumpkin representation of its creator. Very hip advertising, but is it art? The Captain's one local friend: “Who gives a shit, it gets you drunk.”...

Furthermore, NYC Craft Beer Week isn't all about the beer, it's also about the people (and the pussy). In my journeys I saw many interesting people, like this bar wench dressed in 1940s garb:



















Also, NYC Craft Beer Week events are likely to be protested, like this impromptu feminist concert in front of one my destinations:

















Local NYC feminists responded to my article: “We reject your beer boner rating system and have instilled our own beer rating system ranging from 1 to 5 Portia de Rossis.” Hey, boners and Portia de Rossi go hand in hand. Let's just have a cocktail and call the whole thing off."

Sunday Foodie Blog / Recent Concert Reviews / Teaser Trailer

If you're anything like the boys, there's nothing you love more than cooking complex and exotic dishes (Chip: "Wait, that doesn't sound right. I've never cooked anything more exotic than a baked potato."). So you'll want to place your orders soon for Modernist Cuisine, a 6 volume series by Nathan Myhrvold, clocking in at 2,400-pages and $625 bucks. The work features recipes such as the "30 Hour Cheeseburger":

"The cheeseburger, for instance, requires the meat to be cooked sous vide for several hours. Freezing with liquid nitrogen ensures that the crust will stay crispy while the center stays perfectly medium rare once it is deep fried. The heirloom tomato is vacuum compressed. The cheese must be melted first, then restructured. The bun is made from scratch and toasted in beef suet. The crimini mushroom ketchup includes honey, horseradish, fish sauce, ginger and allspice." (NY-Times).

Myhrvold acknowledges that "not everybody will make their burger this way every day," and we assume he's right, especially since the fucking thing takes TWO days to make.

Richard: "If Krause doesn't have this burger on his menu soon, I'll be very disappointed."

Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/dining/22cookbook.html


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We didn't attend the Matt and Kim show at the Granada the other night, because we're frankly a little burnt out on Brooklyn bands, but judging from Elke Mermis's Pitch review, we missed a good time:

"The duo emerged to a chunky, cataclysmically loud refrain of "Where Brooklyn At," hopping on their instrument sets and saluting the crowd with goofy grins. The crowd -- already drenched in sweat in the humid Granada -- began crowd surfing during the band's very first number."

Do scenesters crowd surf?

"...the Granada recreated the ecstatic, smelly intimacy of a D.I.Y. show pretty effectively."

We've been to a lot of packed shows, and "smelly intimacy" is indeed an apt phrase. (Chip: "In other words, hipsters stink.").

"Matt and Kim ripped into the song, soliciting the da-da-da-da's from the crowd in an ethereal, ecstatic moment of communal exchange. "Fuck yeah," Kim said, standing on top of her drum set, with her drum stick thrust in the air."

Readers, we love it when local scenesters put aside their petty differences and just...bond in a hippie-style love-fest. (but let us end with a petty point: this reviewer overuses the word "ecstatic.").

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Here's what you're likely to see this week on the LC:

1) Boner jokes

2) The boys embrace their new duties as local music promoters (bestowed on them via @BARRR and some dude from New York) and do our damnedest to try to get you to cross into North Larry on Friday night to see a New Orleans band called Hurray for the Riff Raff.

3) The LC begins in-depth coverage of next Saturday's Scion Garage Fest. Do you have your armband stored in a safe location and occasionally look at it longingly, just waiting for the Vigilantes to kick off the fest in fine fashion? We do.

Final Fridays Coverage / Game Day, Vol. IV

Readers, are your walls adorned with new art purchased during Larryville's second installment of Final Fridays? Ours aren't, but we certainly gawked at a bit of it last night.

We took in the zombie pictures modeled after family portraits at the Pig.

Richard: "On one hand, it's a wonderfully clever commentary on the 'decay' of the traditional family unit but, on the other hand, it's a little dull. Hipsters need a new monster of choice. Maybe the chupacabras?"

And we took in Jouvelt's portraits of local artists such as Molly Murphy and Wayne Propst at Wonder Fair.

Chip: "I liked the portraits, but why would I buy them when I can just walk over to the Pig and look at Molly and Wayne, but especially Molly, in the flesh."

And make sure to check out BARRR's contentious podcast interview with the controversial Jouvelt. The address is below (and a direct link to all the podcasts can be found in our sidebar: rumor is that Richard might make a special appearance in one of BARRR's Hall Monitors film podcasts, so keep your ears open, hipsters!):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/a-d-d/id393281425

After the art, Richard joined local music scholar King Tosser (read his book, why don't you!) and Eastside Reverend H. for an evening of rock on the Replay patio. Legendary KC songwriter Howard Iceberg was making his triumphant return to the Larryville stage after what he claimed was likely a 15 year absence. While Howard's voice may have seen its better days thirty or so years ago (if that voice ever had better days), the songwriting itself was stellar, as Howard effortlessly tossed off line after line that deserved a home on the country and pop charts. And his band, the Titanics, were, as hipsters like to say these days, "on point." Our friend the Reverend deemed the show "the best concert I've seen in years." And we'd almost agree with her (except for maybe that recent Truckstop Honeymoon show...and the time we saw Transmittens playing their toy instruments on the Replay patio...and every performance by the Rooftop Vigilantes).

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Readers, it's KU Game Day, and we're drunk (because it helps us forget that the team sucks). Yesterday's LJ-World offered an interesting piece on Coach Gill's team policies, which are a little harsher than we expected from Mr. warm-and-fuzzy. Apparently he confiscates the players' cellphones the day before each game to prevent distractions and also denies his players the company of women after 10:00 each and every night.

Chip: "But what about the gay Hawks? Can they still enjoy the company of men?"

Richard: "I suspect it's probably a don't ask, don't tell policy with Gill."

The LC Continues to Evolve / Final Fridays / Style Scout Showcases the Pig!

Readers, in another sure sign that Lawrence.com is going straight down the shitter, music promoters (from New York, no less) are now getting in touch with the LC to promote upcoming local shows by their clients. We're happy to help, of course, as long as there's something in it for us, so we requested that the promoter send down some lovely lady hipsters from New York who will enlighten us regarding current Williamsburg hipster trends and then possibly have sex with us. So tune in all next week as we promote an October 1 gig at the Gaslight Tavern by a New Orleans band called Hurray for the Riff Raff. They're a three piece folk/blues/indie-rock band and, from what we've heard so far, they sound quiet nice. So maybe you Replay-loving hipsters might consider walking your hip asses across the bridge to North Larryville for the show. It's fairly unlikely you'll be stabbed if you cross back over to civilization by 2:00 a.m or so. We'll post a link to one of their tunes in the sidebar for you.

And we'll see you tonight at Final Fridays! Our first stop: 739 Mass, where our Twitter buddies in the Fresh Produce Art Collective are presenting something called "Love in the time of Beer Bellies...a Mass. St. romance." It sounds like the story of our own lives!

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This week's Style Scout offers some useful insights into the people who pour our fancy infused-cocktails at the Pig. First up, Katy Wade, who says that jeggings "have changed my pants-wearing life!" (Chip: "Mine too."). Katy thinks that "girls who can't walk in their shoes...look like camels" and she dislikes rompers. She'd like to see more tortillarias in Larryville "because we don’t have a single one" and she'd like to see less people playing djembes on their porches.

Next is Adam Smith. He'd like to see fewer "crusties, out-of-town business on Mass., stabbings and “Jersey Shore" in Larryville, and he describes his fashion influences as "Dustin Kensey, because he is super-stylish; Gene Wilder because I kind of look like him in a weird way; and Lionel Richie." (Richard: "I love when people cite well-known local hipsters such as Dustin Kinsey as their fashion influences!"). Adam says that People tell him he looks like Blanche Dubois. And he's wearing a Lord of the Rings belt buckle.

Readers, check them out, and say hello when you see them tonight at the Pig.

The LC Pimps a Local Music Blog and Seeks Freelance Columnists to Cover Local Music

We'd like to write about today's Style Scout, which profiles a couple of your favorite Pig bartenders, but Lawrence.com can't be bothered to get it up on their website, so we'll do other things instead.

But first let's take another potshot at Lawrence.com.

Do you ever find yourself clicking on the site out of some misguided hope that they might, just might, review an important show that occurred the previous night at the Replay or Jackpot or Tap, only to find yourself reading another piece with a title like "Make dinner center of your Family Day" or looking at "Party Pics" from an event that occurred a month ago? Well, we do. So we'll direct you instead to a blog from our Twitter-buddy Abner the Owl (www.twitter.com/abnertheowl, if you want to follow her), who attends more shows per week than we sometimes do in a year. Please visit her blog, Balanced For Broadcast (and we'll post a direct link in the sidebar):

http://balancedforbroadcast.blogspot.com/

Her new piece takes Larryville hipsters to task for skipping this past Tuesday's Unwed Sailor gig at the Jackpot:

"there is a fine line between not wanting your nearest and dearest band to go big time or 'sellout' but its even more heart breaking when you see all this talent and passion a group of musicians have just squandered on an empty room. for a total of seven dollars last night i saw that happen twice. where was everyone on tuesday? watching glee? you should have been at the jackpot around 10:30 for unwed sailor. i guess its ok if you didn't know about it. the jackpot didn't even know the show was happening until monday. people were there earlier for a band called sea farer which is good if you like a sub-par fleet foxes/shearwater type act. all those college-type kids left though and maybe 10 people heard the immense wall of sound that was unwed sailor. four dudes, no vocals, its the kind of music where "crushing guitars" might be an appropriate thing to say? check out "aurora" from 2008's little wars. it was the last and best song of the set."

Chip: "Yes, I was watching Glee."

Richard: "I remain disturbed by several recent reports that Jackpot shows are increasingly full of 'college-type kids.' Maybe that's why true hipsters are staying away? Reclaim your bars, hipsters! And go see shows!"

Also, we'll be partnering with Balanced For Broadcast (and possibly boozing with Abner her own self) next week to bring you extensive coverage of the Scion Garage Fest (surely the hippest event this year in Larryville).

However, the sad truth is that Richard and Chip are too old and boring to attend most late-night hipsters show as they once did. So we're extending an offer to any of you younger, hipper hipsters out there with journalistic leanings to send us your brief reviews of local shows to be printed on the LC. We can't pay you, aside from a PBR or two, but you'll receive the honor of having your work read by, oh, maybe six or so people, half of whom will make shitty anonymous comments about it. Let us know in the comments or via direct message at Twitter if interested and we can send you further "deets" at that time:

www.twitter.com/larryvillelife

And make sure your work is at least mildly amusing (hint: a good boner joke always gets our attention).

Final Fridays Coverage Begins (Again) ; Campus Event of the Week: Sextival! / DVD Picks

Readers, if you're anything like us you're looking forward to gawking at and talking pompously about some art that you'd never actually consider purchasing during the second Final Fridays this week. We don't have our full trajectory planned yet, but here are a few certain stops for us:

1) The Pig is hosting an opening called "Anecdotes of the Undead," which we can only assume involves zombies. Count us in.

2) Wonder Fair is hosting an opening called "Golden Corral," which reminds us of that delicious all-you-can-eat-buffet restaurant of the same name. It features works by the old guard (Stan Herd) and the new (Molly Murphy). Keep a PBR cold for us, @BARRR, because we plan to mingle. The artist known as Jouvelt is also involved, somehow, and all artists with one-word names are important.

3) We were vocal in our disappointment with Love Garden's first Final Friday offering, but this time they are promising an actual art opening with tunes from Suzannes Johannes, whose rhyming name never fails to delight us. Save a Hamm's for us!

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Wescoe Beach is hosting an event this week known as a "sextival" and described as a "celebration of positive sexuality." We don't know exactly what goes on at a "sextival," but we can only assume that, at some point, a spontaneous orgy will break out, and we want to be around for that. The advertising for the events contains fascinating sex-related facts, such as:

"Vigorous sex for half an hour burns 150 calories."

Chip: "Let's just say I'm probably not going to lose much weight from boning."

and

"...up to 40% of people who use condoms do so incorrectly."

40% percent?! Are people wearing them on their heads?

Chip: "I think they are meant to cover the dingus."

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AICN is doing us a real service lately in keeping us posted on 70's softcore erotica re-releases. This week brings us, Red Hot Zorro, "a soft core early 1970’s French/Spanish Zorro erotica."




















And if you're looking for a holiday gift for our good friend Dr. C out in Colorado, look no further than this (but avert your eyes if you don't like naked asses).

Chip: "I suspect 'Cheeky' is a sexual innuendo, referring to her ass cheeks."

Larryville's City Fathers Debate Further Outdoor Downtown Drinking Areas / Franzen Wrap-Up and Future Literary Pursuits

If it's Tuesday, that means we're headed down to the City Commission meeting to voice our (loud) opinions on important matters such as late-night food carts and patio drinking. The latter issue takes center stage tonight. Current city code dictates that bars which already have an outdoor deck or patio cannot open further sidewalk "hospitality areas." The owners of Louise's Downtown are leading the charge against this.

Obviously, the boys are duty-bound to support any legislation that allows them to drink beer outdoors on Mass. Street, but in truth we are a bit skeptical of allowing the obnoxious drunks at Louise's, who are normally relegated to the back deck, to join the rest of us civilized folks on Mass. Street.

See you at City Hall tonight.

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Readers, our time with Franzen's new novel is fast drawing to an end (unless we reread it immediately), but before we finish it up allow us to share with you one final sentence that illustrates the genius of JF. This is upstanding married man Walter Berglund feeling guilty over an affair:

"It would have been useful to be able to add that there was nothing between him and his assistant, but, in fact, his hands and face and nose were so impregnated with the smell of her vagina that it persisted faintly even after showering."

Richard: "A lesser writer would use the word 'pussy' here, but Franzen recognizes that the more clinical 'vagina' is the right choice in this instance, better suited to Walter's uptight personality. But the true beauty of the sentence lies in the unexpected word choice of 'impregnated,' which mirrors the book's concern with issues of overpopulation."

Chip: "Wait. Why does his nose smell like vagina? Oh, I get it. This book is sort of naughty, isn't it? I wish I could discuss it directly with Oprah."

Our feminist readers: "It seems to us that Franzen, who is so critically lauded for his 'penetrating' insights into American culture, rarely penetrates much deeper than dick-length, which we suspect is not very deep. It should be noted that our greatest American female novelists, such as Marilynne Robinson and Allegra Goodman, manage to cover similar terrain without undue focus on their own twats."

We're not sure 'twat' is the right word choice there, but it's probably the funniest.

Now let's turn to our next choice of reading material (assuming we don't quit reading altogether for seven or so years until Franzen gives us something new).

Currently we're leaning toward a novel called Room, which is not (as we first thought) Tommy Wiseau's novelization of his film masterpiece, but rather a novel by Emma Donoghue described by the NY-Times thusly:

"Emma Donoghue’s remarkable new novel, “Room,” is built on two intense constraints: the limited point of view of the narrator, a 5-year-old boy named Jack; and the confines of Jack’s physical world, an 11-by-11-foot room where he lives with his mother...The main objects in the room are given capital letters — Rug, Bed, Wall — a ­wonderful choice, because to Jack, they are named beings."

Chip: "Sounds too cute. I'm leaning toward getting my nonfiction on with Nell Irvin Painter's The History of White People. White people have done so much to shape our world, but have so rarely been acknowledged for their efforts."

Recent Concert Reviews: Pixies / The LJ-World's "Go" Magazine Examines Campus Fashion

Local hipsters have shelled out so much cash for two consecutive weekends to see overpriced Pavement and Pixies reunion tours that they may be hard pressed to buy a case of PBR this week. Sure, we all shelled out a lot of cash a few years back for a Pixies reunion, but this time they were playing Doolittle all the way through, a seminal album for any true hipster. So how was this weekend's Pixies show? Let's turn to the Pitch to find out (since, as usual, we didn't actually attend the show).

"The houselights dimmed, and footage from Luis Bunuel's 1929 trippy surrealist short, "Un Chien Andalou," flashed on stage. Following the shots of slicing up eyeballs and awkward gropings, the Pixies took the stage..."

Chip: "Un Chien Andalou is my third favorite work by Bunuel. Just kidding. I don't know who Bunuel is, and I resent the Pixies for rubbing my face in my own cultural ignorance."

"The screams of appreciation erupted when they came back with "Slow Wave" and "Into the White," a slow, steady dirge played while a fog machine filled the room."

Richard: "A fog machine? Are you a hipster band or an 80's hair metal stadium act?"

But perhaps some of the hippest hipsters in attendance were there primarily to check out Pitchfork-approved opening act Fuck Buttons. The reviewer, however, wasn't impressed, but doesn't he realize he'd come off as hipper if he championed their shenanigans:

"There didn't seem to be a whole lot of la la love for Fuck Buttons, the opening noise-duo act. The English pair came out, stood around, turned some knobs and played one long, boring track full of blips, boops and bass."

---

The LJ-World's Monday "lifestyle magazine" continues to do important work, such as today's piece on the current face of campus fashion at KU. According to the article, "the height of campus fashion happens to be the running short. And not just any run-of-the-mill jogging apparel, but two certain styles of Nike running short, the basic Tempo and the sleeker Pacer."

Chip: "The shorts are wonderfully comfortable, but not easy to hide a boner in."

Naturally, the article turns to local fashion maven (and LC favorite) Katy Seibel for commentary:

“There’s a lot of sartorial diversity on campus, but generally speaking, I think campus fashion is a more casual, comfortable version of current trends."

Personally, we're hoping for a trend that involves more sophistication, such as little black cocktail dresses worn without panties. But that's just us.

Larryville's Missed Connections / Stoner Pick of the Week / Teaser Trailer

It's going to be hard to top the last "Missed Connection" we showcased (about the handjob in the lake). This one, titled "Short Loud Redhead at 17th & Kentucky St," doesn't top it, but it does make us laugh:

"Saw you and it made me think of home. You were trying to order Pyramid Pizza but couldn't stop laughing. Bananas was all over you and we had porch beers. Would give anything to do it again. Could you learn to love me?"

Chip: "I wonder why she was covered in bananas?"

---

If you live in California, you almost certainly have a prescription for medical marijuana. And now you can use that prescription to purchase delicious half-pints of "weed infused ice cream" from Creme De Canna, with flavors such as "Banannabis Foster, Straw-Mari Cheesecake and TRIPle Chocolate Brownie" (interweb).

WHY can't Larryville get back in touch with its hippie roots? We can't even smoke K2 around here!

---

Coming soon to the LC:

Extensive coverage of Larryville's second Final Fridays art walk! Who will win the LC's prize for weirdest art? And whose "art" will be deemed "not art?"

A look at the Pixies weekend concert in KC (Yes, they really played Doolittle all the way through!).

More favorite lines from our Franzen readings, such as the moment when Walter Berglund recounts his first time masturbating (Oprah: "That moment is the true climax of the novel, if you catch my meaning!").

The LC's Local Record Review!

You may know BARRR primarily as that Asteroid Head dude who's always at Wonder Fair or as that guy who's calling you a pussy on the kickball field, but now you'll know him as a mixtape wizard. "Illest Summer" is available to stream over at www.teambearclub.com or via Itunes. Check it out. What do the boys think?

Richard: "BARRR kicks off his mix with a sample of Spose's 'I'm Awesome'--'I'm the most obnoxious guest up at the sausage fest'--providing us a glimpse into his own personality (as you'll know if you've ever been to a party with BARRR) before treating us to 50 minutes that conjure the many moods of summers past. A representative moment occurs just around the nine-minute mark, as the lazy strains of Alan Parsons' "Eye in the Sky" give way to the bravado of Run DMC's "Walk This Way,' conjuring up the kind of summer hipster day where you spend the afternoon lounging by the pool and the evening banging some chick you met at the TapRoom. If there's a problem with the album, it's that, at 50 minutes, it far exceeds the average scenester attention span, which lasts only about as long as a Rooftop Vigilantes record (about fifteen minutes)."

Chip: "I have a feeling that, if I were to play this record on my front porch, my yard would magically fill up with a horde of PBR-swilling scenesters. Therefore, I will never play this record on my front porch."

And a note to local artists: we'll review your records too, if you ask us sweetly, give us free copies, and/or promise to reward us with a couple of your groupies (the latter is especially directed toward Fourth of July, since you guys have the hottest groupies in town).

Oprah Picks Franzen's Freedom For Her Book Club! / Game Day, Vol. III / Recent Concert Reviews / The State of Local Media

The interweb has been buzzing for days with rumors that Oprah's final book-club selection for her final season would be Franzen's Freedom. Well, it's official. Is the choice carefully designed so she can go out in a burst of forgiveness after that infamous squabble when she chose his prior work, The Corrections, for the club? Or does she (like us) honestly believe that Freedom is 100% awesome? Let's hope Franzen makes some hilariously snarky and elitist statements about this matter.

Our feminist readers: "Why would America's most powerful African-American leader (sorry, Obama) end her reign by choosing a work by a dull and dick-obsessed white male who's already gotten a shocking amount of press for his navel-gazing?"

Chip: "Here's my new favorite line of the novel:

"In the first early austral light of morning, he awoke with a monstrous boner of whose durability he had not the shadow of a doubt" (Franzen 430).

What I like is how the poetic image of the opening phrase gives way quickly to a large boner."

---

After an embarrasing loss in their first game and a shocking victory in their second, what's in store for the Jayhawks on their first road game of the season? All we know for certain is that, since it's a Friday night game, we'll be well and truly hammered even prior to kick-off. Now let us drink...and pray. Rock Chalk!

---

Readers, have you checked out the new local music column called "The Heard" on Lawrence.com? They have three columnists, but so far all they've done is report on the new addition to Cowboy Indian Bear, which the Pitch reported first. So we'll turn to the Pitch again today for a review of last night's important Ariel Pink show (which we walked by but didn't attend because it looked too self-important for us). Here's an excerpt from Brad Krohe's review:

"After the crowd dispersed to the sidewalk at the end of the show, a pair of wild-eyed fans walked by me. One turned to his buddy. "I touched him," he said, referring in awe to the spectacular mad genius they had just witnessed. They then burst into laughter at how dorky and star-struck that statement was."

---

Yesterday a disgruntled columnist for the World Company reached out to us (via Twitter and e-mail) with an edgy piece that the LJ-World declined to run. Readers, have we now become a more reliable source of local cultural reporting than Lawrence.com and the LJ-World? We suppose so. Thanks for sending us the piece, fellow journalist. And while we can't use it either (as it contains no boner or hipster jokes), we think the moment is a telling commentary on the state of local media.

Chip: "Were there any naked photos in that submission?"

Richard: "Sorry, Chip. It wasn't from Anna Undercover."

Hipster Pink of the Day: Ariel Pink at Jackpot / Plus: Classic Latin American Erotica!

Today's hipster pick is obviously a no-brainer. But it's been a few months since Pitchfork and the blogosphere deemed the new record by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti to be "important" (you'll recall that we covered it here in June), so will the Larryville hipster contingent show up en masse to a rare Jackpot early show? And what will they witness if they do? While the new album may reflect a more polished sound, we predict the live show will still sound like cats fucking during a shipwreck ("The set began with a roughly five-minute-long freak out piece that owed more to Tangerine Dream, with a commanding, throbbing bass than, say, Pink Floyd." --interweb). Opening is Larryville's Chick Fights ("All songs were written recorded on a fostex 4 track") and Karma Vision (whose song "Fuzzle Muzzle" we find quite pleasant but whose Youtube videos make us want to punch them: www.myspace.com/karmavisionband ).

See you at the show. Or maybe not.

---

Occasionally we like to showcase new DVD releases that might appeal to our geeky/horny readers. Here's one we discovered via Knowles' infrequent DVD column on AICN: it's from the "Classic Latin America Erotica Collection" and it's called Porno (but it's not a hardcore porn flick, so relax, uptight readers). Here's the AICN synopsis in full:

"This Portuguese language sexual oddity is really fucking bizarre. There’s Lesbian Erotica set to Jerry Goldsmith’s STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE Ilia & Decker theme. There’s a scene where a guy gives a girl a big, live, creepy looking Grasshopper to masturbate with… she allows the grasshopper to stroke her clit, and she acts like (or really is) brought to orgasmic bliss by the grasshopper. She dismisses her lover, and puts the bug back to work as the soundtrack belts out “BORN FREE!” There is shit in this movie that you can never unsee. I’m serious. But you’re likely to laugh like a hyena throughout! Not really hardcore, but disturbingly hot – especially when they use the Goldsmith music for Lesbianism. That’s just somehow perfect."

Richard: "I plan to host a screening of this, and soon. I hope you come."

Chip: "Was that last statement a sexual innuendo?"

Our feminist readers: "I think it's safe to say that most women have masturbated with a grasshopper before. It's perfectly normal human behavior being fetishized here for the male gaze. But we certainly approve of the rejection of the standard phallus in favor of this linkage between woman and nature. If we watched porn, we'd watch this one."

And if, like us, you are intrigued by the very idea of the "Classic Latin American Erotica Series," you might want to know that the goal of the series is to showcase the “Pornochanchada” movement, an important "offshoot of erotic film rarely seen in North America until now...[which] was very popular in South America from 1977-1985" (interweb).

Also, "Pornochanchada" is the LC's word of the day. If you work it into a conversation tonight at the Ariel Pink show, we'll buy you a beer.

---

Also, no Style Scout coverage today, because it's once again boring as hell.

The LC Congratulates the City Fathers and Celebrates the Return of "Party Pics!"

We've had our share of issues with the city fathers, but they did the right thing last night in defying the wishes of local baron Doug Compton and approving a late-night food cart on Mass. Street:

"This has gone on long enough,” Mayor Mike Amyx said. “We need to get you guys in the hot dog business" (LJ-World).

Right on, Mike!

The owners of the food cart hope to have the business operational by the weekend, so we'll plan on meeting you all at 2:00 am for a hot dog after the We Are Country Mice gig at the Replay. And we predict every bite will taste like a sweet victory for the small business-owner.

Chip: "I'm going to take a picture of myself eating a late-night hot dog in front of Pita Pit and mail it to Doug Compton."

---

Yesterday morning we tweeted Lawrence.com to complain about the lack of "party pics" in recent months. They tweeted back and promised to address our concerns. Yesterday afternoon new "party pics" appeared. A coincidence? Almost certainly. But we're going to pretend it's a sign of our increasing cultural power in Larryville. So let's celebrate the return of one of the few remaining features on L.com that we actually enjoy by looking at a few of these A. Ruscin shots from a recent Pride Night at Wilde's Chateau.

Chip: "In this first picture, we see a common greeting used among young lesbians: the-rubbing-together-of-the-boobies."

If you click to enlarge, you'll notice a number of dollar bills. Is it acceptable to tip your favorite lesbians during Pride Night?























Richard: "In this next picture, we see a young man who is almost certainly dead. Notice that his friend has begun to cry."
















Chip: "And in this final shot, the exposed left nipple signifies that a young gay man is in a committed relationship."

The LC Strongly Supports Late-Night Downtown Food Carts / Continuing Coverage of Franzen's Novel!

Hipsters, would you love it if you could stumble out of the Replay at 2:00 a.m and sate your PBR-fueled cravings with something from a food cart called the Last Stop Snack Shop, located conveniently in front of the Masonic Temple? (we wish it were called Last Call Snack Shop, but we suppose that might remind people of the weekly gun-battles that used to occur at the Last Call nightclub).

If you support such an important business venture, as we do, make sure to head down to City Hall tonight and voice your opinions, because local supervillain Doug Compton hopes to put a stop to it. Compton, who leases the nearby spaces currently occupied by Pita Pit, Encore, and Pyramid Pizza, says that these businesses "shouldn’t have to compete with a food cart that will operate cheaply on publicly owned property" (LJ-World). If we're not mistaken (and we aren't), there will be very little overlap between these businesses and the hours of the food cart, and even if there were, shouldn't drunken consumers have the option between a shitty Pita Pit snack or a shitty Pyramid slice and...whatever the Last Stop boys will be offering from their cart? We believe they should.

See you at City Hall.

---

Since we can't convince everyone to read Franzen's Freedom, no matter how hard we try, the least you can do is listen while we share some of our favorite passages with you. Yesterday we came across this important moment when rock star Richard Katz shocks himself by realizing that he's come to prefer sleeping with women his own age as opposed to nubile teenagers:

"Nowadays especially, the young chicks were hyperactive in their screwing, hurrying through every position known to the species, doing this that and the other, their kiddie snatches too unfragrant and closely shaved to even register as human body parts" (Franzen 349).

Readers, if the greatest literature is meant to illuminate one's own existence, we can honestly say that this passage made us feel a little better about never getting to bang our favorite Quinton's waitresses. Thank you, Franzen. But we'd still like to try out all those positions.

Our feminist readers: "Once again, we assert: Is reading this book really a necessary way for President Obama to spend his time? And also: why do today's young women insist on shaving their snatches?"

Recent Concert Reviews: Pavement! / Plus: Local Music News of the Week

No, we didn't go to KC to see Pavement over the weekend. Our hipness demands nothing but brief allegiance to new bands, which we support for one album and one album only. We can't afford to traffic in (high-priced) hipster nostalgia. But luckily Nick Spacek has us covered. His review in the Pitch makes no bones about it. The show was fucking outstanding:

"The show was amazing, fantastic, awesome and (might we go this far?) transcendent."

Richard: "You had me convinced until 'transcendent.' Surely they haven't been transcendent since Slanted." (notice how Richard shortens the album title here, hiply).

But did they play everything that fans wanted to hear? With the exception of "Summer Babe," apparently they did:

"Cut Your Hair," which had the potential to be nothing more than an audience sing-along, was instead played at one-and-a-half speed, taking the piss out of a song that was pretty much required playing."

Chip: "I demand that bands play songs EXACTLY as they were recorded. They owe me that much at least."

But we're guessing that the fans sung along anyway.

The review at Back to Rockville offer this nice picture of the setlist. But since when is the song called "Shandy Lane?"


















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One of our astute (if frustratingly anonymous) readers wrote to us today lamenting the fact that we are forced to turn to the Pitch these days to discover important news from the Larryville music scene. We certainly agree and, like you all, we think that the current Lawrence.com sucks, hard (aside from the delicious recipes!). Anyway, the big story out of the Larryville scene this week is the addition of a new member to the Cowboy Indian Bear line-up: Katlyn Conroy.

Chip: "Will this require a name change? I recommend Cowboy Indian Bear Princess."

You should check out their new video for "Saline," in which these wholesome young gents attend a county fair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1SFflgu20U&feature=related

A Larryville Miracle / KC's First Fridays vs. Larryville's Final Fridays

Readers, let's admit it: we spent all week bashing Coach Gill and were utterly shocked by yesterday's win against Georgia Tech. Are we willing to admit we jumped the gun in our fury? Or do we believe that yesterday was simply a fluke? Or a miracle handed down from on high after a week of constant prayer from Gill and his Praying Jayhawks? And did you drunk fuckers really need to storm the field after the second game of the season? See you at the bar on Friday to watch Gill's first KU road game. Our prediction:

Chip: "No hope."

---

Since we didn't go ourselves (too hip) and since none of our esteemed media outlets bother to review concerts on the weekends, we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out whether the Pavement show was great or whether it was THE greatest show in the history of hipsterism. In the meantime, let's look at a recent Pitch picture which we believe proves that KC's First Fridays are weirder than Larryville's Final Fridays. Step up your weirdness, Larryville!

Game Day! (Volume II)

Readers, it's almost kickoff time for KU's match-up against Georgia Tech! But maybe you're feeling a little down after last week's demoralizing loss to North Dakota State? Let us offer you three things to get excited about in the face of today's near-certain massacre.

1) An 11:00 tip-off provides a perfect reason to start boozing at 7:00 a.m. We had PBR for breakfast.

2) The town is full of luscious Georgia Peaches (Chip: "And they are ripe for the plucking, if you catch my meaning. And what I mean is they are eminently fuckable.").

3) It's a more wholesome American way to commemorate 9/11 than burning a Quran.

We'll see you at halftime, as KU fans surely begin to exit the stadium en masse.

Hipster Event of the Weekend: Pavement! / Franzen Boner Patrol

Surely we can agree that THE hipster event of the weekend is the KC stop of Pavement's reunion tour. Will you be attending? Or are you too hip? Perhaps you saw them just after Slanted and Enchanted came out and you don't want to sully that perfect hipster memory? Or perhaps you stopped listening after Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain? Or perhaps you're just unwilling to engage in that kind of hipster-nostalgia and realize that you could drink 15 PBR's for the price of a Pavement reunion ticket?

Please write in with your best Pavement memories, and we'll publish them later (if they amuse us).

A quote from a recent Guardian review of a London reunion show: "Their later material sounds marginally less like a band attempting to play while on a rough ferry crossing...".

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Since not all of you are devoting your time to Franzen's Freedom (as you should be), we want to occasionally share with you our favorite boner references from this instant-classic:

"His crying had given him a boner that he now removed from his boxers and khakis and held onto for dear life...He so much liked looking at it..." (Franzen 250).

Our feminist readers: "It makes us sad that even the President of the United States is devoting his time to the masturbatory fantasies of yet another White Male author desperate to make it into the canon. Your boner prose is not canonical, Franzen!"

Ladies, we beg to differ.

One Half of Drakkar Sauna Gets Scouted! / Larryville Is the #9 Best College Community in the Nation!

Readers, you honestly didn't have a single comment about yesterday's "handjob in the lake" Missed Connection from Craigslist? We give you so much, for so little in return. Oh well. Let's move on to today's consideration of Style Scout.

We thought a guy who sings songs with titles like "Very Much Alone (Pt. 1: O, Fuck, I'm Fucked. Fuck.)" would be a little quirker when interviewed by the Style Scout, but he's actually a bit disappointing aside from his fashion influences: "Brendan Hangauer and Big Bird."

Chip: "Who's Brendan Hangauer?"

Richard: "Do you not shop at Jensen's?"

We like his hat, which he says he found at the Replay Lounge (yes, you may also know him as your bartender: the man can open a PBR can like none other). Click to enlarge. If the hat happens to be yours, go reclaim it.





















More interesting is Jane Leek, 27, a "leather smith" who favors "Petticoats, handmade leather accessories, patterns, boots, mohawks, jumpsuits, layers and big buttons." She also favors Budweiser shorts, apparently. She also claims she can "see auras" and is often told she looks like Shelly Duvall as Olive Oil. Click to enlarge and check out those shorts.




















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Not only does Larryville have the 31st and 41st best college bars in the country, it's also been voted #9 on a list of "Best College Communities" compiled by the American Institute for Economic Research.

Talkbackers have decided this is a good opportunity to bash Colombia, MO, which isn't on the list.

Ronwell_Dobbs writes: "Not seeing Columbia MO up there... Perhaps they took into account your tendency to kill your neighbors in the next State and your hopped-up klan membership. Oh yeah, and your sister-love."

Some think Ronwell-Dobbs is Chip's on-line alter ego.

The Boys Say Goodbye to Big Lew! / A Visit to Larryville's "Missed Connections" / Important Hipster Show on The Horizon

We'd be remiss not to reflect for a bit on Larryville's current top story: the abrupt depature of AD Lew Perkins (well in advance of the originally announced retirement date). Is he jumping ship in advance of being further implicated in the recent ticket scandals? Or did he simply witness the embarrassing display by Gill's Praying Jayhawks on Saturday and think to himself, Why bother anymore? We don't know yet. But what do the on-line talkbackers think?

ralphralph likens Lew's departure to other local scandals:

Lew is to KU Sports
as
Wittig is to Westar.

Loot and Scoot.

KansasTwister says: "i hope Lew takes Terry Allen (oops Turner Gill) with him."

And oz9999 adds: "breaking news! Mark Mangino Dies - of laughter!"

Let's take one final look at the big dog before we turn our attention away from sports and back to our usual concerns (hipsters, boners, etc). Doesn't Lew look sweet and guileless here?














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Sadly, Craigslist closed down its "adult services" section last weekend, adding a "censored" message where the former listings used to be and leaving the boys wondering how in hell they're supposed to get laid now?

But perhaps this just means the sexier stuff will find its way into the "missed connections" section. Here's a good (and odd) one titled "Dallas from Perry Lake - m4w - 27 (Lawrence):

"I met you at party cove at Perry Lake on Sunday. You were wearing my daughters t-shirt and the bongo shorts half pulled down. I wanted to cum on your tramp stamp but you gave me the hand job in the lake. I thought your WT style was hot. Maybe some time we can meet up at your trailer. Call me...Mike"

Good luck, Mike. She certainly sounds like a keeper!

---

We make it our duty to pay special attention to any Brooklyn bands that pass through Larryville, because we know that their geographical location alone makes them hip. On the horizon is a band called We Are Country Mice (Sept. 17 at Replay).

Pitchfork says:

"They're not lo-fi and there's a healthy dose of country thrown into their distorted, anthemic attack. Singer-guitarist Jason Rueger has a high-pitched snarl and a penchant for breaking up his band's Crazy Horse-style songs with bouts of distortion. In Wilco terms, We Are Country Mice make music that sounds like Being There mashed up with a little Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."

Richard: "Sold. I wish Pitchfork described every band using this Wilco-scale, so that I'd actually be able to understand what the hell the reviewers are talking about."

Weekend in Review / The Boys' Book Club Continues Their Franzen and Looks Ahead

Readers, when last we met loyal Hawk football fans were bashing Tom Keegan for his 4-8 prediction for the season. And then...Saturday night happened: a soul-crushing 6-3 loss to North Dakota State (suddenly making Keegan seem like an optimist). Pray harder this week, Coach Gill! But the boys are not giving up just yet. And since season-ticket holders will no doubt be giving away tickets right and left, we might even attend the next game.

Elsewhere in Larryville, a wall-to-wall crowd of hippies, families (many of whom now have deaf babies, since the band played unusually loud this week) and NPR-listening local progressives filled the Replay on Sunday evening to enjoy the sounds of Truckstop Honeymoon. Richard heard at least three different mentions of their recent profile on NPR from people who had never seen the band before and never would have thought of doing so if they had not been NPR-approved. We're glad for Truckstop, who will now sell more copies of the new CD, but we really wish those people had remained at Starbucks instead of talking loudly next to us throughout the show. Even hipster-photographer A. Ruscin was spotted at this show. Perhaps we'll be treated to some "party pics" (in about two months or so).

But the hipster center of the universe this weekend was not in Larryville (sadly) but in Monticello, NY, at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival which, in addition to showcase performances from the likes of Iggy and the Stooges and Sonic Youth, also offered:

--"...the revived version of the early-’70s Neu, with the guitarist Michael Roether, playing the flowing-and-halting motorik rhythm" (NY-Times)

--a comedy room featuring "Hannibal Buress rhapsodizing over Mott’s apple juice" (NY-Times)

--"a stream of Japanese and French noir films in an upstairs room, chosen by the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and presented by the Criterion Collection..." (NY-Times).

Just imagine how hip one must be to hang out in that upstairs room watching Japanese noir instead of checking out the bands. One day, we hope to be that hip.

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So how are all of you progressing with your reading of Franzen's Freedom? As for us, we've moved beyond the third-person autobiography of the first 150 or so pages, devoured the rock star section (which contains a dozen or so pages explaining the effects of mountaintop removal), and entered the teenage son's perspective (he's opposed to masturbation...how weird!). Here's a line involving rock-star Richard Katz's dick that we expect will be singled out when the Pulitzer-committee meets this year:

"The angry stirrings of Katz's blood were of a piece with the divinations of his dick" (Franzen 231).

But what's next on our reading list? Perhaps Paul Murray's lengthy comic novel Skippy Dies (Chip: "Shouldn't there be a spoiler alert with that title?").

The NYTimes says:

"One of the great pleasures of this novel is how confidently [Murray] addresses such disparate topics as quantum physics, video games, early-20th-century mysticism, celebrity infatuation, drug dealing, Irish folklore and pornography — as well as the sad story of the all-Irish D Company of the Seventh Royal Dublin Fusiliers, sent to their doom at Gallipoli in 1915. There’s even room for an indecent close reading of Robert Frost’s “Road Not Taken” that’s so weirdly convincing I’ll never again be able to read that poem without sniggering."

Richard: "Sold. I'd read this for the dirty interpretation of Frost on its own."

The Boys Celebrate Game Day! (and take the weekend off)

Like the rest of you, we've been drinking since daybreak to celebrate the first home football game of the year (obviously, we'll be passed out long before the game actually begins, but if it's even half as boring as Thursday's downtown pep rally, we won't be missing much).

Local sports journalist Tom Keegan's column of the day offers his prediction for this year's team: 4 wins, 8 losses.

The true fans (or "beakers," as one has termed himself in today's talkback) are not happy about such negativity. Let's take a look at the talkback.

njjayhawk says: "This "article" is a blantant case of "lazy writing" - of a 4th grade level attempt at journalism. Rambles, and says nothing that drives the "4-8, give or take" conclusion. Without any help at all from Tom's "analysis" printed here, I say KU will be land at 6-6, "give or take"."

jhawkclassof02 says: "Keegs, I hate you. No, I didn't even bother reading the article. I don't read your trash. Didn't have to. I hope the LJWorld realizes how many people are just like me and have altogether quit on this piece of garbage so-called journalist."

mizzousucks89 says: "Keeger, with all due respect... Go fu** your self."

Stay classy, Hawk fans! And Rock Chalk, readers! We'll see you again after the long weekend (as we need a break from being hip).

Hipster Picks of the Weekend

If you're a local hipster, you're unlikely to be heading to the lake this holiday weekend for one last dose of summer, as normal people do. So how will you occupy yourselves in Larryville.

Personally, we'd recommend the Labretta Suede and the Motel 6 show at the Replay tonight. Labretta's New Zealand garage-rock gave us a major boner the last time we caught one of her gigs and, although we haven't seen girl-group openers The Shebangs, they have a witty and provocative name. Check out Labretta:




















However, we realize that most of you will be opting instead for tomorrow night's Suckers gig at the Jackpot, simply because (a) they are from Brooklyn (immediately hip) and (b) they are endorsed by Pitchfork.

Pitchweekly, in its plug for the show, offers four reasons you should check Suckers out (Chip: "Or, in my case, four reasons not to."):

"First, its swooning, lackadaisical songs are equal parts magnum-opus ambition and pub-shanty sing-alongs. Second, a National Geographic-ready baboon face looks out at you from the cover of this year's sprawling Wild Smile (produced by Yeasayer's Anand Wilder). Third, frontman Quinn Walker sings with the ragged rigor of Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug. Fourth, one of the band members identifies himself as "Pan."

See you at the Jackpot.

Checking in With Style Scout / Dinosaur Hipster Photos!

Lawrence.com has given us two consecutive weeks of interesting Style Scouts. Maybe the long local nightmare of unstylish Scouts is officially over!

This week's first subject, Carolina Mariana Rodriguez, is a follower of ours on Twitter, as well as a "lady friend" of one of the (Pitch-Music-Award winning) Noise FM boys, who also follow us and who tweeted us to kindly request that we not be too impolite. No reason to worry, gents! We find Carolina's "conservative/erotic" look to be quite stylish! And she's currently inspiring a spirited talkback on Lawrence.com. Pondmonkey writes: "whoa. this chick is smokin' why don't we see more girls like this in Lawrence?"























Today's second subject, Rexy, is quirkier. We've always been fascinated by anyone who identifies by only one name (McG, Banksy, Prince, Chip), and this fellow is no exception. Rexy describes his style as one of "effeminate machismo," influenced by "Bruce Lee’s off-set style, Paul Lynde’s summer scarves and Adam Ant’s Native American/pirate vibe. And rodeo clowns—for their tough attitudes, star-emblems and handkerchiefs." Rexy would like to see more "drag queens, bloomers and burlesque" in Lawrence and fewer "gaggles of squawking co-eds" His "secret" is: "I’m heterosexual." We're not sure we buy the bit about the secret, but we'd totally like to hang out with this dude and discuss rodeo clowns.


















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There's always something on the interweb to make us giggle. Normally it's a video of a cat doing something hilarious, like riding around the house on the back of a turtle (Chip: "OMG!"). Today, however, it's a series of "dinosaur hipster" pictures we discovered via the Twitter account of one Molly23, from Tehran. Follow her here: http://twitter.com/Molly23




















Richard: "Fuck off, dinosaur! Everything Wilco does is solid gold."

And then there's the Tommy Wiseau-inspired "Wiseausaurus":




















Chip: "I'd probably be laughing...if I knew who Tommy Wiseau was."

The Boys Look at One of Their All-Time Favorite Local Photos / KU Football Coverage Begins!

Late as ever, the LJ-World and Lawrence.com have finally taken note of the fact that the Replay and the Wheel made the Complex.com list of 50 Best College Bars.

The story on Lawrence.com is accompanied by the following 2007 file photo of Replay Lounge employees, the sight of which will surely inspire a flood of fond memories to any hipster worth his or her...PBR. Click to enlarge.

Richard: "I remember the very first time Nanda handed me a can of PBR. I could literally feel myself getting hipper with each drink, much like Popeye gaining strength from his can of spinach."

Chip: "I remember ordering a Coors while wearing my Forttt Scottt tennis sweatshirt. Travis gave me a hard stare and said, 'Are you sure you're in the right bar?'"










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If you're like the boys, you're excited to be in attendance for Saturday's football home opener, which marks the beginning of the Turner Gill era. But please don't yell the "Rip his fucking head off" chant during the game, because profanities make Gill cry.

It's hard to say exactly what Gill's been up to with the team, but some of the reports make us a little nervous. Here are some excerpts from a UDK piece yesterday:

"Gill removed players' names from the backs of their jerseys to create a more unified team feeling."

Chip: "I fear he's an Obama-style socialist!"

"He has spent time this summer organizing team bonding activities."

Did they make S'mores?

"He preaches character and dignity."

The word "preaches" in that sentence may well be more accurate than the writer realizes.

We'll see you at tomorrow's downtown block party/Gill-o-rama (which will include no food or drink vendors due to the city's inability to get their shit together and get a license).