"He Blows a Lot": The Governor Brownback Story / Documentary Pick of the Day / Courtneybelle Watches Breaking Dawn, Part One

Readers, if we learned one thing during Reconciliation Week, it's that one shouldn't tweet silly things about the governor during Reconciliation Week or you'll be made to write a letter of apology.

During a Statehouse Field Trip for the Youth in Government program, a KC teenager fired off the following tweet:

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

Sure, the tweet may have been untrue in its specifics (she didn't really say this in person to the gov) but it's certainly very true in a larger sense (He does blow. A lot.). The governor's office flagged the tweet and passed it along to the Youth in Government program who passed it along to the school whose principal ordered her to write an apology. Forced "reconciliation" is so hip right now!

Here's the gov drinking some beers, perhaps to celebrate another successful reconciliation:



















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Whether you're a hipster or a hippie, you've no doubt had more than a few good times with Split Lip Rayfield during your time in Larryville, so you should probably see the new documentary Never Make It Home at Liberty Hall tonight at 7:30. It chronicles the band's final tour with Kirk. Check out the official website here




















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Since our intrepid field reporter Courtneybelle decided to camp out four hours early to see the new Twilight film, we asked her to document the madness for us. Here's the result, which becomes a rather profound inquiry into the idea of "vampire masturbation." Enjoy.


Breaking Dawn Part 1

Look, we know these movies are bad and that teenage abstinence is folly as well as a statistical unlikelihood. That’s not the point. There are many reasons highly functioning, basically rational American females will wait in line anywhere from 4 to 19 hours to see the worst acting of the year. Of course, we have to be there at midnight or the whole saccharine fairy tale will turn into a pumpkin latte. It’s clearly just porn for girls. You don’t justify men’s porn, so we shouldn’t have to justify ours. While you roll your eyes at our vacuous choice of fare, remember that Breaking Dawn made 139.5 million in two days. Beat that, Ron Jeremy!

With that defense in mind I will say that being at Southwind at 9 a.m. (4 hours before it's open) is top-level crazy (although, no one looks askance at Star Wars fans doing the same or worse). The next craziest women arrived at 1:30 p.m., replete with matching hoodies, T-shirts, and jewelry. Naturally they brought the books, since you never do know when a girl fight may break out over some minute detail of the story. A couple of women were having a very serious discussion about which names from the books were going to be used to name a litter of puppies. It also came out that these two ladies had made a pilgrimage to Forks, Washington, the setting of the film's improbable tales. An industry which caters to droves of romance-starved women is mounting there. Moreover, I learned that Forks has a parade in honor of Bella's fictitious birthday and tourists can get "tribal elders" to spin their yarns.

Even though I dig the books (and tolerate the movies), there’s always been one liberty taken with vampire canon that is unforgivable. VAMPIRES DON’T HAVE SWIMMERS! Sure, they can wander in the day. There’s precedence for that. Vampires that don’t prey on humans? - fine. Sparkles? - whatever. Corpses with functioning sperm is out of the question. That leaves the reader thinking about vampire masturbation. That is an image I don’t need. And it rather takes the sheen off the fun of living forever, don’t you think? Imagine our favorite tragically romantic monsters, Dracula, Lestat, Nosferatu, furtively disposing of ejaculates into a tube sock? I’m not having it.

Look people, this Twilight thing is real and inescapable, like Top Gun, Titanic, and women in bikinis with machine guns. The top two baby names of last year were Jacob and Isabella. The only way to sleep after learning that little factoid is to embrace the madness. I hear a lot of bitching about Stephanie Meyer’s "heteronormative vampires". I think we're giving the author more credit for insidious, right-wing messages than she deserves. Mormons wank too! It Hasn't occurred to anyone that Stephanie Meyer just wanted a nice, clean, teen menage a trois fantasy to toss off to?