TEST

Kansas City Times, May 18, 1889. I’m guessing this one never got to court.

Shane & Shane came, saying,

“I’m calling out your name, oh, my holiday!“

But Green Day, having such a gloom day recently, said,

“I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies.“

Boys Like Girls laughed and said,

“Before you run far away, you need to take a holiday.“

Suddenly Hillary Duff came and complained,

“He took a holiday from me!“

With a flirting chuckle, Scorpions said to her,

“Let me take you far away. You’d like a holiday.“

Cascada smiled and responded as well,

“There should be a holiday for girls like us. Just to get some time to pack our bags and breathe.“

With her motherly look, Madonna suggested her and all the others, too,

“Put your troubles down. It’s time to celebrate.“

Unwritten Law agreed,

“Sometimes life can knock you down. Just gotta pick your ass up off the ground. Probably don’t matter anyway. ‘Cause in the end it’s gonna be okay.”

Dedicated to Chase Ferrell, my workout buddy and motivator .

I recently tested a new workout songlist full of random songs I continuously played while at the gym. It was time to make a list…

1. “Sin Wagon” – Dixie Chicks
2. “Love Game” – Lady Gaga
3. “Hey Beautiful” – The Solids
4. “Minimal” – Pet Shop Boys
5. “Sweet Dreams” – Eurythmics
6. “I Ran” – Flock of Seagulls
7. “Dumpweed” – Blink 182
8. “Disturbia” – Rihanna
9. “This Modern Love” – Bloc Party
10. “Move Your Body” – Eiffel 65
11. “Hey Baby” – 4-2-4
12. “Workin’ Day And Night” – Michael Jackson
13. “Teenage Suicide” – Unwritten Law

The list goes on and on. Anything with a disco or techno beat works wonders for the mind while exercising and in return helps the  body. I honestly felt more motivated than usual as I walked into the weight room with headphones in my ears.

In further news, I read in Shape magazine (I don’t recall the issue number) years ago that listening to slower music helps the body mentally and physically wind down after a workout. This held true for me, so I would say it works.  Song lists to fall asleep to are also a big favorite of mine!

Picture Credit: Weights

Chicago Tribune, March 7 and 8, 1914 [click on images to enlarge]. The cartoon is by John T. McCutcheon, same guy who drew this one. He seems to have had an enduring interest in the phenomenon of the unprosecutable female murder defendant. The defense attorney’s contention that a female jury would be easier and not harder on Stella C. is supported by this previous posting on the subject. But who knows?

Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1919. Trib cartoonist John T. McCutcheon touches on some of our favorite themes. But why no vampire autos, I wonder?!
“The Black Hand” = Mafia.

Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1910. So much for that proposed anti-husband-killing society. Well, sauce for goose is sauce for gander.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1913. That’s my kind of jurist.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 1920. As we noted in earlier posts, Jazz Age wives could pretty much murder their husbands with legal and social impunity by copping what’s now called the abuse excuse. Our correspondent here is the rare individual who didn’t find this funny. I don’t see much hope for his plan of redress though. I’d sooner expect to see NOW campaigning for women’s right to register for the draft.

I wonder what the chances are that I’ll wake up tomorrow. You’d think with so many variables I’d be dead by now. I dont know what goes on. I was happy earlier today. Was I? Am I ever? The more I live the more I think I’m just deceiving myself.

The title is a line from a song, by the way. A really awesome song. Let me find a link so you can enjoy it.

Save Me – Unwritten Law

Yet another item for which I have no citation data. I think this is from the Chicago Tribune though. “Drummer” here refers to a traveling salesman, not a musician.

I’ve completely lost track of when and where this was published. It irks me to no end to post an item without proper citation, but this being both an ax murder and “the strongest indorsement of the ‘unwritten law’ ever uttered from the bench,” I’m pretty much obliged.

Chicago Tribune, January 4, 1851. It’s been a while since we’ve run an Unwritten Law drama. This one’s pretty intense, starting with that quality bad-guy dialog from murdered libertine Abraham Redden.Apparently Mr. Green’s love for Mrs. Green is pretty much unconditional. But I wonder when cops stopped talking like that?
So in Delaware, the Unwritten Law is pretty much written. I guess the Green’s marriage didn’t pan out after all though.

Reel Big Fish, voted Southern California’s best-looking and most radical band of cool dudes in a recent nationwide poll (OK we made that up…) will be releasing a new full length DVD this summer, titled, appropriately enough, Reel Big Fish Live! In Concert! .

Reel Big Fish Live! In Concert! will be released July 21 on Rock Ridge Music for a very fan-friendly price.

The live concert DVD was filmed before a sold-out, hometown crowd at the Grove of Anaheim this past January and features 20 classic Reel Big Fish songs, as well as all of the hilarious in-between-song-banter-and-shenanigans that fans have come to expect.

Reel Big Fish has also lined up another killer summer tour for ‘09. The veteran ska-rock outfit will be hitting cities across America with 2-Tone legends The English Beat and Orlando, FL-based reggae/ska punks The Supervillains.

The trek kicks off July 3rd in Royal Oak, MI. More dates are being confirmed daily and will be posted on www.myspace.com/reelbigfish.

Southern California fans can also catch Reel Big Fish at BuFest in Malibu, CA on Sunday, May 31 with MXPX and Unwritten Law.
For ticket info and the full lineup visit: http://www.bufest.com/.

Reel Big Fish Tour dates:
May 29- Savannah, GA- Forsyth Park (with Michael Franti and Spearhead)
May 31- Malibu, CA- Bufest (with MXPX, Unwrtitten Law)

Reel Big Fish (with The English Beat and The Supervillains):
July 03- Royal Oak, MI- Royal Oak Theatre
July 05- Milwaukee, MI- Summerfest
July 07- Boston, MA- House of Blues
July 08- Hampton Beach, NH- Hampton Beach Casino
July 09- New York, NY- Nokia Theatre
July 10- Atlantic City, NJ- House of Blues
July 11- Sayreville, NJ- Starland Ballroom
July 12- Providence, RI- Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
July 15- Cleveland, OH House of Blues
July 18- Norfolk, VA- The Norva
July 20- Richmond, VA- The National
July 23- Orlando, FL- Hard Rock Live
July 24- Atlanta, GA- The Masquerade
July 26- Dallas, TX- The Palladium Ballroom
July 27- Houston, TX- Warehouse Live
July 28- Austin, TX- La Zona Rosa
Aug 01- Los Angeles, CA- Club Nokia
Aug 02- Anaheim, CA- The Grove
Aug 12- Apple, MN- Minnesota Zoo Ampitheatre

I know, I know, two blogs in one day. But I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about why girls like douchebags and I finally came up with my own theory.

This isn’t a universal truth, by the way, it’s just why I personally will go on a douchebag binge from time to time. And believe me, I had my share and a half of douchebag hang out time before The Boyfriend and I got together a few years ago.

See I knowingly dated douchebag guys for awhile because… they’re easy. Douchebag guys are shiny. They’re well dressed and usually inked up in just the right way. They don’t mean it, they’re just decorating themselves. They laugh a lot, at everything. They don’t want to talk about anything complicated. They barely want to talk at all. They have good hair. They usually smell pretty good. Because they’re so into themselves they look good.

Douchebag guys love to party. They like going out to dance and drink. They have lots of hilarious douchey friends for you to laugh at too. Nothing is ever too serious. Nothing is ever too deep. What you see is what you get. And sometimes that’s the best, especially when you spend so much time disecting and worrying about my own self image and my own self worth and all my own insecurities. It’s fun to have someone completely shallow around that you never have to second guess or even really think about what they’re thinking, because it’s all surface.

But there’s a draw back to this too, which is why I’ve never been serious with one of these ridiculous people. Because guys like this ARE all surface. And they’re always going to be number one on their agenda. They’re going to forget your birthday, go out with multiple women at the same time, hit on your friends, constantly check out girls at the bars and spend more time than you getting ready to go out. You never go for the flashiest guy in the place if you’re looking for something that’s going to last longer than a week. And a week is being generous in some cases.

I think every girl goes through a phase where all she wants is the prettiest boy in the room. (Man prettiest, of course, sheesh!) Every girl goes through a phase where she wants to party and have a good time and not think so fucking much about everything. Most girls grow out of this. Some never do, which is probably where the Real Housewives of Orange County came from….

At any rate, I will now finish this post with a photo salute to my favorite douchebags, who I will gladly buy a beer some day but definately will not date, my douchedating expiration date has well.. expired.

Scott Russo, when will you not be my favorite douche?

I took this one so I'm partial to it.

Nick 13? I'll take two of them

Jeremy McGrath is a supercross douchebag. He's also really good.

I mean come on, that's kind of bad ass

We've already discussed Brian Wilson

hey it makes watching the Giants games less boring for me.

not sure if Taylor Kitsch is a douchebag but he plays one on TV (sort of)

This concludes my idiot girly babbling for one day. Carry on.

]]> http://mrparallel.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/driving-urge/ Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:41:47 +0000 mrparallel http://mrparallel.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/driving-urge/

The Baltimore African-American, June 1, 1929. No Driving Miss Daisy headlines here at The Hope Chest, as befits a class joint what I are tryin’ to run here. Scandal continues over the jump, plus there’s a novel mutation to our fungible friend, the Unwritten Law.

Got that? The unwritten law has here somehow morphed from a defense for a crime committed in defense of marriage to criminal charge against the marital interloper. So, like, they’re going to charge the chauffeur with unwritten law? That’s a legal brief I’d like to read.

Or then again, this being the South, are they going to, um, implement the unwritten law against him, after a more informal hearing?

Scratch everything from last night. My fickle woman-ness has kicked in. I don’t owe him anything. Also I haven’t talked to him for a few days, that makes it easier to ignore him. Le sigh.

Long talk with Indie tonight. Made me realize I really am an asshole. I am mean. I guess that’s just always how I’ve ”flirted” with men. I joke and tease and I can be kind of snarky or sarcastic. I had an eight year relationship based off of it. I really need to be nicer. The Vampire thought I was the biggest bitch when we met, and a month later we were inseparable.

So Woodership Down got me a present. I have to say it’s one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever purchased for me. Tao Te Ching. I am reading it in the hope that I discover the secrets to the universe and become enlightened. Or at the very least learn some patience. The intention behind it was very sweet. I don’t know what that boy sees in me, but I’m glad he does.

Indie and I had a tweetversation today regarding our “ex-lists.” You know you have one. That soundtrack of songs that make you think of your ex or that relationship. I spent about two hours going through the 10,000+ songs on my iPod and came up with 168 definitions of my own personal heartbreak.

It was a journey through time. Just browsing through my iPod in general. Dance Hall Crashers? The Ataris – IOU One Galaxy almost had me in tears. I blame that on shark week though. Fucking hormones. I was listening to Saves The Day – Can’t Slow Down and Dashboard Confessional – The Swiss Army Romance and all of the sudden I was 18 again. Sitting in my dorm room pining over the only boy who’s ever broken my heart. What a waste of time. However, I can tell my entire life story in these songs.

My childhood was filled with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who and Steely Dan. Middle School was all about Green Day, Jeff Buckley and Rancid. High school was Sublime, The Pietasters, and Unwritten Law. In college I went totally emo with Brand New, Dashboard and Taking Back Sunday freshman year. Sophomore year started the reign of Bad Religion.

The only thing that has been a constant in my life has been my music. I have a song for every emotion, situation…everything. I find meaning in the most obscure lyrics. Music is my boyfriend. So trying to write a soundtrack for Douche McGee was so hard. Obviously, emotionally it was hard. I had to stop a few times today. It was hard physically too.

How do you make a soundtrack for an ex? Is it songs that remind you of them? If that’s the case all I need to do is put my iPod on shuffle. I picked songs that made me think of the break up. Of betrayal and hurt and all the lies. Some of them were songs we loved together, like The Vandals – The New You. Anything Bad Religion will always remind me of him and I’m sure Alkaline Trio will always make him think of me.

As I was going through a lot of this music and making that distinction, I got really pissed. I remember hearing Billy Talent the first time and calling him to tell him I found his new favorite band. He became obsessed with them, the same with Trio and BR and The Vandals and millions of other bands he never knew existed. I created him. He thought he was Mr. Punk Rock and soo fucking cool. He was an extension of my personality. There was never anything original about him.

Thoughts like that kind of make me feel better in a way. He was always a fucking follower and I have always been a leader. He had no personality of his own. He leeched off everyone else. At least I’m an original. An asshole, but true to myself.

I look around when I go to shows like the one I did on Saturday night. I don’t have a stupid haircut. I don’t wear skinny jeans. I get weird looks from people like “why are you here?” I’ve never cared about what everyone else is doing. I know I belong there. I don’t care about the fashion show, it’s about the music. I hate scene kids.

This has turned into a rant, when all I wanted to do was explain why it was hard to make that playlist today. Playlists are the new mixtapes you know. I’m just grumpy and hormonal. I need to go to bed. I have a lightbulb out in my fan, the one that points towards my bed, so no reading. Sleep playlist #2. 329 songs guaranteed to send me off to dream land. Starting with Honeyhoney.

Chicago Tribune, August 5, 1934. Another application of the unwritten law entres femmes. Don’t know yet whether Wilma was successful in her appeal to the UL, but she’s a dark horse candidate at best for Mother of the Year.

Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1931. Further expansion of the “unwritten law” to cover serial catfight ass-kickings. Oak Park, for those who don’t know, is a tony southwestern suburb of Chicago (“a place of broad lawns and narrow minds,” in the words of its most famous native son, the celebrated gay amateur bullfighter Ernest Hemingway). But it’s adjacent to some pretty un-tony suburbs–Berwyn, for example. I wonder if there isn’t a class-warfare angle to this little rhubarb. The $50,000 alienation suit kinda suggests that Mrs. Yonan saw her Oak Park rival as someone with deep pockets.

Chicago Tribune, January 29, 1908. Interesting attempt on the part of the prosecutor to use nativist prejudice against alien foodstuffs as a hedge against the “unwritten law.” Hard to figure out exactly what’s going on here relationship-wise though: was there a rape or seduction? Or did Ferreo simply sell Mr. Anselone on the notion that his wife was no good to improve his prospects with Angelina?

Also, I wonder if Ferreo’s epitaph–”Died In Self-Defense”–made better sense in Italian. More on the disposition of the case after the jump.

Chicago Daily Tribune, December 7, 1923. Further mutations of the para-legal principle that “the libertine must die.” Turns out that by 1923 unwritten law could also be extended to the vengeful slaying of reckless drivers, mentally retarded sex offenders, and, implicitly, anyone else implicated in a “violation of home.”

It’s hard not to snicker at the phrase “his moron brother-in-law” in an old newspaper. Considered in context, though, this is a godawful story. Supposing the term “moron” was being applied with any rigor, it would have meant that Frank Bilotta had an IQ somewhere between 51 and 70. That would have put him above the level of “imbecile” (IQ 26 to 50) and two pegs above “idiot” (0 to 25).* But I doubt the reporter was deploying the term with any precision: “moron” was simply standard journalese for “retarded.”

I’m digging the whatsa-matta-for-you dialect attributed to Donota Gallella. Betcha he spoke English like a native but was dishing out some strategic vaudeville for the jury.

*This nomenclature was the brainchild of influential psychologist and eugenicist Henry H. Goddard, who advocated that retarded people should be sterilized and sent to live in concentration ca–um, special segregated communities for the genetic good of the race.

Peoria Transcript, May 31, 1925. Another editorial on the unwritten law, published 56 years after the previous one, with a lovely little paragraph addressing the expansion of its privilege over time. Seems like the UL didn’t play in Peoria by 1925. But if that joke at the bottom did, you can see where Peoria got its reputation among vaudevillians as the national baseline of cultural lunkheadedness.

Scott Russo & the Big Big Bang’s rendition of ‘Save Me’. Scott Russo is the lead singer of Unwritten Law.