Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

rabi

Philly Link-o-Rama

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I continue to be both flattered and amused by the range of terrific Philly bloggers on PhillyFuture – the Phlogging collective. Flattered because my fine city makes a fair showing for itself, considering that it’s not generally considered to be at the forefront of such electronic things. Amused because, if you are a Philly blogger, I AM YOUR GRANDDADDY. Or, really, considering internet years, possibly even older.

In any event, we’re directly related enough that it’s probably illegal in Pennsylvania for my blog to sleep with any of their blogs. Although, that’s probably considered sodomy here anyway.

(Actually, PA’s Sodomy law was struck down in 1980, though puzzlingly not repealed by legislature until 1996. Also, let’s not forget that our very own Senator Santorum defended such sodomy laws, memorably quoting, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.” This was all partially in reference to Texas’s law coming under fire in 2003. The law (which was same-sex only) was eventually struck down in Lawrence v. Texas. (To see the Senator remarkably intelligently defend his comment from a legal standpoint (rather than a conservative one), watch this movie at the otherwise rather vulgar (but entirely warranted) Spreading Santorum.))

(Wow, look at me being all educational and stuff.)

Of the Philly blogs i perused the best layout was definitely Vintage – for a quick recap of their whole deal, check out their best of ’05 feature. (Similar happenings should be occurring here soon, but on a grander scale). 50 Bedroom combines political savvy with a humorous bent towards witty Onionisms. Also amongst the Brotherly lovin’ crowd, i was delighted to find a mom with solid opinions on (overhyped, hard to listen to) hip music. And, she used to live on Ross’s block.

In the “Um, don’t we live in America” category, Her Jazz blogs a story (with video) about cops breaking up a local DIY music show due to a misunderstanding, but subsequently FREAKING OUT and getting violent as they rough up the promoter and are captured doing so on dozens of camera phones. Notable quotable: “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we have the responsibility as citizens to record this.” Watch the video (beware, it’s loud).

Back to political news, Philly’s Committee of Seventy has always wanted you to vote, but their Director of Civic Education wants you to get voted for by running for office (via Young Philly Politics). My friend Josh did just that by writing himself in for Judge of Elections, which he now is – for the next four years! Josh is probably the only Judge of Elections i’ll ever play laser tag with.

So, yeah, stop writing in Mickey Mouse. Or else…

In other news, i’m usually not a fan of gimmick weddings, but can a Philadelphian really beat getting married in front of the Franklin Institute Heart? (oops, i punned). That item was logged by ColorWhirl, who also pointed me to the wonderful (though non-Philly) Vegan Lunch Box – a mom who packs very yummy vegan lunches for her little one every day. I had soy taco sloppy joes for lunch today, and they were incomparable!

Vegan Lunch Box is up for Best Food Blog at the 6th Annual Bloggies. Way back when i had a discussion about the nomination process of the 1st Annual Bloggies with founder Nikolai Nolan. In retrospect, i was mostly pissed off that Trio wasn’t (and was never) nominated for “best non-weblog feature” in the days when podcasting meant nothing, let alone had it’s own freaking award category. But, i digress. I stopped being upset when Rabi (another vegan!) won the “best kept secret” award.

Which all just goes to prove my thesis that i am now grizzled and ancienct in blog-years. The end.

Please Look Away (Don’t Look Away)

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It’s strange to have taken my birthday back from Hallmark and my family and friends and the rest of the world. No calls, no cards – honestly, just the way i like it. Even without receiving a single gift I got a lot of things that i wanted for my birthday, and some things that i didn’t but got anyway.

In New York i rubbed shoulders with Ani Difranco, almost knocked into Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney, made eye contact with Rufus Wainwright, and split a drink list with Rabi, among other wonderful things. For me the day started at five-fifteen waiting for a late taxi that almost made me late for my train, which was moot anyhow, as my connecting train (and all of NJ transit) was down for the morning. I had to score an unlikely Greyhound ticket to make it into the city in time (just barely) for my first event. As a result, I missed ten or fifteen minutes of Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful speech, partially about the difference between talented mimicry and dilligent practice, and for the rest of the day i quite punctually absorbed lots of information from people whose diligent practice has resulted in moments of cinematic and musical perfecion. It might not have been on my birthday, but i can’t think of a much better birthday to have.

Yesterday i drank way too many little solo cups of beer, wine, beer again, and some more wine with better than 50% of my friends at Sippin’ By The River. It was fun at points, but ended with six hazy, tortuous hours i only recollect in the vaguest sense of the word. The last thing i remember very clearly is talking about Garbage with Erika’s sister, but afterwards i have had confirmed involved me making out with someone who i really never intended to make out with and almost drowning in my shower because i couldn’t figure out how to turn off the water. Elise further confirmed that i did invite about a dozen people to our house for martini’s and The Simpsons, even though we neither have ingredients for martinis or reception for the Simpsons. It was a wonderful example of excess which, having lived through it, will probably make for an interesting story to tell in years to come.

The merry part of making your birthday a nearly week-long event is that there is no pressure to make a single 24-hours perfect. A day of low-key shopping is finely balanced against a madcap NYC adventure, and a lazy afternoon with your girlfriend is almost a contradiction in comparison to a wild day of alchoholic sampling, but they were all my birthday, a birthday that was finally mine and no one else’s, and quite possibly my favorite one yet.

Happy Birthday To This

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I am not a huge birthday fan.

Yes, birthdays make a good day to sit back and say “wow, was that a year that just happened?,” but they’ve otherwise been turned into the same materialistic nonsense Hallmark holiday as all of those other holidays that I habitually ignore. By this point, my friends and limited members of my family have discerned my general distaste for typical birthday fare, and have compensated accordingly with a recent avalanche of off-kilter gifts, unusual cakes, and the now-annual beer-tasting festival.

Today marks the fourth birthday of my blog. You’d think I’d remember it, or have it marked down on my calendar, or buy myself a gift, but year after year it blindsides me just like the birthdays of my friends and aunts, all of which I typically remember just as they are upon me. I didn’t remember this one at all. Instead, I happened to be at Rabi’s, reading about this year’s Howl festival, and I was thinking about how it’s been exactly a year since I last saw Rabi, and then I looked at my posts from the New York trip and realized that it almost coincided with CrushingKrisis’s birthday, and then I realized that meant that CK’s b-day was once again upon us.

Four years is not the longest time to do something. High school only took four years, thank god. For most people, college only takes four. There are marriages that don’t last as long, and beloved children who are younger. It has been enough time, though, for over 2,500 posts, and for over four hundred thousand words.

CK’s birthday is a good point to look back across that lifetime of posts and words, but it’s also useful for gauging what can actually happen in a year. In a way, this past year’s posts represent even less of my life than they ever did before; they depict fewer moments, impulses, and sudden fixations. At the same time, these few posts reveal more – in my increasing impulse to let thoughts percolate through multiple passes of writing and editing I find a more robust view of my life as I look back over a sparser number of posts. Not as many thousands of words to depict the pictures; less polariods, more portraits.

I sometimes miss “the old” version of this page, but I know that’s it’s unrealistic to expect anything to stay the same. Television shows grow stale. Musicians evolve. Life goes on. For me to decry the state of this page, lamenting that it no longer portrays my minute-to-minute fascination with the minutia of my existence, would be ignoring the growth not of my writing, but of myself. I might still look (mostly) the same and think (mostly) the same, but each post I write has an effect on the outcome of the next one.

I have given myself the gift of four years of identity, thoughts realized and jotted down for me to re-live, re-think, and re-assess. You have given me the privilege of airing that identity, forcing me to repeat, repent, and resolve again and again in an attempt to find something truer, funnier, and realer the next time.

I want to promise you that this year will bring hundreds of interesting links, scores of engaging reads, dozens of awesome new recordings of my song. I can’t. I want to promise that I will be on the cutting edge of blogging, finding new resources and fresh writing to day daily. I won’t.

For all that I cannot promise you, I will promise you this: you will always be privy to a unique view of my life. Sometimes that is represented by a sprawling journal-like entry, sometimes by a new song, sometimes by a brief by-line to a link, and often by lengthy self-assessment, but every time it’s a topic I bring to this page, to you, because it is a key part of this identity. It’s something I’m crushing on, or that’s crushing me.

Thank You, and Happy Birthday to This.

Fashionista

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I am a fashionista.

Perhaps this requires some explanation.

Often I know, without even thinking about it, what trends are worth engaging in and what will seem ridiculous in just a year’s time. Furthermore, I can spot a lamentable fashion option at fifty paces. It’s not a queer eye for a straight guy so much as a wary eye for the well-dressed man.

It’s a power that I cannot explain. Well over a year ago, i was touched by a nearly-physical urge to own brown and orange clothing. I spent months culling brown dress shirts from thrift stores and orange t-shirts from speciality shops; I beefed up my earth-toned repetoire. And then, suddenly, this fall brought as many pieces of clothing in those colors as it did leaves. I haven’t bought a single piece of this new, Post-Fall raft of clothing; my collection was established even before the colors were launched.

My innate fashionista radar sometimes picks up trends passively, leaving me unaware that my tacit endorsement could be akin to a butterfly in Africa — creating a fashion hurricane in the greater Philadelphia area months later. Last summer in a hip village thrift store i became obsessed with their retro ties, and after much deliberation Rabi and i decided that they could be used as belts. I purchased two (one was brown), and trotted them out on several occasions with jeans, to the bewilderment of my classmates and co-workers. Imagine my shock and horror to walk into the dreaded Gap this past weekend to find a near-fascimile of my brown tie being sold as a… get this… BELT. Yes, a fucking belt.

No, I’m not bitter. Just a little bitter.

The whole motivation behind this tirade is a current trend that my Spidey-like Fashionista-Sense has let me down on: pink.

As far as I was ever concerned, Pink was for distinguished men, men who golfed and wear polo shirts on Friday. I thought of it as a good’ol’boy-badge. Suddenly, it is everywhere. Pink shirts. Pink ties. Yahoo dating aids proclaiming “He looks good in pink,” as if to infer the superior quality of their pink-wearing catches.

You want some pink, the world is telling me. Have some pink.

The thing is, I’m not getting a read on the pinkage. I’ve seen a couple men look very sharp with pink-dotted ties or dusty-rose colored shirts. However, I’ve also seen some hideous pink-on-pink ensembles that leave me wondering if we’re headed in the regrettable direction of pink denim in the near future.

Given the subjectivity of this this particular trend, I think I will pass, but I’m not sure if I’m making that choice as a Fashionist or a trend-hater. In my mind, just as both turquoise and lime green seemed like a super idea at certain points in the 1980s but dated about as well as reruns of The Facts of Life, I think the people who could wear pink to begin with are the only ones who are going to escape this unscathed. Yes, a pink and grey tie is a lively accent to wear on Monday’s, when everyone needs some accenting, or on Fridays, when you’re headed out for cocktails afterwards. Otherwise, I think all of the early adopters will be limping back to their closets to find a conservative blue shirt within the span of a few months.

Unfortunately, that opinion is not fueled by my wary-eye sense, as far as I can tell, so I can’t really speak to its ultimate veracity. However, I do know that the “Look at me, I’m metrosexual” rating of this trend is through the roof, and that all us real metros are not going to let it get out of hand by offering our endorsement.

In closing, just remember: say no to your bourough as a mispelled designer name, say probably not to pink, and don’t wear your first initial as a monogram unless you are Madonna or have a name starting with E.

Also, keep your eye out for dark purple. Maybe. We’ll see.