PDXcuse Me

I owe Portland an apology.


In retrospect, I never had any real anger towards Portland itself. I'm pretty sure I was only mad because Portland kept luring away people I really like. And nothing makes me saltier than people I like moving away. Ugh. I'm sorry, okay, Portland? I was being a hater, and I apologize for talking shit. For, like, years.

I guess this change of heart has been in the works for a while. Me and the dude had a mini-vacay in P-Town (I can call it that now, right?) a couple years ago, and it was just lovely. Granted, we spent pretty much the entire time in strip clubs, smoking, drinking and carousing, and really, who wouldn't enjoy that? But I wasn't sold on Portland just yet. Until this morning, that is, when I found out about their food cart situation.




Apparently, Portland is awash with food carts, and nobody bothered to tell me about it.


View Portland Food Carts in a larger map

If that map were of Seattle there'd be, like, eight of those dot things. We are woefully lacking in food carts, which was much more of an actual problem back when I used to leave the house, but is still a blow to my hometown pride. What hurts the most, though, is that Junior Ambassadors cart exists and I have never been there. These guys specialize in weird ice cream flavors that make our ice cream "mavericks" look like a bunch of snivelling M.O.R. pussies (smoked salmon and cream cheese, you guys. Shit!), "panwiches" whatever that means, and being super fucking whimsical and adorable. Essentially, they are killing my life right now, and I will pretty much feel like half a person until I can convince someone (i.e. Landon) to drive me there. Look. This is how they choose to represent themselves:

AAAAAGH, why are they doing this to me?! You can read all about it at the Food Carts Portland blog. And while you're there, you might as well click around and start planning your food cart tour of Portland.

I feel good, you guys. I've never apologized to an entire city before (though there have been times when I certainly should have), and it's kind of delightfully cathartic. Maybe this will become a series. I have talked shit about a lot of places.
*

What it breaks down to is this: I kind of hate everywhere that isn't Seattle, just for not being Seattle. But what I am starting to realize is that just because I love my wife (Seattle), that doesn't mean I can't occasionally enjoy the charms of other women (cities). And maybe, just maybe, it's time to get me some strange. (Don't worry, this logic does not apply to my actual wife, by which I mean my actual husband, who, thank little baby Jesus, does not read this blog.)

* Did you know that if you Google image search "oops", you will see about a billion nip/labe slips? Neither did I, until about 3 minutes ago. Yowza.

I was gonna write about how I don't think Lil Wayne gets enough credit for being a really good dancer, but in the course of my research (read: watching YouTube videos with no real structure or purpose for, like, an hour) I ended up watching this video and realized that I had a couple things I'd like to say about it. But then when I tried to post it here it turned out embedding was disabled. So! Being the dedicated blogger that I am, I then spent way too much time trying to loophole the bitch. As you can see, since there is no video embedded in the middle of all this text, it didn't work. And now I can't really remember what I wanted to say about this video (same video, just linked it again to double the chances that you'll actually watch it so we're on the same page, dedicated reader that you are), except for that I like the part at 3:17 where Weezy says, "I hope your vagina's tight." I appreciate his candor/optimism!

Update: I worked it out!


Keri Hilson ft. LIL Wayne "Turn On" from triggerhappy on Vimeo.

Oh yeah, I remember what I wanted to say: Conceptually, I really like this using jewelry to signal sexual probabilities idea. It's succinct, non-confrontational, and rad-looking. Unfortunately, it would never ever work because it's always the dudes you want absolutely nothing to do with ever that think they can cajole/harrass/call you a lesbian into changing your mind and putting their genitals in your mouth. Like a damn hobo Andy Bernard trying to beer me his gonorrhea.

But Wait!! There's More!!

This morning I was chatting with Keehnan when the topic of infomercials came up. This, of course, led to a discussion of the beef between Billy Mays and Vince Offer (or, as I prefer to call him, That Young Upstart Tryna Usurp the Throne). Where do you stand on this very important issue?




Keehny is pro-Vince Offer. When I asked him to defend this stance, he cited Vince's delightful ridiculousness (exemplified by this statement- "Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life!"), That he does his own commercials in Spanish (but clearly does not speak Spanish), and that he, unlike Billy Mays, does not yell.

I, on the other hand, am the fucking Captain of Team Billy Mays. First off, I am a creature of habit, y'all. I'm comfortable with Billy Mays. I know Billy Mays. Who the fuck is Vince Offer? What, he thinks he can just show up out of nowhere and sell me a highly absorbent towel, just like that? My head isn't turned that easily, I'm afraid. Also, he sounds like he's from New Jersey, which is probably the fastest way to get me to not trust you.

Billy Mays is great! He gets me all fired up! People complain about his constant yelling, calling it "abrasive" and "super fucking annoying", but I love it. I listen to a lot of mainstream rap music, you guys. I get uncomfortable if someone isn't yelling at me about their product preferences.

Jim Jones & ByrdGang - Splash
Uploaded by jeewhite94

Also I am excited about this.

A Vagina Monologue

Last night I saw a vagina on the Travel Channel. Straight up. VA...




I should clarify. It wasn't, like, on display or anything. It wasn't the focal point. It was just this naked-ass Indian lady who, by merit of being totally nude, happened to have visible lady bits. Somewhat jarring, but I got over it pretty quickly. And I get the whole National Geographic nudity clause, where indigenous tribes get a nudity pass because it's non-sexual and cultural and whatnot. Cool. I'm down. But I would like to argue that those standards should be applied to other peoples who have a culture of nudity. Specifically, I think these rules should apply to strippers and stripper-y ladies who go on reality shows in search of love. Or money. Or whatever. The kind of women who, when asked to "dress to impress", show up looking like this:



I watch a lot of VH1 reality programming, and I can tell you from experience, the nudity on these shows (which is always blurred, if not black-barred) is very rarely sexual. Usually, it is simply what has come to be known as a wardrobe malfunction. If you wear something that barely covers your nipples, at some point it will fail to do even that. Thusly:



See?! She's just wrappin' up some cords, and bam! Tit overboard. Non-sexual nudity.

What's more important, though, is that these women come from a nude culture, by which I mean they are strippers. Nudity is what they know. It is their way of life, and should not be blurred out.



They're just people, doing what they do, the way they customarily do it. Which is naked.



I just don't see the difference. Do you?

I was listening to Rick James this morning, and I couldn't stop wondering why he was never as big as Prince. I think I have an Idea:

Sex sells, and they were both pretty sexual dudes, both in content and packaging, right? But while Prince's lyrics were far, far filthier (compare Superfreak to Erotic City), he had a leg up on Rick as far as accessibility goes, and there was nothing to be done about it. Why, you ask?

Because Rick James was a big, man-ass dude:



who looks like he may actually do something real crazy to you, whereas Prince is an elf:




And if I've learned anything since Peter Jackson's Lord Of the Rings trilogy came out, it's that bitches love elves.



Also, this.