“Hmm, actually the vision of hell filled with fire, hot tar and horny dark creatures torturing me with sharp objects is, erm, rather hot. I would enjoy that much more than a cold, damp place filled with crawling insects. Ewww. I wonder why all religions seem to associate hell with fire and heat and heaven with the colour blue and chilly aura and twinkly sounds. And virgins. What’s so exciting about virgins? BOOOOORING. Have all religions been invented by boring people? Oh no, hang on, they were sent by gods, each of whom introduced himself as the only real one…”

(after today’s workout, at the sauna)

Chocolate Salty Balls

I am aware of the fact today is Tuesday, just treat this as a pre-New Year’s lost classic then.

Isaac Hayes’ discography is extensive, much sampled (there would be no Hoover[phonic] or Massive Attack without Isaac Hayes) and includes only one UK hit single — this one. Number one in the UK and Ireland, “Chocolate Salty Balls” was released 20 years after Hayes’ last single, “Zeke The Freak”. As the ever-so-reliable Wikipedia tells us, it has never been played on BBC’s Top Of The Pops, because it hit #1 in the Christmas chart, in the week when TOTP was not filmed; this spared the BBC some embarrassment that would have surely arisen from playing a song that goes “suck on my chocolate salty balls/put them in your mouth and suck ‘em/they’re all fine, baby”. The Southpark video on the other hand was played many, many times on MTV — I remember loving it big time, but strangely not being a fan of the song itself (it reached #10 on my chart and remained there for 10 weeks). Well, I was wrong. It’s brilliant.

Here it comes:

1   1   3  HEART OF WAX
Vanessa Daou
2   2   5  OVERTURE
The Unbending Trees feat. Tracey Thorn
3   6   3  QUICKSAND
La Roux
4   3   4  IF I KNOW YOU
Presets
5   5   2  WHITE IS IN THE WINTER NIGHT
Enya
6   !   1  POCKET (REDUX)
Sam Sparro
7   7   4  LHUNA
Coldplay and Kylie Minogue
8   9   4  THAT’S NOT MY NAME
Dizzee Rascal feat. Chromeo
9   4   9  BEDROOM EYES
Natty
10  10   7  SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Beyonce

(more…)

Harvey Fierstein via Joe.My.God.:

“A couple of boys were calling my best friend a faggot one unhappy day at summer camp. Courses of action seemed slim to my adolescent mind. I could stand up for Jack branding myself a fag as well and insuring myself a miserable summer, or I could join in with the name callers, lose my closest friend, but assure my standing with the majority. I sacrificed my friend on the altar of popularity. I don?t think I need to tell you that political expediency was a terrific short-term solution but a long-term nightmare. My summer concluded uneventfully but none of those boys became my friend or did me any favors. And forty years later I still feel the loss of Jack along with a piece of my self respect that I can never win back. Mine was an act of cowardice and betrayal.

“It seems Obama is now maneuvering through the summer camp of his political adolescence and is about to make the same bad choice as I. He can call the placing of a hate monger like Rick Warren on the world dais political healing or inclusiveness or any other nicety he?d like, but I call it pandering to the lowest instinct of the worst kind of politics.

“President Elect Obama, your victory was made possible in no small part to the votes and wallets of the gay and lesbian community along with our supporters. Turning your back on us does not make you more mainstream American. It just makes you a coward.” – Harvey Fierstein, writing on Facebook.

Time Writer: Obama Is a ?Very Rational Sounding Sort of Bigot? Against Gay Americans (via my boss)
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=246723

There is an article in today’s “Gazeta Wyborcza” — leading Polish daily paper, viewed by most as left-wing/liberal — about the “gays fighting against Obama”. Written by Marcin Bosacki, it contains all elements of the semi-civilised right-wing speech I got used to: careful choice of words to depreciate the “gays” (lesbians, as always happens in Polish press, barely get a mention); the gays, also known as “they”, “boom” and “accuse”; anyone who in any way supported Prop 8 is their “mortal enemy”, and in the eyes of “most members of the gay environments” Warren has “committed an unforgivable crime” by “supporting the introduction in the California constitution the definition of marriage as an union between a man and a woman”. The article does not mention that Prop 8 has taken away an existing right, nor that the loving pastor’s way of supporting was comparing gay marriage to incest and pedophilia (the quote is mentioned in a different paragraph, which also informs us that Warren has many gay friends with whom he wouldn’t be seen dead in public — which sounds strangely similar to “I am not racist, my best friend is beige”). Andrew Sullivan “has loudly publicised his own gay wedding” — because heterosexual couples make sure nobody finds out about theirs. And so on.

LGTB, or “they” are unhappy because “in their opinion there is no space for compromise”. What kind of compromise is there to be made? Either you think non-heterosexual people are fully human, or you don’t. Either you believe a gay or lesbian couple should have the right to get married, or you don’t. Where’s the space for compromise? The “civil unions” aren’t a compromise. As handy as they can be, as much as they are a step into the right direction, they are yet another way to underline that LGBT people are less human; no, you can’t get married you stinky little queers, that one not for you, but here, here, have a civil union, go get civilly unionised and shut up about your rights for fuck’s sake, naah you don’t have to thank us, just don’t publicise it like that awful, awful man Andrew Sullivan (probably not one of Rick Warren’s gay friends) did. Would it not be racist if there was a Prop 21 taking away the right for interracial couples to marry? Would it not be racist if those couples were informed their love is equal to incest and pedophilia? Would it not be racist if they were told that, if they must, they can get certain rights as long as they don’t call themselves married? Would the supporter of such law get invited to speak during Obama’s inauguration? And remember, there was a time when the definition of marriage did not cover mixed race couples. I’m not writing science fiction here.

In the last words of his article, Bosacki writes, cynically: “After failing in California and on the same day in Florida and Arizona, gays go on comparing their fate to that of Negro slaves or even Jews during the Holocaust.” (No quotes there somehow, but I’m sure that’s just because the author ran out of space, there must be millions of “members of gay environments” comparing themselves to Jews during the holocaust.) “But, in fact, outside of making an uproar in the media, they can’t really hurt Obama politically. Their numbers are less than those of the members of Evangelical churches, whom Obama wants to reach via Warren. And even if their vote counted more, what would they do? Vote Sarah Palin four years from now?”

I don’t think that Darian, the author of Living Out Loud With Darian has read Bosacki’s article (which by the way sounds like something straight out of a right-wing competition of “Gazeta Wyborcza” — “Rzeczpospolita”) when he wrote this:

There comes a point when a person gets sick and tired of being sick and tired. When fighting for the same amount of respect, recognition, and access to equal protection under the law should not be a battle but a given.

When you can no longer deny the hostility directed at you from a group of people who look like you but are the first to disown you. Yet for the sake of “belonging” you continue to endure the torture hoping by some state of osmosis things will change.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of having to explain your right to exist on this earth as you are.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of hoping that religion will catch up with science and when the word abomination is mentioned in a sentence it won’t be directed at you. Or when you hear the word spoken again you won’t buy into the lie that it defines you.

When your happiness doesn’t require the approval of family, society, or an ancient book that was once a source of hope for so many, but has now been turned into a weapon more dangerous than anything requiring a bullet.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of your rights being put up for the popular vote and you get so angry that all you know to do is take to the streets by the thousands.

When you get sick and tired of explaining that a dog or a goat can’t sign a marriage license but another human being can.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of being marginalized and the second class citizenship you’ve become accustomed to is no longer sufficient.

When you expect your leaders to carry through with campaign promises to make this country a place where all men and women truly are equal regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or gender identity instead of the same old empty rhetoric.

Yes there comes a point when you’ve had about all you can take and your body and mind becomes numb and you can’t feel anything.

The fact that Rick Warren will speak at Obama’s inauguration doesn’t actually have a meaning by itself. It’s not like Obama’s years in office are doomed because of that, or like the gay vote has suddenly turned to Republicans. What it does is give a very clear signal: The Change you Believed In is not for everyone. Yes, We Can, but the definition of “we” must now, post-election, get somewhat narrowed down. Thanks for your votes — but really, it’s not like you could have done anything else, I mean, Sarah Palin anyone?

Also, yes, I am aware that I am not American and that in the country I come from civil unions would have been a MAJOR step. But my belief in the change to come is right now a bit less than it was a few weeks ago — and supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin just got a reason to celebrate; perhaps it will be same old, same old after all.

(Apologies — the video is for the Blank & Jones version of the song, which is deeply uneventful. Stream the original here.)

1 4 2 HEART OF WAX
Vanessa Daou
2 2 4 OVERTURE
The Unbending Trees feat. Tracey Thorn
3 1 3 IF I KNOW YOU
Presets
4 3 8 BEDROOM EYES
Natty
5 ! 1 WHITE IS IN THE WINTER NIGHT
Enya
6 13 2 QUICKSAND
La Roux
7 5 3 LHUNA
Coldplay and Kylie Minogue
8 7 11 APPELLE MON NUMERO
Mylene Farmer
9 6 3 THAT’S NOT MY NAME
Dizzee Rascal feat. Chromeo
10 8 6 SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Beyonce
(more…)

I Miss You UK CD1

The sixth single off Björk’s second album Post had an animated video — directed by John Kricfalusi/Spümc?, creator of Ren & Skimpy — which was colourful and appealed to children. It’s just that the content of the video wasn’t up to the parental visions of what cartoons should look like. Chicken torn into pieces, animated characters frantically searching for their genitals and moving condoms implanted as if by magic where Björk’s boobies should have been were considered too shocking — as a result the video was often aired in its censored, rubberboobie-less version — or not at all.

The song itself is probably my favourite Björk single. It is also one of her smallest chart successes (no doubt largely due to the fact it was the sixth single off a platinum selling #2 album) peaking at #34. Produced by Howie B, the single featured a plethora of shittylicious remixes (strangely enough Björk’s remixes were comparable in their shiteness only to Pet Shop Boys’ remixes — it’s quite amazing how both those artists managed to inspire the world’s best remixers’ worst achievements). The song’s vocals have been re-recorded for the remastered version of Post and the result was disastrous. It is quite sad how such a great track attracted such bad luck — but the amazingness of the video more than makes up for it.

Watch the video:

(This time thanks to Eric Generic)

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Lay tiles.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Absolutely no idea. Did I make any last year? I’m not going to make any this year, it’s not like I remember them anyway.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope.

5. What countries did you visit?
England, Poland, Germany. Oh, I’m quite pleased about this list actually! Spain next year.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Eight-pack abs. Go on, call me shallow.

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The day I signed the paperwork for my apartment, received the keys, then my agent drove me there, I came in and it was MINE.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
See #7.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Actually, can’t think of anything. It was a successful year, I suppose.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Actually, no. (Dear Lady in Heavens, if I may have one wish for 2009 may this state continue. Plskthxbai)

11. What was the best thing you bought?
iPhone. Go on Bart, make fun of me.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Hmmm. Mine?

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Geert Wilders’.

14. Where did most of your money go?
See #7. I’ve never spent hundreds of thousands of euros before.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Erm, ouch, oups, well what can I say, see #7 and #11.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008 ?
“Black & Gold” by Sam Sparro.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? can’t remember
ii. thinner or fatter? hmm, thinner I think
iii. richer or poorer? poorer (although a homeowner now — it’s not like I spent this money on bitches and liquor)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing (other than blogging).

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Getting pissed.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Nicely, I hope.

22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Yes.

23. How many one-night stands?
I am so not telling!

24. What was your favorite TV programme?
TV? What’s that? Oh you mean DVD? The L Word.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Yes.

26. What was the best book you read?
“A Spy in the House of Love” by Anais Nin.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?.
Gosh this is difficult. *thinks* Oh f–k — I’m afraid the answer is “Britney Spears” :s

28. What did you want and get?
The vinyl of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “5:55″. Cost me an arm and a leg. It. Is. Beautiful.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Definitely not “Wanted”. That one takes the candy as the worst film I have ever seen in my whole life, and trust me, there’s LOTS of competition there.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
a) Bought an iphone. b) 31.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having witnessed #25 being hit by a car Can’t think of anything really.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Sexy… trauma

34. What kept you sane?
Music, my bro and my ex.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Usain Bolt.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Actually, it’s a very current issue — Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. Yes We Can. But Do We Have To? Obama says: “I think it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. [...]  And I would note that a couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren’s church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion.” Lovely Mr Obama, any KKK members going to speak out during your inauguration?

37. Who did you miss?
My mom.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Mike George, who taught me #39.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
There is only one person responsible for all stress and unhappiness you feel and it’s you. (You wouldn’t believe how much simpler life gets once you realise that.)

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year
“Boys on my left side, boys on my right side, boys in the middle and you’re not here.”

If you love me, you’ll feed me:

(1) A glass of red wine. Or two. Preferably Chilean (you can’t go wrong with Chilean dry red). Mmm. In fact, I’ll have one right now.

(2) Chicken. I love chicken. I used to be vegetarian for years and years and then I discovered the gym. And then I started waking up at night from very realistic dreams in which I was eating chicken. If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is. Nowadays the more the better. Chicken, that is, not dreams or signs.

(3) Protein shakes and oatmeal. Honest. It truly takes a special person to serve me protein shakes and oatmeal. So far there’s only been one willing and Miz Gorgeous is also a fan of healthy food, so she sort of doesn’t really count. But still…

(3a) Magnum Almond ice cream. Oh. My. God. So. Good.

If you hate me, you’ll force me to have:

(1) French fries. I believe people who serve you French fries should be prosecuted for murder attempt. French fries contain absolutely nothing that is good for your body and absolutely everything that is bad for your body. And they taste like wet, deep-fried shit.

(2) Liver. Disgusting. I don’t care how good it is for me (although I question whether that is true or not).

(3) Whisky. I tried many times, but no matter how often I try it still tastes like cough medicine. Why drink something so awful when you can have Chilean dry red?

You would never know by reading my blog that I:

(1) Am actually quite a handy person, once someone shows me how to do things.

(2) Have worn make-up in public for the first time in my life last night (okay, I am cheating here — you would never know because I haven’t had time to write about that).

(3) Have a degree in theoretical mathematics.

If you wanted to get to know me better, you would have to talk to:

(1) My ex Scipio, who knows everything there is to know about me, and if there is anything he doesn’t know it’s only because I forgot to tell him. Honestly.

(2) My brother Pafcio.

(3) My therapist. But really, I hope believe neither of those three would be willing to share, and that’s how it should be.

I am most proud of:

(1) Owning an apartment in Amsterdam. Me. A homeowner. In Amsterdam. Honestly. Kiss my smelly feet.

(2) Having been on MTV, VIVA, public and commercial radio stations because of a song I have made with a girl from Austria using ICQ to send each other MP3s with tracks. It took us 5 years to release the album through itunes, but really, the feeling you get when hearing your own song on the radio — played every two hours because they love it so much — can’t be compared to anything else.

(3) Being referred to by co-workers as “the fit one that smiles all the time”.

If I really like you I will compliment your:

(1) Smile.

(2) Eyes.

(3) Ability to argue reasonably with me, without conceding to placate me nor getting frustrated and angry. (This, like some other bits, is copied straight from Fearless’ blog, but nevertheless it’s true. By the way, Yves, I totally adore the way you can argue reasonably with me — and you make me reconsider my point and realise you are wise and informed and change my own viewpoint AND not make me angry in the process.)

The best moment of my life so far:

A week after I broke up with my first boyfriend, my friend Agnieszka came over to pick me up. She had an umbrella she stole from her work — giant thing. It was over 30 degrees and it was POURING. Pissing cats and dogs, as my friend M. says. We went to Auchan to do a bit of shopping, then came back. On the way back, in the underground train, I saw myself reflected in the window opposite and haven’t realised it was me — that’s what happens when your hair is naturally black and you dye it blonde. Then I reached home, got into the bathtub with a cup of earl grey and felt that my entire body was composed of pure happiness.

The worst moment of my life so far:

It wasn’t the moment my aunt told me that my boyfriend is not welcome at her house for the party to celebrate grandma’s birthday. It actually was the moment 10 minutes later when my mom called me to convince me my aunt is right and that I am an egoist for thinking otherwise.

PS. Thanks to Fearless