Local and Sexy

Substitute Teacher Facing Sex Charge [W. Post]

A 24-year-old woman who worked as a substitute teacher in Fairfax County public schools has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old student, police said yesterday.

Ok, I just want to get one thing straight here. A 24-year-old woman having sex with a 14-year-old boy is not sexual abuse—it’s his ultimate fantasy. It may be illegal, and it may be kinda creepy (or perhaps a little pathetic?), but there’s nothing evil or bad about it.

Unless this kid is mentally retarded, he knew full well what was going on, and I’m sure enjoyed all 2 minutes of it. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but let’s just say that when I was 14, I couldn’t keep my hands off my junk. And I’m sure, with hormones raging, I would’ve almost killed for the opportunity this kid has had. So let’s not demonize this poor woman. Let’s get her a date with a dude who can drink.

And yes, I would feel differently about this if it was the other way around. It’s a lot different.

End of fucking story.

April 12, 2005 | Filed Under News & Politics | Leave a Comment

We Could Walk Together

Good news on two recent favorite bands of mine:

The Clientele are touring the states in June, including a stop at DC’s 9:30 Club on the 3rd. Looks like they’re playing in suppport of a another Merge Records band, Spoon.

I first saw the Clientele a few years ago having only heard a single song. My friend convinced me to go regardless. It was a good show (in fact, it convinced me to buy their excellent singles collection, Suburban Light), but having heard so little of their material prevented me from enjoying it as much I would have otherwise. I’m not too familiar with Spoon, but I’m planning to go just to hear the openers since I’ve now listened to just about everything I can get my hands on by them. A lot. Oh, and it looks like their second album will be coming out sometime later this year.

Another awesome Merge band, the Rosebuds, are set to release a new 6 song EP on April 12. You can stream the entire record from here. It’s good shit. “El Camino” especially floats my boat. There’s a Pitchfork review of the EP as well, if you care what they have to say.

No local tour dates from those guys, yet. Hopefully they’ll hit DC sometime this summer.

You know what? Merge is a pretty damn good label. I mean, they’ve put out their share of crap over the years, and I was never really into Superchunk, but the number of their bands I really like is pretty impressive. I don’t know if I could say the same for many other labels.

My favs:

The Clean
The Clientele
Ganger
David Kilgour
Neutral Milk Hotel
The Rosebuds
M. Ward

April 8, 2005 | Filed Under Music | Leave a Comment

Blossoms

Holy hell, am I bored at work. This week won’t end. And all this nice weather has been wasted on staring out to the hotel across the street and a paunchy Asian man in little blue shorts eating shirtless at his window.

In an attempt wipe this image from memory and fortify whatever semblance of inner peace I have left, I headed down to the Tidal Basin yesterday after work to see the blossoms and take some photos. I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the crowd of tourists and their unappreciative kids running around. I walked one time around as the sun set before heading home.

Click through the picture above to see a small set of photos from my walk around the basin.

April 7, 2005 | Filed Under Photography | Leave a Comment

Wonder Showzen

Boogie Noogie Bunch Why have I not already heard about this? Tim and I were hanging around last night watching Aqua Teen when he told me about Wonder Showzen, this show on MTV2 he caught after watching Subterranean the night before (see my previous post…no, I don’t work for MTV). Anyway, it sounded mildly interesting…a twisted kids show with weird puppets and little kids saying crazy shit, strange cartoons, etc. Well it happened to be coming on, so we stayed up to watch.

Let me tell you, it’s fucking awesome. It’s completely twisted and dark but so hilarious. The kids on the show are great. In one segment, a girl is on Wall Street “interviewing” businessmen, asking them questions like “How many people have you exploited today?” or offering them a napkin “for the blood on [their] hands.” Then there are these bizarre cartoons and old educational films overdubbed and re-edited, some of which are really brilliant. I laughed out loud I don’t know how many times, and that just doesn’t happen much when I watch TV.

It sort of reminds me of a cross between Robert Smigel’s Saturday TV Funhouse and the “Druggachusetts” sketch from Mr. Show. Anyway, if you’re into weird dark humour, I recommend it.

+ Go here to see the pilot episode.
+ MTV2 has some clips here.