Oh, how I heart thee Ms. Miranda July. If you have not heard of her, shove something in an orifice quickly (your choice as to which hole). And then click here to peep her “reading list” over at Vice Magazine. To paraphrase a friend, she makes you wish you were crazy.

PS I keep trying to title this “))<>((” for obvious reasons (if you’ve seen “Me You And Everyone We Know”), but GD WordPress won’t let me!!!!

Until Rush Limbaugh unleashes his boxers, these briefs are easily the most infamous singed undergarments in the free world. Last time there were undies with type of wear and tear came on Roseanne and Tom Arnold’s honeymoon. I think I Jihaded myself. I heard ABC released pics of the wrong pair; these belong to the girl from the new Taco Bell diet commercials. IBS is some shit — IBS being “International Bomb Smuggling.” 

A real shit show.

Love this song. Zo! covered it, Black Blondie’s working on it, and I pretend to be in Toto. Such an ugly bunch of dudes it’s ridiculous. Thank god HD had yet to be invented for this video, although I consider this further evidence that I would have been huge in the 80s. 

As an Orthodox Momiterian, church and I don’t necessarily jive. The core tenet of my belief system is to please the only diety that counts — my mother. With this serving as the backbone, ExmasEve services have become an annual sacrement that I must observe without fail or complaint (except last year when I was too hung over to pretend to care or attend). As I sat in church last evening, my mind wandered into unexpected inappropriate places to bide my time.

First, I decided that if I ever get lucky enough to be given the opportunity to “Make a Wish” because I have some super horrible terminal illness, I want to be the voiceover for Mount Olivet Church’s Exmas services. The stoic and lifeless HPIC (Head Pastor In Charge) begins the service ala the Wizard of Oz — concealed, dark, scary, monotone, unloving — with the start of the Exmas story. My impression (impersonation, not opinion) of him is getting pretty good, too: “Hark, a babe is born in Bethleham…” I also planned on taking it to the next level and incorporating my niece Zoehan aka Zoelander as my own little Christ Child…..except my version inevitably ends up having more of a ”Roots” flavor than Xmas. I treat that baby like Kunta and raise her to the sky. Sidenote: Christ Child has a nice ring to it for my 2nd borne son (after LeBrama, of course). 

After the choicest of entrances, the HPIC started dropping gems on me. Did this motherfucker really say that Christmas is the ultimate “happy ending” three times during his sermon???? Horrible choice of words (for him, not me). Fairytale ending, perhaps? Feel good story? I understand that my brain may be wired for more perversion than the average humanoid, but this struck me as unreal. On the flip side, if I had known that the church not only condoned but celebrated happy endings I would have attended a lot more.

After winning me over with “happy endings,” the HPIC failed to capitalize on his momentum when he dropped the word “ghetto” in front of a decidedly suburban crowd. Now I know Jesus is one of the most famous Jews ever and Jews invented the ghetto like Bad Boy invented the remix, but c’mon man! He said it in a really bizarre way that attached none of the traditional meaning of the word. Instead he sounded like some 15 year old girl from New Jersey saying  something is “ghetto.” Fail.

The theme that hit home the hardest from my whole Xmas experience — this whole Xmas story is pretty effing seedy. Joe and Mary weren’t even married and had a kid! Mad bad family planning. If Pontius Pilate’s health care reform would’ve included some sort of sex education for Mary, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

And whose kid is it anyway? And how big of a pussy is Joe for raising someone else’s kid??? I could see this on Maury Povich for sheez:

Maury: Joseph, you are NOT the father!

[Crowd reaches a piqued frenzy]

Joseph: Maury, it doesn’t matter. I’ll raise this baby like its my own. I knew it wasn’t mine. I never even had sexed with this tramp.

[Crowd erupts in riot]

Mary (crying): I love you, Joe!  

[Four months later Mary is back for more DNA testing]

Maury: God, you are NOT the father!!

[Crowd screams "Oh shit!" in unison]

God (attacking Mary): You no good Jezebel! Ill kill this bitch, Maury!

Alright, that’s enough. I could play this out for hours but I’ll stop now. Mary xmas to all and to all a good night.

…and the “best of” times. The annual best of lists are out, as are decade-long retrospectives on what made the aughts. Best of lists are always a touchy subject. So many invariables goes into making such a list. My criteria may vary greatly from what someone else is considering. Does financial or popular success mean anything? Of course I say no, but I’m a pinko commie. Much like the Red Scare, the McCarthy Hearings, and Oskar Schindler, lists are sure fun to piss and moan about.

Rolling Stone has a pretty extensive look at the decade in music. Although some of their selections and placement left me scratching my head – see “Stankonia” over “Love Below/Speakerbox” — it’s worth a look. Click here to go over to the Best of 2000s home page.

Paste magazine has a 50 best albums of the decade AND a 50 best movies of the decade list.

Sports Illustrated gets in on the action like some sort of slayer-beast at an Uptown bar. They have a look at the last ten years for nearly every sport — with a little pop culture mixed in. Easy to waste your valuable time perusing the lists. Click on this to go over to Sports Illustrated’s 2000s: The Decade in Sports.

If you really wanna know what makes me tick, Complex magazine has its 100 Best Sneakers of the 2000s. I want every pair of Nikes on the list. My favorite pair of sneaks from the 2000s? Gotta be these.  Oh, and Complex also has its Best of the 2000s for music aka albums, movies, TV shows, sports moments, and internet videos. Gangster-ass Laterian Milton has GOT to be number one.

NY Times Book Review unveiled its annual 100 Notable Books of 2009 list. Always a good idea to consult this list before your next trip to the library. Here goes the British Times Online’s list of the best 100 books.  

Wanna know what pretentious white folk in skinny jeans are listening to? Then follow this link over to Pitchfork for its Best of 2009 lists. Not gonna lie, I check out Pitchfork everyday, but they always manage to puzzle me — especially when it comes to hip hop. What exactly is their fetish with The Clipse?

Time Magazine’s always comprehensive and always white look at 2009 is up at its website too. Click here to check it out what Joel Klein and Co. have to say about Aught-Nine….especially if you’re interested in what you’re roommates parents are interested in.

PS I’ll also try and update this as more lists come popping out of the creative womb.

My favorite 2dopeboyz on the interwebs have a once-over of the year’s finest hip hop.

Switchblade Comb takes a looksy at “Things That Were Awesome in 2009.”

Seasons greetings from hipsters everywhere.

Love it. Bron-Bron’s puppets get the Lupe treatment. Caught this on ESPN this morning, and then saw it on 2dopeboyz literally seconds ago. Soooooooooooooooooo trill.

UPDATE: KRS-One gets in on the action.

Many of you already found out about this, but I will not stop until Aussie David Thorne is an unprecedented internet sensation like me. Call him a blogging David Sedaris; he’s got a similar sense of humor and style, but he’s not scared of technology like Sedaris is. And I don’t care if these are real interactions, fake ones, or somewhere in betwixt. Don’t care one iota. [Completely random sidenote: Desean Jackson just said covering me one on one with no help is "unpossible" on NFL Countdown. He must love KG] 

Thorne likes to take everyday situations and ask himself WWLDD aka what would Larry David do? If you want to waste an hour or three, please check it out. If it sounds interesting but you have a lot going on at the moment, save it for later. It’s more addictive than Cheese. Here’s the exchange that completely sold me on Thorne’s genius:

From: David Thorne
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2009 1.36pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,

So you have invented Twitter. Congratulations. This is where that time machine would definitely have come in quite handy.

When I was about twelve, I read that time slows down when approaching the speed of light so I constructed a time machine by securing my father’s portable generator to the back of my mini-bike with rope and attaching the drive belt to the back wheel. Unfortunately, instead of traveling through time and finding myself in the future, I traveled about fifty metres along the footpath at 200mph before finding myself in a bush. When asked by the nurse filling out the hospital accident report “Cause of accident?” I stated ‘time travel attempt’ but she wrote down ’stupidity’.

If I did have a working time machine, the first thing I would do is go back four days and tell myself to read the warning on the hair removal cream packaging where it recommends not using on sensitive areas. I would then travel several months back to warn myself against agreeing to do copious amounts of design work for an old man wielding the business plan equivalent of a retarded child poking itself in the eye with a spoon, before finally traveling back to 1982 and explaining to myself the long term photographic repercussions of going to the hairdresser and asking for a haircut exactly like Simon LeBon’s the day before a large family gathering.

Regards, David.

From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2009 3.29pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

You really are a fucking idiot and have no idea what you are talking about. The project I am working on will be more successful than twitter within a year. When I sell the project for 40 million dollars I will ignore any emails from you begging to be a part of it and will send you a postcard from my yaght. Ciao.

From: David Thorne
Date: Tuesday 17 November 2009 3.58pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Logo Design

Ahhh, ire-inducing human-baiting at its finest. Exchanges like this are what I aspire to in my everyday life. Click here to check out the rest of David Thorne’s work at 27bslash6.com.

No words to describe this. None. Please watch.

Nice slope

More eagerly awaited than Pacman-Mayweather (or even Pacman in Vegas II) has been my giddy anticipation for more collaboration between Canada’s own Malcolm Gladwell and ESPN’s The Sports Guy aka Bill Simmons. I would love nothing more than to have an extended bromance with these two. I really think I could add something to their already burgeoning relationship (Malcolm did write the forward to Simmon’s new hoops book).

My emotional well-being aside, the ever-entertaining duo hook up again via ESPN for another email exchange. This exchange sums up my love:

SIMMONS

It reminds me of the time those three guys came up to you in a restaurant in Chicago and told you that they were reading “The Tipping Point” in their book club and were big fans.

GLADWELL

How could I forget?

SIMMONS

Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes.

GLADWELL

Greatest moment of my life.

Click here to read the rest.

If you want to check out the article Gladwell name drops in part 2, click me to read James Surowiecki’s take on the Tiger Woods fiasco in the New Yorker. Basically Tiger was effed when he contradicted people’s expectations of him.