They Just LOOOOOVE To Watch Her Strut

I blame that stupid civet coffee.

All I thought I was doing was telling my coworkers that I'd prefer to stick with my favorite coffee. And the one guy, who shall remain nameless, starts LAUGHING.

Let me start at the beginning. When I got to work on Tuesday, a couple of my coworkers were talking about that really expensive coffee that's reclaimed from some cat. It's horrible. Yes, after that cat has eaten the coffee beans. No, I'm not making this up. It's too dumb to be bullshit (as it were), sadly.

It's very costly coffee, wherever it comes from. There's maybe half a ton made every year going for $600/lb; that's in comparison to 2.6 million tons of ordinary coffee in a year from Brazil alone at around $3 to $6 per pound. When they started talking about who could afford to drink this crap, I mentioned that I'd not be tempted to give up the dark roast brewed up by the Beehive coffee shop on the South Side. And my apparently easily amused coworker starts cracking up, barely restraining himself. 

Now, such a thing would make sense had I expressed interest, rather than disgust, at the idea of fiendishly expensive cat poop coffee. But there was something else going on. He wasn't even thinking about the aforementioned coffee, but rather the name of my favorite coffee shop, and those of you who often drive US-22 between Delmont and Blairsville may see the problem. I had forgotten that there are two 'Beehives' in the area.

Yes, his first thought was not the funky little neighborhood coffee shop caddy-corner from Starbucks on 14th and East Carson; but rather the, shall we say... 'erotic venue'... just east of Delmont that shares the name. The one that I've been informed is not really all that great, actually. My coworker certainly derived quite the afternoon of amusement by imagining me drinking coffee while surrounded by scantily-clad ladies. It's pretty funny, actually, if you're not imagining the place as an utter dump. 

But If You Wanna Win You Gotta Learn How To Play

"It's the Ore Whore of the Hour!" said the Clock That Ended The Great Depression.

Welcome to Pen-And-Pencilvania.

Ladies, don't go half-assed and ask for 'one panty please'.

Top o' the morning, bottom of the ninth.

It's the difference between the numinous and the bituminous.

This Pistol Range Is Clothing Optional. You May Encounter Nude Recreators With Concealed Handguns.

"Mr. Spector, tear down this wall!"

Once you calm down, don't forget to leave yourself a Post-Snit Note.

Give me some aspartame, baby.

WARNING: The mind, heart and soul subsystems contain no user-serviceable parts. Please return to manufacturer for qualified service.

I think Ludwig Wittgenstein would be impressed. F.A. Hayek, not so much.

Is She Promised To The Night, And Her Head Has No Room?

I just realized something. We're using a word in two surprisingly opposed senses, given that both senses involve gender. We're talking about racks, people.

We refer to these as such:

Sama-style

It's the antlers that we're concerned with. Antlers, or horns in sheep and cattle, are a giveaway that the animal is a mature male. Meanwhile, we also refer to this with the same term:

Thanks, Wikipedia...

Yes, we're talking about boobs. Again, they're a sure biological sign that we're looking at (and quite distractedly, I must add) a mature woman. So somehow, we took the term the term for the second most distinctive male physical characteristic in the animal kingdom and used it as a slang term for the second most distinctive indication of human femininity. 

Is this a current thing? Is the meaning of rack as slang-for-breasts a recent development, or does it have more of a history than I would guess? The internet doesn't have a clear answer so for the time being I'm at a loss. 

This confuses me, if I think too much:

Uh... nice rack(s)?

I'm Shining Just For You

Let me be your everlasting light... Thanks to Matt Sutej for the photo.

Well, the 2013 visit to the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh by the Black Keys (and The Flaming Lips) has come and gone, but my post-show glow has not been dampened yet. I was eagerly anticipating this show from the moment I heard about it. I've been a major Black Keys fan since I heard 'Your Touch' off Magic Potion and fell in love with their hard-boiled brand of blues-rock. Hell, I even have four of their albums on vinyl now. As it says on the back of The Big Come Up, their debut, it truly is amazing that two guys from Ohio could make music with the sound they do so well at in this day and age.

The show was a double-bill with The Flaming Lips, and I knew very little about them except that for a long time in the mid-2000s they were indie rock darlings (in a career that goes from about 1986 to the present day) and that that 'Tangerine' song was actually titled 'She Don't Use Jelly' (and a very curious piece of pop songwriting to boot).

So we went in (me, Sammy Joyce, Matt Sutej, and Jeremy Shaw) and boy were we in for a treat. First up was the Flaming Lips' set. Like I said, I really had little idea what to expect, but we had heard that the Lips' stage show was damn awesome. Wayne Coyne running around in a giant hamster ball over the crowd, half-nude women splashing paint on each other, and all manner of strange and fascinating sights. We would not be let down.

I still remain bewildered by the Lips' set; it was, in a word, mindblowing. Sadly, none in the crew thought to get any photos of the set: the creepiness of Coyne cradling a limp baby (certainly a doll) in his arms as he sang; the psychedelic visions of nude dancing women in technicolor display; the revolving images of the world from space, the human eye and the nude vulva (sometimes in color inversion); tendrils of light that crept across the stage; and I still don't know what the 'fighting kite' that pulsed with the music was supposed to represent, but I was very much impressed and blindsided by the bizarre visions that The Flaming Lips elected to accompany their set. The music was primarily from their new album, The Terror, and I had not heard anything from it before the show. I was very intrigued  and I do have it now, on vinyl; though I haven't found a moment to listen to it.

That said, when The Black Keys came on for the main attraction, I knew exactly what was going to happen  Almost. You know what they say about some bands that their studio material doesn't do the live show justice? E.G. Deep Purple - they were all tight and perfect in the studio, but when it came time to go on tour, they pulled out every stop possible and rocked the hell out of their audiences. I am glad to report that The Black Keys are a member of this club!

I was surprised when they opened with 'Howlin' For You' from Brothers; this is a favorite of mine, and I'm now guessing that it's a fan favorite. Most of the material was the full band stuff from Attack & Release, Brothers, and El Camino. I had secretly been hoping they might go way back in their catalog and play some older stuff, and for a few songs in the middle of the set they stripped down to just Patrick and Dan and played 'Thickfreakness', 'Girl Is On My Mind' and 'Your Touch' (which they rocked up a lot, instead of just playing it like it was from the album). Visuals were limited to them on stage with some accent footage of broken-down industrial towns like their hometown of Akron and driving shots. Neat stuff, but just an accent to the music.

The photo is from the encore: they played 'Everlasting Light' and 'I Got Mine', and during the former they lowered this HUGE disco ball from the ceiling; I swear it must have been nine feet across! That was a really cool moment, and they saved a lightboard that spelled out 'The Black Keys' for no ther reason than to drop it during 'I Got Mine'. Daaang. They are a powerful live act, and seeing them beofre they got big must have been very interesting, in smaller venues than the Consol.

Words That Never Were True

Have you ever written something that sounds reasonable in your own head, but as soon as you ship it off to the intended recipient you begin to think 'I bet they hate me now'? I think I just did. Don't read it at work.

Vanity On Parade, Fake And Frantic And Strange

Recently I stumbled on a photo of Jayne Mansfield that raised at least 1.3 of my eyebrows. 

The image uses the 'large' display setting. Does it really need it?

In case you couldn't tell, it's also a picture of Sophia Loren, who appears to be staring at Mansfield's ample cleavage. That's quite the expression Sophia has right there. Turns out it's a death glare, for Mansfield's  upstaging of Loren at a dinner party in the Italian star's honor. According to Wikipedia, Mansfield's career began to fade in the early 60's and as a result she occasionally bared her ample assets to snag headlines - mainly tabloid headlines.

Interestingly, Mansfield and other blonde bombshell actresses began to fall out of favor in the late 50's, at the same time as the larger and heavier autos built throughout the decade. Smaller autos like the Nash Rambler were in demand and slim actresses and models such as Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy began to rise in popularity. Rock'n'roll even entered a slow period that would only fully recover with the arrival of the Beatles; Elvis was in the army, Buddy Holly had died, and Chuck Berry would end up in prison by 1960. And amid all this, there was a minor recession over the change of the decade. Funny how so many pages turned all at the same time.

Pushing In The Pin

I was reminded, by this BOTCB post, about a company with a certain web address, similar to those described in the post, but not mentioned. Here is that web address.

http://www.penisland.net/

Yep.

That, logically, is the website for a custom print pen company called Pen Island. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) Funny enough as it is, but then I saw this on their front page:

What.

That was all I could handle.