Ready To Friday: Looks Like A Bitch Edition

Ready To Friday

Good evening, fellow Friday-ers. I hope you're not expecting anything spectacular this week, because honestly, it's a bit of a slow burn getting into the summer. I'd like to use some of my free time to get more creative with these posts, but it's more likely I'll be directing it towards something else I'm cooking up for you all. So hold tight everybody, and let miracles take their time.

Speaking of spectacular things, one of my favorite individuals, Sam Rockwell, successfully bought himself a few years of security in the world rankings of Most Wonderful Man with this old screen test tape for the film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". The guy just exudes gratuitous amounts of charm and talent in whatever he does. I hope that it does the same thing for you and your Friday that it did for mine

The Edit

These here are the specific interests and perks of the weekly adventuring. Everything from tunes to articles or almost-lost files can be found below. Hopefully some of it will be recent, whereas some of it will be less so. But all of it I think is worth sharing with you; which is my gamble that you'll like it as much as I did.

• So the big news this week apparently is the candidate, Rand Paul (no, not him), who won his primary in Kentucky for the November Senate race. Why is this a big deal? Well it seems that it should be an indication of the Tea Party's power to elect candidates that share their ideology. So yes, Rand Paul is a potential Senator who sympathizes with one of the most obnoxiously insane political groups in recent times. Does this mean that the Tea Party has won? Not by a long shot. Does this mean that Rand Paul is as mad as the rest of them? Perhaps (2). Though, even if you understand Paul's stance on Civil Rights and the rights of the Federal Government to make certain laws (most decisions, he believes, should be up to the state and private citizens), you have to think, at this point, he should probably just shut up until November. As much as the Republican party has been favoring extremists to the point where they practically spur any moderate conservatives, even those still left are having a difficult time deciding where their principles lie.
• Speaking of political influence, Nancy Pelosi thinks that they can end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by the end of this year. Fantastic news, in my opinion, even though it's not entirely a guarantee. Nevertheless, it shows a commitment to the issues Obama pushed throughout 2008. And with a timeline made public, it shows more confidence in getting it done than simple campaign promises which are often broken. So with this marked out for everyone to judge when 2011 rolls around, I can only hope we'll see an end to the certain people expressing their passion for smaller issues with disregard to the greater mainstream problems this administration seems to be trying very hard to mend. DADT is definitely an issue worth dealing with, but there's a process to everything, and I believe in the pace and method of the current administration when it comes to securing bigger matters before moving to the pet issues of the left.
• A final word about politics this week. Obama is speaking again, this time at a Democratic fundraiser for congressional campaigning (something we'll talk more about later). Here he praised the democratic party for showing signs of unity and pressing forward on important issues "in the midst of a crisis." But for the Republicans, he had a harsher tone. He criticized the party as a whole for being less than helpful in relieving the disarray most Americans are facing. While one might not expect the whole Republican party to march to the same tune as the President when they hold varying ideals, it's true that the other side of the isle has been in many cases unreasonably rigid in resisting any of the changes Obama attempts to execute. Now I'm not saying that the party in power of the Whitehouse should always get the last word, but in such a critical time for the country, do Republicans actually think the way to get through it is to fight every venture for adjustment or reform?
• Esquire normally has some of the best quality writing in regards to their editorials, so when they started picking up on the blogging mentality this year with more specific political and food pieces, exclusively online, I was obviously delighted. So this isn't news, it's developed fully at this point. But if you want something good to read just about every day about topical things and interesting topics, hit up Esquire's RSS and get your reading on. Best of all, most of it is brevity at its best. A recent find details the back-and-forth between Roger Ebert and the Tea Party, something I may not have heard about otherwise. Which is what I like to find: unique perspectives from some seriously sharp chaps.
• Now if you're looking for something completely amazing for your formal wardrobe, Mister Crew pointed out a magnificent modern shirt from the Udeshi Company in London. A brilliant design without a hint of subtly. Modest men and skinny ties need not apply.
• The New York Times poses the question "When did Tommy Hilfiger become cool again?" If two or more of the nouns in that sentence do not interest you, then neither will this article. But if you'd like a little history on how one of the most popular preppy brands fell from grace and somehow gained back their reputation with fine American style as a result.
• And now for our weekly update on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. OH GOOD GOD
• I'm going to end this Edit with a little bitching and a lot of aggressive finger-wagging. As an individual going into the field of advertising, it's basically my obligation to watch a little television sometimes. That means, more than anything, to watch the commercials. It's for my education, I swear. But it's not always pleasant work. Imagine yourself, sitting in your living room/bedroom/where ever, watching the tube, and between the breaks of your favorite program comes on these three ads*, one right after the other. Well, I sat through that the other night. That's a trend right there; a scary trend. Not a new one, though. Twix, for instance, has been advocating lying to females for personal gain for a while now. Most vigorously with their Get the Girl series (which somehow kept getting more and more hideous). And what do I think of all of this, both as an advertiser-in-the-making and a male? Well for the first category, it's not good advertising, period. It's not selling the product nearly as much as it's selling itself. And as a guy, I'm a little embarrassed. I'm not going to turn into a feminist just because I saw those three ads with the same premise I've been seeing for years. But I feel compelled to somehow make up for this. I feel like I need to prove myself, as part of the male species, that we're not all this broken; that we are all capable of rising above the standards media caricatures illustrate for us. I may not be ready to apologize to each individual woman for this unsightly depiction, but there's a fire lit under me that has my temper steaming. Don't push me, humanity, I'm close to the edge. But I can say one thing good came of this: I might not be the only guy out there feeling compelled to be a better man to spit back in spite.
  
  *I actually saw I much worse ad than this, but I can not verify its existence using the internet.

Hearing Things

For my own reasons, I've decided to process the music appreciation of my weekly culture bomb into its own section. Hopefully this means you won't miss out on whatever I feel like highlighting here. But it also means it will be much more obvious when I don't have any musical suggestions.

• I wish I could just link you the song I wanted to share this week then move along to the next section. I wish I could because I really don't have that much to say about it. It's an oldie, it's a goodie and you've probably heard it a hundred times before. You all know the artist so there's nothing I need to explain or give history to. The track isn't esoteric or strange. I really can't think of a single thing to say to build up to or preface this. I can't even think of an excuse for you to have read all of this just to get to the song. I gotta just shut up now.
  
  Still so good, every time.

Tumblr that Mattr

Assuming you scour the minimal blog oasis less than I do, here are my picks for the most bizarre, relevant and clever Tumblrs on the web. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.

• Oh god! What's wrong with me? I can't stop posting tumbler blogs that are almost entirely male oriented style sites! What's new this week? Well, the Free/Man company site is experiencing a relaunch. So this brought to my attention their blog of the same name, which is still running strong. But that's really only interesting to you if you weren't you, but me.
• Let's try again, then. How about a typography tumblr (yeah, it's another "fuckyeah___"), extolling the successes and intrigue that comes with effectively utilized type? WAIT, YOU DON'T LIKE THAT EITHER?

English Language of the Week:

This segment is based around my personal love of the modern english language, where, each week, I'll nominate my favorite phrase, sentence or paragraph that I have personally heard spoken in that time.

Giants live there.

No, the context doesn't approach the never-noticed brevity of this sentence, nor does it make it less appreciable. It might just enhance it, but I'm not giving everything away here. Maybe it was the grin or the tone of voice that made me pick this one out of everything that travels through my skull in a week. But I don't think I'll ever forget it.

On Your Way Out

So there's a lot of politics going on this week. Did you notice? I'm afraid I'm leaning too much into things that only I will enjoy to read about, because only I seem to enjoy talking about them. So to prevent yet another self-loathing closing paragraph some week in the future, I'm gong to shift gears a bit and try to be a little more experimental and see if that works. If it doesn't, fine. If everyone hates it when I talk about things I'm not exclusively passionate about, we'll see and things will go back to normal.

But like I said, there will be other changes in the future to watch out for, and other things I want to get done for your entertainment. That's to come soon. Nothing written in stone, but soon(ish). If that fails, I'll still see you next week. Same place, same Friday.

PS. Watch your head.

-stg