frankiethirteen:

Yesterday, I had a chance meeting with a female geek on a train heading home from Wizard World.  She was dressed as the Fourth Doctor (there are a lot of rule 63 Doctor cosplayers these days—rock the fuck on), if that has any bearing on this story.  I think it might, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

Anyway, the discussion somehow turned to Star Trek, and right away, she launched into an explanation of how Kirk and Spock’s homoerotic relationship and the elements of televised canon that support it.  When she started citing examples (in episodes such as “Shore Leave” and “Amok Time”), my mind shut down and I kind of freaked out a little bit.  Like I was thinking, “Holy shit, girlfriend, who are you to challenge the masculinity of made-up people created decades before I was born to whom I’ve ascribed some sort of sacrosanct mythic status?”

And then I got angrier—at myself this time, because my feeble counter-arguments sounded like more politically correct versions of those being fired off en masse by geeks all over the internet after DC Comics went ahead and told everyone Green Lantern is gay.

Yes, this just happened.  But it’s not what you think.

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confessionsofamichaelstipe:

THANKS PETER, MIKE, BILL, BERTIS AND EVERYONE WHO WAS EVER THERE, WHAT AN ADVENTURE!!!  XXX MICHAEL                      [foto circa…1985 i think] 

A rare use of Tumblr for me to help Pass It On. Enjoy my friend John’s contribution to this meme…because it’s the Best One Yet.

johnpgelety:

Here is MY re-edit of the new, great Radiohead video for Lotus Flower.  My little contribution to the current meme trend.  Also, ELECTRIC SIX!

31 Days Of Music

Day 31 - Your favorite artist of all time

Well this is kinda anti-climactic…the big finale being something I think I’ve essentially said in half the posts. Let’s count - eight of my previous 30 days have been devoted to R.E.M.

On the one hand, I could write a ton more about them, how they’ve influenced me with more than their music…with the way they carry themselves, with their attitudes, with their politics…

On the other hand, I feel like I already wrote enough about the boys from Athens and will just bring this fun exercise to a close.

Thank you to Sarah for spearheading these 31 Days of insight into a small, but passionate group of music fans from around the globe.

31 Days Of Music

Day 30 - Song/Album that brings up a certain time in your life

Wow, we’re almost done…and this one is TOTALLY wide open… I mean, almost any song or album would bring up SOME time in your life, right?

That said, Radiohead has been the bridesmaid all month, being my 2nd-favorite band, they keep losing out to R.E.M. every day…

So I’ll write here about the album I’ve written more about than any other: OK Computer. (Mainly because I wrote a paper in college that was partially about it.)

Also, Waneeta beat me to it already today, because I didn’t have time to finish writing this…OH WELL!

OK Computer came out in the U.S. on July 3, 1997. I’m pretty sure I listened to it almost every single day for the rest of that month. I remember the first time I heard “Paranoid Android” and “Let Down” on the radio earlier that summer. I remember reading the rave reviews on NME.com, as I began to learn about the U.K. press and their love of hyperbole. I remember buying it at a now-defunct independent CD store. I remember floating in a pool at an old friend’s house and wishing I was listening to it then. I saw Radiohead on my birthday the next month at the Electric Factory, the last time they played a venue that “small” (and the last time they’d actually play IN Philly for years and years). More than any one album I can point to specifically, OK Computer really did change my life and affect my worldview as I was coming into my own and growing up.

31 Days Of Music

Day 29 - An artist everyone hated but you liked

Let’s go with the oft-absurd and offensive Bloodhound Gang.

Yes, their sense of humor is what it is…but they grew up just a few towns over from my hometown. And ”if you ain’t never been to the suburbs, don’t you ever come to the suburbs, because you wouldn’t understand the suburbs.”

And c’mon, this video has a profane Pac-Man on crack!

31 Days Of Music

Day 28 - Song/Album that you feel is your life anthem

This is kinda a cheesy category but…

R.E.M. - “Walk Unafraid”

31 Days Of Music

Day 27 - Artist you’ve seen live the most

They don’t tour as non-stop as They did a decade+ ago, but by virtue of seeing They Might Be Giants at least 9 times in 4 years of college, John & John take the cake in this category. Being older and having all these other studio-based projects in recent years has slowed Them down, but in the late ’90s, TMBG would play a regular show and then a college gig every six months or so…a fall show at the Factory or TLA and a spring show at a local college, like clockwork. Here’s my all-time favorite TMBG song, “Ana Ng.”

The runners up are Ben Folds (including the Five) and Mike Doughty (counting the three times I saw Soul Coughing).

P.S. - This doesn’t count any local bands my brother or our friends have been in…

31 Days Of Music

Day 26 - An song/album that changed your opinion about an artist

I always said Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth was the NIN album for people who didn’t consider themselves NIN fans. A few of my friends luuuuved Trent in HS and college and while I always respected his musical skillz, his lyrics were just wayyy to angsty for me to get into. With Teeth let me finally have a good access point, and now I have the whole NIN catalog (well not every Halo, etc. etc. but all the actual albums) and got to see the band thrice in concert before they Waved Goodbye.

And I’ll swear by the Lights In The Sky tour as one of the most mind-blowing, still-ahead-of-its-time concerts I’ve ever seen in my life.

31 Days Of Music

Day 25 - An album that disappointed you

I know this is kind of an easy/obvious one, but the last few years of the Weezer catalog…Make Believe was halfway OK, The Red Album has its moments, but Rivers Cuomo and the guys have become this bizarre Frankenstein monster of guitar-Pop… “If You’re Wondering…” could be their Last Great Song…but you can never count a madman like Rivers out. Hurley and Raditude were insanely inconsistent, I haven’t heard all of the crazy mishmash that is Death To False Metal yet…

Cuomo just hit this perfect, raw emotional nerve on the first two albums and is incapable of emotionally and musically going back there again. We’re not getting another “Why Bother?” folks.