Randomness

[Fuuma]

Said in a true American capitalist manner. Everything is a business to those people. Education, health care, government, science, law enforcement.

*puts on old elitist hat* No wonder the kids graduate all smarmy looking and ignorant, culture is dead!*removes old elitist hat*

[zamb]

long live the good ole pot belly!!!!!!!!!!!

By GUY TREBAY
Published: August 12, 2009
THIS summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.
In truth this get-up was pretty much the unvarying male uniform last summer also, but this year an unexpected element has been added to the look, and that is a burgeoning potbelly one might term the Ralph Kramden.
Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut, developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch, the Ralph Kramden is everywhere to be seen lately, or at least it is in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene, the McCarren Park Greenmarket and pretty much any place one is apt to encounter fans of Grizzly Bear.
What the trucker cap and wallet chain were to hipsters of a moment ago, the Kramden is to what my colleague Mike Albo refers to as the “coolios” of now. Leading with a belly is a male privilege of long standing, of course, a symbol of prosperity in most cultures and of freedom from anxieties about body image that have plagued women since Eve.
Until recently, men were under no particular obligation to exhibit bulging deltoids and shredded abdominals; that all changed, said David Zinczenko, the editor of Men’s Health, when women moved into the work force in numbers. “The only ripples Ralph Kramden” and successors like Mike Brady of “The Brady Bunch” had to demonstrate were in their billfolds, said Mr. Zinczenko, himself a dogged crusader in the battle of the muffin top. “But that traditional male role has changed.”
As women have come to outnumber men in the workplace, it becomes more important than ever for guys to armor themselves, Mr. Zinczenko said, with the “complete package of financial and physical,” to billboard their abilities as survivors of the cultural and economic wilds.
This makes sense, in a way, but how does one account for the new prevalence of Ralph Kramdens? Have men given in or given up? Are they finished with asserting the privileges that have always accrued to men. Or is the Ralph Kramden Barack Obama’s fault?
Hipsters, by nature contrarian, according to Dan Peres, the editor of Details, may be reacting in opposition to a president who is not only, as the press relentlessly reminds us, So Darn Smart, but also hits the gym every morning, has a conspicuously flat belly and, when not rescuing the economy or sparring with Kim Jong-il, shoots hoops.
“If we had a slob in the White House, all the hipsters would turn into some walking Chippendales calendar,” Mr. Peres said. Instead, the streets of Williamsburg are crowded with men who are, as he noted, “proudly rocking a gut.” Mr. Peres’s magazine has a term for these people: the new “poor-geoisie.” But the people lining up for $13 lobster rolls at the Brooklyn Flea last weekend hardly looked as if they were worried about making the rent.
“I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine,” is how Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out, explains the emergence of the Ralph Kramden. What once seemed young and hot, for gay and straight men alike, now seems passé. Like manscaping, spray-on tans and other metrosexual affectations, having a belly one can bounce quarters off suggests that you may have too much time on your hands.
“It’s not cool to be seen spending so much time fussing around about your body,” Mr. Hicklin said.
And so guys can happily and guiltlessly go to seed.
Women have almost never gotten a pass on the need to maintain their bodies, while men always have, said Robert Morea, a personal fitness trainer. (Full disclosure: my own.) It would be too much, he added, to suggest that “potbellies are suddenly O.K.,” but as lean muscle and functionality become the new gym mantras, hypertrophied He-Men with grapefruit biceps and blister-pack abs have come to resemble specimens from a diorama of “A Vanished World.”
“When do you ever see that guy, anyway?” Mr. Morea asked, referring to those legendary Men’s Health cover models, with their rippling torsos and famished smiles. “The only time you really see that guy, he’s standing in front of an Abercrombie & Fitch store.” Perhaps, he suggested, there is really only one of them. “It’s the same guy. They just move him around.”

[Faust]

/\ repost! :-) Check style inspirationz thread.

[Faust]

Fast Company discovers Belgian design. Took them all of 20-odd years to catch up. Now that's fast.

[Sombre]

^^^Thank you, Zamb. Hilarious read. Even though I think it's bullshit.

[Faust]

Finally caved in and turned on the AC in my house.

[Faust]

Why our country sucks. Excellent comment. I can't believe this shit. We've got a Democratic president, a Democratic congress, and we get shafted, again, and again, and again. Un-fucking-believable and right down depressing.

It's funny how we keep talking about spreading democracy and enlightenment to these savages in the Middle East, and our own country is so fucking backwards. We should nuke our own back yard before we start nuking North Korea and Iran.

[Servo2000]

The audacity of the obama administration would seem to imply it would have much more backbone than it actually does. Nice to see more compromises that don't make anybody happy.

[lowrey]

closing in on NCP

[Vanna]

District 9 was so good. A+.

[hobo]

Why our country sucks. Excellent comment. I can't believe this shit. We've got a Democratic president, a Democratic congress, and we get shafted, again, and again, and again. Un-fucking-believable and right down depressing.

It's funny how we keep talking about spreading democracy and enlightenment to these savages in the Middle East, and our own country is so fucking backwards. We should nuke our own back yard before we start nuking North Korea and Iran.

Wise man say, "Empty vessel makes most noise!"

[Faust]

Check your email, you drunk bastard.

[asis]

Interestingly enough, anecdotally all the patients I've seen that have successfully, truly, 100% quit smoking have done it cold turkey. One day they just look at the cigs and decide they do not want them anymore and have never looked back. It's pretty interesting given all the smoking cessation medications and products out on the market now. I've yet to meet someone that used them to completely quit smoking without falling off of the wagon.

Yeah, I've encountered a couple who have used the patch to quit and never gone back to smoking but almost all I've seen who have been successful have tried a few things and then only gotten it done by quitting cold turkey.[/QUOTE]

A few years ago a cab driver told me about Allen Car's book the easy way to stop smoking, it took me a good year before i started reading the book but last October I read it, stopped and have never smoked since and never seriously thought about it either. I smoked over 20 a day for 10 years and tried everything incl. hypnotism and patches before this.

Its difficult to explain how it works but you basically unlearn everything you've talked yourself into.

I think the problem with quitting aids is that they make you feel like your denying yourself, besides you only physically need another cigarette because you had the last one and the rest is in your head

[Staton Viguier]

gary busey on cancer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vr8bH5p9uU&feature=fvw

[Faust]

courtney love was actually one of rick's first customers and patrons.
a good decade before spot was blown, as it were.

...and friends.