That piece is indeed very funny. This line, however, is just begging to be quibbled with:
After all, aside from swimming, diving, and water polo--the Holy Trinity of Way Gay Sports--basketball is the sport where men wear the least clothes.
Anyway, the whole experience of having a stranger sexually attracted to you is pretty much completely foreign to me. Maybe I should wait until I'm a few years older and see if I'm not irresistible to middle aged women?
1: One could also argue that, coincidentally, they happen to be the trinity of gay water sports as well. (...which was partly how I misread the quote upon first glance)
4: or you could try becoming rich and famous like Sherman Alexie. I've heard that works wonders for one's sex appeal.
1: would this imply, then, that skiing is the most hetero of all sports because everyone is so bundled up all the time?
6: He might be rich, but I never heard of him so he can't be famous.
Anyway, the whole experience of having a stranger sexually attracted to you is pretty much completely foreign to me.
For all you know, it could be happening all the time, but you just don't know about it.
cf. Pratchett: "How many talking tortoises have you met?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Well, they might all talk. They might just not say anything while I'm around."
So who are the best-looking men in the USA? The answer, obviously, is professional athletes. I mean, Jesus, Google-Image Adrian Peterson.
I'm gonna stick with George Clooney.
I thought that was who Sifu must be.
7: The Iditarod!
Although I read that there was a guy a few years ago who was testing an Airgel-insulated snowsuit, which was so warm he didn't wear anything under it, and swaggered around rest stops bare-chested.
the whole experience of having a stranger sexually attracted to you and realising it at the time is pretty much completely foreign to me.
Most people undergo an epiphany in early middle age that all the hot people they never got it on with in their teens and early twenties would in fact have jumped them with the slightest encouragement, but that they were never so encouraged because it looked too hopeless. I don't see why this wouldn't be true of strangers as much as acquaintances.
I think I am in early middle age right now, so apparently I'm behind on my epiphanies in addition to all my other problems.
I suppose I could go an FB and ask them.
I think Natilo is just getting faster.
It really isn't easy to tell if someone's attracted to you. My court appearance yesterday was against a pro se petitioner who my client agency had jerked around wrongfully for a couple of years; after we figured out we were wrong, I had tried to settle for most of what he was asking for, but he was pissed off enough that he was asking for something silly, so we had to go before the judge.
And so to make things go a little more smoothly, before the appearance I chatted with petitioner in an affirmatively warm and sympathetic way, apologizing for how he'd been treated, and he chilled out, which made the actual argument less shouty and more rational. Mostly, when I do that sort of thing, men get much less angry, and I'm pretty sure I'm exploiting some gender-based reaction. But in any given case, even when it's working, I don't know if I'm taking advantage of a reaction to an attractive woman being warmly sympathetic, or a pleasantly maternal woman being warmly sympathetic -- this guy was probably ten years younger than I am, so I'm betting on the latter, but I have no real idea.
22: you didn't even click on 16, did you?
24: I did so. I just really like that clip.
I chatted with petitioner in an affirmatively warm and sympathetic way, apologizing for how he'd been treated, and he chilled out, which made the actual argument less shouty and more rational.
But also, an apology and some empathy go a long, long way.
Oh, certainly, the substance of the interaction is most of it, but there's definitely something gendered about how it works.
23: The way that started I thought LB was going to talk about about how the judge totally couldn't tell she was hot for him.
A student recently asked me to be his major advisor, and mentioned along the way as part of why that I reminded him of his mother. I almost swallowed my tongue.
Be careful if his last name is Bates.
He did go on to clarify that she is a professor herself and that he's seen me bring Jane to the office occasionally, much as she used to bring him to her office when he was her age.
Maybe it's a ploy to keep you from administering a Voight-Kamph on him.
32: And then added "Also, you're old."
My limited experience with being the object of sexual attraction is most that you sit around wishing it would happen, and imagine the more intense the better. Then when it actually happens, you get scared and freak the hell out, and the more intense it is the more scared you are.
Its not quite "be careful what you wish for" as "be sure to have to courage for what you wish for."
Maybe it's a ploy to keep you from administering a Voight-Kamph on him.
You guys do that in cog sci now, right?
And then added "Also, you're old."
Right.
One of my favourite instructors, known to his students as One Match Mick, had the habit of expressing approval of a particularly competent student by saying "I like that. You remind me of me. In an infinitely more junior capacity, of course."
For the full effect, imagine it being said in an accent that was composed of equal parts "1950s English upper class", "1960s Sean Connery", and "pirate".
If he was only lighting cigarettes, "one match" isn't that impressive.
So who are the best-looking men in the USA? The answer, obviously, is professional athletes. I mean, Jesus, Google-Image Adrian Peterson.
10: I'm gonna stick with George Clooney.
Greg Louganis. Get your gay, your hott, and your athlete in one nice (HIV-positive) package.
In maybe 10th grade I had a copy of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine with Greg Louganis on the cover that I, er, kept around for an extra long time.
Meanwhile the best looking famous person is of course Matt Damon. You may picture me saying so in the voice of John McLaughlin, with a dissent-stifling BYE BYE.
46: Urple. But, no, not recently.
I love that cover-maker. I just used it for an inside joke at work.
To clarify, I hadn't known about it before; thanks.
47: Matt Damon?! My opinion may be distorted by (i) heterosexuality and (ii) having grown up in Ireland West Massachusetts, but, you know, seriously, that guy is indistinguishable from many dozens of thousands of residents of the Commonwealth.
I recall thinking, during Transporter 2, that the antagonist and his female henchperson were unfairly attractive, insofar as, sexual disposition notwithstanding, any reasonable person would prefer to see more of the two of them and less of Statham and that Audi.
A poll of heterosexual women sitting at my keyboard confirms that Matt Damon is objectively very appealing.
The best-looking famous man is 1983-version Daniel Day-Lewis, as he appeared in My Beautiful Laundrette, the first movie with actual gay characters in it that I ever saw - although I saw it in, like, 1992. The best-looking famous woman is Janelle Monae.
My limited experience with being the object of sexual attraction is most that you sit around wishing it would happen, and imagine the more intense the better. Then when it actually happens, you get scared and freak the hell out, and the more intense it is the more scared you are.
I had this terrible moment recently when I realized that I was old because I no longer actually find anyone attractive and no longer wish that anyone finds me attractive. It just seems too time-, emotion- and labor-intensive, and I have books to read. Curiously, from an objective standpoint I probably look better than at any other point in my life because, even though fatter, I am better dressed, have a better haircut and just generally look more confident. Girls occasionally give me the eye, even. And then I try to imagine getting to know someone new, and what a freakish introvert with weird scars I have turned into, and how much of my life would have to be explained, and I decide that it is better not.
54: Isn't DDL acknowledgedly still very handsome?
Also, now that I have reminded myself of what Matt Damon looks like, I realize that I had him confused with Jude Law, that Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley was very dapper but that's probably because I am almost universally and irrationally attracted to people with glasses even when they are basically Henry Kissinger and that not that I do not wish heterosexual women everywhere nothing but the best, but I am a bit baffled over your tastes. Also, I am similarly a bit baffled by the George Clooney business. And Ryan whoosis, the blond one.
I recall thinking, during Transporter 2
Speaking of things that one might be embarrassed to watch, Matt Bomer from White Collar is pretty cute.
Isn't DDL acknowledgedly still very handsome?
That's why they picked him to play Obama.
Jude Law is Henry Kissinger? He's a better actor than I thought.
55: He is still handsome, it's true. But he was a bit weirder-looking when younger and of course the My Beautiful Laundrette haircut helped.
If you wish to picture 1992 Frowner, you may imagine a slightly chubby teenager in suburban Chicago doing her best to dress as much like DDL in that movie as possible to someone whose clothing possibilities were basically hand-me-downs and the sale rack at the Gap.
Jude Law is Henry Kissinger? He's a better actor than I thought.
It's really Henry Kissinger who is Jude Law and thus the better actor. This is common knowledge in DC policy circles.
I guess Viggo is only kinda sorta American, but, you know, swoon.
The best-looking famous woman is Janelle Monae.
Who is so famous I had to google her, but then if I'm famous for anything it's for being out of touch. Her potential good looks are undermined by that daft hairdo. Shaving her head would be a seriously good move.
I am a bit baffled over your tastes.
De gustibus non est disputandum. My tastes in men are broad and catholic, and cover a wide variety of types. I do agree with you that DDL was, indeed, very hot in My Beautiful Laundrette.
62: And after saying my tastes are broad and catholic, they don't include Viggo Mortensen. Nothing particularly against him, it just wouldn't occur to me to look at him twice.
66: When The Lord of The Rings movie was released there was a definite Viggo Mortensen/ Sean Bean split among my female friends.
67: I like them both! But VM does all this dreamy stuff in real life and SB gets in bar brawls with his Page 3 girl gfs, so VM wins the imaginary bf contest.
When The Lord of The Rings movie was released there was a definite Viggo Mortensen/ Sean Bean split among my female friends.
I realize now that in addition to thinking that Matt Damon was Jude Law, I also seem to have thought that Sean Bean was Mr. Bean. This thread is very educational!
I would find Sean Bean very attractive, except that I get distracted by wanting to pronounce his name so that it rhymes. Seen Bean? Shawn Bawn?
The Sean Bean/Mr. Bean split is probably also there.
Assuming people realize there's a difference, I guess. Sean Bean is my guess as to the person who has carried a sword for the largest percentage of a professional career since the end of World War II.
Wow, Frowner even beats all my years having a hard time remembering the difference between Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. (The latter, like Matt Damon, has a head like a breadbox.) I am absolutely hoping someone has done LotR with Mr. Bean in Sean Bean's role.
I also seem to have thought that Sean Bean was Mr. Bean.
I have also had this problem.
Her potential good looks are undermined by that daft hairdo. Shaving her head would be a seriously good move.
Oh, Chris.
The Sean Bean/Mr. Bean split is probably also there.
Rowan Atkinson is in fact capable of being quite dishy! But more often he opts for not.
I remember having that thought at some odd moment during the last series of Blackadder -- he stopped pulling faces for a couple of seconds and suddenly wasn't half bad looking.
The best-looking famous woman is Janelle Monae.
In the category of queer female musicians of color, have I mentioned my affection for Gail Ann Dorsey?
72
Sean Bean is my guess as to the person who has carried a sword for the largest percentage of a professional career since the end of World War II.
I don't know about that. He's not the only actor out there who does a lot of period pieces, and he's had a few well-known roles in non-medieval settings. Goldeneye, for example. However, he does play dead guys a lot. The famous person who dies the most, I could buy. ("Famous person" excluding various stuntmen and extras who show up for crowd scenes.)
all my years having a hard time remembering the difference between Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks
I'm trying to imagine a universe in which Hanks starred in Mission: Impossible and Minority Report and Cruise starred in The Money Pit and Forrest Gump. It's a strange place.
Or Hanks in Top Gun and Cruise in Turner and Hooch.
I find Viggo Mortensen weird looking for real life. He fits in and is hot in Middle-earth, though.
78: I don't know if you have, but she is great and has a truly compelling stage presence, at least as I hazily recall.
72: Orlando Bloom has to be competetive in this category.
The theme song for which I inexplicably woke up with in my head the other day.
Another song indicating that Billy Joel sold his sold to the devil for catchiness. It's not a good song, but boy is it stuck in my head from a passing mention.
I think I've said here before that I am in possession of very reliable information that Matt Damon makes pig noises while having sex (or least he did make pig noises while having sex when he was an undergraduate). Whether this is a feature or a bug is up to the reader to decide.
I think I find Viggo non-hot partially because I never heard of him before FoTR (never saw the rest of the movies) and he was so off my mental image of Aragorn that I systematically averted my eyes from him for the entire movie. Nothing against him particularly, but my first experience of being aware of him was a couple of hours of trying not to notice that he was up there on the screen looking wrong. (Can I describe clearly what Aragorn is supposed to look like? No. But not like that. At all.)
[catty comment about Tom Cruise in Philadelphia]
she is great and has a truly compelling stage presence, at least as I hazily recall.
Sorry, MAE. I didn't really watch any of their movies and had a general problem telling white men with short haircuts apart in movies, but it was more that I hadn't bothered to differentiate than that I knew anything about either of them. I suppose I figured it out when I saw and loathed Forrest Gump, which finally gave me a reason to care.
As in, oink-oink, but very loud. So maybe "a pig being slaughtered" noises, actually.
Meanwhile, I am certain that Viggo Mortensen either purrs like a kitten or speaks Elvish while having sex. Sometimes both!
92: I've mentioned my Eric Clapton/Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel confusion before, I think? Don't bother explaining how to distinguish them or that it's really hard to imagine how they could be confused at all, people always do and then I forget again.
93: Are you in possession of reliable information as to what pigs sound like when they are being slaughtered?
89: He was Gwyneth Paltrow's hot, murderous artist boyfriend in that shitty remake of . . . Dial M for Murder? that was called something else. They used his own paintings as the character's paintings.
I'd never heard of Viggo Mortensen before LoTR either.
Having been a big fan of the band X as a teenager I thought it was kind of cool that he'd been married to Exene Cervenka.
Pairing up Tolkien characters with punk rock singers...a whole new category of fan fiction waiting to happen.
97: Right. I actually saw that, but I don't remember much of it the meat thermometer and I didn't realize that was Viggo.
Sean Bean is much more attractive than Viggo Mortensen.
96: They smell like victory.
This discussion makes a lot more sense now that I know there were two actors named "Sean" in the LotR movies.
Now is my chance to admit that I only recently learned that I was wrong in assuming that Audrey Hepburn and Katherine Hepburn were siblings.
103: It depends on whether or not I'm in middle school and Sean Astin is the street urchin on Facts of Life.
I get Sean Astin and Stone-Cold Steve Austin confused.
Oh wait. Google reveals that I'm thinking of his dreamy tween sibling Mackenzie. So Sean Bean definitively, then.
108: I get Stone-Cold Steve Austin and Six-Million-Dollar-Man Steve Austin confused.
Vin Diesel, Paul Walker,Dwayne Johnson, or Tyrese?
Visually, I have a hard time distinguishing between Luke Wilson, Matthew Fox, Jake Gyllenhall, and David Arquette.
111 was for the ladies and gays. I must know who the hottest The Fast and the Furious actor is.
Arnold, Carl Weathers, or Jesse the Body?
See, heebie's 15 is so, so wrong because Tyrese is so sad and ridiculous and this is why I can't have celebrity crushes, because none of them seem smart enough. (Except maybe Rose Byrne and a few others, though I've never found the interview I read in some magazine where she mentioned writing her undergrad thesis or some such on Foucault.)
Um, I mean 115. Not that I'm saying I'm all that smart, but still better than Tyrese!
Clicking through 118 is highly recommended. Also Tyrese is clearly the F+F weakest link.
Are we playing marry/fuck/kill now? I started a round of that with a cow-orker, about cow-orkers, but it didn't last very long because we kept naming people we want to kill.
I can never keep Sterling Hayden, Joel McCrea, and William Holden straight.
I've mentioned my Eric Clapton/Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel confusion before
Gabriel and Collins are eminently confusable, because Gabriel formed Genesis, and then Collins took over as front man when Gabriel fucked off. I'd never thought of Clapton in the same bracket: good blues guitarist, average rock guitarist, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
118: that link is hilarious, but at least he doesn't make pig noises while he has sex. ASK ME HOW I KNOW. (nb: I don't)
123. You dated Sarah Silverman in college?
118,121: Both Christine Lagarde and Rashida Jones are celebrities.
I watched a Ryan Gosling movie this week so as not to be out of touch!!! Drive. Nice film, except all the young actors including Gosling were pointless.
but at least he doesn't make pig noises while he has sex
He is courteous enough to save the pig noises for the cuddling after sex.
If Phil Collins were a movie, he would be Pretty Woman, while Peter Gabriel would be Short Cuts.
You are welcome, and 53 was a funny sentence.
122: You made it all up to discredit him and thereby win the affections of a laydee.
OK, I confess I'm dying to know the story, but I'm too proud to actually ask.
Seriously, heebie, he's a aurthur! (I really only know Tyrese through people mocking his output on twitter.)
I am just not good at celebrity crushes and I think I'm okay with that. I can find something appealing in almost any person I know and like, but there doesn't seem to be much point extending that to celebrities. I realize I'm missing the point.
I confuse the bands Cake, Hole, and Spoon.
127: The Short Cuts with Steve Guttenberg or the Robert Altman one?
I wonder if Jason Collins is actually bisexual. His ex-fiancée said she was quite surprised by his announcement, after a seven year relationship, so I assume that he had reasonable amounts of sex with her.
If he's coming out and calling himself gay, that gives rise to a presumption that he's not bi enough to think he's bi. There have been a lot of closeted gay men who surprised their wives and children when they came out.
"You mean all those times you were with me, you were thinking about dudes? Which dudes? The same ones as I was?"
120: Joel McCrea is older and was in primarily westerns after WWII. He has a scratchy voice. Sterling Hayden has a deeper voice and is mostly in post-WWII movies. William Holden is the guy I always think I should recognize but never do, but my parents recognize him immediately.
N.b I haven't looked any of this up.
Who among us has not had sex while thinking of Joel McCrea?
135: "I always sort of wondered why you didn't object to my decorating our bedroom with male nudes."
137: I haven't—turns out I was actually thinking of William Holden.
Generally, I do sort of think there'd be more bi or bi-ish people out there if there were less social pressure to choose a side. But for a closeted gay man, managing to maintain a relationship with a woman, even for quite a long time, doesn't seem to me to be all that much evidence that he was actually enjoying himself in it.
Sterling Hayden's Wanderer has a pretty good reputation among Hollywood memoirs, but I've not read it.
God you geeks, no one had heard Viggo prior to LOTR? Come on, it's Master Chief from GI Jane!
re: 142
And Lucifer from The Prophecy.
140: Because you can't make that assumption for heterosexual men?
142: If you'd asked me, I woulda said he was a stand-up guy.
142: he never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself.
Heebie: Cake and Spoon aren't insane to confuse; after all, they have worked together in the past. Hole is a whole nuther thing.
142: Recognized that later, but I didn't know what his name was then.
Sterling Hayden is Col. Jack D. Ripper, William Holden is Joe Gillis, and Joel McCrea is Preston Sturges' go-to good looking straight man. Peter Gabriel is "Sledgehammer", Eric Clapton is the racist behind "Tears in Heaven", and Phil Collins is a punchline from "American Psycho". Let's do more!
(David Rasche, of course, is "Sledge Hammer".)
Eric Clapton is the racist
God, so racist. How did I not know that until relatively recently?
Back when "Good Will Hunting" was recent, people would tell me I looked like Matt Damon pretty frequently, which may just be confirmation of Flippanter's 52. And I do not make pig noises during sex... laydeez.
Seriously, it's like my three facts about Eric Clapton:
1) Was in the Yardbirds before leaving to be replaced by Jeff Beck.
2) "Tears in Heaven" is incredibly terrible but is about his son's death so I'm not allowed to hold it against him.
3) Horrible, ludicrous racist.
I guess fact 4 is "Oh yeah, he was in Cream too."
I bet if I drove down to the Rock Hall, those are the pieces of information that would be on his plaque.
5) "Layla" is incredibly terrible and it's perfectly okay to hold it against him.
I guess parts of Layla are okay. The middle twenty-five minutes are pretty unrewarding, though.
I guess parts of Layla are okay.
The end, for instance.
(Actually, I think it's a pretty catchy guitar hook, but whoa long.)
I can never keep Sterling Hayden, Joel McCrea, and William Holden straight.
Says Mister Smearcase! I'd expect one of them not to be a problem.
111: The answer is clearly Vin Diesel, especially as he appeared in XXX (Yes, low-hanging fruit...). Paul Walker makes me stabby. The Rock gets points for having played for the 'Canes, but eh.
As Smearcase and I have discussed previously, Matt Damon is the dreamiest.
158: You'd think, right? That's Joel McCrea, yes?
Eric Clapton is racist? Should I look it up? Or is that all there is to it?
That's pretty much all there is to it, yeah.
Even though McCrea was in a bunch of pre-code films, I can't remember his characters ever engaging in real pre-code raciness, even in movies where there was a bit of that.
I just learn (on Boing Boing) that one of the guys in Ace of Base used to be Nazi but apparently got over it.
162: he was a vocal fan of Enoch Powell for a while there. He is now, to all appearances, much less vocal about it, but not obviously no longer a fan.
It's a mark of my depravity that I find it hilarious that Eric Clapton, whose crimes against all of our ears are so well documented, is also a fascist. Verily, he is one of history's greatest monsters.
Still though "White Room" is pretty awesome.
If LB confuses Eric Clapton with Peter Gabriel again, we may have to have a few words with her.
166: McCrea Pre-Code Realness.
175: Yeah, I saw a reference to that in McCrea's wikipedia article. I stand corrected.
Perhaps we could have a permanent feature of the sidebar that just says:
Check it out, Eric Clapton is hella racist.
With a link, or just straight-up text?
Each word could link to a different time we've discussed this.
Oh c'mon, Viggo is undisputably hot! Never saw any LoTR, so completely based on pre-LoTR films. But I do admit a strong bias toward any film star who looks like someone who could live on my street, rather than anyone who's outright super good-looking.
Going back to rob in 34:
My limited experience with being the object of sexual attraction is most that you sit around wishing it would happen, and imagine the more intense the better. Then when it actually happens, you get scared and freak the hell out, and the more intense it is the more scared you are.
I suppose I can identify with this to some extent, but I wouldn't really say it's typical of my experience of being in this situation.
95: I've mentioned my Eric Clapton/Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel confusion before, I think? Don't bother explaining
This is driving me nuts.
LB, this is Peter Gabriel.
This is Eric Clapton.
This is Phil Collins.
I have a feeling this is going to do no good. But Collins is a drummer. He and Gabriel were sympatico for a while and sort of still would or could be.
But it's been an fun exercise for me! I always like Phil Collins better than I think I do.
Gosh, I like Peter Gabriel.
Er, I like that song. Probably seems kind of cheesy to you guys.
184: He doesn't look much like Eric Clapton there, does he?
My brother once innocently said, "Oh, Phil Collins was in a band before Phil Collins?"
Collins is a drummer.
Huh, I didn't know that. The part in that video where he walks dramatically over to the drums and starts playing them seems... unusual for that sort of venue.
I don't actually confuse these three guys at all, but judging from the videos in 183 I can see how someone might.
Are you familiar with My Life in the Bush of Ghosts?
It's late enough that I can't listen to much more now. My cassette tape! of that got chewed ten years ago, and I haven't heard it since.
Just looking at the whole of that Biko video linked in 192: you know, that was 1986. That's the year I graduated from college. NickS recently had a post wondering whether we were better or worse off now than in 1983. I feel a little worse off on the Biko front: we were fired up back then. Of course, college. I guess.
I'm serially commenting, but since I sought out My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, here. It does not involve Peter Gabriel, but in my mind, anyway, Byrne and Eno are related.
I've been watching all these videos, btw. They're pretty interesting; I had never heard any of these songs before.
Off the lawn, haters!
Have You Ever Loved a Woman is why we have civilization. Who can stand stone still through Further On Up the Road?
197: If I could stand to be up any longer, I'd pass along more of them, but I have to go to bed. Sure, though, there's a lot of good stuff along those lines.
Free Nelson Mandela by the Specials, aka The Special AKA. Not Gabriel or Byrne or Eno or Collins.
A good note to end the night with! It's what ever got me dancing to ska-like stuff.
126: by contrast, James Cromwell just mutters a quiet but sincere "that'll do, pig. That'll do."
I really don't get the Matt Damon thing, he's so normal looking? I want extreme handsomeness (there is definitely an argument for George Clooney being absolutely the most perfect in this category, even if he doesn't induce paroxysms of lust in me), or some sort of interestingness (e.g. amongst others (Christ, not understanding Frowner's comment about getting old and not finding people attractive anymore), I currently have a minor obsession with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes).
Not Sean Bean. The man has a Blades tattoo, and we're a Wednesday family.
Collins was drummer in Genesis, when Gabriel was frontman; when Gabriel left, Collins took over as frontman and they hired session drummers. That's all there is. I don't know if Genesis formally split up or just stopped doing stuff.
The odd thing about Clapton is that he's good friends with a lot of African American blues guys, not least Buddy of that ilk, who respect his playing. It's as if he quite likes black people as long as they don't live in Britain year round. What he says about not thinking Powell was a racist is BS, period. Powell thought he was a racist. He said so in one of his last public statements before he died.
A friend of mine was hitch hiking in the days when one did, and good picked up by an ordinary looking guy who, after a few miles, put a tape on and asked my mate what he thought of it. Turned out to be Phil Collins who was driving round the country picking up random hippies and playing them the unreleased tape of Genesis' first album with him singing, to gauge the reaction in the putative fan base.
A terrible warning to everyone tempted to hitch-hike.
As far as I remember, my mate was a bit underwhelmed but didn't want to seem rude to the guy who had given him a ride, so he looked thoughtful and said, "Hmm, sounds a bit like Genesis." Collins was ecstatic.
The odd thing about Clapton is that he's good friends with a lot of African American blues guys, not least Buddy of that ilk, who respect his playing
Professionalism can be weird that way.
re: 206
Racism can be odd that way, too. I don't doubt that Clapton generally likes and respects lots of African American musicians. It doesn't excuse his political views, though.
It's like the whole, 'some of my best friends are black' trope. It's a widely mocked cliché, but I know more than a few people who i) genuinely do have lots of black and Asian friends, ii) genuinely have gay friends, and yet, iii) espouse all kinds of bullshit right-wing political views when asked about which party/politician/policy they support.
I really don't get the Matt Damon thing, he's so normal looking?
That's the appeal -- normal, pleasant, cheerful looking guy, except prettier than anyone normal-looking you're likely to run into on the street. I think men call the same sort of thing a "girl next door" type?
207: I've met people like that, who go through some kind of thought process where they're genuinely comfortable around and close with black people, which leads them to "I don't have to be all politically correct. that's for guilty liberals who don't know anyone who isn't white. I can tell it like it is from personal experience." And then they get all racist and defend it as realism.
I love the Duane Allman solo at the end of Layla, that's the real touch of greatness in that song.
My limited experience with being the object of sexual attraction is most that you sit around wishing it would happen, and imagine the more intense the better. Then when it actually happens, you get scared and freak the hell out, and the more intense it is the more scared you are.
can identify with the sit around wishing part of this but totally not the rest of it -- being the object of intense focused lust is fantastic and I always found it very hard to resist. Perhaps because it's rare if you're a guy.
object of lust
Great if feelings are reciprocal. In theory imbalanced feelings could maybe work out, but IME if there's no balance, best to avoid.
Enoch Powell strikes me as a real-life example of King Bjorn the Goatfucker. Professor of Greek at 25! One of two men to rise from private to brigadier in WWII! Shadow defense minister! But you give one* horribly inflammatory racist speech appealing to the nativist instincts of white Britons...
* More than one.
205 - My late friend Brad (of the early blog Bradlands) worked for a theater in St. Louis. Brad was a friend of Rich/ard Ki/nd (of Spin City). Ki/nd, in turn, was a friend of George Clooney's from their starving actor days. So Clooney was in St. Louis for a wedding Ki/nd apparently said, "Hey, why don't you hang out with Brad?" Clooney skipped the rehearsal dinner because he thought his presence would be disruptive (this is in the ER days, so he was quite famous but not inescapably famous), and Brad mentioned that he was going out to a club; Clooney thought that sounded better than, whatever, hanging around Brad's house and watching TV, so Brad took him out to a gay club and they apparently had a pleasant time. At one point, Brad was getting drinks at the bar and someone asked him who the cute guy he was with was, "the one who looks like a fat George Clooney".
212: If you fucked a goat and gave one horribly inflammatory racist speech, I wonder which would stick.
I don't wonder enough to try either, but it's a big world. Somebody must have done both.
I currently have a minor obsession with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes
God help me, but in terms of look, I much prefer him as Sick Boy.
ALSO: "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is the fucking worst.
being the object of intense focused lust is fantastic and I always found it very hard to resist.
Perhaps you just don't have the capacity for neuroticism and self-sabotage that I do.
ALSO: "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is the fucking worst.
You just haven't heard it in the correct context.
223: That is undeniably *much* better.
(This is still the very best Peanuts remix, though!
ALSO: "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is the fucking worst.
But "Badge" is good! That's more of a George Harrison/Jack Bruce thing, though.
Ever since first hearing the Clapton rant (it was linked here by someone awhile ago), I assumed Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh" was based on that incident. But the internet offers no support to that theory.
I think men call the same sort of thing a "girl next door" type?
See also: shiksappeal, shikse goddess*. See also: Phillip Roth.
*Modify, as needed, to shegetz, though apparently this is not just straightforwardly the masc. of shikse but also the term for the guy who leads a pogrom. Whereas a shikse does not, to my knowledge, inherently lead a pogrom, or a pogromme if that is the feminine.
I thought "pogromme" was British English.
227: Shikse doesn't mean anything good either . . .
WHICH REMINDS ME, am I the only person who used to fall out of bed in the morning when poor K/o/r/va Coleman would identify herself?
But the "girl next door" thing can't so easily be related to the shiksa thing because girls next door are—I hear—stereotypically appealing also to their coreligionists, whereas—it was my impression—part of the appeal of a shiksa is precisely that she isn't one of your hebrethren but is rather a member of the bland majority.
Some of us, of course, have gone so far around the bend that the situation has reversed itself.
(In the past, oudemia often got so drunk that she would wake the next morning with no memory of having gone to bed with K/o/r/va Coleman.)
Because kurva? It's pronounced differently in Russian. Is there a Yiddish word?
pleasant, cheerful looking
This is probably where I'm going wrong.
Sick Boy, maybe. Then there's a long stretch of no, no, no, no, no up until quite recently. Found out the other day that C hasn't seen Trainspotting, so maybe we should watch that soon.
I had almost forgotten the word "shiksa" existed. Seinfeld made it seem like people used it all the time. No, just Seinfeld. (and novelists of the 60s and 70s)
I've never seen Trainspotting either. I'm not a big fan of dirty toilets or Ewan McGregor.
234: I referred to myself once as a shiksa to a friend in high school (which was probably more Jewish than anything else by numbers), and got an embarrassed lecture about how the connotations of that were nastier than I probably thought they were. Not sure how accurate that was, or if he was just unusually uptight.
If you're not a fan of Ewan McGregor, don't watch "The Island", it's rubbish, and he plays two characters. Unless you're a massive fan of Scarlett Johansson.
234: That's how I learned -- calling myself a shikse for some reason in a conversation with a friend of my mother's. "Oh, please *never* call yourself that!" Come to think of it, she also taught me the word kurva/kurveh/korva: "That's a very nasty word, so don't use it."
Looks like the answer to 229 is "Yes."
When Baby O was brandest new, I spent a lot of time watching Netflix on Demand. Trainspotting seemed like a good idea: "Oh, I haven't seen this in forever!" DO NOT WATCH TRAINSPOTTING WITH YOUR BRAND NEW BABY. Eep.
Also, I love Ewan McGregor -- he's adorable. Especially early EM when he'd swan about in eyeliner and a kilt. Nom.
237: Apparently Ms. Johanson offered to go topless in "The Island" but the director said no thanks. Another reason to boycott the movie.
I saw that movie. It wasn't very good.
kurva/kurveh/korva
Is this, etymologically, "cow"? (As in 'korova'? All my knowledge of Slavic languages comes from A Clockwork Orange.)
241: She also wanted to play the lead in "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", but the director determined that her breasticles and whatnot would overshadow the plot.
ALSO: "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is the fucking worst.
You just haven't heard it in the correct context.
That is awesome.
I think "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is pretty bad, taken by itself. But in the context of Disaeli Gears I don't mind it -- that album works for me (though I think Ginger Baker is the real star of Cream, not Clapton).
Also, just to confuse everybody, Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon (starting at 5:20) covering each others songs.
(though I think Ginger Baker is the real star of Cream, not Clapton)
My vote is for Jack Bruce.
I have previously voted for Jack Bruce, I think.
Peter Gabriel covering a song that has "Peter Gabriel" in the lyrics.
I've always thought George Clooney was awfully good looking. He has that butch-without-being-too-overbearing sort of affect. And Matt Damon is pretty handsome. Certainly more than Ben Affleck.
I do wonder sometimes if I am missing out on whatever tells there are that other people, of various genders and orientations, use to code attractiveness in men. I mean, I can distinguish between attractive to me and not. And I can figure out who is going to be generally more attractive to most people, but I'm not ever really sure why.
The other thing I don't get is where they find all those guys for the gay pron movies who have WAY TOO MANY MUSCLES in their faces. What's up with that? I mean, I feel like I've seen an adequate number of gay men walking around, and they almost never have the WAY TOO MANY MUSCLES in their faces thing. It's kinda creepy. Like, do their faces just go all flaccid when they're not aroused? That would be a neat trick, but also creepy.
Is this, etymologically, "cow"? (As in 'korova'? All my knowledge of Slavic languages comes from A Clockwork Orange.)
I don't think so, but I'm having trouble articulating the reasons on account of it's been 10+ years since I really thought about Slavic phonology. I think ur-->oro is not a change that happens.
The proto-Slavic root appears just to mean whore.
Also I think shikse has been defanged and is not all that derogatory. I used to joke with a very Irish colleague and call her "my favorite shikse" and, as if in demonstration, she would repeat "shikse" as "shiske" because the ks cluster was too rootlessly cosmopolitan.
Might be a really really really low body-fat effect? If the pron guys are dieted way way down to make their muscles look cut, that can do weird things to your face.
250: I've never actually heard shiksa used in a context that sounded unpleasant -- I think you might be right that it's dead from disuse as an unpleasant thing to say. Might still be in the "avoid it around your people your grandparents' age" category, though.
I also apparently can't spell the word. Is shiksa an ordinary variant, or am I just flat wrong?
I've always used "shiksa". That spelling is well attested on the web.
Oh anyway the point about Matt Damon and shiksappeal was just I guess that...well ok, it was pointed out to me, I think by Bave, that you always hear Jews blaming their least favorite characteristics on their Jewish heritage. And so there's something very appealing to a hairy little yid (see?) about the opposite, the All American.
Matt Damon looks like he hasn't many doubts. Matt Damon probably enjoyed high school, even gym class. Matt Damon looks like he smells of Tide and spearmint gum.
I enjoyed high school (except gym class, which we didn't have). I didn't realize it was because I was gentile.
kurva is used in Czech and I think Russian about like putaine in French-- that is, both as an exclamation, where in English you'd say fuck, as an intensifier (though I think in French and Czech this is pretty crude , only heard blue collar people say it to each other), and I guess still as a noun. The word for cow is distinct, a different root I'm pretty sure.
Though in Czech at least, the word for streetwalker I think would be used to describe the women by the side of the highway. In English also, would anyone actually say whore descriptively? Hooker I guess.
No, I'm just being silly and waxing bad-poetic about Matt Damon because I am having a lousy work week and want to distract myself.
"Waxing Matt Damon" is probably a job description for somebody.
But that's a definite thing about the Matt Damon appeal -- he looks happy.
255: When nose jobs first became a thing, they were mostly had by Irish folks trying to get rid of that classic Irish pug -- perfectly exemplified by Matt Damon. (According to S/a/n/d/e/r G/i/l/man. Not the Matt Damon part.) In the 80s that nose was a popular *result* of plastic surgery.
face muscles
??? SFW images please.
There's this, which happens to my face too, I'm a little younger and heavier, but not fat. My kid is conditioning me not to stop, as I flex my jaw before raising my voice, so he tries to make peace immediately upon seeing this expression. If I was an actor faking emotion, I could see where it would be useful. Or do you mean something else?
whoops, "not to stop" in 264 should read "to stop".
The other thing I don't get is where they find all those guys for the gay pron movies who have WAY TOO MANY MUSCLES in their faces. What's up with that? I mean, I feel like I've seen an adequate number of gay men walking around, and they almost never have the WAY TOO MANY MUSCLES in their faces thing. It's kinda creepy. Like, do their faces just go all flaccid when they're not aroused? That would be a neat trick, but also creepy.
There are a lot of Tleilaxu Face Dancers working in gay porn these days.
264: I'm at W. now myself, so I'll have to look around later. Imagine Dan Savage's face with like 30% less fat and no wrinkles. And sweaty.
There was an episode of House of Lies that portrayed Matt Damon as a drug-addled egomaniac, which I figure means either he has a good self-deprecating sense of humor or he's actually a psychopath. Probably the former.
267: Hurm. Could it be a "need to have an expression but have used a lot of Botox" thing?
ALSO: "Tales of Brave Ulysses" is the fucking worst.
No, "White Room" is the fucking worst, because it's ToBU re-recorded, which added being fucking lazy to the list of complaints.
Bruce and Baker are a fabulous musical team, and if they could stand to be in the same room for more than an hour they'd have driven everything before them.
269. Ms Lesseps and Frankel suggest no.
I think it's just that guys eat chewy food more often than women.
It took me a minute to get 272.1, but only a minute. Frown!
This seems like the right thread for this: NBA Playoffs fashion. I enjoy some of the absurd looks (some are just absurd, however).
252: I've never actually heard shiksa used in a context that sounded unpleasant
I've never actually heard shiksa used in any context. Is it a more urban thing maybe?
Not in real life, that is. I've heard it in movies and television.
Well, you'd need to be talking to Jews for it to come up. I suppose that could be thought of as an urban thing. Like basketball.
The other thing I don't get is where they find all those guys for the gay pron movies who have WAY TOO MANY MUSCLES in their faces
Having lost a lot of weight while adding to musculature in the last year, all sorts of structure has moved into mine that wasn't there before (or I don't remember it being there when it was last maintained, in the late 1990s).
the other thing that might be going on is getting deliberately dehydrated to look cut (like fighters unwisely do to make the weight and then get brain damaged). blokemodels apparently do it.
Different cities have different thresholds for "Yiddish word absorbed into English used by non-Jews." I was delighted when a Puerto-Rican receptionist at my first job in Far Rockaway told me she was farmisht. Shiksa, I guess, would not be heard very much outside of a conversation with Jews talking to Jews anywhere but maybe NYC. I feel like now going and asking a gentile cow-orker if they know the word.
I was talking to this basketball once and boy it would not shut up about shiksa this and shiksa that. So we had a swordfight.
Oh I forgot. I work for the public defender in New York City. I don't have any gentile cow-orkers.
Some of us blend in fairly inconspicuously. Stealth gentiles.
Do gentile cows need to be orked differently than the Jewish ones?
It never occurred to me Stern's requirement that players wear suits would have lead to the kind of dress-up that it has. What a fascinating unintended consequence.
My cow-worker who I think is most likely to be Jewish is really dumping a bunch of work on me today in a really last-minute-passive-aggressive-I'm-out-of-the-office way.
Since it seems rude to ask, I have a list based on my person impressions. It runs from this cow-orker to the, at the very bottom, the guy from China.
I might be the most Jewish person at heebie U, and I certainly dumped a lot of work on two cow-orkers this past month.
This is the most not-Jewish place I've worked since leaving Nebraska. This seems odd since my neighborhood is the most Jewish place I've lived.
Well, you'd need to be talking to Jews for it to come up.
You would?
I suppose to or implicitly about Jews. The whole concept of shiksa requires something for contrast.
277, 279: No doubt you'd need to be talking to Jews, even party to Jews talking to Jews, but really I've never heard anyone use the term even in those cases.
I think what I don't hear a lot is people saying they're "a [fill in blank]" of any sort. Trying to think of examples: okay, people do say things like "I'm a teacher/bookdealer/artist/photographer."
I fear I'm sounding argumentative here, and I don't mean to be at all. I just don't normally hear people referring to themselves or others based on ethnicity or religion or race unless the question has specifically come up.
I have an ongoing discomfort with my work partner, who periodically describes someone he knows at an auction or whatever as Jewish: "A Jewish guy. Bidding pretty aggressively on things I don't think he actually wanted, just to drive the price up." My stock response now is just: "Is his being Jewish relevant?"
But I'm meandering.
Are you observant or just meandering by upbringing?
I have a kind of blindness in this regard, though, as I've explained before. I just don't register Jewishness or not.
It runs from this cow-orker to the, at the very bottom, the guy from China.
There's a joke sort of about that.
If you're working with people, ethnicity tends to be relevant at least sometimes. Working out holiday schedules. Talking about why you need to leave work early some particular day. Social conversations about your personal lives. It's the sort of thing that does come up.
Yes, but this guy isn't very good at telling jokes. At least not in English.
Here it is reported by a colleague that some of her students weren't sure whether "Jewish" was the right adjective ("Jew--ic?").
I'm in a meeting with very well-meaning people (all of whom are not Jewish, I'm nearly certain). It is a very painful meeting, not for the usual reason -- the discussion of horrible things -- but because it's terribly boring. But! Someone just said something so leeringly sexist that I woke right up. I don't think anyone else noticed, though, so there's almost certainly no point in asking the pig* to clarify his remarks.
* One wonders if when he has sex he makes Matt Damon noises.
I've definitely heard "shiksa" used playfully in casual conversation, and I didn't know its connotation was considered harsher in some circles.
This remind of of the time I hung out with a bunch of my-age Argentines and got comfortable enough using the word "boludo" the way they used it (like "dude") that I later used the word with an elderly Argentine gentleman. I was mortified when he pulled me aside and kindly let me know, hey no big deal but that word is really, really not okay in polite company.
Oh, sweet Jesus, the single biggest grifter (as you might imagine, this quite a distinction) on the faculty has just entered the room. This person is genuinely awesome in her ability do nothing at all and yet absorb ever more resources. I want to subscribe to her newsletter.
299 is amazing. It reminds me of a student who emailed me to ask about some political issue, and delicately used the word "liberal" and then parenthetically said that he hoped I wasn't offended by that word.
But! Someone just said something so leeringly sexist that I woke right up.
And you're not going to share the comment with us?!
304: speaking of the diversity (or lack thereof) of a particular unit of the university, he said, "I think they mean they're all women. And that's the kind of diversity I can get behind." He did not add "VAVAVOOM!" or "AMIRIGHT?" but both were implied. Fortunately, everyone but me is asleep, and I'm commenting on a blog, so.
Sheesh. He should rearrange the alphabet to put him and laydeez next to each other.
And now the grifter is working her long con. This is excellent stuff. I'm taking detailed notes.
297: Right. That's when it specifically comes up, and it does. Although it would still surprise me to hear someone talk about a shiksa in social conversation about his/her personal life. Maybe I just don't get out enough with the right people.
Maybe I just don't get out enough with the right people.
Or you don't shop at the right market.
I mean, it would be like someone talking about a "cracker" (that would be a white cracker, not a crack addict). Or, frankly, someone talking about spending time with a Muslim. Is the person's being Muslim relevant to the story? Perhaps it is, having to do with something related to Islam.
I haven't yet figured out why I fuss about this. I can add that it bothers me that most people assume that I'm Christian, to the point that they assume I believe in god. Another point of discomfort with my work partner is that he goes to church these days every Sunday, and raised his children to go to church. At some point years ago I mentioned that I doubted I'd bring any children I might have (had I had them) to church. We had a brief and uncomfortable exchange about belief in god; it was pretty clear that we were operating across a wide gulf.
Meanwhile, I'm somewhat fascinated by this 17-year cicada emergence prospect, so there you go. I do not remember the last time, but I gather we're all going to be quite aware of it now.
311, 312: oh, so you're fine with cicadas re-emerging on schedule after spending a long time underground, but not with Our Lord doing the same thing?
The lord thing is relatively easy to avoid compared to the cicadas, who end up crunching underfoot if you're not looking.
