Month: June 2005 (Page 5 of 5)

Looking for Love

June 4, 2005 / Neil Kramer / 1 Comment

Over 15,000 men responded to this sexy personal ad in an Atlanta newspaper:

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-xxxx and ask for Daisy. I’ll be waiting…

They found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society about an 8 week old black labrador retriever.

I spent this morning reading some new blogs and I noticed that many people were "passing a musical baton" to each other, asking for five songs that "meant a lot to them." Maybe I’m just bitter because no one asked me, but I have an observation —

Why do the five chosen songs always seem to be obscure alt-rock songs most people have never heard of before? Are these the songs that really mean the most to you or are you being as snobbish in your taste as any stuffy classical music fan that doesn’t listen to anything written after 1800?

OK, I understand that Dispatch or Modest Mouse inspired you in college, but surely you remember the pop song that was playing at the beach when you had your first kiss? Some corny "slow dance" song from the prom? Do I dare bring up his name — a Michael Jackson song?

I hate to admit this, but I even have a special place for the "Macarena."

Tony Awards

June 3, 2005 / Neil Kramer / 0 Comments

(Spamalot, this season’s
most popular musical)

When I was a kid growing up in Flushing, my grandfather, who lived a few blocks away, retired and set out to accomplish his dream of seeing every single musical that opened up on Broadway. One little catch, he was very frugal. He was also a bit of a goniff. He came up with a plan where he would wait outside the theater until intermission, then sneak inside when no one was looking at the tickets anymore.

The next day, he would come over and tell me all about the show. Of course, he had only seen the second act. So, I’m very knowledgeable about Broadway musicals from the last thirty-odd years — but only the second half.

That said, Sunday night is the Tony awards. As Lawren writes:

You have no idea how pumped I get for the Tony Awards. Seriously folks, watch them. If you aren’t that interested in theater or musicals, watch anyway–you get the absolute best of every show–without having to sit through them. It’s a star-studded affair–you won’t be disappointed.

Keeping up with my family tradition, I will then be able to talk about one song of each musical.

Russian Porn: First We Shovel Snow

June 2, 2005 / Neil Kramer / 3 Comments

Every once in a while, I accidentally find myself on a website where there are photos of women undressing.Â Normally, I would quickly click away, but sometimes I stay for the articles, oops, I meant – for sociological reasons.Â You can learn a lot about other cultures.

For instance, here in America, women frequently fantasize about the sexy “pool boy” or gardener, such as the character played by Jesse Metcalf in Desperate Housewives.

In the upper regions of Siberia, men must be fantasizing about the sexy female snow shoveler.

(“Can I shovel your driveway?”)

(“It’s freezing in here…Â you mean
there’s no heat?)

(“No problem.Â I’m already hot from all
that snow shoveling”)

(“The smell of this fake leather chair
makes me hungry for Mama’s borscht.”

(“But first let meÂ change intoÂ a pair of
snowpants and shovel some more
snow.”)

The Secret to a Happy Marriage

June 2, 2005 / Neil Kramer / 0 Comments

Are you an intelligent, realistic person with clear insights and excellent memory?Â

Too bad.Â

The secret to a happy marriage is being delusional.

We tend to remember slights and frustrations more than favors and kindnesses.Â So inevitably in a marriage the weight of negative remembrances of thing past comes to exceed that of the positive.Â Divorce is the result.

The secret to a good marriage, therefore is selective forgetfulness.Â Coincidentally some psychologists have recently come to the same conclusion.Â The couples who stay together are the delusional ones – the ones who look at their past with rose-colored glasses.

Psychologists believe that what they are observing in couples who endorse these and similar sentiments are strongly selective memories that ignore inevitable negative events over the course of marital history. Maybe a distorted view of your marriage that emphasises the positive and forgets the negative is crucial to accounting for who stays and who flees when it comes to relationship endurance.

So, the boyfriend who constantly forgets things like your birthdayÂ might just be perfect husband material!