Turkey, or How To Convince Everyone You’re A Bad Person By Coercively Trying To Initiate A Threesome Nobody's Into

This week, we are pleased to introduce to you Ariane, our guest blogger. Here she is, pictured with shrimp in a jar:

This year I decided not to go to Los Angeles for Thanksgiving because as of 10 months ago I come from a broken home, so I was in Oakland facing a family-free holiday when my friend invited me to a dinner in San Francisco. 

“The host is supposed to be a good cook,” she said.

“Sold,” I said, and when the day rolled around we cooked up some cranberry sauce and made our way to the Mission. When we walked into the host’s house I introduced myself to everyone and promptly forgot all their names (the next day I would learn a long-haired man was Gordon). At first it’s just my friend and I and five or so men; the host, I realize, is the bearded one, and behind his ample facial hair are two little eyes with the sparkle of entitlement. In a way it makes me happy as a valuable reminder that just because you talk about turkey brines and look like you play banjo in a folk ensemble doesn’t mean you’re a sensitive, lovely guy. For quite some time there is nothing specific he does that makes me dislike him beyond the fact that he’s ignoring my friend just like he’s been ignoring her since their date a month ago. The night goes on. We all get drunker. Some other women show up. We dance. We talk. Midnight comes and goes. He has stopped ignoring my friend and they not-so-subtly excuse themselves to make out somewhere. They come back. The trains have stopped running. I am tired and drunk and I’m waiting for this girl named Jenny to want to go home because she has told us we can sleep on her couch. My friend calls me over and asks if it’s okay if she spends the night at Brine-Beard’s house. “Sure,” I say. I go into the hallway and I’m writing a text message in which I describe Brine-Beard as AWFUL, all caps. I hear him come into the hallway and say, “Oh, there you are.”

“Here I am,” I say. I keep writing.

He comes over and grabs me by the hair and I duck his kiss and maneuver to the other side of the hall.

“No no no no no,” I say.

He says, “I know you love her. I love her, too.  I know you want to be with her — all it’s gonna take is for you to stay here tonight.”

I say, “Well I think you’re a piece of shit, so I’m not gonna do that.”

He says we've had a misunderstanding. He tells me I must have wanted it because it’s pretty late and I’m still at his house. I tell him it's actually because the train stops running at midnight.

“Oh, well I thought you were free to leave at any time.”

“Nope, I have nowhere to go, so I’m gonna go back into your living room, but you can go fuck yourself.”

I go into the living room, I tell my friend this asshole just tried to initiate a threesome and we need to leave, and I sit on the couch to wait for her. He sits next to me and says, “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Nope, it’s fucked up to wait until everyone is drunk to try to talk a stranger into having a threesome with you. I think you’re a dick.”

So this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for feminism because it is slowly eliminating fuckheads like Brine-Beard.

-  Ariane

Flavor of the Biweek V

Time - Blonds : Gazing at the Sky while Lying on your Back

This song, by Brooklyn-based electropop duo Blonds, is fucking resonant. It's dramatic. And who doesn't like a bit of indulgent drama? There's nothing better than music validating and deepening (or creating) your emotional state of being, and "Time" will satisfy your desire to feel like your life has a soundtrack. In "Time," Blonds gives us a sonorous, non-cheesy love song. The sultry, smooth-yet-raspy voice of lead vocalist Cari Rae adds a heavy, desperate feel to the otherwise luscious "Time." Sure, it's a love song, but love isn't happy. Things get desperate, astounding, consuming, surreal, and "Time" captures the other-worldliness of it all. So go lie down on a rooftop, a patch of grass, or elsewhere, pop your earbuds in and gaze into the abyss of sky while you listen to "Time." Your life will be very meaningful for three minutes and twenty seconds. 

-  Beast

Flavor of the Biweek IV

"A Summer Daydream Part I" by The Airplanes: Run Through Town with a Pretty Girl

Here at The Beast and Dragon we have trouble adapting to the changing of the seasons. When it is nice and sunny out, we cannot wait to bring out the coats, and now a song with the word 'summer' in the title is on repeat. So come join us as we try to defeat SAD and listen to this rumbling of optimistic sounds even if you are not obsessing over some stupid chick.

Find the nearest pretty girl, put some lipstick on her face, and drag her toward the horizon line where you can run freely. I did this by myself earlier today because I have kick-ass self-esteem, and it was pure happy ending magic. I got off the bus, earbuds making me deafer a song at a time, and as the intro started to fill me with a  vital need to be complete, one feet in front of the other my step accelerated. "Run," God commanded, but eventually the mud got to me. I definitely scared off some ominous crows, though. Success!

This is the only song I have by this band at the moment so I cannot recommend any more for your cardiovascular activities, but perhaps that is best in order to avoid an exercise-induced asthma attack. No, but seriously, go download the self-titled EP right now and I will too. Go go go, keep running! Just be sure to "avoid the cracks in the sidewalk."

- Dragon

Why You Should Never Again Take a Cinema Studies Class Until You Die and Go to Hell

pretentious: demanding a position of merit, especially when unjustified

Remember that word because it is exactly what you are going to get if you sit through another goddamned cinema studies class. You are twenty years old, you have taken film classes before, and yet it is so uncomfortable to try and get used to it. In high school we were all pretentious because that was the new thing. You heard Mr. Walch mention the name Bergman and you were not even sure which one he was referring to but your ears sprang up erect—as did other areas—because you loved Autumn Sonata. You take your time to think about it all and learn to express yourself through la Nouvelle Vague. In the midst of the anxiety right before college, you lock yourself in your room in a hazy daze to watch action clicks. You even grow your hair in all different shades of shaggy because there simply is no time for grooming when you have to get through all of Nic Cage’s filmography.

And then there is college.

I have seen two movies named The Freshman, and they are both terrifying. One of them was even directed by a third Bergman. But no one cares about Harold Lloyd in your college classes. They seem more interested in flaunting what other black and white films they know of, which is funny because I had no idea school was made so that people would show up to list all the critically acclaimed movies they have seen. I do this for free when I try to hit on intellectuals, so why am I sitting through hours of this nonsense, clenching my jaw as the weed wears off?

Some time ago we concluded our first unit in my History of Motion Pictures class. We said goodbye to Chaplin and Keaton and nodded as the professor introduced us to German Expressionism. Then a classmate raised his hand: “Are we going to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Because that film…”

…something something about how much he knows about Wiene's distortion galore. Ugh. I stopped listening at some point. I knew this guy before; I used to have lunch with him in tenth grade, but do not remind him because then I would have to say hi to him, and I simply do not have time for that. And though that adds another layer to the story, the pretentiousness of his statement is neither aggravated nor lessened by the fact that I always found him to be annoying.

The professor is pretty cool, so if I can pretend to read people well, I can be certain he is on my side. “If we get around to Nosferatu and Metropolis, sure,” he answered. Of course, he was polite about it, so it did not sound the way it does in my head as I type it. Still, fuck you, anonymous student whose name rhymes with bazookas. Who do you think you are wasting our time just throwing up titles? Are we on a metaphorical journey through Wikipedia or something?

My biggest problem with his statement, like everything he says in the class, is that he is doing it all wrong. This marks the difference between pretentiousness and genuine zeal: pretense is characterized by priding yourself in having fine tastes when there is nothing obscure about these masterpieces that are readily available for the common public to consume. I mean, come on now, who has never heard of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? It is like taking a History of Music class and asking if you are going to listen to The Beatles. Although no, that would be Citizen Kane. I guess an artist such as, oh I don't know, Billie Holiday is more like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari of music. Everyone has heard of Billie Holiday. Maybe you cannot recognize it and when asked if you like it you are all like: “I love him.” But you know that someone who is really into music has listened to Billie Holiday. Thus you do not take a History of Music class and ask if you are going to listen to Billie Holiday. You go listen to that by thee, thyself, and thou.

Some of us are naturally skilled at having opinions about things, especially things we know nothing about. My best conversations are those when I have no idea what is being discussed. But what is being awesome at pretending good for if I am not getting anything in return? Does bazooka think he is earning our respect? Because there are better methods to accomplish that, such as establishing your intelligence when it is needed. Do not be a little bitch about it. Wait for the right time. I found mine when the professor asked who was the 19th century French science fiction author that Méliès loosely adapted for the screen. Uh, are you guys stupid?

That is the right time to come in. And you raise your hand and say in a sensual voice: “Jules Verne.” Then everyone is like whoa. But you cannot raise your hand after watching A Trip to the Moon and ask: “Are you going to tell us that Méliès was inspired by Jules Verne? Because I love Jules Verne.”

Do not get me wrong. There are heavy emotions attached to cinema. Who has not flipped through a book on film and felt full of love because you were tweaked out smoking cigarettes indoors while your eyes twinkled with tears? Goddammit, you love movies! You do! And when you are in class sometimes a clip of that movie you just fucking love starts playing, and you do not care that everyone everywhere has seen Fight Club, it is still as good as it ever was, so you sigh loudly. The girl next to you looks at you and she sort of laughs because she loves Fight Club too. And everyone is quoting in their head. Some even do it out loud, fuck it. We are all going home to listen to Pixies, anyway. I guess you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake after all.

I have another film class with the same professor the following day: Understanding Motion Pictures. There is this other guy there whose name does not rhyme with anything who is always making comments that at first might sound similar to bazookas', but eventually you realize that no-rhyme has strong opinions about things that matter to him, like Facebook, for instance, which he went on a paranoid rant about while I was trying to read some Philip K. Dick during a break. So when no-rhyme gets antsy during a lecture on screenwriting and blurts out something about William Goldman, no-rhyme will say how he feels about William Goldman’s work, not that he adapted Misery. Although maybe no-rhyme does agree that Kathy Bates is totally nuts. I should ask him. I should befriend him.

I guess what I mean to say by all this is that it is okay to like German Expressionism just as long as you do not think knowing what that is makes you the fairest of them all. Be modest. Use every opportunity you can to show off how bitchin' brilliant you are, not how pestering you can get, ya feel me?

Or whatever, bro, these are your decisions to make. Please, I would love to hear shit off an IMDb trivia page. I also hope you love it when I conspicuously roll my eyes at you and then pop a cap in your eye à la Chinatown. Enjoy movies now, kitty cat.

- Dragon

Flavor of the Biweek III

Heartbeat - Kopecky Family Band : Go to the Park

Sometimes, a fun thing to do is be self-indulgently miserable. In autumn, a world in the process of dying makes depression both easy and satisfying. However, there comes a time when that whole "this beautiful grey atmosphere reflects my beautiful grey soul" thing gets fucking annoying, and you need to stop brooding, already. It doesn't make you deep. Enter  the Kopecky Family Band. Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, the Kopecky Family Band recently released their first full-length album, "Kids Raising Kids," and you should go listen to it, because who doesn't have love for Nashville? I know I do--southern accents get me every time. Not to mention the very reason I clicked on this video in the first place, which is the word "Kopecky." Kopecky! It's fun to say and hear. My inability to resist bobbing my shoulders up and down to the baseline of "Heartbeat" informed me that it is this week's antidote for autumn's inherent seriousness--because when bobbing is involved, things can't be taken too seriously. So go to the park, find some flowers that have made it this far without shriveling up, take off your shoes, feel that grass between your little toes, listen to this happy song and remember that pessimism doesn't equal profoundness.

-   Beast

Flavor of the Biweek II

“Future Starts Slow” by The Kills: Driving Past the Heartbreaker’s House

It was all an accident. Suddenly, while listening to this dark grey vagueness of mature longing that is The Kills’ latest album and driving around an area that I shall not mention should that attract unwanted attention, I realized I felt nostalgic. I like that feeling, though, and sometimes I do creepy things like this on purpose—you know Dragon has a crush on you if it looks like raccoons partied in your underwear drawer.

But I was not wearing my driving gloves the other night since I did not have a mission planned where impeccable scramming skills were necessary. I was simply doing ordinary errands and then there it was in my throat again…that gumball of someone else’s acrid tobacco breath expanding in gratefulness for a much needed heartbreak. Remember how you insisted so much you let yourself be drained of hope? Yet it keeps overflowing because that is what love is all about, man: “You can swing, you can flail, you can blow what's left of my right mind. I don't mind.”

VV and Hotel entrust us with a vigorously vulnerable song that provides a soundtrack to the way your face reacts as you drive past the heartbreaker’s house. Shoot intense glances at your mirrors and take in the partially reflected hot mess that you have become, so detached from the perkiness you always forgot to downplay in this fucking place when you were still invited inside. Sunglasses and cigarettes are essential in this conclusion to your current emotional state: “There's a time for the second best, and there's a time when the feeling's gone. But it's hard to be hard, I guess, when you're shaking like a dog,” and then you remember how insecure that person made you feel and you are kind of glad you are no longer dealing with their indecisiveness because now you can find this sort of comfort to your passions. Is there anything better than feeling sickly poetic?

If you could not find an answer to that question, then let The Kills be part of your sick poetry.

-       “Fried My Little Brains,” for when you have consumed large quantities of hard drugs and you don’t give a fuck about being caught loitering

-       “Love Is a Deserter,” yeah, I’d say

-       “Hook and Line,” since you liked them more than they liked you but you kept pretending like you could somehow change that

And if you are unfortunate enough to be a heartbreaker and cannot seem to find any of this useful to your daily routine, remember the golden rule of heartbreaking: you only learn to do it if it is done to you first. So start digging up those old wounds and fill up the gas tank because we are on an obsessive excursion to all those places where you wish you had not been not good enough.

-       Dragon