Lindsayism.com

Blogging Around, Marc Maron's New Podcast, And David Cross's Sudden Sunny Outlook

Programming note: Today and tomorrow I'm guest blogging at Daily Intel. 

Tip to add value to boring programming note: I've been greatly enjoying Marc Maron's new WTF podcast, available every few days for free on iTunes. There are a total of seven so far, and they're all fantastic, but number six was amazing because David Cross called in, and aside from the other many interesting things about the conversation, holy shit, David Cross sounds SO HAPPY! It's unbelievable and wonderful and if you're a DC fan, you definitely need to listen to it. [Thanks to Punchline Magazine for plugging WTF so hard in the past few weeks I had to succumb and listen even though I thought I already had too many podcasts.]

Gone Guest Bloggin' On Jezebel

I'll be writing most of this week (every day but Tuesday) for one of my favorite sites, Jezebel.com. I'll be covering TV and online video, just like old times. Send me tips!

Kid Nation: Drunk on Root Beer

My weekly Kid Nation write-up is on NY Mag's Vulture: 'Kid Nation': Root Beer Can't Get You Drunk

Best Kid Nation Yet!

Last night's Kid Nation won me over into true fanship of the show. In my Vulture write-up today, I wrote profiles/superlatives of the standout kids:

Kid Nation: Who Should Drink the Bleach?

Edited out: my "real life job" choices for each kid, which were:

Jared: Journalist/pundit
Taylor: President Bush
Greg: Functional Alcoholic Plumber
Mallory: Stay-at-home Mom
Blaine: Turtle
Colton: Failed Football Player

Kid Nation: Color Days

I'm writing about Kid Nation for NY Mag's The Vulture: Kid Nation: 1 Down, 39 to Go

Totally related: This American Life's classic show about summer camp culture. Particularly applicable, the last segment, "Color Days". Also, it's been bothering me for like 10 years so I'm just going to say it: that kid they interviewed in the beginning DID NOT invent saying "woo" during the birthday song. We did that at my camp in 1989. I'm just saying. That kid is lying.

Also, Gabe liveblogged Kid Nation for Huffpo. I never read liveblogs, but this one is good. This show really lends itself to that format.

Also (slight spoiler alert) I have a witness who will, if called to the stand, testify that when the kids were offered a choice of rewards, I said "Another outhouse or a TV!" (It turned out to be another 7 outhouses or a TV.)

Thank God for 'Synergy'

'Thank God You Masturbate.'

I had to go easy, but I would have loved to have assigned celebrities to titles. (Jennifer Lopez: Thank God I Can't Conceive Children)

lickity splits

* Jeff Barnosky on McSwy's: The Andover Grade Reports of George W. Bush:

"I simply cannot pass a student who insists on believing, and attempting to prove, this syllogism:

George is Awesome.
All Awesome people are George.
Therefore, George is Awesome (in bed)."

* Jonathan Swift is, like, frantically searching for a pen and paper in his grave right now.

* I did a little post about Andy Dick's freakout on my friend Mandy Stadtmiller on the Jane Music+Celebs blog.

* Get a free Fandango movie ticket, just by pretending to drink Scotch.

"It was like that scene in E.T., or that scene in Donnie Darko that was an homage to that scene in E.T."

(Triptych of the East River Impromptu Bonfire in Williamsburg, August 14, 2003, by Sarah Balcomb. Click to enlarge.)

So, the totally not surprising rumor is there could be another blackout tonight. I know, there probably won't be, but the blackout of '03 was one of the best nights of my life (and probably yours, too.)

So now I'm all nostalgic and achey and wistful and full of longing all of a sudden, so I've dug up some Blackout-related stuff from the old version of this website. (You know, before I was seduced and corrupted by the glamorous-yet-ultimately-empty blogging scene.)

After the blackout, I asked some of my friends for their own blackout stories and photos, which can be found here (and are still awesome.)

I also wrote up my own blackout story for Knot Magazine three days later. Reading it for the first time in three years, I wince at how bad it is (A "subtle" 9/11 reference in the first sentence? Oh, Lindsay of '03, I just wanna muss your already-messy hair.)

But there it is, in all its sentimental, style-less glory, and it represents a much more idealistic time in my life that I would kill to get back, so there.

But don't click, here's the gist:

* Sarah Balcomb and I rode our bikes around darkened Williamsburg with backpacks full of cheap cabernet that we shared with everyone we encountered.

* At one point I stripped and did a Lady-Godiva-on-a-bike-but-with-short-hair thing for like thirty terrifying seconds in the middle of McCarren Park. (Future games of "I Never" would benefit.)

*A guy stole Sarah's bike from its kickstand-spot five feet away from us, and was not deterred by Sarah's thrown shoe or my expletives.

*Before we left the bonfire, we waded into the East River to properly send off our melodramatic message-in-a-bottle: "It is the night of the Blackout, and we are drunk..."

* Then we wandered from Williamsburg bar to Williamsburg bar with an ever-growing group of people whose faces we never properly saw, until we stumbled home at dawn.

In short: best.night.ever.

(I'm allowed to navel-gaze four times per year, okay? It's in the rules.)

"Looks like a job for Mary Lynn. Make the call."

("This mission would be so much easier if Viagra had never been invented.")

From Roll Call, via emails:

"Rumors were swirling around Capitol Hill and beyond Tuesday that Rush Limbaugh is dating actress Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays Chloe O'Brian on the Fox series '24.'

"If you saw the papers over the weekend, including The Washington Post, there were photos of Limbaugh planting a big kiss right on Rajskub's lips during a dog-and-pony event at the Heritage Foundation."

Shhhhhhhhhh, it's okay! I choose to believe that Mary Lynn is a secret operative, tapped to use her superpowers as professional heartbreaker to destroy Rush's will to live. What Oxycontin couldn't do, Mary Lynn can.

Related: I Just Threw Up In My Soul a Little Bit

Originally On Jane Magazine's Blog: LaPorte, Indiana

Current Obsession: LaPorte, Indiana

 

After a post here a few weeks ago here about the new Found Magazine book, Found co-creator Jason Bitner sent me a copy of his new book, LaPorte, Indiana. I was excited, since I've been obsessed with found photos since college, when I found a box of family photos from the 1890s-1970s at a thrift store in Ybor City, Florida. Since then, I've collected about 200 (including a pendant that I wear on a necklace of a little boy from the 70's I call "Chip.") Hopefully I'll get to share some of them here during my guest blogging tenure.

 

Anyway, the story behind LaPorte, Indiana is this: a few years ago, Jason Bitner discovered a treasure trove of over 18,000 portrait proofs leftover from a portrait studio that served the citizens of LaPorte in the 50's and 60's. He went through them and chose his favorites and made them into a book.

 

When I first got the book last week I was rushing to the subway. As I walked I flipped through it and was surprised to see that aside from the foreward and Jason's brief background story in the front of the book, the rest was just the photos. It just seemed so...simple.

 

But I got on the crowded train at rush hour and found a seat and started from the beginning. Within about a minute, I was frantically searching my bag for a tissue for the tears streaming down my face. I felt exactly the way I did the first time I opened my first box of found photos - there's something extraordinary about the cumulative effect of all these faces of real people whose lives are (probably) over. The Smiths song "Cemetary Gates" started going through my head: "All those people, all those lives, where are they now? With loves, and hates and passions just like mine, they were born and then they lived and then they died."

 

I don't want to over-describe it because I think each person will take something different away from this book, but it's an experience - looking at these people's faces you see the inherent dignity of every person who has ever lived or ever will live on earth. (How's that for some heavy praise?)

 

You can see some of the photos here , but I highly recommend sitting down with the book and getting the full experience. Book report ending in 3...2...1: just don't try to read it on the subway!

Originally On Jane Magazine's Blog: Discovery Health

(This was originally on the Jane Magazine blog on this date)

Current Obsession: Discovery Health Channel

 

Because nobody has yet created an actual Train Wreck Channel, the Discovery Health Channel is the next best thing. High on the dial, Discovery Health is the resting place for the Discovery Channel's most sensationally freaky shows: one-hour documentaries about rare and unfortunate diseases that befall humanity. Some actual show titles:

 

Born Without a Face

Living With Half a Body

160 lb Tumor

Super Obese

 

I can never get any of my friends to watch these shows with me, even though I make a great argument: "The Super Obese want us to watch them - we'll learn compassion!" The truth is, while I did start watching these shows out of sick fascination, they're done in such a sympathetic way that I cry every time. (Okay, maybe not with the 800 lb bedridden guy. That guy just needs to stop eating 30,000 calories per day.)  I came up with some ideas for future show titles:

 

Made out of Fluff

Duck-billed Platypus Kid

Celebrities With Tails

My Nasal Hemmorhoids

That Guy Whose Name is "Harry Dick."

Waffle Iron Genital Syndrome

The Unicorn Baby

Stuck to My Sister

 

(Don't worry, as far as I know, nasal hemmorhoids don't actually exist.)