Why I Oughtta

When the weather turned violent and stormy on Tuesday evening, Lori Mehmen, who lives in the small farming town of Orchard in northeastern Iowa, looked out her front door and saw a funnel cloud bearing down — and evidently had the presence of mind to grab her digital camera and capture this shot before taking cover. The local paper, The Mitchell County Press-News, posted the photo on Wednesday and The Associated Press picked it up today.

The Press-News report says no one was injured by this tornado, which was one of scores reported in Iowa and across the Midwest this week, where storms and heavy rains have also produced widespread flooding.

Ms. Mehmen told the paper that her funnel cloud came close to the ground only briefly, then retreated back up into the clouds. Still, the high winds from the storm knocked down trees, damaged crops, and left behind one indelible image.

I got this subscription to this awful gay magazine called Genre a while ago.  It was supposed to last for a trial three months, but has lasted for more than a year at this point.

It is awful. A supremely awful thing this magazine is. The cover is always an anonymous model (we are never introduced to him because it really does not matter — why pretend that it does?) who is wearing as little as possible yet barely enough to avoid being labeled pornography.

It’s wholly depressing, but that is not the point.

The point is that this evening I was drinking with my roommate, doing Mad Libs with words culled from various magazines.  We tried to pull them from her editions of Foreign Policy and The Economist to no avail (I was hoping they would end up really dry and funny — they ended up up very clunky), but it turns out that when you get your words from Genre it yields instant Mad Libs success!!!!!

Here is the Mad Lib we created with the Genre words bolded:

A TOUR OF HOLLYWOOD

Good morning, ladies and packages, boys and adult movies.

My name is Sean Cody. I am your personal Mountain Dew guide. For the next six hours, we will delight in exploring romantic, strong-looking Hollywood, the glamour audience of the world.

Let’s start off with a bang and visit Mann’s erotic Chinese Theater, Hollywood’s most tanned tourist attraction. Etched in cement, you’ll see the foot genitals and the leg prints of the most famous male prison guards ever to adorn the home gym screen. Then it’s only a hop, skip and a flaunt to Beverly Hills, the playground of the rich and sumptuous. You will feast your arms on the million-dollar ass circuses of movie stars. You’ll actually get to visit the home of today’s hottest rump – Calvin Klein — who will sign autographs for the low, low sum of $19.95.

And here’s the big one! For lunch, we’ll be going to the studio commissary, where you can rub pecs with today’s leading actors and actresses.

All aboard!

If there was one album in recent memory that I thought would be un-coverable, it would be Joanna Newsom’s Ys.  If not just because of the unique nature of Newsom’s vision, but because the songs are so damned long.

Perhaps that’s why this guy Christopher Perdue decided to cover “Emily.”  At the very least, it’s interesting to see Newsom’s song interpreted in a rock format. Via Stereogum, here’s a link to the mp3.

This is both funny and depressing.

In this clip, people from ages one to 100 bang on a drum.

I’ll be signing autographs after the show.

Via Stereogum and by four four.