Month: May 2012

Wine Me, Dine Me…But Really, Start with Wine

Shawn McCall6 Comments
Originally written and posted for this awesome site right here.  Buy some tiny shiny hiney shorts.  These girls know about booty.  
When contemplating what to serve gentleman callers, you can offer many refreshing choices – bougie mixed drinks, plebeian beers, or the ever-popular yet completely monotonous water.  What that guy sitting on the couch waiting to fondle you really wants, besides your boobies, is a beverage that is the Essence of You:  A trashy act in a classy package.  Let me present:  WINE.  In all its forms.  Here are just a few out of a veritable plethora of choices, but the wines listed below I can personally guarantee are winners all around, and any and all will land that aspiring doctor/actor/television thief directly in your, ahem, bedchamber.
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First, how the guide works:
PRICE:
$ – Probably bought it off a bum
$$ – Common grocery store prices
$$$ – I am a rich whore and want to impress people
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:
 – it will take 2 Solo Cups to achieve your dream of speaking more slowly
 – it will take 3 Solo Cups to contemplate listening to Creed or 3 Doors Down
 – it will take 4 Solo Cups to make out with literally anyone in the room

HANGOVER INTENSITY:
 – Coffee will totally cure this
 – Pretty sure these bites are from a human
 – I think I was hit by a car last night

So without further adieu, here is your list.  Carry it with you on all shopping trips.  Or just commit it to memory.  You don’t need any other kinds of wine but these.  To try more is simply foolish, unless someone else is footing the bill.
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BRAND:  TARGET CUBE
FLAVORS:  CAB/SHIRAZ BLEND, WHITE SANGRIA
PRICE: $$
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:  
HANGOVER INTENSITY:  

Allow me to propose the notion that there are few things more enjoyable than a delicious 7-11 Slurpee cup full of Target Cube wine.  If you have not yet dropped a Jackson for this little box of heaven, go immediately to your nearest bulls-eye logo and get you some.  Not only is it super-convenient, your man will know you mean business when you buy the box that’s the size of half a cinder block, yet HOLDS 4 BOTTLES OF WINE.  Also, this wine has won awards, y’all.  Get with the damn program.  Buy some sandals and pocket-tees while you’re there, and you’re good to go.
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BRAND:  FALLING STAR 
FLAVOR:  MALBEC 
PRICE:$
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:  
HANGOVER INTENSITY:  

From the moment you twist the cap off of this decadent crimson bottle of glory, you are hit with an aroma that is surprisingly tangy yet slightly reminiscent of a night during your junior year of college, a night on which you had a blast until someone threw up behind your couch.
Then you remember you have purchased this at the dollar store for $5 (little misnomer there, non?) and now, you will serve it.  Because you do not actually care how this date goes, you are ready to get schwasted.  Tip o’ the cap to Wreckliz & Dangerous for coining that little term.  I added the “c” for intellectual purposes.
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BRAND:  FIRESTEED
FLAVOR:  PINOT NOIR
PRICE:  $$
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:  
HANGOVER INTENSITY:  

Well well well, what’s this?  By name alone, I think I need you in my stable, Firesteed.  Clearly you promise hours of pleasure, or headache.  Whichever.  At about $9.99, this prevalent bottle can be found while grocery shopping, or on your hasty run to QuikTrip to buy prophylactics.  FIRESTEED delivers – it’s not too pungent, not too subversive – it’s just the right amount of both.  You’ll have him eating sugar cubes out of your hand in no time.  You will also wake up to an amalgam of throbbing noises in your head if you insist on drinking the entire bottle by yourself.  You might wish you were actually kicked in the cranium by said Fiery Steed, because that is absolutely how harsh the climb off really is.  Own it.  Try not to pee in a closet.  Just sayin.
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BRAND:  BOTA BOX 
FLAVOR:  CLEAR
PRICE:  $$
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:  
HANGOVER INTENSITY:  

If nothing else, I can certify that if you’re looking for a wine that will make you say “I loooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvve you”  without any prompting whatsoever, STOP LOOKING BECAUSE YOU’VE FOUND IT.  If you are willing to serve and/or drink it out of a coffee mug, this is the method preferred for superior enjoyment.  This tastes great with ice cubes, 7-Up, and really any other non-alcoholic beverage you have in your possession.  You will not regret drinking this in mass quantities.  You will eat everything put in front of you to get rid of the hangover that will ensue.  Wait until your man-friend leaves the vicinity for the inhaling of homemade nachos made with stale tortillas and cheese made out of nuts.  That’s what I said.  Remember your mom bought it for you at the fancy organic store?  Exactly.  Put some broccoli on top.  Wash it all down with some Raspberry Zingers.  Fucking yum.  Go vomit immediately.
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BRAND:  CARLO ROSSI
FLAVOR:  PAISANO (Literally, “Peasant” but could also mean “Gullible Asshole”)
PRICE:  $
INEBRIATION CALCULATION:  
HANGOVER INTENSITY:  ZERO – IT WILL NOT BE IN YOUR BODY THAT LONG

It was YOU that night in college.  YOU threw up behind your own couch.  YOU DRANK A GALLON OF THIS.  Don’t ever do that again.  Stop at half a gallon.
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As mentioned previously, you cannot go wrong with these choices, as they are all stellar and will no doubt get you laid.  EVEN THE LAST ONE.
In our next installment, we’ll discuss mixing vodka with 4 Loko.  Don’t worry,  I do not advocate that you offer this concoction until date #2.

Life Lessons: Alien Edition

Shawn McCallLeave a comment

Yeah, White Russians cause one to make lists. Here’s what I learned while on my second one while watching Alien for the 40th time.

5. Anyone called a “science officer” is most likely out to fuck you over.

4. Calling a computer “Mother” is creepy x 10000.

3. When 2 females are on a refinery space plant together, one is dumb and must die.

2. If you don’t follow quarantine procedures, shit will end up eating through your hull and killing your crew.

And

1. I love cats, but fuck a bunch of Jonesy.

The end.

Let’s Review Some Stupid Products

Shawn McCall4 Comments

I might not be McSweeney’s, but I can damn well talk about things that we all buy that are dumb, dumb, dumb.  You know you have bought something, you get it home and either start reading the package or start using it and think “OMGWTFBBQ.”  Clearly there are many industries in trouble, and cannot hire writers of even my mediocre caliber to write descriptions for their shitbag items, or make sense of what truly is a product’s intention.  Let’s start in the bathroom, how every morning is started.

NIVEA FOR MEN PLATINUM PROTECT DEODORIZING BODY WASH

This bottle is confusing.  It appears as if it should be on a spaceship.  It’s silver color denotes seriousness, though, so while I am peeking out of half-awake eyes into which I have unwillingly shoved contacts, I see that the bottle is…ridged?  Ribbed?  Down each side.  My guess is, this is in case you are barely awake like I am currently, and decide to drop your space-soap onto the floor of your immaculately stainless showering pod surface.  However, if you think the bottle is confusing, just fucking wait, because your mind is about to be blown up like Hiroshima:  THIS SHIT HAS SMART DEO TECHNOLOGY.  While I am sad it does not have “SMART DIO TECHNOLOGY” because there is nothing more I want than to wash my limbs to “Rainbow in the Dark” while reading Nietzsche, I must find out what this technology is all about.  Well, my friends, it says that is what it uses to “remove odor-causing substances.”  Funny, I thought that’s what SOAP DOES.  I didn’t know it required technology.  Just, you know, the ingredients you have listed here.  Putting those ingredients together isn’t technology, dudes.  It’s MAKING SOAP.  Ok, if the DEO technology was not enough to drop your drawers over, it also comes equipped with HYDRA IQ.  To which I say:

BODDDYYYYYYWAAAAAAAASHHH RAAAAAAAAWWWWRRRRRR

Also, it says it is for showering, shampooing, AND deodorizing.  Really.  Oh that’s right.  I forget that guys cannot possibly need more than one magical bottle to take care of their every hygiene need, but I thought it was called JAMESON, not body wash.  My rating of this product:  Fucking 3.  Technology for soap is a damn insult.

TONE “MY GIRLIE STUFF IS NOT EEEEEEEVEN AS EXPENSIVE AS YOUR SPACEWASH” FRUIT PEEL BODY WASH

This doesn’t promise much.  It smells citrus-y and at the very least, makes me have a sense of cleanliness about myself.  It is definitely not made out of either fruit or peel.  I doubt its claims of “alpha-hydroxy fruit acids” but I don’t care.  It was $3.99.  The bottle is yellow.  It makes me happier than my usual Dawn Troll self.   My rating of this clearly superior product:  8, because it’s totally humble about its properties.

SMELLS PRETTY! No technology needed.

Tomorrow, we’ll move on to the kitchen.  I bet you can’t wait.

Swinging the Heartache: You’ll Dance to Anything

Shawn McCall7 Comments

So my husband is a giant fan of  Your Mom’s House, an awesome podcast by two comedians who are married to each other.  He started texting me like a crazy person the other day and couldn’t wait for me to listen to  Christina Pazsitzky’s Ode to Goth.  I did, and I was touched by my dude’s ability to realize that other people sharing their SuperSadGothLove would make me incredibly happy.  She was very cute about how embarrassed she was to admit that she grew up with a skull bought at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland to signify her teenage idolatry of heroin-soaked lyrical gods, especially The Great Peter Murphy of Bauhaus.  Her brief analysis of their rise to glory and the musical offspring of Tones on Tail was, in a word, comforting.  Even though she was embarrassed, I felt a direct kinship due to the fact that she confesses that she still loves to blast what my husband labels “sad bastard music” in her car.

We were not called “goth” in the 80’s, though.  I think my school called us “wavers.”  Not as catchy, and it sounds kind of dumb.  I might have been a few years late to the depressing-as-shit party, but when I got there I was kind of sucked in for life.  I had misspent my youth on Prince and The Go-Go’s, which, while totally defensible, was just too poppy and not how I felt DEEP DOWN INSIDE.  In the depths of my soul’s inner sanctum lay a treasure trove of tragedy (BAM!  Alliteration all over your fucking face).  It was manifested in ethereal bands like Cocteau Twins (thank you Eric Wright from the 5th period debate war room.  Without your boombox and that very first Cocteau Twins tape, there might not be me) and later, The Cranes, Curve, My Bloody Valentine…as well as the guttural wastelands of Siouxsie Sioux and her many Banshees, the wailing heartbreak of The Smiths, the screaming anger-balanced-by-sweetness of Pixies.  Naturally, the Titans of Goth pervaded my very existence –  Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure.  All of it courses through my blood like a warm, syrupy contagion of misery.  I LOVE EVERY BLESSED NOTE.

I’ll even forgive Siouxsie for Superstition, that’s how much I love her.  Yes, “Kiss Them for Me” was awesome but a single does not an album make.  I will never forget hearing Peter Murphy’s solo stuff for the first time, seeing Morrissey while my head was used as a trampoline for other concert-goers, and I’ll never be able to count up the numbers of times I have played Disintegration the song the album FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ALL OF IT over and over and over until I felt like Robert Smith was breathing inside my eustachian tubes.  I could ruminate for hours on so many songs and albums that I felt the same woozy dreamy way about that you would be bored.   SO bored, in fact, that you’d be forced to join our ranks of depression due to my droning.  We might be getting close to that right now.

If you didn’t grow up with this music, I understand.  It’s not everyone who’s drawn to this dark shit.  Some people wanna just kick out the jamz, and trust, in our little world, we have songs that do that for us – “Dark Entries” by Bauhaus, “Spellbound” by Siouxsie and the Banshees…etc etc etc.  While none of this really substitutes the mood you feel when you listen to, say, Cake or LL Cool J, it’s still SO INTENSE OMFG YOU MIGHT DIE.

So here’s a song to go out on, one of my absolute favorites.  Dig deep, little Wavers.  Stoney loves you, but Jesus Christ ease up on the pretentiousness.  Most of us are 40+ now.  There’s STILL nothing to be happy about except the fact that wearing black is now a necessity.  Go forth in sadness.  Long live 4AD.