See a John Mulaney set for just $8? How is this possible, you ask? All is revealed here.
Why do women initiate divorce more than men?
Originally written for the Telegraph UK:
Whose fault is divorce? The cold statistical answer is: women.
Before the hate-mail barrage begins, let’s clarify that rather bald statement (and yes, I was partly just trying to get your attention). It’s undeniable that women request the great majority of divorces in the UK. The Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) most recent number crunch reveals that in 2011, the woman was the party granted (therefore initiating) the divorce in 66% of cases that year. It used to be an even higher share: 69% in 2001, and a whopping 72% at the start of the 1990s.
So what are the factors driving that female choice to divorce? The popular misconception is that it’s all down to adulterous men and their wandering penises. But you’d be wrong. Those same ONS stats break down the reasons for divorce, since there are only five legal justifications for ending marriage under UK law: adultery, unreasonable behavior, desertion, or separation (either with or without the consent of the spouse). Men and women are practically equal offenders in the infidelity stakes. In fact, slightly more men claim to have been cuckolded in court (15% of male-initiated divorces) than women (14%).
I’m not pretending for a moment that men are blameless. Those same ONS stats tell us that over half of female-granted divorces are down to their other half’s unreasonable behavior, which can be anything from unchecked boozing, physical abuse, wanton gambling, or that garden-variety mental cruelty you probably saw traces of at your last dinner party. Thank God women are ending those relationships.
On the other hand, it’s possible that women are more likely to initiate divorce than men because in the divorce court, especially where children are involved, the odds are in the female’s favour. Married men who get divorced are generally afraid of losing their kids, with good reason: over 80% of children of separated parents live exclusively or mainly with their mother. Men, often the higher earners, fear the crippling costs of a split. Women raising children and without much income can use taxpayer funds (through Legal Aid – for example) to fight a divorce, only paying the Crown back if they get a sufficiently large settlement. Not to sound crude, but this is like going to the Divorce Casino and playing with the house’s cash.
The UK’s divorce courts are so notorious for their supposed “wife-friendly” atmosphere that many men believe they would get a fairer hearing if their divorce proceedings were carried out elsewhere in the EU. . British courts can award ex-wives maintenance for life, while some European jurisdictions frequently limit post-marital support to only a handful of years. The potential lifetime supply of maintenance payments may make the stress and misery of divorce a high-reward gamble for British wives at the end of their tether.
Of course, only an idiot would say that divorce is all peaches and cream for women. The challenges facing ex-wives are daunting: single parenthood, re-entering the job market, recovering from the potential trauma of an abusive partner… the list is long, before you even get to financial matters. As one Cambridge University study observed, women see their per capita income drop by an average of 31% immediately following divorce (even if much of that income has been earned by her ex).
The aftermath of divorce is no picnic for men either. Yet it’s women who are more likely to take that drastic and frightening step into the unknown.
Here's another thought. Women often criticise men for their fear of commitment. Perhaps we are anxious to commit because it is more likely that our partners will eventually be the ones bailing out of this “lifelong” partnership, not us.
But then, in other respects, men often have themselves to blame. Perhaps the fact that women initiate more divorces has nothing to do with maintenance payments or custody of the children. Perhaps it’s simply a higher-stakes version of the typical male attitude to relationships. Many men will have thought to themselves, at least once in life: “I won’t break up with her, I’ll just be a complete tool until she ends it”. The divorce stats are perhaps just a reflection of the fact that men are cowards. Women are more likely to have the balls to call time on a failing relationship; men are more likely to simply wait to be told that it’s over.
No fapping, please, it's making us ill
Over 70,000 men have signed up to an online forum vowing to give up online porn and masturbation. Tom Cowell reports for the Telegraph on a very modern support group.
Forgive our impertinence, but… er… do you masturbate too much?
It seems a ridiculous thought. Titillation and porn are everywhere in our hyper-sexed culture. People appear to be at it constantly, so the question is absurd, like asking if you breathe too much or blink to excess. But a growing online community is turning away from masturbation, reporting incredible results from their self-denial: better sexual performance, greater confidence, and more mojo almost everywhere in their lives.
This movement’s spiritual home is the social sharing site Reddit, where enlightened anti-onanists gather on a page called NoFap (“fapping” = internet slang for masturbation, and no one quite knows why). Over 70,000 subscribers have signed up for the page, where users can take The NoFap Challenge, foreswearing masturbation for 90 days or longer. It’s not a judgmental place, but supportive and almost off-puttingly compassionate: a kind of “Wankers Anonymous”.
So why are men doing it, and what happens when they do?
“Why” can be answered two ways: some see a medical problem in chronic masturbation, others a spiritual one.
The medical anti-masturbators’ high priest is Gary Wilson. Formerly of Southern Oregon University, Wilson runs YourBrainOnPorn.com and delivered a 2012 TEDx talk called The Great Porn Experiment - viewed over 1.3 million times on YouTube. He doesn’t say masturbation is bad per se, but that porn consumption and excess fapping can fuse into “arousal addiction”, because our caveman brains are drowned into madness by the 21st century filth-hose called the Internet.
Wilson argues the mammal brain responds to sexual novelty. Biologists call this The Coolidge Effect, ensuring we capitalize on all genetic opportunities to reproduce. But your poor brain can’t tell the difference between physical and digital crumpet. You ogle more naked women in ten minutes online than Genghis Khan did in a lifetime of pillage, but your brain doesn’t know that Internet porn isn’t “real”. Watching a video, your brain thinks it just hit the Darwinian jackpot. It releases dopamine, the “seeking” hormone essential to the brain’s reward/reinforcement system. Wilson says that to porn-addled brains, the dopamine says “binge… do this, and if possible, ONLY this, until you can’t do it any more”.
It’s the same impulse that makes you eat despite already feeling full, a way of ensuring you “get while the getting is good”. Your brain doesn’t know where your next meal or woman is coming from: it wants you to eat/ejaculate while you can. But dopamine numbs other pleasure responses, eroding your willpower and making you hyper-reactive to the stimulus that triggered it (i.e. video smut). Over time, heavy porn users can find themselves unable to sustain relationships, or even erections when there are other people “present”.
Other NoFappers don’t medicalise their masturbation problem, they spiritualise it. Mark Queppet runs the Sacred Spirituality Project, which invites men to forgo masturbation as part of a higher expression of sexuality. He harks back to a pre-broadband past when “men needed to be strong, successful, and good people in order to attract a desirable mate. However, pornography and masturbation allow men to forgo all of that stuff and skip right to hyper-stimulating physical pleasure. The world is full of potential discomfort and anxieties, and Queppet suggests masturbation is yet another means of instant gratification that stunts our spiritual growth. As he puts it, “the world needs more strong and passionate men… but sadly, they are still stuck in their room masturbating to their smart phone.”
So what happens when you go cold turkey? According to the Reddit group, it’s pretty much the greatest thing ever. Reddit user “Rantham” (760 days nofapping and counting) reports: “I'm full of energy, I'm focused, my mind is clear, women aren't objects to me, ALL of my relationships have improved, generally I'm just a better more caring person when I don't have this cloud over me.” Another user “NeverFappin” feels “like a complete bad-ass in many ways, I speak slower and with a deeper tone in my voice… I think pretty much every woman I see now is attracted to me so I guess that's pretty high confidence for you.” It’s no stroll in the park, though. Some NoFappers report a high incidence of depression, loneliness, and in the most extreme of cases, suicidal thoughts.
The lesson there seems to be, if you’re going to try this, however awkward the idea, don’t do it alone. Talk to your doctor, join up with an Internet community like Reddit, or team up with friends or co-workers for a group NoFap challenge. Now that would be an interesting staff meeting, wouldn’t it?
Who is better: New York men, or London men?
I answered this pressing question for The Daily Telegraph in the UK. I am a very serious journalist.
London men versus New York men: who's better?
Despite their similarities, London chaps and New York guys are markedly different species. So who's best, asks (Londoner turned New Yorker) Tom Cowell
Different species: Mad Men's Lane Pryce and Don Draper
The New York male and the London male: two species of dude so similar, in many respects they seem to have been separated at birth. Both stomp triumphantly around financial and media capitals. Both feel they live at the centre of the known universe. And both spend far too much time on their hair.
But there are marked differences between these tribes, from confidence and sense of humour, to mating rituals and dress sense.
So who's best? Gotham guys or Big Smoke boys? There's only one way to find out: wholly unscientific means of anecdotes from people who have lived in both cities.
1. Masculinity
Alexander T., a British-born doctor living in Harlem, thinks that "maleness" is a much more consciously performed thing in Manhattan than in London. “Your clothes, what you order in a restaurant, your ability to deliver a sincere patter about your goals and passions – these are things that will help get you laid in New York. Sometimes the London approach of just relying on being funny and self-deprecating will fail to impress.” But only sometimes, Alexander stresses. “For every woman who judges you harshly for your lack of a five-year plan, there will be others driven so mad with trauma by douchebag New York males that a few hours of you listening and being a nice guy will make you seem like the catch of the century.”
2. Confidence
“There’s definitely more of a sense ‘don’t ask, never get’ in the U.S., so New Yorkers are a bit more what Brits would call ‘chancers’, for lack of a better term,” says Johanna D., a dual-citizen film producer who lived in New York for three years but now resides in London. “There’s the sense that a men can ask you out at the drop of a hat in New York. I was once in a discount shoe warehouse and the guy working the till asked for my phone number. Um, thanks, but no. That wouldn’t happen in London.”
3. Relationships
Johanna’s American academic partner Daniel H. is stunned by the speed of coupling in London. “There’s less understood by default by both parties in America, which means mating conversations and periods go on longer. There’s more shared understanding of the mating/courting ritual in London, which is basically ‘meet, drink, shag’”. Johanna adds: “A London date very quickly goes from awkward diffidence to incredibly wasted and “you’re f--king gorgeous, mate”. People are more willing to ask questions and find out what you’re like in New York, which for a Brit feels incredibly fake. A British girl’s default response to that is “why aren’t you either ignoring me, or slobbering all over my face?”
4. Appearances
Julia B. is a fundraiser in London, who lived in New York for seven years. “London men dress better in general, and look a million miles better in suits. For some reason, New Yorkers are obsessed with boxy, ill-fitting suit jackets, Wall Street types being the worst offenders. New York men are probably more buff, and more image-conscious in general. There was once a big divide in pube-trimming [New York yes, London no], but London has closed that gap.” New Yorkers seem much more reluctant to grow up, she thinks. “New York men try and retain their youth for longer. There are more 45 year olds with skateboards in Williamsburg, Brooklyn than there are in Hackney. London men will want to settle down sooner than New Yorkers. As a woman, there’s more danger of being single in New York since men want to stay 20 in their minds forever, so women don’t want to commit either because they see all these immature dudes around. In London, men understand women’s biological clocks a little better.”
5. Humour
The stock New Yorker has an abrasive reputation, but graphic designer Michael L. says the two years he spent in London upended that stereotype for him. “London guys wear a grim, unpleasant face a lot of the time. People in New York were a lot more willing to be friendly. And that’s what English people will describe as fake. They think the New York niceness is not genuine.” This unpleasant edge extended over into male bonding rituals, too. “London men are a lot more willing to get sarcastic and throw mean jabs quicker than Americans will. With my close American friends, I’ll make fun of them all day long. But it takes time to get there. Brits go for the jugular right away. All that 'taking the p---' culture takes a lot of adjusting to”.
So there you have it. Are you a London man seeking fun and flings? You should definitely spend a few weeks in New York. Your superior wardrobe, mature demeanour and refreshing self-deprecation will land in fertile, man-boy traumatised soil in the City That Never Sleeps. But London women? Avoid the siren song of the New York male. No matter how grumpy your London beau is, he’s a better overall package than the flash-harry New Yorker locked in the throes of arrested development. Yes, that suave Manhattanite just romantically asked you out in the middle of the street. But, a) he asks out every woman with a pulse, and, b) he probably works at a discount shoe store.
What’s your take on the differences between New York and London men? Who would you rather be stuck in a lift, on a road trip, or hitting the bars with? Let us know in the comments.
Tom Cowell is a writer and comedian. He was raised in London and lives in New York. Follow him on Twitter @mrtomcowell
Blondie's Debbie Harry Has Some Advice for Miley Cyrus
Here's my interview with Blondie's Debbie Harry, which first ran in The Village Voice:
Debbie Harry is about pulling off the impossible. Her vocal performances shouldn't work: how can you sound distant and intimate at the same time? You can't, and definitely not in a pop song. Yet Harry does. Her stage persona--the untouchable glamor girl who still shows every ounce of her vulnerability--should be a train wreck (file under "Love, Courtney"). Instead, the front woman's presence has helped propel a four-decade career for Blondie. Pop music owes this band a lot. The new wave pioneers spent a decade in the 70s and 80s experimenting with an eclectic mix of musical styles like disco, hip-hop, and reggae, inviting the predictable wrath of punk's self-appointed bore brigade. But it's hardly an exaggeration that Blondie opened up more lanes for more artists than any New York band since The Velvets. And they're not stopping. Friday sees the band complete an 18-city tour with fellow path-breakers X, at the Roseland Ballroom, and then it's back to the studio to complete their 10th album, tentatively titled Ghosts of Download and due out next year. We sat down with Harry to talk about sexual personas, World Beat, and what "selling out" really means.
You still live in New York City, and it's very different from the mid-70s. Does its current incarnation fill you with hope or despair? I don't know if I'd use either of those words. The city always changes very quickly and I've been here long enough to see a lot of shifts. It's inevitable. Gentrification, a population explosion, and changes in communication have made a major difference in the life of the city. And that's part of what Ghosts of a Download is about. It's about the spirit of something being in the medium. How spirits now live in the digital realm, and how that has altered our lives. Are you saying that the real spirit of NYC is vibrating inside the music and art that comes out of the city? That the city is not about what it looks like, but about the digital echo of stuff we make? Yes, I think so. The city is a reflection of the music and other art made here. That's what the city is.
People romanticize the decrepit New York of the 1970s. How do you feel when people do that? I don't always think about the past. I'm always motivated towards the future and creating new things. I miss a lot of the people who are no longer with us from the '70s, and it would be wonderful to hear or see what they're doing now. I'll tell you this: one of the things that hit me after 9/11 was phases of mourning--you go from sadness to anger, and all the rest... but one of those phases was me thinking "God, I wish it was the '70s again". It was because of a great feeling of freedom and love and innocence in that decade. It wasn't easy or romantic on a day-to-day basis: it was a struggle. It was scary. Sometimes it was ugly and nasty. But it was a whirlwind full of life: not a single atonal picture, but a wild world of experience. Chaos is a great factor in making art happen. And we had a fundamental chaos going on with the state of the city. With our music, Blondie were trying to do something that harkened of the past--a trace of the pop of the '60s--while still reflecting our subculture and harnessing some new technology. We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
Blondie constantly grew the musical map for the mainstream. Punk, disco, hip-hop, reggae... you guys always expanded the territory that pop music was exploring. What's next? The beats in our current record are more like World Beats. The references are bigger. And we've done a lot more collaboration with other artists. Chris [Stein, Harry's former partner, Blondie co-founder and bandmate] did a lot of work with Systema Solar from Colombia. And we have a song that's not truly indicative of Maori culture, but a very sweet one--by a New Zealand band called Dukes. This album is a dance record, but doesn't really fit into the dance music trends of the moment.
The tentative new album title--"Ghosts of the Download"--sounds ominous. It'll be interesting for a moment. But the record will have a digital lifespan. It's predictable that it will soon be obsolete, and become even more ghost-like. Maybe that's just a bunch of metaphysical claptrap, but things move very quickly now.
Things live forever because they're digitized, but it's our attention that gives them life. And people are always making new things, making old things obsolete. That's a powerful idea. I'm sure I'm not the one to originate it.
The band released a record in 2003 called The Curse of Blondie. Was your stage and cultural persona--the magnetic blonde--a curse? [Laughs] I don't walk around calling myself Blondie--I think of Blondie as the group. But I know that in the public's mind I am Blondie. I don't feel cursed about looking the way that I look. It's been good for business. And on a personal level it 's very nice to be loved, appreciated, fawned over, all of those things. I'm a lucky girl.
From very early on, you became a sexual avatar in pop music: something that men and women could project all kinds of things onto. Do you have any advice for the pop stars of today--the Miley Cyruses of this world--bout how to handle that? It's a different world for them. You have to develop your own sense of personal radar, your comfort zone, your strengths. The most important thing is to be willing to challenge. The public has to feel challenged by you. And that's a difficult position to take. It's an essential part of being a pop star. You have to risk some sort of emotional exposure and embarrassment and realize how important it is to put all of yourself on the line.
Do people pander more than challenge these days? People are very career-minded now. Rock and Roll has taken on a real show business mentality. When I was coming up it was more counter-culture. It's better to be an underdog like that because it gives you more liberty.
What's your proudest moment in music so far? Gee. I don't know. Maybe a few very small moments in performance or writing, when you surprise yourself. "Wow, that was me?" It was great to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it's the little, intimate moments of self-realization that stick with you.
Biggest disappointment? I'm not very dissatisfied right now, so that's a hard question to answer. I guess right now, the big disappointment is that we haven't gotten a big radio hit since "Maria" [in 1999]. That's one of the great things about Blondie. We've been able to have a credibility and an undertone and an edge that broke some rules, and yet still have a commercial life. And that's not an easy thing to do.
Commercial success vs. credibility. How do you ride that line? People love the phrase "selling out". What does that phrase even mean to you? I've never particularly liked it. It's about people's bitterness. In a way, it's about possessing things. When the music you like becomes more popular, you feel like you don't own it any more. You become off-balance. I don't think that I have to be in any kind of format. There was a time when blending different styles of music was completely verboten. Which is where some of that "selling out" attack comes from. We were highly criticized for "Heart of Glass" because it was considered to be too much of a disco song. But in today's market that doesn't mean a thing, thank god.
Meet Opera's Anna Nicole Smith
Here's my interview with soprano superstar Sarah Joy Miller, which first ran in the Village Voice:
What does a train-wreck sound like sung soprano? Sarah Joy Miller will show you. She stars in the opera Anna Nicole which opens at BAM on September 17 after a hugely successful run in London. Miller is giving musical voice to the waitress/stripper turned pin-up girl, whose rise and fall now look like an appetizer for today's reality-TV obsessed culture, feasting on fame, wealth and death. We sat down with her for a discussion about gold-diggers, trolls, and why singing in a fat suit is so fun.
You've been in Anna Nicole Smith's skin for months. How are you guys getting along? Do you like the person you're playing? I've grown to love her. When someone says not-so-nice things about her now, I actually get a little offended. I love her honesty and her transparent desire for love and adoration, and I think that she represents what we all have as far as wanting to be loved and accepted. But she was very open about it and there was something magical about that.
She's a tabloid caricature. How do you humanize Anna Nicole Smith? We start from so early in her life. I play her from a young age, before all the drugs and implants and all of that and it's a very innocent point of view. Of course we get into all the stuff we're all more familiar with, but she had a tough childhood in Texas. She dropped out of school at 15 and was pregnant by 19. She was trying to care for her son and had a crazy family situation with no real support system. So when you look at it that way it's sort of extraordinary what she accomplished.
Some people think Anna is the archetypal gold digger. Is that unfair? Interesting question. Looking at her relationship with [elderly billionaire] J. Howard Marshall, I think that she had no understanding of boundaries or what a really healthy relationship looked like. It would be naïve and stupid to say it wasn't about the money, but I think it was also about wanting a family, love and acceptance. Marshall was almost like a father, and it's sort of demented to look at a married couple that way, but that was part of it. And because she had no example of what that sort of relationship should be like, it filled something for her. She said things like that at the time, and I really think she believed a lot of that.
It might have been the only time in her life she ever felt safe. I definitely agree with that.
Opera is maybe our highest status form of expression. This work is about two of its lowest status forms: tabloid sensationalism and pornography. What can we learn about Anna, and humans in general, through opera that we can't learn any other way? This piece is so unique: it has jazz elements, musical theater elements... I've never seen anything like it. Plus, if you look closely at any of the well-loved operas --take Violetta in La traviata, Manon... there are similarities, it's just that the stories are so much older, we don't find them as scandalous now. I don't think that it's really all that different. I think there's a lot to be learned from the way this opera was written. It's more than just a sad retelling of a woman's demise. It questions fame in our country and how we tear its recipients down in an operatic cycle. It doesn't blame anyone for that, but it creates a conversation.
See also: Patti Smith Counts Down Her Top Five Operas
There may be purists who question whether the New York City opera should be performing work like "Anna" at all. What would you say to them? I love traditional opera. My heart is always in that. I could sing Violetta 72 times and still want to sing it again. But it's important that we have new works because that's how an art moves forward. I can understand: there's a lot of salty language and crazy situations in this opera. But that's what was so incredible: This all happened. And more... we're not even depicting everything that occurred. But there are always people who aren't going to like what you're doing. What great opera didn't premiere to at least one person saying it was awful?
Anna Nicole Smith fought the trolls all her life. Are there trolls in the opera world? I haven't had anything like that, thankfully. But maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
Will this opera enter the classical repertoire? In a hundred years, will audiences still watch La Boheme, Tosca... and Anna? [Laughs.] Oh gosh. Hard to imagine. But this is an important piece for the time we're living in.
Anna had an Amazonian body type. You do not. You're more runway model than ruebenesque. Oh, thank you!
How do you bulk up for the role? Well, I depict her from such a young age. And what a lot of people don't realize is that she was very tiny-chested as a young girl, before she had work done. So it works in terms of seeing the extremes of transformation because I start out as young and girlish, and then I wear these extraordinary prosthetic breasts, and then, in the last act, I wear a fat suit to simulate her weight gain. Beyond that I've been eating like crazy, but the thing is, working this hard, it's so hard to keep the weight on.
Our hearts bleed for you. How did it feel to be big girl for once, and how does that inform your physical and musical choices? It's a window into her psyche. Her drug use was getting so out of control, her weight was, I think, a way of suffocating herself--it was like she didn't want to be around any more. So to have a suffocating suit helps to feel where she may have been mentally. And as a singer, I've never had a lot of weight. So to feel this sturdiness is a completely different sensation.
Does it change the sound of your voice? It comes down to strength. And with opera, so much of that strength needs to be relaxed strength (if that makes sense), so having size gives you a feeling of strength, but there's a relaxation to it. So I like to make sure I'm not too thin. It does make me feel better on stage.
I'm going to tell my wife that. I'm not putting on weight, I'm gaining "relaxed strength". There you go. Take some opera lessons and make it realistic!
Opera lessons and Pizza Hut? That's a great deal. Do you have a personal favorite line in the libretto? In one of Howard K. Stern's arias in act II. He's basically singing about how they can capitalize on Anna, and make money off of her: "What else do you got for the yard sale of your life?" When you look at Anna, when she was pretty and sexy, of course, she sold that. But then when she gained all the weight and became a little ridiculous, she still sold that. She was her own version of Lucille Ball. Not only was she exploited, but she exploited other people, and I love that.
And what's Anna's best line? My aria at the very end. She sings: "Tired now, Danny. Momma's nearly there/ Nothing left for me/ Man I got so close/ I had the dream, but lost it before I knew it/ You know, the usual/ Made some bad choices, made some worse choices/ Then ran out of choices/ All my life I was plain wrong/ I was weak when I thought I was strong."
That's fantastic. And you have an album of arias coming out too, right? That's right, coming out the same day we start Anna.
Will you be in the lobby selling merch after the show? [Laughs] Quick change and then--smile! Maybe not. But you can buy it in the lobby!
Would you ever play another tabloid train-wreck? Maybe Lohan the Opera? Hmmm. I might need a palate cleanser after this.
Thanks Sarah.
Dita Von Teese Has an "Official Corset Trainer"
Here's my interview with Dita Von Teese, which first ran in The Village Voice:
Dita Von Teese might be offended when we call her the Founding Mother of Modern Burlesque, but the shoe fits. Teese spent the 1990s dragging striptease back from the grimy brink of tawdriness, recovering a lost, pre-war world of fan dance glamor. So if you've enjoyed a burlesque show in the last 20 years, you should be slipping a 20 of appreciation into Dita Von Teese's psychic g-string. Teese has now crossed over into the fashion world, with her own lingerie line, and a coveted spot on Vanity Fair's International "Best Dressed" List. She's back in New York with a new show, "Burlesque: Strip, Strip, Hooray!"--a 90 minute piece, performed at the Gramercy Theatre from Sept. 30th to Oct. 4th. It features some of her most talked-about acts of the last few years: the Rhinestone Cowgirl (she's head-to-toe in pink Swarovski crystal), the Gilded Cage, and the Giant Martini Glass (her signature, with a few new twists). We sat down with Dita to talk about body-modification, mysterious Parisian dream girls, and why letters from prison can be just delightful.
TC: OK, you're washed up on a desert island, and you can only take ONE outfit with you. Go. DvT: I'm going to go for a one of my 1950s Hawaiian sarongs. I have an excellent one that comes with a matching cape.
Practical. You're one of the best-dressed people on the planet. Does it ever get exhausting, the sartorial demands you place on yourself? I sometimes get overwhelmed. You could make a great parody short film of me being swallowed by my clothes. I have a huge archive of vintage, but at this point I have so many things that I'm never going to wear that I buy just because I love it or I want to fantasize about wearing it. "Ooh, this will be great when I'm riding an elephant in India."
Nothing is more embarrassing that inappropriate elephant-wear. The public sees you as so immaculately put together, all the time. Are you ever, like, in sweatpants? No, but I have my own version of a casual look. Maybe ballet flats and a '50s dress. I just have a different point of view: jeans and sweatpants aren't comfortable to me. They're itchy and tight and involve more thought process than zipping up the back of a dress and running out the door.
What part in your upcoming show are you most excited to show crowds? What's really blowing your hair back artistically right now? One of my favorite numbers is now in the show, where I'm in a big gilded bird cage. My favorite moment of the night--because usually there's not a hair out of place on my head--is when the cage rains water on me, and people see me completely dripping wet. People don't usually see me that way.
Hoo boy. Anyway. Any person who watches your show sees the incredible focus you bring to it. How do you get in the zone for that kind of performance? Talk me through the last five minutes before you get onstage. I have a cocktail. And I have to be in a good mood. There's a rule, in the two hours before I go on, I'm never wrong about anything. No one is allowed to tell me I'm wrong, no one is allowed to say anything shitty to me. I am the Queen of the fucking universe for that hour or so before I go onstage. So I don't talk to journalists then either.
We can ruin anything. What's the cocktail of choice? Clean liquor. A little Cointreau on ice with a Perrier and lime.
Are you still tightlacing? [The practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture.] I don't sleep in corsets, or do any official corset training, much to the dismay of my official corset trainer, Mr. Pearl. But I've been wearing corsets since I was 18. I don't have the quest for the smallest waist anymore. At my very smallest I was down to 16 inches on a very good day, but generally onstage I lace down to about 19 inches.
I'm doing the opposite: loose-lacing. It's a demanding regimen of quesadillas and ham. Oh god, that makes my stomach hurt more than a corset does.
Last we heard, you were in a relationship with a musician (Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts). Is that still true? No, I've been single for the better part of a year, and I've had about six boyfriends since that last episode. I've been really good at keeping my love-life under wraps. But I'm currently single.
Why do you love musicians? I'm still a sucker for musicians. The creative element, I guess. It's not a groupie thing. It's about admiring it, because I'm not musical at all. I've been a muse for a number of musicians and it's pretty great to have a song written about you. That whole tribute-muse, artist-muse thing is very appealing to me.
I bet you get a lot of fan art. Best and creepiest, please. People get me tattooed on them a lot. Women, mostly. When they're really big, prominent tattoos of my portrait, and when they're really beautiful, I find it a massive compliment because of the relationship between pin-up art and tattooing, I see it in a different way--I don't think it's crazy. And for someone to choose your portrait is a big tribute. I'm always very honored.
Any facial tattoos? Nope, and I'm glad.
Strangest piece of fan art? I get the occasional letter from prison, which I really enjoy. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but they're always really polite. And they never ask for naked pictures, because they're not allowed to have them in jail. So they ask for nice photos.
You don't live in Paris anymore. Why? I left my apartment there about a year ago. There was too much pressure having two home bases to keep up with--there and L.A.
Has any part of you become permanently French? I guess I became even more of the mythical French girl that I always read about in books when I was young, the one that wears berets and is mysterious.
I grew up in England. The mythical French girl was very important to us. Have you ever actually seen her? The only mythical French girls I've ever seen were always imported, sadly. The ones I saw walking around Paris are from different parts of the world, except for the grand dames who are over 60 years old. The young ones are all wearing black tights and jean shorts, no makeup except thick black eyeliner and smoking cigarettes.
That's a poor excuse for a mystery dream girl. She should be leaping onto a tram in Chanel, and you see her for five seconds, fall in love, then she's gone forever. I saw one mystery French girl. Just ONCE. I was walking along, and suddenly this 50s Porsche convertible cruised past me, and I saw a flash of red lipstick, and long white scarf, and she just threw me a little wave. Then she drove away.
That's perfect. She might have been English.
Was she chewing gum? Because if so, she was. Couldn't tell.
Thanks for talking, Dita.
Thrilled by a terrible film
I just watched a terrible film about important things.
Hannah Arendt is a biographical drama about a German philosopher. A Jewish thinker who fled Germany then Nazi-occupied France, Arendt was hired by The New Yorker magazine in 1961 to report and reflect on the trial of Adolph Eichmann.
Eichmann was a senior Nazi official and one of the central managers of the Holocaust. He fled to Argentina after the war, living in hiding for over a decade before his capture by the Israeli secret service. He was tried for murder and crimes against humanity in Jerusalem, found guilty, and hanged.
The trial was an international media event, and sparked intellectual uproar (if there is such a thing) in part due to Arendt’s writing. She coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe the actions and world-view of Eichmann. Rather than seeing him as a Satanic monster, Arendt argued that his evil sprang from a submission to dull, bureaucratic fiat. He abdicated his obligation to think, she argued, and became a cipher for the will of the Reich and of Hitler. Eichmann did not follow evil thoughts to commit his evil actions, Arendt said. He was a mediocre man who committed evil precisely because he gave no thought to his orders at all.
This very idea made some people furious. Critics felt it diluted Eichmann’s responsibility for mass murder. But that was not the most incendiary thing Arendt wrote. She argued that some European Jewish leaders (particularly managers of ghettos in Poland and elsewhere) were in the grip of that same banal evil, and essentially collaborated with the Holocaust. By seeking accommodation with the Reich, Arendt argued, Jewish leadership acquiesced to evil in a similar manner to Eichmann. Without the help of community leaders in concentrating Jewish populations, confiscating property and submitting to the Ghetto mentality, “there would have been chaos and plenty of misery, but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four-and-a-half and six million people”. Again, she argued: evil emerged from an unthinking submission to bureaucratic decree. For this, she was vilified. Lifelong friendships broke down. Her academic career was wrecked. Yet she refused to moderate her views.
Great stuff, right? Whether you think Arendt’s ideas were brilliant or batty, this is wonderful territory for a deep, powerful, “thinky” film. I am so glad people wanted to make it. But the result was appalling.
I’m in an acting class, taught by JoAnna Beckson. We study the Meisner technique. My dumbed-down, one-sentence summary of Meisner is: “actually feel something real – in the moment - while you are performing in character”. I’m sure that is a hopelessly naïve description, but it’s the best one-line definition I can write today, in this moment. The technique can be abused by self-indulgent actors, like everything can. But I already see how powerful the training is. If she wants to convince an audience that her character is feeling emotional turmoil, the actor must feel that turmoil, in the moment. I did not believe FOR ONE SECOND that any of the principle performers in this film (Arendt, her husband, her editor, her friends, her critics) felt ANYTHING that their characters were supposed to be feeling. Their acting technique boiled down to: “if your character is happy, make a happy face. If they are worried, make a worried face. And if you can’t think of anything else to do, look vaguely tense about this whole situation”. It left me speechless. If you can’t feel real feelings about THIS kind of subject matter (hope, despair, justice, evil…) what CAN you feel?
Practically every performance in the film was also choked with classical stage drama mannerisms. Whenever people were happy to see each other, then didn’t just “feel” it. They “acted” it. They held each others’ forearms and gazed sentimentally into their eyes and TOLD each other how happy they were to see them. I don’t know who exactly is to blame for this (script, director and performer all seem guilty) but it was dreadful.
The director also seemed to think this: “back in the 1960s, most people smoked cigarettes. Therefore, everyone in this film MUST smoke cigarettes at all times, and use the action of smoking as a prop and crutch to support how INTENSE they feel about all these INTENSE ideas flying around”. Every puff of smoke and flick of ash was a distraction from the main thrust of the film: it was infuriating. The work is supposed to be about the human struggles of good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, love and hate. It is NOT about the fucking cigarettes.
But I’m glad I saw the film. You learn as much from the bad as the good. It’s a perfect example of what NOT to do, both as an actor and a director. And without it, I would never have known much about the Eichmann trial, Arendt, or her ideas. So I’m giving one–and-a-half cheers for this utterly terrible film that taught me a lot.
The best thing about History on the whole internet
If you like learning about the past, you have to listen to Hardcore History, a podcast made by Dan Carlin. Until I started listening, I had no idea how little I knew about:
- the Mongols (e.g. they wore coats made of hundreds of mouse skins sewn together. Gross.)
- German Anabaptist fundamentalism in the 16th century (e.g. Free Love is not a 1960's invention: charismatic cult leaders have been saying “and now God says I can have sex with everyone” for at least 400 years)
- Why the most sophisticated empire in history (Rome) fell to the medieval equivalent of biker gangs (the Goths)… i.e. because they made the same mistake as The Rolling Stones did at Altamont: hiring The Hell’s Angels to do security.
- ….and a million other things.
Carlin speaks for a few hours on each topic, in a free-wheeling lecture from loose notes, studded with quotations from eye-witness accounts and great historians of the period he’s studying. It’s passionate, funny, and mixed with whip-smart analogies to contemporary history and attitudes. I'm stunned that something this good exists. It’s a 21st century equivalent of those amazing A.J.P. Taylor lectures... ....but BETTER. Yes, I know that's sacrilege, and yes, it's justified.
The most recent episode ("Blueprint for Armageddon I") is focused on the lead-up to, and first few months of, the First World War. I usually hate military history: too much blood and guts. But Carlin avoids all that crap. His point is” “no one ever expects or wants war, and yet humans go to war all the time, despite ourselves”. There was an intellectual current in the early 20th century that said, “a big European war will never happen, because we all know it would be a total disaster for everyone”. Europe was crisscrossed with alliances and obligations to go make war in defense of other nations. Warfare was fully industrialized for the first time, meaning there was practically no limit to the causalities each belligerent could inflict on others. Everybody knew the risks. And yet… Europe did it anyway.
It’s terrifying. Because how often do we think of “war” today? Does anyone in prosperous West Europe or America consider that a massed conflict like WWI could happen again? No one does. The very idea is preposterous. “The costs would be so great! It would be insane! None of our politicians are that stupid!”
Yes they are. Because yes they WERE. And yes, they always will be.
Please listen to this podcast. It’s unbelievably fantastic.
Walter White's Mixtape: The Best Songs About Meth
Where there be drugs, there be songs. The Velvets will rhapsodize their smack, Redman will tell you How to Roll A Blunt... musicians just can't help writing odes to the junk that messes 'em up. But where is the Meth songbook? The charts aren't exactly packed with serenades to the meth experience. Maybe crystal doesn't have the same rock n' roll cache enjoyed by your cocaines and your heroins (facial scabs and bad teeth don't get you a Rolling Stone cover). But by some estimates, the speedy little crystal is America's third favorite drug (after booze and weed). So let's give meth its moment in the musical sun. We did some digging and found the 10 best songs to enjoy whenever you want to kick back, smoke rock and break very bad.
Rufus Wainwright, "Go or Go Ahead" Who knew you could write a sweet, slow ballad after being up for three days on a meth binge (a fact admitted to by the man himself)? Maybe Wainwright broke through the tweaky paranoia barrier and found the zen-like calm at the end of the meth rainbow? Or maybe he was just out of his tree and got very lucky.
Korn, "Helmet in the Bush" You should sit down before we give you this shocking news, but... Korn have smoked their share of meth. And this little ditty is without doubt the best song ever written about how difficult it is to get an erection after smoking a big bowl of Dirty Tina. "Helmet in the Bush": we clear on that image? The helmet refers to the tip of a male meth smoker's penis. The bush is his public hair.
The Mountain Goats, "Letter From Belgium" What Bob Marley is to weed, surely the Mountain Goats are to meth. Heck, they wrote a whole album (We Shall All Be Healed) about a group of friends addicted to crystal in the meth-addicted musician's spiritual capital: Portland, Oregon. Yeah we're all here chewing our tongues off/ Waiting for the fever to break, sings John Darnielle on this track, and who hasn't felt that way on something they shouldn't have taken so much of?
EyeHateGod, "Methamphetamine" Yeah, this one's about meth.
The Fugs, "New Amphetamine Shriek" You don't get many cool-points for smoking a big bag of crank. No one will think you're a bohemian, they'll think you're a loser. But even anti-war 60's psych-rock pioneers The Fugs liked to lose a few days grinding their teeth and twitching every now and then. Tell the drug-snobs to stick THAT in their pipe and smoke it. Right after you use it to smoke all the meth.
Primus, "(Those) Damn Blue Collar Tweekers" Les Claypool sings this anthem to hard-working, hard-smoking tradesmen who throw up sheet-rock for 16 hours straight, and barely feel the nails they accidentally shoot into their hands. Be grateful to them: their shoddy but rapid workmanship is the reason your landlord could poorly refurbish your apartment for eight dollars and then overcharge you for a "completely renovated" space.
Scissor Sisters, "Return to Oz" Who would have thought the Scissor Sisters would pen the most high-minded meth song out there? Lyrically comparing the Wizard of Oz story to the meth addiction that claimed many a gay club kid in the early 2000s, you can kind of hear Jake Shears' heart break as he tells us "what once was Emerald City is now a Crystal Town."
Third-Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life" The classic, maybe even the ultimate meth song. The track even got a bunch of major FM airplay, and "The Man" even forced the band to bleep out the words "crystal meth" on the radio edit. This ensured EVERYBODY knew the song was about meth, as opposed to Third-Eye Blind's small, committed, meth-smoking fan base.
Bruce Springsteen, "Sinaloa Cowboys" Leave it to the great blue collar balladeer to point out a subtle economic truth: cooking meth pays way better than farm work. You wouldn't think so, but Miguel the Mexican laborer finds out the easy way: by cooking up a bunch of meth. But then the lab explodes and kills his brother. Bummer. It gives and it takes, this crystal thing.
Green Day, "Geek Stink Breath" These were the good old days for Billy Joe Armstrong. Before his much publicized alcohol and prescription pill problems, the Green Day front man only had a meth problem to worry about.
Harry "The Hipster" Gibson, "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" A deep cut from way back in meth music history, Harry Gibson was getting ripped off his tits and playing eight straight piano gigs a night while your grandpa was still in short pants. Benzedrine is chemically extremely similar to methamphetamine, and was not only used by soldiers in WWII and Vietnam, but gets name-checked in On the Road and Howl. See kids? Meth is old school cool.
Japan still reigns supreme in insane advertisments
Diplo Attempts to Break Twerking "World Record" With Twerk-Wall at Electric Zoo
Two questions, ladies. 1) Do you have an ass? 2) Can you twerk so hard you could churn butter with it?
If you're a YES on both, Diplo needs your help. This Sunday, the dirty beat impresario brings us his latest creation: "Butts Around the World," wherein he will attempt to break the "world record" of twerkers twerking at one time with his patented "Twerk-Wall." If some of those words make sense to you, and you're interested in joining Diplo on this noble quest, here's what's what: You can win one of 50 free tickets to this weekend's Electric Zoo dance music festival on Randall's Island by sending Diplo a video of yourself twerking to, naturally, twerk4diplo@gmail.com. If his #expressyourself contest from last year is any indication, the competition will be fierce. Diplo and his assorted Mad Decent Bros will review each video submission with what we can only presume is absolute seriousness (lab coats, clipboards etc.). Presto Chango, Twerk-Wall assembled.
We guess "Wall" must now be the official collective noun for a group of twerkers. Like if lions hang in a pride, geese in a gaggle, twerkers always work in a wall. Maybe Oxford English dictionary--which just added "twerk" online--can weigh in. Either way, this is not Diplo's first twerk rodeo. The title track on his 2012 EP Express Yourself is basically an audio instruction manual in how to twerk, and after its release Diplo ran a contest for fans to send him photos of their twerk handstands. Since then, Diplo's Twitter and Instagram have been glazed in a sheen of butt-sweat, as fans send in soft-(and not so soft-)core twerking pics and videos which the man gleefully reposts. That's partly why the GIANT PERVS at Buzzfeed encourage you to follow him.
Again, Diplo is billing this as a "world record" attempt at assembling the greatest numbers of twerkers ever twerking in one place, because the Guinness people (shockingly) have no entry for this. It's a little silly to claim the record with just 50 twerkers when you consider Diplo has spent much time in New Orleans (he shot his twerk-heavy "Express Yourself" video there), and you can find twice as many folks twerking there at 2 p.m. in a Wal Mart. But we guess the record has to be OFFICALLY claimed by someone, and will surely be smashed soon after. But for a brief period in time, you could get your name in the record books. Just think how proud your parents will be.
And how should we feel about this jiggling wall of girl flesh, seducing the eye-balls of 100,000 EDM fans? In a word: good. In two words: mad good. The slut-shaming of Miley Cyrus for all her hard twerk at the VMAs shows us that body-hatred and puffed-up prudery are alive and well in those sexless ivory towers of the lamestream media. Twerking is not just good. Twerking is LIFE. (Or, at the very least, can earn you a scholarship.)
Be safe out there.
(cross-posted at the Village Voice)
Brutal new advice column at The Frisky
This was a tough one. She is in a horrible bind.
My Village Voice interview with Kurt Braunohler
It's here. He's a sweet guy, and an inspiration to everyone in this business trying to connect with audiences in a non-traditional way. I had a lot of fun talking to him and hope you enjoy the conversation.
Bengal stripe poplin shirt, dot tie, vintage wool blazer
“Ralph the Robot”: character sketch for proposed TV pilot
Name: Ralph the Robot
Place of birth: Robot Spawning Facility 6, on the planet Celath.
Siblings: Being a robotic race, Celathunes have no concept of siblings. But seven other Celathunes were created that day in that particular Spawning Tower. In a way, Ralph is an octuplet.
Education: Argh, Who cares. This is dumb. I hate my own idea.
Address and occupation: This is such a stupid concept. Why would someone from such an advanced robot civilization visit Earth?
Friends and acquaintances: I’m quoting from my notebook: “The robots eat soil to live, and Ralph’s planet is running out of soil, so they need our soil and they sent Ralph to get the soil”. Really? That’s the back-story? It makes no sense. Why would a mechanical being eat organic matter? Moron.
Describe their apartment: Wasn’t this supposed to be a gentle comedy, with a “fish-out-of-water” robot? If they want our soil, these robots are colonists to be feared and destroyed. Fuck the kooky human roommates and their life lessons. This is race war and they are race traitors. We don’t need understanding. We need tanks. And fighter planes. And the pitiless will to blacken the rivers with robot blood.
Describe their house or apartment: Another thing – we want to set this in London, right? THERE’S NO SOIL HERE, IDIOT. Ralph would go to Norfolk, meet NOBODY, and gobble bags of loamy dirt like a sad fat girl on prom night. This premise doesn’t just have holes in it. It’s a Swiss cheese with leprosy getting gang-banged by forks.
Describe their work environment: Yes, what would Ralph’s job be like? Oh wait. Ralph wouldn’t have a job, because Ralph is a robot without emotions or motivation. He doesn’t want money, or love, or understanding ,.. just … a big plate of soil. Does that sound like a compelling character I want to invite into my home every week for 22 minutes in prime time? I’d rather watch a fatal house-fire.
Describe where the character shops for groceries: Plus the robot concept has been done, like, a gazillion times, better than I could ever do it, covering every conceivable topic: Transformers, Short Circuit, the android on Star Trek…
What kind of car do they drive? … Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica, Futurama, The Terminator, everything ever made in Japan…
What kind of clothes do they wear? So this is why we quit a perfectly respectable job selling sports equipment? It’s not too late to go back. Jim said the door was always open. Christ, I’m such a coward. This is why Enid left. It’s only 7.30. The off license is still open. I still have those pictures of her breasts on my phone. Fuck it. Just… fuck it.
For more information about ‘Ralph the Robot’, contact: Brian Walker
c/o The Sports Hut, 27 Burwash Street, Deptford SE8
The bro vs. the old guy
Wonderful scenes in the Lower East Side last night. I leave a bar with my friend Lucas. We see a typical, backwards-cap-wearing bro arguing with an older man in the street. The bro is puffing himself up. He yells a question: "I make a thousand dollars a week, man... what do you make?" The older gentleman replies with amusement: "Me? I'm homeless." Homeless with the win.
In the beginning
I have to write this down before I forget it. My first month doing standup comedy in New York was one of the most exhilarating of my life.
I’d spent years in the improv scene, and it was great. It was missing something, though. Everyone was so well-intentioned and nerdy, and for the most part, adorable. But there was also a slightly dishonest edge. Despite all the lip service to “group mind” and “make the other person look good”, most people were very ambitious. A lot of people approached improv in a very professional, political way. Everyone wanted to be on a UCB house team, and didn’t do much to hide it (I was just as guilty of this). I don’t hold it against anyone. New York is an ambitious place, and the genuine selflessness of improv takes years to cultivate. No one really gets it for half a decade. But the atmosphere had weird side-effects. The scene sits in a desperate fog of permanent forced niceness, like the people Stallone and Snipes meet in “Demolition Man”. No one ever criticized a choice, or a show, or a performer, because who knows how that person could help you later down the road? Everyone told everyone they were great, even though 99% of us were terrible.
I started doing standup, and it was the perfect opposite. No one was “professionalist” in outlook. All standups harbor dreams of being stars, but it’s hard to bullshit your way into anything in standup. Comics (and audiences) can smell that desperate triangulation a mile away, and they hate it. At the open mic level in New York, everywhere you looked were people whose highest goal that day was to be the funniest, most profane pirate possible. Most of the time, they died on their ass. But they were taking real fucking risks. Niceness was refreshingly non-existent. The currency was respect, not empty compliments. If your jokes worked, you were funny. If they didn’t, you bombed, and people laughed at you, but hey: you had the balls to be up there. Props to that. Come back next week.
In that first month, I saw some genuinely unhinged performers. I’ll tell you about three.
1. The female performance artist who sang-spoke acapella rants against two targets. A) men who couldn’t satisfy her sexually, and B) the government for taking her kid away. She performed in a one-piece black thong bathing suit and stripped naked during her act. “Why?” she would scream, “why did you take away my fucking child, Mr. FBI?” (Probably because they saw your act. And the FBI don’t take away kids, you lunatic.)
2. The Japanese comedian who told hacky jokes about shampoo or sandwiches, and capped every single punchline with “Ahhhh, Who Let Da Dogs Out?” (read it in the most stereotypical Asian accent – it’s funnier). He said it at least twenty times in five minutes. By the end he was murdering, each laugh bigger than the last. An early lesson in the power of repetition when you want to get a reaction. Haven’t seen him since, which is probably a good thing. That magical night can stay special.
3. The 40-something bespectacled white guy who claimed to be a “chemical rapper”. He rapped the Periodic Table in a perfect monotone for ten solid minutes, without telling a single joke, doggedly reading through all 117 elements. By the end it was like a Gregorian Chant, and we listened in awkward, respectful silence. The cheer at the end was one of relief…and disbelief that this had even happened.
These people were unhinged and delusional. It’s a fringe subculture where genuine oddities get as much stage time as “the next big thing”. Ironically, these weirdos were exactly the kind of freaks the improv scene thought they were, but really weren’t.
In addition to these weirdos, I shared stages with the funniest young comics in New York: Mark Normand, Chris DiStefano, Leah Bonnema, Bryson Turner, Michelle Wolf, Monroe Martin… just murderously funny people. Mix that talent with the totally depraved, delusional nutbags? I was hooked immediately.
I’m not done with improv. I think it’s a life-changing thing. I just wasn’t good enough at it, and approached it the wrong way – as a tool to somehow “make it,” or get validation. I’m older now. I realize that was foolish. Next time, I’ll approach it like standup. Where the only instruction is “just work hard and get good.” It’s life greatest lesson.
Latest column at The Frisky: "When the sex dies"
Here's my latest relationship advice column at the The Frisky. It's a doosie.
New jokes (that just might stay fresh)
Alcohol will solve any problem, just temporarily. It's like duct tape you can drink. I get butterflies whenever my wife walks into the room. She's covered in caterpillars.
I like my sex like I like my coffee: when my wife's away. She thinks caffeine is bad for me. God, I love her so much.
I'd rather be black than gay, but if it's on the table I'd prefer both.