The awesome Storychord (which “features one story, one image, and a one-song “soundtrack” — each by underexposed talent” each issue) featured Easy Lover’s “End of the Season” in their latest! Please check it out here!

Easy Lover - End of the Season

Friday’s song. Ease(y) into the weekend!

Flossing is really disgusting. I mean, I’m an advocate of it in the same way that I’m an advocate of other necessary gross stuff – like squeezing out your oily pores and cleaning out your waxy ears – but it’s seriously one of those things that reminds you how gross human bodies are. Have you ever looked real close at a piece of floss after it’s been in your little food-particle-filled mouth? Don’t. And whatever you do, don’t smell it. You’ll never be the same.

That said, can you imagine reusing a piece of floss that has already spent some quality time in some stranger’s mouth, picking up bits and pieces of the crap they’ve been stuffing in there, getting stuck between their molars? I imagine they’ve probably been eating wet cheese and spoiled tuna fish and hot dogs and runny eggs and mushy bananas and other stuff that gets in all the yuck mouth cracks and crevices and just festers – rots, I mean to say – in there. Oh, the thought is just horrible. And what if it’s someone with poor oral hygiene, whose gums bleed at the mention of the word “floss”? UGH. Reusing that floss would be like going to the city dump and eating all the mealy fruit and syringes you could find, as far as I’m concerned. As in, horrible. And as in, NOT worth a million dollars.

So, there you go. Used floss can take a walk.

although I am sure it is very obvious, Live Wrong and Prosper is in its final stages. There’s a post or three waiting to go up, but then, the LWAP death knell will begin (whenever a blog dies, a self-published book is born…). However (however!), I’ve begun a new tumblr here. I am not saying you should follow. I am just sayin’. In general.

Best,

Kali

I wish I could pretend I needed to stop and think about this for even a second — hesitation would give me depth; Kurt a soul; Ram a brain. But get real. I say maybe one in 20 people would say yes to this and half of them are lying. Adults may demur when asked, but a concussed 4-year-old could tell you the truth: being ugly stinks. And being “extremely” ugly stinks shit. People can be cruel and hostile, and they are apt to penalize you for being ugly at work, and what the ugly are selling, they aren’t buying, and while you may have a face only a mother *can* love, she very well *may* not. It’s enough to drive the ugly to crime and — no surprise — it sometimes does! That is, as they say, a lot to deal with. If we were talking many more zeroes, I might consider it, but that sort of abuse hardly seems worth just a million. So no, and no again, to ugly.

P.S. Live Wrong and Prosper will be winding down in the next month or so because of the book coming out and all. We’ve had a good run and I really have to thank all the many awesome Tumblr friends we’ve made. You guys are the shit. I’ll have a link to a new blog in the coming weeks, and I hope you’ll follow me there. Thanks so much, all of you.

So — honest truth — I’ve had this question sitting around for like, ever, but I’d kind of forgotten about it until this. So, then, obviously, I was like, “Better dig up that old question to show how ahead of the curve I am.” (Then I made “Hamster Dance” my screensaver and forwarded that crazy “I Kiss You” guy to some people I know who love to laugh, then I got right to work on this.) Anyway, the answer is no. Don’t get me wrong — there are bits and pieces of celeb faces I’d gladly take for a million dollars — say a nose here, or a pair of ears there, or whatever. But this is like, some next level, carbon-copy, cloning shit. Also, maybe if it 1) didn’t involve multiple invasive surgeries on 2) my FUCKING FACE? Because I don’t like that idea. So, my heart goes out to that poor girl that thinks getting back with some shithead is worth cutting up her face to look like some other lady that the shithead thinks he’s in love with despite having never met or seen her in real life, but I’m saying fuck that shit. (Is it just me or am I extra swear-y today?) So, that’s the story with that.

P.S. Part II to follow tomorrow…or the day after. Soon.

I think this is one of the easiest questions to say no to — and actually, it’s kind of a no-brainer FUCK NO if you ask me (or if *I* ask me, which is kind of what I do on this blog) — but I seem to be the only one. Yeah, sure, I like living and all, but do we really need to belabor the point…forever? I mean, jeez. I think I get it already. I’m pretty sure that life matters so much mostly because (and this is key) shit’s finite; it’s the Time’s Up Factor that really counts for something here. So, yeah, dying is scary. But death gives life gravitas (or something like that. I dunno. What am I — a fucking philosopher?) Ahasver, so the story goes, is out walking the Earth till the end of time because walking the Earth till the end of time fucking SUCKS. It is not a reward! (Unlike being told you are immortal for the day, in which case you can jump off bridges and fall asleep in fire pits and commit suicide while listening to old Judas Priest with no ill effects and cool shit like that.) So absolutely not. Forever is too long.

At first I was like, “What have my eyeballs done for me lately that they should deserve to enjoy color so much anyways?” I mean, sure, they see and all that — if you’re gonna get hung up on technicalities — but oh, the many ways they’ve betrayed me! I’m so nearsighted that even the big “E” on the chart is a blur without my contacts and *that* equals thick glasses as a child and *that* equals NERD. I’ve blocked out forgotten most of junior high (except for a few very special episodes of Quantum Leap), but I do distinctly recall a kid in my 7th grade math class on the first day of school conspicuously scooching his desk right next to mine and announcing that he planned to copy off me because “she can see into the future with those glasses.” Because — if I understand his reasoning correctly — being a four-eyes might make you smart but being a Coke-bottle-four-eyes makes you a genius! No matter that I’d otherwise been going around without my glasses on all day, blind as a fucking bat, trying (this year would be different!) to live down my rep as a TAG dork. I was too exhausted from squinting to even try for a comeback. All my hard work destroyed in a single comment from some asshole kid who is very, very probably an asshole adult who, I hope, has a job working with raw sewage in some way or another. Doesn’t matter to me what particular role raw sewage plays in his career, only that it’s a (fucking huge) part of it. I’m not picky.

But I’ve wandered far off from the question. The answer to this one is gonna be a no. While I think it might be interesting to see the world bereft of color for a day, a lifetime is too much. You’d never again see, say, sunsets or rainbows or any other cliches that, truth be told, you don’t really see all that often but the point is you CAN if you CHOOSE to. That’s freedom! And my freedom cannot be bought!*

*…with just one million dollars. But I’m very, very open to negotiation.

I loved (v. much!) your Glenn Beck question and would love for you to Guest Blog, but you have no contact info on your blog. If you’re at all interested, shoot me an email (my info is on my page)…

Sorry to interrupt with personal notes (= super lame), everyone. As you were.

Anyway — hope everyone had a great holiday.

Your Virtual Friend,

Kali

IT’S GUEST BLOGGER FRIDAY! TODAY’S QUESTION WILL BE ANSWERED BY JOSH LUFT, A WRITER/MUSICIAN WORKING OUT OF A “PRIVATE FORTIFIED RESIDENCE” IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE A PLAYSKOOL DREAMTOWN SWEET LILY CASTLE. HE WRITES FICTION, PLAYS, ESSAYS, REVIEWS, MANUALS ON HOW TO TURN GRANDPARENTS INTO KILLING MACHINES, LISTS, FUN FACTS AND MUCH, MUCH MORE ON WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES AND MAKES FUZZED-OUT PRIMAL POP MUSIC AS VIRAGO. HE GETS BONUS POINTS FOR HAVING COME UP WITH THIS EXTREMELY CHALLENGING QUESTION WHICH HE SAYS WAS INSPIRED BY THE UPCOMING FILM THE BLIND SIDE (Eds Note: THAT NEW SANDRA BULLOCK WASTE OF CELLULOID THAT ATTEMPTS TO SATE AMERICA’S INSATIABLE APPETITE FOR MOVIES AND TELEVISION SHOWS ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE SAVING BLACK PEOPLE FROM THEMSELVES).

Yes, I would accept this challenge despite the fact that I find Sandra Bullock to be the most obnoxious actress of our time. Obnoxious doesn’t do her justice, really.  She’s abhorrent — no, pestiferous. Yes, Sandra Bullock as an actress is like a pest problem. And how do you solve a pest problem?

Okay, so I couldn’t kill Sandra Bullock. That would be psychotic — though listening to her spewing folksy wisdom with a Southern affectation would no doubt drive me to psychosis — and, more importantly, would not allow me to receive the million dollar prize. However, this would not stop me from spending every waking hour, as the unwilling recipient of her “Tennessee TLC”: dry cornbread and sympathetic side-smiles, searching for a loophole, as if I were “Blackie” from Lost trying to kill Jacob, to rid myself of her before the four years were up and still receive the check. In a situation like this you have to keep your mind occupied; you have to create a goal and then you must steadfastly pursue that goal. This is how you keep your sanity while Bullock, with her bad blonde dye job and shoddy drawl, hovers around you offering one inane anecdote after another. So you think, “Well, maybe I could ask her to teach me about tornadoes by driving into one? She’ll be sucked into the vortex while I remain safe and sound on the ground thanks to my trusty Anti-Tornado Cement Suit.” Or, “Maybe she can tell me why drinking gasoline is “as silly as a shack on the side of the Great Smoky Mountains” by demonstration?” And then, “Once she’s gone, I could keep her around like Weekend at Bernie’s. No one’ll ever know the difference!”

But maybe I’m being too hard on her. Maybe I would be charmed by — okay, no.  I’ve never once thought she was good in any movie — Wait! Demolition Man! I love Demolition Man! And she was in that! Maybe not good, but definitely in it. How could I hate someone from that wacky, dystopian classic? A film about a future with cryogenics, fines for even the mildest profanity, Wesley Snipes with a golden crewcut, and Taco Bell as fine dining! It’s ridiculous and wonderful! So maybe I wouldn’t have to spend four years trying to get rid of her. I could spend the four years trying to coax her into reenacting the entirety of Demolition Man with me, highlighting the anti-swearing, anti-violence, anti-sex, anti-everything of its fictional future, hoping she would believe that it would teach me values about life, even if the film turns out to be kind of pro-everything, and actually enjoy myself.  It’s a plan so crazy it just might work. As Sylvester Stallone’s character John Spartan says in the film, “Send a maniac to catch a maniac.”

Bring it on, Bullock.

- Josh L.

I can’t tell if the trailer for this movie is a remake of Diff’rent Strokes or Webster (or Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers). Or if they kept the laugh track or decided to go without it (because the comedy is so obviously obvious). Or if this remake will include the ”Sam” character — that redhaired, country singin’, slack jawed yokel/poor man’s Yosemite Sam who apparently failed to hide the fact that the show was a pile of excrement in need of swift cancellation. I can’t tell much at all from the trailer actually. But for some reason I get a very strong feeling that although Sandra Bullock takes up the burden of adopting and educating this noble savage, it is she who will learn a lesson in love.

So, anyway, if the question is, do I want to spend the next four years living in a retread of a cliche (even if it is “based on a true story”) — a life that’s all swelling strings and football as a metaphor and hearts being embiggened left and right and whatever else bullshit — the answer is no. Although there are a million (!) ways in which I can be bought, this seems too high a price to pay. Gag me.

- Kali

First of all, yes, that’s really a picture of a mouse being manually milked (guess you just found the photo for your holiday cards)! I’m guessing that a lactating rat’s teats are only slightly larger than those of a mouse, so scrounging up even a thimbleful of rat milk is probably a fucking endeavor. Which is neither here nor there, but I’m just sayin’. Also, remember that Simpsons episode when Fat Tony was the milk source for Springfield’s schools but then Homer finds out he’s been giving the kids rats’ milk because he discovers that hidden room full of rats hooked up to tiny milking machines? Ha. That was funny. Anyway, this dare is a big time no for me because I think cow’s milk is disgusting enough and when you start talking about drinking milk from dogs and cats and rodents my gag reflex starts up and are you fucking serious Heather Mills? So, I’ll pass on this one. Can’t truss it.

IT’S GUEST BLOGGER FRIDAY! TODAY’S QUESTION WILL BE ANSWERED BY JEFFREY BEAUMONT, A FREELANCE CULTURE WRITER AND PHOTOGRAPHER (WHO OTHERWISE PLANS GLOBAL EVENTS FOR MEDIA EXECUTIVES FOR A LIVING). AN UPBEAT BUT ANXIOUS PERSON BY NATURE, HE CONQUERED A SEEMINGLY CRUSHING AND LIFE-LONG WELTSCHMERZ ONCE AND FOR ALL BY DEDICATING SIX MONTHS OF HIS LIFE IN 2008 TO A PROJECT CALLED HYPERLIVING, WHICH ENTAILED DOING ONE UNIQUE ACTIVITY EVERY DAY FOR A WEEK, EACH WEEK, AND DETAILED SLAVISHLY ON A BLOG OF SAME NAME. (THE HYPERLIVING MANIFESTO, BTW, CAN BE FOUND HERE). THESE DAYS, YOU CAN CHECK OUT HIS MUSINGS ON CULTURE, MUSIC AND SPORTS AT SLANGEDITORIAL.NET. JEFFREY WAKES UP EACH MORNING REMINDING HIMSELF THAT HE LIVES BY THE CREDO: “I AM A MAN DESTINED TO LEARN BY CRUEL EXPERIENCE.” DO NOT TAKE HIS ADVICE FOR ANY REASON.

I won’t beat around the bush on this one: There is absolutely no question that I would trade a year of my life for a million dollars. A few reasons why:

1) I consider myself a life-living maximalist, but also one for whom the pendulum has constantly swung back and forth between feeling satisfied and depressed. In my limited 28 years of experience, the one thing I have identified for myself as being paramount to living right is to be able to maintain a high quality of life, and to have the agency to live that life to the fullest. One million dollars, at this point, would go a long way toward giving me the agency to open up a great range of possibilities that I feel are already at my disposal but which I can’t right now quite attain.

2) I am a man who, by most accounts, lives life by “burning the candle at both ends.” I sleep three to five hours a night, I try to do as many things as possible with my day, and tend to rest only when I’m no longer able to stay awake. I do not spend much time sitting around reflecting on what I might not do with my tomorrow. For these reasons, I’m fairly convinced that I’m either going to live a long time or that I will die — maybe accidentally — quite young. Either way though, whenever I go, it’s going to be because I gave everything and this was how it’s meant to be.

I’ve often heard people harp on the idea that they’d “rather be dead than old.” While I think I could get behind that idea, in this specific case, my desire to take the money and run has much more to do with living right and in the moment and not worrying about what happens later.

I imagine that even within the silly confines of this game, accepting the money will not require some ominous pre-death meeting with The Grim Reaper whereby I’m reminded that I will lose a year starting at some certain point. When I die, I’ll be just be dead.

Therefore, taking this deal is a NO BRAINER, because I’ll never have any way of knowing what I might have “lost.” It’s just, in the words of Jay-Z, “poof —vamoose, son of a bitch.” And prior to dying, I’ll have used those dollars to gear up my life-force possibilities and make sure I continue living each day to the fucking max. HOLLA! This shit is really too easy.

- Jeffrey B.

I’ve been listening to suicide-note songs all morning (Palace Brothers, Elliott Smith, El Perro del Mar, Red House Painters, Chris Bell…you get the drift) to counter all the drunk chanting/yelling/drunkening coming from the parade outside my window, so I’m actually pretty in the mood to do some life shortening. (I don’t hate the Yankees and I don’t hate parades, but I do hate how they combine to make it harder to get to an office job I don’t particularly want to go to in the first place.) The answer to this one probably depends on the day and the mood for me, but at this moment, it is a yes. If family history means anything, I’ve got a good chance of making it to my 90s, which sounds just exhausting. You give me $1M, I give you 365 days. Sounds fair enough. Happy Friday.

- Kali