You're Not Funny and Nobody Likes You!

I am a quitter. It's a fact. When situations graduate to a certain level of difficulty, I tend to convince myself that they weren't that terribly important to me in the first place. It just seems easier to feign an initial lack of conviction than it does to be steadfast in the face of mounting adversity. It's a character flaw, I know. It's also the main tenet of hipsterdom: The importance of NOT being earnest.

Dunchyburg Address

Brave New World

In 1999, Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith rejoined British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden for a world tour, reconvening arguably the most infamous lineup (plus one) of the greatest heavy metal band of all-time. The following year, it was announced that an overhauled classic Iron Maiden would issue a studio album of all new material. Whatever on Earth could new Maiden with Bruce Dickinson back at the microphone sound like? After all, these guys were, like, old now.

Confessions of a Bad Liberal

I’m a tree-hugging, NRA-hating, gay marriage-supporting, Whole Foods-shopping, NPR-listening, atheist, feminist, borderline socialist liberal. Ask anyone who knows me, especially members of my family, who find my liberalism “cute,” “ naive,” and something that I’ll “grow out of one day” [author’s note: I’m 40 years old]. The vast majority of my friends and colleagues are also card-carrying liberals, and the few libertarians I know mainly just want pot to be legalized.

Hurricane Sandy’s Handy Dandy Supply & Demand-y

Hurricane Sandy messed up New York and New Jersey more than the crack game! But you gotta be smoking crack to think that government price controls help people. If you think I’m straight gassin’ you: I got two for five! Two for five over here, baby!!!

Enchantment Under The Sea

I smoke. I am a smoker. On more than one occasion, I have been known to lift a cigarette to my lips and set the end of it alight, setting off a chain reaction of events that placate and elevate certain synapses within my brain while soundly and certainly destroying other delicate tissues within my body. The knowledge of this slow and willful series of assaults that I commit against myself will, in turn, churn up a murky cocktail of guilt and panic and rounded out by a splash of smug defiance- always, always, always leading to the next cigarette.

Johnny Gillete vs Nick Prueher

The Eye of the Voter

“Choose your cup, cast your vote. 7 Election.” – 7-Eleven ad campaign

“Open your window. If you hear gunshots and the wails of starving babies, the other guy won.” – The Onion

Election years must be hard on rational people. In addition to the constant barrage of advertisements and information from candidates, parties, Super PAC's, issue-oriented groups and various news outlets, there’s also a non-stop feed of opinions and links from politically-charged people who aim to convince you that their guy is good and the other guy is an evil harbinger of an impending apocalypse which will soon follow the election of the wrong candidate. I’m guilty of participating in this rhetoric of urgency and I’m sure a lot of you are too. I do it because the other guy makes me mad and because I believe I’m right, but when I take the time to check in with my rational self I am reminded that we all need to chill the fuck out and do the one thing that actually does matter in all of this, which is, of course, to vote.

Pitt Pong

In case you were wondering what would happen if Meet Joe Black was a physical comedy. Or you were wondering the sort of thing that makes me laugh until I cry.

Dunch List

There's What's Right, and There's What's Right...

Nicolas Cage is the star of one of my favorite movies of all time. In Raising Arizona, he played H.I. McDunough, a career criminal who seesawed hilariously between "recidivism" and the pressure from his new wife to settle down. Cage's quirks were perfectly suited to the Coen Brothers' offbeat humor and it seemed like he would have been poised to become a formidable movie star. And he was. For a while. Sort of.

Depressing Recession Refresher

There's some freaky shit goin' on there man!!!

There’s an election coming. The economy sucks. Everyone has an opinion.

OK.

Why does the economy suck? Because we had (are in?) a recession. 

You Didn't Find That!

I walked into CD Alley in Chapel Hill at one point in 1997 as I often did, with an excess of free time, and very little money. Money was tight, but I needed new music. I scavenged the used vinyl and discs hoping for a gem that had slipped through the cracks, but this didn't feel like the time to give Bongwater a chance. Already a bit disappointed, I walked toward the exit only half-heartedly perusing the new releases.

Everything's Ruined

I put a lot of stock in autumn. It allows me to wryly curse the few surviving mosquitoes that always seem to single me out. The lawn waves me away and takes care of itself for the rest of the year. Holidays and the chance of snow start revving up and honestly, I just really like wearing hoodies and coats. And then there’s hockey…

Or not.

Dunch Drunk Love

The Green-Eyed Bandit

Even a hot shower can't keep the funk off of Erick Sermon.

Sunday Dunch

You're Doing It Wrong

In theory, Owen O'Donnell and Jimmy Guterman's book, “The Worst Rock-And-Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate”, sounded fascinating. As a fan of all things “hater-related”, I expected to see scathing indictments of beloved records that prompted never ending discussions with people who would only half hear me out. While some of the top 50 was bothersome at best,(The inclusion of Greatest Hits collections from America, Donovan, and Journey, respectively, all warranted double takes), there was certainly no outrage to be found.

Return of The Dunch

Survivors and Liars: Two New Perspectives on 9/11

Jeramy recreates his reaction from 11 years ago with original newspaper and coffee cup. 

When I woke up on September 11, 2012, I checked my facebook news feed over coffee as I always do. After seeing multiple posts regarding the eleventh anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attack ever perpetrated on American soil, I thought to myself, “Ha. Looks like I forgot.” But I didn't. By sheer coincidence, I had watched not one, but two documentaries on the subject the night before. Coincidence may not be the right word, though. I've been at least mildly obsessed with 9/11 since it happened.

Sharing Means Bears

Sweet fixie, bear.

Let’s talk about bears, people. Let’s talk about the other evening when I came home from making my rounds as Raleigh’s most exclusive, sought after pet sitter and found a giant fucking bear in my front yard.

The Best Of Both Worlds

Forbes pantomimes the legendary "Dual-Gender Shocker!"

Since coming out to my family and friends as a bisexual a year ago, I have always struggled with the meaning of the word: bisexual. Not the literal meaning of being sexually attracted to both males and females, but the huge gray area between gay and straight that bisexuals live in. To many, it doesn't matter how I label myself. You like guys equals you’re gay. It reminds me of a joke my dad told me: It doesn't matter what you do in your life. You could be a humanitarian, an astronaut, a war hero. But you fuck one goat…

Doomed by the Living Dead

       

Four months from now, I will begin celebrating thirty years as a fan of the Heavy Metal music. It was in January of 1983 that, after becoming entranced by Judas Priest’s, “Screaming for Vengeance,” I heard Iron Maiden’s, “The Number of the Beast” on a crappy cassette dub, through inadequate headphones plugged into a Sony Walkman, in the electronics section of the Wal-Mart in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. I was standing on the precipice of some vast new universe of sound and reality.

Tremendously Tepid

Give Me Talent Or Give Me Luck!!!

Armchair critics like to bandy about the terms “overrated” and “underrated” whimsically, and often without validity. It's always difficult to parse, given that we now are forced to share the same air with people who genuinely find “Call Me Maybe” substantive, and beyond reproach. It's not that those people are wrong. Stupid? Maybe. Vapid? Probably. But, not wrong. You can not tell someone that their response to an “artistic” expression that they connect with is flat out incorrect. You're essentially denouncing a key component of the human condition based solely on what you, as a person, find palatable.