I’ve seen that Man or Astro-Man is playing their first show in a decade or so, for example. If I were to stumble across some sort of burlesque show/Kaiju Big Battel performance, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. And I REALLY wouldn’t mind catching a screening of “Kick-Ass,” either.

So I’m asking you guys: do you know of any cool parties, shows, or exciting weird art happenings around SXSW Interactive that you just can’t miss? Or some sort of online guide to the best ones? I’ll be here until Tuesday, the 16th.

If so, please let me know either in the comments or by emailing me at andiamnotlying(AT)gmail(DOT)com.

Thanks!

in the last two years, I’ve said “bitches” and “motherfucker” on “This American Life,” been written up in the Washington Post and a number of news wires for writing “fuck you” on a dollar bill, and now this. My mom’s as proud of me as she can be while still being ashamed to tell her friends at church.

Like anything that’s really popular online, this post is attracting a lot of comments. I’ve had this blog for a while and seen a number of posts “go viral” — a phrase that is bandied about your more clueless boardrooms everywhere — and there’s one thing I’ve learned:

People don’t have a lot of new ideas. There is never one singular voice that rises from the crowd, never one lone idea that stands out from the rest. Everything falls into buckets eventually.

The comments on this post fell into a few distinct buckets:

This list is awesome — it’s hilarious!
This list is awesome — it validates all my thinly veiled racial preconceptions!
This list is terrible — inner city education is awful, won’t somebody think of the children!
This list is terrible — it’s misogynist/racist/sad that all black children talk that way all the time
Here’s how I’m a bitch …
Here are some different bitches in a white, Internet-savvy vernacular
You uptight people need to calm down

I’ve really been amazed at how seriously some folks took this thing. I used to test-drive cuss words when I was the same age. Most kids do. My best friend Eric Browne and I used to write them in the dirt on the playground with a stick and teach them to the other kids. We then created an illustrated dictionary of all the profanity we knew. We did leave the illustration for “motherfucker” blank, though. That one was tough. We didn’t really know what it meant in the larger scheme of things, just that it enhanced everything it touched.

Sort of like hot sauce.

The tone in a lot of the concerned comments comes across as really condescending to me. Like nothing sad is ever funny, like nobody ever tested out language all to themselves. The humor in this list, to me, comes from the new context. This was made by kids, for kids, away from adult eyes. This wasn’t necessarily English homework or the Sermon on the Mount. It was kids, playing with language that’s too big for them the way that they put on their parents’ clothes to play dress-up.

Two comments actually did rise above the clatter and sum the situation up perfectly for me:

This comment by Here_we_go_again sums up my feelings on the subject pretty perfectly. It falls squarely into the “calm down” bucket, in case you were wondering:

I wrote shit lists, bitch lists, yo’ mamma lists, and ugly lists in grade school ( prob around 3rd grade when all my other friends cursed freely) and middle school. I wrote them in “standard’” English, Carribean dialect, and language that reflected a very particular upbringing in Bed-Stuy and Flatbush. I probably had quite a few spelling errors as well.

I then went home, did my homework, studied, while my parents were at work…

Somewhere between all of that I jotted five more things to add to the group list at lunch time and hid them deep in my bag for fear of an ass whooping …

Fast foward a few years, I went to a reputable college, excelled in a masters program, have a strong worldview and have made many concientious decisions for my life and career. I still encounter a few bitches, but just don’t have the time to write it down.

Stop being so judgemental. Damning her, her values, her upbringing, her likely future is ridiculous. She might be a “reflection of our future” but these are just a few sheets of paper not a manifesto or a clear indicator of a life rife with turmoil.

Give the child time and space to grow, find herself and come into what’s right for her. Stop being self righteous, stone casting, presumptuous bitches.

The comment below is really DC-specific, and it made me want to high-five my screen. From DC teacher

bitches who want to comment on things they have not seen, heard, lived or even marginally appreciated.

(more specifically)
* don’t know a tenderhead bitch
* couldn’t find a kitchen bitch
* can’t discern a lingual pattern in vernaculars bitch
* tryin to apply this list to your elitist college life, BITCH?
* “really wish i could save them” bitches
* (who often become) “i’m applying to TFA” bitches
* “can i touch your hair?” bitches
* bitches who be perplexed that some people don’t shampoo daily
* “what does a weave look like?” bitches
* don’t know how to correctly use ‘dark, brown, light-skinned or chocolate’ bitches
* bitches always assumed to be named Sara/h, Ashley or Jenny
* brown friends don’t mean you’re not racist, BITCH
* stuck on some double negatives bitches
* strugglin to read children’s stories by Lucille Clifton bitches

And for all your DMV sisters
* can’t cross the Anacostia because she couldn’t save herself bitch
* never heard of SEU-Waterfront, but lives on the Green Line bitch
* think a phone number that starts with 202 makes you hard, BITCH?
* bitches who live ‘on the Hill,’ not in SE
* bitches who be scared to ride buses
* think DC has a prison, BITCH?
* how is it possible that you work with all white people, BITCH?
* “oh, i go running through that neighborhood” as a badge of honor bitches

You’ll notice that the comments are turned off on this post. That’s for a reason. I’m tired of all this bitching …

“Bygg Books” by Swedish design firm Byggstudio (2006).

[Via we love typography]

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing all of this bizness up again is that they have also been so kind as to include yours truly in their NEW book, Urban Interventions: Personal Projects in Public Places.

I am absolutely thrilled to share a volume with people like Mark Jenkins, Joshua Allen Harris, William Lamson and tons of other artists who endeavor to smack the urban landscape with the giant cartoon glove of whimsy, and I hope y’all will check it out.

Urban Interventions is 69 beans if you buy it direct, BUT, as of this posting, it’s 37% off if you buy it on Amazon!
Or you can just wait until it’s in the big bookstores and hunker down between the rows, all sprawled out taking up aisle space.
I know how you do, ’cause I do it too.

[DBILLY.COM]

Wait a second. You know this is going to be good, when it starts with “My friend’s cousin.”

My friend’s cousin is a teacher at a charter school in Washington, D.C. She found this on the floor of a 3rd grade classroom and recognized it for the gold mine that it is — scanned it into a fax-to-PDF scanner immediately.

See most of the whole, exhaustive list after the jump.

You’ll notice that according to this taxonomy, there are 90 types of bitches. However, there’s a page missing, so we are left to guess what bitch types 44-58 are. If you have any ideas, please do leave them in the comments.

I think it’s possible to be multiple types of bitch at once. I’ve met a number of people who are a combination of 5, 12, and 85-90. One could also evolve into and out of various categories as well. As one friend of mine said “I used to be #33, but now that I’ve grown up a little and my priorities have changed, I am solidly #37.”

Feel free to let me know which type you are in the comments as well — or even chart your trajectory through the list.

This list is fairly neatly written. Spelling and troubled penmanship aside, there are no cross-outs, crumples, stains, etc. This looks like something that was written, maybe as a part of a group, and then placed onto the official record that we see here. I like thinking about an excited group of kids sitting around and charting out all the different types of bitches they can think of and then carefully writing them down onto a master list.

And it was found in a 3rd grade classroom! Either the child who left this behind borrowed this from a much more sophisticated older sibling/cousin, or kids in inner-city D.C. grow up even faster than I thought.

Or both. Anyway, here’s the list.

You can see the whole set on Flickr here.

**And now that this thing has officially gotten out of control, there’s a followup: Bitches Lost their Minds**

I’ve transcribed the list below for Google and folks who are visually impaired but nevertheless want to know about all the types of bitches.

Types of Bitches

1) Dirty dumb ass bitches
2) Aint got no ass bitches
3) Dusty trick bitches
4) Fishy bitches
5) Don’t know how to fight bitches
6) Got all that mouth but can’t step bitches
7) Ugly looking bitch that think they all that
Can’t keep a man bitch
9) Track wearing bitches
10) Bitches that be trying to steal your man
11) Hoochie looking bitches
12) Ain’t got no damn sense bitches
13) Stupid bitches that act dumb
14) Bitches who can only get a dirty boy
15) Want to be jocking bitches
16) Bitches who think their man love them but get pregnant and be left alone
17) Bitches who think they better than me
18) Instigating bitches
19) Talking behind your back bitches
20) Loud mouth bitches
21) Pissy bitches
22) Stingy bitches
23) Funky looking bitches
24) Short hair bitches
25) Spanish bitches who think they all that cause of their hair
26) Bitches that be ignoring you when they know they can hear you
27) Staring in your face bitches
28) Big eyed looking bitches
29) Crazy bitches
30) Nappy tender headed bitches
31) Booty shorts wearing bitches
32) Coast-signing bitches
33) Dick riding bitches
34) Whipped bitches
35) Buck tooth bitches
36) Cheesy teeth bitches
37) Same wearing clothes each day bitches
38) Ghetto bitches
39) Hair dyeing bitches
40) Wearing shoes that be talking bitches
41) Bitches who think they hard
42) Bitches that think they get money
43) Bitches that go to a dirty school
44) (page missing)
45) (page missing)
46) (page missing)
47) (page missing)
48) (page missing)
49) (page missing)
50) (page missing)
51) (page missing)
52) (page missing)
53) (page missing)
54) (page missing)
55) (page missing)
56) (page missing)
57) (page missing)
58) (page missing)
59) Gay bitches
60) Stanky fishy coochie smelling bitches
61) Tomboy bitches
62) Stain on your pants bitches
63) Dry scalp dandruff bitches
64) Dirty hair bitches
65) Stealing bitches
66) Stinky feet bitches
67) Big gap bitches
68) Protecting their store bitches
69) Pajamas outside bitches
70) Ragly braid bitches
71) Stanky butt bitches
72) Greedy bitches
73) Slimy grimy bitches
74) Psycho bitches
75) Drug dealing bitches
76) Geekin’ bitches
77) Suntanning bitches
78) Goofy looking bitches
79) Triflin’ bitches
80) Skanky bitches
81) Mugging bitches
82) Sloppy bitches
83) Dirty fingernails bitches
84) Dirty sock wearing bitches
85) Uncreative bitches
86) White bitches that think black people poor
87) Conceited bitches
88) Tall bitches
89) Short bitches
90) Jealous bitches

I’m not letting this dog die, dammit. Not yet.

Zach Timm and Matt Rivera’s brief documentary about the Williamsburg Hair Man and subsequent Gawker phenomenon debuted at Filmshop’s “Unprotected” last Saturday at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. I went with D.Billy and some other folks, and had no idea what to expect. And as it turned out: it was really good! I loved it, and it definitely got the best crowd response.

I talked to a bunch of folks about it ahead of time, none of whom could make it out. Fair enough. Zach’s a nice young man, and was kind enough/self-promotional enough to post the video on Vimeo. Here it is, see for yourselves:

The Williamsburg Hair from Aligned Creative LLC on Vimeo.

I have to say, I never thought about the actual effect that all this Internet hoopla would have on the human being who actually chose to have that haircut. Having a haircut like that is a choice. Especially when bald and balding guys everywhere are totally allowed to shave their heads. I do — and unless Chris has a nest of purple tumors on the back of his dome, that option is available to him, too.

Admittedly, it’s a one-size fits all option. But you can’t really go wrong with it.

Some of the comments in the film really got me. The line “He looks like Wolverine and a penis had a baby” cracked me up, got huge laughs from the crowd.

When Chris said “I kinda thought I was camouflaged here. I thought nobody would bat an eye at me in New York,” I had two simultaneous, conflicting reactions.

The first one was “Oh man, what have I DONE? That really sucks, picking on the poor guy for flying his freak flag here.” New York is where everyone runs screaming, away from their repressive small towns (or Washington, DC in my case) to really let themselves be themselves. And it’s got to be heartbreaking to think that just when you thought you could be yourself, the same petty assholes you’ve been trying to escape your whole life are still there passive-aggressively mocking you in a way that’s not only painful, but indexed by Google.

The other reaction was “Dude. You were rocking a Hare Krishna haircut. And were those pink Croc boots in the video? Clearly you’re after a certain amount of attention here, don’t act like you’re not.” We all know the Williamsburg uniform for dudes: Giant beard or Depression-era moustache, skintight jeans and a vest over some sort of vintage t-shirt. Bonus points if the t-shirt has a deep V-neck. Mash together the ’30s and the ’80s and presto: you’re in style here, utterly unfuckable anywhere else.

That’s how the rest of this neighborhood expresses itself: by looking totally unacceptable to the rest of the US and the twenty first century, yet blending in with everyone in the immediate area.

Like I said, I feel both reactions equally. But I’m glad Chris is out there doing his thing. And I really, really hope he’s not too upset. If everyone was the same, everything would be boring. I ran here screaming like he did and I’d be really sad if the Internet got rid of this weird haven.

A few years ago, I saw God’s most hated haircut rocking around Williamsburg. And I was motivated to write a blog post about it, complete with a drawing on my office’s whiteboard of the thing. “Thing” is a relevant term here, too.

I’m not opposed to outlandish spectacles or ridiculous self-expression, mind you. I made that pretty clear, too.

BoingBoing picked it up, and so did Gawker. It was fun while it lasted, watching the traffic spike and getting a bunch of comments and generally feeling brilliant and witty and bright.

I started feeling pretty bad about all this fun at someone else’s expense, though.

But whatever. Fast-forward two years to last week when I got an e-mail from a nice young man named Zachary Timm:

I am making a short film about the infamous Williamsburg Hair, that you made so popular a year or so back. The film is going to be screened exclusively at the Filmshop Presents Unprotected film screening @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, on Saturday, February 27th. The film is basically about his experience and unwanted celebrity that came from the coverage on your site and gawker. Since you had such a big part in the story I figured this would be a great follow up blog post for And I Am Not Lying since this will basically be the first time Chris speaks up about the experience.

You read it right. My blog post two years ago was the impetus for a short film that’s screening at the Music Hall of Williamsburg at 66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn this Saturday, 2/27. Doors are at 8PM. Click on the image of the poster (above) for more details.

I’ll be damned. I’ll be there to check it out, shake Chris’s hand and have a laugh — hope to see you all there, too.

I checked with Zachary — wanted to make sure there wasn’t any bad blood or anything. He assured me there wasn’t, and sent this photo as proof:

That’s how I feel about this photo of King King attacking my office, below. I’ve got a McFarlane King Kong toy on my desk, and I just snapped it against the view of the skyline from my office window. Ran it through a couple apps on the phone, then finished it off in Photoshop, and we now have a visual representation of my whole thing: monster movies, screaming giant gorillas, low-res output and a lot of love.

It’s late and I’m screwing around instead of writing. I’m tired, too tired to get any meaningful writing done, but not so tired that I can’t sit here and stare at my lava lamp and wait for it to really start gooping around in earnest.

What I’m supposed to be doing is preparing a story for the “How I Learned” series, which I’ll be performing in at Happy Endings (302 Broome Street, Manhattan) this Wednesday, January 27th. The show’s at 8, doors are at 7, and there’s no charge. Happy Ending used to be a seedy massage parlour in Chinatown/Lower East Side, but now it’s a cool bar with pretty good drinks, most of which have names that are cheeky double entendres. I’ve found that if you get there early, it’s a good time. Stay too late and the Ed Hardy Army starts to creep in, though.

Don’t let the outside fool you — there’s no sign that says Happy Ending. If you get to a place that looks like the photo on this post, you’ve got it.

I can guarantee that I’ll be reading/telling a story. What it’ll be is eluding me right now …

Those nails aren’t acts of violence. They’re prayers for strength. It’s a holdover from a time when metal was precious and rare, valued for its strength and durability. So this could be a statue of a warrior, and each nail pounded into his spirit is a prayer that he stays strong, that he doesn’t flinch, and that he can take whatever gets hammered into him.

I like that a LOT. I don’t even know if it’s true in a literal sense, either. And I don’t even want to know. That’s how faith and myth get formed – you hear something that works for you and moves you in this way that you need to be moved. It’s something that confirms your sense of wonder and beauty, usually. And then it doesn’t even matter how it got into your head or why it’s supposed to be there. Your head and your heart don’t care, you make a pearl out of it all the same.