For the Love of the CAN: Recycled Graffiti Art
Their colors warm your heart and the art they create soothes your soul. However, the landfill ridden mess they leave behind leaves you a tad concerned? Yup, I’m calling out spray paint, the medium most street artist have adopted and then were sadly forced to leave behind during their somewhat (ahem) quick exits.
This duality of feeling was the foundation behind the art collective CANlove and their attempt to collect and reuse the discarded paint cans. Their clever creations, like the spray bouquets above or the artwork below, can be purchased through their site or custom fabricated to fit your needs, essentially turning the art medium into art itself. Genius. Spray on.
The Exotic World of Cock Rings (Don’t Be Scared!)
Part 2 of 2
So you’ve dabbled in the basic versions and are ready to move on to the more adventurous, eh? Well, cock rings, like most sex toys, come in a variety of materials, colors and…well, just about anything else you could want. Let me break it down.
Rubber & Silicone:
Since steel is very rigid, Rubber and Silicone offer flexibility and a bit of stretch offering a bit ore comfort when you wanna wear these for an extended period of time. (i.e. if you wanna wear your cock ring under your clothes on a date perhaps. Hey, I’m not here to judge and really it’s not like I haven’t done that.). 
If you like the firm grip of steel you might want to size down with rubber because of the stretch. Also, if you’re a particularly fuzzy gentleman you should consider the silicone as opposed to rubber as rubber has a tendency to snag a strand or two of hair. (And you should seriously consider a good man-scaping session. It smells much better for anyone who is having any face time with your region and it shows that you care.) If you’re really into stacking I’d recommend using rubber rings as a bumpers at the beginning and ends of the rings. They add a little cushion and prevent the pinching that can occur when you’ve got a lot of weight loaded up.
Leather Cock Rings:
There’s nothing like the feel of leather against your skin. It’s just so primal and sensual. And when it comes to cock rings, the appeal is no different. I have known some leather daddies who would drive a car made out of leather if they could. Since no one has figured how to make bands entirely leather, most leather cock rings have Velcro closures or a series of snaps. 
OK full disclosure: As a kid I accidentally caught my gherkin the zipper of my pants and that’s the kind of pain that sticks with you. Ever since then, the mere thought of any type of snap or zipper catching the most sensitive part of me is just too much. I can’t do it. So, I’m not a big fan of these rings. Plus, the size increments between the snaps is so great, often you’ll find one is too tight and the next too loose. But recently I’ve found a leather cock ring with a cinching D-ring closure, so if one of these magically falls from the sky I might have to rethink my stance on the leather situation. (I’m looking at you JT’s Stockroom!)
Aluminum Cock Rings:
Aluminum gives you the firm grip of steel and the comfortable weight of rubber, which makes them ideal if you want to wear them for awhile. You can also find them anodized in a wide variety of colors, adding to the decorative aspect. One year at the Folsom Street Fair I saw a guy with all six colors of the rainbow flag. And then I also saw this other guy there who was squatting—oh never mind. I’ve found that aluminum doesn’t hold temperatures like steel and cools off more easily, which can be distracting if you like the feeling of warm metal on your skin.
Neoprene Cock Ring:
It’s soft, it’s lightweight, it’s stretchy. It’s neoprene. To be honest I didn’t think I was gonna like this one. But I soon came find that the different experiential quality offered by neoprene—although much different than steel—is very pleasing indeed. These donuts have a lot of stretch to them so they’re not gonna grip quite like steel does or even rubber for that matter. 
They have a lot of bulk and mass to them, which gives a lift and outward hold to your Goods. Kind of like those inflatable water wings you wore as a kid. And since they’re lightweight they don’t pull them down in the way that heavier rings do. These are most fun when using them with a partner. It acts like cushion and gives a slight airtight gasket seal effect. It’s interesting. Although, since this is neoprene (i.e. foam rubber with lots of tiny porous bubbles for bacteria to set up shop in…) you have to keep these extra clean or you’ll find yourself exchanging yeast infections back and forth with your lover.
Chrome Cock Band:
This is my personal favorite. It’s a flattened band of chrome steel about ½” thick but still weighs about the same as a standard steel cock ring. 
Since it’s wide and flat, you get a much better purchase between your skin and the metal without the added weight of wearing multiple rings. The band gives a very pleasant grip and stays put when you wear it for extended play sessions and it’s so comfortable you won’t want to take it off. I’ve even fallen asleep with it on; true story. Plus the chrome is super shiny!
Care and Feeding for Your Cock Ring:
Every so often, wash your cock rings in hot soapy water to kill off any cooties that many have migrated up for your neither regions. Also, be sure to thoroughly wash them off after you’ve used them with your partner. Even between sessions is a good idea. If you’ve using a leather cock ring, make sure to use your favorite leather cleaner to keep the leather supple. Harsh chemical cleaners should be avoided with any anodized aluminum rings cuz you’ll strip the pretty colors off, which is probably why you’re wearing it in the first place.
Want More? Check out:
Cocaine + Music = Genius. Duh.
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
Let’s talk a little about the longest lasting marriage in show business, shall we? I’m speaking, of course, about music and cocaine and the way they interact – for better or worse.
Cocaine-use, in my experience, turns up as a personality trait. This observation is glib and a little judgmental, but true. From a musical standpoint, I’m not convinced that this is all bad. Am I making a pro-coke statement in print? Is that a smart career move? Will my mom ever speak to me again? Answers: “No,” “No,” and “Probably” (she’d have plenty to say).
Maybe you do coke all the damn time so as to enhance every experience – which, btw, you actively pursue with your every waking moment: the magic, the transcendence, the wonderment, the pulse of the night.
Or MAYBE you tried it once (against your better judgment) after some show. Nobody wanted the night to end and your friend (who has a sweet gig in the industry) had a hookup. Quick text. Quick text back. Cab ride. Cash. Wait. Go to someone’s house after purchase of 12-pack and vodka from corner grocery that sells booze until 1:59 am (someone has lemonade).
It looked like a ritual you might wanna experience in this lifetime. You didn’t get high (maybe a little), but the process sure was dark and dirty and fun. Your personality was altered that day. The hang changed your life. Friends (new, old and not really) spilled poignant details of their lives with a rhythm approximating a Hanna-Barbera retrospective.
The thing that coke “does” for us (in musicland, in particular) is this: It allows us to think a moment we experienced made sense on simultaneous social and sonic levels. This moment respected everything we thought about growing up, through our adolescence, and touched vaguely on our so-called adulthood…indeed until this very evening. In a world characterized by degrees of disappointment, coke reminds us slyly and with bedroom eyes that another half hour might make all the difference. The only reason “we” do it is because the promise delivers — occasionally. For every seven disappointing nights that result in the Mount Rushmore of hangovers and 3 to 5 regrettable text messages, there’s a moment the drugs/music combo brought us momentary soul-mates.
I don’t do a tremendous amount of drugs these days. In the great tradition of funnyman, Bill Hicks, I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about them. BUT, I’m one of those guys who ‘used to smoke a buncha weed’ and ‘smokes really rarely now.’ It’s great fun – when the spirit moves, the music is good, conversation is a celebration and my inner rock-star wags its tail. I get really high. I’m not maintaining.
And yes, I’ve done some coke in my lifetime. In a society culturally reticent to express it’s immediate affections, coked out clowns who enjoy the same music bond in a way that allows them to express temporary love to the point of utter stupidity. And if THAT isn’t dangerous for the music-economy, I don’t know what is …
Again I’m paraphrasing Bill. He was discussing mushrooms, and how the spiritual clarity he derived from various fungus-oriented occasions made him realize we’re all one; Nature. Creatures, humans, that chick on the Progressive Insurance ads — all of us. He might have also discussed acid’s capacity to bring to light the fractal nature of the social universe.
If you’re still reading, you’re laughing. If you’re mocking me, fuck off. If you’re reading this, its because you’re thinking, “Hmmmm.. drug rant? This could be good ..” which means YOU have been that person, have spoken earnestly about the great patterns of our existence, have felt the heartbeat of the earth or have (at the very least) declared emphatically, in front of all present, that you love them and shall be their friend forever. No foul.
Read More Braincookies:
The Gay 90′s – Why Rock Radio Sucks
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Baby, Wanna Go For a Ride?
By Erin Feher
As anyone who has ever had an inexplicable crush on a deodorant-challenged, alcoholic bike messenger knows – there’s something hot about bikes. Biking is moving each day out of the clichéd confines of crunchy hippies, nerdy, fold-up bike-loving architects and directionless hipsters (unless you count “toward the tattoo parlor” as a direction). 
The latest proof is new kid on the block, Public Bikes. Started by Design Within Reach founder Rob Forbes, this new San Francisco–based bike company is out to prove to us what Europeans have know for years: biking is beautiful, especially if you’re doing it in Louboutin heels and your bike is one of the stunning candy-colored creations designed by Forbes’ team of worldly cycle geniuses. No tacky logos, transformer-style shocks, monster-truck tires, and definitely no folding.
I’ve been riding my beloved rainbow Peugeot for almost six years. It’s carried me through the streets of San Francisco, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam and even up a Tuscan mountainside to my own wedding. Loyalty to that ride runs deep. But last week I headed to Public Bike’s new shop in SF’s Mission District, took a test ride and had the kind of epiphany that rich housewives have when they realize that they just MUST have that Mercedes convertible…I mean, they’ve earned it. And I earned that eight-speed, powder-blue beauty (upgraded with Brooks honey-colored leather saddle, cork grips and matching powder-blue rear rack).
After years of riding a vintage road bike (with suicide shifters, sawed-off drop bars and metal cages that wore charming indents into my boots) riding my Public is like cruising in an automatic Honda: smooth, comfy and just plain easy. I pick it up tomorrow (each bike is built to order) and pay it off a little later than that (bikes range from $550–$890, not including all the fun extras). I’m not gonna ditch my Peugeot, but now, like a proper rich housewife, momma’s got some good looking options.
Pride And Anarchy
Splatter Art by Holden Starstruck
Henry VIII would fucking love the world we live in today. You can parachute some heroin and fuck with the stars – and not even change your religion. True, you can’t exactly behead your former lovers but you can always block them on Facebook.
Princess Diana is one ex whose head I would happily sever. I compare him to Princess Diana because he’s sickeningly sweet in that superficial, to-your-face way, but in reality only wanted me for sex and was abusing drugs in a big time way. It was kind of fucked up.
But then again, how do you have any relationship with drugs without abusing them? So I guess in a way, Princess Diana used me as a drug too. Love and relationships, can be, to quote another ex-boyfriend, “just one giant grey, amoebic area.” I wanted him, he denied me, and now, eight months later he’s wondering why I don’t like responding to texts that say “I want u” at 5 in the morning after he saw me go home with someone else. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good guy and I’m sorry about being harsh, but really, desperation never bought anybody anything.
Love is capitalistic and cutthroat like that. It can suck, but games really are a part of life, and everybody knows this but forgets it once they get hard about something. Sometimes you have to pose and paint yourself a Mona Lisa smile. Sometimes you have to walk tall, speak in tongues, spit fire, and bleed acid. And sometimes you have to be brash, bombastic, stupid and anarchic with your emotions. Everybody is posing shamelessly and dancing recklessly into the morning with their emotions. It’s an age of desperate celebration. Nobody’s buying anything and emotional currency is at an all time low. Oil, cynicism, and doubt fill the oceans.
Well fuck that. I refuse to be like Princess Diana – reluctantly hiding in one fairytale or another until the next tragedy happens. Screw the fairytale, I’d honestly rather just break myself than lie alone fighting my own delusion. And fuck abusing my own personal power beyond comprehension to the point of contempt like Henry VIII. I have no desire to assert control beyond my own place in the anarchic status flow.
It’s like with this guy that I’ve been seeing recently (hope you’re reading and you approve). I don’t know how I feel about him yet and I don’t know where he could possibly fit into my life. He’s definitely the good kind of different. I don’t have the need or the desire to assert any control over the situation (or any situation) – it’s all chaotic and casual enough anyway.
And that’s okay. Maybe energy really does flow according to the whims of the great magnet. Time rusts and replaces the weary and strong alike. There’s really no fighting the great design – there’s only fighting for pride, love, and some sort of fucked up sense of stability.
Maybe that’s the design of it all – maybe we’re all just lovesick, desperate and starved dogs pit against ourselves, and only ourselves. We’re all just looking for a bite while trying to feign otherwise. We all (essentially) fuck and fight the same way. We all love and lie the same way. In theory it should be a lot easier to understand each other than it is. So maybe earnest affection and honest love is like that – hungry bitch versus hungry bitch, your body versus their body, your mind versus your mind and you have no other choice than to sit back and enjoy the conflict.
Read More Splatter Art : I Will Never Go Hungry Again
Caribou and the Art? Behind Math Rock
Braincookies by Xifer Fortier
I hated calculus.
I aced math through junior high and high school. Given my adolescent awareness of life’s contradictions, math was comforting. There was an answer that was correct or not. There was proof. Math helped feathered-hair, acne-pocked me understand what was happening: how tall I wasn’t, the price of beer versus the pittance of my allowance, would she ever kiss me, when, and how many times?
Two eighths made a quarter and we could split it 3 ways. We would divide it in half until the end of time eternal. A negative number had no square root — or so we were told. Until…. Calculus!!! Calculus, for those fortunate to miss it, is a way of describing an unnatural obsession with the integer i, or the square root of -1.
NEGATIVE ONE!!! I had been HAD!!! Math was ambiguous! My reliable, black and white math world was no more! Never mind that calculus was the gateway to most major science. I wasn’t having it!
I failed that class. How could I excel at something I was mad at? It wasn’t the first time I had been the victim of the ol’ bait-and-switch, and it would not be the last, but I had trusted math. When I caught it with its hand in the imaginary number jar, I took it hard.
Its all bygones now. We talk, math and I, but it isn’t like the old days. We’ve grown up, and I’ve come to appreciate math in ways I never expected I would.
Music, for example; You’ve got your beats and poly-rhythms, time signatures, and so forth. There’s even a sub-genre of rhythmically complicated music referred to as math-rock. At its best, math-rock is music played very seriously to men who are not having fun (in any classic sense), but are repeatedly nodding in a fashion that indicates they understand what is happening musically. This appears to please them a great deal. At its worst, it is as cumbersome to hear as it is to dance to.
The Independent, San Francisco 5.24.10
I spent last Sunday and Monday evenings working with Caribou at the Independent in San Francisco. Caribou is the artist name of Daniel Snaith. Much has been made in the music press about the fact that Snaith has a PhD in mathematics and has (in interviews) cited abstract math as a conceptual inspiration.
In the shadow of a psychedelic video-jam, Caribou played a 90-minute set that careened wildly from electro-dance party to noisy, epic space-rock explorations.
The sold-out crowd was an amalgam — burners, early-20′s dance-club kids, and fixed-gear bike-hipsters in full regalia. One pie-eyed gentleman was fully dressed as a leopard. By my estimate, roughly half the room was tripping balls. They were in love with this band, themselves and each other.
There was this level of abandon that is, in my experience, reserved for raves and jam-bands, which is compelling because Caribou is a jam-band for folks who grew up in a culture where the DJ is king. Go ahead and laugh. In the same way the Grateful Dead synthesized bluegrass and jazz into electrified sound-scapes for the ecstatic, Caribou borrows aesthetic cues from electro, techno and break-beat culture and jams it out so the psychedelically-inclined feel alright. Its not a ho-down with a noodley guitar-solo. It’s a remix, performed by human beings who are near you, playing instruments a few feet away.
The sum of parts is more metaphysical than mathematic; Snaith plays with our expectations, worries us, extending noisy or dissonant passages for as long he can before relieving us with a satisfying da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, da-boom-tiss-boom, that encourages us to breathe.
Band and crowd connect. They agree on a lexicon of sonic touchstones and an arc of musical drama. It is interactive and nerd-sexy. It speaks to the cultural role of music in a way that might make DJ and hippie-rock cultures both blush.
Snaith and bassist, John Schmersal sing the word “sun” repeatedly for 5 minutes. Their voices disappear in a synthy lightening bolt. The snare drum rolls and cymbals swell. The writhing mass awaits the climactic corner where dedicated drummer, Brad Weber, and Snaith (on 2nd drum-kit), break-beating in unison, bring it to the next level. By the time they return to the “sun” chorus for another 5 minutes (5 minutes is a long time, btw), eyes are closed and arms are raised.
Smiles are downright goofy. Band and audience have discarded any concern with looking cool – They are 5 and it is Christmas. Snaith is drumming, hunched and squinty, like an accountant changing a tire in the rain (the way nerdy guys express joy). The room is a celebration.
They arrived at this place as a result of a group effort of soul and spirit, hope and faith, toil and sweat. There are enough variables to make ridiculous the question of how this formula fits neatly into an equation. In fact, it suggests Snaith has less in common with Isaac Newton than he does with Jerry Garcia.
Say what you want about Jerry. He was a guitar craftsman on a par with George Harrison, Curtis Mayfield, and Joe Pass. Jerry heard a sound that he chased for a lifetime and was fortunate to play for a devout audience that searched day in, day out for that same sound. He played on an empathy for desire typical to the human condition, to wit: We all desire a journey wherein comfort is threatened by chaos which is eventually conquered by joy itself.
Jerry was also the driving force behind the highest grossing concerts of the 90′s. Go ahead and laugh.
There are few creatures as idiotic and misdirected as the 17-year-old American male. I have no recollection of why I felt so cheated by a concept so tepid as predictability. After my breakup with math, I came to realize that a world we can count on to behave consistently isn’t just impossible. It is hopelessly over-rated and boring.
The Quadratic Equation isn’t funky. We don’t revel in the expected outcome or dance to the absolute value. We require the bravado of the incongruous. We pine for the algorithm of transcendence.
We invite the feeling of falling, that we have then been caught, and that we subsequently saved the world together. The idea that one of us, individually, arrived at a repeatable, correct answer is not only joyless. It is as imaginary as the integer i.
Read More Braincookies:
Snapshots From a Call Girl – Sanjay
Sanjay
$1000
I met him at his suite at the W hotel which was nice but I was expecting much more than just a normal looking hotel room with a corner banquette. He asked me to look “natural and sweet” which for him meant a cheap cotton dress from Nanette Lepore and cowboy boots from Justin. I put my hair into a ponytail because I know he likes to pull it down.
He had perfect lines of coke cut up on the glass coffee table and offered me one. Normally I never do drugs with a client but I know him well and he prefers it. He always seems to have a supply, though I’ve never seem him partake. As I bent over the table, he sat deep into the leather banquette seats and unzipped his pants. Before the cocaine had even begun to take effect he grabbed the back of my head and forced his hard dick into my mouth.
He likes when I struggle and he has to force. I put both my arms onto his thighs and try to pull away. He twists his grip onto my hair and uses it to push me back onto him. I gag and choke, spit coming out of my mouth with every thrust allowing his dick to slide back and forth easily. “My dick can feel the coke on the back of your throat,” he says. His free hand is down the front of my shirt squeezing my breast tightly. He rams deeper into me, causing me to gag quite a bit. Each time he hits my throat he pinches my nipple so hard and painfully I want to cry out. “God, I love to fuck your mouth you dirty fucking slut,” he says over and over again until he pauses and I can feel warm liquid spew into me, filling my entire mouth. He pulls my head off of him but in a very gentle way this time. “God, you’re beautiful,” he says. “There’s a toothbrush in the bathroom.”
Sex and the City 2 – Most Pro-LGBT Movie Ever?
no fashion blog would be complete this week without a review of the obstencibly fashionable movie “sex and the city 2″. don’t get me wrong, i absolutely love patricia field and all the fucking faboush styling work she does, but i think things got a little unprofessional on that movie set. patricia quite transparently felt at odds with cynthia nixon during shooting, there is no other explanation for the hideously frumpy unflattering and poopy-colored “miranda” getups. vomit. vomit. puke. can’t blame it on having to work with bright red hair either, our fair patricia is a firecrotch/clown pussy herself and it has never been an obstacle before. gossip.
however, the halston heritage, the keith haring, the chanel, the louboutins and blahniks, those now famous MYKITA sunglasses, and stellar standout pieces from holly fulton made “carrie” and “samantha” look like the icons they supposedly are. charlotte looks alright. i guess.
the real story here isn’t the fashion at all. following in the impressive footsteps of the ‘nightmare on elm street’ series of movies, part 2 is definitely the “gay one.” in the era of “don’t ask, don’t tell” we have on our hands one of the most pro-LGBT movies ever made. the stylist, the writer/director, the producer, and two of the main stars are all openly gay which is somehow still rare in hollywood. in the movie there is an opulently delicious foie gras torchon of a gay wedding (gay), liza singing a beyonce song (gay²), and a trip to abu dhabi complete with a karoake “i am woman” sing-along with a bevvy of tacky faux arab eurotrash belly dancers and a camel toe pun (gay³).
none of this holds a pink triangle shaped candle to the huge statement 
about sexuality and identity made by the (producers casting the tv show ages ago when they chose that male to female trans kid from the movie “real genius” as their) main character. three cheers to you for opening doors for those who hope to follow. bravery.