Today’s topic: Why are guys with guitars so hot?

The most mild-mannered guys are transformed into sexy things the moment they strap on guitars.

Maybe it’s just me, but judging by the bevy of birthday party girls who were climbing all over Tom at Black & Blue’s gig in Fort Worth Friday night, I think not.

The night started unpromising. By 10:30, there were maybe 15 people in the club, including me and a few friends. But an appreciative crowd grew over the course of the first set and during the break, the girls arrived—a whole flock of ‘em in short-shorts and high heels and glitter everywhere. One wore a tiara. This was good news.

“Those are the girls that are going to dance to Honky-Tonk Women,” I told a friend.

I was right, of course. Honky-Tonk Women was the second song of the second set and that’s when the party really began.

It was, we learned, Kaitlin’s 22nd birthday and she was out in a white sequin tank top, white short-shorts, disco ball earrings and tiara, partying with her posse at the Moon bar. It was a mass of writhing, squealing girls, pressed up to the low stage, wiggling for attention. Kaitlin draped a scarf around Tom’s neck and another girl put a tiara on Steve. The girls would drift off for a minute, to get drinks or take cell phone photos of each other, then return, arms in the air, nipples aimed at the band, shaking their bottoms and shrieking.

This display attracted throngs of beefy frat boys and the dance floor grew increasingly crowded. By Satisfaction and Jumping Jack Flash, the room was a hallucinogenic bacchanalia of dancing. It was a notably rhythmless orgy but heartfelt and enthusiastic.

I’d pay money for copies of the photos taken at the end of the show of Tom, looking sweaty, pleased and bewildered, flanked by young girls, pressing in and posing. It was a MySpace moment in the making.

After the last shutter clicked, the girls wandered off and the club began clearing out.

“What was that about?” Tom asked.

Guitars, baby. They do something to us.

Electric guitars properly wielded instill authority, power, mystery and blatant sex appeal. It works for women too, but they become sexy in a masculine way.

I am first of all awed by the ability to stand on a stage and sing, play a guitar and interact with an audience. The skill alone is a turn-on. I am attracted to competence.

But guitars on men are like stiletto heels on women: an automatic come-on.

Guitarist wield their instruments differently. Tom is low-slung and solid and wears his guitar at groin level. He wears t-shirts or his sleeves rolled up, flashing forearms. When he solos, he plants himself even more firmly and works his instrument. (So to speak.) His playing is crunchy and assertive.

Black & Blue’s other guitarist, Steve, is tall, slender and androgynous. He wears his guitar high. He moves on the stage less than Tom but his connection with his guitar is palpable and his solos are complex conversations.

Both different, both hot.

My first major real life rock-and-roll crush was on a bass player. Bass is hot. It vibrates. Bass players don’t need center stage but can be a band’s backbone. Joel, Black & Blue’s bassist, mostly hangs back on stage. He hasn’t started working the crowd yet or maybe he’s going for mystery. Drummers have to work hard for attention, tucked way back the way they are. Chuck seems to like it. He works his ass off behind his drums and enjoys watching the dramas in front of him.

Girls who chase bands know that dating a bass player is different from dating, say, a lead singer. (What do you call a lead singer without a girlfriend? Homeless. That’s my favorite musician joke.) The ego needs are different. You have to be prepared to do an awful lot of ego-feeding to run with rock stars. Rhythm guitarists have lesser ego needs than lead guitarists. Drummers have low-maintenance egos but are infamously flaky. (What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicans? A drummer. Another good one.)

Here’s my favorite rock-and-roll wife story. It was our first wedding anniversary and Tom’s band du jour, Tex Edwards and the Swingin’ Cornflake Killers, was playing at Taco Land in San Antonio. (BTW, big Cornflake Killers reunion on Aug. 8 at Reno’s in Deep Ellum.) Before the show, as the many bands that day milled around and set up, MsKrit, Tex’s girlfriend, and I were, as always, sitting off to one side watching the scene and entertaining ourselves with caustic narrative. At one point, the wife of some other musician in some other band stood before us.

“You wives and girlfriends of the band?” she demanded.

We nodded.

“Me too,” the woman replied. “Makes ya mean, don’t it?”

That night went on to be an epic rock-and-roll night to remember.

But I digress...

Skill counts in guitar-lust, of course. The first time I saw Kenny Vaughan, a successful studio player in Nashville, was at a small-ish club where we very fortuitously stumbled into a show of Nashville notables playing together for fun. I knew of Kim Richey, Jim Lauderdale and Mandy Barnett, who were part of the group, but I’d never heard of the geeky-cute gangly guy with dark hair and big plastic glasses.

But when he started playing I got flustered. He didn’t have a lot of guitar god moves and wore his guitar on the high side, which is interesting but less sexually explicit than all that groin-level diddling. But Vaughan’s playing had shades of George Harrison, my childhood guitarist crush. His chords and progressions hit notes in me I blush to speak of. I shook his hand after the show and my knees trembled.

Guys and guitars. It just works.

Labels: black and blue, relationships, rock and roll, sex

Although I like both sex and the city, I don’t really get the whole cult status of Sex and the City. I used to watch it in reruns sometimes, BC (Before Cable) but found it more irritating than entertaining.

I was particularly annoyed to read a quote from a 45-year-old woman in today’s paper saying, “They were the first really powerful women” on television.

Wow. Can we define power here? Yeah, have good jobs, although except attorney Miranda, they all were in pink-collar jobs. (And, by the way, could Carrie really afford all those clothes on a columnist’s salary? She must work at the same place the friends of Friends worked to pay for all those nice apartments.)

But what they did most was talk about men, think about men, fret about men, sleep with men, pine for men, break up with men … I know sex is in the title, but where is the power in all that? Considering that the theme of the show seems to be we don’t need no stinkin’ men, we have each other! they sure seem boy crazy. Bo-ring.

And let’s talk about powerful women on TV. While she’s at the front of my mind--what with the death of Harvey Korman-—how about Carol Burnett? She was powerful as a professional and she was completely in control of her comedy. Maude was a powerful female character. The golden girls of The Golden Girls had a lot more on their minds than men, even though they were out there dating and getting laid plenty. I know that because the show has become one of my late night guilty pleasures. Believe it or not (I know you don’t) it’s funny.

Mary Richards was virginal, but she was out there makin’ it on her own. Actually, the girls of SATC are more like Rhoda, who was supposed to be the boy-crazy loser on the MTM show. Hot Lips Hoolihan wasn’t above a little extramarital hoohoo, but she was nothing if not strong like ox and she had lots more on her mind than shoes and penis.

Yeah, SATS brought a baby into the mix, and breast cancer. But in the shows I saw, all the other characters were self-congratulating when they tore themselves away from their sexual needs to pay attention to the enormous life challenges their dear, dear friends faced. Such sacrifice!

First strong women on television? I don’t see the characters of SATS as strong at all. I see them as needy, demanding and annoying. They might have been the first to talk openly about sex, but they also had the benefit of cable. The Golden Girls was pretty good at innuendo, working within network broadcasting codes.

Are the women who admire this gang of whiners as strong women to emulate the same ones who think a Hillary nutcracker is funny?

OK, I’ll give the show one thing: The catch phrase “He’s just not that into you” is incredibly useful and applies in various contexts. But even Dr. Phil has contributed to our society with “How’s that workin’ for you?” which is equally useful although he is equally annoying.

I won’t be getting a gang of gal pals together to partake in this particular pop culture nonevent. I’m just not that into them.

Labels: feminism, movies, pop culture, sex, sex and the city, sexism, television

Alrighty then, lots of flotsam for your procrastinators today. A little something for everyone. (Maybe. I don’t know.)

I am happy to report that the incorrigible Jack has become partly corriged. He has adjusted to the electric fence and no longer wanders at will. No more crossing the creek and coming home muddy, no more chasing off the mailman, no more patrolling the alley and riling up the other dogs. He doesn’t seem particularly traumatized by the limits. Perhaps the responsibility of patrolling so large an area weighed heavily on his burly shoulders and troubled his large noggin. His own yard is large enough. So many squirrels, so little time. And so much napping to be done. How is one dog to do it all without some limits?

Now I need an electric fence for the sofa. He is not allowed on the sofa and knows it, but at night, after we go to bed, he helps himself. At the suggestion of one of his many trainers, I tried booby trapping it last night by covering it with newspapers and balancing a couple beer cans filled with coins on the papers, which were supposed to fall off and make noise and either frighten him off or wake us up. They did neither. He managed to fit his large tuchus between the cans, barely even disturbing them. So, back to shutting him out of the living room at night. He hates that. The other night, I had to put his leash on him and drag him out. Literally drag him—he put that aforementioned large tuchus on the floor and wouldn’t move it.

Brat.

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Slate has a special issue on procrastination (speaking of blogging) which includes this story, asking the question What is the difference between severe procrastination and writer's block?

So, I have this novel I’ve been working on for about three years. I’m in revisions. Ten painful pages at a time. And a half-finished book proposal that’s been collecting cyber dust for more than a year. So slow. I could do better. I know it. I’m not blocked, I’m procrastinating, Because as long as these remain remain unfinished they might be brilliant. If I finish them, their lead feet will be obvious.

Says one expert: "The chronic procrastinator knows he's presenting a negative image, but he'd rather be perceived negatively for lack of effort than for lack of ability."

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The research corner:

Important news about men and their thingies: First, the International Society for Sexual Medicine has only just come up with (no pun intended) a formal definition of premature ejaculation. I know, can you believe it? I personally have never encountered this particular problem but in case you’re wondering, it is now defined as: “a male sexual dysfunction characterized by ejaculation which always or nearly always occurs prior to or within about one minute of vaginal penetration; and, inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetrations; and, negative personal consequences, such as distress, bother, frustration and/or the avoidance of sexual intimacy.”

And, says the study’s main author, “The hope is that more people with these symptoms will understand this is an actual health condition and seek treatment. They no longer need to suffer in silence.”

In related thingie-research: Gastric Bypass Surgery Restores Sexual Function in Morbidly Obese Men—Losing weight may help resolve erectile dysfunction in obese men.

Mostly, it helps them get laid more, I assume.

Having just experienced a highly unpleasant allergic reaction to a drug (my friends got all the gory details, I spared most of you) I was drawn to research into why scratching helps an itch. The study involved 13 healthy participants who underwent testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology that highlights areas of the brain activated during an activity. Participants were scratched on the lower leg with a small brush. The scratching went on for 30 seconds and was then stopped for 30 seconds – for a total of about five minutes.

“To our surprise, we found that areas of the brain associated with unpleasant or aversive emotions and memories became significantly less active during the scratching,” said Yosipovitch. “We know scratching is pleasurable, but we haven’t known why. It’s possible that scratching may suppress the emotional components of itch and bring about its relief.”

So scratching is not really physical relief, it’s emotional. Which, when you think about it makes sense. Itching is so miserable … a persistent itch makes you want to scream, cry, bang your head repeatedly against a wall. Finally succumbing to the urge to scratch? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It’s more than physical relief. It’s bliss—however short lived and guilty, since we know we shouldn’t scratch.

The rash is fading and I will never take Aleve again.

Here’s a fun read from the Wall Street Journal, about retail therapy. Yup, psychologists and neuroscientists are studying that, too. Not to help us, mind you. To help retailers.

But keep this in mind—just like those little 100-calorie size snack packs of cookies and other treats can help us eat less, how we carry money can help us spend less, according to one study: Students were given $100 in pretend cash to participate in a gambling study. Some students received one sealed envelope with all the money, and others got 10 sealed envelopes that each contained $10. Individuals with multiple envelopes tended to spend less, sometimes half of what the people with the single envelope spent. "The power of partitioning can reduce spending by 50 percent," Cheema said.

I don’t like carrying lots of cash for this very reason. If I have it, I spend it. If I have to go back to the ATM, I become more aware of my spending. (And I am on near-lockdown on credit cards right now. Not complete, but I’m staying careful. Baby needs a new tank of gas…)

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Dunno why it’s taken me so long, but I’d like to point out a new blogroll link—to the blog of my friend Jenna and her friend Rachel. The Haiku Diaries is commentaries on life entirely in the 5-7-5 format. It’s so much fun. I like to comment in haiku when I’m feeling sharp enough.

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This week instead of just a list of google searches, a little commentary on a select few.

Again, numerous searches for crossdressers in saris this week. Is it possible these are not just fetishists? I found a New York Times article about a Pakistani talk show host: Ali Saleem may have devised the perfect, if improbable, cover for breaking taboos in conservative, Muslim Pakistan.

In a country where publicly talking about sex is strictly off limits, Mr. Saleem has managed not only to bring up the subject on his prime-time television talk show — but to do so without stirring a backlash from fundamentalist Islamic clerics.

And he has done so as a woman.

In a sari.

I haven’t found anything similarly uplifting about searches for women peeing in saris.

On a related subject, I came across this Q&A from a woman who planned to cross dress her husband for a party because he lost a bet. Responders were not impressed.

I find a lot of searches that look like this: 2008 contact emails of the doctors @yahoo.com in Florida; email contact women's america 2008@yahoo.com

I was baffled until learning that these are the kinds of searches used by spammers to harvest email addresses. OK, that would explain the ever-thickening blizzard of spam I receive.

Three of my photos have become very popular: the one of a pyramid at Teotihuacan, the portrait of a xoloescuintle and the plastic army men war atrocities. These turn up so often, I assume someone is using them for something somewhere, but I can’t figure out how to figure it out.

Someone searched hillary jillette cunt which I suppose relates to Hillary Clinton and Penn Jillette. I know he called her a bitch. Did he call her a cunt, too? What a prick.

Someone searched Elizabet gilbert eat, pray, love review childfree, which is a little confusing.

Chelle, someone searched you. Someone searched my brother Oliver. And someone searched "black and blue" "rolling stones" tribute band dallas, texas myspace which had a very happy ending, since it resulted in a job for Black and Blue. May 31, Tolbert’s in Grapevine. Glad to help…

And that's Friday.

Labels: blogging, brain science, dallas morning news, dog training, dogs, google, jack, photography, psychology, research, sex, sexism, shopping, writing

I watched the movie Hair on AMC the other night. Some of you know that Hair holds a very special place in my heart. I was a stage door groupie for the Broadway show and even auditioned for it when I was, like, 12 years old. Yeah, really. No, I didn’t get a part.

Anyway, the movie wasn’t great and I haven’t seen it since it came out in 1979, but I was thrilled to see it listed the other night, when I was planning a solo late-night couch party. It was great fun.

Hair depicts the seismic societal changes of the late ‘60s but what the movie brought most strongly to my mind is the very distinct experience of growing up in the 1970s, when I went to see the show over and over, longing for the jubilance of the life of those who came just before me.

My cohort comprises the tail end of the baby boom (I was born in ’58, the boom is generally accepted as ’46-’64). Mine is one of those in-between generations, stuck in a muddy trench between the revolutionary idealism of the ‘60s and the brittle excess of the ‘80s. The 1970s were a dark time, when the drugs really kicked in and the pristine visions of the flower children started looking like snow in New York City, day two—gray with yellow spots and pocked with garbage. Maybe free sex and prodigious drugs weren't such a great idea after all. This was the decade when we figured that out.

A teenager through Watergate, I was acutely aware of it without entirely comprehending what was happening. I just breathed the sour air of corruption, mistrust and anger surrounding it. I didn’t know anyone who went to Vietnam (oddly, now that I think about it) but it flickers on the TV screens of my memories of those days. The nation was hit by inflation and the oil crisis and New York City was deep in the economic crapper.

Drugs and sex were seeping ever more deeply into popular culture but the sex was a lot less jubilant than it seems today. Nobody was used to sexual freedom yet and it all seemed a little bit tawdry--sex clubs and poppers and leather bars. I was too young to be a part of all that but I knew what was going on. (The famous sex club Plato’s Retreat was not very far from my home. Once, a man standing outside asked me if I would go in with him, no strings attached, because single men were not allowed in. I declined.)

Wedged between the nuclear family ‘50s and the loud reinvention of parenting that began in the ‘80s, many of my generation were untethered from their parents. I roamed New York freely, riding graffiti-covered subway cars; getting high with friends in the park, in friends' apartments while their parents were at work, in the staircases of apartment buildings if no place better could be found. I pretended to go to school in the morning but instead met a friend on a patch of grass near the West Side Highway, where we waited until our parents went to work so we could go back home.

That was the '70s NYC-style but I recognize the same style of sad and surly independence in the suburban teen lives depicted in the movie and book The Ice Storm. Tom, who was born in 1960, sees his Texas adolescence in Dazed and Confused—funnier by miles than the Ice Storm (which is devoid of humor) but not exactly depicting a generation on the fast track.

In some ways, the 1970s gave me a dark world view and chopped, diced and spliced my values into a strange amalgam of idealism and cynicism.

I don’t mistrust the government as deeply as some (perhaps the fact that Watergate was uncovered and punished inoculated me against total cynicism) but I believe it bears close watching and that voting is among our most significant responsibilities. I also believe that if newspapers go under, the great loss to society will be unbiased investigative reporting.

I think the era affected how I view sex and drugs. I’ve seen lots of casualties of drugs and so have less of a moral objection to them than a pragmatic one because they do some bad shit. I avoided the harder drugs many of my peers did. I never tripped, but I did do cocaine for a while. I don’t anymore because it killed my brother and I hold a grudge.

Coming of age while culture was in flux perhaps made me more broad minded, more flexible in my rules of morality (for better or worse), than those who came before or after. In general, I am forgiving of our darkest nature, tolerant of transgressions and raw in my assessment of human nature. I don’t think humans are bad. I just think we’re all a little fucked up. And that’s OK.

And, by the way, I miss the ‘70s desperately. Those are my good old days.

Labels: 1970s, baby boom, drugs, memoir, new york city, personal growth, sex