Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Best Travel Partner?

Lowbrow Answer: Your Parents
Still taking exotic trips with your parents after you turned 18? Let me guess. You're a white, upper-middle class spoiled brat. Your name is something like "Daphne" or "Libby." All your trips are to famous European cities, where your family takes pasty photographs of each other in front of crumbly buildings that you're all convinced were built by hardworking medieval Italians but that were actually built by hardworking medieval slaves. Sound familiar?

Tragically, this family of yuppies was eaten by a shark just moments after this photo was taken.

There's nothing worse than traveling with your parents. They wear matching baby-blue sweatsuits to the airport, they keep their passports in those beige safety necklaces, and they insist on wearing New Balance walking shoes everywhere they go. Fucking New Balance. If Nike's motto is "Just Do It," New Balance's should be: "Eh. Who cares. You're old and boring anyway."

Middlebrow Answer: Your Significant Other
Traveling with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a mistress or a gimp or a sissyboy twink submissive is always a blast because you get to fuck on the road. It's like an away-game for your penis. There's nothing better than having sex in a foreign country. In a hotel room, on a cruise ship, on the back of an Estonian donkey. Whatever. Sex works on the same principle as modern cinema does: it improves steadily the farther away you get from America.

"I realize my body language says otherwise, but I fucking hate you."

That said, there's no quicker way to violently end a relationship than by taking a trip together. Sweet god. One minute, you're holding hands and sipping Margaritas on the beach in Cabo, and the next, you're calling your girlfriend a dumb skank while she sobs on the phone with the airline company because you got into a car that you thought was a taxi but that was actually a fruit delivery service and now you're standing in the foothills of an active Peruvian volcano.

Highbrow Answer: Bjork
Okay, you know how the Grand Canyon is totally spectacular? The majestic rock faces. The sheer open expanse. The way the sun hits the glimmering waters of the Colorado River. Now imagine that, while you're appreciating all that beauty, Bjork is telling you a story in Icelandic about the time a dwarf stole her toothbrush and used it to build a polar bear sanctuary. Awesome, right? I know. Awesome.

Bjork and I found this rock during our burro tour of Yosemite.

Seeing the world with Bjork as your tour guide is a highbrow dream come true. You could create atonal, unlistenable music by the shores of the Caspian Sea. You could write vague, indecipherable lyrics from the top of Mount Fuji. You could discuss Matthew Barney's latest work amongst the trees of the Black Forest. I should marry her right now so that I can have all that for the rest of my life. Plus, then I'd be the Duke of Bjork. (Get it? Like the Duke of York? Fucking A, I deserve a Golden Globe for this shit.)

Monday, April 2, 2012

Best Radiohead Album Cover?

Lowbrow Answer: In Rainbows
Hey, guys. You're the biggest band in the world. Your fans follow you with an unrivaled level of obsessive devotion. Thom Yorke could poop into a paper bag and I'd wait in line for 7 months just to smell it. You could name your next album, "Jeff King is a Goat-Molesting Scrotum Licker," and I'd still buy it. I'd buy 4 copies. What I'm trying to say here is that you don't need to write "In Rainbows" five times on the front of the record. I know what it's called. I knew what it was called before you did.

Somebody needs a lesson in proper forward slash usage.

The longer I stare at this album, the more I feel like I'm taking an eye exam. Man, visits to the optometrist's office would be way more fun if I got to stare at Radiohead albums the whole time. "Is Thom Yorke's staggering ability to write opaquely depressing lyrics clearer now, or now? How about this lens? Clearer? And now? What about now?"

Middlebrow Answer: The King of Limbs
Does anybody else have the sudden urge to play Pac-Man? Man, that game was awesome. Remember you had to rescue the princess, but there was that giant monkey throwing barrels at you the whole time. And you could use a sledgehammer to break through the obstacles and there were... Wait a minute. That's Donkey Kong, isn't it. Dammit. I've done waaaay too many Angel Dust this morning.

Please don't feed the psychedelic marine life

I can't help but wonder what the backstory is on these two jellyfish-lookin' ghost men. Are they friends? Enemies? In a jellyfish-lookin' ghost man boy band together? And what's the deal with their arms? They look like neon umbilical chords. By the way, I hear "The Neon Umbilical Chords" is going to be the name of the new Los Angeles NFL franchise.

Highbrow Answer: Kid A
Okay, so you know Hayao Miyazaki? He's the legendary Japanese animator who created "Spirited Away," "Princess Mononoke," and "My Neighbor Totoro." (If you still don't know who he is, you should stop reading this blog because I hate you. No, really. Stop.) Imagine if you took Miyazaki, fed him six pounds of cocaine, rammed a fishing rod up his ass, and then locked him in a dark room with a flock of rabid sheep for two weeks. I bet when you let him out and handed him some art supplies, he'd draw this album cover. Awesome.

The ski vacation from hell

It helps that "Kid A" is Radiohead's best album musically. It makes me way more inclined to like the album cover, you know? It's like how a fat girl can look terrible when you see her at a club, but that same fat girl becomes instantly more attractive the moment she starts licking your balls. So, in conclusion: listen to "Kid A" and sleep with a fat chick. You'll be very satisfied with both experiences.