The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

If you read National Lampoon back in the 1970s and ’80s, you probably saw ad like the one below near the back of the magazine:

Back before Neil Strauss’ The Game (which I wrote about in My Invitation to Become a Pickup Artist) and the rest of the Pickup Artist and Seduction communities, before the Red Pill Reddite, before evolutionary psychology douchebags and before the “alpha male” sites in an increasingly whiny section of the ‘net calling itself the “manosphere” — before the current glut of how-to-date-and-live resources for guys where the overarching philosophy seems to align with Peter Griffin’s (“Women are not people. They are devices built by the Lord Jesus Christ for our entertainment”) — before all that, there was Eric Weber’s How to Pick Up Girls.

Written when it was still a relatively new thing to approach a woman to whom you hadn’t been introduced, How to Pick Up Girls made tantalizing promises of techniques that you could use to have the ladies eating out of the palm of your hand.

There was enough demand for the book to justify the creation of an 40-minute album, in which you can listen to people in various settings — at the beach, walking in the dog, in a clothes store, at the library — acting out textbook-perfect pickups.

The scenes sound as if they’re being acted out by “Larry” from Three’s Company (he was Jack Tripper’s womanizing buddy who lived int he apartment upstairs), and while they may have seemed a bit sleazy back then, in today’s pretty ungentlemanly dudebro/douchebro-driven dating scene, they now have a retro charm, and they remain high-larious. I’ve shared the album on SoundCloud, and you can listen to the entire thing below:

If you prefer Picking Up Girls Made Easy in single servings, the folks at WFMU have broken the pickups into individual MP3s, which you can listen to below:

• The Street Pick Up (6:00)
• Love In The Library (5:11)
• Singles Bar Action (6:12)
• Women’s Clothing Store Pick Up (6:39)
• The Ballet Is A Ball (4:08)
• Museum Pick Up (5:42)
• Walking The Dog (5:53)
• Pick Up At The Beach (5:46)

A Bra for Dudes

Back when I worked at Shopify, I racked my brains trying to think up an idea for an online store, but couldn’t come up with one that hadn’t already been done by hundreds of other vendors with a considerable head start. I once joked with my co-worker Edward that I should sell “manties” — panties for men into that sort of kink — and now I know that I wasn’t that far off from the next big thing in online shopping:

Japan, still at the vanguard of exporting high weirdness to the rest of the world, is the home of the online shop Rakuten, which boasts page after page of dudes’ over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders. Here’s a screenshot:

Rakuten’s customers come from all over the world. According to Rocket News 24 (my go-to site for all sorts of Asian WTF), a satisfied customer from England says that wearing a men’s bra makes him feel “relieved and protected”. Another from Italy talked about the back-support benefits of the male brassiere. Other men say it feels like a sort of security blanket.

Before these guys discovered the “BROssiere’s” benefits, they had to have some reason to try them on first. Rocket News 24 reports a couple of reasons, including losing a bet, an excuse that sounds as lame as explaining to the folks at the emergency room that you just happened to be at home in the nude, fell over backwards, and that is the perfectly innocent explanation why you now have a beer bottle up your ass.

If any of you can read Japanese, could you please tell me what’s this ad says? I like Topless Robot’s interpretation of its text as “Halo of Awesome”, but I’m sure that’s not an accurate translation:

Ironically, for all the feelings of safety, support, and security that the male bra provides its wearers, it’s also a source of great anxiety. In the world of men, where an effective insult is “You know what we calls guys like you? Chicks!“, I’m sure a male bra wearer, like a Nickelback fan, secret furry or Surface RT owner, lives in perpetual shame and fear of being found out.

The “Male Bra” Segment from The World of Golden Eggs

How did I not know of the existence of the anime series The World of Golden Eggs? It’s every little bit as twisted as you’d imagine a Japanese comedy series set in a midwestern rural American high school could be. It’s so very, very wrong.

Here’s a segment from The World of Golden Eggs in which one bodybuilding jock asks another why he’s wearing a bra. “It’s not a bra! It’s a supporter for my pecs!” replies the other, in this sequence in which they beat a joke to death much better than Family Guy ever has:

If you’re in Accordion City and looking for something to do tomorrow after work, I recommend checking out Patio Friday, a loosely-organized gathering of people at a randomly-selected bar patio somewhere in Toronto. It’s normally organized by Toronto graphic designer Lee Dale, but he’s out of the country this summer. Luckily for us, Lady Miss Verna “Lake Louise” Kulish took the reins and got the Patio Friday ball rolling this summer. Verna won’t be able to make it this week, but she deputized RJ “World’s Nicest Lawyer” Moorhouse to run the show this week, and he has selected the patio at the Town Crier Pub (115 John Street), located in that row of pubs on John Street across from Chapters. If you’re reading this article, you’re invited! I’ll be there.

The fun starts at 4 p.m. and is reserved under the names “Patio Friday” and “Robert Moorhouse”. It runs until whenever we decide it runs until. The first Patio Friday of this summer took took place at Remy’s, ran until closing time and featured me entertaining lots of ladies:

Always give a lady an accordion lesson if she asks for one.

Last week’s Patio Friday took place at the Kennedy Public House near Bloor West Village and ran until about 11. It was great fun as well:

And here are some shots of Patio Fridays from previous years, courtesy of Lee Dale:

Once again, if you’re looking for something fun to do after work tomorrow, go hit Patio Friday!

As you type your name into a Google search box, what suggestions do you get? Here’s what happens when you type in mine:

That’s probably a result of my posts on That Particular Situation, listed below in the proper chronological order for the first time:

• Closing Time: Yes, as in the pop song by Semisonic. It’s the story of a weird dream I had, and it’s one in which I drop a hint or two. A tale of unexpected situations, Mariachi bands, pressure and the low-cut uniforms the waitresses at Swiss Chalet used to wear.
• The Great Reset: I tell everyone what happened, and what my plans are.
• My Hospital Week: A week after she moved out, I ended up nearly dead in the ICU. This one’s got an appearance on a kids’ TV channel, life-or-death fumbling in a darkened emergency room, poop, and a sponge bath scene with a cute nurse. Seriously, why aren’t you reading this right now?
• Like Me, Just More So: How that week in the ICU ended up affecting me.
• Consolation Fries (or: The Non-Date That Went Tragicomically Wrong): My first post-separation dating story. How’d it go? Let’s just say that it’s a good idea to get the bad date — or in this case, non-date — out of the way nice and early.
• My Invitation to Become a Pickup Artist: My introduction to The Game. Not really my thing.
• Half-a-Versary: Six months later.
• On the Anniversary of My Not Dying: A year after the hospital week.
• A Month of Travel, A Year of Adventure: The one-year review.
• My Divorce Sense is Tingling (or: “Okay, Malcolm Gladwell, You Win.”): When your marriage ends, you become more attuned to breakups in an eerie, Jedi-like way. You can look at a person and say “The divorce is strong in this one.”

I’m all right with Google showing “joey devilla divorce” as one of its top suggestions, but maybe it’s time to mix it up a little. I’d like the following to be one of the top suggestions when you type in my name:

If you’d like to help me make this a reality, you can do one simple thing: do a search for “if you die in joey devilla do you die in real life”! Click that link or the screen capture above and help me mix up my search results a little.

In case you don’t get the reference, it’s from this XKCD comic:

(By the way, the top result for “if you die in joey devilla do you die in real life” is an article in Guyism on what your drink order says about you. It features a photo I took in Seattle.)

If you’re on the Harper Government’s “enemies list”, the Eye of Stephen may seek you out!

As a follow-up to my previous post about the Canadian Prime Minister’s office sending “enemies lists” as part of the orientation materials for his new people, here’s a collection of similar “Shit Lists” and other related goodies.

The “You Just Made My Shit List” Poster

First, you can buy this poster at Amazon:

Click the poster to see its page on Amazon.

Shitlist by L7

Remember the grunge band L7? They were the poster children of the Riot Grrrl movement of the early ’90s, and if you played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, you likely heard their single Pretend We’re Dead on the radio in one of your stolen cars:

They had a track titled Shitlist, which featured this first verse:

When I get mad
And I get pissed
I grab my pen
And I write out a list
Of all the people
That won’t be missed
You’ve made my shitlist

Moe Szyslak’s Enemies List

A somewhat sped-up version of the Simpsons episode Homer’s Enemy.

In the Simpsons episode Homer’s Enemy (the one with Frank “Grimey” Grimes), there’s a scene in which Homer is shocked that Grimes — after watching how everyone lets him get away with everything — has declared him an enemy.

Here’s the conversation that Homer has with his buddies at Moe’s Tavern:

Homer: Oh, I can’t believe it, I got an enemy. Me, the most beloved man in Springfield.

Moe: Ah, it’s a weird world, Homer. As hard as it is to believe, some people don’t care for me, neither.

Homer: No, I won’t accept that.

Moe: No, it’s true. I got their names written down right here on what I call my, uh, “enemies list.” [reaches under the bar for a sheet of paper]

Barney: [takes list and reads it] Jane Fonda, Daniel Shore, Jack Anderson…Hey! This is Richard Nixon’s enemies list. You just crossed out his name and put yours.

Moe: Okay, gimme that, gimme it back. [takes list and writes Barney’s name in] Barney Gumble.

Barney: Oh.

Speaking of Nixon’s “Enemies List”…

I mentioned Nixon’s enemies list in my previous post and linked to the searchable online edition of the list. Here’s a bonus video covering the list; it’s from PBS’ series American Experience:

Sarah Palin’s “Take Back the 20” List

You might remember Sarah Palin’s “Take Back the 20” site, which called on people to vote against the 20 House Democrats in areas carried by Republicans who voted for the health care bill. The locations of these 20 people were marked on a map as shown in the screen capture below:

If you tried to go to the actual “Tack Back the 20” site, it’s no longer there. That’s because it got taken down after one of the 20 Democrats marked in crosshairs was shot in the head outside a grocery store while at a public function.

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

There’s a scene in Mona Lisa Overdrive the final novel from William Gibson’s “Sprawl” series of near-future cyberpunk novels in which street samurai Molly talks with hardware/software fence The Finn, and explains that she’s figured out that the person who’s coming after her is an adversary from their past:

“So I put her on the list, right? You get big enough trouble one day, you’re being got at, you check that list.”

“And you figured it for her, right off?”

“No. I gotta pretty long list.”

From the big things, like trying to make Canada more petro-state-like and muzzling environmental scientists to tiny tyrannies like watching for “disloyalty” from federal librarians and archivists on their personal time, the fact that Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is a control freak isn’t news to anyone here. Based on his observed behaviour, it shouldn’t be surprising that his office uses the term “enemy” to describe those who don’t go along, but it still is — it just seems so un-Canadian.

The Globe and Mail reports:

The Harper government is facing questions about whether Conservative staffers were compiling enemies lists as part of transition plans for Monday’s cabinet shuffle.

A July 4 email obtained by Global News shows a Prime Minister’s Office official asking staff working for cabinet ministers across the government to draw up lists of pesky bureaucrats and “enemy stakeholders.”

…

These include: “Who to avoid: bureaucrats that can’t take no (or yes) for an answer” as well as “who to engage or avoid: friend and enemy stakeholders.”

It’s unusual in Canadian politics for political staffers to openly call those who disagree with them “enemies.”

Critics of the Harper government sometimes compare it unfavourably to the administration of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, citing the Tories’ penchant for secrecy and their distrust of outsiders.

Global News said Ms. Furtado later sent a follow-up email saying that the PMO “no longer required” a list of troublesome bureaucrats.

It quoted a source saying the PMO also verbally requested that ministerial staff develop a list of “enemy reporters,” but that this request was later withdrawn.

There’s a metric ton of training and literature on more constructive ways to define how to handle people who don’t or won’t agree with you. One classic example, made popular on my tech blog, Global Nerdy, is the U.S. Air Force’s “rules of engagement for blogging”, sent to me by Dave Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology at the Air Force’s Public Affairs Agency, and shown below:

The idea of unpleasant people or organizations having an “enemies” list isn’t anything new. Richard Nixon famously had one, and there’s a site that provides a searchable version for you hardcore history buffs. The NRA had a similar list online that didn’t use the (ahem) loaded term enemy. In light of how bad it made them look (and events such as Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford’s getting shot after appearing on Sarah Palin’s “target list”), they took it down in February. The version I’m linking to is a cached version from the Internet Archive.

It’s Friday, which means Patio Friday — time for local techies, media, creatives, and hey, anyone who likes good food, drink, and conversation to gather.

If you’re in the Toronto area, Patio Friday will be taking place at The Kennedy Public House (2199 Bloor Street West, a block east of Runnymede Station). Lady Miss Verna “Lake Louise” Kulish will be holding court. I’ll be there with the accordion.

If you’re in Hamilton, Patio Friday will be taking place at Urban Tavern on George in Hess Village (109 George Street) from 4 – 7 p.m. before VoxPopCon begins. Lady Miss Merlene “Needs a Nickname” Paynter will hold court at this one.