StrangeLove
i can't breathe
Sean Cliver
'Twas the day after post-election announcement 2019 and I was reflecting on just a smattering of moments that have taken place over the past four years. I couldn't help but feel like Casper in the final scene of Kids (1995), when he woke up the morning after a 24-hour blitzkrieg of big city teen atrocities with the foggy summation, "Jesus Christ… what happened?"
flower wimps valentine shirt release, plus an examination of morrissey's allegedly racist comments masquerading as a review of his most recent album, i am not a dog on a chain
Sean Cliver
Introducing the Valentine’s Day “Flower Wimps” shirt, featuring Morrissey with a bouquet of Gladiolas (art by Todd Bratrud). While it’s difficult to pinpoint the origin of the term, “Flower Wimps,” it was an active pejorative term for The Smiths during the '80s because they would spend a fortune on Chrysanthemums and Gladiolas so Morrissey could stick them up his butt and hand them out on stage. The practice probably began as a tribute to his hero, Oscar Wilde, who had a deep love of flowers. For those that were uncomfortable with The Smiths effeminacy, they taunted them as The Flower Wimps. How very clever and, erm, English.
mortified: surreal
Sean Cliver
As Sean mentioned in a previous post, I had introduced him to the recent popularity of the art of public mortification—a genre loosely called “mortified”: “Witness adults sharing their most embarrassing childhood artifacts (journals, letters, poems, lyrics, plays, home movies, art) with strangers,” it reads on getmortified.com. My high school zine, Surreal, is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of being mortified by the early work of “Lil Baby Davy.” Mostly because this embarrassment was public. I put this thing out there. I aggressively sent it to other skaters all around the world. And it’s fucking horrible.
perusing peru with tony hawk: part 3
Sean Cliver
The day after our return from Peru my friend Mark invited me out for food and drinks. “I’d love to,” I texted back, “but I’ve been puking and pooping, pooping and puking, since I got back from Peru last night.”
the biggest dick in the year of the dick
Sean Cliver
This year has been a total dick. The Chinese call 2020 “The Year Of The Rat,” and while a dirty sewer rat is certainly an apt representative of this year [1], I feel it’s a little unfair to the rat to blame our diminished quality of life on them. The only thing rats ever did wrong was evolve into humans. That was just stupid. Why would you evolve into a creature that is going to perform cruel and inhumane experiments on you, its own ancestor? (We evolved from rats, right?) Anyway, rats are gross, sure, but is a rat really going to buttfuck you right in the mouth for an entire year like 2020 has done? I don’t think so. I think we can all agree that this year needs a much stronger mascot and that’s why I’m calling 2020 “The Year Of The Dick.”