The Awl

Pig Virus To End Irritating French Air Kisses?

Alex Balk — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:30:46 +0000

In France, where there is a king with a small stature and a queen with a fair face on the throne, the fear of swine flu has lead the government to proscribe la bise-the annoying thing where some odiferous French person pretends to kiss you on both cheeks. Quel horreur, as French people are wont to say when they are not busy fake-kissing each other. Will this outrageous attempt to take away what makes the French their Frenchiest really (unlike French people) pass the smell test? It says here non.

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Austrian Tabloids, Beyonce Look-A-Likes, Art Museums, Huh?

Alex Balk — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:43:42 +0000

Seriously, I'm having one of those days where everything I look at makes me go "What?" Anyway: "US pop star Beyonce has angered a high-brow art museum in Vienna by sending a look-a-like to her own special personal tour of the museum, while she went shopping, according to newspaper reports here Wednesday." I mean, really: What?

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Seriously, I've got nothing.

Alex Balk — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:05:46 +0000

In honor of Barack Obama's first hundred days-have you heard anything about that?-I put together a gallery of images inspired from the swine flu pandemic which might just show that Tupac Shakur is still alive, but in light of the news that the GDP dropped 6.1%, I decided it would be better if I presented a more sober face to the world, particularly given the dangerous conflict in Pakistan. So I deleted it. God, I am so over this day.

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Can I wear shorts?

Alex Balk — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:16:56 +0000

I spent the weekend on my apartment floor suffering from a series of small panic attacks. The reasons are not surprising-my deteriorating financial condition, swine flu, the fucking Celtics-but in any event, I only wandered out briefly, during which time a bird shit on my head (this is absolutely true, and it was a not inconsequential amount of shit) and I was made well aware that I am not at all prepared for summer. More specifically, I faced the recurring dilemma the horns of which I find myself impaled upon each time the season turns more temperate: Should I wear shorts?

See, I'm an old-school, square-jawed kind of fella. I believe a man drinks bourbon neat, smokes nothing lighter than Marlboro Reds, and, most importantly, does not wear short pants. But it seems like attitudes have changed recently. Everywhere I look, gentleman well past grade school age are walking about in half slacks, dude capris, and hotpants. I want to uphold the tradition of machismo passed down by generations of decent, trousers-clad Balk men, but it does get kind of hot out there. Also, I am completely covered in hair, so technically I am pretty much always layering when I get dressed. I put it to you, Awl readers: shorts on a guy. Acceptable or another terrible symbol of the blurred lines between man and woman, child and adult? Set me free! But make no suggestions regarding denim shorts; even I know how tacky those are.

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CNN: The Disease Is The Cure

Alex Balk — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:05:40 +0000

Signs of a Facebook problem include watching fan-only video and sharing your thoughts about the news with other followers.

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"Talk Like A Pirate Day" is probably not a good idea this year.

Alex Balk — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:55:31 +0000

With every civic problem in Chicago long since solved, Mayor Richard M. Daley is free to turn his attentions to whimsical celebration. He's declared Thursday to be "Talk Like Shakespeare Day," so that Windy City denizens can observe The Bard's 445th birthday in eloquent fashion. So, sure, a silly idea which will no doubt be more honored in the breach than the observance, but consider this: what if Rod Blagojevich's Senate soliloquy had been a bit more Shakespearean?

Shall they not offer me what worth requites
I'll keepst the treasured seat in mine own sites
A place in yonder chamber's dearly bought
You just don't give that shit away for naught.

It would have put a whole different complexion on things, right?

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Perez Hilton reconsidered

Alex Balk — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:56:23 +0000

Pop culture authority Mark Graham uses the above photo to illustrate his view that Perez Hilton has become lazy and uninspired of late. We can't help but agree. There was a time when each photoshopped cock was placed at the precise angle near a celebrity's mouth that only one touched by the hand of God would be capable of choosing. You could feel the hours of sweat that went into making sure every drop of jizz was MSPainted on its recipient's face just so; former associates of Hilton's speak of how, in the early days, he once spent 19 straight hours drawing a line of coke coming from Colin Farrell's nose only to delete the whole thing because "it lacks the kind of integrity with which I want the Perez Hilton name to be associated."

This fierce probity and intense dedication to craft paid off. While now-forgotten imitators like "Lindsay Blowhan," "Brad Clit," and "The Vag Whisperer" made their own attempts at deeply unsubtle graphic manipulation, they were easy to spot as poor simulacra: When Perez drew a meaty schlong pumping its heaving load atop the face of a closeted action star you could feel each drop as if its spray were splattering your own visage; when (to use an early rival as an example) Mark Halperin did it, you felt like it was an insincere attempt purely designed to drive traffic. (Although Halperin's insistence that each of his penises be visibly uncircumcised does deserve mention and should be at the forefront of any appreciation of his own oeuvre, which, while vastly inferior to Hilton's, is not wholly without merit, particularly the upskirt stuff.)

It seems, however, that such devotion is difficult to reconcile with both success and the passage of time. As Hilton's fame grew wider and his commercial interests expanded beyond his blog to music promotion and whatever the hell television show it was that he did, there was a noticeable decline in both the aesthetics of his splooge spurters and the underlying righteous anger which had previously provided them with so much moral weight. These days it's rare to the point of extinction that a contemporary Hilton strikes one with that sharp, bracing honesty of old; if rumor is to be believed, Perez does not even sketch his own skeet anymore, leaving that task to a series of unpaid (and, clearly, uninspired) interns whose duties also include crafting the cocks from which said spunk emanates. (Hilton's dongs, to be sure, were always the weakest arrow in his quiver, but they had a crude, folk art quality that owed more than a little bit to American primitives like Howard Finster and were consequently invested with a larger degree of authority than might otherwise have been the case.)

In any event, how, at this vantage point in history, is one to accurately assess the work of Maestro Hilton? His early glory is undeniable; five years from now they will still be raving about his brilliance on message boards and whatever the fuck replaces Facebook. Still, his descent into mere caricature is deeply troubling, raising as it does the vexing question of how an artist's later work colors the way you view his more heroic period. It's a debate that may never be settled; or, more accurately, it's a debate than can only be settled by each individual, deciding for himself how he will allow his opinion to be affected. I, for one, choose to remember the husky young man whose dreams of showering semen on the washed out faces of surprised celebrities showed an eager nation how the new medium of the Internet could really achieve its full potential, rather than the bloated hack whose flaccid phalli represent the devil's bargain that is modern-day success.

Perhaps I'm being naive. But I've still got to give it up for the kid who drew the jizz.

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Sniper talk always turns me on

Alex Balk — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:46:35 +0000

He's crucially aware of his breathing rhythm, because he wants to fire between breaths. He probably doesn't think much about trigger pull. He wouldn't be here if he didn't know how to pull a trigger. He's not 'pulling' it in the sense of exerting his muscle against it, so much as urging it to cooperate it, massaging it into doing his bidding.

The Awl

Pig Virus To End Irritating French Air Kisses?

Austrian Tabloids, Beyonce Look-A-Likes, Art Museums, Huh?

Seriously, I've got nothing.

Can I wear shorts?

CNN: The Disease Is The Cure

"Talk Like A Pirate Day" is probably not a good idea this year.

Perez Hilton reconsidered

Sniper talk always turns me on

Phil Spector convicted