The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Mon, 16 May 2011 09:50:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Yet Another Chambermaid Is Clearly Tool of Shadowy French Conspiracy http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/yet-another-chambermaid-is-clearly-tool-of-french-president-cia http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/yet-another-chambermaid-is-clearly-tool-of-french-president-cia#comments Mon, 16 May 2011 09:50:45 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/yet-another-chambermaid-is-clearly-tool-of-french-president-cia In what the New York Times described as "tawdry allegations," the head of the International Monetary Fund and the possible next president of France was yanked out of first class on an Air France flight at JFK on charges that he'd raped a maid at the Sofitel in New York City.

Like most rapes, this is clearly an elaborate plot by the French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, the French President and possibly the CIA and/or Carla Bruni. "He must have been trapped," said the head of France's Christian Democratic Party. "He is a well-known seducer but does not have the profile of a rapist," said his official biographer. Others asked why a chambermaid was cleaning hotel rooms. Very suspicious! So there you have it.

This is the first success for a long-running attempt to entrap the IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Previous attempts include a woman who claimed that he attempted to rape her and another woman who said he held her against her will.

Already some papers are trying to name the chambermaid so that we can discover what intelligence agency pays her. Elsewhere, a few papers have noted that there is also a small chance that Strauss-Kahn is actually a predatory rapist.

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]]> In what the New York Times described as "tawdry allegations," the head of the International Monetary Fund and the possible next president of France was yanked out of first class on an Air France flight at JFK on charges that he'd raped a maid at the Sofitel in New York City.

Like most rapes, this is clearly an elaborate plot by the French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, the French President and possibly the CIA and/or Carla Bruni. "He must have been trapped," said the head of France's Christian Democratic Party. "He is a well-known seducer but does not have the profile of a rapist," said his official biographer. Others asked why a chambermaid was cleaning hotel rooms. Very suspicious! So there you have it.

This is the first success for a long-running attempt to entrap the IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Previous attempts include a woman who claimed that he attempted to rape her and another woman who said he held her against her will.

Already some papers are trying to name the chambermaid so that we can discover what intelligence agency pays her. Elsewhere, a few papers have noted that there is also a small chance that Strauss-Kahn is actually a predatory rapist.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/05/yet-another-chambermaid-is-clearly-tool-of-french-president-cia/feed 33 The New Terrible Trauma for Parents: Slumber Parties http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/the-new-terrible-trauma-for-parents-slumber-parties http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/the-new-terrible-trauma-for-parents-slumber-parties#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:40:29 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/the-new-terrible-trauma-for-parents-slumber-parties "The sleepover, along with its cousin the slumber party, raises a whole array of emotional issues for children and parents."
—Wow, the crazed helicopter-parenting generation has crawled so far inside its own ass that it can no longer make sense of anything.

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]]> "The sleepover, along with its cousin the slumber party, raises a whole array of emotional issues for children and parents."
—Wow, the crazed helicopter-parenting generation has crawled so far inside its own ass that it can no longer make sense of anything.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/the-new-terrible-trauma-for-parents-slumber-parties/feed 31 Taj the Elephant Painted a Picture for a Woman Dying of Cancer http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/taj-the-elephant-painted-a-picture-for-a-woman-dying-of-cancer http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/taj-the-elephant-painted-a-picture-for-a-woman-dying-of-cancer#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:12:02 +0000 Dave Bry http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/taj-the-elephant-painted-a-picture-for-a-woman-dying-of-cancer
Remember, Taj, the oldest elephant in America, who died this week? (I hope you do, it was like 48 hours ago.) Remember that she liked to paint? Well, five-and-a-half years ago, her caretakers at Six Flags Marine World had her paint a picture for a woman named Lindsey who had pancreatic cancer. A month later, Lindsey died. She was 26.

Her husband kept the painting and his sibling put this video up on YouTube. You think of the guy looking at the painting, remembering that day at Six Flags. I think that's Lindsey in the video. Or maybe it's not. I don't know. I'm a mess!

What is it about the animal-human interaction thing? It's surely something about the reaching over boundaries. Communication and empathy in the face of the odds-against-it conditions. It's about our essential aloneness in the world and endless struggle against that. Like, here we are, so alone and profoundly cut-off from everything else in the world. We're all stuck inside our brains, unable to ever be sure what exactly anyone else is thinking—do they see the world as we do? Do they feel things that we feel? Are they not all robots programmed to trick me by some evil super-brain conducting a big Truman-Show deal from Skynet? I can never be totally sure. That last one's unlikely, but the best we ever get is a guess. And it's lonely. Even in a crowd of people. Even when we're with the other people (if they are in fact, people) that we believe we know best.

So that guess becomes everything. Unless you believe in God, maybe. That, I could see, making people feel differently. But there's the leap of faith, right? Same kind of thing, I'd think. Graham Greene seems to describe it like that: the best guess, the hope, is all we have. And the fact that we do sometimes have an experience that feels like connection. A conversation, and shared laugh, holding hands, or hand-parts, or whatever. Is he or she laughing for exactly the same reason that I am? Does he or she feel the same warmth on the skin? Probably not exactly,but you do at some point have to trust that other people, in their similarly cut-off bubbles, similarly trapped in their own brains, honestly empathize. Even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Like: everybody likes 30 Rock. That makes me feel very lonely and like everybody else is a robot programmed with a different sense-of-humor chip than whatever biological joke-receptors I have in my brain. All these robots, programmed to laugh at this show that I find so mediocre and not funny, except for Alec Baldwin. Why were all these robots programmed that way? And nobody likes Freeway as much as I do. What is wrong with everybody?

So we manufacture communication. Based in large part on the shared acceptance of our lonely state as thinking beings, we make up ways to send each other messages. They have to come in to our boxes or our shells or whatever through our skin or our eyes or our ears. But these messages are the most beautiful things in the world. Take this data however you do, process it, and see if it all closely jibes with whatever your experience is. If there's even something close to a match, it feels better than anything else. (Except maybe, like, heroin. But I think that's what Royal Trux was talking about when they said, "If you want to stare hard at the inside of your head for the rest of your life, well, baby that's just fine with me." And I don't really think they were wholly recommending it as a lifestyle choice.) Because anything, any evidence that goes against the always-there terror of being totally alone and isolated in the world, that's the best thing. And the people we find this the most with, we make them our friends, and if we're lucky, our husbands or wives. And then maybe we have kids, and that can really offer something profound in this regard but that something doesn't have as much to do with why watching a video of a woman with cancer putting her hand on an elephant's trunk is so moving.

When we can make that connection with people that are not so apparently like us, that makes the whole miracle of it seem even better. It's more rewarding in that way. People from different cultures playing soccer or sharing a candy bar or something, even when they don't speak the same language. There's a million movies and phone commercials that tap into this, right? And this is why I can't even think about the The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time, when the autistic boy and his dad agree that touching the extended fingers of each other's hands means "I love you," because the autistic boy doesn't like any more physical contact than that. What's a more explicit depiction of making a connection through the thick walls of our lonely human-brain shells?

So with animals, if we see communication and empathy bridging what seems like such an impossible, interspecies gap—how could we ever know what an elephant is thinking or feeling?—but then, there is the familiar gleam in her eye, and what looks to be a smile on her face..... And it makes it all a little bit more okay. Even that Lindsey and Taj are both dead and Lindsey's husband probably feels a whole different sort of sadness and also maybe some deep beauty or love when he looks at the painting an elephant made for his wife.

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]]>
Remember, Taj, the oldest elephant in America, who died this week? (I hope you do, it was like 48 hours ago.) Remember that she liked to paint? Well, five-and-a-half years ago, her caretakers at Six Flags Marine World had her paint a picture for a woman named Lindsey who had pancreatic cancer. A month later, Lindsey died. She was 26.

Her husband kept the painting and his sibling put this video up on YouTube. You think of the guy looking at the painting, remembering that day at Six Flags. I think that's Lindsey in the video. Or maybe it's not. I don't know. I'm a mess!

What is it about the animal-human interaction thing? It's surely something about the reaching over boundaries. Communication and empathy in the face of the odds-against-it conditions. It's about our essential aloneness in the world and endless struggle against that. Like, here we are, so alone and profoundly cut-off from everything else in the world. We're all stuck inside our brains, unable to ever be sure what exactly anyone else is thinking—do they see the world as we do? Do they feel things that we feel? Are they not all robots programmed to trick me by some evil super-brain conducting a big Truman-Show deal from Skynet? I can never be totally sure. That last one's unlikely, but the best we ever get is a guess. And it's lonely. Even in a crowd of people. Even when we're with the other people (if they are in fact, people) that we believe we know best.

So that guess becomes everything. Unless you believe in God, maybe. That, I could see, making people feel differently. But there's the leap of faith, right? Same kind of thing, I'd think. Graham Greene seems to describe it like that: the best guess, the hope, is all we have. And the fact that we do sometimes have an experience that feels like connection. A conversation, and shared laugh, holding hands, or hand-parts, or whatever. Is he or she laughing for exactly the same reason that I am? Does he or she feel the same warmth on the skin? Probably not exactly,but you do at some point have to trust that other people, in their similarly cut-off bubbles, similarly trapped in their own brains, honestly empathize. Even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Like: everybody likes 30 Rock. That makes me feel very lonely and like everybody else is a robot programmed with a different sense-of-humor chip than whatever biological joke-receptors I have in my brain. All these robots, programmed to laugh at this show that I find so mediocre and not funny, except for Alec Baldwin. Why were all these robots programmed that way? And nobody likes Freeway as much as I do. What is wrong with everybody?

So we manufacture communication. Based in large part on the shared acceptance of our lonely state as thinking beings, we make up ways to send each other messages. They have to come in to our boxes or our shells or whatever through our skin or our eyes or our ears. But these messages are the most beautiful things in the world. Take this data however you do, process it, and see if it all closely jibes with whatever your experience is. If there's even something close to a match, it feels better than anything else. (Except maybe, like, heroin. But I think that's what Royal Trux was talking about when they said, "If you want to stare hard at the inside of your head for the rest of your life, well, baby that's just fine with me." And I don't really think they were wholly recommending it as a lifestyle choice.) Because anything, any evidence that goes against the always-there terror of being totally alone and isolated in the world, that's the best thing. And the people we find this the most with, we make them our friends, and if we're lucky, our husbands or wives. And then maybe we have kids, and that can really offer something profound in this regard but that something doesn't have as much to do with why watching a video of a woman with cancer putting her hand on an elephant's trunk is so moving.

When we can make that connection with people that are not so apparently like us, that makes the whole miracle of it seem even better. It's more rewarding in that way. People from different cultures playing soccer or sharing a candy bar or something, even when they don't speak the same language. There's a million movies and phone commercials that tap into this, right? And this is why I can't even think about the The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time, when the autistic boy and his dad agree that touching the extended fingers of each other's hands means "I love you," because the autistic boy doesn't like any more physical contact than that. What's a more explicit depiction of making a connection through the thick walls of our lonely human-brain shells?

So with animals, if we see communication and empathy bridging what seems like such an impossible, interspecies gap—how could we ever know what an elephant is thinking or feeling?—but then, there is the familiar gleam in her eye, and what looks to be a smile on her face..... And it makes it all a little bit more okay. Even that Lindsey and Taj are both dead and Lindsey's husband probably feels a whole different sort of sadness and also maybe some deep beauty or love when he looks at the painting an elephant made for his wife.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/taj-the-elephant-painted-a-picture-for-a-woman-dying-of-cancer/feed 5 British Police Winning The War On Disabilities http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/british-police-winning-the-war-on-disabilities http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/british-police-winning-the-war-on-disabilities#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:20:48 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/british-police-winning-the-war-on-disabilities
Police in London are under fire after footage emerged showing officers pulling a man with cerebral palsy from his wheelchair and dragging him down the street during recent student protests against tuition fee hikes. "Though it is almost too dark to see [20-year-old Jody] McIntyre being hauled from his wheelchair just seconds later, sudden and repeated shouts of 'What the fuck are you doing?' make it obvious what it going on. Moments later, Mr McIntyre can be seen lying in the road as a policeman drags him towards the kerb and the camera. 'You just tipped him over,' cries a voice, as another officer prevents fellow protesters from intervening. Bellows of 'Scum!' ring out, and the video eventually cuts off just after a policeman is pulled away from the ensuing mêlée by fellow officers."

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Police in London are under fire after footage emerged showing officers pulling a man with cerebral palsy from his wheelchair and dragging him down the street during recent student protests against tuition fee hikes. "Though it is almost too dark to see [20-year-old Jody] McIntyre being hauled from his wheelchair just seconds later, sudden and repeated shouts of 'What the fuck are you doing?' make it obvious what it going on. Moments later, Mr McIntyre can be seen lying in the road as a policeman drags him towards the kerb and the camera. 'You just tipped him over,' cries a voice, as another officer prevents fellow protesters from intervening. Bellows of 'Scum!' ring out, and the video eventually cuts off just after a policeman is pulled away from the ensuing mêlée by fellow officers."

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/12/british-police-winning-the-war-on-disabilities/feed 17 JesusCat Would Be A Winning Idea http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/jesuscat-would-be-a-winning-idea http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/jesuscat-would-be-a-winning-idea#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:00:12 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/jesuscat-would-be-a-winning-idea "As expected, cats are more popular on the internet than Jesus."

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]]> "As expected, cats are more popular on the internet than Jesus."

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/jesuscat-would-be-a-winning-idea/feed 8 I'm Not Even Going To Fight Willow Smith http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/im-not-even-going-to-fight-willow-smith http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/im-not-even-going-to-fight-willow-smith#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:40:18 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/im-not-even-going-to-fight-willow-smith GIRRRLLLLI'm a little obsessed/afraid of Willow Smith! Yes, she is 9, and she has a hot single and it's... sort of appealing? She did Ryan Seacrest's show this morning and it was kind of awesome? This feels weird because I don't like rich progeny and the easy jump-off and Will Smith, I've never been a fan-but listen we just have to accept this and roll with it. (Also she is very smart and for a 9-year-old, incredibly well-spoken. And NO, I actually did not just call her "articulate.") Listen. YOU CANNOT FIGHT THE FUTURE. Just let Willow be Willow. Points of view: "Lyrically, there's mention of getting one's 'swag on' and 'just tryin' have fun so keep the party jumpin'.' We're assuming that's jumping up and down on a bouncy castle with all your other nine-year-old friends buzzing off too much Dr Pepper, right?" Yes, sure. Other points of view: "I love it. I love whipping my dog's ears back and forth to the beat. I love the 34-year-old session singer who's playing the part of 'Willow Smith.'"

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]]> GIRRRLLLLI'm a little obsessed/afraid of Willow Smith! Yes, she is 9, and she has a hot single and it's... sort of appealing? She did Ryan Seacrest's show this morning and it was kind of awesome? This feels weird because I don't like rich progeny and the easy jump-off and Will Smith, I've never been a fan-but listen we just have to accept this and roll with it. (Also she is very smart and for a 9-year-old, incredibly well-spoken. And NO, I actually did not just call her "articulate.") Listen. YOU CANNOT FIGHT THE FUTURE. Just let Willow be Willow. Points of view: "Lyrically, there's mention of getting one's 'swag on' and 'just tryin' have fun so keep the party jumpin'.' We're assuming that's jumping up and down on a bouncy castle with all your other nine-year-old friends buzzing off too much Dr Pepper, right?" Yes, sure. Other points of view: "I love it. I love whipping my dog's ears back and forth to the beat. I love the 34-year-old session singer who's playing the part of 'Willow Smith.'"

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/09/im-not-even-going-to-fight-willow-smith/feed 27 A Million Bankers Laughing: SEC Totally Hosed in Goldman Case http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/a-million-bankers-laughing-sec-totally-hosed-in-goldman-case http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/a-million-bankers-laughing-sec-totally-hosed-in-goldman-case#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:00:14 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/a-million-bankers-laughing-sec-totally-hosed-in-goldman-case SOMEBODY'S WATCHING YOUGood grief. So, to back up a little, the crux of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs is that it was never disclosed that, when Paulson & Co assembled a motley pile of CDOS for an outfit called ACA to sell to our German bank friends, Paulson actually intended to short against those CDOs. (In popular parlance, "to bet against" those CDOs. And when that package went south, Paulson cleaned up.) So! And now it turns out that a Paulson guy, Paolo Pellegrini, went to the assemblers at ACA and informed them of this! He had an entire meeting scheduled with ACA's CDO person devoted to this topic. Based on what we know now, which of course is not everything, we'd say: Updated chance of Goldman conviction: 1%. Updated chance of Goldman paying out a settlement: SOME HUGE NEGATIVE NUMBER.

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]]> SOMEBODY'S WATCHING YOUGood grief. So, to back up a little, the crux of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs is that it was never disclosed that, when Paulson & Co assembled a motley pile of CDOS for an outfit called ACA to sell to our German bank friends, Paulson actually intended to short against those CDOs. (In popular parlance, "to bet against" those CDOs. And when that package went south, Paulson cleaned up.) So! And now it turns out that a Paulson guy, Paolo Pellegrini, went to the assemblers at ACA and informed them of this! He had an entire meeting scheduled with ACA's CDO person devoted to this topic. Based on what we know now, which of course is not everything, we'd say: Updated chance of Goldman conviction: 1%. Updated chance of Goldman paying out a settlement: SOME HUGE NEGATIVE NUMBER.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/a-million-bankers-laughing-sec-totally-hosed-in-goldman-case/feed 26 The Margaret Mead of the North American Weirdo: Winterband http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/the-margaret-mead-of-the-north-american-weirdo-winterband http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/the-margaret-mead-of-the-north-american-weirdo-winterband#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:10:26 +0000 Robert Lanham http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/the-margaret-mead-of-the-north-american-weirdo-winterband Winter and the BandJust when I'd "discovered the magic" of Celtic Thunder and become certain that nothing could more effortlessly succeed at making my ears bleed, a friend sent me a link to North Carolina's WinterBand-the most disturbing Christian rock band since, well, since ever. If you're a geriatric, hobo-wizard, Jesus freak with a dirty mop-head hanging from your chin, it's probably not the best idea to be too critical of others. But that doesn't stop WinterBand's namesake, Steve Winter, from attacking Catholics, Muslims, democrats, women and countless others for the intolerable sin of being outside his confusing comfort zone.

It's hard to fathom that WinterBand band isn't a joke, something imagined by a deeply disturbed idiot savant in the throes of a swine flu fever dream. But this classic rock-loving crew of bearded bible thumpers is the real deal. They've got their own YouTube channel with dozens of hysterically-retro videos. Winter even has his own preaching series where he outlines dozens of reasons why you'll be spending eternity in a "lake of fire."

But let's talk about their music. As it says on their website, WinterBand are a "father and son Christian rock/blues/metal band." Steve plays guitar and his clean-shaven son rocks the drums. Their sound ranges from Led Zeppelin to ZZ Top to The Spin Doctors, and if you close your eyes and pretend you're not listening to a crew of inflammatory religious fanatics who dress like homeless warlocks, they're actually pretty hilarious in a campy sort of way. Senator Zell Miller is apparently a fan. Best of all they're prolific. For the uninitiated, I've assembled a collection of their essential work.

1. "Hippie on Grandma's Wall"

This was the band's latest 2010 single-until they dropped "Bound and Determined to Burn" just yesterday!-and clearly it's destined to become a huge hit. If you're confused by the message, let me explain. Winter thinks depictions of Jesus with long hair are sacrilegious. "If a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him," says Winter. Though clearly he's an advocate for beards, Winter says it's okay for dudes to shave as long as they're not doing so "for effeminate reasons." Keeping your hair short is a recurring theme in their lyrics, though it should be noted that "real Christian women don't cut their hair."

2. "Obama Muslim 911"

This SEO-inflected doozy was produced on the eve of the 2008 presidential election "as an act of patriotism and reverence for 911." If you like the political stuff, don't miss the McCain Boogie, which features some fine guitar work by Winter.

3. "Where Babies Come From"

Prog rock meets pro-life lunacy... somehow the two just seem to go together.

4. "Narrow Way"

This is just one of dozens of songs about how Christians who believe in the trinity are "lukewarm, infidel reprobate trash" which in secular terms translates to "dicks."

5. "Whirlwind"

Perhaps their heaviest rocker. If Winter had some bat blood in that tangled mop on his face, it would almost feel like they're channeling Black Sabbath.

6. "The Devil"

Some serious shredding by Winter on this one.

7. "Jesus Died and Went to Hell"

Another rocker and winner of WinterBand's most badass title. I'd love to hear Mastodon do a cover.

8. "Shame Shame Shame"

In Winter's own words: "It is a sin for women to speak out and address the congregation during a worship service and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." On the other hand, Jesus loves hearing second-rate Moody Blues jams performed by men dressed like J. R. R. Tolkien characters.

9. "Grace 2008"

This little anti-Muslim ditty is the subject of a confusing anticensorship tirade on the band's website that I'm tempted to make fun of, but will avoid doing so out of fear that Winter will try to locate me and kill me.

Musicians, take note! "WinterBand is looking for a new bass player to allow Bobo to fulfill his long term ambition to pursue a career as a greeter for a well known discount chain. We will miss him but must agree that it is for the best. It would be nice if the new bass player was better than him." Clean-shaven effeminate pussies need not apply.


Robert Lanham is the author of the beach-towel classic The Emerald Beach Trilogy, which includes the titles Pre-Coitus, Coitus, and Afterglow. More recent works include The Hipster Handbook and The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right. He is the founder and editor of FREEwilliamsburg.com.

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]]> Winter and the BandJust when I'd "discovered the magic" of Celtic Thunder and become certain that nothing could more effortlessly succeed at making my ears bleed, a friend sent me a link to North Carolina's WinterBand-the most disturbing Christian rock band since, well, since ever. If you're a geriatric, hobo-wizard, Jesus freak with a dirty mop-head hanging from your chin, it's probably not the best idea to be too critical of others. But that doesn't stop WinterBand's namesake, Steve Winter, from attacking Catholics, Muslims, democrats, women and countless others for the intolerable sin of being outside his confusing comfort zone.

It's hard to fathom that WinterBand band isn't a joke, something imagined by a deeply disturbed idiot savant in the throes of a swine flu fever dream. But this classic rock-loving crew of bearded bible thumpers is the real deal. They've got their own YouTube channel with dozens of hysterically-retro videos. Winter even has his own preaching series where he outlines dozens of reasons why you'll be spending eternity in a "lake of fire."

But let's talk about their music. As it says on their website, WinterBand are a "father and son Christian rock/blues/metal band." Steve plays guitar and his clean-shaven son rocks the drums. Their sound ranges from Led Zeppelin to ZZ Top to The Spin Doctors, and if you close your eyes and pretend you're not listening to a crew of inflammatory religious fanatics who dress like homeless warlocks, they're actually pretty hilarious in a campy sort of way. Senator Zell Miller is apparently a fan. Best of all they're prolific. For the uninitiated, I've assembled a collection of their essential work.

1. "Hippie on Grandma's Wall"

This was the band's latest 2010 single-until they dropped "Bound and Determined to Burn" just yesterday!-and clearly it's destined to become a huge hit. If you're confused by the message, let me explain. Winter thinks depictions of Jesus with long hair are sacrilegious. "If a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him," says Winter. Though clearly he's an advocate for beards, Winter says it's okay for dudes to shave as long as they're not doing so "for effeminate reasons." Keeping your hair short is a recurring theme in their lyrics, though it should be noted that "real Christian women don't cut their hair."

2. "Obama Muslim 911"

This SEO-inflected doozy was produced on the eve of the 2008 presidential election "as an act of patriotism and reverence for 911." If you like the political stuff, don't miss the McCain Boogie, which features some fine guitar work by Winter.

3. "Where Babies Come From"

Prog rock meets pro-life lunacy... somehow the two just seem to go together.

4. "Narrow Way"

This is just one of dozens of songs about how Christians who believe in the trinity are "lukewarm, infidel reprobate trash" which in secular terms translates to "dicks."

5. "Whirlwind"

Perhaps their heaviest rocker. If Winter had some bat blood in that tangled mop on his face, it would almost feel like they're channeling Black Sabbath.

6. "The Devil"

Some serious shredding by Winter on this one.

7. "Jesus Died and Went to Hell"

Another rocker and winner of WinterBand's most badass title. I'd love to hear Mastodon do a cover.

8. "Shame Shame Shame"

In Winter's own words: "It is a sin for women to speak out and address the congregation during a worship service and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft." On the other hand, Jesus loves hearing second-rate Moody Blues jams performed by men dressed like J. R. R. Tolkien characters.

9. "Grace 2008"

This little anti-Muslim ditty is the subject of a confusing anticensorship tirade on the band's website that I'm tempted to make fun of, but will avoid doing so out of fear that Winter will try to locate me and kill me.

Musicians, take note! "WinterBand is looking for a new bass player to allow Bobo to fulfill his long term ambition to pursue a career as a greeter for a well known discount chain. We will miss him but must agree that it is for the best. It would be nice if the new bass player was better than him." Clean-shaven effeminate pussies need not apply.


Robert Lanham is the author of the beach-towel classic The Emerald Beach Trilogy, which includes the titles Pre-Coitus, Coitus, and Afterglow. More recent works include The Hipster Handbook and The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right. He is the founder and editor of FREEwilliamsburg.com.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/the-margaret-mead-of-the-north-american-weirdo-winterband/feed 25 The 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' of Cat Fight Videos http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/the-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-of-cat-fight-videos http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/the-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-of-cat-fight-videos#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:29:39 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/the-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-of-cat-fight-videos You know I feel bad, because cats should be about the love. But holy God is this a cat fight. The first 24 seconds are just a good vocal warmup. Then it's off and over the roofs and walls and up and down stairs and man these cats hate each other. Like most fights, it ends just the way it began: without much gained.

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]]> You know I feel bad, because cats should be about the love. But holy God is this a cat fight. The first 24 seconds are just a good vocal warmup. Then it's off and over the roofs and walls and up and down stairs and man these cats hate each other. Like most fights, it ends just the way it began: without much gained.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/the-crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-of-cat-fight-videos/feed 19 "Hang On, Jesus, Peggy's Getting A Haircut" http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/hang-on-jesus-peggys-getting-a-haircut http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/hang-on-jesus-peggys-getting-a-haircut#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:00:27 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/11/hang-on-jesus-peggys-getting-a-haircut Question of the day: "The Question Becomes: If this is the end...what should we do? Get involved politically and fight for our freedom or just sit at home, watch 'Mad Men' and wait for Jesus to return?"

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]]> Question of the day: "The Question Becomes: If this is the end...what should we do? Get involved politically and fight for our freedom or just sit at home, watch 'Mad Men' and wait for Jesus to return?"

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