“I don’t know why writers are mourning the death of an industry that’s done so little for them for so long…. It’s time writers thought of themselves as an army rather than a city under siege.”
 — What has the publishing industry done for you lately anyway?

And here is an iPhone/iPad game called Hipster City Cycle, in which you ride your fixie through Philadelphia streets, eating cheesesteaks and being groovy, man. It’s like a Farmville for the barely-employed set! But it addresses an important question in gaming now: do we really want to play games that so closely resemble our real lives? (Kidding.)

Good news for nostalgic masturbators: Playboy has put its entire magazine archive online. Jerk off like you did the very first time!

Vogue editor Anna Wintour pretty much single-handedly created the fame of maybe-yesterday’s tennis superstar Roger Federer and now? The front of Vogue’s website is plastered with an enormous nearly-naked Novak Djokovic, who is on a 39-game winning streak, likely the best tennis player in the world, certainly the most fascinating man in tennis to watch play right now, and GOOD GRAVY, IS HE EVER REALLY VERY NAKED. (Unfortunately, Vogue went to press before his recent trouncing of Rafael Nadal on clay, but Sports Illustrated has us covered.)

It’s been a while since we checked in with the folks at Taiwan’s Next Media Animation, but here they are explaining the current situation regarding oil prices in an easy-to-follow (if difficult-to-listen-to) rap! Stick with it, you’ll learn something. For more information on economist Arthur Cecil Pigou’s concept of negative externalities, head here.

“Executive Outcomes was hired by several African governments during the 1990s to put down rebellions and protect oil and diamond reserves; it did not stage coup attempts.”
 — Ah, it’s one of those annoying days on the New York Times correction page, when the paper can only report what you have down cold, which it’ll never get, and so they have to face up to complaints from global mercenary outfits. Shells within shells! Executive Outcomes (such a good name!) became a child of Strategic Resource Corporation, and contracted for Sandline International, both of which helped run the Sierra Leone “civil war,” and which is a sibling to Aegis Defence Services, which contracts for the Department of Defense, and which acquired Rubicon International Services Ltd, which had acquired Diplomatic Protection Ltd. These companies are most likely unrelated to, say, Military Professional Resources Inc., which subsumed Civilian Police International, before it was purchased by L-3 Communications, which was a spin-off of Lockheed-Martin. None or all of which are related to the American Iraqi Solutions Group and the other members of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq! All of these leave a tangled trail from Africa to Afghanistan to Asia, as they have been busy for decades conducting endless for-profit war operations.

by Awl Sponsors

Learn how to get started giving back at http://www.bing.com/rewards/signup/sggetstarted.

The next time you have surfer’s guilt — you know, that feeling of regret for putting off whatever task needs your attention by poking around on the web — there may be a way to excuse your procrastination by turning it into something charitable. As part of Bing’s ongoing commitment to support education, the Bing Rewards program lets you earn credits for searching and exploring the web with Bing and then donate them to charity.

Who would have imagined that your searches could go to help others? To get started earning, simply go to the Bing Rewards page and complete the registration process. It only takes a few minutes and you’ll earn 250 credits just for signing up! Furthermore, with Bing you can find information more quickly and get help making decisions like finding a place for a quick bite to eat or choosing the right time to book your next airline flight.

As you earn more credits, head to the Rewards redemption center to choose a charity. Are you passionate about education? If so, there are several excellent education-related charities you can choose to receive your donation. One such option is DonorsChoose.org, which raises funding for classrooms in need. Or you can opt for the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, which provides musical instruments to children. Other charities in the redemption center are Summer Search, Teach for America, and the Kids in Need Foundation.

What you don’t need to worry about with the Bing Rewards program is having to buy anything, commit to anything, or send payments for anything — even the shipping is free if you decide to choose a reward instead of donating your credits to charity. Rewards include gift cards for stores like Best Buy, Target and Crate and Barrel and movie tickets and free music downloads.

by Mike Barthel

It’s college graduation season, and with the blooming of the cherry trees comes that cherished annual journalistic tradition: telling new graduates they’re screwed in a way that no one else in the history of the world has ever been screwed. When it’s actual recent graduates doing this fretting, I can understand, since being forcibly thrown into a job search is always a scary situation. But for their elders to be doing this worrying — elders who presumably have found some success as they got on in life — it strikes me as petty, self-serving fearmongering. So from someone back in academia after a decade at an office job, here’s some real talk.

Your first job is probably going to suck.
That’s OK! Having a shitty job that’s not good for your career is going to disappoint your parents, sure. But you know what? It gives you more money than you’ve had before, money which, if you don’t care about your job, can be used for having just tons and tons of fun. You are now an adult, which means it’s OK to be naughty! Get drunk, take drugs, sleep with strangers! Having a shitty job means you don’t have to worry about the ramifications to your career if you show up at the office still drunk from the night before and vomit in a trash can, or bang the hot intern at the Christmas party, or do coke off your boss’s desk. Go nuts!

The point of an undergraduate degree is not to get you a job.
Sorry! We would’ve told you this before, but teenagers are kind of stupid and have a hard time grasping nebulous goals like “improving your character and/or life skills” so we have to give you concrete economic reasons to do stuff. Don’t get me wrong — statistically speaking, you will get paid lots more with an undergrad degree than without it. But did you really think all those psych classes were job training? Look, if we wanted to train you to do things, we would give public universities enough funding so that students aren’t forced to spend all their time in 450-person lecture classes. Your undergraduate degree wasn’t about learning how to do a specific job. It was about learning how to do a job in general, and how to be a decent human being. Beyond that, don’t expect anything.

A college degree has almost never guaranteed anyone a job.
There are some exceptions to this (Ivy Leaguers becoming traders/consultants; lucking into a temporary short supply of workers as happened with computer programmers in the mid-’90s), and some of your more skills-focused degrees, like accounting and engineering, will always give you a reasonably good chance of getting hired. But you shouldn’t pick these majors unless they actually interest you! Having a career straight out of undergrad that you hate is not better than not immediately having a career, trust me. You will just end up switching careers later and then instead of having a fun post-college experience, you’ll feel like you missed out.

Grad school is great, but only if you like it, and never right out of undergrad.
I love grad school! I think people who would be good academics should definitely go to grad school. But here are some things you should know about me: (1) I write papers for fun; (2) I enjoy making graphs; and (3) I make $14,000 a year. It’s not really more secure than being unemployed, and it’s way less fun than having a shitty job (see point #1). Please, please go enjoy your 20s and build up some actual life experience and independent ideas that you can then use in your research — this has helped me as an academic more than I can ever say. And then only go to grad school if you want what grad school is offering, not because you dislike the uncertainty of a job search. You’re just going to have to undergo an even more stressful job search at the end of your post-grad career anyway.

Building up debt in your 20s is the economically responsible thing to do.
You are funding job training that will get you paid more in the future! Your credit card loans are allowing you to get in on the ground floor while also not starving/living in Canarsie. Accept this, and instead of accidentally building up debt while feeling guilty about it, build up debt deliberately and with a plan for how it’s going to help you. You’re going to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt anyway; at least do it in a way that benefits you in the long term.

Panic about college is almost always humanities majors having hard-science expectations.
I don’t know where this idea came from that doing well in college sets you up for life, but remember all those stories about starving poets and broke academics? Those are the humanities and social-science people! Sure, the hard-science people have labs and government funding and stuff, but you’re not going to be able to get that kind of bank unless you’re the kind of person who’s truly interested in hard-sciences stuff to begin with. If you’re a humanities person, then you’re going to be kind of broke for a while. Again, sorry we didn’t tell you that before, but it’s not unusual. At least you don’t have any responsibilities!

This is all really normal.
If you’re graduating college right now, there’s probably a great temptation for you to feel sorry for yourself. Don’t! You are, I swear, in the exact same position college grads have been in since we started sending everyone to college a few decades back. If you see people in their 30s and 40s who are doing well, then have faith you can get there too, because these Olds started at the same place you are right now: just out of school, unemployable, and broke. You aren’t being deprived of anything you’re owed, and you haven’t been screwed over by the unfair hand of fate. You’re just 22 and totally lack any job experience. You have to start somewhere. Just try to have fun while you’re doing it.

Mike Barthel finished his BA in creative writing and politics in 2001, spent seven year as an accountant and musician in New York, got a master’s in media studies, and is now getting his PhD in political communication while teaching undergraduates about the Internet.

Let’s Talk ‘I’m With The Band’: Crocheted Bikinis, Jergens And Waking Up On Jim Morrison’s Rug

I would like to think that Pamela Des Barres’ glorious 1987 romp I’m With The Band: Confessions of a Groupie requires no introduction other than that offered in the foreword by Dave Navarro (!), but on the off-chance you’re a young Amish person enjoying the freedom of Rumspringa, this is a super-famous memoir written by a super-foxy woman with very few personal boundaries and an enduring love of the popular rock and/or roll music. Who boffed a lot of singers. And bass players. And roadies.

If you’re going to write a memoir about screwing your way through two decades (and you should! Send it to me!), the only appropriate way to couch it is NO REGRETS. Otherwise, you’re either Larry Kramer (not that there’s anything wrong with that — condom up! — but he’s not making it into Classic Trash), or, like, Dr. Laura. No one wants that. Buzzzzkill.

No, we want AUNTIE MAME, you know? Go whole-hog! Compare yourself to Anaïs Nin! (Not everything Jewel did was bad, okay?) Frequently use the phrase “pioneer,” as though you and Pa and Laura and your china shepherdess were plowing through the Rolling Stones like so many fields.

Do that, and we’ll read your book.

Now, obviously, you want to know who she hooked up with. Let me help. Captain Beefheart (just a hand job), Davy Jones’s stand-in on The Monkees (felt up her tits), Bobby Beausoleil (of Manson Family fame), Jim Morrison (made out extensively while huffing Trimar, that stuff that set the lake on fire in A Civil Action), Jimi Hendrix’s bass player (almost relieved her of her virginity), Nick St. Nicholas (Steppenwolf bassist, SUCCESSFULLY relieved her of her virginity), Frank Zappa (who hired her to babysit his kids), Tiny Tim (okay, they just played miniature hockey and ate candy bars, and he gave her the nickname “Miss Pamela”), everybody in the Flying Burrito Brothers EXCEPT Gram Parsons (which sent her into a brief religious mania), Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger (he also tried to get a three-way with her and Michelle Phillips the night after Altamont), Waylon Jennings, Robert Plant, Keith Moon, and… Don Johnson (who she cheated on with Keith Moon). Also, obviously, her eventual husband, but who gives a shit?

Okay, so, maybe Pamela has some daddy issues. But, c’mon, “[my daddy] looked just like Clark Gable, and disappeared on weekends to dig for gold way down deep in Mexico.” I only read that sentence, and suddenly I wanted to let Jimmy Page slurp tequila out of my navel, you know? I also give her mad-props for including excessively cringe-worthy excerpts from her adolescent diaries, especially those based around her obsession with Paul McCartney:

February 10…Hello Diary, Paul, you are gear. Really Fab. Say chum, why are you so marvelous, luv? The most bloomin’ idiot on earth is me cause I’m wild over you chap.

Right? This is a woman who fucked Mick Jagger. She’s under no obligation to expose her teenage idiocy to our ridicule, and you have to love her for it. And you know she had pubes… because she tells us so! Good for you, Pamela!

We should probably briefly discuss her girl group, the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously/Openly/Only/Overtly, etc.), but… I’m still not entirely clear who they were or what they did. They couldn’t actually sing or play instruments, but I get the sense they wore kickin’ outfits and danced around doing white-teen-girl-spoken-word while Frank Zappa watched (and paid them thirty-five bucks a week “each!”) White-teen-girl-spoken-word with such amazing titles as “I Have A Paintbrush In My Hand To Color A Triangle” and “Who’s Jim Sox?” and “The Ghost Chained To The Present, Past, and Future (Shock Treatment).” Figure it out and get back to me, okay?

Is it any good? Hmm. I struggle with this one. My only actual beef with I’m With The Band is, bizarrely enough, its slut-shaming! Girlfriend occasionally likes to talk smack about other groupies (especially the newer models), who are less spiritually in tune with the music, you know? More generally, she’s not a writer, but it’s like a super-fun version of Go Ask Alice. And everyone loves Go Ask Alice, especially after they’ve successfully smoked pot without turning into a orange and attempting to peel themselves. It’s no Hammer of the Gods, is what I’m saying, but she seems like a delight. Shine on, you crazy diamond!

Context-Free Excerpts From I’m With The Band

• “…I had a moment of independence alone in the pink-tiled bathroom that will never be equalled for as long as I live, squirting a pool of Jergens into my palm and slathering it all over my hairless, shining Barbie-doll calves.”

• “Despite the fact that I had small titties, I was nuts about my high school.”

• “My dad bought me a reel-to-reel tape recorder and I made up a lot of adorable little plays, acting out all the different parts, in which Jane Asher dies many grisly, horrifying deaths.”

• “The second time, he took it out, and I closed my eyes real tight and tentatively grabbed on, petrified of damaging it, like it was a newborn.”

• “My tongue was tied in knots as I gazed around the room at the colorful clutter that Vito, his wife, Szou (pronounced Sue), and their son, Godot, called home.”

• “I believed the clearness of the liquid denied the fact that it could possibly be a harmful drug.”

• “When I came to my extremely sensual senses, I was in the middle of a perfect backbend on Jim Morrison’s tatty Oriental rug, my purple velvet minidress completely over my head, his redheaded girlfriend glaring down at me.”

• “The GTOs hung around with an eleven-year-old beauty, Bart Baker, and though I had never been intimate with him, a couple of the girls confessed to heavy petting with the beautiful blond prepubescent.”

• “Some dildo with a double first name shot Robert Kennedy, and any vague political interest I might have conjured up disappeared with his toothy grin.”

• “I took mescaline and went to Disneyland.”

And now your bi-weekly exhortation to delve deeply into the trash:

• Did you know that Tom Hanks tried to force DreamWorks to cast Rita Wilson as the mom in Almost Famous? Wouldn’t that have been WEIRD?
• You are a TARDIS-owning Time Lord, and can have safe, unprotected sex with any musician from any time period or genre. Dish! Who’s it going to be?
• Do you secretly wish you had, like, a crocheted bikini, or is that just me?
• Wait, HAVE any of you slept with famous musicians? Tell us in code, like “let’s just say he shagged like a Mountain Goat.” Okay, I’m not exactly a Windtalker, over here.
• The two guys she decided were too weird to fuck: Dennis Hopper and Roman Polanski. Who’s a dippy blonde now, America?

Now, next time, I was thinking we could go RETRO TRASHY! Beyond skinny ties! Beyond double-breasted suits! All the way back to John Cleland’s 1748 erotic romp, Fanny Hill, a.k.a., Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. Why, it’ll be our first (but not our last!) book club selection written while the author was in debtor’s prison. If you, like me, have a useless degree in old-timey literature, bring your game face.

Discuss, darlings!

Nicole Cliffe is the proprietress of Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews.

Captain Beefheart photo by Jean Luc, via Wikimedia Commons.

Important Editor: I Hate The Internet But Love Trolling. What Do You Think?less than a minute ago via web

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Seth Colter Walls
sethcolterwalls

“He just rolled up and trolled. He went into a venue where people have elected to be, and told everyone that their presence there makes them stupid. He then laments that he did not receive more positive responses from within that forum itself.”
 — Well, yes, here you go. As someone said earlier today, if Times mag editor Hugo Lindgren really wanted to be a big man, he could probably kick it up a notch by firing his boss and columnist, Bill Keller.