Ron Howard: Who Loves Ya Baby?

By Michelle Patterson

Ron Howard is a gem of a human being. And when I use the word “gem” I’m referring to his acting and voiceover work. The Andy Griffith Show was many things: charming, sickeningly sweet, funny, and surprisingly open-minded about parenting habits and the courtship of a widower. Most of all, though, it allowed children of the time (and even today for those kids who, like me, were prone to dabbling in Nick at Nite‘s lineup) the opportunity to project themselves into the role of Opie Taylor.
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Is It A Guilty Pleasure If You Don’t Feel Guilty?

By Christian Lipski

These two don’t look
like they feel guilty at all.

The “pleasure” part of a guilty pleasure is easy enough to pin down—you’re doing something that pleases you. That doesn’t mean that it makes you feel happy, as sad things can be pleasurable; it’s just that you enjoy the experience. The “guilty” aspect is harder to define, as the guilt involved is subjective. In general, a guilty pleasure can be thought of as habitual indulgence in something that you feel has no redeeming qualities but still pleases you. I include “habitual” because there seems to be a need for the person to return to the experience more often than would be assumed based on the “value” of the object. For example, chocolate has little nutritional value, but it tastes good. Having chocolate once in a while as dessert wouldn’t necessarily represent a guilty pleasure, but having a candy bar or two every day from a secret stash might.
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Romance Schmomance

By Queen Spajina

It’s hard to believe I have gone my entire life believing that Casablanca and Gone with the Wind are two of the most Romantic movies ever made. After seeing both of these movies last year I was sickened and enraged at the idea that either one of these films are anyone’s favorite “most romantic movie ever.”
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Top Five Thrift Store Finds

By Lisa Haviland

Mrs. Lou Reed
Sunglasses from Buffalo Exchange, Brooklyn, NY; 2007

The Commack Flea Market was a teenage thrift-store-junkie’s dream: rows upon rows of inexpensive mini-stores—more like clothing bodegas than actual stores—in a multi-level arena five minutes from my parents’ house. It was in the confines of this Long Island mall-reprieve maze that I learned to dig through the chintz and hone in on second-hand gold.
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My One-Night Stand With Kevin Ayers

By Hanna

Ayers, Nico, Cale, Eno

Kevin Ayers, both as a member of Soft Machine and as a solo artist, is one of the most respected musicians alive today. Because of his easy-going good-humor and extensive back catalogue of avant garde music, he has been revered by music lovers for decades. Similarly, his collaborations demand respect and admiration, and confirm his position as a mainstay of what is considered intelligent music. His work with John Cale, Andy Summers, Ollie Halsall, and Mike Oldfield are examples of his eminent good taste in other music as well as his own.
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Peter Godwin’s Porn Purgatory

By Hanna

“I only subscribe to porn mags
for the articles, honest!”

“The Internet is for porn,” as the song goes, and so when I went looking for the allegedly raunchy video for the Peter Godwin song “Images of Heaven,” I imagined it would be easy. The song was popular at the time it was released, and still much-loved judging from blog entries about it. Plus, the artist and director are both still alive.

However, recent clampdowns on footage of a pornographic or otherwise graphic nature on YouTube and other hosting sites actually meant that it would not be easy at all.

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Urge Overlooked

By Michael Row

There was once a band from Hawthorne, California called REDD KROSS. Ever hear of them?? They were this wildly fun & funny punk/pop/rock group who dug CHEAP TRICK a heck of a lot. And they liked to get dressed up. Oh man, did they ever.
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Married and Buried: Punk As A Four-Letter Word, Part One

By Less Lee Moore

When others become misty-eyed with nineties nostalgia, I never know what to say. I’ve often felt like my memories of the decade are far removed from theirs. Although I liked some of the so-called “grunge” music, I resented the media co-opting of the word in an attempt to cash in on youth culture. It’s only recently that I started to feel like I may have been more attuned to the zeitgeist than I realized.

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My So-Called Memories

By Nicole V.

“People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even. But every so often I’ll have, like, a moment, where just being myself in my life right where I am is, like, enough.”
Angela Chase, Episode 13 of My So-Called Life
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The Death of the Mix

By Christian Lipski

Photo © Richard Jones

I used to make mix tapes all the time when I was growing up. I liked the idea of creating a single object or concept by combining existing songs, like making a quilt or a collage. When I was done, the tape was to be taken as a cohesive whole, not as individual tracks; that was the ultimate goal.

When recordable CDs became affordable, I was excited to begin a new phase in mix-making. CDs were more durable than cassettes after all, and computer software would allow you to assemble mixes even more efficiently than before. Or so I thought. It’s true that sound-editing programs provide the ability to make creative, cleaner-sounding mixes, but the flip side is that now there are too many possibilities, and that has killed the mix for me.
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