Chris Eng says "Bwuh?"

You want to say “Hi” to the cute girl on the subway. How will she react? Fortunately, I can tell you with some certainty, because she’s already sending messages to you. Looking out the window, reading a book, working on a computer, arms folded across chest, body away from you = do not disturb. So, y’know, don’t disturb her. Really. Even to say that you like her hair, shoes, or book. A compliment is not always a reason for women to smile and say thank you. You are a threat, remember? You are Schrödinger’s Rapist. Don’t assume that whatever you have to say will win her over with charm or flattery. Believe what she’s signaling, and back off.

If you speak, and she responds in a monosyllabic way without looking at you, she’s saying, “I don’t want to be rude, but please leave me alone.” You don’t know why. It could be “Please leave me alone because I am trying to memorize Beowulf.” It could be “Please leave me alone because you are a scary, scary man with breath like a water buffalo.” It could be “Please leave me alone because I am planning my assassination of a major geopolitical figure and I will have to kill you if you are able to recognize me and blow my cover.”

On the other hand, if she is turned towards you, making eye contact, and she responds in a friendly and talkative manner when you speak to her, you are getting a green light. You can continue the conversation until you start getting signals to back off.

The fourth point: If you fail to respect what women say, you label yourself a problem.

There’s a man with whom I went out on a single date—afternoon coffee, for one hour by the clock—on July 25th. In the two days after the date, he sent me about fifteen e-mails, scolding me for non-responsiveness. I e-mailed him back, saying, “Look, this is a disproportionate response to a single date. You are making me uncomfortable. Do not contact me again.” It is now October 7th. Does he still e-mail?

Yeah. He does. About every two weeks.

This man scores higher on the threat level scale than Man with the Cockroach Tattoos. (Who, after all, is guilty of nothing more than terrifying bad taste.) You see, Mr. E-mail has made it clear that he ignores what I say when he wants something from me. Now, I don’t know if he is an actual rapist, and I sincerely hope he’s not. But he is certainly Schrödinger’s Rapist, and this particular Schrödinger’s Rapist has a probability ratio greater than one in sixty. Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well.

So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.

For women, who are watching you very closely to determine how much of a threat you are, this is an important piece of data.

—	an excerpt from Phaedra Starling’s “Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced” (via cuntlovin)

“Always question the man.” Good teacher.

girlsgetbusyzine:

kickassfrontwomen:

“I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don’t have any talent, well, neither do I. I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don’t have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It’s like anything: You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.”

- Kathleen Hanna

fuckyeahtattoos:

So this is my Bomb the Music Industry! tattoo that I got at No Limit Tattoo, by the wonderful Ghis. He mentioned he was relocating to New Zealand, so get at ‘im while he’s still here!

So I got these lyrics from the song I Don’t Love You Anymore because A: I have a nasty habit of beating myself up over stupid things that don’t matter, B: the song is about being a booze hound & trying to be a better person, & C: I love D.I.Y. punk.

(Click through for the tattoo parlor’s webpage!)

8 Reasons Why You SHOULDN’T Date a Fucking Writer*

Painfully, hilariously true.

girlvswhale:

You will spend a lot of time alone or in the same room/house with someone who is very consumed with what they are doing and will not want to talk to you. That is until they need to read you a sentence/paragraph/chapter/entire story to see if it makes sense; until they need your help figuring out a word; until they need you to imitate a pose, gesture, eye/lip/nose movement. You will ask them simple questions like, “Do you want to eat/sleep/fuck?” and it will take them at least five minutes to reply and their reply will always be, “What did you just say?” and/or “Huh?” and/or “Gah. Can I just have peace and quiet?”

There will be a lot of moments of self loathing. You will spend a lot of time soothing the person you have chosen to love when they throw themselves on the floor/bed/hood of the car and wail, “I WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS *INSERT THEIR FAVORITE/MOST HATED FAMOUS NOVELIST*”. They will not want to hear, “No, baby, you’re so good.” because no one believes anyone they fuck, especially not a writer (at least not a smart one). The only acceptable answers range from “YEAH FUCK **INSERT THEIR FAVORITE/MOST HATED FAMOUS NOVELIST* IN THE BUTT!” and mostly just variations of that sentence.

They will listen to a lot of really weird fucking music that will either NEVER fucking change, or change with such frequency you will never be able to follow along. It is possible you will have to listen to Bon Iver, Mozart, Metallica, Arcade Fire, Madonna, Dr. Dre, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Ani DiFranco, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Elliot Smith and many more, including various different remixes. These songs will be blasted through your house at all hours of the night, or funneled into fragile ears at the highest volumes that will make you finally understand why maybe said lover can’t understand a thing you say.
Either that or there will be nothing but sanctioned silence that when interrupted will get you a variation of this phrase, “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING LOUD??”

Unless you are also a writer, you will never be able to win a fight that degrades into a written word one, which they always do. You will get well written paragraphs on how nothing is right in the world you two share, how you have done everything wrong, how you have never supported their writing/eating/pooping schedule, you will get long winded sentences that will take you fourteen fucking centuries to interpret and by the time you actually do they will be so mad that it took you so long to read it there will already be another letter waiting for you to read.

There is usually a lot of sex and/or alcohol in the after hours. I don’t think I’ve ever met a writer who isn’t so horny they would fuck a tree if it had a nice ass. I once knew a very talented guy who used to hump the door jam of my office, fake slapping whatever ass he was pretending to fuck. He was not the exception. Sex is an amazing distraction from the failures that usually accompany a writing life. It is also a great, cheap, satisfying way to celebrate accomplishments. Sex is also an amazing thing to write about, because in the end smut/erotica/porn is the easiest thing you can write. Everyone understands fucking. Everyone likes to read about fucking, even if they won’t admit it.

The alcohol on the other hand, can be a problem. Some writers hate the idea that alcohol must accompany being a writer, and those fucking assholes need to shut up. If you can’t get laid, which trust me is pretty hard after you’ve been sitting around for eight hours chain-drinking coffee and you smell like a hot dog cart, the next best thing is masturbating while sipping on a nice single malt. Half the time in my life I would take a Maker’s Mark on the rocks over a penis any day.

They usually have a lot of writer friends and when they get together outside of a house, it will be all they talk about. Because most of them won’t be monetarily employed writers, you can’t invoke the “No talking about work everyone!” because we aren’t talking about work. We are talking about our entire fucking lives that isn’t work (even though writing is really fucking hard work). The love of your life will waste the very few precious hours you have outside the house debating various topics including: the oxford comma, novella vs novel, prose poem vs poem, self publishing vs commercial publishing, amazon vs lulu, mac vs pc and the list is fucking endless. You will be lucky if the other writers have significant others you can converse with, and even then you will be commiserating about how dating a writer is like stabbing yourself in the face over and over on purpose.

When it ends, you will most certainly be the subject of at least: 11 online blog post, 2 short stories, 4 poems, and you will be combined into the bitchy asshole who ruins the amazing life of their novel protagonist (combined with a few other people who previously left them). There is a chance your ex-writer significant other will become famous with one or more of these things they wrote about you and you will see their face everywhere, maybe even on a bus, and you’ll spend the rest of your life saying, “I NEVER FUCKING TOLD THEM THEY WERE BAD AT WRITING!” or “I NEVER TRIED TO GET THEM TO GET A REAL JOB!” and the rest of the world will think you are the anti-christ, or at least their 10 blog followers will.

Because there is nothing romantic or awesome or beautiful about being with someone whose actual life revolves around creating actual words that mean something to them. This isn’t fucking Little Women, we aren’t hanging out in attics wearing nightgowns and penning journals about our fun and quirky little sisters and then going ice skating every fucking day.

It is a painful, time consuming, occupation that is rarely respected, but sometimes feels like the only thing we can do with our lives.

I’d probably give anything to be a fucking astrophysicist or a mathematician or a fucking accountant even. In the end that is not what I wanted to do with my life, there is actually something in me that wants to do this every day; wants to spend all day in pajamas and a sweatshirt, pushing sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into chapters and chapters into novels.

That’s what I want to do and I’m not doing it for you. I’m not doing it to write you fucking love poems or love stories. I’m not doing it for anyone but my fucking self.

So, it’s best you don’t date me or anyone like me. It’s best you don’t date any writer worth their salt.

Unless, that is, you think the above doesn’t sound that bad. You believe you understand everything that goes into it and are willing to be a support beam in the roughest winds.

Because I believe there is, in the end, nothing more loyal and deep than the love of someone who can see who you are, who sees who you are in words—who can write out how your brow furrows when you concentrate, who revels in the words that can describe your lips on theirs, who mirrors the slope of your chin in a protagonist.

Those are the love letters you will get, the best parts of you forever etched into words, into characters, into scenes, into themes.

I mean, I wouldn’t suggest you date a writer, but I would sure as fuck date me. I’m good in-between the pages and under the sheets and in that cavern your ribs and your spine makes. I am my best when in there.

I am the best with my pen and a heart to write on.

*this is where 400 people will unfollow me and not see the humor in this at all.

thedailywhat:

Sage Advice of the Day: Henry Rollins, the relentlessly outspoken hardcore music icon — the Black Flag bearer of modern punk, if you will — recently participated in a “Letters to a Young American” project. What follows is an excerpt from Part 1 and Part 2.

“You’ll find in your life that sometimes your great ambitions will be momentarily stymied, thwarted, marginalized by those who were perhaps luckier; come from money; had more doors opened; where college was a given, not a student loan; it was something that dad paid for; where an ease and confidence in life was almost a birthright. Where for you, it was a very hard climb. … That happens all the time.

Just because you come from nothing, you must not let that be something that holds you back.”

Poignant, and more relevant than ever.

[death+taxes]

What is some advice you can give to an aspiring young artist?

mollycrabapple:

Work hard, make friends, don’t give up.

A bit more: be incredibly opportunistic and on the hunt for places that can use your art. Be hard on yourself. Shun all the woo woo vagueness that people tell artists: “fulfilling your dreams”, “nurturing your creativity”, the whole lot of that. It exists to sell self-help books to dilettantes.

Care about money. You’ll need it. If not now, when you’re sick or old or have a kid. Never listen to anyone who tries to shame you for caring about money.

Be mercenary with most clients, but be incredibly generous with comrades in arms who inspire you. I still do a considerable amount of cheap or free work, for musician BFFs or Occupy Wall Street. I can do this because I charge alot for my paid work.

Remember that you actually have to make things that people want to buy, and if people don’t want to buy them it’s not because they’re awful philistines. Endeavor to both do better and find your audience.

Generate your own projects that you believe in. Work hard on them. Show them off.

Don’t illustrate people’s self published children’s books for free. Trust me.

Make friends with people who aren’t artists, and have interests that aren’t art. Hackers, entrepeneurs, journalists, models, construction workers, professors…

Draw all the time. Keep sketchbooks. Go to figure drawing classes. Copy old masters. Be hard on yourself and address your flaws. Find the voice that’s yours

Remember that the future belongs to multi-disciplinary mutants, and that a father-figure gallery/agent/manager probably isn’t going to swoop down and make you famous while you hole up in your studio and draw all day.

Learn how industries like marketing and the media actually work. It’s not hidden knowledge. You can learn to write a press release in five minutes via google.

There’s no shame in promoting yourself. No one else will do it for you unless you’re already making them money or they’re trying to suck up to your dad.

Invest in good equipment and good presentation. Crappy iPhone pics of your work aren’t going to get you jobs.

Pay your quarterly taxes. Get an accountant as soon as you can. Freelancers are fucked in America.

Don’t spend 150k on an art degree.

Make a cool website.

But most of all: if you want to be an artist for a living, you can’t half-ass it. You have to want it more than anything, and be willing to sacrifice sleep, social life, crappy high-school boyfriends, after-work drinks, and pretty much every other trapping of a fun, chill, early twenties experiance.

If you don’t want to do this, being a full time artist isn’t for you. There’s no shame in this. Drawing for fun, because you love it, is a beautiful thing.

But if you know that there’s nothing else that you can do but make art all day, that it’s what you were born for, you’re going to need to make sacrifices.

Good luck.

Ask me cool things

This is essential reading for anyone creative.