HAVE YOU HEARD?: JIMMY FALLON AND BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN COVERING "WHIP MY HAIR"

I've been loving that Willow Smith song "Whip My Hair" since September 7, 2010.

I even called it the Best Song of 2010.

I need to thank Audrey Buchanan for sending me this cover that Jimmy Fallon did as Neil Young with Bruce Springsteen as Bruce Springsteen:

HAVE YOU HEARD?: THE JOY FORMIDABLE

Last night I finally got to see a band I've been loving loving loving for months: The Joy Formidable.

A few months ago, after I had seen Jenny Eliscu and Gurj Bassi tweet about them a bunch, my friend Peter Gaston sent me their album, A Balloon Called Moaning, and I instantly fell in love. Like, within 30 seconds of listening to the first song I heard, which was "The Greatest Light is The Greatest Shade," I was dumbfounded by how a band this good could exist:

I would listen to that song non-stop for hours and days. It was dreamy like My Bloody Valentine, but poppy like the Smashing Pumpkins and the perfect song to get me relaxed whenever I was stressing.

I found myself riding my bike around the city with that song pumping through my headphones -- never loud enough -- making me feel like I was flying through the streets in a movie of my own.

Seeing the Joy Formidable last night was amazing. Watching the three piece take over the stage and enchanting the audience with adorableness as they cited their sadness over yesterday being the last day of their tour was too much cuteness to handle... but don't get me wrong, they're not a cute band. Performance-wise, Ritzy played her guitar with as much primal ease as Kurt Cobain, flailing around at times and never missing a note. I looked around to see if there was another guitarist on stage because I couldn't believe how great she was -- not because she was a girl, but because she was just amazing. She didn't seem tethered to an instrument twice her size... rather, it seemed like it was an extra appendage (that she knew how to control way better than any appendages I was actually born with).

It's been so long since I've had a chance to just get so completely lost while watching a band. Thank you, Joy Formidable.

New Single:

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

• Even Rupert Murdoch is worried about China's growing economic power. Shit is gonna get really messed up over here in the States. What dialect of Chinese should I be learning? Seriously.
• Germany has raised their security alert because of suspected terrorist activity.
• A new superbug has emerged in Europe called NDM-1. In fact, one of the dudes from the European Center for Disease Prevention called it a "Super superbug." 77 cases have appeared in multiple countries in the EU, and 3 in the states. The bug is immune to almost all vaccines and can cause UTIs and pneumonia. They also said that it may have been spread from India. Good times.
• Super long profile about Sarah Palin in New York Times. She's totally gonna run for President in 2012 and she's totally going to win. She knows that popularity rules uber alles. Shoot, she's also probably been prepping and learning things and stuff.
• The Egyptian blogger who was jailed for insulting the President of Egypt and possibly insulting Islam, has finally been released after 4 years. What would you tell this blogger he missed while he was away?
• The TSA is going to have a lot of essplainin to do pretty soon. I'm doubtful this new security situation is going to last much longer: Airline pilots are trying rally against it, an online group is trying to initiate some sort of "National Opt-Out Day" (November 24), the Taiwanese animated our biggest fears, the TSA has been hit by lawsuits, and even beloved illusionist, Penn Jillett called the cops on a TSA agent that felt his crotch without asking first. Will you be opting out next time you fly? Here's what happens when you decline a full body scan.
• Japan is working on making the future happen now with facial recognition vending machines.
• The first transgendered trial judge in the country has been elected. Big day!
• Waist-high flooding in England.
• The FDA is probably gonna ban caffeinated alcoholic drinks, and FOURLoko is changing it's ingredients... which will kill the product anyway since it tastes like crap.
• The police have taken the producer of "Survivor" into custody cos they think he was involved in his wife's murder in Mexico.
• Cholera has hit the Dominican Republic.
• Strong earthquake in Indonesia. No damage. Thank goodness.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

An elementary school in Provincetown, MA will make condoms readily available to students. While their official stance is that they don't want the kids to be having sex, they'd rather that the students be protected than not. I fully support this concept. I'd rather a bunch of sexually active 10 year olds than pregnant ones. I grew up in Tenafly, NJ and we had a really amazing sex-ed curriculum and education. We learned so much that all the students were too scared to have sex. I think about 75% of us graduated virgins. Virgins convinced that we'd get AIDS without a condom and STDs no matter what. Nobody got pregnant when I was in school and a fuckton of my classmates went on to the top colleges. Sex Ed is kind of a great thing.

Speaking of babies... Over 300 dead baby fetuses were found in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Uh... what?

Japan has successfully brought back the first asteroid dust to Earth! I can't wait til they find out that there's some sort of super fuel components and BP decides to make Space their next money maker.

People in Europe (and eventually the States) can look forward to colder winters thanks to Climate Change. Over the weekend I was watching the 'Underwater Worlds' episode of "Ancient Aliens" on The History Channel (watch it here) and they fascinatingly discovered the remains of cities underwater that would have been built about 10,000 years before humanoids were thought to be able to do such a thing. What if, in 10,000 years, our ancestors find our ruins under water and wonder how primitive man ever did such a thing. Hmm...

The Beatles are finally going to be available on iTunes! Great timing guys! Just when nobody actually pays for music.

Prince William is now engaged to Kate Middleton. Finally. If she was in my family (and Prince William was Jewish) they would've been dated for like 2 months before everyone put pressure on us to get engaged and married.

A residential building collapsed in New Delhi, India, killing 61 people. So sad.

New York City! Get ready for iris scans!!!!

More seriously: 1 in 7 US households have been struck by hunger issues. So upsetting.

INTRODUCING... SUPERNOVA1979C

The big announcement from NASA was the discovery of an infant blackhole they are calling SuperNova1979C.

It might not be a black hole, but it probably is. And it looks like SuperNova1979C is about 31 years old, give or take 50 million light years.

The exciting thing for scientists is that this is the youngest ever observed "black hole" and will give scientists to research how they behave and how they happen.

Follow SuperNova1979C on Twitter.

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

NASA is going to be making a big announcement today at 12:30EST. According to their site:

"NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood."

What could that mean?! It's not about the Gamma bubbles, since that was discovered by Fermilab. Could it actually be the discovery of Nibiru? Was Zecharia Sitchin actually right?! As my friends like to tell me, "The Aliens are finally coming to take you home!" Either way, I've got my HAARP averting tin-foil hat on, and I'm ready to listen.

There was a huge skyscraper fire in Shanghai.

The British couple that has been held hostage by Somali pirates for over a year have finally been freed. I really can't believe we live in a day where pirates are such a threat.

Caterpillar just bought Bucyrus - a mining equipment manufacturer - for $8.6 Billion. Just gonna put my Nancy Drew hat on and say that Caterpillar know of something that big needs to be mined, and knows that they're gonna make their money back. Gold is up to $1600/ounce. Could there be a mystery reserve that they've discovered? Maybe on the Moon?

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Murders in NYC are back up 15% this year. Hide your kids and hide your wife.

The Post Office lost $8.5 BILLION last year. Not like, they lost it in the mail... but more like, they're going broke. Here's an idea for them: Stop hiring such lazy assholes.

Cholera in Haiti has claimed 796 victims and over 200,000 are in danger of catching the highly contagious flu. Where's Wycleff now?!

That pesky Indonesian Volcano, Merapi, is really messing things up over there. The death toll reached 206 and over 380,000 people have been displaced. Scientists warn that it could get worse, which might not be TOTALLY bad news. With Mt. Merapi situated so close to the equator, if it emits a large enough quantity of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it could cool our global climate a few degrees and that could be a huge help to living things as the ozone starts depleting. However, if the sulfur dioxide doesn't make it high up enough, we could have a lot of acid rain on our hands. Wait and see?

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Check out our giant space bubbles. They're in the center of the Milky Way and they're 25,000 light years wide. Scientists have no idea what the eff they are.

Now there's a streak in the NYC skyline -- WHICH I MISSED!!!!! I'm calling shenanigans. It's a contrail for sure.

Oil prices are now nearly $90/barrel. There's 40 billion barrels of untapped oil that was just discovered in Brazil. The biggest reason Brazil elected Dilma Rousseff was because she was the former Chief of Energy. She ran all that energy stuff, and now that there's $3,600,000,000,000 (did i do that math right?) in Brazil's land, shit is gonna be huge. I suggest you pick up Portuguese for Dummies asap.

Hollywood and Bollywood are working on becoming bff. I knew "Outsourced" was a great show.

Lastly, there's been a Polio outbreak in Africa. I didn't realize that's still around!

HAVE YOU HEARD?: JESSIE J

A new friend of mine just texted me to say "Do you know Jessie J, musical artiste? Vulgar gal rap." Naturally, I want to know about all things musically new that I haven't heard before, especially when it involves a woman breaking down the barriers of femininity that society places on them.

Last night I had a conversation with someone about the concept of "post-feminism" and how I grew up as one of the guys and never thought of myself as a woman/girl held back by the constraints of society. Both my mom and dad worked, and that was never weird at home. My mom also cooked, and that was just what it was. I was always expected to do as well as the guys, if not better (because my parents would tell me that I was THE BEST). Even as the smallest one in my social group (of more guys than girls), it was never assumed that I couldn't do something because I was a girl... it wasn't even assumed that I couldn't reach things that were high up since I was always climbing on stuff like a monkey. Basically, me and my female friends grew up as dudes with slits and that was the ONLY difference (particularly since I didn’t grow boobs until I was about 18).

So the verb "banging" comes into play. It means "to bang" as in "to have intercourse." I was asked "Can a girl bang a guy?" I say yes. I say that if the girl is telling a story about having "intercourse" with a guy, then she can say "i banged that dude." Similarly, a guy can say "i banged that girl," or a person might be able to say "we banged." It puts the power into the hands of the story teller, which, in my mind, neutralizes gender roles. It's not necessarily a bad thing if a person says they banged another person, but it’s slightly less vulgar than to say “fucked” and a lot less awkward than saying “had intercourse with,” or “made love to,” or “railed.”

Anyway, I am a fan of this Jessie J character’s song “Do It Like a Dude,” for this precise reason. She wants to bang and is unapologetic about that. She also c0-wrote Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." with Dr. Luke, so I love her for that alone. God Bless!

TEAM FACELIFT

My boy, Matt Raz, edited a video for Team Facelift's "Heart Attack," which was directed by Tommy Mas and is of a song off their new mixtape called "6 Grams". Catch a cameo by one of my favorite dudes on Twitter and in music, Prince Terrence.

I need to go to the party in this video. Matt, where is it and why am I not there?

Oh... and if you've never heard of Team Facelift, their ish doesn't typically sound like this. They usually sound more like License to Ill-era Beastie Boys... which was the Boys' best era, if you ask me.

TEAM FACELIFT - "Heart Attack" from Matt Raz on Vimeo.

DAWN OF THE TED

Love Zombies? Love teddy bears? You're in luck (via @lvlewitinn)

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Schools in Broward County, Florida, have been on lockdown after an email was sent that said "something big was going to happen."

The G-20 Summit has begun in Seoul.

General Motors reports $2 Billion profit. Not bad.

THE RACCOON WHISPERER

My friend Caiti Beth is in Alabama and she video'd her friend going out to the woods and luring a raccoon (whom she appears to have a prior relationship with) back to her house to play with. I suggest you don't try this at home, but certainly enjoy the adroableness below:

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

So I'm going to try and make this a daily thing where I post about news things that happened while you were sleeping. Typically, this will go up earlier in the day, but I was super busy this morning.

A mysterious missile appeared to have been launched off the coast of California. Nobody seems to know what it was. Even the Pentagon is boggled. Here's my three guesses:

1. US trying to attack the Indonesian volcano.

2. Unidentified Submerged Object of other worldly origin, thus proving Colleen Thomas RIGHT.

3. Uh... something we should be really effing nervous about.

The Large Hadron Collider made a big bang!

A pill with an embedded microchip. It's meant to make sure you're taking the right meds at the right time. Not so sure I feel ok with this.

Cholera outbreak in Haiti's capital.

Everyone is nervous about Israel's East Jerusalem housing plan.

4,000 people stranded on a cruise ship.

THE ALIENS COMETH

So says Colleen Thomas:



I love all these stories of the End of Days that call out specific dates of when things are supposed to happen. According to the video above, that date is TODAY. But Colleen seems to think that Obama is just heading over to India today. Whoops. I think her dates are a bit off.

I'm all about the crazy stuff happening in our world that proves that we totally messed shit up. The price of gold skyrocketing. The climate being out of whack. The price of cotton going up because fields all over the world are being destroyed by the messed up climate. Nuclear reactors going out of whack. Nuclear missiles going offline. Planes dropping out of the sky. Volcanoes exploding. Oil pouring out of the earth from a sprout we planted. I could probably go on and on and on with all those actual examples of the End of Days. However, effing cooks like Colleen has to ruin it for the not-so-crazy-crazies like myself.

Sheesh.

David Icke ruins it too:

links via Videogum and Gawker.

I LOVE OUTSOURCED

This weekend I kept it super lazy. I watched four episodes of my new favorite show "Outsourced" on TWC's On-Demand service. I'm not sure if i love the show because it's funny, which it is, or if because the main character is a dude played by the new object of my affection: Ben Rappaport.

Ben Rappaport looks like this:

THE BEST SWIMSUITS

It's been a while since I've worn a one-piece swimsuit, and I've never really written about anything fashion oriented on here because I'm more of a person who just wears clothing. I could take it or leave it as long as it basically looks cool.

However, these swimsuits from Black Milk are INCREDIBLE:

SONG OF 2010

I hope that 2010 is defined by Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair."

Here are two videos for the song:

TODAY'S PLAYLIST 10/12/10

HAPPY COMING OUT DAY

If a person can choose to be Jewish, was it right for the Nazis in Europe, Nasser’s followers in Egypt, and 15th Century Spaniards to persecute, murder, and eradicate them for this choice?

When people -- specifically religious leaders -- suggest that homosexuality is a choice and turn the other way when gays are persecuted, murdered, and humiliated, they should remember the struggles they (and their ancestors) faced when they lived as something they felt was right in the face of opposition.

Is homosexuality a choice? Is it how people are born? Is being Jewish a choice? Is it how people are born?

The debate could go on for the ages. Just live and let live. Stop pointing fingers and finding issues or scapegoats. Find compassion and understanding.