Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Pole Dancing 101

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

The back’s feeling better…so I’m almost back into dancing form…but don’t want to push it just yet. Less than 24 hours until the Wingmans arrive & we paint the town red for a few days. Oh what to do? It’ll be beautiful weather, great people, I’m thinking something like a trip around the lake and stuff on Thursday, Reno on a Friday night, whatever on Saturday, then I’ll be heading off on Sunday to start Road Trip 2010. It’s a shame they can’t go on this voyage with me…but hey, at least we’ll get to meet up on two legs of the trip. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet up for a weekend in Vegas. It’s been three years since we’ve been able to do one of those, almost to the day (ah, the 26th birthday trip). So yeah, really excited about that…obviously. Since you don’t want to hear me ramble on about this stuff…here’s some news…

Pole Dancing at Cambridge - A renowned debating society at Cambridge University said Monday it would offer pole dancing tuition to members, in a building more used to the presence of international statesmen. The Cambridge Union Society said female students would be offered lessons in the sensuous dance more often associated with strip clubs than the historic chambers of one of the world's top universities. Lessons would be given in the Blue Room (there’s no sex in the Blue Room) at the union's building, which is more commonly used for debates, said the society. The organization has welcomed countless world leaders in the almost 200 hundred years it has existed, but now also puts on a range of other activities. Speakers to have addressed students include wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, former US president Theodore Roosevelt and India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. A Cambridge Union spokeswoman defended the move, saying there was "nothing degrading" about it. "We are of the opinion that classes like these are a way of empowering women, as well as being a fantastic way to exercise and have fun together with other women. If an intelligent, independent woman wishes to learn a particular form of dance in respectable surroundings, we see nothing degrading in that." Amen brother. See, when I say pole dancing isn’t degrading, people look at me like I’m a moron…but now I have the backing of Cambridge University, b**ches. I’d love to be a teaching assistant in that class. “Okay, $teve is going to sit in the chair…and his opinion will account for 25% of your midterm, so please remember the first rule of Pole Dancing – Make Daddy Happy.” The star pupil leads things off wondrously, “Yes, very good Victoria. Excellent form. Class, notice how she’s using the Butterfly on Buttonfly technique…and you can tell that Daddy is very happy right now. $teve, no touching of the students.” “Sorry, I was ugh…testing to see if she knew that…but I’ll save it for the final.” “Ah yes, gyration…completely in sync with the music, somebody has been practicing after school. Excellent Victoria. $teve? What do you think?” “F**king A, all the way Professor Sapphire. Whew…does anybody have a beer? Water? Cigarette? Anything?” Yes, higher learning indeed. It’s also a great way to get some tuition dollars for those girls at gentlemen’s clubs who are forced to sell their sexy natures for afford today’s tuition prices in a twisted bit of the economy and federal spending…but there are other ways too, like…

Selling Sh*t – No, not quite the same thing as selling your blood, plasma, semen, hair, whatever they’re buying these days…but a little different way of raising school funds. Selling your own feces would be too damn easy. Instead, the music booster club at Central Community Unit School District 301 in St. Charles, Illinois isn't bothering with bake sales and car washes this year. Instead, it's selling bags of something promoters call "paca poo." Minus the cute name, the product is alpaca manure. Booster club secretary Gudrun Dorgan said it is a great garden fertilizer, and it comes in little pellets that are easy to work into the ground. Parents, students and teachers will be scooping and selling droppings on Saturday at Inspiration Farm Alpacas. A 30-pound bag will cost $10. Farm owner Jeff Koehl has been raising alpacas for four years and usually sells manure for profit. He said alpacas digest their food more efficiently than most farm animals, so their waste doesn't smell too bad and doesn't require lengthy composting. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell ya…at three pounds per dollar. It very well may be true…and hopefully these kids can sell packs o’ paca poo like hotcakes…but it’s a little sad that to keep music in schools, we literally have to sell bags of sh*t. This will also be great practice for the kids in marketing too…and maybe start them on their way to getting a degree like a BS in BS. Good luck kids…and in the meantime, wash your f**king hands often.

When Stupid Jokes Go Bad – We’ve all had stupid thoughts that we thought would be pretty f**king funny for a second…but held back because…well, it just shouldn’t be done. Well, not all of us have this kind of foresight. A Collier County deputy (yes, the same Collier County in Florida that is home to Ray Finkle) was reprimanded after shocking a colleague with a Taser in an incident meant to be a joke. Wait, it gets better. The December scene was caught on tape at the Collier County jail. A female deputy was seen showing a message on her iPod to Cpl. Wilmer A. Arencibia, who followed the woman and shocked her on the behind with his Taser. Yeah, commanding officer…tasing the ass of a female officer…already in jail. Arencibia told investigators it was "a spur of the moment thing" and acknowledged the behavior was improper (but probably really funny at the time). He was given a reprimand and final warning after an internal investigation. I wonder if this video has hit the web yet. Can’t wait to see it on Tosh.0 or something. By the way, great show if you don’t mind all the puking and profanity…and you know that I don’t. He reminds me a lot of myself…mostly because of the obscure 80’s & 90’s references, so if you like this blog (for whatever reason) check out Tosh.0. And if you don’t like this blog, I don’t know why you’re reading this right now…but watch Tosh.0 anyway.

Bacon Update - Kevin Bacon has joined the cast of the untitled Steve Carell comedy currently set up at Warner Bros. Pictures reports The Washington Post. Carell plays a loving husband whose wife (Julianne Moore) threatens to divorce him. As a result he hires a slick life coach (Ryan Gosling) to try and help him save his marriage. Bacon will play an alpha male co-worker of Moore's who has an affair with her (“WHORE!!!”). Emma Stone, Dan Fogelman and Analeigh Tipton co-star. John Requa and Glenn Ficarra ("Bad Santa," "I Love You Philip Morris") penned and will direct the film which begins shooting this month. This sounds like it could be a pretty good movie. A fellow great $teve, the redhead from Boogie Nights & the Big Lebowski, the hot chick from Zombieland, and in a movie written and directed by the guys who brought you Bad Santa. Oh…and sprinkle a little bit of crispy Bacon on top, which makes everything better. Any ideas for the title?

F**king Eagles – No, that’s not a suggested title. Most of us have gotten some type of injury during the beautiful act of coitus or lovemaking…and I’m sure all of us have while f**king. Well, it’s not just humans and their crazy torrid acts of primal sexual ravishing that can lead to injuries. An acrobatic display of passion proved too much for a pair of eagles engaged in a mating dance over Alaska's Prince William Sound (place, not the actual person). The female bird is recovering from an injured wing and other injuries sustained when the couple slammed beak-first into a hard snowbank in what her rescuers believe was an aerial courting ritual gone awry. The male eagle died in the impact, which left the birds buried upside down at least two feet in the snow in the town of Valdez. What a way to go! It's mating season for eagles, who perform an elaborate ritual where they clasp talons and spiral toward the ground. This pair probably got caught up in the throes of the moment (no minuteman for this eagle), said Bob Benda, a bird rescuer and biology professor at Prince William Sound Community College who was among those responding to the Easter Sunday crash. "They just lose track of what they're doing and don't know how close they are to the ground. It's raging hormones or something." But most eagles fling themselves back to reality instead of diving through a crunchy layer of snow. In this case, the male landed next to the female. If the talons had been locked, they were now separated, possibly thrust apart by the velocity of the landing. Benda said he thought both eagles had died but then noticed the female was breathing. He helped arrange the eagle's transfer to the Anchorage-based Bird Treatment and Learning Center, where she is slowly emerging from shock (way to go, you dead eagle stallion). "She is less dazed and confused every day," said Cindy Palmatier, the center's rehabilitation director. "She had this inward stare the first couple days." Judging by the bird's initial condition, Benda is amazed it's still among the living. The eagle had no broken bones, but she was severely traumatized, almost in a zombie state. The day being Easter, Benda took the bird home and figured he would keep her warm and comfortable in a crate in his heated garage until the end came. The next morning, she was still breathing and moving a wing, and by that night, she was being flown to Anchorage. "I didn't see how she could survive, but now I'm so happy she did," Benda said. At the rehabilitation center Friday, the eagle's head swiveled back and forth as she checked out some visitors. A few days earlier, she would have paid no attention to them, said Palmatier, who believes her patient suffered head trauma. The bird also showed no interest in food, but now is eating salmon and caribou meat (who wouldn’t?) and she's been taken off pain medications…but her left wing visibly droops and Palmatier said if there is significant ligament damage, there's a chance the eagle might not be able to fly again. But it's too early to tell and there's at least a month at the center still to come. Ultimately, Palmatier hopes the eagle can be released back to the wild in Valdez. She's not too worried about any psychological effects from the loss of the bird's partner (sh*t happens). "I like to say they may mate for life, but they mourn for a moment. They get over it pretty quick." What happens in Valdez, stays in Valdez apparently…but at least now I have a crazy idea for when I finally go skydiving. Then again, terminal velocity winds may have an undesired effect on my exposed scrotum…so I think I’ll just stick to the Mile High Club. On that note…

Hooking Up vs. Dating - A new study explores the gender preference of two different forms of dating common on university campuses. Although both genders perceive similar benefits and risks to dating and hooking up, more women than men continue to prefer dating whereas more men than women rate hooking up above dating. Traditional dating follows a predictable pattern whereby the man is active (he asks the woman to go out with him, organizes the date and at the end of it may initiate sexual activity); whereas the woman is reactive (she waits to be asked out on a date and accepts or rejects the man's sexual overtures). They know each other or want to get to know one another and there is the prospect of a future relationship. Traditional, right? In contrast, a hookup is a casual sexual encounter which usually occurs between people who are strangers or brief acquaintances. For instance, two people meet at a party where they have been drinking; they flirt and engage in sexual behaviors from kissing to sexual intercourse, with no commitment to a future relationship. Carolyn Bradshaw from James Madison University in Virginia and colleagues explored the reasons that motivate college men and women to hook up or to date, as well as the perceived relative benefits and costs of the two practices. Bradshaw and team exposed 150 female and 71 male college students from a southern, public American university to a variety of dating or hooking up situations (What? How do I become a Guinea pig?), such as when there was potential for a relationship, when their partner had a great personality and when drinking was involved. They asked the students the extent to which they would prefer dating or hooking up in each situation. The participants were also asked to pick the top three benefits and top three risks associated with dating and hooking up from a checklist, as well as provide details of their dating and hooking up activities over the past two years (that they could recall). Even though men initiated significantly more first dates than women, there was no gender difference in the number of first dates or number of hookups. For both men and women, the number of hookups was nearly double the number of first dates (WOW, I just need to go to more drunken college parties). Overall, both genders showed a preference for traditional dating over hooking up. However, of those students who strongly preferred traditional dating, there were significantly more women than men (41% vs. 20%). Of those who showed a strong preference for hooking up, there were far fewer women than men (2% vs. 17%). However, context mattered. When considering the possibility of a long-term relationship, both women and men preferred dating over hooking up; however, when the possibility of a relationship was not mentioned, men preferred hooking up and women preferred dating. On the whole, men and women agreed on the benefits and risks of dating and hooking up. However, there were some notable differences:



  • Women more than men seem to want a relationship. They fear, both in dating and hooking up, that they will become emotionally attached to a partner who is not interested in them.

  • Men more than women seem to value independence. They fear that even in hooking-up relationships, which are supposed to be free of commitments, a woman might seek to establish a relationship.

Okay, so…I’m going to clarify something for the scientists right now about this. The reason for the difference in these results…are children. Plain and simple. Women want a relationship more…because if they become pregnant, they don’t want to answer all the awkward questions like “Who’s the father?” if they can’t remember or they have to become a detective to find out the answer. Men seek independence in the same way that they buy used cars. They don’t want to pay a monthly check for the next 20 years on something they were hoping to handle in a one-time transaction. That also explains why both prefer the traditional method of dating, because they know the risks involved…but sometimes, you just crave that sense of connection to another human being, that thrill of passion, the feeling that somebody thinks enough of you to share this act of sensuality, or you just need a nut. Whatever the situation may be, that’s how I would explain the numbers in this study…but then again, I’m just a doctor…not a scientist. Though I have been studied in both fields. Anyway, just a little input that I thought I’d share with y’all. Maybe I’m wrong…but still, I want to know how I become a Guinea Pig in the follow-up to this study.

Well, I guess that’ll do it for today. If you don’t hear from me over the next few weeks, please don’t fret. It just means that I’m having a hella good time with the Wingmans, then going around the Western United States spreading Love to everyone that I meet (or meat). I’ll be sure to share all the wonderful pictures, stories, insights, suggestions, whatever that come along with my travels. What will be included? Well, there’s the gorgeous Pacific Coast of Half Moon Bay & Monterey with A-Lo, a trip to Golden Gate Park and their botanical gardens, a few museums concerning everything from Cartoon Art to Grammies to Neon, a birthday party with Lilie & her friends in Los Angeles, a birthday party with Bubbles & the Wingmans in Las Vegas, a week back home in Utah, probably a few pictures of my adorable niece & nephew, sushi will be had a few times I’m sure, and you know I have a nasty habit of “Oooh, that looks cool. Let’s go check that out” when I travel…so all this and more…plus my usual upbeat storytelling ability full of charm, sexual innuendo & conversational debates with myself. Yes, you have to be diagnosed as schizophrenic before it’s official. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you (well, most of you) during this trip. It’s going to be EPIC!!! Have a great time everybody!!! Drive safely. Love y’all madly!!!

1 comment:

Twinky said...

Learning Curves for pole dancing is really good and cool.

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