Blackbeard's Delight

What am I going to do with all these tiny sweaters?

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:29:00 -0400

I could spend hours fighting Pal. This baffles people, mostly because I have at least 6 feet and 240 pounds on my dog. But Pal required a lot of attention, sometimes it was pills, other times his teeth needed brushing. Yes, his teeth needed brushing. What Pal lacked in size and reach he gained in a psychological edge. When you know your opponent is worried about inadvertently snapping you in half, you’ve already won. And so Pal and I would fight for hours. I would yell and cuss. He would screech and scowl. On the living room floor, on the couch, in the room far enough away from the neighbors to stop them from calling the police because of the wailing. On and on. If you can imagine a silverback gorilla trying to give a Tic-Tac to an indifferent teacup pig, you’ve got the right idea.

The fights became been more frequent in the last four months. Once Pal got diagnosed with cancer, specifically a soft tissue sarcoma that caused a tumor to grow in his jaw, that meant a pretty aggressive pharmaceutical diet each day. The drugs could only do so much, but I knew, after years of cartoonishly drawn-out battles, that Pal would not go quietly. He really didn’t do anything quietly.

I like to call Pal a “tough old bastard.” He was basically a tiny Walter Mattheau, albeit with four legs and a tail, and minus one mustache. The default for Pal? Surly. Because when you are a dog smaller than most cats, with little appreciable fur, a diminished desire to make friends, and a snaggle tooth grin, you should probably have an attitude.

So Pal did not play, or do tricks. He did not like to be touched, or looked at. More often than not we had to tell people “don’t worry if he yelps when you touch him, he’s a little sensitive.” In other words, Pal did things according to a set of rules that were largely known only to him. He had different ways of showing affection. If he liked you he might sniff your eyeball. If he was fond of you he might try to hump your forearm (small dogs gotta be strategic when they get busy). If he liked you enough he would get close and promptly nuzzle his head in your chest. But the most love and gratitude he could show? Pal would hop in your lap, jump up, throw his paws on either side of your neck and go in for a hug. It was a terribly cute gesture for a surly little dog that did not care for cuteness.

As much as Pal and I fought, I knew he liked me well enough. He had a funny way of sleeping, laying in our bed, head on a pillow with the rest of his body under a blanket. He thought he was people that way. But I knew Pal cared, or at least didn’t actively despise me at times, when he would switch up his nighttime routine. With enough whining, shifting and annoyed glances, Pal would get me to raise my arm just enough so that he could nest his head in my arm pit.

If he hated people, which is open for debate, he was bad at showing it. Here’s the thing that scared him the most, more than trips to the vet or losing more teeth: Not having someone to hang out on the couch with. If Pal had a factory setting, it would be sleeping on the couch. And god help him if he was going to sit there by himself. You have never heard a dog cry so loud and long as he would to get someone to chillbro with him. He would get visibly anxious and develop a special kind of tiny fidgety tick, and the pacing and whining wouldn’t stop if you were busy working, cleaning, or cooking. The sleep was his religion, and the couch was the only church he knew. He was ardent in his faith: Pal could get lost on the couch, sleeping with a blanket over his head for hours. Lazy Sundays, thunderstorms, even parties. This is a dog that weighed less than 12 pounds, would be comfortable in a bread box, and he had at least six blankets that were expressly “his.”

Basically Pal was the world’s most eccentric roommate. He ate our food, put us out so he could sleep, didn’t pay rent, and occassionally peed on things. He could be a jerk. There were times when he was a stubborn pain in the ass who didn’t communicate well, who was stingy with his affections and sometimes seemed to prefer the company of himself to the tedium of others. Maybe the reason I called him names, and got so frustrated all those fights, is because he reminded me of someone: myself.

###

We have no idea what the first 6 years of Pal’s life were like. We don’t really know where he really came from. In the literal sense. It could have been a strip mall pet shop. Or a circus of art thieves. In the practical sense he came from Craigslist. Destroying the news industry and providing us with a dog, thanks Craig Newmark. Amy and I weren’t really in the market for a dog. But you rarely are in the market for the things you do impulsively. My knowledge was limited to two things: I like greyhounds, and they don’t fuck with my allergies. When Amy randomly discovered him in a CraigsList listing I all of a sudden knew I had to have an Italian Greyhound, despite the fact I had never heard of Italian Greyhounds until that moment. The first time I saw one was when Pal’s previous owner brought him over to meet us. And, then, as quickly as she arrived, left him with us. She had a tale, more of an alibi, really, about moving to a new place that doesn’t allow dogs, and possibly a divorce, and his name being Mingus. Or Pal. There was no end to the weirdness of Pal’s old owner, and the circumstances as to why she wanted to part with him are a little foggy.

But we took him, even though we had no idea what to do with him. It’s not that we were unfamiliar with dogs, but having your own dog is a different deck of cards then when your parents have a dog you have to walk from time to time. You have to figure out what to feed them and how to stop them from turning every corner of your apartment into a bathroom stall. You also have to give them as much attention as water, at least that was the case with Pal.

Our luck came in the fact that Pal was a dog made for apartment living. One of earliest lessons in this is the night he first stayed with us. Not sure what to do with him at bedtime, we put Pal at the end of the bed to sleep. It didn’t take. And for almost 15 minutes we tried to figure out the right sleeping arrangement. Finally, — and most likely out of frustration — he just showed us: He dove under the covers and went to sleep.

That was life with Pal for that first year. Any ideas we had of training him were inverted. Pal had to break us in. His teeth, for instance, were the equivalent of a superfund site. After a few early attempts at brushing his teeth, and discovering persistent stank breath (medical term), we took him to the vet. Turns out his teeth were a diseased wreck. Gingivitis, and a lot worse. So one morning we took him to the nice people at Bracket Street Veterinary Clinic, and he left minus 20 or so teeth.

Now we not only had a new dog, but we had a new dog that had all the chewing proficiency of a toddler. Regular dog kibble was no longer an option. And canned dog food made my stomach turn. Facing those options there was one choice: Pal gets human food. A dog, big enough to fit in an overnight bag, now with the smile of a hobo, with a daily diet of boiled chicken and rice. In other circumstances that would be the meal of an Olympian in training. For Pal, that was Tuesday’s breakfast.

But Pal got what Pal wanted.

That also included sweaters. One of first things people often notice about Pal was his sense of fashion, or, to put it bluntly, the fact that this otter-sized dog was outfitted in something akin to his own LL Bean catalog. Winter sweaters, fall sweaters, lightweight for those crisp spring days, turtlenecks for those evenings out on the town. What I’m saying is my dog has a lot of clothes, another thing that came unexpectedly. As much as I the art of looking good, I never thought I would be the type of guy who could color coordinate his sweaters with his dog’s. But Italian Greyhounds are not hearty dogs, and their coats barely register above a 2 month beard growth. So they have a need for outerwear, and fortunately for our dogs Amy’s mom’s knitting, and empathy, knows no bounds.

And Pal got what he needed.

This was also the case when it came to Turk, our second dog. When I say that Pal was anti-social, it wasn’t just that his couch-ridden, blanket-tugging ways kept him at a distance from other people. He also seemed to actively hate other dogs, regardless of size. For some that could be a sign of fearlessness, but when you have the physical bearing of a ring-tailed lemur, that’s just an invitation for trouble. Now, it’s important to remember we’re about five months into the Great Pal experiment at this point. We could have sought out doggie behavioral classes. We could have consulted the growing pile of dog care books we were collecting. We could have just let him sleep on his couch.

Instead, we decided the best thing for Pal would be to get him a companion. A buddy. An unpredictable teenage sidekick. Enter Turk: Barely a year old, rescued from a bad breeder who was hoarding enough Italian Greyhounds to make Cruella Deville blush. Turk was the spunky, unpredictable, ball of energy to Pal’s grumpy old man. Imagine the second act of “Up,” or basically any sitcom Ed Asner has been in, and you’ll get the idea. While Pal never actively hated Turk, he maintained the kind of cool indifference you hold up for coworkers you hope “just aren’t a good fit.”

But time, and Turk’s persistence, chipped away at that. Maybe more than anything else it was Pal seeing that he could use Turk to his advantage. When Pal wanted to be left alone, Turk could be a distraction to others. And as a reckless wildcard, Turk was prone to jumping on counters, stealing food or dog treats, a bounty Pal could also take part in. And, even though he was loathe to admit it, Turk could be a source of warmth, in the literal sense. Pal hated the cold, and heat was a kind of currency to him. If you gave off anything above room temperature, he would become your suddenly cuddly symbiote.

In a very real sense, Pal was the thing that made us into a family. There were two, then three, then four of us. All of a sudden there were more concerns than whether we could make it to last call, but whether or not the dogs would forgive us (or pee in the apartment) if we made it there.

Because of Pal and Turk holidays turned into Griswold-esque car trips, around-the-clock voyages from Maine to Minnesota, or down to Virginia. There’s probably not a rest stop along the I-90 corridor where Pal has not had the pleasure of peeing.

Pal was the reason we found a discovered a little cabin in the woods in Northern Maine. He took relaxation seriously, it was probably the only job he ever had.

That and modeling (true story). When summer came around Pal liked to change up his routine, so instead of sleeping inside, he liked to recline outdoors. He often did this while laying on the steps to the driveway of our apartment, stopping suddenly to bake on the warmth of the concrete. It was during one of these interludes when I had the thought of taking a vacation with the dogs. OK, yes, this is not an entirely novel idea. But the image I had in my head was not a beach-side umbrella drink paradise, but more of a summer retreat and High Life tallboys type of affair. A place where Pal and I could lose hours in dueling hammocks, a vision of the weirdest Cialis commercial ever made. Once again we owed CraigsList a debt of thanks, we discovered a small cabin on Silver Lake in a little town called Lee, Maine, almost 3 hours north of Portland.

As eccentric as he was, Pal would surprise you by acting like a dog, something he always liked to display on the trips up country. If you cracked a window on the car ride, he’s stick his snout out to get a hold of the scents. And without his leash, or harness, or sweater, he would bound around the cabin, discovering exciting destinations to piss, and fresh funk to roll around in. And it was on these annual occasions when Pal would remind us that he was an adept swimmer. But like most things in life, it’s not that he couldn’t do something, it’s just that he didn’t really feel like it.

Life with a cranky old dog was a series of adjustments in that way. That typically meant a lot of waiting. Does he want to eat when you’ve put his food out? Probably not, but later he’ll make sure to stare impatiently at the spot where his bowl should be. Is it safe to take him on long walks? Not if there’s bicyclists, lord does he hate the bicyclists and their air of superiority. I’d think worse of myself, or imagine I was a terrible dog owner for not reining him more often. But Pal worked the angles. If his “I’m just a helpless, toothless, little dog” bit failed, he never hesitated to fall back on the “I’m just simply too old and feeble” ruse. They were cons, and the always worked. I could have hated him for it. The way this is supposed to work is the dog listens to you and follows your commands, right? Instead, Pal had us doing the tricks for him.

###

It’s been two weeks since we put Pal to sleep. The end happened suddenly, which is a weird thing to say when you’re talking about something like cancer. After we got the first diagnosis back in December we thought it was the end. But time passed and it just became the pattern of life. Dealing with inevitability is tricky that way; you head towards a fixed point in time without the aid of a wrist watch or a calendar. So you go: To the vet and back. To the pharmacy. To the treatments with the indeterminate outcomes and itemized bills. The routine itself becomes a comfort, a grim idiosyncrasy for you to lose yourself in.

But cancer doesn’t like to be ignored. It’s an awful disease and horribly insistent, like an uninvited guest who shows up to your party already drunk. At 2 am. You don’t have to know what exactly is going to happen, just that it most likely will be bad.

For a while it was easy to think we’d bought Pal time thanks to the barrage of treatments. Radiation, chemo therapy, and enough drugs to fuel an underground canine pill trade. But the tumor grew, and grew, and Pal shrank. The physiology of Italian Greyhounds already seems improbable, they’re built like a wine bottle propped up on chopsticks. He got thinner and those reed-like legs became less sturdy. Pal was wobbling more than usual. His cries became more frequent. And our titanic fights had started to change as well. When you sparred as often as Pal and I, you have a way of knowing when your opponent’s heart isn’t in it.

That was life for four months, until, over the course of one weekend in Maine, it wasn’t any more. The details aren’t important, but when the time came it was clear that Pal, if he wasn’t gone already, was ready to say goodnight. And so the four of us sat in the sterile quiet of an exam room at the emergency vet until we couldn’t avoid the inevitable any longer: It was time for Pal to get some sleep.

Over the years I had taken to describing Pal, and Italian Greyhounds in general, as a “greyhound that had been hit by a shrink ray.” While this is technically accurate, the truth is his personality was the inverse, it was outsized. If Pal was “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” the void he left is “D2: The Mighty Ducks.” And no matter how hard you try, you can’t side step the holes left in your life when something like that is gone.

Look, I know it’s silly to ascribe any kind of sentiment or personality to pets. I never thought I would be that type of guy. But, I never thought I would the type of guy who became familiar with the right and wrong way to put clothing on a dog. I can’t know for certain Pal was as eccentric as I made him out to be in my mind. He may not have been that complicated at all. He ate, walked, slept, and repeated the cycle daily. In the course of that routine we graft so much onto our pets and don’t even know it; they’re everyone we need them to be, and everything we want to see in ourselves. Maybe he was jerk, or maybe I was a jerk but he still liked me anyway.

It’s hard to fight the urge to humanize our pets when they’re with us. It gets even harder when they’re gone. Doing anything otherwise means acknowledging that these animals who come into our lives are nothing more than silent companions. And when you look at it that way, our pets become a kind of numb, free-willed appendage that has to be reconciled. And how cold is that? It doesn’t account for the fact that companionship is such a powerful and wonderful thing. It’s what so many of us spend our lives looking for, it’s inspiration and validation. And it’s so fucking elusive. That’s what makes dogs such great companions, even the ones as surly as Pal. They’re capable of something we rarely find these days: unconditional love.

Giving that up is tough. You don’t even realize how much it affected you until it’s no longer there. But the worst part is when you’ve had four months to try to prepare yourself, only to find you didn’t study for that test at all. That time seemed so generous just days ago, and suddenly it becomes brutally brief. My dog is gone, killed by a stupid disease that chooses its targets with the ruthless efficiency of a drunk at the dart board.

What we’re left with is photos, so many photos, and sweaters (so many tiny sweaters), and a shifting tide of memories that ebbs and flows with each day. I know I can’t forget Pal, but I also know I won’t mourn him forever either. Maybe that’s the best trick you can have when you’re a dog the size of and Italian Greyhound, you’re just the right size to find your own place in memories.

The hurt passes and the memories roll in and out, whether I’m in the car, staring at the meat counter in the grocery store, or getting ready for bed.

One night when Pal was sick, which was as regular as sunshine in San Diego, he started stirring in the bed. It was late, like “eff you I can’t see the clock but it feels closer to sunrise” late, and his stomach was gurgling. Having been through this before, and not feeling particularly motivated to let him trapse about, I convinced him to lay down. As fussed as he was, he obliged, putting his head inches from mine on my pillow.

And then he puked on me.

I got up, washed myself off, and came back to bed to wash off the pillow. And there he was, in a trick he had perfected many times over, curled up, eyes closed, asleep in my spot. Sighing, I said what I often said to him at times like this, “Thanks, Pal.”

"I’ll get killed for this, but: Journalism ethics is nothing more than a measure of the..."

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:39:00 -0500

“I’ll get killed for this, but: Journalism ethics is nothing more than a measure of the scurrilousness your brand will bear. That’s it. Ethics has nothing to do with the truth of things, only with the proper etiquette for obtaining it, so as to piss off the fewest number of people possible.”

- Journalistic standards in reporting on the Te’o hoax: Q&A with Deadspin’s Tommy Craggs [National Sports Journalism Center]

Ang + Oscar + In-N-Out. My god. This is glorious. Via Marc...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:25:52 -0500

Ang + Oscar + In-N-Out.

My god. This is glorious.

Via Marc Bernardin

"After a brief conversation with the police, World Police put on his Cookie Monster pajamas and..."

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:40:17 -0500

“After a brief conversation with the police, World Police put on his Cookie Monster pajamas and accompanied them outside.”

- http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-74512676/

dcu: zekem93: By Jiro Dammit, Jerry Clark

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 02:03:40 -0500

dcu:

zekem93:

By Jiro

Dammit, ~~Jerry~~ Clark

Ebony’s social media strategy wins the day.

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:58:10 -0500

Ebony’s social media strategy wins the day.

So many stories about Doctor Who producing an episode in 3D and...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:30:03 -0500

So many stories about Doctor Who producing an episode in 3D and not a one drops a gif/pic of The Doctor in 3D shades?

For shame.

(Yes, this is the 10th Doctor, but still.)

"You can’t build a business off sexting,” said Mr. Spiegel, using the term for sending racy pictures..."

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:45:00 -0500

““You can’t build a business off sexting,” said Mr. Spiegel, using the term for sending racy pictures via text message chats. “It’s such a specific-use case. This is about much more than that.””

- Inventor of SnapChat, daring the world to prove him wrong.

[ via NYT: “A Growing App Lets You See It, and Then You Don’t”]

"Quite simply, I don’t know if these new showrunners (all good intentions aside) have what it takes..."

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:00:07 -0500

“Quite simply, I don’t know if these new showrunners (all good intentions aside) have what it takes to strike that alchemical balance of broad comedy, outlandish concepts, and heartfelt character dynamics into something other than a shrill, hollow approximation of what…once…was.”

- I had to talk Dennis off the ledge over at Brannigan’s Law. He has a case of The Fear over whether new Community (sans Dan Harmon) will be as good as old Community. (Check your local listings)

Remedial Game Theory: Community is back! And at least one of us is very, very quesy

“New season of Venture Bros. to premiere on May...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:45:52 -0500

“New season of Venture Bros. to premiere on May 19.”

This is easily the best headline of today.

[via Venture Bros. Blog]

DIDDY YOU DONE IT AGAIN! via Rembert

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:25:36 -0500

DIDDY YOU DONE IT AGAIN!

via Rembert

"Black-identifying names turned out to be much more likely than white-identifying names to generate..."

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:13:47 -0500

“Black-identifying names turned out to be much more likely than white-identifying names to generate ads that including the word “arrest””

- To which Google responds: “AdWords does not conduct any racial profiling.”

“Racism is poisoning online ad delivery, says Harvard professor”

"The Director’s Guild doesn’t get any money, the Writer’s Guild. Journalists don’t benefit when their..."

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:11:00 -0500

“The Director’s Guild doesn’t get any money, the Writer’s Guild. Journalists don’t benefit when their stories are taken, and given a link. It would be like me launching a newspaper–call it Link—where I can have the greatest journalists in the world working for me without paying them. It’s inconceivable. If BMI and ASCAP can monitor the music business, we need a BMI and an ASCAP to monitor these businesses. This will be the one legislation for our industry that I’ll press. We need for writers, producers, studios, and journalists to be protected. That is my agenda.”

- Harvey Weinstein to Deadline.

And while we’re at it, let’s legislate the rain drops as they fall from the sky. Good luck with that, Harvey.

This calls for a zany scheme, brah: Watching the premiere of "Southie Rules"

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:00:00 -0500

At around the 15 minute mark in the debut episode of A&E’s Southie Rules, I finally had to hit the pause on my DVR. For better or worse, and it would get worse, the show had reached a moment of perfect pitch.

Bros and Southie castmates Jonathan and Devin find themselves walking down the street, about to enter - wait for it - a store called “Vintage Southie.” Jonathan, desperate for a little cash to pay some bills, is looking to pawn valuables. In voice-over, and cuts back to the now-typical reality TV confessional, Jonathan says “I have proof you don’t have to be a miner to find gold. I got Southie gold. These dolls are gonna make me a fortune.”

I wrote a note to myself: What is Southie Gold?

Southie Rules is, reality show. And that means it has all the familiar trappings: People thrown together in a house, a persistent confessional track from the cast, and storylines that smudge the boundaries of what it means to be “unscripted.”

“This is the story of nine family members, who choose to live in a triple-decker, have indeterminate jobs, and have decided to have their lives taped…”

Theoretically Southie Rules is the story of the day-to-day lives of the Niedzwiecki family, a multigenerational clan living together in South Boston. There’s mom and pop Niedzwiecki, their three children, their children’s spouses, and grandchildren. And let’s not forget the lovable neighborhood goof, Devin, the Steve Urkel/Kimmy Gibbler of Southie Rules, who apparently sleeps on their couch. Everyone’s all Walton-ed up under one roof. And it is here, this family, where we find the last bastion of hope for the American working man, a vanguard against tapas bars, fancy cars, and, anyone who doesn’t like them apples

The first episode revolves around the plot that a house of nine people can’t put together enough steady income to pay monthly bills. So, they play - wait for it - “bill roulette,” wherein you pick a bill at random and play it. (If you are paying attention future Massachusetts gaming commission, please exclude this from the state’s forthcoming casinos.)

Obviously hijinx must ensue. Jonathan, the oldest son of the family, embarks on a quest to sell a batch of creepy antique dolls he keeps in the basement. Another son, Matt, plans on selling meatballs to make bank to cover a $90 cable bill.

Take a moment and read that again.

Basically it’s a cartoon. With the help of Quagmire, Jonathan devises a zany scheme to land $800 to pay a heating bill by sweet talking little old ladies . Meanwhile, Fred and Barney enter a chili cook-off at the Royal Order of Water Buffalos. Or something.

At this point anyone willing to carve out time for reality TV has to be in on bit. TV producers may share a bias familiar to journalists and documentaries: The need for a good story. It’s a desire for a story that so perfectly fits a preconceived notion that the mundane can’t override the truth. Southie Rules was never going to be “An American Family, we were never meant to learn deep truths about South Boston or the minutiae of the working class. There is a story to be told about families with a basket full of unpaid bills, living on top of each other because they got no other choice. This is not that. This is a show that is so goofy you either hate-watch, or don’t watch. This is an appetizer for Storage Wars.

So how do our heroes solve the puzzle? Instead of picking up odd jobs, or, real jobs, Jonathan or Matt run fake hustles that are telegraphed to go awry from the start. The creepy antique dolls? Worthless fakes. The meatballs? Ends in a wacky bike accident-turned food fight between Matt and his girlfriend (or, baby momma if you’re technical) Jenn.

Naturally the day is saved in the end, and the bills will be paid. In what can only be the king of coincidences, the stories all converge with an ill-timed dong shot! Jonathan (with a little help from Devin) decides the only way to keep the heat on is to…KEEP THE HEAT ON by doing a little exotic dancing at a neighbor’s bachelorette party. But wouldn’t you know it, that same neighbor ran out of food for the party and had a powerful hunger for meatballs. (HEY-O!) And right at the moment Jonathan decides to go for the “Full Southie,” in walks mom with a tray of hot…yeah. You get the point.

Oddly enough, the private dancer bit isn’t what stuck with me. It’s the fact that Jonathan dresses up in a road crew uniform, complete with hard hat and reflective vest, for his turn as a stripper. If you’re the kind of guy who keeps a MassDOT get up handy, you’ve probably got better options than dropping a Magic Mike to pay your bills, right?

theavc: The world needs more of this picture in it. Also a...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:36:14 -0500

theavc:

The world needs more of this picture in it. Also a reminder that there will be double the Happy Endings for the next couple of weeks, and that it’s a great show you should get on right now.

Chief. Fun. Officer.

But seriously, if this show gets cancelled I’ll be a wreck.

jtotheizzoe: This is what it looks like when you open a can of...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:00:24 -0500

jtotheizzoe:

This is what it looks like when you open a can of mixed nuts in space.

See, the mixed nuts aren’t floating, they’re just falling around the Earth at exactly the same speed as the space station and Commander Hadfield (the finest Canadian ever put in space).

Freakiest mixed nuts ever? Or scrumptious space snack?

Check out the full video at io9.

And yet, the first thing that popped in my mind was:

Well, second thing. The first being, “space is cool,” naturally.

"Ben and Kate is my new Bent, which was my new Traffic Light, which was my new Better Off Ted, which..."

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:20:29 -0500

““Ben and Kate is my new Bent, which was my new Traffic Light, which was my new Better Off Ted, which filled the hole left in my heart from Kath & Kim, and on and on all the way back to Arrested Development. You’re supposed to fall in love with shows, find the one that is right for you, and develop the kind of devotion that is sweet, but borders on annoying. Why won’t you just stop talking about Terriers or Last Resort? Because you are, to quote the poet, Crazy in Love.””

- Meanwhile, over at Brannigan’s Law, Dennis and I go mushy about TV shows getting canned.

“I am trying to break your heart: How do you rebound from a cancelled TV show?”

mensweardog: How To Wear A Chunky Shawl Collar Cardigan Shawl...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:59:46 -0500

mensweardog:

How To Wear A Chunky Shawl Collar Cardigan

Shawl Collar Cardigan & Tie: Club Monaco | Tie Bar: The Tie Bar | Oxford Shirt: Gant Rugger

not shown: Jeans: J.Crew 484 | Belt: Tanner Goods | Boots: Wolverine 1000 Mile

You are GODDAMN RIGHT I am following Menswear Dog. Because he is pulling it off. Flawless.

Simon Kneen, creative director of Banana Republic, says the...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 23:42:57 -0500

Simon Kneen, creative director of Banana Republic, says the retailer also used a lighter fusable, or adhesive, in the collars to make them less rigid, trying to achieve collar “magic,” Mr. Kneen says. “The magic is when the first button opens and the collar doesn’t fly around your ears, which is never a good look.”

No joke. Fussing with your collar is a look most guys should abandon after their mom has stopped dressing them.

[“What’s Your Collar ID?” - WSJ]

bigredrobot: theavc: Fox pulls Ben And Kate, basically...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:20:50 -0500

bigredrobot:

theavc:

Fox pulls Ben And Kate, basically canceling it

The A.V. Club would like to officially comment “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” on the matter.

Ugh. This is bullshit you guys.