Jessie Baylin

B.o.B.

Imagine Dragons

Walk the Moon

Beach House

Marina and the Diamonds

Oh Land

Mark Foster (of Foster the People) with Kimbra (from Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know”) and A-Track (from… uh.)
This track is from Converse’s “3 Artists, 1 Song” Series. Full size because I like the video:

Studio Killers

If any of these links die, let me know. And be sure to share on Facebook/the Twitters/Town Hall Meetings, etc. And comment if you have any new jams I should check out or if you’re feeling any of these.

Also pathetic: the lack of non-white people on the show. Producers are actually being sued for discrimination. Good times. This season is supposed to have two non-white contestants, so take THAT world.
And last thing, Chris Harrison recently broke up with his wife. I would KILL for Chris Harrison as the Bachelor. ABC, make it happen.

So what notables do we have?

Kalon describes himself as a former “loud, obnoxious womanizer.” He’s managed to scale that back to just obnoxious. He’s a luxury brand manager. What brand? I do not know. But as a dude with a business degree, I can tell you that his job is 99% bullshit. He then shows up at the house in a helicopter. Since when can you just arrive however you want? I hate this show. He walks into the back and throws his helicopter arrival into everyone’s face. Making friends from minute one.

Ryan is a former pro football player who now trains pro athletes (read: clings to dead dreams) and mentors little kids when he’s not posing scenically with his dog. I thought he was top 3 potential until he did this when meeting Emily, pretending to have written some notes:Pimp status. Dude’s going to win. He might as well’ve just written this:

Tony says he cares about two things: fitness and his son. Producers were like, “yes and yes, you are IN”. Top 3 potential.

Oh hello non-white person of ambiguous ethnicity! Can’t tell if he’s latino or black. His name’s “Lerone” so I’m thinking African American, but then again, he has a Pomeranian so also possibly gay.

“Jef” says people don’t take him seriously because of how he dresses and acts. I think it’s because he spells his name like a retard. He runs a bottled water company for charity which means he filters tap water and then sells it for 1,000 times the actual cost and then uses his non-profit status to dodge taxes and pick up mad bitches.
He shows up to the initial meet skitching on the back of the limo and then throws his skateboard in the bushes like it ain’t shit. I immediately want to strangle him.

If you want proof that the producers of this show are assholes, look no further than Indy Car racer Arie. “Hey let’s set up the girl whose dead ex-fiancé was a NASCAR driver with another race car driver. Imagine the emotional roller coaster!” Previously on Brad Womack’s season of The Bachelor they sent Emily on a date to a race track. I think the producers live off the tears of the desperate.

Alessandro insists on the unexpected/awkward double-cheek kiss when he arrives because “that’s how they do it” back home in Brazil (from “Uberlandia”—yeah right that’s a real place). He then stares at Emily’s tits for a full 5 seconds before dropping some Brazilian on her hoping it will distract from his awful flesh-colored beard. Do not unpack, Alessandro.

Not even halfway through and I think I’m willing to award Randy the Worst Entrance Award for dressing up as his grandmother.

Note to Mike: Just because some plastered sorority girl once told you that you look like Ashton Kutcher does NOT mean you can pull off his hairstyle.

As usual, they only show a handful of arrivals because they totally over-cast the show and then Emily heads in to “mingle” and I fight the urge to just wander off and shove toothpicks into my eyes.

Doug brings a letter from his son for Emily. It’s a little odd:Despite that fact that he is clearly abusive and horrible to look at, he gets the first impression rose. Hm. Go figure.

Only other notable moment from before the Rose Ceremony is Arie letting Emily know that he’s a race car driver and her not caring at all. Just fascinating stuff here. The Rose Ceremony is pretty much just all the guys they’ve shown throughout the night getting roses (though not the idiot that dressed up as his own grandmother) and a bunch of guys we’ve never seen before going home. Oh, and uh, Lerone got sent home. So are there non-white dudes left? Yes. If you consider vaguely Latino South Americans to be non-white. Well there’s always this:
YEEEEAAAHHHH BOOOOY!

Final note: I would like to take credit for the fact that my buddy Joe now watches this show but it was probably his lovely bride that done it. He’s a writer. And professional at that. Give his recap a peep. He actually ends it… poignant and poetic like. See y’all next week. I guess.

My mom was young when she had kids—had my sister at 18, my brother at 21, me at 23. I’m well past half my mom’s age at this point. In fact I remember her turning 30 and I’m 33 now (sorry for blowing up your spot mom—no one do the math on that). How weird is that? I’ve always loved having a young mom. She not only raised me on Oingo Boingo and Devo, but even through high school and college was telling me about bands like The Offspring, Linkin Park, and the Plain White Ts, all way ahead of when they broke big. She’s hipper than I am.

Here’s another cool thing: my mom is really, really good at telling and reading stories. I’m being totally unbiased, my mom can read the shit out of a story. She’ll have you in tears by the time she’s done reading Star Mother’s Youngest Child, which she used to read to me and my siblings every year and now reads to my niece and nephew. I look forward to someday having kids who will be so emotionally invested in my mom’s reading of Goodnight Moon that they’ll require therapy later in life.

In fact it’s my mom’s love of a good story that’s fully to credit for any ability I have to turn a phrase. Not that I make a living at it, or even consider myself particularly good at it (note how gracelessly I bounce from paragraph to paragraph, or my endless asides), but the fact that I try, and love to do so, is entirely her influence; her reading to me and my brother every night; her continually suggesting books for me to read (even bonkers sci-fi shit like The Gap Cycle, which I swear will be a hard-R movie epic someday, and again my mom will be proven the hippest chick around); her own sense of wonder and love of the world.

So anyway, that’s just a small slice of my mom. There’s a ton more to share (her punishment methods, how she thinks absolutely terrifying young children is totally fine, how her mushroom chicken dish is my favorite thing to eat and why we never eat it), but I plan on having her around for a ton more Mother’s Days so I’ll dole them out over the years.

For now I will say this about my mom, and not just because it’s Mother’s Day: My mom is my best friend. She is my rock. She is the reason I see meaning in the world around me. She is the reason I am unafraid to fail. She is caring, kind, loving, and loves my friends every bit as much as she loves me (well, almost as much). She is the very definition of a mom, but most importantly she is my mom. And for that, I am very, very thankful.

I love you mom! Even though I think there’s a distinct possibility you love your dog more than me.

Author’s note: This is normally where you’d see a heart-warming photo of my mom and me as a cute (and make no mistake, I was SUPER cute) 6 year old. But here’s the deal: the wonderful thing about having a professional photographer for a father is that there are thousands of pictures of your childhood. The horrible thing about having a professional photographer for a father is that they are all on 35 MM slides in a filing cabinet in storage somewhere. To make up for this, here’s a picture of my mom with my niece, from 2003ish:

To my knowledge, these covers were Public Domain. Let me know if not. Also, all due apologies to Mr. Algonquin for making that last title up. He seems to be on track for more intelligent fare, but a James Bond-ish adventure was too good to pass up.