My Proust Questionnaire

The Vanity Fair back page has been devoted to having celebrities answer The Proust Questionnaire.  Celebrities among the likes of Robert De Niro and Alan Arkin.

Some of the time people have interesting answers or sometimes the answers are as pompous and arrogant as could be. So I decided to take the questionnaire for myself and see who I am most like.  One of the pompous arrogant celebrities or one of the cool ones like the hilarious Alan Arkin.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
No stress with a job I love.

What is your greatest fear?
Not leaving my mark on the world...and snakes.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Abraham Lincoln.

Which living person do you most admire?
My father.

What trait do you most deplore in yourself?
My sanity.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Lack of common sense.

What is your greatest extravagance?
My style.

On what occasion do you lie?
A lot of occasions.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
My nose.

When and where were you the happiest?
When I was in Hawaii with no worries.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
Nothing.

If you could change one thing about your family what would it be?
Nothing.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Always aiming higher.

If you died and came back as a person or thing what do you think it would be?
A pirate.

What is your most treasured possession?
My hair.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
No longer having a thirst for fun.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Teddy Roosevelt.

What is it that you most dislike?
Pity.

How would you like to die?
Skydiving.

What is your motto?
Was it fun? If yes, then it was worth it.


The celebrities I most identify with...98.48% like Larry King and 80.73% like Joan Didion.  Not really sure how to feel about that.

Take the questionnaire and see who you are.

The Chelsea Clinton's and Regis and the Philbins

Regis and the Philbins, The Chelsea Clinton's, and the Obesity Epidemic are just some of the great new bands that played at Coachella music festival this year...or so some festival goers would tell you.

Jimmy Kimmel sent a camera crew to Coachella in search of people who want to seem like they know about bands no one has heard of and asked them about band names that they made up.  The result: hipsters praising bands that don't exist and being excited to see them live. Nice.  Not only did they claim to know fake bands, but two girls claimed to know a fake band called Dr. Shlomo and the G.I. Clinic, saying "they're always amazing."

So funny that New York Magazine had to pin this in its Approval Matrix in the Highbrow and Brilliant section.

It goes to show you, hipsters do know about before you...and before it even exists.

How To Shop for Legal (and soon-to-be legal) Drugs

Whatever your thing is, unless your thing is heroin or cocaine or hallucinogens...so really if your thing is marijuana and pills that make you smarter two major mainstream magazines are here for you.

In the May issues of both GQ and Details are articles that give you a break down of two different types of drugs.   

           

GQ' s story "This Bud's for You" by Devin Freidman  takes you on journey through Colorado (where weed was recently legalized) marijuana shops.  And gives you a step by step guide on how to buy once it's legal nation-wide (what they say is inevitable).  The guide makes you ask yourself a serious question: what kind of weed shopper are you?  Are you a connoisseur or just someone looking to relax.  If you don't want to be offered to smell coffee beans after each strand of weed, you're not the prior.  Once you find that out your pretty much off and running and the article tells you to a get a license to shop right after you find out what type of dispensary is right for you.  This is your how-to guide for the future or in some places right now.  

Details' story "Can These Pills Supercharge Your Career?" by Kayleen Schaefer describes a whole bunch of pills any college student would love to get their hands on.  You know the type that make you smarter.  And by that I really mean the ones that make you more productive.  Well according to Schaefer these pills have a better place in the work world.  Drugs like prescription Nuvigil and Provigil and supplements like New Mood and Alpha Brain.  All said to stimulate brain receptors thereby making you more productive.  Doesn't sound to bad.  Describes what type drug fit each lifestyle.  Mildly ironic that this story was in the issue with Bradley Cooper because in 2011's Limitless he played a writer relying on a brain enhancement drug for success.


Both magazines fundamentally laid out a shopping guide for your life-improvement drugs.  Whether it be brain-enhancement pills or brain-relaxing plants you'll find out what you need to.

Funny that both magazines are owned by the same family.  Is Condé Nast trying to tell us something?

Hepburn's Hollywood

How iconic must you be to grace the cover of a magazine 20 years after your death?

The May issue of Vanity Fair magazine features a classic photo of Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn on the cover.  The feature story her son, Luca Dotti's, description of his mother during her years in Rome.

The entire issue begs the question of how influential a celebrity must be to still be relevant and of interest 20 years after dying.  This cover groups Audrey Hepburn with other incredibly influential and famous people such as—Marilyn Monroe, Jackie O, JFK, Liz Taylor and Grace Kelly—who graced the cover of Vanity fair well after their death.

So it goes to show if you want to cover a magazine years after your death you have to, win an Acadmey Award, run the United States of the America, be the wife of the United States of America or be one of the biggest style icons to ever come out of hollywood.  Good luck!

These Letters Are Better Than Real Letters

The letters to the magazine at Nylon Guys aren't actually letters.  They're more like thoughts or inquiries and almost more enjoyable to read.

Usually, letters to the editor are people praising or criticizing the last issue of the magazine.  They may be nice for the people who write and receive them, but for the most part they aren't that enjoyable to read.  They're certainly not what people look forward to in a magazine.  

The letters in Nylon Guys magazine are actually quite funny.  For instance, from the March 2013 issue, "Dear Nylon Guys, Do any companies make a cologne that smells like cash?" from Dylan Freedbum in New York or, "Dear Nylon Guys, Someone said the word 'swaggy' to me the other day — just checking in for a ruling on that one," from Charlie Knowles in New Orleans.

Picking up an issue of the magazine, I actually have a small desire to read what some of these people are going to say.

Harry Styles could be the bad guy in the next Hollywood blockbuster

Harry Styles was granted the honor of winning NME Magazine's Villain of the Year award at the annual NME Awards.

Styles winning the not-so-coveted award begs the question, how much of the British music reputation has he destroyed?  Well, with a room full of rock's legends and hottest up and comers, such as Ronnie Wood, Johnny Marr and Palma Violets, the only thing to do is to give Styles the title.

Great Britain has a great reputation when is comes to its musical exports.  Everyone from the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd to Elton John and Elvis Costello.  Now Great Britain has to claim One Direction and their nefarious leader Harry Styles as well.

(These three together just doesn't look right)

They have infiltrated the British and now American airways with their pre-pubesant harmonizing and shallow beats.  They've brought back a genre of music most people wanted to stay in 90's...the boy band.  Their main fan base consists of pre-teen girls with braces and their parents for concert ticket money.  Music critics have never taken to these types of groups or they don't even bother reviewing them because the overarching opinion is that their music is worthless.

To say that these boys come from the same place as one the greatest rock bands ever (the Rolling Stones) is difficult.  Maybe NME did have it right.

For a rock and roll award, when other nominees in your category are the Prime Minister of England and the Korean guy who sings Gangnam Style, you know it can't be good.

Who knows, maybe Harry Styles can get a movie contract for a new film about him plotting to destroy the music industry as we know it.

Future should have no future

Rapper, Future, is a little bit too cocky and arrogant for not having gone mainstream yet.  In an article for Complex Magazine the rapper talks about his music and second studio album, Future Hendrix, with a little bit too much confidence.

In his interview with Lauren Nostro he says, "Sometimes I've got to dumb it (his music) down for the fans so they can understand it."  I am only one person, but I was tremendously put off by this comment.  Out of sheer curiosity of what else he would say I kept on reading.  I came to find that he managed to make an even more pompous statement, " I understand why people want to imitate the things I do. They're dope."  I could be wrong, but I'm not sure arrogance and insults are the best way to gain more fans.

I had never heard of Future or his music before so to me the comments were startling.  So, continuing my curiosity I looked up his music with hope for some comic relief in his mediocracy.  After listening to three or four songs, I ended my research.  His sound is certainly not anything new or too innovative to warrant imitations.  I can't say it was bad, but speaking like you're above people will only piss them off not get them to buy your new album.

...And Future Hendrix...come on, no one will ever good enough to call themselves that.