Also today was Yasmine Hamdan's Al Jamilat. The follow-up to 2013's Ya Nass packs 11 songs into just 41 minutes and finds the Arab electronic pop pioneer, who broke though with the band Soap Kills some 15+ years ago, in possibly her finest form. It's more cinematic, more adventurous and decidedly weirder than her…

I saw Jesus Lizard open for Sonic Youth in about '94. I felt bad for SY having to follow them. David Sims' bass playing is a force of nature.

I like what I heard just fine, but it's not that weird. Bitch Magnet, for one, was doing a different flavor of this sort of infectious dissonance quite some time ago. Not taking away from these guys: they're really good but it's not like Sun Ra or even the aforementioned Horse Lords, whom I saw last weekend and were…

I had a talk like this with my brother and we agreed that while a romance can get over a lot of differences, taste in what I'd loosely call "the arts" was maybe the hardest to get past. It's so related to how you look at life and your place in it. And if you meet someone who really shares your love of, say, Maxfeld…

The causes of the healthcare crisis in the US are so complex as to be unfathomable. It includes the worship of the free-market myth, Puritanism, racism, fear of death, state's rights, legislation to benefit insurers, defense spending, fear of technology, tort reform, worship of technology, changing demographics,…

You have the willpower of a hero. I've been told so often that it may not be entirely untrue, that I'm good-looking, I always seem to have plenty of female friends, I don't think I give off a real Ned Flanders vibe…

I was traveling a lot for work - domestic and international, with a good bit of socializing and staying in very nice hotels - but I didn't particularly LIKE any of the women I met who seemed amenable to cheating.

Celibacy can be habit-forming, because it is easy. Easier than facing possible rejection, or facing the realization that maybe sexy times are not as sexy as you thought, and reading is nice.

I'll have to check out the kids' lineup with my daughter. She insisted on playing the kids' XM channel in the car and I'm growing to appreciate that some of it is really imaginative. A lot is utter garbage, of course. Still, might be a good father-daughter trip, as she's also into Lorde.

As someone whose stepmom did some way inappropriate things toward me/around me when I was a teen, I'm gonna be That Guy and say that shit will REALLY mess with your family dynamic. Haven't been around her in decades, don't see much of Dad, and barely know my half-sister.

From the perspective of someone who doesn't know either of you, it sounds like you're both doing things right, and importantly you're not pretending the challenges aren't there. I hope the anonymous counsel of a bunch of pop culture geeks is of some help: we're here to throw uninformed opinions around each and every…

Whew. I'm going to be a bit callus here and first ask if you are sure you are the guy who can handle the baggage the other guys couldn't lift. She may be amazing and kind and wonderful - many people with complex personalities are… but the wild oscillations between waiting under the sheets for you naked, but not be…

Do guys have equivalent mommy issues? When I was 16, 17, 18 I was crazy about women older than me, but in retrospect I think I've just always found women of legal age attractive.

Agreed. A much as I'd like to be a deep person who seeks Great Meaning In Things, I suspect in our dreams we're just doing a kind of memory wipe/sort/file in our brains to get ready for the next day. A lot of things will come up in this process, and while some of them might be food for thought when you're awake, it's…

He lost me with Blowback too. And agreed when I heard Maxinquaye I was prepared to be a fanboy forever but he eased into a direction I can't really get with.

I developed that a few years ago when I was working for a UK company. The social scene was pretty much oblivion-drinking and conquest-fucking, so I'd have a single vodka tonic then nurse fizzy water the rest of the night. In a pinch, saying you're on antibiotics gets you out of both drinking AND screwing.

Yeah, that kind of puzzled me too. But trip-hop might as well be called fuck-hop, especially on the one or two good songs Tricky manages to get on each album.

My ex had breast reduction surgery. Saved her back and let her enjoy running. Sometimes your natural thing ain't really working out.

I'm on board with either "all bodies are funny" or "all bodies are awesome" for not only penis and Venus mons de-shaming but for the breast issue. I don't have a real fixation on size, but once I admitted I probably prefer smaller for aesthetics, and the topic of not being able to handle a grown woman came up.

Delta lets you booze for free across the Atlantic. And the videos and power outlets and too much food. I can recite every safety video now, after 4x a year trans-Atlantic and 20 a year domestic for work.