DANTON ASSIGNMENT

Guys we’ve been really really busy lately. We don’t feel that we actually have to explain the details of our business to you. You should just know that we have REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS ON OUR PLATES.

You know, like this (which is a direct quote of a recent editorial discussion with Eric R. Danton):

SUBJECT: dantonsignmennt? JWG
Abby to Meghan. JAN 13
Can he explain to me how I can possibly have a crush on Kanye West after listening to his douchebag song?
Abby is not available to chat

Reply:  Meghan to Abby.  JAN 13
I think that is an ideal dantonassignment.

I, too, crush on Kanye. Must be a jerk thing.

Reply: Meghan to Abby.  JAN 13
“I WOULD NEVER BE A SLUTTY MODEL, KANYE!”

Reply:  Abby to Meghan.  JAN 13
He raised a glass to us!

Reply:  Abby to Meghan.  JAN 13
You tell ’em.

Reply: Meghan to Eric.  JAN 13
See below.
– Show quoted text –
Eric is not available to chat

Reply:  Abby to Meghan.  JAN 13
while you’re at it: Tell danton.

Reply:  Meghan to Abby.  JAN 13
Did it.

Reply:  Abby to Meghan.  JAN 13
deadline: now. This is important stuff.

Reply:  Eric Danton to Meghan, Abby.  JAN 13
I’ve been waiting for this moment.

It’s Kanye’s mix of self-deprecation and massive, overweening ego that stirs your respective loins. He calls forth in you a primal response: “Wow, this normally arrogant-as-hell person is showing a moment of vulnerability and confirming what we all suspected: he is a douchebag. I must tend to him like a slutty model playing the role of a naked mythological mother-bird.”

You’re welcome, obviously.

DUH.

Jerks with Glasses at the UN

Guys. I’m sorry we haven’t updated in awhile. The JWG Secret Headquarters have dissolved what with this jerk (pictured above) moving to NYC in order to become Ban Ki-Moon’s stunt double. It’s a fun job. Once the two of us figured out that no one could tell us apart, we’ve been pulling the CRAZIEST shenanigans at Security Council meetings. It’s like a Disney after-school special all up in here.

Meanwhile, the Hartford office of JWG seems to have forsaken her true cause in order to go do some nerdy podcasts with a certain JWG Board Member.  What’s up with that? Am I right?

JERKS WITH GLASSES AND QUESTIONS: The Scenics

What, we dragged out DANTON for nothing?

The Scenics Three, of CT Scenic (arguably the most bespectacled “scene” blog of all time) were put through our intense questioning process. Only two survived. We present the answers of Jackie and Katie Scenic. Does DH even exist? Or did one of our hard-hitting questions hit too close to home?

From left: Jackie Scenic, DH Scenic (whereabouts unknown), and Katie Scenic.

1) There are three of you. There are three of us (if you count Eric Danton, which we do, because he pretty much has to do what we say). As you may know from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, every classic trio has brains, looks and a wild card. For us, it’s Eric: Looks, Meghan: Brains, and Abby: Wild Card. How about you guys?

Katie Scenic: Katie: Looks; Jackie: Brains; DH: Wild Card.

Jackie Scenic: I’m pretty sure Katie Scenic is the looks AND the brains. She pretty much runs the show, and wears a lot of slutty clothing. DH and Jackie are both wild cards, as you never know if, when or what we will write about. We are generally completely off-topic and rambling most of the time, but of course still hilarious.

2) So, we’ve started an underground campaign to get MaryEllen Fillo (of the Hartford Courant) to sign off every Java column with “YOU GOT FILLO’D!” Now it’s your turn: hit us with your best catchphrase.

KS: Other than “We totally live here” – which is amazing. Well, interestingly enough, we said we “Scenic’d” that metal band with the beer cooler, but we’ll consider your proposal to be sampling or homage, rather than ripping off. I’m also really proud of “What’s Hot at the Lot” (our feature about great finds at Ocean State Job Lot) and “What Not To Hear” (reserved for bands that stir up passionate, visceral disgust, not just simple dislike).

JS: We totally know him!

3) We tend to use our glasses to enhance our eyeball soreness while reading books, or to help us properly pair our socks after Friday Night Laundry Time. So we’re not really inclined to think that glasses and partying go together very well. How do you guys manage it? No, seriously.

KS: One time I fell off a horse and broke my glasses, so I feel like horseback riding and glasses don’t go very well together. Whereas partying hasn’t really been a problem. In fact, I’ve been told by strangers that my glasses make me like “smart.” Cuz you know how us sexy girls want to feel smart…

JS: Usually things go pretty smoothly, unless there is a swimming pool around.

4) Aside from Danton, who is obviously stylish in every situation, we struggle to look good. Sometimes this is due to the fact that we only think about laundry at night when it’s – you know – dark and harder to see. Part of this is that 2/3 of us lack ladyskills. We don’t know how to dress body parts other than our faces. We’ve even looked to primers for guidance. YOU GUYS ARE HOT. HELP US!

KS: You may have read about it on the blog… I had a surgery that forced me to go on a liquid diet for over a month, during which time I lost a bunch of weight. Suddenly I wanted to show off my anorexic body. I learned that having short legs is no obstacle to looking hot – you just have wear outrageously short skirts. And tall shoes. I buy all my most fashion-y things at Avon rich people boutique Body Talk at their great end of season sales. As I understand it, DH buys his most fashion-y things in a place called “New York City,” which he may tell you more about. Jackie Scenic has gotten some very choice pieces from “my laundry basket.” (the clean one).

JS: I personally strive for lesbian-chic at all times (I think the other two do as well). This gives you a wider selection of clothing to choose from, as you can shop in the men’s, women’s or even little boys’ department. With all this variety it doesn’t always come together, but that’s what the glasses are for.

5) Our amazing investigative reporting skills have revealed that one of you might be a glasses impostor. We’re going to need you guys to talk about fake glasses for us.

KS: My glasses are 100% real.

JS: They’re real, and they’re fantastic.

JWG: HMMM. I wonder why DH didn’t answer our questions…

EXTRA CREDIT: If you were going to have an event for your blog, when and where would it be, and can we come?

We are so pleased to announce that we are celebrating our First Blogaversary Aug. 7 at Monster Lab Recording Studio in New Britain. We are trying to keep our entertainment and refreshments CT Scenic oriented, so we’ve booked bands that we’ve blogged about – Sidewalk Dave and the Midnightmares, and we will be serving donuts from some of our favorite indie donut joints, and drinks made with mixers from Ocean State Job Lot and booze purchased from our blog’s favorite liquor store, Liquor Depot. This sounds like an event we’d like to attend, but we probably won’t enjoy it very much due to running it and financing it. But we hope to see you there!

If money were no object, we’d like to have been able to book some professional karaoke and serve GLBT (bacon, lettuce & tomato + gouda/guacamole, if you haven’t seen it on the blog yet) sandwiches for everyone, but we don’t have that kind of budget. [RSVP on Facebook]

Jerks With ‘Staches

Two of the people in this photo gave a nice smile for the paper.

No mustache, no glasses, no service

The other two are big jerks.

Society of Spectacles

You guys know that your jerks are well read.  After all, “jerks don’t watch TV; we read books.”  Part of being so monumentally well read is being open to reinterpreting the texts we’ve already engaged.  While on – I love saying this – a recent jaunt to Paris, I did just that.

Jerks who engage cultural studies under the tutelage of Marxists inevitably encounter Guy Debord.  He was on my mind frequently in Paris – not least because that’s the city that inspired The Society of the Spectacle.  But I’ll come back to that.

You probably won’t be surprised that even Paris cannot live up to our jerky standards.  Abby’s had arguments with men who want to charge her 8 Euro for un café.  And I have learned first-hand that even the Franchy-Franch love their shitty exposé television programs.

Take a look at this guy:

Guess who shoved a TV camera in my face at 5:30 in the morning.

As best I can tell, he was filming a TV program about people’s dissatisfaction with Ryanair. (As a side note, check out Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair who even “outrages his own mother.”  We kind of wish he wore glasses more often.)

But the jerk in question spent the entire morning – 5:30AM to noon – trying to goad customers into ranting their dissatisfaction on film.  Having, myself, spent a week and a half in Europe at that point (and being in the company of Abby when I’m at home), I had already perfected my withering look of utter disdain.  Naturally, this man was the recipient of it – and other attempts to sabotage his shots – every time he approached me.

Abby knows this is a particular skill of mine.  Just ask her.

Oh hello there, you dreamboat.

It all got me thinking about this guy again.

I thought about the cover of the edition of The Society of the Spectacle that I first read:

Hmmm... It's just that it seems so obvious now. How did I miss it?

It got me thinking that maybe I had missed something in my earlier readings of the text.  After all, the first translation I read was not approved by the author (as the one I own now is).  Maybe it was time for me to re-examine it in search of overlooked knowledge.

Sure enough – take a look at the first statement:

The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles [emphasis in original]. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. [Debord 12]

It seems so true to me.  What – after all – are our days but an “accumulation of spectacles” and the works produced by those wearing them?

A Further Installment in a Proposed Taxonomy: The Perplexingly Anachronistic Edition

It occurred to me the other night while I was making truly enlightened podcasts about ROCK with these guys, that there’s another element of our glasses taxonomy we should discuss.

You know how sometimes you have friends who TAKE OUT THEIR GUITARS WHEN YOU’RE IN THE ROOM?  Yeah.  That’s our board guy.  And it got me thinking – the other night when he did this – what is the quintessential rock-related jerk frame?

Now, you might suggest I shouldn't give this kid such a hard time, that it's too easy, that everyone does it. But, no. I'm sorry. Did you see what he put on his FACE? What kind of a douchekid does that?

What decade do you think it is, little man?  Do you think you’re in bed with that lady and not on a movie set?  (Okay, so it looks a little like a movie set in that Hilton room.  But: NOT EXCUSED.)

I think this gets at something fundamental in our taxonomy: under certain circumstances glasses are bound to be iconic.  They’re often the first thing that people see on your face.  You remember them from fleeting glances.  Now, frames we’ve seen in photographs that have been reproduced ad nauseum get fixed in our cultural consciousness.

So, when those frames show up most often on the face of someone who was arguably – if you’re not Eric R. Danton – one of the most popular songwriters of our time, who made his private life public for causes, who was – you know – assassinated, don’t you think maybe you should think twice before casting yourself in his mold?

It’s a kind of self-indulgent, grandiose anachronism that we here at JWG can’t stand.

There’s maybe one person who can get away with it:

Okay, he's allowed, but really, it makes us feel a little creepy that he does it.

But other than Sean Lennon, who the hell does that?

Sure am forcing her to listen to me read Dickens aloud. Not a jerkmove AT ALL.

Weekly(ish) Jerks With Glasses Poll: The City Edition

Jerks With Glasses is proud to announce that it will be opening a New York City Bureau in Fall of 2010. We’re looking forward to expanding our coverage of people who are jerks and who wear glasses. So, we’ve got a question for you:

We’re thinking we should just let all of the above fight for the honor of the first interview in some sort of Thunderdome situation.

Let us know if we forgot your favorite NYCJWG.

Jerks With Glasses and Questions and iPods

We thought it was a simple task.  Five questions. Four eyes.  Jerky answers.  So obviously, we were unprepared for the epic journey on which DANTON would take us while we waited for the latest installment of Jerks With Glasses and Questions. We laughed. We cried. We learned new things about the world.  We answered his questions for him.  But, finally, the answers arrived, and now we present to you our interview with Eric R. Danton, Critic of Rock.

Going for the record in simultaneous wearing of shirts with collars. Photo by Bettina Hansen

JWG: If your glasses were a rock star, who would they be and why?  Bonus points if you pick Vanilla Ice, because we have a theory about this.

ED: You’re probably expecting that I’ll answer with Elvis Costello or Craig Finn, but come on. What do you take my glasses for? They wouldn’t emulate some other rock star. No way. They’d forge their own indelible style: catchy, smart and a little edgy, with a keen balance of heart and wit. Such inspiring glasses!

Now, what’s this theory about Vanilla Ice?

JWG: So. Remember that glasses t-shirt you were going to get for us?

ED: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

JWG: Where is it?

ED: This is entrapment.

JWG: We noticed that you’ve given some favorable reviews to non-bespectacled musicians.  What’s the going rate for your DANTON stamp of approval?

ED: There’s just one criterion for a favorable review, and it applies equally to the bespectacled and those cursed by perfect vision: Don’t suck. Unfortunately, not sucking is a surprisingly rare quality.

JWG:  Do you know who Eric Danton is? We have it on good authority that you don’t.

ED: First, I quibble with the premise of the question, because we all know that Colin McEnroe is hardly a good authority. For one thing, he’s obsessed with food — other people’s food. It’s obvious that Colin McEnroe is fascinated by the idea of gas-station fried chicken, but also afraid. I hereby volunteer to personally guide Colin McEnroe through the gas-station chicken experience.

Also, he’s totally mischaracterizing my Wonderbra review. I think that band holds up rather well.

Anyway, regardless of what Colin McEnroe thinks, I know perfectly well who Eric Danton is. According to my Facebook friends list, Eric Danton is a French kid who digs “NCIS.”

JWG: Extra Credit: Tell us about your crazy SXSW conspiracy theory.  The glasses one. NOW.

ED: It’s not really a conspiracy theory as much as an observation: few places on earth are better for watching hipster jerks wearing hipster-jerk glasses than at SXSW. There are just so many of them, preening and competing to see whose look is the most ironic. Not only is there a selection of ridiculous sunglasses on display, SXSW offers hints about the latest eyewear trends that myopic woo-girls on bachelorette parties will have picked up three years from now, making it that much trickier for true jerks with glasses to identify each other by frames alone.

We’re Jerks With Glasses AND Questions

Look, guys, we know we didn’t just rise up out of the seafoam as the stunning jerks that we are. No, we have our influences. So, when Colin McEnroe showed up to Creative Cocktail Hour looking all spiffy, we decided it was time to ask him a thing or two.  Or five.

Colin McEnroe hosting his show. Photo by Chion Wolf

1) We noticed that you’ve recently started sporting invisible frames, or what we at Jerks With Glasses call POWERGLASSES. We also noticed that you arrived at the most recent Creative Cocktail Hour in a snazzy new blue stripy shirt, and that your hair was particularly well-quaffed. Two part question: When did you go Palin, and why have you decided to run for Attorney General?

Look. I don’t want to be a, you know, a jerk about this, but – as Carl is my witness – I had frames like this around 2003, when Sarah Palin was smearing herself with elk guts and wondering if anybody knew she existed. Carl picked them out then and, when they were being made, he would tell me little stories about them. “Your glasses are in Switzerland now … Today they’re in L.A.” My glasses had a life! The blue stripy shirt was a hand-me-down from my son. I think my hair was actually well-coiffed unless somebody was trying to drink my hair. That usually happens later at the CCH. If you’re still there around 10 and look kind of cute in your new glasses, someone will try to drink your hair. You should not go home with that person.

2) In movies, actors often remove their glasses for dramatic effect. What are your top three dramatic glasses movie moments?

I think the greatest glasses-removing scene in movie history was when, in “Avatar,” I removed the glasses they gave me and said to myself “What am I doing at this stupid fucking movie?”

I’m not particularly turned on when Clark Kent removes his glasses.

I love it in movies when some fabulous woman is wearing glasses and then removes them and there’s this “Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto. You’re beautiful!” moment. As if that were somehow not previously obvious. [Did you need to Google that cultural reference?] [Jerks: no.]

In one of Marilyn Monroe’s movies, she’s scared to wear her glasses because they’ll make her look ugly. Huh. So she goes around not being able to see.

And in “That Touch of Mink,” I think Gig Young removes some woman’s glasses, and she doesn’t look any better and he says: “Gee. It always works in the movies.”

3) On the Colin Mcenroe show, neither your producer, Patrick Skahill, nor your sidekick, Chion Wolf, wear glasses. How do you trust them?

I don’t trust them, and they don’t trust me. Chion wears her hair that way because she’s worried someone will drink it.

Patrick is currently being treated for near-karoshi (death by overwork) at a top-notch facility called the Skahill Clinic. They named it after him just based on his reputation.

I guess what I’m saying is that I think he’s too tired most of the time to be really dangerous.

4) TRUE OR FALSE: Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses. Please explain your answer.

Well, it’s like – as we were all saying that night at CCH – the Wonderbra. You see the girl. You like the girl. Then you start thinking about taking it off. Then, one thing leads to another, and she does take it off. And then you want her to put it back on. Or not.

I’m kind of making myself hot, just writing this.

Glasses are like that. I mean, they can be part of the allure. And then she takes them off and you want them to be put back on. And then…I don’t know. I’ve never actually been with a woman but I imagine it to be a series of negotiations.

5) We think we’re going to interview Eric Danton, Hartford Courant rock critic, next. What’s up with that guy?

Eric gave the rock band Wonderbra a very poor and unfair review.

Here is the thing about Eric. He went on the raw foods diet for weeks until he turned a kind of matte gold color and his fingernails fell out.

And then he wrote this whole thing about which gas station has the best late night fried chicken.

Eric doesn’t know who Eric is.

That’s what I’m saying.

EXTRA CREDIT: Of all the bespectacled guests on your show, who has been your favorite? You may pick up to two people.

I love the Jerks so much, and I am just grateful I don’t have to pick one over the other.
My favorite bespeckled guest was a leopard.

Quick and dirty (foggy?) update

What? We’re busy. You’re just going to have to deal.  But here’s some stuff to keep you from whining so much, guys.

First: We got some hate mail.  We’ll address it soon.

Second: This is POSSIBLY the finest news article of our time.

Third: Meghan did NOT wear her glasses yesterday.  We’re pretty sure the End Times are here.

Fourth: If you’ve ever wondered what sort of conversations we have in the JWG Secret Headquarters…it’s not that far off from this: