It's Valentine's Day!.....leave me alone.

As the lone XX in the Tweener office, I thought I would offer my wisdom for our boy-readers on what to NOT get your little girlfriends on this, the holiest of all fake/depressing holidays.

1. Undergarments

The last thing I need is a[nother] black thong with Sexy, Cutie, or Baby written across the front in rhinestones. In fact, no one should own a thong with Baby written on it.

2. Vibrator

Leave it to a dude to buy a girl the vibrator that most resembles his own penis. Great! Just what I wanted! A veiny, three-inch dick that leans to the right and runs out of batteries after 1.5 minutes.

3. Ecstasy Pills

You might think Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to let your guard down, swallow a Hello Kitty and tell your lover how you really feel. WRONG. You will end up drooling all over yourself and, through gritted teeth, repeating “you’re just so…beautiful” over and over. Save the pills for President’s Day.

4. Any makeover/beauty/bath/health product/sporting equipment

Translation: You’re ugly, you smell bad and you’re fat.

5. Engagement Ring

Scratch that—this is a brilliant idea. Propose marriage to your girlfriend today. Go ahead and sign your life away. Enjoy not having sex, getting fatter, spending time with someone else’s parents, the nagging, the arguing, the divorce proceedings, and the eventual return to bachelorhood.

6. Three-Way

This one’s complicated. If you’ve been going out with a girl for 3-5 months and she’s a bit of a freak, it might be ok. Otherwise, you might have to deal with tears, a slap across the face, and the end of the road. Bonus: the other girl still might fuck you.

7. Flowers, chocolates, etc.

Who are you, my dad?

In closing, I have zero ideas as to what a good Valentine’s Day present might be. I’d appreciate a good lay and a joint. Then again, I suppose you never asked for my advice. So, we’re all square here.

Hope and Change

When people ask me my political affiliation, I tell them I'm a Schwarzenegger Republican. Partly because I like Arnold Schwarzenegger, particularly the films Predator, Terminator, Twins, True Lies, Last Action Hero, Eraser, Conan the Barbarian, Red Heat, Commando, Terminator 2, Total Recall, The Running Man, Conan the Destroyer, and Kindergarten Cop (I'm not crazy about Raw Deal). But also, and more importantly, because it's a stupid fucking question. I'm twenty-five, live in center-city Philadelphia, and am most likely wearing a purple shirt. Figure it out.

Now just because I'm a Democrat doesn't mean I'm going to be watching any Obama speeches outside the comfort of my living room (or until their conclusion, for that matter). It doesn't mean I'm giving him 10 bucks. It doesn't even mean I'm going to vote. But I can't stave off the infectious interest of leap-year politics; it just grabs a hold of you! And I know I'm not the only one. Seriously, whose twee-pop message board doesn't have an "I <3 Obama (OT)" thread on it right now? You bunch a liars.

So anyway, I'm pumped. At first I was kind of going for Hillary, cause I like experienced ladies with some fire in their belly. And I would have liked Biden, but for some reason, the whole United States of America was all Fuck This Guy. Now I'm sort of settling in with ole blue eyes: Barack Hussein Goebbels Pol Obama. He's got a four point plan that's pretty tough to beat: overrated speaking ability, novelty, hope, and change. Just the kind of bullshit I like. So I hope you're pumped, too. Mix it up out there; have fun. Get out the vote and tell me how it was.

President's Day Weekend is Slept On

Your place of employment typically offers you 5-6 three day weekends per year. MLK, President's Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day are provided by nearly everyone. Some people get Columbus Day. Christmas weekend sometimes runs for three days, but people usually take more time off. Out of all of them, President's Day is the most underrated.

Nobody plans for President's Day. Hell; nobody even knows it's coming. Over the course of November, December, and January, you are bombarded with so many holidays and vacations that you forget that there's one extra holiday tacked on in the third weekend of February. You typically only become conscious of it within 1-2 weeks of its arrival. Furthermore, you realize that it is the last holiday you get before a three month trudge to Memorial Day.

On President's Day, travel is usually out of the question; you are typically exhausted from all the traveling you've had to do in the previous three months. Expectations for big parties are usually low, too, as you are effectively in party "dead season" (post X-Mas/New Years, pre-spring) and no one in history has ever thought of putting on a blowout President's Day party. If you have a significant other, you just busted your romantic wad a couple of nights ago on whatever that made-up holiday is called, so you don't have to go all out to cater to them. Finally, you have more energy than you did on MLK weekend a month ago, but just as little to do.

With all of these factors coalescing, President's Day weekend should always be an exercise in creative debauchery: "We've got three days and no plans, so how and where do we get fucked up in this city?", and sure as the sun rises each morning until it is blocked by the ash covered sky from the 2015 Yellowstone volcanic eruption, you will find a way to get memorably fucked up. Now is not the time to worry about appearances or dignity. Have you smoked crack before? No?? Well, I don't see any reason why you're not sitting around smoking some crack, or possibly selling it. You'll need muscle, however, so got out there and recruit...It's President's Day weekend, dawg!

Have you ever been to an Asian wishy washy? Sixty dollars upfront for the body wash and massage, another two-hundred or so for the full service. Do it in the morning after you wake up, too. Save that drunken pussy "it's 3 am, let's get asian prostitutes!" shit for the regular weekends.

Don't forget the NBA All-Star game!

Ahh, President's Day. In 2005, our slogan was "rrrrrooooaaaarrrrr" due to the amount of adderral we were on the whole weekend. In 2006, in the span of 36 hours, I went from DC to Philly, then back to DC, then from DC to Atlantic City, then back to DC. I am still not sure why. On the other hand, 2007 sucked...I guess you can't win em' all. Let's compare the greatness of President's Day to the other three day weekends:

MLK: People are too partied out for this one and are usually just looking for a bag of weed.

Memorial Day: By far the most overrated holiday weekend and a budding disaster each year. Let's review the negatives:

1.) You've been inflating expectations for this weekend for at least a month before it even arrived.

2.) For some reason, nobody ever has a fucking clue on when to throw or coordinate the cookouts/parties. Sometimes it's Monday, but that means you have to reign yourself in because you work the next day. Is it Saturday, then? It is Sunday? Nobody knows anything! There should be a commission studying this! Sometimes people throw all the parties on one day, leaving you with nothing for the rest of the weekend, and sometimes nobody does anything at all because everyone went to the beach. The beach?! I'm sorry, unless you are 45 with two kids, memorial day should be a city weekend. I mean, you've been waiting three months for this and your whole plan is to drive an hour and a half in traffic to sit by the ocean and finally get around to reading Freakonomics? Holiday pass revoked.

Furthermore, people can't pace Memorial Day parties for shit. Drinking should start either before two or after five. Before two o'clock at least lets people know that they are in for a long haul and should prepare accordingly. After five allows people to dig in and push hard to make it to late night. Anywhere in-between, and people are passed out or home by 12:00, leaving all the asshole 10 o'clock-arrival carpetbaggers to make out with each other. That's illegal.

3.) Because there's never a set plan (ie 4th of July is THE day where everyone parties) , you always end up feeling like you are perpetually missing out on some superior party that nobody told you about, or that you eschewed for something else. On 4th of July, for better or worse, you've made a decision on where to go and you can make peace with it. On Memorial Day, you miss one night, and then suddenly over the next week, people are talking about this amazing party where Black Thought of the Roots showed up and was a dick to everyone, and you were completely in the dark.

4.) In my opinion, having a bad Memorial Day weekend is an omen for how the rest of Summer will go. Do you understand that I'm generally spooked by this weekend? Only a brilliant stretch in mid to late August this past year saved me from continued mediocrity. For fuck's sake, I'm spending this May/June driving across the country in hopes of ending the Memorial Day hex.

Or maybe all Summers just suck because of the soul-punishing heat.

4th of July: Hyped to oblivion, but always delivering, 4th of July is the best holiday weekend of the year. Because the 4th is sandwiched between Memorial Day and Labor Day, your expectations are tempered a little bit. Furthermore, no matter what day the 4th lies on, you always know there will be something happening on that day. This allows you to build party momentum accordingly. There is one exception, however: Wednesday. WOW that was awful last year. One measly day?! Please never let it happen again, US government. I fully expect you to temporarily change the date of independence the next time it falls on a Wednesday.

Labor Day: Second only to Memorial Day weekend in disaster potential. Everyone's kind of knackered and depressed around Labor Day. Vacation season is over, school is starting for certain people, there isn't another holiday for months, and everyone is sick and tired of the heat. I actually haven't encountered people our age really celebrating Labor Day, and for good reason: It's a fucking a glum holiday. "Here: Take one day before everything around you dies."

In conclusion, please enjoy this most underrated of holiday weekends. Remember, however, that you pretty much do the same shit on a holiday Monday that you do at work: Surf the internet and recover from the previous two days. In that spirit, make please every Monday your President's Day for eternity.

The Tweener announces surrender to terrorism

Hello my friends and colleagues,

Last week, I wrote a post that was overtly critical of Mitt Romney. In that post, I sought to contrast what I believed to be his rather weak attempt at call-and-response interaction during his campaign speeches with some of our favorite call-and-response songs.

Although the Tweener has not made an official presidential endorsement, early polling shows that at lease two of our staff members will vote for a Democrat, provided they are not too high to register.

During Romney's concession speech, we learned that voting for a Democrat would mean a surrender to terrorism. Due to our criticism of Romney, coupled with our early polling results, I have decided to make a preemptive surrender to terrorism on behalf on everyone on the Tweener. It was a tough decision; I won't deny that. As a leader, however, I have to make the hard decisions, like when I should turn my entire organization over to radical jihadists. That time is now.

The terms of surrender are being negotiated as we speak. At first, I offered to turn the Tweener headquarters over for occupation by the men of Middle Eastern descent who operate the food truck in the garage below us. They were confused, as they stated that they already owned the building in which were operating out of. Woe be the humiliation that engulfed me at that very moment, for they had defeated us long before we mustered the courage to lay down our arms!

I asked the occupiers to transfer me to the P.O.W. camps in their homeland, giving up Amy's address in the process. They did not understand what I was talking about, and instead smiled and gave me a watermelon.

Indeed, negotiating surrender has proven to be difficult. The first task, locating the 147 armed terrorists throughout the world, is challenging enough. After that, there are so many different sects. Al-Qaeda was the safest bet, but which one? After much deliberation, Ryan will go to Al-Qaeda Iraq, and Amy to Al-Qaeda Pakistan/Afghanistan. To my horror, however, Al-Qaeda claimed that they didn't have the money to fly Amy or Ryan over to their respective bases. Osama has spent all of their money on weed and Whitney Houston albums. You will have to pay for your own tickets.

As for me? I have surrendered myself to the terrorists of France. There, I will suffer under the oppressive conditions of a spacious chatteau near the South Coast, enduring the strong Euro, cream-based cooking, Scott Walker albums, and beautiful artistic brunettes who will listen for hours to my anectdotes about Miles Davis. Go on, Ryan and Amy, but remember that I have sacrificed myself to the greatest torment out of all three of us so that one day, you two might see an America free of terrorist occupation.

If by miracle, I escape incarceration today, expect a post by the afternoon of tomorrow, or perhaps wednesday. Until then, this is the Tweener signing off forever.

The Seven Songurai: Seven Call-and-Response Classics

I have just one thing to say before we proceed: You see this middle finger, music of the 1960s and 70s? That's the non-proverbial 'fuck you' to the songs from your era that we completely left out of this list, except for Steely Dan, who we only included to fulfill our Caucasian quota. I could've just as easily chosen Should I Stay or Should I Go from the 80s, too, but I'm only having mercy on your overrated past. Go watch the Big Chill and seriously think about what you've done by making us pay for your imminent retirement.

Now to the list, in no particular order:

Amy: Night Time is the Right Time - (as performed by the Huxtables)
Before she was starring in Chingy videos and topping 'Most Well-Adjusted Child Stars' lists, Keisha Knight Pulliam (aka Rudy Huxtable) put on an unforgettable performance in this piece of 80s sitcom call-and-response magic. If this video doesn't warm your heart, you're made of stone....or you're one of the women alleging that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted you in the past 40 years.

Ryan: D'Angelo - Chicken Grease

Ever been hanging out in the shitty Chinese store around the corner (you know Lee's, too?!) waiting for the safest meal you could possibly order, most likely chicken and broccoli or General Tso's or whatever, and some crazy guy orders Turkey Livers or some $#%^? D'Angelo wrote a song about that called Chicken Grease. I think he meant it to be about hard times growing up or something but to me and all the people who bought D'Angelo's record (instead of Sho'Nuff Killa or whoever was 'hot' that week), this song is about wondering why the hell anyone would ever be talking about chicken grease. If this blog were popular, we'd get tons of e-mails telling us all the great uses of chicken grease; good thing I don't want to talk to their broke ass anyway.

Scott: Naughty By Nature – Hip-Hop Hooray

Naughty by Nature were masters of the call-and-response hit. In addition to this song, they produced the classic O.P.P., as well as the lesser-known Uptown Anthem from the Juice soundtrack (a movie that featured a young Tupac and Omar Epps!). Hip-Hop Hooray wins solely based on the fact that its commercial release coincided with Treach's near MVP level performance in Rock 'n' Jock B-ball 4. This song also has the distinction of being the last hip-hop mainstream crossover hit before Nothing but a G Thing kicked off the Dre/Snoop era.; aka the moment Hip-Hop found its weed.

We’ve also embedded Uptown Anthem for you.

Ryan: ONYX - Slam

Maybe the main reason for call and response is that random syllables seem much more reasonable when a mob is yelling them than when sung alone. While 'SLAM!' could maybe be pulled off by a charismatic vocalist not named Fredro Starr or Sticky Fingaz, 'Dunh dunh nuh, dunh dunh nuh,' just doesn't sound right spoken alone by anyone. Still, this song was a lot of fun in grade school, and I bet their duet with Biohazard on the Judgment Night soundtrack is just great. Plus, even if their other album Shut 'Em Down wasn't a pinnacle of the mid-1990s bullshit-rap genre, they get a pass on whatever they do because Starr is on The Wire.

Scott: A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario

Another song from the early 90s! What’s next? Cameos from Horace Grant and Paul Reiser?

Long before Tribe were considered to be the predecessors to backpacker, coffee shop bohemian alternative hip-hop, they were known for this throw-down track. This song is what used to be called a “posse” cut, where one popular group tries to give attention to an up-and-coming group by featuring them on the track (ie the Homicide/NYPD Blue crossover episode). On this particular track, the Leaders of the New School play The Critic to Tribe’s Simpsons, and this song is heavy on the call-and-response verses between the emcees. There’s no rhyme or reason to where the call-and-response appears, which contributes to the random awesomeness (my personal favorite: “Layback on the payback, evolve rotate the gates...CONTACT!”). Bonus points for Scenario featuring one of the first appearances on wax for Busta Rhymes...You know, before his star really shined with his performance in Higher Learning.

Note: Before the Black Eyed Peas were embarrassing hit-makers, they were embarrassing Tribe imitators on their first album, “Behind the Front”. Nobody listened to it, yet somehow their career survived.

Amy: Ray Parker, Jr. - Ghostbusters
In college there was this pointless building called The Depot that I went to for a Halloween party one year. By the grace of god, it was a BYOB affair...which was necessary because the entertainment was a jam band. I drank three 40s and eventually blacked out. Regardless, I still knew what to say when those dirty hippies on stage asked me who I was going to call.

Scott: Steely Dan – Black Cow

Steely Dan loved cocaine and jazz, a combination you just don't see enough of these days.



Honorable mention: Gwen Stefani: Hollaback Girl. TLC: I Ain't Too Proud to Beg. Outkast: Hey Ya. The Clash: Should I Stay or Should I Go.

Mitt Romney has inspired us to create a list

I'm sure you've been watching the primary coverage on the news like the diligent, informed citizen that you are. Along the way, you might've witnessed one of Mitt Romney's many concession speeches. In these speeches, he weaves a tale of inspiration for all Americans: The son of a George W. Romney, a filthy rich Mormon businessman who served as governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, Mitt Romney overcame all odds to get a dual JD/MBA from Harvard. He was highly successful as CEO of the management consulting firm Bain Capital, and then effectively managed to 2002 Winter olympics. He later became governor of MA and then ran for president on a platform of "change" involving the building of a 1,000 extra guatanamo bays, de-regulating everything involving businesses and taxes, and endlessly talking about how he was once a CEO.

It's no surprise, then, that every American hates his fucking guts except a bunch of Northeastern investment bankers and real estate speculators, who America equally hates. Still; even they didn't vote for him. In the end, only the Mormons and states where Romney lived gave him any love.

If you were to list three things that America despises, I would bet that the following three things would appear on the majority of people's lists:

1. Management consultants
2. Mormons
3. Winter Olympics

This is not even considering the fact that if you were to ask anyone who's ever met anybody from Massachusetts who their least favorite person was in life, it would be a competition between all the people that person met from Massachusetts.

Oh yeah, American's also hate their bosses, especially right now. You'd have to be an idiot to run on your CEO credentials. You might object to me and say, "bbbbbbut George Bush ran as a CEO!". It was a baseball team. People like baseball. And besides, Bush has that southern good ole' boy CEO persona, which is distinct from Northeastern corporate CEO. Nobody, I mean NOBODY, likes a big Northeastern corporate CEO, especially one who did management consulting.

Mitt Romney spent millions of dollars to lose over and over again, and despite the super tuesday massacre, he will stay in the race to lose another day. UPDATE: MITT QUIT. He's kind of like Rudy, the Notre Dame football player, except if Rudy had all of the talent, none of the likability, and got cut from the team repeatedly.

In honor of Mitt's loserdom, we'd like to make a list. This list is inspired by Mitt's campaign speeches, in which he initiates a call-and-response part with his audience that revives the worst boring cliches about white people and stiffness. Romney says something about how we asked Washington to fix something (funny, I never asked anything. Did you ask anything?) and the audience responds THEY HAVEN'T Here's how it usually goes:

We look to Washington for leadership, but Washington has failed us.

We've asked them to fix illegal immigration. They haven't.

We've asked them to get the tax burden off our families and businesses. They haven't.

We asked them to end our dependence on foreign oil. They haven't.

We asked them to maintain high ethical standards. They haven't.

We asked them to fix Social Security. They haven't.

We asked them to stop spending money on pork barrel projects. We asked them to balance our budget. They haven't.

The problem is that there is never any energy or rhythm in Romney's voice, and the audience never responds with "THEY HAVEN'T" in unison. They are always painfully jumping his sentences. A far cry from that dude who's running for the Democrats.

Here is a link to a video of this: www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=80c5d5a2d2693dd6f188

The list for tomorrow will be the top seven songs featuring call-and-response vocals, in honor of the number of states Romney won on Super Tuesday (I guess he won eight, but I don't care).

BREAKING NEWS: The Parker-Spruce Hotel was on Fire!

Where there's smoke, err...Nevermind.

In an amazing development that has little importance to anyone, even for the people who live there, The Parker-Spruce Hotel was on fire last night.

This particular reporter happened to be first on the scene, and The Tweener is proud to break this news to you a mere 14 hours after we stumbled upon it on the way back from class. We also took live pictures, but the work computer won't let us upload them. We a had chance to put them on the computer at home last night, but there was a 104 state primary going on for god's sake!

You'll get the pictures this evening*. I surely have a great career in journalism ahead of me.

*THE PICTURES ARE NOW HERE.

The mainstream Philly news won't mention this fire, and in all honesty, we wouldn't have even bothered to tell you about this if we hadn't written an ode to the Parker-Spruce a couple of months ago. While we certainly appreciate the Parker Hotel, let's get something straight: We can't go around covering the "issues" that the real news won't notify you about. That requires that I get paid, or at least am unemployed with a monthly stipend coming in. So; while we have pictures, we gurantee you not a single damn interview or react quote from any person who was evacuated from the building. Let's just tell you that they were all grimy, sad, probably evicted from somewhere else, and they all used to work at a mill. The non-destructive fire of the Parker Hotel was the least of their problems.

BTW, I've still never seen a huge fire up close. This was just one of those pussy fires. In all honestly, then, this wasn't even an issue anyway. Basically, a run-down hotel with substandard wiring caught a minor fire. I would've said that some condo developer was trying to commit arson to eliminate an ugly building that clashed with an otherwise gentrified neighborhood, but condo developers are all broke losers these days, and they probably just checked into the Parker-Spruce anyway?

I hope that some day, this inspiring story will live on through the rise of the global Chinese empire of 2014 to the end of history (2031).