Wednesday 31 October 2012

#GlitterVoting: The Most Important Election Opinion is My Election Opinion

Hello again!

Last we blogged together I said I would allow y’all to ask me anything and I would answer it. Wow. I have just been overwhelmed by the questions that have been pouring in. There were literally FOURS of you just begging to know my deepest darkests.  This was so popular that I think I will keep it on-going, so keep asking and I will get to all of your questions in later posts.

One question I got is particularly relevant this week, so I’m going to devote this whole entry to it and get to the other questions next time.

Q: Pistol, you’ve typed in past blogs about your history in politics, but who will you be voting for in the upcoming election?

A: Duuuuurh. What a silly question. Sometimes I feel like you don’t know me at all. Obviously, it’s Roseanne. 


Read her bid for the Presidency HERE.

I’m voting for you, Roseanne. (I presume you are reading this, because I know you’re a big fan and follow everything I do on the internet.) I know when you are president the whole world will be a better place because you would eradicate things like war and poverty with your razor sharp wit. All we would need is a dose of the funnies to cure third world diseases, and those tea party folk? Well, we’ll just throw a barrel of laughs into their Boston Harbor and see who comes out on top! Okay, I know making jokes about jokes is like two positives becoming a negative, and therefore you might think I’m being nasty or sarcasmical. The truth is, I think she would be a great leader and we need more people like her running the country, and less people like this:

 This Kid Looks Like He Would Have Bullied the Teen Wolf
 and Now You Want to Make Him President of the Galactic Senate?

It’s also high time we had a woman in office.  And I know what you’re thinking.  Having a woman in ANY office is dangerous.   Trust me, I have done research on this.  Here is what I found:

1.) High heels hurt our feet and make us grumpy. A grumpy President might choose to invade a country willy-nilly, with no reason or evidence to do so.

2.) The fumes from our nail polish can go straight to our heads, not to mention the years of inhaling hairspray.* These cosmetics almost always induce hallucinogenic side effects. I learned this one the hard way the night I had that vogue battle with Elmo. We wouldn’t want the President to hallucinate. It'll start innocently with her thinking the walls of her office are round, but then she'll go all crazy and promise everyone a free doctor whenever they’re sick.

3.) We are highly susceptible to things like menstruation which can sometimes lead to mood swings, flights of fancy, and the shedding of the uterine lining. A President is no good to anyone if she has to spend every fifth week on the couch with a hot water bottle, downing a box of mac'n'cheese and watching X Files re-runs.

4.) According to my intense research of the comments sections of every website with a comments section, it seems women are bad at math and good at sandwich making. Presidents need to be GOOD at math and BAD at sandwich making. Everyone knows that.

5.) Finally, our hormones basically just make us crazy all the time. Trust me, I know from personal experience. What other reason would there be for me crying my eyes out every time I try to fall asleep? And I am constantly making irrational judgments like thinking it was okay to share my ice cream cone with that fox on Dean Street.   

                                           It was not as cute as this, TRUST ME.

So, I think we can all surmise that a female president is a dangerous proposition. But I have discovered that not ALL women have the above problems.  Sure, MOST women are crazy bitches, just like MOST women aren’t funny, and MOST women only want a man for his money. But there are a few exceptions and Roseanne is one of them.  Just look at her:

 This is what the wise old chief of your tribe would look like
if he was married to John Goodman.

She has grey hair, which we all know means she has already been through menopause, so we don’t have to worry about the phases of the moon influencing her important decisions. She is past her child-breeding years, so no longer needs hallucinogenic cosmetics to make herself attractive to catch a man. That ship has sailed (probably to Cancun) and since she doesn’t have to worry about what she looks like, she can now focus on whatever flavour-of-the-month is the big problem in Africa. DONE.

So, I’ve taken a picture of my vote to show you before I send it back to Florida.  Here it is!

#GlitterVoting #BarrSheehan2012

Woah woah woah woah WOAH. I’ve just been told that because I vote in Florida, and it’s a swing state (which I had to explain to Jack is NOT what he thought), I should not “waste” my vote on the funniest TV Mom of all time, even though she’s awesome and bonkers and would be the first female president of any country ever. Apparently third parties don’t have much of a real chance.  This sucks. Why do I only get to choose between two? When you go to the website where you illegally download your music, do they say you can either download Taylor Swift OR Gangnam Style, but if you want anything else just forget about it? I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE TAYLOR SWIFT AND GANGNAM STYLE ARE MY ONLY CHOICES.  For those of you reading this in 1994, it’s like only getting to choose between Sophie B. Hawkins and Los Del Rio. Not good. (Although if you’re in ‘94 that means Clinton is President and life will never get better, so you should just shoot yourself now. Do you hear me, Kurt?)

Okay, so let me look at the “real” choices. First there is Barack Obama.  Friend to women, gays, and Jews. I think we can all agree that is pretty much my demographic.  But I do have some issues. This isn't the time or place to go into details, but me and his daughter Malia have some history and all I'm gonna say is that little brat should watch her back. Secondly, his wife wants to use her powers for evil and euthanize fat kids rather than do something important, but I can overlook that, because she is a woman, and as we have already learned that means she is pretty erratic and useless anyway.

This is what smug looks like.

Next we have Romney. Mittens Romney hails from Ancient Egypt. He wears his hair fashioned into a headdress, wants to bring back slavery, and will order the slaughter of the first born son of every gay and/or woman in the land. Essentially, if you vote for Romney, no matter what your reasoning is, it means you hate anyone who is different than you and you think nobody deserves human equality**. Fair enough, but I know which side of the parting of his carefully coiffed hairdo I fall on. (The left. It’s the left side.)

Regardless of your issues with Obama (or his snooty, know-it-all, "everyone-loves-me", "aren't-I-so-special" offspring), there is just no way to justify voting for someone who thinks the 1950's were better, simpler times. Listen, last month I went to the 1950's and it was terrible. Sure, everything was cheaper and males actually dressed like gentlemen instead of like the homeless, but most of it was downright disturbing. Black people and white people couldn't fornicate with each other and make hot biracial babies. Women were forced into motherhood/housewifery as their only life option. People thought Jews had horns. And worst of all, I couldn't find an homosexual to tell me how fierce I was ANYWHERE. When I said out loud that one day a black gay woman would work in the White House, they called me a witch and tried to stone me to death. 


That's the kind of world Mittens and his ilk want us to return to. But I have hope that in 50 years kids will look back at 2012 and compare everyone who voted Republican to that lady in The Help who forced her maid to go potty in the outhouse.  Now we say, "Can you believe black people and white people couldn't drink from the same water fountain?" In the future they will say, "What's a water fountain? That sounds very unhygienic. Also, can you believe there was a movement where people ate chicken sandwiches to stop mommy from marrying mommy?" Racist grandpas will be replaced by homophobic grandpas, and teenage girls will dress up as zombie astronauts for Halloween instead of sex-trafficked refugees. That future can be a reality if you DON'T vote for Mittens Romney.

If you still can’t decide, there is a little something called a celebrity endorsement that can help. Let me break it down right here. One of the candidates hangs out with Beyonce and Katy Perry.  The other hangs out with Meatloaf. What do YOU THINK?

 
The First Family Are Pop Stars


Meatloaf is a drunk televangelist and his real name is Robert Paulson.

I guess this means I will have to get out my nail polish remover and erase my vote for Roseanne. I do love her and hope that she continues to be an activist and do stuff in politics. Or at least makes a show about it. Because what’s the point of doing anything if nobody is watching you, am I right?

So I hope that answers your question. And now, 1,672 words and a bit of soul searching later, I can officially add my name to the roster of pop star celebrities endorsing Obama. It feels good.

Have a Happy Election, kids. And remember, it doesn’t matter who you vote for***, it just matters that you VOTE.

Love and Politics,

Pistol xoxo

*Here’s a little makeup tip I learned from a drag queen in Vauxhall. Want to keep your makeup lasting all night long? Spray your hairspray on your face! Facespray! It works! #Facespray2012

**Equality is a myth anyway, because none of us will ever achieve the heights of the human super race that is both female and gay: the lesbian. Have you ever met a female woman lesbian who was not on the ball? Who was not cooler than you and your whole family? Who didn't laugh in the face of adversity? Who did not just suck it up and get shit DONE? If Obama was a lesbian this thing would be over already, is all I’m saying.

***It does matter. Vote for Barack Obama.


Wednesday 10 October 2012

Everybody Tweets, Sometimes.


Hi Internet!

I’ve been racking on my head trying to figure out what to write about this week.  There is a lot going on in the world at the moment. Is more stuff going on than usual? Is it all important stuff? How do we know? There must have always been a lot happening, but now we know more about it because of widespread media outlets like Twitter.  Twitter is super important, because it is the voice of the people, and what people say on it matters, even if they are a nobody and have no friends.  Look at me, for example.  I was among the majority of tweeters who average 4 followers, all spam pornbots. You would think this would make my tweets irrelevant, but if you type about something other people are interested in and put a tic-tac-toe board in front of it, you suddenly get attention.  All I have to do is write something about #JustinBieber or #OneDirection and I will get a SLEW of responses.

If you tweet “#JustinBieber hates his fans”, 
lots of people will write back to you!

It’s important to pick a good Twitter name, too.  Unfortunately, @Pistol was already taken, and because Twitter is a touch anti-Semitic, they won’t accept @PistolRubenstein as a name because it has too many characters.  For a while I was using @PissDoll as my username, but I was getting some rather unwanted attention from a certain gentleman in Japan (@MrNakamura, I’m looking at you). Also, having only 4 fake people following me did nothing to help my self-esteem/nightly crying time, so I took the account down.  Now I just use our combined P&J account (@PistolAndJack), which only has a few hundred followers, most of whom are there because Jack has a good way with threats, or because they think we are the infamous Florida firearm superstore “Pistols of Jacksonville”. 

“Tweet Tweet”

Anyway, back to talking about what’s important in the world and how Twitter knows. Occasionally Jack brings back a fish or a boy wrapped in newspaper and I get to reading it. Journalists seem to no longer need to interview people in person.  Instead they can just search on Twitter what “the public” feel about a certain subject and use it in their article. I think this is a great idea, because the people on Twitter and the intermatron in general are a fantastic sampling of the country across the board. (By “the country” I mean the USA and UK, because honestly, who cares about anyplace else.) What I’m saying is it makes sense to go to Twitter for factual opinions rather than ask the person sitting next to you in the bagel store you’re reading this in.

Where you are right now.

Twitter has a nifty feature called “Trends” which tells you exactly what you should know about today. According to Twitter, these are the most important things happening in the world:

Facebook, Twilight, Halloween, Lil Wayne, Instagram, Obama

Here are some examples of the intelligent discourse between Tweeters on those trends:




To maximise popularity, I tweeted about all of them in one. (I left out Obama, because I don’t want him to read it and think I like Twilight. #IHateTwilight.)



This is what that would look like.

There are also trends that are for people to share their shared experiences. It's good to write very general things that everyone can relate to so they like you more. Today’s are #EveryFamilyHas and #FamousRejectionLines.

Here are my contributions:


And there you have it, Internet! A little guide from me to you on how to use Twitter to teach you about what's popular in the world and how to tweet about it to get attention. Another quick tip? If you're going to a fancy party and want to impress the other people there, quickly look at the Twitter trends first. It will give you plenty of topics to bring up so you sound smart and in touch with the world, as well as fabulous ideas for shared experience conversations.

On my next blog, I will be answering questions from YOU the reader, so please tweet me your questions at @PistolAndJack or write them on our Facebook wall or e-mail them to me at info@pistolandjack.com or message/tag/poke/post me on my private Facebook account or comment on this blog or text me on +44-207-408-2350 or sneak into my home and write it on the mirror in red lipstick. I'm here for the fans and will be accessible as much as possible or as little as I want.

I love you so much it hurts when I breathe,

Pistol R.



Monday 24 September 2012

The Future Will Be Here Soon


Hey lobsters, it’s Pistol.

I am SO SORRY that I haven’t blogged you in like, six months.  Trust me, I did not abandon you intentionally.  I’ve kinda been out of the country.  It’s a long story that begins with me blogging about Lindsay Lohan being an awesome female lesbian role model, middles with a guy whose name rhymes with Bladimir Futin finding our blog by an errant Google search, and ends with me in a glass cage in Moscow wearing a pastel baklava.  For the moment that is all I’m legally allowed to divulge. Trust me, the less you know, the less likely you are of being kidnapped and forced to eat perogies.

Me in Moscow. 
It was so cold, I had to wear this to keep my face from freezing off.  


 Perogies.

In July, I was briefly released from my cage to perform at the Secret Gardening Society Festival in Cambridgeshire.  I don’t understand how they manage to get any gardening done in all that mud. I’m not sure which was worse, losing my tent in a muddy marsh of drug-fuelled teenagers wearing nothing but glitterpaint, or being wrongfully imprisoned by Soviets. I think the fact that I willingly paid for my own flight back to Russia answers that question.

Some festival pics I took with my iPhucker:

 The stage we performed on floating in some mud.

 Us performing for the mudpeople.

This kid lost his horse in the mud at the festival. It sucked. 
But at least the burrito van had delicious guac.          
   
The good news is I am BACK in the UK.  And you know what? Jack didn’t even NOTICE I was gone. I had a whole apology planned for my return, complete with a slowed down, heartfelt, acoustic version of “Call Me Maybe” that I was going to perform for him. I walked into the bedsit, expecting a tirade of tears and anger from my long-time creative partner who I presumed had been in deep mourning due to my absence.  After I eventually got him to wake up, I was merely greeted with a “Where’d Santa go?” and a “Someone threw up in your sleeping bag. It wasn’t me.”  Whew! He had been blacked out since Christmas and didn’t even realize I’d been away! It’s times like that you have to thank the Lord Gaga Above for inventing barbiturates and Southern Comfort.

So, “what is next for the band now that Pistol is back and Jack is lucid?”, I hear you cry.  First of all, suck it up and stop crying. I’m back and you no longer have a reason to be sad.  Secondly, to answer your query, we are exploring other forms of media beyond the live stage.  This includes a reality show web series for your eyeholes and a podcast for your earholes.  To experience our magic you will no longer have to be burdened with leaving your house and travelling to a venue that serves alcohol and is packed with human beings. Get your P&J fix on the solo, and share it with your virtual friends virtually. It is the future, after all. Or at least it will be once we can figure out how to press record.

I will blog you again soon to tell you more of my adventures and correct opinions.

Much love,

Pistol Rubenstein-Obama

Friday 9 March 2012

Girls, We Run This Mother

As all of you know by now, yesterday was International Women’s Day.  I still don’t understand why we need a special day to single out our achievements when we’re pretty much awesome all the time, but I’ve never been one to turn down extra attention.  In honour of the day, I’d like to post a tribute to the female women who have inspired me to be the strong, talented, and amazing person I am.  And let’s hope that in the near future the idea of female achievement won’t be remarkable or exceptional, but as boring and commonplace as douchebaggy bus drivers and hangovers on Sunday mornings.

Pistol’s Top Ten Awesome Girls Who Run The World
  
My dear friend and life twin.  Because she wrote the song about it.  
(This also counts towards my weekly music video posting.)


As a child, I wrote her several letters asking if she would be my mom.  I found them years later hidden in a box in my real mom’s closet. I still wonder to this day what could have been if they’d been sent.


She makes me laugh and is smart and crap.
PS How cool does she look in this black and white photo?


Because you don’t have to be big or tall or over the age of 9 to show the world that women rock it. And also because she proves that it’s important to keep your gal pals by your side on your ride to the top.


The first Jewish Congresswoman and a fierce leader in the hat-as-fashion-statement movement. 
What’s not to like?

For coming out of the closet and showing the world that female women lesbians like her are not the perfect princesses we think they are and are just as flawed as the rest of us.


A working single mom who started out selling Tupperware to middle class housewives and now travels the world telling her inspirational story and making bank selling “the best plastic crap on the planet.” Australian fans can catch her at the Melbourne Comedy Festival this year, and I will post news soon about her London run!


Because she came in and said “Women in politics don’t have to wear pastel pants-suits! Let’s wear dresses and still kick ass!” She also does some issue/policy stuff to stop kids from getting fat/bullied.  (Check her out in the blue shiny Pistol colours!)


I just feel like we could be friends.


And finally...
10. My dad, Bruce Rubenstein
For raising me to be an awesome woman.  I love you, daddy.  Wherever you are.

Love,
Pistol xoxo

P.S.  I’m sorry this list is made up mainly of entertainers/people on TV. I don’t really care for newspapers, but I am aware that there are women out there who’ve done much more important things.  I just don’t know who they are.  But blame the internet and television for not telling me/representing them.

P.P.S.  Noticeably absent from my list? Angelina Jolie’s right leg. Even though I am and will always be Team Jen, it’s important to point out that it wasn't a leg that became a UN ambassador, wrote and directed a foreign language film about the Bosnian war, created several charitable organizations, helped raise the profile of causes for poor and oppressed people in third world nations, and adopted the entire cast of Lost.  So stop talking about her damn leg.  It’s an insult to these women when people focus on their physical appearances and the frivolous aspects of their lives rather than the content of their achievements.  That’s why I am content free and only worry about looking sparkly and singing fun pop songs – so there’s no confusion as to what kind of message I’m putting across.
I made this photo small to show you how unimportant it is.



Friday 24 February 2012

I'm Here. I'm Bi-Weekly. Get Used To It.

I’m back!  I’m going to TRY and keep this blog thing up bi-weekly.  Bi-weekly means I like both weeks equally.  To me it’s not about labels, it’s about who the week is on the inside.  And if I want to experiment and try posting this in another week, there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t discriminate between weeks, okay?

I’m going to start out with a question for the techie geeks in the house...

How does YouTube know I’m Jewish?

Our sound technician and house elf, Kev, says it’s because Big Brother is watching.  This makes no sense.  I am an only child, so I’m nobody’s little sister.  Unless he means his big brother, and why would Kev’s brother care what I do? 


This is a picture of Kev having his hair smelled by a person. 
Perhaps his big brother?

I mean, I know that since Al Quesadilla became a big deal and Dick Cheney freaked out about it, everything we type into the intermatron is a permanent record.  But I never really search or talk about my Jewessness, partly because I’m wary of the anti-septics.  However, every time I go on YouTube, whether I’m at home or one of those free computers people leave sitting out at Starbucks, whether I’m watching it through a facebook embedment, or on the YouTube itself, I get this same ad: 


Preserve Jewish Culture
The next Jewish generation matters. Donate now.  If not now, when?
www.JewishLA.org/JewishFuture           Ads by Google


WHY?  Besides searching the tube for old videos of my all-girl all-Jewish pop group, The Jewels, I have done nothing to indicate I would donate to the Jews.  Also, computers should be smart enough to know I live in London and not Los Angeles.  I’m so confused!  If somebody could please explain it to me, I would be grateful.

Anyway, I promised in the last post that I would talk about that dark time in my life after The Jewels broke up.  I was living in Orlando with my dad and manager, Bruce Rubenstein.  Oh, and my mom, but she was always doing boring things like “working” and “providing for the family with her career”.  With nobody to stand behind me and sing, I decided to return to my early roots at Disney.  (When I was a kid I auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club at the same time as Britney!)  The only role available was not so much a musical one, as a “put on this heavy mouse suit and sweat in Florida humidity for nine hours a day” kinda role.  I was stationed at Epcot, the park that nobody goes to because it’s educational. 
Some random kids from the internet in front of Epcot UK.

Epcot is kind of a bigger version of the It’s A Small World ride, where you get to visit different countries.  There’s a Little Germany, a Little China, Japan, Italy, etc.  Epcot is where I first discovered my Anglephiliac tendencies towards Great Britain, at the Rose & Crown Pub.  You see, when your back-up singers desert you for the bright lights and success of the greater New Jersey Jewish Community and Minnie Mouse is the only performing job you can get in the State, a cool pint of lager is exactly what you need to brighten your spirits/drown your sorrows.  It’s there that I learned that "chips" means French Fries and that "bangers" is not prison slang for rapists.  I drank A LOT in that pub, and could often be spotted there on my break.  Ugh, and then the ONE time that I was too tired to change out of my costume between shifts, some little brat got a bunch of pictures of Minnie doing a keg stand and offering to take her top off in exchange for an Irish car bomb (they don’t have a Little Ireland so had to consolidate I guess?)  Needless to say, Michael Eisner was NOT impressed with my behaviour and I was swiftly fired.


Me and My Dad at Disney



Hitting Rock Bottom

But my love for all things British never waned, and every day at 4pm I would sit at home and have English tea parties with my Lady Gaga doll, a life-sized cut-out of Elvis (a left over novelty from my Bat Mitzvah party) and my dad, Bruce Rubenstein. But I tired of cucumber sandwiches and scones on my own, and longed to find others who shared my passion.  One day at Publix (our local grocery store) I saw an ad calling for new members to join a society called The Tea Party.  How perfect!  A whole group of like-minded souls!  I turned up dressed as Princess Di on her wedding day, ready to devour jam and crumpets and debate the virtues of Mr Darcy versus Mr Wickham.  But nobody else was in costume, and instead of tea and biscuits they served Orange Fanta and saltine crackers.  I was very confused, but I stuck with them, because, who was I to turn down new friends?  As it turns out, their Tea Party is a political organisation named after the first time the Americans sat down with the Native American Indians and drank British tea in Boston.  And that, dear reader, is how I came to be the campaign manager for Sarah Palin’s mayoral election in Wassilla, Alaska.


A pitbull wearing lipstick on her face.

I will leave you, as promised, with a music related video posting.  Rebecca Black is a modern day icon for the e-generation.  She is famous because of the intermatron, and even though her initial reviews were negative, she came back fighting and now has a fully blown pop career and several amazing singles and music videos. Annoyingly, Kev (see above) who is NOT a fan of her work, has found a way to block all Rebecca Black videos from playing on any computer in our bedsit, so instead you will have to deal with her brilliant cameo in Katy Perry's Last Friday Night (TGIF) video. (I won't even start on Katy Perry, because I could write an Encyclopaedic novella on how awesome she is and you probs don't have the time for that, because you're very busy at your job saving sick people and/or typing down numbers for the men.)




Until next time. 

Much love,

Miss Pistol Rubenstein of Orlando, Florida, USA

Friday 10 February 2012

K-Pop is the new Black (pop) and other things you should know by now

Hi guys,

Sorry I didn't blog you last week.  Dry your eyes though, I'm back with more fabulous things to tell you that will blow your brains out.

This week, I took someone's cocktail suggestion and made a White Russian.  This is a drink comprised of coffee liqueur (Kahlua or Tia Maria), vodka, and milk. It is delicious.  If your kids are difficult and complain about the taste of the drinks you give them, try a White Russian. It will trick them into loving alcohol. #PistolsParentingTips.  It is the favourite drink of that dude in the classic sports film The Big Lebwoski. Apparently the more you like this movie, the cooler a person you are.  I have never seen it, but an ex-boyf once said that I reminded him of Julianne Moore in this film. This direct association with the film makes me extra cool and she's so channelling Lady Gaga in this photo I Googled, so I assume he means I am a super cool pop icon.



Recently, we decided that it's about time Jack have a birthday, so we picked a day and I cooked him a cake.  I used my leftover cocktail and poured it in the batter.  It's amaze.  Here's a pic and a link to the recipe.  It kinda tastes like an Oreo.  (In my adaptation I substituted 1 1/4 cups of water for 1/4 cup of vodka, 1/2 cup of Tia Maria, and 1/2 cup of coffee, trust me you'll love it.)  Also, the butter frosting is an INTENSE experience, kind of how I imagine making love to a vampire would be (a REAL one like Dracula or Lestat or Nosferatu, not those ridiculous fictional sparkly ones.) The recipe for the frosting is here.


Aren't you impressed with my cooking skills?


Since we are a music group, and my last video posting was such a hit, I've decided to bring you a new fave of mine in each blog.  This week, it's Girl's Generation, a 9 piece girl group from South Korea.  This song is awesome (ignore the intro with the stupid dove), especially when they break it down Pistol style at 3:30.  


Korean Pop (or K-Pop) is like Hello Kitty for adults = fun, trendy, and Japanese.  There's another K-Pop girl group called 2NE1 you can also check out.  Girls Generation and 2NE1 are like N Sync vs Backstreet Boys or Coldplay vs Radiohead vs Elbow.  From afar they all sound different, but up close they look just the same.  K-Popstars are recruited and go to special schools from the time they are little and train in acting, dancing, and singing.  It's kinda like Hogwarts, but they use their wands for chopsticks and instead of Quidditch they have eating disorders.  (There is even a girl who moans and cries in the bathroom all the time, but she's not a ghost, she is just bulimic.)



Watching Girls Generation reminds me of my days in The Jewels, the all-girl, all-Jewish pop group which was my first big break into the music business. J-Pop never took off in the way that K-Pop has.  (Mainly because the Japanese got to that term first, so it means something else.)  The Jewels toured the nursing homes and synagogues of South Florida to much acclaim, but whilst I always remained the lead, the back-up spots were cursed with an ever changing line-up. (Yet ANOTHER thing I have in common with Beyonce Knowles.) Then, in Hannukah of '89, the Jewels ended tragically when the remaining girls (I will edit their names to protect their anonymity, so will type them as Jam*e L*ppman and Em*ly Garf*nkel) quit and formed their own band.  They would later go on to headline the B'Nai Shalom North Eastern Sukkot Conference. It was a big blow for me and what followed was a dark time in my life that I don't want to talk about...  Okay, I totally wanna talk about it, but if Facebook has taught me anything, it's that if you really want people to give you attention and listen to what you say, you should be vague, dramatic, and withholding of important details.  So, for now I'll dangle that carrot and fill you in on my post-Jewels/pre-Jack days in the next blog!  

Until then, when I will tell you how to get fired from Disney and run a political campaign... (CARROTS.)

Ciao!

Love,

Pistol xoxo

Saturday 21 January 2012

Pistol Has Things To Say Too Dammit

Dear fans and stalkers,

I am very excited to write to you directly.  I’m so nervous about my first blog, I had to make a cocktail to get me going.  A while ago one of the bars we were playing created a cocktail in our honour called the Pistol & Jack.  The Pistol was champagne, because I’m classy, and expensive, and the cork shoots off like a pistol.  The Jack was Jack Daniels.  Because Jack doesn’t have much imagination.  They dropped in a sugar cube with some sort of syrupy stuff drizzled on top, and then poured in the booze.  It’s actually bubbly, delicious, and gets you fucked up really fast.  Just like the real Pistol & Jack.

We don’t have any of that stuff here, so I’m making a budget version with Red Bull and Glenfidditch.  For my readers outside of the UK, Glenfidditch is a Scotch whiskey, and they pronounce the ‘ditch’ as ‘dick.’  I KNOW.  Even though I’m drinking out of a champagne glass, this budget version of a Pistol & Jack is totally gross.  But it’s getting the job done.  Kind of how I imagine a tribute act to us would be.  There were some folks back in the early 00’s who attempted to create a tribute act to us, called Rifle & Smack.  They were very unsuccessful, mainly because nobody had heard of us back then, so the references were totally lost.  They abandoned the idea after a few gigs, changed their name to The White Stripes, and starting writing original stuff.  And look at them now.  Their band is not even together anymore and we are STILL gigging.  Just goes to show you.

Cocktails on a Budget


As I write this, Beyonce’s gramma, Etta James, has just died.  Everyone is very sad, and I know this because they’ve said so on Twitter and Facebook, and I’m sure if I was into watching the news, it would be on there, too.  I found some of Etta’s music on the intermatron and am listening to it now.  She’s totally rocking it, and even though I only knew like two of her songs before, I am now suddenly feeling very sad about her death.  It’s only fitting that I should leave a tribute to her, so here’s my favourite of her songs.  They don’t have any videos of her singing it herself, and I can’t find the one of Beyonce singing it either, so instead I’ll post Rachel Crowe singing it on X Factor a few minutes before she falls on the ground weeping because she lost.  I actually think Rachel’s version is best anyway.  (Okay maybe that’s the real reason I’m posting hers, but I didn’t want to seem disrespectful to the dead or her bereaving granddaughter, so needed another excuse, but hey, I’m drunk now on Rifle & Smack, which if you don’t breathe through your nose while you sip it is actually okay, so I’m feeling honest.  This 13 year old girl is amazing and I say that with no ironing.)  Enjoy the video :-) 

RIP ETTA JAMES


The emotion Rachel feels is so real.  It’s like, when she’s singing about her lover leaving her she really knows what it’s like.  Or it could also be like the “lover” is the “judges/audience” whose hands her fate is in, and she’s singing to them that she doesn’t want this love affair aka "time on the X Factor", to end.  Watch it again now with that in mind, and it will give you chills.  WATCH.  IT.  AGAIN.

How long are blogs supposed to be?  Am I allowed to take a nap?  I guess if you don’t read this live, but tape it for later, then you can fast forward through my nap, so I’m gonna nap.  You would think the Red Bull should be keeping me up, but I really put in mostly Glenfiddledick and just a splash of bull, so I’m feeling kinda tired.  While I’m napping, you can take a break.  I’ll give you some ideas of what to do. A) Have a snack. Maybe some cashews, or some licorice, or some ham.  B) Straighten your hair. I didn’t want to say anything, but it’s totally frizzly.  C) Write to your senator.  Because that’s how you get things DONE. 

Okay, snoozles!

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Okay, I’m back from my nap!  I hope that wasn’t too boring for you and you found something interesting to do. 

So there’s my first blog!  I’m not sure if I was supposed to write about something pacific or not, but if Twitter is anything to go by, people care what celebrities say even if it’s meaningless garbage.  At least I gave you an emotional journey, am I right?  Plus Twitter is really inhibiting for someone like me who has a lot to say.  But this is all for now, until next time, when I will write again. To tell you more. About what’s on my mind.  Also, please suggest some other, not disgusting, cocktails for me to make whilst I write the next one.

So, gonna go throw up and then Google the new episode of American Idol.  J Lo is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pretty, and I love how Steven Tyler does his makeup. 

Love you guys!

Pistol xoxoxoxoxo

PS  I should also thank my best gal pal and mentor, Miss Dixie Longate, for encouraging me to start blogging.  She is an inspirational single mom who started her own business selling Tupperware to middle class housewives, and now she is an international superstar.  Check out her blog and check her tour schedule to see if she’s bringing one of her Tupperware parties to a town near you.