​Today is Howard Stern's 58th birthday and that means time for gifts. But what do you get the man who maybe doesn't have everything but most certainly can afford it? I sure as hell don't know, but here are four suggestions for the King of All Media, who in case you didn't know, broadcasts at SiriusXM and will soon become a judge on America's Got Talent.



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​Christmas is a lame holiday celebrating the fake birthday of some guy who probably never even existed. And that's just one reason why it sucks, which is why January 8 is a way better day to get your party on.

For those who don't know, January 8 is Elvis Presley's birthday. Depending on which camp you reside in, either Elvis would have been 77 years young this Sunday or he is turning 77 years young (by that, I mean either you think he died Aug. 16, 1977, or you think he is still alive). Personally, no straight man on this planet loves the King of Rock 'n' Roll more than I do (although rumor has it Elvis is even more popular on Uranus), but even I don't think he's still living. I sure as hell wish he was, but that's another story. 

A few years ago, some friends coined a term called "Elvismas" and instantly I knew they were onto something. As a total atheist-leaning agnostic who hates standing in crowded lines at the mall even more than he hates all the religious aspects of Christmas, instantly I knew that Elvismas was something I could get behind.

I understand this holiday is new to you, so to help I'm offering these five tips that will get you in the Elvismas spirit. And if none of these work, you could always fall back on the unspoken sixth rule, which more or less equates to getting shitty drunk until you pass out. But I guess you don't really need Elvismas to do that.

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nancysanchez.com

​Hi Nancy,

My name is Ryan Ritchie and I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you. Let me explain.

A few days ago, I was browsing this here blog when I came across Gabriel San Roman's post about how you created a Kickstarter page in hopes of coming up with $15,000 for your full-length debut. One thing I am is honest, so I ain't gonna lie: That picture of you atop that blog was enough to get me to keep reading. Seriously, you are one good looking woman, the kind who makes lame dudes such as myself continue to read blogs they might not have otherwise read.

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Jim Carrey works out too!

​Look, you ate too damned much during the four-day Thanksgiving break. But it's cool. We've all been there. The good news is there's this little thing called exercise that's going to get you back to who you were last Wednesday.

As an avid gym member (the girl at the front desk knows my name), I know that Mondays there suck because people think they can just take one spinning class and work off all the bad shit they've put into their bodies since Friday. Coming off the Thanksgiving break, I assume today will be incredibly busy with people who want to be able to see their toes again, which only makes working out sound like even less fun than it already is. That's why I'm here to help.

With these six songs on your iPod (or whatever listening device you use), you're guaranteed to lose the extra helping of grandma's stuffing and those seven beers you drank Thursday night after having four glasses of wine at your sister's house.

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LA Lakers Rap All-Stars

​I don't believe in God, but if I did, I'd be thanking her right now for salvaging the upcoming NBA season. I mean, I tried to watch hockey, I really did, but I just can't hang with that shit. And my dad was born in Canada, so I should be able to get through more than three minutes without asking, "Where's the puck?" before changing the channel to "1 Girl 5 Gays."

Hockey indifference aside, there's a better reason to be thankful for the recently announced unlocked out NBA season and that's the fact that the more these dudes are balling on the court, the less they're rapping in studios. In case you don't believe me, here are five videos that prove just because these guys can dunk a basketball doesn't mean they have superhuman abilities at everything in life.

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​I gotta be honest: I have a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving.

On the one hand, it's my vegetarian anniversary. I gave up meat on Thanksgiving 1997, which, for all you math failures, means this year marks the 14th Thanksgiving in a row since I've eaten meat. For that, I am excited and proud. It was supposed to be nothing but a one-day protest and now here I am, a total hippie food guy who eats a primarily raw diet.

On the other, Thanksgiving generally includes in two of my least favorite things: meat eating and gluttony. I don't like meat and I really don't like the idea of people stuffing their faces just because they can. I was a fat kid, so I know all about this. Thankfully, I have changed my ways as an adult.

Anyway, Thanksgiving is usually a strange day for me. Sure, I want to be around family and friends, but not if I have to watch a dead bird get cooked and then eaten in front of me. So this year, I think I'll stay home, drop some acid (just kidding) and pretend that these 10 vegetarian musicians (in no particular order) are in my dining room eating the raisins, lemon almonds and Asian pears I bought from the farmers market.
 
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​Paramore is ready to release new songs, apparently. They've created the Paramore Singles Club on Paramore.net, which enables members to download one new song every couple of weeks. At year's end, members will receive a limited edition 7" box set (3,500 copies).

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There's a fine line between overexposure and striking when the iron is hot. Apparently, we are all about to find out where that line is for Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All as the LA rap  collective and television network Adult Swim announced today that a show entitled Loiter Squad is set to begin airing in 2012.

The program is described as a "15 minute live-action show that features sketches, man on the street segments, pranks and music from Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All" and will be produced by Dickhouse Entertainment, the people who brought us Jackass and all those other MTV shows that try really hard to be Jackass but aren't.More »

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If you haven't seen Lady Gaga's latest video, "You and I", in which she transforms to look like a dude, then you were probably confused by last night's opening of the VMAs. Yes, Lady Gaga can play a convincing roughed-up guy, but her chameleon skills aren't easy to come by. It doesn't matter how many stylists you have, how many producers work for you, or how much dough the record label throws your way, because ultimately if you don't have the chops don't bother changing your look (it won't help). With out a doubt real iconic artists, like Lady Gaga, Madonna, and David Bowie, have the talent to pull off different styles and branch out to different genres. Some pay off and some definitely don't.

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Henry Denander

​Poetry readings are boring. And I'm not just saying that as a guy whose sole exposure to the genre was a force-feeding of Maya Angelou in community college. Nope, I actually read -- and try to write -- the stuff and even I think most of these gatherings are really great if you are
suffering from insomnia and not much else.

Gerald Locklin agrees. The 70-year-old Long Beach writer (who also spent approximately two decades in Seal Beach) doesn't just get behind a podium, stick his face into a book and mumble through some poems. This guy goes for it, and by that I mean he makes this shit come alive. During a Locklin reading, audiences are bound to get a handful of really solid narrative poems about life in academia (of which he knows something about seeing how he begin teaching at Cal State Long Beach in 1965), jazz, art and day-to-day slices of life, but the highlight of these shows is when Locklin puts down the poems and moves away from the podium for a song-and-dance routine that never fails.

Locklin's repertoire is limitless, but lately he's been almost guaranteed to tap dance, sing a Lady Gaga routine and tell the story about the time he auditioned for a talent show when he was in elementary school. 

For the uneducated, it's easy to dismiss Locklin's showmanship as his way of hiding the fact that he can't write. Nothing could be further from the truth. With more than 125 published books and 3,000 published poems, short stories, articles, reviews and interview, Locklin is a master of the written word. Don't believe me? Well, you should because Charles Bukowski agreed. The two were friends and anyone who knows anything about Bukowksi knows his persona leads us to believe that he A. didn't care much for people and B. cared even less for other poets. To give a detailed account of his career would take up too much space, so visit his website at www.geraldlocklin.org. Trust me, I ain't getting paid to plug his site, so that must mean there's something worth checking out there.

In the meantime, Locklin is reading tomorrow night at Golden West College Community Room 102 (15744 Goldenwest St., Huntington Beach) with John Brantingham and Pam Arterburn. The reading begins at 8.  


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