This is almost as funny as Restless Legs Syndrome. And of course the Japanese are the first to report on it. From Spa!

Japan is in dire straights. The population is declining, people are marrying later, having fewer children, if any at all. And Spa! (1/29) says one of the major reasons for the dilemma is that as many as 70 percent of younger men are unable to achieve vaginal ejaculation.

"They've got no erection problems and they can masturbate perfectly normally, but there has been a massive increase, particularly among those in their 20s and 30s, who are suffering from vaginal ejaculation disorder, or an inability to ejaculate inside the vagina," Koichi Nagao, a urologist at the Toho University Omori Medical Center, tells Spa! "It's the most common dysfunction I have to deal with among people who come to the clinic. It leads to problems in the home, fertility problems and, in the worst cases, divorce."

Though there's no data available on exactly how many Japanese men are actually suffering from vaginal ejaculation disorder, a soapland brothel worker the magazine gives as its source says over her many years of servicing male clients, it would have to be around 70 percent. "Young guys in particular. I'd say for every 10 guys, only about three come inside," the woman says.

Experts say one of the main reasons men develop vaginal ejaculation disorder is that they learn how to masturbate using methods that feel distinctly different from vaginas, such as rubbing up against pillows or lying face down and moving back and forward for stimulation until climax. "Sex is too accessible for young people nowadays, what with adult movies and Internet porn," Harima tells Spa! "They're too used to the virtual world, which means when they find things like a woman who doesn't have porn star looks, is sweaty, or doesn't moan as loud as they're expecting, they become unable to ejaculate.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We got a kick out of this, but we're confused... how does this not qualify as "writing?" As much as we love Stewart and Colbert, we're confused why writers aren't outraged that they're back. Their shows aren't being ad-libbed. They have scripts, which, the last time we checked, required writers.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This remix CD has been out for a few months, but given how great it is, we're shocked that it's gotten almost no attention. Especially since it's free. From Ratatat's website:

14 new remixes featuring: Bun B, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, Slim Thug, Devin the Dude, Young Jeezy, T.I., Beanie Sigel, Pimp C, Ludacris, Young Buck, Saigon, Juvenile, Z-ro, Memphis Bleek, Kanye West +exclusive tracks from Despot and Beans.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's a shame that most environmentalists (and Al Gore) have ignored this disturbing fact: "livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases -- more than transportation." In case you missed it, The New York Times published a great article yesterday on this ignored environmental problem. You can read the whole thing here.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

image c/o Slate

Well this sucks. From NYTimes

Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks," said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From The New York Times

As Democrats look ahead to the primaries in the biggest states on Feb. 5, The Times’s editorial board strongly recommends that they select Hillary Clinton as their nominee for the 2008 presidential election.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

[Thanks Rumproast]

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vice takes a stroll down memory lane to remember good times at Williamsburg's coke-tastically notorious bar, Kokie's. For all you young-uns out there who don't remember Larry Tee and Electroclash, Kokie's was the bar of choice for hipsters wanting to score crappy blow and/or spend the night salsa dancing with sketchy, coked-out middle aged neighborhood locals. Check out Vice's article here.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Whenever we're feeling depressed about the state of media in this country, we take solace in Britian's The Sun. Here's a sample of their cutting edge journalism.

IT isn’t just Britain where the weather is a bit nippy at the moment. JENNIFER ANISTON was feeling the cold in Vancouver, Canada.

The ex-Friends star really is absolutely stunning -- no question about it. Quite why she is single is beyond me.

A bit farther south, in more ways than one, BRITNEY SPEARS was snapped looking better than usual.

Her efforts to hide the Smarties failed too.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Due to bizarre technical difficulties last week—don't ask—we've been MIA. We're back. And now we're ready to party. Maybe we should ask this guy to help out:

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Our pals at Rumproast pointed out this hilarious, albeit creepy video. It's a must-see:

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The always great Matt Taibbi was on The Colbert Report last night. In case you missed him, here it is:

Meanwhile, when all is said and done, Obama and Hillary actually tied in NH.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Seeing Hillary win last night was depressing, but at least Tom Brokaw put things in perspective when he bitchslapped Chris Matthews on MSNBC: [From Digby via Rumproast]

BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.

But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.

Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding, in many cases, as we learned in New Hampshire when they went into the polling booth today or in the last three days. They were making decisions very late.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

by Dave Thomas

Cloverfield

J. J. Abrams, Michel Gondry and the guy who made that Enron doc are giving us at least a few bright spots to look forward to in an otherwise standard issue January crapfest.

January 4

ONE MISSED CALL

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Yet another Japanese horror remake where technology kills your ass.

WILL IT SUCK?
Other than The Ring, can you name one good American J-Horror adaptation?

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Trying to pull a When a Stranger Calls no-competition January horror release. After the year that horror had in 2007, I don't know if that will work. $23mil.

-----------------------------

THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Read the title again.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed, but this did win a Special Jury Prize at Tribeca.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not a lot of competition, unless you count all the Oscar contenders finally going into wide release. $750,000.

-----------------------------
January 11
-----------------------------

FIRST SUNDAY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Comedy about two guys trying to rob a church. If that's not funny, then I don't know funny.

WILL IT SUCK?
When's the last time Ice Cube was in a good comedy? Okay, Barbershop 2 got good reviews. But still. Teaming up with Tracy Morgan's not a bad idea, though. Written and directed by David E. Talbert, who appears to be Tyler Perry with a slightly better IMDB rating.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Some of the family demo will be at the latest Veggie Tales, but Cube can hold his own. $40mil.

-----------------------------

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Uwe Boll's The Lord of the Rings

WILL IT SUCK?
What part of Uwe Boll did you not understand? Once again, he's managed to gather some not-altogether-crappy names to his cast, in spite of, well, being Uwe Boll: Ray Liotta, Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds (!?!), Ron Perlman and LOTR's own John Rhys-Davies.

Early buzz (and it's had plenty of time to gather it in the year or so since it's been completed) is predictably crap-ridden.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Each Uwe Boll film has made no more than half the gross of its predecessor, and yet he still gets to make movies. $1mil.

-----------------------------

27 DRESSES

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
My Sister's Wedding

WILL IT SUCK?
Writer Aline Brosh McKenna bought herself a lot of romcom cred with her adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada. That plus Judy Greer as the wacky best friend lets me give this a chance.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Mad Money is a bit of an issue the following week, but the real test is if Katherine Heigel can draw a crowd without help from the Apatow Players. $26mil.

-----------------------------

THE PIRATES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING: A VEGGIE TALES MOVIE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
The Three Amigos, but with vegetables and pirates (and, no, it wouldn't make any more sense if I tried to explain it further).

WILL IT SUCK?
Even critics don't completely hate this series, and audiences love it and want to have, like, a thousand of its babies (presumably in wedlock). From the same team who did all the others, so expect similar results.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Expect similar results here, too. $26mil.

-----------------------------

SUMMER PALACE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Epic romance set against the backdrop of Tianamen Square.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed, with audiences liking it more than critics. China banned the director from making films for five years because he submitted it to Cannes without government approval. And Renny Harlin is still at large.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Controversial or not, it's a foreign film in January with bad critical notices. $250,000.

-----------------------------
January 18
-----------------------------

CLOVERFIELD

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Godzilla shot handheld.

WILL IT SUCK?
Director Matt Reeves last feature film was The Pallbearer, but he's done plenty of TV since then. Mostly Felicity. Not sure how I feel about that. Writer Drew Goddard worked on some of the more tolerable eps of the horrible final seasons of Angel and Buffy, not to mention some kick-ass Lost eps.
The common denominator, of course, is J. J. Abrams, so if his influence helps at all here, there's reason to be psyched.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The brilliance of this project isn't in the premise; it's in the release date. No one else thinks to release something that might actually be good in January. But now Cloverfield has the geekboy fanbase all to itself.

Well, except for the snippets who'll go see Rambo or Be Kind Rewind the following week. Strangely, Cloverfield's demo is made up, more or less, of those two demos. $56mil.

-----------------------------

MAD MONEY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Three Federal Reserve janitors (Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes) decide to rob their work, then yell at each other about how to invest the money while pressing giant sound effects buttons and yelling "Boo-yah!". Okay, maybe not that last part.

WILL IT SUCK?
From the director of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, so, yeah, there's that. Screenwriter did the decent enough Fracture. Really, though, we're all just glad to see Holmes get out of the house.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
A little bit of competition from 27 Dresses' second frame, but the bigger problem is a lack of awareness. $37mil.

-----------------------------

TEETH

(Delayed from November)

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Story about a woman who has teeth, you know, down there.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Fun fact: The writer/director is Roy Lichtenstein's son.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Indie horror comedy usually does better on DVD. $500,000.

-----------------------------

CITY OF MEN

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
More drugs and kids doing what they shouldn't in Brazil.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Directed by Paulo Morelli, who also directed eps of the TV series on which this is based, itself a spin-off of the Fernando Meirelles classic, City of God. Screenwriter Elena Soarez also wrote for the series, and scripted the lauded House of Sand.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The much more buzzy 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days comes out next week and Woody Allen opens this week with his latest. If this were an actual sequel to City of God with Meirelles directing, it might compete. $1mil.

-----------------------------

CASSANDRA'S DREAM

(Delayed from December)

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Woody Allen goes all London thriller on us again.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Not Match Point good. But good. Hard not to get psyched for Colin Farrell, Ewan McGregor and Tom Wilkinson all working off a decent script.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Presumably in a better position now than it was in December, with fifty other high profile indies with which to compete. Then again, it's January. And almost nothing does as well in January. $5mil.

-----------------------------

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
The Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room guys take on torture.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is fantastic. Writer/director Alex Gibney is turning into quite the political documentarian, having produced Who Killed the Electric Car? and No End in Sight since directing and co-writing Enron. The topper, though, is the MPAA's stunning reaction to the poster.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Nobody knows that this movie exists. Might do better closer to election season. $500,000.

-----------------------------
January 25
-----------------------------

UNTRACEABLE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A guy uses the interwebs to kill folk.

WILL IT SUCK?
Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Frequency, Fracture) has potential and one of the eighteen screenwriters did Resurrecting the Champ, which is supposed to not suck, but it'll take a lot more than that to convince me to go see a movie where I (a) know everything from the trailer already and (b) have to watch a depiction of the Internet that will probably make Ted Stevens look like Vint Cerf.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
With Rambo sucking up most of the oxygen and Cloverfield's second frame drawing true thriller junkies and The Eye opening the following week, this doesn't stand a chance. $16mil.

-----------------------------

RAMBO

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
If it worked for Rocky...

WILL IT SUCK?
Sly was able to write and direct the Rocky franchise back into critical acclaim for the first time in 30 years, so far be it from me to say he can't do it again. I will remind you, however, that he did write and direct Staying Alive, arguably the best bad film ever, so it's kind of a win-win.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The only thing as high profile as this is Cloverfield, and that'll be on its second frame. $71mil.

-----------------------------

HOW SHE MOVE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Indie You Got Served

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good and the director did the underseen Touch of Pink.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
No idea why they're releasing this wide. I would think their edge is in treating this like an indie and letting word of mouth buoy a platform release. That having been said, Stomp the Yard might as well have been an indie for all its no-name cast, and it did just fine with a wide release. $27mil.

-----------------------------

MEET THE SPARTANS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
300 Movie

WILL IT SUCK?
By most accounts the Movie movies have been getting progressively worse, and they didn't exactly start off as classics of American comedy.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
They've seen diminishing financial returns as well. $29mil.

-----------------------------

BE KIND REWIND

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Two video store clerks (Jack Black, Mos Def) set out to remake classic films that one of them accidentally erased.

WILL IT SUCK?
Written and directed by Michel Gondry, so already it's good times. And judging by the trailer, they'll make the most of a terrific premise.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Definitely the 800lb gorilla in Indiewood. $24mil.

-----------------------------

THE AIR I BREATHE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Interweaving plot ensemble drama based upon four emotional cornerstones. What? I'm not going to tell you what they are; that would be a spoiler.

WILL IT SUCK?
The emotions are played by Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser and Kevin Bacon. John Cho plays Bart. He is not one of the emotions. In spite of this all sounding like a night school drama class acting exercise, the early buzz is very good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The type of movie that, in spite of a strong cast, gets forgotten before anyone knows it was out. Just look at Feast of Love. Exactly. $4mil.

-----------------------------

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Woman in 80's Romania tries to get an abortion.

WILL IT SUCK?
A presumptive Best Foreign Oscar contender, if not outright frontrunner, this has already won a crapload of awards. Three of them were at Cannes including, oh, what's that little one? Oh, right, the Palme D'Or.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It's hard to get better buzz for a foreign film. $2mil.

-----------------------------

U2 3D

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
3D concert flick that was clearly designed to force me into an IMAX theater.

WILL IT SUCK?
That doesn't seem to be the point. The main thing being hawked about this film is that it's the first live action flick to be entirely shot, posted (whatever the hell that means) and edited in 3D. Mark Pellington, who helped conceive Zoo TV and directed the "Jeremy" video and thus never has to do anything else again to be eternally cool, co-directs.

I, of course, am U2's bitch so I hereby declare this to be the greatest film ever made, sight unseen.

Early buzz, coincidentally, is quite good (although I suspect that's just a bunch of U2 fanatics chiming in on IMDB, not that there's anything wrong with that).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Ironically, where releasing a mainstream film (Rattle and Hum) got them nowhere, releasing a 3D film on far fewer screens may show better returns. $9mil.

Next Month: The Indiana Jones trailer will probably be more exciting than any actual movie coming out.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you're a bit thick, like us, here's a handy visual aid to tonight's caucus. Not surprisingly, we Democrats do things in a much less efficient, more confusing way than the GOP. No wonder they always win.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A Non-review by J. Stefan-Cole

The forward calls Robert Roth’s reflective book, Health Proxy, Yuganta Press, a "collage of consciousness." This is a good description. Like a remembrance of things worried over. Such as questioning if he did the right thing at the deathbed of a friend—Pete Wilson—dying of AIDS.

It becomes pretty clear pretty fast Roth is the not optimal guy to invite to your final curtain, at least not without a back up in place. What are the emotional complexities of a deathbed obligation anyway? What’s the code of behavior?

Excluding squeamishness, or a sudden qualm—like some right wing religious scruple against death with dignity that dictates a person must hang on by no matter how cruel a thread, the question becomes what happens to the living at the final moment? We tend not to factor in future feelings. Perhaps for good reason. You only have to loose a favorite cat or fish or bird to start wondering just how much more you can take. How about a sickly child? Best not to think about it. Dying can be a long gruesome process, each passing unique. Beyond, it’s the right thing to do, even the noble thing, Roth’s introspection forces questions like: how much does our superpower society prepare us for death? Or sickness. For life. We prefer to sweep such downer topics under the rug. Aside from bedside plants and well-meant utterances what can we really offer the dying?

Depressed yet? Now jump into Robert Roth’s head. He weaves between the well and the fatally unwell. Part One takes place during the height of the AIDS epidemic, but there is a breast cancer and a Hep C and a murder or two (later in the book, within a slightly different context). Roth hung by his friend, but at the last moment blinks, leaves the hospital, fails to hold hands for the last grasp. And genuinely wonders what difference it would have made, not only to the dying, but, importantly, to himself. This is a valid question, if one that lacks—etiquette.

“As a health proxy you are a conduit for the other person’s wishes. You are not supposed to act according to what you think should be done but what the person you are representing would want done…if they were capable...” About not holding Pete’s hand, Roth is haunted. That he might be even more haunted if he had is his point. And would Pete have known one way or the other, or cared? At that point? What does it mean, dying? Some turn rubbery at the sight of blood, never mind face to face encounters with mortality. There is something nerve deep funny here.

The dying are not saints just because they are dying. A person isn’t grand just because he sticks around. Roth is a little like Sheriff Bell in the Coen brothers’ movie of Cormac McCarty’s novel, No Country for Old Men. Tommy Lee Jones’s cragged sheriff meditates on the pointlessness of his job, and the good he meant to do, mostly finding he comes up short. He’s not about to chase down Javier Bardem’s serial killer, knocking people off like flies at a picnic. Is this cowardly? How many problems is an introspective cop in a nowhere Texas border town supposed to solve? It’s a no win set up.

Part Two—two pages long—called Manna, is about Roth’s father’s death and the prisoner from Riker’s Island lying comatose in the next bed. Part three is almost upbeat by comparison, Roth’s world sans the peering Grim Reaper. He turns out to be a guy stricken with all manner of conscience. And regret: for old love, mother’s love, father’s love, lack of new love (“One lover said I was the only person she knew who was working towards the end before the beginning.”), the demise of radical politics, the loss of a way life artists once lived on the cheap in a friendlier (at least real estate-wise) New York City, a reward system that has largely left him out.

For twenty years he delivered the NYU newspaper that nearly nobody read. He dropped heavy bundles to locations all over downtown, and then retrieved nearly as heavy bundles a couple of days later. A Sisyphean job with lousy pay, no benefits, zero security. New York University is a mega corporation, his job was a loophole. He writes of professors chatting up the prole delivery guy. Lines like: Hot off the press, huh? Ha ha. Roth would answer with an erudite challenge and ask the surprised profs if they wanted to contribute to his literary magazine, And Then, which he and his partners independently publish.

He examines behavior. “One friend in a need to impress someone he was in love with brought obituaries of close friends of his to show how important his friends were.” He touches the kernel: friends who bail out preemptively if they think they might be hurt, fixed patterns and reactions, emotionally stiff responses, contortions to make the world fit preconceived ideas. Even him: “My whole life I have not allowed the full force of experience to affect me. I have always been too numb, too frozen by life-shock.” A shaming memory of his father paying for his passport before a trip to Israel, pretending he forgot the money rather than admit to having none, his father’s hurt disappointment, not about the money but the ruse, which has been played out before.

He turned sixty without sounding mournful or jaded; tired maybe, but I have the feeling he sounded tired at six. There is free floating anger and neurotic angst, but freshness and warmth. Without the usual markers of children and a normal working life, a man whose parade of friends is his family, he seems timeless. Having brushed radicalism, and danced his hippie moment, he’s kept an ironic but never jaundiced eye on the world around him as investment brokers move into his Greenwich Village mouse-infested tenement, renamed and slightly renovated. His is a healthy rancor at the sanitized lifestyle of invading Yuppies, at an educational system that wants everyone “to wind up in essentially the same place.” There is resentment: “I see the rationalization, the guilt trips, the strange ways in which people’s values increasingly merge with those of the dominant culture. I resist this in my own way. But it can take the form of a sour internal gripe.”

Robert Roth serves up the artist in the Norman Mailer sense of heroic, against the odds, no cheap shots. Not a tepid salesman of the self, but one to expose the good the bad and the not so pretty.

© December 2007 J. Stefan-Cole

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)