30 Best Songs of 2009

I'm gonna keep this short and sweet, as no matter what I put on this list, everyone who reads this will inevitably suggest songs I left off or demand that songs be higher/lower on the list. Also, I seem to have contracted a serious case of the stupids, and I may end up leaving you with something riddled with typos and missing words.

#30: Tori Amos
Welcome To England

#29: Taylor Swift
You Belong With Me

#28: Spinnerette
Ghetto Love

#27: Imogen Heap
Aha!

#26: Passion Pit
The Reeling

#25: LadyHawke
Magic

#24: La Roux
Bulletproof

#23: Annie
Songs Remind Me Of You

#22: Morrissey
Something Is Squeezing My Skull

#21: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

#20: Peaches
More

#19: Miranda Lambert
White Liar

#18: Wilco featuring Feist
You and I

#17: The XX
Crystalised

#16: Matt & Kim
Daylight

#15: Lady Gaga
Bad Romance

#14: Bon Iver
The Woods

#13: Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys
Empire State Of Mind

#12: Lily Allen
The Fear

#11: Animal Collective
My Girls

#10: Karen O & The Kids
Hideaway

#9: Bat For Lashes
Daniel

#8: Antony & The Johnsons
Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground

#7: Neko Case
People Got A Lotta Nerve

#6: Metric
Gimme Sympathy

#5: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Heads Will Roll


#4: The Dirty Projectors
Stillness Is The Move


#3: Phoenix
1901


#2: St. Vincent
The Strangers


#1: Grizzly Bear
Two Weeks

Well Now This Is Pretty Cool

I'm taking a break from random "Best/Worst of the Year/Aughts" to share this little story with you guys: Remember that post I did about the Best Canceled Shows of the Aughts? Well today I got a comment from a woman named Stacey who wrote for the show thanking me for putting it on the list. Oh come on, how cool is that? Seriously, that is just TITS.

That is all.

Also, because I just wanna pack as much awesomesauce as I can into this post, here are The Pipettes covering 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'.

The 25 Biggest Douchebags of 2009, Part 2: #10-1

#10 – Chris Brown

You’d figure that most people would have the common sense to realize that there is no excuse for beating your girlfriend. Chris Brown is not most people. Rather than owning up to his actions and taking the time to do some soul searching and learning from his mistakes, he instead any and all responsibility for his actions both in interviews and through his music. Not to mention his incredibly bone-headed “Oops!” chain and that the media is ruining his career. Obviously, his acting like a total douche bag has NOTHING to do with it. None whatsoever. The sad thing is, not only did he manage to sell 102,000 albums in his first week, but 46% of teens sided with Chris Brown, proving that children are fucking AWFUL.


#9 – Maine

...Or as I like to call it, California 2: Electric Boogaloo. Because apparently, no one learned anything from Proposition 8, Maine became the second state to vote to take away the results of gay and lesbian couples because it was “unconstitutional”, proving once and for all that Maine does not know jackshit about the constitution. Apparently, nothing would ruin the sanctity of two people entering a life-long loving commitment like two people entering a life-long loving commitment.


#8 – Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh has been a total douchebag for a long time, and I mean a looooooooooooooong time, but this year he really pulled out all the stops. With the Republican Party without a strong leader, the power vacuum was sufficiently filled with Rush’s fat ass. He proved to be a strong leader, if by “strong” you mean “Completely off his shit”. It’s one thing to dislike the president based on his opinions and views, but when you say that you hope he fails when the country is in the worst recession in decades, that just proves that you love your ideals more than you love your country. I mean really, how would a country benefit if a president failed exactly? Wait to think this one through, dumbass.


#7 – Jim Cramer

Look, it’s great that people want to make normally boring areas fun and exciting for the sake of knowledge. Super. But when it comes to people’s money and lifesavings, having fun usually takes a backseat to being able to pay for a roof over your head and for food on your table. But apparently, Jim decided that fuck common sense! Spend spend spend! Spend money you don’t have because the crazy fuck on TV told you so! Needless to say, watching Jon Stewart absolutely butcher him into a snivelling pile was the most satisfying moment of TV of 2009.


#6 – Sarah Palin

Palin would be a much better politician if she actually imposed her on values on herself rather than others. Want the media to stop spreading lies? Great. Stop saying that Obama is creating a death panel to kill your granny and babies. You say you’re ready to be Vice president? Super. Then why did you ditch your post as Governor of Alaska? Because people were too harsh on you? Of course they were. As opposed to saying that you’re political opponent was a socialist friend of terrorists who wasn’t born in this country. Never has one woman spoken so much yet said so little.


#5 – Joe Lieberman

Here’s a thought right here: If the majority of Americans approve of something that would benefit those too poor to afford health insurance while also keeping the option open for those who WANT health insurance to continue using it, it might not be such a great idea to filibuster the damn thing while the American people become increasingly more irate about how completely and totally useless both the house and the senate has become.


#4 – Glenn Beck

No one quite embodied the absolute feeling of paranoia in 2009 quite like Glenn Beck. He out-crazied even the most batshit insane of lunatic talking heads by crying on television, dousing guests with water poured out of gasoline tanks, pulling random words out of his ass in order to misspell words, an proving that no matter how irrational and emotionally unstable a person is, as long as they spout out keywords that people want to hear, they too can have their own show on Fox News. Also, he raped and killed a girl in 1990 (...Or did he?)


#3 – Bernie Madoff

Most people who want to make money usually just get a job. Some will do something amazing and be rewarded with tons of money for it. Some will go so far as to maybe rob some random bank or store. It takes a special kind of assholeishness to create a Ponzi scheme, scam 4,800 people out of a collective $64 Billion dollars and then rot away in jail while you show absolutely no remorse for your actions. On the plus side, he’s now eating pizza cooked by a child molester, so HA! on that one.


#2 – Nidal Malik Hasan

Non-sensible people should stay as far away from -isms as they possibly can. Case in point: This piece of shit, who killed 13 people in the Fort Hood Massacre. It’s one thing to have religious beliefs, but it’s another to use them as an excuse to go on a shooting spree in a military base. Killing 13 people and injuring 30 more doesn’t make you a man of God, it just makes you some crazy fuck who murdered a bunch of innocent people because of what you thought one old book told you to do.


#1 –Wallstreet

Was there ever any doubt these guys would be number 1? It’s one thing to douche it up in the confines of your own home, or TV show, or even state. But when you manage to fuck over a collective nation through your own capitalistic greed, that just goes above and beyond the call of douchey. At what point do you stop and go “Maybe rewarding those who managed to run the American Economy in the ground probably wasn’t the greatest idea?” And people wonder why we feel the need for government intervention. For encouraging a society of instant gratification, greed, and petty materialism that tanked the national economy, Wallstreet is The Biggest Douchebag of 2009.
Until next year, seriously; don't be a douchebag.

The 25 Biggest Douchebags of 2009, Part 1: #25-11

#25 - Kanye West

You all knew this one was coming, right? You don’t just barge onstage, tell Taylor Swift (who despite what you think of her music does seem genuinely sweet) that she doesn’t deserve her award, and expect to get away scot free. Mind you, he wins brownie points for actually seeming sorry for it, but still, it’s just not a list of Douchebags without Kanye West.

#24 - Tiger Woods

Oh Tiger...and to think, all this could have been avoided if you just stuck with putting your balls in 18 holes instead of your...Well, you know where I’m going with this. Point is, if you’re willing to cheat on your wife with at least 8 different women, you totally deserve whatever the hell is coming to you.

#23 – ABC

I know ABC made the list last year for cancelling Pushing Daisies (and I’m still pretty pissed about that), but they made it on this year for an entirely different reason. Namely, for going completely batshit over Adam Lambert’s performance and even going so far as to drop him from interviews in favour of Chris Brown. According to ABC, being gay = Bad. Beating women = A-Okay!

#22 - The Kardashians

Oh fuck did these women ever sneak up on me. They were quietly douching it up for the past couple years, but this year they really hit their stride. Khloe faked a shotgun marriage for ratings on her crappy TV show, Kourtney had a baby despite not even knowing who the father was because she forgot to take the pill, and Kim...Well, Kim just kept being useless. These girls are Klassy with a capital “K”.

#21 - Tareq and Michaele Salahi

Pop Quiz! You want to be famous, but you don’t have any actual talent or common sense. Do you (A) realize that success without effort is a sham and that no decent human being would ever attempt such a thing, or (B) trespass on White House Property in the hopes of making it onto a reality show about stupid spoiled whores? If you guessed B, congrats! You’re probably going to jail.

#20 – Michael Lohan

I honestly could have put any of The Lohans onto this one, but Daddy Lohan wins it for being an outright terrible father. Not only did he leak private phone conversations between himself and his crying daughter for money, he also sees absolutely nothing wrong with wearing a mesh shirt and showing off his moobs and you just puked all over your keyboard on that one didn’t you?

#19 – Perez Hilton

Earlier this year, Perez Hilton forgot the one rule of gossip blogging: That chances are no matter how much you think they do, most celebrities usually don’t really deserve the kind of smack we throw at them (it’s true; even I know this) and that they deserve to throw at least one punch at you. Instead, Perez lost his shit after taking one to the face from the manager of the Black Eyed Peas, despite saying he had no respect for them and calling him a “Faggot”. Seriously, say that to ANYONE and you’d be punched in the face. Common sense, homeskillet.

#18 – Tila Tequila

I should probably preface this one by saying that I hate Tila Tequila more than any celebrity ever, and if it were up to me, she’d be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. But this year she not only proved that she was a vapid, horrid slag, but that she was also COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE by pulling her tampon out on Ustream, getting engaged to a felon and releasing a sex tape because of fucking course she has one.

#17 – Jay Leno

Back when he was on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno was pedestrian at best, and mind-numbingly awful at worst, and just plain unfunny on average. But old people whose sense of humour died during the Reagan days loved him, so NBC decided to nix a whole bunch of legitimately good television in order to give Leno his own show FIVE NIGHTS A WEEK. Remember kids, you don’t need to be funny to be on TV; you just need to have a show that can be funded by pocket change and product integration.

#16 – Carrie Prejean

I could go on and on about Carrie Prejean, but instead, I’ll just list off the many things she doesn’t understand: If you don’t follow your contract, you will be fired; You cannot be persecuted if you are in the majority and are the one who is persecuting; Freedom of Speech applies to both sides of the debate, not just yours; If you make a sex tape, it will get on the internet; Lying that you were 17 when you made the sex tape will not save your ass; There is no same- or opposite-marriage, just marriage; Where the sun goes at night.

#15 – Nadya “Octomom” Suleman

Here’s the thing: You want to be a mother? Great. By all means have as many kids as you want, as long as (and this the important part) you actually have the resources necessary to care for them beforehand, rather than assuming that people will be so flabbergasted by your clown car of a vagina that they will dish out Scrooge MacDuck money bags of cash for your 14 children despite the fact that you have no visible source of income. That is what is known in most circles as being a shitty mother.

#14 – Michael Jackson’s Entourage

Say what you will, but Michael Jackson was, without a doubt, THE entertainer of the generation. So of course it’s only natural that when he died, friends and family would jump on his corpse like those two a-hole kids from Hop on Pop. Doctors weighed in! Kids were pimped out to the masses! Family members created their own TV shows! And Joe Jackson used it as the golden opportunity to garner press for his record company, proving once and for all that you can’t spell ”family” without “my fail”.

#13 – The Heene Family

Along with Octomom and the White House Party Crashers, The Heene Family marks the third entry on the list looking for a reality TV deal, which should probably tip you off as to one particularly awful pattern. After somehow managing to convince an entire nation that their son was carried off in a balloon that could in no way hold him, they took to the morning show circuit where Balloon Boy himself outed them for the famewhoring jackoffs they were, then proceeded to puke on live TV. Combine that with their ignorant rap video, crazy alien theories complete lack of foresight and it’s easy to see why they might be heading to the big house.

#12 – Jon and Kate Gosselin

In the beginning, the Gosselins were just two ordinary people who had a shitload of babies. Then TLC came along, and suddenly Kate turned into the Beldam from Coraline and Jon turned into the Fat Asian Spencer Pratt, albeit with more Ed Hardy clothing. The kids ultimately became second thought as these two pimped out book, milkshakes and shitty hair-dos before divorcing one week before Christmas. Nice to see they didn’t let their fame come before their kids.

#11 – Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag

The absolute goddamn pinnacle of Reality TV trash. Not only did they get rich off the concept of displaying the absolute worst aspects of humanity, they EMBRACED the notion, constantly labelling themselves the villains. Between quitting charitable game-shows, releasing crappy song after crappy song, walking around in public reading Playboy and even going so far as to name himself King of a democratic nation, these two managed to simultaneously disprove both the existence of God and Darwinism.

Cannonball Read Entry #10: If The Rains Don't Cleanse - Ben Patrick Johnson

In the interest of the newly instated full-disclosure thing working it's way through the blogs, I received my copy of of If The Rains Don't Cleanse as a gift from Johnson for the Cannonball Read. That being said, if you're going to dismiss what is probably the most thoroughly-researched and best written book of 2009 based on that alone, you obviously have no place reading books as it is.

Rains is an account of Johnson's parents, both missionary workers in Belgian Congo during the time of Congo's first steps towards independence. Rather than use his actual parents, we are brought into the world trough the eyes of Eva Dunagan, a young woman who travels to Africa with her husband out of a combined sense of duty to the lord and his people and a classic case of wanderlust.

For those expecting a heavy-handed message on the subject of working for the church or for the struggles of a country coming to grips with what it truly means to be independent, you won't find one here. Johnson has spent fourteen years researching for this book, and the amount of care and attention to detail shows. To put that into perspective: fourteen years ago, I was in kindergarten and my mother had The Rachel.

It's a turbulent political climate, but Johnson never falls into the trappings of being preachy or one-sided. He recognizes that the while whites came with advanced medicine and education, it was at the cost of African culture, and while the men of Africa tend to be hostile and violent, you can still see why they would act that way, even if you don't agree with their reasoning. The term grey area works on more than one level here.

The only problem I had with Rains is that if you try to cram 14 years of research and study into 362 pages, you're essentially stuffing ten pounds of sugar into a five pound bag. The result is that side-stories tend to get lost in the shuffle, including the backstory and the romantic relationship between Eva and her husband, Richard. It is a major consolation to know that these subplots are downplayed so that Johnson can tell an ultimately greater and more fulfilling story.

This slight critique aside, it's hard to find fault If The Rains Don't Cleanse, especially when it's so well-intentioned and so beautifully written. It's a powerful story that walks an already delicate political narrative, but when you're this thorough in your work, the results tend to speak for themselves.

The 10 Most Irritating Songs of 2009

#10 - Mariah Carey, Obsessed
Say what you will, but everyone knows that Mariah has one hell of an octave range, so it confuses me why she feels the need to rely on it like a crutch. I'm guessing it's there to distract people from the D-Grade insults she tosses out at Great White Nope Eminem.


#9 - Britney Spears, 3

Circus pretty much marked a creative wall for Britney. Sure, her songs dealt with sex before, but her latest album marked the moment when Britney started exclusively relying on manufactured controversy rather than the (admittedly little) talent she actually has.


#8 - Jordin Sparks, Battlefield

Oooooo, yay! I love this song! Heartache to heartache, right? No? You mean this is just a crappy R&B number that apes off another more successful song while Sparks strains her already weak-voice to an uncomfortable and almost constant breaking point? Bummer.


#7 - Nickelback, If Today Was Your Last Day

Any Nickelback song from this year could have been on the list. Why? Because each one is completely and totally indistinguishable from one another. No band has ever made as much money by beating a dead horse as Nickelback has.


#6 - Pitbull, I Know You Want Me
Granted, a lot of artists tend to lose their vocals in the production, and sometimes they even pull it off (See: The Strokes, Kylie Minogue), but in the case of Pitbull the backing track is so mind-bogglingly awful that his voice doesn't so much meld as it does wallow.


#5 - Eminem, We Made You

Ever watch a movie as a kid and think it was the funniest thing in the world, then watch it five years later and realize that is was, in fact, absolute shit? Such is the case with Eminem. Not only was the song a shameless rehash, but in it's attempt to be topical, it ended up sounding like a bad Jay Leno monologue from two months prior.


#4 - Flo Rida, Right Round

No. There is absolutely no goddamn reason why we need anyone (let alone someone who named themselves after a state populated by retirees and tourists) recording an auto-tuned rendition of Dead or Alive's You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).


#3 - Black Eyed Peas, Boom Boom Pow

Let's see here...Ridiculously lazy beat? Check. Needless use of Auto-Tune? Check. Somehow getting Fergie to oversing parts that are meant to be oversung in the first place? Yup. It's gonna take a special kind of suck to top this.


#2 - Miley Cyrus, Party In The U.S.A.
...Aaaaaaaand we have our runner-up. I initially dismissed this song based on it's title, which borders on self-parody, but after actually listening to it...Well, even if you dismiss the poser-heavy lyrics, Miley's nasal-drone and half-assed guitars don't exactly do it any favours.


#1 - Asher Roth, I Love College

Oh Roth...You may have flown under most people's radars, becoming a modest success, but nothing draws scorn like cashing in off a song that celebrates the most vapid, self-absorbed aspects of College while pushing the "Privileged White Boy" schtick down our throats. If this song was a person, it would have a popped collar, an Ed Hardy Hat and it would be roofie-ing your Jungle Juice. Listening to this song should be grounds for chemical castration. It really is just that awful.

Here Comes 2010...

Well, it's almost that time of year again: The time where everyone decides to do a bunch of shit with no actual intention of actually fulfilling it. So to commemorate this, let's look back on last year's Resolutions, and then see what I can promise myself this time.

New Motto: You're not the only one who's ever been hurt.

• So far, still a pretty good Motto. Although I may change that to something more optimistic.
  

Stop trying to please and bend over backwards for people who obviously couldn't give two shits about me.

• Nope. Failed this and failed it hard. I am Jeremy, king of the doormats. Bow before my passive-aggressiveness.
  

Learn how to bartend. Seriously, that shit looks like fun.

• Working on that one right now, and so far? Not a bad job. With any luck, I might even work at a REAL bar someday! Crossin' my fingers.
  

Listen to Dustin when he says not to go see a crappy movie, even if it is Christmas. Lesson learned, Rowles, lesson learned.

• Well, I tried, but to be fair I DID put Terminator 4 on the list of movies I had to watch, and you don't just walk away from a commitment like that. Even then, it wasn't, you know, THAT awful. I mean it wasn't great, but not awful.
  

Try my hand at my dream job.

• If you haven't figured this one out by now...Yup. Porn. And for the record, I am one superbeautifulmonster, it's just that no one really knows me yet, but mark my words, I will fucking rock the shit out of 2010.
  

Move out of my parent's house(s). Which is going to be easy since I'm a full time college student.

• Also done! And as much as I love my family, I love them even more when I don't see them everyday. Sorta like how you get sick of eating Chipotle if you eat it everday, then you wait a week and realize that you LOVE Chipotle...Only without the whole "Crapping Blood" thing.
  

Try not to drink a bottle of Drain-O.

• Shockingly enough, accomplished. I totally just high-fived myself.
  

Find a boyfriend. Everyone I know seems to have found one at pretty much the exact same time, so now I'm the odd one out. Oh well, they all seem pretty happy about it, so I might as well give it a try.

• Okay, so...Yeah. I found one, but then it wasn't, but then it was, and then he died. I'm not sure if I won or lost this one. The part of me that loves him says I won, but the part of me that misses him says I lost.
  

If I'm angry at someone, be it because they break something expensive, refuse to listen to me, or blow me off for some bullshit excuse, tell them that they are, in fact, full of shit.

• Well...Sorta. I kinda did a couple times, but there are still a few douchebags out there who need to realize that you don't fuck with Jeremy Feist and walk away without being voodoo-ed.
  

If someone does something that really makes them happy, encourage them.

• To be fair, I did. It's not like I was on the sidelines waving pom-poms, but I still did it.
  

Make (as Liz Phair put it) shitloads of money.

• I wouldn't qualify it as shitloads just yet, but I did manage to fucking buh-buh-BANK this year.
  

Learn how to play the Cello. Not sure why, but I've always had a fondness for Cellos.

• Yeah, I just did not even bother trying with this one. Fail. Complete and total fail on my part here.

Alright, so what does the New Year bring? Well, how about this:

• Move out of Montreal to either Toronto, New York or California. Although I'm kinda hoping for the latter.
• Bulk up and reach 180 by this time next year.
• Finally (FINALLY) start doing work for big name studios. Even if I have to beg, bribe, blackmail and every other b-word to do it (Burgle? Bully? Bitch? Help me out here.)
• Get a boyfriend. Again.
• Learn to play the ukulele. Scientifically speaking, they rock harder with less square footage than a cello.
• Start writing.
  

I Just Shit A Brick

HO. LEE. SHIT. This is either the greatest thing ever or the greatest best thing that God has ever given man on the face of the earth. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

Also, it feature Jon Hamm in bed. Seriously, that's prime fantasy fuel right there.

I think Stace put it best in her review (which you can, and will, read here) when she said "The Room is a film that is just so fundamentally terrible in every single facet of its being that it somehow has transcended into a thing of wonder." Honestly, it may just be the most delightfully shitastic movie to ever be crapped out onto celluloid.

The 10 Most Underrated Albums of the Aughts

Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward!
This one was pretty much dead before it hit the water. The members of the band, most of who couldn't even drink legally at the time, were at their breaking point with each other, and the best songs were cut due to content matter. That being said, it was the product of a great band that simply had to end.

Kerli - Love Is Dead

Between the creepy album cover, the fact that she came from Estonia and her creepy baby-doll look, Kerli didn't stand a chance. To be perfectly fair, while her tracks were fairly standard pop fair, she still had enough creativity and charm behind it to turn an otherwise ordinary album into something better than it should have been.

Kylie Minogue - X

Oddly enough, upon it's inital release in the Europe X was met with less than stellar reviews, the reason for which is beyond me. Sure, her voice tends to get lost in the production, but every track on the album had single potential, and she did it all after beating breast cancer. So suck on that one cancer.

Spinnerette - Spinnerette

Sad to say, but almost every song off Spinerrette's debut as pretty much a hit or miss. While they never really found stable ground, the strength of singles like Ghetto Love and Baptized By Fire more than made up for the lesser half of their first outing.

Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War

When someone mentions Stars, they'll usually talk about their earlier work (most likely the awe-inspiring Your Ex-Lover Is Dead.) While their last release didn't hold the same indie-movie charm as their previous albums did, it still had moments of equal emotional impact.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

At this point, Foxtrot Yankee Hotel has practically risen to the point of mythical standards in indie-circles, so it's natural to overlook anything that would even try to follow the act. Regardless, Sky Blue Sky might not have been well-received but it still had the same basic tone and feel of YFH.

Liz Phair - Liz Phair

Holy Christ...So much as mention Liz Phair's self-titled release in front of any music snob and they'll release the kind of vitriol usually reserved puppy murderers. While it was essentially the anti-thesis of her garage-rock magnum opus Exile in Guyville, it was a solid pop record that boasted tracks that were miles ahead of most other artists in the genre.

The New Pornographers - Challengers

Blame it on the fact that after two absolutely jaw-dropping releases (Mass Romantic and Twin Cinema), the Canadian supergroup couldn't release quite the hat-trick they were hoping for. Nevertheless, the title track was delicately beautiful, and Mutiny, I Promise You was twee at it's finest.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones

Another sophomore curse. To be fair though, Show Your Bones' unevenness can be contributed to the band coping with newfound fame while trying not to kill each other behind the scenes, a sentiment more than perfectly phrased in Cheated Hearts' mantra "Sometimes I think that I'm bigger than the sound."

Esthero - Wikked Lil' Grrrls

It still confuses me as to how exactly so many people could simply overlook this one. An absolutely flawless album that married jazz with electronica, every track is pure gold, and Bad Boy Clyde is still like a warm blanket on a cold dark night.

I Do Not Hook Up

As part of my (thus far failed) attempt to recruit models, I ended up joining Manhunt, the Amazon.com of gay sex. While I soon realized that Manhunt was utterly useless for scouting purposes, I soon realized that it had some intrinsic benefits. Namely, that it would jump-start my absymal sex life.

Considering that my previous relationships have (to put it lightly) not ended quite as well as I would have hoped, I decided that a string of meaningless, unemotional and probably-unhealthy-but-incredibly-sexy one night stands would be exactly what I needed. There were no complications, no commitments, and no emotional connections whatsoever. Just sex. Sex sex sex sex sex. And then that's it. It was just what I needed.

It was only once I actually logged onto Manhunt that I realized that everyone on the site was, for lack of a better term, completely and totally crazycakes. One of the first guys I ended up talking too, who by the looks of his profile picture was evidently a set of disembodied abdominal muscles, sent me the oh so debonair message of "HORNY WHERE R U?" Naturally, I was simply standing in a puddle of sexual anticipation. How could I possibly resist such a tempting offer? Then I remembered I had work that night. And dignity. When I told him I wasn't available, he responded with "CALISE LOSER."

And they say chivalry is dead.

A little while later, I got an IM from a guy asking me to come over for some mutual masturbation. His avatar was what you could call "decent", and a quickie jack-off session meant I didn't have to wash up. When I asked when he was available, he responded by saying that not only was his profile picture fake, but he had a boyfriend, and that he was just fantasizing and didn't actually want any action.

An hour later, he was back, asking me to come over. Never mind the fact that he had a boyfriend he apparently loved. In fact, he seemed completely content in dumping his relationship woes on me, and then acted surprised when I decided that this scenario was too awkward, and the only baggage a guy had that I was interested in was the one between his legs.

The third and final straw came in the form of a decidedly sexy younger guy dating an older but not altogether ugly guy. Obviously, I had walked into the dreaded sugar daddy zone. Thankfully, after drinks and casual sex, everything seemed to be in the clear.

Until of course the two began arguing and I as dragged in as the filthy homereckers who may or may not be schtupping Tiger Woods. It was at this point that I decided to give up and and all forms of sex that didn't come with a paycheck. Say what you will about porn, but at least you know where you stand, and at the end of day you're waking home having played the part of the mistress.

Porn was where I belonged, in the safe, sweet and sane land of the adult entertainment biz, where at least people weren't completely batshit insane. Just partially.