DANGER: Mexican Restaurant Parking Policy

My pal Julie and I went to Guadalajara for lunch the other day. We noticed this strange message (pictured) between the tablecloth and glass cover beneath our chips'y'salsa.

While I understand the folks at Guad are trying to keep patrons from getting their cars towed, I think somebody should alert the staff that it's never a good idea to put skull-and-crossbones iconography or the words "DANGER" and "STOP" on a dining table. They could consider adding these messages to their jumbo margaritas, however.

Tighten up and feel the force flowing through you...

If you enjoy Star Wars and you like to laugh, which means you are one of the 6.5 billion people on the planet, and you have yet to see the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special, you will get another chance to tighten your shit up tomorrow night. It is hilarious. Check this skit if you don't believe me. Cartoon Network Sunday night at 11:00.

PS- Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy is the voice of the emperor.

Pentagon: tighten up and buy more Robosauri, rather than fantasmical star wars missile defense system

Tightness Grabbag

Cocktail Hour: While we enjoyed half-price dirty martinis at Fat Black Pussy Cat last night in the Village, St. Louis native Maggie Grady told me about her grandfather's lifelong commitment to his daily 5pm martini, including his habit of keeping a trusty travel kit in the trunk of his car. He always made sure to provide for his wife's scotch and soda, too! Well played, sir.

Stitch This: They've been at it for a few catalogs now, but J.Crew's monogram option on their cashmere sweaters is pretty tight. You know, if you're into that sort of thing *coughpeppercoughcough*....I wonder if Nigella & Co. get theirs done.

One for the girls: If I could engage in some time travel right now, I'd go straight back to the dark days of 1998 and tell my angry/confused high school sophomore self to discover eyebrow waxing, yes, but also to HOLD ON because the Spice Girls will one day get back together and it's going to be zig-a-zig- AWESOME.

Speaking of awesome: The best use of Flash ever ever. Seriously.

Tighten up and vote for Mr. Maroo before noon today!

My high school mascot is in the final four four for best high school mascot in Texas. His name is Mr. Maroo. He is difficult to explain, but basically he is an anthropomorphized poof ball with a beanie and huge eye balls. This is a matter of extreme pride for my high school; we will likely never actually get to the finals in Texas 5A football, so we would appreciate your support. As a side note, this mascot danced around the field featured in "Dazed and Confused" that served as one of our "home venues." No, this is not a joke. What could be more tight that walking poof balls?

http://www.texasfootball.com/

It's the game, not the player that's the problem

Fellow bacon lover Newt Gingrich reiterates today in the Washington Times that, "The haters have to be defeated."

Newt, we here at The Report couldn't agree more. Fuck a hater.

The CRB and RIAA Need to T-Up, STAT!

The Copyright Royalties Board and the Recording Industry Association of America have teamed up to make my mornings and workdays totally lame. This is because they're trying to make public radio broadcasters pay webcasting royalties commensurate with those of the overstuffed, money-drunk commercial broadcasters that play things like James Blunt and Blue October. Read/weep.

It's messy and complicated, but the first article estimates that a small web station that now pays $10,000 in royalties a year will have to pay $700,000 and more under the CRB's draconian policy. I haven't looked into the revenue streams of my favorite stations lately, but I figure there's a good chance that KCRW , WFUV and la-la can't afford this, not to mention companies like Pandora, who would have to pay for each webstream created by its 7 million registered users, each of whom can create up to 100 (I have 10).

Today is the gently disruptive protest in support of the Internet Radio Equality Act. Please help. As for you, CRB and RIAA, tighten your greedy, lame-ass shit up or I will find a way to lock you in a room with a radio that only plays contemporary hits from the 80s, 90s, and today, and see how you like it.

Call me sensitive...

...but if you're going to toss around the names of loaded social policies like "urban renewal", you'd best have something else to offer besides precocious, overpriced outfits and mildly clever word play. Urban renewal was a desperate policy born of 1960s domestic political turmoil that resulted in the somewhat arbitrary destruction of buildings and communities all across America's troubled cities. I'm not saying it was all bad, but the policy's history is spotty, to say the least. Your average Urban Outfitters shopper wouldn't know Jane Jacobs from Jane Austen, but they'll probably buy a kicky little green tunic because they're unwittingly enchanted by the pale wordsmithery peddled by Urban Outfitters' Santorum-supporting president.

Hypocrisy alert #1: I love Anthropologie, which is part of the Urban Outfitters Inc. triumvarate (the third is Free People) and would probably marry it if I could. But I'm not really proud of that and in fact feel kind of manipulated/drugged by its aesthetic which is kind of weird given the whole "I'm such an individual, look at my funky style" thing. Hm.

Hypocrisy alert #2: As the editor of an urban planning magazine called - simply - URBAN, I fall victim to urban-related word play (including the one in question) on a daily basis when writing mag-related emails. But, you know, that's TOTALLY DIFFERENT.

Le sigh

My fellow Americans, the questions in this Newsweek poll weren't some Algebraic hooey, i.e. "True or False: The angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the meat?" These are basic questions from geography and history.

Fox News tight for first time ever; planets realign.

This past Friday, Fox News ran a segment on Take Your Dog to Work Day. Congratulations, Fox, on picking the coolest office in town.

Pants Suit (AND clever double entendre) settled: Judge gets nothing

I know this is all over the news, but it pleases me to note the resolution of administrative court judge Roy Pearson's frivolous law suit in which he sued his local dry cleaners for $54M in the matter of temporarily misplaced pants. Renewing my faith in humanity, however briefly (George Bush, after all, has probably not yet had his Count Chocula and cinnamon toast this morning), Judge Judith Bartnoff awarded Pearson nothing.

It pleases me that Pearson has not only been humiliated publicly (he began crying on the witness stand), but his job is also in danger: I believe it is right that a man whose profession is to dispense justice should be recalled from the bench when he has so manifestly demonstrated his unfitness for the position.

Way to be tight, Judge Bartnoff.

Shut down Gitmo

Rummy's mercifully been canned but still sailing on his yacht free from care like the megalomaniac Ahab figure he's always wanted to be, Cheney is pouting on Sunday mornings when he isn't threatening Iran (these guys love air craft carriers) from an air craft carrier, Al Gonzo is suffering from Can't Remember Shizzle, and Bush's record low approval ratings are explained away by some sort of hallucanagenic conservative think tank shroomscapade that he will be vindicated a la Prez Truman.

Miserable Failures All. The last thing they can do to save any semblance of face is to SHUT DOWN GITMO. Not "sometime in the future" as today's AP story reports. Now.

"Ms. Perino, the White House spokeswoman, noted today that the United States plans to release about 80 of the detainees soon. “America does not have any intention of being the world’s jailer,” she said."

Ok, we just want to jail at least a quarter or more of our own poor people.

At least Gates has the balls to make this an issue. Will they tighten up finally this weekend? Discuss!

Wonkette is a loose hussy

Wonkette, consider yourself on Tightness Watch for this double double post post. Photo evidence of your sordid looseness below. Disgusting.

My Heritage is tight

How often do you go to a cocktail party and meet someone who says, "Hey Orville, you know, you look just like a rugged, young Robert Redford...do you like bluegra...can I get you a drink?" only to wake up confused the next day wearing a soiled Leaf's jersey in a strange man's apartment?

Well now there is a proactive way to defend yourself from the snowjob by seeing just how tight (scientifically speaking) your visage is to that of Holly and Bollywood's finest.

According to local news Channel 6 out of Sarasota, a large number of bottlenose dolphin bite cases have been reported recently. I believe the tighten up in this case should go to the aholes putting their limbs near the mouths of wild animals. I mean, how many episodes of "When Animals Attack" do we really need to see. Last time I checked Fox was on edition number 27. Please people of my state, stop being statistics, even really randomly weird ones like victims of dolphin attacks.

Wardrobe Successfully Transported; Driver Credits Tightness

While in Charlottesville this past weekend, I bought an all cedar wardrobe to protect my woolens from the hungry summer moth (Opodiphthera eucalypti). It was too big to fit in the back of my car, so Becca, Kristen and I (well, Kristen and I...tighten that up, Becca) strapped it to the roof racks using some fine nylon ties (purchased at Lowe's... highly recommended). That sucker was so tight, I don't think it moved an inch during the whole trip. I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Kristen and me for being totally, totally awesome.

Irshad Manji: "Salman Rushdie tight, suicide bombings weak"

Irshad Manji is by her own admission not a scholar of Islam, the Qur'an, or Hadith literature. Her widely publicized, emotional appeal to the Muslim people led to her being both shunned and embraced by Muslims the world over.

I am no great fan of her writing however her response today to the death threats issued earlier this week from MPs in Pakistan and Iran following the Knighting of Salman Rushdie by the British monarch is a resounding call for Muslims worldwide to tighten up before blowing up.

Dear Blogger,

Thanks for letting us tell the world to Tighten Up, and for free no less! But seriously, tighten up some of your functionality.

For example:
1 Allow html in comments
2 Allow reply strings/threatds in comments (as on vimeo)
3 Allow a display of posts by author (you already to it with tags anyway).
4 Increase the usefulness of author profiles (which you know damned well nobody looks at) by allowing html and linking.

...and about a thousand other things that I haven't thought of yet.

I wanted to post this picture of the Michelin man as a comment in response to Orville's Newt Gingrich post, but I couldn't do it (you can do it on Flickr).

Seriously, prove you're owned by Google and make this thing run like a Swiss watch.

Sincerely,
The Tightness Advisory Board

Blogestan saves adulterers from death by stoning

The Iranian people--whether during ancient times when they formed the first pony express and built the first pontoon bridges, or now in the present day when they continue to manufacture the finest carbonated yogurt drinks in the world--are pretty tight.

Today's efforts by the Persophone/Iranian web community to save a couple from being stoned to death is an example of what happens when we combine our collective tightnesses for the good of all humanity.

Hats off to you Blogestan. Mullahs, beware the tightness.

Dear Wilco,

Your new album, much as it pains me to say it, sucks. What a disappointment. In five years, you've gone from the pop opus of "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" to . . . I don't even know what. How do you describe an album that, after a half dozen listens, leaves no impression whatsoever? Crap - that's how.

Jeff Tweedy, et al., I'm going to see you in concert tomorrow, and while it's unreasonable to ask you to skip these latest songs altogether in favor of your excellent back catalog, if you're going to perform a few tracks from Sky Blue Sky, could you at least tighten them up and breathe a little life into them? Thanks.

One Example in the Long List of Tightness Needed in Texas

A crowd gathered at an annual Austin, Texas festival recently assaulted and beat a man to death who was a passenger in a car that minorly injured a girl by hitting her at low speed. According to reports, David Morales, the passenger, got out of the car to check on the little girl when he was set upon by a few dozen festival goers and eventually died at a local hospital of blunt force trauma. Come on. I mean really. I expect this sort of thing out of Pakistanis or Somalis, but Texans? Not only did they beat a guy to death on the streets, they beat the WRONG guy to death. He wasn't even the one that hit the girl, who, by the way, was totally fine and released from the hospital a few hours after the incident. So, in honor of our recent 100th tighten up, I am giving a double scolding to the festival attendees in Austin. Tighten Up and Calm the F*$k Down!

As an aside to all our readers not from the US, Texans are totally crazy and the only reason I am posting this is because I am far too afraid to say something like this to a real live Texan. Seriously, they are nuts. Oh, and they're armed. Crazy and armed. Don't say I didn't warn you. Aside from that Austin really is a fun place to visit...

Lardbucket Republican tight-ass surprisingly loose with facts

Politicians, in general, are in need of constant tightening (in the business it's called 'image control' or 'brand management'). However, when professional historian and fellow bacon-lover, Newt Ginrich, gets his facts wrong while invoking 9/11, John McCain, AND a Kennedy in a video trailer for his soon-to-be-doomed presidential campaign we can only say, Newt, Tighten UP. And go jogging to lose those Taftian titties of yours. Fatty.

US Army needs wartime fact-checking, tightening

Is it possible that we don’t understand the Middle East because we can’t get the simplest details of their languages correct? Take the US Army Linguist Recruitment site for example. Did you know that Pashto, Kurdish, AND Persian are in the ‘Arabic Language Family?’ Wait a minute Orville, no they’re not. Those are clearly Indo-European languages, with syntax and vocabulary which parallels many western European and northern European languages. Clearly.

Uncle Sam, Tighten UP

Tighten Up and Drive Right

The Vatican recently released the "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road," or the 10 Commandments of driving. Apparently, the Vatican believes operating a motor vehicle is an "occasion for sin," so they put forth really useful ideas like thou shalt not drive and drink, thou shalt assist accident victims, and my personal fav, thou shalt not make rude gestures behind the wheel. I'm really not making this up. The irony? There has never been a fatal traffic accident in Vatican City and the top speed limit in the entire country is 30 kph (that's about 19 mph). So, next time you're behind the wheel and some idiot puts on his right blinker and than cuts you off in the left lane, tighten up or you won't get into Heaven.

Smarmy banker feigns taste.

The New York Times published an article today explaining recent developments in the story of modernist architect (and designer of NYC's Whitney Museum) Marcel Breuer's only skyscraper, the Cleveland Trust Tower in Boston. The city of Boston has purchased the building and plans to demolish it and construct in its place a 15-story building at a cost of $223M (retrofitting the existing 29-story tower would cost $185-$200M, a significant savings for taxpayers). Along with Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus school), Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier, Breuer was a founding architect of the modernist movement, and a designer of tremendous skill and distinction.

It goes nearly without saying that I think the building is worth preserving and retrofitting for both cultural and financial reasons, but Julie Baker, a commercial banker quoted by the Times, disagrees: "That thing looks like a collector’s case for Matchbox cars...If I could get a wrecking ball, I’d tear it down myself.”

Wow, thanks for your opinion, Julie! If I had some brass knuckles, I'd punch you in the face. I don't give a damn what you think, you unconsidered savage. I bet if your thinking was so short-sighted at that fancy commercial bank of yours, they'd have fired you last week. Regardless of what you think, the building has a singular meaning for the city of Boston and for the architectural community, and the vicissitudes of your taste are a minuscule irrelevance compared to it. Also, it's great of you to consider the waste of material and embedded energy produced by demolishing a building that large...I guess it's just like throwing away a paper towel you used to dry your hands, right? Thank you, though, for participating in the now well-worn cycle of judgment that so often underappreciates an artist in his or her own time or soon thereafter, resulting frequently in the destruction or mistreatment of what time almost inevitably accords--especially in the case of otherwise celebrated creators--widespread acceptance, AND, gasp!, sometimes even appreciation.

So, numskull, how 'bout you tighten up that loose cannon mouth of yours and consider the dialog occurring between the tower and the adjacent Beaux-Arts rotunda -- you might put your brain to good use.

Miraculously, Graduate Students are Correct

On June 12, The New York Times published an article by frequent architecture writer David Dunlap in which he noted that portions of the former Tiffany & Co. building at no. 15 Union Square West--long ago overclad in brick--had been exposed, revealing elements of the original cast iron facade from the Tiffany days.

What a marvelous revelation! -- and one speculated by the Columbia University Historic Preservation Studio of 2006 (which published it, along with a fine historical-architectural perspective on Union Square and 14th Street, HERE!).

I can't really tell the Times to tighten up since we weren't able to check under the brick ourselves last year (so Dunlap is reporting legitimate news), but by God we wanted to!

Cost of War on Iraq

From the National Priorities Project. As of this posting, this amount equals approximately 4 million public housing units, the cost of enrolling 57 million children in project head start, etc. etc. Instead, we (our tax dollars, people) pay for a war of choice without end. Tighten up and re-prioritize, EE UU.

Tighten Up: the camera phone edition

In recent days I've seen two completely ridiculous sights. First, on Sunday in Georgetown, Mollie alerted me to this window display at Sisley:



The writing is a bit hard to make out, due to the setting sun and the general crappiness of the camera phone, but it says:

Getting' groovy
S I S L E Y

Sisley, a subsidiary of the United Colors of Benetton, is generally to be praised for its clothing offerings. However, they are worthy of nothing but scorn in matters of punctuation.

Sisley, let me 'splain you something (note that I didn't write 'explain): You can be getting groovy, you can be gettin' groovy (the preferable instruction), but you cannot ever be "getting' groovy," for the absurd combination of "g" and apostrophe precludes grooviness. While on the subject, when did "groovy" become an acceptable usage again? Do people suddenly have an unarticulated, market research-identified wish to be groovy? Sisley: tighten up.

Elsewhere in temporal laxity, on my walk home from work today, I caught the following headlines out the corner of my eye:



Oh god! Governor Corzine got in another accident!!! How will his still-mending bones handle the trauma? And look--CBS, in an act of pure malice, has fired Don Imus again!

Could it be that the Inquirer newsroom is suffering some kind of "Groundhog Day" like recurrence where they are stuck in mid-April while the rest of us move on in time? Perhaps, owing to contraction in the news business, the Philadelphia daily has taken to distributing their paper outside their core market using horse and buggy?

Whatever the cause, you have to love the juxtaposition of a two-month old paper above the slogan, "Best to read it every day."

Philadelphia Inquirer: get with the times and tighten up!

File Under: Stuff that doesn't matter but makes the front page anyway, i.e. demands immediate tightening

Dear Angelina Jolie,

You are so amazing. Thanks to the 292839842 articles I read this morning about your amazing $26 dollar black velvet vintage dress, I feel so much closer to you. It turns out you love a bargain, just like the rest of us cash-strapped pleebs! I think I speak for all of us workaday city girls when I say, "Thank you." Thank you for your spunky creativity, your unabashed outfit-making moxie. Thank you for making it ok to wear something that costs the same as Madox's favorite brand of fancy Scandinavian sparkling water. You're one of us, Angie! And don't worry - I don't resent those $800 Christain Louboutin peep-toe heels. They just make me want to work HARDER to be as AMAZING as you! Because you're so amazing!

Kiss kiss,

Minna

Lately, Pete Resembles Tom Waits

'Nuff said. ...actually, that's pretty tight. I don't even know anymore.

Get your own damned date.

Life is hard. People who are good at life are good at balancing different forces that act upon them. That's why this business I heard advertised on the radio, MLP & Associates, terrifies me. MLP is a service that one hires to find one's self a life partner. Here's the opening salvo from their website:

Like I said, terrified. An online date service is one thing: people have profiles, it's not impossibly dissimilar from a social networking website. This, on the other hand, is like hiring a private eye to stalk a date for you:

Traditional? Really? Maybe for a headhunter. "God, I can remember when I recruited, screened, and interviewed my wife. It was so romantic. She was wearing a conservative gray suit and sassy silk scarf. It said, 'I have personality, but not too much. I'll bear your children, and put in overtime on the weekends.'"

MLP, tighten up for existing in the first place; the rest of us need to tighten up for tolerating this nonsense.

Airport Snacker Finds Nutrional Information Lacking in Tightness and/or Sense

I love airports. Airports are responsibility-free zones where sitting around, reading frivolous magazines, texting, shopping, and eating are all legitimate uses of one's time, sometimes for hours on end. I was enjoying such an hour at JKF recently when, somewhere between Martha Stewart Living and Teen Vogue, I looked down at my bag of trail mix and - like an older-but-no-less-curious Alice in Wonderland - followed the tiny instructions on the packaging that said "see back panel for nutritional information":



And thusly was I informed that this finest of quality raw snack of the gods is a:



"Snak" club, indeed. Look at all the members! If this really were Wonderland, I'd be at a surreal WTO tea party. I imagine the whole thing taking place at headquarters in Geneva, starring the Gollum-like Pascal Lamy as the mad hatter, pouring a bottle of beaujolais down his throat as his confused trading partners try to figure out which nuts came from which country. Globalization rocks! Somebody needs to tighten up...I just...don't know...who. Zut alors!

America must tighten

Why? Paris Hilton is why. Post over.

Public transit . . . and restrooms.

[Also here.]

I find it funny that the sign for the restrooms at the [Charlottesville] Downtown Transit Station is the same size as the sign which announces the purpose of the entire building. I mean, the little male and female icons do the trick just fine. That planning committee needs to tighten up!

Screwnicorn

Purely educational video. Because the more you know...

The less you have to tighten up






Unicorn? from mbc2123 on Vimeo

American Justice System

Any criminal justice system that throws a man in jail for any period of time - to say nothing of TEN YEARS - for receiving consensual oral sex from another teenager when he was 17 needs to do you-know-what.

I'm talkin' about tightening up, bitches.

On the other hand, anyone charged with such an offense who hires a defense lawyer named "B.J." is all right by me and welcome to marry my sister any day.

B.J. Bernstein, the attorney in question:

Fake-n-Bake: It doesn't pay to spray.

At the 157th Annual Upperville Colt and Horse Show, Becca decided to open a bottle of warm champagne. Having forgotten the tenets of physics that would have suggested to her that the contents of the bottle were unusually pressurized due to the heat, she indiscriminately shot the cork out of the bottle in a northernly direction, whereupon the champagne poured out all over her.


The plot thickened when she began to clean herself up because she had applied a new faux-tan product just hours before. The tanner washed off in the champagne shower, leaving her legs streaked. Becca, better tighten that up.

History needs some tightening

I recently finished reading a book entitled "1421" by Gavin Menzies on a recommendation from my father. This unassuming name belies the awesome found within. Apparently, the Chinese discovered and colonized North and South America and Australia whilst circumnavigating the globe and figuring out how to judge their longitude, something the European's didn't figure out till the eighteenth century, by the 1430's. Why have we not heard of this sooner you ask? In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries China became very xenophobic after successive decades of internal strife and the emperors decreed that all documents pertaining to the voyage be destroyed and the colonies left for dead. According to some DNA evidence, the colonists appear to have melted into some of the local populations. Pretty cool.
History, tighten your shit up. How many other cool things have you let slip through your fingers like Governor Tarkin's star systems (Star Wars reference...get over it)? I want a 100 word essay on how untaught you have been on my desk on Monday.

Note to self: Tighten the fuck up and post more than twice a year.

O Readers,

I write in the vain hope that this humble entry might serve as the first step of a long programme of repentance for my outrageous and unforgivable dereliction of duty, in not posting even one bite of content to this blog since well before the beginning of spring. I should have been booted from this blog long ago, and if my name has survived on the roster until now, it's only thanks to the boundless Tightness of certain powers that be, whom I thank for their mercy and understanding.

I do, however, bring tidings of an altogether different and more sordid nature. There is something profoundly Not Tight going on, and it's happening right here in Brooklyn; what is worst, it concerns something that I personally take rather seriously, by which I mean Steak. That is, in short:

Peter Luger needs to tighten up.

For those who don't know, Peter Luger's Steak House is one of the most famous steak houses in New York. It has been rated New York's Number One steak house for 23 years straight by Zagat's guide, which had this to say about it:

Nothing compares to this grand high poobah of steakdom, a Williamsburg temple of testosterone that's... right on the money when it comes to the best steak in the known world.

The most expensive steak in the known world? Quite possibly. The best steak in the known world? Methinks the lady doth protest too much, unless the known world happens to exclude my own kitchen. In the first place, contrary to Mr. Luger's preferred method, melted butter should not be applied to steak as, say, water to a burning building. It's just not necessary, and treating it so is an injustice to the quality of meat that he serves. The butter is in fact so over-abundant that it utterly drowns any kind of "steak juices" or "drippings" that one would hope to find on the plate, with which to douse one's steak and fries. That shit ain't tight, yo.

Second, steak sauce should not be (or taste indistinguishable from) a 1:1 combination of shrimp cocktail sauce and barbeque sauce. Admittedly, this statement comes from someone who thinks steak sauce in itself is a bit of an abomination, but the point is that when I'm paying $40 for steak I expect to find an unimpeachable standard of quality in every nook and cranny of the experience.

Look, Peter Luger serves a nice piece of meat. It would be outrageous to describe his food as anything less than very good. Is it worth the price he commands? I would say a whole lot of tightening up has to take place before I can answer that question in the affirmative.

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Donald Rump

Hey, UK: Tighten Up!

The winning submission for the London 2012 Olympic Logo:


Wow. I'm pretty sure I had a similar design on the shirt I wore to my first day of 1st grade. It's being called the "Oh no" logo because of public backlash. While some of the other submissions aren't that great, they're all a million times better than the winner. To be honest, I wish this submission had won. I mean, come on, London: it's [for] 2012!! You can do better than that.