ickis.com / Julene Horowitz

Maybe you guys liked Hipster Asshole Summer Playlist #1, maybe you didn’t. But you commented on it and I have time to kill at 2am with no desire to actually write. Seems like a good time for a second installation to me.

For the record, I think Ladyhawke’s “Magic” should be played at every goth club ever. I’d pick stars out of the sky to that song all night. Seriously.

Julene’s Hipster Asshole Summer Playlist #2, 2010
Santogold “Starstruck”
AKA JK – “Someone Out There (Kim Remix)” (Listen + Purchase)
Metric – “Help I’m Alive”
Penguin Prison – “A Funny Thing”
Mike Posner – “Cooler than Me”
Late Of The Pier – “The Bears Are Coming”
Morrissey – “I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me”
M83 – “Couleurs”
Tom Tom Club – “Pleasure of Love” (YouTube – no good version online.)
Tilly And The Wall – “Pot Kettle Black”
The Breeders – “Bang On”
Ladyhawke – “Magic”
Sohodolls – “Bang Bang Bang Bang” (YouTube)
Discovery – “So Insane”

While I love what the Internet has done to extend my ability to communicate with my friends, I’m realizing it’s hard not to hate it for exactly the same reason. I don’t know when the ability to judge what is (and more importantly, isn’t) appropriate to be posting in public forums became so difficult, but apparently it is and I’m really over it. Anyone who’s experienced this themselves, meaning probably anyone who’s reading this, probably agrees with me. (more…)

It’s summer and the open road is alluring. I’m not going to be answering its call, but the idea of booking it for a few days has me daydreaming. The last month has involved a lot of mentions of places we should be road tripping to. Talk of music festivals in Texas, varying far off beaches and places offering down-home style cooking in remote Southern towns… no one has any interest in spending their summer in the midwest, not that I blame them. This ‘anywhere but here’ mentality seems to be passed back and forth whenever the weather’s nice.

While I know we won’t actually be going, it doesn’t keep us from the planning; the mix CD’s that need to be made, edible supplies coolers should be loaded with… how many pairs of underwear does a girl really need, anyway? Our destination is of secondary importance, if that. The point is getting in the car and going somewhere with the unspoken hope that something worth telling our friends about will happen–it always does, right? That is the nature of the road trip according to every movie I’ve seen. I’m not looking for a weekend comparable to The Hangover, just some funky roadside attractions and scenery we hop out of the car to take pictures in front of. Sounds like the most stereotypical summer road trip movie ever, right? How is it something utterly forgettable on screen transforms into the unforgettable with a handful of Polaroids to remind us that we did it? But like I said, we never go on these expeditions. There’s not enough money or time or interest and we wind up staying home.

I want to feel the breeze on the soles of my feet while they hang out the window. I want to use the cruise control on my car in the hopes I can avoid any more sweet $200 speeding tickets. I’ve been telling myself we aren’t going anywhere, but I have a feeling I’ll cave before the last of the warm weather is gone. One of these weekends maybe I’ll leave my laptop at home and drive into the desert with just a friend and a stack of hastily burned CD’s. I’m restless and impatient for the end of 2010, for big adventures I’ve been carefully saving for.

The memory I have of you now is faded from the clear picture I had in my head years ago. You weren’t that pretty, just hitting puberty and awkwardly trying to adjust to a woman’s frame wrapped around a child’s mind. I was in fifth grade and you were nearly 6′ tall. We both read books far beyond what anyone should’ve put in our elementary school hands–who thought it’d be a good idea to give us both copies of Reviving Ophelia, anyway? During the rise of the beanie baby, you balanced a childish love for the giraffe you renamed Petree (like the skittish pterodactyl from Land Before Time) and copies of Steven King novels I was unsure I wanted to join you in reading. It seemed like all you owned were hardcover novels, thick and intimidating when you left them on the corner of your desk through those seemingly-endless school days.

Your parents had a beautiful (read: expensive) mountain home on a large plot of land. I remember our slumber parties: staying up late, waiting for your parents to go to sleep so we could log in to AOL chat rooms and talk dirty with strangers. Unsure of what to say to these possibly-older guys, you’d turn to me and tell me to remind them I was “virgin as the day I was born.” (more…)

“Not a wigger, just like rap a lot” needed a playlist, no? Most of this doesn’t qualify as rap according to at least one of my music snob friends, but whatever. Julene’s not-rap, maybe-hip-hop playlist 2010, then. And yes, I roll around listening to this at high volume with my windows down. Quit snickering and listen.

The “Julene is not a wigger” Playlist, Summer 2010
Big Daddy Kane: “Ain’t No Half Steppin”
Pete Rock & CL Smooth: “They Reminisce Over You”
One Be Lo ft. Decompoze: “True Love”
Mos Def & Talib Kweli: “Definition”
Felt: “Woman Tonight”
Little Brother ft. Lil Wayne: “Breakin My Heart”
WuTang: “C.R.E.A.M.”
Beatnuts: “Watch Out Now”
Blueprint: “Big Girls Need Love Too”
De La Soul: “Oooh”
Gang Starr: “Ex Girl To The Next Girl”
Mos Def: “Mathematics”
A Tribe Called Quest: “Jazz (We Got)”
On the list, not found online:
Digable Planets: “9th Wonder”
Artifact: “Whayback”
The Perceptionists: “5 O’clock”