This should not have been a debate.

My right to safety is not a discussion.

To put this into perspective, could you imagine if Kamau held a "debate" about New York's Stop-and-Frisk policy between asked a white male officer from the NYPD and a black male victim of police molestation? "We need the ability to continue verbally harassing people after we have physically violated their civil liberties. It's comedy!"

And Kamau was right about that moderator. What was up with that guy?

For all of the people who have ever asked, "Is it really worse for women on the internet than it is for men?", or, "Is it really worse for women in comedy than it is for men?", the unequivocal answer remains, "YES, OF COURSE IT IS!" Whenever a woman stands up and speaks, especially for the rights of women, she is immediately a target for attack, even when people agree with what she is saying.

For a big drop in the even bigger bucket of proof, here's a link to what happened to Lindy West after the "debate":

If Comedy Has No Lady Problem, Why Am I Getting So Many Rape Threats?, Jezebel.


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"My daughter has executive leadership skills."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I'm sure my sons will have executive leadership skills, too. :)

Thank you, Sheryl Sandberg!


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"I need to keep my hand up."

"Success and likability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women."

I hear that. Preach the word, Big Bird.

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The dumbness of the Atlantic

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Testoster-Ruin - Hanna Rosin
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Stephen Colbert Is Fighting Male Oppression and Men Are Over. Except At The Top., by Irin, Jezebel.

Is economic and social change fast disadvantaging men, creating a female-dominated society?

The question is posed on the cover of this year's Atlantic Ideas issue, pegged to a piece by Hanna Rosin arguing as much.

And direct from the article's mouth:

Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences

"What is equality isn't the end point"? And "unprecedented role reversal" with "vast cultural consequences"?

It's always nice when women like Hanna Rosin step on the backs of other women to make a name for themselves by creating irresponsible, propagandist media.

The premise of this front page article is completely ridiculous. Ms. Rosin should take a look at Samantha Bee's report on how difficult it is to be a man in America. (Spoiler alert! Not very difficult at all.)

This comment from Jezebel sums up my feelings. Warning: salty language ahead.

All of these end-of-men articles sound the same to me. "For the first time in human history, men don't have absolute dominance in all areas of public life. What are we doing wrong?!?!"

Give me a fuckin' break.

Also, from the first video at 3:15, I would love to acquire a baby girl from China, where "every checkout counter has Take a Daughter, Leave a Daughter tray." However, Stephen should review the requirements from the China Center of Adoption, which no longer allows single persons (or other freaks of nature) to adopt babies from China, despite the country's high supply of unwanted girl babies. Boo.


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"There's the old boys club again."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama: As A Woman, Michelle Had To Make Sacrifices I Didn't Have To, Huffington Post. Emphases mine.

President Barack Obama says his family is like a lot of others -- in which the men "need to be knocked across the head every once in a while" in order to see imbalances between the time moms and dads put into raising children.

"There's no doubt that our family, like a lot of families out there, were ones in which the men are still a little obtuse about this stuff," Obama said Wednesday in an interview with NBC.

He acknowledged things are different now for his wife, Michelle, and him given that they live in the White House with all its creature comforts and army of residence staff.

"Today's Obama family is obviously not typical," he said. "Five years ago, six years ago, though, we were having a lot of negotiations. Because Michelle was trying to figure out, OK, if the kids get sick why is it that she's the one who has to take time off of her job to go pick them up from school, as opposed to me? If, you know, the girls need to shop for clothes. You know, why is it that it's her burden and not mine."

The president said he tried to learn to be better -- "to be thoughtful enough and introspective enough that I wasn't always having to be told that things were unfair. That once in a while, I'd actually voluntarily say, 'You know what? Let me relieve this burden on you. Let me make some sacrifices, in terms of how I'm using my time.'"

He's the first to acknowledge his efforts weren't entirely successful.

"The truth is that Michelle still had to make sacrifices of the sort that I did not have to make," Obama said.

So let me get this straight. Just like in his book, The Audacity of Hope, President Obama acknowledged that there was a unfair division of household and child-rearing between him and his wife. Yet again, he decided to do nothing significant about it.

I resent the suggestion that someone needs to remind men to be functioning parents. No. Men should take care of the children that they decided to bring into the world in the first place. President Obama didn't accidentally have two children. He and the First Lady decided to have children together. And then he decided for some reason that raising the children was not his responsibility . . . because he was the one with the penis?

President Obama says that "Michelle still had to make sacrifices of the sort that [he] did not have to make", but he doesn't explain why his wife allegedly had to make them. Why did she have to be the one to disrupt her career to pick up the sick children and buy them clothes? If President Obama's children were sick, why wouldn't he pick them up from school? They are his children.

You don't deserve a medal for occasionally taking care of your own children. You can call it "obtuse"; I call it bleeping selfish. Add your own expletive, readers.

Obama also played down a recent basketball game with male members of his Cabinet and lawmakers. No women were listed as participants in the game, played on a White House court.

The president said it was a standing game among House members that simply relocated to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. He faced criticism for the all-guys game; Obama brushed it off and said it was nothing more than basketball.

"I think this is bunk," he said.

If you watch the video, the interviewer asks whether the game could have been seen as a networking opportunity with the President. However, President Obama does not buy into the notion that it was "something more than basketball."

Right. As if a group of politicians, who all happened to be men, showed up at the White House purely for the love of the game. No networking went on whatsoever. Just a bunch of grown men sweating it up together on a court.

Insert exaggerated eyeroll here.

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What is that supposed to mean?

Hello, Mr. Heartache, by Jincy Willett, New York Times via Jennifer Weiner´s blog.

Holly Frick, the writer at the heart of Sarah Dunn’s new novel, hates the term “chick lit.” Since we never actually get to read her own novel, “Hello, Mr. Heartache” — whose horrible title was imposed by her publisher’s marketing department — we can’t be certain that she hasn’t actually written “fiction by and for women,” the generally agreed-­upon definition of that loathsome term. But the novel in which Holly herself appears was definitely not written just for women, no matter how it’s packaged. True, the protagonist is female, the setting is Manhattan, and the focus is on relationships — and there’s a big shopping scene. True, mostly women will read it. But then women are the ones mostly reading every­thing. Besides, it’s not about shoes. And the shopping is for books, at the Strand. Also, unlike chick lit, chick TV and chick movies, “Secrets to Happiness” is actually funny.

Way to self-hate, Ms. Willett.

bt-dubs, New York Times: aren´t you up for sale?

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"A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders!"

And how.

Republican women: A minority in a minority, by Erika Lovley, Politico via Yahoo! News.

Women make up almost 51 percent of the U.S. population but less than 10 percent of the House and Senate GOP — a gender disconnect that could make the Republicans’ climb back to power even steeper than it would be otherwise.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) notices that she’s part of a shrinking minority every time she heads to the Senate floor for a vote.

Republican women in the House say they feel the problem — literally — when their male colleagues nudge them to the front of GOP press conferences to break up the solid lines of middle-aged white men in neckties.

Indeed, Rep. Kay Granger — the first and only Republican woman to represent Texas in the House — says Republican women have to work to make sure they’re even represented at public events in the first place. "We pass the word to make sure we're there at this ceremony or that photo-op, because there are fewer of us and we're spread more thinly," Granger said. "We're working in a very successful manner, and we want to make sure that’s shown."

I would like to be in a photo-op!

While Palin provided a high-profile role model for Republican women thinking of running for office, her experience was a double-edged sword. Lawmakers say the rough treatment Palin received showcased the nastiness of modern campaigns and underscored the notion that women are susceptible to the charge that they’ve been picked to run because they’re a good demographic fit — and not because they’re the most qualified.

Yes, the rough treatment that Sarah Palin received during the 2008 Presidential campaign. No one else received rough treatment. No one else at all.

But the pool is shallow. State legislatures, which often serve as feeders for Congress, are also seeing fewer Republican women step up to the plate. Meanwhile, Democratic training outlets such EMILY’s List have been well-organized and highly successful at recruiting, while Republican womens' groups, such as the National Federation of Republican Women and the Wish List, say they are bracing for another tough election cycle.

. . . "If you believe that a more centrist position for the Republican Party would bring about more success and bring more voters back, then women would help make that happen," [said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics]. "Women bring a voice of moderation that could pull them back to the party."

The Republican Party should focus on bringing in moderate people, not simply matching the Democratic Party by getting more women, or by putting a white lady and a black guy in high-profile leadership positions.

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Booo.

My friend Stephanie alerted me to this story today: Warner's Robinov Bitchslaps Film Women; Gloria Allred Calls For Warner's Boycott, by Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily. Emphases mine.

This comes to me from three different producers, so I know it's real: Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently...

Of course, Warner Bros has always been male-centric in its movies. But now the official policy as expressly articulated by Robinov is that a male has to be the lead of every pic made. I'm told he doesn't even want to see a script with a woman in the primary position (which now is apparently missionary at WB)...

Noted women's rights attorney Gloria Allred just gave me this statement in response to what I've posted above: "If that's what he said, when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead. This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men. Instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of judgment about which scripts to make, directors to hire and budgets to OK, some men in the movie industry find it easier to place blame for their lack of success on women leads and to exclude talented female actors from the top employment opportunities in Hollywood in favor of macho males. If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros."

Even if Mr. Robinov didn't say those exact words, the sentiment of the article still rings true. How many movies this summer had a girl or a woman as the lead character? Not as the way-out-of-the-guy's-league girlfriend, but as a protagonist with her own hopes and dreams outside of existing mainly for her man's pleasure? Now, how many movies this summer featured boys and men? Also, note how many boys and men filled up the supporting roles as well, and think about what kind of supporting roles the few women were left with.

To bring the horrid state of the movie business into focus, name one black female character in any of this summer's feature films. Bonus points if she had any sense in her head. I'll spot you one Alicia Keys in The Nanny Diaries.

Why there has been no Daria: The Movie

On Writing Female Characters, by Jeremy Slater at the now defunct How to Write Screenplays. Badly.

It's hardly surprising that the vast majority of working screenwriters are men...or, as some call them, "the unwomen." The operative word in that sentence is working, by the way, since the blogosphere (literally: a sphere of blogs) is crammed to its pink little rafters with female screenwriters. Most of them are talented. All of them are unemployed.

If you've ever read a woman's screenplay, you know how provocative, intelligent and humanistic they can be, rich with nuance and complex character arcs. Many of these feemplays, as we like to call them when no women are around, are so beautifully written and heartfelt they can leave even the strongest reader quivering and shattered in the grip of that foul beast we call emotion...

...What this means, gentlemen, is that the burden of writing female characters falls squarely on our burly, hair-spackled shoulders. The glass ceiling may be keeping the ladies out of Hollywood, but there's nothing keeping them out of the movie theater...

...This doesn't mean the women in your screenplay have to be realistic or believable, thank God...Fortunately, decades worth of lazy movies have conditioned audiences and executives alike to expect female characters to fall into one of three easily classified categories...

There's more. Go read it. It's funny!

I haven't gone to the movies since...

...last December. I saw Unaccompanied Minors. Wow. That is sad. Even though the movie was terrible, I still had fun with my friend. And I didn't realize it was The Breakfast Club in an airport with junior high kids until said friend told me. Clueless. Now that was a movie.

What's sadder than my seeing Unaccompanied Minors is the lack of quality fare on the big screen nowadays. Besides the fifth Harry Potter movie, I haven't been anticipating the release of any other movie this year. I wanted to see Maxed Out after I read about it on Pajiba and heard about it on Air America. Of course it disappeared from the two theaters it was playing at in the LA area before I could go see it. I still haven't seen SiCKO, but I will eventually.

The problem for me is two-fold. One, I can tell from the trailers that most of the movies with the heaviest marketing campaigns are going to suck in some way. Not necessarily in every way, but on some level, they are going to bug me. I don't have $8.50+ to spend on things that I actually need, like vegetables. I sure don't have $8.50+ to spend on thing luxuries that are almost guaranteed to disappoint.

Two, there are almost no movies being made with women. Obviously there are almost no movies written by women or directed by women. That's not such a shocker, although it does make me sick. But there are practically no movies starring women. There was A Mighty Heart, which I wasn't going to see anyway, even if it didn't star Angelina Jolie in blackface. There is Evening, which makes me want to have my period, start menopause, and vomit from the schmaltzy boredom all at the same time. The rest of the movies that have come out this year, and will come out this summer, mainly have girls, emphasis on girls, as scantily-clad love interests with no character arcs or personalities of their own.

My annoyance has been building of the past few months. Arguably, it has been building since the mid-90s, when I learned that the top-billed actresses of the time--Demi Moore and Julia Roberts--only made $12 million dollars for their blockbuster movies, compared to the $20 million the Toms--Cruise and Hanks--were pulling for theirs. That's 60 percent. What a rip. There are a multitude of arguments to be made justifying both, either, or neither salary amounts, but that's not the point of my post today. My point is, for the past 24 hours, my annoyance has come to a head, as a result of reading the following articles:

Live Free or Die Hard / Rush Hour 3, by Jenn at reappropriate.

Feminist of the day: Emma Watson, by Jessica at Feministing.

Live Free or Die Hard + Transformers, by Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central.

They're women, directors and few, by Mary F. Pols, San Jose Mercury News

When I was growing up, I used to go to movies all the time. Now I go to practically none. That is due to many factors, including a decrease in both disposable income and disposable time. But there are also less movies coming out. And hardly any involving women, much less women my age, or my color, or with my personality. I know there are women, nay people, out there who are just like me, who want to see more women of many ages, colors, ethnicities and dispositions on their screens. I don't need to see yet another movie with schlubby guys getting (often younger) girls who are way out of their league. I don't care how "real" Dustin thinks these people are.

I will see Hairspray, though. Amanda Bynes is funny. I can almost forgive her for She's the Man. Though there is something disconcerting about seeing a movie that's based on a musical that's based on a movie that's younger than I am. What's next? Legally Blonde: The Remix with Hayden PaneraBread? The Lion Kings with Dylan and Cole Sprouse? La Lohan in The Little Mermaid who's totally sober now kinda?

#

In sadly humorous news, this made me giggle:

Locks of controversy, by Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe, via Racialicious.

...you probably missed word that Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, the second of Brad and Angie's four children (she's from Ethiopia), may have received a drastic haircut and that this haircut was deeply upsetting for certain stargazers with Internet access.

"I think they shaved the poor kid's head cause they have no clue in how to style her hair. I think they should get a professional African braider to braid her hair," wrote Sexycocoa in a post to the black gossip site Media Take Out. On the same site, Akan5 wrote, "I DON'T TRUST THESE PEOPLE AT ALL. Why cut her hair. WHY! IN THIS COUNTRY people always let the girls' hair grow." That's a representative sample of what wound up on various message boards late last month, from Take Out to E! Online, and in people's inboxes, including mine...

...With more and more black chat lines demanding to know why one little black girl's hair isn't fuller, thicker, or at least more moisturized, a "Save Zahara" campaign may not be far behind.

Hee hee! Maybe we can stage a benefit concert at the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson estate.

Spotlight on: Frangela

If you don't know who Frangela is, you obviously don't watch Best Week Ever. That's understandable if you don't have cable. However, if you do have cable, there is no excuse. It's a funny show! Even better than I Love New York. And Celebrity Fit Club. Who else thinks Dustin Diamond may have "gained weight solely for the purpose of appearing on the show"?

Back to Frangela. They are one of my MySpace friends, and I wrote them a message a couple weeks ago. They were super-duper nice and they wrote me back pretty quickly. Their message totally made my day. Among other things, they said I had "the cutest photo thingy ever!"(Exclamation point theirs.) They also said my email was "mature and respectful." I do try. I was so excited that I told my mother about what they wrote. Mummy was less excited than I was because she doesn't watch the teevee. But she was happy for me anyway.

Frangela was supposed to have a show on Fox last year, but for whatever reason, the pilot didn't make it on the air. I guess Fox had to make room for comedy gold like The Ringer, 'Til Death, American Dad and The War at Home. I would have watched the show. Not just because Frangela makes me laugh, but because I too have trouble finding black friends. I definitely don't have enough of them to invite to a party.

A story that Frangela shared in their email also got me thinking that they should write a book. I've read many articles and seen many television specials concerning the history of American comedy. I saw Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, which was a less-than-humorous film about the fact that Indians don't think Albert Brooks is funny. I also watched SNL in the 90s yesterday, which was a 2-hour long circle jerk that would have made the Bush administration blush. The problem with most of these self-congratulatory compilations is that they feature white American males talking about why other white American males are so funny. Sometimes a few black guys (Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby or Chris Rock) or a couple of white women (Lucille Ball, if we're lucky) slip in there. And at one point, I saw about a minute total on Freddie Prinze. But that's it.

There are no mainstream compilations of women's contributions to comedy. Or to entertainment in general. I know that women who work in comedy have some amazing stories to tell. I've heard a few tales from Janeane Garofalo, Margaret Cho, Judy Gold, Kathleen Madigan and pamie.com. But I'd like to hear more, and read more. I'm sure other women, and men, would like to hear them, too.

I bought I'm the One That I Want. I bought Yeah, I Said It. I'd buy Frangela's book, too.

Still Angry, Retroactively.

The other prisoners, by Luke Harding, The Guardian.
May 24, 2004.

Late [2003], [Amal Kadham Swadi], one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".

Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths, by Marjorie Cohn, TruthOut.org.
January 30, 2006.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.

This makes me angry.

The Women’s War, by Sara Corbett, New York Times Magazine.

If the link expires, you can also read the article here, and here, sans pictures.

A summary of the (not-so) shocking points, posted at Feministing:

...Holy shit, one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Well, of course rape is rampant in a war zone based on humiliation, sexism, and blind submission to authority. (Hell, rape is rampant everywhere.)

Holy shit, female soldiers are more likely to be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, sometimes at twice the rate of male soldiers. Well, of course women exposed to the “double whammy,” as Patricia Resick calls it, of sexual trauma and exposure to combat are coming home with some serious mental health issues. Though the 160,000 female soldiers that have been deployed in Iraq often are in roles technically classified as “combat-support,” the violence of this war is ubiquitous. (There were just 7,500 females who served in Vietnam and 41,000 who served in the gulf war.)

Holy shit, the Department of Defense isn’t doing anything to support these women: of the 3,038 investigations of military sexual assault charges in 2004 and 2005, only 329 have resulted in a court-martial of the perpetrator.” Well, of course the government isn’t taking responsibility. Just like they’re not taking responsibility for the rampant brain injuries resulting from this new kind of warfare or the civilian casualties or the lies that got us into this war in the first place or the…you get the point...

And an excerpt from the article that resonated with me:

...There appears to have been little, too, in the way of female bonding in the war zone: most reported that they avoided friendships with other women during the deployment, in part because of the fact that there were fewer women to choose from and in part because of the ridicule that came with having a close friend. ''You're one of three things in the military - a bitch, a whore or a dyke,'' says Abbie Pickett, who is 24 and a combat-support specialist with the Wisconsin Army National Guard. ''As a female, you get classified pretty quickly.''

Many women mentioned being the subject of crass jokes told by male soldiers. Some said that they used sarcasm to deflect the attention but that privately the ridicule wore them down. Others described warding off sexual advances again and again. ''They basically assume that because you're a girl in the Army, you're obligated to have sex with them,'' Suzanne Swift told me at one point...

Read the entire article. It's long, but informative. I have my own observations to make about the article, but I'm too tired to post them all now. Though I will say, I sense a pattern of abuse emerging.

What a Nut Job...I Mean, Succesful Career Woman.

Today I discovered Penelope Trunk, a columnist at the Boston Globe, among other things. What a piece of work. You can read her pearls of wisdom at blog.penelopetrunk.com. I commented on one of her Popular Posts: "Women who are not my role models." Now I'm reading through the rest of her blog. She has some jokey ideas, but I have stumbled a few actual useful truths, too. Well, one. She cleverly cited Donald Trump's replacing Carolyn and George with his two less qualified children as an argument for affirmative action.

The article of hers that struck me was "How to Buy Happiness," posted last November on the Yahoo! Finance page. The title alone should have tipped me off, but I read it anyway. Here's her take on finding that special someone:

"3. Hire a headhunter to find you a mate.

The single most important factor in how happy you are is how much sex you have. Twice a week is optimal. Less frequent forays mean you won't reach the highest levels of happiness.

Warning to overachievers -- more sex will not give you more happiness. Warning to bottom-feeders -- sorry to disappoint you, but it's got to be with the same person every time.

This explains why married people are happier than unmarried people and why you should do everything you can to find a mate. If you have a lot of money, hire a headhunter to find you a mate.

And stop being so picky. Arranged marriages do as well as marriages for love, so give the headhunter a lot of leeway.

If you don't have a lot of money, ask a friend who her favorite ex is and date him. Research shows that if someone else liked their date then you'll like that date, too."

Okay, first? If I'm dating someone (like that will ever happen), and we're at the point in our relationship where we've started having sex? I would hope we would be having it more than twice a week. I'd imagine we'd both be busy, working individuals, but I do have my weekends free. :(

Second, I am an overachiever, and having daily orgasms would give me more happiness.

Third, married MEN are generally happier than unmarried men, mostly because they have someone taking care of them. Note to readers: That will not be me; my husband will be a grown man who can take care of himself. Additionally, married WOMEN are somewhat less happy than their single counterparts. I read it in some incomplete study somewhere. It was incomplete because it didn't take into account committed, long-term unmarried couples, or same-sex couples. And I don't remember what the name of the study was, or when it came out. You all will have to google it yourselves.

Fourth, I don't have a lot of money, so I guess I won't be happy until I can save up enough to buy me a headhunter.

Fifth, I'm so glad we live in a country in which arranged marriage is not only acceptable, but encouraged by financial advice columnists. If only I weren't so picky. Then surely I'd be happily married to one of the old, crazy men that I seem to attract like the plague.

Sixth, since I don't have a lot of money, as I mentioned before, I'm sure one of my friends' exes will fit me like worn-in pair of jeans. Except none of my friends wear my size. (See "Musings from Fatty McButterpants.") And my friends don't have many exes to choose from, much less a favorite one in the LA area. And, if my friends liked those guys so much, why aren't they still WITH them?

What a maroon.