The "I Don't" Quiz

There's a new book just out titled I Don't: A Contrarian History of Marriage by Susan Squire.

One question from the "I Don't" Quiz:

1. Which of the following ideas were long accepted as fact?

a) Menstrual fluid is the female equivalent of semen.
b) Fasting on bread and water reduces lust.
c) To be born female is to be born a nymphomaniac.
d) Husbands who lust after their wives are the same as adulterers.
e) Women are capable of making penises disappear.
f) All of the above.
g) None of the above.

We got TSG to take the quiz. He (naturally) failed.

Take the quiz for yourself.

Learn more about the book.

Clooney: patron saint of single guys

From the MSNBC website:

updated 5:23 p.m. CT, Wed., May. 28, 2008

LOS ANGELES - George Clooney has split with his girlfriend of almost a year, Sarah Larson, according to several reports.

A rep for the “Leatherheads” star said “I do not comment on George’s personal life,” when contacted by Access Hollywood but sources told both In Touch Weekly, who first reported the news, and People.com, that the two had split.

Larson, 29, previously told the Las Vegas Review Journal that she met Clooney, 47, while he was celebrating his birthday several years ago at the Green Valley Ranch in Vegas. [read on]

So why hasn't Cameron Diaz called yet?

Cameron Diaz, from InStyle:

"I'm a woman," she says. Like, Duh! "Of course I'm dating. And is that so surprising? Oh my god, she's dating!" So when you make a reported $15 million per movie, how do you make the call that someone is boyfriend material? "I trust my judgment," she says. And though she won't divulge whom she's spending time with, she's clear on what she's looking for. "My list is all about balance. You can have smart but not funny. You can have funny but not very smart. You can have intellectual but not social. But ... I want it all!"

TSG had one question: "So why hasn't she called me yet?"

Vivian's response: [laughter]

The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox

Slate has just published an article that may be of interest to the dorks and social scientists intellectually curious readers of our site. It's titled "The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox: How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men." The article, by Mark Gimein, opens:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the available, sociable, and genuinely attractive man is a character highly in demand in social settings. Dinner hosts are always looking for the man who fits all the criteria. When they don't find him (often), they throw up their hands and settle for the sociable but unattractive, the attractive but unsociable, and, as a last resort, for the merely available.

The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage—or—more exactly, the perception of a shortage—becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they've become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.

The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?

Actually, no—and here's why. [read on]

If we were more clever, we might have something funny to say about the subject.

A Singles Map of the United States

Richard Florida is the author of the national bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class. His new book, Who’s Your City? is about the way people choose the places they live and how that affects everything from their real estate to their families.

In an article accompanying this map--
--Florida writes:

Which of these two decisions do you think has a bigger impact on someone's life: finding the right job, or finding the right significant other? No one's going to argue with the notion that where you live affects your employment prospects. But the place you call home has a lot to do with your chances of finding the right partner as well. Having an enticing "mating market" matters as much or more than a vibrant labor market.

It's not just that some places have more singles than others. If you're a single man or a single woman the odds of meeting that special someone vary dramatically across the country. [read on]

We need to re-assess our 2008 tour plans for The Single Guy...

Like cuttin' the steel band on a bale of cottton

"That's the scary thing about women," the day fireman volunteered, putting up three fingers to ask for his draw. "Marryin' 'em is just like cuttin' the steel band on a bale of cottton. First thing you know, you've got a roomful of woman."

--from "Died and Gone to Vegas" by Tim Gautreaux, collected in Same Place, Same Things (St. Martin's Press, 1996)

Single guy named "U.N. messenger of peace"

Reuters reports that famous single guy George Clooney has been named U.N. messenger of peace:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named actor George Clooney, who has campaigned for refugees in Darfur, as a U.N. "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's peacekeeping efforts. [read on]

Does this mean we'll have to re-work the poster?

Nah ... probably not.

One man's one-night stand is....

Stephen Marks is a political consultant with a specialty in negative advertising which he writes about in the book, Confessions of a Political Hitman.

Deborah Solomon of the New York Times Magazine interviewed Marks about his work and his book. Two of their exchanges:

Have you sent [your parents] a copy of your book?

No. Not yet. I’m a little nervous about how they may react to the personal content.

Yes, you do write about an alarming number of one-night stands.

That’s kind of trashy-sounding. I would prefer to say I haven’t yet found the right woman to settle down with.

"I haven’t yet found the right woman to settle down with" is another way to characterize the "one-night stand?"

Thanks a lot, Stephen Marks -- that's just the kind of bad PR that'll hurt single guys everywhere.

books that explore marriage with uncommon clarity?

Some blogger ran across a short list of "works [that] explore marriage with uncommon clarity" and posted a link to it on his blog.

We did a quick canvas of everyone at Darkbloomz HQ (who survived the New Year festivities) to see who has read these great works.

The results?

Zero.

Not one of us had read any of the books.

And The Single Guy says he's proud of it.

Sigh....

Wedding vows: "for better or girth"

"Many married and single people in their late teens and early 20s gain a significant amount of weight — an average of 15 to 30 pounds — over five years. But newly married men and women in that age group gain 6 to 9 pounds more than their peers who are single and dating," reports USA Today.

Not a reason to stay single, but....

Read the article: "Gain a spouse and you'll likely gain some pounds, too, in first 5 years of marriage," USA Today, October 23, 2007.

Michelle Pfeiffer forces a re-write of "TSG"

Eagle-eyed audiences who have checked out our poster have noticed the reference (in the bottom right corner) to "St. George: The Patron Saint of Singletons?"

In the act, TSG does indeed riff on the subject of George Clooney and what he teaches us about single life.

In fact, The Single Guy reveals the complex formula that allows you to calculate your bachelor friends' "Clooney number" ... and why, although he has been married, George Clooney has a very high score.

But Michelle Pfeiffer has now revealed that we need to recalibrate the formula. Her bet with Clooney about if and when he will marry again is up to $100,000, a considerable bump from when we invented the formula.

It's probably not the last time "Get me rewrite!" will ring out at Darkbloomz HQ....

Did they steal our cover idea...

...and travel back in time and print this The Harvard Lampoon (1972) parody?

Apparently, you can buy the real deal via eBay: the current price is $14.95 plus $5.00 S&H. Which is about what we're going to charge for The Single Guy posters ... if our lazy PR person [ahem] ever gets his act together.

The centerfold in this "issue" of the Lampoon/Cosmopolitan: Henry Kissinger.

The Boston Globe has the story:

What kicked off the magazine's emergence into a more flamboyant sense of humor was the 1960 parody of the literary magazine the Saturday Review. Editors at Mademoiselle liked it so much that they asked the Lampoon staff if they wanted to do a parody of the fashion magazine's notoriously slow-selling July issue.

The idea was to take the essence of Mademoiselle - demure, fashion-conscious - and spin it. So the Lampoon editors stuck a fly on the nose of the cover model's Audrey Hepburn-like face. An ad for a svelte woman with gargantuan feet asks: "Why does she look so trim? It's her new Merrimold. It redistributes fat discreetly."

The success of that first fake issue led to requests from Mademoiselle for two more summer parody issues. Emboldened, the Lampoon guys (the magazine had an all-male staff until 1972) romped through the whole world of publishing, parodying Playboy, Time, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, and The New York Times over the next decade. The most memorable was the fake Cosmopolitan magazine in 1972, which featured a "centerfold" of Henry Kissinger (his head, someone else's naked body).

(Hat tip to Gawker)

Ali Larter ...

... hasn't seen the show yet, but if her people call our people we can hook her up with tickets.

Did you know?:

*Ali Larter is a Jersey girl.

*In November 1996, Larter portrayed the hoax model Allegra Coleman in Esquire magazine which told of the fictional model's relationship with David Schwimmer, how Quentin Tarantino broke up with Mira Sorvino to date her, and Woody Allen's overhaul of a film to have her star. Even after the hoax had been revealed, its effects lingered, and various talent agencies sought to represent the nonexistent Coleman.

*Larter was featured as #6 in Maxim's Hot 100 for 2007.

next year in Jerusalem

Here at Darkbloomz HQ we've been thinking about taking the show abroad next year.

(How well does American humor travel? We have no idea.)

One possible destination if we swing through the Middle East on the world tour: Israel.

Since The Single Guy is not Jewish, we'll probably re-title the show: The Single Goy.

(Note to PR department: we'll need a new poster, so order a yarmulke for the photo shoot.)

And we might want to schedule it for around this time of year. Apparently, according to Lenore Skenazy in the New York Sun:

For Jews, tonight marks the beginning of the High Holidays — Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur — a time of year filled with joy, penitence, introspection, holiness, and … looking around.

Who knew? Nu?

please call back

Message on our voicemail at Darkbloomz HQ:

"Hi Guy ... just calling to see how you were doing ... haven't heard from you lately and was checking in. I'm doing fine. You said you'd let me know when you were coming back to Chicago. I had a great time with you when you were here in June, and I'd love to see you again. Give me a call sometime. OK ... bye ... Guy."

If you're the woman who left this message for TSG, please call back and leave your name and phone number this time.

[note from Vivian: I strongly advised TSG to not have me post this message but he insisted it was no big deal. Lady in Chicago, please don't shoot the messenger.]

we get feedback

"My wife thanks her lucky stars EVERY DAY that The Single Guy wasn't around when I was actually single!"
--A. Grant-Thomas, Columbus OH

Definition: bait

Bait.

From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Pronunciation: 'bAt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old Norse beit pasturage & beita food; akin to Old English bItan to bite
1 a : something (as food) used in luring especially to a hook or trap b : a poisonous material placed where it will be eaten by harmful or objectionable animals
2 : LURE, TEMPTATION

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce:

BAIT, n.
A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

"Women We Hate"

Lists like this one baffle -- and possibly intimidate, intrigue -- The Single Guy:

Women We Hate

Helen And Rachel’s Abbrieviated List

Excerpted from the novel, Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon (Voice, August 2007)

* Women who steal other women’s husbands

* Women who put their boyfriends before their friends

* Fat women who go on about how little they eat

* Women who refer to their boyfriends as their “fella”

* Women who fish for compliments (“I look so fat today,” pause to give you time to say, “No! You’re tiny!”)

* Women who talk in little girl voices

* Women who like Bridget Jones

* Women who are like Bridget Jones

* Women who go on about how much they love shoes

* Women who bore you to death with stories about their weddings and/or babies

* Women who are still breast-feeding when their children are old enough to ask for it

* Women who wear suspenders. Or corsets. Or anything else they’ve read in one of their boyfriend’s lads’ mags is supposed to be sexy

* Women who talk about therapy

* Women who try too hard

* Mothers who work part-time and expect the whole world to revolve around their commitments (“Oh, I’ll have to change my day next week, Sam’s nursery closed for redecoration.”)

* Jennifer (neither of them could remember who Jennifer was, but they had agreed to leave her on because they must’ve had a good reason for adding her to the list once).

"A show of cosmic proportions!"

A little early feedback about The Single Guy:

"A show of cosmic proportions! In an indifferent universe, size does matter."

--Eduardo Velásquez, author of A Consumer's Guide to the Apocalypse

Ozzy Osbourne

Was there ever a man for whom getting married made more sense than Ozzy Osbourne?

Born into a poor family from Birmingham, England, with the perfectly fine name of John Michael Osbourne, he's taunted at school with the name "Ozzy." He doesn't do well in school, probably due to dyslexia, and falls into the life of rock n' roll with a band called Black Sabbath.

Then gets fired from the band.

And struggles with alcoholism.

And is sued for causing the suicides of a couple of kids who took his song lyrics too literally.

And bites the head off of a bat, thinking it was rubber, during a concert -- which earns him not only endless grief from animal rights supporters but a week's worth of rabies shots as well.

But along the way he meets the 17-year-old Sharon Arden, who takes over his career and marries him and (despite an unfortunate arrest in 1989 for trying to strangle Sharon while he was drunk) turns him into one of the richest and most successful acts of the rock era.

It's almost as if they are the poster couple for rock n' roll marriages.