This guy watched The Bachelorette premiere so you don’t have to

May 15, 2012 by Joe Donatelli

If you watched The Bachelorette with the sound off you would think it’s about a group of good-looking people who stand next to bodies of water and stare. But America’s favorite show it loves to hate has slightly more to offer than that.

This season’s bachelorette is Emily, a twice-engaged 26-year-old single mom bombshell whose first fiancée, tragically, died in an airplane crash. She met her second fiancée, Brad, on The Bachelor, but they broke off their engagement when they each realized how boring he was.

Now Emily, who just can’t seem to find love without a camera around, has 25 new men to choose from, some of them, as The Cork pointed out, possibly heterosexual.

In last night’s season premiere we met Kalon, who said he used to be a womanizer, which is secret TV code for, “I know it looks like I’m trying to settle down, but when I get the boot from this show I am down to bang, ladies.” More on Kalon later. He’s the star of the program.

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Rock and Roll Ralphs and the Beer Aisle of Good and Evil

May 10, 2012 by Joe Donatelli

I like my grocery store. How can anyone not like a store named Rock and Roll Ralphs?

There are Ralphs all over Los Angeles, but Rock and Roll Ralphs has the words Rock and Roll in the title. This is much more fun than, say, Weyburn Avenue Ralphs, which I’ve never visited, but sounds like a pretty boring Ralphs.

Our Ralphs is called Rock and Roll Ralphs because 1.) You can sometimes spot a celebrity there 2.) It’s not far from the Guitar Center on the Sunset Strip 3.) It’s where everyone buys beer for after-parties once the bars close.

And beer is the reason I’m writing. Rock and Roll Ralphs is home to Los Angeles’s Beer Aisle of Good and Evil. Ralphs stocks dozens of different craft brews, including my favorites from Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada. And unlike most grocery stores, Ralphs puts the craft beer near the front of the store and shoves the macro-brews back near the dented soup cans and imported goat meat. That’s the good part.

Here’s the evil part.

Those are some psychologically manipulative, unnecessarily complicated beer prices you have there, Ralphs. At the top is the regular price without a Ralphs card. In the middle is the price with the card. At the bottom is the price for four six-packs, with card. Please note that Ralphs does this with liquor, too. A bottle of scotch might normally cost $43 without the card, but if you buy 72 bottles they’re $4 each or whatever.

If you live outside of Los Angeles, you might be thinking, “Oh, it must be nice to be able to afford four six-packs of craft beer. Do you have a special craft beer cooler in your Maybach, Mr. Los Angeles Shopper? Do you store them in the craft beer wing of your mansion? Will you drink them when Oprah, Steven Spielberg and Richard Branson come over and throw money at each other?”

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Why gay marriage is good for straight men

May 9, 2012 by Joe Donatelli

UPDATE: In honor of President Obama’s vow to support gay marriage, I am re-posting this on the front page of the site. Thank you, Mr. President!

How is gay marriage good for straight men? I answered this question seven times in Guyism today. Seven times!  If you’re not going to do it because it’s the right thing to do, guys, then please do it for purely selfish reasons.

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I was replaced by Paul F. Tompkins

May 8, 2012 by Joe Donatelli

Last summer I was let go from my job at Break Media, where I was a senior editor who wrote and edited for Made Man, did social media and was managing editor of a handful of other sites. I was told that the site was going to focus less on written words (my specialty) and more on video, which meant my skills were no longer needed, so scram.

Well nine months later the more video part is here, and it comes in the form of the original Paul F. Tompkins interview series called “Speakeasy.” In this Web show, Tompkins and a guest sit and chat. It’s similar to the Dave Koechner series that took place in Denny’s, only instead of talking over Moons Over My Hammy, the host and guest talk over cocktails, and instead of Dave Koechner, it’s Paul F. Tompkins.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, I was replaced by Paul F. Tompkins. As a journalist, this type of thing happens to me all the time. In the early 2000s I was replaced from my wire service reporting job by Tracy Morgan (this was before he was on 30 Rock and he was mainly focused on editing breaking news from the West Coast.) Then when I had that interactive TV writing gig, the company let me walk and replaced me with Jeff Dunham and Peanut. (Which was smart. Financially, it was a two-fer.) It was inevitable that I would be replaced by a  Mr. Show cast member, popular podcast host and stand-up comedian.

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The Junction: A Eulogy

May 3, 2012 by Joe Donatelli

If you were a guy who was terrible at talking to women, who liked affordable drinks and a jukebox with old-school hits, and didn’t mind urinating next to someone standing on top of the men’s room sink who was doing the same, The Junction (41 North Court Street, Athens, Ohio) was a really great bar.

It’s gone now. The heart-and-soul of my social life at Ohio University has been gutted, sanitized (in every possible way) and replaced. I wish the new owner good luck, and I hope the current students enjoy the J-Bar, as it’s now known, but at the risk of sounding like the alumni who visited campus in the 1990s and told us how Court Street was fun but “it’s not the same,” well, it’s not the same.

The Junction was the perfect dive bar. The men’s toilet had no stall. I’m not entirely sure it had a seat. There was a Foosball table, a dart board and a jukebox that had not been updated since 1989. It did not serve cooked food, although I heard the owner kept a can of soup from the 1970s behind the bar to meet some city zoning law. The interior was ensconced in dark wood, which patrons wrote graffiti on—mainly the names of whatever bar shuffles they were on. (My wife Jen actually snagged a plank with her name on it last summer. We’re going to build our own home bar around it someday.) Stools lined the bar, and there were benches built into the walls and interior, but most people stood. It was a standing bar.

Unlike the other 22 bars in Athens, The Junction had an indoor balcony that ingeniously allowed an extra 50-75 or so people in the room. The space under the balcony, sunken off the main floor, was the perfect place to make out with someone you met 10 minutes ago.

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