ITS NOT EASY BEING ME Its not easy being ...
Oh, sure, a couple of nights ago I had a naughty dream. Great, right? Except the other featured player was my vibrator. Not only that, but midway through the dream, my Pocket Rocket exploded into little pieces?just as I was about to get off. That is not fair! I should be dreaming of Crispin Glover nibbling Nutella off my twat, and instead I'm conjuring up Consumer Reports-type dramas involving my battery-operated appliances. That alone is enough to make a girl very grouchy.
And if that weren't ire-inspiring enough, my inbox is jammed with moany letters from whingers complaining that I'm too mean to the people who write me asking advice! Why shouldn't I be hard on them?!? Life is hard and I'm cranky.
So this week I abdicated my advice-giving responsibilities to someone else. The Handsome Family is one of my favorite bands of all time. Bandmates Rennie and Brett Sparks write some of the funniest, darkest country songs ever and have the added bonus of being a happily married couple, which means they have sex a lot and so aren't nearly as bitchy as yours truly. Last week I sat down with them and asked them some random questions from the Dategirl Mailbag?
DG: Okay, this guy writes in saying his girlfriend isn't religious at all and he is. They have amazing hot sex and he doesn't want to give that up, but at the same time his religion is very important to him. I know you, Rennie, grew up Jewish and Brett's not, so how did you guys deal with your different belief systems?or was that even an issue?
Brett: Everyone should respect each other's religious beliefs?
Rennie: ?you don't respect my belief in Bigfoot. You mock that! You won't even consider the fact that Bigfoot might exist?you just laugh!
B: See? My wife is a crackpot. She's crazy. She wants to build a pyramid on top of the house for pyramid power and I respect that desire, but it's not going to happen.
R: It could attract Bigfoot to my yard. There are so many reasons to build a pyramid.
B: We definitely have divergent beliefs on a variety of subjects.
DG: Here's one from a lady whose boyfriend won't go down on her. Won't even entertain the idea, as he finds it completely disgusting. Of course, blowjobs are not remotely disgusting?
R: You have to withhold the blowjobs. Or maybe put potpourri or a treat down there?like a Snickers. If he won't go down for a Snickers, there's something very wrong with him. He may be a robot.
DG: Good answer. It's like you've been doing this your whole life! Now this woman writes in about her boyfriend who still talks about his exes all the time. She thinks he's still pining over them, though he insists he loves her. He's always trying to get her to hang out with them and she doesn't want to.
R: I had a boyfriend when I was in high school, who, like if we went to a Joan Jett concert, would be convinced that Joan Jett was looking at him. He'd be like, "Joan Jett is hot for me," and I'd be thinking it too, like "Oh my god?Joan Jett's gonna take my boyfriend!" And we'd seriously be talking about it.
B: Is this the boyfriend who accused you of sleeping with Roger Daltrey?
R: It was the same guy. He'd do the same thing to me. We went to see Edgar Winter once and he was like, "He's staring at you!" Sign of a bad boyfriend. It got worse from there. I think he was probably just trying to pull some kind of power trip on me, and it really put me in my place because hey, he could have Joan Jett so I'd better call when he says "call me."
DG: Along the same lines, this letter is from a woman who still cares about her ex-boyfriend. They get along great and are friends, but she wants to add sex back into the equation. He's willing to do that, but he also wants it to be okay if he fucks a bunch of other people while he's doing he
R: Maybe a death scare would be the answer. Take him out in a boat in the middle of the ocean and push him overboard, and once he really starts thrashing, he will appreciate every moment of blissful air after that. He won't want to stray so much.
DG: You guys met back in college?when did you know it was love?
R: I lived in a suite with these girls who hated me so much that I lived in his room in a house with him where we got fleas because it was so horrible there. I thought, I would rather have fleas than go back to that dorm room.
B: If you can live through buying dog shampoo with your significant other, that's a defining moment.
The Handsome Family's latest record, Singing Bones, will be released on October 6. You can see them live and ask them questions at the Bowery Ballroom on October 11.
Write [dategirl@nypress.com](mailto:dategirl@nypress.com) or Dategirl, c/o New York Press, 333 7th Ave., 14th fl., NY, NY 10001.