My dear misguided readers, never before have we been in more desperate need of a serious chat. I've started a fire here, opened a bottle of Shiraz. Come sit by me. Do you like dark chocolate? I hope seventy percent cocoa isn't too bitter for you. Because if it is, you're not going to like my one-hundred percent bitter attitude. Where did we go wrong? From what great heights and to what terrible depths have we fallen? I still think you're sexy. Very sexy. Almost too much so to bear, really. And I know there was a time - don't you dare deny it - when you felt the same way about me. I'd suspected for the last little while that you might be losing interest (I even briefly entertained the absurd notion that you had started reading Sean's or Dan's posts). But nothing could have prepared me for the blow you dealt me in the comments section of Sean's November 24th post.

Sean wrote something about fishing or love or something false about Joanna Newsom or whatever - I didn't read it (at least I'm still faithful to myself) - but the first comment had nothing to do with the post's content, instead focusing on its effect. The commenter, one L, wrote something so obscene that I hesitate to quote it here: "Note to boys reading STG: Memorize this stuff - surefire way to get into a girl's pants. mmmmm I'm all tingly." This pornographic imperative disturbed me, and I can tell you from having subsequently "memorize[d] this stuff," that it's not true. Mere moments later, Danica, another commenter, added that she had had a "makeout dream" about our very own Dan Beirne. Well, I thought, now it is my turn. I waited, refreshing my screen every thirty seconds, sure that the comments box would fill up with lurid anecdotes about Himelfarb-related sexual fantasies, as well as phone numbers and salacious propositions. (I know I still become aroused every time I reread one of my posts.) But it never happened. You hurt me deeply and I sobbed until morning. I decided that maybe Danica had actually dreamt about me and simply misidentified me as Dan, but this made me feel only slightly better.

So now I have to win you back, my babies. Let's consider this post the beginning of a slow seduction. And what better way to begin than with a man whose sex appeal not even the most frigid among you will deny: the late, great Wilson Pickett.

Wilson Pickett - "Hello Sunshine"

Since I can't bring each and every one of you breakfast in bed like I'd like to do, I'm doing the next best thing to help you start your day off right. Are the short days and the increasingly cold weather starting to get you down? How about the fact that you're fundamentally alone? Well, "Hello Sunshine" is like a dangerously large dose of Xanax. I heard it for the first time last week and I've been in a psychotically good mood ever since. How Pickett's honey-thick vocal, the boisterous Southern horn stabs, and that fucking sinister piano lock into such an awfully deep groove, I will never know, but I do know that I just laughed my way through Babel, which I guess is supposed to be a bleak movie - such is the mood-altering capacity of "Hello Sunshine."

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Hey guys. You're looking really good. Such sensual features. And so smart too. You're like the young Hannah Arendt of readerships.

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Forest City Lovers - "Song For Morrie"

I worry sometimes that you think I'm too goofy to be sexy. But it's not like that. In fact, of the three bad StG dudes, I probably like the least goofy music (I'm also the tallest, have the best defined abs, etc., etc.). Case in point: this small, tender song about the death of a loved one. I'm not afraid to talk to you about how much it all makes me feel: the wonderfully restrained lead guitar part, the miniature keyboard solo, the gravity of the bass drum and the lightness of the vocal playing tug of war with...

You see?

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