Sleepy Sun -- "New Age" (2009)

There's peace in the mountains 

Where an old man sits in the warm sun

His own best friend

Are you your own best friend?  I think guys who spend a lot of time on the Guyism website are probably their own best friends.  (Especially late at night.)

According to Webster's, the noun suffix "-ism" has several meanings.  For example, it can mean adherence to a philosophical theory or system -- a Marxist is one who adheres to the principles set forth by Karl Marx, while a polygamist is someone who believes in polygamy.

The Guyism website says that "Guyism is all about you, the male Internet user, and what you need from an online experience."  What guys seems to most need from an online experience is the opportunity to look at pictures of fabulous babes, who are usually more or less déshabillé -- that is a core principle of guyism.  (I personally prefer more to less, but a little déshabillé is better than none at all.)

A typical Guyism feature

I became acquainted with the Guyism website quite recently.  I was browsing the  ESPN website or Yahoo! Sports or whatever when I stumbled across a link to a Guyism feature titled "WAGs of the 2012 Australian Open."

"WAGs" -- it stands for "wives and girlfriends" -- is an acronym that was invented by the British tabloids to describe the better halves of professional soccer stars.  It is now used by media around the world, usually but not always to describe the wives and girlfriends of athletes.

The Guyism feature included photo galleries for a couple of dozen professional tennis WAGs, a number of whom were tennis pros themselves.  The others are mostly models and actresses.  (The girlfriend of Mardy Fish, currently the top-ranked American tennis player in the world, appears at first to be an exception to that rule -- she is a lawyer.  But she is also a former Deal or No Deal briefcase girl.) 

Any of these lovelies could eat crackers in my bed without me making a fuss about it, but there one who stands out from the crowd.  I'm speaking of Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker, who is married to Andy Roddick, who was once the #1-ranked player in the world. 

When you click on Brooklyn's "photo gallery" link, you are taken to this video, which appears to have been shot for GQ magazine.  (That stands for "Gentleman's Quarterly," not "Guyism Quarterly."  Same difference.)

I watched the video -- to be honest, I may have watched it more than once.  Brooklyn's part was OK, I guess -- if you're into that sort of thing -- but what grabbed my attention was the music.

As the creator of a wildly popular music blog, you have to be highly adept in identifying and tracking down music you find on the Internet.  I quickly ascertained that the music that accompanies Brooklyn's video was a song called "New Age," by a psychdelic band from San Francisco called Sleepy Sun.  

"New Age" is from Sleepy Sun's debut album -- alas, it is not an eponymous album, but rather is titled Embrace.  The lead singer on that album, Rachel Fannan, subsequently left the group to pursue a solo career.

New Music Express described "New Age" as "a sprawling piece that cocks a snook at beady meditation in favour of some end times fire-and-brimstone noise."  (That's a good thing -- right?  "Cocks a snook" could go either way.)  It's everything that a neo-psychedelic song should be -- it's quite long (7:40), and features some apocalyptic but ultimately meaningless lyrics:

I know that we've been through this before

We are the souls of a dying race

I'll tell all the kids we'll burn in hell

I'll scream for peace in the mountain range

Let's get back to the subject of WAGs for a moment.  I naturally went searching for information about the WAGs of my favorite sports team, the New York Yankees, and found a slide show on the New York Daily News website titled "Meet the Yankee WAGs."  Click here and you can check out all 47 slides if you so desire.

That slide show had several pictures of Nick Swisher's wife, actress Joanna Garcia -- she's adorable (and so is he):

And there were pictures of the wives of Jorge Posada, C. C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A. J. Burnett (who recently became an ex-Yankee), and even Joe Girardi.

Three of the very famous former girlfriends of Alex Rodriguez -- Cameron Diaz, Madonna, and Kate Hudson -- were featured.

But once more, A-Rod felt far short of the Yankees' "Captain Clutch," Derek Jeter.  Almost half of the 48 pictures in the Daily News slide show were of Jeter's girlfriends.  There was Minka Kelly (who starred in Friday Night Lights), Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima, model and talk-show hostess Tyra Banks, model Vida Guerra (two-time winner of FHM magazine's "Best Butt Award"), MTV hostess Vanessa Minnillo (now married to Jessica Simpson's ex, Nick Lachey), singer Mariah Carey, Penthouse model and porn star (Derek, I'm shocked!) Cassia Riley, and several movie stars -- including Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, and Gabrielle Union (who is now dating NBA superstar Dwayne Wade).

So far, Derek has not dated any Kardashians, but he's still a relatively young guy.

Let's meet a few of Derek's lovely ladies, shall we?

Adriana Lima

Vida Guerra

Vanessa Millano

Cassia Riley

Jessica Alba

Jessica Biel

Gabrielle Union

I could go on and on, and frankly I would very much like to do exactly that.  But I think I've made my point -- and hopefully goosed up my hit and page views significantly.  So I'll close with The Captain's current squeeze, Minka Kelly:

Minka Kelly

It's good to be Derek Jeter -- very, very good.  He hasn't gotten around to dating a Kardashian yet, but give him time!

Kim Kardashian

One final note before we get to our featured song.  I hope you ladies out there aren't shaking your head and saying "Tsk, tsk" about the Guyism website and the shallow, one-track-mind men who read it.  

There are some pretty appalling websites that attract large female audiences as well.  One that a friend pointed out to me recently is Jezebel, which covers "gossip, culture, fashion, and sex for the contemporary woman."

The typical Guyism reader may be a sports-and-porn-addicted simpleton.  But if this article is any indication, the typical Jezebel reader is a neurotic mess who is more likely to turn out to be Alexandra "Alex" Forrest than Beth Gallagher.  (Google "Fatal Attraction" if you need help deciphering that reference.)

Here's Sleepy Sun's "New Age":



Click here to buy the song from Amazon: