Staff Bios

JOEL

If there’s one word that can stand in for the myriad com­plex­i­ties that encom­pass Joel, that word is “unapolo­getic.” Here’s a man who doesn’t back down from anyone. Growing up in the wilds of West Boca Raton, he matured into a rugged out­doorsman famous for wrestling with bears, living for months on yak drop­pings, and losing at least seven limbs to frost­bite. He looks like what you might imagine of Abraham Lin­coln and Sasquatch’s love child. Unfor­tu­nately, Joel’s gruff demeanor and thick beardage have ren­dered him mostly use­less for the kind of list­making and hipster-pandering music dis­cus­sion that we tend to favor here at girl­pants. Fur­ther­more, his strict musical diet of Wilson Phillips and Braid dis­tances him from the indie rock main­stream to which we so closely adhere. Nev­er­the­less, Joel’s status as half of local “post” rock super­group Pink Panzer’s rhythm sec­tion draws waves of groupies to the girl­pants offices, the siren song of his Fender Jazz stim­u­lating their del­i­cate areas with sub­sonic good vibra­tions. So we keep him around. Despite his impres­sive accom­plish­ments, Joel is the youngest girl­pants con­trib­utor at the tender age of 13. His par­ents have approved his par­tic­i­pa­tion in this site; nota­rized doc­u­men­ta­tion is avail­able upon request. When shown a draft of this biog­raphy, Joel commented:

[02:31] joel: sorry I was peeing
[02:31] joel: haha
[02:31] joel: good
[02:31] joel: that is about me alright
[02:32] joel: and it gets me down to a precise strangulating self-loathing point

(Ben)

BEN

Ben was born in a little town called Cape­side. It was an idyllic child­hood, filled with boats. Ben’s sort of a big deal. He lis­tens to Coldplay/Mariah Carey mashups exclu­sively. But despite what you may think he enjoys manly things like facial hair and nekkid chicks in race cars. Also, if he wants to fuck his way through the dorms that’s his busi­ness. To Ben, bears aren’t just gay porn, but they are real bears. All he does is walk around and think I’M OLD. Pray you don’t fall victim to his raw sexual magnetism.

(Mike)

MIKE

When I was first faced with the task of being Mike’s humble biog­ra­pher, I almost cried. It’s an intense, almost ironic task, because it’s pos­sible that Mike actu­ally needs two bios: there exists in the coun­try­side a rumor that he is undead, and that he has had sev­eral great adven­tures since he crawled out of the grave. How­ever, nobody knows the cir­cum­stances that landed him there, six feet under, and Mike him­self sure ain’t talkin’, so I’ll just stick to the simple facts. Mike was born under a bad sign in a tin shack in Death Valley, but his good golden heart and solid kosher ways have kept him far from the path of evil and away from jail.* He is strong, pli­able, dan­gerous, and com­pas­sionate. Mike is basi­cally a knight errant that wan­ders the land­scape, a lone­some cowboy that res­cues kit­tens, lec­tures hobos, and occa­sion­ally reviews pop music and/or takes part in making the sweet sounds of promising shoegazer leg­ends Pink Panzer (though where he met them I have no idea). You can rec­og­nize him by his trade­mark swagger. Mike also counts among his largest achieve­ments in life both the annul­ment of Pro­hi­bi­tion and the inven­tion of the leather jacket.

*As far as Girl­pants knows. But maybe he lied on his resume.

(Niina)

NIINA

Niina knows warmth, Niina knows kind­ness, Niina knows com­pas­sion. She also knows lots about bears. After living many years in Fin­land (which explains the double i’s in her name and the bears thing), Niina earned her com­mis­sion and paid for things, one of these things being the pas­sage into this country for her sister Minna (not as cool). Plus also Niina built me a pic­ture in crayons. I wrote her a poem:

niina
placed slight cool fingers
solidly down pressing paper to glove
mouthing lips to song
black ornate worn wrapped about
and your head like hay straw,
I could see your knee bruised pretty
under you pull and watch
mouth to eyes, ears and tone
no simple walk in a delicate mind
could in passing look only pure
niina

So when we speak of Niina now, we think of her in a state of refined bear essence: wild claws from the briar, some remote wood in Fin­land, a place where only bears fear to tread. She lis­tens to great music also. She was a girl but not yet a woman…until now.

(Joel)

JASON

Jason does not exist.
Jason does not exist.
Jason does not exist.
Jason does not exist.
Jason does not exist.

(???)