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Somber news for visitors to New York who hate the hotel experience: Airbnb, a service by which a tenant not using their apartment for a few days can rent it out to another party, has run afoul of the “illegal hotel” law. That’s the one that forbids you to run a rogue bed-and-breakfast out of your closet, or, I guess, in any way profit from the space you are renting for residential purposes.

Before we are really hit with the full-dreaded weight of endlessly hot and humid days -  the kind where you open your apartment windows for some relief and feel hit with a furnace blast -  let’s make ourselves a little resolution: go easy on guys wearing shorts. Sure, it looks ridiculous. But when you think about it, so do all other clothes ever invented. Clothes are weird! 

Tequila looms large, and often not in a good way. Everyone who has reached maturity as a drinker has some truly wretched story about what they did (or don’t remember doing) under its boisterous influence. This has perhaps more to do with the way we novices, especially on the east coast, consume the spirit—it’s the shot someone hands us when we’re already too far gone, or the stealth ingredient in a margarita that was stronger than we thought. How to appreciate its finer points?

We’re still a little flabbergasted by this—we did just dispense with the Nazi Pope, after all—but apparently it’s not a mistranslation: Pope Francis (first of his name!) just told the world that even atheists are redeemed by Jesus Christ if they do good in this life. So you’re saying I had to wear a white Colonel Sanders suit to get first communion for nothing?

When Washed Out, a.k.a. Ernest Greene, chillwave’s reigning maestro, finally released Within and Without, his first LP, it was something like relief. Seemingly everyone with ears had been relaxing to the max with his prior releases, and we craved a longer work to luxuriate in. Now, with a brightly saturated teaser for his new album, Paracosm, he’s got us salivating for more all over again.

The past few years have seen plenty of bands record songs and albums indebted to the infamous Flying Nun label and kiwi-pop’s 1980s heyday as the root of much of what we today consider “indie” and “alternative” rock. And though seminal bands of that scene like The Clean and The Bats continue to kill in live shows and pen great tunes, the heirs apparent are New Zealand’s Surf City. The first taste of their sophomore album, below, should tell you why.

For the fortuitous drinker who also retains a shred of loyalty in their choice of watering hole, the relationship with certain bartenders can really blossom. No, not like that—she has a boyfriend, dude. I’m talking about a simple friendship not totally tied to the service economy at play. Stick around long enough with a friendly attitude, and you might just get a drink or two comped. Lucky you!

Hot on the heels of that hideous punk-themed Met Gala (as if Madonna needed any prodding to wear a fishnet body stocking) comes the announcement that CBGB, the legendary dive of a Lower East Side music venue that closed in 2006, is having a birthday of sorts this fall. Across 175 venues, from October 9 to 13, the massive festival includes 525 bands, 100 film screenings and 40 workshops/seminars. The prices, however, are not 1970s-stabilized.

As you may already have heard, scientists have, for the first time, “cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells," and you know what that means! No, you do not get the rest of the afternoon off. What I’m saying is that we can quit worrying about death now, as we’re almost done conquering it.

First off, we already know that right-wing nutjob Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has smoked crack cocaine. Secondly, that’s Canada’s problem—as far as I recall, the U.S. reelects crazy drug addicts without much fuss. Third of all, do you care about Gawker getting an exclusive video of this ruddy, racist, drugged-out mess, or the people who shot it getting a bunch of money for being there when he smoked crack cocaine? Man, for $200,000 I’ll win public office and smoke crack cocaine right in front of you. Deal.