Finally, something worth writing about happened in the world. And it involves gin.

Yesterday, Oscar Goodwin, the mayor of Las Vegas, America's Amsterdam, was reading to a group of fourth-graders when one of the precocious younguns asked him if he was stranded on a deserted island, what was the one thing he'd want with him. And proving that honesty is not always the best policy, Mayor Goodwin told them he'd want a bottle of gin. Later, a student asked him what his hobbies were, and Goodwin answered, "Drinking."

Needless to say, parents are outraged.

I'm sure they would've preferred Goodwin taught their children a lesson about telling a couple of lies when doing so is politically expedient. No, seriously, I'm sure they would have.

Anyway, I'm personally against fourth-graders drinking because, frankly, I want to be cooler than those little snots. Problem is that our schools' efforts to keep little kids from getting smashed are, by the time those bastards get into high school, largely ineffectual. Teachers try to scare their young students off the drink, but since the kids are too busy thinking about Pokemon and how they're responsible for their parents' impending divorce, the lessons just don't sink in. I, however, have come up with a good way to keep the kids away from alcohol, and its name is tequila. You have to realize that the kids are in those young formative years, when every trauma that happens to you gets locked in your brain for your therapist to extricate thirty years later. And in case you haven't experienced it, the sensation of imbibing hard liquor is like a colony of wasabi-infused fire ants marching down your throat. So instead of the traditional don't-drink-don't-do-drugs lectures, we just give the kids a shot of tequila and let them wonder why the hell anybody would willingly drink that stuff when soft drinks exist in the world.

Kid who gets the worm gets an A.

Dad Gets Me Out of the House

Ever since I got back from college, my father, who for four years totally freaked every time I left Morningside Heights, has been pushing me out of the house. He doesn't like how I'm such a loner, not that I'm a huge fan of the lifestyle either. I think he's afraid he'll turn on the network news some day ten years from now and see one of my future neighbors saying, "He seemed like such a shy, quiet guy. I had no idea he sacrificing prostitutes to the demon-god Mithra in his basement." But that'll never happen; Dad doesn't watch the network news.

Anyway, on a pretty regular basis, Dad interrupts my mid-morning or mid-afternoon naps, or both, with some press release about a local play reading or concert or the latest installment of the Rutgers Film Society Anthology. He believes if I go to these events on a regular basis, I'll make friends and life won't be such a drudge. I, the eternal optimist, don't share his belief, which is working out relatively well for me, as Dad is now bribing me to get out of the house. Last Wednesday, he said he'd rent me a video if I went to this staged reading in Maplewood; today, if I went to Starbucks and drank my latte there, he'd pay for it.

So I did.

Dad tells me that people my age hang out at Starbucks, and I tell him that he couldn't tell a 23-year-old from someone barely passing eighth grade. I hang my head and admit that Dad was right: there was this girl there reading who graduated from college last May after spending a year abroad in Melbourne. I know she was in Melbourne because her shirt said "Melbourne" on it. And I know she graduated last May and spent a year abroad cause some guy who's suave and urbane in every way that I'm not sat down next to her and began chatting her up.

I'm sitting there in one of those giant Starbucks lounge chairs, all by my lonesome, drinking my vanilla latte, going over and over again in my mind: She's reading a freaking book, dude! That's the universal international symbol for "Don't bother me, I'm reading a freaking book."

He doesn't care. "Are you from around here?" he asks, totally forgetting about the entire Sunday New York Times he ostensibly meant to read but probably just carries around so naive recent college grads will think he's sophisticated.

"Do you live around here?" she asks. She just moved to Scotch Plains and he, surprise surprise, has lived here for a while. Thankfully, I'm almost done with the damn latte, so I can leave Starbucks content with the knowledge that total strangers hooked up today, and that neither of those strangers was me.

The Crackers

After my venture two weeks ago into Central Park's conceptual art world, I felt that my views on The Gates had been disregarded and slighted by the larger art community. Looking for support, I turned to Anne, who, unfortunately for me, is majoring in art and specializing in sculpture... so she sees things a little differently than I do. Anne (of course) also checked out The Gates; she had a different reaction to the orange monstrosities: namely, she didn't think they were orange monstrosities. She found a walk among The Gates to be calming, much more calming than hearing about my plan to glitter Central Park and call it art.

Despite ostensibly pissing her off, I found our discussion of the art world pretty enlightening. As an art student, Anne's learned to engage with a piece of artwork simply as it is. Compare that to me, who, as a bitter Ivy League graduate with no job prospects, brings a lot of extra context to the art. For example, there's the $21 million price tag for The Gates, money which, without getting into the complexities of the issue, I'm sure could be put towards better use. To me, The Gates exemplifies everything I can't stand about our celebrity-worshipping mediocrity-approving dumb-fuck follow-the-leader pathetically ovine society. Like The Gates: it may be impressive in scope, but Christo made the project enormous in order to mask its utter lack of artistry. When I say "I could do that!" I don't mean I have the metalworking skills to construct such a project (I don't, and neither does Christo) but rather that I'm capable of producing the artistic vision embodied in the work.

The only thing The Gates has that my hypothetical glitter project lacks is the name of an "artist" attached to it, and it just seems like name-dropping shouldn't define art. Nowhere else in the world do people get away with this; if you go into heart surgery and come out with your leg amputated, the surgeon can't say, "Well, I'm a professional doctor, so it's okay that I needlessly cut your leg off."

It's with this background that I went to the Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday afternoon, where I came across the following. It's by some weenie named Jeff Koons, it's called New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker, and it's only fitting that it gets a paragraph all to itself:

It's a vacuum cleaner in a glass box over fluorescent lights with — and here's the genius part — an identical vacuum cleaner in an identical glass box on top of it. Bernini is rolling over in his grave. Here's what the curators at the MoMA, who are clearly on crack, have to say about the vacuums:

Jeff Koons is one of countless artists whose work would not have taken the road it did without Warhol's precedent. [Another great artistic visionary. Soup. Gee, who'd have thought of that? — Jay] His art presents a profoundly ambiguous statement on American consumerism. New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker (1981) deploys two identical professional-grade vacuum cleaners, illuminated by fluorescent lights and stacked iconically in plexiglass cases. Machines that exist to function have been neutered, vacuums placed in a vacuum — a status as self-contradictory as the machines' "wet dry" inscription. Koons presents without judgment the American fetishization of the new, the perfect. What could be cleaner than a new appliance, one intended to take in dirt but that will never be dirtied? Koons's presentation of these oddly anthropomorphic appliances takes no position — the work can be read as critique or celebration.

Uh. Yeah. Whatever. Vacuum cleaners. Did anybody bother to parse that paragraph before plastering it on the museum wall?

What we really have here is some asshole who was paid a ridiculous sum of money to stack vacuum cleaners ("iconically," whatever that means) on top of each other, the MoMA's art psychobabble and doublespeak notwithstanding. Saying that Koons's so-called "statement on American consumerism" is "profoundly ambiguous" — not merely ambiguous but deeply, intensely ambiguous — is nothing but a rhetoric defense against the not-unfounded charge that New Shelton adds nothing to the discussion on American consumerism.

Q: Jeff, what exactly does New Shelton Wet/Dry Doubledecker say about the ways in which people, Americans in particular, consume?

A: Well, Mr. Art Critic, my statement on American consumerism is so profoundly ambiguous it can't be expressed in words. It can only be expressed through vacuums in boxes.

Just to be clear here, it's not like there aren't statements to be made about American consumerism. But perhaps the reason Koons's statement is so ambiguous is that he's not actually making one.

I don't understand it: I, for one, am actually expressing statements about the American way of life, and I haven't been contacted by a single artistic institution yet. Maybe if I started writing blather, I'd better further my career as an artist.

Koons presents "the American fetishization of the new, the perfect" because nothing could be cleaner than a new vacuum, but he presents that fetishization without judgment. He bravely "takes no position" on America's vacuum fetish. Indifference noted.

Now, I can present concepts in an indifferent and emotionless manner, too, if I want to. Example: calculus. Another example: today is Saturday. Another: some people like winter, others prefer summer. Where's my Genius Grant at?

Maybe Koons gets his vacuums in the museum by pulling off a trick even more self-contradictory than the machines' "wet dry" inscription (which, of course, isn't self-contradictory at all... it's a graphic design oversight and the inscription is supposed to read "wet/dry," with a slash) or the "vacuums in a vacuum" (again, not self-contradictory). Despite Koons's "[taking] no position" on his thesis and presenting the vacuums "without judgment," somehow the work nevertheless "can be read as critique." In case anyone from the MoMA happens to be reading this, the editor in me needs to point out that a critique, by definition, must take a position. I know it sounds all avant-garde and academic to say that something can be read as critique, but reading New Shelton as critique is even more pointless and non-sensical than Koons's statement on American consumerism.

That leaves reading the work as celebration. A non-judgmental celebration of the American fetishization of the clean, the perfect. Let's par-tay, bitches.

---

Me: ...but I could make that.

Mom: But you didn't make that.

Me: Well, if I'd known it would've gotten into a museum, I would have made it.

Get Your Tivo Ready

I just have to point out that tonight at 11 PM on the Discovery Health Channel, they're showing something called You Swallowed What? If you want to know what you're missing, here's a little blurb from the DHC website:

Meet people who bite off more than they can chew in this examination of just how much the stomach can take. An Australia boy swallows a squid hook with 32 razor-sharp barbs and a sword swallower attempts to break the world record.

How fucking awesome is that?

From the same people who brought you — and I'm not making this up — When Anesthesia Fails and When Surgical Tools Get Left Behind.

I've got a few more show ideas for DHC, cause as you can tell, they're in serious need of some. How about When Dialysis Machines Break Down? Or When Hospital Food Goes Bad?

I've said this before, but our local video rental place, Palmer Video, really needs to hire someone to stand at their exit and beat the living shit out of anyone who rents cinematic abominations like Alien Vs Predator or Kangaroo Jack 2: G'Day U.S.A. I'd be more than willing to do that job gratis. It's all that I can do to watch some parent suggest to their kids that they rent Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies and not report the asshole to Child Services.

Still, Palmer Video isn't Blockbuster, which is single-handedly responsible for the dumbing down of Hollywood thanks to their refusal to rent out NC-17 rated movies. So that's one thing Palmer's got going for it. (Wal-Mart is also pretty evil in this regard, not to mention extremely evil in many others.)

Anyway, it's with that background that I went to Palmer last Wednesday to rent the fourth disc of HBO's underrated series The Wire, which I strongly recommend checking out. Since I was there, I figured I'd take a look at the recently released Wonderfalls DVD. But to my dismay, amidst many, many copies of The Whole Ten Yards and a slew of WWF grudge matches, there was not a single copy of Wonderfalls.

So I did what any good consumer would do, and I wrote to Palmer:

Why do you have like nine copies of "White Chicks," but I can't find a single copy of "Wonderfalls?"

And yesterday, Palmer Video employee and resident movie yes-man Scott sent me the following response:

From: "Palmer Video"
To: kempshall520@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Contact Us
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 11:50:56 -0500


because like wonderwalls just got released and we like haven't recieved
it yet due to delays at our distributor
White chicks is actually a theater release and rents like crazy but i will
get A single copy of wonderfalls for rental as soon as possible.
Have a great day
scott

Now, Scott, there is like no possible way I can have a great day knowing that like White Chicks "rents like crazy." Maybe if you didn't overstock crap like that, people would rent something better. Or at least something different, like the latest flick where Tara Reid plays a blonde bimbo or something.

I caught this headline in today's never-sensationalized New York Post: FBI 'MOBILIZES' IN PROBE OF PARIS HILTON HACK ATTACK.

Thank God.

I can rest easy tonight, knowing that both the FBI and the Secret Service are taking time off from stopping Al-Qaeda to find out who splashed our nation's most precious semi-retarded heiress's little black book all over the internet.

---

Someone hacked into Paris Hilton's Blackberry and posted all her phone numbers on the internet. Yeah... Paris said, "I haven't felt this violated since three days ago." —Conan O'Brien

Do me a favor. Next time you're watching American Idol and some soul-selling twenty-something wannabe pop star is up on stage singing something so easy listening the "Lite FM" deejays think it's saccharine, pay attention to how indifferent the audience is. These poor people standing around in the crowd look like they got stood up at karaoke night and now they're stuck watching some Japanese dude in a suit two sizes too small butcher "Ironic." It's very sad to think that nevertheless, more people voted for the last American Idol than in the last presidential election.

---

All new FOX special: Stars Without Makeup ("See the stars looking their worst!"), Thursday at 9 :-)

Have you checked out the government's revised dietary guidelines? You know, the one that suggests we all eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily. It used to be five servings daily, but I guess Americans are such lard-asses that wasn't cutting it. When these new guidelines don't slim down America's waistline, the government will put us all on a strict diet of tofu and Vitamin Water, injected directly into our veins.

Another section of the new dietary guidelines recommends ninety minutes of exercise daily, which is nothing short of frustrating. People have jobs and social lives, we have to commute and stand in line at the bank and call Domino's and get put on hold for half an hour; who has time to devote ninety minutes to "medium-intense activity?" I know that after sleeping for ten hours, eating breakfast (no servings of fruits and vegetables), masturbating for three hours, taking a two-and-a-half hour nap, and spending seven hours watching TV, I barely have time for an hour of exercise.

However, I do try to spend about fifty-five minutes at the gym, three times a week, mostly because there are no women in form-fitting workout clothes for me to ogle in my house. This leads me to my three-point plan for getting America in shape:

• Point 1: Attractive members of your gender of choice. It's pretty easy to disappoint prospective exercists. I mean, I just caught this commercial for Bally's fitness clubs and apparently Bally's is full of hot women under thirty aerobicizing. Okay, I don't know about Bally's, but ninety percent of the people working out at the Fanwood-Scotch Plains YMCA are on social security and, to be blunt, are pretty damn ugly. The more considerate ones wear sweatpants. This leads me to point two, which is...
• Point 2: Shame. Ever see that Maury Povich with that seven-hundred pound guy who was too fat to get out of his house? That was hilarious — in a pathetic way. Plaster his picture around the gym as a warning. Thinking about getting off that Stairmaster? Not anymore, you're not.
• Point 3: Cookie dough ice cream. Life's too short to follow the food pyramid. Even shorter with the fatty snacks.
  

Who's The Greatest American Ever?I'm pretty sure it's not me...

Have you seen these "Greatest American" commericals on the Discovery channel? They want you to go online and vote for who you think is the greatest American ever. To help you out, the Madison Avenue geniuses who came up with this ad assembled a panel of average-looking Americans. By which I mean, of course, that these panelists' skin colors are as diverse as their attitudes are conformist and non-confrontational. (No one seems to believe that John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry or Larry Flynt's defense of free speech rights merits consideration for a greatest American award.) Since Americans don't know shit about history, these panelists make suggestions: one mentions Rosa Parks, another mentions George Washington. Both good choices.

And then there's this fat middle-aged white guy proudly announcing his choice — Katie Couric.

What?!

Not that Katie Couric hasn't made great contributions to America in the form of mind-rotting early-morning celebrity interviews and changing her hairstyle every year or so, but you couldn't think of one person who'd made greater contributions to the country? Let me help you out, Whitey: how about Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr or Ben Franklin. I mean, is Matt Lauer not a great enough American to be nominated for this incredibly insipid award?

A Completely Impartial Review of The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005

If you've been following the pulse-pounding world of conceptual art, you're probably aware that the artist Christo unveiled his latest masterpiece that a five-year-old could've come up with, a $21 million project concisely titled The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005. Christo, you'll recall, is listed in the Directory of Folks Who Don't Think They Need a Last Name as the guy who once draped the Reichstag in fabric and lined California's Trejo Pass with 1,760 yellow umbrellas, one of which collapsed and killed a woman. I guess that little fact is neither here nor there.

Seems like Mr. Christo's idea here involved draping these orange curtains —— I mean, saffron curtains —— over many of Central Park's footpaths. I believe there's something like seven thousand of these curtain structures throughout the park, which is enough fabric to make something like fifteen hundred prison jumpsuits. In my own opinion, The Gates is, in a word, overhyped. When I got to the park, there was a big sales table set up and a huge crowd clamoring to spend their hard-earned money on Gates merchandise. It's not like the installation isn't nice enough or not impressive in scope, but I'd stick my head in a bucket of ice water if I ever considered purchasing a Gates t-shirt. (Actually, I probably should've stuck my head in ice water when I thought hiking through the park in the middle of February was a smart idea.)

Let me describe the Gates experience for you. You come into the park, and there's an orange shower curtain thing set up above you. And then there's another one. And another one. And another one. And another one. And you look to your left, and there's more curtains. And to your right, more shower curtains. And they're orange. What a surprise.

I am kind of surprised that no one's put any stickers promoting their garage band or calling Bush the devil on The Gates' gates. In New York, just about anything that doesn't move is considered fair game for tagging.

Official Gates guides patrol the park, looking for anyone who needs more information about the art. You can ask them questions like, "What the fuck?" and "This is art?" and "Do you have any drops I can put in my burning eyes?" Stuff like that.

To give credit where credit's due, when the wind hits the Gates just right, the curtains take on these interesting billowy forms that echo down the entire path. They're pretty cool. Not twenty-one million dollars cool, but cool.

I was in the park for a little less than an hour and a half, and now I won't be unhappy if I never see orange again.

I realized that this Christo guy and his wife, the similarly surname-less Jeanne-Claude, have a pretty good scheme going here. They set up this rather pedestrian artwork that any moron could conceptualize, even a moron that doesn't know what "conceptualize" means, and evidently they make a good living doing it. They funded the whole Gates project on their own, and Christo even has the ego to drop his last name... because I can't think of any more important figure with that name. Certainly no one who's the son of God come to save humanity from our sins. I'd like to get in on this conceptual art bullshit, and I even came up with an idea. I'm gonna go and glitter all of Central Park — the trees, the roads, the lakes, everything. I'll call it The Glitter, Central Park, New York City, 2005. And I'm gonna drop my last name, too. So from now on, it's just "Jay," please.

I'm Not The Superficial One!

I've been having some trouble landing a job, and while I have a couple of theories about why, those theories probably say more about my neurotic fantasies than they do about the reality I present to my prospective employers. I worry, as do those irritating progenitors of mine, that I just don't quite look the part, although my parents and I have different ideas about what exactly that means. Let's see: I never bothered to find out how tall I am, but my driver's license says I'm five-foot-five. I'm still getting acne. Sometimes I get carded trying to get into an R-rated movie. I hardly think I'm the only twenty-three-year-old who can still pass for a high school student, but most of my brethren are in Los Angeles, working as extras on The O.C. or Veronica Mars.

So maybe I need to come off as, well, my age, before they'll take me seriously as a candidate. Step one: I tuck my shirt into my pants. This creates the illusion that I've gained a few inches and also makes it more likely people will mistake me for Jerry Lewis. And not the tubby modern-day Jerry Lewis but the Jerry Lewis that the French love. Step two: I wear a tie. I managed to tie the motherfucker all by myself, because I'm a big boy. It chokes me, but that's okay because it's not as if I'm going to need air during my job interview. Step three: I wear a blazer. I actually skip step three partly because my blazer is midnight blue and makes me look like I'm a yacht captain and partly because the helpful salesdude at the Men's Wearhouse where I bought the jacket pointed out that one of my shoulders is higher than the other, so now I'm gonna be self-conscious about that forever. Step four: Wear freshly-polished loafers. I don't own loafers, so I'm gonna have to stick with sneakers.

Mom is thrilled that I wore a tie. She's convinced that I'm not a getting a job because my idea of appropriate job interview attire is anything that didn't come off the men's activewear shelf at Old Navy. For my part, I'd much prefer to not get the job because I'm underqualified rather than underdressed. Turns out I need not worry about that.

My interview is a bust. Shockingly, the tie does not make me any more articulate, or engaging, or enthusiastic. It doesn't improve my resume or my work experience. The tie does, however, wander too close to a toilet and get a pee stain on it, which I'm sure will never come out and will require that I burn the cursed strip of linen, all of which is fine by me.

In Education News...

I caught this report on CNN, home of Wolf Blitzer and The Mole's Anderson Cooper, about a decision by the Staunton, Virginia school board endorsing off-site Bible study for elementary schoolkids during school hours. I, for one, couldn't care less if these kids are playing hookie for God, although I don't think the program's really working that well. According to CNN, the eighty-five percent of kids in the Bible study program tend to ostracize the fifteen percent who don't participate. I searched my Bible, but I can't find the passage where Jesus tells His followers to treat the non-devotees as lepers. Maybe it's in the King James Version...

Anyway, they interviewed one of the moms who can't believe that there are Americans — in Staunton, Virginia, her own community, no less — who believe kids shouldn't be taken out of school for religion classes. She has a theory, wholly unfounded, of course: "I hope they aren't persecuting us because we're Christian."

And with that comment, I can only pray that this self-centered bitch receives a divine beat-down from God. No, Lady, they're not persecuting you because you're Christian. They're not persecuting you, period. You and your crazy, pseudo-victimized Christian friends make up an overwhelming majority of the population; there's absolutely nowhere in America where Christians are persecuted. If you want to see some real persecution, why don't you head down to Kosovo or Saudi Arabia or Tamil Nadu in India. Or better yet, spend a week as a Muslim in America. Try getting through airport security, then complain about the opposition to your Bible study.

Have a Schadenfreude-Filled Valentine's Day

Great. It's Valentine's Day. I won't say that I've always hated this day, but once I hit middle school and they stopped giving out those cheesy Valentine notes to everyone and started giving out carnations to the pretty people, Valentines Day started sucking amazingly. And not in the good way, either. By seventh grade, I caught on and started sending carnations to myself, just so my astonished classmates would say, "Somebody gave you a carnation?!" Even while Anne and I were dating, I still hated this holiday, although only on principle. Nothing more romantic than principles, right?

This is the first Valentines Day in something like fifteen years I haven't spent around my less-principled peers nailing all sorts of tail while I send myself carnations. (The fact that I'm calling it "tail" might explain why I'm not so lucky in the world of love.) There are two more things mollifying me this Valentines Day. The first is the existence of venereal disease, which I for one won't be contracting. And of course, tonight's the Westminster Dog Show. I have mixed feelings about these dog shows.... On the one hand, there's my cooing affection for every dog paraded around Madison Square Garden. My apologies to the entire human race, but I much prefer dogs to people and I've got nothing but contempt for the snooty purity-Nazis at Westminster naming their poor dogs Champion Lady Margaret of Cunningshire Waltzes or Kevin or something stupid like that. (Seriously, the Suffolk spaniel at last year's Westminster was named Kevin. What kind of freakwad names their dog Kevin???)

Just as in the human world, it's the most dolled-up frou-frou pedigree that invariably wins Westminster. Never the most loyal dog or the friendliest or the dog with the best sense of humor.

When I get my first puppy down at the animal shelter, I'm not going to be looking at the animal's breeding. I'm looking for a dog that I can bond with, one who's cerebral and introspective and who likes long conversations about our feelings and spending hours in Barnes and Noble without buying anything.

I heard some woman on the radio complain about being single in her thirties on Valentines Day, and at first I felt a sort of kindred spirit with her: see, I'm not the only person unattached on Valentines Day. And then there was a tad of resentment. Wait a second, I thought, why is she single? Not why isn't she married or why isn't she engaged or why isn't she in a meaningful long-term relationship — you need to find the specific right person for one of those — but what's so wrong with this woman that not one man in all of central New Jersey will ask her out. Is she hideous?

Seven seasons of Sex and the City have made me skeptical. It's more likely that she's just plain picky and petulant, that she's looking for the same sort of fairy tale relationship that Carrie eventually found — he's handsome, urbane, and, oh yeah, "the next Donald Trump" (which would kind of negate his handsome and urbane qualities). Honey, that's fiction. Your soulmate probably won't rank very high in the pantheon of great men, and I'm spending all my sympathy on your unfortunate soulmate who's out there waiting for you to come back to reality.

Problem Solver

I have a new idea for a freelance position, borne out of myriad failed job interviews and a compulsive need to perfect the world. See, interview after interview, my prospective employer gives me some idea of what the company does and how they do it, and, invariably, the company screws up their product or service in some blatantly obvious way. I want to save my good examples of this for some other time, but here's a lousy example of what I'm talking about. I interviewed at this place called Forex Capital Markets. They make software that allows your average Joe Bag-o'-Donuts to gamble away his life savings in the international currency market, trading dollars for Swiss francs or Euros for yen. It's a great idea, or at least a great concept, opening up a new segment of the economy to folks who'd traditionally been excluded. There's just one teeny-tiny problem, which you might have caught onto if you tried to muddle your way through Forex's explications of margins and dealing spreads — the currency market is absolutely inscrutable without a master's in economics.

And like I've said before, most Americans couldn't tell the stock market from a flea market.

Just an example. So here's my idea. It's a sort of consulting thing; companies hire me as a problem-finder and, for a modest fee, I'll point out every one of their inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and just plain thick-headed business practices. I'll even try to solve some of their problems, but, truth be told, I imagine I'll be enjoying the complaining and criticizing parts of the job than I'll enjoy fixing things.

Anyway, if you want me to come criticize you or your business, send along an email. First complaint free.

Innocuous decapitated mannequins or part of an insidious plot to turn our children gay? You decide.

Crimes Against Fashion

The Virginia legislature just passed a law making it illegal for kids to wear baggy, low-riding pants with their underwear exposed over the top. We learned about this from a CNN news report this morning, naturally accompanied by pictures of anonymous American asses and their overexposed rear ends. Just in case anyone's unfamiliar with the latest fashions.

Here's the story: It seems a Virginia delegate named Algie Howell, who, from the name alone, I'm willing to bet is an old geezer, was getting a lot of complaints from his constituents about the kids these days with their drawers hanging out their pants and their loud music going ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum. I get that last part from my grandmother, who, back then, had nice music like Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Welk. Algie believes that it's not Osama or the failure of social security that'll be the end of this great nation; it's exposed underwear. "To vote for this bill would be a vote for character," says Algie, "to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia, but for this entire country."

Thankfully, the ACLU is on the case, although I've got a better solution than litigation. The law only prohibits people from exposing their underwear in a "lewd or indecent manner." So I think we should all march on Virginia, underwear-free, wearing assless chaps in protest of the new law. Well, not me. I have a sense of shame. But if you're comfortable with your pants down anyway, why not try to protect your rights to do so?

Positive Feedback

Finally, someone gave me a review without calling me ugly. It's from one of our hardly-working civil servants whose parents most likely did not name him/her Anonymous:

Trying to fake-it through a work day for a government employee is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to do when reading your blog...you're a funny kid! Keep entertaining me at work and I'll work extra hard to piss away your tax dollars! THANK YOU!

Crap.

This blogging thing was so much easier before I had a fan base. Much more pressure. Gotta be funny. Life was much easier before folks had expectations of me.

There's this kid on trial down in South Carolina for (allegedly) killing his grandparents with a shotgun and then burning their house down. The facts aren't really in dispute; instead, the kid claims that the Zoloft he was taking made him do it. Just for that, I hope they nail the little bastard to the wall — not only for the murders but, more to the point, for refusing to take responsibility for his actions, shifting the blame to the pill like he's some sort of automaton.

The defense claims the kid was suffering from restlessness, some condition technically called "akathisia," and that he heard voices — or more precisely, his voice — telling him to kill his grandparents. The prosecution notes that the grandparents disciplined the kid for fighting on the school bus, and they contend that the kid shot his grandparents because he was pissed off. I don't disagree with either argument, and I wouldn't be surprised if the kid really was suffering side effects from the Zoloft. Thing is, once you've passed the gorilla and chimp stage of our evolution, you can no longer just do whatever the voices in your head tell you to do. I mean, we've all fantasized about killing people before, and most of us either buy Grand Theft Auto or we join the army where you get medals for that kind of thing. I, personally, write stories, burning literary effigies of those I hope God strikes down sooner rather than later.

Point is, you don't actually follow through with your deepest, darkest impulses, no matter how restless you are, because, aside from the Golden Rule, we just can't have a society where everyone's killing everyone else over every little thing. I believe that this kid, despite whatever the psychologists (who I'm sure have been generously paid by the defense) say, shot his grandparents because he was angry and he thought he'd never be called to account for what he did. The drugs might have made it easier for him to ignore whatever shreds of conscience the kid has, but if you're going to blame the drugs, then you might as well say that if the shotgun weren't present, he wouldn't have murdered his grandparents. Or if his grandparents were elsewhere he wouldn't have murdered them. We have to deal with the circumstances we're given, and this kid just didn't want to bother. Instead of getting rid of the drugs, he got rid of the grandparents... and then blamed the drugs, which just makes me sick.

I caught Digging Up The Truth on the History Channel, which seemed like a cool premise. They follow this adventurer guy Josh around exotic locations as he searches for lost treasure, Indiana Jones style. This week, Josh was hunting for the Ark of the Covenant the Indy way: by interviewing random priests and monks who all claim to know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy whose brother heard something about a guy who saw the Ark a few years back. So you think there's a story here. Josh starts at Mount Sinai, then goes to the Temple of Jerusalem, then announces he's found this church where they have a real life Ark of the Covenant. Break for commercial.

We're back, and it turns out the whole church with the real life Ark was just a red herring. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church has a replica of the Ark since some Ethiopian king took the Ark back home with him after a trip to Jerusalem. Very funny, Josh, getting my hopes up of seeing some Ten Commandments and then letting me down. It's off to Ethiopia.

Long story short, Josh braves floods, storms, hippos, and bandits, getting closer and closer to the Ark, visiting places that once housed the Ark and still house some of the Ark's travel accessories. Eventually, Josh and his guide wind up in this little Ethiopian village, and there's this little temple there, and they stop at the front gate, and.... Well, they claim that the Ark's in that temple, but no one's allowed past the front gate except the Guardian, a priest with a rather limited worldview who never goes beyond the gate. Certainly, we mere television viewers aren't holy enough to get a look at the Ark.

What a jip! First of all, who the hell knows what's in that temple? They probably get the dirty cable channels in there or something and they don't want anybody to know. I mean, I could claim that I have a unicorn in my room but no one's allowed in to see it, and you wouldn't believe me. (At least, you shouldn't believe me.) I'm not gonna take that Guardian at face value until I can see the Ark for myself, cause if you see it on TV, then it's gotta be true.

Did you all see the "Puppy Bowl" on the Animal Planet channel? No, of course not, you were too busy watching big, sweaty men pile on each other. But if you weren't watching the Superbowl, FCC-sanitized for your protection, the Puppy Bowl was a viable alternative and doubtless the cutest thing ever broadcast. I'm not quite sure what the point of the Puppy Bowl is or how your dog wins it or why it even needs to be a "Bowl." It's basically six hours of puppies playing with, sniffing, and humping each other to the unoffensive sound of elevator music, complete with instant replay and a gratuitous field-level "puppy cam." Every now and then, a John Madden-ish guy makes some non-sensical announcement like, "If you think these puppies are the best of the best, take a look at this," before cutting to a computer-animated pterodactyl or something.

The best part of the Puppy Bowl (okay, the second best part — those puppies are so cuuuuuute.... awwww) is the referee. He doesn't keep a twenty pound labrador from beating up on a three pound French bulldog, but he does come on the field occasionally to announce where the dogs crapped on the field. Gotta wonder what the audition for that role was like.

Gotta wonder how many desperate actors there were willing to take that role.

Gotta wonder why you can't toilet train a dog like you can a cat.

Liberal Weenies

I was watching a thrilling half-debate/half-confrontation thing on The Abrams Report on MSNBC. Dan was talking about those prurient Superbowl ads, and Dan's panel discussing the topic included some advertising industry lobbyist bent on subverting our children's moral fabric, a right-winger psycho-Christian who desperately needed to get laid, and an academic-slash-liberal weenie. Let's describe the punditry in action here. God's tool there was using the standard right-wing debate tactic of loud interruption, meanwhile the hippie liberal kept repeating, "Who decides what's offensive?" Over and over again. "Who decides what's offensive?" Like that's gonna stop the psycho-Christian.

See, who decides what's offensive really is an important issue for everyone, even the extremist right-wingers among us. We all think there are ideas in the world that should be kept away from others; the difference between me and the conservative America-haters is that I don't trust my fellow citizens to be judicious censors. I don't think that's an unreasonable position, given the last four years of government censorship — the Howard Stern indecency fines, the Janet Jackson thing last year, John "Der Furher" Ashcroft covering up the statue of Justice. I'd rather let my fellow crazy cretins spread their ideas than risk being prohibited from spreading mine.

Neither Dan Abrams nor crazy God guy thought this was an issue worth addressing. Dan was blunt: The FCC decides what offends America. God guy didn't even bother to respond. What about the children, he asked indignantly.

So liberal weenie correctly tells God guy something like if you don't want your kids watching the Cialis commercials during the Superbowl, then watch the Disney channel or the cartoon channel or something else. Turn off the TV.

And God guy says, "Should I have to watch the Superbowl with the remote in my hand to change the channel as soon as something I don't want my kids seeing comes on?" Which should be right where we want him.

Except neither liberal weenie nor the advertising industry guy is able to answer him. Let me help you out, dude. Yes, God guy, you need the damn remote. In case you haven't noticed, you don't pay a dime to watch the Superbowl, and the Superbowl is free because a company that makes a pill to keep your dick erect sponsors the event. You want to see the Superbowl commercial-free, buy a damn Tivo, asshole. And if you're that concerned about your kids, you would turn the TV off and give them a book to read, preferably a non-Bible book. Maybe you can't watch the Superbowl until your kids are mature enough to handle the concept of erectile dysfunction, and that's a sacrifice you've got to make. But you're a stereotypical American, God guy, which means you're also a stereotypical Christian, which means you're a hypocrite and unwilling to make sacrifices for others.

I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to speak freely because you're a self-centered parent, jackass. If the liberal guy had said this, it might've shut that conservative freakwad up for a few seconds.

Change

I noticed a message from the divine written across the bottom of a one-dollar bill in my wallet today.

BELIEVE ON [sic] THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AND YOU WILL BE SAVE [sic]:

With a colon instead of a period. Do you think that, maybe if it's not too much trouble, the almighty can teach His prophets basic grammar skills?

You know, I kind of reacted to the communication via currency in more or less the same way I think of bumper stickers. The more I think over it, though, scribbling my manifesto on money seems like a pretty good way to put my message into circulation. It doesn't work so well if you feed the bills to a vending machine, but you hand it to a cashier somewhere and then someone else comes into the store needing change, and suddenly someone else has the chance to be saved.

Maybe I'll leave my blog address on everything in my wallet.

Or "Fuck the red states!" Or how about "God is dead!" Or, since some moron thinks they're proselytize me via the almighty dollar, how about I leave 1 Timothy 6:10 (look it up) written across George Washington's face.

I had two job interviews today, and I didn't want to make a first impression looking like someone involved in a face-first sled-fence collision, so my mom introduced me to a tube of some feminine face paint called "concealer." Why the hell wasn't I told about this stuff sooner?! You rub this stuff on your face and it covers up all the mean jokes God decided to play on you, at least the ones the Almighty played on your face. It actually does a pretty decent job. Like, I put it on the yellowish and black bruises around my left eye and it turned the encounter with a fence into the after-effects of a sleepless night. It worked so well I used it on my right eye, which typically looks like I haven't been sleeping enough, and I looked like I got an extra ten minutes of sleep. Wonderful! I might turn into a drag queen and use this stuff on a daily basis. Take that, acne!

Can Dubya Say "Tool?"

I didn't watch the State of the Union address because our president's voice makes me queasy. So I woke up this morning to the highlight reel on CNN, and apparently there was a touching moment when the mother of some soldier who was slaughtered by Iraqi insurgents hugged an Iraqi woman who just got her first taste of what John Stuart Mill called "the tyranny of the majority." I guess there was only one soldier killed in Iraq, because I don't think there were a thousand grieving parents invited to the SotU. They played that clip like five times in the first half-hour of American Morning, with all of the anchors being objective and telling us how touching it was.

I'm glad this mom's at peace with her son's sacrifice, protecting America from those weapons of mass destruction... oh, wait, forget about that. Well, some woman halfway around the world who just happens to be sitting on a ton of oil can vote for an American-run puppet government, so that's important. And it's good that the two of them hugged, because it just didn't have the same emotional resonance when Dick Cheney hugged Iyad Allawi. The Republicans ought to use that moment in their campaign ads, don't you think?

Later on American Morning, liberally-biased anchor Soledad O'Brien interviewed an army soldier who lost his arm in Iraq and, I guess, just happened to be sitting in the House chamber when Dubya started his yakking. And surprise, surprise, the army guy liked Dubya's speech. What are the odds?

You see, here's what separates Democrats from Kansas: we understand that Dubya will say any silver-tongued lie to get the morons of this country on his side. Why is it that not one Democratic leader will just be blunt on network TV and say, about social security for example, "Dubya will take food out of your starving children's mouths if it'll make him and his zillionaire friends a few extra bucks." Kerry didn't say that, Edwards didn't say that, Barack Obama was too busy being hopeful to say that, Al Sharpton was too busy whining to say that, even Michael Moore didn't say that. And while I'm on the topic of social security, what's up with all those American idiots saying, "I can invest my money better than the government?" Oh, really. The government might be hampered by bureaucracy and red tape, but the government has bankers and economists working for it, while these hillbillies donate their hard-earned money to Pat Robertson and buy commemorative plates and wouldn't know the futures market from a school bus.

Sticks and Stones

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post complaining about the tasteless coffee at the organic, microbiotic, vegan, whatever New York cafe Soy Luck Club. So a little before six in the morning someone bravely calling him-or-herself Anonymous left the following comment on that post:

well if you weren't so ugly, maybe coffee at soy luck club would taste better.

First of all, Anonymous, is that supposed to be an insult? Cause the first half is kind of insulting, although going after my looks isn't exactly what I'd call a challenge, but taken as a whole, your comment doesn't really make any sense. Maybe if you weren't so ugly, the coffee at Soy Luck Club would taste better, but probably not. My guess is that Anonymous is a hideous inbred freakazoid covered in acne and bedsores, and he's jealous of my admittedly-average appearance.

As a service to Anonymous, let me give a brief lesson on how to deliver a proper insult, like "I guess your mom was smashed on gin and meth during her third trimester. Explains why you can't string together a sentence that makes a lick of sense." Lesson one: if your pseudo-insult doesn't follow basic rules of cause and effect, your comment turns out to be more amusing than hurtful. See A., the taste of the coffee doesn't have anything to do with the way you or I or anyone else looks. If it did, you'd melt into a steaming acrid puddle just walking into Starbucks. See how it works, buddy?

Anybody Know The Answer To This Question?

Q: Why do you want to work for our company?

A: Because I need money and the sperm bank rejected me, again.

That's the honest answer, right there. Well, not the sperm bank part. But let's turn the tables here — if I asked the interviewer why he worked for the company, what do you think he'd say?

It's Not the Fall That Kills You...

Since the blizzard fell over the weekend, I'd been meaning to go sledding. It's the fun thing to do in the snow, like a winter roller-coaster, and I take it seriously. No upside-down garbage can lids or cheap plastic mold sleds going downhill for me; I own a hand-built wooden sled with thin metal runners for as little friction as possible. Today was, in fact, supposed to be the best sled day ever — thanks to my current unemployment, I could get the hills all to myself, so suck it everybody with school and/or jobs. No risk of sledding into some kid and winding up on "America's Funniest Home Videos."

So I drive over to Echo Lake Park, to the big hill, and bound up to the top with the sled in tow like a fucking six-year-old who uses the f-word a lot. And I sled down, speeding to the bottom, where the sled decides it's gonna bear right and toss me off onto the icy snow. Fun, fun, fun, although I really don't remember sledding hurting this much. Nonetheless, I do have the whole hill to myself, so I dismiss the experience as a sledding aberration and trudge up the hill again.

It's not an aberration. Sledding hurts even more when I get thrown a second time.

The third time, I wise up, sort of. I'll head to the least steep part of the hill, and I'll go down face-first, so I won't have my heavy boots pushing the sled in one direction or another. This works a bit better; at least, I'm not thrown from the sled this time. The sled keeps flying even when the hill stops sloping, but I'm going pretty slow by the time I crash into the safety hay-bales at the bottom. It's a pretty close call, to be honest. Some safety genius decided to build a little snow-ramp up above the hay so they could have what I'm sure is the singular pleasure of sailing off the hill and straight into an SUV grille in the parking lot at the bottom.

Anyway, it's like eight degrees outside, so I hang out in the car and warm up before a few more runs. I should've just driven home, but then again, I do have the hills all to myself, and aside from the bruisings and beatings, I am having fun.

So once more, I go up the hill, and I go down the hill face-first since it worked so well the other time. I try to slow the sled by dragging my boots across the ice, but that doesn't really help. I zoom down into the safety hay, which stops the sled, but doesn't stop me. I keep going past the safety hay until my face collides with a not-so-safety fence, effectively ending my sledding, my fun, and my dazzling good looks.

Hell — and Fanwood — Freeze Over

Maybe it is possible that Starr Jones... er, excuse me, Mrs. Al Reynolds really is the Messiah. You see, since it snowed up to my knees over the weekend, Mom is home from school today. This means that she'll not only spend today invading my personal space, like a long, long weekend, but I'll have to put up with Mom's desperate housewife morning television routine: Live with Regis and Kelly at nine, Ellen (who's honestly not all that grating) at ten, and, God help us, The View at eleven. So about ten minutes ago, I catch Mom watching Meredith Vierra, et al, so I steal the remote from her and turn the idiot box off. Which leads to the following conversation:

Mom: Hey, I was watching that!

Me: Well, you shouldn't support Barbara Walters. Did you see her interview with President Bush? She asked him, "Are you a cat person or a dog person?" Seriously, she's a professional journalist, for Christ's sake. Does that question really help create an informed public?

Mom: (agreeing with me although she doesn't want to say it yet) I didn't see that interview.

Me: And Starr Jones... I mean, Starr Jones-Reynolds. She really enlightens the public discourse.

Mom: Okay, put it on channel four.

Not that Jane Pauley is Walter Cronkite or Oprah or anything. I mean, she's barely Montel. But she's still better than Starr Jones-Reynolds, who, if you weren't aware, recently got hitched to some dude named Al. Also, she's under the delusion that her wedding reception from last month somehow spilled over onto the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Anyway...

Me: See Mom, I'm trying to el-e-vate society and you're just happy keeping it down.

All said with appropriate hand motions for "el-e-vate" and "keeping it down."

I was victorious. But that's not why Starr Jones-Reynolds, Princess of Avalon is likely the new Messiah. Mom can't figure out how to use the remote control for the life of her, so it's actually pretty easy for me win a television show victory over her.

Me: Seriously, who has a corporate-sponsored wedding anyway??!!

Mom: I guess you have a point.

Amazing! I got Mom to concede that a non-Paris Hilton celebrity overstepped the bounds of good taste! Mom believes that if you've been featured on "Access Hollywood," you're suddenly sacrosanct — J. Lo could have roasted infant for her Thanksgiving dinner and Mom would tell me I'm being unduly harsh judging her. "The media's just going after her because she's a celebrity and a powerful woman." Yeah, right, Mom.

But there's more...

Me: And did you hear what Starr Jones said about the tsunami?

Mom: No, what did she say?

Me: She said it was a "miracle" she wasn't there because she was just there a month before for her honeymoon, and even though 186,000 people died it's a miracle she wasn't there.

Mom: Okay, that's obnoxious.

In Starr's defense, she probably didn't mean it that way, but it just goes to show how massive her ego is, that she could think of how God chose to spare her before thinking of the tragedy that befell the poor guys serving her margaritas on the beach a month before. I know she's a big girl, but I'm totally stymied as to how that ego of hers manages to cram itself into her corpulent body. Okay, that turned out to not really be in her defense, did it?

Here's the kicker...

Me: Doesn't that make you angry?

Mom: Yes it does.



Thanks to Starr Jones' unbelievably insensitive behavior, I made Mom feel a little bit of the fury that permeates my daily existence! Yay! Now if I could only get her to feel this upset about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and the appointment of right-wing psycho-Christian federal justices.

Did you all see Barbara Boxer take on Condi in the confirmation hearings yesterday? Condi was all like, "Oh, no you didn't be impugning my integrity," and then Barbara Boxer was, "I'm Barbara Boxer, bitch. I do what I want," and Condi was all, "Well, I been sleepin wit yo man, ho!" It was pretty much the most entertaining three minutes of television since the stopped showing white trash fighting on the Jerry Springer show.

By the way, if you missed the sparks, you can catch them again on Senate Confirmation: Too Hot For TV, which includes the part where Dr. Rice lifts up her blouse and says, "Oh yeah, oh yeah, he wants these! You gonna take me, girl?"

I also just noticed that Condi has a freakishly enormous head. Literally, too.

Things I Share A Birthday With

That chick who played Stephanie on Full House

The Apple Lisa

Men's briefs

Scrabble

Goethe's Faust

Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn

Snow in Miami (only happened once in the city's history)

Byzantine empress Pulcheria

Miss Malta 1997 Claire Grech

The shortest will ever written

WKBF in Cleveland and KFME in Fargo

The Japanese invasion of Burma

Acadia National Park

Molasses tidal wave in Boston

I simply can not stomach the Condi Rice Senate confirmation hearings. It isn't the fact that she's a hard-line neo-conservative hawk that bugs me, nor the way she's completely incompetent and unqualified for the position. It's those wussy Democratic senators who are questioning her, including presidential loser John Kerry. Not one of them reflects my anger with the current administration: "Dr. Rice, turns out you were a big fat liar when you said that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, you fucked up the crusade against Iraq so our soldiers are dying in terrorist attacks a year and a half after they put the 'Mission Accomplished' sign up on the battleship, and now you want a job promotion? What the hell is wrong with you??!!" Instead it's all congratulations on your nomination Condi, love working with you, thanks for your service to the country. And these are the GOODDAMN DEMOCRATS, listening to her lie through her teeth and fuck America and then thanking her for it.

You know what also pisses me off is that she's doing better in her job interview than I ever do in any of mine. Like, even on the rare occassion that one of these senators tries to fuck her up, she's unflappable in her prevaricating. Maybe there's something to be said for these practice interviews, committing your meaningless corporate bullet points to memory, wearing a conservative pants suit and some lipstick — or in my case — a tie.

Anyway, Condi's obviously gonna be nominated cause that's what you get for living in a kakistocracy. Well, in 2006, I'll be able to run for Congress (although I imagine I'll be too busy blogging to do any real campaigning). So then things are gonna change in this country! Yay!

This is the sign outside the east men's room in Grand Central Station. There is, of course, a corresponding sign outside the women's room (or, the "ladies lounge," as it's sometimes called). Now, my question: Is it really necessary to say "men Only" in bold, italic, and underlined? I can just imagine there being a really long line for the women's room, so one or two tomboys — probably two — figure they'll try their luck in the men's room. Just in case any of you ladies are getting any ideas out there, I wouldn't recommend this. Seriously, the men's room is, invariably, freaking nasty. Men don't want to go in there. But I digress, as these imaginary women and their full imaginary bladders approach the men's room and see the sign, men — emphatically — only, and turn back, frustrated.

What's really disturbing is you know that they wouldn't put those signs up there except somebody did just that. But now that they've got those bumper-sticker sized signs up on the wall, we can rest assured that one bathroom will be devoted entirely to people standing up and peeing and the other will be solely seated pee-ers. Thank God.

Okay, it could be worse...

Unprofessional Behavior

I nearly missed the train this morning because the parking lot at the train station was full, as was the overflow parking lot across the street from the train station, and I had to park in the Carriage House lot, which was nearly full. The train pulled in while I was still on the wrong side of the tracks, and I ran across the parking lot, up the bridge, and then ran out of energy like a little wuss. I managed to stumble to the train just before it pulled out, and as I got onto the train, the assistant conductor said to me in this snide, condescending way, "Hope you've got a ticket."

I ignore him, like my wussy parents told me to do when someone's being a jerk.

So he repeats it: "Hope you've got a ticket." Like this guy thinks he's better than me cause he's got a uniform or something. I don't need this crap. Naturally, I start thinking of a way to get my revenge.

Now, New Jersey Transit has customer satisfaction forms both in paper and online, and I've filled out more than my fair share of them. I've complained about the paucity of trains, the lack of a direct line from Fanwood to New York, and NJ Transit's chronic inability to get a train into the station on time, all to no avail. I don't think they give a shit that this guy's giving me lip — he's an assistant conductor and I'm a kid — I just can't imagine this ticket-taker telling off some fifty-year-old guy in a power suit. Either way, I'm gonna fill out an official complaint. But just maybe... I'll lie.

How about this — I fill out the form and throw in a little storytelling and embellishment. The guy says, "Hope you've got your ticket," and then he said if I didn't have my ticket, he offered to waive the five-dollar on-board purchase surcharge if I sucked his cock in the train bathroom.

Why the hell not? So what it's untrue — I demand to be heard and no one cares unless there's the threat of a lawsuit. I demand to see this guy punished for his insolence; I want him to know that he can't treat me like that.

What did I eventually do? I filled out the complaint form, I named names, I told the truth. I sicken myself.

A Completely Impartial Review of "The Very Best of BLACKOUT!!!" at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

Erica and I went out to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre this evening for a show called, as you could probably guess from the title of this entry, "The Very Best of BLACKOUT!!!" Neither of us had ever seen "BLACKOUT!!!" before, if such a thing exists, so we have no way of telling whether what we saw really was the very best of "BLACKOUT!!!" or if the title of the show was just a clever marketing ploy to get naive us into the theatre. Didn't matter — neither of us had ever been to UCB before, we both wanted to check it out, I needed to catch a train home before the evening was out, and this was the earliest show. They could've called it "The Very Worst of BLACKOUT!!!" and we would've gone, thinking the title was some sort of subversive avant-garde improv thing.

The show was only five bucks anyway, so it wasn't a big deal whatever they called it.

BLACKOUT!!! is this sketch comedy troupe whose sketches are all under a minute long, so you get like fifty or so in an hour, not counting the set-up time between sketches. It was, uh... rushed, I guess would be the right word. Every now and then, I chuckled, but more often than not, I thought they'd be funny if they just tried a little harder. Like their timing was off, or they skimped on the set-up, or they stopped with a punch-line that anticipated another, funnier punch-line following it. I can't say it was easy getting used to the rythym, either, or jumping randomly between topics.

So it may seem odd that I'm gonna give TVBoB!!! the best commendation I can possibly think of: if I had nothing else to do and someone else to do it with, I'd go back. I mean, it's fifty percent the cost of a movie and maybe like fifty-five percent the entertainment value, so I guess it's a pretty decent deal.

I interviewed for an unpaid internship at the Cherry Lane Theatre this afternoon. I met with this woman Faye who seemed pretty cool and pretty into making me get the most out of this internship. Of course, the first thing she asked me, before the obligatory ice-breaker phase of the interview, was about my availability. In fact, at least half the interview was devoted to my schedule, which I found a little presumptuous. Not for nothing, of course, but considering how my previous job left me with relatively open-ended work hours, I might have been taken a bit aback by Faye's emphasis on scheduling and implied insistence that I stick to the schedule we'd set up. I guess it's a non-profit organization, so you really can't complain when they don't have any money to pay you, but come on, folks, most people like something in exchange for their labor. You get what you paid for. With these internships, the theatre gets a lot more than they paid for, so I don't think they can really complain when one of their indentured employees shows up a bit late for work. If it's that important to always have someone on duty, just hire an extra unpaid intern or two. It's not like the budget can't handle it.

Anyway, the interview was miserable. I guess I'm still not quite in the zone after getting terminated at the other theatre, and I said some things that were a bit asinine and some things that were a little too honest for a job interview. Then I had to balance out the scales with a couple of white lies. Mostly, I guess I was just disengaged by all the talk about my schedule.

Aside from the obsession with sticking to a schedule and the not getting paid parts of the job, it actually seems like something I'd want to do for a few months. I would be working with the production department, sitting in on rehearsals and working with the people who are actually creating the play on-stage. I'd also be helping the tech department during shows, and working with the development department, grant-writing and marketing and website-updating in the down time. I'm just not sure about the whole thing. Part of it, I know deep in my bones, is my natural anxiety whenever I have the opportunity to start something new. But there really are practical concerns. It's about time I grow up and get a full time job where I can support myself, not to mention the damn student loan people who are demanding their money back. I have until Monday to decide, but I don't think I'm gonna accept the internship. I'm just trying not to be so hasty in making my final decision.

I can't say that I'm phenomenally thrilled about the readership pattern of my blog. I downloaded the graph below from http://www.statcounter.com/, and as you can see, readership spiked as my employment prospects drooped. On average, my blog gets 15 page loads a day, two or three of which are probably me. On Friday, my blog got 13 page loads, with 12 unique visitors. On Sunday, there were 47 page loads with 6 unique visitors. On Black Monday, I had a whopping 88 page loads witih 24 unique visitors and 18 first-time visitors. The page where I rag on Tony got 19 hits, more than six times any other page.

Now that everybody at Theatre Row's forgotten about me: 10 page loads and 6 unique visitors.


Honestly, I was operating under the assumption that no one ever read my blog. Maybe there'd be the stray visitor who clicked on the "Next Blog" link at the top right of the page, but they'd be few and far between, and they'd be from somewhere like Switzerland and wouldn't bother ratting me out. Nobody I knew would ever stumble across the blog, and they certainly wouldn't bother reading it, because they have no interest in me whatsoever.

So there's a lesson in this: if you want people to read your shit, you've gotta bad-mouth your colleagues. Not what I was hoping for. (Damn guilt!)

Denial, Anger, Grief...

I guess I'm responding to my job loss by going through the five stages of grieving, like my lame webmaster position at the theatre is a lost pet or a dead distant relative who used to write me checks for my birthday and Christmas. I was in stage one, denial, when I wrote my earlier post. Now I'm in stage two: I'm fucking pissed.

Okay, Society, here's what I did. I posted someone's first name on the internet. I did not post anyone's home address, or phone number, or social security number, and there's plenty of people on this goddamn planet who wouldn't have been so fucking courteous. What I wrote could not have possibly been more innocuous, and to be nailed for it is fucking ridiculous. What am I supposed to do, have my lawyer okay every goddamn thing I write, say, and think?

You know, Jay, none of this shit would've happened if you weren't so freaking judgmental. So antisocial. Yes, I do know that.

This is why I sit in the fucking corner and keep to myself, why I resent the living shit out of my loquacious ex-co-workers who seem physically unable to do that, and why I have to tell somebody, dear readers, about their ridiculous idiosyncracies. Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that I'm not divine and I screwed up this time. Like I'm the first person on the whole freaking planet to do that. Why the fuck are those football players who lived on, and ravaged, my floor junior year getting away with their dumb shit?

And how about this; here's a little (true) Theatre Row story for you. The day before I wrote the offending post, I'm working on upgrading a computer and Erika, the Big Boss, calls me over the intercom asking for Adam, the second-in-command. Adam walks in a few seconds later and I tell him that Erika called for him. So he picks up the phone, dials her extension, and screams into the phone, "What do you want, bitch?" She (presumably) says something and he replies, "Whore!" Now, I don't know what fucked-up theatre planet these people come from, but here on Earth, calling your boss a bitch and a whore is a bit more firing-worthy than simply alluding to a co-workers existence on your blog. Where's Adam now? Still working at the desk next to Erika.

Where am I? Bitching in my blog.

Oh, yeah, here's another thing, speaking of "bitch." I have never called anyone a bitch to their (her) face. I'm being a little picky with my language there, and it's not going to matter for the point I'm about to make. One time, about five years ago, Anne and I were in her room and her sister was outside being, shall we say euphemistically, obnoxious. And I said, "Boy, she can be a real bitch if she wants to," (and, I'll note emphatically, saying someone can choose to be a bitch is very different from saying someone is a bitch). Anne freaked, as if I was the one behaving like a bitch. Now (a) what I said was the fucking truth, (b) it was probably what Anne was thinking too, if not for the b-word, and (c) if anybody who didn't share Anne's bloodline were behaving the way her sister was at the time, Anne herself would have quietly agreed with me. Something similar happened recently, which I, frustrated, won't write about here because it involves a friend who I'd like to keep a friend. Same idea — word "bitch" was used, out of context — whole freaking international incident about it. Adam calls his boss a bitch; nothing. Rappers call their escorts bitches; nothing. R. Kelly, for fuck's sake, takes a piss on one of his twelve-year-old bitches; nothing.

Maybe there's something to this. Maybe this passive-aggressive bullshit isn't the way to go; you should be just plain aggressive. If someone pisses you off, call 'em on it. Throw something, something heavy and preferably sharp, at them.... Hmm, I can't say that I see this working very well.

It's not what I want. I want people to follow the rules of society, and I want society to dispense with all the arbitrary, pointless, useless rules. I want good people to be rewarded — not in the next life, but in this one — and I want bad people to be punished. No, maybe not. I'm big into schadenfreude; I'd rather see everyone miserable. But maybe that's just because I don't believe anybody is really good. I want peace and quiet and introspection and zen, and I want an end to everyone's insecurities and their in-your-face, invading my personal space, self-aggrandizing bullshit. I want everyone to understand that the truth and a lie aren't kind of the same thing and I want the "Mission Accomplished" sign to stay packed away until the mission actually is accomplished. I want the meek to inherit the earth.

This is surprisingly cathartic. I should rant more often. Also, I'm disturbed that my blog got 23 hits from the Theatre Row IP address alone, when it usually only averages twelve hits total a day. Everybody's so curious....

You can get the worst, most watery, tasteless, astringent coffee in the world at the Soy Luck Club at the corner of Greenwich Avenue and Jane Street. I guess that's kind of what you expect from one of those organic vegan places with "soy" in the name. So why am I sitting at the counter recommending the place? They have fake grass around the windows, and free wi-fi access! Beat that, Starbucks!

Don't get the wrong idea; we like Starbucks too. But seriously, Starbucks, beat that.

I've Been Censored! :-(

I lost my job, thanks to my blog. Last week, I wrote a little piece about my co-workers, now ex-co-workers, who were largely obnoxious, irritating assholes. So I got called into Erika the Big Boss's office this morning and she told me that someone anonymously forwarded my blog to her, and I had mentioned one of my ex-co-workers by name, and that was a security risk and "totally inappropriate." Yeah, God for-fucking-bid. Anyway, "you can't work here anymore," so I had to leave, my only consolations being that I'd write about the experience in my blog for all of you to read and that, of course, there's the possibility that the theatre will collapse, killing everyone inside except the recently-fired.

What pisses me off is the balls I don't have in handling the situation. First of all, mentioning a co-worker's name in my blog is not, by any stretch, "totally inappropriate." Walking on stage in the middle of a performance and urinating on the lead actor would be totally inappropriate. Mentioning She Who Shall Not Be Named (and I don't know why the hell I'm not using her name now, since it's not like they're gonna be able to fire me again or anything) might have been poor judgment — and I don't even concede that — but it's much less inappropriate than firing someone for casually posting a co-worker's name.

To some extent, I understand her point, and if Overreacting-Bitch Erika (that's Erika Feldman, by the way, and if you want to get in touch with her, her e-mail is erika@theatrerow.org) asked me to take that post down, I would have gladly. I mean, if I were in She Who Shall Not Be Named's position, I would've been totally comfortable writing (possibly imprudently) about every detail of my job and every weirdo I encountered during the day. So I don't think writing down someone's name is such a big deal. But, on the other hand, it's not like her name was an essential part of my little post, or that the post was that freaking hilarious to be worth sharing with the world anyway, and I would've taken it down.

You know, all I was really trying to do was something nice. I spent like eight paragraphs ragging on this guy Tony for making a deliberate choice to behave like a cretin, and I thought why not throw in a brief sentence at the end mentioning that not everyone at the theatre is a total jackass. Oh, wait, here's why not, cause it'll get you fired. Well, if I'd known that, I'd've kept my mouth shut.

But, now that I'm no longer welcome at the theatre, I can tell you what I really think of my co-workers:

Erika: overreacting bitch, I already mentioned it but I thought I'd mention it again.

Jonathan: no complaints.

Felix: can't really understand his accent, but no complaints.

Shawn: kind of intense.

Jim: thinks his desk is some sort of garbage can.

Tony: other folks at the theatre (dare I name names???) think he should be thrown out in the middle of 42nd Street — I just wish he'd shut up.

You know what thought came over me? Maybe they're afraid that thanks to my security breach — like I'm working at the CIA or something — there'll be some sort of lawsuit on their hands. Which is kind of weird, because I wonder if I can sue them for firing me because I wrote something on my own private website, outside of work, using none of the resources at the theatre. Fine, maybe they don't like being mentioned (then I'm sure they'll love this post), but it's not my fault if their security is lax, and it's not like I signed some sort of non-disclosure agreement preventing me from ever discussing the details of my job. Besides, where does it end? Would they have fired me if, instead of publishing a name in a blog that only five or six people have ever looked at, I casually mentioned this name to a friend?

I think we all need to band together to do something about the Man interfering in our personal affairs. In the meantime, I'll be fantasizing about revenge, like the revenge I never got on the asses at Sparknotes who let me go. Someday, I'll become world dictator, and then to the plutonium mines with them all!

Blackout

I woke up this morning to find my cable modem on the fritz, recussitating itself for a few minutes in between hours of receiving a dead signal. How frustrating...

Always one to look on the bright side, I figured that at least with the modem out of commission, I'd be a lot more productive today. A typical day of mine consists of three or four hours sitting in front of the computer, masturbating to online porn. No internet means I control my sex drive for those four hours and reclaim them for, say, working on my play or writing computer programs, spending a Saturday expanding my mind. So what do I do on my Saturday off? I spend three hours in the afternoon sleeping, followed by watching VH1's "Top 25 Cheesetastic TV Celebrities."

Thank God the internet's up and running again, so I can get back to blogging.

I Stink Of Diner

I think I've gotta add the local Scotchwood Diner to my list of places from my pre-college days I can no longer frequent, which also includes the high school, the library, and the prom. But tonight, Anne and I revisited our old, old days — it's been four years of college plus two of high school since we met, which I was completely surprised to learn is a total of six years — by heading back to the diner. I came home, but I didn't feel like going home, so I called up Anne and asked if she wanted to go out, and the diner is pretty much the only non-Dunkin' Donuts place to go after midnight in Fanwood.

So to the diner we went.

Unfortunately, the diner was overrun by these asshole little high school students, and I mean they were like fucking roaches there. I swear, there were more high schoolers at the diner than there are in our actual high school. And they were all in this one big clot, which, sad to say, is how I remember high school for everybody except me and Anne (and Josh Hamerman, but no one gives a crap about him). We sat down, looked at the high school clot, looked at the menu, looked back at the high school clot, then I told Anne, "We need to find a bar."

To which Anne said, "We need to find a bar."

Something tells me I should've ordered rum in my hot chocolate. Really loudly, too: "Yeah, can I get a hot chocolate with whip cream and, uh, a SHOT of RUM. CAPTAIN MORGAN'S or BACARDI, if you've got it. Hey, YOU WANNA CHECK MY ID?"

It's weird, cause pretty much before I got inside the diner, the thought that I wouldn't fit in never even crossed my mind. Sure, there'd be some high schoolers. There'd be some of my peers, like I sometimes see at the Y. There'd be some fat middle-aged white trash smoking and talking about trucks or beer or something, like it was when my peers and, tangentially, I ruled the diner. Things've changed, though, more or less. That Seth kid who plays the guitar and acts like he's got ADD. and mysteriously appeared in Muse one day and started charming the crap out of everybody ('cept me, of course), he was there, too, buddy-buddy with all the high schoolers, especially the ones with the two-contrasting-colors hair or the metal shit in their faces. So that's it: either you hang out with high schoolers cause you just can't muster up the maturity to grow up, or you move on to a place where they won't let high schoolers past the bouncer. Unless the high schoolers have fake ID's, which they invariably do, because Anne, Aneesa, the Loewingers and I were the only high schoolers on the planet who actually followed the goddamn rules.

I Am At Peace, and I'm Not Sure Why

Thus begins my evening.

I'm gonna meet Erica and ex-asshole Steve for dinner at Grand Central Station at 7. Around maybe 6:55, Erica gives me a call and says there's some sort of emergency at work and she' s stuck in a meeting; she'll be done in maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Now, it's not like Erica is a firefighter or anything — she's an administrative assistant (i.e., a secretary with a personal assistant's duties) at Court TV, and I really can't imagine what sort of "emergency" Court TV could possibly have. I mean, what sort of problem could they possibly have that can't be solved by just showing repeats of "Forensic Files?"

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Only tangentially related:

I saw a pool guy with a pager once. What kind of pool emergency could you possibly have? "Guy jumped off a diving board, needs a pool!" —Steve Skrovan

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Forty-five minutes later, Erica and Steve show up and drag me to this Mexican place in the food court. They claim it has quote the best guacamole unquote, a little expensive, but we can all split it. The restaurant also has the world's most obnoxious mariachi music blaring, loud enough to fill a stadium but in a space only slightly larger than my old dorm room. So it's like one of those high school dances with the thumping music where you say, "Damn this music's loud!" and your friend says, "What?" and you say, "What?!" and your friend says, "WHAT??!!" until it's no longer funny, which happens pretty fast. So it's not like I can talk to Erica and Steve, or hear what they say.

Which is fine, because they spend the entire freaking meal bitching about work, so it's like one really, really long, tedious inside joke that I'm not even gonna put in the effort to try to hear. This happens pretty much every time I meet with them (which only happened once this far), and it's not like they're gonna even give me some context to put their little conversation in. Not that it would matter, cause I guess this restaurant realizes that mariachi music is less annoying than this conversation.

Then, for some deranged reason, they invite me to spend the night with them at Steve's place in Astoria. Uh... what??? They've spent the past hour griping in this world that I'm not a part of, and now they want me to stay overnight with them for more? Problem is, Erica and company are pretty insistent when they want you to do something with them. And I'm not really hip to new situations — like spending the night in not-my bed — even if I did want to spend more time with E&S, so I've gotta make up some cheap excuse for leaving. It's not my forte. I say I've got an appointment tomorrow morning at ten, which leaves Erica scrounging for a way to get me from Astoria to Fanwood tomorrow morning by ten. Thank God no one can think straight in this mariachi hell.

Okay, so I should be feeling bereft, but I'm not really.

I catch the PATH on time, but run to the train in Newark just as it's pulling out of the station. The next train doesn't leave for fifty-five minutes. Dad refuses to come pick me up in Rahway, which would get me home before the next Fanwood-bound train even leaves the station. I should be pissed! Thanks a lot NJ Transit!

But I'm not pissed. I am at peace, and I'm not sure why. I sure would like to know, 'cause this being at peace thing is really fucking nice and I'd kind of like to duplicate it.

All Hail Michael Newdow!

From the New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An atheist who sued because he did not want his young daughter exposed to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has filed a suit to bar the saying of a prayer at President Bush's inauguration.

Michael Newdow notes that two ministers delivered Christian invocations at Bush's first inaugural ceremony in 2001, and that plans call for a minister to do the same before Bush takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

In a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Newdow says the use of a prayer is unconstitutional. The case is tentatively scheduled Jan. 14.

Last year, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed the same lawsuit, saying Newdow did not suffer "a sufficiently concrete and specific injury." But the decision did not bar him from filing the challenge in a different circuit.

Newdow is best known for trying to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

He won that case more than two years ago before a federal appeals court, which said it was an unconstitutional blending of church and state for public school students to pledge to God.

In June, however, the Supreme Court said Newdow could not lawfully sue because he did not have custody of his elementary school-aged daughter, on whose behalf he sued, and because the girl's mother objected to the suit.

Newdow refiled the pledge suit in Sacramento federal court this week, naming eight other plaintiffs who are custodial parents or the children themselves.

No Purchase Necessary

The following arrived in my e-mail from the Columbia College Alumni whatever:

From: Emily Morris

Reply-To: Emily Morris

To: ******@columbia.edu

Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 14:59:51 -0500

Subject: Classes of 2003 & 2004 - *PARTY*

Columbia Classes of 2003 & 2004
invite you to
PARTY
like it's 2005!!

When: FRIDAY, January 14, 2005
10pm til you drop
Where: mAnnAhAttA (316 Bowery)
Cover: NONE if you're on the guest list or say you're there for the Columbia Party
RSVP by Wednesday, January 12 and get on the guest list (no waiting in line, no cover)

WIN raffle prizes including airline tickets, fine wine, sports tickets, dinner for you and friends with Jerry Sherwin, and much more... but ... you're only eligible if you've made a gift to the College Fund in the current fiscal year (July 1, 2004 - present).

Oh, I get it.... they're trying to get me to donate to the College Fund. Those tricky little alumni association bastards. Apparently the $140K+ I've given to Columbia this far, not to mention the student loan I'm paying off, isn't enough for these folks. Well, thank God I don't really fly anywhere, and I don't like wine, or sports, and I don't even know who the hell Jerry Sherwin is or why the hell I'd want to have dinner with him.

Maybe because he's paying?

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Some further research reveals that Jerry Sherwin is the ex-president of the Alumni Association and a member of the class of 1955. So, yeah, I was just thinking that my friends and I don't eat dinner with enough octogenerians.

Hate hate hate the locker room at the gym. I have to say that I have never in my life felt a need to get naked in front of other dudes — I mean, it took like three and a half years to get naked in front of Anne — so I have no idea what the hell these old, wrinkled guys are thinking. Don't they have a shower in their homes???

God, I despise Alias. But fortunately, I hate it on principle, in the same principled way I hate most things. It's not just the show's mediocrity that bugs me, it's that everybody else seems to love the damn show. First of all, when it came out in 1999, Alias was just another Buffy the Vampire Slayer rip-off, with all of Buffy's gratuitously hot violence but none of its wit sustaining the otherwise interminable story between the fights. But its bigger sin — aside from somehow getting nominated for an Emmy — was coming out at the same time as A&E was debuting the British show MI:5, an infinitely better spy show with developed characters and real storytelling, and no one watched it because they were too busy whacking off to Jennifer Garner.

Loquacious

Let's talk about my job, which I usually don't do. An average day at work has me coming in and asking someone, hey, what do you need me to do? The important people at work are in meetings twenty-four/seven, and no matter when I come, I'm interrupting, so they tell me, "Let me find you in five minutes." Six hours later... it's time to go home.

Not that I mind coming into work and not working. It's my dream job, really. All I have to do is look busy in the event that someone comes to my little corner of the office — which is actually a lot of hard work — and make the occasional website update, eating about ten to twenty minutes of my workday. So you can imagine my disappointment when, on Tuesday, my supervisor at the theatre said his supervisor wanted to have a talk with me. She wanted to "discuss what I actually do around here." Damn.

So today I headed up to the big boss's office with my tail between my legs and a half-assed story about how the website requires maintenance and just because you can't see the changes I'm making to the website.... Well, whatever. Turns out there's a computer in the box office that refuses to be connected to the internet and the virtual private network simultaneously, and it's my job to figure out why. (I vaguely remember reading that the internet and VPN are incompatible, but I sort of need more info on that...) I head down to the box office to check out this intractible computer; too bad neither I nor Michelle, who's working down in the box office this afternoon, knows the password to log in. We've gotta wait for Tony, who owns the computer, and who I really want to talk about.

Because he is one of those people who won't shut the fuck up, and really ought to. He is an ac-tor. And, when he finally came in and logged into his computer, he has an Alias desktop wallpaper, which is just plain embarrassing.

Thing is that I find a lot of the people at the theatre off-putting, with their self-confidence, their easy-going blather, their goddamn irritating tendency to randomly break into song. It's especially irritating when the song their breaking into isn't a song so much as a radio commercial jingle or some Alias-retarded Top 40 song that played on the radio about three minutes ago. Seriously, Tony, does the planet really need that? Do we need you introducing this southern-drawl woman Wren by "she used to play shortstop on our theatre softball team."

Me: You guys used to have a softball team.

Tony: No, I just didn't want to say she used to work here.

Ass.

[There used to be a brief paragraph here mentioning that not all my co-workers (now former co-workers) were freakwads, but it got me fired. So screw it. They all suck. —Ed.]

I hope they don't read this.

I was watching Love Is In The Heir on the E! network, when "Princess" Ann Claire (and by the way, what the hell is she the princess of???) revealed this personal tidbit to a potential suitor: "I grew up in a palace and I had servants to do everything for me. I didn't even know how to pour a glass of milk until I was fifteen." Okay, how freaking stupid are you if you're fourteen years old and you don't quite understand gravity? I wonder if I'll ever stop being shocked when some TV diva reveals how retarded she is. First, we had Jessica Simpson, and I thought no one could possibly be that dumb. Then, there was The Simple Life, and I was pretty damn sure we'd reached the limits of human stupidity outside of the White House. And now this...

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"Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." — Albert Einstein

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