The comments keep coming down below for my “Support for the Troops?” essay, which has sparked more interest than a sighting of J. Lo and Ben duking it out like the Miller Lite Catfight Girls. Hardly a political writer, though hardly apolitical either, it’s been gratifying to see such a largely sober debate around the issues at hand.
Most striking, to be, has been the enunciation of the moderate voice in the discussion. “Moderate” to me is another of those labels that seems to be woefully outdated, or at the very least misleading. Throw it in there with “liberal” and “conservative” while we’re at it.
We’re in a soundbite culture---no real news there. You need look no further than your television stations to see this is true. On the live album “Rattle and Hum”, Bono said that “I can’t tell the different between ABC News, Hill Street Blues, and a preacher on the old time Gospel Hour…” Flash forward roughly fifteen years, and it’s hard to tell the difference on first glance between MTV and Fox News. (Both feature Gideon Yago, oddly enough. OK, so they don’t.)
While blame is consistently laid upon MTV for the quick-cut culture we now have, I’d argue that MTV was simply the first to tap into their audience’s desire to see MORE MORE MORE, versus simply brainwashing society into accepting this type of editting. Go and watch VH1 Classic sometime; check out the videos from pre-1985. A 3-minute video generally consists of 15-20 cuts. No one in his or her right mind needed to see the leader singer of The Fixx for 25 consecutive seconds. So, the quick-cut was invented, and suddenly people sat around going, “Yes, I think I like Mr. Mister.”
Check out movies of the same time---watch people act for 18 seconds consecutively. If people do that nowadays, they qualify for an Oscar. People today can’t believe certain scenes happen in one take, as if it’s a Herculean effort to not flub your lines for that long.
Today, along side 24-hour music stations sit 24-news stations, feeding us recycled data packaged as music videos. They’ve got soundtracks, they’ve got snippets of dialogue, they’ve a fiery sun burning in the Iraqi skyline framed artfully around the sioluette of a tank. Thing is, after almost two weeks of war, this snippets are all the lay populace seems to be watching. It’s far too time-consuming, and even numbing, to discern, dissect, and digest they amount of “information” that comes in streaming every second of every day. Thus, we get our war information in the time is takes to toast a bagel.
Which gets us back to the inefficiencies of political labels in our current climate. No four-minute promo, no matter how slickly or efficiently produced, is going to carry the full story. No one news article, whether it be in a newspaper, magazine, on e-zine, is going to carry enough information for you, the reader, to make a fully informed decision. However, these type of four-minute decisions are what is fueling the general rhetoric today---at watercoolers, at dinner parties, in chat rooms late at night.
The conversations center around half-remembered summaries of these incomplete packaged reports and we all wonder why there’s so little good dialogue going on concerning the war. Regurgitating tag lines provided for you by a reporter you don’t know is not the way to have a thoughtful political debate. Thing is, these reporters and editors often find a really catchy, alliterative way to phrase stories that sound much better than anything you and John/Jane Q. Citizen could ever come up with. Luckily, most people I know are not spouting alliterative catch phrases, or I’d feel like I was in a modern day of “Piers Plowman.”
- Four years of tuition: $120,000
- Four years of books, notepads, and pens: $3,000
- Four years of pizza, Mountin Dew, and other late night necessities: $2,000
- Joke about “Piers Plowman” as the only discernable result: Priceless
OK, I’m back. Just as it’s easy to frame discourse and discussion through bold declamations of topic sentences that have no supporting arguments (“I heard that Saddam is sacking sad-sack Saudis!”), it’s just as easy to dismiss your opponent’s arguments as “liberal” or “conservative” without really thinking about what these terms really mean anymore. Just as the binary of “anti-war” and “pro-war” is a false one, the liberal/conservative dichotomy has simply got to go in a reasonable discourse. You might as well as have a Tastes Great/Less Filling debate while you’re at it.
Note that “moderate” hardly ever comes up, for the same reason that moderate voices in general are as quiet as a crowd at a Tori Amos concert---it just doesn’t have the OOMPH needed to get heard amidst the static. I don’t think anybody ever went home crying after being accused of being a “moderate” at a cocktail party. Well, maybe some people have, but they have issues that this particularly essay does not feel like addressing.
So, “moderate” is clearly less easy to latch onto as a stereotype than “liberal” or “conservative”, but it’s still a stereotype nonetheless. A bit of language theory here, for all you language buffs, to help us illuminate the basic problem. (Hey, more use out of that education, my parents will be thrilled as they mail in yet another loan check.)
Ferdinand de Saussure was this hip cat back in the day who came up with a language theory called structuralism. This website gives a better definition that I could on the basics of a structuralist view of language:
“Structuralists believe that the underlying structures which organize units and rules into meaningful systems are generated by the human mind itself, and not by sense perception. As such, the mind is itself a structuring mechanism which looks through units and files them according to rules. This is important, because it means that, for structuralists, the order that we perceive in the world is not inherent in the world, but is a product of our minds. It's not that there is no "reality out there," beyond human perception, but rather that there is too much "reality" (too many units of too many kinds) to be perceived coherently without some kind of "grammar" or system to organize and limit them.”
So, language is fundamentally an agreement. There’s no reason that thing in the woods has to be called “tree”, but the English language dictates this to be so. I say “tree”, and you think of that thing out there in the woods with the trunk and the leaves and the raccoons plotting our demise as a species.
No? That’s not the tree you envisioned? Well, that was Derrida’s point in deconstruction---a series of signs and signifiers breaks down due to individual perception of the world around them. Sausurre wants an organizing principle for language in the form of a tacit agreement; Derrida’s saying no agreement is possible.
I’d propose a Derridian perspective currently exists in the current political naming conventions---we all have in our minds our own mental images (what Sausurre called the “signified”) when a series of syllables are uttered (what Sausurre called the “signifier”). However, very often this combination of individual signifieds and signifiers collide with each other, without the individual parties realizing this. And this is when arguments break out, along with steel chairs. (Sorry, had to throw one pro wrestling reference in there so my loyal readers would know this website hadn’t be hijacked by a pundit.) You say to-MAY-to, and I say to-MAY-to, but we’re still saying different things. We can’t even agree to disagree, but we’re disagreeing while "agreeing" in many cases without even knowing it.
What then, can we do about this little lingual dilemma? Well, Nelly and Kelly Rowland seem to be an expert on some dilemmas, but they may not be able to help us out here. Really, in essence, discourse like the comments for the “Troops?” essay is the best place to start. Some people think dialogue alone doesn’t solve anything, and they have a point, but to forgo discourse in favor of action is equally dangerous. Its’ time to break the Saussurian strangehold on the current level of discussion and really get down to brass tacks about what these catch-phrases that we currently toss around like old throw pillows truly mean to us.
Once that truly starts, we’ll be on the road to something we can all agree on.
I can't believe I missed my blog anniversary, which was ten days ago. You can see the first entries here. Lord, I sucked.
Heh, go me. One year. A lot has changed. Some for good, some for bad, some involving peanut butter.
Between work and the overwhelming response to the articles below, gonna take it light today on the blog. Hope you don't mind, possums.
I started to respond to MsWise’s comment here, (scroll down to the comments) but it got long, so I’m making it a new post.
She wanted to know where I fall on the proverbial fence regarding the war.
Heh. If I answer that, people would have no reason to come back to the site. *hint*
If you're asking what side of the fence I am on in terms of my position of the war: it vacillated quite a bit in the buildup. My instinct is generally to avoid conflict of loss of life wherever possible, I'd like to think I'm smart enough to know I very little of the intricacies of why we're in this war.
I have to believe, because the alternative is frankly too frightening, that the reasons we are there have been well thought out and/or of an ilk that we, the public, can't know due to national security. The "All The Presidents Men" side of me thinks it's rubbish, though, and sometimes that side wins out.
What's interesting to me, out of these comments, is that quite a few people feel the same way I do---ie, they fall in between the extreme positions. The problem seems to be that, in the media (as well as elsewhere in life), moderate viewpoints are rarely heard. One needs to shout at the top of one's lung, and extremist points of view shout the loudest. I mean, you never see movie ads that boldly declare the movie to be "Average...run of the mill." No, it's "THE GREATEST MOVIE SINCE FILM WAS INVENTED."
What does war have to do with film? Well, it's about how you sell it, basically. There's very little use for moderation in analysis, since it's, well, it's not as exciting and takes a bit more mental effort to get to. However, "WAR=GOOD" is an easy thing to grasp, and if you want to be heard, appealing to the lowest common denominator is good.
What's coming out, though, is that while most media surrounding the war is painted in broad strokes, most people’s opinions take a much finer shades of brushstrokes. It’s difficult to ascertain this, however, since the moderate whisper is being drowned out by the extremist bellow. People don’t fall into easy, pollable categories of “Yes, I like war” and “I’m gonna tie myself to a SCUD missile to promote peace”. Much harder to quantify what’s really going on, so instead, we are force fed polling data that may or may not be accurately assessing the national mood.
It’s quite difficult to be moderate, since in most people’s eyes, moderate=wishy washy. It’s as if one can’t be “anti-war” and “pro-soldier”. Which is, of course, bunk. One is also accused of being insensitive of one doesn’t hold onto a belief so adamantly that their skin bleeds from the grip. Thus is the fate of the moderate thinker---in the era of hyperbolic soundbites, a lengthy statement of purpose holds little interest.
That all being said, to get to the original point: to say I am for peace does not under any circumstances place me on a side of the fence. To say I have to believe this war is being conducted for the right reasons might be construed as a side of the fence, but really, I’m just chillin’ in a open field, with a whole lot of other people who are trying to figure out what’s going on, free from the people who don’t even see the chain link from the fence.
So perusing through the usual assortments of blogs and websites this morning, I came across a story about a “Support the Troops” rally at Yale University. Naturally, I was suspect, because c’mon, the thing took place at YALE, people. C’mon!
(No, my alma mater informs this opinion not a whit, why doth thou asketh?)
Now, I read the article because the concept intrigued me. Too often in the debate surrounding Iraq, we’ve seen a simple binary set of opposites in terms of public opinion. Depending which side of the electrified fence you’re on, you’re either labeled a “warmongerer” or “ancient Commie hippie freak out of reality and for the love of God, BATHE why don’t you?”. Well, basically those are the arguments.
What’s particularly struck me throughout the past few months is the following conceptual leap: people who are “anti-war” are “anti-soldier”. Likewise, people who support the war are labeled as salivating junkies who wanna see stuff blow up like a Michael Bay movie. While about 1% of each case may be true, I just can’t believe that these definitions apply to each side.
Firstly, to the anti-war people---with the exception of the descendants of that crazy general in “Dr. Strangelove”, very few people are going around on a global scale and saying, “Yo, who wants some? Who freakin’ wants some?” Simply because you support the cause in Iraq doesn’t make you bloodthirsty, necessarily. But the (largely politically left) population, who rally and hoot and holler and make signs that say “No Blood for Oil” and generally don’t help the peace cause a wit, seem to think so. Just because your neighbor supports the war effort does not make them a heathen. The fact that they don't recycle does. This is important to realize. Just keep it in mind.
The major problem with the anti-war crowd is that their arguments all work very well academically, but not practically. Their arguments speak of “peace” and “discussion” and all these great things people can do safely ensconced in their living rooms on a Tuesday while cutting brie and discussing how to save Iraq. However, diplomacy can only get one so far if one side simply will not back down. In a post-9/11 atmosphere, people want action, regardless of the un-PC nature of them sometimes. In the end, the people polled who support war aren’t looking forward to the carnage, they simply believe in the heart of hearts that it’s the right thing to do.
If the anti-war crowd can admit that those of opposing viewpoints maybe aren’t eating their young when not bombing the crap out of a 3rd world country, maybe the pro-war side can up a little on the sarcasm as well? Maybe? While the anti-war people spew largely academic arguments, these arguments are also based in ideals, and ideals are well worth fighting for. (Pssst, "freedom" anyone? "Democracy"? Just a few ideals there, and you seem to be behind those just fine.)
When the Dixie Chicks came out against President Bush, they weren’t coming out against the soldiers stationed in Kuwait. Yet, irate country fans called up radio stations, proudly defended their sons/daughters/friends currently enlisted, and offered to re-up into the KKK and kill the Dixie Chicks and their country-pop claptrap.
Huh?
Did I miss something? Simply staging a protest against the President, or even the “war”, in my mind doesn’t have to do disservice to the troops overseas. Emphasis on “doesn’t have to”. Yes, it can be damaging to have someone not support you, whatever your endeavor. But, as far as my limited view goes, most anti-war rallies are in service of, among many things, keeping soldiers from being killed in what the crowd feels is an unnecessary conflict.
So, back to Yale---the idea of a “support the troops” rally seemed to me a neat idea. Offer support for the people behind the war. Give it a face. One need not necessarily support the war effort in general to attend this rally. Both sides of the fence are allowed to chime in support in a measure of solidarity thus to this point missing. Great.
Sadly, this doesn’t seem to have been the case.
The “Support the Troops” rally was, in essence, a pro-war rally. Nothing wrong with that, except false advertisement, in my book. The article started to give me a bit of hope intitially, tho, when one of the rally’s organizers said,
Anastasio said U.S. troops need to know the country is behind them. Failing to send that message would only strengthen Iraqi resistance, he said.
"The most likely result will be a lengthening of the war and an increase in the number of civilian and military casualties," Anastasio said.
OK, I can sorta buy the argument that Iraq might try to capitalize on US groundswell dissent and rally either its own people or other countries. Likewise, as said before, supporting the troops is something most anti-war people I believe do anyways, and the more of that fully articulated, the better.
But then a fellow rally attendee loses me, a freshman James Kirchick:
Kirchick said he and others who back the war would "go tomorrow" if the United States were to reinstate the draft.
"And I think there are lots of others who would go, too," he said. "But I'm here now to get an education. That was the choice I made. Other people made different choices and they enlisted."
OK, OK, just a second. He just turned into the pansy liberal he’s rallying against. This is usually an argument that bugs me about the left---people who broadly proclaim their patriotism but then shy away from war itself. Me? I’m out and out glad to not be at the front lines and admire anyone who puts themselves in harm’s way. Just amazes me. But I’m not a hypocrite who toots his own patriotic horn 24/7, either.
A statement like the one above completely undercuts the rally’s statement of purpose to support the troops. I wonder what a solider, blinded by sandstorms, would think of Mr. Ivy League Freshman telling them that their enlistment into the Army to support a wife and children when all economic opportunities were dried up was a “choice”. Or the enlisted solider who reads that Kirchick supports the soldiers, but not as much as he supports his class in Human Sexuality that meets twice a week at 11 am.
You wanna enlist? Great. Don’t wanna? Hey, your choice. But don’t say you would enlist, but this pesky college education is getting in the way. Just destroys any credibility that you have, in my eyes. And especially don’t do it at a pro-troop rally. As tacky and ugly as my grandfather’s paisley sportcoat.
What’s the lesson to be gleaned? Not really sure. I guess in general a little more tolerance from each side domestically, I guess. Anti-war does not mean anti-soldier, and pro-war does not mean pro-genocide. If both sides can agree on this, maybe that’s a step forward. A small one, but an important one nonetheless.
So I’m in the gym tonight, per usual, in between my tricep press and bicep curl. I love my gym, not only because it’s dirt cheap, but because it’s 85% women and therefore my puny ass self stills feels like Ahhnald in this place. Anyways, vanity is not the point (well, it’s always the point, it’s my website, but let’s ignore that, shall we?) of this particular essay, but rather the intense flashback I had in between sets is what I want to talk about. The image lasted just a second, but the extrapolated story stayed with me for the rest of the workout.
The scene: my 6th grade classroom. Me: wearing those abominable Chuckie Taylors, the ones that ran all the way up to your knee and could also fold down. These suckers, and I’m not making this up, were turquoise on the outside, and bright frickin’ canary yellow on the inside. Either I looked like Grover’s boot-wearing dorky cousin or…well, Big Bird’s dorky cousin, I guess. These shoes summed up 6th through 8th grade---I never knew which way to wear them, which really means I didn’t know which way the cool kids would accept, and really, draw your own conclusions from this. Ssimply stating it seems a bit unnecessary and for me personally, far too depressing to say aloud.
So, 6th grade, appalling footwear, and 24 other kids, forming altogether a 5x5 grid of desks. We had lunch at our desks every day, 11:55 am on the dot. One particular day, a kid whispers, “Psst, Ryan.” So I turn around. “Do you like Karen?”
(“Karen” like, every name here, ain’t real. Don’t go and Google this, peeps.)
6th grade marked that first awkward year when girls became these things boys didn’t necessarily want to push into a puddle, at least for my social circle (or more accurately, the circle I wanted to be a part of). “Going out” became the cool thing to do that year, as boys and girls paired off to…well, no one seemed to know. Especially the kids going out with each other. So near as we uninitiated could parse together, going out meant a few things:
- You said good-bye on the bus on the way home after school.
- An occasional phone call was rumored to be made.
- You danced with them to “When the Children Cry” whenever the song played at a party.
Other than that, nothing seemed terribly different. Kids “going out” really didn’t seem to have any more interaction with their partner than before the proclamation from on high was bestowed; in fact, they seemed to ignore each other all the more, to the casual observer. Nevertheless, we all wanted in, because if Jesse and Susie were doing it, it was obviously the cool thing to do. Thus, people partnered off, and by December, no one could make eye contact with each other and silence tended to reign supreme betwixt the sexes except for an enthusiastic chorus of goodbyes on the bus from 2:04 pm and 2:21 pm.
So, when someone asked if I liked Karen, I thought: OK, wait a sec, I have absolutely no interest in Karen. Mandy, Tammy, Gwen, maybe. (Jesus, I need to work on my imaginary names. Sounds like I’m in a porno here.) But not Karen. No way in hell. I mean, great that she liked me, and no one else was beating down my door, but c’mon, Karen? No way. So after contemplating all this for half a second, I answered, “Yea, totally!”
Never underestimate the power of fitting in, is the lesson.
The flashback went from this formative lunch to roughly one month later, in the basement of someone’s home. “When the Children Cry” starts to play, and I’m partnerless, along with about half the party, creating an instant “has” and “has not” culture. Well, Karen likes me, right? I mean, people told me she did. Or rather, I inferred it. And so I ask her to dance, and she accepts, but accepts in a way that indicated to me, even then, that she clearly did not want to do this and would rather have walked to Tokyo than done this. So, now we’ve got two people dancing, both of them studiously avoiding eye contact, leaving enough room for the Holy Ghost and a few linebackers.
Turns out, someone heard from someone who heard from someone through a gossip telephone that I liked her. Karen had no interest in me and was summarily appalled to learn that I pined for her with every beat of my skinny, Caucasian heart. I can’t imagine how someone came up with the idea that I liked her. One minute I imagine, people were talking about last night’s episode of “My Two Dads” and out of nowhere, someone mentioned that I wanna do a Tune In Tokyo on Karen. I didn’t know what Tune In Tokyo was, and I suspect no one else did, but someone’s older brother must have mentioned it along the way, and before long, and entire 6th grade class was playing chicken, no one wanting to blink and admit they didn’t know what one was. But I digress…
Found out after the party, maybe the next week, that she never liked me in the first place, which I had basically gleaned from the frostbite I got from touching her hand in the basement. Absolutely embarrassed to have been seen dancing with me, she’d been. And I realized, in the gym tonight, mulling it over on the stationary bike, that every fear of rejection I have ever had/have is based on that one dance, that one encounter, that one girl.
Hell, I hadn’t even thought about her for a good 5-6 years, and very little before that. But she did enough of a number on me that the fear of that night’s replication haunts me to this day. Every girl I ever tried to ask out, every time I convince myself that someone can’t possibly like me, every time I have backed out of something prematurely to avoid the active rejection I know beyond a doubt will come…all goes back to a dark basement, White Lion, and Karen.
---Inspired, per usual, by “High Fidelity”
The web seemed to explode this morning, sorry if any of you saw weird stuff here. Thanks to Hosting Matters I've changed servers, but now my site seems to exist in parallel universes, so in one I've already told you all of this, and this one, where I am telling you now. And no, that's no less confusing to type as it is to read. So some of your comments may have been swallowed. Mea culpa.
Actually, it's the culpa of some bad script writing mofo on my old server. Bollocks. But hopefully by day's end I'll just have the one site, sans Bizarro twin. If you can actually see this entry, drop a comment. I'm really, really confused.
$95 million dollars not only can buy you a three-year stint in a Vegas theatre built specifically for you, but also, apparently, it buys you one butch-ass haircut.
Holy….mother of…ACK! Ultimate Evil! Must…avert…my eyes…is that Jane Child up there? Did she pull an Elizabeth Berkeley on Celine’s Gina Gershon and take over the show? Does anyone else even remember Jane Child besides me?
(Man, I just had a visual of Celine dirty dancing with that valet/bouncer/delivery guy/every job in Vegas, with her husband Rene playing the part of the fat stripper, and oh lord someone help me…)
Hey, I got no problem with Celine having a three-year guaranteed run in Vegas, mostly because it guarantees that I won’t be anywhere near her for the next 36 months. You GO girl, drive all night in your new Chrysler, just stay in Vegas.
Full disclosure---I’ve actually seen Celine in concert. Yes, sad but true. Junior year of college, I took a girl who I had, how do you say it, oh yea, a HUGE CRUSH on. The girl was from Norway, fluent in French, loved Celine’s “earlier work”, and my parents gave me the tickets due to circumstances that are less than pretty. I had a huge bout of nausea the entire day, due to some nice food poisoning, and lo, my seats were first row balcony. Absolutely perfect. (By the way, that fact that she confessed to liking “Celine’s early work” did not stop me from talking to her, so if that’s not an indication of the level of crush involved here, I don’t know what is.)
The show’s audience consisted of me, my friend, and 30,000 white middle-aged women. It was like some bizarre Aryan feminist meeting that I accidentally stumbled across. Would not have been surprised if they broadcast a closed-circuit message from Oprah to give orders to the pliant troops.
I couldn’t see Celine for most of the concert, not because my seats where bad, but because Celine is actually two-dimensional, and every time she turned sideways, she disappeared from view. Freaky. It was like finding Waldo, where Waldo in this case is a female, anorexic Canadian.
My friend had a great time, especially during an 8 minute blues song sung in French (sorry, she sung in Freedom, my bad). Yes, I just typed that. You had to be there to believe it. 30,000 women were sullen, antsy for “The Power of Love” to be sung, and my friend is deep in a Freedom blues trance. I can only imagine what Celine was singing:
My baby done stole my baguette
Cuz I was playing round town
Now she shoved a beret right up my ass
And called me a froggie clown!!!
Oh, I got da blues!
I don’t know, maybe those weren’t the lyrics, but it made the song more bearable at the time.
Finally, the climax of the night: “Because You Loved Me”, possibly the all-time great “Weak Woman Song”. You know the genre---these “role model” singers warble on about how their lives would be incomplete without the love of their big, strong man. Gag me. 30,000 Dion Disciples singing along to this piece of crap ode to subservience. Just made me ill. What’s worse is that the audience seemed to be divided down the line---about half were women obviously thinking of their husbands/partners/etc, while the other half had this slight quiver to their lips, as if they were singing to that person they were waiting to come along and, like Jerry Maguire, complete them.
Look, I’m all about two people bringing out the best in each other. Really, I am. But so help me God, if any woman every said, “I’m everything I am, because you loved me”, I’d give her a quarter to buy a clue. Not only is my typical lack of self-esteem cropping up in a moment like that, but to have someone else provide the sole reason for your existence…ack. Just doesn’t work that way for me. That’s just weak. Maybe the song should have the lyric, “I’m my own wonderful person, and you bring out the best in me, accentuating my own greatness that you get to share and occasionally fondle in public…” then I’d be all over this song like Wyclef on a stripper. But as is, no thanks, I’ll pass.
There’s a whole list of “Weak Women Songs” I have here, but I’d love to hear your contributions to the list first. Any popping to mind?
Buffy's back and there's gonna be trouble
Hey nah, hey nah, my Buffy's back!
No deep thoughts to be found here. God Forbid.
A) Confirming his status as the single most whipped man on the planet, Ben Affleck is reportedly learning Spanish. Dude, juevos. Get some. Like, now.
B) Seriously, whatever you do, don’t click on this. Seriously. And don’t thank me, thank Dave Barry.
C) A “stud panda” (hey, that’s what the Boston Globe article calls it) apparently mated three times in one day with a female panda. Duh, he could do it three times, he’s a panda. NO human can have sex three times in the same day. Right? Hey, why you snickering?
My absolute favorite quote of this article has to be,
“We just couldn't believe that this could come off so quickly," said Don Lindburg, head of the zoo's panda team.
So OK, he ran her ragged three times but apparently isn’t much for making the magic last. Or maybe they were referring to the full-body condom they stuck on the panda when they first put him in the cage, along with three bottles of Cristal and a Barry White CD.
OK, it’s 11:50 pm, and by the time I post this entry, it should be no longer Monday, which is a really good thing. I’m not one for navel-gazing tripe on this page, but a mental colonic is sometimes good for the soul, and I’ll try to insert as many Jennifer Garner elements as possible, so don’t worry, it won’t get too dark.
Everything over the last 24 hours has just been…off. Maybe I can blame it on Mickey Mouse at the Oscars last night, because I need a scapegoat and chances are this one isn’t gonna find me in a bar and smash a Coors Light over my head. I’m not so introverted as to think that the 10-12 issues floating in my brain have a terrible weight to them, with, you know, war and all going on. They were, however, enough to give me that pit in my stomach, the antsy foot tapping at my desk, the OCD-esque highlighting and unhighlighting of text on the screen as I read webpages, Word documents, whatever it might be on the monitor. And things haven’t been sitting well with me since Mickey virtually “came onstage”, “did some jokes”, and “crawled under Jennifer’s dress and declared it to be a thong world after all.” OK, I made that last part up.
Maybe I can blame my mother. Well, no, I can’t, but I can give you the best quote of my weekend:
“Look at you! So skinny! Last year, your ass and hips were so wide you wouldn’t have made it up the stairs!” ---My mother, to me at my cousin’s condo
What in the blue hell….bwa? Suddenly I have the mother from “The Golden Girls”. No road block between the brain and mouth. My mother has a medical condition though, so it’s not fair to make of her. Then again, the condition this day was known as “Miller Lite” so maybe it’s OK.
Maybe I can blame the economy, for making it so difficult to know how and when to move apartments. Then again, it wasn’t just the stress of this that caused me to accidentally snap via email to my roommate, for which I then felt even worse than I had before and apologized over two more emails. But it’s there---God knows I rail against my current place, with it’s special “Weather Augmentation” feature that works like a Thermos---keeps the cold stuff cold and the hot stuff really freakin’ hot. But getting home after work and just looking at the amount of STUFF I’m gonna have to move this Fall…well, didn’t help matters.
Maybe I can blame Nick Hornby, since I’m reading “High Fidelity” again. I have two copies of this book, the one and only book I have two copies of. One I lend to friends who direly need to read it, and the other is my own, dog-eared, worn-down, underlined copy. The interesting thing this time around is seeing how many of the underlined quotes, the ones that used to hold specific meaning to my life, have been replaced by new, non-underlined passages that just snap out at me in ways they hadn’t before. Some people read “The Lord of the Rings” yearly, this is my annual reading rite.
Maybe I can blame the Commander, since I’m really bummed that things didn’t work out between him and his girlfriend. That’s right, ladies, the Commander’s back on the auction block. A hot piece of ass to be sure:
Don’t be fooled by the wifebeaters that we got, we’re still, we’re still Ryan and Tim from the block…(Boston!)
And this was two years ago! As you can see, my mother was right, I have child-bearing hips and a Catherine Zeta-Hones level of pregnancy going, whereas Foley’s just come back from bus-tipping while listening to the “Braveheart” soundtrack. Good God. If people had found me sanbathing at Revere Beach that would have harpooned me and sold me for blubber oil. (Tonite's memorable quote, from Susan, "Um, where'd all your hair go, anyways?" If/when I start my own game show, it's gonna be called "Pick on a Person's Weakness" and I'll have Susan be on of the first celebrity panels.) Meanwhile, Tim's biceps are only matched by his penchant for quoting Byron in odd situations, and I probably am not helping his cause by saying that, so let's move on.
Yes, I’m pimpin’ my friend out. I just want 10% of the registry gifts, is all I’m askin’. The email is above, no direct contact with Mr. Foley, please.
There are other things, of course, but it’s 12:05 am now, which hopefully means this 24 hour emotional virus has passed. We can only hope, eh?
Alrighty, well, it’s Major Awards Time again, so why not another running commentary?
Now, I’m not as into the movie scene as the music scene, so this won’t be moment by moment. More thoughts as the evening proceeds. So, for those of you who had to head to an oxygen tent after the Grammys review, take heart, this won’t hurt a bit.
- The show starts at 8:30 pm. Steve Martin’s monologue lasts about 17 minutes. Does anyone else remember when he was, I don’t know, funny? I’m sadly at that age where I missed the pinnacle of his career. Instead, I get “Father of the Bride II” and “The Out-of-Towners”, and this monologue which is only slightly shorter than Beckett’s “Happy Days”. Ugh.
- I must have accidentally slipped some drugs into my pasta primavera tonight---did I just hear that “Treasure Planet” was nominated for an Oscar for “Best Animated Feature”? We don’t need a war to render this show irrelevant, the Academy is doing just fine on its own. (Did only five animated movies come out all year? Can’t we call a spade a spade and throw “Attack of the Clones” in here?)
- Man, that’s some serious CGI---if I’m not mistaken, Catherine Zeta Jones now has the same bra size as Queen Latifah. And by “CGI” I mean “8 months of pregnancy”. That is gonna be one fat kid after a few months of breast feeding, and yes, I'll stop now.
- Much to the chagrin of Oscar producers, I’m sure, we go to ABC News and get updates on heavy combat near Baghdad, with fierce fighting causing casualties on both sides. Peter Jennings then announces, “We now take you back to pretty people safe from danger.” OK, I made that up.
- Steve Martin actually just said this: “Please welcome Jennifer Garner and one of Hollywood’s most beloved black actors…Mickey Mouse.” Whoa, whoa, whoa…did he just…hey, Jen, how YOU doin’….and whoa, whoa, Mickey Mouse and…what the…he’s 3-D…it’s a frickin’ CGI Mickey…poor Jen, who is Hollywood did you piss off to have this happen to you…oh my, Mickey found The One Ring in his envelope….hahaha, they just cut to Sean Astin, who is HORRIFIED by what’s going on…and did Steve Martin really just call Mickey Mouse one of Hollywood’s most beloved black actors?
- ………
OK, that’s it folks, I can’t do this.
Look---I was willing to go with it. Was psyched that Chris Cooper won for his role in the best movie of last year (“Adaptation”) but really, to go from the war coverage to that Mickey Mouse debacle is too much for me to take.
What are the Oscars? Hell, what is any awards show? Essentially, it’s a chance for people in a certain field to congratulate themselves. Nothing wrong with that inherently. Something like the current war (no matter what your particularly leanings may be on it), however, lifts the proverbial curtain on the Wizard that is the Oscars. The red carpet, the fabulous clothes, and other luxuries are a smoke screen created make the events seem to somehow have a gravity that they simply don’t. The cross-fade from the war coverage to my main home-girl Garner just demonstrated a fundamental synaptic break between the people at this award show and the general state of the world. Thus, the night has become, for me, even more of a glorified dress-up than usual.
Jennifer Garner, on the red carpet, hours before killing her agent following the Mickey Mouse debacle...
Now, tonight’s show isn’t a Hollywood-esque distraction technique like Olivier’s “Henry V”, so important to the Allied spirit in WWII that it won special Oscar recognition. This is not a show trying to lift the spirit of the country during a difficult time---this is a showing trying to pretend there’s nothing wrong with the world.
“But,” you say, hypothetically, “it’s just the movies, McGee. Cut them some slack.” Trust me, I did. Hell, I tuned it. I was seduced into the experience at the beginning. Nothing wrong with a little escapism, which is of course a convenient excuse since I’m asking you to read this entry while we’re in the war I’m accusing Hollywood of forgetting. Be that as it may, it’s hard to really enjoy the proceedings when only Mr. Cooper thus far has had the courage to remind its audience that there’s a world outside the steps of the Kodak, a world which is not scripted, does not have flashy dance numbers, and whose makeup consists not of blood pellets but the blood of wounded soldiers.
Movies, like all entertainment, can take us away from the world, but at best remain part and parcel of the world, and that makes tonight’s disconnect all the more disconcerting. The show could have made mention of the war, shown the show’s relative importance in the grand scheme of things, and moved on with a proper sense of respect both to their craft and the world, but instead have chosen to belie their own greatness for danger, perhaps, that people might realize they earn millions to play pretend.
So, for more coverage, turn to other sights. I’m hanging up my writing shoes for the night.
Update, 11:24 pm:
OK, must be said: Gael Garcia Bernal gets props for the most eloquent recognition of the world state----I might have to rent "Y Tu Mama Tambien" just for that. Second place is Nicole Kidman, who was charming in her ineloquence.
Further Update, 11:29 pm:
OK, this parade of former Oscar winners just killed the good will Bernal built up. Let's bring them all to a Walmart next week and have them sit through a parade of the living "Employees of the Month". Then they might feel my current state of exasperation.
Here’s how not to go out bowling for the night:
Get six people, go to a spot that was given a huge spread in the Boston Globe the day before, get there, spend $90 on dinner while waiting for a lane to get open, drink another $100 while bowling, and rack up $108 playing two games.
Yes, a $300 night for BOWLING.
I don’t think the movie “Bowling for Columbine” cost that much. The company was great, but for this price, but even including the animation on our scoring machine of bowling balls hand-gliding onto a bridge of bowling pins after each strike, it wasn’t worth that much coin.
(It was like watching “Bridge over the River 7-10 Split” or the last scene of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Candlepins”. Just weird. Other animations included bowling balls dressed as the Knights of Ni and the dropping of a bowling pin-shaped H-bomb over Bahgdad. OK, I made that up.)
I was spared the brunt of the cost, as I wisely decided not to drink. $30 for a night out isn’t a bad deal, but still semi-stunning considering I had a burger, two diet cokes, and ugly ass shoes to show for it.
So the five compatriots spent roughly $54 each, essentially to bowl. The majority of their costs came from the $9 drinks. No, that’s not a typo. And no, there were not naked women to enjoy to justify the cost. $9 drinks at a bowling alley/pool hall/restaurant that has a retro feel, replete with porno-funk muzak playing that clearly annoyed the waitresses to no end. Did I mention a Mai Tai costs $9? OK, just checking.
The night did, however, feature the greatest sporting achievement since winning my first match in “Smackdown: Know Your Role!” on Playstation a week or so ago. The goal for game two was to get 100. Simple, right? Well, not if you’re like me and suck. However, I start off well, getting a spare. I immediately dub myself, quite loudly, a “GOLDEN GOD” much to the non-amusement of the 6 skanks in the lane next to us. Now, I didn’t think they were skanks, but one of the ladies in my group certainly did. This exchange actually happened:
Me: Hey, why are you so mad?
Her: Those bitches keep stealing my balls!
($300 to bowl, and they only had one ball that any of the women could use between the two lanes that shared the ball rack. The rest were too heavy or the improper hole size. Christ, this keeps getting worse as I type. Someone stop me. Vagina! AAAHHHH. I have Typing Tourette’s now. Bollocks.)
Anyways, after a good start, I started racking up 9 after 9 after 9. With one frame left, I’m at 83, and I need a strike on the last frame to keep my silly-ass goal alive. Channeling my inner Woody Harrelson, I manage the one and only strike of the game, followed by a 7 on the next two frames. 100, on the dot. Hootering and hollering ensued on my part. (Has anyone hootered and not hollered? Is it physically possible?)
I spent the next ten minutes quietly weeping as I bemoaned the fact that I was so pumped over something so silly. Luckily no one else noticed, as they were enjoying $10 drinks named things like “Tripped Over a Lizard” and “Slight Shade of a Haircut”.
Ryan then weeps openly as the DJ starts to play "Roll With It" by Steve Winwood.
Now we try to check out, and let me give all of you advice---never ever go to a place on Friday night mentioned in a major newspaper. While they may have cute waitresses, excellent projection screen television above the lanes, and enough money to make Midas blush, they will not, under any circumstances, have worked out any way to check anyone in or out. Holy Schnikeys. Took us 30 minutes just to pay, because there was no way to know where to go. Even the employees were confused and annoyed. Tried to give me money to the bleach blonde, who sent me to the Jamie Kennedy stunt double. The stunt double tried to get me to revisit the bleach blonde. I told him Blondie had sent me to him. Jamie was Grade A Pissed. I am never confrontational at these types of places, and even I said, “You mean I have to GO BACK OVER THERE?”
Something in my eyes must have revealed homicidal tendencies, since a manager immediately told me he’d take care of me, pronto. $108 later on my credit card and with enough bills in my wallet to make any strip joint immensely worthwhile, I left the establishment and the people who were on the by-then 3 hour wait for a lane. This place is going to make some serious coin, but I doubt they’ll get any more of my bling bling.
Especially if them skanks gonna steal my balls.
I’m always proud to tell people that I never pulled an all-nighter in college. Simply never had to. Then again, I was an English major, which is not exactly pre-med in terms of scale of class and homework.
I loved taking critical theory classes, because…well, I’m a frickin’ dork. But these classes always came in very useful, since even if I didn’t do that week’s reading, I could just bring up Foucault or Aristotle or Judith Butler and somehow weave the idea to exactly fit something I’d never read. Didn’t matter what the reading was. “Yea, so, what I’m thinking is, when Christopher Robin is telling Winnie the Pooh that he’s growing up, that’s simply a Sassaurian signifier for the loss of the Lacanian phallus.”
And the grad student leading the section would go, “Hmmm….anyone wanna respond to that?” Which of course no one did, since what I had said, while technically English, was a completely made-up language. The teaching fellow, on the other hand, was often too bored by the section to realize what I was saying was utter bunk. They usually had that perpetual “I can’t believe I have to teach these morons about the Charles Dickens when my dissertation is on the concept of ‘home’ in mid-1834 Dutch science fiction novels” look going on.
Anywho, last night I almost pulled another all-nighter. Kind of emboldening, in a way. Thought I had lost the capacity to stay up past midnight, but lo, here was the sun coming up. I’d love to assign some deep meaning to all of this---a reconnection with youth; the confirmation that my body, while far from decrepit, is not in fact losing it’s vigor; that reckless destruction of my sleeping pattern is still a viable option.
Mostly, though, it was great watching the sun come up on my porch. Reminds me of one of the last almost-all nighters I pulled, in 1995. I was on the crew of a show over at Harvard and, long story short, the set really was nowhere near done the night before it opened. So about 30 of us pulled up our sleeves and got to work with paint and wood in a big way. Must have had second, third, and fourth winds that night. Walking home with the stage manager, we stopped off in the courtyard of her dorm and watched a brilliant Spring sunrise while talking about everything but the show.
This anecdote is the reason I gave to everyone of why I loved doing theatre so much. Even though I’m inactive on the theatre front, memories like that keep me warm.
A few years back, I was the Lighting Designer for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. In return for working in possibly the scariest building in the History of Man with kids who considered the lifting of the kegs from the car into the bar heavy labor, I got to not only meet and dine with the Man and Woman of the Year, but got an all-expenses week-long trip to Bermuda each March.
Now, this sounds pretty sweet, and it was, don’t get me wrong, but Bermuda’s off the coast of North Carolina, and in March (off-season for the entire country), there is nothing to do and at night, gets decently cold. (This was all offset by my vespa, such a sweet vehicle that it defies description. I can’t ever knock the memories of riding along the Bermuda coast at sunset on a scooter. If I was an Eddie Izzard fan at the time, I would have spent my entire vacation raising hell on it, and intermittently shouting, "F%ck off, I'm the Queen!")
The other thing about Bermuda? Expensive. Oh lordy. We’re talking New York-expensive. $5 for a case of soda expensive. I distinctly remembered being outraged when one restaurant I went to had, get this, no free refills. Now, I’m a legendarily cheap bastard, but free refills are simply something I expect with my soda. Even when I down 4-5 Diet Cokes in a sitting, I know I’m still getting rooked for my $1.79. Paying $2+ a soda nearly made me drive my vespa into the Atlantic with rage and despair.
So why am I bringing this up? Because I miss the Hasty Pudding gig? Hell no. My hairline would be a lot better if not for my two years with them. Because I miss Bermuda? Lemme put it this way---I drove straight through the second-biggest town without even knowing I had done so until 3 miles later. Couple that with 50+ Harvard kids abusing their now legal-drinking status and you’ve got something I don’t entirely miss there, either. So what’s the dillio?
Last night, at Rock Bottom, I enjoyed free refills…on BEER.
Let’s just take a moment to grasp the significance of this, shall we? FREE. REFILLS. ON BEER. This…just didn’t compute for a while, and it wasn’t the equivalent of 8 beers I shot down my throat into my happy tummy causing the mental dissonance. I’ve been conditioned, through years of Cambridge/Boston drinking, to pay $5 for a bottle of Bud Light if I wanna get my drink on in this fair metropolis. But not only did my friend and I get ginormous glasses, but only paid for the first beer.
War raged on the television, analysts and pundits were silently debating on CNN with closed-captioned text revealing the potential intricacies of the days ahead, and here I was enjoying an unlimited amount of North Star Ale at Rock Bottom. Turns out, my friend belong to their Mug Club, and why:
- not every American citizen does not belong to this club and
- why no one told me about this before
are greater mysteries to me than the Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the “Inspector Gadget” straight-to-video sequel. I mean, come on people. I am all over this like R. Kelly on a Girl Scout. This is why we have democracy, people.
Now, let’s just look for a sec to what I have to look forward to. According to the Mug Club website (yes, I looked it up this morning), the levels or reward are as such:
- 5 visits: $10 Club Cash
- 10 visits: logo pint glass
- 25 visits: $20 Club Cash
- 35 visits: Mug Club t-shirt
- 50 visits: Mug Club Outerwear
- 50+ visits: Every 10th visit after 50, you get $10 Club Cash
- 120 pints: Plaque in Barrel Club. Your name on the wall!
- 150 pints: Complete blood transfusion and liver replacement
OK, the last one I completely made up.
Look, after 50 visits to a bar, I shouldn’t get a outerwear. I should get an AA intervention. I should be called "Barney" until I clean my act up. I shouldn't be rewarded for drinking that much.
Still. FREE REFILLS ON BEER. Simply can’t be said enough.
Sorry, I’m sure Rock Bottom didn’t invent the concept. I am positive it has been around for a while. But then again, so are supermodels, but I’ve never seen them up close and personal either, so give me my little moment here.
On the train into work this morning, I did the same thing I’ve done for about the last ten commutes: listen to Coldplay’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head”.
Certain albums have come and gone in terms of their importance and/or relation to my life. For the spring of 1999, it was “Dark Side of the Moon”, since I was designing a rock ballet set to it along with my friend Dave. After the breakup with my girlfriend that summer, Matthew Sweet’s “In Reverse” made more sense that just about anything to me. After that, Moby’s “Play” became the emotional soundtrack to my life, intuitively speaking to me in ways that very few things ever had. Each of these records found me; I didn't find them.
I’m not sure how the Coldplay album fits into all of this, but I do know two things. When listening to the seventh track, “Green Eyes”, the world was alive with optimism, with possibility, with the sense of renewal, beauty, and hope. During the next track, “Warning Sign”, I silently grieved for everything lost and everything that will never be.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I love music.
Someone once said to me:
“What do you wanna do when you grow up?”
Of course, this happened last week. All frame of reference, you see.
I’m 27 years old, some days going on 47, some days going on 7. All depends when you catch me. There are times I can feel myself at work being quite “adult” and “responsible” and all these other adjectives that I planned on avoiding for as long as possible.
As a mentioned last week, I ended up about 8 weeks out of college back in my old room in Lowell, Massachusetts, home of Jark Kerouac, Bette Davis, and Boo Boo from the HBO special “High on Crack Street”, which set tourism back about 8 years. The reason I ended up there is fairly simple---I steadfastly refused to acknowledge that there was a life after college. I had, so near as I could tell at the time, figured things out. I had a rhythm---theatre, thesis, cast parties, a circle of friends that I had conned into finding me interesting…life was good.
My graduation party is the stuff of legend, the kind of story that most afternoon soap operas would reject as being “too far fetched”. Firstly, my folks invited half of the Western Hemisphere. Secondly, I had to coordinate about 15 friends via public transportation via commuter rail from Cambridge to my hometown. Thirdly, roughly a foot of rain fell during the afternoon.
So, we’ve got a person-to-room ratio that would make a Rhode Island club look good in comparison. You’ve got 15 college kids drunk as hell by 3 pm, mostly off of Killian’s from the bottle and, I kid you not, Franzia off a silver serving tray. Yes, someone in my family installed a wine-in-a-bag-in-a-box on a sterling silver serving tray. And people wonder why I’m so odd.
Cut to 5 pm, where I realize that the basement has flooded---the basement that had every book from college and all of my CDs on the floor. Now, cue the boy with the girlfriend hitting drunkenly on the girl who wasn’t my girlfriend but maybe was going to be again and now I’m mad because the guy is not only ignoring his girlfriend in front of her but damnit she’s supposed to be my next girlfriend and oh look, I’ve gone cross-eyed.
Now, people like the Commander never even showed up because a state of emergency was declared, rendering all travel impossible. He’s washed up in Boston, and we’re all washed up in Lowell. Now, we have to plan the sleeping arrangements, which was only slightly less complex than planning the invasion of Normandy. Throw in my mother calling one of my friends a drug addict because she wanted her anti-depressants which were in Cambridge and you have one memorable stepping off point for one’s adulthood.
For the summer, I stayed in the dorms with a faux Summer Stock company that Harvard does every year. Things didn’t get better in terms of maturity. I clearly remember my girlfriend (who was my girlfriend again after having dumped her after my graduation party for the girl hitting on the boy who had the girlfriend and…oh, nevermind, I have a migraine) and the almost-girlfriend both falling asleep in my summer room while watching a movie. Being the mature fellah that I was, I hightailed it out of there and slept down the hall for the night, leaving the two ladies to wake up in the same room without their moronic link to be there as well. Good times, people.
So why all of this rambling? Well, been looking around my room tonight, and checking out the Phish poster, and the theatre posters, and the way-too-large Shrek poster, and realizing---well, this isn’t quite much different from a college room, decoratively speaking. Might be time to take care of some of that. Maturity for me will always be an elusive task---I just don’t have it in me to fully commit to it. Just no fun in that type of monogamous relationship. That being said, I probably shouldn’t be 35 with a tattered “OK Computer” poster. I mean, I should at least frame the damn thing.
Figuring out a smooth segue from what I was into what I will be---tricky proposition, and one than can’t be planned. That’s a tough thing for a control freak like myself to realize. That being said, it’s the little things that matter. Little things that slowly but surely don’t serve to replace, but to enhance, the person I am.
Like serving wine out of a bottle. That was a serious improvement, I gotta say.
"Don't worry baby,
It's gonna be alright
Uncertainty can be a guiding light..."
---U2, "Zooropa"
Back online tommorow, for now still getting my ass kicked here at work. Sorry, y'all.
Well, the river in Chicago is green, the river in Boston may flow with beer in 24 hours, and the rivers of Iraq may flow with blood in the same time period. Ireland….Iraq. Both begin with an “I”. Coincidence? OK, probably. If you wanna get your warblog on, go here, but since you’re here, you probably don’t want and punditizing. So, to fill that little pop culture itch you wanna scratch…
---I missed most of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony since I was busying watching “Alias” and slapping myself for saying, “Well, how do you do/” when Lena Olin took off her shirt. However, I did get to catch some choice moments:
- Angus Young of AC/DC, who now has my hairline, still doing that weird leg-kick dance, in front of an audience who absolutely could have cared less to take a trip on a highway to hell.
- Steven Tyler, completely insane, does his typical sing-songy speechifying intro for AC/DC. He ended every fifth word with the suffix “-flambajam”, often in sudden, jarring falsetto.
- Gwen Stefani’s intro to The Police….um….how to…..put this. Sufficed to say, her intro felt like a Pinter monologue. So many pauses that several times paramedics had to take a pulse on the girl.
- Andy Summers, meet Jared from those Subway commercials. Jared, Andy.
- Ladies and gentleman, Stewart “Please oh please Sting do a reunion tour with us please you tantric bastard!” Copeland on the drums!
- Whoa, this is one sweet-ass version of “Roxanne”….really trippy middle part that segued amazingly well back into the melody…call me crazy, but I think these guys might have a future in rock and roll!
- The incredibly predictable play selection of “Every Breath you Take” is broken up by Paul Simon rushing the stage, setting fire to himself, and clubbing a baby seal. Oh wait, that actually would have been better than Steven Tyler, Gwen, and John Frickin’ Mayer coming on to close out the number on vocals. Sting clearly has no idea what’s going on, Andy’s downing a gyro offstage, and Stewart is playing as if he’s auditioning for The Police. This is absolutely horrid.
---Watching “Weekend Update” last night reminded me that as long as Jimmy Fallon is singing, I forgo the instinct to punch his scrotum in. Dear God. His song parodies are spot on, but dear Lord, that man enunciates worse that I do, and that’s saying a lot. I’m the guy who once had a girlfriend say six months into the relationship, “You know, half the time I don’t have a clue what you’re saying, but you seem so excited about it that I just smile and nod, since that seems to be my function.” Ouch. But back to Jimmy. Not only can he not pronounce the English language, not only does he break into laughter in every single sketch, but he’s always cast as the “Guy Who Makes Out with the Insanely Hot Guest Host”. A few weeks ago he swapped spit with my girlfriend Jennifer Garner, and last night he tongues Selma Hayek. Anytime you feel like killing me, go ahead.
---Apparently, dozens of country radio stations have stopped playing the Dixie Chicks after the lead singer told a British audience that she was embarrassed that Bush came from her home state of Texas. Sadly, none of the pop radio stations here in Boston have followed suit have stopped playing that wretched cover of “Landslide”. No song that depressing should get that happy and buoyant an arrangement. It sounds like the new theme to Barney if you’re not paying attention. I like non-country country music as much as the next Caucasian above the Mason-Dixon line, but this song and it’s trippy CGI-video have gotta go. But never mind that, let's give country music fans props for identifying the real enemy: people with opinions.
---Waking up at the obscenely early hour of 10 am Saturday morning, Jenny and I caught an anime show called “Yu-Gi-Oh!” And yes, that’s the actual title, not a racist joke I made. The entire dialogue of the show consisted of two people facing off, each with an elaborate card-dispensing deck that puts the one in the new version of Trivial Pursuit to shame, and explaining the rules of the card game that the show relentlessly promotes. I mean, literally. Two people facing off, and the dialogue goes like this:
Evil Guy: HA! I have my dragon ready to smite you down!
Good Guy: I only have one card pull left---I hope it’s the right one. It’s up to the Yu-Gi-Oh card gods. PULLS ONE Aha!
Evil Guy: What did you and your 3000 life points pull?
Good Guy: I pulled a Super Yu-GI Card which enables me to bring a creature back from the dead!
Evil Guy: Well, since you pulled that, I’m playing my “Oh No You Can’t Little Man” card, which enables me to play three more cards.
Good Guy: Yea, well, I’m gonna play my “REVERSE” card.
Evil Guy: This isn’t UNO! You fool!
Good Guy: Go Fish!
Evil Guy: I hate you. I’m taking me, my dragon, and my life points home.
Good Guy: Look, if this were actually animation, as opposed to camera pans over a still animation cell, I would so walk over there with my undead beast and explain more rules of the card game.
Evil Guy: Stop following me!
Good Guy: Yo’ mama hated “Akira”!
Evil Guy: Look, I’m leaving before you tell me that all my base are belong to you.
A quick thought while people continually unravel the mystery surrounding the origin of French toast and reeling from the fact that Angie Harmon actually has breasts…
Normally, I work a very simple, 40-45 hour work week. Come in at 9, leave at 6, hour for lunch. All well and good. This week, however, I’ve logged days of 14, 9, 9, and 15 so far. I knew I never wanted to be a consultant or an i-banker. And this would even be that bad a week for them. Good lord.
In college, the pressure to take one of the two aforementioned positions was intense. Kids you saw puking in bushes on Saturday night were in their best suits with the ubiquitous leather portfolio in hand, off to interview with Goldman Sacs or Morgan Stanley. Course, this was also in those glorious times when those things known as “jobs” were actually available to graduating students. As a senior, you were expected to do one of five things:
---Go right to grad school
---Become an investment banker
---Become a consultant
---Work for/Start a dot-com
---Die in the streets, poor, drowning in a pool of vomit and urine
The first four were not for me, and still aren’t. I cringe at the thought of homework. I simply can’t imagine working 15 hour says for the purpose of…working more 15 hour days. (And anyone remember dot-coms? Anyone? Bueller?) As for the latter, I simply couldn’t believe that was true. I figured it was a ploy to prevent people from seeking employment that couldn’t allow them to donate generously to the school.
So, what happened? Nearly every one of my roommates went onto the first three options. One of them went to Japan, where the sight of a New York Jew sent to the local plaid-skirt wearing girls into a frenzy that hadn’t been seen since the last Backstreet Boys tour. Another ended up moving to Eastern Europe to be the woman he married in college to keep her in the country to avoid the genocide in her country. (Yes, he married her so she could stay in the country, but when they graduated, that went back to the war-torn land. He somehow hitch-hiked his way back into Cambridge, and made an income through medical experiments and two shifts a week at Pizzeria Uno’s. I can’t make this stuff up, folks. He'd pay rent by having a tube shoved up his ass for a few weeks. And these aren’t even nearly the most interesting things about this guy.) Another guy went back to Kentucky and no one has heard from him since. We used to worry about him, especially since in high school he'd drop acid and see the face of Jesus on passing train cars.
The other five or so went to 100+ week jobs. I myself ended up jobless and living with my folks after graduation. An eye-opener, to say the least.
I spent 18 months working admin at the Harvard School of Public Health, at nights pursuing the then dream of being a lighting designer for theatre. The job itself paid nothing, and my “apartment” was a room in a house filled with 6-7 rotating people that I didn’t know. Well, except Arthur.
Arthur was named as such because he looked like Dudley Moore. Only, a drunker, scarier Dudley Moore. He had the room across the hall from mine. For $475 a month I had a room with utilities, but I had Arthur across from me, so really, you get what you pay for. One day I was unlocking my room door, and Arthur peeped his head out of his room.
“Hey man,” he said.
I had barely heard him say three words in the month he had been there, so I was a bit startled, but replied, “Oh, hey.”
“So,” he asked, “Those your clothes in the storage room?” Adjacent to our rooms with a small cubby-hole, where I put extraneous stuff, since it’s sorta hard to move your life into a 12’x15’ room with no closets.
“Yea, I put some stuff there,” I said, fumbling with the keys.
“Because I was trying on some of your jeans today, and they fit pretty well, so I was wondering if I could borrow them.”
OK, in the movies, my keys would have dropped to the floor, and the music from “Psycho” would have played. As calmly as I could, I said, “Oh, um, you can uh, just have ‘em. I mean, they are a bit small on me anyways.”
That weekend, I moved everything in that closet to my parents’ house.
So what’s the point? None really, it’s Friday and my brain’s fried. Maybe sometime I’ll make some sweeping, positive message about “Do Your Own Thing!” or “Do the Right Thing!” or “Drink Coke!” but for now, just remember one slogan:
“It’s Saturday afternoon, do you know where your pants are?”
OK, so here’s the thing.
Of course I’m happy that Elizabeth Smart was found. Of course I feel for the girl and whatever trauma that 15 experts have already proclaimed her to have gone through, even if they haven’t talked to the girl herself. Of course the guy who kidnapped her looked straight out of the Beach Boys’ “Endless Summer” album cover.
But really, when’s the last time anybody outside of Salt Lake City has given a thought to this girl's plight?
Now, I’m more ignorant than most about current affairs, but in the last year or so, I’ve tried to actually make an effort to get outside of my bubble and, if not become an expert, at least become aware of what’s going on. It took me a good ten minutes to figure out who Smart even was when the news reports started to come in. The story of the kidnapping in the home. Part of a rash of kidnappings. It came back to me after some mental juggling, but I suspect it came back that way for a lot of people.
And here’s the crux of the issue---people are great at specific, concentrated bursts of sympathy and empathy, but generally have a hard time sustaining such emotion. Partly this is a good thing---if you consistently felt for every tragedy that befell a fellow member of society, you’d just sit in a corner, huddled up and crying. By the same token, however, it strikes me as disingenuous, this outpouring of relief across America that this little girl was found. It isn’t so much the sympathy for the girl and her parents that bugs me, but the false projection that we as a society have been worried for nine months about the fate of this little girl.
Now, this sounds cruel, I know. But let’s be honest---the line between tabloid news and the evening news has been consistently blurred for years. That’s no secret. The line between the war in Iraq, the kidnapping of children, gang violence, and the sex lives of reality show contestants are all vying for the same 22 minutes on your typical 6 pm newsbroadcast. Not only can we not be expected to have equal amount of lengthy empathy for each and every sad case we see on television, but after a while, it all blurs together in a sea of white noise, turning into a former girlfriend of Joe Millionaire who was kidnapped by a gang and brought to Iraq.
Now, what’s really at stake here in people’s effusive relief of Smart’s return? I suspect, at the heart of it, lies people’s guilt in forgetting. For Smart’s family, and I suspect the community around them, this ordeal has been an ever-present reality, whereas for the majority of this country, who cared for about a month or so (or as long as their local media chose to cover the story), simply moved on. They didn’t move on maliciously, but they moved on nonetheless. Still, when reminded of her plight, and their benevolent antipathy towards the situation over the past few months, it still smarts.
In the end, cases such as the Smart kidnapping have become mere news fodder, not reality, for the majority of people. The catharsis attained in a case like this by people is akin to the catharsis experienced by Greek audiences thousands of years ago---we pity these people because we are like them, but are relived because in fact we are not them. The difference here, of course, is that the modern day Medeas and Antigones live among us, but through the media, appear fictional. Yet another reason for guilt---we get so overloaded with information that we sometimes forget the humanity of the situation behind the story.
Does her situation pale in comparison with an impending war? A flailing economy? Perhaps...unless you're the family involved. And the "It could happen to us" mode of thinking kicks in. What if your son/daughter/mother/father was kidnapped...and after 2 weeks of support, no one seemed to care? And so, oddly enough, the happiness over Smart becomes, in some cases, a purgation of one's own guilt. Thus, the current happiness still has nothing to do with the Smart family. (Note I say some, not all. Don't wanna be accused of a blanket statement. Now calm down, eat some Freedom Fries, and chill.)
So, rejoice that Elizabeth has been found. Hope for the best, but fear the worst as to what happened to her in those nine months. But also remember that Smart’s face stands in for the dozens we haven’t found, or don’t even know are missing. And that, in the end, may be the root of all the guilt---an inability to face such an awful truth.
Sorry that I haven’t updated the site yet this morning, but there were intense negotiations going on here in BlogWriters Union 707. Inspired by our brethren in the Broadway musician’s union, we decided to try and renegotiation our contract with the higher ups. Sadly, the “Internet” has some killer bargaining power and the strike was quickly ended. We didn’t get any of our demands:
---Instant PayPal fundage for every visit
---A harem of Jennifer Garner look-alikes
---A small European province for storage of stuff that doesn’t fit in our apartments
---The ability to start an “Austin Powers” dance routine at whim
Instead, iBrother hath gone and made us their prison bitch. So it’s back to the witty repartee that you crave. Oh, you know you do, you little hussy.
My work week from hell is still preventing me from having a coherent essay, but here are some thoughts that have been percolating in my severely caffeinated cerebrum:
---If there has ever been a better abstinence-inducing video than the “MTV Real Life: I’m a Furry!”, then I haven’t see it. If you haven’t seen it, count yourself lucky. Me, myself, and I---well, the three of us are still in electroshock therapy to get the image of two people in specially made animal body suits humping on camera. And no, nothing in that last sentence was a typo.
---A local radio station had an “80’s Request Saturday”, which of course yielded the same 12 songs any 80’s show will inevitably play, but also featured Information Society’s “What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)”. You know, the one with the Leonard Nimoy sample. This is what passed for “alternative” in the 80’s, having an obscure sample in your song. Then the Buzz Bin came along and managed to convince an entire culture for about five minutes that Jesus Jones, Love and Rockets, and Us3 were worthy of our attention. (Bonus points to people who can name the “Buzz” songs by each of these artists without looking them up. Biddy biddy bop.) Ahh, the Buzz Bin, better known as “Pop Songs With a Hint of Feedback to Make Them Seem Cool”. The whole notion of popularizing “alternative music” was always a joke to me. If you’re playing the damn song 40 spins a week, is it really alternative anymore? Then, they are mainstream, and their fan base, by nature hard core, turn on them for being a sellout, and the band ends up working the late shift at Dairy Queen. Go MTV!
I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on making my living in a section of the writing industry in which it’s uncool to be finally recognized. These poor groups enjoyed a modicum of success, and obviously had some talent, but especially in the case of our modern day wanna-be punks, the aesthetic of mass acceptance is in fact antithetical to the purported mission of the genre. I can only imagine Mudhoney’s views on the grunge fashion shows that popped up everywhere around the mid-90’s.
Me---I’m a populist. Like Moby. Moby once said he’d played the same song 17 times in a row at a concert if he thought that’s what people came to hear. Go him. I don’t need to develop an adversarial relationship with my readers---this is why I have ex-girlfriends.
---I’m debating what to have for my afternoon meal today, a Liberty Lunch down at the US House of Representatives or some leftover Emancipation Eggs from breakfast this morning.
---Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” may very well be the best pop cover song ever, supplanting RHCP’s “Higher Ground” on my personal list. Especially after seeing the incredible, incredible video for it, I’m sold. It’s almost like the song was written for him to sing in the first place. The song’s crescendo sounds to my ears as one of the more defiant stances against death that I’ve ever witnessed. Just stunning. Even if you’re not a country fan (and Lord knows I’m not), this is worth seeking out.
30 minutes ago….
Me---Yea, I’d like some French Fries.
Employee---Sorry, don’t serve those here anymore.
Me---What do you mean, this is Wendy’s. Of course you have French fries.
Employee---Nope, no more French fries. We only serve Freedom Fries.
Me---What the hell are you talking about?
Employee---Didn’t you hear? Representative Walter Jones helped turn over the names “French fries” and “French toast” today in the House cafeteria.
Me---The House…of Representatives?
Employee---Yup.
Me---The one in Washington? This wasn’t like, a bunch of Elks getting belligerently drunk and making declarations?
Employee---Yup. The one in Washington.
Me---Wow, you’re really on the political ball for a short-order cook.
Employee---Hey, leave the patronizing at home, I’m only a figment of your imagination anyways.
Me---Sorry. So “Freedom Fries”, huh?
Employee---Looks to be that way.
Couldn’t in good conscience eat Freedom Fries, since really, the only thing they are liberating is the cleanliness of my arteries.
So then I go next door to the provisional shop.
Me---Yea, I’m looking for some French table wine for a party this weekend.
Employee---Hey, lookie, you commie bastard, no more French wine here. The only use I got for them bottles is to beat them Frenchies over the frickin’ skull with ‘em.
Me---Oh, right, do you have any, uh, “Freedom Wine”?
Employee---It’s called “Justice Juice”, pal. Watch your tongue or so help me God you’re gonna get an ass-whuppin’, your unpatriotic schmuck. Pardon my Freedom, but f$ck off!
Me---You’re from Revere, aren’t you?
So after narrowly missing two shotgun blasts from behind the counter, I make my way onto the street, sans French fries or a bottle of Bordeaux’s best.
As I walked through the park, I saw an ice sculptor, creating an “Integrity Igloo”.
I walked past Blockbuster, and employees were busy taking care of the day’s shipments, which included new updates of movies. The shelves were stocked with the new, US Senate-cut of “The Freedom Connection”. Also noticeable---nary a French Stewart movie to be see. OK, this is nothing new, but still. This time I noticed.
I ran into a mob beating the hell out of a young man who was trying to explain that French fries actually came from Belgium, not France. Then I noticed that the crowd was beating him with oversized waffles. Nearby, someone was whipping up a batch of "Democratic Donuts".
It’s getting weird out there, I’m telling you.
Just a quickie as I take a break from the workload:
According to the Boston Globe,
“LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) Gov. Mike Huckabee signed a bill Monday authorizing a ''Choose Life'' specialty license plate, adding Arkansas to a growing list of states that allow car tags with an anti-abortion slogan.
The plates will cost $35 more than standard license tags, with part of the proceeds to be distributed to nonprofit groups that counsel pregnant women and encourage adoption. No money could go to organizations that promote or provide abortions.”
OK, some websites will pick up on the abortion issues involved here, the increasing state-approved media regarding abortion issues, or how this may tie in with Bush’s foreign policies that deny money to medical institutions that provide abortion services abroad.
As for me, I’m tickled pink that a governor named Huckabee is using a slogan coined by a George Michael t-shirt.
Am I the only one who thinks of the “Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go)” video when reading this? I’d pay good money to see a man named Huckabee up on stage, huffing and puffing about God’ law, and pontificating about “What Would Jesus Have as for License Plate?”, and have George Michael pop out of the back, say, “Jitterbug!” while wearing those bright pink gloves from the video, and then scurry off. That would completely make my life.
Not to be out done, local municipalities are starting to produce KKK propaganda which will go towards the purchase of “good ol’ fashioned hog-tying rope, not than pansy crap that they got there in Home Depot”, said activist Francis George Luke “Deliverance” Aaron Hufflebuck. Dubbed the “Frankie Says” Campaign, he plans on started off the campaign on the right foot with a tar and feathering in downtown Little Pickle, Alabama, this afternoon. A few towns over, a local bunch of pugilists have initiated a “Take on Me” campaign of terror, threatening to beat people up unless they give generously at the second round of collections at Baptists services for “protection money”. Locals, in whispered hushes, also off the record have referred to these ruffians as the “Whip It…Whip It Good!” Faction.
You’re going to have to excuse the quality of writing for the rest of the week---I am pulling investment banker hours for the next four days and, as such, my writing might be even more haphazard that usual. However, you might get a peek into how my mind works on little sleep and much caffeine. This couldn’t be either interesting, revolutionary, or completely lacking sentence structure. No, even more than usual. Stop rolling your eyes. And put the gecko down!!!!
---In my constant quest to look even more foolish in Jenny’s eyes, I showed off my new Playstation game last night to her. I unfortunately chose “Triple Threat Hardcore” match, which is the game’s equivalent of “Gods and Generals” in length. About 30 minutes into it, Jenny’s once bemused laughter had turned into utter weeping and I was getting carpal tunnel trying to win the frickin’ thing. You absolutely cannot win or lose in this option. Believe, by the end I was trying to lose just so it would end. (Cue Tom Servo at the end of "The Wild Wild World of Batwoman": END! EEEENNNDDD!!!!!!") My special move throughout the match was the “Have Triple H run the wrogn direction and fall nowhere near the other two guys, prompting many a 'You really suck at this, don’t you' comments from my special lady friend." Grrrr.
---Speaking of Playstation, I’ve heard that you can currently buy “Gulf War 2003” for Playstation 2, and, for an extra $19.95, get to guide your very own live tank in the desert in real time. That’s right, you can show your patriotism from the comforts of your very own living room! “This is simply an extension of our current military strategy,” said Donald Rumsfield, live from the headquarters of Konami Gaming. “Realizing most remaining US men were not what one could call ‘field-ready’, we decided to exploit their natural gaming talents in the name of God, democracy, and multi-player action. The $19.95 is both a bargain for hard-core enthusiasts and an easy way to boost this war’s profit margin.” Rumsfield put over the game’s different missions, such as “Smoke out the Caves” or “Minimal Civilian Casualties”. You of course need broadband connections, because if you only have 56K, then the terrorists have already won.
---I just sat through a 6 hour seminar on “Visualizing Information”. The thrust of the course (which itself meandered from brilliant to coma-inducing) was, to paraphrase, “It’s the content, stupid.” Which is sort of relates in a way to my essay “On Blogging” (better known as "Christ, McGee, this is LONG!") a few days ago. There are many a day in which I wish I had a snazzy header, sweet-ass, Flash-induced homepage, kooky headers, and the like. Then again, I’ve been too many sites which have all of these elements yet are duller than a Joshua Jackson film festival. People can rearrange their links anyway they want, and change the HTML or CSS coding to establish a new look every time you visit, but if the content isn’t there---well, it’s an exercise in style. Nothing wrong with exercises in style in general, but it doesn’t always make for the most compelling blog---compelling website, sure, but a blog? Probably not.
And now, having meta-blogged twice in a week, I’ll cease and desist for a while, I promise. But first, maybe there’s a slogan to be gleaned from all of this?
Ryan McGee: He gives great content.
There, that’s a slogan you can hang yer hat on. I’d pay someone to design a link button for that sucker.
Wait, missing…the…point…the…content’s…the thing…wherein…I’ll catch…the conscience…of the…king…
Each of us has our own little vices—for some, it’s smoking. Others, gambling. If you’re R. Kelly, your weakness is the Class of 2012. I’ve learned today that my vice is Playstation’s game, “Smackdown! Know Your Role”. Oh sweet Jesus. Bought the sucker this afternoon, pursuant to my brother’s kind donation of his system once he purchased a Game Cube.
Now, I haven’t been much of a gamer since “Super Mario Bros 2” came out, and yes I am dating myself here, but I am really not used to a control with more than 5 basic buttons: directions, A, B, reset, and start. Very simple. If A meant “jump”, B generally meant “firearm”. Easy enough. Playstation has approximately 63 buttons, so near as I can tell, and most of them can be used in conjunction with another to perform yet another operation. So, I’ve got 63 factorial potential moves, 40 wrestlers, about 600 match options….how on earth did I think I was leading a fulfilling life up until this point? (God Forbid I ever have enough cash to afford a Playstation 2, which to quote a friend of mine regarding Nintendo 64, “has better game play and realism than my life”.)
I was glad to the escapism, for while my weekend was fun, it was not without it’s share of “Hey, wait a sec…” moments. To wit:
Friday Night:
Friday night was a night for Jenny and I to have drinks with her friend and my brother. It wasn’t a set up, her friend Lily does film at Harvard, Casey my brother is a wanna-be filmmaker, and Casey does a mean impression of a velociraptor. So we figured it would be fine. The restaurant we went to for drinks had a 45 minute wait, so we hightailed it back to my place. Lily had brought a tape of her student films for Jenny to watch, so of course, as pursuant to social decorum, we insisted on watching the video and potentially embarrassing someone we didn’t know.
She was a bit shy at first, but a bottle of wine later, and she seemed oddly OK about stuff. Her and Casey spent a good 45 minutes engaged in tech lingo that left jenny and I scratching our heads. Sort of like if I started talking about the difference between a Vari*Lite500 versus a Vari*Lite600 and Rosco gel numbers and…see? You went cross-eyed. Now you know how Jenny and I felt.
Now, normally I wouldn’t be so insistent on watching the video, but the films were, in Lily’s own words, “often-describe as soft-core porn”. Now, not having Cinemax as part of my cable package, I have been sorely lacking in the “soft-core porn on my television” department. The first piece was called “Library Girl”, and long story short, had as its plot a guy who falls asleep in a library and falls victim to an S+M library girl cult. Whoa. Most excellent.
The second piece was a wordless piece that…OK, I’m gonna try and describe this as accurately as I can, since it will make what happens afterwards make more sense. The film opens on a girl, and whoa, I know her---she was in my production of “Romeo and Juliet” 2 summers again. OK, so yea, Caitlin. Haven’t see her in a while. OK, she’s walking into a room, it’s after a party in a dorm, and there’s a girl inexplicably patting herself down with a handkerchief. OK. I’m going with it. Caitlin’s got a straw in her mouth, and yea, it’s rolling around in her mouth, and whoa, she is checking out Sweaty Girl, isn’t she? Sweaty Girl’s patting away, making sure every inch of neck is covered. Caitlin’s getting closer, shots of the two almost touching, then Caitlin takes the handkerchief down, places it next to like 20 bottles of booze, walks just past her, brushes her hand against the girl’s rear, and walks out of frame. Shot of Sweaty Girl, who now has the straw, proceeds to insert it in her mouth, and close her eyes, obviously happy.
Yo.
OK, so we’re all like, “Hey, that was really good, Lily.” And she replies, “Yea, when I screened it, everyone liked it, but later I heard that some people were referring to it as ‘the lesbian movie’. So weird! I mean, Caitlin got approached by some guy at a party, and he said, ‘I know you, you’re the chick from the lesbian movie!’”
OK, so now I’m feeling a bit odd. Normally I’m OK at picking up subtext, but I wasn't getting a terrible lot here. Then again, I really enjoyed "A.I.", so that pretty much means no one takes my criticism seriously. But, I don’t wanna say anything, because I 1) don’t wanna seem stupid, and 2) don’t wanna offend Lily. Lily, by the way, is over 6’ tall and a rugby player. Where I come from, we leave these types alone. We have more teeth that way.
By this point, Casey’s half in the bag, ok, up to his neck in the bag, so I drive everyone home. Drop Lily off at a bar to meet a friend, and Jenny off at her dorm. Jenny leaves the car, I kiss her goodnight, and hop back in the car. Casey has his eyes closed, obviously exhausted. I ask him, “Alright, dude, I got one question…”
“That was a total lesbian movie…” he replies sleepily. Brothers are great that way, the telepathy and all.
This became a running joke through the weekend betwixt us. Just randomly, one of us would burst out, “Total lesbian movie.” No offense to Lily---it was a good film, but we just didn't read into it what she wanted us to get out of it. Oh well. At least now libraries seem a helluva lot cooler than they did a week ago.
Saturday Night:
The first McGee Men Night Out: Casey, myself, and my dad. We planned to go to the Comedy Connection and work it from there. We sat about 10 feet from the stage, which would have been great. Except.
So we’re seating in front of three ladies, two of them very chatty. All from New Hampshire. They were two ladies, mid-fities it looked like, and one elderly lady. I sat in front of her, but I checked, and no eye patch was visible. She was, however, almost totally deaf.
Now, why you bring your deaf mother to any event where hearing might be, I dunno, a valuable asset is beyond me, but then I heard one of the ladies saying, “This is our first night out in five years,” so I cut them some slack.
Then my brother hears more, which I got all second-hand. This is apparently what went down a few minuets after we sat down:
Lady: So, are you married?
My Dad: Um, yea.
Lady: Too bad, if you were single I would have hit on you.
EW. Double EWWWWWW.
Later on, she apparently revealed that she herself was married, but her husband was “so goddamn boring”. During the main comedian’s act, he asked the hypothetical question, “Know what there isn’t enough of in New Hampshire?” And the same lady yells out, “SEX!”
Holy Mary Mother of God. I need a shower.
Now, I’m happy to report that she didn’t always talk about sex. However, she and her sister did in fact manage to talk through the ENTIRE FRICKIN’ show. Oh my lord. Deaf Granny of course couldn’t hear a word the comedians were saying, so the McGees got to hear every joke twice---once from the guy onstage, the second from the psychotic, horny New Hampshire weirdos behind us. It was like the world’s longest Miracle-Ear commercial. I need a drink.
I’m semi-happy, semi-disturbed that between the comedy club, a trip to Boston Billiards, and late-night dinner at Uno’s, only my dad got propositioned amongst the three of us. This I guess makes sense, since he has the most hair atop his head. The closest Casey and I came was having a waitress talk to us at Boston Billiards. Granted, the only thing she said was “That’ll cost $11 for the beer,” but still, Casey and I think we made a connection. OK, only I did. I need a hug.
Well, that’s all too damn much excitement for one weekend for me. Soft-core student porn to seeing a weird lady propose a hard-core scene with my dad…yikes. I need a break from all of this.
I think I’ll go back to making Triple H Pedigree the Rock on my Playstation.
Pardon the lack of sarcasm that you all cherish so dearly in tonight’s thoughts…I promise it will return on Monday, same time, same Batblog.
I don’t make it a point to read a terrible lot of blogs. Generally, most are about as boring as C-SPAN coverage of Finance Committee meetings at 2 am. Either I don’t get what they’re saying or, most often, just don’t care about what they are saying. One man’s website is another man’s poison. Those that I do read are ones in which I am either engaged by their craft and/or extremely jealous of their verve and wordplay. Nothing is better and simultaneously more frustrating to read something that seems so obviously right once you read it, yet you yourself never could put the same thoughts together the same way. These writers make it seem easy, within your capacity to do the same. That’s the best writing to me---it doesn’t impress you with vocabulary, or even a monumentally profound truth…it just seems like something you’ve always thought but never quite knew.
In the small circle of those that I do read, there’s been an unusual amount of duress, stress, and general angst over the past few weeks. Such ripples of discontent have occurred before, even on the short time I’ve been online. I tonight began to think back on when I first started blogging, went back to read my first few entries, and realized that my one-year online anniversary is about 2 weeks (the 18th, for those keeping track). In that year, I’ve seen linking/delinking controversies, general confusion leading to hysteria between parties who only meet through a computer screen, and a host of other maladies. I’ve read some amazing sites, and through emails or IM, made some great correspondences as well.
I use the phrase “correspondence” because I am loathe to categorize them alongside my flesh and blood friends. Yes, my correspondences have flesh and blood, but we’ve never met face to face, so all it amounts to, all it really can be, is an exchange of words and ideas. What you read on this site is me, but it’s only a small fraction of me. (That’s hardly an original thing to say, but worth mentioning every once in a while.) If given the chance to go out for drinks, I won’t choose to stay by my computer and see who pops up online or makes a comment on the site. Just not the way it works for me. Be that as it may, these correspondences have been a source of great delight over the past year that I’ve been a part of the online world.
Lately, some of these correspondences have been leaving their blog homes. Others have experienced deep frustration with the medium and/or themselves. The sort of naïve joy that accompanied the first few months of my online time (which corresponded to the large blogger boom post-September 11th) has passed---people aren’t really boasting about “blog children” or spouting off words that have “blog” in them whenever possible (which, in my mind, is “blogtastic” as a development, trust me) or reveling in the newness of what they are doing.
The online world that I encountered at the time had two set groups. The first were the entrenched, pre-September 11th, semi-pioneers/old hats at the blogging world. On the other hand, you ha newbies coming in by the hundreds a day. They populated their websites with nothing more than Friday Fives because while they wanted a blog, they didn’t have terribly much to say. People were so enamoured with having a URL that they forgot to go and make it interesting.
So, what has this proliferation done? Well, on one hand, it’s sparked a lot more national debate/discussion on the whole world. Certainly, I didn’t find out about the medium through Newsweek, as millions did a first months ago. The attention is good. The medium, I feel, is worthy of attention and its reach has far from been adequately explored. On the other hand, it has diluted the field to the point that some of the more ambitious bloggers have grown fed up or lost in the shuffle. Even more frustrating, some of who have “made it” show only a high number on their counter as validation of their work. While hit counters can keep you going during the few first months you’re online, eventually, if you’re looking for the medium to change your life in some way, you’re going to eventually need more.
Another way to look at it, maybe---the blogging boom not only coincided with the post-September 11th attacks, but also with the economic fallouts that accompanied them. Take a sample of how many former dot com-ers write blogs. How many former English majors who were salesmen but laid off due to cutbacks keep blogs. If their habits are anything like mine, blogging fills both a time need and a creative need. A heavy-volume blogger (and for all the posting I do, I wouldn’t even come close to classifying myself as one) needs to write as both a way to fill the day and empty the mind. Both acts are happening simultaneously. As one who spent 4 of the last 7 weeks of 2002 on vacation, I know how often blogging became a mental therapy for me---it was good to escape into the words for a while.
I mention this demographic “fact” (since it’s mainly a non-scientific observation I’ve been keeping for a few months) since those who are the most fed up are also the ones without a full-time job or educational program in their lives. The blog, at times, has been their entire life for however long they’ve been unemployed. Like any activity one does while unemployed, it sates, for a finite amount of time. But for minds so endlessly seeking creative outlets, the ambition that drives them to blog also drives them to either make money doing it or find some economic means for basic survival and/or self-esteem. They may seek encouragement or advice from their correspondents, but the balm their comments give isn’t enough to dull the anger or frustration inside.
Thus, a turning point comes. What gives? What has to go? Here you are, a writer, and by some accounts (including your own) a good one. Pretty snazzy layout, 15-20 comments a day, 1,000+ visitors on a slow day. Linked on 50+ sites. At the end of that day, however, none of the numbers really mean much, because while traffic is good, and the comments are positive, blogging ironically becomes a process for some in which the constant output of content for the masses becomes a one-way relationship in which the readership passively accepts and never gives anything back. Read any blog, hell, I’ve fallen into this moment of annoyance/despair on occasion---the ubiquitous plea for “more comments”. Blogging, for some, is a way to break down the hierarchy if the printed media----instead of being force-fed one opinion or story, without dissent, instant reaction and/or feedback is possible. Facts can be quickly gathered, information quickly disseminated. The process for many is ideally organic---a continuous give and take across websites and users to support (and for many, to supplant) typical media outlets. (The irony here, of course, is that while many people saw blogging as a way to circumvent the need to work for a “proper” outlet, now often seek employment with said outlets after a few months or years online. Some, not all, but still, worth mentioning.)
I don’t quite buy that my audience owes me much of anything. Nor, I suspect, do most writers who are so frustrated these days. Comments in some ways are the quickest and easiest way to garner how we as authors are doing, but if you read some pages, the comments are as see-through as cellophane. I’ve talked to more than one blogger who doesn’t take half of the comments seriously. They appreciate that people care enough to comment, but the motivations behind some commenting is suspect at best. At times they are trolling, at other times simply spiteful/baiting, and other times are such unfeigned attempts at agreement-as-flirtation to make a sailor blush. (I am always tickled that anyone would read this site, and anyone who picks me up or drops me a link is A OK in my book, trust me. Maybe that’s because I’ve such a small site---I’m still in the coffeehouse stage of my blog-rock star career. I hope I’m not the “Don’t Do This” section of the Behind the Music episodes by the time this is all through.)
Now, take all of these elements---the lack of newness, the lack of employment, the perceived lack of real honest feedback, and you can start to imagine why so many people are giving up the once green pastures of their blogs. I truly believe that I can write so much on this site because, at the end of the day, it’s ok if it utterly sucks. I pay my $10 a month hosting fee, and you read. Pretty simple. If my livelihood depended on the quality of my blog---who’s to say? For people who earn their salary via PayPal, however, the blog-as-livelihood is not a hypothetical, but an utterly real thing. Couple that with a readership that has borne out to be, with some notable exceptions, as passive as the readership of the New York Times and Newsweek, it’s a difficult goal at best, an utterly crushing at worst. The self-imposed pressure to consistently entertain an audience that doesn’t seem to very much care can only happen for so long before these writers, who as all artists are often extremely sensitive folk, snap.
Would my writing change if it became the basis of my salary? I would hope so. (Many of you who have read this far are probably hoping that, when I do, I get an editor.) I would hope it would get even better. (See comment about “editor” above.) Right now, you’re generally getting 30 minutes of my mental activity a day, because it’s all the time I generally have to spend on it. I work at manufacturing that 30 minutes a day, yet feel blessed that I have a job, especially in this market, and that I don’t have to rely on the generosity of correspondences and strangers to help me pay my rent. I feel for those who do, and have worked to encourage a select few of those. At the end of the day, or the week, or the month, however, simple encouragement doesn’t always work, and these people move on to bigger and (hopefully) better things.
A lot of these people might have seen blogging as the stepping stone to a writing career. I would love to see them economically supported by their writing, in whatever medium it finally occurs. Lately, I have been contemplating a similar path. I feel lucky that I have an income that supports me while I work slowly but surely on this site as a side project. I wish all of those who use their blogs as their steeping stones the very best. I wish them the courage to keep writing, even when they feel that it’s useless. I wish them luck, both on and offline. Most of all, I wish them happiness.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Responding to the overwhelming apathy regarding their departures from the national stage, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole have signed on for 10 episodes of “60 Minutes" to slake the nation's unexistant thirst for their opinions and insights.
In a move that no one asked for, least of all desired, moreover currently care about, Dole and Clinton will engage in a “Point-Counterpoint” style of debate. Viewers can view these two former leaders debate, or like, not.
The “Harlem-Viagra Debates”, while not having the weight of the “Lincoln-Douglas Debates”, or even the “Loder-Pak Post-VMA Awards Breakdowns”, still are expected to boost ratings for the flagship show.
According to the article on Boston.com,
“Dole, a former Republican Senate majority leader, said he and the former Democratic president would be a good fit for the show.
''We can be firm and provocative without being nasty,'' he said.
CBS officials were quick to step in and confirm that yes, this was still a series of debates that the former Republican Senate leader was talking about. Clinton, excited for a brief moment, fell into a stupor once more.
“Hillary never lets me get the chance to be provocative or nasty, never mind firm,” Clinton was heard muttering later on in the evening.
A CNN/AOL/Snickers Poll currently shows not only a general lack of desire to hear more old white men chime in on the future of their well-being, but also expressed general ignorance as to the identities of the former leaders.
“Clinton? That’s the guy who had the thing with the girl in the blue hat, right?” said Rob Stanton, a typically befuddled interviewee. “And why is he gonna debate against the head of a pineapple company? Does this mean I have to duct tape my television now?”
When pressed for further comment, Stanton said, “Can I go now?”
Experts blame America’s short attention span on a collective psychic blocking of an events post-September 11th, along with an enormously short attention span.
“The MTV-ization of America is almost complete,” said Dr. Hannah Jennings from the Harvard Medical School. “People can’t be bothered with pres-21st century history anymore. Between the constant calls for war, everyday veiled threats to our safety, and Trischelle’s inability to keep her pants on each week on 'The Real World', no wonder people can’t remember What’s His Face. By the way, can you BELIEVE they showed a threesome on basic cable? That was awesome.”
In what some people who actually care see as related news, the BET Network will be starting its own Point-Counterpoint series, featuring Hammer and Al Sharpton's attempts to accurately and colorfully describe the fatness of each other’s momma over the course of a 10 week period.
I dunno about you, but I'm feeling a little dirty after this morning's post. OK, Xtina levels of dirrrrty. Need something to wash that away from my system, a visual colonic if you will. But hmmm, what to use? Ahh. I know.
Here comes Tatu to the rescue. On some levels, yes, I should feel bad about the repetitious mentions of a teenage lesbian pop duo. Even more so for a group that may only be lesbian as a marketing scheme. But let’s take a moment to admire, shall we?
OK, I'm done.
(Even if they look like younger, shaggier versions of Lori Petty and Björk. A rather perky Björk, to boot. I did a rough translation of the Russian writing on her shirt, which says, loosely, “Stop looking at my chest, you prematurely balding perv.”)
(And while we’re on a Björk kick, has there ever been, in the history of Man, a worse name to have to scream out in bed? “Oh, Björk!” simply does not run trippingly from the tongue. )
Every once in a while, a image can make me stop, drop what I’m doing, and give this piece of art my full attention. Even more compelling for me is when a visual image carries with it a story of great significance or importance. The story need not be spelled out, though to my largely untrained eye, a narrative is often helpful. Jenny can look at a painting and pretty much give me a rundown on the cultural significance and/or place in the artist’s canon. Me? I’m reduced to, “That girl is totally naked.” To which Jenny replies, “That’s Boticelli’s Venus, you moron.” And I go, “But, she’s naked.” We see things differently, is what I'm trying to say.
Point is, even without Jenny’s help, occasionally I can see an image and be intuitively appreciative of the work being displayed.
The following is not one of those times.
AAAAAH! My eyes! Make it stop!
According to the AP, here’s the story on this lovely couple:
“Cathy and Victor Moseley stand in their lingerie store, Cathy's Little Secret, in Elizabethtown, Ky., Friday, Nov. 1, 2002. The Moseley's have owned the store for five years and have been in litigation the whole time with retailer Victoria's Secret. Victor Moseley named the shop for himself: Victor's Little Secret. Moseley ended up changing the name of the store to Cathy's Little Secret, after his wife, pending the outcome of the case. The Supreme Court ruled against lingerie seller Victoria's Secret on Tuesday, March 4, 2003, finding no proof that a small sex toy and adult video shop that wanted to call itself Victor's Secret harmed the big company's trademark.”
If nothing else, this picture answers the question, “So whatever happened to the guy who played Corey Haim’s dad in ‘License to Drive’?”
Now, if this picture has just been shown in court on the first day of litigation, Victoria’s Secret could have saved itself 5 years of annoyance. Where’s the economic conflict? If anyone is dumb enough to mistake this little shop for Victoria’s Secret, they probably can’t put on a bra properly in the first place, ergo the Winged Bra Goddesses won’t need their business.
Secondly, even if you did wander into this store, you have to encounter Cathy and/or Victor, and really, I don’t know about you, but I am definitely not interested in any secrets they may have. That’s the biggest sex buzzkill this side of a Richard Simmons’ workout tape. OK, I just had a mental image of Simmons, his shorts, and a cover version of “Macarena”. Please end my life.
Seriously, you walk in to the store. I don’t wanna stereotype purveyors of porn and things that go “Buzz” in the night, but I’m thinking you’re not exactly unaroused when you walk into the shop. Even if you’re calmly contemplating the journey from the comfort of your home, “OK, drop the kids off at soccer practice, then grocery store, than Victor’s Little Secret, check…” you are, I imagine, decently excited at the prospect of buying something that nominally massages your neck but also could be employed in any off-shore drilling expeditions you may be contemplating. And then you see Cathy, and the whole thing goes to hell. Just sad.
Also, am I mistaken, but are those trading cards over Victor’s left shoulder? Is this picture trying to tell me that you can actually own Jenna Jameson trading cards? Why did nobody tell me this? I could own the Topps Kobe Tai 1998 set? Why am I the last one to know? Why won’t Suzie invite me to her birthday party, all the cool kids are going!!!!!
Whoops, sorry, regressed back to 7th grade there. Won’t happen again, I promise. Yes, 7th grade was filled with social rejection and porn. OK, just rejection.
Why didn’t anyone kill me about three paragraphs ago?
So there I am, sweat pouring down my face---choosing between crushing the hopes of a young lass and blocking the view of an old hag.
I wonder what Aristotle would have said about this? Or better yet, what would Brian Boitano do?
So, dear readers, I regret to inform you that I chose the girl over the poor lady behind me.
So we switch, “Circle of Life” starts up, and I feel as low as I have in a long time. Then I remembered what I paid for these orchestra seats and forced myself to both as cheerful and as low in the chair as possible.
So here’s the thing about me---I’m a tall guy. Pretty obvious by now. The distance between the top of my head and the ground comes with many benefits, usually involving the “only I can reach object X” variety. However, as with all things, with great power comes great responsibility, or in this case, “being tall means any seating construction for the general public will inevitably cause my great pain”. No way in hell can I both slouch for Long John Granny behind me and not have my knees buckling against the seat in front of me. Just not possible. By the time “Be Prepared” rolls around, I notice that I no longer have feeling in either leg from the knee down. I am wondering if the once-nice grandmother put a Haitian curse on me. Nope, I look down, legs are still attached firmly to the rest of me. Just asleep. By the time “Hakuna Matata” hits the stage, I am in so much physical agony that I actually contemplate how much my quality of life would be reduced if I sliced off my right buttocks.
We make it to intermission, and I get a Poland Spring and a change of blood at the refreshment stand. By the time Act Two rolls around, Jenny, sensing my pain, allows me to throw my legs into her dance space, violating all of Johnny’s rules with Baby. Ahhh, much better. Perhaps it was my newfound comfort, but I enjoyed Act 2 much more than Act 1. The latter was operatic (pretty images, dull as can be) whereas Act 2 was completely energized and, with the reveal of Mufasa in the “stars”, gave me possibly the most gorgeous stage image I have ever seen.
Sunday morning was ripe with promise, until we saw the monsoon out of our window. We of course forgot to bring an umbrella. However, a $5 cab and voila, we were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We paid our fair and stood in line for the “Leonardo da Vinci: Master Draftsman”, which prompted many a thought of, “Yes, but how would fare on Trading Spaces?” thoughts, which were never uttered. Being in places of cultures instantly promotes Jenny to many a look my way of, “OK, now we’re going somewhere nice, don’t embarrass me.” Roughly 20 minutes later, we get into the exhibit wing, which really should have been called, “Really Tiny Ass Scraps of Paper with Horses on Them”. Seriously, about 15% of the exhibit consisted of napkin-sized pieces of parchment with a horse on it. Mind you, I am not anti-equine in my general disposition; I was just a bit befuddled. Couple that was an exhibit so crowded with people, and you’ve got a whole lot of me not seeing much in detail. Which is fine, because Jenny has the brains when it comes to art anyways. Aside from seeing a man I could have SWORN on a Bible in court was Ewan McGregor, the event was a bit of a letdown. (The only reason I think it wasn’t him was that I read a newspaper report, complete with picture, of him filming clean-shaven in the South this past week. Otherwise, it was all I could do to not go up to this guy, and in my best Dex voice, go, “Obi-Wan! Hey, whaddya know!”)
Roughly 12 hours later, we made it out of the European Painting sections. Good lord this place is huge. Not huge in that “aunt you can’t look directly in the eyes” sort of way, but HUGE nonetheless. I grew my current beard while walking through this place. Anywho, we end up in the Egyptian wing, which houses thousands of priceless artifacts and one pissed-off security guard. Hoo boy. This guy had to have intoned, “NO FLASH PICTURES!” twice a minute for the 8 minutes we sat down to rest our feet. Just didn’t help my headache at all.
Jenny and I then made a deal---if she got me lunch, I’d take her to Macy’s. Macy’s to a straight male is like kryptonite. Hell, most department stores are. You go in every time, thinking, “OK, this won’t be that bad…” and twenty minutes later, Lex Luthor is pushing your helpless body to drown under the city of Metropolis. Just stunning. We get out at 42nd Street, and the rain is so bad that we hit the first place we see, which is…ESPN Zone. Again. Yea, I know, culture be damned, I wanted cheese fries.
Two hours later, I’ve had cheese fries, one seriously large Killian’s, and $25 worth of video games on the 3rd floor of the Zone. I am full ready to be lulled into a shopping stupor.
We get to Macy’s. If you’ve never been, it’s the shopping equivalent of the Met. It makes a Super Target look like a Duane Reade. Simply amazing. The best part of the store is the various amenities they offer inside. On the 2nd floor, there is a Starbucks. In the Children’s Clothing section on Floor 8, there is a McDonald’s. On floor 15, they start handing out oxygen masks for your shopping convenience. On the 19th floor was a production of “Man of La Mancha”. Unbelievable.
We forgot our passports, so we couldn’t go to some of the sections, but we did manage a tour of the shoe department, where I struggled to fight my sapping strength, which reduced me to Shatner-esque speech patterns: “Must fight…this…EXHAUSTION.” We then proceeded to the furniture section. Why? We weren’t going to bring an Ottoman back on the bus. Oh right, purchasing isn’t the point, shopping in and of itself is fun! Kill me. After wading through the Toyota dealership on the 6th floor, past the whirlpool department, then past the exotic aquatic life tank, we settled into the fine jewelry section.
Now, we’ve already been through the Tiffany’s debacle of early 2002 here, but this time I was prepared. She wanted to look at rings, due to a recent manicure. (This is a little like telling her I want to go to Flashdancers because I just bought a new pair of pants, but I digress.) We actually had a productive trip, and even though any potential proposal is years away, we actually agreed on one ring we both liked that wasn’t knee-buckilingly expensive. I think my nerves were reduced by my curiosity over this weird needle-laced device the saleswoman kept sticking into the diamonds before handing over the ring to Jenny. Apparently it tests quality---to me, it looked like electroshock therapy for gems. As if the saleswoman was telling the diamond, “Look, don’t even try to escape from the display case. You are so bitch. Now squeal like a pig!”
That of course could be me reading too much into the whole scenario.
Nighttime featured an encounter with the Commander and my friend Matt back in our Hotel of Dread. After getting over their initial disbelief over the room, and Tim’s confusion over the existence of a grape in his cole slaw, we settled into about two hours of non-stop laughter. Most of this concerned Tim’s role in a student movie, in which he played a Demon during a dream sequence. Apparently, the initial costume consisted of a ski mask with two candles glued to it for horns. Yea student films!
The rest of the conversation I won’t go into, not because I am lazy (although I am), but because none of the words, printed out, would seem very funny. You know you have a good set of friends where you can share two hours of laughs over topics that others would find only unfunny, but incomprehensible. Most excellent times were had.
So, that’s about it from the Big Apple. Great trip.
And if you’re out there, One-Eyed Granny, I’m really, really sorry.
I thought I’d lead with an arty shot of New York, make y’all think I have even the barest hint of sophistication. (Yes, I actually did that that photo myself, and against every inartistic impulse coarsing through my veins, it still came out pretty cool.) Make you think I spent the weekend in martini bars, chatting up Senators, sharing a gravity bong with President Clinton…but none of these things happened. Still, it was a great weekend, replete with many a “this stuff really happens to me” moment.
The point of the weekend was simple--- to reward Jenny for completing her thesis (on Ben Jonson and issues of social mobility in Renaissance England…is that right Jenny? I’m not as smart as I used to be.) and also to give as a belated Valentine’s Day gift. See the Lion King, see the Met, see the Commander. As Matt Damon would say, “A smash and grab job.” Of course, reality, played by Brad Pitt, said, “Not exactly.”
(Has there BEEN a more quotable movie in the last 5 years besides “Ocean’s 11”? I think not. It’s been on HBO 1 through HBO 17 non-stop since mid-February, and without fail, I’ll watch at least 10 minutes at a time, no matter what I’m doing. OK, y’all don’t care about this. Moving on…)
We caught a 10 am Greyhound out of South Station on Saturday morning. Ervine the Really Pissed Off Driver is our guide into the promised land known as Port Authority. Before we even take off from the docking station, the girl in front of Jenny has thrust her seat back with great vengeance and furious anger. (“Ocean’s 11” took over the vaulted top spot from “Pulp Fiction”, incidentally.) Over the course of the next four hours, I make a case study of this girl. She’s constantly playing with her parents’ hair, both of them. Like, running her fingers through them, seemingly fascinated by it. She was like a member of the Blaine School For Mentally Challenged Hairdressers. Eventually, she settles into a position that I am sure is described in some Yoga handbooks as the “Done Up Busted Lotus”---she had her knees up at the top of the seat, her butt was almost in the lap of the girl next to her, and her head was up against the window. By the time I hit 135th Street, Jenny helped me realize that this girl was in fact not 16 years old, but more likely a 11 year old with an extremely hyperactive pituitary gland.
So, now we get to NYC, and because it’s a trip, Jenny and I turn into the Ghostbusters after they’ve been covered in the pink slime. One of the great benefits of dating for over 2 years is that you’ve both developed an ability to not only know how to press each other’s buttons with great efficiency, but absolutely cannot stop pushing them once you’ve started until some edible object is flung in some direction. Having made it through a regrettable incident involving pizza and the wall near one of our heads, we purged ourselves of the anonymity and proceeded to the hotel.
Aaaah, the hotel. The room that prompted both the Commander and my friend Matt to go, “This really exists, doesn’t it?it” Jenny, bless her heart, wanted to get a nice room to stay in. I let her pick out the room, because she has an amazing Jedi bargain sense. She inherited from her mother---the two of them can find anything 50% off any price I can find or would normally be willing to pay. They see sales the way John Nash sees codes---just frickin’ unreal. I have learned to use this talent whenever possible. Jenny decides she wants something relatively posh. I am fine with this. She also wants it to be “shi-shi”. Not only I am unfamiliar with this term, I don’t even know how to spell it. It scares me, is what I am trying to say.
We get to the hotel, get our room card, and head to the hotel. The first clue that something was slightly amiss with the porn-funk purple paint that adorned the elevator walls. I coulda sworn I heard Barry White Muzak playing. The doors open, and I walk out, suddenly clad in a pimp outfit. I won’t even get into what Jenny was now wearing. We walk single file to our room, since the hallway was too narrow for us to walk side by side. We key into the room, and we walk what feels like 100 feet to the actually bed/living area. The room, so far as I can tell, is shaped like a perverted Tetris piece. And the centerpiece of the room, the bed, looks like this:
Yea. I mean, what do you say to this? Hard to know. This was a terrifying bed to sleep in. The Commander said upon his arrival: “So, where’s the button to operate the Iron Maiden?” I don’t know if you can clearly see it, but dead smack dab in the middle of the upper Wooden Plank of Death is a curious, square-shaped hole. We don’t know what this is for. Some questions are better left unanswered.
So, bottom line---a frickin’ long hallway to this room with the Bed of Death. Poor Jenny, she wanted shi-shi and got a big ass L of Shite-Shite. OK, the room wasn’t bad, but the bed is beyond description scary. Right up there with the sink:
Which looks like a metal gurney given sink form. The rest of the bathroom was nice, if small, but this sink looked wrong. The whole place felt like “The House Ikea Lost a Bet On”. But we were only sleeping there and storing things, so I don’t mind. Seriously, don’t be fooled by the Bed of Death that I got. Jenny got a room in the Upper West Side that she could afford, so more power to her.
So, off to Times Square, where Jenny offered to take me to the ESPN Zone for dinner. This was in place of the WWE Wolrd, which annoyingly enough closed the week I was due to finally see its innards. Damn you, McMahons! Damn yoooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuu! (I’d cut a promo about how I’m starting my own restaurant chain under the monies of Ted Turner, but only about 4 of you would care, so I’ll continue with the main plot line here.) ESPN featured a 40 minute wait at 4 pm, which was annoying, but all was made good by the arrival of the cheese fries appetizer. Oh Sweet Mary. I believe in Jesus, because only a divine being could allow for His presence to be distilled into such a heavenly, yummy food product. Or maybe it was the devil, because after Jenny and I ate that, along with another appetizer, plus dinner, we looked at each other, realized wer were fat pieces of crap, and covered ourselves, due to shame. God appeared on the giant teleprompter, and asked us, “Why are you hiding yourselves from me? Don’t tell me you had cheese fried AND the chicken tenders?” And I answered, “Verily, yes, Lord, Dre, our exceedingly nice waiter, doth give us both, and we know him now to be the Serpent. Look, he comes with Dessert Menus!” But alas, the Lord had forsaken us, leaving us with Knicks/Clippers highlights instead.
After waddling our sorry asses out of ESPN Zone, we decided to hit the approximately 4 mile long Toys R Us right next door. Jenny made some friends.
I was amused, until she tried to introduce me to some of them.
She also felt I needed new hatwear.
Wrong again. (God, if I ever land a paying gig off this site, these pictures will be gone faster than a plate of Cheese Fries at ESPN Zone.)
We saw the ferris wheel, we saw the big animatronic dinosaur, we saw the Barbie Castle, we saw 15 kids beating the snot out of a guy dressed as a Power Ranger and taking his lunch money. OK, that I made up, but it’s NYC, you probably believed me for a second there. As we were leaving, the absolutely creepiest Toys R Us employee ever was holding a remote control saying, “Who wants to try my car? Who wants to try it out?” People have been arrested for saying less to kids. Yikes.
The best thing to me about Times Square is how localized the insanity is. It goes about 8-10 blocks in length, along two main avenues, and then just….stops. Seriously. It’s like watching the flashback scene in “Batman” where they are in a bright town and 5 steps later in absolute Hell. This was happen to Jenny and I when we decided to “kill some time” between Toys R Us and the show. Within 20 feet of ABC Studios, I was getting sneezed on outside a peep show establishment by a homeless man. I love this town!
So, finally, 7:30 pm, we take our seats in:
Huzzah! Great seats. About 20th row, orchestra, slightly house left but no real impediments or obstructions. As the seats fill up, I notice the two seats directly in front of us have not been filled. Always fearing the worst, I imagine that some guy taller than me is gonna plop in front of Jenny, and not myself. Being 6 feet, 5 inches, vision generally isn’t too much of a problem, but I am generally the scourge of anyone sitting behind me. AT “Rent” two years ago, I don’t think either girl behind me was more than 5’2’’. Poor girls. So, to be pre-emptive, I look behind us. Uh oh.
Directly behind Jenny is a woman, about 85 years old, frail as can be, with an EYE PATCH. Five feet if she’s an inch. Oh man. So, 7:58 pm rolls around, still no patrons in front of us. Ahh, here comes a guy with a woman. Neither are that tall, the guy is getting in first, so he’ll sit to the left of Jenny’s seat, and oh, no he’s not, and oh dear god he has a bushy afro with spikes sticking up high as the sky. He plops down in fron of Jenny, the lights start to dim, she mouths to me, “I can’t see a thing.”
Quandaries, people, quandaries. These are the kind of moments that define a man. What to do? Let the Dread Pirate Granny see the show with her one good eye, saying Hakuna Matata to the girl who I brought to NYC specifically for this event? Or let my girl see the show, and ruin probably the last night out for the nice lady before they pull the plug on her existence?
Tommorow, the conclusion of the story, plus Sunday’s excursions into the Met and an encounter with the Commander.
Will post more later tonite about the NYC trip, but I just stumbled a across an email from a friend that said,
"It is 12:45 on Saturday afternoon, and I'm listening to the game show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". on NPR. The host is asking a caller a question and quotes YOUR WEBLOG.
He quoted a few lines of your Grammy commentary and asked what event "a weblogger named Ryan McGee" was referring to.
You've hit the big time my friend.
What in the...
So I get another email from a friend, confirming it. Apparently, the host read parts of my blog, on the air, and had people guess what he/she was talking about.
Did anyone else here this? This is very happy news to come back to!
Later tonite, come back for my updates from NYC, which includes encounters with cheese fries, Ewan McGregor's stunt double, and why I'm officially going to hell (it involves one-eyed grandmothers).
UPDATE:
Thanks to my friend John, here is the link for the audio of this event. Scroll down to Question 5.