The Daily Dump

An Open Letter To My Readers

2006-09-05T16:50:00.000-04:00

I have some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is, this will be the last post for The Daily Dump. There have been some big changes in my life recently (including being homeless and alone in a world of pain and confusion) and these sorts of things don’t make for good writing, especially when what you’re writing is frivolous attempts at humor relying on an overuse of similes and copious run-on sentences. I’m not going to tarnish the good memory of this blog by allowing myself to get drunk one night and publish a post entitled “FUCK YOU, WORLD”.

The good new is, you guys are awesome. Honestly, everyone who’s ever come through here. Obviously if you commented I like you more, but you’re all heroes in your own way. So to everyone who has ever taken the time to read what I wrote, I just want to say thank you. On more days than not, writing a blog post has been the most fun hour of my day, and not just because I’m consistently thrilled with myself, but because every so often you guys had as much fun as I was having. It’s hard to say with a straight face, “The Daily Dump has been so rewarding for me,” but it’s the truth. So again, thanks for being awesome.

On a more upbeat note, I’m definitely not ruling out the chance of me starting up a new site in the future. I spent too many hours learning how to add a line break in HTML to never use that knowledge again. So if you want, send me an email now and if the time comes that I get back in the game I’ll send out a notice and we’ll all reunite, reminisce, and get back to making this world a better place.

And on a final note, to all you other bloggers out there: make sure you keep on writing and entertaining the shit out of me. Because that’s how we roll.

Thanks again for the great run – it was better than I ever thought it would be.

Dan

Sometimes I’m Just Irrationally Bitter And It’s Not Your Fault

2006-08-29T12:26:00.000-04:00

I’m taking the week off. Because I can.

Enjoy the extra three minutes a day you won’t waste reading my opinions and misadventures. Try to do something productive with them, like not cry.

Update On The Blog Remodeling

2006-08-25T16:08:00.000-04:00

This is quickly proving to be a horrendous decision. I haven’t spent this much time on something this impossible since I was eight and I tried to get my dog to bark my name. The problem is, I can’t give it up. Now that I’ve started, I can’t go back. It took me forty-five minutes, but in my “test blog” I managed to delete the title. I mean, just the words. Forty-five minutes. And I’m pretty sure that you don’t even have to do that.

The good news is that I’m confident it will look good when I’m done. The bad news is that once upon a time I was also confident that I would be Spiderman. So sometimes these things just don’t work out.

Here’s a video of me in my office right now:

Site News

2006-08-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

A few things:

1. I know things have been a little slow and off schedule around here, but I have a very good reason for it. I’ve been busy with another project that I can’t really talk about yet. Actually, yes I can. It’s my fantasy football team. Deal with it.

2. I just added some new links to my sidebar, including an RSS and Atom feed. Honestly, I have little to no knowledge on what an RSS feed is, how it works or who uses it, but someone emailed me saying they thought I should have one. So I got one. Not much different than eight grade when super-crush Tanya Vasquez thought I should buy the soundtrack to Jurassic Park. Hopefully this RSS thing will be a better decision.

3. Also included in the new links are My Yahoo and Google. Again – things I know very little about. But apparently you can customize those sites to include the news, sports, finance, blog, etc. links that you want, all on one page. I set one up with Google and, along with some up-to-the-minute headlines and weather forecasts, I got this:

It’s things like this that make Google such a successful company. Come on, How To Do a Roundhouse Kick?! Would I ever think of sitting down at my desk one morning and saying, “It’d be really awesome if I knew how to do a roundhouse kick the right way.” No, of course not. But was I practicing in my office this afternoon? You bet your ass I was. And am I a naturally gifted karate fighter? Well don’t piss me off and you won’t have to find out.*

4. Finally, I’ve been getting awfully tired of looking at my template lately. (By lately, I mean the past 10 months.) While I like the general layout of things, the colors are boring and the lack of a banner up top just smacks of “HTMLoser.” I mean, even all the mommy blogs have a decorative banner up top. It’s depressing. So I want to put one up on my site.

The problems with that:

1. I don’t know how.
2. See #1.

So I was hoping there was a kind reader or two out there who had some sort of working knowledge on how to do this and could help me out. Not like you would have to come to my house and stand over my shoulder saying, “No, put the cursor there. OK, no, wait, you lost it. Go back. OK, are you retarded? This isn’t that hard.” But maybe you could just be on call for any troubleshooting problems that may arise. Or maybe I could email you my template and you could do it, I don’t know I’m just thinking out loud here. But the end result is a more awesome website for everyone. Like the saying goes, “It takes a community to raise a middle income white guy with no formal HTML training.” So email me if you’re interested in not making any money to take on a project that will likely end with you hating me.

____________________________
* In the interest of full disclosure, I did take karate lessons when I was 12, but then quit after orange belt because that meant I would have to start sparring with other kids. And not because I was afraid of fighting (I was a killing machine), but because I was afraid to wear a cup. If I had three wishes, I would honestly make my third wish “I wish that last sentence wasn’t true.” But if Terminator II taught me anything, it’s that even killing machines have their weaknesses. Mine happened to be a discomfort of wearing things on my groin.**

** I can’t believe I tell you people shit like this. My therapist said it would be good for me, but personally it’s about as therapeutic as his suggestion we reenact those nightmares I had about being molested, which I’m still not certain is an accepted form of treatment.

Uh, Martin? I Think They’re Talking To You

2006-08-23T16:39:00.000-04:00

It’s been a little slow in my office today, so I got through sorting out an enormous stack of papers that had accumulated on the side of my desk. Underneath them all, I found an article I had printed out from the New York Times about how large, black women are being unfairly portrayed in the media as brash, comical, aggressive figures of authority. It begins:

“At 200 pounds plus – most of that pure attitude – she is hard to miss. . . . She typically finds herself in an exchange that is either confrontational or embarrassing. And her best line is often little more than a sassy ‘Mmmm hmmm.’ “

(Pause to let your mind finish going through the montage of large, black female actresses saying “Mmmm hmmm.”)

It continues:

“The heavy black spokeswoman for Pine Sol was one of the first to embrace the role. Her aggression was aimed at household dirt, however, not people. In a recent commercial for Captain Morgan rum, a large black woman berates her man for playing dominoes and making her late.

In one Twix commercial, a full-figured black woman asks her boyfriend if her pants make her rear end look big. As the camera focuses on her plump backside (exaggerated by the camera for effect), the man stuffs his face with a Twix bar and mumbles an indecipherable answer. Pleased with his response, the woman walks away. She is not shown being aggressive or loud, but the commercial leaves the impression that if the man had given the wrong answer, she might have erupted.”

I don’t remember why exactly I saved this article, if it was because I agreed with the fact that not all large black women should be defined as strong and humorous or disagreed with it because I can think of a lot worse things to be defined as then strong and humorous. (Like, oh I don’t know, a black man being portrayed as a lackadaisical dominoes player.) Or maybe I just liked the fact that a New York Times writer wrote the phrase “plump backside.” But now that I reread the article, what strikes me is how racist it is. Not to black people, but to white people. You don’t think white people are typified and pigeonholed in the media? Like in movies, whenever an unassuming martial arts expert is in a bar and some macho guy messes around with him and ends up getting beaten up? You know who that is? A WHITE GUY. Or whenever there is a car chase and the two vehicles go careening through the streets of a crowded city and people constantly have to jump out of the way or risk being killed? You know who they are? WHITE PEOPLE. Usually carrying shopping bags and lingering near a fruit stand. BECAUSE YOU KNOW US WHITE PEOPLE. SPENDING OUR HIGHER INCOMES ON CLOTHING AND FRUIT. You know, I fought really hard for the role of sassy teacher on “Boston Public.” And in the end all they wanted me to do was test drive their BMW around the unusually curvy streets of an upscale suburban community. It’s just not fair.

(Note: An extremely interesting fact culled from the article: The Cream of Wheat Guy has a name – Rastus. RASTUS. And we’re writing articles about the Pine Sol lady? I mean, why didn’t they just name him, “Yessuh"? Or would that have sounded “too gentrified”?)

Uncovering The Secrets Of The Universe

2006-08-22T17:18:00.000-04:00

Elephants Do Run, Study Concludes

Don’t get me wrong, science is awesome and it can really make you feel empowered in a vast world of complex, staggering mysteries. But you mean to tell me that no one stopped in the middle of this study and, while watching a baby elephant trot around a dirt track with sensors affixed to its joints, said, “Hey, you know a different way we could go about this? We could just say nothing. Because I’m pretty sure everyone already thinks that elephants run,” while all his scientist friends around him nodded their heads in profound agreement?

While we’re at it, here’s another enigma for you to tackle, Science: Why do I feel like such a douche whenever someone sees me eating a peach at my office? I mean, I’m a pretty secure person, what with my barrel chest and charming demeanor. But if someone comes in my office while I’m eating a peach, juice dripping down the cuff of my shirt, I feel like they walked in on me beating off to Friendster while chugging a bottle of Strawberry Sensation Arbor Mist. What gives?

Not Letting The Terrorists Win!

2006-08-22T11:35:00.000-04:00

So I’ve been reading the series of articles at CNN entitled “In The Footsteps of Bin Laden,” which has been updated daily under the slogan “Know Your Enemy.” I think it’s extremely important work CNN is doing in keeping the American people informed as to the biggest threat to their freedom and democ–

Aww.

Like I was saying, in the war on terror, it is vital that we, as leaders of the free world, remain educated on the key figures involved in what has become one of the most unsettling and potential catastrophic times in the history of the wo–

Aawwwww.

Because as much as we would like to believe “It could never happen to me,” people all around the world are falling victim to terrorist acts, and after 9/11 the United States in no longer insulated from the violence. The more we know and understand, as a society, about the terrorist leaders and their political agendas, the more we can do in our everyday lives to protect ourselves and the ones we lov–

Aaaaaaawwwwwwwww!

My Standard Three Day Late Take on Important News

2006-08-18T16:35:00.000-04:00

I’d love to be able to start this off with some sort of nonchalant qualifying clause like, “I’m not one to follow Hollywoodesque true crime stories . . .” but that would be a ridiculous lie. The Girlfriend and I watch shows like “48 Hours Mystery,” “Cold Case Files” and “American Justice” to the point where when one comes on TV, we have conversations like:

Me: “Didn’t we see this one already?”

Her: “Yeah, this is the stupid one with the husband who stabbed his wife for the insurance money.”

Me: “BOOOR-ING.”

I, like many others, watched the primetime specials on JonBenet and was sure the parents did it. Then was sure they didn’t do it. Then was sure they did it again, all depending on what segment of the program was airing at the time. Eventually I just got tired of watching the same home video footage of a six year old girl doing the two-step in full cowgirl costume and let it go. Like everyone else.

But now it’s back! And it’s bigger than ever: with more drama, more plot twists and more characters than ever before. I assume I wasn’t the only one who was overwhelmed with the recent flurry of press coverage, with CNN.com seemingly writing a new article every five minutes. So I decided that I would sit down today, read through all the stories and sum it up for everyone in the simplest way possible, so that we all might share in this theater of the absurd together.

Mary Lacy, Boulder County District Attorney

Random Facts

Vacations In: Doesn’t vacation
Favorite color: Beige
Favorite Emotion: Indifference
If She Were a Fruit, She Would Be: a Pear

Role in Case: If Mark Karr is indicted, Lacy will lead the legal team in attempting to lock him up forever. Unless NBC jumps in and buys the rights to The Trial and finds Lacy to be too “rough around the face” for television, in which case they may hire their own legal team.

Lt. Gen. Suwat Thakrongsrisakul, Commander of the Thai Immigration Bureau and his helpers

Random Facts

Nothing can bring him down, baby!

Role in Case: This group is in charge of extraditing Mark Karr to the U.S. for his eventual trial, though, as my friend Antonella pointed out (she has an eye for this stuff) you couldn’t get the smiles off these guys’ faces with a brillo pad. You would think they were transporting a bear cub saved from a raging river back to its proud mother. I don’t think they understand exactly how little there is to smile about in the grisly murder of a six year old.

Daniel Roberts, Pueblo Vista Elementary School Principal

Random Facts

Amount of Muscles in Mouth: Two times that of average human
Worst Fear: Making a face too much and it staying that way
Weakest Attribute: Judging character

Role in Case: Roberts was the principal while Karr worked as a student / substitute teacher at his elementary school in Napa, California in 2001. Said Roberts, “Oh yeah, I can toootally see him doing this sort of thing. I remember one time in the break room me and some of the teachers were talking and we were like, ‘Dude, John is gonna like, totally murder a kid someday.’ And I was like, ‘I know, right?!’ ”

John Glaser, Napa Valley Unified School District Superintendent

Random Facts

You Might Not Know It, But: He has been undead for two years now

Role in Case: To scare off teenage sleuth teams trying to crack the case by rigging booby traps and misleading hijinks all over town.

Sharyn Lindsey, Napa Valley Unified School District Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources

Random Facts

Likes: Sex
Dislikes: Not having sex
Last Halloween Costume: Leslie Nielson

Role in Case: More than the eye candy, Lindsey represents a broken school system fraught with incompetency and burocratic log-jamming. She also represents an angle of the story that is completely fucking useless. Who’s up after her, the lettuce guy at a Chipotle in Pasadena who served Mark Karr a Carnitas Burrito one day and DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE HIM AS JONBENET’S REAL KILLER AND TURN HIM IN?

Michael Tracey, University of Colorado journalism professor

RANDOM FACTS

Prized Possession: Emmy Awards for staring role in TV’s hit show “Miami Vice”
Favorite Album: “Frontiers” by Journey
Favorite TV Show: “Nash Bridges”

Role in Case: According to The Washington Post, “Tracey said he had been corresponding with Karr – who used an assumed name in the e-mail exchange – for "about four years" before he mentioned the correspondence to the prosecutor's office. [He] would not say what prompted him to alert prosecutors. According to one source close to the investigation, Boulder County prosecutors asked federal investigators to help identify the e-mails' author by his pseudonym, which was BenetKiller4lyfe.”

Kidding!

But really, you correspond for FOUR YEARS with a stranger who is obsessed with the JonBenet Ramsey case and over that time you never become suspicious of this person? During Desert Storm when I was in sixth grade I corresponded with a soldier stationed in the Middle East (cute!) and within weeks I learned that his wife was leaving him and he had a skin disease they couldn’t diagnose. So much for Mike Tracey being good at journalism!

Bob Raines, superintendent and principal at Wilson Elementary School

Random Facts

IQ: 78
Favorite Animal: Cow
Favorite Pastime: Riding in the car

Role in Case: Raines twice hired John Mark Karr as a substitute in second and fourth grade classes in 2001. Further complicating matters, it seems Raines misunderstood the meaning of the word “hires,” confusing it with “going for a ride in the car.” So technically, it’s not really his fault. Because riding in the car is his favorite pastime.

Pam Paugh, Patsy Ramsey's sister

Random Facts

Often Confused With: Delta Burke
Favorite Ice Cream Topping: A sandwich
You Might Not Know It, But: She has feelings too

Role in Case: No real role, but if I didn’t know this woman’s name and you gave me five guesses, I bet by the fifth one I could guess that her name was Pam Paugh.

John Mark Karr, the latest killer of JonBenet Ramsey

Idol: Chris Isaak
Hobby: Confessing to murders; beauty pageants
Date of Facial Expression Change: Independence Day, 1982, when a firecracker exploded near his face, causing him to flinch

Role in Case: Apparently he confessed to the murder, and if there’s one thing I will never understand it’s why someone would confess to a murder if they didn’t do it. But for some reason, in this case it seems like a plausible turn of events. On the other hand, maybe he’s actually guilty and he’s using his confession to make people think he’s crazy and just confessing so he’ll get away with it. Basically, anything is possible at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out like a scene from a family sitcom where the parents come downstairs in the middle of the night in their bathrobes with a baseball bat after hearing a rustling in the kitchen, only to burst through the door and find the golden retriever covered in peanut butter and Honey Nut Cheerios. Only a lot more horrific than that.

Today’s Awkward Moment, Sponsored by Man’s Innate Pessimism

2006-08-17T15:03:00.000-04:00

A commenter yesterday suggested that the “Santino” I spoke with yesterday via HP’s “chat with a technician” service was actually nothing more than a computer spitting out preprogrammed responses generated using keywords from my questions.

It hurt.

It made sense though: the robotic responses, the quick typing, the way he made me feel . . . But I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. The thought pained me that Santino, who had helped me so much and was, for those ten minutes, such a well-spring of knowledge and cheerfulness, could have been a conglomeration of circuitry and futuristic know-how. I had to find out for sure, and the only way I could think to do that was to get back on a chat with another HP technician.

(No response.)

And there you have it: proof that HP online technicians are, in fact, people too. And that while this world needs a lot of things, like renewable energy, a cure for AIDS, an emphasis on good core workouts and a foundation dedicated to saving the attractive girls from impoverished nations, maybe a good place to start would be with some trust in our fellow man.

Good work, Santino.

Today’s Awkward Moment, Sponsored by HP

2006-08-16T15:32:00.000-04:00

I don’t know who came up with the concept of online customer service chats, but I’d like to shake his hand. Really hard. And then make him punch himself in his face repeatedly with his own hand while saying, “Why are you punching yourself? Stop punching yourself. Why would you do that? It makes no sense to punch yourself.”

After waiting for 10 minutes on hold with HP this morning, I decided to try their “chatting” service. Immediately upon the little messenger window opening, two things didn’t make sense:

1. If this person is available to instant message with me, why can’t they pick up the phone and talk to me? They are over there, in their office, sitting in front of a computer typing to me, and I’m sitting here in my office, in front of my computer, typing to them. I am looking at my phone. They are looking at theirs. Yet we sit here and type. It absolutely defeats the purpose of instant messaging which is to either talk to a friend at work when you can’t use the phone, or get a girl to do something nasty, because while she may not say it, she’ll definitely type it; and

2. “Chatting” with a service technician about your computer is about as comfortable as going on webcam with your mother. I honestly can’t explain why, but you just can’t sound normal while doing this. I mean, at least in an email, sounding formal just comes off as professional. But when “chatting,” professional comes off more like douchbag. At the same time though, you’re not going to be all casual and sarcastic and like, “haha, lmfao at system BIOS error L” with some guy you don’t even know. So what you end up with is some sort of in between language where you don’t use contractions but still try to be cool by saying “hey” instead of “hello” and not capitalizing proper nouns, and the end result is you sounding like a tool. Not a jerk or a asshole – just a toolish person who says things like, “That was a terrific play!” when watching baseball games.

Still though, by the end of our ten minute “chat,” I really feel like Santino and I had worked up a good rapport with one another, to the point where when it came time to end our chat I was half expecting him to say, “add me to ur buddy list, k?” But he didn’t. Instead we simply exchanged our sad, lonesome, kind-of-casual goodbyes.

That’s Not My Ass, But It Could Have Been

2006-08-15T12:53:00.000-04:00

After a five day long weekend during which the largest difficulty I had to overcome was getting the lid off the cocktail shaker after it had been encrusted with sugar and mint leaves from mojitos, I returned to my apartment Sunday night and immediately fell asleep, wasted by endless hours of volleyball, drinking in the sun and laughing heartily at the notion of people working while I played volleyball and drank in the sun. I didn’t unpack, I didn’t straighten up the apartment, I hardly even brushed my teeth. I just collapsed.

Flash forward to the next morning when I stumble out of bed about 20 minutes after The Girlfriend has left for work. Because she has a “real” job, this is our usual schedule. And because I have the apartment all to myself for those 40 minutes I spend getting ready, I don’t mind doing things I wouldn’t normally do while wearing just my underwear, such as stretch and eat a bowl of cereal. Usually, I don’t even bother closing the shades, because our apartment is in the back of the building and there is a rather large gap between us and the buildings behind us. So while often times I can see in the windows of those buildings, without the telephoto lens on my camera I can’t discern if they are fully clothed, just wearing underwear, or rolling around on the floor completely naked with their dog. Hence I feel secure, using the time tested “If I can’t see them, they can’t see me” logic, going about my business unashamed by original sin.

So when I found myself naked in the bathroom, just about to step in the shower, but suddenly realizing that I had left my unpacked toiletry case in the bedroom, I didn’t think twice about just walking out of the bathroom completely unclothed and going to the bedroom to fetch it.

Five steps out of the bathroom, though, something happened, the memory of which causes me to shudder and make that audible noise you make to distract yourself from a horrendously embarrassing moment.

(Side story: Back in college during my junior year, I met a girl in one of my English classes and we started to date. As we were leaving class one day, we ran into one of her friends in the hallway, a small, Asian guy I had recognized from another English class we shared. This was how our introduction went. I’ve changed his name to protect him from me:

Girl: “Dan, this is Tim. Tim, this is Dan.”

(Something feels weird as we shake hands.)

Me: “Whoa, what’s with the secret handshake?”

(Time pulls up his extra long sleeves to reveal two deformed hands, each with only three fingers.)

WHAT’S WITH THE SECRET HANDSHAKE?!

Point being, I have forever thought that would be the most embarrassing moment of my life. I might have been wrong.)

Perhaps now is a good time to inform you that there has been construction going on at the building next to ours for a few months. They are gut renovating the entire townhouse, and everyday there are between 10 and 15 workers filing in and out of the front door with hard hats, tools and dirty facial hair. Perhaps my foreshadowing skills have slipped since college, but I think you see where this is headed . . .

Standing in the middle of the kitchen, halfway between the bathroom and the bedroom door, I look up and see, right outside the window on the balcony of the adjacent building, a construction worker leaning on the railing having a cigarette. I have drawn this handy diagram to help you understand the gravity of the situation:

It is a clear, direct visual path from where I was standing to where the construction worker was standing. No more than 40 feet between us. He had on a blue flannel shirt, work jeans and a brown belt. He had short, dirty blond hair. I could have said in a normal voice, “How’re things going over there?” and, despite the operation of heavy machinery nearby, he would have heard me fine. WE LOOKED INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE. The best I can describe it is to say that both of us, not knowing how to react, looked away quickly, as though one might do when checking out someone at a bar and they catch you staring. It was probably the most intimate moment I have ever shared with a man, including the time I spooned a friend for warmth in a twin bed in Montreal. (Seriously, is there anything in this post that wouldn’t get me fired from my job?) I can’t even say I was a like a deer in headlights, because even a deer expresses some sort of emotion and eventually moves. I, instead, was so shocked that I just stood there, as normal as possible, like the Earth had stopped and I had all the time in the world to contemplate my many fears and problems, although inexplicably the construction worker standing outside my window LOOKING AT MY NAKED FACE IN MY EYE wasn’t one of them.

Finally, after blacking out for a few moments, I made it to the bedroom and assessed the situation: A strange guy had just seen me buck naked in my kitchen. Assessment: Poor situation.

I put pants on, waited a full minute and then peeked out the door. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the best idea, because, if for some reason he was still out there looking in, the absolute hilarity of my face peeking out my bedroom door to see if he was still there would probably have been too much for me to handle. Luckily, he was gone, and I made my way back to the bathroom and washed myself clean of the whole event.

Until, of course, I had to leave my building and was forced to walk past the group of construction workers loitering outside. I think this is the closest I will ever come to knowing the feeling a girl gets when she is trapped in a closet at a party and taken advantage of by an entire fraternity, and then has to fix her hair and pull her cardigan tight as she leaves the party and can’t tell anyone because no one would believe her anyway, even after she sees one of them in school that Monday and he smiles to her across the class and makes a kissy face and she starts crying and runs out of the room. And all I could think while finishing my lonely walk to the subway station was that the days when the lid to the cocktail shaker was my biggest problem seemed so far, far away.

Again, not me. Although Scott won the hair-do battle.

I’m One Of These Guys Now

2006-08-09T14:46:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a long post about this, but I’m running out of time and I’m leaving this afternoon for a long weekend at the beach, so here’s an abbreviated version:

Coupon for free haircut at Supercuts comes in the mail. Awesome? Probably not. But maybe? Probably not. I’m a sucker for anything free? Absolutely.

Enter the store: immediate sense of dread. Greeted by a guy who looks at my shoulder when he speaks. Maybe gay? Maybe a robot? (Gay robots?) I contemplate leaving, but that would require a distraction and this guy won’t stop looking at my shoulder.

I sit down in his chair. He puts the cape on. We stand to go get my hair washed. Halfway there, he turns me around and sits me back down to ask me what I want done with my hair. I make weird hand gestures and use the word “choppy.” He makes pretend to understand. Not sure he speaks English. In fact, unsure he speaks at all. We go over to get my hair washed again.

I lean back in the chair. As he starts up the water he hits me in the head with the nozzle; tries to recover and sprays me in the face. If he were a woman this would be foreplay, but he’s not so it’s just incredibly awkward. I consider saying, “Hey, it looks better already! Thanks!” and leaving without removing the cape. He keeps his hand on my shoulder as he leads me back to his chair, reassuring that no part of this process will feel normal.

He starts cutting. And cutting. And cutting. Slow and deliberately but with such calculated motivation that I am transfixed. It’s like watching someone about to be hit by a bus – all you can do is point and say “Oh!” but you can’t stop it from happening. You can’t help them. Fate will have its way . . .

Already so much hair is missing. Before I know it, he has the hairspray out. Before I can say, “They still make hairspray?” he is unloading the canister on my head with unrelenting ferocity. Then he pushes every hair on my head forward. Then he forms a flip in the front. Then I almost die of embarrassment for the man in the mirror in front of me. The cape seems like it is 50 lbs. My arms are useless. In five minutes this man has managed to do what six years of paralegal work couldn’t: my will is broken. This is my Vietnam.

But then he takes out the hair dryer. I can’t imagine what purpose this could serve, but he apparently intends to use it on my hair-sprayed head. I honestly believe he is making this up as he goes along, that yesterday he was “in computers” but he found it “unrewarding.” Then he takes out the buzzer and goes to work on the sides. He nearly removes an eyebrow. We laugh. His is hearty, mine is desperate. I want to leave so badly, to see my family and friends again, to have hair and be loved. To run in wide open fields of dandelions and open presents on Christmas morning. I feel the “Free Haircut” coupon burning in my pocket, the remembrance of a Faustian deal. I regret.

Finally, it is over. He shows it to me in the mirror and all I can do is nod in disbelief at what stands before me. Nothing good; everything bad. It is almost impressive in its atrocity. I give in the coupon, tip the man, all the while looking down. I walk home looking down. I shower looking down. I am hideous.

My only hope is this thought: “If he can cut hair (and he can’t) so can I.” I refuse the bad logic and set about “fixing” my hair. It is a tedious process of misjudging the motions of my hand inverted in a mirror. In the end clumsy + no skills + limited range of movement = better job than Supercuts. I am somewhat relieved, though still noticeably ugly.

On the plus side, finally found a deal I can refuse:

P.S. I’d rather sign up for a reminder to get a colonoscopy from a kangaroo than to get a haircut at Supercuts.

P.P.S. I hate this woman with a passion.

P.P.P.S. Everyone have a great weekend. Especially me, because mine will be four days long, cut off from the technological world with only mojitos and steak to survive. I promise to think of each and every one of you, as I drink away the need to feel pretty.

You Know What’s Really Jerky? Being An Old Jerk.

2006-08-08T12:55:00.000-04:00

Memo To The Old Bag On 83^rd St. That Called Me A Jerk

Let me start by saying, and I mean this from the heart, that I have nothing against old people. I love old people. I love that they are the redwoods of society, that you could cut them open and from their growth rings learn the secrets of histories long past; how they play bingo and gamble because at this stage every day is a lottery of broken hips and broken dreams; how they think the internet is magic and use the word “negro” without malice. And I love how they shrink.

But here’s the thing, old people: you need to understand that due to such things as oxidation and osteoporosis, you are now slower than you used to me, yet the world itself has stayed the same speed. So when I’m walking down the sidewalk carrying 80 lbs of groceries and you are wobbling in front of me with profound apathy, I’m going to go around you. And because I’m polite I’m not going to woosh by you swinging my plastic grocery bags like pendulums of fury – I’m going to slowly move up beside you so as not to startle you and then advance past you. It’s a simple, polite gesture suggesting, “You’re the past, I am the future.” Embrace it.

But when you decide without warning to make a sharp left right into my gallon of milk, guess what? Well for one that’s going to hurt you a lot more than it will my milk. And for another, how about a little control over the movement of your body? You move at a turtles pace right up until you decide you need to turn left, then it’s as though they’re handing out free tennis balls for the legs of your walker and you can’t get there quick enough? There’s no rush – your doorway isn’t going anywhere. Unless you’re senile and that’s not your home in which case you might think, in your boundless senility, that your door ran away. And last and most importantly, IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOU ALMOST RAN INTO ME. I’M NOT THE JERK. YOU’RE THE JERK.

Listen: I appreciate that it can’t be easy walking around on the cusp of death. But you’ve got to choose your battles. It’s not like you’re bounding with youthful energy. You need your strength for the important struggles, like for the continued love of your family, or bladder control. My advice is to just make the best of the situation. Like the time I was ten and I was putting on a bike show for my mom, and ten seconds into the routine, during a difficult move where I wiggled my handlebars back and forth, I inadvertently wiggled too far to the right causing me to flip head first over the bike while taking a direct hit from the handlebar into the sternum. Sure, I laid in the middle of the road and I cried, but when I finally stopped crying I just made pretend that it was all part of the routine, my death-defying front flip dismount. And you know what? I felt better about myself. Just like you would if instead of calling people jerks you took the time to realize that a lot of what happens to you is your fault, and maybe it’s your inner jerk that you’re really mad at.

Just trying to help.

(Note: The woman in the picture isn’t the woman who called me a jerk. While she is a good physical likeness, I make no representations as to her character. She may very well be a perfectly nice old woman. But I doubt it.)

This Is Me At Work Right Now

2006-08-07T15:32:00.000-04:00

Link to article about cats on respirators.

Back to normal soon . . . as soon as I stop trying in vain to live a normal life and own up to the responsibility of being a superhero.

Yeah, Men!

2006-08-04T15:44:00.000-04:00

I’ve had four jobs over the course of my life (six if you count the three day stint at the “chain restaurant which shall remain nameless for to give it a name is to make the memories real,” and my brief flirtation with crime fighting when I was six, which was cut short when I couldn’t find any crime in my bedroom or the kitchen.)

My first job was working as a deckhand on a ferry, aka The Greatest Job Ever. My responsibilities were as follows:

1. collect tickets
2. flirt with girls
3. untie boat
4. tie up boat
5. flirt with girls

Granted the memories will all be tainted 20 years from now when I’m getting chemo for the melanoma ravaging my body, but for now I can still look back fondly and hold out hope that if people can get paid to do what I did, then a capitalist run, commodified existence can’t be all that bad.

During the winters, I worked at a gym. The owner was a large, black former body builder who entrusted the entire gym to me two nights a week. He was nice and sociable and, in hindsight, perhaps a little mentally unstable. Either that or he had been raised to believe that sitcom plots were born of real life events, and a 16 year old white suburban kid could really park his mountain bike in the back room and learn valuable lessons about business, responsibility and life all on his own. Because basically all I did was play the Weezer album and see how fast I could run on the treadmill before falling off. The gym closed not long after my employment ended.

And of course there’s my current job, where just last week I may or may not have had a cocktail with my lunch . . . at my desk. Soooo, yeah.

But amidst all that, there was one other job. I spent a couple of summers and a few vacations from school working with my father, who is a building contractor. It was, undoubtedly, the hardest job I’ve ever done (crime fighting included), but it was also the most rewarding. Whereas now at the end of the day I go home knowing that I helped someone get away with defrauding their business partner, or on the ferry left with the satisfaction of helping insecure teenage girls get sun poisoning “which will turn into a really great tan,” here I went home aching and tired and always bleeding from somewhere, but at he end of the day there was something tangible where before there had been only space. And more than that, it was going to be somebody’s home. (Well, actually most of the work was in the Hamptons, so it would be someone’s summer home. But still, years from now, after it has been bitterly contested in the divorce, it will still stand as a memorial to the manual labor that went into its creation. The same cannot be said of my intense efforts to get the 5’2” 160lb woman to fully extend her fourth leg press.)

Also, even despite the gaping age difference between the other employees and myself, no other job had the same sense of camaraderie. Being the youngest didn’t mean that I was treated any differently than the 40 year old guy who once shit in a spackle bucket, it just meant that I had different responsibilities (read: crap work) than everyone else. Such as taking food orders, unquestionably the most dangerous part of my job. I would fall through a partially shingled roof (which I did) than hand a man with a hammer on his waist a medium regular coffee when he ordered a large light and sweet. One time I forgot to order tomato on a guy’s ham sandwich and at 4:30, as we were packing up to leave for the day, he was still mumbling while walking past me, “How can you eat a ham sandwich without tomato?”

When I got all the orders right, though, it was a triumph and I was lauded for being the bearer of all things good. To this day, I don’t think there is anything I can do in my life that will generate more happiness in the world than carrying a box of food into a gutted house full of hungry construction workers. It was like returning to the platoon with news that the war was over, every single day. And we would sit down and eat our food, regardless of the layer of dust and dirt that covered our hands, because, as it was reasoned, the real dirt was on your hand, and the layer of dust over that actually protected your food. And soap was for girls.

What made all these memories flood back to me was walking past the construction site across from my office early this afternoon. With the temperature coming back down to a reasonable 88, the workers seemed happy once again to eat their lunch outside, sitting on anything that can be fashioned into a chair, be it an overturned bucket or a large spool of wire. Classic rock was playing on their small, dilapidated portable radio and in the 30 seconds I stood near them I heard conversation range from baseball to the startling pronouncement that, “A shark can eat a person in 30 seconds. Bones and everything.”

But what got me was this: during that 30 seconds, at least five very attractive women walked past these guys, ten if count “dressing slutty” as attractive. But not once did these guy even so much as LOOK at any of these women. It was unbelievable – like I had stumbled upon the first all gay construction company, or first all blind construction, or the first all chemically castrated construction company – and more than that it was disheartening. I felt like these men were passing up on the defining fraterizational event in the entire construction business. To put this in perspective, when I worked for my father, the workers and I would seize ANY AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITY to check out a girl. It wasn’t easy, due to the fact that we were working on residential projects in low traffic areas, but somehow we found a way. You learned to sense when an attractive woman was approaching. I mean, I saw guys spy out female joggers from the back yard, looking through a framed house. On more than one occasion, we would be working in the front yard of a house and a car would go by and someone would say, “Wow, did you see her? She was smokin’.” THE CAR WAS GOING 45 MILES PER HOUR.

And these men just ate their food and talked about what animals could eat a human the fastest?

My only conclusion is that when you work in such a busy place as New York, you become immune to it, as though it would be such an immense distraction that you wouldn’t get any work done if you didn’t find a way to overcome it. And in a way I respect these guys, but in a way I’m also sad for them. Because sure, they’ll still take home with them the knowledge that they’re building people’s homes and the satisfaction of “creating something tangible,” blah, blah, blah, but is that all there is to life?

And just as my sorrow is about to overcome me, I turn to walk away from the crowd as a tall, blond woman is passing by and three seconds later hear from over my shoulder, “Jeeesus honey, where’d you get those legs? Bloomingdales?”

Perspective

2006-08-03T15:05:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows that all across the country people are suffering the effects of a devastating heat wave, and neighborhoods are losing electricity and poor people have no air conditioning and no homes and you can’t walk ten feet outside without entirely sweating out that last bottle of Poland Spring, but has anyone stopped and thought about the real victim here?

I mean, he wasn’t funny when he was on TV, and now he’s still not funny, not on TV and really, really hot somewhere.

One Motivation For Mocking People Is Jealousy

2006-08-02T15:59:00.000-04:00

CNN reports:

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Two of America's top authors, John Irving and Stephen King, made a plea to J.K. Rowling on Tuesday not to kill the fictional boy wizard Harry Potter in the final book of the series, but Rowling made no promises.

"We're working towards the end I always planned, but a couple of characters I expected to survive have died," she said, declining to elaborate.

Scene

J.K. Rowling is sitting in her palatial flat drinking tea, hunched over a laptop sitting on an antique carved oak desk. A small dog sleeps on a nearby chase lounge. Rowling is typing. In a voice over we hear what she is writing.

Harry storms into the dungeon where he finds a hole has been blasted in the stone wall revealing a secret passage. As he cautiously steps through the opening, he hears Hermione scream. With this he charges forward following her strengthening wails. He races through the maze of dark corridors until he reaches a large, wooden doorway around which a faint light emits. Hermione screams, “Help! Someone help me. Please, Harry, help me!”

Harry gathers himself, knowing that on the other side of the door is the battle he has trained his whole life to fight, that others have given their lives so that he might come face to face with, and ultimately defeat, the black wizard. He knew he was ready, as a man, as a magician, he was ready to decide his fate. He takes a slow step forward, reaching his hand out for the knob. Suddenly a large stone falls from the ceiling and hits him in the head, cracking open his skull, killing him.

Rowling: “Oh my! I didn’t see that coming.”

A Daily Dump Contest! (UPDATED WITH WINNER)

2006-08-01T14:33:00.000-04:00

So last week when I was writing a lot about Yahoo! because Yahoo! is my homepage and what I was doing is called “mailing it in,” I started to get really angry with Yahoo! (as I am right now) because their name is officially “Yahoo!” and it’s really annoying to continually type an exclamation point, mostly due to the fact that my typing style is slightly unconventional. Don’t get me wrong, I can type a string of common, three letter words faster than anyone I know. But throw in an “z” or a “q” or in this case an exclamation point and it’s as though I enter an autistic state where I move my fingers very slowly in a deliberate effort to press the right keys.

Naturally, I got mad at Yahoo! for making the exclamation point part of their name. But then I got curious as to whether people were allowed to use punctuation when naming their children. Like if I wanted to name my daughter “Sarah!” or “Nicole.” or “Amber?” would I be allowed to do that? So I tried to do some research on the subject, but man research is hard! And all I could come up with is an excerpt from an article on adults applying for name changes in the courts:

“Racial slurs and ‘fighting words’ or obscenity are also banned, as are confusing names such as numbers and punctuation.”

Which makes sense, because how are you going to convince a judge that you have a good reason for wanting to be named “You’re A God-Damned Fascist!”? But how does that apply when you’re basically just writing the name in on a birth certificate? Who’s going to tell you “no,” the doctor?

Doctor: “You have a beautiful son, Mr. Murphy. Have you decided on a name yet?”

Me: “Yes, we have. It’s Cocksucker McGillicuty, 13.”

Doctor: “Uh, I don’t think you’re allowed to name your child that.”

Me: “Really? That’s weird because you’re a doctor and I’m his father. It would seem that naming him would be my thing, not yours.”

Doctor: “Uh, but Cocksu-“

Me: “Cocksucker McGillicuty, 13. No hyphen. Thanks.”

So I don’t think the same rules apply to babies as they do to adults trying to change their names. I worked for at least an hour to find some official laws and regulations on this and got so fed up with trying a vast array of Google search terms that at last I finally typed in “name baby ‘Shit’.” Now every time I type an “n” into my Google search bar and I see “name baby ‘Shit’ ” on the list of saved searches I laugh, which is great because in this sad world laughter is all we have – but I still have no concrete answers. So the first person to provide me with some kind of actual law on this will get a reward. No, scratch that. Not a reward. That sounds too much like money or something valuable. They will get a prize* to be determined upon the deciding of a winner. Good luck everyone!

________________________________
* Please note that prize will be at my discretion and will likely be worthless in both monetary and inherent value. Prizes are not limited to physical objects and can include such items as “a sense of accomplishment,” “the knowledge that you have made me happy,” and “being informed.” Also, when I name my first born son “Shoehorn Molasses Murphy” and he becomes of age to know that he is different and he cries and complains that it’s not fair and that I had no right to do that to him, I will specifically mention the winner of this contest in reinforcing the notion that I did, in fact, have the right to do it.

WELL it was a tough call because everyone failed equally well, but I think I at least have a better understanding of how our nation operates when it comes to naming children, specifically that no one knows shit because no one has had the balls to challenge the system and name their child “Pancakes!”

While Viscountess came close with “a mother . . . can give the kid "any surname she wants" to,” I have to think that that is oversimplifying things, because it doesn’t define what constitutes a surname. And Vokdardt seemed to do the most research, although their extensive efforts were unfortunately in the field of “name changing” not “baby naming.” So that kind of sucks. But thanks anyway. The person who came the closest to being helpful was a mysterious woman named Emma who sent my an article from the online legal database Lexis-Nexis with the following text:

"You must use the 26-letter alphabet; however, no punctuation except imbedded hyphens and apostrophes is permitted," says Doug McBride, spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. In addition, you cannot use symbols, diacriticals or numbers in the name.”

I think it’s clear that this baby-naming business if a state governed affair, meaning this only applies in Texas, but it’s at least got some specific information provided by a reliable source, and that’s good enough for me.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an email address for Emma because she used the Lexis-Nexis automatic print delivery service to send it (how advanced!) so unless I hear from her within the next hour the prize will have to be forfeited. And by “forfeited” I mean “gone,” because the prize was a turkey sandwich, but I’m really hungry and it’s like 100 degrees out so I don’t want to go buy another one. In any event, though, I think we’re all winners here, because we learned something – not just about naming babies, but about helping and sharing.

Connecticut Becomes Officially Useless

2006-07-31T13:36:00.000-04:00

I’m not going to go into the specifics, but let’s just say that up until yesterday at 4:30, when I was supposed to be driving my car onto a ferry in New London and cruising blissfully along calm seas to Orient Point, Long Island, thus cutting out interminable hours of additional driving and trafficky mayhem, I liked Connecticut. I thought of it as New England’s suburb, a place where new shades of yellow are invented and polo shirts are handed down from generation to generation. And I’m all for polo shirts and hegemony, and cocktail parties and closeted gay quarterbacks and lighting candles “so things feel special.” But at 4:30 yesterday all that ended. J. Crew is my new sworn enemy and tennis can blow me. You know, Connecticut, for all your civility and prosperity, it would be nice if you could do the “blue collar shit” like take a reservation for the right day of the week during the right month of the year so that when people show up and are like, “Awesome, a nice relaxing ferry boat ride,” that doesn’t immediately turn into three hours of waiting in a “standby line” with exhaust fumes and fat people and only one sudoku puzzle left (the one you planned to do while sitting atop the ferry with the wind in your hair), keeping your sunglasses on even after the sun has set just so others won’t see you cry, and being thrown so far off schedule that the next day, after four refreshing hours of nap, you end up at work wearing flip flops, to the chagrin of everyone around you, walking like a retard to mitigate the ‘flip FLOP’ but, in the process, looking more and more like a retard.

So maybe I went into some specifics, but the bottom line is eff you Connecticut. You’re on the shit list. You have no pro sports team, no major city and you list “foliage” as a tourist attraction on your website. Leaves. Use a week of your vacation time to come check our leaves. Oh, I know. There are other things to do. I’ve seen the commercial. There’s awesome things to do there: You can laugh with your friends and wear sun dresses and hang out at barns and make pretend you’re not still oppressed by the weight of taxes and bills and war because you’re having a glass of wine and the sun is setting. But what Connecticut fails to mention is that a vacation there is about as exciting and relaxing as a vacation in your own backyard with a box of Zinfandel and a Norah Jones CD.

And when the time comes I’m going to let my kid spell it like it sounds because whoever decided on connect-i-cut was clearly learning disabled.

Your Weekly News: What I Want, When I Want It

2006-07-28T14:24:00.000-04:00

• Man Steals Puppy By Sticking It Down His Pants (video)

I think everyone here knows that I love all things puppies: petting puppies, looking at pictures of puppies, making pretend I have a puppy, coloring in puppy pictures, etc. And yet, there are people out there who actually like puppies more than me. Like enough to steal one. Or enough to repeatedly refer to a puppy as “baby” with grave sincerity.

The video itself is hilarious (puppy + crotch = comic gold) but the commentary of the guy who works in the pet store is classic. There is not one thing this guy says that isn’t hilarious. I mean, the end? Where he uses the word “puppy-napping” immediately before threatening violence on the guy who stole the dog? Maybe he can even get the puppy lick the guy’s hand while he shouts “puppynapper!” from a safe distance.

(Sidenote: While looking for this link, I did a search for “puppy” in CNN’s video section and this is the list of results that came up:

So yeah, Lebanon, Syria, Isreal, Iraq, war, I get it. BUT WHAT ARE WE DOING TO PROTECT OUR PUPPIES AT HOME? Seriously, “Puppies found frozen, dead”? You know who wouldn’t stand for that if he was in charge?

• Lactivists: Where is it OK to breastfeed? (I’ve asked myself this question a hundred times.)

NEW YORK (AP) -- "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.

One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it. "I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast -- it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."

"I'm totally supportive of it -- I just don't like the flashing," she said. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."

First of all, what? Secondly, why even bother talking if you are going to say things like “a breast is a breast”? And third, “a breast they didn’t want to see”? When I was 13, I watched shows on the National Geographic channel in hopes that they would show topless women in African tribes. I think it’s safe to assume that there’s no such thing as a breast a 13 year old doesn’t want to see. And lastly, wtf, baby Nazis? Babies need to eat too you know. It’s not their fault they can’t roll up to Sbarro and get a slice whenever they want.

• Chess prodigy death plunge mystery

THAT fucking headline? Just five nouns in a row? It reads like one of those spam emails with a subject like “re: Your question.” Speaking of which, this was one I got this morning:

Put on a few eggs, theres a good fellow! Gandalf called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries. And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles!

Probably the cheeriest spam message I’ve ever received, regardless of the fact that two lines down was a link reading: “massive erections are right around the corner.” Which to me sounds more threatening than anything else.

• You know like when someone shows you a picture of a newborn baby and they’re like, “Isn’t it so CUTE!” and you’re like, “Aww, yeah” but really you’re thinking, “Is there something wrong with me because I don’t think babies are cute?” Well imagine you were a panda.

A Few Questions That Arose While Watching The First 15 Minutes Of Dominion: A Prequel To The Exorcist

2006-07-27T20:26:00.000-04:00

1. Why do these types of movies always involve some kind of evil African tribal element? Isn’t that fundamentally racist?*

2. In real life, when a car drives into a poor town in a Third World country, do all the children in the town really chase it down the street?

3. If so, wouldn’t it make more sense to send ONE kid ahead to see what the vehicle is carrying and have the rest conserve their energy, because after all they are in a Third World country and probably hungry?

* A related public service announcement from The Daily Dump

Heads-Up To Girls In St. Louis With Low Self-Esteem Because They Were Fat But Now Are Thin And Have Trouble Believing They Are Pretty: Avoid Wal-Mart

2006-07-27T14:20:00.000-04:00

[click to enlarge]

(You want better posts, tell my boss to stop giving me “work” to do.)

Yahoo! Fails To Mention That Pulse In Question Is That Of A Man 30 Seconds Into A Heart Attack

2006-07-26T14:13:00.000-04:00

I can’t think of one single list I would like to be on with Paris Hilton as number one, except maybe “Richest Worthless Human,” and even then I’m still holding out hope that God has a plan for me.

My suggestion for number one on this list:

When No Advice Is Good Advice

2006-07-25T15:39:00.000-04:00

I’ll admit, I’m not the type of person who seeks out the advice of others. Not because I don’t trust others or value their opinion, but mostly because I feel like asking for someone’s advice binds me to actually taking their advice. For example:

Purely Hypothetical Scenario

Me: “So I was driving home last night and it was really dark and I wasn’t going really, really fast or anything, but I guess I was going a little fast, and you know that road in town that’s really dark and curvy? Well I think I hit a homeless person or something. What should I do?”

Friend: “Whoa, dude. You HAVE to go to the police. I mean, if you did hit someone, maybe he’s still alive and he’s out there and he’s dying, you know? And they can still get to him.”

Me: “Yeah . . . you’re right. OK.”

Three days later.

Friend: “Hey, Dan, whatever happened with the police? Did they go out and look for the guy? Is everything alright?”

Me: “Oh, yeah. Well I never heard anything about it on the news, and I drove by there the other day and I didn’t see anything, and you know it’s only like a little dent on my car so I figured I would just kind of let it go. Want to catch a movie?”

AWKWARD!

Which is why Yahoo! answers is so cool. You can get advice on all your problems completely anonymously. Such as

(Which makes perfect sense, because really who’s she going to go to for advice? Her friends? Ohhhh wait, she has none.)

Then people anonymously answer your question, disguising themselves as hip cartoon characters, and you weigh your options. Such as

All great suggestions. Especially “never give people dirty looks” (going back to fundamentals) and the extremely helpful “u will find some…work on it” (because sometimes you just want somebody to listen and tell you it will be OK – and if you have no friends, that person is “snowy”).

Then finally, you decide which piece of advice is the most helpful and you deem it “Best Answer.”

Surprisingly, this is exactly the advice I would have given. STEAL OTHER PEOPLE’S FRIENDS! Buy them drinks all night long and when the time is right pull them aside and say, “Hey, so you know how I met you through Jill? And I work with her? Yeah well she does drugs. Like heroin. I heard her talking to her mom on the phone about it. Yeah, she steals money from your wallet when you’re not looking. It’s sad. Want to catch a movie this weekend?” And there you go, you’ve successfully stolen your co-worker’s friends. Nothing to it.

P.S. Dear angelsrobinson:

If nothing else works, you can always just make out with random guys at clubs. In my experience, that always leads to long and fulfilling friendships. You’re welcome!

Yours truly,
BI

What Fruity Thing Did I Do This Weekend?

2006-07-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

While The Girlfriend and I were out on Long Island this weekend to celebrate my grandmother’s 80^th birthday, we naturally got bored like hell because, you know, it’s Long Island, and as we ran through the possibilities of what we could do (shopping involves money, which we don’t have; bowling involves drinking, and it was 11:00 in the morning; going to TGIFridays involves being at TGIFridays, etc) we finally decided to just do the most generic Long Island thing we could think of and go to the movies. The only problem is that there was not a single movie playing that interested us both. The Girlfriend pressed for The Devil Wears Prada, I pressed for A Scanner Darkly, in the end we compromised and went to see The Devil Wears Prada.

And I don’t know what effect this will have on readership, or on my standing as the coolest guy on the block, but I actually enjoyed it. And here’s why:

(WARNING: What follows may include “spoilers” as to what happens in the movie, so if you are one of those people who hates to have a “surprise” ruined, don’t continue reading. However it must be noted that if you can’t guess what happens in this movie just by reading a 50 word synopsis, you probably have never seen a movie before in your life, and don’t plan on doing so in the near future because the “home” you are staying in isn’t really big on field trips.)

1. Anne Hathaway looks good: There was a period of time between The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Brokeback Mountain (sometimes even I can’t believe I start sentences with phrases like that) when Anne Hathaway seemed to be going downhill, veering away from the promised she showed early on to be hot. But even when she was supposed to look “bad” in this movie, when she was unfashionable and holding onto her principals and all sorts of other ugly things, she still looked cute. I felt pride, because I told my friends after The Princess Diaries that she was going to be hot, and they were all like, “Princess who?” and I was like, “You’ll see,” and they were like, “What movies are you watching?” and I was all, “Whatever.” And then I was afraid I would be wrong, but lo and behold, it turns out she is hot – and that’s awesome for me because now I can add her to the long list of “hot girls I don’t know,” which is what they politicians are referring to when they use the term “empty victory.”

2. It doesn’t try to be funny: The worst thing a movie like this can do is try to surpass “entertaining” and go for “hilarious,” because inevitably they end up peppering the script with placed jokes and awful slapstick and it’s just embarrassing. Everyone making one of these movies needs to take a page from The Cutting Edge, and that’s what they did here – quippy dialogue, but not trying to do too much. This might be the most serious paragraph I have ever written.

3. Meryl Streep is really cool: There’s a whole category of actresses who I am not sexually attracted to, but I still enjoy watching, and Meryl Streep is undoubtedly near the top of that list. And if I knew how to review movies I would use words like “understated” and “biting” to describe her performance, but since I don’t I’ll just say that by the end of the movie I was even a little sexually attracted to her. Because I like my women like I like my roast beef – cold, and emotionless.

4. The clothes: OMG! Like Prada and Chanel and Manolo Blahnik EVERYWHERE!

5. The social commentary: If you knew nothing on how the world works and how people relate to one another, you would learn the following from this movie: it’s OK to blow off your friends as long as you bring them presents; 99% of love relationship issues can be resolves through avoiding the problem and instead having sex; the other 1% can be fixed with time spent apart; if you kiss a girl and she says, “No,” kiss her again. If she says no again, and blabbers on about it being wrong and her being too drunk, kiss her again. If she is still refusing you, kiss her a fourth time and she will ultimately say, “Yes,”; it’s OK to have a one night stand as long as you learn something from it; if someone in the workplace does you a favor, you owe them sex; you will have great personal and professional success if you dress up for work.

(Please note that I compiled that list with the utmost sarcasm, but rereading it now it’s actually all pretty true.)

In fact, the only thing I didn’t like about the movie was the ending. It’s not just that it was too easy (which they always are in these kinds of movies) but it didn’t make any sense. She comes back to her boyfriend, but he’s taken a job in Boston, but he tells her they can work it out and she is happy, but then she takes a job in New York? And even though Hathaway basically walked out on Streep in the middle of work, Streep gives Hathaway a great recommendation for a new job? I mean, there’s a pro caliber hockey player becoming an Olympic champion pairs figure skater, and then there’s this.

Here are a few of my suggestions on how to make the end of the movie a little more interesting:

– The Horror Twist. It turns out Meryl Streep really is the Devil and, having conquered the conscience of her 1,000,000,000^th innocent soul, she brings forth an Armageddon.

– The Ironic Twist. Hathaway quits her job to regain her integrity, but with no relevant work experience she is unable to get a new job so she becomes a stripper.

– The Fight Club Twist. Al Qaeda destroys the office buildings of Runway magazine; thousands and thousands of fashion records are destroyed, rendering the fashion landscape barren. Everyone starts out from zero, and chunky wool becomes so popular that New Zealand emerges as a world superpower. Hathaway moves there, takes a job in a beachside café, and is often topless.

– The Dramatic Twist. Hathaway is caught in a street brawl during her first assignment as a reporter. Because of her three inch heels she cannot flee fast enough and is stabbed to death.

– The Realistic Twist. Hathaway quits her job and, unable to find work in journalism, becomes a temp paralegal. She starts a blog which has moderate success. Suddenly it’s five years later and she’s too old to change careers so she gets pregnant and goes on antidepressants.

DOUBT AN OWL AT YOUR OWN RISK

2006-07-21T12:11:00.000-04:00

If I had known that the owl who woke me up hooting outside my window at 7:00 this morning was merely warning me of the apocalyptical storm approaching, I wouldn’t have pulled back the curtain and shouted, “Fuck you, owl!” Instead, I would have hurried up and gotten to the safe cover of my office. But no, I didn’t trust the owl. I assumed the owl was just out for himself, hooting just to hear his own hoot with no concern for the people around him. And I shouted, “Fuck you, owl!” and scared him away and went back to sleep, waking up late and getting off to work late, precisely late enough to trap myself in the apocalyptical storm of which, unwittingly to me, the owl warned. Now my socks are soaked through and my pants are wet up to the knee. I am cold and there are no hand dryers in the bathrooms. And I have no one to blame for my discomfort but myself for not heeding the prophetic “hooooo.”

I’d like to believe it was him, looking down on me.

100 Things About Me: #8

2006-07-20T15:31:00.000-04:00

We’re almost there! All ten things about me, revealed!

(You know, in hindsight the idea of me devoting 100 posts to “things about me” is fucking hilarious. It’s like a little kid trying to understand how many dollars “a billion” is. And then all of a sudden it clicks when someone says something like, “With one billion dollars, you could buy twenty candy bars every minute for the rest of your life and not run out of money,” and they get this glassed over look on their face and their mouth falls open in awe. That’s what I just did when I checked back to see what number I was up to and realized it was 8. So I think for everyone’s sake, we’ll cap this thing at 10.)

#8 I hardly ever sleep.

And not by choice. It’s not like I am up 1:00 in the morning unable to tear myself away from “The Late, Late” show. I’m not at Starbucks five minutes before closing finishing off my sixth Venti latte, lining up to squeeze in my seventh. In fact, in my efforts to get a good night’s sleep I have even gone so far as to cut caffeine out of my diet completely. (Somewhere, my sister is scoffing.)

I have tried everything short of injecting warm milk into my neck, yet still, come about 4:00 in the morning, my body rebels against quietude and I lie there, awake and alert, but playing that game with myself where I refuse to look at the clock and refuse to even open my eyes because, you know, maybe I’ll trick myself into thinking I was never really awake and just fall back to sleep. (That has about as much success as this).

When that doesn’t work, I revert to a game of reverse psychology wherein I play on my mind’s innate hatred of waking up. Because everyone knows that the only thing that cures sleeplessness is having to literally get out of bed, like when the alarm clock finally goes off three hours later, for example. So I say, almost out loud and in a voice commonly used in bad sitcoms to denote “I know someone is hiding in the closet but they don’t know I know they’re hiding in the closet so I’m going to speak in some obviously elevated tone so as not to arouse their suspicion, “Ooook. I guess I’m going to get up now. No sense lying here any longer, I’m obviously not falling back to sleep. Gonna go start my day. Maybe even go jogging.” Despite the strong psychoanalytical foundation for the methodology, this, as well, has a high rate of failure.

The only good thing that comes from being awake against my will between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 is that I get a lot of thinking done. In fact, this may be the only reason I awaken in the first place, because my mind has so much thinking it needs to get done that the 16 conscious hours I provide myself on a daily basis aren’t enough; there are simply too many ponderous facets to the world for a mere 16 hours.

Such as what awoke me shortly after 4:00 this morning:

It began as me convincing myself that I could be a speechwriter, a notion produced by my bitter reading of an article on John McCain in Esquire earlier in the day. I imagined writing a speech for a truly independent candidate, him standing up in the crowd bemoaning the partisanship that has plagued politics, calling out the hijacking of the Republican party by the supposed ethicists of the religious right, and finally setting everyone straight on what America needs to survive. That got boring after about five minutes, so I started thinking about other things I find wrong with America, and almost immediately I came up with the seesaw.

Another little known fact about me (hell, let’s go ahead and make it #9 on the list): I’ve always been afraid of seesaws. I don’t know if it stems back to a singular incident from my childhood, but I have vague, wispy memories of sitting on this plank of wood, nary a handle in sight, and feeling as though I could shoot off into a nearby concrete pillar at any moment. No sooner did my feet touch the ground and I felt safe did I go springing off again into the atmosphere, always with some enormous child on the other end laughing away because he knew in his soul that it would take a hell of a lot more than my 45lb frame to send him flying from his perch.

The way I see it, the seesaw, like politics, can be viewed as a balancing force between differing people. Of course you can only view it as such if you are an ignorant lunatic, embroiled in an all out war with reason. The seesaw is a power struggle. It is the playground’s equivalent of “Who has the nicer car?” or “Who can take home the Asian girl first?” It is a structureless game, shrouded in the guise of “fun through the cooperation of effortless non-competitiveness.” Lies. I’ve never been on a seesaw with someone who didn’t want the end result of our “fun” to be me eating sand. And maybe that means I rode the seesaw with a bunch of assholes, but like most power struggles (rich vs. poor, man vs. beast) the antagonism is inherent. If it wasn’t, I would have set a 45lb. chunk of granite on the other end of the seesaw, or at least the girl who walked funny because she had a problem with her legs. But I didn’t – because the evil grip of the seesaw is innate, and overwhelming.

Which is why, I concluded around 5:30, if I were a politician, I would outlaw seesaws. And these people.

Taylor Hicks Likes The Yankees, Utz Chips

2006-07-19T14:08:00.000-04:00

Monday night some friends and I went to the Yankees game. The tickets were courtesy of CBS (home of “CSI,” and the most insane marketing campaign since this) through my “industry” friend, John. Needless to say, the seats were awesome – about 10 rows up right on top of the Yankees dugout – so close that the field actually looks smaller, and you can even imagine yourself hitting one 318 feet to left field. (If you are a woman, change that analogy to “you can even imagine yourself having a chance with Derek Jeter.”)

As we settled in our seats and got over the fact that we paid $8.00 for a beer (for the mathematically inclined, that’s approximately a 1,039% mark-up over the national average price of a single beer in a six-pack) we noticed that there was a commotion going on to our left. We look over to see what’s going on and it seems there is a crowd gathering around a very old man sitting five seats away. Finally the crowd disperses and it’s none other than Taylor Hicks! And he’s there with Seth Green! (Ed. Note: It was not Seth Green, it was in fact Elliott Yamin, the third place finisher in “American Idol.” He was, however, the first place finisher in the “Eating Dippin’ Dots Out Of A Mini Helmet Bowl” race.)

For anyone out there who is wondering what Taylor Hicks looks like close up, here is the best description I can give: old. I’m not kidding when I say that this man is lying about his age. (No, I don’t feel bad making fun of him because 1. I watched him pay for his food and he peeled off a $100 bill and 2. in his profile on the American idol website is this:

Q: What's been your toughest obstacle in life?
A: Life itself.

And the bottom line is he’s obviously at least 38. So obviously in fact that when everyone in our section first started turning around to see who the celebrity was, this exchange happened between a father and son sitting behind us:

Son Craving Love And Attention: “Who’s that old guy over there?”

Drunk Father Who Is At Least 40: “Watch who you call old. He’s probably younger than me, and I’m not old.”

Implied subcontext.

Son: “I love you, dad.”

Father: “Stop being gay, we’re at a baseball game.”

The moment of the night, though, came in the top of the third inning. We had ordered food earlier in the game, and each of our orders came with a free bag of Utz potato chips. My friend Scott, who doesn’t eat carbs, set his off to the side in case someone wanted them later. Suddenly, though, Scott picks up his potato chips, which had been tucked in neatly by his side, and reached across my friend Jeff to hand them to me, sitting at the end of the row, closest to Hicks. He says, nonchalantly, as though it were to be expected, “Pass these down to Taylor. Tell him they’re from us.”

I look him in the eye to judge if he is joking, and it turns out he is completely serious. I look to my left and there is a family of four between me and Hicks. I take a swig from my beer, gather myself and say to the gruff old man sitting next to me, “Would you mind passing these down to Taylor Hicks?” (Keep in mind that saying this at a baseball game, while having no absolute equivalent, is roughly the same as turning to a stranger and saying, “Would you mind getting this dab of ketchup on the side of my mouth, I just keep missing it!”)

The guy looks at me for a solid five seconds with a blank stare before taking the chips from my hand, stretching across his family to hand them to his youngest son sitting on the end of the aisle and shouting, as though directing him to put away his toys, “Hand this to Taylor Hicks. Say it’s from these guys here.” He then goes back to watching the game and he and I purposefully don’t look each other in the eye for the rest of the night.

But his son dutifully gives the chips to Hicks, and while doing so points in our direction, and Hicks looks up to see me and my three friends giving him our best “Here’s looking at you” pointy-finger-gun hand gestures. He nods his head in approval, tears open the bag and eats them right then and there. Mission “Get Taylor Hicks to eat our Utz” accomplished.

SO WHAT DID WE LEARN:

1. Contrary to popular belief, Yankees fans will tolerate a modicum of homosexual behavior, though only a modicum.

2. American Idol really does make you famous.

3. But coming in third place gets you no where on The Daily Dump.

4. Fathers and sons often times have difficult relationships, marked primarily by the conflicting natures of affection and machismo.

5. If, for any reason, you wanted to harm Taylor Hicks, a good way to do it would be to poison a snack food and offer it to him in a public venue.

6. Taylor Hicks really does ‘get what he wants and goes where pleases.’ The man’s songs are truth, even if his birth certificate is a lie.

Because Yesterday’s Post May Belie The Fact That 50% Of All Marriages End In Divorce

2006-07-18T13:35:00.000-04:00

It’s the age old question: If you have the chance to corner a 17-year old girl in your office and force yourself on her sexually, do you take it? Even though it will jeopardize your marriage with a woman who, at 52, is still very attractive, never mind ridiculously wealthy? I’m going to have to go with

I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do. But it’s certainly the cool thing to do.

Side note: I’ve never understood what prompts people to write letters to newspaper editors about crap like this.

I’m just fascinated at the thought of Michael Chimenti finding out about Christie Brinkley’s divorce and immediately writing a letter to the editor of AM New York to publicly vilify her cheating ex-husband. Does he feel better after putting it in the mailbox? Like he really effectuated cultural stimulation with his commentary, and people will now see Peter Cook for the heartless, harbinger of evil that he is?

You told him, Mike! Dope of the Century! Yeah!

The Post That The Girlfriend Will Refer To As “That Stupid Post”

2006-07-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

A good friend of mine recently announced her engagement, and while I can’t get over the fact that she is younger than me and getting married, I guess I have to accept the fact that she is prettier than me and this, among other things (like free drinks and the freedom to wear sun dresses in hot weather without being made fun of) is one of the benefits of being a pretty girl.

Besides that, though, I was thoroughly impressed with the way in which her fiancée proposed to her. You see movies and TV shows all the time with people dropping rings in glasses of champagne or hiding it in the dessert, only to have the unsuspecting woman swallow the diamond and then everyone involved go on a wild series of slapstick events to get the ring back (I watch TBS), but often it’s the normal stories that are more heartfelt, because, well, they are more plausible than training an elephant to kneel down and present the ring to a woman using his trunk.¹

How he proposed was this: They were spending a normal Sunday together and all day she had been saying how she wanted iced cream, and he continually balked at the idea, saying he wasn’t in the mood for iced cream.² Then, later in the evening, he finally said, “OK, do you want to go down to the beach and get some iced cream and sit on the bench and watch the sun set?” She excitedly said yes, and as they finished their iced cream and sat there looking out over the water he leaned over and said, “Would you be my wife?”

Can you say “brilliant”? It’s cute, and tender, and memorable in its simplicity, but what I like most of all is the set-up: all day long brushing off the idea of getting iced cream until finally, late in the day, suggesting yourself that you get iced cream, putting her in the best mood possible immediately before popping the question. The simplicity of the initial request (iced cream) pales in comparison to the complexity of the impending request (to be his wife), but the happiness fostered by the acquiescence to the first request is so enormous (who doesn’t love iced cream?) that its resulting euphoria is more than enough to put her in the right frame of mind to say yes to the following question! It’s the old bait and switch! (Ed. Note: No, it’s not.) Plus she loved him, which, according to the magazines I read, is the best reason to get married, iced cream high aside.

But the whole thing got me thinking about how I will propose to my future wife someday. What “tactic” would I use? Would we be drunk? On instant messenger?³ Or will I have no plan at all and get caught up in a moment of whimsy at our local bagel shop and pop the question forgetting that I have neither a ring nor the money to buy a ring, nor the money to purchase the bagel, leaving me with a lingering second question, “ . . . and can I borrow $2.25?”

Yes, I fully expect it to be an awkward moment for everyone involved, from the potential bride straight down through to the guy in a wheelchair I topple as I suddenly kneel down on a crowded sidewalk in midtown. Because if you know anything about me, you know two things: that I climb things when I get drunk, and that I am awful at talking to girls I like when I am unsure if they like me.

You see, normally, I am the kind of guy who doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t already know the answer to. It prevents surprises, let downs, basically all those things in life that people say make them “grow” and “learn” and “feel.” And being that I can easily see any marriage proposal I make going either way, I’m bound to be a little bit nervous when the time comes. And nervousness makes me, as the French say, retarded.

Consider the last time I really went out on a limb and asked a girl out (or tried to) who I wasn’t sure would say yes. This happened:

Scene: We are amongst a group of people, drunk at a bar. (Romantic!) I spy her move away from the pack and towards the bar. I follow, probably appearing to any sober third party as if ready to put a bag over her head and make off with her.

Her: (seeing me approach) “Hey.”

Me: “Hey.”

Her: (making the normal pleasant conversation that normal pleasant girls make, but I hear . . .) “Hmmm alalaba, boopboop neeeeee naww–“

Me: (interrupting mid-sentence) “So I like you.”

Silence, and sweating.

More silence. Overwhelming regret.

I become desperate for something, anything, to say as it is clear that she will never speak again.

Me: (spying the menu on a chalkboard above the bar) “Hey, I never knew mayonnaise had two n’s in it.”

I then place my drink down on the bar, gather up my coat and leave.

Hence, the plan to have the elephant there – because if I am going to slink away in grand embarrassment, I am at least going to do so atop a majestic elephant.

_________________________
^1. No one steal this idea, as it is my back-up.
^2. This is where, if he had been proposing to The Girlfriend, the plan would have fallen apart because The Girlfriend would have said, “I wasn’t asking you if you wanted iced cream,” and then gone by herself to get it.
^3.

Fuck The Swiss

2006-07-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

Bear With Me, I Have A Hangover The Size Of Mexico

2006-07-14T12:32:00.000-04:00

Secret To Staying Young: Making Pretend You Are Young

2006-07-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

Last night after braving the rain and humidity* for a trek down to the Ray LaMontagne / Guster concert in Prospect Park, The Girlfriend and I, plus her brother and his girlfriend who are visiting from Maine, cabbed back to the Upper East Side and went to DT/UT for a nightcap. DT/UT is one of those really eccentric, hip places, where people use the word “vibe” when describing it – the kind of place that requires adjectives, which I hate, so here’s a picture.

The place ended up being packed, but there happened to be a couch and a few chairs available in a little side room; the reason being, of course, that also in the room was a couple dry humping one another on a separate loveseat. And presumably because dry humping is so awesome, no one wanted to interrupt them. We stopped outside the little enclave and silently motioned to one another, “No, you go first. No, YOU,” for about five minutes before finally I walked in and said, “Hey, you don’t mind if we sit here, do you?”

Of course, because dry humping is so mind blowing, and you really can’t stop once you’ve started, they pretty much ignored us as we sat down with our drinks and tried desperately to talk about anything besides the awkwardly intimate moment happening right besides us. I mean, my foot touched his foot. And I was like, “Oh, sorry,” and he was like, “(muffled sound of tongue on tongue).”

At that point, the only thing to do was take pictures.

The quality is so poor because we were afraid to use the flash. (Personally, I like the “surveillance camera” look. It gives it more of a “night vision, end of Silence of the Lambs” feel.) But once we realized these two were utterly oblivious to anything except his jean erection in her hip bone, we were like “Weekend at Bernie’s!”

Finally after a third shot (the title banner shot) they were roused to attention with the guy saying, “No pictures, please.” I felt like saying, “Listen dude – one, it’s a free country. Two, I have a blog. Alright? Do you know what that means? That means when two people engage in heavy petting in a bar, I’m going to take a picture of it. Third, I think it’s safe to say the GHB is working, you an take her home now.”

But before any of us could say anything, the couple sat up and the guy, after collecting himself, said, “How old do you think I am?”

Stunned, but for some reason perfectly happy to play along, because I love games, I say, “28.” He then says, “Interesting . . . and how old do you think she is?” gesturing to the girl sitting silently, primly next to him.

Here is where I think, for the first time, that these two may be the type of couple you hear about on shows like “American Justice” who lure strangers into their web of kindness with quirky question and answer games and then, after gaining trust and confidence, murder their new friends and use their preserved corpses as “guests” at future “dinner parties.” Of course, though, I still play along. “27,” I say.

The guy then smiles a big, glowing smile and proudly says, “What would you say if I told you I was 34. And she is 36.” Our jaws drop in exaggerated astonishment, because really who gives a fuck? Sure, they looked young for their age, but already we liked them better when they were making out with one another and leaving us alone. We try to go back to our own conversation, but now that they are free from one another’s embrace, they seem to need to acknowledge us. Eventually, it gets to the point where they are pushing this age topic so much that this bit of dialogue happens:

Brother’s Girlfriend: (trying to find something to say) “So do you use moisturizer?”

Girl: “Yeah, moisturizer is good. Important.”

Guy: “And she has a child! (gesturing to her flat stomach) Can you believe a baby came out of that?”

It is here that everyone in the room who isn’t insane (the four of us) want to run. But the guy, unprompted, immediately goes into his sales pitch: “There are three things you have to do to stay young looking: 1. no smoking (dramatic pause, waiting for nods of approval); 2. no drugs (dramatic pause, waiting for nods of approval); and 3. no drinking.” We all look at the drinks in our hands and say, “Oh well.” Then the crazy girl offers to take a picture of us, the guy makes a joke about stealing the camera, and as we prepare to leave, my head swirling with awkwardness as I try to sort out the night’s events, I am sure of only two things: That even if I survive some chemical accident that causes me to age in reverse and I look seven years old when I am in fact 45, I will not ask anyone, “How old do you think I am?”; and that, despite my entire high school experience, dry humping is about as satisfying as digging for a coin in your pocket.

___________________________________
* About halfway through Guster’s set, the lead singer gave the standard “thanks for coming out” speech, only he started it with, “The weather reports were bad, but you guys all came anyway. Thanks for braving the humidity to be here.” WTF, braving the humidity? Does this guy know there’s a war going on in Iraq?

My Five Day Late Reaction to The Emmy Nominations

2006-07-11T23:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve finally had the time to really contemplate the nominations for the 58^th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, and by “really contemplate” I obviously mean “catch an article about them because I had no idea they even happened until now,” proving once again that if you’re getting your news from me, you don’t really care about the news.

I watch a lot of TV. I think that’s the fourteenth or fifteenth time I’ve written that sentence in this blog, because I’m proud of it for two reasons: 1. I think TV is a valuable creative medium – both for information and entertainment; and 2. I’m being honest, and I lie about so many other things that it feels good to tell the truth from time to time, unlike those people who say, “I never watch TV.” Who the fuck never watches TV? What do you do at night if you don’t watch TV? My guess is you think up other lies to tell about yourself to make you seem interesting, like “I read,” or “I paint,” or “I think it would be cool to go to culinary school.”

Anyway, I was planning on reviewing every category but then I realized that I don’t know what cinematography is. Or art direction. Or why the hell there is a choreography category. Plus it turns out there are 90 categories. I can’t even come up with 90 things that happen on TV, yet the academy has come up with 90 things that are “outstanding.” Oh, wait, 89 things that are outstanding, and one thing that gets “exceptional merit” – the unique category “Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking.” (Which contains the movies Two Days In October and Three Days In September. Who said nonfiction filmmakers weren’t creative?)

So I guess I’m left just covering the main categories, plus any others that catch my attention. Like “Outstanding Makeup For A Series (Non-Prosthetic).” If you don’t have an opinion on that, you’re an asshole.

Outstanding Main Title Theme Music

Get Ed • Disney
Masters Of Horror • Showtime
Over There • FX Network
Prison Break • FOX
Rome • HBO

My Pick: If the point of title music is to catch the viewer’s attention and make him want to continue watching (and I’m only guessing that’s what its point is, but I think I’m making sense) then these all blow. Sure, I haven’t seen two of the three, but I’m pretty sure you could play a recording of Mandy Moore saying, “Have I ever told you how perfect you are, Dan?” and I still wouldn’t watch “Get Ed” or “Masters of Horror.” My obvious choice is the title music to “Weeds,” which you can hear here (it’s the first song).

Will win: This isn’t good – it’s my first category and I already don’t care.

Outstanding Lighting Direction (Electronic, Multi-Camera) For VMC Programming

78th Annual Academy Awards • ABC
American Idol • American Classics Songbook With Rod Stewart • FOX
American Idol • Finale • FOX
2005 American Music Awards • ABC
Late Night With Conan O’Brien• Episode #2226 • NBC

I don’t care who wins, I just want to know who watched episode #2226 of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” sat up off their couch and said, “There’s something different about this episode. Everyone seems bathed in a celestial light. I’ve got to call the academy - that’s the kind of lighting that will land you an Emmy.”

Outstanding Reality Program

Antiques Roadshow • PBS
The Dog Whisperer • National Geographic Channel
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition • ABC
Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List • Bravo
Penn & Teller: Bullshit • Showtime

My Pick: If anything other than “Extreme Makeover” wins, it’s just proof that that academy hates poor people.

Will win: “Extreme Makeover.” Because the academy doesn’t hate poor people, I was only kidding about that. They care about poor people. Poor people represent a class of society who struggle for things like cable TV, making it seem important and worthwhile.

Outstanding Reality-Competition Program

The Amazing Race • CBS
American Idol • FOX
Dancing With The Stars • ABC
Project Runway • Bravo
Survivor • CBS

My Pick: I actually became interested in “Survivor” this year. And while I am loathe to say that it was because of Danielle’s rack, the bottom line is . . .

Will win: How can they possibly ignore the popularity of “American Idol?” I read an entire article in U.S. News and World Reports about how parents are teaching their toddlers to use the phone by voting in to “American Idol.” Of course that’s a lie . . . but it could be the truth!

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series

Extras • HBO • Patrick Stewart as Himself
Extras • HBO • Ben Stiller as Himself
Two And A Half Men • CBS • Martin Sheen as Harvey
Will & Grace • NBC • Alec Baldwin as Malcolm
Will & Grace • NBC • Leslie Jordan as Beverley Leslie

My Pick: Alec Baldwin, hands down. Even if you hate “Will & Grace,” even if the mere idea of watching this show makes you want to become gay just so you can hate the show on the pretense that it mocks your station in life, you have to enjoy Alec Baldwin, you fruit salad head.

Will win: Patrick Stewart, because everyone loves to hear him speak.

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series

Boston Legal • ABC • Michael J. Fox as Daniel Post
Boston Legal • ABC • Christian Clemenson as Jerry “Hands” Espenson
ER • NBC • James Woods as Dr. Nate Lenno
Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • Kyle Chandler as Dylan Young
Lost • ABC • Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond

My Pick: Michael J. Fox. Not just because he was good, but because for almost four years of my life I wanted to be him. Not recently . . . I mean a long time ago. Obviously.

Will win: Michael J. Fox. If he doesn’t, I will be the first one writing a letter here.

Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series

Desperate Housewives • ABC • Shirley Knight as Phyllis Van de Kamp
Extras • HBO • Kate Winslet as Herself
Malcolm In The Middle • FOX • Cloris Leachman as Ida
Monk • USA • Laurie Metcalf as Cora
Will & Grace • NBC • Blythe Danner as Marilyn Truman

My Pick: Kate Winslet. I only watched one episode of “Extras” and it was the episode with Kate Winslet. And while I didn’t find it as HEARTPOUNDINGLY HILARIOUS as everyone made it out to be, there’s still something to be said for Kate Winslet being funny. And that is: “She’s hot.”

Will win: I tried to read some articles on the internet about who Shirley Knight is but I got so bored every time I couldn’t finish. But I’m going to say that she wins, because when in doubt give an award to the show that everyone watches but doesn’t like. It makes the world feel better about itself.

Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series

Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • Kate Burton as Ellis Grey
Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • Christina Ricci as Hannah
Huff • Showtime • Swoosie Kurtz as Madeline Sullivan
Six Feet Under • HBO • Patricia Clarkson as Aunt Sarah
Six Feet Under • HBO • Joanna Cassidy as Margaret Chenowith

My Pick: I’ve seen none of these episodes, so I’m going to go on pure intuition. Christina Ricci, because she looks good in a bathing suit. What? That’s not intuition? Oh. Bite me.

Will win: Swoosie Kurtz was awesome in “Sisters,” Patricia Clarkson has done like 75 indie movies, and Kate Burton is literally a professional guest star, but Joanna Cassidy’s measurements at 66 years of age are 36C-25-35. Draw your own conclusion.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series

Arrested Development • FOX • Will Arnett as Gob Bluth
Entourage • HBO • Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold
Malcolm In The Middle • FOX • Bryan Cranston as Hal
Two And A Half Men • CBS • Jon Cryer as Alan Harper
Will & Grace • NBC • Sean Hayes as Jack

My Pick: Sean Hayes. Because it’s brave of him to break through gay discrimination and embrace his role as a spokesperson for changing times. Yes, of course I’m kidding, fuck that progressive shit, Will Arnett deserved this award when he was in the womb, and every step along the way from that womb to my heart.

Will win: Something tells me Jeremy Piven will. And that something is that the Emmy voters are always a year behind, probably because they don’t read blogs and get most of their facts from overhearing their housekeepers on the phone with their relatives in the Dominican Republic saying “Let us hug it out, bitch!”

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series

Boston Legal • ABC • William Shatner as Denny Crane
Huff • Showtime • Oliver Platt as Russell Tupper
The Sopranos • HBO • Michael Imperioli as Christopher Moltisanti
24 • FOX • Gregory Itzin as President Charles Logan
The West Wing • NBC • Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick

My Pick: Gotta be William Shatner. And not just because of this.

Will win: The only reason I think William Shatner might not win is because he’s more funny than dramatic. I mean, the entire show is. And you’re up against Alan Alda. I can’t think of any competition in which I would challenge Alan Alda – the man, the mystery, the name with only four different letters in it.

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series

Curb Your Enthusiasm • HBO • Cheryl Hines as Cheryl David
Desperate Housewives • ABC • Alfre Woodard as Betty Applewhite
My Name Is Earl • NBC • Jaime Pressly as Joy
Weeds • Showtime • Elizabeth Perkins as Celia Hodes
Will & Grace • NBC • Megan Mullally as Karen

My Pick: Elizabeth Perkins, and not just because I love the show. She is genuinely good, everything you want in a supporting character. Once, while referring to her teenage daughter, she delivered the line “I should have had an abortion” with such aplomb, that even if you don’t really know what aplomb means, like me, you know that it was awesome.

Will win: Alfre Woodard, because OMG it wouldn’t be an award show if “Desperate Housewives” didn’t win more awards than it deserved. (Side note: On the scale of awesome irony, where would it rank if Jaime Pressly won an award for acting like who she is in real life? Basically for showing up on set and being herself? I think I have to root for this now.)

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series

Boston Legal • ABC • Candice Bergen as Shirley Schmidt
Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • Sandra Oh as Cristina Yang
Grey’s Anatomy • ABC • Chandra Wilson as Dr. Bailey
Huff • Showtime • Blythe Danner as Izzy Huffstodt
24 • FOX • Jean Smart as First Lady Martha Logan

My Pick: Candice Bergen. And not because she’s particularly brilliant (her part is generally well written and she’s entertaining) but more because the rest of this list makes me want to punch myself in the leg like five times. Hard! If you don’t think Sandra Oh is a scary person to look at, I’m sorry that you’ve lost your eyesight. It must be difficult.

Will win: Blythe Danner in an upset! I don’t care.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series

Curb Your Enthusiasm • HBO • Larry David as Himself
The King Of Queens • CBS • Kevin James as Doug Heffernan
Monk • USA • Tony Shalhoub as Adrian Monk
The Office • NBC • Steve Carell as Michael Scott
Two And A Half Men • CBS • Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper

My Pick: Fuck that, I’m writing in Jason Bateman. I can put one chamber of my heart behind Steve Carell, and next year I’ll probably whole heartedly support him, but not while Jason Bateman is still eligible. I was planning on sabotaging the award show by parachuting in when this award was being delivered wearing an “Arrested Development” billboard and a Jason Bateman mask, but the last time I went base jumping, when I woke up I was really scared so I don’t think I’ll be trying it again.

Will win: Steve Carell. And it will be a bittersweet victory for comedy. And when is someone going to stand up and realize that Antonio from “Wings” has won two Emmy awards. Can we stop just accidentally giving these things away? Also, I can’t believe you’re still reading this.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit • NBC • Christopher Meloni as Detective Elliot Stabler
Rescue Me • FX Network • Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin
Six Feet Under • HBO • Peter Krause as Nate Fisher
24 • FOX • Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer
The West Wing • NBC • Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlet

My Pick: Great category. I haven’t watched “Rescue Me” enough to really appreciate Denis Leary, but his performance in the consistently overlooked The Ref has endeared me to him ever since. And I like all of the other shows in the category, and I like all of the actors, but once again I need to balk here: I’ve only recently started watching “House,” and you know what? It’s not a very good show. But you know what else? Hugh Laurie is awesome. Really. For one hour, I prefer watching him more than any of these other guys. I mean, maybe if Kiefer Sutherland dressed up a little more, you know?

Will win: “The West Wing” went out with more of a whimper than a bang, so I don’t know how high the sentiment is right now for Martin Sheen. But if Hugh Laurie can’t win, and I don’t think he will since he’s not nominated, then let’s at least get a Kiefer Sutherland acceptance speech out of this. No one has heard him speak out of character for about four years now. I wouldn’t be surprised is he started his acceptance speech with, “I’m Jack Bauer. Kiefer Sutherland couldn’t make it tonight.”

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series

The Comeback • HBO • Lisa Kudrow as Valerie Cherish
Malcolm In The Middle • FOX • Jane Kaczmarek as Lois
The New Adventures Of Old Christine • CBS • Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Christine Campbell
Out Of Practice • CBS • Stockard Channing as Lydia Barnes
Will & Grace • NBC • Debra Messing as Grace

My Pick: They should just give the award to all five of them and make each one give a 30 second speech on why they deserve it. Then have America vote in to see who wins. And the four losers get dunked in a dunk tank. Then I’ll care about this category.

Will win: No one wins in this situation. Unless Stockard Channing wins and says, “What is this ‘Out of Practice’ everyone keeps talking about?”

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series

The Closer • TNT • Kyra Sedgwick as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson
Commander In Chief • ABC • Gena Davis as Mackenzie Allen
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit • NBC • Mariska Hargitay as Detective Olivia Benson
Six Feet Under • HBO • Frances Conroy as Ruth Fisher
The West Wing • NBC • Television Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg

My Pick: Give it back to Mariska. I can’t give any credit to Kyra Sedgwick because for some reason I blame her for getting ugly. I feel like there’s no reason she shouldn’t be hot, yet she isn’t. So the only plausible explanation is it’s her fault. And maybe the “Six Feet Under” girl is good, but aren’t they all the same person on that show?

Will win: Gena Davis. And the only way I won’t change the channel is if she gets up on stage, says, “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” and Michael Keaton comes out on stage in full costume and carries her off on his shoulder. Also note that I should be producing the Emmy awards.

Outstanding Writing For A Comedy Series

Arrested Development • Development Arrested • FOX
Entourage • Exodus • HBO
Extras • Kate Winslet • HBO
My Name Is Earl • Pilot • NBC
The Office • Christmas Party • NBC

My Pick: “Arrested Development” was one of the greatest comedies ever put on television. “My Name Is Earl” is the writing equivalent of taking a crap with a hemorrhoid.

Will win: “The Office.” Because everyone has decided to move on past “Arrested Development” like the autistic child you put in a home and feel bad about, but, you know, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. So you move on with life and think of happy things.

Outstanding Writing For A Drama Series

Grey’s Anatomy • It’s the End Of The World, As We Know It (Part 1 & 2) • ABC
Grey’s Anatomy • Into You Like A Train • ABC
Lost • The 23rd Psalm • ABC
Six Feet Under • Everyone’s Waiting • HBO
The Sopranos • Members Only • HBO

My Pick: While “Lost” may be an addicting show, I really don’t think it’s due to the writing. And let’s just say that on a list of the Top Five Reasons To Watch “Grey’s Anatomy,” writing is right behind “make-up.” So “Six Feet Under” or “The Sopranos”? I just don’t feel like giving “Six Feet Under” any props today. It’s like supporting suicide. So “The Sopranos” it is.

Will win: “Grey’s Anatomy” will win and I’ll say something to The Girlfriend like, “This is fucking ridiculous. For writing! That show is popular for two things: tits and feelings.” And she’ll say something like, “Why do you care so much?” And I’ll say, “Because it gives tits and feelings a bad name.”

Outstanding Comedy Series

Arrested Development • FOX
Curb Your Enthusiasm • HBO
The Office • NBC
Scrubs • NBC
Two And A Half Men • CBS

My Pick: It’s a good category, with four genuinely enjoyable shows and one that is included because Charlie Sheen threatened to molest his co-star if it wasn’t on there. But again – I can’t say it enough – “Arrested Development” made me want to be a better person. I want to have kids someday just so I can watch “Arrested Development” with them. And I’m man enough to admit I’m not kidding when I say that.

Will win: Fuck it, I’m practically drunk with writing at this point. “Arrested Development” is my prediction. Because maybe there’s some decency left in the world. And maybe the academy believed my email and thinks I really do have a bomb hidden somewhere in Los Angeles.

Outstanding Drama Series

Grey’s Anatomy • ABC
House • FOX
The Sopranos • HBO
24 • FOX
The West Wing • NBC

My Pick: I think we’re using the term “drama” a little loosely with “Grey’s Anatomy” here. “Grey’s Anatomy” is about as dramatic as that time I was walking down the street and my helium filled balloon slipped from my grip. For my money, “The Sopranos” is the best drama on TV, hands down. And anyone who says it’s getting “boring” just because someone doesn’t get shot every week, you’re probably the one who makes the obnoxious noise when you sink someone’s battleship. So blow me.

Will win: “The Sopranos.” Because I ran out of commentary, so I asked my magic 8 Ball about this one and it said, “Cannot Predict Now,” and I got pissed and threw it away and guessed that “The Sopranos” would win.

(If you’re actually read this whole thing, thank you. Now please go get some exercise.)

Top One Most Embarrassing Moment Of The Past Hour

2006-07-10T17:00:00.000-04:00

There are two bathrooms to choose from on my office building’s floor – a large one and a small one. I usually go to the large one because when you really think about exactly what a bathroom is you realize that you would have to be a real moron to choose to use a smaller, more enclosed space for its designated purpose. But today I was kind of in a rush so I went to the smaller bathroom, the one with two urinals and four stalls, a layout suggesting it was designed entirely around the Atkins diet.

In any event, I rushed in and went to one of the urinals. There was a man next to me who seemed put off by the fact that I choose to stand next to him, so out of spite I moved my foot closer to his. As I started to go, I noticed that I also had to fart. (Please, if anyone is having any trouble with the words or concepts here, just email me. I know sometimes me writing is a little dense.) The problem is, I know it’s going to make noise. Like a mother who knows when her child is in danger, I just know. I decide against letting it go, but in a moment of weakness a small toot is released. It is certainly loud enough for the guy next to me to hear it, and me knowing this immediately becomes one of the funniest things in the history of time. My valiant attempts to stifle the laughter succeed for the most part, if you measure success by the degree to which you fail but don’t care because it’s still funny.

Finally, the guy next to me finishes, flushes and goes to wash his hands. Then, as he is leaving and the door is just about closed behind him, I not only let rip an enormous, resounding fart, but immediately following that I laugh and laugh and laugh – loudly – but I don’t care because I’m just standing at a urinal, peeing and farting and having a grand old time. I was one head rush away from screaming, “YOU CAN’T STOP ME! YOU CAN’T HOLD ME DOWN! U-S-A! U-S-A!” It was an euphoric moment . . .

. . . until I heard a flush from one of the stalls behind me. Apparently in my hurry I hadn’t noticed that there was someone in one of the stalls. So here I am having a veritable party with myself, thinking I’m all alone, when in fact there is some poor asshole in the stall waiting for everyone to leave so he can take a shit, but instead being forced to witness my borderline psychotic behavior. I figured I could play it two ways: I could rush out of the bathroom and not let him see my face, or I could take my time, come face to face with him and say, “Hey, Chuck,” no matter who it was just so when he tells people the story he will include the fact that I was incoherent at the time.

In the five seconds I had to make the choice before he opened the stall door, I fortunately used the first three to replay the incident in my head again, leaving me two whole seconds to literally run from the bathroom. Did I wash my hands? No. Am I proud of that? No. Am I proud of the fact that one day after writing an email to all my friends and using the phrase, “We’re all grown ups here,” that this happens? Yes, absolutely.

Also, I included a picture of a panda because I don’t have a picture that’s actually appropriate for the post. And pandas are fascinating creatures.

Montreal Vignette Numéro CinqLe Finale

2006-07-07T15:37:00.000-04:00

First, a few characters we did not get a chance to meet:

“Le Tooth”

Le Tooth was purchased from a small store in Old Montreal from a shopkeeper who was wildly attached to her puppets. While Scott, John and I tried on the puppets and gave them life with our voices, she stood by nervously supervising. When any of us would say something mean, such as when I made Le Tooth say, “I CAN’T DO SIMPLE MAAAATH,” the shopkeeper would swoop in and pet Le Tooth on the head saying, “Oh, it’s ok! You’re smart!” And when John put on the dragon puppet and Scott said, “Look out! It’s the Angry Dragon!” and persisted in asking John, “John, why does Angry Dragon sound so familiar? I know I’ve heard it somewhere before,” and John said, “I don’t know, but it sounds gross,” the shopkeeper jumped in to say, quite erroneously to her oblivion, “Oh, you’re not gross flaming dragon!”

Le Tooth ended up coming with us, and as we walked out saying, “Someone needs to tell that girl that these puppets have no soul,” I turned back to see a single tear falling down her cheek.

“The women watching soccer with us”

The women off to the side in the photo, six women ranging from upper 20’s to mid 30’s, sat at the table adjacent to ours on a crowded balcony on Crescent Street watching the France – Brazil match. They clearly knew little about the sport and as John was explaining some rules to us, one of them turned to him and said, “Someone here really knows his soccer,” to which Scott replied, “Well the rules don’t really matter so much, what matters is that everyone has fun.” They didn’t laugh, which I attribute to their age.

“Boy at bar”

A boy at the bar.

“Anne Marie”

Anne Marie was our waitress at a restaurant called L’Evidence in the French section of Montreal where we went to “have a real French meal,” i.e. no be able to read the menu. The event started out awful as we sat down at a patio table, hungry and fighting off the strong gusts of wind. After 45 minutes of nothing being put on the table despite our ordering, we were ready to jump ship. Luckily we didn’t, because after the first bottle of wine arrived we decided to move inside, conveniently into a separate back room in which no one else was seated. That was around 8:00. By 11:30 we had Anne Marie, the waitress we once despised for slow service, seated at our table drinking wine with us while we had an “accent” contest (silly Americans!) We all fell in love with Anne Marie.

As a sad epilogue, we made tentative plans to hang out with Anne Marie the following night, our last night in Montreal, after she finished working. We ended up being exhausted and in bed by midnight, and when we woke the next morning there was a voice mail from her that said:

(with thick French accent)

“Hello. This is Anne Marie. I am sad you did not come to the restaurant for dinner tonight. I was hoping we would go out, together. I will not ask you to call me back. I will go home to bed. Maybe we can see one another the next time you come to Montreal or in New York. Goodbye.”

It was as sad as you think it was. While listening to it, I pictured in my mind Anne Marie in her cutest outfit, all done up with make-up, waiting tables at spinning around every time the door to the restaurant opened, and slowly turning back upon seeing that it wasn’t us.

But it was still the most fun night we had in Montreal. Even including the final vignette:

An Indecent Proposal

Scene: Scott and The Girlfriend are alone at the table. Scott spies this as his chance to move in. There is sensuality in the air.

Montreal Vignette Numéro QuatreThat Fucking Clown

2006-07-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

Scene: The Girlfriend and I are standing on a patch of grass in the middle of Place-des-Arts at the Jazz Festival. Suddenly there comes stumbling by a clown on roller skates. It is the second day we have sat at this spot at the festival, and the second time we have seen this very same clown. Jazz music plays in the background.

Me: “I hate this clown.”

The girlfriend: “I hate him too.”

(John comes over bringing cups of Molson Dry – the official beer sponsor of the Montreal Jazz Festival – with it’s distinctive smooth finish.)

John: “What’s going on?”

Me: “Just saying how we hate this clown.”

John: “I can’t stand him.”

(Scott comes over, not wearing a shirt.)

Scott: “I fucking hate this clown.”

The Girlfriend: “Us too.”

(We sip our beers, turning our backs on the clown, not laughing, but happy.)

End.

Montreal Vignette Numéro TrèsA Risky Maneuver!

2006-07-06T15:26:00.000-04:00

Scene: All four of us at a dance club on Crescent Street. We have been dancing for over an hour and are tired and sweaty, but having fun. I am trying out the new moves I learned from “So You Think You Can Dance,” and The Girlfriend is keeping up with me. Finally, though, she gets tired and decides to step off to the side, leaving me, John and Scott on the dance floor. Hip-hop is blasting in the background.

The Girlfriend: (screaming and motioning with her hands) “I’m going to take a break for a bit.”

(I nod in approval, she moves approximately fifteen feet away to the wall. I resume dancing, but in a matter of seconds I feel someone come up behind me and begin to move wildly, arms swinging, body pressed against my back. I peek over my shoulder and assess two things: that it is a girl, and that she may be anywhere from one inch to one foot taller than me. I look to John and Scott for an idea of what to do, but they are just laughing. Suddenly, The Girlfriend comes out of nowhere.)

The Girlfriend: (while squeezing in between the girl and me, speaking to the girl in a tone that is equal parts menacing and delightful) “Sorry . . .”

(The Girl dances off quickly through the crowd like a deer prancing through a forest of trees.)

The Girlfriend: “I leave for TWO seconds! What the hell was that?”

Me: “She couldn’t resist my dancing. Don’t blame her though, she just wanted to be a part of something special.”

The Girlfriend: “Or it’s dark and she’s drunk.”

Me: “Or that.”

(The Girlfriend steps off to the side again, this time with a circumspect glance over the crowd. John, Scott and I go back to dancing, chuckling to ourselves at the arbitrariness of the world.)

End.

Montreal Vignette Numéro DeuxA Shocking Encounter

2006-07-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

Scene: A rooftop restaurant in Old Port, Montreal. John, The Girlfriend and Scott are sitting at the table enjoying their drinks. They are thoughtful and content. I return from a trip to the bathroom with a horrified look on my face, as though I have just seen a ghost, or realized I left the refrigerator door open. Neither is the case. I approach the table quickly, as if fleeing demons.

Scott: “What? What happened?”

Me: “Unbelievable.”

The Girlfriend: “What happened? Did you clog the toilet?”

Me: “No, worse.”

(Fade into flashback, with my voice narrating memory.)

So I went down to the bathroom. You have to go down two flights of stairs and the men’s room is kind of off to the side down an alleyway. There’s no door, you kind of just walk in. So I sidle up to a urinal and go about my business. No sooner than my fly is down, I see something out of the corner of my eye, another person entering the bathroom. But something isn’t right – and that something is the fact that it’s a girl. (pointing to Scott) Your girl.

(Flash back again to 15 minutes earlier.)

Scott: “I’m in love with the girl clearing tables here, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t speak a lick of English.”

(pause)

“But I guess love is about overcoming obstacles.”

(Flash forward to me telling story at table.)

Scott: “No!”

Me: “Yes.”

John: “What the balls?”

Me: “Listen.”

(Flash back to me in bathroom, narrating story.)

She is completely unfazed that she has just walked into the men’s room and there is a man in there urinating. She starts cleaning the mirror behind me. I mean, she’s five feet away from me. She can hear everything, and there’s nothing I can do but continue peeing, trying to mitigate the noise, her right over my shoulder. I finish up and of course I’m wearing a button fly and everyone knows I have trouble with button flies. (Everyone nods head in acceptance.) So I just do one button and pull my shirt down to cover it over so I can get out of there as quickly as possible. I turn around and she’s right behind me, still cleaning the mirror. I figure I have to acknowledge her, it would be like not acknowledging a burglar in your home.

Me: “Bonjour.”

Her: (Giggles, then says something completely incomprehensible in French.)

Me: (Finishing washing hands – there are no towels, just a hand dryer. I look at the girl’s roll of paper towels for cleaning the mirror.) “May I use these?”

Her: (More unintelligible French, but friendly gesturing leads me to believe she means yes.)

Me: (finishing up) “Bonsoir.”

Her: “Bonsoir.”

(Flash forward to conversation at table.)

Scott: “So she saw you pee.”

Me: “She saw me pee.”

John: “That kind of stuff just isn’t a big deal to the French.”

The Girlfriend: “Watching people urinate?”

John: “You asked to use her paper towels?”

Scott: (sadly) “I wish it had been me . . .”

(We all share the pain of Scott’s misfortune, and sip from our glasses in clumsy unison.)

End.

Montreal Vignette Numéro UnDiscussing Gross Things In The Car

2006-07-05T16:56:00.000-04:00

Scene: In the car, somewhere in upstate New York. John is reading an article in GQ magazine. The article, entitled The Legend of the Dirty Sanchez, concerns nicknames for a variety of vulgar sex acts. John giggles profoundly to himself. After an indistinguishable moment of careful consideration, he decides to share a selection of the article with us. Everything is very serious, as this is a vignette after all.

John: (reading from the magazine) “. . . at some point in the mid-'90s, the terms were compiled (and expanded, amended, and annotated) in lists that spread across the Internet via e-mails and Web sites. The world was soon introduced to the Cleveland Steamer (dump/chest), the Hot Lunch (dump/mouth), the Glass Bottom Boat (dump/Saran wrap/mouth), the Blumpkin (fellatio/toilet), the Cold Lunch (fellatio/vomit), the Swimmers Ear (semen/ear), the Greek (semen/eyes), and the Jelly Doughnut (semen /eyes/punch/blood).”

The Girlfriend: (to herself, realizing she is only two hours in to a four day long vacation with three guys) “Fuck.”

John: (continuing from magazine) “Some of the acts require specialized genetic equipment, like the Arabian Goggles, described as "a seldom-seen maneuver when you put your testicles over her eye sockets while getting head" . . . or the Angry Dragon (“Immediately after you blow your load in a girl’s mouth, smack the back of her head and make it come out her nose.”) . . . Others demand a fair amount of preparation, such as the Abraham Lincoln (the act of shaving one's pubic hair and keeping it. Then ejaculating on a partner's face and throwing the pubic hair on their face so that it sticks, in a manner which supposedly resembles the beard of President Abraham Lincoln").”

Me: “That’s actually an awesome idea.”

Scott: “But John’s favorite is the Bismarck.”

Me: “What’s the Bismarck?”

Scott: “When a girl is sucking you off and when she is done you look at her and say, ‘Whatever.’”

(A pause, as we listen to the road move underneath us.)

End.

Cast Of Characters

2006-07-05T13:46:00.001-04:00

(Because I have to draw this out as long as possible because I’m not yet done PDF’ing every piece of paper in the office. Has anyone here ever PDF’ed a post-it? Because I have.)

Me: Is the writer of a blog, which can be found here. Has never killed a man, but remains curious.

John: Is tall. Proficient at reaching things off high shelves and predicting traffic patterns. Is known by many as “the only straight man in the theater industry,” and by “many” I mean all the gay people in the theater industry. Bears a striking resemblance to a J-Date billboard and appreciates a fancy meal. John bought his first pair of jeans in 2005.

The girlfriend: Lover of all things costing more than $25, The Girlfriend sums up her personality by saying, “I’m hungry, stop typing and let’s get dinner. No really, stop typing. I said stop. I’m going to kill you.” Looks cute with or without clothes on and rarely curses in polite company, although is rarely among polite company.

Scott: Intense in all things, including eating and looking tough. In high school, made a man named Paul Mazza go bald by nicknaming him “Bald Mazza” in ironic celebration of his long, flowing locks. By the time he graduated college, there was not a single hair left on his head. Is the quickest man I know with a pun and rarely wears a shirt.

Montreal, The France Of The North: A Prologue

2006-07-05T11:14:00.000-04:00

Because nothing is more exciting than a post detailing what you will be posting in the future, I’ve decided to break up the epic Montreal trip into a series of vignettes, which I believe is, appropriately enough, a French word meaning “abbreviated insights into ordinary lives presented in such a way as to make even the most trivial aspect seem profound.” Ah, the French. With their cigarettes and their body odor. Always so intense.

So as soon as I dig myself out of this pile of work I’ll start the vignettes. I don’t know how soon that will be though because one of my bosses just learned what a PDF is and how you can turn things into a PDF, and now he has coined the verb “PDF it.” As in: (handing me a letter) “What do you think, should we PDF it?”

Theoretically, this could go on for years.

_________________________________
P.S. Check out the menu options on the Montreal tourist website:

With one errant click, Dad could really screw up plans for his family’s Christmas vacation to Montreal.

Your Weekly Round Up Of Everything Important That Is Happening In The News From The Past 20 Minutes That I've Seen

2006-06-30T12:03:00.000-04:00

• Things I care about more than Star Jones on “Larry King”:

- what time it is
- the new Pottery Barn catalogue
- the wet spot on my pants from when I washed my hands, even though it’s almost dry by now
- whether or not I’m taking the right multivitamin for me
- this

• And while we’re making lists, while in Maine last weekend I watched a show on Animal Planet about a woman who devotes her life to saving skunks. An actual quote from the show by a local veterinarian: “Her devotion to skunks is remarkable.”

Things I would rather devote myself to than skunks:

- a murders right to a vigorous defense
- the proper usage of “whom”
- shrubbery sculpting
- a resurgence in the use of scrolls for important documents
- this

• 105-year-old bowler leaves his

When I saw this headline I thought, “Wow, did a 105 year old guy bowl a perfect game?” Then I read the article and it’s just about how he’s 105, and he bowls. His average is a pedestrian 106, meaning he will soon join an elite club made up of my little sister and everyone else who tried to bowl at age 2 and rolled an average lower than their age.

• Bin Laden wants Zarqawi buried in homeland

Yeah, and I want a personal concert by the Bangles circa 1986 but we don’t always get what we want. Especially when we follow our demands with, “Oh and we will continue to attack you and kill you and bring glory to Allah through global jihad, blah, blah, you’ve heard it before.”

• J. Crew shares do well in IPO debut

Executives are asking everyone to celebrate by “getting out that sweater you haven’t really worn in four years.”

• Childhood crush responds to Taylor Hicks

Two weeks after Taylor Hicks discussed his first crush as a young boy, the woman from his past has contacted People magazine.

The "American Idol" winner told People in a recent interview that he never forgot his first crush: "I was in the second grade; she was in the sixth." He added that ever since, he's always liked older women.

"He was such a fun kid," Worsham, 32, said. "I'm married. But I'd like to reconnect. He was like a brother to me."

One, how nervous are you if you are this woman’s husband. She just wants to reconnect with a guy who will be worth millions within the year? Two, can somebody please get a copy of Taylor Hicks’ birth certificate? Three, if he’s younger than 32 I don’t see why scientists aren’t clamoring to study him before his advanced aging reaches the point where he explodes like the guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade who chose the wrong cup.

• 911 caller: I think I'm cut in half by train (video)

You have to watch the clip. If I was this guy, the call would have gone more like this:

911: “State your emergency.”

Me: “MY FUCKING LEGS! A TRAIN! MY LEGS WERE CUT OFF!”

911: “OK, tell me where you are.”

Me: “UNDER A FUCKING TRAIN! WITH NO LEGS! AT GUNDERSON SOUTHWEST. WITH NO FUCKING LEGS!”

911: “Someone got run over by a rail car?”

Me: (suddenly composed) “Are you kidding me? You missed the part where I told you that I was run over by a train? And I was cut in half? You glossed over that part? Were you typing something and you just didn’t hear it? Because it seems to me it would be the kind of thing that would stick out in a conversation.”

Take note, if you ever find yourself in an emergency in Texas, don’t call 911. Try to take care of the problem yourself, and if that doesn’t work it’ll probably still be quicker to find your own transportation to the hospital. You know, taxi, bus, bike, whatever you have handy. Just don’t get a 911 operator on the phone, because apparently they just love to chat.

• Everyone have a great long weekend. I’m going to be up in Montreal, our great kind-of French neighbors to the north, which I understand isn’t the best place to be celebrating Independence Day (or as they call it “that alien movie with the Fresh Prince”), but it decidedly is the best place to eat crepes, drink wine, listen to jazz and mingle with the sophisticated population who are, as one friend said, “afflicted with the plague of thin waists and huge breasts.” So to all readers from Montreal: Keep your daughters inside (I’m bringing friends) and I’ll be somewhere on Cresent Street Saturday watching the France-Brazil World Cup game. So come on down and look for the guy drinking wine straight from the bottle screaming, “Use your hands! Come on dipshit, USE YOUR HANDS!”

The Band Aid As Fashion, An Indefensible Position

2006-06-29T13:48:00.000-04:00

In college I was considered by ~~many~~ ~~some~~ myself to be a pretty argumentative person. I was always “the devil’s advocate” – in English classes I would argue that symbolism in The Tempest is a clear indication that Christopher Marlowe was writing all the works attributed to Shakespeare, and in my philosophy classes I would argue that Wittgenstein’s theory of atomic facts actually broadened the horizons of an Epistemological dialogue (Oh the folly!). Indeed, I once even helped out a friend who had a run in with her RA for burning candles in her dorm by writing a “punishment essay” for her. The topic was supposed to be “Why candles are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed in dorms” but I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to argue the importance of candles. I wrote:

The truth of the matter is that candles are dangerous. But so is life. The primary purpose of a college is to educate students, yes. The secondary purpose of college is to prepare students for the workforce and provide the knowledge and skills necessary to develop a career centered around personal and professional success, yes. But the tertiary purpose of college it to also prepare students for the rest of life; the responsibility of owning a home, of paying bills, of being civic minded, and, yes, of not setting those homes that they own on fire.

I then quoted W.B. Yeats (“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”) concluding that:

. . . I understand the danger of candles; but I also understand the danger of the absence of candles. Should a time come when we need to fill our pail, we shall do so. But until then, let the proliferation of our education ignite a fire.

She wasn’t kicked out of the dorms, and I attributed that less to her unrefundable full-year payment than to my irrefutable logic.

So when my friend Scott wore a bacon styled band aid to his own birthday party last week, I felt the need to defend his actions, even while everyone was asking the obvious question: Why is there a strip of bacon on your neck?

Well why wouldn’t you want a strip of bacon on your neck? Not only are pigs delicious, but several countries, including Chile, Germany and China, consider the pig to be good luck. Even Winston Churchill once said, “Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

But even more than the pig being a cultural icon of fortune and hope, the “idea” of “pig as bacon” harkens one back to the most pleasant memories of childhood: holiday mornings with presents under the tree and bacon in the frying pan, that smell wafting through the house as you unwrap your Castle Greyskull play set, and the distant chorus of grease popping, Dad crying “Ah shit!” in refrain; those nights at the diner in high school with the waitress you called Flo, who probably spit in your lumberjack special, which at 2:00 in the morning made sense even though the girl with the tongue ring you were sharing it with didn’t; in college, on spring break, when you ate entire breakfasts of bacon and coffee, and if you happened to be drunk already you threw some of the bacon off the balcony of your condo, thinking to your dangerously dehydrated self “flying pigs!”; and at your current age, when a piece of bacon is just another dollar bill stuffed in the g-string of an impending heart attack, still the double edged seduction of bovine on the right and an arterial blockage on the left is not only a dance in which you are willing to partake, but one you will dance with a Latin flair.

So why wear a bacon band aid? Because it’s not a bacon band aid – it’s a calcification of joyful memories covering an open wound, protecting you, healing you, making you look like Nelly, and most importantly showing everyone else that while you may be the hardened cowboy incapable of wearing your heart on your sleeve, you can at least wear your impending heart disease on your sleeve.

_____________________________
Note: In my research, I came across The Band-Aid “Stick With It” Awards. The rules of submission are to tell them, in 200 words or less, of your unique, inspirational story where you could have given up, but you stuck with it. The winner gets a trip to Universal Studios.

I was already halfway through mentally composing my essay about becoming one of the elite roller bladers in my neighborhood growing up when I read the fine print that the contest is “open to kids ages 4- 12 at time of entry.” I guess the line “Together with your parent or guardian share your story and enter for a chance to win!” should have clued me in earlier, but I was just so excited to share my story with the world. Now, in an ironic twist, I feel a little crushed – like I need a Band-Aid myself on the inside.

At Some Point I Really Need To Write An Existentialist Short Story Entitled “Keep In Mind That The Closest Exit May Be Behind You”

2006-06-28T13:46:00.000-04:00

I’m struggling to play catch-up here at work (as well as readjust to the fact that I’m no longer surrounded by woods and lobster and this large thing next to my chair isn’t a cooler full of Blue Moon but rather a filing cabinet full of . . . things I should know more about than I do). But I think one quick story can about sum up the weekend:

Saturday night, The Girlfriend’s friends and family and I sat down after barbecue and drinks to play a board game called Zobmondo!!. Really, there’s little point to the game other than to pose inane “Would you rather . . .” questions to one another within a minimal structure that allows you to do so without having to actually say, “How about we all sit down and ask each another ‘Would you rather . . .’ questions?” which is one of those things that really everyone enjoys doing, but would never admit to a crowd. So we set up five teams of two and each team draws a card with five “Would you rather . . .” questions written on it. They then read the question in the color corresponding to what color space they are on the board (much like trivial pursuit). Then the team reading the question has to guess how everyone else will answer.

The game is rolling along and the questions are innocent enough (Would you rather swallow a golf ball or pee out a marble? Would you rather drink Mexican tap water or water from a hot tub after a frat party?) until The Girlfriend decides that the game is too “structured” and we should just pick a card and read the best question, colors be damned. So when it comes to The Girlfriend’s friend Ann and her husband David, everyone watches as they scan the card saying, “No, not that one, boring, OH YES THAT ONE!” We get excited in anticipation of the question and also because we are drunk and drunks are easily excitable, especially about board games with not one but TWO exclamation points in the title.

Finally, Ann reads the question, and quite loudly in fact, as though she were unsure of herself and thought the best thing to do would be feign confidence with increased volume:

“WOULD YOU RATHER BE CAUGHT MASTURBATING BY YOUR MOTHER OR CATCH YOUR MOTHER MASTURBATING?”

There is a stunned silence after just hearing the word “masturbation” said rather loudly in the company of The Girlfriend’s parents. Everyone is shifting and laughing awkwardly and saying, just to get it over with quickly, “Definitely the first one, you know, being caught.” People unrelated to the family are nervously scanning the relatives, running the family tree of possible combinations through their mind:

The Girlfriend being caught by her Mother, The Girlfriend catching her Mother.

The Girlfriend’s sister being caught by her Mother, The Girlfriend’s sister catching her Mother.

The Girlfriend’s brother being caught by his mother, The Girlfriend’s brother catching his mother . . .

until finally the discussion is coming to a close and The Girlfriend’s father, who has said little during the entire game thus far, speaks up and says, “Well I’m pretty sure I’d rather be caught myself, than, you know, catch your grandmother . . .” The room erupts at the unveiling of the one combination that everyone’s respective subconscious had been protecting them from. The Girlfriend hits me on the leg and says, “Make me another drink. Now,” and, after everyone calms down, Ann innocently says, “I thought it would be funny.” Funny, indeed.

Later that night, everyone is getting ready for bed and The Girlfriend’s father and I are left alone in the living room watching TV. After a few minutes the silence becomes tense, but rather than say anything that might elicit a memory from the past two hours, I say the safest thing I possibly can:

“Turned out to be a pretty nice day, didn’t it?”

(Note: In order to win the game, you have to create your own “Would you rather . . .” question at the very end. My potential game-winning question, had we even come close to winning, was to be: Would you rather drown a litter of puppies or shoot an elderly person? At least in my mind the answer is pretty obvious.)

If My Plane Gets Struck By Lightening, This Will Probably Be My Last Post

2006-06-23T14:30:00.000-04:00

As The Girlfriend and I get ready to go up to Maine for four days to visit her parents, I can focus on only two things – the weather, and the monitor of this guy in my office who keeps calling me over to show me forwards his friend sent him featuring lame jokes and naked women (e.g. the forward reads, in large, obnoxious text: “Don’t you love coming home from playing 18 holes of golf and your wife greeting you at the door with a can of cold beer?” Scroll down to picture of topless model lifting a keg of Heineken. Cue awkward laughter as I back out of the room, leaving no opportunity for him to stop mid-laugh and say, “So really, Dan, how does this picture make you feel?”

Thanks for the awkward memories!

But mostly I’m concerned with the weather, specifically that it’s supposed to rain every single day we’re there. And seeing as how we’re staying in a cabin on a lake, miles and miles away from even a grocery store (hours away from anywhere serving Ketel One) not being able to go outside is “unfortunate” in the same way making plans to meet someone over the internet and finding out you’re really on Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” is “unfortunate.” (If you’re keeping a tally of child endangerment jokes, that’s two.)

Even more than that, we’ve decided not to drive the nine hours this year, as doing so in past trips has led to hysteria and the inevitable discussion of which closer state we should make her parents move to, which I’m sure they just love. The frequency with which they hear someone say “You live far away” is about equal to the frequency with which an Arab hears someone say “U-S-A! U-S-A!” Plus the flight was actually cheaper than the price of renting a car. So when you think about it, I’m a real asshole for ever driving in the first place. Rock on.

At every turn today, I’ve been talking to people about the weather, hoping that maybe they have some sort of insight into nature that weather forecasters don’t. Like maybe I’ll happen to ride the elevator with the one old investment banker in my building who just happens to have run a farm for the first 40 years of his life, who will tell me, “Those weather forecasters don’t know their ass from their foot. I woke up this morning and the leaves on the trees weren’t even showing their top-side. The rain’s at least a quarter fortnight away.”

Instead, I’ve heard the same thing over and over.

“Rain for the next four days. Of course. It always rains on the weekend. Always.” – Old woman handing out AM New York outside the subway station

“I was supposed to have a barbecue this weekend. Now I guess I’ll just sit inside and drink all weekend.” – Staples sales assistant (who may be suicidal)

“We’re gonna be swimming in it this weekend.” – deli counter worker

“Yaaaah. Rain all the time.” – Dunkin Donuts employee

“Freaking weatherman, if only I could be wrong 50% of the time at my job and not be fired.” – angry, chubby man in elevator (Note: I have spoken to this man at least three times over the years and every time it has been about the weather and every time he has said exactly that, as though he actually resents the weatherman.)

Which makes me wonder (Carrie Bradshaw voice): why is everyone always so eager to talk about the weather? Why, when a conversation is struck up between strangers, does the topic invariably come around to the weather? Is it that men are such bumbling idiots who don’t know what they want, and women can be empowered by their sexuality, but only to the point where they find a rich man to settle down with? Or maybe it’s just because women, like the weather, change everyday. And if that’s the case (focus in on computer screen) when will the weather . . . stop being so much like the weather?

Whether it is an innocuous comment like, “Can you believe the snow out there?!” or something more subtle like, “It’s so gorgeous out today, isn’t it?” or when someone comes back from vacation and, as though scripted, you say, “How was your trip?” and they respond “It was great. We had a lot of fun and the weather was perfect,” there’s no denying that when there is nothing else to say, the forecast is the topic of choice. And while it’s a joke of a cliché to “talk about the weather,” and everyone is willing to make fun of the person who says, “Hot enough for you?” the fact remains that just because you word it a little differently and instead say, “I love hot weather as much as the next guy, but this is a little much,” doesn’t exculpate you from the societal weather conversation.

And honestly, I find nothing wrong with that. Because while I may want for a more meaningful interaction with my fellow man (I am a humanist, after all) I understand that the weather is the one thing that everyone has in common (besides the fact that we will all die a meaningless death someday, but the last time I said to a girl, “So, does it bother you that there’s nothing after you die and the world will go on without you for eternity?” she just cried and cried and then I paid or my groceries and had to leave). Through different jobs, different families, seeing different movies, participating in different governments, having different sex with different people, peering in different people’s windows late at night, hiding different charges on different credit cards for different German websites (that’s three), eating different food and telling different lies to your friends about that thing on your lip; through different emotions, different brands of bottled water, different ways to skin a cat, different ways to answer the question “Who are you and what are you doing with my dog?” – through all that we are all subject to THE WEATHER. So if we occasionally grasp for that, for a moment just to fondle our sameness, I say, Ask away.

Which doesn’t change the fact that in six hours I will be flying through a lightening storm grabbing The Girlfriend’s hand saying, “IF WE DIE, KNOW THAT I’M SORRY I YELLED AT YOU FOR LEAVING YOUR SOCK ON THE COUCH!” And at the tail end of that flight I will be kayaking during a torrential downpour trying to convince everyone that “it’s not so bad” as the family dog hides under a log whimpering at me. But no matter, because if nothing else we’ll have plenty to talk about. And fondling someone’s sameness takes a lot longer than you might expect.

Especially if you’re hanging out with these guys.

“America’s Got A Lot Of Shitheads”

2006-06-22T15:23:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I caught five minutes of “America’s Got Talent” last night.

I’ve decided that it would be OK if the studio burned down while this show was being taped. OK in the sense like when a loved one has cancer, and they’ve been fighting it and fighting it for months and months and you know they’re in pain and as much as it saddens you you know it would be better off if they just let go and you sit by their bed and say, “It’s OK, you can let go.” Only instead of a loved one, it’s someone I hate. And instead of a battle with cancer, it’s going on this fucking show. And instead of letting go, it’s more like “being engulfed in a hellfire.”

If this guy was related to me, every Christmas I would give him a box full of crap, until he got the hint.

This woman is giving thumbs down to the balloon guy after he got rejected. Really insightful commentary from someone who probably waited in line to sit in the audience.

When the previous guy brought out a Regis replica made of balloons, this guy in the audience did an enthusiastic “double finger point” while I’m sure screaming, “You’re the man!” I hate him.

A rapping grandma, also known as “the second best act at the Cedarview Nursing Home, behind the guy who sings the ABC’s with his mouth full.”

Is there anything about this guys face that doesn’t say, “I’m annoying”?

If you don’t want to punch this guy in the face as hard as you can, check your pulse because there’s a good chance you’re dead.

After balloon guy got kicked off, he walked off the stage saying “WOW” and using his hands and mouth to form the representation of the letters W-O-W. Get it? Because it looks like WOW, and he’s saying WOW. And that’s funny because in everyday life, we rarely come across objects depicting the noise they are making, so it’s novel. (Seriously, a box full of crap. With a ribbon. And a card with Snoopy on the front and “DIE!” written on the inside.)

This guy thought the WOW trick was so funny, he immediately had to imitate it. I should really go back and watch the video again, because I’m only 60% sure he isn’t mentally handicapped.

The Katherine Lester Poll!

2006-06-20T22:20:00.000-04:00

Because people want to know! And I want to feel better about my past. And I just learned how to use these poll things. And really, deep down, we’re all just people. Scary, anonymous, untraceable people.

Have you ever hooked up with
someone you met through the internet?

UPDATE: The “No” vote is holding a consistent 10 vote lead over the “Yes” vote. I’m really shocked, to be honest. I thought my readers were more promiscuous, more dangerous, more likely to get drunk and make stupid decisions based on things like “fate” and “loins.” Could it really be that you guys adhere to the traditional values of finding love and divorce the old fashioned way, by hooking up to “Living On A Prayer” on a crowded dance floor at the tail end of a pub crawl?

ANOTHER UPDATE: For future reference: when choosing a free polling service, be sure that a feature of the service isn’t “arbitrarily resetting.” Because when keeping a tally of things such as votes, a crucial part is actually keeping the tally. Oh well, now I’ll never know what percentage of my readers are “fun” and which ones are just “safe” or “married” or “pretty enough to get a real date.” While this deeply saddens me, what is important to remember is that it’s not where or how you meet someone, it’s how much money they spend on you that matters.

Welcome Home, Katherine Lester

2006-06-20T14:30:00.000-04:00

I’m sure everyone has heard about this by now, but in case you haven’t the AP is reporting that Katherine Lester is a tard.

I’m kidding, I really don’t mean to be so hard on her. I was young and in love once too. I once told my parents I was sleeping over a friend’s house, but really I was riding my bike to a secluded beach where my friend and I intended on camping out with two girls we had crushes on. So I know the extraordinary lengths to which love can drive a person.

Mostly, I blame the parents. What mothers and fathers need to teach their children is that if they are looking for high school dropouts who live with their parents, the United States has many wonderful opportunities for them. They don’t need to go to Israel to hook up with Staind fans, even if they do put you as number one on their MySpace friends list, even ahead of Tom. And even though it may seem perfectly reasonable at the time to justify the whole thing by saying “We love the same things, the same songs and we have similar dreams,” kids need to realize that in ten years when they have student loan debt, stalled careers, and all the disenchantment that comes with being a fraction of the success you think you will be at 16 that sharing a love of “The Lord of the Rings” and rollercoasters isn’t going to make the Zoloft work any faster.

In other news, this picture made me grow ovaries.

McDonald’s Has Trouble Expressing Itself

2006-06-19T14:04:00.000-04:00

While doing our classic “hung-over brunch / aimlessly wander around town buying things we don’t need to do our part in fostering consumerism in America” thing this past Sunday, The Girlfriend and I found ourselves outside a McDonald’s on 57^th St. Normally we wouldn’t even think about going inside, because while I’ll gladly eat their food when I’m on a road trip and it’s the only restaurant for miles, I’m far too judgmental and swayed by popular opinion to eat it under normal circumstances. But this time, The Girlfriend saw a sign in the window for Premium Iced Coffee. And seeing as how she had only ingested about 24 ounces of coffee thus far, and you know it being “premium” and all, she had to get one.

We walk inside and there are four registers open, all with lines eight people deep. We eye one another and know what to do: we each pick a different line and take our place at the end. In my estimation this is one of the most valuable parts of being in a long-term relationship – being able to stand on different lines and the person who gets to the head of the line first (or the “winner”) being joined by the other person (the “loser”) to complete the transaction. In new relationships you can’t possibly get away with this because, obviously, if the two of you are together you MUST be engaged in some sort of conversation or physical contact. Luckily, with “love” comes “convenience,” except when that “love” turns to “boiling hatred and resentment,” in which case the ensuing heartbreak and loneliness, which is often too much to bear, can be decidedly “inconvenient.” (Good luck, kids!)

Just before I get to the head of the line first (winner), I motion to The Girlfriend (the loser) to a sign plastered above the registers. It reads:

SMILE GUARANTEE

If we do not SMILE before you pay,
you get a FREE Small French Fry or Hash Brown.
PLEASE PLAY! . . . TRY TO CATCH US!

I have noticed that up to this point several customers in front of me have been complaining about their orders and stomped away huffing with indignation, which was confusing because we’re in a McDonald’s and everyone knows there’s no dignity within the walls of a McDonald’s. Moreover, none of these customers received a smile nor did they subsequently demand a small order of French fries for the transgression. In any event, I knew that my order would be easy. I approach the register and confidently say, “One large iced coffee,” in a tone that suggests, “You’re welcome for giving you such an easy order. We can all use a break sometimes.”

What transpires in beyond ludicrous. I’ve decided to formulate a multiple choice quiz to let you, the reader, guess what did or did not happen. Here we go:

After I say, “One large iced coffee,” the middle-aged woman behind the counter:

a) fills a large cup with iced coffee.
b) does nothing.
c) tells me to drink my coffee hot, like a man.
d) licks the palm of her hand and fixes her hair.

Answer: b. She stares past me, as though contemplating the enormity of the outside world, or trying to remember the next line in that Shakira song.

When she asks me for my order again, and I again tell her “One large iced coffee,” she:

a) fills a large cup with iced coffee.
b) gets me a hamburger and fries.
c) begins filling a cup with banana syrup.
d) says, “Oh, that’s right. Shakira, Shakira . . .”

Answer: c. The Girlfriend and I watch, confused, as she combines banana syrup and coffee with no ice. As she brings it back to us, The Girlfriend says, “We actually didn’t want any syrup in it. Just iced coffee. A large, iced coffee,” deliberately separating the adjectives to perhaps explain what we wanted in a different way, that it was a coffee that is both large and iced.

After another employee comes over to help sort out the order on the computer screen (?) the original cashier:

a) fills a large cup with iced coffee.
b) quits on the spot.
c) walks to the work station and pours the banana coffee from one large cup to another.
d) offers me an apple pie.

Answer: c. We again watch dumbfounded as she pours the concoction from one cup to another and begins adding ice. We say, almost in unison, “What the . . .?” I shout over the counter, “No, we didn’t want the banana coffee. Whichever cup it’s in.”

At this point, the woman:

a) finally understands and fills a large cup with iced coffee.
b) says, “But bananas are good for you,” and takes a sip of the coffee.
c) short-circuits and breaks down, revealing that she is actually a robot.
d) tries to convince me that what she is holding is not, in fact, the same banana coffee.

Answer: d. I explain that I watched her, from 10 feet away, pour the drink from one cup to another. Again, another employee comes over and asks what the problem is. I ask the new employee if they could please get our large iced coffee for us.

The new employee then:

a) fills a large cup with iced coffee.
b) explains to me that that’s not how McDonald’s works.
c) says, “I’m sorry, she’s new here.”
d) says, “And by ‘here’ I mean ‘the world.’”

Answer: a. Three cheers for employee #2! She places the iced coffee on the counter in front of us and The Girlfriend asks if it is sweetened. Employee #2 answers, “If I didn’t put any sugar in then it is not sweetened.” Cryptic. The Girlfriend then asks if they have Splenda.

Employee #2:

a) says “yes” and gets some Splenda.
b) says “yes” and does nothing.
c) says “no” and does nothing.
d) says “I can’t believe it’s taken us 10 minutes to get you an iced coffee.”

Answer: b. Employee #2 stood there motionless as though she were hypnotized and we had failed to register the correct trigger word. After a solid ten seconds, The Girlfriend says, “Can I have some?”

What happens next is:

a) Employee #2 again says “yes” and does nothing.
b) Employee #2 says “no.”
c) Employee #2 is suddenly inflicted with the miraculous stigmata.
d) A unicorn flies through the open door and places a large iced coffee at the feet of The Girlfriend.

Answer: a. It’s like talking to a coat rack in a McDonald’s uniform. Finally, after another ten seconds of emotionless, vacant staring, Employee #2 says, “How many?” The Girlfriend says, “Two,” and as Employee #2 hands over the packets she says, “I thought you wanted the whole box!”

The Girlfriend and I glance around and slowly back away from the counter. I have Century 21 flashbacks. We hurry over to leave and as The Girlfriend raises the drink to her mouth I notice out of the corner of my eye that she has suddenly stopped with the drink inches from her face.

I glance over wide eyed at:

a) a hamburger floating in the iced coffee.
b) a tongue depressor sticking out of the top of the iced coffee.
c) “HELP ME” written in blood on the side of the cup.
d) The Girlfriend, because she is beautiful.

Answer: b. I didn’t even know McDonald’s had tongue depressors, besides the fact that I’m pretty sure tongue depressors have been obsolete for decades, except for building replica log cabins.

As we exit the McDonald’s and The Girlfriend enjoys her hard fought iced coffee I can only think one thing: What the hell would have happened had I enforced the Smile Guarantee? Because I can assure you that at no time in the 10 minute long interpretive drama we enacted was there ever a smile or even the suggestion that a smile was possible. The thing is, I know that I could never be the guy who, after he was handed his change, said, “Gotcha! You never smiled! I’ll take, hmm, fries or hash browns, fries or hash browns . . . I’ll take the fries. This is awesome, I thought at the end there you were going to smile and I was going to lose it, but then you were like ‘Here’s your change,’ with a straight face and I was like, ‘Yes!’” Maybe if I was drunk, or if someone removed the gland that regulates my response to emotion, but never during the ordinary course of events could I tell a MCDONALD’S EMPLOYEE that because they didn’t smile while serving her 75th Big Mac of the day that I was cashing in on their despair.

HOWEVER, I have to say that on Sunday, June 18^th, I toed the line of being the kind of guy who could do that. Maybe it was situation specific, maybe I’ve been wrong and mimosas really do have alcohol in them. Whatever it was, I almost demanded a free small French fries from a deadpan woman who could not even fill a large cup with iced coffee. And I’m not proud of that, but at the same time I understand that a higher intuition was in play when I walked away from the situation.

Because I’m pretty sure if I had stood there and tried to explain the Smile Guarantee to that woman, I would:

a) be on the lam for murder.
b) still be there, correcting them when they hand me a container filled with ketchup.
c) still be there, sitting in a circle on the floor with the employees reading a children’s book to them.
d) wake up in a mental institution muttering over and over, “Why couldn’t she just smile?”

Holy Crap, Am I Tired.

2006-06-16T15:21:00.000-04:00

I am just mentally and physically exhausted. Besides the fact that I’ve written over 5,000 words on the Tony Awards (wtf?) I’ve also ingested enough alcohol the past week to stun an unsuspecting Tara Reid. (See? I’m making Tara Reid jokes. That’s one step away from Paris Hilton jokes, which is one step away from doing addition on your fingers.)

Plus I’ve got my annual college alumni reunion tonight, meaning two things: 1) today isn’t the day I stop drinking, and 2) I need to come up with no less than three things “I’ve been up to lately.” I’m not one of those people who feels bad when they go to a reunion and tell people that they’re still stuck in the same old job doing the same old things and taking the same old medications for the same old psychosis. But I refuse to be uninteresting. So when a person throws out the inevitable “So what have you been up to lately?” I like to have a list of things ready to be reeled off. Last year it went:

Girl whose name I can’t remember: “So what have you been up to lately?”

Me: “I just got back from Scotland and England a few weeks ago and I moved into a new apartment and I started a blog. You?”

Girl: “Uh, I was at TRL the other day, and –”

Me: “Uninteresting.”

Of course this year I’m going to be pimping the blog even more, seeing as how people actually read it now. And I swear, the first person that comes up to me and says, “Hey, I’ve been reading your blog” is going to get a French kiss. Because while I don’t value my life according to my readership, I am thinking of you guys when I am belligerently drunk at bars and it’s past 4:00am and the bartender is harassing me to leave I drunkenly slur, “I have a blooog! How many people read YOUR blooog? I even have a t-shirt, because people like me.”

So thanks, readers. For making me, an ordinary lush, somebody.

The Tony Awards Called, And I Answered: The Finale

2006-06-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

Sunday night was the night we were all waiting for. While the other two parties had been mere warm-ups, this was the real deal, Broadway’s biggest party of the year.

(Sidebar: I know, “Broadway’s biggest party of the year” sounds . . . sarcastic. But note two things: 1) it’s not like Hollywood where it’s SO huge that it’s splintered – if you went to the Tony’s and you wanted to drink right afterwards, chances are you were at Rockefeller Plaza for this party; and 2) Broadway actors know how to party. Think about it – they have struggled more than most hot dog vendors to even make a moderate splash in an industry that forgets your name faster than a used car salesman after closing a deal. It will really break a person down, to the point where they are not only without ego or conceit, but also proud alcoholics, which are invariably fun to be around. Unless they are your parents. Moving on.)

The party didn’t start until 11:00 so The Girlfriend and I watched a bit of the show while we were getting ready just in case we found ourselves in a conversation that made mention of something other than Cats or Phantom of the Opera. Luckily we were both sitting in front of the TV for this classic moment, when Christian Hoff gave his acceptance speech for winning Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role in Jersey Boys:

TG and I sitting on the couch, half paying attention to the TV.

Me: “Should we eat now or do you think there will be food at the party?”

TG: “There will probably be food at the party.”

Hoff: “ . . . I thank my wife, Melissa Hoff, for coming to me and saving me and being there as a mother for my children, our new baby in her womb right now . . .”

Me: (sitting up suddenly) “Did he just say womb?”

TG: “He said womb.”

Camera flashes to Hoff’s wife seated in the audience.

Me: “Awkward moment. Awkward moment. Please don’t say womb again.”

TG: (still stunned) “Who says womb?”

We make it down to Rockefeller Center by 11:15 to meet our friends outside before walking in. As we turn the corner we see a flock of spectators huddled outside the entrance to the party peering over the gates to see who is arriving. My friend Matt and I whisper to each other “I love this, I love this” and squeeze our way through the crowd, hold up our invitations and walk in.

Now, I’m not one to get off on power trips and making other people feel small, but when you’re dressed in a suit with a pocket square entering a gala with a gowned woman on your arm, that feeling of humanity seems to cloud over. You think, “Wait, maybe I AM better than the guy in the boat shoes with white socks trying to get Bebe Neuwirth's attention . . .” And then you filter through the crowd over to the bar, get a round of drinks with your friends and toast: “Well, we didn’t win this year guys. But here’s to chasing the dream!” and the faces on everyone around you go straight into “Who are they?” mode.

And then you finish those drinks and get another round and you walk through the crowd towards the food and pile your plate with carved beef and salmon and you eat your food with champagne and a cocktail on the side because why not?, options are the order of the night. Then you are “offered” women in this sense: “My daughters are over there and they are all pretty you should go talk to them.” Things seem to come easier when you’re in a suit with a pocket square.

Eventually you make your way out to the dance floor, which is set on top of the Rockefeller Center skating rink, meaning there is nothing above you but sky and stars. The band is up on stage playing the classics. As you dance scotch is swishing out of your glass like it’s “a celebration of winning the revolutionary war” in one friend’s words, and why not?, because they’re charging by the sip and that charge is FREE. You make up lies to strangers about the details of your life because hey, this is Broadway after all, and no one cares anyway.

Finally, after the night comes to an untimely close, the band announces that this will be their last song and a frazzled middle-aged man runs to the lip of the stage and screams, “I’ve got $4,000 here for you to keep playing,” and your friend calmly approaches the stage and says, “I’ll match that $4,000,” then lights a cigarette and walks away because “I’ve got $4,000” is a foreign concept to him. You loosen your tie. All around you are recognizable stars, but you eventually stop taking notice because you are just having so goddamn much fun.

The night “ending” is neither an option nor a realistic possibility and people discuss where to go now. The after-after party. The post-post script. It’s 2:00 in the morning and you’ve still got places to be – more bars, more drinks, more celebration, until a cab ride home while the sun is coming up. So, yeah, it’s hard not to catch the bug when the whole situation smacks of “cooler than thou.”

That is until you wake up the next day (later that day) and go to work and ten minutes in you get a frantic call from Crazy June because her computer is “going berserk” and when you go over to her desk you see the cursor shooting down the screen and, lo and behold, a steno pad resting on the enter key. And six hours ago is a distant memory; Broadway’s already forgotten your name.

The Tony Awards Called, And I Answered: Part 2

2006-06-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

This post is sponsored by Budweiser. Budweiser: the official beer of regret.

I was hungover from the night before, more useless than usual at work, but still in desperate need of a suit before Saturday’s event – a cocktail party at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. (For some reason, in my head I’m reading this like a film noir.) After my misadventures at Century 21, I was left in a bind and time was running out. All I know is: if I didn’t get a suit in time, the Waldorf Astoria would be nothing but another in the long list of memories I never had. (Picture me driving a cab in black and white while reading this.)

Anyway, I ended up at a suit shop on the Upper East Side with an Italian salesman whose biggest threat was that he might be so nice and helpful that I would hit him on the head with a wood soled shoe, bound him with his measuring tape and keep him in my apartment to tell me “how a’good” I look every morning before I leave for work. Or maybe that was my biggest threat, I’m not sure how that wording works. In any event, it was a far cry from the nightmare inducing episode I had previously endured, and to top it off I came away with a great suit, one that would prompt not one but TWO men at the cocktail party to say to me, “I love your suit, do I know you from Los Angeles?” Either I have a gay doppelganger in Los Angeles, or I give off an air of dandiness and that’s just a very common pick-up line.*

Now, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a cocktail party before. I’ve been to parties where there was a cocktail hour, but that was always immediately preceded by a wedding and followed by a dinner, cake and a crippling guilt about that slow dance with the cousin you never knew you had. But an entire party where you arrive at 5:00 and leave at 7:00? It is a foreign concept to me, to begin drinking so early and to stop . . . so early. It seems like a waste, like laying the foundation for a 5,000 square foot house and then saying halfway through, “You know, I think 2,500 will be enough.” Yet if I have learned anything in my years since college it is that the more I drink, the drunker I get. And the drunker I get, the higher the likelihood that I will urinate somewhere other than a bathroom. And, much like most upscale institutions, the Waldorf frowns on you peeing in their trash cans.

I arrived at the party promptly at five and immediately put a cocktail in my hand, the international symbol for “I belong,” both “at this party” and “in general.” I wasn’t expecting to see anyone famous, and by famous I mean someone I recognize from TV or the movies. I’m sure as I stood there surveying the room I was gazing out upon Broadway stars both old and young, but if I haven’t seen your face on a screen of some sort it really means nothing to me. Which is exactly why when S. Epatha Merkerson walked in, it was my own version of spotting Judy Kaye (whoever she is, I just Googled “big Broadway star”).

She walked past my friends and I didn’t spot her immediately. It was my friend Brendan who said, “Isn’t that that woman from “Law & Order”?” to which I responded in my best “I’ve never been to an event with celebrities” tone of voice, “Holy crap, which one?!” Brendan pointed her out and sure enough Lt. “Find out where that gun came from” Van Buren was standing 20 feet away from me.

As you may or may not know, I love “Law & Order.” A couple of years ago before his untimely death, I saw Jerry Orbach in the men’s department at Lord & Taylor. I slyly watched him from across the room shop with his wife until he stopped at a rack of sports coats and tried one on. After they left, I went over to the rack and tried the same jacket on even though it was something like a 44 long to my 38 regular, just to say that I was lame/unbalanced enough to have tried on the same sports coat as Jerry Orbach. But here I was, eyeing Lt. “Pay a visit to the wife” Van Buren from across the room, much like I did with Sarah Winger at my high school freshman cotillion. It was then that, like an angel from Hollywood, I was introduced to Wendy, who it just so happens used to work on “Law & Order” and who, as casually as offering me a donut, offered to introduce me to S.Ep (my pet name for her).

She led me over and we stood off to the side feigning conversation for a few minutes while S.Ep finished her conversation with someone else before Wendy jumped in, introduced herself and said how she used to work on the show. She then turns to me as I stare directly at S.Ep’s face, trying hopelessly not to stare directly at S.Ep’s face, and we have this exchange:

Wendy: “This is my friend, Dan.”

S.Ep: “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dan.”

Me (internally): “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

Me (externally): “I’m a really big fan of “Law & Order!” (As though I wanted to meet her for her turn as Doctor #1 in Jersey Girl.)

S.Ep: “Thank you, I’m glad you enjoy the show.”

Two minutes of conversation ensue between Wendy and S.Ep as I stand there listening and smiling as though I find the question “So what are you working on now?” extremely amusing. Finally . . .

S.Ep: “Well it was great to see you again, Wendy. And a real pleasure to meet you too, Dan.”

Me: (remembering what I should have said before) “It was a pleasure to meet you too.”

I walked back to my friends emboldened by the experience. So emboldened, in fact, that no more than five minutes later I peer over at my friend John who is mid-conversation with Neil Patrick Harris, and after a moment’s hesitation I walk right over and make pretend that I have something important to tell John before instead reaching over and shaking Doogie’s hand. It is a move that is effective in its embarrassment, and all of us stand there for five minutes having a conversation that I only wish I had tape recorded, because I could probably bribe Doogie with a few choice incriminating comments. Not that I really would though, because he is actually a very cool guy and the incriminating comments were just the same jokes that my friends and I make all the time. Unless anyone is making offers, in which case I have the shorthand notes on a cocktail napkin at home, right next to the address for the executive producer of “How I Met Your Mother” and the statute on what constitutes “extortion” in the state of New York.

__________________________________
* PROOF THAT THE FORMER OPTION IS POSSIBLE: Guy de Maupassant, the French novelist and short story writer, claimed to have been haunted by his doppelganger near the end of his life. On one occasion, he said, this double entered his room, took a seat opposite him and began to dictate what de Maupassant was writing. He wrote about this experience in his short story "Lui." If you can’t trust Guy de Maupassant, who can you trust?

The Tony Awards Called, And I Answered: Part 1

2006-06-13T12:53:00.000-04:00

The official kick-off to a Broadway themed extravaganza of a weekend saw me and four of my friends partying at the super casual, super gay dance party at The China Club sponsored by Budweiser* (For all you do, this Bud's for you). Your choices of drink included Bud, Bud Light and Bud Select. And while I still think that actually approaching a bartender and having this exchange:

Bartender: “What can I get you?”

You: “Budweiser Select.”

is beyond hilarious, the fact that it was free means that I had to try one just to see if it lived up to its billing as a premium alternative to the traditional Budweiser beer. The conclusion? It tastes exactly like original Budweiser – a heavy, bitter start with a bready finish. Goes down hard, makes you bloated. Budweiser Select.

After trading in our Budweiser Select for Bud Light, we began dismantling the buffet table, where we overcame their stinginess by filling up a plate, bringing it to our table and immediately going back and starting on line from the other end with a new plate. We then sat down and relaxed with approximately eight plates of food and 16 Bud Lights and watched as groups of people filtered by, of which there were two kinds: 1) the group of four guys with one girl, always with the girl leading the way and the guys looking for someone cooler to talk to, or 2) the group of three girls, mildly attractive, wearing new outfits from H&M, with their heads on a swivel surveying the crowd with a keen eye that gave off an air of “If there is a straight man here, I will find him.”

For our part, I have no idea what people must have thought of us. One moment a gay guy would be ready to approach our table after overhearing my friend Scott say, “I don’t know what kind of jeans they are, I just got them. Here, check out the label on the back,” and stand up with his ass in my friend Matt’s face, then immediately do a u-turn when overhearing, “OK, let’s all put in $20 for the first guy to make out with a woman over 60.” We were a group unto ourselves, men who made the decision early on in the night to accept the facts of our circumstances:

1. that we would appear gay

2. that there was little to no chance of meeting a likeable girl

3. that we were at a party for an industry with which we had zero affiliation outside of being invited to parties like this

We decided to embrace it and view it as a liberating experience the same way that traveling to a foreign country imbibes you with the feeling that, for lack of understanding the laws native to the land, you can do whatever you want. When in Rome, eat carbohydrates and drink wine. When at a Tony Awards party sponsored by Budweiser . . . dance.

I will say this as unequivocally as I possibly can: It is a damn shame that somewhere down the line it became embarrassing for guys to dance. And I’m not talking about dancing like “grinding up on a girl for five minutes before making out with her.” I mean dancing like unrestrained movements of both arms and legs, like the way you danced at weddings when you were a child and all you wanted was attention and more sugar. Yeah, I agree – most of the time it’s not a pretty sight. But if we could all just have a collective “GET OVER IT” and realize how fun it is, the world would be a better, less horny place.

Even I had my reservations when the music switched over from hip-hop to 80’s, the traditional dance music of gay men and New Jersey women for over two decades. But as I sat there on the stage (did I mention we were on a stage?) listening to Madonna and thinking, “How can you possibly dance to this?” I watched everyone flail around me and, with the final swig of my sixth Bud Light, all semblance of masculinity seeped from my body and by the time Elton John came on I was in the middle of a dance circle pulling out and old Kid N’ Play move. For a man who trades in sarcasm on a daily basis, it was some of the most unsarcastic moves my body had ever made.

And you know what? It turns out the truth is attractive. Because with about 15 minutes left in the night, my friend Scott and I were unabashedly dancing around each other in small circles when an attractive girl approached us coyly from the side, dancing by herself with modest, unobtrusive movements. When my friend Scott noticed her he called her over to us and motioned for her to dance with us. Wordlessly, she gladly obliged and jumped in, fists pumping and legs kicking. When the song was over, we were all smiles and adulation. Then after introducing ourselves, we had this conversation:

Me: “So where are you from?”

Her: “Edmonton, Canada.”

Me: “Oh, wow. You must be pretty excited right now [for the Stanley Cup finals, of which Edmonton is a part].”

Scott: “Well, not that excited [as Edmonton was down 2-0 in the best of seven series].”

Insert fake laughter and guy banter.

Her: (clearly confused at our non-gayness) “Uh, yeah. Totally.”

And with that we took off, reveling in our dance moves, ambiguous sexual orientation and free Budweiser haze. The best part? This was only the first event. There were two more to come, each with a much different tenor, i.e. more dignified, less “Dancing Queen.” But for those few short hours, we were in the moment, enjoying this industry with which we have no affiliation, yet collectively we knew that we belonged on Broadway. Or at least the part of Broadway where the hookers hang out offering hand jobs for $5. Yeah, at least that part.

__________________________________
* Apparently, back in 1999 Budweiser ran a series of gay-friendly print ads in a limited number of publications. The ads, which showed two men holding hands with the slogan "Be yourself and make it a Bud Light,” prompted such outrage amongst conservative beer drinkers that a grassroots campaign was established in opposition to the ads. One chain email circulated to drum up support wrote: “We can let Anheuser Busch understand that pro-family Americans are terribly concerned about homosexual images coming into our homes through advertising campaigns.” And you know what? They’re absolutely right. I remember back when I was younger and my Dad would sit me on his lap and we would read through the beer ads in all the current weeklies, and I always felt “This is what family is all about.” But here we are six years later, and Budweiser is back to their family-destructing ways, transforming five otherwise heterosexual men into Bud Light waving dancing queens doing the YMCA dance ON A STAGE.)

If They Gave Out A Tony Award For Best Drunk, I Would Have A Tony Award Right Now

2006-06-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

Still drunk from the 60^th Annual Tony Awards Official After-party last night, I just now rolled in to my office with my sunglasses on, ran into my boss and immediately patted him on the shoulder and asked him how his weekend was. I think that marks the second time I’ve touched him since I shook his hand six years ago at my job interview. It was a little more than awkward, a little less than funny – that perfect combination that stops you in your tracks and reminds you that alcoholics have a lot to lose.

Pictures and stories to come, including my life-altering conversation with S. Epatha Merkerson, aka Lieutenant Anita “Why don’t you check out the boyfriend’s alibi” Van Buren on “Law & Order,” aka the coolest woman with the first name “S” I’ve ever met.

In the meantime, since I’m drunk and there’s no one here at work to hook up with, I’ll use my bad judgment for other reasons and post the much hyped family photo!

We’re not that blurry in real life. OR ARE WE?

Thankfully the tight pants were obscured by other family members. That’s not the kind of thing a family needs in their posterity. (There’s an anal joke in there somewhere I’m sure of it.)

The photographer’s mantra was “lean in.” She repeated it like Tourettes even though if I leaned in anymore I would have had The Girlfriend’s head in my mouth.

And now I’m going to go take a nap with the phone propped up against my ear and try to figure out how to get my arm to stop smelling like vodka. Ah, celebrity!

Now I Can Never Return To Century 21 [WORDPLAY ALERT]Or Why I Can’t Go Back To The Future

2006-06-08T17:25:00.001-04:00

Being in a theater posse right now is like being a champion hot dog eater the week of Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest, meaning it has no impact on your ordinary life whatsoever until one day you are sitting on your couch eating macaroni and cheese directly from the pot and all of a sudden you are called like Batman to rise to the occasion. What occasion? The Tony Awards, which air this Sunday, June 11, 8P.M.ET/PT only on CBS.

I have no less than three parties to attend leading up to the event, starting with an informal affair tonight (sponsored by Budweiser, always smooth, never watered down). But two of the events I have to dominate with my masculine lack of theatrical knowledge this weekend require formal dress, which is sort of a problem because I have precisely enough formal dress (one black suit) for one occasion.

I know, it’s disappointing. I imagine myself to be the kind of guy who owns at least five suits, if not a tuxedo. Instead, I’m the guy who bought a black suit when he needed something to wear to a funeral and remained content with that for a couple of years, never really feeling like I needed variety because “black is the old every other color” and I appreciate history.

But now I am faced with back-to-back events, Saturday and Sunday, both of which will likely have many similar attendees. And I will be a lot of things in this life, but I refuse to be “the guy who wears the same suit with a different tie to a gala the day after he wore the suit to a separate gala the day before.” Just like I refuse to be the guy who falls for his favorite hooker. It’s tacky.

So on my lunch break today I walked over to Century 21, which bills itself “New York’s Best Kept Secret,” and I guess they would be right if they were only trying to keep the secret from normal, socially adjusted upper/upper-middle class people. But I guess it’s true what they say, you really can’t keep a secret from a European tourist, because this place is the modern day Ellis Island. An actual conversation I had with someone while I was looking through the tie section:

Tourist: (holding up a tie) “What tie this like?”

Me: (confused as to what he means) “It’s like this one?” (I point to another one of the same tie on the rack, as though we were playing a children’s game.)

After I ran away from that awkward situation, I went upstairs to the vast expanse of steeply discounted designer men’s suits. My plan was to get a medium gray suit, something a shade lighter than business and a shade darker than Ryan Seacrest on “American Idol.” I have a specific idea in my head and am intent on going through quickly to look for precisely this. I get halfway down the first aisle of suits, bend down to look at one on a lower rack and, out of the corner of my eye, see a salesman fast approach. I have my iPod on, and as I wrote before, my ear phones prevent me from hearing any of the outside world. My standard procedure is to briefly remove one ear bud, say, “I’m just looking, thanks,” put the ear bud back in and go about my business. Usually, when speaking to sane people, it works fine. However this guy was insane. So insane, in fact, that at first he appeared sane. He was the kind of insane that people refer to when they are questioned about the serial killer who used to be their neighbor and they say, “He always seemed so nice, so normal.”

So he approaches quickly and I give him my best “I’m just looking, thanks,” and he immediately extends his hand and says, “What’s your name? I’m Sean.” Suddenly we’re friends and in five seconds he has a tape measure wrapped around my chest and all I can think is, Where the hell did that tape measure come from?

I figure I may as well go along with it and let him do his job. I tell him that I am looking for a gray suit and before the sentence is finished he is sliding a black suit jacket up my arm. He moves with the quickness of a woodland creature and, I only notice now as I peer at him through the mirror standing behind me, the same wide, rabid eyes.

As I stand there, unable to comprehend what is happening, he is ordering me to swing my arms and saying things like, “Tennis players develop uneven arms,” and “You seem active, are you active? Do you play ball?” all the while holding my elbows, manually swinging my arms for me and letting them go, interrupting his own sentences to yell “LET THEM HANG, LET THEM HANG!”

This is where I tell myself, You need to get out of this. One of my problems is I am extremely polite to strangers. I talk to bus drivers, waitresses, deli counter workers, etc. And especially when someone is performing a service for me, I feel indebted to them. (The first time The Girlfriend had Fresh Direct delivered to our apartment, I tipped the delivery guy $10 because he looked like he might die after carrying two cases of water up the five flights.) So when a situation like this gets out of hand, I have a hard time simply stopping and saying, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to look around by myself now.” God, if only I had said that . . .

He takes the black suit and says, “OK, we’ll try this on.” I reiterate that I am looking for a gray suit and he pulls a navy suit off the rack saying, “This one is your size.” I imagine this is what it would be like to interact with a dog if there was ever invented a device to translate “dog” into “human.” He takes the blue suit and we begin walking towards the dressing room. I realize that the only way out of this situation is to leave, so I decide to do whatever will lead to me leaving the quickest. I follow him towards the dressing room. After two steps, he turns with one of his rapid movements and says, standing no farther than four inches from my face, “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

I am thinking, “He could stab me and I would not be surprised.”

I tell him that I have two sisters and he proceeds to say, “Your girlfriend will really like this suit on you. Or are you still young? Still playing the field? Don’t get greedy though, what happens when people get greedy is they end up alone. Because one day you look for a nice girl and all the nice girls have been taken. But then the problem is that you marry a nice girl and she’s wondering where you are all the time because you work 13 hours a day and, I mean, she can’t have it all, you know?”

He goes on like this for some time and the story evolves into a personal experience of his, the details of which I am fuzzy on because I am using all of my mental capabilities at this point to a) figure out what is going on here, and b) get out of it alive. I try to make my way towards the dressing room, doing that slow walk people do in the middle of a conversation that politely suggests, “Let’s walk while we talk,” although my steps are larger and more frenetic, suggesting maybe, “Let me run and I promise I won’t scream.” He takes a step or two with me, talking the whole time, before stopping again and gently touching my arm to suggest, “Let’s stop and talk, because what I have to say is important,” whereas I take it to mean, “Let’s stop, it’s harder to hit a moving target.”

My next thought is to pretend to look at suits, because after all he is a salesman and he would want me to look at suits. We make it over to a rack in the stunted two-step we have developed, and I begin to thumb through, looking up every so often to say, “Uh huh.” He has now moved on to a story concerning a friend of his who bought a motorcycle and stopped paying child support. He asks me if I come from a broken home and I reply, “Does this come in gray?” holding up a Hugo Boss. He steps closer and says, “Listen,” and I am suddenly wedged in between two racks of suits backed up against a railing, below which is a 50 foot drop to the first floor. I consider jumping, while at the same time considering that I am living an early Tom Hanks film.

After five minutes of intensely close talk, mostly about how overpriced a Rolls Royce is, he backs off and, like reaching the eye of a hurricane, politely says, “Let’s try those suits on.” I finally get a good look at more of him than his nose and notice that what I previously considered to be a nice, progressive outfit is actually the dress of a lunatic. There is a large stain on the stomach of his pink shirt and his yellow polka dotted tie is slightly askew, giving off the air of a clown, or of a man who hastily put his tie back on after strangling someone with it in the dressing room. Only now does it cross my mind that this man might not even work at Century 21.

I rush to the dressing room and he stands at the entrance like my mother saying, “Come out and show me!” I try to make eye contact with someone else to blink SOS, but everyone is fully engrossed with the discounted designer fashion. I close the curtain behind me and compose myself.

My first thought is to write on the wall, “HELP! SALESMAN IN PINK MURDERER!” but all I have with me is chap stick, which would probably show up with some ultraviolet light from “CSI” but it would certainly be too late by the time they got there. Instead, I steel myself to the fact that I am going to have to be bold and rude and aggressive and simply force myself out of this store. I amp myself up and storm from the dressing room. The dressing room attendant says, “Sir, you need to take your clothes with you and place them back on the rack,” and I reply, “Oh right, sorry. OK I’ll get them.” I am cold-blooded assassin.

After retrieving my clothes, I make my way out of the dressing room again and stealthily move through the store. The crazy salesman is nowhere in sight. I speed up, turn the corner, thinking I am free. Then I see him, on the phone behind the register. I realize I forgot my water bottle in the dressing room. I can’t go back. It’s now or never. I walk past the register quickly, looking down at the suit in my hand as though I hadn’t noticed it was there. I am moving towards the stairs, race walking, and I hear him behind me. “Sir, how were those for you?” I refuse to turn around. In a move equal parts deft and desperate, I hang the two suits up on a rack without breaking stride and head for the stairs, which I consider to be the barrier through which a men’s suits salesman may not pass, like running for the American Embassy gates in Cold War Russia. I hear it again, vaguely, “No good, sir?” I have put distance between us. I practically bound for the steps, running down as if escaping a fire. I don’t look back as I make my way to the store exit, until of course I remember, two seconds too late, that I am holding a tie that I planned on purchasing. And that tie sets off the alarm at the door. And I stand there, setting off the alarm, sheepishly looking at the security guard, trying to convey the entire story to him with my eyes, which may have actually worked because all he says is, “You gonna pay for that?”

And I think, More than you know.

Nothing Says “Pick me up and hold me against your face” Like

2006-06-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

(NOTE: Sometimes when I don’t know how to spell a word, I type it into Google knowing that Google will suggest the correct spelling if I am wrong. No, I don’t remember why I needed to write gonorrhea, although I can confirm that no one I know has it and its usage probably wasn’t work related. Rest assured, I understand that the obvious joke here is that I have contracted gonorrhea and was searching for facts about it on the internet, because that is obviously what someone would do when their doctor told them they had gonorrhea – say, “Oh my,” then go home and search Google for further details.)

A Few Short Things On This Day When I Can’t Stop Yawning

2006-06-06T15:14:00.000-04:00

• Last Thursday was one of the happiest afternoons in my life. I spent over an hour sitting in the waiting room at the Time Warner Customer Center on 23^rd St., counting up from CUSTOMER NUMBER 627 to CUSTOMER NUMBER 708 (me). I sat between a large woman who smelled like a gyro and a man who was fast asleep, but a smile never left my face the whole time I was there. Why? Because that was the day I got to officially cancel my account with Time Warner Cable, the place to be [screwed]. My hatred for them is no secret, so you will know that it is without exaggeration that I literally giggled when I threw the cable box and cable modem on the counter and practically shouted, “I’m closing my account!”

Sure, technically I’m still supporting the company by paying half of The Girlfriend’s bill every month, but my name isn’t on it and that’s good enough for me. Also good enough for me will be when the cable guy comes over tonight to install our second cable box in the bedroom and I get to make pretend that I don’t really live there. So when he asks things like, “You want me to run this cable on the baseboard?” I can reply, “What the hell do I know? I don’t live here. I CANCELLED my subscription.” Or I can just do what I did last time and act sexually inappropriate. Or the time before, and kill him.

• And now . . . (drum roll) . . . a wealth of trivia from Yahoo!(!)

– This baby had three arms! But then they removed one! Too bad!

– Turns out Nietzsche was right!

– An alien in a duck! How cliché!

– I don’t think frolic is the right word!

• In more serious news, I also hung up a wine rack in the apartment.

That’s right, I installed the shit out of that thing.

• I’ve actually seen this happen on an episode of “CSI.”

“Police on Tuesday identified the body as David Wayne Bodie, 45, a homeless man who apparently died of natural causes.”

OR DID HE?

• And finally, a big Happy Birthday to The Girlfriend, whose birthday technically was yesterday, but I wanted to put as much time between her and ANALRAPIST as possible. Because, you know, she’s a classy girl. No analraping for her. No sir.

It’s Hard Out Here For An Analrapist

2006-06-05T12:57:00.000-04:00

In case you haven’t heard, there was this show on TV called “Arrested Development.” I loved “Arrested Development” like a friend. A really hot, female friend who would get drunk with me on Monday nights and say things like, “Why don’t we just make out, there’s nothing better to do.” Then FOX cancelled it, and I lost a piece of myself.

For my birthday last year, one of the things I said I wanted was this t-shirt, which is a byproduct of one of the more memorable dialogue exchanges from the show. (In case you aren’t familiar with it, I have it written out here.)

I’ve only worn it a handful of times since I got it, mainly because it’s a t-shirt and my birthday is in the middle of winter and it’s really only been getting warmer lately and hopefully you see where I’m going with this. But this past weekend was my little sister’s 16^th birthday party at my parents house on Long Island (because I haven’t been there enough lately), and I thought it would be cool to wear the shirt. You know, to show how hip I am. (Yes, writing it out does make it seem less hip. As does using the word ‘hip.’)

So I throw the t-shirt on and head for the train station. I don’t even think about it until The Girlfriend and I are comfortably seated on the train and the guy comes by for our tickets.

Me: (handing him the tickets) “Hey, how are you doing?”

Ticket Guy: (staring at my shirt with a pained look of anger and confusion) “Yeah, alright.”

I remain oblivious to the whole thing until the ticket guy walks away. Then:

The Girlfriend: (matter-of-factly) “You do realize that no one has any idea what your shirt means, and they read it as ‘anal rapist,’ don’t you?”

Me: “. . . I do now.”

I look around to see an elderly couple sitting across the aisle, and over my right shoulder two young children playing with their father. I immediately put on my long-sleeved shirt.

A BRIEF SUMMATION: I thought it would be cool to wear a t-shirt that says “ANALRAPIST” to a party full of 16 year old kids.

OK.

I get to the party and immediately start eating and mixing drinks. I still have my long sleeved shirt on over the t-shirt so I think nothing of it. Then karaoke starts (no reason for that statement to surprise you) and things get heated and I take my long sleeved shirt off. It doesn’t really dawn on me until about twenty minutes later when, on my way to the bar, I run into the father of one of my sister’s friends. A voice sounds in my head: “You’re talking to a 45 year old man whose 16 year old daughter is in the next room. Your shirt says anal rapist.”

All I can do at this point is make pretend that I have hurt a muscle in my hand and stand in front of him, exchanging pleasantries while massaging my right thumb into the palm of my left hand, covering up the lettering on the shirt. I then excused myself to the bathroom and ran to change my shirt.

MORAL OF THE STORY: What may seem like a good joke can sometimes be misinterpreted to mean that you indiscriminately have forceful anal intercourse with unnamed partners, or “victims,” and that you are so proud of such a designation that you must boast of it on a shirt.

OTHER POSSIBLE NEGATIVE RAMIFICATIONS: Your boss coming over to your computer to look at a document and, while you are waiting for the document to slowly open, there being a photo icon on the desktop labeled “Analrapist.” You might even try to position the cursor over the word in attempt to obscure it from view, but most likely all that did was draw additional attention to it.

Moving: Episode Three

2006-06-02T15:02:00.000-04:00

Waking up Sunday morning and seeing the state of the apartment for the first time in the light of day was not unlike the first time you wake up in a whore house thinking, “I know I thought this was a good idea at one point, but could I have been wrong?” Only instead of scantily clad hookers draped over the furniture, it’s boxes and bags and clothes, and instead of an ache when you pee it’s an ache when you take any small step or try to stand up straight.

The good news was that we had plans to flee the city once again to the relaxing surroundings of suburban backyards barbecues. The only problem was that there was still something of a “mess” in my old apartment. (For our purposes the word “mess” will mean “several large pieces of furniture and many items dubbed ‘last minute items’ as though the ‘last minute’ was literally the final 60 seconds I would be allowed to step foot into the apartment without officially trespassing.” It’s not the Oxford English definition verbatim, but a close enough paraphrase.)

Here is when I officially went into THROW OUT mode. It was like one of those commercials where a scum boyfriend has obviously done something horrible to his girlfriend and he is standing on the sidewalk below the window of the apartment they used to share while she throws everything he owns down upon him, and then he eats a Mentos, has an idea, and makes $5,000 by having a yard sale right there on the street, which the girlfriend thinks is so clever that she forgives him. Actually, it was nothing like that: I just threw everything else away, regardless of its inherent value of usefulness, the final item being my couch, which, if it had feelings, would have had lower self-esteem than one of those children in the Feed Africa commercials, after no less than five Craigslist douchbags said they would buy it and then promptly disappeared off the face of the earth. (I’m talking to you, Anna Marie from Staten Island!) Throwing it away was the only form of Hara-kiri appropriate for such a disgraced demise.

(And don’t say “You should have donated it,” because God knows I tried. But every place I called said, “We can pick it up in two to three weeks.” Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt something? I don’t want to throw off your whole schedule by trying to GIVE YOU SOMETHING. Two to three weeks? I hope the Salvation Army knows that 155,012 people die EVERY DAY. I three weeks that’s 3,255,252 people DEAD. I’m sure one of them could have been saved by my couch, or at least been a little bit more comfortable at the end.)

After that we drove out to my friend James’ parents house to celebrate his birthday with great food and awesome Swedish lawn games, then onto my parents’ house for more great food and sadly no lawn games, unless you count “falling asleep on the couch watching In Good Company” a lawn game, which you probably don’t. Unless you are homeless and you live in a yard, in which case everything becomes a lawn game. Or, more honestly, a lawn reality. Or, more practically, a lawn why am I still making this joke?

The real fun came Monday when The Girlfriend, some friends and I went shopping at the outlets (LONG ISLAND ALERT) before driving back to the city. Perhaps the only notable occurrence at the outlets, besides the awesome bathing suit I bought, was the sweatshirt I really fell in love with, only when I tried it on and showed everyone, they agreed, as if rehearsed, “You look like a girl,” the REALLY funny part being that since it was the only one lost amongst a rack of men’s clothes, it very well could have been misplaced from the women’s side of the store. (Add this to the list of things that may result in me having to call my dad “Mr. Murphy” at family get togethers from now on.)

But what better way to cap a painful weekend of physical labor and unintentional cross-dressing than this:

SCENE: On our drive back to the city, we stop off at a deli with a GRAND OPENING sign hanging in the window. We all place our orders (there are four of us) and patiently wait. And wait. And wait. A HALF AN HOUR LATER, our sandwiches are handed to us, as though just delivered by some off-site sandwich assembly facility. We are in a rush to leave, so as each individual pays, they go outside to the car. We pick it up with me, The Girlfriend and my friend John arriving at the car, a company SUV with the logo of the radio station my friend works for painted in large letters on either side. We are immediately approached by a Crazy Woman.

Crazy Woman: (walking over quickly, but clumsily) “Do you work for a radio station?”

Me: “No, my friend does.”

CW: (ignoring me) “Because I have a story you would be interested in.”

Me: “He doesn’t really have any say about what –“

CW: (still ignoring me) “I’ve been looking for a media outlet, I have a story to tell. Because I’ve been beaten, and I’ve been raped, and I’ve been tortured . . .”

Me: (unprepared for the turn in the conversation) “Wow, that’s awful.”

CW: “. . . and I’ve been kidnapped,and I’ve been beaten, and I’ve been the victim or organized crime, that means people who don’t like me . . .”

My friend, the Driver, exits the deli and walks towards the car.

Driver: (casually) “Hey, what’s going on here?”

John: “You don’t want to know.”

CW: (to driver) “Do you work at the radio station?”

Driver: (tentatively) “Yes.”

CW: “Great, because I was just telling everyone that I’ve been beaten, and I’ve been raped and . . .”

Driver: “Ooook, time to go.”

We start to get into the car.

CW: “. . . and I had an arm amputation and a mouth amputation, do you want to see my mouth amputation?”

CW opens her mouth and reveals that she is missing several teeth.

Driver: “Oh God, and I just bought a sandwich!”

CW: “Here’s my number. Call me and we can talk more!”

We shut our doors and drive off. Moments later, after some stunned silence, The Girlfriend proclaims: “Wait a second – she wasn’t missing an arm.” And, indeed, Crazy Woman was not missing an arm.

THE END.

(NOTE: The above picture is from the new apartment, specifically the cabinet we installed in the bathroom, which is the only part of the apartment that is presentable at this time.)