Today

I write this first sentence not knowing what the following sentences will conatin. I'm writing this because I don't really know what else to do with myself at the moment. My stomach is knotted, my heart about as heavy as it's ever been, like a single paper towel trying to sop up an entire puddle. I'm writing because it's the purest way I've ever known to release terrible feelings. Hell, that's the reason I started this silly blog in the first place.

The world seems to be becoming more and more of an overwhelming place to exist in. It feels like every other day I have to take pause to allow another of humanity's tragedies to wash over me - whether it's Syrians slaughtering each other, or a biblical storm destroying an entire community, or a professional athlete killing himself and the mother of his little baby.

What happened today is another link in this horrific chain. Bad things have always happened, and they always will. For whatever reason - well, that's sort of bullshit; it's the kids, of course - I feel like this one demands I express something, here, in my little corner of the internet/world.

I don't want to say anything about guns, or mental health, or any of the obvious issues at play here that must and will be debated, even though in this moment I'm fairly pessimistic there will be any positive change as a result of this. All I really want to do is reach out to anyone who reads this, to try and express how much love I have for you.

I don't consider myself much of an expressive person. I probably don't tell the ones near and dear to me how much I care about them, how much they mean to me, as often as I should. That's probably true of most of us. But this is a day when I feel it is absolutely necessary, if for nothing else than just to keep myself from crying. If you're reading this, whoever you are, however I know you - whether you're my family, my best friend, an old girlfriend, a dude I had a meeting with three years ago - I love you. You all mean something to me, and I am incredibly grateful that we're a part of each other's lives, however big or small that may be.

This is a fucked up world. Nothing illustrates that better than what happened this morning. It terrifies me, and makes me feel like it's only a matter of time before something like this happens to someone I care about. All we really have is each other. I suppose that's my silver lining...coming to understand that  simple truth the older I get. And as this particular nightmare passes and fades away, I swear to fucking god to never forget that.

Give Me Some Credits

There's this one Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin keeps getting tricked into thinking a movie's starting by those little moving logos every production company uses these days:

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this actually happened to me yesterday. I was on an airplane, and decided to watch Woody Allen's latest, TO ROME WITH LOVE (because I supposed an airplane was probably the only venue in which I'd end up watching it). Prior to the opening credits, on a black screen, up faded the definitions of the words "Captive" and "Entertainment." You know, like this:

cap·tive

 [kap-tiv] 

noun

1. a prisoner.

2. a person who is enslaved or dominated; slave: He is the captive ofhis own fears.

en·ter·tain·ment

 [en-ter-teyn-muh nt]

noun

1. the act of entertaining; agreeable occupation for the mind;diversion; amusement: Solving the daily crossword puzzle is anentertainment for many

2. something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement,especially a performance of some kind: The highlight of the ball was an elaborate entertainment.

3. hospitable provision for the needs and wants of guests.

4. a divertingly adventurous, comic, or picaresque novel.

I started reading these definitions, because more than a couple movies start this way. I assumed these two words were integral to the film's story. But before I could finish, the definitions faded to a logo: 

Man, did I feel dumb. Behaving like Peter Griffin is not a great indicator of intelligence. But here's the thing: I don't think this was really my fault. Because never in my life have I witnessed something so utterly condescending as a company providing its customers with dictionary definitions of the words used to make up its name.

I mean, come on. Maybe you could get away with this if your company was called, I don't know, "Biblioklept Pictures" ("biblioklept" being Dictionary.com's "word of the day" today - it means a person who steals books). But "Captive Entertainment"?!? Those are not words that need to be defined for your average American moviegoer. 

Or maybe they do, who knows. I've seen Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. All I do know is, when life starts imitating satirical cartoons, something's gone too far.

Thank You, Melky

As the San Francisco Giants prepare to play the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, coming off a Giants fan's dream of a postseason run that involved winning three straight elimination games twice in consecutive series, it's important to stop and remember the most crucial contributor who got them here, a man without whom this scenario would not be possible.

Melky Cabrera.

Cabrera, an off-season acquisition from Kansas City, was having the season of his life before he got caught using a banned substance on August 15 and suspended by the league for 50 games. He was leading the majors in hits, and was unquestionably the Giants' offensive MVP - not to mention the MVP in the All-Star Game, where he hit a home run, helping to earn the Giants' home field advantage in the World Series, which begins tomorrow in San Francisco.

When the news broke of Melky's suspension, it was devastating. I was in JFK airport in New York when I saw the report on a TV in a bar, and I remember thinking "Well, that's probably the season." At the time, the Giants were a game back of the Dodgers for first place in the NL West, having been chasing them all season.

What's remarkable is how the rest of the season played out. The Giants went on a tear, finishing the rest of their games with a 30-14 record, or a winning percentage of .682. The Dodgers, to the contrary, finished their schedule with a 21-23 record - a .477 win percentage - and ended the season eight games behind the Giants and, more importantly, out of the playoffs.

This doesn't really make sense, on the surface. You shouldn't play your best baseball after you lose your best player. But everyone who watches enough baseball, and sports in general, knows that the improbable happens all the time. Baseball is like life in that way - we constantly read articles and see local news segments about people facing long odds to overcome adversity and ultimately triumph. My Facebook news feed would be barren without them.

You see, the Giants are a classic example of what a baseball team should be. They responded to the challenge of losing their best player - of being betrayed by their best player (as opposed to losing him to injury) - by banding together and picking up the slack. Buster Posey became their new best player, leading the majors in hitting the second half of the season. Marco Scutaro, a 36-year-old journeyman, came over in a trade with Colorado that barely qualified to be announced in the newspaper, and went on to hit .362 the rest of the year, dwarfing the impact of the much more heralded Hunter Pence trade from Philadelphia, as the lanky right-fielder did little more than herky-jerk and crazy-eye his way through a lackluster last couple of months.

It was Scutaro who was the target of a dirty play in Game 2 of the NLCS, when the Cardinals' Matt Holliday unnecessarily took him out in a late slide at second base. It was ugly, and the Giants feared they might lose their second baseman to a hip injury as a result. But once again, they came together to humiliate St. Louis - outscoring them 20-1 over the final three games of the series - with Scutaro leading the way, hitting an ungodly .500 and winning the series MVP award.

That MVP award links Scutaro, in a way, back to Melky Cabrera. Cabrera, who can now only sit and watch as the Giants get ready to play in the World Series, has been forgotten by the team he once led. He was eligible to be reinstated by the Giants after the first five games of the playoffs, his suspension having been served. But without batting an eye, the Giants' ownership announced he was no longer welcome. Simply put, he's not a part of the team anymore, and never will be. Could he have helped out offensively? Most definitely, considering his replacement, Gregor Blanco, hit .182 in the NLCS, which was actually slightly better than the Giants' 4-5 hitters, Posey and Pence, who hit an abominable .154 and .179, respectively. Those are pitchers' hitting numbers.

But the Giants understand how to operate as a team. They get that clubhouse camaraderie is more important than statistics. It's a concept the Dodgers have failed to grasp. Given the same scenario, there is no way the Dodgers wouldn't have reinstated their best offensive player for the playoffs, despite the fact that his teammates had been let down by his selfishness. In fact, they did just that in 2009, when Manny Ramirez was given the same suspension Cabrera was. They brought him back towards the end of the season, the fans welcomed him with open arms, and the Dodgers were beaten in five games by Philadelphia in the NLCS, dragged down by Manny's awful performance.

(Of course, there is a glaring hole in my argument, which is that the Giants did bring back reliever Guillermo Mota this season after his 100-game steroid suspension, which is indeed a bit hypocritical. The difference, however, is that no once cares about Mota. He's a middle reliever, not an offensive superstar charged with the burden of leading his team, like Manny or Melky was. Mota is like a stray cat hanging out by the screen door outside your kitchen: irritating, but relatively harmless. Melky was a rattlesnake coiled on the front porch - you have to call the fire department to come over and sever its head with a shovel, just like my mom did when she was startled by one at our family friend's summer home when I was a kid.)

What makes the Dodgers' lack of success this season all the more glaring is the money they squandered acquiring big name players late in the season, assuming this would translate to more wins and a playoff appearance. It didn't. While Marco Scutaro's workmanlike leadership helped propel the Giants into the postseason, the Dodgers capsized, whining in the newspaper about their new superstars not having enough time to mesh with the rest of the team. As if there is something different to a talent like Adrian Gonzalez about hitting a baseball in Boston versus Los Angeles.

And as soon as the losing took hold, the bad attitude was pervasive and palpable throughout the city. Every Saturday, the LA Times prints letters to the editor in the Sports section, and it was flooded, week after week, with unhappy fans criticizing the team. They were like petulant children on Christmas morning, unhappy that their shiny, expensive new toys weren't good enough. But ultimately, LA is not really a baseball town. Sure, when the Dodgers are winning, the fans love them. When they're not, they find something else to do. In New York, the Yankees may buy up the big money players in the same way the Dodgers did this year, but there exists a rabid obsession with the team amongst the fan base, win or lose. In LA, the Lakers are the Yankees. The Dodgers are more like the Knicks.

And in San Francisco, the Giants are the Giants. Their identity is crystallized as much as any team in sports, and the loyal fans appreciate that more than anything - more than winning, even. Whether or not they defeat Detroit and win it all in the coming week won't change any of our minds about them. They will remain beloved far into the future not just for what they accomplish, but for who they are. And no single person helped them realize who they are more than Melky Cabrera. Because he illustrated definitively who they are not.

To Cash or Not to Cash?

Yesterday I received a check in the mail from the Cheesecake Factory in the amount of 76 cents. It came with a letter explaining some sort of legal settlement, and this three-quarters of a dollar is apparently what I'm entitled to. (I briefly worked at the Cheesecake Factory during an emotional low point in my twenties.)

This check presents a weird sort of dilemma. I'm kind of embarrassed to go to an ATM for the sole purpose of depositing 76 cents into my account. And yet, I simply can't bring myself to throw the check in the garbage. That's three quarters! Who throws away three quarters?!

What drives me even crazier is that I'm even spending the mental energy debating this, as I realize that having the 76 cents or not having the 76 cents in my bank account will make no discernible difference in my life either way, ever. In the end, it really doesn't matter.

Part of me thinks I may be just a pawn in some sort of sociological experiment. Some team of researchers from UCLA is waiting patiently to see how many Jews will actually cash these checks. If that's the case...I still don't know what to do.

Twenty-four hours ago, I didn't know this money I was entitled to even existed. I wish I could go back to that blissful time. Damn you, Cheesecake Factory. Damn you and your delicious honey oat bread.

SuckCenter

Last night on national television, you had game two of baseball's National League Championship Series that featured a pretty controversial play. You also had a historic Monday Night Football game, with an epic comeback by one of the best quarterbacks of all time.

So what does today's 9AM SportsCenter go with as their top story? Fifteen minutes of a live press conference of Eagles head coach Andy Reid talking about how Philly fired their defensive coordinator. That's right, a guy you never heard of lost his job on a 3-3 football team. Man, can't wait to hear all about that.

Look, ESPN - you have to realize, not everyone is an unemployed screenwriter who has nothing to do but watch sports highlights all morning in their underwear. I mean, I am, but I imagine other people might only have a few minutes in the morning to catch up on the important happenings of the previous night before they trudge off to the dropout factories. What do you reckon the percentage is of these swing-vote middle classers who give a flying fuck about a defensive coordinator getting fired? Four? Maybe five percent? Gotta be around there.

SportsCenter used to be appointment television for sports fans. Lately it's shot right past hiply-snarky and is dangerously approaching TMZ-level annoying. This summer, all I heard about was how Mark Sanchez was reacting to the smell of Tim Tebow taking a dump in his private bathroom. Stop pandering to Jets and Eagles fans as if the rest of the country cares about mediocre big market teams, and go back to practicing legitimate sports journalism.

Traffic Thoughts

I was sitting in my car on La Brea the other day, having hit my sixth straight red light, when the fact hit me that I miss New York City and am pretty much over LA.

What can I say? To me, at this point in my life, NYC is novel and exciting. By comparison, LA seems boring and tired. I went away for a year and fell in love with a sexy new city, while simultaneously falling out of love with my frumpy long-term locale. If I was Chevy Chase in VACATION, New York would be my Christie Brinkley; LA my Beverly D'Angelo.

Now, I could tick off all the reasons why I feel this way - the traffic I mentioned earlier is a good starting point. But that's not what I'm here to kvetch about. What bothers me is that this is yet another development in my inevitable march towards becoming someone I hate. Man, did I used to loathe all those people who pontificated to me about how wonderful New York is, sneering down with pity upon those of us who had yet to be enlightened.

And yet, here I am. I wish things had turned out differently, I really do. I wish I had come back here and thought, "Yeah New York was fun, but I'm a California boy, and this is where I belong." I tried for awhile, but I have to admit truthfully how I feel: I may not be long for this town.

Or maybe next time I'll just take Fairfax.

My Tangled Web

I went downstairs to use the gym in my building today. On the elevator ride/walk down the hall, I spent about ten times as much time as I would have liked untangling my earbuds wires, to the point where I was in a bad mood by the time I got there.

Then, on the treadmill, about seven minutes in, my left shoelaces loosened and eventually untied themselves, and I had to pause the machine to retie my shoe.

Is there some sort of metamessage I should be taking away from this sequence? Or do I just suck with knots?

Guess I'm Not as Original as I Thought

I'd like to take a moment and personally apologize to Chuck Klosterman.

Apparently, and much to my freaked-out consternation, I have been unwittingly plagiarizing the pop culture writer for years, right here on this very blog. Visiting for the week, my NYC compatriot showed me a couple passages from Klosterman's 2003 book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - a book I kind of always meant to read when I saw it in the store, but just never got around to. Here's one of them:

"Apples and oranges aren't that different, really. I mean, they're both fruit. Their weight is extremely similar. They both contain acidic elements. They're both roughly spherical. They serve the same social purpose. With the possible exception of a tangerine, I can't think of anything more similar to an orange than an apple. If I was having lunch with a man who was eating an apple and - while I was looking away - he replaced that apple with an orange, I doubt I'd even notice. So how is this a metaphor for difference? I could understand if you said, 'That's like comparing apples and uranium,' or 'That's like comparing apples with baby wolverines,' or 'That's like comparing apples with the early work of Raymond Carver,' or 'That's like comparing apples with hermaphroditic ground sloths.' Those would all be valid examples of profound disparity. But not apples and oranges. In every meaningful way, they're virtually identical."

Back in 2009, I wrote a post titled Apples & Orangutans, which was remarkably, almost eerily, similar to Klosterman's essay. But that's not all. In the same book, he also wrote about his experience eating at a KFC, and his being vexed by a beggar who asked him twice to buy her some chicken - once while he was eating inside, and once after he left. This is an almost identical experience to one which I complained about here in 2010.

I must admit, this is a little embarrassing. I would just like to state for the record that, while I enjoy Klosterman's work in Esquire, I had never previously read SD&CP, or any of his other books, for that matter, and would never intentionally rip off someone else's writing. 

I will also make a mental note to get less enraged whenever I see another screenplay selling based on an idea I once had.

Anyway: sorry, Chuck. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Today's Dodger Bash

I was watching the Giants vs. Dodgers game earlier tonight. My beloved Gigantes were winning, 4-1, in the bottom of the 9th. The Dodgers sent the horrendously sucky Juan Uribe up to pinch hit, hoping he could generate some offense, despite a sub-.200 batting average.

As Uribe was hitting, I noticed that in every camera shot, all over the stadium, were advertisements for the new Clint Eastwood baseball movie, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE.

Then I proceeded to watch as the Giants pitcher easily struck Uribe out on a succession of curveballs. 

I mean, if it was a Giants hitter who had been up, and the acclaimed Dodger Stadium Advertising Department had put up highly visible signs that read TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE everywhere, I would have accused them of cheating. That's kind of a dirty psychological trick.

But to have that up in your home stadium, while your own player who has trouble with the curve is hitting in the bottom of the 9th inning, against your big rival, in an important pennant race game?

Well, that's just Dodger baseball.

Movie Night

I don't like how some DVDs just start playing the movie automatically when you put them in. It's a little unsettling. I feel rushed. It's like if you bring a woman home and she just starts undressing, without any kind of prompt whatsoever. Let me look at the title screen for a second, get myself oriented. Decide if we're going widescreen or full. Maybe there are some special features I want to check out. Maybe it's a bloopers & outtakes kind of night. Maybe I just want to select my favorite scene and fast forward right to it, cutting out the arduous setup and obligatory, overproduced climax, with all the special effects and cheesy wrap-up dialogue.

We're still talking about the movie, right?

Notes from a Future Old Man

I’ve been at my parents’ place all week, in the house I grew up in, and in my bedroom closet I found a bag of old letters from every girl I “went out with” from roughly the ages of 14 to 18. One was from a girl I had a summer fling with when I was 16 and spent a few weeks in Vermont at a pre-college program. There had been a bit of a love triangle between me, her and another girl, and in her letter, she wrote: “I’m so sorry that more couldn’t have come out of our relationship. I realize how much you also love J*****, and I don’t blame you – she’s great.”

This blew me away. How did I manage to pull that off, whereby I dated two girls in a five-week span, and this was the incredibly mature, selfless attitude one of them had towards the other? I don’t think I’ve even met a female in my adult life who would express this type of sentiment.

Then I started reminiscing about high school. I thought back to my sophomore year girlfriend, and how my best friend dated her for awhile after we broke up – and how there was no animosity about it amongst any of us. How was this possible? What world did I exist in? Were there Oompa-Loompas there too?

In fact, how was it possible to date anybody after I had already been with someone else at the same school? If I was in high school today, as an adult, I would probably just go ahead and change schools rather than deal with the awkwardness of seeing an ex-girlfriend on a daily basis, let alone seeing her after I’d started dating someone new – someone she might even be friends with. But I suppose most of us dated multiple people from the same school, and it just wasn’t a big deal. We all had classes together, projects to collaborate on, dances to attend, and we just dealt with it, I guess. Today, I try to avoid restaurants in the same neighborhood where an ex of mine lived five years ago.

What a simpler time it must have been. When did things get so complex? When did we lose this maturity to be able to say to each other, I’m sorry things didn’t work out, but I can understand what you see in this other person who isn’t me, and I don’t hate you for it?

It’s almost like I want to time travel back to the 90’s and ask my teenage self for dating advice. He had skills. 

He’d probably tell me to go back to watching 90210. Back then, I aspired to be Dylan McKay. Now I aspire to be Larry David. Big difference.

Nipple of My Eye

I just had afternoon drinks with a friend, saying our goodbyes as I get ready to move back to Los Angeles next week. When I came out of the restaurant to walk home, I saw a beggar on the sidewalk, sitting and holding her toddler. She was probably mid-30's, her child about one. She was holding a cardboard sign, asking for money.

If you've read this blog before, you may know that I am no fan of begging vagrants. I believe people should have the dignity to offer something - even if it's just telling a joke - in return for money, rather than just ask for it outright from strangers because they are destitute. In addition, there are simply too many of them on the streets of New York City to accommodate them all. If you decide you're going to be the type of person to give spare change to every homeless person you pass by, you'll go broke pretty fucking quick.

But I had just had a couple glasses of wine, and the baby kind of got to me, so I pulled out my wallet and took out a dollar. I walked up to the woman and handed her the money. And as she leaned forward to take it from me, her loose-fitting shirt fell forward, and...I saw her nipple.

I'm not really sure if I'm a believer in karma or not, but that's about the strongest case the universe has ever made to me in favor of it. Give a homeless lady a dollar, see her nipple in return. That seems like a pretty balanced cosmic equation.

The lord works in mysterious ways.

Guest Kvetch: Don't Feel Bad for the School Bus Lady

This Guest Kvetch comes courtesy of my good friend Adam. Apparently there's a bastard out there even more heartless than me! 

So apparently this old lady getting bullied on a bus is international news today. You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l93wAqnPQwk. It's tough to stomach, but to summarize, this 68-year old bus monitor is verbally abused for ten minutes on a school bus by a group of foul-mouthed school children. They call her “fatass,” make fun of her sweating, threaten to come over to her house and shit/jizz in her mouth, etc. America’s bright future on display.

The consensus reaction is to pity this poor old lady…she has since received over $160,000 in online donations from people all over the world (in just 24 hours…I assume it will be much more in the coming days). The money is to take a vacation, apparently. And I certainly don’t doubt that she could use it. And I agree that these kids are vile little brats, who could use a good smack in the mouth.

BUT…I have little sympathy for this woman.

First, she’s being paid by some New York school district to be a “bus monitor.” I have no idea what a bus monitor’s job description is, but I assume the main goal is to keep basic order on the bus. In this respect, she fails miserably. The bus is clearly a haven for meanness and bullying. On her watch, it seems particularly just that she be a victim of her own inability to keep some 13-year olds in line.

Also, how can a person who’s been on this planet for 68 years be so lousy at dealing with people? I have no love for bullies; this episode was all too familiar to me, having spent many a bus ride/math class/recess dealing with similar abuse. I can assure you, it is no fun. Then again, I was a kid. I didn’t know any better. At 33, I do now. If I get bullied these days, well, that’s my own fucking fault. This woman should know better than to sit there like a lump and take it, and if she doesn’t, why the hell did she take a job where the one requirement was knowing how to deal with kids? And when she realized her mistake, why didn’t she quit? 99% of jobs do not require you to sit on a bus with child bullies. Go work at the post office, lady.

And let’s ask something else. What if that bullying was directed at another kid sitting in the back of the bus? Does she march back there and set these bastards straight? I’m kinda getting the feeling that the answer is ‘no.’ If you’re too cowardly to stand up to bullies, fine. But you can leave the situation; the geek who has to take that bus home every day can’t. When you accept that job, then fail at it, you cheat that young bully victim of an adult supervisor who could actually use that position to help kids.

And there’s another thing. I’m just gonna come out and say it: She IS a fatass. You wanna spend your golden years with heart disease and diabetes? Go ahead, lady. But while you’re stuffing your fat face with Big Macs, poor kids in Somalia are dying of hunger, and my healthcare premiums are skyrocketing to cover the cost of your second bypass surgery. Now, I don’t expect you to care about that, but you can be damn sure that if anybody’s gonna point out your physical flaws, it’s unsupervised children on a school bus. You might have noticed that during your reported 20 years as a school bus driver or 3 years as a bus monitor.

I suppose a lot of people will say I’m being too hard on her…she’s just a sweet old lady. Why does being old and having a vagina make you beyond reproach in our society? Passive old women like this are nothing to be lauded. Every time I read in the news about some horrible guy who molested his kids for years, I think of what kind of wife could just sit there and let that happen. I’m not saying this woman is guilty of such things. I’m just saying the people who are guilty of such things probably sit there crying and doing nothing and hoping in vain that things turn out okay, just like this lady does. The one comment that is drawing the most sympathy is when one bully tells the woman that "you have no family because they all killed themselves because you're so fat." Very mean, especially because (unbeknownst to the kid) the lady's son actually did commit suicide. No doubt that brings a tear to many a reader's eye. But to me it says: This woman's OWN kid killed himself? Take a fucking hint, lady! You're not good at this!

I don’t think we need anti-bullying laws in this country. What we need is bully defense training. Children should be taught, from a young age, how to deter physical and emotional abuse. Sometimes it requires tough talk, sometimes a punch in the nose. Mostly it just requires making a minimal effort to show people you can’t be fucked with. This lady could have solved all her problems by just taking a strong tone and saying “Okay, that’s far enough. You can’t talk to me or anyone else like that. You do it again and I’m talking to your principal and your parents, and your lucky I’m not your age or I’d smack your smartass mouth. Now act civilized or walk home. We clear?” Or hey, here’s a novel idea: she could just learn how to make friends with kids. But no; in her 20 years of driving school buses, she learned a different lesson: Just ignore them. That’s why everyone hates school bus drivers, by the way. They just ignore the fuck out of you and don’t care what kinds of horrible shit are going on in those seats. She probably thought the career change to bus monitor would be the same, except she wouldn’t have to worry about watching the road any more. How dare those children not just let her do her job in peace…the job of sitting there and ignoring them for eight bucks an hour.

We need people on school buses and in classrooms who can teach good character through example. She can’t. All I see on that video is another case of the many, many adults across the country who work as teachers or counselors and have absolutely no business supervising young minds. Working with kids is about more than just sitting around and getting summers off. I have several friends, and a few teachers through the years, who were born to teach; but they’re the minority.

Bus Monitor Lady, I’m truly sorry you never learned the life skills required to deal with bullies. But you need to recognize your own shortcomings and address them. Enjoy the $160,000 in pity money. Wanna do yourself, and all those kids, a favor? Use it to retire permanently.

Killer Advice

Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I watched that gruesome, SE7EN-esque video of the Montreal porn star murdering his boyfriend. Out of everything I felt while watching, the overwhelming sentiment I experienced was...frustration.

Why is it that whenever anybody posts a grisly video to the internet, the quality is always so poor? You can barely make out which body part this guy is severing (and then using to masturbate with)! Don't they have iPhones in Canada?

It's not just this guy. When they hung Saddam Hussein, the picture quality was abysmal. You would think somebody would have thought to bring a slightly more state of the art piece of technology than a first edition BlackBerry to such a momentous occasion. Same goes for Gaddafi's demise. Please, Arab Springers, I beg of you: invest in a Sony Handycam and find an amateur filmmaker to bring along the next time you hunt down and execute your brutal dictator. You'll get a lot more hits on YouTube.

But this Montreal guy is really inexcusable. You go through the whole rigamarole of killing your boyfriend, hacking him up and performing sex acts with his corpse, then post the video to the internet to immortalize your legacy, and it looks like crap? Look, I'm not condoning murder, but if you're gonna do it, do it right.

Like this. This is a video I shot with my iPhone of me murdering an apple:

See? Clear as day. And now it's on the internet forever, a testament to my greatness. You're welcome, future ice pick murderers.

God Bless America

I just got off the phone with someone (I won't say who, so as to spare them the humiliation when they eventually come to their senses) after one of our patented political diatribes. "They" are conservative; I am liberal. For the most part, I am a supporter of our president, or any president, for that matter. "They" sincerely believe our president is working hard to bring this country to its knees. In other words, Obama is some sort of treasonous double agent who we're all just sitting around and passively allowing to destroy our American way of life.

Look, I like politics. It's interesting; it's filled with spirited disagreements and so forth. But at some point, we should recognize that we're all on the same side. We have to be able to talk about the president, and that he passed health care, or did that shit in Libya, or how the economy still sucks, or whatever...without it being like we're all just blindly just rooting for or against someone. Because at that point, there's nothing that separates us from Red Sox fans.

"Jeter sucks bro! Jeter sucks!!!"

Is that how you really want to sound?

A Man and His Pussy

An anonymous friend wrote up the following synopsis of her latest dating misadventure, which I found amusing. Enjoy.

I was recently fixed up with a friend of a friend. He was described as a nice, handsome, all-around good guy. Of course I was open to meeting him. He called on a Monday to take me out that Saturday...for coffee. At 6 pm.
 “Coffee at 6 pm?” I asked myself. “Did he mean a pre-dinner drink at 6 pm? Or maybe an early dinner itself at 6 pm? Or coffee at 4 pm, maybe?” Because most people abiding by the basic North American scheduling code would at that hour not be having coffee. But I went with it. 

I showed up at the deserted café wearing a simple but sexy lil’ sundress and a smile. And there, to my happy surprise, was “Steve”: a tall, dark and very handsome guy with thick Hugh Grant-esque hair circa Four Weddings and a Funeral. Aside from the awkward venue at an awkward time, we were off to the races.

Unfortunately, after a polite greeting, 65 excruciating minutes ensued. This seemingly adorable guy managed to vomit out every ugly detail of his self-described troubled, damaged, unsuccessful and unstable existence. In short, he basically deemed himself totally unfit to date. Or even befriend. Steve managed to spew forth as many deal breakers as he possibly could, in the spirit of "being honest." I tried to veer the conversation away from “I have zero income or savings of any kind” to “seen any great movies lately?” From “I’m moving in with my mother” to “what kind of music do you like?” From “I have social anxiety disorder, ADD and possibly a mild form of Aspergers” to “have you tried that great new Thai place?” It was, in a word, hellacious.

The date wrapped up, he told me he’d love to see me again...then asked me for a ride to the subway, as he had no car. I gotta say, I felt badly for the guy. As I dropped him off at the metro, I knew full well I wouldn’t see him again.

The next day, I received a text.

“Hey! How’s your day going?” Steve wrote.

“Great thx! How’s yours?” I replied, not having the heart to ignore him.

“Good. Do you like cats?”

Random.

“Cats? Actually, I’m super allergic. More of a dog-person myself…”

A full day and night passed before I received the following:

“Hey there. I really don’t want to be an asshole as you seem like a really amazing woman. I’m just not interested in pursuing a relationship with you…something you said the other night was a real deal breaker for me”

Me: “Umm…ok….”  (did HE just brand ME with deal breaker-ness?)

Steve: “I can’t date a woman who doesn’t love cats. My cat is my life. I’m sorry. Take care”

Jaw-dropped, I reply: “Wow. Bummer. Well, I hope you and the only pussy you’ll ever have will be very happy together.”

End scene. Good night.

Notes from the First World

This is The Scream, one of the most famous paintings ever painted. It's going up for auction this week in New York City, starting around $150 million.

I apologize for the poor quality, but I had to take this picture very much on the DL. Photography was a no-no at this preview.

There are a few things I found noteworthy at this event, which took place at Sotheby's auction house. One is the sheer power you sense from standing next to something worth so much money - simply because other humans have deemed it so valuable. I'm not complaining about that; I'm a huge fan of this work. But it is kind of weird that this one painting - one of four, I learned, that are all very similar but not identical - is worth ten times more than the nicest house I have ever even laid eyes on, let alone stepped inside. White people problems.

But I digress. No, what really struck me was that the officials at this venue had no idea what their photography policy was. You see, there were hundreds of other works of art on display that were going up for auction. Picassos, Kandinskys, Magrittes, Warhols - the finest, most expensive works of art in the world. And I noticed a three-year-old girl taking pictures of them with a digital camera.

Naturally, I pulled out my iPhone and started taking pictures as well. Here's what I captured before I started getting yelled at:

Upon being informed by a lunk-headed security guard that I wasn't allowed to take pictures, I protested, telling of the little girl. I was informed that I needed to get "clearance" to take pictures, and was guided towards the desk in the lobby, and the brainy looking girl who sat behind it. "I'd like to get cleared to take pictures," I told her. A flustered look came over her face. "Which painting?" she asked me nervously. "Well, obviously not The Scream," I said. "But everything else."

Thus began a mad scramble to find out what Sotheby's official policy was on letting people take pictures of the art. She had to call another guy over, then they called somebody on the phone, who transferred them to someone else, who ultimately deemed that I was not allowed to take pictures unless I had a press credential.

"What about the little girl?" I asked.

"We're sorry about the little girl," the little girl said. "That was a mistake. If you see her taking more pictures, please tell us."

So at the most high-profile art auction in the world, they don't even know what their photography policy is. I should have Thomas Crowned their asses.