Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
I'd say "too little, too late" but it doesn't really apply
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?
Monday, August 13, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
ode to friends
the sticky rice carries me
(not so sticky, held with bungee cords)
across a multi-colored nation
red, orange, fuscia alert
despite the possibilities awaiting us
my mind sticks, like the rice ball
to a certain number
...#6
and a certain crew
similar to another crew
who defined themselves in film
through bacon and eggs, french toast, and coffee.
each of us could be defined
as a persona, a personality, or stereotype
the critic
the space-cadet
the nonsensical emailer
the chiller
the vocubulist
the poop-talker
will these characters be washed away
by the steady streams of a rainy day?
i fear so, for my future city
stole the name of my birthcity
and also stole the sun
AND may steal our memory yet
i propose
through cheers bros
a reuniting
of laughter lighting
a.k.a
what i mean to say
though we may be
quite far away
let's remain
in touch
through the
godamn
blog
Monday, August 6, 2007
oh so close to being a superhero.
now if only he could take care of this whole war business...
http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/141044336/jet+man-is-so-cool-it-hurts-286188.php
Friday, August 3, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
For God and country...
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/08/god_and_country?page=1
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Pirates
(As if this weren't enough)Some highlights:
As a result, Leeson argues, pirate ships developed models that in many ways anticipated those of later Western democracies....
In that sense, pirate governance, peculiar as it may sound, offers an intriguing example of how limits on executive power can actually make an enterprise more successful and, because workers are convinced they’re being treated fairly, can deepen their commitment...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/07/09/070709on_onlineonly_surowiecki
Monday, July 9, 2007
yo, 617.
the situ:
stranded on Calmut street turned upwards on a hill with 6-8 degree incline.
the rice ball lay still--- way still.
the keys to "on"
fri, sat. sun...
but nothing.
its 11:00 sunday night
race to check the scene and find it is
wet, cold, and windblown.
like a hibernating bear.
as if spring, it sprung~
vroom vromm vroommmm~~~~
ever seen a vehicle go 0-100 in 3?
want to feel what 2 g's feels like?
r u too fast and too furious?
welcome to e-harmony.com~~ she will treat you like a prince
riceball likes your attention.
especially a babes attention.
its 617
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Like Kanye said... racism's still alive, they just be concealing it.
In September 2006, a group of African American high school students in Jena, Louisiana, asked the school for permission to sit beneath a "whites only" shade tree. There was an unwritten rule that blacks couldn't sit beneath the tree. The school said they didn't care where students sat. The next day, students arrived at school to see three nooses (in school colors) hanging from the tree.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
a damn good read.
from here: http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/06/selected_minor_.html
Selected Minor Works: Hipsters, Prepare to Die
Justin E. H. Smith
O who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
--W. B. Yeats, “ A Song”
I am a salaried functionary and a family man. I long for peace and quiet and a good night’s sleep, and I wear whatever my wife tells me to wear. At this point I no more belong in Williamsburg than I do in Sadr City. I send none of the signals that would assure the natives of my right to be in either place.
Just yesterday things were quite otherwise, at least as far as Williamsburg is concerned, and I attribute the changes not to will but entirely to necessity. Physiologically, I simply did not have the luxury of extending my membership in metropolitan youth subculture indefinitely. My temples went grey, my body shape changed, and college students started calling me ‘sir’ at an age when I was still holding out the hope of being invited to their parties. In large measure it was unfavorable genes that forced me out of what would otherwise have been a life of unrepentant hipsterism.
By ‘hipsters,’ I mean the youth in the developed world who construct their social identity primarily in opposition to the prevailing sensibilities of the age, without however conceiving this opposition as political. On a global scale, hipsters seem to have emerged out of the Reagan-Thatcher years in those countries that earlier witnessed the cultural shift known in Western Europe as “’68” and in the US more broadly as “the sixties.” (To some extent, the origins of the new form of opposition can be found in the sixties themselves, from French situationism to Abbie Hoffman’s advocacy of ‘revolution for the hell of it’, but the prevailing ideals of that era remained serious ones.) The complete account of hipsterism’s emergence out of the ruins of 1960s utopianism is beyond our scope here, yet the genealogical link is clear: where sex, drugs, and rock and roll were not a principal cause of historical change, where instead the youth were contending with wars, dictatorships, and real --government-imposed-- cultural revolution, today there is little or no hipsterism. Today you will see stencils of Mr. T (or whomever; you get the idea) spray-painted on the walls of London and Amsterdam, but not Bucharest.
For hipsters, prevailing ideas and values are not necessarily oppressive, just stupid; not necessarily worthy of anger, just ridicule. (They generally focus on cultural output from the recent past, for reasons we have yet to consider.) Thus for example hipsterism encourages its adherents to propose, in writing, on their t-shirts, to sell moustache rides for five cents, not because they intend to give anyone a moustache ride, and not even because the apposition of ‘moustache’ and ‘ride’ is seen as a source of humor. What is humorous is that in some imagined Country Comfort Lounge in Amarillo or Cheyenne a generation ago some big slab of a man actually sported a moustache of which he was proud, which he believed could function directly and un-ironically as a sexual attractant.
In Bucharest in contrast you will see t-shirts bearing the following messages: “Action Product Girl,” “Ultimate Outback All-Star Crew,” “Surfing Life-Style #1: O-Yes!” You will see the suggestive “Varsity Marine: Red Bum’s Up in Seemans Quarter,” the poetic “Rebellion Speed Inside Energy World’s,” and, my personal favorite, “Fertile Enclosure Fashion 56.” Have there, I wonder, been any sociolinguistic studies of these English-sounding strings of words? Clearly, they are generated and displayed in part out of a simple fetish for the sterling-standard idiom of the era of globalization. But for the most part I suspect there is no intentionality at all behind them. These words are not bearers of meaning; they are strictly decorative. Whether I am right about this or not, one thing is clear: one does not wear such t-shirts as a joke. They either convey nothing at all, or, to the extent that the message is understood by the wearer, they convey an earnest wish to say something serious about oneself: ‘I am an Action Product Girl,’ ‘I participate in the Surfing Life-Style.’ They are a world away from the “moustache rides” message. They are the product of a different history and a different logic.
But why is hipster ridicule directed at the cultural output of a generation ago? Why is irony focused upon the recent past? Contrary to some facetious fears that the retro gap is closing, and that soon we will be celebrating for its ironic value the cultural output of this very day, in fact it seems that the ironic focus is eternally fixed upon the detritus that was floating about right around the time of one’s own origins, the things that could help to explain how one came to be at all, including the invitation to a moustache ride that just might have led to one’s own conception.
Hipster irony is at bottom a preoccupation with the problem of origins, and as I have said the portion of one’s life one can appropriately devote to hipster irony depends in large part on the course set for the body by the genes. But the changes in my case were not just physiological. Psychologically too, at some point all my interests either became earnest interests, or no interests at all. I offer an example from that most common measure of subcultural identification: music. In the mid-1990s, I made the rare discovery (for an American) of Joe Dassin, Dalida, and other French and Italian pop stars from a generation prior. I would put on Dassin’s “L’été indien” at parties and the guests would marvel at how treacly and over-the-top the string section was, how the rhythm made them think of ‘70s swinger parties of the sort Michel Houellebecq would later ruthlessly de-eroticize, or of some French smoothie in a Jacuzzi, again with a moustache, inviting a topless female reveler to ‘make love’. And most of all they would marvel at how recherché my CD collection was, at how well it reflected the desire among those of my generation for music that fascinated precisely because it was originally created for listeners whose lives we could scarcely imagine.
And yet, today, my wife and I put on Joe Dassin when we are at our respective computers writing, for the simple reason that we enjoy the sound of it. Why, my heart now wonders, would anyone listen to music that he does not, straightforwardly and earnestly, like? Why, for that matter, would anyone take an interest in anything other than in view of its genuine interestingness? Just what are the smart-ass youth, who like trucker hats precisely because they look down upon truckers, and who appreciate cowbells in music because naïve disco-goers once truly appreciated cowbells in music, trying to pull off? What, in short, is irony in its latest and dominant form?
History’s greatest philosophical ironist conceived of philosophy itself as nothing more or less than a preparation for death. When Socrates said that to philosophize is to prepare to die, and when Montaigne echoed this at the dawn of modernity, they did not mean that philosophy consists in tending to one’s last will and testament or constructing one’s own coffin out of plywood. They meant that the project of becoming wise is one that culminates late in life in a stance of equanimity vis-Ã -vis one’s own mortality. "I have seen men of reputation," Socrates tells the jury about to convict him, "when they have been condemned, behaving in the strangest manner: they seemed to fancy that they were going to suffer something dreadful if they died, and that they could be immortal if you only allowed them to live; and I think that they were a dishonor to the state, and that any stranger coming in would say of them that the most eminent men of Athens, to whom the Athenians themselves give honor and command, are no better than women." His tranquil acceptance of his hemlock is a reflection of his wisdom. Yet in his speech to the jury he also points out that he is now 70, and probably would not live much longer anyway. His death is not met as a sacrifice, but with indifference (this in marked contrast to the death of Jesus Christ at 33). No one could expect a youth to meet death with indifference. A corollary of this point is that no one expects a youth to be wise.
Philosophy today is age-blind, which is to say that (other than a few thought-experiments involving infants), philosophers talk about the way people think and act as though people do not go through stages of life. Imagined rational agents, making decisions about the most just society from behind a veil of ignorance, or deciding whether to pull a lever at a switching station, are presumed to be adults, certainly. But are they 20, or 70? Isn’t it reasonable to expect different sorts of behavior in the one case than in the other? There is general agreement that some degree of selflessness in one’s conduct is morally laudable, but the scientific evidence tells us that the changing quantities of hormones in the body throughout the stages of one’s life have a good deal to do with whether one will act egocentrically or not. I find myself growing more concerned about the well-being of others, but I do not think that this is because I am becoming ‘more moral’. It is only because I am no longer driven by that mad fire that used to course through my veins and cause me to strive for nothing but my own advancement and gratification. I couldn’t have done otherwise then, and I can’t do otherwise now.
Race, gender, and sexual orientation have captivated academic imaginations for the last few decades, particularly among leftists in the humanities who had grown bored with the traditional focus upon class antagonism as the engine of history. Race and gender are more or less fixed social categories, notwithstanding the opportunity medical technology has offered to a very small minority of people to change the biological basis of their gender identity, and notwithstanding the ultimate biological illusoriness of racial taxonomies. Sexual orientation is fluid, even if the tendency in our society is to conceive it on analogy to race and gender, that is, as constituting part of one’s ‘essence’ and thus as being coextensive with one’s own existence. Yet all the while age remains well outside the radar of the organizers of conferences and the getters of grants, and it is interesting to note in this connection that unlike sexual orientation there is no possible way to essentialize it, that is, there is no way to conceive of the predicate ‘…is young,’ say, as pertaining to the identity of an individual always and necessarily. Being young, like sitting or sleeping, is something that can be both true and not true of the same subject.
‘…is young’, as I’ve said, is a predicate that pertains to me less and less, and it is perhaps for this reason that I have, of late, begun to hope for the reintroduction into philosophy of reflection upon what used to be called the ‘ages of man’. I do not know whether aging is something to be thankful for, as Socrates seems to have thought, but I do know with certainty that it is not something to be awkwardly and unconvincingly denied, as balding hippies, with their scraggly ponytails and their irrelevant cultural reference points, insist on doing. And there is no use in pleading that, though the ponytail thins, the gut expands, and the stream weakens, one is nonetheless ‘young at heart’. For the body is the body of the soul, and these outward signs of the approach of death are but reflections of internal changes. Yet it is characteristic of the postwar generation to deny that the heart must grow old, to insist that it is free to follow a course entirely independent of the geriatric corporeal substance.
But what I am concerned about is my own generation, those who have worn “moustache rides” t-shirts for reasons several degrees removed from their original intent, and its prospects for aging well, which is to say its prospects for dying with grace and equanimity. At first glance, the fact that hipsters share irony with the West’s wisest condemned prisoner would seem to bode well for them. Yet Socratic irony and hipster irony could not be more different. Hipster irony has to do with taste, not truth, and it only makes sense relative to a certain context of commitments and preferences, while what Socratic irony strives for is a contemplative detachment from all partis pris. In an absolute sense, there is nothing more in Death Cab for Cutie or Arcade Fire that commands one’s earnest and straightforward appreciation than there is in Boxcar Willie, Juice Newton, or Perry Como. From a certain perspective, it is all garbage, and from another it is all fascinating. Hipsters still hope to draw a distinction between the genuinely good and the merely humorously good, by means of a bivalent logic in the end no more subtle than the ‘cool’/‘sucks’ dichotomy through which Beavis and Butthead filtered the world. An elderly ironist in contrast has had the time to watch enough cultural flotsam go by that he can no longer pretend that one instance of human productivity is intrinsically much more ridiculous than any other. Fully convinced of this truth, he might truly be prepared to die: he knows what to expect from the world, and so expects nothing more.
But that of course is no fun, while youthful irony is a blast. It will thus be interesting to see in the coming decades whether the irony that has defined the world view of an entire generation of educated Western children will prove capable of aging along with those former children’s bodies. It is still far too early to tell, though it is likely that the repellent example set by their aging parents, who remain deadly serious about the ‘accomplishments’ and enduring relevance of their generation, who never really learned how to be old because they remained so loyal to the moment of their youth, will serve as an incentive towards reflection on how to age well, which, again, the old philosophy tells us, is the same as to die well.
Even in my own case, it is far too soon to tell. I am sure as hell not yet wise, as I find myself nowhere near ready to die. Like some modern-day Ivan Il’ich, I cannot begin to imagine how I --who once impressed party-goers with my selection of “L’été indien,” and who mixed it seamlessly in the mid-1990s with some other bit of music that had just come out of London or Bristol, something they called ‘trip-hop’ that set the crowd to dancing on my packed living room floor-- could possibly do that well. I am serious, all too serious, about all those bits of flotsam to which I’ve happened to cling, and which have kept me buoyed and breathing.
Iasi, Romania
19 June, 2007
For a comprehensive archive of Justin Smith's writing, please visit www.jehsmith.com
Posted by jehsmith at 12:07 AM | Permalink
AgHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
OMG
The faces on the train can be so trying.
The advertisements you encounter before the morning rush are awful; from the crass and tasteless posters for horror films, the dregs of the underground product shilling, to the unsettling and truly very stupid ad for “Rescue Me”, the latter apparently some compellingly idiotic show about Dennis Leary’s distended neck. The atmosphere takes a slight turn to the more upbeat and jaunty as you exit the train: Hey! iPod ads! Colorful! All of the substance of a reggaeton song from a Newark summer of ’05! Drawing back into the trains, the most recent droll and insipid poster features a desperate woman, face oily and mascara running (undoubtedly the result of emotional feelings pertaining to the state of the MBTA), partially obscured by a chain link pattern. Captivity®! What the poster doesn’t show is that, if you panned the focus back a few feet, you’d notice the fact that the chain link pattern was a fence, not a wall of a cage, a seven foot tall fence at that, and the top wasn’t even that imposing, actually having those little twisty things that any eight year old can bypass without a scratch. Like the ones they have around elementary schools. And also relevant would be the fact that, like those school fences, there was a gaping gap about 15 feet down the fence. Captive, indeed.
Everyday the train rocks back and forth like the denizens of Central Square, caroming through the tunnel at a helter skelter pace, barreling around some corners only to stop for no apparent reason midway through the two relevant stations. The capriciousness of the train and its operator make each day a feast for the senses, and a fantastic workout for your core. For the bargain price of a $2.00 ticket ($1.75 for MBTA card holders, the gentry of underground transit) you can rock back and forth for as long as you can bear, shifting your weight in time with the lurching car. Crunches be damned: the green line is the low impact mama of the future. Focus your weary eyes on the gallery of advertisements as you sculpt your body. Learn Swahili. Teach English in China. Get that medical experiment easy money.
Teach English abroad. Sounds like fun. Screw you, mom and pop, and crusty high school counselor. College was a waste of time. I spent my childhood learning real employable skills. Mastery of English, bitches. Mastered it. Making loot and visiting foreign lands to teach them the native tongue. Figure the other skills I’ve picked up and honed over the years must be valuable as well. Figure I can cut them a deal for my expertise, you know, ‘cause I’m already acting as a consultant. Speculation skills, about all sorts of things, are a specialty of mine. Doesn’t matter how little I’m familiar with it. There’s that one. I can come up with opinions on the spot, at the drop of a hat, new and novel each time if necessary. I’m willing to peddle that shill at a reduced, package rate. I’m pretty well versed in websites, the internet. That fabulous beast. I can show the peeps of the world how to surf the web for hours. (Surf the web. Threw in a little lingo there. Free sample, to show them I’m legit.) Passive research. The World Is Flat. Pick up a copy of that tome on Amazon.com. In Mandarin. Cause I don’t have the time to be reading it to the client and, truthfully, English is a hard monkey to tango with. Your not going to pick up every little nuance if your not a native speaker.
My general cultural knowledge. Expansive. A vast pool of resources I’m willing to make available to the inquisitive soul who has a thirst for knowledge. I’ve got knowledge of comics, video games, and popular music from 1994 to 2005, inclusive, with the exception of Spring 2004, when I was studying other cultures abroad in New Zealand. I’ve read lots of abstracts on Lexis-Nexus, and I’ve got Swank’s password to the premium section of the New York Times website, so I’ve got that going for me (and for the client).
Teaching English to a non English speaker. Could there possibly be a more ridiculous job? And why, of all places, would any right minded English speaker place those ads in the Boston arear? The last thing the World needs, besides transplanted ‘2004 World Champs’ Red Sox caps spread liberally across the globe, is a legion of Japanese people students and business men speaking with a Southie accent. The Southie Pacific accent. Ha! Give us a break.
A word we shouldn’t teach the clients? Appetizer. Ban that word. Stricken it from the English language. Because it’s a paradox. An appetizer cannot feature over 2000 calories. That, in common parlance, is called a meal, in American English, also known as a days worth of sustenance in the FDA’s words. That is an appetite. Someone pulled a fast one on us, dropped the –e for an –izer. Appetizers should be like tapas. You want an appetizer? Go for a run. Refrain from food consumption for six hours or longer, give or take one purging. Your body will create a natural appetizer. It’s called ‘hunger’.
T.G.I.F. Fridays cannot sell appetizers any more, because it’s a contradiction in terms. Food has to be palatable, appetite inducing, for you to consider it an appetizer in these times, and we all know the food at the Teeg is none of the sort. Appetizer. It’s kind of misleading. Let’s just call it ‘meal’ and be done with it. (T.G.I.F.; This, guaranteed, is foul (parenthetic expression; another grammar tip, gratis). And I really don’t recommend teaching people abroad about appetizers. The irony of teaching a Chinese person about the delight of ‘Potstickers’ or ‘Lettuce Wraps’, when their grandparents lived through the Cultural Revolution, might be a lost and pointless cause.
Getting paid for talking English. That’s like your Grandparents giving you money for getting A’s in elementary school. No work. Easy. Who needs a job? You really did learn all you needed to know in life in kindergarten. English. I learned that shit by the time I was six. Teaching English is one rung up the ladder from giving your consent for paid medical studies and selling your sperm. I can’t help but wonder if the English teaching thing is really one big experiment also, subsidized by the Federal Government and T.G.I.F. Fridays to provide wages to otherwise unemployable liberal arts majors and spread to the developing world the gospel of appetizers and appletinis. Or maybe the is government is paying the Chinese Communist Party fees to displace Bostonians in a foreign land to see the long term effects of being removed from the center of the Universe for an extended period of time. Or to see if they would develop a Napoleonic Complex for a Sino-version of New York. In any case, there are even odds that someone would end up stabbed when a compliment of teaching prowess in broken, Southie inflected English is tragically and unintentionally interpreted to imply ‘better than you’ status.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Funny Nerdlingers
Second opinion... that's funny.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wine on the tip of my toungue
"In addition to aromas and flavors, wines have textures, and the only way to adequately convey how a wine feels in the mouth is metaphorically (big, little, fat, thin, velvety, burly, etc.). Of course, the line between incisive and overwrought can be a fine one.
British wine expert Michael Broadbent once likened a wine's bouquet to the smell of schoolgirls' uniforms (no, he wasn't arrested). And the late Auberon (son of Evelyn) Waugh, in his wine column for Britain's Tatler, described one wine as smelling of "a dead chrysanthemum on the grave of a still-born West Indian baby" (no, he wasn't fired, but he and his editor, Tina Brown, were brought before the Press Council to answer charges of insensitivity)."
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The front line of national defense
Even when there are no cars a biker must put a foot on the ground for a full stop.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Borat's Cousin Gets A New Watch
Bruce Schneier: "At 0.50 minutes into the clip, Bush has a watch. At 1.04 minutes into the clip, he had a watch."
Monday, June 11, 2007
spring
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
e.e. cummings
Friday, June 8, 2007
I still think this would be really fun
When I was a kid, I heard (personally propagated the lie) that Mattel actually created some working prototypes, but wouldn't release them because parents were worried their kiddies would die. I, for one, would rather die in a gruesome hoverboard accident than live in a hoverboard-free world.
Anyone who disagrees should call invisible Hitler and drive to Canada, because there's no room for people like that in this country. Get the hell out of America.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Dear God, Redux
This isn't silly, and I'm pretty sure it's true. Though it does beg the question, why aren't there more purple suits being worn today? That guy look good. And it's also worth noting that invisible Hitler sure does have good posture.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Dear God.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Crude!
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/
Nearly 7 billion of us depend on it. Yet few of us know what it is, where it comes from or how it's shaping the very future of life on earth.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Guess who...
I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.
b.) The spokesperson for Peabody Energy, the world's largest private sector coal company.
c.) The administrator of a federal agency committed to "advancing U.S. scientific, security and economic interests."
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
You figure it out.
I overheard someone reminiscing about friends. They said...
"My friends and I..."
Whoa. Stop right there. Friends? And you? Hanging out? Major. So what do you and these friends do? Listen to the latest Top 40 Billboard hits? Dance to these hits? Maybe a little basketball, sports, and when you dribble by them you yank their pants down, because it's funny! And then you'll all go for a dip, a little swim in the local pool, and you'll do the sickest water jumps. The cannonball. The jackknife. The gainer. The incontinent lush. The promiscuous older sister. Ha! I made those last two up! That's how reckless we were as kids, the friends and I. We didn't let stodgy old farts tell us how to do our water jumps. We came up with our own shit, man. We improvised. Sign o' the times. The "geriatric transsexual substitute teacher". Total classic. The "inconvenient truth". You did this one when you had to pee real badly and hadn't been in the pool for a bit. The "precocious onset of puberty". That one was the most popular and got the most attention, although it also stood the best chance of getting you pregnant.
Ah, friends, they were great. Sit around during the summer with your pals, maybe listen to a little Garrison Keillor, then rep it like you hailed from Lake Wobegon. But everyone knew you didn’t. They called us posers. Posers? Please! They were just jealous of that Mini ‘Sota flavor you rocked. And you talked like them, too. Affected a nice accent. And your mom would get all pissed and tight in the pants. Say Garrison was no good and that he objectified women and called them ho’s and how she didn’t trust people from Minnesota, and how they smelled funny. But when she saw one of them she’d be so polite. “Oh, I love lakes! And all the gophers! You must feel so lucky, growing up with all the gophers! And your cheese is splendid!”
Minnesota. Always made me think of baking soda. That was a lie! Baking soda. It was more like baking detergent. Clean my Girbauds in that shit. They probably called it baking pop in Minnesota. What the hell was it for? You would always be making some treat, a delicious batch of muffins or something, and you’d get down towards the end of the ingredients list and see B.S. sitting there, like an unwanted guest. Baking soda? Who invited you! You taste like shit! And it was always so pointless, when you were only allowed to put in like 2/8ths of a teaspoon. What good would that do? But you know that there’s someone out there in the world eating muffins, and they’re like, “ Ah, ack! Where…you can’t even taste the baking soda in this!” Must be diet baking soda; Baking Soda Zero. But at least it didn’t give you diabetes, at least you got to keep your toes. Baking soda had that going for it.
But baking soda was an uninvited guest, like that awkward kid in elementary school who overhead you say in class that you were having a party at Chucky Cheese and then showed up there himself and tried to play it off as a coincidence You didn’t just stop by Chucky Cheese on a lark! It was not the Olive Garden! This was an event. You’re never just “in the neighborhood”, unless you lived under the highway underpass, which, in retrospect, that kid might’ve. Like anybody says “in the neighborhood”, anyway. You were not! You’re a party crasher! You’re worse than baking soda!
Chuck Cheese. In my town it was called Showbiz Pizza. That’s fun. You got to be in The ‘Biz. Funny thing though: I expected more hookers and blow in The ‘Biz. But I know Michael Bay likes a slice of ‘za, and they did that right. And then sometime Chuck moved in on Showbiz’s turf. Kicked the joint to the curb. The show was over. Chuck rolled up in the spot, all loose like he was your chum. But let’s be honest – he was a giant rat. Could you really trust your kid’s birthday party and pizza to this character? And he totally rode the employees. “ Hey, bud, it’s Mr. Cheese to you. Charles Montgomery Cheese. Catch you slippin’ again and I’ll have one of my animatronic, hillbilly bears lodge a skee-ball up your ass.” Chuck was a real ball buster. But he didn’t get to the top of the birthday pizza party game by letting things slide. He was a ruthless businessman; you fucked with the pizza king, bitch, you’d get sliced! That was an industry specific joke. Sliced like a pizza, you know. It’s a joke, and not true. The reality was, if you crossed Chuck, he’d just come after you with a baseball bat with a nail in it, wrapped in barbed wire and dipped in mutagen.
Illth
Defined by John Ruskin, 1860
Wealth, therefore, is 'The possession of the valuable by the valiant'; and in considering it as a power existing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, and the valour of its possessor, must be estimated together.
Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly considered wealthy, are in reality no more wealthy than the locks of their own strong boxes are, they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth; and operating for the nation, in an economical point of view, either as pools of dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the stream flows, are useless, or serve only to drown people, but may become of importance in a state of stagnation should the stream dry); or else, as dams in a river, of which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but the miller; or else, as mere accidental stays and impediments, acting not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a correspondent term) as 'illth,' causing various devastation and trouble around them in all directions; or lastly, act not at all, but are merely animated conditions of delay, (no use being possible of anything they have until they are dead,) in which last condition they are nevertheless often useful as delays, and 'impedimenta,' (Unto this Last, 1860)
Monday, May 28, 2007
Bigger than Hogzilla
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Thriller, with a twist
I, for one, would love to know what the geopolitical implications here might be. I can't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that the world is somehow flattening even more.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
And now for the first of (hopefully) many editions of...
Boston Globe or The Onion?
Howard Stern Organizes Women's Health Symposium
NEW YORK–Citing his "responsibility as a public figure to the betterment of the community" and his "longstanding commitment to issues of concern to women," talk-radio personality Howard Stern announced Tuesday the First Annual Howard Stern Women's Health Symposium.Al Gore says he's out of love with politics
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice president Al Gore says he has "fallen out of love with politics" and does not want to run for president although he has not ruled it out completely.O'Connor: Court should follow precedent
WASHINGTON --Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says the Supreme Court should generally follow its prior rulings so the public has confidence that laws do not change just because justices come and go.Friday, May 18, 2007
Who is planning
to attend
the graduation '07
up in green, Vermont heaven
this weekend after next
to hear Bill speak and...relax.
The rhyming really trips me up.
Anyone else descending upon dear Middlebury to hear Mr. Hillary Clinton bash my favorite candidate? And by that, I mean deliver what will no doubt be a ridiculously stirring speech? Hope to see many of your faces there.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Help me I'm drowning in office
I turn to Cheers Bro
Today is damn slow,
I turn to Cheers Bro.
Even this poem is slow,
I turn to Cheers Bro.
Shoot me please yo
I turn to Cheers B---.
i'm dead
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
A picture is worth a thousand words
(this really captures how I feel today)
(more towards how I have felt at the end of every day of my working life)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Shout-Out
Salient observations from a co-worker...
Working is Web-surfing
I, like most everyone I graduated with, started working shortly after graduation. We report to a mass of cubicles each morning where everything is just like it was the morning before. Sure, the specifics may have changed, but the general tenor remains constant. Over time we get better at our jobs but there is always that lag between when you really pick up the pace and when your boss realizes and gives you more work to fill the void. That gap is the thing we all wait for. In fact, that gap is the thing we all work for because of one simple fact:Working is web-surfing.
We do live in a unique time. There are groundbreaking medical and technological advances made each and every day. Our political landscape, depressingly screwed up though it is, is constantly shifting. We have reached a time when it might be neat to play a part in one of these discoveries or headline-grabbing events, but the most satisfying feeling comes from breaking a story to those other twentysomethings seated around us. Of course, we didn't do any of the legwork or research, but we present the news with the smug satisfaction of the original broadcaster.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
“An Ode, in various capacities, to Boston, Women, the UN and the 2008 US Presidential Election”, or “McCain no vote for you no more”
Oh, we gonna get together real soon,
More you n’ me than Bahn ki Moon,
Red Bones gimme brisket, Adam’s rib gave us women, but men still owe Her,
Confusing Adams apple displayed by Anne Coulter,
Typing on my Apple, pass the roaster,
‘bout six pieces raisin bread up in the toaster.
Bit an apple and we ended up here, how you like them apples?
Must taste good, cause presidential caucuses up in the chapels,
Hilary, can’t get down with her cause she’s opportunistic,
Q: “What politician isn’t” Okay, true, but get this:
Tight with Sen. Brownback, they Royal cozy,
Tight with immigration like her name was Sarkozy,
And, no doubt, I admit she’s a smart cookie, Hilary,
So be a woman: push the ban on handheld artillery,
Despite her new buddies, truly she’s still polarizing like Rayban,
And Red folks? That a joke? Support a marriage between gay-ban?
And did I really read about intelligent design? Come on, please.
Teach the children about the civil union birds and the bees,
Dug the bold statements by a few republican candidates,
Respect to their new found campaign irrelevance,
Great plan: condoms and sex-ed < abstinence, makes perfect sense!
And lapses in the greater come at no medical expense! (wait…)
To be continued?
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Dougie’s Diary
12:05 am Order room service- charge it to Nomar 's room - tried to spell out garciaparra- finally just screamed charge it Nomar's room and make it quick.
12:20 Order third porn movie of the day1
2:40 Filet Mignon with a side of chicken parm arrives
12:46 meal finished- calls back to room service- orders 2 piece of cheesecake charges it to Terry Francona's room
12:55 dessert arrives
12:57 dessert demolished- dougie strips down and take his pre bedtime swings naked in front of the mirror
1:30 can't sleep calls nomar's room and says in a spanish voice" this is omar minaya you have been traded to the Montreal expos- nomar cries- dougie calls him a @#%$ and tells him to go ice his pinky toe
1:45 calls derek lowe's room and tells him he has been traded to the pawtucket red sox2:00 am can't sleep - goes skinny dipping in the hotel pool
3:00 am finally falls a sleep after killing it for the third time today and another peice of cheesecake
9:55 wakes up- kills it- then takes a shower and shaves- leave one stripe down his chin-tells himself he is a stud who hits bombs
10:15 takes 30 hard cuts naked
10:20 gets dressed- tight jeans- cowboy boots and tanktop heads off to park10:22 leaves note at front desk- please tell derek lowe and nomar to call john henry asap- leaves them a 900 number to call
11:00 arrives at ballpark- give dead leg to shilling and tells him to shut the @#%$ up for once
11:15 tells nomar he heard he is being traded to the expos for 3 pieces of @#%$ and some toilet paper
11:17 ask nomar if his @#%$ is still sore
11:18 steps on nomar's heel- tells him to quit being a @#%$
11:30 chest bumps wakefield11:45 pulls shilling aside with a flying tackle and screams in his face- if you weren't such a loud mouth i would be catching Randy every 5th day instead of chasing knuckleballs to the backstop. tells he got rocked in new york and stop pitching like suck a @#%$- rips shilling wallet from his backpocket and and takes his cash
12:00 tells derek lowe- what the @#%$ are you doing here- i thought we already traded your @#%$ weak ass sinker ball headcase @#%$ carcass-gives lowe a wedgie and farts in his face
12:15 screams out loud- "we trade nomar yet?"
12:45 orders chicken parm1:25 finishes eating- heads out to bp
1:30 gets put in nomar bp group
1:42 throws nomar out of the cage
1:50 hits 13 of 20 pitches 400 feet foul- misses other 7
1:52 nomar gets back in cage- calls him and his wife gay- throws baseballs at nomar heels- hope he trips and hurts himself
1:55 reminds nomar that the sox dropped ther offer from 15 to 12 million-tells nomar they are having a party tonight when they trade him
2:15 takes 45 minutes nap- gets ready for deadline-dreams he hit game 7 dinger onto the mass pike- wakes up sees nomar and is pissed3:15 announce to clubhouse- "nomar or @#%$ down lowe get traded yet ?"
3:45 bad mood takes over as it is the trading deadline and he sees nomar has not been traded
3:58 clubhouse closed to reporter- theo walks in- announes see ya @#%$-does a sack dance in nomar face
4:02 team notified of nomar's deal- leads chants in nanananana hey hey hey goodbye
4:10 bullshit do lowe not traded- tells him he is getting racked tonight- stuffs him in his locker
4:15 high fives luccino and bear hugs theo- theo stunned
4:30 tells francona they should have trade Francona and schilling to Wilkes Barre-
4:33 francona runs away- dougie catches him and give him an atoimic wedgie- tells him to @#%$ bunt the runner along every now and then; francona runs and hides behind schilling.
4:45 makes plan for post game celebration nomar traded party at local nightspot
4:50 grabs schilling's wallet and takes out cash to pay for party
5:05 announces today is a good day-
With that, I bring you Doug Mirabelli's doubleheader on 7/22:
9:00 shakes off the cobwebs and gets out of bed
9:01 lets out blistering fart and takes 90 second piss on his hands- farts 5 more times
9:03 drinks 3 raw eggs Rocky Balboa style and opens the fridge
9:05 take out leftovers from the Kowloon pupu platter for 3 he picked up last night
9:15 grunts at his wife and gives hid kids 20 bucks each to leave him alone
9:17 takes a dump9:22 sings Van Halen in the shower
9:25 shaves and leaves his goatee
9:30 takes 35 vicious cuts with his bat naked in front of the mirror-screams out loud "Dougie is going deep tonight "
9:45 puts on his cowboy boots and tight jeans and tanktop and gets ready to leave
9:50 grunts at his wife and kids and tells them he'll see them tomorrow
9:57 pulls onto RT 1 with Led Zeppelin blaring- cuts three people off-gives the finger to all three people
10:15 pulls into Fenway park- tells clubhouse parking attendant to make sure he blocks nomar in
10:16 puts the kid in a headlock and threatens the kid and his families' life if there is one scratch on his truck
10:22 walks into clubhouse and calls Nomar a homo for the the first time time today and 350th time this month- asks Nomar if he misses his boyfriend merloni
10:27 takes a sh*t- leaves door open and yells at anyone who walks by
10:30 gives nomar a deadleg and calls him a homo
10:33 stuffs derek lowe in a locker and pisses on him
10:37 goes through a 10 minute hand shake with his boy Wakefield
10:45 takes Pokey's Headphones off and steps on them- says until he is hitting 250-no music. 10:50 Francona walks by and Dougie cuts him off and says "Is Dougie DHing the first game " 10:51 Francona runs and hides behind Schilling
10:55 Dougie tells Trot if he played 162 Games his numbers would look like this : 375 72 Hr's 52 Doubles 9 Singles 6 Walks 220 K'S
11:17 writes back response to to fan's Letter "Hey P*ssy, I don't wear batting gloves because they are for p*ssies like your boyfriend Nomar "
11:30 Walks out to batting pratice with a tantkop on
11:45 after no stretching steps into the cage- ignores the 5 bunts standard procedure
11:47 takes 25 cuts- hits 17 over the monster and misses the other 8
11:48 calls the batting practice pitcher a homo and tells him to go bang nomar for mixing in a curve after Dougie hit one onto the pike
11:55 Tackles Nomar and gives him wedgie- calls him a pickle smoker
12:00 Dougie's daily order of Double Chicken Parm from Joe Tecci's arrives
12:07 Dougie finishes Chicken Parm and pours the rest of his sauce into Nomar's locker 12:15 Tito posts lineup- Dougie sees he is not the DH- Calls Francona a p*ssy. Francona runs behind Schilling
12:25 Dougie gets nakes and take 25 cuts in front of the clubhouse mirror- annoucing "Dougie is going deep tonight "
12:45 Takes a sh*t- uses Nomars 350 dollar silk shirt to wipe his ass-
1:05 game starts - Dougie tells Francona he is not going to the bullpen to warm up pitchers. Francona hides behind schilling
1:25 Dougie annouces he is ready to pinch hit in the Bottom of the first for Nomar.
1:45 Abe Alvarez comes in- Dougie tells him he sucks and will back at trenton by 7 tonight 1:55 dougies 4 fenway frank arrive- pays with nomar's credit card
2:15 finishes shopping with nomars credit card- maxed it out at Auto Zone
2:30 dozes off
3:30 sees they are losing and goes back to the dugout and tells whole team they suck except for him and wake
3:33 annouces himself ready to pinch hit
4:30 sox lose game- Dougie tells Francona he should have DH'D him-Francona runs away 5:00 Dougie tells Nomar singles are for p*ssies
5:30 Dougie takes BP again- refuses to bunt
5:33 Dougie hit 22 pitches over the wall 11 fair- 11 foul- all pulled- he missed 15 pitches 6:00 Dougie see name in lineup- calls francona a p*ssy for batting him 8th- francona hides behinf schilling
6:05 Dougie demands to bat cleanup
6:25 announces that Dougie is going deep tonight
6:30 dinner arrives- 2 steaks from the capital grille- dougie pours steak juice into nomar's locker- makes d lowe eat the fat
6:35 dougie gives d lowe an atomic wedgie
7:00 tells wakefield the show some balls tonight and don't throw anything in the dirt
7:10 scoreless first- dougie tells francona it must be the catching
7:25 Dougie tells fans in on deck circle he is going deep
7:27 dougie screams at pitcher- tells him he is a p*ssy and he is taking him deep
7:30 Dougie hits bomb off the wall- coasts into second. almost gets thrown out
7:31 tells pitcher he fastball sucks- tells shortstop and second baseman that he didn't get all of it-
8:15 dougie ropes a rocket to third- third baseman takes all day and still turns two on dougie-8:16 fans boo dougie
8:17 dougie tells family fo 4 to @#%$ off and steals some kids hot dog on way to dugout8:18 dougie is tired and is happy he it into a doubleplay- he did not want to run the bases anymore 9:10 dougie fans on inside pitch after crushing 4 foul home runs- calls pitcher- catcher and ump all p*ssies
9:30 9th inning - dougie is exhausted- walks out to the mound and calls embree a p*ssy and tells him to just bring the heat- dougie wants to get home
9:50 Dougie showers- and walks around the clubhouse naked- tells dan shaugnessy and gordon edes to blow him-
9:55 dougie shaves - and leaves a goatee 1
0:00 Knocks nomar off his exercise bike- calls him a homo singles hitter and leaves clubhouse 10:10 cuts off 4 redsox fans- gives the bird to everyone near him
10:25 arrives at Kowloon on RT 1 1
0:45 sits down at bar and digs into his pupu platter for 3
12:00 stumbles home and parks truck on the front lawn- goes for a dip in his above ground pool 12:10 leaves tighty whitey's on his neighboor's windshield
12:15 walks into house nakes and screams "who saw my bomb i hit tonite???"
12:30 wakes up whole neighborhood
12:45 takes 35 cuts naked and orders porn
12:55 pulls out bucket of KFC and gets ready for movie
1:15 dougie passes out on couch
Monday, May 7, 2007
larry learning.
The essential importance of balance was embodied in the Hebrew word for wisdom, chochmah, which ancient peoples understood to evoke the combination of both heart and mind in reaching a decision.
from here.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Ivan
and he thought he was the shit
then came one day with and we wanted to play
but all he could do was sit
it wasnt his fault so much as the fact
he had a big problem called loads of fat
summer came along
and his owners were gone
so with no place to stay he made his way
to Wisconsin as a last resort
he got to the door and to his abhor
a coyote was there to tap dat'
The moral you see is
Ivan's making a plea
Someone oh someone
Please take me.
Lessons from the Motherland
(preferably with a Chinese accent)
* That's not right ................Sum Ting Wong
* Are you harboring a fugitive?....Hu Yu Hai Ding
* See me ASAP......................Kum Hia Nao
* Small Horse .....................Tai Ni Po Ni
* Did you go to the beach? ........Wai Yu So Tan
* I think you need a face lift ...Chin Tu Fat
* It's very dark in here .........Wao So Dim
* I thought you were on a diet ..Wai Yu Mun Ching
* This is a tow away zone .......No Pah King
* Our meeting is next week ......Wai Yu Kum Nao
* Staying out of sight ..........Lei Ying Lo
* He's cleaning his automobile ..Wa Shing Ka
* Your body odor is offensive ...Yu Stin Ki Pu
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
nothing rhymes with awkward
so this poem will not rhyme.
in the mailroom, hello
becomes "what are you doing?"
"you mean, what am i working on?"
"uh yeah"
"stuff"
"ok"
"i'm sorry, what's your name"
"i work in fundraising. i got a job offer"
"oh, here? congrats!"
"no"
"oh, well congrats anyway"
"ok, see you around"
poems can be literal too.
Transformer Shoes!
Friday, April 27, 2007
sheepishly poodling
a poodle please
said one silly japanese
a poodle she wanted
a poodle she flaunted
but a sheep she got!
To be great
'A manly man asserts himself so that he and the justice he demands are not overlooked."~~~manly man's man
many years ago...
Thursday, April 26, 2007
hilarity comes in twos.
also, from this american life:
interviewer: do you support the women's movement?
bob hope: i support any woman's movement.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
A Must-Have for Hotties as World Heats Up!
New solar-powered bikini for Summer 2007!
