Christmas Haikus

Gifts are for the rich
Some children don't get presents
It sucks to be poor.

Of course Mary had sex
Eggs don't fertilize themselves
Who are we kidding?

Jolly bearded man
Gives, but eats lots of bad things
cholesterol kills.

Pervert, Schmervert

Today is Woody Allen's seventieth birthday, and, being something of a fan, I thought I'd point it out to those who would have otherwise let it go by unnoticed.

It's not easy to be a Woody Allen fan. First there's that whole "married his daughter" thing. That is admittedly kind of sick. And then there's the fact that many of his movies, particularly those of the last 5-10 years, suck. Why am I still a fan? Will power.
Driven by fond memories of Annie Hall and Crimes and Misdemeanors I choose to ignore that which might upset me.
"Oh," I tell myself, "she was adopted. And he didn't even adopt her, Mia Farrow did. And he didn't even marry Mia, officially. It was a common-law sort of thing."
In this way I consciously narrow my mind tightly enough to keep out the offending thoughts, leaving me happy and able to enjoy an evening watching Manhattan, a film featuring Mariel Hemingway as Mr. Allen's 17-year-old love interest.
It's what I imagine it's like to be a Republican.

God Bless You, Mrs. Pinkowski

Every morning at Barnes & Noble we have a meeting. The manager comes on overhead to say some variant of "Good morning booksellers, let's gather at the customer service desk," and then once the booksellers are assembled gives us a recap of the prior day's events.
The other day the manager was Leslie, a middle-aged woman and single mother who has volume control problems and terrible taste in everything.

What I imagine to be on Leslie's Nightstand
Northern Lights by Nora Roberts.
A photograph of her husband.
Two alarm clocks, one electric and one old-timey wind-up one in case the electricity fails.
Disinfectant.
Reading glasses.
A small bottle of beano.
An issue of More magazine.

"We made plan yesterday, but barely," Leslie told us. "We're still not meeting our goal with membership sales, so everyone work on that. Try selling them all over the store, not just at the registers. Oh and don't forget we have Trent Lott coming Saturday to sign his new book, Herding Cats. That should be exciting, huh?"
Nods and murmurs. Jacob said something about being glad he isn't working.
"We have a lot of new strict-on-sales coming out today, let's take a look at them."
Strict-on-sale refers to a book with a "strict-on-sale date," which means that the publisher won't allow us to sell the book before that date. Sometimes these dates are broken: Wal-Mart sold the last two Harry Potter books early and paid substantial fines for it.
"Okay, here we have Team of Rivals, by, uh, Dorrie Kearns Gooden. Hmmm. And here's Truth, by ehem, Al Franken."
Leslie made a face as she said "Al Franken" that led me to think she probably watches Fox News, something I had always suspected of her. She is exceptionally well-informed.
"And, well, HERE's a title. Memories of My Melancholy Whores. SKREEEEEEEEETCH. Well I never."
"SKREEEEEEEEETCH" is actually a pretty accurate representation of how Leslie laughs, a laugh one of my coworkers has compared to the cry of a starving eagle.
"Well," said Leslie, the strict-on-sales disposed of, "Is anyone reading anything interesting?"
Leslie always ends her meetings with this question, usually to the same silent response but today a new girl named Elizabeth piped up.
"I'm reading A Million Little Pieces," she said.
A Million Little Pieces is a biography by James Frey that came out several years ago. It sold some copies then, but wasn't a big deal until very recently when Oprah decided she liked it, sending droves of her fans to stores to make it Barnes & Noble's top selling paperback title.
"Oh," said Leslie, "What's that like?"
"Pretty good I guess. It hasn't really grabbed me."
At which point Jacob weighed in.
"Man, I looked at that book. It's all about drug addiction, and suicide and stuff. It's totally fucked."
He looked Leslie dead in the eye as he said fucked, and she smiled wide, her eyes full of fear.
My heart soared.

Happening

This week I cleaned out my closet for the first time in several years, and found a lot of crappy old toys, as well as roughly a dozen notebooks from college and high school, many of them three quarters empty. Among the broken supersoakers and the notes on integral calculus I found a box dating back to my senior year of high school, when I attended Happening #34.

Before l went to Happening I always thought it was this exclusive club, where members went away for periodic secret weekends and initiated new members and had lots of fun, doing what I wasn't sure, but maybe bonfires were involved, or possibly large scale battles with waterguns.
Well there are no bonfires, and no watergun battles, because Happening is a cult for teenagers-- a long-established, well-respected, open-minded cult. Run by hippies. The point of the whole thing is to make the "happened" feel "God's love." Everyone sits around and talks about life, and morality, and what they think life means, and God of course, and a load of other crap, and then at the end everyone feels really close to each other and really happy and everyone is sure to go to church for the rest of their lives and donate lots of money so that their churches can build new fellowship halls and host bigger and better pig-roasts.

I won't go into all of what takes place over a Happening weekend, in part so as not to ruin these people's fun secrets and in part because most of it is rather dull, but I will discuss one part of the weekend called "Caritas." This is when the people running the show surprise the people being "happened" by throwing a bunch of balloons and confetti, and giving each participant their own individual giftbag full of little trinkets, incense, toys, candy, cards and letters. It's supposed to be about making you feel loved, and while I'll admit now that its kind of a nice idea, back in high school it really creeped me out. I re-lived that feeling this week when I found the contents of my Caritas giftbag in a box in my closet.
Among the dried flowers and notes from total strangers I found a few items of particular note--

A sponge with the inscription "Soak up GOD's LOVE!"
A pair of extra large sunglasses with the words "Don't be blinded by God's Love!"
A picture of a VW Bug from a girl named "Muffin" with the words "Honk if you Jesus!" (Muffin forgot the verb, and it's fun to try filling in the blank with creative alternatives to "love." "Honk if you walked Jesus!")
A pack of 10 Kleenex with the inscription "Tears are for soul-washing!"
And, inexplicably, a can of Hannaford brand cat food (sliced chicken in gravy).

And then there were the notes. There were a lot of notes, telling me that I was a "special child of God," and that I should "spread my wings and fly" and, a conflicting request, "Bloom where you are planted!"
Several different people sent me a "Letter from Jesus," which I will excerpt for you now:
"I saw you fall asleep last night and I longed to touch your brow. So, I spilled moonlight on your pillow and your face. Again I waited, wanting to rush down so that we could talk. I have so many gifts for you. But, you awakened late the next day and rushed off. My tears were in the rain."
I know that some people somewhere must find that moving (I did receive 3 copies of it), but I thought it made Jesus sound like a bit of a pervert.
Almost as strange as this letter and the catfood were four mixed tapes, all sampling essentially the same musicians, often the same songs. All four tapes start with the Indigo Girls' "Closer to Fine," and the Indigo Girls featured prominently throughout each of these tapes, as did James Taylor and John Denver. And for some reason Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" was on three out of four.
I know I am not alone in thinking of mixed tapes as a personal thing. In my experience it's the sort of gift given to someone you know well, a gift that says a lot about yourself and how well you understand your friend. A good mixed tape should be specifically for the person you are giving it to and full of things you think that specific person will enjoy. If you've read High Fidelity, Nick Hornby goes on about this for pages.
Now I am fairly narrow-minded musically, and was even more so at seventeen. People who know me at all know that I lean heavily toward classical, and that for better or worse I am a pretentious snob. So there probably wasn't a better way for these people to show that they had no idea who I was than to give me mixed tapes full of Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Phish, and Aaron Neville singing "Amazing Grace." Unless it was to sign their names, names that could have been picked at random from the phonebook for all I knew.
"Who are Kim Tilford and Ben Maas?" I asked, as confetti and balloons rained down on me and my neighbors exchanged hugs. As I looked through more of the letters that were in my package I became more bewildered and more put off that a couple dozen people I had never met claimed to love me. Of what value is the love of someone who doesn't know you? I'm sure Muffin was probably a nice girl, but its entirely likely she would have hated my guts if we'd ever spoken. I'd probably have said something like, "Honk if you moisturize Jesus!" or "I fucking hate the Indigo Girls, Muffin," and where could we have gone from there?

Review of the restaurant Akida

Japan must be some kind of country.

Review of the movie Akira

Japan must be some kind of country.

If the Gospels were written in the style of the movie Swingers

Jesus: I just don't know Pete, I mean yeah, I want a following, but it feels so forward to just walk up and suggest someone forget about their job and their family and wander around listening to me talk. I mean, what kind of ego trip is that?

Simon Peter: Listen to yourself-- baby, you know why you don't have any, well there's me and Andrew here of course, but why you don't have that many disciples. Yet. You know, right? Cause you lack confidence baby, and that's just silly.

Jesus- Oh please Pete--

Simon Peter: NO you oh please, you listen. You're beautiful man, you are so money and you don't even know it. Andrew, am I lying?

Andrew: Jesus, you are so money.

Simon Peter: See, baby? Andrew knows. Money. All you gotta do is just start telling the beautiful babies your parables and they'll follow you. They're dying to follow you man. Dying.

Jesus: But I feel like sometimes the parables are kinda vague.

Simon Peter: And THAT's why they're money baby, cause people hear them and they get all confused. They're like, "What's that mean? It sounds all wise and shit, but like over my head. This guy must really know something." And that, that's when you pounce on 'em.

Jesus: Pounce?

Andrew: Pounce.

Jesus: Listen, it's not like I'm a cougar or something here, I'm trying to, I dunno, lead them spiritually or something, not eat them.

Andrew: Maybe that's your problem. You know, maybe they won't listen until you tear them open, find out what's inside them, and then eat it.

Simon Peter: Shut up Andrew-- Jesus, baby, it's a figure of speech. The point is to be a little more sure of yourself, and I mean why not, right? I mean you're the son of God, right? Am I right about that?

Jesus: Yeah, I guess so.

Simon Peter: Of course I'm right. And you've got that awesome story about the mustard seed, right?

Jesus: You really like that one?

Simon Peter: Of course I fucking do man. And you know why, cause you tell it so fuckin' well. You really sell that shit about the mustard seed baby, and I don't even care that I don't understand it. That's how fucking money you are. So put on some fresh cloths cause we're going out, right? Yeah, we're going out and you are gonna recruit some disciples! Disciples baby, yeah!

Jesus reluctantly changes clothes. Swing dancing ensues.

A Spirited Re-Imagining of the American Civil War

I come to you today from the breakroom at Barnes and Noble, via my co-worker Kristi's laptop and the cafe's WIFI internet connection, which Kristi pays for by the month rather than by the hour, thus rendering it affordable enough to share. She's a generous soul.

I recently decided that my blog is growing stale, and have since been thinking of ways I might revitalize it. To that end, I have decided to introduce a regular feature to my blog-- a book club, like Oprah's but with no impact on publishing whatsoever. Every week or so I will highlight a new book that I decide is somehow worthwhile, and then sit back and watch as everyone continues to ignore it.
I plan to start out featuring commercial black authors, your Zanes, your Sister Souljahs, your Nikki Turners, your what have you, and then plum the uncharted depths of contemporary Christian fiction. From there, who knows.
My first selection is called Crunk, a book one co-worker of mine was so offended by that he suggested it was written by the devious propaganda wing of the Ku Klux Klan.

Crunk: a Novel by Tariq, Rudd, and Jones.
ISBN 0972800549
www.blackpearlbooks.com

I would like to stress that what follows is a real advertisement for a real book that is really for sale at my store. Call 804-282-0781 for details.

Imagine a Thug-World divided by the Mason-Dixon Line......
After the brutal murder of four NYC gangstas in Charlotte, the climate is set for an all-out Thug Civil War - North pitted against South!
Rah-Rah, leader of NYC's underworld and KoKo, head of one of the Durty South's most ferocious Crunk-crews are on a collision course to destruction. While Rah-Rah tries to rally his northern Thugdom (Philly, NJ, NY), KoKo attempts to saddleup heads of the southern Hoodville (Atlanta, South Carolina & Charlotte).
Kendra and Janeen, a southern sister-duo of self-proclaimed baddest bitches, conduct a make-shift Thug Academy to prepare KoKo's VA-bred cousin (Shine) to infiltrate NYC's underground, as a secret weapon to the impending battle.
The US government, well-aware of the upcoming war, takes a backseat role, not totally against the idea that a war of this magnitude might actual do what the Government has been unable to do with thousands of life sentences-- rid society completely of the dangerous element associated with the Underground-World.
Suspensefully-Sexy, Erotically-Ghetto and Mysteriously-Raw. CRUNK will have you saying Hmmmmmmmm?

"Get ready for a wild and sexy ride! Twists and turns are abundant! An instant urban classic thriller! Tariq, Rudd & Jones are definitely some BAD BOYZ! Err'body gettin' CRUNK!"
The author of this last quote was not provided, but I like to imagine that it was Michiko Kakutani.

Chief Justice Rehnquist Assassinated by Karl Rove?

One of the things that makes having a blog fun is tracking how many people read my posts. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see a little icon that says "Site Meter." Clicking on it will take you to the website that tracks my internet traffic for free. Using this site I am able to see how many people read my blog every day, how long it takes them, and what link brought them here. Furthermore, if they happened to come here via a search with Google or some other web browser, Site Meter lets me see what search they performed. Over the last few months I have compiled a list of some of the web browser searches that have led strangers to my blog.

- "I work at Barnes and Noble"
- Weinmareiner (they meant weimaraner)
- Terry Bradshaw
- Wacky Wicca
- Rage Kindelsperger (the head of bargain books at Barnes and Noble's corporate headquarters)
- lesbian licking
- Philadelphia Eagles quilt
- Roger Ebert interracial wife
- Dawson’s Quilt
- Dawson's Creek Quilt
- Cold Stone Creamery
- "Shave beard off"
- Cocksucker
- Roger Ebert’s Wife
- Macho Man McSweeney’s
- "Roger Ebert’s" "wife is black"
- "Language on Deadwood"
- Roger Ebert’s wife
- The top ten reasons to be Catholic
- “University of Mary Washington deck chairs”
- "I go to the YMCA"
- angry sealions
- Karrine Steffans

Perhaps you noticed how frequently Roger Ebert's wife was mentioned. Even more popular recently has been Karrine Steffans, who I listed here only once but has led roughly a dozen people to my site since I mentioned her name two weeks ago.
This Mrs. Ebert/Karrine Steffans phenomenon finally awakened me to the way the internet really works: when you talk about something a lot of people are interested in it results in higher web traffic. People don't want to hear about what some crazy person at Barnes and Noble did or what I think of Werner Herzog. They want to find out that the Video Vixen is currently dating Bill Maher, and that Roger Ebert has a raging case of jungle fever.
Hence the title for this post.
Is it possible that Karl Rove had Chief Justice William Rehnquist murdered to distract from the catastrophe on the Gulf Coast and so that the President could further reshape the Supreme Court? Perhaps. Do I believe that? Of course not, but I do think that posting wild conspiracy theories about popular national media topics will result in higher traffic for my site, which I don't mind telling you has been lagging. Here now a list of other things designed to boost my prominence in the blogosphere:

- The Rock: Gay and secretly dating Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Kyan Douglas?
- Kanye West: Bid for the White House in 2008?
- Hermione Granger: Pregnant with Ron's baby in book seven?
- Wolf Blitzer: "These people are very poor, and very black."

Another Cheap Shot at God

This afternoon on ESPN I watched a loud and arrogant talk show host interview Falcons running back Warrick Dunn. It was a lousy interview-- all of the questions were snivelling ass-kissy ones like, "Warrick, you're one of the really good guys in the NFL, can you tell me why your charity work with single mothers is so important to you?" To which Warrick, who seemed bland and camera shy, came out with something very rehearsed, like, "Well it was a dream of my mom's and I love to see other women realizing my mom's dreams, and I just give thanks to God because none of this would be possible if he hadn't blessed me and made me talented at football. In his divine mercy. Praise him."
You hear a lot of that sort of ignorant bullshit coming out of the mouths of famous people, particularly famous athletes and famous recording artists, pointing to the ceiling of the Kingdome or whatever auditorium the MTV Music Video awards are being held in and saying "All the glory goes to God!" because without God they never could have broken that quarterback's arm or recorded the Thong Song.
Later this afternoon, still on ESPN, I heard some commentators taking cruel jabs at recently benched Chicago Bears Quarterback Chad Hutchinson while they showed some clips of Chad getting sacked by different people. And I imagined what I would say t o the press if I were Chad.
"I just want to say that all the shame goes to God. He neglected to bless me with enough talent to make it in the NFL, and I really blame him for that. I feel that He not only let me down, but also people all over our nation born with spina biffiida, who I was hoping to help with money I earned playing football. It wasn't enough that He cursed these people with a crippling physical condition, no, He has to go and refuse to bless me, thereby denying me a lucrative contract and the means to make charitable donations to these poor people who he cursed in the first place. What an asshole."

Apologies

My two most recent entries have offended some people close to me, and I wanted to take a moment to attempt to clarify and apologize. I've already done this privately, but thought it might be nice to do it publicly, to say "HEY EVERYONE, I'M A DOUCHEBAG AND HERE'S WHY."

First, over the last couple of months I have made some unkind remarks about UVA, particularly in one entry on July 29th where things got very personal and I used the word fuck in big capital letters. This irritated a friend of mine, a UVA alumna whom I love dearly, and though she was very polite and perfectly amicable about it she did call me a biggot, which I thought was inaccurate but also sort of reasonable. Cause you know, maybe I make broad stupid generalizations and form opinions quickly with little or no reliable evidence, but I am just as quick to change my mind: many's the movie/vegetable/book/person/second-largest-state-in-the-union I have come to love after an initial heavy loathing. I'm not saying I love UVA now, mind you, only that it's conceivable that at some point in the future I might. If at 25 I can enjoy a clump of raw broccoli then truly anything is possible.
So to sum up apology the first--
Jocelyn, when I say I don't like UVA what I mean is that the place makes me feel stupid. I know I couldn't have gone there and I feel like everyone there is somehow smarter than I am. Which is what that particular entry was supposed to be about, I just wasn't very clear. I'm sorry.

Second, in my August 15 entry I poke gentle fun at my sister, giving an example of a "bad" story she might tell. This offended her, and she wrote a comment to let me know that. I would like to clarify that I don't think my sister tells many bad stories at all, and that the story I was relating wasn't a bad story when she told it. If she does have a tendency to breathlessly string sentences together like the man from the Mighty Machines commercials that's not a criticism, but rather an observation. My version of the story was not meant to be a joke at her expense, but a tribute to someone I think is genuinely really funny. So please don't be mad Sarah; I think you're hilarious.

Third, to the Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, I'm sorry that last April I posted a disgusting story about you in which I described your nipples as "extra large raisins in [my] mouth." That was uncalled for. It's just that I like you so much and don't know how to show it. How about dinner Saturday, pick you up at 8?

Spoilers: Bailey has Leukemia; Vincent Kills Paige

On my last day in Texas I bought a copy of Sight and Sound, the British movie magazine best known for a poll it takes every ten years, asking critics and directors to determine the ten greatest movies ever made. It's easy to predict what will make the list-- Citizen Kane is always number one, followed by Rules of the Game and Vertigo and something by Kurosawa.
But that's every ten years. In between polls Sight and Sound does what every other movie magazine does, interviews filmmakers and reviews their movies. The one feature that I haven't found elsewhere, and probably my favorite part of the magazine, are the movie synopses that accompany the reviews. Every movie reviewed is also summarized; it's setting, characters and plot given in some detail with a complete listing of the film's credits. What makes it fun is that every movie receives the same serious treatment, and no matter how bad the review might be the summary is totally serious, with no hint of sarcasm or condescension.
Take this bit from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for instance:

Tibby befriends a young girl, Bailey, later revealed to have leukemia; Lena finds romance with Kostas despite her family's disapproval; Bridget succeeds in seducing the coach; and Carmen has a showdown with her father. Carmen returns home to discover Tibby has become more in touch with her feelings since meeting Bailey. Bailey dies.

It might seem unfair to enjoy that, and granted, I don't know that Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is necessarily a bad movie. Maybe when Bailey dies it's really moving; maybe Tibby's growth is realistic and well acted. But to see the familiar formulas stripped bare and laid out for you, to see clearly what the time, money, and hard work of countless people has gone into, and laugh at them for it, it's what makes me think about buying a subscription to Sight and Sound.
Even better are the horror movies, like House of Wax:

Nick saves his sister. Dalton enters the house of wax and is decapitated by Vincent, who then goes to the clearing to stab Blake. Paige [Paris Hilton] flees, but Vincent drives a metal javelin through her head. Carly and Nick realize the town is full of wax-encased corpses created by Bo and Vincent, the separated Siamese twin sons of the late artist Trudy. Carly kills Bo, and Vincent is engulfed when the House of Wax melts in a fire. The police arrive, and reveal Trudy had three sons.

When previews came out for that movie I heard a lot of people say they wanted to see it just on the off chance that Paris Hilton's character might be killed. I found that idea appealing, but hated the idea that I might pay $7.50 only to watch her make it out alive. Now, thanks to Sight and Sound, if I rent House of Wax I do so with the certainty that Paris Hilton gets a javelin put through her head.

While we're on the subject of spoilers, I would draw your attention to the following link. Be warned, you who care about Harry Potter and have yet to finish The Half Blood Prince, it's very url gives things away.

And one more recommendation-- rapper Immortal Technique. Yes, like many hip hop artists he's egotistical, homophobic, and misogynistic. But he also says things like "Condoleeza Rice is the new age Sally Hemmings," and in my book that makes him great.

Sarah Everton's Amazing Solution For Any Boring Story or Anecdote

In Noah Baumbach's overlooked 1995 movie Kicking and Screaming, there's a scene in which a character played by Olivia d'Abo tells her soon-to-be-boyfriend a story about her childhood.
"I hate raisins. When I was a girl, my mother used to force me to eat them. Even though she knew I hated them."
The young man is puzzled, and an embarrassed Olivia d'Abo gives him two quarters.
"Here. Fifty cents. When I tell a bad story I like to pay people for their time."
I tell a lot of bad stories, and have often thought of that scene while doing it, once or twice reaching into my pocket to feel for change.

In the opposite direction from Mr. Baumbach's payment of reparations, is my sister's solution to bad storytelling-- a quick left turn towards violence. To fix any boring or pointless story Sarah just tacks on the sentence, "And then I stabbed the guy." As in, "Oh man, class today lasted forever, and my teacher asked us to discuss this book I hadn't read, and I was really nervous but I think I faked my way through it alright. But then this girl I hate, everybody hates her cause she sucks, she starts talking all this shit about the Bible and how she thinks that people who don't believe in God shouldn't yell 'Oh my God!' or 'Jesus Christ!' or anything like that. And then this guy, I think he's her friend was like 'Oh yeah, I totally think that too, but I didn't know anybody else agreed with me.' So then I stabbed the guy."

********

Lost in the mid-July shuffle of Harry Potter and his Barnes and Noble Midnight Magic Party was the unexpected success of Karrine Steffans' Confessions of a Video Vixen, a sort of hip-hop tell-all. Ms. Steffans confesses to, among other things, affairs with DMX, Jay-Z, Vin Diesel, and Shaquielle O'Neal, who supposedly would give her $10,000 every time she blew him. Its popularity is waning now, but in July, when the publisher had yet to catch up with the unexpected demand of its new bestseller, my store received at least two dozen requests for it a day, almost exclusively from black patrons.
Yesterday I was cashiering at Barnes and Noble and two young black men came in to pick up their reserved copies. When they saw the cover with Ms. Steffans' thin painted face, a look of either animal lust or the most profound boredom coming from under her heavy purple eyelids, they snorted.
"Shorty ain't nothing special," said the one.
"Yeah dog, she ain't even that thick if you know what I'm sayin'," said the other.
"B, I think I saw this girl, minus the make-up you understand, coming out of Target twenty minutes ago. Please."
I thought this was hilarious, but more importantly I was overjoyed that an unfamiliar young black man had called me "B." It's no secret that I admire black culture, and in my daydreams I am always playing basketball with people very like these two customers. To be addressed as "B," seemed the realization of that particular fantasy; that my name doesn't start with a B didn't occur to me.
"Yeah, I thought that too; I'm relieved to hear someone else say it! But I figure, maybe she's just got a cool personality."
The two men stared at me blankly, and I realized that they had been talking to each other.
"You know, like maybe she is really funny. Or just confident. Confidence can go a long way."
More blank stares.
"Do either of you gentlemen have a Barnes and Noble Membership?"
"No man, and we don't want one," said the first, irritated.
So I stabbed the guy.

Of Netflix and School Spirit

Just now on Netflix I discovered the "Local Favorites" feature, which gives you a list of the top twenty five titles in your area. For example, the number one title in Midlothian, Virginia right now is Seabiscuit, followed by some IMAX movie, and the documentary-style thriller Open Water. Which kind of makes sense to me. Midlothian is a Seabiscuit kind of a place.

Now forgive me for what seems like a non sequitur, but I don't like the University of Virginia. This will not shock those of you who know me; I don't keep it secret. Explaining why I don't like the University of Virginia is difficult, but it seems safe to say that the reason is rooted in a strange personal sense of school spirit, born out of a nagging communal inferiority complex.
I went to Mary Washington College (now University of Mary Washington, bless you William Anderson), safety school to many future Wahoos, and home to the bitter many whose transcripts didn't quite measure up to Mr. Jefferson's high standards. There, rejected and without a Greek system to comfort them, they wail and moan and gnash teeth, pissed to be in Fredericksburg and waiting for the weekend when they will leave. Few stay at Mary Washington on weekends, because, as they will tell you and their parents and the school paper, "Fredericksburg is such a NOTHING town. NOTHING happens here. JESUS."
There is such an excess of self-loathing at MWC, so much griping and talk of transfers, and such an absence of pride that I, who had always laughed at such things in high school, developed a strong sense of school spirit. And, because UVA seems so much at the center of Mary Wash's self-hatred, because it's taken for granted that everything in Charlottesville is so much more fun, more exciting, more academically rigorous (FUCK YOU IT ISN'T), it makes sense that as I developed feelings of Eagle love I simultaneously developed feelings of Cavalier hatred. The other side of the coin, as it were.

Back to Netflix. Amused by the idea that the character of a community (and thus that community's large public university around which its economy is centered) might be reflected in what its citizens watch, I checked the top movies in Charlottesville and Fredericksburg. Just for the hell of it.
The #1 rental in Charlottesville is Mostly Martha, "a tragicomic tale about an uptight professional chef who finds her world turned upside down when she takes in her newly orphaned niece, Lina (Maxime Foerste). Martina Gedeck stars as Martha, whose obsession with precision gourmet cooking extends to discussing recipes with her bewildered therapist (August Zirner) and verbally attacking anyone at the restaurant who attempts to send her food back."
In German with English subtitles.
The #1 rental in Fredericksburg is The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Disc 3.

Large Black Retarded Men

Fred
Like most high schools, my high school had a special education class, and it's students had their own table in the cafeteria where they ate their lunches and mostly kept to themselves. The exception was a young man named Fred, who most days wandered the lunch room asking people if he could touch their feet. He had a hard time expressing himself clearly, and spoke in short, charged, three syllable sentences that always sounded like commands. He was loud and physically intimidating, and let's face it his request was a little strange, so when he charged up to tables to ask, "FEEL THE FEET?!" more often than not he scared his potential friends away.
I saw several of these encounters before Fred eventually approached me. I didn't know, I still don't, why he was interested in feet, but it seemed a small thing to ask, and I went along with it. I raised my foot for him to examine, but that was apparently not good enough and he started tugging at my shoe.
"TAKE OFF!?" he said. That weirded me out a little, but I hated to disappoint him and I took my shoe off. He didn't examine it for long-- just held my socked foot in his hand for a few seconds before asking about my shoes. I didn't understand his question though, and after asking him to repeat it a couple times, he finally typed it out on a small portable typewriter he carried around his neck, handing me the slip it printed.
"you like nike" it said.
"Sure Fred, Nike is ok," I told him.

This was the first of many questions Fred asked me over the next several years. He would spot me from afar and yell out my name, "AMPREW!", then throw himself down the hallway, his arms flying wildly about his head, dozens of scared white children scurrying before him. When he reached me I would have to stop whatever I was doing and answer his question, which he always yelled at me a few times before finally typing:
"you go to mcdonald"
"you watch weather channel"
"you drive to mall"
"you eat big mac"
"you play violin"
I answered these questions quickly, often condescendingly, a little annoyed that a snap decision to let a retarded boy touch my feet had led to a daily chase down the hall and the constant questioning of everything I did. But as time went on, I got used to Fred, and as I got to know him a little better I came to the startling realization that retarded people have personalities. I was particularly amazed by Fred's sense of humor. One memorable day Fred chased me down to ask me if I liked Beck. I didn't know who Beck was at the time, and Fred's way of asking was to type out, "two turntables and a microphone."
"Two turntables and a microphone, Fred?"
"IT'S WHERE IT'S AT!" he yelled.
Fred also had a phenomenal memory. A teacher told me Fred had once seen a list of the school's locker combinations, had committed it to memory, and was capable of breaking into any locker in the school, a claim made more plausible for me by the movie Rain Man.
Proof of Fred's memory came when he gave me a poster one Valentine's day. It was made up of roughly a dozen drawings depicting my answers to numerous questions he had asked me: crude depictions of Andrew eating the big mac, watching the Weather Channel, wearing the nike shoes, going to the mall with dad. Printed in the center were the words "Our friendship makes my heart happy," something I thought was a little saccharine, but made my mother cry. Fred was, apparently, quite sentimental.

Clyde
The other day I met another retarded person, named Clyde, who physically reminded me a great deal of Fred. Both black, both physically intimidating, both frustrated by an inability to express themselves. Clyde, however, was no Fred.
He had a hard time standing for long periods of time, and dragged one of our heavy wooden chairs around the store with him, plopping down at random in the middle of aisles and walkways to look at books. He was in the travel section, totally blocking the aisle, when he suddenly rose from his seat, stumbled over to the customer service desk and started barking demands at me.
"You librarian. I want a book on manias. And phobias."
This didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I gave it a shot. I brought him several books-- a dictionary of psychological disorders, a book about fear, and a book about overcoming anger. I left him in the travel section looking them over, only to hear him yell a few minutes later "BOOK MAN! COME HERE!" And then once I got there, "Book man, I am not impressed with this book," and he held it out at arm's length as though the problem was its smell. "Take it away!"
So I took it to the back room and hid for a few minutes, hoping Clyde would go away. When I came back he had moved his chair directly in front of the desk, where he sat yelling at an unhappy co-worker of mine.
"I WANT A DICTIONARY WITH ALL OF THESE WORDS," he yelled, brandishing a piece of paper with phrases like "political mercenary," "social conservative," and "anarchist cannibal."
I tried to explain to him that dictionaries don't often contain phrases, that he would need to look the words up individually. "For example," I told him, " 'political mercenary' is a phrase. You need to look up 'political,' and then 'mercenary.' You won't find them together."
"POLITICAL MERCENARY IS A GUY WHO FIGHT FOR WHATEVER YOU WANT. HE'S FOR MONEY!"
"Really? How interesting."
"FIND ME THE DICTIONARY. AND MAKE SURE IT DOESN'T HAVE PICTURES OF PORTUGUESE MAN OF WAR! THEY ARE TOO DISGUSTING FOR ME TO LOOK AT!"
At which point Clyde's assistant finally got off of his cell phone, and escorted Clyde from the building.

Well said, Roger Ebert.

I am ashamed to say that, in the past, I have held Roger Ebert in contempt. I read his reviews, saw that he rated JFK higher than Boyz N the Hood, or that he hated Blue Velvet, and wrote him off as a fool.
Recently I have begun to reevaluate him. For one thing there's the "Brown Bunny Incident." At the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Vinvent Gallo's movie The Brown Bunny had an historically bad premiere, in which several hundred people walked out, dozens more stayed behind to heckle, and numerous critics, among them Mr. Ebert, proclaimed it the worst film ever shown at Cannes. Afterward, Gallo lashed out, cursing Ebert's colon and saying "If a fat pig like Roger Ebert doesn't like my movie then I'm sorry for him." Mr. Ebert responded by saying:
"Gallo all but wept in a Cannes interview as he described the pain of 'growing up ugly,' but empathy has its limits, and he had no tears for a fat pig and slave-trader such as myself. It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny."

Several weeks after reading about this, I found out that Roger Ebert's wife is black. Maybe it's ridiculous to like someone on the basis of their interracial relationship, but it drastically changed the way I thought of him. And then the other day I read the following paragraph on the Internet Movie Database, and I am now totally won over.

"I have been criticized recently for giving a pass to films of moderate achievement because they accomplish what the audience expects, while penalizing more ambitious films for falling short of greater expectations. There may be some truth in such observations, but on the other hand, nobody in the real world goes to every movie with the same kind of anticipation. If I see a film by Ingmar Bergman, as I recently did, I expect it to be a masterpiece, and if it is not, Bergman has disappointed me. If I attend a horror film in which Jennifer Connelly and her daughter are trapped in the evil web of a malevolent apartment building, I do not expect Bergman; if the movie does what it can do as well as it can be done, then it has achieved perfection within its own terms."
Roger Ebert gave Dark Water three stars.

News from Knoxville

My friend Glade is moving to Texas and, because she needed help, I have gone along for the ride. We left Richmond yesterday morning, elevenish, and made it to Knoxville, Tennessee around eight last night. Here are some of the highlights of our trip thus far:

-We have listened to CDs of This American Life in the car, which my friend Jocelyn gave me. I've heard them all at this point, but Glade hasn't, and I never mind listening to something I like twice.

-We stopped at a restaurant called "The Whistle Stop Cafe" just outside Lexington that served fried green tomatoes just like in the book. I had a burger instead.

-We briefly looked at some fireworks that were for sale, but Glade decided we should wait until we were in a state that sold "the really bitchin' ones."

-I took a lot of bad pictures of traffic in the car-- several of Glade, several of passing trucks, several of the numerous trees we passed on the highway.

-We ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday, mainly because it was late and we couldn't find somewhere better. It reminded me of the time I went to New York City for a day and ended up eating lunch at the Hardrock Cafe, something I went along with because my friends were doing it and I didn't want to eat alone. At Ruby Tuesday I learned the valuable lesson that mixing margueritas with a lot of cheese makes you feel sick.

A Grassroots Marketing Campaign for Ashley Bay

Ashley Bay is not Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay's wife, it's the title of a work of Christian fiction by a man named Rob R. Thompson. Rob R. Thompson is a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, a lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, and Political Director for Alan Keyes's 2000 presidential campaign.

Last month my store received a telephone order for three hardcover copies of Ashley Bay from someone calling himself Rob Rowe. When the books arrived at the store it was discovered that the number Rob Rowe had given was out of service, and upon further investigation, it was revealed that Rob R. Thompson's middle name is Rowe. The managers deduced that the order had been placed by Rob R. Thompson himself, a devious plot to trick us into stocking his book. If that is in fact true, Mr. Thompson 's understanding of the publishing industry is much poorer than one might expect.

Still, I feel for the man. It's hard to spend a lot of time on something, only to have it released by a shitty press no one cares about, to never see it on shelves in local stores, and to be remembered primarily as the political director of Alan Keyes's 2000 presidential campaign. His rude little stunt was a cry for attention, and in some small way it has succeeded. Rob R. Thompson, I am going to help you out-- I'm going to use my blog to advertise your book. Free of charge.
Of course, I don't have room for a very long excerpt. Many of you (and here I'm thinking of Katie Youell) have already stopped reading and left to check the Internet Movie Database. So I have selected six extremely brief, random passages from Ashley Bay. You may judge their worth for yourself, and if the spirit moves you the complete book is available online, or at my Barnes and Noble, located at 5501 West Broad Street, conveniently less than a mile from Interstate 64 .

The stories of the sea fascinated me as if I were a young man seeking pirate like adventures all over again. (pg 31)

Smacking my teeth and licking the hitchhikers off my fingers, I made my way to the sidewalk nearest my son to be young friend. [sic] (pg 37)

Dottie adjusted her abundance and in a Yankee like manner informed me, "Don't bull shit me boy. all the Dartmouth know how language can't undo simple disappointments [sic]. When you feel bad get it out, it's like the flu. We won't get better if we want to stay sick, aye?" (pg 50)

I lay down as I had for sometime now, arms at my side and staring at a pockmarked ceiling. It was a ceiling that was once strewn with welcome home balloons, congratulation signs and happy birthday wishes but not anymore. It was now a ceiling that saw gray stains of doubt and cobwebs of forgetfulness and it hovered over me as I welcomed the night. (pg 94)

"We grew up mostly here and Mama died and is buried up the road aways The war came and I went and did some fighting, joined the army met my gal Ruthie brought her here and here we made out lives." [sic] (pg 157)

My bones had become frail, my hair more gray and my vision questionable for night time use. Otis too looked older certainly fatter than when our journey had begun. He was likely to soon sit on his stomach and not the part of his body that God had intended for such purposes. (pg 218)

Ashley Bay (ISBN 1-59682-021-7) is published by Fultus Corporation. Their website is at www.fultus.com.

Mr. Thompson, feel free to express your gratitude using the comment feature.

June is Gay and Lesbian Pride Month

I have a couple small things I want to throw out.

One is my frustration with Rick, the guy who does the staff recommendations at my store. He asked for Gay and Lesbian themed selections for June, but wouldn't let me recommend Angels in America as "The gayest movie ever." I have a friend (her name is Raven. Hi Raven, I'm giving you a shout out) who recommended the book G.R.I.T.S.: Girls raised in the South under the words "There's more than one way to eat grits." Apparently allusions to oral sex are fine, but my comparatively bland "the gayest movie ever," that's taking things too far.
Possibly Rick isn't so much bothered by the remark being inappropriate as he disagrees with my ranking. And if he was thinking that Personal Best is gayer than Angels in America, well there's an argument to be made for that.

Second, and unrelated to anything gay, I think Dairy Queen should rethink the name of its coffee flavored milkshake, the Moo-Latte. I understand what the marketing people were thinking-- "Moo like cow, that's funny. Latte like espresso and steamed milk-- a mixing of an elitist yuppie drink and a bit of agricultural onomatopoeia. Something for the red states and the blue, excellent."
But when I saw a commercial for it the other day, a commercial that shows the moo-latte being enjoyed by a young african-american couple, I couldn't get away from "moo-latte"'s resemblance to a certain racial epithet. That is to say, mulatto.
I am not the first person to have this idea, and below are several links to pages exploring the Moo-Latte in greater depth.

Moo-Latte related links

A very funny interview a Houston paper had with a Dairy Queen representative.

A markedly less funny blurb about a poorly named Swedish ice cream.

This is just some asshole ranting about his job and making mean jokes about fat people that came up when I googled "Moo-latte." It's kind of horrifying, but interesting too, in a sort of sick, "Wow, people are nuts" kind of way.

Mormtastic

The other day two young Mormons knocked on my door, and I ended up engaging them in a discussion about my religious beliefs. I tried to avoid this, but Mormons are crafty. Sure, they looked dumb standing there, all pale with their big brown eyes and bad yellow teeth, but that's what they wanted me to think. I'm embarassed to say I underestimated them.
I thought I could cut them off quickly and end things on my own terms, that is to say politely. So the first thing I said was "Listen, I don't want to be rude, but I'm not interested." Which seems straightforward and polite to me, but I guess door to door religious evangelism doesn't happen without some stick-to-it-iveness, and one of the Mormons, the one with the bad skin, interrupted me.
"Well fair enough, but would you mind if we ask you just a few questions?"
Which is where a more assertive person would have said, "Yes I mind," but I didn't say that. I said "Uhh." "Uhh" is appparently an invitation to continue.
"Do you believe God loves you?" The zitty Mormon was clearly working from a script.
"Uh, I'm kind of unsure about whether I believe in God. I do think that if there is one, nobody is going to hold it against me for getting it wrong."
"Do you go to church?"
"No." That question seemed silly; of course a person who is unsure wheteher they believe in God doesn't go to church. This seemed further proof that zitty Mormon followed a script.
"Well if Jesus Christ had a church here on Earth would you want to belong to it?"
"Uhm, well since I don't believe Jesus was the son of God, I guess not."
"So then," said the other Mormon, the one with the receding hairline who was putting things together, "you're an agnostic then?"
"Yes. I believe there are many ways to live a moral life, and you have one you like, and that's fine. It's okay that you want to share something you believe in with other people, I respect that [a lie, of course I don't]. But I don't believe the same things, and I'm not interested."
"Wow. We don't meet many agnostics around Chesterfield."
"Yeah, they mostly live in the city. It's more diverse there. Better restaurants. Culture, universities. We like stuff like that."
"Mmhmm. Well," said zitty Mormon, "I have one more question, though I guess we know the answer, haha! If I had a book that proved that Jesus Christ has a church right here on Earth would you be interested in reading it?"
"Nope."
"Okay, well--" And like a teacher giving me the answers I missed on a quiz, "This is a Book of Mormon, and it proves that Jesus does have a church here on earth, and that God does love you. Have a good day!"
"God loves you!" said balding Mormon.
"Alright, have a good day! If I ever decide I agree with any of that stuff I'll be sure to give you guys a call!"

Kevin lets Bubba off with a warning

When I was sixteen and a clerk at Ukrop's I had the following conversation with Kevin Lanham-- manager, Christian songwriter, and tormenter of bestselling lesbian mystery novelists:

"Bubba, can we talk a minute?" (Kevin called me Bubba, which I hated but didn't know how to deal with.)
"Sure Kev, what's the rhubarb?" (I actually said "Yes Kevin, what's going on?" but rhubarb is funny to me.)
We walked to his office, where Kevin decided to open with, "I hope you know that if you have any problems my door is open to you."
"Well gee Kevin, that's good to know, but I can't think of anything. Unless you want to pay me a little more, har har har!"
"Yes, well Andrew, I just had a call from a customer."
"Hmm." I said, nervous that I might know what was coming.
"Yes, it seems that when asked how your day was going you told a customer that, and I am quoting her, 'He said he wanted to blow up the store.'"
"That's not really accurate at all, Kevin. She asked how I liked working for Ukrop's, and I said, 'Let's just say if you pick up the paper tomorrow and it says-- "Grocery Clerk goes Berserk; Dozens injured in suicide bombing!"-- that'll be me.' But I was obviously joking. I had a twinkle in my eye the whole time."
"Maybe she mistook the twinkle for the frenzied look of insanity. "
I remembered the customer laughing heartily, but decided that it wasn't a good idea to argue.
"I'm very sorry, I was trying to be funny, but I guess that was in poor taste."
"Yes, Bubba it was. I like to joke too, you know I do, but jokes like that, well, they scare people. You're sure you don't have some things you'd like to talk about?"
"No Kevin, just a lack of common sense and a taste for dark humor."
"I'll say. Alright, well you just rein in the humor, leave the suicide-bombin' to the towelheads, and we'll make like this didn't happen. Have a blessed day."

Several Great Minds Wrestle with Another Important Issue of Their Day

Who would win a fight between Helen Keller and Stephen Hawking?

Andrew: It has to be Helen Keller. That is, provided that we are talking about Helen Keller in her prime. I don't know about "old" Helen Keller, but Helen Keller at 25? Certainly she would win a fight with a man in a wheelchair. He can't move right? He'd drive his wheelchair into her and she'd take one hit, but then she'd know where he was, and that'd be it. She'd grab a hold of him and it would be over.

Jacob: I have to disagree. Stephen Hawking is a genius. I mean, excluding the possibility that Helen Keller's sense of touch is heightened to the point where she can use it to "see" a la Daredevil, I have to think that Hawking would win with his intelligence. Helen Keller wouldn't even be able to find him before he pulled some equation out of his ass, altered the matter around Helen Keller and made her head explode.

Max: I agree with Jacob. Think about when Batman fights Superman. That's an excellent comparison-- Superman has all the physical advantages over Batman, but through superior planning and intellect Batman wins. Similarly, Helen Keller has full mobility, a distinct advantage over Stephen Hawking, but I think even if he wasn't able to actually explode her head, he would still win through superior strategy and tactics.

Andrew: But how do we really know Stephen Hawking is a genius? Has any of us read his books? Do we understand the physics that he discusses in them? No, we assume he is a genius because we are told he is one, by the people who market his books and television programs. Stephen Hawking is nothing more than a puppet of marketing, and as such, fodder for Helen Keller's fearsome left hook. Consider: This woman overcame being born blind, deaf, and mute to become an important voice for social reform. She wrote books, lots of them. How? She had not only a great intellect, but also drive and toughness. No way does she lose to some shriveled up little bitch in a chair, no matter what equations he knows.

Jacob: Man, I'm just gonna go about my day and pretend like you didn't say that.

Nicknames, Part 1 (or Poindexter McEagle's Nest Makes a Splash)

I knew a pianist in college named Mike Disque who liked to give people nicknames.
Some he used all the time--a short and stocky man named Jeffrey, who was obsessed with train simulation programs and wore a big mustache and aviator style glasses, came up in conversation often, but never as Jeffrey. Always, "Turd Ferguson."
Some I heard only once-- my friend Mandy, a Catholic who dressed in Goth clothing and make-up, was "the Gothlic," but I only know that because I was there when she asked him to tell her.
My own name I asked for repeatedly, but heard only third-hand after I graduated-- "Pooh Bear."

There was a new freshman pianist my senior year of college who was discussed widely in the music department, discussed because he was talented and seemed borderline crazy. His real name was Brent, which I only just now remember after several days of puzzling it over. It's taken me several days because I always refered to him as "Poindexter McEagle's Nest," the name Mike gave him. "Poindexter" described his manner and appearance-- he was tall and thin, with an awkwardness that most people attributed to homeschooling. "McEagle's Nest" was for his job working the fryer at the student commons, "the Eagle's Nest," which is where I saw him most, usually in a t-shirt mapping the human muscular system. I saw him somewhat less frequently around the music department, but it's there that he interacted wiith me.
"What's your favorite Beethoven Piano Concerto?" is the only thing I can remember him saying directly to me (mine was #5, his the less obvious and to me unfamiliar #3).

Poindexter is most remembered now (at least by people I know) for his first departmental recital, for whiich he played Chopin. I can't remember the exact piecee, but it was fast and somewhere in the middle of the piece he got lost and started improvising. This in itself was not unusual, and would have gone unnoticed had he not started audibly whispering to his fingers as he did it.
"No. No, that's wrong. Try that one. No, wrong too. Ah, that's better. No, no, uh. Hmm, uh. No, okay. Hmm."
Having worked his way to the end of the piece with out stopping, young McEagle's Nest stood and awkwardly bowed to the scattered applause. Then, as he descended the stage, he tripped and fell. He did not fall as most people do, wiith his arms in front of him to brace the fall. He threw his arms back, as though diving, and landed flat on his face. He fell next to the front row, grabbing the thigh of a horrified Tricia Pifko. There, face down on the floor of the small recital hall, Poindexter McEagle's Nest was heard to say,
"What a great way to end the performance."

What if Mr. T kicked George Lucas's ass?

I'm writing not to say that I liked the newest Star Wars movie, which I did, but rather to say something snide about George Lucas. Perhaps this seems unfair, picking on the man whether he makes a good movie or not, but I don't feel fair.
What I have to say is this:
Remember when George Lucas carelessly started fucking up his movies from twenty years ago, inserting lots of bad computer generated images and then refusing to let anyone see the originals again? That sure was crazy and mean of him, huh?
Mr. Lucas claims it as his prerogative to alter his earlier work, adding what he says he wanted to include before but was unable to due to the constraints of budget and technology.
Granting him this, it seems fair to ask whether ten years from now he will try altering The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones to make up for their inadequacies in plot, writing, and acting, inadequacies due to the constraint of Mr. Lucas being a talentless hack.

I also write to wish Mr. T a happy 53rd birthday. God bless you, Mr. T, you make our world a better place.
(If you have not read Mr. T's interview in this month's Wizard magazine, you must. It includes the words "Superman never went to the school to tell the kids not to do drugs. Mr. T does that all the time.")

Thoughts on Dave Matthews Band

In a now famous incident, the Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped 800 pounds of excrement into the Chicago River in August of 2004. It is a particularly ugly coincidence (a coincidence that may perhaps be viewed as a metaphor for what Dave Matthews Band and its music have perpetrated on our culture) that the excrement happened to fall onto a passing vessel, Chicago's Little Lady, raining on the heads of roughly a hundred tourists in the middle of a cruise. The state of Illinois has filed a lawsuit against the band seeking damages in the amount of $70,000.

Syllogism the First-
1. Dave Matthews Band got its start in Charlottesville, and, it may be assumed, enjoyed the support of the residents of that city.

2. Charlottesville is a college town centered around the University of Virginia (of Charlottesville's population of roughly 40,000 people, roughly 30,000 attend or are employed by the University).

3. A large number of people associated with the University of Virginia like the Dave Matthews Band.

Syllogism the Second-
1. A large number of people at the University of Virginia like the Dave Matthews Band.

2. The Dave Matthews Band not only releases album after album of spectacularly awful music but also dumps shit on people.

3. Standards at the University of Virginia are perhaps not as high as we are led to believe.

Does Knowledge Breed Ass-Sex?

Two excerpts from two different articles, both published in the New York Times in the last week:

In Kansas, Darwinism Goes on Trial Once More

By JODI WILGOREN
May 6, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan., May 5 - Six years after Kansas ignited a national debate over the teaching of evolution, the state is poised to push through new science standards this summer requiring that Darwin's theory be challenged in the classroom.

In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator.


Gay and Straight Men React Differently to Sexual Odors

By NICHOLAS WADE
May 9, 2005

Using a brain-imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that men and women respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that homosexual men respond in the same way as women.

The two chemicals, one a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat and the other an estrogen-like compound found in women's urine, have long been suspected of being pheromones, chemicals emitted by one individual to trigger some behavior in another of the same species. The role of pheromones, particularly in guiding sexual behavior, has been well established in animals but experts differ as to what importance, if any, they have retained in human mating.

The new research may open the way to studying human pheromones as well as the biological basis of sexual preference. The study, by Dr. Ivanka Savic and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is being reported in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I wondered after reading these two articles whether conservative factions of our country would be trying to tear down science if it perhaps told them more that they wanted to hear.
That thought led me to imagine a nightmare world (part Fahrenheit 451, part 1984) where there is no Left, no science, and the country is run by the Christian Right. In that futuristic world of horse-drawn carriages, home-churned butter and Lawrence Welk, the nation's most renowned "scientists" will get their "degrees" from Bob Jones "University," and conduct studies linking abortion to the melting of the polar ice caps.
In this world I imagine myself re-named "Chocolate Flava," after the book I have chosen to memorize and pass down to posterity. I try to escape to the woods to live in peace with the other Satan-kissing literate slimeballs, but I am hounded by police, who I imagine will be dressed like the Spanish Inquisition in the Monty Python skit and are led by my boss, Paula. I will be caught, and after extended torture and interogation, executed in some sort of barbaric way, possibly stoned, possibly burnt alive. With my death, Zane is lost to future generations.

I Write a Joke

I like to tell jokes, and do so often to mixed reviews. Unfortunately, my repetoire is limited, usually by memory rather than taste. Everyone I know has heard me tell "Mickey talks to his divorce attorney" five thousand and one times, and even with my devastatingly effective use of a Mickey Mouse voice on the line "I didn't say she was crazy, I said she was fucking Goofy," it wears thin. Likewise the pun about the guy who has his wife killed in the grocery store (Artie chokes two for a dollar at Food Lion), the one about Jesus being well hung, and even the one about the opposite of Christopher Reeve being Christopher Walken. In an effort to inject some much needed life into my joke repertoire I have written my first original joke. I like it very much, and what it lacks in actual humor it makes up for with misdirection and a literary reference that makes me look borderline well-read.


An elephant walks into a bar.
The bartender says, "What? Get out of here! Goddamn, there's an elephant in my bar. Shoo!"
The elephant tramples the bartender, not out of any malice but just because it's an elephant and it doesn't know better.
Then George Orwell shows up, a crowd of expectant Indians trailing behind him, and shoots the thing.
A wonderful essay is written.

the end

Holly O'Donnell Strikes Again

I work in a bookstore, where I fail to realize my potential but do an excellent job shelving the magazines. My plan has been to continue doing this until it is no longer comfortable and I am forced to move in another direction, possibly a direction involving a bronze medal in gymnastics or maybe crank. According to my eleventh grade english teacher, Holly "You're never going to earn any money" O'Donnell, this lack of direction and/or purpose is what comes from a double major in history and music. Ms. O'Donnell says I'd have been much happier majoring in a subject that I hate and show no aptitude for, such as math or business. Had I known the key to happiness was going against my own instincts and rejecting everything that appeals to me, that is exactly what I would have done.

Mrs. O'Donnell, or the Soul-Raping Dark Queen of Pragmatism as she will henceforth be referred to, came into Barnes and Noble last week. There she overheard me talking to an old woman about some sort of Jewish scripture.
"Like a Jewish Bible. No, not the Torah, different. It's got the whole old testament. No, I want one in leather. No, that looks wrong to me. I don't know why, it just does."
As soon as I dispatched this confused lady, The Soul-Raping Dark Queen of Pragmatism came over and discussed the Tanakh with me. Neither of us had much of a clue what it's about, but we agreed that it must be what the woman wanted, whether she knew it or not. Then I told her Highness that I had been accepted to graduate school.
"Really?" she asked perking up, "What would you be going for?"
"Music History" I replied, wearily.
"Oh Jesus," she said, "You're never going to learn, are you? What exactly do you plan to do with that?"
She's a sweet woman. Her cell phone rang and, my career decision safely belittled, she felt free to answer it.
"Nice talking to you," I said through tears.
"Hey girl!" she said to her phone, putting my crushed self-esteem from her mind and moving on to lunch plans, or selling real estate, or some damn thing.

Cocksuckers great and small

I referred in a recent post to the language on HBO's show Deadwood. I chose to comment on the characters "heightened language," with all of its interesting rhythms and cadences. Most people discussing the language on Deadwood choose instead to discuss the fact that a lot of the characters say "cocksucker" a lot. I find that my exposure to the show has desensitized me to the word, a word which may not have offended me before, but now seems as natural and commonplace as "table" or "asphalt." My usage of the word has increased, leading directly to the two hilarious anecdotes I now relate.

Hilarious Cocksucker Anecdote #1
The other day at work I went into the receiving room to yell and slam things around, something that happens with such frequency that most of my coworkers hardly even notice it at this point.
"What's up Andrew?" yawned Tommy the receiving manager.
"This cocksucker wouldn't believe me when I told him we didn't have yesterdays newspapers, that we threw them away. Fucking rude cocksucker."
"Yeah," said Tommy, who is gay, "What a stupid faggot."

Hilarious Cocksucker Anecdote #2
Occasionally I feel the urge to exercise, and sometimes I respond to this urge by jogging, exclusively at night. I feel that exercise should be a solitary, private affair, taking place away from the muscle-bound eyes of smug pony-tailed men and wiry women in sportsbras. I feel that nobody should have to see me sweat or pant for breath, both to save them the unwanted spectacle and to save me the feeling, real or imagined, that I am being laughed at. Running in my neighborhood spares me the company of the pony-tailed and be-sportsbra-ed. Running at night spares me the stares of random assholes mowing their lawns or playing with their children.
On one particular street near my house lives a small yellow terrier, whose owners let it out unattended to piss and shit and run around barking at passing joggers. I hate this dog and he hates me. He normally spots me a good fifty yards away and flies out of his yard at me, barking all the way. Many times I have been scared, once I even turned around. Yesterday I ran directly at him, yelling
"GET BACK IN YOUR FUCKING YARD YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKER! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
We both stopped in the middle of the street, several feet away from each other, he barking, I yelling.
"BARK! BARK BARK!"
"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKER," stomping my feet for effect.
Then his owner called out, "Petey! Come inside right now!"
Embarrassed, I waved, and jogged off in the other direction.

God's own tool.

In high school most of the stories I had to tell came from Ukrop's, where I worked fifteen hours a week bagging groceries and walking them to people's cars. The best of those stories revolve around a character named Kevin Lanham, my boss.
Kevin was a friendly man, always smiling from ear to ear, always laughing in a way that seemed insincere but couldn't have been. He was a devout Baptist who prayed over his potato wedges in the break room and who, though I never witnessed it, I am told proselytized to shoppers at local malls. Kevin was, to put it in a colloquial sort of way, crazier than a rat in a tin shithouse.

Bestselling author and noted Richmond area lesbian Patricia Cornwell came by our store once, arriving in a limousine and escorted by her wife. Ms. Cornwell came in to use the salad bar, and upon her leaving was followed into the parking lot by Kevin, whose religious zeal knew not the boundaries of professionalism and good taste, nevermind sense. It is said, though I did not witness it, that Kevin approached Ms. Cornwell at her limousine and began thumping Bibles at her.
"Ms. Cornwell, it isn't too late for you. You may reject this life you have chosen and be welcomed into the body of Christ Jesus, who reigns at the right hand of the Father for ever and ever. Praise him." Or words to that effect.
And though Ms. Cornwell is a celebrity, the influence of lesbians appears not to weigh heavily with the Ukrop brothers, religious nutbars in their own right. Kevin kept his job inspite of Ms. Cornwell's angry complaint, and I can only imagine that she now shops at Kroger.
No, when Kevin left my store it was in order to accept a promotion to Assistant Manager of the Forest Hill store. Before he left he posted a note on the bulletin board in the breakroom telling us that we knew only one side of him, Kevin the Grocery Store Manager. At home he was Kevin the Songwriter, and he shared the words to one song of which he was particularly proud.

Why the Cross?
Someone asked me 'Why the cross?'
And this was my reply--
Because of love at any cost,
The cross
The cross IS why!

He went on to assure us all that though our parting might be sad he knew that we would all meet again with Jesus in His heavenly kingdom.
Amen, Kevin, amen.

I experiment with dialogue

Recently I have been watching the HBO series Deadwood, which I like, and which, as any actor who did a commentary track for the DVDs will tell you, features the unique writing of creator/executive producer David Milch.
"This is such a typical bit of Milch writing," they might say, or
"I love this monologue coming up, it's so quintessentially Milchian," or even,
"Ha! 'Fucked up flatter than hammered shit!' Only David Milch could have written such a line."

Of course, David Milch is not alone as a writer of unique dialogue. People are always talking pretentiously about the "heightened speech" of David Mamet, or Quentin Tarrantino, or even Aaron Sorkin. I thought (and you probably saw this coming) that by infusing my own attempt at "heightened speech" into the following anecdote it might become more interesting (without something added it's not really worth telling).

"Every year for Cara's birthday I buy a book or a DVD," I said to Courtney at a Chipotle restaurant nestled in the bosom of the Stony Point Fashion Park.
"This year I want to expand giftwise; I feel that there must be one amongst the myriad possible gifts I have left untried that might please our friend more than some favorite trade paperback of mine, which she could certainly purchase on her own any day of the fucking week."
"Truf." said Courtney.
So we departed the burrito restaurant in search of a gift.
"The summer fast approaches," said Courtney. "Let's find dear heart a moisturizing balm and a pumice stone, that she might make her feet more presentable. For sandals, like."
So we went to Bath and Bodyworks, where we were assaulted by an overly friendly sales girl.
"Oy, you customers!" she called, "Got some loverly perfumes over'ere! Discounted deeply they are!"
We thanked her politely and moved toward the foot products. She followed.
"How about some cocoa lip gloss? No sooner do I put it on, then my tongue of its own volition emerges from my mouth and licks the flavored vaseline from my lips, leaving me with no choice but to re-apply the product!"
"Verily, cunt, we have no need of yer flavored grease," replied the ever-assertive Courtney, and arm in arm she and I sang sea shanties all the way to Sharper Image, where I bought Cara an overpriced black pillow with some sort of beads in it. Courtney swore that Cara would like it, and, as far as I could tell, she did.

An attempt at fiction

I'm not good at writing fiction generally, but I have made a stab at it. Actually, I made a stab at it several years ago, but I just did some revising. I think it's better now.


Liz could hear her roommate talking to herself in the kitchen, rummaging through the refrigerator and mumbling about something. Now she was coming into the living room, and Liz quickly turned the sound up, knowing it wouldn't help but making the effort in spite of herself.
"Somebody ate my Kraft singles," said Jen. She held a ham and cheese sandwich at arm’s length, an expression of disgust submerged beneath one of mock patience.
"I’m watching Trading Spaces," Liz said cheerfully, hoping in vain that Jen might pull up a seat and be quiet.
"Elizabeth, somebody ate my Kraft cheese singles. They ate my Kraft singles, all of them, and left behind these cheap Giant brand ones."
"Look! They’re just about to show each other their new rooms."
"You know, everybody else in this apartment buys cheap stuff. Which isn’t to say there’s something wrong with that, there isn’t, but I bought KRAFT singles. Because I wanted some nice cheese, and some thoughtless person came along and ate them. And now I’ve got Giant brand cheese on my sandwich.”
She had slipped into the tone she used with the second grade. It came naturally to her, and was usually somewhere in her voice just never this pronounced, unless she was either angry or trying to win an argument. Right now it was because she was angry, and Liz tried to focus on Paige Peak, hoping that Jen would tire herself out in a minute; work the self-righteousness out of her system and then eat her sandwich. Jen, not to be brushed aside, stepped between her and the television. Liz would never find out how Wayne and Sally liked their new den.
"I spend a little bit extra because I want good cheese, and after two slices somebody comes and filches the rest of the pack. Is that fair?"
"Did you say filch?"
"Yes, filch."
"So that makes the thief a filcher?"
Jen had lost her calm, and Liz, having waited through the forty-five minutes of Trading Spaces that bored her only to miss the ten that she was interested in, was starting to do the same.
"You understand that they're both American cheese," Liz said, "that there’s absolutely no difference between the two?"
"If there was no difference, why would I spend more money for it?"
"I guess you like their ad campaigns."
"What?"
"K-R-A-F-T!" sang Liz, explaining.
“Not funny, not funny! One of my roommates is a thief."
"A filcher," Liz corrected.
Peeking out from behind Jen’s big ass Liz could almost see Sally reacting to her new window treatments.
"Teasing only makes it worse. I'm a victim here, I don't deserve teasing."
"I'm sorry. You know," Liz craned her neck in vain, "Courtney probably just used your cheese for the hamburgers this weekend. By accident. Don’t worry about it, we’ll buy you some more."
Jen crossed her arms and stared Liz down without blinking. She thought that this unnerved people. Maybe it did unnerve third graders.
"Make sure they’re Kraft," Jen said, sneering, and retired to her room where she would find solace in the Dixie Chicks.
Turning back to the television, Liz was just in time to catch the credits for Trading Spaces. Angrily, she prepared for A Dating Story by smearing Jen’s Skippy peanut butter onto some of her Pepperidge Farm honey wheat bread.

Has-Been Celebrities and the People Who Date Them

When you sign-in to Hotmail they have all kinds of crazy headlines posted for you to look at.
"Kidman's Love Life Stalls" it might say. Or "Koala's Face Extinction." Maybe "Michael Moore's Shocking Speech," or "10 Ways You Can Get a Tan Safely."
They're the sort of short, eye-catching, incredibly stupid one-liners that are all over our culture, particularly in promo spots for TV news broadcasts and on magazine covers, little tastes of the empty mass-produced crap inside. Hotmail is where I notice them the most, and I have been keeping a list of their best headlines over the last year or so.

Man shoots self in groin.

When stars buy real estate.

Improve your sex appeal.

Could you have a stroke on Monday?

Did Nicole turn down Jacko?

Oprah’s name: a mistake?

Quiz: Why are you still single?

Should You Marry a Fixer-Upper?

What was Ashton’s major?

Donald Trump, the fragrance?

Why do I intimidate men?

Which Disney princess are you?

Has-Been Celebrities and the People Who Date Them.

This last one particularly resonated with me, and although I didn't click on the link to find out more, it did start me thinking about which has-been celebrities I would date. I was going to put up a list, but I couldn't think of many has-been celebrities. My list had one name on it.

1. Phoebe Cates

Other has-been celebrites that I thought of were either gross (Gennifer Flowers, Kirstie Alley, Roseanne), or male (Bjorn Bjorg, Kirk Cameron, Tony Danza). I also had a hard time knowing whether to consider someone based on how they look now or how they looked when they were a celebrity. Elizabeth Taylor now and Elizabeth Taylor circa 1960 are two very different things.

To respond to several of the other headlines--
I'm sure the real estate is attractive and that the stars pay a lot for it.

Were my sex appeal to increase even slightly it would be disastrous, as packs of screaming girls would no doubt chase me everywhere trying to tear my clothes off. I would have to quit my job, and unable to find another position would likely end up trading on that very sex appeal with which I was cursed, spending the rest of my life as a high-priced gigolo to the stars. Stars including, perhaps, the aforementioned Ms. Cates.

[deleted easy joke about Nicole Kidman not being a little boy]

I guess it's possible that Donald Trump could smell good. [Perhaps you wonder why I made a show of avoiding an easy joke a moment ago only to turn around and make one here. Who knows. I am fickle.]

I see myself as a combination of Jasmine's eyes, Snow White's complexion, and Ariel's sassy, rebellious attitude.

O magazines, where is thy sting?

Since I began working full-time at Barnes and Noble a little over a year ago I have worked in the bargain section, to such acclaim that my coworkers took to calling me "Bargain Jesus," a nickname referring both to the effortless miracles that I work with bargain books and my divine beard, which people the length of the East Coast visit on pilgrimages.
"See how even though it's predominantly brown there are patches of red? That's proof that God loves us," say the pilgrims, as I blush and sign autographs.
But now, effective March 1, I am "Bargain Jesus" no more. I have been moved to the newsstand, the bargain books given to the talented but decidedly beardless Bob Diller. I have been surprised by how hard this has hit me, and not just because I lose my cool nickname. With the nickname goes my status as someone who knows what they are doing. I find myself in unfamiliar territory. I miss the familiar merchandise, books that have come to seem, if not like friends, then certainly like neighbors, people you don't care very much about but who by their presence put you at ease. I can look at the drunk, drum-beating Jehova's witness across the street and know that I'm home. So it was with The Complete Military Atlas of the Civil War, and I feel the loss of it-- a small loss maybe, but a loss nonetheless. Goodbyes seem appropriate.
So, goodbye Civil War Atlas. Goodbye Do Fish Drink Water?, goodbye Why do Buses Come in Threes?, goodbye Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?, goodbye The Book of Stupid Questions. Goodbye $5.98 "former bestsellers" and enormous $20 "1000 Recipe" cookbooks. Goodbye, to not one but two kinds of affordable hardcover Barnes and Noble Classics (full sized and "pocket"). Goodbye tasteless histories of serial killers, goodbye outdated almanacs, goodbye biographies of celebrities nobody knows.
Goodbye immovable stack of The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Encyclopedia, I think I'll miss you most of all.

Postscript-
As if to welcome me to the magazines, the cover of this month's Maxim features Jennifer Love Hewitt, her ridiculous Grand Canyon-esque cleavage less than an inch from the words "Al Qaeda Returns!" printed in bold type. My friend and coworker Kathryn (the managers love her not, for they are fools, all) pointed out that Ms. Hewitt is standing in for the twin towers. Well said, Kathryn.

Simile Challenge-- Go!

My friend Katie, web designer and aspiring hip hop artist, has a game where she yells out a word (often a verb but it can be almost anything) and then says "Simile Challenge--GO!" and then you are supposed to use the word in a simile. More often, she'll get someone to challange her.
"Hang out," someone might say, prompting Katie to yell, "We're gonna hang out like a sloppy kid's shirt tail!"
Since Katie began this game I have begun to notice similes that I like, and will list a few now.

E. B. White, Goodbye to Forty-Eighth Street
"In New York, a citizen is likely to keep on the move, shopping for the perfect arrangement of rooms and vistas, changing his habitation according to fortune, whim, and need. And in every place he abandons he leaves something vital, it seems to me, and starts his new life somewhat less encrusted like a lobster that has shed its skin and is for a time soft and vulnerable.

Tony Kushner On Pretentiousness
"Baking lasagna has long been my own personal paradigm for writing a play. A good play I think should always feel as though it's only barely been rescued from the brink of chaos, as though all the yummy nutritious ingredient you've thrown into it have almost-but-not-quite succeeded in overwhelming the design. A play should have barely been rescued from the mess it might have just as easily have been; just as each slice of lasagna should stand tall while at the same time betray its entropic desire towards collapse, just as lasagna should seem to want to dissolve into meat and cheese stew, so you can marvel all the more at the culinary engineering magic that holds such entropy at bay, that keeps the unstackable firmly, but not too firmly, stacked."

Katie
"My rhymes are tight like Mother Teresa's vagina."

Somehow it always comes back to disgusting jokes about the sexuality of religious icons.

Jesus is so gay

It's been roughly a month since I wrote something here, and while I'm sure most people could care less, a few nice people have noticed. One such person just yelled at me about it for probably the third time this week. In an effort to make her happy here is something short, totally mediocre, and incredibly offensive-- the best I could do.

The other day at work I was talking to Tommy the receiving manager about his upcoming art show, to be held in the Barnes and Noble Cafe. Tommy's gay, and the discussion steered its way to politics and gay rights, at which point I suggested to Tommy that he paint a picture of George W. Bush sodomizing a man with a cross. I think this image would make a powerful political statement, and while the uproar it would no doubt create would certainly get Tommy fired from his job at Barnes and Noble, it could possibly jump start his career as an artist. It's the sort of thing the national media loves to latch onto.

Brief afterthought- I think it's entirely possible that Jesus was a buttpirate. If He wasn't involved with any women then I believe He had to be. I refuse to believe He wasn't fucking something.

Second afterthought, loosely tied to the first- This one time in high school I asked a fundamentalist Christian girl if she would give Christ head if He asked for it. I regret doing this, but still think it's an interesting question. I wish I had raised it in a more appropriate environment, such as Sunday school.

My Early Achievements

Today as I rummaged through my room I found a creative writing folder from third grade. My memories of third grade are sketchy-- I remember that my teacher was Ms. Naomi H. Bethea, and she demanded that we speak with "boldness, confidence, and strenth." I remember that when she said this she never pronounced the "g" in "strength." I remember not being particularly well lked, and I remember that this was because I was a horrible kissass. Naomi H. Bethea adored me, and seemed to let me do whatever I wanted. I vividly remember her giving me M&M's for knowing what "U.S.S.R." stood for.

I remember that one day at recess, with Ms. Bethea looking on, I organized a skit about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Four chairs represented the Lincoln convertible. A little boy named Frankie stood on a chair representing the Texas book depository and yelled "BANG BANG," at which point a little boy named Ronyell slumped over in the fake car, and a girl named Tianca exclaimed "Oh my husband!"
Another skit about Richard Nixon was less successful.

Back to my folder.
In my third grade creative writing folder is a 6 page booklet titled "Icebergs are Dangerous," complete with illustrations and the story of the Titanic:
"Soon they hit an iceberg. At first people weren't scared. But soon they were. More than 1,500 people died.

There is also a story about two of my classmates, Lionel and Jerrmy, who save Ronald Reagan from a witch carrying a shotgun. Another tells of a scuba diver who is caught by a giant fish with a hamburger on a line.

There is a one page essay on negative peer pressure, including the line:
"Say no to negative peer pressure. I can kill you." (This was not a mistake. I know it isn't because I found three drafts all worded exactly the same way.)

But I think my favorite is the following story, told exclusively through dialogue and based on numerous real conversations with my mother, none of which ended this way.

The Food Problem, by Andy E.
"Mother I'm hungry."
"Sorry. We're all out of food."
"Why can't we buy some?"
"We don't have any money."
"I have some."
"I'm too busy. I have to do this paper. You know I'm trying to get that exam."
"But I'm hungry!"
"Well tough luck."
"Why do you have to go to college."
"Because I'm trying to become a librarian, which will give us money so we can pay for the house and buy you food."
"Mother. I will not wait for two years to eat."
"I don't like being broke either. But we are and I have to get this exam."
"Mother. Read my lips. I am hungry [this was 1988, the year that George Bush ran for president]."
"For the 100th time we have no money!"
"So. You have a checking account."
"With no money in it!"
"You have a credit card!"
"I'm sick of this. Go get your little sister we are going to Shoney's."

Three National Figures of No Importance

Amber Frey
Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson hit bookstores everywhere last week, and is sure to become a bestseller. For anyone unaware, and I have the deepest respect for those of you who are, this is the story of Amber Frey, a young woman who briefly dated Scott Peterson and later served as a Witness: For the Prosecution at his trial. I haven't read the thing, but apparently she was very brave, and very concerned about Laci Peterson and Laci's unborn child, and she feels some kind of bond with her even though they never met. This bond, if I remember correctly, stems from the fact that they are both women. Also, at one point Ms. Frey apparently drew strength from her faith.
I was working the customer service booth at Barnes and Noble on the day Witness was released, and put copies in the hands of at least a dozen middle-aged women before noon. Around noon a young man who looked like he might work construction came in, probably on his lunch break. I can't remember what he asked me for, but when he saw the big stack of Witness, he pulled one down to examine it. The examination lasted roughly thirty seconds, after which he pushed it back across the counter to me.
"Nope," he said. "She's just not classy," and walked away.

Randy Moss
Similarly not classy is Randy Moss, star wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. Mr. Moss caused an uproar in the National Football League last week when he walked off the field with three seconds left on the time clock. Angry at his teammates, frustrated by losing, under the mistaken impression that he would not be going to the playoffs, Moss headed for the locker room on national television while his team remanined on the field to make a last ditch effort. He could be seen walking off the field over and over again for the rest of the week, as different football commentators weighed in with their opinions, every one of them damning.
"He's immature and conceited. It was a terrible decision."
"He needs to learn to control his emotions and grow up."
"He acted with no concern for anyone but himself. It was the most selfish thing I'd ever seen."
Selfish, overly emotional, immature, reckless, it is bizarre to me that these qualities, so offensive in a black football player, are so popular in a white chief executive. Each acts without thought, responding unwisely to the situation in which he finds himself-- one walks out on a football game, the other murders innocent citizens of third world nations. And we get upset about the football game, beause after all, there were playoff implications, and you just don't do that to 56 other guys who have worked hard all year. You just don't.

Paris Hilton
I am told that Ms. Hilton thinks she invented the hip new catch phrase, "That's hot."
Clearly she didn't, and I think that's all that need be said.

Playing Scrabble at Ipanema

Last night I hung out with Mandy Dunn and a few of her friends.
"We're going to play Scrabble at Ipanema," she told me when I called her. "Meet us there in 20-30 minutes, okay?"

A word about Ipanema-
Ipanema is a bar where I don't feel comfortable. I'm told that I imagine it, I even believe that I imagine it, but when I'm in the place it seems like people all look up at you to see who you are and then roll their eyes in disappointment. I am a sad little person who needs for everyone to like me, and though the greater part of me knows it's silly, the lesser part of me gets really uncomfortable seeing a lot of vegans with gauged out ears roll their eyes. This lesser part shook when it considered the amount of eye rolling that would take place when someone challenged me for using the word "qat" (an alternate spelling of "kat", an African evergreen shrub that acts as a narcotic when chewed).

A word about Scrabble-
I am crazy when I play board games, particularly when the game seems to depend on skill or intelligence. A few years ago my friend Nick got really into Scrabble, and I ended up playing a lot of games with him, always losing by at least fifty points. The competitive part of me took this as proof that Nick was at least temporarily smarter than me, and my frail ego decided that if I could not beat Nick at least I would never lose to anyone else. That's when Nick taught me about the word "qat." He also gave me the two letter word list. There are over ninety words in the English language that are spelled with two letters, and memorizing these, or a fair number of them, dramatically increases your score (knowing xi and xu alone is worth a good twenty points).

So I'm in this scenester bar playing Scrabble, torn between a competitive nature that wants to play "ef" and get a triple word score, and overpowering self-consciousness that wants to avoid any situation that would require the dictionary being read aloud. Of course, that's a silly problem and not important at all. It wouldn't even be worth mentioning, except that it gives you an idea of my state of mind when Mandy's friend Sara pointed to the emblem on my chest and asked me "What's on your shirt?"
"Haha, Andrew's always wearing school t-shirts," said Mandy.
I laughed, relieved at the opportunity to tell a funny story. "Actually, I didn't get this t-shirt from school, I got it at a thrift store. I found an MWC Catholic Student Association t-shirt at the thrift store. It's got the top ten reasons to be Catholic on the back."
The table was quiet.
"I'm not Catholic," I told them so they would know it's okay to laugh. Several of them did.
"Well get up so we can see the back," said Sara.
"Nah, then I'd have to get up."
"Oh come on, why would you tell us about it and then not let us see it?" asked Mandy, who had a good point.
So I got up awkwardly, almost knocking several drinks over, and turned, hands in pockets, to show them my back.
"I don't see anything," someone said.
"Yeah," said Sara, "There's nothing there."
That's when I looked down at my shirt and remembered that I had changed it earlier that afternoon.
"Oh yeah," I grinned, my face bright red, "I forgot I changed."
"Hilarious! " said Mandy. "Okay, mortify. That's 50 for using all my letters, and it's a double word score, so 50 plus 3,4,5,6,7, 4 and 4 make eight, so that's 15, so 65, times two makes 130. Awesome!"
"Wow Mandy, that's great!"
"Woo, good job Mandy!"
I could feel the eyes everywhere. They were on me, and they were thinking, "Why is that loser so red? Who plays scrabble in a bar? And what's with him standing up for no reason and then sitting back down? I totally hate that guy. JEEZ."

Tony Kushner on Idealism

Tony Kushner is the author of Angels in America, a play that HBO made into a movie last year. I love Angels in America, and just now while I was bored and couldn't think of anything to do I googled Tony Kushner. Google turned up the following interview, and I thought it was interesting enough to share it.

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, and was one of few people I knew to argue on his behalf when he decided to run in 2004. I still don't blame him for what happened in 2000 or 2004, but what Mr. Kushner had to say here gave me pause.

Tony Kushner: Listen, here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.

You're saying progressives are undone by their own idealism?

Tony Kushner: The system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great. FDR was a plutocrat. In a certain sense he wasn't so different from George W. Bush, and he could have easily been Herbert Hoover, Part II. But he was a smart man, and the working class of America told him that he had to be the person who saved this country. It happened with Lyndon Johnson, too, and it could have happened with Bill Clinton, but we were so relieved after 12 years of Reagan and Bush that we sat back and carped.

See the entire interview here.

Postscript, 1/5/05
I googled Tony Kushner again, and this time I found a scene from a play. It's wonderful.
Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy