Ancient Greece: "He'll do. Oh yes, he'll do quite nicely."
Medieval Europe: "Just don't tell His Holiness the Pope. Oh wait, I am the Pope."
Victorian England: "This is the love that dare not speak its name."
WWII: "Do you ever think you like girls just 'cause yer supposed ta?"
Backwoods, circa 1975: "You got a real pretty mouth." (beating to follow)
Mid 80's: (through lipstick and eyeshadow) "Girls, girls, girls!"
Today: Boys. Boys! Where are the boys? (all hail Wienbach!)
Tomorrow: We have rights like everyone else. It's just another sexual preference. Thank you for lowering the age of consent!
lundi, mai 12, 2008
dimanche, mai 11, 2008
Perfect Evening
Let's make one thing very clear: the perfect evening would obviously involve transportation to a parallel dimension where intimate relations with multiple hot hot Hollywood starlets would be a) possible; and b) free of any moral quandaries. And where eating copious amounts of sushi was a) affordable; and b) free of any dietary quandaries.
Until such is possible (or until I am transported to the parallel dimension where I am mature enough not to fantasize about scenarios as ridiculous as they are reprehensible) the following perfect evening is hereby proposed:
Meeting at a friend's house for Boggle (or Scrabble) with the people I love, with moderate amounts of Sushi (and/or a fine cheese on crackers, or fine dark chocolate). And then, instead of work, home to sleep in my own bed with my delicious wife.
If you're thinking you can top this, then you have never a) played word games with my friends; or b) slept with my wife. In which case you have no way of knowing and should excuse yourself from the debate permanently, given that you are a) never going to sleep with my wife; and b) not invited to our word games.
Until such is possible (or until I am transported to the parallel dimension where I am mature enough not to fantasize about scenarios as ridiculous as they are reprehensible) the following perfect evening is hereby proposed:
Meeting at a friend's house for Boggle (or Scrabble) with the people I love, with moderate amounts of Sushi (and/or a fine cheese on crackers, or fine dark chocolate). And then, instead of work, home to sleep in my own bed with my delicious wife.
If you're thinking you can top this, then you have never a) played word games with my friends; or b) slept with my wife. In which case you have no way of knowing and should excuse yourself from the debate permanently, given that you are a) never going to sleep with my wife; and b) not invited to our word games.
jeudi, mai 08, 2008
Jumbletron
Iron Man--Still bearing the scars of Daredevil, and after the debacle that was Spiderman III, I was leery, and weary, of comic book superhero movies. But I did not hate Iron Man. Maybe it was the cast (Robert Downey Jr. has never disappointed me, and everyone else is on my list of favorite Hollywoodians), and maybe it was that my expectations had been lowered to such an extreme that anything passable would have been a pleasant surprise, but I walked out of there with that old "money well spent" feeling, which I haven't had for a summer fluff movie since the first Pirates of the Caribbean.
PS. If you hated the movie, don't bother commenting. I'm not interested in disputes over summer blockbusters, which either suck or don't. That's it. If you like the ones that suck (e.g. the so-bad-I-wanted-to-strangle-Johnny-Depp-with-his-damn-dreads sequels to the aforementioned Pirates movie), then you suck--but who cares? They're fluff! However, if you think they suck because of what they are (see fluff) then you suck even more, because pretension is worse than bad taste.
Carbon Credits--If you've been fooled into thinking these indulgences from the Holy Mother Church of Mindless Overwrought Guilt Ridden Environmental Activism are somehow OK, then you need to do a little research into where the funds go and what actual good they, in fact, do. (Careful though, you might end up hating Pope Gore just a little bit, just like I did when I researched--hoping, in fact, to bolster the claims in his infamous power point presentation . . . suffice it to say there were facts to the contrary). If you have, in fact, purchased a carbon credit or two, then all that can be said is: at least your overwrought, guilt ridden conscience won't bother you in activist hell, where you will be forced to debate the netherworldly warming trend with the opposite (though equally idiotic) types who spent the last decade arguing that our lifestyle doesn't have to change because our contribution to undeniable terrestrial warming was, in fact, scientifically negligible. Good luck winning that debate with the "I didn't have to change, I PURCHASED forgiveness from Mother Earth" argument.
Election Fatigue--a friend of mine called and reported that he was, at long last, tired of the election coverage. Forget the fact that his nick-name is "Mr. Attention Span." He was right. This election coverage has been over the top for what feels like an eternity. What with everyone so desperate to get onto the next disappointing regime and all. But I firmly believe that anything designed to test the dwindling national attention span is a good thing. Challenge people to pay attention. Or maybe not: I already have election fatigue fatigue.
Nougat--what is it? I know this sounds like a bad comedy bit from the eighties. But what is that stuff? A frustrated candy bar advocate tried to tell me it was whipped sugar and butter. But that can't be right. Man, I HATE candy bars. Almost all of them, but the popular ones in especial. Snickers, Milky Way, Baby Ruth, ALL OF THEM. Holy Crap they are bad. Disgusting blobs of sugary goo, sometimes accented by stale crunchy crud, all covered in the cheapest excuse for chocolate they could scrape off the works. An occasional Kitt-Katt I can understand, because people wouldn't flee from it screaming if you threw it in a pool. But otherwise, give me solid, unfettered, DARK chocolate. You might say I like my chocolate like I like my women: Solid, dark, and on the edge of bitterness.
See you next time. I have to stop now or this Jumble will go on forever.
PS. If you hated the movie, don't bother commenting. I'm not interested in disputes over summer blockbusters, which either suck or don't. That's it. If you like the ones that suck (e.g. the so-bad-I-wanted-to-strangle-Johnny-Depp-with-his-damn-dreads sequels to the aforementioned Pirates movie), then you suck--but who cares? They're fluff! However, if you think they suck because of what they are (see fluff) then you suck even more, because pretension is worse than bad taste.
Carbon Credits--If you've been fooled into thinking these indulgences from the Holy Mother Church of Mindless Overwrought Guilt Ridden Environmental Activism are somehow OK, then you need to do a little research into where the funds go and what actual good they, in fact, do. (Careful though, you might end up hating Pope Gore just a little bit, just like I did when I researched--hoping, in fact, to bolster the claims in his infamous power point presentation . . . suffice it to say there were facts to the contrary). If you have, in fact, purchased a carbon credit or two, then all that can be said is: at least your overwrought, guilt ridden conscience won't bother you in activist hell, where you will be forced to debate the netherworldly warming trend with the opposite (though equally idiotic) types who spent the last decade arguing that our lifestyle doesn't have to change because our contribution to undeniable terrestrial warming was, in fact, scientifically negligible. Good luck winning that debate with the "I didn't have to change, I PURCHASED forgiveness from Mother Earth" argument.
Election Fatigue--a friend of mine called and reported that he was, at long last, tired of the election coverage. Forget the fact that his nick-name is "Mr. Attention Span." He was right. This election coverage has been over the top for what feels like an eternity. What with everyone so desperate to get onto the next disappointing regime and all. But I firmly believe that anything designed to test the dwindling national attention span is a good thing. Challenge people to pay attention. Or maybe not: I already have election fatigue fatigue.
Nougat--what is it? I know this sounds like a bad comedy bit from the eighties. But what is that stuff? A frustrated candy bar advocate tried to tell me it was whipped sugar and butter. But that can't be right. Man, I HATE candy bars. Almost all of them, but the popular ones in especial. Snickers, Milky Way, Baby Ruth, ALL OF THEM. Holy Crap they are bad. Disgusting blobs of sugary goo, sometimes accented by stale crunchy crud, all covered in the cheapest excuse for chocolate they could scrape off the works. An occasional Kitt-Katt I can understand, because people wouldn't flee from it screaming if you threw it in a pool. But otherwise, give me solid, unfettered, DARK chocolate. You might say I like my chocolate like I like my women: Solid, dark, and on the edge of bitterness.
See you next time. I have to stop now or this Jumble will go on forever.
mardi, mai 06, 2008
warning: serious
I'm calling out Dave Brown. In case he ever googles himself, this might come up, and he can hear what should have been said--save for the fact that when you work for the government in a facility, (as you observe whiners, complainers and dullards who make the work environment an absolute hell, and bitter washed up people who seem desperate to show us all that there is something worse than hell), keeping the peace becomes the priority. Once again pushing Honesty into the back seat.
So David Brown, I hope you read this one day, and take in the loving spirit it was intended.
There we were in the office one morning. Dave Brown comes in and, once the snob coffee is either in the works or in his hand, is ready to start the day, which he spends as one of the county's finer social workers. I mean that. He's good, he cares about the clients. I respect him and usually enjoy his company.
He has spent the last few weeks praising the work ethic and general skills of a certain female co-worker, who just joined the ranks. He had made a point, it seemed, to point out the exceptional performance of this dedicated woman, who was a full time mom until recently when she decided her kids were old enough for her to go to work part time. In fact, everyone on staff has spent the last few weeks doing the same thing. This woman is good and she is in demand. Everyone wants her on their shift.
On this particular morning, however, shift change included something that might have surprised someone new to the field, and had indeed been a new experience for the woman in question. Dave got inexplicably smug.
"Boy, she's getting a real education here, isn't she?" I didn't quite know what he meant, and so I simply smiled. "I mean, her biggest concern before was [here he adopted a mocking falsetto] 'Oh, I burned the muffins!'"
At this point, I had four options:
1) Punch him in the face.
2) Pretend he never said it and fall back on his long history of NOT sticking his foot so far down his throat that everyone in the room gags.
3) Pause, and squint upwards as if contemplating the mountain of condescension from which he was delivering his small minded screed, and then, in a calm deliberate tone, say: I want you to listen close, because I'm only going to say this once. The person of whom you speak has spent the best years of her life dedicated to the world's most important, and most difficult profession. The very reason she is so good at her work here, is because of her dedication to her work as a full time mother. Her job here is NOT an education. It is, by comparison, so inconsequential as to be laughable. Although I can see how you might miss that, since you don't have children. To be sure, this job has some rewarding aspects, but compared to an effective, loving, full time parent, a social worker of any ilk is a pointless, lazy, grumbling, pencil pushing pack mule. So you can take your nose out of the air, and shove your sneering, leftist, childless beuraucrat condescension deep into the orifice from which you seem to think the sun shines. In other words, I love you but SHUT UP.
4) Remain in silence and save the little speech for this most useless of fora.
So David Brown, I hope you read this one day, and take in the loving spirit it was intended.
There we were in the office one morning. Dave Brown comes in and, once the snob coffee is either in the works or in his hand, is ready to start the day, which he spends as one of the county's finer social workers. I mean that. He's good, he cares about the clients. I respect him and usually enjoy his company.
He has spent the last few weeks praising the work ethic and general skills of a certain female co-worker, who just joined the ranks. He had made a point, it seemed, to point out the exceptional performance of this dedicated woman, who was a full time mom until recently when she decided her kids were old enough for her to go to work part time. In fact, everyone on staff has spent the last few weeks doing the same thing. This woman is good and she is in demand. Everyone wants her on their shift.
On this particular morning, however, shift change included something that might have surprised someone new to the field, and had indeed been a new experience for the woman in question. Dave got inexplicably smug.
"Boy, she's getting a real education here, isn't she?" I didn't quite know what he meant, and so I simply smiled. "I mean, her biggest concern before was [here he adopted a mocking falsetto] 'Oh, I burned the muffins!'"
At this point, I had four options:
1) Punch him in the face.
2) Pretend he never said it and fall back on his long history of NOT sticking his foot so far down his throat that everyone in the room gags.
3) Pause, and squint upwards as if contemplating the mountain of condescension from which he was delivering his small minded screed, and then, in a calm deliberate tone, say: I want you to listen close, because I'm only going to say this once. The person of whom you speak has spent the best years of her life dedicated to the world's most important, and most difficult profession. The very reason she is so good at her work here, is because of her dedication to her work as a full time mother. Her job here is NOT an education. It is, by comparison, so inconsequential as to be laughable. Although I can see how you might miss that, since you don't have children. To be sure, this job has some rewarding aspects, but compared to an effective, loving, full time parent, a social worker of any ilk is a pointless, lazy, grumbling, pencil pushing pack mule. So you can take your nose out of the air, and shove your sneering, leftist, childless beuraucrat condescension deep into the orifice from which you seem to think the sun shines. In other words, I love you but SHUT UP.
4) Remain in silence and save the little speech for this most useless of fora.
vendredi, mai 02, 2008
Honestly
One of the most efficient ways to pay yourself a gross disservice is to set yourself up, in the blogosphere or anywhere else, as a funny person, or worse, gloss yourself as insightful. The best results are from mere honesty. Just be honest. It really is our only hope.
The problem for some--and by some I mean me--is that honesty does not come easy. Because we are, deep in the heart of our bottom, horrible people. Cruel, judgmental, acerbic, ultrasexual obsessive compulsive, passive aggressive jerks. There isn't a positive gloss to slather over that particular set of traits. So it just doesn't occur, as often as it should, to simply speak the simple truth.
Like at my good friend K-Diggity's birthday party. There was drunkenness, and I don't drink, so I started to get that old high school feeling. The one I got when I realized that M*A*S*H, (the show to which I had dedicated my early years), had betrayed me. Because of the 4077th's flashy, hilarious portrayal of drinking people (who I had only ever seen on TV), I was ill prepared for the rather off-putting realization that drunk people are, in fact, loud, obnoxious, sloppily affectionate blowhards. By the time the bacchanal migrated to the backyard pool, I was on the couch playing a hand held Yahtzee game. (Supplemental honesty: this is what a huge nerd I am. No matter what the occasion, my fervent hope is that a word game will break out.)
So there I was on the couch, when chatter on the deck indicated that the pool contingent had exercised the Naked Option. Being on the verge of a large straight, I was content to listen to the commentary of the deck observers. Did I mention this was K-Diggity's 40th birthday? It therefore rankled one of the middle aged women present when birthday girl exited the pool in her birthday suit. "Just look at her little 20 year-old body. Don't you just hate her?" It was one of those catty, back handed insult/compliments that women pay each other every day. I've learned, like everyone else who wants to retain their sanity, to tune out that crap. But she chose to repeat the comment, almost as if she wanted someone to respond. I'd had enough: the bile rose to the top of my throat; I put down the game and prepared to give into the urge to charge out onto the deck, point my honest finger into her displayed, artificially tanned cleavage and say:
"You can shut your fat middle aged mouth. You act like she woke up one day and found that body in her closet, or won it in some raffle. You know what? She works hard. She mountain bikes twice a week. She runs. She goes to the gym. She watches what she eats. If you have to comment, why not just admit to how jealous you are, or lament how your sloth and the subsequent fat on your hips depresses you, or better yet, congratulate her for the way her HARD WORK has paid off and emulate her example? It's either that or shut it, Chubby. Because I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!"
I was so close. But in the end, I was too cowardly, too entrenched in the old high school exclusion-by-sobriety, to muster up the honesty. I realize now that my silence constituted tacit approval of her comments.
Sorry everybody. I know honesty is the best policy. I'm working on it.
"You can shut your fat middle aged mouth. You act like she woke up one day and found that body in her closet, or won it in some raffle. You know what? She works hard. She mountain bikes twice a week. She runs. She goes to the gym. She watches what she eats. If you have to comment, why not just admit to how jealous you are, or lament how your sloth and the subsequent fat on your hips depresses you, or better yet, congratulate her for the way her HARD WORK has paid off and emulate her example? It's either that or shut it, Chubby. Because I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!"
I was so close. But in the end, I was too cowardly, too entrenched in the old high school exclusion-by-sobriety, to muster up the honesty. I realize now that my silence constituted tacit approval of her comments.
Sorry everybody. I know honesty is the best policy. I'm working on it.
lundi, avril 21, 2008
Cereal Philanderer
Working nights as I do is dangerous. What with Youtube and such. You wake up in the morning, pour your soy milk over your shredded wheat, and realize:
I just spent the night falling head over heals in love with Feist.
I know, I know, I can already hear you saying, "What about Regina Spektor?"
Look, I'm not saying it wasn't a spektacular year with her--and you have to admit, my affair with her lasted a good deal longer than the disastrous Natalie Imbruglia phase--but she never, I don't know, responded to me, per se, in a way that made me feel like she was as into it as I was. And her music will always have a prominent place in my home, because you can't expect something so deep and meaningful to just wash away with the next rain, you know?
Not that I don't get what you're getting at. I know I haven't listened to Tori Amos in years. But you have to remember: She left me. One day she was looking me right in the eye as I sat in the fifth row. The next day she was surrounded by screaming teenage girls and didn't have the time. It took me a long time to move on. Ran around with Fiona Apple for a while. Even had a fling with Charlotte Gainsbourg--although we both knew it was only because she was ostensibly French, and because the girl from Portishead was so inaccessible and smoked too much.
Look, this wouldn't even be an issue if Audrey Hepburn hadn't decided to get old and die. How do you think that feels?
So believe me when I say, me and Feist are for real. Because at some point, in the cold light of the morning, Desperado has to come to his senses.
I just spent the night falling head over heals in love with Feist.
I know, I know, I can already hear you saying, "What about Regina Spektor?"
Look, I'm not saying it wasn't a spektacular year with her--and you have to admit, my affair with her lasted a good deal longer than the disastrous Natalie Imbruglia phase--but she never, I don't know, responded to me, per se, in a way that made me feel like she was as into it as I was. And her music will always have a prominent place in my home, because you can't expect something so deep and meaningful to just wash away with the next rain, you know?
Not that I don't get what you're getting at. I know I haven't listened to Tori Amos in years. But you have to remember: She left me. One day she was looking me right in the eye as I sat in the fifth row. The next day she was surrounded by screaming teenage girls and didn't have the time. It took me a long time to move on. Ran around with Fiona Apple for a while. Even had a fling with Charlotte Gainsbourg--although we both knew it was only because she was ostensibly French, and because the girl from Portishead was so inaccessible and smoked too much.
Look, this wouldn't even be an issue if Audrey Hepburn hadn't decided to get old and die. How do you think that feels?
So believe me when I say, me and Feist are for real. Because at some point, in the cold light of the morning, Desperado has to come to his senses.
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