Why I’m really on Facebook.

On Friday, some of you (if you’re like me) may have thought that you had stroke—but it was just Facebook changing the layout of its homepage.  “That’s it!” You no doubt yelled, disrupting the bureaucratic quiet of your office.  Co-workers turned to glance from their computer screens, unfazed (they are quite familiar with your outbursts by now).  “I’m done with this shit,” you probably cried. “I’m quitting Facebook!”  If you’re anything like me…

Okay, so I’ll admit it: Within ten minutes, I had posted an updated status message about the latest Facebook layout and how much I hated it.  Look, I know I’ll never quit Facebook.  I’m addicted to it.  Just ask anyone I’m friends with.  I’m always posting links, notes, pictures, mobile updates, status updates, etc.  I’ve actually been told that people enjoy my posts that pop up on their newsfeeds.  Seriously, I’m that awesome.

But this whole foray into possibly finally ending my long and sometime combative relationship with the social networking giant (as brief as it was) churned up a few moments of self-reflection and forced me to ask the question: Just why the hell am I on Facebook?   The answer came quickly, without a moment’s contemplation: To make sure that people I know (but are not really that close with), particularly ex-girlfriends, are living less fulfilling lives than mine.  AND to continue the charade that I’m living the high life that I always hoped I would (but really never did).

So listen up:

• Everyone I knew growing up in Virginia and stayed there after I moved to New York—I’m living the good life up here.  Partying every night, on a successful and promising career path, and most definitely did not have a dinner that comprised solely of ramen noodles seasoned by my tears last night.
• Kid I was on the track team with—I don’t want to see photos from your solo motorcycle trip across the country.  Yes, I want a motorcycle.  No, I can’t afford it.  God, I envy you.
• The girl who sat next to me in trig class—I don’t want to read about your crazy nights out with your close-knit group of friends.  Don’t post pictures either.
• That chick I hooked up with Sophomore Year—I don’t care about your bachelorette party. Or your wedding ….to your “soul mate.”
• Guy who I was roommates with for a semester—please stop sharing the details of your incredibly successful and important job that compensates you both with karma and a huge salary.  Also, can I borrow some money?

[ Pic via Facebook.com]

 

Skank is not a costume: a Halloween enthusiast’s plea for sense.

Ladies, we need a moment.  Halloween is fast approaching.  I know, right?  Where does the time go?  It seems like just yesterday it was the middle of summer and now here we are, almost at the end of October.   Personally, I love Halloween.  Ever since I was a kid, it was my favorite holiday and I would spend weeks planning what I would go as.  These last two weeks especially have a place in my heart.  This is when party invitations start arriving, decorations come out, and final costume decisions are made.   That’s why I’ve chosen now to address an issue with your entire gender.

I’ve held my tongue about something I see every Halloween for years, but I can’t anymore.  I mean no disrespect to say this, but: dressing slutty doesn’t count as a costume. I’m not the first to make this complaint, but it seems that every year all I see are sexy schoolgirls, naughty nurses, or god know what else with the attached sexual adjective.  The last straw for me was this:  a sexy dogcatcher.

WHAT THE HELL?!  I’m not offended by the short skirt, I’m offend by how lame a costume idea this is!

When I was younger, I enjoyed seeing such blatant ritualistic displays of female sexuality. Contrary to what others may say—I am a man…a straight man.  And as much as I’ll claim to embrace the spirit and cause of feminism and women’s rights, I’ll always be that and carry the, huh, “desires” that come with it.  But come on!  Dressing up for Halloween is meant to showcase your imagination, your wit, or at the very least some sort of long lost fantasy (no, not that kind of fantasy).  It’s not about donning the style and dress of some member of a uniformed class that’s been forced into prostitution!  That’s just stupid.

Look, I’m not saying you can’t choose a costume that’s risqué or showing some skin, just don’t make that the whole purpose.  Why not a Victorian prostitute that’s been murdered by Jack the Ripper and has risen from the grave as a zombie?  Or a stripper that’s been bitten by a vampire and beginning to turn into one of the undead?  And if you want to show off your legs, what about Wonder Woman?    It’s not the sexuality that’s bothersome,  it’s the lack of imagination.  And isn’t that what Halloween is supposed to be all about?

[Pic via Badplanet.com]

 

Things I don’t care about yet can’t escape.

I like to think of this blog as my outward communication to the world in general. A digital version of a manifesto that I write in my shack secluded in the Montana wilderness. Generally, my writing has focused on observations and statements that explore my bizarre thought process in some vain hope that it will give way to a sort of cathartic exercise in rhetoric. But that’s not what I’m going to do today. No, today is me just being lazy and listing some things that everyone else is obsessed with and I couldn’t care less about. Deal with it.

• Jon and Kate Gosselin.
  I cannot emphasize how much I do not care about these people. I used to tease my girlfriend that because she watched the show, she helped fed into the fame that played a part in breaking up this family and was thus partly responsible. Now, I just don’t give a shit enough to do that. They had a bunch of kids, got famous for it, and then became assholes. It’s not that interesting a story and certainly not headline news. Whatever problems these people have, I’m pretty sure they’ll work themselves out if everyone just ignores them.
• Annoying Facebook Games.
  Look, if I’m friends with you on Facebook, it means that I generally think you’re a cool person and don’t absolutely hate you. If I haven’t blocked your status updates, links, or wall posts, it means that you haven’t offended me with misspellings, text abbreviations, or ultra-conservative opinions. But seriously people, enough with the goddamn games. I don’t care about what you’re up to in Mafia Wars or on Farmville. How are you doing? You know, in real life. Also, please stop sending me invitations to join you in said games.
• Michael Jackson.
  He’s dead. At one point he made great pop music and then probably had inappropriate sexual contact with boys. Just get over it.
• Chaste Teenage Vampires.
  Sigh. Vampires are an allegory for sexual desire. You know the whole swapping of bodily fluids by penetrating the skin, usually belonging to members of the opposite sex, with fangs …at night. With all this Twilight crap, there’s a perpetuation of a myth more unbelievable than vampires…hot teenagers not having sex.

  In closing, please stop talking about, publicizing, doing, or reading these things…or whatever, I don’t care.

 

I know who to blame.

So I had a fight with my girlfriend, Kate.  It was a stupid argument that consisted of us both acting foolish (possibly more so on my part) that was entirely over the phone.  I was drinking in a bar, she called me on my cell phone, I stepped out to answer it, we had the fight, and the weekend was ruined.  And I know exactly who to blame for all this hurt and anguish: cell phones.

Maybe it’s my recent bandwagon obsession with the TV show Madmen, but I’ve been overcome with the need to examine a slew of everyday 21^st century modern conveniences that we all take for granted in the lens of “How did they used to do this?”  For example, I goof off at work by aimlessly surfing the Internet, but before computers and Gawker.com such dalliances were accomplished via drinking in the middle of the day and sexual harassment (at least that’s what I figure according to AMC’s version of history). And when I examine my most recent spat with Kate, I realize that it wouldn’t have happened before the proliferation of mobile phones. Twenty years ago, the only way Kate would have been able to call me was via my home or office number (yes, theoretically I could have had a Zach Morris phone, but come on—I’m not made of money) and since I would not have been home (or at the office) to answer she would have simply left a message on my answering machine (remember those?).  I’d call her back the next day and the entire fight would have been avoided.

I’m also positive that if you were to graph the frequency of drunk dialing from Alexander Graham Bell on, the line would shoot up after the introduction of cellular telephones.  There’s just something appealing about making a call when you’re stumbling home from the subway.  Hence, the slurring message I left on what I thought was Kate’s voice mail later that night about how she “broke my heart” and “I was going to live on a mountain, away from all women.”  So now my cousin (whose number is for some reason right next to Kate’s in my cell phone’s address book) thinks I’m harboring a secret crush that drives me to drink.  Thanksgiving is going to be awesome.

It just seems that with everyone carrying around these means for instant connection, we’re quicker to reach out, respond, and react to one another, which I’m not sure is such a good idea.  In getting closer, we’ve sacrificed the small bits of space in between that allows us to take a step back and calm down for a second.

That being said, if it wasn’t for my cell phone I wouldn’t have gotten the text message of “I love you” from Kate yesterday, nor would I have been able to respond with an “I love you too.”

[Pic via Mapds.com .au]

 

The Sopranos: God, I still love this show.

Coming out of Yom Kippur and a little over a month after Ramadan with Thanksgiving and Christmas on the horizon, I’ve decided it was time for an annual observance of my own—I’m re-watching the Sopranos, all 86 episodes over six seasons.  Whether you’re religious or not, I think everyone has that one thing they do every year just for them: whether it’s a trip, reading a book, or going to a game between the home team and their bitter rivals.   For me, it’s watching 86 hours of Tony Soprano say “fuck,” screw, and murder.

I could go on and regurgitate everything that’s already been written about the show and how it opened the floodgates for quality television.  Its premise allows for an exploration of a variety of themes from the psychological and family to the nature of violence and the balance between good and evil.  But that’s not what I want to write about.  It just seems that I keep coming back to this show that I’ve seen a million times.  Every time I watch an episode I see something different or catch something in a scene I never noticed before.  I think that’s how you can tell good storytelling—it’s never stale.

I remember when I got into the Sopranos—my parents had just gotten their first DVD player and my dad was searching for stuff to watch on it.  It seemed every other day he was bringing home some classic old movie, just released title, or TV show.  We didn’t have HBO, but we’d still heard the inescapable buzz about the show.  Then one day he brought home the complete first season.  “I’ve seen it a couple times on the road,” he said.  “It’s really good.”

I was in the midst of finals for my Junior year of high school and I almost failed because I kept sneaking down in the middle of the night to watch the next episode.  But I wasn’t the only one hooked, both my parents got into it.  I’m pretty sure the Sopranos is the only show that features a constant stream of nudity, violence, and cursing that you can watch with your mother right next to you on the couch.  Still, I was always the bigger fan in the family.  I absconded with the DVD’s when I went off to college.  Made friends with people who lived off campus and had HBO so I could keep up with new episodes.  And when I couldn’t swing that, I had my parents tape and mail them to me.  Each season DVD box set became a defacto Christmas and birthday gifts for me.

But my annual Sopranos marathon isn’t just about watching my favorite show all over again, it’s sort of a reboot.  It resets my mindset to take a deeper look at the world, not for mobsters and FBI agents, but for the the undercurrent of themes that run through my own  life.  It makes me reflect on what drives me and the people in my life.

 

I need to get my shit together, yet again.

I’m a mess. Seriously, I’m all over the place and ragged around the edges.  My apartment looks like a tornado went through it.  I’m behind on a million projects (both personal and professional) and have a laundry list of deadlines I’ve simply blown past without even the slightest attempt at getting something in for them.  Hell, I can’t even keep up with updating this blog or working out regularly (two things I should have mastered and do without much thought by now).  But the Pièce de résistance of my deteriorated state is that for the past week and a half, I’ve been sleeping on dirty sheets while a set of clean bedding lay folded on the bed with me.  Why?  I just couldn’t get around to changing them.

How did this happen?  What could have led to this downward spiral?  It’s actually pretty simple.  I’ve been really busy.  It seems strange to make this argument: but for a little over a month now—I’ve been running around with stuff to do and places to go.  From weddings to a somewhat working vacation, I’ve been traveling up and down the East Coast.  And the chaos of the past few weeks has thrown my routine completely off and I just let things slip into disarray.  This is nothing new and I’ve gone through this song and dance a million times before: my life gets hectic and crazy, I end up neglecting certain aspects, things get messy, and then I work to get my shit together, get organized, set up a routine, fight to stick to it, things get back together, and then the whole process begins again.  I feel like I go through this cycle every few months and I’m beginning to suspect that I like it.

I’m just realizing that it’s easier to pick up the pieces than to keep everything from falling apart.  There’s direction and energy that comes on this wave of excitement to fix everything.  Whereas when things are organized and you’re following a laid out routine, it’s kind of dull and aggravating to stick to.  The thing is—it’s continuing to follow though on that monotonous routine and keeping your shit together that gets you to your overall goals.  It always the actual work, not gearing up and setting to do it.  So I’ve got a new goal:  I’ve got to stick to the boring grind that I set up and not let it slip away.  Maybe this time it’ll work.

[Pic via about.com]

 

Photolog: the third edition!

Regular readers may be aware of my bouts of laziness that have inhibited me from sharing my seemingly infinite vocabulary from the Internet. During such periods of “un-wordiness,” I take the opportunity to unload cool pics that I took with my iPhone and are just sitting there…un-admired.  See here and here, for evidence.

Anyway, I feel like shit. I think I’ve got stomach bug or something. And I’m filling in for a couple people in the office who are skipping work today via bullshit excuses (“It’s my honeymoon.” Pshaw!!). That being said, I give you Photolog: the third edition.I was at a wedding recently. Some of the bride and groom’s family members brought their kids. This was one of them at the end of the reception. It was open bar, so he was a proper representation of how I felt at the time.

I was passing through Bangor International Airport in Maine last month and snapped this. I think it speaks for the whole color coded terror warning system.

Yes, this is a public bathroom stall. Yes, someone corrected the grammar of something a previous “tenant” had written. No, it wasn’t me.

This is one of the few tags I’ve seen in New York that I really like. Though the lettering and style are plain and nothing to get excited about it, the name itself is great. And when you think about it, the execution is in the same vein of what the words mean. Sign and signifier are united in approach…it blows my mind.

I saw this while walking around with my girlfriend, Kate, the other day. At first, it annoyed me. “Really?” I shouted. “This guy’s got to put this on his car. What a freaking nerd!” And then it hit me. “Are you a real Autobot?” I whispered to the car. “It’s okay. You can trust me. I’m not a douche like Shia LaBeouf.”   Kate was thoroughly embarrassed.

 

I Killed My TV…and look what happened.

So I don’t own a television.  Actually, I haven’t had a television for over a year now.  And before you go jumping to any conclusions, it’s not because of the recession.  I can afford it…I swear!  I honestly just don’t want one.  It’s a point that I have to constantly reiterate to people once they find out I don’t own a TV. Most keep offering to sell me their old one at a steal and more than once someone has flat out offered me a free television set.

And it’s not because I don’t like TV.  I love to watch TV.  When I owned one, I would spend hours just flipping through the different channels until I found something to watch, either nothing in particular or something I’d seen a million times before.  That’s why I don’t own a television.  If I had a TV in my apartment, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. Hell, I don’t think I would be able to write anything….ever.  It’s 10:30 at night, I’m pretty sure I could find something to watch.  Aren’t the Emmy’s on tonight?

Now, just because I stopped owning a television doesn’t mean I don’t watch TV anymore.  Sure, I’m reading more and I’m getting more writing done. And gone are the hours mysteriously lost to Law & Order reruns on syndication.  No longer am I distracted by some last minute TV watching, losing track of time, and thus am almost always running late.  But I still watch television shows.  We are living in a golden age in which networks are airing smartly written shows with plot, character development, and profound dialogue.  I couldn’t resist storytelling like that.  I have a select few shows that I keep up on via Hulu, but nothing near the amount that I used to follow (you know you have an addiction to TV, when you hate shows like “Bones” and “CSI” but watch them anyway).

What’s really interesting is that watching TV used to be one of the most anti-social things I did—just staying in my apartment and watching by myself—but now it’s one of my most social activities.   I look forward to my weekly date to watch “Mad Men” with Kate at her place.  I go to other people’s apartments for season premieres and finale’s.  Next month is the MLB post-season and I’ll catch the games at my neighborhood bar.  It sounds strange, but since I quit owning a television, I have a lot more fun watching TV.

[Pic via SFGate.com]

 

Kool-Aid Pickles: a humble review from a humble man.

A couple weeks ago, I was reading the Taste Test column in the AV Club.  If you’re unfamiliar with the feature, allow me to explain: it’s a reoccurring article series in which the brave men and women of the Onion’s arts and reviews publication actually eat the most bizarre food artifacts that pop up on the flotsam and jetsam of American foodstuff.  From KFC’s new Double Down sandwich being test marketed in Delaware and Omaha (it replaces the bun with fried chicken filets) to the latest bacon infused product, they throw themselves on the calorie/taste/common-sense-defying grenade and report back to the reader.  Anyway, one of their most recent forays in flavor adventure was the Kool-Aid Pickle.

I know.  I hadn’t heard of it either, but apparently it’s a rising delicacy in the south (of course).  The recipe is fairly simple: make a pitcher of Kool-Aid, dump out the brine from a jar of dill pickles, rinse the pickles, put them back in the jar and fill it with the Kool-Aid, then let the concoction sit in your fridge for a week.  Check out this great article in the New York Times that really explores where the hell this came from.

To say I was intrigued is to put it mildly.  Trying out daring and borderline stupid things that I’d read about online is a passion of mine.  It’s also why I don’t have any eyebrows, walk with a limp, and can never return to Denmark.  So my immediate reaction was: “I’m totally doing this.”  I was able to talk Kate into trying it with surprising ease.  She even let me leave it in her fridge.  One of the biggest gaps in our relationship has been Kate’s love of sweet foods, while I prefer salty.  So I was hopeful that we’d found something to enjoy together.  Some un-holy union of salty and sweet that would allow us to finally come together in our taste preferences.  We anxiously waited through the week until last night, when I dug the jar out from the back of her fridge, cracked it open, handed a pickle to Kate, took one for myself, and…

Eh, it was okay.  Kool-Aid Pickles are completely edible, but nothing to write home about.  It basically tastes like a pickle you spilled Kool-Aid on at a barbeque and just ate it anyway.  I kind wish I hadn’t added the Kool-Aid and just ate the pickles.

 

A Nipple and Bullets: A Current Events Sketch in Noir

So I don’t know if you heard, but the FCC is reopening its investigation into the Janet Jackson 2004 Superbowl Nipple slip.  This is how I imagined the assignment went down:

“It’s over five-years after the fact,” Malone said to Captain Meyers as he watched the beefy older man lean back from his desk, chomp down on a cigar, and light it.  Before he was his boss, Meyers used to be Malone’s partner.  Malone would even go so far as to say that when he was starting out,  Meyers had been his mentor…maybe even his friend.  But all that changed when Meyers took the promotion the Brass had been bugging him about.  “Kind of a cold case, no?” Malone continued. “Any forensic evidence is long gone.  Witnesses’ memories will be unreliable.  Are any of the original investigators still with the department?  Hell, are they even still alive?”

“Goddammit, Malone!” Meyers shouted, slamming his hand down.  “When I tell you to work a case, you work the case!  That boob is still out there walking the streets– waving its sunburst nipple ring around. Find out who’s responsible and bring ‘em in!”

“Fine,” Malone said with a grin. “But if I’m on this, I’m going to take it wherever it leads.  No matter how high up.  And whatever shit comes, you better back me up.”  He stormed out of Meyers’ office before the fat old has-been could get a word in edgewise.  He knew he had carte blanche to crack this sucker, as usually.  Malone went to his desk and picked up his two best friends in the world, a colt .45 and a flask of Jameson.  One was loaded; the other would do the same for him.  By the end of the day, both would be empty.  That’s how it is when you’re with the FCC.