Inverted Soapbox

why are you reading this post?

2009-02-18T01:06:00.003-05:00

Hey there ... just checking in, have you come over to the new site yet? Seriously, what's holding you back? Why are you still here? You're missing out on all the fun of web 2 point woah we're having there. God, it's like you're still using that 40-pound button covered first-generation iPod and we're over there touching screens and downloading aps that do nothing but simulate the experience of drinking a beer. Hey, and on Thursday it will be the one-year anniversary of this blog, borne out of an hour of discounted beers and desperation in the lowly corner of a bar on Hilton Head. My, how far we've come. The use of spellcheck! Elementary level HTML editing! Just as many posts written when half-drunk on wine, but better quality wine!
Why not celebrate by changing your book marks and casting off this old, weary husk of a site?

www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com

MOVING ON UP

2008-12-30T13:48:00.007-05:00

[EDIT: links fixed to take you to the actual site, not intra-blogger nonsense. Sorry about that]

WE'RE MOVING!!

By "we" I mean "me," and by "moving," I mean, switching to Wordpress. Blogger has done me well, but I can't shake the feeling that hanging on here is like keeping an AOL account in the era of Gmail. Yes, I know Google owns Blogger too, but just embrace the metaphor, ok?

So join me, won't you, all three loyal readers, into a journey of newness and wonder and awe and aweness and wondernew and blogenfreude at the new Inverted Soapbox, now at www.invertedsoapbox.com.

new features include:
* A wholly owned and licensed domain name! Less typing of letters means more letters you can put back into the American economy
* Shiny new layout that looks like every other Wordpress blog - no more "grandma's upholstery" background theme!
* A "top posts" feature - see for yourself what topics get the most random google search traffic from Jakarta!
* More links! Bigger blogroll! (smaller porkroll, however, sorry)
* Pingbacks - let the blogcest begin!
* Uh, probably some other features that, you know, I'll add later or something!
* Pan-asian cuisine!
* More reporting from the frontlines of vagabondage in New York City!
* Recommended hummus-related products!
* Better organization!

So check it out, if you care to....

www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com www.invertedsoapbox.com

Rejected list: Words that Have Been Edited Out of My Stories

2008-12-25T16:22:00.003-05:00

This is actually my first ever submission and subsequent rejection to McSweeney's, dating way back to ye olden January aught seven. I've been meaning to post this for awhile, seeing as this blog is nothing else if not a compendium failure:

Words That Have Been Edited Out of My News Stories Because, Even
Though The Average Age of Our Readership is 60, Journalists Must Write
at a Sixth Grade Level, and Other Reasons the Newspaper Industry Is In
Decline

Shrapnel
Sacrosanct
Anathema
Beastly
Tantamount

Words that Have Inexplicably Not Been Edited Out of My Stories
Douchebaggery
Fiduciary solvency
Kraken

Keller Williams to jam through New Year's Eve on Hilton Head

2008-12-25T16:04:00.003-05:00

(The Guide, 12/26/08) Forgive the hippies. They really aren’t trying to stop you from selling your house. They simply have a deep appreciation for groovy, hip-moving, light tunes from an artist who’s best known as being a one-man jam band.

So you’ll understand why, in the early ’90s, when Keller Williams first started to become known on the scene, it was common to see fans at his shows holding still-muddy Keller Williams Realty signs, ripped from nearby lawns.

That practice has mostly abated, which is a good thing, as Williams is coming to the land of prime real estate when he plays a three-set New Year’s Eve show at the Shoreline Ballroom on Hilton Head Island. The concert will include a special all-request set and an extra-special “Grunge Grass” set featuring bluegrass covers of ’90s alternative hits from the likes of Nirvana and Alice in Chains.

But the rest will feature Williams alone on stage, using his signature method of looping his own performance on different instruments to create a bigger, multilayerd sound.

Question. What’s the deal with this all-request set?

Answer. When you buy a ticket, you’re allowed a request. We’re doing a set of just what people requested. There’s no rules, you know. The majority of the requests is stuff that I haven’t played in a long time, like off early records. Sometimes (fans) request something off the wall, something they want to hear covered. I definitely don’t do it often — maybe one or two a year, just to try to make it more interesting.

Q. How did you get started doing the looped recording?

A. It was just me wanting to go further with just what I had — me and a guitar and a microphone. I was out on tour with (the String Cheese Incident), and I started to try the loop thing. That’s when people started to respond. I guess it was me wanting to go further, create more of a dance-vibe as a solo act by pressing some sequencers. I wanted to keep it more organic, kind of create the loops myself, bring the studio to the stage. I didn’t come up with it, but I expanded it, maybe. I always wanted to have a band, but I was never able to afford it. I love playing in (a) band. The energy way surpasses my solo show, but the solo thing is kind of what I do. It’s the day job.

Q. What was your worst New Year’s?

A. Two years ago, the day before, we lost my dog, Earl, who’s been with my wife and I. It was super crushing. That was by far the worst.

Q. And the best?

A. I opened for String Cheese so many times. They know how to put on a show. They would sink so much money in New Year’s Eve: lasers, trapeze, circus performers, concepts. The band would rev up the audience so much where the energy was just incredible.

Q. Do you worry someone will buy a ticket to the show and think it’s a real estate seminar?

A. I will welcome that personally. That will by far help me out in a great way. I might even make some new friends that way too. If you’re looking at property anywhere, please let me know. I’ll be happy to set you up with a proper representative.

Q: I think you will even pass at least one Keller Williams office on your way to the show.

A. I’m everywhere, man.

New Year’s Eve Extravaganza, feat. Keller Williams, Grunge Grass and DJ Moe Marsh
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 31
Where: Shoreline Ballroom, 40 Folly Field Road, Hilton Head Island
Tickets: $25 in advance, $30 day of show
Information: 843-842-0358. www.shorelineballroom.com

Happy Holidays, y'all

2008-12-24T22:11:00.003-05:00

Good tidings, no matter what your holiday:

and the real reason for the season:

"First pants, THEN your shoes"

2008-12-22T14:36:00.004-05:00

Great find of the day: real life recreations of Far Side comics. Click here to see the rest.

The phone lines are over there!

2008-12-22T12:57:00.004-05:00

Ghostbusters 2 was apparently taking place on the stairway in the Court St. station at midnight last night.

Here's the related scene from the movie, in French, because Bill Murray in French is still Bill Murray:

Hey what? You boneheads are going to come to harass me on again? I got 3 thousand phone lines grounded here, I got about 8 million miles of cable I gotta check, you're gonna come and shake my monkey tree again?

Felt/Nixon

2008-12-20T02:10:00.004-05:00

In recognition of Mark Felt. Here's hoping there will always be Deep Throats, and reporters to talk to them.

If nothing else for journalism, I got to talk to Ben Bradlee* in an elevator in the hotel used to spy on the Watergate, see Woodward and Bernstein speak twice, once with Ben Bradlee, and interview a guy who worked side-by-side with Deep Throat. Brushes with history are acceptable at this point.

But after the newspaper confirmed the story late Tuesday afternoon, DeLoach said he had no indication that the man who for many years occupied the office next to him was the source who helped topple President Richard Nixon.

"Under no circumstances in my opinion would he do something like this," DeLoach said of Felt before the Post's confirmation.

* What a terrible lede. Please fire this kid.

Top Ten Lists 2008: Music and Movies

2008-12-19T16:15:00.006-05:00

Everyone's been bitching about how very "meh" a year 2008 was for music, and I am forced to agree. I think it was a long-tail year: lots of interesting new artists and quirky new sounds that caught the attention well-tuned ears throughout the intertubes, but not too many knockout champions or shoe-ins for No. 1. Idolator sums it up in reviewing Pitchfork's list today, which placed Fleet Foxes in the No. 1 spot:

I will just chalk its absurdly high placement up to "yet another reason why this year needs to be put out to pasture ASAP.

There's a bit of variation on most of the lists this year, save for a few staples. But there is something that needs to be said, so I'm going to say it: TV on the Radio can eat my ass. They're just okay . Got it? They're certainly not the new goddamned Radiohead where they can do no wrong.
Rolling Stone, Spin, and everyone else who fawned over Dear Science and Return to Cookie Mountain: please let's all just relax, take a breath, have a Fresca, and calm down. Hell, I liked "Dear Science," and the band is fine with me overall, especially if you're into listening to songs that sound like they're the intro to other songs and you like staying rivetted to the speakers as you keep waiting for the damn thing to kick in already.
They can be just okay. We forgot somewhere along the way that bands are allowed to be decent musicians without either being the second coming of Hipster Jesus or a tragedy to all sounds ever made that warrants cutting off your ears and shutting down iTunes.

That said, here's my completely unscientific, unreliable, poorly vetted, terribly thought out and ultimately indefensible list.

10.MGMT - Oracular Spectacular*

9. Lupe Fiasco - The Cool

8. Fleet Foxes - s/t

7. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

6. Bitzen Trapper - Furr

5. Okkervil River - Stand Ins

4 Santogold - s/t

3. She and Him - Vol. 1

2. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

1. Vampire Weekend - s/t

I was reluctant to put VW at the top of the list, but it's hard not to argue that it's the most innovative album that came out this year, with afro-pop sounds and undeniably catchy rhythms that managed to maintain replay value even in the face of all the hype. The [ed not: as I'm typing this, they started playing Mansard Roof at Gorilla Coffee in Park Slope. Point illustrated] album is summery party music for the neo-Paul Simon set, and I don't see any problem with that. Also, the Columbia boys are helping to stem our nation's tragic dearth of songs about esoteric punctuation terms, and I think we should be grateful.

*Also hesitant to put this on the list since we all got it back in 07, but I guess we aren't counting non-Radiohead digital releases yet.

Movies- In which I realize I didn't see nearly enough good movies this year:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Wall -E
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
5 Iron Man
6. Frost/Nixon
7. Pineapple Express
8. Cloverfield
9. Zack and Miri Make a Porno

I was really tempted to call Wall-E the best movie of the year. It certainly was the most endearing love story movie since Before Sunset, and it didn't even have any damned speaking for half the film. But Dark Knight was just too jawesome to deny.

[RELATED: here's the column I wrote last year about the rules for making a top 10 list. Follow it or be subject to weeks of angry sneering glances shrouded in ironic mustache coming at you from under American Apparel hoodies.]

Big city, small town: photos from a NYC snow day

2008-12-19T15:00:00.012-05:00

I never would have guessed how much four years in the South would completely renew my childlike glee at a big snow storm. OK, so I had off today anyway, and should have been doing other work like figuring out my life and preventing homelessness and all that minor nonsense, but there's still that part of me that can't resist screaming "SNOWDAYSNOWDAYNOSCHOOLNOSCHOOLNOSCHOOL!" and running out into the streets. So here's what New York looked like today, with surprises along the way:

30 rock:

Saw a dude proposed in the middle of the ice rink:

she said yes, obvs

Torrential snow pour:

Underground snowfall at Newkirk station:

Outside our front door:

Down Westminster St.:

Christmas trees in Park Slope:

And, of course, the weirdest part of the day, completely randomly running into WSAV reporter and Beaufort County resident Holly Bounds on 5th Ave. this afternoon.

Her and her husband are here on vacation this weekend. This all reinforces my theory about New York: Big city, small town.

It's a city of 8.2 million, but the amount of random run-ins and such I've already seen in New York City makes it seem like friggin Mayberry. Case in point: I met Barry Schwartz for dinner last September when I was home in Jersey for a little while. Walking down the street, we ran into the intern friend of J. Cribbs from the Roanoke Times, who just happened to be passing by. Then last month, I told Robin and her roommate I met someone who works for Family Circle. "Oh Jane?" her roommate said. "Yeah, I know Jane."

And to think people are scared of New York City.

Sparks is gone, but the after taste is with us forever

2008-12-18T23:33:00.005-05:00

In tribute to Sparks, and the only person in the world I know who will care, Jeff Barnes.

Under the settlement, MillerCoors agreed to end certain marketing strategies that the attorneys general contend appealed to underage youth. It will remove content on the Sparks Web site that the attorneys general said "looks like it was created by a college freshman." The company also will eliminate images that imply energy or power, such as the battery-themed symbols on Sparks cans.

The images didn't imply energy; they shoved it down your goddamn throat with bleeding fist full of nails.

Sparks -- For when Red Bull isn't enough and it's too far a drive to your meth dealer.

Best non-Jeff Barnes Sparks memory: John chugging a can of it with no hands at Mellow Mushroom trivia night on Hilton Head so we could save $5 on a $60 tab. He lost a photo finish, but it was totally worth it. He died later that night.

There's a late night bar dare waiting for you in heaven, Sparks.

Cobble Hill tea shop Bedazzled by Orlando Jones

2008-12-18T16:08:00.004-05:00

I'm in the Tea Lounge on Court St. right now where the counter dude is talking about how Orlando Jones came in yesterday. He recounted the following conversation, as overheard by me:

Employee: Dude, should I know you?
OJ: I don't know, should you?
Employee: Dude, I think I know you from somewhere.
OJ: Yeah, we used to date
Employee: I really recognize you. Are you famous?
OJ: I don't know, am I?

Then the two employees launched an extended conversation about Orlando's D-list celebrity status (I think he's a C at least people, c'mon) and the movie Evolution, which, as you will recall, was unmemorable save for the glorious return to the limelight for Michael "Donkey Lips" Bower, who was last previously spotted in a contestant pool on Singled Out in 1995 (true story).

Was Orlando Jones here for the filming of the special Drumline episode of Gossip Girl? No, he was just going to see a movie at the cinema across the street, according to the employee. His choices were: Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Rachel Getting Married or Bolt.

On a related note, I had pomegranate-flavored 7-up with Seagram's 7 on Saturday night. I don't remember anything being wrong with regular 7-up, but pomegranate up yours was acceptable.

[Hey, apparently Orlando Jones went to College of Charleston but didn't get a degree. Who knew?]

A NYC newspaper iPod battle

2008-12-18T02:54:00.006-05:00

An analysis of iPod art used in New York City area newspapers today to illustrate the Gov. David Patterson's proposed major tax increases, which include a 4 percent so-called "iTunes Tax" on videos or music downloaded from the internet.

1) New York Post: Jack Johnson's "Sleep Through the Static"

2) Newsday: U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," specifically the track "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own"

3) New York Daily News: Hot Chip's "The Warning"

:

Also, 4) New York Times: A engaging picture of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in an early education classroom.

The following can be inferred from each selection:
1) The graphics editor at the New York Post, a mid-30s tech-savvy person merely trying to get by in the print business until the economy rebounds, grabbed her iPod, hit shuffle and took a picture of the first item that came up in time to meet deadline.
2) A news editor at Newsday had a brainstorm for a front-page graphic after seeing the tax story come across the wire. But after about 50 minutes of arguments, the rest of the staff was able to talk him out of using an image of a unspooled and tangled analog tape. With deadline fast approaching, he Googled "pop music pods" and copied the first non-Britney-Spears-stomach picture that came up.
3) "Hey intern! Give me your damn iPod for a minute."

And the winner is......
The Daily News.

Bonus: Listen to Hot Chip's "Over and Over,"and watch an, um, interesting video here.

OMFG: Gossip Girl spotted in Brooklyn

2008-12-18T01:28:00.006-05:00

Walking around Court Street yesterday before work, I kept seeing these large, rather fancy looking trailers lining the streets. At first I thought it was portable bathrooms for a nearby construction project, but then I noticed they were lining several blocks. Other guesses were that they were some sort of blood mobile, or maybe a portable STD clinic for the homeless, or perhaps, since they had fancy wooden doors attached at the entrances, some sort of roving home goods show of kitchen fixtures, Formica counter tops and bathroom sealants. I was tempted to walk in one to see what sort of public offerings were inside, but I'm still deferential to my limited knowledge of the machinations of the city. For all I know, those trailers were no big deal, no one in the neighborhood even notices them any more, and they just come by every week to offer free lube in preparation for the upcoming subway fare hike stiffie.

Way off. Turns out, they're filming Gossip Girl in the nabe this week. I stumbled across the scoop on Cobble Hill Blog. Here's some of their pictures:

This would be much more interesting if I A) had any idea who any of the people on Gossip Girl were; or 2) knew anything in the world about the show other than it seems to be another example of our culture's maddening idolatry of the lives of wealthy, spoiled douchebags and douchebaggettes.*

Here's a completely out-of-context quote I just found online:
Chuck: Archibald. Isn't it about time you ended this bromance? What happens at Yale stays at Yale.
Nate: [to Dan] Hey man, let's go.

Meeting Justin Long was way cooler.

*I'm curious -- can anyone who watches this tell me how this stacks up on the brain activity scale against the Laguna Beach/The Hills crap?

I'm living in the new San Francisco?

2008-12-16T12:13:00.005-05:00

My first foray into Brooklyn landed me in this decent sublet in the Ditmas Park area, sharing an apartment on the third floor of a massive old Victorian style house complete with a few stained glass windows, ostentatious palatial bathrooms (with signed tiles of Don Mattingly baseball cards, for some reason), along with a reading nook and secret room in my closet that mysteriously has a refrigerator in it. The neighborhood is comfortable and relaxed, quirky in some ways, multicultural with lots of middle eastern families and Halal restaurants and such. Nearby Courtelyou Road has a lefty coffee shop, a nice food coop and a bizarre combination flower shop/bar. Even if it wasn't all that nice, it's only a month sublet anyway, but it's more than adequate.

When I tell people where I live, they usually respond with a sort of "uhh..... where?" look, which is understandable. I half-jokingly tell them it's the new new New Brooklyn. Williamsburg is so over it's hard to remember when it began, I say, and Bed-Stuy just can't get the traction. DITMAS, Y'HEAR?.

It's possible this could one day be true, of course, with the large houses that are starting to draw interest as people are priced out of the rest of Brooklyn.

But New York magazine has already taken it a step further. In their Reasons To Love New York issue, No. 39 is: "Because Ditmas Park is the New San Francisco." Here's the blurb:

What New Yorker with a repressed slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer, quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century painted ladies (which in Ditmas now fetch up to $1.8 million and reach their height of Gothic-Oriental grandness on both sides of stately Albemarle Road). You can also see similarities in the restaurant scene: The reigning culinary draw, the Farm on Adderley (1108 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-287-3101), references Chez Panisse (okay, that’s in Berkeley, not Frisco) in its strident locavorism and mismatched plates. And Ditmas’s tiny, cozy Cinco de Mayo (1202 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-693-1022) can hold its own in the Mexican brunch department against the Mission District’s Pancho Villa Taqueria (although the latter’s burritos are admittedly better). Then there are the political echoes, with the Beat- beloved City Lights bookstore and Café Trieste intertwining at Vox Pop (1022 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-940-2084), where, on a recent Sunday, you could order a Cesar Chavez personal pizza, buy lefty tracts, and listen to a live drum circle from a group called Manhattan Samba. “The vibe there’s very San Francisco,” says local Joshua Levy, managing editor of change.org, a “social-action blog network” based in, naturally, S.F. “It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee while reading conspiracy books,” he half-jokes. Not that every Ditmas denizen embraces the comparison. Political-contribution records show that chunks of Ditmas actually lean red, notes Liena Zagare, who writes the popular Ditmas Park Blog. And Mary Kay Gallagher, a longtime Ditmas Realtor, points out that those Bay Area Victorians are mostly stuck together. “Ours are detached,” she says. “That means a driveway and a garage and a backyard.” But is it big enough to leave your heart in?

I like this area -- A group of us went to the Farm on Friday where we were served bacon-flavored vodka, a horseradish martini and a delicious vegan mushroom truffle under a soundtrack that could have come off any of our iPods.
And let me clarify that I've only been to San Fran once on an extended layover from LA back to DC, a trip where I stumbled across an absolutely impressive amount of donut shops and 99 cent porn theaters.

But Ditmas Park, you're no San Francisco. There just isn't that much here yet. The items listed in the NYMag blurb are about it so far. I envision one day someone will build a music club out here that will start attracting the hip crowds, leading to all sorts of new growth. Vox Pop has a big business plan on their Web site about how they want to become the independent alternative franchise to Starbucks, bolstered by the new era of good feelings in the Obama administration. And maybe someone will figure out how to make it significantly warmer in Ditmas in the winters, which would be nice. Even better, perhaps the producers will be swayed to film the Full House reunion next door.

Or they could open up a bunch of 99-cent porn theaters, and it would start to look like SF real fast around here.

(Photo credit: personal collection)

On Tragedies and Bad Handwriting

2008-12-16T01:16:00.009-05:00

The biggest under reported tragedy of Sept. 11 is the toll it's taken on our nation's paperwork system.

The revelation of this overlooked portion of the horrifying attacks came during my first day working at TJ's this afternoon, sitting at a plastic table in the basement of a former bank building and trying to ignore the 80-year-old heating system making the room fit for storing only ready to eat dumplings and fidgety new hires. The very kind management guy began going over the work syllabus as I began filling out the same mountain of paperwork I've filled out for seemingly every new job, school year, major purchase or whatever for 15 years now. He stopped me just I was checking the "single" box on the NY state tax form.

"Tim, I keep it real, tell it straight," he said, leaning back from the table and laying his hands flat for emphasis. "Let me take a second to impress upon you the seriousness of completing these forms properly," he said.
Oh-kay, I said. C'mon guy, my penmanship may have all but been purged from my brain over the years in favor of rapid, sloppy note taking, but I've done these before -- it's all sense memory at this point. No dependents, not head of household. Emergency contact, still D. Donnelly, 920 Cable Avenue. SSN, direct deposit, no need for life insurance, thank you kindly.

"I'd rather take an hour getting it right now than have them send it back and have to deal with the people in the office for weeks," he said. These forms have to be neat, he said. Don't even let your 'ys' drop below the boxes. Don't try to write over anything or cross something out. They will not trust it and they will send it back. If you use two different kinds of ink, it won't go.

Um, I said.

Yeah, he said. "Everything changed after 9/11. They really scrutinize these forms now. We've had them sent back for the tiniest thing. They're just really careful. Just take the time to do it right now and it will save us some hassle."

He was speaking most specifically of course about the I9 form, the document that proves you have a legal right to work in the United States. These forms are reviewed by Homeland Security. And no one wants to mess with the Department of Homeland Security.

I set back at it and already there were problems. I should probably write "Timothy" instead of "Tim" on these forms, management guy said, even though the former version of my name has served no purpose in my life whatsoever except to indicate parental furor or lead to duplicate document completion. I tried to squeeze the extra letters onto the forms, but it wouldn't do. A new set of forms was brought.

"Then, here," management guy said, pointing to today's date next to the signature on the I9. I had dragged my pen down the page a little too long on the 5 on "12/15/08."
"This could be anything," he said. To the trash with that one and back with a fresh form.

"Do me a favor," he said, now pointing to the second completed draft of this document, his finger resting on my birth date "9/30/1981," where apparently the "1" had sprouted too high for his liking. "You've got to just write it out real clear like this," he said, showing an elongated example of the date.

On the third try, I goofed again, accidentally drawing a line to write "NY" after my street address instead of in the designated state area. I refused to admit I was a three-times dunce, and started thinking fast. I covered by writing "Apt. 3" in the field instead. This is a completely nonsense designation as all mail in this building is piled by the front door each day. I could have written "Penthouse - Luxor Wing" and it would have had the same effect.

Would he notice? I continued and wrote out the birth date in big, slow numerals. I put the papers in his hand and hoped for the best, turning back to the handbook.

"We knew someone in the towers," he said casually, ripping my attentions away from the corporate policy on non-standard hatwear. "My wife's cousin, was in the second tower."

"She wasn't one of the survivors."

Rough stuff, I said.

A lot of people from New York or New Jersey have some story like this from that day, some more soot-covered or scarred than others, but the degrees of connection in this tightly packed area are impossible to avoid. My mom's client ran late for work in one of the towers that day, by luck avoiding a horrible fate. My old college roommate's best friend's parents went missing from their nearby offices for a day. Another friend happened to be walking to work in northern Virginia when he looked across the street and saw a plane drop from the sky and explode into the Pentagon. The experience put him in therapy and lead to a minor drug problem for a period. Still in New York, the old World Trade Center site is a big open pit, looking more like an active excavation site than a tragic landmark. On the streets, 9/11 memorial merchandise has faded from popularity over seven years, replaced largely with the calendars, framed pictures, artwork and T-shirts celebrating Obama's victory, the words Hope and Change written in big, dramatic fonts.

"All right, this looks good," he said, stashing the paperwork in his folder. "Thank you for doing that. We've just got to be real careful. Yep, 9/11 changed everything and everything. Things are just so different now."

Can't argue that. I still don't want to buy the life insurance though.

pictures via Comestiblog. More about that TJs here.

T shirt of the day

2008-12-15T12:25:00.003-05:00

From TypeTees, via Slashfilm. I know what Santa is getting for a certain Little Georgey...

Hi I'm a Mac, and I'm soaking wet

2008-12-12T09:50:00.005-05:00

Turns out Chris the Giant and I were in the same showing of Slumdog Millionaire last night with Justin Long, BKA the Mac guy. This accounts for my first celebrity interaction in the city (well, after Common, I guess). But more importantly, my degree of separation from Jonah Hill is now down to 1.

Here's what happened. We attended a late showing at the Angelika Theater on West Houston Street last night, amid a torrential rain storm that proved, despite what your science teachers and Jim Cantores of the world have told you for years, it can be well into the 20s and still refuse to stop raining. I went to the bathroom after the movie and when I returned, Giganti said, "Hey, I think that's the guy from the Mac ads over there. Also from Live Free or Die Hard."

Where? I asked, immediately arming my archers of skepticism to shoot down his presumptions. This had happened before of course, with Giganti once (and still adamantly to this day) making the absurd claim that he saw Lauren Ambrose drunkenly stumbling down the streets of Savannah about two years ago.

"He just walked out the door." So we followed and to my surprise it was indeed Justin Long, hunching his shoulders into his coat as he headed out into the cold rain. So I ran up and talked to him briefly. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hey, can I ask what you thought of the movie?
Justin Long: Yeah, sure. I thought it was really great. I really enjoyed it. It was amazing.
Me: Cool man. My name's Tim.
Justin Long: Justin, nice to meet you man. (I wonder if a lot of people probably think his name is "Mack," I thought. We shook hands).
Me: Dude, can I just say, Accepted is a totally, totally underrated movie.
Justin Long: Oh thanks man. Yeah, we worked really hard on that one so I appreciate it.
Me: It doesn't get the credit it deserves. But just know that a bunch of us out there dig it.
Justin Long: Thanks man, thanks a lot.
Me: Keep it up.
Justin Long: Sure -- thanks, take it easy Tim.

He was with some girl, very much not Drew Barrymore, though in honesty I probably still would have been more interested in talking to him even if he was with Drew Barrymore.

The weirdest part about running into him last night was that on Wednesday, I pretty much had my mind set all day on going to the Barnes and Noble in Park Slope to see John Hodgman , aka "PC," speak about his new book. But then I got a migraine and took one of those pills that are either 80 percent placebo or 100 percent concentrated Nyquil-lined opium, and passed out for two hours. But either way, those pills work blackout good.

And, FYI, Slumdog Millionaire is gigantically well done.

I was pretty disgustingly wet by time I got home last night, so much that I had to drape clothes over the space heater. But even in the worst storm, it's usually worth venturing out into the rain to see what New York has to offer that night.

Recommended track

2008-12-11T13:13:00.002-05:00

Jay Z and Santogold -Brooklyn (We Go Had)

Put in in your ears, and not just because Brooklyn is probably cooler than where you live.

Common misunderstandings

2008-12-11T10:24:00.009-05:00

So maybe I did get a little cocky the other night, telling people I was going to the Common album release party in Manhattan, somewhere below ground in an Upper West Side swank club you needed to know somebody and be on the guest list and offer a bid for Barack Obama's senate seat to get into. Of course, I don't actually know anyone, except for Jeff Vrabel in this case, who knows many, many people, including some who still send him invites to album release parties in Manhattan in case he wanted to fly the supersonic jet he owns (thanks to that newspaper salary) to get there from South Carolina in a few hours.

The e-mail he forwarded me said the doors opened at 9, Common would perform at 10:30. I was going by myself since they removed all the plus ones from the list (sorry Barry!) due to the huge interest, so I arrived at the fashionable mid-range time of 9:50. The place was bumping with Hot 97 banners here and there. Some dude wearing a standard Okayplayer fan outfit walked up to me and leaned in to say something.

"Am I supposed to get you a wrist band?" he asked.
"Huh?" I said. He pulled back and looked at me.
"Aren't you here with Theo?"
"Uh, no."
"Oh. I thought you were .....uh ... you look like this other guy."

That's right, I thought. All white people look alike.

The guy ended up helping me get a free drink from the bar anyway. Just as he got to the bartender, the guy on the mike announced that the event was over. "Sorry y'all, we all got early planes to catch in the morning."

The free drink service had also ended. I did some reporting and it turns out Common did a little performance starting at about 9:30, making this probably the first time in history a hip hop show has started earlier than scheduled (hear that, Kanye?). Then he rolled out. I guess I probably caught maybe the end of the performance when I first walked in but didn't even realize it. The album, Universal Mind Control, is getting slammed in reviews anyway.

I wasn't the only one who was disappointed. But I guess it's a pretty big concession to remember that at Coachella in 2006, Common was the surprise guest who came on stage with Black Star as the three of them played way past the midnight curfew and Mos kept telling Common he would have to pitch in because they were going to pay the fine.

"Wait, how much is the fine?" Common asked, possibly not joking. Then he pulled like $5 out of his wallet.

But I decided to be a paparazzi anyway Monday night as he walked by me:

The club it was held at:

It was cool to be there at least, even if it was kind of a bummer that I didn't make it in time for the performance. I thought of something though -- it's lame to see a musician in the crowd at a concert but not actually see them perform. But who is it cool to see in the crowd at a show? Actors! Blah to Common the rapper but OH MY GOD LOOK OVER THERE IT'S GREEN LANTERN!!

Or maybe I just didn't play my cards right.

Newspaper Lulz

2008-12-10T18:10:00.002-05:00

for a dark week:

Both via Newspaper Death Watch.

Trivia team names for the week

2008-12-10T14:41:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I haven't actually gone to a trivia night since moving to NY, but it's not like I should be using my brain for other things like, you know, looking for a job or something.

Kafka's Proctologist
Enter This Boy Soul*
Shellfish is an Obamanation
That Baby is a Dick
Liquid Meat
What Will Movies Spin for Dramatic Points Once Newspapers Die?
Tryptofurky
Just What In the Hell, Illinois?
Bill Murray Washed My Dishes
Brown Bagging is the New Cosmopolitan
Give Us Our New Bike Already
Hobo Fire Building 101
The Great Depression: Now in Color!

And, one of the best I've heard in a long time, from team Hilton Head in my absentia:
One and a Half Thumbs Up

*Say it quickly now

Bustin' makes him feel good

2008-12-10T10:36:00.006-05:00

An important day of Ghostbuster-related news, as all days of Ghostbuster related news are.

First, there's this, the trailer for the Ghostbusters video game, which looks slightly more than 1,000 times better than the old Ghostbusters video game for the NES, probably the only game I played for excess of 2 hours at a time and still hadn't the slightest idea how to get anywhere besides the first two screens. It's also probably about as close to a Ghostbusters sequel that we'll ever get (or EVER NEED DO YOU HEAR ME HOLLYWOOD MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP. Honestly, how many more Lucas films will it take to prove that messing with a legacy just isn't worth it?)

Then, this interesting tidbit that is bizarre and unexplainable, cats and dogs, living together, and confusing and probably has something to do with bribes being offered for open senate seats and threats made against other web sites, but somehow this blog for the past few days has been the No. 1 Google image search result for the word "Ghostbusters." Go on, try it, I'll wait. [EDIT 9:03 p.m.: of course a few hours after I wrote this, the google search results are drastically different, but trust me when I say this was true for several days.][EDIT2 1:30 p.m. 1/12: We're back to No. 1. I guess it just fluxuates]

for this image here, from this throw-away post in September.

Is everybody getting this?

Finally, there's this story, which is starting to make a buzz around the Brooklins, about Bill Murray nonchalantly dropping in on Brooklyn parties Lost in Translation style (until, of course, some Wsburg hipster tries to give him life lessons). My favorite part of the story:

The previous fall, he landed in Britain's tabloids when he followed a 22-year-old female university co-ed to a house party in St. Andrew's, Scotland, where he had been playing in a celebrity golf tournament. Students told the papers he helped them do the dishes when it turned out there were no glasses left to drink from.

So if this whole "job" thing or whatever doesn't come together for me soon, I have a new life plan: designing parties with the specific intent of enticing Bill Murray to appear. It seems like the main ingredient is either hip new indie band or, um, chicks. Lots and lots of chicks.

"No, no, no. I have all new cheap moves."

Recommended additional viewing: One of Bill Murray's best roles in recent years, in Fact Checkers Unit from Funny or Die.

Pour one out

2008-12-08T14:21:00.005-05:00

for Tribune.

The first big one to take the hit. But, tragically, it's surely just the first casualty of a bloody body count to come. Hoping for the best for all my buddies at Trib papers today.

Interesting and somewhat related interview with Nick Denton of Gawker in MarketWatch today, talking about discovering young writers:

But not the old-fashioned media, that is. In fact, Denton, again, takes the opportunity to rip the mainstream newspapers and magazines for their inability to spot promising young journalists. "People say I have an eye for talent," he scoffed. "That's bull____. The only reason is that newspapers and magazines haven't been doing their jobs, bringing on young writers."

This essentially what I've heard from a lot of our generation of journalists. When newspapers had the opportunity to embrace young talent and make them an integral force of reshaping news coverage for the new media landscape, they instead created an environment that was frightened of new ideas and too reverential to an old architecture, even as it was rapidly buckling under new pressures. The result has been many young journalists who have deemed this attitude to be too unrewarding to bother investing time in, and an exodus followed.

My last newspaper job did me very well experience wise, but by the end, with cutbacks and little new investment, it practically became an endurance test for how long the staff could justify being there for clips alone.

Blind Boys of Alabama still preaching the gospel

2008-12-08T00:15:00.004-05:00

(From The Guide, 12/4) --The Blind Boys of Alabama have succeeded in doing something nearly unheard of in the music scene: They’ve taken gospel music — real gospel music, ripe with references to Jesus and salvation and all that Sunday morning fare — and parlayed it into a career that has shattered the longstanding boundaries between rock and church music and won a great many mainstream fans along the way.

That means instead of playing church picnics or small Southern music halls, the Blind Boys have belted out soulful lyrics about conversion and faith to the mud-covered hippies at Bonnaroo, heard their cover of a Tom Waits song appear on HBO’s “The Wire” and shared the stage with Prince.

But it took a staggering seven decades — a preposterous span in music today — to get there. In those years the band adapted its style, said singer Jimmy Carter, shifting from traditional church songs to something more contemporary. But it’s all still gospel, he said, with the same core spirit.

“As time went on, gospel changed. You have contemporary gospel, you even have rap gospel now,” Carter said in a phone interview from his home in Montgomery, Ala. “You have to learn to please anybody. We sing different kinds of music, but its all gospel.”

The crossover success with mainstream artists has helped the band stay relevant and
attract young fans, but it’s those other artists — such as Ben Harper, who cut an entire album with the band in 2004 — who usually seek out the Blind Boys, Carter said. Harper, for instance, approached the band overseas and told them he had some gospel tunes they might be interested in.

“You got to understand now, most of these guys we work with, they came out of the church, they are gospel people,” Carter said. “They just chose to do another kind of music. They have gospel roots.”

The Blind Boys formed at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in 1939, with Carter as one of the original members. But it’s in the past decade or so that the band has seen mainstream success, playing different festivals, working with Aaron Neville and Peter Gabriel and lending their music to soundtracks from Disney’s “Brother Bear” to the TV show “Lost.”

“This is not a brag, but there are not too many people now who do not know about the Blind Boys,” Carter said.

Carter attributes their success to the broad appeal of a spiritual message. The lyrics may capture Southern-roots gospel, but all crowds, from Los Angeles to Bonnaroo, can identify with spirituality.

“Everybody has a little bit of God in them. When people hear gospel, they think about God. Everybody has his own religion, or his own what-he-wants-to-believe. We sing gospel, and we might not make a believer out of (people), but we have a message, and they receive the message,” he said. “As long as we can tell somebody about the goodness of the Lord, that’s what we’re all about.”

Link: Official Blind Boys of Alabama site.

Mommy, can I go out and golf tonight? The Misfits come to Hilton Head

2008-12-08T00:07:00.004-05:00

(From The Guide, 12/4)

Hilton Head Island still has its baby teeth when it comes to this whole “punk” thing, seeing as the island’s first major punk show took place just two months ago when Against Me! and Ted Leo blew through town.

But now that the Misfits are on their way, it’s time to grow up fast, kids.

The Misfits are responsible for one of the most recognizable symbols in all of punk rock: the “fiend skull,” the grinning white skeletal outline on a black background that’s become a keynote symbol of the genre, right up there with the three-chord riff, the Ramones’ seal and the purple-highlighted mohawk.

With their performance at the Shoreline Ballroom this week, the Misfits will bring to the island a 30-year history as one of the most theatric, macabre and long-lasting names in all of rock. It probably will be the most hardcore show in Hilton Head history, with the emphasis on themes of horror, sci-fi and gore (very rarely, for example, does the island host bands with lyrics like, “Your future is in an oblong box”).

It’s the hardcore fan base — the Fiend Club, as they’re known — that has kept the band going all these years, lead singer Jerry Only said in a phone interview before a Dallas show on the day before Thanksgiving. The Misfits’ music never got much radio play, but it was always relevant to their fans, he said.

“It’s out there, even though it’s not really extremely visible to the eye. It’s something that’s well known, well-established,” Only said. “(The fans) kind of tend to hold on to it and make it their own. We have one of the most loyal fan bases out there.”

Only was the band’s original bassist, but he took over lead singer duties following a lengthy legal battle over the rights to the band with former lead Glenn Danzig, who left the group in the early 1980s. Since reforming in the mid-’90s, the new incarnation of the Misfits has released three albums, appeared in films and continued to tour.

“I think that we’re a very well-rounded package. We have a little bit of everything. The sound is unique, (so is) the material and the way we do what we do,” Only said. “I think that’s one of the things that have allowed us to float through the changing of the musical guard.”

Only said the band plans to take a few years off soon to work on new music and prepare a new show.

“We’re not looking to become big commercial success. But at the same time, we are looking to become a force to be reckoned with,” he said. “I’d love to go head to head with Iron Maiden and hold our own.”

Plus, Only wants to spend time with his 2-year-old daughter, who, unlike other children, isn’t scared by his make up, spiked leather stage outfit or his trademark hairstyle. “She doesn’t even notice it,” he said.

So as a part of one iconic band, what does Only think of the much-discussed exploits of Guns N’ Roses, a band that has covered Misfits songs in the past? Guns N’ Roses this month released “Chinese Democracy” after years of anticipation.

“I don’t buy the hype. I could give a (blank),” he said, adding that any band that takes that long to put out an album is just out for money. The Misfits’ 1983 album, “Earth A.D.,” for example, was recorded in about six hours, Only said. “I’m out there playing and taking it to the kids every day,” he said. “We’re out there beating the streets and making it real.”

Link: Official Misfits site.

Giving Secret Santa a new meaning

2008-12-06T15:06:00.006-05:00

My impression about New York so far is that the best things are hidden. Not just out of the way or hard to find, but literally hidden, secreted, stashed away behind some false edifice daring you to crack the shell of mystery and find whatever tempting nut is inside. It gives the whole city a tantalizing layer of urban scavenger hunt, keeping the best things out of the probing pages of the tourist guides and, naturally, allowing us to quote "Swingers" incessantly as we shuffle down a street towards another bar deep in an alleyway, not even bothering to look for a sign.

Best examples of this so far are, of course, the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store, and the bar Chris the Giant brought me to the other night called The Back Room that's deep in a back alley on the Lower East Side under a thinly veiled front as a toy store. It's got prohibition chic (speaking of which: Happy Repeal Day!) with all drinks served in tea cups presumably to fool the Rex Banners of the world, were there still any, and if there were, they would have the following conversation:

Rex Banner: What kind of toy shop is filled with rambunctious yahoos and hot jazz music at 1AM?
Bartender: The best damn toy shop in town!

There's even supposedly a double secret back room where, at one point or another, co-owners Tim Robbins and Mark Messier must have had lengthy conversations about the fundamental socio-economic inequities inherent in the Islanders 2007 draft picks.

But the best secret stash in the city I've heard about so far may be SantaCon, an event that, as far as I can tell from the clues given, is just a gigantic goddamn mass of Santa Clausi cavorting about the city in a drunken, jolly sea of red jackets and nog fumes. Even its Web site maintains a secretive, yet unpretentious, demeanor:

SantaCon is a not-for-profit, non-political, non-religious & non-logical Santa Claus convention, organized and attended for absolutely no reason.

SantaCon (also known as Santarchy in some places) was first brought to our attention at a gallery opening of Patriot Day photography on Thursday night, thanks to a man wearing a revolutionary war era outfit, complete with tri-cornered hat and metal mug for whichth to containeth his mead(th). He ordered a Red Stripe.
"Shouldn't you be drinking Sam Adams?" I asked.
"Ha! That's a good one. That's funny. Boy, that's a good one," he said, genuinely amused.

It was not a good one, really, and I was aware of this, but maybe humour was different in the 18th century and he was quite committed to the bit. He struck up a conversation with us anyway. The patriot costume was from his own personal collection, as he's part of a costume cult, a group that, as you would imagine, just really, really likes costumes. He also is a devoted Burning Man fan and goes to SantaCon each year (naturally).

SantaCon, coming up next Saturday, starts at a secret location, he said. It's part street theater, part surrealism, and a big part sloppy, carolling holiday mess.
The "Santa" part is key to the whole thing. "You have to dress up, though," he said. "Santa suit, elf, something, but you must be in a costume."

At the end of the conversation, having decided he liked Robin and I, he asked for our e-mail addresses and said he was going to find us on Ye Olde Facebooke and invite us to the con.

Robin and I both looked at each other with an understanding that there's really no way we could turn down an invitation to semi-secret event featuring more Santas than all the malls in New Jersey could churn out (though with probably about the equal amount of stale alcohol smell in their beards). Ok, so it probably isn't semi-secret for very long, just look at this picture from last year at Grand Central. But it's still cool to be in on the ground level.

I haven't heard back from the guy yet. But if we do I may have a very important question -- can you tell me where -- because I know there's one somewhere in New York City -- is the secret Santa Claus Clothing Supply Store, and how do I find it's hidden entrance?

You know you're not in South Carolina any more when....

2008-12-05T17:25:00.003-05:00

At Revolution Books on 26th St., apparently the place to go for all your godless, anti-capitalist, really-piss-off-your-red-state-grandfather-stocking-stuffer reading needs.

It was just less than four years ago I sat in my first Hilton Head town meeting and was culture shocked when I saw the officials stand up and bow their heads in prayer to start the meeting. How far we've traveled.

Can't get this at Ikea

2008-12-05T16:58:00.006-05:00

What's that? Do I have any pictures of Swedish dance bands from the 1970s to show you? Funny you should ask...

And to think America only got one BeeGees.

There's more. Oh so much more.

I'm pretty sure one of the guys in Tommy Ferm's is my grandfather.

(Thanks to Robin for the link.)

Prop 8, the Musical

2008-12-03T13:08:00.002-05:00

An all-star cast including John C. Reilly and NPH on stage for this musical satire. To think there was a day when our only means of entertainment distribution was television.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Best conversation I had all day

2008-12-02T17:58:00.004-05:00

Actual text of the chat I had with Bank of America through the suspiciously named "LiveChat by LivePerson" program.

Valerie: Hello. Thank you for being a valued Bank of America customer. My name is Valerie. How may I assist you with your personal banking needs today?

You: Hi - I just passed my second anniversary with Keep the Change and haven't seen my annual match show up in my account yet. It was deposited by this time last year.

Valerie: I will certainly assist you in this regard.

You: ok thanks

Valerie: I understand your concern regarding the promotional match of Keep The Change Service.

Valerie: You will receive the promotional incentive, after eight weeks of the Anniversary.

You: do you know what that date will be?

Valerie: I kindly request you to wait for one more month as the exact date can differ.

You: bah - the deposit appeared in November last year. Why is it so different this year?

Valerie: after the second anniversary on 11/13/08, you will receive the incentive within eight weeks.

You: all right all right

You: thanks for your help

You: are you a real person or a program?

You: my guess is program

Valerie: Yes.

Valerie: I am a human, Bank of America associate.

You: where are you located?

Valerie: I am a Bank of America associate located in India.

Valerie: Do you have any other queries regarding your personal checking and savings accounts?

You: sorry to hear about all that stuff in Mumbai

Valerie: I too feel bad for this.

Valerie: Thank you for your kind response on the incident in Mumbai.

You: you have been very helpful. usually when I call the hotline, I get some rude American person

Valerie: Timothy, That's really kind of you. Pleasure was all mine in assisting a valued customer like you.

You: I'm sorry I called you a computer program

Valerie: Happy Holidays for you and your Family!!! Happy Christmas to you.

Valerie: No problem. That's okay.
You: Valerie?
*UNABLE TO SEND MESSAGE*

Ironik kitteh only noms becuz he hates it

2008-12-01T17:17:00.004-05:00

Because you weren't sick of the LOL trend already, presenting I Can Has Hipster

[Icanhasdowntown, via Zoomdoggle, Via FreeWilliamsburg]

Roger Ebert and the Demise of the Ink-Stained Wretch

2008-11-28T16:37:00.005-05:00

It's funny -- I typically consider Roger Ebert's movie opinions pretty worthless, off-the-mark and overly deferential to mainstream tripe [insert Cribbs rebuttal here and here and here]. That's not to say he can't turn a phrase among some of the best reviewers, such as this one from his Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review, which he, predictably, enjoyed:

"If you eat four pounds of sausage, how do you choose which pound tasted the best? Well, the first one, of course, and then there's a steady drop-off of interest."

But his thoughts on the decline of the newspaper industry and his defenses of the value of the printed word have been spot on, even stirring in their passion. He wrote a blog post Wednesday about the AP's new limit of 500 words on movie reviews. Here's the hottest selection:

“Perhaps fearing the challenge of reading a newspaper will prove daunting, papers are using increasing portions of their shrinking news holes in providing guides to reading themselves.” … “The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out.

The news is still big. It’s the newspapers that got small.”

Yowzers. Ebert isn't too cheery on his future with newspapers, and with good cause. Ebert, however, is representing a different view of the decay of the industry, one that is being lamented more than the the loss of the physical product itself: he says the fault lies not soley at the feet of the internet, blogs and the 24-hour news environment, but rather on the doorstep of the decline of intellectualism among the population as a whole, this fascination with tasting the trifle that is destroying our abilities to digest the significant.

Read the whole thing here. It's still not enough to get me to watch Crystal Skull again though. Sorry Rog.

Signs you are getting older

2008-11-27T01:28:00.005-05:00

- You have to pick your little sister up from the bar at 1 a.m. on the day before Thanksgiving because all you're doing is sitting at home watching Barbara Walters interview Barack Obama with your mother since all your friends from high school are either married or tending to their children.

Sigh.

In Brooklyn, enemies of imagination beware

2008-11-25T13:01:00.015-05:00

It should come as no surprise to anyone who regularly reads this thing (hello again, dude in Jakarta who keeps Googling "drug-addled cartoonists") that I have long-coveted the prestige of the mighty McSweeney's Web site, all to no avail, because apparently you need things called "talent" and "creativity" and "humor" to be published there, so their rejections are understandable. Plus, the rejection e-mails are always very pleasant and thoughtful, with good punctuation and syntax, and come off as very encouraging. I imagine if they were old fashioned letters they would smell like fresh linen and be printed on crisp paper with a big, impressive letterhead that took up 2/5 of the page. Here's an actual example:

Hi, Tim -

Thanks for considering us for this one, but I'm afraid we're not going to use it. Hope you'll keep trying.

Best,
Chris

That's like 100 times better than the responses I've gotten from most jobs I've applied to in the past two years. Those responses usually look like this:

(uproarious laughter as application packet is opened, crumpling sound) proceeded by the following action:

Thanks for applying, jerk!

But besides highlighting the kind of sardonic, ironic, literate humor I have a particular appreciation for, McSweeney's is the product of Dave Eggers, author of the book with the best title of the past 10 years (besides "Burning Down My Masters' House," of course). I was aware that Eggers and company also run 826 tutoring centers in a few cities in stores disguised as something fantastic and fun, including a Space Travel Supply Store in Seattle and a Pirate Supply Store in San Francisco. (Quote from David Byrne on their web site: "Definitely one of the top five pirate stores I've been to recently.")

So it was a sweet surprise Saturday afternoon as I was wondering down the street (as jobless people tend to do) in Park Slope when I stumbled across the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company right on 5th Ave., not far from where I was staying. How can you resist going into a store with such powerful frontage?

So I went in. And it was, as I expected, pretty awesome. The commitment to the bit was most impressive -- every inch of the store is covered in cans of invisibility spray, boxes of superhero tights, goggles (they do nothing), jugs of elongation serum and so forth. There's a large de-villianifying chamber you can go into, because, as the store staff says, they can't just go selling super products to would-be evil-doers. In the back, there's a trick bookshelf that opens into a secret chamber, which is the room where all the tutoring happens.
I'm on a pretty tight budget up in New York while I'm getting set up, but I couldn't resist the urge to buy something, since the money goes to support the tutoring center. I picked out a bottle of the shape shifting serum to bring to a bday party I was attending that night. Before you can buy anything, you have to read an oath of do-goodery and create a superhero name for yourself (Super Magic Man was all I could come up with in a pinch). You put your money in a vault and they read you your total from a microphone in a control room booth.

Only after you complete your purchase does the staff hint at what actually may be in the bottle you're holding ("Put a few drops in the bathtub to activate the shape-shifting properties," the girl said).

The store is great, one, because it's one of the only place I know of in Brooklyn in which you can (legally) purchase a black hole, and provides the only non-pedophiliac sidekick placement services in all of the city.

But it is also refreshing because it reminds you of the value of actually using your imagination on a daily basis, something that makes me smile when I think of the hundreds of kids who've had to walk past a rack of capes and a shelf of immortality potion on their way to literacy and writing tutorial sessions in the back.

I spent a year in college tutoring kids in a generally poorly performing DC school and I was constantly amazed at the roteness of the education these kids were subject to. Even the program we tutored from was based on workbooks and flashcards for basic ABCs and math, and some of the kids just couldn't make it stick. Then when the time of the year came for standardized tests, all other classwork was discarded and the school hunkered down in Defcon 1 test prep mode.

All the students wore uniforms and sat in ugly classrooms made of those industrial-grade concrete bricks that have been used to build schools for decades. The walls were lined with posters that hadn't been updated since the 1980s and the happiest part of their day seemed to be when they got out of class and got to talk about trading Pokemon cards. When we got to black history month, all we talked about were the same black heroes we've heard about since I was in school -- MLK, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, etc. This was at a school that was nearly 100 percent black too. Surely they were aware of these figures already, I thought.

I often thought of what kind of a world we were preparing these kids for, one where success is only provided through a rigid adherence to conformity, where the correct answers are always in one of the four bubbles provided, where the unforgiving, pale beige concrete walls would line the edges of their lives forever.

Many people would argue that kids in a rough school need some strict structure and guidance if they're going to break the patterns that have hampered some of the poorer areas of DC for generations.

That's fine, and maybe they're right, I don't know the answer. But for kids in the city who sometimes have a hard time picturing their lives beyond the nearest street corner, I can't help but wonder how their education might be different if someone handed them a good-sized bucket of sonar potion, or how they could change the world with a new utility belt in hand, each pocket equipped with whatever gadgets their imagination had in stock.

826 National

How blogs start

2008-11-24T13:35:00.003-05:00

So true:

NYC: Wraping up the print industry

2008-11-23T17:01:00.008-05:00

So, fine, print is basically dead, whatever, I'm getting over it, and I'm probably not even going to join that Facebook group "Don't Let Newspapers Die," because unless the group plans to nail its messages to the doors of newspaper executives in the middle of the night Martin-Luther style, it's an exercise in cosmic futility, not to mention that their stated positions are pretty vapid and unconvincing, even to me, a guy who has cried tears of ink of many a night watching this death spiral unfold. The positions are, as directly quoted:

Newspapers are an important & historic public resource.
Journalism is vitally important to the impartial gathering & reporting of news.
Newspapers are cool!

At this point, better arguments for the continued existence of newspapers (as Michael Shapiro and I spent a day brainstorming on for our proposed newspaper survival advertising campaign) have to appeal to practicality. Some ideas include:

* You can't wrap a present in the internet
* Why waste a good towel when your dog throws up on your floor?
* An iPhone won't keep you dry in a pinch during a rainstorm
* Birdcages look naked without it
* Try stuffing your wet shoes with internet and see what happens
* Your Twitter post doesn't transfer onto silly putty
* Without newspapers, what are you going to whack your cat with?

See? Much more practical. Appeal to the physical realm, because apparently no one cares that the high-quality investigations and storytelling of newspapers has yet to be fully replicated elsewhere, or that through history newspapers have served critical roles in shaping our democracy. Boooo-ring. But start telling people they'll actually have to buy wrapping paper even for those I-hate-this-person-but-feel-obligated-to-go-to-their-birthday-party occasions, and we might start to get some traction.

Print may be dead, but it's clear the world still needs copy editors. This is just from the course of a few hours wandering around the city yesterday. I let the signs in Chinatown slide. For now:

Farmers market in Union Square

Brocoli is, according to Google, a French record label. And only $2 a pound!

Dan Quayle, your legacy is a strong one. Oh Sarah ... you could have been destined for such great things too.

Harder to see, but the sign says "their hot." I tried one. And indeed, the chili peppers' hotness did belong to a group of people standing nearby.

My favorite, at a Duane Reade:

Yikes. Maybe if this is the only other option, people will finally start flocking back to newspapers, happy to entrust their gifts to the comics page rather than being forced to purchase roll after roll of wraping paper.

NYC day 2: Where they paint murals of Biggie...

2008-11-20T17:00:00.011-05:00

Random Brooklyn pictures, for no particular reason:

neighborhood near Ditmas where I looked at a sublet today.

Q line stop under Cortelyou Rd.

Delicious looking Flatbush food co-op on Cortelyou

colorful fruits in the cold on Courtelyou, right before it started flurrying

Also, first thing in the morning I looked at an apartment at the corner of Crack and Hooker Avenues, somewhere in the Stabbing District. I've never seen a directory with so many names that had "Zs" and "Ws" in them. See for yourself, and ignore the free advertising for T-Mobile.

Shout out to Black Star today from the BK. Listen to "Definition."

NYC day 1: Little town blues, melting away

2008-11-20T00:23:00.006-05:00

Key purchases on a first day in New York City:

1 winter hat from H & M on Broadway near the Village
Cost: $3.90 + the well being of at least four sweatshop children

1 MetroCard
Cost: $20, with $3 bonus

1 slice of crappy, greasy, yet oh-so-rapturously delicious pizza at Penn Station
Cost: $2.50
(seriously, to think there's a place on Hilton Head that actually calls itself New York City Pizza. More like Hot Circle of Garbage Pizza)

1 entrance to Peter and the Wolf show at Union Hall
Cost: $8 dollars, + scenester application fee

1/2 gourmet grilled cheese sandwich
Cost: Spending two hours in a coffee shop watching Giganti get pummeled by the Wednesday crossword

Other highlights of the day: Sending out a cover letter describing my meticulous attention to detail while also misspelling the name of the organization several times in said letter; finding indoor bocce ball courts at Union Hall; not having to drive to Bluffton, not even once, all day.

Also, finding this LOLcat halping teh needeh kittehs:

top foto, Gothamist; bottom foto, me

Day 8: Ghosts are Good Company

2008-11-18T15:14:00.007-05:00

Returning home to New Jersey, as I imagine is the case just about anywhere you call "home," is a stark reminder of just how little progress I've made growing into a new person in my adult life. It doesn't matter that, let's say, I've abandoned attempts at trying to be fashionable or buying the newest Billabong clothes over the past eight years, skewing closer instead to a sort of anti-style of whatever discount thrift store clothing is available, because when I walk around Toms River, I still feel like the 16 year old me walking down the hallways of South in the morning and getting mocked by the friends of Charlie Frazier for wearing the same sweater he had on that day. Nor does it matter that I won several journalism awards or was interviewed on Fox News a dozen times in the past year, because in Jersey I still can't feel cool, because I still run into the same salty Jersey surf guys in Seaside who have little respect for anyone who doesn't have a super-thick wetsuit and spend most of the winter months in mylar booties chasing the waves off Casino Pier.

And Jersey doesn't care that I got contact lenses to replace my glasses since I left, because my terminal case of red-eyed, sneezy, sniffly allergies return pretty much as soon as I cross the Jersey border and start breathing that coniferous air again.

It's weird, this cognitive distance, the feeling of being a tourist in your own past, walking through familiar sights and sounds with a different perspective. Some parts of my past, however, I was certain could not still be following me. Oh New Jersey, why must you prove me so wrong?

Follow me back, won't you, to those carefree days in the summer of 2001, when I worked at the boardwalk, terrorism was but a distant threat, and W was but a harmless Gerald Ford in training. That summer, I kept a running tally of how many people asked me to buy/find drugs vs. how many people tried to pitch some religion to me. I don't know why Seaside attracts both kinds of people, but it certainly does, and both tallies were large, but the drug requests were much higher (rimshot!). I have the paper somewhere still I think, but it must have been at least 15 times throughout the summer.

Now granted, this was a bit of dark period in my life, when Phish CDs were a little too common in the disc rotation and I had a slight bit of this kind of look:

So it can be understood why the clueless benny might confuse me for the neighborhood apothecary. I usually directed each inquirer to the nearest police officer, the person I felt was most likely able to answer their question.

But then I went back to school, started listening to God Speed You Black Emperor! and had the rest of any fondness for 24-minute jam session tracks systematically beaten out of my by Barry Schwartz (and for this, I'm grateful). Then I trimmed up the beard to a respectable chin strap and even cut the hair down from Ben and Jerry's employee length to the moderately less stereotyped season 1 Jim Halpert mop top. Like so:

It's amazing how much differently people look at you or speak to you once your hair length is shortened (and perhaps shampooed a little more often). But even as hair length changes, Jersey stays the same.

Cut to yesterday afternoon, walking out of the Ocean County Mall on the Applebees side to inspect what was the first attempt at construction since the old theater closed down like 10 years ago. It looked like a PF Changs, which would be a huge upgrade for the OC.

I saw a girl walking my direction out of the corner of my eye.

"Hi, hello there?" she said, though I didn't realize she was talking to me at first. "Hello? Excuse me?"

Ah here it comes, I thought. Conversations like this never begin well, particularly outside the mall in the waiting-for-mom-to-pick-me-up area. She had the acne-scarred face, oversized winter jacket and white sneakers that somehow became the uniform for white trash girls in Jersey, and looked maybe between 18-21.

"Do you know where to get any marijuana?"

Sigh. I appreciated her directness, at least. "Nope. No I don't." Then I walked away quickly, searching my brain for what it was that caused this girl to approach me out of everyone at the mall. I had gotten my hair cut that very morning, so that couldn't be it. Was it the American Apparel track jacket? The tight jeans? The beat up old chucks? The glasses? Or just that I was the only young person at a mall on a school day afternoon? Am I even all that young anymore? Why is a possibly high-school aged girl approaching a 27 year old guy for drugs?

But most likely she had caught site of the long trailer of history I was pulling behind me that's somehow becomes visible every time I return here, following me around like a spectral line marching to the bathroom like we used to do at Beachwood Elementary. There she saw it, full of the ghosts I can't seem to shake of long-haired, barefooted, but ultimately nerdy and frightened Tim Donnellys from dusty, ancient years trapped in New Jersey.

Update: Here's a link to the Bishop Allen song, as to which titular duties of this post are derived from.

Day 6: Change has come to Cape May

2008-11-17T17:44:00.005-05:00

I landed back in the Jerz on Friday night and headed immediately down to Cape May, a place best anchored in my memory as the site of my first jellyfish sting when I was about 8 years old. Ah the delicacy of youth that made such an attack a day-ending affair. I emerged from the water in hot tears, feeling like my leg had been ripped open and injected with salt, followed by my mom and grandparents rushing to seek the guidance of the nearest lifeguard, who basically recommended finding some Benadryl and sucking it the hell up for the rest of the day. If only I knew then how many more times I'd be stung by jellyfish in the ensuing years while surfing or swimming, including I think three times in one day on Hilton Head two summers ago. Funny how your perception of pain changes when there's no parents to run crying to.

But that memory may now be supplanted by the weekend-long bender that was the Etan and Daphne wedding, with all its chair-hoisting revelry, debaucherous hotel balconies and the bad case of the Gottahaveits that seemed to infect many guests at the Hotel Alcott.

As is typical with these things, one of the highlights was the after-party, the place where the stuffiness and dancing-to-Steve-Miller-Band-with-grandma formality are left behind and the friends of the couple can let loose a little more. This one took us to The Boiler Room, a brick-lined basement bar lit with soft red light that gave it the feel of some underground jazz club from swank decades ago.

I took one glimpse of the band playing in a recessed alcove and immediately added another item to my list of reasons that reinforce why leaving Hilton Head was a good idea. They were a blues ensemble of four guys (give or take a few drinks' worth of math) led by a man I can only describe as the black Indiana Jones. Then this man in overalls, presumably someone who works for the bar, got on the mike to thank everyone for coming. He was probably -- outwardly, at least-- the happiest person in the room, which is saying something, since the bar was full of both our wedding party and another wedding party also in wild full swing.

"This is truly the greatest country on Earth," he told the crowd. "I love America so much. America is truly the place where all things are possible and all things can happen. I love America, and I love each and everyone of you white people out there and I want to hug all of you. This is truly is the greatest country God has ever created."

It wasn't until I got the pictures off my camera that I noticed he was wearing an Obama pin on his blue pinstriped overalls. But I had a pretty good hunch as to what he was speaking about Saturday night. Just as he was about to leave the mike and thank everyone for coming, he said: "I understand we have some weddings here tonight. Where are those lovely brides?"

Etan fished Daphne away from her table and the other bride was pushed toward the stage.
"You know you ain't truly married until you've been kissed by a black man," he said.

Holy crap, I thought, Sean Hannity was right all along-- Do you see what happens now that Obama has been elected? Everything will be different! The fundamental balance of power in our society is shifting! What else is in store? Next thing you know, black people will be telling people they can't burn crosses on the lawns of biracial couples. Madness has come to America. Hopeful, barrier-breaking madness.

Before Obama, this man only entertained weddings. Now, he officiates.

When I sobered up the next morning, I thought back to all the spontaneous celebrations in the streets of America's cities election night and the pure joy in this man's voice Saturday, and wondered what the outcome would have been if Obama had added the "two brides for every man" policy to his platform.

2008-11-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

Etan's wedding deserves to be live blogged. No one dropped the chairs!

Day 4: Working Class Heroes in the District

2008-11-14T10:03:00.005-05:00

As if drinking PBR didn't have enough benefits already, what with all the scenester cred trickling down your throat, that earthy taste of recycled bath water and the fulfilling sense of pride you gain in supporting a company who has been able to ride a state fair win for 115 years, we stumbled upon a double bonus benefit Thursday night: drinking PBR can lead to free PBR.

I discovered this last night while killing a few minutes at The Pharmacy bar in Adams Morgan in D.C. with a group of friends as we waited for the rest of our dinner party to arrive (side note: does Ted Leo ever drink here?). We were the only people in the bar except for what appeared to be an off-duty employee drinking tea and reading the Washington Post, and a round of Peebers was ordered. As we were about to leave, a woman who identified herself as a PBR rep walked in and told us she was going to buy our next round. We were momentarily stunned, then immediately sat back down and demanded the free beers we were entitled to as hard-working, blue-collar (or unemployed) Americans.

I asked this girl if she just goes around to bars looking for people she can give free Peebers to, and if so, maybe she could tell us what other bars she'd be at tonight. She said she was just on a work call to check in at the bar.

"But if I see people supporting the brand, I buy them a round. Gotta push the product," she said.

Then we launched into an extended inquiry into why the PBR brand has such penetration in Savannah, Georiga, where $2 tall boys are the drink of choice for the penniless art student and the nickelless young journalist. "It all has to do with whoever the distributor is," she said. Apparently no bars in DC yet offer the big tall boy cans, the bartender told us, but the word is that they could be on their way soon. And really, that's necessary, because there's nothing to keep your night descending into a pit of drunken hipster ambivalence than when you arrive at a place you ostensibly declare will be the last bar of the night, only to be faced with the absurdly affordable option of one-last-drink at $2 for a gigantic can of blue-ribbon winning beer. This is how many a night have ended at Pinkie Masters or Hang Fire in Savannah, cradling a quickly warming can in one hand while carrying the weight of an argument over the relative crappiness of computer jukeboxes versus real ones in the other.

Then, the next thing you know, you're walking out of the bar and all the PBR is crying out for sweet release, and you find yourself peeing in an alleyway before you notice the cop rapidly closing in. "But sir, it's my birthday!" you exclaim, trying to distinguish yourself from the rest of the unholy art-student detritus floating through the streets. And maybe, if you're lucky, the cop will be sympathetic.

But that was the South and this is DC. So watch out, DC, if you walk too far down the path of tall PBRs, you might find yourself ass down on a sidewalk, explaining to an officer how all the free beers you were handed left you with no choice but to urinate on his fine city.

Day 3:At least I will die free

2008-11-13T01:24:00.007-05:00

Tonight I drank a PBR in a building in which both David Lauderdale and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger used to work: The Raleigh Times. There's nothing like the mighty carcass of a defunct newspaper building full of yellowing old memories of print days gone by to make one feel ever the more wistful for the sad reality that is the fate of newspaper journalism. Plus, it was turned into a bar, in either an act of humble homage or incredible prescience. The PBR was even at the accurate price range for the despondent journalist: $2 a glass.

Even the N and O is noticeably fading away lately, so said Ginny, with a sad sigh. And Raleigh has always deserved -- and typically had -- a strong paper, as the Times building reminds you with its old issues lining the walls, their headlines blaring for attention over the din of the bar and the fans watching the Hurricanes game.

I can only hope the future bears similar paths for other newspaper buildings should (or when) they become empty, giving at least a fitting use to the remaining ink stains and ghosts of the printed word.

Then I went across town and played "Wave of Mutilation" on a plastic drum set hooked up to a TV for two hours. I even managed to be not terrible at it.

That's front-page news, in my world.

11/20 UPDATE AND CORRECTION: via David Lauderdale--

Arthur and I both worked for The Raleigh Times, but not in that building. The late and lamented PM paper (“Evening Hours Are Reading Hours”; “Today’s News Today”) was on the second floor of the N&O building on McDowell Street when we worked there. (Arthur and I were not there at the same time; he was before me.)

Inverted Soapbox regrets the error.

Day 2 - Decatur is a Hatur

2008-11-12T11:18:00.003-05:00

Highlights: First (warm) Chipotle in four months with Adam and Hannah who were in Atlanta for the Coldplay concert; having Cribbs force me to watch the movie Film Geek for no particular reason or because of no specific importance to him.

Lowlights: Paying $260 for new tires at Goodyear. After the aforementioned tire explosion Monday, the Goodyear people of course discovered that one other tire was about to go too. And apparently my car only uses tires made from the rarest gold strands, hand-spun by elves. The lube for my rectum was not included in that price either.

I'm off to Raleigh now with two good tires, and two that will probably melt into a pile of pus on the side fo the highway. FTW!

Day 1- Hilton Head to Atlanta

2008-11-11T01:14:00.004-05:00

I left Hilton Head this morning amid a flurry of goodbyes and failed attempts to sell furniture (you know you want to buy a bed from me. Let's do business).

Good omens: Gas down to $2.04 on Hilton Head, $1.99 in Decatur.

Bad omens: Tire exploding while doing 70 mph on the highway outside Macon, causing a major unloading of contents of trunk on side of I-75 to extricate donut, followed by discovery that the only unoccupied space in the car in which I could place the busted tire was on top of the contents of the passenger seat, therein completely blocking any and all lines of sight out the right hand side of the car. Yikes.

Day 1: Leaving the rock

2008-11-10T14:41:00.001-05:00

Goodbye hilton head. Your trees were always nice.

Combo Breaker

2008-11-05T15:03:00.001-05:00

Obama victory celebration videos nationwide

2008-11-05T03:06:00.005-05:00

Nov. 4, 2008: the night America officially lost its damned mind with excitement.

These videos are insane. It's hard to watch these and not be struck by the sheer physical force and tangible participation evident in the process this time. I heard NPR state it plainly earlier tonight: you aren't seeing toasts in Democratic party headquarters or hotel ballrooms this time; it's in the streets, streaming out of doorways into the night into a celebrated commonality of experience. No matter what you thought of Obama, I think that causes you to pause for a moment.

On the New York City subway:

Down Penn. Ave. in Washington, right next to the White House:

More D.C.:

Harlem:

Broad Street in Philly

Singing the national anthem at Illinois State University:

Downtown Berkeley:

And maybe the best, a massive Cupid Shuffle outside MLK's church in the ATL:

The list goes on and on. I'm sure YouTube will continue to fill up with these videos overnight. Hot damn citizen journalism is great sometimes. Hard to watch these celebrations and not be immediately reminded of the ye olden Terp riots from aught three. Except, you know, less fire and tits and pepper spray.

I'm trying to think of anything in my lifetime that has generated such a spontaneous, country wide celebration. The release of the last Harry Potter book maybe? It's like Oprah single-handedly won the World Cup out there.

Election day update

2008-11-04T11:48:00.006-05:00

Spotted these three girls outside a church mid-island today. They're too young to vote (17, 16 and 17) so they got permission to take off school for the day to wave signs in front of a polling place. They had been flipped off seven times (that's middle finger x 7) as of about 10:45 this morning.

But they also got a lot of honks, notably (in the few minutes I stood there) from semi-trailer trucks.

"We got the Panera truck," one of them said. What a great way to encourage young people to be involved in the process by giving them the middle finger or screaming at them on the side of the road. America!!

I'm actually just posting these pictures here so I can link to them from the live blog I'm doing for the Packet's web site. Yes, our technology is that bad. But literally 10s of readers are dying to know.

Best Halloween Costumes?

2008-10-31T15:06:00.004-04:00

Question for everyone who reads this thing (Hi mom and Barry!): what's your best Halloween costume ever?

I had a pretty sweet set up as a kid since my mom was into sewing and was always up for the challenge every year. Off to the Rag shop we'd jaunt in early October and pick out a pattern along with associated cloth and other materials. This led to many intricate, often awesome costumes that included:
• Batman
• Beetlejuice
• Astronaut (excellent use of the Ghostbusters proton pack toy as a space prop)
• Mummy (though the ensemble was unconvincing in the rain jacket my dad made me wear)
And many others I'm forgetting now. Then I got into the mask phase, the highlight of which was the year I went as a werewolf in a mask WITH EYES THAT LIT UP RED!! Some kind of jawesome, that was.

But here's my best:

• The Pink Panther
Yes, I understand that maybe this sounds a little Proposition 8-ish now, but first of all I was 7, so calm the hell down, and more importantly, this costume blew the doors off the competition. I used to bring it to summer camp for costume contest day and endured the brutal summer heat to come out victorious three years in a row. Then I finally lost to one of the camp counselor's kids who was dressed as something dumb like Raggedy Ann or something. Funny how those kinds of things happen.

I always went back and forth between Halloween and Christmas as my favorite holidays growing up. Halloween rises to the top of the holiday pile solely because it's the only holiday that really makes you exercise your creativity muscles.
I'll post my costume this year here once it all comes together. Also, I'd like to note that I dressed as the Joker in sophomore year, LONG BEFORE Heath Ledger was even wooing Julia Stiles. And I was good, damnit.

So in the spirit of the most creative holiday, what's your best?

Trivia team names for the week

2008-10-28T23:48:00.002-04:00

• Hot Dog Sticks
• Submerged Groin*
• Easy Jesus Keeps Us Warm*
• Teary-Eyed Handjob
• Save a Gumball. Buy Bluffton Today
• Fluff: Now 25 Cents a Serving
• Tsopping Whet Phanatics
• Jeremy Hsieh's Dead Deer Stew
• The Angry Arby's Employee Revenge
• Has Anyone Seen My B-Shaped Branding Iron?
• Communist Mani-pesto
• I'll Redistribute Your Barack-O -Lantern All Over This Sidewalk

* Used in competition

The Outworld vote is on lock

2008-10-27T17:44:00.003-04:00

I've been bothered by the suprising lack of Baraka references during this election, particularly as all the discussion of "taking the gloves off" and "shoving knives into the other guy's throat" really ramped up in the past few weeks.

Finally, the kids over at OMG Lists (a site I appreciate for its unrepentant embrace of the quick-hit list meme that other sites try to disguise as sound research or, worse yet, journalism) have got my back.

6 Awesome Characters With Names Like Barack

2- Baraka from ''Mortal Kombat''

How they're similar:

They've both been accused of hanging out with the wrong crowd. Barack has been criticized for "palling around" with former terrorist William Ayers, while Baraka has been proven to be an associate of definite dark overlord Shao Khan.

How they're different:
Barack may be strong, but he doesn't have large blades growing out of his arms. Otherwise, those ''terrorist fist jabs'' would hurt.

This list also makes sweet reference love to Brak from Space Ghost and Brock Sampson from The Venture Brothers. All of this is a very important element of our political discourse, especially since it appears we are entering the "FINISH HIM" stage of the election.

Side note: I think Michelle would probably look pretty deadly in the Jade outfit. Just saying.

The Wisconsin State Journal will rule us all

2008-10-27T14:39:00.003-04:00

Newspaper circulation numbers were released today and all the top 25 papers are dropping circ like hot anvils, and everything is bleak, and the internet still exists, and yadda yadda yadda so forth and so on.

Here's an interesting stat in the numbers however: the top 25 papers that actually gained circulation. Note that only two of them are large (above 90,000) and only four others are above 50,000. I'd love to know what the Wisconsin State Journal has done to boost their numbers 10 percent this year.

Meanwhile, the nation's elite class of newspapers — the ones with the resources and talent that traditionally produce in-depth, groundbreaking work — are all losing readers, sometimes precipitously (AJC lost 13 percent this year; The Philly Inky lost 11 percent). Meanwhile, these smaller papers in smaller markets have been able to gain some traction. You could hypothesize that this is the future fate of newspapers, that the ones in small markets will survive, even thrive, since many are the only news and information source for the local community. But it makes you wonder: what do people think to themselves when they stop picking up the Washington Post or the New York Times? Is it that the journalism is better in these smaller markets, or that the paper in those areas is still just too indispensible a part of people's lives? Will they ultimately suffer the same fate as the biggest 25, just on a longer timeline?

Here's the numbers (via Fitz and Jen at E&P):

WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL -- 97,012 -- 10.61%
MACOMB DAILY (MICH.) -- 46,014 -- 9.40%
THE VILLAGES DAILY SUN (FLA.) -- 30,616 -- 6.98%
TRENTON TIMES (N.J.) -- 53,303 -- 5.34%
MORRISTOWN CITIZEN TRIBUNE (TENN.)* -- 18,589 -- 5.31%

FARGO FORUM (N.D.) -- 49,834 -- 4.70%
OKLAHOMA CITY JOURNAL RECORD -- 3,470 -- 4.20%
BOWLING GREEN DAILY NEWS (KY.) -- 20,804 -- 4.01%
MAUI NEWS (HAWAII) -- 20,887 -- 3.99%
SANTE FE NEW MEXICAN -- 25,616 -- 3.70%

IRON MOUNTAIN DAILY NEWS* (MICH.) -- 9,303 -- 3.69%
ELKINS INTER-MOUNTAIN* (W.VA.) -- 10,583 -- 3.67%
CHAMPAIGN NEWS-GAZETTE* (ILL.) -- 41,578 -- 3.21%
DESERET MORNING NEWS (UTAH) -- 71,133 -- 2.09%
SANTA MARIA TIMES (CALIF.) -- 18,823 -- 2.08%

WOODLAND DAILY DEMOCRAT* (CALIF.) -- 8,738 -- 2.06%
ERIE TIMES-NEWS (PA.) -- 56,124 -- 1.81%
BEND BULLETIN (ORE.) -- 32,951 -- 1.79%
PARK HILLS DAILY JOURNAL* (MO.) -- 8,023 -- 1.79%
QUAD-CITY TIMES (IOWA) -- 50,820 -- 1.66%

CRYSTAL LAKE NORTHWEST HERALD (ILL.) -- 37,516 -- 1.58%
BEAVER COUNTY TIMES (PA.) -- 39,417 -- 1.55%
ARIZONA DAILY SUN -- 11,292 -- 1.54%
SOUTHERN ILLINOISAN -- 26,256 -- 1.50%
BATON ROUGE ADVOCATE (LA.) -- 92,030 -- 1.35%

Interesting note: Ken Doctor at Content Bridges points the finger at the quality of the content. Makes sense to me:

One big reason the numbers are declining is the product itself. In the last year, we've seen unprecedented cuts in the product -- and the customers are noticing. It looks like the amount of newsprint is down about 10-15%; some in stories, some in ads. Trusted bylines have disappeared overnight. Readers notice, and talk to their friends, and they're saying: it's not the newspaper it used to be. When the subscription notices come, they're a little less likely to be acted upon.

Mooo York City?!!

2008-10-21T22:56:00.004-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, if I say I am not exaggerating, you will agree. This is how 90 percent of the conversations with sources and other people on Hilton Head have transpired over the past two weeks when I tell them I'm moving:

Me: I'm leaving y'all soon.
Source: Really? Where are you going?
Me: New York City to try to find a new writing job.
Source (flummoxed): New York City?!!
Me: Uh ... yeah.

I might as well have said I'm leaving this backwater planet to go find work on the orbiting space station.

Every time someone says it, I can't help but think of this Pace salsa commercial that was all over my TV in the 80s. It was one of those ads that stuck deep in the psyche, so that when ever my mom told my dad she was going into the city for the weekend, my friend and I would shoot our heads out from the bedroom and shout: "Moooo York City?!!" And laugh heartily before returning trying to figure out what the hell all these extra buttons did in Super Mario World.

Here, for nostalgia:

Apparently, they revived this ad campaign in 2004.

Reflections from a First-Ever Camping Trip

2008-10-21T11:08:00.003-04:00

One of my biggest frustrations growing up (besides the shortness, the tragically underweight stature, the lack of any discernible ability at any of the common playground sports beyond wall ball and the insistent brief mortality of all pets, including three rabbits and a cat) was the lack of any camping in my life. I even joined up with the Boy Scouts for a few years, starting in Cub Scouts and on until you get that weird uniform with the half tie and the badges for things like "Moonwalking" and "Keeping out the Gays."

But we never went camping. Never even talked about it. My other friends in other troops would come back to school on Monday with tales of wildernesses conquered and marshmallows s'smored, shiny new badges bragging from their chests about new achievements in "Successful Outdoor Bowels Evacuation" and "Wiping with Leaves (special honors)."

The problem was, I fear, our scout master, who was our friend's mom, Mrs. Perkowski. And, look, I'm not saying this to be sexist in the least bit, but it is what it is: all the other troops were led by other kids' dads. I'm fine with a mom leading us, but our meetings tended to stick to the more homemakerish activities: sewing, crafts, cooking ... some light ironing (OK, not that last one, I don't think). Other kids were out learning how you can skin a badger with a plastic knife in a pinch and creating small subatomic explosions with chemistry sets; we were inside playing "Mother, May I?" Divergence: Holy crap, did you know there's a merit badge for journalism? I just discovered this. Here's one of the requirements that probably turns kids to attempt the Disabilities Awareness badge instead:

Find out about three career opportunities in journalism. Pick one and find out the education, training, and experience required for this profession. Discuss this with your counselor, and explain why this profession might interest you.

Anyway, we never got to camping, an omission of my youth that severely limits the amount and veracity of believeable first-person Jersey Devil stories I can share. My family also never seemed interested in it. In fact, I can never remember the subject ever coming up. Family vacations were, in rough dates and order that I can remember:

1988: Disney World
1989: Hershey Park, Pa.
1990: Busch Gardens/Colonial Williamsburg Va.
1991: Disney World
1994: Disney World
1995: Random time share in New Hampshire
1996: Wildwood, NJ
1998: Dominican Republic

Upon telling my friends that the family was going to New Hampshire that one year, my friends' response was: "Oh, you're going camping?"
Um, not exactly. We stayed at a time share I think my grandparents traded something for, went to a water park and visited the Funspot, an awesome arcade I would not understand the full importance of until watching King of Kong many, many years later. I stole a skeeball from some place nearby and gave it to a friend as a souvenir.

So camping was never in the cards, just as neither were skiing, snowboarding or European travel. And that's fine because it wasn't our family's thing, and my parents did the best they could, plus we had little to complain about in the grand scheme of things. The bonus is that it now gives me all the opportunity of approaching new things with child like wonder at this late stage in life. Like, assuming I ever get to Europe before they cut off any more incoming American travel, I can go all Harry-Potter-fanboy crazy excitement overload if I get to visit a real castle. Or if I ever go skiing, the sensation of running face-first into a 100-year-old oak tree lined with porcupine spines (as is sure to happen. See aforementioned lack of athleticism) will be slightly overshadowed by the new thrill of this crazy mountain death sport.

And, when I finally got to go camping last weekend, it was pretty supertime fun jamboree. Note: I do not consider camping at music festivals as actual "camping," because any place where the late-night sounds of Daft Punk wafting across the grounds lull you to sleep is hardly the great outdoors.

Somehow this weekend I was the only one present at first who sorta knew how to start a campfire, despite lack of previous camping experience (thank you beachfront bonfires using pieces of dune fence, multiple conflagrations at Ally's cabin). It was hardly roughing it, and it was only for a night, but much memories were made, and only several minor injuries were tallied.

Here are some reflections:

• That pile of old newspapers dominating the backseat of nearly every reporter's car makes great kindling.
• A competing newspaper, particularly one that is available at the camp supply store for free, also makes excellent additional kindling.
• If someone sitting near you at the campfire calls your cell phone late at night, do not answer. It is a ploy that will end in you being tackled into mud.
• My boycott of shopping at Wal-Mart continues to be vindicated.
• Roasted bananas filled with chocolate are now the official vegetarian substitute for s'mores.
• Official Park Ranger stance is you are not supposed to drink in the campground under any circumstances. But really only if he can smell it as you walk by. Unless you are 21 and have your ID on you. Even if you don't, it's still not allowed, I guess. Look, just pour one of your cups out and continue on your way. Thanks.
• The smell of campfire smoke does not come off for at least three days (and counting).
• I am apparently a jerk when it comes to informing people we need more wood for the fire.
• You don't need religion (or a blanket) when you've got the Easy Jesus.

All of these skills will come in handly when I'm a homeless person in New York City. Do you get a merit badge for learning how to start a trash can fire? I'm all over it.

photo credits top to bottom: www.fundraisinghq.com; J. Hsieh personal collection; www.gallo.com

Editors blame Canda

2008-10-17T11:02:00.002-04:00

Original lede on my story today:

Don’t blame Canada. It may be the solution to what looks like a rough year ahead for the tourism industry on Hilton Head Island.
With financial woes brewing fears about shrinking tourism dollars, marketing officials are looking to the north to tap new visitors who are less affected by the shifting economic situation.

Lede as it appeared in today's paper:

Canada might be the solution to what looks like a rough year ahead for the tourism industry on Hilton Head Island.
With fears about shrinking tourism dollars, marketing officials are looking to the north to tap new visitors who are less affected by the economic downturn.

Sigh. This hardly qualifies as risk taking, but maybe I should quit this place already and try something more exciting.

Related

Joe the Web Site

2008-10-15T22:14:00.004-04:00

server overload in 3 .... 2 ...

http://joetheplumber.com/

John McCain: So Lost Without You

2008-10-14T23:51:00.006-04:00

A McCain/Palin mailer arrived in our mailbox one day last week. As we do with all political mailings, I put it on display in a prominent position in our living room. Just so happens we already had a copy of Air Supply's 1985 self-titled album atop our entertainment center (you can ask why we had this there, but I assure you there is no good reason for it, other than its milk-crate-and-mullet combo called out to me from the thrift store rack). I placed the mailer atop the album and sat on the couch when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a near-perfect convergence of necklines and head space over the bodies of Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock:

Here are the originals:

And there's more: the same week this arrived in the mail, Air Supply is scheduled to perform right here on Hilton Head. Coincidence?? Or secret crap-rock right wing cabal? The only way to find out is to go to the concert, so we will never, ever, ever know the answer.

Also, if you hit play on the album at the beginning of McCain's convention speech, "All Out of Love" syncs up perfectly with the last two weeks of his campaign.

The Big Plunge

2008-10-09T23:13:00.014-04:00

I found myself in an odd, nearly surreal position a few weeks back. There I sat, looking directly into the eyes of a job offer at a significantly larger paper, on a good beat, for more money, in a nice area, with some room to grow and explore, and with absolutely no desire to take the job.

The job was undeniably a step up the ladder I put in front of myself way back in high school, when I first felt the hot bite of the newspaper bug and immersed myself in the mystique of the newsroom, the clack of the keyboard bouncing off the walls, phones slammed down with harried aggression by bedraggled reporters, my own phone ringing at a late hour with an irate editor at the other end, demanding more information, more questioning, bellowing on about standards and printability; then the satisfying smack of the paper on the front porch the next morning with my name in small print across the front page topped by some dramatic headline, the ego always kept in check by the quick yellowing decay of day-old newsprint, the knowledge that each day's achievements are only as good as the next day's deadlines.

I loved it. Still do. The problem is, it doesn't exist any more. Or maybe it does still exist only in the hearts of the dedicated printies, those with ink and fire in their veins, the people whose idealism is being strangled to death every day by the latest budget cutbacks, staff shortages, shrinking news hole and general top-down malaise infecting the newspaper industry that makes a newsroom about as cheery a place to work as a factory that produces greeting cards for dead pets. Those people are still out there, the ones with good ideas, the energy, the talented enthusiasm and dedication to a higher purpose and an understanding of the damned importance of the journalism newspapers provide that should have drawn us all to this profession in the first place. Honest truth is: we are being shunned away from the industry in droves by an overarching mindset stuck in the old model of journalism, when newspapers were fat with advertising wealth and market dominance, and technology was seen as an annoyance rather than a tool. At too many papers, it was too common for everyone to enjoy their privileged perch atop the world of information purveyance, never stopping to see the ripples of evolution rocking the foundation. (The music industry went through the same thing, fyi. So don't say we couldn't see it coming.)

With salary freezes, job cuts, shrinking circulation and a future strategy that is focused on paying off creditors instead of trying to regain ground, what incentive is there for us to stay?

I sat in that interview in Virginia and asked the editors point blank "What are your ideas to turn this thing around?" and "What is the plan??" only to have them look back at me, shift papers on their desk and say things to the effect of, Well, , uh, we need to hold on to the readers that we have, we need to keep providing the top-quality product we've always produced, we need to redesign to attract younger readers, we're experimenting with web video, and so on with the same thing I've heard echoed from coast to coast, A section to the classifieds.

I kept after the line of questioning, not something I was doing to impress my interviewers with tenacity. It was the only action I could harness to repress my inner voice wanting to scream: "That's not enough."

And it isn't. The strategy for newspapers to save themselves at this point, according to every person I've heard from at my paper and others, from low editors to top executives, from three years ago to just last week, is the following:

1) Offer readers shorter stories
2) Offer readers fewer of those stories
3) Hire less staff to cover a smaller area
4) Provide your staff with a smaller pool of resources with which to do their jobs
5) Charge more for the product
6) Add superfluous video to newspaper Web sites
7) Wait with open arms for readers to return

I'm not a business person, but that strategy seems redonkulous to me, and I have yet to see any evidence to disabuse me of that notion. I'm not in the position to say I have all the answers (though several people have proposed many good ideas that deserve review), but at our paper alone, the fact that every day we walk through the door isn't a Defcon 2 lockdown all-hands-on-deck affair trying to figure out how to turn this ship around is baffling to me. How long do you let yourself keep getting smacked by cannonballs until you stop worrying about bailing out the water and start returning fire, or, at least, turning in the other direction?

The editor from Virginia called me back a week later. How would I feel about taking on an crucial beat out in Suffolk? We need someone who can dig into things, she said, and you'd be a perfect fit.

I thought about it and talked to her again. I just can't do it, I said, the echo of the response surprising even a part of myself still. I need to find something else. Newspapers are clearly not the answer. Not the way they've been handled, not the way they're set up now, not with the stubborn impediments to progress that are frustrating our generation with no end in sight.

And that was it. That phone call was essentially my break up with the newspaper industry (at least for the short term). And that bitch still had my CDs.

So then the big decision lumbered back into the picture: what the hell else are you supposed to do when the only industry you've ever had interest in no longer is viable? I bounced around several ideas that included the obligatory trip-to-Europe-to-find-myself-or-at-least-someone-who-looks-like-me, or moving to the ATL to live with Cribbs and Pouya and turn freelance tricks for any john publication willing to pay. Neither seemed to click as the immediate answer.

I knew I couldn't stay here, on Hilton Head, this quiet rock I've lived on for damn near four years, where I've gathered an intricate collection of life experiences, heartbreak and help, but where the tank on challenges and excitement has long since run dry.

After a period of heavy thinking, er, heavy drinking ... that is to say, heavy thinking while also drinking ... and consultation with friends, my spinning Twister blade stopped and I realized uncertain times call for uncertain measures.

New York City.

The plunge into the center of it all, the beating heart of the beast, in search of something different on lost city streets or in the shadow of shiny skyscrapers, where the great sum of creative forces amass before trickling down to all the rest. The goal is Brooklyn, an interesting place with interesting people, where lots of friends and associates have already landed and made a successful go of it since college.

The action came hot and fast after that. I told the Packet I was quitting effective Nov. 4, the latest in a stream of resignations, and that they had best get a replacement ready. I called my mom and told her the plan, and she reacted with a sort of verbal shrug of the shoulders, a surprised complacency. You always seem to land on your feet, she said. I sighed with relief back at her and silently hoped she was right.

I spread the word at work and started reaching out to any and all contacts in the city. My boss's first thoughts were to give me the name of a good soup kitchen. True story: St. Anna's near Rockefeller Center, he said.
"Do you know this from experience, Fitz?"
"Well ... no, no. I just know the guy..."

Sure you do. (Note: I just Googled this and am not sure if it is a real place or not.)

The nerve-wracking part is that I have no job leads, no housing arrangements and pitifully (I do mean pitifully) little money saved up, even less so maybe after this weekend when I stepped on this dude's over-priced Quicksilver sunglasses and may have to buy him a new pair.

All I've got right now is the pledge of a few couches to sleep on, a familiarity with the regular content of Brooklyn Vegan, some friends who are making a living in some writing related fields in the city and a tall pile of clips that I've got no choice but to put full faith in at this point. Surprisingly, no one has advised me that this idea is a bad one, or even warned against incautious career evacuation. A handful of my editors were even visibly exuberant at the thought, saying things like, "I wish I could do that too," and, "What a great idea." Mostly I'm sure this is meant to either console my soon to be homeless sorrow, or to reflect their joy at being able to hire a newer reporter at lower pay rate.

Part of me always knew I'd end up in the city at one point or another (I also have the same assumptions about California, where I was heartily applying for jobs up through this summer), possibly a byproduct of growing up in Jersey, the gleaming heights and roar of the subway train just a school field trip's journey away at all times, the excitement always bleeding over state lines and down to our suburban enclaves. I was in the habit for awhile of telling all creative types I met that I'd see them again when we crossed paths in the city, the terminus everyone must pass through.

About Nov. 10 or so, I'll pack up my tiny red Saturn, having sold most of my large belongings to the new reporter taking over my bedroom in the apartment, point the car north and plunge into the great unknown, the wild tumult of houselessness and funemployment (the new buzz euphemism) and all the excitement that is being an wandering journalist full of pent-up writing vigor, searching desperately for an outlet.

Cut to Paul Mitchell's house days later, my birthday actually, when his parents weren't home and we climbed a ladder up onto the roof of his dock house, ignoring the warnings of instability broadcast by the tequila warming inside our stomachs, us gripping tightly on to the ridges of the slightly sloping roof that was thankfully, maybe presciently, made of a sturdy, non-slip material.

It was Hsieh and I up there this time, and, as we crouched on the roof facing over the black expanse of Broad Creek, we decided to jump in toast to our different adventures on the 15-foot drop. I rocked on my heels and threw myself off the perch feet first, opening my lungs to a mad scream of "BROOKLYN!" stretching out to the vast patch of marshland in the distance, with Hsieh a second behind chasing after his echo of a hurried "ALASKA!", both screams tearing through the silence that buffeted the still creek-front houses. We hit the water with a quick splash and I sunk deep into all the salty memories of the last four years, the edges lined with waving marsh grass and the top crowned in Spanish moss dripping in to give everything that sleepy, dream-like quality.

I swam to the dock to hoist myself out of the brackish creek, its waters still not hinting at fall even in the bottom of a September night.

It's these things about Hilton Head I'll miss the most. But my time here has come to an end.

[photo credits, bottom up: 1) Jay Karr, 9/30/08; 2) personal collection, 11/07; 3) Social Security Administration; 4) masternewmedia.org; 5) ecx.images-amazon.com]

Justifications for Avoiding Going into the Newsroom

2008-10-09T14:31:00.005-04:00

(Oct. 9 edition)

• Construction at or near my desk, designed to hide death spasms of newspaper with cosmetic improvements
• "Married With Children" marathon on Spike I was able to watch during lunch hour
• Gas prices? Sure, probably
• Need to visit Hilton Head's only "adult" store for work purposes upon opening at 3 p.m.
• The unbearable horror of refrigerator clean out day, and other corporate nonsense that make me never want to work in an office again

Here's a list I made today, based on true events.

Responsibilities of an HR Director, As Divined Through Our Company E-Mails

• Announce refrigerator clean out
• Warn of items that will be removed during refrigerator clean out
• Decide on date for second notice of refrigerator clean out
• Announce general work space clean out
• Post fliers in hallways announcing general work space clean out
• Consult on locations for bins during work space clean out
• Cut health insurance benefits
• Consult Euphemism Dictionary for words to replace "drastic care reduction," "triplicate cost increase," and "no raises this year"
• Inspect refrigerator post-clean out
• Procurement of flu shot reservations from interested staff members
• Ensure that every time sheet is filled out each pay period
• Denote members of the staff who have failed to fill out their time sheet each pay period
• Organize charity function that costs more than the money that will be raised
• Post fliers announcing upcoming charity function

A Graphical Depiction of Productivity

2008-10-08T18:16:00.005-04:00

Sigh. If only I were kidding. The Legend of Zelda music. Is. Still. Awesome.

EDIT: I guess I should have added "Creating bar graph" to that also.

TAKE THAT, INSOLVENCY!

2008-10-08T11:03:00.003-04:00

I challenge you to find a euphoria greater than the one that immediately proceeds successfully fighting your bank on an overdraft fee. That $35 lands back in your account like warm cocoa cascading down an icy winter's throat chaffed with the bitter winds and sharp daggers of arctic chaos. Huh? That's nonsense. I'm clearly still delirious with the ecstasy. Especially since the overdraft was for a charge of FIFTEEN EFFING CENTS. And, let's be serious, Bank of America (and any bank really) isn't in a position to be pissing off customers these days.

Debate Drinking Game No. 2

2008-10-07T23:11:00.002-04:00

Yikes, putting "my friends" on this list was alcohol poisoning, as Sam McDowell put it. Here's our rules for this debate tonight. Unexpected things we should have put on the list: "overhead projector," "that one," references to various people who are the role models for McCain, condescending reference to minority audience member's lack of knowledge of major financial institutions.

one drink if anyone says...
Main street
Wall street
my friends
bailout
Kitchen table
crisis
change
accountability
middle class
Iraq
Afghanistan
-anyone shakes head in disbelief
"Our Chinese Overlords"

two drinks...
festooned
orgy
maverick
bi-partisan
lies/liar/lying
"Bush"
9/11
"blue collar"
first name of a voter

three drinks....
POW reference
Africa reference
Single-mom reference
Any swing state
failed attempt at humor
McCain trips on his own loose skin
"banksters"
"green collar"
"the internets"
abortion
teen pregnancy

Finish the bottle if..
McCain attempts wink, but his eye gets stuck
Obama calls him "Walnuts"
McCain calls him "boy"
McCain says "articulate"
CNN switches screen graphic to "Abe Vigoda life status monitor"
Obama brushes shoulder off
Brokaw makes fun of the "less-than-greatest" generation
Palin shoots Obama from a helicopter
Joe Biden crashes a train into the building

Your E-Mail Provider is Terrible

2008-10-07T12:16:00.005-04:00

If your e-mail has an ad at the bottom of it when I open it, please stop sending me electronic communication until you resolve this matter. Either set your computer on fire, return to sending hand-written letters or switch to freaking Gmail already. Not using Gmail at this point is like being the only proto-human in the cave who refused to stop using their appendix. Let's evolve and move on already.

I'm far from the only one who thinks this. Blogger Adam Singer of The Future Buzz (a site about online marketing, social media and all things 2.woah) has some solid advice for knuckle draggers. And he's a professional, people, not just some clown spouting off a grudge after opening another work e-mail from an an oldster's crusty AOL account:

I will be perfectly honest. When I see people with an @aol.com, @hotmail.com or @comcast.net address they instantly lose any and all tech credibility with me. I’ve had discussions with several people on this, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I have used and experimented with quite a few of the free, web-based email services. Let me save you a lot of time: Gmail is above and beyond the best.

Using web-based email is a great portability solution for your email, whether it is for personal or business use. However, Gmail is light years ahead of AOL, Hotmail and Comcast. It boggles my mind that anyone still uses them (I single out these other brands of webmail because they are so popular).

He also lambastes the in-email ads of the other services. And, let's be serious, in this world where we probably soon won't be able to open a toilet without seeing a pop-up ad for refinancing mortgages, can't we all agree we should cut down on the intrusiveness of ads wherever possible?

UPDATE: Orlando Sentinel tech writer extraordinaire (and one-month away from husbandhood) Etan Horowitz wrote a guide last week for users who want e-mails. He also agrees Gmail is tops. Again: Back off man, he's a professional.

The Myth of the American Adult

2008-10-06T15:24:00.006-04:00

Here is one of those things you quickly learn upon entering the so-called real world that is both disquieting in its fundamental truth yet still an adept tool at dismantling all the hypocritical BS you've been fed throughout the public education system:

There are no such things as "adults" in this world.

At least, not adults in the vision I always had of the tall, shadow-casting stentorian figures standing in sober attention while pulling the great levers and switches that make the nations of the world run; or the higher echelon of individuals who serve as arbiters among the childish disagreements that clog up daily life, those who put personal feelings aside to bring the finality of compromise to a dispute; nor are there grown-ups with that god-like light of right and wrong we cast our parents in, that light that uses life experiences beyond your own to bring perspective or at least inquisitive direction to the questions of youth, before going home to sign checks to the electric company, register the payment in the ledger and fall to sleep on a comfortable bed of maturity.

These are the visions I always had of growing up, of a world significantly less interesting than that of the kids but filled with certainty, responsibility and sensibility.

I was promptly disabused of this notion upon graduating into this world, where I was surprised to discover a bunch of slightly larger, sniveling children, whining about the same broken toys and bitter disputes that have dominated playgrounds for generations, made all the more depressing by the attempts to dress up in fancy suits and pass of as functioning cogs in society, shielding themselves in these illusory honorifics along the way.

I've come to believe this underbelly of immaturity is more a mark of our civilization than our ages.

Case studies:

• Public meetings.
At any number of meetings on issues mundane or of great import, I occasionally sit in front of an oldster, an airport supporter, an airport detractor, a military man, or just some loud chud, who will spend the entire meeting sniping, sniveling and snarling at the comments being made by officials on the dais or fellow citizens at the podium, sometimes hurling childish and churlish comments in a thinly veiled stage whisper. This, of course, occurs at what is supposed to be an open and intellectual forum for public discussion. Last week at a meeting to discuss recycling for Hilton Head, some guy kept interrupting the meeting to spout off his anti-recycling platitudes. It's fine to have these views, of course, but that's why there's a designated public comment period, and why other people are given time to speak as well.

This is beyond frustrating because these kinds of behaviors are the same ones that got me kicked out of 8th grade English for laughing at the technicolor wonderland that was the made-up face of our teacher, who the second track kids had appropriately dubbed "Skittles." The only bad marks I used to get on my report cards from grades 1-8 were also for "talks during class." My parents, initially concerned about this during the first years of my education, soon took a "what a load of bullshit" stance on this particular grading category, for which I am grateful. They do not, unfortunately, hand out report cards at public meetings.

• Politics.
Nothing exhibits the petulant nature of children taken to the absurd ends under the cloak of adulthood more than the current state of American politics. Recall, if you will, the Republican stagecraft "sleep over" held in 2003 to protest the Democrats' blocking of judicial nominees. Or watch any of the cable news coverage of the current election, where surrogates from both parties react with faux outrage to the inconsequential non-issue of the day with all the authentic zeal of Matt Hitchens castigating me in a pre-match "interview" in his basement before we entered a makeshift wrestling ring made of couch cushions, wherein we had agreed on a time and manner in which I would execute my deadly Vicious Knee Drop finishing move (side note: this did actually hurt a lot, I'm told. Knobby knees, my one super power).

• Landlords.
The very least of qualifications for even playacting as an adult in this world should be to take care of your responsibilities, particularly in a way that affects the lives and bank accounts of other people. Yet there I sat today at my computer, now six months after having moved out of our last house, writing a stern, admonishing e-mail to our former landlord — who has not called us back in six months, who has not responded to several letters, who has ignored a court notice seeking her reply to our small claims suit and who has not, from what I can tell, set one foot inside her property since we vacated it — scolding her like a parent chasing after a child who has not done her homework, made her bed or cleaned up the shit stain her puppy left on the dining room floor six months ago. We have a hearing at the court on the 20th and I have no expectation that she will attend, which means we still won't have our security deposit back, which means we will have to keep pursuing it to put a lien on her house and a black mark on her credit report for the next decade, which still doesn't give us our money, so we may be forced to hire one of those teams of sweaty, hairy men with gruff voices and dark coats who knock on front doors with the explicit purpose of using car maintenance equipment to damage people's extremities.

I had a similar problem with my first landlord on the island, but at least he was in town and able to be contacted by phone. He just offered a serires of lame excuses as to why he couldn't return the money, even four months after move out. SC law, by the way, is uncharacteristically unambiguous on this issue. Thirty days to return the deposit. Go on, look if you don't believe me.

This kind of deriliction of legal obligations angers me to no end. I have an overpowering desire to find this woman, shake her stupid and scream "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! BE AN ADULT AND FOLLOW THROUGH WITH YOUR OBLIGATIONS!" in her big dumb face until she cries. Then I'll shake her some more and step on her favorite Cabbage Patch Doll, just for good measure.

Countless other examples of the lack of actual adulthood exist, from sports fans who get into fights in the stands to Sean Hannity to oldsters who don't turn off their cell phones in the movies or meetings to any — and I do mean any — comment thread on the interwebs that shows just how mature people are when they think no one's looking, to that abhorrent "Disaster Movie" franchise.

After college I soon learned that we're all just a bunch of children, somehow trying to convince each other that these suits and cars and offices mean we've entered a period of maturity where we champion a sober and serious approach to the world, all the while secretly refusing to share our toys and finding more sophisticated ways to taunt each other from the safety of basement couches we bought ourselves this time. The people who manage to coexist a lot more freely in this world are the ones who give up on this apocraphyl notion of "adulthood" and consent to keep exploring the different angles of the day around us, never so arrogant to assume that we ever grew beyond the mysterious and scared status of being a kid, lost in a world so much bigger than us.

And for the record, I never stopped talking in class.

Rejected McSweeneys Submission

2008-10-04T01:49:00.002-04:00

Rejection No. 5. The rejection e-mails are always pleasant, at least.

NSFW

-Executive ball clicker filled with C4
-Herman Miller Aeron Chair covered in broken glass
-Coldcut platter found in Dumpster behind A&P
-"World's Best Boss" mug previously used for ingesting liquid LSD
-Bring Your Smallpox to Work Day
-Anthrax-coated Krispy Kreme doughnuts
-Paper shredder possessed by soul of executed serial killer
-Water cooler filled with Africanized Honey Bees
-YouTube video of HR director on spring break

Contents of a 27th birthday

2008-10-01T12:49:00.004-04:00

• Copy of Against Me! Reinventing Axl Rose CD
• My name spelled out in large soft pretzels
• Framed 36 x 24 textured painting of poster from Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie
• Cigar
• Digital camera
• Package of false mustaches
• Dairy Queen ice cream cake
• Drunken dock diving into Broad Creek

A pretty good day by any measure.

"Back off man, I'm a Scientist"

2008-09-29T23:37:00.003-04:00

I am newly convinced that Ghostbusters is the greatest movie of all time. Seriously. Watch it again with your adult eyes.

That is all.

(Oh yeah, and Ghostbusters 2 is great too. I was only recently made aware that there was an undercurrent of hate towards this movie, not dissimilar to the feelings that surround Caddyshack 2 and Major League 2. You are wrong if you feel this way. I don't know how to tell you this any other way.)

Filming Pains

2008-09-28T12:45:00.005-04:00

IMDB trivia item for the new movie "Fireproof," now in theaters

Kirk Cameron, a fundamentalist Christian evangelist, refuses to kiss any woman other than his wife under any circumstance, so to film a scene in which his character in Fireproof (2008) kisses his wife, the filmmakers had to dress Cameron's real-life wife, Chelsea Noble, as the wife character (played throughout the rest of the movie by Erin Bethea) and shoot the kissing scene in shadow so the difference between Noble and Bethea would not be as evident onscreen.

Also, if you've never seen this video, you should. Kirk and his buddy Ray describe how a banana proves the existence of an intelligent deity, which somehow also disprove that we evolved from apes. True fact: Kirk Cameron refuses to hold any banana except his own under any circumstances.

Hug Me, I'm a Vegetarian

2008-09-26T12:13:00.006-04:00

Today is apparently International Hug a Vegetarian Day. Who knew?

There doesn't seem to be much grander purpose to this, other than PETA's continued efforts to recognize the people who are putting our nation's chicken farmers and captive bolt pistol manufacturers out of jobs.

Here's another tidbit from the Web site:

There are a plethora of different kinds of hugs, and all of them are vegan—unless you cover yourself in butter before hugging someone, in which case you're just disgusting.

Whatever your dietary preferences, I think we can all agree on that. In honor of this day, I will hug my peanut butter and jelly sandwich before I eat it in a few minutes. Then I will probably suffer through another round of meat-based jokes from other people in the newsroom. Typical example:

News clerk: I saved you some sausage. Want some?
Me: No thanks.
News clerk: Are you going to order the cheesesteak sandwich?
Me: Not today.
News clerk: I LOVE MEAT AND IT IS DELICIOUS!
Me: ...(turns back to crossword puzzle)

WARNING: Hugging vegetarians should be avoided at all costs because their bones are brittle and easily breakable, due to the lack of proper nutrition and protein obtained through a steady diet of bacon and Thickburgers. Gentle pats on the back are also discouraged since a muscle system sustaining on rice and soy may shrivel under the added pressure.*

*statement not verified by anyone with any medical background

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: Just what the doctor ordered

2008-09-26T09:14:00.004-04:00

(The Guide, 9/26/08) -- When your trusty yet vigilant and skeptical Guide staff first heard a rumor about Ted Leo coming to Hilton Head Island, a contest immediately arose to see who in the newsroom believed it least.

No one here wanted to fall prey to what was certainly an apocryphal story, that a political powerhouse who once earned comparisons to punk royalty Fugazi and the Clash would soon be slashing his way through the manicured landscape of Hilton Head.

We were never so happy to be wrong.

It turns out that Leo's actually been to Hilton Head many times (though not to play music), and has fond memories of it. But when Leo and his band the Pharmacists return to the island Oct. 2, on tour with Against Me! and Future of the Left, it will be a day for the history books. Here's why:

Question. We did a little bit of research, and we think this may be the first punk show in Hilton Head history.

Answer. I used to go out with someone who lived on Hilton Head. I used to actually go down there a lot and visit her and we'd hang out and see shows in Savannah.

But there was one night where some ska band that I actually knew from New York was playing at like some crazy frat bar, and we went. And I remember her being so freaked out, like, 'God, this is so weird, there's actually a band that's not like the String Cheese Incident or Widespread Panic or something that's playing here.'

Wow, but I would have figured since then, that since there are kind of 'punk' shows everywhere, I'm surprised to hear that I'm the first.

Q. How does that feel?

A. It's exciting. It's auspicious. I had no idea.

Q. What's it like going from a big tour with Pearl Jam back to playing little clubs?

A. It's not that awing to be on a big stage. In fact, it's usually not that fun.

In the middle of the Pearl Jam tour, we had some days off and we threw in some of our own shows. So we went from playing the Verizon Center in D.C., which is like 18,000 people, to playing a 200-capacity art gallery in Richmond, Va., and you know, that was kind of actually more fun. I hate to limit our ambitions, but it feels much more at home.

Q. So you still prefer the smaller venues?

A. Our tours are always kind of up-and-down like that, to a certain degree, and that also is really nice. It's like you go from playing at Metro in Chicago to the aquarium in Fargo, N.D.

It's a nice way to keep things in perspective, I guess is what I'm trying to say. The Fargo show can be just as fun, and almost feel like more important in some ways.

Q. You guys have been around for a while, and have a big following. Do you still enjoy introducing new people to music when you're in strange places?

A. Definitely. I don't think we play any different in those circumstances, whether it's somewhere relatively new or whether it's somewhere we've been a million times. What it actually enables us to do was kind of change our set list up in ways that we normally wouldn't. It's not like a total hometown crowd. In a weird way, it gives you a little more freedom to be a little looser in your choices.

Q. Do you ever edit your own Wikipedia page?

A. No (laughs). Should I? I don't look at it. I don't really want to know what people are saying about me on there. I think the last time I looked at it was probably two years ago, when I first realized there was a Wikipedia page for me: 'Oh, wow, that's interesting. Hmm, that's not true. Oh, that's true, I guess.'

I think things like that are better. Unless it's meant to be some kind of professional resume that I have specific things that I want to be mentioned on it, I would prefer to just let people do that if they want to do it.

Q. Anything else you want to say about the tour?

A. Just psyched to go back to that beach.

The Dark Bailout

2008-09-25T12:13:00.000-04:00

"Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying."

How did people seeks solace from the chaos of political absurdity in the era before the advent of the mashup, back when we were forced to relive a John McCain speech on cable news over and over without the added benefit of watching him be Barack Roll'd all up and down the screen?

So regardless of your political views, this is just enjoyable. Mainly because it reminds me of how much The Dark Knight rocked the brick sh*thouse. So I guess Batman is the subprime mortgage crisis in this situation? Or maybe Batman is Fannie Mae? I'm sure lots of people are dying to use the pencil trick on some investment bankers these days.

(via Wonkette)

Trivia team names for the week

2008-09-24T22:46:00.002-04:00

• A Really Cool Potamus
• Large Hard-on Collider*
• EXPLICIT BARACK
• I Went To Four Fewer Colleges Than Sarah Palin
• Do You Know How Many Times I've Had to Look Up How to Spell 'Lynyrd Skynyrd' In the Past Week?
• Hank Paulson's Deal or No Deal Suitcase
• The Cleveland Browns Won't Give Me the Finger
• Clarence was a Dapper Sight Astride his Four-Legged Friend+
• Nature: 2; Stuck Up Bitch: Zero

*Used in competition and rewarded with free beers
+ Won't make any sense if I explain it either

Gigantic Pencil, Reporter Nearly Kill 74-year-Old Woman

2008-09-24T15:27:00.006-04:00

This is probably my greatest response to a story EVER. And by greatest, I mean perhaps the most stultifying, stupefying example of head-smacking obtuseness:

I have not listened to the weather channel or paid much attention to hurricanes since the passing of Ike. After all, I had prepared to evacuate with the threat of Hanna, but recently unpacked all my necessities. I just was avoiding the issue.

And then today's headline! "The Storm is headed for the Carolinas." My goodness, a story that should have been a Sunday feature on an inside page ends up on Page 1 of the Beaufort Gazette. I looked at the picture of the huge hurricane heading straight for us and quickly turned on the weather channel. It was after the hour, so there was no Atlantic weather news. Back to the story, and it turns out it is just a feature on "the Carolinas".

My heart did not stop racing for at least half an hour. I am 74 years old. How many elderly people did you cause to have heart palpitations this morning?

I wonder if it also got first page coverage on the Island Packet. Your next headline might read "12.000 people in Sun City head for the hills--or back to Ohio." Sounds like the radio program of "War of the Worlds."

Anyway, the article was a fine one, even though it was misplaced.

For reference, this is the story that's under discussion. And (brace your heart for it), below is the offending graphic that ran with it that made me responsible for this woman's near cardiac arrest:

So, instead of actually reading even the first paragraph of the article that sent this woman's heart into Speed Racer mode, she threw aside the newspaper and threw herself into a panicked frenzy befitting cable news coverage, presumably calling up the Weather Channel and awaiting Local on the 8s while haphazardly stuffing prescription medicine bottles, the deed to the house and various clothing into a duffel bag, yelling at her husband to don't even bother boarding up the windows, just go outside and start the damn Escalade already.

But, more amusingly, I can only imagine the thoughts that ran through her head when she noticed not only a large hurricane barreling straight for South Carolina, but also a gigantic pencil looking like a Stylus of God sticking out of the sky apparently erasing South Carolina from the map.

"Dear Lord, Joseph, get the sharpeners! This thing means business. Do we know if our storm shelter is eraser proof? GAH! THERE'S NO TIME MAN, THERE'S NO TIME!"

I haven't responded to her yet, but I'm betting my reply will be none too light on the sarcasm (in extraordinary circumstances such as these, you are allowed to bite back, I think) and contain the basic sentiment of: "sorry you didn't take the time to look at one sentence of the story before freaking out, and sorry for piquing your interest and getting you to read our newspaper."

But at least she liked the article, when she finally did read it. This is, however, the first time I've been compared to Orson Welles. But maybe not the last?

Give Her the Finger

2008-09-23T23:36:00.004-04:00

Interesting Fact Recently Learned By Me, Now Shared With You

You cannot purchase a Cleveland Browns foam finger anywhere. Go ahead, try it. Not even on the eBays. You can find a foam dog bone, a thick foam dog-like hat thing, a plush hand that looks like it was wretched out of some horrid Ohio-based Wes Craven movie.

How do I know this? Join me in a trip back to Sunday, sitting outside Street Meet restaurant on Hilton Head, the patio awash in a hot mess of football fans who seem to forget they are in South Carolina and actually not 800 miles away in Baja Canada, and me, sitting there, the lone person rooting for the poor Ravens, not so much out of my fealty to Maryland but more my appreciation for the life and works of Edgar Allen Poe. An ebullient woman who for the previous two hours had been pounding Jagerbombs with the unassailled regularity of the gameclock ticking down the minutes, stood up and demanded the attentions of the 30 or so patrons sitting nearby.

"I have an announcement!" she proclaimed, careful to match the start of her proposition to the start of the 47th Microsoft ad airing that afternoon. "If anyone can find me a Cleveland Browns foam finger, I want it. I've checked everywhere and no one has it. I've looked everywhere, even the Internet."

My eyes shrunk with immediate skepticism. When most people say they can't find something on the Internet, it often means they could not figure out how to turn on their computer and then smashed the hard drive with a tennis racket in frustration, or that they accidentally searched Gogol.com. Not religion, philosophy or superstition -- my sole tenet of belief in this world that comforts me even in the darkest hours is that you can find anything through Google these days. Anything. Want to look at hot chicks wearing Nintendo Power Gloves? There, just found it. Billy Dee Williams' home address? Careful, someone may have arrived just before you. Looking for the entire collection of characters from the 1980s cartoon show The Wuzzles? Please, give me a challenge.

"Did you try the American Internet?" I asked, allowing my sarcasm to drip into her horseradish onion sauce.

"Yes, I looked everywhere. The Browns' Web site, NFL.com, eBay, all nothin'. If you can find me one, I'll ... I'll ... well, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll give you something."

Payment will not be necessary, ma'am, as proving you wrong will be reward enough. I informed her I would return the following Browns game with the answers she sought.

Last night I awoke the Googles and gave them their task, thinking the first result of the 9,310 returned in 0.19 seconds would almost certainly prove fruitful. But no luck. I tried several other word combinations, all to no avail. For some reason a foam finger for the Trenton Thunder minor league team was placed in the top results, but nothing for the Browns. My roommate joined the search, then my friend Missy. Browns web site, NFL shop, eBay -- none containing even a trace of our prize. They either have never made the foam fingers, or they were so exclusive they were only available at Skyline Chili restaurants in the greater metro area.

I had to admit: the Jagerbombed lady was right, and my faith in the power of Google was shaken to its core.

But I did find solace in the fact that the Browns lost, and I would have one less annoying piece of Ohio sports memorabilia blocking my view of the TV next week.

Learned Negro Gentleman for Rent

2008-09-19T14:52:00.008-04:00

Our photo editor just showed me an e-mail from a woman who used the word "negro." As in:

"Here are three photos. The negro gentleman is James (Last Name Deleted), PhD, the white gentleman is Jim (Last Name Deleted) and the woman is me. LOL Lucy (Last Name Deleted)"

My immediate reaction was that this woman, who lives in the creepy settlement of oldsters known as Sun City, was surely of that sainted vintage where less-than-delicate comments are written off as missives from a lost era, the brutal remnants of a long and weathered existence, from when the world was ordered much differently, a time the rest of us can only read about on Wikipedia.

Not so, the photo editor said. She is, like, mid-40s.

I don't doubt that she meant no harm by the use of the term. But I was unaware this particular anachronism was still hibernating somewhere in the depths of society. Or maybe just in South Carolina, at least.

Then I Googled it out of curiosity, and discovered Rush Limbaugh has been calling Obama "Barack the Magic Negro," saying the candidate has been successful because people “can’t criticize the little black man-child.”

So...it's not just South Carolina, I guess. The first Google result (after definitions) is for a company called Rent-a-negro.com, the pitch being:

What can you give a person
who has everything?
Give them a new black friend....

Maybe this PhD gentleman from that woman's e-mail could make some side money? LOL.

Even coyotes hated House of Wax

2008-09-18T23:51:00.005-04:00

I'm of the caste of individuals who could care as much about the exploits of a stuck-up heiress (or former heiress, at least) as I do the sales figures for Darius Rucker's new solo CD, a copy of which is inexplicably sitting on the makeshift cardboard table next to my desk. I'm a firm believer in the argument that individuals should actually have to DO something to achieve a modicum of public attention, and that this entire school of celebrities-because-they're-celebrities makes me want to erl in my hummus. I once regularly read a Web site (sadly, now defuct) for a group that regularly protested Paris Hilton book release events and organized boycotts of Carlos Mencia's visual abortion that somehow got mislabeled as a television show.

This news story is horrible in its implied brutality. But something about it seems so .... so ... crunchy. Read.

It's the same kind of perverse pleasure I would get if those guys responsible for the horrendous Disaster/Epic/etc. Movie franchise came home one day to find their production equipment stolen and replaced with a trailer full of the creatures from Tremors 2. Man, that would be a sweet, sweet victory for art.

Does this make me a bad person? Probably. But seriously, 17 dogs? Even Acme products can't fail all the time.

A Really Cool Potamus

2008-09-18T10:59:00.007-04:00

You should probably get this and listen to it, unless you don't like being happy ever. In that case, you should probably get and listen to this.

Includes:
"Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool potamus?"
“A burrito is a sleeping bag for ground beef.”
“I was at the airport and I put my bag on the x-ray machine and found out that my bag has cancer. It only has six more months to hold shit.”

It's not near the levels of hilarity of Mitch's other two albums, especially the comedic Iliad that was "Mitch All Together." But it's a satisfying postmortem release, and like any beyond-the-grave material, will satisfy fans hungry for any remaining crumbs from his work. The 40 minutes of material on this CD are from a show in Ontario, and probably would have been much more refined had Mitch stuck around long enough to release another full CD.

I saw Mitch at the University of Maryland in 2002 with Barry, Ally and Dave Malitz, who interviewed him after the show and asked Mitch why he did so many jokes about food. I don't think he had an answer. Then he died in a Baltimore hotel room three years later. Coincidence? Um, yes, yes it is.

Billboard moment

2008-09-16T11:07:00.005-04:00

I had something published on Billboard.com today. Ted Leo, you're a class act all around. Also, I had to send an e-mail that began this way to my managing editor yesterday.

so you may or may not have a random and very confused sounding punk rocker on your voice mail today.....

It was a very odd day. At some point today, maybe I'll actually focus on covering my beat for the publication that actually pays me on a regular basis. No promises.

Also, Reason No. 2 in the Four Weeks of Ted Leo, our effort to fill a local club with at least a respectable number of curious audiophiles.

Don't Mess With the Suicide Doors

2008-09-16T01:36:00.001-04:00

Today was a big day in the world of The Saturn, aka The Red Rocket, better known as The Only Car I've Owned That Has Yet to Be Towed Out of This World in a Fiery, Smoke-Filled Coffin of Misery: we hit the 100,000 mile mark.

I say "we" because I consider myself an integral part of this effort, as any other driver/owner of the Rocket probably would have let those weary wheels rest on occasion over the four years of service, whereas I made the machine stand in constant vigilance, ever ready for a last-minute jaunt up the East Coast or an ill-advised navigation through a roadside drainage system.

I am not entirely responsible for the mileage since the car came into my possession in July 2004 with a little more than 9,000 miles on it. It was found sitting idle in a Volkswagen lot in Monmouth County, New Jersey on Independence Day, a hastily agreed upon replacement for the much (and, by the end, deservedly) maligned Celica. Anyone from back in those days remembers the slow parade of atrophy and decay that was the final days of The Celica, when mirrors, knobs and other parts fell off with the disturbing grievance of a leprosy patient, until it hemorrhaged in a horrible fit on the Beltway, spewing unidentified liquids all over the windshield, finally gasping its final choked breaths on the exit ramp and coming to a final stop in front of the New Carrollton Metro station. There it sat overnight, where, upon my return in the morning to pay my respects and collect belongings, I discovered it had been towed.

My options, as interpreted from the comments from the supremely helpful and not at all condescending towing company employee were:
A) Pay the $100 towing fee, plus the rapidly mounting $70 per day storage costs to retrieve the car
B) Pay the $100 towing fee, hand over the title to the car and sign the corpse over the towing company
C) A Celica? What the hell is a Celica? Who is this? How did you get this number? Stop calling me! Hello? *Click*

Assuming there is no warrant for my arrest in Prince George's County, Maryland right now, I think I made the right choice.

I did the math real quick: the mileage put on the Saturn since that July works out to an average of 59.2 miles a day. This is the equivalent of driving from Beachwood, NJ to Philly every day; or from Hilton Head Island to Yemassee, which, as everyone knows, is practically the City of Brotherly Love of South Carolina (replace "brotherly" with "steak" and "love" with "get your gas, karaoke, alcohol, dinner and line dancing in the same establishment").

Yet the car has held together well, save for one unfortunate accident last year that crumpled the front of it like a paper doll on US 278 (for the record: my car — looked like a piece of stepped-on Play-Doh thrown on the street. Mammoth SUV in front of me — tiny hole in the bumper. Guess which driver freaked out more). Plus, there's that bizarre problem that causes the car not to start for upwards of 20 minutes on occasions when the temperature drops over night. This of course only happens when I'm alone, and never, not once, not even a little bit, when there's a mechanic within 400 yards of the vicinity. I left it at the mechanic all day one Friday last year to see if he could spot the problem. Said he tried it several times throughout the day, and it started fine. When I went to pick it up an hour later after he had already gone home, I could hear engine laughing at me as it refused to turn over. This has led me in my amateur mechanic's training to diagnosis the problem as a terminal case of VPJ (Vindictive Poltergeist Jerkdom).

Major feats of endurance have included: three nine-hour trips to College Park in one year; one drive to New Jersey; two to Orlando; several to Raleigh; miscellaneous others to Asheville, Atlanta, Gainesville, Annapolis, Myrtle Beach and way way waaaay too many to Bluffghanistan on a near daily basis.

The single worst drive of my life happened inside the claustrophobic bosom of the Saturn, where she and I forever cemented our bond of the open road. It was on the way back from a trip out to Coachella in 2005. In booking this trip, blinded by an utter inexplicable commitment to camaraderie and conquering distance, I decided to fly out of BWI with festival buddy SteveChris. This involved driving up to Maryland after work, arriving in the middle of the night, getting a sparse two hours sleep on a hard Commons couch, then heading to the airport for a weekend under the stern eye of the 100-degree California desert sun. Then we took an overnight flight back east, landed at 1 a.m., and I was bound to my ridiculous scheme of driving back to South Carolina. For work that morning. At 9 a.m. Ah, to be young and dumb.

During that long, lonesome, death march down I95, I knew madness. It emerged from the corners of every wood-paneled, smokey truckstop store in Virginia, where women inexplicably unbothered by the hands pointing to 4 a.m. on the Winston clock overhead pumped coins into slot machines I weren't sure were entirely legal; it was stocked on refrigerator shelves next to over sized, violently labeled bottles of what alleged to be energy drink that contained no evidence that their existence was known to federal health officials; it rode out of the radio on the waves of static penetrating the silence of North Carolina, somewhere just out of range of sunrise when I started chain smoking black box American Spirits just to threaten my body into remaining awake. I crossed a bridge and nearly let the madness win; trees were downed across the road and I began to swerve the Saturn in my harassed conscious state. Only they weren't trees — it was shadows, conspiring with my tiredness to resemble shape and menace.

I made it back home in a miserable state, still smelling like the inside of a pup tent warmed over with the stew of hipster sweat resin and the crunchy, dry desert air. I collapsed for the blessed relief of a nap. And, despite it all, I still made it to my meeting and wrote my story for the day.

All thanks to one dedicated Saturn who wouldn't give up on me, even in the darkest night, when the darkness of that terrible highway nearly overcame me. Also, it's got sweet suicide doors, which have yet to kill me, and are featured prominently in at least one Kanye song.

Thanks Saturn, and here's to 100,000 more.

(Um, but I'm hopeful it's not with me. I mean, gas engines? Still? Let's get a move on it, inventors. That's the real American Spirit we need.)

Trivia team names for the week

2008-09-11T12:55:00.003-04:00

-Sarah Palin's Aborted VP Run*
-Hootie Never Burned Us Like This
-If We Don't Get 38 Special In The Next Few Weeks, Someone's Getting Shot In The Face
-Hanna and the Hurricanes*
-Mother. Moose Hunter. Maverick.
-Jim Cantore: Portent of Death
-The Death of Jonathan and Birth of J. Edward
-We Guessed*
-Your Mom's got the Whitest Teeth ... (too offensive to publish here)**
-Jim Faber's Abandoned Box of His Childhood

*Used in actual competition.
**Name rewarded with free beers

Time to Pretend

2008-09-10T17:04:00.014-04:00

Look, during the week, on the clock, with the eyes of the print publishing world glaring at my choice in belt buckle, I don't mind wearing the monkey suit and doing the little dance to confound enough people into thinking I'm some sort of well-groomed, tucked-in member of society. Personally, I think choice of clothing has about as much to do with my ability to report and write a good story as what I ate for lunch. I probably actually do better reporting when I'm in jeans and sneakers because I feel more comfortable, less constrained and better able to relate to the average citizen. But I understand there are certain concessions necessary when traipsing through the prickly brier patch of the professional world, and I've come to deal with this through a secretly subversive combination of thrift store pants and hand-me-down collared shirts. I'll get even more gussied up for big events — congressional visits, major galas, and so forth. I wore a tux in college to an event featuring Bill Cosby.

But when I'm not on the clock, that's my time. And I will look as much like a harassed strain on society as I damn well please. It's the least I can do after paying penance to the anachronistic practice of tucking in a shirt for five days a week (OK, four days. Cas Fri to the rescue).

This, however, proves quite troublesome on Hilton Head Island, a town about as big as my high school gym class where I can barely go to the trash chute in my apartment building without running into someone I know. I try to lay low and can usually pass off as one of the anonymous waiters, caddies or check in clerks who make up the majority of the young people population here. If people ask me for more ranch dressing, I know I'm in the clear.

Sometimes, however, it is impossible to remain unmasked. Last Saturday, for instance, walking up the pharmacy counter at Walgreens, me looking entirely unpresentable in the cargo shorts that have become stiff with fatigue from the strain of their unrelenting tour of service without leave time this summer, topped with my red Miss Teen USA 1980 paegent thrift store shirt, my hair erupting in its traditional Saturday morning revolt without the application of shower water or product, my eyes probably still glazed with residue of the last beer Friday night. As I got to the counter, I caught the middle of the conversation between the clerk and an oldster: "...well, there's just so many (Mylastname)s in the world, you never know..."

He thanked her and walked away. Then I tell her I'm picking up prescriptions, and my name is also Mylastname, and she laughs at the odd coincidence. The oldster turns on his heel, aroused with sudden curiosity. His name was Ted Mylastname, which I remembered because he was from Massachusetts and had that chowda-filled Ted Kennedy accent. "Hey, are you Chris Mylastname?"
Who the feck is Chris Mylastname? I'll crush him.

No, I told him, providing my full name. Ted's eyes grew wide, recognizing the name from the bylines in the newspaper.
"Oh ho!" he said. "I read your stories all the time! People always ask me if we're related!"
Why then, I thought, did he first ask me if I was Chris Mylastname? Probably, I figured, because he discounted this clearly hungover derelict as some inconsequential beach bum who only got out of bed long enough to pick up a morning after pill for the hooker he picked up last night, now lying in a passed-out mess on his air mattress back at home. Oh but you were wrong, Ted. I even wear a tie some days.

Later that same day, I'm at the thrift store, buying what I must say was a rather nice blue-button down shirt that at one time probably fetched a decent price tag on a store rack somewhere. It looked nearly brand new, and cost me a pricey $3. The woman who rang me up took notice. "Wow, this is a nice shirt. Are you going to wear it with a suit?"

No, just a shirt for work, I told her. "Oh, where do you work?" I always wince when this quesiton comes up, as it does often on Hilton Head, because people ask it here to affix you to some part of the familiar geography of the island. It's like asking what dorm you live in in college. Often people get the answer of a particular restaurant or store, and they can relate to shopping or eating there once, offer to say hi next time they're in there, etc. When you tell people you work for the newspaper, they start treating you differently. I told one of my roommate's friends a few years back that I worked there and his response was, "Like, delivering the papers?" When I met one of Andy's dad's friends last summer, she told was in shock at recognizing my name. "I thought you were an old man!" she said, though not unkindly.

I braced myself and told the clerk the truth, then she probed as to what I cover, what my name was, and so forth. Since I've worked here for 45 years now, she had seen my name around, read my stories, all that. I ducked out of the conversation before it turned to specific town topics. But I can't help picturing that she went home, saw her husband reading the paper and said, "Honey, I met that Mylastname reporter today. Did you know is a homeless person? He has to buy his shirts in the thrift store and everything. I'm surprised they even let him into official buildings, he looked like one of those bohemians I heard about on Fox News."

Then her husband would huff, crumble the paper up and toss it into the fireplace (they keep their fire running in the summer, because it's powered by gas, and they want to help reduce the nation's exorbitant oil surplus) and exclaim: "Well, that's the last time we read that rag! I thought there were still standards in this country! Bohemians ... next thing you'll be telling me that he has long hair. Quite absurd, quite."

It's interactions like this, and the high likelihood of running into sources around every corner, that keep me on my toes. It's why I know not to get stupid wasted at a bar if there's a source lurking about, to chose carefully who to cut off in traffic out of fear that it will one day be the mayor, and why I tucked the copy of "Dreams from My Father" I was buying at Barnes and Noble the other day into my newspaper when I saw one of the angry, liberal-media accusing, military haircut old Republicans headed my way (He said, "Hi," by the way, also not unkindly).

The worst of these situations came my first year here, at the St. Patrick's Day parade, easily the most enjoyable and community building free event on the island all year. My condition was respectable, but I was with my roommate John, whose job as a waiter did not give him the same public considerations I had. He was 10 miles beyond wasted, had a dripping plastic beer yard hanging from his neck, and was wearing a set of beads with plastic marijuana leaves hanging from it. "I really hope I don't run into any sources," I thought, taking a sip from my beer. Then I turned around in the bar parking lot we were standing in and saw THE ENTIRE TOWN COUNCIL and our statehouse representative lining up in their convertibles before entering the parade route.

Figures, I thought. I had come in disguise with sunglasses and sweatshirt, and pulled my cap down over my face.

Then, two years later at the same parade, I got drunk on the side of the route and screamed at the town manager to throw me some freaking candy as he passed by. He did. My shirt was not tucked in at the time. I mean, there's only so much pretending one person can do.

Bonus: Listen to MGMT's "Time to Pretend" It's in a movie trailer so it's probably going to be annoyingly popular soon. But they get it.

Exceptional Publicity

2008-09-08T15:25:00.006-04:00

Effing. Fantastic. Just got this e-mail back from Ted Leo's folk:

From: Touch and Go Quarterstick
Sent: Mon 9/8/2008 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: Ted Leo comes to the posh rock

Hey T -

GREAT to hear from you. Teddy isn't really doing press but I'll make an exception for you! Hilton Head needstaknow! :)

Will 9/15 work for you?

That's right: Ted Leo isn't doing interviews, but they're making an exception for the small newspaper on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Because, even though it may kill us, reducing our bodies to chunky ash residue that will be used to fertilize the fairway of the 8th hole at Heron Point, we're going to force this place to accept the punk. LEARN IT. KNOW IT. LIVE IT.

If I can quote the ever estimable Jeff Vrabel: "EAT (poo), PITCHFORK"

Also, even if they didn't set up the interview, I still have his cell phone number in my phone from our interview two years ago. Stalker much? Maybe a little. But I've never called it, not even drunk.

Bright Eyes, Small City?

2008-09-06T17:01:00.007-04:00

Fresh off the news that Ted Leo is coming to Hilton Head, we found out Friday that Conor Oberst will play here in November. Repeat: that's two Pitchfork favorites playing on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina within a month of each other. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??? We're through the looking glass here, people.

I swear to blog, if this place turns into the new Williamsburg the minute I move away, I will come back and go all sickhouse on every bed-headed person I see. Then I'll take up golf and yell at these bastards to turn that infernal racket down because I can't hear the sound of my yacht drying. Next come the cranky letters to the editor. Oh you think you've seen cranky letters to the editor before, but just you wait. The words "shocked and appalled" will be armed with an unprecedented sense of outrage that will send fear rippling through every ironic T-shirt in a 50-mile radius.

In related news, we're running Four Weeks of Ted Leo in The Guide to lead up to the show. Why? Because we don't want to embarrass Hilton Head by having Ted and the boys play to a crowd of six local newspaper reporters.

Reason No. 1: This may be the first punk show in the history of Hilton Head.

The Disappointing Protection of Prayer

2008-09-06T01:29:00.004-04:00

An actual e-mail received today from our landlady. She is the polar opposite of our previous landlady, who, four months on, has yet to respond to a single one of our inquiries about our security deposit, and is now delinquent on responding to the small claims suit sent to her address. Reproduced in its entirety as sent to my roommate, minus full names:

Hi J,

We were keeping a close eye on T.S. Hanna and Paul and I had made the
decision that we were not going to make a special trip to arrive
before this storm. We are still in IL and had not planned to leave
for HH until the end of September due to an upcoming family reunion in
Madison, WI. I will let you know as our final plans take shape, but
estimate that we will arrive at HH about October 1st. We are keeping
a close eye on Ike and will decide this weekend whether Paul needs to
get to HH to do any window boarding before Ike's landfall.

Unfortunately, I may have left T's personal e-mail address at our HH
home and I only have his business e-mail address with me and I didn't
want to bother him at work with this information. Would you please
be so kind to let him know that we are thinking of you both and pray
that you will be safe!

Please let us know as soon as possible if anything needs our immediate
attention after Hanna's fury passes. For your convenience, here are
two IL phone contacts: (555) 555-5555—Sue's cell and (555)
555-555—Paul's cell.

We did receive September's rent and thank you very much.

Take care and drive safe on wet, flooded roads! We had Gustav's
system here yesterday and it rained all day. The rain was steady,
wind mild, but no thunderstorms.

Thank you, J.

Sincerely,

Sue and Paul

Important note: this storm was the crappiest crap fest that ever crapped on our shores. It rained. Not even all that hard. I barely noticed any wind. And lots of people got to get off work early anyway, including our newspaper's advertising department. Hanna, you disappoint me. I thought you'd at least be interesting.
My editors had me out live blogging the storm all day, an idea that would have been interesting had their been any storm to web log about (and had our web site's software been more up to date to handle such an exercise).

Most significant update of the day:

Since returning from the drenching I got at the beach, the buttons on my cell phone have decided they will no longer respond to me. I can only take incoming calls. Hanna claims its first victim! Except for, um, you know, all those people in Haiti. Yikes.

Beware the Rhombus of Ambivalence

2008-09-03T12:44:00.010-04:00

My favorite hurricane term by far: The Cone of Uncertainty. It just sounds so ... so ... calamitously chaotic. Say it in that deep, portentous, "thunder throat" Don LaFontaine voice: "In a world where everything is certain, one cone will change the face of predictability ... forever."

CUT TO Hilton Head Island, exterior, day:

Civilian 1: "Watch out! A gigantic geometric embodiment of precariousness is headed this way!"
Civilian 2: "If only we knew where it was going!"

This is not to be confused with the Cone of Silence, or the Fortress of Solitude or the Sea of Tranquility, the Rhombus of Ambivalence, the Quadrilateral Conundrum or (a rare, yet unspeakably terrible weather event) Schrödinger's Dodecahedron.

The Cone of Uncertainty is also the most accurate geometric-related term to define my life right now. I'm, like, 100 miles deep into the cone, being constantly rapped on the skull by the shifting black lines of the edges. Just like the storm, there's all the exogenous (VOCAB WHAT) factors at work. But at least I'm not on Hispanola. They never get the Cone of Uncertainty. All they ever see is the Cube of Unspeakable Devastation and Mud Slides.

To Arms! To Arms!

2008-09-02T12:50:00.005-04:00

Hurricane Strike Force Action Team: ASSEMBLE!

We've been teased by storms before, so everyone is preparing for this one while trying not to get too worked up into a frenzy. But it does certainly appear Hurricane Hanna (Carroll) is on track to jam herself right up our noses by the weekend. Everyone here is amping up towards full newspaper disaster battle mode — filling the car with gas; buying bottled water; sending templates to our sister paper in Columbia; sparring each other in preparation for a bare-knuckle fight with Geraldo, the usual. Then, when Go Time arrives, everyone gets sent off into their different teams and battle stations to form a perimeter of reporting around this tropical beast. It's kinda like Voltron. Five teams of reporters, each with their separate missions, dispatched to locate the five hidden robot lions in Beaufort County that will join together to form one newspaper. Go team!

I've been meandering through thoughts all day trying to figure out what I would take if we have to evacuate. The good thing about being young and perpetually transient is you don't have much stuff to worry about. I know I'll grab my computer, photo albums and journals. I might also want to bring to safety a few of the more irreplaceably ironic thrift store T-shirts, my Super Nintendo, some Kerouac, paper versions of clips (though who knows why) and the rest of the bottle of Absinthe sitting in my cupboard. It could, after all, be a very boring time sitting in the emergency operations center waiting for the storm to clear.

Then again, business reporter (and apparent amateur meteorologist) Jim Faber keeps telling me this storm is a piece of trash that he won't even think twice about. He's predicting light rain, tops, just like what happened with Ernesto in 2006 when everyone freaked out only to be greeted by a sprinkling of a storm. He will not, he informed me, be packing up his life-size George H.W. Bush cutout, because he refuses to give this storm the satisfaction of watching him evacuate.

But I'm packing up my Voltron lion key anyway. Just to be safe.

A Year Without Dad

2008-08-30T21:02:00.010-04:00

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day my Dad died. It's also the day that fundamental family architecture we come to rely on to provide firm footing as we bounce around wildly into the early stages of the adult world finally crumbled, or, at least, lost a load-bearing pillar.

When I got home last summer to be there for the last few days, he was mostly already adrift in a sea of semi-consciousness, hounded by the reality of the leukemia only when the hospice nurse arrived to change the sheets or rub lotion onto his flaky skin. "These people are vultures, Tim," he'd say, floating to the surface of coherence for the brief moments as he was forced over onto his side while the nurse ripped a sheet from under him in what he portrayed as an extraordinarily painful and unnecessary manner.

At night, after mom and Lauren had gone to bed, I'd sit up for a few more hours reading next to his bed, its ugly metal railings and the whirr of its hospital-height adjuster crammed awkwardly between bookshelf and computer desk into the small room that was once the dining room, before becoming my father's personal study or lounge or something after his retirement. His head rolled sleeplessly on the boiled white pillows, not far from the window, the same spot where on Thanksgiving nights he'd sit at the head of our nut-brown dining room table, the extensions put in for this rare occasion of company and celebration at 920 Cable Ave.

At night, my Mom left a small TV in the corner turned on so Dad has some company, always tuned to Turner Classic Movies and the volume of the cowboy pistols and noir taxi-cab engines kept just above a whisper. In healthier times, Dad loved those movies -- the men who always dressed sharp in fedoras and tall coats; the women who always primmed to the expectation of some great social outing, high heel shoes of impeccable polish walking across gray city streets. And everyone had a cigarette in their hand, he'd note, when smoking still was a mark of sophistication and not the poison my mother made it out to be by forcing him and his Parliaments onto the front porch many years ago.

He was mostly a ghost already, brittle skin stretched across a tired and defeated body, his gray hair sharp and short, the faint echo of a goatee left to roam on his chin, the army-green Playboy bunny tattoo looking on with wrinkled ears and sad eyes.

The last thing Dad said to me, actually, the only real coherent thing he said during this week, was a few days after I got home, when he shifted in the bed to look at me and momentarily broke free of the dark fog of cancerous decay, a candle of his personality still burning somewhere deep. He said "hi" to me in his fatherly casual tone and looked glad, maybe even surprised, that I was there. Then he thanked me for the electric blanket I had sent to the house after my last visit home after his return from the hospital, when he drifted slowly from room to room searching for some unknown solace, always in want of a warmer blanket or thicker robe. "That was really thoughtful," he said. Of course, Dad, I replied. That night I sat by the bed, some Spencer Tracy picture mumbling in the corner, me deep into the pages of Andy's copy of "Into the Wild," hoping my company was noticed as he stirred, occasionally deploying a tiny bit of muscle strength to shift a pillow or wipe his dry lips.

As Thursday approached, his eyes became milky white slits discerning only shades of light and his speech shriveled to a low, soft groan. When the girls got back to the house, I stepped out for some air for a little while, and got the call from Mom that the moment we'd been awaiting with compassionate anxiety had finally come, and he had died.

I was at the boardwalk at the time, awash in its circus of neon pizza and the tinny metal smack of the pinball machine, the barker's pitch, the screams from 80 feet above as the freefall slammed back to earth, forcing a great rush of air up into the bennies' hair and through the planks of my memory. There inside the pane of a carefully preserved moment still brighter than its fading photographic version, Dad and I threw ourselves down the hard plastic bumps of the Fun Slide for the hundredth time, the burlap sacs wrapped around us suddenly ruffled by a new blast of air.

As the family journalist, I wrote the obit for the Asbury Park Press. The composition of it received a startling amount of praise and applause from family members and friends, which I shrugged off as inconsequential, having encapsulated the lives of reams of faceless strangers in short inches over my career. I was pleased by the catharsis found in exercising this Journalism 100 assignment to mete out emotions over our own loss.

Here is the what I wrote for the funeral, labeled the extended version of the obit. All I can think of to do today is to post this here.

I miss you Dad. More than I ever thought was possible.

Paul Donnelly, 59, of Beachwood, died Aug. 30 in his home after a yearlong battle with leukemia.

He was born in New York and moved shortly after to New Jersey. But he was never far removed from the city, returning often later in life to go to Yankees games, see shows or get dinner. He once brought his children sightseeing and recorded all the day’s expenses in a tiny notebook. He didn’t understand all the hoopla surrounding those elaborate Broadway productions but did, years ago, take his son to a live version of the Muppet Babies and bought him a T-shirt he wore to bed every night until the seams threatened to give out.

He graduated from Keyport High School in 1967 and enlisted in the Army that summer.

He never liked talking about his time in the war, except for a few entertaining stories. His discharge papers say he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal, among other honors. He said he also received a Purple Heart, though the medal itself was left at some ex-girlfriend’s house and never seen again.

His stories from the Army were weightless, like the time his unit attached a bush where they thought an enemy was hiding, only to find their knives had sunk into a fat Vietnamese pig. Once a jeep ran over his foot -- not during combat. Another time he broke his arm, forcing him to learn to light matches for his cigarettes with one hand. This trick he later passed on to his son, who would use it to impress girls in bars and nearly light his dorm room on fire freshman year.

He later told his 23-year-old son his friends and family thought he was crazy for reenlisting so many times during the war.

“You don’t understand, Tim,“ he said. “The Army was different then. The way I looked at it was, if I was enlisted, that’s one less person they had to get to go over there.”

His children knew he was injured in the right ear during the war, which forced them to always walk on his left side at the mall so he could hear them talk. He finally broke down and got a hearing aid a few years ago.

In the end, he never wore the hearing aid anyway and his family again had to speak loud and slow beside his bed so he could hear.

With an eye for men’s fashion, he spent nearly three decades in the men’s clothing business, working for various companies until retiring from the Men’s Wearhouse three years ago. While working in stores under the bright lights of Atlantic City casinos, he crossed paths with the rich and famous who passed through the casinos, including Joe DiMaggio, who he said was a jerk in real life. Before work in the mornings, he would sometimes dip peanut butter covered rye toast into his morning coffee while working on the crossword puzzle.

He married in 1978. Twenty-eight years later, he would be told by doctors he had myleofibrosis, a disease no one could easily pronounce and did not really understand at first. Then it was upgraded to leukemia, easier to pronounce and more well known.

He had two children, Tim and Lauren. He was a coach on their little league teams, though neither was terribly gifted on the field. He helped his son lobby successfully for a puppy in eighth grade.

He rarely wore socks outside of work and sported a tattoo of the Playboy bunny on his left arm. He went through three rounds of chemotherapy. This summer, when the leukemia seized control of his body and continued its steady march from heart to head, he became thin and weak and his tattoo became a shriveled ink blot on his flaky skin.

He loved a good steak dinner and never really quite understood what it meant when his son became a vegetarian in college. Even at a fancy Italian restaurant, he would sometimes order spaghetti and meatballs to the frustration of his family, but always say “Well, I bet they do a damn good spaghetti and meatballs.”

He tried unsuccessfully to quit smoking several times, but he was too stubborn to ever really give it up. Earlier this year, he bought his first convertible, a sporty, fast little car with satellite radio and leather seats. He drove it a spare handful of times before going into the hospital again.

He was notoriously private and tight-lipped about personal issues, until the end, when his dependence on medicines and doctors and the comfort of others caused him to open up. He came from a generation of men that were proud and self-reliant and never wore hats indoors. In the end, the look on his hollow face betrayed the fact that he absolutely hated being a sick person that needed to be taken care of. He was appalled by the rudeness of the disease.

He was preceded in death by his sister Elizabeth of Atlantic Highlands, father Hugh, and mother, Elizabeth, who once gave a baby outfit to Tim that his mother and father found so atrocious, they dumped apple juice on the boy in the car and immediately changed him when entering Paul’s mother’s house. They blamed the accident on the child’s clumsy juice-handling skills.

He is survived by a brother, Patrick, whom hasn’t spoken to in years; wife Debbie, who took care of him in the end, handled his medicines, changed his sheets, yelled at doctors and lay with him in the creaky hospice bed when he said he was scared; his daughter, Lauren, and son Tim, who both made it up from South Carolina in time to say goodbye to their father.

During his life, he enjoyed telling dirty jokes with punch lines that often involved parts of the human anatomy, bodily functions or blondes.

By the end, he said very little, except to ask for a cigarette and say, “look at my wife. Isn’t she spectacular?”

He was 59.

At Least it's not Rocks for Jocks

2008-08-29T17:41:00.004-04:00

In honor of today's ilf-related news one of the all-time great Simpsons quotes:

Dr. Hibbert: I'm afraid your playing days are over my friend, but don't worry, you can fall back on your degree in *Gasp!* Communications? Oh dear Lord!
Luchenko: Da, I know I know it phony major. Luchenko learn nothing, nothing!

Sarah Palin official campaign bio.

Trivia team names for the week

2008-08-28T00:41:00.003-04:00

• The Infinitely Repeating Airport Egg Salad Sandwich
• Steve Blust's Empty Fanny Pack of Dreams*
• OMG: Barack Nvr Txted Me
• Is There Anything Funny About the Situation in Georgia?*
• Joe Biden and the T-t-t-t-train to Victory
• Smullet
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit*
• I Buy All My Clothes from a Traveling Salesman

* Used in actual competition

Reflections from Virginia

2008-08-27T12:31:00.003-04:00

After a weekend of touring and job interviewing here:

• Several letters in the word "Norfolk" are useless. Several others arise mysteriously upon pronunciation.
• Virginia Beach is significantly less heinous than Myrtle Beach.
• PETA being based in Nahfik infects the surrounding city with vegetarian-friendly dining options.
• PETA is located on the banks of a river, possibly creating a runoff problem that apparently does not rise to the level of an ethical dilemma.
• Newspaper journalists everywhere are a depressed, downtrodden lot.
• Common sense will tell you to avoid eating an airport egg salad sandwich. Do not ignore this.
• Virginia Beach has Actual Surfing.
• Rarely is there a collective mood on an airplane that welcomes the irreverent gallows humor of the male flight attendant who mistakes the intercom for the microphone at Evening at the Improv.
• Having a baby immediately enters you into a rotating free dinner delivery service program.
• Newspapers are still struggling to understand "the internet"
• Newspapers' plan to save themselves is alarmingly similar to Bush's Iraq strategy circa 2005.
• Hampton, Va., is allegedly the most-integrated city in America.
• All the Tribune newspapers are being redesigned to resemble children's picture books.
• Virginia. Effing. Loves. Mixed-use development.
• Serious, weighty, pivotal thinking and decision making will dominate my next few weeks. Heavy drinking is expected to be called upon to lubricate the cogs of introspection.

(photos by me, except for the map, which is from hrrelocation.com)

Cell phone update

2008-08-26T03:38:00.001-04:00

Sign on msnbc coverage outside the convention at the Pepsi Center: Bring Back Crystal Pepsi

Echoes of a Job Prospect

2008-08-24T01:50:00.002-04:00

I'm leaving in the morning for a potentially momentous job interview in Virginia that will very likely be the pivot point where I decide whether to stay in newspapers or seek some other yet-to-be-determined writing outlet. It's kinda like that mid-level philosophy class you take in college where you weigh if there are any real career options in the field, or if maybe you'd be better off joining the rest of the slackers learning about Advanced Science Fiction Theory in the American Studies department. Except, um, you know, like a much, much bigger deal.

If I can quote my grizzled, cowboy boot-wearing Arkansas boy, ink-in-his-veins night city editor, after he recently learned about the latest rock slide in the ongoing avalanche of cuts at our newspaper: "I'm trying to remember the mindset I was in when I decided to do journalism for the rest of my life." We later determined that this decision was most likely made in the sixties, and the mindset was the same one that caused him to stand on a swivel chair and swat at large, insectoid panthers he saw floating above his desk while the chords to Pink Floyd's "Meddle" were being painted on a nearby wall by a coverall-wearing garden gnome.

The funny thing is, a year ago, I would have absolutely erupted at the possibility of landing a job at this paper. I even applied there once before, and was benignly jealous when another coworker got a job there instead. Now, with the daily death march that is the Romenesko feed and more and more of our generation feeling like most newspapers have done everything they can to make themselves appear undeserving of our efforts and enthusiasm, it's a dramatically less inspiring landscape.

But who knows -- maybe some people out there are still fighting the good fight, and maybe there is still a tiny spark of hope for the withering embers of that ancient civic-duty minded newsroom soul.

And maybe I'll see swat one of those flying panthers square between its stupid eyes this weekend.

The Final Fantasy

2008-08-21T11:43:00.007-04:00

What Samus would wear:

What is it about the classic NES that just won't ever fully vacate our collective psyche? For me, I assume the reason is related to having been more or less raised by Link, Dr. Mario and the Elevator Action guy while my parents were off running a crime ring at the local high school with frat boys. OK, that part is not true. Wait, I think that's the plot of River City Ransom. See?

Nintendo basically colonized my brain in the late 80s and never ceded its imperial rule. I have to check the calendar to remember family members' birthdays each year, too often have to look up how to spell simple words like "canceled" and "naseau" and still to this day have to read the instructions each time I make a box of macaroni and cheese, but I can recall in the flash of a finger how to escape the Lost Woods (North, West, South, West ... bitch) and which tombstone hides the Magic Sword. Like anyone from that generation, I'll probably be tapping out the Contra code from my deathbed, long after dementia has taken hold and I couldn't distinguish between a doctor and Battletoad, in a vain attempt to get 29 more chances at life.

This is our blessing, and also our curse. As for the Geekini, it's only a conceptual design by French aritst John Nouanesing and may never end up in stores. The bigger problem of course would be finding a girl willing to wear it, especially considering where the "start" button is located (see below). Hit the select button for a two-player game.

Next steps in Nintendorotica: the vibrating Power Glove, the latex Power Pad, and the full-body Tanooki suit, for the furry crowd.

Waves of Mutilation

2008-08-21T00:10:00.007-04:00

WARNING: this post contains discussion of unpleasant body functions.

I've scarified any number of items or body parts to the sea over the years. A rough estimate says this includes at least 10 contact lenses, three necklaces, two rings, too many hair ties to count, unknown amounts of cash, in addition to varying levels of skin, hair and a lot, lot of blood. All these usually are related to surfing, or rather, the many years I spent being tossed into the air and raked across the sea floor up and down the east coast trying to become minimally proficient at surfing.

But something happened to me on the waves this morning that I've never had to deal with before: I threw up.

Tropical Storm Fay is stirring up an impressive amount of wave activity, particularly for the typically flat and joyless Hilton Head surf. So I got up early to catch the tide and joined the dozen or so others who ducked into the strong winds and jumped into the turbulent waters. About an hour in, I started feeling nauseous, so much so that I could barely lie with my stomach on the board without worrying about intestinal reverb. I tried to wait it out but decided to pathetically doggie paddle my board back to the shore, probably looking like a confused kook in the process. It was then that I retched, out of nowhere.

Luckily, this is one of the least embarrassing places I've ever performed the Freshman Flush (higher on that list are various bathrooms at workplaces; a Walgreens parking lot; the outside of a Chinese restaurant when I was 9; in front of our girls' team at the finish line in a cross country race in high school; about every 50 miles along I-95 between Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and Boston last fall [thank you, whiskey]; and, the all-time, still-can't-live-it-down, gold medal holder: the side of my mom's Chrysler Concorde at a toll plaza on the Garden State Parkway on the way back from Medieval Times on my 12th birthday).

The hurl this morning was masked by waves and ocean spray, and it wasn't much more than stomach juices, so I doubt anyone else noticed. The entire situation, however, was disconcerting. I hadn't felt sick earlier that morning. I had a few drinks the night before but was far from hungover. I put my board down next to the dunes, where I sat contemplating this situation for a long while while more surfers and tourists continued arriving at the beach. Possible scenarios:

1) Lack of food -- Dinner on Tuesday night consisted of two Yuenglings and several handfuls of Hsieh's white-cheddar-flavored popcorn at Tropic Thunder. This seemed adequate sustenance at the time. I did not go to bed hungry, at least.

2) Geography-related muscle atrophy -- Living on Hilton Head has surely made me soft. In a place like Jersey or even Maryland, where the waves break with somewhat more consistency and the ocean has more than a 20-inch depth, you actually have to paddle your way through the breakers to reach the lineup -- a process that everyone I've tried to show how to surf has agreed is by far the most difficult and frustrating part. I reference the normally docile Matt Remsberg, lying defeated wearing his new rash guard and clutching onto a 9-foot sponge board like a lost sailor in Santa Monica in 2002, informing the ocean at the top of his lungs that it could go fuck itself as it continued to mockingly push him closer back towards the shore every minute. In Hilton Head, it's rare there's even any outside waves to find your way to. Even if there were, the water is usually so shallow you would look ridiculous paddling your way out, with your head level to some Ohio tourist's ankles.
Facing an actual strong current and steady sets required calling upon muscles that have not been used in some time, and this exertion, combined with aforementioned lack of even a sampling of the 1,200-calorie Michael Phelps diet, may have caused the stomach to erupt in sudden revolt.

3) Horrible, ghastly, job-related depression -- You know that scene in Titanic where the ship's sinking fast and the only ones left on board are the band? I'm pretty sure I'm that band's roadie at this point. In the span of one week, we found out McClatchy was freezing wages for a year, that more job cuts are expected and that three (EDIT: Now four, as of Thursday) key staff members at our sister paper The Beaufort Gazette including the executive editor, are quitting, likely not to be replaced. The lower-level staff resignations have been coming hot and fast since then, creating more positions that probably won't get filled. To recap: the strategy to save newspapers and make them profitable again is to hire fewer people, offer them less money and give them fewer resources and less space to work with. This is similar to the Milwaukee Brewers' strategy to win more games this year by only using seven players, giving them whiffle ball bats to play with and making them sell hot dogs in the stands in between innings.

I, too, am debating quitting and making the next few months until my lease runs out more profitable by waiting tables, cleaning toilets, catching alligators or selling fake diplomas via e-mail. Surely this nest of ill-tidings could easily manifest itself in unpleasant gastro-intestinal ways.

4) The forest for the trees -- I've been experiencing unhealthy mental necrophilia in the past few weeks about the breakup with Andy, particularly after spending a weekend at home amid the forest of childhood friends turned into husbands, wives, parents, PTA members and broad-smiling, contented adults, when all I can do is stare up and wonder how the tree canopy grows so fast. Then I keep poking and prodding at fresh scabs and wondering if I'll ever be lonely enough to look back and classify this as the foundations of a towering pile of regret.

I sat on the board for a little while longer before finally deciding it was probably the second scenario that caused the unexpected upchuck. It was nearing 10:30, about half an hour before the tide turned and the waves would start to dissipate. I strapped my leash back on my leg and marched into the churning ocean. A slight nausea returned when I pressed my stomach to the board, and my biceps were screaming for relief with much paddling left to do before getting to the line up. But I was not leaving without the satisfaction of sliding down at least one decent wave, to feel that ocean rhythm and it's overpowering force rise up and propel the board on its own course, completely indifferent to all the throw-up, contact lenses and blood it claimed from me over the years.

Walt Disney's Sin City

2008-08-19T16:15:00.004-04:00

Something about this feels so horribly wrong. And yet, another, bustier, more sensual part feels oh-so-right. I always found Ariel kinda hot. Is that weird? Not weird because she's a cartoon, but because she's half fish. That's also kinda hot in its own way too. I am clearly not Disney's target demographic.

Images via notafishinglure, by artist Curt Rapala.

Related: Remember all those hidden Disney sex messages that would cause you to wear out the VCR while trying to convince your friends they were real? That was fun. VCRs, I mean, not the sex thing. What a crazy technology that was. Maybe there's a VCR plant hiring somewhere. It's got to be a more promising career than newspapers.

JAWSOME MEMO

2008-08-18T10:57:00.003-04:00

Nothing like coming back from a weekend away to find the latest in our company's ongoing series of Memos From the Funtime Happiness Police. I've edited out the corporate doublespeak and treacle below.

DATE: August 14, 2008
TO: All Employees
FROM: (Publisher)
SUBJECT: Wage Freeze

economic downturn ... unprecedented negative effect on revenues ... our financial health. ... control expenses.

... implementing an across-the-board, one-year wage freeze effective Sept. 1, 2008

... avoided taking this step as long as possible .... stress on your personal expenses ... you are working hard to adapt to our changing business model. ... we hope we can continue to count on you ... difficult period. ... confident ... cost control measures ... financially healthy company in the future.

Translation: Hooray newspapers!

We got a shipment of new reporters notebooks today and they came with a few free black notebook holders. The boss said they sent us these to try to entice us to buy more of them. Michael Shapiro said, "But this will come in handy when I start working in a restaurant at nights."

The boss looked at him and said, "Well, yeah, it would."

Yeah indeed.