There is a type of person you know and dislike. Similar to a snob, but not snobby in the traditional sense of Lexus or Rolex's. The type of person who has chosen one particular aspect of life and become an expert; most often either in fine food, movies, or music. Whatever you want to call these braggarts, they exist and labor tirelessly to spoil your enjoyment.
Perhaps one overhears you casually mention your favorite food is curry, and swiftly rushes in to inform you about their semester abroad in Mumbai, and that you've never had real curry, just an American bastardation of the dish.
Maybe you tell one of these folks that you really liked Dogma, only to be informed that Kevin Smith movies are derivative of the German Impressionist films of the early seventies, overly reliant on ambrosial dialogue between underdeveloped characters and lacking in plot.
God forbid you happen to enjoy the same music as one of these folks, let's say the band Rancid. They'll look troubled for a second, but quickly regain their composure, cast you off as a parvenu, and let you know that yes, they do like Rancid, but they only like their old stuff.
Yep, these folks are out there, and it's not just you, everyone hates them. At least I hate them, or hated them, before I joined goodreads.com and realized I was ONE OF THEM. No, I may not wax philosophical about carpaccio or dismiss post-1983 Dead shows as nothing but Santa Claus on heroin, but apparently when it comes to books I'm just as bad. Only, before goodreads.com, I had no medium for my obnoxious inclinations.
(Sure, there was that one time in college I cursed a girl out for mixing up Tom Wolfe with Thomas Wolfe, but I chalk that up to drunkeness rather than literary snobitude. Like the time I mistook a homeless man for Method Man and challenged him to a freestyle rap contest, the T. Wolfe incident resides on a long list titled "things that never could have happened without the game Power Hour.")
If you're unfamiliar with the website (www.goodreads.com), more or less you just create a giant list of your favorite books and rate them on a five-point scale, leaving a brief comment if you're so inclined. There's a social aspect to the site as well, as you compile a list of friends, although I suspect the site is geared more towards revealing the literary tastes of your current friends than fostering new friendships based on shared taste. I established my goodreads friends by letting the site sift through my gmail contacts for potential members, mostly coworkers from a job I left a year ago in order to come back to school.
The next step, for me anyway, was indignation. Comparing these friends ratings with my own, my first thought was "jesus, this site is letting people play tennis without a net." Carlos gave 5 stars to Angels and Demons but slammed Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being with 3. Samantha loved Confessions of a Shopaholic but finds Cormac McCarthy "too boring". It wasn't just the obvious ones that got me, but even lesser offenses, like Brent awarding 5 stars to The Catcher in the Rye but only 4 to Franny and Zooey.
As I read on, my blood pressure skyrocketed and I found myself having horribe thoughts about these people. I caught myself composing hostile emails in my head, suggesting that the makers of goodreads add an SAT score to user's profile or require everyone who rates Don Delillo to have at least an M.A.
I don't want to have thoughts like these. In the world outside literature, I like and respect these folks for their wit and competence. And of course I hate the snobs and faux-savants who ruin my meal or movie, so why should books be any different?
For me, books are important, something to be taken seriously. My pie in the sky dream is to publish a novel of great importance, the kind of book a lonely but literate 14 year-old reads and thinks "wow, I'm not the only sentient being on this planet." So when an author attempts a work like this and succeeds, I respect the hell out of them. Conversely, when some blowhard writes a bestseller about sexy vampires, I curse them for using up the paper that might have held the next Look Homeward, Angel.
Still, there's not accounting for taste, and it's the asshole who keeps people from enjoying things they really like. I don't want some creep with a culinary school diploma behind me snickering everytime I order at a restaurant, and I'm sure my friends don't need me blasting every opinion they have about a book. (Hell, at least they're reading.) I've thought it over, and I'm deleting my account.
Good reads? I say, good riddance.
lunes, 8 de junio de 2009
jueves, 4 de junio de 2009
The Worst Party Ever
The worst party ever was a fraternity party, with a "Dukes of Hazard" theme. Though I never watched the show, I was a marginal member of the fraternity and decided to attend. Parked in front of the house was an orange 1960 something Dodge Charger with a rebel flag painted on the roof. Bails of hay were strewn about for decoration. Inside the house, a local band earned their $300 covering the likes of Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Alabama, The Marshall Tucker Band, etc.
I dressed like Boss Hog, in a cheap oversized white suit from Goodwill. It wasn't a good look for me. The costume looked more like a cross between a hobo and a waiter at a fancy restaurant than anything from the TV show.
I considered myself a "marginal" member of the fraternity because it was April, and almost graduation time. By this point my collegiate concerns centered on dwindling job prospects and an intense fear of moving back with my parents. I'd reread the "Bell Jar" over Christmas Break and thought total psychological disentegration was a very real possibility if I didn't have an income and apartment come May 1st.
My point being, I stayed away from the keggers for the most part, except that every couple of weeks the pressure got to me and I'd head over for a rager. The Dukes party felt like one of those nights. Hobo-waiter Boss Hog was going to get tabernacled.
In terms of party-layout, there was a great hall on the first floor where the band was playing. Also on the first floor was a kitchen with a liquor bar manned by pledges. The second and third floors consisted of bedrooms, in a party sense these were mainly used for casual sex and the discrete ingestion of hard drugs. I went to the bar for a jack and coke, regarded the freshmen writhing to some Hank Jr. song in the great hall, and decided to head upstairs.
I found some friends passing around a j-bird by the stairwell on the third floor. This party is going to be alright, I thought to myself. I took a couple tugs off the spliff and asked my friend Travis how his job prospects were coming along. T-bone was a business major and destined to do a lot better on the outside than me. I doubt he'd read the Bell Jar.
Before he could answer I wave of nausea washed over me, and I was forced to grab the rail of the stairwell for support.
"You ok, Moe?" Travis asked. "It's a little early for the spins."
I wasn't ok. I ran into one of the bathrooms. I puked my guts out. After washing my face, I looked inside my plastic cup. It was about half-empty. Two tugs off a joint and half a jack and coke. Travis was right, it was too early for the spins. As would soon become clear, something was terribly wrong with me.
By the time I left the bathroom, my friends had dispersed from the stairwell. I attempted to rejoin the party, but only made down one flight of stairs before I had to run into the second-floor bathroom and puke again. A bunch of dudes wearing overalls pointed and laughed at me puking.
"Rookie!" They yelled. "It's only 9:30."
I didn't know what to do. I could hardly stand without getting terribly dizzy. Remembering that my friend Brad was out of town, I crawled back up to the third floor and holed up in his bedroom. I could hear the party thumping under me as I filled his trashcan with vomit.
After about 30 minutes of this, Travis knocked on the door. He'd been looking for me. T-bone asked if I'd had any of the cookies the Ladies of Omega-Moo had dropped off the week before.
"Those fat bitches left us some cookies and an invitation to some pancake dinner," he said. "Ben ate some and got sick as shit. Food poisoning. He had to go the hospital, and the nurses put some rod up his asshole."
I couldn't recall if I'd eaten a cookie, but I remembered Ben's story. I couldn't stop thinking about having some medical instrument rammed up my anus.
"Need me to take you to the hospital Moe?"
"No, thanks."
(A few weeks later we learned that I didn't have food poisoning, and we'd carelessly blamed the ladies of Omega-Mu for nothing. Some kind of vicious norovirus was tearing through campus. Worse, in my opinion, than any swine flu or chicken cold reported by some worry-wart newscaster.)
Brad saved my life that night, as I managed to find a case of some of knock-off sports drink in his room (not Gatorade or it's bastard cousin Powerade, but some other shit, Squencher maybe). While the party went on below me, I drank bottle after bottle of sports drink, puked it up, then rinsed and repeated.
A couple times I got the undeniable feeling that the demons were trying to escape through the other end, and sprinted to the bathroom to piss out of my butt. The runs drippin'. On the fraternity's third floor were two bathrooms: a single serving toilet and sink; and a big, multi-stall affair with showers and mirrors. The first two times with the runs I got lucky and found the single unnoccupied.
The third time I was not so blessed. There'd been girls voices outside the door and, even though I really had to go, I held out as long as humanly possible waiting for them to leave. When they finally did, I sprinted to the single but it was lock. My butt cheeks were clenched and giving way every second. I ran back around the hall into the big bathroom, where I found the three girls adjusting make-up in the mirror and gossiping. I knew one of them, not well, but well enough to be embarrassed.
In that big bathroom there were three toilet stalls. Only one, the farthest from the sinks, had a door. Occupied. With no choice, about to soil my white, Boss Hog suit pants, I ran into one of the doorless stalls, dropped drawers and blew ass. The girls stared at me with a combination of horror and mirth. Before too long, I got dizzy and had to flip around and vomit into the shitty toilet. This dance continued for another 5-10 minutes until it was all out. Thankfully, by this point the ladies had left.
I stayed in that room all night, vomiting. I stunk the place up. Nonetheless, at one point an innebriated couple crashed through the door and flopped onto the bed. The room smelled worse than a hog farm on a warm, windless day. I yelled at them to leave. The dude, who was trying to unhook the girls bra over her shirt, gave me a hand signal like "hang on bro." I stood up to physically remove them, got dizzy and passed out on the floor. When I came to they were gone. I sincerely hope they both contracted my norovirus, and maybe an STD to boot.
Around six in the morning, I stopped feeling nauseated and decided to make a run for it. I felt as though someone had turned me inside out, used me as a punching bag, and then turned me right side in again. Hobbling out the door, I passed a couple younger fraternity members sitting on the front bench and polishing off the last of the keg.
"Party of the year, Moses", they called out. "Party of the year."
Party of the year, indeed. I was ready to graduate.
I dressed like Boss Hog, in a cheap oversized white suit from Goodwill. It wasn't a good look for me. The costume looked more like a cross between a hobo and a waiter at a fancy restaurant than anything from the TV show.
I considered myself a "marginal" member of the fraternity because it was April, and almost graduation time. By this point my collegiate concerns centered on dwindling job prospects and an intense fear of moving back with my parents. I'd reread the "Bell Jar" over Christmas Break and thought total psychological disentegration was a very real possibility if I didn't have an income and apartment come May 1st.
My point being, I stayed away from the keggers for the most part, except that every couple of weeks the pressure got to me and I'd head over for a rager. The Dukes party felt like one of those nights. Hobo-waiter Boss Hog was going to get tabernacled.
In terms of party-layout, there was a great hall on the first floor where the band was playing. Also on the first floor was a kitchen with a liquor bar manned by pledges. The second and third floors consisted of bedrooms, in a party sense these were mainly used for casual sex and the discrete ingestion of hard drugs. I went to the bar for a jack and coke, regarded the freshmen writhing to some Hank Jr. song in the great hall, and decided to head upstairs.
I found some friends passing around a j-bird by the stairwell on the third floor. This party is going to be alright, I thought to myself. I took a couple tugs off the spliff and asked my friend Travis how his job prospects were coming along. T-bone was a business major and destined to do a lot better on the outside than me. I doubt he'd read the Bell Jar.
Before he could answer I wave of nausea washed over me, and I was forced to grab the rail of the stairwell for support.
"You ok, Moe?" Travis asked. "It's a little early for the spins."
I wasn't ok. I ran into one of the bathrooms. I puked my guts out. After washing my face, I looked inside my plastic cup. It was about half-empty. Two tugs off a joint and half a jack and coke. Travis was right, it was too early for the spins. As would soon become clear, something was terribly wrong with me.
By the time I left the bathroom, my friends had dispersed from the stairwell. I attempted to rejoin the party, but only made down one flight of stairs before I had to run into the second-floor bathroom and puke again. A bunch of dudes wearing overalls pointed and laughed at me puking.
"Rookie!" They yelled. "It's only 9:30."
I didn't know what to do. I could hardly stand without getting terribly dizzy. Remembering that my friend Brad was out of town, I crawled back up to the third floor and holed up in his bedroom. I could hear the party thumping under me as I filled his trashcan with vomit.
After about 30 minutes of this, Travis knocked on the door. He'd been looking for me. T-bone asked if I'd had any of the cookies the Ladies of Omega-Moo had dropped off the week before.
"Those fat bitches left us some cookies and an invitation to some pancake dinner," he said. "Ben ate some and got sick as shit. Food poisoning. He had to go the hospital, and the nurses put some rod up his asshole."
I couldn't recall if I'd eaten a cookie, but I remembered Ben's story. I couldn't stop thinking about having some medical instrument rammed up my anus.
"Need me to take you to the hospital Moe?"
"No, thanks."
(A few weeks later we learned that I didn't have food poisoning, and we'd carelessly blamed the ladies of Omega-Mu for nothing. Some kind of vicious norovirus was tearing through campus. Worse, in my opinion, than any swine flu or chicken cold reported by some worry-wart newscaster.)
Brad saved my life that night, as I managed to find a case of some of knock-off sports drink in his room (not Gatorade or it's bastard cousin Powerade, but some other shit, Squencher maybe). While the party went on below me, I drank bottle after bottle of sports drink, puked it up, then rinsed and repeated.
A couple times I got the undeniable feeling that the demons were trying to escape through the other end, and sprinted to the bathroom to piss out of my butt. The runs drippin'. On the fraternity's third floor were two bathrooms: a single serving toilet and sink; and a big, multi-stall affair with showers and mirrors. The first two times with the runs I got lucky and found the single unnoccupied.
The third time I was not so blessed. There'd been girls voices outside the door and, even though I really had to go, I held out as long as humanly possible waiting for them to leave. When they finally did, I sprinted to the single but it was lock. My butt cheeks were clenched and giving way every second. I ran back around the hall into the big bathroom, where I found the three girls adjusting make-up in the mirror and gossiping. I knew one of them, not well, but well enough to be embarrassed.
In that big bathroom there were three toilet stalls. Only one, the farthest from the sinks, had a door. Occupied. With no choice, about to soil my white, Boss Hog suit pants, I ran into one of the doorless stalls, dropped drawers and blew ass. The girls stared at me with a combination of horror and mirth. Before too long, I got dizzy and had to flip around and vomit into the shitty toilet. This dance continued for another 5-10 minutes until it was all out. Thankfully, by this point the ladies had left.
I stayed in that room all night, vomiting. I stunk the place up. Nonetheless, at one point an innebriated couple crashed through the door and flopped onto the bed. The room smelled worse than a hog farm on a warm, windless day. I yelled at them to leave. The dude, who was trying to unhook the girls bra over her shirt, gave me a hand signal like "hang on bro." I stood up to physically remove them, got dizzy and passed out on the floor. When I came to they were gone. I sincerely hope they both contracted my norovirus, and maybe an STD to boot.
Around six in the morning, I stopped feeling nauseated and decided to make a run for it. I felt as though someone had turned me inside out, used me as a punching bag, and then turned me right side in again. Hobbling out the door, I passed a couple younger fraternity members sitting on the front bench and polishing off the last of the keg.
"Party of the year, Moses", they called out. "Party of the year."
Party of the year, indeed. I was ready to graduate.
miércoles, 3 de junio de 2009
Give Michael Vick His Job BacK
Next month, upon his release from federal prison, the suits at the NFL will have to decide whether Michael Vick should be allowed to play professional football again. I say, give the man his job back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not apologizing or downplaying what he did. I love dogs, even when they keep you up all night with their scratching or smell like a clam bake, and abhor those who would treat them inhumanely. Nor am I particularly a Vick fan. In general, I prefer college football and ignore the NFL unless the Dolphins are playing.
My argument for reinstating Vick has little to do with dogs or football. I want to give Michael Vick a chance because he's not the only one being released from prison this year. Vick is in a graduating class of almost half a million, and all these folks deserve a shot at a succesful life on the outside.
Among this huge graduating class, I would guess that Vick's experience is representative for approximately zero of them. Few are wealthy, famous, or skilled in such a lucrative field. Many have been raped, mistreated, or contracted life-threatening illness while in jail. Statistically speaking, over two thirds of them will be back in prison before the next presidential election. Of course, most have had their voting rights revoked anyway.
Somewhere along the way in this American experiment, we stopped caring that people had payed their debt to society in prison. In our current mindset, someone charged once with a crime is guilty for life. And these kinds of beliefs have an insidious way of manifesting themselves. They are self-fulfilling prophecies. We fail to give those released from prison a chance, and they fail to prove us wrong.
These folks know what we think about them. They hear it every time they try to get a job or an apartment, only to rebuked upon the results of a background check. With few allies and fewer options, most make the pathetic choice to reoffend.
I know many will disagree with my argument to let Vick play again. They'll say that playing in the NFL is a privelege, and that he's no longer worthy. Well, it may be a privelege, but so are many jobs. These days,it's a privege to just have a job. And playing football is Vick's job. Hell, it's what he studied in college.
So I say it's your lucky day, Michael Vick. Lets make an example of you just one more time. Not for the kids, or the Virginia rednecks raising fighting dogs, but for the graduating prison class of 2009. Lets let these folks know that they still have a chance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not apologizing or downplaying what he did. I love dogs, even when they keep you up all night with their scratching or smell like a clam bake, and abhor those who would treat them inhumanely. Nor am I particularly a Vick fan. In general, I prefer college football and ignore the NFL unless the Dolphins are playing.
My argument for reinstating Vick has little to do with dogs or football. I want to give Michael Vick a chance because he's not the only one being released from prison this year. Vick is in a graduating class of almost half a million, and all these folks deserve a shot at a succesful life on the outside.
Among this huge graduating class, I would guess that Vick's experience is representative for approximately zero of them. Few are wealthy, famous, or skilled in such a lucrative field. Many have been raped, mistreated, or contracted life-threatening illness while in jail. Statistically speaking, over two thirds of them will be back in prison before the next presidential election. Of course, most have had their voting rights revoked anyway.
Somewhere along the way in this American experiment, we stopped caring that people had payed their debt to society in prison. In our current mindset, someone charged once with a crime is guilty for life. And these kinds of beliefs have an insidious way of manifesting themselves. They are self-fulfilling prophecies. We fail to give those released from prison a chance, and they fail to prove us wrong.
These folks know what we think about them. They hear it every time they try to get a job or an apartment, only to rebuked upon the results of a background check. With few allies and fewer options, most make the pathetic choice to reoffend.
I know many will disagree with my argument to let Vick play again. They'll say that playing in the NFL is a privelege, and that he's no longer worthy. Well, it may be a privelege, but so are many jobs. These days,it's a privege to just have a job. And playing football is Vick's job. Hell, it's what he studied in college.
So I say it's your lucky day, Michael Vick. Lets make an example of you just one more time. Not for the kids, or the Virginia rednecks raising fighting dogs, but for the graduating prison class of 2009. Lets let these folks know that they still have a chance.
lunes, 1 de junio de 2009
Latisse Eyelash Medicine & Everything Wrong About America
The FDA has approved the new eyelash enhancing drug Latisse, by Allergan, makers of that life saving wonderdrug Botox. Last night, I saw a commercial for the stuff. Side effects include redness, eye irritation, discomfort, blurred vision, blindness, and thicker, fuller eyelashes. Oh wait, that last one is the intended effect.
I hate to say it, but every so often I see a product like this and think: this is why terrorists hate us. Can you blame them? While Americans are taking to the street donning colonial garb to protest tax hikes to pay for universal health coverage, we're throwing our lettuce down and risking permanent darkness for longer lashes. Are these even desirable? Granted, I'm not a woman, but as a man I must note that I've never sat around with the guys and talked about how hot Cindy's eyelashes looked last night.
Also, I hate to beat a dead horse, but the next thought that came to mind (after the "Jesus I hope Al-Queda doesn't see this commercial" reaction) was why this country allows people to risk their organs to look like Brooke Shields but arrests marijuana smokers, even those using the herb medicinally. If pot is illegal, then Latisse should be illegal.
Oh and these things should be prohibited too:
(Disclaimer, I don't actually think all these things should be illegal, just that they are more harmful than marijuana.)
-Cosmetic Surgery, unless you are horribly disfigured. Poor Kanye lost his mama.
-Alcohol: 75,000 deaths per year.
-Kobe Bryant: Cockier than Ron Jeremy.
-Tobacco: Only beneficial use is as a laxative.
-Dane Cook. Seriously, yelling something doesn't make it a joke. This asshole has a whole comedy routine about Burger King.
-Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bells: For once in your life, make a damn decision! Do you want tacos or pizza for dinner? I loved the Das Racist song though.
-SUV'S: Bad for the environment, and being driven by people who like Dane Cook. If you get into an accident with an SUV, chances of injury increase dramatically, unless of course you're also driving an SUV.
-Those Ed Hardy T-Shirts: Tramp stamps for men.
-Harry Potter: Godless witchcraft and sorcery.
-Gossip Girl: Godless bitchcraft.
-Cold Cuts: Cold and slimey.
I hate to say it, but every so often I see a product like this and think: this is why terrorists hate us. Can you blame them? While Americans are taking to the street donning colonial garb to protest tax hikes to pay for universal health coverage, we're throwing our lettuce down and risking permanent darkness for longer lashes. Are these even desirable? Granted, I'm not a woman, but as a man I must note that I've never sat around with the guys and talked about how hot Cindy's eyelashes looked last night.
Also, I hate to beat a dead horse, but the next thought that came to mind (after the "Jesus I hope Al-Queda doesn't see this commercial" reaction) was why this country allows people to risk their organs to look like Brooke Shields but arrests marijuana smokers, even those using the herb medicinally. If pot is illegal, then Latisse should be illegal.
Oh and these things should be prohibited too:
(Disclaimer, I don't actually think all these things should be illegal, just that they are more harmful than marijuana.)
-Cosmetic Surgery, unless you are horribly disfigured. Poor Kanye lost his mama.
-Alcohol: 75,000 deaths per year.
-Kobe Bryant: Cockier than Ron Jeremy.
-Tobacco: Only beneficial use is as a laxative.
-Dane Cook. Seriously, yelling something doesn't make it a joke. This asshole has a whole comedy routine about Burger King.
-Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bells: For once in your life, make a damn decision! Do you want tacos or pizza for dinner? I loved the Das Racist song though.
-SUV'S: Bad for the environment, and being driven by people who like Dane Cook. If you get into an accident with an SUV, chances of injury increase dramatically, unless of course you're also driving an SUV.
-Those Ed Hardy T-Shirts: Tramp stamps for men.
-Harry Potter: Godless witchcraft and sorcery.
-Gossip Girl: Godless bitchcraft.
-Cold Cuts: Cold and slimey.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)
