I don't know you, but add me on Facebook

Hey, Mind If I Add You On Facebook?

Hey there! You know my friend Will? I can't believe we're both at this party and we both know Will!

Where'd he go? I'm not sure, I think he said he was grabbing a beer. You know Will, one minute you come up to him and start complaining about your job and ask him "where the poon at?" and the next he's awkwardly introducing you to an acquaintance and quietly slipping away in the pursuit of more alcohol.

But never mind him! Tell me a little bit about yourself! At least enough so that I can remember the barest fact about you and immediately add you to Facebook, thereby increasing my friend count and giving me a false sense of popularity.

What you think adding a complete stranger is weird? I hardly think so; I mean, I have 870 Facebook friends who can vouch for how awesome I am. Sure, I've only met 820 of them once, but they definitely got a sense of who I am...at least enough of a sense to click "accept" when the friend request fell into their inbox.

Why are you looking around the party when I'm talking to you? Are you trying to find another cool friend to introduce me to? Maybe I can add them too!

OK, that's cool...you're pulling out your Blackberry while I'm telling you about my top 10 albums of the 2000s. That's fine, just look down at the tiny screen in the palm of your hand:

You're just where I want you.

Remember how I casually asked your last name when we first met? Well, it's gettin' formal up in here now bitch because I can spend this uncomfortable beat adding you on Facebook.

It's the 21st century and if I know your first and last names...we're friends.

OK, watch this, I'm pulling out my iPhone and opening up the Facebook app and looking you up. Even as you're walking away from me because our conversation died a painful, awkward death when I made that joke about Asians and "shitty wok"...I know that we'll be virtual friends forever.

Yes, we will soon be online friends because no one except celebrities ever turn down friend requests. Believe me, I've tried! I'm still waiting for Chris Daughtry to be my friend. What's his deal?

Oh well, there's always Twitter for people who want another layer of privacy when they reveal their innermost private thoughts for all to see.

Anyway, nice to meet you and we'll definitely be friends forever even though I've only met you once for about a minute and a half and I will most certainly never see your bored, almost disgusted face again.

Get ready for a lifetime of "thumbs up" to statuses you really wish only your closest friends could read. Prepare yourself for annoying invitations to join my Farmville community and empty, meaningless birthday wishes like "happy birthday bro". Do I even know how old you are? Please! I don't even know what decade you were born in.

Isn't technology wonderful?

All Christmas Songs Were Written By Jews (sort of)

In other news, judging by my "approve comment" queue, Yahoo! seems to be link-spamming now...either that, or people just really excited about Yahoo decided to post comments like "hey, do you know of any good websites? the only one I know is Yahoo!"

Either way, it appears I have nothing better to talk about than whether or not Yahoo! is link spamming. I can only hope your life is as exciting, varied and just plain spectacular as mine, because if not, you're probably even closer to the dark specter of suicide than me.

Kudos to you, suicidal reader!

Anyway, I'm a Jew during Christ-week, so of course all thoughts lead to despair, self harm, and hours upon hours of ordering take-away Chinese food and watching "Seinfeld" reruns. You can NEVER see those enough times.

The only dim glimmer of hope that I have is the knowledge that you, kind Christian reader, are singing songs during yuletide written by yid tools! That's almost a pun, but instead of being a pun, is more like literary vomit. Actually I wouldn't really use the word literary, more "chunky, off-green colored", but you get my gist.

Anyway, it's true, kind sir or madam...we wrote some of your most beloved Christmas songs. This little tidbit of knowledge will probably cause you to:

1) Ban the use of said songs because "that there the Devil's music written by them Jew-types"
2) Sing songs louder to underscore bitter irony of the Jews jubilant embrace of Christmas: our culture is slowly dying do to mixed marriages and gentrification, therefore we have become a willing cog in the very system that has been trying to kill us for 2000 years.
3) Not actually care because they're just stupid holiday songs.

Either way, I'm sleepin' with one eye open tonight!

Here are a list of Christmas songs written/co-written by Jews:

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) - Writers Mel Torme and Bob Wells...Jewish!
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Holly Jolly Christmas and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Johnny Marks was a Jew who specialized in Christmas songs:
Do They Know It's Christmas? (Feed the World) - Bob Geldof 1/4th Jewish...maybe a bit of a stretch, but he does look Jew...ish.
Santa Baby - written by Fred Ebb and Joan Javits (both Jews, Javits of the famous family)
I'll Be Home for Christmas - Walter Kent, who wrote the music and Kim Gannon, who co-wrote the lyrics...JEW!
Silver Bells - Jay Livingston and Ran Evans...you guessed it...
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - George Wylie (not his birth name) is also famous for writing the Gilligan's Island Theme Song
Sleigh Ride - Mitchell Parish who wrote the lyrics, was Jewish and born "Michael Hyman Pashelinsky" obviously.
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - lyricist Sammy Cahn and music composer Jule Styne teh wuz Jewish.
There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays - Al Stillman, the lyricist...
White Christmas - Irving Berlin wrote this one...or should I call him by his birth name Israel Isidore Baline? Nah, that just sounds silly.

Here are a few neat articles that talk more in depth about this:

New York Times - "Whose Christmas Is It?"
Los Angeles Times - "Bob Dylan joins long list of Jewish musicians performing Christmas music"

Strangely enough, Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song" was written by the Alabama chapter head of the Aryan Nation.

Amazing Photograph

Since this blog is called "a picture of a photograph", I thought it only apt to include this particular picture of a photograph.

More about its background after you look at it. For right now, just make sure to click on the thumbnail and look at the picture full size...


When do you think this picture was taken?

Well, you're wrong because it was around 1905. The photo was taken by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, an early pioneer in color photography. His work is really worth checking out; vibrant, classical and just a tad (unintentionally, of course) psychedelic.

So go check it out...I'll still be here.

Flat Tire In Barstow

Today, my tire burst.

Just an average problem for a normal person, but for me it becomes a herculean nightmare of Beckettian despair.

I go to work at Zappos in Las Vegas (Henderson, but who's counting) about once a month, and usually I fly. This time I said to myself "you know what would be nice...aside from the usual gentle sobbing? Driving to Las Vegas...while gently sobbing."

So there I was, Power Bar and bag of corn nuts in hand(s). Driving joyfully down the I-15 blasting Bob Marley...then I heard a WHIZZZ...BLOP...RUDDER, RUDDER, RUDDER. I also think I heard my tire say "fuck you, Jew", but that could just be the voices in my head.

In any case, I stop, get out and notice 1/2 my rear driver's side tire about ten feet from my car. Then I look around and realize I am 30 minutes from the nearest town going back towards LA and about an hour from the nearest town going towards Vegas.

To understand the I-15, you must also understand that 95% of the exits lead to one road that takes you straight to the I-15 going in the opposite direction. There is nothing remotely building-like within eyeshot, and at night there is no eyeshot.

Literally, it's darker than a particularly dark cavern painted black. When I got out of the car, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and it was only for the grace of the headlights of a passing motorist zooming by that I could even make out the fact that I had a flat tire in the first place.

I'm a native New Yorker and didn't have a license until I was 21. I didn't drive on a daily basis until I was 25...and at the most, "drive" means about 25 miles a week. In other words, I've never changed a tire.

And even if I could...I couldn't. My flashlight was out of batteries and there was no possibility of even seeing in the trunk to figure out where the spare might be (or if I even had one).

At this point, I started imagining that my sexy body would lure a crazed loner on a trip to Vegas to rape and murder, to decide to begin his vacation early.

Alone, alluring and frightened, I called up AAA and gave them my brother's account number (for I do not have AAA because I am an arse). They asked me if my brother was there with me. I told them no. They said "hey, sorry! we can't help you".

I begged them to help a brother out...they "allowed" me to sign up for a membership...and then asked me where I was. Needless to say, I didn't know where I was, specifically or generally. I had no idea if I was in California or Nevada. They couldn't help me.

That's when the SCARY LIGHTS pulled up. Looking in my rear view, I saw a giant car with bright lights came barreling towards me. My anus clenched and I begged the operator to stay on the line because "I am insane and paranoid".

The lights, obviously, were mounted on the front of a Highway Patrolman's car. Yay! I asked him what state we were in. "California!" YES!

The AAA operator said "what town?"...I gave her my nearest exit, but she needed to know the town. I asked the Patrolman, who said "we're in the desert. There's no town for miles!". He told me the name of the nearest town (Barstow), which was 30 minutes away.

The operator said "someone will be there in 45 minutes to an hour. The cop left and said "stay in your car and buckle your belt"...which I did for well over an hour, shivering and nervously overheating at the same time. I believe that's how Michael Jackson died.

Finally, the tow truck came and said that I could drive to Vegas on my mini doughnut, but if it blew out (my ten year old doughnut + Manson Luck = Yes), I'd be left in an even worse mess. He called up the only repair shop in 50 miles and asked if they had my tire. "Yes!" they proudly exclaimed.

So we drove 30 minutes to the repair shop, who promptly told us "No!" they didn't have my tire: But they could get it tomorrow and there is a perfectly spermy cheap motel next door. Oh, but don't worry, the new tire will only be $200!

Thank goodness for great deals.

So I checked in to my cheap motel and promptly spilled some water on my bedsheets and noticed that no "wet mark" was left. This poses the question: "am I sleeping on a giant potpourri of vaginal juices, sperm and tears?"

The answer is at least 1/3 true, as I'm lying in the bed tonight, gently sobbing.

As an addendum, I bring you my Facebook status exactly 5 hours before the tow truck came:

working in las vegas for a few days this week. decided to drive there for fun...might be regretting that in 5 hours...

I've always been quite the grim portent of things to come...well, at least if you expect the worst, you aren't surprised when the worst happens.

So six hours in the motel reading Wikipedia articles on Genetics (DNA tests for ancestry purposes seem like a waste of money) and Judaism (my grandmother's maiden name Meyerson means "from Meir" who would have guessed it?)...and I have to finish my drive in 5 hours.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to wrap myself in filthy sex blankets. Brings me right back to the halcyon days of yore and my time at other cheap motels...

What is change?

So, it's the end of the year again. It used to be "whoopie! it's the end of the year" and now it's "oh shit, how the fuck did that year fly by so quickly?".

It's a time for mediative reflection, or at least staring at your reflection in the bottom of a glass of whiskey meant to kill the pain.

Either way, I'd rather be drunk.

I'm not sure what has changed between the time I started this blog (at the ripe old age of 24) and now (at the "smells like a ripe banana" old age of almost 29)...but something has.

Looking back on a decade, you can't really tell much about a person. Obviously things change because things basically HAVE to change in ten years.

But half a decade can define someone. What have YOU done since 2005? When I first started this monstrosity, I was living in NY and moderately optimistic about life, the universe and everything...but that's probably because I knew the answer without actually knowing the question.

But 5 years later and things have changed.

I'm living in Los Angeles and very definitely pessimistic about life the universe and everything...but that's probably because I forgot the answer and kept repeating the same question over and over again: "if everyone in LA speaks loudly on their cell phones about how successful they are...then why are there so many unemployable layabouts who have nothing to contribute to society?" I guess that's one of those things that are unanswerable, like why can't science develop a toupee that doesn't look like a dead rat?

Also, why are people incapable of knowing the difference between there and their or your and you're. Is it really that spectacularly difficult? Is it dividing zero while curing cancer?

Apparently change is good, because there is some implication of growth...but I don't see it. change is literally just change and growth is something you find within yourself. You can get up and move out of town, but it's not where you are, it's who you are. We can have a new president, but if they country's still a vacuous shithole...the country's still a vacuous shithole.

So here we are, staring 2010 blank in the face; acknowledging that things will never be like they were before, yet we're still the same; no more privacy, no more secrecy, no more "sorry, I didn't get your message"...but the only difference is people now know we're lying about not getting the message; we're entering an era of absolute connection, absolute absoluteness...one might say the era of "hey, we never realized this, but everyone's actually a douchebag!".

I would say "no thanks", but someone smart would probably point out that I've already lost the argument by writing an entry in a blog (a medium, which ten years ago I shunned with extreme sarcasm and prejudice). I go kicking and screaming, but I always go.

You've changed, I've changed...the idea of "change" has changed. I say, sit back and enjoy the miserable, pointless ride...but just try and keep up, otherwise things can get really awkward in social situations.

Postscript: I've only written in my blog a handful of times in the past 3-4 months, so my blog writing skills have mostly likely rotted away. If you don't get the central thesis of this post, it might be because there is no central thesis.

Post-Postscript: Thesis - what have you done for yourself in the past 5 years? is it a "lot"? Well, what's that even mean? Things might have "changed", but growth is really the important indicator. Have you grown? You have to look deeply within yourself to find that answer. My thought is that people probably haven't grown too much, but we just know MORE about people and demand they share EVEN MORE. So sit back, and give in, because it's only gonna get worse.

My Great Grandfather's Murder

My great-grandfather (my dad's maternal grandfather) was murdered in 1935 by a 16 year old.

During a $9 robbery of his general store, he was hit over the head with a bowling pin by 16 year old James Sullivan, and promptly died. They were able to trace the pin back to the bowling alley where James worked, and he eventually confessed to the crime. Apparently, he was obsessed with John Dillinger...as his friends called him "Little John Dillinger".

The sentence was originally death, but my grandmother's family spoke on his behalf during sentencing, and it was commuted to life in prison. My grandmother Ethel passed away in 2008 (at the ripe old age of 98) and took all the first hand memories with her. No one quite knows what happened to James, so if you're related to him, or are him (aged 90ish)...it would be great to find out, so please leave a message below.

Anyway, here's an article I managed to dig up about James from the NY Post circa 1936. Figured it's worth posting here for posterity's sake.

EIGHT MINORS IN DEATH HOUSE AT SING-SING PRISON

SING SING PRISON, N. Y., Nov. 26—James Sullivan, seventeen-year-old schoolboy convicted of murdering a Brooklyn storekeeper in a $9 hold-up February 20, entered the death house at Sing Sing Prison Tuesday to await electrocution on January 7.

The arrival of young Sullivan brought the death-house population to twenty three. Nine of those scheduled to die have not yet reached twenty-one years of age. Never in the prison's history have so many minors awaited electrocution.

Shackled to Deputy Sheriff John Durant and accompanied by Deputy Sheriffs James Shortell and John J Gabay, Sullivan arrived hatless and without an overcoat, was neatly clad in a blue suit, black shoes and dark socks.

"The place seems so big and strange," he murmured as the deputy sheriffs led him to the warden's office for the customary examination. Responding to the question as to what led him to commit the crime, he said "I had, a craving for money."

Sullivan became convict No 62,-707 He is five months younger than Wenworth Springer, another seventeen-year-old death house inmate awaiting execution for a murder in New York. - Springer will precede Sullivan to the chair on January 7.

Sullivan was brought to Sing sing from the City Prison in Brooklyn where he has been lncarrcerated since last April. As he left the Brooklyn prison, a convict shouted: "Don't worry, kid. you won't burn."

A pailid, sandy-haired youth, Sullivan failed to see his mother as he passed through the gate and he seemed not to hear her cry: "my god, he's only a child".

Sullivan bashed a bowling pin on the skull of Herman Meyerson. forty-eight years old, when he entered Meyereon's store at 2881 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, last February and took $9 from the till. At school the boys had called him "Little Dillinger" because he read everything he could of John Dillinger, the late outlaw.

As a side note, one of Herman's sons became Lee Myles (of automotive fame) and was the star of a fairly amusing, possibly true, story I wrote in my blog last year.

Wasted Days...

Man, today is just one of those days.

You know what I'm talking about; the sun seems to set before it's even risen, your feet are about 30 degrees cooler than the rest of your body and your eyes are in a constant battle with your mind over what to actually stare at; nothing...or everything.

Booze just won't cut it today, as the problem isn't the usual "morbid self-loathing". Today the problem is apathy...the total absence of wanting.

Well, that's not true, because today makes you "want" to sleep for several hundred hours until your nickname becomes "Rip Van Jewkle" but that's not going to happen, no matter how many decorative beards you affix to your chin.

So the day will slowly pass and your brain will slowly drool out of your ear. Everything moves slowly today; especially entropy and apathy.

Hopefully tomorrow will come and wash the feeling of today away, but more likely you will be sitting at this desk tomorrow twiddling your thumbs and wondering if the next day will wash the feeling of today away.

But of course it wont, because the next day is Monday, which means you will be working and the only thing working does is give you something to do while you don't really have anything else to do.

Woot!

CSS VS The Rolling Stones

I have an Of Montreal station on my Pandora, which if you know the band, either plays me mind-bending modern psychedelic synth rock, or...crap.

Well, a few weeks ago a song came on named Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above by a Brazilian band named CSS ("Cansei de Ser Sexy", or literally "I got tired of being sexy"). I immediately took to it for reasons I usually take to modern songs...it reminded me of another, undefinable song.

Well, I finally figured out what that other song was...Too Much Blood by The Rolling Stones off their woefully underrated 1983 album "Undercover".

The beat, the guitar riff, the style of speak-singing and even the basic chorus are extremely similar ("let's make love and listen to death from above" vs "too much, too much, too much blood!"...you can even sing one over the other.)

In fact, you can even "couple up" these couplets

Rolling Stones:

I want to dance, I want to sing I want to bust up everything And make some love

CSS:

Fight me, deny me if I fear when you're close Let's make love and listen death from above

The Rolling Stones song is a little more arranged and contains a horn section, but really...they're pretty similar; musically, at least.

Now, this probably wasn't deliberate on the part of CSS, but it's one of those delicious musical continuities that I love discovering, even if it would be of little-to-no interest to the casual listener.

Anyway, here are both the songs...what do you think?



CSS - Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above



The Rolling Stones - Too Much Blood

You need to laugh

Hey you...

I see you, sitting bored at work.

Sitting in your chair, staring at a monitor that's staring back at you.

Wishing you were somewhere else, but not sure where that "else" is?

That's you, right?

Well, life is complicated and pretty much sucks. It's a mass of confusion, depression and indigestion, most of the time all three.

That's why you have to laugh.

Over intellectualizing a life that's about as unintellectual as can be is pretty morbidly depressing. Why bother?

Laughter gets you away...and where else is better than "away"?

This is why every few months it's good to sit down, grab your beverage of choice and watch a Marx Brothers movie. If you haven't, make sure that you have before you die.

It's worth it.

Actually, I'm assuming most of you haven't, because when I went to a Halloween party last week, dressed as Groucho...99% of the people thought I was either Charlie Chaplin or Borat. I guess I'm getting old or I'm dead. Either way, I smell like garbage.

Watch it:

Can You Tell I Wrote It?

Hey now,

I just wrapped a commercial gig for a candy bar, and part of the job was writing blogs under the byline of a celebrity.

Can you tell I designed this particular graph?

Hard to believe, no? It mirrors my day quite succinctly, and it's pretty awesome I got to mask my horrible truth through the ivory prism known as a "celebrity blog".

Here's another one called "how to tell your son will grow up evil", can you guess which character I identify with?


The last one originally said "catacombs of an opera house", but, like most of my work, changes were demanded...

Here's the last one, not really sure exactly if this is funny or makes any sense if you're not playing the game, but either way, enjoy (or don't!)


So I guess the moral of the story is that I write a bunch about depressive people trying to fix their broken past by destroying the present. Not anything like my real life!

Well, actually it might be like my real life, but who the hell can tell with all those gallons of whiskey flowing through my coarse veins?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go shower while crying.

Holiday Surprise

Sometimes it's just nice to take a little holiday! "Hey Matt, what is a Holiday?", you ask?

Well, Webster's Dictionary defines it as a "brief, painful respite from the ever-deadening routine that barely passes for your pathetic life"...and, barring any fact checking, I'm pretty sure that's actually what it says.

I personally haven't been on a vacation in almost 2 years, but it might be nice to one day experience something that wasn't...whatever the hell this is. Also, I really shouldn't end sentences in a proposition, eh? Some fancy-type-pants writer I am.

For now, music is my holiday, and what better way to "holiday it up" than with a song called "Holiday Surprise 1,2,3" by a wonderful band (possibly defunct?) known as The Olivia Tremor Control.

I don't what "surprise" the is title referring to, but I can assume it's something awful and Twilight Zonian; like the holiday is actually in hell, or Paris Hilton is worshiped as an intellectual on a planet of neuroscientists.

Either way, I'm cryin' tonight!

Actually, now looking over the lyrics, it appears to be a three part rock opera about a guy who misses his girlfriend (holiday surprise 1) flies out to surprise his girlfriend (holiday surprise 2), only to find she's getting cold on him (holiday surprise 3). Universal themes that anyone; man, woman or Yugoslavian rent boy, can understand.

Anyways, listen to the song and admire its twisty-turniness; reminding you of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd and Sonic Youth all in one shot.

If you like this, I'd give a listen to their first LP, Dusk At Cubist Castle, one of those albums people talked about in college, but you didn't listen to because people talked about it in college. Well, it's redemption time, you stuck-up douchebag!



lyrics:

spending my last dollar on a hotel and a restaurant
sky looks gray but the sky inside is a mighty great one

don't worry
don't worry

taking the time to waste your sunny day
taking the time to waste your sunny day

holiday surprise and a bright one at that
it's a holiday to last even though we spent the last year
in a dream, in a dream

taking the time to waste your sunny day
taking the time to waste your sunny day

imitating you
your image floats two feet above the ground
i sit down in my seat and wait to take off

i can't wait for the oxygen to get thin
i twist around in my seat
i'm flying like a star (a star taker)
taking light from the sky
teasing all the people with pictures of you
cause it's a holiday surprise
ooo-ah

remember the beliefs we had back then
said we'd never change our minds
but oh, and then again
all the dreams were just early plans
well please, please

don't you ever change your mind on me
don't you ever change your mind on me

conflict in our heads makes us see
without the depth that we used to
all of the problems in our way
make it so very hard to say
well please, please

Pollio String Theory

Some scientists have a theory of the universe called the "String Theory", which, simply put, is that everything is made up of strings of energy.

I have a different theory, called the "Pollio String Theory", which is that everything is made up from strings of delicious ultra-pasteurized Mozzarella cheese. It's on these cheese strings that everything flows; energy, particles, the bowels of a lactose intolerant Hebrew child.

Who's right? A cabal of highly intelligent, profoundly educated scientists, or me...a man with a very cute rabbit?

Holy SHIT! Lookit that thing! How on Earth could her owner be wrong about the fundamental theory of the universe? Stare into her eyes and know the truth.

OK, maybe those eyes are just saying "get me off this fucking couch and get that cell phone camera out of my face, you four-eyed loser", but the sentiment's the same.

My theory makes sense; think of how cheese compares with organic life: we're all high in calcium, we pre-date recorded history, and we pretty much all come from a lactating breast. Mmmm...lactating breasts...wait that's fucking disgusting and doesn't make any sense.

Not to be curd with you, but maybe my theory is udderly ridiculous. Casein point: there's no whey cheese could remain still-ton long enough to support life. Oh well, it felt like a Gouda idea at the time; still, it's important to think of the fondues and don'ts...so brie careful.

I'm so sorry.

Holiday Surprise 1,2,3

At a birthday party yesterday my friend's father challenged me to write more honestly and not censor myself.

This is a supremely hard challenge. If I was more HONEST, this blog would end up sounding more like:

"Holy shit, I fucking hate my life and everything in its pathetic orbit. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go masturbate while cutting myself to feel pain."

Plus if I opened up a little more, you might find out enough about me to get the true story behind this picture:

And if you knew that story, you might attempt to create legislation for some sort of "Internet Restraining Order" which would prevent me from stalking you on your social networking website of choice. Keep in mind though, I can still stalk you in real life; outside of your window while fondling my underthings and listening to "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver on repeat.

You might call that weird, but I just call it "Friday night".

I think my biggest fear is that if I published my actual thoughts, people would read them, and that's a tremendously frightening proposition. I mean, I think I do a pretty good job of hiding the fact that I'm a borderline sociopath with an unhealthy interest in bazaar sexual practices. Right? But being honest...all might be revealed!

Maybe the dad was right; maybe I need to be more open and honest. After all, Zappos has taught me that I need to do that. But honesty is something that needs to be done in stages; one cannot admit that they are the world's first autophobic narcissist up front! You must lie about how fucked up you are, then slowly peel back the layers of truth like an onion made out of shit.

Ahh yes, ye olde "shit onion", great in salad or to encapsulate your miserable life.

I guess if I were to be truly honest, I could sum my life up in those two wondrously delicious words: "shit onion"...my life might look like shit, but peeling back each layer you realize that it's actually extra smelly weird shit like the kind that's off-green with something that looks like a corn nut floating around.

Yeah, so fuck honesty! I'm going back to lying while I write AND to myself! Yay! I love self delusion...that's where I'm a Pirate!

Random Fact o' the Day: John Tyler has two living grandchildren!

Our 10th president, John Tyler (1790-1862) has two living grandchildren.

Yes, someone born two hundred and nineteen years ago has living grandchildren.

He had a son (Lyon Gardiner Tyler) who was born in 1853, when Tyler was 63.

Lyon, at the approximate age of "older than dirt", had three children:

• Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. (1924 – present)
• Harrison Ruffin Tyler (1928 – present)
• Henry Tyler (1931)

Born when Lyon was 71, 75 and 78 respectively.

Lyon Jr. is 85, add that to the age his father's was when he was born, you've got 156; add that to Tyler's age when Lyon was born...and you've got 219.

Even if I live another 60 years, the age between me and my oldest grandparent would be something like 164 years...and I'm the youngest of the youngest!

To put it into context, the next oldest president with a living grandchild is James Garfield, who would be a baby at 177 today. Jane Garfield is 99. Garfield was president 40 years after Tyler...

In case you're wondering, the oldest presidential child alive is John Eisenhower.

Anyway, next time you're at a party and feel like throwing out a factoid (or three) that will impress no one but nerds and trivia-obsessed ne'er-do-wells; bring this up. I guarantee at least .3 people will be impressed.

Tyler also had a child(ren) with a slave...but who didn't?

Unfortunate Ramblings of a Beauty Obsessed Nincompoop

Smiling, I frowned inside, as I was given yet another unenviable task by a moron who, in a perfect world, would be licking my bootstraps in a hapless attempt to appease me.

Unfortunately, "a perfect world" exists only in dreams and mid 1990s Clint Eastwood movies. Nope! This was reality, and I was staring into the gaping maw of 40 years of unchanging servitude until quite retirement and death caused by some painful disease.

It was at that point I realized something. Life sucks.

Yes, life sucks. Not in an ironic hipster tee shirt way...

But sucks, like in an unending string of melancholic happenstances that just...well, happen...until you die.

There are very few things that distract you from this morbid destiny. Number one: beautiful things.

Now, I know I'm not conventionally "beautiful", that's why my thong-modeling career never took off, but I do know beauty when I sees it.

Beauty is a more than just, as Frank Zappa cynically put it...

"...a bikini wax and waitin' for yer nails to dry

Beauty is a coloured pencil, scribbled all around yer eye

Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die

Beauty is a, beauty is a, beauty is a lie"

Hate to disagree with an idol here, but beauty is probably the closest thing to truth out there. It's the only thing that lets us be what we honestly think we should be; happy little fuckers.

But beauty isn't JUST fancy vagina-enhancing type things (although those are nice); beauty is the little things; the smile of someone you adore, the endlessness of a pink blue sunset, your pet enjoying a gentle rub.

Because, as rule number 33 in Zombieland so adroitly put it, "enjoy the little things".

Happiness is bullshit; we can spend our lives trying to find it, but in the end, all you do is spend your life trying to find it. No, being happy is really just the feeling you have after a few "little things" string themselves together; you get a cool job, eat a gooey cookie, read a mind-expanding book. BOOM: put those three things together and you feel awesome. You're HAPPY!

Until you realize that you're not actually happy. Not quite SAD, but not exactly "storming the castle", like the Arrested Development episode of the same name.

So, next time you're dealing with the offensive nincompoopery of someone that should be hauled off to "Retard Island: The Place Where Idiots and Sex Perverts Can Procreate", think about the little things in life; maybe it's even just the very irony that someone SO STUPID could be telling you what to do and how to do it.

Because in the end, we are just little things ourselves...and maybe, somewhere that makes someone happy.

LA is Full of Retarded Nincompoopery

In July I was crossing the street. Subsequently, I've learned that in Los Angeles this is a Herculean task, not fit for man nor beast.

I began to walk when the little "don't walk" sign was blinking with about 15 seconds left. As a New Yorker, I felt like this was an appropriate time to start crossing the street.

I was wrong.

Reaching the other side the MILLIsecond the light turned red, a motorcycle cop blinked his blinky things and pulled me over. He proceeded to give me a $200 ticket for jaywalking...or being Jewish, whichever is more illegal. I pleaded my case, but it fell upon deaf ears. Did I mention that California is having a financial crisis?

Needless to say, it was such a ridiculous situation that I actually forgot about it. Moving on with my life, I received a letter last week informing me that I missed my court date two weeks ago, AND:

1) The ticket was now $800, unless I paid $500 within 10 days
2) My license was suspended

I immediately called LA county superior court, and over the course of three solid days, I got a message informing me that "I should call back at another time".

I went to the website, which offered me two options

1) Pay $510 dollars ($10 extra for paying online, obviously)
2) Set a new court date

I kept trying to set a court date; first requesting a PM time, then when that didn't work, requesting an AM time. When that didn't work, I selected "Any Time".

Then I got the following message:

"We cannot find a time in the 'any time' timeframe. Please request another time."

Realizing I was running out of time faster than a Muslim at an "America: Fuck Yeah!" rally, I swallowed my pride, opened up by pocket book, and paid $510 for a ticket that was basically for being 1/2 a step off of the curb when the light turned red. Still, it was better than paying $800 and not having a license.

Regardless, it's times like this that make me miss New York. Ahh yes, NYC, the fabulous city where pedestrians have the right of way, and people read books that aren't "based on the hit film".

I was crossing the street in Hollywood today, with the right of way, when a giant truck made a swervy left turn and came barreling towards me, expecting me to RUN out of it's way.

People who walk? That should definitely either be penalized by death or at least a large fine.

Anyway, I hate LA so much right now, here are a selection of pictures I took on my cell phone underscoring the stupidity of people here.

I took these over the course of TWO days:

I need a bookcase, or at least a shalf.

YOUR definitely on camera, whoever Your is.

Look carefully, his plate says "en8blr" IE "enabler"...only in LA...

Not according to your license plate.

Going Out 4 Business...I wonder where it's going...

Did I mention I miss New York?

the blog where i convince myself i'm not a writer

I refuse to write on Final Draft in public in Los Angeles, going to Los Angeles, or coming from Los Angeles. It is my attempt to not be a "number".

These "numbers" flock to LA with the lurid hope that they too will one day become the biggest writer since Sliced Bread, who wrote for Small Wonder during the '86-'87 season.

So here I sit, on a flight from Tennessee to Los Angeles firmly attached to my Text Edit.

Ahh, Text Edit; mysterious as the days are long. Yes, on it I could be writing something "LA"; a script, a treatment, autoerotic literature, but I could also be writing a list of groceries,"thank you" notes to relatives, autoerotic literature.

I don't like labels; sure, I've been called many names in my life; "Jew", "That Jew" and "That Creepy Jew Who Writes Autoerotic Literature", but I dare to defy them; NO! I will not write at the library, NO! I will not hold "business meetings" at a Starbucks, NADA! I will not eat Baja Fresh who sobbing profusely about my many failures.

No sir! I am a working writer, who works to write and writes to work. Also, I hate myself and everything I stand for. I guess that proves I'm not much of a writer though; ending a sentence with a proposition? If only William Safire was here to critique me.

So I refuse to write on Final Draft in public because as soon as anyone SEES me writing on Final Draft in public, they immediately define me as "one of those"; the nameless, faceless masses who take up about 95% of Los Angeles real estate and contribute nothing, except indigestion and slight dose of narcissistic hypochondria, which is a word I needed spell check to figure out how to spell. I guess that's strike two against being a writer. I'm a terrible speller. In fact, I almost spelled terrible with a 6. That doesn't eve6n make sense.

And neither does the fact I want to be a writer. I mean, what kind of self-important twit thinks that they have something truly revelatory to say that anyone wants to hear? Not me; in fact, I can barely stand being alone with myself for more than 10-12 seconds. And that's generous. No, I hate myself too much to be a writer; I'm a firm believer that even though people like Woody Allen or David Sedaris might be self-effacing, in their heart of hearts, they are OBSESSED with themselves. Not me. I vomit tears and blood when I look at myself in the mirror.

Strike three I guess. Oh well, it was a nice 16 1/2 years dreaming of being a professional writer. I'm gonna hand in my union card and become some sort of sex monk that gets to meditate and have sex with nubile young hippie chicks.

But wait....

Worrying about grammar and spelling? This is the 21st century and illiterate nincompoops are now shining beacons of literature! I don't need to actually know shit in this LOL LULZERS society. Well, take two strikes back.

As for the third strike...This entire blog posting is about myself...so I guess I'm kinda obsessed with myself in a "Mysery" starring Kathy Bates kinda way. The only thing is, I'm not sure whether I'm Kathy Bates or James Caan. Either way, I'm either breaking my legs or having my legs broken.

I guess you can love yourself and despise yourself at the same time. That what they call "Larry David" syndrome, right?

Schadenfreude

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like bananas"

-Groucho Marx

It astounds me how fast time flies. Why just yesterday I was a young rapscallion; full of piss and vinegar. Actually, mostly just piss, although I did eat a lot of pickles.

It was New Years 1999 and I was psyched: Yes, this was the first "grown-up" party I had ever had.

I remember the conversation with my mother, when I asked her if I could have the party in her somewhat swanky Central Park West digs.

"Mom, can I have some friends over on New Years"
"I don't know; is there going to be alcohol?"
"Yes"
"I don't think so."
"But mom, we're old enough!"
"I was in college before I ever went to parties with alcohol!"
"Mom, I'm in college"
"Oh..."

So with my air tight logic, I convinced mom to let us have some alcohol. Of course "some alcohol", by her standards was the one bottle of Champagne she left for us, to be divvied up among 6 people. Needless to say, my friends brought two bottles of Vodka and a bottle of Jack.

So I drew up a list of people to invite; had to make sure the boy/girl ratio was 1:1, which is the key for all good parties and most good scrabble games.

So starting my list was my overweight, extremely awkward Jewish friend. Who to pair him with? Oh right, the borderline retarded girl with a crippling overbite.

The jock frat boy? The brilliant bookish girl who was, coincidently, a huge whore.

Me? Well, I figured, now was the time for me and Girl to finally, as politicians say, "have an unfortunate sexual indiscretion; but I had nothing to do with her disappearance".

Now, if you read my last blog, Girl was most likely a broken depressive with a potential history of inappropriate sexual encounters. In other words, my perfect girl.

The night started well enough; my two male friends and I "cooked dinner", which, for a few 18 year olds, is defined as "undercooked spaghetti and overcooked chicken".

That's when we started pouring the booze. Keep in mind, a teenager has no actual concept of booze; it's more of an abstract idea; something to glug because you're not allowed to glug.

To that end, my drinking at dinner has changed over the years; at age 28, I will "carefully sip a glass of port", at age 18 I would "take 12-14 shots of whatever was put in front of me". I drank about 3/4ths of the bottle of Jack that evening.

So...

At some point, we all decided it was time to walk my dog George, who btw, was absolutely adorable.


I believe it was about 20 degrees in Central Park when I decided to remove my pants. I have pictures of this, but unfortunately they are laying in a closet in NYC somewhere. I can assure you it was hugely embarrassing.

Feeling absolutely wonderful, I lit up a Cuban cigar and did my best Castro impression. Did I realize then that over-consuming alcohol and over-consuming tobacco was not a good combination? Not so much.

Anyway, we got to my house; my nerd friend and the retard locked themselves in my bedroom and started having Lynchian intercourse on my childhood sofa.

The frat boy and the closet whore took the dining room and began to sit on each other's laps, which isn't as easy as it sounds.

That left me and the Girl in the living room.

She looked outstanding; if she was a president, she would have been called "Babe-rack O-boy-mmmm-aaah", which is a pretty terrible joke if you ask me.

She was soberer than the last time I was with her (no "you remind me of my brother" larfs).

It was time to finally be a man and make a move on this most certainly broken person who would have sex with anything that owned a penis.

We talked and laughed and laughed and talked. These things were easy for me because I had no idea what I was talking about or why I was laughing. I was drunk and potentially high on highly dubious illicit cigars.

Then she looked at me. I looked at her.

Awkward silence means sex.

I moved in to her lips.

Then I felt a rumbling in my stomach which only implied one thing; its contents needed to be emptied immediately...any which way that was possible.

My lip maneuver b-lined into a quaint forehead kiss. She looked at me quizzically as I excused myself.

I spent the next 45 minutes in the bathroom, aternating between lying desperately on the floor and vomiting uncontrollably.

When I came out, I could barely see straight; I walked into my bedroom, where I saw my fat friend and the retard doing the "reverse cowgirl", which made me have to run back to the bathroom and vomit for another 20 minutes.

When I came out again, I noticed the Jock, Whore and Girl all hanging out in the living room.

I blew my chance, I spent the next 48 hours lying in bed, watching VHS tapes of Newsradio, while my mom thought I had a "stomach flu". A "stomach flu" is college code for "I drank too much last night".

I never saw the Girl again, in fact I barely keep in touch with any of those people. But who really keeps in contact with anyone from high school anyway?

The whole point of high school is that you spend four years figuring out what kind of person you want to hang out with. Then you go to college and realize that you never actually liked hanging out with that type of person in the first place, and you only did so because you were stuck in the vacuous, mind-numbing prison known as a "parochial school".

Ten years later, you're 28 and you're writing a blog about it.

I wonder what sort of exciting things are waiting for me at 38? Dictating the contents of my belly button to my only friend, a computer known as "COMPANION BOT 200: YOUR POLYETHYLENE PAL"?

One can only hope: huzzah for rampant narcissism and the ever widening gap between real and online interaction!

Prom '99

Ahh, The Fall, a wondrous time of the year when our bleak mortality is brought into depressingly stark relief by the grim realization that yet another year is about to disappear into the Godless ether.

The years are like sex, they happen too quickly and at the end, all you can think about is death.

If I only had a nickel for every time I wished I was dead after sex, I'd have $1.15. That might not seem like a lot, but just imagine $1.15 worth tears, disappointment and apathetic emotional distance.

How has this decade gone by so fast?

I remember 1999 like it was 1999, which in my mind is at least 3 minutes ago, daylight savings time.

The last day of that year was a macabre charade. A potentially debaucherous night at my mother's house; 6 college freshmen, 3 girls, 3 guys. The odds were that each of us would meet up for what I austerely call "sexy time", or lacking that, three guys passionlessly giving each other handjobs while praying the the girls might "change their minds".

Well, neither happened.

The only thing that stopped me was 3/4ths a bottle of Jack Daniels. Let's take it back to the beginning:

There was this girl who was at the party, let's call her "Girl". I really thought she was quite attractive, not Mary Eaton attractive, but Lillian Roth attractive. If you know either of those references, you're probably older than dirt's oldest sibling.

Anyway, at my senior prom a few months beforehand, I had run into her...completely shitfaced.

We were at a friend's house and I was running a 102 temp. I had recently written and directed a school play and was feeling, as the expression goes, "FUCKING TIRED".

I was kicked out of where I was sleeping because my best friend was having loud sex with an overweight Norwegian in the bed next to me. I went down to the basement to find Girl, and another friend of mine who had taken her to the prom.

My friend was a nice guy, and to that end, was trying to get Girl drunk enough that she would have sex with him.

To be fair to my friend's clumsy sexual advances, Girl's nickname was "Loosey McSexPants".

But that night she wasn't biting...for him.

I sat down and she attempted to whisper in my ear, except she ended up just yelling loudly in my ear.

"He reminds me of my brother, he thinks he's going to have sex with me, but he's not!"

My friend, an amiable fellow, most definitely heard this, but continued to pour the whiskey.

"Uh, OK" I said, sweating, sick and petrified.

She put her hand on my inner thigh and squeezed, as if she expected some sort of sexy pheromone to leak forth.

"You remind me of my brother...have sex with me" she said.

"Uh, I'm just not feeling well", was my meek response.

"You're going to make me into a character in one of your plays, aren't you?!?"

"No, I'm not."

"You promise?"

"Yup"

"Great. You remind me of my brother; have sex with me".

Luckily, this Swiftian exchange was interrupted by a group of drunk 18 year olds who decided it was time to come down and blare some Pink Floyd.

At that point, I went up to the kitchen for some alone time. The next thing I remember was my petite Japanese friend Emiko running up the stairs yelling "my tummy's burning!", followed closely by Girl, who simply vomited all over the place.

The next time I saw Girl was New Years 1999. There was more vomiting.

What happened?

You'll just have to wait until my next post to find out.

The Boy With The Arab Strap

I wandered as lonely as a cloud, except I was surrounded by about 20 people that I knew, so I guess it was like "I wandered as lonely as a cloud with 20 other clouds that were wandering lonely" or something like that.

Except that it was my generation, so they were actually "LOL'ing as lonely as a cloud".

That's the problem with the under-30s. We're all connected to everyone, everywhere, everytime, yet we're as disconnected as we've ever been.

The Internet is fucking useless in it’s incredible usefulness; it connects everyone and disconnects everything. We’re one click away but we’ve never been further apart.

Friends who used to call me, now post a “Happy Birthday” on my Facebook wall. My mother didn't call me after an Earthquake in California, but she did message me she noticed that I hadn’t updated my status in a while.

There’s no reason to catch up with old friends, because everything you need to know is readily available. "How's your relationship going?" has morphed into a comment in reply to "Matt changed his Status To Single".

"Coming over and meeting the baby" is now "watching the video of the baby I uploaded on youtube". The urgency is gone.

In that same sense, intellectual discourse has been reduced to mind-numbingly simplistic arguments about who yelled at who, what hilarious gaffe was misspoken by what politician, what our president looks like without his shirt on. (by the way, the answer to that last question is "friggin' sexy", or sexaaay, as I like to say).

We look for information on Twitter's trending topics and every source of "news" is an op-ed by someone who is less informed than a particularly solitary hermit who wants more "alone time".

Have you read most blogs? They are the bane of the informed man's existence. For the most part, they are a list of hugely simplified talking points strung together with cretinous hyperbolic rhetoric. They make Rush Limbaugh look like Walter Cronkite the morning he woke up and said "hey, I'm feeling uniquely informed and adroit today".

Every idiot with a blog has an opinion and every person with a social networking website who doesn't communicate face-to-face with people should be ashamed. Where's the heart?

That said, thanks for reading CryingWhileMasturbating and please follow me on Twitter:

@Marxlennon

It's like Groucho Marx said; "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.", or in 21st century speak "Teh Interwebs Iz Good 4 Me, Even Tho I Hates It".

Overheard in Iowa

Iowa is an interesting place.

Everyone is nice, people wear overalls non-ironically, and "salads" are these weird things they sell in supermarkets with a pound of cream, rice and pink...covered in mini-marshmallows.

Oh, and Matzo is called "Bible Bread". Don't believe me?
In other news, Jews are called "what Jesus was before he done wised up".

In any case, I just spent a week in Iowa, and I awon't go into too many details, but here's a conversation I overheard:

Chubby guy with goatee and Harley Davison hat covering a mullet stands next to a chubby 20 something check out girl.

He reads her name tag.

"Jordan, dats a real interesting name. I don't know too many Jordans. Real unique name".
"Yuh, that's true dere".
"I mean, I've met a Jane, Judi, even a Jessica...but never a Jordan".
"Dats fer sure".

He notices a pregnant woman walking in the door and turns to his wife, a woman of equal Rubenesque stature as he.

"Oh hey look, dat's my cousin Margie Stockwell"

Margie walks in with another woman who is also pregnant.

"Hey Margie! How yuh doin' dere?"
"I'm good dere, Rich. Pregnant, yuh know?"
"Oh that's nice dere".

He looks at the woman Margie's with.

"I never seen you before"
"Oh no, we used to work together"
"Did we? What's yer name?"
"Jacklyn Montgomery"
"Are you related to Jason Montgomery?"
"No, I know Jason though; good guy...shame about his wife"
"Shame about his wife", they all repeated.
"Are you from the Charles City Montgomerys?"
"Oh no, the Oakwood Montgomerys"
"Really? I don't think I know any of you."
"I'm yer cousin, Rich"
"Really?"
"Yeah, from the other side of the family. Is Margie your cousin too?"
"Yuh".

Rich took a second to let everything soak in, so there was an awkward pause.

He looked at her and spoke:

"So yer pregnant then?"
"Oh yeah...finally gettin' my girl after two boys"
"So yer gonna get fixed?"
"Oh yeah, time to get fixed after this one"
"Well, I gotta get goin. Good to see you again Margie and Jacklyn"

Rich walked away into oblivion (actually the Chinese food counter at the Hyvee) and I watched a "Sunrise Salad" get prepared with a jar of whipped cream, white rice, an entire pineapple, and mini marshmallows.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was in what everyone else thinks is America.

It wasn't so bad.

We be to update soon

Dear blog reader type peoples,

I know it's been a while. I miss you too. Not "real world" miss you, but miss you like a 16 year old misses "Early Jonas".

Starting this week, I'll be more prolific blog-wise.

For now, enjoy this highly dubious collage of Barack Obama images. Click to see the funny.

Writing Is Insanity

Committed to the unenviable task of redrafting 15 scripts in just under 6 hours, I went slightly mad this evening.

The odd thing is that I think you're supposed to go slightly mad when you write, especially when you have tight deadlines and extra especially if you're writing for someone else.

You have to get a little wacko (talk to yourself, dance like an idiot, sniff your bunny rabbit in slightly inappropriate ways) in order to get yourself to the point when you're able to write something that is even slightly resembling interesting.

That, or maybe something is wrong with me.

Anyway, this is literally a very honest 10 second glimpse into my writing process. Please don't enjoy.

Happy Birthday To Me

My blog is 4 years old this month, and in honor of that I present the second ever post; which isn't all that interesting, but neither is Mumblecore cinema. Or is anything else with the suffix "core" for that matter, unless it's hardcore, as in "dude, this paragraph hardcore sucks".

7:30am Attack Of Conscience

This is probably my favorite joke I've ever written, which isn't to say it's actually funny. It's from my high school play, and you better believe the pastor of my school, Ms. Nichols, was not impressed.

Granted, Ms. Nichols also once laughed at someone who told me to 'Get back into the oven, you flithy Jew', so I didn't really expect her to be impressed. Yes, it was all good times at boarding school. I complained to the principal (and more importantly, my parents) about her inappropriate laughter, and as a sign of good faith, Ms. Nichols started to end each one of her chapel sermons with the only Jew word she could think of: 'Shalom'. Yeah, that about made her rampant anti-Semitism OK.

I can only imagine she thought to herself 'Boy, that flithy hook-nose is getting all uppity because of a simple Kyke joke. How do I fix this? Oh, I know, I'll say Shalom at the end of my weekly Christian service that he has to sit through. That'll make it all OK! Flithy fucking Kyke!'

OK, so you wonder why the following excerpt from my play is the most favorite thing I ever wrote:

Girl: Are you a religious man?
Boy: The most religious thing I ever did was a virgin named Mary.

Not ha-ha funny, but it certainly made Ms. Nichols roll her eyes. Keep in mind I was 17 when I wrote that and it was performed at a Methodist high school.

Until Later...

People FAIL

Being an epic frequenter of FailBlog.org, I am aware I shall never outdo it.

But here's something I found on People.com, which is as close to a Fail as you can get without it being categorized as "EPIC". It's more like a "copywriting" fail, which, having worked in the advertising industry, is something I am more than fully aware of.

Ooo...that sentence structure was a copywriting FAIL in and of itself.

Anyway, the following sentence is pretty mind-bloggingly ridiculous and I shall share it with you:

"The singer went for a distinctly edgier style for his Bad album in 1987, adding heavy eyeliner to a buckled leather jacket and skintight jeans".

You lost me after "heavy eyeliner". The only thing edgy about Michael Jackson's style in 1987 was Bubbles.
And that's only because he went ape-shit and bit somebody.

Band O' The Week

Sometimes you come across a song that sticks with you; so much, that when you turn it off, the melody reverberates incessantly in your head until you absolutely MUST play it again. 

Then, when you play it again...you play it over and over again.

Here's a band I found on Pandora called King of Prussia. I can't vouch for their musical canon, but I can tell you that this one song seems to indicate sunny Beach Boys meets melancholic Morrissey vocal melodies mixed with music that marries that wistfulness of The Shins with a hint of The Psychedelic Furs.

Needless to say I'm kinda into it.

The lyrics seem to be a paean to a lover filtered through an ambiguous druggy haze. I try not to listen too carefully to the lyrics of a song when I first get into it, for fear that it will ruin the song for me (like life, what you hear is almost always better than what is said).

Anyway, enjoy the song...

Kinkier Yowl

"Sometimes I just need to be alone". This is the single most important thought one person can ever have; for is there anything more wondrous than solitude? Quiet, delicious solitude; being alone with the only person you'll ever love enough to truly hate.

Unfortunately, this was one of those times to seek out strength in numbers. That number, sadly, was two: me and Yarmulke Jones. She and I were both looking for our missing body parts; her, a absconded Afro, me...a faraway foot. The conclusion we reached? A vicious body-part snatcher who was only interested in our little bits and pieces, but didn't think we were good enough to take the whole kit and kaboodle.

A solution? Well, there was none, except to ask questions which could only be answered with more questions. Such is life and life is such.

Yarmulke had a hunch that most answers lay at the bottom of a bottle of beer. We went to a bar to see if any conclusions could be found amongst all the hops and barleys.

"Yarmulke; why are we here?"
"Literally or metaphysically?"
"Give me some choices, I'll decide which one I like better".
"The answer to both is because we walked in the door".
"What about philosophically?"
"Empirically speaking; drinking might help me remember where my afro went. Rationally speaking; I'm pretty sure drinking might help you remember where your foot went".
"What makes you think that?"
"Idealism".

Having enough of our didactic, frankly uninformed conversation about philosophy, I began to have a much more interesting discussion with contents of a high ball glass.

By the time I finished, things became more clear...maybe Yarmulke was right; philosophically, my drinking problem could be classified as "rationalism" because you don't have to see me drink to know that I'm going to become a fucking genius after a few tall ones (not to mention my ability to create a uniquely amazing Jukebox playlist; holla!).

A few shots and rapid blinks later- the bottom of the glass said four words to me; "look to your left". That's when I saw her:

Kinkier Yowl, a mischievous ne'er-do-well from down the block, who had been around it no less than 24 times. To say she was a beauty was a disservice; she made beauties look runners up in the "I'm Not a Beauty At All" contest.

Needless to say; she was attractive.

Drunk and probably very charming, I hopped over to her.

"Kinkier", I spoketh. "There's nowhere else in the entire world I'd rather be, except maybe in New York discussing something other than insecurities of people in the film industry".
"I understand; I've heard '100,000 Butterflies' by the Magnetic Fields"
She looked at my foot, which wasn't there.
"I see you're missing an appendage"
"You're quite an observer; much like the weekly periodical from Dallas of the same name".
"Are you missing a foot because it's not there or because you don't see it?"
"Well, it's not there, right?"
"Close your eyes. The glass is half full; bad things are always going to happen to you; it's just a matter of realizing that they're only as bad as you want them to be".
"Fatalist?"
"It's not fatalist to say life sucks, right? That's just being a realist. It's what you do with the sucky parts of that make you strong. You don't have a foot, right? I guess that's bad, but maybe it's good. Think of the sympathy pussy. There's going to be sympathy pussy."
"I hadn't thought of that".
"And the handicapped spaces. I mean, you could fucking park anywhere, as long as you have that little blue guy in a wheel chair."
"Sex and good parking? Sounds too good to be true".
"It also sounds like a mediocre HBO show that appeals to middle aged housewives."
"So; if things that suck don't actually suck so much...maybe that means fate is tangible? Maybe there is some sort of outside force making sure that good or bad; our choices are always right".
"That's a wonderful thought and I'm glad you shared your uninformed, borderline retarded insight. There's only one real way to look at this: however you can deal with what you've been given, however you can get through the day...that's what works. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing mystical, no absolute judgments; just...whatever works for you, is what works".
I looked at Kinkier Yowl and realized I was connecting with her on a level which I had never connected to another being. Then I looked at her toes.
They had big, curly toe hairs.
"Your toes...they look like mine".
She got nervous and turned around. Poised to run away, Yarmulke Jones got in her way.

Yamulke looked at her:
"My afro is pinned to your ass, girl. What's up with that?"
"Uhm...it's like tattoos of pixies or elbow stars; totally 21st century".
"Afro ass hair is the new thing?"
"You betcha".

Three hours and two brutal beatings later, I got my foot back and Yarmulke was proudly sporting an afro.

Sure, my foot was stuck-on via Superglue and Yarmulke's hair was about as convincing as John Travolta's wig, but nonetheless important things were returned.

Yarmulke looked at me with a mournful, almost dour expression.

"Things seem to work themselves out, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess so".
"But it really isn't as simple as that".
"Nope".
"I wish it were".
"A million different things happened a million different ways to make sure that you and I are having this conversation; isn't that enough?"
"Maybe the simplicity is in our unimaginable complexity?"
"I'd rather not think about it".
"Sounds good to me".

I walked away with a limp, but it was better than not walking away at all.

Oh No; Someone's Absconded With My Foot!

I remember that day like it was two weeks ago last Friday.

Two weeks ago, last Friday I was sitting in my bed. My normal alarm didn't go off with a thundering BOOM!, but with a shy, effete whisper. This caused me to not "wake up", but instead "sleep", which are scientific terms you should probably look up.

Noting that I was approximately 4 hours late for work, I gathered my goods together and hopped in my car. Then I thought to myself "why I did I just hop to my car? Why didn't I run?". Then I looked at my feet:

AHHH!!!! I had no left foot. It was like that movie "My Left Foot" but without the foot.

Despondently depressed, I began searching everywhere. This was no easy task, as you can imagine. On average, I'm not the sort of person to easily misplace a limb.

Panic attacks ensued; "I'm going be late for work!", "I'm going to be a cripple for life!", "Why can't I find a pair of jeans without faux bleach stains anymore?"

I looked up at the sky and it looked like it was covered in plastic wrap; rain started falling like hail and the clouds parted to reveal more clouds.

This was problematic, I thought, for my search would be delayed by inclement weather. It was like a golf match or a picnic hand job.

Should I just swallow my pride and go to work as one-legged freak? What if I call in sick even though my "Generic Office Busywork" was due this afternoon?

This was the toughest decision of my life, except for my famed 1995 quandary, "should I grow my hair long and part it down the middle?". I failed that one.

That's when I saw Yarmulke Jones, the most militant Black Panther on the block. I guess she was probably the only Black Panther on the block, but I'm not sure. I don't get invited to a lot of Black Panther Parties.

Her hair was newly shorn, which was odd because she had the biggest afro on the block...well, next to L'chaim Schmenderson, owner of the world's largest Jewfro.

"Yarmulke!", I howled. "Have you seen a wondering foot hopping around without a body?"
"Have you seen a bobbing afro wobbling about?"
She looked desperate.
"I've looked everywhere; including a cursory glance at this surrounding area!"
"What the hell is going on?", I sputtered. "If your 'fro is gone and my foot; that can only mean one thing..."
"I'm really fucking high?"
"No, but I like your creative input; we should write a "Lonelygirl 15" style webseries together. No, I'm suggesting something amazing. Something that's never been thought of before; something implying something that might be something you aren't quite ready to hear."
"Can you please stop using the word 'something'? It's really annoying"
"OK; here's my thesis" I swallowed my pride and gum. "There's a part-of-body snatcher going about stealing things from normal people such as you or I."
"Oh no! A part-of-body snatcher?!?!?!?! Whatever do we do?"
"There's only one thing we can do..."

To find out we can do...you'll just have to wait for tomorrow because I'm too languid to write the rest.

Bi-Lingus

Well, I really wanted to write something tonight, but the old "uninspiration" bug has bit me (a common occurrence since I started working in digital media).

So that leaves me with only little choice; stay up really late staring at a blank page, give up at 3AM and post an old blog entry that I took down last year for fear that someone might mistake it as inoffensive. Whatever, bitches...

I've always wanted to speak another language, but considering I have a tenuous grasp on the English, mastering another tongue has always seemed like a pipe dream.

Oh, I've tried; like that one time I got drunk and screamed "me likey taco burrito!" around El Coyote in Hollywood; but that, and the ensuing "race-hate" trial is neither here nor there.

I had seven years of Hebrew when I was a kid, but it was always a little too phlegmy for me. That language is just a distant memory: last time I attempted to do the wine prayer, I ended up calling the rabbi a "funky bacon shmendrick"; but that, and my ensuing expulsion from Judaism is neither here nor there.

Japanese? I went to a boarding school that was 60% Asian. While I found the language pretty and interesting (pretty interesting, at least), I always felt like I was being REALLY, REALLY racist whenever I attempted to speak it. Sure, whenever I couldn't think of a word, I just said "ching-chong Sushi time!", but I'm not sure that was the reason. However, that does explain the great 1999 Japanese/Jewish Riot of Pennington, NJ.

So, being that I haven't mastered any languages, how do I compete in today's fast-paced, take-no-prisoners, International House of Pancakes world?

Babelfish.

No, not that little fish you stick in your ear and it eats your brains...I'm talking about the website. I think it's fool-proof! For example, let's use my introduction to every lady I meet:


Hello, I am Matt Manson and I would like to ask you to have sex with me. Afterwards, we can eat ice cream, watch Science Fiction and talk about our mutual dissatisfaction with our place in life.

See! That's a golden line that will work on any hot piece of tail. But say you're in Kyoto and the girl sitting next to you only speaks four words of English: "SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME". Solution: Babelfish.

Let's translate that into Japanese:


こんにちは、私はマットMansonであり、私が付いている性を有するように頼むことを望む。 その後、私達はアイスクリームを食べ、空想科学小説を見、生命の私達の場所との私達の相互不満述べてもいい。

Easy as that! All I have to do is repeat that to any little Miko that comes into my periphery and SLAM! It's sushi time! Now, what did I just say? Let's translate it back from Japanese into English:


Today, as for me it is mat Manson, in order to possess the characteristic where I have been attached, the fact that you ask is desired. After that, we eat the ice-cream, look at the fantasy scientific novel, our mutual dissatisfaction of our places of life are possible to express.

Wow! It actually made me sound even better! "in order to possess the characteristic where I have been attached, the fact that you ask is desired"? That's fucking Shakespeare! Sure, a drunken, retarded Shakespeare, that's maybe not William, but at least a 3rd cousin.

Thank you Babelfish, thank you technology. You've made me an international Don Juan.