ex·hi·bis·ten·tial·ism

“Ode To the Unattainable Hipster Waitress at My Favorite Coffee Shop”

2008-09-18T19:07:00.008-04:00

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

You don’t make me feel like a creep when you catch me staring.
You never remember my order, but the way you say “How’s it going?” makes me feel like a regular.
Your hips are slim but not boyish—a rare combination.
Your style is the perfect balance of seventies indulgence and sixties whimsy.
You deflect the flirtations of the arrogant baristo who I’m pretty sure I saw in an American Apparel ad.
You were really nice when I incorrectly guessed that your accent hailed from Minnesota (“Nope, Long Island. But I love ‘Fargo!’”).
You’re the first girl I’ve admired from afar in a long time. Back in elementary and high school, I spent years dreaming about the same unsuspecting girls across classrooms, hallways, and lunchrooms. For better or worse, I haven’t experienced such bittersweet longing since I developed a taste for fermented, inhibition-loosening beverages. I’ve fantasized about seeing you at the bar, after a few drinks. I don’t know what I’d say—probably something lame like “Could I get you a drink, for a change?” You’d politely refuse but indulge me with a few minutes of increasingly awkward conversation before saying that you should really get back to your friends. I’d retreat to a corner, beat myself up for five minutes and then leave, not making eye contact with you on the way out. I’d not only never come back to the coffee shop; I’d do my best to avoid that block. Decades later, while eating a solitary dinner of Top Ramen and off-brand oyster crackers, my only companion a half-feral tomcat who came with the illegal basement apartment I inhabit, I will trace my inability to find a mate back to the fateful night when I drunkenly sullied my last true love.
You smell like Old Spice, which in no way detracts from your femininity.

The Call Up

2008-04-03T21:03:00.001-04:00

First adopters:

I'm now blogging five days a week at Glamour magazine. Wacky. Thanks for your support.

We don’t watch poorly reviewed movies.

2007-12-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

We’re not the best minds of our generation but we’re smart enough. We want to get married and we’ll probably get divorced. We make a lot of money but we want more. We buy expensive clothes. We drink a lot. We travel to foreign countries and take lots of digital photos and send them to our friends. We are lonely. We look down on people who weren’t as lucky as us. We cheat on each other. Our bosses like us. We have a lot of student loans. We buy organic groceries and throw most of it out three weeks later. Our parents are proud of us but wish we’d call home more often. We eat brunch. We’re basically good kids.

************

She had hooked up with him before. The first time she was excited because it might be the start of something. The second time she was disgusted because it wasn’t the start of anything and she knew it. All the times after that she was hungover and slightly depressed.

It was around nine, she guessed, which meant that they had slept for four or five hours. The light shone around the sides of his vinyl window shades. He was still sleeping. She needed a glass of water, but she couldn’t see her underwear from the bed and didn’t want to walk to the bathroom naked. Her phone was flashing on the bed stand. Two new texts:

Her roommate, 2:43 am: U little slut!!! Hav fun :)

Random guy she had hooked up with a few months ago, 3:04 am: What up?

She gently closed her phone and checked to see if he was still asleep. Yes. He was drooling a little bit and his hair was wildly disheveled. The blanket was down around his waist, and she noticed that he trimmed his chest hair. She couldn’t remember if he also trimmed his pubic hair. Probably.

Now he was waking up. She plopped laid down and stared at the ceiling. When she sensed that he was looking at her, she turned her head and tried to look groggier than she was. He half-smiled and let out a long, deep groan.

“Jesus Christ… I feel like shit,” he said, rolling over on his stomach and smushing his face into the pillow. He peeked out of the pillow and looked at her. “How you feeling?” His breath smelled like pickled beer.

“You know. Not great,” she said.

“Yeah.” He thought for a minute. “Didn’t you say you were meeting your parents for brunch?”

She turned away from him, towards the empty wall.

“At one. But I can leave now. Don’t worry,” she said.

He sat up on his elbows and tried to look hurt.

“You know that’s not what I meant. C’mon, don’t be like that,” he said, leaning over and draping an arm over her. He slid up behind her, and his warm, naked body felt good against her back. She could feel him getting hard against the back of her thigh.

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” Maybe it would be better when they weren’t drunk.

“Yeah, I know.”

After sex they laid in bed and gossiped about mutual acquaintances. At the door he pointed her in the direction of the G train and gave her a high five.

************

We secretly think about joining the Peace Corps or teaching high school history. We go to museums on Saturday afternoon. We stay in because we’re tired. We buy expensive furniture from Crate and Barrel. We are 25 and sometimes when we’re walking through Park Slope or riding the bus on the Upper East Side we can imagine what it will be like to get old. We value our friends but treat them like shit. We recycle.

************

My little brother called from L.A. a few days ago. It was around 5:30 and I was still at work, so I closed the door to my office. I can tell from the start that he’s upset, and I’m flattered that he called me.

Apparently he and his girlfriend got into a big fight. Apparently she cheated on him. She was drunk. She's sorry. I've been there. But that's not what my brother wants to hear.

That’s a tough one, I tell him, but what I’d do is pull back, at least for awhile. You can’t let her make a fool of you. It’s like Hemingway.

I love Hemingway, but I don’t think my brother knows much about him so I provide a synopsis. Hemingway’s heroes were all about maintaining their sphere of control. Most of life was completely out of their hands. Their friends died, their women left, their junk got fucked up. That’s the breaks. They couldn’t do anything about it. All they could do was recognize the limits of their control and find pleasure within a small, knowable realm – fishing, bullfighting, drinking, whatever. I realize that might not seem to apply here, I told my brother, but it does.

You really like her, maybe you even love her – it doesn’t really matter. But all you can do is your best, and if you’re doing your best and she’s still treating you like shit there’s not much you can do about it besides hoping she comes around. If not, chalk it up to experience and move on. Her loss. There are other fish in the sea. You’ll find someone else. It took me a long time, but that’s what I eventually came to realize about Christina, that’s how I finally got over her. Not easy by any means, but effective.

My brother seemed to get what I was saying, I think. I gave him a few more tips on how to handle the situation. Honestly, I hope it doesn’t work out, for my brother's sake. He’s too young to be tied down.

************

We read the New York Times online. We get coffee and read magazines at Barnes and Noble and feel good about not spending the afternoon drinking. We spend the afternoon drinking. We talk about how horrible the Lower East Side has become. We’re growing comfortable. We have casual sex. We look up kids from high school on Facebook and usually feel better about ourselves. We talk about real estate. We go to the gym three times a week. We do cocaine and pills when they come our way. We’re pretty much cool with gay people. We have resigned ourselves to a mid-life crisis. We’re going to buy a bike off Craigslist in the spring. We have good benefits.

************

He’s waiting for the N train to Manhattan. It’s early Saturday afternoon and his calves are sore from a morning run in Prospect Park. He smoked a bowl before leaving the apartment and he’s jumpy; weed does that to him. But it’s pleasant as long as he can keep his mind from spinning off its axis, and right now things are at a pleasant whirr. A young Puerto Rican couple is arguing behind him. He walks to the track and sees the train coming.

It rushes past him, and he hopes it didn’t mess up his hair. As the train slows, he stares ahead and watches his image become increasingly stable in the slowing windows. He pushes back his bangs. When the train stops he’s between doors. He looks into the windows of both, doesn’t see any cute girls, and randomly settles on one.

After sitting down he checks out each of the other passengers. He stares. What do they think of him? His imagination flatters himself. A Hispanic woman and her young son are sitting across from him. They are laughing about something, and he wonders if they are happier than him even though they’re poor. He knows this is entirely possible, even likely. He doesn’t hold it against them.

The train rises out of the tunnel, and lower Manhattan rises over the monolithic lofts of DUMBO. He’s looking north, towards Midtown. He can’t go over the bridge without appreciating the knowing grandeur of New York City. The buildings flash through the spires of the bridge like pieces of a jigsaw skyline. The City thrills him – he is thrilled to be here, thrilled to be twenty-five years old with a good job and no attachments. He reminds himself that he’s missed out on so many chances to really make it, so many coattails to have ridden, like the friend who’s on TV or the guy down the hall who’s a millionaire or the kid in his English class who’s getting published. This no way to think when you’re high, and he cuts it off. As the train sinks between the tenements of the Lower East Side he reminds him that it’s Saturday afternoon in the City, and soon it will be Saturday night.

************

We take our health for granted. We love our families. We want to be famous. We read Page Six but not on the train. We will never move back to the suburbs not ever. We look back on our childhood with great nostalgia. We save a little bit of money. We like shopping. We’re selfish. We’re not yet desperate enough to try online dating but we’ve thought about it. We’re thinking about grad school. Some of us sort of believe in God but most of us don’t. We’re Democrats. We used to smoke cigarettes. We’ll look back on these days with undue fondness. We have medium dreams.

Jan

2007-10-19T16:34:00.000-04:00

Hi, loyal readers. I posted two essays today, so check out
both if you have nothing better to do

Her name was Jan, which is kind of weird because my mom’s name is Ann. She was Scandinavian, and while I didn’t think to ask I assume that she was blond. My dad was and remains half-Japanese, with equally ethnic jet-black hair. They were counselors together at a Christian summer camp in Des Moines, Washington. The year was 1973, and my dad had just completed his junior year of high school. He says she was gorgeous.

As hard as it is to imagine my dad with someone other than my mom, it’s almost harder to imagine him at a Christian camp. As long as I’ve known him, my dad has been an unwavering atheist. It’s not something he talks about much, and it didn’t keep him from sending my siblings and me to Catholic school, in deference to my mother’s wishes and the overwhelming mediocrity of the local public schools. As he explained it to me, one day not so long after the events of this essay he realized that religion was bullshit. Maybe this revelation had something to do with the fact that his mother had died a year earlier. Maybe he finally allowed himself to acknowledge something he’d known for a long time. Maybe – and I think this must have played a significant role, because I’ve sat next to him at baptisms and weddings and he’s worse than a seven year-old after a jumbo bag of Pop Rocks – maybe he just got sick of going to church.

Regardless, he was still a believer when he met Jan. She lived up in Seattle, about 45 minutes north of Tacoma, where my dad lived. They both belonged to the Covenant Church, which as I understand it was more or less your run-of-the-mill Baptist outfit. They sent a bus around to poor neighborhoods during the summer looking for kids with nothing to do. My dad and my uncle hopped on, and soon enough the church became an important part of their lives.

I’m sure my dad was a great counselor. He’s always been good with people, quick to laugh, self-confident. I bet he was one of the cool counselors, the guy who everybody considered a friend, the guy who had something going with the cute blond girl. I’m not surprised that Jan was attracted to him, although I’ve also seen pictures and know that his complexion wasn’t great and his haircut didn’t do much for his round, half-Japanese face. Actually, he bears a strong resemblance to me, or perhaps vice versa, so I should probably take comfort in his luck with the ladies.

I only went to camp a few times and never really got into it, but I imagine that it would be a thrilling place to start a relationship. Everything is foreign and exciting – the setting, the rules, the people. It doesn’t get much more romantic than campfires, and you’ve got one every night. My dad likes to tease people, so I’m sure Jan got a lot of that. My mom has also told me that he wasn’t above snapping the occasional bra, although that sort of thing wouldn’t have flown at a Christian camp. He probably told her a lot of really cheesy, hopelessly romantic things, like all teenagers, even those who grow up to be someone’s father. All I really know is that my dad and Jan started something, and it got more serious over the summer. When camp let out, they decided to keep it going. After all, they didn’t live so far away from each other.

On Labor Day, right before school started, my dad drove up to Seattle to see Jan. I’m not sure what sort of car he was driving then; maybe it was the green Buick Wildcat I’ve seen in photographs. I can see him slowing to a stop in front of a tidy ranch house with a freshly-cut lawn. It is a beautiful summer evening, the sort of evening that makes you forget all of the rainy days to come. He’s wearing bell-bottom jeans and a snug t-shirt. Maybe he looks in the rearview mirror to check himself out, although I doubt it. He walks up to the door and takes a deep breath. He’s already grinning as he presses the doorbell, ready to charm the folks, wow them with as many “sirs” and “ma’ams” as they can handle. Jan opens the door, an awkward smile on her pretty face. Her parents lurk a few feet behind. The father shakes my dad’s hand, but doesn’t smile. There is no small talk. They do not ask him in. Jan’s parents pull her away from the door, and they huddle in the hallway as my dad stands on the doorstep, still smiling. The front door is open but the screen door is closed. He can’t really hear what they’re saying. He looks down at his feet. After a minute or two, Jan comes to the door and they leave, her parents watching from the darkness. They drive away. My dad asks what all that was about. Jan tells him that her parents don’t like her going out with a Japanese guy. They want her with someone white, preferably Scandinavian. She has to be back home in an hour.

When I asked my dad to retell this story, which he’d briefly told me once or twice before, I thought it ended there. She said they couldn’t see each other again and my dad, without a word, took her back home and drove away without looking back. He was furious, angry to the point of tears, and swore that he would prove them wrong. Later that year he started dating my mother, who is much more beautiful than even the gorgeous Jan, and who loved him unconditionally. Years later I was born, a symbol of triumph over ignorance.

But that’s not what happened, not really. Jan and my dad saw each other a few more times against her parent’s wishes. They hung out in Seattle, got ice cream, went to football games at Memorial Stadium, coincidentally the site of my first date with a girl who eventually broke my heart. Ultimately their relationship ended not because of her parent’s prejudice, but because my dad was interested in other girls. Not exactly Romeo and Juliet. If it weren’t for her racist parents, I never would have known about Jan. My dad has no idea what happened to her. That’s usually the way it goes.

The Dog that Bit Me

2007-10-19T16:19:00.001-04:00

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.”

Bertrand Russell

“I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.”

Frank Sinatra

Things I’ve done while drunk:

Gotten a friend fired. His company was holding an event at the Oyster Bar. All-you-can-eat oysters, all-you-can-drink wine. I tried to leave with my wine glass, and when the maître d' attempted to take it away I pushed him. My friend’s parents were there. I still maintain that the oysters were as much to blame as the booze.

Made a girl cry. A few male friends and I were sitting at one of the picnic tables behind Sweet and Vicious. A random girl sat down with us, uninvited. We quickly learned that she was from San Francisco by way of the Ukraine, a Georgetown alum, an Upper East Sider, and absolutely horrible. My friends weren’t particularly bothered, but I made no effort to hide my distaste. About an hour into her monologue, she inquired as to why I didn’t like her. I proceeded to answer her query with all of the clarity and honesty I could muster, which, as I see it, is all any inquisitor could hope for. The girl then began sobbing uncontrollably. Ten minutes later she tried to kiss me at the bar. My opinion of her hadn’t changed, but I played along.

Spent hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, perhaps even tens of thousands of dollars on a wide array of fermented beverages.

Made all manner of unlikely propositions to unsuspecting female acquaintances, often via text message and after 3 am.

All of this begs an obvious question, one that invariably arises sometime between the moment I open eyes and acquisition of the Sunday Times: why don’t I just quit? What do I have against my pocketbook, my liver, and my dignity? The short answer is that getting drunk is fun. I cannot deny the pleasures of a bloody mary over brunch at Jones, an afternoon round of tasteless jokes and German brau at Lorely, or tequila shots at Tom and Jerry’s with a high school buddy in town for the weekend. I suppose each of these diversions undertaken alone and in moderation wouldn’t necessarily lead to the unsavory predicaments described above. But as much as I appreciate alcohol’s ability to bring people together or complement a meal, I also just plain enjoy getting drunk. I like throwing an arm around a buddy and talking about how beautiful life is, how lucky we are to be living in the greatest city in world, how much I value our friendship. I like possessing, however fleetingly, the confidence to approach the beautiful women whom, on the other six days of the week, I can only glance at as their express train slowly overtakes my local. Put simply, the world is a happier, more hopeful place when seen through beer goggles.

The trick, I would presume, is training your eyes to see things through a lager-tinged filter without resorting to drink itself. There are people who don’t need to drink when they go out on the weekends. I don’t count any of these people among my close friends, but I know they exist. What’s scary is that I’ve reneged on so many Sunday morning resolutions that I refuse to insult my intelligence by giving it another go. Put simply, I’ve given up. I might as well put two aspirin on my bedside table and draft a desperately witty, self-deprecating mea culpa e-mail before hitting the town. But one of these days I’ll get it together. Just not before Halloween. Maybe after New Year’s. Definitely by the time I turn thirty-five. Or when I get married. Whichever comes later.

Shallow Waters Run Deep

2007-09-29T19:32:00.001-04:00

I'm taking a writing class at the New School, so hopefully I'll be posting here a bit more frequently. FYI, the assignment was to write either short or long sentences and include a device. Stay true.

One had somewhat wide hips. One had two cats. One had a dead tooth. I think it was a dead tooth. Something was funny about her teeth. It’s hard to explain. One defended Murray Hill. One told me that she used to be fat. I imagined the stretch marks. She was also legit crazy. This is common among newly skinny people. They think thin equals popular. That’s not how it works. I bet Jared from Subway still doesn’t have many friends. And he’s rich to boot. So I don’t feel bad about that particular girl. Because she was crazy.

But I do feel bad about the others. They deserved better. I know that:

- I have no right to be so picky. There are plenty of superficial reasons to write me off. I still get zits. I have a weak chin. Andy Rooney gives me shit about my eyebrows. An addiction to hummus means occasional gassiness. I like to brag about not owning a TV. It’s really obnoxious. I could go on.

- True beauty lies within. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. I believe that. Seriously. I wouldn’t date a physically perfect girl with a horrible personality. That’s not true. I wouldn’t date her for more than a month. Maybe two.

- I’m only hurting myself in the end. I may have already written off my soul mate because she was wearing Uggs. Although I do think such a seemingly trivial faux pas could be indicative of a more deep-seated flaw.

So at least I’m a self-aware asshole. Is that better or worse than being an oblivious asshole? Does it mean that I’m willfully being repugnant? (Which would be worse.) Or that I’m just too lazy to change? (Which would be better. Marginally.)

I’m not sure how it came to this. My mother is strong and independent. My romantic history isn’t exceptionally traumatic. Possible culprits:

- Pop culture - Women aren’t the only victims of the beauty-industrial complex. Granted: male bikini waxes are not (yet) de rigeur. True: I have never been catcalled. (Confession: I think I’d love it.) I hear ya’: high heels must really suck. Conclusion: women have it way worse. But guys suffer too. We’re brainwashed to prefer our women hairless/harassed/blistered. Maybe my innate preference for fuzzy-legged ladies was undermined by “Saved by the Bell” reruns. Maybe it goes all the way back to Maria on Sesame Street. (Total babe.) Maybe I’m the victim here.

- Self-loathing - Am I subliminally sabotaging dates because I don’t feel worthy of affection? Does this essay have any chance of being funny if the answer is “yes”? Or was it doomed from the start?
- An abnormally refined aesthetic appreciation of the female form: I’m not a jerk. I’m an artist.

And just what am I holding out for? Nothing too crazy. A sense of humor. Style. Sophistication. Intelligence. Uncommon beauty. You know. The complete package. Women like that don’t come around often. But they do exist. Put me down as cautiously optimistic. And completely undeserving.

Bowl Data

2007-04-12T19:32:00.000-04:00

Note: You can also check this out on Lift While Climbing, which is run by some friends of mine.

A political candidate’s viability is often reduced to one simple but telling question: Would you want to have a beer with them? But sharing a few laffs over a pitcher of suds isn’t nearly as revealing as camping out in the rumpus room with a dimebag and a medium sausage lover’s. The real question should be: Would you want to get stoned with them? What follows are purely hypothetical stoner profiles of the leading 2008 presidential candidates:

THE DEMOCRATS

Hilary

- Preferred Paraphernalia – a glass pipe (name: Toots McSmokealot) purchased during her freshman year at Wellesley.

- Stoned Song – Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing.” Rated America’s #1 favorite song in a recent Gallup poll; confirmed by Hillary 2008 focus groups.

- Marijuana Movie – “Pretty Woman.” Because she’s still a hopeless romantic at heart.

- Munchies, man! – a 32 oz. porterhouse, very rare.

- Baked Babble – “Bill inhaled. I inhaled. Fucking Nixon inhaled. It was the seventies, for chrissake. Give me a break.”

- Dope Demeanor – Paranoid. Very paranoid.

Barack

- Preferred Paraphernalia – Cocaine blunts.

- Stoned Song – Rod Stewart, “Maggie May.” You’d think this would hurt his credibility within the black community, but in fact a large number of African American’s really love Rod the Mod. It’s just one of those weird things.

- Marijuana Movie – “Soul Plane,” allegedly. But he could just be overcompensating for the Rod Stewart thing. In his defense, it’s actually kind of a funny movie.

- Munchies, man! – Half a pack of Nicorette.

- Baked Babble – “Which is a weirder presidential name: Barack Hussein Obama or Millard Fillmore? Tough one, right?”

- Dope Deamanor – Cool as fuck. Homeboy makes Snoop look like Screech.

John E.

- Preferred Paraphernalia – a simple, workingman’s joint. Preferably smoked in the company of the family dog behind the toolshed.

- Stoned Song – Alan McGraw. Garth Tritt. Waylon Urban. Bruce Mellencamp. This is his country, damnit.

- Marijuana Movie – “Wild Hogs.” Anything with Tim Allen, really. John Edwards is one of you, America!

- Munchies, man! – Hominy. It simply doesn’t get more Red State than J-ward!

- Baked Babble – “I pay my Botox guy more than I pay my top consultant. A lot more.”

- Dope Demeanor – Very smiley. It’s kind of creepy.

THE REPUBLICANS

Rudy

- Preferred Paraphernalia – one of those metal cigarettes that’s actually a pipe. Because he’s sneaky!

- Stoned Songbook – Dean Martin. The original slick Italian. Ol’ Dino was like parmesan-encrusted catnip to impressionable legal secretaries back in the Attorney General days.

- Marijuana Movie – Previews of the Giuliani biopic commissioned by his campaign. Coming soon to a theater near you – “Did I Mention 9/11? The Rudy Giuliani Story,” directed by Jerry Bruckheimer.

- Munchies, man! – Judith Nathan

- Baked Babble – “You know what’s crazy? Ice cubes, man. They’re like these little, perfect squares of coldness, and we totally take them for granted. You know what else is crazy? That a pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-civil union New Yorker might win the South Carolina primary. That’s fucking crazy.”

- Dope Demeanor –Kind of jumpy. Constantly killing your buzz with inappropriate comments you try to forget.

Mitt

- Preferred Paraphernalia – a Coke can. Because if he’s going to indulge in the forbidden herb, why not make it a twofer and score some caffeine?

- Stoned Songbook – the Carpenter’s Christmas album. It reminds him of family, and Mitt Romney is all about family. But only wife. Don’t get it twisted.

- Marijuana Movie – “An Inconvenient Truth.” He was the governor of Massachusetts, alright?

- Munchies, man! – Pickles.

- Baked Babble – “Yeah, Mormons take a lot of shit, and some of the stuff we do is a little nutty, granted. But have you ever taken a close look at the Pope? Homeboy is walking around with a fucking sceptor. Why doesn’t anyone ask Rudy what that’s all about?

- Dope Demeanor – Pompously earnest. Earpous.

John McC.

- Preferred Paraphernalia – perfectly rolled joints of legal, medicinal marijuana. He can’t walk without them. Bad hip.

- Stoned Songbook – Cher, “Do You Believe in Life After Love?” His wife, Cindy, listens to it every morning during her nude step aerobics workout. She keeps him young, and he loves her for it.

- Marijuana Movie – “Apocalypse Now – The Director’s Cut.” And not necessarily because of Nam - it’s just a badass movie.

- Munchies, man! – Centrum Silver.

- Baked Babble – “You know who sucks? Pat Robertson. I meant it the first time. And you can fucking go to Wolf Blitzer with that – I don’t give a shit anymore.”

- Dope Demeanor – Tired, a little cranky, but oddly endearing.

R.I.P. Noodle Man

2007-01-09T17:16:00.000-05:00

In honor of the death of Momofuku Ando, I'm posting a recipe I recently submitted to a workplace cookbook.

Top Ramen: A Primer

Let’s get one thing straight – this is not a joke. I’ve been eating and cooking Top Ramen ever since my molars came in, and by the time I graduated from college my mastery of the noodle arts was recognized in dormitories far and wide. A breakdown:

Flavor: When I was young and my tastebuds hadn’t yet developed, it was Beef or nothing. A teenage flirtation with vegetarianism necessitated a switch to Oriental, although I later learned that every flavor contains animal stock. The time I spent with both of these flavors was special, but I couldn’t shake the haunting sense that something was missing. It all came together by chance – I was ravenously hungry, and the only flavor left in the house was Chicken, my younger sister’s favorite. Swallowing my pride, I decided to give the strange yellow powder a shot. The rest is history.

Water: Two cups, and not a drop more or less.

Cooking Time: It’s hard to fault a company that has provided me with so much happiness at such a small price, but I simply cannot understand why Nissin Foods instructs their loyal customers to boil the noodles for a paltry three minutes. Listen, and listen closely: boil the noodles until almost all of the water has evaporated. I don’t care whether it takes five minutes or two hours. Remember, young grasshopper, patience is a virtue.

Supplemental ingredients: You can’t take it to the next level until mastering this aspect of the ramen game. The key is knowing your limits.

Beginner: Onions. Throw ‘em in with the noodles and forget about it.

Intermediate: Mushrooms and green onions. Add them too early and you end up with mushy mushrooms and brown green onions. Add them too late and your soup becomes a dysfunctional salad.

Advanced: Egg. The coup de grace. To be added ever so gently in the final minute of cooking.

Don’t even get me started on grilled cheese.

Certified Ballers

2006-11-05T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's very important to Coach that his boys remain limber.

We're telling people that the Indian guy is black.

Have you tried the new flavor of Gatorade? It's called "Beer."

Go ahead, stare. The only socks we're wearing are on our feet - believe dat.

The bus broke down a few blocks before the Garden and we had to hustle.

Variation on a Common Theme

2006-07-16T17:09:00.005-04:00

I don’t know why I do this to myself. I’m currently sipping an extremely spicy Bloody Mary in an undisclosed Brooklyn restaurant/tea house. My stated goal was to do a little writing and enjoy a much-needed drink, but I should have known that I would spend every other sentence obsessing over my waitress, who I’m in love with.

I’m going to try to describe her without staring more than usual. She is relatively tall, or at least not short. She has longish, straight black hair. Her face reminds me of Anne Hathaway from Devil Wears and Prada, with a slightly more prominent nose. She has slim hips, which is a big deal to me. I don’t know how large her breasts are, which is not such a big deal to me, and I’m also petrified of being caught looking. OK, I just looked. They’re not very big. Which is fine.

Most important, she has an excellent sense of style. OK, maybe not “most important” – I could never be seriously interested in a well-dressed ugly girl (or someone with a shitty personality – just indulge my superficiality for a minute, alright?). And “well-dressed” encompasses a wide range of styles, from preppy to punk. Originality is good. A little skin is great. A hat is awesome, and high-top sneakers are fucking unreal. The girl in question definitely fits the sartorial stereotype of the Williamsburg gamine: 80s inspired, with dashes of 70s indulgence and 60s whimsicality (I can’t believe I just wrote that, but upon serious reflection I’m standing by it). Today she’s wearing denim wedge heels, mid-length khaki shorts, a paisleyish top, and a long gold rope with nautical medallions. It sounds contrived, but she’s so friendly and genuine that it totally works.

Thing is, this girl’s style is part of the problem – it makes me feel hopelessly square. Whenever I go to her restaurant, I take pains to wear my most daring outfits. And it’s not like I have nothing to work with – we’re talking about a wardrobe that includes a seersucker suit and patent leather Jordans. But this diligence is part the problem, because I bet that she’s the type of girl who is attracted to guys who wear 10 year-old Levis, bathe weekly, and play second bass in a struggling post-punk outfit. My neurotic need for stability and distaste for black denim means that I’ll never be this guy, although I do have the requisite shitty apartment.

My relative conventionality is only one reason why the only desires I will ever express to the young lady in question are my abiding passion for vodka and tomato juice and my need for the check. Another problem is that I don’t want to be just another asshole whose unwelcome oglings she has to deal with because I’m a paying customer. This girl is perfect crush material – impossibly cute with a pungent whiff of sexiness, approachable enough to encourage even the wariest suitor, and seemingly unaware of her formidable powers. She has undoubtedly been fending off poor schlubs like me since first grade Couples Skate. And maybe that’s the appeal – she’s one of the first girls I’ve admired from afar for a long time. Back in elementary and high school, I would spend years dreaming about the same unsuspecting girls across classrooms, hallways, and lunchrooms, often for years at a time. Since college, however, the magical powers of alcohol have afforded me the courage necessary to approach appealing girls, with decidedly mixed results. But I’m only around them for a few beers at most, so any rejection is easily forgotten.

I’ve fantasized about seeing this girl at a bar, after a few drinks. It would be much easier to talk to her, not only because I’d be drunk, but also because I wouldn’t have to break through the waitress/diner barrier. Odds are I’d open with a self-consciously clever observation about the clientele, follow with a poorly received attempt at witty banter, and conclude with a pathetically self-deprecating farewell. My faith in true love would be irreparably damaged, and I would never go back to her restaurant. So maybe I should continue to stifle those fleeting urges to engage her in actual conversation. That way I’ll continue to relive the unrequited longing that was such an important part of my formative years, and she’ll continue to pocket outlandish tips.

Duder

2006-04-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

I used to think being surrounded by creative and productive people would be invigorating. Bouncing ideas, intellectual ferment, etc. Unfortunately I was wrong. A friend from college is filming a pilot for MTV, and it makes me queasy. I almost choked on my gum when I caught my old roommate's article in the New York Press. And now my current roommate has created a show that is original, funny, and destined to succeed. I'm afflicted with both jealousy and a painful awareness of just how much time and dedication it takes to succeed. When you get right down to it, I'd take sleep over writing any day of the week.

But this isn't about me. It's about my roommate's show. Filmed on location in my Williamsburg apartment, where the wood paneling is fake and the atomic cockroaches are all too real. There is much more to come. Act like you know.

Shanked - Pt. 6

2006-04-09T23:15:00.000-04:00

Note: Sorry to subject everyone to this half-hearted post, but I'm trying to follow through on Shanked. This just might be its swan song.

I hadn’t been raised Catholic, but that couldn’t fully explain the profound discomfort I felt during our Thursday morning prayer sessions. After all, many of my teammates, including all of the black players, were also new to Catholicism, and as far as I could tell they didn’t share my distaste. Maybe this was because the service itself was essentially interdenominational, incorporating Southern Baptist fervor, Midwestern piety, and Left Coast New Ageism, befitting the geographic diversity of the squad. Maybe the problem was that I simply didn’t believe as much as everyone else.

My father always claimed that Sunday was a time for rest and that nothing was harder work than sitting through church, so it was up to my mother to drag my sister and me out of bed, and most times she was content to leave well enough alone. Whenever we did go, I was always less bored than I would admit, watching a bunch of strangers chant in unison, unleash their horrible singing voices, and interact with touching sincerity all in the name of some unseen force. It was at turns touching and extremely creepy. Thursday prayer meetings were somewhat different, although no less intriguing from a sociological standpoint.

The chapel stood alone in a secluded, wooded plot behind the business school. It was built in the seventies, and featured mahogany paneling, ugly stained glass abstractions, and a large crucifix supporting an unpainted, wooden Christ. The entire roster, various coaches, trainers, and assorted hangers-on fit inside with a few pews to spare. I ran from my dorm and made it just in time, sliding in next to Jamiri Smith, whose outstanding peripheral vision allowed him to realize that I wasn’t worth acknowledging without even turning his head.

Father Terry rushed in behind me, clad in his familiar gray sweatsuit. He made his way up the aisle, shaking hands with the guys and offering words of welcome and encouragement. Although he now looked like the Lucky Charms leprechaun, Father Terry had once been a star running back for UB, as he never tired of reminding us. Everyone seemed to buy his schtick, especially the star players he favored. During long, cathartic private conferences with Father Terry, these gridiron stars aired out their anxieties, both petty and grand, without fear of losing face. After all, it takes a real man to open up. I wondered what turned on Father Terry more: repentant tales of sexual peccadilloes, or the toned buttocks he glimpsed in the shower. No one else seemed to find him creepy, however, so maybe I just felt left out.

After an intense, whispered exchange with Pat Johnson, Father Terry finally jogged up to the altar and asked us to bow our heads. You could sense the testosterone levels subside as 70 hardcore athletes put on their church-going faces. Six-and-a-half days a week, these guys loyally adhered to a doctrine of pain, recrimination, and unchecked aggression, but for these few moments a different holy trinity reigned supreme. All locker room beef was forgotten, or at least put on pause. It was here that the team was reminded that we were not only a bunch of jocks leveraging our genetic gifts for pussy and fame, we were also warriors for Christ.

“It’s great to see everyone here,” Father Terry began, as if we had a choice. “We’ve been through a lot since the last time we met. Last Saturday, we were within sight of the promised land. It seemed so close – I could almost taste the milk and honey. But it turns out the journey wasn’t over yet, and we were only at the top of a hill that we would soon need to descend. Now we’re back in the shadows, and God’s end zone seems so far away. Some of us wish we could rush ahead on our own, while others are struggling to catch up.” At this point Jamiri looked over at me. “However, we can only make this journey together. Sometimes there will only be one set of footprints in the sand, and that’s when you’re carrying each other, like Jesus. Actually, there will be more than one set of footprints, because not even Jermaine is strong enough to carry everyone.” Assorted chuckles. “You know what I mean. The weak may not get the signing bonus, but they will inherit the earth. And when we line up against University of Florida-Orlando in a few days, our greatest asset will be faith – in God, and in each other.

It was easy to get lost in Father Terry’s torrent of bullshit, and for the sake of my self-respect I let myself drift away. Looking around, I realized that I loathed pretty much everyone on the team, even guys I didn’t know. In fact, I didn’t really like anyone at school. There were a few guys from my dorm who I got drunk with, and a couple of mildly attractive girls I had hooked up with, but the only thing keeping me here was a football scholarship. Once the season was over I would talk to my parents about transferring to a small school where I could make the soccer team. California sounded nice. At this point, a lifetime of indentured servitude to the Student Loan Coporation sounded preferable to another two years as a failed kicker. I just had to get through a few more games.

At the Armory Show

2006-03-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

Note: Kind of old, and more of the same old shit - I apologize. I'm currently looking for a new job and working on research project for the folks at City Hall, which has been tough on the creativity. But I have some new ideas floating around, so there's hope for me yet.

He doesn’t really want to go to the Armory Show. Honestly, which is more enjoyable: swapping dramatized tales of last night’s debauchery over eggs benedict and milkshake-thick Bloody Marys at NoHo Star, or trekking over to the Hudson for an overcrowded art fair? But he hasn’t gone to a museum or even a movie theater in weeks, and the prospect of another mindless Saturday depresses him. He likes to think of himself as relatively cultured and art savvy – he was only one class away from an art history minor, after all. The Armory Show is the perfect opportunity to brush up on the contemporary art scene without having to do the gallery-hop thing, which he finds kind of disconcerting. Museums and fairs are the way to go – one stop shopping. He texts his friends that he’ll meet up with them in a few hours.

The L train is pulling up to the Bedford station just as he’s walking down the stairs. Perfect. He doesn’t like waiting on the platform, where he always feels like a square. Today he’s wearing the new, wildly overpriced jeans he bought with his tax return, a red Fred Perry track jacket, a Valentino oxford shirt from Century 21, and a pair of brown Jack Purcell sneakers he got for $20 back home in Seattle. Oftentimes he’ll try out a more adventurous outfit in front of the mirror before opting for something a bit more conservative. Preppiness gets in your blood. Sitting across from him on the train is a beautiful woman who is intently completing some sort of official form, which gives him an opportunity to really give her the once over. Her hair is short, which he digs (friends have attributed this proclivity to the fact that his mother has short hair; he doesn’t like this theory very much). She’s wearing a crazy blouse with an almost Elizabethan collar, and her boots are chunky and black. She doesn’t once look up from her forms.

At Eighth Avenue he transfers to the uptown E. The short-haired woman gets on the same car. She looks like the type to attend art fairs. He fantasizes about striking up a conversation with her as they walk to Pier 50. Maybe she would be interested in a guy like him. The key is to be sincere. He settles on an opening line. She gets off at Penn Station.

He smokes a cigarette while walking down 50th Street. Dunhill Lights. The first cigarette of the week always gives him a headache; he only smokes on weekends. As he gets closer to the River the sidewalk becomes crowded with other fair-goers, all of them exuding a faint sense of self-satisfaction that has nothing to do with the beautiful weather. Once they get to the Pier everyone is sort of confused – where is the majestic stairway, the bustling interior promenade, the skylit galleries? In fact, the only common thread linking the Piers with Museum Mile is the exorbitant entry fee.

After squeezing his way through the edgily-dressed hordes, he finally makes it into the interior of Pier 90, which resembles nothing so much as a very long, very wide hospital hallway. There are booths on each side and in the middle, and the scene reminds him of a high school science fair. He begins sauntering through the crowd, weaving his way in and out of the booths. Some of the art is interesting; most of it is not. Looking at a sculpture made of green foil and construction paper, he thinks the most philistine of thoughts: I could do that. This thought has never crossed his mind before, not during the Duchamp documentary, not at the Jeff Koons exhibition, not even at the performance art opening in Soho where the featured medium was chocolate pudding. Everything here looks so calculated. He keeps picturing one of his asymmetrically-tressed neighbors cackling maniacally while rolling around in a pile of cocaine and money swindled from a gauche investment banker hoping to buy some taste. Honestly, at least half of the people at the Pier look like they wandered in from a Goldman Sachs mixer. A conversational sampler:

- “It’s like he’s trying to deconstruct deconstruction, or something.”
- “I didn’t like it in Basel, but I like it now!”
- “This would look fucking fantastic in the second bedroom.”

He much prefers the other segment of the crowd, which consists of beautiful young gallery assistants and their gay friends. The gay friends are pretty funny in an Oscar Wilde sort of way, and the girls are everything he thinks he’s looking for. Where do they hang out on Saturday night? Not that it matters – he figures that this sort of girls is interested only in guys who are rich and foreign (he is neither), or poor and self-destructive (he is both, actually, but not in a compelling way).

By the time he makes it out of Pier 90, he realizes that after forty minutes he is already bored. The sight of a few people walking around with drinks briefly piques his interest, but he can imagine himself accidentally spilling his Stella and shorting out a pornographic train set. He smokes another cigarette before walking over to Pier 92. The lobby of Pier 92 is even hotter than its counterpart, but aside from that it looks like he's in for more of the same. And then:

“I’m so sorry, but we’re not going to be able to let anyone into Pier 92 for at least twenty minutes. It’s a fire code thing – we’re very sorry”

He shrugs to himself – actually raising his shoulders and smirking to no one in particular. The woman next to him looks over warily.

His phone rings on the long walk back to Eighth Avenue.

“Guy, how was the show?”

“Hit and miss. Definitely hit and miss.”

Dear Womankind,

2006-03-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

Where to start? It’s been such a long time since I’ve written a love letter, maybe because you’re all so damnably… No, no, that’s exactly what I want to avoid this time. Let’s try again.

What I’m trying to say is that I love you, even though you’ve done me so wrong. And actually, looking back on it, I can’t think of too many times when you were purposely hurtful. It ended because you got sick of me, needed your freedom, or wondered if he could give it to you better. Lord knows there have been times when I was sick of you, times when I exchanged illicit glances/phone numbers/rhythmic grunts, times when I was lured astray by slimmer hips or more appealing bone structure. But it was never worth it. Except when it was, and even then I could have been more thoughtful. I can’t say that I’ll never do it again, but I apologize nonetheless. And I accept all of your once and future sorrys, spoken and silent.

We started out so sweet, remember? I wasn’t one of the brave guys who flipped your skirts on the playground or sent out a few extra-special Snoopy Valentine’s Day cards. Furtive glances and the occasional cruel, misguided taunt were the only amor arrows in my quiver (some things never change). I was beating off to Victroria’s Secret catalogues by the fifth grade, but I never connected my love of chenille and satin with real, live girls like you. Sure, I noticed the bra straps that began peeking out of your tartan jumpers (Would it be a cop out to blame all of this on 13 years of Catholic education?), but I couldn’t imagine actually slipping them off your shoulders. A simple lap around the rink during Couples Skate was enough for me. I still have the letters you sent me, by the way, complete with Lisa Frank stickers and hesitant expressions of affection. They’re in the attic somewhere, but I definitely have them.

Maybe those were the best days, before our various glands erupted. High school was a bitch because now I knew what I wanted to do with girls, but I was no closer to actually achieving it. And I’m not just talking about carnal pleasures; I wanted corny shit like holding hands, exchanging Christmas presents, long conversations about nothing. I had it for awhile, but you went ahead and broke my heart. I may have been a 16-year old punk, but the end of that first real relationship hurt like a mother. You’re right, I didn’t handle it very well, but neither did you. Let’s chalk it up as a learning experience.

I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about what you did to me next. Or what I did to myself, whatever. It was good, I didn’t realize, you moved on, and I will someday. Or maybe I won’t, maybe I’m not supposed to. Maybe everyone’s favorite terrorist, Cat Stevens, said it best: the first cut is the deepest. My photos of you are somewhere up in the attic as well, removed from the albums they originally inhabited.

So where does that leave us? Personally, I’m dealing with residual bitterness, fear of intimacy, and a sense of purposelessness. Throw in the fact that I’m squandering my peak sexual years and you’re dealing with an unappetizing cocktail o’ man. However, I’m not the only with some issues. When you’re not leaving me behind, you’re getting ahead of yourself. You say I’m a drunk, and then blame it on the booze. You’re upset that I don’t call you, but you gave me a fake number. Let’s be real: we’re both fucked up.

Not much of a love letter, I know. But I do love you, and not in some patronizing sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice sort of way. I love it when you wear a dope pair of high tops. I love the way you fawn over babies. I love how you scrunch your brow trying to explain the crux of a good book. I really love your earlobes…

We’re gonna work it out.

XOXO,
rd

Javier

2006-01-31T18:38:00.000-05:00

I felt self-conscious walking into Hooters wearing my dirty work clothes, but who was I trying to impress? Certainly not the other customers, who were exclusively male and primarily blue-collar, and definitely not the hostess, who directed Javier and me to our lakeside table with an icy smile.

“Not a bad view, eh, amigo?” Javier asked me.

I appreciatively surveyed Seattle’s Lake Union in all of its summer glory, before redirecting my gaze to the departing hindquarters of a bleach-blond waitress.

“Yeah, and the lake’s nice, too.”

Javier laughed joyfully at this cheap joke, his head thrown back and his eyes closed.

“Maybe you should ask one of them for a date. Tell them you’re a big shot from New York,” he said, deliberately enunciating each word in his accented voice.

“Buddy, I’m just a college sophomore with a lot of student loans. They’d probably be way more into a swarthy Latin lover like yourself.” In reality, there was little chance they would be interested in either of us, with our dirty Carharts and worker’s tans. Javier seemed perfectly comfortable, but I would have welcomed some clean clothes. Whenever I left the job site in my work clothes – whether on the bus or in a restaurant – it felt as if I was wearing an unflattering costume. I respected my co-workers and recognized that most of them never had access to the opportunities I took for granted, but for all of my enlightenment I was still embarrassed to make eyes with a Hooters waitress because of my grungy appearance.

“A beaner like me? I wish you were right. Excuse me, could we get a pitcher of – what do you want? – how ‘bout Bud Light? And wings, um, fifty, please. Spicy, right? No, thank you very much.”

As the waitress walked away, Javier leeringly waggled his tongue at her. I chuckled indulgently, happy to be included, however crude our mirth. This was the first time I had been out with a co-worker during my two months working as a laborer, and I didn’t want to come off as a snob. Javier and I had been toiling on the same crew for five or six weeks, and I was amazed at his unparalleled work ethic, intelligence, and relentlessly positive attitude. Unlike some of the other guys on the job, who initially took me for a connected rich kid who was slumming for the summer, Javier seemed to accept me on my own merits. Or maybe he just didn’t want to antagonize someone who might be tied to the powers that be. In any event, we had formed a real bond, and one that I cherished.

Our pitcher arrived quickly, followed a few minutes later by a heaping plate of surprisingly good wings. In between bones, carrot sticks, and highly speculative assessments of the waitstaff’s sex lives, we talked about work. I was content to let Javier do most of the talking, nodding along as he spoke of his co-workers’ resentment of him (I didn’t tell him that their muttered complaints were even worse than he imagined.), the love-hate relationship he had with our hard-driving and sometimes unappreciative boss, and his ambitions to start a construction company of his own. At some point we ordered a second pitcher, and I noticed that Javier’s face was flushed from alcohol.

“All we’ve been talking about is me – what about you? Are you going to find some sexy Puerto Rican chica and stay in New York?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll probably end up back here someday. There’s no place like home, right?”

“Yeah.” He paused for a moment and looked into his beer. I should have kept my mouth shut, but the watery lager had dulled my already limited sense of tact.

“Do you want to go home?” I asked.

“Of course – I just don’t want to have to sneak back over here.”

Everyone on the job – including Javier himself –joked about his citizenship status, but I assumed he was legal. The company we worked for was a credible one, but apparently the laws governing immigrant labor were easily subverted. Javier’s mood grew more somber as he related an epic tale featuring a harrowing journey through the mountains of the Mexican border, a morally torturous period spent living with unsavory characters in Los Angeles and Seattle, a series of difficult jobs leading up to his current position, and a pragmatic romance with a 35-year old white single mother, 10 years his senior, with whom he traded his companionship and handyman skills for a marriage license and a shot at citizenship.

“Jesus, Javier. That’s quite a story. I’m amazed,” I said.

“Hombre, there are thousands of Mexicans who have been through the same thing. At least I have a gringo wife to go home to!” He laughed, but it was clear from the shaky tenor of his voice that he was shaken up. We talked some more about his childhood, and he told me some funny stories about his exploits with the young women of his hometown. By the time we reached the end of the wings and beer, Javier was in a much better mood. He tried to pick up the entire tab, and I had to physically wring the check from his hands and give my portion to the waitress. I was reluctant to let him drive me home in his tipsy state, but I also didn’t want to take the bus. We listened to Eninem on the short drive to my apartment, and before getting out of his truck I promised not to tell anyone about our conversation when we got back to work on Monday.

My roommates weren’t home yet, so I put on some quiet music, cracked open a microbrew, and brought my journal out to the common room. As the grandchild of a Japanese war bride, I harbored a strong sentimental attachment to the American Dream, despite the vagaries of contemporary society. Javier’s story, for all of its pain and suffering, was ultimately one of hope – he still believed that hard work and perseverance would win him a better life. For the sake of my fragile worldview, I hoped he succeeded. With that resolved, I closed my notebook and headed for the shower.

The New Masculinity

2006-01-29T18:23:00.002-05:00

I trim my chest hair. Fifteen-dollar haircuts make me nervous. After applying pomade, I finish the look with whipped gel or – depending on weather conditions – molding clay. My grandfather would likely vomit if he knew how much my jeans cost. I don’t just wash my face - I have a skin care regimen. Shopping fulfills an undefined but compelling need that bubbles deep within me. My choice of footwear depends largely on my mood. I run 30 miles a week, and as anyone who has seen me at the bar can attest, I’m no health nut.

In modern parlance, I am a textbook “metrosexual.” I reject this term, however, on grounds of inaccuracy and inadequacy. Because it is largely associated with Carson and his “Queer Guy” reammates, the concept of metrosexuality is, for better or worse, interpreted as an insult by the rabidly straight males who are its most prototypical representatives. Furthermore, this new vanity is not confined to metropolitan men – in fact, as indicated by recent sales figures for Clinique For Men and Seven jeans at suburban malls, America’s cul-de-sacs are the latest front in our wholesale redefinition of what it means to be a man.

From George Washington’s wig to Buffalo Bill’s handlebar moustache, even America’s most manly men have gone to great lengths to improve their appearance. But what we’re dealing with now goes beyond pride or even foppery – young men are now giving women a run for their money in the prissy department. Take a look at any lad mag: stuffed between articles about sports cars and surefire seduction techniques are tips on how to look, smell, and dress for success. Sure, publications like GQ and Esquire have been offering up similar (albeit somewhat more restrained) advice for years, but they were also not intended for a mass audience. Maxim and its ilk can be found on the bathroom floors of frat houses, subdivisions, and mobile homes across America.

So is this a bad thing? Is the guilt that strikes me every time I inadvertently shoot my best Blue Steel into the mirror simply the last vestige of a bygone, primitive age, or am I indeed a reduced version of my forefathers? Our female peers have done little to clarify the situation. On the one hand, they claim to be founding members of the Grizzly Adams Fan Club, and it’s certainly true that many women are put off by men whose pubes are shorter than theirs. However, Chris Rock may have put it best when he said that if men could fuck women in a cardboard box they would never buy a house. Which is to say, we’re not exfoliating for our own sake. When women stop buying Us Weekly, N Sync records, and tickets to Adrien Brody movies, maybe we’ll stop borrowing their conditioner. Because, in the end, it all comes down to the biological imperative: I’m going to do whatever it takes to spread my seed among the most fertile and attractive female humanoids. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Shanked - Pt. 5

2006-01-04T16:32:00.000-05:00

University of Boston’s athletic facilities were the envy of the Atlantic Athletic Conference – three floors of top notch equipment (LifeCycle treadmills, ellipticals, and stair climbers; Concept II ergometers; Hammer Strength machines and benches), a spinning room, climbing wall, cardio floor, two basketball courts, an Olympic-sized pool, etc. The gym conformed to the same high-class-industrial-park design motif of the other new buildings on campus, and was certain to look hopelessly obsolete within 5-10 years. The athletic department – which is to say the football team - had the basement level to itself.

The locker room was an especially gross violation of the school’s purported priorities. Four years of tuition for a deserving inner-city student could be financed for the price of the flat-screen TVs alone. Burgundy, our school color, was prominently featured, and the center of the floor was embossed with a large hawk, our mascot. My locker was in the back corner, along with the other special teams players. I made my way through the pack of burly, toned, half-naked men, nodding discreetly and feeling very small, both physically and psychically. Dusty, my long snapper, was bent over in front of the locker, attempting to squeeze his enormous ass into a pair of team-issued sweats. I tapped him on his bare shoulder.

“Hold on, Kempton. Goddamnit, these sweats are tighter than an armadillo’s ass!”

Dusty was a junior from Ft. Worth, Texas. He had apparently been a hot-shit center at a Friday Night Lights-type school, and had traveled east with dreams of anchoring the UB O-line. Unfortunately for both of us, last spring Jermaine West, a Juco stud from Florida, transferred in as a junior, knocking Dusty from his spot on the depth chart. Dusty hadn’t had a problem with black players during his high school career, probably because they were always somewhere else – on the other side of the locker room, in different classes, or elsewhere on the field, trying to outrun each other. Now, however, it was personal, and Dusty came to define himself first and foremost as a white southerner, defender of a bygone code. At first it was restricted to his taste in clothes (Wranglers and dinner plate-sized belt buckles) and music (Toby Ray McGraw), but now I could see that he was itching for a confrontation.

“Alright, I’m done. Hurry up – Coach Blakely is already waiting outside.”

I quickly stripped out of my puffy coat, jeans, and t-shirt, and threw on my sweats. The rest of the team was filtering down the hall towards the weight room, where they would work chest and tris. After pumping some iron, they would review film of Saturday’s game. Because there was no practical reason for me to bench 300, in addition to the fact that kickers know what went wrong the second the ball leaves their foot, Dusty and I practiced by ourselves on Monday, which provoked in Dusty no small degree of resentment.

“I guess I’ll have to get my workout in before class tomorrow. Somebody told me West put up 350 last week – he MUST be on fucking ‘roids,” Dusty said. We were walking up the stairs and out to the practice field. “As if they didn’t already have a physical advantage. Jesus Fucking Christ, I knew I should’ve stayed in Texas.”

“Yeah…” I said. Dusty tended to dominate our conversations. We left the locker room through a back door and headed for the practice field.

“Mix that shit with the Olde English forties I know he loves, and his liver’s gonna be a fucking mess in ten years.”

We made the rest of the short trip in silence. The field was completely empty except for Coach Blakely standing on the 30-yard line with a bag of balls, looking up at the sky. My cleats felt good in the soft, wet turf.

“Well, look who decided to show up – Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee,” said Coach Blakely.

Coach Blakely was from Melbourne, a former Australian-rules football star who had made his first stateside trip in the company of a young Bostonian girl whom he had met while she was spending a semester down under. The girl happened to be the daughter of a prominent UB booster, who had convinced Blakely to make a bid for the vacant kicking coach position. It is testament to his intoxicating charm that Blakely, who had never played a down of American football, was able to convince a skeptical Coach Malarkey that he was the man for the job. Blakely was thirty years old now, but that hardly stopped him from hitting on my classmates (he had long ago ditched the first girl). I don’t know if it was just the accent, but I liked him, even if he didn’t know the first thing about kicking a field goal.

“Alright, after Saturday we’re going to keep it simple. Let’s start out on the twenty – or is that too far for you, Kempton? I’ll hold.” He had to – Jenkins, our holder, would also be playing safety this week because the starter had broken his wrist. The three of us jogged onto the field and took our positions, spread out like the points of a constellation – Dusty on the twenty, Blakely eight yards behind him, and me three steps back and two steps left from Blakely.

“OK – five to warm up. You guys stretched in the locker room, right?” Blakely said.

“Yep,” I lied. My arms swung limply, and I stared at Blakely’s hands, anxious to get started.

“Good, then… Hut!” As Dusty snapped the ball, I began moving forward, all the while staring at Blakely’s hands. In my peripheral vision I saw the blur of the football, and by the time Blakely caught it I was already focused on the point where he was going to put it down. I brought my leg back and swung through with force. My foot met the ball solidly and rocketed through the crossbars.

“Hey, buddy, let’s bring it down a notch - I don’t want you wearing yourself out. Four more,” Blakely said. Dusty grabbed another ball from the pile by his side, and I banged it through. After three more tries at the twenty, we moved back ten yards for five more. No one said anything; we were beginning to find our rhythm, forgoing thought for the comfort of repetitive motion. Snap, place, kick. By the time we moved back another ten yards, I was sweating. After I easily made the first four kicks, Blakely told Dusty, who had been complaining about his back every few snaps, to hold up.

“You know you haven’t missed one yet?”

“Yeah, well, it’s a lot easier like this.”

“Really? Even Gabe would have fucked up one by now, if only to get me riled. I’ve been watching you these last few years, and your leg is top rate. Once Gabe is gone, you’ll be the man.”

“Gabe’s the man because he’s clutch. I’m not.”

“Kid, you missed your first kick. No big deal. Happens to the best of us. You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“Maybe.”

“How ‘bout we start small? You make this next one, we’ll call it a night right now. Miss it, and you and the Duster can run some sprints.”

Dusty groaned. He wasn’t a big fan of the cardio.

“OK,” I said.

“We’re all out of balls, anyway,” Dusty said.

“Then go grab another one, lardass,” Blakely replied.

As Dusty slowly walked towards the end zone to retrieve a ball, I pawed at the turf with my cleats and thought about what Blakely had said. I appreciated his vote of confidence, but I already knew my leg was strong. What Blakely didn’t know was the debilitating, stomach-bubbling fear I had felt on Saturday. This terror went far beyond anything I had previously experienced, and I had played in some extremely tense high school football and soccer games. In the midst of my terror, I was able to register a sense of surprise at how deeply affected I was. After the kick I was simply numb, but now, almost alone on the empty field, I realized the source of my fear. Growing up, I knew that most of the faces in the crowd, even those I didn’t recognize, recognized that I was a person with feelings. Sure, there were always a few assholes, but athletics were generally recognized not only as competition, but also as a means of empowerment and personal revelation. Even the most bitter defeat presented a learning opportunity. On Saturday, the vibe had been completely different. The crowd wanted me to succeed, but for their own crass purposes – a successful kick meant that the would be rowdier, everyone would get drunker, and it would be that much easier to justify all manner of sexual hijinks. My miss provoked nothing but loathing among my alleged boosters.

“Riley – don’t fuck this up,” Dusty said, wagging the ball at me. I considered kicking the ball straight up his racist ass, but instead I put through the middle of the crossbars.

“See, I knew you could handle it,” Blakely said.

I smiled and attempted to look relieved, but I hadn’t actually felt any pressure – in fact, I had considered missing the kick intentionally, in only to make Dusty run.

Shanked - Pt. 4

2005-12-07T20:12:00.001-05:00

It had rained Sunday night, and I almost slipped on the dark marble floors of the Main Building as I rushed up the stairs to my anthropology class. The halls were filled with students – made-up JAPS in designer loungewear talking on their cellphones; bed-headed bluebloods nursing giant cups of coffee and trying to deduce who went home with the remnants of Saturday night’s eightball; perpetually stressed grad students self-consciously making their way through the gaggle of philistines they were charged with educating. The student body was relatively small, and after a year most of the faces were familiar. With my hoodie up, my headphones on, and a strained look on my face, I was consciously hoping to avoid conversation, and aside from a nod to the fat dude who lived across the hall freshman year I made it to class anonymously.

Intro to Anthropology was held in a large auditorium on the third floor. I walked in a few minutes late, just after Professor Wilkinson had begun his lecture. I made a beeline for the back of the room, jogging up the stairs two at a time. My head was down, but I was certain that everyone was staring at me. I found a seat on the aisle, next to a stoner chick.

Last Friday, when I came to class wearing a coat and tie in accordance with team tradition, I had savored the attention. I knew that all of the guys in the room were comforting themselves with the knowledge that I was only a kicker, but I also knew that the girls they were sitting next to had a more rudimentary understanding of the hierarchy of football positions – I was dressed up before game day, which meant that I was a football player, which meant that it might be in their best interests to meet me. Now, as I settled into my seat and watched the guys whisper to the girls and glance in my direction, I knew that even the most sports-ignorant listener would get the picture: that’s the guy who lost the game.

That’s the shitty thing about being a kicker is that everyone else on the team (aside from maybe the long snapper) is assured of their alpha dog status regardless of the team’s record. **** might go for 22 yards, zero touchdowns and five interceptions, but at the end of the day he’s still the quarterback, and the girls still want to tickle his prostate. My precarious place on the ladder, on the other hand, is wholly dependent on performance. If I’m making badass kicks, I am grudgingly granted some of the perks afforded to the Division I football player. But after a crucial miss, I am not only no longer a football player in the eyes of most, I am demoted to a position on par with the guy got caught masturbating in the photography section of the library.

Appropriately enough, the day’s lecture was devoted to the social habits of gorillas. I tuned in just after Wilkinson had cracked the day’s first lame joke, judging by the forced laughter that replaced the Neil Young I had been listening to. With his thick beard, L.L. Bean outfit, bushy gray hair, and condescending tone, Wilkinson was a vulgar caricature of the boho lifestyle. Twenty years ago, when he was a fresh-faced wunderkind with a few groundbreaking articles under his belt, he probably had the coeds in a state of perpetual arousal, but the eagerness he once devoted to his work had been diverted to simply winning the respect of increasingly skeptical students. His use of the vernacular may have impressed students back in the late 70s, but nowadays it was simply wack.

Still, the urgency with which he described the love mother gorillas felt for their offspring reminded me that he cared deeply about the subject, which is more than I could say of most professors. I tried to pay attention and take notes, as much to avoid the looks of my classmates as to keep up with the lecture. After a minute, my notes evolved into an uninteresting doodle of overlapping triangles, and I started thinking about practice. My grades were pretty good, but during football season I found that any academic thinking was inevitably polluted with worries about botched snaps, bad wind conditions, and sideline tirades. Whenever my report card arrived in the mail, my father reminded me that every year Harvard Law reduced the points granted to legacy applicants. This might have disturbed me, had I shared my father’s certainty that I was destined to take over his practice. As it was, I couldn’t think much beyond next Saturday.

A half-hour into the lecture, Wilkinson dimmed the lights and pulled down the projector for a Nova documentary about Jane Goodall. I had watched it with my mother when I was 12, so I put my head down on the tiny writing desk that was attached to the ancient wooden chair and dozed off. The narrator’s soothing voice rumbled through the room, up the chair, and into my body, and I savored 40 minutes of thoughtless repose. I was roused by the lights, and slowly filed out of the room behind my groggy classmates.

“Mr. Kempton! May I have a word?”

I halted my retreat and looked up at Wilkinson. How did he know who I was? I moved awkwardly over to the table he was standing behind. He continued gathering his papers as the last students exited and I waited nervously in front of him. This was the first time I had ever spoken one-on-one with a professor.

“Hello,” he said, still focused on his papers.

“Um, hi.”

“You know, I don’t usually watch football – Animal Planet’s more my speed – but I did happen to catch the very end of Saturday’s game, and as soon as you stepped on the pitch I recognized you from class.”

“Uh, yep. That was me.”

Apparently this guy was a bigger asshole than I originally thought.

“So as soon as I saw your name on the screen I put it together with the very insightful paper I had just finished comparing silverback mating habits with the local bar scene. Very creative.”

Aging hippies like Wilkinson always dig it when you subvert academic convention and integrate real-life experience into your work. I just think it’s groovy to free-associate for 15 minutes and net a solid B+.

“Yeah, well, I just thought I’d try a different approach.”

“I’m glad you did. Most of your peers are less adventurous.”

“Hmm…” OK, he had provided the embattled kicker with a ray of sunshine. Could I leave now?

“Anyway, I’m sure it must be tough during times like this, but if you ever want to talk my door is open. I find college athletics fascinating –from an anthropological standpoint. Maybe we could find a way to integrate this experience into your final project.”

“I’ll definitely think about it… I better go – practice is about to start.”

“Certainly. Keep up the good work.”

I ran out of the Main Building and across the quad, barely making it to the locker room in time.

Hubris and the Beast

2005-12-07T14:14:00.000-05:00

With a budget of $207 million, a director can buy many things: an A-list cast, mind-blowing effects, a servicable script, massive buzz and, in the case of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, enough film stock (or its digital equivalent) to wow the audience into submission. Given the financial and artistic success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which enjoyed an equally absurd budget, Jackson and his backers can be forgiven their faith in bigger, faster, and more. However, in the case of that Academy Award-winning venture, Jackson repressed his inner auteur and played craftsman to Tolkien’s architect, faithfully transferring the fantasy epic from the page to the screen. Although Jackson credits the original Kong as a huge personal influence, he apparently feels little devotion to its creators, Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace. Utilizing beauty’s primal lure and its attendant dangers as his thematic foundation, Jackson heaps on layers of visual artistry, literary allusion, meta-bullshit, and technological showmanship, resulting in a movie that is enjoyable but not great, and too long by an hour.

The original King Kong tells the story of the filmmaker Carl Denham, the dashing sailor Jack Driscoll, and the beautiful actress Ann Darrow, who are traveling to Skull Island in search of an exotic location for filming. What they find is Kong, an oversized gorilla who has the native population trembling in their loincloths. Lured by her pasty beauty, Kong captures Ann and strikes a blow for the wild and hirsute. Not to be outdone, Jack rescues Ann, and Carl brings a temporarily subdued Kong back to New York City, where he meets a grisly end atop the Empire State Building.

Jackson’s basic story is faithful to the original, with a few telling modifications: Denham’s sleaze factor is ratcheted up, the better to showcase Jack Black’s manic humor; Jack Driscoll is a writer, not a sailor (such a conventionally macho hero would threaten Jackson’s free-spending fanboys); and a small sub-cast of supporting players (including a plucky runaway, soft-hearted first mate, salty chef, etc.) has been tacked on to provide the comic relief and easy emotional involvement that anchor every blockbuster, even those helmed by world-renowned directors.

None of the human performances are particularly memorable, which is unsurprising considering the 8,000 lbs. gorilla in the room. Jack Black’s hyperkinetic condescension wins a few laughs, but he is constrained by a rigid character arc that leaves little wiggle room. Naomi Watts delivers an admirable performance, but it is a shame that Jackson is unable to exploit the celluloid-melting sexuality she exhibited in Mulholland Drive. And Adrien Brody… has a big nose. Sorry, Brodster, but you’re not winning another Oscar unless Polanski decides to cast you as himself in an upcoming project exploring Hollywood greed, sixties fanaticism, and statutory rape.

But what about Kong? Well, he’s visually spectacular. Fresh from their success in Middle-earth, Jackson and his Weta Digital crew are in top form. Just as Gollum was one of LOTR’s most convincing characters, Kong’s appearance, movements, and facial expressions are completely natural (thanks in part to Andy Serkis, who “played” both Gollum and Kong). Introduced as a symbol of primordial rage, Kong soon wins us over with his dog-like loyalty to Ann. At the film’s conclusion, the character we are most deeply invested in is Kong, but we are left wanting more. Kong is cute, Kong has feelings, and Kong is treated like shit, but we already knew that, and Jackson promised a bigger payoff. Perhaps he should have followed the path blazed by Gus Van Sant in his remake of Psycho, and simply recreated the original King Kong scene-for-scene, spicing things up with the latest special effects. Unfortunately, the technological and conceptual ambition that served LOTR so well makes for a bloated Kong.

Watching the new Kong’s special effects sequences is like being stuck on a roller coaster – the first go-round is exhilarating, the second run is a chance to catch your breath and take in the thrill of it all, but by the third trip you’ve had enough and just want to use the bathroom. The scope and realism of Jackson’s world, from Depression-era New York City (which is almost entirely computer-generated) to Skull Island, is absolutely breathtaking. Any action junkie short on time should show up for the movie’s middle hour, which includes a dinosaur stampede filmed at mach three and a wrestling match between Kong and a T-Rex that would make Hulk Hogan wince. Unfortunately, Jackson doesn’t know when to quit. After arriving at Skull Island, the audience is subjected to a near-constant barrage of action, much of which does little to advance the plot. Particularly gratuitous is a disgusting insect scene which is fun but completely unnecessary. And while even the most jaded New Yorker will gasp at the amazing urban vistas that are the backdrop to Kong’s iconic ending, Jackson sacrifices intensity and concision in order to show off his creation, leading the audience to wish that the biplane gunners had better aim.

Jackson’s most egregious artistic liberties stem from his desire to position King Kong as a thinking man’s blockbuster. Kong is a movie about a man making a movie, so a few winks and nudges are to be expected. However, after the conceit has been introduced, it is up to the audience to follow through. The steady stream of inside jokes and portentous gestures soon becomes insulting. Even more unsettling is Kong’s cheap references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Just as Jimmy, the scrappy runaway, steals a copy of Conrad’s masterpiece from the New York Public Library thinking he’s in for a straightforward adventure tale, Jackson’s snarky and half-assed appropriation reveals the folly of his attempt to reinvent such a historically significant film. Jackson envisions his Kong as a modern-day fable concerning the wild and its perils, but what he unintentionally reveals, and what Marlow would surely have told him, is that some things are better left alone.

After the Collector’s Edition DVD has been released and the last gorilla figurine has disappeared from the bargain bin, Peter Jackson’s King Kong will be compared not to the original film, which was far more important, but to other big budget blockbusters – Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, for instance. Both films are set on islands (in the case of Kong, Skull Island and the equally perilous Manhattan) and concerned with man’s inability to tame nature. But where Jackson takes a simple story and bulks it up, Spielberg reduces a more complex story to its essential parts. Both movies are special effects showcases, but Spielberg never lets the dinosaurs overshadow his characters – for all of its bluster, no scene in Kong is more frightening than the one in Jurassic Park where the kids are trapped in the kitchen with two angry velociraptors. It may be unfair to compare any mainstream director to Spielberg, but Jackson brings it upon himself. Now that he’s one of the big boys, Jackson needs to take a page from the Great One’s playbook and keep his popcorn flicks and his prestige pictures on different reels.

Am I going to be kicked out of Williamsburg?

2005-12-02T16:31:00.000-05:00

The foot in the foreground? Mine. In the background? A certain Mr. Martin, whom some of you may know. I feel so violated.

Peep it at Vice's Dos and Don'ts website, or simply see below.

What is it with these flip-flop guys where they’re so smug and toe proud? They’re like those small-dicked men at the nude beach that want to come over, put a towel down on the chair next to you, and tell you about the giant turtle they saw. Get your disgusting male nudeness out of my face or I’m going to step on it.

Shanked - Pt. 3

2005-11-20T23:44:00.000-05:00

I woke up around 8 to take a piss and couldn’t go back to sleep. Gabe wasn’t in his room; he must have gone out after I had passed out. He was probably with Maria, the freshman independent studies major and Cameron Diaz look-alike who had allegedly let Gabe fuck her in the ass. Recreating this scenario in my head, I replaced Gabe’s face with my own and began beating off half-heartedly, but my thoughts kept drifting back to last night’s game and I gave up.

Given the choice, I would have gladly spent the entire Sunday in bed, reading the online profiles of strangers in between chapters of Introductory Anthropology. However, after skipping dinner last night a foraging expedition could not be avoided. I showered, threw on a hoodie and jeans, queued some chilled-out electronic music on my iPod, and set off for the cafeteria.

University of Boston is situated just outside of the city, close enough for students to feel like sophisticated urbanites, but not so close that they are ever exposed to the seedier aspects of the modern metropolis. The campus had recently been transformed into a model student environment, thanks to the deathbed generosity of an alumnus who had struck it rich in fast food. The green, rolling grounds were dotted with a few original buildings in red brick, an outdated dorm cluster that only Mies van der Rohe could love, and a new library, student center, administrative building, and gym that were blandly attractive and noncommittally allusive to the neo-gothic structures they had replaced. In sum, antiseptic brochure grist. On a perfect fall day, though, even a depressed, failed field goal kicker like myself could not deny its charms. It was still early, and the commons were mercifully empty: a few random nerds scuttling to the library, a hungover co-ed making the walk of shame back from the frathouse, and an underpaid groundskeeper raking leaves in the sunlight.

The sweet smell of bacon wafting from the cafeteria dissuaded me from my original plan to raid the vending machines and retreat back to my room. With my hood up, I made my way efficiently through the food line, settling on a mushroom, cheddar, and bacon omelet at the hot food station; a large glass of OJ; an everything bagel; and a peanut butter cookie. I grabbed a discarded newspaper and found an empty two-person table near the window.

The sports page was on top, and after a few deep breaths and a reminder that my value as a person was not contingent upon my success rate, I flipped to the college football recap. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, although I couldn’t decide which quote was more nauseating – my angelic quarterback’s vote of support, or Coach’s blunt ultimatum. I was searching for respite in the funny pages when my cell phone vibrated. I took another deep breath.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Baby! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, mom. You want me to call back later? It’s, like, six o’clock in Seattle.”

“No, no, I want to talk to you. You must feel horrible.”

I could see my mom perched anxiously on the edge of Dad’s big leather chair in the living room, still dressed in her nightgown.

“I’m OK, really.”

“Well, it was such a tough kick, especially for your first college game.”

“It was an easy kick. I’ve made kicks just like a hundred times in practice. I just choked. Can’t handle the pressure, I guess.”

“Don’t you talk like that! Remember when you scored the game-winning goal in the state championship game?”

“That was soccer, Mom.”

“Maybe, but you made tough kicks in high school football.”

“Yeah, but we were usually winning when I hit the long ones. And that was high school. Big difference.”

“What’s so different? The field’s the same, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then maybe it’s just your confidence. I know you can do it.”

“That must be a pretty lonely conviction.”

“Don’t you believe you can?”

“I don’t know. Sort of.”

“Baby, you’ve just got to believe in yourself.”

“I know, I know. Anyway, it probably doesn’t matter; hopefully Gabe will be back next week.”

“What happened to that boy, again?”

“It’s complicated, Mom. Hey, can I call you back later? The librarian is shushing me.”

“Oh, you’re at the library? OK. I’ll talk to you later tonight, honey?”

“Hopefully. I’ll try.”

“I love you, Riley.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Thanks for calling.”

I finished my bagel, went through the line again for some dinner supplies, and then went back to my room. The rest of the day was spent reading about bonobo monkeys and analyzing the vast social network that digitally binds the Facebook members who count themselves among the “OC, Bitch!” interest group.

Shanked - Pt. 2

2005-11-18T22:49:00.000-05:00

Gabe was on the toilet when I got back to our dorm room, and I tried to make it into my room unnoticed.

“Not so fast, douchebag. Your ass is mine as soon as I finish wiping,” Gabe said through the door.

I sat down on the couch and reached for the remote before thinking better of it. After some dramatic grunting - and without a flush - Gabe emerged from the bathroom wearing orange flip-flops, team shorts, and nothing else. He plopped down on the tattered orange love seat with a look of exaggerated admonishment.

“Hombre. You hurt sensai. Sensai bestows upon young grasshopper all of his considerable knowledge, and grasshopper misses a 20-yard chip shot in perfect conditions. Seriously, Kempton, what the fuck?”

I usually put up with Gabe because he was an upperclassman, not to mention one of the best kickers in the nation. At this point, however, my breaking point was within spitting distance.

“Yeah, I know. Can we talk about this some other time? I blew it. No excuses; I just didn’t have what it took today. What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that you’re going to get it together. Look, Kempton, I want this team to at least be bowl-eligible when I get back. The national radar’s a fickle beast, and with every kick you miss and game we lose I drop another round in the draft.”

I looked at him blankly. If only the hot hippie chicks who fell for Gabe’s happy-go-lucky schtick could see him now. Underneath the curly locks, Phish t-shirts, Where the Wild Things Are tattoo, and philosophy-major trappings, Gabe was a jock of the first order. He could be endearing, but he could also be a dick.

“Sorry. I really am.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”

His condescending tone set something off in me.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t got caught shoplifting Robitussin this could have been avoided.”

“Maybe if you weren’t a smart-assed punk I wouldn’t have to kick your ass!” Gabe grabbed my collar and cocked his fist. I didn’t think he would punch me, and at this point I didn’t really care. He seemed to realize this, and let me go. We both slumped back in our seats.

“I’m sorry, bro. I’m just fucking stressed. I was already on edge with this investigation – the AD, the reporters, even my moms, for crissakes.” he said.

“Yeah, I know.” And I was sympathetic. I had seen Gabe go through hell over the past week, beginning when he called me from a CVS on Comm Ave, frantically imploring me to send him a lawyer. Instead, the unsympathetic Korean proprietor contacted the police, who then called Coach Mularkey. Somehow Coach convinced the owner to hold off on pressing charges. Over the course of a long car ride through Newton, Gabe then proceeded to convince Coach that the incident stemmed from nothing more than a bad head cold and a particularly sad case of student poverty. Coach almost felt sorry for Gabe by the time he dropped him off, and I chalked it up as further proof of Gabe’s sweet sliminess. It turned out, however, that Coach was wilier than either of us gave him credit for. We’ll never know whether Gabe’s undoing was Google, Coach’s incredulous wife, or simply karma, but by the time practice rolled around the next day Malarkey had put together the pieces and accurately pegged Gabe as an over-the-counter-drug-abusing kleptomaniac.

The rest of the team rolled their eyes when they heard Gabe called into Coach’s office once again. I was less amused, remembering all too vividly the exact pitch of Coach’s heaving sobs as he stood before us at last year’s preseason retreat and recounted the harrowing story his younger brother’s fatal descent into heroin addiction. Once he pulled himself together, he told us that he owed it to his brother to respond with an iron fist to the first sign of drug abuse among any of his players. As I laced up my cleats and anxiously watched the door, I silently prayed that Coach would take into consideration the inexperience of his backup kicker before making any rash decisions. The look of unvarnished shock on Gabe’s face as he hurried past me on his way out of the locker room dashed any such hopes. Before calling a brief team meeting explaining that Gabe was suspended indefinitely for a “breach of trust,” Coach poked me in the chest and informed me that is was showtime.

Back in our room, Gabe broke the silence with a loud fart and informed me that my mother had called our landline approximately 10 seconds after my botched kick. I asked Gabe to tell her that I was asleep if she called back, and retreated to my room for a restless night of Benadryl-induced sleep.

Shanked - Pt. 1

2005-11-14T20:44:00.000-05:00

Note: Because I am both shameless and completely comfortable wasting your time, I've decided to begin posting installments of this novella/short story/complete piece of shit as it comes to me. I'm not really working from an outline, and I am easily frustrated, so this could hit a dead end mercifully soon. Until then, updates will appear as my schedule permits/whenever the self-loathing becomes too much to bear. Also, if anyone could tell me how to indent paragraphs properly through Blogger, I would be much obliged.

BOSTON (AP) - Even Virginia College players felt sorry for Riley Kempton, the sophomore kicker whose muffed field goal smothered University of Boston’s opportunity take the conference lead. “You could tell he felt like he let the team down, especially after Baker got them back in the game with that drive,” said VC running back JaMarcus Zare, who racked up 193 yards on twenty carries, including a 43-yard touchdown dash that tied the score with 3:23 remaining in the fourth quarter. Kempton, who was violently ill on the field after missing n 20-yard chip shot, was thrust into the starting role after Gabe Collins, the senior kicker with NFL aspirations, was suspended for undisclosed violations of team policy. UB quarterback Pat Garret, whose late game heroism failed to rub off on Kempton, was philosophical following the tough loss: “I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Riley’s just starting out, and I’m betting he’ll learn from this experience and put it to use later in the season.” Head coach Mike Mularky saw things a bit differently. “We played pretty good football, but couldn’t close it out. Hopefully Riley will figure it out; otherwise we’ll have to have to move on without him.”

My facemask stunk of last night’s burritos, but I kept my helmet on as we made our way off the field. I got a few ass pats and “Shake it off, bro”’s, but the night’s theme was more accurately expressed in the profane threats my drunken classmates lobbed from the stands. “Go fuck yourself, pukey bitch!”, “Try soccer, fag!”, or “Better watch your back in Poly Sci recitation, Kempton!” The tunnel was silent except for the muffled clatter of cleats on concrete. The prayer circle was already forming when I arrived in the locker room. I moved to the back of the crowd and mumbled my “Amen”’s as Father Jerry reminded us that every loss presented valuable growth opportunities, and that we needed to trust in God and stick together as a team. I was holding hands with Billy Monroe, a 350-pound right guard from Alabama, and Jamiri Smith, a hotshot freshman wideout who kept glancing at me, waiting for the waterworks. I felt bad enough to cry, but apparently my body had betrayed me enough for one day. Thank god for small mercies.

After Father Jerry had finished, Coach Mularkey stood up and cleared his throat.

“Well, boys, today was a tough one. We almost pulled it out, but just couldn’t follow through.” At this juncture everyone pointedly avoided looking in my direction. “But we’ve got a must-win next week against North Florida, and there’s no time to fuck around feeling sorry for ourselves. So clean yourself up, get your ass home, go to sleep, and wake up thinking about what you’re going to do this week to help us win next Saturday. All in now.”

We rose from our knees and the circle collapsed. Someone, Garret probably, yelled, “St. Thomas Aquinas!” - and the rest of the team responded with a resounding “Pray for us!” We then broke up and shuffled to our lockers. I stripped down quickly, throwing my vomit-stained uniform onto the floor and trying to ignore the mumbled conversations taking place around me. Skipping the showers, I put on my street clothes and made for the exit, eyes down. Baker made a move to talk to me, but the last thing I was in the mood for was a few words of wisdom from the golden boy. I ducked behind a defensive lineman and made it out untouched. There were still some stragglers in the parking lot, and I pulled my beanie down low, almost over my eyes. I made it back to the dorms without anyone saying anything to me.

Capital Campaigns

2005-10-06T09:54:00.000-04:00

Note: An abridged version of this post can also be found at The Black Table.

Last night my alma mater called asking for money. Because four years of mind-numbing lectures have dulled my mental reflexes, I momentarily floundered in a sea of possible replies. A sampler:

Option 1: “Hold on while I find my checkbook. Nope, not under this pile of overdue loan statements. Maybe I left it underneath my last package of Top Ramen. Actually, I bet the rats took it. I think I heard them building a nest in my neighbor’s shanty – I’ll run over there and call you right back.”

Option 2: “I’m glad you called. Lately I’ve been having nightmares about apathetic undergrads drinking their frappucinos in a student center with only one plasma TV on each wall. All of this hurricane coverage has convinced me that my charity dollars will be best spent ensuring that rich white kids have every opportunity to ignore muted broadcasts of CNN while they throw trash at the mentally challenged janitor.”

Option 3: “Well, I usually just present a suitcase full of small, unmarked bills directly to the university president when we met up for our annual binge in Thailand. Early childhood education and neuromedicine are close to my heart, so last year’s gift financed a kilo of blow and six underage hookers.”

And finally, befitting the rhetorical skills of a decorated English major, my actual answer, Option 4: “Fuck off.”

Over-financed universities asking impoverished alumni for money: D.

Anatomy of a Regrettable Night (9/10/05-9/11/05)

2005-09-21T10:21:00.000-04:00

9:45
     “Matt, do you know where we can get some coke?” Alli asked.
     “Yeah, sure,” I said.

9:48
     My finger hovered uncertainly over the “Send” button, but then I looked through the window of the bar and saw Alli taking a digital photo of her drunk, attractive friends.
     “Evan?  What’s up – it’s Matt.”
     “Hey, man.  What are you doing?” he asked.
     “Uh, I’m on the Upper East Side, actually, with a friend from back home.  What are you doing?”
     “Just chilling.”
     “Cool.  Actually, I’ve got a question for you: do you know where we can score some blow?  My friend really wants some, and her friends are kinda hot.  I feel shitty for asking…” This was true.  I did feel shitty.  But I would feel worse if I walked back into the bar unsuccessful.  I hadn’t seen Alli in a while, and I wanted to show her that I had connections in New York City, that I had transitioned well from our past life in the suburbs.
     “Ah, I don’t know.  Hold on a sec,” he said.  I was nervous now, pacing Lexington Avenue in the humid half-light of the evening.  It had been a long time since I bought drugs, but the familiar, gnawing anticipation churned my stomach just as it had when I was a greasy-skinned 17-year old waiting in the parking lot of Jack in the Box for a twenty sack.
     “Yeah, I think we can do that,” Evan said.  “How much do you want?”
     “Fuck, I don’t know.  Um, an 8-ball?  No, that’s a lot, isn’t it?  How about 2 grams?  Does that sound right?”
     “I guess so.”
     I couldn’t tell if Evan was cool with this.
     “Yo, man.  I really appreciate you helping me out.  I hate to do it, but you know how things go.  I’ll definitely break you off some.  And I don’t know what your lady situation is looking like, but there are some interesting options up here.”
     “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll see you in a bit.”
     “Yeah – thanks again.”
     Before I went back into the bar I stopped in a deli and bought some bubble gum.

10:30
     Alli, her friend Diana (whom I had flirted with shamelessly during the cab ride downtown), and I waited expectantly at the front door of Evan’s Murray Hill apartment, carrying two six-packs of Amstel Light as a goodwill gesture.  After a few knocks the door opened.
     “What up, guy?” Evan absent-mindedly slapped my palm as he appraised the two girls.  I was confident he would like what he saw; Alli was one of the more gorgeous girls I had ever had the pleasure of knowing, tall and raven-haired with a hawkish face and sharply defined features, and Diana was pretty in a Jappy way.  I put the beers in the fridge as the girls cooed about the apartment, and then squealed in shock when they heard how much it rented for.  New York, it’s expensive.  We settled in the living room, where a muted TV was showing college football highlights.  Evan pulled out two small, brown glass vials.
     “It was $120,” he said.  The three of us rushed for our money, anxious to right this financial imbalance.  The beers that I had already consumed dulled the reflexive tinge of regret that accompanied my every purchase, and I handed Evan two crisp twenties.
     “All right.  Let’s do this,” I said.  I tapped a small mound of cocaine onto the glass table in front of us, pulled out my work ID, and began cutting the lumpy pile into a fine powder.  My first line was long and uneven
     “Hey, if anyone is better at this than me, feel free to take over.  I really don’t do this very often,” I said in all honesty.  There were no takers, so I continued until I had divvied up four fat, crooked lines.  Diana, who was sitting conspicuously close to me on the couch, handed me a rolled $50 bill.  I bent over, snorted the first line, and sat back on the couch, eyes wide, nasal cavity burning.  The dry, bitter taste was instantly familiar.  Alli, with whom I had never done coke, was next up.
     “Who’d have thunk it, Alli, two nice kids like us?  Wouldn’t they be proud?” I asked.  Drugs and alcohol heightened my natural tendency towards sentimentality, a trait I found embarrassing but impossible to temper.  Alli smiled nervously as she hovered over the table, the rolled bill in her nose, elbows out.  She slowly inhaled the powder, looking pleasantly surprised.  Diana was next, and she sucked up her portion deftly, leaving me impressed and self-conscious.  I insisted that Evan partake, and he acceded with minimal resistance.  As soon as I had finished my first dose I was ready for another, and I wasted little time plowing another 4 rows, and then another.  After those had been hoovered up I began dumping out more, but everyone protested that they were good for now, and I grudgingly desisted.
     We were all pretty high now, manic and wide-eyed, madly agreeing with each other and chattering aimlessly.  Evan seemed to be enjoying himself, which comforted me.  As the topic shifted to where we should go (Uptown or downtown? East or West?  Bar or club?  Line or no line?  Dress code or casual?), I began leafing through Evan’s CDs.
     “What do you want to hear, Diana?” I asked, hoping to spark a connection.
     “Oh, I don’t know.  Whatever,” she laughed.  She was smiling at me, and I felt the nervous anticipation that always accompanied the prospect of a hook.  Judging on past performance, the odds weren’t in my favor, but the fact that she was A) clearly looking to have a good time during her weekend in the Big City, and B) high as a kite seemed to play in my favor.
     “Allright, how do you feel about rap music?” I asked, eyeing a burned copy of Jay-Z’s Black Album, which I suddenly needed to hear.
     “Sure, I guess.  I mean, I’m not really a huge hip-hop fan, but whatever.”
     “Trust me, you’ll love it,” I said, moving towards the CD player.  Evan was talking to Alli about something, but I was unable to get a handle on their conversation.  The music burst through the speakers, and a shot of energy surged through the room.
     “What do you think about Pioneer Bar?” Evan asked me.
     “Sounds good.  How about a few more lines for the road?”

11:35
     Evan and I were standing outside Duane Reade while the girls visited the ATM.  I was smoking a bummed Parliament and frantically chewing a piece of bubble gum.
     “So what do you think of the girls?  Pretty cute, huh?” I asked.
     “Yeah, not bad.”
     “Not bad?  Buddy, those girls are smoking.”
     “Yeah, they’re cute.  I mean, I’d fuck them.  Just not my type, I guess.”
     His judgment discouraged me, but I was too stimulated to stay down for long.
     “Hey man, I want to thank you again for hooking us up.  I feel bad, but you know how it is,” I said.
     “No worries, seriously.”
     “Man, I’m definitely jacked up right now.  How are you doing?  I mean, I’m high.  You know, I’m jealous of guys like you, who can be high and still keep their cool.  When I’m high, everyone definitely knows it.  I figure it costs enough, I might as well just go with it, know what I mean?”
     “Yeah, I hear you,” Evan said, warily bemused with my antics.  I wanted to shut up, but more than that I wanted another bump.

12:00
     Pioneer Bar was packed.  The scene was not what I expected, borderline frat, an over-scented sea of collared shirts and pleated skirts.  If I hadn’t been stuffed to the gills with mediocre cocaine I probably would have suggested an alternate location.  The space was huge, and we waded through the crowd for a few minutes before finding the birthday party Evan had heard rumors of.  I didn’t know anyone from the party, and Alli and Diana seemed disinterested, so we elbowed up to the bar, where I bought a Heineken for myself and two vodka tonics for the girls.
     “Whaddya think?” I shouted.
     “Oh, um, it’s cool,” Alli replied.  Diana nodded disinterestedly.  I could tell that my inability to remain cool, coupled with the interest she was drawing from the scores of other guys in the bar, was quickly eroding any connection I may have forged with her earlier in the night.  The girls clearly weren’t enjoying themselves, and there was no one else to help me carry the conversational ball.
     “You ladies up for a shot?” I asked.
     “Definitely.”  If I was buying, they were drinking.  I made my way back to the bar and tried to make eye contact with the bartender.  My reflection in the mirror behind the bar resembled nothing so much as a rabid chipmunk.  This was not going well, and I could feel myself coming down, plunging rapidly into the nether regions of my seratonin-depleted psyche.  Memories of every seven-in-the-morning post-binge exorcism rushed back to me as I simultaneously looked into the future and saw myself home tossing fitfully in bed a few hours hence, alone and despairing.  It was now inevitable; all I could do was put it off.  I paid for the shots and made my way back to the girls.
     “I hope you like tequila,” I said.  They made the requisite faces but downed the shots effortlessly.  I wagged my hand impatiently at Diana.
     “What?” she asked.  “Oh, OK.”  She handed me the vial.  I took a step toward the bathroom before realizing that because of the crowd and the fact that the bathroom only had one stall it would be at least ten minutes before I could get my fix.  I couldn’t wait that long, so I kneeled down on the floor, extracted a rolled bill from the pocket of my jeans, and snorted a massive bump.
     “Oh my God, dude.  I can’t believe you just did that,” Diana said.
     “Believe it, toots,” I said, smiling, happy again.  .
     “I can believe it,” Alli said.  We grinned at each other, sharing the evening’s first real moment of warmth.  “Matt has a long history of doing stupid shit.”
     “Guilty as charged.”  I suddenly needed a cigarette and, paradoxically, fresh air.  “Do you want to get out of here?”
     “Sure, I guess,” Alli replied.  I think the East Village made her nervous.
     “Any ideas?” I asked.
     “How about Dorian’s?”

1:28

     “You ever heard of the Preppie Killer?” I asked.  The girl I was talking to shook her head. Alli, Diana and I had finished off the cocaine in the cab, and my mind was wound so tightly that it was hard to ascertain whether this poor girl was interested in the present line of conversation.
     “I think it was back in the 80s, or maybe the early 90s, but anyway – this guy, some handsome, preppie dude, met a nice, upper crust girl here, took her to Central Park, behind the Met, and killed her.”  There was no mistaking it now – the girl was disgusted.
     “Yeah, pretty fucked up, right?  I can’t believe they didn’t close this place down.  Tell me the truth: couldn’t every guy here” – I gestured wildly around the bar, spilling my Bud Light on her – “be the Preppie Killer?  Seriously, look around – everyone here is crazy!”  She blinked her eyes at me and turned away.
     “Hey, have you ever read American Psycho?” I yelled.

3:53

     “You can just let me out here,” I told the cabbie.
     “Are you sure?” asked Alli.  I could tell she was genuinely concerned for my safety.
     “Yeah, definitely.  Hey, it was good to see you.  Next time I won’t get us kicked out of the bar.”
     “Don’t worry about it.  Just get home safe.”
     “Give Diana my regards, assuming she makes it home alive.”
     “You’re just jealous she went home with someone else.  Take care.”
     “Will do.”
     I got out at 50th and Broadway.  The drugs had cooked down to a crisp, and I was coasting downhill at a frightening clip.  My cheeks were bleeding, and I had to wipe the snot away every few seconds.  Times Square wasn’t any more or less depressing than usual, and I was comforted by the presence of so many other losers.  I bought a Gatorade and a copy of the Sunday Times at the subway kiosk with my last $5 and sat down to wait for the A train.

Thursday, July 23, 1998

2005-09-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

I wrote this in response to an open call for writing about music that was broadcast by a brilliant and enterprising friend of mine. Please see the comments section for more info. Also, if anyone knows how to indent text with CSS, please help me out.

. We were driving down Steilacoom Boulevard towards Throop’s apartment because someone had heard that her mom wasn’t home. It was a summer afternoon, a Thursday, I think. Pat started flipping through my CD binder.
. “Hey, put in Friday,” I told him.
. “Damn - that’s all we ever listen to,” he said.
. “You can always walk.”
. “Chill, dog. Wait until I get my car – we’ll be listening to some real g-shit.”
. “Yeah, I saw some good stuff in the cassette tape clearance rack at Camelot.” Pat smirked, but put in the disc.
. The album kicked in with a fat bassline that sounded great on the subwoofer that I finally got to work the night before. Something in the dash rattled with every thump, and I made a mental note to look for loose screws tomorrow. Ice Cube’s voice floated over the rumble, angry as fuck, perhaps because he knew that somewhere in a suburb of Washington State – not the West Coast he was down with – two middle-class white teenagers were blithely mouthing his lyrics with an affected gangsta cadence - Forty sippin, set trippin, get the grip in, neva slippin. I turned it up as loud as I could without breaking the noise pollution limit, slouched deeper in my seat, hung my right wrist over the steering wheel, and draped my left arm out the window.
. We pulled up at a red light next to a car full of girls, with whom we shared sidelong glances. I hoped they liked my car, a 95 Honda Accord with rims and a tint job. Pat leaned forward to yell something at them out of my window, but I pushed him back and mouthed the word “Busted,” although they were actually pretty cute. The light changed and we squealed onto Lakewood Drive. I turned the music down for a moment as the track changed to Dr. Dre’s “Keep Their Heads Ringin’.”
. “So Throop’s inviting some of cute friends, right?” I asked.
. “Dude, chill. You’ll get yours,” Pat said.
. “Hey, I just don’t want to get stuck chillin on the couch with Uggs McGee while you’re upstairs getting shitty handjobs.”
. “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game! Ba-dow! Turn the music up.”
. We bobbed our heads in unison, happy to have somewhere to go where there were girls waiting, and maybe a liquor cabinet to raid. The violent, misogynist lyrics and aggressive beats bolstered our confidence. I pulled into a parking spot outside Throop’s condo. Pat went to the door alone in case her mother, who didn’t know me, was home. I started Dre’s song over - I’m up front, never in the backdrop / Step on stage and get faded just like a flat top / Your rhyme sound like you bought em at Stop N’ Go / Dre came to wax you so just call me Mop N’ Glo. An old lady drove by and gave me a nasty look so I skipped ahead a few tracks, looking for something less threatening. I landed on “Tryin’ To See Another Day” by the Isley Brothers. I don’t always feel the old school soul jams on this CD, but other times they fit the bill. I couldn’t remember hearing this song in the movie, which I had only seen once. But it was better that way; the music was mine.
. The next track was Bootsy Collins’s funky “You Got Me Wide Open,” which started me thinking about how Pat hadn’t yet come out to get me, and what he was probably up to in there, and the fact that I now had my license but still hadn’t so much as touched a girl’s breast.
I realized that I was worrying too much, which made me anxious, and girls can smell anxiety, so I took a deep breath of and laid my head back against the seat. My eyes were closed, and Bootsy smooth bass licks calmed me. Just as I had reassembled my fake bravado, Pat clambered into the car.
. “Go, motherfucker, go!” he yelled.
I looked out the window and saw the morbidly obese Mrs. Throop running across the front lawn towards me. I backed my car out into the road and sped through the complex with my eyes on the rearview mirror, watching Mrs. Throop’s pursuit of us quickly wane as she slowed herself to a jiggling trot and clutched her chest. I paused the CD.
. “Jesus Christ! What was that about?” I asked. Pat was laughing maniacally, rocking back and forth in his seat.
. “Oh my God! You wouldn’t believe – I’m in there making out with Throop, because you know how she is, and she said her mom wasn’t home, right? So we’re in her bedroom, and I’m going down her jeans, when all of a sudden Mrs. Throop busts in – I guess she came back cause she forgot something – you didn’t see her pull in?” I shake my head; it must have been during my all-too-brief meditation session. “Anyway, so she’s pissed, but I wasn’t hearing it. I busted through her and out the goddamn door like muthafucking pimp. Holy shit!”
. We were both busting up now, and I could hardly see the road. I pulled into the Safeway parking lot and rested my head against the steering wheel as I laughed. Eventually we got a grip on ourselves.
. “Well, what now?” I asked.
. “How about… we get stoned!” With that he dug into the pocket of his carpenter jeans and pulled out a crumpled plastic bag containing a chunky marijuana nugget.
. “Where’d you get that? I thought you didn’t have any.”
. “I didn’t – I stole this from Throop when she wasn’t looking!”
. After a second bout of laughter, Pat went into the Safeway to buy can of Coke. As I was searching in the center console for something sharp with which to transform the aluminum can into a makeshift pipe, I reached over and unpaused the CD. The falsetto trill of Rick James cooing the opening bars of “Mary Jane” slithered through the Rockford Fosgate tweeters, and by the second verse I had found a resin-crusted safety pin hiding under an Altoids tin.

Beautiful Apartments - Too Good to Be True!

2005-08-10T10:15:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering, this post can also be found at The Black Table.

Is the FCC, Pat Robertson, or whoever polices such things aware of the mind-warping filth displayed in the windows of Manhattan’s upscale real-estate agencies? Clinical research has shown that children exposed to this particularly insidious brand of pornography tend to develop deviant fetishes for high ceilings, period details, and staff quarters. Lured by such wanton temptations, affected youth often succumb to a bleak, meaningless life of investment banking in order to sate an infernal desire for natural light. It is up to us, the enlightened humanities majors of the world, to convince our misguided brethren that while panoramic Central Park views may provide a brief, exhilarating rush, the path to lasting happiness is papered with undervalued diplomas, student loan statements, rejection letters, and endless printouts of misleading craigslist apartment postings.

Walking past a Corcoran office while in the midst of an increasingly desperate apartment search: D-

The Male Gaze

2005-07-26T09:54:00.000-04:00

Note: This post can also be found at The Black Table. Just thought you might like to know.

Yes, ladies, we really do think Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, and the rest of their ilk are off-the-chain hot, and we’re a little sick of you getting your post-feminist panties all bunched up about it. With all due respect, your opinion on who we should be jerking off to is about as relevant as Jude Law’s parenting advice. Men are genetically enslaved to big tits, pneumatic bodies, and impossible bone structure. We’ve accepted our fate; why can’t you? And don’t bring up your turncoat friend who claims to be captivated by Cate Blanchett’s eyes – we caught him buying the Dukes of Hazzard bootleg on the L train. If it makes you feel any better, most of us would rather snuff out our eardrums with post-coital Marlboros than engage in conversation with one of our airbrushed objects of desire. So why don’t you get a little less worked up about our Britney Spears screensaver, and we’ll do our best to come to grips with Jimmy Fallon’s inexplicable hold on your hearts. “You know those are fake, right?” F

Redux

2005-07-08T13:58:00.000-04:00

From my office I can see the World Trade Center building site. I look out the window, drum my fingers lightly on the keyboard, and think about terrorism and the world we live in.

September 11th, 2001 was the most exhilarating day of my life. That morning I was standing outside my dorm, waiting to catch the bus that ferried us from the Financial District up to Greenwich Village and NYU. I was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt, an outfit that was memorable only because I would have to wear it for the next week. The bus hadn’t come yet, and someone mentioned that a helicopter or a small plane had hit the Trade Center. I walked to the end of the block, looked west, and saw that, indeed, there was something burning near the top of the building. Intriguing, but not a valid excuse to skip class. The bus still hadn’t come. I waited. After a few minutes the excitement began building among the growing crowd, and I got swept up in it. I walked back to the end of the block, and saw that whatever had crashed into the buildings was clearly larger than a helicopter. I followed the crowd up to Broadway, only two or three blocks away from the buildings. Ambulances were coming now. I watched the building begin to disintegrate. The first wave of horror came when the pieces of debris falling from the tower sprouted arms and legs – people were jumping. Still, I was more excited than scared. I rushed back to the dorm to get my disposable camera and alert my roommate. While I was back in my room the first tower fell. The dorm was being evacuated through the stairwell, where I ran into a friend. She was crying. We hurtled down the stairs and emerged into a impenetrable fog of dust. It was impossible to see more than 10 feet in front of you. The police were handing out face masks, but only to women and children. My friend and I didn’t know what to do. Walk uptown? Go across the Brooklyn Bridge? We decided to take the NYU bus, which was being driven by a very frightened young black man. From the back of the bus I shot pictures of the second tower coming down.

We were dropped off at NYU. Looking down Broadway one saw a huge mass of people trudging uptown, framed by a background of billowing chaos. Some people were crying, screaming, but most just seemed perplexed. I came across some friends, and we wandered the streets, asking each other questions no one knew the answer to, gathering around cars to listen to the radio reports. We eventually sat down in the plaza of an apartment building and smoked some weed. No one hassled us. My cell phone wasn’t working, so I couldn’t call my parents. In the early afternoon I decided to head up to my then-girlfriend’s place at Columbia. The train was packed, and the energy was palpable. I made it to her dorm and called up. She came down and hugged me, crying. I got quite drunk that night, and the next night as well. I must have been subconsciously scared. But it was also thrilling, and I cannot deny that I was somehow proud at being a part of the defining moment of my generation.

Now, whenever I learn of another large-scale terrorist attack on the Western world, part of me wishes I were there. After terrorists bombed the trains in Madrid I found myself anxiously watching the news, noting how only a few months before I had been living there, walking through that station, maybe even brushing shoulders with the victims and their killers. Upon hearing about yesterday’s attack on London I soaked up all the coverage I could find, trying to establish a connection. It’s not that I consider myself a victim – I never suffered from any nightmares, anxiety attacks, or debilitating fears. What it comes down to, I think, is a feeling of solidarity, and perhaps a perverse desire to once again play a role in history. The way things are going, this wish will likely be granted soon enough.

Unnecessary Roughness

2005-06-30T14:13:00.000-04:00

And so are you.

After all of the updates, analysis, and diatribes I’ve absorbed listening to hundreds of hours of sports radio, I’ve come to the following conclusion: Jimbo from Sheepshead Bay doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, and neither do the rest of us.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that sports radio is the soundtrack of my life. I began listening to it in Seattle during my interminable commute, and now I tune in while cooking, showering, or otherwise engaged in the banalities of my homebound life. My local station of choice is 1050 ESPN, just as the marketers intended it. With its rap music lead-ins, pop culture savvy, and aggressively boisterous personalities, 1050 has positioned itself as an alternative to stodgy 660 WFAN, where every discussion invariably culminates in a lively game-by-game break down of Phil Rizzuto’s legendary 1950 season. With ESPN, on the other hand, every topic is destined to conclude with a hilarious crack about the Whizzinator. Pick your poison.

Why do I venture over into the rough and tumble world of AM radio when I could be spending my hard-earned leisure time basking in the nurturing hum of NPR? Well, it could be argued that through sports radio I am connected to the Bush-voting, blue collar, exurbanites with whom I might otherwise have little contact. Consider it my one small, David Eckstein-sized blow against the wall separating the red from the blue. Furthermore, while one might assume that my mind would be more fruitfully engaged by, say, Terry Gross’s in-depth interview with Tibet’s most heralded singing bowl player, sports are actually a more illuminating condensation of the zeitgeist. Sport reveals not only the unvarnished truth about contemporary economics, race relations, and class divisions, it also allows for the purest expression of humanity’s capacity for ruthlessness, valor, and grace.

All of the above defenses are potentially valid. In practice, though, modern-day sports are just another outlet for a listless and overindulged public to make uninformed and often hateful personal attacks on strangers. For every moment of on-field heroism (think Kirk Gibson’s walk-off) or off-field camaraderie (more man-to-man hugs were shared the night of Boston’s World Series clinch than in the entire history of Christopher Street) there are millions of petty swipes taken at athletes who were unable to keep their balance on the inhumanly high and precarious pedestals we’ve perched them on.

Perhaps the most vicious (and entertaining) purveyor of this brand of rado demagoguery is Jim Rome. With the help of his “clones,” he takes gleeful aim at the weakest Christians in the Coloseum, from soccer players to Wyatt Sexton to Ashlee Simpson. I recognize that most (but not all) of those pilloried are extremely well-compensated and voluntarily in the crosshairs of the public eye, but does that automatically free us from the bonds of basic human decency (this question applies to you, too, US Weekly readers)?

On a less highfalutin note, how informative is sports radio, and sports media in general? ESPN, in all of its engrossing, ADD friendly glory, spends 80% of its energies dissecting not the athletic merits of a given team or individual, but instead focuses on their inspiring childhood/criminal history/charitable foundation/contract dispute/devotion to fatherhood/latest paternity suit. How much does even the most informed fan actually know, the guy who spends half of the workday tweaking his fantasy team and every other night glued to the TV for the night’s game?

Take the Charlie Villanueva pick. The entire NBA punditry let out a thunderous gasp of horror at the news that the Toronto Raptors had mustered the temerity to defy conventional wisdom (which was concocted from the biased and under-researched opinions of 12 self-absorbed commentators and the millions of fans who depend on them). Answer me this: how can even the most ardent fan claim to know more about the needs of the Toronto Raptors than the management team who ultimately made the decision? Had they watched every game? Been in the locker room? Ridden the bus? Observed practices? Directed individual workouts? Consulted scouts? Met with the owner? All told, he has probably spent, on average, a few hours of his life watching Villanueva play and analyzing his skills. Maybe Chuck will be a bust; it’s all a crapshoot in the end. But should he make it, I’m sure the AM airwaves won’t be ringing with apologies from the contrite fan. Rafael from Little Neck has bigger things on his mind.

Homegirl is CRAZY, yo!

2005-06-22T14:14:00.000-04:00

Note: This post is a reaction to a profile of yours truly created by Laura, a lovely and loca friend.

I was already pissed about the firecrackers. For the first hour or so her delight was endearingly childish, a nostalgic reenactment of forgotten Fourth of July joys. At some point, though, my ears began to ring, my feet started twitching, and my nerves became as combustible as the brittle fuses attached to the tiny little bombs that alerted every disgruntled Valencian to the pack of rowdy and violent young Americans who, for all they knew, were celebrating the unpopular war on Iraq our government had initiated that very day. I tried to reason with Laura and her diminutive sidekick James, but they were not in a reasonable mood. So my companion and I left the raucous pack to take in the burning piñatas on our own.

Not quite as drunk as we hoped to be in spite of prodigious efforts, the two of us returned to the town square in time for the burning of the last statue. Just as the crowd was reaching critical mass and the figure was about to be lit, I noticed a commotion behind me. At first it was difficult to figure out exactly what was going on, but then I heard a distinctive drawl that immediately alerted me to two distressing facts: Laura was not only drunk (hence the reemergence of the Texas accent), she was almost certainly smack dab in the middle of whatever disturbance was currently attracting so much attention from the drunken and listless mob that engulfed us.

Reluctantly, I pried my way through the crowd and inserted myself into the conflict. I don’t recall the circumstances that precipitated the confrontation, and because of my skepticism of Laura’s self-exculpatory version of the story, a serious of random memories will have to suffice: someone up in a tree; greasy Spanish teenagers; a general feelings of hatred from the crowd; and, more vivid than anything, Laura in a rage - defending her turf, sticking up for her friends, and maintaining her honor, even in the face of insurmountable odds and great physical danger. She may have been completely insensible, but even after the situation had been defused and Laura had run off into the night, I never doubted her sincerity or good intentions.

***

From the very start I knew that Laura was crazy, and I am certain that a confidential poll of her friends would reveal that I am not alone in this assessment. The accused, however, takes great offense at this notion, and demands evidence of her insanity. After weeding through a vast trove of material, I usually light on the Las Fallas incident as my most watertight argument. Upon further reflection, though, I’ve come to realize that this story is not an indictment of Laura, but an unqualified acquittal. In the midst of her irrationality, I now see the passion, tenacity, loyalty, and character that endear me to her. So, Laura, the next time I call you crazy, take it as a complement. As we both know, emotional stability is overrated.

Tupac said it better, but...

2005-06-21T15:43:00.000-04:00

I forgot my mother’s birthday. No clue at all. In fact, if she hadn’t offhandedly mentioned it during our weekly phone conversation, it is quite possible that I would have gone another year without noticing my lapse.

When I realized how badly I had fucked up I groaned silently but didn’t interject with an apology, which would have only made things worse. I had actually communicated with her during the week, probably on her birthday, but our discussion was limited to the logistics of the money she was transferring into my bank account. By all rights she should have been furious. I’ve done this before, both to her and my father. It’s tempting to chalk it up to a genetic difficulty remembering dates, but I’ve certainly never forgotten my own birthday. In fact, I went to great lengths to ensure that no one else would forget, annually initiating a nuanced promotional campaign complete with a countdown and stirring but inaccurate testimonials lamenting the plight of those poor souls fated to share a birthday month with baby Jesus.

While I am certainly a particularly heinous offender, I take some small comfort in the fact that even the most devoted mama’s boys are incapable of fully repaying the great debt they owe their mothers. I could measure my mother’s love for me in many ways, either through second chances granted, slights absorbed, or leaps of faith taken, but perhaps the most tangible example of her devotion was the odometer on our long-retired family van.

I grew up in the country, and almost every activity my siblings and I were involved in required at least a half-hour of driving, one way. There were guitar lessons, baseball practice, ballet lessons, soccer practice, etc. She even had to drive us home from school every day because the small Catholic elementary school we attended did not operate buses. When I began spending an hour and a half behind the wheel each day to get myself to and from high school I gained a partial understanding of the depth of her sacrifice, but even then I didn’t have to contend with a backseat of noisy brats (well, except when I was driving my friends around). And who would have faulted her for cutting back on the activities, or sending us to a local public school? At some point my mother’s love for her children exceeded her innate maternal instinct and became something more profound; she ultimately achieved a level of selfless devotion more moving than saintliness because of its deceptive banality.

Of course, I take both of my parents equally for granted, but somehow I feel less guilty about neglecting my father. Is Oedipus to blame? Perhaps, but more likely this stems from the fact that we are both men (or perhaps “males” would be more appropriate, considering my lingering adolescent self-absorption), and even though I am still light years away from any rendezvous with paternal responsibility, I can primordially relate to his experiences. Mom, on the other hand, remains a complete mystery. In sum: happy birthday.

If Oprah can do it...

2005-06-17T15:44:00.000-04:00

Let the P. Diddy cracks begin: I am officially an entrant in the 2005 New York City Marathon. It’s gonna be tough, but I’m confident in my abilities, and rumor has it that my Kenyan competitors have slowed down considerably following Congress’s worldwide steroid crackdown. So I’m pretty much a sure thing to win it all.

I’m not sure how I got to this point. I first began hitting the treadmill solely because it was the most efficient means of burning calories, which is the key exercise requirement for metrosexuals such as myself. As I became faster, I began to look forward to those last few minutes of a run, where I would bump up the speed as high as I could handle and flail away, flinging sweat and frightening everyone else in the cardio room (although I harbor the secret suspicion that the females present (who I surveyed semi-surreptitiously in the mirror) were intrigued by my masochistic virility). Eventually I began to savor even the exhaustion and soreness.

Even as I developed into a Treadmill God, the thought of competitive running never entered my mind. Instead, befitting the pattern of my life, I was spurred into action by a sense of inadequacy prompted by the threatening ambitions of a friend. I was incredulous at the news that he had signed up for the marathon: he rarely ran; smoked more than a suicidal emphysema patient; and drank nearly as much as me. Goddamnit, there is only room for one on this road to redemption.

So I signed up and waited anxiously for the lottery. I started running in the park on Saturdays, which, incidentally, is enjoyable for a number or reasons:
1) Passing slow people makes you feel better about yourself.
2) Aside from visiting Times Square and laughing at the tourists, there is no better way to feel like an actual New Yorker.
3) You can spend the rest of the weekend guiltlessly abusing yourself; after all, you ran 10 miles this morning, right?

The marathon gradually assumed greater importance as the lottery neared and I realized that training for the marathon would inject my life with meaning it otherwise lacked.
“So, Ryan, what are you up to these days? Have you reined in your spending? Explored job prospects? Pursued your writing goals?”
“Well, no, but I’m training for the marathon.”
“Seriously? Damn, yo. How long is that again?
“26 miles. 26.2, actually.”
“Wow. You amaze me, Ryan.”

So I’ve been accepted, and now all my poor friends are going to have to put up with self-aggrandizing complaints about my rigorous training program and gnarly feet. But the real question is, am I running towards my goals, or away from them? That's exhibistentialsim for 'ya.

Lil' Ghetto Boy

2005-06-15T17:22:00.000-04:00

Note: The clown in the above picture is not me.

Living in New York City, or, rather, Harlem, has turned me into an asshole. Allow me to clarify – living in the ghetto, where conventional standards of personal accountability are inefficient and counterproductive, has fertilized the seeds of hostility that were planted during a childhood of suburban repression and macho posturing. I’m not proud, but at least I’m honest.

I now flip off cabdrivers who honk when I cross against the light. I grimace at the stench of the scavengers gathered at the recycling depot I pass every morning on my way to the 125th Street Station. I silently curse the massive ass of the woman impeding my hurried progress. I jostle people in the subway.

Intellectually, I recognize that aside from making life unpleasant for others, my demeanor ultimately contributes to my own unhappiness. It comes down to impatience - an unwillingness to take into consideration the plight of your counterparts. Just as my bad attitude is largely the result of my upbringing and early environment, so too is your poor physical health and gnarly b.o. most likely the product of bad childhood eating and grooming habits. I propose we meet halfway on this: I’ll try to be less of a jerk if you lay off the horn, early-morning cans of King Cobra, and McDonalds. Deal? Deal.

2005-05-27T09:13:00.000-04:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Larry Clark: The Kids Are Alright, But You're a Perv

2005-05-24T21:46:00.000-04:00

The first time I saw “Kids” – somewhere around age 12 or 13 – I fast-forwarded between the sex scenes. In fact, odds are that I beat off to the scene where Telly gives a girl HIV. I’m not proud of this, but neither am I especially ashamed. I was geeked up on hormones, and the grainy world Larry Clark had created was so far removed from my innocent suburban environment that it was almost like getting off to something completely fantastic, like anime (Actually, I think getting off to anime is creepier, all things considered). The independence, sexual precociousness, and nihilism of the characters exuded a whiff of sensationalism that even a credulous punk like myself could smell.

This same tentative skepticism haunted my trip through the Larry Clark retrospective currently showing at the International Center for Photography. Starting with his early work of the 1960s, which documents the amphetamine-fueled decadence of his teenage peers in Tulsa, OK, and continuing on through his equally harrowing depictions of contemporary skateboarders, the photographs are at turns titillating, exploitive, and genuinely beautiful. Most affecting are the youthful works, in which we feel no shame borrowing Clark’s x-ray glasses and watching his friends shoot up, have sex, and hurt themselves, because at this point Clark’s gaze is not lecherous, but simply curious – he may be hiding behind the camera, but he is still part of the group being photographed, a trusted peer.

Later, as Clark grows older and his subjects don’t, a protective, Puritanical uneasiness began clouding my aesthetic (and, let’s admit it, sexual) appreciation of his work. I mean, yes, that picture is perfectly composed, and I like naked girls as much as the next guy, but how did this forty year-old dude talk these kids into having sex in front of him? What separates these photos from the sanctimoniously sympathetic schlock shows (“Tomorrow on Donohue, the tragic tale of HOT LOLITAS WHO CAN’T GET ENOUGH MIDDLE-AGED DICK! Be sure to have your Kleenex close at hand [For which bodily fluid?].”) and pederast-friendly Tiger Beat centerfolds that Clark self-righteously laments in his collages and video presentations? Does it all come back to the ancient Duchampian retort, “It’s art because I say so?” Usually I’d agree, but not this time. Larry, here’s my final offer: you’re an immensely talented, socially astute, highly entertaining pervert. Or maybe I’m just bitter because my teenage sex life sucked.

The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford

2005-05-22T19:09:00.000-04:00

Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter, is a man who refuses to lose faith in humanity’s ability to forge meaningful connections, even as he wades through a lifetime’s accumulation of emotional rubble. Over the course of a three-day period ending, conveniently enough, on Easter weekend, Frank documents the unassuming intricacy of everyday life in his beloved home of Haddam, New Jersey, effortlessly interweaving honest but not entirely self-aware digressions on his fractured but not necessarily tragic Midwestern childhood, an unwelcome brush with literary fame in New York City, the subsequent retreat to the suburbs, an agreeable but unchallenging career as a sportswriter, and his adulterous reaction to the death of his young son, which has left him single and aimless but still clinging to a hopefulness that is at turns tragic, pathetic, comic, and, finally, inspiring.

Ford’s sense of place is finely honed and uniquely American. Whether dissecting neighborhood dynamics in Haddam or Detroit’s philosophy on the whether, the author illuminates the subtle regional peculiarities that have shaped our political and social landscape. Frank revels in these quirks, and has a propensity to equate those he meets with the circumstances of their upbringing to the point of caricature, whether it be his ex-wife, a former model he first met at the University of Michigan who was raised in a privileged country club environment, or his current love interest, a world weary but sweet nurse from Texas.

Incapable of passing judgment but endlessly speculative, prone to infatuation but wary of true intimacy, fascinated by the ambiguity of the modern world but unable to find his place in it, Frank remains a man of the times, and, as he says, “being a man gets harder all the time.” But in the end, Frank’s difficulties transcend gender and concern his ability to confront reality head on. His blind faith in social conventions prevents him from fully engaging with life. As the weekend concludes and the shaky existence he has fashioned teeters precariously, Frank finally begins to realize that although he may be contentedly drifting through life without forethought, his actions are nonetheless having a very real effect on himself and others. The prequel to the Pulitzer Prize winning Independence Day, this novel is a bracing reminder that no life is ordinary.

The Village Voice Shows Some Love

2005-05-22T16:53:00.000-04:00

I let out an involuntary, girlish squeal on the train yesterday when I unexpectedly came across my handiwork in the Village Voice. Check out the article and proclamation. Now I just need a byline.

Set Adrift On Memory's Bliss

2005-05-18T16:41:00.000-04:00

An old, good friend of mine was recently IMed by a girl we went to elementary school with and lost track of somewhere around 8th grade. It is quite possible that if he hadn’t mentioned her I would have died without ever giving her another thought. Such is the miracle of the Internet, I suppose. But for all of their ostensible virtues, I cannot help but wonder if IM/Friendster/Google make the bridging of time and space too easy. Personally, I find it disturbing that in a not-so-rare moment of weakness I need only dash off a few keystrokes and click my way past the second or third “o” in “Gooooooogle” before I am confronted with tangible, textual, or even, God forbid, photographic evidence of an ex-girlfriend’s new, improved life without me. Is this a healthy way to live?

The immutability of the past is a central element of tragedy, and one that is potentially mitigated by today’s technological advances. It is now much more difficult to vanish without a trace. Should you ever really need to find someone, they are only a few searches and a clever, offhanded, safe e-mail away. This would seem to be a good thing, and in many ways undoubtedly is, but I nonetheless question whether the pervasive connectedness we now take for granted has somehow cheapened our sense of memory and personal history. Like Jay Gatsby, we are still borne back ceaselessly into the past, but our respective means of transport are crucially different: he made the trip because of love and its failings; while we are called back with every Friendster invite and successive episode of “I Love the 90s.”

I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t just as intrigued as my friend by the reappearance of our long-lost classmate. In trying to remember the details of her life I was reminded of many other people and circumstances that evoked a pleasant sense of wistfulness. Still, there is something to be said for the bittersweet nostalgia one experiences upon studying a faded class picture and wondering what the hell happened to a forgotten peer, who could be a jihadist just as easily as a junior executive, a sensation I will never have the chance to enjoy with my rediscovered schoolchum, who is leading a reliably predictable life in a nondescript Eastern suburb.

Let there be blog...

2005-05-16T22:05:00.000-04:00

I begin this experiment in self-absorption on Sunday, a time usually designated for rehydration, hazy regret, and malignant foreboding. But on this particular seventh day, in accordance with the Good Lord’s holy dictates, I have dedicated myself to creation. And what exactly have I spawned? The mind palpitates with possibility:
1. An impetus to write more (the intended purpose).
2. Another source of guilt (Ryan: Why haven’t you posted to your blog in a week? When are you going to get your priorities straight?), anxiety (Ryan: Why did you write that? No one wants to hear about yet another night of overindulgence, furtive glances, botched encounters, and inevitable resignation.), and anger (Ryan: Why don’t you throw your roommate’s laptop across the room in recompense for its inability to magically translate your blind fumbling with HTML?).
3. The opening salvo in a triumphant engagement with the world, resulting in hard-earned renown, legions of readers, and a lucrative book deal (I strike a tone of self-deprecation, but the sad thing is that some small but integral part of me has hooked itself on this one.).
4. A brutal test of my idealistic belief that any life, no matter how banal, is worth sharing, given that it is presented in a compelling manner.
How much more is there to say? It will be what it will be. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Reduce - Reuse - Recycle

2005-05-16T21:54:00.000-04:00

This is some old stuff I posted on a friend's blog. I'm cheating, I know, but I feel like I needed to add some ballast before setting sail.

HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

Bill O’Reilly, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, I’m with 'ya – TV has gone too far. Maybe I’m a traitor to my generation, maybe I have been prematurely struck by the inevitable conservatism that is bound to overtake us all as we grind towards middle age, or maybe I simply watch so little TV (this due to a lack of cable, not a high-minded eschewal of the boob tube) that the rare doses I do imbibe are a shock to my fragile system. Regardless, I feel that it is my duty to rage against a depraved culture.
Because I haven’t yet wrapped my head all the way around this issue, and also because I can only squander so many working hours, I am going to highlight the three shows that most egregiously flaunt common decency. Be forewarned: this is not meant to a snarky, hipper-than-thou wink at the vagaries of pop culture. These shows truly disturb me, in the same way that your nose ring disturbs Grandma.
1)“Swans.” As an unabashed consumer of rap music and pornography, I admit that it is hypocritical of me to take such offense to this show. That said, if I had a daughter, I would not allow her to watch "Swans." I am disturbed that we are now so comfortable with plastic surgery that it is not only accepted, it is celebrated as a form self-empowerment. OK, you’re ugly. So were Winston Churchill, Emma Goldman, and Christopher Wallace, and life still gave them good n’ plenty. I want to see the year-later episode, when the contestants are coming to the painful realization that while cellulite can be extracted, self-hatred is inoperable.
2)“Who’s Your Daddy?” I find reality TV disturbing in general, but usually I can laugh it off. In this case, however, my discomfort went beyond the superficial repulsion one feels watching some schmuck enjoy a larvae lunch. To see a disturbed, scantily clad young woman parading her dysfunction for all the world to see was profoundly saddening. Is she a crazy, fame-hungry bitch? Sure, but isn’t it clear that all of this isn’t her fault, that she is the product of a fucked up childhood, and, more generally, an exploitative society? I’m sorry, but this show is truly a damning indictment of the state of our world.
3)“Ego Trip’s Race-O-Rama: Dude, Where’s My Ghetto Pass?” This show is funny. This show features awesome graphic design. This show includes the insights of the dude who played Dwayne Wayne in “A Different World.” Nonetheless, this show is wrong. First, when did it become kosher to spout the n-word on basic cable? Personally, I don’t think white people have the right to use this word, regardless of its ubiquity. If impressionable whites hear this word on VH1(!) they’re going to be comfortable using it wherever they please, and then they’re going to get shot. Furthermore, this show trivializes the ghetto, poverty, and serious questions of race. I could go on, but I won’t.
In short, we’re all going to hell. Good day.
RD

SCHIAVO COVERAGE

Yesterday, while running on the treadmill at the gym, I was subjected to 30 minutes (well, 33 including cool-down) of the CNN news program Anderson Cooper 360. And I thought my run was grueling. The subject du jour was Terri Schiavo, whose story is perhaps the most egregious example I can recall of the Right’s appalling lack of scruples and remarkable facility at exploiting personal tragedy for political gain. But what disturbed me even more than the partisan grandstanding and reductive protesters was the way in which this complex and deeply disturbing issue was reduced by our nation’s premiere news outlet to a facile montage of exploitive interviews, misleading polls, sensational images, manufactured confrontations, and tawdry scandals.

Because the TV at the gym was muted and without subtitles, I was unable to hear what was actually being said by porcelain-skinned Anderson Cooper, my third-favorite Channel 1 News alumnus. After going online reading the transcript, I soon realized that I wasn’t missing much (As an aside, I would suggest that everyone at some point read the actual text of their favorite blowhard’s broadcast. Take away the bombastic graphics, flimsy music, and immaculate coifs, and you are left with some of the most manipulative and cynical writing this side of US Weekly.). The Schiavo coverage led off (What happened to the journalistic triangle, Andy?) with the story of Thomas (T-Bone) Bone and his granddaughter, Jennifer Johnson, who was having difficulty visiting her T-Bone due to the massive crowds surrounding Woodside Hospice. An excerpt:
DAVE MATTINGLY, 360 CUB REPORTER: You get the knock on the door that says, Now's the time. And you just go, right?
JENNIFER JOHNSON, GRANDDAUGHTER: Absolutely.
MATTINGLY: What are you wearing?
JOHNSON: I'm wearing a pair of black pajama bottoms and, like, a maroon T-shirt. I was just in pajamas.
MATTINGLY: Did you have time to put your shoes on?
JOHNSON: No.
MATTINGLY: Did you have time to grab a purse?
JOHNSON: No. I just ran right out the door.
What about your ChapStick? Please, God, tell me you didn’t forget your ChapStick!

After a quick break to cover boring shit like an earthquake in Indonesia and the impending death of William Rehnquist, whose successor will have an enormous say in the “right to life” debate, Coop gets back to the real news: an in-depth segment on Jodi Centonze, Michael Schiavo’s girlfriend. Could someone please tell me what this has to do with the issue? I mean, seriously, folks. And you follow this with a story about Terri Schiavo’s struggle with bulimia? Now, don’t get me wrong, bulimia is a serious health issue that deserves a place in the national dialogue. However, in this context bulimia is being broached not to shed light on a health issue, but instead to add another layer of scandal to this already desecrated discussion. I, for one, am convinced: in regard to mass media, it’s time to pull the plug.
RD

A WRINKLE IN TIME

I really liked her dress. It was strapless and primarily black, with blocks of white and yellow across the chest. It was the sort of dress I would wear if I were a girl. Say what you will, but this criterion carries a lot of weight with me.

This isn’t a "love at first sight" story. She was a pretty girl wearing a cool dress who piqued my interest last Saturday, which wasn’t all that much different than the Saturday before that, really.

My friends and I had somehow ended up in the VIP section of an extremely loud and crowded club in Chelsea. This is not my typical M.O., but neither is it unprecedented. Also, lest I give a false impression of glamour, it should be mentioned that entrance into the VIP section required only that you get the nod from someone paying the exorbitant fee for bottle service.

I’m not sure who we knew, but this hadn't stopped me from taking advantage of their generosity. Let me sum up the circumstances thusly: I was drunk, the music was familiar and good, and there was a pretty girl with a cool dress dancing next to me. I could go on at length about the inner turmoil I went through getting up the nerve to talk to this girl, and in fact I just deleted a long and excruciating paragraph in this vein. Suffice it to say that I’m a neurotic mess, and that if it wasn’t for the booze I never would have gotten up the nerve to introduce myself.

It was a typical conversation between two drunken young adults in a loud, crowded club, certainly not worthy of quotation marks or indentation. This is what she learned about me:
1. I had no idea what had brought me to this club.
2. I work as a writer for the Mayor, which seriously isn’t as cool as it sounds.
3. I’m 24. This was a reflexive and utterly stupid lie.
4. I live on the Upper East Side. This was a premeditated and therefore even more inexcusable lie.
5. I hope to write novels one day, but I’m very far away from that goal right now.
6. I don’t usually smoke, but since they’re letting everyone smoke inside here, why not, and yes, I did get wax all over my cigarette when I tried to light it with the candle, I know, I'm an idiot.

This is what I learned about her.
1. She knew someone at the club who was celebrating a birthday.
2. She goes to Fordham.
3. She’s 20 (which makes my one-year age lie even more foolish and unnecessary).
4. She lives in Bergen County by herself because her parents abandoned her, and no, it isn’t too bad, it was just how things had to be.
5. She also wants to write.
6. Her favorite writer is Madeline L’Engle, and no, she didn’t know that her books are infused with Christian themes, she thought that was C.S. Lewis, and, well, now she knows that it’s both of them.

I enjoyed our conversation, especially the part about Madeline L'Engle, and thought about asking for her phone number before she left. But then I remembered that I had lied about where I lived, which would be hard to explain in the unlikely event that she gave me her real number, answered my calls, accepted an invitation to hang out, and eventually visited my apartment. So I just wished her good luck.
RD

GENERATION Y(DLE)

Idlers: Are you happy? Spring is in the air, the NBA playoffs are upon us, and Chuck is finally making an honest woman of Camilla, but it seems as if virtually all of my reasonably comfortable peers are banking on a future overseas jaunt, job change, or romantic entanglement to snap them out of their post-collegiate malaise. What gives? Am I overreacting to typical New York neuroses, or is our generation finding contentment more elusive than our predecessors? Is this the result of unrealistic expectations, or has an increasingly competitive job market, coupled with a rising cost of living, resulted in murkier prospects? Is this what we get for our innocent indulgence in Nintendo/chat rooms/designer drugs/Reebok Pumps/gangster rap/premarital sex/Hypercolor t-shirts/pogs?

Personally, I don’t think we’re to blame. Thanks to Sesame Street, educational computer games, and AP classes, we are all too smart for our own good but too brainwashed to do anything about it. We know that money can’t buy happiness, but Saturday morning commercial breaks and 50 Cent videos have cursed us with unquenchable consumerism. We hope to find that special someone, but the astronomical prevalence of divorce among our parents and the latest strife between Nick and Jessica has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that love stinks. We have benefited from unprecedented political and social freedom, but our government is currently waging a war premised on lies. The Greatest Generation suffered far more hardship, but they also enjoyed an unambiguous victory over the forces of evil. What awaits us? Somebody get me a Prozac.
RD

4/5 UPTOWN

The dude I sat across from on the subway today had grown out the hair on his chin and twisted it into an inch-long braid. He was black and in his mid-30s. A backwards, generic blue baseball cap rested lightly on top of his short, wispy afro. He was a drinking a Budweiser tallboy from a brown paper bag, and he secured the beer in a pouch on worn leather duffel bag between sips. He wore cement-splattered blue jeans, a long-sleeved navy blue Sean John t-shirt, and lumberjack work boots. Around his neck were at least five silver chains of varying thickness, from which dangled three silver medallions: a bulldog; a New York Yankees “NY”; and a cross adorned with semi-precious pink stones.

I wondered where he was going, and where he was coming from. I wondered if he experienced any apprehension about drinking in public. I wondered if the guys at the construction site ever gave him shit about his goatee or his chains. I didn’t wonder then, but upon further reflection I wonder now whether he was even allowed to wear his chains on the construction site, seeing how they might become tangled up in the equipment, and besides, they must be heavy and uncomfortable. I wondered if he bought the chains to impress women, and if so whether or not this had paid off. I wondered how drunk he was. I wondered if he noticed that I was staring at him, and I wondered what he would do about it if he did. Then I went back to reading my book.
RD

AUTO NEUROTICA

I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about cars. As an adolescent, I was a religious reader of Car and Driver and Motor Trend, eagerly soaking up information about everything automotive, from the latest review of the Kia Sephia to pornographic exposes of the latest European supercar. To a young man without a driver’s license, cars mean freedom and power. But now I suspect that even in the unlikely event that I might be able to afford the car of my dreams, I would feel conflicted about spending so much money on what is essentially a big penis. My perception of myself as a relatively enlightened, socially aware dude hinges on a disdain for bourgeois consumerism and object fetishism. Still, I cannot ignore the small but essentially part of me that watches in poorly concealed awe as a beautiful Mercedes or Ferrari zips through the frenetic New York streets. So it was with considerable ambivalence that I visited the New York Auto Show, a massive spectacle that draws thousands of suburbanites each year to Gotham’s bleak Crystal Palace, the Javits Center.

As I entered into the packed building, I experienced the unsettling culture shock that now hits me whenever I am surrounded by non-New Yorkers. I simply cannot help feeling smug when assessing the paunchy bodies, ill-conceived outfits, and unembarrassed earnestness of our neighbors from New Jersey/Long Island/Westchester. Intellectually, I am truly repulsed at my elitism and realize that is completely unjustified. Nonetheless, it persists, and the Auto Show did little to strengthen sporadic efforts to soften my snobbiness. No matter where I turned, I was struck by another example of a disturbing deficiency of critical thinking skills among everyday Americans. A few examples:
1. Attendees (including myself) paid the auto companies to see their ads.
2. We are easily manipulated through our sexuality. All of the exhibits featured provocatively clad, heavily made-up models whose primary purpose is to attract the male customer. It was interesting to watch the eyes of the young boys flit between the cars and the models; you could practically hear their neurons fusing together cars and sex.
3. All of these cars are pretty much look the same. Sure, some are bigger, some are sleeker, and some have more bells and whistles, but they all conform to the same sharp, clean, and cold design aesthetic that evokes a Donald Judd sculpture.
4. We have unthinkingly lapped up the car companies’ branding strategy. It is the car’s packaging, and not the car itself, that compels the car owner to equate his needs and personality with a certain brand. I know this phenomenon isn’t unique to the automotive world, but at the auto show the pitch was especially brazen.

Walking around the convention center with my iPod, notepad, and self-satisfied smirk, I couldn’t help feeling as if I was the only one who could see the levers that were shaping our desires. I knew that when it came time for me to purchase a car, my choices would be unsullied by greed and marketing. And then I came to the Ferrari exhibit and was awakened to that which had first attracted me to cars, and what those who I had previously pilloried had known all along: cars can be absolutely beautiful. Take away the sex appeal, the status boost, and the racing pedigree, and a Ferrari is still art on wheels, a seamless marriage of engineering and sculpture. And the same can be said, to a lesser degree, of all cars. I should have known all along. Middle America, please accept my apologies. You may be a bunch of mindless consumers, but even a pompous ass like me cannot help himself from eventually being seduced by the appeal of cars. As soon as I round up 600 large, put me down for one shiny, factory-fresh F-430. My “End World Hunger” sticker will look great on the bumper.
RD