This blog isn’t dead

I’ve pounded my head on a desk the past month, trying to figure out what exactly the new shape and texture of this blog would be.

I’m done with politics. The clusterfuck over in Washington DC cannot be quantified or explained by my silly words, though believe when I say I’m watching it closely.

But I scrolled down the site and noticed I did a lot of traveling. This lead to the conclusion that I see a lot of shit, and need to tell you about it. So “the shit I’ve seen, the places I’ve been.” Pretty broad topic, eh? Here goes nothing. Attempt one, coming soon.

Puerto Rico & A Lie I Almost Told

You usually can’t tell if you had a good vacation until the night before your flight back home. Your enthusiasm for the flight is inversely proportional to your stay at Place X. Last Saturday night, I was contemplating ways to stay in Puerto Rico another three months/years.

There’s always the “I was late for my flight” excuse, but that would only buy me 24 hours - if I was lucky. A personal injury requiring extensive medical treatment was another option. But it’s hard enjoying your stay in paradise from a hospital. And I’m not able to really hurt myself. There was only one legit option.

Love. Who would argue with me for staying if I went to a chapel instead of the airport on Sunday morning, my new bride in tow? Tan skin, flip flops and a suit made out of a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts. Sure, I’d be a madman. But divorce papers can be filed shortly after. First, I’d make a legit attempt at actually getting to know the woman and seeing if she’s my type. That would buy me at least a month or two. But shit, once the pictures are sent out, no one would have to know we split up three months after the wedding. By then, I’ll be ingrained into the social fabric of San Juan and Fajardo, with my finger in every glass. I’d be insane to leave.

The thought did dash through my mind, and I laughed half-heartedly at the idea. Then I took it seriously. I looked out over the wall of our villa’s yard, periscoping for some sign of single female life. I debated leaving, finding a bar and charming my way into a quick marriage. Then I realized my charm equals a grizzly bear’s.

I was at a disadvantage. The good Catholic girls of Puerto Rico demand significant wooing and romancing. This is not a job that can be done overnight. Of course there’s got to be a middle-aged widow drinking through the rest of her life who’d love to have a 22-year-old dweeb husband on hand for her journey to A.A. But my father always said, “If you’re going to do something, don’t fuck around.” Which is to say, do it right.

So what I needed was a quick marriage to a 20-something drop dead gorgeous Puerto Rican girl. I say gorgeous not to sound shallow, but because it legitimizes my reason to stay much more. If I sent a wedding photo of me and a human reptile, people would question my sanity. “He skipped his flight and married that?”

I realized my dreams were just that. So I resigned myself to the couch, drank rum and watched Sportscenter all night. I had a beautiful time with some amazing people that week. Take what your given and don’t carelessly demand more. Sometimes you’ll miss how lucky you are.

Puerto Rico is beautiful. Don’t ever go. It’s mine.

Don Imus Fired, Racism Is Over

You got what you wanted.

My late father ran into Don Imus at work, appropriately in the restaurant’s bathroom. He used the urinal next to the “shock jock,” and managed to piss him off while washing his hands.

“Do you know who I am?”
My father stared at him, probably wondering if Imus was his customer. This sort of thing adversely effects your tip.
“I’m Imus from Imus in the morning!” he hissed, still sporting his cowboy hat and radio-friendly face.
“Well I’m Jimi the waiter,” my father said and walked out.

That Imus is a prick of the highest order and says reprehensible things should surprise no one. “Nappy headed hoes” may be one of his lesser offenses, which makes this controversy all the more bizarre.

But as I sit here writing, I’m filling with blinding rage and hate over what has happened in the last few hours. The gutless weasels at CBS fired a cornerstone of their radio programming (to the tune of $20 million last year) for doing his job: saying outrageous things.

The big question is why.

“In our meetings with concerned groups, there has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision, as have the many emails, phone calls and personal discussions we have had with our colleagues across the CBS Corporation and our many other constituencies.”

You’re full of it Les Moonves. When you look at the timing of this decision, you realize it wasn’t for big-picture moralistic reasons or even political correctness. If CBS found Imus’s remarks reprehensible, they would have pulled the plug on his show within three days of “nappy headed ho” gate. Even three days is generous; that afternoon would have been more appropriate. It wasn’t until major sponsors pulled ads did the axe drop.

I’m of no authority to second guess corporate decision making, but I can demand some level of transparency from corporate bullshit artists. Here are the three reasons Imus got fired:

1. Bad press. The man became a human drum of nuclear waste to CBS & MSNBC.
2. Fleeing advertisers. They’d come back eventually, but how can a corporation like CBS wait out a few months of low revenue?
3. Decaying listeners. The Imus in the Morning program pulls in people who found him outrageous 30 years ago. This is essentially become the depends wearing, foot shuffling class of retiring baby-boomers who think fart jokes are outrageous. This controversy gave CBS a damn good reason to inject fresh blood into their morning radio program that no one will listen to anyway.

Now of course, Imus did apologize in the conniving way only he can. It was meaningless and we all know it.

Rest assured, I’m never listening to WFAN here in New York again. Which means I’ll consume absolutely none of CBS’s programming (CSI has been repeating the same three episodes for the last four years and none of you realize it).

As usual, Pat Robertson seems to have an opinion on it. And as we all know, his opinion is right.

Black men are to blame?  Here’s what Snoop Dogg has to say about that:

It’s a completely different scenario. [Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing shit, that’s trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthafuckas say we in the same league as him.

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and every company that has ever bought an on-air advertisements must be orgasmic right now. This has set a dangerous precedent showing broadcast companies as spineless money vacuums willing to bend with a momentary change in currents. And it’s a meaningless symbolic gesture.

Imus is still a prick. Racism still exists. Shock jocks are still on the air. What have we gained?

Puerto Rico and Promises I Can Keep

Nonsense, tom foolery and debauchery loom over next week like menacing black clouds. I’m going to Puerto Rico, kids! All pretense of self control, class and dignity will die on the flight out of this throbbing city, and I’ll land in San Juan with a new sense of the irresponsibility.

Jet skis, beaches and nice beats. That’s all I’m expecting. Anything more and I’ll be delighted. What do I plan on doing? A little bit of this.

And a little bit of that.

Someone save us all from me. I’ll try to blog while I’m there, but if not: Enjoy your spring breaks.

You Googled It

My favorite new search engine terms used to find this blog:

pedophilia sight
grouch jokes
empire penguin and people
dancing chicken
kid smoking
hockey isn’t a sport [note: glad to see someone agrees with me]
“”symptoms”"cramping”"bloody stool”"
no farting allowed
jesus chicken eggs

Happy searching. I hope you all come back for some more grouchy pedophiles laughing at empire penguins, while jesus chickens dance with their eggs around a kid smoking cigarettes and arguing that hockey isn’t a sport because it doesn’t induce symptoms like cramping, bloody stool, and bloating.

King Tut, Philly, Barry and Rocky - defiled

I’ll ignore the U.S. Attorney clusterfuck, the surge-scalation in Iraq, and accommodations at Walter Reed. I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Namely Benjamin Franklin. Or at least the Institute that bears his name in Philadelphia. They have induced a public hard-on for their exhibit “King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” Judging by the title, you’d assume some semblance of King Tut was there. You know, the mummy? Instead, I was treated to over 100 artifacts ranging from funerary statues, statues, urns, jewelry, statues, model boats, statues and all manner of innate objects of royal decadence. I have no desire to see King Tut’s toys for the afterlife. I want to see his raisin-dry corpse stinking up a dark room in the back of the museum. I want to smell the curse.

And they didn’t allow photography of any manner. So here’s a picture of a statuette in the gift shop.

In other news views, Philly is a timid city too wrapped up in its own history to progress to some manner of economic prominence. It’s too late, of course, for it to catch up to NYC or LA. The vitality just isn’t there. And it’s typical of most colonial cities - stuck in a time warp of founding fathers and national history. Statues line the streets, and I had a particularly fun time abusing them.

This is Barry. I know nothing about him except that he points. That’s rude. So I point back.

Boxing historians can tell you Joe Louis’ hometown is Philadelphia. They can also tell you he’s probably the second greatest boxer of all time. So naturally, the city would honor him with a statue, right? Actually, it’s Rocky. So my nefarious friends and I groped him, negating any semblance of masculinity he may have.

This is a sandwich. Cheese steak. Delicious.

Ultimately, we got bored and decided to race up the steps from that stupid movie about the boxer.

Our Future

This is a member of my demographic.

We’re all screwed.

Cat Power, Hipsters and Scenes

I’ve never been a fan of scenes. Crime scenes, sappy movies scenes, but mostly a gathering of drones with similar ideas about the texture of the world and humanity’s place in it. You know, those scenes.

Imagine my horror last night when I discovered Cat Power performances attract plaid-shirted, bearded, soy-consuming vegans. The hipster scene. They don’t wear makeup and hate pop music. They won’t wear fur, but sport polished black leather shoes. To them, apartments are “flats” and gallery openings are chances to be seen on the scene.

Chan Marshall (Cat Power’s real name) alluded to her audience’s demographic when she said, “If you see a $34 Cat Power shirt at Urban Outfitters, don’t buy it.”

Oh, and hipsters have no concept of black culture or musical history.

So to little surprise, the audience of trust-fund swilling faux Brooklynites snoozed through R&B standards that, with Marshall’s voice, amounted to a gorgeous retelling of fables they all should know. “The Tracks of my Tears” has been done many an injustice with wreckless covers, but Marshall did Smokey Robinson a favor when she smothered the song in cigarette smoke as she sang. “Blue Moon” & “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” came out with more sincerity than any of her own songs merited. She knew as much, and it showed in the performance.

Marshall’s not dismissive of her own music, no. But she understands her place in the scene, as it were. The best she can do, and what she has been doing, is an imitation. And a charming one at that.

[She'd never admit that. In interviews, she just says covers are more fun.]

Marshall asked the audience, “So, what do you want to hear next?” (typical for these intimate performances).
“Lived in Bars” and “Willie” (from her latest album) received the most vocal support. She gladly obliged with “House of the Rising Sun”. What a fuck you, eh?

For a better idea of what hipsterdom can cause, check this out:

[Marshall] sits at her piano and starts playing, and the crowd just keeps on talking. 4 songs in, and you can barely hear her soft folksy voice over the mellow piano. The crowd didn’t give a shit.

And for a better synopsis of Ms. Marshall’s many charms, stereogum’s got the good shit.

Her catchphrase for the night, courtesy of Ms. Peachez: “You can find me in the tub, playing with bubbles and washing my booty.” Request “that Cat Stevens cover,” and it was a Ms. Peachez quote in reply. How can you argue? Brag about your pending nuptials, and get “He’s gonna give you that ring, you’re gonna have to give him that anus.” We repeat …

Don’t be confused: the show soared when Marshall wanted it to. And I love the humility needed to play only three (maybe four?) of her own songs in a two hour performance. I’d gladly settle with her hoarse, throaty voice belting out Otis Redding tunes all night - hipsters be damned.

Here’s a Cat Power video.

On the other hand…

The clusterfuck of noise over the Prez’s proposal to send in 20,000+ more troops should end with this ad.

It’s wrong on so many levels, yet its hard to argue against its effectiveness.

“If you support escalation, you don’t support the troops.”

You’d be hard pressed to find rabid Americans toasting the growing death toll of U.S. forces. People love the treasonous charge of “not supporting the troops.” It causes some manner of guilt, but exploits emotion for the wrong reasons. It’s support of the war that’s the sticking point.

VoteVets, according to their website, organizes support of Iraq and Afghanistan vets running for a Congressional seat - with a few vague catches.  Candidates must support a “drawdown” of troops, investigate into the mishandling of the war, and other demands that make Sean Hannity angry.

Given the administrations “Fuck off” attitude toward Congress, it’d be surprising to see anything stop the “surge” or “escalation.”

The Lowly Insanity of a Senate Democrat & The Looming Attack from the Right

Update: I saw the interview on the Daily Show. It seems that Schumer’s imaginary friends are just a fictional couple he uses as an example in his book. The problem lies with Schumer’s handlers, who must not have done a good job explaining to Chuck why exactly “imaginary friends” may not be the right term.

Chuck seems rather oblivious to all of this. I love his horrendous smile. It makes me cringe every time.

The rest of my earlier defense of New Yorkers after the jump.