debaclypsenow

Taikang Lu, and why I love it

2009-05-18T17:17:00.001-07:00

The reinvention of neighborhoods in Chicago, you know, gentrification, is formulaic and tends to end badly. The story goes a little something like this: First, you find a major intersection to serve as a social and economic hub. The Six Corners in Wicker Park is a fine example of a successful one, Broadway and Lawrence in Uptown, less so. Briefly, interesting people move into the area, giving it a Bohemian feel. Alas, soon the edgy magnetism becomes too strong and others arrive en masse. Prices for housing and food are driven up. Identical boutiques take root. You are never quite sure how they stay in business. Many of the interesting pioneers move on. Forget about the original inhabitants that gave the area continuity and character; they have been priced out or marginalized. The condos dominate the landscape. Corporations usurp landmarks (e.g., Bank of America ousting Filter at the Six Corners). And finally you are left with a neighborhood that is something of a caricature of its earlier, hipper self. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Shanghai has its own model for gentrification known as Xitiandi. It's nice, just nice. There are some interesting shops and good higher end restaurants, but one has the sense that the evolution was not exactly natural. The sleek, comfy coolness is all too perfect. It feels like a planned community for yuppie invaders. The hipness of any neighborhood needs to be called into question when it links to "Hot Stores" on its official website. Image is unabashedly emphasized over character, but by the looks of it, it is thriving on that formula. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

If you are walking in the French Concession, there is an alley at 155 Jianguo Lu that you should probably turn at. It is utterly nondescript, but bear with me. Sure, there are few markings and it looks like a thousand other winding alleys in Shanghai – you do get a lot of winding alleys when not using a grid system like Chicago. Anyway, the turn is worth it.

At first, there appear to be a few storefronts in the distance, nothing much. Almost imperceptibly you start to realize that you are in a very different place, an alternative Shanghai. All indicators as to place, directionality, and scale disappear when you enter the maze known as Taikang Lu. Sightlines are too crowded to situate yourself beyond what you just passed by and whatever you find as you turn this or that corner. Unlike all of my other walks in this city, I could never grasp my cardinal bearings and any notion of how much ground I covered and how much more there was to see was distorted beyond meaning.

Information cobbled together from a restaurant menu and a few subsequent and painfully slow internet searches told me that Taikang Lu is a classic example of shikumen, a type of tenement design common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that is unique to Shanghai. (Well, the same menu informed me that the area is called “Tian Zifang,” but that name is of unknown origin.) The vestiges of poverty are still there, namely in aging residents who sit on wooden chair outside their backdoors and watch, unphased, by the shoppers and strollers. But these tenement dwellers of generations ago seem to coexist peacefully with the present.

The architecture of poverty has merged with an architecture of secrets. The result is an Escher neighborhood: a labyrinth of narrow alleys where everyday life, commerce, and Bohemia fold in on each other. And none seems to take center stage. A man locking up his rickety bike outside of his gate may be in the background as you peer into one of the innumerable tiny cafes. Or two women shucking vegetables in the alley out their kitchen door may be in the foreground of an art gallery you spot down an alley off an alley off an alley. Discovery can't help but be a pleasure. Spaces alternate from being lit by shadows, lamps, and the warm lights of deceptively sized restaurants. Stores, galleries, and, one assumes, the apartments above them are cramped, but this urban ecosystem runs smoothly and seemingly every space maximizes utility and your interest.

We browsed and spent in art galleries, dim bookshops, and cozy stores that sold anything under the guise of modern Asian cuteness. We found a Thai restaurant, much to the pleasure of the Thai traveler among us. It seemed passable from street level, but the hostess led us up a steep staircase of dark wood at showed us to a private balcony giving us a dusky view of the alleys and rooftops. We gorged ourselves on basil-redolent beef, a sweet and savory vegetable curry, prawn soup, a light squid salad, and shrimp cakes. We capped off the meal with gelato in a café. Never a huge fan of the real thing, I found the honeydew gelato the refreshing gem of their flavor lot.

Prawn soup

This neighborhood enchanted me. It's what travel is for. We could have lost ourselves there for hours, but there was work in the morning. Still, those alleys make you want to stay forever and explore because you are certain that you can never possibly see everything. I felt it had no duplicate anywhere in the world. Who could duplicate something so physically confusing and fascinating?

As you turn and walk away, you hardly notice, but suddenly you are back in the rest of Shanghai, just like you were before. My co-worker summed it up best. Tian Zifang is like a fairy garden. You can bring your friends to the very same spot the next day, but in daylight you won’t find a trace of it. In the face of their doubts, you will swear it was there the night before, that you saw it with your own eyes, but all you will see is an alley off of a tree-lined block, just like some many others in the city.

Lunch counter in Taikang Lu

Restroom Anthropology

2009-05-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

In the United States, all of the automatic flush mechanisms are triggered when you step away from the urinal. In China, they are triggered when you arrive there. It will not flush again until the next person steps up. Can this be conflated into a cross-cultural comparisons of hygiene and sanitation beliefs? Discuss.

Historical Adjacencies

2009-05-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

I am not going to make it to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. While holocaust is a trope of every good Jewish boy's and girl's upbringing, I am trying not to make it a theme of my personal travels. Plus, Iris Chang did well to bring me up to speed. However, not planning tourist excursions around something is different that not knowing about it. So, a quick word about one of my current neighbors.

A block down from my hotel is the John Rabe House. Rabe, of course the subject of a new major motion picture (aren't they all?), was Nanjing's Oskar Shindler. Perhaps, given the scale of his efforts, he was Nanjing's Raoul Wallenberg. When the Japanese entered the city, there was little protection for the Chinese here. The army had largely fled or surrendered and the Japanese, reports say, killed with little rhyme or reason, other than women were sometimes spared death for the purposes of brutal and repeated rape. The little authority that could be exerted in the Chinese defense rested in the hands of a few westerners who did not flee in advance of the Japanese army.

The westerner who wielded the most influence was likely John Rabe, who was in China working for Siemens and was, nominally at least, a member of the Nazi Party. Given the alliance between Japan and Germany, Rabe was chaired the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone, a small area centered around Nanjing University. The Zone was ostensibly off limits to the Japanese army, though was, in fact, only a permeable barrier, as frequent raids were made. The efforts of Rabe and his International Committee colleagues were difficult and imperfect, but did end up saving the lives of countless Chinese who either lived in Nanjing or were refugees from the countryside to the erroneously perceived safety of the city.

Soon after the Japanese invaded Nanjing, Rabe wrote a personal letter to Hitler asking for Germany to exert its influence and have Tokyo call back the army. Nothing happened. After seven weeks the worst of it was over and the war moved on to other gruesome chapters. Upon his return home to Germany, Rabe and his family fell into poverty, a result from his affiliation with the Nazis, though he seemed relatively apolitical and showed little interest in their inhumane policies. In the last few years before his death, Rabe received food and support from Nanjing and the Chinese government in thanks for his service to the people of Nanjing.

Entrance to the International Safety Zone Memorial Hall and the former house of John Rabe

Xiǎo lóng xiā

2009-05-09T07:48:00.001-07:00

There are two kinds of carnivores: those who are okay with reminders that what they are eating was a living animal and those who prefer their prey filleted or pattied beyond recognition. Not really a judgment of the latter carnivore species. Let’s face it, the division of labor and highly refined modes of food distribution have really taken the edge off our predatory instincts. Heck, I have never hunted, skinned, or butchered anything I’ve ever eaten, but I will get my hands dirty now and then, especially if it means being up to my elbows in carapaces at the end of the meal.

Xiǎo lóng xiā is a local delicacy that is in season. Literally translated as “little lobster,” they are better known in muckier parts of the States as crawdaddies. Unlike its Cajun cuisine cousin, xiǎo lóng xiā is not cooked in Old Bay, but rather in a rich spicy broth which has as its secret ingredient, as is so often the case, cinnamon. It’s fragrant and succulent and served by the steaming bowl full.

Tonight was my second night in a row eating xiǎo lóng xiā. Last night my co-workers and I ventured out with our project’s sponsor, an ex-pat, specifically in search of the dish. He seemed like a man with a mission – or at least a man with a stomach with a mission – and we are always happy to eat. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but a rough vicinity sufficed. We headed for an area of Nanjing called Lion’s Bridge, a pedestrian street which has, as far as I could tell, nothing except neon and restaurants: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, milk tea shops, skewered meat stands, KFC, as long as it can be eaten its sold there. Not a single storefront is wasted on lowly inedible wares.

Lion's Bridge, Nanjing

The client, not overly familiar with Nanjing, used a time-tested formula for seeking out food that is tasty and reasonably authentic: walk down a side street, look for patrons who look local, and never under any circumstances consider the standards of sanitation beyond what you can see. Try that formula out. It works.

The alley in question

Tonight was a little more targeted. Eleven us had a reservation at a restaurant on Zhongshan Lu (I quickly abandoned the notion of actually knowing the names of the places where I eat. I now just hope for menus with pictures. I much prefer pointing over mime as a means for ordering food.) that is known (famous?) for it’s xiǎo lóng xiā. Given the size of the group, we ordered far more than that – duck, goose legs, incredibly silky tofu, some delicious green, fish with black bean sauce, winter melon soup, fish balls with black mushrooms, pepper steak – but the four or five bowls of crawfish were the centerpiece.

Oh, was it good. The spice of the broth seemed to permeate the shells and flavor the tail meat far better than last night. And you can just dip the unsheathed tail back in the broth anyway. These were not unsubstantial for crawfish either. They were not quite holding up the xiǎo end of the “little lobster” formula. They were big enough to make the claws worth plundering, usually more a lobster eater’s undertaking than a crawfish diner’s, but as I don’t know how to say “medium” in Chinese I won’t attempt to rename them. I will, however, let you meet them.

Before

After

Foshan, you kiln me

2009-05-07T19:02:00.001-07:00

My three days in Foshan were definitely more work than play. There are no free lunches, though there may be expensed ones. Nevertheless, I did find a couple of hours here and there to see some of the sights (and the sites).

Nothing makes a trip more rewarding than going halfway around the world to find that the must-sees are under construction, tarp-draped and scaffolded. It happened in Shanghai with the riverwalk that will reinvent the Bund for the 21st century and it happened in Foshan with the temple that helped invent kung fu for the world in the 20th. I am learning that this is an occupational hazard for visitors to the rapidly wealthifying corners of the globe which are trying to simultaneously preserve their heritages and make them more attractive for tourists.

The Foshan Ancestral Temple was about a five minute walk from our hotel. These walks, even the shortest of them, are always adventures in themselves. The streets and sidewalks of China are a game of Frogger, you as frog and the countless motorbikes, scooters, and bicycles are the pixelated tractor trailers. The China version is far more dangerous than the arcade one. For one thing, you can suffer actual bodily harm rather than having to hit 'restart.' The real problem though is that there are no pedestrian-only areas. The bikes, motorized or man-powered, are all terrain vehicles. On top of that, many are electric and perfectly silent. They sneak up on you and you don't see them until it is too late (NK, if you are reading this, there are sidewalks here, but they won't do you much good.)

The temple itself is definitely older than your church or synagogue. It was first built about 900 or so years ago. I wish I could speak to about the enduring splendor of it all, but it was being hogged by the construction folks. In the meantime, you can still wander through some of the court yards, halls, and the museum dedicated to its most globally significant resident, Ip Man. He was the master of Bruce Lee and could have take down you and twenty of your friends all at once.

Ip and Bruce

Kids rehearsing a dance. Note that the one on the left forgot his head at home and had to mime.

I couldn't stay at the temple for long. There were stores to visit. A shopping post may never be written, but I can say that somehow Chinese Wal-Marts are not nearly as offensive as their American kin. It might be scale, or perhaps that the "roll-back" icon is not that damned happy yellow dot.

I took another stroll in the afternoon.

* * * * *

As someone whose pottery skills culminated in successive firings of coin dishes/ash trays back in elementary school, it's a little hard to appreciate the finer points of ceramics. And a casual stroll through the ceramics district of Foshan doesn't help any. Capitalism there prays to a porcelain god. Storefronts feature all manner of "sanitary ceramics," but most especially the gleaming white toilet. I suspect that you all have found relief among Foshan's wares. The hub of this industry that has left Foshan flush, is China Ceramics City, a four-story mall, the top two of which are dedicated to better excretion through industry. Fortunately, in history there is dignity and art.

The couple that craps together...

Walled off from all that commodal commerce is the Nanfeng Kiln Ceramic Park. If you have any love for ceramics, these 6000 acres should be what you dream about. It is a beautiful urban green space dedicated to the nearly two millenia during which this town has served as a ceramics captial. The area that can more traditionally called a park is centered by a huge lake with paths, sign posts, and greenery flecked with sculpture and tiles, some of which were made at a DIY center (they call it "DIY") in the southwest part of the park. That area is where the fun really begins.

The Ancient Nanfeng Kiln has been in business non-stop for about 500 years. It is a 34.4m long and slopes up a hill, given it its name of a dragon kiln. A set of stairs runs alongside it and is also flanked by Nanfeng's sister kiln, also a dragon kiln, only very slightly newer. As you climb the stairs you can peek your way into low-ceilinged entryways and see the people at work moving pieces, to-be-fired and just fired, back and forth. I never approached them to understand how the kiln worked. It was more than enough to wander in an out, discover a stack of pots here, happen upon an ornate glazed planter there.

The base of the Nanfeng Dragon Kiln.

The Kilns

Behind the hill housing the kilns is perhaps the coolest aspect of the Ceramics park, and the one that gives it its vibrancy and continuity. A Ming- and Qing-era village has been preserved as part of the park. The original residents are obviously gone, but the homes now serve as studios for ceramics artisans. You can wander the cramped alleys and find doors that are opened to dark rooms where someone is working alone at ancient wooden tables on pieces. If the doors are open, you are welcome to walk in and watch them work. One man, well into middle age, and a residence of the park for who knows how long, gave me a pointing tour of his shop. Granted, he ultimately wanted me to buy one of the hundreds of ceraminc animals crammed on his shelves, but regardless he never begrudged my glimpse in his process.

On to Nanjing...or rather next up Nanjing, blog-wise, as that is where I am writing from.

Dateline: Foshan: The International Sign for Big Noses

2009-05-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

I took a walk after our first interview today. Just out for a 30 minute stroll in the muggy afternoon in an area of Foshan where there appears to be little to see except for travel agencies and bootleg CD/DVD emporia. Halfway through the walk, as I am turning back towards the hotel, four children, about 8 years old, say "Hello." They all have backpacks with cartoon characters on them and are presumably on their way home from school.

Then they begin asking me questions. I would have been happy to answer, if only my Cantonese were a bit better, that is to say, existent. We five keep walking, they peppering me with one or two of the same questions, me responding with a something of a Jackie Mason pose - shoulders shrugged, arms tucked to my sides at the elbows and then akimbo through the forearms. "I don't know what you're saying, but 'Hello' anyway." This continues.

The children, through their giggles, smell blood in the water. They know I know not a lick of their language. And they start mocking. One in particular is bold and will walk up to me, ask a couple of questions, and then skitter back to the pack for a group titter. It would go on for about three more blocks, but he would play his trump card well before they left. Hand to his face, cupped inward, then he dramatically pulls his forward. It was no reference to my particularly Semitic schnoz, but to the relative prominence of Caucasian snouts more broadly: The International Sign for Big Noses. And so I am, for the first time, the victim of a grade school Chinese hate crime.

Shanghai Walking Tour: Part I, The Morning

2009-05-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Ayun Halliday’s travel book No Touch Monkey features a couple of tales of travel woe, backpacking through Europe with a boyfriend who clearly didn’t see eye-to-eye with her modes of exploration. I vaguely remember grimy college summer tension in a train station or hostel or something that nearly doomed their relationship, or perhaps did doom it, given that in subsequent stories she writes more fondly about her husband-as-travel buddy. I suspect I wouldn’t cut Hallidays’s mustard either, but that’s not the point. The real lesson is that travel compatibility is crucial to the success of any good relationship. Some travelers are first classers, others a hostelians, still others Travel Channelites, preferring their living rooms to security checkpoints and phrase books. I am a street walker. Luckily, my two travel companions, AS and MCZ, were game.

* * * * *

It all begins with a good breakfast. Now, continental breakfasts can be excellent fuel and sustenance, providing that the continent in question is Asia. We were neither blown away, nor repulsed by the “century egg.” I had always imagined it to be the Icelandic rotted shark of China. Not quite, but should this trip turn me into a sinophile, I think I might still prefer my eggs scrambled, over easy, or rancheros-ed. Breakfast bao, fried rice, dumpling soup, fried string beans, and peach juice, however, put Wheaties to shame.

When we set out after breakfast, it wasn’t clear how walkable Shanghai would prove to be. With 18 million people to house, one might expect a bit of sprawl. As someone pointed out to me later in a bout of obviousness, all maps are roughly the same size, but what they represent tends to have a bit more variation. In other words, we weren’t really sure what we were doing. Our strategy for the day was something like “small ball” in baseball. We adopted station-to-station tourism: pick a place to go, get there, and then worry about how to get moved over to the next place. Stop 1: People’s Park.

Immediately upon hearing the name of the park, I started having visions of People with a capital P, you know, of the communist revolutionary sort. Maybe instead of the crazy street corner preachers we have in Chicago, there would be old time Maoists reading from The Little Red Book on milk crates. Not quite. While the park notably houses the Shanghai Museum (we are going to try to see that on our return to Shanghai), it really has neither the beauty, nor the life we saw in other parks later in the day. Perhaps it is actually a vestige of the old China and the other parks are more representative of China's future of prosperity demanding green cultivated backdrops for their urban leisure. It would be a few more hours and none too little inappropriate footwear ruing before we got to those parks. One nice People's touch though is that the park posts the daily newspapers for people to gather around and read. I would like to think that this creates a public square for gathering and, one presumes, the discussion of events and news for People's Park regulars, but this is probably idealist given that most of the people by the papers were of a far older generation.

Running on the northern edge of the People's Square, which is itself on the northern edge of People's Park is Nanjing Lu or Nanjing Road. Wikipedia will tell you that this is one of the busiest shopping streets in the world. I will tell you that I think it's a tourist trap and the people who were there seemed less like city dwellers and more like Shanghai's equivalent of Schaumburgers or Napervillians, suburbanites headed for the big city. Nanjing Lu may also be the site of some sort of government economic development program because we were constantly accosted by men waving what seemed to be standard issue laminated cards featuring pictures of "Rolexes" and handbags. I was a treacherous walk, hordes of pedestrians posing a danger to other pedestrians, but we happened upon dancers in groovy sweaters, so it was all worth it.

Nanjing Lu terminates ate the Huangpu River and the area known as the Bund. The Bund is where it's at if you want to see the international influence on Shanghai. The buildings are virtually all western looking, edifices of the European and American financial power that took root in Shanghai at the end of the 19th century. The area, however, has been thoroughly reclaimed since its days as Shanghai's International Settlement. Next year Shanghai will host the World Expo and a massive effort is underway to build a riverwalk and park for the event. There also appears to be a massive effort to market Haibao, the mascot for the Expo, to fund the construction. MCZ wondered if Haibao is supposed to be a dollop of toothpaste. We could not confirm or dismiss this theory.

For now the 21st century Bund is a fenced-off, earth-moving, scaffolded work-in-progress, and therefore kind of an eyesore. The real draw is not the Bund itself, but the vantage from the Bund. The heavy industrial river traffic and the view of the skyline of the financial center of Shanghai on the other side is worth the price of admission. Tourist lore says that the view of all views is from a restaurant called M on the Bund, which is where we ate brunch. Not exactly traditional Chinese fare - my meal involved two course of the pastry variety, one savory and puffed, the other sweet and baked. It was tasty, but less a site for food porn and more one for skyscraper porn. Though I hear banana fritters with mascarpone are the doctor-recommended treatment for a morning of walking.

Coming Soon: Part II: Back from the Bund!

Orientation

2009-05-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

The Quarantine Team were the first Chinese people I met. We landed at Shanghai Pudong Airport after the 14+ hour flight, slightly leg cramped and rather blah from Clint Eastwood’s in-flight performance in Gran Torino, and sat for an hour at the gate while a crew in full HazMat regalia came through and took our body temperatures and reviewed our responses to the question “Have you had any contact with a pig in the last week?” It would have been a disconcerting show of state control and authority, but half of the passengers were standing and snapping photos of the spectacle (yes, in fact, I did get in on that). Though I got the lowest score on the body temperature exam of my two traveling companions, I gained admittance to the country.

It’s been all mist, fog, and rain here, so the drive in from the airport did not offer any astonishing views. In fact, for much of the drive in, I thought we were touring the industrial hinterlands of a Midwestern city: factories, scaffolding, half-finished roads, and the occasional scent that can only mean high rates of childhood asthma. When your zipping along, it’s really hard to determine whether what you see are the signs of future growth and prosperity or those of decay. Being picked up by our driver in a Buick only added to my disorientation. I wondered why the hell I needed to fly for 14 hours just to get a scenic tour of Gary, IN. Then we crossed a bridge.

Minutes after crossing a bridge whose name I think was Lupu that spanned what I presume to be the Huangpu, we were at the hotel. The Royal Court Hotel was an excellent choice. What could be more modern Chinese, the fusion of the past and the future, than the dark wooden screen which separates my bed from my couch, but also has a plasma TV mounted to it?

Room Phone

I haven’t figured out the name of the neighborhood we are staying in, but it is thoroughly modern, global, and capitalist. I think I will call it Barbieton because we are just steps from Shanghai’s ballyhooed multistory Barbie store. More specifically, we are on Huanghai Rd. which is jam packed with couture boutiques and local high-end wedding shops. The cross streets offer a little more of what I presume is local flavor: smaller clothing shops no more than 12 feet deep, bakeries offering buns filled with fruity, creamy deliciousness for only a few Yuan, and tented market filled with shirts, shoes, and bags of, ummm, uncertain origin. Between the rain and general exhaustion our exploring on the first night was limited, though we did stop at a fruit stand in some tertiary alley from which I had my first mangosteen.

Dinner was a comedy of pointing and feeling intimidated by the waitstaff. We chose a Sichuan restaurant based on the time-tested foodie method of it being there and us being hungry. Immediately we were chastised for apparently using an umbrella stand incorrectly. Perhaps the umbrella stand, like gunpowder, was invented here millennia before it found it’s way to the West and our clumsy attempt to co-opt was the last straw for the hostess. Our drippy umbrellas were forced to join us at the table.

I have told myself that I will eat whatever bizarre things my more knowing companions recommend, but for this first meal I hoped for some familiar reference points. Flustered by the language-impaired ordering process, we went with a chicken dish that the waitress insisted was special, a pork dish that had a corresponding glistening picture, and a green bean dish that we were confident we would be able to identify when it arrived. To my surprise, the chicken dish was cold and soaking up a pungent chili oil bath, though having eaten my share of Chinese leftovers out of the box for breakfast, I kind of felt right at home with this. The pork came out a half a glistening football, covered in browned skin, and flanked by sauteed baby bok choy. The waitress placed it down and it was pretty clear we had no idea what to do with it, so she immediately took it away and chopped it up for us. What came back to us was still a challenge owing to the hard to manipulate fattiness, but definitely worth the sweet and tender fight. The green beans, as I noted, gave us confidence.

2009-05-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Test

2007-03-02T14:28:00.000-08:00

Redirect!!!

2006-08-22T19:28:00.001-07:00

http://debaclypsenow.livejournal.com/

2006-08-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

2006-08-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hail to thee Walt Whitman

2006-08-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

My days of school spirit are behind me. I don't attend reunions. I don't know who won homecoming. I don't get invited to weddings. With one entirely haphazard exception, I haven't seen anyone from my school for about five years. Still, I feel a twitch of hometown pride right about now.

Walt Whitman High School, named after the gold standard for American gay poets, much to the delight of every guido, JAP, and suburban 'hood who ever graced its musty halls, has enjoyed largely trivial fame. Neal Marlens reputedly based his show The Wonder Years Whitman and the junior high, Henry L. Stimson Middle School. NBA lottery pick Tom Gugliotta is a graduate. And, lest we forget the near-misses, the Whitman Class of '93 was a finalist for the second season of the inane reality show High School Reunion.

Now we Whitman Wildcats have a new reason to be proud. It seems that 18-year old Krista Guterman, a recent graduate, had a tryst with Paul Lo Duca, the 34-year old, soon-to-be-not-married catcher for the New York Mets. Now, it is not exactly clear whether or not Ms. Guterman's eighteenness had been attained at the time of the affair. Chances are that she was considering that this is Lo Duca's first year with the team. One thing is certain, according to her father, she won't be sitting down with the press any time soon, "You aren't gonna get her. She ain't nowhere near here."

2006-08-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Downsizing

2006-07-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

I believe that I will be moving all my postings to LiveJournal. I've been double posting, but there's no sense in keeping it up. Anyway, it's the same ol' Debaclypse, just not spread so thin.

Please click...
http://debaclypsenow.livejournal.com/

Adbominations

2006-07-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

You can't ever go wrong with excretions and emissions, can you? I mean, you're bound to get a laugh from someone. Be it a dog peeing on someone's leg or some spirited farting around the campfire, it all works for someone. It's because those things are impure and dirty and a little taboo and that's good enough for most twelve year-old boys and Freud.

When I was twelve, and this shouldn't surprise you, I had a hard time relating to the humor of my peers sometimes. I had already begun to relish Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and I'd probably read Woody Allen's Side Effects about five times. I don't say this to show I was precocious, but to demonstrate that generally I was pretty inept at being a kid. I did not always play well with a demographic for which "Your epidermis is showing" is the gold standard of high brow. There is one particular afternoon, however, which I remember quite clearly and to the contrary.

A friend of mine and I had decided that modern English, replete though it is with language both clinical and flowery for individual bodily functions, needed more exacting terminology for combined, simultaneous emissions. The game then became to pack as many references to as many functions as possible into a single, compact term. The resulting neologism? "Farburdivomshiss." Please parse it at your leisure.

GI Joe didn't have shiss on Lenny

It's not a pretty word - it's pretty stupid - but we thought it was freakin' hysterical. And, to be fair to us, it is functional and rolls off the tongue once you get used to it. I still love this kind of wordplay, making up words to unite ideas, though not necessarily ones having to do with, say, a sextet of corporeal seepages. For instance, referencing someone who has one parent in the Tribe and one who is a gentile as a "Jewlatto" is one of my current favorites. It's descriptive and a partial pun. Very tidy. But that's neither here nor there. We must move on to Mars.

* * * * *

TBWA/Chiat/Day is no slouch in the ad world. They've got accounts with the likes of Apple and adidas (whose +10 ads for the World Cup were pretty damn good in my book). TBWA has done the unbelievably successful Absolut Vodka ads for almost two decades, leading to a reported 14900% increase in sales. They also do Skittles, which I find super-annoying, but I like to think that there are thousands of homophobes out there who won't touch a Skittle because they think "Taste the Rainbow" is slang for some unholy man-on-man act. These ads are all well and good, but I am not the first blogger to point out that their current street ads for Mars Candy are shit.
You've seen them on cabs and buses for Snickers. The Snickers logo with absurdly unwieldy linguistic conjurings such as: Satisfectellent, Substantialicious, and Hungerectomy.

There are two that I don't really have a problem with: "Peanutopolis" and "Nougatocity." These two have a few things going for them: they are clean(er) sounding, they describe the product, and they, somewhat accidentally, identify the product with a place: "-polis" actually meaning city and "-ocity" sounding like city, though the etymology is a false one. You know like San Francisco is identified with Rice-A-Roni or New Orleans with chocolate. The others...horrible.

Doctors are split on whether the hungerectomy
is best performed with local or general anesthesia.

AdRants points out that a Hungerectomy may not be the best approach to woo people to your product. One online medical dictionary defines "-ectomy" as:

"A surgical suffix referring to the removal of something. For example, a lumpectomy is the surgical excision of a lump which may be benign or not, tonsillectomy is the removal of the tonsils, a partial colectomy is removal of part of the colon, an appendectomy is removal of the appendix, etc. From the Greek "ek" (out) + "tome" (a cutting) = a cutting out."

Snack foods and the excising of lumps may work well in theory, but rarely mesh well in practice. A less obvious consequence of this ad might come with a bit of creative parsing, which leaves you with: "Hung. Erect. O My!" Taste the rainbow.

I believe that similar hints of unpleasant medical experiences plague the term "satisfectellent." The "fect" sound elicits too strong an association with "infection" for me. No candy bar of mine should have to be washed down with a spritz or two of Tough Actin' Tinactin.

The last one here, "Substantialicious," is just bad. Sorry. I may want my chocolate rich or velvety, but substantial? Where's the sexy appeal of that? That ranks up there with the time I told an ex-girlfriend that her ass "had personality." No sale.

In the end, my gripe is grapey...and sour. Why don't I get paid to make words up? One can make the argument that I would be if I hadn't been lazy and dropped out of grad school (I studied under an unabashed neologist). Still, to the Mars Candy company I say, next time you want your products to sell like fungal infections or cyst removals, please call me.

Caliente Off The Presses

2006-07-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

(Piracy Warning: This story is totally stolen from skc, but she should know better than to tell me such things)

News outlets are reporting that Thursday night history will me made at Milwaukee's Miller Park. The Brewers, along with Sausage Race sponsor Klement's Sausage Company, will unveil a fifth sausage, the Chorizo, to run in their legendary races. The announcement is also being done to coincide with Cerveceros Day which doesn't really exist, but will be celebrated at the Park during Saturday's game against the Reds. This should be especially well-received by the Mexican community given the connotations that sometimes accompany the term "chorizo." Although Cerveceros Day isn't actually a real holiday and has no actual significance in the Hispanic community, it should work immigration reformists and English Firsters into a xenophobic frenzy nationwide. Expect irrational encased meat boycotts (senseless under any circumstances) to ensue.

The Original Franksta's

Despite the media blitz being given to the announcement, Klement's representatives are being coy and have been stingy with the details:

"Don't bank on anything until you see it live," said Dan Lipke, Klement's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "There are a lot of ways we can go with this."

Asked if the Chorizo would be the newest Racing Sausage, Lipke said, "I'm not laying claim that's what you will find."

There may be, as Mr. Lipke says, "a lot of ways we can go with this" but sources say the actual way of the One True Chorizo will be one "adorned with a mustache and a sombrero and...sport[ing] the traditional colors of green, white and red."

Chorizo and his secret ethnic training regimen.

The Chorizo will join the likes of the Bratwurst, who apparently suffers from the racing sausages' bane - trick ankles, and the Italian, who leads this year with 17 wins, but who enjoyed fame before landing amidst the glitz of Beer City, USA: "He is one of the better known competitors. Much of this acclaim comes from his activities on the Silver Screen where he has been featured in such low budget films as Sausages Are A Butcher's Best Friend and Sausages, Sausages, and More Sausages."

Those unable to be in Milwaukee for the festivities are encouraged to partake in the Racing Sausages Video Game, which is precisely how your boss and mine want people to celebrate diversity in the workplace.

I'm A Joiner

2006-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of my friends' recent engagement, I have taken my own plunge and become ordained. This was a difficult decision which came on the heels of decades of arduous, soul-wrenching reflection. Once I had resolved to dedicate my life to the Lord (or at least to a Church which seeks tax-exempt status in His name), the question was which one.

Catholicism seems pretty with its gold doodads. I've also heard that if you join in the next 48 hours you get the option to buy a time-share in Vatican City for way below market. Still, the era of wholesale canonization ushered in by the late JP II doesn't bode well for their standards vis a vis the Divine. No sluts of sainthood will get their hands on my soul.

Then there's The Church of the Subgenius. They tempted me. A lot. Their prophet smokes a pipe; they sell "gimcracks, gifts & geegaws," and they spoke to me deeply about the true Nature of Love: "Love can crush Hot Wheels. But watch out because Decepticons are bigger than Love and can blow it away." Sadly, the price I would have to pay for my faith was too high ($30!).

And that leaves the good ol' Universal Lifers. Back at my old food service stomping grounds, we had a simple motto: "We hire everyone." I wanted to bring this motto into my spiritual life. The Universal Life Church fought the State of Utah and won. They bring you salvation to your desktop. And they have "no traditional doctrine" that I need to follow like those other demanding Houses of God.

I now can be counted among the many fine souls of my more than 20 million clergy brethren: legendary star of The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia PhenomenonTony Danza, TV host-person guy Jeff Probst, and food ninja Fujisan. So if you're having a crisis of faith, are in need of guidance, or if you just need someone to listen, I'm here. And I'm now holy.

Fellow ULC Reverend, The Honky Tonk Man,
heals the stricken King Kong Bundy with the Rope of Eternal Light

Le Fou de Riz, C'est Moi

2006-07-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

Every little neighborhood eatery has one - the guy about whom the staff can say, "It's the same thing all the time. He comes in here everyday at exactly ten after twelve and orders a Mr. Pibb and a small bowl of capers. I don't understand it, but damn if he ain't our most loyal customer." It's all part of the local flavor. The delicious local flavor of capers and knock-off Dr. Pepper.

Most of the time we never really know what drives these creatures of habit. Perhaps the man of my example requires the sodium of capers and the sugar of Mr. Pibb to maintain his health, youthful good looks, and keen mind. Or, far more likely than that kook hypothesis, perhaps this food and beverage combination reacts uniquely with his saliva to create a pop rocks effect, capers secretly crackling on his tongue much to his delight. While I certainly can't lay claim to such private pleasures as savoring exploding mouth capers while a bemused waitstaff looks on none the wiser, but I am starting to be recognized as something of an odd bird at one particular establishment.

Not that the 53rd St. incarnation of Noodles Etc. has any place putting on airs. It's Pan-Asian at its panniest. They do a serviceable pad see ew, but that's about it. Over the years Noodles Etc. has asserted its Asianness in odd ways. They have an open kitchen, visible from both the cashier area and the street, so that everyone can see that the food is clearly not prepared by anyone of remotely Asian descent. Even more curiously, there used to be this hostess who worked there, a Caucasian of the palest stock, who would speak in stereotypical Asian English while at work, but who had quite standard, American-born pronunciation when not on the clock. Seriously. "Por' flied lice," "He say he want tree pad thai ri' now," "You want chopstick?" the whole nine yards. It was ridiculous.

So, do you think they should be making fun of me when I come in two or three times each week ordering only a small white rice for $.82? I thought so. Nevertheless, they do. They see me coming and smile knowingly. Like I'm one of those crackpot grad students who lives on $3000 a year and has resigned himself to cheerfully consuming plain white rice because this, my 17th year in the Div School, is gonna be the one when I finally get that approval from my committee and am dubbed Rice-eating-nutjob, Ph.D.

The truth is that I eat a lot of those microwave curries, the ones that Patel Bros. sells for $1.79. The rice is accompaniment and not main course. I'm sometimes tempted to tell them this, so that they finally understand, but I'm not sure going there would be fun anymore. I want them to go out drinking on the weekends and tell their friends about "this dude who comes in there and orders nuthin' but rice." I want to be burned clearly enough into their psyches to appear as a non sequitur background character in their dreams, "I was just about to feed my big sister the poisoned cake which I baked for her after all those horrible, tormented years of beating me up and stealing my boyfriends. But then this guy, you know, the Riceman from the restaurant, taps on the window and whispers to me, 'It's a fine October for a swim, dontcha know?' And then it all comes flooding back to me. I remember that time when I was ten and there was this super hot Indian summer, and my sister convinced me to ditch school and go down to the Lake. We swam and ate Italian ices and they tasted better than ever just because we knew everyone else was stuck in school doing grammar and eating cold salisbury steak. And so I didn't feed her the poisoned cake after all." Isn't that sweet? And still they think I'm a bit off. The nerve.

SWAD MICRO CURRY: It's The Crazy Maker!

An Informal Inquiry Into The Valuation of the Aesthetic, or What The Fuck Did I Spend My Money On This Weekend

2006-07-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

Two strong points I do not possess: a good understanding of economics and the ability to understand or judge works of art. From this one might conclude that spending money on art not mass produced for sale at CB2 or a university poster sale may not be wise.

Friday night I attended an opening for a local artist named Quang Hong. I first saw Quang's work when it was on display at Menagerie, the former Belmont Avenue restaurant. At the time, my sophisticated reaction to his work was Spicoli-esque. If I had to describe his work (and I guess it would be helpful), I would use words like surreal, isolated, monstrous, Asian-inspired, darkly funny. That doesn't help. Look at his website.

After walking around, drinking an Old Style, and eating some beef kalbi with my fingers, I teamed up to negotiate a price for two of his paintings. I want art for my apartment, but this was more than a modest-sized impulse purchase.

One painting is called "Tick-O" and is, shockingly, a painting of a tick, or of a vaguely cartoonish tick-like creature. It does not look like The Tick though. The other is called "Venus Pancake" and is of a gaunt woman wearing a long red dress and standing alone in a desolate landscape. I really like this painting, but I fear that it may be too reminiscent of moody teen girl cartoon icon Emily Strange. I may be imagining this resemblance, but I'm pretty sure that by the time I pick the paintings up from the gallery I will have firmly convinced myself that everyone who sees this painting in my apartment (or worse, in my bedroom where I originally thought I'd put it) will suspect that I spend my nights trying to pick up fourteen year olds on Alkaline Trio message boards.

How to know if I didn't get totally ripped off? There's no real resource to compare purchase price histories as you can with artists whose work is up for auction. Maybe the monetary value of a local artist's work has nothing to do with value in the art world at large because no one sees it as a real investment. Maybe the value of Quang's work is purely aesthetic whereas a Picasso derives its value from the anticipation of accrual. In any event, I hope the value of these paintings is not based solely on my ability to use the paintings as collateral to post bond subsequent to my arrest in an Alkaline Trio message board sting.

* * * * *

In a completely different effort of art appreciation, on Saturday I went with some friends to the midnight showing of the 1980 Olivia Newtown John disasterpiece Xanadu. In the interest of fair and balanced discussion, you may peruse the evening's organizer's ode to Xanadu. If you are not interested in this, well, you'll have to blindly adopt my view that this is one horrible flick. Actually, she thinks it's horrible too, but she has an attachment to it born of youthful memory. I do not. My perception of its almost impossible amount of suck is untainted.

Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen this gem I'll give a quick synopsis. Olivia Newton John is a Muse named Kira who befriends and falls for an artist named Sonny Malone. Artist is really a generous term because all Sonny really does is paint copies of album covers for record store displays. Kira is really crappy at musing. She doesn't really inspire him to be a better artist, since Sonny never does have one original artistic creation at any time in the movie. What she does do is help Gene Kelly taint his reputation by encouraging his character, Danny McGuire, to open a rollerskating dance club to recapture the vitality of his youth. Malone and McGuire somehow become partners in this venture even though Malone seems to have a dearth of ideas, experience, credentials, and, most significantly to the business savvy amongst you, capital. At some point, Malone skates through a wall mural to meet Kira's dad, Zeus (yes, that Zeus), who apparently has left his digs on Mount Olympus and has moved into a condo on the set of Tron. And that's pretty much about it.

To keep with the larger theme, what is the value of Xanadu? Well, the movie itself wasn't actually worth the $9.25 charged by the Music Box. Fortunately for me, the vocally disdainful crowd, never shy about letting the characters know how cheesy, poorly dressed, and insipid they were, was totally worth it. In fact, I would estimate that such aggressively ironic enjoyment would be worth at least $13 on the open market. So, the moral of the story is that I am way more confident about estimating the value of the overzealous use of the special effects mixed with abysmal dialogue than I am of creations that I really feel are striking or beautiful.

The Most Carnivorous Quote I Heard On The Radio On The Way To Work Today

2006-07-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

"Birds are good because it's fun to stuff them inside one another and eat them. It's no fun to do that with vegetables"

And with that I return to my lunch of left over chili mac made with Lightlife Smart Chili, (chock full of textured soy protein concentrate!) with a side of mustard greens steamed and sauteed with garlic, ginger and kim chee. My kingdom for a game sausage.

The Wednesday WTF?

2006-07-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

There is no sports team in the world with which I die harder than the New York Islanders. What can I say? They were there for me when I needed them. In a time of early tumult in my life I readily immersed myself in the sport of hockey and the Islanders did not disappoint. From 1980-1983 the Isles won four consecutive Stanley Cups (the oldest and most storied trophy in North American sports just in case you non-believers didn't know), something that no American team had ever done in that most Canucky of games. In fact, they even swept the actual Canucks of Vancouver in the 1982 finals to win the third of their championships.

Rarely do teams stay great forever, but there really should be a limit to the absurdity and humiliation fans are subject to when a team bottoms out. As a good Islanders fan, I think it's safe to say that things really started going bad when the hated rivals, the Rangers, won their first Cup in 54 years in 1994. I was literally distraught to see the fuckin' asshole Rangers toting that Cup around and the gloating of their douche bag fans.

Then the drought came to the Island. Starting with the 1994-95 season, the Islanders began a seven year stretch of not making the playoffs. Let me reiterate this point. The New York Islanders, a team in a league where over half of the teams make the playoffs, could not manage to do it once in seven years. Steaming piles of suck do not appear naturally. They are carefully crafted by ineptitude artisans. Oh, they were dark days.

In the midst of this period of athletic impotence, there was John Spano. Oh, you don't know him? Seriously? He was the white knight on the white horse, the man who was going to buy the team and return it to its former glory. And bought them he did. Trouble was that he didn't actually have the money to pay for the team, but he went through with the purchase anyway. Faux pas! Fleet Bank was not as appreciative as you might think they would be about being conned into lending $80 million to a man with only $2 million in assets. It seems that such predatory lending practices were still only in vogue for banks dealing with minorities looking to live the American Dream. Fleet saw no value on foreclosing on a crappy hockey franchise. In 2000, Spano was sentenced to six years for bank and wire fraud.

Another brilliant move in the 1990s was incorporating the Gorton's Fisherman into their logo. The marketing machine was really purring in those days.

Then there was the farce of the Isles' home. Once the toughest, rockin'est arena in the NHL to play in, the Nassau Coliseum had become decrepit. The Islanders even sued the Coliseum's management company and were restrained by a New York State Supreme Court Judge from playing at the Coliseum because an engineering report on the scoreboard's hoist system declared it unsafe. You see, there was some danger that it could come crashing down which conflicted with players' desire to not be crushed to death during a line change. Whiny, spoiled professional athletes. In any event, the sparse crowds and falling scoreboard hazards (even after the restraining order was lifted) caused a new moniker to stick once and for all. The Islanders home was known as the Nassau Mausoleum.

Hope did flicker though. Things were looking up when the team was bought by Computer Associates moguls Sanjay Kumar and Charles Wang. Of course, Kumar pled guilty for securities fraud and obstruction of justice in 2004 and Wang yesterday secured his position as heir apparent to George Steinbrenner as professional sports' meddling kook owner extraordinaire.

What's the opposite of a moment of clarity? A moment of delusion? A moment of opacity? A bout of catastrophic clusterfuckery? In a moment of catastrophic clusterfuckery, owner Charles Wang decided to fire the experienced General Manager Neil Smith (the guy who built the NY Rangers Cup winning team of 1994 incidentally) whom he hired six weeks ago. Smith's replacement? The back-up goalie.I'm sorry. What?

Yes, Garth Snow (pictured below, apparently at a management training seminar) has gone from being a scrub (albeit an able scrub) on one of last decade's worst teams, to being its general manager, in control of player personnel decisions, wheeling, dealing, and bringing the team back to prominence. Wikipedia is already calling yesterday "Black Tuesday." (Actually since first writing this, the "Black Tuesday" reference has been taken down.) Ah shit, what do I want from an owner who once sent scouts to Japan to consider sumo wrestlers to play goalie? Any man who doesn't understand the tenuous, but simple relationship between the ankles of the obese and ice skates, can't really have much expected of him.

New GM Garth Snow Orchestrates His First Deal As GM With "The Ice Girls": Swapping spit for a fourth round draft pick and a position to be named later.

Oh Good, Israel Problem Solved

2006-07-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

Kudos to the Washington Post for resisting the urge to write "[expletive deleted]":

During a lunch with other leaders at the Group of Eight summit on Monday, Bush was caught on a live microphone talking in tough, occasionally profane terms with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the latest conflict in the Middle East. Bush criticized the position taken by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and said he would soon send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.

"What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over," Bush says with his mouth full as he buttered a piece of bread.

"Who, Syria?" asked Blair, standing next to the seated Bush.

"Right," Bush said. Within an hour, the remarks were broadcast on television stations, radio stations and websites around the world."

I'm Chosen; I'm Chosen Not

2006-07-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

(I submit this to the reading public as an installment in an unofficial series of rants undertaken by a number of friends: 1, 2)

This is obviously prompted by the hellish escalation in violence in Lebanon and Northern Israel. I hate discussing Israel. Loathe it even. It's frustrating, migraine-inducing, and utterly untenable.

I hate it first and foremost because, as a Jew, I feel like I was willfully deceived about what Israel is and where it came from. I'm not sure if it was simply the shortcomings of my personal education or a general habit of propagandizing among the Tribe, but the history I learned was, to be generous, selective. For me, the claim to the Land of Milk and Honey evolved thusly:

God chats up Abraham and they work out a deal.
Everyone hates us for a while. Then they hate us so much that they make us slaves.
Moses shows up and says come this way. He points at the border and dies, probably of guilt from the trouble he has wrought by bringing his people to Israel.
Some temples are built and destroyed.
We end up in Europe somehow. How do we know this? Because there are philosophers writing stuff (I know this less from Hebrew School than from the fact I was born in Maimonides Hospital) and inventing the academic industry of Talmudic scholarship. Plus we were hated some more, but by different people. This is to say nothing of the fact that we're all the ancestors of European immigrants.
Suddenly the Holocaust happens and Jews can go back to Israel.
A lot of people hate us for it, but it is the burden we bare.

Not much talk of who was there before 1948. No mention of how Palestine was the only colony I can think of in which the colonizer relinquished power by giving it to someone totally unrelated to the majority of people who lived there during their occupation. No talk of anything other than it was Right. Of course I realize that no religion is going to undercut something so fundamental and tangible as its followers right to inhabit its Holy Land as ordained by God by casting doubt upon the very claim to said Land. But someone could have. No one did. Maybe it happened in households and social circles which were more Jewish than mine. Maybe families with stronger connections to that land - more than an aunt, uncle, and some distant cousins, families whose kids did their time on a kibbutz or at least made a trip over - faced the fact that more than Jewish blood was shed for that piece of arid real estate. But not a single person I knew addressed or even acknowledged the savage irony of the displacement of Palestinians on the heels of the Holocaust.

This is not to say that Jews don't have the right to be there now. The people who are there now, who built the modern state of Israel, created an infrastructure, farmed the desert, and raised families, certainly do have some right. My gripe, or my initial one anyway, is that educated debates and, more importantly, diplomacy efforts have to acknowledge the historical context that is the conditions of Israel's formation. If any discussion should be stripped of the obfuscations of political correctness, as well as incendiary asymmetrical language of the generally anti-Arab West (a terrorist in some other land is a freedom fighter), it is this one. And don't mistake this for some stereotypical liberal nonsense about empathizing with the terrorist. Anyone who walks into a busy market dressed to the nines in explosives is a fucking murderer. Let them and the cowards who train them to kill burn in Hell. Still, everyone has blood on their hands here and the moral high ground has long since been leveled, so let's be honest about it and acknowledge the ample and well-distributed blame.

Assuming I could live in a world where a complete history of Canaan/Palestine/Israel was taught and a candid, unflinching lexicon for discussion was established, I doubt I could take a position on the issue anyway. The fact is that I don't believe there is a solution that is both just and socially and politically feasible. In my heart, I don't believe it can end. Neither side is going to give in. Both sides have enough funding and political support from across the globe to keep the fight going for far more than my lifetime. I am hard-pressed to fathom a non-apocalyptic resolution. The best I can come up with is a third-party administration which ensures the rights of both sides and gives them both access to the sacred sites through an equitable, but iron-fisted administration of the country. This magical impartial UN-like organization does not exist and, of course, would look too much like the entity that really got the fireworks going in the first place to ever work. No good.

When push comes to shove, I think the biggest problem is that, while I'm reticent to engage people in discussions about Israel, I feel it is my obligation to do so. This is what really kills me. How can anyone be an active and interested participant in the world without addressing this, the epicenter of the unrest in the world? I like discussing politics. It's what citizens of a healthy world should do. There's no way around it. If Americans participated in the marketplace of ideas, I can't see how we wouldn't be better off. I certainly can't see how two George W. Bush presidencies could have happened. So, I feel some ethical obligation to want to engage the subject more.

Finally, there is the nagging sense that my heritage means I should debate the issue and even defend both Israel's methods and America's uncritical support of Israel. Yes, it's not just Jewish parents who use guilt, it is Judaism* itself. With the emergence of groups such as Not In My Name, I don't feel particularly isolated in criticizing Israel and its relation to the Palestinians, but hard line Zionists still play dirty. They insinuate the ghosts of the Holocaust to justify Israel's actions. I think that's part of the dishonesty I felt from when I was younger. I don't recall any Palestinians' names on the design plans for the chambers at Dachau. Stop trying to get wrongs to add up to a Right. Just like that fucktard's "Roadmap" is no substitute for actually hands-on diplomacy, using the methods of your tormentors is no way to rationalize your actions or sway opinion to your side.

*By "Judaism" I am referring to an ethnic category rather than a religious one.

Honolulu Wrap-Up

2006-07-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

My obstructed view seats of the Pacific.

The business trip of my dreams has come and gone and it looks like the actual work we did was more than adequate not to sink my company. Seriously, I'm totally not fired. This is not to say that the team from the client was delighted to see us there (their VP of Sales, who we were working with on-site, was clearly not tickled to see my smiling face every morning at 6:30 am and he did not so much as extend an invitation for a drink for the whole time we were there), but their CEO should find the results of some sort of interest which is something.

I don't mean to disparage the free trip which I have boasted about incessantly, but I think I would have liked Maui or Kauai better. I'm not complaining. Shit, everyone should work like that every now and then. Waikiki is just not my style. It's Hawaii meets Vegas, basically a strip of all hotels and absurdly high-end shops designed to make people feel like their some place that is fancily exotic. Let me just put it this way, I did not see a whole pineapple until the third day when I ventured into Honolulu's Chinatown. It was, however, the greatest pineapple ever to cross my taste buds. Speaking of food, here are some highlights:

Kalua Pig Plate at Ono's, a little out-of-the-way place skillfully recommended by my friend Alex, Ph.D. It was moist and wonderful. Initially, when I heard it pronounced I thought this was pig cooked with coffee liqueur, which sounded fine by me. Turns out, "kalua" means"to cook in an underground oven." Also fine by me.
Keo's. This was not out of the way. Keo's is a high-end Thai place on the main Waikiki strip, Kuhio Blvd. As far as I can tell, Keo Sananikone is kind of like the Arun Sampanthavivatof Hawaii. Alex, Ph.D. did not recommend this one to me, but it turns out that his brother works there. So, Alex called his brother up and it was suggested that I go for the shrimp and scallop panang. This was damn tasty, but my co-worker got the crispy mahi-mahi with sa-teh sauce. Best peanut sauce ever. It was unreal, a thicker, darker, and more flavorful version of the stuff you get with a skewer of chicken here Chicago. Co-worker also bragged that the lava flow he drank was manna from Heaven's corner tavern.

Nicest men's room flowers ever. (Keo's)

Yet another Alex tip was Alan Wong's. Wong has two restaurants in Honolulu, but we chose The Pineapple Room, which, we didn't realize at the time, is inside of Macy's. Macy's colonization of Marshall Field's aside, this seemed like a very bad sign. However, when pineapple-glazed ribs are on the menu, well, evandebacle is in. The ribs were an appetizer, as was an amazing taco with a shell that was a fried won-ton of some sort and that was filled with kalbi (korean-style beef), avocado, chili sour cream, and goat cheese. Then there was more mahi-mahi.
Sadly, I went to Cheeseburger (as in "in Paradise") Waikiki twice. So touristy, though their macadamia nut pancakes made for a tasty for breakfast. Plus I got to watch most of the World Cup final there, though not the important part. You know, where balls went in nets and whatnot
Even the conference hooked us up with good food. The exhibition hall where I was doing my thing was also the home to the breakfast and lunch buffets. Macadamia nut pound cake with pineapple compote and all the Kona you could drink! Also, while this wasn't the greatest conference for swag, one morning ABM had a exotic fruit cart so people could sample their goods and I got to try dragon fruit, which, in fact, is kinda dragon-y looking.

Dragon fruit. Please no jokes about gay role playing games devotees.

Beyond the food, there was a lot of walking around, looking at water, a nice sunburn (my back is totally hypercolor now), and general seeing of sights. Granted, I never actually entered any places of cultural interest, but I did wander around outside a royal palace here and an old church there.

King Kamehameha

Like any good American, I exhibited only a superficial interest in indigenous culture and history and spent way more time in shopping areas than anywhere else. Unfortunately, in Waikiki and Honolulu there seem to be few outdoor markets designed to give the traveler the illusion of local flavor. Plentiful, though are the designer boutiques. Shopping centers crammed with denser concentrations of high-end stores than I imagined possible. My assumption is that they are able to stay in business because Honolulu is a destination for wealthy Japanese who fly out for shopping excursions. This is only a theory, but is corroborated by the fact that some shops take Yen and the prevalence by wacky Japanese cartoon characters like the one below, chock full o' non sequitur cuteness.

My Humps, Your Humps. Camel Humps. Doggie Humps.

Let me end this by answering a question that was posed to me shortly after I arrived: are the people there hotter than in Brazil? The short answer is no. I've repeated a million times how Sao Paolo was a testament to race mixing. In Hawaii there were plenty of beautiful people, but for some reason it seemed to be more about sex (miscegeny now!). In Hawaii, sexuality, as opposed to beauty, seemed more palpable. Everyone looked like they were anticipating or had just completed the greatest erotic experience of their lives. Maybe I'm projecting my assumption onto them. Could be that everyone just glistened a lot and wore minimal clothing and that bronze skin and bright flowers made for a fetching contrast, not to mention the fact that many people had a wedding and/or honeymoon glow about them. The key thing is that the attractiveness of many of them seemed to be a product of their context. The beauty of the some of the Brazilians was so improbable that you assumed that they could show up at your doorstep after a 72-hour bender which followed directly on the heels of their 24-hour shift at a slaughterhouse and still look stunning. In Waikiki, you had the feeling that the people, while perhaps attractive in their regular lives, fell within the normal range of looks.

But enough of these tropical urges. It's gonna hit 98 degrees this weekend in Chicago after all.

Returned

2006-07-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

Goodbye tropical tourist trap paradise.

Almost full moon, Waikiki, 10 July 2006.

Juvenile Photography Lesson #6: Perspective Makes Things Appear Dirtier Than They Are

2006-07-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

Statue in front of the Hawaii Convention Center from the side.

Statue from behind.

As an astute observer said, "That looks like one giant Hawaiian dong." My name is evandebacle and I am supposed to be 31 years old.

The So-Not-Accidental Tourist

2006-07-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

With my time in Hawaii dwindling, I really needed to beef up my tourist cred. Without an aloha shirt or a room at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, my work was cut out for me. In a daring tourist move, I decided to walk around downtown Honolulu toting a pineapple under my arm and a bulge in my shorts that was so clearly my digital camera I was sure to be a mark for muggers, swindlers, and timeshare hawkers. But I strayed. I ended up in the Lyon Arboretum. What had I done? This was so obviously not a tourist attraction. How did I know, you ask? It did not boast being voted "The Most Authentic Luau/Village/Polynesian Cultural Event/Sunset/etc." in Hawaii! I was a rookie, a hack. No seer of sights was I. But then, when all seemed lost, I pulled off a tourist coup. A group of Japanese tourists, clearly skilled in the ancient art of shudderbuggery, appeared. Sensing their aura of prefab experience, I got them to take a picture of me standing under a baobab tree. It was wonderful. I'm certain to get full membership into the Tourists Local 808 now. It was beautiful. As the Japanese man gave me back my camera, seemingly breathing a sigh of relief as his wife returned his own camera to his waiting hand, a tear appeared in my eye. And as I wiped away that tear, I could swear it winked at me and said "Hang loose." Mahalo, little tear. Mahalo.

Since I'm Sure You Want To Know

2006-07-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today I:

Met with my client and learned I had the day off.
Ate Kalua Pig. Succulent.
Climbed into the rainforest in the Manoa Valley and saw something billed as Manoa Falls, but could be more accurately described as Manoa Trickle.
Learned a valuable lesson about the utility of Converse All-Stars as the hiking shoe of choice in the Manoa Valley.
Encountered a woman whose job it is to hold up a sign advertising self-storage while she wore an aloha shirt and army fatigue pants.
Swam in ocean.
Saw, for the first time, a motorcycle with both a sidecar and handicap license plates.
Decided that Polynesians, while they have gorgeous skin, must suffer from a lack of goth culture because of that very attribute.

Service with a spectrum

2006-07-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

It only took two minutes out of the airport for me to see a rainbow. I feel like I've died and gone to a romantic comedy.

Awesome Weekend or Holiday of Mediocrity: You Make The Call!

2006-07-04T17:58:00.000-07:00

Rousing Success! I Rule!

Went to South Side BBQ where there were dogs to play with, meat to eat, that vaguely homoerotic frat boy cookout game (cornhole) to play, and, oddly considering our Southness, the Cubs/Sox game on the radio, but tuned to the Cubs broadcast. The official explanation was that one-half of the host couple is a Cubs fan, but I suspect that it was the Sox fans who secretly reveled in Ron Santo emoting in tongues whenever bad luck (i.e., AJ Pierzynski) befell the Cubs.
Went to vegetarian North Side BBQ where I had delicious Romanian sausage and met some guy who was jealous that I studied with Michael Silverstein. I accept your envy graciously, but seriously dude, your energies are best directed elsewhere.
Two words: Rainbow cone.
Cooked a panang curry.
Watched the awesome Italian victory over Germany while eating someone else's chilaquiles from Arturo's.
Listened to politicos try to save the Left. (1, 2)
Avoided the Taste of Chicago.

Horrible Failure! A Disgrace to My Family!

Only went to two BBQs.
Had Cold Stone Creamery for the first time. Great if you want to enhance the hyperactivity disorder(s) of your obnoxious yuppie child; poor place for ice cream.
Did not eat a single rib.
Bowled poorly.
Remember all that stuff I was gonna get done for work? Uh...
Failed to do sentimentally American things such as eat a slice of apple pie, kiss a girl beneath the fireworks, or detain an enemy combatant.
Tried to befriend a bird. Bird bit me three times, only landed on my head once.
Went to see An Inconvenient Truth, but primarily for the air conditioning.

The Mark of Gore-o

2006-07-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

The credits told me to tell all of my friends and family to see this movie. I always follow orders when a screen instructs me to do something.

Last night I took in Al Gore’s flashy new campaign video, An Inconvenient Truth. Viewers be warned: this movie can be confusing if you’re not paying close attention. As the title indicates, the movie focuses on an inconvenient truth, meaning that it is one of several truths in the world which may cause you inconvenience. There are several points in the movie when it appears that the most important of these truths is that George Bush claimed Florida’s electoral votes and became president. In these moments, one can’t help but feel that Al still feels that the Supreme Court’s hiring decision back in 2000 totally inconvenienced him. Such moments do pass; however, and it becomes evident that the primary truth in question is about earthly warmness. Once that truth misunderstanding is out of the way, look out. You are in for 98 minutes of an indefatigable firebrand preaching to choirs the world over, telling rapt sympathetic audiences of the impending cataclysm and how he invented the ecosystem. In fact, when not being presented with tableaux of global warming's destruction, we are met with one unassailable fact: Al Gore lost in 2000 not because of his inability to distinguish himself personally or politically or because Bush stole the election. No, Gore lost because the small screen on which he campaigned and debated was too small to convey his charismatic swashbuckling gravitas. It is no longer a mystery to me why Gore was called the Tyrone Power of Environmental Politics. The only difference between Gore and such chivalrous heroes of the Golden Age of Cinema, is that, instead of a scabbard at his side, Al fights evil with a iBook slideshow.

In all seriousness, once I got past my initial poster peeve* I thought it was a good film, basically a concise lecture from Environmental Apocalypse 101. Trouble is that, like, say, anything with Michael Moore's name at the top, I can't imagine this reaching the audience it needs to. The one thing that gives me a wee bit of hope is that Gore is taking a page from The Book of Rove and trying to undertake some interesting positioning. A number of times in the course of his lecture (and that's basically what this movie is), he refers to climate change as "a moral issue." Now, he unfortunately confounds "moral" and "ethical" which belies the fact that the Conservative strategy of incessant repetition is in the hands of a novice, but he's on the right track.

If real change is going to take place with regard to American consumption and pollution it's going to have to emerge from a realignment of political alliances. One catalyst of that shift has to be the idea that humans are not merely transforming the earth through our actions, but that we are destroying Creation. This is not an original thought by me. I was delighted to read a few months back that Rick Santorum, junior douche bag from the Great State of Pennsylvania, was assailed in absentia by environmental evangelicals at a screening of The Great Warming at Messiah College (sadly not one of the schools I considered for undergrad). Saying that I’m optimistic is a stretch, but it’s at least a flicker of hope.

*Nerdy Gripe Note: Below is the poster for An Inconvenient Truth. I think that the design is extremely effective, but I was confused by one thing.

You'll notice that the hurricane features clockwise circulation. This struck me as odd. Clockwise circulation is the hallmark of low-pressure systems which form in the Southern Hemisphere, as opposed to the counter-clockwise systems in the Northern Hemisphere. Considering that the target audience and the bulk of distribution for the film is in the North, as are the most culpable polluters, why choose a Southern storm? I haven't tried to get this question answered. It's possible that they used the image of an anomalous storm which hit Brazil and has been attributed to global warming. That'd be an acceptable rationale. In any case, I was stopped in my tracks when I first saw this poster's layout, as I'm sure you were too.

The Numbing, Yet Poignant Details of Modern Life

2006-06-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

My bestest friends could all radically alter their coifs. My apartment could drastically be rearranged. I could lose a limb. Six distinct male fashion revolutions could happen right under my nose. None of these things I would notice. Subtle changes in the Brown Line automated announcements, and I powerfully sense, somewhere in the most primitive parts of my brain, that we may be in for epochal social upheaval. Why must we talk so often of banning gambling on the trains now? When did Chicago become Chicago & Franklin? Has some DeLay-esque redistricting gone on in that area which I was not informed of? I swear, if they touch that uber-ironic "This is Grand" recording on the Red Line, I'm signing up for the campaigns of any and all Daley opponents.

Corrections and Clarifications...maybe

2006-06-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

In getting some feedback on the posting that I made on July 27, I realized that I probably should have taken a little more time to better lay out the tiff between my brain and me. Instead of trying to logically explicate my little conundrum, I rushed it and really chose poorly when offering up those two jokes as examples – they actually better speak to a peripheral issue. What can I say? In the blogosphere there really is the pressure to publish or perish. So, I will try to be succinct and clear, but will make not promises regarding my ability to be either.

Should something be sacred or should we just say fuck it?

This is where the jokes come in and is really of only marginal interest to me. It’s more philosophical than anything else. If one has strong inclinations to think in racial/potentially racist terms in joking and non-joking contexts, whether they think they mean it or not, does this belie some underlying, unconscious stance on the world? The answer to this is likely yes, and probably more “Yes” than we like to think. The PC revolution has, in part, muted the fact that race is still very much a reality in our world and how we perceive it. Anyway, that is also not the point. This is:

Should some things be inherently unfunny? It’s the sacred cow argument. George Carlin, a person who probably had too big an influence on me at too tender an age (and I thank him for it), sought to slay the holy bovine by trying to show that he could make jokes about rape (results were mixed). What I believe (or tell myself I believe) aside, I certainly speak and act as if anything and everything is fair game and I am not apologetic about it.

This leads to my first potential crisis: if nothing is sacred then doesn’t it stand to reason that nothing is truly above the moment? And if this is the case, then don’t I, as the person who holds nothing sacred, also believe in nothing? Or rather have nothing in which I truly believe. (Note: I wouldn’t mind discussing over a bottle of wine whether or not an extension of this condition, when taken from the realm of humor and into that of social values, is the same as the problem that is alleged to plague the Democratic Party and its inability to connect with the average American in the face of the GOP’s utter incompetence and clear disdain of the Everyman.)

Habit:Being::Sarcasm:Sincerelessness

If I can fit that identity crisis into my schedule, what follows will be its focus. The argument reads as follows (Note: I was never a champ at logic so forgive me my transgressions against the long-venerated Western tradition of formal proof.):

i. “Sarcasm is sneering, jesting, or mocking a person, situation or thing.”

ii. Sarcasm, based on the commonly accepted definition (i), is thus antithetical to sincere and literal truthful forms of expression.

iii. Evandebacle uses sarcasm as his primary mode of communication.

iv. Further, Evandebacle is an avowed and confirmed cynic.*

v. Cynics believe “that only self-interest motivates human behavior, and who are disinclined to rely on sincerity, human virtue, or altruism.”

vi. If Evandebacle understands the world he lives in philosophically through paradigm (v.) and experiences it semiotically through mode (i.), then his world lacks sincere belief.

vii. Evandebacle exists in the same world he lives in.

viii. Ergo, Evandebacle is, by definition, lacking in belief and sincerity.

There you have it, cleared up I hope. Probably not. My fear is this: my use of sarcasm has gone through stages: a gently mocking way of talking about stuff, to a defense mechanism, on to a rewarding way of getting laughs, then forming into habit, on to a default mode of interaction, and, finally, becoming the default mode of thought. I believe I touched on the problem with this last stage in the earlier posting.

Thinking sarcastically habitually is different than acting sarcastically in the moment. The moment is, obviously, fleeting. Habit becomes a tainted way of understanding the world which inherently undermines the truth-value of everything around you. Therefore, you (or me, as the case may be) no longer believe in things sincerely, you merely believe that people “tell themselves” that the world is the way it is. Or worse, you believe that people are telling you they think that the world is a certain way, but deep down they know they are lying to themselves and others. The whole thing is rather deconstructionist in that there ends up being nothing at the core of anything anyone does or says. It’s also a bit frightening, which is why I have to fit that crisis in.

* Biographical tidbit: Virtually every teacher of Evandebacle’s from K through12 referred to him as “bright, but so cynical for his age.”

Two or Three Evils

2006-06-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

Which is worse: that Sleater-Kinney is going "on indefinite hiatus" or that I read about it in the freaking Red Eye? Or is it worse still that this might cause me to reconsider my stance on Lollapalooza which may be their last show? Honestly, I listened to their last album, The Woods, incessantly, but learning that they, or any band I really like for that matter, broke up in the Red Eye really might the worst part.

Is My Brain A Jerk or Is It Just Me?

2006-06-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I promised myself that, when I have some free time, I need to have a good ol' knockdown, drag-out, barnburner of an identity crisis. Maybe it'll have to wait until a holiday weekend because it's gonna be a doozy. It'll have anxiety and self-recrimination and I'm sure lots of drinking alone. I'm not sure if you can plan crises, especially so casually, can you? Did Khrushchev decide that after he cleaned out the Kremlin shed he was totally going to get started on that missile crisis...oh and also that scrapbook he's been wanting to do? I think it's possible that's exactly how those events unfolded, but Soviet Premiers aside, I need to schedule one. My reason for this is pretty simple, I want to answer one of the basic questions of the human condition: Am I a good person? Or, more specifically, do my mind and I really feel the way we think we should feel about the world and other people?

Sounds like a lame question, I know. Who gives a rat's tuches? Well, here's the deal. I've long known that sarcasm and (potentially) offensive humor are fundamental parts of my personality. Some would say the most fundamental. Those people rarely, if ever, speak to me. Sarcasm is, by its very nature, a particularly aggressive form of humor, as is off-color humor. This wouldn't seem to be too much of an issue as long as my interlocutors know that I am joking and don't mean what I say. When one is habitually sarcastic, however, the ability to be sincere becomes problematic. Doesn't a person who has cultivated a form of non-truthfulness as a primary form of expression soon see their capability for truthfulness atrophy? The question I must ask myself should be obvious: Give that, can one be good without truth?

The death of my capacity for truth is not a fait accompli. Or that's what I tell myself. Still, I have a nagging sense that my brain, at least unconsciously, instinctively goes for maximally sarcastic or offensive reactions to my environment most of the time. Now, if these unconscious reactions are my first impulse and they also are, say, offensive or racist or aggressive or whatever else my conscious conscience tells me is bad, might I, at the core of my being, actually be those things? That would suck.

I have two examples from the last few days. Both are comments or jokes that I was inclined to make based on things that were going on around me, but lucky for me I did not:

At the Chicago Fire game on Sunday there were pieces of red or white paper taped to the backs of everyone's seats. We were all supposed to hold our sheets up to create the effect of a sea of red and white, the team colors. Not surprisingly, the annoying teenagers behind us, and annoying teens throughout the stadium, decided to fashion them into paper airplanes and throw them around. A number of them didn't fly well and I kept getting hit in the back. I almost, though I caught myself, turned around and asked the row of adolescent boys behind me, "Ummm. Do I look like the World Trade Center to you?"
Today I was walking in the Mexican food aisle of my local supermarket and the following joke popped into my head (If someone else came up with this before, I'm sorry. I didn't know.): Why was the religious plantation owner excited to shop at the supermercado? ("I dunno. Why?") Because he heard they had free holy negroes.

You may or may not think they're funny and I don't really care one way or the other. (If you were on the fence I'll clear it up for you: They're pretty poor jokes.) The question for me is whether or not the unconscious drive to find such associations in the world around me (and the fact that I have to motivate myself to be bothered by it to the extent that I want to schedule an identity crisis) says something about the person that I really am? The vestiges of the academic in me wants to know, where do jokes like these come from? What do they say about the jokers worldview? Is there truth (in this case "subjective truth," whatever that might mean) in them? Should I just shut the fuck up and write something actually funny already?

Get Yours Kicks On Route...Ummmm...At 7000 S. Harlem Ave.

2006-06-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

While all of the cool kids were off doing the rockin' summer music festival thing at Intonation, I, along with Cake Ninja Butternugget, took in a Chicago Fire game courtesy of Judge and Mrs. Injury. To get the insignificant details out of the way, the Fire defeated the sadly named New York Red Bulls 2-0. Besides the general indignity of playing for a team named after the liquid crack of the X-Games Generation, the Red Bulls goalie, and former National Team keeper Tony Meola, seemed a bit grumpy that he had to be at the game instead of where he felt he belonged, returning from the World Cup with the rest of the US squad in disgrace.

One of the goals was scored by midfielder Thiago. Now, I don't really believe that the Chicago Fire managed to get an authentic one-named Brazilian to play for them. Gimme a break. More likely is that they found him in some neighborhood here in the city, saw he had some skills, and dressed him up like a Brazilian for effect. Kind of like a job at a restoration village for people who can do bicycle kicks. The last thing they needed to do was give him a name - something exotic and announcer-friendly. So, they settled on Thiago (pronounced "tee-ah-goooooooooooo"). Thus the Fire's "Brazilian" soccer star was born.

The view from the 2nd row

OK, enough about the Xs and Os of the game. We'll save those finer points for American sports analysis. Yesterday marked the inaugaral match in the Fire's new Toyota Park, a stadium dedicated exclusively to soccer and Kenny Chesney concerts so that they don't have to share with those glory-hogging Bears with their tradition and broad fan base. The stadium, sporting a half-paved parking lot and unpainted concrete outer walls, is truly the new vanguard of soccer-viewing architecture. (Actually, the seats of the Injury family were awesome.) It's location, unencumbered by such things as a neighborhood for pre- and post-game reveling or convenient access to public transit, makes it the perfect setting for a stadium to fall quietly into disrepair should the MLS go the way of all previous American professional soccer leagues.

Part of the gala opening celebration entailed giving the fans streamers to throw onto the field of play, making the teenaged staff rue the day they applied for "this cool job with the Fire." When streamers insufficiently aerodynamic to really infringe on the game, some industrious folks fashioned paper airplanes out of signs that were taped to the back of each seat and were originally intended to make the crowd appear to be a solid sea of red and white, the teams colors. The airplanes were a way more effective nuisance and, thanks to some especially creative fans who affixed the paper streamers to the backs of their planes to create a tail effect, a much more aesthetically pleasing one as well.

Mess

Even though the Fire have their own house, it does not mean that they have a home. For professional sports franchises, it is what the players give back to the community that really connects them to the places where the play. The Chicago Fire are no different. Introducing the FireWorks for Kids Foundation, the philanthropic effort whose name has the most humor potential since what? The Dick Sale Charity Golf Tournament? Can any of us resist imagining a "Support FireWorks for Kids" poster featuring a bunch of little cherubs waving their stumpy wrists and three-fingered hands at the camera? No. No we can't.

No effort at sports reporting is complete with out a full wrap up of foodstuffs. When we did our initial concession survey it did not look good: $9 bottles of Corona suffering from gigantism (though only mild gigantism, so it was still a total gyp); I bought a "BBQ" Chicken sandwich which was merely thinly coated (let's call it stained) with some sort of ersatz tabasco that wasn't spicy so much as it made me reminisce about the olden days when food came with spice included; and there were far too many Dippin' Dots vendors per capita. Then we discovered them: ice cream nachos. No, there was no viscous cheese product or canned jalapenos (for all I know it was completely dairy-free), but it was pretty magical. The chips were something like bakes tortillas crossed with Taco Bell cinnamon twists. They were then buried under a mound of soft-serve swirl ice cream, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a Cherry. It was brilliant. The crème de la crème. A coup de glace. [Groan] I'll stop.

Puns aside. You want some.

Five-Oh

2006-06-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Lots of times, disparate forces of the universe get together, have a few drinks, maybe an appetizer, and chat about how to conspire against you. It's variously called bad luck, fate, chaos theory, whatever. Other times, those forces, or perhaps their cheerier, more positive cousins, convene and make good stuff happen.

This week a delightful convergence of good luck, desperation, superb timing, and sound reason created a perfect storm of work assignments. Translation: I have successfully convinced a client that it is in their best interest to send me to this conference in Hawaii. So, starting July 7, I will be spending five days in Waikiki talking to people about flooring tile, a subject about which I am completely ignorant. However, ignorance is far more pleasant to endure in Waikiki. The absurd part about this whole thing is that, even though I know little more about tile other than on which of the six sides of a room it generally belongs, the trip is actually a sound business decision. It's legit!

While this may make up for the vacations I never took as a kid and all those cool sounding "Get Lei'd" frat parties I skipped out on in college, there is a catch. If I don't return from the voyage triumphant with awesome data and immediate solutions for their faltering business, I will destroy the relationship we have with our best client. No pressure.

For My Information

2006-06-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Fascinating things which I have learned already today:

1. Kids need help, mentors to assist them along. Remember this when you stop off at the BP Wild Bean Cafe on the way to the office. When you give the lad behind the counter (Sylvester was his name, if you should happen upon his good retail soul) $2.01 for a $1.21 purchase and he inexplicably gives you $.20 change and can't for the life of him figure out what the problem is, be gentle.

2. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of calculating the effects of Micromanagement. It is true that Micromanagement is an exponential, rather than a geometric function; however, Micromanagement entities, in some environments (e.g., my company) may behave like waves rather than particles. Specifically, certain Micromanagement entities (e.g. Boss Micromanagement (M_b) and Client Micromanagement (M_C)) may operate on wavelengths such that some of the overall Micromanagement force is neutralized via the physical and bureaucratic tendencies of Corporate Interference created by the individual forces acting on one another. So, in such instances F_m=H(M_C²_/M_b²), where H=the Universal Constant of Corporate Horseshit.

3. The guy selling the brand new pair of New Balance, size 11 shoes is hangin' at the Dunkin'. If I know anyone who needs a pair of $75 gym shoes he'll be there, but he ain't waitin' forever. These are $75 shoes and he only wants $20.

4. The stifling, airless hallway in which our bathroom resides has taught me the true meaning of the Brit term "the bog."

A Conspiracy? You Tefillin the Blanks

2006-06-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

You'll recall that DebaclypseNow recently reported on an excursion evandebacle took to the Greater Chicago Jewish Festival as part of his continuing effort to be down with his Tribe and to find more people who might pose the eternal question, "Are you on JDate?" In spite of the mind-bendingly masterful musical performance by Lisa Loeb and the amazing swag procured along the way, something darker seems to have transpired that day. DebaclypseNow has recently obtained exclusive pictures* of the incident (That's right Shiloh, you ain't the 'It' pic no more!) and the inside story of what went down.

It was a lovely day, cool and overcast, but the crowds at the Festival were warmed by the spirit of tradition and the highly anticipated Kvetch-Off which would mark the culmination of the day's events. As near as we can piece together the sequence of events, things took a sinister turn during a stroll through the booths at the center of the grounds.

Shortly after picking up his Chicago Jewish Funerals hacky sack, evandebacle was approached by a doughy, patchy-bearded young man who wanted to show him something. He seemed unlikely to boast about JDate triumphs, so evandebacle stopped. The leaven-stomached lad asked him to come over an "do tefillin." This is the conversation that the stage mics miraculously picked up from hundreds of yards away:

"Hey, Mac, c'mere. Wanna do a tefillin?"
"Huh?"
"Tefillin. A black thing you wear it on your arm."
"Sounds morbid."
"No way, Mac. It's cool. Like them wrist bands everyone's got. Because...uh...we Jews love Lance Armstrong so much."
"We do?"
"Yeah...uh...Making do with less. He's missing a testicle, it does the work of two. We had one day's worth uh oil; it lasted for eight. We Jews respect that kinda thing."
"OK."

It seemed innocent enough, but before this ritual show of support for Our Chosen Cyclist, Lance-ala, could begin, the young man had surreptitiously placed a mind control cap on evandebacle's head, making him submit to the Will of Chabad and even causing him to chant strange incantations backwards.

Things began to look dire as the doughy man wound the "wristbands" around and around, ensnaring him tighter and tighter with each loop. The change was immediate. Just compare the disaffected look of the first picture with the goofy Prozac smile of the second. He's a mindless Jewtomaton! For a while, the conversation turned from the obvious ruse of the wristbands to talk of God and belief and tradition, and then to something far more inimical:

"How does that feel, Mac? Good?"
"It's tight, but still...perfect, My Doughy Master."
"Good"
"Goooooooood"
"Tight is good. You will be bound to me with this forever!"
"Goooooooood...Uhhh, forever, you say?"
"You heard me right, Jewna Gershon! Bound. To. Me."

What happened to evandebacle after being wrangled into the inner workings of this ancient JBDSM cult? Who were these people who could just set up a tent and practice sectarian male bondage? What are they to do with him? Make him eschew his secular ways? Maybe they are going to hold him hostage and farm his curly locks for Hasidim cursed to be born with straight hair? It's awful. It's cruel. Like something out of science fiction. Like Soylent Heeb! If only we believed enough to pray for you evandebacle. If only.

*Pictures provided by MSC Blackmail Snaps, photos fit for a King('s ransom). That's MSC Blackmail Snaps, where our motto is "If you don't post these on the internet, I will!"

Patriotism

2006-06-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Will rooting for Ghana in their game against the US this week make me a terrorist?

Well, Whip My Flanks and Call Me 'Sire'!

2006-06-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've always been envious of people who have deep genealogies. I'd like to think that it's not because I'm jealous of one friend who can allegedly trace a bloodline back to Charlemagne (or some other Frenchy big shot) or another who can claim Marilyn Monroe as a cousin, albeit a distant one. It is more about the simple fact that genes have the power to carry little traits and tics and commonalities across time and space. They skip generations as they see fit, only to pop up again out of nowhere generations down the line. Such linking of past and present always riveted me. To be able to locate oneself with respect to people who left little else tangible of themselves in this world was pretty powerful. Of course, I have a hard time applying this to my own life because my personal pedigree is rather shallow, only three or four generations. I blame the Nazis, but don't I always?

Turns out that all this worrying about where I come was for naught. Why? Because I am apparently a horse, of course, of course. Yup, evandebacle, under his real name, is actually a horse born in 1929. My career and offspring are certainly not the stuff of legend, but my dad, Guy McKinney, won the Hambletonian back in '26. As a matter of fact, the horse named Hambletonian 10 is my great-great-great grandfather (as well as my great-great-great-great grandfather in four different lines and my great-great-great-great-great grandfather in still four others), so there's a little of the inbreeding going on. This means I'm related to virtually every racing horse in the country, great and small. Boy, it feels good to know the real me.

What Might Have Been

2006-06-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

What I would like to do today is write an entry about a predatory campaign my absentee dog is apparently waging, not because it is interesting to you, but because I would get to use the title, "Possum in Effect." When did my life become the pursuit of evermore groan-worthy puns?

Sadly, I don't feel up to the task of composing a Marsupial vs. Canine saga. My head isn't quite clear and cold-free enough to make the story coherent, and really all I want is soup. Easier said than done on the Jewish grandmother-free strip of 53rd St. In lieu of writing an interesting entry, I suggest everyone pumps up "Bring Tha Noize" and sings along with their own lyrics in their head. Possum in effect. Got the flava. Terminator.

Sunday Jewy Sunday: Bag It and Swag It

2006-06-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have hardly been the best or most by-the-(five )book(s) member of the Tribe. I don't go to temple. I heart bacon. I have a shiksa-intensive dating history. However, one aspect of Jewish Life that I relish is the ability to turn anything into humor, including simply being Jewish. In that spirit, I set off for the belly of the local Judaica Beast, the Greater Skokie Area, with an actual Nice Jewish Girl as a guide (What would you call a "beard" Jewess, someone who you have with you to make you appear more like one of the Chosen? A Peyos?) for the Greater Chicago Jewish Festival - an afternoon of fun, food, and Lisa Loeb. Lets start with that last part, shall we?

I actually know little about Ms. Loeb. She was in Heeb Magazine recently yapping about some new show where she tries to meet a man. Beyond that I know that she's cute and has worn the same glasses for at least 12 years. This last fact impresses me, as I tend to break such things on about a 9-month cycle. What impresses me more is that she has such star power that she can take the stage at a daylong festival at 1:15 p.m. and still be billed as a headliner. Damn she's a diva! After seeing her live, I learned some new things about her, most of which center on the theme "Lisa Loeb Is Not Very Good."

There was her banter which went something like this: "Great to be here. Wow, I'm playing a Jewish Festival. I was trying to think of what I could do to make my act more Jewish. So, I was back there in the dressing trailer and I was thinking about this. And I decided to turn up the heat because it was cold in the trailer. And then I ordered a tuna wrap, but I sent it back and made them bring me a tuna sandwich." Get it? Jews kvetch. As my improv cohort Tom "Shecky" B once noted, "They're coughing. I can hear them coughing. That's baaaaaad."

Her lyrics also leave a bit to be desired to. Allow me to cut and paste from her song, which was requested apparently, "Window Shopping":

Try me on
Take me home
The tags are on
It's still a loan
Warranty is in the sack
You can always take me back
Go window shopping again
Window shopping again
Scan the shelves for something red
It's different
It's brighter than the ones you had to have
They didn't last
They just fade
And you go window shopping again
...
Oops...there's a hole in the shrink wrap
You didn't notice that
Lucky you, they'll take it back
The warranty is in the sack
Besides there's always something more
Something better...a bigger store
Window shopping again

If "a hole in the shrink wrap" isn't the image to perfectly encapsulate the tribulations of single life, well mister, I don't know what is. We laughed at this song...a lot. It occurs to me that this may also be a rather bizarre metaphor for a malfunction that may lead to unwanted pregnancy. On that note...I move on.

I did not buy this shirt.

It wasn't just about Lisa though. Unfortunately, it wasn't about food either. I was dying for some latkes, but they were not to be had. The food was Kosher, but still typical of a summer fair. Pizza and Dippin' Dots. No bagels either, but there was, of course, Chinese food. Well done.

Not wanting to stand in line for bad food, we wandered, as We are wont to do. We caught two renditions of the Jewish Dance Hit of the Summer, "Who Let the Slaves Out?" Yes, it is, in fact, "Who Let the Dogs Out?" with a special pharoanic twist. The singer even added a bad calypso accent. In between Exodus-inspired hoots I was waiting for him to interject, "And Moses maaaan, he say, 'With blessing of Jah, Let I and I go!'"

At some point I was accosted by a rather creepy young man who acted out his suppressed bondage fantasies by getting me to do tefillin. As Jewish law states that women are too polluted to partake, my friend took the opportunity to stand back, laugh, and take pictures. I don't think my new orthodox pal was amused. Maybe he felt that this act of solemn devotion should not receive the same treatment as if I were posing in the stocks at a ren faire.

We then dutifully avoided anything with a banner, sign, or flier which had the words "Jewish" and "Singles" printed on them.

Finally, came the swag. Tents were set up, as always, advertising services and hawking wares. I got some magnets. My friend scored some sugar-free strawberry preserves for an impending parental visit. But the winner of the Most Amazing Swag Award goes to the folks at Chicago Jewish Funerals who gave out...hacky sacks with the motto "The way it should be" on them! Remember the loved ones who have passed by kicking a footbag with hippies!

We gave up after about an hour and a half. Would my grandparents be proud of how I spent my Sunday? I doubt it. They'd strain themselves to keep their interest in any and all Jewish girls detached and casual. Then they'd probably disparage these so-called "Jews" of the Midwest who couldn't supply their malnourished eldest grandson with so much as a taste of latke or kugel. Then they'd totally make me some. Awesome.

An Invitation to a Header

2006-06-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

I think we've probably passed the point of convincing or friendly concessions on this issue. You are probably not going to be swayed by the global importance or passion of the event. If you don't already realize that watching Senegal beating Sweden in the Abbey Pub at 5 a.m. was a transformative event (and perhaps a pre-emptive warning against being Madonna's official outfitters), then I'm not sure I can help you. And, guys, no matter how earnest my arguments, chances are I won't sway you to believe that saying "nil" is just as manly as "nuttin,'""zilch," or "scoreyoufuckin'losers." Still, the World Cup begins today and I'm psyched.

So, I am offering an open invitation to watch some of these games with me. Doesn't matter where. Plenty of places will have the games on: the Abbey Pub, Small Bar, The Globe, etc. I know what you're thinking, "Evandebacle is a hockey fan fer chrissake. He can't be trusted in matters of sports viewing." Very true. So, I will make an appeal to your baser instincts: watch these games with me and there will be beer. And ladies, these are men with spectacularly sculpted legs and oodles of endurance.

Here are a few of the games that look interesting, though I am open to any and all suggestions:

Saturday, June 10, 9:00 a.m. England vs. Paraguay (Riot! The unbeatable high.)
Saturday, June 10, 2:00 p.m. Argentina vs. Ivory Coast (It's all about the African teams folks.)
Sunday, June 11, 8:00 a.m. Serbia and Montenegro vs. Netherlands (I like the Dutch team and I'd eagerly eat some of that Irish Breakfast at the Abbey.)
Saturday, June 17, 8:00 a.m. Portugal vs. Iran (Um galão vs. Axis of Evil All-Stars)
Saturday, June 17, 2:00 p.m. Italy vs. United States (Wait, who? Oh, right. U. S. A.! U. S. A.!)
Wednesday, June 21, 2:00 p.m. Netherlands vs. Argentina (Who will win this Tango de la Muerte through the tulips?)

A Cyclist's Second Day of Commuting Haiku, or My Kingdom For Some Junk In My Trunk!

2006-06-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

woe is my poor ass
bony, unpadded white boy
no thanks, i'll just stand

Merely Your Humble Master

2006-06-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ah yes. Another one of those “time is passing me by” weeks. (Perhaps such times happen so often because they occur as weeks instead of simple, quick-and-dirty moments.) They pop up now and again, probably with more frequency as I get older. Most of them have to do with me not being quite so up-to-date on electronic gadgetry or my ardent refusal to pepper my every text message or IM with acronyms. (Does the fact that I wrote the acronym “IM” instead of “instant message” undermine my self-identification as a techno-curmudgeon?”) Still, this is a big one for me because it’s a peers’ rite of passage that I will never partake in.

A handful of people in my “cohort” from the University of Chicago anthropology department defended their dissertations this week. For those not in the know, the word “cohort” is used by the anthro department to describe a group of students who come into the program in the same year. I think the word is supposed to indicate that said group has a unique identity and bond born of the communal suffering of the first year of graduate school. Ahem. Bullshit. Really, it is snobby way to make a group of would-be scholars seem like a native tribe with unbreakable ties of intellectual coming-of-age ritual. It also may just be a handy way to identify the people you should murder, maim, or plagiarize in order to increase your chances of getting an NSF grant or Fulbright Fellowship. Anyway, I heartily congratulate the new doctors (or at least the ones I liked).

There are plenty of reasons that I left grad school. I was too immature when I started. The U of C, in all its joyless obsessiveness, really wasn’t the right school for me, though it was rated the best of my choices. I didn’t have the temperament for academia. I simply wasn’t bright enough to compete for funding or jobs. If I did manage finish, I wouldn’t be able to make a living as an anthropologist anyway, especially with accumulated student loans. And my project was absurd. Actually, here’s proof of that last one taken from my MA thesis:

Inside jokes, as I have outlined them here, can be described as words or phrases that indexically invoke earlier interactional contexts in which humorous meaning precipitated. Understanding of such jokes hinges upon the shared experience of such a past text-in-context rather than ordinary linguistic competence. Thus inside jokes may index social relations by marking those who can and those who cannot perceive the deictic relation between a text-in-context as it unfolds in the here-and-now realtime and a past text from which its original humorous meaning derives. Additionally, as was the case in the SportsCenter example, any given (re)entextualization of an inside joke can have the effect of role recruitment by bestowing upon the initiated hearer the requisite knowledge to perceive or undertake future entextualization of the inside joke.

Hellllllooooo, book contract and movie deal! Scintillating, huh? And that's supposed to be a description of something that's funny! Actually, the word deictic always gave me an adolescent chuckle because it's pronounced "dyke dick." See what I mean about maturity?

I had a good run of it I guess. The first bit of advice I got from a prof was "Don't call me dickhead." Then there was my advisor telling a story to me about his swollen testicles during a session of a reading course in his office. (Sorry kids, for me at least, "reading course" is not a euphemism.) Oh, and there was the somewhat sodden (and besotted) professor who confessed, also during a reading course, that "Parker Posey could do no wrong." It is often depressing that I never finished because it would have been a palpable accomplishment to be contributing to a greater body of knowledge about human behavior, but I guess my talent wasn't so much in my research as it was bringing out the crazy in professors.

Burn-ham! Burn-ham! Burn-ham!

2006-06-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

The deed is done. My rubbery legs have begun to stabilize. My case of third-degree helmet Jew-fro has been diagnosed and treated. My Dunkin Donuts coffee is piping hot.

I honestly wasn't certain I'd bike all the way today. Maybe to downtown and then hop a bus the rest of the way. But by the time I got to the Loop I figured what the hell, so I cut over to the Lakefront (I had taken the streets up until then) and enjoyed the jewel of Burnham's grand plan the rest of the way. It was a meditative last few miles along the Lake. It gave me time to think about sacrifice (namely that it's hard to give up my morning Red Eye sudoku puzzle in order to bike to work) and the need to acknowledge the important things in life (such as adding 'vigorish' to the list of words that I love).

I also missed the CTA's usual cast of characters. Granted, I have not seen a morning rush hour man-on-man blow job in a couple of years, but the Brown Line is still good theater. All I got today was a woman jogging in a skirt and another, let's describe her as looking bronzed and severe, biking in nothing but a leather jacket and a bikini. Fair play to her.

Thanks to everyone who gave me handy-dandy tips on not being Nasty, Sweaty Biker Guy.

Oh, I'd like to wish myself a Happy Anniversary. Yesterday marked five years since my last cigarette on American soil - a tasty Marlboro Light in front of Haskell Hall at the U of C. Problem is that I've been having more cravings recently (for cigarettes, not grad school). Since my policy is that I can smoke in foreign countries, maybe this is just my body's way of telling me I need a vacation. Anyone want to go to Argentina with me?!?

Good Career Strategy?

2006-06-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day. Step #6 of the Evandebacle Self-Improvement Initiative is going to be put into effect. I will be biking to work. The mixture of crisp morning air and bus exhaust will surely be a tonic to invigorate me to take on the day. MapQuest calculates the trip to be 16.18 miles, a rough estimate given that I think it best not to take the Dan Ryan. Sixteen point one eight miles of perspiration will thus accumulate on my person and in my clothes. This is my dilemma. How to mitigate my personal ripening as a result? (By the way, is this making me more attractive, ladies? "Ooooh. Have you seen that sweaty guy down the hall? Musky. Grrrrrr.") Always a team player and a cup-half-full fella, I see this as an opportunity to expand my zone of personal space at work by effectively making myself repulsive to everyone. This will give me more room to work and fewer interruptions. Brilliant plan, eh? I will bring a change of clothes, but any other suggestions? I fear there may be OSHA rules against my company having Smelly Biker Dude in the office which may turn this plan for healthy living into grounds for dismissal.

The Iliad and Theodicy

2006-06-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

Let’s talk about God. Sure it's not what Salt 'n' Pepa want to talk about, but let's talk about God, bay-bee. There’s a big holiday coming up Tuesday and I think that He may be feeling a bit glum, what with all the attention that the Beast will be getting. There's no need to put your Slayer Listening Party on hold, but please take a moment to think about those deities who may be hurt and lonely on that day.

For my part, I’ve decided to try and turn the frown of His Crown upside-down and write a little bit about His Divinitude, specifically what I might do if I were in His shoes. Now, don't let these blatherings confuse you into thinking that I am in any rush to believe in a Higher Power. Pshaw. Blasphemy supplies too much humor fodder to resist. Actually, I hope to show that such humor is itself Supremely Divine. Well, maybe not quite Divine, but certainly a cherished pastime on High.

In any event, even when I’m on my holiest behavior, I’m an agnostic at best. Perhaps if pressed, let’s say by a sudden natural disaster or a professional basketball career, I think I could justify the existence of God based on a few simple behaviors and events that we all see in the world on a regular basis. And further, these are precisely the kinds of things I’d put out there if I were running the show. Quite a coincidence. But first, a big ol’ conundrum.

Theodicy: WTF?

For those not blessed with blind, uncritical faith, there are a series of phases which one might pass through before coming to a final decision about the existence, or lack thereof, and nature of a Higher Power.

First is Infantile Narcissism, a natural phase of psychological development which basically boils down to "I am the Center of the Universe. Give me toys and candy." As everyone likes toys and candy, it's a wonder that anyone ever emerged from this stage. Maybe if there were cake too...

The next stage is formally know in theological circles as the Sunday School Wiseass Exploitation of the Omnipotence Paradox. Basically, this amounts to the "Can God make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?" school of questioning. It's a phase that usually lasts long enough for some physics nerd to point out that yes, God could in fact create just such a rock, but He could also make a fulcrum of infinite length rendering the super-rock quite movable and thus making the paradox moot. All this talk of fulcra usually bores the wiseass who thus resumes mindless doodling in lieu of deeper debate.

Finally comes a true philosophical dilemma: the theodicy problem, aka "If God is Good, why do puppies die?" A more eloquent way of putting this problem, and one with less puppy blood on all of our hands, is "If God is Good, why is there so much suffering in the world?" Regardless, I love puppies. Ergo, if God is Love, but puppies still die, then something has to give.

Does God really hate these faces?

There are number of classic schools of thought on theodicy.

There's the free will angle: God gave us the choice to be good or suck. If we choose to suck, then it's our problem and we go straight to Hell without getting dessert.

Or maybe you prefer the Divine Plan take on it: God's Plan is Good, even if it's flecked with evil. Overall, it's a pretty solid way to govern a universe. So don't ask questions and clean up that dead puppy!

These being too simple, Seneca the Younger got in on the action: Before he lent his name to the world of agribusiness and made a killing on pickled beets, he said that evil and death and whatnot are not purely bad. They may sound a tad ominous, but they really prepare us to evolve spiritually. What doesn't (or in this case does) kill your puppy will make you stronger.

My personal answer to the theodicy problem is a bit of free will, a bit of millennial ambivalence, and just a pinch of God wants a hug. Basically, God has other things to do (as evidenced by the infinite complexity of the universe that has made Kansas so hip) and He gave us free will so that we could make our own decisions while he was off doing the Unknowable. It eerily parallels the events that led me to learning to do my own laundry.

When I was in elementary school I ardently refused to put my clothes in the hamper out of utter laziness. At the time parents could still discipline their children and DCFS did not yet defend my right to be such a brat. So my mother said, "Put them in the hamper or wash them yourself." Being a stubborn prick, I said fine and she imparted to me the Knowledge of Light and Dark. Same way with free will. Humans want to wear dirty clothes, then fine. Mom has better things to do.

But those other things that need doing in the Firmament or Wherever are hard work and there needs to be some Godly entertainment and appreciation. And so, like the career-obsessed father who takes no interest in his children's lives, but still wants to be loved and revered, God sometimes stops by to wield his awesome power for his own satisfaction.

My Own Private Iliad*

I think the Greeks were on the right track. Their Gods didn't dwell on the finer parts of earthly good and evil. They just kind of liked to fuck with humans. Sometimes literally. Zeus or somebody would take the form of a mortal's husband or a snake or a really alluring woodland creature with cute glasses and a pixie face to seduce the hapless and the horny.

On other occasions, the fucking was figurative. The Gods would mess with their minds, usually through temptation. They gave Pandora the Box to End All Boxes and then told her not to open it. Yeah right. That box had her name all encrusted in jewels on it and adorable little bunnies carved into the side. Then to Odysseus they gave a bag of winds, which he and his crew were to keep shut tight. Of course, the bag was reputed to look like one of those bank robber sacks with a “$” on it. Other legends say that it simply said “Treasure Bag!!!” in block letters.** Our mythico-religious traditions catalog millions of these fishing for human suckers stories. Let us call this mortal frailty the Perpetual Human Fascination with the Forbidden Closet of Mystery (PHUFCOM).

The Cruel Treasure Bags of Human Nature

The Judeo-Christian tradition has plenty of its own tales of the PHUFCOM. Eve and the Apple was all "Look, but don't touch." That worked great. And now, instead of living in the Garden of Paradise, I live in an apartment devoid of houseplants. Splendid.

In time though, this became monotonous. You don't have to be God to figure out that people can't stand not knowing what's in the box or the bag or what's behind the curtain or who slept with whom at the Christmas party. We like to stick our hands in the cookie jar, even if that jar is inside of a bear trap that's on fire. God needed something a little bit more nuanced and unpredictable. If I were God, I would have done the same thing. And our independently arrived at solutions were brilliant!

If the previous dangle-a-carrot form of Godly entertainment was Pac-Man, then this Golden Age of Godly Fun is The Sims. It's a delightful, self-contained universe where changes instituted by an omnipotent force yield a host of entertaining consequences among those persons being manipulated.

Please recall that God, both the "real" one, as well as the One I would be if given Keys to the Kingdom, wants the behaviors of mortals to provide captivating theater as well as exude love for Him/Me-as-Him. How to achieve this effect? Well, one could just visit upon the Earth a Lordly wrath and then kick back and bask in the resultant chaos. Seems a bit vindictive though. Plus, it's a bit gauche for any self-respecting God to do something so predictable. And the bad PR would probably revive that nasty theodicy problem and be a nightmare. To borrow a phrase that a friend seems keen on borrowing, nobody want dutty powder.

A more elegant solution is to tweak human nature to yield benign, but mind-boggling consequences. We have established that human curiosity, while the wellspring of great innovation and discovery, can foster behavior that is not only dumb, but quite at odds with the natural instinct for self-preservation. When Gods tell us the stove is hot, why must we touch it again and again and again? In fact, when they can't get their fix directly from the Heavens, humans often feed this curiosity by inventing elaborate conspiracies to explain the most commonplace things just to make things more fun. And really what greater conspiracy could there be than the existence of God, The Dude who exists everywhere, but who you can't actually see or hear or drink a beer with? The more elaborate the more disjointed the evidence, the more fiercely the curious human will defend it. The more fiercely they defend it, the more devout the love for God.

For me, the best evidence for the existence of God is the fact that people keep seeing Him in clouds or trees or the bumper of an AMC Hornet or in toast. It's a brilliant strategy really. Finding God or Jesus or some other member of his crew on your breakfast plate or brightening the grey wall of an underpass on the way to work, it really helps generate buzz on the street, plus they carry a subtle whiff of conspiracy. Didn't know God invented guerilla marketing, did you? And if you get the right Holy Enthusiasts to see these Miracles of the Banal, look out. That buzz will be infectious, like an underground dance hit. "Here's the new one from the Holy Ghizzost. He's following up the Fullerton Water Stain Mary smash by dropping this little Meatloaf Miracle at the Diversey Golden Nugget." And all of a sudden there is Fear and Reverence and Awe just like there was back in the O.T.

Is this enough to make me a believer? No, not really. But while I fret over the fact that many people choose to ignore empirical evidence of how the world works, I gladly take solace in the fact there is ample proof that this "God" everyone speaks of may have a keen understanding of human nature and thus has parlayed it into a robust career as an inveterate wiseass. That's an Image I can get behind being created in.

*Sure, the Homeric example that I give is actually from The Odyssey, but I was not going to let such triflings get in the way of a good title. If misattribution in the name of poetic license is evil, then go complain to God. He doesn't care and nor do I.

**Even though I have elected to use the patriarchal "He" to refer to God, I will not stoop to instituting "Treasure Bags" as a new euphemism for women's breasts, thank you very much.

C'mon You Know What Day It Is! (Beware Nerdy Post)

2006-06-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

Besides it being the start of National Accordio n Awareness Month (not "appreciation" mind you, simply awareness) and the 45th birthday of Vladimir Krutov of the famed Soviet "KLM Line", it is the first day of the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

I mark this occasion not to bore you (or not entirely to bore you) and not because I am a sucker for hot cyclonic (or anti-cyclonic, as the case may be) action, but because how this year transpires in the tropics will be a focus of political and scientific debate. In the wake of 2004 which saw Florida get battered by four storms (as well as the far more bizarre formation of Hurricane Catarina) and 2005 which annihilated all records for number of storms, intensity, intensification, and destruction, this year will likely fuel discussion on the relation between global warming and storm formation and surely will sway public opinion.

Personally, I'm not entirely sold on the idea that global warming will cause more storms, but the astonishing speed at which storms such as Hurricane Wilma strengthened - pressure plummeting 93 millibars in 18 hours - is more than foreboding. Hurricane Gilbert, the former King of Low Pressure, maxed out at a 64 millibar drop. The question of storm formation is still a little tricky in light of warmer ocean temperatures. Actually, it's a lot tricky, which is why I spend my days at a business research job superficially blogging about such topics instead of really working as a tropical meteorologist. Basically, too many variables to know for sure what the impact of global warming will be. It could mean a lifetime of seasons like 2005 or, maybe it could result in stronger upper-level winds which would inhibit storm formation. I dunno. I just know that June 1st marks the beginning of my own personal Festival of Tropical Dorkiness. Rawk!

Lines. When to Draw Them.

2006-05-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

My boss asked me this week what a dirty sanchez is. Is this better or worse than the time he asked me if I thought he was a douche bag? Discuss.

John J. Miller Attempts to Make "Miss Gradenko" the Song of the Summer

2006-05-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

The National Review has tried to parlay the success of Conservative Rock List I into a sequel by publishing a list of the Greatest Conservative Rock Songs of All Time: #51-#100 (thanks to Hot 97 for the link). It's more of a Police Academy a sequel than a Godfather but with some good choices on there (not that they couldn't use the hilarious antics of Tackleberry to make it even more Police Academy). Charlie Daniels gets his due as the Confederate flag wrapped stereotype that he aspires to be. The Dead Kennedys are on there, though totally for the wrong song. "Kill the Poor" should have been a mortal lock for the Top 10, but listing "Holiday in Cambodia" simply reveals list compiler John J. Miller as little more than a conservative rock poseur. He's so getting beaten up at the next Focus on the Family picnic. I will say that I cracked a smile to see that he even co-opted The Smiths ("This Night Has Opened My Eyes"). Take heart gentle reader, before you buy that gun to defend Morrissey's honor, please consider the source, a source that wrote the sentence, "An expression of Christian faith by a super-hip band" about P.O.D.'s "Alive."

The Summer of Beer and Five Other Self Improvement Projects

2006-05-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

As part of my half-assed attempts at self-betterment, which have included such efforts as a detox diet which a friend of mine basically made up on his own and purchasing running shoes (for display only), I figured I'd outline some stuff that I should do to make the most of the Summer of '06.

1. Learn to Like Beer - This may seem like part of the Evandebacle Gut Expansion Initiative undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers since I quit smoking, but it really is not. Basically, I have long had an aversion to beer. Most of you know the story behind it so I shall spare the World Wide Web the medical details. Let's just say that my body tends to initiate a Pavlovian response to return any beer I ingest back to the earth whence it came, or at the very least into a nearby toilet or behind a shrub that I may have handy. This makes drinking a rather expensive proposition for me both socially (public ralphing is not attractive for a male seeking a female) and financially (I tend to drink red wine instead). Ergo, drinking beer will make me a better and more attractive person. Marketing was right again!

2. Go Camping - The ideas of wilderness and tents and stars and clean air and marshmallows are wonderful to me. Always have been. The trouble is that I haven't been camping since I was a young kid. Every Labor Day weekend for a few years, my mother, sister, and I would join a number of other divorce-ravaged families and travel to Warwick, NY for a couple of days of good ol' outdoor fun of mosquito bites, hot dogs on sticks, and verbal spouse bashing. By the flickering light of a campfire we would tell spine-chilling stories of the deadbeat dad whose alimony checks went with him to the grave, but whose ghostly outline could still be seen in the trees behind the bleachers of the little league field, violating the laws of nature as well as the court order secured during divorce proceedings. Spooky. Who's got a tent?

3. Make Three New Friends - This one is dicey. To my current friends, I love you all. I do. But since moving to Chicago I've really only made friends in a few very isolated circles: through grad school, through improv, and those I knew in college but moved here. Meeting people through such institutional settings has its drawbacks no matter how awesome those people may be. Plus most of them aren't single anymore, which can be problematic. The whole third wheel effect. Seeing that I don't like bars, am not good at small talk, and tend to not make a good first (and often second) impression, how I will do this is beyond me.

What I Probably Won't Be Doing This Summer

4. Host a Social Gathering at My Apartment - This may be an awful idea. No access to the outside. Minimal seating. A tiny kitchen with limited food production capacity. Insufficient air circulation. Nearest train stop is closed. Wanna come to my party?

5. Buy Some Fucking Plants and Posters Already - I got cocky after buying some furnishings. A couch and computer table do not a home make. There is not a single thing on the walls of my bedroom. Nothing! Just whiteness. It's as if I'm allowed to live my life on the outside during the day so long as I come back to the ward in time for my meds and lock down.

6. Bike to Work - See, I knew there would be a legitimate attempt at self-improvement somewhere in here. I was about to give up on this one until I got my bike tuned up last week. I know, I also thought that when bike owners said they were taking theirs "in for a tune up" it was just a pathetic attempt to make their bicycles sound like real machines, legitimate forms of transportation, to make up for the fact that they were adults without cars and wearing helmets in public. Not so. It actually made a difference. Mine runs (well, cars "run," bikes..."bike") great now. So, even though I have no access to a shower, I shall attempt to bike to work and use the resultant pungency to dissuade my boss from speaking to me. This may backfire. He is a lifelong smoker with a highly diminished sense of smell.

So that's my list. I was going put some loftier goals such as starting a novel or falling in love on there, but I thought you all might not be willing to suspend disbelief. If you have any other suggestions on how I should spend my time, please feel free to comment.

Them Damned Conservative Short-Hairs and Their Rock and Roll Music

2006-05-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

At first I thought this story was a bit of satire. The National Review, the preferred rag of every trickle-down hipster looking to be part of the vanguard, published its list of the Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs of All Time.

Here is the complete list for your delectation and incredulity:

"Won't Get Fooled Again," by The Who
"Taxman," by The Beatles
"Sympathy for the Devil," by The Rolling Stones
"Sweet Home Alabama," by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Wouldn't It Be Nice," by The Beach Boys
"Gloria," by U2
"Revolution," by The Beatles
"Bodies," by The Sex Pistols
"Don't Tread on Me," by Metallica
"20th Century Man," by The Kinks
"The Trees," by Rush
"Neighborhood Bully," by Bob Dylan
"My City Was Gone," by The Pretenders
"Right Here, Right Now," by Jesus Jones
"I Fought the Law," by The Crickets
"Get Over It," by The Eagles
"Stay Together for the Kids," by Blink 182
"Cult of Personality," by Living Colour
"Kicks," by Paul Revere and the Raiders
"Rock the Casbah," by The Clash
"Heroes," by David Bowie
"Red Barchetta," by Rush
"Brick," by Ben Folds Five
"Der Kommissar," by After the Fire
"The Battle of Evermore," by Led Zeppelin
"Capitalism," by Oingo Boingo
"Obvious Song," by Joe Jackson
"Janie's Got a Gun," by Aerosmith
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Iron Maiden
"You Can't Be Too Strong," by Graham Parker
"Small Town," by John Mellencamp
"Keep Your Hands to Yourself," by The Georgia Satellites
"You Can't Always Get What You Want," by The Rolling Stones
"Godzilla," by Blue Oyster Cult
"Who'll Stop the Rain," by Creedence Clearwater Revival
"Government Cheese," by The Rainmakers
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," by The Band
"I Can't Drive 55," by Sammy Hagar
"Property Line," by The Marshall Tucker Band
"Wake Up Little Susie," by The Everly Brothers
"The Icicle Melts," by The Cranberries
"Everybody's a Victim," by The Proclaimers
"Wonderful," by Everclear
"Two Sisters," by The Kinks
"Taxman, Mr. Thief," by Cheap Trick
"Wind of Change," by The Scorpions
"One," by Creed
"Why Don't You Get a Job," by The Offspring
"Abortion," by Kid Rock
"Stand By Your Man," by Tammy Wynette

Now some of these obviously work ("Sweet Home Alabama") and others are clearly aimed at liberals who have solved the rest of the world's problems and now have free time to take the bait ("Revolution"). Then there are others that are just hilarious. If libertarians want "I Can't Drive 55" to be their official broadside against government encroachment on personal liberties, then they should knock themselves out. I'll even throw in the tequila-sopped "Red Rocker" for a poster boy, no charge. Once you gleefully appear on Emeril Live you effectively renounce Rock Star Status anyway. Good riddance. Interestingly, the song featured in the most blatant exercise of willful pop culture ignorance in the history of the world, Reagan fave "Born in the USA," did not make the list.

The scary part about this list is not how audacious or absurd some of the choices are, but that some of the arguments might work on people. Take "Cult of Personality," for instance. The National Review argues that the song rails against blindly following and worshipping leaders like Stalin and JFK. This is true. Hey, that does sound like something a conservative would do! Wow. Nevermind the fact that half of the staff of the National Review is probably still hung over from the necropalooza that followed Ronald Reagan's death. That's of no consequence other than it being true.

In politics, everyone co-opts ideas, personalities, and anthems that they have no right to claim. This sucks, and is occasionally downright abhorrent, but it's the way it is. The Right is brilliant at it. Karl Rove is a Reactionary Rumpelstiltzkin, spinning bullshit into gold. There is a BS Gap in America today. Where the right foists it all on the public like they were descended from the lovechildren of Billy Graham and Ron Popeil: they turn baseless assertions into gospel, then convince you that you life will be so much easier once you buy it (and clean up will be a snap!), the Left nominates a bunch of Willy Lomans of ideas. In sum, things are bad when some stupid list that puts Creed and Everclear in the Top 50 of anything makes me even more despondent about our collective future.

American Ingenuity Again Saves The Day

2006-05-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

There is no problem more prominent or vexing to the average consumer today than high gas prices. We all know that something has to be done before this escalates from annoyance to crisis and then on to cataclysm. At that point we may have to all walk or ride bicycles to places we need to be, which could then, in turn, compromise our national heritage of morbid obesity. Our sense of self will be shattered. But no solution seems to work. What to do? Well, thank goodness we have General Motors to pull our heads out of The Box and bury them in the sand. Sand, incidentally, that has collected so far up our asses that we can taste it. Mmmmm. Ass sand.

Several days ago GM announced an elegant, simple solution to the high gasoline prices that have resulted from global increases in consumption: Give people what they want, more consumption!

DETROIT - Aiming to capitalize on consumer angst about the high cost of gasoline, General Motors Corp. on Tuesday said it would cap pump prices at $1.99 for customers in California and Florida who buy certain vehicles by July 5. The offer is good for 2006 and 2007 model year vehicles.

In California, eligible vehicles are the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban sport utility vehicles and Impala and Monte Carlo. In Florida, eligible vehicles are the Impala, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix and LaCrosse.sedans; the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL SUVs; the Hummer H2 and H3 SUVs; the Cadillac SRX SUV; and the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick LaCrosse sedans. In GM will credit drivers the difference between the average price per gallon in their state and the $1.99 cap. The credits can be used through December 2007. Consumers wouldn't get any credits if gas prices fall below $1.99.

GM said a California resident who buys a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe and drives 1,000 miles per month would get an estimated $103.75 monthly credit, based on the current average premium fuel price of $3.65 per gallon, GM said. A Florida resident who drives a 2006 Buick LaCrosse about 1,000 miles per month would get an estimated monthly credit of $60 based on the current premium fuel price of $3.19.

The genius behind this should be self-evident because, as everyone knows, reverse psychology works best on (1) small children and (2) commodity markets. Damn they're good. It should be noted that GM is not doing this purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. Customers will have to enroll in the OnStar Diagnostics program to qualify.

There seems little point in actually debating whether or not this is a prudent or responsible strategy on the part of GM in the context of the current and forecast oil shortage. The whole thing belies a corporation so ravenously greedy to unload their environmental hazard of a product and assumes a collective consumer retardation so catastrophic that it's kind of absurd to point it out. Still, there it is. Behold its moronic magnificence!

I will say this. Over and over again, I find myself admiring the ingenuity of American marketing. While I sit around debating questions like, "Do you think it's possible to bake a pie inside of a cake?" with my friends while staying poor, corporations are making gajillions off of this shit. When will my indignance pay off?

Uncompensated Endorser for the Tiny Man Inside

2006-05-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Have you run out of ways to hate on the government? Do you pine for the days when the fusion of rap and metal was vibrant and angry and rockin' - before Linkin Park left their burning musical bag of dog turds on the doorstep of Rage Against the Machine? Can you think of anyone better than me to recommend a soundtrack for the coming Debaclypse? Well, have I got some music for you. Seriously, I do. It's right here.

First a little background.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am friends with two of the three members of Tiny Man Inside (I cannot vouch for the character, or even the very existence, of the third member), and, as I say to everyone I meet, please do not discredit my friends out of hand based solely on their association with yours truly.

The song featured in the link, "Stain on the Flag," is a re-tooled version of a Cement Babyhead song by the same name. For those not familiar with the Babyhead, they were an Ithaca quartet very much in the RATM image - a band that laid rap-style vocals over hard rock/metal guitar and drums and lashed out at the inequities of political corruption and government cheese. In fact, lead singer Huy Dao once referred to himself aptly on stage as "Zach De La Dao." Huy established quite a reputation as the unofficial barber for the punk and punk-adjacent crowd we hung out with in Ithaca and tried valiantly, though unsuccessfully, to dissuade me from some extremely poor coiffure decisions circa 1995. Oh, and my dad liked him a lot.

Guitarist Mason Wolak has also has deep debaclyptic roots as he spent a year living in my closet on Stewart Ave. (and not in a gay, Vito-from-the-Sopranos sort of way, he actually resided in storage space). Mason was something of a 1990s guitar legend thanks to his band Stab, who were quite the power trio (but not in a gay, Rush sort of way). Stab holds a special place in my heart because they were the first band at my college that I really got into. Going to their shows, I started to really find my way socially and, in a time in my life when I reflected often about my identity, they helped me work through tough questions like, "Drag race til death? Is that what you want?" Oh, and my dad liked him too.

On drums was Doug C. Bacon. Hmmmm. You know that autistic lupine kid who would sit in the back of your class, shout out a non-sequitur once in a while, but beyond that would just stare into space? That was Doug. His impact on my life lingers. He was who renamed America's late fall harvest celebration "Thanks-taking," which I still mark every year like you all do, by gorging myself on gaudy mounds of gravy-slathered excess. The difference is that, where others feign giving thanks, I simply accept that I am acting out this country's perverse imagined birthright to be greedy, repugnant imperialists. So, yeah. Think of Doug as the hairiest of those imperialists you ever did see.

Dan Moon was also in the Babyhead, but I really didn't know him well enough to be snide.

So go listen.

While you're listening, please enjoy these complementary PR photos from the archive. OK, it's been fun shilling like Curt. See you tomorrow.

Huy and Mason w/ Babyhead

Huy likes you

Mason w/ Stab (May 1994)

This Can't Be What They Mean By 'Sweating The Small Stuff'

2006-05-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Last night. Before me a dilemma of dorktastic dimensions. What book to read next? It was down to two non-fiction heavyweights. First, The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors. I've been a little lax in keeping up with the latest in early hominin evolution (for instance, I didn't know that 'hominin' was a term, as opposed to 'hominid') and I've always enjoyed rolling phrases like "Koobi Fora" and "Taung Baby" around on my tongue. Plus, you know, paleoanthro is exactly like rap, with its feuding for old school cred. There's hot shot Donald Johanson on one side comin' and callin' that Kenya scene bullshit; he rolled Ethiopia style and whatnot. And then there are the Leakeys and the Hominid Gang, which is like the G Unit of the Rift Valley. They're badass and they've got lineage. So, that book seemed like it was gonna rock.

Then there was Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather. I know, I know. I sound like I'm jumping all over the hot topic with Katrina and whatnot, but I'm no Roker-come-lately to the weather world. I was on that back when John Hope was doing the Tropical Updates at 49 past the hour and shit. There's nothing I love more than hot cyclonic action. And if you think I'm lyin' we can take this to the Intertropical Convergence Zone and settle it.

I gave 30 minutes of my life to this decision so lets hold back that laughter please.

Instant Parade!

2006-05-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Not much happens on my street. I do live in a big ol' bustling metropolis and my street is by no means a tree-lined country lane or a suburban cul-de-sac, but not a whole lot happens. There are these guys next door who are a little odd. They hang out in their garage a lot and can occasionally be seen wandering the sidewalks balancing a soccer ball or, a bit more unconventionally, a broom on their head or shoulders, but other than that I hardly live where the action is. Still, and this is what is superlative and surreal about city dwelling, a guy, even on my street, can take a nap, wake up at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon, and have a parade going on outside their window. Yup. Sleep. Wake. Rub eyes. Boom! Instant parade!

I guess it can be more accurately termed a religious procession. It had all the hallmarks of a religious procession anyway: flowers, crosses, singing, Virgin Marys, and little girls dressed all Jon Benet in their crazy white dresses from stores like Bebe Elegante. That's a freakin' procession.

Look out! Parade!

For some reason I got it into my head that this was all very Filipino. I was seriously convinced of this. The participants were Asian, but that's not much to go on. I haven't any clue where there might be a Filipino enclave in Chicago, but my anthropology training has taught me to look at signs and come to startlingly useless conclusions like "That looks kinda Tagalog-ish." Turns out that's exactly what it was. Go figure.

The procession, I believe, was for Flores de Mayo, a month-long celebration of the Virgin Mary. All through May people bring flowers to the altar of the Big V. It's just a nice thing to do and I presume it has been going on right under my nose for weeks. The culmination of the festival, the Santa Cruzan, is what randomly marched by my apartment. There are various accounts of the origins of the Santa Cruzan. One has to do with early festivals brought to the Philippines by conquistadors, another with a vision a monk had about the Virgin Mary, and a third dates back to events in fourth century Rome:

The highlight of the celebration is the Santa Cruzan, the procession on the last day of the festival in honor of Reyna Helena. In the year 326 A.D. she and her son left Rome and searched for the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. At last they found the Holy Cross and brought it back to Rome, the capital of their empire.

It is more a parade than a religious procession. Instead of icons or images, beautiful young women (or gays) with appropriate theatrical costumes, portray biblical and historical characters. Almost all sagalas, the persons in the parade, symbolize queens from the past! Each sagala is dressed beautiful and is looking as the 'real' Reyna (Queen)!

This last attribution is as good as any since there were clearly a number of different Reynas represented in my Insta-Parade. They were older girls, late teens I guess, all prettied up in white with flowers and escorted as shown below.

The Procession of Reynas...or so the Internet says

Icons, Flowers, it had it all.

I didn't follow the procession so I don't know where it ended up. There is a Church a few blocks away which seems to a person like me (i.e., one totally ignorant in the ways of Christianity) as a sensible place to wrap up a religious mystery march like this one. But really, I have no clue. I do know this, however, like any self-respecting "in-the-name-of-the-Lord" event, it comes with merch. Presenting the Flores de Mayo Barbie:

Jinxes. I hate 'em.

2006-05-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

I hate when I stay stupid shit that seems tailor-made to bite me square in the ass, or in this case the sinuses. The dumbass declaration du jour reads as follows: "I've mostly outgrown my allergies. Not nearly as bad as when I was a kid." Oh, have you outgrown them Mr. Bigmouth von Weisenheimer? Clearly not. The mighty power of Loratadine in the form of non-drowsy Wal-itin seems no match for this nasal drip-drip-drip. Viva Pollen Nation!

Now, I don't mind when I bring this upon myself. When, for instance, knowing my predisposition to swell and snort in the presence of feline dander, I still manage to spot a cat, pet it, pick it up, and rub my eyes with it. Mmmm. Soft and purry. The results are particularly hysterical when I have contacts in. Those two-week disposal Acuvues are amazing. They are breathable, but still lock in allergens for maximum red- and puffiness. But I can accept said acts of my own (repeated) stupidity. How many gorgeous Spring days will be ruined by these acts of airborne assiness? When will the mold stop sporing? The floral fornication finish? Probably when I shut up about it.

A Little Fight Music

2006-05-19T06:35:00.000-07:00

It may not be a good thing when MTV and my brain are asking the same questions, but it could be telling of something, right? The folks over at the Moonman Network took time out from hyping the thrilling finale of 8th and Ocean to ponder why more protest music isn't taking center stage on the music scene. The article features snippets from a number of politically vocal musicians (e.g., Chuck D, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, Dixie Chick Natalie Maines, and Anti-Flag's Justin Sane) proffering various theories about where all the protest music has gone:

The business of music has made it too risky for artists to get "Dixie Chicked," especially young bands that are still trying to establish themselves. More established acts, whether they be Neil Young or Green Day, can afford to do it, but newcomers cannot.
Most fans want entertainment, not political sermons.
Some artists may still feel the post-9/11 pressure to not feel unpatriotic in a lingering "you're either with us or against us" climate.
Or maybe the belief that music can change the world is an anachronism. "[D]o you have any idea how deep this thing really is? Trying to 'turn over the system' by talking about it and voicing your opinion was an idea that died at Woodstock — and it ain't doin' so well in the nonprofit-organization sector of things nowadays either."

Not bad theories. And considering how much contempt this administration has for the intelligence of Americans, you'd think that everyone should have a theory.

One theme that recurred in the article is that the artists do not believe that it is an issue of apathy. Maybe. For me personally, apathy has evolved into something like an arrogant incredulity. I don't seek out political debate like I did in '04. Basically, I believe that, at this point, if you still ardently support Bush on issues such as foreign policy and the environment, then you have proven yourself more or less incapable of rational critical thought. Why bother? Like I said, it's an arrogant position to take and not one likely to sway people to my side, but I'm not sure what there is left to talk about or protest when met with a Bush supporter face-to-face. Of course, the people who do need to be speaking are the ones who agree that Bush is a disaster. Since the world really isn't black and white, "with us or against us," we should get together and figure out the best way to clean up the mess. But that's another entry. Back to the music.

Maybe the real problem isn't that protest songs are absent from the music scene. Political songs are there. Look at the people they interviewed. There's plenty of politics in the music of Anti-Flag, NOFX, Talib Kweli, and acts with a wider audience and greater visibility like Green Day, System of a Down, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and those Dixie Chicks. So, the stuff is there, but doesn't feel as effective.

The lack of efficacy could be part quality, part market forces. The fact is that I don't recall hearing any songs recently that have real protest anthem potential. I love NOFX, but more for the fact that they wrote the best song ever about being a Jew and not because they've inspired me to tear down the system with songs like "The Separation of Church and Skate." Punk poets they are not. I suppose "American Idiot" by Green Day had potential and maybe I'm out of touch and it has, in fact, become anthemic, but I don't think so. Here's where the market forces come in.

The Sixties, in as much as they have been handed down to people my age (i.e., children of Children of the Sixties), seem to have a finite set of iconic songs, images and events that helped the counter-culture and protest movement coalesce. Is it possible that the explosive speciation of media outlet choices and potential youth identities (emo, hipster, hip-hop, indie, punk, etc.) has made it impossible for any one set of anti-mainstream markers (including a musical politcal voice) to unite against authority? Could be. And it also could be that the competition for the attention and money of America's youth is such that the flag-bearers of each of those identities (i.e., the musicians) have to tone down their political voices or risk being bumped out by someone more marketable and appealing to a lower common denominator.

Then again, maybe this whole problem is imagined. Maybe the songs are there and I'm just too busy complaining to hear them. Or worse, maybe the generation gap has snuck up on me to the point where I don't even know how to hear them. It's not as if protest singers were dominating the charts back in the day. Look at the Top 20 songs for the super-tumultuous year of 1968 for instance:

1. Hey Jude, The Beatles
2. Honey, Bobby Goldsboro
3. Love Is Blue, Paul Mauriat
4. (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay, Otis Redding
5. People Got To Be Free, Rascals
6. Sunshine Of Your Love, Cream
7. This Guy's In Love With You, Herb Alpert
8. Stoned Soul Picnic, Fifth Dimension
9. Mrs. Robinson, Simon and Garfunkel
10. Tighten Up, Archie Bell and The Drells
11. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Hugo Montenegro
12. Little Green Apples, O.C. Smith
13. Mony, Mony, Tommy James and The Shondells
14. Hello, I Love You, The Doors
15. Young Girl, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap
16. Cry Like A Baby, Box Tops
17. Harper Valley P.T.A., Jeannie C. Riley
18. Grazing In The Grass, Hugh Masekela
19. Midnight Confessions, The Grass Roots
20. Dance To The Music, Sly and The Family Stone

Kind thin on the anti-War anthems, in spite of international riots, numerous assassinations, and the Chicago Democratic Convention. Still, I wouldn't mind one "The Times They Are A-Changin'" or "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" to rally around. Ironic, actually, considering that Bob Dylan wanted nothing to do with being the Voice of a Generation and Phil Ochs drifted from his anti-authority troubadour roots and embodied a delusional proto-bling bling persona of being the next Elvis in gold lamé before hanging himself in 1976.

Phil Ochs (1940-1976) -
Voice of Dissent, Elvis Wannabe

Golden Angel, Angry Angel

2006-05-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

It's been said, or I seem to remember, or rumor has it, that eating certain foods just before bed can affect the tenor of one's dreams. Cheese seems to be one of those foods of not just lore, but the rigor scientific experimentation, well, as much science as can be credited to the British Cheese Board anyhow. The BCB undertook a study of 200 individuals who volunteered to cram their maws with fromage, sleep and then report the results because "A lot of people still believe the old wives [sic] tale that cheese gives you nightmares but this study endorses the scientific facts." The results are nothing short of silly:

Red Leicester proved to be brilliant for helping participants to get a good night’s sleep – one quarter slept well every single night of the study, and 83% of all nights under the influence of Red Leicester were good sleep experiences. As for dreams, Red Leicester is the cheese to choose if you are feeling nostalgic about your past – over 60% of participants eating this cheese revisited their schooldays, or long-lost childhood friends, or previous family homes and hometowns.
Stilton -eating participants enjoyed their sleep too – over two thirds had good sleep experiences during five out of the seven nights. However, if you want some vivid or crazy dreams, the King of British cheeses is the one for you – particularly if you are female. While 75% of men in this category experienced odd and vivid dreams, a massive 85% of females who ate Stilton had some of the most bizarre dreams of the whole study – although none were described as bad experiences. Highlights included talking soft toys, lifts that move sideways, a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, dinner party guests being traded for camels, soldiers fighting with each other with kittens instead of guns and a party in a lunatic asylum.
British Brie caused all participants to sleep very well, but dreams varied between males and females; women tended to experience very nice dreams, such as Jamie Oliver cooking dinner in their kitchens, or relaxing on a sunny beach. By contrast, the men who ate Brie experienced rather odd, obscure dreams, such as driving against a battleship, or having a drunken conversation with a dog.
Cheddar -eating participants tended to dream of celebrities, ranging from the participant’s family sitting in a pub with Jordan, to a Glaswegian old firm football match with Gazza and Ally McCoist. Ashley from Coronation Street also featured, as did the cast of Emmerdale - and one lucky girl helped to form a human pyramid under the supervision of Johnny Depp.

I, however, did not have cheese last night and thus had dreams distinctly lacking in Jamie Oliver or fun on the Glaswegian pitch. Still, I woke exhausted.

Jamie Oliver:
Dreamy Because Science Says So

It was corned beef hash and eggs over easy for me last night at 11:00 p.m. courtesy of the Lincoln/Montrose Golden Angel Diner. It was tasty, even tastier for the fact that I had to fight doggedly to get my side of rye toast. (The menu specifically states that corned beef hash and eggs, unlike other egg combos does not come with a choice of hash browns or pancakes, though no specific toast exclusion is cited. The waitress chose to infer this exclusion andwished to deny me my toast. However, she finally conceded this point not because she realized I was right, but because I was quickly proving myself to be precisely the type of argumentative, pain in the ass customer that every slow Tuesday night should, by all rights, be free of.) Anyway, turns out that the Sandman is no friend of corned beef hash.

I had two very stressful dreams last night. Or maybe they were two parts of the same dream. The first began with confusion as to whether I had signed my lease on time and if, had I not, I would be allowed to stay or forced to move out suddenly. It initially appeared that I would have to move out. Not particularly distressed by this drastic shift in housing status, I enlisted some friends to help me move my stuff out immediately. Where I was going to move to was not clear and, it turns out, not relevant. Apartment Finders must work on a different plane than dream logic I guess. In any case, literally in mid-move, I got word that the signed lease and eviction notice must have crossed in the mail. I was granted a stay of relocation and could remain in the apartment. Whew. However, before I could get everything back in the apartment, I had to go to an appointment of some sort. With boxes still strewn everywhere and my couch still in the stairwell I asked a friend if he could stick around the apartment and watch my half-repatriated stuff. Didn't have to move anything. Just needed him to make sure that I didn't have to play out that scene from Coming to America when Prince Akeem and Semmi come back to their place in Queens and everyone on the street is sporting their stuff.

Enter betrayal.

When I returned home, I found my apartment locked and none of the boxes on the curb or in the stairwell, nor did I spot any of their contents in the hands of the street's denizens. Perfect. But when I entered the apartment I found that most of my furniture, most notably my couch, had been pilfered and replaced by one tattered, bluish, clearly garbage-picked loveseat and a legless seat of some kind. It looked like someone took a giant-sized one of those hinged wired grill baskets, pried it apart so that the two halves of the basket formed a right angle, plopped a cushion down on one half for a seat, left the other half bare for the back, and called it a chair. It was hardly comfortable, but a sitter would have perfect grill lines every time.

Helpful Home Tip #62:
When Grilling Season is over, bring your basket inside
to insure the comfort of your holiday guests.

I came to the immediate conclusion that my friend had taken my couch. I tried desperately to call him, but only eventually received some indirect response, perhaps a voice mail, to the effect that I was not getting the couch back. Remorse, or even the hint of interest in remorse, was absent. I ran into another friend during my search for an answer, who tried in vain to convince me that there must be some explanation for this. I ended the discussion curtly with a simple Darwinian conclusion: "He's Alpha." I was distraught by the idea that I was helpless in the face of being naturally selected out of my own furniture by a friend. And it was not simply furniture. What regular readers there are to DebaclypseNow may recall that I explicitly have noted that my couch is a material symbol of my adulthood. So, for all intents and purposes, my friend was socially demoting me, if not outright infantilizing me, by stealing it. But it was hopeless.

A second hopeless situation, though far less personal, arose in a dream segment which I now believe to be part of the errand that I went on and ultimately resulted in my decouchification. Somehow I found myself in Hyde Park and needed to get to the Northside quickly. I hailed a cab and gave the address. The cab was being driven by what appeared to be a young scraggly cabbie intern as there was a supervisor of sorts (or at least some official-looking woman with a clipboard) sitting in the passenger seat. We started moving and my attention drifted elsewhere.

After some time passed, I looked around and discovered that I'd racked up at fare of $17.10 already in this hack, but had been taken to 75th and Western, the opposite direction of where I was supposed to be going. I flipped, screaming about how this cabbie was just was fleecing me by aimlessly driving me around the ghetto and not where I needed to be. (75th and Western is not actually the ghetto, but represented it in my dream. The explanation for this could be that I was roped into a conversation by a homeless man at Dunkin' Donuts yesterday. He was pretending to read a menu - yes, they have menus there now - while hitting people up for change to get to 81st and Western. Perhaps I stopped the cabbie only when I realized that I was on a collision course with Dunkin Menu Man Redux.) Still, though obviously flustered by having his ruse exposed, the cabbie maintained his innocence regarding his obligation to take me via the most direct route. He wasn't going to let me off for the fare and I wasn't going to let him get away with the fleecing. We tussled.

Through the struggle, I managed to barricade the three of us, driver, supervisor and me, into a cafe until I could figure out a proper authority to call. I sought contact with some imagined Taxi Ethics Authority and then I sought recourse at corporate. There was a phone number on the hat of the supervisor, which I tried to dial over and over again, but kept missing or inverting numbers. Part of me was distracted by the futility of it all since I was sure the number for a Cincinnati phone (the area code was 220, which turns out to not exist) and therefore would get little direct response other than a runaround. Another part of me was distressingly uncoordinated and simply unable to complete this everyday task with the pressures of the dream on me. Eventually, after numerous touchtone fumbles, I had to admit defeat and fled the area on foot, running through backyards and alleys to safely get myself to some public transportation. Why I thought the CTA was a safe haven is another inexplicable dream fact. It was, I believe, at this point that I was coming to realize the theft of my couch.

So, when I woke up I was frustrated, angry and drained. I don't think I've conveyed in the least how much. I always find that task difficult and disjointed. Waking up totally screws you out of remembering what you were doing while you slept. Now I get to spend the day rationalizing and interpreting what details I do recall.

Putting the Lord Back in Lord Stanley's Cup

2006-05-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

On the shopping beat, here's one that the collector of Anachronistic Christ Absurdities in your life will surely cherish. It's the gift that will be adding fuel to the fire that Jesus may have walked around not on water, but on some errant ice in the Sea of Galilee ("Son of God my ass! He's just as bad as those schmucky dogs that end up in the freakin' Lake every February."). Or maybe you need a Guide as you try to figure where to find the Outdoor Life Network so you can actually watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Perhaps you just want to put to the test whether He's way cool enough to score more goals than Wayne Gretzky. For whatever reason, it's the Jesus Hockey Sports Statue.

Also note that this appears to be the only of Catholic Shopping's statues in which Christ is wearing regulation footwear, skates instead of his signature sandals. Although he needs to get better positioning on those two kids. They're just going to lift his stick up before he gets to the puck. Jesus may be Magic, but he sure as hell isn't Canadian.

Many thanks to Prof. Holly for pointing this Jesus Gem out.

Context Dependency

2006-05-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is cheating in the sense that it's a re-post from Always in Transit. Rev. Transit had a really alarming post concerning a movement reported in the New York Times to make contraception impossible to get because it, along with such practices as abortion, devalues sex, making it about pleasure and without consequences:

"Focus on the Family posts a kind of contraceptive warning label on its Web site: 'Modern contraceptive inventions have given many an exaggerated sense of safety and prompted more people than ever before to move sexual expression outside the marriage boundary.' Contraception, by this logic, encourages sexual promiscuity, sexual deviance (like homosexuality) and a preoccupation with sex that is unhealthful even within marriage."

Lovely, eh? So I tried to lampoon this with a bit of satire. Mixed results. Either way, I highly recommend the NYT article. Enjoy. Or not.

* * * * *

I would like to take this opportunity to present some thoughts about the obesity epidemic in the United States. It is high time that our morally bankrupt society comes to terms with its gluttonous self. We need to realize that Americans have long devalued eating. The act by which we take in the substance that gives us life has been debased to a thrice-daily orgy of flavor sensation. Have we forgotten what it means to be given our daily bread and become a bunch of keen-palated, metrosexual, seasoning-fetishizing, crypto-French, grotesquely obese gastronomes? I’ll answer that! We have and it must stop.

Everyone knows that it is not simply the content of the foods available, but also their variety which is driving this mania of mealtime malfeasance. People, in their state of nature sitting in ersatz bistros and roaming the aisles of organic markets, are greedy. They want it all in its diverse splendor. They will eat more if there is more variety and thus contract diabetes and exhibit sloth. They will eat less and be more regimented in their behaviors if when consume edibles; they do so only by the bland necessities of biological imperative.

So, right here and now, I am proposing that the USDA and FDA ban all flavorful and flavor enhancing substances made popular since the end of the Cold War. Chicago’s foie gras ban is a good start, but I think it must be taken much further if we are to curtail the crippling engorgements of our cosmopolitan tastes. Henceforth there shall be a ban on products not limited to, but especially: cardamom, fruit-flavored vinaigrettes (especially raspberry), pomegranate juice, quinoa, non-peanut nut butters, porcini mushrooms, crème fraiche, bruschetta, artificially de-carbified breads and pastas, coconut milk, and anything inspired by the flavors of Indonesia/Java/Sumatra

I thank you for your support and hope you join me in the fight to reclaim the tongue as a secretor of digestive enzymes and not allow it to be whored out as a taste dildo for yuppies, couture hounds, and creative vegans.

Opening Wide

2006-05-11T07:29:00.000-07:00

I don't care what the Denver Post says, it's true. Sex sells. The reason for this is simple. People either: 1. like to do it, 2. like to think they like to do it, or 3. like to think they don't like to do it and therefore very strongly like to dislike it. Anyway you slice it, for capitalism, sex is an instrument of perfection.

Personally, I may not really be drawn to Coors because of those alpine amazons playing volleyball in their commercials, but I'm pretty sure that the only reason I know that American Apparel even exists is because of the cute girls in their Onion ads. I don't know where to buy the stuff, but I assume it's somewhere in the sexy model 'hood. Too bad I can't go there because my teeth hurt. Or maybe the dentist's office is the perfect place to hook-up. Hmmmm. I wonder.

* * * * *

The following brochure is from Dental Profile on 53rd St. in Hyde Park. Let's forget for a moment that I once knew someone who literally ran from this House of Pain screaming and crying because they were so incompetent in the ways of anesthetic technology. They have a new image, a world away from their 13th century means of pain relief, and here's what it looks like.

Not bad. Has a handy calendar and a map of locations so the when and where can be taken care of. It asks you take action for the sake of your dentition and your inherent beauty: Discover your Brightest Smile! Hey, no one ever said that the brightest discoveries are ever made without blindingly excruciating pain. In any case, a smile is nice, but hardly hipster clothes hawking nymph sexy...or is it? Maybe a little cleaning and scraping can be a little hot. Just picture a gravely voice whispering "eeeenaaamel" or "inciiiisor" in your ear. Whew! Is that a bead of sweat mixing with your saliva in the spit sink? It should be. And I didn't even begin discussing "fluoride treatments." (Plus I'll skip the "whitening" jokes for the sake of class and decorum.) Let's take a closer look at the brochure, shall we?

Hmmm. How odd. What's that going on in the bottom left corner. Is dentistry like electricity? All the parts have to make a circuit for it to work? Well, I have always heard that nothing makes for cleaners gums than a hygienist rubbing all up against the dentist. And look at the smile in the eyes of that hygienist. It's the sweetest taboo. With all the scraping, bleeding and mechanical slurping, this patient has no idea what is going on just inches away. Perhaps some frottage is planned for the bridge work in Room 3? Or maybe she is simply awed by the dentist's masterful assessment of this extreme case of periodontitis. "I believe the probe reaches 6.5 millimeters below the gumline, Doctor. What ever shall we do?" "We'll just treat the patient and play footsie. Because we're dental professionals and that's what we do, Ms. Hygienist. It's just what we do."

I Now Pronounce You Punk and Rock

2006-05-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

There was a whole lotta marrying going on this weekend. Fuji-San (aka Judge Injury) and The-Now-Officially-Mrs.-Fujimoto are now...official. I've been to a handful of really good weddings-as-events, but only two which I loved as weddings-as-weddings, the marriage of improv power couple Shalene (purely a career move if you ask me) and this one. The whole weekend (which actually started with a glass of Glenlivet at the Hyatt Regency on Thursday as we waited for the shuttle to the Horseshoe Hammond) was amazingly fun - more than enough to get a cynic to gush.

What makes a good wedding-as-wedding? It's simple and not particularly revelatory. If you do it by the book as everyone does, then you may have a good event. When you dye your hair purple, have artichokes in your bouquet and name your tables after punk bands (I was a Ramone. Jealous?) instead of numbers, then you have a kickin' wedding. Doesn't hurt when John Jughead is the minister either.

Ninety-percent of the readership of Debaclypse Now has heard the stories of my weekend or was actually in attendance, so here are the highlights, observations and generally those things jostling for posterity in my head:

Weddings, even great ones, make me at least a little bit depressed. (That's right, I'm starting off on a positive!) Not because it's not me up there, but more because I tend to miss the people I don't get to see often when I see them at such events even more than when I'm not seeing them at all. Also there is usually a person or two who I hang out with who I totally wish I had gotten to know better at some earlier point in my life. Rebecca S. wins this weekend's prize for that.
If you do not already have a crush on Liz from Even in Blackouts, I suggest you get moving on it. And not just because she's pretty either. She's an infectious and ingratiating performer. If I ever have a dinner party I think I'll invite her so that when I screw things up people will just remember how cool it was hanging with Lizzie. And I saw the girls lingering around her even more than the guys during cocktail hour, so it's not just me.
I like toasting. Sure it's because I kinda like the spotlight, but let's face it, my self-worth is pretty heavily determined by whether I am able to be funny. The fact that I was given the chance to do it up for two dear friends at their wedding, well that's all the better.
What I don't like is giving video testimonials when I'm drunk. Logan, who I will gladly give a plug to as the talented videographer, had asked me to say something on camera early in the evening. I procrastinated. And I drank. Ugh. Sorry guys for whatever I said. I think I made fun of the bride's first ever gift to the groom. I had planned on some joke about the fact that since their children will be half-Asian we should try to make at least one of them the Tiger Woods of bowling. I'm not sure if the joke ever came to fruition.
I miss Phil.
In a brief You Got Served moment (the sound of breakdancing smack talk was in the air), Windy City Roller ass-kicker and über-Chicagoan Val Capone put me in a headlock. Never fear, this is not going in the evandebacle-gets-off-getting-beaten-up-by-girls direction. All I have to say is that I now firmly believe that, should I ever have to be killed by someone's bare hands, I hope they are Val's. She is just, and from the acute pressure applied by her arm onto my cervical vertebrae, justice would be swift and painless.
There needs to be an online petition to get butternugget to start a custom cake business. Oh wait, here's one.
I violated my personal rule about no tobacco smoking on American soil by having a cigar at the bachelor party.

Mostly I'd just like to redeem my videotaped debacle and again wish the happy couple much love and awesomeness in their marriage. xoxo evandebacle

And There Was Much Rejoicing

2006-05-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Not only was I met with the news this morning that a project that has been on the brink of disaster for the past two weeks has basically been nipped in the bud, but I also found this headline: "'Knight Rider' coming to big screen." Thank Jeebus! I have been wondering for a long time what kept my favorite transport-centric show as a kid (Sorry, Airworlf) from coming to the big screen. And I'm not kidding either. I loved this stupid show. I wanted to talk to cars through my watch. I felt it was every American's right to have equal access to turbo boost. And when KITT had to face his arch nemesis Goliath, well, that was the shit.

No sufficient explanation was ever given to me about why the show hadn't been adapted before. Surely there was interest. It has all the nostalgia you could want. The show is a natural for gratuitous special effects. And the opportunities to sell sex are obvious. Mechanic Bonnie Barstow was the thinking man's Daisy Duke after all. The only conclusion to be made was that Hasselhoff was somehow blocking it. Didn't want any reminders of life before he went up-market with Baywatch I guess.

This leaves me with wondering about whether The A-Team will make the jump. Tough call. It could be really entertaining. The plots were simplistic, the case of Good v. Evil, but the characters were more or less likable so that was fine. There was a little humor. A Rube Goldberg-meets-Rambo set of booby traps were set up. Before you knew it the bad guys jeeps were flipping over with dramatic, but non-lethal finality and the Little Guy won the day. What I fear is not the continued formulaic formulae, but the casting. I don't care about Face and Mr. T would have to reprise BA, but who'd be Hannibal? They wouldn't have Jim Carrey as Murdoch would they? Ugh. Nostalgia makes me anxious.

Improv Update

2006-05-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

Improv Update

After something of a hiatus, The Flying Buttresses will be back at the Beat Kitchen on Sunday June 4th. No word on a theme just yet, but Naomi will be sitting in the director's chair.

Tales of the City

2006-05-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

Tales of the City

I have a great view from my office. It doesn't make it worth showing up to work, but it helps. I face east out to my former residence, the Del Prado Apartments, and to Lake Michigan. I also overlook the Metra tracks and the 53rd Street viaduct which runs underneath them. This is where today's tale takes place.

The Viaducts of Hyde Park

I took a peek out the window and there was a man, probably in his 40s and extremely wobbly, wearing a red jacket and greyish-brown pants. He was facing the wall at the mouth of the viaduct. After a moment of wondering what the hell he was looking at, it became evident that he had the slightly bent posture of a stoned public urinator. I say stoned because he wasn't lurching enough to be drunk, yet if he had even a handful of synapses firing correctly he would have had the sense to take himself underneath the viaduct to do what needed to be done. After a minute or so more he turned to face the world. We, my co-worker and I, were looking frantically to see if he had been pissing by trying to spot a wet spot against the wall (that's the kind of corporate culture we have here - nurturing a bunch of piss-gapers). There was none. Odd. Maybe he was just trying to not fall down. Or not. The front of his pants were a distinctly darker shade than the sides. Evidentally, he hadn't bothered to actually unzip before relieving himself. And then all he did was stand there, waiting to become a sopping tale of the city.

Fuck That, I Hate The Playas

2006-04-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Fuck That, I Hate The Playas

People who don't like sports don't understand Sports Hate. I have Sports Hate. I have it a lot. My father had Sports Hate and I suspect that his father before him had it too. I am certain his (my father's) mother had it. She's the one who sweetly told my father "tell the grandchildren I used to love them." Awww.

Anyway, my ancestral family Sports Hate is mostly directly towards the New York Yankees. They were, are, and will always be evil. Fascistic. Inimical. Like unarmed Dick Cheneys in pinstripes. My father has a slightly different problem, an eternal Sports Grudge against the LA Dodgers. They abandoned him as a child. Moved to California to start a new family which they loved more than him. But that's not the same for me. This is about Hate and Loathing at 33rd and 7th Avenue.

I abhor the NY Rangers. I still hate Barry Beck. It still eats me up inside that they won the Cup in '94 and thus stole from me the chant "nine-teen for-ty!" I'm an Islanders fan and what's bad for the Rangers is good for me. Yesterday the New Jersey Devils neatly dispatched with the Rangers with a four game sweep in the first round. Never mind that the Isles didn't even make the playoffs. The Rangers had to pack up the skates and dust off the golf clubs and I couldn't be happier.

"Shoot the puck, Bar-ry. Shoot the puck!"

"Devil Win! Devils...Errrr. I mean, Rangers Lose! Rangers Lose!"

Stomach Hostage Freed: An Epilogue

2006-04-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

Stomach Hostage Freed: An Epilogue

A little update for everyone as my detox concluded with a collision between burger and bun. Truly though it will be thoroughly pushed out of mind with tonight's highly anticipated ingestion of the BBQ brisket sandwich at the Horseshoe. To quote the future Mrs. Fujisan, "It's super-fantastic!" (Yay!)

Overall, I'd say that the experience was good. I feel a bit better, generally, though I have hardly been transformed. Granted, I cheated myself by not exercising enough. That is something I simply have to force myself to do. Running sucks, there is no gym in Lincoln Square (well, Women's Workout World, but I'm not sure that we're a good fit for one another), and my commute makes going somewhere to workout before heading to the office pretty onerous. These are all excuses, of course, and the "Evan is lazy" factor looms large over all of them. Still, it was a ritual kick in the ass for my poor eating habits...that is if habits have asses.

I have not yet had a cup of coffee (the closest I came was a masala chai after lunch) and I am trying to stick to more reasonable breakfasts and lunches at work. The 720 cal. muffin has not shown its face. Though I did happily break into the Shalene Basket of Temptation and eat a Reeses' peanut butter egg last night. Oh yeah. I am very much looking forward to seeing Fujisan, Soon-To-Be-Mrs. Fujisan, Butternugget, Broken Cherry, et. al. in the smoky and sweet BBQ confines in a few hours.

p.s. If G-d is listening, wasn't I great for Passover? I did it for you, M-n!

Get Your Free On

2006-04-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Get Your Free On

Not wanting to overdose on the weather, I visited the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum downtown on Saturday. I figured that if the exhibits weren't up to snuff, at least I might be able to get in some quality eavesdropping of rootin'-tootin,' freedom-lovin', family-friendly, xenophobic conversation between attendees. When I mentioned to a friend that I was going there, she was slightly put off that such a museum existed let alone the fact that I was actually going.

Her comment, along with the fact that I presumed that I would encounter throngs of rah-rah, flag-waving, Bush-loving automatons, raised a thorny question: what's up between American liberals and "freedom?" We love art and we visit museums and galleries for that. Plenty of people down with sex flock to the Museum of Sex. We're cool with being free. Why should a museum enshrining freedom be anathema? Oh, I got it. Art is meant to be taken in by the senses and ruminated upon. A museum is a logical place to do so. Freedom, on the other hand, is active. It must be lived and struggled for. Can idling around a museum for an afternoon, gazing at moth-eaten parchment documenting the basis for our liberty while simultaneously remaining sealed in climate-controlled glass boxes, ever hope to replicate the essence of freedom? Hell no. Like political philosopher and musician (kinda) Kenny Loggins said in a totally unrelated context, "Real freedom is creative, proactive, and will take me into new territories. I am not free if my freedom is predicated on reacting to my past."

Yeah, that's not the problem.

The relationship of American Liberals, I believe, to public celebrations of "freedom" is a complicated one. I, as an openly liberal American, like freedom and think everyone should have more of it gosh darn it. I am willing to speak out against specific grievances curtailing freedom. Yet, when it comes to celebrating the higher-level ideal of freedom on a national level, well I get a little queasy and more than a bit suspect. I can think of at least three reasons for this:

Just as "liberal" has become a dirty word, so too have ones like "freedom" and "patriot." Simply, their associations have been shifted from describing ideals to evoking sides in the Culture Wars. Not good. I'd rather not be free to bomb an abortion clinic. Thanks for thinking of me though.
"Freedom" is a propaganda tool (of course, it has been for a long time) - toss that word around and you've played a beautiful rhetorical gambit. Instantly, what you're arguing for represents freedom and your opponent is advocating a dire, dark world of freelessness. Yuck. Since the Right seems to be firmly in possession of the term "freedom" as a weapon to wield, those on the Left would naturally suspect a political agenda and obfuscation to be housed in such a museum. Spooky. I guess this could be 1a.
Well, this could be 2a. In the current global political situation, "Freedom" has become the rationale for unilaterally aggressive (some, myself included, would say imperialist) American foreign policy. Considering the gut rehab currently taking place in Iraq in the course of their Freedom Operation, one might be leery of an Operation: American Freedom, no?

So, with this in mind, the conundrum is how to not be averse to explicit public displays, symbols and rhetoric about freedom without getting the liberal heebie-jeebies?

* * * * *

The Museum itself wasn't bad. Highly interactive, featuring a number of kiosks with headphones and video touchscreens which allow you to learn about key Supreme Court cases on the limits of freedom and then vote to see how your opinion compares to the justices. Another one about censorship featured a tripped out DJ telling you why people wanted to ban "She Bop." Or there's the one that gives commentary from some more obscure Founding Fathers about the Declaration of Independence. My new favorite Declaration Daddy is John Witherspoon, Signer, President of Princeton and possessor of a kickass Scottish accent. He's the one who said to those opposed to declaring independence that the country "was not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of rotting for the want of it." I'm totally going to be him for Halloween.

While the museum is informative about numerous historic struggles for freedom (e.g., slavery, women's rights, labor, etc.) and gives due attention to come of today's more contentious issues (e.g., gay students' clubs in public schools, public Nazi demonstrations, banned books, etc.), there's something lacking. Two things actually.

The first is the obvious ethnocentrism. Truth in advertising would have it called the American Freedom Museum. Other than pointing out some of the usual freedom-hating suspects (I think Myanmar and North Korea will be featured in the finals of that tournament), there is little given to the notion that other countries and cultures may have unique and equally viable traditions of freedom. Other than one note that Finland has the greatest freedom of the press in the world, the US pretty much came off as the Gold Standard.

The other truly smoothed-over area is anything to do with post-9/11 domestic freedom battlegrounds (gasp!). Once you get past 1789, most stories are told as grassroots movements and through court cases. It's as if once the Bill of Rights was done, it was all about interpretation and expansion of rights. Not surprised that they avoid this, and it's quite problematic. Might we educated freedomologists be interested in discuss the implications of executive orders and Patriot Acts on the present and future of individual liberties? Methinks, yes.

The museum is small and was toured reasonably quickly. Then, I walked my freedom loving to the creepiest store on Earth to watch freedom in effect: American Girl Place.

Product

2006-04-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Product

A friend just told me a story of how he made a pizza to look like a communion wafer complete with inlaid cross. This creation was known as Cheesus Crust, which I think would be a great name for a Vatican pizza parlor. However, I would like to go one step further in the food-based blasphemy department. How about a line of unleavened bagels called Stigmatzoh? Who wants to give me capital to get this off the ground?

Diversionary Tactics

2006-04-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Diversionary Tactics

I don't want to talk about the detoxification anymore. So boring. Day seven, it's a good time. Feel awesome. Want ribs. Done. The problem is that no much is going on at the moment, so here is some stuff of no particular importance and hopefully at least debatable interest:

All of a sudden yesterday I felt that I should be annoyed by the fact that I use phrases like "I seem to remember" or "I tend to think." It's a stupid hedge and if I were still in the biz of linguistic anthropology I would analyze such the hell out of it: "This linguistic convention functions to weaken a given statement for one or another purpose. Depending on the culture and context, this might be used to indicate a speaker's lower status vis à vis the listener or it may serve to distance the speaker from being responsible for, or associated with, the truth value of the statement. (Think of someone wracked with liberal guilt who feels the need to spout things like, 'I have this friend, who happens to be black.') Additionally, it may be used in an argument to make an attack on an interlocutor more indirect while simultaneously highlighting the statement with sarcasm or irony (e.g., in a marital dispute, 'I seem to remember you not caring when that stripper was showing off her booty by shaking it in your lap.')." Anyway, I should hedge my statements less.
Yesterday evening I saw a hot Jehovah's Witness. Actually, no, hot isn't what I want to call her. She was graceful. Tall, pretty and graceful. And it was very weird, standing in front of the Western Brown Line with this woman trying to save CTA riders' souls. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Lord figured out that sex sells. No, I didn't take a copy of The Watchtower.
Standardized measurement is one of the foundations of modern society. Rational and widely accepted measures of size and duration allow scientists to build upon the findings of one another and provides a basis for exchange and commerce. We've known that since the days of the cubit. Not that the cubit was all that handy (no pun intended). So why the fuck can't the Chicago Tribune's Red Eye come up with a standard for rating the difficulty of their Sudoku puzzles? I know that the world probably has bigger problems waiting to be solved, but I'm an addict. I'm a junkie who gets his fix from a 9x9 grid of numbers. It's a compulsion and a rush to organize, but like any compulsion it's about control. How am I supposed to exercise that control and derive the proper satisfaction from it if the six-star bonus Sudoku on Friday is easier than Wednesday's three-star? The American economy is doomed because we don't produce any engineers and our newspapers still don't know three should be easier than six. Fucking idiots.

Stomach Held Hostage: Day 5, An FAQ

2006-04-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Stomach Held Hostage: Day 5, An FAQ

OK, so I may have given some of you the impression that this little detoxification thing is a little bit crazier than it actually is. While I did have some flax seed and brewer's yeast on Saturday, it's really not that crazy. I will try to clear things up.

What the fuck?

Like I had mentioned before, I was feeling kind of shitty and my friend said that he had recently done this and felt awesome. Super-fantastic-awesome even. How can I argue with that? Just because he's an anthropologist rather than a nutrionist. And his favorite food is butter. And I really have no idea where the hell he came up with this detox thing. How can I argue with that?

Couldn't you have waited until after Easter Brunch at the Horseshoe?

If you start to tingle and smell brisket does it mean you're having a stroke?

How's that hippie diet of yours going?

Superb actually. I can't believe the difference. Hippies are naturally organic and free-range and therefore far more healthful than the human meat you find in your typical grocer's freezer. Once you get used to the gamy taste...delicious!

Is it actually working, because it sounds like bullshit to me and we all think this is a desperate attempt at something, but it sounds so stupid and nuts that we can't figure out what?

I am a bit less sluggish, but the big thing is that I think it has helped my skin. For instance, this morning I had the best shave I've had in forever. It's like someone stapled as baby's ass onto my cheeks.

Do you have to do this forever or what?

In theory, I will try to eat better after it's done. Whether this will mean eating well or simply limiting my consumption of orange beef from Lung Wah Chop Suey on 53rd to thrice per week, only time will tell.

So, what is this diet?

Here it is. Reprinted without permission of any kind...Voila:

Seven-day prequel

Each day choose at least one from each group:

1. Liver beneficial foods

a.Crucifers (½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw): cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, broccoli sprouts

b. Green leafy vegetables and herbs (½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw): parsley, kale, watercress, chard, cilantro, beet greens, collards, escarole, dandelion greens, mustard greens

c. Citrus fruit: 1 orange or juice of half lemon or lime

d. Sulfur-rich foods: 1 clove garlic; onion (½ cup cooked); 2 eggs; daikon radish (¼ cup raw)

e. Liver-healers: 1 artichoke; asparagus (½ cup cooked); beets (½ cup cooked); whey (1-2 scoops or yeast flakes); dandelion root tea (1-2 cups)

2. Colon beneficial foods – choose at least two each day: powdered psyllium husk (1-2 tsp. in 8 oz. water), flaxseeds (2-3 tbs. milled or ground); carrot; apple; pear; berries (1 cup)

3. Water – drink half body weight in ounces per day (i.e., 90 oz. or 5.5 qt.)

4. Protein – two servings daily of a selection: lean beef; lamb; skinless chicken; skinless turkey; skinless fish

5. Oils – consume 1-2 tbs. of olive or flaxseed oil each day

*Things to avoid: fat, sugar, white rice, white flour, gluten (wheat, rye, barley), breads, pastas, crackers, crusts, soy sauce, vinegars, soy products, alcohol, drugs, caffeine, and molds.

*Other good things: unsweetened cranberry juice

*To avoid depression: augment with nuts and seeds, especially almonds, walnuts, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds (raw or toasted, but unprocessed); consume “friendly carbs” like chickpeas, lentils, adzuki beans, pinto beans, kidney beans (½ cup); or 1 sweet potato.

One-day fast

Consume 64 oz. of detox juice and 64 oz. of water, alternating one cup juice, one cup water throughout the day. In the morning and evening, before and after consuming the detox juice, eat 2-3 tbs. flaxseeds.

Detox Juice - Bring 2 qt. cranberry water (56 oz. water, 8 oz. unsweetened cranberry juice) to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer 15-20 minutes with spices: ½ tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp. ground ginger, ¼ tsp. nutmeg, and 2 packets of stevia-plus. Take off heat and coo to room temperature, then add ¾ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice and ¼ cup fresh-squeezed lemon.

Three-day sequel

Eat exactly as in seven-day prequel, only augment daily with 1 cup yogurt. Beginning on day two of the sequel, also add tablets of HCL in a formula with 500 mg betaine hydrochloride, 130 mg pepsin, 50 mg ox bile extract.

* * * * *

See. Once you've separated ox from bile, it's a perfectly cromulent diet.

Note: On second thought, oxen look so sad when they're away from their bile. Maybe I'll skip that step and just do an extra shot of Detox Juice.

Slip-Striking Away

2006-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Slip-Striking Away

I remember it as being the morning of Harold Huang's birthday party when I was 10 years old, but that's probably not how it happened. Maybe it was because other significant events also happened on the mornings of birthday parties. My hamster, Rusty, died on the snowy February morning of Jimmy O'Connell's bowling party. I had a lovely black box to place him in, but no argument I could muster would convince my mother that Rusty would make a good gift for the birthday boy. (Though I liked Jimmy, he had given me a lame-ass Ziggy for my birthday though no one any of us had ever met had ever given any indication that Ziggy was the least bit interesting, let alone worthy of memorialization in doll form. Hence, my insistence...well, that and an already dark sense of humor. It was a bowling party after all - we could put Rusty in his hamster ball and let him do what he loved most.) Rusty was interred that morning under a snow-flecked honeysuckle bush.

Anyway, early on the morning of what may or may not have been Harry's birthday, New York was hit with an earthquake. Long Island did not face the full brunt of the quake. The epicenter was located north of the city, specifically in Ardsley, NY, forty miles outside on Albany. It was about a 4.0. No biggie. Shook for less than a minute. The house shimmied a bit, but no damage was done other than me waking up. Occasional unspectacular quakes such as this one will insure that the Dobbs Ferry Fault will never stand with San Andreas or New Madrid in the Who's Who of American Faults. Still along with plotting the fickle meanderings of Hurricane Elena on my stash of Publix Hurricane Maps hoarded during an otherwise brutal summer trip to Florida and sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the Tropical Update on The Weather Channel (49 mins. after the hour) for a full week and a half as Hurricane Gloria honed in on, and eventually struck, Long Island (all three events occurring in 1985), this temblor set me off on a life long love affair with natural disasters.

I write this now because today is the 100th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Quake which set off the Great Fire of San Francisco which, in turn, decimated the Great City of San Francisco. I don't want to end by saying "Happy Anniversary San Francisco." Something, I'm sure, isn't right about that. I'll just stick with "Rest in peace, Rusty."

The Streets of San Francisco

Hurricane Gloria as she turns north

The hamster to play Rusty in the TV movie

Stomach Held Hostage: Day 3

2006-04-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

Stomach Held Hostage: Day 3

I never realized that tacos smelled so good. They really do. And not just the meat either, the tortillas. There is a warmth to the smell of a fresh tortilla that is wonderful to any given nose on the street, but is downright devastating to someone who just learned why mankind learned to husk psyllium. Also, I just went into my co-worker's office to smell his jar of peanut butter. He took a hit off of it also because he's in the midst of SuperLent - Greek Orthodox Holy Week. Yes, we are so desperate that we were huffing Skippy.

Besides the taquerias along Western, there are other incidental tortures that I am encountering. Improv Power Couple Shalene graciously repaid me for shooting up Oscar, their diabetic cat, by leaving me an basket filled with chocolate and the entire Easter line of Peeps. I can fend off the Peeps pretty well, but those Reeses' peanut butter eggs, oh man. Then there were my pals going to the Horseshoe for Easter Brunch. BBQ plus roller derby girls on a Sunday morning. Can I blame them? Oh yeah, and the Chicago Reader had it's food issue this week. All those lovely pictures of luxuriant, savory, over-priced, snobby delicacies.

But I kvetch not because this is complete torture, but because I have little willpower. But thanks for listening. Who knows what I should do with a dandelion green?

The Line of Crazy

2006-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Line of Crazy

I was walking around last night in Lincoln Square around 9:00 p.m. Beautiful night. Big, bright moon with wispy clouds across its face. Couldn't be a nicer evening for a stroll. What was going on in my head? "Boy I'd like a cigarette!" All things considered, I quit smoking pretty easily despite having a pretty robust habit that meant hitting up the Marlboro Man for between 2/3 - 1 pack of smokes each day. For the most part my cravings weren't bad and I've adhered unflinchingly to my personal rule that I can only smoke on foreign soil* - a "when in Rome" ethos of emphysema risk. So, I was jonesing.

It's strictly associative. Warm nights, especially when combined with porch access, remind me of college and recklessness and the freedom to generally be a retard. Part and parcel of this catastrophic retardation was smoking. Hence the cravings. So I'm wanting to fire up when I get to the northeast corner of Lawrence and Western preparing to cross Lawrence into the Square proper. Waiting for the light this grizzled, though surely not as old as he looked, man pleads to me for a cigarette.

"Man, you got a cigarette?"
Somewhat perplexed since he wasn't dressed for soothsaying or mind-reading, "Huh?"
"Got a smoke."
"Sorry."
He turns for a moment and grunts inaudible at a nearby light pole, "Man, I need a cigarette."
"Sorry, I quit. I've been there."
"Urrrrr. I might just have to beat someone for a smoke, man."
"Ah."
"Not you man. But you won't tell anyone will ya? I might just have to."
"Hey, good luck."

I took meeting this scrappy aspiring assault-and-batterer as a sign. A strung-out angel who came to earth to dissuade would-be smokers and beat the tar out of current smokers. Heart warming.

But this is all just a segue into what amounts to a half-health beat/half love advice column. Quite frankly I feel like shit. I lack energy. I eat like every other American who has a date with an obese, diabetic destiny. Another words, like the guy who takes his pink slip and last paycheck down to the riverboat casino, I am vulnerable for a quick fix. Mr. S., a friend of mine, has come through.

I'm a fan of Mr. S. He's exceedingly bright, but with an intelligence that is rather accessible, and he gets infectiously excited about his activities and interests. He explained to me this weekend that he recently went on an 11-day detoxification diet. Not one that is particularly filled with bizarre powders and mixes and roots (though the phrases "psyllium husk" and "ox bile extract" are mentioned). Essentially it is a regimen designed to get all the crap out of your system and to minimize sugars and fats (that means no sugar, caffeine, alcohol, breads, pasta, etc.).

Normally I would never go in for something like this, but Mr. S sold it so well. How great he felt. How he slept better and woke up rested. All these sound like things I should look into. But again, me on a diet? Doesn't sound like me. Might have something to do with the fact that I possess minimal willpower when it comes to food and I dream of finding a brunch buffet that offers cold Chinese food on the menu. Then when considering how crappy I felt, I found yet another strung out angel, or rather I read the nutritional facts on the muffin I usually pick up for breakfast every morning. Here's an excerpt:

Calories: 240
Fat Calories: 100, Total Fat 11g (18% DV)
Cholesterol: 35 mg (12% DV)
Sugar: 13g

OK. I should eat oatmeal. Then I glanced at the serving size: "about 1/3 muffin." Hmmm. Now I know that the idea that a can of soda is two servings has been a farce for a long time, but 1/3 of a muffin? You see where this is going. Call me Robert Downey Jr. because I need some detox.

Seems simple. There's a hitch. I am making a concerted effort to date. As Chris Rock said of dating, "When you meet someone for the first time, you're not meeting them. You're meeting their representative." Hardly an unfair assessment. Now, who the hell wants to meet a representative in the throes of a detox.

"You know, I've had a great time. You have the most beautiful brown eyes. And your hair, it's...it's like psyllium husk. [take her hand in mine and intently gaze into her eyes] Before we go any further...I think we should both take out ox bile extract....just in case."

Yeah, that'll be awesome. Still, I think I'm going to be starting the program tomorrow. So if you have any suggestions as to what I say when a girl asks, "Um, this is such a great restaurant you picked. Why are you only eating carrots, chard, and flaxseeds?" please chime in.

*I have yet to decide whether or not this means that I am permitted to scale the walls of a foreign embassy, smoke a butt, and then climb back over without being in violations of the terms set forth.

Tradition

2006-04-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

Tradition

I would like to wish everyone out there a Happy Passover (Good Passover? Peppy Passover? Gnarly Passover?). As those of you who know me can attest, I am one Jew who takes the rites and rituals of my religion extremely seriously. So, I just want to take time out to remember this important holiday.

Passover is the week long celebration of the Jews Battle Against the Pharaoh. It would result in the end of their enslavement at the hands of the Egyptians, as well as their departure from the pyramid speculation market into other forms of investment. The battle involved rivers of blood, locusts, and all Egyptian first-born children being killed when flat UFOs (represented by matzos) came down over their houses, shot them with lasers, thus covering their bodies with boils which got infected when they popped and were licked by the second plague, that of the hallucinogenic toads. Then, at the climax of the Battle, Moses led his people across the parted Red Sea. The waters then closed behind the Jews, leaving Pharaoh's army to either drown or be devoured my man-eating gefilte fish. But, alas, this is not purely a celebration. It is also a time for Jewish men to reflect upon their lot - that no matter how much they try, they will never be as cut as Yul Brenner.

The Story of the Jews, as only Hollywood could tell it.

Many people also wonder what the relationship is between Easter and Passover. Jesus was a Jew, and a fine one at that, but he was something of a joker and illusionist always turning water into wine and whatnot. Amateur stuff, but he did it with flair. Think GOB from Arrested Development, but with immeasurable serenity and a robe. The legend goes that Jesus finally pissed too many people off when he crashed the Pharisees big annual Seder bash. When the host rabbi's youngest son asked "Why is this night different than all other nights?" Jesus stood up, claimed "Because you've never seen this before!" and then proceeded to pull a rabbit from a yarmulke, place it on the Seder plate, leaving all to watch in horror as it laid a chocolate egg. He was not invited back the next year.

But some people among the Pharisees, who frankly liked dinner theater (didn't know that Jesus was the first Jewish Vaudevillian, didya?), encouraged Jesus to throw his own Seder. His popularity as an entertainer was growing and so too was the clamor to make the next performance better and more innovative than the last. The pressure of one hundred Dave Chapelles weighed on his mind. Finally, he devised a feat of such daring and endurance that it would send David Blaine into a permanent fetal position. At the end of a delicious meal, Jesus would have his lovely assistants crucify him, leave him to die, and then resurrect himself and fly (seemingly without wires!) into the Heavens.

Some say it was an unparalleled triumph, elevating him into the pantheon of illusionists for all times. Others weep at the fact that he may have pulled it off and proved to the Pharisees that a little showmanship goes a long way, but that it ultimately left his throngs of adoring fans wondering what could have been if he had stayed around to develop his gifts further. Either way, to this day, children still paint brightly colored eggs to remember the consummate performer, Jesus.

A Proposed Dichotomy for the Debaclypse

2006-04-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

A Proposed Dichotomy for the Debaclypse

It's a rough universe out there. Lots of Battles for Supremacy goin' on, and that's for damned sure. Those classic battles of Good vs. Evil. They never go out of style. Then there are the more symbolic ones of Light vs. Dark. That's always a good one. Oh yeah, W. has the With Us vs. Against Us battle, but that is hardly catchy. I'd like to propose that the War of All Against All be fought in different terms: Awesome vs. Suck. And if you don't believe that such battles are not being waged in this mortal coil, I ask you to consult the struggles of awesome Arrested Development against its inimical (and sucky) Murdochian Overlord. That's right; it's on!

Wrigleyville, Chicago, IL: The stage for this Eternal Struggle

I love baseball and I think that it is especially good in Chicago. And after spending my childhood trying to watch games at Shea Stadium in Flushing (if you haven't been, Shea has the twin draws of being a stadium of monumental hideousness and LaGuardia-adjacent so fans and players are in constant fear of being sucked into the engines of passing jets like a bunch of geese) I very much enjoy the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. But I fucking despise Cub Fans...and I don't simply mean people who root for the success of the Chicago Cubs Team in the arena of competitive baseball. I mean "Cub Fans" in the local colloquial sense: (1) drunken frat boys who know nothing about baseball but are master calligraphers when given the right tools: a bladder full of cheap beer, an alcohol-deflated cock (in-hand of course), and the fence out back of Murphy's Bleachers and (2) the women who love them.

Last weekend the baseball season opened and there were hordes of 1s and 2s bumping into each other, buying one another Old Style, and screeching slurred pick-up lines across Clark St. One assumes that groping and anonymous sex ensued. There was one funny scene. It was at Southport and Waveland (roughly). Two guys were standing on opposite corners trying to maximize their probability of hailing a cab. Cub Fan One, lets call him Dean, took his eyes off the prize and a trixie beat him out for the cab. Cub Fan Two, I think "Brandon" works, got enraged at this sloppy execution of taxi-hailing offense (rather Cub-like in his failure to execute the fundamentals, Dean was). Brandon flipped and got all Mike Ditka on Dean. "What the fuck was that? Did you take initiative? You gotta take initiative!" It's a true story, but it's a life lesson too.

I was in Wrigleyville not to proselytize to the "Cub Fans," but to see Gogol Bordello at the Metro. People, listen to me. If you have not seen this band live, you need to. To quote a friend of mine after she saw them for the first time, "I forgot who my favorite band was." Their lead singer is simply a charismatic gypsy lunatic (and former busker, a favorite word of mine) who may actually be made of pure energy. They used to describe themselves as "Ukranian Gypsy Punk Cabaret." But now they also have this hispanic guy who comes out and grabs the mic every now and then for some reason. I guess they are more populist gypsy punk manic freakshow, with accompaniment.

If you didn't go to the show, you missed:

Seeing a guy who appeared to be a Russian Vampire (he was about 6'6", wore a huge leather jacket, a number of gold chains clearly styles after the Mr. T jewelry oeuvre, sunglasses, knee length boots with a ring of 2 in. spikes radiating around the ankles, and a big black furry hat.
Hot Asian art school dancers.
Sergei!
The fire pail.
Eugene Hutz and Pamela Racine crowd-surfing on a bass drum, at the same time.

A blog is about the worst place to try to convey the energy of a GB show to someone who hasn't been. Come to think of it, pretty crappy idea for an entry in retrospect. The point is that the Awesome of Bass Drum Crowd Surfing must rise up to stop Tom DeLay's Army of Drunken Minions before, say, the All-Star Break. Yes, that was definitely the point.

Appreciation for Art Appreciation

2006-04-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Appreciation for Art Appreciation

I would like to thank Mr. S for introducing me to the wonderful world of Brandon Bird. I only wish that I knew about him two months ago so I could've sent out Law & Order: Special Valentine's Unit cards.

I Went To A Party School

2006-04-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

I Went To A Party School

Although I attended two schools of higher learning with notoriously high suicide rates, I think that I finally have my chance to rejoice. Cornell University is so rockin' that even the plants booze it up...and they don't fall over drunk. Now I can fit in with this Big Ten Party School crowd.

According to the Director of the Cornell Flower Bulb Research Program (accept no flower bulb research substitute), giving your flowers a nip of hard liquor - tequila, gin, whiskey, whatever - "[is] a simple and effective way to reduce stem and leaf growth." Now, since the flowers themselves show no ill-effects, they bloom with full force but the shorter stems don't keel over. Science in action. Beer and wine don't work apparently. It's only shots for them.

You're probably waiting for the bad pun in this entry; well here it is. Ahem.

I'm so proud to be an alumnus of the school that invented floral alcohol syndrome.

Warning: May Contain Adult Furnishings

2006-04-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

Warning: May Contain Adult Furnishings

“The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (threshold people) are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. As such, their ambiguous and indeterminate attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols...Thus liminality is frequently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon.”

- Victor Turner, The Ritual Process

Just about everyone who has ever taken Intro to Cultural Anthropology has run into the whole Victor Turner "betwixt and between"/ liminality thing. The Forest of Symbols was always the text which I worked from, but I sold my copy during my Anthropology Going Out of Business Sale so I had to scrounge around the Internet to find this quote from The Ritual Process. No matter, you get the point.

For those of you who eschewed the soft science part of your education and opted for practicality and a lifetime of financial solvency, here's the basic scoop: Societies, specifically "primitive" ones, have clearly defined rites and rituals which mark individuals' passages from one social status or identity to another (e.g., initiations into adulthood). Very often there are periods during this transition when the individuals in question aren't quite who they were and aren't yet who they are going to be, i.e., they are betwixt and between social identities. During these times, such people ("liminal personae") inhabit spaces, both physical and metaphorical, which are outside the social order, making them dangerous to those inside said order. Not dangerous like, "He was a rebel! The world tried to give him an identity, but no social order could hold his liminal personae. He lived in the cracks of society, lost in a forest of symbol. He was betwixt...and between!" Although you can think of it like that if you choose.

Anyway, the fun part is that in those ritual times and spaces, when individuals are cast out from the social order, the whole structure is cast into relief. Objects and actions become loaded with symbolic value. This is, of course, because of the overt convergence of the social structure, the material world, and the indigenous cosmology. Damn that's hot! Plus I think the word "nexus" is appropriate somewhere in this whole semiotic soup. But there's no need to go any further into theory since, as you've probably already guessed, this is all about a couch.

* * * * *

I was one of the liminal personae, living betwixt and between one culturally affirmed stage of life and another. We don't think about such ritual liminality quite as much in the industrialized world. Maybe that guy in The Terminal was a true modern...liminoid, but I honestly never saw the movie. While I did not have “a rich variety of symbols” to mark my ambiguity I did have one. One that was a very visible feature in my apartment. A lumpy, saggy, uncomfortable one. It certainly wasn't a symbol which represented the womb since there was to be no curling up on it. I did buy a wine colored cover for my symbol so it had a blood thing going on. Let's just say that I was caught in a space betwixt prolonged adolescence and long-awaited adulthood, between new-found bachelorhood and respectable self-sufficient adult singleness, and I had one shitty-ass seat to watch it all from.

Nothing says transience and lack of status within a social structure than a third-hand futon. For a number of months (Oh, to mark my new identity let us coin a new term for this “number of months.” Hence forth, my “number of months" shall be known as a…"year.”), my reclining moments have been spent on a futon which was generously donated to me by the Fuji-san Furnishings Charitable Trust. It was functional in the sense that it kept me from having to sit on the floor and it made the room seem less empty, but it was low to the ground, lacked any and all cushion, and the top of the mattress was bowed like the impossibly elderly (to use a very inside joke, it was loco sagging). But those days - my Futon Period - are over and I have emerged from my ritual journey reconstituted as an adult.

I don’t know why I waited so long to make this purchase. I’m not a particularly cautious consumer so that’s not it. And I do like to entertain when the opportunity arises so it’s not that I figured that no one would ever come by anyway. Some people will call it laziness, but I’ll just say that I had faith – faith that when the proper couching opportunity came around I would know it. Late last week I knew I had been called. The ButterNugget Interior Design Team was going to Ikea on Friday. A pilgrimage to Schaumburg. (It occurs to me that the religious themes are a little heavy here. Ikea as Mecca. The Cult of the Blonde Wood. “I don’t k now what happened. One day he was Jewish, the next he converted to Swedish Modern.”) I had taken the day off, but there was no sleeping in. We left early.

Like anything long-awaited, the build-up was more fearsome than the experience. Once we arrived it was easy. I was focused and determined. No one would have taken me for an amateur or a fresh initiate. I wasn't like those three schmucks who were walking around the store taking pictures of each other posing with every room accent and umlauted product name tag they could find. Fuck that newbie shit. I'm testing sofas for color, reclinability, and butt cushion coefficient ratios.

I wasn't going for anything too bold. That wasn't me. Or it isn't going to be me. Or something. Simple tasteful comfort. Something I can watch 16 straight hours of The Tick on DVD on one day and entertain some friends with a good malbec and light chatter about Lacan the next. Eureka! There it was. And it came in one piece so I wouldn't have to tear a rotator cuff working those darned allen wrenches. Prefab maturity. How glorious. Now lemme just also buy this coffee table, that bookcase, and, oh, that computer table and chair. And one of those stovetop espresso makers so I have something to sip on my couch under my new blanket. God, I love being betwixt and between!

Finally, I had my receipt in hand and a date for delivery and to be delivered. Adulthood thy name is Värnamo!

As a final note, to fully mark this occasion, I am hoping to have an Evandebacle Has Grown-Up (Furniture)! Party. Details TBA.

Oraclypse Now: Sports Edition

2006-04-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

Oraclypse Now: Sports Edition

Riding high from my perfect[ly inaccurate] Final Four picks, I thought I'd do the betting public a service by making MLB picks.

AL East: Yankees
AL Central: White Sox
AL West: A's
AL Wild Card: Indians

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cardinals
NL West: Dodgers
NL Wild Card: Braves

WS: Indians over Cardinals

While I Was Sleeping

2006-03-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

While I Was Sleeping

A little dream interpretation for you. I haven't been remembering anything of my dreams for some time now. I used to and they were vivid and often hilarious (to me at least). Some may recall such classics as "Parker is the Eyemaster" and "Hope Next Year Is More Like Brazil." But those days of unconscious fecundity are gone. Since I no longer have access to them anymore, when one slips through and gets remembered, even in fragments, I might as well throw it out there for interpretation. Actually, this one is not all that complex, but I really have nothing else to say today.

It starts out on a rooftop in Ithaca, where I went to school. The people there are ones who I vaguely remember. Our time at school overlapped a bit, but they were all younger than me. I try to strike up conversation about people who played significant roles in my college experience, but they only mutter, "Oh yeah, him. I heard a him." Or, "Huh?" My nostalgia wanes.

After a while I go (or am instantly transported) to campus where I stand outside a classroom. Teaching inside is my graduate school advisor. He glances over to me and abruptly ends the class and skips over to me. My advisor, while being a rigorous and brilliant scholar, looks like Big Bird with a salt and pepper Jewfro. Skipping does not give his presence the proper intellectual heft. We walk towards his office and he begins trying to convince me to return to graduate school and continue my work in humorology. Now, I was not a terrible student and he is an excellent teacher, but the most considerable interest that he ever took in my academic work was to insure that I properly enunciated the umlaut in Max Müller's name. I don't think I ever did get it just right. But he kept asking me back, wanting me to continue this important work.

Now, while all of this is going on, my father suddenly appears sitting next to me on the couch in my advisor's office, eating a doughnut (powder a-flyin'), and telling me that we need to get to the San Diego airport (dream logic got us to SD) even though I didn't have a flight out of there for hours. Eventually we left with me having pangs for academia, though I know that returning would be a horrible mistake. The dream ended with us driving around and around San Diego in a slowly tightening spiral until we reached the airport for my eight hour flight to NYC (five hours in the air + three hours lost to time zones).

How She Almost Became My Buggles (Part II)

2006-03-28T08:02:00.000-08:00

How She Almost Became My Buggles:
The untold story of a lost debaclyptic segment

(Part II)

I’ll totally understand if you don’t like her. She’s not for everyone. She’s earnest and cute, but some of her lyrics are pretty adolescent, her modulation between soft girlish quaver and wildchild scream can be formulaic, and, as the ButterNugget fashion critic pointed out, her personal sense of style borrows a tad heavily from bike messenger chic. Hey, shut up. She’s my would-be imaginary girlfriend, not yours. You don’t have to imaginary date her.

Emma Louise “Scout” Niblett first came to my attention for the best reason of all: marketing. A silly name gets you places. And, by all accounts, Niblett is her real last name. Her music, I’ll admit, is not all that spectacular. Pretty minimalist. But I listen quite a lot. Most of the songs are just her on drums or guitar (or both – see pic 2 below) as she warbles and howls away. The comparisons are usually made to Cat Power, but since I only starting listening to Cat Power because I read that she sounded like Scout, I don’t find the resemblance too edifying.

Voila, Scout!

I think I’m a sucker for her lyrics. There are certain kinds of sappy, crappy images and phrasings that I am easy prey to. I think it’s commonly known as the Hair Metal Paradox – that seeming contradiction that causes the Youth Gone Wild to turn to mush when someone plays “I Remember You.” So when Scout serves up some cliché of young love (“And we drove across the bridge / And we missed the exit / For Treasure Island / But I was so excited / Just to be in your car / Oh fuck Treasure Island / Oh fuck Treasure Island") or makes some statement that is so matter-of-fact that it’s almost ridiculous (“And truth be told / I don’t recall / The moment you body became exquisite to me") I tend to listen. Why? Hmmmm. Why?

Though it’s probably best that I don’t, I have to admit that part of the attraction is also that her voice goes from shy schoolgirl to feral lithium patient at the drop of a hat. I know, I know. All you little Freuds out there can stop pointing me towards the couch, I'm well aware of all the perversions that come when the quiet girl next door meets Linda Blair. Keep in mind that Ms. Niblett is actually older than me. Why aren’t you calling that cradle robber a big ol’ howling perv?

Scout at Schuba's...playing guitar at the drums for some reason

Anyway… I’d like to add a bit about the actual show. I got to see Scout Niblett this past Friday at Schuba’s. Scout was good. Not great. Part of the problem was that it started slow (basically the first few songs she sang were the slower, non-screamy ones, plus the band right before her, Nethers, was slow, moody crap). When she finally sat down to the drums to sing “Pom Poms” ("Does anyone know a cute girl with some pom poms?/'Cos everyone needs someone to spell out their name" – move over Bob Dylan!), things started to pick up nicely. If the shitty ass mics didn’t keep going off it might have been awesome. I could have done without her shaggy, hippie occasional drummer who she introduced as Devendra. I think that was an inside joke of some sort.

A screamy one

For those of you who prefer freaky guys to petite bike messenger singers, the opening act was a sight to behold. Tim Fite can, I suppose, be described as alt-country with a hint of twangy rap. He sang moderately sensical songs about trying to find love and setting barns on fire because he heard the cows laughing at him. Real universal stuff. But it ain’t about the music.

His shtick was worth the price of admission. Tim is, well, the ButterNugget music editor said it best, Appalachian-looking. He played guitar and sang with movement and expressions that were so spastic and inbred that one wondered if it were possible for Joe Cocker and Sling Blade to have a lovechild.

See what I mean?

Meanwhile his brother sat on some milk crates and pressed buttons on a laptop. The laptop controlled video which was projected onto a screen behind them. The screen is where the awesome lived. The video clips were of Tim Fite sitting in a wheelchair on the far left of the frame in front of an empty white background. He was playing an instrument, guitar or keyboard depending on the song, and singing in synch with the song being played live. On the screen he incorporated all the tics and vacant stares of his moonshine-soaked autistic persona. Honestly, even though we were all worried that the Tim on screen might run off-camera and start banging his head against the wall, he was much easier to watch that than it was to stare too long at the in-person Tim Fite.

The prevailing theory was that this was pure performance art, especially considering that he seemed relatively normal when he was packing up his guitar and he carefully put on overalls over his ill-fitting, West Virginia Sunday-best suit immediately after leaving the stage. No matter. There was something about him that made his every move socially awkward and maximally disconcerting. Anyone who has seen the movie Chuck and Buck knows that kind of observer discomfort. Still, it was entertaining and I’d see him again. Just as long as he stays away from my imaginary rock star non-girlfriend.

Dapper Tim

A Sports Interlude

2006-03-27T07:01:00.000-08:00

A Sports Interlude

I just want to congratulate the schools who made it to the Final Four in my Bracket: U Conn, Pittsburgh, Iowa, and Boston College. I don't care what the scores or the papers or reality say, you guys are the true winners. Thank you for showing us the true meaning of competition and for making me 100% successful in not picking the 2006 Final Four.

How She Almost Became My Buggles (Part I)

2006-03-26T18:57:00.000-08:00

How She Almost Became My Buggles:
The untold story of a lost debaclyptic segment

(Part I)

Everyone likes regular features, right? Stuff that happens in cycles gives us something to look forward to. They make us feel safe because it proves the world is reliable. I, for instance, like the "Good Eating" section of the Chicago Tribune. Others like to be told about nutty things that Andy Rooney noticed during the week on 60 Minutes. Still others get all hot when their computer does its weekly virus scan. (“C’mon Norton, find those naughty, naughty viruses. Grrrrr.) So, I was going to do a regular segment on my blog. It was going to be called "Imaginary Rock Star Girlfriend of the Month." Regularly, I was going to gush absurdly about some female rocker who was supposed to be my temporary companion in a way that others would hopefully understand to be ironic and self-effacing. Or maybe they would interpret it as creepy, which would probably not be entirely unjustified.

Part of the reason this would-be stroke of genius never got started was that it is, at its heart, kinda pathetic and would likely be an impediment to finding a real live girlfriend. Worse still was the prospect that I would immerse myself in the feature so much that I would pull a Nurse Betty and drop the "imaginary" from "imaginary rock star girlfriend." To paraphrase a frequent farkism, jailarity might ensue.

The other thing that kept me from implementing this was the pressure that of course went along with picking the right woman to be the first Imaginary Rock Star Girlfriend of the Month. You know, the one who would set the tone of the feature and really make sure to set a true gold standard for all future honorees to aspire to. I know what you're saying, "evandebacle, if you are worried about setting a benchmark for the quality of your imaginary girlfriend, then maybe the priority you give to you life issues may not quite be in order." I say, "Maybe, but you clearly know nothing about the importance of firsts in American culture." When I was a kid I asked my father whether or not Jackie Robinson was chosen by the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the color barrier in baseball because he was the absolute best player available. The answer was "No." Robinson was an excellent player, to be sure, but he was, more importantly, tough enough to take the inevitable racist abuse and do it with enough composure and dignity to prove to the more ignorant corners of society that African-Americans could play in the white Majors.

MTV is another fine example. Choosing “Video Killed the Radio Star” as their premiere was prescient. Was the fact that “You Better Run” by Pat Benatar was the second video of any consequence? Fuck no. Though, at the time, she might have made an excellent Imaginary Rock Star Girlfriend of the month. No matter. I had my charge. I needed the right rockin’ lady to start things off right.

Narrowing it down was the tough part. All I knew was that it couldn’t be Stevie Nicks (inside joke alert). My first inclination was to go with Kathleen Hanna. She had been a pioneer with Bikini Kill and therefore could handle all the pressures and scrutiny which would surely follow the First Rock Star Girlfriend of the Month. I very much enjoy her music. What guy wouldn’t be want his best imaginary girl to sing him lines like “I hope the food tastes better in heaven / I know there's lots of rad queer boys up there.” Maybe that wasn’t the best one to choose. Hmmmm. Anyway, without objectifying her, which Ms. Hanna assuredly would not approve of, I will say that she is an attractive (and strong) woman. And, to give her some added cred, she is dating a Beastie Boy. As we all know, the Beasties provided young Jewish boys like myself with role models when we needed one the most. They saved us from a life of Woody Allen nebbishism. So KH seemed like a good choice. But maybe not a great one. Too obvious I thought.

Imaginary Rock Star Girlfriend of the Month hopeful Kathleen Hanna in her early days...before she knew crushing debaclyptic rejection

I also considered Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. She’s a little bit more of the moment than Hanna. She is kinda sexy, in spite of the fact that almost every photo I’ve ever seen of her seems to capture her making herself as slutty and unattractive as possible. In the end, I felt that she would not carry the title gracefully. As I have said before, Karen O seems to be a “VH1’s Behind the Music” waiting to happen.

I ran through some others, but. my choice, it turned out, was a bit more obscure, a singer who a few people have heard of, but most hadn’t. And one who seemed to have a far more consistently positive spin on the world than some might expect from me. Cute and perky. Somewhat different on the fashion front, but altogether the right fit. Who is it? The answer when we return…

Kohl's Follow-Up

2006-03-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

Kohl's Follow-Up

I neglected to mention that two of the premium wheelchair lines marketed by the company Colors in Motion and clearly aimed at the X-Games generation are the "Spazz" and "Spazz-G." ("No compromise. Ultra-Lightweight. Ultra-Hip. Ultra-Adjustable. Ultra-Durable. Ultra-Affordable. Ultra-Positioning. Ultra-Stylish.") Given the slang usage of "spaz" to mean "from spastic, the disability," it seems that we have another derogatory inversion underway.

Also, I was informed by South Siiiide Morita that Kohl's may be appealing to residents of a nearby nursing facility, which she has heard referred to as "Cabrini Greenberg."

How Kohl's Rolls

2006-03-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

How Kohl's rolls*

For no particular reason I have found myself inundated with portrayals of people in wheelchairs. This is not a bad thing per se. In fact, it wouldn't be a thing at all if it hadn't gotten so damned weird. The good news is that portrayals of para/quadriplegics, especially of young people who are wheelchair-bound, are much better than they used to be. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but it always seemed that any early recollection that I have of any movie, television show, PSA, or educational poster which included anyone with a disability of any kind has that After School Special stench we all know well.

Luckily, with the new millennium we as a culture have learned that equal and fair treatment need not always go hand-in-hand with a stiflingly PC, everyone's-a-winner mentality. I actually first came to this conclusion with regard to portrayals of disabilities when I encountered the cartoonist John Callahan in junior high school. Callahan was left a quadriplegic after a car accident in the 1970's. Since then he has been all about the un-PC.

Don't worry I'll get to my point soon.

And then Murderball really did away with the "everyone's a winner" mentality by showing how much ass can be kicked from a wheelchair. Of course, I would make the argument that the presence of a zombie wheeling around outside of the Winchester pub in Shaun of the Dead is actually more revolutionary movie moment, but that is a debate for another day. The important thing is that Murderball is not simply a cinema depiction (and I'd hazard a guess that Shaun isn't either). Nope. As with everyone else who wants to be badass in our culture, the wheelchair-bound as free as anyone else to consume an Xtreme identity, and equally free to look ridiculous in doing so. If offer pimpin' your ride with wheelchair spinners are proof positive as that. But our freedom these days are, above all else, is the freedom to consume so why not? I just hope no one goes for the neon runner lights under the seat.

Now I get to the point, and I ask you all for help in explaining the following: what the fuck is going on in this picture. I was in a Kohl's department store last weekend when I came upon the scene below.

All I really want to know (and I could have posed this question without the rambling preface) is why is there a mannequin in a wheelchair? It's not a cool mannequin either. She's dowdy and she has a dowdy friend. Her chair isn't cool. It's a classic hospital emergency room model, black with "Kohl's" stenciled in spray paint on the back. How do they want the customer to react? Is there a care facility nearby and are they just catering to a very specific population? Does this mean that I can come back in a few months and see her parked in her chair sporting the fall line?

Please post any and all theories about this odd display.

*all apologies to Gwendolyn for basically stealing her title and topic

A Caveat Emptor Quickie

2006-03-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

A Caveat Emptor Quickie

This may be the oddest buyer beware experience I've had. It was a friend's birthday this week and I figured that I had to get him a pretty decent gift since he is both a good friend and one who keeps me well-stocked with free stuff quite consistently. I decided on a rather grown up guy gift: a nice bottle of scotch. Scotch knowledge is not my strong suit, so I sought the advice of the round, messy-haired proprietor with the reddish Brimley-esque mustache and the big ol' wire glasses at the liquor store. I told him my requirements and he honed in.

"Glenfiddich is good for your price, but really The Balvenie is a great 12 year old for the value."

Awesome. As I whip out the plastic I am really, really pleased that my purchase is authentic-sounding even though I've never heard of it, which in turn is good since it makes it uncommon. Then, as my card is being swiped, my Single Malt Swami off-handed says, "Well, at least I've heard that one is good. I haven't used the stuff in 18 years...since I started taking lithium."

[sound effect of needle being dragged across a record]

Fred the Fucker

2006-03-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Fred the Fucker

This is one of those "I-read-the-news-today-oh-boy" posts. I had the distinct displeasure of checking the news online this morning and finding a story about my nominee for America's Most Revolting Human Being, Rev. Fred Phelps. For those not familiar with Reverend Phelps, he is the hate-mongering douche bag force behind God Hates Fags, the information vehicle of the Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps is also the organizer of the Church-sponsored ultra-compassionate caravan of homophobes who have spent 15+ years protesting the funerals of AIDS victims, hate-crime victims such as Matthew Shepard, and now those of soldiers who have been killed in combat fighting under the flag of out "fag-enabler" nation. In sum, GHF's is "dedicated to preaching the Gospel truth about the soul-damning, nation-destroying notion that 'It is OK to be gay.'" Time well spent I'm sure. Furthermore, regarding the catchy name, Phelps writes "'GOD HATES FAGS' -- though elliptical -- is a profound theological statement, which the world needs to hear more than it needs oxygen, water and bread." (Emphasis and effete tinting provided by me to highlight Rev. Phelps' world-class, restaurant-quality lunacy.) In addition to his nomination for America's Most Revolting Human Being, Mr. Phelps is nominated in the category of Best Adaptation of a Profound Theological Statement for a Redneck Bumper Sticker.

I will admit that I did find one part of his website interesting. Not surprisingly it's in the etymology section. Tucked neatly between his jibber and his jabber, he proffers a theory about the origins of "faggot" to refer to homosexuals. To the shock of all readers God, always ready with a bon mot, came up with it:

"I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord." Amos 4:11. The word translated "firebrand" is the Hebrew word "uwd," which comes from a Hebrew verb meaning "to rake together" (or, "to gather together"). In short, the Hebrew word "uwd" is talking about burning sticks of wood that are gathered together. That is what the English word "faggot" means. Amos 4:11 could just as easily be translated "...ye were as a faggot plucked out of the burning..."

Not a bad guess. Way to go Phelpsy! Of course, as soon as you click over to "Fag Facts" you get winners like:

Fags...19 times more likely to die in a traffic accident
Depending on the city, 39-59% of fags are infected with intestinal parasites like worms, flukes and amoebae, which is common in filthy third world countries
The median age of death of dykes is 45 (only 24% live past age 65). The median age of death of a married heterosexual woman is 79.

But does this really earn him my nomination for America's Most Revolting Human Being? There are plenty of bigots out there. He's not even a credible threat to people's rights on a large scale. After all, his church is composed of relatives and he's never going to lead the Christian Right in America spending his weekends protesting "the Old Dying Heretic Billy Graham." Plus, no one should be surprised anymore by the irony of using religion to promote hate. Hell, Phelps doesn't even pretend to be doing all this in the name of Christ's Love so it's not even that ironic. He comes right out and says that no one can be Christian while ignoring the hate of God in the Bible. Too bad "Christ is Love" is not up this year in that bumper sticker category. It would have made for quite a showdown.

No, I abhor this guy because, against my better judgment, I would love the opportunity to try to reason through his arguments with him. This would go poorly, of course, because I tend to be short with the stupid and illogical classes of our society. I would just get really angry and probably call him a decrepit retard who, while not actually a homosexual, is certainly vaguely titillated by the dark, godless world he imagines gays inhabiting, one where a firebrand may plucked out of the burning and inserted gently up his ass.

Oscarred

2006-03-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

Oscarred

Since this blog is actually named for an Oscar-winning film, I guess I should throw out a few observations from last night's broadcast:

Jon Stewart's line about Oscar's Tribute to Montages was, hands down, the best observation of the night. Reading on in search of more acute insight is a waste of your time.
Can someone please take Jessica Alba to the zoo?
I couldn't get the notion out of my head that Michelle Williams' dress was made entirely of pickled daikon.
OK, I do have one comment about the montages. If the Academy would cut out just one montage, they could free up 30 extra seconds for screwballs like the guys who made March of the Penguins to make us all giggle.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was uncanny in Capote. Go watch him.
My only real disappointment was that Good Night, and Good Luck got shut out. Sure, Crash was an (kinda) unflinching look at the complexities of racism in America. I just happen to think that the country really needs to go see a movie that highlights the fact that the press wasn't always a brigade of ineloquent, ineffectual sensationalist pussies, too cowardly to scrutinize those in power.
But why end on angry note when we can take another look at Michelle Williams in her lovely gown by Dolce and Benihana?

Thick Description

2006-03-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

Thick Description

These are a couple of thoughts inspired, though by no means about, a friend of mine. So before I start getting hate mail or death threats or simply called a jerkface, I want everyone (especially the person in question's significant other) to know that this entry is about language and togetherness. It is not about me objectifying select womanly part - though I admittedly may stray from my more noble intentions for the sake of a joke. Specifically, this is about the language used to describe females who are not naturally waifish, nor inclined to shoot up enough heroin and/or stick their fingers far enough down their throat enough times to simulate waifishness. Also I will not be making any judgements as to the content of trunk junk, nor will I attempt to formulate that sexiest of ratios of cushion-to-pushin'.

A friend of mine was recently told that she was "thick" but that this was fine because it meant that she was, in the most complimentary of senses, "juicy." That someone may be called "thick" is not all that interesting from a linguistic point of view, but juicy is because it's metaphorical and therefore reveals a web of cognitive associations. It should be pointed out that the giver of this succulent complement was African-American. This will have grand social and political implications by the end of this posting.

I began to wonder about encodings of full-figuredness in other languages and cultures. Naturally, I turned to good ol' Yiddish. Nobody is more aphorism- and analogy-happy than we Jews after all. Kvetching alone keeps us all way more linguistically vigorous than the average bear.

The logical term to consult was zaftig. Urban dictionary (the semantic source for the sedentary surfer) offers four definitions and examples which are of varying usefulness and taste:

1. buxom; a woman with a well-developed figure
She was a zaftig, dewy-eyed lass.

2. Deliciously plump, or carrying your extra weight very well.
All the guys dig my big hips, my succulent boobs and my juicy avalanche behind. They freak out every time I say I'm going on a diet...

3. (Yiddish) plump and juicy
He's got a new zaftigah girlfriend.

4. Synonym for fat, chunky, beefish, large, plump, etc., often used in personal ads.
Single zaftig looking for fun or just tacos.

Well how 'bout dem juicy apples - look at #2 and #3! Turns out that zaftig comes from zaftik which literally means "juicy" and has its roots in the Middle High German saft which meant "juice or sap."

Now, I will grant that this linguistic parallel is not perfect and actually seems to refer to two distinct takes on femininity. Zaftig is used more refer to women who are bosomy, thus representing the nurturing aspects of motherhood. "Juicy" seems to focus more on what common parlance currently calls "bootyliciousness." From this we can infer that, the African-American English term refers not to the nurturing liquid of mother's milk as representing by bosominess, but rather to the analogy of the posterior to a ripe fruit or melon and...Oh how should I put this?...a propensity for said fruit to yield natural reducers of copulatory friction. But let us not despair or succumb to distraction. There is common ground to be found.

What I am saying is that this is an opportunity for the Black and Jewish communities to come together. Yesterday I heard an interview with Bernard Henri-Levy, French (and absurdly French-sounding) intellectual and author of American Vertigo. One of the points he made about America was that, while political correctness is generally good in that it directly confront the encoding of racism and prejudice in language, it also has had the deleterious side effect of creating a culture of victimhood oneupsmanship. This is precisely what keeps Jewish and Black communities to work more closely to secure social justice. My Holocaust trumps your slavery. The Warsaw Ghetto is gone, but people still live in the decaying projects. Et cetera. Of course, this is nothing new. The powers that be, when they get tired of simple scape-goating, love to turn minorities against each other. But it needn't be that way.

So today, thanks to the common language, that Jews and African-American share, I am proposing to organize the Million Juice March. Blacks and Jews marching arm-and-arm. It worked for the Freedom Rides and voter registration; it can work now.

Two Fer Tuesday...A day late

2006-02-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

Two Fer Tuesday...A day late

There are some days when detail just ain't happening. On such dates the dreaded "random thoughts and observations" blog entry rears its ugly head. Here goes.

Conference Room Carnival

It's usually foolhardy to blog about one's boss, but whatever. This one is pretty innocuous.

At my company, a small intimate affair with a lake view and an air of chumminess, a good lunch is one eaten in the conference room in monastic silence. This ideal state is rarely achieved because my boss is fond of talking, whether anyone listening or not. Papers can be held in front of each of our faces in an effort to relax, read, and digest our food, but still he desperately tries to engage us in whatever only he happens to be interested in. I am conspicuously not fond of listening because when I do I lose my patience with the idiocy of the conversation and engage my boss in less than civilized debate. You'll understand why.

Today wasn't going well for Boss. No one was taking the bait. I don't know what strategies they were employing. I was too busy to notice - my head down over one of the hundreds of Sudoku puzzles I keep around for just such occasions when I need to ignore the man who signs my checks. But in a brilliant oratory gambit my boss finally said something that made each of us at least cock our heads, if not actually make eye contact.

"Hey," he exclaimed "'Mardi Gras' means 'Fat Tuesday'. I didn't know that. Did you know that?"

Uhhhhhhh.

Incidentally, other misfired conversation starters have included, "Don't you think we could get the terrorists could stop if a asteroid hit Mecca? They'd take it as a sign." and "Phil Simms isn't still playing? No way!"

Roadmap to Peace 4: Roadmap in Space!

Take note future business leaders. You might have what it takes to be a CEO.

The Theoretical Limit to Nostalgia

This gets lumped into the observation category of blog filler. I was in Target this weekend and was somewhat bewildered to see that ALF is on DVD. For the sake of disclosure, I will say that I liked ALF when it was on. My father taped it for me and I'd watch it when I went to his house once a week. I was young and there was something familiar about the dumpy, hairy, hook-nosed, bitter, sarcastic creature with a taste for strange foods. Hmmm. Wonder what that could have been about?

ALF-related humor has really never lost its appeal.

What I want to know is simple: are there any boundaries to the events, programming, and fashion that we are willing to reconsume in the name of nostalgia? My guess is, probably not. Apparently, TVLand has been airing "ALF's Hit Talk Show" for a couple of years now, starring Melmac's own Gordon Schumway. IMDB does not, however, list a movie in the works. Too bad.

Now if NBC would only release the only seaon of "The Misfits of Science," starring an adorable 21-year old Courteney Cox, then all other nostalgia would be forgiven.