Zak's Thoughts, Rants, and General Detritus

On Wise Latinas and the Republicans Denial of the Existence of Both Race and Racism

2009-07-15T22:12:00.003-05:00

Because I am an unbelievable dork, I have found myself listening to hours upon hours of dry, mind-numbing coverage of the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. I can't help it, but I'm a sucker for the sights and sounds of democracy in action, excruciating and glacial though it may be in this case.

Needless to say, at times I have been bored and frustrated by the drab non-answers that the process demands of nominees, as real candor is punished. Cards are held altogether too closely to the vest for my taste, but I understand that eggshell-walking is the only way to really go in one of these things. Sad though it may be, on the off-chance one right-winger feigns offense and starts a large enough media-circus, the whole house of cards of the nomination falls. Lord knows I wouldn't want anyone parsing my past statements this thoroughly...nor could I keep my temper in check when being misquoted by Jon Kyl or Jeff Sessions.

What is really troubling to me, as opposed to mildly frustrating, is the continual batter on the now infamous "wise Latina" quotation. For the record, this is the quotation in some context:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

(For the full text of the lecture, see here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html ...yep, the New York Times...that liberal hack-rag has the indecency of putting whole texts up as opposed to cynically excerpted soundbites)

So, first and briefly, a defense of the statement: Language and rhetoric are not universal and are, when used by thoughtful individuals, not conceived in a vacuum. This excerpt is from a lecture entitled "A Latina Judge's Voice" delivered as the "Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture" in 2001 at the esteemed University of California Boalt Hall College of Law. Contextually, Judge Olmos was a distinguished alumnus of Boalt who dedicated his time there to recruiting minority students and worked to promote equality and dialogue among people from diverse backgronds. His namesake memorial lecture series was founded in his honor to promote diversity and dialogue. In short, the premise of both Judge Sotomayor's lecture was to inspire law students to seek out a diversity of opinions. It was also intended to inspire those of non-traditional judicial backgrounds (e.g. those not of white, priveleged backgrounds) to understand that their voices and perspective matter and should be cherished. In this context, these words make sense.

Now, let's cut through the shit: I'm a bed-wetting liberal who has long hoped for a more diverse Supreme Court, but I'm willing to admit, the scandal surrounding these words is far from surprising. The phrasing was both short-sighted and impolitic. Slight modifications, such as "a wise Latina with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach an equally valuble conclusion" or even, perhaps, "different conclusion." She didn't say those things, of course, and thus the shitstorm.

That being said, Senators Jon Kyl, Jeff Sessions, and Lindsay Graham (amongst others, though these are the most pronounced Republican voices thusfar in the hearings) are parsing and evaluating Judge Sotomayor's words in manner that underscores a basic logical fallacy often promoted by the Right: they see things without being biased by the racial background and call shots with some sort of objectivity. This is, of course, absolute horseshit.

Firstly, the entire concept of objectivity is a fundamentally flawed concept. The unreliability of human memory, the undercurrents of bias within our own minds that we can't even comprehend on any conscious level, and the way the human mind makes decisions (often on some lizard brain level, later justified by the "conscious mind") make the entire of objectivity a tenuous notion at best.

No, what Senators Kyl, Sessions, and Graham identify as "objectivity" with regard to race or class or gender or ability or sexual orientation or any other socially salient identity is better described as "normativity." Mssrs. Kyl, Sessions, and Graham don't see things in terms of race. This is not abnormal, but rather the most pernicious and dominant yet subtle form of white power. (NOTE: I mean "white power" in the most literal sense, had I intended the neo-fascist movement, I would have capitalized.) As caucasians make up the majority of our population and a disporportionate majority of our power structures, whiteness is the normative status of race in American society. As the normative racial status, all other racial statuses become aberrations. Normative status gives whiteness that most coveted position in American culture: that of being un-raced or merely human. (NOTE: I am borrowing heavily from arguments laid out brilliantly i Richard Dyer's phenomenal and eye-opening book White. I am not citing specifically for two reasons: 1) I have not read this book in years, but remember over-arching arguments. 2) This is a blog that no one reads, not a dissertation.)

Senators Kyl, Sessions, and Graham (as well as myself, for that matter) get to walk through life, for the most part, un-raced. Our worldview may well recognize the races of others, but often fail to see our own whiteness because we have always been surrounded by white faces in our power structures. We see so much of it that we don't see it, we only see what differs.

Judge Sotomayor, however, has always been acutely aware of her race. From the television of her youth (Perry Mason, apparently), to the overwhelming whiteness of her classmates at Princeton, I can only imagine that Judge Sotomayor has always had her race visible to herself in ways that most whites never experience. Not only in acts of outright racism, but in all sorts of minor, quotidian ways too miniscule to even speculate about in detail, racial minorities in American society are constantly confronted with reminders that they are not of the majority, or normative, racial status. This is not always a bad thing. Not all reminders of one's minority status are unjust reminders of dominance in the racial hierarchy, just as not all reminders one's femininity are from the negative actions of patriarchy. One can be reminded that she is Latina in myriad ways and not all are negative. But to say that a Latina is ever not aware that she is Latina is probably quite fallacious. To paraphrase the aforementioned Richard Dyer: race may not always be the only or primary issue at hand in a given situation, but it is never NOT an issue.

So for Senator Graham to imply that were he to have said something akin to Judge Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment with the racial markers reversed that he would have be deemed unable to continue to serve in the Senate, while quite possibly true, is disingenuous and intellectually foolish. There is a false equivalency here between Judge Sotomayor's statement and Senator Graham's theoretical "wise white man" statement.

Moreover, Judge Sotomayor's statement was to show that she is aware that her racial background (as well as her socioeconomic background and her educational background and any and all of her other life experiences) informs her judgments. What Senator Graham is unable to see is that his experiences, including and especially his whiteness, inform his just as well. That she is cognizant of the lens through which she sees the world may well make her more likely to be able to at least attempt to step outside of it.

While some may propose a "colorblind" society as a way of subverting racial prejudice, this is a flawed these on two accounts: 1) It's impossible. 2) It denies us of the cultural variety that make both this nation and this world a very interesting and at times beautiful place. To ignore race is not to remove racial power structures, it is to set the world into a normative/deviant paradigm such as the one in which, apparently, Senator Graham lives with regard to race. We choose to not see race by universalizing our experiences as the norm in a way that can be quietly harmful. We must be cognizant of race, but not hierarchical or prejudicial in our cognizance. We, of the normative race, must struggle always to be aware of our whiteness and the rose-tinted glasses it gives us, even if we've only ever seen the world in pink.

An old joke: An old fish swims by a young fish and asks, "How's the water?" The young fish replies, bemusedly, "What the heck is water?" Judge Sotomayor's Latina wisdom lay in that she knows what water is. Senators Kyl, Sessions, and Graham may well not.

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park

2009-06-29T21:53:00.003-05:00

I've decided to allow myself to be menaced by a very small boy. Whereas for the past few months the background on my computer had been Mark Rothko's Red, Orange, Tan, and Purple (http://abstract-art.com/abstraction/l2_Grnfthrs_fldr/g051_rothko.html) I have just tonight decided to be held hostage by a small, armed, irate little boy by replacing the Rothko painting with Diane Arbus's Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park (http://desertosubterraneo.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/diane_arbus_child_toy_hand.jpg)

I dunno what to say about Arbus. She is highly regarded in mid-20th Century photography and in some ways its easy to understand why. From our general desire to romanticize artists who kill themselves (irony: the last time I posted anything was about David Foster Wallace's suicide) and also becasue there is a transparent gimicky-ness to her photographs.

On the other side, I can't say that this image is wholly without merit. I mean, it's cheesy. It's an arted up, "Hang in there, baby!" poster. But at the same time, while the mass of men may well lead lives of quiet desperation, I have always felt that the desperation ain't so quiet inside. It's nice to see that the filters of adulthood can't even remotely quiet the desperation of this young boy. I need a desperate, clawing child staring me down once in a while I guess.

I'll probably get bored with it much sooner than Rothko, though.

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

2008-09-17T21:58:00.003-05:00

As I have previously noted (and I am not so arrogant to think that anyone reads this with any regularity or in any depth or even is reading this as I type), but I am woefully given to fanboyism. I get girlish in my admiration of artists, especially literary and musical. When I fall in love with an artist's work I go hog-wild. To the point of ruination. I consume, voraciously, the entire oeuvres of artists whom I admire, especially writers. I ate all I could from Vonnegut and Salinger and Tom Robbins and, embarrassingly perhaps, Douglas Adams in high school. In college my diet was pretty strictly dictated through college, but since I have consumed Franzen and George Saunders and David Foster Wallace and dabbled in Barth and Pynchon and Bartheleme, though more cautiously.

And once I have annihilated an author's life's work to date--given that I enjoyed it, which if I have read more than two books, I have--I am left with an eager sadness that there isn't more and an ardent hunger for there to be more. On September 12th, 2008, I ran out of Wallace. Beyond filling me with a very selfish remorse that I will, probably, never get the chance to read a new piece by Wallace again for the first time, I was saddened by a brilliant mine struck down by what Vonnegut would call its "own bad chemicals."

There is always, of course, a notable, palpable sadness when talent, relative youth, and death befall an individual all at once. There is the predictable "what-might-have-been" response that is valid and expected. When such a young and talented person takes his own life, as it is readily apparent that David Foster Wallace did, there is an equally natural reaction of tragedy and a fear that someone so appreciated might well have been saved had he known how appreciated and important he was to his fans or readers or followers. This is again totally natural but not at all what I find intellectually poignant about Wallace's death. (Emotionally, and yes, I have had an emotional response that I find almost surprising, these thoughts are appealing. My fairly common emotional responses, however, are quite surprisingly uninteresting to read and, even, sort of uninteresting for me to think.)

What I have been thinking, instead, about Wallace's recent death (or at least what I have been thinking and that which I think is worthy of sharing, even if in a forum so unformal and undeniably unimportant as this) stems from two cribbed thoughts from elsewhere.

McSweeneys.net has been running comments, thoughts, and ruminations and celebrations of David Foster Wallace. (McSweeney's has been charmingly, if a bit cloyingly, focussed on Wallace as a man as much, if not more, than as a writer.) I was struck by a comment by a Michael R. Hufford, a former (and possibly current, though Mr. Hufford never makes it clear) Abnormal Psychology professor at the University of Montana. Mr. Hufford posits, "It's difficult to imagine how painful it must have been--a unique mind like that, turned on itself."

Having read Wallace extensively as evidence, and given the large numbers of testimonies and obituaries and tributes I have read about the man in recent days, his intellect was a healthy and hungry one tempered by an obsession for clarity of communication so rich that it often ran toward tangent and abstraction and complication, all in service of the ideal of getting the whole idea out, in its entirety with a dedication to diagramming all the idea's moving parts and features. This, of course, was what critics hailed as his pretension and indulgence. Regardless, I think it's clear, or at least interesting and tragic to speculate, that Wallace truly believed what he wrote (in persona of Neal, a "yuppie incapable of love") in "Good Ol' Neon," a story that many people are understandably pointing to in wake of his death, as it is a first-person narrative from the posthumous perspective of a man who killed himself:

You already know the difference between the size and speed of everything that flashes through you and the tiny inadequate bit of it all that you can ever let anyone know.

When Wallace writes about "ever let[ing] anyone know," he is not referring to shame about all that flashes within him, as maybe I thought when first reading this years ago. Needless to say, Neal is ashamed of himself and what he perceives as his unending fraudulent tendencies. And even more obvious is that Neal or Wallace or me or you or anybody thinks all sorts of things worthy of shame. But this sentence turns on "can." If Wallace were implying shame, you'd know he'd have been specific in his word choice and would have opted for "dare," or it's nearest nine syllable equivalent.

What actually haunts Neal, and what I am daringly projecting on to a man who I never even met much less walked inside, is that the issue is one of sheer possibility. If we could be seen for all our thoughts and feelings at once, whole, instantaneously, perhaps that would be salvation. Or at least relief. This "unique mind" that "turned on itself," coupled with Wallace's noted insecurity about being misunderstood or misrepresented is what interests me in the wake of his suicide by hanging. That he could never get it all out and that getting it all out might have been the relief of some tension is what interests me.

Of course this is just play. I didn't know the man. But it's made me think.

The other cribbed thought I have been tossing around is something I heard on a remembrance on NPR's All Things Considered by writer David Lipsky:

When someone very gifted kills themselves, it's like the best student dropping out of high school. There's the tragedy, but it's set in a particular and personal fear: What are they seeing that we don't?

While I am tempted to criticize Lipsky's number agreement problems (no doubt in an effort to avoid any appearance of sexism in his pronouns) as a homage to Wallace, I don't wish to be glib about the point being made here. Also, were a SNOOT like Wallace himself to read my blatherings, I am certain that I am guilty of far more transgressive usage and grammatical felonies.

What interests me is the idea that Wallace's suicide demonstrates his seeing something that you or I do not. I don't mean this is the sophomoric and dark sense that were we all brighter we'd hang ourselves. What interests me, instead, is that there has always seemed to be a correlation between depression and creative genius. Not exclusively, both occur independent of one another, but that they seem to occur together often enough so as to be statistically significant when compared to population averages.

This is a thought I have had for years and I think the correlation of substance abuse and talent is much the same. There is something seen by some sorts of genius that leads to malaise and ennui that leads to depression and suicide. I guess it is not surprising, for were one's creative genius to allow him a view of the whole of humanity in a raw and unadulterated form, there is an awful lot of ugliness to behold. There is an awful lot of despair to be felt and an awful lot of reason to not feel much hope for us as a lot. I think, however, that it's more than that. Vonnegut's opinions of humanity were pretty dark, but they always bespoke an optimism in that he was only hurt by humanity because he expected it, us, to be better than our behavior so often indicated. (Vonnegut, too, attempted suicide, however.)

Suicide is, to my way of thinking, generally a very personal affair with very personal causes. (Sorry Durkheim, your model is compelling only insofar as it provides the backbone of a sociological way of looking at human behavior. Anomie may be troubling, but not like a childhood history of sexual abuse or faulty neural receptors or any number of a million personal causes and combinations thereof.) I am wont to believe that Wallace's suicide was caused by internal and deeply personal factors ranging from the ethereal issues of the mind and personality to more quantifiable causes such as dopamine. But I also think depressive and suicidal tendencies may also be a by-product of creativity, just as I think drug abuse may be as well. There are a great many of artists with substance abuse problems, but the substance was never the cause of the creativity. I have often thought that substance abuse is as much a symptom of self-medicating tendencies and depression as it is a stand-alone disease.

Maybe depression is a by-product of certain creativities in certain people? I cannot help but think that it ever helped Wallace, but was rather something he bore until he could bear no longer, but it is unfortunate that the instability had to coincide with the genius. We have to come to romanticize the early deaths of admirable men and women since Christ himself, but it never fails to shock and it never ceases to hurt that we forever have to wonder what might have been.

All this thoughtplay about Wallace's suicide, of course, bespeak one of the great virtues and, perhaps, one of the great lies about literature specifically: that we know the writer because we have read his work. It is personal, it is a communication of course. But to think we know the man or woman who produced it because we know the text is a deliciously enticing fallacy. I did not know this man. I do know that I am sad he has taken his life, however.

Steadfast Travel Rule

2008-09-16T22:46:00.003-05:00

I am a 26 year old man of moderate means, so when I travel it means I'm usually staying with friends or family. I have come across an absolute steadfast rule regarding couch-surfing.

1) If the people with whom you are staying are under 30, you are an asshole for not bringing your own towel.

2) Conversely, if your hosts are over 30, THEY are the assholes if they are not able to provide you with a clean towel.

Addenda to this rule are as follows:

1) If your host are under 30, but married, they should have a clean towel for you as weddings net linens in absurd volumes. (My sister-in-law would argue that said volumes only appear absurd to me as I am a dirty bachelor.)

2) If your hosts have an actual guest bedroom to provide you, as opposed to merely a couch, they can pony up for extra clean towels.

ALSO:

It is polite to bring your own soap and shampoo, but no one really notices if you use theres as long as you stay away from personal loofas and the like in the shower. Using another person's loofa is just fucking tacky and gross.

A Surprisingly Orthodox Comment from One Who is Something of a Heathen

2008-09-03T19:16:00.004-05:00

I have found myself watching the two political conventions with an embarrassing intensity. Last week was more easily swallowed than this week, but as much as I would enjoy ranting about the failed policies of the Bush administration, or the nauseating similarity of Senator McCain's foreign policy platform to said failed policies, or the myopic energy policy proposed by Senator McCain, or the shameless pandering of the selection of Sarah Palin as a VP nominee, or any number of the offensive and foolish "selfishness-described-as-the-view-of-the-common-man" Republican party bullshit, I am, at this moment, on whatever whim, in the mood to level a very mild semantic complaint against both parties.

Elected officials of America, when pandering to the religious right or merely when towing the inoffensive party line and attempting to appeal to the millions of religious people in this nation, please insert a "may" before uttering "God bless America."

I know, it's minor. Pitifully minor. But as a thoroughly secular, woefully irreligious heathen, I cringe at the phrase, "God bless all of you, and God bless America!" The omission of "may" makes it seem as though earthly politicians are commanding God's blessing. I am far from a biblical scholar, but I have read enough Old Testament to know that God is not the sort of guy you go pushing around and demanding blessings of. I kinda think God curses and blesses people and nations and baseball teams as He sees fit and if He sees fit. If He's even there. Or a He. Or could possibly be expressed or understood in any sort of man's terms. (I'm a devout agnostic, I have no idea and am fervent in the belief that I have no fucking idea. I a snake-handling agnostic. I have been knocked down unconscious by the force of the presence of the Holy "What-if.")

But this little gesture, this token nod to the "common man," seems a bit haughty--and moreover, disingenuous--to not ask for God's blessing, but to command it or to single handedly bestow it, as a mere mortal, upon a nation. I may have not done much churchin' in my days, but I think the Catholics have got it right: if you're going to ask a guy who's as insecure and petty a son of a bitch as the Old Testament God (even if he has mellowed with age, according to the apostles) for anything, you get on your knees.

Were I a religious person, I'd find the phrase "May God bless America" to be more comforting rhetoric. Lord knows, if you go around demanding His blessing or proclaiming to know it to others, you'd have to consider being turned into a pillar of salt the LEAST of the things He might do to you in recompense.

But that's just one lost soul's humble opinion.

Robert Pollard: A Fan-Boy's (Salty?) Salute

2008-09-02T20:52:00.002-05:00

First, let it be said, that I am given to what I have always called "fan-boyism." I'm prone to cross the line from appreciator of artist to devotee of artist all the way to borderline obsessive stalker of artist. I've grown up a little bit; I try, desperately, to not talk to those I admire at events such as readings or fora such as stage doors. Having met and talked to a handful of "heroes" in high school, I got tired of the sniveling, groveling, obsessive twit I became in the presence of those whom I admired. I received the exact sort of saccharine, synthetic "Get-me-the-hell-out-of-here" smiles and nods from said celebrities (or in my case, pseudo-celebrity as my tastes ran to the nerdy fringe in high school) that I imagine politicians flash when asked to kiss a particularly drooly baby whose diaper is quite obviously full of shit. ("Yes, I know there are cameras present, but do I REALLY have to TOUCH this thing?!")

Case in point: I was a tremendous They Might Be Giants fan in high school. For those unaware, They Might Be Giants might have been the ultimate house band for Jewish summer camp cabins and the basement bedrooms of telescope owning teenage virgins of the 1990s. (That being said I will still defend their wit and their edgy "dork-as-punk" fuck you, East Village experimental attitude, even if they are now spending most of their declining talent on Dunkin Donuts ads these days. To wit: "Lincoln" and "John Henry" are probably the two best nerd-rock albums since Talking Heads' "More Songs About Buildings and Food.") Though dorky and awkward and chubby in high school, I was relatively cool by the standards of their concert goers. In their presence, however, I turned to an amorphous blob of fan-boy goo. I once screamed with girlish delight at touching TMBG guitarist John Flansburgh's super cool lefty, square guitar (seen in use here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/aa/John_Flansburgh_2008.jpg/220px-John_Flansburgh_2008.jpg ) during an intermission. Worse yet, and I have never publicly admitted this, I insisted on a family trip to Boston that my parents drive past Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Lincoln, MA where They Might Be Giants' founding Johns, Linnell and Flansburgh, met. I still have pictures.

I have, however, in recent years striven to mellow out and ditch my super unhip fan-boy ways. The first step in this has been to avoiding contact with those whose art I have found myself in awe. Simple, right? Just don't talk to them and you can't make an ass of yourself. Also, should I find myself unable to resist the urge to talk to someone who I admire (or whose art I admire), I would only do so if I had something more scintillating to say then, "Dude! I love your music! I love YOU!!!"

Just such a situation presented itself some two years ago. At the time I worked in Downtown Chicago and it just so happened that one of my heroes, Robert Pollard (founder, front man, primary [and exhaustive] songwriter for Guided By Voices, a band which stands as an inspiration to all Midwestern dreamers, a fact which will be duly expounded upon below) was speaking and signing books with former GbV bassist and GbV biographer, Jim Greer at the Barnes and Noble adjacent to the law school where I worked. It even coincided with my 7PM lunch break. How could I not go?!

So I went and sat and stood in line and hemmed and hawed at what to say. Mercifully for me, Pollard--for a rock god--is unbelievably approachable to a Midwestern boy like me. Much of this is his appeal to me.

The reasons for my love of this man's music are numerous, but allow me to expound upon a few of the main points:

1) The man has no inner censor. This is both a boon to productivity and occasionally, charmingly, a hindrance to quality. Pollard has released an obscene number of songs through GbV and his varying solo projects. The man writes and writes and writes and occasionally it will render a last second addition to an album that is an absolute GEM, a la "Exit Flagger" on Propeller. It could just as likely turn out to be a throw-away songlet like "I Am Produced" on Mag Earwhig!. But Pollard's sheer productivity is a testament to the virtue of creation without shame. He is living proof of how the scales are tipped in the balance of perspiration to inspiration regarding creativity.

2) He is one of the best lyricists of his time, but quite possibly by accident. Pollard manages to simultaneously be both meaningless and evocative. His songs rarely seem to be ABOUT anything, but his choice of words rarely seems frivolous. Who, pray tell, might "Jane of the Waking Universe" be, and what the hell is a "waking universe" anyway? But coupled with the melody it is an undeniably perfect lyric and title. Even whimsical titles like "Postal Blowfish" still evoke an image. The "Official Iron Man Rally Song" manages to be anthemic without falling into the cockrock trappings a song of said title might fall prey to. And Pollard penned one of my all time meaningless song lyrics: "I walked into the house of miraculous recover and stood before King Everything!"

At times Pollard falls into an almost cheesy earnestness, but when coupled with a knowledge of his story and his background (see below) and the obvious emotional and personal investment in his music, it is adorably forgivable, the same way one give Neil Young the benefit of the doubt regarding cheesiness. From the failed "Window of my World" on Half Smiles of the Decomposed to the hackneyed, keep-fighting-tiger message underpinning "Don't Stop Now" on Under the Bushes Under the Stars, Pollard's cheesy-ness is not a failure of creativity, but a triumph of sincerity. (Minus "Hold on Hope" from Do the Collapse. That song's a piece of shit and an whorish attempt at a radio hit and I blame Ric Ocasek almost exclusively for its cloying, weepy, mid-90s pussy-pop tone.)

3) Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices have one of the best stories in the history of rock. Their story is not a sexy story of drug abuse and trashed hotel rooms and bad record deals. Their story is one of day-jobs and wives and children and being working class guys from Dayton who were just too starry-eyed to give up on the dream. Pollard was a 4th grade teacher for a decade before GbV made it big enough to even consider music a career. He lives, still, in Northridge, a working class section of the decidedly un-sexy, un-Sid-and-Nancy city of Dayton, Ohio. Dayton, in fact, hated GbV early in their career, so they went to the studio and didn't play live for YEARS while they honed their song-writing and home-recording craft. These were guys who didn't know what they were doing and didn't know any better and occasionally struck gold because of these things. Implicit, always, was passion. To crib an analogy from a Times' movie review I read years ago for the movie Barbershop, Guided by Voices is NOT a fine French meal: it is a meatloaf that mom overcooked, but that she made with love specifically for you.

4) Guided by Voices is music that will always remind me of the beer-soaked, smoky Midwestern basements and garages of my late teens and early twenties. This is just a personal reason, but I had a lot of friends and acquaintances in bands a few years back...and for whatever reason...Guided by Voices just always reminds me of hanging out listening to friends' bands and drinking shitty beer and talking and just generally have a good ol' Midwestern summer evening.

There are too many reasons of why I love this band.

However, the first time I met Robert Pollard, we talked a little shop. I am not a musician, but as noted above, I have several friends who are basement Midwestern rockers. It turns out we know a few of the same people, at least tangentially. I was totally not a fan-boy. I felt like a hero.

Of course, the next time I saw him in person was at an art opening of his collages here in New York City. I knocked on the bathroom door while he was pissing and got a curt, "Hold on a minute!" through the door. When he exited and I realized just whose micturation I had interrupted, all I could manage was a gulp and a "Whoa! I...I...I...I'm sorry I knocked. I really like your collages, man!"

We are all still fourteen years old some times.

A Mark of Distinction.

2008-07-30T22:09:00.002-05:00

I'll be damned if I can remember the context, probably televisual, but I remember being a small child and feeling sheepishly humbled the first time I heard the saying, "I put my pants on one leg at a time.'

I thought this man was noting his sophistication, because at this time in my life, I thought the appropriate approach to putting on pants was to put a foot in each hole and jump and wriggle until he found himself clothed. This took some doing, as it was the 1980s and I mostly wore skin tight corduroys.

To this day, however, I cannot hear that phrase without feeling a small degree of shame about my rube-like naivete about properly dressing one's self. I'm still not sure I put my pants on correctly.

God Only Knows

2008-07-24T22:22:00.003-05:00

You know why I love the Beach Boys? Ok, I don't really, I only really like Pet Sounds and even then not all the songs on it (like the title track, which can blow me in a pretty serious way), but there's a great self-deprecating honesty to that album. Like, in "God Only Knows," Brian Wilson opens up with "I may not always love you..." Thank Christ for that. Finally a respite from the sappy pap proclaiming permanence. I'm not trying to be dark and say that no love lasts or anything, but thank Christ for Brian Wilson having the balls to show a little doubt and self-consciousness as opposed to the cocky, assuredness that makes pop music A) irritating but, more importantly B) comforting because the fictitious personae who sing such songs have the cocksure swagger that we (or I for one) lack. Thank you, Brian Wilson, for an odd hint of honesty. It's uncomfortably comforting...like every relationship I've ever had.

As for the prudishness of sentiment in "Wouldn't it Be Nice," well, we'll forgive you as a victim of your times. Plus, that shit's catchy.

An Alliterative Truth

2008-06-18T23:13:00.003-05:00

Today, while walking down Broadway after work I saw a living alliteration:

A man with a pink polka-dot prosthetic leg was waking three pomeranians.

Seriously.

Congrats to California

2008-06-17T19:06:00.003-05:00

A happy and topical college memory:

May 16, 2008, 10:30 PM, Waltham, Massachusetts

Several of my friends and I were hanging around our kitchen, indulging in our usual pursuits: drinking beer, playing cribbage, breaking for cigarettes on the back porch, chatting. It was only seven days until we officially graduated from college, and the eve of the first legalized same-sex marriages in the United States. We were discussing the importance of this event, and I don't recall who was responsible for the idea, but all of a sudden five of us piled into my roommate Aaron's car.

Our alma mater Brandeis University, like most universities, goes out of its way to pretty up campus for commencements, and this year was no exception. Bright flowers were blooming or recently planted all over campus. We parked near the admissions building and set to task of tugging, pulling or pruning as many lilacs, lillies, roses, and tulips as we could get our hands on. After a couple brief run-ins with impotent, milquetoast security officers, we had an entire trunk full of flowers. We hopped back in the car and zipped back over the Charles River to our uniquely shitty apartment.

Once we arrived home, the phone tree began. We called all of our friends while arranging rudimentary bouquets of flower out of the scraps we'd been able to steal and planned to set out the next morning at 8:00 AM, for Provincetown, MA.

Provincetown was once a humble fishing village at the very tip of Cape Cod, but for whatever reasons such places become such destinations, it has long been known as one of the gay and lesbian capitals of the United States. After a three hour caravan of three or four cars filled with my exuberant peers--gay, straight, bi, whatever--we found ourselves in front of the crowds and news cameras in front of Provincetown's humble, clapboard city hall. As couples streamed out of city hall--cheeks streaked with tears, smiles like cartoon characters--the crowd would erupt with cheers, and we would present Massachussetts' newest married couples, and some of the nation's very first same-sex married couples, with flowers.

I was reminded of that today while reading accounts of California's adoption of same-sex marriage. It's one of my happiest memories, and not just because of some sort of warm fuzzy feeling of liberal do-goodery. The joy in the faces of the freshly married couples on that day were enough to make me believe that the United States was, slowly but surely, getting better.

I DO believe in Zimmerman, but I'm not sure why...

2008-06-10T23:23:00.004-05:00

I was asked, recently, by a friend who does not like Bob Dylan to describe the appeal of his music. In situations like this, I am always tempted to whip out the old dusty adage, "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture," but that's only because I think it's cute. Mostly I think that statement is an adorable dollop of bullshit: language's purview is all that can be described, and music can be described, expounded upon, extolled, and excoriated successfully and length by language. Everything can, with varying degrees of fallibility. Language has it's limits, but I am ardent in my faith that it's the best all-encompassing tool of expression at hand to humans. Synchronized swimming is a close second, and hand-thrown pottery takes the bronze at a distance of at least two lengths.

That being said, I found myself at a loss of words to describe the assertion that Dylan's a genius. I am reminded of what a snarky friend once said while drunk at a party: "Bob Dylan's useless: Paul Simon was a better guitarist, Art Garfunkel had a better voice, Phil Ochs had better politics, and Leonard Cohen had better lyrics!" This was said to elicit response, and perhaps rage, amongst the other drunk music snobs at the party, but it was illustrative of the problem I had describing why I thought Bob Dylan was great.

First, some disclosure. I'm not the world's largest Dylan fan. A late bloomer to Dylan, I didn't start listening with anything more than a passing interest in hearing a Dylan song on classic rock radio until college. Even then, it was only exposure I had, not passion. I don't own more than maybe five albums and I even lack a couple some would deem "essential." Hell, the first Dylan album I ever owned was "Nashville Skyline," because a road trip I was taking with friends into the deep South. I am aware that this album, while good, is not exactly indicative of the Dylan-style that has garnered such praise.

Moreover, I was forced to admit to this friend that anything I ever had resembling an epiphany about Dylan's music came in a West Side laundromat a little over a year ago while I folded my boxer shorts and listened to "Blood on the Tracks" on my iPod. Even then, all I could say was that for some reason and from that moment on, I really dug that album and began to get more into other Dylan albums.

In this conversation, I was moved to note that Dylan is truly a phenomenal lyricist. Simultaneously obtuse and meaningful without ever being didactic or patronizing or moralistic. Well, except for the capital F folk songs that were designed to be moralistic: "Masters of War, " "Blowing in the Wind," et al. (NOTE: I don't like "Blowing in the Wind" much, but I think that's mostly Joan Baez's fault. NOTE II: For some reason I will accept incredibly specific, moralistic lyrics from folksters like Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger or from punk bands like Gang of Four (or Billy Bragg, the strange mating of the two) but not from virtually any other genre of popular music.)

The lyrics argument did not win me a convert. My friend noted that that was sort of a non-starter with him, as lyrics were usually a secondary thing to him...something that came later in the appreciation of an artist. As yet, he had not been hooked well enough to delve into lyrics.

So I trotted out the old, "no one else sounds like him" argument. Again, no ground gained. Wisely, my friend observed that there's a lot of very unique, distinct, inimitable crap. (For example, I don't get the appeal of Glen Branca, but I can comfortably say he's unique.)

So I was at a loss. Dancing about architecture, as it were. All I know is Dylan has, in the last few year, secured a deep foothold in my imagination.

My advice is this, Gary: Burn a copy of "Blood on the Tracks" from somebody while you do laundry. Maybe it'll work for you, too.

Death to Television (Not in General, Just Mine)

2008-06-08T21:14:00.004-05:00

It was another blisteringly hot day in Brooklyn and I did, as I did yesterday, very little. Sadly, I was thwarted in my relaxation regimen by the untimely demise of my television.

This shouldn't be that disheartening, as I lived for a year and a half in Manhattan without a television. Moreover, I only had broadcast so it's not like I'm paying for cable I cannot use. And by not having television, I no longer have the most convenient escapist tool around for when I'm feeling lazy. I'll at least have to pick up a book.

I do, however, feel as though I'm losing a small connection to the rest of the universe. While television is a purely one-way communication (though I yell in vain at my tv all the time), it is an important link to American culture, for better or (more often) for worse. As the presidential election is now finally picking up definitive steam, I will miss television as politics is now scripted and performed for the televisual audience. While I will still read the Times and varying other news sources online along with my daily consumption of National Public Radio, it will be had to ingest the full nature of the presidential campaign, as television is the currency of contemporary American culture.

Television fascinates me because it has such limitless potential. Needless to say, potential is damning, as it's very had for an individual or a medium or anything to "live up to its potential." The consequence in people is that we don't try our hardest as we are so likely doomed to failure. The problem with television is that its made by people, most of whom aren't living up to their potentials, and it's made for people, most of whom aren't living up to their potential. The consequence, of course, is shit like Two and a Half Men or NASCAR. It's also funded by advertisers, so it's not in the best interest of television networks to push the envelope too far. No money in art.

Even PBS often falls short. While they brag, constantly, about not being beholden to advertisers, they put up some subpar programming. Bear in mind, I love Charlie Rose's show on PBS because of his guests, he so often falls short as an interviewer. Can't we get someone who's smart and will invite interesting interviewees on, but who isn't so self-absorbed and doesn't throw a steady diet of soft ball questions?

All of this is disjointed rambling on television and it all add up to not much more than I'm tired, sweaty, and cranky. I wish I had tv to pacify me.

Kimbo Slicery, or Damn We Like Violence in this Country

2008-06-07T00:33:00.002-05:00

For the first time last week, mixed-martial arts fighting made prime time television. I was unaware of this until I saw a piece about the fight in question (featuring a man named "Kimbo Slice" who used to be a homeless "bum fighter") aired on CBS. I am a gigantic fan of sport. (especially baseball and football, though I'm re-warming to basketball. Soccer's dull unless it's the World Cup and hockey is just plain dull unless you're watching it live.) That being said, I've tended to steer away from the violent sports. Wrestling is pure bullshit and it's brand of athleto-tainment has always been lost on me, even when I was nine, which is the prime age for watching wrestling. Boxing has always seemed both a bit brutal and a bit dull to me. I've appreciated footage of Muhammad Ali's prime, and I understand why he was a legend. He reinvented the sport: he brought ballet to brutality. But truth be told, I'd still rather watch a Division III college football game than a replay of an Ali fight.

I am naturally not a terribly violent man. I get angry, occasionally, and talk a big game, but I've only thrown a punch once in my adult life and the memory of it still makes me sick to my stomach. Violent movies have never appealed to me, but not because they make me squeamish. The opposite, actually. To me they fail to capture the really sickening nature of ACTUAL violence. Some sort of primal horror is lost in the re-creation. It becomes cartoons.

But I was watching the CW11 news at ten pm the other night (the most ironic newscast in the New York area...I swear to God...watch it...handsome anchorman knows he's on a lesser station at the lesser time slot and has a great sense of humor about the news...and Mr. G, the weatherman, is my favorite Italian stereotype on television today...who else tells you what the rainfall was in New Dorp? Who else knew there was a place called New Dorp, Staten Island?), and the sports guy had an entire segment on this landmark mixed-martial-arts fight on CBS.

For those not in the know, as I myself was not until recently, mixed martial arts (popularized by the Ultimate Fighting Championship) is a brutal combat sport that is essentially, a gloves-off, no-holds-barred slugfest of a boxing match. Contestants literally wear no boxing gloves, no shoes, and they beat the ever loving shit out of each other. From what I've watched, it seems the ref has the right to stop the fight any time he thinks it's dangerous, but virtually nothing this side of biting is illegal.

The premier fight on CBS the other night was won when Kimbo Slice (our hobo hero) came within mere inches of beating another man's ear free from his head. Mind you, we've seen this in boxing, but no teeth (Tyson's or otherwise) were involved in the attempted ear extraction. No, this man nearly punched a man's ear off. On prime time television. On broadcast television. On CBS, who's previous high in vileness was Everybody Loves Raymond. I hate that fucking show.

I hate to be prudish. That which consenting adults agree to is their own business. Shit, I don't care who watches it. I don't mean to say, "WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!" but what about the children? I know, I know...if I don't want to watch this, I should change the channel. Rest assured, I do. But something about airing this on prime time broadcast tv bugs me...

I guess, what it is, is how it exemplifies the "raising of the stakes" culturally. Television has consistently pushed the envelope and has received great ratings for it in the past decade. From Dennis Franz's ass on NYPD Blue, to Roseanne Barr's lesbian kiss with Mariel Hemmingway, to every testicle joke in the history of South Park...the envelope is pushed. And each time it is, the border of what is considered unseemly is a little further down the road.

Language, sex, and even fat asses don't offend me much. Well, Franz's ass a little. And the justification is that it's not that the networks or the media outlets of any stripe are providing unsettling material out of their own depravity, but rather that the public is demanding it. And the subsequent ratings are provided to bear this out.

However, and bear me out, WHAT IF there isn't a natural demand for THIS particular content, but rather a demand for NEW. And what's newer than that which is shocking? What's NOT shocking about a man punching another man's grotesquely cauliflowered ear within an inch of its falling off? We seek NEW, not shock. As we increasingly become desensitized to that which is shocking, we begin to become curious about that which might be more shocking. Throw in the hype machine of advertising, and of course we'll turn into that which we might even ourselves deem somewhat offensive in its content. (Shit, look at WifeSwap. What the fuck is that all about? We all get to learn that there are fucked up families and stupid people the nation-round, and we get to learn that when we swap the wives of these families, these people are still fucking fucked up and fucking stupid. Bra-fucking-vo.)

What I'm getting at, what if there isn't actually a demand for ultra-violent content, so much as that it is provided and it's all that's available that's new in a heavily saturated media world? What if the availability creates the demand? (Don't get me started on how this applies to pornography on the internet...)

Now, I'm not saying mixed martial arts shouldn't exist. It should exist as it always has: in Vegas and Atlantic City and other dens of adult entertainment. But violence in American culture is such a weird thing: sure we like violence and buy it up, but the fact that it's there only fuels the appetite.

I'm not saying Kimbo Slice's ear-hackery creates a thirst for actual violence in the every day life of every day Americans. That's a stupid fucking argument. (Though, to be fair...12 year old boys are idiots. I can't tell you how many jackasses I knew in high school who wanted to start their own fight clubs in response to the movie.) Still, can't we just agree it's sort of unpleasant and should be left to an audience that specifically seeks it out as opposed to presented as that which is the common fodder for everyone?

Shit, I know. This is elitist and it's prudish and it sort of bugs me that it bugs me. I don't believe in censorship. I don't. But I have no beef with decorum. You wouldn't wear your tuxedo to the beach, and you wouldn't wear cut-offs to a wedding. Set and setting is all I'm saying.

Accents

2008-06-07T00:10:00.003-05:00

Often, when someone is an immigrant to the United States, but speaks English with a standard American accent, he or she is said to "speak English without an accent," and he or she is complimented for this.

The UK has a lot of immigrants. Do they say the same thing of an immigrant to England who sounds native? Or do they compliment him on his perfect accent?

Your Body is You Too, or "Damn, I'm sore!"

2008-06-05T23:37:00.003-05:00

So a good friend (hereafter, Matt) of mine seems hellbent on including me in gratuitous acts of physical exertion. He wants me to join him for basketball in Tompkins Square, softball in Central Park...I'm waiting for the son of a bitch to try to talk me in to a marathon.

Those who know me know I love sports theoretically. My natural position is in the bleachers; I drink beer right-handed. I love watching the beautiful movement of athletic bodies. I love the struggle. I love it from my couch. With a beer. And a pack of Camels. Maybe some sort of sandwich.

However, Matt had successfully talked me into joining him for softball in Central Park. I decided to go. I figure if Royko could play softball until the day he died, well hell. I'm 26. I haven't smoked or drank as long as Mike Royko. I could play.

A mutual acquaintance of ours from college (with whom Matt attended law school) is the social chair for his Upper West Side synagogue and hosts a softball team. I had played maybe a game or two with them last year. Feebly. A catch or two, a hit or two...and a handful of mishaps so embarrassing they hardly bear mention. So I went out.

Upon arriving I am informed by said mutual acquaintance that they had too many people looking to join last year, so it's now JUST THE TEMPLE in their softball games. Needless to say, I was nervous. Matt is at least Jewish. I, however, was raised by a lapsed WASP and a recovering Catholic. All through warm-ups, I feared an impending prayer. In Hebrew. I have been to a bar mitzvah or two, have some converts in the family, but as for faking a prayer...I was fucked. Thank God (or G-d), they played secular softball and I was freed from having to mimic Hebrew as best I could to stay in the game.

So we played. I did a few things well, playing both left-center field at times and second base at times. A few good plays in the field. Looked like holy hell at the plate having not swung a bat in a year and prior to that in many, many, many, MANY years...but luckily I didn't do anything humiliating. Well...not THAT humiliating, anyway. I fouled out to the catcher once...which is hard to do in slow-pitch, non-competitive, "Nice effort!" softball.

The end result was that I had a blast. What a thoroughly supportive, non-judgmental group. Everyone was friendly, no one asked me to lead the group in prayer, and I luckily avoided mentioning my love for Jimmy Carter (because, apparently, he is now an Anti-Semite). I had a blast. I signed up for the email list. I will pay them for this continued privilege. I had a blast.

But now I am sore. Surprisingly sore. Embarrassingly sore. Good lord, am I out of shape! But it's a good sore. A pleasant, satisfactory misery. It reminds me of what it once meant to be worn out.

White collar types like me forget the beauty of physical exhaustion. As a chubby, bookish type who spends most of his time in a library I tend to forget that his body is a wonderful thing. I love having sex with it, filling it with beer, smoking cigarettes...but I so often forget how good it is to wear it out running, throwing, diving, and hitting humiliating pop-ups to the shortstop. I am reminded of the Douglas Coupland novel Microserfs in which one of the computer programmer characters discovers exercise through a work-out obsessed co-worker. His co-worker reminds him, "Your body is you too."

I forget, sometimes. I think of my body all too often as a vessel which carries some ethereal me around. I forget that there are positive feelings associated with really working my body in contexts non-bedroom. Running feels great. Sort of. Feeling tired from running, somehow, also feels great. It's high time I took into account my body in my feelings of self. Sure, I bemoan my gut...but I forget how good it is to run and throw and generally feel a self-satisfied PHYSICAL tired. I am much more used to the psychological and emotional tired.

I should get more exercise, is what I'm saying, I guess. Maybe I should stop filling the fucking thing with nicotine and alcohol. Someday, anyway.

Grocery Shopping Depresses: A Gentrifier's Lament

2008-06-04T20:24:00.004-05:00

I have never been much for clothes shopping and while I love shopping for records and books, but thanks to mp3s and the fact that I work for a university that lends me access to extensive library of books, I have no need to do those things so much anymore. Also, I'm generally broke.

I have, however, made a point of becoming a better cook and I have become a thoroughly indulgent grocery shopper. Hell, even before I could cook, I enjoyed grocery shopping. I enjoy going to your normal supermarket, but I'm incredibly fond of ethnic or specialty stores where I can stare at fish I would never eat and rummage through vegetables I do not understand. I would like to chalk it up to my Polish background, but in my household growing up food was love. Meals were provided as gestures of love and nurturing. And given my waistline upon moving out of my parents' home, I was well-loved.

A grocery store exemplifies abundance: over flowing vegetables and fruits, bright pink fresh meats all in a row, miles of bright colored canned goods. I'm a sucker for a good or unique grocery store.

So, suffice it to say, I was excited about the shopping possibilities when I moved to the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of the Flatbush in Brooklyn. My immediate neighborhood is predominantly Afro-Caribbean, so the shopping is downright interesting. On Flatbush and Church Avenues the produce is positively inspiring in its lush abundance. Heaving swollen grapes, green plantains, kiwi, mangoes, all variety of citrus. It's fun.

Given the economic trends, the meats tend to be somewhat lacking in my middle-class estimation. Lots of cheap cuts of flank steak, cubed goat for stewing, gristly and fatty lamb shoulder chops, and lots of chicken extremities (wings, drumsticks, and even feet), but few whole birds I would consider roast-worthy. I make do, of course, and I bring certain ingredients back with me from Manhattan when I return from work.

The closest and most convenient grocery store to me, however, is the Pioneer Market on Parkside Avenue. It's immediately adjacent to the subway exit and only a block from my apartment, so needless to say, it's where I do the lion's share of my grocery shopping. Its florescent lighting is a lifeless gray, and most of the interior surfaces look as if they've been scrubbed of what grime can be removed, but are permanently dingy. Still, it's a serviceable market, and quite a relief from the exorbitant prices of food in Manhattan. It must be quite expensive to truck all that stuff into so small an island.

Shopping there, I still feel guilty for being perturbed that Pioneer Market lacks arugula or cotswold cheese or any fresh olives. I am aware I am a yuppie. I am aware that I am in a working class neighborhood with people from another culture. I hate myself for my colonialism. So I smuggle these things back from Manhattan on the Q train.

My own yuppieness and how that makes me feel about myself, however, is no comparison for the crippling sense of shame and sadness I feel when I am standing in line. I load my things onto the conveyor belt: a half-pound of smoked turkey for the lunches I pack for work (because I am "poor"), fresh kale, a pound of fresh chicken breasts, onions, garlic, a six pack of imported Czech beer, hummus, pita, basmati rice, extra virgin olive oil, five gala apples, a bundle of fresh rosemary, and on and on and on. Staples, to my way of thinking.

And yet there's a disturbance. The belt isn't moving and I am annoyed. I look up to realize, of course, that the man in front of me has only six crumpled singles and his bill is $7.38. He is trying to decide whether he can spare the quart of milk or the loaf of off-brand white bread. He settles on doing without milk, and the belt moves again. I look behind me and there is a woman who isn't a day under seventy-five buying only a pound of enriched pasta and a tin of canned salmon. The checker rings up my up my $43.27 sent order and I pay on plastic and lug my bags back to the apartment feeling a shameful brand of rich.

I know, I know this sort of guilt is unfounded. I am not to blame for urban poverty and I am not trying to drive food prices up by moving here, nor rent. I know this has a cheesy, Erma Bombeck "see-how-the-other-half-lives." But I can't help it. Food is love and their ain't enough love, it seems, for the urban poor.

So Obama Wins

2008-06-03T23:19:00.003-05:00

Well, I could have told you that two months ago. Thank you, major media, for coming around to the obvious conclusion.

(Editor's note: I may be smoking still; I may be weak on that account, but I will hammer out some sort of blog entry so I do not fall off my blog-a-day pledge three days into June. That being said, I am cheating: I am writing about current events and politics. That's easy.)

While I am a die-hard Obama-supporter, I am sort of interested in the argument of Hillary Clinton's rise to prominence as a candidate as a feminist triumph. Allow me to preface, ANY woman rising to the point of being a viable major-party candidate for president is some sort of triumph for equality and feminism.

That being said, there is something fishy about triumphing Hillary as a portrait of feminine power. Any way you slice it, her rise to power was in direct consequence of her husband's political success. Now, I know, there is a perfectly strong argument to be made that were she not a capable and intelligent woman, it wouldn't matter whose wife she was, she never would have been elected. I agree with that, wholeheartedly. HOWEVER, there are thousands upon thousands of women who are capable and intelligent and thick-skinned enough to survive a candidate for Senate or President, but who never get the chance due to the lack of political capital.

While I will never begrudge anyone using their ties to showcase their own abilities, it still clangs a bit with me to say that she whole heartedly earned this. Barack Obama rose for nobody status some five years ago to be the leader in the presidential race. Of course, the obstacles for women are different than the obstacles for men, but this is a man of African ancestry we're talking about. And he's a self-made man in the classic American Dream sense. I don't mean to downplay the hills Mrs. Clinton has had to climb, but I also am not willing to ignore the help by name and exposure she has had.

Regina Slawski (1918-2008), In Memoriam

2008-06-02T20:53:00.004-05:00

My great aunt, Regina Slawski, died last week after complications from a fall. Truth be told, we were not all that close. I have not seen her in easily twelve years. For my entire life she lived in Detroit while I lived in Illinois, Massachusetts, and now New York. But for a period of my life, I would see her every summer at small family reunions every year at her daughter Kathy's house just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was a relatively easy drive from Downers Grove, IL (and then DeKalb, when we moved there) and my mother was always fond of bonding with the cousins with whom she spent many summers as a child.

Regina was my grandpa's older sister, and they had a real guts-and-grime American story. They were all born and raised in Dickson City, PA. As family legend has it, none of the children in the family (of which there were 9? 10? 8 of whom lived to adulthood that I can name) learned English until formal schooling, being the children of Polish immigrants and living in a predominantly Polish coal mining community in Northeastern Pennsylvania. (So close to Scranton that if you pay attention, they occasionally name-check Dickson City on "The Office" for verisimilitude's sake.)

Regina was identical twin sisters with Alice (Alicia in Polish), and they were my grandpa's older sisters. My grandpa was the baby of the family, and it is my memory that he was forever treated by them as the baby in the family. It never hurt that he was the most charming man I've ever met.

Regina and Alice were the sort of identical twins that PBS documentarians would eat up with a spoon. During World War II, they both moved to the Detroit area to work in the war effort while the boys (their husbands, Hank (Regina) and Fred (Alice)) were off at war. They settled in the working class suburb of Wyandotte, Michigan. They both had three daughters. They both worked at the phone company. But perhaps the most strange thing, the strangeness of which was lost on me until just a few years ago, was that they lived in IDENTICAL HOUSES three doors apart. IDENTICAL. While, ostensibly, the interior decor differed, they were both prime examples of depression-era-second-generation-Polish-American-turned-middle-class chic. READ: easy chairs, dark formica dining room tables, portraits of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. I don't intend to mock; all of that stuff is very comforting and homey to me.

Regina and her sister Alice lived a dual life together for 89years until last Wednesday. Needless to say, I cannot imagine the loss Aunt Alice feels. As she noted to my grandma, "I'm the last one left," given that all of her siblings have died. That being said, few losses can be compared to the loss of a twin sibling, I would imagine. My heart goes out to her and all of Aunt Regina's family.

While all of this is sad, Aunt Regina's passing reminded me of one of my favorite childhood memories:

We gathered in the Detroit area many several times for 50th wedding anniversaries, landmark birthdays and the like. When I was about six or seven years old, we trucked out to Detroit in our Isuzu Trooper for Aunt Regina and Uncle Hank's 50th wedding anniversary. (NOTE: The Isuzu was something of a faux pas, as we were visiting our working class family from Detroit. My hippie mother, however, was always something of a rebel, so it was no surprise to anybody that she'd roll into town in a Japanese car with a hippie husband with long hair and two very strange children.) My grandparents, Frank and Martha, were also, obviously, in attendance.

It stands to reason that Regina and Alice looked very similar, as they were identical twins. What was strange is, with a mere squint, my grandmother could have passed for a triplet with the two, in spite of the fact that she had married in to the family. My grandma was very good friends with Regina and Alice, and I was not the only one who could mistake them for sisters...or one another.

Sometime in the course of the weekend I found myself in either Aunt Regina or Aunt Alice's house (who could tell?...though I believe it was Aunt Regina's) and I was unable to find a familiar face of immediate family. At last, in the kitchen, was a woman in navy blue pants and a white blouse with a white perm of hair, her back turned toward me. "Aha!" my seven-year-old self thought. "Grandma!"

I ran over and hugged her leg and exclaimed, "Grandma!" Aunt Regina turned around and noticed Joanne's weird little spectacled wisp of a boy. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry sweetie! I'm not your grandma. But I'm somebody's grandma, so it's okay!" And with that she swept me up into a hug and planted a kiss on my cheek. Following that, she demonstrated the ultimate gesture of Polish love: she gave me something to eat.

That's my hallmark card, heart-warming Aunt Regina memory. She was a wonderful lady and I feel horrible for all my second-cousins who lost their grandma. Grandmas are one of the last really great thing in this world.

Sex and the City is Stupid and Harmful, or The Impotent Declarations of a Grumpy Chicken Little in Brooklyn

2008-06-01T14:24:00.002-05:00

After investing $35 on a, what seems to me, high-tech television antenna, I finally have television reception (sort of) in my apartment. Of course, were I a real high-tech American, I'd fork over the dough to have cable like an informed citizen. But I'm cheap and broke and in debt and don't want to flush my life away to the siren song of television more than I already do.

The truth of the matter is this: I watch as much television now as I would with cable, I just watch more PBS (good) and more syndicated bullshit (bad) than I would if I had Jon Stewart at my fingertips. And so I found myself, some nights back, with a rapidly flattening bottle of Ballantine Ale, clicker-in-hand, watching a syndicated (and, no doubt, highly edited) episode of Sex and the City.

I have always harbored a vague sense of hatred about this show, having watched 2/3 of an episode in a motel room with HBO some years back. I hated it. But, it was late at night and I was somewhere south of sobriety and harboring a pouty seven year old's suspicion that going to bed before midnight was somehow admitting defeat. Defeat to whom, I do not know. When I was seven I was resisting the authoritative power wielded by my parents, but at twenty-six I think I'm just giving a big fuck you to common sense. I'm tired a lot at work.

So, I was wasting away on the sofa, as per usual and Sex and the City came on with its infectious faux-Latin ditty of a theme song, and I was rendered powerless to look away. Here, in brief synopsis is what actually happened on the show:

Carrie, (Sarah Jessica Parker's character, a relationship columnist for some fictional equivalent of the Post or Daily News) was invited to a baby shower for one of her friends who had actually grown the fuck up. Upon arriving to the baby shower, Carrie is informed that in her friend's house, shoes are removed upon entry. This is an affront to Carrie's sense of taste and decency (good thing she didn't go to virtually every suburban birthday party I attended as a child...mom always made sure I wore good, hole-free socks b/c going shoeless was de rigueur in the Midwestern suburban homes of my youth...of course Midwestern and suburban are anathema to Carrie's whole being, so..). Carrie grudgingly sheds her shoes, which are Manolos and therefor sacred, as they tie her whole ensemble together.

In the process of the shower, her holy shoes go missing (egad!) and is lent a pair of shoes to walk home with the hope that they turn up later. Alas, some days later, no shoes left. Her friend hesitantly agrees to pay for them offering $200, but is informed that they were, in fact, $500 shoes. (And I don't know from women's shoes, but they looked kinda tacky to me.) Her friend scoffs and says something regarding having a "real" life now and can't afford such frivolous expenditures anymore. Carrie bristles at the idea that her pampered, Upper East Side lifestyle is anything less than "real." Carrie does not accept her friend's offer of $200 and leaves huffily.

Crafty woman that she is, Carrie hatches a plan: she declares herself as married TO herself and sets up a wedding registry at the high end store where the $500 shoes in question originated. She registers for the same shoes and informs her friend of her wedding to self. What a courageously independent woman! God bless those who struggle through being single, beautiful, and wealthy! What courage!

The shoes arrive and are greeted with a smug smile of self-satisfaction, along with a contrite note from her friend about minimizing her lifestyle. And, at last, we are greeted with the moral of the story, in voice over, (paraphrased): "They say you need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to truly understand them. It's hard walking around in a single girl's shoes, and that's why it's important to have pretty shoes so that walking alone isn't so lonely!"

This actually happened in this episode. Really. This is the uplifting message we are to take away from this episode.

Please excuse me while I wipe the vomit I inadvertently dribbled on to my shirt. How is this show so popular again?

I am glad I am not raising a fifteen year old daughter who could be exposed to this schlock and have it sold as neo-feminism.

Why is this offensive? Allow me to expound. Watch out, vitriol to follow:

I am completely astounded that these sorts of crass displays of wealth and Upper East Side snobbery played well in Peoria. This was a massively successful show (so successful that all of New York City is currently under the plague of the recent movie made...) and it stands to reason that it had good ratings nationwide, in spite of the fact that it appears to me to exemplify the exact sort of perceptions of asshole rich New Yorkers that most of the nation hates. Why? Why do we praise and romanticize garish displays of wealth that are well out of the reach of the "rest of us?" How is it that the entitlement implicit in "deserving" $500 shoes is marketable to a nation who's average household income was $48,000 in 2006? $500 is almost rent! I've driven cars not worth $500! Who but handful of rich Manhattan ladies-about-town can relate to this dreck?

Sure the money thing offends me. Garish displays of wealth offend me. I suppose, however, that it's just an example of wealth porn. We, Americans, have been conditioned to flock toward displays of money that are well beyond are means because we are constantly marketed to. I suppose it's some sort of comforting escapism to indulge in the thought of fabulous riches, as that has been set in our minds that that's what a successful individual has. It's like a professor I once had said about the rural poor's tendencies toward voting Republican: "They're practicing being greedy assholes just in case they themselves get rich someday." Combine this with the plucky, go-get-'em-tiger fallacy of the American Dream and upward mobility, and maybe I begin to understand why this is appealing, whereas the gritty realism of lower middle class life exemplified in Roseanne lacked a bit of cachet. Fine, I'll swallow the bitter pill of this conceit.

My perspective on the class angles of Sex and the City are in no doubt informed by my experiences as a damn-near-Socialist sociology major some years back. It's also, probably, partially sour-grapes. I live in New York, albeit now in a humble and otherwise unfashionable neighborhood in Brooklyn, but I work at an Ivy League university in Manhattan, so outward displays of wealth are not lost on me. I also am in no position to make any great sums of money myself anytime in the near future. I accept that I might just be bitter.

What I cannot understand, is how this show has appealed to many strong, intelligent young women that I have known, many of whom are self-described feminists. (ASIDE: The term "feminist" is an interesting conundrum with many of my generation. Many young women who, say, like voting and want to succeed in academics and the workplace are hesitant to self-describe as "feminist" because we've been fed a line that feminists have to be reactionary misandrists like the late Andrea Dworkin. So, many independent young women are hesitant. Some have embraced terms like "neo-feminist" and "post-feminist," but I do not see how we need a new term for the basic assumption that men and women are both capable, intelligent, and ought to be treated equally. But that's a different rant.)

Many women I know love this show. Plenty enjoy it with varying levels of guilt. I've been told that it's even an empowering show for women, because it is a show that celebrates feminine sexuality and women being in charge of their own sexuality. While I would argue that there is often a strong undercurrent of co-dependency and neediness with regard to men and relationships in this show, I will let that slide because this particular episode infuriated me for other reasons. Even if Carrie is fully empowered in this show, even if she has full control of her own sexuality in this episode, she is still depressingly yielding her self-value and self-worth to consumerism in this episode. Her shoe are what makes it easier to get through the day as a single "girl?" BWAHH!??

Firstly, if the moral is it's hard to be single...I can understand the desire for partnership. But if your mission is to promote independent womanhood, then this seems a bit counterintuitive. Even worse, that one's inflatedly priced (and downright ugly) shoes are what lend your life worth, you've got some pretty fucked up priorities, Ms. Bradshaw. If this is what passes for empowerment (being beholden to crass symbols of one's viability as a consumer), then we've got a long way yet to go, baby.

It is not to say that personal empowerment and ritzy shoes are mutually exclusive. They're not. I don't begrudge someone for wanting nice things. I'm not actually a Socialist. I own a very expensive Bose stereo that makes me very happy. However, to say that such consumer goods can be an even remotely reasonable way to determine one's self worth is sickening. It's not just anti-feminist; it's a pretty preposterous and disgusting commentary on contemporary American humanity.

And I haven't even gotten into this show's blatantly disrespectful and stereotypical depiction of homosexuals! But I've rambled enough. I hope I don't injure myself getting off this soap box.

I am, however, a glutton for punishment...so I wouldn't surprise myself a bit if I found myself awake at midnight, beer in hand, watching Sex and the City again tonight.

God Bless Recidivism!

2008-04-14T20:49:00.003-05:00

Today is the first day of quitting smoking. Okay, to be frank, today is the first day of what might easily be the tenth time in my life that I've tried to quit smoking. Thanks to transdermal nicotine, I'm not drawing Fibonacci spirals on the soft flesh of my face with my finger nails, but I'm a bit jittery. Partially it's that I'm still getting nicotine (in an efficient metered dose: I have become an optimized nicotine junkie), but partially because by about Time Ten, one really gets to the point where he knows what to expect upon quitting.

First and foremost, for those who haven't quit smoking or were clever enough to avoid that steamrollercoaster in their impressionable years of 15-20 (when most of us take up the filthy habit in a childish stab at appearing debonair), the ugly part isn't a sustained sensation of want, but rather a series of small, heartbreaking defeats throughout the day. I am, when I smoke, a heavy smoker. I would sacrifice a kidney, quite possibly, to be one of those smug sorts who can have one or two cigarettes at a party on Friday and not so much as think about it again until the following Friday. Alas, left to my own devices, I am NOT a social smoker, I am an anti-social smoker. Hunched underneath an awning in the rain, hiding from civilization, trying to suck the fucker down in one drag; leaning out my window at two AM in my boxer shorts; inventing fake incoming phone calls on my cell phone that require me to step out and away from my non-smoking buddies in a bar. So when I quit smoking, I get the pangs of desire 20, 30, 40 times a day and everytime I think, "Oh good...I'll go have a ciga...oh, shit....I don't get to do that anymore...SIGH..." What follows is the sort of sadness one feels at age 8 when one's mother informs them that one's dog, Cap'n Barks-a-lot has gone to "retire" at a big farm in the country where he can run free and pee on other dogs for eternity. Don't be deceived, it is a sadness...a childish it's-not-fair-I'll-take-my-ball-and-go-home-nobody-loves-me-guess-I'll-go-eat-worms sort of sadness. For me, it's 20, 30, 40 times a day I go through this minor torture.

So to combat this, I am in my pajamas at 9:30, writing for the first time in months. I am writing, because I don't wish to wallow and I wish for distraction, yet I find myself writing about quitting smoking, so I'm still indulging the monkey a bit. For companionship, I am sucking on an old pipe I had lying around from a particularly high-fallutin' era of pretension my sophomore year in college when I fancied myself something of a pipe-smoking dandy. All the experts tell you in their flakey literature that one is wise to divorce himself from all reminders of smoking, and so sucking on a pipe that has a slight stale tobacco taste to it lingering lo these seven years later would be indulgent and not therapeutic. To that, I say fuck 'em. Who are the experts? I'm an expert. I've quit smoking ten times...who would know better than me what is and is not good for me?

I don't mean to say that there aren't pleasures to quitting smoking; there most certainly are benefits. I could prattle on about how in two days things will taste better and how in ten years I'll be less likely to get cancer and how in twenty years I'll have lungs the strength of ten men, or whatever the statistics are. Those are all very good reasons, along with saving enough to own beachfront property, but I'm talking about the actual pleasures of quitting qua quitting, not the benefits of not smoking anymore.

Quitting smoking, even from its very earliest stages, fills one with an arrogant sort of 'got-the-world-by-the-short-hairs-now-is-the-time-to-live-my-dreams' sort of delusion of virtuousness. Hence, I am writing. I figure, I talk about writing a great deal...but never put money where my mouth is. Needless to say, I am aware that blogging is a form of communication scarcely more official than toilet graffiti, but we start small and then we build, ok?

All joking aside, even from the first day of quitting, there is an underlying feeling of maybe-I-should-try-to-be-the-man/woman-I-always hoped to be. Today alone, I have eaten healthier than I have in months. I walked for an hour and half through Manhattan while listening to Erik Satie. Egad! Who is this virtuous, seemingly healthy adult who strolls through Central Park listening to classical music? Why, it's a clean and healthy and virtuous man who might go home that evening and actually write something, that's WHO! (I even did my dishes after dinner tonight, as opposed to letting them fester until tomorrow.)

And how did I get this in touch with my priorities? How'd I get this downy-white take-charge let's-live-life-while it lasts attitude? By quitting smoking! And why do I get to quit smoking, again, for the tenth (honestly, it's probably more like the twelfth) time? Because I am indulgent sinner at my core, who relishes recidivism and indulges in any nearby excuse to delve back into his darker, more prurient side. This time it was visitors from out-of-town who smoke. I'd have been a terrible host had I not let them smoke in my living room, no? I'd, too, have been pretty darn un-celebratory to abstain from joining them in a postprandial smoke over a digestiv glass of wine? How could I not follow that one indulgence with anything but huffing a half a pack of Camels down while drinking every drop of booze in the house? I'd have made a pretty shoddy host, no?

Luckily for me, I get to atone and be the cleanest boyscout in the room come Monday. God Bless Recidivism!

The saddest thing I've seen in a long time.

2007-11-08T23:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening I found myself tired, work-weary, achey-heeled and on the one train descending the island of Manhattan on the 1 train after a rather trying day at work. My commute is just a bit too short to get any serious reading or napping done, but just a bit too long to be totally consumed by what's on my iPod. Needless to say, the black nothingness streaming past the window (or even worse, in the case of track work, trickling past the window) provides little distraction. (I miss the elevated trains of Chicago; great voyeurism there.) As a consequence, I am often drawn to watching my various fellow riders. I'm not going to argue that New Yorkers are naturally more interesting than the people anywhere else, but with 8.5 million people crammed into the roughly 300 square miles that make the five boroughs, sheer numbers dictate that one may run into a particularly beautiful, crazy, or foul smelling person at any time.

Unfortunately, last night failed to prove interesting. An overweight, middle-aged white woman reading John Grisham. Guy in a suit, overcoat, and cashmere scarf that alone must cost more than my entire ensemble. Twenty something latino man in baggy pants with an affable smile. And directly across from me an utterly unremarkable white woman in her twenties. Dressed nondescriptly in conventional contemporary garb so unremarkable I can't even remember it well enough to describe. She was pretty, but in a patently average way. So average that the only feature to stick out in my mind was her eyes: not earth-shattering, but larger than normal. Opened with a doe-like look of innocence and worry. She looked like she might be more quickly to tears than most, but equally more embarrassed by her tears than most who cry easily. They darted around the car, her eyes, not suspiciously, but curiously. There was nervousness about her, but it was not paranoia. It was the sort of nervousness that is rooted wholly in self-consciousness.

She carried an essence that was evocative of every shy girl you knew in high school. You know the girl of whom I speak. She sat next to you in a class or two. She was friendly, you knew she was smart. She always had an extra pencil when you forgot yours, she chuckled earnestly (if self-consciously) at jokes, but she didn't say much. Maybe one day you accidentally discovered something fascinating about her (like she was an aficionado of Wordsworth, she was an amateur calligrapher, she played the piccolo beautifully) but just as likely you never found out anything about her. She was the generic, nice, shy girl about whom no one really knew anything except her two closest friends. That was the air this woman on the train projected. All this analysis, of course, is hind sight.

She got on the train at 72nd St. and I had already pretty much lost interest in her as we pulled into 66th. I thumbed a page in my book, but was too tired to really read, so I turned up the Bob Dylan on my iPod and glared at my reflection in the window across the train, making faces at my reflection as I often do, naively believing this egomaniacal activity to be subtle enough to escape the attention of my fellow riders. I'm sure it doesn't, but it's a lie with which I am comfortable living.

As the train lurched out of the Columbus Circle station, I straightened up inventoried the ephemera on my person to ensure I had everything for my disembarkation at 50th St. Just as I confirmed the presence of my coffee cup, I looked up to see this unremarkable young woman fumble through her bag, in the universal behavior of every commuter everywhere who is bored and needs reading material or other distraction. She pulled out a dark green Barnes and Noble shopping bag, and hesitated before reaching in. This may be the glorious vision of hindsight as opposed to the myopia of present-tense being, but my memory assures me that at this very moment before she reached into the bag, I sensed a sadness about her. I was eager to see the book, as I judge people harshly on their train reading materials (and often have been known to carry out whole 30 second love affairs in my brain with women who read books and magazines of which I approve).

As she slipped the book out, I could immediately by layout and color scheme tell it was one of those insipid "...for Dummies!" books. Immediately, judgment was rapidly setting in my brain. I kept looking still, however, for I wanted to know about what she was a dummy, and therefore seeking personal enhancement. I had steeled myself for the inevitable eye roll, because I had assumed this woman was going to read up on how a "dummy" such as herself might learn more about wine or HTML or fly fishing or knitting or Canada. As opposed to an eye roll, however, my eyes were almost (literally!) brought to tears when I saw this: "Breast Cancer for Dummies."

As I stood up to exit the train I felt sort of punched in the stomach. I'm not an insensitive person, mind you, but in any densely packed city you learn to blind yourself to the sadness of others for the sake of convenience. However, the poignancy of this moment filled me with emotion and sucked the air out of my chest for a moment. I semi-audibly gasped "Oh God!" twice as I exited the train.

Immediately, my mind went flurrying about with tragic fantasies of the process that led up the purchase of this book. This young woman wide-eyed in a cloth hospital gown on an examination gown in a sterile white room as an infuriatingly professional and emotionless doctor discussed her diagnosis. Or, the night previous, sitting on her couch in sweat pants with her legs curled up underneath her, her half-read novel splayed on the coffee table next to a cup of chamomile tea with her cell phone to her ear while her mom told her the "bad news." OR EVEN nude to the waist in a light pink towel staring into the steamed mirror in her apartment feeling with her right arm elevated above her head, left hand gently squeezing her right breast and wondering if that lump she feels is a symptom of her hypochondria or if it is a sign that her body is betraying her. I fantasize about any of these scenarios leading to this young woman screwing up all her courage; deciding that knowledge is the best weapon. I imagine her nervously peering through the health section at the Barnes and Noble, feeling embarrassed for buying a "For Dummies!" book in the first place, and much less about something with the gravitational pull of cancer. Of paying for it with cash so at least she'll be semi-anonymous to the cashier while she buys this book that she feels silly even buying. I imagine her riding the train home, sitting across from me, and feeling the radiating warmth of this book through her bag. The temptation to pull it out and read it. The struggle of will to keep from pulling it out in public, because the topic is embarrassing. Because the book is embarrassing. Because she doesn't want people like me judging her or feeling sorry for her or wondering about her because she's basically a private person and would really not have anyone know or inconvenienced or even interested in her and her relation to this hungry disease. And eventually, the desire to read more about what she most fears is too much. She cannot wait until she gets home and this train is slow and she's nervous and sort of bored because the train is always boring and what the fuck, it's New York City, who cares who sees you reading a book about breast cancer? Who cares? No one will say anything as a subway car or street corner is actually the most private place in the world, anyway, she rationalizes. No one opens up to those around them on the subway. It's even less likely if they seem in trouble, because it's just best to keep moving and go about your business because you don't have the time or the emotional energy to get yourself even for a second mired in someone else's shit. Hell, its more private than her living room where she can hear her roommate alternately fucking or fighting with her on-again off-again boyfriend. And moreover, the temptation to read is just SO strong. Obviously this cancer is consuming most of her thoughts, if not her body yet or her mother's or friend's or aunts or whomever's, it's got her mind and her emotions in its grasp, so why NOT JUST READ THE FUCKING BOOK ON THE TRAIN? No one will even notice, anyway...

All this ran through my head as I went through the turnstile, before I even hit the street level.

Absolutely true story of stupidity.

2007-10-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

An absolutely true encounter I had at a Duane Reade drug store:

One Friday evening I found myself trudging home fairly early for a New York Friday night, and in the back of my throat I felt the taste for beer. I'd already had a few earlier that evening, and as an unrelenting hop-head, it only seemed logical to purchase a six pack for a nightcap. (I have a chronic condition with two beverages: beer and coffee. If I have one, I generally feel the need to have several. This isn't so bad with coffee; I just get jittery. With beer, however...)

For whatever foolish reasons, I popped into the first purveyor of beer around: the Duane Reade at 42nd St. and 8th Ave., directly adjacent to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. As a consequence, I immediately regretted my choice of beer-buying venue, but having committed to the cause I found the most desirable six pack (Brooklyn Lager) and made my way to the front.

Because it was midnight on a Friday, only four registers were open and each line was about 12 deep with bridge 'n tunnelers, slick with hair gel, fresh off buses from Bayonne and Red Bank and Piscataway buying their Parliament Lights and their Binaca breath spray, gearing up for their nights on the town. For only the fifty-seventh time that day, I wonder why it is I live in Midtown.

I often think Duane Reade should adopt "You'll wait in line and pay too much, but we're everywhere and always open!" as their slogan. That's about all they've got going for them.

After ten minutes of waiting in line, listening to idle Jersey chatter about who was looking "fine" and who's a "slut," I get to the front of the line. I plop my beer on the counter, fumble through my wallet for cash. For whatever reason, Duane Reade is the only place in New York City that makes you verify that you're over fifteen to buy a six pack. Luckily, I've been successfully drinking legally for several years, so I pull my license out and plop it out on the counter.

Like many states, New York notes its organ donors on its drivers licenses. The Empire State, however, boasts this fact in bold, blood red. My intentions to give away whatever is left should I meet full-force with the front of an express bus are clearly noted.

What follows--I swear on my mother's grave--is as close to a verbatim transcript of the exchange I had with the woman behind the counter as my flawed memory will allow:

Counter Lady: Oh, you're an organ donor?

Me: Yes.

CL: What have you donated?

M: (Awkward pause, fearing I had misheard over the din of Jersey boy chatter). Ex...excuse me?

CL: It says you're an organ donor. What organs have you donated? [The kicker!] What you missin'?

M: (At this point realizing this is NOT a smart ass joke by a retail worker on her last nerve) Um...no, no. That...that means if I die...they can use my organs THEN.

CL: No shit! So THAT'S what that means! ? I've always wondered!!

I choked back laughter, attempted to compose a face that did not belie the underlying shame, pity, and amusement I felt for and at this woman, and trudged out...

It Only Looks Quiet from the Outside

2007-06-27T23:56:00.000-05:00

"If only all the contradictory voices shouting inside my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance; yes, and avoided the uncertain extremes of the scale."

-Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Needless to say, one's window into individual selfhood is muddled enough without supposing any insight into the lives of others. Thoreau, however, was a pompous ass, and therefore pretty damned cocksure that he new precisely what was going on in the lives of the "mass of men." Easy for a pretty boy on a faux-sabbatical to a pond just outside of Boston to say.

No, Ellison (not to be mistaken with the the other Ralph E. of American letters who was bosom buddies with this ersatz-recluse) seems to describe any experience of the human condition with which I am personally familiar. Needless to say, on account of my interiority complex (and general solipsism) I take my mental and emotional temperature with a fairly nauseating regularity. That notwithstanding I must say this: Hank, this shit only looks quiet from the outside. When you live inside this head, the desperation's pretty goddamn loud.

Metropolitan Chauvinism: An Open Letter to New York

2007-06-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

Dear New York:

You're better than this. You're smart, you're sophisticated, you're pretty (if a bit dirty), you're always up for a party, you're cultured. Why must you take cheap shots at everyone else?

I almost wouldn't mind your discussion of your supremacy. I'd chalk it up to narcissism. I wouldn't always agree, but I'd forgive you for having a high opinion of yourself. You're pretty sexy and smart, and you have a rapier wit, I'll grant you. Sometimes the truly talented and beautiful get a bit of an ego, and it's understandable.

But, WHY-OH-WHY, adoptive city with whom I find myself falling more and more in love, must you take cheap shots at everywhere else? Baby, it makes you look insecure. It makes you look like you're afraid you maybe don't match up to Chicago or Philly or Boston. Look, I know you and I haven't been together too long. I know I was with Chicago for a long time before you. I know it makes you insecure, how beautiful she is with that huge, natural lakefront and those skyscrapers. But, baby, you've got the Met and the MoMA and the Lower East Side. Guys who think you need a straw and bag for every beverage purchase including coffee. You've got falafel from a cart at five am while still drunk on a Wednesday. Baby, you've got a lot of things that Chicago doesn't. Look, I know, Chicago and I are still friends...and I'd be lying if I said I didn't still understand why I loved Chicago...but I'm with you now. So could you please stop with the unfounded cheap shots?

You always say Chicago's a rube, but baby, you've had Republican mayors for well over a decade. You say Chicago's uncultured, but that's not fair, you're three times as big. No, no, no! I'm not saying you're getting fat! Are you even listening to me?! All I'm saying is, every time you take a cheap shot at the Midwest, it makes you look cheap and jealous.

Except Indianapolis. She's ugly and boring. And Cleveland. And Milwaukee. And you can say whatever you want about the West Coast...'cause San Fran, LA, and Seattle....all total sluts. Not classy like you, baby.

Love,
Zak

The Emotional Weight of Minutiae

2007-05-29T23:37:00.000-05:00

It's interesting. I've run across an object I have not seen in over seven years. The object, itself, is about as noteworthy as, well, it's so damned un-noteworthy that no simile really fits. Its indescribable ordinariness is its most noteworthy characteristic. It's a small, white cotton pouch large enough to hold, maybe a dollar in quarters. It was given to me seven or more years ago by a girl with whom I thought I might be in love. Note that I say "girl" not out of latent sexism, because at the time, I, too, was just a boy. Barely 18. An age at which I shaved out of a flimsy hope that I was manly enough to merit it instead of any actual need.

In it, originally, was a ring. A hammered silver ring that is still, to this day, on my left middle finger. Needless to say, I look at this ring everyday. It holds no special meaning for me in a day-to-day sense. It is simply THE RING THAT IS ALWAYS ON MY LEFT RING FINGER. Once in a while, someone might ask where I got the ring, and I explain that someone I dated a long time ago bought in Mexico when we were both young and stupid teenagers. Even when I explain its origin, I don't really think about the weight the relationship had on my young, stupid life at that point. Moreover, I talk to the now woman who gave this ring to me many years ago on a fairly regular basis. Now she is just my old friend, and to be frank, my past infatuation lingers only in the way one remembers a fairly intense dream. I don't consciously think about, and even when I do, the most intense memories are ones of shame at stupid 18-year-old shit I said in the wake of our stupid-18-year-old break up. I was an idiot at the time, and carry shame like a camel, so that's what sticks with me.

But today I discovered this little pouch. The pouch which carried the ring she gave me after her trip to Mexico with her family after Christmas break our freshman year in college. It's a little dusty, having been at the bottom of a cigar box filled with concert ticket stubs, matchbooks from bars and restaurants to which I have not been in years, a couple of marbles that have no particular significance to me, and a drawing an old friend made in high school. Strangely, unremarkable though it may be, I recognized the pouch immediately.

Upon looking at it I knew immediately what it was. This isn't surprising to me. I remember a lot of unnecessary crap. What was striking, however, was how immediately emotionally evocative this little scarp of cotton was. Strangely, the ring that was the actual gift, is something I associate with my hand....but the little pouch it once came in, is EXTREMELY powerful in its ability to elicit emotional memories. I remember feeling helpless and blissful to be receiving such a nice (and intimate) gift from this girl. I remember thinking that this pouch with this ring in it symbolized something....I dunno...it symbolized the sort of shit a ring might when you're 18 and in a doomed situation with someone. I mean, in retrospect, it's sort of hilarious how serious I was about things there. A) I didn't know shit about shit, but B) the relationship was so very 18 and thoroughly doomed, anyway.

Still...I suppose there it is interesting. I have a watch that was my grandfather's that I wore everyday until it broke. To be frank, at some point, in the front of my consciousness it became just my watch. But I'd find things of his I hadn't seen in years that would send me into really intense emotional states. I suppose, if you want to imbue an article with emotional weight, you really have to hide it from yourself in a place where you'll only discover it every so often. Maybe that's what's so great about old photos...

Sex and Sociology and the Academy: Is The Emporer Shakin' his Junk With No Clothes On?

2007-05-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

I studied sociology at a school that brags, fairly or unfairly, a *moderately* noteworthy reputation on the subject. Needless to say, like all social sciences, an investigation of sexuality permeated my sociological studies. On one end, there was a greater focus on sexual orientation as a socially salient identifying factor on par with race, socioeconomic class, gender, etc. This I buy totally and without any reservation. Being gay, being straight, being bi, being transgendered; it matters. Sexual orientation affects all situations just as British theorist Richard Dyer once said with regard to race, "seldom is it the only issue, but it's never NOT an issue." This I believe whole heartedly.

However, the post-feminist climate of social sciences and humanities often has me all bugaboo.

FIRSTLY--I consider myself something of a little f feminist, in the primary definition of one who believe in inherent equality of abilities, while also accepting and embracing differences between genders. This comes from a post-World War II move in social theory that, distilled to its purest essence says we're all people. No one (or at least no one group) is inherently good or bad or smart or stupid or ugly or evil or rhythmic or taller or what have you. It's a comforting, we're-all-just-people-swinging-on-this-crazy-rock-that-circles-some-90-million-miles-around-the-sun. I am very much into this populist notion, not as a product of my bed-wetting progressive politics, but rather this opinion has caused my populist progressivism. The reason isn't any sort of religious fervor, but rather, that I've never seen any compelling evidence to the contrary. We're products of our nature as well as our nurture, but in the long run I just don't see any meaningful justification that any one person, in a vacuum, should be any greater or lesser than anyone else inherently. My feminism is merely an offshoot of this.

HOWEVER, since the 1980s the capital F feminist movement has begun to confound me. I am not offended, but rather confused. Capital F partisan Feminists in the last 20 years have done some incredible things such as bringing awareness of the horrors of genital mutilation to the world, promoting breast and cervical cancer research, furthering the cause of conception and abortion rights, to even the good ol' fashioned feminist business of fighting patriarchy through policy and empowerment to name just a very few of the major accomplishments of feminism in the last 20 years. On the other hand, there have been academic feminists involved in political fights that have little impact on the lives of real people who have been in (TONGUE FIRMLY PLANTED IN CHEEK) dick-measuring contests over pornography over this time frame. Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon both spent large segments of the 80s and 90s proclaiming porn and erotic work as "acts of rape" that should not be protected by free speech. On the other end of the spectrum, there are post-feminists who proclaim participation in porn and exhibitionism to be the ultimate expressions of feminist sexual empowerment. Maybe my opinion on the subject is invalid (or at least not particularly germane to the topic at hand) as I am a straight, white, college-educated male of middle class standing, but we white guys are pretty known for expressing our opinions whether it's our place or not so I shall express the disjointed confusion that pass as my opinion on the matter: Maybe somewhere between clitoral piercing and public sex shows on the one hand and the sort of vehement anti-porn stance that makes for the strange bedfellows of Andrea Dworkin and Jerry Falwell, there is room for some sort of truth or understanding or reasonable, workable compromise. (We white guys, always trying to be moderate in the midst of revolutions!)

Firstly, I am vexed by porn in general. Obviously, being a secular humanist populist libertarian (and occasional libertine) I am obviously loathe to promote any policy that promotes the limitations of speech. Just as we ought be able to yell "Theatre!" at a crowded fire, why can't we look at dirty pictures occasionally? That being said, I come from a liberal family but from the slightly reserved and thoroughly WASP-ish Midwestern exurbs just outside of Chicago, so it has always caused me slight blushing to discuss porn in polite company. Moreover, possibly given my background, I cannot help but feel some of the erotic charge of porn in contemporary American society comes from the shame and repression surrounding it. Feeling a little dirty can be kind of hot, am I wrong?

On the other hand, porn involving or even fictionally depicting actions by those who did not consent (or those who are unable to consent: children, animals, the developmentally disabled, etc.) not only strikes me wrong but also engenders the sort of revulsion that, after the gagging subsides, engenders a sort of righteousness. It is this righteousness vis-a-vis revulsion that allows me some sympathy for Dworkin perspective. We are all revulsed by different things and by different degrees. Andrea Dworkin's specific sexual past is marred by such horrors that it strikes me as unsurprising that she was wholly intolerant of pornography in any form. That being said, I'm not sure it's a rhetorically strong standpoint from which to draft policy.

So where does the line get drawn? There are some people who find any number of specific kinks to be either incredibly hot or morally reprehensible. There are plenty of us who find porn kinda tacky. (But sometimes that tackiness is kinda hot, too. It's all taboos, and the erotic power of taboo has been so long documented that it hardly bears mention.)

Moreover, another issue is how pornography affects the actual, REAL LIFE sexuality of people. I can only speak anecdotally as I am not in a graduate program, and do not have a grant for research. But I can say that I have known many people for whom porn has played (in my humble estimation) a disproportionate role in the foundation of their personal sexuality. I have known women who liked being called "slut" during intercourse, who enjoyed having the a man ejaculate on her face. I have known men to exhibit the same kinks, a long with a host of others. To a certain extent, I cannot help but think that pornography's thumb print is on those kinks. I am not wholly passing judgment, however. What gets you off, gets you off and I figure as long as no one is emotionally or physically damaged as a result and both parties consent to and enjoy the actions taking place, I see no reason to hold back on doing whatever it is what you want to do. (NOTE: At this point, I'd like to note that I am consciously withholding mentioning any personal kinks out of both embarrassment as well as some semblance of editorial objectiveness and detachment. Plus, of the two people who will even actually read this, you don't wanna know. Suffice it to say, as a temperate honky, I fall somewhere between prude and "freak" on whatever scale one may be measured upon, as evidenced plenty by the, I'm sure, weirdly tacit admissions that permeate the subtext of my writings (or ramblings) on the subject.) That being said, I have known some for whom porn has not only warped opinions on what sex is and should be but has led to disappointment in the act of sex.

Still, though? Disgusting to some, titillating to others, foundational to conceptions of sexuality to others, and finally the ultimate act of empowerment of yet others still. I read Ariel Levy's book Female Chauvinist Pigs which sets out on an investigation--and criticism--of the new wave of "sex-positive feminists." As a reluctant moderate, again, I must say that Levy's analysis both merits praise and criticism. While I agree, Gloria Steinem would choke on her own tongue to discover that there are drunken college girls who think of flashing their boobs for Girls Gone Wild as the act of an empowered woman, I also DO NOT think thong underwear is yet another form of patriarchal bondage to keep women down. The argument by the "sex-positive" feminists is a valid one: as sexuality is a part of fully actualized humanity in a general sense, then of course it must also be part of feminist empowerment. I've always said feminists are the best lays. Calm down. It's irony. Partially. As part of feminism is both a move toward equality, there is another component that is the celebration of femininity. A part of said celebration must also be a celebration of the female body and of female sexuality in a way that is empowering. In the context of intercourse, this means comfort with one's own person (body and soul/mind/spirit what have you). Ultimately, you're going to be a lot more fun in the sack (male or female) if you're not weighed down inhibition or shame.

So, there is empowerment quite easily found in sexuality. But at what point does feminist sexual empowerment merely become an easy framing mechanism for justifying crude participation in vulgar patriarchal sexual structures? While thong underwear as anti-feminist weapon of the phallus culture may be a bit extreme, is porn? The participation there in? Can it be empowering? What about promiscuity? Can it be an empowerment in some cases and subjugation in others? Can subjugation itself, if consented to, be empowering? I think the answer is yes, sometimes. But feminism can also be an easy justification for behaviors that actually bespeak shame of femininity manifest in outward expressions of sexuality to please the patriarchal masses. Needless to say, empowerment must come from within and it must be an internal choice of the individual. One can't afterward use it as a flimsy justification for flashing your boobs in a bar that was actually the product of drunkeness and an insecure inability to say no to crowds of cheering frat boys. That being said, OBVIOUSLY, most of the shame of the situation ought be borne on the shoulders of the frat boys for trying to subjugate said woman thusly.

I think all of this exemplifies my relatively wishy-washy point: there are no hard and fast rules with regard to sexuality. Acceptability is determined only by its participants so to say "porn is harmful" is just as foolish as to say that "porn can't be harmful."

ANYWAY...these previous ramblings prove that I'd make a lousy doctoral candidate. I'd rather discuss 27 issues surrounding what root issue than say any one specific thing with any serious research or analysis. BUT...these ramblings all stemmed out in my brain from an interesting piece I heard this evening on NPR about race in the sex industry. News and Notes with Farai Chideya is a news and round table discussion show that airs Monday through Friday that takes a much under-represented African American perspective on the news and tends to be of interest to me. Today they were discussing inherent racial distinctions with regard to sexuality and the sex industry. This ranged from the rather standard depiction of African-American hyper-sexuality (as evidenced by anything from Mandingo to the late night programming on BET Uncut) to a discussion of wage disparity across racial lines in the sex industry.

The main guest discussing the wage disparity was Siobhan Brooks, a former stripper turned PhD candidate in sociology at The New School. (FULL DISCLOSURE: The New School is my current employer and probably had something to do with why this story caught my ear and sent my brain spiraling out in the directions it has for the past hour and a half.) Ms. Brooks was part of a relatively famous unionization effort in a strip club in San Francisco and is now writing a doctoral dissertation about wage disparity along racial lines in the sex industry. She told of being underpaid in her stripping experiences and being told, ostensibly, that her black body was worth less in the stripping market than the bodies of those of her white counterparts. Ms. Brooks' analysis was compelling: essentially since she was black, and therefore hypersexual (theoretically), she could not earn as much given the cultural perception that she would "give it away for free," so to speak. Presumably, white women were conceived of as harder to get naked, therefore more coveted, and of more fiscal value to the club.

This is the sort of thesis I always found compelling in my sociological studies: simultaneously defensible and of interest while still, quite possibly, utter bullshit. Interesting bullshit. Bullshit that could be backed up, interpreted, and analyzed. Bullshit for which the analysis thereof may well prove of actual importance, but bullshit in that the basic premise from which it was drawn was based on a series of assumptions that are simply a pain in the ass, rhetorically, to defend. Still, in sociology, the process of arguing a premise is as (if not more) important than its actual veracity with regard to the real world. Then again, who am I to say? I could not propose a better argument for why she was paid less. Perhaps a general focus on an Anglo-centric standard of beauty? That's probably just as indefensible but somehow fits more with my perceptions of our culture. I've never been a black woman though. Ms. Brooks may well be right.

Regardless, after batting this idea around in my brain, and finding it both clever in its development (who am I to judge, Ms. Brooks is obviously ten times the scholar than I) and questionable in its validity, I was left with one final question: "Yeah. All well and good. But if you're going to fight racial prejudice and injustice, aren't there more important venues in which to fight it than the sex industy?"

Upon asking this of myself, I was instantly transported back to a 19 year old Zak, sitting in an Asian American literature course I took as part of my other major in college: English. On this particular day we were analyzing an essay from a collection of Queer Asian literature and analysis. The particular essay in discussion this day was one a gay Asian man had written about his dismay with regard to the portrayal of Asian men in mainstream gay porn. I admit a great ignorance about gay porn, mainstream or otherwise, but his argument was that gay Asian male sexuality in porn was often submissive to the point of shame. Always the penetrated, never the penetrator and often subject to succession of multiple (or even simultaneous) penetrations that constituted, if not quite rape, a definite depiction and fetishization of the perceived weakness of Asian men.

Several people in the class did not even attempt to mask their disgust at any discussion of homosexual acts, which did nothing to further the conversation. One female student, however, asked a question that both irked me and interested me, which was virtually the same question I found myself asking earlier tonight, some six years later: "Why porn? Who cares? It's porn. It's not like it's a high-cultural form. Aren't there bigger fishes of injustice to be fried?" (I'm paraphrasing, but the gist was the same.)

I mulled this about and just as I was about to decide whether this question was a valid criticism or further prudishness, a young woman on whom I had a tremendous crush raised her hand. What she had to say only furthered the crush I had on her.

"Yeah. But porn's honest. I mean, what turns you on, TURNS YOU ON. You can't lie about it, you can't hide from it. It's subconscious."

My torch for this girl burned at a new height, as not only did the sun make her raven hair shine beautifully, but she was also much smarter than me...and few things are sexier than smart girls who use the phrase "turn you on" in an academic setting while still being learned. It was a brilliant analysis! (NOTE: She was never interested in me, though, in retrospect she must have known I was head-over-heels for her. Of course, theoretcially, it was a secret crush, but I'm certain the aloof, disenchanted, distance-attempting-to-pass-for-intelligence air I copped around her must have completely belied my true intentions. Last I heard she was dating the same poetry student she had been for the entire time we were in college.)

Regardless, this statement exemplifies my entire point, if I have one. I get frustrated, at times, with the academic study of sexuality and porn because there's a prudish part of me that thinks that it's a masturbatory exercise that serves only to inflate the egos of those reading and discussing the material at hand. However, sexuality is unintentionally honest due to its unconscious nature, both on the individual and the macro level. Simply put, we do not control nor are we even completely aware of what turns us on, so it can serve as a tremendous barometer in the gender-relations of culture as a whole. Plus, sex is just plain fun to talk about.

My Bag: Yes, I am Writing about Myself in Third Person.

2007-05-06T01:35:00.000-05:00

That damn green bag. He always has it with him.

He wears is strung diagonally from right shoulder to left hip, always.

Its presence provides himself with some sort of security. Prepared for whatever situation the city might present him with. Perhaps wearing it such as he does is reminiscent of a seat belt. He feels strapped in while he ambles about New York City, a city in which he does not feel quite at home. Something to protect him.

Its contents are as thorough as those in the purse of a mother of a small child, though different in their nature. A half drunk bottle of Diet Pepsi for fear of thirst. Two books, should the whim to read either fiction or non-fiction strike. Several pens accidentally stolen from his office job. A Moleskeine journal should some sort inspiration strike, a plain steno pad for the more mundane details of life like shopping lists, addresses, telephone numbers. A rumpled and out of date issue of Sports Illustrated that had an article about the Cubs from some months back. A tin of Altoids. Several half-spent books of matches. Hand lotion. An umbrella in case it rains (although the only rain that has fallen on him since he bought the damn thing was on an awkward stroll from Times Square to Penn Station in which he forgot to bring his bag). A folded copy of the Times' arts section with a half-done crossword puzzle. (He has no idea about Oscar winners from the 50s, so he is at a loss with regard to its completion. It is only slightly less outdated than the Sports Illustrated.) Two condoms. Various rumpled ATM receipts. A spoon. Three nickels, two pennies, and a dime that were hastily thrown and as yet unretrieved from the last time he went through a metal detector. An inhaler. An iPod. An emptied blister pack from gum long since chewed. A birthday card from his mom, only under a month old.

Needless to say, he could stand to clean the damn thing out. Moreover, it's not like he carries anything essential in the damn thing. Everything he deems "essential" are in the overstuffed pockets of his jeans or in the pockets of the green corduroy blazer that has on almost as often as the bag.

It's a nuisance. He bumps people with it on the sidewalks and in the subway. He is always catching that comes down over the top on doorknobs. Not a graceful man, when this happens, he usually gets spun all the way around and gets a flustered look of rage and embarrassment on his face. He gets it caught in revolving doors.

It's not even like it's a particular nice bag. It's an old army suprlus bag, and its olive drag is faded by the sun. There are at least two pronounced coffee stains on it. Loose threads hang from the bottom.

Yet, he carries it with him always. It's, apparently, his bastardized superhero utility belt.

The Problem with the 24 Hour News Cycle is here Really Ain't That Much Going On

2007-05-05T23:43:00.000-05:00

I, like far too few people in the current zeitgeist, am constantly frustrated by the vast majority of media outlets and their "news" coverage. Suffice it to say, it's a relatively rhetorically weak position to begin any persuasive piece by discussing noting that your opinions are more sound than many of those around you, but so often we're all saying such things with the due subtlety of WASP-y "politeness." I dispatch with such pleasantries, if for no other reason than I am a pompous ass. Such is life.

My arrogance notwithstanding, I now, only slightly by choice, live in a world without television. Even if I had one, I assure you, I am far too broke to avoid the 8,000 cable channels I once "enjoyed." Regardless, the hyperactivity of the sensationalist of the American news media still penetrates into my life. I consume media I deem worthy at a pace voracious enough to be worthy of note. I have listened to as much as 10 hours of public radio in a given day multiple times. (With the baseball season upon us, I have stepped away from NPR news a bit to listen to my beloved Cubbies as they flounder in their attempts to throw, hit, and catch, but I still get my news fill.) I am an avowed NPR junkie. To the point where I have embarrassed myself at parties with my dorkiness. It's not Magic Card or Dungeons and Dragons, but it certainly ticks on the dork scale.

So I listen to a lot of public radio. I deem it worthy, whereas I deem FoxNews or CNN unworthy (if also unaffordable). Why? A liberal elitism? Oh, sure, I mean...that's part of it. FoxNews is a wellspring of right-wing partisan hackery, sure. I am, however, willing to say that CNN is almost as bad, in spite of its relative impartiality. Why? Perhaps it can be chalked up to market motive of commercial news media, but there is no depth. There is constant repetition of sound bites and sexy little stories, celebrity gossip, "human interest pieces," the rah-rah jingoism of patriotic war stories, and sappy montages of human tragedy. What there lacks, however, is substance.

Wow. Earth-shattering. Cable News lacks substance. Brilliant, Zak. People should sign up for my fucking newsletter.

...and I could leave it just at that: that the 24 hour cable news realm lacks substance. BUT, that would leave my analysis as paltry and watered-down as theirs. Partially because I'm exhausting and partially because it illustrates my point, I am apt to delve a little deeper.

First and foremost, there is a focus on simplicity in television news. And, moreover, a supposition that only providing the "what" of any given story constitutes impartiality. A supposition that it's simply enough to know that x-number of troops died in Iraq today, that President Bush vetoed the most recent bill for allocating money to troops in Iraq, that a hurricane HAPPENED. Sure, stating simple facts provides the simple facts, but maybe the simple facts simply aren't enough to truly understand something. This is a crime of which CNN's Headline News is most guilty. Also the USA Today newspaper.

Many media outlets, however, SEEK to delve into the deeper issues surrounding the attendant causes, effects, and motives behind the goings-on around us. FoxNews is, perhaps, the most notable. They LOVE expending great wind about dealings on Capitol Hill. Yet, they rarely provide actual substantive material on any such goings-on, because there raison d'etre is provocation. And, for all I can say negatively about FoxNews, I'd be lying if I said they weren't provocative. Sadly they provoke while rarely evoking.

The "substance" of FoxNews is often glib and shallow screaming matches between those of presumably opposing sides. The problem with their coverage is not even so much rooted in their right-wing bias as it is in their belief that every subject is absolutely binary. More ignorant is that the supposed binary nature of everything can be assumed to be exemplified by the two major political parties. Firstly, while not an original point at all it bears repeating: MOST STORIES/ISSUES/EVENTS HAVE MORE THAN TWO DISTINCT PERSPECTIVES! MOREOVER, any rational human being can often understand or have empathy for multiple perspectives on any given issue. Often, they can do this while still having a solid opinion on said issue.

So why is this binary so oft used? Well, for the first part, it sells. It offers a "joiner" mentality that is easily marketable. When there are only two sides to a given issue, one is naturally going to be drawn more to one or the other, whether or not that actually represents the full story or their full understanding of it or even of the possible understanding they could have were there more information made available. Moreover, humans are competitive animals. We take pride in the other guy's opinion (like his asshole) stinking, while ours may be rosy fresh. When there's only ONE OTHER OPTION, of course we cling to the one with which we most agree; no matter how much that position may still be pounding a square peg into a round hole, it's a helluva lot better than the other one. In short, if there are ONLY two opinions, we are naturally prone to identify with one more than the other and that sense of belonging and having camaraderie is pretty intoxicating, and therefore profitable.

But, this binary is only possible by looking shallowly into things. So shallow analysis is all that's permitted, lest we know that there are more options than just two. If there are more than two, we might find one that fits more appropriately, but we would be part of a smaller clan and we would find that less appealing to the part of us that wants company in our righteousness.

Perhaps more sinisterly, shallow news analysis is marketable because its marketed as the only bill of goods available. While P.T. Barnum made a great deal of hay on his adage, "No one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of Americans," it is a glib and short-sighted way of looking at US media markets. We are, believe it or not, NOT inherently simplistic. It is my optimistic (and bed-wettingly liberal) opinion that if we offer people the option of seeing A) the whole story and B) that they are smart enough to make an informed and multi-faceted opinion based on such information, they will do just that. Make an informed decision, that is. It is, however, easier for those in the business of news to have myopic and simplistic news coverage.

It's easier, in part, because it's always easier to oversimplify. It requires no great brains at work. More importantly, however, it requires less time. Firstly, all cliched aphorisms about time equaling money actually turn out to be fairly true. Profit motive does, to a certain degree, breed efficiency. But efficiency cannot trump quality. Or, more aptly, SHOULD NOT trump quality. Alas, so often it does. Glib views on complex issues coupled with childish partisan bickering that passes as impartiality (or, if you prefer, a "fair and balanced look at the issues") does not make up for honest research, exhaustive vetting, and careful explanation. Television news, however, is constantly under a time crunch caused by both the short attention spans of viewers and the need to squeeze as much advertising into a given hour as humanly possible.

Firstly, the short attention span of the television viewing audience is as much the effect of television programmers as it is a cause of anything. It's become a vicious circle. We have become accustomed to rapid fire news coverage and entertainment. The accustomedness has bred a stronger appetite for a fallacious brevity that passes for succinctness. The quicker we get it, the quicker we want it. We lap it up like dogs. This isn't a discredit to us, as the viewing populace per se, but once again, if we perceive it as the only game in town, we are prone to wanting it as quick and slapdash as they can sling it.

Additionally, as inherent in its very name, commercial television is WHOLLY dependent on advertising. They have to cram as many ads in as possible. I seem to remember reading the averaged "30 minute" program is actually only something like 21 minutes of actual content. The remaining nine minutes are ads. Think about that. Roughly one third of the television we watch is merely advertising. The consequence is, of course, there's no damn time left to say anything meaningful or substantive about the causes and effects of a given "news" event. We have enough time to say, very vaguely, WHAT happened and maybe to argue like schoolchilren about it for another three minutes before another Viagra commercial needs to come on so the bills get paid on time.

What is most galling, perhaps, about cable news is that in spite of their shallow and truncated news, there is still not enough to talk about for 24 hours straight. Simply put, not enough happens. OR, rather, plenty happens, but not enough that is easily marketable in one to three minute segments. Hence the sensationalization of relatively meaningless items. The actual content of the Kyoto Protocols is too complex to go into, but one can talk about Martha Stewart's incarceration 35 times a day at 45 seconds a shot. There isn't that much going on, especially when one wants a bite size news chunklet. Hence, the need to invent, exaggerated, and sensationalize.

HENCE my love of public radio. No advertising. This offers a great deal of latitude. I will not even begin to get into the self-censorship that is caused by corporate sponsorship of the media, as that is a whole other ball of wax, but the lack of advertising offers a great deal of time to talk about the news with something that resembles real depth and analysis. Moreover, radio offers an ability to multi-task that television does not. Sound is something that we contend with all day long while going about our daily tasks, be it conversation or music or jackhammers. We can take it in at our own pace as we wish, or block it out should something more immediate demand our attention. However, we are visual creatures and find the combination of auditory and visual stimuli both engaging and distracting. We cannot look away. We cannot do anything else. I could never watch 10 hours of television news, it's too active and I'd never get anything done. I can, however, listen to 10 hours of NPR while I get dressed, while I work on spreadsheets at work, while I write emails, while I make my bed. And I can absorb it.

However, as we cannot do anything else (well, anyway) while we watch TV, it's easier to try to cram more into less time. The net weight loss by doing so, of course, is substance.

A Series of Tolerable Miseries.

2007-05-01T22:41:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that the day-to-day business of living in post-industrial America is struggling through an extensive series of tolerable miseries. Traffic, crowded subways, wet socks, waiting in line, overpriced and watered down mixed drinks, lumpy mashed potatoes, runny noses, broken umbrellas, hangnails, blisters, head colds, bad cell phone reception, inconsiderate piles of dog shit on sidewalks, underwear with worn out elastic, computer crashes, gas prices, income taxes, aging, unwanted body hair, vacuuming, dance music, and those tiny, useless napkins they have at fast food places that are too small and too thin to be any fucking good at wiping up anything. Et al, ad infinitum.

We as children rapidly learn how to tolerate these tolerable miseries so that we may become adept and understanding and handling much larger ones. It is no wonder that children scream on airplanes, it is only by conditioning that we adults do not. Airplanes are pretty unpleasant places. Moreover, I feel that larger miseries only become apparent when we have learned to deal with smaller miseries such as soggy French Fries and dandruff. I have often noted children more upset about having to wear a tie or a dress than the misery of the funeral for which they are wearing it. Real misery is a luxury only appreciated when immediate miseries are either dealt with or merely tolerated.

That being said, this is not all bleak. If it were not for tiny miseries, tiny joys would be a hell of a lot less fun. An ice cold beer, a smile from shop clerk, a good punch line...

It's not to say that misery and joy are in any sort of balance. Be it the devil's fault as the subway preachers would have me believe, or merely the entropic nature of the universe fighting desperately to expand into more disparate chaos, the bad shit is winning. But if it weren't for having to work late on a Friday or tepid coffee, maybe orgasms and afternoon naps in hammocks wouldn't be quite so nice.

I am tired and feel like this is an embittered chicken soup for the soul. Plus, who am I kidding? Even if life were ALL orgasms and afternoon naps, I think I'd find a way to appreciate it. Struggle, struggle, struggle!

Non sequitir.

2007-04-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

Generally, although irony will never die, I am of the opinion that non sequitir as a humorous device is all but dead. There is no money in absurdism, as the laughs it can get have already been obtained. That being said, I still dig naturally occurring non-sequitir. For example, the other day I bought a cigarette lighter and realized a day later that it had a sea shell on it and the inscription: "Amorous feelings of beach."

What the hell does THAT mean?

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007: A Disjointed Eulogy, A Defense, a Big "Up-Yours" to the Academe Who Wishes to Sell him Short

2007-04-15T01:07:00.000-05:00

So, like many who claim to be somewhat literarily minded, I was a bit saddened by the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. this week. Vonnegut was something of a hero to me. He has often been relegated to mere fodder for masturbating, zit-faced teenage boys who don't know how to talk to girls, but I cannot help but defend his footprint on the literary and cultural landscape of 20th (and a bit of 21st) Century American letters and culture. To be fair, I discovered and truly fell in love with Vonnegut when I had zits, was unable to talk to girls, and my masturbation output was at an all-time high, but he was somewhat more than this.

Since his past there have been many comparisons of Vonnegut to Mark Twain in the media. I argue that this comparison goes further than the fact that both were moustachioed smart asses from the middle of the country. Both men meant more to their specific zeitgeists than just their novels. Both Twain and Vonnegut are remembered most notably for their one canonical novel as opposed to their entire oeuvre. While both Huckleberry Finn and Slaughterhouse-Five are undeniably important American novels that exemplify the contexts in which they were written, both men are sold short by the remembrance of just one novel. Both were stellar essayists, enlightening and hilarious speakers, and cynics par excellence. Both men serve as prime examples of the American Smartass Satirist (or ASS for short), which ought to be a more vaunted position than it currently is. In a culture as surreal and self-serious as ours, we need the court jesters to point at our culture and laugh at its ugliness.

Vonnegut, in many ways, was more than the sum of his novels. He was more than charming in his wit. There are plenty of arguments for the disdain the academy often shows his work, but the real one is simply that he sold books that were colloquial and witty without obtuseness. Obtuseness and obscurity are what gives graduate students intellectual erections, and because many of these folks had first read Vonnegut in high school, they have sold him short once coming to academic power. It is my assertion that they, too, discovered Vonnegut while zit-faced and unable to get laid in high school. Upon discovering like-minded, self-important, bookish types such as themselves in college and graduate schools, they have since gotten laid. They did so, however, while discussing Proust or Pynchon or Gaddis and therefore think that Vonnegut is bereft of literary merit because it never impressed the cute, shy PhD student with glasses at the last department cocktail party. That's my Freudian explanation. Take it for what you will.

There are legitimate arguments for Vonnegut's shortcoming as a writer. Perhaps the most compelling is the feminist argument that his female characters have all the strength and agency and full-bodiedness of stale Miller High Life. My argument against this, however, is that all of Vonnegut's characters -- short of Kilgore Trout -- are, at best, two-dimensional. His characterization of women does not bespeak a deep-seeded misogyny, like, for example, John Updike. Updike's women are all mothers, whores, or some combination thereof, whereas Vonnegut's women are just like his men: foils and tools and seldom, if ever, the point of his novels. They are the necessary cogs to keep the machine of a novel afloat, but it is the narration and the situations that are the, for lack of a better term, POINT of his work. (EDITORIAL SIDENOTE: As one with an almost infinite faith in the descriptive powers of the English language, "for lack of a better term" is an incredibly weak rhetorical device. There is always a 'better term," given the scope of the English language, but I am simply too lazy to find it. Forgive me. This essay is being written on-the-fly while I am tired, drinking beer, and far too lazy to edit or vet too heavily. Forgive me short cuts, forgive me my sins.) Vonnegut's books take a broad lens approach to the human experience and the American culture of his time, due in no small part to his Anthropological background from the University of Chicago. His characters are everymen and everywomen who are playing out the parts that could be anyone, or rather are PRECISELY anyone by design. Unlike John Irving--whose characters, at his best, are so lifelike that if one were to place a mirror up to the page would find it quickly steamed with the breath of their vibrancy--Vonnegut was concerned with a macro-level analysis of the society which surrounded and confounded him. So, sure the women were weak, but so were the men. They didn't matter. They weren't supposed to.

No, the driving force of Vonnegut was cultural-criticism, satire, and cynicism. While many third grade teachers and greeting card writers are eager to tell us that it is far better to be a dreamer than a cynic, Vonnegut's cynicism was refreshingly optimistic. Sure, Vonnegut informed college graduates that things were bad and only to become more "unimaginably worse," but inherent in that statement is an optimism. Those who are cynical are cynical only because there is an assumption inherent that things could or should be better. Moreover, Vonnegut's cynicism exemplified his assertion that artists were the "canaries in the coal mine" of culture. His cynicism reflected, merely, the ugliness of World War II, Watergate, Vietnam, Nagasaki, and any number of other sadnesses visited upon humans by other humans during his tenure on this earth. Vonnegut's cynicism presupposes that it is not only possible that humans SHOULD be nicer to each other, but the more electrifying belief that they actually CAN. If that isn't optimism, I don't know what is.

In closing, I can only hope that Vonnegut's understood importance grows. He was, undoubtedly, the first literary figure to truly captivate me. As this is the case, I am aware that I am prone to lionize the man and his work given its influence on me at a time during which I BEGGED for influence. Upon reading of his death, I had to admit some particular disappointment that he died old and weak and frail from brain injuries caused by a fall. As something of a hero, I would have initially hope for a romantic death. Even the natural progression of his "noble suicide" by Pall Mall to crippling lung cancer would have proven a more romantic death to me. But, upon further investigation, I am heartened that heroes of a sort still get to be weak and feeble and human and susceptible to falling down the stairs while advanced in age. His death demonstrates, as does his oeuvre, that we are all weak and feeble human beings and that no one is better or more entitled to a glorious death (or life for that matter) than anyone else. As with any example of just how fragile we are as human beings, there is an obvious sadness to how little we matter, but an equally huge relief: that which we do on earth makes us no less or no more human (and therefore fallible) than anyone else. Cheers to that equality.

Simply because I cannot resist the temptation, allow me to close thusly: Kurt is up in heaven now. So it goes.

Put Yourself in My Shoes.

2007-04-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

Say, for a second, you are me.

You live in Hell's Kitchen, on a rather unfashionable and grubby block of what is rapidly becoming a very fashionable and ungrubby neighborhood. You live in a dilapidated but serviceable tenement in the West 40s that is, mercifully, not full of the yuppies that seem to be conquering the neighborhood. That being said, you wish there was something that could be done about the mold on in your shower and that your bedroom were bigger.

You have a neighbor across the hall that is very friendly, but a bit manic. She is very chatty with you in the hallway and you've helped her with her groceries. You've even scooped up a dead mouse with snapped neck that was crippled in a trap in her kitchen because she is paralyzed with fear over mice. Mice are unavoidable in your building. Still, when you chat with this neighbor, you're never sure that you completely are communicating. You understand the words, but rarely the context in which they are said. It always seems to be completely non-sequitir small talk. You'll mention the weather, she'll complain about Mondays on a Wednesday. Also, her eyes are often bloodshot.

Imagine now, if you will, that she knocks on your door at 11:00PM on a Monday. You answer and she is particularly manic and in desperate need of aluminum foil. So much so that she even says, "I just need a little bit to, um, wrap something. I don't even care if its used!"

Would you conclude that she was a crackhead and needed tinfoil for a fix?

Yeah. Me too.

The Seeming (and Seamy) Cloak of Anonymity.

2007-04-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

In THE GREAT GATSBY, Fitzgerald notes, "I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."

New York City is a large party. Or it would be if you could afford for it to always be a party, and alas I cannot. That being said, the point here is still apropos. There is a definite privacy that comes with being around thousands of people at any given second. The streets of New York City provide a cloak of anonymity that provides one with a sense of privacy, and enables one to discuss any number of private and intimate matters while walking down the street. I'm no better as I've had frank discussions about sex, money, and all that which is deemed inappropriate dinner-party banter by the WASP-ish voice in my head while wandering through the streets of this town.

For the most part, no one cares what you say as long as it's not directed at you and you're not blocking the sidewalk. I, however, fancy myself somewhat writerly, and therefore pride myself on observation. This is, of course, horse shit as I A) have not published anything since high school nor actively sought publication and B) am really just an unrelenting voyeur. So I eavesdrop to a nauseating degree. Ordinarily nothing juicy is said, but today while walking down the 16th St. toward Union Square I heard, with all due awe, incredulity, and respect, a woman exclaim to another, "NINE AND A HALF INCHES?!"

Radiators.

2007-04-02T21:36:00.001-05:00

I like how radiators look like spines from above.

Blue Canary in the Outlet by the Lightswitch.

2007-03-25T00:58:00.000-05:00

I don't care how old and embittered I get, I don't care how dated the production sounds, I don't care if it proves I was a really big dork in high school: LET IT BE KNOWN HERE AND NOW AND FOREVER MORE! "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants continues to be one of the best pop songs ever written. I will cut anyone who wishes to disagree. Ok, not cut. But soundly disagree with them.

There is great therapeutic qualities to listening to your favorite songs and albums from a decade or more ago. One will learn two things: 1) How much he/she has grown. 2) How the greatness of a specific song can outstand aging or even TIME itself. Seriously. Trust me.

Also, Frank Black's "Teenager of the Year" album will still carry water, no matter how many years have passed.

A Lean-Seeming Hunger Easily Mistaken for Ambition.

2007-03-21T23:15:00.000-05:00

I have taken, of late, to walk home from work. I work in Union Square and live in Hell's Kitchen, so it makes for a pretty good walk. 40 minutes to an hour, depending on whether or not I stop in one of the funky little grocers on 9th Avenue in the 30s and 40s. It has become, possibly, the best part of my day each day. It's easy to forget or miss large chunks of this city by taking the subway. At least in Chicago I could look out the window as the trains were above ground 90% of the time and some neighborhood could pique my interest as I passed. Underground, New York looks all the same.

I get home feeling really invigorated for about fifteen minutes. I feel ambitious. Ready to accomplish things around my apartment. Alas, this wears off and I take a nap. Still. I save $2 in subway fare, so I suppose it's been valuable. And I've seen people argue on the sidewalks in too many languages to count. Thus, my advice: go for a nice long walk. Even if you don't live in New York. Hooray for walks!

Statistic of the Day: A Horrifying Look into the Numbers That Shape My Life

2007-03-14T23:54:00.000-05:00

Absolutely TRUE statistic about my day today:

Today I consumed 88 ounces of black coffee and I listened to over 8 hours of public radio. Terrifying reality: this is true MOST days.

My previous favorite personal statistic was a trip to the grocery store in which my old roommate and I purchased:

72 Cans of Beer
30 Rolls of Toilet Paper
4lbs. of unshelled peanuts.

When you add up the numbers, it's amazing I'm still alive.

On Oliver Sacks, Music, the Brain et al.

2007-03-08T00:33:00.000-05:00

So on a hot tip from an old friend, I took the trek up to Columbia University to see Oliver Sacks speak on his new book about music and neurobiology. I cannot help but find Sacks uniquely palatable as scientists go, in that he treads that middle-brow road like Malcolm Gladwell is to sociology and social psychology. I can handle the heavy-duty sociology, having something of a background in it, but I don't know much about the brain so, Sacks' populist approach to it (complete with layman language and witty asides).

He was introduced by a seemingly affable doofus named Eric Kandel. I ran into both in the men's room prior, I knew it was Sacks, but had no idea who the doofus with bow tie was as he genuflected toward Sacks about what an honor it was to introduce him. I later learned he's a Nobel Laureate. You think with the prize money and recognition Kandel would learn to wear at least a less audacious bow tie, but if you're a Nobel Laureate, I suppose you are entitled to where what you damn well please. Gabriel Garcia Marquez could speak to me while wearing thong panties and an orange cardigan and I'd still listen with rapt attention. Praise wins you credibility amongst the unwashed masses which, in turn, affords you just about any level of contrived idiosyncrasy you wish. To Kandel's credit, after a few minutes of praising the institution that pays his bills, he had a few subtly cutting barbs at the expense of now deposed Harvard president Lawrence Sommers, and I always appreciate those, as he is a sexist, classist dick.

Anyway, the gist of Sacks' talk was on music and the brain. I am interested in both, so it was captivating to say the least. Additionally, it was nice to go out to a lecture again after lo these many years of my not being able to attend such things due to work schedule, laziness, lack of accessibility, poverty, et al. The questions that arose in my mind, however, were of a critical nature. Partially, I think, due to my general belief that it is important, even as an unwashed pleb, to question the methods and results of the intelligensia, and partially due to my general tendency toward rancor these few days. Firstly, the focus seemed to be on classical music. All of Sacks' case studies were specifically motivated toward patients' reactions to or passions for classical music given any number of neurological anomalies. Fine, all well and good, but what about jazz, if nothing else? Jazz is a cognitively complex style of music too, damnit! Then again I give Sacks some slack as he is in his 70s and has been entrenched in the academy for a long time. Those snooty types rarely cut loose.

Additionally, there was a surprising level of tension between Kandel and Sacks on stage. It was subtle, but Kandel referred to Sacks as a "public intellectual," which is a sneering barb often directed at folks like Howard Zinn. What it means is, "I resent you because you sell books and cater toward a more populist audience as opposed to writing the sort of highly specific gibberish that only I and those of my elite club of neuroscientists/physicists/historians/whatever can understand." My stance is both roles are important and given that it was an event for Mr. Sacks, Mr. Kandel would have done well to keep mum during the question and answer session as opposed to interjecting with his highly specified critiques to all of Sacks' answers to, what were quite frankly rather insipid, questions from the peanut gallery.

On the other hand, what maybe fascinated me the most about Sacks' lecture was his discussion of "amusia," which is a condition in which an individual is incapable of deriving pleasure or understanding or even any comprehension with regards to music. One of the case-studies Sacks told of said that listening to, say, Bach was tantamount to listening to one "bang the pots and pans in [her] kitchen around." I can only imagine how awful and alienating a disorder this can be. It strikes me as worse than being blind or deaf or any specific sensory disorder because physically all the capacities are there, it's the understanding and comprehension that lacks. Additionally, were I to suffer from amusia, I would--I'm sure--be exhausted by everyone telling me about that on which I was missing out. For all music to be noise is like having all flavors bitter or all colors drab or I dunno...being able to orgasm, but sensing it with the same lack of feeling that one might generally associate with a handshake. I thank the lord that I can be passionate about music, even if I don't understand the musical theory behind a given piece nor why my brain receives and interprets it the way it does. Some joys are fine just as simple, beautiful mysteries. Legitimate aesthetic response is simple, beautiful mystery and the world and any individual in it needs as many simple, beautiful mysteries as possible. There are far too few in the human experience; I'd rather not lose any.

"Hey! Who's in the garage!?"

2007-02-27T22:22:00.000-05:00

I get a LOT of wrong numbers. I have a Chicago number for my cell phone and am loathe to change it for fear of having to then deal with telling everyone I've ever known that I have changed it. So, I continue to get a lot of wrong numbers from Chicagoans.

The most frequent are calls for The Family Medical Network, a subsidiary of the Resurrection Health Services of Chicago. My number is FOUR digits off from there and I know this because my old doctor in Chicago was part of this network. (Funny story: Co-Pay checks for his office were to be made payable to "Resurrection Services," which I thought was a pretty ambitious claim for an MD. "Doctor, quick! Get the Lazarus device!")

These tend to be dull. Tonight, however, I got a perturbed woman who wanted to know, "Hey! Who's in the garage?!"

Nobody here but us chickens.

Bitter lamentation of one who is frustrated by hipsterdom (but secretly kinda wants to be a part of it.).

2007-02-20T01:11:00.000-05:00

Things bicycles are:

1) A means of transportation.

End List.

Things bicycles are not:

1) A political statement.
2) A fashion accessory.
3) A lifestyle choice.
4) A hipster-phallus extension.
5) Anything other than a fun and healthy way to get around.

Get over it. You WILL NOT change the world by welding bike frames together and going to critical masses. If you wish to change the world, quit wasting your time feeling superior to those around you because you built your own fixie and join a goddamn non-profit or volunteer for a campaign or even write a goddamn poem. The power IS NOT BETWEEN YOUR LEGS, jackass. Were there to be any power in you, it would be located between your ears. Alas, perhaps your image-consciousness has blinded you to that.

Also...that mustache looks silly. So do those girl-jeans.

I am cantankerous grump, I know. Also, the cool kids rarely ask me to come out and play.

Nap time.

2007-02-16T21:16:00.000-05:00

Take a nap. Indulge in the olfactory narcissism of finding the smell of your pillow uniquely appealing and comforting. Unwrap, unwind, slip away. Sure, at some point you'll have to come back and it will all still be here, but for 20, 30, 40 minutes in a day, there is room for a brief respite from the attendant demands of selfhood.

Universal Truths. (or at least, I think they are....)

2007-02-13T01:00:00.000-05:00

1) Andy Dick is not funny. Nope. Not even a little bit.
2) Jonathan Safran-Foer is overrated. VERY overrated.
3) David Foster Wallace is NOT.
4) The Food Emporium on 42nd St. and 10th Ave. is, apparently, run by drunken chimps who don't know shit about produce.
5) Andy Dick is still not funny. Not even his last name.
6) NPR is the last worthwhile broadcast news outlet in the United States.
7) Barack Obama could well become president, as long as people stop spending all their time and energy telling everyone that he can't.
8) Peter Francis Geraci is the most important litigator of his time.
9) I really ought to be asleep right now.

New Word!

2007-02-07T02:31:00.000-05:00

Interrobang! An interrobang is the delightful combination of the exclamation point and the question mark. If ever a new punctuation mark was necessary, it is this one. When written, it looks vaguely runic, but far less clunky than "?!". Sadly, the blogger typeface does not allow me to type one, so you'll have to look for it at a typeface near you.

Combining this with my quibbling over addressing letters in New York it's amazing that A) I ever managed to hold down gainful employment B) I have ever known the touch of a woman. For those curious, I have blissfully enjoyed both, thank you very much!

Just the sort of quotidian minutiae that concerns me and keeps me from more pressing matters...

2007-02-07T02:20:00.000-05:00

I have been sending out an almost unfathomable number resumes (EDITORIAL NOTE: I don't know how to put the damn accents in on this blogger, please forgive me) and cover letters over the past few months. As of yet, I do not have full time employment. Perhaps my distraction by niggling details such as this keep me from actually doing enough to get my ass hired. Regardless, I am disheartened by the lack of standardization in the style with which one writes an address in New York City.

For example, I have seen an address such as the one for the Hunter College School of Social Work written the following ways:

129 E. 79th St.
129 East 79th Street
129 East Seventy-Ninth Street
129 East 79th St.
And any and all other permutations thereof.

I, myself, have chosen to write the direction out and abbreviate the street, because I have felt most comfortable with that. Regardless, in Chicago there was a defined system. I used to work at 25 E. Jackson Blvd. The direction was ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS abbreviated, as was the street. Numbered streets on the South Side were ALWAYS written numerically. New York seems to have NO standards. Is there a New York style guide I failed to receive upon crossing the GW in my Budget Rental truck? Moreover, why should I give a good goddamn about such minor things? Yet it bugs me, nonetheless.

It's a good thing no one else reads this. I don't know who but me could be interested in such things. Don't even get me started on the hyphenated street numbers for addresses in Queens, either...I have no idea WHAT the hell they mean.

Art School Toilet Humor.

2007-02-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

I am temping, currently, at the New School. Bohemian such as it is, I am heartened by any institution whose bathroom graffiti send me to a dictionary in order to decipher their wit.

(EDITORIAL NOTE: For those who wish to quibble about number agreement in the previous sentence, "graffiti" is a plural noun. JUST LIKE "DATA!" One piece of graffiti is a graffito, one item of data is a datum. And I am an elitist ass for knowing so. Somewhere, however, my paternal grandmother is smiling upon me for knowing these things. Of course, the rest of my blog is stained with the red ink of judgment from beyond the grave, for all my previous usage and grammatical errors. C'est la vie.)

That being said the graffito in particular that caught my attention was a drawing of two Pac Men, seemingly drawn by different hands at different times. A response to the other. What I can only assume was the original was a Pac Man simply asking, "Precarity?" The adjacent Pac Man responded, "INDEED!" Additionally, the responding Pac Man--drawn in purple--had gigantic, sharp teeth like a child's drawing of a dinosaur. Initially, I figured that "precarity" as a mistake, when really the author wanted "precariousness." Ok, so I'm playing like I'm really friggin' smart in my blog. I was PRETTY SURE that the noun form of "precarious" was "precariousness," awkward a word though it may be. I, however, second guess myself constantly, so I looked it up. What I learned is that, rather than misusing "precarity," the creator of this particular tag is much more clever than me. Instead, it's something of a neo-Marxist statement about labor. According to the good folks at Wikipedia, "Precarity has been adopted in leftist circles as the English-language equivalent of Precariedad, Précarité, Precarietà, terms of everyday usage in Latin countries that refer to the widespread condition of temporary, flexible, contingent, casual, intermittent work in postindustrial societies, brought about by the neoliberal labor market reforms that have strengthened the right to manage and the bargaining power of big and small employers since the 1980s." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarity ) Hence, I suppose, the teeth on the respondent's Pac Man.

Regardless, this particular bit of bathroom art packed a particular poignancy for me as I saw it while taking a shit on my lunch break at a woefully underpaying temp job. Irony? Nay. PROPHECY!

Global Warming.

2007-01-26T14:06:00.000-05:00

So, I was on my lunch break today. It is a balmy 20 degrees in New York City today, with wind gusts topping 40 miles per hour. As I stepped out to buy a cup of coffee, I was accosted by two canvassers who were trying to get people to donate money to a cause to help fight global warming. Given the weather today, all I can imagine is that these guys have heard a LITANY of the lamest global warming jokes ALL DAY DAY LONG. "I could use some global warming now, HAR HAR HAR!"

Luckily, even though I am loathe to pass up low-hanging fruit when it comes to humor, I was able to resist the initial urge as it worked its way through my brain. I tell ya. That sort of temperance is a sign of maturity.

I was young and needed the money.

2007-01-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

So, I moved to New York in late November and things have not gone as planned, per se. I have spent the past two-plus months unemployed, and only in the last couple of weeks have I washed up on the margins of employment: temping. At a scant $11 an hour for dreary data entry, and given that this temp job only came about last week, I have spent a fair amount of time looking for other avenues to generate some cashflow.

Frustrated with feeble attempts to sell my labor, I first looked into selling my body. Not quite ready to Midnight Cowboy it up (I still have some pride), I looked into selling stuff I produced in abundance. Sadly, no one wanted my gutter Pollack blood, nor my gutter Pollack sperm.

At an impasse, I feebly wandered the "gigs" section hoping something would arise. Very quickly, I learned that unlike my blood or semen, there WAS a market for my gutter Pollack opinions. No market for my body, but plenty of market for my soul. AND THAT'S HOW I JOINED A FOCUS GROUP!

For $85, I spent two hours discussing a brand of ROT GUT brandy (that shall remain nameless) that is more commonly associated with men warming their hands on garbage fires under highway underpasses than it is with, say, snifters and cigars. They're looking to class-up their image. That's why they called ME in. Well, me and several other middle class males aged 21-35. (We're a good demographic.)

So, after work I road the 4 train up from Union Square to Grand Central, to go to Focus Suites (slogan: "Our focus is on YOU!") on Lexington Ave. and 41st St. After being screened in the lobby, having my ID checked, and being ushered through a turnstile (recorded by video cameras all the way), I took an elevator up to Floor 13. Entering the Focus Suites was something like being in a juror pool. They took my name and assigned me a specific color for your specific focus group. I then sat in this holding pen, with all the other colored groups awaiting word from whomever was conducting your particular focus group. Luckily, unlike jury duty, they had refreshments! For free! If there's one lesson I've learned on this earth, it is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS abuse free swag when it's offered. Two little sandwiches, three cups of coffee, and a couple of tasty Danish butter cookies later, the green group was called. For some reason unknown to me, two guys from our group were bumped at the last second. I wonder if they were still paid without participating. If so, I'm insane with jealousy. Some guys get all the breaks.

We were ushered down the hall, our party consisting of a very tired (and possibly stoned--very bloodshot eyes and quick to chuckle at anything) Asian man in his mid 30s; an effeminate 20-something business consultant of mixed racial heritage; a very angry and tired looking Latino man in his early 20s; a very tall and charmingly disinterested African-American student in his early 20s; an incredibly relaxed, saracastic African American tow-truck driver from Queens in his 30s; an African American middle manager with a garish take on business attire (pinkie rings, gaudy paisley tie, cream pinstripe pants, vibrant blue shirt...imagine if Superfly worked at a bank and was TRYING to tone it down, but not quite succeeding...); a white, late 20s airline agent with several bracelets of the "Livestrong!" variety, 5 o'clock shadow, and spikey hair, who seemed to find himself VERY amusing; and ME, an out of work, college educated whiteboy from the country whose allowed his embitteredness to take over in venues such as this.

We assembled ourselves around a board room table and the first thing I noticed was the obvious one-way mirror that comprised the whole of the back wall. It was corporate-board-room-meets-store-managers-office-that-you-got-dragged-to-in-Kmart-when-you-got-caught-shoplifting-GI-Joes-when-you-were-nine. The nice thing, though, was on the sidebar....there were more cookies and coffee! And the classiest touch of Focus Suites was that rather than having chintzy, environmentally unsound styrofoam cups, they had honest to God stoneware mugs (all of which reminded me that their "focus is [me]"). Hanging above the board room table were several microphones, and we were instructed to direct our name placards toward our facilitator. Coincidentally, this also pointed them right at the one-way mirror, behind which, it was immediately apparent to me, stood the corporate toadies. Watching our every move. No doubt taking very bland notes peppered with bland and meaningless buzzwords like "actualized consumer," and "new market potential" and other things so specific and dreary I couldn't hope to know or understand them.

Sitting at the head of the table was Ron, an African-American man in his mid-fifties. He was, at least in the beginning, likeable enough. Corpulent, slightly amusing. There was a hint of Al Sharpton about his appearance, but if Al Sharpton had taken a different turn and began conducting focus groups. He was decidedly less "corporate" than I had expected. He wore a sweater and slacks and looked comfortable, letting his sizeable belly hang slack. There were no ostentatious flashes of wealth about him or even about projecting "standardized norms of professionalism." His language seemed generally genuine, with only a few brief moments of that syrupy ersatz-sincerity that is the hallmark of the contemporary corporate world. Still, he straddled that awkward position of trying to be both professional/corporate while still being streetwise/accessible/charming. That being said, he rang a lot truer than most people I have met who were acting on behalf of a corporate interest. So much so that he hardly masked his disdain for certain members of the group (read: me) as the evening went on, but there's more on that later. Regardless, I'd rather him dislike me than continually flashing the Pepsodent smile and nodding vigorously with faux interest at everything I said.

After a perfunctory round of demographic collection--names, ages, occupations--around the table, we settled into discussing booze. QUESTION: What was the last brown spirit YOU purchased? Quickly it was determined that I was the only scotch drinker in the room. That's fine, I'm one of the few scotch drinkers under sixty. This, however, was the first step in determining my continued irrelevance to the advertising agency that was handling this paint thinner of a booze. Nope, they were into brandy. Brandy that is shamefully marketed toward poor and working class African Americans. HOWEVER, they are undergoing an image campaign, so it became abundantly clear that the upshot of the ad campaign was that this particular NEW, FANCY, UPSCALE version of drinkable kerosene was a tool, apparently, of upward mobility.

We began to look at possible print advertisements for this particular booze. Always in groups of two, always similar in theme, always eerily sepia in color, presumably to mimic the color of the brandy? All of the ads but one featured young, attractive black people who were appearing varying states of upper class, in spite of the fact that this brandy (I was made aware by my African American focus group brethren) is, in Harlem, generally associated with paper bags and panhandling. (I was unaware. Most of the poor drunks in Chicago drink malt liqour.) One set of ads featured a white male, 20-30s, adjusting his cufflinks. He had the far off, distant smile that is ONLY found in alcohol and tobacco ads, as though he was transcending the quotidian anguish and ennui by being A) rich and chic and B) by drinking shitty brandy that was posing as something better. The caption read, "Graduate to X.O." (X.O. being the new, shmancy version of this swill.) It's counterpart featured a picture of hiphop artist Cee-Lo (to people as unaware of contemporary hip hop as me, the short, squat, bald guy of Gnarls Barkley fame) wearing an ostentations white linen double-breasted suit, complete with muted pin-stripes, a silk tie as wide as a soccer field, and a tri-folded pocket square. It screamed hip-hop ostentation.

Something about these ads offended me. They flicked the guilty, white, liberal node in the deep recesses of my brain. I could not put my finger on preciscely why, but I found these ads racist. I suppose it was that they were contextless. Needless to say, had I been reading the New Yorker, I wouldn't have found the bourgeois honky all that surprising. Nor would I find Cee-Lo surprising in Vibe any number of youth or black-targeted publications. Which is precisely WHY I found them vaguely racist. Because, immediately, I could pick just which publications these ads might be in. I knew their correct context. They both were targeted narratives of upward mobility, targeted racially. With booze as a symbol, and even cause, of status.

Moreover, there was no subtlty to their fallacies of upward mobility. It reminds me of a joke wherein a black man rubs a lamp, finds a genie, and wishes to be "White, up tight, and outta sight!" He is, of course, turned into a tampon. Still, the ad with the white man is an aloof, exquisitely, yet simply, dressed man who is ignoring the camera while smiling a transcendent smile of arrogance and exclusion. As if he knows something that you don't, and it has to do with his superiority.

On the other side, the black symbol of upward mobility was an entertainer. He's garishly dressed demanding attention. This is a continual fallacy of black upward mobility. Entertainment is the only way up, and once one gets there, be sure to wear your wealth ostentatiously on your sleeve! I suppose it plays into an opinion I have, and one I often keep mute for fear of being accused of racism. That being said, I will out with it. I think consumerism is being sold to Black America in a way that does a great disservice both culturally and economically. Look at the ostentation of Sean Combs or Russell Simmons or any number of African American athletes. I am not passing judgment. These people are as much a product of this "get-rich-or-die-trying" aesthetic as they are perpetrators of it. It's just...there's a big focus on getting rich and showing it off in contemporary hip-hop culture...and I cannot help but feel like corporate marketers PREY on this mercilessly.

It struck me part way through that this brandy probably had NO intention of ever being sold to wealthy people. Oh no, far more insidiously, I think their plan was to convince their usual poor customer base to spend five extra dollars a bottle on this X.O. rot gut so they CAN FEEL AS THOUGH they're partying with Jay-Z. It's the same thought I've had about Mountain Dew's EXTREME SPORTS ad campaign. I realized at one point, that they have no intention of getting snowboarders to DO THE DEW. Oh no, they just want the fat-compulsively-masturbating-35-
year-old-virgin-who-still-lives -in-his-mom's- basement-and -plays-D&D- every-weekend base to FEEL like badasses by drinking that stomach-pickling antifreeze.

So, I put a toe in the water. I hinted about the difference in the representations of race. THIS quickly made me a non-entity to Ron throughout the rest of the evening. He DID NOT find it funny when I waved at the men on the other side of the glass. He didn't even let me discuss the tension between flirtation and seduction I saw in the last pair of ads. Which is fine. I was of no use to them, and they were certainly of no use to me.

What I appreciated is most of the people in the group were only there for the money. Most of us saw right through the bullshit. But...there was one guy...at the end who actually said, "I dunno...I think I may go buy a bottle of this X.O. They've really stepped up their game..." I didn't know if I wanted to slap him...or cry for the millions of Americans who are so blissfully sold to. Put a new image on the same schlocky bill of goods, and someone will show up, cash in hand.

Still... $85 is pretty good money for a scant two hours of frustration.

Self Discovery is a Crock.

2007-01-24T19:19:00.000-05:00

Catchy title, huh?

I don't mean to say that we can't learn about ourselves. Self-discovery, it seems to me, is a process and very legitimate, but there is no terminal point. The only person guaranteed to every be continually surprising is one's own self. Sometimes I'm surprised, even, by how unsurprising I am in certain moments. To say I've learned a lot about myself of late would be an understatement, but to say that I've reached any concrete understanding is so far from reality tha it's laughable.

Life and thought and selfhood is never one thing. It's myriad aspects, thoughts, aspirations, frustrations, questions, emotions all flying a once. Suffice it to say that this is a cheesy cliche, but I'm willing to bear the burden of talking in cliches, should they prove to be true.

I seem to remember something in a literature class in college about how the high-modernists (Faulkner, Joyce, et al) were focussed on the self. On understanding the self. The post-modernists, if I recall correctly, tended to be more focussed on the obliteration of the self.
My Marxist synthesis of these two is that we try to understand the self, but the self is already obliterated. Or rather, that it never hung together as a ONE in the first place. Our brains are very Dada places. Or mine is. It's merely a loose amalgamation of knowledge, experience, pain, joy, love, hate, et al, et al, LOOSELY tied together by spit and used chewing gum and ego.

Hence, I often sit and think, "What am I thinking at this moment? What am I feeling?" So rarely do I get any sort of concrete answer.

What an Exciting Town!

2007-01-20T04:32:00.000-05:00

I just stepped out to see two prostitutes and a John getting busted by the always valiant NYPD. How exciting!

We had hookers in my neighborhood in Chicago, too. It's just that the cops didn't really come to my neighborhood.

I feel bad for the two women involved. I saw them allowing a search of their vehicle on sight, which I have learned ANYTHING in my 24 years... YOU NEVER CONSENT TO A SEARCH WITHOUT A WARRANT. EVER. NEVER EVER.

Must be gettin' old...

2007-01-19T00:55:00.000-05:00

...or hangin' out in the wrong crowd. I just realized I have more friends in grad school than I do who are in rock bands. That didn't used to be so.

Dispatch from an Island off the Coast of America

2007-01-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

I live on an island off the coast of America. I wish I could take pseudonym for the isle of Manhattan, but alas, I am cribbing from Spalding Gray. I crib because I love however; it kicks the shit out of "The Big Apple."

There is something outside of America about New York City. It IS American in many ways--some of the worst, if you've ever walked through Times Square on a Saturday--but it's self-consciously made itself an "other." I both love and hate this.

I hail from a region where Chicago was the platonic ideal of city. As Nelson Algren once noted, "Living in Chicago is like being married to a woman with a black eye: there may be lovelier lovelies, but never a lovely so real." I do miss that hog butcher of a town. Much of what I love about it is its perfect balance of provinciality and cosmopolitanism. I miss working class taverns on every corner (and, yes, bridges that smell of chocolate, too.) The working class seems missing from this town. Sure in the outer reaches of the outer boroughs, but for the most part Manhattan seems to be the playground of the hoi polloi.

On the other hand, there's so much going on here. It's hard not to romanticize the culture of New York. The desire to be seen while pretending you don't care that you're being seen. The desire to be hip without seeming. But what's truly great about New York are the few people who are NOT self-conscious. Those who you see on the subway who are truly presenting whomever they are without the cockiness of the MANY who are trying to hard. I dunno...I ramble. To bed for me. Tomorrow is another work day.

Ah, New York, New York! It's a hell of a (parody of a?) town...

2007-01-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

So...I started blogging. And my initial intention was to avoid first-person accounts of my life...but the hilarity of my situation was too glaring.

I swear to God, I'm living in a poorly written, hackneyed, cliche movie/play/book ABOUT being a 24 year old to New York. Thus far I've had the obvious heartbreak, the expected urban isolation, the over-the-top poverty. I feel like I might just bust out into song, musical-style at any moment. "I'm just a humble small-town boy...from the rural Midwest! But I've moved to the big, big city to make my fortune. I didn't know it would go like this!"

Seriously. I live in a tiny, railroaded tenement apartment. I'm trying to write. My roommate writes music. We're very "New York" in a way that I find both charming and troubling.

We have a bathroom that's smaller than most bathtubs; we fight a war of attrition against mice.

I do not, after two months of trying, have a job. Instead, I start temping on Tuesday.

The woman across the hall is afraid of mice in a way that I thought was reserved only for black and white sitcoms. She gives me coffee. I, in trade, pick up mice off her floor in various stages of death.

I haven't seen Rent (good God, why would I want to? Lord knows I've heard the goddamn songs when my brother was into it in high school...), but I have a hunch this is how the first act goes. Seriously. It's time to start a novel so I can tell people that, "I'm a writer. I just temp to pay the bills!" I can become THAT guy in this town full of THAT guy.

It's uncomfortable to be trapped in a cliche. But have it be real. Every morning when I wake up. (Ok, ok...AFTERNOON when I wake up.)

What a joke. It makes me want to drink, but I can't afford to. Yay, poverty! Hooray for accidentally healthy livers!

Well...Act I and II of my New York parody seem to be almost done...it's intermission. After the break I'll either A) learn a valuable lesson, B) ride off into the sunset, or C) get cancer.

David Bowie Turns 60 Today!!!

2007-01-08T15:30:00.001-05:00

Oh, David! You put the "sex" in sexagenarian!

Five Great Songs to Listen to While Walking Around Manhattan in the Rain

2007-01-08T03:57:00.000-05:00

1.) Tom Traubert's Blues by Tom Waits
2.) Days of Wine and Booze by The Minus Five/Wilco
3.) Jacking the Ball by The Sea and Cake
4.) Stay Out of Trouble by The Kings of Convenience
5.) ANYTHING with both Django Reinhart and Stephane Greppalli (seriously, you'll feel like in you're in a Woody Allen movie...a good one, too...like Annie Hall or Manhattan)

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. I'm looking for suggestions.

A Musical Assertion

2007-01-08T01:00:00.000-05:00

I have been listening to some old Simon and Garfunkel this evening. I have an assertion to make: if "groovy' were not such a hopelessly cheesy and dated word, Simon and Garfunkel's song "Feelin' Groovy" would be a timeless pop hit. It's hooky as shit, yo. And Art's castrati harmonies are infectious like ebola.

Got Myself a Brand New Blog!

2007-01-08T00:54:00.000-05:00

Hi. I decided to start blogging. Too many cobwebs in my brain, need to rid myself of clutter. Here goes.