Rumors of My Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

Donkey Boy: At age 73 you will refuse to give a quarter to a beggar. Immediately afterwards you will be hit by a bus. Link.

TV on Your Computer

The above website has complete epdisodes of the Simpsons and scrubs. How have they avoided getting shut down?

Regina Spektor

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Don't Know Jack

Unbeknownst to me at the time, on my 17th birthday, the man who would come to be my favorite poet some 9 years later gave an interview to NPR. This afternoon, I happened upon it. The neat thing about Jack Gilbert is that he doesn’t consider himself a professional poet. Indeed, over the last 80 years, he’s only published 4 small books. The first two of these are long since out of print and can be found only at great difficulty. Below are two poems from his first collection, which, as far as I know, is not available for purchase anywhere. I found my copy at the university library.

In Dispraise of Poetry

When the King of Siam disliked a courtier,
He gave him a beautiful white elephant.
The miracle beast deserved such ritual care
That to care for him properly meant ruin.
Yet to care for him improperly was worse.
It appears the gift could not be refused.

In that interview with NPR, Gilbert says that a person can only fall in love 4 times in their lives. I’m not sure where he comes up with that numbers, but poets should be knowledgeable in such matters, so I’ll defer to his expertise. He says that he’s got one left; by that same measure, I’ve got two. It’s interesting to consider the future with the perspective of fixed supply. Such knowledge would, I imagine, affect one’s behavior. It is difficult, however, to imagine exactly how. I’m reminded of a friend of a friend whose wife told him that he was allowed to cheat once and only once. Taking the proposition seriously, how painstaking would it be to decide upon “the one”? It would be far easier never to cheat at all… and maybe that was the point.

Of Jack Gilbert’s four published books, I’ve gotten my hands on and completed three. I’ve only got one left. With his age, I’m not sure he has any left. Suppose that he’ll be my favorite poet of all time. What then? I have, perhaps, 50 or 60 years to live. Can I live that long without discovering something better?

But the same can be said for movies or songs. My favorite movie is “Magnolia” and my favorite song is David Gray’s “Gathering Dust.” Suppose I feel the same way when I’m 80 years old? Maybe the best we can hope for is to find our best loves early in life and have them change along with us as we age.

Maybe Jack Gilbert will be the best poet I ever find. Maybe not. The good thing is that favorite poets, perhaps unlike the loves of our lives or marital freebies, are not in fixed supply.

And She Waiting

Always I have been afraid
Of this moment:
Of the return to love
With perspective.
I see these breasts
With the others.
I touch this mouth
And the others.
I command this heart
As the others.
I know exactly what to say.
Innocence has gone
Out of me.
The song.
The song, suddenly,
Has gone out
Of me.

The Tide Has Turned!

A real life proof that luck takes the shape of a parabola, as per the graph below.

Day 1:


Cookie:


Standard issue cookie. Nothing special.

Enclosed Fortune:

What a terrible fortune! First of all, it's not even a fortune. It talks about the present not the future. Second, it doesn't say anything about me. I'll try again...


Day 2:


Cookie:




Standard issue cookie.

Enclosed Fortune:

What? That's the worst fortune ever. I should have stuck with the weather one. Lemme give the wheel of fortune another whirl...

Day 3:

Cookie:



Half cookie. Where's the rest of my cookie? Some guy in a fortune cookie factory ate half my cookie! This doesn't bode well...

Enclosed Fortune:

Wait a minute. I'm missing the fortune, too. There is no fortune with my half cookie! What the heck?? I've reached point 0,0 on the graph!


Day 4:

Cookie:



Ok, back to a standard fortune cookie. Things are looking up!

Enclosed Fortune:

Booyah! Can it get any better than that? Let's see...

Day 5:


Cookie:


Oh yeah, that's a Double! Bet you've never seen that before! I'm flying high with my siamese cookies!

Enclosed Fortune:

You know what, I'm so stoked about my double cookie that I'm not even going to open them. Can you really improve on a double cookie? I'm already at the top of the curve and I'm content with that! Afterall, the cookie is the best part of the whole fortune cookie experience. Granted, there's a one percent chance that I'll crack open these cookies to find even more baby cookies inside, but I'm going to quite while I'm ahead.

...and just like that, things are looking up all of a sudden...

Mulholland Drive Was a Bad Movie

(This entry will be written without using the backspace ubtton. Also, it will make no attempt to make sense. Sense is for losers.)

Jonesy, don’t worry. They’ll never find us. For although there is dew on the pumpkins in the patch, there won’t be any traces left for the feds to use their infrared devices to identify us by our fingerprints. That is a run on sentence that doesn’t make any sense, I will admit, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. This entry is like fate careening towards you on train tracks and all you have to fend off this million mile an hour streak of metal and momentum is two sticks of gum, a thumbtack, 4 rubber bands, a wire hanger, and a roll of duct tape, plus the bare notion that a single copper coin and a rubber stopper would come in handy right now. And maybe you could rig something like macguyver if only you were allowed to think clearly. But you cannot think of anything but that girl on a train in Madrid, the one whose reflection you could see in the window as she lip synched the words to the soundtrack of your lives together, and your million dollar idea of coconut flavored jello, which you swear would be a hit in third world countries the very instant they rose to second world status. You cannot forgive yourself of your inability at the time to realize that she was from out of town too. Such a fact would only prove relevant in retrospect. And who doesn’t love coconuts, right? If onl y uou could clear your mind, you could be someone…

But this entry isn’t about being someone. Quite the contrary. It’s about subjecting oneself to seemingly random neural firings, as though one were at the end of a barrel on a gun belonging to a man who worked for a company that did contract work for governments that used firing lines. It is highly unlikely that said government cares about your guilt or innocence or if it is the wrong proverbial train is headed right at you. Indeed, what do governments know about justice and individuality?

These rule s are carved in stone. Limestone, yes, but stone nonetheless. Perhaps you could edit them. But alas, all the aliens left you with was an egg beater. And from this area code, you cannot even call a pizza delivery service for help. But getting back to the story…

I lied and told the girl that it was my fault – that I just wasn’t very good at my culture. But that is absurd. I’m very good at my culture. Everyone is. Even those whose culture it is to be bad at one’s culture. The problem is that I’m not very good at the culture that was my birthright. Instead, I’ve fashioned this one out of a bunch of stuff I stole from a consignment shop in Burbank. Your culture may have the weight of ten thousand generations, tyrannical governments, well-meaning monarchs, and the blood spilt from a half-dozen revolutions, but mine was forged purely from the creativity of a 12 year old boy without a decent pair of shoes nor a place to live. And damn it all if I won’t take mine toe to toe agastin yours, and heck, I’ll even spot you twenty. Planning does little good in the province of people becoming people. I know, I read Psychology Weekly.

Instead, I think a ’57 chevy is a mean machine. I will bke you a macaroni casserole from scratch. I will secretly plot against you, because I had concluded, even before I met you, that you had it coming. So, when you least expect it, I will jump out of the laundry hamper on that balcony of your 52^nd floor apartment in middle america while your kids play video games behind us in the living room and while your husband is in the bedroom getting ready for bed, and I will ask you, “Hey, good lookin. Do you remember that time I first said I loved you? And do you remember that card I gave you on that night with the poem inscribed on the left margin? It was tall and skinny, remember? Each line was only two words long and it didn’t rhyme, because you know how I hate rhythm. And I know it’s been a really long time, two or three lifetimes even, but I’ve come so far and no one is looking. Can you makybe close your eyes and sing that poem back to me? Your words, so high up right now, scraping the sky of this cold, windy city.” Granted, you can attempt to thwart my plan now by making a mental note to never place your laundry hamper on your balcony, but you know better than to tempt fate like that. And, you know as surely as I know right now that you’ve already forgotten the words that I would then be seeking.

These words I will borrow from the old lady selling flowers on franklin street. May the lord bless you and keep you from the devil’s grasp. These words I will borrow from the thunder. Be self-controlled. Give. Be Compassionate. These words will not actually be words but only the letters w and S and they will contain all that is true and universal in the world. If that isn’t patently obvious to you, it’s only because you didn’t look closely enough. One man once said, “Bruce Lee packing punches like brown bag lunches.” I disagree. It was mostly like lunches carried in lunch pales at construction sites in the 1950’s.

I hear the echo that tomorrow has made on the atmosphere before it got reflected back down to us in the form of the memory that we had been here before. Some call it Déjà vu, but the people in the know realize that it’s just elementary physics. We thought that maybe we had known each other in some past life, but it was just smoke and mirrors, nature screwing around with us with her illusions and discount pyrotechnics she picked up over the state line in Virginia because they really clamp down on that stuff in north carolina. It’s half the reason that you didn’t suspect anything. That sort of thing is illegal here. It was the other half of the reason that you had difficulty accounting for. One pundit suggested it had something to do with the smell of jasmine. He said that his opiion on the matter was fair and balanced. Another pundit said the first one was a fascist but did not proffer an opinion as to the other half of the reason himself. Some lady with a degree in classics said she was going to write children’s stories about it, but both pundits agreed that such books wouldn’t catch on. They forgot that people love half-truths.

This letter fell off the previous sentence “r” and I decided to give it its own sentence. Was it alanis morrissette that said that self-referetiality is ironic?

I’m tempted to stop writing, but I’m kinda curious how far you’ll read. Did you ever see the movie Mulholland Drive? That movie had no plot, no beginning, middle, or end, as far as I could tell, but I kept watching. Maybe that movie was written without using the backspace button. Has anyone made it down this far? If so, you’re ready for the big finish…

Eggs. Half-gallon of 2% milk. Wheat bread. Laundry detergent. Moon pies. Love. Band aids. Laxatives. Mars bar. Soap. Goats. The wind beneath my wings. Flood insurance. E Coli. Good deeds. Envelopes. Paper cups. Awe. Chocolate shavings. Burlap sack. Ouiji board. Ginger peach tea. Fireflies. Serendipity. A slow song by someone no longer living who had a lot of bass in his voice and all the things that people like you and me used to mean to one another. Preheat oven for 1450 degrees. Try to revel in the slow burn. Cool before consuming the end.

Fat Tax

The other day, I purchased a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I was surprised to find a warning label which read something to the effect of “Candy is a special treat and should be enjoyed in moderation.” Even though I hardly ever eat candy, I felt guilty consuming it. Still, I wondered if the reason that such a warning existed had more to do with feared legal liability than a genuine concern Hershey’s had for the general health and well being of its customers. Is this the lasting effect of the McDonalds law suit, books like Fast Food Nation, and movies like Supersize Me?

I was glad to hear that my fair New York City has initiated legislative measures that would ban the use of trans fat in any of her nearly 25,000 eateries. This is the same forward-thinking city that banned smoking in restaurants three years ago. Kudos to Gotham City on both accounts!

Taking it a step further, I recently learned of a proposal to tax all foods rich in saturated fats, or, in a word, a fat-tax. Basically, it would extend the “sin” tax that presently applies to cigarettes and alcohol to include junk food. It’s the governments way of saying, “Yeah, you can kill yourself, but not without paying us first!”

The pro’s and con’s of taxation is an economic matter, something that I’m not particularly well versed in. Luckily, I stumbled upon the story on Judge Posner’s blog. (Yes, Judge Posner keeps a blog!) For those of you who are not familiar with his body of work, Posner is a judge and professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a giant, no, the giant, in the field of economics and the law. You can read his thoughts, along with the thoughts of another economist, Gary Becker, here.

Posner suggests that increasing the price of junk food might result, contrary to the laws of demand, in an increase in junk food consumption. He cites the “Giffen Effect” which suggests that higher prices might cause poor people to be even poorer, forcing them to consume only junk food, which though more expensive than before, is still less expensive than healthy food, which they can no longer afford. Got that? Basically, the income effect dominates the substitution effect. (If that makes it any clearer.)

Becker takes a different approach, suggesting that pharmaceuticals will advance to the point where heart disease, blood pressure, and high-cholesterol are no longer problems. Basically, he’s arguing that we don’t have to worry about this now, because in a few years our life expectancy will reach new highs, even if we’re all rolling around in our giant, gas guzzling fat-mobiles, because we’ll all be drugged out of our greasy, partially hydrogenated minds.

I’m not particularly moved by either line of reasoning. Then again, I don’t care much for the economic perspective. Economics presupposes that regular people have a capacity for a very particular form of higher level reasoning – complex, high-order cost-benefit analysis. It’s been my experience that most people would rather just be told what to do, especially in matters where mathematics is concerned.

To that end, people should be forced to exercise.

Simply telling people that fat is bad for them is merely stating the obvious. Heck, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup episode makes me wonder if we’re headed towards a world in which everything carries a warning label. I half-expect to see a warning label for warning labels themselves: “WARNING: READING FINE PRINT HAS BEEN CLINICALLY PROVEN TO HAVE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE VISION OF LAB RATS! ONLY BE WARNED IN MODERATION.” If everything carries a warning label, no one will pay attention to any of them. Plus, as noted before, people are bad at decision making, even when they are given lots of good information.

Instead of simply providing more information, our schools should have gym offered twice a day for 45 minutes each session. (When I was in high school, we had it once every 8 school days, or less than once every week and a half!) I imagine this would cut down on the prescriptions doled out for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the like. It would also be a nice break for teachers. If kids do not participate in an after school sport, they should be “fined” with having to do laborious community service. Similar rules would apply to adults in the workplace. In addition, we should have a group of people, dressed like American Gladiators, with giant foam bats that will randomly chase people around town if they are found to be too sedentary. If paying the government didn’t stop you from eating that second bag of Doritos, maybe a whoopin’ from Nitro will do the trick.

Oh yeah, and if we catch you smoking, we’re locking you in a window-less room with Weird Al Yankovik, Pauly Shore, and Carrot Top. Withdrawal symptoms will be the least of your worries.

Final Exam Answer Key

The truth. Answers to some of life’s biggest questions. Sponsored by the internet.

(1) What happens if I mix diet coke with mentos?

Answer: Bad things.

(2) Should the bible be taken literally?

Absolutely!

(3) Are you stuck in the friend zone?

Consult the graph!

(4) What’s wrong with the New York Knicks?

Scientists weigh in.

(5) How did we get here?

It's a long story.

(6) What has Kirk Cameron been up to since his days on the hit 80’s show Growing Pains?

Disproving evolution to save your soul.

(7) Can’t decide between dinner and dessert?

Don't!

(8) What are the consequences of your choices?

More than sticks and stones and broken bones.

Programming Note

In a move that privileges quantity over quality, I'm announcing that there will be posts every day this week! It's like Chanukah in October!

About Bob

I went to see a Bob Schneider concert the other night and it was great. I walked in as the opening act was finishing his set. Bob immediately came out with a bunch of stools from backstage, so people could sit down. While I’m generally not star-struck, I think that seeing someone on a CD cover or up there on stage under the lights has the general tendency to make them seem larger than life. (Also, Bob looks like Jesus.) However, seeing Bob set up chairs for his audience really brought him back to earth. Suddenly, he was like a buddy of mine, picking up a guitar in my living room to help pass the time.

The theme of being just a regular old Bob was reinforced when he used the opening act’s guitar to play his set. Perhaps he doesn’t have one. It was a solo acoustic set with only that guitar and one of those $5 fisher-price children’s xylophones. That fact, coupled with some clever stage banter, a few completely ridiculous non-album songs, and more than one dig at Justin Timberlake made for some good laughs. A good time was had by all.

It seems to me that a lot of Bob’s songs are about reflecting back upon your life, realizing that things haven’t worked out the way you had planned, and growing to be at peace with that fact. His second solo album, for instance, was entitled “I’m good now.” Another song goes, “There’s a man I’ve never met before and he looks a lot like me/and there’s a little place called heaven that I’ll probably never see/and there’s a thing called peace of mind that I have never know/I’ve got a long way to get before I get back home.” Another song goes, “I know the time it's time to get up/And get out and get over this/But I don't know how and I don't know why/And the world goes round/And the world goes around/
And the world goes round & round.” There’s also this sentiment that is expressed in several songs that people often try to be better than they actually are. It’s a losing proposition. But there are glimmers of hope, if you look close enough, like in this ballad about Chuck Norris’ love child, “Oh, you never know what the world is gonna do/it may break you right in two/it might make all your dreams come true.”

I had been feeling a little down the last few days, so such songs rolled into town at the right time. About half way through, he entertained requests. I asked for “2002,” which he obliged and rendered a super-sad, slow version. It’s a song he wrote in 1998 after a girl broke his heart. He envisioned that it would take him a couple of years and numerous unfortunate events before he could get over her. Only, he can’t forget her. While it’s actually a fictional account of what his life might look like, it really feels authentically autobiographical.

I also appreciated the fact that they taped the show and made the CD’s available for purchase immediately after the concert. All musicians should present this option. Oh, and he ended with a song about pirates.

On Tuesday, I’m going to see Everclear. I’m stoked.

10 Confessions

1. I have several t-shirts that do not, technically, belong to me.
2. I wash my hands both before and after using a public restroom.
3. I really enjoy playing fetch with a dog.
4. I don’t mind the occasional romantic comedy.
5. I refuse to read the newspaper or watch the news.
6. I find left-handedness very attractive.
7. I think I may be racist.
8. I always root against the Yankees, but I feel guilty when I’m happy that they lost.
9. I have to sit in corners while in public.
10. I failed first grade due to a clerical error.