Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Saturday, April 30, 2011

As All The Worlds' Eyes Turned Royal Blue

So.

I'm assuming that the state of Prince William's coiffure is a tacit admission that neither propecia, nor rogaine, nor whatever else science has handy ACTUALLY WORKS.

I mean, clearly he has means at his disposal. Unless he approaches the whole topic with a serene, virile indifference? Sniffing, with a hint of a sneer in his stiff upper lip, "Hair? I have no need for such trifling ornaments of mere sexual selection. I have far more purely Darwinian advantages, that will ensure my reproductive success."

Hm, or would that be purely Socially Darwinian? Or purely Edwardian.

Say, that brings up an important point: what the heck are they going to call it when this guy rules? "Williamian?"!

I guess it's better than Harrian. Except...wait. Actually, Harrian sounds kind of beautiful. A potential Golden Age.

But we'll probably never know, now.

Q: Is Your Mind On, All The Time?

A: No! Just for health's sake I need and I try to turn it off - at least five to eight hours per day, if I can.

Generally at work.

How To Defeat Progress By Setting Yourself Impossible Goals

Impossible goals are the key.

So I'm on the "A"s, in my ongoing label audit. I need to eliminate every single "A" label that has only 1 instance. I do this one of two ways: first. A key assumption: if the label has only 1 instance on THIS blog, then maybe it can be dispensed with entirely, right? It's dispensable. So that's one way. Dispense with the motherfucker.

The second way is, if a given 1-shot label turns out to be indispensable...let's say it adds "character" to the place...then I need to write a new post to go with that label. Push it up into the 2 bracket. Deal with it in the next round.

Backup strategy: check for any posts to which that label should justly have been applied already, and it was just left off. No fair nixing a perfectly good label over a simple oversight!

So anyway. "A" has forty-seven labels with only 1 instance on the blog. Forty-seven. 47. Forty-seven checks against the database for possible hits to expand into, relevant-post-wise. Potentially, 47 totally gratuitous posts to come up with, for the sole purpose of providing an additional toe-hold for some god-damn ostensible "indispensable" label. Failing all else, 47 possible blows of the dreaded ax. My poor labels! But we've got to do it. We have to suck it up. We can't run out of room on the max cap label total again! That was hell.

The trick to impossible goals is that they're not really impossible. It's just that they set up a prospect so daunting that you lost all interest in tackling it, ever. We call this "fostering an atmosphere of functionally pragmatic impossibility."

Nobody calls it that. I call it that. Fuck it. That's not even accurate - "functionally pragmatic"? The wrong thing's modifying the wrong thing!

Friday, April 29, 2011

There's something about McDonald's Breakfast that just GOES GREAT with GIN!

Disclaimer: this unsolicited ad campaign pitch has not been approved or endorsed in any way by Seagrams or its susidiaries, or by the McDonald's Corporation or any of its affiliates or franchisees.

CLOSE on clean-cut, crewcut, lean, healthy white dude, 20's. He's got a big, open WHITE McBAG

ANNOUNCER: "Man, get a whiff of that bag...!

DUDE (bows head reverently, taking a deep, satisfied lingering inhale): "Man...that just smells great."

ANNOUNCER: "What's in the bag, man? Whaddyou got in that BAG!"

FLASH CUT to happy crowds inside, lining up, being served by a happy ethnoheterogenous staff, as we hear

DUDE (v/o): "Egg McMuffin meal, plus a Bacon Egg Cheese McGriddle for breakdessert!"

ANNOUNCER: "Why not just get 2 meals? What've you got against the hashpuck?"

CLOSE on HASH-PUCK

SLOW EXTREME-ZOOM-PAN OVER HUGE, HOT, GOLDEN-BROWNEDNESS

IT LOOKS CRISPY AND GOD DAMN DELICIOUS

BACK on DUDE: "LOVE the hash puck! But I don't need all the extra beverages."

ANNOUNCER: "Hey speaking of which - where's your beverage? Where's your hot, fresh McCafe Coffee? Or your zing-fresh breakfast O.J.?"

DUDE (laughing): "Fuck that! I drink gin with this."

CLOSE on GIN

SLOW PAN UP THE GLASS

TALL GLASS, fogged with condensation up to the gin-line

THAT GIN looks SO COLD and SO PURE

ANNOUNCER: "GIN. Straight from a chilled bottle - or shaken over ice! A double or even a TRIPLE GIN!"

DUDE (satisfied close-eyed smiling deep inhales from gin to food, and back again): "McDonald's breakfast and gin. It's like they're made for each other!"

ANNOUNCER (v/o loving full-screen closeup shot of the hot, wrapped contents of McBag: hashpuck nestled in against two plump, pastel-colorful parcels of McDeliciousness and a fat fold of clean white napkins): "Ahhh - gin! The floral notes of this potent potion truly do complement the rich, savory odor of hot cheese, fresh eggs, fluffy muffins and crisp pork-based meats! It's amazing gin isn't on the menu!"

WOMAN (in nicely-decorated office, dressed classy but casual, cheerfully obese and clearly a happy, self-confident, well-adjusted citizen secure in her worth as who she is) (as she speaks, we continuously CUT to busy McDonalds's interior and back again, with a slow constant pan down to show her McBreakfast and tall, cold gin in front of her on her desk): "Well we're working on that! And I for one couldn't be more pleased with this new McGin initiative. It's dispelling a lot of negative stereotypes about gin. Gin is not purely a cocktail-hours drink! It's dinner drink, it can be taken in place of a healthy lunch, and yes, Virginia: gin goes great with breakfast."

GIRL (white girl, long mousy hair with one ragged home-dyed pink streak, McDonald's uniform, skinny, ok complexion. She looks about fifteen, but a block letter subtitle comes in as she finishes speaking: SHALLAH IS TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE): "I hate those so called breakfast drinks, bloody marys, mimosas - froo froo and gross! Breakfast should be serious. To me, a tall glass of pure, clear gin just seems healthier."

Back on DUDE, front of the line in-store (laughing): laughs

CUT to BLACK DUDE (behind the register, smiling, friendly, this kid could seriously be a catalog model in 5 years) (laughing): "Sorry, sir - you have to bring your own gin! We can't get a liquor license in this state yet."

Back on DUDE (jokingly sad, but a little outraged) (looks DIRECTLY TO CAMERA): "It's your responsibility to contact your congressperson!"

BLACK DUDE (v/o): "But we do offer a whole selection of shatter-reluctant COLLECTIBLE McGIN GLASSES! Tall enough for a double - fits an easy-sippin' triple!"

FAST ACTION PAN AND BACK ACROSS on the line of McCharacter-emblazoned gin glasses with EXTREME FLASH-CUT INSERTS on each collectible glass

ANNOUNCER: "AWESOME! Available at all participating stores! Triple-For-Double Refills at participating stores w/liquor license."

ANNOUNCER (emphasized by ONSCREEN LEGEND): "GIN: THE BEST THING FOR BREAKFAST SINCE...McDONALDS!" (close on shot of white-gloved hands, holding Egg McMuffin, PULL BACK to show Ronald's smiling, nodding face about to go to town on that muffin)

Irrelevant aside: Say, do they ever show that clown eating his own food? I don't think they ever do! That by itself would make a great commercial! Ronald, walks into frame, sits at a little in-store McTable with his tray, and just unwraps and eats his whole meal. In silence - not a word spoken! I'd guess he's a Quarter-Pounder-with-Cheese man. He strikes me as that. The whole commercial would be just him, eating. Serious, absorbed, enjoying it. Sipping Coke. Chewing fries. Maybe perusing a NY Times, or something. The rest of the customers are all just chillin'. "Ronald comes here all the time! We try not to bother him while he's trying to enjoy a delicious lunch." Great commercial!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Quote of the Day: On Poetry Criticism

"The person who loves frogs is not therefore bound to enjoy dissecting them."

Songs "Ripping Off" Other Songs

That was the most rambling and repetitive piece of music criticism I've seen from me in years. I'm going to put just an apology here, and the content in a belated Pt.2 once it's presentable.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

It was the ultimate, transcendent artistic experience. I don't even know what to compare it to.

It was like watching Star Wars while reading War and Peace and listening to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

...in the bath.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Honesty is the only debt true friendship can incur.

People in any kind of friendship with me need to know: I'll take you back way too many times after bad endings. I'll take you back and take you back until it's just absolutely proven to me that we can't possibly be a good thing for each other, in each other's life. This isn't a very good trait. It can end up causing more harm than good. After the first 3 or 4 times, am I going to start regretting not giving up the first time? Is the other person going to regret not giving up earlier? It's happened. But on the whole, I'd rather keep a strong but misplaced faith in two peoples' ability to work through a thing, rather than make a choice to lose faith sooner, and end up throwing away what could have been saved.

I believe the most important thing is for each side to be square and true with the other. I believe that friendship with honesty is incredibly resilient. If you believe in a friendship, you owe it to the other person to keep it honest. Friendships without honesty are fragile and precarious for the lack. If a person is going to patch things up with lies, or smooth things over with pretense of things being okay, this is not acting for the friendship: it is acting against it. It's expediency for the sake of today's comfort; laziness trying to pass itself off as self-sacrifice. "I'll suck it up, for the sake of the friendship!" Will you? Forever? Forever ever? Forever ever?

If that's your choice, so be it, it's yours. No one can help you with it. Don't blame the other person. For all you know, they would have been willing to walk with you down the hard route that you eschewed, and actually work through whatever the problem was.

Friendship is important enough to tell the truth - friendship ought to be too important not to tell the truth. Friendship ought to be strong enough to take the truth - including the other person's truth. Be open and honest enough to trust in the other person's strength, instead of trying to play to their weakness. Is a thing very minor? Then it's all the more important that the friendship be strong enough to bear disagreement - especially on such a minor point! And also especially: because minor points have a way of growing major, when covered over. The more major a point is, the more crucial it becomes that each person be very clear where they stand, and where the other person stands. To fake through just means to pay later, with a heavier dose of acrimony. And we know that. So don't act like you're doing the friendship a favor by betraying what's true.

Something is not right between us. We believe this thing is less important than the friendship as a whole. Let us both join together, and get along better, by embracing the power of saying so. Say: this, I do not agree with; and this, you do not agree with. And say that the friendship is more important than the disagreement.

This is what respect for friendship entails.

But if the point is discussed, and it becomes clear to that the point is in fact so big that the friendship can't bear it - then you both needed to know that. Being honest about that was the only respectful thing you could have done. You refused to be false friends.

If a thing is not right, then have it out. Have it out in view. Most friendships are both strong enough and important enough to take it. The person who says the friendship can't take honesty is the one who is insulting that friendship's worth.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Create Your Own Punchline #3: CHUCK NORRIS!

Chuck Norris walks into a bar. The bartender says "We don't serve Chuck Norris."

Come up with your own best punchline to that setup and post it in the comments.

Monday, April 18, 2011

You've Got Friends All Over You!

The biggest danger of obsessive cleansing and disinfecting is that your whole body (plus all the surfaces around you, for that matter) is constantly covered by microbes. Most of them are harmless to you, and if you think about that for a minute, that makes them much more than "harmless." It makes them extremely beneficial. These invisible breeding, feeding, wriggling beasties are very valuable tenants!

Think of it! A thick film of benign, you-neutral microbes populates every micrometer of your skin's exposed surface. What more effective practical barrier could you ask to any infectious, malign, opportunistic microbe that you might brush up against? That bad germ has scarcely any place to latch on! All the available space is taken up, by teeming hordes of microbes who have no interest in infecting you.

These dudes are your buddies. Your invisible yet staunch allies. They will continue to live happily on your skin, mingling and burbling and feeding and excreting all over your skin. A happy, stable population base that leaves no niche at all for a the unfriendly would-be invader to slip in, occupy, multiply and go nuts burrowing into your unprotected cells!

But in our obsessive, incessant disinfection of these surfaces, we strip that friendly barrier away. All that tender, clean pink skin lies naked and open.

Beckoning the enemy.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Praying For God

I'm constantly praying for God. I'm all, "Dear Lord. Please bless yourself. Please put forth your almighty strength on your own behalf. You help us, Lord - but who helps you? Our puny strength is too puny to help you. Only you can help you. God, save a miracle or two for you, dude."

I like to think God is touched by the thought, and the consideration.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Don't Stop Trying to Save the World

You can't do it.

But in your fervor, the number of idiots you influence...

...maybe together, all those idiots...

...from the combined fervor of the passion that your influence inculcates in them...!

Maybe together! All those idiots...!

Look, I don't want to raise an unrealistic hope. But maybe together, all those idiots might, you know, feel better about what they're doing with their lives. While they push it in that ridiculous direction, of yours. In which case - you done good! Your example helped. Big time!

Meanwhile - rest easy. The world doesn't need saving.

I swear. Fuckin'...homo sapiens. You people are so arrogant. Every one of you, a messiah complex. I swear.

Bacteria rule the world, y'all. And the world'll be just fine! Right up until the sun gets all...big n' ruddy on us.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Thought of the day: a horrible thought

Man, I just thought - what if you would die, and then you end up in some other religion's hell? That'd be horrible! Can you imagine? It'd be hell!

I mean, on top of everything else, you'd feel like such an idiot.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Sequence #1

WHAT IS BLOG? A IN DEPTH ALL CAPS LOOK-AT!

TODAY OF LESSON IS #1: WHAT IS BLOG?

BLOG IS FEELINGS. FOR MANY WHAT IT SHARES TO THE WORLD LIKE A CLOSE FRIEND. SOME BUT OTHERS SAY, CRITICIZE! THE PERSONAL LIE! "THE DECEPTION IS YOU, IT IS NOT CLOSE."

TOO OTHER CRITICIZE: BLOG IS READERSHIP ISSUES, FOLLOWERS COUNTED, DO YOU SELL OUT? AD SENSE? WHAT PRICE IS WORTH COST? BUT IS THIS A ART CONCERN FOR ARTIST! NO ONE SAYS BUT THE YOU. YOU DOES, BECAUSE IF IN BLOG YOUR WORDS, THEN THE OWNERSHIP IS YOU. WHO CAN SAY ON YOUR OWN OWNERSHIP? OF WHAT PURPOSE IS! FUCK HIM.

A PERSON WITH BLOG, IT IS SO OFTEN CONFUSED WITH. BUT REALLY NOT SO SIMPLE? IS IT? TO SAY "AS SOME DO, THIS EXHIBITIONIST PERSON." WELL BUT: WHO IS A FACEBOOK? A TWITTER? A PUBLIC PROFILE OF LIFE? IN THIS IS THE MEDIA AGE, OF ALL WE LIVE IN A BASICALLY REFUTES IT CRITICISM. WITH A BLOGS, THE CRITICISM IS BECAME THE NORM NOW. AFTER ALL IT, IS NOT TRENDY THAT LEFTS BEHIND! BUT WE ARE.

IT CLOSING REMARK, IS IN ULTIMATELY: DEFINE YOU. IF YOU DEFINE YOU, WHO CARES WHAT PEOPLE SAY PEOPLE READ, AND YOUR BLOG IS? YOU ARE THE DECIDE FACTOR. YOU ARE THE DECIDE ONE. BLOG IS NOT A QUESTION FOR YOU AS LONG AS THAT.

NEXT WEEK: TIME FOR IND-EPTH AND A PERSPECTIVE.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Thought of the day

Consistency is a poor substitute for judgment.

Huh.

I have two bad habits that tend to exacerbate each other. One, in an argument I tend to disregard people and just hit the facts as hard as I can, with focus. My facts, their facts, everybody's facts. I just hit those facts hard, in my mind. Test them for strength and density, rotate 'em around, and then use the ones I like best - incorporate them into points. If I like one of their facts, I'll pick it up and start using it! And they might even be like, "Hey! That's my fact!" And I'll be like "I know! I AGREE!"

But the point is, I might tend to disregard the person a bit. Because in practice, I never have a problem with a person. If I have a problem with their facts I'll take it up with the facts!

Shouldn't any argument be an exercise based on the cold, hard, no-offense marshaling of all available facts? Marshaling - or, if a given fact needs to be upended - upending. Note: when I say "fact," I include opinions in that. If either person states it as fact, and I can't see where it upends itself, well I'm going to have to consider it fact just for the sake of the discussion, right? What am I going to say, "That's just your opinion?" Yeah, so's your face. If it's just an opinion and you can upend it - do so. Don't talk about how much of an "opinion" it is - as if all opinions are baseless! Do you say all opinions are baseless? No, you don't. Do you say this opinion is baseless? De-base it, then. Show where it has no valid base. "Basis" would be a more correct word: de-basis it. Because if it's just an opinion, and you CAN'T upend it, then that means their opinion is better than your facts. So shut your opinion hole.

That's just my own standard for my own behavior, mind you! I myself try never to pull the "just an opinion" line, because I know how vulnerable it leaves you. Personally if anyone wants to pull that line with me, I'm fine with them doing that, I have a ball when that happens!

But back to my two bad habits. First, yeah, I tend to disregard the person a bit, I tend to disregard the personal. I cut the middleman out and address the facts directly in an argument. And in the moment as I'm trying to put all my focus on what people are actually saying, what I forget is, a lot of people take their facts - and their opinions - very personally. They are personally invested in it. Which I'm not! My only goal in an argument is to come out with the better viewpoint. Whether or not that same viewpoint was mine going in, I could care less! A bad opinion doesn't deserve my loyalty. But still. While the way I go about it, pretty impersonal, it may work for me! But I'm not being as sensitive as I should be, to the fact that to the other person, what they are saying may not be just an opinion they've found true, or a fact they believe. They may see it as something important about them, personally. This thing being true is an important aspect of who they are. So if that's how they feel about it, and you don't realize, you just try to pick it up and deal with it just like any thing to be examined or questioned or potentially sneezed at, well shoot yes! That is being insensitive.

The worse part is, I never seem to notice when I've done that until like, two days later. I'll be thinking that we were both just talking about things (which is usually true). That's where the second bad habit tends to come in: suddenly like two, three days later, I realize "Shit. This was not some dispassionate fact-clash discussion there. I think I may have hurt, upset, or pissed that person off." And so the second bad habit is, I come back in and try to make some big apology, days late, when half the time the person is like "What the fuck are you talking about? I neither noticed your alleged offense nor cared. Now that you mention it though, yes, you can be a dick." But the other half the time - when the person WAS upset - they have already dealt with it by then, usually! And from their standpoint, I'm just reopening the can of sore worms for no good reason. Which is worse than not saying anything!

I don't know what to do about either of these. Awareness too late is not much use. And most of the time, a discussion is not heated - and not upsetting to anyone. And the fact is, I've never been much of an ace at trying to read into what a person's mood might be. I do so much better in terms of communication when I try to stay focused on what the person is saying.

But the person is more important than what they're saying. A person is more important than a fact. A person is even more important than an opinion. So when a person puts more of their SELF into a fact, or an opinion - I need to be able to spot that investiture better. I can't treat something a person believes as a core part of who they are as something to be picked up, twisted around, critiqued and put back down - as something I can just suggest can be discarded. I need to treat it better. I need to treat people better.

Well heck, I probably don't need to, but I'd love to if I can pull it off. I'd consider it a bit of a personal coup.

MORE TOM SWIFTYS!

"The point to the exercise has been missed," Tom said independently.

"I refuse to play the part of Rosencrantz! I want to be Guildenstern," Tom said sibilantly.

"Mrs. Benedict, why are you wearing that purple dress?" Tom declaimed.

"Is there a reason or a purpose to life at all?" Tom asked, irately.

Friday, April 08, 2011

CAN'T GET ENOUGH LOVE?

Can't get enough LOVE? Try mine!

You may think you can't get enough love, but wait 'til you try mine. My love will change your mind.

Don't believe it? My love comes with my personalized guarantee.

Still
don't believe it?

Well, then - try it for yourself! You be the judge. Put your disbelief to the test, if you're so sure of it! Put your body where your mouth is, why don't you. As it were. So to speak. Not to be salacious about it, but seriously, what are we talking about, here? How are you going to know if you don't try? Just try it once! "Try it up."

Because once you try my love - one try is all it takes. Your eyes will be opened. WIDE. You'll be like: "STOP."

"I have had enough."

Quote of My Own Game

"If you want to beat someone at their own game, substitute your rules."

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

I've got a reverse psychologist. He told me to kill myself.

He's good.

Not Exactly Proud of This

Okay, I'm not exactly proud of this, but when challenged to come up with a lame pickup line I whipped this out in nothing flat, and then of course I had to google it. I got 8 hits.

"My penis longs for you."

As we know, the rule is, 8 or fewer hits = I invented it.

Like I said. I'm not exactly proud. But I figure I better get it out there fast before it spreads everywhere!

Monday, April 04, 2011

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Friday, April 01, 2011

People Don't Really Go For My 'Usual' Shit

I've noticed this. When I hit the beaten path, when I start pounding that hard - as is my wont - people don't respond. People don't comment, they don't rate the stars, they don't click the little ratings-boxes. It's like they're not interested. It's like they don't care, when I make that overt play for their sensibilities, by hitting them where I presumed they lived and wanted to be hit, because they responded to it so royally before.

But they don't!

They don't want to be hit there. It's like they don't want to be hit there. They don't want what they liked before.

My readers don't want what they liked before, from me. My readers don't want that shit. From me.

WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY WANT????

What do you pricks want? LEAVE IT IN THE COMMENTS!!!!!! I'll fucking GIVE it to you! I'll write for you whatever you please. My prose talents are unspeakable! For God's sake, please tell me what the fuck it is you WANT from me, so I can CATER to it!!!!?????

Doodeloo #77

I rolled in at almost ONE PM today.

My theory is, if you're going to show up to work REAL LATE - bring a bag of McDonald's with you.

So that to the untrained eye, it doesn't look like "look at this motherfucker...rolling up here, this time of day..." but rather: "Ah, this dedicated S.O.B. ran to McDo' for a bag lunch and is coming back to eat it at his overwhelmed DESK! That's dedication of the sort we prize."

Plus what the hell? McDonald's is delicious.