Wading in the Velvet Sea

2002-10-06T17:07:00.000-04:00

making the move

While for now all archived content will stay here, I have officially set up shop thanks to the great people at Hosting Matters. The new blogs can be found at

http://ryan-mcgee.com/blog

and

http://ryan-mcgee.com/buffy

set your bookmarks and links accordingly.

Now up at my new blog is a review of a very special movie...

2002-10-05T02:33:00.000-04:00

zzzzzzzzzzz

almost done moving to the new site...Movable Type is such my bitch.

just need to figure out how to get counters and transfer all this material over and we'll be all good.

and if anyone wants to help me design a homepage, let me know :)

2002-10-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

moving buffy talk

WiccaWillow will be the home for all Buffy Talk from now, lest I bore all you non-Buffy fans who just want to hear stories about me falling on my ass socially or talking out of my ass culturally.

You're all just here for my ass anyways, right?

2002-10-04T12:44:00.000-04:00

senior year part 2

I'm a bit torn here, I must confess. As much fun as it would be to continue to demonstrate the complete jackass that I was back then, it's coupled by the fact that I did some incredibly sh$tty things to girls who didn't deserve it. And while I have no problem enumerating my faults for others to consume, it doesn't mean I want to dredge up any memories for these girls or their friends in such a public forum. So for now, Part 2 will have to wait. Perhaps indefinitely.

If anybody is really curious, you can email me via the link above and I'll give you the basic skinny. But as for the site itself, mum's the word.

Gonna go flog myself in the corner now...

2002-10-04T10:39:00.000-04:00

moving on up...to da eastside...

well, cross your fingers, my fellow readers, the process has begun to move to my new home on the web.

provided of course, i can figure out how the hell to do it. i already have some of the faithful helping out, especially Janet who is helping me move to Movable Type which I quite like, but am rather inept at FTPing and file directoring and pathing and all the other made-up gerunds you can think of.

I'll be here for a bit longer, fear not. But if anyone else wants to offer a hand in helping me pack up, I'd love it.

Part II of Senior Year will be up sometime this afternoon.

2002-10-02T23:55:00.000-04:00

why maturity is a good thing

If you know me, you know the gist of this story, so feel free to roam along other parts of the Internet. But in keeping with the theory that nothing I could make up is as funny as the stuff that really happens to me, I’m gonna give you the skinny on what Senior year of college was like on the dating tip for yours truly. Fair warning---it gets ugly, but about 87% of this actually is true. The other 13% should be readily apparent.

I’m telling the story because I’ve been having quite a few conversations lately with not only the parties involved, but those around me at the time. And without equivocation, we’re in a much healthier place as a group. Different lives, different parts of the globe, all with certain setbacks to go with the advancements, but yet all with a sense of, “Well, yes, that was fun, but I’m certainly glad it’s done.” A Very TS Eliot “Wife in ‘The Wasteland’” type of vibe, is what I’m driving at. We laugh about the old times, mostly because we actually somehow still talk after all of it went down.

Names protected to save the innocent.

So November, 1997. I start dating this girl Sue. Sue and I are the result of about 5 weeks of sexual tension while I am dating this other girl Sally with whom I would have had a perfectly inconsequential 6 week thing except that she cheated on me so of course I blew up like Pompeii. Sue and I had one of those romantic starts you look forward to telling the grandkids about: hot and heavy in the basement halls of a dorm. This wasn’t any basement though mind you. The basement of this particular dorm (Adams House for your Harvard-ites out there) is lined with hundreds of yards of murals painted by the students every few years or so. Each student gets roughly a 5’x8’ section that they can do pretty much whatever you want. Add on the fact that we were ostensibly supposed to be at the Halloween dance upstairs, you have two costumed folk pressing each other alternately against Gaia, Winnie the Pooh, and random lyrics by Jim Morrison. Just as romantic as a splinter in the eye.

Two months or so go by. Sue is the producer of a production of “Antony and Cleopatra” directed by Commander Foley. Sue becomes increasingly convinced that the girl playing Cleopatra has the hots for me. Having not yet entered fully into the levels of jackass that were to follow, I dismissed her jealous claims (God bless Sue, but she was even more jealous than myself, and that’s saying something.) But Sue was right, “Jessie” was indeed staring at me. She had seen the work I did light designing a dance production in December and just decided I was juicy, I guess. Hey, it happens to the best of us.

Yet I was clueless. At the cast party I brought a mix tape I had made which told the entire play through modern day songs (yea, geek, guilty as charged). Jessie tells me that if I make her a copy, she’ll make a mix for me. Clueless Boy sees no problems with this. Jessie’s mix tape is nothing but trip-hop, slow grooves that beg the libido to come out and have a party. Idiot Man cheerfully accepts tape and leaves her room. A week later Jessie comes over to watch a movie and basically, by the end is spweing subtle phrases such as “I….I want you. Is that bad to say?” Still a bit stunned, a ask her what on earth she sees on me. “I dunno, you just have such…I dunno, passion.” And I didn’t even have to give her Franzia, which was the usual way in which I convinced girls to shower me with such praise. Now of course the dilemma is clear---I am dating Sue but little lithe Jessie is pretty much going to attack me at any moment. I could

A) Say “thanks but I have a girlfriend”
B) Kindly talk for a few hours about the pros and cons of why this may or may not be a good idea.
C) Say “Bring it on” and sloppily make out and get your eventual swerve on

I am at this time a 21 year old man-boy who has an incredibly attractive girl telling him she’s hot for his bod, so Option A is out. Neither of are Harvard lesbians so option B is out. So the trip hop tape gets played and Option C is played out to the hilt.

(By the way, I’ve never seen people talk the fun out of hookups they way my lesbian friends did. My God it was epic. They are the best contraceptive known to man. Put them in a room of horny teenagers on Prom Night and you can guarantee no shotgun wedding the following Fall.)

(By the way again, I’ll never ever outgrow the phrase “get your swerve on”. I’ll be 87, in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper, and asking my great-grandkids if they’ve gotten their swerve on lately. I’ll be the hippest man in dentures, I tell ya.)

So, here we have it, a guy who wouldn’t speak to Sally for roughly 8 months because she cheated on him goes and cheats on his next girlfriend. I am fully aware of the irony throughout the entire encounter yet keep going. The charade goes on for about a week. Normally you would think I would simply break up with Sue and go my merry way with Jessie. Well, that would be sensible, and dear readers common frickin’ sense took a hibernation during my Senior Year. So I wait until Sue is finished her exams, and with tickets in hand to Blue Man Group for me and Jessie in hand, I break up with her.

(Amazingly enough this was only the third worst breakup I pulled off in my college days. Let’s run them down, TRL Style.

“Hi, my name’s Larissa, I’m from Staten Island, and I’d like to vote for the time Ryan cheated on that girl for two weeks, bought Blue Man Group tickets for his new girl, and made the breakup itself as short as possible so he could hop on the T and not miss the show. WOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Hey, what’s happenin’? Tanya here. Wanna give my props to Brooklyn. I’d like to vote for the time Ryan went to breakup with his freshman year girlfriend in January, only to find out upon arrival she had bought him a jacket and a bound copy of “henry V” over Winter Break, and with said objects in hand dumped her anyways. REPRESENT!”

“Yo yo yo, Darren here on the flip side. I gots to vote for Sophmore Year, breaking up with that nice girl by telling her he thought he was in love with someone else, while the nice girl was still recovering from her hospital visit after getting her stomach pumped after drinking the tequila he bought for her, and then her making him come back AFTER talking to the would be next GF, who of course didn’t like him, and he knew it, but had to tell her anyways to get over her, so trudged twenty minutes in the to have it told to his face, and then trudge twenty minutes back to talk to a girl who couldn’t even hold down solid food yet. HI MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Like I said, I am very glad I am not in college anymore.)

So Jessie and I ride high. Nothing can stop us. Everything is great.

For five whole days.

Then yours truly blurts out THOSE THREE WORDS.

Which comes as much of a shock to her as to me. Just an awkward, awkward moment. I’ll never forget the feeling right before I said it---it was a slight cold spot in the back of my throat. And I just KNEW. Never happened before. Hasn’t happened since. Doesn’t mean I haven’t loved anyone since, just means that this was a unique experience. After a day of “Wow McGee, even for you that was supremely dumb,” she comes to my room, verbally reciprocates, and all is good.

And 24 hours later she recants and alternates between “I never said it,” and “I didn’t mean it.” Neither explanation sat very well with me. Ugly. We’re talking Philip Seymour Hoffman covered in Crisco ugly. We talking “Spice Girls Unplugged” ugly.

Since God wasn’t done slapping me silly that week, he organizes a cast party for 3 days later. Both Sue and Jessie are going to be there. I really wanted to test that “Not enough liquor in the world can dull this pain” theory for myself. I’m miserable, I’m single (which for some people is a redundant statement), and I’m ready to consume my weight in Cossack brand vodka. I remember as clear as day writing the Commander an email which almost verbatim read:

“Man, f$ck women. F$ck them all. If this were 2002, I would invoke Mary J Blige and ask for no more drama in my life. But since that song hasn’t come out yet I’ll make more a chronologically sound reference. Man, mo’ money, mo’ problems. Only substitute “money” for “women” and you’ll get my drift. Anyways, no mackin’ for me at the party this weekend. Just keepin’ it real with the boys. The only way I’ll hit on anything is if Julie shows up wearing her outfit from the show.”

Julie played, among other roles, a gypsy dancer in the play. Having designed enough dance shows and having seen more than my share of warmup routines, needless to say I was intrigued by dancers’ flexibility.

So God, enjoying watching me bounce from side to side like a pinball against the bumpers, sends Julie to the party after I had consumed, by my estimation,

---6 Cider Jacks
---4 shots of Goldschlager
---2 drinks consisting of a double shot of vodka, 2/3s OJ, and 1/3 cranberry juice

and of course she is dressed as the gypsy.

What happened next is really like a slide show. I have strong recollections of individual moments frozen in time as clear as day. The rest of the night is as lost as a person with Alzheimer’s driving cross country.

I remember the following:

---Seeing her and uttering under my breath, “No good can possibly come of this.”
---Us inexplicably dancing 5 minutes later
---Her on my lap, with a blanket being thrown over us by Antony

All this of course in plain view of Sue and Jessie.

The Commander, who wisely keeps his liver pure of liquor, filled in the rest the next day. Apparently we put the Lambada to utter shame in terms of its “Forbidden Dance” title, eventually working our way to what seemed, in our drunken state, to be an isolated corner. We did not see the Commander trying to escape as he returned from the bar with his Coke. We did not hear his initial cries for help as we cornered him with our sloppy making out. We really didn’t hear his utter cries of desperation as the hookup went from the Disney Channel to Skinemax right in front of him, all the while confounding his every effort to escape the porn he suddenly was an unwilling actor in. Finally, with an earth-shattering, “FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, SOMEONE SAVE ME” Antony swooped in, saw the scene, retrieved what was later dubbed “The Blanket of Iniquity” (I think Tim burned it soon after), covered us like we were victims of a 5 alarm fire, and brought Tim to safety.

I’d love to say that all of my bad kharma was purged then. But I was still 3 months from this all playing out. Stay tuned, more to come tomorrow….

Adddendum courtesy of Commander Foley

BTW, you missed, for a second time, the highlight of the party. Caesar was ridiculously drunk. And clad in a Canadian flag. And someone decided putting on "Justify My Love" would be a good idea. He then proceeded to dance right in front of you and "Julie" and do his best to justify his love, just short of dry-humping the both of you AND YOU STILL DIDN'T NOTICE.

Now me getting cornered up against a wall and you not noticing is one thing. Me shouting for rescue and you not noticing? Perfectly understandable. But a drunken Canadian in a flag-toga attempting to give you both a lapdance not registering on your synapses? This fire water is a strange mixture indeed!

Undeterred, Caesar then proceeded to hump the wall. So at least he had a happy ending.

2002-10-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

more search engine merriment

how is the world randomly finding me?

to wit:

"justin timberlake hypnosis" well, his music does tend to put me to sleep...

"nude nuns" come here so I can slap you

"avril lavigne's feet" more foot fetish searches than I care to talk about

"hair-job erotic" i've heard of hand and blow, but this one is new to me

"camel toe anna kournikova" i had to consult a coworker on what this meant. I just had to pick the Mormon co-worker, didn't I?

Can't someone search for "hot guy with a 'Buffy' fetish?" Is that too much to ask for?

2002-10-02T00:22:00.000-04:00

buffy review, in short

OK, so someone in the UPN promo department should be shot. Here I was thinking it'd be a stupid stand alone "big worm eats things" episode and instead we have several huge developments, a killer last scene, and one of the best Xander one liners in recent memory. ("Yea, I don't think she'll be calling.")

Specifically, the development of Spike this episode was outstanding. The scene in the graveyard will be tough to top, actingwise, for the rest of the year. The use of light and shadow was breathtaking. Both actors brought their A game. And the final image and Spike sizzling himself on the cross....jesum. It was anything but violent, just this slow walk to the cross and you're going "Oh boy, he's not....oh Christ he is." Juxtapose his desire for "rest" here with wanting to "rest in peace" in "Once More With Feeling" and you see an enormous progression for the character. And the show wisely put any discussion of "Did Spike really mean to get his soul back?" to rest.

What's also interesting is the balancing act he has with sanity. It's clear something went very wrong when his soul was restored. How much Spike is used as a pawn by the Big Bad will be interesting. Rewatching the first episode of the season, Spike clearly tells Buffy that even the zombie/ghosts won't come in the room he has inhabited. There is something specific about Spike that the Big Bad needs or can exploit. (I am personally waiting to see tif the Big Bad's arrival has its roots in Spike's transformation or Willow's attempts to end the world---my gut is one of the two started the chain reaction of this season.)

Knowing this, taking into account all the proto-Slayers being killed, and the fact that Faith is coming back for the last five episodes, and you've got a basic season-long arc of "Big Bad kills all the Slayers until there's just Buffy and Faith, Buffy needs Faith to fight the BB, Spike gets pulled back and forth on both sides, and finally dies saving Buffy, who is finally in love with him." Something this shattering will give Buffy a good reason to leave the show yet still have it continue, leaving Faith or (cringe) Dawn as the Slayer, with Willow being set up as a new Watcher. (What is England if not Jedi training, really, for Willow?) And while I cringe at the notion of "Dawn the Vampire Slayer", I give props to the show for finally making her watchable again.

The only thing I was diappointed in was the lack of continuity with the school material. Principal Wood is an interesting character, if for no other reason that Buffy-philes are honing in to try and get a reading on where his allegiances lies. It was a nice continuity touch to have Anya be the source of the worm in order to show her actively trying to counter Halfreck's claims from last week. I am glad we got rid of Xander's almost new romantic interest since she was way too Jamie Gertz without being Jamie Gertz for my liking.

I'll give it an 8 overall for Spike's stuff alone, everything else was gravy. And after rewatching the first episode again, I bump it up to an 8.5. Really great start to the season.

2002-10-01T00:41:00.000-04:00

list time

OK, haven't had a list in a while, so here goes. Today's list includes really unbelievably bad songs but really unbelievably good artists. Usually. Except for this crap.

Now, doing a "Worst Songs Ever" list is pretty trite, as is "Worst Artists Ever". Making fun of "Macarena" or Rick "Never Gonna Give You Up" Astley isn't exactly breaking new comedic ground. Instead, I'm gonna try to find songs by normally solid recording artists and find the worst possible thing they've ever actually allowed to be pressed onto a record on CD. Normally I'd adhere to the Rule of 5 but they are too many good ones. I hope I don't lose to many people here. Again---I love these artists; I hate these songs.

In no particular order:

1) "Velcro Fly" by ZZ Top

Since I grew up with MTV, I didn't realize until about 3 years ago that ZZ Top one were one kickin' blues rock band in the 1970's. Give me "Jesus Just left Chicago" or "Tush" anyday. But in 198 they unleashed this sonic atrocity on an unsuspecting world. Using Human League's drum machine and a riff that even Kajagoogoo passed on, they answered the question "What would happen if we took "Walk Like an Egyptian" and made it suck even worse?" even though no one had even thought to formulate the question. I had put this song out of my memory until i caught it on VH1 Classic about two weeks ago. After going to the emergency room to stop the bleeding from my eyes I silently wept for a few more hours until they released me from the straight jacket.

I don't like this song, is what I'm getting at.

2) "Hawkmoon 269" by U2

There's a good reason most of you haven't heard this song. For starters, it's on "Rattle and Hum" which was U2's first flirtation jumping the shark. (Most people assume "Pop" was attempt #2 to pull a Fonz, although I happen to really like that album, but that's for another article.) In any case, Bono and the boys decided to write a song with 2 chords and 50+ lines of lyrics that start with the word "Like..." Now, it's OK if you wanna construct a song around a simile trop, but for God sakes it's like "Chopping Broccoli" on the spot lyrics that he never bothered to rewrite. To wit:

Like a desert needs rain
Like a town needs a name
I need you love
Like a drifter needs a room
Hawkmoon
I need your love

Bwa? To quote Stoppard, "Consistency is all I ask." That doesn't even make SENSE. This is like Ionesco translating an English phrase book, handing the lyrics to The Edge, and saying "Run with it." I'm sure Edge was a bit put off after they laid this track down:

Edge---"Hey, uh, Bono? Are those um, are those the final lyrics?"
Bono---"Yea, mate. Why do you ask?"
Edge---Oh, no reaosn, except, um, well, for the fact that lines such as, Like a Phoenix rising
Needs a holy tree is FRICKIN' TERRIBLE. And why can't I play a third chord? Please? Bono? Bono, come away from Graceland you nit."

I've tried and failed at writing love poetry for women, but I've never tried to compare my love to a town committee meeting where they're trying to come up with a spiffy name to attract tourists. And what if the drifter wants to sleep under the stars? Did Bono think of that? Do a little research, man, come on.

3) "Pulk/Pull Revolving Door" by Radiohead

No, the title isn't a typo. I love Radiohead more than just about any band, hell, I based my entire production of "Romeo and Juliet" off of "OK Computer" practically. I love the sonic adventure, the lyrical enigmas, the soundscapes, the sheer vastness of their production values.

And this song makes me want to find Thom Yorke and beat the snot out of him.

Now, it's no secret that I love all kinds of music. Pop, rock, hip hop, classical, you name it, i probably own a record in the genre. At the base core of it, all I ask is for a nice little melody. Something to tickle the ear. That's all. Tack on some lyrical heft and you've won me over. This isn't rocket science. I like pop songs cuz by nature they're SUPPOSED to be catchy. But give me a song like "Fake Plastic Trees" which is as tuneful as any Max martin composition AND those lyrics and well, you've got a winner in my books.

"Pulk/Pull" however must be the sonic equivalent of being dragged along the back of a HumVee across a field of broken glass. It starts off like your CD player has broken and doesn't get much better. Thom does his best Stephen Hawking impression as he spits out dribble about...God, I can't even understand a word. At one point I think there's a solo by a "Simon" game. Or the turtle underworld of "Super Mario Brothers". I can't listen to this anymore, I'm developing a tic. I feel like punching a nun. Damn you Radiohead.

4) "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan

Yes, I know it was popular. Yes, everyone but me seems to like it. But it's about heroin addiction, people. Abou rock stars who end their lives through drug use. Sarah's trying to prevent more Kurt Cobains.

Ok, semi-noble, but Sarah's got as much of a right to talk about heroin addiction as I do telling the men of the world how to keep a thick, luxurious head of hair. Just not qualified. "Surfacing" as a whole proves the point that artists should be left alone and miserable to actually produce good material. "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" will forever remain in my top 5 Desert Island CDs. But between that and "Surfacing" she went and fell in love. Just thinking about "I Love You" makes me want to throw Sarah through a pulk/pull revolving door. Sorry, still stuck on the Radiohead rage. Gonna go squeeze something soft and round for a bit...

5) "Wild Honey Pie" by The Beatles

Yes, the Beatles are unequivocal geniuses. Yes, this song could have been written by Mrs. Richardson's 2nd grade class after ingesting way too many sugar cookies at the Christmas party. Moving on....

6) "Everyday" by Dave Matthews Band

Not the song, the album. DMB swings for the fences and connects with the 11 worst songs of their entire career (the title track being the only one I can stomach; it's actually an OK song with a pretty great video). I sat listening to the record for the first time realizing three children somewhere near Sally Struthers died because I spent my $15 on Dave and not them. I could have just forgotten the whole experience through electroshock therapy if "The Space Between" wasn't so ubiquitous. I love watching Dave play this live; he always has this "OK, I am gonna pretend this song isn't complete crap" look with Glenn Ballard pulling a "Being John Malkovich" and entering through a portal into Dave's head. Seriously, Glenn must have honestly said at one point, "Gee, the acoustic guitar/bass/sax/violin/drum sound is really unique. Let's ditch the sax and violin, strap Dave to an electric guitar, and play utter derivative crap." I bet the sax and violin guy were as surprised as anyone to hear they had a record coming out. Glenn sent them to get a sandwich and by the time they came back, a record had been cut.

Well, I'm pretty much cross-eyes with rage by now, so I should really stop. Feel free to remind me of the hundreds I haven't come up with yet.

2002-09-30T11:40:00.000-04:00

sweet jesus

The new Two Towers trailer has me in complete awe.

My God.

I am geeking to the max.

2002-09-29T20:20:00.000-04:00

ramblin' man

not enough energy or foresight to write a coherent article, so you'll have to bear with these unrelated paragraphs...

---Spent Friday night helping my female roommate pick out clothes for a booty call. That was an interesting experience to say the least. The psychology of booty call clothes in and of itself should be someone's Ph.D. dissertation. I guess my perspective on booty calls is one the "yes" has been established on the booty call, clothing is irrelevant since sex or some permutation thereof has already been mutually consented and therefore, extraneous things such as how one looks suddenly becomes moot. Then again, I'm a guy. But it's been about 3 years since I've either made or received a booty call. My favorite one I ever got went something like this:

"Hi Ryan."
"Hey, whassup?"
"Well, I was just nearby your dorm..."
"BUt uou live all the way across campus."
"Well, I was at Lamont Library."
"That's 10 minutes from my dorm. That's still not nearby my dorm..."
"Welll, um..."

After about 4 more exchanges where I blatantly did not get what was going on, I recognized it was a booty call. (Memory is hazy, but I'm pretty sure I woulda said something like, "But why are you telling me about your underwear?") I read about this stuff in books, you see. I'd love to say it's because I was puritanical, but most I was a dork. ("Was", the masses ask?) Getting the booty call completed was a tad bit difficult since Liz of the stripper fame was completely plastered in my room at the time and reciting Tennyson's "Ulysesses" ad infinitum, accelerating the speed of each repetition 'til she ended up sounding like the guy from the MicroMachine ads of the late '80s. Another in the "never happens anymore now that I am out of college" files.

---Saturday night's highlight including a near fist fight with one of those new-fangled self-serve machines at supermarkets. For those of you who don't have them, they're just scanners to supposedly "speed up" the process of getting out of a supermarket if you only have a few items. After about 10 minutes of this expiditious process, the girl and I were looking for the "ACME" sign on the machine and waiting for the Road Runner to pass us in the 12 and under lane four feet away. Long story short, we scan in 3 items, slip in a $10 to the proper slot, and then the machine pulls a Chris Farley in those "Da Bears" sketches on SNL: "Gack, piece of sausage, heimlich, heimlich, cough, BLERGH" and dies. While trying to find the paddles to start it's heart back up, an employee, who apparently has a beeper for situations like this hooked up to "MartMachine", walks over, shouts, "GODDAMNIT IT", and rhuffs and puffs her way to the back, the "Employee Only" sign swaying like a saloon door in and old Western. 5 minutes later, we're still hoping she comes back. Literally 5 yuppie/hippie couples try to use the machine in front of us, which has likewise broken down. By the end I was staving them off at the path, but watching pretty people not being able to use technology always cheers me up. Luckily, Angry Employee of the Month comes out with a new set of change, and we go on our merry way. Meanwhile, the couple in the automatic machine, who was there when we started this debacle, still had that confused, deer-in-headlights look as they stared at the screen. Ahhh, technology. Love it.

---I enjoyed a good solid weekend of pop culture perfection. Not only did I watch "Almost Famous" but picked up both the new Beck CD and the official soundtrack release of the Buffy musical episode. Pop culture at its best never has to say anything profound, it just has to comment on universal truths in a way you never thought of or expressed more eloquently than you could ever have yourself. Cameron Crowe's dialogue consistently has me green with envy. "I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen" will forever be my favorite movie quote ever (followed closely by Jet Li's epic cry, "I am Hu Law! I am nobody's bitch! You are all my bitches!" at the end of "The One", the most worthless $10 I spent in the year 2002). Beck's newest record may be the breakup record to end all breakup records (well, it will never surpass Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks", but the fact I can even compare the two shows you what I think of the CD). Intimate scope, beautiful music, heartfelt lyrics...the age of irony is over for Beck and it suits him great. And "Buffy"...well, it's just freakin' perfection. Playing both within and stretching the boundaries of musical theatre genre, playing within the continuity of the show, amazing special effects, his dialogue...Joss is the next...well, Cameron Crowe. Both have an intensely close relationship to the pop culture pulse, can shape it to their own whims, and re-present it to us with an authorial voice that is at once original irreverent, heartfelt, and deeply poetic.

2002-09-27T13:57:00.000-04:00

blogging has gone the way of avril lavinge

Marc Weisblott makes an interesting claim on his guest post on Dawn's website that

I believe that "the blogging phenomenon" is the biggest heap of hooey since Gretchen Mol making the cover of Vanity Fair.

Strong language. And I recently have been concurring.

I feel weird writing about this here, given the inherent meta-irony of it all. (Plus, this site has pretty much veered entirely into pop culture sarcasm with readers who don't really give a crap about the term "blogasphere" which has easily ascended to the top of "most hated words" on my list.)

The whole "you're not linking me cuz you're sexist" and "who cares who links who" volley of posts and comments a few weeks on various blogs I read just highlights that none of us seemingly have left the high school cafeteria. I was as guilty as any early on of basically having blogs that say "hey check out X" or "this person RAWKS" or any of the 134 tropes that have been established both before I came onto the "scene" and since as well. We want to be popular, we want to be in the in-crowd, we want to be liked by those around us. God knows I linked myself silly, posted on comments pages, and got caught up in what can be a very alluring sense of community extending far beyond your hometown. But the fact that certain people suddenly have actual POWER in the blogworld (power to drive large numbers of people towards specific content and by linking, in and of itself legitimizing said content as being worth someone's time) seems to me an amazingly interesting phenomenon that may itself signal the end of the First Era of blogdom and the start of the second phase which has yet to be named. The sheer venom poured forth on both sides, the sheer sincerity on both sides, speaks to me of something quite large and therefore quite relevent to the place blogging itself seems to be headed. (Check this out, it's as good a place as any to get into what little I myself have seen.)

The term "blogasphere" is one I hate since it belongs to the language of exclusion---people are either in it or they're out of it. Those who don't blog are out. Casual readers are likewise out of it since they can only visit from afar on the periphery. People are anxious to include themselves in this world in their blogs lest they be left behind somehow. So the word itself has exploded in terms of usage recently and it's making me vaguely queasy.

If i understand warblogging, it was to provide unbiased reporting or pundit-izing on issues outside of the corporate structure. REAL reporting, none of the washed-down, Time-Warner approved stuff we see as we eat our processed dinners with our 2.4 kids. A very punk thing to do, very noble, all that and a bag of chips. I am not a very (or even remotely) political person but I recognize that the distribution of information need not be controlled by a few sources and in fact, the distribution of information on a grass-roots level as about as democratic as you can get. However, we now have "established warbloggers" given both credentials and traffic because of these credentials (ie, everyone is 'supposed' to link to or read Glenn Reynolds). I don't know Glenn, I don't read his site every often, but by golly lots of people do. More power to him and I wish him tons of success. My problem here certainly isn't with Glenn or warbloggers like him.

My problem is instead, as mentioned before, the language and attitudes of exclusion that seem to be running rampant. Maybe I don't get it, maybe (most likely) I am extremely naive about what I am 'supposed' to be doing with my blog. Some people have outright accused me of being crazy that I wouldn't try and do as much as possible to drive as much traffic here as I can. The whole MSNBC thing was great and it was fun to see a few thousand hits in the space of a few days, but believe me, I am getting a lot more pleasure out of the 30-40 of you who seem to come back on a regular basis just to hear what I have to say. That's just mind-blowing and I can't thank you enough for actually thinking I am worth spending even five minutes a day on. But getting on MSNBC, getting a core of readers wasn't and can't be the point of what I do. Getting my site mentioned on various media and websites is terrific and surprising when it happens, but luckily I am in the position where it's really OK if none of that happens. I am not, as far as I know, in the "blogasphere" and that's really OK. I have my little, Blogger-published site here where I can spit off whatever's in my head without having to worry about what anyone thinks. Now, many of those seeking membership do their sites as their lifeblood, their livelihood, their very income. To get 5,000 hits versus 500 may in fact mean the ability to pay rent. Again, more power to you, if that's what you want. Would I like a few hundred dollars a month rolling through my PayPal account? Sure. I am writing this as a person lucky enough to have a steady income who need not rely on the charity of my readers to literally survive.

But what the blogging world is in danger of, so far as I can see it from my little perch here in Boston, is turning into exactly what it tried to step away from initially. We have this potential "Animal Farm" type scenario where those who led the revolution against "major media" are in fact themselves major media. "Legitimizing " blogs is a slippery slope, especially when it comes at the expense of exclusionary tactics. Again, let me make perfectly clear that I am not slamming individual sites for their content nor the status they have achieved through the collective psychology of linking and legitimizing. This is not a "Person X is ruining the Internet" because, well, that's dumber than the idea of a Tara Reid Movie Marathon.

In any case, now that people seem willing to subscribe to a hierarchy within a "blogasphere" created by the blogging collective, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out. To me, this belies the grass roots nature not only of warblogging, but blogging itself. I just know that all this drama isn't what I signed up for when I started this site, and, luckily, I still don't have to sign up for it. I am one of those on the periphery, always have been; only now, I've pretty much stopped looking in. They're doing their thing, I'm doing mine. We'll both be pretty much OK, I think. It's like two cars who are splitting at a slight fork in the road---neither of us is quite sure where they other's heading. Hell, neither party knows where they themselves are heading. Maybe we'll coverge somewhere down the line. I think I'd like that.

Then again, maybe we'll smash into a great fender bender. We'll just have to see. In any case, the punk days are gone, the TRL days are here.

2002-09-26T10:51:00.000-04:00

see saw theory redux

OK, I am going to revisit an old topic here, cuz hey, I actually have readers now. You can read the original article here but I am gonna repost it here pretty much verbatim anyways, so why go there? You have about as much reason to do that as pay for the Criterion Collection of "Van Wilder" on DVD.

Here's the proposal:

I've been kicking the basic tenets of this theory for a few years, but it really started to gel a few months back at work when a coworker insisted that no good could ever come out of one night stands, they were inherently evil, someone always got hurt, yadda yadda. Now, I was trying to insist she was wrong, since I myself have had one night stands that were totally chill, no harm no foul, all good the next day. I've also had year long relationships that were 12-month exercises in pain.

So, to account for the myriad of relationship possibilities, and gradations therein, the See-Saw Theory was born.

Simply put, assume a scale from 1-100. Break that down into increments of 4. So, we have 25 levels, each corresponding to a potential social relationship between two people, from platonic (0-4) to life-long mates (96-100).

Ok, so next find 25 animals that correspond in relative size to each to match with each of these twenty-five gradations. (so a badger is like 17-21, a lion is like 57-61, etc).

The trick to knowing whether you're gonna work with someone is if the two animals you and your partner represent could successfully balance on a see saw.

Note that this does not imply that you need be the same animal. A platypus and a hedgehog might get along just fine. But an elephant is gonna shoot a field mouse into the next county when its fat, commitment-heavy ass sits down on that contraption and sends Stuart Little's relationship-phobic booty out of the park.

I feel this can explain how one night stands can work (two hummingbirds decide to hum...uh, anyways...) and so forth, up and down the line from the "casual dating" to "we can see other people but if he does his testicles will end up somewhere unpleasant" to permanent monogamous bliss.

(Of course, this theory also assumes that a life-long loving relationship is the pinnacle, so the Freaker would be utterly lost here. He'd be too busy checking out the girls coming down the slide anyways, I suppose.)

Once again, I need your help, faithful readers. I need any and all suggestions for both the 25 levels and the 25 animals. this is important sociological work we're doing here, and i can't do it alone. (I could write overly melodramatic poetry set to Peter Gabriel's "Passion" about it, but this is an entirely different story). So post your suggestions, and I'll be updating the results periodically on this site. Hopefully I can also use some of your web-savvy talents to really make this sparkle. Get creative. "Puppies" are boring. "Marmasets"are fun. "Weekend fling" is bad; "get-your-freak-on-fridays" is better.

(btw---yes, this is what Harvard students do instead of actually dating. We spend hours coming up with stuff like this, involve Nietzche in the debates, and wonder why we're not getting laid. Somewhere right now my current girlfriend is checking the expiration date on her passport so she can flee the country to avoid ever having to see me again.)

2002-09-25T10:37:00.000-04:00

buffy review

OK, this may bore most of you, oh well, I do that anyways unintentionally most of the time:

An excellent first episode, not so much for the "plot" per say (zombies in a high school attack Scooby Gang Version 2.0) but for all the separate strands it has set up in just an hour. The creepy assasination in Instabul. Willow's coven training. Sunndydal High's return. Xander making coin over a building built on a Hellmouth. Buffy's new job. A new principal. Everyone and their sister going, "We're in for some majorly bad juju soon." And finally, the morphing end sequence. All set up in about 40 minutes of TV that lays the groundwork for the entire season.

About the morphing in particular: I love that Joss and Company seem to finally be ready to explore the very nature of the Slayer herself and the locus of what has been implied to be a struggle throughout millenia. The news reports have always leaked a desire by the writers to go "back to the beginning" so people took that to mean the show would return to Season 1, the Master, etc. But Joss went even beyond that, and shockingly morphed the Master into Buffy. The notion of the primal power of the Slayer has been teased on and off for the past 3 seasons (starting with the First Slayer in Buffy's Dream, the Dracula episode, and all of Season 6 with Spike consistently reminding Buffy of the incredibly thin line between them) will hopefully finally be explained within the mythology of the show. The only problem may be that, after going into the very root of Evil itself, there may be nowhere for the show to go (and given that SMG may leave, it's not a bad idea to really go for the gold here).

The season being about "power", as it seems to be, normally would sound annoyingly like a Literary Criticism class I took in college, but fits in nicely in contrast to last season, which was largely about impotence---inability to love, inability to connect, inability to change the terrible things coming down the pipe for each of the characters. Willow went completely the opposite of this at the end of the last season, overindulged in her attempt at potency, and damn near ended the world. This season may end up being a 22 episode search for the primal source of the good and evil in the Buffyverse---as Willow says, it's all connected. Buffy is connected to the Master is connected to Glory is connected to flowers from Paraguay. The Big Bad will most likely turn out to be someone trying to disrupt the balance of the these forces, a Lucifer-type figure who wants to finally tip the balance once and for all. The killing of the Slayer-in-training is just the start. The talisman is part two. Who knows what the next step will be? (I know, this sounds eerily like "Star Wars". God help me if someone takes Buffy's midichlorian count.)

Point of the matter is, we have already seen the Big Bad. It is haunting Spike, for reasons yet unknown, and has been for as long as he's been back in Sunnydale. My gut instinct tells me that even though we haven't seen it's corporeal form, in a sense, this Big Bad has ALWAYS been in the show, if Joss is going after what I think he is. The spectre of evil which has always been present in the Buffyverse, had guided everyone from the Master through Warren, is about to reveal itself. The interesting thing is, it most likely will be the very driving force behind the Slayer as well.

update: So Liz is mad because Dawn and her friends scream parallelism to the Scoobies way too obviously. Well, yea. But I don't have a problem with that. Whedon's a huge X-Men fan; he ripped off the Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix saga last year, and now he's positioning Dawn, Goth Girl, and Slater's Cousin as the New Mutants to the Scobby Gang's X-Men. Odds are about 3-1 at least one episode these year has the younger three acting EXACTLY like their older counterparts.

And it's clearly obvious that Buffy and Dawn don't have Sprint PCS for their provider of cell phone goodness; their reception is indeed way too good for that.

2002-09-24T14:05:00.000-04:00

best work conversation in months

me: Hey.
co-worker: Hey.
me: You look kinda down.
co-worker: Well, yea.
me: What's wrong?
co-worker: Well...
me: c'mon, you can tell me.
co-worker: OK. Well, thing is, my hair's not duckbutting.
me: Excuse me?
co-worker: You know, like the feathers on a duck's butt sorta curl up?
me: Ummm...
co-worker: Yea, duckbutting. My hair isn't doing that today. I hate this haircut.

So that's our new word of the day, kids. Repeat after me.

2002-09-24T13:17:00.000-04:00

buffy's back

and the return of "Ryan needs to be home at 8 pm every Tuesday or suffer dire consequences" begins.

I have a fun habit of coming into every trend late in the game. It took me 19+ years to get into the Grateful Dead, and when I finally get tickets, Jerry Garcia up and died. I get into Phish about a month after they swore off touring (thought mercifully they are going back on the road starting on New Year's).

And in the first episode of "Buffy" I ever watched, she died.

Since then, phrases like "Big Bad" and "Scooby Gang" and all of the other phrases that I had heard betwixt my friends during college suddenly started to make sense. My hardcore devotion to the show started at the same time I got into "Alias" and "24"---I took my well-deserved and much-needed break from unpaid theatrical freelancing and needed something to fill the suddenly large amount of free time I had. Concurrent with discovering "Buffy" I also discovered reruns on FX 2 hours a night and sites like "Ain't It Cool News" which religiously details every bit of the show. I wanted to BE Xander. I wanted to date Willow. (Sorry y'all, gimmee Alyson over Sarah any day). I wanted to be able to write one-liners as effortlessly as these writers did. Everything about it just seemed way too good to be true.

I won't go too deep into what other people are much more capable of doing, namely delineating the web of metaphor the show employs (high school as a literal Hell, vampirism as rape, boyfriends who turn evil once you sleep with them, disguising fear and neuroses through various demon/mystical incarnations) but sufficed to say, as long as growing up was painful for you, "Buffy" will ring true. And since I know of none who enjoyed high school completely, you should watch the show. Period.

Most "Buffy" fans seemed to LOATHE last season. Me myself and I had nothing to compare it to, so for the most part I was much more lenient. Plus, for most of the year I was dizzy with how frickin' amazing "Once More With Feeling" was; just mind-blowingly good. It was plot-heavy, musically-savvy, and itself a dissertation and deconstruction of the musical theatre genre all at once plus with about 20 laugh out loud lines to boot. I may have to add Joss Whedon to my list of "dream roommates"; he's a god on earth. (Someday I might fully geek out and explain how I see “Once More…” both reacting to and exulting in the musical theatre paradigm, but for now I wanna keep the 8 or 9 readers who still come

Be that as it may, even _I_ couldn't take the "black magic as drugs" metaphor thrown about last year, even if it drove the season's plot to it's conclusion (Willow goes bad, which is turns gives you varicose veins apparently). (As Liz's boyfriend pointed out over the weekend to me, that whole story line was a simile, not a metaphor, and a crappy simile at that.) However, having watched all of seasons 1 and 2 (thank you DVD box sets!), plus most of the other seasons via reruns, I feel the last 5 episodes of the season were on par with anything the show's done. The stakes were enormous, the pain was real, and, given the mutli-year buildup for some of the storylines, the payoff was HUGE. They also left the season, at least in Sunnnydale, with the unspoken line which is uttered near the end of "Once More...": "where do we go from here?" you have most of the cast literally picking up the pieces from the mess their lives had become. (Spike being the exception, of course.)

I am looking forward to watching my first full season starting tonight. Let others make predictions, it's more fun to let it unfold (even as I have just read spoilers on AICN, stoopid curiosity). All I can hope for is the return of Red-Head Willow. Sigh.

(update: I'd give tonite's episode 7.5/10. Great, great set-up for the season: a bizarre intro, a killing ending, a dubious principal, and more good one-liners than the entire run of "Becker". Dawn's speech about liking "Britney Spears' earlier work, you know, before she sold out...her watercolors, for instance..." was priceless. And did I mention the ending rocked? My feeling is they are finally going to get down and descroibe what vampires and Slayers primally have in common, and perhaps locate either their common source or the source of the split; a sort of Lucifer figure that pre-dates the Master. Or Xander will kill everyone in an ice cream truck. Either one is feasible. More tommorow. "Its about power.")

2002-09-23T14:57:00.000-04:00

new york, part 2

so about the stripclub.

Let me preface all of this by saying I am not into dehumanizing women. I respect women. You can tell my the “Freaker” saga that I feel your pain as a gender if not empathetically, than sympathetically. I deplore the debasement of your sex, I am all about the empowerment thereof, you’ll save the planet from the mess we men have made of it, etc etc. You rock and deserve not to be objectified.

That being all said, I had a great time at this strip club.

It was the third time I have ever been, the other two times were driven by outside sources (bachelor party and roommate’s request for her birthday) and this time, again, I was not the motivating factor in going. I didn’t object in this case however, unlike the first time where to be honest I was a bit queasy about the whole thing. I distinctly remember three mental phases of that first night.

1) “Oh lord, I can’t look, I shouldn’t look, what in the name of Zeus am I doing here?”
2) “This must be the single greatest night of my life.”
3) “If I see one more set of nipples so help me God I’ll light myself on fire.”

Number 2 was the longest phase of the night, to be sure, but even then was tampered by a strange feeling, one my friend Liz had on Saturday night. She said to me, “You know, I was all worried, thinking it would be all objectification, and that I’d feel bad for the women, but Jesus, you men are the pathetic ones here.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’d say maybe a third of the crowd was there under either a bachelor party (and bachelorette party, in one case) or like us, going for an almost comical shtick “this will make a good story” case. But that leaves two thirds of the crowd these horny, desperate guys who can’t get laid, yet inexplicable are at a place where not only will they continue to not get laid, but will come as close as a stupid man will think you could get laid and STILL not get any. Call me crazy, but dropping $20 per blue-balling doesn’t sound like the world’s best way to spend your hard-earned money.

And I am sure, lest you argue, that there are plenty of women who are hard-up, can’t find any other work, hate being there, types of women. Know what? People in my office hate their job and they’re fully clothed. At least strippers have the decency to hide their hatred from the clients.

What little interaction (if having your butt repeatedly grabbed without my permission qualifies as “interaction”) we had didn’t seem to be with these people. It took us a while to not feel like deer in headlights (a $20 admission fee and $10 Bud Light will set off the “we’re being rooked” alarm pretty damn quick), but pretty soon we get to the task at hand, which was consistently “get Liz lap dances”. Scott and I were perfectly happy to blow our hard earned money towards this purpose.

The problem was initially that this place was tiny---there must have been 4 breasts per square foot. Sorta overwhelming. And while Liz intellectually understood, she couldn’t emotionally deal with the fact that she could in fact be picky, since really, they weren’t gonna say no. Also difficult was the fact that hardly any chairs were available, and without being able to form a lap, Liz was gonna have difficulty getting said lap dance.

So she finally gets a chair, and I swear not 18 seconds later was a half naked blonde on top of her. (I’m telling you, this place was as efficient as DisneyWorld. It was like she had a mental “Fast Pass” for a chair.) So “Stella” is working her mojo, but my mind is actually reeling from the fact that the song being played is a remix of Sarah McLachlan’s “Sweet Surrender” and cursing the fact that this song has now been utterly ruined now.

Songs which later got ruined:

“You Shook Me All Night Long”
“Been Caught Stealing”
“Jump Around”

I got to thinking the strippers were all deaf, since no matter what song was on, their rhythm stayed exactly the same. This prompted Liz’s best line of the night: “Look, she must be new, she’s shaking her tits in time.”

So, Stella has come and gone, everything’s hunky dory. Scott paid for that one, now it’s my turn. We’re trying to figure out who will be next, and then all three of us laid eyes on “Vivian”, aka “Alterna Girl”, who was just a bombshell and a half. So it was clear from the line of drool from Liz’s lip to the floor that this should be the next girl. Sadly, most of the club pretty much agreed, so after about 15 minutes, we had to give up.

We moved around a bit, scoping what little other views there were to be had. After my initial $30 rooking I had managed to not spend any more money, and had only been asked by one girl if I wanted a dance. Oddly, I was insulted that not even strippers were hitting on me. (Just kidding, Jenny. Ha. Kidding. Put the knife down.) I give one dollar to one girl who winks, touches my face, and says thanks. She totally wants me. I know, I know, strippers are supposed to make you think they want you, but this chick was totally digging me.

Finally, Vivian walks back. I grab her by the hand and tell her, “You know, my friend loves your technique.” She is utterly confused. I realize she speaks barely any English. Whoops. “She likes how you dance!” Ahh, recognition descends. I ask her if she’s free, she says yes and grabs my hand. I tell her no, for Liz. She’s cool with this as well, and takes Liz away from me and Scott. Scott and I pursue with the tenacity of Javert pursuing Jean Valjean..

So Scott and I get a front row view of an excellently spent $20. About halfway through, completely out loud and in ear shot of the girls, Scott sighs, “Well, my mind is officially blown.” I casually remind him of the incredible sex he’s gonna receive later. He wistfully nods.

So the song ends (I think it was Pachebel’s Canon in D) and Liz is sorta sitting there, unable to move, with this ridiculous grin on her face. We ask her how she is, and she replies, “I need to go before I spend all my money.” Having satisfactorily completed our mission, Scott and I take her out (avoiding the ATMs), and we split ways.

2002-09-23T11:54:00.000-04:00

new york state of sweat

ok, so someone forgot to tell mother nature it was supposed to be Fall weather this past weekend. opting for jeans on a humid new york saturday was one of the sillier things i've managed to do in a long time.

it seemed to affect everyone around me as well. for starters, the commander and i were starting out on the town around new from jersey city. a quick path and MTA ride later we were near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to meet our friend Matt. Matt never called, so instead of walking around Central Park as was the plan, we were smack dab in the middle of a German-American Pride Parade. Miles and miles of lederhosen. Shannon would have been in heaven. Sadly though the German population of the Greater New York area were a little lacking in the looks department o the whole thing was sorta scary. Not as scary as the Mime Duel nearby, however---It was "Gold Guy" versus "Cloth Man" as both vied for who could creep the tourists out the most, it seemed. I ended up rooting for Gold Guy, who at least stayed in character ("evil, creepy servant of Ganesh" seemed to be his character) whereas Cloth Man couldn't decide if he was "6 Million Dollar Man Running After a Bad Guy" or Red Skelton. He went from that reaaaallllllly slow mime to the over-expressive gesture man. Just weird.

We went through the park, finally reaping the benefits of the weather (bikinis in September? well, if you must...), saw a mini-castle (which prompted the commander's funniest line of the day, "wow, this doesn't suck nearly as much as i thought it would"), saw "cleopatra's needle" (which prompted a bevy of freemason jokes from myself that even tim didn't get, so obviously i was geeking to the max), and finally headed back into the Times Square area.

Our friend, it turned out, had fallen asleep, a victim of the weather. the commander himself was feeling quite under the weather. and the friend we had traveled to meet likewise was napping when i called her to find out where we were going for dinner. i was batting 0-3, is what i'm saying. the commander left to drink tea and read Homer, I eventually met my friend for dinner at an italian restaurant with a german waitstaff (again, the german theme), and finally got to the commander's show.

now, i knew going into this that, aside from the commander, this was going to be probably be a bad night of theatre. i might as well have urinated on the $18 i spent on the ticket and gotten roughly the same level of satisfaction. the guy taking tickets has a creep factor of 12 on a 1-10 scale. you take one look at this guy and you think, "somewhere, probably close by, this guy has a stash of kiddie porn." but the commander's my boy, so i went, met up with sleeping boy, and the commander's new girlfriend. all of us has psychically girded ourselves in anticipation of the theatrical onslaught about to level its hammer upon our brows.

(quick background---i had seen a production by this group before. the first act was a "comedienne/impressionist". god pity her. a typical joke from her was: "so, ever notice how there's nothing on TV? god, i haven't been laid in months!" we were stunned. a row of us just hiding our heads, unable to look at her. i willed myself to bermuda, mentally. the longest 15 minutes of 2002. you had to be there.)

the night was divided into 4 short one acts. no comedienne in sight. the first play featured "shoulder boy" and "forearm girl"....two physical specimens that you can't believe exist. they should be on "ripley's believe it or not". shoulder boy had neck and shoulder muscles so 'roided up that that got their own name in the program. forearm girl managed to wear just the inappropriate dress to think you were gazing at her through a funhouse mirror. we had no clue what it was about. but he was EVIL. supposedly. i started daydreaming about halfway through. i think he killed somebody. the play ends with the girl having to run off, SCREAM, and the guy walks towards her as the show fades to black. however, the commander is backstage, trying not to pass out from illness. the girl runs offstage. concerned, the commander says, "hey, you OK?" and she lets out a bloodcurdling scream right in his face. i love off-off-off broadway.

the second play was as if Harold Pinter submitted a draft of "Cocoon". two old people, enormously long pauses, plus a Fargo accent to boot. you learn the old man (played, of course, by a 22 year old kid) just had his wife die. "she probably died of boredom," sighed one of the commander's friends.

finally the commander comes on, actually employed diction and dynamics (unlike the first 2 scenes which were drowned out by the 8 oscillating fans in the 15'x15' room) and did a great job performing whitman's "out of the cradle endlessly rocking".

BUT

there's one more piece to go. 5 of us in the front row of an audience of 15. do we stay? hell no. we bolt at the last minute before the final scene change. to the day i die i will not forget the stunned, saddened look of the actors in the final piece as we barreled out like sailors on shore leave. oh well.

about 8 beers later, i've washed the bad taste of the first two pieces out of my pysche. almost everyone is exhausted except for me (ironic since nearly half the tab is my bar bill) and my friend liz shows up with her boyfriend. the commander and everyone leave like 10 minutes later, but since i have keys to the commander's fortress of solitude (jersey city can feel as far away sometimes), i stay out with liz and scott. so we're in the bar, chatting away, and the subject of strip clubs comes up.

and liz is intrigued.

and liz says "gee, i'd kinda like to go to one."

so scott and i take her to an ATM, and we head over to flashdancers...

...to be continued...

2002-09-20T16:09:00.000-04:00

big apple bound

don't miss me too much, munchkins. off the NYC in a few hours to see the Commander throw the theatrical smack down. will be back monday.

for my NYC fans, I'll be signing copies of my new book at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square Saturday afternoon, 1-4 pm.

2002-09-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

after the freaker

sorry if you've been coming back looking for chapter 4, but that's about all i can say on the subject for now. life went and got in the way of my blogging so it's been hard to add content lately. as much as i am sure you all want to here how i ended up nearly drunk at work at 11 pm meeting a deadline on wednesday well, you'll have to email me if you want the gory details. sufficed to say, there's a certain company in a certain eastern state that i wouldn't mind erasing from existence.

i realize i shouldn't complain, the job market being what it is...just having a job should be an automatic positive (unless you're my roommate, whose managers have read "The Art of War" via "Tiger Beat" so near as I can tell). and there are the occasional perks to working till 11 pm or midnight. these perks usually take the form of food ordered in on the company's bill. which is great and all, unless you consider the planned activities for wednesday versus actual happenings:

planned activities: go to gym (dips, bicep curls, bench press, lat pullovers, situps, 45 minutes cardio), healthy-ish dinner, read a book
actual happenings: work until 11:30 pm, eat half an extra-cheese with pepperoni pizza and down four Sam Adams' Octoberfest

calorically speaking i got bitch-slapped, is what i'm trying to say. work dropped the soap in the penal shower and i bent over like the little girl i am. but free food is always good.

unlike my roommate, however, i don't actually have to ask permission to go to the bathroom at work. hell, even morgan freeman with his supermarket gig in "the shawshank redemption" had it easier than she does. i've been carefully looking for carvings in the woodwork around our apartment, is what i'm trying to say.

i love college kids who tell me how much they love "office space". that's pretty much akin to me telling them how I much I love Africa having seen "Survivor". to all you kids out there: you...have...no...idea. that movie isn't funny because of how far it stretches the truth, but actually how close it adheres to it. i am fortunate in that my own office is relatively normal when it comes to those things, but the monolithic economic giants we work for absolutely rewrite the book on corporate stupidity. i temped here for three months before being hired, and upon being hired, i had the following exchange with our company president:

"so ryan, where do you think you'd like to try and further yourself in this company?"
"which area, specifically, deals the absolute least with our clients?"

seriously. i saw/see amazingly cool, amazingly nice people brought to tears by these clients. just stunning. said everything but their mother's a whore, it seems. (well, one company might have said something akin to that, if i remember correctly) we tend to deal with people who are the bottom of the totem pole in the power matrix of their particular division, and the only power they can exert is over us, it seems....same thing applies to my roommate's managers, so near as i can tell. when you have only a sliver of actual power in this world, you exploit it in retribution for all the unfair crap ever dumped on your doorstep. it's what most people refer to when they speak of "empowerment", i think.

so i opted to go the way of computers---desktop publishing in particular. i've been very fortunate to be in a position in a company that has basically offered me a "what do you want to do and how can we help you do it" approach which i realize more and more is very unusual and i am very lucky to be in it. not to say there are some days unemployment looks like a glorious alternative (see above, cf. Sam Adams) but on the whole, i work in a great office with amazing people who i try my damndest to shield from these pathetic people who's only consolation in life seems to be that they can step on my coworkers/friends/roommates.

yours truly from cubicle america,

ryan

2002-09-18T10:13:00.000-04:00

final chapter in the freaker saga

I learned one more piece about the great epic that is The Freaker. As mentioned before, I left during the double-team action, which is why I didn't have the dialogue of those dances until Monday. However, apparantly the Freaker went above and beyond the call of cliché.

Not only did he pull a rear-end violation, not only did he repeatedly do so to everyone at the bar, not only did he then offer to buy the girl a beer after soiling her with his essence, but then, with the leftover dollar bill that he refused to give as a tip to the bartender, he wrote his phone number down, handed to the girl, and left.

Much merriment was had as the dollar bill then went to the super cool waitress who handled our tab all night.

Let's sum up some lessons which can be extracted from this specific tale which may be application to situations at large, broken down across the sexes:

A) "Game Plan for the Night"

Women: "Let's get some friends, have a few drinks, dance to some cheesy music, and have a great time."
Men: "Gonna grab me some boobs, so help me God."

B) "Scoping the Scene"

Women: "OK, you get the first round, we'll get that postage stamp-sized spot on the dance floor and hold it for us."
Men: "OK, so who's not wearing a bra?"

C) "Ordering Drinks"

Women: "3 drinks with hard liquor disguised by frozen fruit concentrate, please."
Men: "What's the cheapest beer that's not Natural Light?"

D) "Dancing"

Women: "Woohoo! Come on Eileen!"
Men: "Damnit. You can't possibly freak a girl to a song featuring banjos." *keeps sipping his Red Dog*

E) "More Dancing"

Women: "Woohoo! Hot In Herre!"
Men: "Our time is nigh. Fan out boys."

F) "Initial Encounters, Mental Monologues"

Women: "Maybe if I just smile that half-hearted crooked way and try to walk away, he'll release the death grip on my hips."
Men: "Damn, this chick is SO into me. What a tramp."

G) "Monologues, 18 seconds later"

Women: "I wonder if my kick boxing training is about to get it's first real-world application."
Men: "I wonder if she has a sister."

H) "The Escape"

Women: "Whew, thanks for pulling me off and dancing with me Suzie."
Men: "She AND her friend want me. Score! I need another Molsen Ice."

I) "The Aftermath"

Women: "Can you believe the nerve of that guy? Thank God he's leaving me alone."
Men: "Pssst, Ted, gimmee that pen. Gonna write my number down on this dollar bill. That way, on the next wave I can tuck this inside her shirt."

2002-09-17T11:14:00.000-04:00

freaking follow-up

I missed one of the seminal highlights of The Freaker, which was the "tandem freak" employed late in the night. As I mentioned there were 5 of us---myself, my girlfriend, two coworkers of mine, and a coworker's sister. Trying to freak one half of a sister duo is only slightly dumber than throwing a steak at a vegetarian. You're only asking for a world of pain.

When sisterhood is involved, the "anti-freak Jedi sense" leaps from Padawan- to Yoda-level instantly. (If you don't believe me, just look on a girl's face when a Freak is about to occur, and cross-reference it with Obi-Wan's face when Alderan exploded. It's the same face.) So the sister is constantly foiling the Freaker's attempts at various points of the night. Now, if we men truly weren't thinking, we'd eventually develop a Pavlovian response and equate "Girl X" with "failure" and move on.

But like I said, we men are always thinking, damn us to hell but we are. We're not thinking much, but we're thinking.

So after about 2 hours, The Freaker returns, after going through about 12 more girls in plain sight of all of us in the past 15 minutes since his last bump'n'grind extravaganza. The coworker goes in to swoop the sister away, but instead is met by The Freaker's friend who is, unbelievably enough, running interference for the Alpha Freaker.

Now this is pure, evil genius.

The Freaker actually went to his friend and developed a strategy. To call it tactical warfare is not too far-fetched. They established a target, developed an multi-layered attack plan, and executed. The timing was impeccable; as my coworker reached out for her sister, the friend descended out of nowhere, took the hand, and spun her away. Pairs figure skating isn't choreographed this well.

So now the scene is eerily like the end of the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance in "Back to the Future", with each sister simultaneously playing Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson, that combo of "I can't believe this guy is dancing with HER" coupled with "I can't believe this guy is dancing with ME" look on their face. Meanwhile I am playing the role of Christopher Lloyd, looking back and forth between these demented duos going, "Damn. Damn damn." My girlfriend is Michael J. Fox, the life-force being sucked out of her, thinking, "This is why I looked forward to finally turning 21?" while simultaneously summoning the primordial forces of the Earth Mother to whup some serious Freaker hiney.

So, this is apparantly the conversation between the Beta Freaker and my coworker:

"Don't worry, he's my cousin, I can vouch for him."
"Yea, well, I'm her SISTER, and I don't know either of you."

(typical male logic: hey, he's cool, i KNOW him. we know it's BS but our only hope lies in pulling off a sincere performance. unless of course you're dealing with someone of INTELLIGENCE. jackass. god i hated this undynamic duo.)

Concurrently, this exchange took place between the sister and the Alpha Freaker:

"So, want a beer?"
"How many times have I told you tonite that I am not interested?"
"So, want a beer?"
"OK."

He slithers off, confident that "Operation: Cousin" has worked to perfection. Alpha and Beta give a high five on the way to the bar.

The sister turns to all of us and says, "He's buying me a beer. What a dipsh*t."

And people wonder why I don't go out to bars more often.

2002-09-16T10:12:00.000-04:00

dance floor decorum

I’d like to turn away for a moment from the world of celebrity pop culture and instead focus on a more everyday, but nonetheless important, facet of pop culture which has touched each and everyone of us (literally) at some point of our lives. You’re on the dance floor, whether it be at a club, a bar, a dorm room, and IT happens. IT transcends race, culture, age, basically any demographic you can think of. IT binds us as humans, creating a global network of oneness so immutable that it could potentially render all conflict as we know it moot if only the eyes of the world could be made to see it’s all-encompassing totality.

IT, of course, is “the freak.” Not the person, but the action.

“The freak” takes on many shapes and sizes. “The freak” can be exemplified in many different forms, but one in particular, witnessed yet again by myself this past weekend will serve as our model for this heinous, global-bonding action.

The term “freaking” is fairly common, but for specificity sake let me define what I consider to be said action within the context of today’s analysis. To “freak” someone is to get right up into someone’s dance space without their knowledge and initial consent and do anything from that bizarre dance from “Can’t Buy Me Love” to sheer, full-on dry-humping. Both men and women can instigate the “freak”, likewise both can be recipients thereof. Now, there are three basic types of “freaking”:

A) After the initial “shock”, both parties are consensual on the matter and a grand ol’ time can be had be all. There are two basic subgroups---the “friends at a party decide to gang up on an unsuspecting member of said party and freak him/her for the amusement of themselves and all” and “I’m going to really embarrass my significant other in front of his/her friends cuz I am really drunk or it’s funny to see them annoyed in public.” Option 2 seems to be my preferred course of action here.

B) The across-the-board immoral “freak”. For example, on a nun at a Catholic high school dance. Or your friend’s mother. The kind where “deserve to be hog-tied and dragged across broken glass for being that weird” suddenly seems like a feasible option for even the most-liberally minded folk.

C) The “they didn’t expect the freak, but now that freakdom has been initiated, they want no part of it and seek the quickest and least painful way out”.

Option C is what we’re gonna discuss today.

Option C is almost 90% perpetrated by men. It may even be higher but I don’t wanna be labeled a playa hatah. (Heh, I always wanted to type that. Cross that off the big list.) For instance, my senior Fall, an Option C was unleashed upon me with great vengeance and furious anger. She was dubbed “The Barnacle” after this night. I don’t think I need to illuminate why. I’d really rather not dwell on it.

Anyways, Option C is the reason most women travel in packs when they go out together. Its in our genetic make-up to travel in herds, and this primal instinct is consistently engaged whenever girls try to go out and actually have a good time. We as men simply cant allow them to do that measly thing. I have no clue as to why. Now, I can understand the basic “wow she’s cute I’d love to talk to her/dance with her” instinct; however, these guys totally have ruined any chance I might ever actually do this because they are Class A Option C offenders.

This particular offender came across my path Friday night. The scene: a local bar. The parties involved: me, four women, and The Freaker. The Freaker obviously had read his manual on “How To Look Like a Freaker From Across the Room”. Let’s break down the list:

---cheap-ass beer in one hand: Bud Light, check
---shirt unbuttoned low but not showing nipples: 3 down, check
---hair that is highly flammable: heavy gel job, check
---has sufficient inability to dance but thinks he can: does basic “arm pump” while slithering through crowd, check

So we all notice him (I have the advantage of being 6’5’’, the ladies of course have the anti-Freaker Jedi sense imprinted on their chromosomes) but for the first hour he stays away. Again, the 6’5’’ isn’t hurting. He doesn’t know I’m a wimp. Go me.

But, soon enough, he employs my absolute all time favorite “freak” technique: the rear sneak attack.

To quote Saruman, “You know of what I speak.” It’s that come from behind, grab the girls hips, and shove your crotch into their butt and pretend like a) you have rhythm and b) you haven’t completed offended the woman’s sense of self.

If I could interview anyone, past or present, famous or infamous, I would want to interview this guy, right at this moment. Pull one of those world freeze frames, sit him down, and ask him what in the blue hell he thinks he is doing. It’s just stunning that any guy thinks this is gonna work. It’s as if they expect the woman to turn around, look longing into his eyes, and say, “You know, all night I’ve been wondering why I’ve been feeling so incomplete, so lost. But with your unwanted denim-clad erection firmly pressed into my unwilling backside, now I feel whole again.”

I’ve been wondering for a few years now what on earth these guys are thinking. Most of you would say “They’re not thinking at that moment, Ryan” but believe me, the smartest thing men have ever done is convince women that they are completely stupid. These guys are in fact thinking the whole time, I suspect, but I think what they may be onto is the same principle that guides the sales force of our company.

I know, bringing economics into this? I said men think, I didn’t say we thought nice.

Basically, we’re talking law of averages here. According to our VP, (and I’ll misquote the actual numbers but you’ll get the gist) is that you want to have 50 pre-emptive proposals sent out at any time to get 10 interested parties to eventually end up with 2 sales. So, you plug away at 50 companies to get a 4% success rate. You don’t actually expect most of your attempts to work; you in fact fully expect most of them to fail.

I am not suggesting the success rate of the Freaker is 4% (though wouldn’t it be fun to ask the government to look into grant money for this) but I think I may have finally hit on a possible reason for the activity of the Freaker. A simple mathematical postulate. Eventually, if they freak enough, someone will actually go for it. They are literally prodding women to get the response they want. Just amazing. Neuter me NOW, I hate being a man sometimes.

Anyone else have some theories? I am sensing important sociological work to be done, and I need your help.

2002-09-13T19:09:00.000-04:00

writer's block? nay, i tell thee verily

A lot of people ask me if it's tough coming up with new content on a daily basis. (Well, OK, no one has asked that yet, but eventually they will.) And my answer is simple: as long as we have people like Jennifer Love Hewitt around, I'll never be short of content.

A few weeks back, in my post about the VMA's, I noted the curious title of "Singer/Songwriter Jennifer Love Hewitt". I figured it was a pathetic attempt to acknowledge her past "singing career" and try to answer the "what the heck is she doing here" factor. Sadly, I didn't realize she was planning to unleash another sonic assault on America with a new CD. (Blogging decorum would dictate that I link said album, but then again, I'm trying to prevent a tragedy here, people, so we'll remain largely link-less here, except for one important exception below).

Now, what I am about to link to is not for the faint of heart. Parents, make sure you're kids are well out of the room, preferably with earmuffs. I give you the link to this "singer/songwriter's" latest affront to humanity, "Barenaked".

here is a link to the video

so we're gonna go multimedia here today folks, and if you've never seen the video, or don't care to go see it, well, this will be about as much fun as Marxism for ya. but for the rest, read along to the video...

Video opens on JLH on the world's biggest bed and an amazingly sparsely decorated room. This may have something to do with the fact that the bed is bigger than most studio apartments. And why is she in a bed? Cuz the song starts off while a very non-cliched line of "Do you ever have that dream..." Ah, she's waking up from a dream...thus a bed! Aha! I get it. As a professor of mine once sad, there's a fine line between symbolism and completely sucking. JLH proceeds to get up and reveals an outfit of tank top, boxer shorts, and a pair of socks she must have stolen from the wadrobe of "The White Shadow".

Well, the director's waited a generous 25 seconds of so before getting to the money shot, JLH taking off her shirt and....DAMN YOU WICKER SCREEN. DAMN YOU. (Does anybody in the real world own one of these screens? Is there an actual need for one if you live alone? Exactly who are you hiding from?) Employing the best special effects 1954 has to offer, she walks from one side of the screen to another, magically switching clothes to create an entire ensemble with the fashion sense of those socks.

Cut to her walking down the street, presumably NYC. In a town where people step on dead bodies in the sidewalk, everyone is maintaining a healthy distance from our singer/songwriter. There's an at least 10' safety zone these folks are maintaining. The chorus hits and inexplicably horns kick in, presumably from a Santana outake that they never released. You could throw 10 llamas playing kazoos while being whipped into this mix and it wouldn't be less dissonant.

Cut to shot of girl and guy in a restaurant which is severely lax in its no shirt, no service policy. I think the director's instructions were, "OK, you're motivation is 'hey, JLH is there, it's time to make your move.' no, seriously. why are you laughing at me? i can have you replaced, pretty boy." The girl obviously isn't digging his move, deciding to leave the video for a Jay Z one. Having Cristal poured on you by Nate Dogg is apparantly less demeaning to your self-worth than being in this video.

Aaaah, the moment we've been waiting for---the performance shot. It's our hero Jennifer and a band full of guys with the "I went to Berkelee for THIS?" look on their face. Cut to African-American girl falling down on the sidewalk outside the performace space. I believe she's having a bad reaction to JLH's voice, a la Mary Hart's fan a few years back. Just knocks her to the ground senseless. She quickly gets up and smiles, which is the quickest recovery from severe trauma this side of Amidala on Geonosis.

Cut back to a wider shot of the performance, wide enough to include the angry mob waiting the signal from their leader to swoop in for the kill.

JLH nows has more poignant lyrics: "You ever try your luck with a pickup line...But you just sucked?" JLH is SO street, she swears! Cut to yet another guy who's topless (sensing a theme here) who uses the infmaous bad pick up line. I'm not a great lip reader, but I'm pretty sure he's saying "Hey baby, you remind me of a Jennifer Love Hewitt song." The girl, sufficiently horrified, walks away.

Picking up the pace, we cut immediately to another guy without a shirt, completing the trifecta. Right about now I am longing for the equal-opportunity pedophelia of that Jimmy Eat World video. At least in this vignette the ex-GF has the decency to throw him some clothes. Somewhere in the background I think I see three more people screaming, falling to the ground, clutching their ears, as JLH pulls a "Scanners" on them.

Ah, we mercifully reach the bridge of the song, and to quote Commander Foley: "Well, she finally took my advice to go and play in traffic." I heard rumors that it took two weeks to film this because the drivers kept trying to run her down. We then see an excellent sense of foreshadowing as she sings alone on a sidewalk with not one person paying any attention to her.

Bravely tightroping the symbolism line before freefalling into inanity once again, JLH ends the video by gradually losing all of her clothes, with the camera artistically showing us....her clavicle. Woohoo, break out the party hats, I love me a good clavicle. She ends up again in the bed big enough from which to launch Maverick and Goose, apparantly incredibly amused that she lost all of her clothes on the way home.

Like I said before, it'll be a while before I run out of stuff to talk about here.

2002-09-12T09:44:00.000-04:00

office fun

(true story, on the phone with a client...dialogue slightly embellished)

US: "So we're done the recolorization of the file, did you see it?"
CLIENT: "Um, yup."
US: "So the PDF came to you alright?"
CLIENT: "Um, yup."
US: "So what do you think?"
CLIENT: "Well..." (long pause)
US: "Well, we switched the colors of the headers, per your request, and added the correct Pantone colors to the bars below per the email you sent us..."
CLIENT: "Mmmhmmm..."
US: "And uh, we also replaced the icons."
CLIENT: "So I see."
US: "And we uh..." *starting to sweat*, "We uh, took out the garbage, did the dishes, and mowed the lawn."
CLIENT: "OK."
US: "Yea, with the mobius strip pattern you like so much!"
CLIENT: "Hmmm...."
US: (panic setting in) "We could always, you know, reverse it back, the way it was before, if you prefer that..."
CLIENT: "..."
US: "Or, you know, try some different colors."
*somewhere in a nearby cubicle, a tumbleweed blows aimlessly by*
US: "It was all Greg's fault, Greg broke the vase! I'm sorry I blamed Sam the Butcher!"
CLIENT: "You know, this would be a lot easier if I weren't colorblind."
*officemates looks quizzically at each other*
CLIENT: "Yea, if you say this looks good, let's roll with it."
US: "Um, do you maybe want someone else to look at it?"
CLIENT: "Nah, it'll be fine, I trust you guys."

Two weeks and three books with this design later, during the meeting with another member of the team:

CLIENT: "Yea, these colors look awful. Let's do the following instead..."

2002-09-10T22:27:00.000-04:00

here's the pitch

Quick note---a lot of people will be writing a lot of things about the anniversary of September 11th. This site will not be one of them, not because I am trivializing the importance of the day, but a lot of people eminently more qualified to do will be making statements from the heart and mind that will do a much better job than I ever could. If indeed we are continue with our lives, lest evil triumph, I’ll just keep going on with the website as is. And if I make a few of you smile today, then I’ve maybe done a little something for the day.

**********************************************

It’ easy enough to criticize movies, books, and music once it’s been released to us public folk (hell, if it weren’t easy, there’s no way I could do it). But what about the creative process, the behind-the-scenes stuff we hardly ever see, but get tantalizing tidbits of on DVDs, TV specials, and so forth? I personally would just love to have been a fly on the wall at some of these pitch meetings, just to see the genesis of some of these end products. There’s not necessarily bad final works, mind you, but you’ve always got that nagging “How in the HELL did someone greenlight this?” feeling somewhere beneath the beer buzz.

“Things to Do In Denver When You’re Dead”

For those of you who don’t know this movie, it can be summed up as “The Best ‘Pulp Fiction’ Ripoff Nobody Saw”. Just too many bizarre things going on here. Let’s go to the fictional tape of the pitch meeting, already in progress:

**********
Pitch Man: “So yea, we’re gonna capitalize on this new gansta craze. Hip, fresh, bloody, the whole works! Out-pulp ‘Pulp Fiction’!”

Studio Exec: “Sounds great, who do you have in mind for the gang?”

Pitch Man: “Andy Garcia, the guy who played ‘Jim’ on Taxi, Treat Williams, and the FBI agent from “The Rock” who isn’t Womack.”

Studio Exec: “ “Excuse me?”

Pitch Man: “Yea, it’s gonna be great.”

Studio Exec: “That’s the weirdest gang I ever heard of. You have to be joking. I can’t market that movie.”

Pitch Man: “C’mon, ‘Pulp’ is a lot of no names. We’re talking breakout roles for cheap costs.”

Studio Exec: “I don’t even know half these guys. Who’s this almost-Womack?”

Pitch Man: “William Forsythe”

Studio Exec: “Wasn’t he in ‘Raising Arizona’?”

Pitch Man: “Yup.”

Studio Exec: “Has he been in anything else in the last 7 years?”

Pitch Man: “Yea, like 143 movies where he plays a heavy.”

Studio Exec: “I’ve never seen any of them”

Pitch Man: “We’re gonna pull a Travolta, revive his career.”

Studio Exec: “What career? And who is Treat Williams? What's he been in?”

Pitch Man: “About 300 Lifetime movies where he beats the wife or beats the guy beating the wife. We’re taking care of the female demographic. He’s like a Don Johnson who works for scale. Trust me…”

Studio Exec: “Um, I dunno if I like the sound of…”

Pitch Man: “And check this---for the role of the world’s deadliest assassin, we’re gonna get Steve Buscemi.”

Studio Exec: “That ‘Fargo’ guy?”

Pitch Man: “YEA!”

Studio Exec: “Isn’t he like 120 pounds soaking wet?”

Pitch Man: “We’re not sure. Maybe 115.”

Studio Exec: “And he’s the world’s deadliest assassin….um, ok. Does he at least have an intimidating name?”

Pitch Man: “Mr. Shhh.”

Studio Exec: “C’mon on, really.”

Pitch Man: “That’s his name! It’ll be really, really scary.”

Studio Exec: “Um, moving on…Who’s up for the role of the Mafia kingpin?”

Pitch Man: “Check this---Christopher Walken.”

Studio Exec: “OK, now we’re talking—he can walk in the room, scare everyone…”

Pitch Man: “But he’s in a wheelchair.”

Studio Exec: “Huh?”

Pitch Man: “Yea, it’s what’s gonna set us apart. Ving Rhames has a bandaid, Walken gets a wheelchair and a woman to always be taking him for a bath. We’re talking Oscar caliber role. The Academy loves this stuff. Wheelchairs and soap. Can’t miss.”

Studio Exec: “So he takes out Jim from Taxi while in his wheelchair in a bubble bath? No one is gonna buy that.”

Pitch Man: “See, but that’s why we have Buscemi. He kills people by shooting them straight up the ass with a shotgun. They call it a “Buckwheat’. It’ll be the new hip term on the streets!”

Studio Exec: “Does anyone take out Buscemi?”

Pitch Man: “Yea, there’s a big battle in Treat’s living room, it’s a climatic scene.”

Studio Exec: “You want me to greenlight a film where the climatic action sequence takes place between a 120 pound frog boy and a
guy who’s claim to fame is being ‘almost Don Johnson’?”

Pitch Man: “Yea!”

Studio Exec: “OK, here’s $20 million.”
**********

I didn’t even scratch the surface of this movie. Just has to be seen to be believed.

A Knight’s Tale

**********
Pitch Man: “So it’s a medieval movie, but it’s got contemporary pop songs.”

Studio Exec: “So it's like Moulin Rouge, you mean?”

Pitch Man: “Well, no, in that ours completely sucks and makes people laugh uncontrollably at how bad the anachronisms are.”

Studio Exec: “Like what?”

Pitch Man: “Like 300 people singing ‘We Will Rock You” at a jousting tournament, keeping in time with quarterstaffs.”

Studio Exec: "Get out of my office.”

Pitch Man: “Wait, wait, we got Heath Ledger.”

Studio Exec: “Oh, well, he’ll bank us $100 million. Is there a scene in the movie where he rides slowly down a rainy street with his
shirt unbuttoned?”

Pitch Man: “We can write one today for you.”

Studio Exec: “Excellent. What about the girl?”

Pitch Man: “Well, I was at this bar the other night, and there were hosting a Lisa Bonet look-a-like contest for white girls…”
**********

(Seriously. Look at the girl. I spent half the movie going “Damn, her ‘Cosby Show’ money bought her a serious facelift.”)

Now That’s What I Call Music

**********
Studio Exec: “So what’s the pitch?”

Pitch Man: “Well, you know how most pop songs completely suck?”

Studio Exec: “Sure!”

Pitch Man: “I mean, drain your will to live?”

Studio Exec: “Absolutely!”

Pitch Man: “I’m talking drive off a cliff before you have to hear it again?”

Studio Exec: “Oooh boy, believe me, out on the PCH I’ve been tempted.”

Pitch Man: “So I was thinking---why not bunch of 20 of them together, remix a few to sound even worse than before, and sell it to 14 year old girls?

Studio Exec: “Why not?”

Pitch Man:" Exactly!"

Studio Exec:" Wait, wait, can we at least throw in one up and coming band that's actually pretty good so we can completely destroy their credibility?"

Pitch Man:" You're the boss!"

Studio Exec: "Hee hee, I am, aren't I?

Pitch Man: “Who’s up for sniffing cocaine off a stripper’s tummy?”

Studio Exec: “Me me me me me!”
**********
Speed 2

**********
Studio Exec: “So do we have Keanu?”

Pitch Man: “No.”

Studio Exec: “What about Hopper?”

Pitch Man: “He sorta died in the last one, sir.”

Studio Exec: “Bullock?”

Pitch Man: “Um, yes.”

Studio Exec: “OK, well 1 out of 3 ain’t bad. And a bus should be easy enough to get. Ha.”

Pitch Man: “Um, the movie takes place on a boat.”

Studio Exec: “A what?”

Pitch Man: “A boat.”

Studio Exec: “How are we gonna do a movie on a speedboat?”

Pitch Man: “Um, it’s a cruise ship, sir.”

Studio Exec: “Correct me if I am wrong, but it’s not as though a cruise ship will reads as, um, what’s the word I am looking for…FAST on camera, now will it?”

Pitch Man: “We’ll use CGI. No sweat. We’re saving money by not having Keanu. He’s doing some stupid sci-fi flick about a matrix or something, it’ll totally kill his career..that's what gets gets for missing out on 'Speed 2'.”

Studio Exec: “So who did we get?”

Pitch Man: “Jason Patrick.”

Studio Exec: “Corey Haim’s brother from ‘The Lost Boys’?”

Pitch Man: “Ah, you know him!”

Studio Exec: “So wait a sec. I have to front $120 million dollars to replace Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, and a flying bus with Jason Patrick and the Love Boat?”

Pitch Man: “Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Sir…sir, please put the knife down…”
**********

Baywatch

**********
Studio Exec: “So what’s the pitch?”

Pitch Man: “Barely covered breasts.”

Studio Exec: “Here, just take all of my money.”
**********

2002-09-09T23:11:00.000-04:00

list-less part 2

Moving right along....

51) I invented kegels.

52) I am looking forward to seeing “Oscar Winner” on the VHS sleeve of “Swimfan”.

53) I think rice pilaf is a natural aphrodisiac.

54) I recently opened a sushi bar with Dustin Diamond.

55) I don’t regret for one moment having the words “nude” and “Avril Lavigne” exist on the same homepage.

56) I can’t imagine what life what be like if Michael Bolton hadn’t started covering every good song ever written and strangling the life force from it.

57) I once woke up handcuffed to Katie Holmes, who was in turn handcuffed to a camel.

58) I don’t think the world gives Rice-a-Roni nearly enough credit for maintaining détente during the Cold War.

59) I think the Bermuda Triangle is really more of a parallelogram if you think about it.

60) I want to someday be known as the greatest female flamenco dancer in history.

61) I eagerly await the eventual arrival of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s “Greatest Hits” CD.

62) The band Snap does not, in fact, have The Power; I do.

63) I happen to know that every Led Zeppelin song is in fact about Levar Burton.

64) I think “medieval stoning” isn’t used nearly enough as a party theme.

65) I wish more people would tune into “Sorority Life” if they want to know about the human condition.

66) All I ever needed to learned I learned in a Turkish prison.

67) I want to go to the “Kevin Costner School for Accents”.

68) I think professional wrestling is real but surgery is fake.

69) I think Ringo Starr still has a great record inside of him.

70) I once made out for 9 straight hours with a ferret.

71) I think if someone just did a simple Google search, we’d find this Osama guy a lot faster.

72) I really look forward to hearing the next brilliant thing to come out of Ann Coulter’s rectum. I mean mouth. Wait, same thing.

73) I really wanna know if you’re gonna finish those nachos.

74) And while you’re at it, what about the rest of those fries?

75) If you press me, I’d have to say "Lark Voorhies”/”Lisa Turtle” is the prettiest 1-2 name-punch in the history of Hollywood.

76) I’m pretty sure this “hip hop” thing is just a fad.

77) I really wish there was a way to exploit technology so I could download songs for free onto my computer.

78) I have a lush, full head of hair.

79) The “Harry Potter” books are based on my experiences in Outward Bound.

80) I don’t see why guys find two women making out so damn hot.

81) Speaking of hot, I would like to know what ever happened to George Wendt.

82) I miss the terrifying feeling of never knowing quite when my car battery would decide to die in the middle of rush hour traffic.

83) I am going to name my first child “Portabello”.

84) I’ll never know how Jason Biggs didn’t land the role of Gandalf.

85) I think “during surgery” is the best time to pick up chicks.

86) I really, really admire Britney Spears’ chord progressions.

87) I think “Freddy Got Fisted” is a sequel begging to be made.

88) Nothing makes my mouth water more than the combination of these two words: “McDonald’s Fajitas”.

89) The acting range of Freddie Prinze Jr. never ceases to astonish me.

90) I will never stop until I finally discover exactly who let the dogs out.

91) I hate people who take jokes that are at least a year old and recycle them like their brand spankin’ new.

92) I hardly every look at my stat counter.

93) Whenever I am stressed out, I find that Korn’s “Freak on a Leash” really calms me down.

94) I really think the entrances for the WWE superstars are just too darn short.

95) I bet everyone who reads this site will understand #94.

96) If they ever make a Lifetime movie about me, I hope it’s not called “Shot in the Ass With a Tranquilizer Dart By Accident One Night While Camping: The Ryan McGee Story”

97) It’s been a while since I chased down an ice cream truck and showed it who its daddy was.

98) I have a huge crush on Crispin Glover.

99) I also quite fancy his brother Danny.

100) I don’t want this list to end which will force me to return to my actual life.

2002-09-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

list-less

OK, so a lot of people have been coming back with their “100 Things About Me” Lists. Normally I am all for jumping on the current bandwagon and ceasing to be original, but this particular trend violates a major premise of this website, which is “Damnit McGgee, they could care less about YOU, give them witty banter and food for thought, you hussy”.

Having smacked myself sufficiently silly, I proudly present instead “100 Completely False Things About Me”. Gonna farm half of these out tonite, the other half tommorow.

1) I am the King of Poland.

2) I was gave birth to a koala.

3) I have Tedd Koppel on speedial.

4) I think elevator music is the pinnacle of art.

5) I think lawn mowers should be allowed to vote.

6) I wish Shakira would just put some clothes on, already. Sheesh.

7) I think alarm clocks are just a social construct perpetuated by THE MAN.

8) I happen to know that “THE MAN” is in fact Ted Koppel, which is why I have him on speed dial.

9) I think speed dial was created by Vincent Van Gogh.

10) I think Vincent Van Gogh was created by Shakira’s undulating buttocks.

11) I believe circular reasoning is cheap and tacky.

12) I really am looking forward to when “prithee” makes a lingual comeback.

13) I can’t wait for Lance Bass to save us from the aliens.

14) I think Pamela Anderson Lee has a back up plan in case Lance fails.

15) I think overalls will be the new suit.

16) I’m gonna invent rewritable breakfast cereals. Suck on THAT, technology industry.

18) I am going to outlaw the number 17.

19) I think bocci should be our new national pastime.

20) I once translated “The Merry Wives of Windsor” into Sanskrit on a bet.

21) I think Sanskrit is another of Koppel’s dirty tricks.

22) I think George Lucas should be commissioned to write all screenplays for all movies.

23) I think we need more Kathy Bates love scenes in movies.

24) I think “polka-punk” will be the new “rap-rock” hybrid to storm the charts.

25) I invented oxygen.

26) I want to teach the world to sing in complete and utter discord.

27) I think “November Rain” should be the default song for the bride to walk down the aisle to.

28) I think MENSA should stop playing around and finally allow Tara Reid into their group.

29) I think every DVD should have a special commentary track from Chris Klein.

30) Maybe, just maybe, I’ll tell you where the keys to the handcuffs are.

31) I can’t wait to sell my copy of “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” on eBay.

32) I think, in time, the true genius of Warrant will emerge.

33) I think Val Kilmer is fact completely sane and possessing all his faculties.

34) I think that the moon is fact made of Kelsey Grammar’s colon.

35) I can totally tell the difference between 98 Degrees, O Town, and LFO.

36) I think your AOL Instant Messenger name will soon function as your Social Security number.

37) I think my battery-powered battery will save the rain forests.

38) I think spam mail is a great way to get to now lots of people.

39) I think “circumvent” is used way too infrequently in everyday discourse.

40) I am patiently waiting for the day when “back hair” becomes the new “goatee”.

41) I think “training beer” is a great way to introduce teens to the wonderful world of puking at 3 am.

42) Any movie that hires Mickey Rourke is good enough for me to blow my hard-earned $10 on.

43) I think more sentences need to end on prepositions.

44) I think typos bespeak intelligance.

45) I wish there were more books about blisters.

46) I think “Back That Ass Up” should be the final song played at every prom, but people still have to slow dance to it.

47) I will ensure that every Mariah Carey album heretofore released will be packaged with a warning from the Surgeon General.

48) I think couples that have “their songs” which will haunt them forever after their breakups have the right idea.

49) I think anything is better once pickled.

50) I don’t think it gets much better than a winter’s night, a roaring fire, and a painful toe infection.

2002-09-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

and you thought i was exaggerating

enrique is a mole-faced skeezball

yech.

2002-09-05T23:47:00.000-04:00

the return of the top 5 lists

For the 6 of you who read before Sunday, you know I used to pull out top 5 lists regularly in my homage to the novel High Fidelity, which will until the day I day (much to my girlfriend's continuing angst) define/describe me more than any other work of art I’ll ever come across.

To wit---here's how every other conversation started out when the movie came out: "dude, they made this movie about you..." The other half started with, “Oh man, there’s this movie you gotta see…”

I own two copies of "High Fidelity", one I lend to friends who I think should read it, and the other one which is torn up, battered, and underlined with passages that hit way too close to home. So, in the spirit in that novel, along with quotes from the novel to supplement the choices below, we have the first in an ongoing series of lists...Tonight is “Top 5 Male Bad Asses in Cinema.”

More silence. Why are people---let's face it, women---like this? It doesn't pay to think this way, with all this mess and doubt and gray, smudged lines where there should be a crisp, sharp picture.

5) Jack Black as Barry, "High Fidelity"

Of COURSE this movie would be represented. Jack slid into the plum role of "Wacky Pal To John Cusack who happens to not be Jeremy Piven". I guess Jeremy had a thing that week. In any case, this is the only comedic role on the list, a tornado of a performance that blew just about everything else off the screen when he was on it. Reminds me of the famous quote attributed to Shakespeare who, in reference to "Romeo and Juliet", apparently said, "I had to kill Mercutio before Mercutio killed the play." I've tried unsuccessfully for 2 years to do that move where he machine-guns his hand into a middle finger gesture. He's got that "Really Old Golden Girl" Syndrome of saying everything on his mind the moment it comes to him. I used to have this syndrome around my girlfriend. I'm slowly learning this is fact NOT a positive attribute.

My friends don’t seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven’t lost.

4) Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield, "Pulp Fiction"

Perfect quote for this loner of a character. Might be higher on the list if he had more screen time. Anyone who can make John Travolta seem hip deserves their own freakin' Special Academy Award. Alternating between likeable and terrifying, you don't know whether to buy him a beer or smash the mug over his head while he's turned around. The resonance of his character is felt right down to "The Sopranos". And can you imagine ANYONE else giving that last speech, being a peacekeeper in the middle of a John Woo-inspired triple standoff. Almost makes you forgive him for "The Last Kiss Goodnight". Almost.

Speaking of that, talk about your role reversals. Samuel L Jackson was under Geena Davis in the marquee. Don't really think that would be the case now. That's right up there with Richard Greico headlining over Tom Cruise. File under "not in our lifetime".

3) Keanu Reeves as Neo, "The Matrix"

Riiiiiiiiight. Just seeing if you're paying attention.

At around four o’clock most Saturday afternoons, just when I make us all a cup of tea, I have a little after glow on, maybe because this is my work, and it’s going OK, maybe because I’m proud of us, of the way that, though our talents are small and peculiar, we use them to our best advantage.

3) Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde, "Reservoir Dogs"

Laying the irony on thick with this particular quote. Hey, Tarantino writes great gangstas. This movie, along with "Chasing Amy", will be on a future Top 5 of "Top 5 Worst Movies to See on a First Date". My generation will forever associate "Stuck in the Middle With You" to him saying "Hello? Hello?" to a severed ear. Mr. Blonde also gave my college roommates and I a great threatening phrase: "Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are ya gonna bite?" Course, in the movie there's almost a gunfight, whereas in the dorm the battle was over the 2nd controller to play "Super Techmo Bowl". Slight difference, is what I'm saying.

(Another side note---if you ever have a party, and someone thinks it'd be a really good idea to have a drinking game to this movie, where the simple rule is "whenever someone swears", just slowly back away, smiling, and then leave the country. Escape, say. Somewhere in a lab they've fossilized my former liver in the "Freaks of Nature" wing.)

Someday a sociologist will figure out exactly how Michael Madsen went from Mr. Blonde to "The Dad in 'Free Willy'" in less than a year. That's absolutely insane. That'd be like Ja Rule releasing a bluegrass album next month. That's just insane. Did I mention this is INSANE?

You think he ever lost it on set? Just got confused, regressed into Mr. Blonde and pulled a "You know, Willy, you don't I jump, I'ma pop a cap in your sorry orca ass" one day on set? Anyone?

OK, I'm digressing.

See where random acts of kindness get you? To fucking funerals, that’s where

2) Harrison Ford as Han Solo, "Star Wars"

You get the impression Han thought the above quote more than once during “A New Hope”? All I know is EVERY boy wanted to be Han Solo. Hell, most still do. Didn't matter than he dressed like he was going out to a gay bar most of the time. He was cooler than cool and had the waxed chest to prove it. Only he could make a line like "Laugh it up, fuzzball" sound almost Elizabethan in scope. He had by all accounts the Kia of spacecruisers (granted with some nice engine work) yet still slept with Princess Leia. That's the equivalent of me rolling up to Shakira in my '87 Cadillac and us snoggin' in the back seat later that night. But if Han pulled the same move, same car, he'd see some hip grinding in the 8'' of backseat space of that Cimarron. Like Jesus, he was way cool. (Ten points for the song reference. Liz, I’m counting on you for this.)

Harrison's Madsen-esque leap came much later, mercifully after about a dozen or so amazing movies. Sadly he seems to have not yet fully recovered from "Sabrina", one of the roughly 234 Julia Ormond movies which feature "Julia Ormond stuck between two very close people, and if we can let's make them brothers" as the basic plot. Seriously, look it up. She made "Legends of the Fall", "First Knight", and "Sabrina" in a row. Not even porn stars make a trifecta so similiar back to back to back.

It must be hard for parents, I guess, when they see that things aren’t working out for their children, but that their children can no longer be reached by the old parental routes, because those roads are now much too long.

1) Russell Crowe as Maximus, "Gladiator"

I blame all of my back hair on this movie. I grew every inch of it watching this flick. Good God, he's just the absolute coolest. My roomate and I would great each other by saying "Strength and honor" for about 6 months after seeing this flick. I don't know for sure who the Alpha Male is, but I'm pretty sure it's Maximus. If they called Harry Hamlin Maximus in "Clash of the Titans", well, it woulda been ridiculous. Right up there with Eddie Izzard's joke about the need for an "Emperor Fabulous". But Russell is just the frickin' MAN in this movie. I play this soundtrack a lot at work, basically because ANYTHING you do seems more dramatic when listening to Hans Zimmer. Trust me, play "The Battle" when you're making copies. Each time the copies collate, you can hear Maximus shout, "Hold the Line!!!!" and if the toner runs out, calmly call up HR, and insist that, upon your command, they unleash hell on Staples.

Or you could not do any of those things and keep your job.

Let’s just pray this guy doesn’t have Masden’s agent. Oh wait, Russell already made “Proof of Life”. Too late.

2002-09-04T18:07:00.000-04:00

thoughts as i contemplate my next move towards world domination

---In Star Market last night, I bought my first Power Bar since middle school. The variety of flavors astounded me---Mocha, Cookie ‘n’ Cream, Banana, Oatmeal Raisin. I guess the Power Bar Marketing department did some research and realized the old flavors of “dirt, “gravel”, and “complete ass” were hurting sales.

---Am I the only one who sees the potential in merging MTV’s “Cribs” and TLC’s “Trading Spaces”? The potential here is unlimited. Hell, I’d pay for this on pay-Per-View. We can get the "girl from 'Northern Exposure' who flew the plane" to host, I’m pretty sure she’ll be free.

“This week on Trading Cribs, we have Method Man and Joey McIntire. Method, what are you doing?”

“Well, I thought I’d schizzle my nizzle and turn his bedroom into one giant bong, man.”

---Two VH1 Classic Tales

1) On VH1 Classic the other night I caught “Your Love” by The Outfield. What was amazing, other than the general “my God we used to think these videos were good in the 80’s” gut check I get every time I see a video on VH1 Classic, was the fact that this video featured the same girl from the A-Ha “Take on Me” video. (And yes, I realize it wasn’t necessary to insert “Take On Me” between “A-Ha” and “video”. Let’s just say “A-Ha Greatest Videos” wouldn’t be a very long DVD.) This girl is an E! True Hollywood Story waiting to happen. Where is she now? What was her resume like? I bet it looked something like this.

Amy “That Chick from the A-Ha Video” Nelson

Roles

Professional Credits
Girl Who Reads Too Many Comics and is Attacked by Sweaty Swede in the End---“Take on Me”, A-Ha.
The Girl Who Paints For Absolutely No Reason Near the Band and Gets Her Shirt Looked Down by the Guitarist Who I’m Pretty Sure Ended up in Nelson---“Your Love”, The Outfield
Maria---West Side Story

At least she didn’t have to add “Girl Hosed down by Warrant during the ‘Cherry Pie’ Video” to that list.

2) Stayed home from work today, sick as all get out, and caught “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by the Beta Version Guns n’ Roses. Some thoughts:

--The odds that the band could look you in the eye and tell you even the first name of any of the girls in this video is so astronomical that I’d take the odds, bet the house, and retire in comfort.
---The video was the birth, so far as I know, of the “Axl Shuffle”, that side to side shoulder and leg thing where his hips were held rigidly in place by a force greater than that we mortals can comprehend. Just an insanely cool move at the time. Apparently when Axl tried that move last week at the VMAs, he tore a hip flexor. Just sad.
---When this video first came out, I was maybe 12, and what counted for fun in those days was “let’s see who can hold that last note along with Axl”. By the end you had 6 kids red in the face passed out in the floor. This is the same group of guys who thought it was would be fun to snort Pixie Sticks at a 6th grade graduation party. And we wondered why girls didn’t like us. (The father of the girl who hosted that party came blazing out of the house into the backyard to 10 boys writhing in pain and shouting “I’m blind!” Just a lovely image, I’m sure. Half an hour later, 12 or so couples were slow-dancing to “She’s Like the Wind” pulling the “look everywhere but at your partner” technique with enough space for a linebacker to squeeze between the two of you...in retrospect, I had more fun being blind.)

2002-09-03T22:02:00.000-04:00

and the hits keep on coming

slate hath found me.

i'm so not punk anymore.

2002-09-03T12:32:00.000-04:00

god may have spent a little more time on you, but wouldn't spend $20 million to send you into space

poor lance. first he's cursed with having the face of a toddler and the voice of barry white, but then he can't afford to go into space. it's bad enough when you can't pay your folks back, but this is a little extreme. i looked into some historical precendents for this.

Sept. 25, 1283: Local farmer makes fatal mistake of trying to barter with Genghis Khan.

June 18, 1815: Napoleon's forces defeated at Waterloo after his check for $12,245 Euros of Gatorade bounces at the local Stop 'n' Shop.

May 15th, 1937: The Hindenberg engineer's Visa is denied for $4,543 German marks of "fireproofing materials".

April 16th, 1999: Bret Michaels bums $5 from a roadie for some Camel Lights. Never pays roadie back.

2002-09-02T17:29:00.000-04:00

behind the website

September 1st, 2007

It’s only fitting on today of all days, the fifth year anniversary of “The Link”, as it has been dubbed in public discourse, to look back on the rise and fall of a once-small time blogger who rose to the pinnacles of fame and came crashing down harder than Keith Moon after a night at the Holiday Inn.

It all started when The Juice, Jan Herman, linked his MTV Video Awards diary on MSNBC.com. A part-time hobby, “Wading in the Velvet Sea” suddenly saw more hits than a Cheech and Chong movie. Dizzy with power, Ryan soon indulged in excesses the likes of which have since been banished by Congress.

“I just don’t understand,” said Moxie. “I mean, yes, I supported him initially, even showed him how to make a few bucks off of the increase in traffic. But who knew it would lead to all this?”

“All this” indeed.

After moving into MC Hammer’s mansion (“It’s not like he was using it,” said Ryan in 2003), Ryan set up shop in a bout of bacchanalia that rivaled Nero. With Moxie as poet laureate of something he called “Ryanopolis”, he set up wireless connections that fed into a cybernetic implant in his skull.

“Yea, that was sorta painful,” said Ryan a few weeks after the surgery. “And if I stand in a certain part of the bathroom, I pick up Nick at Nite. But it’s all worth it. The people demanded more content, and by God I was gonna give it to them. Even at the cost of migraines so severe that occasionally I crumple in a heap of pained flesh in the corner.”

Ryan threw elaborate parties, attracting the likes of P. Diddy, Joaquin Phoenix, and Kofi Annan. “Seeing Annan do body shots off Michelle Branch is something I’ll never forget,” said Dawn Olsen, a frequenter of such shindigs. “Please, help me forget. I’ve tried electroshock therapy, hypnosis, even that weird worm thing from ‘Wrath of Khan’. I need help. Give me my life back.”

“Did that happen?” asked Ryan, when quoted the incident. “I’m not really sure. The skull-length scar that resulted from implant surgery pretty much guaranteed that no one came within 10 feet of me.”

At first the constant flow of content delighted his new fans, but delight soon turned to fear. In early 2004, the FCC enacted “The McGee Corollary”, which stated, among other things, “…and citizens from here on out are required to NOT read any posts made while Mr. McGee is asleep, insomuch as that content is really, really, really wrong. Dear god man. What on Earth was that about the twins and a bottle of Yoohoo….”

McGee is at a loss to pinpoint exactly when it all started to go wrong. “Well, I was rehearsing with my band, made up of Vince Neil, Leif Garrett, and that guy who was in Journey before Steve Perry made them a jillion dollars, and we were fine tuning out set of Perry Cuomo covers, and I could sense that Vince just wasn’t into it.”

“Dude, are you gonna finish that sandwich?” Vince asked, when questioned. “I haven’t been sober in 6 years. I don’t even know this Cuomo guy, but I hate him. If it wasn’t for the fact than McGee is paying me $5.75 an hour, I’d totally walk.”

Michael Jackson’s decision to also get a cybernetic implant certainly didn’t help matters either. “Sony is the Devil!” Jackson said in a prepared report written in crayon. “This implant will help me get my music to the fans directly! Thank you so much for this Implant of the Millenium Award!”

McGee called the move “totally whack”.

“Well, I was talking to Leif, and I asked him how he dealt with the impending loss of his stardom. And he told me what he did, step by step. And as I was sniffing cocaine off that stripper’s stomach, I thought, ‘Damn, Leif’s got it down. That sounds really smart.’ And that’s why I’m here, hanging out with the Olsen Twins at Bright Horizons rehab center.”

No one knows quite what the future holds for McGee. “Yea, I mean, I had totally forgotten about him until you brought him up,” said Moxie, who just finished her one-woman show “Me and My Shoes---A Love Story” which won 6 Tonys. “It took me a few minutes. I mean, I tried to block out all that ‘Ryanopolis’ crap. I kept telling him, “Ryan it’s just a rec room. Now please give me the keys to the handcuffs so I can go home.’” Moxie refused to say anymore, having retreated into a psychological prison so intense it drained the local power grid.

2002-09-02T00:34:00.000-04:00

update for those of you keeping score at home

1,072 and counting folks. what initially took me 3 months to mass has now been achieved in less than 12 hours.

for those of you wondering here, and like what you read, feel free to float me a buck or two on the link over there on the left...keep the content coming from this extremely, extremely happy blogger...thanks again to moxie for setting me up with the paypal link...in fact, float her a buck too, you'll be happy ya did!

2002-09-01T23:05:00.000-04:00

ulterior motives

they're pretty great, ain't they moxie?

i'm still reeling from the traffic. i need a drink.

2002-09-01T22:17:00.000-04:00

good lord

880 hits today alone. and there seems to be no sign of slowing.

now i am all paranoid about my content. it was ok to write for the 3 of you who veiwed this site before today, but now i'm seemingly gone global. i had an ISP and no one told me.

page through here, see what you like, and tell me! i love feedback.

if there is interest in the "sad bastard writing plays in college" phase of my writing, i can post links to those as well here...as my former playwriting partner said tonite, "it's so refreshing to see you writing non-completely depressing slit your wrist material ryan!"

2002-09-01T14:46:00.000-04:00

well i'll be damned

my first brush with celebrity.

this is very very cool. happy me.

2002-08-30T14:58:00.000-04:00

trumped again

this is why the Sports Guy is a God among men.

best quote about "The Karate Kid Trilogy":

Was there a bigger loser in the history of Hollywood lead characters than Daniel-San? And does this explain why so many people went out of their way to antagonize him? Do you realize that, in the span of 12 months, this kid was terrorized by three different groups of people in two different countries. What were the odds? Couldn't this kid catch a break?

pure genius.

2002-08-30T00:29:00.000-04:00

MTV Awards

In honor of "The Sports Guy," a writer for ESPN's website, I took a running diary of tonite. 7 handwritten pages of notes lay before me now. Please excuse the number of typos I am sure to make. I'll type 'til I pass out then take up the rest tommorow.

Without further ado:

7:25 p.m. They're interviewing Justin Timberlake for his big first solo performance. Justin is exemplifying a little known corollary of Newton's law of intertia, which states, "an object that fundamentally sucks will stay sucky for pretty much ever."

7:27 pm. The "pride of Canada," according to MTV, Avril Lavinge, is introduced to sing "Complicated." What a shocking song choice! Very daring. Her arm wear looks as if she watched both Judas Priest AND Pat Benetar as a kid. Who am I kidding? She wasn't even born when those two had videos.

7:28 pm Hey Avril, I want my tie back.

7:29 pm Was canada aware that Avril has been designated the personification of "Canadian pride"?

7:33 pm. No Doubt is being interviewed. Gwen Stefani is the first of about 18 guests in a row who clearly have no idea who is performing that night. Excellent.

7:34 pm. They pan to show the whole band, including the bassist, who until the day he dies will be know as "that schmuck who dumped Gwen Stefani".

7:36 pm. Avril's back, asks the crowd if they're "ready to rock." The crowd looks anxiously at their parents for permission to rock.

7:37 pm. She's performing "Sk8ter Boi" (actual spelling). Camera shows the crowd, who have that panicked "Wait, this isn't 'Complicated', what the heck?" look on their collective face. Camera cuts back to Avril quickly.

7:39 pm. MTV unbelievably goes to commerical mid-song. Canada ain't feeling so proud anymore, methinks. Somewhere in Ontario a "come see avril's country" campaign gets squashed. This is taking that TRL-, "take a video, show 18 seconds then move on" technique to a new low.

7:40 pm. If P. Diddy "invents the remix" with Bruce Springsteen so help me God I'll drive to NYC myself and "bust a cap", as the youth of America says...

7:42 pm Ok, I'll say it---I don't get the Reese Witherspoon thing. Just drawing a big shrug from me.

7:44 pm Who does John Norris have naked pictures of to still have a job with MTV? This guy is as hip as my grandmother after her surgery.

7:46 pm. I'll never stop snickering whenever I hear the words "Gideon Yago." Heh - makes me happy.

7:47 One of the dudes from Outkast stole the mesh shirt from Right Said Fred, spray painted it lesbian-purple, and STILL looks cooler than I ever could.

7:48 pm Someone found Christina Aguilera under the rock she's been beneath for 2 years, threw her in 8'' of fabric, and told her to tell everyone she was "dressing comfy." Please. The 8 people left in America who hadn't seen the bottom of her boobs are now sated.

7:49 pm John Norris: "So what's the new album called?"

Christina: "Stripped"

I can't make this stuff up.

"Yea, I know some people will think of sexual stuff, but it's about me being me, about being real".

Riiiight. I have some swamp land to sell ya if you believe that.

7:50 pm. Watching MTV go live is as painful as getting a splinter in the eye. I'm switching channels. *VH1 One Hit Wonders* Exxxxcellent Smithers.

7:51 pm Don Johnson, on his solo album, collaborated with, among others: Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ron Wood, and Whoopi Goldberg. All but Whoopie sued to get their names off the record once it came out.

7:52 Jumpin Jesus on a pogo stick, Enrique is really dating Anna Kournakova. I want to punch him in the mole.

8 pm. Show starts for real. BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE is playing with the E Street Band, in the middle of a hurricane it looks like.

8:01 pm Can someone get Bruce an umbrella? Or even a hat? Dear God he's a living legend, get the man some protection so he doesn't electrocute himself on live TV!!!!!!!!!

8:02 pm Whoever is getting the umbrella should also get Little Steven a pick, the poor guy's playing bluegrass style and obviously having issues.

8:03 pm---also, while you're back there, someone find Clarence's sax, he seems to have lost it and is banging two Snicker's bars together and trying to pass them off as maracas. Just sad.

8:05 pm Bruce is a god. I hate this song on the radio but the live version is outstanding. A nice way to start to show. I sit back and wait for MTV to screw it up.

8:07-8:12 pm The Jimmy Fallon musical parody, some thoughts---
---Dear God you can't do falsettos, homes
---Bless you for mocking Enrique. Enrique looks embarrased. Dude, you're going home and seeing Anna naked. Just frickin' deal you mole-pocked bastard.
---James Brown comes out to close out the medley. Cut to Anna and Enrique. You can clearly lip read the following statements:

Anna---"Who is that?"
Enrique---"Shut up and look hot."

8:14 pm Straight from Miss Anastasia's dominatrix school, it's Britney Spears! Good God. Head to toe leather. One gets the impression Justin was never that naughty a boy, and now she's lettin' loose.

8:15 pm Britney's here in leather to...give a birthday cake to Michael Jackson?????

8:16 pm His pastiness arrives on scene, the crowd stands when MTV sends 8000 volts through each of their seats, prompting the "spontaneous ovation."

8:17 pm Michael, in his double-breasted red jacket get up, looks eerily like he's about to give the order to invade Prussia.

8:18 pm It's now apparant he's here to accept the "Artist of the Millenium" award. Apparantly you win this by creating thirty- minute long videos that seem to go on for a millenium.

8:21 pm Britney announces Best Pop Video, which isn't 'N Sync. All 4 members look relieved. That woulda been the worst place in history to have a first post-breakup meeting: live in front of 20 million people. MTV---it's faaaaaaaaaaantastic.

8:25 pm "Up next, Pink!" says MTV, showing her. Dear Lord, someone has a coupon to the tattoo parlor. She looks like the stunt double for Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon.

8:30 pm "Singer/songwriter" Jennifer Love Hewitt introduces Pink after the break. That is the last time the 5 words "singer/songwriter Jennifer Love Hewitt" will ever appear in that order for the entire History of Man.

8:31 pm Someone get Pink her insulin, she's too tired to stand up.

8:32 pm Showing there's life after "The Real World," Pink apparantly has hired Aneessa to play synth.

8:33 pm Head to toe side shot of Pink. 34 more eating disorders just began. Nice job MTV.

8:35 pm Kylie Minogue and Enrique come out to present an award. Enrique misses his line cuz he's looking down Kylie's shirt. Real classy guy. Mole-faced jerk. (can u tell I don't like this guy?)

8:36 pm Mary J Blige wins a VMA, acts like she's won the Nobel Peace price. Enrique seems to cop a feel 4' away.

8:38 pm During commerical break, Anna lands an overhead smash on Kylie's head, then meets Mick Jagger, has no idea who he is.

9 pm The show took a major sugar low turn, I've blanked out the last 20 minutes. Still reeling from images of Britney asking some roadie to lick her boot.

9:02 pm Eminem wins first award, gets the "I have to accept an award from the jackass guys who just used staple guns on each other" look on his face. Kodak moments, people.

9:05 pm I'd like an FCC investigation, we're an hour into the show and not one shot of Shakira's ass. This is not right.

9:07 pm Linkin Park and POD, top contenders for the "Men Without Hats" trophy of "Will Forever Exist on Compilation Tapes But Their Own CDs Will Go Out Of Print," both present. The Linkin Park singer looks like Moby if Moby got surly and let himself go a bit.

9:10 pm---I know J Lo butt jokes are passe, but damnit she got a hobbit livin' up in there. Damn. Damn. Damn.

9:13 pm Aask and ye shall receive---Shakira ass shakin'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tribal drums, and butt wigglin' so strong the power almost goes out in NYC. Best 18 seconds of the whole show.

9:14 pm Oh hell, she's singing.

9:14 and 6 seconds--- *mute button* aaah, much better.

9:15 pm Oh, to be that mic stand. If only.

9:23 pm As much as I will occasionally loathe my job, I will forever take solace in the fact that it is not my vocation to wax the chest hair of American Idol judge "Simon."

9:24 pm Simon makes like a WWE heel and gets the crowd going against him. I'm looking for one of the AI contestants to bust out a steel chair and go ballistic on him. And Paula Abdul to shout "Why? damnit WHY?" I think about these things, you see.

9:27 pm Avril wins Best New Artist, ensuring that the number of people who find my blog via the search "Avril Lavigne nude pics" or "Avril Lavigne feet kissing" (bwa?) will triple. Exxxxxxxxxxcellent. You freaks.

9:33 pm Apparently it's 1986 and no one told me---David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar are onstage.

9:34 pm My own award---best hair job to the person who found an albino lemur and stapled it to David Lee's head. My God. That toupee is illegal in 34 states. I looked it up.

9:39 pm Mike Myers appears, out of costume. no one has a clue who he is.

9:50 pm Must...fight...ennui...

9:51 pm Christ, Carson Daly...*passes out from boredom*

9:53 pm---*Flicks on pro wrestling* wtf? Why is Undertaker on Smackdown? He belongs on RAW! What the hell is going on? This is what I get for not reading my internet wresting spoilers, and oh, am I typing out loud here? Nevermind. Keep moving. This never happened.

10 pm Yes, it's indeed 1986. Run DMC is on now. Introducing P. Diddy.

Let's take a moment shall we to contemplate the significance of this. This is like Led Zeppelin introducing Poison. This is the Supremes introducing 3LW. This is frickin' WRONG.

10:03 pm P Diddy has alreayd played 8 songs. Usher got lost I think, happened to end up on stage, and danced off, so near as I can tell. That was weird.

10:06 pm Best female artists presented by---Avril and Lisa Marie Presely. Lisa has a shirt that says "bite me." Avril is openly hostile to Lisa Marie. GIRL POWER BABY!

10:10 pm Pink wins, hooks a piggy back on the largest guy in the Western hemisphere, and then delcares "I'm too drunk for this" during her acceptance speech. A perfect 100 out of 100 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale, PLUS extra credit. Well done, Red Dragon.

10:25 pm Ok, we're coming to the tail end of the 9/11 tribute. Nicely done, even if it was all started by J Lo, but MTV found a nice, respectful mood.

10:26 pm "Coming up next, Nelly!" Bye bye mood.

10:31 pm Triumph the Insult Comic Dog with Moby. This should be good.

10:32 pm Well, that sucked. Who green-lit the "faggot" jokes? Nice one MTV.

10:33 pm Moby telepathically asks MTV to save him from utter humiliation; camera quickly cut to Ms. Baggy Clothes herself, Christina.

10:34 pm She might as well have worn a sign that said "Psst, consumers, forget that teen pop is dead and check out MY RACK!"

10:36pm Haha, Eminem won. They have to meet. This should be GREAT.

10:37 pm Well that sucked. Eminem's been hitting anger management classes. No confrontation at all. Damnit.

10:40 pm Who knew Aston Kutcher was moonlighting as the lead singer for the Hives?

10:42 pm The screen behind them plays the message---"The Hives are Law. You are Crime." Think about that. Really. Done? OK, moving on...

10:44 pm "Coming up, Justin Timberlake's first solo performance....ever!" Everyone south of the Mason/Dixon line yawns.

10:50 pm Justin apparantly borrowed Admiral Jackon's old clothes before Mikey stormed Instanbul.

10:52 pm Justin can really dance, but I liked the moves better back in "The Way You Make Me Feel." Nice try though, Justin.

10:53 pm Off camera, Britney flips off some of the Mexican waitstaff. Well, I think.

10:54 Ok, so Justin brings in two rappers, Eclipse, who's entire album consists of autobiographical stories of them being drugs dealers. One wears a shirt that says "I'm Your Pusher." Lovely. Personally, I want the other guy's shirt: "Patty Cake Man." Can I get this at Target?

11:05 pm After the 85th commercial break, MTV runs off the winners of roughly 34 awards that they didn't actually have time to show during the telecast.

11:10 pm HOLY SH%T GUNS N ROSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11:11 pm Wait a sec, who in sam hell are these guys? As my GF said in an instant message, "Why is slash wearing a mask?" Then I realize it's the "new" Guns n Roses. Brand new except for Axl and Dizzy Reed. But hell, they're playing "Welcome to the Jungle." The crowd is ballistic.

11:12 pm Oooh, how cute, Axl went and got himself corn rows apparently. And about 200 years of age. He ages like a dog. Dear Lord that's sad.

11:13 pm Axl tries for a high note. Silly Axl. You can hear the crowd wince over the 14 guitarists who are apparently now in the band.

11:14 pm Ever sensitive to the cultural moment, MTV starts running the end credits over the performance. Real classy, guys.

11:15 pm What is this new ballad crap, play "Paradise City," you losers.

11:16 pm "PARADISE CITY"! I rule.

11:17 pm Buckethead kills me. Do you think he's a banker by day, "guitarist with a KFC bucket on head atop a Mike Meyers mask" by night?

11:20 pm The show mercifully ends, with Axl looking for his oxygen tent.

2002-08-29T11:15:00.000-04:00

quote of the month

"yea, i wasn't sure, cuz you like Phish, yet you went to Harvard..."

---my friend Sheri, upon discovering some of the more interesting things i did in college

i never cease to find people's perceptions of Harvard amusing. sometimes amusing in a "wanna put a gun to their head and prevent them from ever breeding" way, but amusing nonetheless.

usually i try to keep the identity of my alma mater secret, not cuz i have something to hide, but the inevitable can of worms it seems to open up is something i usually am not in the mood to deal with. i realize that it will look good on my resume for the rest of my life, but other than that what people consider to be "Harvard" (notice the quotes) won't impact my life in the slightest.

which isn't to say Harvard doesn't direct inform who i am, how i act, and who i know. it fundamentally informs all three of those things. but it's not the marketed, ivy-walled, perpetually late-autumnal view that Harvard shoves down your marketable throats. i loved harvard based on the incredible luck of living with 3 amazing guys my freshman year and below 4 equally amazing women 2 floors above. everything spiraled out from there. it had nothing to do with school rankings, or the professors, or the facilities. it was about the people. i don't remember any of the classes i took my sophomore spring, but i remember watching the sun come up that same semester after painting a set for "12th Night" with the stage manager of that show.

my roommates and i were largely the anti-poster children of Harvard---we weren't rebels, we all got good enough grades, but we had days lost to Nintendo, beer, various substances, and each other. they were not my best friends necessarly but i couldn't have asked for 9 better guys to live with. and we all still keep in touch, which is a great marker of success in my books. point is, we weren't the ones you see in the catalog laughing while being stuck inside a 19th century library. we were the ones in the dorm room taking bets on who would win if we let "sega john madden football" play itself cuz we were too drunk to actually use the controllers.

my grades at harvard are by this point largely moot; my major is an anecdote at best at parties. so is the university i went to, so far as i am concerned. i don't want to come off as ungrateful to the school, since i did learn a lot there. it's just fair to say a lot of that education came outside the classroom, is all, in a Harvard most people can never understand and can never know. so to have someone say, "wow, you went to harvard, you MUST have LOVED it"...well, i know they mean well (usually), but i always have to force a grin in response.

2002-08-27T10:53:00.000-04:00

the terrorists have already won

look what's left in their wake:

celebrity boot camp

i couldn't remotely make up a list of people this bizarre.

someone thought that people would wanna watch greg brady, coolio, that kid from "married with children", and someone who's claim to fame is to be married to ian zehrnig, on a "survivor" ripoff.

shoot me, stuff me, mount me.

2002-08-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

Phish etiquette

love your fellow man, and never give them a wedgie.

yowsas. good to know as i plot to see my first show next year.

2002-08-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

yikes

ok, y'all searching Google for "avril lavinge nude pics" are sick.

not as sick as the SOB who looked for "nuns gone bad pics", but sick nonetheless.

yeesh.

2002-08-21T22:55:00.000-04:00

teen scene

OK, so obviously i didn't go far enough in explaining the whole "britney with guitar" thing last time; it was a throw away paragraph but obviously sparked at least one person's interest (thanks tim!). it was basically a "wow, these new TRL gals be hot, yo" and tim comes back with a "hey, what about the alicia keys, the nelly furtados, why aren't you giving them props, bee-hotch?" (well, i am paraphrasing here.) so i'll spew a few thoughts on each separate group (since for me they are separate) and their relation to the basic singer-songwriter scene they all seem to want to reinvigorate.

basically, yesterday i hinted how the new, TRL-approved teen pop seems to come heavily from the "pretty people who play instruments" category. since MTV themselves know the exact course of a trend (since they, well, dictate it), they have slowly segued from Britney, Mandy, and Christina to people like Vanessa Carlton, Michelle Branch, and Avril Lavigne. All the prerequistes of the intial triumverate are there---great faces, great bodies, winning smiles, and catchier-than-all-get-out songs. But, these latter three actually write and/or play instruments on thier tracks!!!! This is a darwinian evolution for the typical 15 year old MTV fan at home on the scale of the advent of opposable thumbs. they're at homethinking, "hey wait, Britney doesn't play the guitar...hey wait she didn't even write that song, and uh, f$ck Britney" while watching Michelle stand in the CG-created rain screaming in melody to a boy at #4 on today's countdown. and somewhere, britney flips off another non-English speaking country, sealing her fate even faster.

the appeal makes sense. if the former teen gods and goddesses were indeed about their very unattainability, the powers-that-be have constructed a slightly-more accesible version; they wear jeans, they skateboard, they suffered through the same piano lessons your mom made you go through, and look, they have something to say about it! these new artists are being marketed as having an authentic point of view in their songs; that is, there is the sense that even if the songs aren't autobiographical, they come from within the artist themselves, not from a Swedish pop factory.

authenticity, then, becomes a factor. yes, girls can sing along to "what a girl wants", but there's not the sense that the message comes FROM Christina, but rather THROUGH her. she's more of a conduit than the physical embodiment of that ideal. (case in point---"baby one more time" was originally offered to TLC. can you for a second even imagine that? but there's dozens of these switch-a-roos, songs that exists only on paper until a studio executive decides Person A gets the right to sing over the already-produced track). now, for a 15 year-old, TRL-approved demographic, the very fact that these new girls have any "say" in their music is enough authenticity. every high school girl can relate to avril's hit "complicated" because it's a very useful, alebit teenage dilema. ok, yes, the "you're one person around me and a jackass around everyone else" does not stop at 19, but the specificity of the lyrics prevents a generational leap in application.

where the whole thing gets tricky, and where the first schism occurs between the "TRL Gals", for lack of a better term, and the rest of the young singer-songwriters, lies in this issues of autheticity tied into the nature of the genre. these TRL gals want to be important, be songwriters, not pop stars. however, these TRL Gals are limited simply by their age and scope of musical influences to truly trascend into the pantheon of the Carole Kings, Joni Mitchells, Tori Amos, even Sarah McLachlans (though even she cuts a bit too close for my tastes, but I still love most of her work). when one listens to say, alicia keys, nelly furtado, jill scott, you hear an entire history of a musical genre being distilled through a personal interpretation. stylistically and lyrically, their's generations of artists being filtered into a modern sensibility. as such, just as the rolling stones were stepped in blues and rose heads and shoulders above almost everyone around them, artists such as these distinguish themselves through their intelligent reading of the history of themusic, which allows a little more slack if the lyrics say never quite get to the height of "What's Going On?"

with the TRL Gals, it's almost a one to one ratio of influences, with small differences in this iteration:

Avril Lavinge---Alanis Morrisette, on a skateboard
Vanessa Carlton---Tori Amos with a slightly hunched back
Michelle Branch---(this one's tough, I wanna say a Til Tuesday Aimee Mann but that's giving her slightly too much credit)

the power of "you oughta know" by alanis was in the voyeuristic feel one had listening to it. i mean christ, you almost felt dirty when it came on. but you listened anyways. cuz the song was sold as a "damnit this really happened and the f#cker ain't getting away with it anymore". and THAT struck a chord across every female demographic and voila, 14 million records got moved. then alanis found peace in india and now one gives a rat's ass. in comes avril, with an album full of canadian pop angst with a heavy guitar sheen and "confessional lyrics", same as alanis. hoever, as catchy as her album is, and as much as i like it as a pop album, it's a cycle of songs that can be distilled into

1) "I'm not Britney".
2) "By the way, I'm not Britney."

The problem with an initial album spent telling everyone what you're NOT is that you can't know what you actually ARE. and with the angst firmly entrenched in a 16 year old girl's perspective, it fails to transcend.

Vanessa Carlton makes the fatal mistake of having her lyrics actually make sense. the beauty of tori is that 90% of the time, even she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. but she writes pretty, obtuse lyrics about horses and clouds and demons, and everyone gets to put a little (or a lot) of themselves into the songs themselves. this is a very powerful tool, and the devotion of tori's fan base indicates this trend is happening---by purposeful obscuring the meaning (without making the sense purely menaingless), tori places the listener in control of the ultimate message of the song. every album since "little earthquakes" has taken this approach. the lyrical directness of "me and a gun" :

it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
but i haven't seen barbados
so i must get out of this

and replaces it by "black dove (jaunary)" with

she had a january world
so many storms not right somehow
how a lion becomes a mouse
by the woods
but i have to get to TEXAS

as my sophmore year philopshy professor would say, "well, that's as clear as mud".

"me and a gun" works purely on the strenght of the lyrical content. her later albums use the vocals and the lyrics often as melodic counterpart to the music proper---the add color, tonality, and shape, but are often a great fury signifying nothing.

one more interesting note about these two---tori's last song on her last album of original mateiral was entitled "1,000 Oceans" and featured possibility her most direct lyrical content since her breakthroug album. Vanessa's big song is "A Thousand Miles". the choruses are eerily similiar:

Tori:
well, i can't believe that i would keep
keep you from flying
and i will cry 1000 more if that's
what it takes to sail you home
sail you home sail you home

Vanessa:
If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could
Just see you
Tonight

*does that dr. evil finger to the mouth thing*

I don't have as much to add about Michelle Branch as the other two. As I have said, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where she is derived from musically, but even this uncertainty points to me that's it's not grounded in something entirely solid or lasting. And yes, I know some artists simply spring from a new well of inspiration and muscianship, but even these come from SOMEWHERE. (nothing comes of nothing, lear says to cordelia). when you first hear "fallin'" by alicia keyes, you KNEW you has heard it before. or at least you SWORE you had. that's what i mean about music steeped in a history so thick it's in our very essence. avril doesn't stick the same way becuase her source material (at least on the surface) dates back 5 years. in "fallin'" was every great Motown and/or soul ballad wrapped up into a 4 minute package by a dynamo virtuoso piano player who made you simply prick up your ears and listen. the first time i heard it i went "damn, aretha's got one helluva new song out".

the fact that this song hit every radio station but the country ones attests to the cross-demographic nature of this hit. yes, it was on TRL, yes she performes at the VMAs, but do you see Michelle Branch winning 5 Grammies next year? yea, not so likely. and my mom owns "songs in a minor".

now, confession time---i am not a huge fan of alicia keys. i like Fallin' just fine, but her follow-ups were disappointments to me. "a woman's worth" is a great lyric attatched to a terrible song. i can't even tell you the name of the 3rd song. but what she, and by extension the entire neo-soul movement, did was both introduce the TRL set to soul music AND do justice to their forefathers and their fans. soul music is amazing at conveying emotion in a way that shimmering pop, for all its catchiness, simply can't touch. and by the 5th time you hear avril whine about "all i can be is me", you wish she'd attempt something of the lyrical content of "what a woman's worth". in the end, you don't care what avril's worth.

and lyrical honesty is at the core of the entire movement. let's take a perhaps surprising example (and one of tim's favorites, so he'll be sure to reply): no doubt. every song on "tragic kingdom" was a response by gwen to her breakup with the bass player (know in the press as "the moron who dumped gwen stefani"). america (and in particular american girls) responded to the emotional honesty in her words, not necessarily in the music itself which, while catchy, wasn't necessarily the best ever (there's a reason why there was no big ska movement in the wake of no doubt). this unflinching honesty, where the artists bore his/her self to the public was long out of the pop realm until Lilith Fair and its inhabitors made it safe waters again. people responded to JamesTtaylor, Joni Mitchell, and the horde of 70's singer/songwriters becasue the impression was given that no filter existed between the artists' mind and the listeners' ear. yes, maybe you had to work for the ultimate meaning, and maybe the meaning was yours only to derive, but it could be found, in a direct one on one relation between you the listener and the artist coming though your stereo.

with the TRL Gals, it should hopefully be only a matter of time. i only devote so much time pointing all these faults because I think eventually they will mature into the artists some poeple already claim they are. even people such as alicia are not wizened people compared to these young women, but the alicias of the world do have a slight advantage right now. i personally look forward to seeing how Avril, michelle, and Vanessa progress, because if they're successful, it means i never, ever have to see "Lady Marmalade" again.

and that, friends, will be a great thing.

2002-08-20T12:57:00.000-04:00

must...provide...content

it's tough to actually have a life and maintain a blog.

ok, so that came out harsher than i meant it, but it's true...i say the few, the proud, the noble, checking in daily, going "dear god ryan take away the misery of my life and give my content" and yet i leave you high and dry, like my junior year prom date.

my content is almost directly related to the craziness of work...the worse for the wear i am here, the less i can come up with amzing witticisms that will win me the first Nobel for online content. lately it's been a crush akin to the one i have on Michelle Branch (more coming on that below)...just insanely intense. it's been rewarding, in that we actually have work and i still um, well, have a job. and given the $$$ situation (again, more on that below) all steady income is entirely welcome.

so, for lack of a cohesive narrative, here goes things in my life as they come to me while munching on my turkey-n-cheese on wheat

1) The Rise of the the Guitar-Wielding Britneys

This is both a musical trend and a scary fetishistic one as well. Firstly, on the musical side, we're slowly seeing the erosion of pretty people who can't play instruments with pretty people who CAN play instruments. not quite a seismic shift, but Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the singer-songwriter. So instead of your Jessica Simpsons, Mandy Moores, etc, you've got your Michelle Branchs, Vanessa Carltons, and Avril Lavignes. All these records are pure pop, purely addictive, purely fun. Maybe not Grammy material (then again, Milli Vanilli won a damn Grammy) but a step above "Ooops I Did It Again" to this ear.

And these girls are insanely hot.

Yes, Avril is 17, and the others aren't much older. I realize this. I'm not proud of this trend in my life. I think it all started when I was 25, and dating a 19 year old (who you know, fair readers, finally turned 21)...i sorta got stuck in that "whoa, young girls still find me cute" and couldn't wait for a mid-life crisis to jump ito the "ogle teenage girls" phase of my life so i just jumped right in. medication hasn't helped. i'm hooked. shoot me in the head.

my top 5 safety girls used to have an average age of early 30's...i don't think 2 on the current five are even in their 20's. someone should just strap the ankle bracelte on me and keep me under house arrest.

which is ok, cuz

2) Man, I'm Broke

so we all rejoiced when i got my car. well, at least those in the greater Boston area, for they now no longer have to worry about my '87 Cadillac exploding somewhere near them. alas, this whole "car payment" thing is a doozy. i knew it would be, but the reality is still a bit of a stinger.

a lot of blogs now have those PayPal thing-a-ma-bobs, where you send people money, well, cuz they want it, i guess. they're not quite saving the whales. now it's all good for some people, but i'm not so sure i'd go that route here. one, i'm not a charity case (mental case, admittedly, but not a charity case); two, i'm not really sure anyone would float me cash for this content. so maybe i'll threaten to have content no one wants to see, that is of course, unless i receive one meeeeellion dollars.

so, a 2nd, part-time, job is potentially in the works. this is what happens when you live in Boston, have studnet loans, and own a car, even on my admittedly decent salary. alas.

so i for now will be PayPal-less. if you see the link on this site anytime soon, it means the stripper gig didn't pan out.

2002-08-18T18:05:00.000-04:00

gone baby gone

today, the girl left for three weeks.

on a much less sad note, my hair also left today. should also come back in about 3 weeks.

yup, took the ol' clippers and buzzed what little annoyances of hair were left. we're not Kojak here, but we're purty darn close.

also, ten points for the person who can name the band that sang the song which is the title of this entry...

2002-08-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

step two towards immortality

go visit blogcritics and see a reprint of my old mix CD article here.

hopefully the first of many i write there. seems like a great site, i hope it takes off.

2002-08-15T11:00:00.000-04:00

hot damn!

Phish is going back on tour!!!!!!!!

2002-08-14T10:39:00.000-04:00

new euphamism for a booty call

a few weeks ago a bunch of us went to see "reign of fire". the day of the movie, my roommate bowed out, citing that she didn't have enough money for the movie. we found this odd since she had purchased a $250 train ticket to NYC for the very next day. so we grumbled amongst ourselves but had a good time at the movies.

a week later, it was revealed to us by her that in fact a boy had been over making a house call whilest we watched CG dragons. the fact that we dind't so much as suspect attest to how tired we were when getting home that night.

so, from now on, every time she has a date, we say, "oh, so you don't have enough money for the movies again, eh?" or "damn, you've NOT been seen quite a few movies lately!" good times.

authorial note: this story was a lot funnier in my head. management regrets if any of you are disappointed in the humoric quality of this post.

2002-08-14T09:35:00.000-04:00

hunting and pecking

know what word is hard to type? REALLY hard?

"urogenital".

2002-08-12T14:32:00.000-04:00

trip to south bend, part 3: return of the weather gods

(sorry for the delay, o 3 of you who care)

so i've endured a hellish delay and 3 hour drive on Friday, and "land of a thousand bad soliloquies" on saturday, so sunday should hopefully be bad kharma-free. ha.

the invite to the wedding specified that there would be a brunch the moring after the wedding in a local catholic high school. hrm. after the kegs had been kicked a mere 9 hours before, i figured no one would anyone go to this. wrong.

ok, so here's the layout of the room. it's a poweder blue rectange of death in the basement of this little high school that spelled out "LOVE JESUS" in big, 5th-esque cardboard letters on the windows as you pull into the driveway. it's gotta be maybe 40 feet long by 5 feet wide (i could be exaggerating here, but throughout the event it felt increasingly like the trash compactor scene in "star wars". by about half-way through i'm looking for my com-link to C3PO.). there are 100 or so people anxiously awaiting the feast to arrive. the tables are so close together than i had a better chance of limboing under my rug that getting into my seat.

i also notice that the food serving area is on one end of the room. only one end. ie, 100 plus people will all be in the same line for their mass-produced bacon strips. exxxxxcellent, smithers.

throwing all decorum to the wind, we scoot up early, the girl, myself, and her two friends. the bride and groom get to eat first and leave about 5 minutes later. i don't notice the parents waving them goodbye. a bit odd, but then again, there's a giant cross above the hash browns so really, my mind is a bit elsewhere as it's reciting, "Lord, i am not worthy to receive these hash browns, but only say the word and I shall be healed".

it turns out when we leave that the kitcehn area was roughly a 10 minute walk from the eating area, so the parents of the bride and groom needed to walk baaaack and fooooorth to serve this food. poor buggars.

so we make it out in about an hour. we have lunch with the girl's mom, nice and mercifully uneventful. then we head to the south bend airport for our 6 pm flight at 4 pm. we get through all security no problem. like the trip in, i had pre-removed all metal items into my carryon. the security guy asks me if i live near the place of "the perfect storm". i say sure. all seems good.

then.

4:25 pm---"uh, for those of you on Northwest Flight 63, we have a mechanic coming to check out some mechanical problems and there seems to be heavy weather, uh, over detriot. we'll update you in...one hour."

two thoughts---one, obviously airlines send all their employees to the same public speaking course. secondly, apparantly i was in fact NOT worthy to receive the hash browns and am being duly smoted by my angry Creator.

so we had a fight to detroit, and then boston, on northwest. south bend being only one terminal also has other airlines in the same hangar. turns out we could transfer to another airline, go to chicago, and then to boston, arriving only an hour later. we don't see a platoon of marines like we did in LA, so we hope we're safe.

unfortunately, the 5th Airbourne Batallion had nothing on "Old Annoying Lady" (OAL). This OAL somehow used her super-hearing to hear the girl talk about how we were going to boston, and levitated towards us without us hearing and suddenly sprang a million queries on us, finally launching into a "this would never happen on delta" schpiel which while heartfelt made me want to punch her in her wrinkled nose.

the girl goes up to the counter, asks the guy if we should switch. he makes the point that if it's delayed INTO detriot, it's probably delayed OUT of detriot so we won't miss our flight. so the girl sits back down.

we 5 minutes later here him on the phone talking to someone from the airline, and we didn't hear much, but we did hear, "no, we're still WAITING for the mechanic".

oh crap.

the girl gets back in line while i guard the stuff and make phone calls. OAL has since gotten in line in front of us and gets booked on another flight, and gloats to me while jenny is still in line. there should be a law against people getting this old.

long story short, now on US Air to Chicago then to Boston. leaving an hour later. great. however of course have to go back through security to get our real tickets, and re-enter. this time to security guys asks me if i ever saw george clooney at that bar from "the perfect storm". i humor him because, well, he has a gun. but i forget that i had put my belt back on, the alarms go off, and i am searched head to foot.

we get to board about 30 minutes later. since we switched airlines, the check the girl's bag, and her SANDALS for a bomb. the girl's bag is a model of efficiency. there were roughly 4,000 pounds of pressure per square inch, so compactly was it packed. the George Clooney fan, who's now asking me for directions to Gloucester when he comes in the Fall, takes a look at the bag and basically says, "um, just get in the plane".

so we're in the plane. luckily sitting nowhere near the OAL. the doors close. sweet.

"uh, this is your captain, we uh, wanna inform you that there's, uh, some weather coming into chicago, so we're uh, gonna hold here for an hour and uh, we'll update you when we know."

the cabin gets frightened by the tall, balding, hysterically laughing passanger in seat 12C.

the weather system in detriot had migrated in the hour we were waiting into chicago.

we deplane.

and wait 2 hours.

and the flight is cancelled.

out of the corner of my eye i had seen an empty door for US Air, hoping i would never have to get closer than the 20 feet i sat from it. but by the end of the night, i knew i would get closer.

the gate read: "Pittsburgh, 5 am"

at 10 pm, we left the south bend airport, knowing we would be back in 6 hours to catch a 5 am flight. our wake up time? 3:15 am.

2002-08-09T09:31:00.000-04:00

with 30 percent less geek calories

You are 26% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.

Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend.

You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines!

Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals!

You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

seems about right, ja?

2002-08-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

helpful hints from hamletmachine

(as a sidebar from the trip narrative...)

if your girlfriend should ever happen to eat a combination of pickles, raspberries, Edy's Scooby Doo ice cream, and diet coke, and then blow into your mouth on purpose when you're kissing her goodnight, it's gonna suck for you.

man o man. a foul cloud of death entered enter my oral cavity, laying siege upon any and all living organisms, til much of my mouth looked like England in "Reign of Fire".

damn, woman. damn.

2002-08-07T18:33:00.000-04:00

trip to south bend, part 2: saturday

ok, so rather than a minute by minute blow, let's just focus on a few key moments here. (the whol purpose of this trip, mind you, was to attend a wedding of the girl's very good friend from high school, the very first one to get married, first time seeing the whole crew in 4 years, etc. so big deal for her, not so big for me, but i was glad to be able to go. in theory.)

after a blissful night of sleep, i arose groggily around 11:30 am. i had slept in a basement room with no windows, so as far as my body was concernd it was still 3 am and really couldn't deal with the fact that it was almost lunchtime. couple this with a lack of coffee and let's just say i'm the "pre-V8" guy in that commercial. having amassed a decent amount of stubble through the week,. i stepped into the shower to shave (damn you all who disagree, but shaving in the showers is the way to go). ok, so neck...done. cheeks...done. chin...done. moustache...whoops. no more hot water.

so here i am, looking like burt reynolds and freezing my butt off (central air, so foreign to us poor Eastern coast boys, is a wonderful thing til you're in an artic rainstorm)...and for the men out there (ok, well YOU tim), y'all can attst that having with cold water poses a few problems, number one of which is MIND SHATTERING pain as you try to liberate the hairs from your face. long story short, i get it done, but not without feeling afterwards that i had been dragged facefirst along 50 yards of highway.

so we're at the church. hunky dory. catholic wedding. OK. i cand eal with this, being nominally catholic. i know enough to know i really shouldn't take communion (with the few million venal sins weighing my walk towards the altar). i don't share a vampire's fear of the cross, but let's say i can understand where they are coming from.

everything is going pretty smoothly, until we hit the homily. the fact that "homily" was mispelled in the program should have tipped me off that something odd was about to go down. here is a sample of the homily which yes is biased by memory, but so frightening that it mostly etched itself into my skull....italicized words are my concurrent thoughts........

"well, i see that you've chosen some interesting readings for your wedding...the first, form the Song of Songs, is not often performing, being an erotic love poem.." did he just say erotic love poem? "and it's a bad poem to boot." oh boy, danger will robinson. "the poem talks about your love being like a gazelle leaping acorss the mountains...oh please!" ok, i get the mock sarcasm, but these people aint' exactly getting your irony, dude. you're a priest. irony belongs in the priesthood like prank humor belongs in surgery "and in your second reading" (i can't remember the passage, sorry) "it talks about how Love is neither boastful, love is neither proud...and it's said so often that we often think it means it's about us. but look closer. this is an unattainable love. it's an unattainable goal. you cannot achieve this love." BWA? you are doomed to fail at this love. is the bride sweating? "Just as the priesthood has broken me, so marriage will break you."

ok, i think we've achieved a new paragraph here. i mean, the place went quieter than a teenage crowd watching Barry Manilow doing a mega-mix of his greatest hits. the priesthood has BROKEN him? marriage will BREAK them? now, confession of snobbery--i had a feeling this priest COULDN'T be this dumb..but it was one of those skin-crawling, "this really can't be happening" moments. did the couple ask to see the homily previous to the ceremony? maybe we should install a system ala valedictorian speeches in high schools, where the faculty makes sure the kid doensn't pull a fast one on the stage. now, i missed about the next two minutes because the whole place was whispering "did he just say what i think he did?" to the point where it became a quiet din.

now, to the summary of the speech, he brings up the gospel reading, which was the loaves and fishes parable. and he attempts to bring it all together by saying this is considered the purest distillation of Jesus' teaching---he takes, he breaks, he gives forth more than was before. ok, i can see where this is going, that the "breaking of marriage" is not only necessarily but hoped for, that we have two choices between turning inwards or outwards after that break, but til the day, i'll always have that quote in my head:

"Just as the priesthood has broken me, so marriage will break you."

(along with my favorite quote of all time, spoken to me by the light of Mass. Ave. during my freshman week of college by a very attractive girl: "do you have a problem with a highly physical, non-commital relationship?" Just classic. will never ever be topped.)

OK, so you'd think we're out of the woods, rhetorically speaking. hell no.

we get to the reception, and while the reception is not my idea of swank, apparantly for South Bend it's a big deal to have BOTH bud and bud light on tap in the keg. fine. but without further ado, here's the best man speech:

"I really wanted to not right anything down, and you know, speak from the heart." oh yea, a speech free from cliche, oh joy. "But I have been trying to think of a good example of what exactly Annie and Matt mean to each other. I was thinking about one night, we were in the apartment senior year, and I was watching TV, and they were making dinner in the kitchen. and they were making a recipe that called for seasoned croutons. but matt had bought regular croutons. so annie says, 'matt, i think we need to get seasoned croutons.' and matt said 'no, it'll be fine.' and annie said "no dear, i really, really think we need to go to the store and get seasoned croutons." and i could tell there was a leeeeetle bit of tension." scientists will always debate the long-lasting effects of the Great Crouton Debate of '01. "but a few minutes later i heard her say 'i love you'. and he said 'i love you too.' and this to me sums up thier relationship. no matter how bad things get, their love always pulls them out of it."

i know i'm supposed to have a joke, or a witty comment here. but please. can i top that? no way. i have about the same odds as sir mix-a-lot topping "baby got back".

2002-08-06T19:08:00.000-04:00

trip to south bend, part 1: friday night

3:30 pm: leave work, right on time

3:39 pm: meet girl in remarkable coincidence as i pull up to park street. things are going well.

4:00 pm--we've gotten e-tickets, gone through security (after last time going through the detectors i all but wore a tupperware suit and had put everything into my bag well before arriving to the airport)

4:25 pm--after a game of travel scrabble, we here that the flight in the gate next to us is being delayed cuz of weather. uh oh.

5:00 pm--our flight announces a 30 minute delay due to weather in detriot, our stop off point beofre going to south bend. we have a 60 minute layover. not good.

6 pm---plane starts to board for a 6:30 departure time. our flight out of detriot, mind you, is at 9:11 pm. keep this in mind.

7:18 pm---plane starts to actually leave the taxxing area. a lot of people are annoyed, but by this point ok, we're screwed, we'll fly to chicago and get picked up there. there's no possible way to make the 9:11 pm flight. period.

8:35 pm---we start descending. holy crap, there's a chance we might make the flight. we both try not to get too excited, but of course clammy hands, nervous tapping, and watching-looking every 8 seconds, commences.

8:42 pm--holy crap, we're on the ground! we're gonna have a shot. we have only carry-on, so all we have to do is pull in, book it to the gate, and boom, we're home free.

8:44 pm---"uh, folks, this is your captain speaking. we have uh, some baggage trucks blocking our taxxing area, so we're uh, gonna wait til their cleared out."

random thought---this "uh, this is, uh" is typical of all pilots. doesn't matter if news is good or bad. "uh, the rockies are out to your left, uh, yea, they're cool". or "uh, so yea, who else likes Procol Harum"?

8:47 pm---about 18 people officially lose their sh$t on the plane verbally. if i weren't one of them, it might be high comedy. alas. you'd think "britney spears: acoustic, unplugged, playing songs she wrote on an accordion" had come on the television.

8:54 pm--the baggage carts are FINALLY moved. we're ready to get off. we're one row behind first class, all we have to do is get off the plane. we can do this. we've been hitting the gym 5 times a week. 30 minutes plus of cardio a day. boo ya, i say.

8:56 pm---thank god they don't allow sharp objects on planes, cuz i wanna wield one on the OLD FUCKIN' FUCK IN FRONT OF US who is sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowly taking his luggage out of storage. after a few audible despairing gasps, he actually turns around, looks at all of us, sighs wearily, and then goes to the overhead bin across the row to get his other bag. about 37 mental darts strike the back of this guy's head. he was kharmic toast.

8:58 pm---we get out onto the little hallways bewteen the plane and airport, only to get behind the fattest woman EVER. now, nothing against you overweight types, but DAMN. i think she placed her carry-on luggage up her ass. or a small pony. one of the two. we maneuver around her and book it. *cue mission:impossible music". we see the "on time" sign for our flight it's still here. we have 8 minutes to go from gate a to gate c, which involves....

8:59 pm---springing like holy hell through the terminal, down the ramp, and into...

9:00 pm---this long cylindrical hallway that was straight out of john tesh's demented psyche. this place had weird, new age, "future scene in bill and ted's excellent adventure" music with accompanying light show. i barely notice since 30 minutes of cardio a day doesn't prepare you to do a 50 yard dash over a half mile with a 25 pound suitcase in your hands...bag...heavy....breathing...difficult....

9:02--get to terminal, unable to form sentences with verbs, we gasp "south bend!" pimply mctavish, our young hope, looks confused, picks some ear lint, and says, "uhhhhhhhhhhhhh...i dunno...i think 6, i..." and we're gone, towards 6. now two other passengers have joined us, equally tired, equally confused. gate 6 is not south bend, gate 17, another 400 yards away, is. mutherf#cker.

9:04 pm---like a band of hellions the 4 of us run down, screaming "hold 16!!! hold 16!!!" (not quite "hold the line!" from the opening battle of "Gladiator", but ya know, you do what you can) and ant-like in the distance we see some employees walking this way, nice and casual like. by the time we get to them they say "oh it's gone. closed up".

9:04 and 18 seconds---i think the direct quote was ***FCC steps in to edits Ryan's stream of vindictives which would make a sailor blush, Mamet cry plagarism, and my mother weep for humanity"

9:04 and 45 seconds---the girl sees the plane sitting in the runway. the door's closed. the last plane to south bend has left.

9:07 pm---walking back i decide, yes, this is a fucked up cylindrical hallway.

9:25 pm---we're exploring options---rental car and a 3 hour drive hour, or stay in local hotel and take 7 am flight next morning. hotel is $60, car is $80. hotel=sleep, driving means home safe and sound, albeit at 2.

9:40 pm---riding on the Avis truck, talking to a woman with enough make up that's she's legally blind. going out salsa dancing. i wonder how many people in detriot salsa dance. between this thought and her eye shadwo my brain buckles.

12:30 am---after 2 hours of driving, i think i see amelda marcos using a snoopy sno cone machine on the road ahead of me. i decide it's time to pull over and let the girl drive.

2 am---we finally pull into south bend, 10 and a half hours after i left my office.

2 am and 18 seconds---zzzzzzzzzzzz

2002-08-05T11:55:00.000-04:00

and the hits keep on comin'

for those of you who thought my last trip was riddling with fun and merriment, wait til you get a load of my latest excursion this weekend. sadly, i won't get to it for a while, but it'll be in 4 parts, starting tonite. maybe. see, i'm a wee bit tired right now.

i got up at 3:15 am in Indiana to try and make it to work in boston by 10. good times. good times.

shoot me in the head.

friday night, appearing on a "hamletmachine" near you soon...

2002-08-01T18:20:00.000-04:00

i don't completely suck...yet

12.5 %

My weblog owns 12.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

i'm sure if i put my mind to it, i can completely regress socially.

2002-07-31T14:57:00.000-04:00

idaho wants to be topless, damnit

and why should they be stopped?

for once, the midwest is vaguely progressive. almost. oh who am i kidding...

2002-07-31T10:49:00.000-04:00

achievements

well, the posts have been a bit dour lately, so i thought i'd cheer things up around here with two accomplishments

1) bought my very first car today. yes, i own a car, but that was inherited from my grandmother. by next week i'll be driving a 1998 Camry LE. it's a very nice car, and i'm thrilled about the prospect of woning a vehicle that does not have it's driver seat sinking through the floor. (i am in denail about the monthly payments i will be making for the next 3 years, however.)

2) i was recently promoted from "associate desktop publisher" to "desktop publisher", which marks my third promotion in 18 months. this is sadly the first without a monetary increase, but hopefully by december that should change.

so all in all, good vibes. money will be tight for a while, but that's why God invented ramen.

2002-07-29T17:39:00.000-04:00

prodigious posts

i honestly don't know how some people do it. every time i sneak a peek, i have 5-10 new things to read, it seems. or more often than not it's of lengthy (if not always "substantial") content. makes my efforts here seem paltry. feel sometimes like the kid who wants to be in the cool crowd, but can't buy enough cool clothes to hang with the crowd. the crowd that always has crazysexycool things going on, happening either to them or within a 6' radius thereof. a sort of bare it all attitude that i don't feel comfortable employing nor necessarily want to employ, but it seems to be the "hip" thing to do..

so here i am feeling like i have to keep up in some fashion, which is flippin' ridiculous cuz it's bringing out the worst flashbacks to junior high, those fun two years where being smart was suddenly "very, very not cool" as opposed to simply "not cool" and i simultaneously loathed the in crowd yet couldn't stop trying to be part of it as well, where i was 2 months behind every trend, and had nary the self-confidence not to be picked apart at every chance by kids who's only means of staying cool were making everyone else look awful in relief to themselves. (how any of us make it through junior high is one of the great survival stories. period. we're talking pennsylvania miner survivor here.)

anyways, back on topic. or sort of. i am not comparing those above to those 7th graders, but the insecurity i feel sometimes, both from seeing that content and wishing mine to be more like that, the expectations i have for myself as a creative entity to have this paltry site rise baove the mundane purely by content (since design is NEVER gonna be this site's strong suit)...well, it gets a little bothersome. sadly, "bothersome" does not beget creativity, so as such all you'll get for now is a meta-narrative about the state of my narrative.

happy monday y'all.

2002-07-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

serious philosophical query

is getting a lap dance cheating?

somehow i don't think that guys at a bachelor party are cheating on thier about-to-be brides, but maybe i'm wrong. is a lap dance OK, but is the champagne room just the limit?

discuss! commander, this is your area of expertise :)

2002-07-29T14:38:00.000-04:00

highs and lows

highs: excited that new people seem to be finding their way to my site.

lows: since no one leaves comments, not sure if my content is so dull that no one makes it past 2 or 3 entries.

i need love, people. love. narcissism drives this site (if not my life) so hit me with your best shot. or just tell me i suck. that works too.

2002-07-28T16:50:00.000-04:00

shame or no shame?

so should i post a picture of last night or not? you, the viewers at home, shall decide.

2002-07-28T01:20:00.000-04:00

white trash night

that's what was just had by myself, my roomie, and my GF. here's how it went down:

so i'm at home with the 'rents and the girl, at the Lowell Folk Festival which features many a band, many a food tent, and many a crazy mutherf#cker cuz hey, it's Lowell, my hometown, and homeland of some freaky deaky folk. anyways, we're paging through the ads for used cars, as i am in the process of buying one (more to come on that as to why soon enough...ok screw it it's too good a story...)

so i have this car. an '87 cadillac cimarron. called "miss daisy" cuz well, it's old and gets me to tha sto'. the girl and i drive back from the gym. i park, as per usual. i open the car door, per usual. the car door drops to a good thirty degree angle with an accompanying sound of "TWANG".

not per usual.

long story short, a bolt holding the car in place and plum just fallen off. so i drive the car into a nearby parking lot with one hand on the wheel and one hand holding the door in place cuz well, it won't close anymore. 20 minutes later, the girl and i manage to get the bolt back in place, discover yet another part of the door has broken, the hinge/clasp mechanism which allows the door to close, fix that, and head on our way. (later in the day the car decided it doesnt want power windows to work, so it stops working. i yell at the car, it works. then accelarets on its own accord later on Rt. 495. this is the car's way of saying, "look, mcgee, it's been a good ride. we had some good times, you and i. but babe, pull the freakin' plug, i need rest!"

so anyways, when retling all this to my folks, they are sufficiently horrified, as well they should be, and pull out the daily paper and pour through some ads with me. i make the offhanded comment of "so much for new computer" since a car AND a computer is a bit much now. so my folks offer my brother's old computer to me, which has every upgrade i wanted (DVD drive, CD burner) and is also a gateway, therefore compatibility with all i ever have. joy!

so, we decide to test out the DVD player upon arriving home. the girl breaks out her copy of "moulin rouge". we pop open the slot. out pops "girls gone wild volume 8".

needless to say we're a bit stunned. the girl doens't know my brother quite well enough to openly laugh, but she really wants to. i had already seen the "porno"-labelled folder on his desktop upon booting it up for the first time, so this wasn't a huge surprise. and he's a 22 year old boy, he BETTER have porn lying around. so we're laughing, the roomie asks whassup, we explain, she declares "f^ck it, we're getting pizza, finishing off the beer, dressing like white trash, and watching this bad boy".

so, the clothes start being pulled from various sources. hootchies mamas abounded, yours truly was a pimp daddy extraordinaire. (pics of at least me will follow soon). so we get the pizza, have a beer, and pop in the DVD. now, the commercials will lead you to believe this is 45 minutes of drunk chicks showing their boobs. not true. as flavor flav said, don't believe the hype. it's pretty much flat out porn. most of it involving ugly ass men. i think i can pretty much sum up everythign said by the dynamic duo with me tonite.

oh my...
is this...
was that...
oh my...
dear Lord...

and so forth. the best quote was "i'm not nearly drunk enough to watch this".
so after all this, we decide to call my brother to thank him for the night, and he turns into austin powers with a swedish penis enlarger..."dude, that's not even mine!!!!" poor buggar. i think he's telling the truth, but he also knows that two women he doesn't know thinks he's well, a boy.
that was not said by me, mind you.

anyways, pics tommorow to come. if you've ever wanted to see cowboy pimp meet hawaiian style, you've found your website y'all...

2002-07-25T11:59:00.000-04:00

confession of a geek

ok, this is pretty flippin' funny.

kneel before zod!

i wonder if he knew to shop for an evil lair here.

2002-07-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

hot nude women!!!!

there. that oughta drive more traffic here.

lowest common denominator, baby.

2002-07-24T18:19:00.000-04:00

if you ever wanted proof these online tests are bollocks

What Was Your PastLife?

i mean COME ON. i may be a raging woman (scroll down when there), but Mama Theresa i ain't.

speaking of nuns, apparantly i shouldn't feel too bad about being frisked so much at the airport a few weeks ago ... even the nuns are getting the shakedown.

2002-07-23T18:32:00.000-04:00

me noggin'

ok, so i got the closest i've ever gotten to "The Kojak" last saturday...i fought a losing battle with my hairline starting oh '96, near the end of the ill-fated "hey guys, let's not cut our hair this year" campaign of terror instigated by one of my roommates in college. basically, we're talking about a triangle of doom that crept from roughly the outer part of each eyebrow upwards in a nice isosceles triangle to the very apex of my head. so i had hair basically down the nape of my neck but the bangs were cleft more than in twain by this harbingers of baldness. but that spring, once my mother got a hold of me and slapped me silly for a while, i got a much shorter cut, and kept the sideburns cuz this girl i had a crush on liked them. (that no one else did eluded me. the fact that she was never quite impressed enough by the sideburns to ever date me, however, did not escape my attention.)

anyways. so the years go by, and slowly the triangle of death becomes the bell curve of destruction, leaving what was once my bangs as basically the australia to my cranial globe. still i persevere, still ignorant of any other way to hold my quaff, assuming god gave me many gifts, but a thick mane of hair simply wasn't in the cards. i wonder what God was checking off as i came off the assembly line.

ok, lanky frame that will stay that way until he's 19, then finally fill out during freshman crew, then balloon due to excessive beer and liquor drinking? check.

bizarre spock ear type aberration to ensure he always has an icebreaker at parties? check

fingers that can't do the spock thing to accompany ear story? check

a shoe size that falls just between the mall and big and tall stores? check

simian-like hair everywhere except on top of his head? check

i think god got up on the wrong side of the bed that day, is all i'm trying to say.

anyways, bald isn't bad. bald can be kind of sexy. dr. evil doesn't pull it off, but moby sees more ass than a rental truck so obviously the mojo can work. the main reason i don't is that to maintain a Billy Corgan-esque sheen is just not in the cards for me, i have not the time nor the personal make-up/hair staff to pull that off. and my face is generally stubbly enough that i don't need a circular effect going round the whole top of my shoulders.

the problem is that with this haircut, the exact shape of my head is coming closer into focus, and while it's not awful, it's certainly not encouraging. my head is apparently the result if Bert and Beaker had a kid. i must have ended up in a vice one day and had my head stretched. it's just odd. luckily i have a pair of glasses (no contacts for me, thankee) so i can split the view up, lest one get overcome by the vertical version of "Hey Arnold" that I am.

to top that off, i have a sagital crest-type thing right atop my noggin, which basically means i can never ever do this. oh well.

so why all the obsession? dunno, really. not so much obsession as intrigue. it's the imperfections in life that often make things so interesting. a spock ear, freckles, a scar you got when you were 6...all these things end up for better or worse differentiating us physically. another kid in my 5th grade class had the same spock ear as me, and had it surgically removed. he hated it. made him stand out, he said. well that's the point, right? individuality baby. not the most original thesis of all time but there you go. i remember when i asked my mom about the ear, right around 2nd or 3rd grade, and she told me thta god loved me so very much that he decided to give me an extra piece of skin.

me? i vote for "smoking while i was in the womb", but don't told her i said that.

2002-07-23T12:44:00.000-04:00

shorter and funnier

so i'm experimenting with shorter posts, versus the old ramblin' drivel...thoughts? opinions?

i'm not abandoning the longer schpiels for good, but in lieu of a hugely compelling reason to throw 3 pages of text at y'all, i am giving you short bursts of goodness. if you have any topics upon which you would like me to pontificate, please let me know.

2002-07-23T12:42:00.000-04:00

getting ready for retinal scans

bringing us one step closer to making minority report a reality, we have House Republicans wanting to create new class of federal 'attempted' crimes

2002-07-23T10:08:00.000-04:00

how the mighty have fallen

this is just too sad for words.

it's bringin' on the heartbreak, man.

2002-07-22T20:53:00.000-04:00

i get to do the cool peanuts dance

Which Peanuts Character Are You Quiz

you know, that head bobbing side to side, your feet move but somehow you don't, working your mojo about 5 feet away from anyone else, who are also 5 feet away from everyone else...

does anyone else know this dance? i would give good money to start playing this theme song and see a roomful of people do that dance.

but only for like 30 seconds, cuz after that it'd be, like, weird...

2002-07-22T11:25:00.000-04:00

y'all are weird

some bizarre searches that have yielded my site:

paul pierce and tara reid

what in blue hell do these two have in common?

acne girls photos

that is one weird fetish.

2002-07-19T08:45:00.000-04:00

saving the world...right after my deadline

man oh man, i did NOT need this distraction!

create your own super hero

must...resist...flesh is...weak...

2002-07-17T15:22:00.000-04:00

that was close

comments back up.

spent 30 minutes figuring that out.

i am officially, unequivocally, a tool. a great big tool. we're talking Black & Decker here.

2002-07-17T15:02:00.000-04:00

argh

ok, in changing the witticism on my comment links, i somehow lost the ability to have commments. if any of you are code-inclined and can see what i've done wrong, give me a holler...email is linked up top...

2002-07-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

my kinda doc

all hail the glory that is dr. pepper.

yet another thing i've given up in my quest to lose 20 pounds. i'm halfway there and truckin'. luckily diet dr. pepper doesn't quite taste like sewage, which is precisely what diet pepsi is. vomit from the the pits of hell. did i mention that i don't like it? it's the liquid equivalent of a P. Diddy remix album.

2002-07-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

at least he has a lap, i guess

and you thought YOU were having a bad day. not as much as this guy apparantly.

i wanna know how he plans to slip the money into the garter if he ever does get in....

2002-07-16T11:20:00.000-04:00

top of the pops

new guilty pleasure CD: avril lavigne

new hated bank: MBNA (the f#$ckers don't deserve a link)

new man whose concert i look forward to seeing thursday: john mayer

new technique to get over writer's block: "new" lists

new book that i am reading that led me to conciously evulate my writing technique while writing it: a heartbreaking work of staggering genius

number of times blogger has eaten this post: 2

number of times i wished i had copied it down before posting: 2

2002-07-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

pop

so as you may have noticed by now, this site isn't really about ME per say so much as my reactions and interactions with the popular media which i have populated in my existence. indeed, the meta-nature of a blog is using a pop culture element and weaving it into my life. for those of you who know me, i am always one sentence away from a reference to a TV show, a song, a movie, or a movie which has a song on a TV show...the reasons for this are twofold:

1) when i started out, i vowed this site would never turn into a "oh woe is me pity me on my comments link" sort of page. those sites have their place, and their followers, but this is not the place and i am for one not a follower. while indeed a blog is, in my estimation, the distillation of a home page's narcissism to it's absolute common denominator, i'd rather show off my mind than my emotions. well, and my pole dancing ability.

2) for as long as i can remember, i have been an absolute pop culture junkie. the intertwining of pop media both as a reflection of and reaction to societal impulses goes back to my thesis research on Shakespeare in college (plays as a reaction to Elizabethan mores was a theme in it)...but in terms of my love of movies, music, books, etc, that goes back as far as i can tell---finding mix tapes as for back as when i was 12 or 13, home movies of lipsynching to Huey Lewis and the News (hey, i was 11, back off with the snickering), dogeared copies of old books...just elements that define certain elements of my life..a mix tape becomes a musical snapshot of a certain time and place. and reminds me that never, ever will Winger ever be on a mix of mine again.

but only in the past few years have i tried to think about why exactly pop culture is so fascinating to me. why search for movie spoilers on the internet, why try to find downloads on Limewire, why highlight passages in my worn-out copy of "High Fidelity"...i have started to come around to the theory that pop culture, at its best, and often by accident, achieves a subliminal level of greatness that we all try to achieve, if only for a brief time, in our own lives. because these moments are that fleeting, and I often find them in a certain chord change in a song, a paragraph in a novel, or a certain line of dialogue in a movie. the very liminality of the moment is what makes it so special, but at the same time, these moments within pop culture can be replicated ad infinitum...granted, the current market encourages saturation to the point where these moments can be eroded like rock, but the joy of finding an old song i hadn't heard in forever, or picking up a book i read years ago...or consistently watching moments of "Moulin Rouge"...these moments don't lose their luster through repetition but rather grow in their transcendance for me. because at these moments, life is perfect, the notes are perfect, everyone knows exactly how to act and what to say...even if it's expression of loss, the expression is perfect, expressing how you feel or felt better than you ever could have...

so in my exploration (some would say obsession) of pop culture, it's this consistent search for this sublime moment of perfection that drives me further...it's a better drug than any on the street, and when you find it, you want to drink it in and share it with as many people as possible. so i guess that's what i'm trying to do, both here and in my general social interactions. like in life, i don't always succeed here, but doesn't mean i'll stop trying. cuz every once in a while, i'll get it perfect...

2002-07-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

buffy and the bomb

well, this is, uh, interesting.

"the buffy paradigm"

thanks to missy for the link....

2002-07-11T09:36:00.000-04:00

from the top rope

ok, for those of you confused as to why the Undertaker is below...yes, I am a WWF (now WWE) fan.

no shame in my game, not afraid to admit it; it's a guilty pleasure. it's my brothers' fault, he got me into it around February and I've been hooked since. there's something oddly enjoyable about watching Hulk Hogan try to suck in his heaving bosom of old-guy flesh while wrestling guys 20 years youngs, infinitely faster, and oh yea, actually atheletic. i loved wrestling til i was about 12, back when the Wrestlemanias were just starting and they had guys with big pot bellies and totally uncool names (c'mon, like a guy named Sal Gee was ever, EVER gonna beat The Ultimate Warrior) still allowed in the company.

the matches themselves actually don't interest me terribly much, about 3-4 moves maybe a match actually impress me from a "wow, they actually just did that and didn't kill the other guy", but the storylines absolutely kill me. as the Sports Guy would say, 100 out of 100 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale (UCS). and occasionally, they are INTENTIONALLY funny which is a bonus. but i'm sure none of my 7 readers cares for a breakdown, but sufficed to say: yes, I'm a fan. no shame in my game. 4 hours a week of dedicated TV time to both "RAW" and "Smackdown!" which conveniently falls on different days than Buffy, 24, and Alias. Thank God. Since Jennifer Garner could probably drop kick the Undertaker into the next county if hard-pressed to do so.

Wrestling is only the latest in the line of guilty pleasures. One that has actually returned, mercifully, is Undressed. a 140 on the UCS. the show is potty training for Skinemax. it seems to serve no other function. the nadir of the show had to be the plot where there were twin sisters, one straight, one a lesbian, who decide to switch partners for a night to see if they could pull it off, only to both have sex with the other's persons' significant other, both kinda liking it but unsure why, and culminating in the "lesbian GF brings straight sister pretending to be lesbian into shower and brandishes a cucumber as a dildo".

FANTASTIC. Mamet couldn't plot anything this intricate.

Before Undressed, other guilty pleasure were the "50% appetizers at Pizzeria Uno's after 10 pm", "musicals about ant farms", and "Dostoevsky".

so what are YOUR guilty pleasures?

2002-07-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

why can't i be RVD?

oh well....

Basically you're just a big tough bastard.
People respect you but don't really like you.
And frankly you couldn't give a shit.

Take The "Which WWF Wrestler are you?" Quiz.
Created by Potman

2002-07-10T16:12:00.000-04:00

pigs flying

well, after the All Star Game ended in a tie, i'm pretty much ready to throw the gloves off and accept anything that's coming down the road. the constant stream of freddie prinze jr. movies had already started me down this path, but now, like the Monkees, i'm a believer. so don't be surprised if tommorow you see any of the following headlines:

15 year old girl in chat room not, in fact, 46 year old man living with his parents

Boston opens up all downtown roads to 2-way traffic

Ann Coulter becomes Robert Reich's running mate in Massachusetts Governor campaign

Bono declines to comment, declares "I will let my music do the talking"

Forwarded email actually funny

CIA employs "beachcombing technique" from Spaceballs in effort to hunt down bin Laden

Jesse Helms to film episode of "Cribs"

2002-07-09T14:36:00.000-04:00

ok, so clue me in

why all the searches for "john mayer and jennifer love hewitt"? am i missing some iota of pop culture here?

highly annoying...

2002-07-09T00:21:00.000-04:00

fly the friendly skies

ok, so no one LIKES to fly, but i'm pretty ambivalent towards the whole thing as a general rule. don't like it, don't hate it, a necessary evil, blah blah. but the return trip from Saturday from LAX to Logan here in Boston was enough to make me believe in air rage, since i felt it about a dozen times. here's the breakdown:

6:00 am--Woken up by the Bose speaker system. the girl's already showered, i'm pretty sure I swore at her in German.

6:02 am---Still in bed, trying to figure out when I learned German

6:18 am---showered and ready to go (with hair as lacking as mine, shampooing isn't a taxing effort)

7:15 am---arrive at LAX, plenty of time for our 8:50 am flight

7:22 am---the very nice lady at the ticket counter for, well, i won't say the airline lest i get in trouble, but it rhymes with Corthwest, moves the girl and i from non-adjoining seats to next to each other in the exit row, which affords fro 6'5'' frame ample leg room. good times.

7:34 am---after enduring the security line, no big deal, run through the metal detector. bleeps like a mutha. thought i had removed everything, but alas, every piece of my clothing seems to have metal in it, including my shoes. so, off come the shoes, the EPA quarantines the area cuz i ain't wearing socks, and i assume the pose for my pat down, anal probe, and sandblasting.

8:20 am---board plane. leg room rocks, although the flight attendant sits facing me like 2 feet away on take off. large man. i bury my nose into my copy of mystic river (highly, highly recommended if you like crime fiction. i don't, and i still loved this book.)

8:50 am---on schedule, we take off. Boston here we come!

9:18 am---"this is your captain, yea um, we've got a bit of a situation with the landing gear, the uh, um, door won't, uh, close, nothing to worry about, we're gonna, uh, trying something here. don't be alarmed. everything's fine."

9:19 am---ryan and the girl give that "uh oh" look to each other. big flight attendant man is stoic. this guy's Odd Job with a tray cart.

9:27 am---"um, uh, this is your captain speaking. so, um, what flight control told us to do, um, didn't work. so we're going back to LA. we'll be landing in oh, um, 30 minutes or so. sorry."

*interlude: what ryan heard at 9:27 am*

smoke 'em if ya got 'em folks, any minute this bad boy's gonna blow. don't worry about takin' pictures, they won't make it through the fiery blast anyways. if you have anything to say to your loved ones, tough noogies cuz ya can't use cell phones up here anyways. i'm taking the one remaining parachute and heading for freedom. peace!

*interlude: end*

9:47 am---the head flight attendant tells us shuttles will be waiting to take us to the terminal and the help desk. this shuttle sounds eerily like the thing in "Speed" that they drop the passengers onto when they leave the bus. we are told we get a "apology package" or the like from Corthwest due to our troubles. Odd Job is overhead saying that in 10 years, he's never once had to return midflight. i get to odd desire to visit my first church in a decade.

10:04 am---the shuttle is exactly like like the thing in "Speed" that they drop the passengers onto when they leave the bus. we get on and realize that roughly 40 Marines have been sharing the plane with us, making us just about the worst plane the terrorists could have overtaken. i haven't seen this many buzzcuts since watching "stand by me".

10:11 am---the grand "apology package" contains

the option of 1,000 free frequent flier miles or $10 at the airport restaurants
a grading discount on a next flight
a 5 dollar phone card

this last item absolutely slays everyone. jokes abound, the typical "oooh, who can i call for so long" variety. amidst the annoyance, everyone seems to be bonding. what a great group of people!

10:18am---now standing in line with the rest of the f$ckers; stupid jerks think they can cut ME??????? i contemplate using my phone card as a lethal weapon to slit the throats of the family of four in front of me.

10:25 am---the line hasn't moved. we realize that, if the 8:50 am flight was booked solid, others might be too. the girl gets on the cell to Corthwest, figures out already every flight but the red eye is booked. we figure arguing at the desk will get us somewhere.

10:45 am---i realize it's the Marine-in-charge who's holding everything up. now, god bless the military, i respect 'em i do, but if they were really on an important, defense-of-the-nation type of mission, why are they entrusting Corthwest?

11:08 am---the announcement comes that all flights are booked for the day, go down, get your luggage, we have shuttles (more frickin' shuttles???) to take us to the hotel, come back tommorrow night at seven, and would we please all get out of line?

11:09 am---ain't nobody goin' nowhere, especially out of that line.

11:15 am---dual scene, picture the girl in line conjuring images of dead relatives to get the tears in her eyes while i get on my cell with Corthwestern. neither of us knows what the other person is saying, how far they've gotten, etc. high comedy. if by high comedy you mean cutting your spleen out with a dull fork. or listening to Kajagoogoo's Greatest Hits when "Too Shy" is the only track with a skip in it.

11:21 am---anna, the nice lady on the phone, asks me what terminal i'm in. and could i get to the delta terminal in 20 minutes?

11:22 am---*cue up mission:impossible music*

11:24 am---eduardo the airport emplyee has directed us to the delta terminal via Munich, so near as we can tell. we're atop a parking lot like a bizarre scene out of the original "city of angels"; i'm looking for the guys in the long black coats but can't see 'em. i'm still on hold with anna. then i realize our luggage is still on corthwestern. DOH.

11:29 am---anna: "yea, i couldn't get you on delta. that was silly." inner monologue: "i could kill you with my bare hands, wench."

11:30 am---anna: "but i've booked you on american arilines direct leaving at 3:30 pm. inner monologue: "i will bear your children."

11:45 am---ok, so back in line at corthwestern. why you ask? cuz we have to go to corthwestern to get a ticket so we can stand in line at american to stand in another security line. are you following me? to quote MST3K, "geez, Tolkein couldn't follow this plot."

11:54 am---after sneaking into the 1st class line (thank you random helper person!) we realize that the mega-beeyotch who gave us the "we have no more flights, sit in out hotel and think about your pitiful lifes" annoucner woman has just stepped in at a register. in my inner monologue she was playing "I Got the Power" by the immortal group Snap immediately after said announcement. the girl and i both regret our previous verbal entanglements with this woman.

12:07 pm---by a miracle, things with her go smoothly. and american airlines, according to her, is right down the hall! yea, luck finally turning our way.

12:09 pm---luck slips us a mickey and reports that we need to go across the airport to another terminal. somewhere that corthwestern beeyotch is smiling, i know it.

12:18 pm---the view from the bus undoubtedly was two tourists with 3 bags apiece madly scrambling with the guy cursing and the girl cursing at him, telling him not to curse. someone took a picture, i'm sure. if you did, send it my way.

12:29 pm---all checked in ticket wise. merciful god, you do exist.

12:34 pm---i set off the security alarms. again. every button that gets searched, beeps. again. i remove my shoes. again.

2:30 pm---ok, so after some food, i am feeling vaguely human.

3:14 pm---subhuman, that art myself. the gate people make me undergo more metal detection and shoe removal, going for the trifecta on both. they also decide to search the girl this time too. and our bags. problem is, in all the confusion, i grab the girl's backpack, she mine. the two ladies inspecting my bag are impressed with my taste after pulling out the Kate Spade purse.

3:18 pm---of course a 4 year old is sitting in the row in front of us. of course.

3:25 pm---i turn on my overhead light so i can read.

3:25 and 18 seconds---the light flickers out.

3:25 and 19 seconds---i sell my immortal soul to the devil for the light to come back on.

3:25 and 20 seconds---beezelbub complies.

and well, we make it back. not much else to report. but man, that's enough ain't it?

2002-07-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

name that blogger!

let's see how you do! well, 4/5 of us are bloggers at least....name the non-blogger and you get bonus points! name the girl in the picture and you win a year's supply of Rice-a-Roni!

(update---ok, the earth-shattering, modem-crushing large picture is gone, you happy now Tim?)

2002-07-04T02:34:00.000-04:00

musings from the PST time zone

---having a dinner where blogging dominates at the topic du jour is just....odd. although i learned from matt that napoleon is hung like a bull. so you learn something new everyday. and ingrid learned that i am a raging woman.

---being in a car for thirty minutes, while desperately clutching a dog who's trying to jump out the window onto Highway 101, all the while thinking, "did he just pee on me? i think he peed on me?" is not the best way to spend a half hour.

---30 level sunblock only seems over the top til you go without it for a few hours.

---having your girlfriend's last name attatched to yours by members or her family? not good times. weird times.

---number #16 on the "things ryan never thought he'd ever do": find a really good sale at the Gap and go HOUSE to the glee of the 276 gay male employees there.

---any stripclub called "spearmint rhino" intstantly piques my interest.

---normally i would link to said establishment but God forbid the GF's grandmother finds the link in her browser history.

---i don't remember a 33.6K modem being this tooth-grindingly, mind-numbingly, suicidal thgoughts provokingly sloooow....

2002-07-02T03:31:00.000-04:00

and the sky is clear blue

quick update---arrived here on Saturday in sunny Los Angeles, spent the large part of sunday meeting the girl's extended family (and watched a very small dog try to anal burrow his way into an older female's posterior---a bizarre kinky return to the womb sort of thing that would have been amusing only it was um, not. today was 15 hours at disneyland. it's not a small world after all. it's very big, very crowded, and loves to serve churros every 18 feet.

must...sleep...must be adequately awake to see ingrid tommorow, yea!!!

2002-06-28T12:06:00.000-04:00

all the leaves are brown

...from the extreme heat that's finally hit the East Coast. so i'm movin' out. at least for a week. LA baby.

for a boy who's never been west of the Mississippi, this will be a trip. and kirsten dunst sightings will be duly reported here. other than that, i may not be around too much, internet-ally speaking.

2002-06-27T16:53:00.000-04:00

taking witness arias

DAMNIT

DAMNIT I SAY

the single best hour of TV I had seen since Hush.

how can you not love a show with this sort of dialogue?

Giles: "I have a friend who's coming to town, and I'd like us to be alone."
Anya: "Oh, you mean an orgasm friend?"
Giles: "Yes, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could've said."

man this show is great. which is exactly why it will never win an Emmy.

2002-06-27T15:08:00.000-04:00

get yo' read on

two excellent sites i have discovered recently

bitter girl

and

up_yours

in other Hamlet-centric news, T minus 36 hours 'til I head to LA. try not to miss me guys.

guys?

hello?

bueller?

2002-06-26T15:23:00.000-04:00

hey, a whoppee cushion

lightening things up here:

enjoy.

2002-06-25T19:21:00.000-04:00

oh lord

and filed under "this shouldn't surprise me yet it does" we have the following:

36% of Americans believe that the Bible is the word of God and is to be taken literally.

— TIME/CNN Poll

i'm not one to come down on anyone's religion, especially my own (nominally Catholic), but "living faith" is a lot different than the sort of benign, passive approach listed above. if anything dating a Jewish girl has taught is in the intrinsic nature of debate and argument (not conflict, mind you) as a healthy and necessary part of one's religious experience, both for the self and the community. i had always felt this lack in my own Catholic upbringing, which has since been brought into relief by my limited exposure to her family's relationship with Judaism.

(many catholics may and do feel this active, participatory relationship to their religion and that's cool; it just wasn't for me. i think the last straw was the CCD teacher who told us about her night sharing a Pepsi with Jesus. check please!)

however, being an expert in neither religion i will cease from going further. theology ain't my bag and it probably ain't for this blog. but it just wigged me out to see this, so i thought i'd try to write down why it did for a bit.

2002-06-25T12:05:00.000-04:00

my name is...

well, thanks to this, as shown to me by susan, we have the following interesting facts about me.

Ryan is.....

...not a Web Designer.
...the governor who knew too little.
...gifted in the classroom and on the playing field.
...going to be a rich and famous programmer.
...in a tank unit in Friedberg, Germany
...THE ONTARIO FORMULA FORD CHAMPION !!!!!
...a paratrooper that has been dropped somewhere behind enemy line, in the German territory
...40 degrees Fahrenheit
...populated by a diverse group of 7th and 8th grade students
...SEEKING ARTISTIC MANAGEMENT TO HELP WITH HIS ACTIVE CAREER
...every bit as brutal as you've heard, and probably more intense than you can imagine (unless you've actually been in combat).
...still cruising, although he is testing his balance by letting go of the furniture often.
...now known as Ice Miller.

there you have it. signing out,

Ice Miller

2002-06-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

there and back again

well, the whirlwind 28 hours in NYC were a success....i saw a 3 story indoor ferris wheel in the Times Square, i got to see about 10 old theatre friends from college, and saw Commander Foley's directing debut (which was preceded by some other pieces that need a novel to describe their ineptitude, but at least Foley's was quite fun).

why am i still up at 1 am? after a 22 hour saturday and a looooooong bus ride home yesterday, coupled with waking up this morning to the sounds of my girlfriend screaming "oh f$ck" cuz the alarm didn't go off....well, i should be in a coma. alas. not to be.

maybe it's cuz in 4 days i am heading to LA?? perchance. quite the American traveller, am i. who knew?

2002-06-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

hours

in 24 hours i'll be on a bus to NYC to see Commander Foley's directing debut.

in 9 hours i'll be here.

15 hours ago i was here.

sometimes, life's pretty damn OK.

2002-06-19T16:56:00.000-04:00

###

here are some numbers for you to crunch:

6---number of hours at work today before i was too sick to continue
5---number of hours until i am supposed to be beginning night one of three celebrating jenny's 21st birthday
4---number of minutes between the thoughts "wow, that's the sound of a good ol' fashioned ice cream truck...i haven't heard that in ages!" and "stupid mutherf#ckin' ice cream man, play something besides 'Pop Goes the Weasel" you boil on the ass of society" this afternoon
3---it's a magic number. yes it is. it's a magic number.
2---number of tickets i have for the July 18th John Mayer concert.
1---number of minutes it takes for my just fixed computer to boot up because...
0---number of files they saved while fixing my computer.

yup, starting from scratch. remembering all of my passwords is turning out to be quite the hassle...

2002-06-19T08:48:00.000-04:00

21

happy birthday baby.