Like a dalmatian playing fetch with dynamite, I'm never not blowin' up spots.
This Labor Day weekend, in the cozy 3 bedroom house where my mother grew up in quaint Edgartown, MA, I am going to have visitors staying with me. At last count, 17 of them. They are generally all large, clumsy and belligerent. They are going to be drinking scotch and miller high life. There is a full tank of propane at the side of my deck. And everyone will be dressed in Caddyshack outfits. What could possibly go wrong?
Women have been settling their grudges on the mat for years now. Names like Tonya Harding, Leila Ali, Chyna and Shannon Doherty (well, she'll fight you anywhere) show that celebrity and estrogen-fueled beatdowns can go hand in hand nicely. With that and the recent media blitz from both camps in mind, and given my unhealthy quirk for writing poetry to the daughters of presidential candidates, I give you my promotion...
The Bush Twins vs. The Senator Sisters
K-Y Jelly Wrestling Tag Team Main Event
Madison Square Garden, Friday Sept. 3, 9pm
Will Ferrell Officiating
Tale of the Tape:
The Bush Twins
The current Presidential Daughter titleholders have a no-holds-barred offensive approach. Expect them to go straight for the pin right from the opening bell. Wild child Jenna has been known to employ broken bottles of jack on the opposition in the ring, and the Bush security detail should be more than enough to handle the Kerry agents and come to the assistance of the champs if they need it. This is no doubt one tough matchup for any contenders to face.
The Senator Sisters
This tall duo of lean, mean Massachusetts muscle pose a stiff challenge. Look for a more educated and honed battlefield style, with Alexandra Kerry possibly employing an opportune wardrobe malfunction to dazzle the Bush security detail. The girls are deceptively strong, inheriting half their genetic material from Frankenstein's Monster, and should come to the match well-practiced at parrying techniques to block the infamous Jenna Bush Barroom-Face-Slash with their ever reliable bottles of Heinz 57.
There is no love lost between these two squads, and expect a real bite-and-claw hairpull until the bitter end. The venue's organization is strictly Republican so the Bushes should curry technical homefield advantage during the actual bout, but the Kerrys will most certainly draw encouragement from the cacophony of hundreds of thousands of faithful Democratic hooligans being arrested and beaten around the arena perimeter. A must-see, sign up for pay-per-view today!
And now, a Hai-ku on the ethics of a Battle Royale.
You're O.K. with this?
"Ring the fuckin' bell, you pansy."
You're my boy, Blue.
I'm addicted. Just flat out hooked. I don't care if it's the men's pairs table tennis quarterfinal between South Korea and China/Taipei, I'm going to watch it. This has become a bit of an issue of the last few work days, as I am finding that the 8:30 - 9:30am stretch tends to see a lot of very watchable events smattered across USA (chan. 44), Bravo (chan. 39) and Univision (chan. 17). Earlier in the morning, 7am-8am, I'm at the gym with 6 side-by-side tvs, and NBC, CNBC and MSNBC all air coverage as well and I'm like a fat kid in a candy store. This delays my workout, and then women's beach volleyball or the slavic water polo team delay my leaving for work. But nobody at work seemed to notice, and the Olympics are almost over, so I feel like I can admit these things now and not have to knock on wood over it.
As for the 8pm NBC flagship primetime, I take it all in but not with the same gusto as I do badminton with one sock on over a bowl of crispix at 10 in the morning. The late events spend too much time getting filtered through the editor control room, and cover too much gymnastics without enough non-marquis events with equal or greater drama. For example, I missed almost all crew races in 2004, because of a complete inability to follow schedules-- I just tried to watch whenever I could find a tv. I'm a bit pissed about that. Especially considering this story about the 23 year old australian girl who stopped rowing with 650 meters to go in the medal race with her team in 4th. I didn't see it, but Row2k has me filled in enough to just be dumbfounded. Oh and the US men's 8 won gold. So many stories.
But all the drama of sport aside, with the Olympics there's still always one reason above all else to tune in...
The New York Post. It only costs a quarter, and in an age of $5 coffee this seems like an incredible value, even for budget pseudo-news. The NY Times makes you break change, so you just wait to read it online. The Daily News smells funny and the ink rubs off too easily. Newsday is a rag for lining the shirts of vagrants in February. But the Post, so long as you drop your coin into the Pakistani palm with an appropriate sense of ironic nonchalance, is a perfect single-serving of skeezy news, short AP headlines, witty sports banners and oh-so-delicious gossip to have a head start on Gawker reading. Just steer clear of the Op-Eds and don't ever get caught in a Post-related conversation with a lifer secretary, and you're set. Well, almost. See, occasionally, it can't help but rear its head as a hilariously bad newspaper.
Today's New York Pulse section features the article "Singles Making Tracks for the F". According to Maureen Callahan, "For singles, the hot new scene has no guest list, drink minimum or membership fee- and the price of admission is just $2. It's the F train." Highlights of the always newsworthy Craigslist: Missed Connections page round out her expose, with a couple interviewees rattling off stations where they'd seen hot people. Most of the page is taken up by a full size shot of this.
Jacket & Tie with Diesels really works for you, firebush. And that furled Post is a nice touch.
The article's cutting-edge trendiness for the real pulse of New York is what most astounds. About two years ago, when I worked for the Mayor reading city news, I had to outline a story about a grassroots email campaign to set the first car of every subway as a singles' car. A single Park Slope resident taking the F to and from work, I even did some g-sleuthing-- not too much of a stretch since I'm always people and/or freak-watching on the trains anyway. Alas, nothing to report. A car full of Mexicans, teenage moms and seedy brooklynites does not a singles car make. This story was D.O.A. straight out of the can in '02, and has unfortunately stayed that way-- even despite the efforts of the clever advertising people at Smirnoff Ice who've since shown us how to do a party on a subway car right.
Lifer secretaries. We all sit over a cubicle partition or workstation cabinet from a few of these, and they generally blend into the hallway scenery, like the stained coffeepots, thumbtacked childrens photos, and monitor-riding beanie babies that also inhabit their desk areas. I've sat at the desk of a lifer secretary past 9pm to check email before going home for the night, long after their kind has retired to Staten Island dwellings, and everything from the die-cast contour of the long-suffering chair to the precise angle of the triple-decker phone caller-id screen shouted "Intruder!" at me as I uneasily padded my fingertips on a scratched keyboard that has felt only the clacking of acryllic-layer nails since it came out of an I.T. bin 6 years ago. We tend not to notice lifer secretaries in the same way that giraffes and water buffalo don't notice each other; we might be on the same plain, but our grazing happens worlds apart. It is therefore a startling system shock anytime we find ourselves interacting.
A while ago, I was using the document scanner in the secretary workstation 10 obscured-vision feet and one dimension away, when one sociable Winston-smoking secretary asked about the yellow bracelet on my right wrist. I told her about cyclist Lance Armstrong's Cancer foundation, and she correctly placed cyclist Lance Armstrong as the guy in France. Last week, the day after NJ Governor James McGreevey's admission of gay infidelity and resignation, I found myself back in the same secretary station, getting some shipping labels from a cabinet, when my Winston-smoking friend perked up at my presence, looked me over, and innocently asked, "Is that bracelet one of those sexual awareness things?" Hmm. Maybe I need to start harassing more of my coworkers.
Spent the weekend at the old roommate's hippy home in Orleans, marvelling at the wit of his father for putting the vanity plate "ONCA" on his new V8 beast of a Jaguar. (Do you get it? No? Shame. Answer is here.) This is replacing the Acura Legend with almost 300,000 miles, whose passenger door didn't work requiring me to enter ala Luke Duke in the General Lee. We took a Saturday afternoon run up to Provincetown, which was about as much fun as it could be for two straight guys by themselves. We gave up on the people-watching, chowder and booze-ice cream when the rain set in. Sitting on the beach the next day under a cloudless sky with a Rolling Rock, I figured out watching the girl next to me why Michelob Ultra has fewer calories and carbs than other beers-- they're served in 10 oz. cans! This is a rip-off of humungous proportions; and I just wish I worked for their marketing team. Hot girl chases me around a track, across a swimming pool and up some stadium steps, then buys me a midget beer when she catches me? Like Sam Jennings at Columbia's Fed, I'm sold.
When I quoted Top Gun earlier to herald the advent of my newest techno-gizmo phone, I should have looked deeper into the film's uncanny wisdom for the above product review offered by Maverick. The Slider has washed out of Miramar due to frequency of dropped calls and buttons too small for anybody but a carnie to love. I traded it in, and even got money back on the exchange. Behold my newest (3rd in a month) body part; it's back to the clamshell flip for me!
CNN is just now picking up a story I took flak for reporting on last week. Never doubt my editorial decisions; I am the finger in the ass of what will and will not be News.
On a side note, keep an eye out any day now for ever-journalistic Shepard Smith of Fox News to pick up on reports that really hot triplets will be attending Cambridge University in the fall...
My clearest memory of not getting to play a sport came during recess kickball in the 3rd grade. Alex Wolf, the scrawny nerd with thick glasses, even got picked for one team because he was friends with another kid picked. I did not get picked. I watched the whole game from the sidelines, hurt and dejected and secretly hoping for some massive kickball-to-the-face injury to open a spot on a team for me, so I could prove to everybody how foolish they'd been not to grab me when they first could. But then I grew bigger, then much bigger, and was able to put these slights in the past. At least until yesterday, when my 10-man company softball team asked me to volunteer to help fill absences on the roster and then left me on the bench all game.
A word on grown men who take softball leagues waaaay to seriously; these guys deserve an MTV documentary titled something like "TO THE MAXXX!" All fun was removed from the game I watched from the sidelines; it was kill or be killed, using aluminum bats and a large, squishy soft ball. This game had everything; men screaming at other men to be more aggressive, ear-curling curses after every poor at-bat, furious accusations between innings over shoddy throws, a bench pep-rally speech as the game went to extra innings... even a dirt-scuffing, chest-bumping, bat-wielding argument with a Cuban Umpire. And I grumpily sat on the bench, unplayed despite my knack for pinch-hit homeruns, through the whole thing.
Well, "grumpily" until I realized that if they invited me and I wasn't going to play, I might as well drink one of the three sixpacks they brought. Which I did. Over-the-top softball and drinking go together quite well.
Today's News Headlines.
MORE TOP STORIES
• Police: Laci's mom lashed out at Peterson Video
• Eight in court on U.S. terror plot charges The charges
• Kerry challenges Bush troop plan Video
• Florida island hard hit by Charley reopens Video
• Paris Hilton offers missing dog reward
• Bush touts new benefits for reservists Video
• Tough times for U.S. tennis team
Comment from a CNBC source's email, titled 'Sign of the Apocalypse?':
"Does it strike anyone as strange that the fifth top story on CNN's website is about Paris Hilton's missing dog... ahead of Bush's campaign stops in the swing states?"
Good question. But I think the Apocalypse was heralded earlier this summer, when CBS unveiled that their fall primetime lineup would include three different shows about fat men with hot wives.
On a side note, Gawker offers advice for Paris free of charge. "the damn dog is likely crushed to death at the bottom of her over-stuffed Birkin bag."
My parents are coming out of their initial shock of what happened, and took the time to rightly confirm for me on the phone last night that my sister's two brothers are, in fact, incredibly incapable idiots. That's a lot of I's to sew on my clothes.
A grooved dent in my desk is forming nicely, but so far I'm still feeling pretty stupid. I wonder if I could read a book or something on how to be smarter.
A good lesson to learn from a bad weekend event- when falling down drunk, under no circumstances assume you are capable of making important decisions when the lifelong physical appearance of loved ones is at stake. That said, I may never be able to consider myself as anything but a miserable idiot for the rest of my days. And I've also been to my last wedding for a LONG time.
On Saturday at the wedding after-party bar, my beautiful 18 year old sister burned her face. My brother and I were talking a short distance away, and never saw the incredibly idiot brit groomsman showing her how to put a shot of sambuca in her mouth, then light it there before drinking. Only she didn't get it down-- and burning liquor scorched her when it came out. Somebody then took her out of the bar and back to the hotel where the wedding had been. I only found out what happened a long time after, when one of the boys with her when she did it brought her out of the lobby holding ice on her lips and cheeks. And while I know I could do nothing about this until this point, from here on out everything falls squarely on drunk, idiot me. The thoughts "Hospital!" or even "Ask a sober parent!" never crossed into my head (likely due to the mile-thick skull.) I just focused my double vision long enough to diagnose her blisters as "not that bad, you get them on your hands from crew all the time, and it'll be a few days before you start to feel better," put her in a cab (we'd lost my idiot brother somewhere) and took her home, where I tried to make her feel a little better before finally passing out. The next morning, in addition to my being vomitously hungover, my sisters' blisters had turned angry and red, and my parents husled her off to a hospital and then to Mass General's Children Burn Center. My diagnosis was a little off; she'll be fully recovered in about 9-12 months, after spending her sophomore year at a southern college wearing zinc anytime she goes out in the sun.
Also in about 9-12 months, I expect to have worn away some of the excess skull from the front of my head, by continous banging of my head on a desk. Hopefully that'll work out for me, and I'll never figure out a way to top this as my single worst performance as a human, ever.
It has been brought to my attention that my performance levels are waning lately.
Was it Chris Rock who said “Calling a man out for laziness is like playing basketball with a retarded kid, and calling him for double dribble”? Well if you know anything about me, you should know I qualify for that in spades. But in truth, I’ve really been pushing it of late—today I looked up my billed-time utilization at work, and it’s hovering around 50%, while the ideal is at least 80%. That’s probably gonna get noticed sooner or later. So, since halting my weekday-boozing habits to get to work earlier, be more productive, and get to blogging sooner just isn’t an option, I’m going to need to find time somewhere else in my day. Maybe I’ll stop watching 3 hours of history channel and E true Hollywood story reruns every evening. I might consider not playing a full 9 innings of cell-phone baseball while sitting in the bathroom. Perhaps spending 45 minutes properly stacking my macaroni & cheese boxes in the coolest configuration, while the rest of the apartment was a mess, wasn’t the wisest use of time. I’ve also been known to lose more than a few precious moments of free time to staring blankly into space, contemplating nothing but the whir of my own idle brain’s hard drive fan. So, thank you, anonymous. You have sparked a reckoning; I’m turning over a new leaf. A new, uber-Andrew should be appearing forthwith. Crazy-sex-on-NY-swings stories will follow shortly. Now if you excuse me, I have to go put in my tuxedo, get on the Chinatown bus, and make a drunken ass out of myself at a wedding again.
Given all the crazy news this afternoon with sodomy in the NJ government, maelstroms rearing at Florida, locust swarms tearing swaths across Africa and hundreds dying in Asian flooding, I think that this little story about Edgartown, MA was just the sort of pick-me-up I needed. Enjoy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/science/12bird.html
This story gives yet another reason to feel squeamish at all these summer weddings...
Although I'm not looking for a job, there is no way I could pass up Wonkette's challenge to would-be-assistants of writing her Gore-themed hai kus.
My submission:
Woe your staged embrace!
Better had your girls swapped spit,
Stirring hearts of men.
A talk show where the pundits booze it up while loudly making points over one another? My friends and I call that "Monday night!" I'd be a natural, plus I'm already in with a CNBC booker. On the downside, I bet they film out in Englewood... and in my opinion, once you find yourself wasted in Jersey on weekdays during business hours, you've tailspun to a low from which it's pretty hard to recover.
i.e., a first-timer's weekend trip to the Hamptons and back.
Any place that can be equally identified with family farmer's markets, suntans, surfing, beach soccer, 4 lb. lobster dinners on a pier, bitchy women in Porche SUVs, staggering about drunk on the highway and dodging bathroom coke lines deserves carefully balanced consideration.
Having covered all those bases in the last two days, I feel I can safely report: done right, the Hamptons rock. At the far end of Long Island, past the braying NYers too wound-up to relax even though they're honestly trying, there is a quiet, easygoing, local-friendly strip reminiscent of New England's coast that is just breathtaking. It was the sort of place where I could imagine just hanging out with Billy Joel (walking, not driving) and chatting up "Downeaster Alexa" lyrics. I mentioned that it looks like sunlight hits the earth differently out there, in a way that would seem fictionally unbelievable if not seen in person. (The R.I. roommate felt obligated to point out that Montauk is at the same latitude as his homestate, but I'm not sold on Providence's natural beauty just yet... streaks of sunlight shimmering through the trees to illuminate vagrants, boarded up row-houses, and Fleet ATMs doesn't quite have the same appeal.)
Friday. I'm so out of here for my first Hamptons weekend ever. Yes, I have the Portsmouth Yamaha polo shirt and Martha's Vineyard embroidered belt. I also brought bocce. Because everybody knows those Hamptonites appreciate their italian culture.
Stuck On You:
This story put a new perspective on referring to my friends and their ubiquitous girlfriends as "Velcro Twins" or as a compounding of first names (Mattria, Richelle, Tonali, Iamy... etc).
MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- A German prisoner in Madrid and his girlfriend glued their hands together during a jail visit in an attempt to fight the man's possible extradition to Germany, judicial sources said on Thursday."...authorities want [a separate judicial case] resolved before any handover to Germany." Haha! Handover!
Check this site out. It applies real-life physics to common cinematic foibles, with a perfect dorky-satire/cynicism. The movie reviews at the bottom are a delight! I'll need to find a way to work some of this into a physics lab report when I enroll this fall...
Flaming Cars
Ever notice how cars in movies always burst into flames the instant they collide with anything? Our favorite is when a car falling from a high place explodes the instant before it hits the ground. It's as though its gas tank gets panicky and detonates at the mere thought of striking Earth. Fortunately, the physics are not so cooperative. Gasoline has a very narrow flammable range of about 1.4 to 7.6 % gasoline vapor in air. For a car to explode during impact the tank must catastrophically rupture and spew a fine mist of gasoline over a large area so it can vaporize and mix with air in exactly the right proportions. The mixture must then find a source of ignition. Automobile gas tanks are built to withstand a considerable impact force and are usually located in a protected area between the beams of a car's frame. Common ignition sources in the car's engine are generally at the other end of the vehicle.
Take that, suspension of disbelief!
I hate getting all technical on you, but for the last 2 weeks, I seem to be having this worsening problem on the right side of my face. With talking. And eating. Gulp.
1. Temporomandibular Joint: The TMJ is the articulation between the condyle of the mandible and the squamous portion of the temporal bone.
2. How does TMJ dysfunction feel?
The pain may be sharp and searing, occurring each time you swallow, yawn, talk, or chew, or it may be dull and constant. It hurts over the joint, immediately in front of the ear, but pain can also radiate elsewhere. It often causes spasms in the adjacent muscles that are attached to the bones of the skull, face, and jaws. Then, pain can be felt at the side of the head (the temple), the cheek, the lower jaw, and the teeth.
3. People say my symptoms are all in my head. My friends and family don't believe me when I describe my pain. I'm worried that I'm going crazy.
Your symptoms are real. No one should tell you that you are crazy or that you are exaggerating your pain. Only you know what you are feeling. It may be difficult for your family and friends to understand what you are going through, especially if they have never heard of TMJ.
So... what's the deal? Is this thing gonna go away by itself without me having to change my behavior in any way, or what? I don't do injuries well, probably because I'm too lazy to go through regimens for fixing myself from them...
My former college 3-time roommate has moved back in with me. We are full circle. I will below paste a excerpt of an email exchange from last night... nothing like getting things off on the right foot.
Subject: RE: last night
Yes I need your aesthetic reaction to various things; tv stand, towel rack, protein powder, etc.......
[me]Reply: RE: last night
oh i can give you a sum-up version in 30 seconds. TV stand is a hit, we use it and find something else to do with that folding table doubling as a tv stand now. The protein/fresh direct business will work out once we consolidate cabinets; I'll give you the shelf space you need. We'll put together your desk, clean stuff up off the floor, and set roomba loose for a while, no problems there. But the bathroom... we need to talk. I'd assumed I had found a way to incorporate all of your 'isms, quirks, and niceties into my routine at this point without having anything really get to me, so long as your sister remained outside the city limits. I spoke too soon. Because that nasty contraption dangling in my face when I shower has become my nemesis... no, my archenemy. I hate it. I hate the burger-flipper wood handle. I hate the ripped, dangling loofa-piece that pseudopods from the main body, like the whole thing is trying to unravel but can't quite pull from the nasty, tattered center strong enough to slither away and create a little loofa-colony in some dark corner. I hate how it looks. I hate how it smells. A history lesson: Ancient Roman bathhouses used to have communal toilets, and while deucing and chatting, those quaint italian senators and centurions would pass around a stick with a sea sponge attached to the end. And each would use it to wipe himself, then pass it down the line. And this what you have brought into my home. A Roman Shitstick. For shame.
Reply: RE: last night
I hate to break it to you, but back scrubbers are common shower tools, utilized in over 35% of US households. Conceptually, I dont think I will be able to part with one. However, it appears you have issues with my current model, the X14, so I will happily upgrade to a brand spanking new X15 if you so desire........
Handling the weekend news of Red Sox Nomar Garciaparra's trade to the Cubs has been tough. What does it say when the article most resonant with my hurt feelings is written for parents with their 9 year olds in mind? "Nomar's better than Jeter" has been a staple in my anti-Yankee diet for going on a decade now, and scrambling for a suitable replacement (Varitek can whoop A-Rod?) is still far off. The OCD Georgia Tech grad from Southern Cali with a mentality like Ted Williams and a first name tailor-made for Red Sox Nation has been my favorite active position player since I first saw him tug at his gloves in 1996. Guess I'll need to find my way out to Wrigley sooner than I thought. Go Cubbies? (Nahhhhh)
I think a lot, on occasion.
