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Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Notes from the inferno


First and foremost I apologize for the extended delay, it's been a crazy couple of weeks over here in Natesylvania (a.k.a. California). With so much to catch up on I think we're going to have to go outline style. I also feel like Venn diagrams are in order, which by the way are clearly the greatest type of diagram, but since I can't draw one here you're just going to have to imagine.

In which disaster stikes - in the most mundane way possible
So for a little while there a solid portion of my part of the country was on fire. Now there was nothing to worry about, the closest the fire came to us was Malibu, but in all seriousness the smoke was so thick in the air it was noticeably harder to breathe. Still, I didn't realize how bad things were until the impossibly-handsome CNN anchor Anderson Cooper showed up. Cooper only bothers to show up for real tragedies, he almost trampled other reporters in his hurry to get to New Orleans and "feel the pain" of Katrina survivors, so when he showed up in Southern California I got legitimately worried. As the fire grew cops were telling people to leave their homes, and many understandably refused - they should have send Cooper. That would have done it for me:
Fireman: Sir, you're going to have to evacuate your home.
Me: No way, I'll stay and fight the flames myself, my life is inside that home.
Anderson Cooper: Sir, if you're going to stay and battle this fire do you mind if I do a quick interview?
Me: Honey get the kids! Fucking Anderson Cooper is here, things must be even worse than I thought, we're all gonna die! Get out of my way Cooper! I'm outta here!

The point is that even thought I lived just a few miles from some of the fires it was more of a media event than anything, for the most part my life was completely unaffected...except my cell phone service! Apparently the fires knocked out cell phone towers, and with so many calls going through fewer and fewer towers service was terrible. I called T-Mobile to see what the deal was and they assured me that, and I quote, "we've got a team reconstructing and rerouting the towers now." So what, I'm supposed to believe that there's some sort of T-Mobile firefighting swat teams that rushes into blazing infernos so I can check my voicemail? If they're really that good I'd frankly rather have them, I don't know, saving people's lives for example. Thousands of people lost thier homes, I lost the ability to text message. Still, as long as Andeson Cooper doesn't show up I'll be fine.

In which I mingle with celebrities - kind of
This being the city it is I've had a few paparazzi worthy moments in the past few weeks, most of which were of course completely devoid of paparazzi.
The Rakim Episode - So I went to a concert for a little musical enjoyment and the chance to talk to Rakim, the man widely regarded by hip-hop lovers as the greatest rapper to ever live. He was incredibly intelligent and nice, everything I could have hoped for, and then at the exact second that I managed to finagle a photo op his security guard decided to step in front of the camera (see above). So it's me, Rakim, and this guy's red shirt. Thanks a lot security guy, I will hate you forever.
The Stone Cold Steve Austin Episode - For those not in the know, and I barely am, until relatively recently Stone Cold Steve Austin was the most famous wrestler in the country, a man famous for beating the bejeezus out of opponents and then pouring beer over their prone bodies. He also apparently likes to wait in front of me in airport security lines. For a solid fifteen minutes we did they “can you believe some people still don’t know they have to take their shoes off” thing as we waited. At one point an elderly woman has forgotten to empty her water bottle and he turned to me, “Fuckin amateur hour today.”
“Amateur hour,” I agreed, silently hoping he take the offending grandma into some kind of choke hold. Not that I advocate anti-grandma violence, it just occurred to me that would literally be the most interesting I’d ever see. Needless to say he did not body slam the woman. Pity. And that my friends is the story of me and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The Andre 3000 Episode – I really wish this were a cooler story, but in many ways it’s the epitome of West Hollywood life. I was coming down the escalator, up comes Andre 3000, the unbelievably talented Outkast member and burgeoning actor, presumably to watch a movie at the independent theater I had just come from. Unable to help myself I completely turned to follow him as we passed each other on the escalators. For a moment I was seriously considering running up the down escalator after him, but luckily that struck me as a very creepy maneuver, which it would have been. That’s West Hollywood for you; you won’t meet famous people, but you’ll pass by them on the escalator and immediately lose all sense of self-respect and dignity. Home sweet home.

In which my employment status improves notably
The primary reason I’ve been so slow on the blogging is believe it or not I finagled some poor unsuspecting publication into making me an associate editor, which means I’ve finally joined the fully 9-5 working world. Praise jesus I don’t work in a cubicle, but on your average day I might indeed engage in “talk” around the water cooler and unreasonably flip out when someone doesn’t change the filter in the coffee machine. How fucking hard is it to change a filter! I’ll end there at the risk of turning this into a Dilbert cartoon. The point is the new job is good times and now that I’m no longer going the extra mile to stop being “the new guy” I can start slacking again and writing blog entries. More to follow, I promise, or may Anderson Cooper rip out my still beating heart.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Cops: West Hollywood editon

So first things first; I've been working on adding some video to the ol' Republic of Blogistan for a little while. This is obvioulsy my first go around, so I apologize in advance for any technical problems. If for whatever reason you can't watch this let me know, I should have it down pat in no time. As always, feel free to call Time Warner Cable's customer support line for assistance. They'll be just as capabe of fixing my blog as they are my televsion, meaning not at all.

Now that we've got the niceites out of the way...if you see West Hollywood on television or the movies (highly likely, ask any Entourage or TMZ viewer) you'd think the worst problem we have around her is 75 pound models running over children and puppies in their BMWs. Most of the time you'd be right, but there's something else brewing just below the surface. Ninety percent of the time my neighborhood is calm and nice, then suddenly it's flooded with police. Flooded I tell you! Once a week the police shut down the street for some major operation, but nothing ever happens. Last week nine squad cars blocked off my street, stormed into the apartment building next door, and spent the next two hours hanging out and playing Jenga on their squad cars. Despite all this action nothing ever happens. I'm contantly running out of my apartment to watch some swat team shoot out, then thirty minutes later the cops get in their cars and leave with nary a beaten black guy in sight. What the hell is up with my neighborhood? You'd think there was some international drug smuggling ring going on. Nope. My imagination/paranoia is starting to run wild so I've decided to share it with you, in what could very well become a weekly column, the Random Fairfax Ave. Arrest of the Week!

This one followed the most anti-climactic chase ever. The gentlemen being arrested was booking it down the street like he'd just shot the president, and then the moment the squad pulled up alongside him he completely gave up. Just stopped dead in his tracks and laid down in the street. I'm sure police officers reading this (unlikely) won't be happy with me but i feel like if you're going to run, then run! It's a sad sign of our times that people just can't seem to commit to anything anymore, even evading the cops.

What did he do? Your guess is as good as mine. The guy in the green shirt seems to hold the key but I'm just not a good enough sleuth to figure it out. I welcome, highly welcome, suggestions as to what this guy did to get himself arrested. I've though eveything, from shoplifting to assasination of a foreign diplomat. On a side note, what is the deal with that one cop's hair? It's like some sort of circular mohawk, frankly I've never seen anything like it. Is there a name for that paticular hairstyle. He looks vaguely like an egret. So enjoy the video (I hope) and successive ones hereafter, maybe together we can figure out just what the hell is going on in my neighborhood. Strange things are afoot in WeHo my friends, strange things.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Hater Nation Part 2


I’m sure somewhere a puppy is frolicking through a field of buttercups while blue jays hover around his adorable head, but right now I have the flu. My head feels like a recycled tire so I see no reason why anyone else should be happy. You’re welcome. So what better time for another edition of Hater Nation, my little list of things that are currently deserving of my ire? Let’s not wait around any longer.

Western medicine – So let me get this straight; you can clone a person but you can’t cure the flu? Now granted I’m no doctor (though I have played one in the privacy of my own home), but that doesn’t make any fucking sense. How hard can it be to cure the flu? Pharmaceutical companies have taken care of balding men who can’t get erections just fine. Going to the doctor and being told to drink plenty of liquids is like going to a restaurant and the chef telling you he can’t boil water, but he’d be glad to serve you some foie gras. Screw you western medicine.

Jose Mota – Mota’s doing the sideline reporting for the Boston Red Sox playoffs. If the only requirement this job was the ability to breathe he’d suffocate. His report on pitcher Josh Beckett’s blister problems just went like this: “Florida hot so Josh Beckett pitcher problems blister have improved in Boston.” This guy makes the cast of The Hills look like Rhodes scholars.

Time Warner Cable – It’s as if Satan and Hitler had a baby, dipped it in tar and broken glass, and gave it control over most of Los Angeles’ televisions. I would seriously rather watch the Britney Spears performance on a continuous loop then call their customer service. Their favorite move is to offer you a $5 discount for service problems. Guess what Time Warner, $5 off crap is still crap. How about you just fix my reception instead.

John Cougar Mellencamp – I know what you’re thinking, how could I possibly hate anyone with the middle name Cougar? Good question, I do respect his parents for having the guts to name their child after a mammal of the Felidae family, but I’ve been forced to listen to that “this is our country” song approximately 74,000 times. I know Chevy’s demographics favor the Midwest, but the commercials show legions of white people hopping off tractors while eating apple pie and watching 4th of July fireworks explode in the background. It’s like Field of Dreams, except James Earl Jones isn’t invited. Yeah, that’s absolutely nothing like my country. My country mostly consists of riding the bus with Guatemalan gardeners on their way to Beverly Hills landscaping jobs. How about it Chevy?

People who hit the elevator button repeatedly – Not to sound like a Seinfeld stand up routine, but if you come up to an elevator, and I’m standing there, and the elevator button is light up, but you decide to press it again just in case I’m so retarded I can’t properly push a button, I will break you kneecap. Also deserving consideration is the guy who pushes the crosswalk button 47 times. You can press it all you want, the first time was enough, the light’s not going to change any faster. The elevator/green light is coming, if you can’t wait with the rest of us I’m going to call my friends down at Animal Planet and have them shoot a tranquilizer dart into your neck from a helicopter like you’re an injured gazelle. Got it? Speaking of which...

People with tasers – They’ve given security guards tasers on a pretty consistent basis now and they seemingly can’t stop electrocuting people. The John Kerry campaign tasered the bejeezus out a guy who’s only crime was being incredibly annoying. Infinitely worse and closer to home was the UCLA incident when a student was tasered six times for failing to show ID in the library. It’s simple human nature; when you give someone the ability to electrocute anyone who aggravates them, they’re going to light people up like a Christmas tree. That’s why I don’t own a taser gun. I’m not necessarily against police having them, but at UCLA it was the library security guards. Have you ever seen library guards? If there was ever a group of people who shouldn’t be allowed to carry tasers it’s them. If they had guns students would be getting shot left and right for overdue books.

We’re only scratching the surface of the things I hate list but if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go enjoy the hallucinations my fever is bringing on. I’m sure by this point you’re wondering about the picture above. Well my father, in his infinite wisdom, threw me a Care Bear birthday party. He then made me pose with said Care Bear paraphernalia and has been hating on me ever since, saying I’m not man enough to post a picture online featuring me and a stuffed animal with a cupcake on it’s stomach. You can stop hating now dad.





Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The Hipsters Are Coming!

There are a lot of things wrong with this country. Domino’s Oreo Pizza (a.k.a. diabetes in a box) comes to mind, along with the 101 highway in Los Angeles, which was recently closed down because a house got trapped under an overpass. Seriously, a fucking house. But I feel it’s my duty as a reporter to alert my readers to the latest plague sweeping the nation, hipsters. Those of you in San Francisco know exactly what I’m talking about, but the rest of the country needs to be adequately prepared for the throngs of skinny white kids that will soon be bombarding their streets, leaving a trail of ironic destruction in their wake. I know you’re probably filled with fear right now but don’t worry, I’m here to answer all your questions.

What are hipsters?
Hipsters are a relatively new phenomenon, only gaining serious traction in the last five years or so. Mostly white, mostly middle class, hipsters have dedicated their lives to invading and subsequently ruining every respectably cool neighborhood, restaurant, and concert you’ve ever been to.

What are hipsters about?
Hipsters operate under the premise that they’re cooler, nay hipper, than you. Whoever you are. These are kids who for the most part grew up in middle class neighborhoods but are determined not to be associated with the privileges they’ve been given. They attempt to distance themselves from their decidedly uncool suburban past by adopting certain elements of lower class culture, while simultaneously maintaining their superiority over people who are actually lower class. Basically they want to have the “authenticity” of poor people without any of the problems, like not being able to use your lawyer dad’s credit card to buy shoes.

How can I recognize a hipster?
Just look for anything that smacks of irony. The most ready example is the trucker hat. Hipsters wore these mesh chapeaus as a nod to perhaps the least hip profession in the country, truckers. Trucker hats were about as uncool as you could get, therefore hipsters thought they were incredibly cool. Then trucker hats become widely popular, meaning hipsters could no longer wear because people who pretend to own John Deere tractors are lame, as opposed to when hipsters first did it as an ironic statement. Confused? You’re not the only one. Let’s keep going. What’s the official beer of the working class? It’s undoubtedly Pabst Blue Ribbon, so hipsters drink it by the gallon, the idea being they can’t afford any “fancier” beers, though they’ve conveniently overlooked the fact the bar they’re in is next to a sushi restaurant and not a Midwest steel factory. And they’re all incredibly skinny. Poor people are the most obese population in America largely because the only nutrition they have access too is fast food. But fat people aren’t particularly cool, so hipsters go to their local Whole Foods, buy organic seaweed, and watch the pounds melt off. If you’ve ever spent $200 on a pair of white jeans designed to look like you bought them at a thrift store, you’re a hipster.

Why should I hate them?
God there are so many reasons. The detached air of superiority drives me insane, I just have a hard time being called a sell-out by someone who’s parents spent $10,000 a year to place them in a private school for kindergarten. But it’s mostly the attempt to live in this netherworld between middle class privilege and lower class hardship. Sorry, you just don’t get to have it both ways. Either use your parents’ credit card and admit your mom drove you to soccer practice in a Dodge Grand Caravan , or actually work for a living and realize being poor sucks. You’ve got to pick one and go with it like the rest of us. Fair warning to any hipsters out there; I’m about ready to snap. If one more of you aviator glasses-wearing motherfuckers asks me for spare change I’m going rip that Virginia is for Lovers t-shirt off your back and strangle you with it.

I don’t care where you live, hipsters are coming for you. I’ve seen them walking around suburban malls; because only cool people go to the mall, which would make people at malls actually uncool, which would in turn make a hipster (who makes the uncool cool through irony) at the mall cool. It’s so mind boggling ridiculous I can’t handle it. So there, you’ve been warned. I’m highly encouraging everyone to band together and fight this threat. Start neighborhood watch groups, send in pictures of hipsters around your neighborhood so we can identify them, do whatever you have to do. Together we can stop hipsterism from spreading.

Still not sure what a hipster is? Watch this video.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Nothing Realy Matters



The world’s spinning so fast I’m nauseous. Today General Petraeus testified to Congress about the situation in Iraq (downgraded from apocalyptic to atrocious), rebels bombed gas lines throughout Mexico, and exiled Pakistani prime-minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested and deported to Saudi Arabia. Big freakin deal, Britney Spears made her public performance return last night. Thinking about the world’s problems make me depressed, the type of depression that only eating frosting straight out the container can cure. So before I get so fat I have to scratch my back with a stick, let’s just focus on all stories out there that don’t really matter. They’re the best kind anyway, beginning with…

The aforementioned Ms. Spears performed last night at the MTV awards and I’m still busy scrubbing my retinas with a toothbrush to try to erase the image. I hoped for the best while preparing for the worst, but sweet jesus on a bicycle that was awful. She looked like a 40 year old stripper in some nightclub in Nebraska; squeezed into a regrettably scandalous outfit and only occasionally remembering she was supposed to look like she was enjoying herself. She was clearly just waiting until it was over so she could go smoke a pack of Newports and down a couple Coors Lights. Fame has chewed her up and spit her out, no one looks good covered in fame-y saliva.

President/dictator/ Hugo Chavez is pushing legislation through the Venezuelan legislature that would make crazy names illegal. The law lists 100 names that parents will no longer be able to name their children, including Hengelberth, Maolenin, Kerbert Krishnamerk, Githanjaly, Yornaichel, and Nixon. Venezuela has an international reputation as the world’s insane name capital and it would be a real shame to see them lose their status. Plus, it seems like a completely unenforceable law, there are simply too many name possibilities to ever eradicate the problem. Sure you can outlaw Hengelberth, but what’s to stop me from naming my son Holmes Air Purifier Slavik? Actually, that’s not only the first thing I saw when I looked around the room, but actually kind of a cool name. I wouldn’t name my first born child that, but if I convert to fundamental Mormonism and have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 kids, number 101 is gonna be named Holmes Air Purifier Slavik. That’s a promise.

Kanye West and 50 Cent both have albums coming out tomorrow and the kinda-coincidence has been turned into a marketing/media frenzy. The cover of Rolling Stone has them face-to-face like rival boxers. Who’s going to sell more albums? Who’s the biggest name in hip-hop? Who fucking cares, and why does this kind of thing only happen in hip-hop? If Maroon 5 and Nickelback had albums coming out on the same day they’d probably send each other good luck cards and a cheese platter. It’s a sign of how desperate artists and labels have become in the face of lagging sales that they have to resort to this kind of chicanery. For the record lesbian folk heroine Ani DiFranco has an album coming out on the same day too. Hear that 50? Ani’s coming for you homeboy. Oh, it’s on.

Another hilarious moment from the MTV Awards: Justin Timberlake tells MTV to stop running reality show crap and get back to showing music videos while the cast of The Hills stands mere feet away. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about let me think of an appropriate analogy. Ok, it would be like a doctor telling an obese man that if he’s doesn’t stop eating fried chicken he’s going to die, only the man is Colonel Sanders. Now replace the doctor with Justin Timberlake, fried chicken with reality shows, and Colonel Sanders with a collection of rich girls from Hollywood that have to wear flip-flops because they get confused by shoelaces. Got it?

Are you sick of talking about Sen. Craig’s arrest for soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom? I’m not. So far his excuses have been painfully lame, it would appear the man just likes him some airport lovin. If I was doing spin control here’s some excuses I would have written up: Craig is a former Broadway tap dancer who was merely practicing his routine, not tapping out a code asking an undercover cop to take off his pants. Actually, Broadway tap dancer sounds pretty gay too. What if he has a very rhythmic form of Tourettes? Or he was simply out of toilet paper and trying to see if the guy in the next stall had any. Bingo, that’s it. It’s not very dignified, but neither is getting arrested in an airport bathroom. I really feel like “ran out of toilet paper” is the way to go. Someone get Craig on the phone, I think I just found my calling.

San Francisco City Supervisor Ed Jew is currently being investigated for lying about his residency. It turns out he doesn’t live in San Francisco at all, a federal crime for someone who filed candidacy papers attesting otherwise. That’s not funny. What is humorous is the media coverage. It’s newspaper protocol to only refer to a person by their last name, almost never including their first. So the headline would be “Bush says troops will stay in Iraq until Baghdad is as safe as Detroit” not “George Bush says…” Of course it’s a whole different ballgame is your last name happens to be Jew. The San Francisco Chronicle’s editors are understandably uneasy about headlines like “Jew wanted for questioning” and so have decided to only refer to him as Ed Jew. Plus last night a homeless mayoral candidate named Grasshopper Kaplan was arrested for trespassing at Ed Jew’s home, meaning that for the first time in history we could have legitimately read the headline, “Grasshopper arrested for stalking Jew.” Which is all just further proof that San Francisco is indeed the craziest city in America. God I love that place.

What was the point of today’s article? I don’t really know. How’s this: no matter how screwed up your life is, you’ll still look like Mr. Rogers compared to Britney Spears. I should have that embroidered on a pillow. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a tub of frosting waiting for me.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Lost and Found: Hollywood Editon


This is Hollywood baby. Actually, it’s West Hollywood. Hollywood is full of was museums, tourists, and junkies. West Hollywood is the home of exclusive nightclubs, power lunches, and actresses so thin they might as well be junkies. If you’ve ever spent any time in WeHo (as us locals call West Hollywood, much to my amusement) you know it’s only a matter of time before a waiter pushes a movie script into your hands and whispers, “are you in the industry?” Well, exactly such a script has fallen into my hands, seriously. If I was going to make up a fake movie script I would call it If Tomorrow Never Comes, this one is titled The Promethean by Paul Lingas. So for everyone out there who will never have the pleasure of reading a verifiable aspiring movie script, I though I’d give you a little preview. Feel free to come over to my apartment and read it in its entirety, in the meantime you’ll have to settle for my notes. And Paul, if you’re reading this, which you almost certainly aren’t, just stay open to some of the changes I’ve proposed.

*How are you going to pitch this? I would use something along the lines of, “think Minority Report meets Field of Dreams.” Or maybe just, “it’s like The Matrix, only not nearly as well thought out.”
*Let’s brainstorm other title ideas. If I didn’t know anything about the film and someone said to me, “hey, want to go see The Promethean?” I’d say, “no. What the hell is The Promethean?” As a general rule people don’t like movie titles dependant on knowledge of Greek mythology. Here’s my suggestion; Daylight. Think about it. It’s catchy and more subtly appropriate.
*Do you really want to go with the wristwatch communicator? Talking into your watch makes me think of Dick Tracy. Why would people in the future combine watches and cell phones when people now use their cell phones as watches? I’d go with a Bluetooth-esque device.
*I like the use of “organic plants” as a valuable commodity in a place with a potentially poisonous atmosphere. It makes sense that only the powerful would have vegetation.
*Here’s my biggest problem. I know it’s an apocalyptic future but would all art and music really disappear? Isn’t some aspect of music almost innate? I’m of course referring to Carter’s absolute shock when he hears someone hum. Really? I just feel like even in a bleak and barren wasteland people wouldn’t lose the ability or desire to hum/whistle/doodle etc.
*Carter goes too quickly from a snitch to a full-fledged member of the resistance. You need to either show his more gradual transition or include some sort of epiphany. What if he and Penelope have sex on top of the conveyer belt, someone walks in, and in their rush they duck inside one of the crates? Of course they stumble on the smuggled artifacts from the outside world and Carter realizes the resistance is right. Plus you need a sex scene, that’s two birds with one stone right there.
*Marshall seems completely unaffected by Marie’s death. One of his fellow revolutionaries is kidnapped and beaten to death and his reaction is basically, “she had it coming”? If I was considering joining the revolution I wouldn’t want my leader to be a guy who doesn’t give a crap if the overlords are whooping me with night sticks, or what ever future police use to beat future people.
*Leboutillier needs a new name. He’s supposed to be a hated villain but his name sounds like some sort of French pastry, or flower, maybe a combination pastry/flower. It just doesn’t seem at all menacing. What about Vince, or Tony or something? No, that’s too mafia. I can’t think of anything good. Regardless, Leboutillier needs to go.
*[Spoiler alert] So Carter finds out he was born in the outside world and is indeed the prophesied Promethean who has come to lead the people. I know it’s kind of a central point in the plot, but you might as well have Keanu Reeves start kung-fu fighting clones in a black trench coat. Ok, so Hollywood’s not real big on originality but goddamn man, I might as well just go rent The Matrix at this point.
*[even more spoiler alert]When the resistance group finally reaches the outside world and sees the sun for the first time they’re a little nonchalant. What, people don’t swear in the future. If I was locked in a bleak metallic factory my entire life and told by overlords that the Earth was fatally radioactive, and then I open a door and stumbled out into fresh air, I think at the very least an “oh shit” would be in order. Even a “wow.” Come on, something.

There you go people. I can’t go any further without giving the whole thing away, and then why would you pay your hard earned money to watch The Promethean? Or if I have my way, Daylight. Seriously Paul, cut me in. We can make this thing a blockbuster. Thousands of people lined up to watch Norbit, we got at least a fighting chance. And if any NoChancers have any film suggestions for the problems I’ve raised (good villain name for example) I’m sure we can get you a producer credit. Hell, hand out some sandwiches on set and you’ll get a producer credit. It's the least I can do.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Guide To Tattoos, Part 2


I’ve written about tattooing before, mostly in an attempt to stop people from asking me stupid questions. Well, it didn’t work. And although I am tempted to lash out at the girl who wants to talk about her “ink” with me (a.k.a. a two inch fairy on her ankle) I’m instead going to double my education efforts. Think about it like sex ed in school, only instead of how babies are made we’re going to talk about tattoos, and instead of a mentally challenged gym teacher you get me. Oh, and you won’t throw up in your mouth after watching a video of a baby squeezing through a vagina. Or was that just my sex ed?
I’ll do my best to answer some basic questions, but I’ll probably get sidetracked along the way by random stories. Which reminds me…

If you’re an obese woman getting a portrait of her cat tattooed on your leg, it’s not necessary to explain how you, your husband and your two children spend most of your time naked. First, you and your husband are both wearing sweatpants, which for children is practical and for adults is gross. Second, don’t tell me and everyone else in the shop your ten and eight-year-old kids don’t wear clothes, I think that may be child abuse. It’s one thing to be a hippie family frolicking through a field naked while whittling sea creatures out of bamboo, but I’m picturing your family watching Japanese cartoons and downing whole downing bags of Cool Ranch Doritos naked. And for that picture I will forever be angry. What’s that have to do with tattoos? Not much except I was forced to listen to it in a tattoo shop and I felt the need to share. How about this; don’t get a portrait of your cat tattooed on you, but if you’re even considering it you’ve got bigger problems than I can address here.
I’m always getting warned that when I’m old my tattoos will just be giant ink blobs and I’ll regret it. First that’s not true, you’re thinking about the faded navy tattoos you’ve seen on grizzled old men. Ink quality has come a long way since the 50s. It’s roughly the equivalent of sucking a lime a day because you’re worried about contracting scurvy, it’s just not a legitimate concern anymore. Unless you get your tattoo done by your cousin Rick in his basement, but then you’ll probably be praying it fades. Plus, when I’m 90 not only will it be great to intimidate the other geezers on the shuffleboard court with my ink, but I’ll be more worried about not peeing my pants every hour than how I look.
Wait, this thing is really permanent? Yeah, actually it is. Make sure your tattoo is something you’ll be happy with for as long as you live, or as long as you have that body part. For example, I once knew a guy with a huge tattoo of a crying clown covering his leg. Unless his dad was a clown who died while being suffocated during a “lots of clown in a tiny car” stunt gone horribly wrong, which I doubt, the tattoo will get old quick. Seriously, a crying clown? Was he a clown who was ironically scared of other clowns? Is that why he’s crying? It’s been almost five years since I first saw it and the tattoo still befuddles me. Which brings me to regret. You can now get tattoos lasered off, only it hurts like hell and is pretty expensive, so have fun with that. You can also get it covered up, meaning a skilled artist can, for example, incorporate a crappy tattoo of a panther (a la cousin Rick) into the black flowing hair of a pin-up girl. The only way to cover up a tattoo is with a larger tattoo, so if your entire calf is covered with a crying clown, just to pick something at random, you’re screwed. And they’re tattoo artists, not Jesus (unless maybe if you’re getting tattooed in Mexico), they may not be able to magically turn your tattoo of Calvin peeing on a truck into a Monet painting. To use my favorite Southern saying, you can’t put lipstick on a pig. Well, you can, but the point is it’s still a pig, and someone should call PETA.
Let’s end with a real-life exploration. As I write this there’s a gentleman with a tattoo on the back of his arm that reads Born In Idaho. I can’t decide if it’s a great tattoo or a terrible one. I think it may say more about the state of Idaho than him as a person. People from the Potato State (or whatever their motto is) are so rare its citizens feel compelled to tell the world. And plenty of people get tattoos about where they’re from; a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge means you’re from San Francisco or a Red Sox logo means you’re from Boston. If you’re from Idaho your options are pretty limited, I guess all you can do is write “Born in Idaho.” What else is there to say really? You know what, good for him. Say it loud, I’m Idahoan/Idahoese/an Idahoite and I’m proud! Which proves the ultimate point, as long as it something that truly comes from your heart it can only be good, no matter what malicious bloggers may write.
Hope that made things a little clearer. More likely than not it just enveloped you further in a deep cloud of confusion, you’re welcome. Feel free to write in with any other questions, I’ll answer them all in another article. And just so you can take some shots of me that’s a picture of the back of my right arm, the tattoo is based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Why? Because I like Tibet, and books, though I’m not really a big fan of being dead. Hey it could have been worse. It could have been a portrait of my cat, dressed up like a clown, crying. Yeah, that would have definitely been worse.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The New National Pastime


There’s nothing America loves more than a thick cheeseburger…except maybe explosives, or breasts, or reality shows, or reality shows featuring potentially explosively breasts (genius, I know. I’ve got a meeting with Fox next week). No wait, what America really loves is painfully attractive celebrity couples who adopt children from Africa, or electronic fish that sing when you touch them, or perhaps just Cheetos. I got it, what America really loves, what it craves from the depths of its soul, is scandal. Celebrities, politicians, your neighbor’s wife, scandal is our true national pastime. That’s why while this summer will go down on record as a terrible time for sports purists, it’s been unbelievably juicy for the nation as a whole. Sports have always served as a place for America to work through some societal dilemmas (maybe there’s something to this whole “desegregation thing”) and this summer there’s been an avalanche of issues for us to work out.

The Barry Bonds Scandal
What it’s about: Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s hallowed career homerun record, but did he use steroids? Is the record tainted?
What it’s really about: Cyborgs. That’s right, cyborgs. Medicine is advancing at an incredible pace, we’re now able to replace limbs with adequate replacements and implant computer chips into brains to enable the blind to see. People can buy over the counter medicines to keep them artificially alert (energy drinks), artificially attractive (weight-loss shakes) and artificially erect (Viagra). Where’s it all headed? Will that guy in your office who can barely operate a coffee machine someday be able to swallow a pill and become smarter than you? Will an obese woman someday be able to step into a booth and emerge minutes later with a supermodel’s body? America’s a competitive place, driven by money and status, and we need to slow down before someone dumber and uglier starts taking what rightfully belongs to us. Bonds represents oure terrifying cyborg future and Aaron our purely human past. I hate Bonds because he’s a cheat, a liar, and a robot prototype bent on destroying all that is good about humanity.

The Tim Donaghy Scandal
What it’s about: Donaghy is a former NBA ref who bet on games he was officiating, quite possibly throwing games to ensure he won, and thereby calling into question the integrity of games.
What it’s really about?: We love the mafia and all mafia related activities. The Godfather trilogy and Scarface and Goodfellas are all well written and acted movies, but so was The English Patient. There’s a reason mafia related fare can be found nearly any time/any day on cable. America loves to fantasize about being in the mafia, living a life of constant danger and criminal honor. The very thought of Tony Soprano sitting a NBA ref down and threatening to break his kneecaps if the Spurs beat the Nuggets is a guaranteed blockbuster movie. The other story here is that apparently NBA refereeing is so bad no one noticed someone was actively trying to throw games. Donaghy was surrounded by so much incompetence his calculated idiocy was impossible to detect.

The Tour De France Scandal
What it’s about: For the third year in a row the world’s most prestigious cycling race was rocked by the discovery that prominent riders were taking steroids.
What it’s really about: No one in America cares about cycling, unless it involves a trash- talking Texan beating the beejezus out of Europeans at their own sport.

The Michael Vick Scandal
What it’s about: Vick, the most exciting player in football, is allegedly the ringleader of a large scale dog fighting ring, including electrocuting and executing dogs. And I mean allegedly in the same way Seigfried and Roy are allegedly gay.
What it’s really about: Fine, the State of Texas can execute mentally retarded minors, but killing dogs is going too far. We love dogs more than we love people, and I include myself in this category, because they’re symbols of innocence, while people are symbols of greed. If there was a fire and I had to choose between saving a puppy or that fucker at my gym who works out with a bluetooth in his ear…it’d be close, I’m actually leaning towards puppy. But as anyone who lived in San Francisco knows wealthy black athletes aren’t the only people raising vicious dogs; the Bay Area has seen a woman killed by dogs raised by a white couple on behalf of an imprisoned skinhead they had adopted (you can’t make this stuff up), and a young boy killed by a pitbull in his home, despite the fact his mother locked him in the basement while she went shopping because the dog was acting agitated. Remember, dogs don’t kill people, people with dogs kill people (who sometimes breed dogs to kill dogs if they don’t kill the dogs first). Got it?

There’s also news coming out of Japan that the country is in the throes of a sumo scandal. Apparently the Yokozuna (the heavyweight champion) withdrew from a match because of injury, then was caught on tape playing soccer with reckless abandon. Yawn, you call that a scandal Japan? Wake me up when steroid enhanced sumos start fighting dogs to the death to pay off mob debts. Now that’s something America would be interested in.


Thursday, August 9, 2007

Senor Spam and the Getty Children




I have met a lot of obscenely wealthy people in my lifetime, essentially because of nothing more than an extended series of coincidences. Every time I’m in some new palatial estate I always look for signs of unhappiness and tragedy. After all, the only thing keeping me from hating these people is the belief that their money has left them empty shells of humans; that my meager existence has some happiness that is walled off to the rich. Well, rejoice my paycheck-to-paycheck brethren, I come offering substantial proof that money is not the key to happiness. In fact, it’s more likely than not to leave you and your children gnarled wastelands of humanity…

The Gettys are one of the most prominent families in San Francisco, Mayor Newsom owes no small part of his success to their money and influence. The young and beautiful jewels of the family are Billy and Vanessa Getty. The razor-sharp cheekboned couple has two young boys but have clearly turned over the bulk of the parenting responsibilities to an English nanny. I happened to be in the kitchen when Vanessa arrived home to spend some quality time with the boys:
Vanessa: “Hello my darlings, come here.”
(The two-year-old waddles over to her, she picks him up. The four-year old is much more interested in playing with his truck out on the back porch. He looks up at her and then continues playing.)
Vanessa: “I said come here, now.”
(The four-year-old is indifferent, continues to play).
Vanessa: “Fine then, Mommy hates you. I’m going to go upstairs and get dressed.”
(He spins around startled and then starts towards his mother, who is already well on her way upstairs. Begins to cry.)
There is absolutely no way that kid is going to have a serious cocaine problem by the time he’s 15. I wish there was a way to gamble on these things, this kid and Nicole Richie’s baby are stone-cold locks to become extraordinarily messed up adults. This is valuable insider information people.

On the other side of mean is crazy, also known in more kind circles as eccentric. Tom Hormel owns an unbelievably large estate in Malibu, the kind of place that takes your breath away, until you realize you’re looking at the guest house. Oh, I’m sorry, let me back up. Who is Tom Hormel? Tom is the heir to the Hormel fortune, as in Hormel Foods, the meatpacking giant. I shook the hand of the man who owns Spam, and that’s a pleasure I will take to my death. I feel a little bad about mentioning him here because he’s a genuinely kind man, but I have to. You see, he’s a strict raw food vegetarian, he won’t allow meat to even enter the property. Let that sink in for a moment, the irony’s almost overpowering. You have to believe he knows exactly what goes into those tins of processed meat and it can’t be pretty. If you ever find yourself with Tom be prepared to drink enormous of his special beet/ginger/macrobiotic enzymes juice. Consider yourself warned.

On a more general note: Two recent newspaper articles have left me rejoicing. The first is about a recent rash of robberies in Bel Air. For those of you who’s only exposure to Bel Air is Fresh Prince re-runs, the real place is enormous, once you turn off Sunset Ave. and go through its exclusive gates it can take as many as twenty or thirty minutes to wind through it’s shaded streets to a house. As it turns out (much to my delight) Bel Air denizens have left themselves only more vulnerable to robberies. Their homes are surrounded by high walls and heavy foliage, a.k.a. perfect cover for robbers, no one can see into the property to notice someone breaking a window. Even if their burglary alarms go off it can take half-an-hour for the police to arrive, and since pool boys and gardeners are constantly coming and going no one thinks twice about a white van parked outside. HA! Suck on that rich people! Turns out being part of a community and regularly interacting with people actually makes you safer, and that’s why I choose to live in an apartment building (let me believe what I want to).
Also, on a parenting note, a new study has concluded that not only do Baby Einstein videos not increase a child’s intelligence, they make them stupider! Children who haven’t watched the videos have almost twice the vocabulary as those who did regularly. It turns out that talking to your kids and interacting with them is more beneficial than sitting them in front of the tv. In other shocking news the key to losing weight is consuming less calories while expending more. Who could have possible known? Oh, that’s right, I did. And not all the blame goes on parents, Baby Fuckin Einstein Inc. (or whatever they’re called) has been preying on parental fears by selling them a product that does the opposite of what they claim. People should be rioting, and I hope they do. Burn Baby burn!

Let me be clear, I need more financial assets. But the key seems to be knowing when to stop. You want money, but not “I only drink ginger/beet juice” money.” You want a large bank account, but not “Mommy hates you,” large. As Americans we’re not particularly good at moderation, in fact I’ve been suddenly inspired to coin the term “obesely wealthy.” That’s trademarked, if you want to use it you’re going to have to pay. Hey, I got to make a living.

Monday, July 30, 2007

The Great Potty Bus Adventure


There are moments when all the forces in the cosmos align, moments in which the unthinkable becomes eminently possible. While it may seem on the surface that these moments are random they are actually the result of an almost infinite series of events coinciding in careful coordination.
All that is an overly complicated way of saying that I was hanging out with legendary rap group Wu-Tang Clan in a Domino’s Pizza a few nights ago. Let’s review the chain of events:

My brother and I went to see the Rock The Bells Festival, a hip-hop festival featuring everyone from Talib Kweli to the aforementioned Wu-Tang Clan (click here for my full coverage). The show was at the Tweeter Center, a stadium about 45 minutes from Boston. Now for those of you not from Mansfield Massachusetts, and I sincerely hope no one is, it’s in one of those towns that rides the thin line between rural and suburban. There aren’t a lot of culinary options after midnight, save for one Domino’s Pizza shining like a beacon of greasy nutrition against a late night sky. This particular Domino’s was staffed entirely by barely conscious high school kids and after ordering we sat back to await our delicious fare. Then…

12:45 – Two enormous tour buses pull up. We figure it has to be someone from the show, and sure enough assorted members of Wu-Tang Clan pour out of the bus. Watching them approach the Domino’s will remain one of the more confusing moments of my life. On one hand it was completely surreal, on the other it made perfect sense that a group infamous for their marijuana smoking ways would be making a late night Domino’s run.

12:55 – A barrage of ordering commences; pizzas, soda, and crazy bread galore, along with endless special requests. The acned staff is completely overwhelmed, and frankly I don’t blame them. Various members of their nebulous entourage keep coming up and placing more orders, bickering over the relatives merits of mushrooms vs. peppers. Method Man announces, “all these white people are pissed these negros took over their Domino’s.” It’s funny because it’s true. It’s safe to say the all-time record for amount of black people in a Mansfield Domino’s is being obliterated. It’s also clear our pizza’s not coming anytime soon. We decide to play it cool.

1:10 – My brother’s sipping on one of those big cans of Arizona Ice Tea, and Method Man wants one, bad. We send him over to 24-hour pharmacy next door, the only problem is he needs to borrow a dollar from me. Mind you he says this was a diamond- encrusted chain hanging from his hand. I give him the requested dollar and he takes off for the pharmacy at full speed. Method Man owes me $1, and I fully intend to collect.

1:15 – We’re in full-fledged debate with their tour manager over whether Boston is a city of a state when a fifteen year old kid walks in the store looking for some pizza. I don’t think he knew who he was looking at, but he did know he was looking at a Clan of black people and he was momentarily stunned. Incredibly he decides to talk to them in his classic Boston accent, leading to one of my favorite exchanges of all time.
White Kid: “Is that your pahty bus outside?” [boston accent note: pahty bus=party bus, a bus frat boys would rent for a trip to the casino for example]
Wu-Tang: What?
White Kid: Is that your pahty bus?
Wu-Tang: Our what?
White Kid (looking intensely uncomfortable): Pahty bus?
Wu-Tang: What the fuck is a potty bus?
White Kid: I don’t know, sorry.

1:30 - Everyone finally has their pizzas and is heading back to the tour bus, detoured significantly by a smoking session in the parking lot. I’m frankly amazed we haven’t seen any police yet, this is by far the most action to happen in a Domino’s parking lot, ever. Only then do we get our pizza and head to the car at full speed to eat. We drive off to assorted head nods of recognition from Wu-Tang, probably just another night in their tour-filled lives, but one of the most surreal of mine. See, there are these nights when the cosmos align just so and an aspiring journalist from Boston and a legendary rap group from Staten Island converge, if only to borrow a dollar for a can of ice tea.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

R. Kelly, the remix



When Lindsay Lohan was arrested in L.A. the other day (I’d like to point out that I live in the only city on Earth where being run over by a 90 pound alchoholic celebrity is a legitimate concern) they also found R. Kelly in her trunk with a pound of marijuana and a giant stuffed animal. Is that true? Not at all, but it could be, and that’s why I love R. Kelly. He makes anything possible. For those of you who missed it he recently put out a full length album, Double Up. For those interested here’s my review of the entire album. Today we’re only concerned with one song. The new greatest R. Kelly song of all time, The Zoo. Just when you think Kelly’s run out of sexual metaphors he’s raises the ceiling even higher, he apparently has an infinite amount of sexually charged concepts in the glorious brain of his.

Before we get into the lyrics, and believe me we will, let me just set the stage. The concept of the song is that R. Kelly and his special lady (or ladies, or girls, or unicorns or whatever he's into these days) are in the jungle, and their jungle animals, and they’re doing what jungle animals do. Now I recently read a New York Times article saying that R. Kelly is participating in a long tradition of black performers who push racist stereotypes (like black people are just sexually driven jungle animals for example) to absurd limits in order to disempower those stereptypes. There may be certain elements of that in Mr. Kelly, or he could just think animals doing it are funny. It’s probably a little bit of both. With no further ado allow me to walk you through The Zoo.
The music is classic R&B style, slow snapping percussion pulsing bass swerve while Kelly croons, “I wanna see your body, I wanna feel your body.” Just your run of the mill song, nothing special. There’s no way to prepare yourself for what’s coming.
It’s like a jungle atmosphere/ and we’re two monkeys baby/it’s like we’re on the vine/ the way we’re swinging baby.”
I like to imagine actually saying this to someone. Candlelight dinner, oysters and chocoltae on the table, you look that special someone in the eye and softly whisper, “it’s like jungle atmosphere, and we’re two monkeys baby.” I’ll try it on the girlfriend and report back…if I’m still breathing. On second thought why don’t you try it and tell me how it goes.
Girl, I got you so wet/it's like a rain forest/like Jurassic Park/except I'm your sex-a-saurus baby.”

I’m sorry R. Kelly, what was that? It sounded like you said you’re a sex-a-saurus. Oh, you did. Well then, congratulations, that’s the most insane line I’ve ever heard. If I remember my dinosaurs correctly the sex-a-saurus was primarily an herbivore who was frequently arrested for talking to underage brontosaurus’. I have to believe that he thought of the sex-a-saurus line a long time ago and he’s been saving it for just the right time. It was probably stashed away in some secret underground bunker just in case the Russians decided to get out of hand again. It’s hands down the new best R. Kelly line of all time.
You and me hopping/like two kangaroos/rattling and moaning/out here in these woods.
Here’s my theory: R. Kelly was high and watching Animal Planet, one thing led to another, and viola The Zoo was made. And by the way is he implying that kangaroos rattle? Or did we switch animal metaphors and I missed it? At this point I’m incredibly confused, and then the actual monkey sound effects kick in. As in: “girl we be goin oooo aaaaa.” Are those really the noises R. Kelly wants to hear from his lady when they’re making love. Honestly I can’t think of a noise I’d be more terrified of, but that’s only one reason I’m me, and R. Kelly is a genius/complete nutjob.
Believe me, it kind of goes on like that for a few more minutes, but nothing could possible top the first verse. Where will he stop? Will he ever stop? I can’t think of another field in which someone has so consistently exceeded expectations. In the “coming up with absolutely ridiculous pop songs that will still be wildly popular” R. Kelly is the undisputed king. If he releases anything better than Sex Zoo, and if history is any indication it’s only a matter of time, I’ll let you know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go light some incense and pray in front of my R. Kelly shrine.

You know I wouldn’t build up all the hype and leave you hanging, the link to the song's below. Enjoy!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Happy Birthday to Me!!!


Well it’s July 16th and you know what that means, I’ve gone another 365 days without dying. Sorry to be a morbid but that’s actually quite an accomplishment when you think about it. The Darwin Awards, a website that keeps track of the myriad ways people find to cut their lives short, tells the tale of a man who tried to thaw a frozen car battery by sticking it in his oven. It didn’t quite turn out the way he hoped…meaning instead of his car starting his house exploded. It’s easy to look down on these people but truth be told I’ve done plenty of perfectly stupid things in my life, it’s essentially only a matter of luck they weren’t fatal. In all honesty I’m not as far from sticking a car battery in the oven as I’d like to believe…far enough to never do it, but not that far. All this is an extraordinarily long-winded way of saying as I look back on my quarter-century on Earth I feel, more than anything else, pretty damn lucky. Though beyond just sheer chance I have done some things to improve my chances; I don’t smoke, I’ve never been to Iraq, and I haven’t make any prison jokes during two conversations with Mike Tyson. Not so bad.
25 years is a real landmark moment, and today I sat down to reflect on my life up until now. It’s often impossible to recognize the moments that change out lives when they happen, only in hindsight does the lasting impact of certain events become clear. There have certainly been some momentous moments in my life, but I think one has truly shaped the way I see the world:
I was just a young Slovak, we’ll say 10 years for simplicities sake. On a vacation my dad takes me, my brother, and my cousins to Sea World. (Shamu, the acrobatic killer whale, was huge at the time. Not just physically but culturally. We stake out our seats for the show and during the audience participation portion of the program none other than yours truly gets picked to come down as a guest orca trainer. I make a jump gesture and Shamu jumps, I whirl my arms and he spins. People are clapping and I have control over an enormous mammal. I was feeling good. The trainer thanked me, had me turn to the audience and bow, and then secretly signaled Shamu to splash the bejeezus out of me. In the span of a few seconds I went from feeling as cool as I ever had in my short life to soaking wet and listening to a few hundred people laugh at me. What kind of satanic Sea World employee does that to a kid? Not only was it embarrassing but I was drenched in “algae/bacteria/killer whale poo” water. I swear to God if I ever meet that trainer I’m gonna make him drink a gallon of that stuff. And as for Shamu, let’s just say that at lunch I was scanning the menu hoping I could order orca burgers. I will hate Shamu forever, it’s pretty much a Moby Dick situation at this point. I would straight up wrestle that whale, no holds barred. I hear that in the wild dolphins sometimes kill orcas so I figure I got a fighting chance.
I’ve done a lot in my 25 years; traveled across the country, had some crazy jobs, tattooed entire body parts, and that’s the memory that sticks with me the most. It’s my Rosebud. I learned a valuable lesson that day: no matter how well things seem to be going, there’s always a giant whale waiting in the shadows to screw you. You have to be ready to battle anytime. I’ll let you decide what that says about me, but no one who knows me should really be surprised. If you really want to wish me a happy birthday get me Shamu’s number. It’d be the best present of my life.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

My Lovely Lady...um...shoes



No matter how paranoid you are, it’s not enough (unless you’re dressed in a tinfoil suit of armor and living in a bunker, that’s enough). As hip-hop veteran Davey-D pointed out, marketers and advertisers is at war. They’re battling for control of your brain, which is presumably connected to your wallet, but it’s been a massacre because the general public doesn’t realize they’re at war. It’s been a completely one-sided fight. There’s probably no other art form that’s as closely connected to marketing as hip-hop, though by no means the only one. I’m sure Toby Keith is busy shilling Chevy’s or Bud Light right now, and if that sounded like I was taking a cheap shot at country music because I don’t know anything about it, you’re absolutely right. Materialism and hip-hop are currently locked in a chicken-and- egg cycle with advertisers and product placements so interwoven it’s impossible to tell which came first. Actually that’s not always, sometimes you can tell exactly which one came first.
Take this little nugget of loveliness; Fergie signed a $4 million deal to promote Candy shoes in her upcoming songs. First of all the point is that she’ll mention the shoes in her songs and then Candy will use her shoe lovin lyrics in their commercials, so it seems as if the commercials came after the songs when the opposite is true. I’m telling you, the tinfoil hat and a bunker thing doesn’t sound so bad now, especially if my bunker was stocked with a lifetime supply of carrot cake, but then I’d just be a fat crazy guy in a bunker…anyway I would be a little concerned about how this is going to affect Fergie’s lyrical content and artistic integrity, except this is the woman who once sang “my humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps.” The second thing that kills me is the records exec who says that with record sales down he has to find new ways to make money. Here’s a crazy thought, maybe record sales are down because the music’s crap and people don’t want to pay $15 for a cd that turns out to be an extended shoe commercial.
With thinking like that I should control of A&M Records, and if I did this is what I’d do: I looked at Fergie’s last album The Duchess and I’ve prepared a re-release that I feel provides some excellent opportunities for synergy. Here’s the tracklistings with the original title in plain text and my suggestions in italics.
1. Fergalicous Ferg-a-Butterfingers-are-de-licous
2. Clumsy Clumsy (because the heels of my shoe broke, I should have bought Candy shoes, they have the most reliable heels in the business)
3. All That I Got (the make-up song) All That I Got (the Max Factor song)
4. London Bridge London Bridge Tours Only 5 Euros!
5. Pedestal Tough Actin Tinactin Stops Athlete’s Foot Dead
6. Glamorous Glamorous in Gucci
7. Here I Come Here I Come, in my Ford F-150
8. Velvet Velvet (trimmed shoes by Candy)
9. Big Girls Don’t Cry Big Girls Don’t Cry, They Go Shopping
10. Mary Jane Shoes Mary Jane Shoes Suck Only Buy Candy
11. Losing My Ground Losing My Ground, Gaining Frequent Flier Miles
12. Finally Crazy Eddy’s Used Car Emporium

What do you think? We’ll make millions, millions I’m telling you. Somebody get me Fergie’s people on the phone. I was also planning on making fun of 50 Cent's disastrous lip-synching at the BET Awards and then shamelessly plugging his ownership of Vitamin Water…then I got scared he’d have me killed. So let me close with my suggestion for his new Vitamin Water ad campaign and call it a day:
“Vitamin Water, guaranteed to have you feeling more energetic, even if you’ve just been shot in the face nine times.”
I think it has a certain ring to it don’t you? Anyone else have any marketing campaign suggestions? Remember, this is war.







Monday, June 25, 2007

Quantanamo-money-mo-problems


I take a good amount of teasing about my area of study in college, and more than a little of it has come from myself. No more! By which I mean there will still be plenty of jokes from people who majored in marketing and own hi-def televisions more expensive than my car, but from this point on I refuse to make the “ha ha I majored in a useless medium in college,” jokes. Why this sudden revelation of self-confidence? Have I been offered a major book deal for my poems? No. Not even close, although I have received rejection letters, which are just as good except not at all. No my renewed self-confidence has come from a much more unlikely source, an isle off the coast of Cuba. Quantanamo, the happiest place on Earth.
Let me diverge for just a moment to say while a lot of people may pretend to read the Wall Street Journal, no one actually does. No one. If someone claims they read it they are a dirty, dirty liar. I recommend you never trust them again. This claim isn’t exactly backed by scientific research, but I can guarantee that no matter where you live if you walk around your neighborhood you’ll see unopened Wall Street Journals littering the stoops of apartment buildings and driveways. I think their readership is comprised entirely of people who make a New Year’s resolution to be more well read and subscribe, then a week in say screw it and let the paper pile up on their stoop.
That being said I’m also a reading whore, I’ll read anything given the right situation. I’ve even plowed through those Learning Annex magazines while waiting for trains. So I recently found myself with an hour to kill and came across an unopened Wall Street Journal on someone’s porch. I of course took it, and that’s not stealing because as I pointed out no one actually reads it, and then skimmed through it. For the most part it was boring, brain hemorrhage boring, but one article caught my attention; The Prison Poets of Guantanamo by Yochi J. Dreazen. It seems that prisoners at the detainment facility, and by prisoners I of course mean terrorists/people who have beards and lived in Afghanistan, were writing poetry in prison. Without pens they were using whatever materials they had handy, including scratching them into Styrofoam cups. Politics aside there is something deeply human happening here, with nothing left, thousands miles from home, these people turned to poetry. Poetry at its best is the language that remains when everything has been stripped away. Far from being impractical poetry is at the root of our humanity.
What’s even better is poetry’s ability to be subversive. Not surprisingly the military heavily censored any poems that made it out of Guantanamo. The DOD (Department of Defense) says, “Poetry presents a special risk because it is harder to vet than conventional letters because allusions and imagery in poetry that seem innocent can be used to convey coded messages.” Hell yeah they can. Poetry is the most powerful tool we have against oppression because it cannot be pinned down and stopped, this is why hip-hop can be such a powerful art form. Rock needs instruments to pass it’s message, but hip-hop at it’s rawest can be spread by mouth, and often in a language power structures don’t understand, making it nearly impossible to control. I’m getting a little worked up here, so let me back off before I get carried away. The point is that poetry is the last thing that can be taken from you, and it took a prison to remind me of that.
Suck on that guy in the silk shirt who almost hit me with his Ferrari on Sunset Blvd.. You may have money and power, but I have language. Of course, if he wanted to write a love poem to his 20-year-old blond girlfriend I’d be more than happy to help him out, for a price. Hey, we all gotta eat.

Monday, June 18, 2007



Over the course these articles I’d like to think I’ve painted you a picture of my life in Los Angeles, just be thankful it’s a written portrait and not a drawn one, I have the artistic ability of a narcoleptic squirrel. Even though I’ve shared little snippet of my days in Los Angeles, the city of smoggy angels, I want to take this opportunity to speak more specifically on my neighborhood, West Hollywood. It’s by turns fascinating and infuriating, complex like a finely aged win or a moldy carpet. Let’s review:

Infuriating: Now I wasn’t in the Vietnam War, but if I was I would have been hiding under my bed after wetting my pants last week. Approximately twenty helicopters were circling overhead; I thought we were under attack. It turns out we were, by the international media. Paris Hilton was driving (well she wasn’t driving, ha, ha) from her home in Beverly Hills to the courthouse, and a squadron was deployed to capture her every move. It was literally a media war zone. Doesn’t someone control this kind of thing? The FTA perhaps? Can anyone with a helicopter zoom around and annoy the bejeezus out of the people who live here. The only positive that came out of the Hilton hysteria is it lead to my personal celebrity new boycott, which I highly recommend but is is unbelievably difficult to keep. The saturation is incredible, I wouldn’t be surprised to open my fridge and hear “Lindsay Lohan’s in trouble again…” coming from the icebox. CNN has devoted endless hours to Paris coverage under the smoke screen of “we’re a respected news organization being forced to cover this.” I wish they’d just admit they’re the national version of a local news channel that covers a water-skiing squirrel and we can all get on with it. This is my proverbial line in the sand, enough is enough. No more celebrity gossip. Even though on of the most prominent celebrity bloggers in the country “works” from the café next door to my apartment/ His name, Perez Hilton. Well here’s some gossip of my own before I get out of the game forever, Perez wears blue croc shoes and a sweatshirt every day, then fields cell phone calls and pretends like he’s in an office, though he’s really just in the Coffee Bean on Fairfax and Sunset. So there, I’ve celebrity scooped a celebrity scoopers, I’m done. Paris Hilton is dead to me.

Fascinating: There is one thing I love about West Hollywood, the gay people. The city is divided between old Russian women, aspiring actresses, and gay men. Check out the city council agenda. There’s nothing like a joint Russian/Gay and Lesbian advisory board meeting. We’re not just a little gay, our city symbol is a rainbow, meaning the police ride around with rainbow flags, just check the attached picture for confirmation. That’s from the recent Gay Pride Parade, which I’ve been told is the second largest parade in the country behind only the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It is worth taking a step back and recognizing how unique the city is. On a birhgt Sunday morning approximately 100 Dykes On Bikes came roaring down the street in all their glory, in other words it was literally Bill O’Reilly’s nightmare. I think it’s safe to it would be the most eventful thing to happen to the good folks in Davenport, Iowa. I can’t help but notice that I grew up in Massachussetts (the only state to have legalized gay marriage), moved to San Francisco (need I say more), and then to West Hollywood. There’s something about me that loves living in places that are gay havens. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s because where there’s a lot of gay people, there tends to be no shortage of delicious dessert treats and pastries, and I love dessert (may I recommend Sweet Inspirations in San Francisco). It must be some sort of subconscious pull towards sugar. Of course you can draw your own hypotheses.

Those are the extremes of my little neighborhood, we welcome anyone…provided they have the money. And of course the few folks who manage to slide in despite the more meager checking accounts, a la myself. If you’ve ever watched the show Entourage it’s filmed primarily in West Hollywood, the Chateau Marmont is around the corner. As the same time there’s an elderly man who recently had a heart attack and does slow laps around the courtyard. Aspiring actresses from Illinois live next door to Russian grandmothers who have lived in the area for generations. If you visit we'll buy some baklava and hang out with screenwriters, there's nowhere else like it.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Imposter!


First and foremost I want to apologize for the extended delay in articles. I know how much you all have grown to need my writing in much the same way a barnacle needs a whale. Or is it the other way around? Point is you’re the whale and I’m the barnacle. Shall we?

Recently a story came out of the Bay Area about a girl who spent an entire year attending Stanford University, except she didn’t actually go there. She managed to talk her way into a dorm room and convinced virtually everyone she know that she was enrolled there. I’ve got a few thoughts:
1) It’s a sign of the times that the pressure of attending the “right school” drives someone this far. Well done Baby Einstein/Kaplan/Sylvan.
2) Good work. You have to be impressed that an 18 year old pulled this off. I would even be a little awed if it weren’t for the fact that…
3) I do this all the time! I practically invented the fake enrollment thing!

One of my earliest memories is traveling with my dad and hotel crashing. We would go to the top floor, see the view, hang out in the lobby, even take food from room service trays. I want to take this moment to sincerely thank my dad for this informal education, it has served me well. Hotels are goldmines of freeness, and I highly recommend availing yourself of their services. It’s really the perfect environment; hotels are built around providing customer satisfaction, they’ll get you anything you want, and with such high volume there’s no way they can keep track of who’s legit and who’s not. Even if you don’t want to go all out, if you’re new to a city find a nice hotel and talk to the concierge. They’ll be able to tell you about good restaurants, give directions, even get you tickets to shows. Just make sure you’re in a Four Seasons and not a Ramada or the concierge will give you the old, “there’s a lot of great places to eat in Sacramento. We’ve got a Applebees, a Fridays and a Hooters.” Yeah, that recently happened to me.
There’s a small cult of such freeloaders who go from city to city partaking in quasi-free goodness. I’m sure they won’t be particularly happy that I’m sharing this with you, but my readers come first. Plus I enjoy reminiscing.
In San Francisco the St. Francis near Union Square has glass elevators that are on the exterior of the building, it’s easily the best view of the city. Every time I was in the neighborhood I’d stop in for a quick ride.
One of the all-time best has to be the Marriot in San Deigo. The pool area is more of a rainforest draped by palm trees and trails that opens into winding pools and a grotto hot tub. Good lord I have spent some time in that hot tub. As soon as you enter the lobby turn left, first bank of elevators take them a floor down, you’re there. I’d go down there wearing swim trunks and carrying a towel.
For a couple years my buddy The Reverend and I had the top floor of this hotel in Boston locked down, right near the Wang Theater, the exact name escapes me. It was an unbelievably great find. The hotel had inexplicably stopped using its top floor, even though it had its own lobby with enormous comfy couches, a bar, and a big screen tv. We’d pack some food and go there to watch the Patriots games, I believe we even watched the ball drop on New Year’s once. Tragically they shut it down, but Jesus it was good times. It’s honestly hard to believe we never got caught, but its like that floor had slipped through some crack in the space time continuum.

Back to our girl the fake Stanfordite. College campuses are also great places to crash. I made a living off the practice for a solid two years. When I first moved to San Francisco I didn’t know anyone, didn’t have a job, didn’t have a place to live. I would spend all day on the Cal campus attending lectures on everything from Mexican governmental history to astrophysics, and then chow down at the receptions after. After finding a place to live me and my roommate Sir Trotter would go to the International House (reserved for students from foreign countries) to watch Monday Night Football on their big screen tv. The foreign kids never wanted to watch football, but we would just walk up and change the channel. After a few weeks they gave up and we had the lobby to ourselves. In retrospect that’s a perfect microcosm of America’s relationship to the rest of the world. Good times.
I’ve also spent some time at the aforementioned Stanford campus. It’s easy to see how this girl got away with it for so long, that campus is a cakewalk. Back in the day (2001 is officially back in the day right?) I would go down there and crash with my friend Farcus, who actually managed to get into Stanford. All the cafeterias are all you can eat, so you either slide in and pile your plate high, or have a friend bring you something out. Even better some of the resident houses have magic cupboards, meaning every week the students put together a list of what food they want and then the school delivers the requests. Befriend someone in those houses and they’ll let you take anything, they don’t care, they’ll just go back to the magic cupboard. I once walked out of a house with well over 100 PopTarts.

The key to crashing is simple confidence, I promise it’s infinitely easier than you would imagine. Of course it helps to be white, and male, and not dressed like a hobo. No surprise there. The point is there’s a world of resources around you everyday just waiting for you to illicitly use them. The next time you’ve got some time to kill in the downtown city of your choosing, peruse the hotel scene. In fact, NoChance is now the official headquarters of hotel/college campus crashing. Know any good spots? Have some useful hints? Feel free to share. Maybe some day we can all meet up in the conference room on the top floor of the Nikko. No reservation needed after six p.m., trust me.


Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Dispatches From Hell



Believe it or not the ol’writing career isn’t exactly bringing in the big money. Sure it’s earned me the undying adulation of literally tens of readers, but the bank account is not exactly swollen, more like chaffed. That’s why every so often I make it my job to get wealthy and famous people as drunk as possible. Most of the time I’m wearing a tuxedo while slinging booze, but the outfit possibilities are endless; I once wore a pancho and sombrero for an absurdly racist “Mexican” party, needless to say the only people there who were born in Mexico were working in the kitchen. Why do I do it? Why do I bartend for people I despise one dignity-shredding Cosmopolitan at a time? Because they pay well, and sometimes you meet famous people. That’s right, I’m the guy who once gave John Travolta a Diet Pepsi, Jeb Bush a third helping of apple cobbler, and a ridiculously suave Tony Bennett a scotch and water.
Fair warning, we’re about to get really L.A. By which I mean Botoxed faces so tight you could bounce a quarter off them L.A., not the birthplace of Easy E. L.A. If you happened to be attending the Chanel Fashion show this past Friday and you were thirsty, you would have elbowed a couple Olsen twins out of the way (not particularly hard) and placed your drink order with a man of Slovak descent and a slight Boston accent. Here’s the LA Times review of the event, curiously enough they don’t mention me. Another reason they need to hire me, I certainly wouldn’t have made such a shocking reporting omission.

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-et-chanel21may21,0,7415015.story?coll=la-home-middleright

More than anything these events break down along very distinct social lines. For any of you who haven’t had the pleasure of pouring drinks for people who refuse to admit you exist, and I do have some brethren out there, here’s how it goes down.

The Elite: These are the people who actually generate buzz. That night Lindsay Lohan’s arrival promoted a flashing of photos on the same brightness scale as an atomic explosion. Unfortunately Ms. Lohan did not approach my bar, something about “rehab,” but the legitimately famous Eva Mended and Jessica Alba did. Like most of the elite they survive on water and fairy dust, and accordingly they only wanted champagne. They say the camera adds ten pounds, and it’s true, they’re all ten pounds under human. I’m convinced the vast majority of men who drooled over Jessica Alba in Maxim would recoil in fear when they saw that in real life you could wrap a hair scrunchie around her thigh. The elite know they’re elite, and they don’t have to prove it. For the most part they’re actually relatively nice, even if they never tip. It seems to be widely understood that just being in their presence is tip enough…well fuck you Victoria Beckham, at least give a man a five spot. More like Cheap Spice,,,oh damn!

The Gray Middle: These are the people who are wealthy but never get recognized, and it secretly drives them crazy. They’re major entertainment lawyers, but US Weekly just doesn’t care about lawyers. They’re actually the worst customers, determined to prove how important they are by belittling everyone else. These are the people who order a Mojito, then act amazed you don’t have fresh mint on hand. It’s a fucking catering event, I literally built this bar a couple hours ago, sorry I don’t have an herb garden available for you. You’re only hope is that two of them get together and get into a “impress their trophy wife” battle by dropping large tips. A dangerous subset is the rich 20-something child. They’ve coasted by for years on nothing but spoiling fumes, they’ve got nothing better to do than get hammered and throw up in your ice bucket. And they’re always wearing some mismatched fashion accessory, the fad of the moment is basketball player headbands while wearing a dress. That’s not ironic, that’s retarded.
Girl in gown and headband: “I want a Long Island, do you mind if I smoke right here, thanks.
Me: “You go to hell and you stay there.”

The Peasant Class: They’re just amazed to be there. A friend of a friend got them on the guest list and they’re going to make the most of it. The people aimlessly hanging around the last hour of the party, that’s them. Anyone with real money has better places to be than a catered party at midnight on Friday. You make the majority of your funds from them. They tip well in an effort to seem like they belong, without realizing that the real money never tips. God bless their naivete. I’ve got nothing against them, they just want to be in the same building as Demi Moore and tell your friends about it. Fine, but stop ordering drinks you had on a cruise ship and assumed all bars make. I don’t have a five-gallon sombrero filled with blue margaritas. You’re just going to have to live with that fact.

Sorry NoChancers, I can’t get you into any red carpet parties, but if you can get there on your own I can steer you right when you approach the bar. Have your drink in mind when you get there, make sure it consists of one alcohol and one mixer (no passion fruit doesn’t qualify), and put down a couple dollars. Is that really so hard? Apparently it is for celebrities, and you’re better than them aren’t you? Of course you are, except they have enough money to buy your spleen if they feel like it. Welcome to L.A.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Little Bit O'Everything



I usually try to come up with a coherent theme for every posting, but there’s just too much fantastical material out there to limit myself. It’s not my fault I’m having trouble focusing on one issue, it’s the chemical make-up of my brain. Don’t worry, after a massive infusion of various pharmaceutical fixes I’ll calm down…oh wait, I don’t have health insurance. Well, then I guess this installment is going to have to squirm around like a four-year-old who just drank a liter of Kool-Aid.

Reader Response:
George, the pride of the Mass. State Legislature, sends along a homeless nomination:

Boston's Own "Spare Change Guy" http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/local_news/x1215259426
Yeah, he's unpleasant. He also screeches "got any spaaaaare change" in this throaty/smokers/demented/incapable of any other thought or language/creaking way. He literally sounds like he's going to die. One time he asked for change because "today is my last day" which was a tad cryptic. The best part is that while he sounds like he is incapable of any kind of thought, and can only smell and ask for change, he has been spotted reading novels on the train, like he commutes in for his craziness, and then goes home at night to relax and catch the sox game. He's remarkable. He also recently returned from a brief prison stay, so that was interesting.

Kelly, everyone’s favorite Renaissance Art expert, overheard this gem:

The scene: Me, rollerblading down west side highway at top speed. Man walking along with cell phone dressed in his "cool" PJs- the clothes you put on to LOOK like you just rolled out of bed when in fact you planned it meticulously. The line: "No man, he is like a really cool guy. He has all these really amazing tank tops."Analysis: WHAT THE FUCK.

Some Love for Oakland?:
Watching the Warriors playoff basketball game on TNT when I noticed that the scenic location shots they were using were entirely of San Francisco, even though the Warriors play in Oakland. The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Coit Tower, nary a square foot of Oakland to be found. And this isn’t just for the Warriors, the Raiders and A’s get the same treatment. The most insulting has to be when they show the view of the SF skyline…from Oakland. Is there another city that gets the same treatment? The Patriots play in Foxboro, an unremarkable suburb of Boston, so I understand that they either show a shot of Boston of the interior from Sully’s Deli, but Oakland is a major U.S. city. And don’t tell me they’re the Golden State Warriors, I lived there for years. When they’re winning everyone in the Bay Area is a fan, but when they’re losing they’re definitely from Oakland. Here’s my suggestion for location shots TNT can use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6IlqehvIFo

VIP Restrooms
The Rite Aid next to my apartment is undergoing reconstruction, with all the noise they’re making the floors better be marble. On the doors there’s a sign that says, “Restrooms closed during construction. Customers may use the VIP bathrooms in the parking lot.” A brief scan of the parking lot reveals that the only thing that could even be remotely considered a bathroom is a bank of port-a-pottys near the construction trucks. Even for Rite Aid that’s low. What are the non-VIP bathrooms, an empty milk jug in the corner of the parking lot?

Call the FCC:
Hip-hop has made me schizophrenic. After spending most of last month ardently defending the culture against an onslaught of reactionary charges, Huey releases the video for “Pop Lock and Drop It.” At first it’s just your run of the mill booty shakin video, not the most spiritually uplifting song in the world, but certainly not the coming of the apocalypse. The video’s formulaic…until some young girls entered the screen. Ten-years-old young. How is this even remotely acceptable? Little girls dancing like this is not cute. If an adult woman wants to “drop it” fine, but these girls can’t begin to understand the implications, and in the context of the song it’s disturbing. Here’s the video, feel free to only watch the first minute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YniDowiAHGE
It may not be “that bad”, but at some point a line has to be drawn and this is it for me. Janet Jackson’s nipple is not a problem, young girls being trained to serve as sexual objects, that’s a problem. I’m not going to file charges or suggest that all of hip-hop is responsible, the blame lies more with the white-owned record labels that produce and promote videos than Huey himself. By filing complaints with the FCC, the corporations that are ultimately responsible are forced to respond. If you’re so moved here’s the link.

http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cib/fcc475B.cfm

In Which I defend Paris Hilton, Kind Of
Lord knows I’m as glad as anyone she’s going to jail, but there’s been little to no examination of the sentence itself. On the merits of her offense(s) alone the sentence is the maximum, and while she’s guilty the judge is undoubtedly making an example out of her. Justice in this case is not blind, unless it was blinded by the flashbulbs surrounding Paris. On some level America feels guilty for its collective Paris fascination and rejoicing in her sentence places the blame away from us and squarely onto her bony shoulders. Paris was famous for being famous, and now she’s going to jail because she’s famous. Live by the sword, die by the sword.


Will Ferrell, this generation’s Michelangelo
Let’s go out on a high-note. At this point I would pay to watch Will Ferrell silently drink a glass of water. Thanks for reading, I’ll be back next week with my usual laser-like focus. Enjoy.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Homeless Hall of Fame


San Francisco has LA beat pretty soundly in the cultural department. Believe me, San Francisco has more than its fair share of annoying phenomenon, chief among them the wave of hipsters that have descended up on the city like a Vans-wearing fog. There’s nothing more aggravating than someone who spends hours every morning trying to look like they just rolled out of bed. At least LA doesn’t pretend, aspiring actresses aren’t ashamed to admit they’re just steps away from becoming collagen enhanced cyborgs. But there is one area that San Francisco soundly beats the bejeezus out of LA, their homeless population. SF has some of the most creative and memorable homeless folks in the country. In a way they’re a microcosm of the city’s general population, people who just didn’t quite fit in other places and at least found a place where no matter how crazy they are, there’s someone infinitely more insane waiting around the corner. I have to say I’m relatively disappointed in LA’s homeless population, there’s plenty of them but I don’t think I’ll remember a single one. It may be a matter of location, West Hollywood may not attract the cream of the crazy homeless crop, but I oddly find myself longing for the days when a guy wearing a tinfoil hat would calmly sit next to you on the bus. In SF the homeless become minor celebrities, every neighborhood has its favorites and a select few even achieve city-wide fame. It’s not uncommon to have this exchange:
You: “So where do you live?”
Me: “I’m in the Inner Sunset.”
You: “Oh, you know that guy who walks around with a live rabbit on his head?”
Me: “Of course, I was just talking to him today next to the ATM machine.”
So to ease some of my San Francisco homesickness here’s the first induction ceremony for the Homeless Hall of Fame. To qualify you need to be not just crazy, but you need to make a significant contribution to the crazy game, setting the crazy bar just a little higher for the next generation. On a side note some of these people are certainly homeless, and for some it’s completely conceivable that they have a home yet spend every day on the streets doing things that would in no way qualify them to participate in mainstream society. The point is we’re not talking about eccentric millionaires or performance artists here, these are people who are genuinely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Ladies and Gentleman, may I present the 2007 Inaugural Class:

The Guy Who Smells Like Pee: The name says it all. Anyone who rides the N Train on a regular basis knows exactly who I’m talking about. Now it’s nothing special for a homeless man to smell like pee, but this guy has taken it to a whole new level. He smells like he peed his clothes, took them off, peed on them again, and then put them back on. Rinse, lather, repeat. He smells so bad people cram into the front car of the train to avoid him, giving him the back car all to himself. In every other way he’s your run-of-the-mill homeless guy, tattered clothes, doesn’t even really talk. It’s like he decided he was simply going to own the urine-smell department. Just simply outstanding work, a real dedication to his craft.

Painting-scooter guy: Here’s someone who probably does have a home somewhere, but how he makes enough money to survive I have no idea. He’s an innocuous older white man complete with decades old khakis and loafers who works primarily around Church St. and Market St. He putters around on an ancient scooter with a trunk in the back while wearing an enormous black helmet. Every so often he calmly pulls over, reaches into the scooter’s trunk, pulls out a paint brush, and slops a couple of lines of white paint on some surface. Billboards, storefront windows, the sidewalk, it’s all fair game. There’s no `apparent logic behind what he paints and there’s no discernable image or message. It’s undoubtedly illegal but he does it so calmly that no one ever says anything, everyone’s just so stunned by his brazenness he operates with seeming immunity. He’s my hero.

Lucy – I’m pretty sure that’s her name, my memory is letting me down (I’m sure one of our SF readers can confirm). She’s consistently smears her entire face with red lipstick and hangs out around 9th and Irving St. She never stops ranting, just a constant stream of fascinating associations. “No you can’t take my dog! Marshmallows! Where ‘s the hammer, I need some nails for the hammer!” What really sets her apart is her ability to speak completely lucidly for small moments. She’ll go into a store and calmly buy a packet of cigarettes with loose change, exchange pleasantries with the store owner, talk about the weather, and then literally the second she steps foot on the sidewalk it’s back to “Merry Go-Round explosion unicorns!” The rumor is she used to be a lawyer before her life fell apart. Watching her transition from complete civility to insane rant is incredible.

Hate Man: A true Berkeley institution. He believes that only in anger can people truly connect, so if you want to talk to him you have to go shoulder to shoulder and lean against him so there’s a constant struggle to remain upright. Everyday he can be found banging into a never-ending stream of people, ending each conversation with a resolute “I hate you.” He’s relatively non-threatening, and frankly it’s only a matter of time before you have to give it a whirl; give him a shoulder bump, and say “Hi, I hate you.”

Frank Chu (see picture above) – The undisputed champion. No one seems to know any real info on Frank, the rumor is he has a house in Oakland (he might also have a house on Zenon), regardless his prospects for unemployment seem remote at best. He walks around the Financial District screaming that an intergalactic organization called the 12 Galaxies has conspired to keep him from becoming a move star. I don’t even know if I can explain how little sense he makes. Take a moment to read his sign in the picture, that’s exactly what he’s talking about. He’ll show up to protests and do his thing with little to no regard for what’s being protested.
Crowd: “Stop the unjust war in Iraq!”
Frank: The transuniversal ecto-laws have made me intergenic!”
What we need is for some enterprising reporter to just follow him for a day to see where he goes at night, I’m astounded the SF Chronicle hasn’t already done it. God I love Frank Chu.

I present to you the first class of the Homeless Hall of Fame. For those of you who live in places without enormous homeless populations who might think this is a little unsympathetic to say the least, let me respond: either you start finding a way to laugh about the army of destitute and pained people around you everyday, or you turn into a quivering mess of regret and guilt. The reality of the situation is a little more complicated than “I’ll do a good deed and give this guy a couple dollars.” I encourage all you out there to send in your nominations for the Hall of Fame, we can make this a truly national endeavor.