All right, stoners, explain this, pt. 2

People seemed to enjoy the Sanjaya/Bob Dylan oddity from a few weeks ago, and I think I've found a good follow-up. I have no idea how to even introduce this one.



(Found on KSK)

Even Guys Named Jerry Can Suck

Jerry Falwell died. Mainly known for being a homophobe, I'll remember him more for saying a bit before the year 2000 that the antichrist was living somewhere in the world at the time. He figured that since 2000 would be the year of the rapture, the antichrist must be around somewhere. Since the antichrist is basically a bizarro Jesus (that's the official theological term) then Falwell figured he must be not only alive, but Jewish and roughly 30 years old, since that's how old Jesus was when he was crucified.

I don't really have anything productive to say about old Jer, so I'll leave you with a quote he made about 9/11:

"I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians ... all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say: you helped this happen"

Ok, I know I said I didn't have anything to say, but wouldn't it make more sense that the Christians trying to impose their morality on everyone else was more the cause? I mean, well, ok, let's not knock dead guys. I'm sure there are people who are sad about this, so I empathize with you all. Empathize is too strong. I guess I sympathize.

Ye of Little Faith

I was reading my Friend Faith's blog the other day and she had a great video on. You've probably seen it but play it, it's a great song and a pretty imaginitive video.

I've actually only hung out with Faith like three times through a mutual friend. You can read her blog here and his here. They're both good, so you should. I don't know if you can call someone a 'friend' after only three hanging outs but I just did. Faith just found out she was officially my friend while reading this post. She also is finding out that I'm not going to her birthday party on Saturday, which also means that she just found out I'm not a very good friend.

I hope I haven't lost my Faith because that would mean I have Faith no more, and that would suck because you gotta have Faith.

Awww, hell, I lost my train of thought..............................................:



These people do an interesting version of the video:

The Tipping Point

Bill Simmons, a blogger on ESPN.com, was answering his 'mail-bag' column the other day and someone asked him how much he tips various people.

I've been a waiter, so I consider my self a decent tipper in general but according to Simmons I under tip. (By the way I have to agree with Open Bar that BS really just mails it in these days. He's a great writer but his columns are getting very short and seemingly more and more effortless). Anyway, you can go see what he says but this is how I tip various people:

• Cab-Drivers: At least $2, it's not really that dependent on how far I go. Generally it's $2 + whatever amoung of change to round it to the next dollar.

• Coffee Shop Counter People/Take-out/Dry-cleaners: Nothing. They have these mugs out all the time for you to throw money in but it seems to me that they don't really deserve a tip. I guess, ultimately, I think you only really need to tip if someone is providing a service that makes whatever you're buying better. The guy that goes and gets your coffee? Doesn't really matter if he's a dick or cool. No tip for you! Occassionally, I'll throw the loose change in but, by and large, nada.
  

• Hotels: I guess if you have someone carry your bags for you or something, you should tip them. I suppose you could also leave money for the cleaning staff but I never do. Maybe I should.
  

• Waiters: Almost always 20%. As I mentioned, I've been a waiter and it's a tough job. It also really sucked if people were cheap on the tip because you're getting like $2 an hour based on the expectation that people tip. Sometimes I give more if they're really dope or I'm just in a good mood or something. If they're kind of rude, I'll leave 15% I think a few times I've left nothing but you'd really have to piss me off for me to do that. As a side note, one great piece of advice or at least something that put things into perspective - during the ceremony before my college graduation (there's a name for that that is escaping me) the speaker was this woman who's a playwright that was a professor at my college - apparently she was fairly well known and had a few of her plays turn into movies. Her name was Wendy MacLeod. Anyway, she was saying you should be a waiter or some other type of job for a while after you graduate. It went something like, "Be a waiter, be a bar-back, be a cab-driver. Be a nobody so that when you're a somebody you won't be an asshole."
  

• Bar Tenders: Clearly you tip these guys but I've never given much thought. I usually use my debit card at bars these days but you're paying cash it's probably a good idea to tip big in the beginning to ensure good service throughout the night. With a debit card, I usually tip at least 10% and it goes up based on how fast/nice they were and how many buybacks they give me. 20%, I think is for someone that was really dope. Being a waiter takes a lot more work than being a bar tender in terms of the actual job (remembering food orders, drink order, people complaining, sending stuff back, etc.) but I imagine it can get pretty difficult to handle an overcrowded bar as well.
  

• Food Deliverers: These guys get the cab driver treatment, $2 plus loose change to round it out. Sometimes more, but generally not much.
  

• Shoe-Shine People: In NYC shoe shines seem to vary between $2 and $3 per shine. I pay $5 regardless of what the shine initially costs, so if it's $2 the shiner gets $3 and if it's $3 the shiner gets $2. There's a guy that comes around my office and does it for $4 but I've only used him once and the division's president happened to be retiring that week and was in a great mood so he paid for me but I guess I'd give that guy $2 becaues $1 seems cheap.

• Street Performers: If someone is pretty good, I'll tip them. Especially on a subway platform or on a subway itself. If someone is singing a good old song or something and doing it reasonably well, it can really bring some happiness for a minute or two. I'll throw them anywhere from pocket change to a dollar or two.

• The Homeless: I don't really tip the homeless anymore. When I first started going to the city I always felt bad for those people so I'd often throw them a couple of bucks. In fact, when I got out of college and got my first job's first paycheck I thought I was rich and gave one lady a $20 bill. In recent years, it's very rare that I give anyone anything. I guess I've just become desensitized to them, which sounds sort of callous.

Here's what Simmons tips. He's clearly in a higher socioeconomic bracket than I am, what with his valet parking, curbside check-ins, room-service deliverers and sushi chefs. I don't even ever run across those people but I guess I'd tip them - I don't know about sushi chefs, I think you'd just tip the waiter/waitress.

My tip for you? Don't eat yellow snow.

Things That Are Underrated: New Wave and Disco

I got the idea for this post while watching "100 Greatest One Hit Wonders" on VH1 for about the 5th time this weekend.

New wave music is fantastic. I never really thought of new wave as an offshoot of punk rock, but I guess it is. The Wikipedia page about new wave defines new wave pretty clearly as post-punk music. All I know is that I love it. Given the definition, you could put a whole lot of bands into the new wave category, but I think of it slightly differently, I guess. For me, new wave is 1980s synthesizer/keyboard based music. You need guitars, you need drums and a bass, but you can't have new wave without the keyboard on some setting other than piano.

I don't want to go on forever about how awesome new wave is, even though I could. I think the appeal is the melodrama. It's about the synthesizer and a melodic vocals. It's a really teenage angst kind of music. It's all about delving not too deeply into the trivial issues that really matter to us while we're young. I love that. I think you can carry that with you forever through new wave music. Even though you've stopped caring about what 15 year old girls are thinking or doing, you can look back fondly on the time when it was all that mattered.

Some of the best music ever is new wave. My absolute favorite new wave song is "I Melt With You" by Modern English. Just a beautiful song. It's so distinctly '80s but timeless and universal at the same time. But there are so many others. Anything by Duran Duran or Depeche Mode, really the heroes of the genre. "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby, or "I Ran" by Flock of Seagulls, who were more than just hairtyles (not much more, mind you), "Whip It" by Devo. Another one of the best ever is "Take On Me" by A-Ha. The video and the song just dropped perfectly into that era. Did you know that A-Ha is still together and is still successful in Europe? I saw them on London Live not one month ago promoting their new album. (Incidentally, if you don't have an HDTV, then you're missing out on some fabulous music related programming on HDNet, INHD, and a channel that I think is called MoJo.) What about "In A Big Country" by Big Country? Fan-fucking-tastic. "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I could go on and on.

And what about the new wave of new wave? Also pretty fucking good. The Killers are my favorite. They brought synth-rock back in a big way for me. Hot Hot Heat are also very good, but a bit more on the punk side. Franz Ferdinand brought back the hairstyles and everything. I want to see more new wave comebacks. That's a genre that should never die. Damn you, '80s backlash. I'm glad other people love new wave too, and are making more.

Disco is an entirely different animal. The reason that disco is awesome is because of the basslines. Disco, in my opinion, was really the precursor to hip-hop music. I know it draws more blatantly from funk music, especially in its early days, but in the beginning, rap was all about the DJ and the rapper was secondary. Disco was the same way. It was all about the producer and the singers were kindof secondary. You get a funky beat and a badass bassline and you had a hit. I guess at the time disco represented commercialism and excess and that's why there was a backlash, but I think we're far enough removed from that today to really appreciate disco music. I can still remember the stigma of disco in the '80s, and you weren't allowed to like disco music. Except today disco just fucking rocks.

Even the cheesiest disco songs are catchy and danceable. The best ones are just fantastic. Donna Summer is a great singer who happened to come around in the disco era. Same for Gloria Gaynor and a bunch of others. I'm not going to list disco songs. Every disco song that you can name is great. I'm sure there are bad ones, but the ones that have survived (At first I was afraid, I was petrified...) are all great for the same reason, bassline. The vocals just fit in between the bass. It's all about dance and getting lost in it. Plus, you know you love the nightlife, you love to boogie, on the disco ra-hound, yeah.

Friday Classic Video: Fat Kid on a Roller Coaster

This clip floated around a lot over the summer, so you may have seen it.

What I especially love is the perfect juxtaposition of sheer joy and utter terror. Enjoy!

Does The Wolf = The Rocket?

Dear yankees fans,

You just signed Roger Clemens, and from what I've seen, you're quite excited. But please let me remind you of the events in a certain recent film, which I feel may offer you some wisdom on how to react. If I may...

In Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega (John Travolta, who is totally not gay, I swear, and also totally knows how to save lives) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson, who would kick my muthafuckin' ass if I linked to something bad about him) are two longtime hitmen who are sent to recover something very important to their very scary and demanding boss.

So Jules and Vincent drive to their destination, discussing the "royale with cheese," etc. They arrive at the apartment, and (random-black-guy-) Marvin -- who is their spy or something -- lets them in. After that, Vincent examines the mysteriously glowing suitcase, and very soon Jules executes both the Flock-of-Seagulls-guy-on-the couch and then (after a very satisfying Big Kahuna burger) "check-out-the-big-brain-on-" Brad.

Following that, Jules and Vincent (and Marvin), having successfully acquired what they sought, head back to base in Jules's Chevy Nova. Everything is going perfectly well. But on the way, Vincent carelessly points his gun at Marvin and accidentally blows his head off, painting the whole car in blood and brain matter. At this point, Jules and Vincent don't know what to do, so Jules calls his coffee-loving friend Jimmy and they drive to his house to hide the blood-stained car. Jules soon calls Marcellus Wallace -- their black, bald badass boss -- who informs him that someone named "The Wolf" is gonna come by and handle things, which immediately relieves Jules. We soon learn why the mere mention of "The Wolf" is so relaxing – this man solves problems.

Once The Wolf arrives, he figures out what to do right away. He works things out with Jimmy and quickly comes up with a plan*** to fix things. Jules and Vincent execute his plan. Essentially, they clean the car, making it presentable enough to drive to a spot where The Wolf knows a guy who will take care of it from there. But before that happens, The Wolf inspects the cleaning job Jules and Vincent did. Coffee-loving Jimmy (who's also an oak man) looks on, and he's quite impressed. "I can't believe this is the same car," Jimmy says. Jules and Vincent proudly await The Wolf's judgment. And then The Wolf spouts his immortal line:

"Let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet, gentlemen."

After the recent Roger Clemens signing, I hereby ask all yankee fans to consider that. Let's take a quick look at what this really means, because many yankee fans all of a sudden seem to think Roger Clemens is gonna single-handedly turn around this team’s blood-splattered Chevy Nova of a season. Will he help? Sure. But how much?

When Marcellus Wallace lets Jules know that he's sending The Wolf over, he's chilling beside a pool as his hot wife kisses him. How Marcellus built up his crime empire is something we aren't told (Come to think of it, how did George Steinbrenner? Hmm…); but when he tells Jules that The Wolf is on the way, Jules goes from angry as fuck ("I don't wanna hear about no muthafuckin’ 'ifs'!") to jubilant when he hears that The Wolf is coming ("You sendin' The Wolf? Shit, negro, that's all you had to say!").

Did you see the reactions of the yankee players and the fans at the stadium once Roger made his announcement during the 7th inning stretch? Very much like how Jules reacted, no?

But who can blame them? The yanks' starting pitching is in shambles, unlike when they were winning championships -- when their starting rotation was dominant. Roger Clemens helped them win championships in 1999 and 2000, the last of the yanks' titles. (Is it worth noting that the year before he got there, the yanks won 114 games and the Series without him? Had Roger won anything prior to that? Hmm…) He left following the 2003 season, leaving the final image (until now) of the great Clemens in pinstripes as him walking off the mound in Game 7 of the ALCS in the fourth inning after being pounded by the Sox.

Since then, the bronx bombers haven't been able to put a staff together that remotely compares to their glory days.

Much like Jules and Vincent (via Marcellus) called in The Wolf, the yanks (via George Steinbrenner) have now called in The Rocket. The Wolf fixed the problem; can The Rocket?

Once The Wolf came in, he had the plan, he saw how Jules and Vincent carried it out, and then, when everyone seemed happy with their progress, he made sure that they didn’t get complacent, saying simply:

Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet, gentlemen.

yankee fans -- take note. Whatever The Rocket is capable of doing, nothing he has done or said recently leads anyone to believe he has the foresight of The Wolf. (Since his first "retirement" following 2003, he spent three years in Houston and won what exactly? I'd say all that he "won" was a series of absurd demands from Houston's management -- and now the yanks too, despite the age-old "yankee way" -- allowing him to be the "24 and 1" player Alex Rodriguez was thought to be not too long ago. Hey Roger, if you want to be with your family, go ahead. Baseball will find a way to get by without you.)

His career stats are undeniable, but can he really be expected to turn everything around? I think the yanks are looking at a pitcher who's gonna give them 6 innings with an ERA around 4.00. Yes, he has intangibles, but don't they already have some guy named...what is it...Jeter? At 6 innings and a 4.00 ERA -- and assuming Chien Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte can return and pitch like they have in the recent past -- didn't the yanks just pay $28 million (prorated, blah whatever, it's still a fuckin' lot) for a guy who could end up being a number 4 starter?

Does he actually help the fact that the yanks' middle relief is god-awful? No. In fact, he makes it worse every time he doesn't make it into the eighth inning. And beyond middle relief, how much does Mariano Rivera really have left? He's shown time and again that however dominating he is against most teams, he has enormous problems with the Red Sox. And of all the teams the yanks have to worry about, which is number one?

Yes, I can understand why the yanks did this. They had the money; they had the need (especially after Phil Hughes's injury); and The Rocket loves them. But to think that The Rocket is gonna be able to do for George Steinbrenner, the yanks and their fans what The Wolf was able to for Marcellus, Jules and Vincent is pushing it.

As The Wolf said, Let's not start...

love,
Open Bar

*** P.S. -- Personal note: The Wolf's "plan" basically involves cleaning the car. Cleaning the car. All The Wolf really does is tell Jules and Vincent to take some towels and Windex into the car and clean it. That's fucking it.

Is that really all that brilliant? I mean, one time I met a chick at a bar and we went home together and...well, you know. In the morning, I woke up and noticed the bed was wet. And I mean fucking wet. While I was sleeping, I pissed at least two pitchers out onto that poor girl's mattress. I didn't know what to do, so I went to the bathroom to think things over, at which point I came up with an idea "worthy" of The Wolf. I went back to the bed and woke the girl up. I talked fast, telling her we should go watch some TV or something, and hurried her out of the bed before she could notice the...you know. Once she sat down on the couch, I went back to the bed and pulled the sheets up, arranged the pillows, and laid the comforter on top -- basically, I made the bed really nicely. Her whole mattress was soaked with my piss, but I made the top look normal. If you substitute piss for blood, isn't my plan for her bed the same thing as The Wolf's plan for the car?

And for the record, she did realize what I had done. (Shocker!) She was friends with a friend (Johanna) of my friend (Hollywood Squared), and weeks after this whole incident, I ran into Johanna. She told me that her friend was grossed out about her bed, but -- and I'm being totally serious -- I was really good in bed, so she didn't really care. But the point remains -- neither my plan nor The Wolf's was ultimately all that brilliant. It served its immediate purpose, but I don't remember me or Jules or Vincent winning any World Series as a result.

English Damn Good

I just read Chuck's post on how dope English is, and I wanted to share some thoughts. I would've just put these in the comments, but since I haven't posted in a while (and I have a YouTube bit which won't go in comments) I thought I'd throw it up here and take credit for an actual post.

First off, Chuck's bit about how important it is to choose the right words reminded me of a favorite quote one of my old teachers said to me. I think it's from Mark Twain, and there's a bit of paraphrasing here (ironic, huh?): The difference between choosing a word and the right word is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Nice, huh?

Speaking of the right words, something that has bothered me for quite some time is when people say that something is "intrical." Intrical is not a word. It's a lazy conflation of integral and intricate, and most people don't realize they're not speaking English when they say it. Though I imagine Chuck has used it -- and he would tell you it was an intrical part of the point he was making.

And finally, regarding the part about German being a much nicer language than most people know since we are mostly familiar with it through Hitler speeches, I think the following clip sums that up about perfectly. It's an old skit from The Dana Carvey Show, which I thought was very funny but those bastards at the network cancelled it after just a handful of episodes. Also interesting -- that's Steve Carell on the right, way before he became Steve Carell.



And here's another (completely unrelated to Chuck's post) clip, but it's funny, it has Steve Carell, and it also has Stephen Colbert before he became Stephen Colbert.



This better go up in the right place this time. Stupid time stamps.

English Good

Foreword

The prefix to the post is that I thought of the idea while I was reading the New York Times Magazine. I had originally intended just to post these two lines from the "Lives" column last week, and it turned into an essay without a place to actually put in the quotations. So before you read the essay, here is the inspiration. It's from a column by a lady named Lisa Carver and it's about how she had two dysfunctional marriages before settling in with her new boyfriend.

In this one she's describing how her boyfriend is kindof ghetto:

"I know it looks bad. But I also know how bad my good-looking marriage actually was."

The second is just pure brilliance, no explanation required:

"I don't feel bad that this will be my third marriage. Sometimes you have to try out both coasts before you decide Ohio is the place for you"

The Essay

I've come to really appreciate the English language. It's not as pretty as French or Spanish. It doesn't have the cool efficiency of German. But it's a perfect mix of the things that make those languages great. I don't know French well enough to really comment on it, but it sounds pretty. Spanish is a gorgeous language. If you're going to write a love song, you should write it in Spanish. But those languages lack usefullness.

Spanish, for example, doesn't have an allowance for using the possessive sense. (Interestingly, in relation to this post, I couldn't think of a better word to use in place of 'sense' here. The possessive is not a tense. I know it is something, but the word escapes me. Anyhow,) In English you can say "Luke's sister", but in Spanish you have to say "La hermana de Luke", which translates to "the sister of Luke". This is logically unsound as soon as you move to second degree possession. In English you can do the Spaceballs thing where you say "My father's cousin's rommate's girlfriend's uncle's friend gave me this PBA card". You can formulate this senctence on the fly as you think of your father, followed by his cousin, his rommate, his girlfriend, and so on, while you just add the apostrophe s to each person in your mind. In Spanish you have to start at the end of that sentence, nearly impossible to do in general conversation. It would translate basically to "the friend of the uncle of the girlfriend of the rommate of the cousin of my father". That would be impossible to say, first of all, and impossible to understand by the listener even if the speaker could get it out.

I think German gets a bad rap. I would bet that 98% of the German we hear as English speakers is from tapes of Hitler talking to enormous crowds. Hitler was insane to begin with and in front of large crowds he was all into it and yelling and what not. Either that, or people essentially imitating Hitler when exaggerating whatever they're saying in German. I think that's what makes us think German is a language for crazy people. German is not as ugly as we think it is. And It's ridiculously efficient. They have this thing in German where you can just tack words on to other words to say what you mean. I don't know much German, so I may be overstating it, but I get the idea you can do this whenever you want. The only example I know for sure in German is the word "kindergarten" which translates into "children's garden". Since English is Germanic we have that too. Any compound word is proof. "Airplane", "sidebar", "Superman" you get the idea. German words like "bildungsroman" and "schadenfreude" and what not just tack on word after word to get a point across. Incdientally, I managed to spell both of those words correctly on the first try. I looked both of them up to correct what I figured was undoubtedly a misspelling, only to find that both were correct.

I don't remember making a conscious decision to put the right words with the right thoughts, but now I'm almost hyperconscious of it. I didn't notice until someone pointed it out to me when I was in college. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but she said to me, "You choose your words too carefully to say something like that." And she meant it in a pejorative way, which is what made me think about it. I guess it's true. I'm a believer that there is a right word for whatever it is you're trying to say. So finding the right word in the right situation has become something of a life's goal of mine. My personality is such that I strive to say as few words as possible, so efficiency is of utmost importance. (Worth pointing out again, that my e-self is sortof the opposite of my actual self. I really tend to ramble around these posts.) A good example is the use of the word "penultimate". I can't tell you how often I hear the phrase "second to last". At least once a week. Every time I do, I think to myself "you should have said 'penultimate', you ignoramus". Even better than "penultimate" is "antepenultimate", meaning "third to last".

Something else I enjoy is using words in contexts that they don't belong in, or even just downright improperly, and having them make sense anyway. A good example is the word "nonplussed". I usually use it to mean "unhappy" when I know full well that it actually means "perplexed". Interestingly, if you don't know the meaning, then you just assume it means "unhappy", whereas if you do know the meaning, then you get a double dose of meaning, as you know that I mean "unhappy" when in all likelihood the person is probably unhappy because of some level of perplexity.

Here's a bit of text from my old school website on the page about me:

"He told a bunch of people in my class that my middle name was Aloyscious the next day and there was a bit of ongoing happenstance related to that for a few days. Happenstance does not really fit into the context of that sentence, though I doubt anyone would have noticed if I didn't point it out. For the rest of this little diatribe, you'll have to accept the fact that I enjoy using words where they don't belong, or even words that don't exist. I'm not going to point it out any more, fortunately for you.)"

Come to think of it, I also really enjoy sometimes saying things I don't really mean at all, just to emphasize a point. That in itself is the pure definition of "irony", except when I do it sometimes the irony is lost because I assume that people understand that I don't mean what I say even though I've given them no reason to, when in actuality they just go around thinking I'm a dumbass. I guess it's a win-win, though, because they get to think I'm a dumbass, and I get to privately hold it over their heads, thus bringing to fruition the full extent of my passive aggression. (You didn't think I'd write a post on how much I love language without using my favorite word, did you? My favorite word is "fruition", for those who haven't committed my websites from 5 years ago to memory (What's wrong with you?))

Anyway, English rocks, and when used properly is both beautiful and efficient.

Unbelievab-Al

The irony continues to drip.

Al Sharpton, the man, the myth, the douchebag.

Rev. Al Sharpton called on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to "engage in a dialogue of reconciliation" Thursday, a day after the two exchanged a war of words over Sharpton's comments about the Mormon faith.

"I have a profound respect for all believers of God, regardless of whether they are theologically in step with my beliefs or not, and I unequivocally say to the Mormons or anyone else that I in no way want to directly or indirectly be a part of any intolerance between any religions or races and regret my words being used or misused in any fashion that would add to that," Sharpton said in a statement.

Sharpton told his radio-show audience Thursday he personally called Romney, but Rachel Noerdlinger, a spokeswoman for Sharpton, told CNN the two did not speak.

In a radio debate Tuesday night, Sharpton said "those who really believe in God will defeat" Romney for the White House. Sharpton later said he was not questioning Romney's Mormon faith but instead was aiming his comments toward Christopher Hitchens, the author he was debating.

On Wednesday, Romney called the comment "bigoted," and said "it was a most unfortunate comment to make."

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/

Say what you will about Al "do as I say not as I do" Sharpton but the man has balls.

Al Sharpton just got someone fired because of an intolerant comment and now he wants a pass? Give me a break. He should lose his radio show and any standing of respect that he has (for some reason) in society.

This wasn't even said in jest.

Big-Got Al has a history of making intolerant and irresponsible statements, isn't it time that we stopped him? News media - can't you please PLEASE make this a big story and wipe this guy off the map?