Scoop

HYSTERICALLY funny! I didn't think Woody Allen quite had it in him anymore. It reminds me of the older era, before he got serious or serious/funny - like Love and Death, or Take the Money and Run. I think the critics of this movie are those who don't understand Allen's range of style, because this one is Allen at the peak of this genre.

I'm Such a Space Cadet!

So here's a conversation that happened last night:

HDG: How's it going, Ms. I-have-a-test-on-Friday?
Rex: Um yeah, about that...turns out it's not Friday, it's tomorrow.
HDG: What? Ok, I'll let you go.

I seem to have a lot of trouble with these important details. If I hadn't reread the email to see if my prof had specified a time for the exam (he hadn't), I might have blown it.

But the happy news is, it's over now and it's better this way.

Current Audio

Undertones
Get Over You

Alternative TV
Action Time Vision

Heartbreakers
Born to Lose

It's a curious thing

to colonize a place and make it your own. I've been away for so long that my day to day activities feel like they don't belong here anymore. As I listen to the music I've heard all summer, and read the books I've read all summer, I feel like the dog who trots around the neighborhood peeing on trees.

End of Free Ride

Back at school, back at my apartment. I discovered that my source of free internet there either moved away or set up a password (I never found out whose internet I'd been "borrowing"). Too bad! I guess that means I'm finally going to have to buy my own.

As for the rest of being back, it sucks. I hate being by myself, especially without my best friend the tv (I paid my last cable bill late), and plus I'm not looking forward to my exams.

Is It Possible?

I was wondering if it's even possible for a person to have really really grotesquely high self-esteem - sincerely, I mean. I feel like our natural response to someone who's really full of himself or herself is that he or she is compensating for some insecurity - in effect, that the person has low self-esteem. But now I'm wondering if the opposite could be true. If so, what would high self-esteem look like? Would it manifest itself in the same way as low self-esteem, such that we would be able to confuse them? Or does it look completely different, such that I haven't even learned how to recognize it yet?

On the other hand, I do find it doubtful that a person could have no insecurities.

Project Runway - WTF

Ah, I love this show; it's so good! But one of the ways they get us hooked is by tantalizing and frustrating us. Last week I was mad because I thought Jeffrey totally got robbed. This week Uli should have won, but she got robbed. This ploy of theirs is effective. I keep coming back each week for more, hoping that one day justice will triumph. (The fashion icon week I thought was just; Michael's Pam Grier ensemble was the shit.)

It's like Project Runway is a microcosm for life. Most of the time the gods (ie judges) are arbitrary and cruel, but every once in a while they get it right, and those are the moments we hold out for.

Jeff Buckley

I think two instances qualify as the beginnings of a hypothesis.

I sometimes sport a certain kind of look that seems to draw a certain kind of man. This look is a departure from my usual slacker/punky/trashy/androgynous thing; it involves combing my hair and wearing makeup; for example, often a pearl necklace, bouncy curls, and pink pink pink clothes. It's very groomed and feminine and prissy. You wouldn't think it, but tends to draw a punkier kind of man, like the sensitive emo type. How counterintuitive! The sensitive emo type is more my type, so you would think I'd have better luck attracting that when I'm being myself than when I'm putting on my little fun masquerade. Instead, I usually can't find a sensitive guy to save my life.

Anyways, this has happened twice in recent memory, and both times the guy - strikingly - declared his undying adoration for Jeff Buckley. Huh? What is it about Jeff Buckley and frilly pink girls? I was asking a friend's friend about it tonight, and he informed me that Jeff Buckley was depressing music. That made even less sense. Is pink the new black? Is it now goth to be Stepford?

Clambake?

There's a reason why I find the word clambake to be funny, but I can't for the life of me remember why. I feel like I must be thinking of some quote or allusion in which it was used as a colorful synonym for "having a good time."

Can anyone help me out? What am I thinking of?

School Nightmares Again

After a whirlwind weekend in SF - which is why I've been away from the blog for a while (in case you noticed) - I'm back at home dreaming of the horrors of school starting. Today's nap yielded a dream in which I wasn't even allowed to take my exams, like as punishment for the fact that I got into a cat fight, which reflected poorly on the department's reputation. That is, it was like my academic program had transformed into some kind of a finishing school. Ach. Improbable but scary. The feeling of inadequacy and impotence had translated intact.

Awesome Dream

I just had a dream that Joey Ramone was trying to seduce me. Obviously, it wasn't going to be hard for him. But even in my dream, there were like a ton of other women tucked away in every room, waiting for a piece; which sucked.

A few night ago I had this other dream that there was this almost infinitely deep pool, and I had to save a guy who was stuck at the bottom (and almost drowned myself). I looked up this up in a dream interpretation dictionary, and it said that diving (into murky water) signifies uncertainty, while saving someone from drowning signifies loss of control or loss of identity. Drowning oneself signifies being overwhelmed by repressed emotions.

I always thought I was pretty secure with who I am. But am I having an identity crisis?

Conversation Galante

I observe: "Our sentimental friend the moon!
Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)
It may be Prester John's balloon
Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
To light poor travellers to their distress."
She then: "How you digress!"

And I then: "Someone frames upon the keys
That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain
The night and moonshine; music which we seize
To body forth our own vacuity."
She then: "Does this refer to me?"
"Oh no, it is I who am inane."

"You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
The eternal enemy of the absolute,
Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!
With your air indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute--"
And--"Are we then so serious?"

- T.S. Eliot

The Stitches

FINALLY got to see them play - the last two times I tried the band didn't show up. So I learned that not only are the Stitches the flakiest band I ever liked, but they are also the most unattractive, physically. Woof! Fat, wrinkley, bad fashion - you name it. It's astounding that their music (at least for one album) is so satisfying. Sometimes it was the only thing that got me through those rainy days.

A fun, unrelated FYI: did you know that Fergie is from Hacienda Heights? Holla! I knew there was a reason I liked her.

Ironing Shirts

I'm reading Bang's post about how her political debates with her bf could possibly lead to getting dumped, because conventional wisdom says no man wants to be shown up by his woman. I agree with the Bang's conclusion, that she still shouldn't stop debating, though for reasons more ideological than diversionary: it's in the core of my feminist beliefs that if the choice came down to keeping a man or selling myself short in any way to make him feel like his balls are bigger, I'd sooner dispense of the man.

But this run-of-the-mill (for me) reflection happens to coincide with a documentary I saw last night about Lana Turner, and I suddenly found myself thinking twice about my accepted feminist position. I never had much interest in Lana Turner - the movies that I've seen of hers (admittedly not many) are a little better than mediocre, and I've always sort of regarded her as a poor man's Marilyn Monroe, though with more acting versatility - but it turns out that her life was fairly interesting. Not only was Turner a bombshell, but she was also a bit of that "woman with balls" that I'd like to be: impulsive, headstrong, flamboyant, and unladylike (she apparently used to pass out "I Love Lana" bracelets to men at parties, which was very forward and racy at the time). Unfortunately, these were the very qualities that got her into trouble over and over again.

All told, Turner had seven husbands, and as the documentary describes it, she died at 74, still a romantic and a searcher, yearning for Mr. Right but ending up with only a string of Mr. Right Nows. She used to joke that she always wanted one husband and seven kids, not seven husbands and one kid...

OMG! I gasped. That could be me. It IS possible, even for a bombshell, to go through the whole of life without ever reaching the fairy tale ending. No matter how hard one hopes and tries.

Part of it is Turner's own fault - marrying on whims, picking bad boys, and when she finally gets the stable guy, spending all his trust fund money until he's driven away. But part of it was disturbingly close to home. Her first marriage didn't work out because her husband used to yell at her for not ironing his shirts. She would stand there, ironing this schmuck's shirt reluctantly, and it would dawn on her that she made like a billion times more money than this nobody.

I heartily concurred then; I, too, would have said, FUCK THAT NOISE.

But is that wrong-headed of me? Lana Turner was perhaps ahead of her time, or she simply could have been overly headstrong; in either case, look what it got her! One might argue that things could have been very different had she lived in a more liberated age; but ultimately, her unwillingness to bend and compromise brought her nothing but a lifetime of unhappiness, while a lot of insipid and frigid women had perfectly fulfilling marriages. It made me think that maybe being ideologically right and principled and assertive and self-respecting isn't everything. For better or for worse, this is the life we live in, and sometimes the only way to make it work is to play ball with everyone else.

I Sure Do Love the Information Age

and, I love (in case you haven't noticed) TV.

Rarely do I get so arrested by a song on TV that it makes me stop in my tracks. Even more rarely - never, in fact, I think - does this happen for a song I hear in a COMMERCIAL. But there's a first time for everything. Nip/Tuck has a new ad featuring this bassy, ultra-sexy electronic song. I had to look it up to find out what it was.

I remember a time when this was not possible. But now, thanks to google, you can look up pretty much any ridiculous thing in the world, even with the most obscure search terms.

The song I was looking for was "Strict Machine" by Goldfrapp.

Close Call

Today after dinner, I came the closest I've ever gotten, since my diaper days, to crapping my pants. If there were one more person in line in front of me, I would have let loose right there and humiliated myself. I can't even imagine how I would have handled that. But for the grace of God, and the heroic strength of my sphincter...

What an unforgettable day.

The real funny thing is that there was a big crowd of people in front of the bathrooms, and I was so desperate lest I soil myself that I didn't even try to hide it - walking around, crossing my legs, contorting to find a tolerable position for my colon, and even whispering a prayer. On my way out (after relieving myself), another person waiting for the bathroom, who was witness to my desperate state, actually tried to hit on me! Jesus, I thought, this chump has no idea how close he came to picking up on the shit-covered chick. Standards, people.

Y Tu Mama Tambien

So apparently all you need to make a hit artsy film are
1. lots and lots of sex
2. nice beach scenery
3. the barest hint of superficial social commentary

and finally, the hallmark of every "deep" movie

4. drug use. With, of course, swearing.

Optional: in a foreign language.

Man, that was dumb. Movies like this make me think I could write something meaningful.

A Beavis and Butthead Moment

1. Hinder, Lips of an Angel
Unbelievable that this is getting airplay - albeit VH1, big surprise. Hello 1988! Every time you think there's no more market for hair metal...

2. Fergie, London Bridge
A current dance favorite. I like a lot of pop music, but I don't follow it in a strenuous academic way; thus, I've been hearing this song for a while and loving it, without knowing who it was.

3. Justin Timberlake, Sexyback
Same deal as London Bridge, loved the song and didn't know it was Justin Timberlake. Is it possible to hear this song and NOT dance?

4. Kelis, Bossy
I love the idea of a tough diva. Too often you see female artists making themselves into these weak and frivolous plastic toys in their efforts to sell sex.

5. Beyonce, Deja Vu
Big disappointment. Beyonce can dance, but she needs to get herself a new choreographer. And, I think she's singing outside her optimum range in this song. And, she looks like crackhead in the video.

6. Cherish, Do It to It
I know this song is kinda old now, but I think the video is great. The story is one of those house-party-while-the-parents-are-away stories, popularized in 80's highjinx sitcoms. Except I like how this wasn't one of those house parties with lots of (underage) alcohol, but actual FOOD! I wish I could go to a party like that. The song isn't bad either.

7. The Bloody Hollies
Fine, fine punk. (No video, unfortunately.)

And the Winner Is...

HDG! Blind Date turned out to be a perfectly cool, normal guy. We might have even become friends if our geographies intersected more.

Preconceived Notions

I have a blind date tomorrow. My mom set it up, but she won't tell me anything about the person because she's afraid I'll form preconceived notions. Thus, I must be as judgmental as possible, hehe. Besides, it's not often that you get to devise elaborate theories based on nothing, and then actually have the opportunity to confirm or refute those theories

Anyways, I've formed a pretty solid idea, gathered from a few emails, a voice message, a text message, and a phone conversation - plus whatever my mom let slip out.

1. He's a rich investment banker with two older sisters.
2. He mentioned the word "pimp" (verb) loosely in relation to our set up. He writes "u" for "you" and does not employ capital letters.
3. He talks a bit like a pothead - surprising for an investment banker. Possibly gay.
4. He mentioned that he was super busy this week, so I said, "Thanks for taking the time to meet me." He said, "Oh no, it's not like that at all..." Which I thought sounded odd.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = any combination of the following

a. One of those type-A frat assholes you know who are highly driven in their careers (networking, etc), but who are also dedicated to cultivating a "cool" persona (like getting baked now and then).

b. Gay.

c. A mama's boy. Possibly already has a girlfriend, and he's about to elope with her, but he thought he should go on this blind date to appease the coming parental anger.

d. A relatively cool guy.

Almost Physical Pain

I was in my car listening to my favorite radio show when the dj announced that they were giving away tickets to the Adolescents on Friday 8/18. Oow! That's the weekend I'm taking a road trip to San Francisco. About ten minutes later, the dj said that no one claimed the tickets yet, and they were still up for grabs. I was gripped by a spasm of anguish that was nearly palpable! Nothing would make me want to miss out on SF, but you know how the mind works? You know how you think you want something more the more it tantalizes you? I actually suspect this is the key psychologizing behind concerts, and they way they make you wait like 30-40 minutes in between bands in order to make you really, really keen on seeing the show once it finally starts. Anyways, the dj announced three different times that free tickets were still available for the Adolescents. It was so tantalizing that I contemplated not going to SF just so I could claim the tickets and put myself out of my present misery, of having this waved in front of me over and over again...

It's a testament to my love that I resisted the temptation.

Can't Sleep

As I lay here thinking of how exhausted I SHOULD be (I slept a wee 2.5 hours last night), I suddenly realized that I'm stressed out of my mind. I think I mentioned before that I usually repress stress so well that I can't even tell anymore if I'm stressed or not - if I've become a real slacker or if I'm merely pretending to be a slacker. But now I know I'm stressed. It's overwhelming how much history I have to imbibe this week on Sparta, and this month on everything, and plus by tomorrow I somehow have to become a Revolutionary War (and pre-Revolution) expert, on top of everything else. I can't remember history! It's too boring and too rote.

And did I mention I have to take a Latin exam?

Blast to the Past

I store boxes upon boxes of old high school papers, and I've lugged them around for years - always a nuisance, always useless, and always on the precipice of being thrown out altogether. I mean, some of these papers include old algebra homework problems, and basically the only thing I parted with was the scratch paper.

Who knew these old loads of crap would resurface to usefulness someday? Well...I guess I can proudly say that I must have suspected it in the back of my mind all this time - otherwise I wouldn't have kept them. Nevertheless, it made me no less surprised when I actually found myself digging up my old US history binders and getting ready to pass them onto a new student.

The Sea People

I was reading about the decline of Mycenae during the Greek dark ages, and I had a sudden recollection about this lecture on the Sea People in college. Too bad I don't have any ability to conceptualize time, and even less an ability to conceptualize geography (making it impossible to learn history). Anyways, my book was going through various theories as to why the Mycenaean civilization got ruined, including a discussion on why it probably wasn't the coming of the Dorians, and that's when I remembered vaguely that there did exist some invading peoples somewhere that destroyed a lot of civilizations sometime long ago, which my book does not identify by name. So I looked it up on wikipedia, and found that the peoples I was thinking of were the Sea People, who may or may not have been the Myceneans.

Anyways, this bit of history means little to me because I can't conceptualize geography, but in the absence of anything interesting to say or any good jokes to tell (tear), I thought I might as well share some of it. This is from my college history book:

Disasters hit the whole easter Mediterranean around 1200 BC, not just Greece. Ugarit, the greatest emporium on the Mediterranean, was destroyed, and the Hittite Empire collapsed. Of the great ancient civilizations, only Egypt survived; and this time we know why. An inscription at Karnak, the Egyptian capital 200 miles south of modern Cairo, says that in 1209 BC the pharaoh Merneptah defeated an invasion of Libyans and their allies...

We call these invaders the Sea Peoples. They were probably involved in the destructions in Greece... But what was their role? The Sea Peoples included the Peleset, probably the same people as the Philistines, well known from the Hebrew Bible. Philistines settled five towns in what is now the Gaza strip and southern Israel after Ramses III defeated them. Some of their towns have been excavated: the finds are almost identical to those from Greece in the twelfth century BC. The Philistines were perhaps Mycenaean Greek refugees. Merneptah's inscription of 1209 BC names a group called in Egyptian the 3kwsh, which could have been pronounced Akaiwasha, very like the Ahhiyawa (= Achaeans) in the Hittite texts. Egyptian texts also mention the Danuna, perhaps the same as Homer's Danaans, and Shardana, perhaps men from Sardinia. Shekelesh sounds like the Greek Sikeloi, or Sicilians.

The most influential theory is that a broad population movement started around 1225 BC in the central Mediterranean. Later authors say that the Dorians...entered Greece after the Trojan War, though archaeological research does not document this. Still, such a movement may have been linked to the depredations of the Sea Peoples. By themselves migrations would not have toppled palaces, but they apparently coincided with ferocious earthquakes and possibly other natural disasters. Faced with economic collapse and starvation, bands of Mycenaean Greeks may have joined a broader tide of displaced peoples...

Recurring Dream

The striking feature of my one recurring dream is that everyone is ignoring me. So it's pretty exceptional when I dream, as I did two nights ago, that people are actually watching me, and pointing and laughing, as per the normal "naked in public" dream. This time the thought that was going through my head was, "What, you've never seen a person on a toilet before?" and though I was embarrassed, I didn't think, as I usually do, that there was something wrong with the scenario. That is, I took it to be normal that people would be in the bathroom while as I was crapping, but it was they who failed to observe the standard etiquette of turning away.

My crackpot psychologizing has interpreted my normal recurring dream to be a fear of exposure compounded with a fear of being invisible. My latest dream I think demands a different interpretation. I'm guessing it reflects my annoyance these days with how little people observe standard etiquette - not like keeping your forks on the left or anything, but vis a vis the very basic principle of making the other person feel comfortable. There were a couple run-ins this week with that feeling of annoyance:

- When one of my students came into the teacher's lounge and announced that my coworker, who was sitting right next to me, had been talking shit about me. I told my student that he should know better than to repeat that. He's a kid, and I guess that makes it excusable; but few people, universally, seem to realize that information like that benefits no one, and no one really wants to hear about it.

- When I accidently spit during a conversation (happens frequently enough; I'm a bit of a mumbler, which gets me into trouble for the "p" words), and another coworker stopped and pointed it out to me. I remember one time when a similar thing happened with another friend; but this friend proved himself a true Southern gentleman because he just wiped it away and pretended like nothing happened. Seriously, all those people who think it makes you looks smart or cheeky to point out other people's mistakes: you've got a lonely life ahead of you.

- On two occassions these last two weekends, people chose to make it a prominent topic of conversation to discuss some crazy party they went to or were going to, to which their interlocutors were not invited, but the timing was such that they should have at least gotten courtesy invitations. I personally don't believe in exclusivity, but I can respect that some people do; so if there's a chance for uncomfortableness, TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. If the conversation looks like, "Hey so after I ditch you losers I'm going to this kick-ass rave" it makes it very difficult for the other person to participate. Or, even if the conversation looks like, "This party I went to last night instead of hanging out with you was really sucky, and here's all the bad drama that went down," that's still a little awkward (think about it: it's not like the other person could say, "yeah, that sounds so bad, I'm totally glad I didn't go" without sounding bitchy, nor could she say, "it sounds like a lot of drama, but it still must have been fun," without sounding desperate).

On those nights you're feeling blue

you pop in that music you normally consider too gay, and you enjoy it. I forgot to mention a week or two ago that my new French Kicks cd arrived. This was the band I saw with the Futureheads, and they were really, really excellent live; but then when I heard their cd the mood had passed, and I was just like "eh." But I knew there would be a time I would get into it again, and this is one of those occassions. I'm feeling an overwhelming sense of weariness. You try and try to make things work - whether it's something big, like trying to fall in love with the kind of dude who wears a wifebeater in public, and then getting dumped by said douchebag, or whether it's something small, like just trying to get your coworkers to let loose and have a good time - or you try to wait patiently for what the Greeks called kairos, and it doesn't matter; it all falls apart in your hands.

That's when you sit back and chill and light a pipe (if you're a smoker) and pop in that old gay-ass cd, and reflect that you at least never let you down, even if you seldom knock your socks off. Well...there will be other nights to think about how you DID let yourself down, but on nights like this it's best simply to enjoy being alone. With your gay-ass music.

Subconsciously,

I had this thought that a certain line said in a certain way was supremely funny. I couldn't quite explain why, except that I thought it might have been a quote...

I was talking to my brother just now, and he informed me that the line I had in my head was something that our uncle used to say when he got drunk. Ha! That means if I actually tried it on other people, no one would have got it, and I would have been there, alone, laughing my head off.

Ps, I just had an outing with my co-workers. Talk about awkward! Even with 3 drinks.

Chapelle Show's New 2Pac Song

I saw caught this last night rerunning on Comedy Central. If you haven't seen it yet, it's on YouTube.

DJ: **** exclusive, this that new Tupac.

Listen close, as life turns it's pages,
Makaveli here kickin' rhymes for the ages.
Seen things in stages,
Wise words spoken by sages,
From SkyTel to Blackberry pagers.
Your crew don't phase us,
We'll make you bustas pay us,
Run up in your spot like C.J. from San Andreas.

(Chorus)
I wrote this song a long time ago,
A real long time ago. Feel me!
I wrote this song a long time ago,
Was the dopest song I ever wrote... in '94.

What can a nigga do,
When half the people voted for George W.
Life's a bitch, cause George W., can't be true,
I wanna choke him, cause he's a snitch,
I'm talkin' bout George W. Smith, from city council,
He ran in '93 out in Oakland, you probabably didn't hear about him.

(Chorus)
I wrote this song a long time ago,
A real long time ago.
Way before Slim Shady was in demand,
Way before we dropped bologna on Afghanistan.
I wrote this song in '94.

How am I doin' this?

Look around the club,
See everyone in the place,
Showing Pac love,
Got a smile on my face.
The girl in the miniskirt, has bad taste,
Cause that shirt don't match,
There's a pudding stain on the back.
And what the **** is that! It might be doo doo!

And you in the back you ain't ****,
You want a Gin & Tonic but you didn't even tip.
And if you hit this table one more time,
Then the record might skip... might skip.
I told you, stop hittin' the table.

Tupac Shakur,
I wrote this rhyme in 1994.
I'm not alive!
Thug Life!
Dave Chappelle, that ain't your wife.
You better leave, you got two kids
Go Home!

(Chorus)
I wrote this song a long time ago,
A real long time ago.
Way before Beinie Siegel had to do a bid (?)
Way before Dave Chappelle had two kids.
Don't give him no coochie.

DJ: Tupac rest in peace.

Ok, I will.

My Bad

I found my missing book! I guess that means my punk kids didn't steal it after all...hehe. I did suspect that they were too dimwitted to play those subtle mind tricks on me, instead of say, stealing my wallet.

Also, I was shocked to discover that my child-molesting co-working is only 21 - which would make him not a child molester at all (half +7 rule). Apparently he finished college in 2.5 years, and I guess he might have skipped a year or two of school as kid, because I was under the impression that he was out of school for a while now. Oops. Good thing I blogged about all this in my passive-aggressive way, instead of accusing people to their faces. Yay passive-aggressives!

The Last Supper

A dark comedy starring Cameron Diaz, 1995. It's about these 5 liberal graduate students who live together in the middle of a conservative Iowa town. One night they have a redneck veteran over for dinner, and they get into an argument with him about the ethics of war. The redneck starts to get violent, and pulls out a knife on one of the housemates, just to demonstrate what a pussy he really is, and then attacks another one the housemates. While the redneck is breaking this second guy's arm, the first guy stabs the redneck with his knife.

The horrified housemates debate what to do. They all know it was an accident, but they realize that that would be hard to plead considering the dead man was stabbed in the back. What if we explain that Marc was drunk? But I'm not drunk, says Marc, I'm high. Like we can explain that to the police...etc.

Finally it's decided that they won't report the incident, they'll bury the body and dump the guy's truck, and in this remote town, probably no one will ever notice. So the housemates get away with murder, and that would have been the end of it; but the next day two of the guys are sitting in a coffee shop and witness a man being a big jerk to someone. We should have him over for dinner, remarks one. What started out as a joke takes hold as a brilliant idea. Liberals always fight and never get anything done. They could actually make a difference in the world if they got rid of the hateful conservatives who are doing it harm.

The rest of the movie is a rather tired out exploration on the psychology of murder, like Crime and Punishment or Macbeth, except not as serious and not as thought-provoking, though there is a nice twist of irony at the end.

But the hypothetical that really got me thinking was the opening premise of the movie. What would I do if I were present at a murder such as the first one? What if my friends were being attacked, and an act of self-defense plus some drugs resulted in an accidental death? I too would feel that it's unjust that my friend should have to take the fall for some worthless scumbag - who incidentally turns out to be a murderer and a child molester whom the world was well rid of. What would be the point of compounding this scumbag's accidental death with the death penalty that surely awaits my friend? It's not like that would bring the dead man back, and besides, my friend is a basically good person, and most of all, it was an accident.

What would I do? Realistically, I'd most likely report the incident from the beginning in order to avoid as much responsibility as possible. I've seen too much CSI to think that I could actually get away with it. That's what I'd most likely do, but at the same time, I'm not proud of it. Throwing my friend to the dogs like that is a pretty supreme act of selfishness. I wouldn't be looking out for anyone except Numero Uno.

Who Knew Ice-T Is Hilarious?

[Several ellipses in transcript, because I'm writing from memory, and there was a lot of fluff in between.]

Conan:
Are there any types of music, like Streisand, or Air Supply, that your fans would be surprised to hear you liked?

Ice-T:
Aw naw, not Streisand. I'd say the poppiest record I liked was that one by the New Radicals, you know the one that went like...[sings]. I used to rock that record all the way to Vegas [pretends to bump to the music].

Conan:
Do you find that you dance differently to that kind of music? What if your fans pulled up to you dancing in your car like that?

Ice-T:
I would have made it hip. They would have thought that's the new thing.

Conan:
Okay, then make this hip. It was recently reported that you attended a tupperware party.

Ice-T:
It wasn't a "tupperware party." It was a party in New York, in a club. Tupperware was served.

The first time I went to Hooters

and until recently, the last, was in the spring of 2003. We went to the one in Santa Monica, and I remember that some people in our group asked our Hooters girl, very sincerely and very innocently, why she would work there. They didn't dream that she would answer tersely and all in a huff, although in retrospect in made perfect sense. They just wanted to know why Hooters - simple question.

Anyways, that's what I remember most about my first Hooters trip - that and my pleasant surprise that it was "delightfully tacky, and yet unrefined," more so than it was sleazy. Last Monday I finally went for the second time, to the Costa Mesa Hooters. The impression I came away with this time was how much more hilarious it was before, not just making fun of its tackiness but really putting on a show. The South Park Raisins episode was dead on, I thought...

Then it occurred to me that I didn't remember this much exaggerated self-parody from the Santa Monica Hooters. When I first saw the Raisins episode, I thought it was funny, but not particularly accurate; its humor derived from taking certain elements to the extreme, such as all the Raisins girls having the names of luxury cars. But Costa Mesa made a veritable mirror of accuracy out of Raisins: the way the girls greet you, the dancing, the hoola-hooping, and the flirting.

I checked, and as I was beginning to suspect, the Raisins episode aired on December 10, 2003, a few months AFTER my Santa Monica trip. This Hooters phenomenon then represents a very interesting philosophical moment: whereas it is typically the case that (traditional) art imitates life, in the case of Hooters/Raisins, life has imitated art.

Strangeness

I suddenly find it a tremendous burden to groom myself. It feels very off to wear high heels or skirts, and as for makeup, forget about it. I can't even stand to blow dry my hair these days - which is the cornerstone to preventing a bad hair day - which in turn is the cornerstone to looking presentable. What a mess.

Wifebeater

The person formerly known as "New Guy" will henceforth be referred to as "Wifebeater" (on account of his favorite attire), if there is ever occassion to mention him again. My friend Shelly commented before on how one of my "cons" concerning him could be problematic, and I fully agree; therefore I am happy to announce (though with mortifried pride) that it will be a problem no more, since Wifebeater seems to be blowing me off - thus freeing me to refer to him with a pejorative.

Here's a guy, once again, who seems even more impetuous and histrionic than me. Before he was calling me every single day, and going out every other day, which was really too much. Now he won't even return my call. Last Friday I had said I would rather stay at home and veg than go out with him, and this is what I get. I thought to the rest of the world, relationships were something that happened more gradually, and less perversely, than this. Somehow I never seem to get a taste of how the other half - the stable half - lives.

Sickos

So I have this 26-year-old dorky coworker who's dating some naive 18-year-old, also from my work. Last week I said something to the girlfriend, just to open up her mind a little, that I don't think there's anything wrong with a girl dating a younger man, and that sometimes it can even be preferable (like, if the man is the player-type). She gave me the standard clueless answer, like boys who date older girls will treat you like their mom (a textbook case of armchair theorizing) and all boys "my age" are too immature (which may be true at 13, physically, but I really don't think there's anything socially that would catalyze a girl's maturity faster than a boy's, esp. at 18). What I didn't say then was Fine, but you know that the only 26-year-old you could possibly bag is a skeezy dateless loser whom chicks his own age shun like the plague...

Then today the boyfriend made some comment to me like I like to date little boys or something. I was too stunned to take issue with it, because I didn't think the naive chick could also be such a dumb ho to interpret it that way, and then go running off to tell her boyfriend; plus I knew HE couldn't have meant it maliciously, of all people, and that if I were to show that I was offended, I would have to articulate just how sick I thought he was for dating teenagers, and I didn't want to go there. But seriously: only a sick pervert like this child molester or this naive chick could possibly have interpreted "dating a 22-year-old at 24" as "dating little boys."

You know what, tomorrow I'm going to set him straight, even if it causes an ugly scene. In this business I'm in, I can't let misunderstandings like this accrue.