Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Joy of being Self-Absorbed

Yes.

For some reason, every picture of me slamming has me doing the exact same hand motion.  Like "Okay, listen guys, this is important, okay?"

NERD!

Anyway, I lost the slam yesterday.  No biggie, the people who won were powerhouses of poetic awesome.  Definitely excellent showmen.  They showed me I should probably step up my performance, that I should maybe get a little more emphatic.

In that vein, I'm writing a poem for this week's writing group where the prompt was to not write a poem about sex.

Behold:

This is a list
Of things I think of when I’m with you.
Baseball.
Hairy men in tight pants
And closely trimmed green fields.
Baseballs with smooth white skins
Pulled taught
That I can wrap my hands-
Hm.

Math.
Fractions and decimals
Equations that are irrational.
Building more and more unreal
Growing exponentially
Higher and higher
Until finally you have a solution for sex-
X!! I mean, a solution for X!!
And lying tangent to your curves-
Argh.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

NERD!!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Breakthrough or strike two?

Whoo!

I'm submitting to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest Thing Awesome Face!

Of course, I'm submitting Malefici, rather than the newer novel.  That's not really an "of course", because the newer novel is BETTER.  But it's also part one of a two-part novel and I feel like if you're gonna have a breakthrough novel, it should be a complete one, amirite?

So we'll see how this goes.  And by see how this goes, I mean anticipate horrible failure.

In other  news, I'm going to a slam tonight:


That's right, I'm gonna be slamming faces and taking names, and I'm all out of bubblegum or whatever that expression is.

Also, in other news, I'm going to be comedian.

Man, if my life were a meal, I'd be carb-loading like crazy.

Monday, January 24, 2011

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Just finished a pretty excellent book:

Totally comes out of left field, I had no idea about any of it.  It talks about a cell line called HeLa that is essentially immortal, it will keep dividing so long as it has materials to build with.  This was essential to a lot of advances in medicine, like the development of a polio vaccine and a number of cancer treatments. (HeLa is cancer cells, btw).

But it's not just a dry science textbook, it's written by a scientist-turned-artist, so it's very novelistic in the approach.  The first half of the book switches between the history of Henrietta Lacks, the person from which HeLa comes from, the history of HeLa and the author's own struggles attempting to research for her book.  There's enough story so you don't get bored with all that sciencey shit, but there's enough science so you don't feel like you're reading an account of the horrible travails of some shmucky woman living on student loans.

Definitely worth a look.  Or just a brief skim of the wikipedia article.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The benefits of being negligable.

It went like this:

Verizon Guy: Well, ya'll bought one o' dem fancy phones.  Ya gotta pay for a data plan, kno-wut-I-mean? (Yes, he did talk like a cowboy.)

Me: Well, no one told me about that. (I'm lying, they told me about that.)

Verizon Guy: There ain't nothin' I can do, boy, time's are rough down here on the prarie.

Me: But I've been a customer for years and blah blah bitch moan complain.

Verizon Guy: Okay, okay! I hollered for a manager and he got 'er done! (No joke, the guy actually said "got 'er done")

Me: Thank you, you're the best, god bless the Confederacy.

{fin}

This is what I love about dealing with big corporations.  At a certain point, you become not worth the time arguing with and you get exactly what you want.  Given my tendency towards being a spoiled brat, it's great to have an interaction that's just super responsive to me being obnoxious.  It's like having a bad parent you can go to when the other one turns you down.

It's always my advise that if a company ever charges you or does something you don't like, just complain.  Go higher and higher up the chain until you reach a manager that is either A) afraid of human interaction or B) is worth more money per hour than your complaint.  Of course, there's an equivalency to these things:

$10 = 30 minutes complaining (or m/c)
$100 = 60 m/c
$1000 = 120 m/c

And so on.

Of course, everything's against you on this.  Articles tell you why it's not healthy.  Doctors prescribe medicines to make the bile go down easier.  God hates complaining.  But it's a lot like an oil company saying global warming doesn't exist.  Think about how much easier it would be for companies if their employees never complained for fear of getting sick and missing work.  Or how much more money doctors would make if people just shut up and took their pills.  Or how much more churches could get away with if their congregation stopped going to the police.

I'm being half-serious here.  Complaining shouldn't be a way of life, but it certainly isn't going to make you die and go to Hell.  That's why I've decided to show some whiny asshole pride.  Behold:



Wear it with pride.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Ain't no art like COMPETITIVE art.

I feel like slams should have t-shirts and foam gloves.  Maybe even vuvuzelas.  Yeah, that's right, that was a World Cup joke.  I'm retro like that.

So I've decided to compete in the Beltway Poetry Slam this month. (Assuming, of course, I get there in time to sign up.  If I don't, I'll probably have the poet's equivalent of blue balls.)

This means I can't do any of the four poems I have memorized and prepared.  Which means I need two poems edited, memorized and ready to perform by Tuesday.  I've picked the two and essentially done the edits I wanted to do.  Now it's memorization and performance.  They're two different things, as I'm sure anyone who's done performance poetry knows.  Just reciting it in monotone isn't enough.  You have to have the right emphasis and movements and all that shit.  Kinda like your body is reciting it.

The first I'm planning on doing is going to be about how much I hate rhubarb pie.  The second is basically an adaptation for DC of a poem I wrote about the PATH in Jersey City.  I know that seems like cheating, but you'd be surprised how much all late-night public transit has in common.

Instead of posting the poems, here's a picture of a super cat.



Tuesday, January 18, 2011

"Shows off Chest, Boyfriend"

There's an art to headlines, there really is.  Getting someone interested in what might involve a full 5 minutes of reading (god forbid) is no easy task in the age of twitter and facebook.  You really have to pick the most important details of a story and summarize them in just a couple of words.  Find the parts the reader really wants to get to and put them out there.  It's like a journalistic wonderbra.  You know what the people want, and you're gonna prop those saggy suckers up like a double-dip recession.

Huffington post has a tendency to have this shit down.

"Hayden Panettiere Shows off Chest, Boyfriend"

Way. To. Go.

And here's some cute headlines.  And here's some misleading headlines.

One particularly bad one was when Bill Clinton, the first black president of the US, went over to Korea to pick up some journalists and the Huffington Post proclaimed "Bill Upstages Hillary...Once Again".  This is what a journalism degree gets you.  The ability to take interesting, engaging events and turn them into something trashy.

No wonder these news outlets are crashing and burning.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Happy birthday, fatties!

Yes.

A groupon for liposuction.

Only $2,500 and we can suck your fat ass away!

This is all kinds of hilarious to me.  "Buy as a gift".  Honestly, it wouldn't be a terrible gift.  They could go out and eat chili cheese fries and bacon for like days.

"But you'll gain weight!"
"Doesn't matter, I have a liposuction groupon, bitches!"

It makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

"Bad News for Good Families"

Tentative title.  Working on it.  Suggestions? (This question posed to the zero people that currently follow my blog)

Snippet:
My family treats bad news like cat litter.  It will be wrapped up and dumped discreetly in the back.  It is accepted as a consequence of ownership of life, like ownership of a cat.  Shit happens.  No need to leave it stinking.

...

                No one ever discussed it.  The next morning, Jason was next to me at breakfast, looking at his cereal with the same forlorn look he had had since Amber broke up with him.  The incident would pass without mention and Jason would find a new girl and everything would go back to normal.  I was thirteen and hadn’t quite outgrown the awe-struck respect for my parents.  Seeing this return to regularity from the brink of chaos made me view them as guardians of order.  No matter what the forces of chaos might lay on our doorstep, they were eternally disinterested.

Awkward family moments? Traumatic memories? Racist grandmothers? You want it, we got it!

Now if only this shit wasn't 5,000 words...

More guns!

Stop the clocks, ladies and gentlemen.  If you, like me, were timing how long it took for someone to co-opt the Arizona situation for a statement in favor of gun rights, you got it.  Representative Trent Franks, better known for saying Planned Parenthood was more corrupt than ACORN, has made record time turning the Arizona massacre into a lobby for more guns!

His statement:
I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that's all I have to say

You're right, Rep. Franks.  More guns has ALWAYS meant less crime.  You know what, I'd even take it one step further.  I think everyone in the crowd should have had guns!



Even better! What if Representative Giffords had a gun!


Wait, wait! What if Representative Giffords WAS a gun?!




And how much better would Obama's statement have been if he was a sawed-off shotgun?


And how awesome would our country be if it were an M27 Automatic Rifle!



Amazing.  Look how much more wonderful things are with guns in them! Violence isn't the answer, violence is the question! What's the answer?

HELL YES!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

OMG THE IPHONE'S ON VERIZON THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE OMGOMGOMGOMG

Ugh.

Quote from this: "Fans of the iPhone are practically foaming at the mouth at the idea of being able to use the popular Apple device on Verizon's network..."

Foaming at the mouth? Really? I mean, I'm no iPhone fan, but I'm not certain the ability to buy a Mac product ever gave anyone rabies.

But maybe not.  Maybe the media's actually right this time that if we don't all rush out and buy the new iPhone, we'll all suffocate and die from lack of cool.  Accordingly, Mac should change up its marketing strategy:



Yes.  That is a picture of Cindy Crawford.  I have no idea why I looked her up.  But there you go.

Also.  iPhone sucks.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Okay.

On a lighter note, I've made a determination.

If I get a story published, I'm getting a twitter.  It will be official recognition that my life is interesting enough to be encompassed in daily 140-character blurbs.

Ball's in your court, publishing industry.

People who should (at least) be locked up for January

This is early! I know! So exciting! But it's mainly because I realized there's very little chance there's going to be someone who's more of a waste of space this month.  She's always been a close contender, but the assassination attempt this weekend catapulted her to the absolute top of the should definitely be in prison list.

That's right.  It's your favorite:

Yeah.  I know it's a fake picture.  But goddamn, it's so appropriate.

Sarah Palin isn't new to doing things that make her deserve some amount of prison time.  During her run as a primary reason not to vote for McCain, there was an investigation into whether Palin dismissed a law enforcement official because he didn't fire her sister's husband.  The findings were that Palin had abused power, giving us a little taste of the respect for authority typical of Ms. Palin.

The real problem with Sarah Palin isn't what she says, it's just a weird slurry of patriotic exhortations, like if you put Reagan in a blender.  The problem is who she says it TO.  Case in point, this is a typical Palin supporter:

*shudder* Anyone who voluntarily wears a shirt like that doesn't deserve the vote.  But Palin's supporters also include people like this:


Yes, that's the guy that had a gun at the Obama rally back in 2008.  And another Palin supporter.  And another.  And Sarah Palin, knowing that she has a pretty strong appeal to people with lots of guns and itchy fingers, published this on her website:

(The arrow is my addition.  Better version of this here.)
Now, whether or not the shooter was a supporter of Palin is unclear.  But the fact is Palin had a map with CROSSHAIRS on it targeting someone who, a little while later, was shot.  Not to mention pretty soon after this map was put up, Giffords office had been vandalized.

Of course, Palin sent her condolences, took down the map and scrubbed mentions of Giffords from the site.  But that doesn't make up for how irresponsible Palin has been and how the media has let her get away with what is, at best, lies, at worst, inciting violence.  Now people are dead, and I have a hard time believing that the GOP's runaway rhetoric had nothing to do with it.

Even the GOP's recognized the issue.  Though, to be fair, the Senator calling for a toning down the rhetoric refused to be named.  I mean, after all, he has his career to think about.  Who knows whether he'll need the racist lunatic vote.

So in the end: Ms. Palin, you are a nobody.  You are a housewife beauty queen dimwit from Idaho.  Your stupidity only hurt the small town you quit when the going got tough, but now you are a national figure.  If you are incapable of taking some responsibility for what you say and do, maybe you should just shut up.  And if you don't have the sense to do that, hopefully we'll someday find you in prison.

Condolences to the families of the victims in Tucson and best wishes for Representative Giffords' recovery.  Hopefully there's a lesson about the human impact of rhetoric in all this.

UPDATE:
So Sarah Palin's idiot hole opened again.  A few choice bits from her statement (You don't have to read it, it's a lot of the same shit she always says mixed with a few outlandishly ridiculous and somewhat dangerous statements).

1. "But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn"

Blood libel, by the way, is the lie that some religious minority (usually Jews) murders children to use their blood in ceremonies.  Obviously, Palin has no idea what the word means.  I want someone to ask her if she knows what the Holocaust was.

2.  "Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government."

You know what I love? When someone in the wrong uses human nature to defend their wrongness.  Yes, I cheated on my wife, ran over a priest and torched a busload of orphans, but, y'know, humans are flawed.  Screw you, Palin.  The only flaw in this situation is YOU.
3.  "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not...with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle..."

What kind of idiot things that criminals spring out of no where for no reason? I'll give you a hint.  It's the same kind of idiot that thinks BOTH sides of the isle used a map with CROSSHAIRS ON IT to indicate people that should be taken out of power.  It's also the same kind of idiot that thinks her half-wit housewife opinions are worthwhile.

Friday, January 7, 2011

This is why the expression "womp womp" was invented.

Really?

REALLY?!

A Monopoly and a Battleship movie.

Are we really that low on ideas that we need to make movies out of BOARDGAMES now? What's next? A Risk historical drama?



A Capri Sun thriller?



Dunkin Donuts action/adventure?


Operation drama?


Boggle romantic comedy?

Too clever not to steal.  H/t to this
The director of the Monopoly movie talks about how the movie's going to be set in a Monopoly world and pits the main character against the evil Parker Brothers.  And that it's going to talk about the real estate market and greed.

Really.  You're going to use a game based on rolling dice and running around a board to make a point about the pitfalls of modern capitalism.  Well, just because it sounds like a stupid idea doesn't mean you shouldn't put millions of dollars into doing it.

Oh wait.  That's exactly what it means.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Err...Science, Possibly. Extremely Scientific Poppycock. Execrablely Stupid Psuedoscience.

I'm trying to think of more.  This is hard.

Extremely Silly Possibility.  Even Scientists Poop.

So, this barrage of hilarity comes from this article.  Apparently some well-known social psychologist got his study into a pretty highly-esteemed journal.  What was his study? Well, according to him, you should already know.  Because ESP exists.  Definitively.  Even though it's been disproved time and time again.

The article is interesting in that it doesn't take sides and does a good job of maintaining journalistic neutrality.  It gives a perspective that maybe this Dr. Bem is just publishing this as an "elaborate joke".  This is honestly a possibility, as history is littered with stories of how respected people in the field can flummox everyone.  Examples: The Swiss Spaghetti Hoax, the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer, the San Serriffe hoax.

But honestly, joke or not, a psuedo-science article making its way into a respected journal is a tiny bit ridiculous.  I mean, it's bad enough that these homeopathic crazies get the legitimacy they do, do we really need to be opening up another door to the snake-oilers?

I mean, what did the Simpsons say about that?


Let one of these crazies in, and you're basically making science a free-for-all.

Not to mention that someone actually got paid real money to do this research.  It's kind of like giving someone money to masturbate all day to see if they grow hair on their hands.  Aren't we in too hard a company to pay scientists to bullshit?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Things Republicans can never talk about ever again

UPDATE:
I forgot healthcare.  Recently the GOP voted to keep their own personal health insurance a secret.  But, they're still pretty keen on taking healthcare away from everyone else.  There should be a word for this.  Hyperhypocrisy.  High Hypocrisy.  Dickheadedness.


So I haven't babbled about something political in a while, I think it's time we changed that.

There's been a number of incidents lately that have proved that the Republicans have adopted a stable political platform based on complete hypocrisy.  Rather than adopt a stance on issues and then fight to maintain their position, they've decided it's easier to adopt the stance then do whatever the fuck they want.

This is a problem.  My solution is that we pass laws banning Republicans from ever talking about these issues.  Punishable, of course, by prison terms.  Or firing squads.  Like the Democrats, I'm willing to compromise.  So here's some of the issues Republicans are now barred from talking about.

1.  9/11
Jon Stewart did this pretty well.  Briefly, what happened here was that the Senate Republicans blocked the Zadroga Bill, which provided funds supporting the healthcare of 9/11 first responders.  This was done mainly as a blockade against doing anything useful until they got what they wanted.  In other words, this:






Now, some people might doubt the logic behind taking an indefensible position against an extremely appealing piece of legislation.  Well, then you're probably not a Republican.  Republicans defend their logic like this.  That's Dr. Tom Coburn.  Yep.  He's a doctor against an incredibly popular piece of healthcare legislation.  I hope he's got good savings, because he's gonna need a new career! Wait, I got one!





2. Veterans
This might be hard to do, seeing as 75% of what Republicans talk about has to do in some way to shooting at things, but Republicans have proven that they don't really give a damn about veterans.  It's been a long-time issue that scam-artists and loan companies (aka, legitimized scam-artists) have been preying on veterans and their families.  What's interesting is that a certain Senator Sam Brownback and his Republican ilk have argued to allow these loan companies to continue.

Completely unrelated, I'm sure, but Brownback's top contributor is the National Auto Dealers Association. 

Not to mention the Republicans particularly don't like veterans who are homeless.  They blocked a measure to provide additional benefits for this population, estimated to be around 107,000 strong.

Fun fact: This measure was blocked on behalf of Dr. Coburn by Senator Mitch McConnell.  I've adjusted my picture:





3. Elitism\Racism
 Now, you'd think that any group full of old white men with southern accents would tread carefully when talking about privilege or racism.  But you'd also think a major political party would have some coherent political positions.  The Republicans buck both these logical trends, along with a number of others, when they accuse their opposition of being elitist or racist.

With the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, I was assuming that they'd avoid mentioning her race in the interest of not looking like a bunch of white aristocrats beating on a minority.  Surprise.

Obama has had the rare opportunity of being called both an elitist and a racist.  And a socialist (not gonna even put a link on that one, it's like the top Google search).  The elitist comment comes from Rand Paul, who celebrated his win this past election in an exclusive country club with a history of excluding people based on melanin.  The Racist comment comes from Newt Gingrich, who also expressed concern that bilingualism will bring about the end of our nation.  And who is now learning spanish.  So:




In conclusion, Republicans are bad.

Monday, January 3, 2011

2011 forward

My new years resolution for 2011 is to not get overly sentimental about it being 2011.  That said, there's a fair amount of things going to happen this year.  I'm going to either go to grad school or not.  I'm going to either leave the country or not.  I'm going to either be on a slam team or not.  If you think of your life as a series of one's and zero's, it's easy to get really excited and really disheartened.

But if you don't view your life in absolutes, then it's honestly just another new year.  2010 seemed to kind of end with a whimper.  I was looking for some statistics on it, but the best I could find was this.  Just anecdotal, it's my experience that a lot of people just stayed in or did something small this year.  As depressing as it sounds, I feel like there's less to celebrate.  Political and economic times are shitty, maybe it's that people are starting to get a bit anxious.

But then again, maybe not.  I did see two guys carrying a drunk girl dressed like a cheetah new years day.  So maybe nothing's changed.

NYC, by the way, is officially my favorite city (of the places I've been to).  I'm not sure what it is, but NYC has this "Yeah, I know I'm cool, so what?" kind of air to it.  Like it's too busy to act cool.  Not to mention it is about a thousand cities crammed into one.  You get the fancy historical crap that is all of Boston, the prestigious self-importance of DC and the meaningless style of Miami.  I'm honestly not sure there's a better city in the world.

That said, I'm back in DC.  And honestly, I missed it. 

You know times are tough when I miss a city like this one.