UNIVERSAL DONOR: MA VIE EN CROUTE
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Universal Donor
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You are just a number to me! And that number is: PAGES UD MADE: My Books Page My Reviews Page My Reference Page My Music Page My Pictures My Store UD-RELATED PAGES: My LiveJournal My MySpace music page My Flickr page My del.icio.us page My Last.fm page My Amazon Wishlist HEAVY ROTATION Ratatat: LP3 Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes Band of Horses: Cease to Begin Krauss & Plant: Raising Sand Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs Beach House: Devotion BLOGS ETC claude le monde nuncstans rock 'em stock 'em tomato nation postmodern drunkard tuckova 22 ghastly mess constintina total virility fuzzysquid drunken bee stacey nightmare elyse from ANTM stereolabrat dark side points jf_franklin 123 i love you READ NOW brotherhood 2.0 NOT BLOGS ETC qwantz (dinosaur comix) go fug yourself the burg cat and girl book of ratings married to the sea icanhascheezburger fire joe morgan hospitality on parade OMG WEIRD LOVE dead amusement pks craters! all content © 2002-2007 Jeremy Broomfield 
Hosted by: HostRocket.Com Comments by: YACCS PRAISE & REVIEWS "[UD] is a genius." --Christian Oates "[Claudia] is fucking awesome, and [UD] is a genius. And vice versa. You should all buy Fear Not." --Tricia Howey MOTTO egeo huic vigorum MY WRESTLING NAME Titan Gently MY PUNK NAME Razor Ection 
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Monday, July 21, 2008
DISPATCH FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN CHINA
(July 20, Qingdao, China) The Chinese government has declared martial law in Qingdao. But don't worry, it's only for one day: the day of the Olympic torch relay. This is why we have a pregnant Australian woman sleeping on our sofa. Let's call her Yinky, since that's what her parents apparently christened her, although I still have trouble pronouncing it. She'll probably call her own child Numbat or something. Anyway, she is not allowed to return to her hotel, which is in the Relay Zone, until after the relay is finished. It seems they mistook her for some sort of terrorist. Her husband is in the Zone, but he is not allowed to leave. Fortunately our apartment is just outside the Zone, so we are still free to shelter terrorists. From the window we have a magnificent view of the Sea Wall protecting the Olympic Marina from algae terrorists. In fact, we can see the algae building up outside the Wall -- but like our Australian friend Yinky, it is unable to enter the Zone. The system works. * * * At about five past ten Thursday morning, a charming little student named Reginald* -- who I used to teach every Sunday without incident -- attempted to organize a mutiny in my co-worker Don's class. "I'm the teacher now," said Reginald, rising from his seat with real authority, "I'm taking over the crass." There was an immediate chorus of "Shut up, Reginald!" from the Siberians. Seeing that he lacked the support of his fellow children, Reginald did the only thing an unsuccessful mutineer could do: he pulled out a life jacket, proceeded to inflate it, and finally put it on, doubling his already ample girth. Rendered speechless for a moment, Don finally asked "Reginald, where did you get this?" "This? Oh, my palents give to me." Apparently Reginald's Mommy and Daddy, protective of their dysfunctional son as only the Chinese can be, had equipped him for literally any eventuality that might befall him at Summer Camp. Fortunately, Reginald's very strength is also his greatest weakness. His Attention Deficit Disorder leaves him vulnerable to the paradoxically calming effects of common stimulants like caffeine and amphetamines. Don happened to have a Starbucks Bottled Frappuccino in his pocket. "Remember how you like coffee, Reginald?" Within minutes he was slumped, barely conscious, on the floor. And since he was still wearing his life jacket, Don was fairly confident no harm would come to the little scamp. The world is safe again -- until tomorrow. That is the news from China. -- Katie Legs, China Bureau Chief and Engrish Teacher * Some names have been changed to protect our correspondent's cover. But not "Yinky." That shit is for real. -- UD Tuesday, June 24, 2008
BOREDOM HAS MANY PALLIATIVES, BUT NO CURE
PLOY #1: Autodidacticism ...Or as it appears to the cynical: unfocused, yet obsessive, wikipedia surfing. I admit it's not a conscious ploy, it's just how I scroll, baby. To give you a glimpse into my autopedagogical syllabus, here is a list of the wikipedia pages I visited in the span of three attention-deficient months at work: Bear Witness to My Affliction! PLOY #2: Wikipedia editing I burned out on this one REAL FAST. Not a great treatment for boredom. PLOY #3: Deprivation I am planning to start -- and then abandon halfway through -- a month of systematic abstention from various foods, activities, or behaviors: Week 1: no wheat Week 2: no meat Week 3: no posting to this blog (ha! kidding!) Week 3 for real: no more abstention Week 3 goddamnit be serious: no... flensing ? I don't know, man. I guess I really just wanted to stay away from wheat for a week. Why do I hafta make a big honking deal out of everything? BORED BORED BORED. PLOY #4: Religion I took the Belief-O-Matic quiz at beliefnet.com, and it told me what religions I am most likely to jibe with: 1. Theravada Buddhism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (96%) 3. Neo-Pagan (83%) 4. Secular Humanism (81%) 5. Liberal Quakers (79%) I will now accept solicitations from these sects, such as they are. That should be fun! PLOY #5: Pegging I was reading an article in the Village Voice's Queer Issue about how many straight men are finding that they enjoy getting fucked in the ass. In 2001 Dan Savage had a contest to coin a term for the act of a woman penetrating a man using a strap-on, and "pegging" won. It's a great term, though when someone first asked me if I knew what it meant, I pictured a sex act involving the namesake (and mascot) of my high school. I know the Voice hardly counts as mainstream, but my unerring sense of cultural trends (and this) tells me that pegging is about to tip. You're gonna start seeing it mentioned, explored, and deplored everywhere. You heard it here first: 2008 is the Year of the Peg. Well! In looking for ways to help accelerate mainstream awareness of this beautiful, loving practice, I considered many options before reaching the eventual solution. Since Lance Armstrong's wonderful LIVESTRONG project has had a really good run, I called them up about transitioning the yellow-rubber-bracelet brand to a new awareness-promoting cause. After having our lawyers work with theirs, it's official. The yellow bracelet has been rebranded. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: PEGSTRONG!  The purpose of the PEGSTRONG bracelet is to promote awareness of Strapped-On Assfucking. People who love to peg or get pegged can share their affinity through prominent public display of a PEGSTRONG (formerly LIVESTRONG) bracelet. It will be clear to all who see it that you live by the PEGSTRONG motto: "Never be shy -- Let the santorum fly!" And now for the best news! You don't even have to buy the PEGSTRONG bracelet -- you may already have one! It will take a while for the official new PEGSTRONG bracelets to be manufactured and distributed to quality retail outlets nationwide. However, due to the special nature of our arrangement with LIVESTRONG, all LIVESTRONG bracelets automatically became PEGSTRONG bracelets as of midnight, June 15, 2008. (As you can imagine, the intense legal and administrative work leading up to this event kept me from posting to the blog this last month. And as ever, I appreciate your continued patience.) So! When you see someone wearing their LIVESTRONG (now PEGSTRONG) bracelet in public, especially if they are male, remember to congratulate them on their bravery. For a large segment of the straight male population, it's still kind of a big deal to say you take it in the ass -- even if "it" is a rubber or plastic toy worn by a woman. Reward that courage! Call out to them and show your support! Raise your fist and shout with pride: "PEGSTRONG!" Wednesday, May 14, 2008
HEALTH BOOKS BY MY STEPMOTHER
• Attention Deficit Disorder: A Fake Disease For Lazy People Who Won't Try • Depression? Everyone Gets Sad Sometimes, IT'S NORMAL CHICKS DIG "CLOSURE" Or so they say. After a breakup, a girl I know wanted closure. She called and called the boy who broke up with her, unsure of their status, until one day, in a public park, he shouted "I DON'T WANT TO BE WITH YOU ANYMORE." Pow! Closure. But was it really closure she was seeking? To just about everyone else, the status of their relationship was clear. I've known a lot of people who chase down seemingly irrational strands of hope far beyond the limits of dignity. Do they really not know it's over? I don't think so. I think they're looking to walk away with a moral victory, albeit a kind of pathetic one. What could be worse than a partner who breaks up with you using care, tenderness, love, and grace? THAT'S THE PERFECT PARTNER! Don't say goodbye to me, say hello! Keep saying hello forever! Gah! Women recover from breakups by having other women tell them that they were too good for the bastard, anyway. No matter how educated, intelligent, or spiritually advanced a woman is, when she is in pain, she wants to hear this. Madeleine Albright wants to hear this. So what do you do with a dude who is kind and loving when he leaves you? Your ladies got no fodder! Well, go make it happen! If you can manipulate him into being a jerk -- or doing something even moderately jerky -- you will gain that precious moral superiority, and you can move on knowing that he had that secret seed of jerkiness inside, and you're glad you found out NOW. Then you can pull that comforter around you a little tighter and sip that Sleepytime Tea in your sweats while your bestest galpals cuddle you in shifts. Boys, the "perfect" breakup is a myth. You will always fall short because falling short is what is required. If you are not made into some form of monster, it hurts too much. And if you don't step up and provide sympathy fodder, she'll have to make shit up, cobble something together from old suspicions and petty gripes, and her fabrications will forever taint her moral victory! Is that what you want? If you ever loved her, you will do this. You probably don't have to shout humiliating things at her in public, but give her SOMETHING. Break up with her via text message! Fuck her sister! Slash her tires! Your kindness is KILLING her. Wednesday, April 23, 2008
WHY I LOVE MY NEW DENTIST
I've had bad luck finding a great dentist who still takes my bottom-shelf dental insurance. My old one wasn't great, but he didn't even tell me he had stopped taking my insurance until I got hit with big copays. Well clouds and linings, my friends, because my new dentist is hilarious. She is constantly joking around, but it's a little nervewracking because a) her "jokes" are very dark, b) she always says them while holding a sharp or high-RPM implement in her hand, and c) she's Russian. I thought my old dentist was unprofessional because he'd always complain about how expensive his equipment was. I had no idea how unprofessional a dentist could be. Feast your eyes on these pearls from my new dentist, culled from only three magical sessions, and remember to imagine all of these quotes in a THICK Russian accent:
RockemStockem: also, I don't want to be buried RockemStockem: cremate all the way Universal Donor: yeah, obviously Universal Donor: me too Universal Donor: i don't want to rise up and eat brains Universal Donor: NO THANK YOU RockemStockem: tots RockemStockem: also I want my ashes to be divided up and distributed amoungst my friends RockemStockem: -- NOT spread or scattered -- RockemStockem: and put into small urns made out of hand painted eggshells RockemStockem: in order to burden as many people as possible Universal Donor: haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa RockemStockem: can you just imagine? for the rest of your life, RockemStockem: everytime you move apts or whatever, RockemStockem: you have to walk this precious thing RockemStockem: and totally make sure it doesn't break BIOLOGY CLASS RockemStockem: so when you're really pregnant, don't you worry that the baby is just gonna fall out of your vagina? Universal Donor: Um, not unless you are giving birth to a snakebaby RockemStockem: OMG! Like on V? Universal Donor: for example. RockemStockem: what if I thought I was having a human baby, but instead just as I gave birth it was a snake RockemStockem: and nobody knew, RockemStockem: and I was pushing and then an evil snake monster just slithered out of my vagina Universal Donor: you're making me hungry BUG UPDATE On my way into the office bathroom, I see a ghostly skittering presence retreat from the opening door, weirdly ghosting around a corner. It looked like a waterbug, but somehow... different. Mammalian, almost. I rounded the corner to confront this nightmare beast and it was clearly a waterbug, but of a color I had never seen before: greyish, glisteny, mottled. I smashed it with my foot and smeared it around a bit. It is also possible that I yelped a bit in uncontrolled limbic dismay. My report to the receptionist goes like this. Still shaken, I say: "I just killed the weirdest waterbug. It was like albino sort of, grayish. It was awful." "Oh my god, another one?" "Yeah." "Where was it?" she asks, narrowing her eyes. "In the men's room." "Hmmmmm..." she says. "What?" "Yesterday there was one in the women's." "Gross. Did you kill it?" I ask. "Yeah. We sprayed it with white furniture polish." "WHAT?" I gasp. "But... but... but THEN what did you do?" "It looked dead." She mews. "Did you smash it?" "You know I don't like going near bugs." "So what, you polished it and hoped for the best?" "No! Joe flushed it. He picked it up with a flyswatter and flushed it," she says. "So you put the wounded WATERbug back into the lifegiving WATER that is its very element?!?!?! Why didn't you smash it?? YOU MUST SMASH WHILE YOU CAN. What are you, a James Bond movie villain? You'd probably try to drown Popeye in a vat of spinach! Fuck. Well. I killed your zombie bug this time. Please don't ever make me do that again. " I mean come on now! Friday, April 04, 2008
All right, I know it's shitty not to write for almost two months. What if I said there were a LiveJournal-style "friends-only" section of the blog to which you weren't invited, and to which I've been posting weekly, and hilariously? Would you feel better? Or worse?
What if I said I was writing a novel, in exactly the same style as this blog? "How could that possibly work?" you might ask. It would be a source of concern among my editors, I assure you. They would also be concerned with the fact that I am implying that ALL of the advance money was gone even though they have yet to see sample chapters, not even one. "UD," they would whine, "we already let you borrow the jet to go to Monte Carlo for 'baccarat research' and instead you flew back and forth five times from LaGuardia to Newark, just to make the poor airports feel better because you always fly out of JFK and wanted to show that you still cared about the other two. Our accountants don't like it, and it's bad for our corporate carbon footprint. Deliver our sample chapters, and stop prank calling Karl Lagerfeld on the company dime. PLEASE." See? Pathetic. Just a bunch of words. Consider this an enema. The next post will be fresh and clean, and probably appear sometime in July. NEWS FLASH I don't trust men in hats, and neither should you. I DREAMED THEY ADAPTED NINE INCH NAILS'S "CLOSER" FOR USE ON AMERICAN IDOL I want to love you like an animal I want to feel you with my whole heart I want to love you like an animal! you've got such humongous paws I want to wrap you in gauze! AT A LOSS I am this close to soliciting pictures of your boobs. This close to suggesting that perhaps what this blog needs, to kickstart it out of slumberation, is a collage consisting of dirty pictures of its readership. For the good of blogkind, you understand. A show of good faith, people! A little upload for years of download! Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Well, there really isn't more to the puking in the airport story. I landed, I moaned and sweated for 15 hours, and it was over.
PROMISES I NEVER MADE I never promised not to eat at Hooters. But, people: it happened. I wanted chicken wings. And they said, there on St. Thomas, they said: "they have wings at Hooters." And suddenly I was eating there, among the tawdry hot-panted awfulness. I did not find it necessary to not utter the phrase "I will never eat at Hooters," because frankly, it was never on my radar as even a remote possibility. Here are some other things I have never promised not to do: • I never promised not to stab the moon with Excalibur. • I never promised I wouldn't go back in time and hire one of Santa's reindeer to assassinate Pol Pot. THE CONCIERGE WANTS ME TO KNOW THE DETAILS The concierge at the reception desk of UD's office building sees UD walking into the building with a cup of coffee from Au Bon Pain. CONCIERGE: Hey [UD], how ya doin. UD: Fine thanks, [Concierge]. You? CONCIERGE: Good. You ever have coffee from McDonald's? UD: I guess so, but only on road trips. UD steps into the elevator. CONCIERGE holds the door, which tries to close repeatedly, and fails. UD: (thinks to self) Please tell me what you think of McDonald's coffee and also please the exact circumstances -- spatial, temporal and emotional -- under which you reached that opinion. CONCIERGE: Yeah. It's pretty good, actually. Today on the way to work I got off the train over near Times Square and you know they got that McDonald's over there, and I figured, ahhh, I'd try it, why not? Sometimes the line at the deli across the street here is long, right? And I was already a little late, and I hadn't had any coffee earlier because I stayed at my girlfriend's house last night (smiles and nudges UD without slowing down speech at all) and so I went in and I got a coffee and you know what? It's pretty good! I drank it on the way over here. Have you ever had it? You should try it. Did you hear that Starbucks closed the other day for a bunch of hours, nationwide, every store? Yeah apparently it was some kind of training but who knows? Maybe they're going out of business, or they're in trouble, huh? Nahhh, probably not Starbucks. You gonna see that movie with the Saber-tooth Tigers? UD: (blinks) CAR HORNS ARE STUPID AND HERE'S WHY 1) They're too cheap. Chris Rock has a classic bit about how, if bullets cost $5,000, people wouldn't get shot accidentally; only people who really deserved it would get shot. Well I feel kinda similarly about car horns. If they cost money to use, then people might not be so fucking jolly about toot-tootling their way through my life, reserving their honkings for emergencies -- which, for what it's worth, is what they're for. Obviously, though, a cash-per-honk policy would discriminate against the poor, with possibly fatal consequences -- but that's a great way to get Republicans to vote for it. 2) They're too low-bandwidth. The only real way to modulate your honk is by controlling the duration and the number of repetitions. Since you can't modulate the volume or the tone or anything else (including, in crowded places, the intended recipient), a single honk could mean any of the following things: • "Oh looky! I see a friend of mine on the street! Hello friend!" • "The light has changed to green, sir; perhaps you did not notice!" • "Move it you fucking fucktard before I bash your nuts with a bat!" • "Your car is spraying gasoline everywhere, get out before it explodes!" • "Please get out of my way because my wife is having a baby in the backseat!" So all you are really able to communicate is "hey! I'm trying to communicate with somebody." But you probably assume that when you honk, people know which message you intend. And even more ridiculously, you probably don't believe that you ever misinterpret the honks of others. You always know which honk you're hearing, right? Ah, the fucking curse of low-bandwidth communication rears its ugly, unnecessary head. Go write your emotionally charged text messages and emails. I can't save you. Thursday, February 14, 2008
It's not fun to have a fever on an airplane. That much is true. But is it less fun than being healthy on an airplane? I'm not entirely sure. Air travel is so different from normal life, but in such a way that it difficult to pinpoint the exact ways it's different. Just like a slowly-brewing fever, or like waiting for hallucinogens which may or may not be bunk to kick in.
I got nauseous almost as soon as I got into my cab to the airport, but I chalked that up to the fact that I ate a bowl of yogurt and a brownie for breakfast. In the cab, I had the Phildickian experience of finding a counterfeit $10 bill in my wallet, which had clearly come out of the ATM at my local deli (which is the only ATM I know of that dispenses $10 bills: also weird). It was a pretty good fake, I guess, except that I spotted it immediately: two pieces of color laserprint glued back-to-back on cottony paper. I showed it to the cabbie, who was glad I had not tried to pay him with it, and then I tore it up. Subsequently, two people have expressed exasperation with me for destroying the ersatz cash because they wanted to seeeeee it, but I figured a good time to divest yourself of WILDLY ILLEGAL THINGS is right before you get mandatorily searched by agents of a notoriously humorless federal agency. Blerg. Wandering through the sad excuse for a terminal that US Airways operates out of LGA, I thought maybe if I threw some more food on top of my nausea it would go away. I opted for an egg & cheese on a roll made by the surliest family of Indian women I had ever seen making airport breakfast food at 7am. It was not a good idea. (Side note: I don't know if I've ever mentioned the foibles of the service industry down here on St. Thomas. One of the amusing quirks of the locals is that they have zero interest in serving you. ZERO. But it's hard to be anything but amazed, because they employ that disinterest so heroically that you are forced to posit the existence of TIME-SLOWING or WORK-DESTROYING devices behind the counter. I have seen two employees of a Subway sandwich shop take twenty minutes to prepare a sub. It was the only thing they were doing, and they never visibly stopped doing it. It was not larger, or more complicated, than a normal North American-made Subway sub. But it took twenty minutes. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but you seriously have to see this. Oh! And it is widely reported by non-locals that if you comment on this phenomenon -- or in any way attempt to counteract it, say by mentioning that you are in a hurry -- the service will slow down even further. As a result of all this, there was much jolly consternation in the non-local community down here when it was announced that a branch of Hooters would open on the island. Since business models based on speed, friendliness, efficiency, etc, cannot seem to run on local power, almost all the staff had to be imported from the mainland U.S.) Anyway. My first plane ride was only 1.5 hours of tightly cramped nausea, crushed between the curvature of the plane and a 300lb neighbor. I got off the plane for my hourlong layover, and realized that I would have to puke pretty soon. I wondered where to go. Excuse me, ma'am, I'm going to be violently ill in less than five minutes; do you have some sort of vomit accommodations in this terminal, or shall I just use a bathroom stall? Oh and while I'm here, can I have a seat with legroom? So I puked in a stall of a crowded bathroom, with the stalls on either side of me occupied with horrified travelers wishing only to void their bowels in peace and keep their loafers free of acidic spatter. Wow, this got gross fast. I'm gonna stop here, and see if there are a lot of votes for continuation of this narrative. If not, I'll just let it fade away like the memory of a headache. Monday, January 28, 2008
I was pawing through my gmail account, because sometimes I get a little irked by the parenthetical reminder in the little menu that says Inbox (552) -- which means, I suppose, that I have over 500 unread messages. Well I can't tackle this problem in one afternoon, can I? No. So here's something I found while browsing old email in search of something to read/delete.
AN EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A FAN, MARCH 2006 To: UD From: [redacted], Hi, i read a part in your site about bugs..and it's obvious you have a fear of them lol. But i noticed in it that you said the only way to really kill a bug is to stomp it..but, did you know that most bugs can actually survive being stomped on? lol if it's still alive, it could come back to bite you for trying to kill it...i mean, that's why it's not a good idea to stomp on a bug anyway. You should try it yourself if you have to one day and you'll see. [everything sic] Dear [redacted] It's clear that you are just trying to freak me the fuck out with your little "bugs don't die if you stomp on them" gambit, and it was a nice try. But in the end, your scare tactic lacks credibility. We may have different definitions of the word "stomp." When I say that a good "stomp" will kill a bug, I am describing an action involving my foot and a bug that results in the death of the bug (usually via a 10-fold increase in the area taken up by the bug, and a drastic (90-100%) reduction in its height.) What I don't do: Put on a silk slipper, gently stroke my foot over the bug's carapace, and run into another room, hoping for the best. No, a Universal Donor stomp is usually a multistep process, as follows: (as an example, we'll use an american cockroach, known in New York as a "waterbug": usually 1" - 1.5" in length and tall enough to cast a visible shadow.)
smooches, UD Monday, January 07, 2008
I'm a little obsessed with TLC's tattoo-shop reality shows (L.A. Ink, London Ink, Miami Ink). My DVR has started bumping off my old, cherished episodes of 30 Rock and Flight of the Conchords because TLC just ran a marathon of the entire first season of L.A. Ink, and I must watch them all.
Now the staff of L.A. Ink are pretty unbelievable artists, and the show would be fantastic if all they did was show the process and the results. But the producers press the tattooees pretty hard to provide some sort of explanation for their new ink, because they sell the dramatic backstory angle to get me emotionally involved (Whatever, dudes: you had me at tattoo). But sometimes people just get tattoos because they look cool. The main result of this tomfoolery is that I get peeved at a TV show, again. MY PEEVES ABOUT THE TATTOO SHOWS (all quotes are pastiche, but realistic) Bogus tattoo "meanings" - If you push people to justify purely aesthetic choices, you will get some fucktarded answers. Seriously, people just make shit up, like: "I wanted to get cherry blossoms? Because, like, they're alive? And you have to life one day at a time, but you also you have to live life to the fullest? So that's why I want cherry blossoms." Non-sequitur "dedications" - Some people are just crazy. "This is in honor of my mother... She had to struggle though hard times to raise me, and make sacrifices? So I'm getting this image of a wolf eating the brains of a zombie prostitute. Because my mom is so strong." Tattoo as "gift" - Some people seem to need to justify their selfish desire to get a tattoo by claiming that it's "for someone else." Why, people? What's the big deal about getting a tattoo for your ownself? This just seems unnecessarily delusional. Like: "This giant dragon ass tattoo is a gift for my newborn son, so that whenever he looks at my ass, he'll know that I love him." Celebrating Identity - I guess I don't have a beef with tattoos celebrating identity so much as I have a problem with identity itself. "I'm getting a tattoo of the flag of Pbbbpt to celebrate my pride in my Pbbbptian heritage." Flarf. Yeah. That and a metrocard will get you on the subway, punk. I just hate this shit. Identity = the enemy. I guess I should create a separate post about this at some point, but here's my basic drift on the ish: celebrating identity is about celebrating the ways we differentiate ourselves from others, and though diversity leads to much great variety, our perceived -- or rather, meticulously constructed and nurtured -- differences are the source of most of the world's suffering.[citation needed] So identity's pro/con calculation results in a net loss for humankind. MORE LATER. Jenna Jameson, Entrepreneur -- All right, people. This is just totally disingenuous. Porn star Jenna Jameson comes on the show for a tattoo, and the caption calls her an entrepreneur. What's the deal? I don't think there's anything wrong with being a porn star, and I kinda doubt she does either. So why the weird caption-y grab for respectability? Yes, she owns her own multi-million dollar production company. But it's like calling Donald Trump a "TV Personality" -- true, but not exactly the whole story. Or like calling Bono a "blood donor," or George Bush a "breakfast eater." Right? Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Thanks for all your topic suggestions, people! They were, for the most part, completely useless -- scatological, juvenile, pandering, nonsensical, attention-seeky, whatever! I see now that you were trying to teach me a lesson about taking responsibility for, and pride in, my work. Thank you for that. (Boobs, indeed. As if!)
L.A. VOICE There is a particular kind of gravelly party-girl voice specific to LA that drives me up the fucking wall. I assume it is caused by dry desert conditions and atmospheric pollution in conjunction with smoking-related cell damage and alcohol-related dehydration; add on top of that a regional accent that encourages speaking with the teeth and lips constantly apart, as if the speaker way too fucking cool, high, or chill to close her mouth, and you get L.A Voice, demonstrated ably in this video by Kat von D. (Which, Kat, if you're reading this -- you know I've got no beef with you personally! Make fun of my regional diction anytime!) THE MOST POTENT ATTACK IN A NEW YORKER'S ARSENAL Sometimes people piss me off -- yes, even perennially unflappable UD. Usually it's a stranger, usually on the street, and usually they are not worth the time it would take to explain to them why they are worthless space-wasters whose greatest accomplishment will be their decomposition. Sometimes, though, you've just got to let the people know that they are human garbage. So when faced with some monstrous pedestrian idiot, shout the following: "Go back to Jersey, you fuck!" The potency of this barb is greatly diminished if the target actually is from New Jersey, because they will just ignore you for the bigot you are. That's okay, they're not your real demographic here. Similarly, people from all over the world (other than NY and NJ) know to be offended by the remark, even if they don't know exactly why, so you can use this on Germans or Ugandans with equal effectiveness, but that effect is still just mediocre, provoking nothing more than half-hearted ethnic or regional variations of "fuck you too, buddy!" But! The effect on New Yorkers -- especially native New Yorkers -- is atomic. Picture the stuttering red-faced apoplexy of a shackled Bill O'Reilly getting a forced lapdance from a naked Magic Johnson, and you're close. In one stroke, you have robbed any New Yorker victims of the one fact that internally proves their moral superiority, regardless of the outerborough scumpond they hail from: the pedigree that gives them license to lord it over the whole fucking world. Now, if they start to protest that they are from Brooklyn, or Hell's Kitchen, they will just sound like whiny sore losers, especially when you say "yeaaaah whatever, Newark breath! Suck my Seacaucus!" THE GAME OF SHOULD I DATE THIS PERSON? You may remember The Game of What You Like from a few months ago, one of the most linked-to posts on the blog, which helped you figure out what qualities you ACTUALLY seek out in a partner vs what you THINK you are looking for. So here's the new game, to help you figure out if you should pursue a relationship with the person that you are really really hot for. So you've got this prospect, right? And they seem really neat, and you're having a hard time finding their faults -- they seem to be too good to be true! Well that's because they are, twitball. Your horny biological programming (id) wants you to fuck that person, and you are getting flooded with positive hormones and neurotransmitters when you're near them, and your ego starts automatically justifying the idea, because that's what it does. You cannot trust your judgment. The solution is difficult to put into practice, but theoretically sound: 1) ask them to describe in detail why their last 5 relationships ended; 2) contact each of those exes and ask for their version of the story; 3) compare the explanations. WRITER'S STRIKE 101 I heard some businessy douchenozzle on CNBC say something about the writer's strike with a smirking implication that the writers were holding up the global economy with their petulant demands. I've heard other people say "they really picked a bad time to strike." A physical therapist once told me, while gooshing his ham-hands into my musculature, "I don't know about unions; they were important at one time, but I think they've really outgrown their usefulness." And it was all I could do to keep from saying "why don't you stick to what you know, you freaking oaf? Because I know you are just parroting a prepackaged sound-bite you heard somewhere on the AM dial, which had been prepared for people just like you who want to sound like the know what they are talking about when they should be FIXING MY SPINE instead of KILLING ME WITH IGNORANCE." I was a little angrier back then. How do people not understand strikes? The procedure for determining who is right goes like this: 1) look at the two sides in a strike, 2) management is wrong. THAT'S IT. And since I cannot believe that anyone who reads this blog thinks otherwise, I will not belabor the point. |
OTHER REVIEWS: John from Cincinnati Menomena LATEST BOOK REVIEWS: The Game Moneyball One-Upsmanship Siddhartha You need the Fear Not Guide to Life. Buy it already. ($4) Now available! The Broomfield Variations CD ($10) or go to The UD Store 
MY IMAGINARY GIRLFRIENDS Chan Marshall Rotem of the IDF Eleanor Friedberger Amy Goodman Bernardine Dohrn ('69) Maya Rudolph Joanna Newsom Imogen Heap Caroline Dhavernas Shana Rae Ray DISALLOWED FOREVER "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you!" - "from whence" - "...the exception that proves the rule" - any use of the question "spit or swallow?" - the phrase "drop trou" - fake-o reviewer verbs: "penned" for wrote "helmed" for directed "lensed" for whatever - "expat" - the euphemism "passed away" - pronouncing merci beaucoup as "mercy buckets!" (see also: "grassy-ass!") PET PEEVES "confinscated" - trying children "as adults" - "drownded" |
