Pachycephalosaur

Internet Lends New Life to Violent Videos

2007-10-16T20:14:00.000-05:00

“Grab it as hard … as you can and wrench,” says a homeless man miming a wrenching action. “It’s got to break it.” The black gloved hand of the man holding the camera reaches into the frame and clamps a pair of pliers onto one of the man’s teeth.

The video begins to move in slow motion as the gloved hand tenses up and yanks the tooth from the man’s gums. Because the video is in slow motion, the man’s cries of pain sound deep, guttural, and utterly alien. He turns, stumbles a few steps away from the camera, and the shot centers on his bloody tooth clasped in the pliers.

“We’re going for the next one,” says the cameraman.

This video clip is from “Bumfights,” a series of popular DVDs in which homeless people perform degrading stunts for which they are paid a few dollars and alcohol. While a number of retail giants like Target and Wal-Mart have officially stopped selling the Bumfights video series due to pressure from homeless advocates, the series is gaining a whole new life on the Internet. The DVDs are being sold online, fans are uploading clips from the series to sites like YouTube, and some fans are even creating their own Bumfights-inspired videos to post online.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

DC Area Foreclosures “Ripe for the Picking”

2007-08-27T20:15:00.000-05:00

Even Donald Trump wants a piece of the action. Real estate professionals are viewing the surge in foreclosed homes in the Washington area as an opportunity to make some money and, they say, help homeowners in distress keep a roof over their heads.

The Donald’s educational venture, Trump University, has launched a series of seminars aimed at teaching people how to purchase properties from troubled homeowners at rates well below market value. Last month, hundreds of people attended free “Profit from Foreclosures” seminars around Arlington and McLean in Virginia and Bethesda, Md., to learn from Trump’s ideas.

“The D.C. area is ripe for the picking in foreclosures,” said Denise Devoe, the seminar speaker and Trump University faculty member whose free presentation focused on the success former Trump University students experienced after taking a separate $995 three-day course on foreclosed real estate.

Click here to read the entire story.

The Beef

2007-07-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Now, don't get me wrong: Transformers are awesome. There's no denying it. I'm not going to lie to you, when Optimus Prime died in the original Transformers movie, I cried. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the cartoon.

But, something is chaffing me about the new Transformers movie. It took me awhile to pinpoint just what it is about the new movie that seems off and not genuine to me.

For while, I thought that it's because the movie is not entirely animated. Sure, the robots are computer generated, but I'm not pleased with the choice to use live action.

But that isn't what's chaffing me.

There's definitely something else. Something less glaring but, nevertheless, more irritating. Like a paper cut under your fingernail. Then, I saw it, clear as day, in one of the previews

Here it is. See if bothers you too:

The Strokes? Are you kidding me? Who are the production wizards that decided to put Shia "the Beef" in a Strokes t-shirt?

How can you be so clearly shooting for the 25 to 35-year-old demographic and miss by about 4 years? "Is this It" came out in 2001! Two mediocre albums later and you're trying to make your production look "with it," "cool," and "now" by putting "the Beef" in a Strokes shirt?

Why not just put him in a fucking Gin Blossoms t-shirt and be done with it. You're clearly out of the loop and your failure to accurately target my demographic wouldn't bug me so much if you weren't trying so hard.

It's like the time my Mom called something that was clearly a bowl a "crack pipe."

And, for the record, I'm not pleased with the Chevy cross-promotional bullshit, either.

A More Vulnerable Class

2007-05-05T13:21:00.000-05:00

A hate crimes bill passed the House on Thursday, May 3, which would extend coverage to people targeted because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability (Chicago Tribune).

What is lost in the discussion is a movement to protect a class of people more vulnerable than the 82 people killed because of their race, ethnicity, or sexual or religious orientation between 1999 and 2005: homeless people.

According to a report issued by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), during that same time period, 169 homeless people were murdered because of their housing status. That's more than twice the amount of those murdered because of their race, ethnicity, or sexual or religious orientation combined!

Over the past 25 years, a number of cities have passed laws that target homeless people. They restrict when and where homeless people can sleep, sit, beg, or bathe. This sends a message that reinforces a negative stereotype of homeless people. It sends a message that their lives are not as valuable and that homeless people can just be swept away.

That is part of the reason why homeless people are being targeted in violent attacks. People see that their city governments have little respect for the rights of homeless people to do what they need to survive. Across the board, there is a lack of capacity in emergency shelter systems and there is a real lack in the systems' ability to bring in people off the street. Approximately, 44% of the nation's homeless people are unsheltered (Homelessness Counts). When a city can't provide the shelter space or services needed by homeless people, they need to sleep, eat, and bathe in public spaces.

Coupled with cities' lack of respect for homeless people, is an increasing amount of violent attacks on them. One need only look at the "Bumfights" videos. The producers of the "Bumfights" videos pay homeless people to batter each other for money and they've been cited as an influence in a number of cases where teenagers killed homeless people for "sport."

In cases across the country, we see homeless people being beaten with tire irons, baseball bats, and golf clubs. We see homeless people set on fire. We see homeless women raped (NCH Study).

So while federal legislation to add sexual orientation, gender, and disability as protected classes under federal hate crimes laws is an important first step, we also need to consider protecting another, more vulnerable, class: homeless people.

Mmmmm, Tastes like Snark

2007-03-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening, a new documentary will premier on PBS will explore how life after 60 will look for the Baby Boomers.

The New York Times asks, "Will the boomers quietly — and uncharacteristically — get off the stage and leave the messy questions about the environment and the social safety network to the youngsters? Or as science extends life, will they lead the charge in reshaping notions of age in the 21st century?"

Dr. Ken Dychtwald, the gerontologist and psychologist who conceived the film, thinks that in the very near future there are going to be "mindboggling" scientific breakthroughs that will extend the lives of a number of boomers past the century mark.

Because of intense pressure from the most "politically-active" generation, the government will fund extensive research in to how to extend human life. Scientists will find the magic-bullet to stave of the Grim Reaper within the next 15 years.

According to Dr. Dychtwald, research indicates that the secret to longer life for the boomers will be: gorging on the flesh of Generation X.

It's true! It's true!

By devouring their own children, the boomers will find the extra energy they need to sell out their transgressive past and invest heavily in Ameriprise! And drive a Cadillac while listening to Led Zeppelin.

That's right! Clean, gut, filet, and grill up one of those apathetic and snarky Gen X-ers. Spice them up with a little basil and some oil and prepare to enjoy the decadence! Not only will it smooth out those "worry-lines," but it'll add decades to your life expectancy!

Guaranteed.

King Billy's Statue

2007-03-04T17:54:00.000-06:00

At the Christmas party that is central to James Joyce's "The Dead," Gabriel Conroy tells a story about Patrick Morkan, the old gentleman, and his mill horse named Johnny. Johnny used to walk round and round in order to drive the mill. But, one day, the old gentleman decided he would like to drive out to a military review in the park. The old gentleman harnessed Johnny, put on his very best best stock collar and drove out in grand style. Everything went beautifully until Johnny came in sight of William the Orange's statue in college green. Johnny thought he was back in the mill again and he began to walk around the statue.

"Round and round he went... and the old gentleman, who was a very pompous old gentleman was highly indignant. Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can't understand the horse!"

Johnny, after years of driving the mill, round and round, all day, every day cannot be another type of horse. He cannot adapt to a new function. He knows no better. His life was driving the mill, so even when released from repetitive labor, he cannot do anything but drive the mill.

What makes the moment poignant in the story is Ireland's history of trauma under British rule - suffered under the likes of William of Orange. Joyce's Ireland is a stagnant one. One that cannot escape the trauma of colonial rule and readily accepts and repeats their suffered systems of oppression. Their's is a society that cannot do anything but continue to be defined by their abuse.

These traumas exist in each of our lives and they define our relationships with all those whom we choose to become intimate. Unfortunately, too many of us refuse to accept those traumatic moments, those moments of utter mental anguish that define us. And, we refuse to understand how those moments affect the people we hold most dear.

Instead, we choose to disavow the moments that define us, we use a band-aid when what we really need is a ternicate. We develop behaviors that protect and prevent us from dealing with the pain. We stagnate.

We're back in the mill again. Round and round we go.

The Curse of the Anti-Slip Applique

2007-02-19T18:32:00.000-06:00

Spring training is here! Spring training is here!

Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training last week. Which means, we're one step closer to another White Sox World Series in 2007!

Look at the optimism people!

But, my optimism and good spirits are, in fact, a very sinister thing. Like the good White Sox fan that I am, I take enormous amounts of pleasure in the misfortune of the yin to my yang. The north side to my south side. The Chicago Cubs.

The baseball gods are alive and they are certainly smiling upon the south side.

Kerry Wood fell down getting out of a hot tub.

The story is four days old at this point, but whenever I picture the man with the cheesy goatee slipping and falling down in the hot tub, a sinister grin smears across my face.

I mean, can it get any more perfect?

Maybe if A-Rod pulled his groin during a whine-fest with Esquire magazine and Mark Prior pulled his groin while walking out on an autograph session to benefit charity.

Kerry Wood fell down! Injuring his ribs! I mean, the guy can't even stand up with injuring himself! And yet, every year Cubs fans across the city of Chicago say, "Next year will be better. We'll have Wood and Prior back and we'll have a chance to win the NL Central."

And every year Wood and Prior get injured and pitch maybe half the season.

Then, the Tribune Company signs them to enormous contracts based on their "potential."

Ha!

Someone should buy the Cubs some of those decorative anti-slip bath appliques.

Chris Matthews: I Loathe You.

2007-02-10T10:49:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching a gangley lawyer from Springfield, IL stand on the steps of the old state capital and speak about a nation divided. A nation divided by race. A nation divided by class. A nation of the haves and the have-nots. And that gangley lawyer promised to work with us, as a nation, to bring together that divided nation and form a more perfect union.

Barack Obama announced his candidacy to be president of the United States of America!

Immediately following Obama's speech, Chris Matthews offered his utterly brilliant commentary on MSNBC. After flat-out insulting the youth of America, calling them lazy, unengaged, and shallow, he absolutely COULD NOT refer to Barack as a "black man." He called him a "black fella" and an "African-American guy," but could not bring himself to refer to Obama as a "black man."

Who's "unengaged" and "shallow" Mr. Matthews?

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

2007-02-05T19:45:00.000-06:00

What Superbowl?

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-01-28T13:46:00.000-06:00

I went to see Pan's Labyrinth Wednesday night which, despite lacking a hypersexual/androgynous David Bowie, was quite an experience.

First, about three-quarters of the way through the film, way after Franco fascists tortured and killed a number of leftists, a woman one row behind me exclaimed, "This is NOT a kid's film!"

No, it's not. What tipped you off? When that fascist shot that dude in the face? Because that was like 20 minutes ago.

But, at least your not alone in not quite knowing what you were getting in to. Apparently, the film ran for a week in Mexico before movie theaters placed signs over the movie posters to warn parents from taking their small children to see it.

For those of you that don't know much about the film, it tells the story of a young girl, Ofelia, who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area of Spain after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War. As Ofelia witnesses the brutality of fascist Spain, she lives in an imaginary world of her own creation.

I have to admit that the movie offers a scathing critique of severe masculinity. Through the character of Ofelia's step-father, Capitan Vidal, who is an officer in Franco's army, the film shows a destructive and repressive patriarchy. He, like Franco, maintains an ordered society through the subjugation of women and dissenters.

The film also depicts how Ofelia copes with an accelerated state of growing up. When faced with the brutality of her father she creates a myth by which she can escape her "loss of innocence." What troubles me about the film, though, is that like Bowie's Labyrinth, it is necessary that Ofelia learns to accept motherhood.

And there are a lot of dark, cramped, dirty places because, as everyone knows, you can't have a labyrinth film without a lot of scary/dangerous versions of the female sexual organ.

But, despite it's limitations, the film is totally worth seeing for its masculine critique.

Bear Down!

2007-01-23T19:17:00.000-06:00

The Chicago Bears are going to the Superbowl! The Chicago Bears are going to the Superbowl? Yes. The Chicago Bears are going to the Superbowl.

It doesn't make any sense. The Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005. Now the Chicago Bears are going to the Superbowl in 2007? What's up with that?

I feel like I'm from some city that actually wins things. Like New York. And, to a slightly lesser extent, Boston.

Like I said before, "It doesn't make any sense."

Maybe it's just that the NFC stands for Namby-pamby F-ing Chumps. The AFC had, at the very least, 4 teams better than the Bears (the best team in the NFC): Indianapolis, New England, San Diego, and Baltimore.

But I'll take it. At least we have a shot right?

Not to mention that the defense looked hungry last week against New Orleans. And, Sexy Rexy and Bernard definitely have some chemistry working.

If I learned one thing from the 2005 White Sox: "Doooo'nt Stop... Beleeeeeiving..."

I honestly think we have a shot...

That's a Purple Nurple!

2007-01-15T18:50:00.000-06:00

I totally got out of Chicago at precisely the right time.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) announced that they will begin extensive track work on the Red Line (the city's busiest) in April of this year. The track work will also affect the Brown and Purple Lines. In all, the track work will affect 200,000 people. The CTA predicts that commuting times will double.

The icing on the cake? Work will continue until late 2009.

That's two years! When I was living in Chi-town, I would have been one of the Purple Line riders who are, essentially, screwed. The Purple Line runs express from the north side of the city to suburban Evanston. I used to work in Evanston.

Their advice? Take the commuter rail (located miles from my old apartment). Or, take the Red Line to Howard (with about 769 stops along the way). My commuting time would have seriously gone from 30 minutes to an hour and a half.

Thank the matter and energy that created the universe that I moved!

The Hoff

2007-01-11T20:23:00.000-06:00

It just isn't a holiday without the Hoff.

He's great for Birthdays, the 4th of July, and, of course, Valentine's Day.

I promise to really post something soon. In the meantime, just bond with the Hoff. As the arctic winds rush in from Canada, his chest will keep you warm. It's like a wool sweater.

Crash

2007-01-01T15:26:00.000-06:00

Addictions are a crazy thing. I smoked for over five years and almost a full pack-a-day for one year. So, when I decided to quit after graduate school, I thought that it would take a herculean willpower to kick the addiction. Nope. I cut back to smoking one or two cigarettes a day for about two weeks and then... nothing. The cravings subsided immediately.

For that, I consider myself one lucky person. My own personal nurse, Lola Mason, even listened to my lungs this holiday season and didn't hear any negative lasting effects.

Today, I'm dealing with an all new addiction. Ugly Betty. It's my most fantastic revelation in months. This morning, I saw that Soap Net is airing an Ugly Betty marathon all day today. From 11 AM to 7 PM. That's 8 full hours of what I now believe to be the best show on television. And, GirlCat and I are watching the whole f-ing thing.

The show is so self-aware and progressive. While the show inhabits the world of high fashion and great wealth via the traditional soap opera genre, it fiercely interrogates divisions of class and the objectification of women. And it does so with a sly, satirical smile.

Nowhere else on television do we get to see working class Queens crash in to Manhattan on such a regular basis.

If you haven't watched it before, I highly recommend it.

Hammering Away

2006-12-30T12:12:00.000-06:00

After a 6 day sojourn to Massachusetts and two days of phoning it in at work, I'm pleased to be phoning it in again here on Pachycephalosaur.

I've been in kind of a funk all morning. It started early. At 8 AM this morning, the hammering started. Workers have been replacing the siding on our apartment complex since we returned on Wednesday. But, I really didn't expect it that early on Saturday morning.

I wish I had something insightful to say about the execution of Saddam or the ginormous ice shelf that broke off Ellesmere Island in Canada. Bloodthirst. Global Warming. I'm tired.

That's it. I'm tired.

Not Quite Tito Santana

2006-12-20T19:20:00.000-06:00

At the end of last century there existed two young men who had a dream. A dream to be dinosaurs. With their legs cocked, locked, and loaded, they waited in the shadows of a garden apartment. In the quiet hush of the mid-afternoon they anticipated the imminent return of the lumbering apatosaurus. As the apatosaurus gingerly navigated the descending stairs, the two young men could practically taste the salty moisture dripping from the magnificent beast's husky frame. The meaty flesh of the apatosaurus rolled around its midsection captivating the young men.

The apatosaurus paused to wipe the sweat from his brow and the young men pounced. In a wild, bloody frenzy, they tore at the apatosaurus' soft underbelly with their sickle claws. The innards of the hulking sauropod spilled from his torn belly. After a single existential cry, he toppled to the cement foundation with a defeated sigh.

One of those two young men is posting to this blog right now. With age, he has mellowed from being a raging velociraptor to a much more docile pachycephalosaur.

The other, now posts visual candy on Jobber Art.

You should all go check it out tout suite. As I told the jaughn the other day, his "Confused Pinetree is inspired.

"Dooo It" or How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating and Love the Meme

2006-12-13T20:22:00.000-06:00

I got meme-basted by JaynieK of Critical Fluff fame. For which I offer my sincere and honest, "Thank you." It was the perfect thing to get me off my lazy tuchis and write something, goddammit.

Not to mention my head cold miraculously dissipated around 3:34 PM this afternoon. I took some Dayquil this morning in an attempt to stumble through a day at work. And, lo and behold, once the meds wore off, the white noise that washed over my world the past 5 or 6 days lifted.

I promptly went to a sushi restaurant after work, ate a California roll, and drank 2 Kirin Lights.

Beer never tasted so good, my friends. Liquid love.

Back to the meme. JaynieK says that I have to do the 5 Things You Probably Don't Know About Me meme. Me meme. Mememe. Memememe.

1. I eat a lot of peanut butter. A whole lot of peanut butter. If I took all the peanut butter I ate in a year and made a pile of greasy, salty peanut butter in your apartment, it would be like a Double Dare physical challenge. Like the $240 worth of pudding sketch from The State. Probably bigger.

2. I went to Space Camp where I was a Mission Specialist. That means that I got to perform an EVA where I fixed the Hubble Telescope. It was totally awesome.

3. I really, truly believe that I could be a highly successful competitive eater.

4. I still watch and still love My So Called Life. AND, I still totally have a crush on Rayanne Graff. When she sang "I Wanna Be Sedated" in that one episode, she made my fifteen-year-old punk-rock-boy heart melt.

5. I was co-captain of my high school swim team. One time, when I swam the 100 yard Breaststroke at a meet, I dove in to the pool having forgotten to tie my Speedo. It promptly slipped down to my knees. After I took my first pull, I was able to snatch them and pull them up a bit. But, when I took my second pull, they slid back down again. Each time I took a pull they slipped down to my knees again and I spent the entire race pulling my Speedo up at the end of each stroke. My time was horrible. When I got out of the pool, laughing, I asked people if they had caught a glimpse of my unmentionables. Apparently, no one noticed! Or, maybe, they just felt my shame.

Iraq Study Group

2006-12-09T13:55:00.000-06:00

I've seen better days. After chowing down on some Dayquil (well the generic version of it, anyway), I'm fast slipping in to a mid-day medicine-head haze. Which, quite honestly, is actually kind of relaxing. The minutes are ticking by with a modicum of leisure. After an aborted attempt to feel and appear productive, I slipped in to some cotton pajama pants and watched Ghostbusters in its entirety.

"Bustin' makes me feel good!"

I hear ya' Ray Parker, Jr. "I ain't afraid o' no ghost!"

What happened to comedies like this? I feel like there's something qualitatively different between the comedies of the late 80s and early 90s and the comedies that come out today. I think I expounded on this idea in a bar somewhere before, but uh... the mind is not working so good right now.

Maybe I'll rap at you more tomorrow if the condensation in my head clears out.

eXtreme economics

2006-11-29T20:31:00.000-06:00

Almost a week ago, I saw this headline on the New York Times website: "Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young." Really? I'm young. I listen to the Decemberists (occasionally). What are the cities in these United States of America doing to attract me? Why is my demographic important enough to warrant studies by city planning committees?

Apparently we're the "young and restless." We are "mobile but not flighty" and we "like downtown living, public transportation and plenty of entertainment options."

And we're the "key to the economic future" and, to be honest, I'm sick of hearing it.

Boomers are getting older blah blah blah... they're going to retire soon blah blah blah...

Yeah my ass. The only Boomers that are going to retire before I reach middle-age are the mid-level managers who are just as disillusioned and disgruntled as I am. The ones with the primo jobs are going to work until they die. Which, by the way, the medical and pharmaceutical industries will do their best to ensure because those Boomers crave that longevity shit. See the recent Amerprise ads for evidence.

What really kills me about the Times article, though, are all the clueless city officials. Tony Crumbley, from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, cites his city's frisbee golf courses as an amenity that has drawn young people away from places like New York City and Washington, DC.

Pardon me while I play my eXtreme sport and drink my Mountain Dew...

Douchebag.

I can sum up in two words why young people have to leave New York City and Washington for Charlotte: AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

If someone making less than $100, 000 can't afford to rent/buy a decent place in your city, maybe you should regulate the number of luxury condos vs. affordable condos/apartments that are built rather than worry about your "indie cred."

Nerd Club

2006-11-23T20:43:00.000-06:00

After 5 hours of cooking and two hours of gorging, I'm totally going to bed at 9:30 tonight. But, I would just like to say happy Thanksgiving to all! My girlfriend and I hosted our first and, I have to say, it was quite a successful enterprise. Homemade mac and cheese, mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans, and a 12lbs. young turkey with basil and garlic. Betty. Crocker. Punk. Rocker.

Tomorrow we're going with my parents to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. It's a total nerd club thing to do. I just really like Space.

Then we're going to RFD for some chili. When I left Chicago I wondered where I was going to get a food product that would provide a truly artery clogging experience. It seemed as if nothing could compete with the 2 inches of cheese that comes on Gino's East's deep dish. Then I saw the bowl of chili at RFD. It's not quite the same, but few things are.

Bite the Bullet

2006-11-12T14:58:00.000-06:00

It's been over a month since my last post. It's time I came to grips with the fact that I am not going to post regularly to my blog. However much I think I want to post, it is quite evident that I will not. Every night I come home from work, I cannot muster up enough energy to think of and write something to share with the world. Perhaps it's because I put too much pressure on myself to write something significant. To write something that will resonate deeply with my readers.

In reading some of my old posts, it is apparent that I'm stretching. That I'm frantically grasping to be interesting, to be complicated, to explain and dwell on ambiguities. Or, that I'm writing about the social, logical, and political world with a certainty and fervor that belies the ambigities that necessarily and absolutely exist.

This does not mean, however, that I will quit posting altogether. I'm just not going to force it. I'm not going to spend time scanning the headlines whispering to myself, "C'mon you have to post about something..."

On a completely different note, here's the good:

Veteran's Day! I seriously love getting federal holidays off. It's like being in public school again!
Democratic Congress! 'Nuff Said!

Here's the bad. Which, admittedly, is not all that bad at all, but I've been riding high for a couple of weeks now. I'm genuinely enjoying almost everything in my life but my gym.

The gym at my apartment complex is under construction, so the management company has worked out a deal with Bally's allowing residents to work out there for free. Not too bad, right? Wrong, mothafucka! Every time I go it's like rolling around in a sweaty jock strap. You get really sweaty and you leave, at the very least, slightly nauseated. It's got to be like 112 degrees in there and I'm convinced they do it to fleece their customers. You take like three steps on the treadmill and you feel like you've just finished the Boston Marathon. Any weight you lose is bound to just be water weight. That way, you never lose any actual weight and you have to keep coming back.

Second, they have an indoor track that runs right in front of the treadmills. It has three lanes each painted a different color. The first one is maroon, the second is purple, and the third is brown. The cumulative effect being a kind of Montezuma's nightmare. It's downright nauseating. It seriously causes me to convulse.

One Reason You Have to Love DC

2006-10-09T14:56:00.000-05:00

The move to Washington, DC went off with only a few minor hitches. A little trouble with U-Haul there, a kitty revolution there, but nothing terribly troublesome at all. The biggest pain in the ass came when the cat decided on a favorite hiding place in the new apartment. As the lady friend and I unpacked last Saturday, I caught a glimpse of the cat slinking from the kitchen in to the living room. Something about her looked a little off. Now, she has some dark fur on her face, but for some reason she looked like a goddamn Ring Wraith. The little bugger was covered in soot! Fucking cat. So, I scooped up her violently wriggling body and held her still as the lady friend wet some paper towels and wiped the cat off as best she could. From the soot, we brilliantly deduced that the cat was probably in the fireplace.

One week in and the cat has almost worked out her soot stains and I've already found a reason to love DC. Federal holidays. That's right. It's Columbus Day and I'm unshaven, unclean, and still in my PJ's as I write this post. Fantastic! So, in honor of the man who landed on Hispaniola and proceeded to slaughter the Tainos, I'm going to post about the latest thing to disgust me.

Augusten Burroughs.

Ugh. I haven't even read a word of his memoirs, but if I seen another pseudo-hipster reading the narcissistic, self-aggrandizing ramblings of this "bad boy" cum James Frey I'm serving up some knuckle sandwiches. With abandom. Now, I'm not normally in the game of making presumptions or judging something without taking a look myself (well... for the most part... really!), but the dude has a book entitled: "Running with Scissors." "Running with Scissors?" Are you fucking kidding me? I had a t-shirt when I was thirteen years old that said "Runs With Scissors."

I kid you not, little pachys. A fucking t-shirt. When I was thirteen. If that doesn't make something instant uncool, I don't know what does.

If that doesn't convince you, just read the question/answer portion of the dude's website. It's like the crowing of a guy that used to hand out wedgies in gym glass.

"how 'bout updating that blog of yours, eh?”

2006-09-20T21:41:00.000-05:00

So, I totally got called out. For being lazy. To which I say, “Meh... You’re probably right jayniek.” And by “probably,” I mean “totally.”

Sometimes I just feel like I have nothing, zilch, zero, nada to contribute. Which, quite honestly, probably isn’t true. Like just today I came up with my new real estate plan. The next time I look for an apartment, I’m going to eat at every Mexican restaurant in the city I can find. After I determine which establishment gets five out of five “¡Fiestas!”, I’ll set up shop somewhere within ambling distance. Really, that’s what will make me happy. It doesn’t get much better than Chile Rellenos.

But, my inner sensor just throws that shit out as soon as it pops in my head, because it doesn’t seem of much use beyond my own amusement. I forget that sometimes people may like to know these things, or, at the very least, get some chuckles out of them.

It’s my Pachy Promise ™ to try and keep a better record of these things.

In the meantime, posting will remain sporadic for the next two weeks as I plan on tranquilizing the cat and moving her and everything in my apartment to Washington, DC. Just to fuck with her.

Dreams Do Come True

2006-08-27T19:57:00.000-05:00

I met this totally awesome guy in Las Vegas last week. And by totally awesome, I mean totally mustachioed. On a scale of totally unawesome to totally awesome, this guy rates a totally awesome. Ladies, feel free to totally make out with him. Dudes, don't let jealousy make you do anything stupid, because this guy will totally punch you in the face.

The Torah Code

2006-08-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

Some researchers claim that God embedded a code in the Bible. If you search the Torah using equidistant letter sequencing (ELS), events from human history appear to have been predicted in the Hebrew Bible. For example, the phrases "Jason Corum," "moustache," and "Las Vegas" appear in close proximity to each other... Statistical anomaly or manifest destiny?

You're On Notice

2006-08-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you just have to take a stand. You're on notice.

Thanks to Kate for e-mailing me this at work. Papers had to wait to be pushed because of it.

Atilla the 'hund

2006-08-04T12:15:00.000-05:00

I shouldn’t have to apologize for my lack of posting, yet here I am about to apologize to you blowholes (I’ve been watching too much Pete and Pete lately… wait a second, that’s a lie. I should actually be watching more. Two seasons worth in a month isn’t quite adequate for my insatiable addiction.). Regardless, it’s been ridiculously hot. Apocalyptic, even. For 6 days. You just can’t expect me to work under those conditions.

Today, it’s a balmy 85 degrees and I am much less “swampy” than I’ve been in awhile. I feel good. I feel cool. It’s like the morning after a week-long delirium inducing fever. The malicious visions of Scott Baio are gone and, now, my brain is busy Imagineering benign cartoon bears navigating dune buggies through the Tunisian desert again. Faaaantastic.

I’ve decided that evidence dictates that I must purchase an entire school of dachshunds. Imagine the possibilities, people. The ‘hunds and I could scamper at high speed through city blocks, responding in tandem to imminent threats and obstacles via our fine collective spatial perception. We could wrestle constantly and I would get tangled in their wriggling mass of malleable torsos. Then, on Halloween, I could dress them all up like hotdogs and make them race for my affection.

Lumberjack that Controversy

2006-07-26T15:18:00.000-05:00

Nothing aggravates me more than when someone tries to pass of the status quo as something subversive.

In a New York Times book review, Cornelia Dean writes about three scientists who have “shaken” the scientific world by writing books about the nonexclusive realms science and religious faith. Dean states that the books by Francis S. Collins, Owen Gingerich and Joan Roughgarden demonstrate a “courageous affront” to a scientific milieu that dismisses religion as “little more than magical thinking.” With no apology or caveats the above authors are brave enough to say to the 91% of Americans who believe in a “supernatural power,” the 82% who say that “belief in a God/higher power makes you a better human being,” and the 71% of Americans who say they “would die for their God/beliefs” that some scientists believe in a creating force behind the universe (ICM Poll via BBc News). Wow. Now that takes some ginormous brass balls.

Now, I’m not saying that scientists shouldn’t write books about science and its relationship to religious belief. Given the above statistics, their works illustrate (at the very least) a step in the right direction. Some sort of science/religion reconciliation could make a dent in the overwhelming number of Americans who believe that the earth was created 5,000 years ago by some guy with a long white beard.

My beef is with Cornelia Dean. C’mon C-Dean… Don’t sell me this “controversy.” It’s cheaper than a jug of Carlo.

Pachy and Asimo are Friends

2006-07-16T14:17:00.000-05:00

Okay. So my birthday is in exactly one month and one day. If anyone is looking for a gift idea, I saw something in the Chicago Tribune yesterday that would be perfect for a certain pachycephalosaur. It's not plant matter. Or a helmut. But a new best friend. Say hello to Asimo!

Asimo and I would jog along the lakefront at a steady 3.7 miles per. We would get our respective grooves on to The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back." And I'm sure that Asimo's frisbee skills could, with time, rival my own. Maybe we could even go on frisbee tour. Who wouldn't want to watch a dinosaur play frisbee with a robot?

Asimo can be rented for about $175,000 per year.

I'm a Knight of Infinite Resignation

2006-07-07T15:17:00.000-05:00

"When you consult [the Bible or the Quran], you do not find more reasons to be a moderate or a liberal. You find more reasons to be a fundamentalist … it is a good thing to be cherry-picking these books and ignoring the bad parts. But we should have a 21st century conversation about morality and spiritual experience and public policy that is not constrained by superstition and taboo. In order to see how preposterous our situation really is, you need only imagine what our world would be like if we had people believing in the literal existence of Zeus. I defy anyone to come forward with the evidence that puts the Biblical God or the Quranic God on fundamentally different footing than the gods of Mt. Olympus. There are historical reasons why Zeus is no longer worshiped and the God of Abraham is. But there are not sound epistemological or philosophical or empirical reasons."

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith (salon.com interview)

Oh snap, religion got schooled!

I don’t think I could ever put it any better myself. I haven't even used a variation of the word epistemology since grad school. I like it though. It’s like philosophy-nerd crack.

At Least Blackjack Has A System

2006-07-03T15:18:00.000-05:00

You know what’s incredible? How often people ask you about marriage and/or procreation when you reach your mid-twenties. Honestly, though, I feel like I hear one of the two burning questions every other week. With each person that asks me about either one, the more skeptical I become of the institutions—kind of like when the guy on the street selling watches says the word “Rolex” 50 times.

Recently, an older coworker asked me about children. After I told her that I have no plans to father any, she asked, “Don’t you have that desire to pass your genetic material on to succeeding generations?”

I paused for a moment. I have a laundry list of reasons why I would never, under any circumstances, reproduce, but they’re hard to communicate to others. People, more often than not, just don’t get it. So, I generally offer a flip response to defuse the question like running cold water on a hot pan.

Sometimes I tell people that I have a 3-year-old nephew that serves as the best form of birth control ever. It’s a little harsh, I know. I like the little guy, but he’s just a handful. You pick him up and spin him around one time and he wants to do it over and over… and over. Children have a boundless energy that most parents can’t match. I have the energy of an obese beagle that gets caught in tomato cages.

Other times I say that I’m just a failed genetic mutation. My body is the site of an epic battle between reason and biological determinism that kind of looks like this:

Occasionally, I just tell people that I just don’t want to end up with a dick. No, not another penis…

…but, an honest to goodness a-hole of a kid.

Take my high school photography teacher, for example. Mr. S. wasn’t the greatest of teachers. He’d been around for decades, so I think years of suffering abuse at the hands of people he was legally obligated not to throttle had taken a toll. But I liked Mr. S. He was a simple, quiet man who enjoyed photography, art, and James Joyce.

Yet he was saddled with a son whose primary interests included: beefing up, playing middle linebacker, being hospitalized after getting sumo-dropped by a soda machine for trying to extract a beverage without tendering the necessary cash, and (ultimately) failing the psychological exam to become a police officer due to “rage” issues.

My photography teacher’s son was my age and I comically rendered the fabled sumo-drop in 1996. Several were amused.

I do, however, have some honest answers to the question: “Why don’t you want to have kids?” But, they’re not quite as amusing or socially effective.

F***. You. Feinstein.

2006-06-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

"There is no idea or thought expressed by the burning of the American flag that cannot be expressed equally well in another manner."

Can we please have a viable third party? Please? A party with candidates that will stand up for progressive ideals. A party that will point to the fights for workers rights, civil rights, women's rights, and every other fight for social progress and categorically say "this is our tradition." With candidates that have the guts to tell the conservative working class that we'll fight for their right to a living wage as well as the right for two people to marry regardless of gender. Oh yeah, and a party that won't dick around in Congress (wasting tax-payers' money) actually debating an ammendment that limits free speech just because its "popular" during an election year.

In the meantime, I'll just keep myself amused.

Hee Hee Hee... I love this monkey.

I'm an INTJ

2006-06-20T21:11:00.000-05:00

My name is Jason, and I am an introvert.

Jonathan Rauch wrote what may be considered the "Introvert Manifesto" in March of 2003, but I just found it and I'm not ashamed anymore. Never had a reason to be, mofo.

It is definitely worth a read. It's a funny and thoughtful piece.

If you think you may be an introvert, take this fool-proof exam. It knows you better than your own mother.

Dottie is Above the Influence

2006-06-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

Sometimes Dottie (our kitty) can get real mean and crazy and I don’t know why.

Like one time, after she freebased some cocaine, she doused herself in Yukon Jack and lit herself on fire. While she was on fire, she ran from our apartment and through the streets of Chicago. She spent more than six weeks in the hospital recovering from the burns that covered 50% of her body.

Later, she told the story in her comedy special entitled: Dottie Live on the Sunset Strip.

Dottie: When that fire hits your a** it will sober your a** up QUICK!

“…by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open…”

2006-06-08T16:59:00.002-05:00

One part of my Piatiletka to reorganize Pachycephalosaur is to teach myself some basic HTML so that I can (finally) get rid of the arrow graphics riddled throughout my site’s current design. While I like almost everything else about the Blogger-supplied template I’m using, I find the arrow graphics downright offensive to my dinosaur aesthetic. For the most part I just avoid looking at them, but every so often I catch a glimpse of an arrow and I am overcome with Pachy rage. I squeal like an effeminate dauphin whose Governess has denied him les bon bons and I slap at the screen with my delicate alabaster hands. It hurts them.

It saddens me to announce that I have not yet learned how to discard the offensive graphics just yet. However, I have taught myself some HTML basics. Here is an HTML document that I created from scratch. All by myself.

Money in the Bank

2006-06-02T17:13:00.001-05:00

Every now and then, as my mind wanders aimlessly, I stumble upon an idea that I am a sure is solid gold. During my collegiate career, when time was inordinately abundant, a few friends and I created some characters and concepts that, if brought to life, would make everyone’s standard of living markedly better. Here’s a partial list of the “golden ideas.” Some I may explain more than others. Feel free to let your imagination run wild.

What Would Credence Do?
Would Credence grow their hair long? Would Credence have another drink? Would Credence go to a 9 AM class?

Hybrids
As in scorpion/camel hybrids. Big Gay Cowboy Phil rides one.

$50 Puppet Show
Imagine that on a theater marquee! Piques your interest right? Let me tell you. It’s not that good.

Rich Man Dinosaur Theater
If I were rich, I would be eccentric. As an eccentric I would have a giant room filled with miniature houses, miniature cars, and miniature families. Off to one side I would set up some metal bleachers like they have at peewee baseball games. No admission required. In the early evening , I would crash into the room wearing a big dinosaur costume and I would ravage the miniature community. I would dance (sometimes provocatively) and tear the place to shreds until I was all tuckered out and fell asleep amid the carnage. People would applaud. I assure you.

Now here’s my latest. Only two people have heard this one, but many people know that I harbor a desire to open my own Chicago-style hotdog and Italian Beef stand somewhere where such goodness is disgustingly absent. Boston, I feel, would be great due to the high percentage of youth under the age of thirty. Keep the stand open late and you’d have more rich college kid moola than you could shake a stick at.

Now, here’s what would all but guarantee success. My commercial.

It opens with a shot of a day calendar opened to February 14, 1929. The camera then zooms out and pans right to show a bunch of man-sized Chicago-style hotdogs, wearing gangster-type clothing, playing cards around a poker table in large warehouse. Here’s an artist’s rendering of a gangster hotdog:As their game progresses, the rumbling of a car can be heard outside the warehouse. One of the gangsters begins to look worried. Another one gestures, rather wildly, towards the scaredy-dog miming to "just chill out." The rumbling gets louder and a police car crashes through one of the garage doors. A couple of heavily armed man-sized hotdogs wearing police hats and badges rush out of the car and surround the gangsters. They make them line up against a brick wall. One of the police 'dogs drags a finger across his throat in the universal "kill 'em" gesture. They open fire. Relish and mustard splatter like blood in a slasher flick. The police 'dogs admire the carnage for a moment, then rush back into their vehicle and speed out of the warehouse. The camera then focuses on some relish and mustard splattered across the brick wall. It spells out: Jay’s Chicago Style.

The More Things Change

2006-05-31T20:32:00.000-05:00

My first post back is not going to break any new prehistoric ground. I know I promised you changes in theme, content, and style, but all you little pachys are just going to have to wait. It's been a busy week in crazy- large nonprofitland. A large mailing coupled with legal preparations for the international convention have tenderized my skull-cap of terror.

Without further ado...

GirlCat and I spent our Memorial Day weekend camping near the state capitol of Illinois (kudos to any New Englander who can name the capitol without finishing this sentence), Springfield. Now, as you can imagine, I've taken a few trips there to learn about state government and, the city's true claim-to-fame, Abraham Lincoln. While Lincoln was, in fact, a native Kentuckian he spent almost a quarter of a century living and working in Springfield.

Just last year, the city built the absolutely fantabulous Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Since: 1) GirlCat and I are nerds 2) GirlCat had never done the Lincoln pilgrimage, and 3) there was actually a new facility to tour, we were like, "Springfield... Why not?"

Coincidently, it's also the city's new slogan.

While touring the presidential museum, I was fascinated by the 1860 presidential election map.

"That map looks familiar," I said to myself as I stroked my stubbly chin (we camped for the weekend. camping = Grizzly Jay).

2004 Presidential Election

While, in the technical sense, Lincoln was a Republican, I think that there's definitely something terribly interesting in comparing the two election maps. Here are a couple of initial thoughts in comparing the two election maps.

One, that no matter how entrenched our political identifications are, the words "Democrat" and "Republican" are inherently meaningless. Terms like "progressive" and "conservative" are much more apt. I feel safe in calling Abe "progressive" for his time.

Two, our political geography hasn't shifted all that much. Really, the only reason that Lincoln won the 1860 election was that the "conservative" vote was split three ways and many of the western states were still only territories.

I'm sure that the two election maps have much less in common than what a cursory glance provides, but I still find that glance particularly eerie.

Hello Again

2006-05-29T20:08:00.000-05:00

I'm back bitches.

Expect changes in format, content, style, etc.

Like the mythological phoenix, the pachycephalosaur will rise again.

With rage. With vengeance.

Always with vengeance.

Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart

2006-02-02T16:59:00.000-06:00

It's not really goodbye, Pachys. But it kind of is.

For the next 3 and 1/2 months I'm not going to be posting as often as I am right now. I'd like to say that it's because I'm going on a paid sabbatical to write my novel, but then I'd be lying to you. I don't want to lie to you. I don't even want to massage the truth at you because that sounds kind of gross. So, I'm just going to lay it out for you. Right here. Right now.

Starting on Monday February 6, 2006, I am going to start working 62.5 hours per week.

I know what you're thinking. What's a lazy s.o.b. like you working 62.5 hours per week for? What happened to watching daytime television in your pajamas? What happened to the elaborate fantasies of appearing on Junkyard Wars with Keith Richards? What's with this newfound Protestant Work Ethic bullshit?

Well, I've decided to take the wise words of Dix to heart: Get paid for doing something you love.

I've made tremendous strides over the past year. I began 2005 began getting paid for doing something I hated. I ended the year getting paid for doing something I don't mind. So for the next 3 months I'm going to do something I love (for minimal funds) while getting paid for doing the thing that I don't mind. Eventually, I hope to be doing something I love. I've mapped out the life plan for you:

Hate -->Don't Mind-->Don't Mind/Love-->Love

Now that I've thouroughly confused you, here's the short answer. Staring Monday, in addition to working part-time in non-profit land, I'm working as a News Desk Assistant with WGN Radio. I'm working every day (that's Monday thru Friday) from 9 AM to 1:30PM at the non-profit and then from 3-10 PM at WGN.

It's a lot of work for someone with a history of acute slacker-ism. I'm scared, but a good kind of scared.

Meme is Money

2006-01-30T19:08:00.000-06:00

GirlCat listed me among the four sites she visits daily, so I decided that I’d break my meme silence and offer a little more Pachy Insider information.

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Lifeguard
2. Bookseller
3. Library Assistant
4. Production Assistant Intern

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Blazing Saddles
2. Dr. Strangelove
3. Wet Hot American Summer
4. Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Evergreen Park, IL (where 25,000 people applied for 325 available jobs at a new Wal-Mart)
2. Decatur, IL
3. Boston, MA
4. Chicago, IL

Four TV shows I love(d):

1. The Simpsons
2. The Wonder Years
3. The Daily Show
4. SportsCenter

Four places I’ve vacationed/studied:

1. Ireland
2. Dominican Republic
3. On a cruise ship (Belize, Honduras, Grand Cayman, Mexico)
4. Austria

Four of my favorite dishes:

I’m such a Chicagoan/Midwesterner…
1. Italian Beef Sandwich
2. Bratwurst
3. Burritos
4. Deep Dish Pizza

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Salon
2. Chicago Tribune
3. New York Times
4. a cat and twenty

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Leo Burdock’s in Dublin, Ireland
2. Patin Bigoté’s in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
3. Our House West in Allston, MA
4. Morocco

Thanks to GirlCat for the inspiration to finally partake in a meme. It wasn’t very painful. Maybe you learned something, maybe you didn’t. But, in order to uphold the “Pachy Promise” to “expand your head,” here’s your random fact for the day:

In China, Korea, and Japan people fear the number “4” the way many Westerners fear the number “13” because their word for “4” is the same as their word for “die.”

Everybody Hurts

2006-01-29T11:58:00.000-06:00

The word on the street (and by street, I mean the New York Times), is that President Knucklehead is attempting to move the issue of health care to the top of the national agenda with his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. This is the first attempt to revamp the American health care system since President Clinton's failed attempt to supply universal healthcare more than 12 years ago.

According the the Times, the White House has indicated that Bush will propose "tax-deductions for out-of-pocket medical expenses, rules to encourage the use of health savings accounts and incentives for small businesses across the country to band together and buy health insurance, exempt from state regulation."

As of January 20-22, 2006 60% of Americans already disapprove of Bush's handling of health care policy (Gallup Poll via USA Today). I'm just guessing that he's going to have some trouble selling his complicated health care policy after the fiasco that has been The Medicare Modernization Act.

The whole health care question, however, leads me to wonder: how did health care for Americans ever fall on the shoulders of American employers? It is my understanding that it began around the second world war when employers, hamstrung by wage controls, used health insurance as a way to lure in workers. But why does this system still exist?

Say my name is Sam Walton. I'm supplying my employees with shitty health care, but it's still costing me money, right? In order to get this burden off my back (so I can make even more monies), I start using my considerable wealth and influence to lobby the government to supply American workers with health care to shift the burden away from my responsibility. Sure, it means I'm taxed a little more, but I imagine that the cost to me in taxes is considerably less than what I'm paying out in employee health care coverage.

To me, it seems as if universal health care coverage is in almost everyone's best interest--except, perhaps, for the medical professionals making a killing on our skyrocketing health care costs that far outpace our average growth in income (Economist).

Like That Time In Honors World History...

2006-01-27T12:54:00.000-06:00

There’s something troubling about watching a grown man verbally flayed in front of a studio audience. It was like watching a teacher humiliate a student in front of a classroom for lying about his homework. It was like watching an umpire chewed out by the manager of a baseball team. As someone sympathetic to public humiliation, it was so intense that, at moments, I felt blood rush to my head surely dressing my face and neck in embarrassment.

Yet, his imminent humiliation was the very media candy I stayed up until midnight to savor last night. I was, to say the least, conflicted and confused.

Instead of feeling satisfied by Oprah’s excoriation of the frat-boy cum author, James Frey, I was left in a state of utter confusion and riddled with a series of questions:

Why was a grown man subjecting himself to such an intense castigation? Why did he seem so unprepared for Oprah’s onslaught? Did she hide from him the fact that she was displeased? And, if so, is that not dishonest on her part?

Did Frey appear on the show despite Oprah telling him that she was prepared to humiliate him? Was it because Doubleday made him? Did Oprah use her clout in the publishing industry to force Frey and Nan Talese to appear for public humiliation? If so, is that not slightly perverse on her part?

I’m confused and I want answers that will most likely never see the light of day. I find the entire saga troubling and I only wish I could have witnessed what occurred behind the scenes.

Hemingway's Mom Dressed Him Like A Girl

2006-01-23T15:06:00.000-06:00

Back when I started writing Pachycephalosaur, I promised that I would uphold a measure of disassociation. I would avoid delving into my private life in an attempt to provide my audience with one less self-obsessed narcissist in their lives, because one should never trust the self-vivisecting writer.

I subscribe to the theory that one learns much more about the psychological composition of a writer through their works of fiction rather than nonfiction. In nonfiction the writer is too self-conscious and, as a result, usually engages in acts of self-promotion. Too many psychological barriers exist. There exists, in their unconscious, desires and emotions that the writer disavows. The true psychological makeup of an author never appears in autobiographies or memoirs. If they are unable to face their demons, how can we, as an audience, expect them to see them on display? Therefore, one should never, ever, trust the narcissist. See James Frey for more on the issue.

I, myself, am a recovering narcissist. I spent years cultivating a persona that served as my ego- ideal in my writing and in my reality. He was who I wished I could be.

I have to admit, he was a dashing figure. At first, he was reserved in that cool, disaffected kind of way, but, in reality, he could approach and engage anyone. His reserve belied a hint of artistic melancholy just below the surface, and when he spoke to you, his steely gaze never wavered in an earnest attempt to connect. He and I went on many an adventure: from Ireland, to France, to Germany, to the Dominican Republic. We always managed to get the last word, the last laugh, and we always got the girl. We were masculine to the point of being Hemingway, but always with a touch of the artist. In reality, we were kind of an asshole.

While it was easy to write from his perspective (it allowed me to edit the hell out of my life), it was much harder to become him in reality. Drinking helped. I could erase inhibitions and conditioning through a Rimbaud-ian derangement of the senses that left me with no past and a blank slate. Drinking allowed me to disavow my social anxiety.

Now “above the influence,” if you will, I find myself obsessed with the past. I listen to David Bowie, Lou Reed, the Clash, Iggy and the Stooges, and the Who. But more importantly, I relive past experiences of embarrassment and humiliation ad nauseum. I analyze and reanalyze every social encounter. Every misspoken word, every desire, every outburst of emotion is subject to self-recrimination. I have an insatiable urge to control my public image and, for the most part, erase any distinguishing characteristic from the public record.

I know why.

But, never trust the narcissist.

I vow to write fiction someday.

WWCD: What Would Credence Do

2006-01-18T17:34:00.000-06:00

First, God ravaged the Gulf Coast because New Orleans was a city of sin. Hurricane Katrina punished the homosexuals and abortions rights activists. The indelible impression of a fetus formed in the very eye of the hurricane.

Now, according to New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, the hurricane that devastated the region was God’s (immature) way of voicing His displeasure with America’s invasion of Iraq.

“Surely God is mad at America," Nagin said in a speech Monday. "Surely He's not approving of us being in Iraq under false pretense. But surely He's upset at black America also. We're not taking care of ourselves" (AP via Salon).

Jesus Christ I hate it when pundits and politicians invoke the name and method of God to explain/politicize natural disasters. Gone are the days when ridicule would rain down upon such a worldview. Am I wrong, or did the invocation of God to explain relatively simple natural phenomenon thankfully disappear in the mid 20^th century only to reappear in 2^st?

I feel like we’re devolving. It’s only a matter of time before we’re all bearded, wearing pelts, hunched over fires, and performing acts of sacrifice to the Great Being. We need a good hunt. Slaughter a beaver!

Sure, the beards would be totally cool in a Credence Clearwater Revival kind-of-way, but is the death of science and empiricism worth it? I mean, without science, one could argue that we would have no idea what the acronym CCR even means.

I don’t know about you, Pachys, but I loves me some CCR. If it all came down to a choice between God and the southern rockers (which according to my math it, in fact, does), I’m giving my thumbs up to Credence.

Reason Number 9572...

2006-01-16T20:17:00.000-06:00

...to hate Wal-Mart. The retail giant insures less than half of its 1.3 million employees in the United States.

That's why, even though I've had a long day of work, I'm giving a quick shout-out to Maryland for stickin' it to the man. The Maryland legislature passed a law last week requiring that companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 per cent of their payrolls on health care (New York Times).

How many companies in Maryland will this law effect. Just one, pachys. Just one.

The Last Waltz

2006-01-13T12:13:00.000-06:00

Come read the next installment in my series of posts about New Jersey. I do believe that this report out of the land of odd affirms my strange fascination with the Garden State. Seriously though, after this post I'm going to put a serious moratorium on the topic of Jersey. Even if the state's encroaching bear population overruns the State House, I promise not to write about it.

New Jersey has finally decided on a new state slogan. Are you ready for it? It's:

Come See for Yourself.

Not bad, Jersey, not bad. However, you should have made the announcement more than 100 feet away from the dozen picketing exotic dancers at the State House. I wish I could link to a photo, but unfortunately, the New York Times did not include one with the article.

Governor Richard Cody was not happy with "We'll Win You Over" which the state paid $250,000 to an ad agency to develop last fall. Deciding that the phrase was too negative, Cody scrapped it and asked all the Jersey boys and girls to come up with a slogan.

Congratulations to Jeffrey Antman, 50, who developed "Come See for Youself." I'm just guessing that he wasn't referring to the angry strippers down the block.

Terminator Exit

2006-01-11T17:36:00.000-06:00

I imagine a significant ratio of my small (but fiercely dedicated) readership is waiting with baited breath for my take on the literary scandals du jour – especially given my campaign to promote JT Leroy among my friends and acquaintances. Even if you’ve never read his work, you must know by now that JT Leroy may not, in fact, be a transgendered former teenage prostitute cum author, but most likely Laura Albert, 40, an unfulfilled rock musician (NYT).

The unmasking of JT Leroy has awed the literary and publishing worlds. Yesterday, the author was one of the most searched blog topics and the subject of a number of online articles. Ayelet Waldman’s piece, “I was Conned by JT Leroy” proves to be one of the more interesting takes on the subject.

I believe that the recent events offer us an opportunity to reflect on questions of authenticity and authorship. GirlCat raises some of the issues at hand here. She raises what I believe is the central question: who has authority to write a particular story? She asks:

…what, exactly, is wrong with the fact that a 40-ish woman musician wrote under the guise of a teenage transgendered former prostitute?

Does Arthur Golden, a white middle-aged man, really know what it was like to be a Japanese geisha? Did James Joyce know what it was like to be Molly Bloom, an adulteress? What the hell does Kazuo Ishiguro know about being an English butler? When confronted with these questions, I immediately begin to question the authenticity of their respective works.

In an earlier post about Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, I outline a basic structure through which subjective experience is transferred from artist to audience through the expression of common experiences or emotions. In Part II of “Come on Feel the Illinoise,” Stevens has an entire chorus sing, “I am writing all alone, I am writing all alone.” Through having an entire chorus of people sing the line, Stevens illustrates to his audience that our disconnection, our cursed inability to really connect with anyone else, is actually a shared experience that connects us with everyone.

Literature serves the same function, but gets complicated when the author decides to move beyond subjective experience. Despite the successes and the sheer necessity of identity politics, I believe that they have inhibited our thinking in terms of communication between subject, artist, and audience. It causes us think to ourselves, “James Joyce has no idea what it is like to be an adulteress.” To a certain extent, I agree. Nobody really KNOWS what it is like to be anyone else – regardless of race, gender, or class.

However, this does not mean that Joyce and an adulteress have not had common experiences or emotions. In the way that an audience approximately understands Stevens’ “loneliness,” so to does Joyce understand (albeit incompletely) Molly’s “lusting” for Blazes Boylan.

What does all of this tell us about JT Leroy, Laura Albert, and JT’s fans?

Waldman wonders:

The larger question...is the morality of courting people's sympathies, including mine, by exploiting the issues of AIDS, homelessness, teenage castaways and transgenderism. Wasn't Albert and Knoop's assumption of these victim identities in order to achieve fame and fortune immoral, even evil? Doesn't it belittle the experience of everyone who has really suffered as they only pretended to?

Like Waldman, I believe they indeed crossed a line in obfuscating Albert’s role as the author of JT Leroy’s texts in that they very deliberately used AIDS, homelessness, teenage castaways, and transgenderism as a marketing tool for the works. (Originally, I was only bothered by the issue of AIDS, but I’ve decided that my initial reaction was insensitive to the other issues at hand).

This in no way excuses their actions, but publishing companies, in general, exploit victim identities for profit, because our society is downright obsessed with melodramatic memoirs of suffering and redemption. That’s how James Frey and his publisher made their coin. Ditto Koren Zailckas and her publisher. Which is worse, the wholly fabricated Leroy or James Frey’s performative self?

Due to our society’s addiction to performative memoirs, it is likely that had Albert made a candid attempt to sell her work as a genuine piece of fiction, it would never have been published – regardless of its artistic merit.

Regardless of the reality of JT Leroy, the experiences communicated through JT Leroy’s texts communicate very real emotions and raise very real issues. At the very least, the texts uncover that our dichotomous definition of gender (male v. female) is, culturally, a source of anxiety.

Morality is herd instinct in the individual.

2006-01-09T19:22:00.000-06:00

Now that the Republican party has succeeded in hijacking the underpriveleged, white, Christian vote they're using the same strategy to win votes in the African American community. Check out Salon's "We Shall Overcome Liberals" about Justice Day III where Alveda King (Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece), Jerry Falwell, and Rick Santorum spoke to an African American congregation at The Greater Exodus Church in Philadelphia, PA. Apparently the Jesus card, like the ace of spades, trumps all other interests--economic interests, as well as, equal rights.

This is why Nietzsche hated the Christians so much.

I'm currently sorting through some ideas about my new iPod. Look for a post in the future entitled, "My New iPod or Why I Can Never Enjoy Anything."

PHAT with an "F"

2006-01-06T12:05:00.000-06:00

After writing the note to “Ramblin’ Man” (my last post) I thought to myself, “Jay-Man… you give New Jersey a hard time. Maybe you should let up on them a little.” I’ve met plenty of decent Garden State folk and, as I stated in my last post, I’ve never even really been to their state. On a bus trip headed south of Massachusetts, I passed out in New York and slept across Jersey. The contents of my good-natured ribbing comes from two sources: second-hand information or MTV’s True Life: I Have a Summer Share (on the Jersey shore) – hardly a representative sample.

Sorry, N.J., but I’ve decided that instead of letting up on you, I’m just going to be a more equal opportunity Stater-Hater (I just coined that phrase!).

For my next installment, say “Hello” to fat city, Pachys. Chicago is “America’s Fattest City,” according to Men’s Fitness Magazine, and I wholeheartedly concur.

When I moved back to the city with GirlCat, we visited one of Chicago’s institutions, Leona’s. Leona’s is a Chicagoland chain that serves up, quite possibly, the most delectable Chicago Italian food* available. After reporting to the hostess that we desired a table, I noticed that her shirt fit like the casing to a sausage. It was just too small to fit someone of her carriage and, on occasion, white flesh spilled out from her midsection.

I took a look around the rest of the restaurant and I noticed that a number of individuals (staff and patrons) carried a few extra pounds. I daresay a majority, in fact. At this point, I turned to GirlCat and noticed an odd, slightly awestruck, look on her face, so I asked, “What’s up?” To which she replied, “Nothing… I’ll tell you later.”

After being seated a distance away from anyone else, I whispered to her, “Were you surprised by the number of fat people?”

“Oh my God,” she replied, “I thought that maybe my perspective was off having just left B.C."**

“No, I noticed too,” I reassured her. “Just look at the menu. It’s what we all eat.”

Having left the city of my naissance for a couple of years, I gained a unique perspective on the city’s collective rotundity. Since almost everyone in Chicago comes George Wendt-style, it’s hard for locals to notice that maybe (just maybe) we’re, collectively, slightly obese.

My favorite Chicago phenomenon occurs when winter finally breaks and Chicagoans awake from their months long hibernation to venture outdoors again. Resolute to lose some weight, they descend upon the running paths and wave after wave of plump, pasty flesh breaks upon the lakefront. For a couple of weeks, Chicagoans jiggle and jog in ill-fitting workout attire before deciding that, ultimately, fried food coupled with an 1985 NFL highlights video is much more satisfying. It’s quite a site.

So, N.J., don’t feel so bad about your slightly trashy reputation. At least you’re not fat.

NOTES
*Now, some of you are probably wondering, “What’s so different about Chicago Italian food?” If you find yourself asking this question, I advise you to immediately fly to Chicago and go directly to one of the Leona’s restaurants or to Pop’s (my favorite “beef shack”) at 103rd and Kedzie.

** Boston College. Too many conventionally attractive people attend this university located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Amanda Hearst goes there, for Christ-sake.

Ramblin' Man

2006-01-05T20:08:00.000-06:00

Like the "Red Headed Stranger" I've been a few places during my relatively short lifetime. Originally, I left a few states off because they were only a land mass between me and a destination. Like New Jersey.* However, I felt that the map was slightly more impressive with them included.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Note
*I feel as though that is most people's experience of the Garden State. I hear that if you get off the highway there you become a New Jersian. Like this guy Craig who was a friend of a friend. He stopped for a Croisandwich and the next thing he new, he was on the shore in a velour tracksuit stroking his mustache.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil

2006-01-02T13:30:00.000-06:00

It looks as though Kenneth Lay secured the services of White House lawyers.

You all remember Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay, don't you? A close friend of the president's and former Enron chairman and CEO, Lay was indicted in Houston in July of 2004 for his role in the company's collapse. Lay was charged with 11 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and making false and misleading statements.

In September of 2001, Lay sold $24 million in Enron stock, through private transactions, but told Enron employees that he, and other top officers, were snapping up shares at supposedly "bargain basement" prices. According to the indictment, Lay knowlingly concealed "numerous dire facts" from Wall Street analysts and repeatedly lied to his 28,000 employees about the financial status of Enron.

The Chicago Tribune reported today that Lay has "vowed to tell jurors from the witness stand that he knew nothing about crimes committed at the energy company."

In a campaign of public appearances over the past year, Lay has maintained that his only mistake was in trusting Andrew Fastow, the Chief Financial Officer, of Enron.

According to the Tribune, Lay stated in one of his recent speeches:

No chief executive "knows everything going on in his company... I did not know what [Fastow] was doing."

Kenny Boy's defense sounds remarkably similar to the presidential administration's defense concerning the well-documented torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other facilities. Despite White House officials devising a "legal" justification for torture and the seemingly systematic implementation of torture in Iraqi prisons, the White House and Defense Secretary claimed to know nothing about the heinous acts. They, obviously, were not held accountable.

It's funny how covering my ears and shouting, "NA NA NA! I can't hear you!" never worked as a defense when I was a kid...

Unfortunately, the so-called "ostrich" defense means that the prosecuting attorneys must prove decisively that Lay knew what was going on in the months leading up to Enron's collapse. What they need is a statement from Fastow that Lay knowingly authorized the cover-up. In other words, they need a direct, and dirty, conversation about it.

You Complete Me

2005-12-30T13:48:00.000-06:00

Oh. My. God. Like the thunder of a distant freight train I’ve heard the rumblings. I’ve seen the celebrities wearing slings that tightly press a small bundle to their flesh and I’ve read the phrase in a ridiculous number of articles—from Salon, to the New York Times, to Chicagoist.

Are you ready for it? Batten down the hatches and affix your chin-straps, Pachys, because here’s today’s topic: Attachment Parenting!

Bum Bum Buuuuuuuum!

It. Grosses. Me. Out. I’m ready to take some flak from the virtual wolves for this one, but I cannot hide my knee-jerk repulsion of the concept. I’m not going to call the practice criminal or psychotic, but on a fundamental level I find the practice, at the very least, disconcerting.

The New York Times recently published an article entitled, “And Baby Makes Three in One Bed” and while it’s definitely not the first mention of the practice I’ve encountered, it’s the first I’ve encountered while actively participating in the blogging world. So, for better or for worse, it’s my topic for the day.

While there are a number of issues I could take with the article, I’m going to focus on what I believe to be the crux of the matter: the sexual taboo. As the article states:

Setting babies apart in their own cribs… eases a typically American tendency to see sleeping arrangements as sexual rather than social, some anthropologists say.

I wonder how sharing a bed got so wrapped up with the physical act of making love? Now, I’m not an expert or anything, but I think I have the answer. Maybe (just maybe) it’s because a high percentage of a couple’s sexual encounters occur in (are you ready for it?) the bed. While I have performed absolutely no field research in coital-location, I’m just guessing that while “pressed up against the fridge” and “atop the stove” may be popular locales, it’s fairly safe to assume that “the bed” serves as the primary location where couples engage in physical intimacy.

Separation is a key stage in child development and I understand that “Attachment Parenting” does not advocate forgoing separation, but, instead, in making the separation “less harsh.” While I don’t agree with the bed sharing method, I cannot wholly denounce the practice because it doesn’t advocate forgoing separation altogether.

I believe co-sleeping enters a grey area when couples with multiple children allow the infant to share their bed. Take this example from the NYT article:

Rita Hunt Smith, 39, a children's librarian in Hershey, Pa., began co-sleeping with her first son, Ezra, after spending an agonizing night listening to him cry in the crib down the hall. Then she came to treasure the closeness it forged among Ezra, her and her husband, Kurt, a graphic artist.

Now 3½, Ezra spends most nights in his own bed, while the Smiths' 14-month-old son, Fletcher, sleeps with them.

I can’t even fathom how confusing the sleeping arrangement is to little Ezra. He must recognize (to some extent) the bed’s symbolic association with his parents’ intimacy--sexual or non. What does it mean to him that they’ve introduced Fletcher, and not him, to share the site of their most intimate acts?

I may add more to this post later…

Welcome Back, Corum

2005-12-28T12:39:00.000-06:00

A hearty, rousing “Happy Holidays” to my most esteemed Pachycephalosaur audience. I am back from my non-denominational holiday weekend laden with a newfound zest and fervor. My head is jam-packed with ideas and ruminations that will enlighten the mind and enliven the heart. In reality I have just pounded my second cup of coffee this morning and despite the general languor plaguing the office this morning I am jittery, wide-eyed, and vigilant.

I only hope that you all took time from your busy afternoons on Sunday to watch the groundbreaking nationally televised “Shuffling to the Super Bowl.” For one hour this weekend, Fox subjected Sunday’s holiday audience to a documentary on Chicago’s pathological simulacrum: the 1985 Chicago Bears.

Praise Jeebus for this non-denominational holiday miracle!

Families across America were subjected to vaguely pornographic images of the “Punky QB,” Jim McMahon, riding a lawn mower fortified against a blazing sun with only a pair of leopard-print Speedos. I only hope that the FCC received a bevy of complaints concerning McMahon’s pasty thighs, because, quite honestly, they offended my delicate sensibility much, much more than Janet’s wardrobe malfunction.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, fell into a deep infatuation. She’ll tell you that his garish dishabille “totally grossed her out,” but I detected a hint of disappointment when McMahon donned a neon green t-shirt for the duration of the interview.

More pressing than McMahon’s exhibitionism, however, is a koan that I concocted in response to “Shuffling to the Super Bowl”:

Which is better: the three Super Bowls of the current New England “dynasty” or the one Super Bowl coupled with the “Super Bowl Shuffle” of the 1985 Chicago Bears?

Some people will try to tell you flat-out: “the three Super Bowls, you moron.”

This response, however, belies an ignorance of the Grammy-nominated* song. In an unofficial survey of New Englanders, only one in four even knew of the “Super Bowl Shuffle” and that individual’s knowledge of the hit song was even then only second-hand. She only knew of the song due to her involvement with a ’85 Bears loving, Pachy-blogging, gentleman caller—making her a radical exception outside of the Midwest.

In addition, winning three Super Bowls in four years (while certainly a significant accomplishment) is, relatively, not all that uncommon an occurrence. Football dynasties have occurred in every decade since the 1950s:

Cleveland Browns of the 1950s (3 championships and 7 title game appearances in 8 years)
Green Bay Packers of the 1960s (5 championships in 8 years)
Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s (4 championships in 5 years)
San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s (4 championships in 9 years)
Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s (3 championships in 4 years)
New England Patriots of the 2000s (3 championships in 4 years)
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Now, consider how many football teams are Grammy-nominated* artists? That’s right: one.

NOTE:

*Admittedly, the Grammys are, for the most part, worthless—except to prove my point.

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

2005-12-25T13:07:00.000-06:00

Erie, Pennsylvania (in addition to being the unofficial halfway point between Chicago and Boston) also celebrates the sacrosant, non-denominational Festivus. Instead of gathering around a tree, Festivus celebrants commune at the base of a six-foot, unadorned, metal pole anchored in a bucket of concrete. Participants participate in an airing of grievences as well as feats of strength. Participants' grievances illustrate how family and friends have disappointed them over the past year and the feats of strength typically devolve into wrestling matches.

The Boston Globe has the complete story here.

Air your Festivus grievances in the comments section, you sadistic pachys.

I'll Take a Slice of Devil's Food Cake, Please

2005-12-21T12:48:00.000-06:00

I’d seen the commercials for it every day for about a week. And each time I said to myself, “Jason, you need to avoid watching it. It’ll send you into a Pachy-rage causing harm to yourself, your surroundings, and quite possibly your loved ones.” But then… last night… at 8 o’clock… I saw it. The Barbara Walters special entitled, “Heaven. Where is it?” Like coming face to face with Medusa I was transfixed; stopped dead in my channel surfing tracks. I just had to watch.

The show was typical Walters’ fare. She spoke with representatives from major American Christian sects, as well as, religious leaders from the Jewish and Muslim faiths and, of course, Buddhism’s rock star: His Holiness (we're on a first-name basis). Predictably, given the title of her special, she asked each of them about their basic views on the afterlife.

The American Christians were absolutely fixated on food. It was weird. I'm almost positive that every American religious leader spoke of being able to eat as much of whatever you desire in heaven. Ted Haggard of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, gleaming, spoke of heaven’s population living in mansions and gorging on cakes and cookies of all kinds—“except Devil’s Food Cake, of course.” HAHAHA! Ted’s an absolute wisenheimer!

Seriously, though, the Americans' fixation on food, and in particular the gorging of it, was really quite disturbing. The image of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Evangelicals living in McMansions and jamming grubby fistfuls of cakes and candies into salivating mouths is entirely too creepy.

Despite the creep factor, the Americans' fixation lends itself well to critical analysis. I believe that food was a common theme due to our psychological connection between food and death. One need only look at the tradition of the funeral meal. When we grieve, we utilise the consumption of food as a mechanism to cope with the pain of loss. The food that the aggrieved consume is representative of the corpse of the lost individual. So, when people consume the funeral meal, it is as if they have entombed the loved one within themselves. It’s a method through which the aggrieved need not immediately confront the loss. This process is called incorporation.

However, one does need to confront loss eventually, otherwise the delayed grief can lead to melancholy and a disconnection with the world. Incorporation can become a bad, bad thing.

What particularly intrigues me, though, is that in the Americans' concept of an afterlife, those who have passed are participating in the same “funeral meal” as the aggrieved. The process of incorporation has (in an awkward twist) become a vision of ultimate paradise. Incorporation is aligned with Heaven.

Incorporation, or consumption, to forgo the pain of reality seems to be the mechanism through which we derive ultimate pleasure. Conumer culture and the inability to grieve seem, at the very least, to be interrelated.

But what is the loss that we are not confronting?

In order to rate Barbara Walter’s special “Heaven. Where is it?” I needed to borrow a complex rating-system matrix tested and devised by our friend over at Critical Fluff. While Walters’ special supplied me with ample fodder to create "critical fluff," the demonization of atheists through scary music coupled with only about a minute and a half of air-time slightly offended me. Therefore, I present Walters with an entire bushel of CRABAPPLES!

Administration Plays the 11th Card

2005-12-19T12:22:00.000-06:00

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has just launched the Bush Administration’s legal defense for breaking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Responding to the Congressional uproar, Gonzales stated on Monday that in the days following the September 11th attacks, Congress had essentially given the president the authority to spy on American citizens.

Gonzales said on the CBS morning show:

Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority” (Associated Press via Salon).

Gonzales’ argument, in effect, states that when Congress voted to authorize the invasion of Afghanistan, they also authorized the government to wiretap Americans’ communications without a warrant. For those of you scoring at home, you can add this to a growing list of things Congress authorized with the invasion of Afghanistan; including, but not limited to: denying U.S. citizens designated as “enemy combatants” access to the legal system and (Gonzales’ favorite) torture.

The 2001 “Authority to use Military Force” states:

The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons (Washington Post).

It’s my guess that we’re going to pay for the phrase “all necessary and appropriate force” for, at least, the next three years.

What is particularly disturbing, however, is that despite the ease and facility of obtaining a warrant, the administration instead chose to trod in legal ambiguity. FISA allows the executive branch to monitor Americans’ communication in precisely the manner chosen by the Bush administration provided it receives a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (which rarely denies one). In fact, the executive branch need not even wait to receive a warrant. They can begin surveillance without one provided they at least begin the process of obtaining one within 72 hours. So, the question to ask is: Why did the administration choose to work in the ethical ambiguity of the 2001 “Authority to use Military Force”?

Coolest License Plate, Ever

2005-12-16T15:27:00.000-06:00

New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniack introduced a proposal on Thursday to create specialty “Born to Run” license tags for the state commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Bruce Springsteen album (Associated Press via Salon). Proceeds would go to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey—a Springsteen-supported charity. The tags would cost $50 plus a $10 annual contribution.

You can only imagine my excitement when I read about Lesniack’s proposal. I spent two lovely and inebriated years in Decatur’s The Winery; sitting in the bar’s only U-booth, arrhythmically pounding my beer-glass to the heavenly strains of the Boss’s seminal album. Quite often, I was ruthlessly mocked by the boys from down-state for my deferential love of the title track. But when Springsteen belts, “Baby, we were born to run!” I feel as if in one sweeping gesture Springsteen takes the listener on an American journey west that rolls from the Appalachian Mountains across the golden plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the desert to finally plunge deep into the blue, cool waters of the Pacific Ocean. To state it quite plainly: I love the Boss.

Much to my dismay, the article also states that the Republican controlled U.S. Senate REJECTED a resolution to honor the “Born to Run” anniversary. Bastards. The snub has been attributed to Springsteen’s vocal campaigning for John Kerry during the last presidential election. How divisively partisan can you get? Let’s out and out snub one of America’s greatest living artists because we don’t like his politics. How juvenile is that?

But don’t worry your large, over-sized, knotted craniums about a thing Pachy-heads. When the Boss teams-up with Bon Jovi to run on an All-Jersey ticket in 2008 presidential election all the Senate Republicans will pay. They will pay dearly.

The All Kids Program to F*** Kids

2005-12-14T12:33:00.000-06:00

Senator Bill Brady, a Republican Illinois gubernatorial candidate, hates children. Hates them with a passion that burns with the white-hot fire of a thousand suns. In fact, I heard that one time Brady shoved a kid in a Peoria playground and jacked him in the face like 30 times or something... just for putting his lips on the drinking fountain. It was pretty serious. They had to call Brady's Mom in just to calm him down. She made Brady take a few deep breaths and then think about what he’d done.

Now, having bested a child in a rousing (mis)match of fisticuffs, Brady is intimidating poor, sick children across the prairie state in an effort to thwart their money-grubbing ways. Brady vows to end Governor Blagojevich’s All Kids health care program if elected (Lincoln Courier via Chicagoist).

The All Kids program is aimed at families that do not have health insurance, but who earn too much to apply for traditional welfare programs. In effect, it offers low-cost health insurance for children of low-income families across Illinois. So, when Wal-Mart screws their employees out of affordable family health insurance, at least the state of Illinois provides insurance for the employee’s children.

Brady’s response, “My first budget will not include an All Kids program… We certainly would do whatever is legally required, but I would work to eliminate the All Kids program. I would certainly halt enrollment immediately.”

Brady then gingerly reached into a burlap sack and extracted a month-old yellow Labrador Retriever. He then stepped to the side of the podium, cocked his right leg back, and punted the puppy into a maelstrom of salivating Republican cronies.

The Awakening

2005-12-12T12:05:00.000-06:00

Today’s Chicago Tribune has a fantastic article on the queen of daytime talk television: Oprah. I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess that I harbor an indelible mistrust of Ms. Winfrey, but today’s article and interview unveil what appears to be a promising future under her reign.

Oprah claims to be increasingly distrustful of the consumer culture that she fosters through her “Favorite Things” holiday episode. In addition, she is acutely critical of her past extreme-makeover schlock in which she applies a new dress and makeup to a woman (like one would paint a house and trim its hedges) in an attempt to “change” her life.

Her are her words on the aforementioned subjects:

… "Here I am bemoaning the commercialization of Christmas and I watch the [Favorite Things episode] and I realize that is exactly what I am doing. How can I get mad at this consumer culture when there I am saying, 'This is my faaaaavorite brownie and it's only $25.' So," she says, with a small smile, "there are going to be some changes. People around here won't be very happy about that — I talked about it this year and everyone said, 'You can't not do "Favorite Things," everyone expects it' — but next year we are going to rethink things."

She recently told her producers to not "even say those words [extreme makeover] to me anymore. I won't do it, not even for a number," she adds, referring to the high ratings those shows inevitably get. "Because if you could fix things with a haircut and a new wardrobe, we'd all be fixed. And we have to be part of the real awakening of women or we are part of the oppression of them. On every show."

After reading the Tribune article, I must admit that I am more optimistic about Oprah’s social and political influence. In discussing it with GirlCat (via e-mail, of course, as we are at work), I realized that despite my reticence I very much desire to appreciate Oprah as a public figure as well as her work on television and, especially, the objectives of her foundation. With a more holistic approach to women’s rights and a critical eye towards consumer culture, Oprah may, in fact, become a nucleus from which progressive ideals will wash over Middle America.

However, it remains to be seen what actual changes we can expect in Oprah’s show next year. She alludes to change, but we will just have to wait and see if she can, in fact, slough off the consumer demons and genuinely focus on human and women’s rights. I’ve seen flashes of progressive brilliance in her work before (her condemnation of genocide in Darfur) and I just hope that all of America will see much more of it in the very near future.

And the Nutcracker Spent X-Mas in Therapy...

2005-12-11T13:57:00.000-06:00

Don't Bomb Us- A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers

2005-12-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

I just stumbled on a fantastic web discovery that everyone who reads Pachy should know know about: a blog called Don't Bomb Us. Written by staff members of Al Jazeera, the blog is just over one week old. In the name of free speech and to put a human face on an institution demonized by American politicians, everyone should go check them out.

I especally like their post entitled "Lost in Translation." They received a fairly contentious comment from an American who criticized Al Jazeera's website's lack of coverage and criticism of "Honor Killings." An honor killing is the practice of a family member killing a female relative when the female relative is considered to have brought dishonor to the family (usually through unsanctioned sexual activity).

Mohammed politely and deftly points out that while the Al Jazeera website has no coverage on "Honor Killings" they do have a ridiculous amount of coverage on "Honour Killings."

They speak the King's English, for anyone that failed to catch the difference.

If you did fail to catch the difference, remember you must savour the words of Pachycephalosaur. The longer you ponder a post, the more delicious it tastes to your brain

Petty Dawn Turner Trice Criticism

2005-12-09T12:55:00.000-06:00

Three Illinois writers have been awarded $20,000 literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): including Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice (Chicago Tribune). Trice has two novels and the literature fellowship will, presumably, help her to complete her third.

In advance, I ask that you forgive the malicious comments that are to follow.

I really dislike Dawn Turner Trice—almost inexplicably so. I used to not mind her so much. I’d read her column occasionally, most often in disagreement, but I’d just chalk up our differences to matters of personal opinions. But then, on Sept. 21, 2005, she went too far in her specious remonstrations. She wrote a melodramatic column lamenting the death of customer service. Here’s just a taste:

Unfortunately, in much of retail these days, good service is a rarity.

You may say that I'm being too sensitive. I'll grant you that. You may say that perhaps my definition of good service is a bit skewed. But consider these scenarios…:

You walk into one of the higher-end department stores--I'm singling out the nicer ones because we tend to have higher expectations of them, right?--you approach some very attractive man or woman who's wearing a name tag and what happens? This person just looks at you.

And it's a look that's accompanied by a slightly irritated smile.

So because apparently, of the two of you, you're the lunatic, you say: "Hello?"

And she or he still doesn't say anything, but displays an even more slightly irritated smile, this time accompanied by a squinty and perplexed stare.

You explain to that person what you're looking for. And you can't figure out why, but as you trail him or her around the floor like a lackey dog, you're starting to feel like you're intruding on his or her time and space.

And check this out: At the end of the sale, after hard-earned cash has exchanged hands, why is it that you're the only one saying "Thank you?"

You're wondering if you shouldn't add: "You appreciate my business and I hope I'll come again, soon."

And consider this: What about when you're in line and the two sales associates are talking about the terrible date one of them endured the night before? And you're just waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

And when they're finished, they look at you as though you've delayed them.

There’s a chance that I may be breaking some copyright laws with the length of the above quote, but I just had to share as much of her column as humanly possible. Maybe I secretly harbor a sadistic desire to subject all of you Pachy-heads out there to the trivial protestations of a veritable egomaniac. Or, perhaps, it is to make you see what passes for a “fellowship worthy” author in the eyes of the NEH. At the very least, I hope it demonstrates why I went in to a dino rampage when I read about Trice’s good fortune. My cubicle will never be the same.

Trice's column, in its entirety, delves no further in to the issue at hand. It is nothing (absolutely nothing) but an elegy for a time and place that, most likely, never existed outside of some Jimmy Stewart movie. She never questions why customer service is in decline in department stores; she just exclaims that it is, all the while lamenting “the good old days.” I’m just guessing she never worked in customer service and that she has virtually no clue what a cashier/store assistant position pays.

I had a summer stint as a bookseller at a Chicago area Borders Bookstore. You know what it paid? $9.00 an hour. Thankfully, I wasn’t making a living at Borders (just funding some summer hijinks). Here’s the real kicker, though. Every morning, the store manager gathered the entire crew for a meeting. At the meeting she told us the previous day's sale goal and, then, how much we actually sold in products. She’d say, “We made $25,657 yesterday!” To which, I’d think, “Great. I make $67/day regardless. What is Mr. Borders doing, bragging to me?”

So, Ms. Trice, perhaps we should take in to consideration the prospect that the economics of retail and poor customer service are somehow interrelated.

Congrats on the extra $20,000 though. It’s probably just a shade less than the income of a cashier or sales assistant at Marshall Fields/Macy’s.

I Am Not a Number, I Am a Free Man!

2005-12-07T20:58:00.000-06:00

A convicted murderer who graduated from law school after serving a 17 seventeen-year sentece was denied admission to the bar on Wednesday by the Arizona Supreme Court. The court cited a "lack of moral character" in their decision as well as a failure to own up to his past (Associated Press via Salon).

James Hamm served a 17-year sentence for his role in the murder of two men in a drug-related robbery in 1974. Hamm was selling marijuana when he was approached by two men who wanted to buy 20 pounds of the substance. Hamm and two accomplices decided to rob the men, instead.

While Chief Justice Ruth McGregor said that the court has no specific rule barring someone with a past like Hamm's from practicing law, it reccomends that "an applicant with such a background must make an extraordinary showing of rehabiliation and present good moral character." The court said that Hamm failed to take full responsibility for the murders because he maintains that he initially intended only to rob the men.

While in prison, Hamm earned a bachelor's degree from Northern Arizona University. After his sentence was commuted in 1989, Hamm attended Arizona Sate University's law school and passed his bar exam in 1999.

Pachy may become unpopular for the following analysis, but Hamm served his state-mandated sentence and is obviously working hard to put his life on the right track so he deserves the right to practice law.

Our prison system is, quite simply, fucked up. The machinery is set-up so that people convicted of a crime are never allowed to completely re-enter society and Hamm's story serves as a perfect example of how people become branded and ostracized after serving prison sentences. A former felon must disclose their conviction on any job application and in at least 10 states a person convicted of a felony cannot vote--even after serving their sentence.

Pachy is not saying that convicted felons shouldn't have to disclose their convictions on job applications, but incentives should be in place for employers to take them on. In addition, voting is a basic right of any U.S. citizen. Discrimination for any reason is downright unconstitutional. How can an individual re-enter society without access to good employment and the constitutional right to vote. The fact that our country has so many repeat offenders only makes sense when these (and other) social and political neccessities are out-and-out denied.

It's all so messed up that a REPUBLICAN governor, after confronting the facts of the Illinois prison system, commuted all the death sentences. George Ryan is having a hard time right now. He may soon be in prison himself, but I greatly respect his 2003 decision.

And this post doesn't even broach the racial inequities...

James Hamm, I'd let you defend me anytime. What you accomplished should serve as a beacon for human rights. With the right mechanisms in place America could truly have correctional facilities instead of prisons.

Pachy: It Expands Your Head

2005-12-06T14:29:00.000-06:00

Predictions are cash cows for political pundits. For the most part, a career as a political analyst necessitates making daring predictions on major political outcomes and events. What is particularly interesting about the political pundits is that they are graded not on accuracy, but on pageantry. Not to mention that when they’re wrong they rarely admit it and are never held accountable.

Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at Berkeley, has just published Expert Political Judgment and, while Pachy did not have access to an advance copy, we do have a subscription to the New Yorker which has an excellent article from Louis Menand on the book.

Twenty years ago, Tetlock picked 284 people who made a living commenting or offering political and economic advice and started asking them to assess the probability of certain outcomes. Questions like:

Would there be a nonviolent end to apartheid in South Africa?”
Would the United States go to war in the Persian Gulf?
Would Gorbachev be ousted in a coup?

By the end of the study in 2003, the experts made a staggering 82, 361 forecasts. Based on his statistics, Tetlock claims that the better known and more frequently quoted they are, the less reliable are the experts’ predictions about the future. As Menand states, “The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge.”

The expert prediction game being what it is, Tetlock’s outcomes are not all that surprising. When making their predictions the more ingenious, outlandish, and incendiary their forecasts the greater their cachet. Their status as an expert requires them to make predictions that are not obvious to the viewer when it is the very obvious outcomes that typically transpire. How boring would it be for the viewer to consistently think to themselves, “Well, I could have come up with that.”

What partical lessons can we learn from Tetlock via Menand? Info-tainment cannot be trusted. Forget Carville, Carlson, and O’Reilly. Just read the paper. Or online sources. Or, more specifically: Pachycephalosaur. It’s good for the mind because it expands your head.

From Mr. Peanut to Mr. No-Peanuts

2005-12-04T14:59:00.000-06:00

Forbes recently released the "Forbes Fictional 15," which lists the 15 richest fictional characters.

Santa Claus tops the list with infinity, followed by "Daddy" Warbucks with $27.3 billion, and Richie Rich rounds out the top three with 17 billion.

Conspicuously absent are both Mr. Peanut and Rich Uncle Pennybags; which makes me wonder what they blew their fortunes on. If anybody has any leads, list them in the comments section.

(I forgot to give a shout out to Joe Bear for this link, so I'm adding it in now. Thanks Joey!)

Dinosaur Jr. and One Pachy's Disappointment

2005-12-02T16:34:00.000-06:00

It takes a lot to get me excited. My heart rate barely pulses above the level of comatose and Newton’s first law of motion is based on my sleeping pattern: a Jason at rest tends to stay at rest. Isaac Newton was very, very foresighted.

Despite being permanently medium Cool, I was genuinely excited to go to the Dinosaur Jr. concert on Wednesday night at the Metro. As I stated in a previous post, GirlCat and I won tickets to the show through Chicagoist.com (thanks to my genius idea to multiply my chances of winning) and we obtained two $30 tickets for the price of an e-mail (nothing, you moron).

With three bands on the ticket, we decided to forgo the first act and we arrived between the first and second acts. We headed up to the balcony, as I prefer to be on top of the action and able to drink in the view in its near-entirety. The Ponies, the second band on the ticket, were… underwhelming. Honestly, their set isn’t really worth commenting on, so I’ll just move on to Dinosaur Jr.

After the Ponies performed, the Metro really filled up. The venue went from about half capacity to ¾ full despite the show being 18-and-over and on a Wednesday night; although, I’m pretty sure the show would have been 18-and-over by default, due to Dinosaur Jr. being about a quarter of a century old and when they took the stage, you would have been hard-pressed to underestimate their age. J. Mascis, while still sporting the long hair and glasses, had nearly doubled in size over the years; as had “Murph” Murphy. Murphy, like a suburban father of two, wore plaid shorts, a t-shirt, and a ball cap which he doffed and carefully balanced on a monitor. Lou Barlow, on the other hand, doesn't look a day older than 35—which he may be, though highly doubtful, as that would make him 15-years-old at the release of the band’s first album.

Now let me tell you what I really like about Dinosaur Jr.: J. Mascis’ lyrics and guitar solos. Mascis’ lyrics work in tandem with Barlow's bass and Murphy's drums to create a white noise that washes over the listener while also examining and exposing the angst, ennui, and exhaustion of a fundamentally flawed existence. Mascis’ guitar solos, however, flare-up in intervals, emerging from the white noise, and bely his lyrics’ sentiments of angst, exhaustion and ennui. While Mascis' solos most certainly, “rock,” they are also quite beautiful and orchestrated. To borrow from the prophet that is Tupac Shakur, Mascis’ solos bloom like “the rose that grew from concrete.”

Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the sound guy at the Metro on Wednesday feels the same way. He definitely had the bass guitar and drums set to “eleven.” Their white noise drowned out Mascis’ carefully constructed objets d’art and shook the entire building with their relentless beat. Like an army marching to the front, Barlow's bass and Murphy's drums stamped out Mascis' flares of brilliance; rendering his solos unintelligible and ineffectual against their relentless ennui.

GirlCat and I left after six songs.

Had I paid $30 to see the show, I think I would have been pissed. As it stands, I was merely disappointed.

Trying to Catch My Breath

2005-12-02T12:48:00.000-06:00

"The Man" has been coming down hard on me lately, so I haven't had the time or energy to post over the past couple of days. He's still right over my shoulder, so I just thought I'd give you all a "holla" and explain why I'm slacking so much. I really do want to write, and I assure you, more is to come. Here's a list of topics currently under consideration:

The Dinosaur Jr. show... not so great. I blame the sound guy, mostly.
How technological barriers between individuals may actually assist in communication.
Peanut butter is very tasty.

Thank you all for understanding. Maybe I'll get back to you later this afternoon.

Zippy Guitar Riffs with My Mouth...

2005-11-29T15:31:00.000-06:00

Are no longer needed!

Thanks to my friend and accomplice, Joe Bear, for e-mailing me this article from New Scientist.

In short, The Virtual Air Guitar Project at the Helsinki University of Technology adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar. Using a computer to monitor hand movements, the system adds riffs and licks to match the air guitar god's frenetic motionings. Through responding to a wide variety of gestures, the Virtual Air Guitar Project promises to turn Pachy's seizure-like "rocking out" into full-on "rocking."

In other Pachy Rock News, GirlCat and I won tickets to see Dinosaur Jr. tomorrow.

Well, actually GirlCat won the tickets because I filled out the contest info. in both of our names to, get this, DOUBLE my chances of winning. Genius.

On Wigs, Guns, and War

2005-11-28T12:50:00.000-06:00

There's a great article in the Chicago Tribune today that explains that while military recruiting numbers for the year are abysmal, the numbers for the rural Midwest are only slightly below their average. It doesn't come as much of a surprise to me, but there is vindication in hearing something that you viscerally know to be substantiated by empirical data.

In a representative case illuminating why recruiting in the rural Midwest is going as planned, Pfc. Tyler Platt, of Decatur, IL, explains why he joined the military:

I don't think it's a big deal to serve my country... And I know I'd never have these kind of opportunities in Decatur.

As an undergraduate pachy, I spent four years stomping around the economically depressed Decatur. Manufacturing left town decades ago, but the effects are still manifest in a crumbling infrastructure and economy. Downtown Decatur is an amalgamation of gun, liquor, and wig stores and the number of bars nearly outnumbers the employed.

When the best jobs available are at the Super WalMart, you know your city is in trouble.

The Tribune article suggests a connection between the economy and the Iraq War. Well, actually, it’s a problem that has existed for at least as long as modern warfare: in unequal numbers, we send the poor to fight our battles. Our military feeds off of economic woes by siphoning away young, poor, lower class citizens with little to no economic options. The death of American manufacturing was the greatest thing that happened to the United States’ armed forces because it left people like Tyler Platt with no other opportunity for gainful employment.

Here’s a statement from the article that almost sent me in to a pachy rampage:

The Army is in the midst of a blitzkrieg advertising campaign nationwide. Recruiters in Illinois say increased benefits, such as a $400-a-month pay boost for those willing to serve in combat divisions, are luring more recruits.

If this doesn’t demonstrate the interconnectedness of economics and violent warfare, I don’t know what does. For risking your life, the American government will give you an extra $400-a-month. Is “$400” how you spell E-X-P-L-O-I-T-A-T-I-O-N?

How can we expect the current administration to fix our economic woes when it exploits those woes to feed something like the Iraq War?

The Long and Winding Ramble

2005-11-23T15:47:00.000-06:00

Just to warn you, what follows is a long, rambling meditation on personal philosophy. If that interests you, feel free to read and comment. If not, just scroll down to read about a "Reincarnation Vaction."

GirlCat’s entry on an online philosophy quiz got me thinking about philosophy again, if even for only a few moments. I, myself, minored in the subject as an undergraduate student and I spent a good three years pondering the big questions. You know the kind:

Why is it unethical to molest little Johnny?
If an almighty power exists that is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-loving, then why is little Johnny getting molested in the first place?
If someone sees little Johnny getting molested, is little Johnny REALLY getting molested, or like a soap opera cliché, is it all just a dream?

Yeah… my philosophy professor was a little obsessed with the molestation of little Johnny. The university I went to was so small that the philosophy department consisted of 2 professors and, perhaps, a dozen students: majors and minors combined. Therefore, I consistently had the same professor for most of my coursework. That was fine by me, because he was, quite possibly, the most animated and brilliant professor on campus.

It was funny when, after taking about 5 courses with him, my professor finally let little Johnny’s molestations come to an end. He started into another example of little Johnny and then just stopped, mid–sentence, and said, “You know what… I have to leave poor little Johnny alone. I can’t imagine what people walking past this room think is going on in here.” He never spoke of little Johnny again.

Regardless of the above trip down memory lane, I, like GirlCat, took the quiz and was told that I am a utilitarian. It was no big surprise as I consider myself as a utilitarian. But in discussing the outcomes with GirlCat, I realized that while I subscribe to the principles of the philosophy, I see it is a mode of functioning rather than as an overriding philosophy. It doesn’t answer any of the big questions, but offers me a way to cope with the despicable actions that rob individuals of pleasure in existence.

It is also no surprise that I scored high in the tenet of hedonism, as I believe in the supreme right of an individual to exist free of suffering. So while I do not believe in maximizing the pleasure of an individual ad infinitum, I value, above all, freedom from pain. It is my contention that in order to supply everyone with an existence as free from pain as possible, we have to minimize the hedonistic impulses of the affluent and try to alleviate the suffering of the underprivileged. That credo appeared in the results of the quiz as hedonism due to my desire to alleviate suffering.

All that can be folded into a utilitarian construct, but it still does not supply an answer to the big questions of existence it merely offers a way to cope with existence. On the quiz, I also scored high in nihilism. Dealing with nihilism has been a philosophical problem I’ve been coping with for the entirety of this millennium. I’ve come to grips with the fact that the only truths in existence are subjective truths and that objective knowledge must be subject to revision. Despite its status of constant revision, matters of the scientific/physical world are quite reliable. We can be almost 100% certain that when I run head on into a wall, I will, in fact, splat up against it, but as quantum physics states: there is always an incredibly miniscule chance that I may run right through it; that none of my particles will collide with any of its particles. In matters of matter, though, we can be fairly certain.

It is in the murky areas of consciousness and existential meaning that knowledge necessarily becomes muddles. While I can point to utilitarian constructs to judge whether an action is good for society, there is no underpinning for my contention. In other words, why should we be nice to each other? Fuck if I know.

However, I can gesture towards imagination and empathy as central components in connecting our subjective experiences. The reason I believe in the supreme right of the individual to exist free from suffering is because I, too, know what it is like to suffer. It is through my subjective suffering that I can try to understand the suffering of others. While my experiences of suffering are in no way commensurate with the sufferings of, say, a rape victim in Darfur, I can try to imagine her feelings of violation based on an extreme extrapolation of my minimal experiences of violation coupled with experiences of artistic representations of violation.

That is, precisely, why art is a vital component of society. Despite some limitations, art can express experience in such a way that subjective experience can be transferred from artist to viewer. The artistic experience offers the viewer information and experience valuable in empathy creation because it is one of the sole bridges between individuals. While art demonstrates the inexpressible gap between artist to viewer and subject to subject, it also serves to bridge that gap through the expression of common emotions.

How many people, in the world, think to themselves, “I am so alone.”

Reincarnation Vacation

2005-11-23T12:47:00.000-06:00

A teenage boy has been meditating in a Nepalese jungle for over six months with thousands of people flocking to see him. A number of the visitors believe that the boy, Ram Bahadur Banjan, is the reincarnation of Guatama Siddhartha, or Buddha (Chicago Tribune).

According to his followers, the fifteen-year-old boy has been sitting with his legs crossed, motionless, and with his eyes closed since May 17th. Police and reporters believe that 10,000 people visit Banjan’s meditation sight daily.

Visitors can catch of glimpse of the teenager from a roped-off area 80 feet away. A makeshift parking lot and a cluster of food stalls have appeared near the retreat as the area is not frequented by visitors.

However, there is one caveat. At dusk, Banjan’s followers place a screen in front of him hiding the boy from view. That leads me to believe that something may be up. Shenanigans may, in fact, need to be called.

It reminds me of my ability to change red traffic lights green merely by staring at them.

Under the Gun: The Silas Corum Story

2005-11-21T10:47:00.000-06:00

The story of the five-year-old boy employed by his father.

The Hardest Working Man in Iraq

2005-11-18T14:04:00.000-06:00

The Associated Press is reporting that Col. James Brown, commander of the 56th Brigade Combat Team in Iraq, in an effort to counter calls from Rep. John Murtha for American troop withdrawal from Iraq, said today that troop withdrawal cannot happen until the war torn country is secured. Speaking from a U.S. logistics base just north of Baghdad, Brown said:

Here on the ground, our job is not done… We have to finish the job what we
began here. It’s important for the security of this nation.

I’m guessing that the White House Communications Dept. scoured Iraq for an officer (with street-cred.) that… maybe, wouldn’t mind being coached in to reading a sound bite authored by the White House.

I’d like to see what rank the Godfather of Soul holds next week, because it sounds like someone’s trying to make General to me.

Step Off, George... Just Step Off

2005-11-15T12:57:00.000-06:00

I have a pretty serious man-crush on Barack Obama. It's kind of hard not to. The man oozes charisma and every word he speaks simply rings with sincerity and alacrity. Today's Chicago Tribune has an editorial piece written by the junior senator from Illinois about how to uncover the resources needed to rebuild the gulf coast. In short, Obama calls for a two pronged governmental effort to raise 100 billion dollars for the effort.

First, he believes that government could raise $50 billion through postponing a planned tax break for millionaires coupled with a temporary (permanent, please?) roll back of just one of the tax cuts for those who make an income of more than 2 million per year.

His second suggestion, and the primary focus of his piece, calls for cutting $50 billion dollars in spending. Simply cutting funding for a manned mission to Mars would raise $10 billion and maybe Alaska could just wait another couple of years for its "Bridge to Nowhere."

Like a rational human being, Obama calls for complete cuts of unnecessary programs rather than partial cuts across the board. Why cut out some government aid for the poor when you can absolutely cut out an obscenely frivolous manned tripped to Mars?

Now don't get me wrong. It would totally be cool to have a manned trip to Mars. In fact, I'd sign up for it right now (much to the chagrin of my lady friend).

Well... maybe not. Regardless, I defy anyone to make a rational (and I emphasize rational) argument good enough to convince me to cut aid for the underprivileged in order to fund the stuff of science fiction.

I mean we all remember what happened in 2001 to David Bowman. How many astronauts must be slaughtered by A.I. before we focus on nitty-gritty domestic issues?

Juice and a Snack Might Help Too

2005-11-13T14:21:00.000-06:00

A grassroot movement in the second half of the 20th century led to the Republican controled executive and legislative branches today. Through a massivly organized effort, Republicans created conservative talk radio,distributed mass mailings, formed think tanks, and arranged training programs. Their efforts enabled them to pilfer lower and middle class votes from the Democrats. Republicans convinced honest people to vote against their own self-interest in the name of religion, morality, and NASCAR.

Now that Democrats find themselves in a position to organize a campaign to take back the House, they devised their most creative effort to combat Republican incumbents. It's called: the buddy system.

As Democrats seek to wrest control of the House from the GOP, they find themselves with an unexpectedly favorable [candidate] recruiting climate... That's why [Rep. Rahm] Emanuel [D-Ill] and other Democrats are giving tours of the Capitol to prospective candidates and wooing them with offers of advice and counsel should they decide to run. They have created a buddy system, assigning each real or potential candidate to a House member who can provide support and guidance (Chicago Tribune).

Republicans control cable television news, talk radio, and religious america. In response, we (like a third-grade field trip) devise "the buddy system" in candidate recruitment. Fantastic.

Does Android Jason Dream of Electric Sheep?

2005-11-10T20:04:00.000-06:00

I don't know how many people in my small, but estemed, audience know, but secretly I've always wanted to be some sort of scientist. As it is merely a clandestine fantasy, I harbor ambitions in almost all of the scientific fields. I say almost all, because geology, I'm sorry, but you just don't have the same kind of scientific sex appeal as physics, astronomy, paleontology, or even biology.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no aptitude for scientific studies. One time, in my sophomore year chemistry class, my lab partner Tim and I were mixing chemicals and such and placing things over the bunson burner. During the experiment I had one of my customary "exploding-hands" moments and I kind of spilled things--just a little bit though. Tim and I continued on with the experiment figuring that I couldn't affect the outcome that negatively.

Well, does anyone else remember calculating percentage error for experiments? If I remember correctly, it illustrates the accuracy of the outcome of the experiment--kind of like the margin for error in polling. Ours ending up being ridiculous; like 90-something percent inaccurate. Mr. Krystof, upon receiving our lab worksheets, just wrote "No" on the top of ours. Seriously, just: "No."

I point to that moment as the one where the door to the academic sciences shut before me.

However, I'm still in love with the sciences. Maybe it's the logic; the fact that there's empirical evidence for every outcome, and yet every outcome, every conclusion, is open to revision. But that's not to say that there isn't certainty. If an experiement is repeated ad nauseum and the outcome is always the same, science confers upon that outcome the status of a theory.

Note to all purveyors of I.D.: scientific theories hold a lot of weight. Check your local high school textbooks for more info.

The end result of my fascination with science is that whenever I encounter a popular article on scientific advancement, I get all giddy and excited. I typically tear through the article on the spot.

Today, for instance, I read "The Big Idea" on Salon. I found John Horgan's piece on artificial intelligence particularly interesting. Douglas Lenat and a team of co-workers created a gigantic software program called Cyc. Cyc's most impressive talent is that it can glean the contextual rather than just the literal meaning of language. The most useful aspect of which is in performing online research. Through understanding the context, Cyc responds in the spirit of the search rather than just the letter.

In addition, Lenat believes that Cyc has already achieved something akin to consciousness.

"If you ask it what it is, it knows that it is a computer," he says. "If you ask who we are, it knows that we are users."

Lenat hopes that eventually Cyc will become more or less autonomous, capable of acquiring new knowledge through searching the web and absorbing information on its own.

Fascinating. While I'm not entirely buying that Cyc currently has a level of consciousness, I have no doubt that there's a distinct possibility it could in the very near future. With an autonomous system in place, who's to say it's not gathering information in much the same way as a newborn child absorbs perceptory and interpretive data like a sponge. At the very least, we're going to have to ask Philip K. Dick-esque questions very soon.

Down in The Boondocks

2005-11-07T14:12:00.000-06:00

Did anyone see The Boondocks last night on Cartoon Network? That’s right, The Boondocks has leapt from your local paper’s comic section to the TV’s greatest cartoon block ever: Adult Swim. The show injects Adult Swim with the political and social satire it has sorely lacked over the years. Not that I don’t like a fair amount of their shows, but they existed in a kind of political vacuum. The Boondocks, however, provides Adult Swim some balance and will hopefully make it less market specific. In other words, less 20-something, white, and male (less like myself, actually).

There are two things that I love about the first episode. The first being that McGruder’s personal esthetic has survived and evolved in the transfer from newsprint to the small screen. McGruder’s artwork in the strip is heavily influenced by Japanese comics; most evidently in the way that he draws Huey and Riley (large heads with large eyes). The deliberate choice to use Japanese, or “manga,” influences immediately sets the strip apart from the singularly American influenced strips in today’s papers: Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Peanuts, etc. The Boondocks uses its manga influences in a way that embraces its “otherness” and strives to break the racial divide that has limited the number of successful African-American cartoonists and subjects. The show expands the strip’s embrace of Japanese influences through its addition of dramatic, foreshortened images of characters in action.

The second thing I loved about the first episode is that it reminds me of McGruder’s address at The Nation’s 138th birthday party. That night, when asked to speak, McGruder grasped the microphone and told The Nation what he really thought. According to the New Yorker:

He told the guests that he’d called Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser, a mass murderer to her face; what had they ever done? (The Rice exchange occurred in 2002, at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, where McGruder was given the Chairman’s Award; Rice requested that he write her into his strip.) He recounted a lunch meeting with Fidel Castro. (He had been invited to Cuba by the California congresswoman Barbara Lee, who is one of the few politicians McGruder has praised in “The Boondocks.”) He said that noble failure was not acceptable. But the last straw came when he “dropped the N-word,” as one amused observer recalled. He said bragged, even—that he’d voted for Nader in 2000. At that point, according to Hamilton Fish, the host of the party, “it got interactive.”

One can only assume that the above evening must have influenced the garden party scene in last night’s episode. At the very least, both display a desire to confront white America’s bull-headed inability to face the racial and economic problems of our time. Katrina, for at least a moment, brought the intertwined issues of race and poverty to the living rooms of America. The Boondocks promises to bring it every Sunday.

Book Review: Lunar Park

2005-11-06T13:54:00.000-06:00

Literature, it seems, is especially preoccupied with the question, “Who’s your daddy?” From Dedalus and Icarus through Stephen and Simon, the father-son relationship has been one fraught with literary significance and obsession. Bret Easton Ellis’ new novel, Lunar Park, for better or for worse, advances this literary obsession into the new century.

Every review I’ve read of Ellis’ latest novel can be distilled into a single criticism: narcissistic. In the 30 page preface to the novel, Ellis illustrates to his audience that he needs no introduction because his first novel, Less Than Zero, was a “zeitgeist touchstone,” and he has been profiled in “every magazine and newspaper that existed,” and his name is as “recognizable as most movie stars’ or athletes’.” However, Ellis, himself, hints towards it being a tongue-in-cheek, bloated narcissism with the opening line of the novel, “You do a pretty good impression of yourself.”

Critics do generally note that Ellis effectively uses his preface to participate in the tradition of good ole fashioned ghost-story tellin’. His self-obsession in the preface serves to make the narrator the central component of the text—thereby lending his fantastical story an air of credence, because it’s coming straight from the horse’s mouth.

What the critics I’ve encountered have failed to examine is the function of Bret’s narcissism. Generally, they write it off as a component of his actual character and as detriment to the novel. They see the novel as the product of an individual who became too famous, too fast. However, it is my contention that Bret’s narcissism is central to how the character (and perhaps the author) understands the paternal relationship.

As is outlined in the preface, Bret’s father made a ton of money in real estate and even after a divorce “his power and control continued to loom over the family...” The character’s father also had no faith in his son’s talent as a writer and demanded that he attend business school at USC. To which Bret (both in fictional and real form) did the exact opposite; enrolling at a small liberal arts school in New England. In a last ditch effort to force Bret into USC, his father refused to underwrite his college education.

Bret’s father wields his wealth over the family in an attempt to sculpt it to his liking, and his son into his own image. The very act of having a child bares with it the desire to mold the child in the way the parent sees fit. In addition, it serves to circumvent one’s demise because the parent inevitably sees a little bit of him/herself in the child: genetically and in ideology. It is, at least partially, a narcissistic desire that causes people to have children, and, as Ellis astutely demonstrates in the novel, it is this narcissistic desire that can fuck them up.

Bret’s father, though dead in the novel, lives on through Bret. He lives on, in ghost form, through Bret’s creations of Patrick Bateman and Clayton. But more importantly, he lives on through Bret’s fetish with name-brand objects. The rampant label-dropping participates in the same tradition as the name-dropping in The Great Gatsby. It represents power. In Gatsby, the names represent a relationship with people of social status, of people with “old money.” In Lunar Park social circles are less important. Bret’s father’s desire for status and power was fed through our consumer culture where one can simply purchase status through acquiring a Mercedes 450 SL. His quest for power through brand-name consumption lives on in Bret in the novel.

Bret, haunted by his father’s legacy, is understandably reluctant to connect with his own son. Bret does not want to narcissistically contaminate Robby with the same aberrant consumerism that haunts him.

Ellis is tuned into the mechanics operating the modern relationship between fathers and sons. Too often, the relationship is born out of and solely inhabits an economic realm. The male right of passage is to become contaminated with the doctrine of the emotionally distant, financially powerful, and utterly self-reliant father. It is a cold relationship, like a bank transaction.

Ellis presents the reader with the painful results of an irreparably perverted patriarchy that Bret, the character, attempts to escape and strives to terminate.

Developers ALWAYS Collect $200

2005-11-06T09:41:00.000-06:00

Congress is taking steps to rewrite the 32 year old Endangered Species Act in an effort to make it more friendly to developers and landowners, but much to the chagrin of envrionmental activists. According to the Chicago Tribune:

The House passed a bill to significantly rewrite the law in September, and the Senate is expected to adopt at least some of those changes. The House bill would require, for example, that the government pay developers if the act prevents them from building, and it would eliminate the government's ability to designate a creature's "critical habitat" where building is forbidden.

How ridiculous is that? "I'm sorry that there are endangered species where you'd like to build, Mr. Moneybags. Maybe this large sum of government money will help to ease your pain."

Talk about a government handout for the rich.

Not to mention that conservatives are always talking about cutting government spending. At least liberals tax before they spend.

Consumer Advocate Ogre Defeated by Illinois State Senate

2005-11-04T15:41:00.000-06:00

In an effort to protect utility companies from all those malicious Illinois consumers, the Illinois State Senate struck down Governor Blagojevich’s nomination of Martin Cohen to serve as the chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission (Chicago Sun Times).

The main criticism against Cohen is that he once served as the head of the Citizens Utility Board: a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents the interests of residential-utility customers of Illinois. Due to his involvement with the CUB, senators deduced that Cohen is some sort of greasy Swamp Thing type monster that would enact a draconian rule- tearing at the utility companies' virginal bosom.

When asked about the decision, the consumer advocate ogre, shaking a gauntleted fist, menacingly responded, “As long as the utilities and their almost unlimited deep pockets hold sway, I don't think consumers will get a fair shake.”

It’s refreshing that politicians finally (FINALLY!) came to the rescue of those fair, distressed, paragons of purity known simply as utility companies.

It’s not like they ever hurt anyone, right? Click HERE if you think I’m being sarcastic, because you’re right.

Oh, and people at Pac Bell (which is in some way related to SBC) keep reading my article on Aurora WiFi and American broadband. Three times in the past two days, to be exact. I just want them to know, that I know, that they know what I know…

We Need a New Space on the Monopoly Board!

2005-11-02T16:23:00.000-06:00

According to the Chicago Tribune (via Chicagoist) Aurora, Illinois is aiming to become the first municipality in the state to create a mesh network, allowing citywide wireless Internet access. Mayor Tom Weisner’s budget proposal includes 5 million dollars to build the network infrastructure. What does all this mean? Aurora’s WiFi network would be a government-subsidized network available to all citizens at all times at no cost. How’s that for service?

As the internet becomes an indispensable part of life, cities like Aurora, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia have begun funding projects that treat it like other public services. Of course, Comcast and SBC are a little cheesed at the prospect of losing their opportunity to supply consumers with sub-par services at exorbitant rates. For around the equivalent 20 dollars a month, most developed nations in the world have connections that are 10 to 16x faster than those in America.

For every reason to hate the internet giants read “Free American Broadband” and become militant about your internet access. And by militant I mean seethe alone in your small urban apartment because it doesn’t matter what you think anyway. Unfortunately, you do not have access to powerful lobbyists that can take members of congress on expensive golf outings to the fabled Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

Enjoy free internet while you can, Aurora. You’re living the dream.

Ohio Fumbles in a Greasy Till

2005-10-30T17:00:00.000-06:00

Scott Walker, the chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign last year in Wisconisn, is quoted in the Chicago Tribune today as saying, "Republicans are in control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, so why hasn't more been done to control spending?"

Walker, coincidently, is also a candidate in the state's gubernatorial primary. It's ridiculously satisfying to see Republicans begining to run, Forest Gump-like, full speed ahead away from Bush and his political agenda. Still, Walker doesn't even hint as to what has sent Republican political spending into the stratosphere.

Pachy believes that there are, at least, two primary reasons. The first begins with an "I" and ends with a "Q." Need I say more? And the second: no-bid contracts given to political donors. Check out The Next Left's "Bush Rewards Ohio's Highst Bidders a Chunk of the White House" for more information on that front.

Under the Gun: The Silas Corum Story

2005-10-29T20:03:00.000-05:00

Na, Na, Na, Na. Hey, Hey, Hey. Goodbye!

2005-10-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

Happy trails, Harriet Miers. The abject cronyism of your nomination reminds Pachy of New York's Tammany Hall and Chicago's very own, Richard M. Daley. I did admire your gumption for simply stating "No" on your application when asked to supply some of your records. Unfortunately, I think the man that you have, at the very least, a platonic crush on fed you to the conservative wolves. I'm sure that you did not receive even a fraction of the coaching John Roberts received, if any assistance at all, for your nomination process.

The disappointing news for liberals is that, once again, the Dems have dropped the ball in presenting themselves as a viable alternative to Republicans. The Nex Left has a great piece on that here. It states:

Let's face it: The Dems strategy on the Miers nomination was to let it implode. It should have been to demonstrate that there was bi-partisan hostility to the Bush White House's cronyism.

I have to agree with that statement. Instead of standing idly by twiddling their thumbs, they should have pointed directly at the Miers nomination and said, "This is not us. We would have worked with Republicans to nominate someone with 'credentials' and who represents the ideals of our country and our party..."

Wait a damn minute. Then, Democrats would have to do something radical like, actually stand for something other than milquetoast-ism. If that's even a word.

10/15/1917 - 10/26/2005

2005-10-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

I'm speechless...

Assassinate the Silverback

2005-10-25T14:38:00.000-05:00

Salon has a new blog on women's issues entitled Broadsheet. I spent part of my day today skimming through the articles between working on portions of the NEH grant I'm working on for a documentary film. What particularly pleases me about Salon's new component is that the authors already exhibited on Broadsheet are, in fact, some of my favorite Salon writers, period (Rebecca Traister and Farhad Manjoo). In addition, Broadsheet's introduction promises to examine gender relations as a whole, which I feel is crucial to understanding both femininity and masculinity.

One of their first posts is on a new book entitled, I Can't Believe She Did That! Why Women Betray Other Women at Work. Rebecca Traister interviews the author, Nan Mooney. Thinking about the behavior of women in the workplace made me think about an issue that has vexed me for some time now. Although the interview doesn't necessarily speak to the topic, it served as a reminder for me to think a little more about the following issue.

All too often, what can generally be characterized as "masculine" behavior is rewarded in the workplace; regardless of its positive or negative social effects. Take, for example, abusive alpha behavior- reminiscent of most silverback male gorillas. In the workplace, we bow to the alpha allowing him/her to cruise up, or remain atop, the corporate ladder; indifferent to their malevolent acts.

In addition, some progessives and feminists (both of which I consider myself) I've encountered in the past applaud a woman exhibiting and owning the abusive trait. To a certain extent, I can understand it. After generations of socond-class citizenship, I can understanding the desire to seize power through any means possible.

However, I do not feel that adopting the traits of the oppressor will, in the long run, prove beneficial. It simply serves to perpetuate a paradigm in which certain people will remain oppressed. We need to learn to appreciate and reward those traits that do no psychological and/or social harm in an effort to dismantle the systems in which aggression are propogated.

On a related note, Americans seems to get an unhealthy thrill out of crucifying women exhibiting abusive alpha behavior (Martha Stewart anyone?) while abusive alpha men never, NEVER, get the same public skewering (Jeffrey Skilling, perhaps?). The public certainly likes to cow a dominating woman. A topic for another time, perhaps...

It's getting late, so this post is probably not as well written as it could be and for that I apologize.

I hope the White Sox can pull this out. I'm tired.

On Tacos and Melancholy

2005-10-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

Julia Kristeva writes in her book, Black Sun, that people find themselves in a state of depression because they are unable to distill their subjective emotions through the objective structure of language. In other words, the depressive finds him/herself in a state of melancholy due to an inability to communicate his/her non-symbolic experiences and emotions through the symbolic, rational structure of language. Kristeva attributes the arts, particularly poetry, with a certain success in their ability to express the inexpressible as well as straddle the line between symbolic and non-symbolic realities.

Today, I feel like I'm living in a David Lynch film. I’ve currently been at work for over seven hours. Every time (and I mean EVERY time) I return to my desk, the woman sitting next to me is on the phone ordering exactly 150 tacos. Chicken, ground beef, vegetarian, hard shell, soft shell… ALL DAY she’s been ordering a massive amount of tacos and it’s really beginning to creep me out. The insistently repetitive talk about tacos has rendered the very words meaningless as well as torn the delicate fabric of my reality.

I feel like my brain has been scooped out and replaced with an opaque mélange of gelatin, sawdust, and molasses.

It’s time to share your everyday Lynchian moments… Please leave a weird for weird’s sake episode from your life in the comments section.

Under the Gun: The Silas Corum Story

2005-10-20T18:45:00.000-05:00

An Open Letter of Apology to Joe Crede

2005-10-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

Dear Joe:

Do you remember that time in Boston when you hit that home run to tie the game only to muff a defensive pay in the next inning? Manny Ramirez was at the plate and he hit a high, foul, pop-up. Instead of watching the ball in to your glove you swiped at it like a chump. Manny hit the next pitch on to Lansdowne Street. Do you remember how I yelled, "FUCK YOU JOE CREDE! I WOULD WAX MY ASS JUST TO HAVE YOU SENT BACK TO THE MINORS!"?

or,

Do you remember how you hit .232 every season and that every subsequent off-season I fervently prayed that the police would catch you smoking crack just so the White Sox, in an effort to avoid the negative PR, would release you?

or,

Do you remember how whenever "Hawk" Harrelson mentioned your defensive prowess on air, you'd always boot the next ball hit to you causing me to repeatedly jab myself in the eye with the jagged end of a broken-off beer bottle?

Well, Joe, I'm just writing to say, "No hard feelings." Really, I'm writing to say I'm sorry for the differences we've had in the past and for all those (what might be construed as mean) things that I've said, and deeply felt. You must remember, I only felt that way because I cared so much.

You deserved to win the ALCS MVP, because your efforts this postseason have enabled the White Sox to march all the way to the World Series (it still feels weird saying it). For that, the Southside thanks you and I am forever in your debt. Please, let's forget all of our past misadventures.

A clean slate for me. Unyielding admiration for you... If we win the whole enchilada.

Give my best to the team,

Jason

PS: Go Sox!

She’s Just that Into It…

2005-10-19T15:42:00.000-05:00

On the train to Evanston at 8:00 AM this morning a woman sitting across from me pulled out a book. She was about thirty years old, fairly well dressed, despite her shoes. They were those sneakers that masquerade as dress shoes. Being a fairly nosey person, as well as a book hound, I had to get a peek at the title. She raised the book to her eye level and I saw a colorfully striped novel with a silhouette of the back of a woman adjacent to where the cover met the spine. The title of the book was: The Dirty Girls Social Club. “Ah,” I thought to myself. “A novel piggybacking on the success of Bridget Jones, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Sex and the City.” For the next 10 minutes I thought nothing else of it as I turned my attention to the grey morning.

Then I noticed the woman sifting through her bag. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her pull out a pen and underline a passage from the text.

I, for the life of me, cannot conceive of a passage someone would need to underline in The Dirty Girls Social Club. What string of words would she need to return to at a later date to mull over? What pearl of wisdom could a book like that possibly offer?

The girls (as I liked to call us) debated the definite drawbacks and benefits of a man’s misshapen penis as we lunched at Charlie Trotters. That is when we all found out that Stacey’s man-friend, Derrick, liked to be called Captain Hook.

That is my best guess.

The next question that inexorably needs to be asked is, why is she highlighting sections of The Dirty Girls Social Club? Maybe she writes book reviews for the New York Times? Maybe she’s writing a book report? It dawned on me that there’s really no way to empirically verify the “why,” short of neglecting work for the next few days to play Magnum P.I. Somehow I doubt that my hypotheses are even close to the vicinity of truth.

Really, she’s probably just some kind of psycho.

Nyquil Blogging

2005-10-16T18:48:00.000-05:00

Were it not for the particularly acute case of medicine-head I am currently experiencing, I would be writing much more in this post.

Regardless, I would like to broach this topic, at least a little, now and perhaps deal with it more in depth later. I totally feel like a drunken cartoon mouse right now. My eyes are completely Xed out and bubbles are floating around my head.

Our topic: baby-boomers, advertising, and media. I keep seeing this commercial that verbally fellates Babyboomers- calling them the most "unique" generation that needs the most "unique" financial advising. It can only be a matter of time before a popular media icon gives the them the vomit-inducing Tom Brokow, "Greatest Generation" malarchy.

I, officially, call shenanigans on the "greatness" of the 'Boomers. They got comfortable and bought into the same-old social systems. The gap between rich and poor Americans has only widened during my lifetime- all based on politics and legislation specifically speaking for and coming from the most "unique" generation.

SHENANIGANS!

King of Crap

2005-10-12T14:28:00.000-05:00

I used to like Michael Rapaport. Not that I wanted to make out with him or anything, but his generally blue-collar demeanor is quite appealing to me. He reminds me of my friends’ fathers in the South Suburbs; normal guys who perform honest work for a living. I could always appreciate his hard-nosed, no-nonsense attitude because, like my friends’ fathers, the gruff exterior belied a rich, sensitive, and complex interior. He very well could have been a cop, or a tough-guy teacher, or an electrician and that definitely comes across in his acting.

Now, he’s got a new show on Fox called The War at Home. Fox (the cold, dead heart of Rupert Murdoch’s evil empire) is, on Sunday nights, simultaneously the last bastion of good television and crap headquarters. Unfortunately, Rapaport’s show participates in an obvious and futile attempt to tap into the psyche of “the average man” and catapults Fox into the realm of mediocrity inhabited CBS, NBC, and ABC.

In exhaustively documented studies, networks are losing highly “coveted” 18-40 year-old male viewers to cable networks (I won’t even get into the obvious patriarchal underpinnings of this desire). In response to their lost male viewership, the networks have cooked up a new batch of Ralph Kramden clones to entice men back. Half-hour after half-hour, network viewers suffer through the bumbling antics of one-dimensional, overly-masculine clowns married to disproportionately attractive women.

If network executives even attempted to understand their male viewers, they’d realize that the clowns they’re using to entice men back are the very things driving them away. The cable networks, with shows like The Sopranos, Deadwood, Carnivale, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The (original) Office, offer male viewers much more than a funhouse (read: distorted) mirror image of themselves. The characters are multi-faceted, the stories are meticulously constructed, and, goddamn it, the comedy (if present) is just more pointed. Cable is where the networks will find the men they, oh so, yearn for... and probably those pesky women too!

This gross underestimation of audience intelligence is how we end up with Fox’s Sunday lineup of “Desperate Husbands”—the very title of which forces me to choke back bile. If the network execs think that we can’t tell the difference between masculine critique (The Simpsons) and masculine crap (The War at Home), then they’ve missed the wakeup call. How long must the audience suffer and avoid the likes of Kevin James, Ray Romano, and Jim Belushi before networks get the point?

I know what you’re thinking to yourself, clever pachys: “Jason, you don’t really have to watch those clowns.” And, I don’t. But, I do have to suffer the 30-second spots during baseball playoffs, The Simpsons, and Bears games.

Next on my pop-culture shit list? If I get the time… Carlos Mencia. While it’s nice to see a Mexican-American comedian with a TV show, I feel like he’s an insult to his profession…

You can call the ALCS, the "Jay"LCS!

2005-10-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

I know that I promised not to write about myself, but with the MLB playoffs shaking out the way that the have, my thoughts are entirely too occupied with baseball and, more specifically, White Sox inspired anxiety.

As you may, or may not, know, GirlCat and I obtained tickets to game 2 of the ALCS in Chicago. Actually, it was my tenacious desire that lead to our good fortune. I spent 15 minutes at my internship staring at ticketmaster.com passionately clicking the "Buy Tickets Now" button and then another 15 minutes as I traversed the vitual line. Chicagoist has a great article about Ticketmaster's virtual line, but here's my story:

It all started off well. Ticketmaster anticipated a four minute wait before I could buy tickets. I thought to myself "Awesome..."

Upon updating, however, the wait became 5 minutes. "Huh," I thought to myself. "That's not cool, you told me four minutes, bitch." However, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I concluded that people were probably taking their sweet-ass time choosing tickets and taking generally longer than anticipated. Then, upon a series of updates, Ticketmaster anticipated progressively longer waits of 7, 8, 10, and 12 minutes.

Finally, Ticketmaster gave me the coup de grace, the one that hit me like a GirlCat fist to the abdomen: "more than 15 minutes."

In response, I slumped back into my chair shaking my head in complete and utter disbelief. I, oh so calmly, stated to no one in particular, "Mother... FUCKER! There's been a goddamn gang break in the virtual line! Computer geeks around the country are hacking into the system, buying all tickets, and selling then for a ridiculous profit on stubhub.com!" All hope expelled from my body leaving me deflated like a two-week-old Spongebob Squarepants balloon.

Then, it all got much, much better...

But, you already know how this ends because I couldn't even wait until the end of the post to spill the beans. It was necessary for me to incure your jealousy as soon as humanly possible. As it was GirlCat's idea to actually post a picture of our bounty, click HERE to sneak a peak. Mind you, the tickets are securely hidden and under constant guard by our ferocious, and ferociously pungent, cat.

The Teleology of Carl

2005-10-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

"Over 10 days you might say a guy is 0-for-30, but you don't see if that was a good at-bat or moving guys over. That's why I don't believe in that word 'slump.'”

Carl Everett, Chicago White Sox Designated Hitter

Just one more thing to add to the list of things “Jurassic” Carl Everett does not believe in. The list includes, but is by no means limited to:

Dinosaurs
Homosexuals
Anything not in the Bible
Anything Carl Everett has not seen

One would think that that the entities represented by items numbered 3 and 4 tend to be mutually exclusive. To my knowledge, Carl has never personally met Jesus, the Lord, or even Biblical B-Listers like Jonah or Solomon…

Speaking of dinosaurs, though, a new natural history museum is scheduled to open in 2007 just outside of Cincinnati, OH. If you’re in that particular time-space you should definitely check it out. It’s called the Answers in Genisis (AiG) Creation Museum. Learn all about how dinosaurs and man lived side-by-side, harmonious as peanut butter and jelly, in the Garden of Eden. Or, hear the harrowing tale of how Noah narrowly rescued all dino-kind from extinction through corralling two of their babies onto the Ark as floodwaters rushed in.

The museum’s mission to offer a “wonderful alternative to the evolutionary natural history museums that are turning countless minds against the gospel of Christ and the authority of the Scripture” is truly, truly… frightening.

But, you know what’s even more frightening? Their views are a little “too progressive” for Carl Everett’s liking…

GO SOX!

Got Dysentery?

2005-10-07T12:16:00.000-05:00

After making promises to clean up the Great Lakes throughout his re-election campaign, the Bush administration is pulling back from from an ambitious $20 billion plan to restore and protect the world's largest source of fresh water (from the Chicago Tribune). Included were plans to clean up 31 toxic hotspots around the lakes (at an estimated $4.5 billion) and a particularly ambitious plan to upgrade sewage systems in cities around the lakes (at an estimated $14 billion). Beaches along the Great Lakes are closed (more frequently than one would think) due to chronic sewage overflow problems that present a myriad of health risks.

Perhaps one of the greatest advances in human society was the controling and depositing of human waste away and separate from the water we bathe, drink, and consume. Potable water is a scarce resource in developing nations and a resource that our nation should, at the very least, attempt to retain. Instead of investing the resources needed to protect 1/5 of the world's fresh water from contamination, the administration reccomends that local officials should concentrate on "improving the efficiency and effectiveness of existing programs."

All this while Congress is approving another $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sometimes, You Need a Fix...

2005-10-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

Us Weekly is reporting that Newlyweds Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are calling it quits and will formally divorce later this month (Us Weekly via The Fix).

While I would not normally write on such a topic, these two knuckleheads have always simultaneously annoyed and enthralled me.

GirlCat and I have anxiously anticipated this divorce for months. It became apparent that the Newlyweds were becoming a serious mismatch soon after Jessica turned her complete and utter idiocy into a verfiable commodity. Nick, however, could not even muster up enough talent to use the incredible popularity of their television show as a platform to relaunch some semblance of a career. His vocals got CUT, for christsake, from Jessica's caterwalling rendition of that one song from Top Gun. Not to mention the video he made (in either the first or second season of their show) that consisted of him dancing topless with hot chicks and green lasers.

It was only a matter of time before Jessica could no longer respect him and Nick could no longer live with a (much) more successful woman. Because, as we all know, men make the money and women make the babies.

Maybe Nick can write some more sports columns for that newspaper in Cincinnati... now that he's gotta make a living...

Like Footloose, but with S.E.X.

2005-09-30T08:28:00.000-05:00

Check out this story from the Associated Press...

What a shameless appeal for political capital in the land of ten-gallon hats and "cattle rustlin'."

Obviously, the state has no means to enforce such a ruling. The whole exercise is blatantly crafted to enrage liberals and organizations like the ACLU.

In addition, it is a textbook example of the rhetoric Republicans used in their political ascension. They offer the individual, scared of relativism, a "strong moral voice."

It is becoming more and more obvious that the desire for a "strong moral voice" is, in fact, a latent masochistic desire in a repressed America that practically begs for sexually-charged, draconian proclomations from conservative idealogues like Judge Laurie Blake.

C'mon... Like YOU can't picture Judge Blake clad in weather, wielding a cracking whip, and denying Americans the S.E.X.

Harold's End

2005-09-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

I had a moment of crisis as I finished reading JT Leroy's latest work, Harold's End. In thinking about Leroy's (relative) rise to fame as a writer/novelist, I realized that his first two major works, Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, shared, however minute, something in common with a work like Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood. Admittedly, I have never read Koren Zailckas' work, however, I feel safe in saying that it takes part in the Oprah-ization of American culture.

What separates Leroy from the rest of the memoirists? He mines his personal history as an abused transgendered child prostitute and exhibits them for priveleged "subversives" to discuss and compare to Charles Baudelaire. Easily, Leroy's work can be categorized as Oprah-hipsterism.

Such a reading does not do him justice. Harold's End is beautifully constructed in a myriad of ways. The book is covered in soft velvet and displays a Cherry Hood watercolor portrait of the story's main character, Oliver. The whole book exhibits a care in craft long forgotten in a publishing industry focused on paperback sales and profit margins. Just holding the book offers the reader a sensuous experience that seems lost in today's mass productions. However, the exquisite packaging does come at a cost. Twenty dollars is a lot to pay for what is, essentially, a short story.

The packaging of the text does serve as a compliment to Leroy's craft. Harold's End, as short a work as it is, serves as notice that Leroy has developed, and continues to develop, as a writer. As Michael Ray states in the afterword to the story, "[Images in Harld's End] were no longer relegated to supporting roles: establishing setting or acting as metaphor or coloring prose. They could become the narrative, the story just a series of words stretched around them."

An image that, years later, consistently haunts my thoughts comes from Leroy's The Heart... Upon inspection, it is the opening passage. A social worker holds a stuffed Bugs Bunny in front of the narator's face. "She shakes Bugs Bunny in my face, making the carrot he's clutching plunge up and down like a knife." How does something so innocent become warped in to something so menacing? Leroy's childhood is a scary place, much darker than college binge drinking. We could do worse than listen, and learn, about poverty from Leroy.

New Template

2005-09-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

So, petulent pachys, I've changed my blog template. Due to increased competition from an unnamed rival located very near to my person, I've had to up the ante. I hope that you like earth tones. It brings out the ruddiness in my scales and is very cranially slimming...

What is that THING on your Head?

2005-09-23T15:36:00.000-05:00

According to the University of California Berkeley (who?), the adult pachycephalosaur did not, in fact, have a large skull cap. Instead, the tissue commonly associated with a skull cap actually disappears in the adult pachy who was believed to have used it in head-butting/mating rituals. Scientists think it is more likely that adult pachys had a horny head covering or a head ornamentation like a rooster comb.

Science has not only nixed the awesomest part of the pachy legend (the skull cap), but also the second most awesome (the head-butting).

I have known of this scientific discovery for some time now. I've been keeping it a secret (hidden under my massive skull cap) while I mulled over the potential costs and benefits of the new development. The prospect of having a rooster comb is most appealing. The image of a phallus, strapped to my head, undulating in the crisp autumn breeze denotes a certain savoir-faire...

However, most unlike the adolescent pachy, I've discovered that I cannot exchange my dull, rounded skull cap for the most supreme symbol of macho virility. As I have always feared, the masculine ideal remains just beyond reach.