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5/30/03: Sometimes I look at the human race and I just hang my head: what have we done with all our wisdom? We've created competing religions, war, slavery, rape, oppression and misery. We've let idiotic, primitive differences stand in the way of the harmony of all people. Each country defends its borders remorselessly and openly plots the conquest of other lands. We lie to each other, we are unable to remain faithful to the people we love, we pursue mindless material goals while others die of starvation or easily cured diseases. Anyone with their eyes open must be deeply disappointed by the failures of mankind. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, hold the phone! We're really just animals, let's not forget that. We DOMINATE the animal kingdom. We drive around in CARS! Hello! Think about that. Put the combined achievements of all other species together, and they don't add up to that. We have organized sports leagues. Not just organized sports, with rules and referees and out-of-bounds areas, but leagues of teams with assigned schedules and meticulously compiled statistics. We farm other animals. Think about how fucking smart that is -- we don't just kill all our food when we get hungry. We're patient, we're absolutely stealthy. We raise the animals together, let them mate, let them multiply, and then we take what we need. We have contraception, so we can have all the sex we want without worrying about making little babies that need our care. We've got almost every little thing under control. Sure, there are things like nuclear weapons, where we got a little too smart for our own good, but we're working on it. All we need is time -- we've just got to refine a few of the details and we'll all be happy forever. Way to go, people! 5/26/03: There is very little as infuriating as receiving one of the following "cyber-disses": -er These are usually seen in newsgroups or even in emails, when someone wants to completely dismiss another person's opinion (preferably in some kind of public forum). You don't even really need to cap it off with any evidence or a good one-liner, it pretty much stands on its own. I guess maybe it started because it's hard to detect sarcasm in written communication, so geeks needed a quick way to point out that they were mocking one another. The result is the elimination of the need to come up with anything witty or factually significant -- you can win an argument with just a few condescending words. For example, one dork can make a heartfelt, thought-out response in the middle of a cyber-argument, like: Geek #1: "I don't know how you can say the second Matrix isn't as good as the first. The first one spends so much time setting up the story, there's only a little time left over for action. This new movie kicks ass from beginning to end, and it also allows the relationship between Neo and Trinity to develop, which gives the film a humanity that the first picture was lacking, IMHO." And be trumped by something like this... Geek #2: "Um, OK..." I like it. In movie news, Vincent Gallo has been shocked (is this possible?) by the overwhelmingly hostile response to his new movie, "The Brown Bunny." Apparently, the movie includes a TEN MINUTE fellatio scene between Chloe Sevigny and Gallo. We all knew the guy was a self-indulgent prick, but TEN MINUTES? I wouldn't even want to watch a ten minute fellatio scene between Amber Lynn and Herschel Savage. I'm probably alone here, but I don't think I'd even want to RECEIVE fellatio for TEN MINUTES. What narrative purpose could this scene possibly serve? I guess I shouldn't say without viewing the film, but I don't think I need to feel that uncomfortable any time soon -- there is already plenty of awkwardness in my everyday life, like when a co-worker decides to strike up a bathroom conversation with me as he is taking a thunderous dump. 5/23/03: I thought this latest "raising the terror level to orange" would have no effect on me. I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the level will really always be high, that the terrorists are going to strike someday, and when they do, we won't be ready. But still, I guess the heightened warning level has slipped into my subconscious. Here was my dream last night: I am riding down 11th avenue on my bike, as I do each morning. All seems fairly normal. Ahead of me is another bike rider, who is riding really fast and just missing all the huge potholes that I have memorized. As he disappears over a rise, I hear a loud crashing sound, and when I get to the top of the hill, I see that the rider guy has fallen into a pothole that's about 10 feet deep by 10 feet wide by 10 feet long. He's also somehow become wedged into a huge pile of rubble, and he looks like he might be dead, and he also looks like he's been buried there a while, sort of like that body that was buried in the wall at the end of that episode of "Miami Vice" when they played "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins (or was it "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits?) and we all thought it was really creepy and cool. Anyway, he looks dead but I figure maybe he's not, so I call 911 and the operator picks up. "I am on 11th avenue and there is a bicyclist here who's hurt really bad," I say. "Can you send an ambulance?" The operator sounds really shaky, and she says, "Sir, there are no ambulances available. We are recommending everyone leave the city as soon as possible. Again, there is a situation and you should leave New York City as soon as you possibly can." Then the line goes dead and I realize this is that horrible day we've all been dreading, and I don't know if the attack has already happened or if it's about to happen, and I'm waiting for an explosion or something, but traffic still seems to be moving and nobody's panicking or fucking in the streets or anything, and I figure I am actually among the first to know, and all I can think about is how to find my wife and the people I care about and get them out of the city, and it's just hopeless. So maybe the raising of the threat level inspired this lousy dream. Saw the new Jim Carrey flick tonight. Enjoyed it, laughed quite a few times, until the last half hour. Then it got sappy as hell. I have never really been a huge Jim Carrey fan, but I do acknowledge that he has a certain...gift. It's the kind of gift that sometimes you want to return, but it's definitely all his. I recommend the movie, served with a super-combo of popcorn and coke. Perhaps some sour-patch kids as well. 5/22/03: 5/20/03: What the hell is going on with this Yankees bullpen? I know as a Yankee fan I have no right to complain about anything, but how did the Yankees manage to destroy one of the most reliable (and reasonably priced) bullpens that I can remember, and assemble this bunch of castoffs and unproven, high-priced duds? This bullpen is like one of those shockingly incompetent customer service departments for a huge company (Citibank comes to mind), where you call up with a problem, sit on hold forever before finally getting someone, spend three to five more minutes explaining your problem to the person, and then they say, "OK, sir, let me contact someone in our yada yada department and explain your situation, and they can take care of it." You feel some relief, until you are on hold for another 8 minutes. After that, someone picks up the phone and says, "Citibank, how may I help you?" and it's immediately clear that you've been sent back into the preliminary call-in cycle and all your expository work has been for naught. You just want to pull out your hair and scream, "Who the fuck is in charge here?!?! How can this be?" That's how I feel about this Yankee bullpen -- they're the poorly run customer service department blemish on this gleaming, billion dollar Yankee empire. You know what act would run completely contradictory to human nature, and as proof I offer that I never remember seeing it happen in thousands of opportunities? When there is a foul popup that's coming down right within the first couple of rows of seats, or dropping just outside the seats onto the field, but within reach of the fans in the first row, I have never seen a fan make the conscious decision not to reach for the ball if it is the home team's fielder attempting to make the play. If they are a true fan, they should want their player to record the out, but the selfish, childlike desire to catch a major league foul ball is so powerful, all rational thought goes out the window and the fan just thinks, "Mine Mine Mine Mine." Sometimes you can even see them mouthing those words with their oily popcorn lips as they stare to the heavens. 5/19/03: Today I received the following email: From: mikereno7@mobyfanz.net Why is Moby so prominent on your list of terrible human beings? I thought he was more of a guy who was victimized by the terrible (Russell Crowe, Eminem, Gwen Stefani). I mean... what did he ever do to you, or anyone for that matter? Well, first off, the list is in no particular order other than the order in which I think of terrible human beings. So Moby's inclusion merely means he is among the worst 30 people (so far) on the planet. Of course, I did think of him first, which sort of indicates he was one of the reasons for creating the list to begin with. I guess the reasons I don't like him are pretty simple: I don't like his unoriginal, bland music, I don't like his wimpy, languid personality, and I don't like the way he (sort of) pushes his lame political/religious/personal agenda. Typical celebrity complaints, I guess -- partially motivated by my jealousy over his wealth and the lifestyle it affords him. A few years ago, I was staying with a friend who had his CD, and I found myself reading the liner notes on the toilet or someplace. I was immediately offended by how he had turned something as harmless as liner notes into his own little sensitive-guy manifesto. I might add that my dislike of Moby in no way means I endorse the behavior or existence of Eminem, Gwen Stefani, or Russell Crowe. The three of them are dangerously close to appearing on the list at all times. All I share with them is a rejection of all things Moby (if they actually do reject all things Moby). I guess Moby could be worse (his views are pretty rational and level-headed), but I will continue to stand by my decision to include him. Of course, whenever we dislike someone, we like to read everything they've got to say.... "in other news it's sunny and beautiful in new york this morning. i'm going to go and ride my bike and then have some granola and soy yogurt with berries at teany." moby's website for more... 5/17/03: Has anyone seen that ad with Chevy Chase in the supermarket, doing his old clumsy guy routine, knocking down all the shelves and stuff? Did you see how freaky he looked? His eyes were all made up and he looked like a ghoul. I wonder why he did this. Is his money running out? How much money does a guy like Chevy Chase have, anyway? He was a big movie star in the days right before movie star salaries got insane. Someone like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt or Keanu Reeves who makes $20 million a movie must have enough money to spend wildly forever and never run out, but what about the lesser names? Even guys making millions have taxes, agents, managers, etc. to pay. Like Dennis Quaid or somebody. Does he have $50 million in the bank? Closer to 10? How about Jim Belushi? Is he a millionaire? Does he make a million a year? How much did Chevy Chase get paid by whoever that ad was for? It must have been a precise fucking figure -- the company estimated exactly the small financial impact the ad could have on sales, and offered him 1/10th of that. He probably accepted that number, but if not, the negotiation must have ended pretty quickly -- Chevy Chase can only be worth so much at this point. I wonder if Jim Belushi had already turned them down. I am going to guess Chevy Chase made $300,000 for the ad, which seems like WAAAAY too much. I honestly can't imagine anyone seeing that freakshow and rushing out to buy whatever product it was for. 5/16/03: This is a pretty ignorant question, but why do British people speak with such funny accents? Since they've been speaking English much longer than we have, why haven't they got it right by now? Seriously, is there a guide somewhere to what sound each letter or combination of letters is supposed to make in English? When you look at the English dictionary, and they give you the pronunciation of each word, is it in American-speak, the British-speak, or is even the pronunciation guide open to the interpretation of the reader? Like the word "reader" -- some British folks would pronounce it "ree-uh" (although maybe I'm watching too much Ali G) or at the very least "ree-da"...in the pronunciation guide, I'm sure the "d' and the second "r" are not silent. I have heard that the Midwest accent is closest to the way English is meant to be pronounced. I assume that is American English. How did the bland accent of the Midwest become the standard? How did American English develop as a language? Did people decide that they wanted to distance themselves from Britain by pronouncing the words correctly? Or, when American English was first developing, was it like a radical new sound? How did this happen? When did it develop? How about the Southern accent? In such a short period of time, how can accents have developed so fully in particular regions? I assume it is because people who settled in a certain area came from the same place. Also, how do we know what people's accents sounded like before the advent of recorded sound? Maybe the original British accent sounds like the American accent of today. Maybe there are still pockets in England where people pronounce their r's. I'm sure someone has accurate info about this. Think about how many people lived long enough to remember both the Civil War and World War II. Think about the changes those people saw in their lifetime. The irony is that they never survived to see the yellow line superimposed on the TV screen indicating the yards needed for a first down. 5/15/03: Ding dong, the Lakers is dead. I might add that I predicted they'd lose 4-2 to the Spurs in the second round (we'll ignore my Kings-Pacers final). Sometimes I think about all the different avenues of masculinity that I missed out on, the things that make a man a man, but I know nothing about: -car worship 5/14/03: I would like to raise a glass today to my untucked, regular-coke-drinking brethren. The people who are unable to clean themselves up, or to eat healthy food. The people who I see every day at work, stopping by the gumball machine to buy themselves some Raisinets or peanut M & M's. People who show up a half hour late to the job every day. People who seem to smoke a pack of cigarettes every half-hour. People stuck in bad relationships. People who miss payments. I'd like to say, "To those people who just don't give a shit," but that's not exactly right. I'm not talking about rebels, people who can't be constrained, folks who just like to live life on the edge and say "Fuck you" to the world. My people have no noble or heroic intent behind their actions. I am speaking in praise of all the lousy addicts and slobs who are stuck in patterns they can't get out of, because their will is too weak. I love each and every one of you. 5/13/03: 5/12/03: I used to get mugged all the time. Between the ages of 8 and 13, I was shaken down for money or just harassed for sport on the street probably 15 times. I used to walk down the block with genuine fear of some sort of a confrontation. Then, as I grew a little bit taller and developed my current heavily muscled physique, the shakedowns and the intimidations seemed to stop very suddenly. Maybe mugging just went out of fashion. Either way, those early traumas have left me permanently alert to the possibility of a mugging. Future potential muggers, please take note: when I do get mugged again, I hope it is swift and non-violent. I am more than willing to part with cash to assure my own safety. It would be nice if you showed me the respect of announcing the presence of a weapon, but there is no need to actually produce one from your pocket. Your word is good with me. I think these are some strange adult mugging scenarios: -Getting mugged in the rain by a mugger who is carrying an
umbrella. This would be extra-humiliating, as the mugger is clearly not
anticipating a struggle that could injure him -- he's more concerned about
getting wet. It would be even worse if he had no umbrella, and then he
took your money, started to walk away, and then turned back and said, "And give
me that umbrella, too!" 5/10/03: I saw a movie tonight, and I am not sure exactly what it's called. It was the new X-Men movie. X-Men 2: Electric Boogaloo? X2: Mutants Gone Wild? Not sure, but it was a good old fashioned popcorn movie and I liked it a lot. Completely ridiculous and stupid, but lots of stuff smashing and mutants flying around. Last night, I went out and had a few beers. As I have gotten older, I have shuffled my drinking techniques to suit my changing drinking needs. In college, going out drinking meant arriving at the drinking locale at 9pm, exactly. The bars closed at 2am in Madison, and that 5 hours was just about right. If necessary, drinking could continue when arriving home at 2:30am. Occasionally, drinking would start during the day (especially on one of those first warm spring days) and continue through the evening, sometimes until 2am or later. That was probably too much drinking for my young self. After college, I became an adult. I paid my own rent, I bought my own beer, and I found that I needed more drinking time to achieve all my drinking-related goals. 9pm (is that the 4:20 of alcoholism?) still seemed like a good time to start, but I needed to live in a town which gave me greater late-night drinking opportunities. New York was perfect. Bars stay open until 4am, and sometimes later, and then there are after-hours places where you can drink pretty much all night long and shameless delis who are happy to overcharge a drunk idiot for a six pack of beer at 7 in the morning. 4am is a good general guideline for a 25 year-old drinker to call it a night. But there are nights when that just won't do, so it's important to have some options. Now that I am married and stale, I can't really afford too many of those 4am nights, so I have come up with a new system that works for me. I am trying to drink in nice, concentrated but not obscene three or four hour blocks. 9-1 is a good little time frame. I can get plenty drunk in that time, but I am usually home before I do the TRULY stupid stuff that has haunted me for weeks at a time in the past. I also find that I get drunk mighty easy these days: 3 or 4 beers is plenty. Last night was the first notable failure of my new schedule. I met up with a couple of friends at around 10:30. They had been drinking for 2 hours and were on a different plane than I was. I tried nobly to catch up, which I can usually do, but they were just lapping me in stupidity. I really couldn't deal with them -- they were in "shove-the-other-guy-who's-pissing-in-the-street" mode. After I lectured them for being so much drunker than I was and having more fun than me, I went to meet some other friends who were playing poker. When I got to the poker game only a few minutes later, I had already become a drunk fool -- it was that feeling of, "Wow, I am visibly drunk and I cannot control it at all." I got even drunker, lost all my money, and then rambled on like a moron in the car with my kind friend who drove me home. It was like I had been in the wrong drinking time zone all night. I think I was on mountain drinking time (MDT). 5/8/03: First, let me come clean. I don't eat meat. I don't eat fish. I do wear leather belts and shoes. I have no problem with other people eating meat. It's delicious. I understand the role of the carnivore in the universe, and I support it. I also recognize that people take great pleasure in the hunting and killing of animals, both for food and sport. I don't understand this pleasure, but I have no great moral beef (ha) with the hunter man. To hunt your own food seems honorable. But I can't help but find hunting and fishing to be quite pointless as sport (after admitting how little I know about either pastime). What I don't understand about these two "killing" sports is the way the participants constantly make their sports sound so challenging. In most sports, the competitors have no need to explain how hard their chosen game is; it is apparent to even a casual observer that hitting a ball thrown at you at 100 miles an hour from 60 feet away is difficult. A fly fisherman will talk about the exact snap of a wrist you need, about the hours of practice put in and the advanced calculations and precise skill that you need to achieve excellence in the sport. About the art and mystery and beauty of it all. I can't argue with this, and I mean to rob no pleasure from someone who understands these nuances, but let me point out that the creature you are battling is a fish. You are buying hundreds of dollars of fancy-ass equipment and traveling to remote corners of the world to match wits with a creature with little to no cognitive ability, a creature that even through thousands of generations of evolution will likely never learn the difference between a worm and a fake worm with a hook in it. A creature that is routinely outsmarted by bears. Bears without fishing equipment of any kind. Bears who just reach into the stream and grab the fish. Wouldn't fishing be more sporting if the fisherman had a real chance to be killed? Most sports involve a voluntary, theoretically balanced competition between two sides. In fishing, one creature has a tremendous risk of death. The other has a fairly serious risk of sunburn. Also, the creature being pursued doesn't even know it is being pursued, doesn't understand that there is "sport" going on all around it. It thinks it's a regular Sunday afternoon, and it thinks that worm is going to make a tasty dinner. You fooled the fish, smarty! Shouldn't the fish be told ahead of time that the game is on, and it better watch what the hell it's biting into? Oh wait, that wouldn't work, because fish are roughly as intelligent as cockroaches. Nothing can be explained to them. They can't even do tricks. They swim, eat, fuck, and die. Hunting is even more bizarre. Men take all sorts of weaponry into the woods, where they perch in camouflage clothing or run around in orange slickers, waiting silently for hours in the early morning. They do this hoping to catch sight of the elusive thirty point buck or a flock of elegant birds. They seem unaware that man has already mastered the wholesale slaughtering of animals. They also go to great lengths to explain how gorgeous the deer are -- I know this is a common argument, but what causes the leap from admiring a creature's beauty to wanting to kill it with a high-powered firearm? And there is the argument that without hunting, the deer would breed, run wild and then would end up starving to death. Well, again, I am not trying to stop anyone from hunting, but I feel fairly confident in saying that any deer you ask would rather take its chances with starvation than get shot to death. Although deer, unlike humans, are far too stupid to answer questions like this or indeed to talk at all. They are more into eating berries, fucking, and running around. They are in fact so stupid they often stand in front of ten ton trucks, staring at their onrushing death with a look of complete indifference. In short, a deer is a creature that has no problem locating danger without guys chasing after it with weapons. Wouldn't hunting be more exciting if men went into the woods with guns, chasing each other? One team in orange, one in green or something? That would get the ol' blood pumping. Okay, if you have the money to travel, there are some gorgeous locations around the world where you can hunt and fish. You can also see such locations without the hunting or fishing. I know fishing and hunting offer a great chance to hang out in nature with your friends, talking about deep stuff, figuring out your place in the universe and questioning the order of things. In general, though, man keeps finding better and more efficient ways to kill, nature pretty much stays the same. Where is the challenge in all this? I like to leave the slaughter to the pros. But to the guys who really love the sport of killing, go get 'em! As long as you're eating what you kill, I really can't complain. I just don't get it. 5/6/03: Celebrity who is currently in deep need of a life-changing beatdown from me: Ashton Kutcher. It's always disappointing when someone in pro sports comes out with one of these completely homophobic statements about how unwelcome a gay teammate would be. It's usually one of these big fat guys with a moustache who is scared to death that his gay teammate would be leering at him and craving his fat hairy body in the locker room. There have probably been hundreds of gay athletes over the years, and none of them has been unable to control his attraction to a teammate, at least not publicly. I think Chuck Knoblauch may have come close a couple of times with Derek Jeter, though. Bob Ryan, who has been an irritating, slobbering windbag in plain view of humanity for many many years, finally came out and said something so offensive he had to issue an apology for it. On his radio show, he said that Jason Kidd's wife, who was the alleged victim in a very famous domestic abuse incident, needs someone to "smack" her. He was then given a chance to immediately recant the statement, and chose not to. So now he is suspended for a month. What a tool. I never really liked him, but I didn't think he'd be suckered into this lowest common denominator sound bite radio show mentality, where you have to be constantly saying something outrageous to make a name for yourself. I wonder if I was in the public eye how long it would have been before I made a spectacle of myself. Hugh Jackman/Toni Kukoc was looking like one of the all-time celebrity lookalikes until Jackman started pursuing his current Yanni look. Why did the Yankees let Mike Stanton go? And why did they sign Todd Zeile? Zeile is creaking like an old couch over at third base, and though the Yankees are still going to win 100 games, who do they have now to fill Stanton's role in October? 5/4/03: More than any other decade, the big movies of the 80's just look ridiculous today. Maybe it's because those days are still close enough behind us to make us cringe, but I am really shocked at what we accepted as funny, charming, and cool. Maybe the 70's are far enough back that we can laugh more easily at the sensibilities and tastes we see in the movies of that era, but I think that 70's movies are just better. They have that gritty, realistic look to them and they didn't try to knock you out with their slickness or special effects. The characters were real. Take "Jaws" for example -- a great action movie with several excellent characters. The 80's were just so weird. That whole Fletch/Top Gun/Lethal Weapon/Beverly Hills Cop mentality is so lame. Yes, we all laughed at the time, but we also wore Girbaud jeans and listened to Depeche Mode. Mel Gibson is a good example. His Richard Marx-lookin', corny-ass-joke-crackin', renegade madman cop character in the Lethal Weapon movies is impossible to stomach today. Chevy Chase, too -- has there ever been someone who has said as many lines that sound like they might be funny, but really aren't? Or delivered them with a more loathsome brand of smugness? "I'm prepared to play whatever role I have to," Fox said. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to make my fans happy again. And I don't know what role I'll be able to get to, to make my coaches comfortable." Has anyone ever met one of Rick Fox's fans? Does he make them happy? Is there a more condescending expression in the English language than "my good man"? Unless you're Mr. Peanut, don't say this. I was in a magazine shop last night, and some guy was buying his paper, and he said to the store owner as he handed over his money, "There you go, my good man." I suppose it is meant to be polite but it doesn't come across that way. 5/3/03: I have been thinking a lot lately about huge revolutionary breakthroughs. The old expression, "There's a first time for everything" never interested me before, until I started thinking about it in terms of the history of the species. There was a time before every particular event happened for the first time. I think about all the horny cavepeople who fucked indiscriminately until one day somebody made the connection between fucking and pregnancy, and eventually childbirth. What a sobering day that must have been. That dude's moment of insight (and I'm sure it was actually a cavelady who figured it out years earlier, but she would never pass on the secret to the men) is what really separates us from the rest of the animals. The ability to understand responsibility -- with all that includes, makes us a very special, and slightly annoying, species. Once mankind started thinking about consequences, and how results could be controlled and achieved by thoughts and actions, it was only a matter of time before somebody came out with a Bible. And while it's nice that somebody compiled all the basic do's and don'ts into a handy little book, the truth is that each of us possesses the ability to create our own personal bibles. Not just the natural intellectual power, but now also the ceaseless stream of knowledge we receive. Thanks to that dude, the guy sitting in a cave thousands of years ago, we now find ourselves constantly thinking and planning and judging and regretting and saying, "See? I told you so" to each other. That guy, on that windy April day (even though he had no concept of months, or even of words) or whatever it was, shut down the party once and for all for the human race. I think maybe that's a big part of why we like to misbehave. Other than just how good it feels, it's like we take a temporary trip backwards evolutionarily, and it reminds us what we once were, and what we can't ever really be again. The animal kingdom is still rocking, though. Here are some other big moments: -One day a guy showed up somewhere with a pair of shoes on.
Think of the astonished looks he got from all his barefoot friends. Of course, the word "guy" and "he" are meant to be gender-neutral. Women may have done any or all of these things first. Except the high five. Any others? Something must be done about Yes Network. I am a Yankee fan, and I am still sickened by the way they make the team out to be the conquering heroes that saved the world. Has anyone watched "Yankeeography"? That is actually the name of one of their shows. They have John Sterling and Michael Kay on there, and they're so smug and disgusting. They act like being anything other than a Yankee is a life not worth living. Am I the only one who remembere the 1996 World Series, when the Yankees trailed 2-0 and Sterling/Kay were saying how there was just no way the Yankees could compete with the Braves juggernaut. It was like, we had a nice run, but it's all over. Forget about being wrong, it's just so inappropriate for a radio announcer to make such pronouncements. What the fuck do either of these nerds know? Then when the Yankees won, it was like the coronation of these two assholes. They were acting like they knew "Yankee Class" would win out in the end. Since then, they have been so proud to be members of the Yankee "tradition." It's rather gross. When the Blue Jays ran that ad in the paper encouraging their fans to boo Matsui, they weren't offended by the fact that it might be construed as racist to encourage the wholesale harassment of the team's only Japanese player, in his first game. They were offended by the other part of the ad, the part that showed the Yankee hat with birdshit on it. Which to me is pretty funny. Kay in particular was like, "That's denigrating the symbol of one of the classiest and most respected organizations in all of sports." It was like the Yankee flag had been burned, and as good soldiers in the Yankee army, they were ready to take up arms. Such punks. So unable to put sports in their proper context. So unable to get over themselves. Do you think the Geto Boys have had to take regular jobs in society now that their run seems to have ended? Imagine working in an office with Bushwick Bill? 5/1/03: I ride my bike all over the city. It's not the most glamorous way to get around, but it may be the fastest. I'm used to cars pulling out in front of me, failing to yield to me, etc. If I was driving, I would pay little attention to a slow-moving bicycle darting in and out of traffic, except perhaps to try and hit it. But what has bothered me lately is the disrespect I have been getting from pigeons. I go out of my way not to hit them, and they reward me by failing to even run away as I ride towards them. I don't have the highest self-esteem of anyone in the world to begin with, and now I find that I can't even scare a pigeon. They just stand there, knowing I will find a way to ride around them. One day, though... After the Timberwolves lost these last two games, all the life just kind of left these NBA playoffs. I didn't think they were going to win it all, but for a minute there, I thought they might knock out the dreaded Lakers. As of the first quarter tonight, I think they are done. I hope I'm wrong. Worst advertising pitchmen in the last few years: 1)Carrot Top 2)BOTH Fandango guys in the theaters 3)Celine Dion. Makes me long for the days of Max Headroom. 5/1/03: Ah, New York. City I love? I received an overwhelming response on my request for crappy things about NYC that we just accept, even though we really shouldn't. When I say overwhelming, remember that only about 4 people look at this site, and 3 of them submitted their thoughts. Maybe that is just whelming. The submissions, received from both New Yorkers and ex-New Yorkers, confirmed my suspicions that none of us really know why the hell we live here. Here it is then, the shit that makes New York what it is (or isn't). More submissions are welcome. The other subject of yesterday's update -- in fact, the guy who inspired the whole "why are we here" debate -- is the cranky, obnoxious shithead who pushes baseball gloves at Paragon. It was unanimous -- he is loathed above all other New York institutions. However, when I said that my friend Dinny avoided him on his recent glove-buying foray to Paragon, I was incorrect. Here is Dinny's story. Has there ever been a more complete, graceful, modern basketball player than Scottie Pippen? You may not like him personally, but please appreciate the majesty of his game. Even now, in his late 30's, with his body collapsing, he looks like the most evolved basketball specimen around.
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