Sunday, December 16th, 2007 :: 8:41 PM
Coming Out of the Closet

Tonight, I bought a full-length mirror for the house.

metrolicous

It’s official. Mom… Dad… I’m a metrosexual.

Monday, December 3rd, 2007 :: 2:44 AM
The Music or the Misery

So say you’re feeling kind of sad and anxious, missing some girl or whatever, but you’re not totally depressed. You could go either way. It’s two in the fucking morning and you have to wake up in four hours, but you can’t sleep. Obviously you’re going to put on a record–or open up a playlist, you damn whippersnappers… but what do you choose?

You could listen to a sad song, something old and smooth and emotionally self-destructive, something by Otis Redding or Patsy Cline. That would be true to your feelings and comforting in a familiar but unhealthy way, like that bad relationship you kept going back to until your soul resembled Leonardo DiCaprio in the subway bathroom scene from Basketball Diaries.

Or, you could put on something new and fast and irrelevant, something with clever production and loud guitars. Something to numb your heart and distract your mind, like when Americans see pictures of genocide on the news and flip over to Desperate Housewives or ESPN. Motion City Soundtrack or maybe some Hot Hot Heat.

Because these choices are important. Which came first, the music or the misery,” you know? Wallowing in beautifully harmonized self-pity starts to get a little pathetic by the time you reach your mid-twenties. But is it healthy to manipulate your feelings in order to be, well… healthy?

Maybe there’s a reason all those shallow preppy kids are so happy driving around in the BMW convertibles their parents buy them, listening to Britney Spears or N*Sync or whatever the hell the music industry is shitting out these days. But do you really want to live like that? I mean, those people acquire our contempt for good reason.

So, what do you do? Hunch down in the closet with Otis and a bottle of red, waiting for the voices to tire themselves out, or play Solitaire on your laptop with Britney until she bores the hell out of you and you can go back to sleep?

Or maybe you just make up a mix of both, sort it randomly and write something slightly neurotic for your blog.

Monday, October 29th, 2007 :: 9:52 AM

First hint that the woman in charge of the property management firm at your building might be a passive-aggressive misandrist: You can’t tell if the new wallpaper in the men’s bathroom is tan or pink.

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 :: 9:09 AM

“When I was a baby, my mother put me in a basket and shoved it out onto a river. That may be the source of my anxiety about drowning. I’m no therapist. I’m just saying here.” (>>)

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 :: 3:56 PM
Big Plans

“So, Ian, you have any big plans for Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh, yes, big plans. Big, big plans. Very b… no.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll probably just do the same thing I do every year.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, put on some Hank Williams, drink myself into a coma…”

“Oh.”

“But, actually, I figured this year I might try something different.”

“Oh yeah? That’s great! What are you going to do this year?”

“Well, I figure if I start drinking the day before, then I can just sleep through the whole contrived farce altogether.”

“Oh. That’s, uh, very… creative.”

“Thanks, I like to consider myself a free-thinker.”

Friday, December 8th, 2006 :: 10:05 AM
Holiday Cheer

Dear Property Management Firm,

A suggestion: Instead of spending $6.99 on that tacky, holiday-neutral faux-plant you left in my office in a cynically pretentious, uninvited and insincere attempt to make me think well of you, perhaps you could instead direct those funds towards turning the heat up past the constant 65 degrees that you no doubt believe constitutes ‘properly sufficient and legal working conditions.’ As the self-congratulatory pre-printed sticker you left on the notecard attached to the plant in place of a hand-written message states, you have 45 years of making ‘great places,’ so I am confident that by now you have acquired the necessary skills to perform such a task.

Sincerely,
the grumpy old man in #1425

Thursday, March 30th, 2006 :: 6:39 PM

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret…” (>>) [MOV]

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 :: 8:46 PM

“Back in the olden times I bet the most rewarding chore of the day was throwing the slop water out into the street and hitting passers by. Them, standing there drenched, looking up, smiling, waving their finger at you. You, in the upstairs window, shrugging your shoulders, grinning, with a ‘guilty as charged’ look creeping across your face. It was their way of saying, ‘Hey, I kid around a lot, but it’s just because I care.’ ” (>>)

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 :: 10:48 PM
Raise a Glass to Saint Valentine

The great thing about buying alcohol on Valentine’s Day is that, upon seeing the contents on your shopping cart — Pop Tarts, Rolos and the latest issue of the National Inquirer wherein they divulge that baseball great Babe Ruth was, in fact, a communist lesbian from Planet X — seeing the contents sprawled out on the conveyor belt like the confessions of some trashy ‘tell all’ celebrity biography, testifying to your utterly pathetic state of being — not unlike the e-mail your high school girlfriend sent to all of her friends detailing your failings as a lover — the great thing is that Cute Checkout Girl doesn’t even bother to ask for your I.D., but just gives you an odd look of pity mixed with something you can’t quite place (contempt?) and scans the bottle, leaving you to wonder what the hell you’re going to do after the Rolos are gone and do you think she’d go out with me if I just cleaned up a bit?

Saturday, January 14th, 2006 :: 12:45 PM

I killed Cupid in self-defense

Saturday, November 19th, 2005 :: 4:43 PM

“…sucking the marrow from the broken leg of academia.” (>>)

Friday, November 18th, 2005 :: 12:38 AM
Suburban Tumbleweed
Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 :: 9:26 PM
Hershey’s Ad Campaign

HERSHEY, Pa., March 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Hershey Foods Corporation (NYSE: HSY) today announced the launching of a new ad campaign targeted at the growing number of Christian youths abstaining from sexual activity until marriage. The campaign, entitled “Chocolate: It’s not sex, but it’ll do”, will include television spots, radio ads and a special website: www.AlmostAsGoodAsSex.com. Judy Hogarth in Hershey’s Public Relations Department said that although HFC is the number one manufacturer of chocolate-related items in America, it is eagerly seeking new markets for its products.

The corporation is hoping it can capitalize on the growing success of choose to wait programs among young evangelicals. “It is our sincere hope that we can help these courageous young men and women in their struggle for purity by alleviating the frustration caused by not getting any,” Hogarth commented. To avoid any misleading messages, the ubiquitous Kiss has been renamed the Hug. One youth pastor, who asked to remain anonymous, was skeptical about the campaign’s effectiveness, but remarked, “What the hell? We’ve tried everything else, why not chocolate?”

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