That's a paddlin...

Boost Mobile - you took a seminal childhood memory - the glorious, groundbreaking, and influential Super Bowl Shuffle - and you turned it into a bleary-eyed zombie-eaten corpse of itself. It burns, IT BURNS! Between this, the GI Joe movie, and a recent glimpse of my 3rd grade school picture, my childhood has really taken a beating this year. It's a damn good thing I'm an adult and I don't have to deal with that sort of...

Home purchasing - oh, wait, that's right, I have to do THIS, instead. I'd take a thousand locker shoves from Geoff Terman before I'd go through this again.
Mortgage broker: So if you get me this statement, and a copy of the checks, we should be good to go.
Me: Great! Here you go.
MB: I'm sorry, I meant THIS statement, and a copy of the backs of the checks as well.
Me: OK! Here you go.
MB: Oh, did I forget to ask for a complete sexual history? I'll need that, as well. Oh, and a copy of the original statement, but notarized and handwritten.
Me: Here. Take this.
MB: Oooh, my mistake. It seems that now the underwriter needs the ORIGINAL statement that you faxed three weeks ago, but it needs to come from the fax machine of one Jerry Boseman, of Butte, Montana. Here's his number, if you'll just
Me: Who's the closer now, bitch?

Dan Brown - I wasted 5 hours to read your stupid book, Dan. And I want them back. If you're going to just write the same damn story over and over again, at least hide some of the redundancy. And your obsession with large, hulking evil men who are all devilishly handsome and inhumanly strong speaks volumes about your...interests. I'm not knocking it: all I'm saying is, you're super gay. Own it. And stop publishing.

Sarah Palin - you're a retarded hypocrite.

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Booyakasha.

Festus - you're the size of my thumb right now, but evidently that's enough to make Wife nauseous for six weeks. ENOUGH. If you're going to be this big a pain inside the womb-a, G-d help us when you claw your way out in August. And if you think it's unfair that I'm already complaining about you and you're not even born yet, well...good luck in the Fancy Pants Clan, my fine little whatever-you-are-that's-not-really-a-person-yet-but-has-a-heartbeat-and-toes.

The Olympics - you are not interesting unless someone is crashing. And while there have been some great spills, everything has to have a heartbreaking story. I've got my own crap to deal with, Canada and NBC. I don't need to hear about how the Nordic Combined team all bonded over their shared experience of being adopted and then sold to a cult but then rescued by loving grandparents from Sweden who only wanted their grandson to be great at something, since little Tommy, Roy and Deke can't even read. Wake me when Community's back on.

February - go away, now. This month I have:
- received a black eye from Child,
- broken my own glasses with a lamp,
- had sharp stabbing abdominal pain that mysteriously disappeared after a quick run to the ER,
- dealt with the mortgage nonsense you read about just 30 seconds ago,
- had to deal with 3 feet of snow, and the narrowed streets and the awful drivers and the new and varied potholes and the leaks and the worrying about the new house and whether it's flooded and will we know before we move? because the seller sure isn't going to be forthcoming with that information,
- and now the melting of the snow, which means watch out for enormous falling icicles that will impale you and your loved ones! Hooray! And,
- Black History Month. Not that I'm opposed to blacks getting their own month, but history is boring. We have a black president! Let's hear more about him! Although...

Barack Obama - you are being a real big pussy, Mr. President. Sack up, slap Harry Reid in his old white face, and have Glenn Beck waterboarded. You are the leader of the free world, one of the smartest men to ever sit in the Oval Office, and you let Congress handle health care? Maybe you ARE retarded. In the meantime, own your agenda, and tell the Republicans where to shove their teabags. I know there's room for them all on Sarah Palin's chin. And now that she's working at Fox, it's not like she's got anything better to do.

A little relief. Oh, and Steve Martin? You, sir, are boring.

My brain feels much better this week, thanks for asking. Not because I've finally invested in some pipe cleaners, but because I cleansed the Tucker Max from my mind with some good, decent reading. First with J. Maaaaaaaaaarten Troooooooost's "The Sex Lives of Cannibals," which is not about sex, or really about cannibals, but is about being a weird Dutch guy living on some tiny island in the South Pacific. You wouldn't think a book about swimming in tides of shit and running over dogs with your car would be uplifting and interesting and funny, but you'd be wrong. So wrong. Are you ok with living a life that is so wrong, and so incorrect? I feel badly for you, being wrong and all.

After that I read Steve Martin's teeny book of New Yorker Essays, "Pure Drivel." I'm a snobby, elitist prick, which you know from reading this blog. This is further reinforced by my love for the New Yorker, despite my deep, committed hatred for that particular city and many of its inhabitants. Because I'm a snobby elitist prick I quite enjoy the humor essays, and chuckle at their wit and whimsy.

So I was shocked (shocked!) when I realized, halfway through Steve Martin's book, that I hadn't laughed out loud. I laugh out loud at anything I think is funny, whether I'm watching TV, a movie, or even thinking funny thoughts all by myself in my office (note to office-working folk: if you laugh randomly, loud enough for people outside to hear you, they will start to fear you, and HR will begin keeping a file. Something to think about). So not laughing, at Steve Martin, of all people, was a concern. Not for myself, but for Steve Martin.

And why is it not Steve, or Martin? Why must it be "Steve Martin," always and forever? Discuss, and let me know your thoughts.

But I digress.

I realized - and this is something I should have realized long ago - that Steve Martin, star of the Jerk, the Man with Two Brains, L.A. Story, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, All of Me, and one of the greatest standup comedians of all time (up there with Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and St. Thomas Aquinas) is not funny anymore.

And this isn't a recent development. He hasn't been funny since sometime in the 90's. It's like he decided to take his legacy and drag it outside by its hair, beat it to death with a rusty shovel, and leave it broken and empty in a ditch along the highway.

This was the experience I felt reading his book: here was I, looking to Steve Martin for funny and weirdness. I bounced in my chair, breathless with anticipation. And there was Steve Martin, reclining in a chaise lounge, one leg crossed tightly over the other. He had on a cardigan, khakis, and very expensive shoes. While he looked around the room for someone more interesting to talk to, he would let random sentences slip out of his mouth, like he was doing me a favor by acknowledging my existence. And this is what he said:

"I don't know if you know this, but I'm Steve Martin. Yes. THAT Steve Martin."

"So I was in Cheaper by the Dozen, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, if that means anything to you. They were brilliant comedies. I know because I was in them. Me - Steve Martin. Prematurely white hair and all."

"I've written these...well they're trifles, really. I wrote them while sitting upon the toilet. Shitting, as it were. They're hilarious. The very fact of your not laughing proves you're an imbecile."

"That last bit? With the words writing the words? That's a metaliterary concept I adapted from Michel Foucault, who was jealous of my brilliance, and laughed always at my quips."

"I won't talk about standup comedy. I deconstructed it, rebuilt it, and ruined it for everyone else. Now all you have are my high- and lowbrows, what with the New Yorker bits, and the Pink Panther reboots.
"You're welcome."

"Could you get me another gin fizz? I'm Steve Martin, and I'm not quite inebriated. I like to be inebriated when I mix with the rabble."

"Do you have any young women I could deflower? I'm Steve Martin, and I don't date ladies over the age of 18 years, six months, and a week or so. I like to have my way with them in unspeakable ways, and have them thank me. 'Thank you, Steve Martin, and your lush coiffe of no-longer-prematurely-white hair.'"

"Yes, I am quite wealthy, thanks for asking. But that won't prevent me from making Pink Panther 3 - that's the one where I'll exhume Peter Sellers' corpse and eat it on film. They've offered me $20 million. I'm holding out for more. But I've written these - they're not comic manifestos, per se, but they will redefine the humorous arts for generations to come."

Sad.

I punched myself in the self-respect

4/6 of the Fancy Family came to visit last week, to play with Child and take pictures of Child and look at Child and smile at Child and to carry Child around on a golden throne, fanning him with gigantic fern leaves. I have no idea how they got those things past security on the plane, but there they were.

Brother Z also brought with him a book. He finished it while he was in town, and since he laughed repeatedly while reading it, I thought it would be worthwhile to spend the 2 or 3 hours it would take me to read it.

I was wrong.

If you don't know who Tucker Max is, you're a better person for it. Not because he's a debauched individual with no morals whatsoever - those people are hilarious, and necessary for any decent party. No, it's because he's a terrible writer, and not funny at all. The parts of the book that made me laugh out loud were when he quoted his friends, who are evidently much funnier than he is, even with their crappy nicknames (Slingblade? Really? That had a shelf-life of about 3 minutes).

Max has a website, and a devoted fan following of date-rapists and people who are too stupid to get Bill Simmons jokes. I won't link to it here, because it's easy enough to find if you want to make yourself dumber, or if you want your girlfriend to dump you. Which hey, that's your call.

I guess the real concern is that I knew who Tucker Max was before I read the book. I knew what I was getting into. So why in G-d's name did I read it? I think less of myself now for having it in my house. I hid it from our babysitter last night, so she wouldn't think I hated women and minorities and myself. I refuse to let Wife read it - even the funny parts - because I want her to keep believing that men, for the most part, are decent, and not vile talking penises. Which they are, but most have a few more scruples about keeping it under wraps (no pun intended - my G-d, it's even got me making puns. I'm going to go stick forks in my eyes now).

Why did I read this book? Why haven't I burned it? Well, because it's not my book, and Brother Z may want it back. But I read it because...

Nope. I got nothing. I can't deny this concerns me. A little, but still.

Why is everyone trying to kill my Judaism?

Jews are under attack from all sides, at all times. Whether it's Nazi zombies, or zombie Nazis, or Hugo Chavez and his Venezuelan Anti-Semite Tumblers, or the Inquisition -



there's always someone out to get us Chosen folk.

Recently, though, there have been slings and arrows from unlikely places, namely: Amazon.com, and the rabbi at my synagogue.

Amazon, a glorious Eden of cheap books and the most random crap available for purchase outside a flea market, has come out with Kindle 2: The Forest Strikes Back.
The whole "library in a tablet" thing is fantastic, six days a week. But on the holy Sabbath, when I'm trying to avoid having an Important Conversation with Wife, or trying to be distant to Child so he'll learn to constantly strive for my approval and therefore go on to become wildly rich and successful, I need to read books. And since G-d Himself banned electricity ("Thou shalt not flip the light switch." "Lord, what's a light switch?" "Silence, heretics! Go get Me some more veal!") I can't be reading some computer thingy on Saturdays.

"But what about the trees, and the environment? We need to love Mother Earth!" Ordinarily, yes. But Reading Is Fundamental, or do you hate literacy as much as you hate G-d?

So Purim is coming up. It's a very spiritual holiday, filled with laughter and joy and binge drinking. It's like Halloween and fraternity rush week all rolled into a tidy vomit-filled package. I have the additional pleasure of speaking fantastically inappropriate truths while I'm drunk.

"Wait wait wait. You are SO in a relationship. He just happens to be marrying your suitemate in the summer. But you've got plenty of time before then."

And that's the one I can remember. Imagine the hilarity of the zingers I've forgotten!

Well the rabbi at my shul wants to take that all away. He's very much against all drinking on Purim, not just the excess. This, despite the Talmudic obligation, and the plethora of other sages who say that even if you don't get drunk, you should have a little, you know, just to ease the pain.

But no, not at my shul. This is the pull quote from the e-mail bulletin: "Please remember that ________ is alcohol-free on Purim and is always smoke-free. That includes inside the building and anywhere on the grounds. Anyone found violating that policy will be escorted out of the building and off the grounds by the security staff."

First of all, there is no "security staff." There's the rabbi, and the assistant rabbi, and some larger high school kids. Second, alcohol-free?? So all the kiddush wine, and the kiddush club whiskey and vodka stash, that's all being poured out on the street, Elliot Ness-style, right before Purim? I think not. Let's not be reactionary here. Just step away from the bottles, and go read about kinky Esther and her feminine wiles.

Oh, and Simon Rich? Screw you too.

In my rush to get all political and such, I forgot something. Simon Rich has written a new book. Is it crappy? Is it yet another pus-filled boil upon the once-unblemished chin of humanity?

It is not. Once again Simon Rich, son of a bitch that he is, has written another funny book.

I hate you, Simon Rich. You and your book deal and your nonsense. Your unseemly and inappropriate way of taking up too much space in my brain. I have better things to do, Simon Rich, than to fixate on your career and successes. As I'm sure you've got better things to do than to worry I'll jump out one day and stab you in the shoulder, but not very deeply, because halfway through my thrust I'll realize what a stupid idea it is to stab you, and create a whole mythology over your oeuvre, tragically cut short by a maniac who can't end a sentence when he knows he should, I mean here's good, anytime really would be fine, ok then.

But it doesn't matter. I'm still going to obsess over your youthful and overly-precious skill, and you're going to have to remain paranoid about receiving a frightful shock, and maybe a not-so-attractive scar.

If you didn't want some weird not-so-old guy cursing you and making voodoo dolls of you from couch lint and pages of the New York Times, you shouldn't have been all funny and interesting. I'm not sorry at all.

Huts, Bears and election fatigue

I know, I'm sorry. I meant to post, but then I had this thing, and then my alarm was broken, and I got my foot caught in a bucket, and, well, anyway here I am.

This being the Jewish holiday season there just hasn't been all that much time to get my act together and write something, what with holidays coming every other day, and family flocking in and out. Rosh Hashannah - bam, the Balloon Man and his maiden fair. Succos comes, and the whole Fancy Pants Crew arrives, short one brother and one fiance and one dog. We really missed the dog (and of course the fiance and the brother. What are we, savages?).

Everyone has "their" holiday. Jesus has Christmas, seemingly everyone on my block has Halloween, Brother A shares Thanksgiving with the mighty Chocktaw tribe. Every Jewish mother has Passover, and if you want to share that's fine, just know that by taking their one week of glory you're breaking their heart, and the hearts of every mother who's ever slaved over a hot stove for the brisket you love so much. No, it's fine, take Passover. Here, here's my pancreas, do you want that too? How about my corneas, I hear they're worth lots of money in the black market.

Sorry, it's just that you can't channel a Jewish mother and stop after one guilt joke. You have to keep going until it's a whole thing.

Anyhoo, I've come to realize that Succos is my holiday. My family comes to stay with Wife Child and me, and every year I go out and I build a temporary structure with tarp and poles and bamboo mats. This year I had to get all new material, because for some reason I left my stuff in Boston, in Krazy's basement. Now he has two succahs. Surprise!

Let me say, for the record, that my succah this year was magnificent. The royal blue tarp set off the "holiday" lights perfectly, and the decorations purchased by the Old Rambling Man and the Mac Lady were beautifully done up. The weather held up, and our dining was phenomenal, if I do say so myself.

You may wonder, then, why I have provided no pictures of this glorious structure. That is an excellent question, reader. Give yourself a pat on the back! Round of applause for the astute reader! Huzzah! For s/he's a jolly good fellow, and all that!

Right. So the succah was blown over by a gigantic wolf looking for some piggies.

For all I know that could actually be the story, because I went out on Friday afternoon to set the table for the holy Sabbath, and lo and behold, the succah had fallen over. Tipped right over the table that Wife hates so much because it's huge and ugly. Yanked the nails right out of the 2X6's used as a base. Crushed all the pretty decorations. Sullied the royal blue tarp, which it turns out were actually quite effective sails. Next year we're entering the design into the America's Cup race.

So for next year I'll be taking suggestions on how to build my succah. And if you suggest a Kit, well then you can kiss my ass. I am a man: I have crafted the wheel, and invented fire. I can grow a mustache over the course of seven years. I can open jars with my bare hands.



So I'll use a kit for my next succah. Just as soon as I get my bikini line waxed.

Some of you may wonder why I didn't have anything rageful and hilarious to say about last week's Bears game, and Lovie Smith's squib kick decision. And I have to say, I was a little disappointed in myself for not taking the time. But then today happened, and now I feel like they're useful bookends on this season.

First, Neckbeard is playing way above his pay grade. WAY. What's with all the throwing? And the catching? And the yardage? Maybe it's secretly the Sex Cannon back there, but he's had a lobotomy, which since he's such an idiot in the first place it's actually made him a smarter player, and that's why whoever is under center is so good. Because otherwise, honestly, I have no idea what's going on.

Then there's the defense, the one that gave up the game-winning drive in Atlanta, and 41 points to the Vikings. Atlanta makes sense - three of our top four corners are injured (and yet somehow not Mike Brown, but it is still early in the season), and that's going to put a dent in anyone's Cover 2 defense. But 41 points to the Vikings? another 100+ yard game for Adrian Peterson the Greater? Not going to win many games like that, guys.

Finally, this is the second straight game that Kali Hester has gotten hurt on a return. He is our one reliable offensive threat, and yet Lovie keeps putting him in situations where he gets injured. How about larger pads? Or a gun, Last Boy Scout-style?



Either way, get him some blockers, man.

On a less funny note, I decided not to finish either of the books I was reading these past couple of weeks. Liberal Fascism and The Bulldozer and the Big Tent are so ridiculously biased and focused on right-left that they were equally insufferable. And that's sad, because I like Todd Gitlin. I think he's got great insight into modern media. But when it comes to politics he's just another Republican-hating liberal. Which is fine, I don't like them so much either, but I guess I'm just sick of all the election insanity. I mean, did you see the last debate? Obama is playing from so far ahead it will be a KKK miraKle if he loses. He knows it. McCain knows it. Hell, by this point I'm sure even Sarah Palin has figured it out, although her flow chart's probably written in crayon (sorry, forgot she's a lady. "Written in lipstick." Better?).

The whole debate was McCain trying with his wiggly eyebrows and awful, exaggerated facial expressions to get a rise out of Obama, and it didn't work at all. And do you know why? Because Obama is in the lead, and he's also not a whacked-out former POW who loses his temper at the drop of a hat.

Until, I don't know, there's some book that explains the current stock market train wreck in small words that I can understand, I'm not reading any books on politics. I'm going to read more books like Samedi the Deafness, with weird crazy plots with unreliable narrators who admit to being chronic liars. Fantastic and confusing. I have no idea if I "got it."

Happy 5769. Haha! That's funny, because 57 is a funny number. Because of Heinz, and ketchup, right? Ketchup! Hilarious.

What is sexier, Kyle Orton's neckbeard, or Ann Coulter's long shapely legs?

Yesterday history occurred: Neckbeard threw for more than 2 touchdowns in an opponent's stadium. This is what is defined as a pass-happy attack in Chicago. As long as we keep winning 34-7, though, I'm pretty ok with the outcome.

Everyone got in on this one, as they should have. Playing the Lions is really just about stat-padding until they wash the Millen stink off their franchise. Alex Brown was a monster, Forte ran and caught and did not fumble - all three indicators that he is not Cedric Benson - and Kali caught a TD pass, which is a nice change from having to weave through all 11 defenders himself.

That's...that's all I've got on the game. What? When the Bears play well, there's not much to say. They didn't squeak it out despite 4 turnovers like they did against the Eagles, and even though the Lions are in the NFC North, they're not really a rival. To be a rival they'd have to play football, and not Whiny Bitch Brigade, which I'm told is what the Cubs are playing these days (my love for Chicago extends into Soldier's Field and a little bit into Skokie, and that's about it).

Meanwhile I'm halfway through my conservative reading, and what I've learned most is how conservatives think of liberals. Jonah Goldberg is very much caught up in what liberals and conservatives use to name their policies and selves. His argument, if I understand it correctly, is to say that all of the things that liberals today hate, and refer to as fascist? They started out as left-wing ideas. That leads to the fear of conservatives, which is that all those awful policies will come back under the guise of contemporary liberal politics. "See?" Goldberg says, "All those things you hate about us? Well, well, you did them first, so there! Thbbbbpttttt."

The problem is the difference in the way liberals and conservatives look at the past. Liberals, or progressives, are constantly looking for change, and new ideas, for good or bad. They tend to give less weight to the past, and historical evidence. Conservatives by definition are on the other side of the coin. They like how things were, and aren't all that big on change - hence, "conservative." And that's what makes them racist, or chauvinist, or what-have-you - because racism and sexism and prejudice were all okay in the past. And if you want things to be the way they were, and not change, then you have to answer for all those things you think are so great.

I really thought I wouldn't make it through Ann Coulter's book. I admit I never brought it out of my house. I was embarassed to carry it, even though it's a library book so she didn't get any royalties or anything. I didn't know that "If Democrats..." was basically a greatest-hits collection of her pull-quotes on everything from Bill Clinton to abortion. So in structure it was not unlike a book by George Carlin, or Jerry Seinfeld.

Brother A and I talked about who would be Bizarro Ann Coulter, the left-wing equivalent of her fire-breathing anti-choice madness. All we could come up with was David Cross, the stand-up comedian.

But here's the thing: Ann Coulter is not funny. She thinks she is, but she isn't. So the outrageous things she says are just insane and inflammatory, as opposed to the crazy things David Cross says that are jokes, and thus laughed at.

There are a couple reasons I came up with for why Ann Coulter isn't funny:

1) She's hot. Not drop-dead model style, but I have no problem saying that I would have sex with Ann Coulter. She's got a great body. She can yell whatever crazy crap comes into her head while she's naked, and it wouldn't matter much, because she probably looks pretty good naked. And therefore, she's never had to be funny until she wanted to be for her career, or to get on TV. And now that she's trying, it doesn't really work. Less talking, more nudity, Ann.

2) She's religious, and completely unconflicted by it. You can be a religious comic. Wasn't Bill Hicks a reverend? Doesn't Stephen Colbert go to Mass every week? But those guys are conflicted about their religion. And if they're not, their personae have no problem mocking religion in general, and sacrificing some seriousness for laughs. Coulter, though, has no sense of humor about religion, or Jesus, or the Catholic church. That's why it's not funny when she says that Bill Clinton should die - according to the Bible, she's completely right to say that. That makes her religious; it also makes her not funny.

3) She seems sincere. If she doesn't actually believe what she says, she'd almost be better off being more transparent about it. But I don't believe she's insincere, because then her entire career would be a performance piece, a work of art to rival any of the great masterpieces of human history. Hers would be the Taj Mahal of performance art. And she's just not that good. And therefore, again: not funny.

4) She goes back to the same well too often. Ann Coulter has three jokes: Bill Clinton and blowjobs, Ted Kennedy and drunk driving/murder, and liberals are godless traitors. Boring. Mix it up, Ann! If you're too predictable, then you won't be funny. Unless your audience is staring at your boobs. But fortunately for us liberals, we've been rigorously trained by our coconspirators the feminists not to stare at womyn's chests while we're talking to them, so your powers have no effect on us.

And maybe that's why we don't think you're funny.

What do you think he saw? The other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain...

I am a liberal. A progressive, if you will. I believe women should have choice. I don't believe the free market can be trusted to do much beyond make rich people richer. I believe felons should have the right to vote. I believe in amnesty for illegal immigrants. I believe in higher taxes for the rich, and comprehensive, intimidating regulation for coporations. I think the net should be neutral, and the death penalty should only be used when the system no longer discriminates against poor people. I believe day care should be government subsidized, and college should be cheap. I think the massive government subsidies that currently flow to oil companies should be diverted to innovative alternative energy companies, and that public school teachers should be paid more than garbagemen unless they're not actually good at their job, in which case they should be fired.

I believe that conservatives are both selfish and more optimistic about human behavior and instinct. "Why should the government handle social security? If the market can't handle it, I'm sure the next generation will be generous with their money." Which, if you have money, makes sense. The problem is all those pesky people who don't have money.

But whatever. That's not what this is about. This is about an experiment I'm doing. Recently I read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein - a serious book about disaster capitalism and its proponents on both the left and the right, but mostly on the right - and "The Great Derangement" by Matt Taibbi - a less serious book about how the modern American is delusional, and that's why the modern American is both religious and may vote Republican.

I enjoyed both books immensely, for different reasons. One of those, however, was that they merely reinforced my own prejudices against conservatives and Republicans. I like to think of myself as open-minded, so this bothered me.

Then a fantastic solution presented itself: why not balance the books with two right-wing books? It's perfect! I'll find one serious conservative book, and one crazy conservative book, and I'll read those, and see if I can actually appreciate any part of either of them. I looked around, and found two books: "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg, and "If Democrats had Brains They'd be Republicans" by Ann Coulter.

So today I began "Liberal Fascism." I haven't gotten very far, but I've already noticed a couple of things.

1) I'm embarassed to be seen reading this book on the bus. My ride takes me through two college campuses, wherein reside hundreds, nay, thousands of nubile young ladies, many of whom fancy themselves liberal. The sheer volume of Obama pins and stickers supports this. Not that I'm trying to date any of them, but I'm still screwed up enough to want complete strangers, albeit hot ones, to like me. Beyond that, I like being a liberal. I like the lifestyle. I like all the smart people I get to hang out with. I like the comedians. So projecting an image of myself that doesn't coincide with my internal conception of who I am, even if it's simply by reading a conservative book, makes me a titch uncomfortable.

Also it has a picture of a smiley-face with a Hitler mustache, which I think is just tacky.

2) In neither of the liberal books did the author feel the need to proclaim his or her patriotism. First because Naomi Klein is Canadian, so she doesn't need to love America - Dick Cheney's opinion notwithstanding. Second, well, I don't know why, but I would guess because the default is that if you live in America, on some level you love the country and its ideals. If you didn't, you would leave and move, say, to Canada.

Jonah Goldberg, like many conservatives it seems, needs to proclaim his love of America loudly, and often. He doesn't even make it through the introduction before referencing his love of America and all its citizens, even the crazy leftist Commie homos. Well, maybe not the Commies. Or the Muslims. But you get the point. His patriotic declamation comes in the midst of a paragraph where he might be seen to be criticizing part of American culture. This gives further weight to something conservatives do a lot in public - say that people who aren't conservative or Republican hate America, because they're criticizing it. Maybe this book will do something to explain the "obvious" connection between criticism and hatred.

3) Jonah Goldberg, as it turns out, is not actually Jewish, as I had guessed from the name. Which maybe goes to his claim that the Holocaust could never happen here, because this is America. Which is what they said in Germany. And Spain. And England. And France. And Italy.
(No one says this in Russia or Poland because, let's face it, those are prime anti-semitic plots of real estate.)
But he can be excused for this because he loves America so much, and America can do no wrong.

See? There goes my prejudicial sarcasm again. The point of this exercise is to balance that out a bit. After all, I'm against legislating health, like banning trans fats and speed limits and narcotics. I deplore the victimization that is a constant tool of the left, which only makes us look like a bunch of whiners. And I'm ashamed at my own conceit that liberals are, well, we're just smarter, is all.

So we'll see how this goes. Although Ann Coulter, man, I just hope I have the stones to carry that book in public. If only to see the wide-eyed contempt as I ride past Pitt and CMU.

I'm more European than an English Muffin

I talk a lot of junk about hippies, and the Commies. But deep down, my heart bleeds for endangered fluffy bunnies and Mother Earth. And for our neighbors to the North, I give you guys some crap, but sometimes I think I wouldn't be better as a Canadian.



You see, I was born without a profit motive. As for money I just...I just don't care. So when it comes to corporations I'm at best ambivalent. Sure, they can do some good, but since they have no reason to exist other than to provide their shareholders with a return, sometimes they're downright evil.

So when I read Naomi Klein's (Canadian Jew!) The Shock Doctrine, it confirmed my paranoia. Klein has a real bone to pick with Milton Friedman, seemingly mild-mannered economist and sworn enemy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.

Friedman took a psychological experiment using electro-shock therapy and turned it into the dominant economic and political theory of the last 60 years. The idea is to shock a country or region into disorientation, either through natural disaster or war or some other traumatic event. With the public reeling, the government needs a quick fix. So Friedman trained economists from all over the world to step in and offer lessons in privatization, and corporate-friendly labor laws and taxes. He started in Chile with Augusto Pinochet, then moved through South America privatizing Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia following the coups that occurred there. His acolytes promised new wealth, freedom, and democracy.

The only problem is that the coups were often funded and provoked by the CIA. And once the wildly unpopular economic plans were announced, and citizens were a little upset when their healthcare and wage protections were revoked, the governments invariably arrested and killed thousands of dissenters.

The privatizations allowed a few to become wildly rich, and the vast majority to become fantastically poor. Friedman's theory was tested in South America, and then unleashed in Indonesia, Poland, Russia, and Great Britain. The World Bank and the IMF were created to provide funding for underdeveloped countries, and they used that opportunity to make the loans contingent on extensive privatization. Eventually natural disasters were exploited, like the 2004 tsunami and Hurricanes Mitch and Katrina. In most cases either Friedman's students or corporate officers themselves who drafted the new economic regulations.

And then there was that whole Iraq thing. Friedman's followers are responsible for the incredible amount of contracting going on in Iraq, as well as in many other areas of the US government. Guys like Grover Norquist, who said that "I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." This is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, invaluable adviser to Bush, and co-drafter of Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America. For a guy who hates government so much, he sure has an awful lot to do with it. Although how are we supposed to take a guy named Grover seriously?

So aside from all that, the book was HILARIOUS. You'll laugh until you cry. And if you live in Canada, you'll probably drink yourself silly, comforted in the knowledge that your trip to the hospital for alcohol poisoning and cirrhosis will be paid for by a bunch of snooty Quebecois.

I guess my point is, hoooooooooray for capitalism.

Wait, just one more page...

If you're keeping track - and thusly I poke you, saying "Look over to your left!" - you'll notice that I finished two books in the past two days. That is not a typo. I know, I'm totally awesome. You don't have to remind me.

My point, though, is not to talk up my own reading skills (428 pages! 5 hours! I am the word master!). I'm here today to talk about the joys of reading a book cover to cover without getting up.

There are two categories when it comes to marathon reading: there is the Life-Changing Book, and there is the Fantastic Plot Book. Obviously the first category has elements of the second, but they are distinct.

The first Life-Changing Book I can remember reading cover to cover was Catcher in the Rye. All through college I'd read it about once a month, because I was a Salingerhead. That happens to a certain kind of angsty white guy who never really got into Dashboard Confessional because Chris Carraba never fell in love with anyone who was "roller-skate skinny." I even searched online for his uncollected stories, which I found at a website whose main page was entirely blank, except for these words:

"If you're here, you know what you're looking for. Click here to download them." Spooky, and awesome, and for the most part, kind of a letdown.

There have been others, but the most recent Life-Changing Book - not just a short story, but an entire book - was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I read it at Krazy's apartment, not once getting up from his fantastic leather chair. It is hilarious and sad. Also playful, messing with form and the fourth wall. It was my first encounter with experimental writing, and I was hooked.

This book also fit with my demographic at the time, i.e. "white guys 18-34 who like to think they're smart funny and dark in a secretly awesome way." Eggers, who has created an entire army of insufferable snarky pricks with his writing and the literary journal he founded, McSweeneys (name-checked in Juno, natch). I'm a little bit proud to be one of those assholes, hence the self-aggrandizing post. And blog. And so on.

So last night I started and finished The Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall. It's gotten amazing reviews, and I think it's already been optioned to be turned into a film. I'm not surprised. It's a Fantastic Plot Book. These works keep turning up in reviews: Moby Dick, Jaws, The Matrix. The last one is not the best recommendation - at least the last two parts of the trilogy - but overall it was enough to sucker me in to buying it.

It read like a screenplay, smooth and lean. The story is suspenseful, has a great love story, and has a fuck-with-your-head ending. It played with ideas and language in an interesting way, and I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that the Beast is a shark made up of words, and eats memories. If I'd read Moby Dick I could say that The Raw Shark Texts is very similar in that it's not really about a fish. Great set pieces, snappy dialog, and a little bit of "Whoa." I was hooked.

So go out and buy the book. Instead of watching 8 straight episodes of Lost try reading The Raw Shark Texts. It'll knock you out.

Finally, some decent manly advice

For too long I've wandered in an androgynous desert, wondering what it took for me to be worthy of being called a man. Obviously it's not enough to have the basic biological "junk" - are there not women trapped in men's bodies? Indeed there are - I've seen them on Jerry Springer, and various websites. And, with today's ruling by California's state Supreme Court, it certainly means less now than it did yesterday that I'm married to Wife, by all accounts a real honest-to-goodness lady. I thought that maybe fathering Child would do it. I was wrong.

Finally, there's a website that will teach me how to be a man. Actually there are at least two (which is what I came up with in my limited three minute research Googling), but this one actually looks funny, so I'm only going to rip on The Art of Manliness blog.

First of all, manliness is not an art. Unless that art is fingerpainting, or maybe whittling dildos (dildoes?). I'm not going to argue that some men were pretty famous for their art - your Picasso, your Cezanne, your Sammy Hagar. But just as manliness isn't an art, so too is art not quite manly.

I should probably say, when I said "First of all," all the way over at the beginning of the last paragraph, that may have indicated the start of some sort of list. Sorry, I was totally leading you on. I guess if I spent some time with the Art of Manliness I could probably come up with dozens of quality jokes for your reading pleasure, but it's late, and I'm lazy. So you only get the one thing above, and then this.

This website is noteworthy today because they've decided to list the 100 most vital, most manly books to own and read. And if you haven't noticed, I've gotten all snooty - or at least, more snooty - about the whole reading thing lately. So I really have no choice but to offer some criticism. Huh. I guess you get your list after all. You happy now?

- There's a LOT about Teddy Roosevelt. Personally, I think it's more manly to
fight a world war without getting off your ass (FDR);
be the only person to ever use nuclear weapons in combat (Truman);
create the country with your bare hands (Paul Bunyan - I mean George Washington);
have an affair with your slave (Jefferson);
have sex with Marilyn Monroe (JFK, and possibly Eleanor Roosevelt);
get shot while watching high class the-ater after having saved the country from devouring itself (really? fine, if only for symmetry: McKinley. Dullards.)
But that's just me.

- If I remember correctly, Catcher in the Rye, while one of my favorite books, was about a whiny upper class twit. And I think that's just the kind of man we all want to be.

- "The pitfalls of being the best looking chap around?" Aside for grossly abusing the word "chap," someone obviously has not read The Picture of Dorian Gray.

- If you're going to choose a manly book by Tom Robbins, you choose the one about the lesbian with the gigantic thumbs (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, for those of you looking for something to read).

- All sorts of books about capitalism. Hey, the unfettered acquisition and accumulation of material goods is pretty guy-ish, but you know what being a man's really about? Sharing. Get the Communist Manifesto in there!

- The Young Man's Guide, the Dangerous Book for Boys, the Boy Scout Handbook... I'm sensing a theme here. A theme of laziness. If I read those books, then what the hell do I need the whole list for?

- I wish I could come up with something pithy about Steppenwolf, but all I can say is that it's just not that good of a book. Eh.

- If you were going to choose an instructional manual written by a woman, would it be a chaste tome written in the 15th century, or would it be How to Make Love Like a Porn Star by Dr. Jenna Jameson?

- The only manly list The Hobbit belongs on is one of "things to carry if you want to get beaten up after study hall." Survey says... dingdingdingdingding!

- Ernest Hemingway deserves two spots on the list. Hell, you can be a big strapping man if you read nothing else (you may end up shooting yourself in Idaho, but whatever). James Jones? Not so much.

- Why are so many books on the list (Into the Wild, The Hatchet, Robinson Crusoe) about running away? I thought that was, you know, cowardly. But what do I know.

- The Moby Dick blurb: "If you ever find yourself on a boat in search of a savage beast, and you encounter a boat that is looking for some of their missing friends that seem to have been attacked by that same whale that you are looking for, take a minute and think. Cost: Possibly your life. Benefit: You kill a big whale. AND you get some serious props."
Yes. Because the book is really only about hunting the whale. That's why it's a classic. (Bullshit call: I haven't actually read it.)

- Hamlet? He could be the wussiest Shakespearean protagonist, second only to stupid, shortsighted Romeo, or even third, behind whipped MacBeth. King Lear, perhaps? Titus? Julius Ceasar? Those are some manly men.

- I hadn't realized that Robinson Crusoe was about loving normal, unconventional, mediocre life. But then I thought it was about the discovery of a really crappy themed restaurant.

- Everyone I know who read The Pearl in high school was bored to tears. Even the men. How did Tom Clancy get left off this list? Robert Ludlum? Those are manly writers.

- The Great Railway Bazaar? Do trains even exist anymore? And could we get them back? I don't know if you guys heard, but gas is getting a little pricier these days.

- The Island of Dr. Moreau? I liked it better when Conrad wrote it and called it Heart of Darkness.

- The Maltese Falcon, The Long Goodbye? I really can't argue with these. Quality picks.

- Finally, some glaring omissions:
Raymond Carver - the manliest, saddest modern man.

George Plimpton, Paper Lion - pretending to be a professional football player takes gigantic testicles, which, last I heard, is a manly prerequisite.

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels - the greatest satire ever written. I have no idea who he's mocking, but he totally nailed them.

Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm - so what if he lost Simone de Beauvoir to Sartre, he's still awesome.

Hell, how about de Beauvoir? Maybe some other chicks, and some non-white guys: Ellison, Rushdie, Morrison (female AND black!).

Julius Lester, Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Yo' Mama! - for the title alone.

And has there been a book in the past 20 years that's worthy? No? Then go back to your Klan meeting. I'm just saying, it might tickle you to know that women and minorities have written books. I swear. You should check them out.

Quick hits on Babel

I can't write an Isaac Babel sentence. Neither can you. No one alive can do it. Of all the dead people, I'd say, maybe...Kafka? No, he'd screw it up with some weird twist. "Ivan took the nail, rusted from the rain. The nail suddenly turned around and sank itself in the fleshy base of Ivan's thumb." It would be interesting, but he's too deliberately, you know, Kafka. So the sentence would change. That excludes Barthelme, too.

Hemingway? No. He'd add something about his testicles. Or the eight women he'd screwed and left since Monday. How about Raymond Carver? With Gordon Lish's help, maybe. But it would be about suburban depression, and the absence of action until words were lost at the bottom of a whiskey glass. There would be no Russian exuberance, no Jewish understanding of the inevitable.

So Chekhov, then. He gets closest. But he wrote plays, too, and that bled into his stories. So like Babel he wants the true emotion and actions to occur off the page, to only be hinted at with the most succinct descriptions. But oh boy, those few words.

After reading his stories I feel like I'm always rambling. Now, every sentence is a run-on. I spent more time editing this than I did writing it, and it still feels like I'm going on and on. His work shames and provokes me. Go read it. Right now.