Does anyone know where I put my banjo finger-picks?
The State is Never Right
If there's one thing I've learned about politics from reading Nixonland: the rise of a president and the fracturing of America, it is that neither political party is for states' rights: if a state wants to legalize medicinal marijuana or pass civil rights laws, then the Republicans are against states' rights . . . and if a state wants to make abortion illegal or remain segregated, then the Democrats are against state's rights.
3/18/2009
If you live each day like it is your last, then very soon one of them will be . . . if you live life to the fullest, soon you will be very fat (or at least that's what would happen to me . . . maybe some people would spend time with their family or repent their sins or do a lot of crack, but I have a feeling that if someone told me I had one day left to cram in everything I could, I would be most concerned about planning my meals-- I think that I would skip breakfast foods entirely, and instead have tamales with mole sauce for breakfast, and then go from there . . .)
The Wrestler: This One Hit Me Below the Belt
I give The Wrestler nineteen staple-gun wounds out of a possible twenty-- and it's worth seeing on the big screen because the movie is almost entirely visual-- the screenplay must have been a pamphlet-- and, I must warn you, it is PAINFUL to watch this thing-- you're not sure if you're watching the decay of a fictitious character called Randy the Ram, or if it's actually Mickey Rourke falling apart on screen: it's painful to watch him take a shower, walk down the street, try to read a book, play his own character on a Nintendo game with a neighborhood kid, work the deli counter, et cetera-- and though Marissa Tomei-- Randy's stripper love interest-- is naked a lot, which was one of the reasons I wanted to see the movie, she's not very sexy: she's painfully skinny, her face is drawn and tired, and, Like Randy, she's a little too old to be in a profession that relies on a youthful body; as a bonus, the movie is set in New Jersey, and between the grainy film and the Acme that time forgot (in Rahway?) and a scene on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, this story makes the New Jersey of the Sopranos look like Beverly Hills.
Two Reasons to See Happy
I give Mike Leigh's new movie Happy Go Lucky nine trampolines out of a possible ten-- it's very funny and the soundtrack reminds me of the opening theme of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
3/15/2009
We did a double take and then used the internet to check the facts, but it is sad but true-- the median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was 7,500 dollars . . . that's right seven thousand five hundred dollars, writing it out insures that you know that I didn't make a typographic error; this is what I propose: we all buy vacation homes on the same block and instead of summering in the Hamptons or Chatham, we head out to our Detroit porches to drink Mad-dog 20/20 and hit the rock-- not only will we be saving money, but someday Detroit will rise again and we can cash in . . . so who's with me?
3/14/2009
As my sophomores liked to nebulously state in their essays: Alexander Rodriguez and I are similar and different . . . we are similar because we both just had our cysts drained, but we are different because ARod is going to need six to nine weeks of recovery, while I played indoor soccer four days later (albeit poorly, and sweating copious amounts of wine and take-out Indian food-- it was no treat to cover me, I'm sure).
My Greatest Contribution to Western Culture
Edison had his light-bulb, the Wright brothers their aeroplane, and Ben Franklin his eponymous stove . . . but I don't think I will ever invent anything tangible . . . although I HAVE invented something incredibly useful, but it is a concept, not a thing: my invention is a dinner-time mind-trick called the "don't eat it" game; when you want your kids to eat something, you simply point at the item and say, very seriously, "Do NOT eat those green beans, especially not those three-- those are mine and I don't want you to eat them" and then you go back to eating your meal, and inevitably, the child will take the green beans you pointed at, steal a glance, make a devilish face, and then scarf them down . . . because it's fun to disobey; the funny thing is, now my kids know the trick, but they often still insist that I do it just because they enjoy it so much, and they eat so much faster if we play-- even though they know they are being manipulated; I know my creation isn't as valuable as the polio vaccine or the internal combustion engine, but it has caused me more happiness than either of those inventions . . . plus it's portable and very cheap to manufacture.
3/12/2009
My five year old son Alex told my wife that his friend Tiko said he "didn't like Jews" so they had an awkward and serious conversation about racism and prejudice, but it turns out (this was clarified at dinner last night, inadvertently in a story about how Tiko was eating strawberries) that Tiko has no problem with those of the Jewish faith, it is "juice" that he abhors (perhaps he meant O.J. Simpson, which may or may not warrant another serious discussion).
Kids Say the Darndest Crassest Things
3/10/2009
Do other people, when they sample free meats, cheeses, and crackers from the enticing little bubble shaped displays at the grocery store, chew slowly and pretend to savor the tidbit-- as if saying, I'm taking my time and tasting and evaluating this item, because if it's really good, I might purchase it-- even though there's no way in hell they're going to purchase it, and they are actually just feeding their faces . . . or is it just me?
3/9/2009
I attended the renowned middle school Potato Pancakes and Pierogie Party Friday night, and like the Polack of the joke, I did something very stupid-- after several games of beer-pong, Ed commented on how deceptively heavy the quoit ring base was and I called him pansy (which is ridiculous, Ed builds elevators and at the Highland Games he flipped the twelve foot caber) and then I told him that I could lift the quoit base with my pinky, which I then did . . . and then Ed had to do it as well, of course-- but when he woke up this morning, his wrist probably didn't hurt as much as mine.
3/8/2009
They must see some nasty shit at the doctor's office, because the phrase "healing nicely" and the giant open wound on my back (where they sliced and drained my sebaceous cyst, in case you haven't been following) do not belong in the same sentence.
3/7/2009
If Legally Blonde isn't your cup of tea, perhaps Piece of Cake is your rock of crack-- it's Cupcake Brown's memoir of life as an orphaned gang-bangin', crack addicted, meth scammin', sherm smokin' violent drunk who rises from behind her dumpster to become a lawyer . . . it's the opposite tone of the emo-faux memoir A Million Little Pieces (I would love to see Cupcake Brown kick James Frey right in his puckered asshole) and if you're down in the dumps and need a little inspiration, or you just want the ins and outs of how to smoke crack on a budget (use a car antenna instead of a pricey glass pipe for the cooking) then I highly recommend it.
My fiction is fact: http://http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1166968,00.html
Arboriculture, Dave Style
You know you're a real homeowner when you find yourself on your front lawn, armed with a football, duct-taped to a length of thick rope, staring at a huge broken limb hanging precariously in your tree, but stretching out over your neighbor's sidewalk and driveway, and you're trying to determine if you're able to heave the football through the tiny Y shaped crevice and get some leverage and pull it down; after twenty or thirty throws (and learning to coil the rope AROUND the football and let it unravel in the air) and the encouragement of my neighbor and her son, I was able to snare the limb and then rock it violently until it came loose and crashed to the ground . . . it was WAY bigger than I thought, and I really should have left it to a professional-- but think of the money I saved (and for Catherine it was win/win, either we would save a few hundred dollars or she could cash in on our life insurance policy).
3/5/2009
This sentence is rated PG-13 for brief nudity (nothing too provocative, just my bare back, but I do have some hair growing there, so I thought a warning was warranted) and excessive pus: yesterday at the doctor's office I underwent my first operation-- though it seemed more in the style of a Medieval barbershop bleeding: they were slicing and draining the sebaceous cyst cyst on my back, but because a new doctor (the fairly cute one who looked at me with disgust last week when I asked if I could drink beer on Keflex) was doing the procedure, an older experienced lady watched and helped her, so I got to hear a descriptive play by play as they worked, including such phrases as "juicy" and "make that bigger or it will shoot pus like a geyser" and "I like to be a little more aggressive with the knife there" and "stick the needle in there more . . . now there and there and there, right on that line" and "pull that out with the forceps, I really want to cut a piece of that" and "now I'm going to squeeze that edema really hard" and, finally, "you were a really good sport."
3/4/2009
The one benefit I can see about getting old is-- simply through trial and error, time, and word of mouth-- we now know an honest contractor and an honest mechanic.
3/3/2009
Some days you think of something brilliant to write-- such as The Dog Hollerer-- and sometimes you've got to steal someone else's sentence . . . so here's on written by the essayist E.V. Lucas: "I have noticed that people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them."
A Gross Present
I share my birthday with a Cat named Seuss--
who, like all writers, liked his juice
as I like mine, fermented and sweet . . .
especially for a birthday treat--
but this year, instead of getting pissed
my present is a sebaceous cyst.
Very Specific Audience
If you're looking for a novel where the protagonist is a doctor in the witness protection plan because he was once a hit-man for the mob, and he desperately needs to fashion a weapon for an impending knife fight, so, with an exposed piece of metal in a locked freezer, he cuts open his own calf, then reaches through the tendons and muscle until he locates his fibula, and then snaps it off so he can use it as a makeshift blade, then Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper is the book for you.
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