Jesus, will you look at that thing?!

I gave notice today.

Save for the possibility of moving to California for a job with a company that shall remain nameless but rhymes with -oogle, I am off to Thailand before the end of the year.

I believe I will take a well earned break from compulsively masturbating to enjoy a celebratory beer.

I know it's cheap having these emails double as posts, but so be it. Also, if I am going over the top on these people (a preferred strategy ever since I started playing Hold Em, wherein a little Yoda intones "raise or fold, there is no call"), I am asking you all to keep me in line.

So today's entry comes from yet another idiot who slings insults under her real name, thus foolishly further burdening my already overtaxed sense of decency. She writes:

"I think what people object to in your ad is the condescending tone and the premise of making people compete for housing. You are basically taking advantage of the housing shortage in Manhattan and the willingness of people to vie for your precious apartment.

Who cares what you find amusing? You seem quite full of yourself and enthralled with your own little headgame. Who has time to compete when they're trying to earn a living? They just want a straight deal. If you're so democratic, then decide what your terms are, make them as generous as you want, then publish them and be done with it rather than trying to play bemused puppet master."

Jodi, know in advance that you are plainly exempt from the "class of people" mentioned below. And I know the response is long, but I really plant the landing:

"Cher [NAME]:

It is, of course, appropriate that MSN classified this as junk mail. Nonetheless, I respond out of boredom.

My dear, people compete for housing all the time -- financially, credit history, luck, connections, etc. -- and they always will so long as there remains a scarcity of decent affordable housing. All I decided to do was change the terms of the contest, so that I reward the clever rather than the rich, the punctillious, the lucky or the well-born. You will never convince me that there is something wrong with that. There needs to be some method for allocating scarce goods; because this is my scarce good to allocate, I get to choose the method.

As for the tone -- which you simply attack without benefit of example -- it would not be necessary at all if people ACTUALLY believed in a world of "value for value." But they don't. This process has borne out my intuitions, i.e., that people think they deserve the apartment for some cosmic reason. Thus, I went out of my way to be crystal clear that that was simply insufficient. It being my turn to insult, no doubt you clicked on the ad with the same outsized and unwarranted sense of entitlement, and your disappointment curdled into rage in short order, thus prompting this email.

Some folks, though, actually *got* it -- people who really cannot afford market rents or exorbitant brokers fees, who offered what they could: meals, handcarved items, dances by professional dancers, personalized travel guides to their foreign homelands. In my mind, there is nothing degrading at all about that; it enables people to give me something of value while not limiting my notions of their worth to the measure of their bank account. However, you seem to fall into that class of people -- women, almost uniformly, I don't know why -- who think that being asked to be clever or creative in exchange for something is somehow this appalling exercise in Svengalism. Strange, eh?

And, frankly, I don't KNOW what I want, which I have said over and over. Why is it incumbent on me to decide that in advance? Um ... oh wait ... IT ISN'T. And you know who cares what I find amusing? I do, and it's my apartment. And by the way, "amusing" is your belittling term, not mine; I said "creative" and "interesting or intriguing." Might I suggest you will lead a richer and more fulfilled life if you investigate the undoubtedly deep rooted psychological basis for these strange and demeaning projections.

Finally, because I always like to educate the ignorant, the word you are looking for is "amused," not "bemused." Bemused typically means perplexed, which I am not. To quote my droogie Alex, I am as clear as the azure sky in summer.

Now, wasn't that better than the simple "F*ck you, you rathole fodder" that your insult deserved? A question posed rhetorically. Spare us both the embarassment of your reply.

Ta."


Very satisfying, though I cannot help but notice the overpowering "simpering queen" tone that my brother attributes to my reading little besides William Burroughs for the last 10 years. He may have a point. Can you guys then suggest anyone I can read -- Dashell Hammett? Damon Runyon? -- to put into the mix to give my "fuck you"'s a little more kidneypunch and a little less the whiff of stale lilacs?

I haven't been Angry Guy in some time, but lately, boy, he is back in force.  While I've been keeping him fairly under wraps in person -- aside from the occasional high-decibel unwillingness to have my work day governed by the bloated prostatic spasms of a certain senior partner -- A.G. gets to running full throttle when I am cloaked in anonymity. 

Here is the balance of my correspondence with Ms. Embarassment to Humanity, to whom I had sent a follow-up email referencing her work on a certain movie (hoping thereby to obliquely stir some anxiety about the fact that she was, say, a little overexposed).  She writes back:

"That is very very strange.  I worked as a crew member on that movie.   I'm serious.  But honestly, I have nothing to offer.  I am looking for a 'no strings attached' kind of traditional lease.  good clean honest living is my motto."

How peaceable.  How defenseless.  How young girl with a P.A.'s walkie-talkie on her belt, scarfing down exhaust fumes as she pleads with the foot traffic to stay away from the set.  And yet . .  .  she not apologize to A.G., now did she, no, hmmm? Can A.G. just let die?  A.G. cannot just let die.  THERE WAS NO APOLOGY. A.G. MUST. HAVE. APOLOGY!! (how A.G. has morphed into a combination of that queeny minister from "Clockwork Orange" and the Cookie Monster will be explored in a separate post). 

So A.G. takes careful aim at the noggin of this poor sweet simpleton -- who just overreacted out of years of frustration to what she perceived as the importuning of her virtue --and fires away:

"I know you worked on that movie.  You did a really REALLY dumb thing, [INSERT NAME], which is that you attacked someone you don't know at all -- very viciously, I might add -- USING YOUR REAL NAME. One Google search yielded a ton of info on you, including the fact that you are a movie PA and live, or least work, in Brooklyn.  Fortunately for you, I am just a normal guy  so I really don't give a rat's ass about your unbelievably misguided insults.   Well, actually, it has given quite a number of my friends a seriously good laugh.  But if I were a nut, you'd have really screwed yourself over.  Don't worry, I'll protect your privacy even though -- let's be honest -- you don't deserve it.  Consider this a very important life lesson very cheaply learned at the hands of an 'insane' 'embarassment to humanity.'" 

Is A.G.  happy now?  HAHAHAHA.  A.G. NOT EVER HAPPY:

"So you lack the imagination or skills to compete, and feel that giving something for something in this world is an 'embarassment to humanity.'  That is totally your problem, not mine.  And it may explain why you'll continue to enjoy yourself at [INSERT BROOKLYN ADDRESS] and work as a PA on crap-assed films.  In all honesty, I think you projected your own whacko sexual fantasy onto my request and worked yourself into a hysterical frenzy -- hardly the stuff of a reliable subtenant, hmmm, wouldn't you agree? Now kindly leave me alone, and let the grown-ups play."

A.G. presses "send," then immediately looks down at the blood left on his naked palms after the yellowed, curved claws and the thick musky fur have vanished as quickly as the moonlight that brought them forth.  Cleaning himself up, he consoles himself with the fact that, well, he did give her good advice about giving out her name, right?  And, um, she started it? And didn't ever apologize?  Sigh.  When it gets to "she started it," you might as well hang it up.  Nothing like giving away the moral upper-hand.  The A.G. specialty.

A.G. and I both need a drink.

So, in making plans to bring my Thai dreams to fruition, I have been thinking about what to do with my apartment.  You see, I have "a deal."  Not "The Deal," no rent-controlled classic six on Central Park West that's been handed down Latt-to-Latt since the Luftwaffe brought their peculiar brand of urban renewal to East London.  Rather, I have a very liveable 1 bedroom in a doorman building, with a real kitchen and plenty of closets, for just under $700/mo.  Nonetheless, take a moment to let the envy sink in.  Ah.  Like discovering a rash for the first time, no?

Anyway, last night, I had a great idea and posted -- yes, on Craigslist -- a contest wherein I threw open the chance to get the apartment to everyone.  While you can see the ad for yourself, the essential rules were very straightforward:

*  "[E]ntries can be financial, non-financial or a combination of the two. The key here is: BE LUCRATIVE OR BE CREATIVE. I am open to anything -- the burden is on you to interest or intrigue me. "

* "It is a TOTAL NON-STARTER to simply tell me 'dude, I *seriously* need a cheap place.' This apartment is to be bought or earned, it's that simple."

* "Nothing is binding on anyone until the sublease is signed."

That's it.  Nothing difficult or sinister.  The horde of sob stories pouring out from those who didn't really bother to read the ad:  that I expected, and while my heart was moved, my sublease signing hand was not.  I was, however, quite surprised by this:

"Your 'offer' is completely insane.  I just had to say that.  Just move in dignity.  You are embarrassing the human species."
 
Wow!  WOW!  "Embarassing the human species."  Where did she get that from?  And what do you possibly say to that?  (Well, actually, I suggested that she immolate herself to give real meaning to her otherwise flippant expression of disgust, but I pose the question now rhetorically). 

What also amazed me is that she sent it from an account with her real name -- is that courage? stupidity? or just pure ignorance? How ballsy in a city of maniacs to hurl that sort of thing at someone when your address and profession are a simple Google search away!  Fortunately for her I am blessed with a surfeit of kindness: that same Google search revealed that she has been dwelling in some Brooklyn rathole, no doubt for years, while working on the lowest, most thankless rung of the entertainment industry; she most likely saw my ad for a great affordable place right here in the City of God and raised her molelike gaze, squinting, to the light; dared to hope again, when for years hope had lain so mercifully dormant, thus allowing her to believe that Brooklyn really was a wonderful place after all!; and then, to have her hopes cruelly shattered when she saw that this light might not shine on her for long.  So, I forgive her her rage, her calumny, and can only hope that her lack of further response does not mean she has taken seriously my suggestion that she emulate those brave, tragic monks of Vietnam.

Much to my delight and relief, however, my offer to reward the clever has not been universally reviled and the fun answers have finally started coming in.  No clear winner yet,  but so far, I've been offered personalized travel guides to the Pampas and the Croatian coast PLUS authentic native dances performed in equally authentic native gear PLUS a few gourmet dinners; on the other hand, an aspiring human rights lawyer has proffered a steady stream of her lovingly handtooled ice fishing decoys.  

So folks, if you too want a shot at this place, just check out the contest rules, as well as this edifying clarification, and let me know what you can do for your old pal J.W.Y. 

Before today's installment from my disastrous romantic life, a quick note to the person who yesterday decided to prejudge my character on the basis of this blog: I gather from Sitemeter that you were here this morning, I am guessing to see whether I had posted anything about you. Fear not. Nothing about either our correspondence or your personhood -- save for that electronically recorded touch of paranoia -- was sufficiently interesting to warrant a post. Your identity is safe as houses.

So, ANYWAY, onto my entry for MOST ARRESTINGLY REPELLENT BLIND DATE EVER:

This past Sunday, I had brunch with a woman I met through a very plain ad I posted on Craigslist to the effect of "all my friends are out of town for the weekend, is there anyone up for brunch tomorrow? My treat!" To which E. responds by sending me two very attractive pictures of herself. Red-blooded lad that I am, I agree enthusiastically: why, yes, E., I would be delighted to have brunch with you. Hoping to come to the office afterwards, and being a generous guy, I suggest we meet at Brasserie, a futuro high-end frosted glass and blonde wood sort of place off of Park Avenue. Full of good feeling, I head down to Brasserie anticipating a tasty brunch with a lovely woman and a check in the $50-$60 range.

I get to the restaurant, and there is E., standing 5'8" and, oh, maybe, generously, 95 lbs. Her tight-cut jeans billowing around her calves and butt, the motion of her rotator cuffs is in plain relief through her thin cotton blouse and her clavicles threaten to burst the skin. Jolted out of my mini state of grace, and feeling as if I am about to dine with Death Herself, I nonetheless muster my own game face, and in we go.

Now, two things: I recognize that I was able to stop much if not all of what I am about to describe, so I accept with bowed head your accusations of sucker, patsy, rube, moron. And I am making none of this up:

She starts by ordering a bottle of wine, heedless of my many polite cues that I am really not that interested in drinking. A $115 bottle of wine.

Before any meaningful intervention is possible, she then breezily orders the:

Crabcake entree ($18)

Lobster club sandwich entree ($23)

Steak and eggs entree -- usually $26, but she is not content with the usual poached eggs but orders instead a special side of scrambled eggs with black truffles -- so make it $30.

An order of french fries -- which are HUGE at Brasserie -- in addition to the side order that comes with her steak and eggs.

In a sick way, I am fortunately relieved of my money anxiety as a headlong rush of nausea seizes hold:

She consumes all that food -- all of it, mind you -- with 5 ramekins of mayonnaise: slathering thick gobs on the already mayonnaised lobster sandwich, raking up gooey mushrooming heads of the stuff with clumps of fries. Her explanation: "I went to high school in Ecuador [??!!]. And down there it's mayo on everything." Imagine my surprise to learn that a tropical country with no tradition of refrigeration should have developed such robust mayonnaise practices.

She also drenched everything with not one but two gravy boats full of hollandaise sauce, which are in turn wiped clean with the ever-ready fries.

Then she finishes off the remaining 1/4 of my own steak -- including the gristle bits that I had carefully cut off, declaring them "the best part".

And my remaining poached egg.

As well as my left over fries.

And the cheese covered toast point that accompanied my earlier crab bisque.

And for dessert, something called a "Plum Croutade," which was a fried pocket of phyllo dough filled with marscapone cream.

And ice cream.

All washed down with a latte with cream.

Then she excused herself and threw it all up in the bathroom.

The bill, with a nice tip to compensate for the abuse she hurled at the wait staff: $301.90.

I went home afterwards and lay shivering under the covers until dawn, weak with the realization that my life has become the punchline to a very bad joke.

My last link was to a bunch of random, stupid and ultimately inoffensive rants.  This link enjoys the comparative advantage of being a thematically organized and highly offensive stupid rant.  Enjoy!

I have been improbably asked to "guest blog" on someone's site and so today's uninspired musings can be found here.

Fat has entered my life, and in a big way. Incipiently sclerotic arteries and a happily bouncy midriff, all in the same season. My gravy cup runneth over, apparently. But as my fellow AARPer Roger Daltrey might say "inside, outside -- leave me alone!"

Yes, after years of outrunning them, laughing at them, mooning them with my taut bottom, the gods of adiposity -- like the unswayable posse that put a bloody end to the larcenous ways of Butch and Sundance -- have finally caught up with me. And while I will spare you the grotesque inventory of dysmorphisms -- the liberally scattered pockets of subcutaneous curds, the suety stalactites depending from my heart -- rest assured those minor deities are relishing their opportunity at long last to mar this once perfect canvas.

And just so we're clear: this isn't you getting fat, this is me. Me! Me, who provoked strangers to Treblinka jokes the one time I misguidedly shaved my head! Me, who has avoided a lifetime of well-deserved beatings by sheer virtue of my friable mien! Me, who once was so ill-mannered as to remark that "fat people are people too -- or so they claim" (I will forever cringe with shame over that one). And the worst part is, there is nothing redeeming about my fat. It's not "intimidating belly of the cruel Southern sheriff" fat. Or "oh my cuddly widdle teddy bear how warm you'll keep me" fat. Or even "obscenely shiny degenerate gourmand" fat. No, this is old-and-lazy fat. This-much-closer-to-death fat. More-ashes-for-the-urn fat.

But what to do? Here, one might think, the road forks. On the one hand, there is the predictable -- some might say tiresome -- response of diet and exercise. Hie thy smug ass to a gym, lardboy! But isn't there something irremediably fascist -- an unshakeable whiff of brisk spring days, Bavarian mountain trails and Hitler Youth in leiderhosen -- about a strict diet and exercise regimen? I can already see my superego standing at the foot of my bed at 5:30 every morning with a protein shake in one hand and a bullhorn in the other while looking like Ilse, She-Wolf of the SS in gym shorts and tube socks.

More to the point, for 30-odd sedentary years I have regarded the expanse between brain and penis exactly as I have viewed the gap between New York and California (respectively), i.e, an empty bland stretch between two compelling poles to which I give little or no thought, though which I absently concede may fit some way into God's mysterious design. Can I really be so disloyal to my essential self as to now suit up in colorful lycra and stride for hours on an elliptical machine like some hideous bastard child of Sisyphus and Gigantor? Ha. Join me. HA!

No, all I can do -- what I must do, to the best of my abilities -- is give a meaningful shape to this inexorable tide of fat. For if fakirs can lie buried alive for months to prove the power of their faith, if Mao could rewrite the course of the mighty Yangtze, cannot I -- through a combination of cantilevered buttresses, sluiced estuaries and sheer perversity -- will my fat to a perfect distribution? For this is the plan: it will accumulate in uniform layers throughout my body, causing me to grow steadily thicker in imperceptible gradations while forming a brilliant sedementary testimony to my dietary history. That way, you see, while alive, I will finally enjoy some of the bulk that eluded me during my scrawny youth without enduring the humiliations attendant on the truly shapeless. And when dead, armies of J.W.Y. Lattologists will undoubtedly seek to outbid one another for posthumous access to the priceless historical record literally buried within me. Here, they will say, pointing knowingly to an exiquisitely marbled vein, is the Happy Fortune dim sum brunch, Fall of '02. Over there, the melancholy outcropping known poetically as "The Second Helping" (see Rosenkamp bat mitzvah, Spring '99, chopped liver and gribenes). Like Lucy yielding her secrets from an arid Tanganyikan lakebed, like an Ice Age hunter emerging gloriously whole from the muck of a Scottish bog, like the fragile husks that were once the proud kings of Egypt, I will join that rarest of fraternities -- achieving true corporeal immortality while casting a light of knowledge for generations to come.

So for the sake of my children, indeed, for all our children -- it's TIME FOR QUIZNOS!

CNN this morning had a story about a murder-suicide rampage at a ConAgra Foods plant in Kansas City, KS. And the author of this breakfast horroshow was described -- of course -- as a "disgruntled worker." Apparently the witnesses even described him that way to the police.

I am hereby serving notice on the word "disgruntled." I hate it. Hate. It. It's the lazy man's "fi' dollah" word. Every day it is inflicted on us by legions of insufferable office jokesters when referring to the hapless shmucks in the next cubicle and who then beam with smug satisfaction at how knowing and savvy they must appear. Look how readily it danced off the tongues even of the good people of ConAgra Foods while mopping still-warm collegial blood off their brows. I truly hope that if I ever get caught up in such a tragedy that I will have the fundamental humanity to scream "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!" for two days straight, rock maniacally while hugging myself, and then settle in for a decade or two of alcoholic despair rather than, say, gaping at the camera while offering up someone else's prefabricated insights as fodder for Dennis Miller and Anderson Cooper.

It's even the wrong word. Dictionary.com defines disgruntled as being "in a state of sulky dissatisfaction" (Mirriam Webster supplies the handy grammar tip that it's usually a participal adjective.) Wouldn't, in fact, some old fashioned sulky dissatisfaction be as refreshing as a soupçon of light sherbet when confronted by that guy from accounting now oddly draped in Nazi-era bandoliers? And when the media uses it, which seems a legislative requirement, it inevitably relieves the ensuing story of any freshness while impeding any real analysis. The whole sorry little narrative is encapsulated in that one word. "Disgruntled = boomboomboom + sob x (white supremacy/porn)." At this point you could just splash "DISGRUNTLED" across the headline, skip the story altogether, and devote those precious column inches to deploring the trend in fruit-named celebrity children.

Of course, not everyone is disgruntled. Disgruntled is hemmed in by nasty little class connotations. Hedge fund analysts "unexpectedly snap." Even plain old nutjobs get to "assassinate." Only workers are disgruntled and even then only ones in shit-assed backwater places like ConAgra meat packing plants. The rest of us get cool action words when we decide it's time to off our oppressors. Let's explore etymologies, hmmm? Assassinate: from a secret 11th century Islamic order that smoked hashish and terrorized Christian crusaders. How fucking cool is that!! On the other hand -- disgruntled: from the Middle English "gruntelen," meaning (duh) to grunt. Um ... Yeah! Backhair! And before you protest: Am I comparing apples and oranges or, more precisely, verbs and participal adjectives? Well, YEAH, but so what? You know what I mean. Disgruntlement gives rise to a very precise, very sweaty, snorting, stinking subspecies of homocidal frustration. And if they do need you to be disgruntled for whatever reason -- if, say, the real reason you "unexpectedly snap" is likely to provoke one nod of recognition too many -- they'll just talk to someone at your job and now you are -- voilà -- a "disgruntled co-worker."

That's all. My pointless grunt rant is at an end. And kindly spare me the cheap irony of comments on how disgruntled I am. Or one lunchtime you just may hear -- for perhaps the first but certainly the last time in your life -- the unmistakeable and immensely satisfying "chlock" of a Walther PPK as it gears up for a busy day at the office...

P.S. No doubt you noticed my groovy use of not one but two diacritical marks. All and only for you, friends.

The slightly reworked guts of an email that I wrote today to a woman I am courting. The Bartleby reference is in response to something she wrote earlier:

*****

I am feeling oddly karmically immune this morning.

I've been mining this cache of old tapes -- yes, tapes -- that I've recently rediscovered. This one is a veritable advent calendar of musical surprises, some pleasant, some less so.

First there was The Band doing "It Makes No Difference" from The Last Waltz. It's as schmaltzy and corny as it gets, but I saw The Last Waltz at a midnight showing at the Pickwick Theater in Dobbs Ferry, New York, circa 1979, and I sat next to Christine Doughtery who was a few classes ahead of me and who was blessedly oblivious to my overwhelming arousal at simply being so close to a girl in the dark. And I remember wanting very badly to be Robbie Robertson, all supercool with this red scarf-y thing he wore, because I sensed, in some way essentially ungraspable at the time, that if I were tall and onstage and supercool with a red scarf-y thing then perhaps my darkened arousal would not have to lead, inevitably, to such complete immobilization. So I retain this deep affection for their schmaltz and corn, and for Robbie Robertson's overly articulated, inspired amateur guitar playing, and for that strangely moving, long last note of the song, sustained on the tenor sax by a single breath from the laconic and immensely talented Garth Hudson.

Then there was John Lee Hooker's "Decoration Day." So deceptively simple. Typical blues lyrics about the death of his wife. But not just painful. Pain. A dirge's dirge. Other dirges feel ashamed of their Hawaiian smocks and Hammer parachute pants when it comes on. I heard him sing it once in concert, back in college, and then hunted years later for an album that had it. Just him on the guitar, singing about how much he misses her. It's tuneful, and shows real vocal virtuosity, but somehow I am convinced that it is simply not human music. Perfect.

Then, of course, Elvis C., with a little "Sleep of The Just." Someone I loved very much a long time ago turned me on to Elvis Costello, also to Van Morrison. At first they were so linked in my mind with her that I declared a two year moratorium on both. But that really was very long ago. Now they just evoke a pleasant, vague warmth, half-glimpsed Celtic dreams that were never mine to dream. A sort of borrowed nostalgia. Some days it's just the thing, some days it's "feh." Today I lean towards "feh."

And then -- boom: I'm in the middle of some Nina Simone song. Literally in the middle. Why I chose to put these particular songs, every note of which are stored in their own synaptic locker, over the goregous velvet-throated musings of Ms. Simone remains a baffling mystery. I will investigate the rest of the Simone numbers and report back in due course.

And for the record, Bartleby is genius. Everyone invokes "I'd prefer not to," but my very favorite, if misremembered, phrase from that book is when the lawyer narrator gently boasts that his work is not unknown to John Jacob Astor, "a name I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound, and rings like unto bullion." Orbicular! How orgasmic is that?! Again, perfect. And as for me, yes, I prefer not to -- not just at work but in almost all social arenas -- but nonetheless seem to manage to anyhow.

*****

So, dear Readers, chances for a second date are...?