New Moon Makes Girls Swoon, Unattractive

Call it Karma or simply the machinations of a thoroughly vengeful Old Testament God, we reap what we sow in this life, and all the trite agrarian metaphors in the world won't change that. While I cannot recall precisely what grave sin I committed in the past that merited the punishment, it must have been dire; indeed, there may very well be the body of some innocent girl scout bricked up in the wall of my home, her boxes of thin mints and carmel delights moldering alongside her. Without a tell-tale heart or black cat to alert the authorities, I might have escaped scott-free, and so the universe has taken a more subtle hand, for I can see no other reason how I could deserve the harrowing ordeal I was given. Perhaps this is a generational concern, a reckoning visited upon the son for the father's crimes. After all, during his minority in Ireland, my father was known to drown kittens for money. Maybe I pay for that deed, like my friend who must forever bear the curse of horrible foot odor because his own father once spit on a gypsy. I cannot know for certain. But whatever the reason, I was made to watch New Moon.

Needless to say, death is sweet release compared to the 130 minutes of agony that is this movie, but like the "vampires" that populate the local high school, I must apparently suffer in perpetuity. I put the word in quotes, of course, because they're nothing of the sort. When a vampire is exposed to direct sunlight, they burn to ash. They don't fucking sparkle. Honestly, if I hadn't already seen Twilight (which I'm pretty sure was punishment for a joke I made in 1996 about a special needs individual), I would have burst out into laughter at the sight, as I actually did when I first saw that ridiculousness on DVD. While it's true I now understand the literal meaning of the "I love boys who sparkle" t-shirts I've seen around, the connotative meaning remains the same: "I will die alone, unmourned by even my dozens of cats, which will probably feast on my remains after an indecorously short period of time." Funny how five little words can say so much, huh?

I won't go into how much I hate that movie, for drudging up any specifics sears my very soul. What I can tell you is that every second in that theater corroded my already delicate masculinity, leaving a ruin that will take years of deliberate effort to reconstitute. Thankfully a friend passed along this picture, which is constituted by such raw virility that I no longer entirely despair for my own plight. If you, too, have been subjected to moody stares of Robert Pattinson, the "my acting repertoire consists of four alternating facial expressions" performance of Kristen Stewart, the inexplicable reasoning behind werewolves never wearing shirts but always wearing knee length jean shorts and running shoes, or God help you, a sparkling vampire, behold and be saved:

Col. Gentleman Turns Corner in Life, Bangs Knee

I've been away for months now, but it has been a productive number of months. I'm now officially Col. Gentleman, Ph.D, or Doctor Colonel Gentleman, whichever you prefer. I've also enjoyed being jerked around by my gainful employer, which itself is a victim of California's budgetary woes and, if I'm to believe my union's rhetoric, the inhuman greed and ignorance of university administration. Rhetoric aside, if I have finally tasted the uncertainty common to most working Americans, unsure if I will keep my job or for how long, the fact remains that I am still teaching and thus have it a lot better than most. For this, as for so many other things, I remain thankful.

I also went through this year's round of applications for tenure track jobs in academia, which is apparently the thing you do after you graduate, this despite the fact that only a modest percentage of graduates ever land tenure track jobs even after years of trying. I won't go into details, but the process is the equivalent of asking every single girl in your high school to prom and being turned down by every single one. You don't expect the captain of the cheer squad or the junior beauty queen to give you the time of day, and there are plenty of others you've never heard of, only seen in the halls passing silently by with their biology textbooks clutched protectively to their sweatered chests, so again, no loss there. But when the girl with the strange skin affliction and a lazy eye, the one who weeps openly as she rereads the Twilight saga and gorges herself on baked meats, when that girl turns you down too...it stings a little. Thankfully, the process doesn't start again for another nine months, so I have time to nurse by bruised ego.

Things move forward on other, lighter fronts. I and the regular cast of villains have convened through the dark arts of the Internet to begin a regular Dungeons and Dragons campaign again, which provides a far more ready satiation of the urges that, had they no other outlet, would eventually compel me to don a purple bathrobe and pointy hat to stalk the freezer isle of my local supermarket and throw balls of tinfoil at passersby and shrilly cry, "Lightning Bolt!" Instead I may safely purge these emotions in the privacy of my own home, admittedly wearing a headset and brutalizing my peers with a poor imitation of Sean Connery. Still, it has produced other, glossier fruit:


In short, life moves on, and if not always in expected ways, it is not entirely unpleasant. And, without having to constantly devote my spare time to the dissertation (well, spare time not already devoted to video games and alcohol abuse - though in my defense, that bottle of whiskey had it coming) I may once again resume my duties as your humble blogger. It may very well take a few posts to get back to my usual form, so please bear with me. But for better or worse, I'm back, bitches.

What a Gyp

Not too long ago I was robbed by gypsies.

In my quiet moments, when I am not imagining how I might fare amidst a zombie Apocalypse or wondering what the color green tastes like, I like to think that I'm savvy enough to recognize and avoid the chicanery of the travelling people. However, through the benefit of hindsight and its corrective lenses, I recognize that my previous run-in with them in Paris years ago left me woefully unprepared for the reality of their low cunning. Then, they operated in feral packs of children, Dickensian in their purpose and numbers but with the added charm of physical deformity thrown in for good measure. My upper-middle class background needed little more than their poverty to make me instinctively recoil from their outstretched hands, but the real charm came from their utter lack of craft. Still new to the con, these children simply walked around, hands out, and went from surly to irate when their gestures were ignored. A darling child of nine stood in front of me disapprovingly, and when I shrugged at her, she shook her hand in exasperation and explained to the stupid American, and I quote, "You know: money!" The scamp.

I am not entirely unconvinced that this was a deliberate effort to lay the groundwork for their American kin this past year. In my defense (says the man who just described ignoring deformed Parisian orphans - in front of Notre Dame, no less!), they didn't exactly roll up in a garishly painted wagon and dance with swirling skirt and laughing mustache as a monkey, seemingly to the music of a merry organ grinder, nimbly picked my pocket. Still, I should have seen this coming; I say this less because of some abstract notion of my Perception skill, but rather that my wife immediately warned me that they were trouble. But I get ahead of myself.

Some time ago the doorbell to our apartment was frantically rung, as if the person on the other side were desperately seeking sanctuary. Two children greeted me as I opened the door, though, asking if we had any recycling they could have. As charming as their precocious smiles were, I only had beer cans to give, so I apologized and closed the door. After another five visits over the course of the next week, I gave them the beer cans. Rather than appeasing them, however, the young male started to return with greater frequency. His name was Sonny, almost certainly an alias I realize now, and he liked to arrive and ask for handouts. "Can I have the computer monitor in your garage? Will you let me wash this shirt at your house? Do you have an Xbox?" This last query caught me off guard, and I stupidly answered in the affirmative. From then on, he started asking to borrow games, and for reasons I may never fully comprehend, I finally lent him one I no longer play just to get rid of him. He literally lived fifty yards away, so I saw little harm in the gesture.

Long story short, my far more perceptive wife gradually started pointing out the unsettling signs that surrounded this family, as one gradually leads a former cultist of Creationist, I imagine, back into the harsh daylight of the real world. First, she insisted there was something insidious about the fact that the women of the family only ever wore skirts, but my fashion acumen is such that this made no impact. However there did seem to be about fifteen to twenty people living in their apartment at various times, which I think exceeded limits set by the management. Another afternoon, in broad daylight let me remind you, we saw the patriarch breaking into the electrical hub for our portion of the apartment and attach some sort of rig that ran its wires back into their home. Finally, they always seemed to be driving different cars, swapping them with a regularity that made their only constant vehicle, a dilapidated Cadillac that would almost definitely give you tetanus if you sat in the back seat, stand out all the more. Finally coming around to the idea that loaning this child my belongings, while a grand gesture of truly living the Gospel (John 15:27 - "And thou shalt lend thy games, And thou shalt play thy Rockband, And thou shalt please thy Lord"), was not wise. It was about that time they were evicted from the complex and disappeared forever.

So, all told, I'm down a game and a controller, but more importantly, I will never trust a child again. Sure, when he returned the first game and asked to borrow another instead, when I looked at the videogame case that appeared to have been vigorously mauled by a feral badger and, inquiring about its condition, was told "My little sister got it," I perhaps should have become suspicious. But sometimes you must touch the fire to truly learn it burns, so now, as I clutch my charred heart to my chest, I finally see the world without my rose-colored lenses. Now to go email that Nigerian lawyer back about his former client's estate.

I'm Not Dead Yet

Long time no see, as my father used to say. I've been away for over a month now, but not really "away" so much as simply doing other things. Had my week with the lads, which rejuvenates me in all the ways that it doesn't exasperate or drain me. Enjoyed another week or so of playing catch-up on all the grading I was putting off as I was drinking from the kegerator in Pasadena and rolling my twenty sided so poorly that I'm convinced I must have insulted a voodoo priest sometime recently. Maybe it was that homeless guy I hit with my Jeep...but that was just sport, so it shouldn't count. Went to Vegas with Kelly to meet Debbie and Ryan, which was great fun, even if I didn't do well at the blackjack tables (I never do, but hope spring eternally, eh?).

Now things are settling in for a somewhat unpleasant few months. Nothing particularly bad is actually coming down the pipe - quite the contrary. I've been offered a full time lecturing position despite the abysmal economy, I'm teaching my first Shakespearean drama class starting next week, and the dissertation is winding to a gradual close. It's just that they're all hitting at nearly the same time, and that means I have to work on all of them, and that's just not something I'm convinced I can pull off. Couple that with deadlines and my inability to sit down and work hard for an entire day (as if I have an entire day to do so), and I fear for what slop I'll be writing for my dissertation's introduction or using to fill the three hour blocks of summer school Shakespeare (starting Tuesday, did I mention?).

I'm not popping on the blogosphere to bitch and moan, as I honestly recognize that I have no leg to stand on. Let's instead just say that my schedule seems to be preventing me from the whimsy and sardonic detachment I typically cultivate immediately before making a post, and so I may not be making any more for a little while more. I'll try. I just can't make any promises.

Get Your Swole On

I was locked in my apartment complex's gym for about half an hour tonight with a nice Asian couple that was hesitant to use the building's second story window as an escape. Consequently, I stuck around with them and watched as an equally helpful neighbor attempted to open the deadbolt that stood between the sweaty gym air and our freedom with a hairpin and a flathead screwdriver. Ultimately we all took the window. I didn't make up a single syllable of that opening. That's just the kind of crap I find myself in from time to time.

As you might suspect yourself, there are a number of things wrong with this picture. For one, who the hell gets locked in the gym? The immediate culprit was a deadbolt whose key only staff has, so it clearly wasn't an ignorant resident. But why would a passing security guard or maintenance man assume no one was there? Well, because the three people doing cardio upstairs had the lights turned off. Sadly, I was one of them. You see, the couple was already up there, working away, with the lights off when I arrived, and I didn't feel comfortable just showing up and throwing the light switch. I mean, who the hell am I? I bring a Nintendo DS to the gym to keep my mind distracted from the burning sensation in my lungs when I ride the stationary bike, which I ride because the treadmill involves too much motion to actually play the DS. I don't really have a leg to stand on here. So I just hopped on a bike and pedalled (difficult without that leg), glancing between the ESPN on in front of the husband and the E channel before the wife, and as the three of us burned away dozens of calories to the blue light of flatpanel televisions, someone locked us in the gym.

I discovered almost immediately that a window on the second level would make for an easy escape, mainly because another resident climbed in through it and asked what was going on. And while the descent out the window was certainly possible, the wife in particular was having none of it, and for whatever reason I do the things I do, my brain decided it was poor form to leave them alone. Honestly, I'd be that douche on the Titanic politely allowing other people onto the lifeboats because of the poor Irish bastards drowning in coach. Anyway, that's what kept me there so long. That, and I was mildly curious to see if the new arrival actually had what it takes to pick a deadbolt with improvised tools. He did not. Still, he seemed a good guy. Sure he had a knife on his belt, and while the type of white guy who perpetually carries a knife on his hip is typically not the kind I want to toast a Natural Ice with, he seemed a good sort. He even said I should stop by his place to have a beer and play videogames some time. He probably plans to kill me and use my skin to make a dress, but with an invitation that charming, who knows?

Clearly, this absurd situation was a divine portent if ever I've seen one. The problem with any sign, as all you good semioticians know, is the ambiguity in interpreting them. I naturally assumed the Divine was suggesting I skip working out to stay home and invent new songs about my dog. My wife suggested I was supposed to stay in the gym longer to begin with. Touche. I'll be going back tomorrow, if only so that when the roof collapses on me I can tell my dearest "I told you so."

Drug Scandal Rocks NASCAR: Mullets to Fly at Half Mast

NASCAR officially joined the auspicious ranks of Major League Baseball, the Olympic Games, and Midget Tossing on May 1st when Jeremy Mayfield, one of the "sport's" noted auto-coach pilots, failed a drug test. It was mainly short essay and multiple choice questions, and while he did alright through the geography and, surprisingly, Native American history sections, he really tripped up on #32: "Are you on drugs?" Rather than opting for "a) No" or "b) Of course not; in fact, even asking me not only affronts my sensibilities as a sportsman but tarnishes the game itself," good ol' Jeremy circled "c) Fuck, I don't know. I'm way too stoned. Better make me pee in a cup."

Well, today ESPN broke the story wide open. In brazen defiance of convention, NASCAR's first documented positive drug test was for - you guessed it - crystal meth. I, for one, am shocked; I really had my money on some combination of huffing paint and popping a murderous amount of Flintstones chewable vitamins. Just goes to show you, I guess: you can take the Redneck out of the trailer park, but not out of the "Redneck Roundy-Round." NASCAR fandom has been rocked by this latest news, and many aficionados are too distressed by the revelation to finish brewing the latest batch of moonshine in their bathtubs; indeed, even the sultry arms of a first-cousin cannot distract these gap-toothed, hillbilly degenerates from their inconsolable loss.

Of course, I don't mean to suggest that the sluggish, cholesterol-ridden arteries of NASCAR have flowed with only pure red, white, and blue until this dark day. You see, this is the first year such drug testing has been instituted. In previous epochs, pit crews simply assumed the earthenware jug their driver was securely belting beside him was merely water to fight the dehydratin'. Clearly, they had no idea what was going on. One senior editor at ESPN even reports that a retired driver admits to having raced on heroin. Yeah, I'll repeat that: "he drove on heroin." Way to put the whole Barry Bonds thing in perspective for us, Cleatus McDrivesalot. In so many other sports, athletes discretely take drugs to enhance their performance; NASCAR drives apparently just want to get fucked up, and aren't about to let driving a car at speeds over 200 mph get in the way. Kinda puts a new spin on that famous line, "I feel the need - the need for speed." Just imagine the bloodbath if those NASCAR racers had ejector seats.

The Penis Mightier

Have you ever thought to yourself, "How am I supposed to take a drink when I'm using my hands to lather my shampoo / drive this snowmobile / fend off my traitorous attack panda"? Shortly after that, did another synapse accidentally fire and you thought, "Holy fuck, I'm drunk"? Of course you have -- you're one of my readers, aren't you? Hell, I was probably with you when this happened.

The problem, though, is that we're often in short supply of efficient means of capturing those pristine moments of spiritual clarity and liquid depravity. Forget memory (ironic word usage! 3 points!); there are entire weekends from college that neither I nor any of my friends can accurately piece back together. And sure, there is the ever-popular voice mail, but they do tend to drag on, and often the speaker sounds like Eliza Doolittle with a mouth full of marbles. But in this age of Twitter, where anything and everything of meaning can apparently be condensed to 14o characters or less (Milton just rolled over in his grave...onto Henry James), I'm actually thankful for the text message. Not because it prompts my students to essentially fiddle with themselves under their desk in a pitiful attempt at being clandestine, no -- because it gives us something as beautiful as my new favorite site, Texts From Last Night.

Texts From Last Night is exactly what the name promises: it's a compilation of hilarious text messages people have sent one another the night of or immediately following a bender. As one might imagine, a number of them are rather crude and rarely "politically correct," but there are some gems that carry a wisdom profound enough to make tears glisten on the hardest cheek. To make matters even better, they put the area code of the guilty party before every text. Enter yours, and see if you were the naked form splayed unconscious beside them, the one about whom they sent that somewhat unflattering report to their friend.

The gods are otherwise embroiled in family squabbles at their celestial table -- quick now, sample their divine ambrosia:

(815): I met the nicest Tranny last night. He/She loves Cheetos.

(408): I told him it was like a man's penis, but smaller.

(352): I just woke up and realized I puked in my boxers WTF.
(904): You stay classy.
(352): The worst part was I forgot until I tried to put them on.

(954): I just got hit by a car and apologized to the driver. I asked him if he was okay.

(404): I just bought the big bottle of Patron. It looks small. What have I done with my life?
(503): Succeeded.

And my personal favorites:

(703): I asked him if he wanted to go to my place, he said i could go but he was gonna stay

(407): I woke up this morning next to some guy. I was horrified, he woke up and said, "the white tiger strikes again!"