Dancing with the Stars

I clearly haven't been keeping up with this blog, and there isn't much that would light enough of a fire under my ass to take it back up again, at least not until the semester's over...and then I saw this.


Needless to say, my face liquified like that Nazi who beheld the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not in a good way, either, like a killer guitar solo melts face. No, this is like actual face melting: an unmistakable sign of divine, seriously Old Testament displeasure with man's folly.

I'm really at a loss here, so I'll have to go collect myself later and decide whether I have it in me to edit the post and write some more. For now, though, here are a few thoughts:

1) George Lucas sends cease and desist orders to random bars that have marathon Star Wars movie nights, but endorses this? What kind of drugs is he on (apart from the ones he must take daily to prevent his neck-sack from continuing to inflate and engulf his head)?

2) No fucking way Han Solo would be in a mood to dance right before being encased in Carbonite.

3) Where's Vader in all this? He was a humorless dick when he was still Anakin Skywalker (spoiler!); I can't imagine he's down with the hippity hop.

4) If there is one person in the Star Wars universe who should be hosting a dance party, I readily grant that Empire Lando Calrissian, complete with the blue cape of a space pimp, is the only man for the job. That is the one element of this game with which I have no qualms.

5) Han Shot first.

6) Who puts a DJ station in a mineral refinery? Empire makes abundantly clear that Bespin's operations are run by droids and small, likely enslaved alien species, neither of which would merit the courtesy of background music in the workplace. And wouldn't that be distracting? Industrial operations have significant safety concerns to begin with. Start playing some Rhianna, your maiming statistics spike, and next thing you know, the Galactic Empire revokes your permits. Stupid.

7) I like to think that Han Solo would be a better dancer than this.

8) This likely cancelled Chewbacca's life-debt to Han, as Han is clearly already dead inside.

Any points I miss? Feel free to share your insights and condolences for the Star Wars universe in the comments section.

Lionel Richie is the Soundtrack to my Heart

Shockingly, I immediately fell off the 'one blog post a week' wagon as soon as the semester started. I'll make sure to post something more characteristic of my usual long-winded gibberish this weekend, but in the meantime, I thought you might appreciate this video. Not only does it feature spliced together movie dialogue to reproduce the first verse and chorus of "Hello" by Lionel Richie, but it's also a gentle reminder that even at my most manically productive, I will never put my time to such good work as the saint who made this video.

Enjoy.


Hello from ant1mat3rie on Vimeo.

New Years Resolutions, or A List of Things I'll Fail at this Year, as "Life" is Simply Too Broad

Like so many others, I enjoy creating a short list of resolutions at the cusp of the new year, just as the throbbing pain of 2011's parting nut-shot still radiates upward through one's torso and the piercing shriek of the infant 2012 ruptures your ear drum. It's a magical intersection of hope and the can-do spirit of self-improvement, long before reality (re)asserts itself and forcibly reminds us that our fundamental character is etched into our very soul and that we stand doomed to repeat the same sins, foibles, and lapses until the slow rotation of the Earth grinds the planet to dust.

Or, you know, not. Um...How's the new jogging regimen going?

Despite the rather grim turn of my introduction, I do think these resolutions have genuine merit, if only as a moment of self-reflection that considers the topography of our character and responds with a well-meaning mission statement for bettering ourselves that calendar year. And so, in that spirit, I humbly offer my resolutions--in no particular order--for a new year that, my Mayan friends tell me, will see the catastrophic termination of life as we know it.

Play More Golf. I include this not only because I enjoy it, but because it is becoming increasingly apparent with each passing year that my income and standard of living are not sufficiently projecting the aura of white privilege that is quite literally my genetic birthright. I don't know enough about economics to commit white collar crime, so it's this or tennis, and the latter has way too much staccato movement for my taste. Also, it's harder to get blind drunk playing tennis than golf.

Punch Clean through a Man's Chest. This is a standing resolution every year, and obviously needs no further explanation.

Outsource My Paper Grading to a Third World Country. The university is effectively a corporation in many respects (which has become particularly apparent now that I work at a private one), so I think I'll take a cue from many other American corporations and get the dirty manual labor of my profession taken care of by someone else. Bonus points if, like the manufacturers producing Apple's products overseas, this paper grading somehow manages to pollute China's water and air. They aren't going to let us remain the largest economy on the planet by asking nicely, people--most of them can't even understand English.

Accumulate More Obscure Knowledge about Punctuation and Typeface. Just this week I've learned the difference between the en dash and em dash (em dash is longer and is the standard punctuation mark), not to mention why they have those names (they are the length of the letters n and m respectively), as well as the distinction between a hair space and thin space. Because my priorities are irreparably warped, I found this genuinely interesting, and have vowed to learn even more arcane minutia of the printed word. Then I can become a copy editor and finally have a legitimate reason to kill myself. To my readers who are copy editors, I apologize. Yours is an exciting and life-affirming profession. Now get back to combing over the punctuation in the latest Harlequin romance novel. Who else will tell us whether "purple-headed warrior" really needs that hyphen or not?

High-Five More. Those are still cool, right?

Maintain my Luxurious Hairline. This is by no means a shot across the b(r)ow of anyone in particular; I just want to be mistaken for a seventeen year old boy for a few more years, okay?

Embrace my Terrible Taste in Music. I am currently listening to an acoustic cover of "The Freshmen," originally by The Verve Pipe (that's what you smoke meth in, right?), and I genuinely enjoy this rendition of "The Dragonborn Comes," which is itself from the video game Skyrim. I think those pretty well make my point for me.

I think that's enough for now. I'll keep you posted (get it? It's a blog, so...I post...blogs) as each one falls by the wayside. Feel free to add your own in the comment section. I reserve the right to shamelessly steal any that seem even potentially doable, particularly if I don't have to upset my daily routine in accomplishing them. Aim low, right? Ooh...that's another good resolution.

Leaving' a Hundred to Make You Feel Slutted

Ryan from More Rants than Raves recently sent me GQ's latest guide to men's style, no doubt as a subtle reminder that I increasingly allow myself to look like a vagrant during any break from teaching. It answered such mysteries as whether brown shoes really are essential with a blue suit (so long as the brown is darker than the suit's blue), whether it's acceptable to forgo a belt with your suit (yes), and what the third button of a three button suit is for (decoration, or a hidden camera for the creepy demographic that finds long range crotch photography from the comfort of your own van too impersonal).

As much as I appreciated Ryan's gesture, both because I do care about the finer points of men's style and because someone needs to let me know I look like I warm myself at a barrel fire, I find these lists tend to miss the true quagmires that dandyism confronts us with: how do I wear an ascot without looking like a douchebag / Jeremy Piven at the Emmys (not being Jeremy Piven is a great start)? Must I wear my monocle at all times, and if so, how do I prevent my cheek and brow muscles from not seizing up (no--only wear your monocle when leveling additional contempt at your subject, as if unaided sight would fall short of fully appreciating their failure as a human being)? Why does my wife feel that every time a man walks by with an awesome mustache with upturned ends she must turn to me, make eye contact, and firmly say "No" as if chastising a miscreant dog (because she is a woman of refinement and class who made a mistake a decade ago and saddled herself with me, a man who aspires to lush mustachios but in reality can barely muster the thin, patchy mustache reminiscent of a convicted sex-offender).

What we must remember, however, is that style is also a matter of how we conduct ourselves in our daily lives, how we interact with our peers and the innumerable strangers whose lives intersect with our own for minutes or hours of the day. Or, in the case of Derek Jeter, the innumerable strangers whose genitals intersect with his own for minutes or hours (who knows? he's a professional athlete, after all) of the evening. Specifically, I refer to the recent revelation that Jeter has a penchant for gifting his sexual conquests with personalized Derek Jeter sports memorabilia when he kicks them out at the end of the night. No wonder this guy wears a pin striped uniform: he is all class. How better to remind a former fling of just how awesome you are than by signing something that they can then sell? There's a special kind of narcissism at work here that lesser men like myself can only admire. Indeed, I just stood up and did a slow, methodical clap by myself in a Starbucks. Sadly, no one else joined in.

And so, as you prepare for your holiday and New Years celebrations, save a few of the stocking stuffers that you were planning to give to your beloved and tuck them away with a Sharpie in a safe place. Then, a few nights from now, bust them own while the post-coital glow is still upon you both. What better way to say "You just had sex with someone awesome" than by rolling over and giving them a signed Unicorn calendar, Panda Express gift card, or Gold Toe sock three pack? No need to thank me, dear reader. This is my holiday gift to you.

Just pretend I signed it and kicked you out of my house immediately afterward.

Ewe Bris

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report last week warned that castrating lambs with your teeth may make you sick. I know. I'm as shocked by all this as you are.

I think it goes without saying that this convoluted and frankly surprising discovery needs to be parsed a bit. First of all, let's note that the operative word here is "may." Just because you use nothing more than a few incisors, an almost preternaturally strong jaw muscle, and a sturdy grip to forcibly remove the testicles of every sheep you can douse with ether and toss hoof-first into your van does not mean you will definitely get sick from a Campylobacter jejuni infection, symptoms of which include "diarrhea...abdominal cramps, fever, nausea and vomiting." On the other hand, the halitosis and the distinct impression that people are avoiding you, I would imagine, are pretty standard across the board, but you're castrating lambs with your teeth, so what the fuck do you care? Life's already a party.

I particularly appreciate how the article frames the situation as if it were some big mystery. The two workers who came down with C. jejuni insisted that they hadn't eaten the types of foods typically associated with the infection, it explains, nor had they shared food or drink. "Hm...what do we have in common?" they must have asked themselves. "My horoscope did say that...no, but you're a Scorpio and I'm a Capricorn." His coworker starts to raise his hand, then slowly lets it drop, brow furrowed in frustration. "No, no...we both know not to eat Shirley's egg salad sandwiches." The silence must have hung then between them, palpable and thick, as when Hannibal Lecter waits for young Clarice to put together the pieces for herself. "You don't think it had anything to do with using our teeth to castrate those lambs with diarrhea, do you? I mean, I flossed after and everything..."


You must forgive my weakness regarding the title. I realize just how inaccurate it is, both regarding the gender and religious denomination of the species in question (sheep traditionally trend toward Buddhism, I'm told), as well as the specific nature of the genital manipulation, so to speak. But come on. How am I supposed to resist that kind of word play?   

Old Man Fight Prompts Ambivalence, Giggles

As is not uncommon with a leisure class that has known no real suffering, I tend to derive significant pleasure from the misfortune of others. Not genuine misfortune of real people, mind you--I'm not a dick--but I will confess that such plights in the abstract, when distilled to the slithering miasma of their vile essence, do make me smile. As fellow connoisseurs of this debased form of pleasure (after all, dear reader, you continue to peruse my literary tripe despite its clear lack of a moral compass), you too are aware of that special mixture of the taboo, the unexpected, and the absurd that the best of these evince. Exempli gratia: What do you get when you put a baby in a blender? An erection.

I'll give you a moment to let that one sink in.

Particularly when one takes into consideration the nature of my previous post, one wonders whether your dear author has indeed "gone off the reservation," a figure of speech I'm not entirely comfortable using, both because I'm not entirely sure I'm using it correctly, and even if I am, my white guilt makes me feel like I should contribute to a Native American scholarship program or something each time it's deployed, like putting nickels in a swear jar. Clink. There's your five cents, kid.

My point (oh, I have one), is that my frame of reference may have been inevitably skewed over the course of many, many years immersed in this sort of inappropriate tom-foolery. I know what I find funny, but of late, the better angel on my shoulder seems to be absent. Sure, I'll still laugh, but should I also feel guilty for laughing? Case in point:

I'm leaning towards not, but it's so difficult to be sure. The life-long grudge element of this fight (the two were rivals in the Canadian Football League roughly half a century ago, a league devoted primarily to moose hunting and being polite, I'm told) warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. I'm Irish, after all, and grudges are one thing we do very well; my father, for instance, never liked the British and held a personal grudge against Pope John Paul II for the better part of thirty years. Then there's the irony of the olive branch offering instigating violence, and most obviously, the fact that they both clearly have one foot in the grave already. No disrespect to either combatant, though--I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the first punch from Sir Olive Branch would have cleaned my clock (clink goes the nickel into the scholarship for watchmakers' children).

But, yeah, old men fighting on stage at public event, which then goes viral on the internet...I can see how maybe I should feel a twinge of guilt for giggling at their misfortune, at least in the abstract. But I'm tapping the glass of the instrument on my moral dashboard, and it's not responding. I think I bought a lemon.

As is so often the case in my life, I find myself torn and unable or unwilling to make a final decision. I turn to you, dear reader, to guide me from this maze. Should I find this funny or not? The suspense is killing me.

Perambulator Chaser

The longer I cling to life, the more the distinct patterns and arcs of our existence come into focus, perhaps as some sort of poor remuneration for the shame and disappointment such lingering engenders. Having largely survived the wedding season (a season which, much like the Westeros of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, lasted years and years), our playground taunts prove prescient once more: first comes love, then comes marriage, and wouldn't you know it, then comes baby in a ridiculously expensive baby carriage designed to optimize cognitive development by, I imagine, not dropping them on their soft little heads.

In other words, my friends are having babies now, and as the phenomenon has spread from my fringe acquaintances ever inward toward and into my inner circle, I find that some of the myths surrounding parenthood bear some qualification. One very good friend nicely described it as genuinely falling in love with one's son or daughter, and I see as much in the way they describe their boys and girls, the iPhone quick-draw with the latest dozen photos of baby, the catalogue of the week's firsts. I confess, however, that is has been refreshing to also hear the ragged edge to which each parent has been pushed, be it the gruff admission that (x) "can be a little fucker" or (y) being held at arm's length and passed to mother to prevent daddy from burying baby in the backyard.

This isn't some new iteration of my affection for inappropriate humor, I assure you. Rather, it's the comfort in knowing that having and raising a child is as everything else: goods and bads, highs and lows. It makes it seem more possible, more attainable, which right now is something I need, I think.

I hadn't even held a baby until about six months ago. The experience was one fraught with self-consciousness, cradling the little man's head and body tentatively as I arched the rest of my body forward, so that should howling Dothraki on horseback burst through the back door, my torso would shield the child from the onslaught of arrows. Now I get it when I watch my friends hold their babies at a strange angle in the crook of their arm, sometimes askew or even upside down, and while I would never do so with someone else's kid, I'm already developing sketches of the obstacle course I'll construct around the house when my little one is strapped to Hurley's back and wearing a Batman / Batgirl outfit.

But I want the other stuff, too, of course. The iPhone quick-draw, the novelty t-shirts that fit for the majority of a single afternoon before outgrown, the garbled utterance that, if you think about it, must have been "you're right, Dad, the Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship is a bunch of bullshit rooted ultimately in classism."

I joke regularly about the carnival of humiliations that emasculate me on a virtually daily basis, and I wonder if having another, utterly vulnerable human being to protect might be my last shot at the 'big time,' seeing as my glandular predispositions bar me from a luxurious pelt of chest hair or a Selleck-esque mustachio, those most recognizable and hallowed signs of masculinity. Then again, to even think so makes all too clear that I am not yet a parent. If there's one thing I've gleaned from my friends, it's that it isn't about you anymore. As an unrepentant narcissist, I find that a harrowing thought.

Still, I'd like to think I'm up to the challenge.