Judge This

I am the kind of guy who gets mad at people who think girls should be altar boys (or altar servers). Shortly afterwards, I am the kind of guy who makes fun of the people (who think girls should be altar servers) for spelling it "chauvenist." I laugh and laugh, and don't make my point very well, and they get incensed (liturgical zing).

The point is, aloof as I sometimes pretend to be, I am a boringly rigid traditional conservative who liked Ronald Reagan, doesn't think affirmative action makes sense, submits to no "rape/incest exception" to the no-abortion tenet, thinks that reason works, and that George Bush, in addition to being a lovable clumsy bumbler, is not only a good man, but also a good president. So sue me.

Most of the time, I like to laugh and have fun, because let's face it, having fun is more fun than... I don't know, not having fun? I am sarcastic and ironic and especially love the phrase "double-in-your-endo."

But there are times, let me tell you, when normally funny, off-the-cuff satirists get too into the liberal mindset and John Stewart forgets that what makes him great (and made him rich and famous) was not that he was a liberal, but that he was funny. There are literally millions of liberals, John. Very few bordering on none are also hilarious like you. So be funny and concentrate on that; it's what you're good at.

Then there are folks who get so caught up with what seems like a good idea that they lose all perspective, and cling onto a pretty mundane idea as if it were all that mattered. What's getting my goat this time is the commandment "Don't judge." Two Arrested Development quotes spring immediately to mind: "I don't think that one made it down the mountain," and "new-age feel-goodery."

Don't judge? Are you kidding me? Is that a message for your kids? How about "judge everyone," is that more realistic? "Don't talk to strangers." Hello? Don't go get in the guy's car when he offers you candy. Don't go on that mean neighbor's lawn. Don't ride your bike on that side of the tracks in the bad neighborhood.

Another example: why do we say that a first impression so important? Because everyone is judging everyone around them ALL THE TIME. It's how people work, and there's nothing wrong with that.

A girl walking down an alley in a bad neighborhood at night will not recognize a five-year old girl as a potential threat. A six-four guy on the other hand... she'll get nervous.

Why? Is she accusing that guy of being a thief or a rapist? No, she's just recognizing that a much higher percentage of rapes are perpetrated by men than girls.

And again, did you know that a significantly higher proportion of black men are violent criminals than white men? So if you're a little more nervous passing a black guy in an alley than a white guy, what does that say? That you're racist? That you think all black men are criminals? No. It means you recognize that a higher percentage of blah blah blah whatever.

Same thing with Arabs being terrorists. I mean, I guess it sucks for all those groups, getting sketchy looks from everyone all the time, but you know what? I'm a guy. A big, 6'6" guy. And if people are nervous when they pass me in a dark alley, I'm not offended. They know very few things about me: I am much bigger than they are, I could probably overpower them physically, I am out late at night, and I am a man. Odds (as far as they can tell) that I'm a rapist? Still not very good, but a lot higher than average. So, please, judge me (not that you need my permission, or that my wanting you to or not will affect you at all).

And you know what else is true? You're judging me right now. You're taking what I'm saying, digesting it, and arriving at conclusions about what I am and who I am. That's what people do. It's OK. That's why we have interviews, and dates, and conversations.

I am one of the people (I don't know how many there are these days- and I don't mean that condescendingly, I mean honestly, it could be 60% or 5%, I really don't know) who believe in absolute truth- that there is only one truth, and it's the same for everyone. What's right for one person is right for every other person and what's wrong for one person is wrong for everyone else.

I am not a person that will say, "ok, you believe that, I believe this, that's ok, we can both do that and not contradict each other." No, they do contradict each other. Jews and Christians and Buddhists and Muslims cannot all be right, because they disagree. This seems very obvious to me. If one person says A is B, and another person says A is not B, then one of them is wrong. It doesn't mean they're going to hell, or that their mother doesn't love them, or that they're going to suffer from premature baldness. It just means that they're wrong.

To deny that, it would seem to me, would be to deny reason. And if reason goes, then I'm confused, and I think most other people would be too. Maybe that's why a lot of people already are confused.

My sweet love dances with the stars. Seriously.

I would like to take this moment to say: I TOLD YOU SO!!!

The Dancing with the Stars finale was in. tense. last night. But that might be because I was so emotionally invested. But whatever, you can't blame me-- that was my future wife up there, for heaven's sake!

Tom Bergeron (or however you spell his last name) didn't give his final announcement as much lead-up time as I expected, and I had just taken a mouthful of wine. Needless to say, I couldn't swallow for the agonizing, slow seconds that followed. The screen was dark, I was leaning forward slightly. Love and fear were in my heart. I was frozen. I didn't breathe.

And then [!] the explosion of joy. I raised my arm in triumphant silence (I would have spewed my wine if I had yielded to the urge to cry out in jubilation). My tightly clenched fist shook twice. I was overcome with emotion.

Julianne Hough. I can't wait to marry this girl. What a doll! What a babe.

Fine. Fine. I admit it, she looks kind of dumb, kind of ditzy. I agree. She might be awkward and a little too giggly. Fine, a lot.

But since I'm never going to meet her anyway, I don't need to worry about the fact that she'd probably bore me to tears. I'm going to stick with the following truths: she is happy, bubbly, vivacious and wonderful; she is unbelievably gorgeous, especially when she's got that husky voice going (don't tell me it's from hours of mindless shrieking- we're past that, remember?); and she can move. Dancing is sexy, and she is pretty damn good at it.

Therefore I will revel in my love for her- you know, that breath-catching second-grade love that makes you clench your buttcheeks together in your chair and giggle. I'll watch her from afar, imagining that I'm not afraid to go right up and talk to her, and living a thousand charming encounters in my mind.

And in the meantime, I won't feel bad about lording it over you that I predicted her repeat victory after the first effing episode of the season. Because I had faith in the one I love.

[insert buttsquirm and giggle, mental image of my wedding with Julianne on top of a mountain, cherubs are hovering like hummingbirds and dropping white rose petals that cover the green grass where the white cuppola stands, Julianne and I are holding hands under her bouquet and giggling, possible butterfly kisses]

Recaps, retrievals, redolence

Before I get into anything else, here is the answer to the “One question picture quiz” from last Tuesday: A. My picture is a picture of me doing an imitation of a retarded man who lived two apartments down from us in college. This guy had a really bad speech problem, and generally sounded like the rudest impression of a retard you've ever heard, but a little more snarly and less intelligible. And one day, Randy (we named him Randy after one of my friends-- his real name was Sam) came over and gave us a Van Halen CD, and tried to explain to us that he didn't know who was on it because he couldn't see, and kept putting his hands over his eyes. We made fun of him for weeks behind his back, and never gave the CD back.

Is this true? Yes. Am I proud of it? That’s a stupid question. Does it make me an asshole? Hey, I don’t like your tone. Besides, I was an asshole long before some lonely tard cruised up to my porch and started distracting me from what I was doing, which was cutting class, drinking the morning away and hitting on cute freshmen girls.

Speaking of drinking all the time, my Thanksgiving break was very relaxing, even though I found out Wednesday afternoon that I don’t get paid for skipping work on Friday and if I don’t work eight hours the day before a holiday, I don’t even get paid for the holiday. So that blows. Still, I said “eff it, I’m done,” and left at 1:30 on Wednesday. And got to work at 11:00 this morning.

In the meantime, I hung out with my family in Michigan, reading by day and drinking by night. Here are a few highlights:

We stopped for McDonalds on the way Wednesday evening, and I ate a Big Mac, a crispy honey mustard chicken snack wrap, large fries, a large coke, a McChicken sandwich and a triple-thick chocolate milk shake. My bowel movements were irregular for the rest of the weekend.

On Thanksgiving morning, my dad brought down a deer, a one-and-a-half-year-old doe which I thought was two-and-a-half. I was shouted down, the deer was strung up, the kids gathered round, the fire was near, the bowels were left in (Chronic Wasting Disease fear), the skin was taken off, the carcass was taken apart, the meat was cut out, and prepositions were all about. General merriment, slight disgust, primal satisfaction, and some hunger ensued. We cut some of the more tender rib and tenderloin meat off the ribcage and roasted little pieces on spits over the fire.

My hilarious niece amused us as we stuffed ourselves, referring to hors d’oeuvres as “duverves,” and pumpkin pie as “punkmin pie” or “punkpin pie,” alternatively.

I read two novels in one day (Saturday), which I think is a first for me, though I could be wrong. Tony Hillerman’s “Skinwalkers,” and James Patterson’s “When the Wind Blows.” Neither was that good, but I’d recommend “Skinwalkers” if you like Indians, police, witchcraft or murder.

We read in the paper on Saturday that Thanksgiving morning (when my dad got his deer) a hunter had been shot in the head with a shotgun about ten miles from where we were.

Interesting statistic: there are more men in the woods with rifles in Michigan on Opening Day of the hunting season than there were men in the Allied invasion force on D-Day.

The girls beat us two nights in a row at Trivial Pursuit. No excuses. It is amazing, though, how impatient old people get when they play this game. And disturbing how much toddlers love to put small plastic game pieces in their mouth—not that I’m worried about choking, but that we can’t play when some kid is eating the dice.

Grammy burned the shrimp chowder on Friday. Damn it. I was really looking forward to that, and we just had to throw it all away, a giant cauldron of scorched chowder.

So we came back yesterday, picked up a bunch of gyros and subs and garlic fries and watched the best Bears game I’ve seen in a while. Fanfrickintastic. I think ever weekend should be four days long.

Thanksgiving is English for Eucharist

Everyone is putting up their Thanksgiving posts. Mostly memories of past holidays, and mostly bad memories of past bad holidays. And a few pre-emptive bad memories, when someone predicts how awkward and awful his weekend will be, and how full of arguments and dramatic confrontations and unpleasant, understated, tight-lipped heart-to-hearts about the gay brother of the brother-in-law.

And I have to say, I can’t relate. I don’t have family issues. At all. We (my brothers and sisters and I) are so close we don’t even think about being close. We hang out all the time, we have dinner together on Sundays most weeks. We’re softball teammates, drinking buddies, and best friends.

I don’t know, maybe it sounds like bragging. Maybe it is bragging. But indulge me here. These people are the best.

I’m leaving in a couple of hours for Michigan, where we will hunt, lie around, drink and eat. I’m leaving work early to grab my brother and sister in the city (with my brother’s car), and we’re going to hit the road. And it’s going to be a blast.

I was reminded of good family by this post, and I think it’s because it mentions prayer, and recognizes prayer as an important part of coming together and staying together as a family. We pray in my family. We’re real, honest-to-goodness Catholics who go to Mass every Sunday, and believe that there are such things as mortal sins and hell.

And it’s not morbid, it’s glorious. I’ll say a prayer for all of you who don’t know where you are in your life, and maybe you can say a prayer for me. Happy thanksgiving.

Don’t even get me started on my extended family (again, no issues, pure bliss). This is an email exchange I just had with my cousin who delights me.

Her: hey, I just wrote my own defense of poesie. Take a look and see if you agree.

"What is the good of reading?" I cannot leave a question like that unanswered. It would be a betrayal of everything I believe in. So, I am sorry if you are over it and are not interested, but I have to respond with the answer that came to me while I was (guess what) reading.

Reading is beneficial in too many ways to enumerate, but I will give the top four.

1. Superficially. (I have to put this first so that hopefully you will forget about it by the time you get to the end.) People will look at a person who is reading a book, and will think "wow, this person is intelligent, sensitive, and cultured! Cool!" This is, of course, not a good reason to read, but it doesn't hurt the cause.

2. Practically. Reading will help with grammar, spelling and style. Since our use of language and communication is one of the things that separate the human from the animal, doesn't it make sense that we should speak and write this language correctly? And really, there is no better way to get in the habit of speaking properly than by reading.

3. Intellectually. Reading stimualtes the mind, and sharpens the imagination of the reader. It leaves the reader with a sense of interest and wonderment in the world around him. The habitual reader will question theories, explore ideas, and will think inventively and creatively. A reading mind is an active mind that will never go dull.

4. Truthfully/Philosophically. (This is the most important reason). Reading provides a completely unique creative escape, that cannot be experienced through any other activity such as watching tv. One might think that watching a movie, which creates a new world of imagination, would supply the watcher with as much creative scope and intellectual fuel as a book. This is incorrect. A movie spoon feeds the reader every single aspect of the created world. Nothing is left to the character's imagination. The watcher cannot imagine how the characters look, how they speak, how they interact with each other. Everything is decided for them by the moviemaker and forced upon them. When reading however, the writer and the reader combine forces to create a completely personal experience. The reader can provide the emotions and the subtle inflections which transform a plain volume of paper and ink into a different world. The reader is the partial creator of this world, since the writer is limited as to what he can portray through the written word. The writer provides the base, the walls and the roof. The reader enters this structure, and provides his own individual embellishment and decoration. In other words, (and I CANNOT help using this cliche. It's really screaming to be used.) The reader makes the house a home.

Me: Very nice. I am going to put it on the internet.
Isn't it fun being smart? Seriously, I can't imagine how boring it would be to be dumb.
ps - guess who is leaving for Michigan in an hour and a half. I'll give you a hint-- it's me.

Her: don't put it on the internet!!! People will plagiarize me!

Me: I'm totally putting it on the internet. I'm not even joking a little bit.

A one question picture quiz

Someone gave me an idea for a post (ok fine, it was myself). What is the deal with that picture you've got up?

Well, I'll give you multiple choice:

A. It was a picture of me doing an imitation of a retarded man who lived two apartments down from us in college. This guy had a really bad speech problem, and generally sounded like the rudest impression of a retard you've ever heard, but a little more snarly and less intelligible. And one day, Randy (we named him Randy after one of my friends-- his real name was Sam) came over and gave us a Van Halen CD, and tried to explain to us that he didn't know who was on it because he couldn't see, and kept putting his hands over his eyes. We made fun of him for weeks behind his back, and never gave the CD back.

B. I am playing charades, trying to act out "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

C. I just got maced. But it was really funny mace.

D. I am jokingly covering my eyes as I retell the story of finding my roommate making out with my friend from Chicago that he didn't really know. And the making out and subsequent finding-by-me had happened the night before. On the exact patio I was standing on in the picture. Mere seconds after the picture was taken, my roommate's embarrassment turned to anger and he tackled me into the wall, irreparably tearing my shirt.

E. I am wiping tears of laughter from my face at the prospect of my roommate making out with retarded Randy who lives two apartments down.

Stupid things to write, I guess

I just finished an article that includes the following excerpt:

"But your [Christmas] presents might not be safe even when you get them home, tucked on the top shelf of the closet where Jimmy and Jane won’t find them. Just like the crooks knew there were presents in the car, the crooks know there are presents in the house. And crooks love presents."

I feel a little bit bad, because I have no idea if that is true or not, but I'm learning more and more each day that good journalism consists chiefly of making shit up, but making sure it sounds believable. Like "crooks love presents." Do they? I don't know. But presents are fun, right? So why wouldn't they love presents? I place the burden of proof on the skeptic, not the reporter who made the statement. In fact, I think I'm going to go back and add "and crooks love cake too, even more than presents. Except crooks that are on the Atkins diet."

Speaking of retarded things to say, I would like to take this opportunity to point out a few phrases that many, MANY bloggers (including many good ones) use way too often:

"Blog fodder," as in "an excursion to the Hungarian rave with that old guy that had given me a roofie on our blind date sounded like a bad idea, but it would make great blog fodder, so I went for it."

"Bated breath," as in "I am super-duper busy this week, so it'll take a little bit for me to post the pictures of the wrestling party in the pool full of chili we had for halloween. I know you're all waiting with bated breath..." Except sometimes people spell it "baited breath," which makes me want to knee-drop them all the more.

"In other news," used just as a cute segway. Well, I've got news for you. A segway is not a cliche, it's a gyroscoped scooter that Gob Bluth and dorky policemen ride.

Over the weekend, I didn't do anything interesting. I ate crackers and cheese for dinner on Friday, and then drank a couple bottles of wine and watched TV by myself. On Saturday, I watched football all day and did about eight loads of laundry. When 7:00 rolled around and I realized nothing was going on, I got real hyper and drunk on gin and cleaned my room for about two hours. Sunday I went to Mass, ate four hot dogs, and went to sister and brother-in-laws to watch the (disappointing) Bears game and drink three manhattans, three glasses of wine a bourbon and two doses of Drambuie. Oh yeah, and we ate dinner. Well, that sounds depressing.

Today, I laughed and laughed at this post. Really, it's worth your time.

The internet is a funny place

For my friend John's intermediate (Sophomore level) French class requirement, which he was finishing up second semester of senior year (this spring), he had to make a video for a project he was working on. Our other roommate's brother had visited a month before and left us with a new awe for four things: Right Guard RGX body spray (still use that stuff), the sexual attractiveness (to coeds) of a college graduate who plays guitar, the potential for screwy relationships with hot women from broken homes, and the French rap song La Belle et Le Bad Boy, by MC Solaar.

Naturally, for his project, John decided to make a music video of La Belle et Le Bad Boy, consisting chiefly of jiggly shots of him walking down the hallways of a recording studio and lip-synching. But there were other scenes too, including a shooting, a funeral, cars with underlighting at night, and a shot of the two young lovers (two more of my friends) counterfeiting money and doing lines of fake cocaine off the coffee table.

And now? The thing just blew up on YouTube. 51,000 hits or something? (I can’t check because YouTube is blocked at work.) And guess what the number one result on a Google search “MC Solaar La Belle Le Boy”?

This video took him a few hours to put together and now he’s practically famous. I was almost in the shooting scene, but I didn’t want to put down my bourbon because I had to finish it before my baseball game (what? I wasn’t pitching that day).

But I think I deserve a little acknowledgement in the credits for the “fake cocaine off the coffee table” scene. I guess you’ll need a backstory for that.

At the end of the fall semester, at a flag football game (which we won—actually we won the whole shebang—championship, yeah bitches), John broke his finger… really fecked it up as a matter of fact: the middle bone of his middle finger was snapped into four pieces, and it was bent directly sideways. The two of us were collaborating to stop a kickoff return on the play, and he got his hand caught in the flag belt and twisted around. When he turned to me and showed me, I told him he should get a sub (I think maybe he knew that). And then I yelled over to the sideline that one of the girls should drive him to the hospital (I was into the game).

After a sort-of botched surgery (his finger is still kind of crooked), he got a prescription for Laritab, which is basically Vicodin to the third power. Strong stuff. One of those days when we were all sitting around drinking and various people we didn’t invite were coming into our apartment to drink (there were a lot of those days in those days), John thought it would be a good idea to grind one of the pills up and snort it.

He went and got one of the pills (gigantic! 1000 milligrams aka a gram), and set to dicing it with a paring knife on a kitchen plate. We took a few minutes chopping and grinding, and a few more minutes finding a twenty dollar bill for authenticity’s sake. But when push came to shove, there was still a great deal of awkward laughing and “Are you fucking serious?” and more laughing and “I’ll do it if you do it” and then awkward seriousness, and then a little more giggling.

I had never done drugs of any kind, except for antibiotics and Capri Sun, and I wasn’t interested in doing any, but I just wasn’t sure if this qualified. But after enough mooning, I grabbed the bill, bent down and snerked up a column of powder.

It burned. Not because it was acidic or anything, it was just a bunch of powder up my nose. Ouch. So I sniffed a few times, took a drink of beer, and sat back. Everyone took their turns, and that was that. It didn’t make me feel funny, or feel good, or feel bad.

So the episode was pretty much forgotten. Every once in a while, one of us would whip out some aspirin or Vitamin C and convince some freshman to do it because we though that was pretty funny, but soon the novelty wore off, and we let it go.

Until they made that video, and the video made it big. Now, if you please, I would like credit for being the first person to snort a line of imitation coke off the coffee table that so many thousands have since seen.