Nutrition 101: Sainthood and The Case For Richard Holbrooke

Hi,

Today is the fourth day in a row that I have attempted to not ingest unnecessary amounts of pork, especially the kind cooked in the delicate blend of butter, vegetable oil and left over ham fat used at the place where I pretty much ate breakfast everyday for the last year. The fact that Morir Sonando is still closed is starting to make me feel like I have willpower. Alas, here I am eating a delicious "everything" bagel with cream cheese and pesto on a paper plate.

What?

A paper plate?

Oh, and, I got a paper cup for this coffee too.

I mean, I guess the coffee cup I didn't really notice cuz that's a pretty common thing to be getting coffee in. A paper cup that it.

But a paper plate? I haven't used a paper plate since my 11th birthday party back in 1843.

Actually, those were styrofoam plates.

What's that? Oh, you've never heard of styrofoam?

Well, why don't you bring your pretty little self over here and sit on my knee for a while ...

See, you kids may not know this, but a lot of people, including yours truly, used to consume all manner of foodstuffs using plates and cups made of a material whose chemical makeup is a long chain hydrocarbon with every other carbon connected to a phenyl group (the name given to the aromatic ring benzene, when bonded to complex carbon substituents) containing the chemical elements carbon and hydrogen, which, because it is an aromatic hydrocarbon, burns with an orange-yellow flame, giving off soot, as opposed to non-aromatic hydrocarbon polymers such as polyethylene, which burn with a light yellow flame (often with a blue tinge) and no soot. Complete oxidation of polystyrene produces only carbon dioxide and water vapor. Because of its chemical inertness, polystyrene is used to fabricate containers for chemicals, solvents, and foods.

What? Was that a little confusing?

Okay. No problem. Here's a visual example of what I'm talking about:

You're welcome. Anyway, apparently it took a few years for everyone to realize that good ol' Polystyrene (Ed. Note: Styrofoam is actually a brand name. If this confuses you, just think about Kleenex) never stood a chance of biodegrading in the stream where we unceremoniously threw our garbage after family picnics. And, if you have time over Christmas or whatever sucker for advertising holiday you're celebrating next week, you should totally ask your grandfather about how hard it was to successfully eat a Greek salad on one of these gems of DOW Chemical (who will soon be celebrating the International Year Of Chemistry) engineering without accidentally also digesting some amount of the chemical formula (C8H8)n. Assuming grandpa's not suffering from memory loss due to Alzheimer's, I'm sure he remembers how the styrofoam plate would be so easily defiled under the brunt of even the least expensive serrated plastic butter knife (of which Aunt Phyllis would conveniently purchase 1000 count boxes of for the everyday low Caldor price of $1.99) and thus upon cutting your cucumber into smaller cubes you'd end up with a crumbling mess of little white styrofoam balls getting all mixed up into your feta cheese. The only solution of course being to transfer your salad onto a fresh styrofoam plate because, as Aunt Sarah would say: "We've got plenty!" And then Uncle Phil, the one who used to be Aunt Phyllis, would chime in: "They were two for one over at Bradlees! I bought six cases." And then Aunt Sarah would say: "Yeah, we can hardly walk in the basement anymore. We've got enough styrofoam plates to feed all of Africa on." And then Uncle Phil would retort: "You should be thankful I'm not wasting our money." And then Aunt Sarah would say: "I should be thankful to eat on an actual piece of porcelain someday." And then Uncle Phil would retort: "Think of the money we are saving on water!" Anyway, if you you can't imagine this sort of conversation going on and on, you should watch more sitcoms. For the rest of us, I'll be moving right along now to say that eventually everyone got tired of constantly having indigestion on account of all of the styrofoam we were accidentally ingesting on account of some really great advertising by the Greek Feta Cheese Board. Some of you may remember those ads. If you're too young, suffice to say that you could hardly get through an episode of Cheers or a rerun of All In The Family without sitting through 60, 30 and 15 second variations of ads about the health benefits of Feta Cheese. So, of course, because Ted Danson was so popular and Carroll O'Connor was so funny, pretty much everybody with a pulse was watching these commercials and constantly eating Feta Cheese. Off of styrofoam plates. Maybe you see where this is going? Yup. Soon, alarming headlines throughout the US read: "Mass Epidemic Of Accidental Styrofoam Ingestion On Account Of Eating Of Feta Cheese". It's true. Every paper in the US had that same headline one day. You can imagine the ensuing backlash and protesting of DOW headquarters and the relevant suppliers of super-products. Which of course explains why stalwart Connecticut based retailers Clador and Bradlees went out of business and forced people throughout New England to stop using styrofoam as part of their dining experience. The astute among you will likely surmise that they switched to ... that's right, paper plates. And now I'm here in a state that's not even part of New England and I'm being forced to participate in mass deforestation all because I'm trying to not eat less healthy and the people that own this cafe fired their illegal immigrant dishwasher and started shopping at one of the seventeen 99 cent stores on Havemeyer St. between Grand and Broadway because they finally realized that giving away internet access doesn't make them enough money. Wow. Apparently everyone really does win in a free market.

And speaking of winners, I'm not even going to comment on the fact that I just overheard a woman say that her boyfriend lost 100 pounds in 60 days by only consuming juice.

In today's episode of "Rock And Roll Saved My Soul, Or So I Hope"... I offer you the following historical nugget from our good friends at VH1 that's sure to impress all of your annoying nieces and nephews over the forthcoming Holiday: 'In 1981, fifteen-year-old Christopher Tyrer sees the metal group Saxon in Wolverhampton, England and head-bangs along to their set. When he wakes up the following morning, Tyrer discovers that he is paralyzed down one side and can't speak. His condition deteriorates and dies on Christmas Day. A coroner rules it was "death by misadventure."'

And finally, here's a human interest story that's actually kind of interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/man-spends-year-of-unempl_n_798311.html

Oh no, wait, this is the human interest story I thought was interesting:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/16/secret-service-agents-que_n_797768.html

Oh no, wait, I think it was actually this one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/16/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks_n_797801.html

Oh no, wait, this is actually the one I was thinking of, even though it's gonna be way too long for you:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/obamas-war-on-wikileaks-a_b_797612.html

Mwah!

M

P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.P.S. http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following "P.S." completes my Christmas shopping list ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following digital representation of a receipt entitles me to an 8x10 autographed photo of Tony Hawk.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Speaking of online Christmas shopping for the greedy sonofabitchofaboss that you'd naively hoped would not make you want to barf every time you walk into the office to find him glued to his 81" iMacProBookAir perusing the finer details of Facebook pages of women half his age ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. You should totally use the convenient link to amazon.com provided here, free of charge by me, in the bottom right margin of this page to buy all those cases of overpriced wine.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. dhjlsfkgsyoiufghs.dfgjh;sdfigsdjfgsdfigsfdgjsdfgusdhgsdfgnlsjdfglsdfgwer'qfdhawkjfbdskfgf.

Ensoulment 101: Today I Relived Mother's Day And Still Don't Feel Any Better About It

Hi,

Let me get straight to the point okay? Just what in the heck were you thinking? I mean, why is the Philadelphia level on THPS2 for iPhone so hard? Right. Yeah, don't get me started.

And speaking of white people who have been described as black, on Monday the 2nd to last POTUS was hanging out in or around Love Park where he defended himself against the same observations, for which no cable network ever paid me a few hundred thousand dollars a year, that I've been making for years.

In unrelated news, when I was a little boy I had what you might call: "A Big Mouth". In retrospect, one can point to some pent up emotional aggression that manifested itself unintentionally violent outbursts of confused sadness. Or something. Anyway until I, depending on your perspective, either grew up, started listening to my mom or learned to use things like drugs and alcohol to suppress a consistently nagging notion that I didn't like Holden Caulfield because he reminded me of myself I just kind of assumed that everyone's mom said things to the affect of: "You Better Learn To Think Before You Speak" and "That Mouth Of Yours Is Gonna Get You Into A Lot Of Trouble". Apparently, I was wrong. Apparently, not everyone had a mom that warned them against not using the general principles of logic when expressing what may or may not be a valid frustration. Or maybe everyone did, but not everyone listened. Anyway, here is today's installment of: "Kids Grow Up To Say The Darndest Things As Embedded Within This Title Of Today's Installment Of Kids Grow Up To Say The Darndest Things In The Form Of A HyperLink".

In other news, today's episode of "Next Blog" pretty much speaks for itself.

Oh, and speaking of the walls that birth yourself tomorrow...

Some guy has been taking a big crap all over twitter because the digital representation of a bunch of ideas he had is now available on something I spent three days picking out a new icon for.

Oh, wait. I need a tissue.

Okay, I'm back. While I was in the bathroom getting a tissue, I also took a crap. Actually, I left a crap. You know what I mean. Unless you are foreign. In which case you may not say the opposite of what you mean about what you're doing when you're going to the bathroom.

Speaking of saying exactly what you mean to say all the time and not just because you are thankful for the opportunity to say things on TV that aren't true, I wonder if this guy...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/15/michael-steele-defends-gingrich-kenyan_n_718774.html

... is bummed out about this?:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/15/craigslist-adult-services-shutdown-congress_n_718803.html

Oh, and BTW, as if you need more reminders about Slick Willie's reign of terror, you should watch the following video past the two minute mark. If you don't care about reliving another decade where I didn't get famous and are simply interested in some insight into the thought process of the woman who just may take over Joe Biden's old job in Delware, you'll get all that in the first two minutes. She's the good looking one who is not black.

Finally, I got a new tea kettle yesterday. It's orange. It looks great on the stove. It's also broken. Yes. Already. Son of a bitch.

M

P.S. Two years ago today, the guy who wrote this song with Roger Waters died:

P.P.S. Four years before that, the really tall guy in this band died:

Minimalism 101: Pete Sessions, NRCC Chair, Stumbles, Turns To Bush Agenda When Asked How GOP Would Cut Deficit

Hi,

The girls sitting next to me are talking about how they "think it's really healthy" that they don't really confide in each other so much anymore since they both have boyfriends. Now they're saying things like "I hate growing up."

Anyway, I can't remember what I did so far today. Most likely it involved drooling and or a round or two of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. I got over 100,000 points once, but I forgot to save that session. Now every time I turn the game on it says that my highest score is only 96,372. It's pretty annoying. I'd rather it said the 111,234 points that I got the other day but forgot to save.

Since you apparently have nothing better to do with your time, how about we play a little bit of "next blog" ...

Today's installment of "next blog" finds us in the fantastical world of Victoria. This self described artist and mom is also a big believer in fairy tales. Apparently, she is also a fairy tale maker. And she thinks there's nothing in this great fairy tale of world quite like a home grown breakfast followed by a mother's hug. Next time I go "next blog"-ing, remind me to wear a bib to catch all of the puke I keep puking on the only button down shirt I was able to save from when my apartment burnt down last week. Oh, I meant the week before last. My sense is that the statute of limitations for being felt sorry for is about to run out. I must say, it was pretty fun while it lasted. I hated that awesome turn table I used to own anyway.

Hang on. Someone is sending me a text message.

Okay. I'm back. And I just got an email. Apparently, my ship has come in! This guy named kenny-huynh@sbcglobal.net has written to tell me that: "1,000,000.00 GBP has been awarded to your email ID by British Tobacco Promo"

And all I have to do to get the money is: "Send details for claims Purpose"

NAME..

OCCUPATION..

COUNTRY..

You think I should include my mailing address too? Maybe he'll just send me the money via paypal once he knows what country I live in? Anyway, I bet you wish you were me and opened your email inbox to find that your ship had finally come in huh?

In related news, it seems that the rumors are true. Dwayne Wade, alpha dog of the team that everyone is super excited to see Lebron James play on next year, is a terrorist.

In unrelated news. The greatest basketball player in the history of people who make my mom say things like "See, he seems like a nice black man..." thinks that Kobe Bryant is also a nice black man, and agrees that I am definitely taller than Derek Fisher.

Anyway, since you asked, I finally culled through the more than 328 resumes and cover letters submitted for The Old Fashioned Ladies Club regarding a job posting that I never even posted. Written in what appears to be Martian, here is the most creative of the cover letters:

Since the resume above was obviously from a proud graduate of SVA's "MFA Designer As Author" degree, I've decided to "hire" the following intern. Don't tell him that his brother is giving us money to pay him though. It's important that he feel like he's actually getting some kind of reward for actually attempting to apply himself. Anyway, here is his resume. I'm sure you'll agree that he is worthy of such an arrangement:

And speaking of Eurythmics, The Olsen Twins and Human Punching Bags ... you shouldn't need me to tell you that The Old Fashioned Ladies Club debuts at on Wednesday, August 18th. And as soon as _________ gets off his butt and starts reading HTML For Dummies, we'll have a website that does more than just win an award for minimalism but also gives you some information about what it is we'll be doing. For now, enjoy my award winning adventure into the world of verbosity.

Oh crap, I gotta go. I have a date with the sun in Union Square.

Mwah!

M

Misogyny 101: Priv Lit and The Case For Eyes And Smiles

(ED Note: If you don't have a lot of time on your hands today or you like Mexicans from Brazil, just skip to the P.S. section. You're welcome.

Additional ED Note: Man there were a lot of typos in this first draft. Sorry.)

Hi,

It took so long for me to get online here at the other cafe I sometimes go to which is the same one where I may or may not have gotten food poisoning back on Father's Day that I had almost forgotten everything I was planning to write about today. Lucky for you I have a near photographic memory for anything I want to imagine through the lens of my own desires, needs and/or experiences, just like you do, except I'm clearly grown up enough to admit it and you still need people to say things like "De-Nial ain't just a river in Egypt!" about 17 times a week.

Anyway, this four eyes with the lame t-shirt from the 2006 Urban Outfitters "I am trying to fit in" line of men's clothing is apparently my competition in something called the blogosphere:

I wonder how many people click on his amazon.com link conveniently located in the right hand margin of his page? Maybe it's more than me? Maybe we could team up and help one another make more money, have more success and together find a little piece of something called happiness? Or I could tie a bunch of these flimsy straws together and use them to strangle him from behind while no ones looking at him or his dumb blog.

In related news, if you can name the sayer of the forthcoming quote on a topic that unless you're totally freaking stoned, you'll probably figure out for yourself, which actually makes a kind of, you know, sense, I'll buy you a gum ball.

“Well, if we’re talking about pot, I’m not for the legalization of pot because I think that that would just encourage, especially, our young people to think that it was OK to go ahead and use it. And I’m not an advocate for that. However, I think that we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts. And if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems that we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do and not concentrate on such a, relatively speaking, minimal problem that we have in the country.”

In related news, unless it's possible to have a person that is only .97 of an actual person, I'm pretty sure that Pat Buchanan is in the market for a new math tutor:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=153417

And now, for today's installment of "This Has To Be The Worst Idea Anyone Ever Thought Of!' ...

http://www.thegreatamericanappareldiet.com/

Which reminds me of a completely different article I am only about half way finished reading and may or may not have provided the preceding link which may or may not represent the views of the writer or editorial slant of imbasile.com.

By the way, if you've never visited imbasile.com, you should totally check it out. Not only is it a great resource for news analysis, a greater resource for gloating over the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers championship and an infinitely greater resource on where to see great electric bass playing in NYC, occasionally the dude who writes it posts photos of himself and, while it may seem surprising to hear from me, he just keeps getting better looking with age. One grey hair at a time. And I'm sure he never wakes up and spends 20 minutes in front of the mirror counting them.

Anyway, we (and by we I mean I) were talking about where I got the link to the article about all these women who've decided that they don't want to look pretty anymore. I got that from this article which was incidentally sent to me by a very pretty girl. Since this is a family orientated enterprise, I can't actually tell you the name of the website where I am reading the article but if you click anywhere on this the lower third of this sentence you will be taken to the article. The only thing I find problematic about the article is that it took so long (something on the order of six paragraphs) to use the word problematic. Fortunately for all of you "English As A First Language That You Needed To Get A Degree In So That You Could Teach It To Other People Who Were Basically Born Able To Speak English", the author does get in subsequent short order to the journalistic equivalent of a TKO: "... at once ..."

Whenever you see "... at once ..." you know there's a real point that's about to be made. Actually two points in one. It's kind of like when you play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on your iPhone for 3 hours a day and you start combining your kick-flips with your hand plants because you know that you're going to get double the points. So of course, I figured this writer (if you can call someone who isn't actually published on paper by an actual publishing company with an office with windows and a mail room a writer... and an EDITOR!!!!) was really gonna knock my socks off with a brand new point when I saw the "... at once ..." coming from like, 3 sentences away. On the topic of something called "recessionista spending" ...

"Hiding familiar motives behind ambient lighting and organic scented candles, the genre at once masks and promotes the destructive expectations of traditional femininity and consumer culture, making them that much harder to fight."

Which of course wasn't really a new point at all but rather more like the entire point of the article.

Along with the forthcoming overarching point making quote that, as a card carrying life-coach to people like former Gen. McChrystal, proves Ms. Sanders and Ms. Brown are unmaried communists and should be deported back to the Upper West Side immediately:

"As one purveyor of high-end life-coaching services (who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous) comments, “In our line of business, we have a saying: ‘Don’t fix the client.’” Once mentors teach clients to attain freedom and enlightenment, they can say goodbye to the high premiums they earn by telling clients they need more help."

In unrelated news, when asked to comment on the above referenced article and how the strong female role models of his youth helped shape the life and work of the greatest singer in rock-n-roll, Mick Jagger responded by quoting his own literary gem from the album "Beggars Banquet":

Stray Cat Blues

I hear the click-clack of your feet on the stairs

I know you're no scare-eyed honey.

There'll be a feast if you just come upstairs

But it's no hanging matter

It's no capital crime

I can see that you're fifteen years old

No I don't want your I.D.

And I can see that you're so far from home

But it's no hanging matter

It's no capital crime

Oh yeah, you're a strange stray cat

Oh yeah, don'tcha scratch like that

Oh yeah, you're a strange stray cat

bet your mama don't know you scream like that

I bet your mother don't know that you spit like that.

You look so weird and you're so far from home

but you really miss your mother

Don't look so scared I'm no mad-brained bear

But it's no hanging matter

It's no capital crime

Bet your mama don't know you scream like that

I bet your mother don't know that you bite like that.

You say you got a friend, she's wilder than you

Well, why don't you bring her upstairs

If she's so wild she can join in too

But it's no hanging matter

It's no capital crime

I bet your mother don't know that you bite like that

I'll bet she never saw you scratch my back

##

In related news, you should definitely mark your calendar now for the debut of The Old Fashioned Ladies Club on August 18, 2010 (at Rockwood Music Hall's fairly bland looking but good enough Stage 2) where I'll be reading War And Peace in it's entirety.

And speaking of misogyny, you should also mark your calendars for Tuesday July 6th at 8pm and come on down to Rockwood Music Hall's glorious new stage where I'll be playing bass for the totally self absorbed songwriter who doesn't even have a new song for the show, Misty Boyce, who will be opening for some forgettable guy who's name is easier to remember if you think of the writers of the four main books in the New Testament. Following that guy will of course be the Casey Shea band. But don't let the order of billing fool you. We/he will still technically be the opening act.

Mwah!

M

P.S. ...

P.P.S. Thanks Vince.

Voluntary Attention 101: Bottom Up Stimuli and The Case For Who Gives A Crap About Dickens Anyway?

Late breaking news...

As I type this, I'm listening to the latest Brian Lehrer show while watching this:

M

P.S. "You using the whole fist, Doc?" -Fletch

P.P.S. dhlsdjkhfsudflsdjvisudfhlsdjhgsuhgishdfkajd;f

Procrastination 101: The Speed At Which Your Blog Loads Is Critical To Attracting More Readers To Your Blog and The Case For Banksy For President

Hi,

So far today I have procrastinated writing in the following ways:

1. Spent 16 minutes thoroughly investigating the ways I can get stuff for free by using my Amex Delta SkyMiles credit card.

1a. Being disappointed that I can't just cancel my netflix account and start a new in order to get 1,500 Delta SkyMiles.

1b. Being further disappointed in the knowledge that the extra 1,500 miles would have given me just enough miles to buy a ticket anywhere in the continental US.

2. Spent roughly 5 minutes staring off into space on the sidewalk of Metropolitan Ave.

2a. Being disappointed in myself for not quitting smoking.

3. Spent 3 minutes wondering if I should get a hair cut this week.

4. Spent 6 minutes reading an article about how other people procrastinate in their work.

4a. Being amused by a video my old friend Marshall sent me.

5. Spent 1 minute thanking God that I'm not the kind of person that gets tricked into clicking on links that don't go anywhere.

5a. Being amused that you are.

6. Spent 7 seconds wondering why Tony Hawk spends so much time telling other people what he's doing with his time.

7. Spent 7 minutes reading about various ways I can make this page load faster.

7a. Being proud that because of my superior instincts, I was already doing all of them.

8. Spent negative 8 seconds wondering if you're going to come to my gig at Banjo Jim's on May 18th at 11:30.

8a. The one where I'll be playing songs no one has ever heard.

8b. The one where Steely Dan is gonna be my band.

9. Currently spending however many seconds it takes me to type this sentence wondering if I really shouldn't just go outside and enjoy the sunshi...