Mimery

This guy has no respect for Marcel. He says,

I’m sure that he was a nice guy and that his dog loved him, but mimes have forever secured second place right behind bagpipe players in the line to hell.

I actually have no problem with this statement, for almost all mimes and almost all bagpipers. I disagree for Marcel, though. He was not “a mime.” He was THE mime. This is why he’s the only mime anybody can name. While I do hate all other mimes, I think there should be an allowance for the guy at the top of the heap. I think it would be great if mimery were a sin, and the best mime in the world (who used to be Marcel Marceau, got some kind of papal exemption.

Furthermore, I’m sure there’s some bagpiper out there with some Dizzy Gillespie cheeks who deserves the same treatment.

Goodbye, other Marcel

Marcel Marceau, the second most famous Marcel (after Proust) is dead.

In honor of his art, I will be miming the rest of this post.












































farewell, Monsieur Marceau

I hate my friends

Many of my friends are currently in China for a wedding. I am not. I have to work. This makes me jealous. This morning they called from China, at some unforgivably early hour. I didn't pick up, but on my machine, they said:

Lynne: Marcel . . .Marcel. . Fuck you for not picking up your goddamn phone!
Al: Fuck you!
Liz: [laughter]
Lynne: Fuck you, man! I don't care if it's 6:55 A.M. in the morning, we're calling you from China!
Al: China!
Lynne: China!
Liz: China. China!
[pause]
Lynne: Yeah. . .we're all soaking wet, but we had a good time.
Al: That's how we travel. . .wet.
Lynne: Yeah, we're soaking wet. Somebody pushed someone in the pool who pushed someone else in the pool.
Al: Who pushed who in the pool. . .who pushed who?
Lynne: Who pushed someone in the pool. I don't know! I wasn't involved.

Alright, I'm going to hang up and call you back again. . .Fuck you for not answering the phone.

They called back a minute later:

Lynne: Marcel, my feelings are so hurt, I can't believe you didn't answer the phone.
Al: My feelings are hurt, too.
Lynne: Man, we're calling you from China!
Liz: China!
Lynne: China!
Al: China!
Liz: China!
Lynne: China!
[pause]
Al: Fuck you!
Lynne: Fuck you!
Liz: Fuck you!
Why won't you answer the phone? What are you, sleeping? We're calling you from China!
Liz: Chiiiiinnnnnaaa!
Al: We're wet. We're not wasted.
Lynne: We're awesome.
Liz: We're wasted, not wet.
Lynne: And we're wasted. And awesome! And we're calling you from China.
Liz: Chinaaaaa!
Al: China!
Al: Fuck you!
Lynne: Why won't you answer the phone?

That's like, 8 Fuck Yous and 16 Chinas in two minutes. Also, "6:55 AM in the morning"?
I hate my friends.

heads

This article is about an armless man who killed another guy in a fight. With a head butt.

1. Never have I wanted to be armless until today.
2. On the other side. What a humiliating way to get beat.
3. One unanswered question from the article: How does he drive "his truck"?
4. Ha ha. Georgia.

Blogito ergo sum. Also, fuck you.

Quarterlife Trailer

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Ahhhh Quarterlife. This is a new show about:

a group of twentysomethings coming of age in the digital generation

you know, like WarGames.

Why do we blog? We blog to exist.

Descartes would shit himself over this revelation.

It moves you to destroy peoples' lives? That's what moves you?

More to see them destroyed. I don't really need to feel responsible for it. I just want to witness it. You know, schadenfreude and all that. That is why, if this show had better dialogue, I would watch it.

Terrorism

I never really go into describing my experience on September 11, since these stories are usually banal or trite, and a lot of people had days that were much shittier than mine.

But, after that shitty day, I had my friend Charlie over for dinner. We only had a couple glasses of wine, but after dinner, Charlie was vomiting all over the place. There were stains on my rug and couch.

Charlie hadn't had much to drink, and the food was fine for everyone else. He blamed the terrorists for the vomit.

So, that's two scores I have to settle with you, Bin Laden.

Here is a picture of a taco

It's from Lonely Sandwich, but it's originally from john-pittsburgh.

I think it looks delicious, except for that thumbnail, which needs a little trim. Hey guy, hire a hand model or metrosexualize yourself if you're going to go that close. But really, I'd let Taco Bell cater my low class faux-Mexican wedding after that food porn- that's right KFC, you're in the back seat now. (And that actually reminds me of a party I went to in Cambridge once. It was thrown by Air Force dentists and featured a table full of Taco Bell. The party was unmemorable, except that my friend, Murph, tried to grab a drink from one of the dentist's hands, and the dentist bit him.)

I also enjoyed lonely sandwich's caption, a response to Mark Dery's article, which I was just mentioning. Caption below:

Mark Dery at salon.com: please let me enjoy my meatproduct-in-a-tortilla-bag without deconstructing it. or, to put it Idiocratically: Fuck you, i'm eating.

a la recherche du tacos perdu

An read a whole article about Tacos. It was called "Remembrance of Tacos Past"

1. Way to go with the Proust shout outs, buddy. Everyone loves a good highbrow reference applied to lowbrow culture. Maybe you can do a follow up on McDonald's called Fries and Punishment, or the Sound and the McFlurry.

2. Author Mark Dery explores Taco Bell's past appeal, continued existence, and the reasons for his personal nostalgia for the place. His in depth exploration of Taco Bell as a phenomenon appeals to me. I like that he asks why, in a country where Hispanic culture has grown so much, and better Mexican food has become readily available, billions of people per year still go to shitty old Taco Bell, but. . .

3. . . .I think the answer is simple. Forget complex cultural explanations, Americans have always been great customers for low nutrition, low quality, low cost products that throw large quantities of salt and fat (or sugar) at them. You can ridicule Taco Bell, Slim Jims, and Hostess Cupcakes, but someone out there is probably making a delicious, affordable meal out of all three right now (ok it's me. I've got frosting on my chin, slim jim grease on my lips, and a dollop of sour cream on my shirt right now.)

Combine that low cost, high fat/salt/sugar thing with omnipresent advertising, and you're going to make bucks. I don't think the advertising has to be good, if it's as ubiquitous as Taco Bell's is. I don't think anybody liked that Chihuahua after month one, but he had a memorable catchphrase and he was everywhere, so Taco Bell was in all of our heads.

So, I'm not an expert on fast food, culture, or advertising, but I think the explanations for these things can usually be tied to a couple basic values (like cost and familiarity), and the Proust shit can be left behind.

I do like the article, though. I especially like the term, "partial birth cuisine." Revolting!

Larry Craig, Larry Craig's wife

Susie Bright has an interesting essay on the Suzanne Craig, wife of Larry, and the plight of the closeted man's wife. She briefly touches on the question of why people like Suzanne stick by people like Larry in the inevitable press conferences. One thing she mentions is the draw of "money and prestige" in keeping Mrs. Craig up there next to her husband. I think the other side of that coin, the willingness to deny anything because of the minuscule chance that it will avert disgrace, is just as strong. If I were, Suzanne Craig, and I were allowed to exit this whole thing quietly, I would do it in a second. However, that path is not open. It's either deny and hope for miracle, or accept the disgrace by standing up at that press conference, taking one step away from Larry and saying, "Yep. He's totes gay. Known for years. Whatareyougonndo? That wide stance bit sure was funny, though, eh?"

running

I run a lot these days. I won't say too much about the actual running, because if there's one thing I hate more than fat people, it's amateur athletes who take themselves so seriously and think that their minor feats of prowess deserve lengthy emails or barside diatribes the lengths of which bragging have not been seen since the last time Lance Armstrong made someone write a book for him. They go on about how motherfucking low their heart rate is, and how once it only beat four times in a minute, about mileage and shoes and this marathon was great but this other race was twice as long, and thus greater. When these people are running, I want to throw a stick between their legs.

Anyway, my running has been good. It's escapism, like drinking, except it's totally socially acceptable. If I leave work for a while to go running, people nod and smile and approve of me taking two hours out of my workday. If I leave work to go drinking, they frown and shake their heads and whisper about intervention and how I "looked rough this morning." This is why I lie when I leave work to go drinking.

Besides that, everything is the same. After a while, I feel loose and happy and a little buzzed. Soon after that, my mouth is dry and my body aches and I just want to great a shit ton of greasy food and go back to bed.

So running. It's just like drinking, for when you can't be drinking.

Oh, and I've heard it's healthier.

you should. . .go to brunch

Mary Lee is in town, visiting from Medical School. At brunch she and Tates are catching up.
Tates: C is taking it easy right now. She had a kidney stone.
Mary Lee (who now needs to weigh in on all matters medical): You know, Kidney stones are supposedly the worst pain a man can have. It's like an equivalent pain to childbirth.
Marcel Parcells: I passed a kidney stone five minutes ago, and you didn't even notice, so, you know. Whatever.
Mary Lee: That's what you're always doing when you're staring off into space looking bored. You're not bored. You're passing stones.
Marcell Parcells: It's both, really.