Here is an affecting essay by my friend Jeff Chorney, on what it was like to be an American and a journalist in a foreign country during Tuesday's attacks.
A New York college radio station was playing this Paul Simon song on Tuesday night.
American Tune (1973)
Many's the time I've been mistaken And many times confused Yes and I've often felt forsaken And certainly misused Ah, but I'm all right, I'm all right I'm just weary to my bones Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon-vivant So far away from home, so far away from home
And I don't know a soul who's not been battered I don't have a friend who feels at ease I don't know a dream that's not been shattered Or driven to its knees But it's all right, it's all right For we've lived so well, so long Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on I wonder what's gone wrong I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong
And I dreamed I was dying I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly And looking back down at me Smiled reassuringly And I dreamed I was flying And high up above my eyes could clearly see The Statue of Liberty Sailing away to sea And I dreamed I was flying
We come on a ship they call the Mayflower We come on a ship that sailed the moon We come in the age's most uncertain hours And sing an American tune But it's alright, oh it's alright, it's alright You can't be forever blessed Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day And I'm trying to get some rest That's all I'm trying, to get some rest
For the last three years, I’ve lived right next door to a school. It’s a small, private, progressive school that goes up to eighth grade and has kids of all colors. Somehow the likely-to-be-high tuition at this charming place – which looks more like a home than an institution and is simply called “The Academy” – hasn’t kept people of color out.
The school has been a source of amusement for me, and it’s also been a nuisance. Because I work nights, the kids’ entire school day begins and ends before I even head out.
Sometimes I like to listen to the kids’ conversations; to hear kindergartners and their delightful little peals of laughter, to hear little bits of adolescent cruelty, to catch their half-formed views of the world. They talk about Limp Bizkit and Barbie, and make up games as they go along. “I called it” is still one of the top kid phrases in 2001, be assured.
Sometimes the kids scream like someone has gutted them, and I run to the window, only to see that they’re standing around in a circle, screaming. I think to myself that kids are really the only people allowed to do things like this. Sometimes I hear a bully yelling at other kids. Invariably it turns out to be a big fat kid, whose insecurities are plain as day to me but unfortunately not to the kids, who either cower, rush to follow his orders, or rush to join his minions. Very few ever stand up to him.
Sometimes the parents are irritating and impatient. They honk incessantly outside the school’s gate in their BMWs and minivans at the strike of 3 p.m. The kids scramble when they hear the honking, and scamper to the gate as fast as they can, their carry-on luggage backpacks popping up and down behind them. But it’s often not fast enough for high-powered mom, who storms into the schoolyard after a few minutes, in her designer suit. Mom is usually beautiful and thin. Sometimes there are dads.
On Tuesday morning about 10:30 a.m., I was sitting in my bathroom and through the slats heard a little girl saying, “Mommy says there was a plane and it…” and I rushed over to close the slats. I couldn’t bear it.
The last couple days, the kids’ noise has been a comfort to me, even the piercing screams. (Which, by the way, used to strike up Columbine fears in my head, but not anymore). Today I was ironing in my bathroom, listening to “There She Goes” by the La’s on the radio when everything went suddenly silent. No music. No kids screaming. I looked outside and a group of kids were standing in a semicircle, perfectly silent. As I started to look away I caught a boy pulling his hat off his head.
I think it is now unanimous that the commercial with the belly-buttons singing is just wierd. But hey, who knew Meadow Soprano was the voice behind the bellies?
Ok, I know everyone's already heard about how brilliant the Onion can be, but tonight I felt compelled to pay special tribute to my all-time favorite Onion "story", titled "My Work Is Largely Unappreciated", by... a pylon. Why do I love it so? Could it be its sheer fabulous absurdity? The fact that it invents a new word, "e" that is actually understandable? That it falls on the "Community Voices" page? That it comes with a photo? That it actually has paragraphs? I can't decide. Here's an excerpt:
I is work hard. Very very I hard. Work to always time. Hard-working. Work I hard very. Time always e me to working. All working time. Hard to road e work. Very working hard. ... Road me e guard. To road. Guard I me autos. Lines guard I road e I working. Road I me stand always on. Line road autos. ... Cold very very weather. I to working is always me. I is work cold. To the snow night time. I to work all time cold snow. Always I to working cold.
"For a long time, when it's working, the drink feels like a path to a kind of self-enlightenment, something that turns us into the person we wish to be, or the person we really are. In some ways the dynamic is this simple: alcohol makes everything better until it makes everything worse. And when drinking makes things better, it does so with such easy perfection, lifting you, shifting you -- just like that -- into another self."
Today I was immersed in the world of pigs. I visited a piglet named Freddie who's been rescued from slaughter and placed in an expansive, sunny domestic animal sanctuary. Pigs are cuter than shit. I even rubbed one's tummy, and wasn't put off by the many, many nipples. Pigs are lazy and noisy and troublesome, but you've got to hand it to them because they're all about the good things in life: eating, sleeping, rolling around in mud and having sex. I guess they have sex when they can manage to get themselves in an upright position. Because most of the time they just lay there in the shade.
When you come upon a pig, he greets you by opening his mouth and breathing heavily. What if people did that? I guess some people do.
In other news, I bought the new Bjork CD, and it's beautiful. It feels like the soundtrack to a daydream, full of wonder and joy. There isn't a single song they could play on the radio from it. Bjork's done great songs with hip hop beats, but there aren't any like that on "Vespertine." She does use a lot of electronic beats, but nothing hard.
And this just in: Everyone I know seems to be having a career/love-life crisis. An astounding number of late-twenties men have confided in me lately that they want to settle down. I guess that's not so much a crisis in itself, but the settling-down desire seems to accompany a dramatic realization that they're tired of fucking around (literally and figuratively). They're tired of wandering around, both in their jobs and their relationships. I'm not sure these epiphanies are a good thing. Maybe it's just panic.
Ex-reporter Phil Garlington used to work at the Orange County Register. Earlier this year, he wrote a "why-I-was-fired" tale for an Orange County weekly. Though it's not what you might expect -- (a sour-grapes, the-others-simply-couldn't-handle-my-honesty screed). It's actually a laid-back take on newspaper crap that's bothered him his whole career. For people who work in newsrooms, the stuff he brings up sounds laughably familiar. Take, "reaction stories" for example:
"I had developed a distaste for a certain kind of bogus story the Register often prints, designed to fool the reader into thinking the paper is on top of the community. ... It’s policy that editors must always try to tie local reaction to any extramural doings. What does Orange County think about Oval Office sex? How has Orange County reacted to pilot error off Martha’s Vineyard or to a celebrity auto fatality in Paris? In my posting to the ombudsman, I said what most of the staff already know: that a lot of these stories are pretty much bullshit, pretending to know what they don’t and making sweeping statements unsupported by meaningful evidence, and they are assigned solely for appearances. Most are based on a handful of random man-on-the-street interviews."
Another example of newspaper baloney, as Garlington calls it, was the "cute idea". "Cute ideas" are inane story ideas that higher-ups generally think are just neato, and because they come from higher-ups, they can't be voted down. And some poor sap reporter has to make the retarded idea into a story.
"The little editors who dream up this stuff aren’t evil or sinister. They’re average mopes with kids and mortgages in Irvine. They’re competent enough at what they do -- correcting stories and punching buttons -- but they don’t get out much. They live in a rarefied, oxygen-depleted atmosphere of meetings with one another all day. A lot of the story ideas they come up with aren’t incandescent. One time, for instance, after winter rains caused some landslides in the county’s eastern canyons, the editors got the cute idea that canyon residents must have risk-prone personalities. I got assigned.
First, I told them, it’s prima facie nonsense (I don’t really talk like that, but that was the drift); second, even if we wanted to test the hypothesis, it’ll take more than a couple of hours, and you guys want this overnight.
Do it anyway, said a little chief."
But my favorite Garlington comment is not about ridiculous stories, but rather copy editors -- the kind of odd, fastidious individuals who I've come to know all too well:
"At your typical newspaper, the copy editors are ancient, bitter, alcoholic failures whose last scrap of dignity involves holding the line against factual error. They have a withering contempt for blasé reporters who bobble World Series dates or don’t know that the CDC is the Centers for Disease Control."
Actually, it's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heh.
It's a well-known fact that negative movie reviews are far more entertaining than positive ones. That's why it's fun to use Roger Ebert's archives to find movies that he gave zero or 1/2 stars to. One such film is Freddy Got Fingered (zero stars). Ebert wrote what may be the funniest paragraph I've ever seen in a review:
This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.
Another great one was a couple months back on Salon, for the film Songcatcher. A sample:
It's so relentlessly, goddamn worthy that you long for some cheapness and dirt, some energetic pop trash to liven it up. ... "Songcatcher" is presented as a little countrified artifact for educated urbanite audiences to coo over in the midst of their rootless modern lives. Watching is like seeing a dulcimer plunked down in an Ikea display.
Come see the softer side of Preshcat! Yes, Preshcat has a new look, thanks to Blogger's nifty templates. I used to like Blogger. Now I love Blogger. I want to marry Blogger. Me and Blogger are sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
I think it's awesome that Bjork's new album, "Vespertine," shows her wearing the same wacky swan dress she wore to the Oscars. The album comes out the 28th and I will have it, oh yes, it shall be mine. It's supposed to be great. Rolling Stone gave it four stars and I know they give everything four stars, but lots of other people say it's amazing too. I'd buy it no matter what they said, though. Bjork is the poo. Smell it!
Utilikilt. For all your utility kilt needs. This almost could be a fetish site. (Thanks, Andy.)
Also, for some fun with Flash cartoons, check out HomestarRunner. You must have the sound on or else it's just silly moving pictures. I'd put HomestarRunner in the "If you like Brak, you'll love..." category. (Thanks, Kenney.)
I have a friend who works for Cisco Systems. (He routs things, or something. I think he routs routers.) Anyway, Cisco recently cut 8,500 jobs, and, like every other company right now, is trying to cut costs even more. One of its latest tactics -- devised no doubt, by brilliant marketing executives with much less to do now that they have fewer "bleeding-edge B2B e-optimization" press releases to write -- is to post signs encouraging employees to be frugal. My friend explains: "WPR (Workplace Resources) is running around sticking posters up everywhere to remind people to minimize costs: "Print Frugally", "Drink Frugally", "Wipe Your Butt Frugally", everywhere. It's freakin' annoying." Well, now another employee has created a satire page, based on the "Cysco" company, and it's hilarious. Witness:
Fight Fire Frugally! (for putting next to fire extinguishers) Fire fighting equiptment costs Cysco $2 million annually! Do you really need this extinguisher? Try using a blanket first!
Scan Frugally! (for putting next to badge readers) Badge scanner processing and new badges costs Cysco $800,000 annually! Do you really need to get in right now? Try waiting for the next person!
Walk Frugally! By cutting down on carpet wear just 5%, Cysco would save $30,000 annually!! Take off your shoes!! Sit at your desk 5% more!!
Also, Breathe Frugally! And of course, Frugalize frugally!!
Allow me to introduce Brian's Blog, created by none other than one of the founding members of the breakout hip-hop mega-group Hi Density. Hi Density is still considered one of the premiere engineer-based, inner-tube-water-polo-playing rap acts to ever come straight outta Davis, California. In fact, Hi Density's popularity was fueled entirely by word-of-mouth, thus negating the need to have any actual performances. Brian's blog has the potential to be highly dopo (as the Italians say), so check it out.
I think it's awesome that Bjork's new album, "Vespertine," shows her wearing the same 
