December 30, 2006
STRANGE RELATIONSHIP TO THE NEWS OF THE DAY:
Strange relation to the news of Saddam's hanging. I had just bought a photograph of defaced Saddam-commissioned Saddam-centic public iconographic art taken by a well known photojournalist right after the fall of Bagdad. Hence, behind whatever mixture of emotions I had about the hanging, I found myself thinking a bit about how it might actually enhance the value of my recent purchase. It was a very strange and unfamiliar filter through which to interpret major world news events. It reminded me of nothing so much as the way I interpret news of NBA injuries, suspensions and trades in light of my fantasy hoops interests.
The Saddam hanging in a nutshell: Bad for Saddam, good for Teddy.
CONCEPTUAL ART IDEA OF THE DAY:
Photoshop Cheney or Bush's head onto the shot of Saddam with the noose being put around his head right before the hanging. In ways I haven't fully thought through, I believe it would be an interesting commentary on lies, terror and the karmic boomerang of abused power.
Or, of course, it could be a gratuitously provocative, lamentably crude cheap trick.
GAME SHOW IDEA OF THE DAY: (Inspired by three encounters in the space of a few blocks).
In this game you encounter three people speaking out loud to no visible interlocutor on the street. One will be a crazy person. One will be an actor rehearsing his part. And one will be someone engaged in a cell phone conversation via a hands free blue tooth ear piece on the far side of his head which you cannot see. Your job: To figure out who is who. It's a sort of walking talking variant on Three Card Monte.
BUSINESS IDEA OF THE DAY: ALL-TIME GREAT NARCISSIST LOVE SONGS:
Featuring:
First Time Ever I saw My Face.
God Only Knows How I Feel About Me.
Loving Me...is Easy cause I'm Beautiful
/>Nothing Compares 2 Me.
Maybe I'm Amazed at the Way I Love Me All The Time.
Sometimes When I Touch, the Honesty's Too Much.
I Am So Beautiful to Me.
I Will Always Love Me.
Love the one you're with.
Oh Baby I Love my Way.
Every Breath I Take...(I'll be Watchin Me.)
Can't Smile Without Me.
Have I Told You Lately That I Love Me?
I Make Loving Fun.
Embraceable Me.
And Much Much More!
RENAMING ACT OF THE DAY:
The baseball fist pound is hereby redubbed "The hygienic high-five."
MEDIA MOMENT OF THE DAY:
Colbert getting Henry Kissinger to MC his guitar shred off against Decembrist Lead Guitarist Chris Funk. Henry The K fired the starting gun with the teutonically-tinged declaration: It's is Time to Rock.
WEIRD EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:
Taking paper out of The Onion dispenser. Pulling it out to read in bed. Looking at a few headlines and not quite getting the joke. "Science Mangled (Again) to promote Anti-Gay Views", "Homeless Gay Youth An Epidemic: report." Then, after a few fascinatingly disorienting "Does not compute" moments", realizing it's not the Onion but the New York Blade a same-sized gay and lesbian paper that was slipped in there. I often have the opposite experience: Thinking a real headline is an Onion or parody headline and then discovering it's not. But there was something more bizarre and unusual about making the assumption of comedy or parody and having that expectation repeatedly and inexplicably thwarted. (Although I've seen stand-up routines like that.)
SIGN FROM GOD OF THE DAY:
On X-mas, it was reported that the number of Americans who've died in Iraq has exceeded the number of Americans who died on 9/11. The fact that the news came on X-mas should be a sign to Bush. Jesus to Dubya: The Iraq War? It wasn't a good idea.
In a related story, it was reported on X-mas that the number of hits on this blog has exceeded the number of Americans killed on 9/11. Jesus to Teddy Vegas: The blog? It was a good idea.
MARITAL NEWS OF THE DAY:
Surprised to See Michael Jordan and his bride calling it off after 17 years. You sort of figured if they'd held out this long (that is: perpatuated the sham this long), they might as well ride it out into the sunset. Not to make light of this personal misfortune, but I would love to see the 17-year career stats on the Jordan-Juanita marriage. FG (Females Groped), 3-PT FG (Three-Ways), Rebounds (Repeat episodes of infidelity), Steals (Women poached from less famous players), Free Throws (Non-hookers, Blocks (Infidelities thwarted by untimely marital or familial telephone calls), Turnovers (Woman fucked from behind and then from the front) and, of course, Points (Total adulteries scored). I'd also love to see the home/away breakdown. I suspect his career away stats were even more impressive than the numbers he put up at home.
That said: There is a real irreduceable sadness that attends the final dissolution of such long term bonds. And so I atone for the previous glibness.
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Once the unthinkable happens you can't stop thinking it. This is the essence of all post-trauma stress disorder and the Freudian notion of repetition compulsion--as the mind endlessly returns to the unthinkable occurence in a futile attempt to master it. For example, I never had a fear of being in enclosed spaces. Then, suddenly, one day I was stuck in a tiny elevator between floors. It has been about 4 years since that event and I have never once been in an elevator by myself without having some anxiety that it might get stuck again. Suddenly that possibility has been introduced into my experience and it cannot be erased. Of course the obsessive return to the unmasterable misfortune is all the more troubling and intense when it involves rape, death, planes flying into buildings, psychotic breaks etc. The shape of experience has been forever changed and one is haunted by what could never happen but somehow did.
I guess another less fancy way to say this is "ignorance is bliss."
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"He's trying to be true to himself. Which is a rare and honorable thing. It's just unfortunate that his true self is a rancid goiter."
-Chris Maroney in regards to an individual who shall remain nameless.
SUGGESTED BAND NAME OF THE DAY:
The handsome porn addicts.
THINGS I"VE LEARNED LATELY:
1) That Leonard Cohen's song "Chelsea Hotel" was written about Janis Joplin. "I remember you well at the chelsea hotel...I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well at the Chelsea hotel. That's all, I don't even think of you that often."
2) The Washington basketball team changed its name from the Bullets to the relatively anodyne, Disneyesque Wizards because it was announced that they had the highest murder rate in the country.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He always took the best chair in the room and proceeded to slouch in it.
P.S. OF THE DAY:
Happy New Year!
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Posted on 12/30/2006
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December 24, 2006
IMAGE OF THE DAY:
STRANGE PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:
I went to pick up a gift at Tower Records and discovered that it was closing. In fact there was a clearance sale going on. 80% off the lowest marked price. People were rummaging through the aisles, picking the pop cultural bone clean. It was so strange. As I walked down the long familiar aisles, scanning the name plates on the CD organizers for my favorite groups--creators and priducers of the intimately rehearsed soundtrack to my life--I found instead only strange names of groups I'd never heard of before. It was like some parallel history--in which the Beatles, Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan, Radiohead etc. never existed. Or like some trip through an eastern european or asian mall where you see groups exported from the U.S. that are entirely unknown within it. Fraudulent cloned bands. Strange sonic simulacra. I rummaged briefly until I was overcome with a feeling of terminal unheimlichheit. And then I bid adieu to the place in which I'd spent countless hours and now, at the threshold of my final departure, barely even recognized. (It reminds me of my final encounter with my grandfather... unrecognizably pale and gaunt and gasping in a coma. A terrible final image that haunted me for a long time until it mercifully merged with or was entirely displaced by the other wonderfully vital memories of him that I have.)
LITERARY COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Speaking of surreal alternative paths through history: I've been reading "The Plot Against America" by Phillip Roth, a chilling and utterly convincing imagining of American history had Lindberg beaten FDR in 1942 and pursued an isolationist policy with regard to Hitler and WWII. America becomes a folksily fascist Nazi-complicit anti-semitic nation with Brave New World style rhetoric concealing pernicious policy behind sunny misleading names. It's the kind of thing that would have been considered dismissably far-fetched before our experiences of the post 9/11 Bush-Cheney-Rove administration but now, of course, feels all too plausible.
CONCEPT OF THE DAY:
Recombinant Franchise Towns. With almost all towns now having the same 25 basic franchises--branded building blocks, late capitalist amino acids --the specificity of place seems to be a thing of the past. Soon towns will simply be unique combinations or permutations of these basic franchises--set against a slightly different topographical and meteorological backdrop.
WOMAN A: Where do you come from?
WOMAN B: "Starbucks-Walmart-Gap-Dunkin' Donuts-McDonalds-Whole Foods-Circuit City."
WOMAN A: Oh, wow. I have a friend who comes from there! Small world.
WOMAN: B: Yes it is! How about you. Where are you from?
WOMAN A: "Walmart-Gap-Chipotle-Whole Foods-Costco-Gap-McDonalds"
WOMAN B: You know, I've never been there but I've always wanted to go.
WOMAN A: Oh, you'd love it.
GOAL OF THE DAY:
Perfecting the tepid warm-up act at a comedy club clap.
RACIAL COMMENT OF THE DAY:
The Duke rape case evokes both the Tawana Brawley and OJ cases. Sadly misplaced expressions of legitimate racial rage that merely perpetuate the cycle of prejudice and hatred.
IDEA OF THE DAY:
It is often observed that a Democrat can't win without a southern accent. Hence my newest business idea: Announcing the Teddy Vegas Democratic Southern Accent Finishing School. Work on your drawls, y'all. There may be a position for you in this soon-to-be venerable institution.
PHENOMENON MERITING FURTHER COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
Cleaning for the maid.
SUGGESTED PHRASE OF THE DAY (AND VARIANTS):
"I don't know about you, but THIS Time Magazine Man of the Year thinks _____________________ (Insert thought here.)
or:
"From one Time Magazine Man of the Year to another _______________________ (Insert advice or counsel here).
or:
Never mind. This Time Magazine Man of the Year thinks you get the idea.
HOLIDAY OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
I may have mentioned this thought before at some point (and excuse in advance my premature senility if I have), but getting my Barnes and Noble gifts gift wrapped yesterday, I was struck by the peculiar social ritual of removing or blotting out the price of an object whose price is commonly and universally known --or at least estimate-able within a dollar or two. There is no mystery about how much a Zagat's guide costs. Or a DVD. Or a CD. But there is some wish to keep the personal offering unsullied by the impersonal concept of exchange value. Anyhow, it strikes me that the logical extension of this collective charade is to give gift certificates with the amount crossed out. Or even U.S. currency itself with stickers over the numbers in the corners and over the relevant Great American's face. "Here's some cash. I can't tell you how much I spent on it. But I hope you can use it to buy yourself something nice."
AUTOBIOGRAPHICALLY BASED FIRST LINE FOR A NOVEL OF THE DAY:
He could date the complete transformation of his life to the visit of Tina the maid.
TERM OF THE DAY:
"Squanderlust" from Paul Krugman in re Bush and his right wing tax-cutting class-warring cronies.
IMPORTANT MILESTONE OF THE DAY:
Bundt cake turns 60.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He hated her more than life itself.
PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE DAY:
You enjoy.
CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:
Cheney speaking about Rumsfeld.
Caption: "Donald Rumsfeld has been the Greatest Secretary of Defense in U.S. History."
Oh, wait that wasn't a cartoon. That was a real quote. Sorry. And happy holidays.
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December 15, 2006
IMAGE OF THE DAY
COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
I read an article in the NYT about how Times Square ads are being spread via tourists' digital cameras. The branding message --be it central to the photo or peripheral--is being transmitted via picture messaging and video passalongs all around the world. It's a kind of consumer digital conductivity. We are all corporate carriers. Blindly complicit brand ambassadors. Or, if you will, digital typhoid Marys unwittingly infecting our friends and family with the embedded virus of the brand.
The big idea: Using the technology for purposes it is not intended to serve. Embedding the corporate into the personal -- in insidious and unsuspected ways. For some reason it also makes me think of the brilliant--if far more terrible way--that the terrorists of 9/11 used our technology (airplanes) against us--turning the vehicle itself into the bomb. Although this time it is corporate America hijacking our technology and turning it against us for its own more subtly nefarious purposes--its own brilliant attack on the heart and soul of our country.
Or maybe, it's just the truest expression of the heart and soul of our country. Maybe--and sadly-- it's the most American act of all.
NOTE TO SELF OF THE DAY:
Think more about this jujitsu relationship to technology. And maybe find a way to profit from it.
REMINDER OF THE IRRELEVANCE OF MY PHILOSOPHY DEGREE OF THE DAY:
I see on the channel guide that there is something called "Philosophy: Beauty" on at 12:30 a.m. I turn to the indicated channel (I believe it was 33), expecting to see something on Plato, Kant and theories of aesthetics and instead I find--to my initial complete mystification-- two middle aged women on the QVC shopping network hawking some skin cream. It turns out the cream is called "Beauty" and the line of beauty products it's a part of is called "Philosophy." I guess superficial is the new profound. And, hey, who can argue with it. Truth is an ad campaign. Philosophy is a brand name. Eternity is a perfume. History is an irrelevance. Etc. etc. Yada yada yada. Smiley smiley. LOL. Whatever.
TEDDY VEGAS INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:
Which is the premier salt and butter delivery vehicle: Mashed potatoes or Popcorn?
PHENOMENON IN NEED OF A NAME OF THE DAY:
Seeing a typo in that precious pause between having pressed "send" and the e-mail vanishing from the screen.
BEST SUGGESTION I'VE HEARD SO FAR:
Premature e-mailulation.
ANECDOTE OF THE DAY: QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Reading about the "Girls Gone Wild" Founder getting sentenced to community service for whatever it was he was charged with (I believe it was shooting pix of underaged girls), I was reminded of being introduced to him once at a party by a common acquaintance and being told by this common acquaintance in all seriousness, "Teddy. you'd love this guy. He's really really smart, like you. I mean, he could do anything he wanted to. He just happens to have a special feeling for the adult entertainment industry."
Ah, yes. That special feeling.
ARGUMENT FOR LEGALIZING IMMIGRATION OF THE DAY:
I read that the guy who confessed to killing the actress Adrienne Shelley (who starred in two films I really love: "Trust" and "The Unbelievable Truth"--both by Hal Hartley) and hanging her in the shower to make it look like a suicide did so because he was "in a bad mood." But more relevant to the title of this entry, he felt the need to kill her after the initial bad-mood motivated altercation, because he was an illegal immigrant working in her apartment building and feared that if she reported him to the authorities, he would be deported. With all due respect to Lou Dobbs, if there is no fear of deportation in this instance, there is no murder. Policies can't be made to eliminate bad moods. But policies can be made to eliminate their murderous consequences. At least in this very specific situation. Terrible, terrible thing.
Speaking of "The Unbelievable Truth"...
UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH OF THE DAY:
Evidently one of the luxury cruise lines was making stops on its trans-atlantic cruises at a mysterious carribean port called "Paradise Island"--where the passengers would enjoy all the expected trappings of sunny opulence. Anyhow, it was finally revealed that "Paradise Island" was a remote part of Haiti that had been cordoned off and Disney-fied to the cruise lines' specifications.
SKETCH CHARACTER OF THE DAY: (With indebtedness to my friend and colleague Dom for the inspiration)
Cliche Man. A man so deeply mired in catch phrases that he can't understand anything until he can translate it into a familiar cliche. Cliche is his mother tongue. His entire frame of reference. The cliche has entirely displaced the experience it refers to. So a woman says to him "I love you." and he looks blankly at her for a few moments. Then a light goes off "Oh, you mean, I "knock your socks off!," "I rock your world" and "I am the light of your life!" Oh, yeah, now I got ya, baby. Cool." Or a guy says "I'm gonna kill you." And he looks uncomprehendingly...until he can translate the obscure gnomic utterance through the filter of relevant cliche. Then the light of understanding shines on him. "Oh, you mean you want to "Put out the big light," "Send me to where the sun don't shine," "Deep six me", "Put me into real estate", "Make me join Barnum and Bailey." Oh, yeah, Now I'm trackin' with ya, buddy. Yeah. Great."
UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:
An ex-girlfriend's wifely pride in her new husband's achievements is most unpleasant. As is her pretending not to remember the details of your break-up. Or worse, her actually not remembering the details of your break-up.
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Which is more inexcusable: Bush staying the course with Iraq or James Dolan staying the course with Isaiah Thomas? At least with the latter, there are signs of progress. Or at least a time frame for re-assessment.
RANDOM (BUT NOT PARTICULARLY SPECIFIC) SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
Self-hating carbon-based life form.
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December 12, 2006
IMAGE OF THE DAY:
MOVIE COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
Saw the new James Bond movie. Very good for the genre --sort of analagous to "Batman Begins" in that it is a prequel concerned with exploring the core psychological truth of the now far too familiar character. But there is absolutely nothing on earth more boring to me than a chase scene or a fight scene. Everyone knows the hero has to survive for the movie to continue, so there is about as much suspense and potential for surprise as there is at a White House press conference. I am dazzled by how people can blind themselves to the inevitability of the outcome and remain rivetted by every little twist, turn and obstacle on the road to certain triumph.
RESEMBLANCE OF THE DAY:
The new James Bond looks like a cross between Steve McQueen, Joe Montana and Al Bundy.
Happily the bond girl Eva Green (who looks like a cross between a goddess and a goddess) was gorgeous enough to distract me from this rivettingly bizarre facial fusion.
IRONY OF THE DAY: (Or, for the less detached, enraging injustice of the day):
Cindy Sheehan can be convicted of trespassing for protesting the war, but the death merchants who dishonestly sold us the war and are responsible for countless deaths evade all prosecution.
WOODY ALLEN-ESQUE QUIP OF THE DAY:
She was a proud Jew and a zionist..but I inspired feelings of intense ant--semitism in her.
SELF-REALIZATION OF THE DAY:
Despite my deep appreciation of fine food, I’d trade a 4 star lunch with a sales rep for the dignified solitude of a grilled cheese in a brown paper bag—any day of the week.
STAT OF THE DAY:
According to CNN, a poll finds that 68% of Americans think the U.S. is losing ground in Iraq and 22% think we're making progress. I take this as staggering evidence of the continued efficacy of the Bush disinformation machine. (How could 22% possibly think that?!?!?).
SOULFUL MOMENT OF THE DAY:
I am having an anxious, indecisive and melancholy day. Feeling like a frayed, stray thread in the tapestry of existence. If part of the tapestry at all. I get off the subway at the W. 4th Street station and am overcome with the inimitable sounds of the Bach's cello suites--being played by a guy in the corridor to the W 3rd Street entrance. I encounter the music in the same state of trembling anxiety and awe as when I originally heard it during the first week of my junior year at college. The deep grainy rumblings of the bow, the rich warm--almost human- tones of the instrument, the longingful melodic line (straining for ecstatic release in a kind of euphoric melancholia). It reaches to the core of me; holds me in an acoustic embrace. I experience what I take to be the direct, unmediated communication of soul to soul. Across 300 years. Music as the pure distillate of emotion--stored outside of time but accessible only within it.
I stand there, transfixed, unable to move for about 10 minutes. I was really glad I was not wearing my iPod.
OBSERVATION IN A MID-TOWN SPORTS AND BUSINESS BAR:
The stock ticker crawling. The sports playing. The stats tallying. The figures flying. The time (which is no time) passing.
The constant quantification of the perpetual crisis of existence.
The vicissitudes, the epi-phenomenal fluctuations. The flow and fluxus of life itself-- symbolized, abstracted, comfortingly displaced.
REALIZATION OF THE DAY: ("WHAT WOULD LINUS DO?" MOMENT OF THE DAY)
There are no more blankets. There are duvets and comforters and bedsheets and ottomans and frillies and shams and god knows what else, but god help you if you try to try to find a plain old fashioned Linus-style blanket. When did the blanket become an endangered domestic appurtenance?
UNFORTUNATE NAME OF THE DAY: (My would-be blanket salesperson at Gracious Home).
Asma. Shame on those parents.
PERSONALITY PROFILE OF THE DAY:
Tempermentally speaking, he was a tweener.
TEDDY VEGAS INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:
I'm thinking of starting a store called Rong Aid to compete against Rite Aid: What should be the theme of Rong Aid?
a) Wrong prices?
b) Things that don't work?
c) Things that are bad for you but that you like?
d) Things that are morally wrong.
e) Other.
PHONE CALL OF THE DAY:
A friend calls to tell me that there's a special holiday marathon on PBS. "It's a Horrible Life" followed by Dickens' "A Christman Dirge" followed by "Catastrophe on 34th Street."
SKIT IDEA OF THE DAY:
Monkeys fans who had no idea there was also a group called the Beatles. "The Beatles? Who the hell are they?" Or even better: Monkeys themselves never having heard of the Beatles. A mondo bizarro parallel path through history.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:
His apartment was still littered with the trinkets of having been loved. Actually, they weren't trinkets so much as precious keepsakes. And it wasn't littered so much as haunted and graced.
TRUISM OF THE DAY:
Advertising is a field for small souls and big egos.
METAPHYSICAL THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
Poesis. Traces of the pre-constituted --so alien to this hyper-constituted, ultra-produced, late-capitalist world.
APB OF THE DAY:
Calling special correspondent Loren Parkins who has mysteriously disappeared after filing one field report. If anyone has seen him, please let me know.
AD IDEA FOR THE DAY:
Canon Digital Cameras: The gift that keeps on taking.
ACCIDENT REPORT OF THE DAY:
Nascar driver breaks wrist at golf tournament. Hmm. A strange collision between the world's most dangerous and least dangerous sports.
WEASEL MOVE OF THE DAY:
Pinochet ducking prosecution by the cowardly ruse of death.
T-SHIRT IDEA OF THE DAY:
Body by Haagen-Daaz
CARTOON WITHOUT ILLUSTRATION OF THE DAY:
A sign says "Men's Department."
With the various sizes along the rack:
XXXXXXL Baby Size, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Baby Size XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Baby Size,
Caption: If they sized clothing according to emotional rather than physical attributes.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
He had the makings of a great philanthropist--except for the fact that he was cheap and hated people.
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December 07, 2006
IMAGE OF THE DAY:
From a cool exhibit of photos at Thinktank3 (Hudson and Morton). it's a show of iconic (and often defaced) public images of Saddam Hussein taken directly following the fall of Bagdad. This was a photo I took of one of the aforementioned Saddam images...with the street outside reflected in the pane of glass that covered it as part of the frame. Aside from simply liking the composition, I was struck by the way that the the arm of the traffic light outside evokes his imminent (or at least scheduled to be imminent) hanging. It sort of looks like the little hanging station you draw at the start of the game "Hangman."
POLITICAL NEWS OF THE DAY:
The Independent Iraq Study group reported that the situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating" and that while there is "no magic formula" for Iraq, a clearly scheduled sequence of troop withdrawals is strongly suggested. While it's doubtful that Bush Junior will honor the findings of this non faith based report, I'm glad it was presented by an independent non-partisan study group. Had it been conducted by Bush-Cheney appointees, I'm sure the suggestion would have been the following: To give every Iraqi chocolates and flowers and demand them at gunpoint to present these offerings to an American soldier.
???!??!?? MOMENT OF THE DAY:
A fairly long Yahoo.com article about Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn breaking up ends with the following paragraph:
"Vaughn, now filming a holiday comedy called "Fred Claus," is known for his roles in such comic hits as "Wedding Crashers" and the 2004 film of "Starsky & Hutch." Aniston came to fame in the television comedy "Friends" and has gone on to star in a string of feature films."
Now here's my question. What possible news value could this story have if the reader didn't already know who the two principal figures in the breakup were? Is there anyone who read all the way to the end of the article saying "Hmm, fascinating. But who ARE these people?" And finally got to the end of the article and said "Aha! They're movie stars!"
Because people love reading about the break ups of people they've never heard of. Actually, I shouldn't joke. I suppose that's creepily close to the truth in this gossipy, vicarious, schadenfreude filled world.
COFFEE BOOK IDEA OF THE DAY:
Maverick middle managers of the mid west.
EXCHANGE OF THE DAY:
GUY A: You just don’t get anywhere in life --and you certainly don't meet any women-- by hanging out and hiding out and being morose and depressed.
GUY B: Which is such a shame. Because those are four things I'm really really good at.
RACIAL COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:
a) Blame It on The Jew:
Evidently the breakup up Pamela and Rock is being attributed to her appearance in Borat. That’s right, blame it on a Jew. A Jew posing as an anti-semite. But a Jew nonetheless.
b) David Stern and the New Ball Controversy. (Warning: Contains sports-related content that may bore or otherwise fail to interest the sports-averse among you.)
Until his recent acknowledgement that mistakes were made in the introduction of the new NBA basketball, David Stern was demonstrating a degree of denial and disconnection comparable to that of George Dubya Bush in a higher-stakes context. After initially claiming that this controversy would pass much as the dress code controversy passed last year (a rhetorical strategy strangely reminiscent of the administration's characterization of Iraqi sectarian violence as mere last gasps of a dying insurgence rather than signs of a full civil war), Stern gave a refreshing if long overdue mea culpa yesterday. It is interesting to speculate on what swayed his opinion and convinced him that his (faith-based?) certainty as a pudgy non athletic administrator about the feel and performance of the ball may possibly have been less accurate than the opinions of the people who actually play with it every night on the court. What led him to see that this was a different and more substantial problem than that of last year's dress code? Could it possibly possibly possibly have been that--unlike in the previous instance-- resolutely non African-American hip-hop stars like Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki became vocal in their opposition to his new policy? Just a thought.
MICHAEL RICHARDS SUGGESTED DEFENSE OF THE DAY:
He should claim "I'm not a racist. I dated a black woman in that episode of "Seinfeld." Remembe? The one where I fall asleep in the tanning salon and end up bronze and I show up at the black woman's house to meet her parents and they say "You said you were dating a white man...not a damned fool!" You see, I'm not a racist. Just a damned fool."
TEDDY VEGAS BRANDED INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:
Which is the best name for a pin-up calendar of babes in bathing suits from Gaza?
a) Jihadi hotties.
b) Ji-Hotties.
c) The Gaza Strippers.
CURIOSITY OF THE DAY: (INVERSION OF THE DAY).
Overhearing jockish looking Wall Street type guys in suits talking about Eva Longoria.
-You know she's marrrying that guy.
-What guy?
-Tony something. He plays on some team
SUGGESTED WORD OF THE DAY:
Stuphid. Def. Awe inspiringly stupid. Too stupid for stupid. Incomprehensibly--even admirably--stupid.
Get out there and get it into the lexicon. Feel the joy of being part of something larger than yourself!
SIMULATED COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Have you guys heard of this SIMS game--whereby people recreate the pedestrian world to their particular specifications in the virtual realm? Well, I heard the guy who invented the game interviewed recently and he said that rich celebrities often create banal domestic simulated realities and tend to them obsessively while on the road in their limos and fabulous hotel suites. I thought there was something perversely poignant about this quest for virtual normalcy in the midst of extraordinary reality.
I was also interested to hear that the characters in this game have their own language: "Simlish." While I have no idea what it sounds like I suspect that it bears some ressemblance to the language used by our Commander-In-Chief.
ADVENTURE OF THE DAY:
I threw my back out just before I was scheduled to take my minimally ambulatory father for a weekend trip to New England. It was looking pretty dicey there for a while. I envisioned two guys on matching walkers emerging from a sexy white BMW convertible with the car stereo blaring "Boys are back in town! Boys are back in town!"
Happily, my back recovered enough to make do with a grimace and a limp...and we were able to leave the second walker in the car. And, I'm pleased to report, we had a nice time.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Whoever said laughter is the best medicine has obviously never had a serious back problem--wherein stabbing pains shoot down your leg with each chuckle and chortle. And don't even ask about a guffaw!
BELATED THING TO BE THANKFUL FOR OF THE DAY:
That Alec Baldwin got over his absurd and misdirected ambitions to be a leading man and realized his true genius as a comedic character actor.
FORTUNE COOKIE OF THE DAY:
"Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing."
PRETENTIOUS (BUT HEARTFELT) RATIONALE FOR MY SPORTS STAT FIXATION OF THE DAY:
It's all about the consolations of measure and the blessed refuge of number. And, oh yeah, avoiding my life.
INADVERTENTLY COMPELLING MASH-UP OF THE DAY:
Playing Sigur Ros's Takk under the piano music from a 1911 silent film clip that someone had sent to me via youtube. I can't quite say it was as fortuitous a musical merger as the Grey album (Jay-Z's Black Album merged with the Beatle's White Album--for those unfamiliar), but it was pretty damn cool.
NON POLLYANNA POSTULATION OF THE DAY:
The world isn't black and white. It's brown. A very particular shade of brown. And I think we all know what that is.
(The above opinion is a guest editorial and in no way reflects the ongoing attitude or weltanschaung of Teddy Vegas or Digital Napkins.)
HAIKU OF THE DAY:
(After going to the nearby pocketpark in an emotionally distressed state and staring at the waterfall in an attempt at wisdom, epiphany or mere self-soothing.)
In the waterfall
There is so much cosmic truth
And nothing at all
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Posted on 12/7/2006
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