Exhibit 1.5.20

Beard

Almost three years ago I let my facial hair grow for a couple weeks to see if it could, through some previously unseen alchemy, produce a beard. You can follow that experience along here. It was a simpler time, back when I was somehow better at both Photoshop and the decency that allowed me not to post photos of myself on the internet.

Short summary: No, no I could not grow a beard.

This year, with a couple of weeks between a moment of bored despair and the semester beginning, I decided to try again. Here's as good as it got.


The Aubrey Beardlessly



So not good. Better than before--it was prickly, at least--but still worse than guys I knew in middle school. That said, I could at least shave it into some nearly acceptable facial hair configurations.


The Walter Notquite



The Muske-tears



The Billy D-Minus Williams



The Ask for ID



Who am I kidding, none of those are acceptable. My apologies to everyone who had to look at me for the past two weeks. So pretty much just you, Taco Truck Lady.

Exhibit 1.5.16

A Soundtrack to Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy



Radiohead - "Life in Glass Houses"

Hall & Oates - "Private Eyes"




Roger Eno - "Quixote"




Manfred Mann - "The Mighty Quinn"




Elvis Costello - "Watching the Detectives"




The Jam - "Ghosts"




Louis Armstrong - "Black and Blue"




The Knife - "Neverland"




Tony Toni Toné - "Still a Man"




LCD Soundsystem - "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down"

Exhibit 1.5.11

Today In Misguided Stock Photography



O, Huffington Post, don't ever change.

Exhibit 1.5.8

Marketing

So apparently popular no-effort-mom-pleaser Pandora decided to tie a marketing campaign to the NFL Draft and analyst Mel Kiper Jr. I wish I could have heard that phone call.

Over-thinking Marketing Guy: We want you to represent Pandora!
Mel Kiper Jr.: The music service?
Marketing Guy: No, the popular middle-aged-lady-Pokémon.
Mel Kiper Jr.: Are you sure my obvious and overwhelming charisma won't out charm the charm bracelet?
Marketing Guy: Of course not!
Mel Kiper Jr.: There is serious upside potential whenever you can get a Mel Kiper Jr.

Honestly, I don't know if this is a brilliant example of knowing the difference between one's market and one's actor or if this is the weirdest, dumbest thing to ever happen on an internet full of weird, dumb things. I'm leaning toward aggressively not caring after this period.

Exhibit 1.5.3

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Exhibit 1.5.2

Remember When I Had a Blog

That was weird.

Exhibit 1.4.14

Checking In

Let's see what's going on in my old hometown these days...

O for god's sake. This is terrible!

East Fifth does not need new pavement.

Exhibit 1.4.8

Textbook

So there's a textbook required for the Composition One class I teach, and while normally I just ignore it if not openly disparage it, there are a few lessons I use from its opening chapters since they're relevant to what the students will do in Comp Two. I don't want my students to be the ones who don't know what ethos is.

(Nobody knows what ethos is.)

Part of this involves a lesson on what the book calls angle of vision which is mostly about how writers control their messages using their perspective, etc. etc. Basic stuff. In the past, the book had a cartoon that made the point that people with different priorities could see the same issue in a variety of ways. This issue was stem cells. Fair enough, that's an issue on which reasonable people can disagree (even if some of them are clearly much, much more reasonable).

So I open this year's textbook expecting to find that same cartoon and instead, there's this:


!!!!

The textbook people, apparently too burned by the controversy over stem cells (in a lesson designed to prepare students to argue effectively no less), decided that this year's issue on which reasonable people could disagree was sweatshops. And somehow they couldn't even come up with a 50/50 split of opinions. 4 out of 6 people in their little scenario are seemingly in favor of sweatshops and only some greasy hippie objects on moral grounds.

Even the explicitly Asian sweatshop worker kid is in favor of sweatshops! Come on, Liang, you couldn't have at least said, "I have mixed feelings on working 14 hour days for pennies."

I really don't know what else to say about it. None of it makes any sense to me. It might be a brilliant but cynical take down of consumer culture and modern capitalism or it might be that someone thinks sweatshops are an issue with sides.

Thank god they didn't ask these people:










Yes, I drew those. Yes, it took more than 10 minutes. No, I will not be drawing again.

Exhibit 1.4.5

This Happened

So I was in an airport bathroom--which always sounds like it will lead to a better story than it does--washing my hands when I hear a man behind me gasp and yell, "There's a woman in there!"

I think, O, that's weird, I didn't remember seeing a woman or anyone else during any part of the urinating process, but, well, I wasn't really looking for one and I hope she wasn't offended or maybe I'm in the wrong bathroom but in any case I should probably look around and apologize as the gasping gentleman seems, based upon his volume, to be quite certain there is a woman here, here in this room where I'm currently standing slapping at the soap dispenser to get it to work and maybe the lady knows hot to get the soap dispenser to work I should ask her yes I will ask the lady.

I turn and scan the room, but there's no one there except me. At this point, I think, That's even weirder as the gentleman who I am now going to have to turn to see momentarily claimed there was a woman in here when, in fact, there was only me and no one else and maybe the lady left and now the soap dispenser is working too much and...O.

When I turn I see two guys had just turned the corner, an older one who is staring at me in horror and a younger one who is trying not to laugh.

"O God, I'm sorry," the older guy says then looks like he wants to explain what, exactly, made him yell that I was a woman--presumably it was the flowing locks and killer blouse--but holds back.

"It's okay," I say, then think, I probably shouldn't tell anyone about this but what if they hear it from the old guy first, so, no, I'll tell everyone about this great.

Exhibit 1.3.8

An Unnecessarily Obscene Letter to the Game of Thrones Universe

Look, dickholes, I've been loving your show. And I don't mean to call you dickholes, but I've been thinking it over and you're something like dickholes. It's not you. It's your civilization. Every so often a character on the show throws something out like, "We've been guarding this giant wall for 8,000 years," and, you know, I get that they're proud of their family's commitment to standing in the snow but I'm like wait, wait, wait--these dickholes have been here for 8,000 years and haven't invented Applebees?

I'm joking. Sort of. Just because we invented Applebees after less than 8,000 years doesn't mean everyone should have, but is a Hardees too much to ask for? I'm joking again. That's me joking. You guys might not even care for reasonably priced 3-course meals that serve families on a budget. I don't know that but I know this. Your civilization has been around for more than 8,000 years and you've accomplished these things:

1) Giant wall
2) Training crows to carry letters

That's it as far as I can tell. And it doesn't make sense because I see wheels and pulleys and you must be this close to the inclined plane so it's like, come on you shitbirds, learn how to build machines already. I'm not asking for Terminators or anything, just, you know, something more complicated than what my Tamagotchi comes up with if it lives more than a week before starving. For example: It takes your king a month to go on a ski vacation which means every trip anywhere is basically the Oregon Trail. How many jerkoffs have to die of cholera before you guys get trains?

You know how many Applebees I could visit in a month? Enough to enjoy a whole asston of their new sizzling Cajun shrimp.

So let's think this over. I mean, you've got the crows. That's pretty cool. Our crows just act like stuckup goth kids. Of course, if they get sick, we can save them with crow penicillin and make them see better using lasers. In fact, our crows might live to be 8,000 and they don't have to stand on a wall unless they want to. Come to think of it, maybe you should make one of our crows king and save yourselves a lot of action and sex-packed intrigue.

But look, that's really not the point here. The point is this: some of our people don't think our entire planet is much more than 8,000 years old. And that means you guys are falling behind in all areas except incest technology. But it's cool because it also means we're pretty stupid sometimes, too. I mean, we don't have an entire continent of people afraid to row across a tiny ocean, but we've got the Palins. They're sort of like your Lannisters only exactly like your Lannisters.

Still, if this were a game of Civilization, even Gandhi would have ridden you down with his war elephants by now. Not because he wanted to hurt you, but because those elephants could teach you how to navigate using stars and take tenure-track positions at the universities you seemingly don't have. You daft fucks.

But I get it. You're too busy stabbing each other to invent the shovel and dig up all the petroleum in your soil. Maybe if we had dragons, we would have turned into a civilization run by middle school boys, too. And maybe if our winters lasted a decade, we would have also taken a few millennia off.

O, no wait, we would have eaten queso blanco nacho platters at our centrally heated Applebees until it was time to jetski.

Tighten it up,

A.

Exhibit 1.3.3

This Exists



And you need to know about it. Look, I know it's my fault for buying Pop-Tarts in the first place, and maybe I was wrong to expect so much of the good folks at Kellogg's, but this crosses a line.

I don't want to say anything controversial here, but I strongly believe this is worse than manslaughter.

My favorite part can't even be seen here which is that the recipe--O, yes, there's a real recipe on the inside of the box, in case you couldn't figure it out from the picture in the moments before you had to look away--liberally uses the word 'carefully.' You are to carefully spread the marshmallow creme. Also the peanut better. Then you are to sprinkle the "candy-coated chocolate pieces"--carefully--before carefully transferring to a wire rack.

They were trying to warn us.

Exhibit 1.3.1

The Blossom Possum

Takes it to another level.

Just for you, Dave.

Exhibit 1.2.2

Re-signed for 2011



I have once again made the foolish decision to play in a basketball league. On the roster I'm listed as G/F which I'm pretty sure is some kind of joke. As you can see in the picture above, I play in jeans and a polo. At half-time I take tea and ask after the wickets. When I do get in the game, I wear a prescription motorcycle helmet.

But I'm going to try to improve this year so I drew up some plays.

This one is called "Isosceles." It's where I sort of walk in a triangle around the three point line so that my own teammates are confused enough by my movements to not pass me the ball.



This one is called "Why is the whistle lady counting at me?" No, seriously, why?



This one is called, "Free Throw." It's where I stand while someone else makes free throws (not able to be expressed by diagramming: me clapping furiously).



This one is a defensive play called, "I Try to Have a Conversation with a Teammate While My Guy Scores."



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go practice the most important play of all, "Signaling for a Sub When Too Winded to Speak or Move My Arms."

Exhibit 1.1.23

Umm...

I'm firmly on the side that believes violent political rhetoric is a problem because it lowers the discourse, is unworthy of the officeholders, and conflates valid philosophical disagreements with war, not because such rhetoric--no matter how reprehensible--is likely to be responsible for any particular action. Still, I think today's Kansas City Star headline is maybe a little problematic:


I know we're dealing with a headline written by some editor and not political speech but still--nobody saw a problem with this? And I don't just mean because of what happened this weekend, I mean because of perhaps the biggest news story to come out of Kansas in the last decade:

"Abortion Doctor Gunned Down at Kansas Church" -- Fox News

Yep, that was less than two years ago, and the bill referenced in that headline is in direct response to this doctor's practice (despite his, you know, terrible and cowardly murder by a zealot).

Shockingly, the headline has been changed to "Conservatives Push Plan to Restrict Abortion" for the online version of the article.

And so, yeah, I think some of the reaction to the Arizona shooting has been a little tasteless by some of the left (and doubly so by certain defensive voices on the right), but I don't think we can fault anyone who says that maybe all of us--politicians, media, people who like to argue while drinking like myself--might want to step away from certain language and metaphors for a time with the hope we leave them behind altogether.

Exhibit 1.1.8

Stock Photography Review

Another great found stock photo from Maggi who also sent me this one with the hotdogs. As with that one, this photo is almost too weird to do anything with other than present. It's so strange these exist as stock photos--and royalty-free photos--because it implies wide usage when, really, you'd think the one guy who needs this photo could just find a couple of game friends, attend an open house at a for-sale mansion, slip away from the agent, and...


Almost as good as the photo itself are the keywords you can search for to get this photo (officially titled "A Naked Woman on a Bathtub with a Naked Man Crouching over Her Head" which, frankly, seems a little cumbersome):

Agility? Dreams? Standing out from the crowd? Teamwork?

Okay, I'll give them agility.

Still, there's something kind of awesome in sending this into Getty as a stock photo. I don't know if there's a writer equivalent of this, but it probably involves getting an assignment to write about a sporting event and turning in some language poetry, just like Rae Armantrout did when asked to cover the 1984 Orange Bowl.

For what it's worth, I would have titled the photo "The Wife of Bath's Bath" although that maybe works better for the old-timey pornography version nobody asked me to make:

Exhibit 27.25

Fantasy Football Postmortem

I know, I know, no one cares. I don't even care. I only update the roster each week to fantasy honor the fantasy spirit of the fantasy game. But now I'm starting to care again because I think my team might be historically bad. Here are my first five picks in the draft and their ranking on the season.

Round 1, 11th overall - Ryan Matthews. Rank on the season: 152.
In other words, my assessment was only off by 140 players. Seriously, I don't even know why I ever thought a guy named Ryan Matthews would be good. It's a name that sounds best when said while sadly shaking your head. I know because this is the only way this name is ever said.

Round 2, 14th overall - Shonn Greene. Rank on the season: 144.
I should have known when I saw how he spelled his name. Like an idiot, that's how. I should have learned my lesson after the whole Chone Figgins fiasco in fantasy baseball. Okay, that never happened. And now it never will.

Round 3, 35th overall - Tony Romo. Rank on the season: 75th.
This is misleading for two reasons. One, Tony Romo was actually doing fine for me until he got injured for the season after week six. Two, he got injured for the season after week 6.

Round 4, 38th overall - Beanie Wells. Rank on the season: 218th.
The worst part about him is I still expect him to turn it around despite the insistence of statistics, observation, God, and his own coach. I have no idea why I hate Ryan Matthews but love Beanie Wells. The fantasy heart is a cruel mistress. Fantasy-speaking.

Round 5, 59th overall - Wes Welker. Rank on the season: 123rd.
Yes, that's right, my first receiver was someone who has to wear a knee brace bigger than his torso. On the plus side, he was good two years ago so between him, Barack Obama, and Fergie, my Fantasy 2008 team is looking great.


The problems here:

1. With my first five picks, all under the 60th pick overall, I managed to pick none of the top 100 players in football (Romo will fall out soon).

2. All of these players, Romo excluded, are still on my team.

3. The best player on my team--and this is not a joke--is Mike Wallace the wide receiver who ranks 38th.

4. Mike Wallace the news journalist ranks 19th and he might be dead.

5. I named my fantasy team after the real coach of my least favorite real team and somehow never thought karma would play into this.

6. My move/robbery/re-move right before the draft excuse is wearing a little thin.

7. I've started to just pick up random Dolphins because that way I can at least care a little. Hence, I'll probably start Tyler Thigpen this week, something done only by me and someone named Tyler Thigpen.

8. It's killing me because I consider myself to be kind of good at fantasy football. Then the fact that I consider myself to be kind of good at fantasy football makes it even worse. I'm caught in a shame spiral. Fantasy-speaking. In real life I'm doing great.

9. Even after a surprising offensive explosion, I am only averaging 83 points per week. For comparison purposes, the top team is averaging 125. Basically, that means they could drop 3-4 players and still beat me easily.

10. And, of course, I would not pick up those players because I'm still waiting for Beanie Wells to turn it around.

Exhibit 27.16

This Seems Relevant

Calculations by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other independent fiscal experts show that the $1.1 trillion cost over the next 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program, which the Republican-controlled Congress adopted in 2003, by itself would add more to the deficit than the combined costs of the bailout, the stimulus and the health care law.

From this New York Times article.

It's a little bit of a cheat as the health care bill actually reduces the deficit (due to spending cuts and tax increases) and so much of the bailout got paid back--plus the stimulus and bailouts were both one-time expenditures, not things that ostensibly benefit us for 10 years--but it seems like the sort of thing your average Democrat might want to mention every so often.

I know it's old hat by now, but it continues to be depressing how poorly the Democrats articulate their vision and successes. Like most us of, I don't want politics to be a debate contest instead of an arena where legitimate disagreements are resolved, but damnit if the people I (mostly) agree with are going to play this game, I suppose I at least want them to play it well.

It's unclear if the Democrats think they still live in a world where people trust the media to correct false narratives--not that I believe there ever was such a world--or if they really are so insecure in their own opinions that they feel it necessary to respond inarticulately to the 35 to 50 percent of people who will never vote for them anyway.

I mean, is it really so hard to defend the stimulus? Your opponent says spending, you say jobs. The end.

The rhetoric is on your side (jobs beats spending beats scissors). The facts are on your side (unemployment would be higher without it). History is on your side (1932). The world is on your side (most major economies did some kind of stimulus and, not surprisingly, the more they did the better they came out of the recession).

Now, I realize you're not going to want to stand up in front of your opponent who calls the president a socialist and say we needed to do what China did, but would it really be so much worse than the equivocating and the apologizing?

Exhibit 27.1

Twitter

For some reason, I decided to join Twitter yesterday. You can but probably shouldn't find me here. Also, I added a clunky feed on the side of this blog in case you weren't getting enough insight into me during your visit to this site where I share my thoughts on candy bars and puppies.

(Refresher: I'm for them).

I mostly joined because it had gotten to the point where I had 8 or 9 different Twitter feeds I checked regularly. These were, with a couple of exceptions, about sports. Yesterday with college football starting and the Royals playing and rosters being cut down...it became too much. I very reluctantly started an account and then very gleefully spent 6 hours choosing a color for my sidebar.

I settled on white.

The best part is, we now get to have this conversation:

You: Hey, how's it going?
Me: [staring at my phone]
You: [staring at nature]
Me: Sorry, I joined Twitter.
You: You should qwitter.
Me: That should totally be a hashtag!
You: I don't know what that is.
Me: [staring at my phone] Did you know the Seahawks cut T.J. Houshmandzadeh?

I feel like I should retroactively date this post to two years ago when everyone else wrote it.

Exhibit 24.15

Bracket Math

So, I entered two NCAA brackets yet watched zero college basketball games this year. That's okay because I have a complicated formula for determining what percentile of basketball success I will experience. First, I determine how many points I scored in my 20 most recent basketball games. So, Zero. Then, I calculate my approximate number of turnovers per 10 minutes played. So, Three. I simply add those numbers together then multiply by the number of games watched.

0 + 3 = 3 X 0 = 0

Okay, so then I divide that number by the number of brackets entered.

0/2 = ERROR

Hmm.

Exhibit 23.27

Bad Ideas

* Having your Pulitzer Prize winning story collection include an "interview" in the discussion material between the author and the titular character. "Wait, you were following me?" the titular character says and we all die a little.

* Telling the dog that the wind is chasing us Happening style. Well, maybe this isn't a bad idea, really.

* Writing a boring half of a story to meet the requirements of a class exercise then making a note at the end of the file that says, "Make second half good. Add monsters."

* Thumbs.