Christmas for thought

While I was at home for Christmas I read this review of books about Rene Descartes in an old borrowed New Yorker. Descartes was the philosopher best known for his "I think, therefore I am," saying. According to the article, the philosophical slogan was mistakenly believed to reflect an argument against the existence of God, and Descartes' belief in subjectivism. But this is what Descartes had to say:

"When I consider the fact that I have doubts, or that I am a thing that is incomplete and dependent, then there arises in me a clear and distinct idea of a being who is independent and complete, that is, an idea of God. And from the mere fact that there is such an idea within me, or that I who possess this idea exist, I clearly infer that God also exists, and that every single moment of my entire existence depends on him. ...And now, from this contemplation of the true God, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and the sciences lie hidden, I think I can see a way forward to the knowledge of other things."

Merry Christmas everyone.

The meat tonight is fresh. I mean, REALLY fresh

This experience is sure to make the RCNY Hall of Fame for me.

So it seems strange things happen to me when I'm in and around Washington Square Park, especially when I am with Al & An. My prior strange Wash Sq Pk w/ Al & An experience was meeting Leatherface, who later was found dead hanging from a post in full S&M gear.

So this time, we were coming out of Blue Hill, a restaurant on Washington Place known for serving organic food from the Hudson Valley, our bellies full of Berkshire Pork and bread pudding and wine and chicken and other foods that you pat yourself on the back for eating because they are organic, even though you're not entirely sure what that entails. Al went back into the restaurant to get a gift certificate, while An and I waited out front. I noticed a minivan parked on the street that had nobody in it, but its side door was open halfway. I was a bit concerned that some poor guy's car had been broken into, though there were no visible signs of forced entry.

I peered into the van from a few feet away to see if I could tell whether it had in fact been broken into. I noticed a couple things; some dry cleaning hanging behind the back seat; a Bed, Bath & Beyond plastic bag on the floor, and something big strewn across a black plastic bag on the back seat, like maybe a big crumpled blanket or sweater. I peered in the darkness of the van a couple of times, while chatting with An as we waited for Al, who took a while to get his certificate. But on maybe my third peer-in, I noticed the light bouncing off something shiny and black on the blanket.

Now, I am not one who screams aloud unless I am with someone else who screams first, but if I were one who screamed aloud, I surely would have. I had that sudden feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get when something scares the bejeezus out of you. The glistening black thing was an eyeball on the "blanket" strewn across the back seat, which was not in fact a blanket at all, but appeared to be a dead baby deer. Initially I thought it was a dead dog, but the legs were too spindly and the snout was longer, like a horse's. I could see it's glassy eye staring up at me, and I felt like that guy in the Godfather who finds the bloody horse's head in his bed.

An and I freaked out and tried to think of where this deer could possibly have come from. An noticed that the car had a NYC parks department sticker. But where on earth would you find a dead deer in NYC? I highly doubt deer from Jersey or upstate would be able to accidentally cross highways and bridges and toll roads to wander into Central Park. And why was the door open? To keep the car fresh from the smell of a rotting animal corpse? Or was it a sign for car thieves to keep away (as in, you try to jack this car, you end up dead, like this deer)? I immediate concocted a crazy revenge scenario: Some parks dept. bureaucrat with a gambling problem who owed money to a loan shark was dining at Blue Hill, and the loan shark's thugs put the dead deer in his soccer-mom minivan as a warning.

At any rate, the other strange thing was just how nonchalantly the deer was strewn across the back seat, decidedly NOT placed INSIDE the plastic bag it was lying on. Maybe the parks employee decided it was OK to leave the car door open, because why on earth would a dead deer in a car freak people out? Al wondered what the driver's to-do list for the day looked like: 1) Pick up dry cleaning. 2) Get duvet cover at Bed, Bath & Beyond. 3) Pick up dead deer. 4) Make reservations for Blue Hill--must hurry to get good parking!

Anyway, the other curious thing was that on Blue Hill's tasting menu that night--which was being strongly recommended by our waitress--was VENISON. Coincidence???? I think not.

Which gym a-hole are you?

Okay, maybe I’m feeling particularly pet-peevish lately, but this blog post made me think of all the different types of a-holes I see at the gym.

For starters, I have to point out that I have suffered from a case of gym a-holishness myself. I only really started working out in my mid-to-late 20s once I realized that my metabolism was no longer my friend. It started out with about 20 minutes on an elliptical at level 2, then after a few years, for a brief period, I became a gym a-hole and would take two classes in a row and go like four or five times a week. But now I think I’ve leveled off at about three times a week, taking my favorite classes, doing some treadmill or elliptical work here and there, and getting in some free-weight time.

Even though the gym is a regular part of my routine now, I’d like to think that I don’t fall into any of the below categories of Gym A-holes:

1. The “Smell? What Smell?” A-hole: This is the A-hole who farts on the treadmill next to you or in yoga or in some other class where people are in close quarters. Sad how we usually assume it’s the nastiest guy in the room, but the truth is the skinny bitch next to you whose insides are all shot due to her eating disorder is just as likely to be the culprit. Most people in class where gas was passed are mature enough to ignore the odor and wait for it to waft away. But as soon as I get a whiff I, of course, have to scan the room to see who has the guiltiest look on their face.

2. The “Two Percent Body Fat” A-hole: This is the A-hole who believes s/he is doing a public service by working out in just enough clothing to disqualify him/her from indecent exposure, so all of us flabbies can check out his/her six pack. This is the girl in micro bike shorts and jog bra doing the Chinese splits behind her three-riser step to “warm up” for step class. This is the guy who always wears a tight wife beater and lifts it up to wipe the sweat off his face while flexing his abs.

3. The “Twenty Percent Body Fat” A-hole: This is the A-hole who isn’t necessarily out of shape, but somehow manages to pick gym clothes that make them appear flabbier than they are. Unfortunately, this A-hole is usually female, and she’s the one who probably wears the same outfit as the “Two Percent Body Fat” A-hole, but instead of exposing a six-pack, she exposes rolls and a muffin top. I acknowledge that society has instilled an unnatural standard of female beauty in me, but that still doesn’t mean I want to see your pooch. (Props to S for pointing out this A-hole.)

4. The “You Done Wit’ Dat?” A-hole: This is the A-hole who hovers around you while you’re on the machine and asks how many more sets you’re doing during your first rep while swinging his arms to stretch in preparation for his turn. He also asks if he can get a “few reps in” while you’re taking your ten second break between sets.

5. The “Just Five More Miles—I Mean Minutes” A-hole: This is the A-hole treadmiller or ellipticaller who knows it’s high-traffic time and is only supposed to be on the machines for 30 minutes, but has clearly been on longer judging by the fact that his white shirt is translucent due to an hour’s worth of sweat. This A-hole tends to cover the time on the dashboard with his towel so none of the annoyed waiting patrons can see how long he’s actually been on.

6. The “Trainer’s Pet” A-hole: This is the A-hole that basically acts as a class instructor’s groupie, following the instructor from gym location to gym location like an obsessive fan, very obviously making personal conversation with celebrity instructor before and after class, putting his/her equipment away for him—everything short of sopping up the instructor’s sweat with her own tongue.

7. The “Monica Seles” A-hole: This is the A-Hole who grunts louder than tennis pro Monica while benchpressing some insane amount of weight while simultaneously checking himself out in the mirror. Nearby gym attendees are forced to turn up their iPods to avoid that discomfort you feel when the person next to you sounds like they are taking a dump or getting laid.

8. The “Cell Phone” A-hole: This is self-explanatory. This is the A-hole who gabs away on her cell phone, out of breath, while running or doing the elliptical, clearly ignoring the “cell phone use in designated areas only” sign. This A-hole typically talks louder than normal to be heard over the sound of the machines and the grunts coming from Monica Seles A-hole.

9. The “Meat Marketer” A-hole: This is the A-hole who is always looking around the room for the “Two Percent Body Fat” A-hole so he can chat her up.

10. The “Do As I Say, Not as I Look” Trainer A-hole: This A-hole is the trainer who teaches an abs class without a six pack, or who teaches an aerobics class by barking out instructions but not doing any moves, or teaches a dance class with no rhythm (and yes, I’ve experienced all three of these trainer A-holes). You have no clue how these people became instructors, or how the gym manager managed to overlook the potbelly when he hired him. They may as well be teaching class while sitting in La-Z-Boy eating a donut. For some mysterious reason, these Trainer A-holes also tend to wear 80s workout gear, like pantyhose underneath leotards or Le Coq Sportif track suits.

Evite etiquette, anxiety and acrimony

So this NYT article really hit the nail on the head when it comes to the insanity that has become responding to an Evite. S and I are always commenting on how people get on our nerves when it comes to their Evite etiquette (or lack thereof).

In the early days of Evite, people simply responded a simple “yes,” “no,” or a “maybe” with a simple explanation of why they may or may not be able to make it. Now, as the article points out, RSVPing has evolved into an arduous effort to create clever one-sided repartee.

I think we need to return to simplicity because all this Evite nonsense is crazy. Here are my top Evite peeves:

LAME RESPONSES. One can tell when you’ve tried too hard to write your response—and people will call you out on it, or at least talk shit about you behind your back and tell everyone else at the party that so-and-so’s response was LAME—especially if the Evite host has crafted a particularly witty invite. I’ve had firsthand experience with this. (Not with generating a trying-too-hard response, but with people saying that they didn’t see why so-and-so respondent even attempted to match my Evite witticisms. Not to toot my own horn or anything.)

“TMI” RESPONSES. You don’t know 50 percent of the people on the Evite, so they don’t care if you have 12 other parties to go to that night. If anything, they’ll think that you are so insecure you need to announce to the world that you have a social life. A simple: “Have to run to another event that night. Will try to make it!” is good enough, you social climber.

PERPETUAL “MAYBE” MEN. These are the people who NEVER say they are coming to an event with 100 percent certainty. No wonder you sleep alone, you emotionally dead commitment phobe! I much prefer Yes Men or Naysayers.

HIDE-AND-PEEKERS. The host can tell when you’ve looked at the Evite, which means we can tell that you are choosing not to respond until you’re certain the people coming are worthy of your time. I’ve seen people check an evite every few days until the event, without giving any response. In the words of scorned women everywhere: “You can’t do better than me!”

SECOND-DEGREE RESPONDERS I know that sometimes in Evites hosts encourage you to invite friends, but eviting 20 friends, and having those friends evite their friends, instills this unnatural feeling of extreme annoyance in me. I mean, not just when people forward the evite info to their friends, but actually ADD them to the evite. And then those people respond as if they were first-degree guests! Admittedly, this is a nitpick pet peeve, but it still gets my grill. Stop crashing my party, fools!

Now that I’ve revealed my Evite pet peeves, I’m sure to undergo scrutiny whenever I craft a response or my next evite. Whatever, it had to be said.

In other news: But can they listen to your problems while looking hot?

Ay, Dios mio!

There’s nothing quite like Spanish-language television. As I write this I am currently glued to the TV set watching a Univision show, Muevete, in which two female stars dressed in leopard print lingerie and sporting corn chip nail tips play a precarious game of Jenga, as an audience, the band, the hosts, cameramen, and a chorus of bikini-clad show extras look on. The 30-story high Jenga tower finally gets knocked over because during the turn of one of the stars (the older one with the bigger boob job), the table gets mysteriously bumped and shakes the tower down after said celebrity manages to expertly remove the Jenga piece. I think her D-cups created some sort of shockwave that traveled through the air as they swept pass the tower. That’s the only explanation I can think of because she didn’t seem to touch the table otherwise.

Anyway, I know a lot of people who went to Italy this year, which has been making me itchin’ to go to Europe sometime soon. But I’ve always wanted to visit Barcelona to see the architecture and eat a lot of paella. The signs are everywhere telling me to go: I keep seeing random travel articles on Barcelona, and America’s Next Top Model was filmed there. I ate at a Spanish-inspired restaurant called Barca 18 a few months back, and this weekend I ate shrimp, which is an ingredient in paella. I think God’s trying to tell me something.

Which brings me to the real point of this post: How I could fund such travel. The only problem with my Barcelona trip is that I have no money to get there. Or to Africa. Or to the Caribbean. Or to Miami. Or to Canada. (All places that I have enough reason to go to, but not enough funds.) Sigh. So lately I’ve been thinking about getting a part-time job, but at what age are you too old to get a part time job? I mean, like the kind where you’re folding khakis at the Gap or scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins? The lazy part of me is totally unmotivated to do work outside of my ten-to-six. The other part of me looks at my bills and panics.

So I’ve been brainstorming ways to come up with some extra cash. Waitress? Dog walker? Babysitter (which I do from time to time already)? Evite-writing consultant? Subway performer? Life coach (like with athletic coaches, life coaches just have to know how to dispense advice, but not take it, right)?

Someone give me suggestions. I’m willing to consider any and all reasonable ideas.

Everyone should own a pair of eatin’ pants

So I’m at home for Thanksgiving and I realized that I’ve slowly become a man for the holidays. I’ve lounged around in “eatin’ pants” all day (i.e, track pants with an elastic waistband). I’ve been unable to curb my appetite, eating full meals and then nibbling on leftovers when I’m not eating full meals. I’ve taken naps after eating said meals. I’ve only thought about taking a shower. And I’ve watched football nonstop for the past two days. (Well, the past week really, if you count the Ohio vs. Michigan game I got caught up in last Sat.) I’ve already seen snippets of Florida vs. FSU, UGA vs. Ga Tech, and am currently enthralled by the USC vs. Notre Dame game, though I vow no allegiance to any of these teams.

Tomorrow though, I get to be a girl again by hitting up the outlet malls. I dared not venture to any shops on Black Friday because I am no longer used to the parking, traffic, and overall madness that is shopping in the ‘burbs during a sale. There’s nothing scarier than trying to take a parking space from a soccer mom with a minivan full of kids. She’ll choke you with her braided belt faster than you can say “World’s Best Mom.” I had hoped to stop by the Target for its two-day sale, but looking at the price slashing they did in the circular, I think that would have been the absolute worst place to go.

It was nice being home, not having to do anything, having my parents cook for me, taking cat naps throughout the day, and not feeling like I have to do anything. My Thanksgiving dinner, cooked mostly by my sister, consisted of turkey, pot roast, green bean casserole, yam casserole, stuffing with sausage, citrus cranberry sauce, crescent rolls, and some Korean food (various veggies and fish and shrimp tempura, courtesy of the ‘rents).

I love the feeling of being stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner. I did end up doing a little bit of work today because right when I get back to New York I have to report for jury duty, of all things, but for a few days my existence has been pleasingly stress-free. I have to work off the pounds in the gym when I go home, but for now my eatin’ pants are serving me well.

Happy Belated Turkey Day everyone.

Personal space invaders

So there’s apparently a whole science of the things that make up much of my pet-peeve list. It’s called proxemics, or the study of people’s perception of their personal space. Most of the things that annoy me about other people have a lot to do with their invasion of my personal space.

In the lead of this New York Times story, the writer touched on a big one, one that myself and a lot of my girlfriends are often troubled by on the subway: When men spread their legs too wide and impinge on my leg-room space. Another big one the story touches on: When people go to the bathroom in the stall next to you, when there are tons of other stalls empty. I am often troubled by the inexplicable, apparent desire of some folks to do their business right next to me, separated only by an inch and a half wide stall door, eschewing the option to poo or pee at least several feet away.

In New York, personal space is at such a premium that the city makes the perfect social scientific Petri dish for proxemics. Where else can you be right next to someone on a packed subway, touching them in a way that might be labeled sexual assault in another situation, and never even make eye contact with them? We’ve learned to cope with the 24/7, sardines-in-a-can feeling by coming up with coping mechanisms, such as reading the same subway advertisements over and over, staring at yourself and others in the reflection of the subway window, spacing out to your iPod, or pretending to be literary and reading the New Yorker.

I love the way this article ends: “In general most people understand the rules of personal space and heed the cues. Then again, the world is littered with clods. As Dr. Archer put it, people generally view personal-space rules in one of two ways: ‘the wrong way and my way.’”

Here’s what clods on my personal-space shit list do:

* Talk so close that they spit in my face, and don’t acknowledge that they spit on me even though we both can feel the saliva drying on my cheek.
* Stand so close in line behind me that when I inch up, they also inch up, even though I’m inching forward to get the hell away from them, not because the line is actually moving.
* Try to get in front of me when I’m standing on the street corner to cross. The only thing they are beating me at is getting swide-swiped by a cabbie.
* Constantly say “excuse me” to get past me and off the subway, even though I’m also getting off the same subway stop.
* Try to look at what I’m listening to on my iPod. For some reason, this bothers me more than reading over my shoulder because there’s something about your playlist that is more personal. (Though I admit I’m also guilty of stealthy iPod sneak peeks).

Post: modern love

There’s one thing I’ve taken to reading consistently lately in the New York Times, and that’s the Modern Love column.

I think it’s because sometimes Modern Love is really a misnomer, as the stories might be more about Modern Lust or Modern Infatuation or Modern Co-Dependency. The fun is trying to figure out which one the particular anecdote falls into. But every once in a while, I read one that resonates with me.

Last week’s Modern Love column was one of those. It was about a woman who lived in a separate apartment from her husband, only to finally move in with him when the circumstances of war in the Middle East forced her to. I think I found it bittersweet because I’ve always joked that the perfect relationship would be to be married but live in separate places, and I used to say that only half tongue-in-cheek. Her story gives me hope for myself! (And again, I say that only half tongue-in-cheek).

What most surprises me about these columns is the openness with which people are willing to talk about their failed or successful relationships, trysts or indiscretions—-especially the indiscretions, which do little to disprove my “Men are from Dog, Women are From Stupid” theory. But then a weepy, sentimental one like this week’s, about a woman whose boyfriend gives her his kidney, will surface and make me temporarily feel the fuzzies.

The other thing the column makes me do is sing the David Bowie song in my head over and over:

“Modern love - walks beside me
Modern love - walks on by
Modern love - gets me to the church on time”

How so very true, Mr. Bowie.

Halloween’s a drag

In New York, at least, it is, because that’s when you can see the best of the best drag queens taking a stroll up Sixth Avenue in the West Village as part of the annual Halloween parade. The grand marshals were Kiss, whom I saw go by on a float for about five seconds (Paul Stanley’s gut was not to be missed). Borat was supposedly going to make an appearance, but instead I only saw a bunch of guys dressed up like him handing out promos for the movie.

Every year I say I’m too old to be dressing up for Halloween, and every year I somehow get suckered into it, either because I’m accompanying a friend to a party or because I’ve thought of some clever costume I can’t bear to pass up or because I’m just generally bored and get inspired by the crazy revelers.

This Halloween was no different. I made my friend’s red beret pull double duty as a pseudo Che Guevara communist chick for my friend’s pumpkin carving party (couldn’t quite put together a nuclear-happy North Korean costume without the Kim Jong Il hair), and then on Tuesday as a beatnik. I fully intended to come home by a decent hour on Halloween night, being a school night and all, only to end up watching the whole parade go by with its gay disco floats and giant characters on sticks, then maneuvering the crowds to find my friends the Vampire King and Queen, then going to some sponsored Halloween party/launch event where I was jostled by a bunch of overgrown bananas, then walking all over the Lower East Side looking for a place to eat, then finally settling to eat fried calamari at Schiller’s Liquor Bar at 1 am. The next day I was supposed to go to an 8.30 a.m. session at a conference, but it goes without saying that I didn’t exactly make it.

I’m getting too old for this!

P.S: Patty Pumpkin says hello. She is my 2006 pumpkin creation, preceded by Melvin the Sad Sack Pumpkin of Halloween 2005 whom I don’t have a photo of anymore.

Feeding kimchee to the night owls

This article in the New York Times highlights New York’s unofficial reigning title as the Best City for Late Night Dining. The interesting part is that the article highlights several late-night dining venues that are Korean-inspired. It is true that in K-town, late night dining has always been a staple, but I think it’s funny that the mainstream culture has finally caught on that there’s nothing to feed a night out on the town like some good bibimbop or soft tofu soup.

Even non-Korean Sam Talbot, who runs a pushcart that sells Korean-type items like kalbee rolls and kimchee dogs (I munched on a kimchee dog from his cart once after proclaiming it was a bastardization of my country’s cuisine, and it was delish) says that he associates Korean food with “being up all night, with drinking and everything.” Haha.

I grew up eating kimchee with everything, including hot dogs, and with bulgogi in hoagie buns, and in regular bologna sandwiches, with pizza, etc., etc. Note to Sam Talbot (who I discovered is also on season 2 of Top Chef), kimchee also tastes good with fried chicken and white rice. I’d like to see that added to the cart.

Yam cream probably tastes great with waffles and a mimosa

So someone brought to my attention recently a product announcement for a board game for women going through menopause. We were pretty speechless. Some folks I know were thoroughly offended; others thought it was unbelievably hysterical. But everyone pretty much took it as tasteless.

Anyway, I’m about 25-30 years outside the game’s target demographic, so I know it’s not geared toward me. But if I were going through menopause, I probably wouldn't take it as irreverent or funny. (Actually, I'd probably think it was hilarious one second and thoroughly depressing the next.) My real reason for bringing up this game, however, isn’t to rail against some ill-conceived product that missed the taste mark. It’s to ask: What the hell is yam cream?

I get pretty much why all the other game pieces fit in with the menopause theme. I guess I’m just naïve or uninformed, but yam cream didn’t ring a bell. Thinking harder, I might have an inkling, but it’s nasty so I won’t say what I think it is aloud.

If I ever did play this game though, I think I would choose to be the diaphragm every time. If some other menopausal bitch took my game piece, the Freedom Tampon would be a close second.

Cincinnati has that je nei sais quoi

Got back recently from Cincinnati for work, a place that I was curious to visit because all I know of Cincy is the WKRP jingle, and that I always spell it wrong, with two “t”s instead of two “n”s. Alas, I didn’t get to try Cincinnati chili, but I did get to taste Graeter’s ice cream (which has Oprah’s stamp of approval) and ride a Tallstacks boat. I didn’t get to stray too much outside of the business district, so I don’t think I saw enough of the city to get a feel of the real Cincy, but overall it was pleasant enough and everyone was very nice. (Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever met an Ohioan who wasn’t nice and didn’t speak in broadcaster’s English.)

I was there to visit various local companies (including one particular consumer products company that runs the city, pretty much) and on this trip I met some French and German folks who were also quite nice and pleasant enough, but whom I was amused to find were very French and German, in the way that most Americans seem to think the French and the German will be.

The Germans were friendly but definitely had the more booming of voices. The French women were rail thin and smoked whenever they had a few spare moments, and were never quite satisfied with the strength and taste of American coffee. (“Is this coffee, or is this tea?” asked one French colleague when she poured some of the admittedly bad and weak coffee provided by one of the companies.) At one point we were visiting a place that wouldn’t allow smoking within 25 feet of the entrance, with a menacing sign proclaiming so. The French women stopped at the sign almost like it was invisible fencing, puffing quickly away on the cigarettes they had just lit ten feet earlier.

So I was surprised to read this NYT article when I got back into town that says France was working toward a smoking ban. I remember being culture-shocked when I went to visit Paris a few years ago to see people smoking in the airports and the subway. At that time, indoor smoking in NYC had been a thing of the past. Smoking seemed so entrenched in the Parisian culture to me that it seems near impossible to rid it of its tobacco habit. Then again, they said they’d never be able to ban smoking in New York or LA, either (or in Ireland, for that matter), and now I can’t imagine people lighting up in enclosed quarters anymore here, like back in college, when I would step in a bar or club for two seconds only to emerge reeking of cancer-stick residue.

The best thing about the French losing their right to smoke indoors, however, is their protesting.

My favorite quotes:

“I see this as a personal attack,” said André Santini, a center-right member of Parliament from a Paris suburb and compulsive cigar smoker, who posed for photographers this week in the tobacco kiosk in the National Assembly building. “What disturbs me is the ayatollahs you meet everywhere. They tell you how you have to make love, how you have to eat.”

And…

“I’ll end my life where I started it — in the men’s room,” said Jean-Pierre Balligand, a lawmaker from eastern France. “I started smoking like every other schoolboy, in the toilets of my junior high school. And that’s where I’ll end up, in the toilets of the National Assembly, while the school principal, Mr. Debré, screams at us for smoking.”

Gotta love the French and their poetic metaphoric rants. So, ah…how you say…so dramatique!

R.I.P. Leatherface

So a person who fits the description of the leather-clad man I had an odd encounter with in the West Village a few weekends ago has a name: Richard Lewis. As suspected, he was recently released from a mental institution, and died in an apparent suicide by hanging himself by his spiked dog collar from a fence. It almost sounds too strange to be true (as evidenced by the fact that most passersby thought he was an early Halloween costume), but it reminded me of a few past encounters I’ve had with strangers whom I later found out had died.

Though my initial encounter elicited the typical shake-your-head-in-amazement-at-crazy-New-Yorkers reaction, news of his death actually struck me rather sadly. I’ve been lucky to not have lost too many loved ones, save a few aging grandparents for whom death was less about sadness, and more about letting go and being relieved that their suffering was finally over. For the most part, the people I’ve lost had lived a long and eventful life. But I’ve always been strangely affected by the death of people whom I barely knew, especially when the death has been by suicide. I often wondered what their life was like and what caused them so much sorrow that they had to take their own lives.

One summer I worked at the front desk of a Comfort Inn, and I remember a man who prepaid for his room in cash. I don’t remember his name, but I do recall that when he filled out the information card we had all walk-in guests fill out, he listed his occupation as “college professor.” And I remember that when he paid, he gave me a halfhearted smile that was the typical forced smile you give someone when you’re exhausted and just want to retreat to your own bed as soon as you can.

Except this wasn’t his own bed, and he curiously had little luggage, even for a simple overnight stay. Later that night, after my shift was over, I found out that a housekeeper had found him dead on his bed. I think he had taken some medication and placed a plastic bag over his head to suffocate himself. I remember wondering whether he really was a college professor, and, for some odd reason, whether jilted or unrequited love was the reason for him wanting to kill himself. It was an odd thought, but one that didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. What was even more odd was the possibility that I may have been the last person he ever saw face-to-face.

I never found out his name. But the other close encounter I’ve had with suicide was a girl I knew in college, two years below me. I remember her as someone who always seemed chill, really nice, really interested in what you had to say and an all-around well-adjusted person. After I graduated she went abroad to study in France, I think, and the next time I saw her, she said she had really enjoyed it, almost too much—and I sensed something emotionally significant had happened there, because her face fell a little bit when she said that.

Then one day, at 2 am, in what would have been her senior year, I got a call at home from my friend who had heard word that she had killed herself. She had jumped out of her window, and apparently there was no mistaking that it was suicide, since the high-rise dorm in which she lived had windows that you had to take apart to open big enough to jump out of. I was shocked. I never thought that she, of all people, would do it. Aside from being seemingly well-adjusted, she was religious, and I can only imagine she was going through some kind of extreme emotional and spiritual turmoil, so much so that she lost the will to live.

I don’t think I cried that night; instead, I was shocked. Just shocked. I didn’t know what to think, really, except that I had thought about calling her a few months before just to say hello, to see how she was doing. I had lost touch with her after I graduated, but she was someone whom I definitely thought about from time to time with fondness. I did cry, however, when I finally put flowers on her grave a few months later on a dreary day in a Long Island cemetery.

I don’t think one can ever speculate how or why someone loses the will to live. I think those of us who have ever thought about it were lucky that something just stopped us short from that feeling of total despair, of total separation from the rest of the world, when you think your only option for finding peace is in death. I think of my undergrad friend from time to time, and I think she’s found that peace, though the means through which she found it was not the way she was meant to. I find solace though, in the fact that if I ever see her one day, we’ll both realize that the pain she was feeling was just a blip in the eternity she was meant to experience.

Microsoft makes a funny

It’s good to know the evil geniuses over at Microsoft have a sense of humor. This YouTube video is a satire on the difference between Microsoft’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink package design principles and Apple’s minimalist branding. The video started as an in-house joke but was leaked (or “leaked?”) to YouTube. Instead of getting huffy Microsoft ran with it, poking fun at itself. Wonder if a Microsoft version of iTunes would automatically include songs in your library from Paul Allen’s band?

So I know Microsoft isn’t all evil. But if only I could convince myself that the little Helpy Helperton MS Word Paper Clip guy wasn’t really one of Satan’s minions waiting for the opportune time to crash my desktop RIGHT before the auto save kicks in. I cursed the name of Bill Gates many a time back when, when I was a PC user.

Now I’m a Machead both at work and at home, and there’s little I can complain about, except that there are still many applications that refuse to loosen themselves from the Windows grip. Thus, I’m often left out of the loop of some streaming videos or cool Web sites because they aren’t compatible with Mac and its browsers (I LOATHE Internet Explorer!).

On the other hand, I do feel that Apple is starting to screw those of us in the ass who are slaves to design. For instance, why did I have to shell out $30 for a portable charger for my nano when that was free in the first-generation iPods? And after I save and save and spend on my iBook, I learn that the new Macs will be Intel-based, and therefore much faster. I shake my fist at you, Steve Jobs!

Oh well. I guess when it comes to electronics, you just can’t win. Everything is obsolete as soon as you buy it. On top of that, I get a third degree burn on my thighs every time I use my laptop on my lap, which is where I’m assuming it was intended to be placed considering the name. I guess I should take advantage of the lithium ion battery recall before I end up burning my pickup truck to a crisp.

If you just clicked on that NYT story, I think just as curious as the fact that a computer battery caused such apocalyptic destruction to poor Thomas’ truck is that Thomas actually owned a laptop. (Though what’s not as surprising is the fact that the conflagration was exasperated by ammunition in his glove compartment. And I love the fact that a cigarette is hanging from his mouth as he peers through the charred remains of steel and seat vinyl. Ain’t nothin’—neither a fiery truck explosion nor a New York times photog—gonna keep him from his smokes.)

Meet the real Leatherface

I encountered a man on the street last weekend that really epitomizes why I devised the acronym RCNY (random crazy New Yorker). I was walking past Washington Square Park with two friends when we saw a figure in black saying something to the folks walking in front of us. They ignore him and continue on. As we get closer, we realize why: The figure in black is a slight man dressed head-to-toe in leather: leather jacket, leather pants, leather hood, and I think a leather collar too, with various studs and spikes all over. That’s not such an unusual sight, particularly in the West Village, but he also had on a leather facemask. Except it didn’t really look like a particularly well-manufactured leather facemask; it sort of resembled a leather strip that he happened to Saran-wrap across his face, cutting out holes for his eyes, nose, and mouth. Oh, and he also happened to be carrying a mace (not the spray, one of those medieval weapons with a round, spiky ball at the top).

Through the mouth hole, he proceeded to ask: “Do you know where a leather store is?” I had several immediate thoughts that ran through my head rapid-fire: He’s a psycho killer who is going to spike me in the eye at any second; he’s some sort of submissive or dominant on his way to the dungeon who forgot some S&M essential; Is it Halloween already?; and—Doesn’t he have quite enough leather on? Is there really any need to buy more?

All of this simultaneous shock, terror and curiosity manifested itself in me saying, “8th Street.” I don’t know for sure that there is a leather store there, but I thought that would be his safest bet. He proceeded to ask me where 8th St. He was only a block a way, but then my shocked speechlessness kicked in, albeit delayed, and I found I couldn’t really talk. I pointed in the general direction as me and my friends scurried away, but I don’t think he saw me. He kept asking where 8th St. was, but we had already absconded and he was onto the next group of people, asking the same question, getting the same reaction.

I don’t know if Mr. Leatherface ever found the leather store, and part of me felt bad because I’m sure anyone he asked would 1) not know where the leather store was, and 2) would be afraid to stop long enough to direct him because of his insane outfit. (Though I suppose if one knew where the particular kind of leather store he was looking for was, they would not have found his getup particularly shocking.)

I wonder what The Sartorialist would have thought of his ensemble. Damn, I wish I’d had my camera!

I Heart NY

With all my huffing and puffing over Survivor and Men’s Health, I forgot to write about the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I wasn’t in New York at the time, but I still recall talking to my friends several days after it happened and hearing the complete exhaustion and despair in their voices. I was at home in the D.C. area, and I remember waking up late that day, around 10 am, to my dad entering the bedroom. I had finished grad school two weeks earlier and had been looking for a job in New York. My dad told me to turn on the TV, and then said, “I don’t want you to go to New York.”

From then on, I was glued to the television just like everyone else, watching the split screen of the gaping hole in the Pentagon and the planes crashing into the towers as soot-covered workers fled the streets. I had tried to call my friend, who worked near the World Trade Center, but of course the phones weren’t working. Thank God, that day she had gone to work a little bit late and hadn’t made it to her building when the planes hit.

Despite my dad’s plea, I think he knew and I knew that the events of that day wouldn’t stop me from job hunting in New York, and about a month later a friend of mine and I went up for a weekend to attend a job fair. I remember standing on the balcony of an NYU dorm room in the West Village and seeing the smoke rising from the ashes at Ground Zero, even all those weeks later.

I wasn’t close with anyone who died in the WTC, but my friend did lose her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé), whom we both went to school with, and a future former coworker of mine lost his wife, leaving behind her husband and their small son. To my knowledge, neither of their bodies was ever found. My friend had gone from triage to triage with a few other friends looking for her boyfriend soon after it happened, but never found him. The New York Times ran all these little write-ups on the people that died; I still recall reading his and remembering what he was like in college.

I remembered the most that he was a music lover. I visited his suite when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore, and I remember looking at his vast CD collection as he tinkled on an electronic keyboard. He told me that one of his favorites was In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs, which I borrowed and later bought. I had never really listened to them before. A few years later we sang together in an a cappella group, and though we had our differences I remember he had a nice voice, the kind that easily blended in with others and was pleasant to listen to.

In July I stopped by St. Paul’s Chapel, the church near Ground Zero that served as a refuge for volunteer workers during 9/11, and teared up when I looked at the makeshift beds that volunteer rescue workers slept on, tiny beds that could barely fit me, let alone a brawny firefighter, and topped with ragged stuffed animals. There were tons of letters pinned up everywhere, large crayon scrawl from elementary school kids, written to thank nameless rescue workers. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been five years already; other times, it feels like it was ages ago. But it never deterred me from wanting to come back to New York, because as far as I was concerned there was nothing that could ever bring down New York’s status as the Greatest City in the World. The year after undergrad graduation, before I moved back home, I remembered being sick of the city—-sick of dodging people’s elbows as I left work in Times Square, sick of stuffing myself into the subway, sick of never being able to afford a room that wasn’t a closet. I left for home, closing a chapter of my life.

But I think I always knew that I’d be back. I think I needed that time away from the city to fully appreciate it. I still dodge the elbows. I still stuff myself onto the subway. I still live in a closet. At times this city is dirty, frustrating, grungy, scary, and downright rude. But it’s also the most vibrant, wonderful, and miraculous place I’ve ever lived. I see miracles everyday, see all the different kinds of people God created in His image, see all the different people who need Him and don’t know it, see those who work tirelessly for Him to make the city a slightly lovelier place to live. It’s true, in another town I’d probably be living in a bigger place, maybe own a home. Maybe I’d be a business owner. Maybe I’d be a wife. Maybe I’d be a mom. That’s a lot of maybes, though. The only thing I really know for certain right now is that there’s no other place I’d rather live.

Note to Jeff Probst: Mexicans and Canadians aren’t the same as Americans, either

I couldn’t believe it when I read this article in the Washington Post’s TV column. Was the writer trying to make Survivor host Jeff Probst look like an effing idiot? Are the producers offering him up as a lamb to the media slaughter by constantly making him answer reporters’ questions as an “Aw shucks, I’m just a white guy from Wichita, and I don’ know no better” mouthpiece for the controversial season? Or did he put his own big, fat, calloused-by-the-jungle-elements foot in his mouth by himself?

Whatever the reason, I’m seriously hoping that a lot of what Jeff said is out of context, such as asking his dentist “Where in Asia are you from?” and then being shocked that there are different countries that actually make up Asia, and no, we don’t all get along (and Jeff, we all don’t speak the same language either, which you probably thought was Chinese).

I’m sorry, but saying you’re from Wichita is not an excuse. By my calculations, this is the 13th year of Survivor, which means he’s probably lived in LA for more than a decade, not even counting his years as the host of Rock ‘n’ Roll Jeopardy. If you live in Southern Cal, Jeff, you have exposure to Asians, or you can get it. Drive over to Ktown, or Chinatown, or Little Tokyo sometime.

So I don’t think I’ll be watching Survivor: Cook Islands simply because I haven’t watched Survivor since the first season, but also because I don’t want to give in to the stupidity. I hate when Hollywood gets on its high horse about promoting interesting social experiments that are supposed to make a statement on some deep-seated prejudice in America. Get your heads out of your asses, Hollywood. You usually get it wrong anyway. Take the movie Crash, which was supposed to be a statement on racial tension in LA. The “let’s pat ourselves on the back for initiating racial dialogue” writers chose to name the Korean wife “Kim Lee,” merely combining the name of two well-known Korean surnames instead of doing the proper two seconds of research it would have taken to ask a Korean person what a real Korean name would have sounded like. Come on, you all go to the dry cleaners don't you? Or a bodega? And I know some of you went to Ivy League schools.

I think what’s compounding my outrage was an outing last weekend to Tribeca with some friends. As we were getting into a cab to go home, some drunk girl proceeds to shout that us “chinks should go back to our country.” Her friend quickly stated she was “not herself” but clearly she was just voicing more of herself than the outside PC world would let her state sober. My blood was boiling as the cab pulled away and I so wished I would have been outside so I could grab a fistful of blonde hair. Bitch.

Anyway, maybe I’ll be proved wrong. Maybe Survivor will be an astounding success. Maybe it will help everyone celebrate racial differences. Mostly, I’m hoping it’ll backfire in their faces. (I’ve already heard that some advertisers have pulled out.) I think they should rename it Survivor: Shameless Publicity Stunt.

Who’s the man behind The Man?

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to comment on this article in the NYT that ran about Dave Zinczenko, the editor in chief of Men’s Health, a magazine that admittedly I’ve never looked at, except to ponder that the covers sometimes remind me more of gay porn than of a health and service mag for straight, health-conscious, weightlifting everymen. I think what annoyed me about it is that more than once, Dave’s colleagues commented that “What he lacks in ability, he makes up for in charm.” Essentially, Dave seems to have made it to the top not based on his editing talent, but more on his charisma, charm, and maybe even his looks (described quite accurately as “handsome middle brother” by the writer).

Now, I’m no head-in-the-clouds idealist about climbing the corporate ladder or that talent is what gets you everywhere. But I guess it’s really only a third of what gets you where you are. I think the other two thirds are ambition and knowing the right people. Maybe I think that because lately I’ve been feeling like a bit of a workhorse at the office and feeling a bit jaded about the whole career thing. And I’ve never been the best networker; in fact, the word alone makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out sometimes. I just don’t feel that I should refer someone whom I’ve just met—and for whom I have yet to make a judgment call on about whether I want to pass along some good karma—for a job.

The other thing that irks me a bit about this article is that Dave pooh-poohs the whole idea of the “celebrity editor,” even though he dated Rose McGowan for two years and he’s appeared on the Today Show 17 times. It’s true the average joe probably doesn’t recognize him when he’s walking down the street, but as long as the important people know who you are, I think it’s safe to say you’ve become a celebrity, albeit a minor one.

I guess the one thing he is good at is being the face of Men’s Health to the cultural zeitgeist, and in the end I suppose that’s what the EIC of a consumer magazine should be. (I highly doubt Anna Wintour sits around pontificating headlines and captions for her photo spreads.) I guess that’s what the senior editors are for—doing the line editing and making sure a comprehensible product is produced for the everyman to read and understand and thank Dave for. I just hope that while they are sitting in Emmaues, Pa., while Dave sits in his Manhattan offices, that they are compensated and recognized for their work.

Au revoir, summer. Plus, cool folding tips!

Wow, I haven’t blogged in a while. One new boss, one lost coworker, one new coworker, one trip to Tanglewood, two weddings, and one diversion as a wedding blogger (for a friend’s wedding, not mine!) later, I’m back. The month of August has been eventful, and this summer in general has been pretty fun, surprisingly, and now that it’s ending, I’m having a bit of the end-of-summer blues. And I’m lamenting the things I didn’t get to do. The weather in New York is cooling fast, and I haven’t had a chance to wear all the cute dresses I bought. I didn’t get to sit in Central Park one day, all day, and read, like I had planned. I didn’t go to the rooftop of the Met. I didn’t spend one day sneaking into movie after movie at one of the massive Loews theaters. I didn’t go out to Long Beach to swim in nasty Atlantic Ocean water. I didn’t see any of the Bryant Park movies. I didn’t go out to picnic on one of the piers that face the Hudson or East rivers. I didn’t eat any barbecue outside. Sigh.

On the other hand, I did go to Hawaii (that makes up for about 100 Long Beach trips). I did lose my annoying boss. I did go to a few park concerts, including a perfect night for Opera in the Park, in which I momentarily fell asleep under the (hidden) stars. I did party hardy as a bridesmaid at a dear friend’s wedding (possibly the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to), and I did see my childhood friend (whom I grew up with and who was always boy crazy and who passed notes to me about her crushes and who flirted like crazy, but who never quite found the right guy) finally get married to a boy who just might be able to handle her. So I guess I shouldn’t lament the coming of the Labor Day weekend too much and just hope that fall brings some equally momentous or less-momentous-but-equally-satisfying events. Plus I have all my fall TV stories startin'.

On a random aside, with all the traveling I did this summer, I should have watched this video before I filled my suitcase. Leave it up to the Japanese to come up with an inventive, efficient, origami-inspired way to fold a T-shirt. Who comes up with this stuff??

Miss Japan got robbed

Even though, as my friend says, The Donald sets the women’s movement back 50 years with the Miss Universe pageant, I still watched it to see which skinny bitch I wanted to root for. At least with Miss Universe, there’s no pretense of a “scholarship competition”; The Donald said so himself on Letterman, when he said, “no, it’s just about beautiful women.” It’s also about all-American B-list celebrity judges (like Tom Greene) in this “international” competition.

So I shouldn’t have been so upset then when Miss Puerto Rico won. But I was still annoyed that the most obviously plastic of them all got that Mikimoto tiara. There were quite a few cute girls I thought should have made the top 20 (Misses Australia and New Zealand, for instance) but when I saw the final picks, I thought, well as long as Miss Puerto Rico doesn’t win, I’ll be okay. Harrumph.

As far as I can tell, her nose, lips, and boobs appear to be fake (and she’s only 18, at that!). I personally was rooting for Miss Japan, whose national costume, a robo-anime-superheroine-technoskank hot red number, was the most awesomely campy and avant-garde outfit I’ve ever seen in a Miss Universe pageant. (It also won best costume.) And she was waving a samurai sword around when she was wearing it, a practically picture-perfect poster for any panting comic fanboy. But it wasn’t just that; she was perky and spoke four languages and danced flamenco and never stumbled when she had to get her game on. And even though she was unnaturally skinny as any pageant contestant would be, she wasn’t as obviously anorexic as most of the gals.

Of course, I’m sure every one of those stiletto-and-bikini clad contestants had work done, but I just think it’s sad that the one with the worst plastic surgery job nabbed the crown. Oh well…at least there was a fitting ending to her win: Miss PR fainted during the press event, probably from not having eaten since a week ago. How’s she gonna travel the world as a mouthpiece for HIV/AIDS awareness if she can’t even stay conscious for press events? Somebody force-feed that girl a potato chip or some beef jerky.

The other highlight of the show for me was reading about the gals’ hobbies and interests onscreen, which included “making people happy,” and “being social.” Ooh, me too!

Aloha and mahalo

It’s been about a week now since I’ve been back from Hawaii, and I still have visions of breaking waves and breeze-ruffled palm trees dancing in my head. Here are some highlights of my trip (see if you can sense a theme here):

--On my flight from NYC to LA, the young man in ginormous headphones sitting next to me pulled out a big, leather-bound book with gold-gilded pages. I thought he was reading the Bible. I thought that was so sweet…this guy who I totally took for a skate punk was actually a nice Christian boy. I tried to steal a furtive peek to see what book he was reading, when I noticed something weird. He was starting a chapter that was marked by an illustration of a pair of dice. Turns out he was reading a bible—for bagging the girl. The book was “The Game,” by Neil Strauss, a former dork-turned-master-pickup-artist who writes about a secret “seduction” society and the tips they use to pick up chicks. Harrumph.

--On my layover in LA to Honolulu, a 21-year-old attempted to “get to know me”—only to see his jaw drop when he found out I was a whole generation older than him. I guess you could say the tone of the conversation changed after that. But he still gave me his number in case I needed a local to show me around. (And no, I didn’t take him up on his offer.)

--One morning I took surfing lessons with a bunch of folks from the conference I didn’t know, and it was awesome. And our instructors were Hawaiian firefighters (some of them anyway) and all I have to say is Hawaiian + firefighter + surfer = hotness. There was some mild flirting going on but mostly I just enjoyed the eye candy.

--On my flight home from LA to NYC, I was sitting next to a British bloke who is a former journalist/current Web executive/part-time DJ and who was totally sauced (I could smell the alcohol) and who proceeded to tell me all about his uber-stylist girlfriend and how he does want to marry her but how their long-distance relationship and different lifestyles could be a hindrance to their future…yada yada yada. Interesting guy—even more interesting to learn how much people will reveal of their lives when they’re lit.

Okay, now that this post makes me sound totally boy crazy (I’m not, I swear!), the real takeaway from my trip was a chance to unwind and gain a little perspective. The atmosphere in Hawaii is a total 180 from New York City, where everything, even the mundane things, are about five times more stressful than they need to be. I was there by myself for the conference (I was good and did go to sessions, but my mind was out to sea most of the time), but most evenings I was sunning on the beach or strolling in Waikiki listening to my iPod, and trying hard not to think about work. I also accomplished all three goals for my trip: I surfed, bought a ukulele, and bought Spam in a restaurant.

When I got home, I was grateful I came back relaxed—because it turned out there’d been a lot of drama simmering underneath the surface at work, and the shit basically hit the fan literally the first day I came back. My boss (see my rants in past posts) had been fired, and another long-standing coworker was leaving. I was stressed out about it, but I tried to channel my inner Aloha.

Anyway, it appears as if things at work will be okay; at the very least, all the negativity that stemmed from my old boss is gone. But I really think that if I hadn’t have heard the ocean in the seashell in my head, I would be pulling my hair out right now. Mahalo, Hawaii.

I do like yellow eggs and spam

I finally made it! I never thought this day would never come. I’m actually on vacation, and in a place I’ve always wanted to go: Hawaii. I’m here to attend a conference but since it’s on my dime and not my company’s, it’s technically vacation. It definitely feels like one to me, as I’m more relaxed now then I’ve been in a long time. I still have work at the back of my mind (especially as how my boss gave me SHIT for taking vacation right now, during a busy time of the month for us—and then proceeded to be out a couple days himself, but I’ll get into that some other time), but when you’re able to stare at the ocean right when you walk out of your hotel, you have no choice but to be relaxed.

In the two days that I’ve been here, I’ve already eaten lunch on the beach, taken a dip in the 70-plus degree Pacific Ocean, seen many beach bums who may or may not be homeless, gotten stung by a Hawaiian bee, gotten lei-d, and…what had been a personal goal of mine…actually bought SPAM in a restaurant—and at a McDonald’s, no less!

You see, in Hawaii, Spam is on par with beef, chicken, or steak in its ubiquity/popularity, and they actually sell a Spam breakfast at McDonald’s in those Styrofoam packages that you usually buy hotcakes and sausages in. It comes with two slices of Spam, McDonald’s signature fluorescent-yellow eggs, and a whole lotta fluffy white rice. I thought I’d have to go to a local diner to get Spam, but no—I just had to head to the McDonald’s just a few blocks away.

I didn’t do much research on what to do while I was here—but if all I do is hang out at the beach everyday, then I’ll have had a successful vacation. The only other goals I had during my time here was 1) take surfing lessons (which I’m doing the day before I leave) and try to buy a ukulele if it wasn’t too expensive. I haven’t found a ukulele place yet, but if I don’t find one then a few macadamia nuts will do.

Sigh. I think this is what God intended paradise to be like.

Weren’t we done throwing the Christians to the lions?

Or, my other title for this post: People are stupid.

That was the first thing I thought when I read this story about a man who lowered himself into a lioness den at a Russian zoo. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be making fun of folks who clearly have more than a few screws loose. And of course, it’s a tragedy that a man lost his life. But the guy declares before getting mauled, “If God exists, he will save me.” IF God exists?? Dude, you don’t test the existence of God by lowering yourself into a lion’s den. You work your way up to that! Maybe start with like, “if God exists, he’ll heal this ingrown toenail.” And anyway, if you march into a lion’s den doubting God’s existence, you have no business asking Him to save you. Notice how in the photo the lionesses look bored, like mauling crazy people is just all in a hard day’s work.

A remarkably similar instance occurred in Taipei zoo a few years back, when a man lowered himself into a lion’s den and ordered the lion to repent. To which the lion replied, “Shut your piehole, LUNCH!” (Though in this picture, the lion’s expression does sort of scream heathen, doesn’t it?) The best part about this news story is how it ends: “Newspapers said that the lions had been fed earlier in the day, otherwise the man might have been more seriously hurt...or worse.” Or worse is damn right. He would have been cat food.

These stories prove two main points: 1) In the battle of man vs. hungry lion, man will never win. 2) People who use God as an excuse for their stupidity are only asking to be eaten by hungry lions.

(On an aside, I realize I've focused a lot lately on morbid zoo incidents/strange animal attacks. I hope this is not some sort of prediction of a random tragic animal attack on me.)

Why I idolize American Idol

Another season of American Idol has come to a close, and I was thoroughly satisfied with this season’s winner, Taylor Hicks. It came as no shock to regular viewers of the show that he would win (he’s the first Idol never to have been in the bottom three), but it was a little surprising that Kat was his finale partner, barely edging out the more talented (in my opinion) but less polished Elliott Yamin.

I’ve been a regular junkie since Season One, and unlike with other shows, where my interest may wane after the first season or two, I’ve been hooked from the start. I’ve always been a fan of talent shows—like Star Search, back in the day—but this is different. So I started to breakdown the reasons for why the show seems to appeal to so many people. In a very big nutshell, here’s my top five reasons for why American Idol rules:

1) Karaoke is getting more popular. And what is Idol but glorified karaoke, except with a your own makeover and more Burt Bacharach songs than you can shake a stick at?

2) It appeals to old fogies and young fogies. It’s one of the few remaining wholesome family shows that both a crotchety old Grandpa and his punk, snot-nosed grandkids can watch together, and they can engage in family debate over whom to root for. The contestants, for the most part, are on the young side, but they sing those classics that your parents like.

3) Whether you love or hate the show, you still watch it. Even people who claim to hate the show still know the contestants and watch it to see how craptastic it can get. I know it’s really their guilty pleasure. And even the biggest of the big stars admit to being fans, as judged by their appearances in the audience, while the snottiest of anti-sellout stars must kowtow to the marketing muscle of Idol. (Where else would you find David Hasselhoff and Prince in the same building, ever?)

4) The show doesn’t take itself seriously. This is especially apparent in the opening rounds, when they show those first-round, tone-deaf hopefuls who are only one nervous breakdown away from a mental hospital. And I know an evil genius is behind making the Idols sing and dance on stage to cheesy 80s songs with fake plastic smiles plastered on their faces. Those bad song-and-dance numbers, cheesy Ford commercials, and vomit-inducing Idol power ballads are all proof that the show never puts forward the pretense of trying to nurture “artists who just want to express themselves.” It’s as if the producers are saying:

“If you want that hippie, commie pinko crap go to the Coachella music festival or cavort in the mosh pit with the ‘I’m not a lesbian or a gypsy, I just look like one,’ Vagina-Monologued, Lillith fair fans. This is American Idol, with the emphasis on Idol. We aren’t afraid of mass commercialization and the commoditization of society. Just look at the freakin’ Ford logos and Coca-Cola signs branded on the hides of our poor singers’ souls.”

And finally, the fifth reason, and the main reason why I like AI:

5) America, in the end, likes a good underdog story. And really, Idol is the epitome of the American Dream, a land where the impossible seems possible. Even when a polished, refined, and trained-from-birth star gets into the finals, America usually roots for the underdog, who is still talented but just rough around the edges. They see the diamond in the rough. In season one, they turned a cocktail waitress with bad skin into the most successful Idol ever (Kelly Clarkson is my hero. She survived the atrocious “From Justin to Kelly,” after all). In season two, the final two were a soul singer on the verge of a heart attack and a closeted Mad magazine character look-alike. In season three, the winner was a near-illiterate teenage mother. In season four, the cute but never-left-the-farm country girl got her Nashville dream. And this year, America chose not the porcelain-skinned, voluptuous, vocally trained, stage-mothered Kat—but the whiskey-tenored, prematurely greying, slightly paunched, spastically dancing, criminally record-ed (for pot possession), Tourette’s-like “Soul Patrol” screaming, and aging (by Idol standards) Taylor. A single tear is falling from my eye.

On top of all that, where else can someone like William Hung get a record contract? Nowhere but on American Idol!

So, American Idol, the New York Times may call you a “monster-size celebration of mediocrity,” (as far as I could tell, the Idols were outsinging all the “real” stars on the show, i.e, the heaving Meatloaf, the breathy Toni Braxton, and the warbly Dionne Warwick—even Mary J. Blige seemed to think screaming could pass for singing), and the Washington Post may call your contestants “Captain Kangaroo,” but I, for one, pledge my allegiance to your hidden brilliance.

Bear-y scary

What's up with bears these days? They are on a secret rampage or something. I feel like they are slowly plotting to take over the world — or at least New Jersey.

Well, not all bear news of late has been in Jersey. Take this disturbing story.

First of all, aren’t zoos supposed to protect animals? Isn’t that their point? And don’t the zookeepers feed the bears enough that they won’t go trolling for monkey meat?

I guess animals being animals, you could just say that this is part of the “ciirrccllleee of liiiiffeee…” but I can’t help but think of all those poor, traumatized children who thought they were going to see the cute teddy bears and monkeys play together in the safari park. Instead, they got a harsh reality check and a lesson in survival of the fittest. I’m just shocked a Fox camera crew wasn’t close by to film “When Animals Attack: Zoo Edition.”

The macaque in the photo looks like a defenseless stuffed animal being removed from a shelf by the bear. Aack. (How on earth did an AP photographer know to be at the zoo to take this photo? Maybe he has the Dutch zoo beat, and just waits for the day a story will break—and lo and behold, one finally did?)

Anyway, locally there have been several bear-human run ins, like this one in which a bear acts like a crazy crackhead and has to be taken down by the police. In this town, which I think is near Newark, a bear had to be gunned down because he assumed an aggressive stance even after getting tranquilized. And then in Seattle, a black bear roaming U of W's frat row was tranquilized and then tasered after he kept putting up a fight, leading to his death. (I actually wouldn't have minded if the bear had a few frat guys for lunch.)

Either we are on the road to Bear City or these poor bears are victims of social injustice (notice how all cases were black bears?? I'm sure there are brown, polar, and panda bears out there committing comparable crimes!!).

In any case, all you bears even thinking about attacking me, I'm no macaque. I'll run for my life, and if that doesn't work, I'll have my taser ready.

BEAR UPDATE: A 500-pound bear escapes from a breeding farm, barges its way into a woman's home, and nearly mauls her to death! WTF? It's a sign of the apocalypse people! Bears are rising up and won't take it anymore!

May 1902-December 1973 romance

Move over, Demi and Ashton. You’ve got nothing on Muhamad Noor Che Musa and Wook Kundor.

Old Wookie’s still got it after all these centuries. She’s like Liz Taylor times three. (Literally. She’s been married 21 total times.) And he’s not after her dowry. And I quote: “I am not after her money, as she is poor.”

So what does the geriatric hottie have that attracted the young buck? Their initial connection, Muhamad says, was that she was “childless, old and alone.” Hey, I’ve got those things going for me. Maybe I, too, can snag a younger man (who hasn't been born yet)!

Muhamad and Wook, I salute you. Age ain’t nuthin’ but three numbers.

Caution: hazmat boss ahead

As many of my friends know full well, my boss drives me CRAZY. He manages like his job is constantly on the line (it very well may be, for all I know), which results in bouts of micromanaging, last-minute decisions that make our deadlines tighter, and inducing feelings in me that waver between pity for him and wanting to scratch his eyeballs out. I think he may be the worst manager I’ve ever had, and that even includes my first boss, who used to curse people out with her office door open and make coworkers cry. (Okay, maybe they are tied. But because my current boss is passive-aggressive, he comes out slightly ahead. I’d prefer overtly aggressive over passive-aggressive. I think. Well, maybe not. I guess the grass is always greener.)

However, I didn’t feel so bad when I got my Monster e-mail and saw that they were having a “Who’s the Most Toxic Boss of All?” contest. The examples are almost too comedic/unbelievable to be true. They range from a boss who Lysol-ed a worker’s office to the point of saturation after she saw her cough into a tissue, to a boss who demanded a worker FedEx her mother’s dentures. Are these people for real?? They seem utterly and certifiably insane. I personally voted for the boss who stopped her employee from going on vacation because she said a lot of work was coming his way.

What the F??? That is so freaking messed up it’s not even funny. C’mon people, just for principle’s sake, wouldn’t you tell your boss to blow it up her ass if she pulled that shit? Do you even want to save a job like that? A friend of mine once told me that his boss asked him to come back early from a vacation because the boss couldn’t handle the workload by himself. That is total and utter bullshit, and the sad part is my friend (who is a very nice and agreeable guy) did it. GRRRRRR!!!!!!!

It really just seems like as people go higher up the corporate ladder, the more emotionally unintelligent they become. They become power-trippy assholes who forget how to interact with people below them, or simply don’t care to learn.

Am I going to start losing IQ points when I get to a level in my career where I’m managing people? I once heard that Eskimos, or some type of aboriginal people, used to send their old people off on an iceberg because they were no longer useful to society. It sounds ultra-cruel, but maybe there’s a way we can translate that to the corporate world. Once a manager is deemed incompetent, he or she should be sent off to exile to a cube at the other end of the floor where he is thrown “projects in the pipeline”—i.e, those projects that are basically the equivalent of pork barrel, which seem important but are really just meant to keep people looking busy without actually making any progress (like most of the projects the Pointy-Haired Boss assigns Dilbert).

Right now the only thing keeping me going is my trip to Hawaii. Six weeks and counting….

Who’s the most toxic boss you’ve ever had?

I'm gonna make you my bitch

Literally, in this photo.

This picture of my friend's dogs cracks me up. They don't live in New York (they are from the wilds of the Great White North), but the photo reminded me of all the little dogs I see in the city who have the biggest Napoleon complex.

Ah, New York...where else in the world will you see Lhasa Apsos strut into Bloomie's with their owners, as if it were an everyday dog park? Where else will you actually find restaurants that gladly welcome Fido to the table? Where else will you find doggie spas that'll pamper your pooch for more than I've ever paid for my own massage?

New York is basically overrun by 1) rats and 2) rat-like dogs being carried in big designer purses. And in New York, the dog's life really ain't so bad. I see these pampered Napoleon-complexed yappers all the time. They don't even think they're big dogs; they think they're humans.

And the irony is they've made their humans their bitches. They've managed to turn billionaire bankers, models, lawyers, hipsters, and Upper East Side princesses alike into little more than highly paid pooper scoopers. Their owners will pass by a hundred homeless people without giving them a second look, but are willing to put little more than a flimsy plastic bag between their manicured hands and a steaming pile of dog shit. I've even seen a man with a Great Dane hold a butterfly net-looking thing under his dog's ass to catch the poop before it hit the ground. Even your mother wouldn't do that for you.

The bunny’s gone bad

See, this is what happens when you bastardize the celebration of the Lord’s resurrection by making up some stupid shyte about bunnies that hide eggs. You create a monstrosity that evolves, becomes intelligent, and goes on a rampage.

What’s next, a sadistic Santa Claus that hides lumps of coal in the stockings of children who don’t conform to society’s prescribed norms on adolescent behavior?

Oh crap. That already exists. Now we’re all screwed.

Next up: The Tooth Fairy who exchanges money for teeth—that she pulls out with her own pliers. Muuuaaahhhhaaaaa!

Happy belated Easter.

Tiger's sar-spastic comment

I’m confused by this article. Since when is the word “spaz” offensive?

Leonard Shapiro never says what it refers to, only that “[Tiger] clearly would be wise to clean up his language…Woods use of the word ‘spaz’ was obviously inappropriate, as well, but I can’t imagine it was meant to denigrate or humiliate anyone.”

Who is it obvious to? Epileptics? That’s all I could think of.

Shapiro goes on to say that the word probably wasn’t meant to be insensitive because of who it was coming from: “Not from a guy who told ‘60 Minutes’ he had a stuttering problem as a child. Not from a guy who has felt the sting of racial intolerance. Not from a guy who’s own father is now physically incapacitated as he battles cancer. Not from a guy who's foundation has raised millions -- many of them from himself -- to reach out and help disadvantaged youngsters worldwide.”

Somebody enlighten me…is calling someone a spaz on par with a racial slur or the offensive but more widely used “retarded?” No one likes to be referred to as a spaz, but I’ve never heard the word given so much gravity before.

Leonard implies that it is more offensive in Britain, but what’s the connotation? Is it like how Brits use the term “fags” to refer to cigarettes?

Somebody enlighten me on the hidden meaning. Otherwise, I must come to this conclusion:

If you were offended by Tiger, then you are a spaz.

Going bananas

Because I am so immature I get much joy and pleasure out of Careerbuilder’s Monk-E-Mails, apparently some sort of marketing ploy that enables you to literally put the words into a monkey’s mouth. The technology uses text-to-speech recognition to make the monkey say your message, but the weird cadence and computerized voice puts this very weird and hilarious spin to it. Here’s my favorite one that I’ve made so far.

I’ve made some of these so many times that I’ve maxed out my daily number of messages I can create (in my defense, I was trying to find the exact phonetic spelling that would help the monkey with the proper enunciation of “biotch,” but alas I only got to “bee-yatch.”)

I especially think it’s funny to make them say dirty words. I'm so junior high right now.

Who else has seen a leprechaun, let me here you say yeah!

First it was the news captions showing white Katrina victims as “looking for food,” while black Katrina victims were “looting”; then it was Wolf Blitzer’s slip of the tongue, describing Katrina victims as “so poor, and so black.”

Now, here’s further proof of a media conspiracy against minorities by The Man.

C’mon now, at least some of the people looking for the leprechaun had to be poor white trash too, right? At any rate, I agree with the woman in the car: I think the leprechaun is just some crazy crack head.

And what about that artist’s rendering on the lined notebook paper? CLASSIC.

This is hard news people. Real hard.

Sweet dreams are made of tease

I have had several interesting dreams these past few days. One was particularly vivid that when I woke, I actually wondered whether I had to go to work. I’ll explain:

In my dream, I was sitting at my cube. I went over to my coworker’s cube, but she wasn’t there, so I start looking for something. Suddenly a freelancer in our office, A, comes over and tells me that my coworker, C, has told her that she is quitting her job in about a month. I am shocked, and A says, “Oh, I’m sure she was going to tell you.”

C comes over and is surprised that A said anything. But she says, yes, I was going to tell you. I’m planning to leave in a month, after I train a new hire on my job. But then suddenly, I don’t remember how we get the news, we find out that we are getting laid off, that our division is being let go. C and I look at each other and are just kind of ambivalent. We start packing our stuff into boxes.

My boss comes out of his office, and he has angry tears in his eyes. He says, “How can she do this to us?” Apparently, the “she” he is referring to is his boss (who is really all of our bosses); he seems to think she had something to do with this. He goes tromping off. C and I simply shrug it off, and continue packing our boxes. A skinny Chinese security guard (I have no clue why he is Chinese) comes over because he is supposed to escort us out. He even helps me start packing my boxes. As I pack, we see two security guys escorting out someone who is ranting and raving. It’s my boss! His hair is all of a sudden Albert Einstein-like crazy, his eyes are wild, and he’s saying how they can’t do this to him. I remember feeling shocked because I had actually thought he’d been secretly looking for another job. (At work, he’ll disappear for hours or shut his door for a time. Very curious…) I just simply shrug and keep packing. Then…beep! beep! beep!

I can’t believe that I dreamed about this, because it basically combined all the stress/annoyance/current events at work that I’ve experienced lately—especially this past hell week. I guess it was my mind’s way of letting me make my dreams come true, so to speak, in my head. But damn. What a tease! It was still all just a dream.

Rolling a fatty (not that kind of fatty, you bad person)

Instead of doing work, and finishing a story that I’m supposed to turn in on Monday, I’m watching the highly underrated “What Lies Beneath” on ABC. It’s actually quite suspenseful. I am in transcribing hell right now. Sigh. I hate this story.

Anyway, other than stressing about my story, I did get to do one fun thing last night. That’s go to the Fatty Crab and pig out. It’s a great restaurant, but there is a bit of meatpacking attitude when it comes to getting seated. They won’t seat more than four people, because large groups stay for a long time and thus reduce the customer churn. So our group had to be split up into different tables—they wouldn’t even let us sit in empty tables next to each other. Our waiter was nice, but the host with the evil handlebar mustache argued with one of our friends when she tried to ask if she could get seated next to us (they had seated several other people who came later than both sets of our friends, who were waiting for tables). I think every time he thwarts a large group of friends he twists the ends of his mustache sinisterly and snorts, “The crabbiest of all wins again. No parties of more than four shall ever patronize the Fatty Crab. Ahhahahahahhaha!!!!!”

I could have done without the Meatpacking Attitude, but the food was really sumptuous. I hate when people lick their fingers and moan while eating, but I may have been guilty of committing my own pet peeve. If you go there prepare to get down and dirty with the grub. And make sure the waiter consistently fills your water glass because it is pretty spicy. And fatty. Fat is so good. It melts in your mouth and in your hand. Then you lick your hand to get the fat plus the excess sauce that is drying on your fingers. Mmmmrrphhhh. Yum. Oh and did I mention it’s not too bad cost-wise? Too bad I forgoed (forewent?) any savings by drinking $11-$12 mojitos and mai tais at Spice Market.

This is totally random but I’m also craving right now Shanghai Café on Mott or Fried Dumpling on Allen. (You literally just go there and get like 30 fried dumplings for 5 bucks.) The best Chinese restaurants are like the best hookers. Dirty and cheap. Okay, that was gross. I don’t frequent hookers but I’ve always wanted to make a trucker-type analogy like that. But seriously, the best places to get food in Chinatown are those holes in the wall where you can seriously fill up on the most un-nutritious but oh-so-greasy-and-good noodles, dumplings, and roasted meats. I also love the Hentai restaurant on St. Mark’s. I don’t actually know what it’s called, but they have a good fatty pork Japanese tapas thing and cheap Kirin. I call it the Hentai place cause the menu and signage used to showcase those old Japanese sex paintings. Kinda gross when you’re eating but the food and prices are worth it. My penchant for cheap food in large volumes is not doing much for the expanding waistline. Sigh.

Gettin' to the church on time

Actually I didn’t. I was 15 minutes late, but I still was able to hear John Stott speak at a special service held by my church, Redeemer. (Most of my posts are frivolous and just me venting, but I’ll write a nice post today.) For those who don’t know who he is, Stott is a premier Christian author (I’ve never directly read his stuff that I remember, but I know he’s well-regarded, and is referred to in many other things I’ve read about faith). He’s still going strong (if not slow, shuffling toward the podium) at 85, and still has all his faculties. When he lost his place during the sermon momentarily, he pointed out that he’s 85, and will continue to talk aimlessly until he finds his place again. That made me crack up. Not just because it was charming, but because everything sounds funnier when it’s said in a British accent and coming from an little, old, white-haired man.

While basic, Stott’s sermon was inspiring, at the very least, because it served as a reminder that one can always talk to God if one wants to. He’s not some ethereal old man hovering on clouds that you can only reach through ceremonial rituals. Plus, it was inspiring to see people like Stott, who devote their lives to ministry, still going strong until the day they are called home (like Billy Graham). I just hope I can shuffle around like that when I’m 85.

Here’s more on John Stott.

Here’s a story about Redeemer Presbyterian Church from 2 weeks ago in the NYT.

Tryin' to make a dollar out of 15 cents

After a blissful weekend at Hunter Mountain living commune style with some friends and worrying about nothing but cracking my head open on the ice while snowboarding, it’s back to reality. It’s always hard to come back to work after you’ve gone away, even if it’s just for a weekend.

This is especially true if you are secretly wishing your company would go under. But instead of harping on that I’ll just list a few job alternatives I’ve been thinking about lately:

--Professional Evite Writer. I’ve been contemplating writing a business proposal for the Evite folks in which I offer to write people’s Evites for a fee to make their events sound more snazzy and interesting. Amongst my friends I’ve always been the designated Evite writer, so I already have quite a few samples in my portfolio.
--Vitamin Water Label Writer: Actually my roommate’s suggestion. She said I could probably have written the copy for the “Formula 50” drink. I agree with her. I would have made it even better, adding the words “bitches” and “ho’s” to the description. Though “hydrate or die tryin’” is pure genius, I have to say.
--American Idol Judge: I already do it for fun, but could I get paid?
--TV Guide Blurb Writer: Seriously, who writes these things? If all you have to do is watch and write about the show in 50 words or less, I could totally do that. I could think of a better catch phrase than “hyjinx ensue.”

Any other suggestions?

American Idol is like crack

I am addicted to American Idol. Is it because I like karaoke, and what is AI but glorified karaoke? Maybe. All I know is that when it's that time of the year I get glued to my television set and start voting for the contestants I like best.

I get that it's cheesy. That it's awesomely bad (or just bad?). That I enjoy it much more than a 30-year-old should. But 30 million viewers can't be wrong. Then again, the American public isn't always known for their high taste. Still, if following American idol is wrong, I don't wanna be right, as they say.

However, I know that blogging about every episode is likely to get on people's nerves. So to balance my compulsion to want to throw my two-cent commentary into every episode and not annoy the five people who read my blog, I've started a separate outlet for my AI addiction.

If you don't watch Idol, consider myself a hand-holder through the train wreck that is AI. Or if you follow it, consider it a sort of play-by-play of the show. There are about a bazillion blogs on American Idol--most of whom are actually on the official idol site, but I don't think I want to be part of the official madness. I'll toil away in anonymity instead. But what I really hope to do is convert you nonbelievers into viewers. Because there's two kinds of people in this world I don't trust: People who say they hate sushi, and people who refuse to watch AI.

Paging my boss' balls—boss' balls, are you there?

Not too long ago I got a raise and a promotion. So I should be thrilled, right? Well, I do appreciate the extra 10 percent padding to my paycheck. And the title is good for a bargaining chip for future jobs, I guess (though it’s really a bullshit title and doesn’t mean much to me). But right now I am not a happy camper.

Basically, without going into too much detail, I just don’t feel my boss has any balls. He is kowtowing to the Corner Office guys who seem to be making decisions about our product that, in the past, have been none of their beeswax. The last two years or so, the President of our division (or whatever powers that be that have Supreme Budget Control) cut our budgets so much that our product looked like shit basically. (Those who are reading this blog who know me know what our product is; I’ll just say that it has a design element to it.) Then in division meetings Mr. Pres will trash our product without acknowledging that we never had MONEY to make it look better.

About six months ago, they decide all of a sudden that they are going to give us money to make the product look better; more money for photo shoots (though no raise or promotion yet). It looks great, yes—but only because we had the resources to make it so.
Except along with the money, we also get more bureaucracy; seems our product has been so bad Mr. Pres decides he wants to have more of a hand in our decisionmaking, and one of his minions takes over the art part of it. So even though we make suggestions, the ultimate thumbs up has to come from Corner Office folks.

ARRGGGHHHH…is all I can think to say. Amidst all this, my old boss, whom I liked, leaves for another job, and our staff is basically three people. The New Guy is…eh. Initially, I just thought maybe it was because of the age gap. I had been used to female bosses not even a decade older than me for a while, so having a middle-aged male boss, I knew, would take some getting used to. But then New Guy’s balls start shriveling into his sac. I know that all new bosses want to make a good impression, they want to make their mark, and they feel pressure to ramp up quickly, especially when a product is at sort of a cross-roads like ours. I know that. I understand all that. I know he has pressure. But New Guy immediately starts instituting all these changes, of which we are feeling the affects right now. (I am in a deadline-oriented business, and with changes comes extra time to deal with those changes.) Why not phase in changes? No, that would be too practical, too common sensical. (Yes, I know that is not a word.) But NO…someone is so quick to change everything, without even thinking how it would affect us underlings, and before he truly understands the market and how our product serves our market.

I was particularly unhappy with one assignment in which Mr. Pres makes a decision that directly affects my job, even though no one runs it by me to check whether it’s possible—not too mention that Mr. Pres’ decisionmaking is based on totally stupid, and possibly sexist, rationale. I express unhappiness to New Boss; new boss and another higher up say it’s too late, they’ve made a promise to Mr. Pres that his wish shall be done, and we can’t go back and tell him no now because Mr. Pres holds grudges. Harrumph!!!!!!!! Forget that I have been at the job for nearly four years and New Guy has been there for two weeks. I don’t win this battle, but I at least get it off my chest—and am happy to have been straightforward with my unhappiness rather than use the passive aggressive shit my new boss seems to use. (Other things that annoy me about him: He OVEREXPLAINS everything—leaves me five minute messages to ask me to do something that only takes one.)

The sad part is, some of the changes that are being made, which may degrade the quality of the product, will likely produce more revenue. And added revenue will result in happier corner office guys, which will result in them patting themselves on the back for making our formerly shitty product better.

Why is there always such a disconnect between what managers see and what employees see? Why is it that when people go higher up the corporate ladder, they get stupider, can’t do anything on their own, and their balls start shriveling up? And when I actually want to start going on interviews, why I can’t find any jobs I like? (It doesn’t help that I’m at this weird middle level point in my career—not entry, not exactly management—that makes it so hard to find jobs, particularly in my field.)

I have one dash of hope: My company has been in the news of late as a candidate for a takeover, and if that happens, then I’m hoping they will dissolve our division, lay us all off, and give us severance. Of course, I would only be happy about this if the severance was enough to last me for at least two months—enough to do some serious job hunting. But a girl can hope, right? Unfortunately, have not seen much on my company on fuckedcompany.com so maybe the takeover is not as imminent as some of the media reports are making it seem. Oh well.

Hines’ special sauce

I wasn’t really rooting for anyone in particular in the Super Bowl yesterday, but when I realized that Hines Ward was playing I pledged my allegiance to the Steelers because I have to support the Korean guy (there aren’t too many of us in pro sports, after all). Go Hines! Go Hines! It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!

I was curious to see how much about Hines’ “Korean-ness” was covered in the media, if at all, so I did a quick search and found this article in the WaPo. It’s cool that he acknowledges that the Korean community will be following his career, and that he has to represent for Korean Americans. And hearing his very typical second-generation story (language/cultural barriers, parent/s who works long hours, being teased by other kids, initial embarrassment of being Korean, and therefore different—not to mention the difficulties he must have faced being biracial) was inspiring. (His mom apparently still works in a high school cafeteria.)

But I also wanted to see how he was being covered in Korean media, if at all. Turns out he's mentioned a lot, and it didn’t surprise me that there were some parts of his story that were “creatively amplified.” For instance, if you read this Q&A with Hines in SI, he recounts his childhood and the influence of his mom. And this LA Times story gives a little more detail, talking about how Hines didn’t really know his mom when she regained custody of him, and resented the fact that he was placed with an unfamiliar woman, community, and culture, but grew to appreciate his mom’s sacrifices for him.

Okay, nice story. In the Korean papers though, they say that Hines “ran away” from his childhood home to be reunited with his mom, such as in this story that ran in the Korea Times online. This story in the Digital Chosunilbo even says that “Hines could not forget his mother and ran away to live with her when he was in second grade.”

If the SI interview is accurate (I’m more inclined to believe it is, since it was a Q&A), this wasn’t the case—his mom got custody and he went, and experienced hardship because he was placed in unfamiliar surroundings. In direct quotes from Hines that appear to be accurate (or at least have not been questioned) he said as much. And I don’t think a seven-year-old would be successful at running away, anyway. I’m not necessarily accusing the Korean papers of making stuff up—maybe they do have a credible source? Maybe this viewpoint was reported in a secondhand source first? Maybe one paper published it and the others ran with it? But probably more likely, the Korean publications are choosing to ignore Hines own admission that he had to learn to be proud of and accept his mom and that part of his heritage.

Who knows—I just thought it was hilarious that I found this whole dramatized “Hines ran away to be with his mom” angle in the Korean papers and not in the U.S. news sources. Or maybe the Korean papers just wanted to turn it all into a melodrama, like so many addictive Korean soap operas. I mean, some of the flowery language in the Chosunilbo article sounds like a soap-opera synopsis: “[Young-hee Ward] never remarried and held multiple jobs to support the two of them, working all the hours that God sent.”

I know part of the cheesiness is because the metaphor gets lost in the translation, but I can so hear a Korean parent saying this: “See, Hines’ mom loved him so much she worked all the hours God sent...that’s why you always have to respect your parents!!! Now go marry a doctor.)

I don’t point out this discrepancy out of some kind of journalistic outrage. I don’t really believe truly objective journalism exists anyway; each news outlet paints the picture it wants, consciously or subconsciously, based on its goals, leanings, and /or cultural perspective and world view. All I’m saying is that reporting that Hines had to grow to love and respect his mom makes his story no less poignant—if anything, it’s even more special. So, Korean newspapers, if you don’t have a credible source for the “Hines ran away” theory, paint the truth, not fiction. No one will think less of you, his mom, or of Hines.