Think we're getting soft? Salon reader says "heck no!"

On Monday, Salon.com contributor Ayelet Waldman posted an article entitled Blast From the Past. Be forewarned, you may have to sign up for a free subscription in order to read the piece in its entirety. The crux of the story chronicles a boring suburban soccer mom coming to grips with the admittedly shocking and disturbing decision of her grade school children to...play dodgeball. As laughable as that may seem, take a gander at the response of Aaron Singer, devoted Salon reader, and alpha male extraordinaire.

When she was 11, Ms. Waldman protected herself from dodgeball by covering her head with her hands. Apparently, she is resigned to face the game in the same way as an adult. Ms. Waldman must know that someone else's kid is currently experiencing all the misery over dodgeball that she herself so vividly recalls. I am sure that, had one of the jock's parents at her junior high school succeeded in banning the game, she would not have objected. Among the pantheon of institutionally ensconced childhood games, dodgeball clearly stands apart as an analogue for childhood teasing -- allowing pleasure to be taken in causing pain and humiliation; singling out the weak and physically punishing them. That her children enjoy the game doesn't excuse Ms. Waldman's acquiescence.

-- Aaron Singer

They Might Be Unctuous

I caught about 30 minutes of something called "Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)," which turned out to be a rather shallow and unremarkable documentary of quirk-rock geeks They Might Be Giants. Johns Linnell and Flansburgh were amusing in that "you tolerate their droll musings because they're hapless geeks" sort of way, and for the most part, I've loved TMBG for over a decade. I've probably seen them peform live (in some capacity) at least a dozen times, and even had Dial-A-Song on my speed dial at one point. No clue if that number still works.

Anyway, the last few minutes of an otherwise idle bit of nostalgia were marred by one Ira Glass, host of NPR's wildly popular This American Life. I'm not going to get into a critique of that program - I'd sooner wear a Klan hood in Harlem than tolerate NPR and the horrid "cool jazz" lead ins and outs of All Things Considered. Ira Glass, however, stuttered, fumbled, and lisped his way through what amounted to some of the most irritiating and genuinely embarrassing 5 minutes of screen time I've ever seen.

Glass, who for all intents and purposes is to Hipsterdom what Rip Taylor is to comedy, tried fruitlessly to make some garbled point about how he wished Linnell and Flansburgh weren't actually in They Might Be Giants so they could enjoy They Might Be Giants, and how great they'd think the sound was if they were just fans of They Might Be Giants rather than members of They Might Be Giants, and what a burden it must be to know that they can't enjoy the sound of They Might be Giants without creating that sound because...they're in They Might Be Giants. Just watching that hipper-than-thou nitwit try to be "lucid" about an utterly banal rock band was sickening enough, but the fact that people tune into a syndicated radio program hosted by a pretentious 50 year old wearing horn-rimmed glasses and an Urban Outfitters wardrobe is downright insulting. My darling girlfriend, normally so proper and ladylike actually started yelling "shut the fuck up" at the tv screen.

If you happen to pass Ira on the street, or run into him at a David Sedaris reading, grab him by his boney shoulders and ask "You couldn't possibly have been this big of a douche growing up, what the fuck happened?"

Stop trying to be so cute, affected and smug and just cough up an original thought, stupid.

And I say that you're full of shit - part 2

It's been a long time coming, but I'll finally admit that I just don't get "blogging." I've kicked around the internet for the better part of 11 years, and the longer I dabble in cyberspace, the less relevant a publicly viewable private journal seems to me.

All things considered, I understand the growing importance of the blog as an alternative news source. As each and every mainstream media outlet is riddled with corruption, tainted by agenda, and compromised by spin, I fully recognize the need for a viable voice articulated by the little guy. Sure, I never paid attention to a word Dan Rather said - and like every reasonably intelligent person, stopped acknowledging the guy after that whole wacky "Kenneth" incident - but I sleep better at night knowing that Joe Citizen has a keener eye for Photoshop trickery than CBS News. Even if the little guy is nothing more than a passel of smug and powerless poly sci grads, they got it right while Dan Rather was busy formulating a clumsy exit strategy via early retirement.

And that's all well and good. I respect intrepid little gnomes like Jeff Jarvis, industriously (attempting to) legitimize their forums, whoring themselves deftly within the mainstream's aureole, and ranting with unabashed vim and vigor so as to affect credibility. When Jeff goes on the Howard Stern Show to expose the Gestapo tactics of the FCC, and erroneously lauds Howard as a champion of free speech, I can still hold my chin up proudly. At the end of my long and thankless day of manual labor, I'm happy that someone's taking the time to expose evil and doesn't have the surname Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld. That's one of those proud-to-be-an-American things, right?

And, still, that's all well and good. But what's this whole blogging thing really about? Every time I turn around, I see CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews telling me that online journals are the proverbial cutting edge in electronic communication. Not only is this shit, like, less than a year old, but before MTV gave us the big A-OK, no one even dared dream of recording his thoughts on a website. Thank god AOL told us we can use the internet for something other than pornography, movie piracy, and stemming Lars Ulrich's cash flow, now we actually have a viable means of free expression on the internet! The dirty little secret our corporate friends are quick catching wind of is that saying nothing, and lots of nothing, elicits huge attention these days.

While some of the news bloggers were smart enough to use this tool effectively, an overwhelming number individuals are quite content to squander it. For the rest of the recreational blogging community, when it comes right to down to it, most of you have fuck all to say. Lots of smarmy, self-important tripe about how original or unoriginal you are, fairly shallow and obvious opinions on crappy comics, music, and anime, and horrible existential analyses of trivial personal relationships. Guess what. If you fucked some whore and she didn't call you back, it's not a cosmic crisis. If you're pissed because your new third floor walk-up doesn't accomodate the pink and gold champagne sparkle wallpaper quite like you hoped it would, work it out yourself. If your ugly friend broke her neck in the half pipe at Warped Tour while wearing bad makeup, I'm not going to send her flowers.

I'm fast learning that the internet really is only useful for stealing music and reading about UFOs, the rest of it is just dross. First there were bulletin boards, then newsgroups, then chat rooms, then forums, then instant messaging and so on. And while each was flawed in its own way, at least all encouraged something resembling communication. Then the blog caught on, and people have found that they're a lot happier talking when other people can't really talk back, and for that reason alone, the whole thing stinks. If it's all about self-indulgence, and self-gratification, do we really need to glorify this nonsense?

Please, if you're stupid enough to waste your time and money on garbage, delusional enough to think the rest of us are in any way altered by observations like "my friends don't realize that underneath it all I am but a drone, a slave to an existence I've long since grown weary of, and a life I can't endure to without the gentle shoulder of narcotics...insobriety is my boon companion on this mortal coil," please, cease writing. Your lives are insipid, your sentiments are trite, and your lust for attention is nauseating. Stop it.

Schadenfreude

Is it wrong to wish death on someone? I often have a difficult time wrapping my head around that little moral dilemma.

Recently, my girlfriend posted something in her blog suggesting that violent sex criminals (pedophiles, rapists, etc.) be allowed to participate in human medical experimentation. I guess the thought is that if embryonic stem cell research is verboten under the law of staunch pro-lifers, then cutting into living, breathing criminals who, ironically, are quite unpopular with the staunch pro-life crowd, is peachy keen. I quite like the idea. And although my girlfriend intends the use of human guinea pigs to help assist our doctors in finding cures for diseases (and, in small part, as a particularly brutal bit of vengeance exacted upon the animals who rape our women and children), I'm led to wonder if the primary appeal is that her plan just gets rid of a bunch of people wasting space and resources.

To anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past month, you know that some vegetable called Terri Schiavo is all the rage. Exactly why she's been made the poster child for vegetative martyrdom is beyond me - there are several thousand Americans in the same condition she was, and none seem to have Jeb and George Bush holding daily vigils for them. Alas, Ms. Schiavo was a good Catholic woman in that wacky Florida place that seems to have all the conspiracy theorists in a tizzy, and suddenly it became a matter of supreme importance to the American public. And, by the way, of even greater importance to our uniquely compassionate American media.

Considering this woman had spent nearly 15 years utterly incoherent, and that she was a figure of no importance in my life or anyone I care about, I couldn't even begin to bring myself to give the slightest fuck about the entire situation. Call me cold or insensitive, but when I eventually started paying attention to this latest bit of media-contrived fantasy (and believe me, I held out until about a week ago), the only question I asked was "why the fuck are they wasting my time with this bullshit?" For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why anyone was supposed to care about her welfare and life expectancy, or, more specifically, the plight of her mind-numbingly annoying family and their petty attempt to besmirch their jizzbucket son-in-law.

I don't consider myself a nihilist by any stretch, nor do I subscribe to any particular religion or belief structure that would in any way influence my opinion on this woman's right to choose her fate, but after seeing about thirty minutes worth of video in which Ms. Schiavo's method of communication solely consisted of "grrrrs" "gahhhs" and "gnrrrrs," I couldn't think of a single justifiable reason that court time, tax payer dollars, and, more importantly, the attention of Jeb and Dub should be wasted on this woman's feed tube. If watching this woman suffer and wither in a sterile hospital bed for 15 years while her parents also babble incoherently doesn't provide overwhelming proof that the right to death is every bit as beautiful as its more popular right wing cousin, I don't know what does.

Ostensibly, I'm not a guy who embraces the whole of humanity, loves unconditionally mankind's prerogative to procreate and rut endlessly, cherishes the golden chasm that is the womb, the true cradle of civilization, etc., etc., but can you really blame me for wanting Terri Schiavo to finally put us out of our misery?

All around me I see evidence of overcrowding, overpopulation, too many cars, too many people stopping to sight-see in the middle of bustling sidewalks...just a whole bunch of lemmings whose parents couldn't be bothered to stop rutting long enough to cut down on the one or two extra morons they decided to selfishly shit into existence. So, when our media decides to capitalize on the final days of what amounts to little more than a drooling, mewling cabbage trapped in a woman's body, how can you not want her to drop dead?

There's presently no way of establishing exactly what Terri Schiavo's mental state was in the days and weeks leading up to her death, so there's no way of knowing whether removing her feed tube two weeks ago was truly the humane thing to do. It seems to me that pulling the plug on this latest bit of disingenuous journalism is exactly what our heinous tabloid media deserves, and if it happens to take Terri Schiavo with it, tough luck.

Oh shit, the Pope's on his way out the door.

Break Blow Bore

Every so often, some chronically outspoken artist approaches obsolescence, and suddenly feels the need to restate the obvious for the widest possible audience. I'm not quite sure how they do it - and much like a stand up comic refusing to tell a joke he knows will bomb, it truly requires talent to understand when you've reached the end of your tether. I don't consider myself savvy or erudite enough to recognize my place in the art world - if one even exists for me. Nor could I claim to have come within a country mile of that zenith all the great ones surmount before their inevitable plunge into irrelevance. But I'd like to think if I ever do get there, I'll have sense enough to make my descent into cold asphalt last only a few seconds.

Evidently, Camille Paglia's created something of a stir with the impending release of her "new" book Break Blow Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-three of the World's Best Poems. And unless we are to believe that she's spent most of her savings on a significant public relations machine (which I doubt), then Ms. Paglia's decided that years of fringe feminism, fringe academia, and fringe politics don't sound an adequate death knell. Ms. Paglia, never one to resist the opportunity to illuminate, has compiled forty-three of her favorite poems - from masters and contemporary obscurities alike - in the hope that you too will realize "In our voracious 24-hour news cycles, we're rafting down the roaring river of media. It's exciting and exhilarating, but it's good to remember that SOME things last--and they're in art!"

If this sounds not unlike Chuck D. pitching the power of public libraries to inner city kids, you're right. To her credit, Camille Paglia's making a pretty bold statement about the marginalization of western culture: we're being robbed of our identities by government, our passion and zest stolen by the endless prioritizing and deprioritizing of computers and technology, and our very souls eroded by the disposability of so-called modern art. Fine. Obvious? Yes. Though typically melodramatic, I doubt many people would disagree with her. How many people don't cringe, or even shed a tear, when another repetitious pop song about some guy's favorite rims goes double platinum?

I think the more frightening notion, however, is not that we're unaware of this slip into triviality, but that few people are really prepared to do anything about it. And while apathy and indifference may be the intended effects of billions of dollars worth of rap videos, action movies, and reality tv, perhaps spending too much time resting on the laurels of generations past is a far greater problem.

Ms. Paglia, to her credit, sat down and read a bunch of her favorite poems, and stuck them in a book. Many of them were written by a bunch of dead people - mostly men - who, while undoubtedly brilliant, have seen their own relevance slip, regardless of what purists like Ms. Paglia would like to believe. "At this time of foreboding about the future of Western culture, it is crucial to identify and preserve our finest artifacts... As a student of ancient empires, I am uncertain about whether the West's chaotic personalism can prevail against the totalizing creeds that menace it. Hence it is important that we reinforce the spiritual values of Western art, however we define them."

And while some people might recognize "chaotic personalism" as a call to arms, most will be content to condescend. Ms. Paglia says "Read poetry and FEED THE SOUL! Poetry makes you NOTICE things--to see significance in the insignificant." Remember the golden age, when we cultured people knew what the value and import of life really was? Remember when the true artist adhered to outmoded forms and ideals? Remember when the sophisticates among us knew how to decry everything that didn't conform with our narrow perceptions of taste, class, and expression? I sure can't.

So, instead of attempting to move with the times, adapting to a changing landscape (regardless of how offensive it may seem to some of us), embracing the opportunity for limitless free expression accorded by advancements in technology, science, and media, those of us who've exhausted all means of original contribution will repeat the same clichés over and over again.

While there's no denying the brilliance of poets like Whitman, Blake, Donne, Herbert, and Yeats (just to name a few of Paglia's heroes), telling us to use the same means of motivation that applied 50 or more years ago, may no longer be of relevance to us. And maybe, just maybe, the insignificant - whether a fruit fly or a fading feminist - is just too damn boring to care about anymore.

You'll always be Jeff Spicoli to me

This past Sunday night, my girlfriend and I were too busy watching Look Who's Talking to be bothered with more than a few minutes of the Oscars. As much as I enjoy Hollywood Elite masturbating Hollywood Elite, we had a far more fulfilling evening watching John Travolta rub elbows with a toddler. I love my girlfriend. Anyway, poor little Marty Scorsese got shafted again - if you didn't win for Raging fucking Bull, how are you going to win with a movie starring Luke Brower? - and a former hack comic is now an A-list celebrity. OHHHHHH AHHHHHH

Early this morning, however, I did manage to catch (thanks to Opie & Anthony) the one lone bright spot of the evening, and probably the defining moment of the entire Oscar experience: a shit-faced Sean Penn stumbling onstage to present the award for best actress. Let's forget for a moment that the guy from Boys Don't Cry put on a dress and won the best actress Oscar, and let's forget for a moment that I can't think of a single reason why I should plunk down $12 to see this boring, contrived piece of sentimentalist shit. Let's focus instead on how notorious bad boy-turned liberal moan momma Sean Penn took a few moments to enlighten us as to Jesus Christ's 2005 incarnation, Jude Law.

This self-important dullard, the guy who was used as a propaganda piece by Saddam Hussein, waddled onstage in a coke-induced haze with an open collared shirt, and perpetuated every liberal cliche imaginable by responding literally to a Chris Rock joke. After commenting on Jude Law's obscenely long recent credits list, Chris alluded to the complete absence of the mediocre Brit from this year's nominations list, and said "Who's Jude Law?" Just a little self-deprecating wackiness from Hollywood, a two-thirds joke at best, but Sean Penn, completely devoid of anything resembling comedic wit, didn't get it. "Forgive my compromised sense of humor, but I did want to answer our host's question about who Jude Law is." And he even managed to elicit applause from a handful of equally humorless cokeheads by telling us "He (Jude) is one of our finest actors." You know damn well that every single tuxedo meat puppet movie asshole that clapped in support of Jude Law the Movie Star crushes the souls of Hollywood outsiders daily, uses nonsense like LOLOLOL ROFLMAO in day-to-day conversation with his jizzbucket boy producer buddies, dines at Spago while having a hearty chuckle over that lucrative Cool Runnings sequel they just greenlighted, and then spends the rest of the evening shamefully surfing Craig's List in search of tranny hookers who perform full toilet service.

Thanks for setting the record straight, Sam I Am. We all thought Chris Rock had missed out on those landmark works of cinema Gattaca, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, and Alfie. It's a damn good thing you've spent the past 20 years doing your utmost to prove that "All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine." wasn't your professional zenith. The truth is that Sean Penn is so preoccupied with being viewed as a credible artist and as an ersatz left wing politician, that he's basically forgotten how to laugh at his frat brothers. And in relinquishing all semblance of funny, poor old Sean has nestled himself firmly within Hollywood Elite's most crowded and saddening clique: hired whores who take themselves way too seriously. Maybe Team America had a point after all.

And by the way, the big shocker in Million Dollar Baby is that Clint Eastwood euthanizes her at the end, so now you don't have to see it either.

Pope Manneken Pis

If you were able to pry yourself away from Paris Hilton's Blueberry address book over the weekend, you might have noticed a brief, albeit noteworthy piece about Pope John Paul's upcoming tell-all entitled Memory and Identity. Replete with an endless stream of antiquated views on common sense issues and lengthy accounts of myriad Soviet plots to assasinate him, even the most devout Catholic could readily question the utlity of this book. Indeed, a man who probably condemned split pea soup after watching the Exorcist, and still believes he possesses a magical chalice that will ward off dragons, goblins, and assorted winged demons, can't have anything of relevance to say in 2005, right?

Well, hold your horses right there, Longshanks, because apparently our beloved geriatric in a tall hat has a real flair for shock and awe; you see PJP decided to sound off on two of the most crucial issues of our time: abortion and HOMOSEXUALS. As is espoused by most of the truly evolved, progressive, and informed people of the world, if were weren't busy butchering fetuses and allowing grown men to put their sex organs in other men's rectums, our world really would be a veritable utopia. And dear old fossil Pope doesn't deviate.

"There is still, however a legal extermination of human beings who have been conceived but not yet born. And this time we are talking about an extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity."

Ignore for a moment the inevitable outrage from our Jewish brethren bemoaning the lack of a Toddler holocaust, and focus instead on all of the peoples devastated and pillaged by genocide throughout the ages. Try telling Ethiopians, Armenians, Russians, Rwandans, Jews, Yugoslavs, and on and on and on that an unwed, unemployable, single mother-to-be opting to terminate a pregnancy rather than bring another little seven pound, eight ounce resource sucker into the world is akin to a charming holiday in the Gulags. I'm sure anyone who had a family member led by Turkish gendarmes in a death march through Anatolia will agree that a rape victim pleading for abortion rights is equally atrocious.

But strap in, folks, the fun doesn't end there. On the seemingly endless homosexual scourge, The Pope weighs in with the following peppy panacea:

"It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."

Now, I'm not a homosexual man. Although I've dabbled, fantasized, and ogled Brad Pitt just like every other guy, I'm quite content with my decision to embrace the female form exclusively. That said, I'm also smart enough to realize there's no inherent evil present in a man who happens to prefer the company of other men.

As far as I can tell, the true evil present nowadays in the gender war has more to do with the advent and blossoming of the dreaded metrosexual scourge: a breed of whiney, self-loathing, momma's boys who've fallen into the trap of mistaking decent fashion sense for confidence, irony for humor, and insecurity for vulnerability. If there really is danger present in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, it's that we as a soceity have produced a man so soft, feeble, and spineless that he's relying exclusively on cues from men who don't want to sleep with women to help him sleep with women. Creepy? Yes. And just a tad askew, if you ask me.

Unfortunately for the Pope, he's so completely out of touch that he views Queer Eye as merely a cog in an extraordinarly well lubed international machine designed to gay up all of our strongest male archetypes. All of the true alpha male macho assholes could never be born gay. They'd fight it with every ounce of their fiber, draw upon all of their testosterone, and tattoo every inch of their verile, masculine figures to avoid pushing back when a gleeful young man aims for penetration.

What I find most interesting about all of this is how the Pope openly decries choice when it concerns child breath, but warmly and loving embraces choice when homosexuality is a possiblity. Sort of. In Pope World, men have the choice to reorient their sexuality as they see fit, but they must always choose no. Ignoring all genetic evidence to the contrary, when the time comes for a man to firmly commit to a sexual orientation his choice is clear: straight to pussy, or straight to hell. Still, I'm sure we'd all agree that it's better than being a woman and having no choice at all.

Now if only the Pope would sound off on something of real importance like steroids in baseball.