Geeks and Gaga: A gay romp

First things first: I was incredibly pleased to see that one of the five hits I had today was from a Google search for Reginald VelJohnson. Does he have a fan club? I might start one.

But this is not about that. Instead it is about a little liberal boy in Arkansas. This little liberal boy decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance because of the failure of the Several States to grant gay marriage. In his own words:

I looked at the end, and it said ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ and there really isn’t… gays and lesbians can’t marry, there’s still a lot of racism and sexism in the world.”

[...]

I eventually, very solemnly, with a little bit of malice in my voice, said, ‘Ma’am, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge.’

Now I’m not going to fisk a ten year-old boy. I’d be lying if I said part of me didn’t want to, since he’s clearly very confused about the role of ideals in public life and needs to read Paul Ricoeur. But the risk that he might find this and engage in a public and humiliating internets debate with someone more than twice his age, and that I’d lose, is just too great.

However. There is something I’d like to say to him. Do you know what I’d like to say to him?

Hey, kid. You’re ten. Chill the fuck out.

I say this, you see, because I was exactly like this kid. When I was ten, and he a mere glint in his father’s eye, I read Time and was desperately concerned about the Embassy bombings and the Lewinsky scandal. I spared no effort in ruthlessly boring my conservative Catholic school peers with these views, turning every carpool home into a valiant rear-guard action for the forces of the International Left. I even wanted to be a lawyer.

In keeping with the era – gag me with a spoon.

I’m glad this kid feels passionately about the issues of the day, I guess. But for his sake I’d prefer he felt passionately about Taylor Swift. Or Taylor Lautner, if those be his druthers. Caring about politics so deeply at such a young age presages the development of a very boring character animated only by some kind of deep-seated sexual perversion featuring choke play or airport restrooms. I think I’m living proof that the cost of a little bit of ignorance at ten is the avoidance of thousands of man-hours worth of therapy, a diffident attitude towards human suffering and an unhealthy relationship with Dr. Pepper.

But of course I don’t get therapy. That’s why I have you, dear reader(s?… oops, no, never mind).

Pain me as it might to say it, there’s a reason that the kids in his class call him a gaywad. It’s because it’s true. It’s not because he’s standing up for gays. It’s because he won’t shut up about gay marriage and had to go give the backwards substitute teacher a red ass when she otherwise would’ve left them alone to play DS and talk about Hannah Montana. Now he’s on TV being annoying on a grand scale. (And as usual thanks for being so hard-hitting, CNN.) They might think he’s cooler for it, but I’m doubtful. Very few ten year-olds want to be at the center of a political scandal. But there’s always one. And that one is a gaywad.

Now my radiclib friends (who are nevertheless less radical than I, as they’ve failed to embrace the importance of tyranny) will object to this. He’s taking a stand, which is noble and part of the great struggle for equality under the law.

Perhaps. But if one does not deconstruct a ten year old’s argument, because he’s ten and it’d be ridiculous and unsporting, why would we hold him up as a paragon of democratic virtue either? Especially given what it says about people of, uh, voting age, that we require a midwestern pre-teen to fight our battles for us. Doing one better we’ve taken this poor kid and now pretentious sacks of anus pus all over the country are writing blog posts about him.

(Hi.)

So I’m going to stop. Right…

after this really creepy new Lady Gaga video. Which could be construed as either an argument for or against gay rights. I’ll let you decide. I’ve got to return a $5 bill to the bank in protest at our failure to realize the ideals of the Gettysburg Address.

Thoughts, 17 November

• Sometimes, when I don’t feel very clever, I read the comments on YouTube videos.  This invariably makes me feel better. Consider the retort of a Grecian on this trashy Eurotrance video, which boldly asserts “i can bet that i am more human than u are by the fact that i have a phd and emotions.” Indeed, sir.
• Systems of taxation are, invariably, simultaneously fair and totally nonsensical. One is liable to dismiss the former as a result of the latter. Especially when one is essentially extending  a no-interest short-term loan when one’s own debts cry out for payment.
• For the reasons above, I intend someday to nationalize the GM corporation, engage in a campaign to make it radically unprofitable, and then sell it to a wealthy dilettante, preferably a foreigner. This asymmetry will please me.
• Have you ever noticed that Sarah Palin supposedly “transferred schools” shortly after Andy Kaufman allegedly died of cancer?
• I have come to believe that I occasionally lose consciousness and do a great deal of work for persons unknown. If you are persons unknown, please come forward in order that I might be able to more adequately complete my tax information.
• As a result of all of the above, I am reconsidering grad school.

It’s still no substitute for national pride… I guess

Et'whoa

This weekend the tiny (tiny?  I don’t really have much point of reference) African nation of Cameroon completed its World Cup qualifying run, thanks in large part to the efforts of world-class player Samuel Eto’o.  But the team-spirited Eto’o didn’t want his team to feel overshadowed.  So he bought them watches.

$50,000 watches.

From his own line of specialty watches.

I think the world here is – baller.

No brains November

There is apparently some phenomenon whereby people across the country find an excuse in every single arbitrary temporal phenomenon to take leave of their senses and create a hideous fad.  (Generally this is college students, as they are the only ones both underoccupied and overstupid enough to embark upon such fetishes.)  What am I talking about?  Today, No shave November.

I'm getting ED just looking at them

What is no shave November?  The fact that you ask fills me with bile.  Essentially, come November you don’t shave.  That’s it.  The point of it to the best of my knowledge is to drive me still closer to the inevitable mental breakdown that began when I didn’t get a Power Wheels at three. They were awesome. Katie Gardner had one. I didn’t. I didn’t even have one of those stupid plastic cars you pedaled around in yourself like a fucking Flintstone. Seriously, I could’ve just walked. It was indoctrination into car culture. Fortunately Captain Planet deprogrammed me.

How serious is “No shave November”? Check out the beginning of this post by a self-identified participant:

Yes, it is time for me to earn some more points to my man card.

And now my eyes are bleeding.

This gentleman goes on to describe “NSN” and even provides a helpful video of his 2008 effort in case you’ve never been to a bowling alley or sexual assault trial and so don’t know what an unkempt mid-twenties Caucasian man looks like. (Though, since he may have linked here, I don’t mean to imply that this unkempt mid-twenties Caucasian man either bowls or sexually assaults. But I don’t know that he doesn’t. Why won’t he tell us? I’m just asking the question.)

Incidentally when I went to search for this episode of South Park to use as a comic aside I got a post on the Atlantic blog about the episode, which complains that

it starts off quite violently, with a shooting at the school that resonates a bit differently in the wake of Ft. Hood.

This is unadmirably ridiculous. Not once when watching the episode did I make that connection, nor did anyone else watching with me; and the idea that an actual (and deplorable) massacre at a US Army base has any relationship to a man mistakenly shooting dead a nine year-old boy because he confused him with a forty year-old trucker who’s sleeping with his wife, or that a person would or should feel some sense of connection between the two, is not just ludicrous. It’s not just actually insensitive. It’s anti-comedy. It’s the sort of connection Glenn Beck himself would make, which sort of proves that South Park’s point is not exclusively about Glenn Beck.

The worst part about No shave November is that invariably the people who participate with the greatest vigor are those who have the least capacity for facial hair. (If I lacked moral objections, this would be my fallback position.) At the adjacent computer – not the girl working on a program for the first meeting of the “Lusty Lady Book Club,” which is pleasantly to feature Lawrence and Dangerous Liaisons, the other one – is a kid my age who looks like Timothy Hutton. In the late 1990s. In his made-for-TV movie about Aldrich Ames. That’s bad.

And indeed, within the space of a week, a crowd of otherwise normal-looking men (and one must imagine some very questionable women) are suddenly sprouting similar patches of SOS pad all over their faces.

You know. This guy.

Why do you do this?  Why? It doesn’t make sense. It’s not right. Why do otherwise normal people suddenly look like that evil security guy in Richie Rich after Professor Keenbean sticks a burlap sack with sticky solution over his head. Remember that guy? In Richie Rich? Do you even know what I’m talking about?

Whatever. It’s immaterial. What happened to our morals – our values? Why can people walk around all day long not shaving their beards and looking ridiculous and getting Power Wheels and nobody does anything?

So here’s what I’m going to do. (Because I’m a citizen. It’s my duty.) I’m making a new tradition. I’m making Forced Relocation February. I’m making a list of everyone I see participating in No Shave November and I’m going to have them deported to Greenland. I have this power. Citizen-power. Obama said I can. And I do.

ROSEBUD

This will be a much more wholesome tradition than stupid No Shave November. It will bring us together, as we slide the burlap sacks over the (awkwardly-bearded) faces of those to be moved. It will be constructive, socially. We’ll get to do this together and the deportees will get homes. And health care. In Greenland. And Greenland will, I don’t know, maybe get a soccer team. And I will get what’s mine. At long, sweet last. You hear that, Katie Gardner? MINE.

I smell a conspiracy

Why, precisely, is the exemplar of federal employment a chef?

He appears to be smiling because what’s for dinner is my freedom.

Thoughts, 9 November

• I enjoy it when a man named Boehner is sloppy about pronouncing his words. I did not enjoy it, however, when I discovered that he isn’t the congressman that represents the town in Glee.
• When fire drills occur, people who leave the building after an allotted times should be directed into “corpse zones.” They should be informed that had this been an actual fire, they would be statistically dead, and should then be taunted by those who were more prompt.
• I have not once heard anyone talk ironically about Kaká.
• I don’t like to think of myself as unemployed. I prefer to think of employment as unhuman. Of course continued unemployment will make me unhuman, too, so in a sense I have already lost.

Dear potential employers: I am awkward

Sir/Madam:

It has come to my attention that when I interview there is, well, an issue. No calamity or whiff of disaster, to be sure – but something’s just not quite right. In an effort to improve communication – and incidentally my chances of continuing to eat on a semi-regular basis – I want to confront this problem head-on. Honesty is in all of our interests.

I am awkward. There’s no use hiding from it;  I couldn’t if I tried. Awkwardness – sometimes called the “silent killer” because it doesn’t actually cause physical harm – is an epidemic that has been excluded from our national debate for far too long. To ignore it is to empower the disease and allow it to ruin the lives of ordinary, hard-working Americans like you and me.  Especially me.

There are many different types of awkward. Seasonal awkwardness is often associated with allergies to pollen, pet dander and human interaction and tends to spike in the spring and summer months when everyone is really happy and irritating. Stress-induced awkwardness comes at times like Christmas, your birthday, and the hazardous ordeal that is Bastille Day. Acute awkwardness can occur as a result of singular events over which you have little or no control, like when your leg gets humped by one of the Queen’s corgis at Ascot or you arrive at a book club only to discover it’s hosted by Heidi Pratt.

As it happened, it WAS a gun in his pocket

But there is a condition still more serious. It is chronic awkwardness. Some fifty million Americans are sufferers, making it the most dangerous crisis to American health care since polio or restless leg. Chronically awkward people find almost every social situation perilous and struggle to get through the day without performing an inadvertent racial slur or sexual advance on a high-ranking military officer. Chronic awkwardness can cause profuse sweating, vomiting on others, inappropriate secretions, dramatic and unsightly skin conditions, faceplanting, and even social coma.

Sometimes even everyday situations like a trip to the corner store can be nearly impossible to a sufferer. The temptation to knock down a display case while swordfighting with squeegees, making inappropriate gestures with bottles of soda or tennis balls or replying to the shopkeeper in an exaggerated Indian accent can be too great for an awkward person’s sense of judgment. The long-winded, frantic and breathless apologies that follow are inevitably more awkward than the initial faux pas, and prompt renewed bursts of maniacal laughter as an awkward man or woman insists that they really had not intended to shoplift a bungee cable to use as a replacement belt after theirs was taken by a carjacker in the process of going to Safeway for some cottage cheese. (It is well known in the community that not only are awkward people the number one consumers of cottage cheese, but they are our primary means of subsistence.)

But why am I coming forward now?  In a word, money.  I’m poor.  I’m so poor I’m po’.  I sold the last two letters to buy more cottage cheese.  And everytime I go to an interview people look at me like I have two heads when in the middle of answering a question about writing press releases I slowly place my finger all the way into my nose.  One woman actually shrieked when, halfway through describing my publishing experience, I started rocking back and forth and singing “On Eagle’s Wings.”  What right does she have to judge me?  Would you judge an AIDS patient?

All right – a cancer patient, then.  It’s the same principle.

But it’s not just my po’verty I’m concerned about.  It’s getting that syndrome bling.  Big money goes into research to solve pressing health problems like AIDS, cancer and thin eyelashes.  If we have a chance to help all of those potential awkward people out there – to get jobs, loans, and desperately-needed haircuts – then those of us who might be called “high-functioning awkwards” have a duty to help.

The key?  A foundation.  All the best disorders have one; we need one too if we’re to be taken seriously by the government-nonprofit-health care triangle.  The Institute for the Study of Awkwardness and Awkward-Related Disorders will not just be a clearinghouse for information and research: it will also be a tool awkward people can use to find jobs, schools and communities prepared to cater to our needs.  Equal opportunities must include thirty year-olds who play hackey sack indoors if it is to mean anything at all.

Your new Something Assistant

You might now be thinking: I see that this is a problem, that it needs to be fixed.  But what can I do?  This brings me back to the beginning, because you can strike a blow against awkwardness by hiring me.  Realizing this dream will take hard work and an apartment capable of supporting an office/spare bedroom/beer pong table. It will also take a visionary with a salary of no less than six figures. While that may still be far off, you – and only you – can get the ball rolling.

So when I walk into your office, head hunched like a linebacker, hair in my eyes and tie stuck to my ass, remember that the awkward are people too – gloriously funny people. We have much to give. And you can be part of that.

I look forward to working with you.

Yours &c.

Peter Wahlberg

P.S. I’ll hand you a handkerchief just before we start. Take it. Trust me. It’ll make sense in about fifteen minutes.

John Oliver in Green Wing, 2004

This whole “where were they then?” idea requires a little bit more follow-through than I’d initially anticipated.  But I just stumbled on John Oliver as a used car salesman in the premiere of Green Wing, so there you go.

To think, this was 5 years after he was in the Footlights.  I’d better start holding out for my 30s now.

(Incidentally, the episode’s here.  Gratis Hulu. He’s in the first three minutes.)

Can Sinnerman be the ringtone, too?

Commercial music really has been getting better lately.

The following is from a commercial from the “You” for HTC, a relatively under the radar producer of smartphones that’s a supporter of the Android Linux-based open source OS introduced as a counterpoint to the iPhone. It’s basically designed for people who, like me, perhaps like the capabilities of Apple’s products but can’t stand the culture that comes with it. (Which, of course, is centered generally on seizing control of the Earth’s governments in the name of sleek, postmodern information technology.)

HTC’s Dream was released last year, which I wish I’d known when I went to replace my phone in May. Motorola’s new Droid is the most prominent phone to pick up the Android software so far, but HTC, with the release of their Tattoo in mid-October, definitely has the classiest marketing.

The song is a House remix of Nina Simone’s classic “Sinnerman” by Felix da Housecat. (You’re right, I do feel really white typing that.) Full version here:

And for good measure, the climax of action staple/criminal John McTiernan’s Thomas Crown Affair, in which Pierce Brosnan sneaks a stolen Monet back into the Met, featuring the original “Sinnerman.” You lose something not having seen the whole movie, but still:

If you don’t love this, you’re not American.

World Cup recap, 14 October

Wha's happeni-oh wrong show

The last day of qualifiers on three continents came and passed today.  In an effort to be more international – I guess – I’m going to try to hit all of them, especially since more of the story in Europe was already done.  (For the perhaps 1 of you who will read this in the absence of a gratuitous reference to a 80s-90s television celebrity, such as Perfect Strangers‘ Bronson Pinchot.)

UEFA

Wow that picture of Bronson Pinchot really crowds out the screen - photo credit AP

The last two teams to secure automatic qualification clinched it today, both on the strength of just-barely-enough performances.  In weather conditons that can only be described as horrendous – or hysterical – Slovakia edged out Poland on the strength of an early own goal.  This was as expected, though the late challenge by second place Slovenia in the Slovakian capital last weekend transformed this match from a lame duck showing.

In sunnier climes, if one would like to refer to Basel that way, group winner Switzerland and Israel played to a scoreless and rather unexciting draw. (Though tell that to the Swiss fans in attendance.)  For the Swiss this was actually a rather close-run thing; had they lost by a single goal today, second-place Greece’s 2-1 victory over Luxembourg would have been sufficient to propel them into pole position.  Both Switzerland and Greece seemed to be playing surprisingly conservatively, or at least without a great deal of verve; but with a Greek attempt to storm into first place out of their hands all parties may have just thought it best to be slow and steady.

Portugal and Ukraine were the last teams to nab playoff berths without being in contention for their respective top spots.  Portugal gained a decisive (and inevitable) victory over Malta, while Ukraine did the same over Andorra.  On a personal note I continue to be infuriated with the lackluster play England exhibited in allowing Ukraine both to ruin their perfect record and edge out Croatia for the playoff.  I will undoubtedly continue to air this opinion at every opportunity.

As predicted, Norway was excluded from the second-place playoffs on the basis of weak group performance. Perhaps ironically, had Scotland not experienced their calamitous defeat to the Norwegians, or had they overcome the Dutch in their last meeting, it would instead have been the Irish Republic excluded. I mourn for the benighted Scots and their benevolent, long-suffering fans. But soccer, like politics and alcoholism, is an enterprise which worships always towards the dawn.

Second-place playoffs

You kiddin' me?!

The draws for the second-place playoffs will be next Monday. (I think…)  Because Sepp Bladder is a man I might only describe in a terms both inventive and exceptionally lewd, Europe will be having a seeding system for its playoffs.  The initial plan (though it was never shared with anyone, so how could we know?) was to have the eight second-place qualifiers randomly paired off, each to play one game at home and one away, with the overall winner of each to gain the final four places. However there is now to be seeding based on next week’s FIFA World Rankings, which orders teams by a variety of factors based on international performance. The top four teams will be placed in one pot; the bottom four teams in another. Teams will be paired only with those from the other pot, which assures that the “best” teams will face weaker opposition. These latter are furious, with Irish coach Trapattoni being especially vocal about it, but I don’t see Bladder backing down.

Almost assuredly, the high pot will consist of Russia, France, Portugal and Greece and the dregs with Ukraine, Ireland (I think we can dispense with this Republic business, yes?), Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We don’t know who will be paired with whom, of course, so speculation is early, but some conclusions are possible. Russia will qualify, knocking out whoever is set against them with indecent ease. (I dreamed they would do so to Portugal… alas.) Besides Russia the ironic truth is that none of the top teams are that good. France took second in a weak group; had any of the virtuous thirds like Sweden, Finland or Croatia been placed with them I doubt they’d have come this far. Portugal and Greece are notionally strong and rallied towards the end. Greece didn’t face a really tough group, so they have to be rated as faltering, but Portugal really were in a bad neighborhood with Denmark and Sweden and should be credited with a late rally. They’re not as sure a thing as Russia but they’re odds of their failure are 3:1 against.

What about the “dregs”? Again, without pairings this is speculation, but none of the four were deeply-impressive runners up. Ukraine is notionally the strongest, but they were pretty eh. B/H did just well enough to beat failing Turkey and a Belgian team in almost as bad a shape as their country. They could maybe beat Greece but they’re not giant killers. Slovenia fought their way through a very tough group, and did so as unexpectedly as forcefully, but the fact that they overcame an evenly-matched group doesn’t mean they beat a good group. Ireland, however, have been turning in powerful performances and went undefeated in their group, nearly holing the Italians in the process. (And even at half-speed Italy are no slouch.) I like their chances best, and am in fervent negotiations with the Almighty to ensure they’re not paired against Russia. In the atmosphere Slovenia and Ukraine are balanced for second-best-second, Slovenia on hustle and Ukraine on talent, with B/H trailing behind.

CONCACAF

The North American section closed with a bang – indeed a veritable Soccer War – tonight as an excruciatingly-late stoppage time equalizer prevented the Costa Ricans from clinching automatic qualification in Washington, DC. A game at which I was not present. I didn’t know soon enough, I tell myself. I can’t afford it, I tell myself. And still wish I’d gone.

This was morally important for the US, as it left us at the top of the fourth round group (an all-important point above Mexico) in a week in which the US team was plagued with disastrous injuries. The last, a rather severe tendon issue with Oguchi Onweyu late in the second half, follows a day after Charlie Davies’ car accident outside the District and left the side Estadosunidense at ten men going into stoppage. Compounding the bizarre pageantry of the whole affair, Costa Rica’s coach Renê Simões was ordered off the field (along with an assistant) following some substitution clusterfuck – perhaps in view of the paucity of time left, the referee refused it and he got lippy. Retaliating, the referee left a full five minutes on the clock, allowing the Hail Mary goal that saw Honduras qualify for the World Cup for the first time.

Well THAT'S rather uncalled for

I didn’t see much of the Honduras game, but it was apparently tight and pretty brutal.  El Salvador could easily have tied it up and left Honduras (as I’d predicted) to slug it out with the CONMEBOL fifth-place. But now it is Costa Rica that will go in their stead. In soccer as in life, someone else always pays for your success.

CONMEBOL

By comparison South America’s final night was somewhat humdrum if you weren’t secreted away in a Buenos Aires suburb with a spicy Argentinian lover and a deactivated Blackberry/wife and kids. Argentina frustratingly managed a desultory goal in the 84th minute of play that turned out to be completely extraneous, given that Chile sent Ecuador quietly into the good night. A sad end to the city that hosted the first World Cup, but Uruguay’s night was tinged with hope, as Ecuador’s loss also guaranteed them the playoff spot against the fourth-placed North American side. Their dog will have its day in two matches against Costa Rica.

Playoff

I would generally rate Costa Rica the favorite. But Uruguay has done arguably better in an inarguably tougher milieu, and the endless series of qualifiers they’ve played starting two years ago has got to whet the appetite. Costa Rica will have something to prove, but the crushing nature of the draw to the US tonight has something to do with a sense of entitlement on their side.

But then again Uruguay’s wins haven’t been all that impressive. You get the sense Argentina rather deserved to go on if that was going to be their opposition. If Costa Rica faces similar they’ll seize the lifeboat of one of the last 2010 spots.

AFC-OFC playoff

Bahrain to win. Even if they weren’t a better team – it’s not clear – they’ll be away when they face New Zealand again, which means that a non-scoreless draw will see them through. I actually don’t know what happens if they draw scorelessly. Penalty shootouts, I imagine. New Zealand might have a shot there, as playing a tournament against Tuvalu and the Federated States of Micronesia must be very like practicing penalty shots.

CAF

Oh for fuck’s sake.

I stand by my predictions - Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria