happy 27th birthday shimmy!

here's what i know about my sister:
1. shes much cooler than i am. by every traditional and liberal cool metric, she has me beat. really, i thought i had this wrapped up for most of our lives, but now it is clear i was just enjoying a head start. once our ages basically evened out, it was over.
2. shes beautiful. and not in a boring way. also, as long as we're on aesthetics, her eyes are big like planets.
3. her hatred of tuna fish has reached inexplicable heights. this one is really bizarre b.c i LOVE tuna fish, and chromosomally, she and i are practically carbon copies.
4. shes incessantly creative.
5. really, i cant stress enough how much she abhors tuna fish. if i bring a sandwich to her place, before i open the wrapping, she asks me if it's tuna fish in much the same manner id expect her to ask me if i was unwrapping a package of anthrax. only upon assurances of a non-tuna sandwich meat am i granted unwrapping and consuming rights. ok, i dramatized that - but only a bit.
6. shes very talented. like, if i were a woman, id buy her accessories and bags, no doubt. theyre pretty effing classy. as are her faces. 6 & 4 is a sweet combo btw. i dabble in it myself now and again.
7. shes blunter than...james blunt? i got nothin. suffice it to say, shes more one of yer tell you what you need to hear, as opposed to tell you what you want to hear, people. we all need those. like vegetables on a moscow menu, they are vastly outnumbered.
8. she is effing hilarious, man, i cant even tell you. she truly cracks my sh*t up. this might even be a similar situation to number 1. im not sure yet. mankind may never know, really. incidentally, even though we werent as close growing up, i do feel that we shared many a great laugh together during those years. to this day, our tag team really destroys the ma and pa operation our ma and pa have going. (the four of us are rarely in the same ring together, but the epic battle continues to be waged, nonetheless.) and THEY have great senses of humor. i mean, i hate to admit it, but they do.

ah, to laugh.

9. she used to do this really great thing in photos. shed always make a different, almost absurd expression, but it never looked obtuse or out of place. it was just like putting a little shimmy watermark on the pic. i really dug it. i think shes retired the practice.
10. shes like some kind of people magnet. heads just flock to her. i think they might be sucked in by some kind of gravitational field created by her celestial body-like eyeballs, but who knows.
the money ball. she is very extremely loved by me.

just six more days.

until matt mcconaughey turns 39!

alright, alright.

just seven days until.

the new ryan adams album is a week old.

30 if.

as i did in my last nick b-day post, two years ago, i would like to pay tribute by reproducing an excerpt of a classic email from him from kathmandu:

Wednesday, December 4, 2002 4:42 AM

...At least I suck at the Nepali language and am tired of breathing in
fumes from burning garbage, which here is an everyday occurrence.

Which reminds me: here are some thoughts on burning garbage, originally
written to my friend Yvonne but perhaps you will appreciate them as well.

>>Yeah I am finally getting better and was able to eat a decent breakfast
>>this morning, which was quite pleasant except for the abundance of burning
>>garbage that seemed to surround me throughout the meal. I mean, I went to
>>one restaurant and was like, not this place, no way, too much burning
>>garbage around. (See I have a threshold by this point, a little is okay
>>and notice I said "too MUCH" burning garbage around, not, "there IS
>>burning garbage around.") So I go to another restaurant, Pumpernickel, and
>>the garbage situation seems to be okay, but no sooner had I begun my meal
>>than a deluge of smoke began pouring forth from over the wall. A wall
>>that, apparently, separates Pumpernickel from a place where people like to
>>burn their garbage.

For Christsakes, why do people burn so damn much garbage in this city? My
theory is the following: One person starts burning garbage, say, at 7:00 am.
And someone nearby smells it and says to himself, "Mmm...smells like
SOMEone's burning garbage. Hey that reminds me, I've got a little garbage of
my own to burn." And the whole thing chain-reacts until all the garbage in
Kathmandu is aflame, with people warming their hand over the glowing coals.

I mean, warming your hands over burning garbage is absolutely disgusting,
and I think a lot of people need to be informed of that. There is an
enormous difference- which is, I fear, not as intuitive as I at first
believed- between warming your hands over burning wood and burning garbage.
Think about it for a second. See what I mean? When I helped lead that Boy
Scout retreat here, the scouts (who are all from western countries) started
warming their hands over burning garbage. I had to inform them, as politely
as I could, that this was not an acceptable activity, by any standards
except those of the country in which they currently reside.

Okay, that's all for now. Consider it my contribution to the world of
Kathmandu stand-up comedy.

peace.
-N

a change is gonna come.

Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters...

-ben bradlee (played by jason robards), to bob woodward and carl bernstein in all the president's men

this is my final fit. the obama campaign has to decide upon its last allocations of money by midnight thursday.

the win is well within grasp, which is all the more reason we have to seal it up, shore it up against any potential last-minute alarms or surprises.

please go to my obama fundraising page and tender just a few more ducats (i just gave another 25 bones, for instance). lets bring this thing home.

you know, not that anything's riding on this...

thanks for the photo, srd, via cuj, via drudge - hey, that rhymes!

other entities that need a bailout.

• the polar ice caps
• oliver stone
• bill simmons
• the simpsons
• the knicks
• my cell phone
• my cuticles
• your mother
• the dallas cowboys
• the hair on brady's stomach
• print media
• scrabulous
• michigan football
• the american auto industry
• your relationship with god
• chinese food
• bloomberg's dignity
• farmer in the deli
• brad pitt
• safari and internet explorer users
• pay toilets in nyc (that was for you, pops)
• nike sneakers meant for athletic use
• the pizza joint downstairs from me
• jack nicholson
• katie couric (the palin massacre notwithstanding)
• goatees
• the injured knees of mssrs. woods and brady
• the publisher that owes me payment for a piece i did in august
• the nhl
• in-flight movies
• your way of seeing things
• reality television
• u2
• best man speeches that arent delivered by me
• blt's
• tom wolfe
• my current lunch prospects
• tenth street lounge (that would actually be a resurrection more than a bailout)
• the pitch n putt during the winter
• dane cook
• manhattan congestion
• my toilet paper dispenser
• paul mccartney
• super bowl commercials
• your wardrobe

god bless the tampa bay rays.

i had specifically avoided mentioning the dread sox, and my paralyzing fear of them winning the world series again, b.c of my penchant for jinxing my sports desires by putting them in writing.

but now, thanks to the scrappy rays, i can finally do so.

re: the bosox, i just have two words to say.

in the immortal words of my favorite yearbook quote from my graduating class, penned by a guy whose name i forgot:

goodbye, herbs.

let the record show.

that i just spent ten minutes hunting for my phone, only to realize brady was sitting on it. amazingly, this has never happened before.

i am very relieved that no one called during this interlude, b.c im positive the surprise ringing and buzzing would have given her a heart attack.

aw.

your father should know.

when i was a kid, my dad, somewhat exasperated by the obsession with popular culture apparent in a child that was supposed to be his own progeny, would often tell me, 'you should go into advertising.'

very recently, gkw said the same thing.

well, not to sound like mccain, but guess what my friends?

i have gone into advertising.

i got a job working at my prof's sports marketing firm.

i dont know exactly what ill be doing, but im psyched. i start next week.

i will miss the sleepy, weekday daytime manhattan i have gotten to know these past coupla months. but not too much.

in other news, i keep having the super-smiley chinese woman at the dry cleaner patch up my one pair of jeans (for all intents and dons, one pair of pants), but new seams keep opening up in other places. ive gone two rounds with her in the last two weeks. if i go in for a third, i fear shell take my diesels in the back room and euthenize them.

anyway, ive basically worn these pants every day for the past two years or so. they have fought the good fight.

shimmy.

i dont know how to embed this, so youll have to go to the link. it's my sister in ike's studio.

relax.

fate.

once in a while, nike comes out with a commercial that just sends a shiver down my spine. this is not a sports commercial; it's a life commercial. apparently, directors david fincher (fight club, the game) and emmanuel lubezki (children of men) worked on this.

thanks jph:

madness.

ah, peggy olson. you dont understand why the mad mens arent all over you.

well, neither do i.

you are giving lyla garrity a run for her money.

someone has a crush.

im watching a mccain rally on msnbc right now. direct critiques of senator obama are so widespread throughout his stump speech that cainy sounds like a prepubescent kid who comes home after school and complains about a classmate of the opposite sex to his mother till hes blue in the face.

crucible.

i never thought id say this, but i cant wait to turn 30 in a few months.

my twenties have been a trip.

i lived in spain. i was in manhattan on 9.11 and during the blackout. i fell in love, by my calculation, five times. and at least 5,000 other times just walking around the city. i got a cat. i lost two friends whom i considered a brother and a sister. i got much closer to my actual sister. i saw a baseball game in cuba; i went to the moscow zoo. i worked at four different companies. i indulged addictions to various vices, including, for a short time, shoplifting, and for a longer, much more boring time, poker. i came home many nights after the sun had risen, thunderstruck by the events of the previous night. i developed a belief in god. i met so so many people; some of them stuck around for a little while, some of them stuck. i saw bruce and bowie and radiohead and barry and oswalt and cross (well, the latter was speaking on a panel). i saw kobe play at msg; i saw bernie hit one out in the world series. i read a lot of good books, like in cold blood and east of eden and the sheltering sky. i mistakenly thought i had either an std or cancer at least a few times. i broke a couple of hearts; i prolly got mine broken a bit more. i drunkenly embarrassed myself on at least one occasion. i enjoyed doing so on at least several. i lied to people i loved. i treated my body well; i treated my body poorly. i shaved my arms. i blew up at defenseless people over politics. i took several writing classes. i ate out a lot. i met mike tyson and talked to bill gates and interviewed mike vick. i went on numerous medications, some of them prescribed. i became a brooklynite. i thought i found myself on at least 40 occasions; i was collecting pieces. i tried to do the right thing more times than i consciously did the wrong thing. but there are some wrong things that still stick with me. i lived in six different apartments. i seriously entertained at least a handful of careers. i saw people get married and was jealous, and i saw others get married and thanked god i wasnt them. i took the easy way out; i took it like a man.

there were countless days where i did stop and say to myself, 'i freaking love life.'

i took advantage of being young and good-looking in new york city. and it took advantage of me. it's all gonna be with me forever, and i wouldnt trade it for all the tea in china.

i could go on like that forever. but im glad im turning 30, to remind me i dont have to.

the perfect storm.

snazz told me her brother supports obama but is down on him for having opted out of public financing for the general election. he thinks the playing field should be as even as possible. i agree, which is exactly why i think obama had to opt out - and this has nothing to do with the 527s or anything like that. my reasoning, which to her credit, s didnt challenge - a reaction that perversely disappointed me - was that since obama is black, hes already inherently behind the eight ball; bearing that in mind, the very idea that we could possibly have a 'level playing field' in this election is fanciful. obama needs all the capital he can raise to counter-act the racism capital - built up over hundreds of years in this country - that he, and not mccain, has to fight against.

i mean, when obama announced he was opting out, he should have just said, 'of course i am. what am i, a shmuck on wheels? im the black dude with the funny name; i need all the help i can get. and that means outspending my opponent into the ground.'

you know, instead of blaming the 527s and swift boaters, which we all knew was a bunch of bull.

anyway, generally speaking, the whole thing makes me think of my high school track team, during our junior year.

lemme back up a bit.

i was part of the 4 x 100m relay team during the indoor season. we were pretty good, but going into the manhattan borough championships at the end of the season, we didnt expect to medal - even though wed medaled in lesser meets, and despite the fact that manhattan was invariably the weakest of the five boroughs.

to make a long, glorious story short: on that cold january night, inside the stuffy and decrepit armory-turned-arena on 168th street, the four of us each ran personal bests. and our baton passes were seamless. and one team that ordinarily should have beaten us dropped the baton, either slowing them down irrevocably, or flat-out disqualifying them, i forget which. and, a member of yet another team that was traditionally stronger than us inexplicably bumped into another runner and fell down, destroying that squad's chances.

put it all together and we won. we were the 4x1 champions of manhattan for the public school athletic league's 95-96 indoor track season. and dont get me wrong; we were a formidable team. but it still took that confluence of factors - that perfect storm of batons and bodies hitting the ground, and of each of us having our best performance ever - for four nerds* to win such a thing.

which brings me to obama.

this morning, danny and i had a conversation weve all had recently. namely, we never really though wed see a black man become president in our lifetimes, let alone this soon.

well, for this to actually come to fruition, it will take a perfect storm. for the black dude with the funny name to get elected**, several things all have had to - and will have to - fall his way. to wit:

-the current president had to be from the opposite party, and had to be loathed in truly historical proportions.

-and the country had to be in the fifth year of an unjustifiable morass in the middle east.

-and the erstwhile front-runner for the democratic nomination, who looked like a lock, had to inexplicably run her campaign into the ground.

-and our man has had to be nothing short of a brilliant campaigner.

-and the republican nominee has had to be ancient, imperious, impetuous, erratic, a mediocre campaigner at best, and bear a striking resemblance to beelzebub.

-my dad has said that many people in this country wouldnt vote for a black guy for president without a gun to their head; well, with the economy being what it is right now, they do have a gun to their head. ie, and the country has had to be in the beginning of an inscrutable financial morass.

-and, lastly, the black dude with the funny name has to be able to outspend his opponent by leaps and bounds. he has to do this to do things like airing lengthy commercials in swing states that are aimed more at getting people familiar with him as a good guy than anything else - thereby counteracting the preponderance of insidious rumors and innuendo that force him to swim upstream in a way no other candidate would ever have to.

so yeah, obama needs a ton of money.

this is my final plea. if you havent donated to obama already, pls. go to my fundraising page and give whatever you can spare. $20 would be great, for instance. as of my writing this, im but $220 from my goal of $1,000.

help me reach my goals. dont you want to see me reach my goals, friend?

i leave you with the following. whenever tupac's 'changes' comes on my ipod, i cringe in anticipation of this line:
and although it seems heaven sent

we aint ready, to see a black president.

lets prove tupac wrong, people!

*relatively speaking.
**keep in mind, im not advocating for obama just cuz hes black. i do like that about him, and think that symbolically his election would be great for the country, but i like his intelligence, shrewdness, his being the most liberal senator in congress, and yes, his charm, just as much, if not more. no, just as much.

just for the hell of it.

theres a kid in there. and hes big, and dumb, and hes

kinda scared.

not for nuthin.

but i LOVE grad school.  i mean, there cant possibly be enough of it for me. all my friends who told me to go back to school were spot on.

the profs are classy, my peers are classy.

this was a good decision.

38.

it seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. the good ones slept better, cloquet thought, while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

-allen konigsberg, side effects

saturday in pictures.

the starting block.

about to enter free arts.

dallis and me.

simply because.

black sabbath tribute band.

you are what you remember.

j.go.

i lurve watching your career take off.

and you were great and the camera lurves you too.

note: apparently, sometimes it takes a few refreshes to get the vid to load properly:

termites.

i dont know what used to occupy half of the ground floor commercial real estate in manhattan, but presently it's bank atm's (as opposed to deli ones) and drug stores.

george carlin had a joke: 'a starbucks just opened in my pants.'

walking around manhattan town recently, that's how i feel about chase atm's and duane reades.

go blue.

mccain has given up on michigan.

or, rather, michigan has given up on mccain. that's better.

and, i get another reprieve from lamenting my having changed my ann arbor voter registration to nyc.

frightening.

paul newman.

maureen dowd on paul newman. very good, particularly for those who dont (yet) understand how classy he was.

poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king...

apparently, bloomberg is going to try to overturn the nyc term limits law prohibiting him from running for a third term.

this is highly diced.

dont get me wrong - im not a big fan of term limits, save for the case of the presidency, a job whose unparalleled demands of its officeholder must yield diminishing returns after eight years, and whose intense concentration of power in one person begs for an automatic oversight that can only be achieved through turnover (god am i laconic).

generally, i think term limits only serve to deprive a constituency of a good leader.

but a good leader wouldnt try to strike down term limits right at the end of his own final term.

for one thing, it just doesnt pass the smell test.  actually, it fairly reeks.

but if i must proffer actual reasoning behind this argument, id say this; we have a very deliberative form of goverment (duh). this is good, b.c it means that laws - and institutions - arent changed according to the caprices of individuals. bloomberg doing this while hes mayor, as opposed to championing such legislation from the sidelines over the next four years while someone else is running city hall, totally flouts this fundamental principle.

bloomy's ostensible justification is that we need someone of his business acumen to steer us through this financial crisis. this claim only serves to underline what im talking about, and to undermine the very office he wants to maintain.

we, as new yorkers, should be able to have faith that the city government, irrespective of the individuals who comprise it at any given time, can weather any crisis. bloomberg claiming that he is uniquely qualified to handle this or any epidemic inherently compromises the agency of the next person to become mayor. 

bottom line: officeholders come and go, but the government is eternal. it shouldnt - and doesnt - need one man to prop it up.

not at any time.

btw, the clown prince of darkness himself, giuliani, tried to extend his term by three months after 9.11, using the same line of reasoning.  need i say more?