How I Almost Became A Russian Gangsta

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 22, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

But Joined the Scissor Gang Mafia Instead


As soon as they done bitin’ yo ankles
they gonna bust a cap in yo ass

A couple of years ago, a Russian friend of mine asked me if I wanted to make some money. Since he said “vould you like to make some money” instead of “I have a job you might be eenterested een“, I raised an eyebrow. He said ” I know vaht you are theenking. There eez no-thing eelegal eenvolved“. He explained that all we had to do was travel around the country going to small retailers that stocked cell phones and offer to buy their entire inventories for cash at very low prices. I suddenly realized why I was a hot prospect; imagine a Russian guy walking into a gadget shop in WTF, California or someplace, and saying “I vant to buy all zee cellphones you have for cash“. A few months later, a different Russian friend asked me the same original question, only in this case, the “opportunity” involved getting a free cell phone and envelopes of cash to buy large numbers of tickets to concerts and sporting events. I said I’d take the job if he could get me a date with t.A.T.u., and he laughed. Whenever someone says “there eez no-thing eelegal eenvolved” when telling you about a great new opportunity, the assumption of course is that “something eleegal eez eenvolved“. Although I knew that in both cases my friends were operating at a relatively safe level, somewhere a little further up the chain was some guy named Boris the Blade. Which didn’t scare me; the real issue was that I have a strict policy of not entering gang organizations at the thug level. With hindsight, I’m happy with my decision. I probably would’ve had to work with these guys. Which on further reflection, might be better than joining the Scissor Gang Mafia. Read the rest of this entry »

I Was Late For My Mandate ‘Cause I Couldn’t Find My Guyliner

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on October 21, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Exploring modern bromance may lead to bro jobs.

Reading this guy’s rant against the pervasiveness of portmanteaus reminded how much I love them. Although I lean a little toward the prescriptivist side of the old prescriptivist vs descriptivist debate, new times clearly call for new words, and slang is often the only way to really say what you mean. I love books like Opus Maledictorum and Forbidden American English (where else would a foreigner learn what a “bugfucker” is?) and although Urban Dictionary both suffers and benefits from its user-generated format, it’s still a treasure trove. I’d love to create a slang dictionary of my own if I had the time. Some people apparently do have time; I ran across this excellent list, but it suffers from what I’d consider some weak definitions. So I’ve selected a few below. Got any gems of your own? Read the rest of this entry »

American Idle: A Culture Paralyzed By Fox TV

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on October 20, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

In the end it wasn’t communism that brought America to a standstill. It was Fox TV.

I’ve maintained for a long time that “Fox News” is an oxymoron, so it was refreshing to see the Newsweek piece The O’Garbage Factor by Jacob Weisberg, in which he points out that the politicized Australian-British style of reporting that Rupert Murdoch brought to America with Fox is simply un-American. I’d go further, and suggest that the Fox network in general is directly responsible for many of America’s cultural ills. While I love “edginess” and “pushing the envelope” when it comes to media and creativity, it should be clear to anyone who watches the evolution and influence of pop media that Fox has taken the lowest common denominator as low as it can go, and had a profound negative impact on American culture on the way down. Fox originally sliced out its market share with shows like Married With Children, a show that I personally found amusing, but that clearly blazed a trail for the later cultural cancers (also brought to us by Fox) like “Reality TV” (now there’s an oxymoron) and ranting morons like Bill O’Reilly. I mean, when you start at the bottom, “lowest common denominator” eventually means “subterranean rot infested with maggots”, which I think would be a good description of a typical episode of The O’Reilly Factor or some of the more desperate reality TV shows. So what’s a person to do? Well, you could plan a meeting with your more influential media-savvy friends. Just make sure American Idol isn’t on that night.

Why Do Rock Stars Gotta Be So Fugly?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 19, 2009 by admin in Music

Is there a clause in rock star contracts with the devil that says AND YOU HAVE TO BE FUGLY?


Poor Shane MacGowan of the Pogues
almost always tops these lists

The other day a friend and I were talking about Robin Trower, who – while a legendary and seminal rock guitarist – is not what you would call conventionally handsome. When I listened to him as a teen, I never really thought about this; there’s a pretty good chance that I was under the influence of something or making out with chicks at the time. But this got my friend and I thinking: is there some clause when rock stars sign their contracts with the Devil that says “but you have to be ugly in that rock star kind of way“? As I sought ideas for a list of ugly musicians, I realized a few things. First of all, as a musician who’s not exactly adorable himself, I should be careful here. Perhaps more importantly, there’s a lot of truth in expressions like “love is blind” or “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. For instance, while the average person would likely say that Tom Waits is a little on the ugly side, don’t say this to his fans. A friend of mine who worships Waits nearly smashed me over the head with a bourbon bottle when I suggested his name for the list. And on the inverse, Madonna almost universally ranks in the top ten on these sorts of lists, usually with an explanation about inner beauty being important. I’m also one of the worst people to address this topic; I mean, I think Sandra Bernhard is hot, for cryin’ out loud. Regardless of who you think is ugly, I think the PopCrunch article Rock’s Aging Sex Icons Need To Quit Already is on the mark when they point out that no-one wants to see grandpa running around in spandex. I mean c’mon, Eddie Van Halen, you look like you’re wearing a damn colostomy bag! Who would you add to the list? Read the rest of this entry »

Are We All Just Marks In The Hugest Hustle In History?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 18, 2009 by admin in Politics

I can’t help noticing that some people are getting richer while the rest of us struggle to get by.


Tim Geithner Demonstrates
Just How Much He Cares About
The Average Working Stiff

I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been conned in the biggest pigeon drop in history. While it’s nice to see the FBI go after a few greedy billionaires for insider trading, I’m tired of wealthy capitalist guys in suits that cost more than my housing for a year first telling us that we need a socialist banking system, then that they need 23 trillion of our imaginary future tax dollars to save capitalism, then that it’s none of our business where the money goes, even when we sue and win to find out, then that in spite of the fact that they deceived us at the outset that these same rich banker capitalist guys will be happy to loan the government banks money  to save them. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? In a similar era in US history, Franklin D. Roosevelt said “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics“. This idea is highlighted by the points made in the NYT piece Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth, in which they quote Gary Richardson, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research as saying (in reference to the banks that have been bailed out): “we have just shown them that they can have the most frightening things happen to them, and we will throw trillions of dollars to protect them. I have big concerns about that.” So do I. How about you? Read the rest of this entry »

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