Back from Bisbee, AZ again. Let's do this.

I'd like to say a brief word about Brian's second topic from a couple posts down. How disgusting is it that an inner city honor roll student was beaten to death for either A)Not joining a gang, or B)Being in the middle of a gang fight. Either way, they should take the guys who did that into the middle of their gang's territory, put them up on a platform, announce with bullhorns that this is happening, and shoot all three of them in the head. Maybe that will get some of these fucking morons who think this is a viable way of living to reconsider.

So now I guess it's going to be Kate Plus 8. Anyone want to put in for my pool of how many of these kids are going to end up fucked up by the time they're 18? My guess? Eight. When did TV and real life become interchangeable and how can we change it back? These are three of the top 10 stories on CNN right now:

6. Was John Gosselin trying to get fired?
7. [Spencer] Pratt and [Heidi] Montag "Barely Having Sex"
10. Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel Still On

First of all, I wish I didn't know who "Pratt and Montag" from the above were, but unfortunately I do. They're from The Hills, a show which has taken snobby rich southern California people and made them feel better about themselves than they already do, which is totally unnecessary. Second, here are my responses to the above.

6. Who cares?
7. Who cares?
10. Who cares?

I don't have a ton of stuff going on in my life at the moment, but I still can't be bothered to care what these people are up to. I'd rather sit here and watch terrible new Fall shows on Hulu with no friends or anyone to talk to than give a shit about what these people do. FAMOUS PEOPLE ARE JUST PEOPLE. They have jobs that people can see. They are no better or worse (probably they are worse) than you or me. No one should care who they date, who they sleep with, what their kids look like, what their kids are named, what they drink, where they eat, where they party, what they drive, where they shop, etc. Have you ever seen the show TMZ? Watch it for more than ten seconds and you'll find yourself waking up covered in blood in an alley smelling like gasoline. The other "celeb watch" shows on TV are just as bad.

The problem is, as evidenced by three of the top ten stories on CNN being about these people, that people actually watch and read this shit. How pathetic are our lives if we derive any sort of feeling from looking at pictures of Ashlee Simpson shopping in Malibu? Sure, John and Kate have eight kids, but does anyone care? John is a douche and a bad father like half the dads out there, and Kate is a self absorbed, plastic bitch more concerned with her fame than raising her kids. And we pay them to be like that! These kids are going to be pregnant and on drugs before they can drive if we keep doing this. And then you know what will happen? We'll marvel at the train wrecks they turned into. How could those precious little angels turn into these drug addled messes? Maybe it's because they weren't allowed to have a childhood outside of the TV because WE watched them. Maybe it's because every step they take, even after their 15 minutes of fame are over, we'll be watching, scrutinizing, judging, like they're circus freaks. They'll never have a chance to live normal lives, and the people who will be saying "How could this happen?" will be the people who caused it to happen. Read this in ten years and see if I'm wrong. In the meantime, STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND LIVE YOUR OWN.

And now Adam Presents: New Fall TV Show Reviews
1. Flashforward - Interesting premise, sloppy execution. No need to put an entire season worth of stuff in your pilot! You have at least a few episodes before you get cancelled.

2. Community - Great pilot, mediocre second episode. I'd basically go gay for Joel McHale. We'll see.

3. Modern Family - It's like an indie movie for mainstream TV watchers! Not as groudbreakingly, mind-numbingly awesome as it's made out to be, but it's good to see Al Bundy again and Sofia Vergara is ridiculously hot.

4. Glee - More like GAY-lee. Copyright 2009, Adam Jones, TIT Productions. Side note, did you realize that our acronym is TIT? I didn't.

5. Cougar Town - This may make me less of a man, and I really do hate part of myself for saying it, but the pilot made me laugh loud, and multiple times. Terrible name though, no getting around that.

6. Whatever that new show is after How I Met Your Mother - Sucks. That Dharma from Dharma and Greg should really get out of the entertainment business.

7. How I Met Your Mother - Not a new show, but still the best sitcom on TV.

And finally, in music news, the new Avett Brothers CD "I and Love and You" is on its way to me finally, and so is Lucero's new one. Shitchyeah.

And finally again, I saw my old friend Adam Buehler in DIA when I was going to Bisbee. Small world. He said he'd check this out. Hey Adam!

And finally

Okay, okay. One more bit about the news/pop culture and then I'll get off my soapbox for a couple days. (No promises.) Can someone tell me what the hell is going on with this whole Jon and Kate Plus 8 business? And why we're supposed to care so much? They announced on their show that they were getting a divorce? Seriously? They're complaining -- I presume, because I would, if I were in their situation -- that they don't have enough privacy, that they're constantly under scrutiny, yet they announced their divorce on their own TV show? What?

But okay, whatever. Let that be the end of it. They're no longer a couple, so that's the end of the show, right? No, apparently not. Because, according to the CNN article, (and pay attention to the phrasing, because that's the kicker) "TLC says Jon is being dropped from 'Jon and Kate Plus 8.'" He's being dropped? Passive voice aside, yeah, it's a TV show, but, more importantly, it's these people's lives. You can't drop people from their existence. You can choose not to film him when he's with the family. But you don't just drop people. That's fucking low.

I know this is an issue of semantics, but come on. Those are some strong words. And I don't know who this guy is. He's probably a toolbag, but still. This whole show, this whole situation, is completely dehumanizing. You're saying he's not a living, breathing person, but some guy who appears on TV every once in a while, waves, and gets cheers from the studio audience. That's not how it works. People shouldn't be second to their character.

Here's the kicker, though. This is the line I read that sent me into a tiff: "Jon Gosselin is scheduled to appear on CNN's 'Larry King Live' on Thursday to discuss his reduced role on the TLC show." Reduced role? Again, this isn't a part for him. He's not an actor. This is his life.

Postscript: The President of TLC, Eileen O'Neill, has some absolutely disgusting quotes in the article. Here, read these, then convince me that O'Neill is a person, a human being composed of empathy and reason and all those other faculties one associates with members of the human race:

"Given the recent changes in the family dynamics, it only makes sense for us to refresh and recalibrate the program to keep pace with the family."

"The family has evolved, and we are attempting to evolve with it," O'Neill said. "We feel that Kate's journey really resonates with our viewers. Additionally, the network is in development on a Kate project for 2010."

Just let it end.

I saw Brief Interviews with Hideous Men today. I don't quite know what to think. I liked it, but it wasn't super amazing or anything. However, I think it's one of those movies that might stick with me for a little while, as I try to figure it out. So who knows. What I do know is that the previews they show at the IFC Center are way different from your normal United Artist/AMC movie theaters' trailers. This was a welcomed change of pace, even if it only served to accentuate my utter ignorance of independent cinema (and documentaries, in particular).

All right, time to get serious (and angry). Two "That's Fucked-Up" stories in the news recently: A Facebook poll asking whether President Obama should be killed and the three (four?) guys who killed a fellow student in Chicago.

First, the Facebook poll. The question is blunt enough. The four answer choices? "No," "Maybe," "Yes," and "Yes, if he cuts my health care." As if this weren't fucking embarrassing enough, we have to throw the whole health care debate into this? People -- stupid, ignorant, fucking idiot people who make polls like this -- listen up: You're stupid, ignorant, and a fucking idiot. What the fuck kind of sense would it make for the president to cut your health care? If you already have health care and you're happy with it, then you're set! No one's going to touch it! How many times do we have to fucking go over this? Honestly. This is for the eighty million (I made that up, but it sounds right) people who don't have health insurance, who can't afford the lovely plans and doctors and medication that you have, who have to foreclose their homes or their apartments or their trailers to pay for the debt accumulated from massive medical bills in the unfortunate instance that, god forbid, something bad happens to them -- something they certainly didn't ask for/care for, mind you -- and they're only trying their best to fucking sustain the people they love. What the fuck is wrong with helping them out? Who cares if they're productive members of society -- are we that fucking callous that we don't care whether or not a human-fucking-being dies? Why? Why should some people live and some people die? No one -- not the successful people, and certainly not the poor and uninsured people -- asked to be born into this world. No one elected their existence. We're just created without any say in the matter, hurled into this life and expected to just deal. And not everyone has the same privileges, the same opportunities, the same comfortable life that you and I had. We're the lucky ones. Seems like the least we can do is pay a little bit more in taxes -- from the jobs that we're lucky enough to have -- to help other people out. But the absolute stupidest fucking idea I've ever heard is thinking the President of the United States should be killed because of this. Goddamn. You make me ashamed to be part of the human race.

I didn't even talk about the other story. Senseless, meaningless death. Awful...

But, oh, right. What should we talk about instead? Roman Polanski? Khloe Kardashian? This Stephen Colbert dog? Please...

Happy 100th post! Triple digits -- I think some self-congratulation is in order. So, first off, thanks to Adam for resurrecting this crazy old blog. I'm still not sure what inspired you, exactly, to give it another go, but I'm glad that you did. And thanks for letting me jump back on board. I've had a great time.

Also, thank you. That's you. The person reading these words. Most the time I'm just here to amuse myself, but I like to think that there are other people out there who also read this and smile.

That's the good news. The bad? I totally psyched myself up to bring my situation with the Beatles'-song-title girl to a point tonight, but my professor interfered with my plans. Seriously, what the hell? Here's the scoop: My stories got workshopped tonight. On my way out, as I was about to strike up the usual post-class talk with this girl, my professor started calling my name. Apparently, she sets up post-workshop meetings with everyone, so we had to figure out logistics. This, of course, set me back a good minute, minute and a half. By which point, when I exited the building, B-s-t girl had already left. Can you believe that shit? And yes, I've resisted the urge several times already to just email her and ask.

Anyway, 100 posts in the past 8 months. Nice. That works out to, what, an average of 44.333333 posts per month? Thank you! I call that bit "The English-Major Attempts Mental Math."

Fucking Colorado fucking snow in fucking late-middle September.

Here's a conversation from work today:

[2:37:02 PM] Kelly: wow, here's a new profession: Laser hair removal technician

[2:38:46 PM] Adam Jones: does laser hair removal make the hair blow up? that sounds pretty cool

[2:39:37 PM] Kelly: that would be cool

[2:39:45 PM] Kelly: but no, it doesn't

[2:40:49 PM] Kelly: oh man if it was like that space ship game from the 80s/early 90s where it beeped with every move and had a lame blowing up noise when you shot an alien space ship....THAT would be awesome

[2:43:11 PM] Adam Jones: yeah it would. i'd have some serious hairs removed laserly if that were the case

[2:43:49 PM] Kelly: i would just be a laser hair technician cuz then you get to work the machine that makes those noises

[2:44:07 PM] Kelly: besides i wouldn't want to remove more hair if i were you

[2:45:22 PM] Adam Jones: it'd be cool if your removed the hairs by playing that game. like your computer showed a space ship and you just moved left and right shooting hairs off of people

[2:45:32 PM] Adam Jones: that'd be cool unless it was ass hair, then it would be gross

[2:46:36 PM] Kelly: "captain, there is a dark crater approaching, i fear for our lives and WHAT is that smell?"

[2:46:52 PM] Kelly: that's a conversation between the little people who would be in the ship

[2:47:36 PM] Adam Jones: ha gross. butts are gross.

[2:47:47 PM] Kelly: butts are gross

[2:47:58 PM] Adam Jones: that was fucking enlightening conversation

[2:49:17 PM] Kelly: best one i've had all day
---

I hope you're all as amused by these as I am. Hey, any of you loyal readers have Skype? You should let me know because I am always looking for more people to have stupid conversations with at work.

Sunday I fly back to good ol' Bisbee, AZ. Don't worry, there won't be another travelogue or whatever. I think I pretty much covered it all last time I was there. Plus, pictures of me only serve to remind me of how much weight I need to lose.

I have started writing the novel that will define my life and give meaning to a generation of lost souls. I will probably get about one and a half pages of it written before I give up on it, because that's usually how these generation-defining novels I write go. But I'm actually working up a loose outline, hitting some plot points, defining a cast of characters, etc. so maybe this one will make it to a recently-unheard-of three pages.

If anyone has a good way for me to make a million dollars quickly, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll talk to you next time.

This weekend, John Kra-why-can't-I-ever-remember-his-last-name-but-he's-the-guy-in-the-American-version-of-The-Office is screening Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, his writing/directing debut. Of note: Brief Interviews is an adaptation of a David Foster Wallace short-story collection. The movie is showing at the IFC Center in Manhattan. This seems like a cool thing to go to. However, I'd like to finish reading Brief Interviews by the time I see the movie. And that just doesn't seem very likely. But we'll see.

The Daily Show won two more Emmy awards on Sunday. I'd really love to be able to write with them. Like, really.

I drank red wine straight from the bottle last night. That sounds a lot more edgy and cool without an explanation. (Really, it was because people were cleaning up a reception that had followed a fiction reading, and they wanted to get rid of the wine. There were maybe three swigs, that's it. I said I didn't have a glass. They said I should drink it from the bottle. And so I got peer-pressured into finishing the red wine.)

Also, I forgot to mention it, but, at the Weakerthans show, I bought this neat poster designed by Nat Damm. (I don't know the name, either, but he does cool silk-screen posters of bands on tour.) Check it out:

I've been slowly catching up on episodes of "Michael and Michael Have Issues." It's okay. Has its moments, for sure, but others sort of drag or don't go anywhere. Anyway, in the episode I just watched, Michael Ian Black said that he needed to Google himself. I realized that this is something I've never done before. So I went ahead and searched for my name, and there are some pretty hilarious results. Among my many selves, I'm:

• a financial self-help author ("The Hidden Secret In Think And Grow Rich" [That's not a typo. That's actually what the book is called.] and "How To Finally Find What You Love To Do And Get Paid For It.")
• a pianist/composer (of course!)
• an NBA player
  
• some dude with a weird Tumblr blog
• a guy with a Windows Live account whose avatar is wearing a hat with a rainbow on it
• a photographer with a 1999-era website
• according to my Twitter, a "Creative director. Motion designer. NorCal transplant. Giants fan."
• the author of another blogspot blog (Honestly, who would have multiple blogs? That's just needlessly self-indulgent.)
• and, finally, a persistent rock-climber. (This one is actually kind of cool.)

The Weakerthans put on a fantastic show last night. They played, in no particular order: "Night Windows," "Reconstruction Site," "Benediction," "Tournament of Hearts," "Our Retired Explorer," "Relative Surplus Value," "One Great City," "Sounds Familiar," "Bigfoot," "Plea from a Cat Named Virtute," "Aside," "The Reasons," "Left and Leaving," "Elegy for Elsabet," "(Manifest)," and "Wellington's Wednesday." Encore #1: "Utilities," "Civil Twilight," and "Pamphleteer." Encore #2: "Confessions of a Futon Revolutionist" and "Psalm for the Elks Lodge Last Call." A great set, for sure, though I miss the days of them playing their older slower songs, such as "None of the Above," "Everything Must Go," and "Without Mythologies." (I can only recall hearing them play those songs once, and that was the very first time I saw them live, back in 2002-ish.) Noticeably absent: "Watermark." And I've given up on them playing "This Is a Firedoor," since they haven't played that the past couple times I've seen them. However, "Elegy" and "Sounds Familiar" were both nice surprises. Also, the new slide-guitar solo that Stephen Carroll added to "Pamphleteer" makes the song even more unbelievably awesome. Makes me wish they'd re-record it so everyone could hear.

Damn you, Marcel Proust! (I realize apostrophe directed to a late 19th-century/early 20th-century French writer is not the norm in the blog-o-world, but tough. This is the Irreverent Times, and we do whatever we blah blah blah blah. We do it proudly, and we do it lazily.)

Everywhere I turn (hate that cliche), love is in the air (also hate that cliche). But really, what I'm trying to say is: emotions are running wild (ugh) and we can't handle the truth (just stop).

Hold the phone. Can I get a redo?

I, too, have had similar thoughts to some of Adam's easy-to-reference numerical ponderings. So, just this once (second time), I'm going to harness the power of self-indulgence: Simply put, there's a girl in one of my classes that I like. In order to be purposefully oblique, her name is in the title of a Beatles song. (Hint: It's not Eleanor, since this isn't 1915.) Anyway, I just wish things were easier, that's all. Easier to tell what the situation is. Easier to do something about it. It's similar to my thoughts on literary criticism: depending on which mindset I choose to adopt, I can find evidence to support my position. On a good day, I can hype myself up. On a not-so-good day, all I can tell myself is that someone that pretty must surely have a boyfriend. Or, if she doesn't, why would she be interested in me? But really, I'm just making a huge deal out of nothing, because nothing is all that's happened, and nothing is all that will happen until I decide to do something. Which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.

And maybe all this inaction and doubt is unfounded, based upon a lack of self-confidence. Maybe this entry will seem silly and ridiculous in a couple weeks, if things go my way. But something tells me it won't.

Which is where Proust comes into play. A bit of advice for the women out there: if you're with a literary-type guy (or girl!), and he (or she!) claims that his (or her!) favorite writer is Proust, get out. Although Proust can craft some wonderfully beautiful sentences and make some stunningly insightful observations, he's also a big ol' pessimist. Great art comes from suffering. Love should be suffering. Pleasure equals pain and pain equals pleasure. Let's get this guy some Zoloft already, for real.

But the fact is, he seems to be right about so many other things that it makes me wonder if he's not on to something after all... I don't want to believe that we fall in love with people we know we can't have. I don't want to believe that we build an archetype for love so that, with each new endeavor, we're only trying to recapture that initial element or experience or whatever it was that made us first fall in love. I don't want to believe that we're blind to our own persona, that we don't really know who we are, that only other people can truly see us for ourselves. But I don't know.

Damn you, Proust.

You are now exiting this time warp from a 2004-mentality. You'll resume with a present day-mentality next time.


Edit at 2:33PM: In the first part of this entry, I was going to add a half-joking rant about how single people should wear a ring on their right hand, married people should wear a ring on their left hand, and people in a relationship shouldn't wear a ring at all. But then I realized: Why should I feel ashamed of asking her to do something, even if she has a boyfriend? Why should I feel ashamed for thinking she's cool, cooler than most other people I've met in a long while, and that I'd like to spend more time getting to know her? Seriously, where's the harm in that?

There. There's your present day-mentality. Told you it'd come back.

I'm halfway through it, and I haven't seen any other new shows, but Community is the best new show on TV. Fact.

These are the topics running through my mind recently:

1. We can all assume now that there is a God, and his name is Beatles Rock Band

2. If I could force myself to be attracted to men, I'd do it, because women suck

3. Listening to loud music in bed in the dark is the best thing ever, and can only be enhanced illegally

4. I want to write something but I don't know what

5. I love tapas but I hate spending $50 on dinner

6. I sometimes feel like I'm at the verge of some kind of break. Breakthrough. Breakdown. I can't tell which

7. I'm very grateful to have the friends I have

8. I like living alone, but it is finally starting to feel lonely

9. I really would like someone to take a look at this blog and then give Brian and me money to write for them

10. I wish politicians would go away and that we could live together in anarchy

I'm not one easily scared by bugs or spiders. I don't like them, but, if the situation arises, I can swoop in, get things back to order, and we don't have to break out eight feet of gauze. (Wait a second...) But here's something that does scare me: taking a shower (an activity which I do almost entirely with my eyes shut, as to avoid getting shampoo in my eye -- that shit hurts!), turning off the water, opening my eyes, and seeing a spider dangling right above my head. This, I think we can all agree, is an unpleasant surprise.

I've had questions (two [which technically allows the use of the plural]) about my classes. So now I will discuss classes. (Great transition!) Tuesday night is Literary Criticisms night. A mandatory class that I was dreading going in, it's probably my favorite course this semester. The professor doesn't structure class as a lecture, but as an open-forum group discussion. It's kind of like what Ben and I did in the kitchen of our old apartment, except this time I'm getting a grade and I have to write formal papers.

Wednesday night is Fiction Workshop night. My professor is very enthusiastic and accepting of all sorts of ideas, which is good news for me. Fun fact! One of the other MFA students in class is an ex-fire fighter who was one of the first responders to the World Trade Center on September 11th. Guess what he wrote his story about? Uh huh. It was incredibly powerful, but damn. Hard to follow that up with anything that seems remotely significant in light of his personal experience.

Thursday night is "Post-modern Fiction." The reading is questionably post-modern. More like unique ways of telling stories. And it's almost entirely fiction from outside of the United States. It's interesting, and we discuss some good points, but the professor could really benefit from some methamphetamine. I think illicit psycho-stimulants is the missing ingredient from this class. Or maybe just coffee.

There you have it. The US Open is winding down. Nadal is currently playing Del Potro in the men's semi. He's not doing so well -- down two sets to love. Things aren't looking good for him, unfortunately. But it's okay, because The Beatles: Rock Band is still amazing. (Huh?)

The Beatles: Rock Band is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Well, Obama's speech has come and gone and it was every bit as controversial as the right wing radio hosts expected it to be. Personally, I'm wondering how Brian got an exact transcript of the speech before it was ever spoken. I think this sums it up pretty well. From a CNN article:

"There is no excuse for not trying," he told students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia.

"This isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future."

And this is what this lady had to say about the speech before she ever heard it. I think it's funnier if you imagine this is what she still thinks. I think this actually is probably what she still thinks:

"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH last week.

"I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."

You know, I feel very scared to be in this country too. At this point we're all worse off than 95% of the world, starving and rioting in the streets. Killing others for a piece of bread. Our children have been sold into sex slavery. Our mothers have been sold into steel mill slavery. Our fathers have been castrated and now their only purpose is to serve the Queen. I don't know about you, but I'm this close to resorting to cannibalism. If only we had elected President Palin, we'd all be filthy rich (except for the poor, but fuck them, right? right?), the deficit would have been erased, and we'd all be loaded up with guns to take on the no crime that existed. All drugs would be illegal, all abortions would be illegal, all pre-marital sex would be illegal, atheism would be illegal, gay marriage would be punishable by death, and we'd all be way, way better off. In fact, the prospect of having to spend the next three years in this country scares me so much, I think everyone else should leave. I'll stay here to hold up the rapidly collapsing ashes of this country long enough for you all to leave. You can thank me later, when you're living in whatever country you seem to think is more conservative than this one. Godspeed.

In just fifteen minutes, President Obama is going to give his "controversial" speech to students across the country. As longtime readers of this blog know, I'm pretty much a muckraker. A yellow journalist. A third 20th-century profession that now seems obsolete. So, with that in mind, I present to you...

How the Conservative Opposition Envisions President Obama’s Speech to Public School Children

To all the girls and boys across the country: good morning. Today, on what is, for many schools, the first day of the academic year, I would like to take a few moments to talk to you about the importance of hard work and determination. When I was a child (living in Hawaii without a proper birth-certificate), my mother instilled in me several core values. She taught me that, in order for me to be successful, I would always have to work hard. She taught me that, in order for me to feel satisfied, I would always have to persevere. And she also taught me that welfare and universal health care are necessary parts of life and you’d be silly to argue otherwise.

Year after year, we here in Washington D.C. struggle to find ways to keep students in school. The fact is, the drop-out rate in this country is staggeringly high. So let's talk candidly about a few reasons why. First, drugs. Obviously, you shouldn’t do them. Drugs will negatively affect your way of thinking, they’ll consume your life, and they’ll make you a bad, bad person. But hey, who am I to speak? I’ve tried marijuana, and look where I am. Not too bad, huh? The harder stuff, though – your cocaine, your ecstasy, your heroin – try to stay away from that. Unless you’re only trying it once because you’re curious. Then it’s okay.

Or maybe you already have a job, stocking groceries for minimum wage five nights a week. Sure, it seems great now, but, eventually, I'm going to collect every single penny you earn. That’s right, I’m saying it here and now: I’m raising income taxes. And not only income taxes, but also property taxes and so-called “death taxes.” If it has the word “tax” in it, you can be sure you’re paying more. Why? Because. Just because. Get used to not getting satisfying answers from authority figures, kids.

Sex. I know it’s on all your minds. And don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about, fifth grade classrooms. Look, just don’t drop out because you can get laid. That’s just stupid. Oh, and I absolutely must mention one thing: condoms. Condoms, condoms, condoms, condoms. I literally cannot say that word enough. Condoms. Use ‘em. And ladies? Come on. The least you can do is offer anal. You don’t have to go through with it, just provide the option. I mean, this is the 21st century.

A few other things I want to mention real quick: I’m banning the Bible and replacing it with the Koran; all guns will become illegal within the next year; and, oh, we’re returning Alaska to Russia. That way Sarah Palin no longer lives in the United States and, if she wants to run for president in 2012, she’ll have to move to a state where it’s not okay to be completely fucking insane.

Good luck with your future studies. Stay in school and work hard. And remember: condoms. I’m out.

Dear Guy Who Lives on My Floor and Smokes Cigarettes in the Fucking Stairwell,

Hi. You don't know me, and I don't know you, but allow me to introduce myself. I'm new around here, and I'm trying to get into shape. I'm taking this opportunity in a new city and a new job to get a new body. Or, more precisely, an old body. The one I had junior year of college. One of the ways I'm doing this is to walk up and down the stairwell every time I come home or leave. Nine flights of stairs a few times a day has already helped me get into better shape. Strangely, I never see anyone else in the stairwell. I guess most people just prefer to wait 15 minutes for an elevator so they can stand in it with 10 other people who waited for the elevator. But that's neither here nor there.

I'm pretty sure that if you want to smoke and you don't have a smoking apartment, you are supposed to go outside, or just smoke in your apartment and pay the fine. If you went out into the hall to avoid smoking in your room, and lit up, I have a feeling there would be some people who had some words that had some four letter in them to say to you. Same if you lit your cigarette up in the elevator. Or if you broke into someone else's apartment and smoked in there. So I really doubt that it's okay to smoke your cigarettes in the stairwell.

Remember when I said I was trying to get into better shape? Well, by the time I get up to the ninth floor, I am breathing pretty heavily. And there, sitting on the ground and lingering in the air, is your cigarette. Lung and mouth cancer may be a part of your long term life plan, but it's not part of mine. So please, go downstairs, go outside, and leave my lungs alone. I may be the only person in this building who uses the stairwell, but I think that actually means I should be rewarded, not punished.

Thanks,
Adam

Boom! Adam mentions us being topical, and I get into topical mode. (And a potential crash, what with the onomatopoeia.) If I still updated my That's Fucked Up blog, this would totally be the next entry.

I've long given up on CNN.com providing useful news. As of late, it's become tabloid-esque sensational stories. But this morning, I found an entertaining (in a sad way) article about Obama's address to school children. Here's the scoop: On Tuesday, the President is going to give a nationally-televised speech to students. He's going to talk about the importance of working hard and staying in school. Cool, sounds good.

There's one other thing. Along with the speech, the Education Department plans/planned to distribute an exercise that originally asked students to discuss "what they can do to help the president." Okay, not the best wording, I agree. But they changed it to how the students can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals." Regardless of the prompt, the students would write a response, the teachers would collect that response and then return it at a later date. All of this is an effort to get students to feel accountable for their goals. Cool, sounds good.

So, to recap: The President is giving a speech encouraging students not to drop-out of school. And, oh yeah, there might be some assignment tacked on to help them realize their goals. I wonder which of these two points the conservative opposition is going to harp on...

Many conservative parents aren't buying it. They're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, said Friday the classroom is no place to show a video address from Obama.

"At a minimum it's disruptive. Number two, it's uninvited. And number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don't think he needs to force it upon the nation's school children," he told reporters at the Minnesota State fair.

Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children.

"The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."

You know we here at the Irreverent Times Journal like to be topical, so how about this: How about that health care, huh? Man, it sure would be nice if everyone had free health care. It'd be great because poor people could have health care and you could get sick and you could still have money afterwards. I think that would be great. Everyone could be alive forever! I'd like to give homeless people medicine myself! I also think I'd like unicorns to shit rainbows on my piles and piles of million dollar bills. Free health care for everybody!

And then there's the other side of the argument. Fuck poor people. If those lazy bastards would get off their lazy bastard asses and get a job, maybe they'd have health care. I don't want to have to pay for Johnny No Job Fatass No Exercise Triple Bypass Every Six Months Because He Can't Stop Eating FUCKING Quarter Pounders With Cheese Five Times A Day over there's health care. I run MILES and I eat SALAD and I'm so fucking healthy it makes me sick. Good thing I have health care, huh, you slobbering pile of human dung. I hope you die, which you probably will, because you can't afford health care and that's the way natural selection works.

I love politics.

I have a secret to share with everyone: I'm actually Dan Brown. It's true.

(Funny story I just thought of: The SAT-prep classes I used to teach included a passage on a female writer who used a pseudonym. One of my students raised his hand. "What's a pseudonym?" he asked. "Is that, like, a drug?")

I don't know how they make bananas out in Colorado or, for that matter, wherever you're reading this right now (hey, a callback to one of my other laugh-makers! [That's a term I coined for a joke. (And check it out -- embedded parentheticals! [This is like a greatest hits collection of lame jokes! (Laugh-makers.)])]), but here's how they make them (bananas -- I know, I forgot what I was talking about, too) in DC: I had a rule that I'd only buy two bananas at a time. This is because, while I like bananas, they are not, in fact, "the shit," as Gwen Stefani would have us believe. (I know the song says "this shit," not "the shit." But that song, I think most of us can agree, is just plain ol' "shit.") I appreciate a healthy potassium intake, but, honestly, after two bananas, I'm good for about a week. Thus, if I were to buy three bananas, that third one would, through a natural cycle of ripening, turn into a mushy mess in a matter of days. Now here's how they make bananas in New York: Bananas come bagged in packs of six. And these six bananas are very green and not at all ripe. So I bought a bag of bananas and just let them sit in my kitchen for a good four or five days. By that point, they were only just barely yellow. It's like they're injected with some ripening retardant. This is good because it means that I can probably get through the six bananas without wasting them, but it's bad because I had to just stare at my bananas for close to a week, wondering when I would actually be able to eat them.

The US Open started Monday night. I saw Venus Williams survive her first match, followed by Andy Roddick playing better than he's played in years. It's one thing to watch these matches on TV, but, in person, you can clearly see just how fast they're hitting these balls. I don't understand how every serve isn't an ace. Or, even if you make contact with the ball, how you can return it so that it lands in. Crazy.

Seriously, though: Buy my new book. The one that's got the guy doing the thing that he did in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. But, this time, it's totally different and not at all the same. I swear.