I'll give you something to talk about

I was gonna put Bonnie Raitt's "Give em Something to Talk About" here, but then I realized...it's Bonnie Raitt. So instead, here is ODB, giving the world something to talk about at the Grammy's.

This post is a Public Service Announcement for all those deficient in the art of small talk. I often find it difficult to engage in the mindless, meandering word-combination chaos known as "polite conversation," not because I don't enjoy the company and conversation of my fellow humans, but because sometimes I simply find the act of making my mouth form audible, coherent syllables about the weather too tiresome. However, the real problem I have is avoiding topics deemed off limits. I'm like a dog with food; just because you put it out of sight in the cabinet doesn't mean I don't know it's there. I will sit and stare at that cabinet the entire night until I get that juicy piece of conversation. Somebody at the dinner table thinks the president is a muslim socialist communist? Let's discuss! A friend of a friend at a party is wearing an eye patch? You're damn straight we're talking about what's underneath.

I understand that some people prefer avoiding topics that may be uncomfortable or that they, god forbid, might disagree on, so I've provided two topics that are guaranteed to please a crowd and ensure that nobody accidentally brings up that thing on Jason's new girlfriend's lip.

Everybody seems to love talking about these topics. I've seen people get very passionate about their choices, and yet remain respectful of everyone else's choice, a prerequisite for healthy conversation. Basically, at your next family gathering, these are much safer discussion topics than America's foreign policy or the moral superiority of atheism over monotheism.

Acceptable and beloved conversation topic #1:

If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?

See? Easy. Everyone loves, or at least knows, super heroes. We've all imagined ourselves as a super hero at some point. So this one taps into fond childhood memories and lets you run wild with your imagination in an inoffensive way, unless of course somebody chooses Ant-Man's power of punching his wife in the face (hope that's in the upcoming movie!). For some reason, every time I've had this conversation, the only powers people bring up are flying and invisibility. It's like they never heard of Wolverine.

Anyways, the correct answer is flying. Yeah being invisible and going to the Brazilian Women's Swimming team's locker room would be great, but you gotta look at the big picture. With the power of flight, you could just fly to Brazil, where they have nude beaches. No sexual harassment charge for you when the invisibility inevitably wears out.

So flight is the answer. Hands down, no argument.

Shit. This was supposed to spark conversation. Oh well, on to the next one...


Acceptable and beloved conversation topic #2:

If you had to give up one sense (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling) which would you choose?

Everybody has thought about this one. If you are fortunate enough to have all five senses, it's fun imagining the world without one of them.

Wait, why is that fun? Sounds kind of fucked up, to be honest.

But let's go with it. Seriously, though, this is better than talking about world affairs or religion? Ok.

To begin, let's look at all five senses.

Ok, so after a little research, I learned there are a lot more than five senses, and I'm not just talking about Haley Joel Osment. There's our sense of time, balance, relativity, and many more! For the sake of this post, let's just focus on the ones our middle school teachers thought we could handle, which in turn narrowed our perception of ourselves and the world around us, but I digress...

Smell. This seems like it might be the easiest to cut out. No more b.o.! No more nasty farts! Awesome! But at the same time, no more farts? Who would want to live in a world where you can't even smell your own fart and fully enjoy the havoc your anus wreaked on other people's nasal passages? And you'll never be able to tell if you stink, so dating would be interesting. No more smell of bacon. I don't even eat bacon any more and I still think the smell of bacon cooking is one of the greatest sensual pleasures a man can experience. And don't forget, if you choose to give up your sense of smell, your sense of taste is fucked because taste and smell are intimately connected (hold your nose while eating to see this effect in action!). Plus, no more sniffing out the gas in the kitchen from the broken stove and now your house just exploded. Good choice, hot shot.

Taste. This may not be the most important sense, but it's one that makes life worth living. Without the sense of taste, you might as well eat rice cakes and celery for the rest of your life. No juicy, greasy fried chicken. No nacho cheese melting in your mouth, hitting every taste bud down your throat. No Reese's peanut butter cups.

No thank you.

Touch. Same as above re: "makes life worth living." Case in point: try imagining sex without the sense of touch.

Yeah. No. Next.

Sight/Hearing. These are the big two. As with the first topic, humans can only handle binary decisions, so this conversation inevitably winds up being about which is worse, loss of sight or loss of hearing.

Sight is our dominant sense ("I'll believe it when I see it") and it's hard to imagine not being able to see a sunset or a beautiful woman or tv. But envisioning (see, vision is the dominant sense even in our language. Look, I did it again with "see," and yet again just now with "look") a world with no music is almost impossible to me. No "Beethoven's 5th" or ODB's "Return to the 36 Chambers".

I would think being deaf is incredibly isolating; you can never be comforted by the sound of a friend's voice. You'd be excluded from the conversation by default. When I close my eyes, I can still sense what's happening around me, but when you plug up your ears you lose your sense of surroundings, and your sense of balance is all off.

At least with blindness you could get a dog, even though you could never see how it nuzzles its ridiculously cute snout into the blankets to keep warm at night or the hilarious way the folds of skin in its face flap in the breeze when it runs.

In order to properly answer this question, you really have to put yourself in the shoes of somebody less fortunate. What would it really be like if you didn't have one of your main senses? And what would it be like if you didn't have that sense all your life and one day you finally got it?

Funny you should ask! Here's a girl hearing her voice for the first time in her 29 years of life:

Wow. That was powerful. I'm gonna need a second. What? No, I'm not crying, it's just. I just...shut up. Who the hell wanted to talk about this stuff anyway?

Oh.

Sorry. I told you I'm not really good at small talk.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

The Arnold Palmer 5

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

He thanked the custodian again and limped to the front door, for some reason still trying to hide the fact that his toe was broken. Despite all evidence against it, he maintained the idea that this was the best way to handle his situation.

He opened the door and stepped into the dark night.

-begin part 5

Rain. Of course it was raining.

The cold water on his face actually felt good. He could almost hear steam hissing off the top of his head like in an old Looney Toons cartoon. In fact, this entire day had him feeling like Wile E. Coyote.

He continued to limp down the sidewalk, maintaining his balance by keeping his hand against the building. He saw the blue mailbox a few paces away and muttered under his breath:

"Stupid goddamm letter."

He hopped the remaining steps and opened the lid. It screeched open. He lifted the letter to the bin, then hesitated. He had an eerie feeling that something would happen to prevent him from sending this letter.

He looked around. The street was empty. There were no rogue, giant vacuum cleaners or custodians or beautiful brunettes out to sabotage him.

Yet, he could not send the letter.

Maybe he should go to the post office first thing in the morning and get it sent certified. He never really trusted the mail-people he saw around this street anyway. And "mail-people" sounded suspiciously like "mole-people," which was kind of creepy.

Maybe he was being ridiculous. Did Mr. S. say anything about sending it certified? He said it was important, but he didn't say it needed to be sent overnight or express or anything special. And if it was that important, why wouldn't he just use email?

He was being ridiculous. He opened the lid to the mailbox and slid the letter in.

He started to hop away when a thought occurred to him.

Was there postage on the letter?

Shit!

He leaped to the bin and opened the lid. He looked inside then thrust his arm in up to his elbow. There was no use.

"Ok. It's ok. I'm sure there was a stamp. Definitely."

He took a deep breath and hopped away, trying to forget the entire incident. Trying to forget the entire day.

When he finally reached the company's gated parking lot, he took out his keys and unlocked his car. The chirp of the alarm let him know where the car was, as the events of the day had caused him to forget where he parked. The fact that he still didn't have his own parking spot, even after three years of working for the company, and even though Dana got her own spot despite just starting last year and basically doing the same job he did (he wasn't bitter), didn't help matters.

He opened the door to the grey Corolla and fell in to the front seat. He was exhausted. The long nap in his office just made him more tired. He put the key in the ignition and started the car. His foot was throbbing as he stepped on the brake to shift out of park.

He came to a stop in front of the gate. The attendant/security guard was long gone, and at these hours, you just pressed a button to get a ticket. A fee was then added to your monthly parking bill. The company really knew how to treat its employees.

Steve rolled down his window and pressed the button. He grabbed the ticket and put it in his pocket, then waited for the yellow bar to rise, allowing him to finally go home and get that deliciously sweet, yet perfectly sour Arnold Palmer.

He waited. And waited. The bar did not move. He looked at the machine that gave him the ticket, expecting some noise or lights to go off.

Nothing. He waited. He rolled down his window and pressed the button again.

Nothing happened.

He waited some more.

Still nothing.

"Goddamit."

He sat for a moment, then slammed both hands on the horn, sending a loud, long honk into the night.

"Goddamit!"

He put the car in park and opened his door. He stepped out onto his undamaged foot. Holding on to his car for balance, he hopped over to the gate.

The yellow bar looked normal; it didn't seem broken and there was no chain holding it down.

He tried to lift it with one hand while holding onto the fence-post with his other hand. It didn't budge. He positioned himself so he could lift with both hands. It required him to put more weight on his bad foot, and the pain caused a wave of nausea to pass over him.

He took a deep breath and lifted. No movement.

He smacked the button again, to no avail.

Maybe this was an elaborate prank. He looked around for hidden cameras, then remembered the single camera overlooking the parking lot. Could it be...

The pain must have been messing with his head. Tammy from HR told him she asked to see video from that camera last year after her car window was smashed, and the security guy told her the camera didn't actually work. It was just there for show. At the time, Steve didn't know what bothered him more: the fact that it didn't work, or the fact that the guard was so quick to point it out.

Steve took out his cell phone to call a cab. He needed to get out of here and down a few drinks.

As he dialed, he thought about what the next few hours would entail if he got a cab. It was a 45 minute drive home, so it wasn't going to be cheap. Then he would have to take another cab tomorrow to get back here for his car. And he figured he should probably go to the hospital at some point to have his toe checked out. And his head.

This was not one of his favorite days.

He stopped dialing and thought about any of his friends who might be able to help. He knew somebody would, but he hated putting his friends out like that. Plus, the closest person lived 30 minutes away (if he was home) and that was 30 minutes of waiting Steve just couldn't handle.

He hopped back towards his car. He slammed the button on the machine again, hoping he could solve the problem by banging on it. The bar didn't move, so he slid back into his car and shifted into drive.

If you asked him later, he wouldn't be able to give you a satisfying answer as to why he did what he did. It's not that he was hiding something; he truly couldn't explain what made him do it. He knew the bar wasn't easily moved because he just tried with his own hands, so what made him think his Toyota would do much better is anybody's guess.

Steve's first attempt to get through the gate involved driving slowly to the bar, inching forward until it touched the hood about halfway up. He thought he would lift the bar as he slowly wedged the car underneath it. He gently pushed on the gas pedal, causing a piercing, shrieking sound of metal on metal.

The bar crawled up the car's hood, leaving a line of yellow scratches.

This wasn't going to work.

He backed up. He stopped, then quickly backed up as far as he could, about 40 feet. He had seen enough movies to know what he had to do.

Soon after he built up the courage to put the car in drive, he lost his courage and only got the car up to 20 miles an hour before slamming on his brakes just as he hit the bar.

It barely moved. And now there was a dent in the hood. The bar was at least taking some damage. The underside was now completely gray, so that was something.

He backed up again. He needed to plow through the thing. Pedal to the medal. All or nothing. Need for speed. Days of Thunder. Dukes of Hazzard. The show not the movie.

He put the car in drive, cranked up the radio (playing Daft Punk "Get Lucky" because it's on literally any radio station in the summer of 2013) and sped towards the gate.

One good thing about the whiplash was that it took his mind off his toe for a little while. Plus, he could get it looked at tomorrow since he was already going to the hospital, so it was a two for one deal!

The car crashed through the bar, bending it and snapping it off the post it was connected to. It shot forward, sparks flying as it skidded completely across to the other side of the street, stopping when it hit the curb.

Steve lurched forward as the car hit the bar, but somehow the airbags were not set off and the car kept going forward. That was probably a good sign for Steve's car, but not a good thing for his neck. The hood was crumpled and pushed back towards the windshield, less of a good sign for his car.

He rolled forward, nearly running over an old couple and their dog.

Steve slammed on the brakes as the old man jumped back, pulling the dog with him. He seemed more concerned about the dog than his wife, but she was able to avoid the car as well.

They stared at him. The small pekingese yapped. Steve looked at the couple, then the dog. They looked at his car, then back at the gate. Then they looked at the yellow bar lying in the street.

Steve stomped on the gas pedal before they turned their gaze back to him. The car screeched off.

Steve headed home.

-end pt. 5


I Love You All... Class Dismissed.

Life Lessons with Louie

In the last few days, I've been holding a personal Louie marathon on Netflix. I just reached season three's two-part episode, "Daddy's Girlfriend," where we meet Louie's version of the manic pixie dream girl. In one scene, they walk past a homeless man. She stops and talks to the man as Louie begs her to just keep walking. After hearing the man's story, they take him to a pharmacy to get his medication and then set him up in a hotel. It was a great episode of an off-kilter, sweet, bizarre, and sometimes mind-blowing series.

A few weeks ago, I went to New York City for dinner and a show with my lady. Soon after arriving in the city, we parked and walked towards a restaurant. We weren't in a rush, but we had to be aware of the time to make the show. As we walked down the busy street, an apparently homeless woman was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of a large skyscraper in one of the richest cities in the world, begging desperately for help.

She looked at us as we passed by and said, "Help me, please."

I briefly looked at her, then looked past her and kept walking. Just like everyone else.

To anyone who frequents New York City, or any big city in America, this is not an unusual scene. Unfortunately, homelessness and poverty are all too common in our excessively wealthy country. It's embarrassing, really. But this isn't a post about the failures of our government, which would be extensive, it's a post about how we treat each other as individuals. How have we evolved to the point where it is socially acceptable, indeed socially expected and proper, to ignore pleas of help from another human being? How has our natural inclination to assist those in need completely disappeared in some situations?

I've seen countless homeless people in various states of coherence and sobriety and desperation. I sometimes give spare change when I have it, and at the very least I try to be respectful. Mostly, though, I try to ignore them. It's too depressing to look at them and think about their situations. I'm trying to enjoy my night out on the town and escape my own problems for a while, I don't want to face someone else's problems, too.

What a shitty way to think. But it's what gets us through. It's still shitty. Helping each and every homeless person you encounter in NYC would be impossible, though, and honestly, it wouldn't be so bad if we just did a little more overall: push for legislation that addresses poverty and mental illness, give more of your money to charities, volunteer some of your time to others instead of spending every night entertaining yourself. Solve the problem as a whole instead of treating the symptoms, or even worse, ignoring it.

As I said, I've seen countless homeless people. This woman struck a nerve, though. Her plea was so urgent and insistent. She didn't look physically hurt, so it didn't seem like a physical emergency. In that case, I (probably...hopefully) would have helped, at the very least I would have called for help, but this seemed to be a case of a mental breakdown, and that's just too scary to deal with (to be clear, it's not the people themselves that scare me, it's mental illness/disease/deterioration itself that terrifies me). In the brief instant I acknowledged this poor woman's existence, I envisioned what helping her (truly helping her) would entail, and I knew I wasn't capable. She needed more than a few spare dollars.

The scene from Louie flashed through my mind as I walked past her (it was a very quick mental association I made; I didn't even consciously remember that what I had envisioned was from the show until I viewed it again recently) and I knew I wasn't capable of providing that kind of assistance. But Louie is a show. An absurd (yet awesome) show, and that episode in particular is absurd and most likely an extended dream/fantasy sequence. The woman Louie is dating is too good to be true. Nobody goes out of their way to help others like that, that is why she was so special. But in actuality, we don't have to go to those lengths to help people in need. There are some people that need professional, sustained assistance, and we should do our best to provide that, but I'm talking about things we can do every day.

Maybe the homeless woman would have benefited from a friendly conversation, a kind gesture from a fellow human. Or maybe she was waiting to scam the first sucker to stop and offer her help (I've encountered enough con artists to instill in me a hearty sense of distrust). Or, more than likely, she suffered from some type of mental illness and needed psychiatric and pharmaceutical help. And that's not something you can offer when you're just visiting for dinner and a show.

But we shouldn't get caught up in the things we can't do for others, we should focus on the things we can. People appreciate the smallest things. Minor gestures have major impact. I've mentioned before how many people Kevin Briggs has saved simply by talking with them and genuinely listening to them. DMC of the legendary Run DMC decided to not kill himself after hearing the Sarah MacLachlan song on the radio (you know the one) and turned his life around after meeting her. There is an endless amount of stories about people doing small, generous things for others all the time (click those links, it will make your day!) and those small, unsolicited gestures bring the greatest pleasure to everybody involved. Enough people doing enough small things leads to big things. It's cliched, it's simple almost to the point of naivete, but I'll be damned if it ain't true.

As a prophet once said, "Be excellent to each other." It makes all the difference in the world.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

Best Most Awesome Round-Up of Things that Occurred in the Year 2013

Hey! Here are a few things that happened in 2013:

I published another book!

I wrote a few stories, like this one about Black Santa, this one about a crow-killing cat, this one about selecting a new pope, this take on the legend of Sisyphus, and this one about a guy and his desire to get home to his beverage. I also wrote this poem about Spring and death and this musing about death and dying (it was a positive year, I swear).  I wrote this piece theorizing about the origin of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, this one about the meaning of "A Christmas Story", and this startling in-depth hypothesis about Maggie Simpson's vital role on The Simpsons.

Stoned Willy Poonhound made his triumphant return to the public's consciousness with this guide to building a snow mansion, this advice on navigating your way through Valentine's Day, and these columns showing you how to become the best poonhound you can be.

I sprained my ankle on the second day of the year.

I hit a deer and wrecked my car.

Vine!

Rapper Vince Staples became a favorite, with his show-stealing verse on Earl Sweatshirt's "Hive"...

...and his own album Stolen Youth.

Probably my favorite album of the year was Run the Jewels (rap tag team duo El-P and Killer Mike), and their video for "A Christmas Fucking Miracle" is nothing short of amazing:

Those two guys really held it down as a group in 2013, after having 2 of the best albums of 2012 individually. And their concert in NY at Webster Hall was one of my favorite experiences of the year.

Matter of fact, I went to a few great concerts this year. Action Bronson at The Met in Rhode Island:

Souls of Mischief at the same place:

Nas at CitiField, after a Mets loss, on the hottest day of the summer:

Curren$y at BB King's in NYC:

I saw Danny Brown in Mass.; Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge (they put out one of my favorite releases this year, Twelve Reasons to Die) with his entire band at Toad's Place in New Haven; and The Beast Coastal Tour (The Underachievers, Flatbush Zombies, and Joey Badass with Pro.Era) at Toad's Place. I didn't have Vine yet for these :-(

And probably the best shows of all: Bonobo at Paradise Rock Club in Boston (the weekend of the Boston Marathon bombing) and more recently at Terminal 5 in NYC...

Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk's album, No Poison No Paradise, was an unexpected favorite of mine. I always liked his work, but he really outdid himself with this.

Detroit rapper Danny Brown's Old was another favorite. Danny remains one of the most entertaining people in the world.

Another one of the most entertaining people in the world had a good year. Well, good in the sense of providing me with entertainment. The gay fish genius put out an almost unlistenable, but still fascinating, piece of "modern art" in music form; he had a kid with the tabloid Goddess and named the kid "North"; he got eviscerated by South Park again; and lastly, most importantly, he had a string of rants that ranked with the best celebrity freak outs in history. All in all, it was a good year to laugh at (or with) Kanye West.

Anchorman 2 came out and actually didn't suck. That was nice.

Treme ended. Didn't even realize it was ending (with a five part 4th season? What is that?). It was a great series, especially if you like food, music, and New Orleans. It ended on a sad note, with the Chief (I always refer to him as Freamon) succumbing to cancer, but it handled the death respectfully, gracefully, and overall in an entertaining way, unlike some other series. And sorry, Family Guy, bringing Brian back doesn't change anything. The fact that resurrecting him was your plan all along makes it an even more deliberate and obvious cash grab.

Breaking Bad ended. Unbelievably good series, with an awesome, over the top, crowd pleasing final season.

Eastbound and Down ended. It had its ups and downs over the course of its run, but they ended on a definite high note with this season. Baleedat.

I discovered a very weird artist, Spark Master Tape, who I became somewhat addicted to...

He has many awesome videos and two free mixtapes. (We're still using the term "mixtape" in 2013, by the way, even though they are almost exclusively online.) To be honest, I didn't discover the bizarre Spark Master on my own, I found him through Blockhead, one of my favorite music producers/bloggers. Blockhead also put me on to Danny Brown a couple years ago, and this year, he showed me something else I will be forever grateful for: the unrated version of "Blurred Lines."

I also saw Blockhead in concert and got some rare cds/vinyl from him. Thanks Block!

12 Years a Slave was a great movie from this year. The scene where he is hanging from the tree, surviving by extending his toes, was one of the most powerful, uncomfortable scenes in movie history.

I didn't go to Africa this year. That sucked.

Nelson Mandela died. That really sucked. He was a folk hero, except he was real, and living at the same time as me.

A guy did fake sign language at Mandela's funeral. What the hell?

A few actors died, including Dennis Farina. He was great in Snatch and Get Shorty.

We bombed Syria and Libya and remained in Afghanistan. And now that we are out of Iraq, it will probably return to Civil War.

Even more sad and depressing than all that, Drake made a song that I like. It took me a while to admit it. It's still hard to do. If someone else made the song I would have enjoyed it much more, much earlier; in fact, I consider it a Majid Jordan song so I can fully enjoy it. It's very much a "pop" song and not a rap song, which is why I like it. Drake rapping is just impossible to take seriously. Over the course of the past year or so I have had more exposure to pop music than I normally do, thanks to driving a group of teenagers home every other day at work, and there's one thing I've learned: most pop music is hot garbage. Well, I knew that already, but now I realize that when you listen enough, a few golden pieces of corn shine through the fecal matter. Normally I would just lump all pop music together and ignore it, but being forced to listen to it has made me yearn desperately for anything pleasing to the ears, and I've come to enjoy many songs I never would have years ago. Plus, as I've gotten older, I'm a lot less uptight about music and can enjoy mindless tunes every once in a while.

This video, on the other hand, represents everything wrong with Drake: he's the type of guy to make a 

Miami Vice themed "gangster" video for a tender love song.

So that was my guilty pleasure for the year. Pop songs like Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" (which spawned the amazing dance-off with Stephen Colbert and Walter White), "Blurred Lines", and Bruno Mars' "Treasure" aren't really guilty pleasures, they are just catchy songs. It's not their fault they get played to death. Another not-guilty pleasure is the Queen herself:

Beyonce dropped a surprise album and the internet simultaneously shit itself, so much so that I was tempted to buy a Beyonce album. I didn't, but the thought crossed my mind for a moment. The song above is one of the few I've heard from her "visual album" (nobody can just put out a regular ole "album" album any more). It's pretty much a perfect pop song for the year 2013. Good beat with some change-ups, simple lyrics, catchy hook, female rap-singing using current rap slang, a guest feature from Jay-Z with one of his strongest verses in ages, and a powerful singing voice on the chorus. My favorite musical moment of the year is when she says "in looooove" and hits the high note, followed by when she says, "can't keep your eyes off my fatty, daddy", "oh bwaby", and "surfboard...surfboard *giggles*".

Ok, to balance out the softness of that last paragraph, here is another one of my favorite songs this year:

That's "Eastside Moonwalker" by Freddie Gibbs, representing Gary, Indiana. He put out a great album, ESGN, that when downloaded actually carjacks you then beats any Drake songs off of your ipod. There isn't much subject variety on a Gibbs' album, but he knows his lane and has perfected it. He also did this:

..so I'll always be a fan of Gangsta Gibbs.

More than anything, things remained largely the same for me this year, with some slight improvements: same awesome job(s), with a raise and more competent bosses in a better building...same great family, and same two beautiful nieces...

...now with one more beautiful niece, Zoe, who arrived on 12-30-13!

And at the end of it all, there were the same great friends, hanging out at the same places...

...and in no way is that depressing.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.