Um, can we all agree to stop staying 'boo-yaa'? Seriously, it's embarassing. I was at a bar last night and there were these two Jersey d-bags standing in the corner all night playing "Golden Tee". Every time this one dude would get one of his cyber putts to go down, he'd let out an obscenely loud "BOOOO-YAAAA", thereby letting the rest of the bar patrons know that he was indeed the Golden Tee master. A couple of times, he would combine the shouting with an exagerrated air-punch. I wanted to tell this dear fellow "Dude, it's golf. In fact, it's not even golf--it's video golf. So until you accomplish something that requires you putting down your Coors Light, let's put the kibosh on 'boo-yaa'."

Here are a few alternate things to yell, the next time you feel a "boo-yaa" welling up:


"I HAVE A FLAWED CONCEPT OF WHAT'S HIP!"

"I LIKE TO COPY THINGS I SEE IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS!"

"I'M NOT LIKE OTHER WHITE PEOPLE! I'M 'DOWN', I TELL YOU! 'DOWN'! CAN YOU ALL APPRECIATE MY URBAN SENSIBILITIES?!

"PLEASE, PUNCH ME IN THE FACE! I'M BEGGING YOU!"

Worst songs to "get this party started":


"The Streak" by Ray Stevens

"Suicide is Painless" (theme from M.A.S.H.)

"Who's Johnny" by DeBarge

"Shine on You Crazy Diamonds, Parts I - IV" by Pink Floyd

"Ovdoviala Lissitchkata" by Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares

"Merciless Onslaught" by Metal Church

"Always" by Atlantic Starr

"On Top of Old Smokey" (Trad.)

"Russians" by Sting

"What Child is This?" by Kathie Lee Gifford

RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE NINE RINGS OF HELL:


First Ring:
* People who refuse breath mints when offered them
* Manufacturers of designer baby clothes
* "Big Brother" host Julie Chen

Second Ring:
* People who over/misuse "per se"
* Personal stylists
* Gideon Yago

Third Ring:
* People who bitch and moan about the Illuminati
* The Illuminati
* Ron Howard

Fourth Ring:
* People who don't factor in tax and tip when deciding how much money to pitch in
* The nice folks down at Human Resources
* Rene Angelil

Fifth Ring:
* People who can't eat a bowl of cereal without slurping their milk and/or clanking the spoon against their teeth
* Video store clerks
* Melissa Rivers

Sixth Ring:
* People who take the elevator up one floor
* �Nu Metal� purveyors
* Bruce Villanche

Seventh Ring:
* People who think saying �fuggedaboutit� is hilarious
* Ja Rule prot�g�es
* Freddie Prinze Jr.

Eighth Ring:
* People who make the �hang loose Hawaii� hand sign
* Europeans
* Diane Warren

Ninth Ring:
* People who nod to themselves while watching �The O�Reilly Factor�
* People who work for �The O�Reilly Factor�
* Bill O�Reilly

Wow.

Wowie wowie wow.

Fucking wow.

I know I just posted a link about twelve hours ago, but this one is just too great not so share with you people.

This may be the greatest website of all time

Take the time to enjoy all it has to offer.

Dear Christ...

I...I don't don't even know what to say about this. Where the fuck would I even start?

Please feel free to write your own jokes for this one.

Later this week, I'm headed to Ft. Lauderdale to do stand up comedy. I'm looking forward to the trip, but I'll probably have to do a little work making my material a tad more "universal" (basically, this entails taking all of my oblique masturbation references and turning them into overt masturbation references). But I look at it as an opportunity to relate to the "common folk", which is why I'll be spending the next two days growing a mullet and working on some bitchin' song parodies! How about a hilarious Monica Lewinsky ditty sung to the tune of "Blowin in the Wind"? Or a Roberta Flack parody about John Wayne Bobbit entitled "Killin' My Softee"? Hoo-doggy! I'm gonna KILL!!

Actuaklly, I think I'll spend the entire weekend of shows discussing, at length, the writings of Ludwig von Feurbach and their effect on modern theological discourse.

Or maybe I'll just make underarm fart noises.

I mean, call me an elistist, but...

Actually, just call me an elistist.

I know it's unfair to blithely assume that the entire population of Ft. Lauderdale is, shall we say, less-than-brilliant. But I have this theory that it's impossible to nurture a rich intellectual tradition in any geographical location where men feel pressured to take their shirts off in public. I mean, would Einstein be Einstein if he'd lived in South Beach? I think not. Instead of quantum theory, Einstein would have spent all of his time off from the Patent Office doing crunches and fretting about his man-boobs.

VH1 is currently airing a program called "100 Sexiest Artists". I thought it would only make sense to include a short list of the "10 Unsexiest Artists":

10. Michael Bolton (I mean, obviously)
9. Canned Heat
8. Slim Whitman
7. Bachman Turner Overdrive
6. Bob Seger
5. Kajagoogoo
4. Johnny Winters
3. Edgar Winters
2. Patti Smith (Egads...)
1. Dmitri Shostakovich

Get baked, turn on your speakers and enjoy this.

(Thanks, Felber)

Tonight, I'm slated to attend a friend's going-away party at Culture Club, which is one of those '80s nostalgia danceterias. It's still over ten hours away and my Bemused Irony Meter is already in the red. I'm sure I'll spend the first hour of the party standing in the corner, making witty asides to my friends about all of the "losers" dancing their middle-management butts off to Loverboy's "Workin' for the Weekend". But three whiskeys and ninety-nine luft balloons later, I'll probably be out on the floor, singling along to The Bangles' "Eternal Flame" and doing my Serious Moonlight-era Bowie impression.

Whereas some men have a Dark Side, I have a Dork Side.

I think one of the reasons I get so annoyed by nostalgia buffs (who aren't me, obviously) is that they tend to have a very narrow view of what constitutes "'80s music". Usually, this "love" of the 1980s extends to maybe 20 songs they wouldn't even remember, were it not for Time Life box sets and Adam Sandler movies. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to list, in no particular order, the most over and under-referenced pop songs from the 1980s.

MOST OVER-REFERENCED '80s POP SONGS:
(NOTE: These songs aren't all terrible, just over-referenced)
"Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar
"Tainted Love" by Soft Cell
"White Wedding" by Billy Idol
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler (sorry, ladies)
"Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung
"The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats
"You Spin Me 'Round (Like a Record)" by Dead or Alive
"Maneater" by Hall & Oates
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper
"I Gotta Wear Shades" by Timbuk 3
"I'll Melt with You" by Modern English
"I Touch Myself" by Divinyls (Ok, this one genuinely is terrible)
"Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco
"Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves*


MOST UNDER-REFERENCED '80s POP SONGS:
(NOTE: The first nine are great songs that don't get their nostalgia due, the last five are truly horrible songs with yet-untapped kitsch potential)
"Shadows of the Night" Pat Benatar
"The Look of Love" by ABC
"Something About You" by Level 42
"We Close Our Eyes" by Go West
"Rockit" by Herbie Hancock
"Under the Milky Way Tonight" by The Church
"Buffalo Stance" by Nenah Cherry
"Save it for Later" by English Beat
"68 Guns" by The Alarm
"Down Boys" by Warrant
"Shake You Down" by Gegory Abbot
"Kyrie" by Mr. Mister
"Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane
"Joyride" by Roxette

I hope this proves helpful, as you go out and celebrate your musical heritage. Let's all be try to be a little more discerning with our precious kitsch resources.


* Jack Black grooving out to "Walking on Sunshine" was the one cringe-worthy and patently false moment in High Fidelity, the otherwise perfect treatise on music-geekdom

Test 2

HEY, ASPIRING MUSICIANS! YEAH, YOU!

So there�s this dude I kind of know. He�s in a band. Nice guy, probably not a terrible band. But I�ll probably never find out, because the name of his band is so incredibly stupid. I won�t mention this band�s name, due to my well-established fear of the exploratory Google search--let�s just call them The Schlongfloggers. What I find interesting about this isn't that his band has a crappy name (after all, 75% of bands in this city do), but how proud he is of it. He once bragged to me about the slew of previous, �far inferior� monikers his band had gone through before finally stumbling onto �The Schlongfloggers�.

It got me thinking of how easy it is come up with a shitty band name. To illustrate this fact, I decided to come with a few of my own. I found the following potential band names in yesterday�s NY Daily News, pulling one random phrase apiece from Pages 2 to 15. If you're feeling really bored, you can find a copy of yesterday's paper and find them yourself!*

I�ve also included a bit of background information on what each imaginary band would sound like, as well as some �Fun Facts�. And who doesn�t love �Fun Facts�?

So, aspiring musicians, if your band is in need of a new and undeniably crappy name, get a load of these babies:



Off-Color Crack
Genre: Novelty Hardcore
Sounds Like: Murphy�s Law, A.C.
Debut Album: Soggy Biscuits
Fun Fact: "Off-Color Crack garnered a minor buzz in the Sacramento area with their first single, 'I Just Came All Over Enrique Iglesias� Mole'!"


Seething at Steph
Genre: Heartfelt Emo
Sounds Like: Get Up Kids, Saves the Day
Debut Album: Highspeed Diaryland
Fun Fact: "The girls at MakeOutClub.com recently voted Seething At Steph�s Jeremy Loomis the cutest bass player EVER!"


Potato Famine
Genre: Irish shit-kicking music
Sounds Like: The Pogues, Black 47
Debut Album: Hoist up Yer Britches, Boyo
Fun Fact: "Potato Famine has been the Saturday night house band at Malachy�s in Staten Island for 13 years and counting!"


The Shiny Sluggers
Genre: Punk-tinged Swing
Sounds Like: Cherry Poppin Daddies, Royal Crown Revue
Debut Album: Introducing the Super Slick Sounds of the Shiny Sluggers!
Fun Fact: "The Shiny Sluggers all know, on some deep subconscious level, that no one really cares about their genre of music anymore!"


Radical Departure
Genre: Jazz Fusion
Sounds Like: Weather Report, The Chick Corea Elektric Band
Debut Album: Passage to Nightside
Fun Fact: "The members of Radical Departure boast over 25 years of formal jazz fusion training�they also boast 3 mullets, 2 goatees and 4 blazer-over-tee-shirt stage outfits!"


Badly Damaged Building
Genre: Indie Singer-Songwriter
Sounds Like: Bright Eyes, East River Pipe
Debut Album: Your Eyes Tumble Like a Dying Bird and Still I Cannot Sleep
Fun Fact: "Tristan Farnham (a.k.a. Badly Damaged Building) suffers from severe social anxiety and is unable to write or perform music unless he�s sitting in his own bathtub!"


Ring Rot
Genre: Blues Bar Rock
Sounds Like: AC/DC, Buckcherry
Debut Album: Ass, Gas or Grass: No One Rides for Free
Fun Fact: "Ring Rot thinks that Badly Damaged Building kid sounds like a total pussy!"


These Corporate Leaders
Genre: Nerd Rock
Sounds Like: Man or Astroman?, Devo
Debut Album: You Will Obey These Corporate Leaders
Fun Fact: "These Corporate Leaders perform in 1920s-style, full-torso swimsuits and antique phrenology headgear! They love irony!"


Slice of 700M Pie
Genre: Power Pop
Sounds Like: Jellyfish, The Posies
Debut Album: Starwater Taffy
Fun Fact: "Slice of 700M Pie�s music can be split into four distinct categories: Songs about how cool it is being in a band, songs about how much it sucks being in a band, songs about how cool it is being into OTHER bands, and songs about how much other bands suck!"


Wrinkle Free
Genre: Underground White Kid Hip Hop
Sounds Like: Northern State, MC Paul Barman
Debut Album: The Skillz to Make That Sh** Happen, Y�all
Fun Fact: "No matter how hard he tries, Brian Wormer (a.k.a. Wrinkle Free) can�t seem to convince people that he�s not trying to be funny!"



Status Crystal
Genre: Prog Metal
Sounds like: Dream Theater, Iron Maiden
Debut Album: Geometaphysticles and the Tower of Quyllinore
Fun Fact: "The only thing more complex and mindblowing than the music of Status Crystal is the palpable scent of body odor coming from its audience!"


Valley Stream Sun
Genre: Alt. Country
Sounds Like: Uncle Tupelo, The Jayhawks
Debut Album: Drag Her Slowly Homeward
Fun Fact: "These guys spend at least three hours a week bitching about how Ryan Adams sold out!"


400% More
Genre: Dance Pop
Sounds Like: O Town, S Club 7
Debut Album: It�s a Party World!
Fun Fact: "Get ready girls, it�s the world�s next big boy band�straight out of the Ukraine! It�s fun party time for every boy and girl!"


Terms and Conditions
Genre: Militant Hardcore
Sounds Like: Pantera, Hatebreed
Debut Album: Rise Up
Fun Fact: "The JDL and Anti-Defamation League have this band�s movements under close scrutiny!"


* No one is this bored. No, not even you. Put down the newspaper.

There are some days when I feel like I have absolutely nothing interesting/funny/unintentionally revealling to write, so I start preparing what I expect to be a slapdash, two-minutes-and-I'm-done blog entry. But then, through some unknown mental process, it metamorphisizes into something very large and unwieldy that I obsess over for hours and hours (see the "Peripheral Superstars" quiz). Today is one of those days. I hope to finish what I'm working on and post it later this afternoon. We shall see.

It's been 27 hours since my last post and I still hate Wayne Brady.

I'll keep you posted as this story unfolds.

For those of you who were popular enough to have plans last night, you missed a truly epic night of television. It was a dumb-chick double shot: on ABC, The Miss America pageant; on MTV, a marathon of perhaps the greatest show ever in the history of the medium, Sorority Life. These two programs make that woman who was caught on surveillance video beating the shit out of her 4 year old seem like a good role model.

I've already discussed Sorority Life a bit in this forum (see the entry for 7/21/02) , so I think I'll focus today's comments on the pageant.

There was a time with the Miss Armerica pageant that there was one thing you could count on: 49 of the 50 contestants would be hot. For some reason, Miss Massachusetts (representing my home state) would always be a horsey beast with some bizarrely idiosyncratic 'talent'. While the perrenial favorites (Miss California, Miss Tennessee, Miss Texas) tend to sing an overwrought showtune or perform some glitter-encrusted dance number, Miss Massachusetts always does something decidedly unerotic like playing the fucking xylophone. Word of advice to you aspiring beauty queens: it's either the mallets or the diamond tiara--you're never gonna have both.

Anyway, like I was saying, you used to have confidence that the vast majority of Miss America contestants would be physically attractive. No longer. Last night's crop of aspirants looked like a random sampling of 50 women you might run accross at Filene's Basement--a few cuties, a few trolls and about 35 unspeakably plain women. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with being unextraordinary looking--the vast majority of us are not stunning physical specimens. But if anyone is going to look like a 'Beauty Queen', it should be, well, a beauty queen. If you're representing an entire state in the Miss Fucking America pageant, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that you might be, you know, kinda cute. Instead, most of them look like women who've just gone through a Ricki Lake Show makeover--thay exhibit all the outside indicators of 'hotness' (perfect hair, expertly applied makeup, meticulously tweezed eyebrows), without that elusive component of actually being hot.

Now, the only thing all 50 contestants have in common is that they all sound like candidates for Vice President. Listening to these vapid twits ramble on about their commitment to the elderly/crusade against illiteracy/love of all things small and furry reminds me of watching a breakdancer do 'The Robot' (turn head to left, smile, gesture with righthand, smile, commence 'Body Rock'). They make Al Gore look like GG Allin.

In recent years, television ratings for beauty pageants have been in steep decline. If any of you pageant organizers are reading this, I suggest you alter the way contestants are whittled down from 50 to 15, from 15 to 10, etc. Instead of announcing the contestants who've made it to the next round, why not spotlight the unfortunate women who haven't? In fact, instead of making the initial cut from 50 to 15, it should be from 50 to 49.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the moment of truth is at hand. It's time to find out which of our fifty contestants is less attractive, and therefore less valid, than every other woman currently standing on this stage. May have a drumroll please?

...Boy, this is exciting, isn't it...?

Ladies and gentlemen, say goodbye to...MISS SOUTH DAKOTA! Let's get her out of here, folks!

No seriously, Miss South Dakota--you have to go! Yes, right now!

And then, singing,

"THERE SHE GOES, NON-MISS AMERICA,

THERE SHE GOES, NOT QUITE YOUR IDEAL..."

(By the way, if you need proof that beauty pageants are fucking evil, check out the lyrics to the Miss America Theme Song)

Oh, and one more thing about The Miss America Pageant: Wayne Brady has turned vigorous is a hateful, hateful man who must be stopped. He's the only person I've ever seen who can make vigorous mediocrity seem like an act of aggression.

Behold!

Let's all welcome the infamous Fucky Gaylord to the world of Bloggery with a visit to his page.

Seriously, you should all go there.

Things I would rather do than sit through Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever:

* Repeatedly slap my own nards with a ping pong paddle

* Attend six hour roundtable discussion on ponytail maintenance, moderated by Steven Seagal

* Run naked through Al Qaeda training camp, singing showtunes

* Get married to a wonderful woman, have two beautiful children, have them all brutally murdered in front of me by street thugs on angel dust, spend the next fourteen years in an alcoholic haze, cursing God and wallowing in abject despair, eventually delivering a shotgun blast to my own head

* Have these guys over for Thanksgiving dinner

* Engage in some heated frottage with the late star of Throw Momma from the Train, Anne Ramsey.

* Place headphones on ears, listen to theme Growing Pains (�As Long as We�ve Got Each Other�) on a loop for 36 hours straight

* Cheese grater to face. Salt. Repeat.

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that relationships are like New York City street fairs. They always look really fun and exciting from a distance, but eventually you realize it's the exact same horseshit from the last time, just occupying a different physical space. The same overpriced meals, the same crappy bonzai trees and Hello Kitty cell phone covers. And like a street fair, my relationships are always underscored by incredibly bad Mexican pan flute music.


Sadly, this will make sense to no one outside of New York.

Sigh.

Today's frontpage headline for the NY Daily News:

TONY SMOKES 'EM: 'Sopranos' Ratings Whack Networks!

For all of you journalism students out there, I think we've found a working definition for "slow news day".

Here are a couple of frontpage headlines they decided not to go with:

GUY FARTS!

NYPD SNOOZE: Dennis Franz Takes Nap!

FLUFFERNUTTER MADE WITH BREAD, PEANUT BUTTER AND FLUFF!

SUCK: Mets Totally Suck!

I just had a conversation with a rather friendly gentleman from Taiwan who works in tech support at the company I'm temping for. His name? Peter Pan.

Life can be very cruel sometimes.

For my Junior and Senior year of high school I attending a performing arts high school (insert hilarious "Finnegan's a homo" joke here), the student body of which was divided into two general categories: acknowledged prodigies and creatively-inclined potential fuck-ups. Most of us were the latter. But among the genuine virtuosos were a good number of Asian classical musicians who'd come to America specifiacally to study at my high school, which was affiliated with the very prestigious New England Conservatory. Most of these kids were exceedingly shy, due not only to the language barrier and cultural upheaval but to the fact that they were, well, classical musicians--a cellist is a cellist is a cellist, after all.

In an effort to acclimate to their new surroundings and sexually confused, manic depressive peers (i.e. the majority of the student body), a good number of these young Asian students would take on American first names. The problem was, these names were obviously taken from a book written by someone who's knowledge of colloquial American English ended around 1920. Therefore, if you were to see a list of Asian students at my high school, it would read something like:

Terrence Chu
Reginald Tan
Esther Kim
Wade Chen
Wendell Lam
Mildred Lu
Abner Tran
Neville Wong

I felt so bad for these kids--their efforts to assimilate were actually contributing to their Outsider-ness. Teenagers are a whole lot more likely to want to hang out with a "Wen-Lei" than they are a "Wendell". But I have to say, all of those names pale in comparison to 'Peter Pan'. The minute he told me his name, I wanted to run over and give him a hug. I felt so bad, I almost couldn't stomach taunting him, a la "Where's Tinkerbell?" or "Peter Pan, eh? Bet that means you come from Loserloserland! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Almost.

Well, we�re coming up on �Fashion Week� here in New York�seven full days devoted to the most hateful people this side of Al Qaeda. In it�s honor, I will be throwing an absolute hissy fit about something utterly inconsequential, so as to convince people of my personal validity. (It shan�t work.)

Speaking of which, who made this latte? Who?

Listen bitches, if someone doesn�t own up to making this latte I�m going to just�.well, I don�t know-- I�m just going to lose it! WHO MADE THIS LATTE?!!!

I�m waiting.

You? It�s you, isn�t it sweetie? I have you to thank for this? Come over here. Yes. Come over here. Don�t worry, I�m not going to yell at you�I just want to show you something for a teensy moment. Just come over here. Now.

So sweetie, when someone tells you to go get me a latte, do you know what that means? Have you ever heard that word before, �latte�? You have? Really? All the time, huh? That must make you think you�re a smart little girl, right? Are you a smart little girl? Well tell me, little miss genius, what is that? That. At the top of the cup�what do you call that? Yes sweetie, that�s right. It�s foam. And hey, guess what? THERE�S NO FOAM IN A LATTE, YOU STUPID TWAT! ESPRESSO, STEAMED MILK�THAT�S IT! IF I�D WANTED A CAPPUCCINO, I�D HAVE ASKED FOR A FUCKING CAPPUCCINO! BUT I DIDN�T ASK YOU FOR A CAPPUCCINO, DID I, YOU WORTHLESS PUDDLE OF PUSSY! WHO TOLD YOU YOU KNEW HOW TO ORDER MY LATTE? WHO TOLD YOU YOU COULD DO ANYTHING, YOU FAT COW! YES, YOU�RE FAT! COME ON, SHE IS! WE ALL KNOW SHE IS!! I WASN�T GOING TO MENTION IT BECAUSE I�M A NATURALLY FORGIVING PERSON, BUT SWEETIE: YOU ARE A FAT, DISGUSTING PIG-WOMAN!! YOU ARE UGLY AND STUPID AND I DON�T WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN UNTIL YOU�VE LOST SEVEN POUNDS! I NEED TO BE SURROUNDED BY BEAUTY AND YOU�RE UGLY-ING EVERYTHING UP!!

THAT�S RIGHT, GET OUT!! RUN AND CRY YOUR EYES OUT!! AND WHEN YOU�RE DONE, STICK A FINGER DOWN YOUR THROAT AND LOST SOME WEIGHT!!!

Do you have something you want to say to me, Phillipe? Because you look like you have something you want to say. No. No, I will not lay off�I�m doing that bitch a favor! She does not have an eating disorder. She does not! If she did, she wouldn�t be such a disgusting fat cow! Look, it�s about being a professional!! I�m here trying to make you queens look fabulous and that stupid little slut is going to mess up my flow by trying to tell me that this is a latte? GUESS AGAIN, MISS BITCHY CUNT!!

No, Marcel, a latte does not have foam. No, not any. Oh, you like foam, Marcel? Do you? Well here, HAVE SOME FOAM, YOU DIRTY LITTLE BITCH! YOU LIKE THAT?!! YOU LIKE THE FOAM NOW, MARCEL??!! GO, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! CLEAN YOURSELF UP, YOU LITTLE PEGBOY!! GET OUT!! GET OUT!!!!!

Great. Now I�m tense. I HOPE YOU�RE ALL HAPPY WITH YOURSELVES!! I can�t create in this condition. If anyone needs me, I�ll be in my cucumber bath.