Spit Stix Las Vegas

I don't really have anything to say about Las Vegas, except to avoid the shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate -- especially during the muscular dystrophy telethon. I'm sure you all can read about it our trip in other people's blogs.

In place of all that, here's a recipe for the drink I've been drinking this week -- just like granddad used to make:

5 parts bourbon
2 parts sweet vermouth
Bitters
A cherry

It's a Manhattan! Welcome home, everyone.

The Mantii Are My Only Friends

Today's Times has an article about the differences (shock: they are significant) between Howard Stern and David Lee Roth, who is replacing him in certain markets after his move to Sirius. The article includes one of the more accurate characterizations I've read of what it is the Howard Stern Show is all about:

Mr. Stern, as his fans know, is born for radio: his on-air character is an unwashed basement figure, best kept out of sight -- a haggard masturbator and morbid misanthrope who must hang out with deformed and desperate men because he can hardly perform with women. The fact that the pinup girls who come on his show now seem to want to have sex with him is, in his telling, evidence only of the women's ambition and depravity.

The Stern character simply hates his guests and co-hosts as he hates himself; he's a mean little pornography-addicted freak whose self-loathing reverses itself only in fits of equally grotesque narcissism, as when he flashes his listeners with a dirty raincoat by disclosing disgusting secrets about himself. But his relentlessly loser style makes him seem honest, and wins him a privileged relationship with the truth; fans believe what he says -- about everything from politics to back pain to etiquette. He has hewn his character brilliantly.

This is a bit florid, but, yeah, that's why I used to listen (I tuned out after he went through a pretty creepy period right after September 11th, 2001). I've always felt there are two groups of Stern fans -- there are the "desperate men" types who listen for the chance to hear some stripper's measurements described, and then there are guys like me and Razor who (correct me if I'm wrong, Bill) get off on the "character" described above because it's sort of an acknowledgment or expiation of the things we most dislike about ourselves. I don't think it's a more intellectual way of appreciating the show -- the urge towards self-effacement is about as visceral as the desire to hear about titties on the radio. At least, it is for me.

I'm not gonna pay 13 bucks a month for it, though.

Oh, Berlin

...your heart has been / drawn and quartered again.

At the behest of Jeremy, I went to go see my old summer camp / high school friend Alana's band Cherryfix play tonight at the Mercury Lounge. She and the lovely Serena used to be in an outfit called Contraband, whose patch I still have on my "punk" sweatshirt that my dad got me from the Gap. This new band has a very different sound -- it's kind of a not-so-hard hard rock thing. Which is not to say it's not good; they're certainly a lot better than I remember from listening to the MP3s on their web site. Those readers who are up on their Juliology may remember that the Headliners had a song about her called I Wanna Be Alana's Boyfriend (MP3 no longer available, sadly, from Hey Suburbia), that went a little like this:

Last time I saw her, she was lyin' on the street
Kids were all dancin' to that punk rock beat
Took her for a ride on the ferris wheel
But she'll never know just how I feel

I wanna be Alana's boyfriend
I wanna hold her so tight
I wanna be Alana's boyfriend... tonight...

I tell you, I still kind of want to be Alana's boyfriend. I really really wanted it on the bus to summer camp in Long Island when I was 12 years old. And her band covered "Heart Shaped Box" last night. So they've got my vote, Mr. A & R man.

In preparation for Vegas, I've been watching gambling movies this week. Last night I watched Rounders with Tom, who claims, inexplicably, that Matt Damon is a better actor than Ed Norton (I mean, I'm not a guy who likes either of those creeps that much, but Matt is obviously Bigger Scumbag). That movie is not so good -- like Sophie said, it's not a movie that presents poker as a metaphor for human interaction or anything, it's just a movie that's literally about poker. And it doesn't really even involve Vegas, which made me feel foolish after I figured that out. Tonight I rented The Cooler, which is an extremely dopey movie, even though everyone in it is sort of working really hard to make sure you don't find out. Alec Baldwin's quite good, though, and so is Maria Bello. This sounds like a movie review... I'm just talking about some movies that I watched, man.

What else, what else. Tom and I hung out with Eve at O'Connor's on Monday night and stuffed ourselves on these delicious cookies that she baked. I'd never been to that place before -- it's nice and quiet (at least on a Monday) and it's got a good jukebox. And you can't beat $2.50 gin-and-tonics, even though they're so weak you gotta drink like 10 of them to get effed up. Eve: What a gal.

Listening to the fucking Strokes album non-stop at work. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Reminder: Change the cat litter before getting on that fucking plane!

Crying In The Handicapped Bathroom

Honest to God, I hadn't seen the movie The Squid and the Whale when I posted that picture last time, and I didn't, for some reason, even think I wanted to go see it, but Emma wanted to go on Monday night, so I tagged along, and it was really, really great. All of the actors are fantastic, particularly the two kids. Not that my parents got divorced or anything, nor is my dad quite as pompous as Jeff Daniels' character, but as Emma pointed out, there's a lot to identify with in there. I was a weird little kid, too, not unlike the younger brother character, though somewhat less perverse. I guess the one problem with the movie is that, like Wes Anderson, who I think was producer on this one, this Baumbach guy doesn't really make any effort to explain (or doesn't understand) what motivates any of his female characters. They're like some kind of religious mystery. I don't know. I don't get it, either, though, so...

I bought the new Strokes album yesterday (along with a repurchase of Dawn of the Dickies, which I'd lost, and Rancid's Life Won't Wait -- which is supposed to be their smartest and best album, but is, predictably, kind of unlistenable, or at least about 0% catchy), and it's actually pretty good. It's certainly got more good material than the second one. I was getting annoyed the other day about how pathetic the "new rock" sound was the last time I checked in on it, but I don't know why I like The Strokes but hate, say, The Postal Service and The Killers and every other sort of folky-sounding piece of limp garbage. Maybe it's the "neat" production. Or that the guy's name is Julian. So far my favorite songs are "Heart In A Cage," "On The Other Side," and "Vision Of Division."

Every year this science "zine" called Edge publishes an article called The Question, in which they ask a bunch of famous scientists and sciencey-types a sort of thought-question. This is a great way to kill literally an hour or two of your work-day because there are a lot of responses and they are pretty long. Last year the question was "What do you believe that you cannot prove?" This year it's "What is your most dangerous idea?" I feel like a lot of the people who answered didn't really understand it, because most of them described an idea that they hoped wasn't true but probably was, like that global warming is pretty much unstoppable at this point. I was surprised to see that a lot of the responses were like... materialist explanations for consciousness, and the idea that "this is all there is" -- I thought that shit was pretty well-accepted at this point, particularly among scientists. Here are some of the ones I thought were interesting:

Jeremy Bernstein:

The most dangerous idea I have come across recently is the idea that we understand plutonium. Plutonium is the most complex element in the periodic table. It has six different crystal phases between room temperature and its melting point. It can catch fire spontaneously in the presence of water vapor and if you inhale minuscule amounts you will die of lung cancer. It is the principle element in the "pits" that are the explosive cores of nuclear weapons. In these pits it is alloyed with gallium. No one knows why this works and no one can be sure how stable this alloy is.

Scott Sampson:

The purpose of life is to disperse energy.

Haim Harari:

Democracy may be on its way out. Future historians may determine that Democracy will have been a one-century episode. It will disappear. This is a sad, truly dangerous, but very realistic idea (or, rather, prediction).

I'm finally getting back to doing some writing, after, gee... about four years, roughly. Isn't it funny how time can just pass like that?

Hatriotism

Happy New Year, everyone. 2005 was not the best year ever, let's just say, for many different reasons. I'm a complainer, I admit it, but there was some stuff I didn't even complain about that was bad, and, you know... But I think this new year can really be a good one -- I mean, by the law of Star Trek movie sequels, it practically has to be -- and I wish all of you, really all of you, a really great one. I really mean it. This is my little prayer for everyone. There it is, done. Happy New Year! Resolutions:

• Deal with my anxiety problems... maybe
• Drink more. Literally! Time to stop being such a baby on this one
  • Be able to drink shots without sipping and spluttering like a cat taking a pill
• Get my Driver's License
• Keep working on various computer projects, etc.

Just checked the archives, and it looks like I didn't write any resolutions down last year, but I think they were to become vegetarian (did it for about 6 months) and to run more (did it!).

So tuffytuffins turned out to be Maggie, somewhat predictably, though I admit I was sort of stumped for a long time. I've given her enough of a hard time in person, so I won't go into it further here, but suffice it to say that a stuffed animal roughly meeting her description arrived in the mail, causing a bit of consternation in our household. But how can anyone stay mad at Maggie when she gives such nice Christmas presents:

Compton; Compton; Apple Bottom

I think the presents I gave worked out well, except that I gave KT something Katharine had been talking about. That was embarrassing. Really wonderful holiday parties, pretty much. Razor and Chris even came to the big New Year's party at Tom's place. I was sort of preoccupied; I don't know if they had a good time.

Katharine and Emma and I made plans to go to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks for Maggie's birthday. I've never been there before, period, so I think that'll be very exciting, plus maybe I can use it to somehow recoup the two weeks I'm just coming off of where I just sat around here and sulked the whole time. Reading the ineffable Jon Konrath's Dealer Wins as preparation. What am I doing?

I'd thought I'd be at work today six months ago when I made the dentist's appointment I just got back from, but I'm not, so I just had to get up and go into Manhattan just for that this morning. Good news is I've got clean teeth; the bad news is that the x-rays they took today show that the wisdom teeth I've got that haven't come in yet aren't moving, which apparently means that they might have to come out? They weren't super clear on that point. I guess it's not an issue until I'm in excruciating pain. Not looking forward to that, though.

Super-depressing encounter on the way home: This enormous man-child -- think Lenny from Of Mice And Men -- had sort of button-holed what I think was a poor young Yeshiva student by the window seat. This guy was enormous, had long stringy hair and a brutal face covered in what looked like scars from a car accident, but he had the voice and mannerisms of a petulant child. He was very much concerned with his eternal salvation -- particularly, it seemed, as to whether hedging his bets when it came to believing in both Judaism and Christianity would get him into "heaven."

"Do you people think that this... this earth is the same thing as hell?"

"Well..." said the Jew.

"You know, some people think that, you know, the train is evil, because it's moving around in this dark tunnel all the time. What do you guys think about that?"

He also said, pricelessly, "My name is Leonard [something], and, you know, Leonard has L-O-R-D in it. My father was an atheist when he gave me that name, so I guess that name actually came from God. It's a very precious name."

Am I a mean guy? I think about that sometimes. My deeply-held suspicion is that, despite what they might say, everyone likes to be excited a little bit by nastiness. I'm not an angry person, though. I'm not like the squid, nor am I like the whale. I'm just a guy, you know?

All teeth and suckers