where you at?

If Boost Mobile chirped the United States right now, the answer wouldn’t be filled with Mickey Avalon and bling (although platinum has ironically gone up in value) because “where we at” is halfway into a peyote trip in the mojave, on our way down rainbow road. And no bailout–or bailout rejection–can help us.

Have I gone Chicken Little yet?

by the minute: debate #1

So I got home a little late tonight, but I tuned in during the foreign policy banter. I was on the scene (sitting on a beach chair in my living room) when it was reiterated that McCain is old and Obama isn’t friends with Kissinger on Myspace. By the minute:

6:56-The first slip-up since I turned on the TV goes to….McCain! And a million miles away, Osama is in the process of renaming his terrorist force the ‘tally-pan’?

6:59-McCain’s war stance is backed by bracelets he received that say army moms at town hall meetings “don’t want their kids to die in vain.”

7:00-Obama has bracelets, too. But these say “don’t let another kid die in vain.” Zing!

7:03-”We did it just for you, Jim.” Is Obama flirting with the moderator?

7:05-Epic ribbon-clutching eagle graphic hanging in the background will soon be immortalized as empty-space filler for 9-11 back pieces.

7:07-This CNN audience reaction meter is flatlining but watching it is still more interesting than listening to McCain talk about who he’s hung out with and how much he idolizes Reagan.

7:10-Ahmadinejad is not invited for high tea.

7:12-Republicans droppin’ names like bombs over Baghdad.

7:13-Apparently, the difference between North Koreans and South Koreans is 3-inches in average height. Under McCain’s plan, money will be set aside to figure out why.

7:15-Kissinger and McCain are apparently friends on Myspace (but IRL for 35 years).

7:16-According to the reaction meter, everyone is stoked about that (or they’re sitting on their voting remotes).

7:18-Didn’t we stop being afraid of Russia when they dropped their acronym and started selling their underage women to American businessmen over the internet??

7:19-Unlike hair metal awesomeness Firehouse, when McCain looks into Putin’s eyes, all he sees is “K-G-B.”

7:21-According to Obama, making googly eyes and reading souls of communist leaders is not the answer to proper foreign diplomacy. Candidates are getting feisty!

7:24-And when it comes to energy and dependence, America needs new boots.

7:27-McCain says we are less at risk now than we were on September 12, 2001. Although I don’t know who would attack a country the day after they–uh–just attacked them, it was probably Iraq.

7:30-”Fwd: Fwd: Find common ground and be nice throughout debate” memo got lost in McCain’s inbox.

7:34-Cut to Jim Lara asleep with his eyes open.

7:35-If elected, McCain promises to cuddle with each veteran for at least 15 minutes after sex.

7:35-McCain now-available as Taco Bell’s “good to go” spokesperson. Obama available for on-the-job training.

7:38-Cindy McCain paid $300,000 for 1/3 of the American flag and all I got was this stupid economic crisis.

In the time it took me to spell check my play by play, both camps released statements saying that their side won, but really, no one won. McCain doesn’t know the economy and Obama hasn’t had eye sex with Putin so both are technically unprepared for the all-encompassing role of president if just comes down to one decision: do you want to give someone who has experience in our botched government a chance to fix it or are you willing to take a chance and overhaul the whole thing?

I want to wipe this slate clean (as much as possible) and give Obama a chance to implement the change that this downward spiral needs (lest my tax money be spent on buying out stupid bank decisions and new pantsuits for the first lady).

national stay at home week?

I understand it’s just a marketing campaign, “American” Broadcasting Company, but did you ever think that now might be a bad time to launch your “National Stay at Home Week” advertisements at the Emmy’s on Sunday? “Save energy”? “Conserve gas”? Please! Try turning off a light when you leave the room or riding a fucking bus. Like this country needs any more reasons to not do anything and sit in front of the idiot box instead. The TV is on, in an average American home, for 7 hours a day. Our children don’t know where the constitution was signed but can tell you where 90210 is. We watch the television so much that we’re going illiterate. And you want me to stay at home and watch braceface America Ferrera and a half-naked Katherine Heigl? No thanks!

The media is the last hope for this damn country–because it’s all that anyone will pay attention to–and they’re wasting that power on a plug for season-kickoff that includes telling Americans to lock up and stay inside for a week while the economical apocalypse rains down around you. I think in this tumultous time, Americans that still have jobs should probably try to pick up some extra shifts this week (not skipping school and forgetting to call out sick–unless, of course ABC is also giving out doctor’s notes). Besides the fact that we are the fattest country in the world and probably shouldn’t be sitting down ever again, I can think of a million things I would do if I had a stay at home week and none of them include turning on the TV. Man, if I even had a full nights sleep I would be stoked. I might knit a sweater or type stuff on my typewriter or read all those books I bought but never have time to read. I would ride my moped and take baths. And if for some reason I did turn on the TV, it would only be to watch a vhs of some mid 90s children’s flick and definitely not wishing I watched the premiere of Brothers and Sisters.

For shame, ABC. For Shame.

newz

These two news stories cheered me up although neither of them are probably very funny: One is a serious news story about the tragic death of Norman, the cat dressed up as a Christmas present, who was brutally murdered last week by his owner’s jealous boyfriend, a man with self-confidence issues larger than his minor league baseball career could fix.

Norman was a good–nay–great cat. He will always be remembered for his distinctive purr and how adorable it was that the second you let him out, he would immediately want to come back in. He is survived by his now-lonely, still-obsessive owner and probably lots of brothers and sisters. It was Norman’s wishes to be buried in his litter box with his favorite wire-infused ribbon tied around his neck. Services, when announced, will be held in the backyard of the bereaved.

the next story is the miraculous, albeit sickening, recovery of Travis Barker and DJ AM, who, after getting burned to a crisp in a botched takeoff from a South Carolina airport, managed to make it past critical condition and stall premature celebrations of their passing. I just wonder what kind of sick, unjust God would kill the other four passengers on the plane (two pilots and two members of Barker’s entourage) and make sure that the two moderately-famous people survive to ruin rock’s greatest hits during the commercial breaks at the Video Music Awards. The two were charred pretty badly, so maybe God was giving Barker an easy way to get rid of his body’s-worth of stupid tattoos and AM an excuse to call Nicole Richie again (because near death experiences are always an excuse). Or maybe God is just so fed up with the economy and global warming that he sits around rotting his brain with MTV all day. I would.

not even funny

On August 13th, I was prowling a certain internet classified for a job better than graveyard shift at a local 24-hour beachside diner when I came across a big thing about how the Laugh Factory in Long Beach at The Pike (at Rainbow Harbor) was hiring servers and cooks. The Pike at Rainbow Harbor is a monstrosity of human acheivement, a failed entertainment/shopping center designed to “revitalize” the downtown area that ended up with Gameworks and a Segway store, making it a great example of what happens when the earth opens up and allows demons from the suburbs fly out and vote at board room meetings.

I won’t go into too much detail about the drama surrounding the city’s efforts but the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency has ruined our fair city with stupid decisions like the civic center complex–including the main library which is now being shut down, pine street, tearing down historic landmarks and awesome art deco buildings for no reason and the new Pike. They took the Coney Island of the West Coast (also where my grandparents honeymooned) into an Earth-toned-stucco-and-vast-concrete-wasteland that no one would go to unless they had to eat lunch after the anime convention across the street.

When I moved to downtown Long Beach in 2005, the large corner unit at the monstrous marina-side complex had already been covered by a “Laugh Factory Coming Soon” banner for three years, yet it still remained empty. I would walk by it on my way to Borders sometimes (or to an empty midnight showing of Tropic Thunder) and debate over whether or not having a comedy club in town is a good thing. And even though I’ve heard rumors about the false alarms–like hiring a full staff then postponing the opening– I responded to their recent Craigslist ad with this:

Mika,

I came across your job posting on Craigslist and can’t explain how excited I am that The Laugh Factory in Long Beach is hiring!

As a second-generation Hollywood native, I grew up watching some of my favorite comedians at the original Sunset Blvd. location and when I moved to downtown Long Beach two years ago, I noticed your spot in the newly-renovated Pike development and eagerly anticipated its opening both for the employment and entertainment possibilities.

Between my tons of experience in both Long Beach’s food and nightclub industries, and overflowing personality (sense of humor included), I feel that I am more than qualified to help open your well-respected comedy club in my newly-adopted hometown. Attached is a copy of my resume which outlines my work in Long Beach’s bustling downtown nightlife and also my time spent at local restaurants, both of which require plentiful alcohol sales knowledge. Between my brains and subjective beauty lies responsibility, excellent customer service skills and a work ethic bordering on obsessive; and I would be honored to have the opportunity to share it with The Laugh Factory.

I am available anytime this week or next to stop by and meet with you in person (at either of your locations) so give me a call to arrange something.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. I know this is the 100th one of these pleas you’ve read today.

Sincerely,
Xxxxx Xxxxxxx
cell:(xxx)xxx-xxxx

Because I’m a kiss ass and my email was infinitely lame, I didn’t hear back from “Mika,” but I did get the memo that Dane Cook and Jamie Kennedy and Bob Saget were going to be performing at their grand opening that I apparently wasn’t hired to help out during.

Well, that was last night and, turns out, I’m glad I was just an audience member because only two of the smaller comedians scheduled even showed up and after turning Paul Rodriguez into an impromptu headliner, a member of the audience (Josh the Cal State Long Beach student) came up to stall the crowd while the headless voice making announcements over the PA system tried to figure out if Jamie Kennedy’s water broke or he’s just in jail. And the whole time I wasn’t laughing at people straddling the fence with political jokes, I was wondering why the drinks were $15 each and why the clueless girl who never brought me the drink I asked for got hired over me.

Now I am convinced of the Pike’s utter uselessness. No one wants to drive down here to watch comedy in Long Beach’s most oppressive setting. Screw the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency for tearing down the Cyclone and filling in the water with a concrete parking lot for a lackluster concert arena and a fake mall where, last night, I watched a good venue go bad. At least I woke up to a great OC Weekly blurb about the horrifying attack on comedy.

rich cat, poor cat

I came across these figures on a right-wing blog:

Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1961;
Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn’t elected one since 1954;
Cincinnati, OH (3rd)…since 1984;
Cleveland, OH (4th)…since 1989;
Miami, FL (5th) has never had a Republican mayor;
St. Louis, MO (6th)….since 1949;
El Paso, TX (7th) has never had a Republican mayor;
Milwaukee, WI (8th)…since 1908;
Philadelphia, PA (9th)…since 1952;
Newark, NJ(10th)…since 1907.

Nevermind that these figures are completely unsupported and the ones that I found had a completely different order, what frustrated me the most was that these uncorroborated statements were accompanied by the Einstein quote: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Where do I begin?

First off, I think the Republicans have made it very clear that they don’t give a damn about the poor people. So, why would anyone poor–and in their right mind–vote for people who are clearly in the interest of making the rich more rich. Secondly, while the top ten poorest cities might have democratic mayors, the top ten richest cities also have democratic mayors. I don’t mean to rub this point in more, but the top ten poorest states in the country are all red states. Thirdly, I won’t go into details, but if anyone wants to claim that democrats have run these ten cities into the ground, I would be quick to remind them who is in the white house.

But I don’t think this is an issue of poor leadership by either party because we can throw stones back and forth all day. I think it’s just a trend issue in that larger cities, in general, vote democrat and since urban areas have a greater concentration of poor people, of course the democrats will be the mayors of failing cities just as they are the mayors of successful ones.

I just thought it was a great leap from uncorroborated statistics to an accusation against democratic mayors. I doubt the reds could do much better with cities in shambles.

mayor for nothing!

I woke up extra early today and–with sleep in my eyes–walked to the local coffee shop for a bagel and coffee because it’s saturday morning and I really don’t want to be awake. During my 15 minute wait for a toasted bagel, I picked up the LA Weekly and even though I don’t particularly like the publication, I blew through one of the most-informative, interesting articles about our shitbag mayor that’s ever been written. The final verdict as to why Los Angeles is in the same–or worse–state it was in when he took office: he doesn’t do anything (except get kinky with Telemundo newscasters).

The gist of the whole thing is that the Weekly obtained public records of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s daily schedule and, after carefully reviewing it and properly filling in the blanks, came up with a breakdown of what our mayor does with his day which, mostly, involves feeding his ego and hanging out with people that give him money:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa logged roughly 900 hours of work during a 10-week period from May 21 to August 1, a time during which he repeatedly touted his 16-to-18-hour, seven-day-a-week workload. L.A. Weekly found that his days actually average about 13 hours, and we sorted the approximately 900 total hours into five categories. (To view a PDF of his schedule obtained by the L.A. Weekly go here.)
TRIPS: 34 percent of his official workload, 310 hours, was spent on out-of-town travel — 10 times in 10 weeks. Most of it was blacked out by Villaraigosa’s office, but the Weekly has independently determined that he made fund-raising jaunts to New York, Chicago and San Francisco, plus traveled to Hawaii, Israel, London, Miami (where he fit in a quick fund-raiser), Oakland and San Diego.
GAP TIME: 24 percent of his official workload, or 220 hours, was only vaguely identified. These areas of his hour-by-hour schedule were dominated by gap-time activities, such as continually moving from one event to another.
BLACKED OUT: 21 percent of his official workload, or 186 hours, was largely blacked-out time the Weekly could not identify but which was said by the mayor’s aides to be spent on fund-raising for his 2009 mayoral race, and personal, family and “security-related” activities.
CEREMONIAL OR PR: 10 percent of his official workload, or 88 hours, was spent on largely ceremonial or public-relations endeavors, including staged press conferences (usually on noncritical or fluffy topics rather than breaking news), prepping for staged press conferences, giving prearranged media interviews and attending ceremonies, receptions, luncheons, banquets and awards.

Then, the most disturbing part:

CITY WORK: 11 percent of his official workload, or 96 hours, was spent in Los Angeles doing direct work on city business. A big chunk of that time involved meeting with special-interest or lobbying groups, while another chunk — 11 hours — went to participating as a voting board member at Metro transit meetings. This category also included policy work, three hours and 45 minutes in discussions with his chief of staff, three hours and 15 minutes signing legislative documents, two hours and 25 minutes spent on “call time/correspondence,” and occasional meetings with city department heads.

THREE HOURS OUT OF 900 WERE SPENT ON LEGISLATIVE DOCUMENTS?! WTF?! We pay this guy?!?!?! lfholdhflrhgiurhdig!!!!

love,

angry citizen

the postmodern critic

Charles John Klosterman’s standard biography is pretty bland. He was born during the early 1970s in northern Minnesota and grew up on a farm outside of Wydmere, North Dakota. After graduating from the University of North Dakota with a degree in history, he started working as a writer in Fargo and, later, as an art critic in Akron, Ohio. After moving to New York City in 2002, his career took off and he has since written a lot of funny articles, essays and books about music, sports, movies and popular culture for a variety of magazines and spent this past summer teaching American Cultural Studies somewhere in Germany.

Now, let’s back up a bit and squeeze this information into context.

In my afore-outlined argument about the decline of public intellectuals, I talked about the failing definitions of word “intellectual” and how the lack of a line of demarcation between the erudite elitist attitude and cats that keep regularly-updated blogs makes for a grey area on either side where members of the academia spar with popular culture commentators for the true title of “public intellectual.”

Before I start talking about Chuck Klosterman, a popular culture critic who—after four non-fiction books, lecturing stints across the country, guest professor gigs in Germany and payroll time with SPIN, Esquire and ESPN.com—has bridged these two warring voices on public opinion by becoming the intellectual voice of subjects assumed thought to merit none, I should note the current state of culture hierarchy.

First, there is high culture. This consists of Renaissance art, Gutenberg bibles and Mozart concertos and is basically whatever history, universities and the guys in charge tell you are relevant from the history of everything. It is a carefully selected and bourgeois account of what art has been, is and should be and the whole concept reeks of pretention.

Everything left over is considered pop culture. And to academia, that’s a dirty word. As far back as the 1950s, popular culture—also called “low culture”—was seen as a degradation of “real”, traditional high culture and life staples like Pineapple Express, Vans Warped Tour, Seinfeld, American Apparel and Pinkberry are “undermining the standards of seriousness” and “dumbing down the populace.”

This is completely true.

And the traditional public intellectuals that subscribe to the high-culture standard of knowledge use the “idiocy” argument as an excuse to downplay pop culture’s merits. But just because we live in an accelerated—and bullshit-fueled—society doesn’t mean it does not warrant deeper analyzation. If anything, I think it requires more!

Thankfully, as we enter the postmodern age, the distinction between high and popular culture is becoming nonexistent as things like The Fly: The Opera and Stephen Hawking Simpsons action figures become tangible realities and the newspaper industry is moving its printed words online.

It’s a sick, sad, backwards world out there, but by looking deeper into the seemingly innocuous bombardment of useless stimuli that makes low culture what it is, it’s easy to
find—interestingly enough—high culture undertones.

Chuck Klosterman is aware of all of this. If anything, he’s hyper-aware. In the introduction to his essay collection Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, he notes:

The goal of being alive is to figure out what it means to be alive, and there is a myriad of ways to deduce that answer; I just happen to prefer examining the question through the context of Pamela Anderson and The Real World and Frosted Flakes. It’s certainly no less plausible than trying to understand Kant or Wittgenstein. And while half of my brain worries that writing about Saved By The Bell and Memento will immediately seem as outdated as a 1983 book about Fantasy Island and Gerry Cooney, my mind’s better half knows that temporality is part of the truth. The subjects in this book are not the only ones that prove my point; they’re just the ones I happened to pick before I fell asleep.

Right away, Klosterman sets himself apart from me and you and anyone else with an opinion about last week’s Video Music Awards: he knows a lot of information about a lot of stuff and has the spatial capacity to connect it all in an easy-to-follow yet mind-blowingly informational way.

I could never make a logical claim that my horrible love life is all John Cusack’s fault, Perez Hilton probably thinks Immanuel Kant is LaLohan’s new girlfriend and the blogging cat could not use Leonardo DaVinci’s Golden Ratio to justify the outcome of game two of the 1983 NBA finals.

I know it seems weird to consider Klosterman an intellectual when he discusses a subject that can basically be learned from watching too much TV, but Klosterman is the only pop culture writer with the audacity to say things like: “The tangible effect of internet pornography is roughly the same as the tangible effect of Ozzy Osborne’s music on stoned Midwestern teenagers” and the only one with the subsequent social evidence to back it the hell up.

He tackles that gray space I talk about so much—between traditional public intellectuals and opinionated laymen with an internet connection—because he is both an intellectual with tons of public access and a layman with an internet connection (and a friend at Esquire).

My generation is one of the first to grow up with video games and syndicated television and we connect with Klosterman because he’s not a textbook; he writes about the social relevance of alt-country like he talks and he talks like you want to go grab a drink with him. His arguments are about topics that may not fare well in the academic sector, but for the future of America—or the ones that aren’t getting tattoos because they saw Angelina Jolie’s–they are surprisingly poignant answers to questions we never knew we had (like what’s it like to drive around with Bono in his Maserati?).

Klosterman is more than just a guy that reviews CDs or some dude that gets to interview Radiohead and have his name on a glossy magazine cover, he is an intellectual breath of fresh air with a philosophy on writing so laid back that I’m convinced the only reason it hasn’t been done before is because no one thought they could get paid doing it.

Once only known to Black Sabbath freaks or those of us lucky enough to have a subscription to SPIN magazine for the three years it was worth the money, the oaf-y, self-proclaimed music nerd who, according to one review, “exhibits a disturbingly thorough understanding of contemporary cultural phenomena,” is now a cultural phenomena, himself.

With Facebook groups titled “If Chuck Klosterman spit in my face, I’d stop taking showers” and “I ache to be alluded to by Chuck Klosterman,” he is one of the few pop culture writers who, through his popularity among younger readers, has become woven into the very fabric of that which he debunks. Newsweek dubbed him “the new Hunter S. Thompson” and another magazine compared him to rock critic god, Lester Bangs, but I think, more accurately he’s a genius freak offspring of the two.

Regardless of comparisons, Klosterman has undoubtedly achieved a status that would solidify him as a public intellectual, albeit for a generation that might not know what to do with one (except make Facebook groups). The Rural Hipster, however, put the mystery behind Klosterman’s appeal and magnetism bluntly:

How did a Mountain Dew guzzling, 34-year-old mid-westerner who writes exhaustingly intense essays on Saved by the Bell and Motley Crue, become noted as “one of America’s top cultural critics” by Entertainment Weekly, and “the reigning Kasparov of pop-culture wits-matching” by the San Francisco Chronicle? Everyone wants to know how a pudgy, beady eyed, Billy Joel fan with a lisp-ridden, effeminate voice happened to end up with anonymous people creating fake MySpace accounts for him, where young nymphets post comments like: “I want your child inside me.”

And—in the most endearing way possible—Klosterman is in denial of this iconography. When asked if he views himself as a pop icon, his reply sounds like something out of his own essays: “The short answer is, ‘no.’ But the long answer is, ‘I certainly fucking hope not.’”

911, SOS and other distress calls

Today, i celebrated september 11th on my couch–which is smelling like cat piss–by drinking french wine and watching my dusty copy of Loose Change.

And it didn’t help that in research for the second half of my “intellectual” decline argument–between which this is the buffer–I stumbled across Chuck Klosterman’s Radiohead piece for SPIN Magaine back when Hail To The Thief came out. In it, he insists that despite it’s name it is not a political album, but does go on and on about how “it’s hard to remember how things actually happen anymore, because there’s so much mind control and so many media agendas” and that “it’s about wishing that all the people who tell you that you’re crazy were actually right. That would make life so much easier:”

“I absolutely feel crazy at times,” he says. “Anybody who turns on the TV and actually thinks about what they’re watching has to believe they’re going insane or that they’re missing something everyone else is seeing. When I watch the Fox News channel I can’t believe how much nerve those people have and how they assume that people are just going to swallow that shit. And I find myself thinking that I must be missing something.”

Then I watched a convincing liberal propaganda video about how all of the events on 9/11 were staged by our own government and thought about how when I went to ground zero last year I met a kid who’s father was a fallen firefighter and now he pickets there every Saturday about how he wants some damn answers (because nothing adds up). Then I reminisced about my trip to NYC in the 4th grade where we went to the United Nations building and took some goofy tour and I almost bought some Oakleys from the lining of some guy’s jacket, but–most importantly–we went to the top of the World Trade Center and I rode on a helicopter-over-Manhattan simulation ride (where the ground of the theater moves to correspond to the flight path) and ate a $7 hot dog.

And I just can’t think of a better–or more American–way to say “I love you” to the attack on our soil than a good of fashioned back piece because if you get anything smaller, you’re probably “with them.”

Here are a few of my favorites–even if I can’t tell what the first one says:

bea arthur for prez!

johnmccainlookslike.com is the best waste of politician-hating energy. With a user-submitted database of gruesome-monster to old-guy photos, the site generates a new twin of the republican candidate with every click of the button.

BAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAAH!