23 December 2009

koolaid is nice to have, too, but not required.

having a cult is the same as having a picnic. pick a nice, out of the way spot. lay out some blankets. bring games--the best are ones with no boards or pieces. all the rules in your head. every item you spread out has a story. talk up your jam, your pickles. this is different, see, made with hands, with love, intimate, the way it was meant to be. ordained. poor people dying in their cafeterias, queued up with their empty plastic trays, the waiting dead. why waste your life. why creep along in your wagon with the engine idling, why have your skin bleached by pool water when there's a swimming hole just over there. these bisquits are my body--already buttered. this jam is my blood, preserved for you. take and eat. you can taste how right this is. most everybody can't, they're dulled to life. babylon is so boring that folks can't see they're in it. so they wait on hold to get their lashing, and soon enough scars cover all their senses...blind their tongues, amputate their eyes. not you, though. you're different, lucky--you're here with me now. we see the truth, feel the truth, eat the truth. we're having a picnic.

13 August 2009

the voices in my head.

so. mcsweeneys had a contest for new columnists, and i entered it with what can properly if unfortunately be called gusto. i didn't win. of the 812 entries they received, they had 33 finalists, whom they notified of their finalism. i was not one of these. am i bitter about being a not-winner? it would hardly make sense to be; i not-win every day. i find mild comfort in the fact that none of the 7 winners proposed a fiction column---titles range from conversations at a wartime cafe to bitchslap: a column about women and fighting. i heart mcsweeneys, and will continue to, even though reading the columns i lost to will, for a time, cause me to hatefully deconstruct their writing. just for a time, though; after all, my first definite memory of my bride-to-be laura was her beating me in a 7th-grade halloween costume contest, and i had pretty much stopped resenting her by the middle of 12th grade. and now we're getting married! so that's positive. another positive way to look at it is that mcsweeneys was just easing me in, so that when they reject my novel sometime next year, i'll be predejected and ready to go. here, then, is the first full installment of my aborted column. (in .doc form it's all formatted properly like a screenplay; here it's approximated and hopefully still readable.)

THE VOICES IN MY HEAD LAND AN INDIE FILM
THAT'S SET TO BLOW UP AT SUNDANCE.

Little Miss Conception

CU the wan face of POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT. The camera PULLS BACK to reveal his surroundings.

INT. MESSY LIVING ROOM – DAY

He presses end on his phone and walks into the kitchen, also messy. Only the kitchen table is clean.

In front of it squats ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA, pulling bottles of liquor from boxes on the floor.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
Man, I need a drink. If it doesn’t relax me, I’ll have 10 or 12 more.

From one of the boxes, he quietly removes a bottle.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA (not looking up)
Don’t think of drinking ONE SINGLE FUCKING DROP from my special collection.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
I kill myself all day trying to get our number changed so the creditors can’t find us. They had me on hold four hours. But I waited.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
I’ve been waiting to throw a party like this for YEARS.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
Then call waiting keeps buzzing, saying private caller. But I pick up the pattern. The manager puts me on hold, 30 seconds pass, and boom! there’s private caller.

Pointlessly Persistent pours a tall glass of bourbon.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT (cont’d)
The manager wanted me to play his little game. But guess what, bucko? I don’t play by the rules. So I took that call.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
I will NOT let you fuck this up for me again.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
But it wasn’t him, it was a woman. One of us is apparently the father of her baby.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY has appeared in the kitchen behind Pointlessly Persistent.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
If we could all just think about this.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
Mom’s being deployed. Can’t take her daughter with her. Says she’s out of options.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Fatherhood: daily sacrifice for the sake of family.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY may or may not have been standing there all along.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
Someone wants to give us a baby?

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY (cont’d)
I will work to identify every possible angle from which this can be evaluated.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
After you’ve hypothesized a bunch of ways to approach the problem, I’ll fixate on the one that’s futile and insulting. First, someone tell me how we got a lady named Marsha impregnated.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
Marsha … Marsha?

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
Oh SHIT. Spill it, dude.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
Wow … we’re in California. That giant party with strobe lights hanging in the yard. Bathtub punch. Pumping music. Everyone sauced…

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
That was the best party since I pledged us to those frats back in college.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA (cont’d)
I didn’t drink that nasty punch, so I was the last man standing. This chick Marsha was hanging on me, and…

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
And?

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
What, okay? We all do things.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
What we all do is fail to put things over our penis, you dick.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Well, it happened. And now this is happening. We have to get ready; we have to conceptualize.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
There’s no money to get on a plane and fly there. But we have the gas card. If we left now and drove nonstop, in shifts, there’s an attractively tiny chance we could make it before mommy ships out.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Whoa there, Turbo! Slow down.

Suddenly, GAME FACE looms in the back door.

GAME FACE
I smell crunch time.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
There’s an old fable called The Gerbil & the Fox’s Stocking. How about I read it aloud? Tonight we’ll meditate on it as we fall asleep, and in the morning we’ll see how the meaning of the story is relevant to…

GAME FACE
Nothing you say affects me. It’s Time To Do This.

INT. MIDSIZE SPORTS UTILITY VEHICLE HYBRID – DAY

Game Face drives, wearing large headphones. Principled In Theory rides shotgun. Unacknowledged Gay Affinity is in the middle back seat, folded in a kind of upright fetal position between the other two voices, both stretched out sleeping. In his hands is a CD.

He leans stiffly forward, like he wants to be heard over the music. But there is no music.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
It’s kind of nice with everyone else out of it, just you and me. On the road. Here, throw on this Bright Eyes record I brought along.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
I’m suddenly tired.

Principled In Theory puts his head back and closes his eyes.

EXT. HIGH PLAINS HIGHWAY – NIGHT

The midsize SUV hybrid flies along the road, silent save for the hiss of the tires.

INT. MIDSIZE SUV HYBRID – DAY

Game Face drives, headphones on, hands at the 10-and-2 position on the wheel.

Sound asleep in the back, Anal-Retentive In Just This One Area FARTS a slow sleepy-time fart.

Principled In Theory fakes being asleep, left eye shut but right eye open.

GAME FACE
Ventura fairgrounds, next exit.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Are we … is that the ocean? I can’t believe I slept the whole way!

VENTURA COUNTY FAIR – DAY

AERIAL SHOT of the fairgrounds. The camera ZOOMS in on the Ferris wheel, which is not moving. At the top of the wheel, four voices are squeezed into a car. They stare straight ahead, silent, bored.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
Well I’m red in the face. I CANNOT BELIEVE I claimed to prefer the beer garden over this shitstorm of action.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
We’re early. What do you want? We go to the beer garden, get all kinds of drunk in time to meet a baby? No. So rides it is.

Anal-Retentive In Just This One Area pulls a bottle of rye whisky from under his sweatshirt, takes a pull, and passes it across Principled In Theory to Pointlessly Persistent, who swigs and passes it to Game Face.

Game Face takes a pull, CRACKS his neck.

The car rocks and SHUDDERS as the Ferris wheel resumes motion.

GAME FACE
It’s game time.

The camera HOLDS as the car recedes from the frame.

The next car emerges into the frame. Unacknowledged Gay Affinity rides alone.

VENTURA COUNTY FAIR – NIGHT

OVERHEAD SHOT of a grid of glass bottles.

A rubber ring lands around the neck of one bottle. Another ring finds the neck of the bottle below it, and another below that.

A CARNIVAL WORKER sets an enormous purple squirrel on the counter.

Game Face SLAPS down tickets to play a fresh round.

CU Principled In Theory – the camera PULLS BACK to show him straddling the head of a polar bear, beer in hand, smoking.

Behind him stands Unacknowledged Gay Affinity. Cradled in his arm is a teddy bear wearing a bonnet and onesie.

Littered around them is a colony of stuffed prize animals, some posed in mating positions.

A YOUNG GIRL runs over and picks up a pink doggie. She hugs it. She approaches Principled in Theory, who bends down to hear what she has to say.

Principled in Theory nods and whispers to her with a smile. The Young Girl pulls a wad of bills from her pocket, counts off five dollars, hands it over. She runs off with the dog.

Principled in Theory pockets the cash and takes a drag off his cigarette.

Five phones RING at once.

ALL TOGETHER
Yeah.

ALAN ALDA
Is there a father in the house?

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Perhaps. Who are you?

ALAN ALDA
I’m the father. Of the mother.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Where is the mother?

ALAN ALDA
I was sent as emissary. There’s too much heat at the ring-a-bottle. Head south to the sani-tent.

Principled In Theory strides confidently forward and then stops cold.

Unacknowledged Gay Affinity steps up behind him.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
Keep moving.

He puts both hands in Principled In Theory’s back and leans him into forward motion.

ALAN ALDA stands next to a porta-potty painted like a circus tent.

ALAN ALDA
Those fellas at the ring-a-bottle, they’re with you?

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
We live together.

ALAN ALDA
Unfortunate.

Alan Alda points over their shoulders.

REVERSE ANGLE SHOT of Anal-Retentive In Just This One Area, who pauses dry-humping the giant purple squirrel in order to swig more whisky.

ALAN ALDA (cont’d)
That right there is less future PTA, more future AA.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
If you’re the grandfather … how come you don’t take her?

ALAN ALDA
I don't chew my cabbage twice.

Alan Alda could be smiling or maybe frowning.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
We didn’t ask to have this baby, okay? But now that we’re here, it’s like I was born to have this baby.

ALAN ALDA
I’m not one to get my undies in a twist over a technicality, but there is no baby per se. Tanya’s five years old.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Five!? That can’t be … no, no, can that be … it can.

ALAN ALDA
Can and is. Time flies when you’re charging your estranged daughter five dollars for a stuffed toy you don’t even want.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
What the F! That was her!?

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
That looked bad. But if you’ll lend me your ear for as long as I want, I’ll rationalize it for you.

ALAN ALDA
I’m too old for this. I’m supposed to be taking a cruise, not custody of a child.

Unacknowledged Gay Affinity hurls the teddy bear baby at Alan Alda, STRIKING him in the crotch.

ALAN ALDA
Ow!

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
You’re putting us through this so you can take a cruise?

ALAN ALDA
A whole year long! Clear around the globe.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY (yelling)
Hypocrite! None of these assholes want to be a dad! But I do! And now you’re going to reject me because of them when you’re no better – a freaking cruise!

The other voices materialize in the near background.

ALAN ALDA
My job is simple. I’m here to estimate –

Unacknowledged Gay Affinity runs and leaps onto Alan Alda like a stripper mounting the pole. They fall to the ground.

Unacknowledged Gay Affinity seizes the teddy bear baby and BEATS Alan Alda around the head and neck with it.

UNACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY (more yelling)
Selfish! Selfish!

The other voices CHEER him on.

But the beating continues. They come forward, each grab a limb, and pry him off Alan Alda. They POUND his back and LAUGH.

Arms around his shoulders, they escort him away.

Principled In Theory hesitates, then turns and trots back to Alan Alda.

He offers a hand and pulls Alan Alda to a sitting position.

ALAN ALDA
Where am I.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
At the fair about to go find your granddaughter and take her home. It’s the right thing to do. The negative environmental impact of cruise ships cannot be endorsed.

The camera PULLS BACK and BACK to an AERIAL SHOT of the fairgrounds, lights ablaze.

INT. MESSY LIVING ROOM – EVENING.

Four voices sit on the long couch, conversing.

POINTLESSLY PERSISTENT
…So maybe you’re not really gay?

SEMI-ACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
Oh I’m gay. I’m also outnumbered. Every day is another day of four-on-one…

GAME FACE
You cannot stop the dribble penetration.

SEMI-ACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
Sure! Let’s go with the sports analogy. I’m always on defense – I never get to touch the ball slash balls. But maybe now that you act like you accept me, I won’t have to spend so much time hiding out.

PRINCIPLED IN THEORY
Every voice shall be heard.

SEMI-ACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
I can redecorate – I can cook! I’ve always dreamed of being a chef…

Anal-Retentive In Just This One Area enters from the kitchen bearing two serving trays.

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
Gentlemen and lady-man, dinner be served.

SEMI-ACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
Yay! What’re we having?

ANAL-RETENTIVE IN JUST THIS ONE AREA
Courvoisier and corndogs.

SEMI-ACKNOWLEDGED GAY AFFINITY
You’re joking.

Game Face picks up the TV remote and turns up the volume. He bites into his corndog.

GAME FACE
Game’s on.

11 June 2009

goddammit baby you know i ain't lyin' to you i'm only gonna tell you one tiiiiimeahhhyeah.

made the rounds a while back, but this isn't my first late-to-the-rodeo: the david lee roth soundboard.

it's so much fun i don't even know what to do with myself.

UPDATE: now i know what to do with myself! litter my workout mix with the mp3 versions.

09 June 2009

one of those things where it's like, fuck, i almost had this idea a while back.

but it's just splendidly done.

SHORT TAKES ON BOOKS THAT DON’T EXIST.

eg,

Workshop
by Nick Lowey
MFA students writing—and failing to write—form the subject of Lowey’s debut, a collection of linked stories that mines the liminal space between earnest frustration and the grinding tedium of endless failure. Other writers have trod this turf with less success, but Lowey displays an enviable judiciousness and a keen eye: a box of cheap wine is described as “a store-brand Lethe, a vermillion river of solace and forgetting.”

03 June 2009

27 May 2009

dear fat kid : a paragraph from the bit i happen to be revising today.

In the absence of another party to keep [Gail, ie Mother] near sense, her taut emotional state stays linear, while any line of reason becomes a waver—a scribble of thought that runs in frantic circles and off the side of the page. And she, I don’t think, is ever the wiser. Example (from voicemail #3):

“And if you don't want to call and at least just tell us that you are all right, well. There's nothing I can do about that. But it's painful. Here I am burning up with worry and you can't even pick up the phone. I know you have been unhappy here lately. But we are not the happiest either, you know, and you don’t see us deserting you. I'm so sad, Hal. All I want is to help you. And if you are off with your fat-friend somewhere, if that's all this is and you can't pick up the phone to call—I don't know but it will be very hard to forgive you. But I will, because forgiveness is important. Just like trust is important. And right now you have not shown that you really deserve our trust. What's the word I'm looking for? Not flaky, but close to that. Flighty! There. You have just flighted and flitted away, like a little bird. Like a sparrow. Do you remember, as a boy, when the sparrows would come every spring and build a nest up under the peak of the barn roof? And the little chicklings would hatch and you’d jump up and down and beg to go out and look at them. We'd go out day after day and nothing would happen, just Mommy coming and going with mouthfuls of worms for the family. But one day the day would come! We'd get to see those little baby sparrows fly for the very first time! And it was always so great to watch them teeter and totter through the air. So exciting. And then summer would be here, and we'd pack up our basket and go down to the harbor. We would eat, and you would walk along the drift logs and play with the other boys who were there on the summer days. I'd bring my knitting. Sometimes that one bigger older boy would come down there, and I knew you didn't really like him but he had a new bike that was big and cool and so you’d let him boss you around. What on earth was that boy's name? ... Clarence! Ooo-oh, I did not like that Clarence, with his pudgy face. But you'd play with him anyway, no matter what I thought, and I wouldn't show it but inside I'd get so frustrated with you for not seeing…”

This is just a sample, a finger-snack drawn at random from the voicemail platter I had set before me. I’m not really complaining, though I am confused; my policy of avoidance coping, hitherto unblemished, is becoming entirely counterproductive.

21 May 2009

ron mexico finishes his sentence.

funny thing, this morning. the espn.com sports ticker has the headline vick arrives home to finish rest of sentence, and usually the sports media makes a big hullabaloo about vick-related stuff. but here the article read simply,


"...and that's why i'm fucked, motherfuckers. fuck you."

20 May 2009

freedarko works a hookup.

this is neat: all the figures in this bit (save for the 2 that are related to adidas products) are elements from the freedarko book's periodic table of style.



also, derrick rose is nifty.

15 May 2009

also: i wrote the company newsletter entry about our new softball team.

The Seattle RAT (Radio, Advertising & Television) Softball League started the 2009 season with one expansion team, the EDDY LeadDawgs. Contrary to expectations set by all notable Seattle sports trends [failure, extinction, expensive failure, ungodly failure], the LeadDawgs rolled onto the opening day field with bats blazing, trouncing their opponent 21-4 … and needing just 4 ½ innings to so! In the context of the Seattle sports scene, the LeadDawgs are Episode IV: A New Hope. Get on the bandwagon now before it gets crowed.

dear fat kid, random paragraph - our narrator hiding in a closet after breaking an antique at a fancy party.

Important stuff is always being overheard by people hiding in closets. Also, critical things are regularly being seen from inside closets. I’m here to tell you that is bullshit. Book and movie characters reliably witness wives cheating, powerful fathers having their drink poisoned, and they do this while hiding in the closet with the door open just a crack. Know what you can see through a crack in the closet door? A thin slice of world courtesy of a viewing angle 10 degrees off the wall to your right. You can see down the dim hall and out the open doorway of the library, the courtyard palms backlit by the glowing windows on the far side. You can’t see anything that’s happening in the main part of the library. It’s very frustrating. I couldn’t see who was in the library any better than I could back through the coats and find myself in a snowy world of fauns and witches, because that’s another fallacy: you jump in a closet or wardrobe in a seldom-used room well off the main part of the house, and it’s chock-full of old furs and greatcoats for you to disappear into? No it’s not. What it’s full of is about a million empty triangles of wire and wood hanging a millimeter apart, waiting for you to twitch against them and cause a bunch of noise, such that you crouch down uncomfortably on your haunches, try to spy the action happening nowhere near your crack, nothing is happening, you’re not even doing a good job listening to what’s being said because you’re so uncomfortable crouching there with your knees together, and you end up holding your breath while doing a such an easy-now job of shifting to a sitting position that, were you being filmed, it’d be the boringest slow-motion shot on record—you’re conscious of this even as it’s happening, the soundtrack in your head an army of cellos with bows dragged across the strings in noteless misery—and by the time your butt’s on the floor there are multiple voices talking at once. One of these, the raised-in-anger one, belongs to Perry Ledhard, but who knows about the others. Hell, though, this is okay, this is better. Even though the door crack is behind your head now, you can at least listen comfortably. Then from the doorway of the library—i.e. behind you—new voices speak, male and female. You’re fucking kidding me. You recognize the calm male voice from earlier but can’t put a face to it; you were quasi-introduced to a lot of people tonight.

07 May 2009

the new lincoln-douglas.

today found me having a bold and unnecessary political tit-a-tit with a dude i don't know in the comments section of a fb video my friend sullivan posted from back when she worked on the obama campaign. was it pointless? yes. but it made me feel good inside, like, for several years there i lost the ability to picture myself substantively agreeing with those in power, and likewise i couldn't imagine republicanites whining about how no one listens to them; but now here we are, and i tell ya it's satisfying to hear a well-spoken republican unable to construct a noncircular argument.

Thank God. We're now on the road to socialism. Thanks guys. Way to go. After our government owns the banks, GM, and Chrysler, and takes more and more of our money by taxing us to death, won't you be happier? Please...if you're intelligent...attend and support as many TEA parties as you can. And, please, if we're still able to Vote in 2012, elect a President that doesn't have a far leftist-progressive agenda.

are you...your taxes are going up, mr whitman? mine just went down last month. please be careful; i'm worried you're going to choke on your rhetoric.

When there's over 9 trillion dollars in debt, someone is going to have to pay for it plus interest! Our kids will still be paying off this debt 20 years from now. So yes, someone will have to pay for it. I'm sure that someone will include myself and other entrepreneurs who are really the backbone of our economy. The more that we're taxed, the less we have to spend. That's just simple economics. If you make a 100k a year, and 35k has to go to pay taxes to the Fed, that's a net of only 65k.

As a small business owner, factor in having to pay for family health insurance at $650 / month, and other overhead expensives, and you can quickly see that ANY tax increase will kill the business. I've known for a long time that when they talk about taxes, it's not just about the Fed tax, it's about State, County, and Local taxes as well. Not to mention license plate fees, city stickers, toll roads, and all the taxes we pay for things like gasoline, electricity, and even telephone taxes.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against paying taxes for a strong defense, infrastructure, and some services. However, I am against wasteful spending in congress of our hard earned tax dollars. And at this point, our economy is so fragile, I doubt that many Americans can absorb an increase in their taxes without creating a financial burden that they simply cannot afford. At some point, a small businessman (such as myself) would have to consider whether it's better to just close up shop and get a 45k / year job instead.

Mark Huntsman
that's all well said. i just don't get why you'd want to wreck your argument by tying it to "elect a President that doesn't have a far leftist-progressive agenda"? last dude added $4.97 trillion to our debt, which is, you know, about half. not counting billions of dubloons pilfered from the social security surplus (every president has done that since the surplus was implemented under reagan, but still, it's money we're obligated to pay ourselves later).

I'd have to say that as a republican, I was very disappointed by some Bush policies. First and foremost was immigration and not closing the border. 2nd was spending. Of course, wars cost a lot of money. I won't debate whether we needed to go to war in Iraq, but Bush did take the fight to the terrorists and protected us against another attack for 7 years. I'm sure that will be his lasting legacy. However, that said, the whole "blame Bush for everything" is getting very old and tired. And soon, that won't wash anymore, even with Obama supporters. At some point, Mr. Obama will be held accountable for his failures, just as other President's have been held accountable for theirs. Also, let's not forget that it was a Democratic-controlled congress for the last 2 years of his Presidency that helped spend all that money.

But here's the real point. If you disagree with the previous administration's spending policies, then you must disagree EVEN MORE with the current President's (and Congress') policies. Two wrongs don't make a right. This out of control spending frenzy can only lead to the downfall of our economy. If you wanted to really stimulate the economy, then take that 800 billion dollars and cut a check to every American citizen! Roughly that's $4,000 per person or probably $16,000 per household. That surely beats spending all that money on pet pork projects. Every American family balances their own budget. Shouldn't we expect Congress to do the same? Remember, THEY work for US, it's not the other way around.
that's some nice footwork. you're not disillusioned with your party? 5 trillion dollars in 8yrs. half. your party cut taxes, increased spending. i get that the drum you like to beat is taxes. i see what you dislike but see nothing to like.

It's not footwork, it's the truth. No, I'm not "disillusioned" with the Republican party...not at all. I know that most liberals want to believe that most conservatives are disillusioned by their party, but quite to the contrary, we are more dedicated and supportive of the party than ever before. It's not just about taxes...believe me, there are many, many issues that we conservatives will be bringing to the forefront before the next election. And it's not just the snare drum that we'll be hitting, it's the double-kick bass, symbols, and toms, all in unison.

Mark Huntsman
you may well be more dedicated, but there's less of you.

that's a lot of percussion parts to hit in unison. regardless, with a fully outfitted drumset of lower taxes for the top and pricy wars and the sanctity of marriage and trimmed-down social services and deregulated markets, you and the r's will be in good shape. oh, wait.

It's a difficult situation. The media bias and political correctness have engrained in many minds across this country that anyone who attempts to have a thoughtful debate on politics, whether at work, at a bar, or at the dinner table, is looked upon with scorn and contempt. Recently, while trying to have a political debate with an acquaintance in a quite informal setting (at a bar), his final statement to me was to call me a racist because I didn't like Obama. Yes, I was actually called a racist just because I spout conservative values. I welcome any open discussion on politics. However, what I see many times is that many liberals have closed their minds. They simply refuse to listen to other points of view. And when confronted with a common sense approach to the issues, they often use the old tactic of diversion. They point to Bush. They change the subject. They simply refuse to LISTEN.

Mark Huntsman
i'm not changing the subject; if anything i'm staying the subject. when you make the case that taxes are too high and my response is to say that your guy doubled our debt, that's not diversion, dude, that's me inquiring how you maintain support for a party that put us on an untenable track, got beat, and has yet to offer a mildly new idea about how to go forward. if r's need to sulk a while longer and try to figure things out, fine; but if you insist on snarling while licking your wounds you'll only bite yourself in the foot.

I believe that America is good and is a symbol of hope and freedom in a troubled world.

I believe that the American Family is the backbone of our nation.

I believe in having a strong national defense.

I believe that if you break the law, you pay the price. The term "illegal" means illegal. Just because it has the world "alien" after it, doesn't mean that they're not here ILLEGALLY. I believe in a good education for our American citizens--those who came here legally.

I believe in a secure border for the protection of our citizens. There's nothing wrong with LEGAL immigration, to be sure, and unless you're native american, we are all here as a result of generations of LEGAL immigrants to this country.

I believe that the government works for me. They answer to me, I don't answer to them.

Dominic J. Whitham Thank you, Mark, for proving my point. The subject isn't JUST taxes. The subject is many issues. Now, you hope to drag me into your continued discussion on taxes and debt. But again, two wrongs don't make a right. If Bush did these things (please factor into your calculations that Bush had 9/11 to deal with and fighting a war on two fronts), and you didn't like that, then how could you like the fact that your guy along with the Democratic congress has passed the largest spending bill ever, as well as the largest budget?

Change for the sake of change is not good enough. Stop lying to yourself that we have no new ideas. What's wrong with the principals that our country was founded on? It's worked for over 200 years. Now the progressives want to come in and destroy everything we've worked, fought, and died for in this country.

Understand that I don't think along party lines. I don't vote for someone or something just because they're in my party. My convictions, beliefs, and principles guide my rational when I vote. However, that said, there is NOTHING in the progressive democratic party that I believe in. So, let's be honest, say there's an issue in the democratic party that YOU don't agree with. Would you still vote that way, anyway? Would you still vote for THAT democrat even if you didn't agree with their stance on a certain issue?

Let's get one thing straight here...the democratic party has given in to the far left wing agenda, and most certainly is moving towards a 100% government controlled society. The repulican party is currently being accused of "moving too far to the right". How rediculous! We're just holding on to our convictions whilst the left-wing media tries to destroy the party by convincing America that it no longer represents us. That is a lie.

Mark Huntsman
i believe it's been a long time since i constructed i statements, and it sounds almost fun.

i remember the last time i did it, shortly afer college, when i wanted to pump myself up enough to break up with my girlfriend.

i was kind of a pansy. self-esteem was an issue.

i recall that once we got into the conversation, they didn't help at all, and because i was unwilling to drop the one that would have settled the matter

--i don't love you anymore--

i got bound up in this drawn-out disintegration process that only gradually made me despise myself enough to end it and move away.

i'd say you don't have to be like the 23yo me. your party mocks the possibility of empathy in government; you remain with it even as it compassionlessly kills your credibility.

find a new girlfriend.

Ahhh...personal attacks. Confirmation that the liberal debator has been beat. Thank you. Find a new girlfriend? I've been happily MARRIED for 16 years.

06 May 2009

'cos sheep are benign and on the young we will benign.

last week laura and danielle and i went to see the live episode of this american life that got beamed into theaters across the country. one of the visual shorts was a bit by chris ware starring quimby the mouse...

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

30 April 2009

..let my cameron gooo-o...

i have metafilter bookmarked but often find that "meta" = "wading through a shitpile of nonsense." which, you know, is what i have a blog for in the first place. but kottke.org referenced this, and it's so good.

My favorite thought-piece about Ferris Bueller is the "Fight Club" theory, in which Ferris Bueller, the person, is just a figment of Cameron's imagination, like Tyler Durden, and Sloane is the girl Cameron secretly loves.

One day while he's lying sick in bed, Cameron lets "Ferris" steal his father's car and take the day off, and as Cameron wanders around the city, all of his interactions with Ferris and Sloane, and all the impossible hijinks, are all just played out in his head. This is part of the reason why the "three" characters can see so much of Chicago in less than one day -- Cameron is alone, just imagining it all.

It isn't until he destroys the front of the car in a fugue state does he finally get a grip and decide to confront his father, after which he imagines a final, impossible escape for Ferris and a storybook happy ending for Sloane ("He's gonna marry me!"), the girl that Cameron knows he can never have.

now listen to cameron arguing with himself and then invite me over for a weekend viewing. i'll wear my cameron caduceus shirt.

29 April 2009

i'm new.

a freaking gem sent to me by coworker karl: This guy takes sample sound & video from youtube and splices them together to make new music. He has a collection of 7 or 8 that he’s done, all really entertaining, that I thought I would share with ya’ll to get those creative juices flowing. all things are connected.

22 April 2009

irony.

[here's a paper i wrote almost exactly 3ya for grad school; last evening, drinking beer in the fading sun with dalton and hughes, the cajoned genius of colbert's white house press dinner came up, and i may have said i once had something to say about it. post-beer, i'm like...eh. but here.]

of yogurts and statesmen.


“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced Stephen Colbert during his monologue at the White House Correspondents Dinner, “I believe it’s yogurt. But I refuse to believe it’s not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.” Juxtaposition has a lot of power, but it’s inert—it’s display power. The meaning is arrayed on the shelf in front of you, sometimes beautifully, but you’re who has to decid you need it and put it in your cart.. But the presidency was not at a low point, he continued. “I believe it is just a lull before a comeback. I mean, it’s like the movie Rocky.” Colbert looked at President Bush, seated to his right up at the podium, then out at the room full of stiff-faced media reporters who looked, as a whole, like a gathering cloud, a dark, not-laughing cloud. “All right,” continued Colbert. “The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is—everything else in the world. It’s the tenth round. He’s bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he’s yelling, ‘Cut me, Dick, cut me!’ and every time he falls everyone says, ‘Stay down! Stay down!’ Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he—actually, he loses in the first movie.” The auditorium was urgently quiet, like the opening moments of a retirees’ Bingo game. “Okay. Doesn’t matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face.” I sat in front of my TV laughing, and as the cameras panned over the stony faces, I stood up, did a little dance, and sat back down. Whether the president and the body of reporters were unable to see the irony or they refused to see it, the net effect was the same: Colbert’s true meaning was lost to them. (With two notable exceptions: Judge Antonin Scalia laughed uproariously when Colbert came after him, leading me to wonder if a lifetime appointment doesn’t necessarily deepen one’s affection for irony; and the face of Laura Bush, which, behind a very fine veneer of mild disdain, was positively hateful.) What’s interesting is how the collective reaction—nonplussed, antsy, aloof—was key to my own enjoyment of the moment. It’s like my seeing that the audience didn’t get Colbert’s speech was the point of Colbert’s speech.


internal motion.


In his classic A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, H.W. Fowler offers this definition: Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear and shall not understand, and another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware, both of that ‘more’ and of the outsider’s incomprehension. This definition is sharp as a knife and broad as hell, at the same time, for it makes stipulations about both the broadcast end and the reception end of the form. We have the term “ironic intent” to remark that the success of an irony depends entirely on how it is received; the audience could be either unable or unwilling to take the two levels of meaning, and without that dual reception, it’s not irony. It might still be deft, or sarcastic or waggish, but it’s not ironic. At the other end, the broadcast end, irony has motion right out of the gate—it postulates. So right away we’re in grammatically paradoxical territory, because irony is a noun yet it has a verb’s motion. It thinks. Perceiving that underlying sense of motion is vital, literally, for if irony as a form has motion, then it has life. It has what, some years ago, philosophers called “intentionality,” which refers to the state of being aware of the contents of your own mind. Since I am not a behaviorist, I’ll quote one: Intentionality can be conceived of as a hierarchically organized series of belief-states. In this scheme of things, computers are zero-order intentional entities: they are not aware of the contents of their ‘minds’… Having a belief about someone else’s beliefs (or intentions) constitutes a second order of intentionality … Jane believes that Sally thinks her ball is under the cushion. Jane has two belief states in mind (her own and Sally’s). (from The Human Story, Robin Dunbar) Irony, then, involves a third order of intentionality: Stephen postulates that Mark will perceive that George does not understand. So irony has intent (at least in art. The modern human condition is itself meta-ironic, which opens the door for Fowler’s definition as an argument for God; but that’s a paper for another class) and this intent is complex, for it anticipates the reaction of a second party and the subsequent reaction of a third.


almost like democracy.


More than this, though, it’s the last part of Fowler’s definition that understands how everyone’s so good at recognizing irony yet bad at defining it. The two things it postulates—that one party shall hear and shall not understand while the other gets both that “more” and the outsider’s incomprehension—depend on one party’s immediate-and-no-further reception and on the other’s willingness to unpack things—to perceive rather than just receive. That irony requires layers of audience is how I’m able to know it; for when I look over and see the unfortunate first audience, I recognize that I’ve the opportunity to be a member of the lucky second group, even before I’ve begun to unpack the layers of meaning. So, then: irony involves my receiving, understanding, and making a value judgment on it. But I have to do less than that for it to feel ironic to me, because a) seeing that someone else doesn’t get it is always easier than getting it for myself, and b) once I’ve seen that another person doesn’t understand, it’s tempting to stop right there, because already I feel smarter than somebody else. I’m in the club.


Think of middle school for five seconds. If you have a smile on your face, it’s because you’re thinking of how you’re not there now. Five seconds is all it takes to remember that all you need to feel you belong to a group is evidence of someone who doesn’t. The same goes for war—all Roosevelt and Stalin needed to get them to hang out was that dick Hitler. And the same goes for brand identity—in his essay E Unam Pluribus, David Foster Wallace recalls a commercial featuring a guy who cleverly sells Pepsi to an impulsive crowd to illustrate the ubiquity of irony in TV commercials: It creates in me the sense that all these people don’t get it, but I do. All I have to get is that someone else doesn’t, and I’m connected. I’m in the club. Like middle school, when social psychology first begins to spread its many-feathered wings, the first level of ironic perception hinges on understanding nothing more complex than that someone else does not understand. However, like college, a nuanced perception of irony may require some flat-out work to reach, but once there you can hang out with your study group and tell stories about the days when you were friends with Stalin and Pepsi.


your neighbor as yourself.


I have a local friend at the local pub. (By which I mean that, at the pub just down the street from my house, there is a 30something dude who is reliably seated at one particular corner of the bar, and that he often calls me over to chat and catch up about things that are, to the untrained ear, not at all different from the things about which we have recently caught up.) Last week I sat down to talk and have a beer with him and his girlfriend. Conversation went something like this. “I tell you man, the acid Leo sold me yesterday was almost as wild as that gnarly ecstasy I was rolling on last time I saw you.” A pause. “But it was last weekend that was the real trip—I scored an enormous stash of mushrooms, they cost a lot but I got a discount ‘cos I bought a bunch.” As he continued in this vein, I raised my eyebrows and looked down the bar at the girlfriend, who I knew to be a regular drinker but one who categorically refused to use drugs. She stared off at the neon and nodded in that absent, you’ll-know-I’ve-heard-something-new-when-I-stop-nodding kind of way. The other choice topic that night was my friend’s work as a sort of rogue auto mechanic. His work had been spotty, but recently he’d had a vision—he spoke excitedly of getting his business license and building a clientele, were it not for the prohibitively expensive start-up costs. As he continued to talk about his dreams of a business and his inability to get the money together, he became increasingly frustrated by what he felt was the catch-22 of the situation. This was not self-wallowing despondency; he was legitimately unable to see how he could move forward. I’d been a willing ear for half an hour at this point, and did not expect to play any other role, so when he asked what I thought I was almost surprised. So I said what came to mind. “It sounds like the drugs are really working out for you.” He looked at me with a blank sort of disconnect, though past him I caught the face of his girl: She flashed a little half-smile at me, and she winked. I cocked an eyebrow in return and, feeling I had accomplished some small thing, I wished them well and left for home.


It’s interesting how, in the literary world, the grandest, most full-body irony inspires in its readers a sense of belonging not so dissimilar from that produced by the middle-school, Pepsi-Generation ironies which David Foster Wallace so articulately cautions against. Oedipus Rex is not a work I first encountered and personally aligned myself with—as I did with To Kill a Mockingbird or The Catcher in the Rye or The Breakfast Club—yet it holds in it something so profound and human that it nonetheless became a meaningful reference point for me when I read it at age 15 and remains so now at 30. It’s a means both of personally understanding and of talking about hubris and frailty as pitfalls we all must cross over—it doesn’t offer answers, but of course it doesn’t, it’s a tragedy, and tragedies can’t provide answers because nobody wants to see a play called 7 Ways to Win Friends and Still Have Life Run Incestuously, Murderously Off the Track. What Oedipus Rex is is a framework, for individual understanding, yes, but also for connecting, for discussing with you what I’ve just seen or read and us feeling closer as a result. And, Oedipus Rex is an irony.


Fiction has the luxury of imaginary characters that can abandon their imaginary infants and sleep with imaginary mothers. An author can aspire that his audience will perceive an irony and take something good or profound from it, but even a Faulkner-sized ego needn’t concern itself with the future well being of characters it created. When my local bar friend had asked me for my take on his predicament, he’d not been interested in the power-point of my opinion. I’d had only about a sentence to work with; I looked at him, his girlfriend, then him again, and what presented itself was an irony. In retrospect I’m almost proud of it—it was perhaps the best thing I could’ve said. Fowler’s definition is dead-on but, too, it leaves out that there’s a personal motivation behind the creation of any given irony. Even with a teensy, in-the-moment one like in my conversation at the bar, there’s a fourth order of intentionality that cycles back to the irony’s creator: Mark hopes that Girlfriend will feel less alone in her perception that Local Friend does not understand. Likewise, Stephen hoped that Mark would be comforted by evidence that he’s not alone in perceiving that George does not understand. Of course, an ironist’s aspirations for the sum effect could be negative instead of positive, but either way there is a hope there, and that intentionality drives the creation of any irony. Without that fourth order of connective intent, the other three drift apart somewhat, and we end up not sure that the creator’s true meaning is different from the literal. Which, in Colbert’s case, would consign him to the unenviable task of “giv[ing] people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument.”

21 April 2009

I'M VERY HAPPY TO BE HERE.



and, since we're here, please give it up for my band sexual chocolate. SEXUAL CHOCOLATE!!

15 April 2009

14 April 2009

dear fat kid - random paragraph.

Never before has such a laid back dude made me so impatient. I’m laid back, relatively, so in that sense it’s surprising that Patois was oil to my water, straightaway. But my modest slackerdom was crushed under his inertia, and I found myself transformed into my own ex-girlfriend—any one of them, doesn’t matter, as long as its near the end of our relationship: she’s always tense, her affection for me all but extinct—even when she intends to coo something sweet she sounds like a rooster stretching—meanwhile I’m militantly laid back about everything, which is to say detached, because it’s not like I can’t see her fun and interesting parts going up the boarding plank in a huff, leaving behind only the stepsisters Snippiness and Distress, making a scene big enough that I’d try to woo her fun parts back to shore, I really would, if I weren’t so busy chilling. I don’t fucking care. That’s where Patois was when he came over today. He was Hal in Relationship He’s Too Chill and/or Lazy and/or Terrified to End, and he played the part with aplomb. The opposite lead starred me as Fed Up Bitchy Girlfriend Hal’s Almost Done Alienating, and I went all Stanislavsky on that shit, really giving myself permission to become FUBGHADA. While I can’t say how my performance played from the other side of the stage, I can tell you that articulating negative emotion to a dude so inexorably relaxed felt exactly as satisfying as yelling at a tectonic plate for failing to shift.

10 April 2009

pounding out the veal.


dalton and i were discussing strangers with candy, and why it's awesome. for me amy sedaris' delivery is inseparable from what makes the show psychotically brilliant ... and laura does her jerri blank voice perfectly, which is a great treat for me. maybe her favorite blank line to quote is:

Jerri Blank: All you need is some TLC and some vitamin P. What I'm trying to say, Paul, is I find you sexually attractive.

Paul Cotton: Jerri, everyone in school says ...

Jerri Blank: I like the pole and the hole, and right now, I'm as moist as a snack cake down there. So, why don't you come to my crib after school and I'll make your pinky aaall stinky.



also:

Jerri Blank: Shazam. Look. Drake Rogers. Mmm, he makes me all puffy down there. I'd love to tame his blue vein swayback throbber.

Tammi Littlenut: What do you mean, Jerri?

Jerri Blank: Take him backstage behind the meat curtain, know what I mean? I'm talkin' about pounding out the veal.

Tammi Littlenut: Are you thinking about having sex already?

Jerri Blank: Does a pimp carry a razor?

Tammi Littlenut: I don't know...

Jerri Blank: Trust me, they all do.

01 April 2009

guess which one i fucking wrote.

ready? a quiz! a matching quiz. and, since i'm a fan of measuring everything as either total success or abject failure, today's quiz is one question long.

it's a pattern-matching task: read 2 articles, both of which use the concept and career research i did, one of which i spent a while writing, followed by TWO WEEKs of edits with some dude--who, well, no ill will or anything, but if he were to get punched in the neck, hard, i'd feel a pleasant karmic chill run down mine--and he sent me drastic, whole-sections-deleted edits, and the next round cleverly got around commenting on my revisions by tearing up his ealier edits again, sans any of my new stuff. [because of said editing process, during which a lot of funny things got thrown out and i was obligated to replace them with tripe, the article of mine in this entry is long, a sort of greatest hits]

the other one was written by said dude's dudes after they decided to go in another direction. [for my thoughts on another direction, see vicious square]

Q: did huntsmanic write

a)

or b)
You're at a turning point in your life. You are:



A. A college graduate. Hanging out, waiting for that fabulous career you're relatively sure you'll know when you see it, maybe.



Oh no, Mrs. Robinson. I think, I think you're the most attractive of all my parents' friends. I mean that.








B. In college. Which you think you'll finish … eventually.





My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.






C.
Not at all sure you’re cut out for traditional college, but know you need to go, and graduate, in order to get an even semi-fabulous career.



I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold bought … or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.



In an ideal world, you have your eye on that fabulous career job before you get started. And, hey, maybe you do—if so, good for you! How nice that must be for you, to have everything worked out so well, right from the freaking start. Have fun with your perfect life. The rest of us will be here, scoping the scene.

Oy, the rest of us: we who take some time to figure out the career game. This article is for us.

Below is a list of the 11 highest-paying jobs available out of college, complete with the average salary for each, as well as the average salaries for specializations.

But every career has inherent risks. So, where relevant, we’ve added real-world examples detailing the risks and rewards with a given line of work.

11. High school teacher
What you can expect to make: $43,000
from $42,000 (Math teacher) to $52,000 (Spanish teacher)

If you’re considering teaching as your career, here’s the important thing to remember: becoming a teacher doesn’t mean you become your old teachers—it doesn’t have to mean you become someone who is




blinded by his own fanciness



Oh Captain, my Captain.










or a sadistic type with a super-creepy smile who hates everything that Judd Nelson stands for



Don’t mess with the bull, young man. You’ll get the horns.








or a dude who's so boring that you become a whole country's ultimate idea of boring, for a long time, possibly forever.


Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?




10. Nurse

What you can expect to make: $47,000
from $39,000 (perioperative nurse) to $64,000 (nurse trainer)

Death is one of life’s two certainties. Illness, so often preceding death the way it does, could be called a life near-certainty. Why so maudlin? Well, people are being born, dying, and otherwise every day.
Nursing is a rewarding career, with great opportunity for advancement. Just remember, it’s best not to put a sociopath in charge of the mentally ill.


If Mr. McMurphy doesn't want to take his medication orally, I'm sure we can arrange that he can have it some other way. But I don't think that he would like it.


9. Web designer
What you can expect to make: $58,000
from $40,000 (graphic web designer) to $88,000 (flash web designer)

Back in the day, the internets was full of crowded pages with information crammed in the borders and every other word pointlessly hyperlinked somewhere. This was not fishing without a net; this was someone handing you a big twist of tangled net and saying, here, do something. You don’t even like fishing.

Things have changed. The world of web design offers a lot of room to move—you can be a company man, or you can be a successful freelancer, or an entrepreneur.

If you choose this third option and set out to create a sweet money-making website with your stoner friends, you need to

A)
make sure your idea’s not being done somewhere else,
B) try not to get women you just met pregnant, and
C) be aware that your stoner friends are, in fact, stoners, and sooner or later you’ll have to give them up and go it alone.



It is, like, the best medicine. 'Cause it fixes everything. Jonah broke his elbow once. We just ... got high and ... it still clicks but, I mean, he's OK.


8. Pharmaceutical representative
What you can expect to make: $59,000
from $55,000 (pharmaceutical sales representative) to $73,000 (pharmaceutical specialty sales representative)

True or False: We're going to put some precocious, pointless Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas-type of reference here, a warning, telling you something like


WARNING! Do not go into the accessible and lucrative field of pharmaceutical representative if all you want to do is fill your car with drugs and drive around with your friend Benicio del Toro.

Well, guess what: FALSE.

Because we’re not here to dance around with “warnings.” You need to be told, straight up: DO NOT DO THAT OR YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WHICH MIGHT SUCK.






These snozzberries taste like snozzberries.






7. Financial analyst

What you can expect to make: $66,000
from $57,000 (financial operations analyst) to $97,000 (strategic financial analyst)

6. Internet marketer
What you can expect to make: $67,000
from $43,000 (internet marketing specialist) to $124,000 (internet marketing sales executive)


It's in the computer, everything! … It’s like I’m not even me anymore.


The Net is the #2 most-dated movie of the past 15 years, according to ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons, who bumped Sandra Bullock’s tension-free thriller from the top spot because American Pie has surpassed it:

A group of high school seniors desperately trying to lose their virginity before they graduate? Really? For that movie to make sense in 2008, they'd have to remake that plot with eighth graders and hire Miley Cyrus for the Shannon Elizabeth part.

Today, some internet marketers get to push quality stuff. Still, a lot of them are dandies who won't be exposed until after they get punched in the neck and the dr. avoids performing surgery by discovering their adam's apple didn't get crushed because they don't have one.

5. Network systems administrator

What you can expect to make: $69,000
from $62,000 (network systems engineer) to $99,000 (network systems administrator)

4. Engineer
What you can expect to make: $72,000
from $69,000 (engineering geologist) to $67,000 (electrical engineer) to $123,000 (VP of engineering)

Were would we be today, as a society, if we didn’t have engineers to design and build things?



Right, exactly: behind a horse, with only a harness and a poop bag to separate you and it. All of us would be. And we’d be terrible at living this way, we’d be fakers, hardly better than Woody Harrelson pretending to be a one-handed alcoholic bowler pretending to be Amish.



I'm unable to have children. Nasty cheese-grating accident as a boy.



3. Actuary
What you can expect to make: $79,000
from $65,000 (enrolled actuary) to $93,000 (life actuary)

Being a successful actuary comes down to successfully managing risk. At the moment, you might not be in a rush to become the brains behind an institution’s financial safeguards; on the other hand, there are … openings in the field, let’s say. If you’re a natural innovator with a mind that thinks in probabilities, the door’s wide open for you to step in.





11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.






2. Software developer

What you can expect to make: $84,000
from $52,000 (internet software engineer) to $93,000 (software engineer/developer)

In the various corners of the software world, there’s lucrative work to be had—the field continues to grow despite the recession. But be careful out there, okay? Just take care that you don’t

A) Keep working for a company that treats you so anonymously for so long that you have nowhere to channel your anger except toward an inanimate object like, just for example, a printer







No, not again. I … WHY does it say paper jam when there IS NO PAPER JAM!?








or B) Get so twisted up in your own self-esteem issues that you end up redirecting all your impotent rage towards an inanimate object like—you guessed it—a printer.





Mm, yeah, that’s it, that’s exactly what I need. Uh-huh. Yeah, give it to me!! Come on, you little fucker, let’s go! That’s what I need! Let’s do that—let’s do EXACTLY THAT.






1. Investment banker

What you can expect to make: $112,000
from $73,000 (associate) to $116,000 (investment banker)

Whether the markets are bullish or, as today, extraordinarily bearish, a career in the ever-moving world of investment banking requires an almost supernatural level of energy—a pitiless persistence. If you naturally possess these traits (or are motivated enough to develop them) you'll do very well for yourself.

If you do make the Wall Street jump, be warned that taking cutthroat advice from Michael Douglas might lead to you starring in a string of outstandingly unfunny sitcoms. You could end up with only the stories of your cocky drug-fueled behavior to distinguish you from that one guy on Two and a Half Men. Oh … oops.







Power Corrupts. Absolute power is pretty neat, though.










These are things to keep in mind.