Billboard's Top Ten - Volume 2

It's that time again! (For an explanation of the premise of Billboard's Top Ten, go here)

Some might view this as an easy out due to my current lack of creativity. If you do think this, I have underestimated how intelligent my audience is.

Onward!

Smack That - Akon feat. Eminem (Billboard Ranking - 2)

This edition of Billboard’s Top Ten takes us all the way to Dakar, Senegal where this musician lived until the age of seven. When he returned to the USA, he divided most of his time between Jersey City and the state penitentiary. Upon his release, he decided to ease his transition into the free world with a brief stint in homosexuality (as is evident from his first hit single “Lonely”). He is back on the straight and narrow now, and thank God because I don’t know who would be around to “smack that” if he wasn’t.

I feel you creepin', I can see you from my shadow.
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo.
Maybe go to my place and just kick it, like Taebo.
And possibly bend you over.
Look back and watch me
smack that, all on the floor,
smack that, give me some more,
smack that, 'till you get sore
smack that, oooh.
smack that, all on the floor,
smack that, give me some more,
smack that, 'till you get sore,
smack that, oooh.

These lyrics actually made me sad. Seriously sad. The Taebo reference is bad enough...

But it should make men happy. Because a fourteen year-old girl’s parents sure aren’t gonna teach her how to take a good booty smackin’ like the dumb bitch she is. So now she’ll learn about it on the radio instead.

Discuss.

-L

Yo, yo

It's been a busy, busy, busy few days. Actually, not really. I just opt to use whatever spare time I have to lay out in front of the TV with Dog rather than sit at the computer and trick people into thinking I'm clever. Speaking of which, Heroes is a pretty good show.

As suspected, this job is slurping a lot of the creative energy out of me, but in a good way. Some of the stuff I have to do is pretty tedious, but it's rewarding to see your name on the byline of an article in a glossy magazine. I'll try to pound out a post by the end of the day, but I've got some pretty stringent deadlines looming, so no promises.

Until next time, work at a magazine. You get swag.

And goooo Knicks.

-L

P.S. Congrats to Pats.

The Stages of Grief

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance...

They're flawed.

Bargaining did not come third. Bargaining came in when Beltran was at bat during the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded, two outs, and the Mets down 3-1. Please God, I'll go to church every Sunday if he just hits this home run...

When the umpire called strike three, denial definitely set in. I was thoroughly convinced for the next five minutes that he was going to change his mind. Oops! Nevermind, that wasn't a strike!

When I started screaming at the top of my lungs during the long walk from Shea to Main Street, that was anger.

Then when my eyes welled up while we were buying comfort food at Dunkin Donuts, that was me being depressed.

And when I hugged Jeff good-bye and we both said, "next year," I guess we had to accept.

-L

Jesus

So, I had a tiny taste of what it would be like to be rich...or at least have something that a lot of people want.

Let me tell you, that shit sucks.

-L

Da Bus

I don't live near a subway line, so whenever I need to get into the city without splurging on the Long Island Railroad, I need to take the bus...the fuckin' bus. Taking the bus is a rather unpleasant experience in itself (crowded, hot, slow, unsteady—not fun at all), but it’s the people you encounter on it that really add that extra dash of “OHMYFUCKINGOD” seasoning to an otherwise bland ride.

Last night, after leaving work a little late and running for the bus so I could get home in time for the Mets game, I shoved myself into the steamy, throbbing mass of tired commuters. For whatever reason, people do not like to move to the back. For whatever reason, people like to stand as close to the front as possible, thus clogging the entryway, thus opting to leave a huge open space in the back and smushing themselves together in the front, thus making it difficult for reasonable people (such as myself) to get past them and into the comfort of the back of the bus.

After watching the woman in front of me struggle to push through to allow the passengers entering behind us room, I finally called out, “there’s plenty of room in the back, I don’t know why no one’s moving.” To which, one of the cuntrags blocking the aisle snapped, “there’s no room.” And right on cue, people started to move back, opening up a significant amount of space. She avoided eye contact with me for the rest of the ride.

I need to travel a long distance to get to my stop, so by the time I get off, the bus is pretty empty. My stop is situated on a logistically nonsensical corner—a corner that is directly after a light. 80% of the time, the bus gets stuck at this light, and then has to stop again right after it to let me off. Usually, when the bus is caught at the red light, I walk to the front of the bus and tell the bus driver he can just let me off there. This makes the driver’s job easier because he doesn’t have to stop twice, and makes my walk home a little bit shorter. Usually they appreciate this gesture.

Last night, something odd happened. The bus pulled up just as the light turned red and got stuck. I looked around and made sure no one else was getting off at my stop, then walked up and said, “I can just get off here.” Instead of the usual, “oh, okay, thanks,” this driver gave me a look like I had just asked him to chauffer me to my doorstep and said, “no,” then pointed to the corner across the street where the stop is. I managed to stammer, “oh, uh, yeah, okay.” Then I had to stand there next to him awkwardly for the next 30 seconds or so waiting for the light to turn green, the entire time looking at the door, then him, then the door.

Fucking ridiculous.

-L

Man

This made my FREAKIN' day.

-L

Methinks

I just used "methinks" in a sentence, and then took a moment to spell check it to make sure it's really a word. I don't know if this is a word I would like to use again.

-L

What is the meaning of this!?

Today might be a "series of short random thoughts/observation posts" day. Because I'm in that kind of mood.

I never heard the phrase, "the pot calling the kettle black" until somewhat recently. Since then, I've been hearing it everywhere. What the fuck does it mean? I have a lot of pots and kettles in my house, and none of them are black. Nor do they call each other black. And what's wrong with being black, you racist bastards?

-L

The Illusionist

I used to live with a girl from my high school in college. We had decided to live together on a whim when we discovered that we were going to the same school. We hung out with the same crowd, but we weren’t incredibly close, so we had some safe “roommate” distance, and, despite some spats here and there, it worked out very well. Our friendship came out of our freshman year relatively intact. Although we inevitably started to drift apart in the years that followed, we managed to maintain some contact in the form of late-night coffee runs, random emails/phone calls, and coincidental run-ins at bars and clubs.

She had always been relatively quiet in high school. Sociable, but never a butterfly. She got along with everyone, so without making an effort, people naturally seemed to gravitate towards her. Somewhere along the way (towards the end of freshman year going into sophomore year), she changed. She joined a sorority, began drinking heavily, and became seemingly engulfed in enriching her social life in every destructive way possible. People who knew her were completely shocked.

After indulging this lifestyle for the remainder of her college career and the first few months following her graduation, she decided to reinvent herself again. Except, she didn’t so much reinvent herself, as she chose to completely disappear.

I'm not sure when, exactly, she vanished, but it’s been over a year and a half now since I’ve seen or heard of/from her. A blog that she used to update regularly hasn’t been touched, her cell phone number is cancelled, the many Facebook, MySpace, Friendster networking sites she subscribed to have been abandoned, emails aren’t returned. Every so often, I ask someone who used to hang out with her where she is, and it seems to take a moment for them to register her name before they realize who I am talking about. Needless to say, no one knows what has become of her.

I wonder about her—where she is, what she’s doing. I assume that she’s okay—partly because I know I would have heard something if she wasn’t, partly because I know she is the type of person who is capable of abandoning everything on a whim (it was something she often did on a smaller scale in high school).

Mostly, I envy her. I envy that she found the ability to reevaluate her life, see that she wasn’t happy with it, and rather than making minor adjustments, she flipped everything on its ass and walked away. At the end of the day, no matter how much you try to change your condition—get a new job, make new friends—nothing really changes. Skeletons emerge from the closet, certain ties refuse to break. The only way to truly start over, take all the lessons you’ve learned thus far and all the mistakes you’ve made and put them into practice, is to erase the slate completely and start from scratch. You have to walk away from all the drama and the complications, the rocky relationships and the old ghosts, and never look back.

I only hope one day I can do the same disappearing act.

-L

Thursdayisms

Now that I’ve found a job (writing/editing/screwing around) at a small men’s lifestyle magazine, I’ll have more time to bullshit on this site. The only problems are: a) I like what I do, so I won’t have anything to complain about, b) my job requires me to be creative, so I might be tapped out. Nonetheless, here are some (profanity-laced, because I’m in a swearing mood) Thursdayisms for all you bored motherfuckers.

1) The N and W trains are retarded. There is ONE pole in the middle of the train to hold onto. If the train gets packed and you are unable to position yourself near said pole (as was the case this morning), you are forced to flop around/onto/over the people surrounding you. And if you’re a real asshole like me, instead of focusing on keeping your balance, you continue to read your newspaper.

2) It’s kind of interesting that Mel Gibson can spend his entire life building a respectable career, then get drunk one night, act like a dick, and destroy his credibility forever, whereas Paris Hilton has built her entire career on getting drunk and acting like a dick.

3) Sometimes, I get so freaked out about dying in my sleep that I can’t sleep all night. Then the next morning I’m so tired, I wish I were dead.

4) As a follow-up to my James Cunt post, I was considering writing about John Gayer. I had to stop myself because I got so angry and worked up that I started stressing myself out. Suffice it to say, I abhor John Gayer, and hope that someday he will get an STD that makes his penis fall off (and despite already disliking Jessica Gimpson, I fucking hate her now that she’s become his sperm depository).

5) Game 1 of the Mets, Cardinals NLCS starts tonight. Which means tomorrow I will be very happy or very sad.

6) I’m subscribed to numerous bands on Ticketmaster, Live Nation, NYC Concerts, etc., so I get alerts when tickets go on sale. Sometimes, I don’t get an alert for a band I’m subscribed to. I’m pretty sure they do this as a favor to me so I don’t continue to spend money I don’t have.

7) I bought tickets to the Killers, but after hearing their new album, I kind of regret it (plus I hear they’re God-awful live). If I’m nice, I’ll sell them to a friend for face value. I am not nice, so I will sell them on eBay for a jacked-up price and use the money to buy Mets tickets.

8) A mosquito found its way into my house last night and bit the SHIT out of me, which is great because I managed to survive the summer relatively bite-free.

9) A lot of depressing stuff has been happening in the news lately. North Korea has nukes and every day they get closer to using them, Cory Lidle crashed his airplane into a NYC highrise and died, Bush doesn’t believe the estimated death toll in Iraq, Madonna’s adopting children…the Apocalypse is near.

-L

P.S. I would have put up links, but Blogger doesn't like Macs, so it won't let me do shit.

Reunion Notes

As an alumna of one of the few (if not only) high schools in the world that actually has a five-year reunion, I decided that I have gotten hot enough in the last five years to attend. So that’s exactly what I did last weekend.

Some notes:

1) Somewhere along the way, Gobshite went from secretly talking shit about me to blatantly not liking me. Maybe she found the site?

2) Funniest “Wow it’s good to see you again” conversation I had:

“Hey, Mike!”

“Hey, L!”

“You know what one of my most vivid memories of high school is?”

“What?”

“You showing me your pubes in gym class.”

“Oh my God…”

“You were like, ‘Red on top, fire down below!’ and you showed me your pubes.”

“Oh my God…that’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve heard all night…”

“Oh, don’t worry, you didn’t show me your cock.”

3) I am very anti-social. When I first got there, I spent the first hour completely ignoring people, getting angry, rolling my eyes, and watching the Mets game (thankfully the bar had a TV). After a few drinks, I loosened up and pretended to be a nice person.

4) Hanging out with Party Girl Extraordinaire has its odd perks. After lubricating our brains with free reunion beer, she took me to the kind of interesting places where you need a password and map to get in. There, I met some interesting people, chugged wine, and felt a little sick.

-L

Potty Mouth

-B

Sometimes your breath smells like shit. I mean literally.

It takes the perfect mix of food. Eat something that has onions and lamb meat, and make sure you lace it with a hearty dose of Adobo. Wash it down with iced tea, but now you’re so full you need to fall into your ritual food coma. You start getting sleepy so you’re too tired to work your tongue around your mouth in order to gather up the remaining bits of lamb and onions. You fall asleep and you let those little pieces marinate in your mouth. You wake up from your nap 4 hours later, you rub your eyes, then let out a big yawn. You take a sniff because you can swear someone just farted. You look around and realize you’re the only one around.

Then you smack your lips a couple of times with a disgusted look on your face and you ask yourself, “What the hell? Did I just eat a big bowl of ass?”

Maybe it’s time for me to brush my teeth.

Speaking of which, this is probably what a bowl of ass would look like (the two things on the side are chopsticks):












I know, I know, I'm very artistic.

Unexplained Phenomena – Volume 2

The Angry Yankee

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of shit from my Yankee fan friends.

“God, why are Mets fans such assholes?”

“Jeez, why are Mets fans so bitter?”

“Yankee fans don’t hate the Mets, why are Mets fans such dicks?”

“I’m a Yankee fan, and I root for the Mets too, what are Mets fans’ problems?”

Honestly, what is there not to understand? If my team won 26 World Series Championships, clinched their division 11 years in a row, and had a lineup dubbed “Murderer’s Row,” I wouldn’t have a problem with anyone either.

See, what Yankee fans don’t realize is that most sports teams are roller coasters—high points of greatness are interspersed with a lot of low, trying times. The Yankees have had such a long history of success that they’ve turned winning into a tradition. It's something they take for granted. For most teams, winning is a luxury. It’s something fans paint their faces, wring baseball caps in their hands, spend thousands of dollars on tickets, and bargain with God—I’ll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life if the Cubs would just win one World Series!—eagerly hoping for. Often in vain. For Yankee fans, winning is expected. They don’t feel the sting of yet another late-season drop. They don’t know what it’s like to endure a 100-year drought. When they say, “We’ll get ‘em next year,” they actually mean it.

It’s easy for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump to look out from their multimillion dollar mansions, sigh, and say, “I wish everyone could be as successful as I am!” On the other hand, a homeless man on the street finds it a bit more difficult to see Bill Gates on the news and say, “Golly! I hope he makes more money!” Britney Spears can cry to Matt Laur, “Why won’t people just leave me alone?” then turn around and say, “I wouldn’t trade my life for anything!” Tabloids have made an entire business out of this common occurrence.

Everyone hates the one on top.

So, so what? A group of Mets fans took part in a rousing round of “Yankees suck!” chants in the parking lot after last night’s win. So what? Mets fans always chant “Yankees suck!” at every game. So what? Mets hope the Yankees will lose.

So what?

If I were a Yankee fan, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

So if you’re all really the good sports that you claim to be, be a good sport and afford everyone the liberty of hating on you.

-L

L, The Most Annoying Lush Ever

-B

Being the uncontrollable drunk is inevitable. It happens. But usually, when you become an uncontrollable drunk, there are a few factors that can be attributed to this: you’re emotional (usually angry or depressed), you’re inexperienced (“Dude, so this is what it’s like to be drunk? Wow... let’s go kick babies"), or you’re a female (L).

Lotus is a posh nightclub in the meatpacking district and I was there celebrating someone’s birthday. L came along and we were taking full advantage of the bottle service at the table. I was having a pretty good time except for a few minor inconveniences suffered via close talkers, ugly chicks, and over crowdedness. A friend texted me to inform me that he was at Wish 26, so I found my sister and we began leaving. Unfortunately, I had no idea that my sister was determined to play the role of uncontrollable annoying lush on this lovely evening.

As we were making our way out of the crowded club, my sister began shoving me into people for no reason whatsoever. I’d turn around in confusion and there was my sister, swaggering and eyes half closed, and she’d shove my face every time I turned around, or snuff it, or poke her finger into my cheek and try to make me look away. Then once I’d start walking again, she’d shove me again into people who would justifiably give me dirty looks. I’d turn around again and yell something like, “Are you trying to get me into a fight?” To which she’d respond by shoving, snuffing or poking my face, once again, to get me to turn away. I wanted to hit her so badly. First of all, putting your hands on another person’s face is a sign of complete and utter lack of respect for that person (unless they’re your significant other). Secondly, she was drunk. Obviously drunk. But she was also making no effort at self restraint at all. If anything, she was trying with excruciating success to be as obnoxious as possible. Thirdly, I invited her to an event with coworkers, and not neighborhood friends. If she had decided on being an idiot in front of close friends who knew her well, it wouldn't have been as bad. But instead, she decided to be embarrassingly drunk around strangers.

I felt another hard shove into my back and ended up falling on a couple of people. I apologized to them, and turned around to look at my sister. As she poked my face away one more time, it dawned on me that she was at that scary point where rationality eludes you. I sobered up very quickly and realized that my night was ruined because regardless of whether she realized it or not, I was now walking/talking/breathing/thinking for two.

Outside, I began trying to contact people inside the club to let them know I was leaving. Meanwhile, L was talking to a bouncer as if he were her best friend. We finally left and began hailing a cab on the corner. Some asshole decided to claim the corner and gave me the “nuh-uh sister” finger snap and informed me that he was there first. I made some sort of sarcastic comment and began walking away to avoid further confrontation. At this point, L the lush began trying to solicit him into sharing a cab with us uptown. She began talking about how we were going uptown too, and kept trying to convince this guy that it was a good idea to share a cab with us. Given, she didn’t realize he was being an asshole to me, she should’ve at least realized that he was talking on the phone, trying to hail a cab, and trying to walk away from her so as to get her to leave him alone, all at the same time. I walked up to her and said, “This asshole thinks he owns this corner so fuck it, let’s just go”. I began walking away but halfway down the block, I turned to see that my sister was still at the corner, soliciting away.

I yelled, I screamed, but nothing. The only thing I could do was grab her by her arm, and make her start walking. She’d slur in incoherent protest as I began replaying the image of the uncontrollably drunk wife of Fredo in Godfather part II. I was very tempted to go home and let her fend for herself, but didn’t because of the regretful reality that I care for her. So therefore, I dealt with her annoyingness. The lush. The drunkard. And no, she wasn’t feeling emotional. No, she’s not an inexperienced drunk. She did this for one reason only: she’s a woman. Yeah, I’m misogynistic, deal with it.

After that, I couldn’t recover. I was on tilt. The night started with a great hand, but I somehow lost all my chips. No matter how much more I drank, I still felt a funky sobriety hanging over me like a dark cloud. I'd keep looking around for my sister, worried that she was doing something retarded. At Wish 26, she knocked over some chick's Jack and Coke, and so I had to buy her another one. God knows what other spurts of idiocy she engaged in when I wasn't looking.

Note to self: Don’t take my sister drinking unless she’s bringing someone who will hold accountability for her.

Note to L: Do NOT touch other people in the face, especially if you have an ounce of respect for them. And a word you absolutely must learn, “moderation”.

Ugh… worst night ever. Thanks L.