Two Assholes

Today was a day of Assholes. No personal interactions mind you, but just observations about assholes.

Asshole Number 1: The Asshole who decided he was too “intelligent” and “well-educated” (yes, he actually said that) to be isolated for carrying drug resistant tuberculosis around the world on several airplanes in several countries. If the news article I read was correct, he actually refused to stay in Italy after knowing he had drug resistant TB by flying to Prague and then to Canada, and then drove back into the US. That’s an awfully Herculean effort just to be an asshole.

I’m not entirely clear whether his TB is dormant or not, which is a good thing because it would then be less infectious…but drug resistant TB is no fucking joke….ridiculous. Although…I will say his chances of dying are fairly high.

Judging by this picture and the fact that he’s a personal injury lawyer is enough to proclaim him ASSHOLE. (There is a bizarre anti-world conspiracy feeling to this whole uncle works for the CDC doing TB stuff thing though…)

Asshole(s) Number 2: I spent my morning in a divorce training pro bono session at a major midtown law firm in a room with 50 or 60 other summer associates from other law firms and I’ve decided that Blackberry’s annoy me. Or at least summer associates at law firms who compulsively check their Blackberry’s during a presentation training us to represent battered women in their divorces. I can’t exactly pin down what is so assholey about it…but it almost seems like these people seem to believe that the possession of a Blackberry makes them more important and indispensable to the Street. Nay, to the world!

Anyhow, I know I check text messages a lot. And I know that a Blackberry is going to be a major part of my life in the future…but if I ever get out of hand with it, and adopt an air of an asshole with it…you have my permission and my request to simply give me a weary deadpan and simply say “Asshole.” And every time I try to explain why I have to check it, please interrupt whatever I’m saying with a simple word: “asshole.” (I’ll probably still have to check it, but still say it.)

Oh, while surfing for a picture of super durfwad Asshole number 1, I found asshole number 3:

Samir Patel misspelled a word in fifth round of the national spelling bee. His mother appealed. “Based on subtle differences in how the word’s final syllable can be pronounced.”

…Jesus.

…And finally, I’d like to point out the existence of what appears to be, incredibly, a Reversal of Perpetual Assholism. I haven’t seen the details (caveat emptor), but apparently Bush has called for 30 billion for Global AIDS, as well as a Kyoto-like curbing of greenhouse emissions. (Environmentalists are still bitching, of course, but at least it means our President isn’t completely, absolutely, 100%, undeniably, supremely fucking crazy. Just almost completely so.)

‘Tis All. I was in the office until 8 pm working on a project I have no business doing…and that’s all I really have to report about work.

New York

Well I’ve been AWOL (not that there is anyone who would have noticed of course)…but the reality is that in the midst of all the ridiculous infrastructure, skyscrapers, wifi hotspots, and thousands of computers….I actually don’t have internet….which will explain why I haven’t really responded to emails, posted comments, posted on the blog, paid my credit card bills, or anything else of that nature.

That being said, I am 6 days into my life at BigLaw, BigLaw being Wall Street, corporate, grey suits, and the overt pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. The firm itself is beautiful. The artwork on the walls is (generally) tasteful, the woodwork and carpeting is lavish, the offices have huge peering into the majestic views of…the sides of other buildings…and the people are actually quite friendly, intelligent, and easy to be around. So far I’ve been paid a ridiculous salary to read the Wall Street Journal, check my email incessantly, and complain to my two officemates about how I don’t have any work to do. The summer gig seems to be a long summer of “self-discovery” about what type of corporate lawyer you want to be, and a long schmoozefest attempting to convince you that life at a law firm is as nice as it would seem in the ideal. That means 3 hour lunches twice a week, at the restaurants people without corporate accounts tend to not eat at, and summer events like Trapeze School (HELLLLL YEAH) and meeting the Mets and playing ball against the Mets organization on the field at Shea Stadium (I would be excited if I wasn’t such a woman.)

I think I’ve grown to like New York a lot more than I thought I would. The honest truth is that I’ve always been anti-big city more or less because I have been too insecure, scared, and frankly intimidated by big cities, especially places like New York which is the biggest of big cities – the rich Wall Street investment bankers, super trendy hipsters, punk rockers, hippies, movie stars, super models, sex and the city, and all of the other things that I’m too lame to be immersed in. But now that I’m here, all of those aspects of the city are really the lamer parts of the city. There’s a large contingent of middle class white kids feigning poverty and authenticity in clothes from goodwill and studded chokers, small tee-shirts and slim fit jeans…a lot of Greek Duke University-types bringing Carrie Bradshaw’s New York to life merely by trying so hard to live it that they actually create it…and plenty and plenty of people who simply aren’t attractive at all. In short, it’s just a really busy city with lots and lots and lots of people doing lots and lots and lots of things. So I like it.

This is definitely not to say that I am or ever will be a New Yorker by any standards. I don’t fit in here, I’m sort of ambivalent to a lot of the bullshit that New York and New Yorkers seem to carry around, and I don’t think I really will be for a very long time…but for the time being, I can see myself here and think things will be OK.

Anyhow, I think it’s about time to go to bed…and I feel like after this first post I’ll be posting more. Let me know where you are, how you are, what you’re up to and if you’re gonna come to the city!

I wrote this two days ago...but forgot to post it.

Well that was just plain fun…

After a night of scrubbing, sweeping, drinking Belhavens and watching “The Prestige” and “10 Items or Less” (Both movies which I highly recommend), I went to bed and woke up at 8 to finish up the move-out.

So I packed up all my crap, did some final laundry, ran some errands, and arrived back in my apartment to find that the young gay couple who were taking my apartment had let themselves in, believing that I had already left. And after getting them all set up, I said goodbye to my apartment for the summer and hopped in my car at 2 pm.

…And so I was off, for a surprise visit back to South Carolina. I admit there’s really no reason to drive 1000 miles with gas prices over 3 dollars a gallon, simply to fly back to New York 24 hours after my arrival…but I felt like it would be fun. A way to unwind, relax, and to see my parents, since I don’t really speak to them all that much.

So off I went, with 10 new CDs and a long robusto Cohiba cigar. 5 of them were Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope”, read by the Senator himself, and 5 of them were “Heat” by Bill Buford…a fantastic book about a cook’s life in the kitchen of a major Italian restaurant in Manhattan which dives into the life history and character of Mario Batali, explores the experience of working as a cook in his restaurant, and eventually takes the author on multiple trips to Italy to learn the old ways of butchering, handmade pasta-making, and the history of Italian cuisine. A splendid book really.

And here I am at 3am somewhere north of Durham, having covered 700 miles, 2 gatorades, 1 Aquifina, 1 Quiznos sub, 3 cigarettes, 1 cigar, finished “Heat”, listened to 4 of 5 cds of Obama’s book, told 6 lies to my mother about where I am and what my plans were, and one cup of coffee.

Good day.

(I also change my mind about Bird and the Bee. I actually DO like the cd. Or most of it.)

Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron is an absolute basketcase...

If you don't recall, Kirk Cameron played Mike Sever on 'Growing Pains' in the 80's. These days, he is marauding as a fundamentalist Christian nutjob who tries to evangelize us heathen folk by starring in such movies as "Left Behind" "Left Behind II" and "Left Behind III." (The latter two aren't the real names)
If somehow you have escaped awareness of what the "Left Behind" series is, it's essentially a fundamentalist interpretation of the Rapture and the return of the Anti-Christ...which revels in the massacre of non-believers and places the head of the UN as the Anti-Christ. (By the way, given that these are some of the best-selling books of our time...it's terrifying to realize that increasing numbers of Americans have embraced the series as an accurate assessment of how things will generally turn out.) I'd also like to note that this is just the next logical step in the line of brilliant scholarship that produced works such as this (as some of you may remember):

Two things to note: First, the exclamation point. "Gorbachev!"
Second, the author is from Greenville, South Carolina.

In addition, I would like to point out that there is now a Left Behind videogame.More importantly, I'd like to point out that the premise of the game has been the focus of some controversy. Why?
Because one of the major premises of the game appears to be this: Non-christians must either be converted or killed.

Jesus would be proud.

Anyhow...the real purpose of the post was simply to mock Kirk Cameron...which got out of hand as I started down the "Left Behind" pathway...Here's reason 1:


This is a line of argumentation that is perfectly acceptable to large portions of the (voting) population. That is TERRIFYING. And funny.

The second reason is that Kirk Cameron recently went on Nightline to debate the existence of God. Slate wrote up a nice little article about it here....and here's a great little excerpt:

If Nightline wanted to host an enlightening discussion about religion, it would have invited some intelligent believers to mount a defense of faith and to talk about why faith and proof of it are mutually exclusive. Instead, the show served up Cameron goofing on Charles Darwin, apparently the preferred target of dimwitted theists. At one point, Cameron, mocking the theory of evolution, held up a photo-illustration of a duck with the head of crocodile. Seeing this, [the opposing party], stunned, could not help but mutter, "Oh. My. God."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHYEA!!!

Finished with Exams!

Edit: I promptly came home, tore the sleeves of a t-shirt, put on my headphones, and rode around the city on my bike for the next 3 hours running errands (ie. Buying the new Bjork cd, Riding out to MIT to look at the Gehry building.)

Rodrigo y Gabriela.

I can't tell whether or not I'm momentarily drawn in by the novelty and energy, but I gotta say I am definitely impressed and loving Rodrigo y Gabriela and right now. They're ex-thrash metal guitarists from Mexico now producing enormously full sounds with two acoustic guitars...although you wouldn't guess it from looking at them, especially Gabriela. The broken english and timid Spanish doesn't hurt either...

In any case, they're pretty fucking wild...Here's some live clips if you're interested...although the stuff on their myspace page is much higher quality and better to listen to...





And here is some random video where they sit down and explain how they play their parts....CRAZY.


Finally...they have spawned a generation of You-Tubers attempting to play their songs...This one is actually pretty impressive. Ok. I a little deficient...


But better than these two white guys...



......If you made it this far and actually watched even ONE of those clips...You must be pretty interesting. Or at least find this interesting. In which case you should get in touch with me and we should try to see if we can see 'em live. Unless you're a minority.

God People are Funny.

I mean, c'mon! That's just funny.

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY A Salt Lake County woman has been arrested, accused of attacking her husband with a hammer on Friday night.

Joel Ricks told authorities that his wife Amy told him she had a surprise for him. He said she blindfolded him and led him into the basement of a Holladay condominium.

The woman then allegedly struck her husband with a hammer multiple times.

The man was able to escape and called 911. Deputies arrested his wife for aggravated assault.

Although another news story off of Fark was about a man who stabbed his 70 year old father to death, and then immediately after managed to kill himself by decapitating himself with a chainsaw. I'm not exactly sure how he managed to do it, but it seems like he managed to completely cut his own head off. (Shudder)

Nature is Crazy.

I'm sure glad I don't live in Ohio anymore....I was terrified of these things as a kid, and I think for damn good reason...

Look at how these things descend from the sky...if I saw that tendril coming down, my eyes would slowly get wider and wider with alarm until I no longer looked chinese.



Or what the hell were THESE guys doing? I bet that car smells like empty bowels and full pants. (I actually haven't heard these videos because I'm in the library, but the YouTube comments indicate that they're morons or something.)

Black People.

(How many white people just did sort of a startled mini political correctness test to see if that title is offensive? Since surely your gut had some sort of reaction...)

Anyhow, this post doesn't really have to do with that. I was just trolling around on the internet and stumbled across this interesting article about black people, college, affirmative action, and all that good stuff. It's confirmatory rather than eye-opening, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Here's some excerpts for the lazies who don't feel like reading the article:

Among students at 28 top U.S. universities, the representation of black students of first- and second-generation immigrant origin (27 percent) was about twice their representation in the national population of blacks their age (13 percent). Within the Ivy League, immigrant-origin students made up 41 percent of black freshmen...

[Black chick in the article] would like to know why. She asks if her cause has lost its way on U.S. campuses, with the goal of correcting American racial injustices replaced by a softer ideal of diversity — as if any black student will do.

“To white observers, black immigrants seem more polite, less hostile, more solicitous, and ’easier to get along with” the study said. “Native blacks are perceived in precisely the opposite fashion.”

That idea immediately found detractors.

“I can’t speak for white people, but that’s crazy,” said Adoma Adjei-Brenyah, a Columbia University student with college-educated parents from Ghana.

I would offer a snide and breezily caustic remark that paints everyone involved in this debate as stupid or ridiculous...but I think it's actually a really interesting issue to think about...and i'm not sure how I feel about it.

I do appreciate how they framed their spokesperson for the African perspective though. Very balanced with no insinuations.

Thoughts? (This sort of bald solicitation for other people's thoughts generally amounts to nothing. I know. Shut up.)