Faced with a limited selection of elliptical machine reading material, I resigned myself to a weekly periodical I'd shun in any other circumstance. I'd been in this situation before and mistakenly selected a magazine called OK. I thought OK was the poor man's People but soon learned OK is little more than a pastiche of 300 pictures of dresses. That's a hard lesson to learn two minutes into a 30 minute run with no other reading material in sight. As soon as I realized my mistake I started brusquely flipping through the pages trying to get past the dresses section, hoping the guy next to me noticed my air of revulsion. Actually, I'm not even sure it was OK magazine that I picked up. I just know that its major themes were weight gain rumors and parties I hadn't been invited to.
I knew that I was about to spend the next 30 minutes covertly pining after women stoically bouncing nearby. I needed a distraction so they'd stay just shy of being creeped out enough to leave their machine and sign up for a membership at Curves. So I settled on The Week. The Week. Seriously? People are writing articles for this and sending it out to the world? It sounds like a cruel country club bet where the winner came up with an idea more boring than The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The kind of magazine with plenty of droll cartoons populated with obese men dressed in overcoats and monocles.
But to my surprise it did have an interesting news item. Apparently a woman from Brazil ran out of money on vacation in Bolivia. Left with no means to return home, she came up with this idea: Strip naked in front of a statue of Christ and hope for deportation.
That ought to do it. But nope, she got arrested and released within hours. She quickly realized the error of her methodology and did it again. As in later that same morning. A crowd gathered. (In my mind she's pretty hot with no discernible blemishes or tattoos.) This time Bolivia contacted Brazil.
Bolivia: Hey, is this Brazil?
Brazil: This is Brazil, how can I help you?
Bolivia: Listen, one of your peeps came down and she's naked in front of our Jesus statue.
Brazil: No shit. Is she hot?
Bolivia: I don't discern any blemishes or tattoos. Yeah she's decent.
Brazil: Nice.
Bolivia: We can't have guys getting worked up in front of Jesus Christ. You have to do something.
Brazil: Tell you what. Get her to the border and we'll send for a train.
Bolivia: Done. (Pause) I still think about you sometimes.
Brazil: Randy, don't start.
Anyway, that's basically what happened. She got a free ride home to Brazil by stripping naked twice. I can't think of anyone who didn't come out ahead in this situation. Do you think she knew this would work? Was it incredibly odd but effective intuition? Did she weigh the possibility her tactic would result in a prolonged jail sentence rather than a free train ticket? Is she imbalanced? Was she simply desperate? Or just someone who doesn't give a shit? I'd like to talk to her about it with a translator that knows when it's time to make himself scarce.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
How to spend your time in college
Penelope Trunk is a badass. I could read her blog all day and night stopping only to read her Twitter updates. This is a great guest column:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/12/04/twentysomething-why-i-regret-getting-straight-as-in-college/
I especially enjoyed it because it gave me the opportunity to be smug about a decision I made in college. Freshman and sophomore year I busted my ass academically. I had fun, but was very vigilant about maintaining high grades. Junior year, I stopped and looked around. Like Ferris says you're supposed to. I realized I had almost unwittingly developed a stellar group of friends and I only had two years left to spend heaps of time with them.
Only two more years to alter the scoreboard at a Mercer Bears baseball game to briefly contend we were somehow beating FSU. Two more years to sit in the cafeteria from the time it opened for lunch at 11:15 to the time it closed at 2:15. To somehow end up bumping bare bellies on the ground with Coby Nixon outside the bar Darrell's near closing time. Besides the possibility we are gay I can't for the life of me figure out why we did that.
I realized that I cared far more about helping a frat brother pull a Greek letter off a rival frat house at three in the morning than reading 14 chapters of Industrial Psychology. I'd hear stories of Friday and Saturday nights spent studying, cramming, achieving. Fuck that.
My decision to embrace the theory that "learnin' is more than just books" probably shaved half a point off my college GPA. And I don't give a green goddamn! I suppose I didn't get into UGA law school because of it but you know what? I didn't really want to go to law school anyway.
I'm not advocating dropping out of college or declining into alcoholism during the first two years of your twenties. But if you have to choose between a 3.8 and limited social memories versus a 3.3 with a swarm of parties, booze, and laughing uncontrollably at ridiculous antics and comments...well my friends, for the love of Christ choose the latter.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/12/04/twentysomething-why-i-regret-getting-straight-as-in-college/
I especially enjoyed it because it gave me the opportunity to be smug about a decision I made in college. Freshman and sophomore year I busted my ass academically. I had fun, but was very vigilant about maintaining high grades. Junior year, I stopped and looked around. Like Ferris says you're supposed to. I realized I had almost unwittingly developed a stellar group of friends and I only had two years left to spend heaps of time with them.
Only two more years to alter the scoreboard at a Mercer Bears baseball game to briefly contend we were somehow beating FSU. Two more years to sit in the cafeteria from the time it opened for lunch at 11:15 to the time it closed at 2:15. To somehow end up bumping bare bellies on the ground with Coby Nixon outside the bar Darrell's near closing time. Besides the possibility we are gay I can't for the life of me figure out why we did that.
I realized that I cared far more about helping a frat brother pull a Greek letter off a rival frat house at three in the morning than reading 14 chapters of Industrial Psychology. I'd hear stories of Friday and Saturday nights spent studying, cramming, achieving. Fuck that.
My decision to embrace the theory that "learnin' is more than just books" probably shaved half a point off my college GPA. And I don't give a green goddamn! I suppose I didn't get into UGA law school because of it but you know what? I didn't really want to go to law school anyway.
I'm not advocating dropping out of college or declining into alcoholism during the first two years of your twenties. But if you have to choose between a 3.8 and limited social memories versus a 3.3 with a swarm of parties, booze, and laughing uncontrollably at ridiculous antics and comments...well my friends, for the love of Christ choose the latter.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Question
After you use a towel for a few days, does it start to smell like French toast? Is that just me?
Brazen Careerist
Penelope Trunk has a great career blog.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/
I like this quote from one of her posts:
There is not finite success in the world. There is just a finite amount of people who can stomach the pain of wanting success so much.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/
I like this quote from one of her posts:
There is not finite success in the world. There is just a finite amount of people who can stomach the pain of wanting success so much.
Snippet from an interview with The State
AVC: Tom and Kerri, you guys have made your first forays into stand-up comedy. What made you do it?
TL: I think it was just a pure unadulterated fear of doing it. Once you do it and it goes well, it's extremely addictive. It's kind of like the crack of the entertainment industry. If it's going well, it's a really fast, powerful rush that's hard to stop doing.
KKS: Honestly, it's like trying heroin. It's one of those things that you think, "I think my life would be really different if I did that." So I'm turning 39 in a couple of weeks, and I sort of have that feeling of, "What the fuck, let's just do this."
Problematic sports announcer
Someone asked me why I don't like ESPN blowhard Mike Tirico. Yeah, well here's why:
Mike Tirico is the worst announcer of all time. He has singlehandedly ruined the Monday Night Football franchise. He has no sense of when to let the moment speak for itself. He crams every split second with his plasticky, mundane, pre packaged commentary. Just shut up for 6 seconds now and then. We're interested in watching the game, not listening to you state the blindingly obvious for three hours. The broadcast is more about him than about the game or the players. He never says anything interesting or controversial. He has mastered saying what you're supposed to say at exactly the right time like some sort of sub human drone. He's a mindless collection of facts and statistics pushed in front of him by researchers. In short, he sucks and I'll continue railing against him until I reach a settlement with ESPN.
Mike Tirico is the worst announcer of all time. He has singlehandedly ruined the Monday Night Football franchise. He has no sense of when to let the moment speak for itself. He crams every split second with his plasticky, mundane, pre packaged commentary. Just shut up for 6 seconds now and then. We're interested in watching the game, not listening to you state the blindingly obvious for three hours. The broadcast is more about him than about the game or the players. He never says anything interesting or controversial. He has mastered saying what you're supposed to say at exactly the right time like some sort of sub human drone. He's a mindless collection of facts and statistics pushed in front of him by researchers. In short, he sucks and I'll continue railing against him until I reach a settlement with ESPN.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
What's around us
En route to Newark I read an article about a retiring minister. One of the stories he told at his farewell speech was about being in a boat at sunset. He looked off into the horizon and saw a golden hue across the water. So he steered the boat out to sea in the hopes he could immerse himself in the gold. After a few minutes he realized that he had been in the gold all along.
I'm not sure what lesson he extracted from this experience because the article didn't say. But the idea resonated with me. I spend a lot of time thinking about what is out there, what can be achieved or grasped if I string together a series of successes. Press down on the throttle a little harder, will the gold to come a bit closer. But if you spend all of your time apart from contentment and relying on external factors to bring you happiness it's going to be a frustrating life. I try to calm my mind periodically and, taking a cue from my sketch writing teacher, embrace the process. Embrace obscurity, toil, failure, and what exists today.
I've developed a cynical mind and anytime an idea pops up that could possibly be branded as New Age I summon my inner bully and kick it in the stomach. This idea of a golden hue just out of grasp certainly could fall within that category. But any true intellectual journey is going to have to ignore popular conceptions and labels in pursuit of an individual knowledge and truth. So why not pull from New Age wisdom, religious traditions, secular thought leaders-- hell I'm sure even John Daly has a thing or two to say.
It's a nice image, seeing the wise old man in the boat figuring out a way to live.
I'm not sure what lesson he extracted from this experience because the article didn't say. But the idea resonated with me. I spend a lot of time thinking about what is out there, what can be achieved or grasped if I string together a series of successes. Press down on the throttle a little harder, will the gold to come a bit closer. But if you spend all of your time apart from contentment and relying on external factors to bring you happiness it's going to be a frustrating life. I try to calm my mind periodically and, taking a cue from my sketch writing teacher, embrace the process. Embrace obscurity, toil, failure, and what exists today.
I've developed a cynical mind and anytime an idea pops up that could possibly be branded as New Age I summon my inner bully and kick it in the stomach. This idea of a golden hue just out of grasp certainly could fall within that category. But any true intellectual journey is going to have to ignore popular conceptions and labels in pursuit of an individual knowledge and truth. So why not pull from New Age wisdom, religious traditions, secular thought leaders-- hell I'm sure even John Daly has a thing or two to say.
It's a nice image, seeing the wise old man in the boat figuring out a way to live.
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