It's a God-Awful Small Affair

Halloween 2008. Scant days before the big election. Everything is about to change. Everyone's in masks.

Some may say a mask can liberate you. I think they can make you more vulnerable. Depending on what the mask is.

Today, I may be wholly unrecognizable.

Stay safe tonight, Constant Readers.

Sailors Fighting in the Dancehall

Sarah Palin's going rogue!

Scummy Joe Lieberman's backpedaling!

The general election still days away and the GOP are already wringing their hands over how to handle the loss!

In-fighting!

The Republicans' dirty campaign keeps getting uglier and uglier.

Honestly, how much worse can it get for the McCain camp before election day...?



DVR Alert: Newest MSNBC star Rachel Maddow scores an interview with Barack Obama, Thursday 9pm. (Channel 14 on Time Warner Cable NYC.)

Kima for Barack, yo!

"When you look at The Wire, you see how institutions fail."
—The Wire's Sonja Sohn

Yo, Bubbs, where Kima at?


Stumping for the next President of the United States.

You know what to do, America.

(Hint: Support Barack Obama more than you supported The Wire.)

Obama's on The Daily Show tonight: set those DVRs to RECORD.

So Ya Thought Ya Might Like to Go to the Show

Any lurkers curious about how my first panel went on Sunday?

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

11:30am on a Sunday. I figured the audience would be scarce, but... at the start, there were three panelists and a moderator...

... and 3 people in the audience.

Son of a bitch.

It was a little awkward up front.

But people started to trickle in as the panel discussion went forth. And Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show joined the panel. By the midpoint, the small theater had a decent number of folks in the audience.

I have to say, it was kind of cool. It certainly helps that I adore hearing myself talk. A few people in the audience were actually taking NOTES, if you can believe it.

Mauschwitz

My mouse problem in the Fortress of Solitude 2.0 has officially turned into an obsession.

I'm even tempted to get this pricey Nazi death machine. (Watch the video with audio.)

My floors are lined with glue-boards and glue-traps.

I've gotten a Black & Decker sonic repelling device, despite mixed testimonials from various sources.

It's an all-out warzone.

Like something out of a cartoon or maybe a Creepshow segment.

I really would like to be able to afford a better apartment in the next year. This is pissing me off.

Nice Babes Don't Play Rock n' Roll

Portrait of newborn GRG arm-wrestling her Uncle Malice, right before the family picked up sticks and moved to New Hampshire. That's what happens when parents overreact.

But there's no running from the truth...

A few months later, my impact on young Gigi is palpable and graphic.

GNR's Chinese Democracy is being released on November 23, 2008. While this is the first album of original material from Guns N' Roses in 17 years, Gigi will have waited for this album for less than 4 months.

In college, I used to bitch and moan to my (so-called) friends about how the new album was gonna drop any time now. Not unlike Linus clutching his blanket, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.

Great Pumpkin's finally on his way, assholes! Better step aside.

Free Dr. Peppers all around.

SAIFF 2008 Panelist

For anyone who's interested, I'm participating in a panel at the South Asian International Film Festival on Sunday:

"The Art of Screenwriting"

Digital filmmaking has made it easier than ever to shoot a film, but the process of writing an entertaining and successful screenplay is still as difficult and critical as ever to the success of a film. Listen in on an in depth discussion of how to create a powerful script and what it takes to turn it into a winning movie.

SUNDAY OCT 26
11:30AM

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th Street (Corner of 7th Avenue)
New York, NY 10011

Check out the site for more information.

The first panel I've agreed to participate in. A choice Sunday morning spot, too: who in their right mind is going to show up to this thing?!

That said, if you're a friend (or frenemy) try not to drop by late. I don't know what it's gonna look like. Could be nuts. Who the fuck knows.

One day, I'm going to be, like, sooo popular. I'll show you.

Do You Want an Encore?

Wednesday was productive. I hit the gym, did laundry, got a haircut, had lunch with a friend, had dinner with the girlfriend...

... and got a call from Paramount.

Without getting into specifics, BUTCHERHOUSE is still on track.

Hopefully, we can get something going before Thanksgiving hits. Thanksgiving is the looming unofficial deadline. Apparently, not a lot of business gets done in Hollywood after Thanksgiving. Damn the holiday season.

More solid information when I'm at liberty to discuss.

Aiming to finish re-polishing some original specs this week. So much to do before millions of turkeys get shoved into ovens.

The Great Debate

Been clearing out the shitty cell phone pics from my shitty cell phone the past few days.

This is a pic from a Brooklyn bar where I watched the first Obama/McCain debate with a bunch of friends. A bunch of Crooklyn hipsters making fun of McCain.

A little Photoshop cross-hatch filter to try to disguise the poor photo quality.

I really need a proper digital camera.

Read Obama's Rolling Stone interview.

Now I Kill

{This Entry May Be Disturbing for Some Audiences}
Nearly three years of living in the Fortress of Solitude 2.0—after I re-upped for a fourth year—I got a visit from my first mouse last week.

Saw it sniffing around in front of the bathroom last Thursday morning. Not darting about: just casually checking out this and that.

I freaked.

Roaches are gross: agreed. But you can smash one with a rolled-up Entertainment Weekly and the show's over.

Mice are these little mammals. In the right context, they can be cute. They can be corporate mascots. They've got faces. Harder to kill something that's so easy to anthropomorphize.

This one didn't know what the fuck it was doing. Wandering around in the bright light. When I chased it, it didn't run into some secret passageway—no gothic archway carved neatly into the wall: it ran out the front door, down the hall and under the door of a neighbor's apartment.

Over the course of Thursday and Friday, I ran around the city looking for solutions.

I turned my apartment into a mousy death camp. Four different types of traps. From the classic snap-traps to glue-traps to "No View" killers.

Crashed at my girlfriend's place Friday night to let Death take over my apartment...

Returned home late Saturday morning, praying to find something dead...

... and I found this little guy:


Stuck in a glue trap. Still vainly trying to extricate himself as I delicately swept the trap into a plastic bag using disposable chopsticks. Its diminutive body breathing rapidly. Mouth worked into the glue, unable to scream.

I tied the bag closed. Ran it down to the trash area in front of my building.

Dropped it to the concrete... and gave it a few final mercy-kill stomps before tossing into the garbage bin.

Now you are dealing with a hardcore killer, Constant Reader.

I have become what I have needed to become. What I've been forced to become.

I kill things.

This is what you've made me, World. Are you satisfied?

Nothing can stop me now coz I don't care anymore...

Blainer Late Than Never

I went to the trouble of taking all these shitty cell phone pix I should've used for a blog entry I wrote eons ago, but fuck it. Here they are, way after anyone should give either two-fucks or two-shits. The perfect weekend dumpster entry for posterity...


Dive of Death!!!


Squatting kid, futilely being coaxed to smile.


Establishing shot -- how dramatic.


Look at David Blaine upside-down! He's really doing it!!!


Lowered to the level of the masses.


David Blaine chatting with the hoople-heads.


David Blaine holding up a flag for somebody's boy-in-the-army.


And then he's up in the air! Where's he going??!


A platform! Looks like he's about to do something cool...!


He's...


... upright.


He's upright.


He's totally upright.


And now, he's urinating.

Head Over Heels (literally)

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

New York City at the Center of the World

Had a nice phone conversation with New Hampshire writer Emma Wunsch the other day.

Friends have asked me how Nick & Emma & beanie-baby Georgia are doing up in northern country and I've had no idea. Nicko—God love him! (said as Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin)—updates his blog infrequently, is not a very generous emailer, and I never speak with him on the phone unless he's got a wife who's just gotten pregnant.

After college, Nicko left the city and—I believe—roomed with Bigfoot up in the mountains for several years. We're good friends but we just didn't keep in touch long-distance. We only really caught up once he came to his senses and moved back to New York City, at the center of the Universe.

And since moving his new family up to the Great Unknown this past August, I started to think I'd completely lose touch with him again.

Fortunately for ME, Emma's a more consistent blogger and she hasn't met a friend as cool as me up there just yet.

For everyone who's curious, they're doing well up there. Though it sounds like Nick's started using cocaine and PCP again. So, you know.

Comidas Para Los Muertos

CINCINNATI (Oct. 14) - Ohio has executed a 5-foot-7, 267-pound double murderer who argued his obesity made death by lethal injection inhumane.

Richard Cooey died at 10:28 a.m. Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville...

Cooey dined Monday evening on the special meal he ordered, including T-bone steak with A-1 sauce, onion rings, french fries, four eggs over easy, toast with butter, hash browns, a pint of rocky road ice cream, a Mountain Dew soft drink and bear claw pastries.

Full (and delicious) article here.

Hungry for more, you animals???

Oklahoma bomber Tim McVeigh had two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream for his last meal.

Dead Man Eating is a website that documents the final meals of the death sentenced.

And here's an article about a death row chef and his experience cooking for the doomed.

Speaking of last meals...


So long, McCain.


FiveThirtyEight.com's latest projections give Obama a whopping 95.1% win percentage, taking all scenarios into consideration:

Gym Slut

Hitting the gym is probably the shittiest drug out there:

It's really hard to form the habit. And it's super-easy to quit.

But hey... the shit works. It gets you real high.

I had to dig a third notch into my belt the other day. I'm aiming to look like a skeleton in time for Halloween.

Stop bellyaching, bellyachers. I'm fine. I ain't sick. I ain't dying. I mean, we are all dying, every day, but you know what I mean. I'm probably dying just as fast as all of you.

(Maybe a smidge faster.)

It's Been Such a Long Time

One of the nice things about seeing someone new is that all your old stories are suddenly fresh again.

My 9/11 story: check.

My NYC Blackout story: check.

The time I accidentally set my hair on fire on my birthday story: check.

And the hits keep coming, all the way back through childhood. It's like this reminder that you've actually got a lot of valuable material to sell.

32 years of disasters spun into funny anecdotes. It's gold, Jerry. Gold.

Being Ben Folds

"I was wearing my newly purchased white and red plaid button down short sleeved shirt. No one had ever told me that I looked like Ben Folds, lead singer of the now-defunct Ben Folds Five, and I was pleased with the comparison. I look reasonably like Ben Folds insofar as I am youngish, white, about medium height and weight, and have dark hair, but no true fan of Folds would ever mistake me for him."

The account of a guy pretending to be Ben Folds:
Part 1
Part 2

White guys have it sooo easy.

Are You Ready for the Switch to All-Digital Broadcasts?

Take On Me (literally)

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Zoo Killer

I was all gonna write a real blog entry for today, like for reals. But it's all late and shit. So here's a fun news story for you to read:

7-year-old boy goes on killing spree in zoo!

And here's an unrelated curio.

How am I doing, you ask?

Things are well. A lot of things are well. Nothing I can freely talk about at this hour. (I haven't developed the evasive vocabulary to discuss it all here just yet.)

Shout-out to Tyler Abrams: he's our Misanthropy Central lurker of the day!

"That One"

John McCain criticizing Barack Obama for supporting the 2007 Bush-Cheney energy bill:

"It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate, loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me."

Hmmm...

From SLATE:

After their second debate, both Barack Obama and John McCain shook hands with the Nashville audience of 80 uncommitted voters. Both were well-received. But Obama stayed longer, and with McCain out of the room, the affection from the swing voters increased. He was mobbed, patted, beamed at, embraced. One woman wiggled up next to him. At one point, about 15 voters posed for a group picture like it was the last day of camp. The "Nashville '08 Debate" T-shirts are in the mail.

These uncommitted voters wanted to be next to Barack Obama, and the adulation from the audience helps explain why he won the debate. In the post-debate polls on CNN and CBS, he was the clear winner, and he also won Fox's focus group.

Obama's likeability is good for him and bad for McCain, of course, but it also undercuts McCain's credibility. It exposes the picture McCain has been painting of Obama in the last few days as a caricature. Since McCain's slide in the polls, he has started personal attacks questioning Obama's character and values. "Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain asks on the stump and in his ads. Sarah Palin says Obama isn't from "regular" America. He's out of the mainstream, aides regularly say.

That cartoon version of Obama didn't show up for the 90-minute debate Tuesday. If it had, those audience members would have been waving garlic as they fled from the room rather than sticking around so they could tell their neighbors about it...

Git R Done, America.

Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals

In case you missed it on SNL, check out Mark Wahlberg.

Oh, and about last night...

"Fifty-four percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted after the debate ended said that Obama did the best job in the debate, with 30 percent saying John McCain performed better."

Swingtown

He updates his blog so damned infrequently, I sometimes wonder what Nick Gaffney is doing in New Hampshire since he moved his new family there in August...

God of Materialism

2 pairs of pants.

3 blu-rays.

1 leather jacket.

1 cast iron skillet.

Been a spendy fucking week.

And I'm re-upping for another year in the Fortress of Solitude 2.0.

Hey... whatever it takes to fill that god-shaped hole, eh?

Triumph PWNS David Blaine

Clobberin' Palin

Please, America.

Tell me it's obvious that Joe Biden totally pwned Sarah Palin in the VP debate Thursday night.

Tell me this "Joe Six-Pack" patronizing bullshit isn't flying anymore.

Fuck the lowered expectations for Palin. Look at the tape. She's fucking awful. She is fucking infantile. SHE IS A FUCKING ASS.

And you know what? She's not even that hot. There, I said it. I won't even give her that. She is a disgusting, smarmy, lying, dirt-ignorant, tranny mess. Her cartoonish, faux-folksy, cutesy-pie cunt act has got to be fucking wiped out.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. said 51 percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job.

But respondents said the folksy Palin was more likable, scoring 54 percent to Biden's 36 percent....

"MORE LIKABLE"?!??? She came across as big, phony asshole! Are people actually falling for this transparent act? The fucking babe-in-the-woods routine??

It's so clear, it's outrageous. I want to puke.

Seriously, people. Fuck this bullshit, contrarian noise that says McCain won his first debate with Obama, that Palin held her own against Biden:

FUCKING HORSESHIT.

Are you fucking kidding me?!?

Let's end this.

Creepy Nekkid Palin Painting (in Chicago)

Despite their political differences, Elliott admits to a bit of a crush on the Alaska governor... His daughter... served as model for the governor's body.

Creepy details here.

Sarah Palin scheduled to do really poorly against Joe Biden in a debate this evening. Must See TV.

Is That All?

Oh! September, where did you go?

World's been a blur since August. I feel like I've been in a bunker and I've been gradually reentering society the past two weeks.

I'm in a daze but at a certain peace. Peace is always a temporary space, but it's nice to find yourself there sometimes.

October. The lease on the Fortress of Solitude 2.0 is up for renewal. It's fucking criminal how much I pay to live in this shoebox. I just love the location so much. And I'm not flush enough to be shopping for a better place. While the Fortress of Solitude 3.0 may not be the Xanadu that I plan on the Fortress of Solitude 4.0 being, I definitely want it to be a step-up from the current situation.