~om~ blog ~om~

The Blog is Dead! Long Live the Blog!

2007-10-29T03:20:35Z

This is the last entry for this blog. I have started a new, improved blog. You can find it here. Enjoy!

Solar Two: NYC's Carbon-Neutral Building

2007-05-24T16:34:54Z

First the Dishes, Then the Revolution

2007-05-11T16:16:09Z

Check out this Freegan feast!

vivid dream

2007-04-17T22:39:52Z

For a while there, I wasn't remembering any of my dreams. I'd wake up feeling as if I hadn't had any dreams at all. Very unsatisfying. I saw this as a symptom of a more general lack of balance in my life. I find that if I'm highly productive during the day, or if I meditate deeply before bed, my dreams will be rich and interesting and often, with fairly simple interpretation, directly relevant to my waking life. But for a while there... nothing.

Until recently. The first dream I've recalled in who-knows-how-long, went as follows:

A bunch of police officers busted into my home and hauled me off to jail, charging me with something utterly false. I was incredulous. The more I expressed to them how ridiculous this was, the more serious about it they, um, remained. They also confiscated everything I owned, and locked it all away. Then they tried to make me sign a confession. I refused. They said if I signed, they'd give me all my stuff back, but if I didn't sign they'd keep all my stuff locked up forever and I'd have to walk out of there with nothing but the clothes on my back. I thought for a moment. Then I said: "Keep it all. I'm outta here." I stood up, walked out of the jail, out into a beautiful sunny day, and this glorious music came pouring down from the heavens. There were singing voices in the music, and lyrics became recognizable. It was a slow gospel-choir-ish version of that song in which Mick Jagger sings "I'm free / to do what I want / any old time." I don't think the melody was quite the same, but those were the lyrics. And in the dream it was genuinely awesome. Like, really, overwhelmingly beautiful. Then I woke up.

The young lady in bed with me said that maybe that meant I should go become a Buddhist monk or something. I was thinking more along the lines of a southern California beach bum.

I've considered doing both of those on a few occasions. I don't have much difficulty letting go of attachment, especially not to things. Objects. I don't much like owning things in the first place. I begrudgingly have clothes because I live in a cold climate. I suppose I do like owning certain tools. There is an undeniable joy to having the right tool for a given task within easy reach. Like my DeWalt cordless drill/driver. Or the iMac I typed this up on.

But why is my subconscious telling me to free myself from prison by letting go of all my stuff now? After moving to Portland and back, I barely own anything anymore!

Still, I suppose I could do with less.

(Note to self: remember to get DeWalt cordless drill back from Mike.)

The Ayahuasca Monologues - Jamye Waxman

2007-04-17T18:51:40Z

The Ayahuasca Monologues - Bill Kennedy

2007-04-17T18:47:41Z

Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-12T05:49:27Z

One of my favorite authors just kicked. Gone on to a better place. So, I'm happy for him, even as I lament his passing.

If you haven't read "Breakfast of Champions" go read it now.

That is all.

bar-b-q

2007-04-03T21:19:37Z

Since we are in the early stages of another presidential political season, even I, Jon Levin, a person who generally avoids mainstream newsmedia for its worthlessness, cannot help but be bombarded with divisive political rhetoric coming from all sides. And sure... there are issues over which the American people are deeply divided, so much so that we often come to view those on the other side of an issue as an "enemy." But this misses the much larger problem:

A tiny wealthy elite has used their control of mainstream media, television in particular, to create an artificial rift in American society -- what has become known as the red/blue divide. Democracy can't exist under such circumstances, as people have been manipulated to ignore their own interests. Instead, they make rash decisions out of fear of enemies that have been manufactured by those in control, for the sole purpose of such manipulation. Rupert Murdoch might be able to claim that Fox News merely meets the needs of a segment of the TV-viewers that had previously been ignored. But everyone knows that Fox News is a tool of divisiveness and control. If the urban working poor and the rural working poor were ever allowed the chance to relax and smoke a bowl together, they'd figure out that they have much in common and generally want the same things out of life. Things from which they are barred not by each other, but by the wealthy elites who wield control. If the common follk could ever come together and see how silly their differences are and how significant their similarities are, the whole social structure would change quickly and radically toward something far more harmonious for everyone. (Everyone INCLUDING the wealthy elite, by the way.)

Fox News viewers are NOT our enemies. They just don't know any better. Our job shouldn't be to defeat them, it should be to reach them. To educate them. This means that we have to appeal to them in terms they can understand and appreciate. We should resist the urge to make fun of them and instead treat them with as much compassion and respect as we can muster. Much of what they believe may be abhorrent to us, so the task of reaching out to them may not be an easy one. On the contrary. We have a far more difficult job ahead of us than the wealthy fear-mongers do. Fortunately, we have truth on our side. But even if we have the moral high-ground, we have to realize that they believe they have the moral high-ground, and that they see us as a bunch of degenerates. SO... as much as it pains me to say it, and as much as it will pain us to DO it... I really think we have to clean up our act a bit.

We are dealing with masses of people (some of whom are perfectly decent, intelligent, reasonable folk) who are simply operating from within a pre-European-enlightenment mindset. They simply haven't evolved past the "God, King and Country" ethos of, say, Feudalism. The fact that they now drive Hummers instead of a horse-drawn cart doesn't mean anything. For whatever reason, they're stuck in "reverse," and to us it looks like they're all totally insane. But from their point of view, they think they see things clear as day, and to them we seem insane. Since we KNOW we are actually more advanced than they are, we have something of an advantage. We can sink to their level to be able to communicate with them, and then go home and be modern humans again.

How does this translate into real-world action? Well for starters, in the future, if we're going to, say, march on Washington to protest some atrocity or other, I think we should get dressed up. Like, we should wear suits and ties, and the ladies should wear nice dresses. Our "Sunday best." (Don't think of it as compromising our freedom-of-self-expression; rather think of it as a costume party.) We shouldn't bother chanting about "smashing the state" or anything scary like that. Consider how it will play out in the media. What would influence a conservative Fox-viewer and strike fear into Dick Cheney's heart more... seeing an unruly mass of vaguely hippie-lookin' freaks marching and jumping around all willy-nilly, OR a calm, orderly, purpose-driven throng of hundreds of thousands of well-dressed professionals? Can you imagine it?!? The cops wouldn't know what to do! Seriously. If we could pull that off, the Bushies would collectively shit the biggest brick in the world. But then what would we do with such a brick? Hmm... maybe there's a way we could burn it to generate free electricity.

If I were magic, I'd snap my fingers and there'd be world peace. If I were magic, but not quite magical enough to pull that off, I'd snap my fingers and transport poor urban folks and poor rural folks to outdoor barbecues with plenty of good food, good beer and lots of really good marijuana. And good music. And then just sit back and let people realize that they actually can tolerate each other just fine.

I think this would work, not only to heal the artificial rift between "red" and "blue" but also between British and Irish, Israeli and Palestinian, Illinoisian and Wisconsonite, etc. Of course, a large part of the strategy involves the smoking of the peace pipe full 'o weed, and some of the more conservative barbecuers might not be into that. Sooooo... I guess we should round them up and shoot 'em. Hah hah, no. No no... we should just bake really good pot brownies, pot cookies and candies, and not tell them they're getting dosed.

While we're at it, we might want to dose the White House and Congress.

Jon Levin's Best Blog Entry Ever!

2007-02-13T23:03:39Z

Okay, so you know how my last blog entry was a self-mocking rant about my attitudes toward the class system, written on a break during a recent freelance job that was lucrative enough to inflame guilt-feelings on my part which I should really try to let go of, hence the inspiration for said self-mocking class rant as some perverse form of confessional therapy?

If not, you can scroll down and read it now. The rest of this entry will be way funnier if you do.

Okay? Okay…

A couple days after writing it, I was talking on the phone to the producer who hired me for that job -- a veteran of TV and genuinely nice guy. We discussed a few little creative points for the project, and then he said words to this effect: "While I've got you on the phone, here's a little lesson, perhaps, which has just come out of this project -- nothing too bad -- but word to the wise: in the future, you might want to wait a couple weeks until after a particular job is finished until you decide to blog about it."

Ho.
Lee.
Cah.
RAP.

Um… apparently, someone in the Publicity Department of the client company (every reference to which I have since removed from the previous entry, leaving the rest intact) GOOGLED me, discovered my blog and read it. Then s/he sent a polite little email to the Producer, the guy who they hired, and who in turn hired me, to let him know what was up. There were four other names on the email distribution list. From what I understand, the client's reaction contained a phrase like, "… perhaps [what Jon wrote] could be considered complimentary?"

Egads.

The producer obviously then came to this blog, read it for himself, and called me.

Fortunately, I didn't say anything too crazy. But still, I was a bit mortified for a while. I immediately went back and read the thing, and while there wasn't anything that should upset a client, particularly, there definitely were plenty of things you'd never want a client to read. Just completely embarrassing stuff. And if someone who didn't really get my weirdly ironic sense of humor read the thing, they might not understand that I was actually quite happy to have the gig, making fun only of myself, and merely lamenting having to work within a consistently disappointing and dehumanizing system -- something which you'd think I would've learned to accept by now.

The producer was a total mensch about it. He was glad that I managed to remain just on this side of the line. So was I. Not so much for my sake, but more for how this whole thing could've affected HIS relationship with his client. Fortunately, he wasn't worried about it. He was totally cool about everything. Still, I felt bad for subjecting him to even the slightest professional awkwardness. Work is stressful enough as it is.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. The client was apparently very pleased with the product we delivered to them, everybody got paid, and they will probably be happy to hire the producer again, though they clearly won't be hiring ME again. Not that they have much call for video shooter/editors, but still. Work is work. Of course, I may have inadvertently squandered what probably would've been a great business contact in the person of the producer, who might not want to hire me for even completely unrelated gigs in the future. At least, not as long as this blog still exists.

So THAT'S why people adopt assumed names on the internet.

Everybody over the age of 30 who I told about this was like: "What the fuck are they googling YOU for? And why on God's green earth would they care one iota about what you wrote in your blog which nobody but two of your friends even reads anyway?! I mean, you were already working on the project and doing a perfectly fine job, so what could possibly make them want to delve into your goofy internet reamblings? Don't they have anything more important to do?!"

Everybody UNDER the age of 30 was like: "What are you, a freakin' IDIOT?!? Of COURSE they googled you! That's just standard fucking operating procedure nowadays dumbass! What millennium are you living in? You're lucky they didn't FIRE you! You mentioned their company BY NAME, and you make absolutely no effort to conceal your identity whatsoever! Are you trying to sabotage your career?!?"

Well… my parents definitely think I have a fear of success. And if I think about it, this isn't the first time that I've burned a bridge. It isn't even the first time I've burned a bridge I was standing on. (Will it be the last…?)

I would normally take this opportunity to include a hilarious run-down of all the total bonehead maneuvers I've pulled over the 22 years I've been in the workforce, but I'm actually in the running for a couple of jobs which I REALLY NEED, because I've just had some unexpected technology break-downs which are interfering with my ability to work and could be costly to rectify. The last thing I want is a prospective employer reading a list of everything I ever did to ruin relationships with previous employers.

My pal Sanford would normally have fallen into the aforementioned "over-30" category, save for his knowledge of something that took place at his company: a guy came in and interviewed for a job. He seemed like a very good candidate, so the HR department decided to look at him more closely. They googled him, found his blog and read the part he had just entered about what a bunch of douche-bags they were and how he had totally kicked ass on his interview because he got them to believe all of his bullshit. Oof!

So, it would seem there are even bigger idiots than me.

Another pal, Rich, the guy who originally gave me the contact info of the producer mentioned throughout above, said that for a little while I should only blog about my favorite color, my shoe size, things like that. He makes a good point. Freedom of Speech in the age of google-powered corporate hegemony may be a sick, ugly, anemic little baby bird. So... um...

Blow job!

Mr. X

2007-01-29T20:33:42Z

I've got about 45 minutes to kill in the middle of shooting a corporate video for the biggest fanciest -- possibly shmanciest -- real estate agency in, like, the world. They're located on the upper east side. Not much interesting to do around here and it's way too cold to just wander even though it's a beautiful sunny day. So I'm taking advantage of the free wifi at the apple store.

Heading up here this morning, the subway advertising was a full train-car's worth of beautiful scenic photos trying to lure New Yorkers to the Bahamas for a sunny warm respite from the sunny cold. Everybody depicted frolicking in the ads was white, and reasonably well-off-looking. Practically everybody on the train was non-white, and not terribly well-off-looking. A simple marketing error? Or is it part of a capitalist conspiracy to try and encourage the working class to drink more coffee, work longer hours, really pour it on, go go go go, build more freakin' pyramids and make our masters even wealthier, by dangling the possibility that someday, maybe, before we drop dead of exhaustion, we might be rewarded for our efforts with 5 days on a beach?

The answer is "both."

And there I was, off to spend a day amongst well-heeled rolls-royce chauffered real estate moguls, in order to shoot some terrifically goofy little video skits of them for their upcoming awards dinner. I'm putting in roughly two days of work. They don't have much of a budget for this, so I'm *only* getting two-thousand dollars for my efforts.

I don't mind it at all, but when I'm in a setting like these slick Real Estate offices, I sort of stick out. A lot. But it's good that I come off a bit "artsy" (i.e.: slob) because it makes them feel like they're getting their money's worth, paying for a true "auteur" or some shit. And sometimes, the young, clean, lovely, conservatively-dressed business ladies in their DKNY suits and $400.00 shoes take a shine to me. I'm... intriguing. They look at me sideways. They try to figure out whether I'm dangerous or merely hip (I'm actually neither -- shhh). In Portland, conversely, people mostly assumed I was just another out of work asshole. Ding ding!

And I gotta say, everybody at this gig was perfectly nice to me. They didn't treat me like I was beneath them. They didn't look down their noses at me, like the girls in the Pearl did. Though maybe that's just because I was wearing dress shoes instead of my usual beat-up old red chucks with paint on them. (Footwear bias.) And of course, who the hell knows what they said about me after I left.

On days like this, I can't help dwelling on thoughts of class (in case you couldn't tell). As my friend Jon (not me) recently pointed out, New York City throws it in your face constantly. Other places not so much. True enough I suppose. Though most days I don't FEEL it like I do today.

So let me see if I understand the situation correctly: In all human endeavors there will invariably be some individuals who are more capable and some who are less. Right now, our culture largely accepts that less capable people deserve less. Less material comfort, less basic human dignity. Not a very enlightened approach. And of course, the trait that most determines where you fall on the less vs. more continuum isn't your strong work ethic, as the Republicans would have us believe, but rather your willingness and ability to subjugate others, as the Republicans epitomize. (Actually, it was probably your ancestors' willingness and ability to subjugate/exploit/steal from/etc. others that MOST determines where you fall today.) But in almost every other grouping of humans you can imagine, the stronger, more capable people are not only expected to carry the less capable ones, but will do so freely and pretty much automatically. Not everybody on the basketball team is the high scorer, but the whole team wins. Mommy and Daddy work their asses off... kids eat. Et cetera.

Ah, but maybe if you let the lesser basketball players have the ball a little more often, they might raise their game a little. And obviously you gotta let your kids fend for themselves eventually if they are to ever develop into non-psychos.

But more than anything else, the thing that always kills any serious consideration of, say, socialism in America is this: when you're a capable worker making a great effort all the time, it probably rubs you the wrong way to see somebody who never lifts a finger end up with just as much ice-cream as you. Unless you're a generous person. (But if you are, Adam Smith doesn't think you exist.) Of course, the politicians never point out that the people you are carrying on your back aren't just the welfare recipients at the bottom, but the capitalists at the top as well. The definition of a welfare cheat: someone who wants you to work so they don't have to. The definition of a capitalist: exactly the same thing! Everybody sing!

In Paul Fussell's book "Class" he describes the American status system so keenly (though many of his cultural examples are outdated -- the copyright is 1983) and with such dry wit that it makes for an extremely entertaining read. I first picked up the book in college after my friend Ed recommended it to me, saying that the last chapter was about me, specifically. I was like, "Uh?"

Most of the chapters deal with specific social classes and talk about where they are on the hierarchy, how you can identify members of that class, what makes them tick, their psychology and personality traits and how these manifest in the trappings of their lives etc. etc. But the last chapter is devoted to people who don't fit into a conventional class. He called these people "X" people.

Apparenty, X people...

- make no effort to comply with fashion, propriety, shibboleths, keeping up "appearances" etc.
- often are mistaken for members of classes which we did not come from, in either an upward or downward direction.
- are just as comfortable hangin' with the gutter punks as we are with the socialites
- favor clothing from thrift stores
- might walk around barefoot in the office
- have no use for popular catch phrases unless we are using them ironically
- have eclectic taste in music, cuisines, art, literature, etc.

The overwhelming majority of people, who rigidly and eagerly remain within the confines of the class they were born into for the sake of comfort and even for their very identities, have no idea what to make of X people. They are a class outside of class. A class with no class.

Well, yes. The guy's got my number.

It's as if there are people who have simply grown tired of the class struggle game, and see it for the folly that it is and just refuse to participate in it. Sometimes they even live their lives as a conscious mockery of it. Abi, an ex-girlfriend of mine, used to do this really funny thing where she'd identify certain experiences as belonging to what she called "The Ministry of Colonial Nostalgia." One time, when we were on vacation in Tulum Mexico, we were sitting under a grass shade structure on the beautiful beach sipping afternoon cocktails brought all the way from the bar up the hill right down to us by a smiling brown-skinned Mexican man wearing fancy black and white waiter attire. Though we were happy and relaxed, and happily paying for this delightful service, neither of us could ignore the inherent creepiness of it. Abi broke the tension by affecting a bored supercilious British matronly voice, holding her drink aloft and saying "Lovely job conquering this island... cheers."

Okay, so people and societies are what they are. If there were suddenly no governments and no laws, I imagine most people would continue living the way they already do, just wanting to be left in peace. They might even live more harmoniously than they already do. But a tiny minority of people, the ones most afraid of lack, from petty thieves on up to the Bush family, would exploit the situation and wreak havoc, ruining utopia for the rest of us. Thus, our fractured system in all its gory glory.

I understand doing what you gotta do in order to do what you wanna do. I understand people's ego-driven expectations, hopes and fears. I almost understand going along to get along, and the desire to just fucking fit in. I think it's weak, but you can't blame us for being weak. That's like blaming us for being alive.

Still, I imagine we could do a little better. Just a little? Baby steps?

Okay, gotta return to the video shoot. Whoopee!

Next time: Jon takes it up the ass for America! (As if on cue, an achey Coldplay song just came on the PA in the apple store.)

I Entered a Contest

2007-01-29T06:02:01Z

A couple years ago, I found out that my friend Jennifer Anne was helping out a weird organization that holds little filmmaking competitions. They call themselves NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, or 'NYC Midnight' for short. She convinced me to participate in one of the contests, wherein we had to show up to a club downtown on a Friday night, and at the stroke of midnight they gave us all (about 60 filmmaking teams) the subject/theme of the film we had to make and then we had until midnight the next night to return to that same club with the finished product on a video tape.

We had to come up with a concept, write an original script, find actors and locations and costumes and props, shoot, edit and score (with original music!) a 10-minute (max.) little movie in under 24 hours. I don't think I've ever consumed that much caffeine in a single day before or since. We told the cab driver we'd tip him extra if he ran some red lights to make sure we got there in time. He did. The fare was maybe $12 but I just threw a couple $20 bills at him and we ran to the door of the club barely making it in under the wire. But we didn't win the contest. Still, it was pretty fucking fun, and quite an interesting challenge. If nothing else, it was a routine-obliterating exercise in sheer lunacy.

Or maybe it was a lunatic exercise in routine obliteration.

Either way.

Despite how much fun it was, I haven't exactly had the urge to repeat the experience. But I am on the organization's e-mail list, so I've learned that they've been successful enough with the film contests that they've branched out into other types of contests. The latest: short story writing.

Now that's something I'd like to try, I thought. So I did. I ponied up the $40 entry fee, and waited until the designated evening when, once again, at the stroke of midnight, the contestants would all receive the genre and subject matter of the short story they had to write.

This contest worked a little differently. A little over 200 people from all over the country (and beyond) entered. They divided us up into about 14 different groups and everybody in a group was given the same genre and subject. Some of the possibilities were:

Comedy - counterfeiting
Drama - domestic abuse
Romantic Comedy - bachelorette party
Fantasy - a stream
Horror - snow
Thriller - electricity

and the one that I got was: Science Fiction - a fish tank.

My first reaction was, "well, at least I'm not one of the poor bastards who had to write a drama about domestic abuse!"

I mentioned the assignment to my pal Robert who pointed out that the whole fish tank thing is kind of a staple, a sci-fi cliché even. So, I decided not to write about some kid who doesn't realize that he has an outerspace creature or some tiny lost civilization living in his fish tank. Instead, I decided to treat it as a metaphor for paranoia, voyeurism, shit like that.

I know a little something about paranoia. I used to feel it almost all the time. Once, when I was still working at the MTV, I got this especially horrible creepy feeling that everybody was watching me and could read my mind. It was so disturbing that I got up from my desk, walked out of my office and went to get a drink of water. I was halfway to the pantry when this other guy comes around another corner singing out loud (to nobody in particular, but looking me straight in the eye) that '80's song that goes "I always feel like... somebody's watching meeeeee." Creeped me out so hard I nearly shat. True story by the way.

Anyway, this is only the first round of the contest and we were all given one week to write and send our stories in via email. I kind of mulled the story over in my head for the first 5 days and then wrote it in a day and a half. Once again, I got it to them with only minutes to spare. It had to be 2500 words or less, and mine clocks in around 1600. If I had had more time, the story could've benefitted from using more of the words allowed. But given the circumstances, I don't think it's too bad. Wanna read it? Here it is:

FISH TANK 108
by Jon Levin

As you can see, nano-imaging technology gives us total access, no matter where someone goes or what he does -- the Holy Grail of surveillance. If you look at the monitor, here is test-subject number… um… 108, standing in his living room, talking on the phone.

What is that he's standing next to?

It appears to be a tropical fish tank.

Very impressive. How does the technology work?

Microscopic cell-like robots float around the subject in what essentially amounts to an invisible "cloud" and send continuous audio-visual information back to us via radio signals, which we can then de-scramble and view on these monitors.

What is their power source and how do they maintain contact with a specific individual?

They derive all the energy they require from the body heat and subtle energy field generated by the subject himself, all without his ever knowing it. Some of the nanobots migrate through the subject's respiratory system, into the bloodstream and take up residence in the brain, where they broadcast to the nanobots hovering in the energy field around the subject. Once linked in this way, they never break contact and we need never lose sight of him until we decide to stop viewing.

How do we get the nanobots in place to begin with?

Well, we're working on a more reliable remote delivery system, but at present, one of us has to come into actual physical contact with the target, to ensure accuracy. We deliver the nanobots by spraying or smearing a small amount of colorless, odorless liquid onto clothing or skin. The first of them to evaporate and become airborne automatically migrate into the subject's brain, and once in place, the rest activate as they become airborne as well.

What if some are lost, or are accidentally inhaled by an unintended target?

Obviously, it's preferable to place the nanobots on the intended target when he or she is alone. If this is too difficult, and placement must occur, say, on a crowded subway train at rush-hour to avoid detection/suspicion, it is possible that more than one person will inhale some nanobots--

--or due to the ventilation system, indeed all persons on the train could conceivably inhale nanobots.

True. But so far the nanobots have proven completely harmless to all subjects, and nobody will ever know they have them in their brains. If you are worried about a dose of nanobots being spread to thin to work effectively with an intended target due to being inhaled by everyone on a commuter train, we've addressed that problem by making the nanobots self-replicating. When there are fewer nanobots hovering around a subject than required for optimal surveillance resolution, they automatically begin producing more of themselves until a full complement is in place.

Will they do this for the unintended targets as well? Everyone on the entire train?

Well… yes. But does it matter? We don't have to actively monitor everyone who has been accidentally dosed with nanobots. Though, if we wanted to we probably could. The database is capable of keeping track of billions of subjects simultaneously. Potentially everyone on Earth.

Why don't we just let them spread to everyone? Wouldn't that save us a lot of trouble?

Something to consider. Turn up the audio. I'd like to hear the sound quality.

* * * * * * * *

Test subject 108 feeds his tropical fish while talking on the phone. He watches intently as the fish swim to the surface and eat the small flakes of food.
"… Actually, there was this one funny thing that happened at work. You know how I've been re-assigned to the affiliate sales group? Well they're on the 16th floor facing north, so instead of the nice downtown skyline view, all we look out on is the side of the Sheraton Hotel tower. So, I'm at my desk, procrastinating like usual when I hear Kate, the executive assistant -- yeah, the redhead -- and she's like shrieking 'Oh my god! Oh my god!" and we're all like 'What the fuck!?' so we all go running over to see what's the matter, and Kate is standing at the window looking across at the Sheraton, and she points to some guy a couple stories below us, standing at the window of his hotel room, totally naked. Yeah… completely oblivious…. Right, it was a floor to ceiling plate-glass window and he was just standing there in all his glory… I don't know… Like, just looking down at the city below. So all the assistant girls start calling all their friends in the building and telling them to go over to the north side of their floors to stare at this dumbass. … No, I don't think he was an exhibitionist. I think he was just clueless. Probably here on business from some small town somewhere, never been in a big crowded city before and simply had no idea that about a thousand low-level administrative employees were gawking and laughing at him from the office building across the street. … Well, he was in sunlight and we were in shadow. He probably couldn't see us at all. And he was only like 30 feet away. At one point, he started scratching his balls or something, and all the girls were like 'Eeeww!' and giggling like they were in junior high. Poor bastard. Not like he'll ever know, but still. So anyway, meet up for beers later? … Yeah… Sounds good. See you then."
108 puts his phone down, sits on the couch, slouches. Turns on the TV with a remote control. Channel surfs for a while. Settles on a local news broadcast. Grabs a bong and a lighter off the coffee table and smokes some pot. Puts the bong back down. Channel surfs some more. Cartoon network. After a while, he gets up, goes to the kitchen, opens the fridge, roots around for a while. Takes out some leftovers. Sniffs them. Sniffs them again. Sticks them in a microwave oven on the counter. Grabs a half-eaten bag of potato chips off the counter. Eats some potato chips. Gets a can of soda out of the fridge. Drinks a little. The microwave beeps. Food is ready. He takes the food, chips and soda back to the couch. Eats while watching the TV. After he finishes his food, he takes off his clothes, goes to the bathroom, turns the water on in the shower. While waiting for it to get warm, he sits on the toilet.

* * * * * * * *

Will the shower water interfere with the nanobots hovering around him? Will they get knocked out of place? Washed away?

They shouldn't. They are programmed to ride air currents out of the way of oncoming physical objects, and water droplets shouldn't be any exception. If necessary, they will automatically expand their radius to a safe distance. There may be some visual distortion, due to the water, but nothing serious. Perhaps we could even implement a specific shower-recognition-and-correction algorithm.

Are there any female subjects we could look in on?

Of course.

* * * * * * * *

Subject 108 showers. When he is finished, he gets out and dries himself off. He wraps a towel around his waist and comes back out to the living room, where he does a few more bong hits. He goes and watches his fish swim in their tank.
"You guys don't have a care in the world, do you? Lucky bastards."

* * * * * * * *

Oh, like he's got it so bad? Nice attitude pal.

Keep your comments to yourself please.

* * * * * * * *

108 puts on some clothing. Watches more TV. Smokes more pot. Channel surfs. Channel surfs. Nothing good on. Turns TV off. Gets up to watch the fish. Phone rings. He answers it, staring at the fish as he talks.
"Oh hey. … Yeah, sorry about that. I musta spaced. … Well, I suddenly don't know if I'm up for it anymore. I'm kinda not feeling very social at the moment. … Yeah, I don't know. I just don't feel like being around so many people. You know it's gonna be totally crowded anywhere we go. … I know, I know, you're right. Sorry man. I just hate when everybody's all crammed in at the bar, people shoving past, and I feel like they're all so judgmental and you gotta be on your game the whole time. It's exhausting. … Yeah, of course I need to get laid. Sure. I'll go out tomorrow night. … I dunno. Smoke more probably. … Nah, TV sucks on Friday night. You wanna come over? Get a movie, get high, drink some beers? Maybe get a pizza delivered? … Can't tempt ya? … No seriously, I'm in for the night. I can't stand feeling like everybody in the club is looking at me, judging me. Like I'm on display for their amusement or something. I just feel really paranoid all of a sudden. … Well, maybe it's the pot, but it's pretty good shit and I don't usually react like this. I dunno. It's a really sick feeling. Even now, I feel a little creeped out. Hard to explain. Sorry if I'm not making much sense. I'll let you go. You have a good time. … Gonna smoke more and go to sleep in a bit. Yeah, thanks, it'll be great… just me 'n' my fish tank. … Okay. See ya."
108 hangs up. Pulls a rocking chair over by the fish tank. Wraps a blanket around himself. Sits in the chair, rocking, staring at the fish.

The End

Or is it? (No, it is.)

So, yeah. That's what I came up with. I hope it was creepy enough. Supposedly, I should find out by the second week of March if I made it to the next and final round or not. They're only going to pick 15 or so people who will all be given the same genre and subject, and only 24 hours to write the whole thing. That's gonna be brutal. I can hardly wait. Wish me luck! And feel free to leave comments with feedback about the story. Be HONEST. I can take criticism. Be harsh even. That way, if the judges are harsh I'll be prepared!

Overheard

2007-01-01T23:35:54Z

I used to love getting high, grabbing my iPod and launching myself into a New York day with no plan, no destination and just observing all the beauty and the moments and the momentous beauty, all with a soundtrack provided by the forces of "randomness". The way the tempo of "Mother Popcorn" by the recently departed James Brown would perfectly sync up with the rhythm of Manhattan Bridge support beams flowing past my window as I rode a slow-moving D-train into Brooklyn. The way a cloud would break just enough to let a small shaft of sunlight pierce through, hit a couple windows half-way up an old ornate skyscraper further down broadway and bounce right into my face at the exact instant there'd be a climactic cymbal crash in the song on the iPod. Etc. Even without the marijuana, I loved to set my iPod to shuffle, follow the lead of the walk/don't walk signs and marvel at the immense John-Cage-ian masterpiece that the city would create/become, only for me. I loved it perhaps a bit too much, to the increasing exclusion of other valuable experiences... like talking to the cool-looking but obviously crazy man covered head-to-toe in a veritable shag-carpet of tinfoil strips, or the superhot girl who just made eye contact while licking her lips (even unintentionally it's still a good sign), or the guy who might want to hire me for something lucrative and interesting (it could happen). In fact, I actively used the iPod to make it easier to ignore people, not that I don't love people -- I do -- but when I was high, I became irrationally convinced that everybody was talking about me or trying to get my attention wherever I went. I would call it Paranoia except for the fact that it didn't seem hostile or mean-spirited. It actually seemed like everybody was trying to get into my pants. Which would've been very flattering had it not been totally delusional nonsense. I certainly wasn't going to act upon what I thought people were saying to or about me while suspecting that I was delusional, so I had no interest in hearing their voices to begin with. And if I thought someone was trying to get my attention non-verbally, merely having the earphones in gave me an excuse not to interact with them. Very useful. And sick. Eventually, I gave up pot and the delusional perceptions calmed down a little. Not entirely, but somewhat. But by then, the iPod habit had become completely ingrained.

Even though I suspected the habit had become unhealthy, I tried to recreate the city-wide audiovisual synchronicity fun-time activity when I got to Portland. I wasn't very successful. I couldn't find much music that really went with the experience of walking around Portland. I think if I were driving a car or even riding a bike it would've worked better, because the increased speed makes the environment more visually stimulating and rhythmic enough to accomodate a soundtrack. At walking speed, there just wasn't enough stuff happening.

There's a famous quote of Goethe's: "Architecture is frozen music." If that is so, New York is every kind of music there is. Everything goes with it and everything comes out of it. And I'm not just talking about what you can hear of the Juliard student practicing cello in her bedroom or the guy with the ghetto blaster strapped to his handlebars, but also the music that just radiates off the surfaces, the sidewalks, the skyline. While tons of great music comes out of the creative people of Portland, the music that IS the architecture of Portland itself, Portland being predominantly suburbia-shaped, is like... muzak versions of Christmas carols or the theme song to The Price is Right or something. I don't have anything like that on my iPod.

So, believe it or not, I gradually stopped using my iPod. Mostly. Portland broke me of the habit. And even now that I'm back in NYC, I'm still out of the habit of bringing it with me everywhere I go. And this has been really good. It has opened my ears to the true John-Cage-ian masterpiece: the sounds of everything, as they occur. And lots of funny bits of overheard conversations.

So then I got this idea to write a piece consisting of nothing but the snippets I overheard while walking around town, in order. I imagined it would turn out a bit like an exquisite corpse poem, which could be really cool and funny, but then I found this even better thing: http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/

Yet another example of what I'm sure is an obvious cultural staple for many people out there, but I just stumbled on it today and already I'm hooked. It gave me my first big out-loud laugh of the new year.

And right-- happy New Year everybody. Good things in 2007!

Eww... gross.

2006-12-27T18:49:29Z

I just tasted some cat food. It didn't smell as bad as most wet canned cat food, so I got curious. Much like cats are said to be. Perhaps I was a cat in a past life! Ah, but curiosity is also said to kill the cats, and I should have thought of that before I put the fork in my mouth (there was only a tiny bit on the fork, but still). Cats at least have nine lives, but I might never be able to erase the memory of how utterly revolting this experience was. The fact that Petra's two cats go absolutely apeshit over the stuff doesn't necessarily make me think any less of them for having such bad taste, but it does speak to differences between our species which we simply may not be able to overcome, past life notwithstanding. I guess I shouldn't try to have sex with the cats anymore either.

Gee Mail

2006-12-26T15:33:03Z

Right now, in another firefox browser window, I am attempting to sign up for a gmail account (I like me the google -- they use solar energy at their corporate HQ, the Googleplex).

Naturally, gmail wants me to give them a username, so I can be whatever@gmail.com. Knowing full well that I am arriving late to the gmail party and that this would be utterly futile, I typed in jonlevin as a username, and of course, it was already taken. Presumably by some other Jon Levin out there. In addition to reminding me how common my name is, the gmail elves decided to recommend a few unique variants on my name that are as yet unclaimed by previous gmailers. The recommendations are:

- levijon
- levingeneral
- levinsweet
- levinfuture
- levincertain
- levincool

Are they kidding? If I picked any of those I'd never be able to stop mocking myself (a process not nearly as dirty as googling yourself, but far more time consuming).

I'm going to submit other username ideas. I'm thinking of naming myself after a TV sitcom character that I recall liking when I was a kid. Let's check the availability...

It was available. So, for better or worse, I'm now officially doctorjonnyfever@gmail.com. And should Google actually succeed in conquering all of planet earth, at least I won't be totally left in the dust.

P.O.D.

2006-12-07T21:34:12Z

as in... "Pick Of Destiny."

as in... "Tenacious D and the..."

Yeah, I saw it. It would be better if seen stoned, which I wasn't. But whatever. It was fun and there were some nifty cameos. Blah blah blah.

In other news, here's what happened to me last night: I attended the book release party for "Japanamerica" by Roland Kelts, about Japanese pop culture's influence on America, etc. My friend Petra's band, Gaijin Â Go-Go, was the hired entertainment, and I randomly found myself hanging out with Jonathan Ames, the author of a bunch of really great novels and frequent Moth raconteur. Anyway, it was really nice getting to eat and drink for free, and hit on cute Asian women. But the girl I liked best was one of the cocktail waitresses. Why is it that the best looking girls are usually the ones working the party and not the ones partying at the party? So anyway, toward the end of the night, the waitress I liked (everyone liked) sidled up next to me at the bar while I was ordering a drink and jokingly asked me to buy one for her (the open bar time was over). Naturally, I offered to buy her one for real but she said that she'd order us both drinks so that they'd be free. So, she started giving me more free drinks than I had gotten a chance to drink while the drinks were actually free. Later, after most everyone had left, we were hanging out in the back bar area with some of the other waitstaff, and she and one of her attractive co-workers started comparing breast size. They were cupping their breasts and holding them up and caressing them and talking about them (they both said they were 34C's) and I was like "if they keep doing this I'm gonna be able to shut off lasers the same way Jack Black did in the Tenacious D movie." (In case, despite my glowing recommendation above, you still haven't seen the movie, JB defeats a laser-grid security system with his erection. Yep, high art.) Unfortunately, this does NOT end with me fooling around with the hot waitress who gave me free drinks and basically fondled herself in front of me. After they were done with the whole breast thing, they just started talking about some boring shit and I got bored and left.

Did I do wrong?

I mean, it was clearly a case of the big head overruling the little head. Up to that point, my genitals were fully in charge. The girl was hottt. She gave me free drinks. She was cupping her glorious breasts at me. So was her friend. Well, at each other, but right in front of me. And just when my genitals were about to command my vocal apparatus to say something that might've led to all three of us getting naked somewhere, my accursed brain noticed they had begun chatting about celebrity gossip, calories, and what sounded like an overpriced shoe store. That's when the classic struggle began in earnest. Testicles vs. Cerebrum.

In my younger days, Testicles won out most of the time. Today, unless I'm falling-down-blind-drunk, my brain thinks it's in charge. Like Alexander Haig. (50 points to anyone who gets that reference). Stupid brain! Of course, I was fairly drunk by the time the waitresses were talking about Brittney's baby or whatever-the-fuck, so this particular battle between brain and balls could've gone either way. My brain, being closer to my mouth, wouldn't let me talk to the women. My balls, being closer to my legs, wouldn't let me walk away. I just stood there, paralyzed, for several minutes as the war raged within me. My balls were like: fuck you brain! Stop being so uptight and just LOOK at the two of them, for the love of god! My guts immediately sided with my balls. At first, my heart was like: "don't involve me in this sordid nonsense" but eventually it couldn't stand the bickering and said, "Come on brain... let the balls have this one." But my brain refused to budge. It knew that if it managed to hold me in check for a little while longer, the inane prattling of the waitresses would weaken support from my heart and guts, and eventually my testicles would fall. Gradually, control of my legs returned, and my brain walked me out of the room.

Whatever. Superhot girls are a dime a dozen in NYC.

Well, maybe they're not quite that cheap, but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting like 50 of 'em.

Green Wheels

2006-12-04T05:34:24Z

Of all the shows that I work on at Equator HD, my favorite is probably Green Wheels. It takes a fun look at alternative fuel and energy and eco-friendly automobile technologies. One of my many tasks at my job is to cut the 27-minute episodes down to 3-minute "webisodes". You can see high quality versions of them on the show's website, but in the meantime, here's a lower -- youtube-level -- quality sample:

One for the Ladies...

2006-12-02T22:51:26Z

My friend Jamye is a sex writer working on a book about female masturbation. If you are female, have a few minutes to spare and wouldn't mind lending a hand [ahem] with this cool project, go to her blog and click where it says "Click here to take The M Word online Survey".

(Enjoy!)

In other news, I just saw the movie "The Fountain" and plan to write a review of it for Souldish.com. But before I do so, I may need to see it again. Or better yet, maybe I can interview the two people who came up with the concept behind this daring unconventional film: Darren Aronofsky (the Director) and his college friend Ari Handel (a neuroscientist) and have them clear up the one or two points which I'm not so sure about. Get the inside scoop, directly from the source! As it happens, I am acquainted with Ari Handel via a little organization called The Moth. Ari once told a great story about what it was like doing brain research on a very smart and stubborn chimpanzee named Santiago. And tomorrow (Sunday the 3rd of December) I'm telling my hospital story again at a Moth show being held at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for some reason.

Should be fun, and the show is free with admission to the gardens.

Peace y'all!

Souldish

2006-11-09T15:22:12Z

Yo. I am now the Culture Editor for a cool webzine blog thing called Souldish. My first contribution just went up at http://www.souldish.com/2006/11/09/a-review-of-island-by-aldous-huxley/

But don't worry. I'll continue to blog here too. There's enough gobble-de-gook in me brain to go around.

Huzzah!

Calling All Flash Animators

2006-11-02T18:59:12Z

This little idea for a slick Flash animation came to me the other morning while I was still only half-awake. If you, or anybody you know, is a kick-ass flash animator...

BLACK SCREEN

TEXT FADES ON:

"HOW THE LEFT VIEWS THE RIGHT:"

In a secret underground bunker: Dick Cheney in a lab coat and black rubber gloves, like a Dr. Frankenstein-Strangelove, Bush Sr. looking a bit like a Nazi and Karl Rove as a sniveling hunchbacked assistant all work feverishly in their dark laboratory, creating a giant robot Dubya. Every once in a while, Cheney grabs his heart from exertion.

CHENEY: (concerned) BAH!

The Giant DubyaBot takes shape. It is a hulking retro-future clunky-roughshod monster with George Bush Jr.’s face. 1000 feet tall. Once complete, they run it for President. It speaks its lines with a robotic version of Bush Jr.’s voice and enunciates poorly because the technology is primitive. It claims to be a regular guy, consumes an entire brewery of beer then stumbles over backwards and destroys a heartland village. People vote for it anyway. The vote is contested, so Cheney controls the robot and sends it to threaten the Supreme Court justices. They install the robot in the presidency.

CHENEY: (triumphant) BAH!

The robot goes marching through the land. It grabs the steeple off a church and affixes the cross to its chest. Faithful Christians all across America bow down before the Robot. They dress their sons and daughters in uniforms and offer them up to the Robot as a sacrifice. The Robot gathers them up and eats them for fuel. It then rockets across the ocean and lands in Iraq. Accompanied by more uniformed Christians, it marches around laying waste to the country. Cheney watches everything the Robot sees on a viewing screen from the safety of the bunker.

Cheney fiddles with some controls. The robot responds by gathering up more soldiers and eating them. Then it marches over an Iraqi village and half-squats...

CHENEY: Cradle of civilization, eh? Cradle THIS… [Cheney pushes a red button]

GiantDubya squints its eyes in exertion and shits a giant bomb onto the village, destroying it. Then the Robot stands fully upright again and laughs that sick little laugh that Bush Jr. laughs, while doing that little shoulder shrug he does.

FADE TO BLACK

TEXT FADES ON:

"HOW THE RIGHT VIEWS THE LEFT:"

A New York City street is crammed with half a million political protesters. Cheney watches them on a viewing screen from the safety of his underground bunker. His hand reaches for some robot controls…

JetBlue Fucking RULES!

2006-10-27T16:55:20Z

Despite the many inherent difficulties involved, coming back to NYC from Portland has already been way way way way way way easier than going out to Portland was. Of course, this is partly due to the fact that I had already gotten rid of 90% of my material possessions when I first went out west. And even though I once again left myself a ridiculously short amount of time to get everything squared away, including working around the previous commitment of a three-day session to edit my pal Larry's video documentary about rebel clowns, I still managed to find the time to go through every scrap of clothing, every scrap of paper, and almost every little bit of nonessential detritus in my life, some of which was obvious garbage which had somehow managed to come with me every single time I moved since I first left home after High School! A cassette tape of Chicago's Greatest Hits that I've been carting around from apartment to apartment for 20 fucking years? NO MORE! If I suddenly get nostalgic for the music I was listening to 20-25 years ago, I'll download some bloody mp3's or some shit. Jeez!

I once made a list of every single place I've lived for more than two weeks. It was an almost shockingly long list. And it isn't like I was an army brat or the son of foreign service agents. I only lived in one place from the time I was 2 to when I was 18. But from 18 to now, I've paid rent in something like 25 to 30 different places, and had easily over a hundred roommates. And I have loved them all. Though I only had sex with two-thirds of them. But I had scraps of garbage and cassette tapes and who-knows-what other little bits of consumer plastic nonsense that I packed up and dragged with me to every last one of those five-story walk-ups, or damp smelly basements, or drafty old houses. I gotta tell ya... getting rid of that stuff feels like having a huge tumor removed. I am now a lean mean fucking machine. Well, I can run up stairs two at a time anyway. Though, I could do that before. Okay, well maybe I'm no different. But the point is, it feels good not to be weighed down with useless crap from a past that is gone and never coming back! Live in the now!

Hmmm... I smell eggplant parmigiana. Does anybody else smell eggplant parmigiana? I must be hungry. But I think the aroma is for real. Ahh... Brooklyn.

Also making things a million times easier was that I had my pal David's help bringing boxes to the post office (which he is still helping with, actually, since I left four boxes in his charge). And he drove me out to the airport with my big bag (68 pounds -- I had to pay an extra 20 bucks) and two carry-ons.

Getting through JetBlue security was surprisingly easy. Since I was flying one-way to NYC, I assumed that would raise a bunch of red-flags and I'd be pulled aside and cavity searched. But all I had to do was take the video camera out of the camera bag and take my shoes off, both of which I was fully expecting. And I also knew to wear pants that don't require a belt, since my metal belt buckle always sets off the alarm. I breezed through with no hassles.

Then, at the gate I looked around and played that whole "I wonder who'll end up sitting next to me for the next 6 hours" game, hoping it wouldn't be the pregnant woman with the unruly two-year old boy who kept wheeling a plastic wheely toy into my shins. Instead, I hoped it would be the cute blonde in the chuck taylor sneakers who sorta resembled a girl from Long Island I dated for a little while. But once in my seat on the plane, my neighbors turned out to be even better... nobody! I had the entire row of three seats to myself! So I stretched out and used my carry-on bag as a pillow. It was glorious. I felt like an executive. But I thought... if only I had earplugs and an eye-mask to block out the glow of all the little DirecTV's. And less than a minute later, who should show up but a flight attendant handing out little packages of complimentary gifts from a spa in NYC called "Bliss" and included in the bag were hand lotion, breath mint chapstick stuff, earplugs and an eyemask! JetBlue is run by mind-reading Geniuses! (Bliss spa might be as well.) Suave efficient mind-reading geniuses! After happily accepting the free comfort enhancing items, I felt like royalty. I popped the going-away vicodin that my pal Nate gave me the previous night and all was right in the world.

Best red-eye flight ever.

Oh, now I get it... no wait... what?

2006-10-23T17:37:45Z

So here's a thing that happened to me yesterday, which I almost totally forgot about: I was taking a break from packing and driving myself nuts, and went out for a walk around downtown Portland. It happened to be a beautiful day out, so it was, you know, nice and all. But then I accidentally wandered by Pioneer Square, which is where lots of people seem to just loiter around and if there's anything I can't stand it's loiterers, so I usually avoid the place. But since it was such a lovely day, I figured I'd give the loiterers a chance and I walked across one corner of the square. True to form, a lady holding a clipboard stopped me and asked if I'd be willing to answer three questions for a survey she was doing. Inwardly, I thought "Aw crap... what the hell is THIS gonna be about?" But then, maybe because it was such a lovely day and I was feeling all happy an' shit, I said, "Sure! I'll answer some questions!" I braced myself for whatever annoying political or marketing bullshit thing she was being paid to bother people with...

Her first question was: "What would you say is the most obvious thing about me?"

Huh?

Okay, so now I'm thinking "what the?" Then I realize that the woman asking the questions seems a little "off". A little "slow" perhaps. And there is another woman, a more "normal" looking one, standing off to the side, observing, but not saying anything. Is she the crazy woman's caretaker?

Regardless, the most "obvious" thing about the woman, was that she was a woman. Maybe she meant the question like, "what is the first thing you notice about me?" So instead of saying, "you're bothering me with a weird question" I said, "your glasses."

She said, "Okay thanks" and wrote down the word "glasses" on her clipboard. And based on that first question, I was starting to wonder what the second question was going to be. Is she going to ask me more questions about herself? Is this some kind of self-esteem project for the developmentally odd? If so, I'm all for it. Good for you crazy lady! But her second question was: "When was the last time you got a haircut?"

So now I'm thinking that maybe she's just freakin' nuts, and asking people fake survey questions is the only way she'll allow herself to talk to people. She has to have the normal woman along with her to make sure she doesn't wander off into the woods, never to return. Return to the looney bin.

I say, "I don't really recall, but my last haircut was probably about two months ago."

I notice that she doesn't bother to write down my answer to the haircut question. So, I try to steal a glance at the clipboard, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot written down. There are definitely some scribblings which I assume are from the surveys she conducted before mine. What I could see of it looked something like this:

__________________________________________
Sunday October 23, 2006 -- Pioneer Square

Subject number 14: baz baz bo ... sweet birds

Check out mr. business man. He wants some wild wild life.

Moose cheese

[little doodle of what looked like a snake eating a hamburger]

Not if I see you first dickhead!

fummer

sssss

4:03 pm: check in with agent 12 -- norble tongo baff!

cut cut cut cut

look out momma bird! sweeeeet birds

nub nub nub... ... ... ...

"glasses"

sssss
__________________________________________

Then I think: I wonder if I'll have time to get a haircut before my flight. My next door neighbor, Roger, is a hairstylist who cuts my hair for free. Will I have time for one last free haircut before my triumphant return to NYC? Oh, wait... still have one more question to go from the crazy lady.

Her last question was as unexpected as the first two, though more interesting: "Would you say that people worked more 50 years ago, or work more today?" she asked. I said, "Huh! That's a really interesting and difficult question!" I was so proud of the crazy lady for asking it! And I wanted to give her a well thought-out response. The crazy lady deserved no less. So I thought about it for a moment and said, "Well... I think people probably worked more hours 50 years ago, but that they work more for less gain today. Does that make sense? Is that too much of an answer?" She said, "No that's fine, I think I understand what you mean. Well, thanks for helping out." I thought, "Glad to be of... service?"

Anyway: "Have a nice day crazy lady!" Then I walked away thinking, "Hmmm... maybe I was wrong about Portland, and this place actually IS as weird as people think. Why heck! I'm staying!" SO, I'm actually gonna cancel my flight and stay here. I can't bear the thought of being away from the crazy survey lady and her silent chaperone. (The silent chaperone was actually kinda hot, you know for a totally nondescript silent person.)

No.

N-Y-C, see ya real soon...

Crazy Capitalism!

2006-09-30T22:02:29Z

Okay. Capitalism has officially gone nuts.

A company located in the Empire State Building has come up with the highly innovative concept of charging harried New Yorkers $14 in exchange for a 20-minute nap in a reclining chair. Apparently, they're doing quite well. Here's the math: That's $42 an hour. To doze off in a la-z-boy. (You can sleep an entire night in a double bed in your own entire private motel room for less than that -- though, maybe not in the heart of midtown.) It's the equivalent of renting a comfy chair for $30,000 a month.

Of course, you get more than just a comfy chair. The chair has an integrated space-age looking pod-thing which envelops your head to create a sense of privacy, blocking out light and sound in varying degrees, while leaving your vital organs and genitals exposed. The service will also pipe in the white noise or music of your choice during your 20-minutes. And for an extra fee, they will serve you lunch upon waking. That's one high-class nap.

Are you telling me that all those times I fell asleep at my desk, it wasn't cool? I should've been running out on my lunch hour to spend $14 on a 20-minute nap? With midtown traffic, it probably would've taken me 30 minutes to get to the nap-store, then there'd probably be a line of nappers ahead of me, so that's at least 10-minutes standing around waiting to nap. And since it always takes me a little while to get to sleep, I'm really only gonna get about 11 or 12 minutes of actual nap-time. And then my lunch-hour will be over and I won't have eaten anything, so I'll be hungry, distracted and weak for the rest of my workday.

But I wouldn't mind owning one of those cool pod-chairs.

http://www.metronaps.com/

Instead of that, it is far more economical to go down to the NY Open Center and avail yourself of their public meditation room. It's open all day during the day. Or at least it was the last time I checked. It's dark, quiet, you don't have to wait on a line and it's free. Free. And while it's not technically intended for napping, the soothing meditative vibes are very relaxing and I'm sure nobody would poke you with a stick if you were to accidentally doze off. Unless you started to snore really really loudly. Of course, should you actually MEDITATE there, supposedly the restorative effects on your body and mind would be even greater than those of a nap. So there. http://mail.opencenter.org/webdev/index.php#pt=home&se=

Aliens Have Been Observing Us

2006-09-22T01:18:27Z

I was just in the shower, daydreaming about space aliens again. This time it was the kind with the big bald heads and the Nehru jackets. They were like scientists, observing the human species the way we might study, you know, wombats or some shit. Alien anthropologists. After observing us and monitoring our various forms of media and communications, they presented their conclusions to their superiors back on their home planet, which they call "Hoooeeeeeeeeee-Bip-Bip-Bip-Bip-Bip" even though that's not its real name.

ALIEN GRAND POOBAH: Which regions of Earth did you observe?

SPEMULAK: Mostly the country called "USA". It was the loudest. Yet we gathered information from many other places as well.

ALIEN GRAND POOBAH: What motivates the humans?

ZOLTAR: Three main factors are fear, a desire for shiny objects, and mammary glands.

SPEMULAK: Yes, the mammary glands. Assistant Blarg! Play the prepared music video montage!

[montage plays]

AGP: Ah... I see. Many mammary glands and shiny objects represented. But what of this fear you mention?

ZOLTAR: Play montage #2.

[montage of horror movie clips]

AGP: Hmmm... Do they know nothing of love?

SPEMULAK: On the contrary, they claim to be in love with love. But they express this through harsh and juvenile means.

AGP: Such as?

ZOLTAR: Violent pornographic games of ground-acquisition. Play the video marked "football exhibit 17a." On the green rectangle, note the hugging, touching, grabbing, piling of bodies, patting and then on the sidelines...

AGP: A mammary gland display. Yes, I see.

SPEMULAK: In general, we have noticed that the basic motivating factors are often combined in strange ways. Ways the humans may not even be aware of.

ZOLTAR: For example, some humans, the ones called "Conservatives" or "Republicans" actually love fear itself. Play "Political Speech Montage and Religious Sermon Montage". [montages play]

SPEMULAK: Some of them also seem to love what they claim to fear. They pass laws against certain behaviors and when they think they are alone, they indulge in them -- things like prostitution, gambling, drug abuse and what appears to be ritual child molestation. Play "Pedophile Priest montages 6 through 9".

ZOLTAR: Inevitably, the reverse is also sometimes true and they express fear for what they love. Play "Janet Jackson Mammary Exposure" please.

AGP: What do these "Republicans" fear most?

SPEMULAK: Terrorism. Communism. Jism. Not necessarily in that order.

AGP: Is that all?

ZOLTAR: Also, Republicans greatly fear the wrath of an invisible deity--

SPEMULAK: And the male anus.

AGP: Is that practical? Is not every male equipped with an anus?

SPEMULAK: Indeed. Every female as well.

ZOLTAR: Though the female anus is not widely feared. Only the male anus is feared.

AGP: Perhaps they are like the giant toad-creatures of planet Globb. I hear only the females defecate, and then only once during a lifetime.

SPEMULAK: Perhaps. Though this anus-fear does not seem to be a biological trait among humans. It appears to be acquired culturally.

AGP: Mysterious. What else? What of their hopes and dreams?

ZOLTAR: Most humans aspire to have their likenesses displayed on viewing screens.

SPEMULAK: This goes hand-in-hand with the desire for shiny objects and mammary glands. The females have decorative artificial mammaries implanted when the original ones lack prominence. Then come the shiny objects and the viewing-screen placement.

AGP: Well, good work gentlemen. When will you be returning to the Earth?

ZOLTAR: Soon. We need to check our hypothesis that the "Republicans" will destroy some more buildings in order to win favor among their underlings in an upcoming popularity contest.

AGP: Very well. I look forward to your next report.

9/11 Special Comment - Keith Olbermann

2006-09-14T21:00:31Z

If you haven't seen this yet, it is a real breath of fresh air, coming from mainstream media as it does. God bless Keith Olbermann!

Dubya-Speak

2006-09-12T05:40:50Z

On this, the 5th anniversary of the worst day in America's recent memory -- and by that I mean the day that the Bush administration's ascendancy began in earnest -- I figured I'd take a moment to riff on politics a bit...

Today I saw a newspaper headline that read: "Bush Vows to Remember the Lessons of 9/11". Of course, the puppet masters who came up with that line want Bush supporters to believe that our leaders are ever more devoted to the safety and security of all True Americans. But what it is far more likely to mean is that the Bushites/neocons will primarily remember that when public opinion turns against them, an extremely easy and effective way to get people back on their side is to engineer a disaster resulting in the death of innocent Americans, which looks for all the world to be the work of foreign terrorists. That's the only lesson our "leaders" learned from 9/11, I assure you.

Given the enormous difference between what the Bushites say about any given situation and the reality of that situation, I can see how some people might find the times we live in to be confusing, possibly so much so that they are discouraged from trying to figure out what is really going on, or even paying attention at all.

So here is a little guide for the perplexed...

In his classic "1984" George Orwell wrote about "double-speak". This is how to translate "Dubya-Speak." There's a simple formula to it. All you have to do is take whatever comes out of George Bush's mouth (or the mouth of any spokesperson for the Bush administration) and imagine what the exact opposite would be. Sometimes this is harder than it sounds. For example...

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "Mission Accomplished"

you might apply the Dubya-Speak formula and assume that...

THE REALITY IS: "Mission NOT Accomplished"

but in fact, the EXACT opposite reads more like...

THE REALITY IS: "We Have No Intention of Ever Completing This Mission, and In Fact Have Conducted This Mission Specifically to Make Its Successful Completion Impossible."

Now, this might be hard to believe, since, on the surface of things, it would seem to go against a politician's objectives to intentionally screw-the-pooch so hard. But that just shows that you haven't applied the dubya-speak formula to the following statement...

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "The purpose of our mission in Iraq is to stabilize the region and allow a great flowering of Democracy and prosperity to take place all across the Middle East, making America and the entire world safer."

Apply the formula and you get...

THE REALITY IS: "We hope to permanently de-stabilize the region, causing ever greater hostilities, leaving Americans with a new perpetual enemy to fear, just like back in the good ol' days of the cold war, only this new perpetual enemy should be even scarier than the commies were, because religious fanatic terrorists could strike anywhere, anytime, with no provocation whatsoever! Mwahahahahah!"

But why would our leaders want to create such a horrible situation? Because...

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "The real winners will be the Iraqi people."

THE REALITY IS: "The real winners will be the heads of companies that make the weapons we will constantly drop on the Iraqi people."

What are the names of those "real winners"? They are the same names you get when you complete the following sentence: "The Bush Administration is sponsored by ______________."

Here's a simple one:

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "We do not use torture."

THE REALITY IS: "We use lots and lots of torture."

This last one goes out to Craig's brother Eric Nelson:

WHEN BUSH SAYS: "We thank the brave men and women of our armed forces, serving their country by defending freedom at home and bringing it to Iraq."

THE REALITY IS: [What do you think?]