You give the shittiest birthday gifts, dad.
Are there really not enough descriptive terms available to sportscasters?
ESPN Announcer: Now as a right-handed pitcher who gets torched by left-handed batters, is that where the addition of that cut fastball can really come in handy?
ESPN Color Commentator: *baseball answer blah blah blah*... and he's been soft ever since then. He's getting raped.
Pool Repartey!
My apartment overlooks a pool. Not a particularly popular pool, but a pool that does the job. It’s filled with chlorinated water and gives you a place to hit on girls. More on that later.
When I moved in, I worried that the sounds of grown men doing cannonballs and people sunning themselves (which makes the noise Ssssssssszzz) would force me to adopt a perpetual Jack Black-ian visage of annoyed bemusement. As it turns out, that’s not the case. Instead, I’m getting a lesson in watching how people interact from my perch.
I watched a guy and a girl, tanned and slim alike, engage in conversation. Maybe not conversation exactly. The girl did the talking and the guy the smiling. She did not stop talking. He did not stop smiling. I know how this ends. He gets laid. She doesn’t stop talking until she realizes that he left two weeks ago. That lasts fifteen seconds. Then she calls her friend and continues talking.
Even better, I watched two couples made friends! The guys and the girls paired off. The guys chatting about whatever it is two dudes who work out a lot talk about (the Age of Enlightenment) and the girls blah blahed about clothes (but mostly the Cold War and its effect on liberalism). As they left the pool, the guys said it was nice to meet each other and that they should get together and play pool sometime.* The girls agreed.
It’s hard to listen when you’re trying to read Infinite Jest over the din of poolside conversation and lap-swimming. I guess some are pool people and some are book people.**
*I wonder if meeting at a pool had anything to do with this decision.
**I consider those who read on the beach to be mixed-race.
"Your parents are disappointed in you!"
It was 6:30 AM. The parking lot was dead quiet, except for two skater kids rolling by. Both had long hair and looked about 15. I was walking to work and had a laptop bag and looked even dorkier than usual. I had a feeling they’d say something to me.
“Hail Satan!” the younger one shouted. “Lucifer will take your blood and spread it all over you!”
Oh, kids. You’re trying to freak me out with Satan? You know what’s scary? Things that actually exist. Nothing is scarier than real life.
“Cancer! Loneliness! The Eagles not winning a Super Bowl in your lifetime!”
Great. Now I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.
I think what got John is he switched from Marlboros to Merits.
— Bill Murray on Belushi’s death, from Tom Davis’ book
Sex, drugs and rock & roll (and comedy). Mr. Davis did it all. He seems to be the Forrest Gump of the comedy scene in the 70s and 80s. He wrote for SNL and was Al Franken’s writing partner, he hung out with the Grateful Dead, he seemingly snorted enough coke/took enough LSD to kill/make a horse hallucinate and boned many attractive ladies.
How he still remembers the anecdotes in the book and also the exact drinks he had that corresponded with the stories (and I can’t remember what I had for dinner two nights ago), I have no idea.
A quick, fun summer read. Three out of four doses.
My couch and I have a platonic relationship
In 6th grade, my friends and I spent took turns jumping off the arm of a couch onto the cushions to mimic what we’d do to a pretty classmate if she were there. My guess is that we thought that belly flopping on someone was an act with inherent eroticism.
I wonder if one of those dudes, now in his late twenties, has a couch fetish and he can’t quite figure out why. I bet he baits his wife into fights so she makes him sleep on the couch.
He's a doctor, he should know better
Neil Patrick Harris is in the news. He denied that he’s going to adopt a baby with his domestic partner. Asked why, he said, “We’re still trying to conceive.”
The Daily Show did a piece last week on people in Long Island who want it to secede. It gets really good towards the end.
