One winter night, upon returning home after spending the evening at a friend's house in South Park, I almost ran an oncoming car off the road. Within minutes of this near miss, I found myself being accused of running a car off the road and wasn't really sure what to say.
At the time, I was on winter break from Syracuse, and my friends Christine and Jason--who are now married--were on leave from Duquesne and Allegheny respectively. We planned a get together at the home of Christine's parents, which resides approximately five or six minutes down the road from my mom's place.
On the drive over, I noticed it was drizzling a bit, but there was no reason at all to expect any road related problems. The wooded areas and front yards adjacent to the streets of my hometown were indeed snow-covered, and a perceptive eye would've been able to ascertain that the thicker of the tree branches still served as receptacles for snow and ice despite the fact that it hadn't snowed for at least a week. But the roads were clear, and the goings were not in any way slow on the short trip to Chrisine's.
Upon my arrival, as was our custom, the three of us: played a few board games; laughed at the photos in our old high school yearbooks; rehashed, yet still laughed at baseball stories and practical joke tales that we'd recited dozens of times on previous occasions; wondered aloud about the whereabouts of notorious nice-guy-turned-Navy-man John Chergi; drank iced tea; munched on some nachos with cheese; and generally just enjoyed one another's company.
At around two in the morning, we wrapped up the reminiscing, and I hopped into my tiny, red Mazda 323 with the huge black bumpers. The car was parked on the street in front of the house. Once inside, I turned on the ignition, cranked the heat, and reached below the passenger-side seat--my completely unoriginal and non-clever hiding place--for the face attachment of the car stereo. Thereafter, I connected the front part of the stereo to its mate component on the dashboard and pulled into a driveway belonging to the family that lived across the street from Christine's parents, so as to turn the car around and head home.
I probably should've let the front and rear windshields defrost before attempting to drive, but that Mazda was notorious for its fits and starts when it came to the art of defrosting. Driving the vehicle in cold weather environs essentially relegated the person behind the wheel to a near-constant state of vent and heat adjustment in order to avoid the onset of seemingly random "fog outs." If you weren't on your game while driving the Mazda, or were just simply preoccupied by the sights and sounds that existed on the other side of the windows, you were setting yourself up for a completely fogged-up front windshield. And the transformation from perfectly clear glass to blurred, Sleepy Hollow graveyard fog would take only a second or two.
Look in the rearview mirror for just a bit too long, or attempt to grab a CD from the glove box, and it was all over--that's all the time that damn window needed. Suddenly it was like you were driving the car while wearing a pair of lab goggles filled with lemonade. And when this happened you'd have little choice but to either pull over or use your sleeve to wipe away a porthole of sorts that could be seen through only if you positioned your head at a certain angle, kept it at that angle, and squinted.
As I had become a pro at driving with obstructed windshields, I didn't freak during the initial moments of the drive when I noticed that the window was a tad frosted over. I simply used my sleeve, tilted my head, and squinted. As far as I could tell, it wasn't raining anymore, and it certainly wasn't snowing, but the ineffectiveness of the windshield wipers seemed to indicate that the front window had experienced at least some ice buildup.
Again, no biggie. I could tilt and squint with the best of them.
That said, Triphammer Road--the winding, hilly, two-lane street that eventually connects up with Piney Fork Road, which then leads to Brownsville Road, and my mom's house--has been known to kick a few asses. Even on a bright, sunny afternoon, it can be a bit tricky. The road runs adjacent to a small stream and ascends a steep hill. It is bordered by a wooded area and what is, at times, quite scary, cliff-like drop-offs.
After crossing the small, one-lane bridge that connects with Triphammer, I took a left onto the road and proceeded at a pace that I'd guess was around 30 or 35 miles-per-hour. Shortly after making that left, I reached down to turn the radio station.
After that, as trite as it may sound, everything happened in slow motion.
When I looked up, my car was careening to the right shoulder of the road atop what was obviously a pretty substantial patch of ice. As it was drifting to the side, I noticed the headlights of a car that appeared to be travelling down the steep Triphammer hill that my car, but for the whole sliding off the road thing, was about to scale.
I tried to turn the Mazda so as to keep it from slipping off into the heavily wooded area that was quickly approaching, but such attempts were to no avail. I was at the mercy of the ice, and as the oncoming vehicle drew closer, I realized that my car was pretty much going to end up wherever the hell that ice led me.
As it left the road, my car immediately smashed into something that I assumed was a huge tree, and, on impact, I swiftly cut the wheel to the left. Fortunately, at the moment of collision, my car regained its tire traction and my hard left turn actually resulted in the vehicle doing what I wanted it to. Unfortunately, as my Mazda clumsily bounced back onto the road the car coming from the opposite direction was upon me.
Frankly, there was little I could do.
I'd just smashed into something on the side of the road, and I was in the process of making a desperate attempt to avoid progressing further into a forest that would most assuredly leave my car in pieces. I assumed that I would crash violently into the oncoming car, but I didn't.
The driver of the other vehicle appeared to have a sense of what was going on with my Mazda, and decided to speed up in order to pass by prior to my car's reentry into his path. His plan worked, in that I did not crash into his car. It did not work in the sense that his increase in speed caused his car to do a pretty nasty fishtail after passing me.
His vehicle avoided the guardrail on the non-woodsy side of the road by the slimmest of margins and eventually came to a stop on the other side of the road about 20 yards from where my Mazda had run into trouble.
By this time, my heart was palpatating in a quick, hurting way that I can only describe as being similar to what I'd imagine a fish's heart to be going through when said fish is firmly on a hook and out of the water--a heavy breathing, frantic, mess of a heartbeat.
Both of the cars were now stopped and remained so for a good 15 seconds. Just as I was about to get out and walk over to the other car, though, it drove off into the distance.
So, I did the same.
On my trek down Piney Fork Road and up Brownsville, I may have breathed twice.
I was still scared silly over what went down, and I was sure that the right front of my Mazda was completely jacked up. When I reached the children's playground near the oval running track in the middle of South Park, I pulled into the parking lot to check out the damage.
Despite the hour, the lot was fully illuminated due to the numerous, telephone-pole-supported streetlights that were kept on 24 hours a day. This space provided me the perfect environment for taking a good look at what I had done to the car.
When I got out, I was pleasantly surprised.
There were no dents, no dings, and no smushed-up metal. Instead, there was just lots of mud.
Apparently, my car did not hit a tree on the side Triphammer but instead ran into a huge pile of snow and dirt that had amassed there over the winter. As I cleared all the mud from under the gigantic, black bumper on my Mazda, a feeling of absolute relief cycled through my entire body.
Then the cop pulled up . . .
"Can I see your license, son?" the officer said, as that sense of relief cycled its ass out of town.
When I handed him the ID, he responded with an interesting question:
"Did you just run somebody off the road back there?"
I couldn't believe it.
How in the world did this guy know what happened five minutes ago? Was he driving that other car? Or did he see the whole thing go down from one of the adjacent streets and simply follow me to this spot?
I was stumped, and scared, and about to answer something along the lines of "Technically, I wouldn't say that I ran somebody off the road. It was more like I ran off the road and almost crashed into somebody who then sort of ran off the road." But those words, thankfully, never came out.
"What are you doing here?" the cop said noticing my fright, and the fact that I had not yet answered his question. "Did you run someone off the road? We've got a report, and there are some pretty serious injuries involved along with some big-time damage to a vehicle."
Oh god!
What if I didn't see everything that happened? What if something terrible went down during the near miss back on Triphammer and that other driver, or a passenger was seriously injured? Maybe I did hit that car and just didn't notice because of all the bumping that was going on at the time. What did I do?
What if . . . I somehow killed somebody back there?
"What are you doing here?" the guy asked again.
"I just slid on some ice and hit a patch of dirt," I said, half-truthfully. "I stopped here because I knew there was a lot of light that would allow me to check on the condition of my car."
"Are you sure your car isn't messed up because you just ran someone off the road?" he responded.
Again, I hesitated.
"Listen," he said. "We have a report of somebody running a truck off the road two hours ago up on Snowden Road. Was that you?"
"No," I replied, "It wasn't."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," I said. "Yes, I'm sure."
It was all, apparently, just a coincidence.
"OK, I'm going to let you go for now," the policeman told me. "But I can guarantee you this much. Take a look at me right now. If I find out that a red Mazda 323 was responsible for what happened on Snowden, I am going to be at Hilldale Drive at 7 in the morning tomorrow, and you are going to see this face again. I'll be there knocking on your front door, first thing."
"I promise," I said in response. "It wasn't me."
Thereafter, we both drove off--neither of us, it seemed, knowing exactly what to believe or what was really going on.
I slept uneasy that night, still unsure of what exactly I had done and whether, somehow I actually could've been responsible for the incident that cop was investigating, despite the mismatching facts.
I woke up sans alarm at about 6:30 on the following morning hoping to hear absolutely no sound at all coming from our front door.
Thankfully, there was no early morning knock, and I never did see that cop's face again. --------------------------------- CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 252 (abberation, Drew Barrymore, "he only owns only" had one too many "only," "The Strokes recordings" is missing an apostrophe, et al.) 2) Jason Nypaver: 243 (5 points for abberation, sport coat, Drew Barrymore, CDs, and "beat" should have been "beaten," and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 3) Evelyn Segura: 199 (none) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) abberation 2) sport coat 3) Drew Barrymore 4) CDs 5) "beat" should have been "beaten," 6) "he only owns only" had one too many "only" 7) "The Strokes recordings" is missing an apostrophe 8) et al.
posted by mjxm at 12:46 PM |
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: GO APPLE
How anyone who even remotely enjoys music and has at least a bit of disposable income could not own an iPod by now is really beyond me. I'll be the first to admit that there's been some pretty impressive inventions throughout history--Fire and electricity, though not technically inventions per se, were pretty big ones; refrigeration was important; the automobile and airplane changed how people conceive of our geography; and Pez combined candy and toys masterfully. But the iPod is better than all of them . . . combined. Since Apple came out with their iTunes music player over a year ago, I have not used my stereo once--it's even dustier than the rest of the dusty stuff in my room. Now, with the advent of an iPod in my life, all my CDs have joined the stereo under the category of useless props that go untouched. On my first night of iPoddom, I loaded each and every one of them onto the machine--which now serves as my de facto stereo. When I want to hear new music, I download it. So, CDs are out of the equation entirely. Though I was initially worried that I'd never use the thing, real life experience has resulted in the exact opposite. I take my iPod everywhere, and it's so small that I hardly even know I have it with me. If I want to listen to something through speakers, I just plug it into my computer and it's all good. When they first came out, I thought iPods were way overpriced. Now that I've had one for a while, I can't believe that they don't cost more than they do. Knowing what I know about how cool my iPod is and how it's basically replaced my stereo and all of my CDs, I really do believe that the thing is an absolute bargain.
posted by mjxm at 7:00 PM |
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: DIET
Trying to get in the habit of eating better sucks. There's no two ways about it. Case in point: Raisin Bran. Do you realize how gross this stuff is? I didn't . . . until today. In conjunction with efforts to phase more fruits into my diet and more fats out, I picked up two boxes of Raisin Bran yesterday at the market. Mistake number one, clearly, was getting two boxes of something that I wasn't positive I'd really like. But, at the time it made sense. I mean, the commercials are so festive--with that giant, smiling sun pouring two hearty scoops of raisins into each and every box of this Kellogg's concoction--and the box is a radiant purple shade that drew me in like bug to zapper. After having a bowl of this stuff today, all I can say is, "Who eats this crap?" First off, I don't like cereals that don't float in the milk, but rather remain stationary at the bottom of the bowl while the milk covers it up on the sides. I never have, and I never will. Secondly, those flakes . . . um . . . what the hell? They taste like cardboard--and not new, clean cardboard, either . . . the kind of cardboard that's been lying around in the basement since '86 and has soaked up all sorts of water, dust, and odor. I don't even like raisins, but since those flakes are so awful I found myself to be absolutely giddy when one of them made its way onto my spoon. Without at least one raisin in a spoonful of this junk, it becomes almost inedible. Maybe that's the idea--the raisins serving as a little treat, or whatever. But if I'm forced to eat old cardboard, I contend that the "treat" should be more along the lines of two scoops of mini chocolate brownies or something.
posted by mjxm at 2:22 PM |
Monday, October 27, 2003
bliz: New York City Music
If you've never been to New York City before and want to know what it's like, you could do a lot worse than to simply listen to the new CD by The Strokes.
Their music is a grimy, layered mix of overlapping instruments and vocals that often seem to have been shouted through a megaphone in the room across the hall from the studio mic. For the most part, it's mainly traditional pop stuff disguised as street-cred-worthy, garage band hip. The songs start quickly, end fast, and mine all the trite territories typically addressed in rock---issues of love, sex, debauchery, and ambition abound.
It's like New York microcosm-ed and smushed into CD form.
Most of the tracks on the new release go on for about three minutes before ending. One tune drones on for a whole 3:27, but it's clearly an abberation.
The result of all this, amazingly, is a catalog of songs that really strikes my fancy.
Now, although it's true that I'm a sucker for vocals delivered right over top of another instrument (for instance, lyrics over the keyboard in The Roots' "Dynamite," or a similar effect, using both keyboard and guitar, in "Peace Frog" by The Doors), no one could've guessed that I'd have a thing for the damn Strokes. Their stuff, I assure you, is not my cup of tea when it comes to music.
Still, ever since the "Last Night" single hit a few years back, I've found myself unable to ignore this band and their catchy, derivative melodies. I've read a fair number of magazine features on the group, and, based on the information therein, I quickly pegged their story as the following: 1) Five of the dorkiest guys on the planet grow up with well-to-do parents in Manhattan; 2) When the boys are not busy getting beat up by the bullies at their fancy, private schools (assuming, of course, that there are bullies at such places) they play lots of chess, smoke boatloads of weed, and learn how to play an instrument or two; 3) The boys grow up, form a band, pay their dues in the Manhattan club scene, and then cut a record that changes everything; 4) Suddenly, they are no longer dorks: Their thrift-shop duds, too-tight sportcoats, and skinny neckties become fashionable; band members suddenly score models, and one gets with Drew Berrymore; 5) The group continues to produce catchy tunes, get drunk often, and, for the most part, make fools of themselves in the name of rock stardom.
The not-so-well-written cover story on the band in the latest issue of "Rolling Stone" largely confirmed my thumbnail sketch version of their existence, and, if anything, may have persuaded me that the group members are even dorkier than I had initially thought. It also, once again, made me painfully aware that the members' girlfriends are all hotter than hot, and convinced me that the band's singer--who was conveniently handed the rock star name Julian Casablancas by his parents at the time of birth--may indeed have cast aside one too many brain cells while partying on the Lower East Side. In fact, to be more accurate, everything written about the lead singer in the article makes me think that he could not possibly be more annoying. His trendy/untrendy choice not to have a cell phone, the fact that he only owns only three cds--one by Bowie and two by Bob Marley--at the moment, and the stuff about how he's apparently too cool to change his clothes every now and again, all combine to make me think that he and the band are just one big, huge show for the cameras. No one, it seems, could really be this trite and predictably paint-by-numbers in real life.
But, alas, all that aside, the group makes music that does something for me and that simply reeks of this city.
Rather than calling it garage rock, trying to squeeze it into some ill-fitting punk category, or labeling it "'Murmur' takes Manhattan" (I came up with that one on my own!), people really should just refer to The Strokes recordings as simply "New York City Music." Group it with Mos Def's "Black on Both Sides," The Ramones' early stuff, Nas' "Illmatic," Lou Reed, Biggie Smalls, et. al, and just leave the labeling at that.
Lately, more and more people have been asking me what this town is really like. And when I answer said question, the best I can do is trot out adjectives like "busy," "layered," "hectic," "harried," and "messy."
Add the word "dorky" to that mix and you've pretty much got The Strokes, and their music, down pat. --------------------------------- CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 247 (2 points for improper lowercased "I," and improper period after "prof," and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 236 ("upperclass" should have been two words or hyphenated, "matriculators" should have been "matriculates," improper lowercased "I," improper period after "prof," "Candid Camera" should have been in quotes, "the class" should have been "members of the class," "sneaky" should have been "sneaking," missing period after "chart.") 3) Evelyn Segura: 199 (none) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) "upperclass" should have been two words or hyphenated, 2) "matriculators" should have been "matriculates" 3) improper lowercased "I" 4) improper period after "prof" 5) "Candid Camera" should have been in quotes 6) "the class" should have been "members of the class" 7) "sneaky" should have been "sneaking" 8) missing period after "chart."
posted by mjxm at 6:44 PM |
LIL' ZOGGIE: JUST PLAIN WAC
Waccamaw Pottery is the worst place ever. It's in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and is described on the Travel Channel's website as a place with "more than 3 miles of shelves in several buildings . . . stocked with china, glassware, brass, pewter, and other items." It is described by Matthew J.X. Malady as hell on Earth. When I was a child, my family made what seems like an infinite number of vacation trips to the greater Myrtle Beach area. And each time, without fail, I would have to go to that damn Waccamaw Pottery store at least once. At first, I was tricked into going via expectation-raising lies along the lines of, "I think they have baseball cards there," or "they've got toys, too." After I found out that there were neither baseball cards nor toys of any sort at this purgatory of pottery products, subsequent trips to the football-field-sized store involved various forms of protest on my part--kicking and screaming when I was younger, and cursing the person who owned the place as I got older. Nonetheless, somehow, I always ended up going. And each time I'd have to deal with an obscene number of lawn ornaments and tons of stupid little nicknacks made of that orange clay that smells like old people's feet. Those parents, aunts, and uncles who dragged me along to this place, unfortunately, liked to stick around for hours looking at every flowerpot or ceramic frog in the store. To this day, the memories still haunt me. Thankfully, though, I am now a grown man. And, in my estimation, one of the best things about growing up is knowing that you will never, ever, ever have to set foot in Waccamaw Pottery again.
posted by mjxm at 12:05 AM |
Friday, October 24, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: CHILI NOT CHILLY
Yesterday, I had a meeting at an office in a really tall media building in Manhattan. Since 9/11, those who run all really tall buildings here demand that visitors check in at the front desk and show ID before proceeding to the elevator banks. At the check-in station, some security guy makes a little nametag for you and calls the person you say your appointment is with for confirmation purposes. While I was moving through this process yesterday afternoon, the guard next to the one who was checking my ID summoned a very short woman with dark hair and skin by calling out "next in line." The woman was wearing a sliver and green tacksuit, and was carrying what seemed to be a diamond encrusted cell phone (who knew there were such things?).
"Can I help you?" the second guard asked.
"Hi, yes, I'm here to see Ms. Soandso," the woman replied. "Can you tell her it's chilly."
The guard, puzzled, replied by asking if the woman was cold.
"No," she said, "I'm fine."
"Oh, you mean it's cold outside?" the guard asked.
"It is cold, yes," the woman said, "but can you just tell her it's chilly."
By this point, I was totally transfixed on the odd conversation. "I don't understand," the man said.
"Can you tell her Chili is here to see her," the woman said, clearly recognizable to me now as one of the members of the R&B group TLC.
"Oh, so you're name is Chili," the guard said.
"Right," Chili replied with a smile.
"But you're not cold?" the guy said, being trying to be cute.
"No, I'm not," she replied.
At this point, I had to break in. "Don't let this guy bother you," I said. "I know who you are, he's out of it."
She immediately smiled at me, and laughed, and said thank you. "I'm so used to this type of thing by this point," she said. "It doesn't even phase me anymore."
posted by mjxm at 11:33 AM |
Thursday, October 23, 2003
bliz: Deeez Nuts
Law professors love seating charts.
For traditionally large first-year classes and the most popular of upperclass course offerings, these menu-sized diagrams are nearly essential. That's because in a scenario where a single professor must hold court over 100 or 150 students, the professor in question must have a method for determining who is where in the classroom for Socratic Method purposes.
The Socratic Method is the traditional and chosen form of law student instruction, and, in sum, entails the professor calling on one or two students at random each class to lead discussion, recount facts and arguments from the day's cases, and answer all sorts of questions while the rest of the class takes notes, sleeps, or does whatever it is that they do during class. In practice, this method manifests as a huge power trip for profs and tends to freak out a large percentage of law students--who are afraid of being called on when unprepared. But it's really not that big a deal.
The teacher calls your last name with a "Mr." or "Ms." in front of it and asks you some stuff. If you completed the assigned reading and know what you're talking about, it's a breeze. If you didn't, or don't, or both, you quickly learn the art of fudging things so as to sound at least somewhat informed, and try your best to quickly get over the fact that you looked like a bit of a joker in front of your peers.
Anyway, to implement the Socratic Method, profs like to know who's sitting where so that they can direct their questions in the right direction. Hence, the all-important seating chart.
These manmade maps of matriculators are quite simple in both form and design. During one of the first few classes of the semester, the professor passes around what amounts to an overhead diagram of the room that has empty rectangles designating each available seat. As the chart snakes its way through the masses, each person receiving the sheet fills his or her name in the rectangle that represents the seat that he or she will fill for the remainder of the semester. Thereafter, profs usually have their assistants type up a second version of the chart--so that they don't have to struggle with the peaks and valleys of student handwriting variance--or match-up facebook pictures with the appropriate names so as to make the chart more personalized.
While these tools of the law professor's trade do little to curb pronunciation missteps, they seem to serve their purpose well and don't really create any problems or controversy in most cases.
Unfortunately for the poor instructor who taught my evidence class at Michigan in 1998, said class was not one that can be filed neatly away in the "most cases" category.
Three things in particular stand out in my mind about that evidence course--which, unlike most law students, i actually really enjoyed.
First, there was the ongoing, spirited competition that I engaged in with the guy sitting next to me on various in-class quizzes. These multiple choice mini-exams cropped up about once every two weeks and, after being completed, were to be exchanged between adjacent students for grading. My quizzes were passed to the left and were graded by a Mr. Ben Means, whose quizzes I marked. Aside from the fact that his name became the basis for a seemingly never ending stream of nicknames--Ben "ways and" Means, Ben Means "business," Ben Means "pirited," Ben "by all" Means," "Big" Ben Means, Ben Means "rea," and so on--Mr. Means was known by me foremost as an expert rival in the field of evidence. We each excelled to an amazingly similar extent on those quizzes--which asked students to apply various federal rules on, for instance: whether certain types of evidence were admissible in court; when evidentiary objections were appropriate, and, most commonly; whether hypothetical evidentiary offerings fell under the gambit of the hearsay rule or were excluded from the rule's application via its myriad exceptions--and I have a sneaky suspicion that we probably received the same grade in the class despite all the smack talk we exchanged prior to the final exam.
Secondly, I remember acing a kid in the class who would later go on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice, gay-sex-hater, and fucking idiot, Antonin (or, as G.W. improperly referred to him in 1990, "Anthony") Scalia. I forget the exact context, but the kid raised his hand in class to ask the prof a question that he "simply couldn't figure out." When he was finished with the question, the professor, in full ego-trip formation, asked whether anyone in the class could answer it. Miraculously, it turned out that I could. And, when no one else volunteered, I raised my hand, gave an explanation and received an "exactly right," from the prof. This wasn't a big deal at all, until I heard the guy was working for Scalia. Now I brag about it all the time.
But without the final of my three lasting memories from that evidence class, those other two wouldn't have even been blogworthy. Those were merely minor, mostly inconsequential personal memories of the sort that we all possess and usually keep to ourselves.
This third one, though, is a doozy that's in a completely different ballpark.
During one, seemingly ordinary class near the end of the semester, the professor noticed the raised hand of a student residing in the third or forth row. He stopped the lecture and proceeded to visually search the seating chart for the kid's name, so as to call on him with the proper "Mr. so-and-so" prelude.
"I'm sorry, what's your name?" the compact, salt-and-pepper bearded man asked the student. "I can't seem to find you on my chart. This is very odd. What's your name?"
When the kid answered with his name, the professor's confusion grew.
"I don't understand why you're not on here," the prof. said, befuddled.
"I'm not sure," the student replied. "I've been here all along."
What happened next was, in my book at least, pretty damn crazy.
"Oh wait, I found you," the professor stated abruptly, as though he had just solved a murder mystery. "You were right here all along . . ."
"You were right here under my nuts!"
Immediately, the class went silent.
I, for one, froze. I couldn't believe that my ears had just picked up the words that I thought I heard.
Could this esteemed scholar of evidence really have just said that the student in the fourth row was under his friggin' nuts? It seemed like an utter impossibility, like a gag you'd see on Candid Camera.
But, after at least five seconds of awkward silence, we all realized that it wasn't some crazy joke and that Alan Funt was not going to jump out from behind the podium to reveal various, microscopic cameras hidden in the chandeliers. The whole thing was real, very real, and I wasn't sure whether the professor had lost his mind, or what, but at that point I could not control myself any longer.
Simply put, I lost it.
I tried not to, but I laughed . . . hard.
I tried to be inconspicuous about it, but there wasn't much I could do. In retrospect, I got off easy because I was wearing a baseball cap that was pulled down quite low and allowed me to hide my face from the professor as I giggled uncontrollably. Mr. Means and most of the others in the class weren't as fortunate and had no choice but to cover their faces with their hands as they chuckled, or to turn toward the back of the room as if a special guest had arrived.
We were all laughing, but it was clear that as we chuckled we still had very little clue as to what in the hell was going on, or what had possessed the professor to utter such seemingly random words.
Noticing that 2/3 of his students were laughing in a "what the fuck?" kind of way, and the other 1/3 were either grimacing or looking awfully confused, the professor quickly realized that the words he just completed speaking must have caused all this. You could actually see him there thinking, trying to put it all together at his perch in front of the class. And when he did, he addressed the matter immediately.
He held up a small bag of peanuts that had been resting on the podium in front of him and showed it to all of us. Then he explained things in a slow, methodical manner so as to try to clear up the misunderstanding that his mistakenly ill-chosen words had heaped upon the class.
"Your name was right here on my chart," he said. "It was hidden below this bag of peanuts that I had placed on top of the chart. So the peanuts blocked my view of your name. It was this bag of peanuts here that was blocking your name, um . . . on my chart"
Thereafter, he tried to continue on with the rest of the lesson. But I'm pretty sure that I didn't hear a damn thing he said. It was too late at that point. The damage had been done, and I for one do not think all that clearly after tearing up from excessive laughter.
To this day, I remember the "under my nuts" class with vivid clarity. I am absolutely thankful that I was present to witness such an odd, hilarious moment. But, most of all, I am glad that I was not the student who, from that day on, was known as the guy who was under the evidence professor's nuts. --------------------------------- CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 243 (9 points for Megadeth, Run-DMC (six times), The Monkees, Canucks, and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 228 (Megadeth, Run-DMC (six times), Chris Cioffi, Canucks) 3) Evelyn Segura: 199 (Run-DMC (six times)) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) Megadeth 2) Run-DMC (six times) 3) The Monkees 4) Canucks 5) Chris Cioffi
posted by mjxm at 2:21 PM |
LIL' ZOGGIE: CALL OFF THE DOGS
I found the guy. Thanks anyway.
postscript: Full-length bliz entry to be posted later tonight.
posted by mjxm at 11:49 AM |
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: M.I.A.
If you've seen my Ben Gay feature writer, please have him give me a call. He was supposed to get back from Afghanistan on Monday, but, strangely, I have yet to hear from him this week. The story's due on Friday, and I have no idea whether he's even started it. This, my friends, is not good. But let me back up for a second before telling you why. Right now I am smack dab in the middle of writing and editing pieces for the next issue of the magazine, but two weeks ago my job foremost entailed locating writers with talent and hiring said individuals to pen various articles for the issue. Although most editors rely almost solely on detailed pitches and mandate high-profile clips from national publications before assigning a piece to a writer, I don't do things that way. My way is much simpler, and, as far as I can tell, much more likely to result in articles by writers who are great at the art of writing. What I do is ask people to email me an example or two of their best work, be it published or not. Then I go through the resulting pile, pick out the best, most creative stuff, and hire the folks who impressed me with their samples. I can be won over by almost anything--a journal entry, an extraordinary email, a fiction piece on what it would be like to live in Siberia--as long as it's really good. The way I see it, writers can write, whether or not they've convinced an editor at The New Yorker or GQ to accept one of their pieces for publication. So, anyway, I read a few things by some kid a few weeks ago that were innovative, unique, and expertly organized. I hired him on the spot and asked him to take on an article about how exactly Ben Gay and other muscle rubs work once you lather them on your skin. He was stoked about the opportunity and accepted readily. The only problem, he told me, was that he was on assignment in Afghanistan and would not be returning until the 20th. I balked initially, but he assured me that he was ready to turn to this article as soon as he got back and that he could have it on my desk within five days of his touch down on American soil. To these arguments, I relented. But Friday is only two days away, and I have no idea where my post-Afghanistan, muscle cream writer person is. If I don't have an edited version of the story for staff review on Monday, it's my ass. So, seriously, if you've seen this guy anywhere tell him that I'm looking for him.
posted by mjxm at 10:49 PM |
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: NO ZZZZ
It's around 5 pm, and as I write this entry some Australian guy is sleeping on the couch in my living room. He is shirtless and in a state of fitness that I would compare to that of George Costanza from Sienfeld. He's been here since last Thursday, via his presumed friendship with one or another of my roommates, but I'm not really sure of his name. He comes and goes as he pleases, and, the unnecessarily loud burping aside, hasn't been all that much trouble to get along with during the daytime. While I am admittedly growing more and more tired of being referred to as "mate," that's nothing compared to the annoyance that I derive from his obscenely loud snoring every night. The thin walls and closed door that separate my living space from his couch do absolutely nothing to protect me from the snorts and grunts that emanate from the nasal passages of this Sydney-based soundbomber. Pillows piled high above my head at 3 am are rendered useless by his megaphone of a nose. I'm not sure when he's leaving, but I assure you that it cannot be soon enough. If this goes on much longer, I may have to ask the thunder from down under to join me in a round of Australian Rules Ass-Kicking.
posted by mjxm at 8:59 PM |
Monday, October 20, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: THOSE WHO ACTUALLY DO THINGS THAT WE'VE ALL WANTED TO DO
According to Yahoo News and Reuters, a frustrated television viewer in Germany took matters into her own hands over the weekend. The story, filed under the this-just-about-says-it-all headline of "Bored woman hurls TV out of window," is at once absurd and surprising. It's absurd in that an article containing a quote along the lines of, "There was nothing decent on, so I just threw the thing out the window," seems almost too bizarre to be true. But, perhaps more interestingly, the story also strikes me as surprising. Not because I'm surprised that someone would actually pick up their television and toss it out an open window in their fifth floor apartment, but rather for the precise opposite reason. In thinking about it, I find it amazing that this sort of thing doesn't happen more frequently. The gremlinesque proliferation of reality shows and a similarly distressing trend in the realm of home remodeling television have served to sap the idiot box of nearly all its utility. And now that Fox has cancelled Futurama and Nick-at-Nite replaced "Coach" and "Three's Company" with, no lie, "Full House" and "Rosanne," I'm teetering precariously close to the edge of that boiling point that enveloped the poor German gal. Look out below.
posted by mjxm at 8:40 PM |
bliz: Foster & Kieb
I was turned on to hip-hop in an odd sort of way.
Those most responsible for my initial attachment to the musical form are Matt Foster and Brian Kieb. I attended grade through high school with both these individuals, and, in retrospect, it would be difficult to imagine people who embody stereotypes about hip-hop fans any less than these two guys. In fact, if someone created a lineup of eight hip-hop listeners and two non-fans, included Foster and Kieb in that lot, and then asked an unwitting outsider to select the two guys who don't listen to this type of music, Matt and Brian would be selected as those two . . . every time.
Since Foster's influence came before Kieb's, I'll begin with him.
Simply put, Matt Foster was a rebel.
He and I met at Morgan Elementary during what I can only assume was the first or second grade, and thereafter I knew him as a kid who had a knack for getting in hot water with teachers. Matt was a tall, skinny fellow with a raggedy mop of red hair, a penchant for pugilism, and a slew of concert T-shirts advertising bands such as Metallica, Megadeath, and Slayer. I doubt that he looked very tough to outsiders who simply caught a glance of him, but to those of us who knew him, Matt was as tough as they came. And if you didn't think so, he would . . . um, beat you up. He always hung out with the kids who got in the most trouble in school, and then proceeded to get in more trouble than them. He smoked in bathrooms in the eighth grade and racked up suspensions like nobody's business.
Like I said, Matt was a rebel.
Yet, despite the aforementioned details of his debauchery, Matt and I, for the most part, got along fine. He never beat me up. And, in actuality, there were times in middle school when we somehow morphed into close friends despite the fact that I didn't smoke, or chew, or light fires and stuff. By the time high school rolled around, Matt and I had clearly gone our separate ways--as his antics became less boys-will-be-boys-y and more likely to involve the local authorities. But, aside from the fact that such a fracturing was inevitable from the start, it was no matter at all, because by that time Matt had already played out what seems to be his chief role in my life story.
That is, Matt introduced me to RUN D.M.C.
During the seventh grade, he and I shared a workspace area in woodshop. At the time, he was constantly listening to heavy metal, and one could not help but notice the seemingly angry shrieks of Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickenson or that guy from Judas Priest emanating from the oversized headphones that connected up to his Sony Walkman. In fact, it was on Matt's advice that I purchased Metallica's "Master of Puppets"--an album I would commemorate in art class during the next marking period by creating some sort of burlap and felt replica of its cover that Matt, I'm certain, deemed "kick ass," or something along those lines--and took one or two additional forays into the world of headbanging.
That experiment, of course, would not last. But one day, amidst the metal and mayhem that was Matt's personal sound system, a bass heavy beat caught my ear, and I asked him what in the name of Ozzy he was listening to.
"It's RUN D.M.C.," Matt remarked.
After I responded with a "Huh," he informed me that: "They're a rap group, and their stuff is real dirty. They swear constantly and talk about all kinds of cool crap."
I listened to a few songs and was immediately hooked.
Of course, I realize now that Matt only had the stuff because he thought it was taboo and all the cursing on the records made him feel like he was getting over on grown ups by listening to it--he would later inform me that the Fat Boys "were even worse" than RUN D.M.C., and that if I really wanted to hear some dirty rap they were "the group to check out"--but his motivation is of no matter. I bought RUN D.M.C.'s "Raising Hell" album a few weeks later and played it so much that the tape wore out, only to be replaced later by Scott Shehab, who bought me a second copy for my birthday.
Between '87 and '89, I was all over the board in terms of music. In addition to that RUN D.M.C. tape, I listened to a hodgepodge of stuff that ran the spectrum from reggae to R.E.M. and from the Monkeys to Morris Day. But, in 1989, Brian Kieb's infatuation with two particular hip-hop groups served as a life preserver that rescued me from drowning in a sea of non-descript musical interests.
Kieb was known at our high school for his love of skateboarding, and for doing goofy things like mooning people or sticking his gum on girls' hands to make them freak out. Fewer people, though, knew of his sometimes all-encompassing admiration of Public Enemy and De La Soul.
Kieb and I became good friends during freshman year in high school. He was a lot like me in both appearance and goofballiness, so it was only a matter of time before we started hanging out. And when we did, it was pretty much full-on. We got similar, skaterized, bowl haircuts, wore the same kinds of clothes--Airwalk shoes, Powell Peralta T-shirts, Vision Street Wear--and tried equally as hard to play the part of a cool guy skateboarder. We built a mini-halfpipe in his backyard that we would skate every day after school, and until I accidentally stole his girlfriend in the 11th grade--an act for which I am quite sorry . . . as the girl turned out to be far from worth accidentally stealing--he and I were really close.
Brian was your typical skate punk. He was into bands like the Dead Kennedys, Jane's Addiction, and Jesus Jones, and could've passed for the bassist of any one of them--his stringy, matted hair and numerous necklaces resulted in quite the "are you with the band" look. But, here again, I ran into a guy with an aberration fetish for hip-hop.
I can still remember him forcing me to listen to Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" through his headphones in biology class while Chris Choffi prattled on about his desire to score an official Igor Larionov Vancouver Canuks jersey.
Kieb was adamant about people listening to his Public Enemy tape and took such endeavors quite seriously.
"I'm not joking," he would say. "Listen to this song. Isn't it the greatest thing you've ever heard?"
I mean, Public Enemy could've, and really should've, hired this kid to do p.r. for them. He truly loved the group. One time when I had missed school due to the flu or something, he stopped by to hang out and ended up going through a year's worth of "Rolling Stone" back issues that I had lying around so as to search for any signs of Flavor Flav or Chuck D.
When he came across their photos, or a news item on the band, no matter how small, he cut it out and kept it.
Kieb was serious about his Public Enemy. And I'm really thankful for that fact.
You see, after a while, I realized that he was right from the beginning. The P.E. that he'd introduced me to was indeed the greatest thing I'd ever heard.
Then the same thing happened with De La Soul, and the rest, as they say, is history.
These days I listen almost exclusively to hip-hop. As most of the stuff on the radio and T.V. is trite, boring, and lacking the creative element that Foster's RUN D.M.C. and Kieb's P.E. and De La Soul so adeptly mined, my preferred hip-hop at the moment is mostly of the underground variety.
Still, there's enough P.E., De La, and RUN D.M.C. on my iPod to make me think of Foster and Kieb quite often. And when I do think of them, it is with the utmost fondness. -------------------------------- CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 232 (8 points for missing hyphens following "30," "45," "30," "45," "60," and "90," missing comma after "Brookline," and improper parallelism in two-part list due to repeating "I could," and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 219 (message got erased, but recieved only one point. For what, precisely, I do not recall) 3) Evelyn Segura: 192 (none) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) missing hyphens following "30," "45," "30," "45," "60," and "90" 2) missing comma after "Brookline" 3) improper parallelism in two-part list due to repeating "I could"
posted by mjxm at 12:41 AM |
Saturday, October 18, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: CANCER
My apartment is located across the street and down the block from the Fashion Institute of Technology. As far as I can tell, FIT is like any other college, but for the fact that everyone attending the school is majoring in fabric design, pattern making, fashion administration, or something along those lines. The FIT campus runs from 7th to 8th Avenue on 27th Street, and, as this stretch is on the way to both my grocery and gym, I walk through the area quite often. The building entrances are always teeming with undergrads dressed to shock and awe, and the color combos that predominate the students' clothing never cease to amaze me. But what really sets FIT apart is that each and every person who attends this institution of higher sewing appears to smoke cigarettes. Not every third person, or every other student, but, I kid you not, every single person I've walked passed on that campus has been either standing or sitting around and smoking a cigarette. Sure, you may be able to attribute at least some of this phenomenon to the fact that smoking inside campus buildings is against the law, and that since I never go inside those buildings my only interaction with FIT folk is pretty much guaranteed to consist of run-ins with those who were jonzing for a cig and jetted outside, where I happened to be walking by. But I urge you to take a stroll through the FIT campus and see for yourself that something out of the ordinary is going on there when it comes to smoking. I swear I'm not just making this up, and I have a feeling that what I'm witnessing is going to come back and bite the school in the ass one day. I mean, fashion and cigarettes have always gone together, I suppose, but FIT's administrators are going to be quite perturbed when a remarkably focused lung cancer epidemic completely fucks their alumni gift-giving base in a decade or two.
posted by mjxm at 11:38 PM |
Friday, October 17, 2003
LIL' ZOGGIE: MAN IN THE BOX
So, you know that David Blaine guy--the one who's been hanging out in a plexiglass box suspended above London without any food for the last 40 or so days. I read a news piece about this guy yesterday that seemed to at least imply that he has become some sort of religious or spiritual figure as a result of his various feats of endurance--previous stunts have included being buried alive and being frozen in a block of ice. The article referred to him as a "shaman," and a quoted source claimed that "He has the quality of Rasputin, of Mesmer . . . . He believes it is important to suffer and he thinks that is a very real and true human emotion." As I write this, folks in London are bringing their dead pets to the site of his stunt in hopes of Blaine resurrecting them. The only problem with all this is that David Blaine is just a guy trying to get laid, not the second coming of Jesus. Mr. Blaine and I crossed paths a little over a year ago on Sixth Avenue near my apartment. He was filming a video that entailed his doing card tricks on the street in front of awestruck pedestrians. I watched for about five minutes as his crew picked out the hottest girls passing by and made sure they played foil to Blaine's tricks for the cameras. After a few cards disappeared and some stuff magically caught on fire, someone yelled "cut" and Blaine proceeded to get each of the bouncy beauties' phone numbers. Thereafter, he walked over to where I was standing, and bought a hot pretzel with mustard from a pushcart vendor who was manning the streets right beside me. Blaine noticed me watching as he transferred the sheet of paper with the phone numbers into his pocket so as to be able to hold the pretzel, and gave me this look that pretty much reeked of a sentiment along the lines of "I'm the fucking man." Over the last few years he's dated various models and celebrity hotties, so everything seems to be going according to plan for Mr. Blaine. And, don't get me wrong, I don't fault him for what he's doing. His stunts are pretty incredible and his plan for getting girls is an ingenious one, really. But I can't help but call a spade a spade, even if the spade can make a six of spades catch on fire and disappear. Simply put, David Blaine is just another horny guy with a talent . . . not some sort of prophet.
After South Park High School and before Syracuse University, I did a year at Duquesne.
Most people I meet have never heard of the school--a relatively small Catholic institution located on a picturesque bluff overlooking downtown Pittsburgh--and those who have seem to know it only because their school's "hoops squad absolutely pummels that school every single year, man."
In reality, the university is a pretty good center of higher learning. And, at the time, Duquesne seemed like the right move for me. I planned to play baseball there and earned a partial journalism scholarship through the communications department. But when I realized that the DU baseball coach wasn't all that keen on the prospects of me being his centerfielder of the future, and that the communications department was woefully unimpressive, things changed quite quickly. By the onset of winter, my transfer applications were already in the mail. Without knowing that my soon to be received Duquesne grades would've likely netted me a transfer to one or another of the Ivies, I applied to only three schools: Michigan, Illinois, and Syracuse.
While I waited to hear back from them, things got pretty interesting at Duquesne.
I was a commuter student as a freshman, and this foremost meant two things: 1) I had to deal with the travails of traveling to school and back home each day, and 2) I didn't really get a chance to know all that many people on campus.
On some days, I drove into the city--what amounted to a 30 or 45 minute commute, depending on traffic--with a close friend of mine from high school, Christine. To be precise, she drove and I kinda just went along for the ride. I may have split the cost of gas, but, in retrospect, whatever I paid was surely a bargain because on the days when we did not commute together I was forced to rely on public transportation in the form of city buses, which, for some reason, stopped right at the top of my street in the middle of suburbia. I can remember closely inspecting various bus maps at the time and determining that the stop at the top of my street was further outside the city than any other in the entire Pittsburgh metropolitan area.
Just my luck.
It is indeed true that buses, in general, suck. But city buses go one step beyond merely sucking.
First off, they magically transform a 30 to 45 minute ride into a 60 to 90 minute adventure. The one that I rode took an amazingly circuitous route after departing from Hilldale Drive. It lumbered slowly through Baldwin, traversed the cobblestone streets of Brentwood, hit parts of Mount Lebanon, Brookline and Overbrook, and somehow managed to creep past West Liberty and Mt. Oliver before careening through the South Side and across the Liberty Bridge into the city. In fact, the first time I used the bus to get to campus, I was sure that someone was playing a practical joke on me--that I would eventually end up right back at the top of my street, amidst a group of friends laughing and pointing their fingers at the boy who fell for the old get-on-the-bus gag. But, it was no joke . . . just a slow-ass, stupid bus that eventually dropped me off at school.
Strike that.
To be precise, the bus left me off near school. Like I said, Duquesne is perched at the top of a huge hill. On both the north and south perimeters of the campus, there are large drop-offs. The one on the north side consists of a series of fairly steep streets that lead drivers and pedestrians from the school to downtown, or vice versa. On the south side of campus, the drop-off is a cliff that spans at least a few hundred feet before meeting up with a roadway that is immediately abutted by the Monongahela River.
At the base of that cliff, at the very bottom, is where that stupid bus dropped me off.
From there, I had two options--neither of which, in my estimation, was to be considered "good." I could: 1) Try to scurry through the Armstrong Tunnel--while holding my breath so as not to be asphyxiated by the automobile fumes--and essentially travel underneath the campus and come out on the other side, where I could walk up the hill to the northern part of campus, or 2) I could climb hundreds upon hundreds of steps that scaled the cliff, cross a people bridge over a highway, and enter the university on its south side.
After nearly passing out in attempting option number one, I grudgingly settled for choice two and the consistent calf burn that went along with all those steps. Once on campus, I was so worn out from the torturous bus ride and the suicidal steps that I didn't really do much more than go to class, walk back down the steps, get on the bus, and go home.
Aside from Christine and the handful of people from my high school who attended Duquesne, I'd say I knew about 10 or 12 others at the school, and I was friends with maybe three or four of them.
Two of those "three or four" are, the way I see it, worth writing about. Both of them were guys, and both, unlike me, lived on campus. One was named Pat and reminded me of a skateboard fanatic, despite the fact that he didn't skate. Pat was tall and skinny, had a fairly normal head of brown hair, and possessed some of the worst teeth I have ever seen on someone of college age. He was a really nice kid, and was always cool to hang out with, but those teeth . . . oooh weee. Those chompers--all brown and seemingly placed in the wrong order--were enough to scare little kids away and were of the sort that win ribbons that state things like "World's Worst Teeth," and "Worst Smile Award."
The name of the other guy, who was Pat's friend, escapes me at the moment. This dude was your standard dorky college kid, and, despite having comparably immaculate teeth, came across as one whose lack of looks would lead to lots of lamenting when it came to the ladies.
Pat introduced me to this guy in the context of the three of us sitting down for some pizza and conversation over lunch. After a period of random small talk about the differences between commuting to college and living in a dorm, Pat's friend steered the conversation to a topic that was obviously grating away inside his oversized, prematurely balding head.
"Man, fuck those sorority bitches," he said.
Huh?
Pat, noticing my confusion as to where this exclamation came from, chimed in to explain.
"He had a little incident the other day," Pat said. "And he's still fuming."
"What happened?" I asked.
Before Pat could go further, the other guy jumped in:
"They think they're better than everybody else," the friend replied, his voice now reaching a level that made our conversation absolutely audible to each of the tables adjacent to ours. "Spending daddy's money . . . walking around like they own you. Driving their Pathfinders and looking all bitchy. Bitches!"
To this, I did not reply. But Pat, again noticing my puzzled look, took the baton from his friend and cleared things up.
"This weekend, a few girls got together and put a bunch of flour into some sort of baking contraption that looks like a bag with a tube and nozzle at the end," he explained. "Then they stuck the nozzle under the door to his room and jumped on the bag end. The flour went everywhere, and when he opened the door to go after the culprits a few girls splashed him with buckets of cold water."
"You're kidding, right?" I asked.
"No," Pat said. "Look at him. Does it look like I'm kidding? He still wants to kill someone."
At this point, I had several questions. But I asked only one:
"Why?"
The explanation that I received from Pat didn't really explain all that much. Apparently, Pat's friend had said something to some girl at a dorm event, and, after an unstated period of planning, paybacks were had via pastry ingredients.
"I know who those bitches are, too," Pat's now red-faced friend said. "And I am going to get them. Who do they think they are? Just because your daddy is rich doesn't mean you can just be a total bitch."
After about 10 more minutes of this un-witty banter, I jetted for class. As I walked, I couldn't help but chuckle about the absolute ridiculousness of what I had just heard--both the prank itself and the fact that I couldn't remember ever hearing a pissed off person sound so stupid. As far as I could tell, he was literally dumb with rage and couldn't go one sentence without using the word "bitch" or "bitches."
As the semester progressed, I met up with Pat and his friend for numerous additional lunches. And, on each and every occasion, the guy who got pranked talked almost exclusively about two things: sorority girls and revenge. Eventually, Pat also became engrossed in the subject--to the point where he too seemed to have morphed into a pull-string doll that could say little more than the five or six "rich bitch" lines that had, by this time, been programmed into his head.
As loopy as they were, these guys were always really nice to me, and, despite their crazed focus, I never stopped hanging out with them. Instead, I played the role of the sounding board and put up with all their revenge hypotheticals--"Today, I'm thinking something along the lines of molasses. What do you think about the pranking properties of common, household molasses. What could we do there?"--because the whole thing was just so damn bizarre and entertaining.
This went on for months, and revenge, as far as I could gather, had yet to be adequately doled out.
Eventually, I informed the guys of my intent to transfer. They responded with two parts shock and one part "you know there's just going to be rich bitch sorority chicks at those schools, too."
By the time that some crazy truck driver miscalculated the height of his rig and ran into the people bridge I used to get to campus--such that it had to be closed down for repairs and I had to race through the tunnel to get to class--it was clearly time to move on. And when the right moment came, I let the boys know that I would be leaving for Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan following the summer.
Pat was especially excited for me and asked tons of questions about my soon-to-be new school. By the time we had our last lunch together, he knew as much about Michigan as I did and seemed even more excited than me about the opportunities that I would have at the place.
The other guy, meanwhile, wished me luck at Michigan, but, more importantly, asked me to wish him luck "in exacting revenge against . . . blah, blah, blah."
A few months after that lunch, during the middle of summer, my plans for transferring got all out of sort. After committing to Michigan and being assigned a dorm and roommate in Ann Arbor, Syracuse rolled through with a financial aid package that my parents could not afford to let me turn down.
So, with the opening of a single envelope, Michigan became Syracuse.
When I returned to visit Duquesne during the spring semester of the following school year, I ran into Pat on the bluff. Upon seeing me, he put out his cigarette and gave me a big hug.
"Yo!" he exclaimed. "How is Michigan, man? You have to tell me all about it. I want to hear everything."
At the time, I had forgotten that the Michigan/Syracuse swap was post-Pat, and that he was under the impression that I spent the winter freezing in Ann Arbor rather than in upstate New York.
For some reason, I decided on the spot to simply say that Michigan was "cool," rather than spend the time explaining exactly why I wasn't attending Michigan and thereafter having to go into why Syracuse was "cool." So I spoke in generalities about the perks of attending a school that I was not attending, and then I asked him a question:
"Hey, did whatshisname ever get back at those girls?"
In response to this question, Pat hedged.
"I guess, so," he said. "But nothin' all that big. He's all talk. They've gotten him a few more times since, and he still talks about how he's gonna finally even the score."
Upon hearing this, I shook my head, wished Pat the best, and set upon the course for College Hall, where I was to meet up with some professors and administrative folks who I had become friends with in the political science department.
On my way over, I ran into Pat's perpetually pissed off friend.
We were walking in opposite directions on the bluff and were headed straight for each other. As the distance between us shrunk, I noticed something weird about the guy.
He was wearing a button-down, long-sleeved, Oxford cloth Polo shirt and a pair of jeans. The thing was . . . the shirt seemed to be strewn with haphazardly placed, long blue stains.
As I waved to him from about 15 feet away, I noticed that his hair and face seemed to be wet.
"Hey man, what are you doing back here?" he asked.
"I'm just in for the day," I told him. "What happened here?"
"Man, they squirted me," he said. "I can't believe this . . . with ink, too. This shit isn't gonna come out. Have you seen Pat?"
I pointed back across my shoulder, and, knowing full well what his answer would be, asked him one last question before he tore off in search of his partner in being pissed off.
"Who did this to you, man?" I inquired.
He stared at me for a second, rolled his eyes, and then gave me that which was an inevitable response.
"Those bitches," he lamented. "Those same damn bitches. This time they're gonna be sorry, though. They don't realize who they're messin' with here." -------------------------------- CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 222 (12 points for sans-serif, e-mail (seven times), courteous, apology, correspondence, comma should have been placed before "Mike" in the phrase, "this ain't gettin' it done Mike," and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 218 (serif, sans-serif, e-mail (seven times), courteous, apology, correspondence) 3) Evelyn Segura: 192 (e-mail (seven times), courteous) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) serif 2) sans-serif 3) e-mail (seven times) 4) courteous 5) apology 6) correspondence 7) comma should have been placed before "Mike" in the phrase, "this ain't gettin' it done Mike"
Carmelo Anthony is about to do some big, big things this season. I know, I know . . . I can hear the complaints now: "Big surprise that a Syracuse alum predicts stardom for the school's roundball savior." But, come on. I'm not really going out on a limb here. He's playing in Denver, where the high altitude saps the energy of players from other squads, and a new run-and-gun offense has been implemented to multiply the way-above-sea-level impact. What's more, Denver was so bad last season that Melo's already been given the "main man" tag and is having plays drawn up for him. Twenty points a night is not out of reach in such and environment, and, if the preseason is any indication of how many points his team is going to score, neither is 25. The Nuggets will lose a lot of games, sure. But it looks like they will be losing them 135-128, and that bodes well for Anthony's stat line. He may not be the next Jordan, or Kobe, or whatever, but the fact of the matter is that Carmelo is a fundamentally sound, skilled player who has been placed in a situation that almost guarantees his immediate success. How the Pistons could pass on this guy for an unproven, oaf-looking Yugoslavian fellow named Darko is beyond me, and the decision will likely haunt Detroit fans for at least the next 10 seasons. I mean, didn't anyone learn anything from the Nikoloz Tskitshvili draft pick debacle last season? Word on the street was that, upon his arrival in Detroit, Larry Brown made it clear that he preferred Melo over Milicic, but that GM Joe Dumars informed him that the decision was already made. I don't know if Joe was out of the country during the 2003 NCAA tournament or what, but look for Carmelo to win the Rookie of the Year award in a cakewalk. LeBron may indeed end up being a better player down the line, but this season will belong to Anthony.
posted by mjxm at 5:27 PM |
INTRODUCING: "LIL' ZOGGIES"
Excuse the housekeeping post, but I just wanted to let everyone know about a few changes that are about to occur in the structure of the blizog. As readership has been increasing quite nicely over the past month or so, I've decided to replenish the site with content more frequently. I will continue to post approximately three normal-sized posts each week--stories about my experiences in NYC, ramblings re silly things that happened to me in undergrad, musings on middle school, and the like. But, in addition, I will now be adding shorter pieces to the equation on what I hope will be a daily basis. These will be titled "Lil' Zoggies" and will not be part of the contest in any way. Each one will be preceded by such a designation, as well as a subject heading. They will be quite short and reference current events, sports, politics, or any other subject that struck me during the day. Occasionally, they will also be used as a forum where I can give my opinion on an issue raised by a reader. Thus, emails like "What's your take on BLANK," will be quite welcomed from here on out.
Some people may enjoy this additional content, others may simply wish that I would just stick to the longer stories. Either way, I appreciate any feedback on the matter. And, like I said, this new surge of content will not have any impact the frequency or quality of my traditional stories, which will from here on out be referred to as "bliz." So, with that intro taken care of, look for a "Lil' Zoggie" later today under the category of "NBA," and a full-length "bliz" post later tonight about some kids I met at Duquesne University whose lives were marked foremost by a hatred of sorority chicks. ---------------------------------------------------
posted by mjxm at 1:09 PM |
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
REPOST FROM OCT. 1 (SCROLL DOWN FOR MONDAY'S SUBMISSION):
According to the folks over at amiannoying.com, Wes Clark could be in some serious trouble come 2004.
67.54% of respondents at the website--which serves as a clearinghouse of sorts for voting on whether various people, places, and things are "annoying"--feel that General Clark is indeed annoying. In contrast, a slightly lower percentage of people (66.78%) feel that Democratic front-runner Howard Dean is annoying, and an amazingly low 55.73% believe that G.W. is annoying.
To put Clark's annoyingfactor in perspective, he's said to be .42% more annoying than the Noid--of Domino's Pizza commercial fame--and is 1.46% more annoying than the nation of Uganda. He beats the Heaven's Gate suicide cult . . . but only by a 1.87% margin.
Now, it's not clear whether one can extrapolate from these numbers some sort of insight about the upcoming electoral races--or, for that matter, whether an oddly shaped ballot and our federal court system played a role in ensuring a relatively low annoyingfactor for Bush. But, some of the rankings at amiannoying.com lead me to believe that General Clark may not want to drop out of the presidential race just yet.
According to the website, the single most annoying person on this planet is . . . drum roll please . . .
Eminem, with 19,994 of 27,052 voters (73.91%) deeming the Detroit derelict annoying.
OK, actually, I have no problem with that one. The guy has talent, but, come on, enough already. I can only hear about Mr. Mathers murdering his mom so many times, you know what I mean? And, just for the record, Em's annoying percentage just jumped to 73.92 thanks to yours truly.
Unfortunately, aside from being spot on when it comes to Eminem, the site is all over the place otherwise.
A few things immediately jump out upon close review. First, it appears that the whole endeavor is skewed by, get this, Red Hot Chili Peppers fans. Of the thousands of people, places, things, and events, that are ranked at the site, it turns out that vocalist Anthony Kiedis (#10), guitarist John Frusciante (#7), and the band as a whole (#8) all have rankings that result in their being among the top 10 least annoying people in the world.
Huh?
I don't know about you, but I can think of a whole mess of people who are less annoying than John friggin' Frusciante. And, as an aside, where's the love for Flea (#38)?
Anyway, with the caveat that amiannoying.com seems to represent the views of rabid Chili Pepper fans out of the way, I feel at ease to discuss some of the other suspect classifications at the site.
Where to begin? Let's see . . .
For starters, only 39.93% of respondents designated The Cardigans--those "Love me, love me . . . Say that you love me. Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me" jokers--as annoying. The band ranks as the #5 least annoying person or thing on the whole entire site.
Hmm . . .
Now, I know that I curse way too much on this blog, but in this case I really don't see any other option beyond saying . . .
What the fuck?
I may just stay up the rest of the night and vote The Cardigans annoying 16,000 times out of an ingrained desire to do the right thing.
Moving on . . . Wales (#19) chimes in right between Charles Darwin (#18) and John Ritter (#20) on the least annoying list. I'm fine with Darwin and Ritter, I suppose. But Wales?
Whales, maybe. But not Wales . . . no way.
Wales is annoying.
Gandhi is beating out Mandy Moore for the #36 least annoying spot by .04%, but it's still anybody's ballgame.
Notable ties include Teri Garr and Aristotle, who are neck-and-neck for position #60, while U2's The Edge and hockey legend Gordie Howe are even up for #83.
Teri Garr isn't annoying, granted. But Gordie Howe . . . that guy is an absolute pain in the ass.
And speaking of pains in the posterior, the list of those deemed to be "most annoying" does have a nice assemblage of idiots and idiocies. MTV is a quite deserving #7, but, if it were up to me, I'd say they should jump Namibia at #2. Nelly, Puffy, and R. Kelly make a nice R&B-inspired trifecta at #s 11 through 13, and the fact that feuding rappers 50 Cent and Ja Rule are tied at #16 is, to me, the height of irony. Tommy Lee (#25), Fabio (#42), Steinbrenner (#54), and Pauly Shore (#56 . . . buuuuddy) are all also aptly ranked.
Others on the most annoying list seem misplaced.
John Oates, of Hall & Oates, got a raw deal in being ranked the #37 most annoying person in the world--as anyone who knows anything about the band realizes that Darryl Hall is way, way worse. Also getting a short shake is Catharine MacKinnon (#82), a former law professor of mine. Anyone who gave me an "A" in "Sex Equality and the Law" is a damn saint and deserves a better fate than being on the same list as Osama Bin Laden (#95), OK.
And while I'm all riled up, why's Africa gotta be the most annoying continent? Atlantis, which isn't even a real place, is ranked ahead of it in the continent section. As is something called Oceania . . . not to mention Antarctica.
Come on. Antarctica? As far as I'm concerned, a place where you have no choice but to freeze your ass off is pretty annoying.
And don't get me started on the states.
You're telling me Nebraska--Nebraska, people--is the least annoying state in America?
No, no, no.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Kansas is ranked as the third least annoying state according to the site.
Um, I drove through Kansas a few years ago and . . . for the record . . . it took 17 damn days just to get from one end to the other. I'm getting fired up just thinking about that drive. Annoying, I assure you, is putting it kindly.
I'm not saying Arkansas (#50) is the French Riviera, but I can't imagine it being any worse than Kansas.
Then again, to me Flea is the only Chili Pepper that's not unbearably annoying. So what do I know? -----------------------------
Here are three blogs to check out from the New Blog Showcase at www.truthlaidbear.com for comparision's sake:
The other day, I had some really great potato chips.
The chips were barbeque flavored and, according to the bag, were produced by the Herr's Food company out of their Nottingham, Pa. headquarters. The front of the bag implements a bubbled, oversized sarif font for the words "Smokey BBQ," which are tri-colored--red, orange, and yellow--so as to be reminiscent of fire. At the bottom left of the bag, surrounded by a cartoon lasso, are the words "Big Bold Taste"--this time in sans-sarif yellow.
Let me tell you, that lasso wasn't kidding.
Although I'm pretty sure that Herr's distribution range is limited to the northeastern U.S., if you have the good fortune to come across these chips in your neighborhood market or at a gas station during a drive through Pennsylvania, buy a bag or two. They're some of the best barbeque chips I've ever tasted. There's nothing fancy about them, and, in fact, they may at first appear to be a bit understated. But the more you eat, the more you realize that these chips are close to flawless. The crinkle cut results in a chip that is perfectly sized in terms of thickness, and the flavoring is absolutely spot on.
I was so impressed with the product, in fact, that I found the Herr's email address on the back of the bag and proceeded to write the following email--in all-lowercased letters, as is my style with electronic mail--to the good folks at Herr's:
hi.
just a quick note to say that, in my estimation, you guys make the best potato chips ever. i don't know what it is about them--the cut of the potato, maybe--but they are far superior to any other brand on the market.
good work.
matthew
A couple of business days later, Customer Service Representative Polly C. Mooney thanked me via an email using capital letters for giving Herr's props:
Dear Matthew,
Thank you for contacting us with such nice comments. We are very glad that you like our potato chips. Thank you for your patronage, and we look forward to serving you in the future.
Sincerely,
Polly C. Mooney
It was a nice gesture on Polly's part. Still, more important than the substance of her note, Polly's email reminded me of something that we all know, but, I think, sometimes forget. That is, people like Polly have to be nice to those who contact them . . . no matter what. If I would've written Ms. Mooney a letter about how the Smokey BBQ chips reminded me of a pet frog that I had as a child, I would've received the same, curteous response from her. If the substance of my email would've been a complaint rather than a compliment--something along the lines of, "Your chips are dumb and make a crunching sound that is way too loud when I chew them"--she would've responded with a sincere apolgy and an express hope "that you will give Herr's products another shot in the future, as we appreciate your patronage."
Point blank, Polly and people in similar positions are paid to be pleasant to people who probably don't deserve such treatment.
Leave it to me to take advantage of this reality.
After receiving Polly's correspondance and being reminded about the nature of customer service, I decided to send out the following emails to test the boundaries of corporate response niceness. Both the emails and the responses are reprinted verbatim. Each is followed-up with a quick comment by me addressing the respective response:
1) Sent to Little Debbie customer service at lds0124@att.net
hi.
i have always eaten and loved the little debbie swiss rolls. they taste nice and are not too filling of a snack. but, the other day, i was visiting a friend's house and she offered me a ho-ho--a similar kind of thing that is made by hostess. i'd never eaten one of these before, but i grudgingly accepted the offer, and, to my surprise, the ho-ho was amazing. it is, i believe, far superior to the little debbie swiss roll, and all these years i have been eating the swiss rolls nonetheless.
my question is this: is there any way you can make the little debbie swiss roll taste a bit more like ho-hos? don't get me wrong, i still like the swiss rolls and i do not mean to offend. but those ho-hos really opened up my eyes.
also, can you please explain to me the difference between your nutty bars and your peanut butter wafers? for the life of me, i can't figure it out.
thanks in advance.
a loyal little debbie customer,
matthew
RESPONSE:
Thank you for your letter. We at Little Debbie love to hear from customers and are always pleased to find that people are enjoying our products. With regards to your question, our Peanut Butter Wafers are described as "Thin, crispy wafers layered with peanut butter and covered in a chocolaty coating. Twin-wrapped 12 to a carton." The Nutty Bars are described as "Classic crunchy wafer bars, full of the great taste of peanut butter enrobed in fudge. One of our first multipack creations. Twin-wrapped 12 to a carton." Hope that helps.
Tom Little Debbie C.s.
COMMENT:
Um, no, that really doesn't help. I still say they're the same exact thing. Check out www.littledebbie.com/products, and then click on "bars," and you'll see what I mean. Regardless, it was pretty slick how the guy just completely ignored the whole Ho-Ho thing.
2) Sent to M & M Mars customer service at askkudos@mmmars.com
hi.
first off, i love kudos and have been eating them for several years. so this is not about sour grapes.
myself and a friend of mine who lives across the hall recently started shopping at one of those big, bulk foods stores and were delighted to find that they had gigantic amounts of kudos bars on sale for a reasonable price.
we both like the "fruit & nut" bars so, we were very excited to find that they were included.
great, right? wrong.
a few days after we bought them, my neighbor mentioned in passing that she thought that she saw what looked like a fly in one of the bars. she said that she couldn't tell for sure but that she wasn't taking any chances.
i am totally freaked out now because my box was right next to hers in the store.
is it possible to have flies acciddently in the kudos? does this happen often?
i have like 200 kudos bars now that i am afraid to eat. unfortunately, i cannot afford to just let them go to waste. so i am going to eat them. i am just writing, though, to put you on notice that--no matter how much i love kudos and your company--if i find a fly in a kudos i will not hesitate to sue.
seriously, i won't stand for a fly in what i'm eating.
matthew
RESPONSE:
Matthew,
Thank you for your kind words about Kudos. We appreciate you as a customer and thank you for choosing us.
Because the Fruit and Nut bars have very small pieces of fruit that are sometimes hard to make out, it is not uncommon for people to mistake these fruit pieces for all sorts of things. I assure you that there is very little chance that what your neighbor saw was a fly. It was most likely a raisin. So you should not worry about eating the bars that you purchased. But if you would feel more comfortable with a refund please let me know and I could put you in touch with my manager.
Thank you,
Cindy
COMMENT:
What's a Kudos bar?
3) Sent to Gorton's customer service via a website form
every time i buy the big bag of fish sticks (44 count, i believe) they are all broken up. after the last time--i'd been had one too many times--i complained to my local grocery and they assured me that it was not their fault. the store manager told me "gorton's is known for having broken fish sticks." is this true? i think he just may have been trying to cover himself, but maybe he knows something that i don't about gorton's.
RESPONSE:
Hi Matthew,
Gortons makes a concerted effort to ensure that all of our fish products arrive at retail stores without significant breaking or damage. We appreciate your patronage.
Sincerely,
Mike Gorton's
COMMENT: OK, this ain't gettin' it done Mike. I may have made up the stuff about the Kudos bars and the conversation with my grocer, but those fish sticks really are all broken up when I get them. This seals the deal: I'm now officially a Mrs. Paul's man when it comes to frozen fish.
4) Sent to Utz customer service at dlissette@utzsnacks.com
i recently purchased your "crab chips" and was very disappointed. i am an avid fan of the taste of crab and am quick to snap up any product that is crab flavored. but these chips did not taste like crab at all to me. not even a little bit. i don't understand. is it possible that i just got a "bad batch"?
matthew
RESPONSE:
Hi Matthew,
Thank you for trying our product. We are sorry that it did not meet your expectations. We sincerely hope that you will try another of Utz's delicious products in the future.
Once again, thank you.
unsigned
COMMENT:
Man, there was so much potential with this one, too, because the chips are supposed to be seasoned with spices used to flavor cooked crabs. They are not supposed to taste like crab at all. Figures I get the generic response on this one.
5) Sent to Microwaveporkrinds.com (a company that sells pork rinds over the internet) customer service at jandj@microwaveporkrinds.com
i have never seen these before and a friend recommended. but, do these have any pork inside? am alergic to pork.
matt
RESPONSE:
Hi,
Thank you for contacting us. Pork Rinds are a pork product. They are the rind of the pig. However, if you are a low carber...we do offer many products that do not contain pork.
Blessings, Julie J & J Low Carb Foods
COMMENT:
You know she wanted to say, "Of course pork rinds have pork in them, you idiot!" But she didn't. And she gave me blessings. Gorton's needs to look into getting this woman onboard.
6) Sent to The Hermie Hut (a shop that sells hermit crabs and hermit crab accessories online) customer service at crabmom@thehermiehut.com
these look cool. but do they bite? i need a pet that will be very easy and not aggressive. do they move very fast and will they attack in some cases?
matt
RESPONSE:
Hi! Crabs do not bite. However, they can pinch, if they feel like they are going to fall, or otherwise feel in danger. They don't move very fast and are not aggressive at all! If you have questions about their care, the best website to look into is www.hermit-crabs.com That's where I learned everything I know about crabs! Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks! - Crabmom (Denise Curran)
COMMENT:
Mom, is that you?
7) Sent to Clark/Necco (a candy company) customer service at contact_us@necco.com
hi. i love the neccos, and have a quick question.
my brother and i are at a standstill on an issue involving necco wafers. he swears that the candy is the same basic confection that was used in the old-time candy known as "fizzerplits," and i completely disagree. i think the two are totally different and i keep telling him that there's no way that necco would've let some other company steal their formula, even if it was all those years ago.
can anyone there help us get to the bottom of this . . . preferably on my side of the argument, jk.
matthew
RESPONSE:
Hi Matthew.
Thank you for your letter. I checked around, and no one I talked to here has ever heard of a similar candy called Fizzersplits. Do you know when this candy was on the market? I can do some more digging if you can get me that information.
Thank you again for your patronage of Necco brand foods.
Sincerely,
Andrew Clark Customer Relations Dept.
COMMENT: First off, Neccos are absolutely gross. I hate the Neccos. When I would get them for Halloween, I would throw them out . . . or force my younger brother to eat them. Secondly, OK, fine, there are no such things as "Fizzerplits." But if there were, Andrew, I assure you they would taste better than those damn Necco wafers. ------------------------------ CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 208 (five points for "slim pickens" should have been "slim pickings," "one or two-word" should have been "one- or two-word," OK, e-mailed, and OK, and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 206 (OK, missing punctuation after "she asked," "So how are you" should've been followed by a question mark, OK, inconsistent spacing around elipses, OK, in "give it to me the next time you . . . ," "give" should have been capitalized, in "here's my number . . . ," "here's" should have been capitalized) 3) Evelyn Segura: 184 (OK, e-mailed) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) "slim pickens" should have been "slim pickings" 2) "one or two-word" should have been "one- or two-word" 3) OK 4) e-mailed 5) OK 6) missing punctuation after "she asked" 7) "So how are you" should've been followed by a question mark 8) OK 9) inconsistent spacing around elipses 10) in "give it to me the next time you . . . ," "give" should have been capitalized 11) in "here's my number . . . ," "here's" should have been capitalized
posted by mjxm at 3:00 PM |
Thursday, October 09, 2003
I apologize in advance for the exceedingly long blog. I'll try to make the next one both short and funny, but sometimes you have to do things a bit differently. With that said, this one's for Evelyn, whom I love a great deal:
It was not your typical first meeting.
I was dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, and she wore pigtails jutting off the sides of her head.
In the more than three years that have passed since that day, she has seen me in a suit perhaps twice, and I don't remember her ever wearing her hair like that again. Moreover, when she introduced herself to me, she had to transfer a screwdriver from one hand to the other in order to shake hands--as she was hammering away at a set of shelves she was constructing for her office.
I had just quit my job, and arrived on her proverbial doorstep via a letter and resume sent to the boss at the non-profit organization where she worked. I was looking for legal work, and the woman who opened the letter just so happened to have some.
So that's how we met . . . the first time.
When a few of my friends asked me how the interview went, my response was markedly different depending on who was asking the question. To my female friends the interview went "fine" or "ok, I guess." To my male friends, the interview went "fine, but there's this girl who works there that I think I could like," and then continued on from there.
After I landed the job--which was a part-time position at first--I would come into the office a few times a week and read through documents. It was run-of-the-mill legal work and not very exciting, but I needed the money and the job allowed me to see her.
I worked at the end of a conference room, and her cubicle was down the hall and around the corner. So I didn't see that much of her initially. At one point, she came in and informed me that there was a radio in the room where I was working, just in case I wanted to have some background music. But other than that, it was slim pickens. I would attempt to flirt with her when we ran into each other, but nothing really came of my attempts.
Then, one day as I was sitting at the conference room table having lunch, she came over and posed to me a very simple question.
"So, how are you," she asked
. . . . . . .
Hmm?
"I'm fine . . . how are you?"
After about 10 minutes of not-so-witty banter, she split for her cubicle and left me to wonder whether there may indeed be hope for us yet. "Why would she come over and strike up a conversation like that?" I thought.
I would find out later that she had absolutely no interest in me at the time, and that she just felt bad that I was in a corner reading legal documents all day, so she decided to talk to me. Thankfully, I didn't believe that such an explanation was likely at the time. And, thus, I had hope.
That initial conversation opened the door for me a bit. It authorized me to ask things like "How was your weekend?" and "What have you been up to?"
It was a big break.
Unfortunately, the answers to those questions were most often "fine," "ok," "not much," and other analogous one or two-word responses that did little to encourage a by-then smitten part-timer.
After a week filled with more of these noticeably brief encounters, I convinced myself to make one last all-out push to determine whether there were any prospects for something between the two of us. If nothing came of it, I planned to end my pursuit of this girl and concentrate solely on the boring legal work that I was being paid to complete.
My plan was not very complicated.
I was going to inform the girl and the co-worker she shared cubicle space with that I was going out to get lunch and inquire as to whether they wanted me to pick anything up for them. The idea was to stare right at her when asking the question, and hope for the best.
In this case, "the best," in my mind, would've been for her to ask me to grab her a sandwich or something and then for us to eat lunch together in the conference room.
As it turned out, that was not the best-case scenario. The best-case scenario was what actually happened.
"No thanks, I brought my lunch," she replied.
Steee-rike three!
"But I'll come with you."
I mean . . . home run.
. . . . . . .
So, we went to lunch in Herald Square, and things went swimmingly. We talked about college, and New York, and a whole bunch of other stuff that people having their first real conversation discuss. The only concrete thing that I can remember her talking about was her frustrations with living at home with her parents, and the travails of having to turn off the TV or go to sleep when someone tells you to.
After about an hour and a half, she politely noted that it was time for her to get back to the office. I conceded that she was "probably right," and then offered up my phone number.
"We should hang out," I said.
Then I realized that I didn't have a pen . . . or any paper.
"It's ok, I'll remember it," she said. "Just give me the number."
She would tell me later that she's very good at remembering things and would've indeed actually remembered the phone number. But, to me, the fact that she told me not to write down my number was the kiss of death. If she liked me, I had determined, she would've said something like, "give it to me next time you see me," or, "here's my number, you can call me with yours."
So, to me, her saying that she would simply remember the number was akin to a big, fat "later." Realizing such, I searched my bag some more--this time with a sense of purpose and desperation--and came up with a pen and paper. I wrote down the number, and then we parted ways.
Even though she didn't seem all that intent on getting my phone number, I was filled with happiness and hope as I walked home from lunch. I immediately called up one of my closest friends, and gushed.
"She's wonderful," I exclaimed, still kinda shaking from the excitement of everything that had just occurred. "I can't believe it. Everything about her is perfect. And I think she might like me. Why else would she come to lunch with me like that and spend all that time talking to me? Right? Right?"
My friend assured me that, in her estimation, it was quite clear from what I'd described that the girl did indeed like me. I was relieved by this, but still felt unsure.
That feeling would predominate for the next two weeks, during which time my phone never rang. Further, she still hadn't volunteered her telephone number.
Just when I was about to give up again, she bounced into the conference room where I was working and asked if I wanted to "hang out sometime this week."
Finally.
After a few scheduling snafus, we met up at a bar midway between the office and my apartment. We grabbed dinner, and then made some waves by showing up together at a poetry reading that some co-workers had invited her to.
In the weeks that would follow, we emailed each other and I convinced her to read some of the short stories that I completed upon first moving to the city a year or so earlier. She seemed to enjoy them . . . although not quite enough to give me her phone number.
Eventually, though, she did part with the number.
Soon thereafter, we began talking on the phone and "hanging out." But for some reason we didn't really get along all that great. She never seemed very pleased to be around me, and it became clear that my constant clowning got on her nerves. I was still crazy for her, but, in all honesty, I was beginning to doubt whether things were going to work out. I tried to be as nice as I could, but nothing really seemed to be working.
A few days before I was to leave New York for my family vacation in Florida, I called to ask her if she wanted to "hang out" prior to my departure.
"I'm leaving on Friday, you know," I told her on the phone--emphasizing the words "leaving" and "Friday."
"It's no big deal . . . you'll be back," she replied.
And that was it . . . for me at least.
I left for Florida resolving not to pursue things any further. Clearly she did not have as much interest in me as I did in her, and there was no reason to continue to get worked-up about something that was never going to move beyond this awkward "hang out" phase. I just needed to face the facts and move on.
When I returned home from vacation, I realized that a funny thing had happened in New York during my vacation.
Apparently, while I was in Florida trying my hardest to forget about the series of hopeless and ultimately frustrating interactions that I had with this girl, she was in New York . . . missing me.
. . . . . . .
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep
"Hi Matt. It's Evelyn. I know you're still on vacation, but I just wanted to call and say that I hope you had a good time. Please give me a call when you get back."
Hmm.
I listened to the voicemail message and found it quite strange that she would call me at all after what she said before I left.
It was indeed strange. But not as strange as the message that played next.
Beeeeeeeeeeeep
"Man . . . You're still not back? I thought you were supposed to be back yesterday. When are you getting back? Call me, ok?"
She missed me. I don't know why, but she did.
We talked a few times after I got back, and ran into each other at the office in the days immediately following my return. But it was all a formality by that point. Everything had already pretty much been decided.
She missed me when I was gone. But I had come home.
And she had changed.
"Matthew," she said on the phone a few days later. "I want to talk to you about something."
She did, and we've been together ever since. ------------------------------ CONTEST STANDINGS:
1) John Gnodtke: 201 (three points for marveled, programmed, and the fact that "magazine" should have been "editing," and 2 points for being the first to respond with errors) 2) Jason Nypaver: 198 (marveled, programmed, 'best" should have been "best," the word "Oh" should have been capitalized in "oh no, . . . ," "magazine" should have been "editing," the phrase "set something up" should have been "set up something") 3) Evelyn Segura: 27 (none) 4) Kevin Pimentel: 16 (none) 5) Craig Rathmill: 7 (none) 6) Tim Wells: 6 (none) 7) Bill Sherman: 5 (none) 8) Michael Shagalov: 5 (none) 9) Cheryl Stafford: 5 (none) 10) Richard Kriheli: 4 (none) 11) Nada Payne 3 (none) 12) Eric Garr: 2 (none) 13) Rege Malady: 1 (none)
errors recognized:
1) marveled 2) programmed 3) 'best" should have been "best" 4) the word "oh" should have been capitalized in "oh no, . . . " 5) "magazine" should have been "editing" 6) the phrase "set something up" should have been "set up something"
posted by mjxm at 10:32 PM |
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
I have good luck with famous people.
For instance, today I interviewed a couple of snowboarders for a magazine piece I'm working on. Ordinarily, it would've been quite difficult to score some time with these particular riders. In the world of snowboarding, with 1 being the 'best," most recognizable figure in the sport and 2,345,758 being a recreational snowboarder like myself, these two are like 1 and . . . probably 5 or so. In short, these guys do flips and go really fast and stuff. They were way too good and important to be spending an hour talking to some kid wearing a 12-year-old baseball cap who can't even catch air properly on a board. But, unbeknownst to me, they just happened to be in town on a publicity junket when I placed a call to the relevant p.r. person, who marvelled at my "exceedingly good timing" and set something up on the spot.
Now, as somebody who has snowboarded for a long, long time, and one who has always hoped against hope that he could somehow become good enough to turn pro, the interviews were a pretty big deal. While the riders clearly aren't famous to the general public or celebrities that, say, my mom would recognize, they are among the best in the world at what they do. And that's a reasonably big deal to a guy like me.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't act foolish or come off as awestruck in their presence, but I was definitely excited about the opportunity to meet and talk with people who are so good at snowboarding that they get paid, a lot, to do it.
On my way to the interviews, I didn't really know what to expect--largely because generalizations about snowboarders are all over the place. For the most part, the media portrays those who partake in the sport as a crew of slackers and post-pubescent potheads. They're also pegged as loud and obnoxious partiers who ruin the slopes for the comparatively refined skiers. I knew better, of course, but until you've actually met and spoken with someone you never really know if they embody a stereotype or not.
Past experiences with issues like this one have taught me that the "or not" category prevails quite often.
Granted all of my "famous people" interviews have been with athletes, but I can honestly say that every single person I've spoken with along these lines has come across as gracious, humble, and just plain nice.
I don't get it, frankly.
I mean, maybe I just catch people on good days, or maybe--although this one strikes me as quite unlikely--athletes are less ego-obsessed than celebrities in other fields. Or maybe these folks are just so used to this stuff that they are programed to be super nice to people like me.
But something is definitely going on.
Martina Navratilova was a joy to talk to and was ultra-considerate. Allan Houston was a great guy, and seemed to be on the cusp of inviting me to his crib for some 8-ball prior to our conversation's end. Clemens . . . nice. Yamaguchi . . . nice. It just goes on and on.
I'm sure that one of these days I'm going to run into a total prick while working on a story, but that day certainly was not today.
The first interview, with the older, slightly more famous of the two riders went as smooth as can be. The guy greeted me with a handshake, asked me about my day, and then proceeded to answer all of my questions in an intelligent, understated way. Despite the fact that he has been deemed the best in the world at the sport of snowboarding, has sponsors that provide him with unlimited amounts of free clothing and other assorted goodies, and is flat-out paid, he struck me as quite humble. He's one of those guys who is really good at something, but who seems to realize that he is fortunate to have the skills that he does. This, I think, is refreshing.
I mean, there's two ways to go when you're the best of the best at something, right? You can either become a money-crazed egomaniac who thinks that everyone should be at your service, or you can be gracious, appreciative, and friendly. I suppose there are many folks who take up the space that exists somewhere in between those two positions, but I'm quite sure that there are many who fall closer to the "serve me now" side than any middle ground. And it's nice to keep meeting folks who occupy that nice person side--which, by the way, is also home to the second guy that I interviewed.
This guy was almost too nice.
I did the interviews in the lobby of a hotel in midtown, and just after I finished up the first one he came running in from the street with a backpack in one hand and a skateboard in the other.
"Yo, I'm so sorry, man." he exhaled, half out of breath. "I was coming from downtown and the cab was just not moving in the traffic. I kept looking at my watch and being like, 'oh no, hurry up.' At 41st, I just hopped out and jumped on my board because I thought it would be faster."
I couldn't believe that he was so worried about being on time to talk with me, and the fact of the matter was that he had arrived at the exact right time. If he'd gotten there any earlier, he would've had to wait until I finished the first Q&A session. When I relayed this information to him, he seemed relieved. Thereafter, he told me that he'd come from a shopping trip and that he was kicking himself for dropping $200 on a pair of jeans.
"I can't believe I just did that, man," he said. "I thought I was going to get a discount, but I didn't, and I still went ahead and got them. This is the last thing I need to be spending my money on. It's just plain idiotic for someone who gets all their clothes for free to spend money on clothes. I don't know what I was thinking."
This guy, like his buddy in boarding excellence, was around my age and build. He answered all the questions I threw out and handled the whole interview thing like a pro. But after the questions stopped, he just kept on being nice.
"Check out this shirt I got," he said, unzipping his noticeably new backpack.
After showing me a T-shirt with a smoking gun drawn such that it appeared to be covered with an American flag, and grumbling that "I got taken on that purchase, too," he asked me all kinds of questions and seemed to genuinely care about the answers. It turns out that he's also from Pennsylvania and used to frequent Seven Springs, a ski resort about an hour from where I grew up.
When he inquired about my career, and I told him that I was a lawyer as well as a writer, he asked whether I liked law or magazine better as a profession.
"They're very different," I responded. "I like them both a lot. I like the legal stuff because if you do it well you can bring about results that really have a positive impact on people's lives. On the downside, though, the work is not really that creative in nature. So, I use the writing and editing work as my creative outlet."
He thought about what I said for a second and then responded with another question.
"Really?" he asked. "Is that true, or is the law stuff just a different kind of creativity . . . like being creative in finding the best arguments, or coming up with something that nobody else was able to figure out. That seems like it would be the fun part about being a lawyer, being able to say, 'I beg to differ . . . in 1879, in the case of blah, blah, blah the court said that . . . .' You know, stuff like that."
He was absolutely right.
Superstar rider #2 had hit on what I've told numerous people over the years was the fun, interesting part of being a lawyer. And he explained it perfectly--almost exactly as I do, but perhaps better.
We talked a little more after that and then parted ways.
Upon leaving, he thanked me twice and then wished me "good luck with everything."
I responded with the cursory, "Yeah, you too, good luck with the season," and then realized that it sounded sort of lame.
"Not that you need luck or anything," I added.
"Paaaaleeeease," he responded. "This whole thing is luck."
Both of us knew that wasn't true, but this guy was just too nice to say anything different.
As I walked home, I realized how cool the interviews were and that they were cool solely because the people I was talking to were just exceedingly nice. Maybe they're like that with everyone. Or maybe it is the case that famous people really do like me. Who knows? It's possible, I suppose.
After all, we know what happened when Cameron Diaz and I met. ------------------------------ CONTEST STANDINGS:
