It's a simple question, really. It is direct, efficient, and easily spoken.
That said, the universe of potential responses to this elementary inquiry is astoundingly broad.
At a hockey game, replies to it could encompass everything from "I kicked over my beer" to "Icing." On a late-night flight from Cali to Chi-town, conceivable answers to the query include, among other things, "She forgot to give me my peanuts," "This seat is making my butt sweaty," and "Will Smith just zapped that guy's memory so he wouldn't recall anything about the aliens." Upon opening one's eyes for the first time on a Tuesday morning, the response of choice could be anything from a subdued "I'm gonna hop in the shower," to an unbelievably harried announcement that "The fucking alarm never went off, and I'm a half hour late."
"What's going on," thus, is not of the "two plus two equals what?" variety of questions. So, technically speaking, I suppose that I shouldn't have been so surprised at the response that I received yesterday upon asking the question to an overweight, balding gentleman standing in the middle of 40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
Nonetheless, there are certain limits to that which a rational person can accept as a plausible response to the "What's going on?" question, based on the relevant environment and scenario. For instance, few would expect the aforementioned early-morning riser to reply to the question of choice by saying, "She forgot to give me my peanuts," or the late-night flyer to proclaim "I'm gonna hop in the shower" in response to the same inquiry. And while it is perhaps true that it's not hard to imagine a scenario whereby the hockey fan discussed above may actually be wont to say something along the lines of "This seat is making my butt sweaty," I think you get my point.
Unless I'm at a hockey game or baking a cake, it's a pretty safe bet that my answer to the question, "What's going on?" is not going to be "Icing."
And, so it follows, if you're some guy standing in the middle of 40th Street in New York City on April 29th, I cannot help but assume that your response to that question is not going to be . . . let's see:
"The tractor won't start, and our crops are at risk."
"Hang gliding lessons have been cancelled for the rest of the afternoon."
"Last night's frost killed 60 percent of the oranges in this grove."
"The giraffe would not come out of the truck," or a host of other things along those lines.
Simply put, while the question "What's going on?" does indeed open the door to millions of potential responses, it's not that hard to determine, almost immediately, ones that are beyond the scope of reason.
But let me back up for a second and set the scene for my now-infamous inquiry.
I arrived at 40th Street on my way home from a frustrating yet ultimately successful search for a new pair of shower slippers. After hitting up nearly all of the discount clothing shops that run between 34th Street and 40th on 8th Avenue in Manhattan (Just in case you're curious, I eventually settled upon a $19 pair by Adidas from some new store called Famous Footwear), I made a right onto 40th with the intent of walking over to 7th and then back downtown to my apartment.
Almost immediately upon turning the corner, I noticed that there was some sort of commotion going on in the middle of the block that I was about to traverse.
I was still a football field or so away from the action, but I was close enough to notice that there were two 18-wheel big rigs parked on the right side of the street and what appeared to be a host of other big vehicles stopped adjacent to the rigs such that there was no longer a path by which cars could pass.
As I moved closer to the commotion, I spotted the familiar blue barricades and prop lights that Manhattanites immediately peg as indicators that some sort of television shoot is in the works.
There were a few cops dawdling on the sidewalk adjacent to the rigs, and they implored folks like me to "move along." But attempting to convince people to ignore something along these lines is nearly impossible in New York City. And this is especially the case in and around Times Square--where tourists outnumber locals by at least two-to-one.
Sure enough, as soon as I passed the second of the two big rigs, I walked right into a crowd of gawkers that had to be 100 to 150 strong, easy. As the street was barricaded and shut down by the police, the group of onlookers had free rein on a small stretch of 40th and spanned the entire distance that separated one side of the street from the other. Unfortunately, this crew was packed so tightly that I could not make my way into the masses in order to get a better look at the hubbub.
Ever curious, unable to determine exactly what was going on in the street beside the rigs, and in no real hurry, I decided to make an attempt at discovering what all the fuss was about.
It is at this moment that I first encountered the previously-mentioned overweight, balding man.
I had, as you know, a very simple question that I wanted to ask him.
I picked him out, frankly, because the rubberneckers on this day were an unusually crazy-looking lot of individuals--homeless couples, disheveled construction workers, bizarrely-attired tech geeks with odd haircuts, etc.
This guy, as balding and overweight as he was, appeared to be my best bet for getting accurate information in a quick and painless fashion. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, and if I had to guess based on his features I'd probably say that he was Italian. He wore an ill-fitting blue suit that struck me as something that would be displayed prominently in a window of one of those discount stores on 8th Avenue and flanked by a giant-sized price tag with various prices written in Sharpie on the tag . . . and then crossed out . . . only to be replaced by even lower prices.
His moustache, though not as ill-groomed as the suit, was still nothing to write home about from a personal hygiene perspective. And his socks did not match.
The man's tie, though, was nice.
For whatever reason, I have an affinity for boldly-colored, conservative, striped ties. This guy's was navy and lime green, and it was one that I could easily envision as being among my own collection of haberdashery.
It was, in fact, almost nice enough to counteract the awful blue suit--not quite, but almost.
Anyway, the cool tie and the fact that they guy didn't strike me as crazy were enough to prompt me to tap him on the shoulder.
After I did this, the man quickly turned around to face me, cocked his head a bit to the side, and raised his eyebrows in a way that could've been taken to mean either, "Hey, why the hell did you just tap me?" or, "What do you want?"
"What's going on?" I asked, expecting to hear something about a location shoot for "Law & Order," or an excited proclamation about "a scene from the next Julia Roberts movie."
That's not what I got . . . not even close.
What I got, no lie, was the following:
"The giraffe would not come out of the truck."
Within a split section of the man finishing the last and only syllable in the word "truck," I'd already rolled my eyes in disappointment and turned to proceed on my way home.
His response was emotionless and strikingly brief, and a more ridiculous sentence I could not imagine.
"Whatever," I thought. "Why do I always have to run across the crazy guys when I'm looking for information?"
"And plus," I told myself, "couldn't he come up with something more plausible than that?"
I mean, if you're gonna make something up . . . you may as well make your doozy believable. And this is especially the case when you consider that I am not the most astute guy when it comes to the fine art of deciphering celebrity-related untruths.
Among the things that I would've believed, without hesitation, in this instance are:
"Madonna is making a video."
"Bloomberg is holding a press conference about Times Square."
"Danny DeVito is getting married."
"Bon Jovi is going to be playing a free concert."
"The Bachelor is picking a winner."
"They're shooting a new reality show called 'The Pedestrian.'"
I could go on like this all day, but let me just sum up by saying that the list of lies that I would've fallen for is not a short one.
By crafting a response that featured a giant, long-necked, safari animal rather than the obligatory celebrity, and coming up with a scenario that was so implausible--not to mention inherently nonsensical . . . A giraffe in a truck?--all this guy did was ensure that his attempt at a ruse would fail.
As I paced further away from the still-milling crowd, I could not help but wonder who the crazy Italian guy thought he was fooling. More precisely, I didn't see how he thought that the giraffe line would ever work.
First off, why in the world would anyone attempt to bring a giraffe into midtown Manhattan? And, additionally, how in the hell would a giraffe even fit in a truck?
Maybe the dude was caught off guard and that was the best he could come up with off the top of his head. But, regardless, his was a very weak effort in my estimation.
When I reached the corner, I happened to make eye contact with a cop who appeared to be guarding the barricade being used to prevent traffic from entering 40th Street.
As the officer was only a few steps away from me at the time, I decided to try my luck with him.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Huh?" he said, unable to hear my question over the steady hum and honks emanating from the cars on 7th Avenue.
"What's going on?" I repeated, as I continued to walk further away from the ruckus.
"Oh . . . They've got a giraffe in that truck down there," he said.
I immediately stopped in my tracks.
"What?" I said--more in disbelief than in any request for clarification--as I turned to look back in the direction of 8th Avenue.
"There's a giraffe down there," he repeated, pointing to the middle of the block--which was now clearly within my view, as the distance I had traveled made it possible to see beyond the assembled onlookers.
And, sure enough . . . what I saw was a goddamn giraffe that looked like it really, really didn't want to get out of a truck that was parked in the middle of the street. There were three or four burly worker-types holding onto ropes that were tied to various parts of the giraffe's body, and, despite the fact that the animal could not have been at all comfortable in a truck was neither especially tall nor adorned with a sunroof, the necky beast simply would not budge.
It was quite a sight, I'll tell you what.
For the life of me, I couldn't imagine why someone had decided to bring a giraffe to a cross street in the middle of New York City, or how anyone could've thought it would be an OK idea to keep the animal in such a vertically-challenged truck. When I asked the officer about this, all he said was that he was supposed to maintain the barricade and had no idea what the deal was with the giraffe.
As the workers struggled with the surly animal, I could do little but shake my head and chuckle.
The cop noticing my reaction, decided to chime in again.
"I don't think he wants to come out of the truck," he noted.
I recently decided not to renew my subscription to "The Nation."
I don't know where I'll go to get my fill of progressive perspective on the news of the day, but those, as they say, are the breaks.
I've made up my mind; there's no turning back.
Now, as someone who's been a loyal reader for years, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit saddened by this development. But, alas, the time has come.
The amatuerish, counterproductive hatchet job on Wes Clark a few months back--wherein the publication paid a freelance hack to infiltrate and mock the Clark campaign, and, by extension, the journalism profession (the writer, for no apparent reason other than sheer foolishness, represented himself to the Clark people as a porn director, and donned a neck brace for one of the staff meetings after claiming to have been kicked by a donkey while directing a flick.)--and the contracting of a new design team that's produced scores of awkward covers were only the last two in a series of dominos that have been tumbling for a while now.
The fact of the matter is that "The Nation" has simply plunged over the wealthy, old-ass, white, intellectual waterfall the precipice of which it has always teetered precariously on.
Back in the day, I could stomach all the articles about oppression, inequity, and other tyranny of the majority topics penned by old, rich, white guys because the writing was engaging, and the writers seemed to make at least some effort to speak and relate to a wide range of constituencies. Case in point, "The Nation"'s post-9/11 reporting and feature stories reflected some of the best work to appear in the publication in a long, long time. The pieces were agressive, probing, and thought provoking--most importantly, though, they were inclusive of younger, more modern voices, perspectives, and concerns.
Unfortunately, somewhere between 2002 and the present, things changed for the worse. The feature stories became overly technical and unapproachable, and the opinion pieces came to be marked foremost by a grandfatherish, talk-down-at-you bent. Then there was the issue on activist music that devoted nearly all of its space to relics like Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Dylan, et al.--at the expense of any real substantive discussion on hip-hop and more modern forms of protest music (lists of "desert island disks" submitted by editors and other contributors read like a time-capsuled, Woodstock-era concert bill). I've never read anything that was more out of touch with modern reality.
And this has been a theme at "The Nation" over the last few years, believe me. It's like editors and writers are working out of their own little bubble--one filled with wealthy old people who rarely, if ever, have to worry about the injustices denounced in their beloved magazine.
But don't take my word for it. It seems that I'm not the only one who's grown disenchanted with the current incarnation of "The Nation."
Ben McGrath's profile piece in last week's issue of "The New Yorker" places me on firm footing with one Aaron McGruder on this subject. McGruder is the controversial cartoonist responsible for "The Boondocks" comic strip that's been making so much news over the last few years. He, like me, is 29 (while McGruder's Black and I am white, we are similarly grumpy when it comes to the big ticket issues that affect this country). Also like me, he's become frustrated with "The Nation." In "The New Yorker" feature, McGrath recounts the story of a brouhaha that erupted when McGruder was invited to speak at "The Nation"'s 138th anniversary celebration. The tale, I believe, is instructive.
On the night of the celebration, it turns out that McGruder--who the profile paints as a pompous, conceited punk--was in full-on agitator mode.
After looking into the audience an noting "a lot of old, white faces," he proceeded to challenge the activist cred of the $500-per-plate crew who'd come, at least partially, to hear him speak. While it was perhaps inappropriate to set upon such a course during a formal event, the response of those in the audience evidences the dichotomy that's made "The Nation" nearly unreadable for real-world, working people under the age of, say, 45.
Simply put, many in the audience that night could not fathom--and surely could not condone--criticism from a young person about the nature of their publication's mission and how they were going about attempting to achieve said mission.
Eric Alterman--a really smart; really, really white; really, really, really pompus writer and media critic for the magazine--was the first to jump into the fray. He decided to pipe up at McGruder after the cartoonist's admission that he'd voted for Nader last time around.
"Thanks for Bush," Alterman yelled.
In response, McGruder apparently replied, "Try these nuts," while grabbing his crotch, and Alterman thereafter walked out of the room.
"I went out into the . . . lobby," Alterman would say later, "and I worked on my manuscript."
Before long, other "Nation" writers and guests took up the Alterman role of McGruder-heckler, and by the time his speech was complete nearly half of the audience had left the room.
Now, let me start by noting that if McGrath's portrayal of the McGruder v. "The Nation" blow up is accurate, McGruder fucked up. His explanation for the whole stupid thing--"I ain't no punk, I ain't gonna let someone shout and not go back at him"--is little more than childish, unthinking braggadocio, and his choice of forum was, again, all wrong.
But, in my view, McGruder's impulse to challenge the institutional core of "The Nation" was dead on.
"I just got the uncomfortable feeling that this was a bunch of people who were feeling a little too good about themselves," he said in "The New Yorker" piece.
In other words, the people putting out this magazine have fallen out of touch with reality. They are, in a manner of speaking, talking to no one beyond themselves. Real people, working people, struggling people, ground-level activists, and the like have all but given up on "The Nation." This is largely because of the publication's inability to remove itself from the abstract, and it's failure to connect with younger people who may not . . . gasp . . . have Ph. Ds from Princeton.
I mean, reading "The Nation" these days is like being forced to sit through your least favorite college class . . . taught by an 86-year-old professor . . . at 8:00 am on a Friday morning. That is, you know the person droning on is probably fucking brilliant, but they simply do not connect with you, and you'd rather be doing just about anything other than listening to what they have to say.
The result of this, in "The Nation"'s case, is the transformation of a once-great magazine into an uninteresting and uptight scholarly jounal brimming with very good thinkers but barely adequate writers and communicators. On the whole, the magazine's writing has become staid, rote, highbrow and marked by a seemingly purposeful desire not to engage anyone under the age of 50--much less regular folks, the working class, or minority populations.
Katha Pollit is a very good, technically sound writer. Jack Newfield is solid. The rest, unfortunately, for the most part, write like lecturers--old, rich, white, Joan-Baez-listening lecturers.
Now, I know that there's very little likelihood that you care about what magazines I read, or any of this other stuff. But if it's any consolation, consider that the folks running the show at "The Nation" care even less about this topic than you do.
Theirs is no longer a magazine that seeks to--or can--attract someone like myself. And they, for all I can tell, couldn't care less.
Theirs is a publication composed of bright, dorky guys who go out into hallways to work on manuscripts--people I would never roll with, and, correspondingly, people who would likely not waste their time worrying about someone of my comparatively limited professional stature.
Their world, I assure you, is far removed from yours and mine.
So, for now at least, "The Nation" and I have to part ways.
Here's hoping that those in charge at the magazine hire some younger writers . . . or pick up a used Public Enemy CD at the record store . . . or something . . . soon.
I don't care whether a representative of the Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) comes through with the money, or if it's a Horned Puffin (Fratercula corniculata) that coughs up the dough. But I want my money back . . . now.
I'm not kidding, either.
You see, the other day I purchased a box of Puffin Cereal & Milk Bars at the grocery a few blocks from my apartment. I bought the stupid things for a few reasons. First, since I've recently been wrangled into attempting to eat a bit healthier, I've begun doing my food shopping at an establishment called Whole Foods. It's a national chain the website of which trumpets as "the world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods, with 156 stores in North America and the United Kingdom."
You probably have one of these god-awful places somewhere near where you reside. And if you don't, you will soon.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Whole Foods sucks.
As I'm sure you can imagine, everything there is marked way up due to its inherent "healthiness," and in my estimation none of the food sold there tastes very good. While it may indeed be true that my opinion on this matter is premised on the fact that Whole Foods doesn't peddle Twinkies, Zingers, Gushers, Mr. Cookie Face Ice Cream Sandwiches, Fruity Pebbles, and the like, I still maintain that everything that hits thier shelves goes through some sort of de-tastifier machine or something.
The chicken is bland.
The fish tastes like cardboard.
And the pizza bagels . . . don't even get me started on the pizza bagels.
Perhaps most importantly, though, it's nearly impossible to find a solid snack option in that damn place.
And this quandary brings us back to the dreaded puffin bars.
I spotted these things weeks ago, and I've had my eye on them ever since. They reside in the aisle that houses "cookies," cereal, and apple sauce. To be more precise, they're located across and just a tad up the aisle from my current cookie of choice, which are . . . lord help me . . . Mi-Del LemonSnaps (which are described as such: "For over 40 years, consumers of fine natural foods have been enjoying Mi-Del whole wheat snacks. Mi-Del LemonSnaps are made with unbleached wheat flour, non-hydrogenated canola oil, and flavored with a touch of real lemon. Our sweetener, dehydrated cane juice, is less refined than most sugars and sweeteners. It is mechanically harvested and processed without removing all of the natural ingredients present ingredients present in the cane juice after pressing. It enjoys as many as 10 fewer processing steps than refined white sugar. It is crystallized only once and milled within 24 hours of when the cane is harvested.") The Mi-Del's also suck, and cost $2.89 for a very small bag, but that's a story for another day.
The puffin bars likely caught my eye due to the giant, nose-beaked bird that appears to be swooping across the front of the box. I mean, as far as birds go, puffins are certainly in the upper tier in terms of cuteness and inherent "likeability."
Plus, the bars I noticed were french-toast-flavored.
While it's true that Barbara's Bakery--the maker of these bird bars--also sells them in strawberry yogurt, blueberry yogurt, and peanut butter chocolate chip varieties, when you've been dying for a few gummi bears or some Double Stuff Oreos, running across something at a crummy health food grocery that although not actually being french toast, claims to taste like it, is like striking gold.
From the moment I spotted those bars, I knew that . . . eventually . . . they would be mine.
I say "eventually" because I noticed almost immediately that a box of six french toast puffin bars was going to run me $3.99--which I feel is a bit steep. I took little solace in the fact that, according to the box, my "purchase helps restore [puffin] natural habitats through the Audubon Society's Project Puffin."
I learned a long time ago that nearly every item in the damn Whole Foods store shifts a portion of its profits to one or another charity causes, and I no longer let this fact sway me toward or away from any potential purchase.
My foray into a product called "Peace Cereal," (which is described at www.peacecereal.com in the following terms: "Peace Cereal was introduced by Golden Temple in 1997 as a way to support a more loving planet. It was an instant success, and has grown from four delicious flavors to our current twelve varieties. More importantly, at Peace Cereal, we have an organically good idea to share. We believe peace begins at the grassroots level, one person at a time. If people can discover deep inner peace, then slowly, we can begin to create more peaceful working environments, homes and, finally, communities. Golden Temple, our parent company, is privately owned by a nonprofit organization and was founded by Yogi Bhajan. Golden Temple started Peace Cereal with the wisdom of 30 years of creating quality natural cereals. As a result, we have always used organic oats and spices and made sure our products were certified Grown and Processed without genetic engineering. Our 125,000 square foot factory in Eugene Oregon is also fully certified by the FDA and the Department of Agriculture, with a superior rating for food hygiene, safety and quality control from the American Institute of Baking. In 2002, we added three cereals specially formulated to make "Heart Sense." This year we were pleased to increase the organic percentage of our cereals: 7 are now 95% or more organic and the remaining 5 exceed 70%. In addition to our concern with your good health, we are also concerned with others. Golden Temple hosts the annual Socially Responsible Business Awards breakfast, honoring socially responsible businesses in the natural foods industry. 10% of the proceeds from Peace Cereal sponsors an annual gathering to pray for peace; International Peace Prayer Day. On this day, we traditionally bestow Man and Woman of Peace awards to Peace activists, as well as Peace Cereal grants to nonprofit organizations working for peace. This wonderful event brings together religious leaders, political figures and incredible musicians from across the world to celebrate the power of prayer and of people to create peace. International Peace Prayer Day is held every June in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, and is dedicated to promoting peace in the world through the power of interfaith prayer and meditation. We hope you enjoy our Peace Cereal and feel the same inspiration to act for peace.") a while back, I assure you, was not a pleasurable one.
Anyway, It took me at least three or four trips to Whole Foods subsequent to that first Puffin sighting before my money went to the birds. On my most recent trip, I glanced over at them on the shelf--as I always do--and noticed something different:
The puffin bars were now not puffin bars at all, but instead had been changed to "Rainforest Protection Bars."
No, just kidding . . . I noticed they were on sale.
It wasn't a very big sale--the price had gone from $3.99 to $3.39, so the difference amounted to a mere 60 cents--mind you. But it was just the impetus I needed to make my move.
As the checkout lady rang up my items, I admired the box of puffin bars with the pride of a new father.
Not because I knew that my $3.39 was going towards fighting the good fight on the puffin front, but rather because it pictured a big vat of syrup and some cinnamon sticks, and I simply couldn't wait to finally ingest something from Whole Foods that actually tasted good.
Upon arriving home, I examined the cereal bar box and began to become a bit worried:
"Dietary Features: 100% Natural; Low Fat; No Hydrogenated Oils or Trans Fats; High in Calcium; 21 Vitamins & Minerals; Wheat Free; No Artificial Flavors, Colors or Preservatives; Kosher"
Not good.
But, come on, french toast fucking rocks. This stuff had to be good, I told myself.
Plus, right next to the pictures of a Fratercula arctica and two, seemingly conversing, Fratercula corniculata, there was something that said, "Kids love the lightly sweet maple and cinnamon flavors of real French toast in every bar."
That was the clincher. I had nothing to worry about.
Then I tried one of the bars.
It was horrid.
To paraphrase the words of one Lloyd Bensten from his 1988 vice presidential debate with Dan Quale--with the role of JFK being played by french toast: "I knew french toast. French toast was a friend of mine. You Mr. puffin bar are no french toast."
Nope, this was no french toast at all.
Rather, the bars were akin to a jumble of oats, glue, concrete mix, and parsley--a more acrimonious confluence would be, I believe, difficult to imagine.
In retrospect, i suppose I was a bit much to ask for Whole Foods to pony up some food that doesn't suck. But, hey, I'm a dreamer. What can I say?
In any event, and as I mentioned, I want my money back.
I'm not an unfair main. I did indeed eat one of the bars. In fact, I had two--the second in a vain attempt to convince myself that "they can't be all that bad."
Thus, my pronouncement that the puffins owe me $3.39 is technically not correct.
All I'm asking for is $2.26--which amounts to $3.39 - $1.13 pro rated for the two bars that I, unfortunately, ingested.
I highly doubt that $2.26 is going to break the bank over at the Audubon Society. But if getting my cash back means that a few less puffins will not receive the natural habitat that they seem to deserve . . . well . . . then so be it.
Those french toast bars were horrible, and there has got to be some level of accountability in the world . . . even among cute-ass, little puffins.
One of the more consistently entertaining perks of having your own website is the capacity to determine which Google searches people have used to get to the site. For some reason unbeknownst to me, a company keeps track of all that info and forwards it to those of us who maintain websites. At first, I didn't pay much attention to all the data that was coming in on a daily basis. But then I realized something interesting: In nearly every situation where someone happens upon mjxm.com via a Google search, neither my name nor the name of the website appear in the body of the search. Instead, for example, someone types in a search along the lines of "Pittsburgh baseball cards" or "Miami Police Department" and my website pops up among tons of other results on Google due to the fact that I've used the relevant words in one of my blizog entries. About a month or so ago, I noticed that some of the searches that led people to mjxm.com are absolutely, positively ridiculous. So that you can understand what I mean, here's a sampling of actual Google searches from the last week or so that resulted in visitors checking out my site, followed by my comments in parenthesis:
-stretch hummer rentals in arkansas (Apparently, Bill Clinton's come back home . . . and he's looking to par-tay.)
-mohawk bleaching (Honestly, what's there to know beyond "apply bleach to mohawk"?)
-Carmelo Anthony shirtless (For whatever reason, I get tons of visitors looking for shirtless celebrities.)
-Is Norway a country (Yes.)
-planet's funniest animals cat comb noise gags (I am curious as to what this gag actually entails. Does that make me weird?)
-pictures of My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard (Um, that's a song. How can you get pictures of a song?)
-balki bartakomous (Cousin Larry, is that you?)
-bugs mistaken as roaches (To me, something's either a roach or it's something else that's not a roach. Where's the confusion?)
-Jay-Z's new long sleeved shirts (Better than a search for "Ross Perot's new athletic socks," I suppose.)
-"camel clutch" chin back arms (As far as I know, the camel clutch has absolutely nothing to do with one's chin. Wrestling fans, back me up on this one.)
-alluminum wiffle ball bats (That's just cheating.)
-Ashton Kutcher's Nude Pictures (If I had a quarter for every person who happened upon my site while in search of pictures of a naked Ashton Kutcher, I'd have lots and lots of quarters. Seriously, I get two or three of these per week. And I'm starting to get a bit sick of it. I really need to stop using his name on here.)
-underground skateboarding spots in stafford (Replace the word "stafford" with the words "South Park," and you have a search that I would've written at the age of 13 had there been Google, the internet, and computers.)
Finally, my personal favorite . . .
-Does hip-pop rapper Ja Rule have a house (First off, I love the Freudian slip "hip-pop" thing that this Googler typed in. Secondly, um, are you kidding me? What do you think . . . Ja Rule lives in a shanty town or on a boat or something? Of course the guy has a house.)
It was fun, once upon a time . . . back when I was six. But, as much as I'd like to think otherwise, I'm not six anymore. And I've grown tired of all of the supposedly hilarious hoaxes that go down on April 1.
To wit:
-Google puts out a bizarrely worded press release about their soon-to-be-new emial service under the subheading: "Search is Number Two Online Activity--Email is Number One: 'Heck, Yeah,' Say Google Founders." And, as if that weren't enough, the company also posts a job ad for a position said to be at their "Googlunaplex" on the moon. A bit later, these aberrations are labeled April Fool's Day jokes.
A bunch of geeks laugh. I do not.
-The New York City radio affiliate that broadcasts the Howard Stern Show announces at the start of his program this morning that it's been taken off the air, for good, due to concerns about potential FCC crackdowns against the station. After a few fill-in DJs spin some pop rock favorites, Stern returns to the airwaves so as to notify listeners that the whole thing was a gag. "We are back for anybody who was stupid enough to fall for that," Stern says, ending the hoax.
A bunch of people who live for fart jokes and drunken midgets laugh. I do not.
-Norway's most widely read newspaper runs a story about the Norwegian government's plan to implant ID chips under the skin of hospital patients in an effort to track those who make use of the nation's health service system. It later comes out that the whole thing was made up.
A bunch of people with blond hair and blue eyes laugh. I do not.
-MTV holds a press conference to announce that Ashton Kutcher's smash hit practical joke show, "Punk'd," will indeed return for another season this spring despite Kutcher's earlier insistence that the program was through. His previous statements, they tell us, were "part of an April Fool's Day hoax."
A bunch of pre-pubescent girls and Demi Moore laugh. I do not.
I could go on like this for a while, believe me--and that's just with examples from this year. But the bottom line, I believe, is this:
Enough already, people.
No more, please. I implore you . . . it's just not funny anymore. The whole April Fool's Day thing is played out like, well, like Ashton Kutcher. The thrill, as they say, is gone.
What's worse--and adding to the list of why April Fool's Day gags must go--I'm the guy who always forgets that today's that day, only to be duped by some sophomoric and overly dramatic correspondence.
Last year, it was a crazy phone message from a graphic designer at the magazine about all of our Quark files being lost after a horrendous computer crash that, in retrospect, clearly had hoax written all over it.
Today, my annual April unraveling arrived in the form of an email from my close friend, Clayton. It read:
---
Matt,
What's shakin?
So, check this out, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna bail on the whole dissertation thing and not go the Ph. D route. I just can't get into it anymore. And even if I do get the damn thing done the job market is horrible anyway.
Hmmph.
I'm kinda broke, but I have a little money saved up and Mo [Clayton's girlfriend] and I have been seriously thinking about moving to Tokyo. They have this program where you can go over there and teach English to people for pretty good money. The cool thing is that Mo knows some people who are already doing it, so we'd have a place to stay initially. The bad part is that we'd have to leave in less than two weeks in order to get in this year's teaching class--otherwise we'd have to wait until 2005.
I'm gonna try to come down to the city before we leave. Are you around next weekend? Maybe we could do a little going away party or something?
I know this is probably a bit of a shock, but I think it's the right move. And plus Japan is supposed to be cool as hell.
Butsa mess,
C
P.S.: Did I leave a pair of shoes at your place the last time I came down there? I'm missing these shoes and really need them. Any clue?
---
[NOTE: See next "NOTE"]
Now, I can hear you clamoring already. "Come on, man," you're saying. "That's the most obviously fake prank email I've ever seen."
Yeah, well listen: Hindsight is 20/20, OK.
I mean, sure, reading the email again, now, after the fact, there's little doubt on the issue of its lack of veracity. All the tell tale signs of buffoonery are present: a drastic and/or dramatic event . . . check; a seemingly obvious overreaction to a situation or circumstance . . . check; a zany suggested resolution . . . check.
Nonetheless, and as you can imagine, I fell for the whole thing . . . hard.
[NOTE: Not this "NOTE," the next one.]
The only real excuse I can provide you for my not seeing through the guise is to say that most of you don't know Clayton:
He's mooned people through the huge glass windows that reside at the front of The Gap in the mall . . .
He's shown up for a college astronomy final wearing nothing but a robe and a pair of flip-flops, and taken said final exam . . . despite never having even registered for the class.
He has, on several occasions, challenged future NBA baller John Wallace to games of one-on-one hoops despite standing only six-feet tall and never having played basketball on any organized team . . . ever.
He just does things sometimes. It's what he's known for.
As such, Clay's going A.W.O.L. on the Ph. D and hopping across the Pacific to try his hand at a real life version of "Lost in Translation" was certainly not way out beyond the realm of believability. And we've already established that it doesn't take much to make the the April Fool.
Anyway, the first thing I did upon reading the email was place a call to Monique, Clay's girlfriend, who is also a close friend. For some reason, her number is programmed into my phone, while Clay's isn't.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I got her voicemail.
"Mo, it's Matt. What the hell? You guys are moving to Japan? Where'd this come from? Gimme a call back. I can't believe it. OK, bye . . . Oh, also, I have Clay's shoes. OK, later."
I'm sure they both checked the message immediately after I left it and then proceeded to laugh like drunken midgets about my susceptibility to being tricked.
Thereafter, they let the plot simmer for a while.
Following my call, I spent the remainder of the morning wondering how the hell my friends were going to make the whole Japan thing happen and whether or not they were planning to return stateside anytime soon. After a few hours passed, I tried Mo again, and again had no luck reaching her:
"HELLLLOOOOO! Call me back, Mo! I can't believe this. Japan? Do you realize how far away Japan is?"
[NOTE: This whole story has been made up. None of it ever happened. Happy April Fool's Day.]
Eventually, after the passage of what seemed like eons, Clay called and let the cat out of the bag.
"Yo, Matthattan, what's up?" he asked.
"What do you mean, what's up," I replied. "Japan's up. What's all this about? I can't believe it."
"Huh?" Clay said, half faux puzzled and half trying not to laugh.
"Come on man," I implored. "Why Japan of all places?"
[NOTE: Still makin' stuff up at this point . . . . Check out how I have myself use the word "vexatious" in a little bit. It makes me sound kinda smart, I think. No?]
By this time, Clay could no longer hold back the giggling. And Mo's loud, cackling laughter in the background didn't help the dubious duo's efforts to keep the ruse going.
"Aw man . . . " I exhaled. "You guys suck!"
Mo was on the phone by this point.
"You fool," she yelled. "Why the hell would we go to Japan. I don't know anyone in no damn Japan!"
I had, once again, been had.
"Fuck that," I told Clay later. "You guys ARE going to Japan. I'm making you go now. You made your bed and now you've got to lie in it. Off to Japan with you fools! You are some vexatious bastards, I'll tell you what."
[NOTE: On second thought, maybe "vexatious" sounds a bit contrived. But, whatever, I'm leavin' it in there.]
He just laughed at the notion.
"And you know what else," I said. "You ain't gettin' those shoes back anytime soon."
Suddenly, Clay stopped laughing.
"Awww, come on now." he implored. "It was just a little joke."
"Well who's the fool now, Clay?" I asked in a mocking tone. "Who's the fool now?"
