Cupid's Arrow: Assange Edition

I'm in the new place less than a month and get the sage advice "Try OkCupid. Trust me on this, if just to explore and meet people." I'm ready to explore this town, am an arts guy of the someone-else-performing variety, and frankly those are better for dates, anyway.

Sold. However..

As some of you may also know, the gift of self-promotion is not one that I possess. I don't have the sales gene, and while I can bluster on about anything other than me, it's immediately all manage-expectations the second the spotlight flips on. I've already come to terms with the fact that I will probably be mired forever in a lower middle class slot despite all my obvious other gifts, and after signing up on the site, form followed that all I got was crickets. I mean, I've had people drop by, but crickets, not that I've been trying that hard. In other words, it would probably be best to turn to Julian Assange.

Yes, That Julian Assange. The one with the crazy face and white thinning warlock hair. Rat lips. Who in a photo in The New Yorker looked like the albino from Foul Play.

But apparently he had some success. Or at least the bombast to pull off a ... memorable profile. And since I'm not looking to go all Charlie from "It's Always Sunny...," this is probably the best place to start.

Hence, Julian Assange, let's use you as a muse. Or rather, template.

His summary:

WARNING: Want a regular, down to earth guy? Keep moving. I am not the droid you're looking for. Save us both while you still can.

Passionate, and often pig headed activist intellectual seeks siren for love affair, children and occasional conspiracy.

Such a woman should [be] spirited and playful, of high intelligence, though not necessarily formally educated, have spunk, class & inner strength and be able to think strategically about the world and the people she cares about.

I like women from countries that have sustained political turmoil. Western culture seems to forge women that are valueless and inane. OK. Not only women!

Although I am pretty intellectually and physically pugnacious I am very protective of women and children.

I am DANGER, ACHTUNG, and ?????????????

Okay, so I get the charm. A self-deprecating geek with a semi-messianic complex. Or at least a good deal of chauvinism. I can deal with that. It's almost me.

My turn.

Self summary:

MANUFACTURER'S NOTE: Want a slightly deranged, delusional, needy prick who is simply looking for friends to suck the life out of? Well that's not here (and that baggage is merely a flesh wound). I am a droid. Maybe even the one you're looking for.

Dispassionate whiskey-swiller, the antithesis of everything that is hipster fresh in the news, is seeking a harpy for which to engage in smattering unflattering conversation, maybe an affair and to laugh at someone else's criminal children.

Such a woman [should] be quasi-spiritual -- but not in a batshit crazy way -- not be afraid to pay for dates, and be completely comfortable with the finer contradictions of The Irresponsible Self. She should also be a classy woman who says "Fuck" a lot, and will incorporate that and the "c" word into her existential novel about a small white girl coming of age on antarctic McMurdo Station.

Do I need a woman who travels? Not so much, as traveling seems to bring out the greatest pretension in Western Civilization. But being stuck in a city like New York does seem to bring out the whole hen-roost thing, too. Okay. Maybe not just women.

Although at heart I can come across as physically and intellectually truculent, really I'm just the Rolo that sealed your pocket shut.

I do like to control the HORIZONTAL. And MAYBE even the vertical.

...

!!!!!!!!!!!

And there. Now I feel like I need to bathe, shower, and be nervous about my previously printed "Registered Sex Offender" T-shirts.

Kickstart my dartboard confessional malaise

I realized, in the newfound roles of gentrifier, vagabond, solitary malcontent, that this blog would take a sort of temporary plunge into self-imposed purgatorio, also known as hiatus. These things happen, they're often called in polite terms "dead spots."

But I'm looking at the last few posts and realizing that, even rounding to the most psychologically salving terms and numerals, it's been three months.

To my most spirited, interested reader(s). I. Apologize.

To my less than spirited, moreso interested but really not that involved in the blabberings of an online freak (in Brooklyn), I will enjoy these precious minutes more than you. Click away as need dictates. But really, I will enjoy it.

So what happened to me? First off, I moved, and contrary to the PR campaign, I have yet to check into all the Kennedy, Crown and US Fried Chicken joints up and down Nostrand Avenue (though I just might still).

What else happened? Well, the Giants won the World Series? How do I know this? Apart from the Yankee fans suddenly perking up over the fact that Cliff Lee might suddenly come at a discount, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it was the cries of "That's definitely not the best team in baseball," or "Who cares about baseball anyway?" or the headline "The Beard Wins a Ring." But that might have been the same-sex marriage trial as well.

What really got me stoked? Two things, this week. One, a couple of some Scandinavian origination, walking through Times Square, the guy with a medal around his chest. Not Life-Alert, but a medal, as if he were campaigning to get mugged and/or anally raped, the omega dog to end all omega dogs (his wife, I believe, would be spared).

And then, rounding the corner at Rock Center earlier today: Camels. I shit you not. Camels. Not the cigarettes. The type that smell. Like livestock and dung. Again. Not the cigarette.

At least my grandfather is smiling from the great beyond, and now I can suddenly give a shit about the plight of the Cubs. (Go Giants!)

And now for something completely different (and no, this is not the Monty Python post you are looking for)

I do not usually do this. It's not in my nature, it brings me a slight tinge of discomfort and even thinking about the next few words and sentences creates an unconscious discomfiting tickle in my upper intestinal lumen. My stomach is churning to right itself.

But like any good little trooper, I'm about to put on my Jay-Z best and perform the only previously stated: here comes the obligatory shout-out.

Specifically, and as some of you may know, I'm a fan of the Bat Segundo show, which was a salve for me especially back in the dark age of San Francisco and has become a staple of my Friday afternoon listening walks. More recently, I've gotten into the interviewer's -- Ed Champion's -- blog . More specifically still, the last two posts are, if anything, a source of both titillation and all around book-geek glee.

For your perusal:

1. The breakdown of Michiko Kakutani's The New York Times reviews loving entitled "Why Does Michiko Kakutani Hate Fiction So Much?" (with a nice self-deprecating nod to the author's own reviewing predilections).
   (g.m.'s response: yes, she has a lot of snarky reviews, yes, she reads a lot of crap as the pre-eminent review and thus a lot of marquee titles, but even the books she likes tend to be middle-brow, semi-sentimental drivel).
   
   
2. And this one I think I'm strictly enjoying as a point of public service, the (by all means not complete) list of Literary Podcasts. I do have to be frank in this one, as I've not listened to the majority of these, but for anyone who comments on the NYTimes's own Book Review podcast as "Every Friday, for fifteen minutes, the corporate yesman Sam Tanenhaus manages to take all the life out of books," well, for that, I have to give it credit. But it also happens to be a very wide-ranging list, complete with a list of reviews, commentary, readings, etc. It even breaks down for genre stuff.
   
   Now, if we could just get the same level of vitriol he has for the NYT (we feel it Ed, trust me) applied to the NPR/PRI bastard baby Selected Shorts, which if anything consistently throws out the most compelling list of bland on a weekly basis, well then I'd be happy.

And as a completely separate thing, completely on the Edward Champion kick, I have to throw out a nice little Bat Segundo with Robin Black delving into craft.

* * *

(ed. note: I understand. This just turned into a three-dotter. I will keep it short.)

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(ed. note: on second thought, this section seemed moderately half-baked at the current moment, so will have to be saved for another day/post. Enjoy your weekend.)