Guilty as charged, or the language police and their glowing, throbbing nightsticks

I'm a little bit late to this post, as it comments on a list in the November issue of Esquire (if available, you can't miss it, what with Kate Beckinsale's exposed midriff on the cover).

But I digress, digression being a familiar, joyful past time for me. One of the main articles is a breakdown of things a man should and should not say. While the list of terms that need to re-enter the lexicon are noble, notable and disastrously underused (e.g., today, with the wind, it's colder than a witch's tit. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about this one: "19 Things a Man Should Never Say."

To make the viewing of the list more appropriate, I've included my personal scorecard below for derisive purposes.

The list:

• reach out (not the physical act of stretching arm in sleeve)
  
  GM's take: Thank god I don't. For the time being, I am not one of those guys. You know who you are, California.
  Score: 0


• panties
  
  GM's take: Do I admit to saying "Don't get your panties in a bunch"? Do I admit to using the diminutive of the female underthings? No. Or at least, not until there's a produced recording.
  Score: 0


• Über-
  
  Check. Though not as much as some may think. I've relegated this to the land of surferdom and Tool albums. One of those may apply to me.

Score: 0.5 (a half-point taken off for good behavior)

• mixed bag
  
  Guilty. As in, "But really, [insert the following key phrases Bellow novel, Dentist's office, my dating life, geo-nuclear Realpolitik, using a cockring is completely a mixed bag."
  Score: 1.5


• tummy
  
  I initially wrote "no" instead of this word, which should hint at my feelings for it.
  Score: 1.5


• veggie
  
  There are certain words, that, were one to fess to their usage, would completely, utterly, irrevocably resign a man to a life of solitary confinement, dick shrivel and seventeen cats in a locked room. With one litter box.
  Score: 2.5


• vino
  
  I want to say no. I want to say no and know there are no tapes out there, no audible record of me ensconced on lawn chair, pinkie finger extended, white shirt billowing while I stare into a red-ringed empty plastic cup. I think Cat Stevens was playing.
  Score: 3.5


• natch
  
  See above. And the one before it.
  Score: 4.5


• wingin' it
  
  Okay, I can take a breather. I have never used this phrase ever in all my days as a reckless mangler of language and colloquialisms.
  Score: 5.5


• nippy
  
  With the inclusion of a single letter, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ruined this word permanently. But how else would one describe the weather?
  Score: 6.5


• The first name of any female celebrity when you don't follow it with her last name, "Miley," for instance
  
  If this has happened (and note, I feign innocence at all times), it's most likely because I couldn't remember her last name. See scattered comments about my dating life (not necessarily in the post).
  Score: 6.5


• pee
  

Thus ends the "relatively unscathed" section of this list. Final score for section one: 6.5. Out of twelve. For the next stage, add one point for each phrase listed.

• belly button


• c---


• derring-do


• going forward


• It is what it is


• boobs


• folks


• teens


• slacks (the pants>


• gen

Thus ends the lightning round. Collect your prize, run home, cry to mommy, cut out your tongue with rusty pubic hair.

Score: 16.5


In my defense, how else does one say "Shortly after dropping off my folks, a little gen-y c--- with a tulip in her boobs took a pee on my slacks in a fit of derring-do. It is what it is, I have to remind myself this. I was on the way to the dentist, which is a whole other mixed bag within itself."?

I'm out of steam. And I lost count.

Notes from the field: Dec. 18 (Or, ravings, trailers, gluhwein and a moment in mute)

The tasks today: Finish Christmas shopping. That was fine. Fix cell phone. Also fine. Not necessarily in that order. If any order can be applied.

How to put this? What do you do when you have a malfunctioning phone still under warranty and can't find the receipt?

• Rip up the apartment looking for it? Check.


• Search old boxes, bags, anything that might have contained articles of paper before and after move to new apartment? Check.


• Explore the contents of coffee pots, refrigerator, jackets, books, underwear shelf, guitar bags, closet floor, bowling shoe bag on said closet floor? Check (minus the refrigerator, but that might be tomorrow).

To put it into context, this was a very bad week for me and connective technology. Last Friday, my phone decides it no longer wants to allow any speech to be heard. Except on speakerphone. There is absolutely no way to validate all conversations being held over speakerphone. Even with the President.

Now, no problem, I will just run it in on the first day I can, easy as pie. Now the hitch: Saturday, the internet dies. In the ensuing days, this means the only way for any e-conversation whatsoever (email, facebook, what have you) is via my cell phone. Which throws a crimp into solution in the first sentence.

The short form of this: I run into the office, not there, I run to Sprint anyway, we interact in an essential roll of the eyes, they check for a replacement phone, give me a headset, say they'll have a new one by Tuesday or Wednesday (I had to confirm that Saturday was not a business day, a question I'm still not sure about).

Fine. Problem solved. Now to task two: Geof will not fuck up Christmas. I had made some promises, or at least said I'd look into things, and the circuitous path lead through Bryant Park to Union Square. Bryant Park being closest, I check there, and immediately realize I have no idea what I'm supposed to pick up there. Cue part three: the call to the folks.

Now usually, my conversations will look like this:
[ed. note: due to circumstance will throw in a brief synopsis/dramatization. Imagine this happening in the course of fifteen seconds, via split screen of Tommie and Johnny Gavin, courtesy of Rescue Me. Also, please infer the existence of these two characters as being portrayed by Denis Leary and Dean Winters. And also scriptwriters were somewhat competent.]
T: Listen Johnny.
J: Tommy.
T: You do not get my godson involved in this crap.
J: Tommy, you told me to get some dirt, so I went to the guy I knew who could.
T: You do not involve my godson. He's family, Johnny.
J: The kid's a computer geek, Tommy. And anyway there wasn't anything to get.
T: ...Nothing?
J: The guy's squeaky clean. If we could have found some cheat on his tax records, history of beat up wives, parking tickets, whether he cheated in school, he would have.
T: And nothing? Nothing at all?
J: I'm telling you, Tommy, the guy's a saint.
T: Okay, talk to him, Johnny, see if he can do something to him. Mess up his computers or something. But Johnny....

So, that's how it should sound. Only not in the sense that I'd be yelling at my folks and trying to hack into someone else's file for my own personal benefit. In other words, I might have messed up the details, but the tone was there.

Anyway, this, with my newfound stop-gap headset, is how I looked:

(That would be the best approximation, by the way, of me, the guy in the fence, if you add more hair, a beard, and put it in the middle of the sidewalk).

Brilliant, Metz. I can't wait for the new phone to come in.

* * *

On a final note, ended up hanging out with friend Randi at a Chelsea place called Trailer Park Lounge. And of course broke out the camera. The results:

That was probably the best. The lessons:

a) Take more photos,
b) Don't take photos from your camera, and
c) Take more photos from a real camera and, when presented, immediately and always take the action shot in the fake bowling alley.

I love being trash.

Is that a chocolate chip in your brain tissue or are you just trying to get in my good graces?

I start off the morning, now 12:13 or so thus perceptibly pushed towards the most scant entrance of afternoon-ness, reading an article on the potential irreducibility of mind-body dualism, although not put exactly into those terms. Substitute consciousness for soul and you have a general idea of what essentially breaks down the modern equivalent of the ongoing concern. I'm not sure how convinced I am, although years ago I would have taken on the negating position.

Put succinctly: we are organic creatures, body, brain, heart, lungs, intestines and the shit contained therein. We exist in a physical world, and, our body, the multi-stimulus-sucking antenna that is, absorbs the offshoots, the radiations, sound waves, reports and smells and lights of things bouncing and colliding with one another. But what is it that makes sense of it? I smell dog poo, which signals a series of brain bursts that eventually lead to me checking my shoe, but at what point do the words "Stinky, not cheese, I hate Fido"? come into being for me. For the dualist, that can't be measured. For the materialist, it can and eventually will.

More succinctly: Say Geof is eating a cookie. Delicious, gooey, chocolate-spattered fingers and jowls, the whole shebang. Now, Zombie-Geof comes along, thinks this looks delicious, and eats Geof's brain. First off, he is going to only taste brain, even though at the time the brain was experiencing the joyful deliciousness that was that cookie at the time. Now, not ever having tried Geof-brain before, I can make this even more hypothetical -- say I could taste the cookie on Geof's brain, the shambling decomposing festering version of myself. What I would not experience would be Geof's version of that cookie, it would be my own version of the cookie from the moment it hit my taste buds. And that was definitely a fine cookie.

[Ed. note: This is actually a paraphrasing of an argument made in philosophical circles. I cannot lay claim to it.]

So what was the fallacy of the Tallis argument (the linked one, I mean)? 1) I think in some ways he belittles the evolutionary arguments, and as thus doesn't really advance the dialogue much. 2) He doesn't seem to be asking -- or answering -- much of anything.

Get me started on this point in a little bit. I've got an entire theory of consciousness in the human species, and as should be expected from this otherwise curmudgeonly opiner, it's not pretty. And -- also a symptom, but of something probably more disturbing -- probably being conflated with another issue entirely. Stay tuned, kids.

And in walks the boogieman

And it's about time to break out the political shtick again. I've been avoiding the conversation for about two weeks, but the New York 23 is too interesting and, frankly, keeps getting better. A quick recap: A relatively conservative district has a dogfight between a token democrat and a semi-moderate republican. In walks a non-shamefaced carpetbagger (he actually lives in another district), from a third (literally, Conservative) party, gets national news and support from certain right-wing superficial loudmouths. Republican party candidate drops out on eve of election, not in enough time to get her name off the ballot, and Conservative party guy loses to Democrat by some 5000+ votes, concedes, Dem is sworn in.

Now: ACORN stole the election. Okay, so there was also a quick little blurb in there about unions, but really, even then it's mentioned as a castoff.

The joyful thing about this is that I think it represents an official passing of the torch for conservative boogiemen: it used to be unions (see Nixon, R.) that would hand elections to the Dems through their pandering, intimidation, etc. And sure, there might have been a grain of truth in that somewhere -- this is America, after all, and a little election fraud is usually considered par for the course, and doesn't amount to more than the usual margin of error for a completely clean vote. But the unions have gotten old, they're not a selling point, they're trite and mustachioed and frankly went out of favor whenever the Hoffa rumors died. No pun intended.

[Quick aside: to my more conservative and Republican friends out there, the left has the grand Diebold conspiracy, so this is by no means isolated.]

Okay, great, we get it. You lost, you're sore, you need someone to blame. ACORN is now big leagues, in no small part thanks to the efforts of the scree team decrying them. Great. And if it makes the conservative Mr. Hoffman, and by extension, all of the people who voted for him -- no slim number, btw -- sleep better at night knowing that they couldn't shouldn't wouldn't have lost in a fair fight, so be it as well. Also so be it that the candidate himself was nothing more than a talking points shill with no actual substance to his arguments (not, again, uncommon in American politics, esp. on the House level), whose only claim to fame was being a champion of a guy who links the Rockefeller family to communism (or is it fascism?) because of a bunch of commissioned works on a collection of buildings that bears the same-said name. So be it.

That he lost the election by stolen votes from a left-leaning organization, nevermind that the margin was well within the number of votes cast for his other, Republican, challenger, that she might have siphoned off votes in the too-late drop-out, that a movement that seemingly can't even get its act together long enough to present a unified vision and model of a candidate does not account for anything to do with it, so be it.

Hoffman, and I address you by name here -- you're a lightweight. Give it up, you've had your fame, now sit down and let the big people go about their business.

[Special points, dear readers, if you can figure out another person that last line could apply to.]

and you will know us by the trail of the read (?)

I've been awol from here for a while, kids, and I apologize. And even more distressingly, I actually have nothing to report, save for the ever changing floor plan of my apartment and some random, weird bumpings in the night that's playing completely off my imagination.

But how do I spend my time in these situations? Easy, I read. And reading I have been doing.

So below is a digest of what's been through my system:

• An indictment, and for my two cents a compelling one, of a certain type of contemporary parenthood.


• Yes, Heidegger was an ideological nightmare, but can we separate the man from the legacy from the belief system?


• Finally, how much cute can a normal man take before he wants to break out the panda steaks with a hello kitty au jus

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. I'm thinking about reading some Louis Lamour.

An Open Letter to Mr. Agassi

Dear Mr. Agassi,

So I understand you had a bit of a problem. A drug problem, with a particularly nasty dance partner. I guess the millions from tennis and shitty camera ads, a model wife, a long career doing something you love that typically has a shelf-life of about ten years tops, that didn't cut it. The swooning of a certain branch of the intelligentsia females who hold a particular sport in high-regards, usually playing it what with those skimpy skirts, and you, with your place in the throne of said competition, were anointed to make their hearts moisten and melt. But that wasn't enough.

No, when it all came down to it, you had to develop a drug habit. Now, this is not unheard of in your profession -- as athlete, but even as professional entertainer, what with the annals cutting back to everything from opium to mescalin to scips and what-have-you. In fact, this would be room for celebration in a lot of places, a comeback story, but really, and maybe this is the truest testament to bad decisions, it was the substance: Crystal Meth. Because really, your fame would have grown, you could have used it as something to showcase your further bravery (we can't all be Lance Armstrong, after all), but instead you picked up a drug that, for all intents and purposes, is left to the likes of truck stop whores in the most barren stretches of Oregon and Wyoming.

But I understand. Maybe you didn't know. Maybe you were unaware that there is a hierarchy to these things. A habit is a habit after all, but quite frankly the habit you chose could easily have been a boon, a statement, an altogether triumphal second (third?) career as university- or rally-lecturing shill. And it's all about the social acceptability.

Well, I've taken that into account. In fact, I've done something better. Below you'll find a list of the top drugs by social acceptability, with explainers as to why and how each could have affected your image. In fact, how you could have used them to advantage yourself and exactly the career choice you could have made.

So Mr. Agassi, for your perusal:
1) Weed. The Fountain of Youth doesn't exist. But this thing -- a former mainstay of college life now far removed from that environ -- has enabled children of all ages to maintain that sense of immaturity, slackerness, detachment. Best of all, it's apparently been found by the same people who promise all those helpful things on dietary supplements to be a veritable cure-all. Granted, the field is a bit crowded, what with Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson taking all the spotlight glare, but don't let a couple of bloodshot eyes get in the way of the fact that you were number one in one arena, you can be number one in another. With the cache it has in the current arts community (and California, for that matter), could you imagine the cash in with the Rebel commercials (idea: play tennis, then smoke a spliff).

2) Prescription drugs. Now we're talking the proper, more age appropriate stuff. Vicodin, Percocet, Valium for god's sakes. Now, I don't want to get on my high horse, but I understand where you were at. A little older, a little paler and not so spry, but frankly this would have paved the way for exactly the new spokesperson. Let's face it: Prescription drugs are the new laudanum, and it's not just for women and feinting couches anymore. Yes, there is a bit more of a celebrity angle (think Brett Favre and Rush Limbaugh, among others), but those aside, you can most certainly get a few people interested in your life story with a few misplaced tears in a press conference and a trip to Betty Ford.

3) Cocaine. Teeth grinding and disintegrated nasal cavities aside, the juice behind power brokers and PR chicks can be your ticket to stardom. There's not too much to say here, but if it's good enough for Bernie Madoff, maybe it would have been a good enough choice for you. Besides, when somebody asks you how it all got started, you can respond with: "Five words: Now Sampras with the serve."

4) Alcohol. You know the drill, and being from Las Vegas I am almost positive you've seen it, you've seen the stories. Granted, the story has been a little bit done, but it's always good for a few sob stories and a quick day of reckoning from the more sociable of drinkers out there. Unfortunately, unless you're trying out for a role in Mad Men or a Bukowski novel, you might want to pass. The drug that has fueled many an Irish bout of black rage might not be the best choice, but it still has some points and is something many a person can identify with. My recommendation would be to put a contemporary spin on it: a $4 mil a day habit on this stuff. And really, who can cry about those bottles?

5) Nicotine. You know what I'm taking about: those filthy tar-drenched filters lining the gutter, padding an old coffee can, the clothes that smell like the inside of a defunct coal-furnace. The black lung, the morning cough, the twitches, headaches, and cravings, cravings, cravings. And after all that, I have a hard time recommending this one. Unfortunately, the drug of choice for near-on the twentieth century and the plant that built the American empire has really lost its luster as society moved to a post-industrial, less smelling of a chimney swoop day-in-day-out existence. With the effects being largely mild and fast, this could be a tough one to sell. However, if spinned properly, this could really work to your advantage: "I just needed a smoke while I driving with the baby on my lap" or "When those cravings hit, I couldn't help but break out a stick at the casket." This has its third rails, but with the proper massaging, could be quite lucrative.

6) Heroin. I know what you're thinking: I'm not sitting on a gritty novel in a loft somewhere in Edinburgh/San Francisco/Williamsburg. And you're right. I understand that's tough. And yes, the drug's limelight and heyday really was somewhere between the release of 1994'sPulp Fiction and 2000's Requiem for a Dream, but the drug really has a certain bohemian quality to it. You're a rebel, and it puts you in the same league as Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Robert Downey Jr. Not bad company. And if all else fails, there's a spot on Celebrity Rehab waiting for you.

7) Hallucinogenics. While the stories you could tell would be interesting -- and who doesn't like day-to-day life looking like Pole Position on the Colecovision? -- its luster has long since rubbed off and is now really more of a curio and frankly a point of sadness mixed with indifference for everyone around. Although it still has the white vote, I'd recommend a pass on this.

8) MDMA, Ecstacy, Speed, etc. While this might get you a bit of attention and an invite to Blackrock City, in general the respectability of this is passed even among the youths, who have sine moved on to item 2. I'd suggest a pass on this as well, if only because it's still considered too recreational to merit anything but scorn.

9) Crack. Now, I have heard an account from a friend of mine, who has gone a bit native among the savages, that in fact this is a substance that best codifies and embodies that sensation of love. Cheap, dirty, alley sex with a cuddle session afterwards, like we all wished we had while we were still suckling. Unfortunately, it's also a dirty, cheap version of number 3, and as Whitney Houston proved a quick grounds to obscurity and Republicanism. Bobby Brown aside.

10) Crystal Methamphetamine. See comments in the intro. The drug of desert trailer parks and places with bar closings of ten p.m.

So in summation, Mr. Agassi, I hope this has been informative for when the sequel to the memoir is published. While I can't condone the use of any of these substances, cashing in on them can be an entirely different matter, if the particular substance has been chosen properly.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go back to my bourbon.

Sincerely,

-Geof

Excuse me while I attend to my Brecht

Having been slightly chided for my last, football-referencing post, the Good Addler will now refrain for exactly fifteen minutes and instead talk about his weekend. In tones mauve and taupe. Think of it as his summer vacation post, a one-day snippet from the permanent vacation that is his life, and rather only two events from it. Like canoeing and poison sumac, only not in that order and not comparable in the enjoyability department.

First off: Bronson. Saw the movie, had some thoughts. But to get you all caught up, here's the trailer --

Now, to catch you guys up, this was the same director as the well-regarded Pusher series, which I have not seen but understand that it gives him some indie street cred. The story: A biopic based on the most dangerous man in the UK prison system. The story on the story: The prisoner realizes that he's always wanted to be famous, and further realizes he's become so in prison by beating up guards. The story behind all that: You have to do something to be famous, you idiot. Besides beat up guards. Now cue the Brecht, now cue A Clockwork Orange.

So I guess the best news of all of this is that it's oh-so timely (I should probably underline that, but it'd be too much). A black comedy to the point that when Tom Hardy strips to his skin-suit (literally, he fights the guards in the buff), all I can think as his junk is dangling there is how hilarious it all looks. The mustache doesn't help. Of course, I didn't realize I was going in costume, what with the neglect for getting dressed and the mustache and chrome-top I was rocking at the theater. You get the idea, and that is an aside.

Tom Hardy, however, is the reason to see this. Some of the direction I'm not sure about, but Hardy pulls off both menacing wild dog and and absolute dopiness at the same time. Which seemed about right for the character -- the character is essentially a big mewling baby, and the facial expressions, the fighting angry, the craving for attention, the general cluelessness. As an artistic direction, they also threw in some cabaret elements. Again, interesting, and Hardy pulls it off, but ultimately I'm not convinced it couldn't have been a better film.

And if we could just get the guy a loincloth.

@ @ @

And on the other front, I went to see roller derby on Saturday. All female, naturally, tons of hip checks, women displaying inhumanity to other women. With cheerleaders and bondage gear on the sideline. There should be pictures, but I couldn't sneak into the locker room.

There's your sumac.